CardShark Content - Scott Rogers (6/16/2004)

I walk into my local hobby shop, and there are two groups of players right now. There are those complaining about Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

being gone, and there are those contemplating how to abuse the new cards in much the same way. Hopefully, you belong in the second category, because you don’t have to reconstruct your entire deck just because Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

is gone.

The situation is that card advantage is going to be much more important now, and the lengths people will go to for it will make them more vulnerable than they ever were with Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

in play. In this article, I’ll review the card advantage cards available (as of June 20th) for the most popular deck types.

Ravager – The powerhouse of the game surprisingly might get better due to this banning. Let’s face it, Ravager used Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

to keep up with the goblin decks that used Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

, and to get their affinity based things out faster. With Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

gone, goblin decks aren’t going to be near the powerhouse they were before and ravagers are going to have more opportunities to pound on their old matchup. So, what do we replace Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

with? Well, if you weren’t already using Thoughtcast

Thoughtcast
	Set: Mirrodin Cost: 5 Color: Blue Type: Sorcery Rarity: C Number: 54 Artist: Greg Hildebrandt Text: Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs 1 less to play for each artifact you control.) Draw two cards.

, do so now. It was already a main deck spell in most of the recent ravager decks, and would be an absolute necessity now. Assuming you already had Thoughtcast

Thoughtcast
	Set: Mirrodin Cost: 5 Color: Blue Type: Sorcery Rarity: C Number: 54 Artist: Greg Hildebrandt Text: Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs 1 less to play for each artifact you control.) Draw two cards.

in your deck, U2VydW0gVisions

Visions
	Set: Fourth Edition Cost: 1 Color: White Type: Sorcery Rarity: U Artist: NéNé Thomas Text: Look at the top five cards of any library. You may then shuffle that library.

will end up being a good addition, especially early, if you aren’t getting the best hand. Don’t overlook replacing some minor damage spells like Electrostatic Bolt

Electrostatic Bolt
	Set: Mirrodin Cost: 1 Color: Red Type: Instant Rarity: C Number: 89 Artist: Randy Gallegos Text: Electrostatic Bolt deals 2 damage to target creature. If it's an artifact creature, Electrostatic Bolt deals 4 damage to it instead.

with Magma Jet

Magma Jet
	Set: Fifth Dawn Cost: 2 Color: Red Type: Instant Rarity: U Number: 73 Text: Magma Jet deals 2 damage to target creature or player. Scry 2

s either. People are laughing at the Scry ability now (at least the people in my shop are), but it’s going to be very useful. It’s not as good as modular, but it’ll win games. How many times has your games come down to the point that you’re saying to yourself, “If I get a shrapnel blast I’ll win”…and then you don’t and the next card you draw would win you the game? Well, you won’t have that happen now. Magma Jet

Magma Jet
	Set: Fifth Dawn Cost: 2 Color: Red Type: Instant Rarity: U Number: 73 Text: Magma Jet deals 2 damage to target creature or player. Scry 2

will also allow you to hit the player, instead of just the creatures. The last thing I’ve been playing around with in testing for ravager is Screaming Fury

Screaming Fury
	Set: Fifth Dawn Cost: 3 Color: Red Type: Sorcery Rarity: C Number: 78 Text: Target creature gets +5/+0 and gains haste until end of turn.

. For some reason, I have this sick obsession with using it on Ornithopers for a quick Ball Lightning

Ball Lightning
	Set: Fourth Edition Cost: 3 Color: Red Type: Creature Sub Type: Ball Lightning Rarity: R Artist: Quinton Hoover Power: 6 Toughness: 1 Text: Trample Ball Lightning can attack the turn it comes into play. At the end of any turn, bury Ball Lightning.

type effect. The only reason I mention this is due to the total lack of flying in most decks and this makes for a quick 3 mana for 5 damage combo. I’ve only tested it lightly, but I feel this could be useful in the future even if it was just for Mirrodin Block play. Test it out.

