MTG Salvation

I'm working on a more budget-oriented version of Marisi (no card other than Marisi more that $1 TCGplayer mid), and I had considered Horsemanship, until I realised that no Horsemanship creature in the appropriate colours falls outside my budget limitations. But on that note, what the hell happened to the price of Yellow Scarves Cavalry? I'm used to seeing prices spike over hype for a new commander card that suddenly makes them relevant, like Yuriko causing a spike in the price of a lot of ninjas and Arcades doing the same for certain walls, but going from $2 to $82 at its peak is insane. Is this all from Marisi? Or is this some sort of buyout? I know PK3 commons are in very short supply, but still.

5-0 decklists in the most recent pauper league.

Again, about half the decks (nine out of twenty-one) run Astrolabe. However, we are once again looking at a very diverse meta:

Elves: 2
Jeskai Ephemerate: 2
Tireless Tribe: 2
Astrolabe Affinity: 1
Astro-Mardu: 1
Bogles: 1
Burn: 1
Classic Affinity: 1
Dinrova Tron: 1
Familiars: 1
Izzet Delver: 1
Mardu Pestilence: 1
Mono-Black Aggro: 1
Mono-Black Midrange: 1
Mono-Green Infect: 1
Mono-Green Stompy: 1
Mono-Red Stompy: 1
Mono-White Heroic: 1

Honestly, looking at these lists, compared to what it was a few months ago, I'd rather have the current meta than what we had pre-Daze/Gush ban, with Tireless Tribe and Ux control decks dominating the meta. What's especially salient is that we now have several different aggro decks that are uniquely positioned to prey on Astrolabe decks that don't hit critical mass until the fourth or fifth turn. I'd say it looks like a very healthy balance of control and aggro, with some combo sprinkled in.

As for your fear of Weather the Storm and Reaping the Graves maindeck, only three decks run Weather the Storm as a sideboard card, and only one of those runs more than one copy. And there's a lone copy of Reaping the Graves floating around in the sideboard of the Astro-Mardu list.

Overall I don't believe that Arcum's Astrolabe is a problem. Sure, it's a popular card, but a card needs to do more than popular to justify being banned. There's plenty of strong independent decklists that don't need no Astrolabe. Plus, it seems like every week there's at least one or two rogue decklists being piloted to 5-0 finishes, which means that the meta has plenty of room for niche decks that are run well. Last week we had Sultai Defender Combo. This week we had Mono-Green Infect and Mono-Black Aggro. I think looking at the meta purely in terms of Astrolabe vs. no Astrolabe does a huge disservice to the diversity of the meta right now.

Besides the Modern Horizons ninjas, that list is also missing some quite potent Yuriko staples:

• Baleful Strix
  
• Shrieking Drake
  
• Cavern Harpy
  
• Thalakos Seer
  
• Nether Traitor
  
• Quickling
  
• Abjure
  
• Lim-Dul's Vault
  
• Insidious Dreams

Atla with Aether Flash is ridiculously effective.

Aether Flash seems like it could do some serious shenanigans with those egg tokens.

the video. Definitely a good reprint for the Jeskai deck, but I'm afraid it won't do much to impact the singleton price of the card for cash-strapped pauper players.

Prismatic Strands

So the Sultai commander pretty much goes infinite on a dime with Cloudstone Curio in colours that give it access to Brain Freeze and Tendrils of Agony. I blame small print on the preview images on my phone

The most recent list of 5-0 decks in the online Pauper league.

18 decks went 5-0. The archtype breakdown of those is as follows:

Astro-Boros (including variants): 3
Jeskai Ephemerate: 2
Affinity: 1
Azorius Blink Combo: 1
Blink Tron: 1
Bogles: 1
Burn: 1
Elves: 1
Izzet Delver: 1
Mono-blue Delver: 1
Mono-green aggro: 1
Mono-red Aggro: 1
Mono-white Heroic: 1
Sultai Defender Combo: 1
Rainbow Tron: 1

On the one hand, that's fourteen very distinct decks, which indicates a very diverse metagame. On the other, you have eight different decks running Astrolabe, which suggests that it's warping.

However, I believe that of the eight decks on this list running Astrolabe, none of them exist solely by virtue of Astrolabe. They are all decks that could function quite well without them. And the decks that don't run Astrolabe don't seem to be built specifically to counter it. Most of them have some form of artifact removal in the sideboard, but that's just common sense. And non-Astrolabe decks obviously still have a fighting chance. Downshifting Shatterstorm to deal with Astrolabe is chainsaw surgery.

Now this is of course a relatively small sample size. But I believe that a card needs better reasons to be banned than just 'It's played a lot at the moment.' Definitely worth watching, but I don't believe it currently affects the meta to the point that a ban is warranted.

One of the more interesting uses of Astrolabe on that list is the Affinity deck that cut nearly half of its artifact land base in favour of snow lands for the splash.

Wow, I had completely forgotten that there were any commons in that cycle. Seems like an awesome sideboard option against Faeries and such for any deck running green. I don't know why we don't see it more often.

I wouldn't be surprised to see those cards as sideboard options regardless, given that Tron seems to be getting more popular.

I'm personally waiting to see if some sort of Soldevi Adnate combo deck pops up. It seems that most of the pieces are in place - Tortured Existence as a recursion engine, Gurmag Angler as a creature that can generate more mana than it costs to cast. I'm mostly curious as to what the payoff would be - Soul Burn?

So many crazy cards. Can't wait to roll up to a pauper FNM with a white weenie deck running a playset of Army of Allah.

It's definitely worth testing, but I'm worried that it's removal bait. Even when your Rager eats a bolt, at least it will have replaced itself.

The CMC on Squad Captain seems way too steep for the kind of decks that would make it reliably big. Martyr's Soul gives us something way better in that role.