Mirrorwing Dragon (about 75 cents) - This card is very cool conceptually, very nice art, and most importantly, it is tailor made to avoid a large number of popular removal spells. It completely avoids Fatal Push, it survives Grasp of Darkness (and similarly matches up well against things like Heart of Kiran and Avacyn), and it punishes the opponent for using Unlicensed Disintegration. If your opponent is playing red or black, they have very few profitable ways to deal with this creature. Blue and white are a bit better against it. Oh, and it's a bulk mythic rare -- I love this card right now. It asks to be surrounded by creatures and buffs, but it could also be useful as a control finisher against the right opponents (maybe from sideboard).
Eternal Scourge (about 25 cents) - With the printing of Walking Ballista, this card definitely got worse. I loved it before Aether Revolt was released. It has even been part of a Grand Prix winning Modern deck (Skred Red). There are a lot of cute things you can do with this card:
- Removal with extra effects is countered by the game rules when it goes to exile, meaning for example Unlicensed Disintegration doesn't do damage to you.
- Lost Legacy can go in your main deck as a way to "draw" all your copies of Eternal Scourge.
- It forms a repeatable loop with Scrapheap Scrounger if both are in the graveyard.
- If countered by Spell Queller, it can be cast from "underneath."
Scrap Trawler (about 25 cents) - I'm going to try out Trawlers in place of my Eternal Scourges in my black/artifact deck. They aren't particularly resilient against removal, but they will draw you a card back if your deck is doing the right things. I can see this being a card that someone breaks in a combo deck, but I'm happy to just draw an extra card (or more if I am lucky or able to sacrifice artifacts). Note also that multiple copies on the battlefield are cumulative! Compare Scrap Trawler to Matter Reshaper -- they are similar in all ways, but Matter Reshaper will cost you $2 and requires colorless mana. Matter Reshaper is generally superior outside of those two downsides, but I have high hopes for the Trawler.
Treasure Keeper (practically free) - Here's another card that you can compare with Matter Reshaper. 4 mana is normally more than you want to pay for a 3/3 in Constructed, but you can imagine doing some fun things with the effect. The foil version is over $1.50, so someone obviously wants these -- perhaps Commander players, or a small number of Modern players who may want to use it as a budget Bloodbraid Elf for a cascade effect. I like it as a companion to Scrap Trawler, which effectively lets it draw 2 cards if you can set it up.
Thanks for reading, and have fun!
Hadn't noticed that Mirrorwing Dragon had gotten so relatively cheap. Targeting it w/Unlicensed Disintegration can be costly, but Vehicles and PW will escape. Would it be possible to cast Blossoming Defense on MD after it's ability has triggered - causing the original spell to fail due to invalid target?
ReplyDeleteLet's see. I think this is your optimal play:
ReplyDeletePlayer A casts Unlicensed Disintegration onto the stack, targeting Player B's Dragon.
Dragon's ability creates Unlicensed Disintegration copies on the stack targeting each of Player A's targetable creatures, if any (including hexproof, since Player A controls the copies).
Both players pass priority, allowing Unlicensed Disintegration copies to resolve.
Unlicensed Disintegration copies resolve if targets are still legal (doing damage to Player A).
Player B casts Blossoming Defense on the stack, targeting Dragon.
Dragon's ability creates Blossoming Defense copies on the stack targeting each of Player B's targetable creatures, if any.
Blossoming Defense copies resolve if targets are still legal.
Blossoming Defense resolves if target is still legal.
Unlicensed Disintegration tries to resolve but is countered by game rules because Dragon is an illegal target.
Yes, it works!
Player B could also cast BD before any of the UD copies resolve, with the same outcome if Player A has no other spells or effects. Player B can also use e.g. Negate or Dispel instead of BD.
Great idea!