Did you ever think of a combo that you thought was really neat, but then got beaten to the idea? Well, Abe Sargent is a nice guy - but after watching him suggest fifty combos with Saviors cards, one of which was an idea I had already thought of (Ashes of the Fallen/Patriarch's Bidding), I knew I needed to think up some alternate ideas.
I needed to think of something grand and spectacular if I was going to win this week's contest, but what options did I have? So, I examined the set for some small interactions.
Here are some of the ideas that came to mind:
Oboro Envoy and R&D's Secret Lair
Okay, this one really isn't exciting, but it does point out a glaring flaw in the way the card is printed. The Lair allows the Envoy's ability to last indefinitely, which is far from a bad thing since it allows you to disable all your opponent's attackers. The only unfortunate thing is that you need to keep track of the negative power in case your opponent plays something to increase the creature's power.
Meishin, the Mind Cage and Juntu Stakes
This is one of those Stasis-like combinations that only a true prison player loves. The larger your hand, the greater the chances are that your opponent won't be able to untap any of his creatures. Not that they were going to be very threatening with the Mind Cage in play anyway, but it prevents your opponent from using tap-to-use creature abilities more than once.
Pithing Needle and Lethal Vapors
Now were talking. This is a rather easy lock to set up, and unlike my previous attempts at breaking Lethal Vapors, I can finally be satisfied with two cards that prevent future creatures from coming into play.
Aether Storm and Pithing Needle
Same principle as Lethal Vapors, but it actually prevents anyone from ever playing a creature again - so you don't have to worry about regeneration and other such problems.
Rally the Horde and Mana Severance, plus Mass Hysteria/Fervor/Goblin Bombardment
This combo is kind of obvious. You use mana severance to extract all the land from your deck and then play Rally the Horde. After you receive your horde, you either attack with the hasty critters or fire them off through your Bombardment and kill your opponent. Not that this is better than the Extended-friendly combo of Mana Severance and Goblin Charbelcher... but if you're playing a Battle of Wits-sized deck you could take out several players in a multiplayer game (though I highly advise against this strategy).
Sekki, Seasons' Guide and some way to pump his toughness
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the wording on Sekki, might I suggest you look at one of the Phantom creatures from Judgment? Just like the phantoms, this spirit will become near-invincible with just a mere toughness boost. However, unlike his other spirit friends, Sekki produces tokens when damaged. This means that if you have some way to continually damage him, you could make an army. Perhaps Blasting Station coupled with a Furnace of Rath or Overblaze could create you this army; I'll leave that experimenting to you.
Cloudhoof Kirin, Foul Familiar, Aluren, and Carnival of Souls
If pulled off correctly, this can deck you opponent, though I suggest you have some way of gaining life (Bounteous Kirin, perhaps?). Sure, you could use a gating creature and Brain Freeze for a less complicated combo, but what fun would that be? This combo did bring up another interaction between Saviors and older cards, though...
Infernal Kirin and Foul Familiar
Who here hates it when they want to make an opponent discard three cards and are stuck with crappy things like Fugue and Three Tragedies? Experience that problem no more, for now with the easy low price of 2B you can force your opponent to discard three cards and get a fairly decent 3/1 creature to boot. But wait, you also can "Buyback" the Familiar to cause even more discard. While not the greatest of the combos, I still kind of like it.
So what ideas did I decide to use? The first one was Pithing Needle and Aether Storm.
The deck's whole focus is to assemble its beloved combo using its draw cards and search effects and then lay on the beatdown using Mishra's Factories and Faerie Conclaves. The deck handles threats by bouncing them, countering them, or using excess Pithing Needles to handle them. Since the deck does lock your opponent down if they win with creatures, I thought Eternal Dominion would be a nice addition, allowing you to beat your opponent into pulp with his own creatures.
On the flip side, the black version of the deck looks something like this:
Just like the previous deck, Pithing Vapors works to establish its combo and then beat down - although this time, the deck uses Genju of the Fens to beat its enemies. The deck is designed for one of the larger multiplayer groups, which explains the Syphon spells (and the Massacre, which you'll likely get for free).
I hope you all enjoyed my little pursuit of Saviors combo; just remember that no matter how many ideas one can think of, there will always be more.
Matthew Lubich
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