Tooth & Nail/Elf & Nail – Well, the only versions of this that I saw that has Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

were a few of the elf variety, but it didn’t get hurt much by the banning either. Like Ravager, people played Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

in it because it *had* to to keep up with everyone else that played it. Now that it’s out of the equation, it’s still a very powerful and viable deck. In fact, 5th Dawn has truly helped out this type of deck. It doesn’t give it much help in the card advantage or drawing areas, but it already relied on thinning out the deck with search lands and land searching spells. Instead, this deck is going to have even more mana accelerators to get the big spells off faster. Pentad Prism

Pentad Prism
	Set: Fifth Dawn Cost: 2 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Rarity: C Number: 143 Artist: David Martin Text: Sunburst (This comes into play with a charge counter on it for each color of mana used to pay its cost.) Remove a charge counter from Pentad Prism: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

will speed this deck up incredibly and lessen the reliance on drawing the mana-producing creatures early. Is it vulnerable to Naturalize

Naturalize
	Set: Onslaught Cost: 2 Color: Green Type: Instant Rarity: C Number: 275 Artist: Ron Spears Text: Destroy target artifact or enchantment.

/oxidize? Sure, but if someone wants to waste a spell on that then it’s not a huge loss like it was when they hit your Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

. I also foresee the use of the new mana producing creatures to speed up this deck type. Not just to cast Tooth & Nail, though it will definitely help with that, but also in casting the new Bringers. You might laugh, but I can definitely see the following combo:

Turn 1 – Forest

Forest
	Set: Oversize Cards Color: Land Type: Land Rarity: X Artist: Tony Roberts Text: T: Add G to your mana pool.

, Birds of Paradise

Birds of Paradise
	Set: Revised Edition Cost: 1 Color: Green Type: Creature Sub Type: Mana Birds Rarity: R Artist: Mark Poole Power: 0 Toughness: 1 Text: Flying T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This ability is played as an interrupt.

.
Turn 2 – Plains

Plains
	Set: Oversize Cards Color: Land Type: Land Rarity: X Artist: Tony Roberts Text: T: Add W to your mana pool.

, Pentad Prism

Pentad Prism
	Set: Fifth Dawn Cost: 2 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Rarity: C Number: 143 Artist: David Martin Text: Sunburst (This comes into play with a charge counter on it for each color of mana used to pay its cost.) Remove a charge counter from Pentad Prism: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

.
Turn 3 – Land, Bringer of the Whatever Dawn.

Between the birds, prism, and 2 lands you’ve just made 5 mana of different colors. Now I haven’t made a deck with it yet, but I’m sure someone will. I wish you the best in abusing people with it. Even if you don’t put the bringer tactic into your deck, you’re only going to help a T&N deck with it.

Goblins (mono and bidding) – Goblin players were probably the hardest hit with the banning. At least, mono-red goblin players were seriously hurt by it. You’ll have access to the new Scry burn spell, but that’s no where near a replacement. The only true replacement card I see for Goblin Bidding players is Night’s Whisper. Right now, you’re probably thinking I’m crazy, but in the new meta-game card advantage is going to be difficult and 2 life isn’t going to be a huge cost for this. You’ve also gained a deck thinner in Wayfarer’s Bauble. Search lands were always standard in every goblin deck, even the mono-red ones, and this just helps things along. While it’s not always a great early play for goblin decks with their small red casting cost creatures, a turn 4 or 5 play for that extra swamp or mountain could definitely help if you don’t already have the Siege Commander (or bidding) and needed lands in hand.

For those that haven’t bought their first 5th Dawn packs yet, I hope this has proven to be a good review for you and will give you a start to make your old decks more viable w/o your precious Skullclamp

Skullclamp
	Set: Darksteel Cost: 1 Color: Colorless Type: Artifact Sub Type: Equipment Rarity: U Number: 140 Artist: Luca Zontini Text: Equipped creature gets +1/-1. Whenever equipped creature is put in a graveyard from play, draw two cards. Equip 1 (1: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This card comes into play unattached and stays in play if the creature leaves play.)

s.

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