MTG Salvation

Answer: Constructed plant. Not saying its an appropriate use of 'mythic', but that card is stupid good. It ranks with Murderous Rider and the red giant as guaranteed format staples. Bouncing your anything on two and then having that same card to cast for pressure on three is a ridiculous tempo play. This is exactly what the flash deck needed. And we're not even gonna talk about picking up walkers and such without being down a card. Just crazy good.

Quote from Courier7 »

How does The Cauldron of Eternity work with cards like Athreos, by time stamp?

I could, easily, be mistaken, but I'm like 51% sure that Cauldron is a replacement effect, thus never letting Atheros return anything.

As for the card...So is the process of being brought back via Cauldron so horrifying that your guys would rather flee to the endless purgatory of your deck than go to the graveyard to be brought back again? What's going on there?

Quote from Ryperior74 »

You guys are as usually failing to notice something

It’s a resurrection of copy artifact just one more mana and also copy enchantment in one card

copy artifact is 700$ This new card is essentially yet another one of these loop holing the reserve list card

Since this one will not be reserved and can be reprinted this could end up being 50$ zone in a few years I say it’s worth picking up

I mean, you are correct, but I don't think it went unmentioned because it was unnoticed. I just don't think anyone cared. Copy Artifact has a bloated price because of its scarcity and presence on the reserved list. Its effect is, largely, inconsequential. I mean, we already have Phyrexian Metamorph, as just one example, of mimicking this card's effect for its effective CMC. Albeit Metamorph doesn't copy enchantments, I think its fair to marginalize that aspect of the card, from a financial perspective, given the relative affordability of the actual card Copy Enchantment being virtually equal to Metamorph. With other eternal options that offer a functionally equivalent substitute, I don't think its any surprise that Mirrormade's similarity to Copy Artifact wasn't a focal point of discussion.

For what its worth, it could be worth speccing on for the enchantment side. Always a good idea to keep the dollars and cents of the game in mind.

Clearly intended to be Mirror March 5-8.

That Giant may be the best card I've seen outside of Murderous Rider. Holy smokes. The fact that Adventure kinda lets you work around Experimental Frenzy is feeling more and more relevant.

Nothing on the gargoyle. Irritatingly large blocker that turns into a wincon. Seems fine, but not terribly exciting.

Beee ouuuur guest! Be our guest! Put our magic to the test!

Day 109: Our excavation of the Edgewall ruins unearthed a bizarre trinket that seems to be made of glass. Even stranger, there seems to be a living rabbit inside. More investigation is pending.
Day 110: A scuffle broke out when one of our crewman tried to release the rabbit we unearthed yesterday by shattering the glass container. Situation currently nominal, but grumblings continue.
Day 111: They're all dead. Everyone has been devoured by the centuries of hunger cultivated within the rabbit demons prison. I can hear it outside, even now. Pyon...pyon...If anyone recovers this logbook, run. Flee for your lives, because if you hear the pyon, its too late...

Any further entries are obscured by shredded paper and dark red stains

All three of these are super interesting. The red art is hideous, but I could see it seeing some play. The green one encouraging elf-on-elf hate crimes is amusing. The black one...I dunno. Exiling any nonland is big game for a single B. It could show up somewhere as well, particularly i some sort of bridge/prison strat.

NB4 Edgewall Innkeeper is actually a DFC that flips to 'Psychotic Host.' That dude is super creepy. I'll take my chances with the trolls and fae outside, tyvm.

I saw the images of the new promos in Heroes and Legends’ daily ELD preview video today. https://youtu.be/ATcrCkELO-s
Timestamp is 1:12.

I shall call thee Ambush Piker.

Quote from MercurialMemory »

Question. Can I trigger Grumgully's +1/+1 counter to apply before Voracious Hydra doubles the number of counters?

If I recall correctly the "enters with" verbiage specifically means that it happens before triggers, so yes.

Tis but a flesh wound.

Quote from Velrun »

What Gods are we talking about here?

I was gonna tell you but I forget

Not a judge, but I believe after damage is resolved, then you can cast the "free" spell. If they counter the spell, you don't get the free cast.

So they seem to officially show off the promos on the stream.

Quote from MercurialMemory »

It isn't everyday they print something that could end up in Legacy Sneak Attack. But when they do, you know something is on the verge of going horribly wrong.

Or horribly right.

