MTG Salvation

Thought I’d make a thread for this command too. Weaker than Prismari for sure, but I think this is more interesting than abrupt decay and potentially better a fair bit of the time. It also feeds into reanimator or land archetypes better than the bg removal spells. I’m at least giving consideration to making room for this. Anyone else?

Kill a signet/clamp/etc kill an x/1 is a powerful line (other two modes are basically irrelevant for most decks), but I think I'd rather have all the other golgari options that are guaranteed to kill whatever you need (trophy, pulse), are instant speed with a wider array of targets (trophy, decay), or are MUCH easier to get 2+-for 1's (deed).

I think asmallcat summed this card up perfectly. It's clearly good, but Golgari just has better options.

Cheers,
rant

@asmallcat Woah, you don't think milling 3 and finding the 3rd land you need after a 2-land keep is a mode most decks would want? It's a fallback consistency option. Glowspore Shaman saves my day on the reg in lower-powered formats, and this draws you that land + still could kill something.

I totally agree on the sorcery speed lowering this in comparison to all the golgari removal. It's also just a little sloppy to me, the -3/-1 could be a memory issue. Nitpicks.

I am enticed by a much better grapple with the past (one that's actually cubable), and that could often be this card's worst modes. But a conditional, slow 2-for-1 feels worse than a guaranteed, fast 1-for-1. Assassin's Trophy stays for me, but I'll prob test for fun!

-3/-1 UEOT is a bizarre line of text on a sorcery. I don't think this pushes out anything I'm currently playing.

It's really good and really boring. I'll play it if I get it, and if not, I won't be sad.

Edit: Misread the card, thought the second mode could hit creatures.

Nm , card still good but not good enough, much harder to get the 2 for 1 than I thought.

The first problem I see is it is a sorcery speed guild card - This is already creatures some mana requirement problems.

Analysis of the Modes:
- Target player mills 3 cards, then you return a land from the graveyard to your hand. This is a much weaker Grapple with the Past. Grapple is a fine card, especially to return creatures to provide redundancy as part of a creature combo - This does not offer that advantage. Assume the deck is 18 lands in a 40 card deck, 15-16% chance of whiffing, which is actually an acceptable statistics, but still not great. The second problem is lands is usually Green-Red. Forcing black is also not good.
- Destroy target non-land, non-creature permanent with CMC 2 or less. This is another problem. If it could hit creatures, then it may be good for discussion, but I think its targets too limited to be effective. If it was 3 CMC, there may be a discussion.
- Target creature gets -3/-1. This isn't the worst, but the sorcery speed aspect holds it back.
- Drain isn't bad, but it isn't great.

The problem effects 1-3 are too narrow. If it was instant speed, or it could hit creatures or if it was something like -3/-3 instead, we might have a different discussion, but for now, I don't think its good enough.

Sorry for a random necro, but this card has been way better than I initially thought. I highly recommend this card to anyone running the redundant suite of Assassin’s Trophy / Abrupt Decay / Maelstrom Pulse (which was me up until a couple months ago). 2-for-1 is common thanks to the ease of the mill/land ability, and every time you get value it feels busted for a 2-mana play. The drain is even relevant against a red aggro opponent. I’m sure it plays best in a cube running all the rocks like mine (mine has Talismans, Signets, and Moxen).

I don't think its bad at all - but the problem is Golgari is a stacked guild. If I had more slots, I probably be testing The Gitrog Monster + Deathrite Shaman for a lands package. Pernicious deed was cut recently and its a fairly strong card.