It seems that the Guild of Ravnica Spoilers is already complete, basing on the card count at MTG Salvation. In preparation for the upcoming rotation in Standard and the entry of the new set, we check the notable cards in the set that can become an impact or at least relevant in the metagame. For today’s blog post, we have three cards to discuss and here below are the three cards:
Arclight Phoenix
A 4-CC hasty flyer looks to be subpar as compared to the Rekindling Phoenix and also in terms of its recursion ability. The nearest build that this creature will fit on would be on an Izzet Tempo deck with cheap spells like Opt and Lightning Strike. Two to three copies would suffice and would get your opponents’ life to burn damage range with at least two attacks in the air.
Chamber Sentry
A friend said that this will be the next Walking Ballista and that I would beg to disagree. Ballista is more versatile with only colorless mana to cast and is used in Tron decks in Modern. The Sentry would require you to have at least 3 colors in your deck to be able to utilize it well. Also, you would wait a turn to activate its ping ability and you could not add more +1/+1 counters to it.
Its best use, given to its third ability is to have it in a five-color control deck. Its full potential is a 5/5 at five mana, which can be recurred in the long game. With the current mana base in Standard, it is not impossible.
Pilfering Imp
The Imp’s Dimir-ish nature is to fit in a Blue Black colors. With the Ixalan pirates also on the same colors i.e. Kitesail Freebooter, we can combine the similar strategy of cheap and disrupting creatures of the two Magic sets. Also take note that Favorable Winds is legal in the format so we can have the flyers as another route. Here below is what the deck would look like:
24 Creatures
2 Doom Whisperer
4 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Nightveil Predator
4 Pilfering Imp
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Thief of Sanity
4 Warkite Marauder
13 Spells
2 Blink of an Eye
1 Cast Down
4 Favorable Winds
4 Sinister Sabotage
1 Murder
1 Negate
23 Lands
I will come up with complete lists in the coming days once the main cards components have been decided and that the guild-based strategies are imposed.
Until the next post.