Mostly Black Aggro

Ramunap Red proved last season that an aggressive deck that tops out with Hazoret the Fervent can do a lot of damage. Unfortunately, red lost its best one drops with the rotation. Meanwhile, black is blessed with a plethora of one drops that can swing for two. The first few iterations of this deck tried to use the black one drops as the foundation for mono black aggro. Unfortunately, black lacks a real heavy hitter in the four or five drop slot and also has pretty pathetic reach. This allowed opponents too much opportunity to stabilize the board. We would lose a lot of games after getting the opponent down to five life or so.

Pedro Carvalho over at CFB put everything together in a list that has captured several 5-0 finishes in competitive leagues:


In his article, Carvalho recommends a few tweaks going forward:


I've personally found it can be a problem to be totally cold to Hazoret and The Scarab God so I've been playing Carvalho's suggested list with a couple of Vraska's Contempt in the sideboard.

As time has gone by, the deck has continued to put up results online in leagues and PTQs:

WHAT'S THE PLAN?

---

1. Jump on the opponent early. The ideal start is a one drop into a one drop plus Fatal Push or another one drop. One drop into two drop is also good. If you don't at least have a two drop to play you should probably mulligan the hand. Keep an eye out for nice tempo opportunities where you can remove a blocker while also adding to your board.
2. Keep the pressure on. Dread Wanderer and Scrapheap Scrounger recur from the graveyard, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner and Aethersphere Harvester are evasive, while Yahenni, Undying Partisan and Hazoret the Fervent are indestructible. It all combines to give you profitable attacks in more situations than you would think.
3. Finish them. In addition to evasion, you also have reach in the form of Lightning Strike and Hazoret the Fervent.

CARD CHOICES:

---

One drops:

• Dread Wanderer is the best of the lot. It trades with two toughness creatures and brings itself back from the graveyard. It can sometimes be annoying that you can't play it and use it to crew immediately but overall it's well worth it.
• Night Market Lookout is the best if you have a free run at your opponent, as you gain one life while your opponent loses two. It also combos nicely with Aethersphere Harvester. It can get outclassed quickly when the board starts getting crowded, but it does always get in for one point of damage.
• Vicious Conquistador trades the lifegain for an extra point of toughness. It can randomly be useful against 1/1s and Walking Ballista but doesn't have the nice synergy with Aethersphere Harvester.
• Bomat Courier commands a removal spell and gets in some haste damage. It does get stonewalled easily but you can always at least cycle it.

Two drops:

• Glint-Sleeve Siphoner dies a lot. When it doesn't die it gives you some sweet card advantage along with an evasive beater. It also serves as pseudo color-fixing by fueling Aether Hub.
• Scrapheap Scrounger hits for three and comes back from the dead. Sweet card.
• Gifted Aetherborn isn't really what we're looking to do here. It's a stronger defender than attacker, it doesn't do anything but attack for two if it survives, and it doesn't give you any value if it dies. If your meta is very heavy on red you might consider it over Siphoner.
• Seekers' Squire might merit some consideration if it were a base 2/1. As it is I don't think it does enough for you to warrant a spot.

Three drops:

• Yahenni, Undying Partisan has haste and is hard to kill. Also, on turn three your opponent is often looking to trade with your one or two drops. Yahenni punishes that plan. She also has nice utility value with random stuff like semi-fizzling Settle the Wreckage by dumping your recursive guys into the graveyard.
• Aethersphere Harvester is evasive, dodges most sweepers, and gives you some incidental lifegain. It combos nicely with Night Market Lookout and even lets you get some use out of Hazoret when your hand is too full. It doesn't have haste and doesn't bring a whole new attacker to combat but it does give your one drops new relevance in the late game.
• Ahn-Crop Crasher made the transition from limited bomb to constructed staple. It gets in for hasty damage while also faltering a blocker. The only issue is the colored mana requirement. You probably want to wedge in another mountain or Canyon Slough if you're looking to run a maindeck red three drop.
• Ruin Raider seems like it should be good. We're extremely aggressive and don't want to run out of gas. The problem with it is that it doesn't offer anything itself in terms of breaking a board stall the way the other three drops do. Also, considering our average card quality, drawing cards is a little lackluster compared to just having a more useful three drop body.
• Ammit Eternal is a big old meh. It can do a lot of damage if it can rumble through unopposed but Temur energy can stonewall it easily and nobody has trouble killing it. The afflict is kind of nice, I guess.

