MTG Salvation

Turn 1 : Gracecrawler
Turn 2 : Oona's Prowler
Turn 3 : Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
Opponent's endstep : Discard Angel of Invention
Turn 4 : Attack with all, pay AWSaD ability, swing for a ton of damages while staying open for Bolt or Strike.

This card seems insane. Not having first strike is a bit disapointing, and makes it totally different from Gisela, but I guess I can live with that. Goodbye Baneslayer Angel. Cloudgoat's time hasn't come yet. Happy about that. And Opposition is gonna be happy also.

I will cut another angel for this:
Exalted Angel

I actually prefer Exalted Angel because of the speed of the clock. And it's easier to cast and defend in the same turn for control decks.

How do you feel about this vs. Baneslayer Angel for cube?

This is certainly everything I like about a cube card and synergies with a million things. I am just really nervous about it when you are behind. 3 bodies is tremendous but it is no cloudgoat. It is really vulnerable to dividable burn spells, and black/red sweepers (Arc Lightning, Deluge, Pyroclasm, Massacure Wrum, Rolling Earthquake, etc., Fiery Confluence). One of the great things about baneslayer is that it is just massive. Red aggro is just very good right now and I am pretty sure Baneslayer is still best in that matchup. I already cut Revielark for Avacyn, so maybe Gideon will ride the pine for a while as I compare these.

If this had been a 6 drop 2/2 with Fabricate 3 or 4 it would have been even more interesting to me.

This seems great. 6 power across 3 bodies for 5 mana all by itself, and pretty absurd if it sticks around and you have anything else in play.

It's very fragile, but even if it dies you get 2 1/1's left over (I imagine choosing the +1/+1 counter mode will be very rare). Definite test for me. Will probably cut Jazal Goldmane for it as he has never been great for us, just good.

Quote from asmallcat »

This seems great. 6 power across 3 bodies for 5 mana all by itself, and pretty absurd if it sticks around and you have anything else in play.

It's very fragile, but even if it dies you get 2 1/1's left over (I imagine choosing the +1/+1 counter mode will be very rare). Definite test for me. Will probably cut Jazal Goldmane for it as he has never been great for us, just good.

Just realizing the servos don't have flying like the thopters, so you might want the counters for your main guy as all of those keywords go to waste when you fabricate. The more I think about this card the more likely I am to pass. I have played the Scion of Vitu Ghazi,Geist Honored Monk, Angel of Jubilation, and Dictate of Helliod before and while all were nice they had downsides. The tokens not flying is a really big deal for this 5 drop. So if you cube really wants an anthem on a stick 5 drop, or another token producer (Not sure if it is the best one at that).

A larger cube will love this guy comboing with recruiter and lark.

I missed that the tokens don't have flying. Servos and Thopters, yay. I'll still give it a try, but that is a big difference.

I don't think it makes that big a difference, actually. It only really matters if the main body dies off, and in that case (compared to Cloudgoat) the Kithkin tokens don't fly either. The fact that it's also a straight anthem in addition to generating the bodies is big game for token decks.

If the opponent has an immediate answer for the main body, Cloudgoat will be better. But the rest of the time, this Angel is probably superior. In addition to also being a Baneslayer variant in the matchups and board states where you need that.

The 5 toughness on Baneslayer is big game against a lot of cube effects. The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards a Cloudgoat cut. This just has so many small advantages over that card, and very few deficiencies. The flexibility is just great.

Card seems awesome. Anthem seems to be underrated--that is a HUGE game with the base stats + making other guys. Really like this guy.

Ugh! Another great white 5-drop. What an embarrassment of riches.

I'm not cutting BSA. The 5th toughness on that creature is just so important. It's almost impossible to burn and it survives Wildfire. So, that leaves me cutting Cloudgoat for this. You get one less body but the anthem should more than make up for that.

Cheers,
rant

This card's worst matchup is red. It dies to Arc Lightning completely, and many cheap spells answer the main body from Fire Imp to Firebolt. Earthquake for 2 or more will kill it. Fiery Confluence would contain it, damage all other tokens you might have and kill an artifact. In all those instances Cloudgoat is better.
Baneslayer is at her best when Inventions is at his worst. I do not like swapping them.

This Angel has flying, so Earthquake cannot touch it.. only affects the tokens created.

Cloudgoat is on the outs for this.. Versatility wins

I am just going to cut Dictate of Heliod.

Quote from NightwingX »

This Angel has flying, so Earthquake cannot touch it.. only affects the tokens created.

Thanks for the correction, it is a tie against Earthquake and a null point.

Quote from Metamind »

This card's worst matchup is red. It dies to Arc Lightning completely, and many cheap spells answer the main body from Fire Imp to Firebolt. Earthquake for 2 or more will kill it. Fiery Confluence would contain it, damage all other tokens you might have and kill an artifact. In all those instances Cloudgoat is better.
Baneslayer is at her best when Inventions is at his worst. I do not like swapping them.

Fwiw a lot of those removal spells are incredible against white, and will often be used before the angel comes down. They have a ton of redundency on direct burn type effects, but less so on arc lightning effects (depends a bit on the cube manager). So at least you will get a couple blockers out of the deal.

If you happen to be top decking vs top decking, this card will pull you out of burn range like few other could.

But I agree red agressive matchups aren't good for this card..
It will excel against green, and in conjunction with other token synergies against slower decks.

The anthem is huge when evaluating the strength of the card.

Without it, I would no doubt agree that cloudgoat is better and the angels vulnerability to certain removal is the predominate reason.

There is a lot that I like about this angel, but I really dislike three things about her:

1. The base toughness of 1. This makes her really vulnerable, both to red removal and to combat. It also makes the +1/+1-counters mode a lot worse. Without first strike, a 4/3 is much weaker than a 4/4. The low thoughness really reduces the utility of vigilance on this creature.
2. It is yet another cubeworthy mythic. So far, the majority of my most likely inclusions from this set are mythics. I hate when that happens. Not only does this mean that I'll have to spent more money on this set, it also creates the feeling that mythics are just better than other cards and that lower rarities are just useless junk. Most of the last few sets have been much better in this regard.
3. The art. Not the quality, but the look of the angel. The four arms and that stupid head-piece make her look totally dorky.

The four arms resemble an Indie god, I believe... It has Kaladesh flavor all over it.

I will probably cut Cloudgoat Ranger for this, but I am gonna miss my it so much

The fact that this is so good with Recruiter of the Guard, Imperial Recruiter, Reveillark puts this over the top for me. I just stared pushing a token theme also. Snap include.

Quote from Metamind »

Quote from NightwingX »

This Angel has flying, so Earthquake cannot touch it.. only affects the tokens created.

Thanks for the correction, it is a tie against Earthquake and a null point.

Rolling earthquake still hits it though, which is the best quake variant.

Quote from asmallcat »

Quote from Metamind »

Quote from NightwingX »

This Angel has flying, so Earthquake cannot touch it.. only affects the tokens created.

Thanks for the correction, it is a tie against Earthquake and a null point.

Rolling earthquake still hits it though, which is the best quake variant.

The best earthquake kills Cloudgoat too.

I'm a huge fan of modal cards. This card has incredible baseline strength if it was only printed to have one mode or the other; the fact you get to choose which one really pushes it over the top of a card like Cloudgoat Ranger.