Four drops:

• Hazoret the Fervent. The woman. The myth. The legend. The reason to be in red, the reward for playing 28 cards that cost two or less, the straw that stirs the drink. Hazoret gives us a lot of late game punch to go along with some built in burn damage.
• Gonti, Lord of Luxury doesn't really fit with the mission of the deck. We're not really looking for value, especially at four mana.
• Sanctum Seeker could be interesting if we get a little more vampire support in the future. We're surprisingly close already with Vicious Conquistador, Gifted Aetherborn, and Yahenni as decent curve-out vampire options. Hazoret is still just massively better unless we get multiple good one drop vampires, though.

Interaction:

• Fatal Push. We are most concerned with early drops getting in our way, we love cheap spells, and we're not terrible at triggering revolt. Mandatory four of.
• Lightning Strike is the other reason to go red. Clears out most of the format's annoying three drops (and the occasional Regal Caracal) and can go to the dome as a finisher. Lovely card.
• Unlicensed Disintegration is at a bit of a low ebb right now. It used to be one of the big draws to RB aggro, but (1) we don't play as many artifacts as we used to (RIP Smuggler's Copter), and (2) the format has moved towards bombs that UD doesn't deal with in Hazoret, The Scarab God, Bristling Hydra, and even Regal Caracal. It can still be good but it's not as amazing as it was when you were sniping down Archangel Avacyn.
• Vraska's Contempt does take care of a lot of the bombs in the format but the casting cost probably keeps it firmly in the sideboard. Our main deck plan for those bombs is usually to try to kill the opponent before the bomb can take over the game.

SIDEBOARD PLAN :

---

Basically post board you have to expect the opponent to be better equipped to handle the pure zerg rush aggro plan. We therefore want to sideboard so that we're better equipped to win a longer game. We also look to bring in cards that are good against a particular deck.

• Duress and Doomfall let us attack the opponent's hand. We can't cycle them away when they're dead or else I'd strongly consider Duress at least for the main deck (I'd play Thoughtseize in a hot minute). They come in for control matchups.
• Bontu's Last Reckoning has major blowout potential. People don't see it coming until they've been hit by it. It's extremely good against Temur energy. Between our vehicles, recursion, and indestructible guys we are often well positioned to survive a wrath while most of their board will just be gone. The combo with Yahenni can just be game ending.
• Vraska's Contempt lets you get rid of The Scarab God, Hazoret the Fervent, or a troublesome planeswalker. Bring it in when you expect to see high value targets.
• Pia Nalaar and The Scorpion God are there to give us some percentage points against Ramunap Red. The matchup is fairly favorable already. The Scorpion God could also theoretically be good against decks that put a lot of x/1s on the board. It's a little underwhelming as a bomb. Unfortunately our mana won't really support Glorybringer or Chandra, Torch of Defiance and the mono black five drops in standard right now are very underwhelming.
• Rampaging Ferocidon is probably worth exploring as an anti-tokens option if that deck catches on.

MATCHUP NOTES:

---

Ramunap Red:
The key to success in this matchup is to remember that we are the aggressor here. We have more one drops, we have better one drops, and we have Fatal Push for good tempo based interaction. Our three drops are also both great against red, as is Hazoret. They are favored if they draw Hazoret and we don't, but otherwise it's a good matchup. The key is not to focus on blocking. Keep attacking and rely on incidental life gain and removal to stay alive long enough to kill them.

Sideboard suggestion: bring in two Vraska's Contempt and remove two copies of your least favorite one drop (I would suggest dropping Conquistador on the play and Courier on the draw). They are going to be packing a lot of removal post board to go along with a bunch of bombs. Personally I like to have access to a card that removes Hazoret, Chandra, or Glorybringer as needed.

Temur Energy:
Game one you need to be aggressive. Especially about using removal early to clear the way for your cheap attackers. You really need to hit them early. If you're lucky their hand will be a little creature light and you can beat them just by going wide. If you're less lucky you can get them low enough that your evasive stuff can finish them off before they kill you. If you're unlucky they will curve removal into Whirler Virtuoso into Bristling Hydra and just bury you in energy bombs.

It's possible to win by riding Hazoret to victory even if you don't get a good early push, but they have a lot of ways to stop her from getting home (sufficiently large Bristling Hydra/Longtusk Cub or Confiscation Coup). The longer the game drags on the worse your odds.

Sideboard suggestion (no Scarab God): bring in three Bontu's Last Reckoning and two Doomfall. Remove five of your least favorite one drops, usually two Conquistadors, two Couriers, and one Lookout. The reason being that your 1/x attackers are pretty terrible in this matchup. If your opponent has a weak hand it is possible to scrape out a win by grinding through with strong attackers and removal. If the opponent has a strong hand you can mise out a win with Bontu's Last Reckoning. Doomfall is in mostly as hand disruption. They have a lot of bombs to rain down on us in turn four and five, and surprisingly few good contempt targets.

Sideboard suggestion (Scarab God): bring in three Bontu's Last Reckoning and two Vraska's Contempt. Having an immediate answer for The Scarab God is a pretty big deal.

Sultai Energy:
Very similar to Temur Energy. You don't have to worry about Whirler Virtuoso but you will have to worry about Hostage Taker and The Scarab God. They also usually run a Winding Constrictor/Glint-Sleeve Siphoner/Walking Ballista package that can snowball surprisingly quickly. Overall the matchup feels a bit worse than the Temur matchup thanks to the Ballista but fortunately Sultai seems less popular overall.

Sideboard suggestion: bring in three Bontu's Last Reckoning and two Vraska's Contempt. If you have Abrade in the side you might want to bring them in as well. You really want to have immediate removal available for snakes and hostage takers. Take out all of the Couriers and Lookouts before any Conquistadors to reduce your Ballista exposure.

UB Control:
Grind grind grind. Recursive attackers are the mvps here. Be smart about running into counters and Gearhulks and try to keep the pressure on.

Sideboard suggestion: bring in a little bit of discard, but don't over board. Expect them to have Gifted Aetherborn post board. They may also have Hostage Taker and Kitesail Freebooter. Something like two Duress, two Doomfall, and one Vraska's Contempt is pretty reasonable. Pull Conquistadors, Lookouts, and one or two Fatal Push.

UW Control:
Game one you just want to smash face ASAP. It's a race between your attackers and their Approach. You can't interact with their wincon, so you just need to keep up the pressure. Try not to run face first into Settle the Wreckage if you can help it (i.e. if you can hold back Hazoret while still doing decent damage, you can then finish them with the shock ability; Yahenni also lets you dump your recursive guys into the graveyard instead of exiling them).

Sideboard suggestion: bring in all the discard (typically four Duress, two Doomfall), remove all the Fatal Push and two Lightning Strike. You want a little bit of ability to zap Regal Caracals or your opponent's face, but the big thing is the ability to yoink their wincons and sweepers. Lost Legacy is also strong here if you have it but usually isn't necessary.

Edited to put the original post in a spoiler:

Quote from MercurialMemory »

So Anointed Procession + Ruthless Knave is an infinite mana engine as long as you provide fodder. Is there anything in standard that could be abused for this? A creature that recurs, or the like? I can't think of anything, but the potential to be a mana engine and a draw engine is mildly intriguing.

No, there is nothing which we could abuse at this time. Panharmonicon can double some of the treasure tokens a few pirates generate upon entering the battlefield and the procession can double those but there isn't a way to abuse the interaction. You would need Solemnity and any creature with undying or persist to generate an arbitrarily large number of treasure tokens.

The Demon of Dark Schemes can generate E when the creature is sacrificed and then you can sacrifice the tokens and spend another EEE to bring it back, but this still won't lead to abuse.

hrm...wait...hypothetically speaking, the demon + Aether Theorist + Anointed Procession + Ruthless Knave could result in spend 2B, sac the Theorist, get four treasure tokens and one energy, spend the energy you got from the Theorist's etb and its subsequent death plus sac three tokens to bring it back, netting you three energy and you would end up at your starting position netting only one treasure token. No, you would need two Processions--conclusion: not possible (or at least so unlikely that we can dismiss it as effectively impossible).

Alternatively, if you had enough artifacts so that Metalwork Colossus costs you 0 to cast then Procession + Ruthless Knave = spend 2B to sac the colossus, get four treasure tokens, sacrifice two treasures to bring the Colossus back to your hand, then summon it again for free = net gain of two Treasure tokens. No, once again you would need two Processions--again, this is not likely to occur. If, in the unlikely event that it did occur, then sacrificing the Colossus would generate eight treasure tokens--sac two to bring it back to hand, cast it for free, sac three to offer it to the Knave for a net gain of three tokens per iteration.

In summary, it is possible but it will probably never happen so I wouldn't worry about it.