Card Substitution

M

Mur

Guest
I thought of another thread to contribute to this forum: substitute cards for common Standard staples ... cards that show up as "4x" in a lot of popular decks, but unle$$ you have the fund$ they won't $how up in your deck$.

Feel free to chime in, but please follow my ground-rules:

  1. All substitutions must be current Standard legal, unless you note it otherwise
  2. All substitutes must be either (a) less rare or (b) much less costly. E.g., "Wrath of God" is not a substitute for "Oblivion Stone"
  3. Strive to find imaginative substitutions, using cards that most people might have but not think of
    [/list=1]
 
M

Mur

Guest
Eternal Witness is a very popular card nowadays, but it's pricey: running $1 or more as an uncommon on eBay. Sure, most people will have four, plus or minus 1, depending on how many boxes they have opened or (if you are like me) how many uncommon sets they ordered from their supplier.

It's not easy to substitute for this card. MtG R&D gave us a real gem, a 2/1 body with a very useful ability. But if you don't have enough of these to spread around 4x in every green-heavy deck, consider Revive: a 1G sorcery that returns a green card to your hand from your graveyard. Yeah, it can't retrieve that early-game Fireball so you can finish off your opponent. But it will grab the big green trampling Beast that your opponent nailed with a Terror.

So drop a couple of these into a deck next time you are net-decking and you can't "get a Witness".
 
T

train

Guest
Like - Weathered wayfarer in place of land tax...

or you could use yavimaya elder in place of the witness - land, draw, critter = not bad...
 
M

Mur

Guest
Another very popular "4x" card, the SolSim is too darned good to leave out of most decks. It's mana acceleration, it's card disadvantage-proof, and it's a 2/2 body when you gotta block. What can you replace it with?

Well, it depends on the color you are playing. All colors got a landcycler or two in Onslaught block, but of course those are going to fade into memory pretty soon. Wayfarer's Bauble is probably the best colorless equivalent. For Green, you can sub in any of the land-fetching spells: Rampant Growth, Journey of Discovery, Reap and Sow, or Sylvan Scrying, depending on your needs. Another possibility, if you are running Green, is to sub in Vine Trellis. It blocks, it generates mana, but it's not subject to a quick death via Electrostatic Bolt, Shatter, or Echoing Ruin. (Admittedly, it doesn't attack, nor does it think your deck, so it's a pretty lame sub unless you know the metagame features a lot of anti-artifact spells, in which case the Vine Trellis is a sly choice.)

I like the synergy of 4x Vine Trellis and 4x Wall of Mulch (although again, ONS block is on its way out). It's kinda like having eight half-strength Solemns in your deck, which by my math makes four full-strength ones! (Yeah, right.)
 
M

Mur

Guest
Originally posted by train

or you could use yavimaya elder in place of the witness - land, draw, critter = not bad...
Yeah, but note the ground rules: STD legal. Yavimaya Elder hasn't been T2 for a long time.
 
M

Mur

Guest
Originally posted by Spiderman
I think he's talking about the new 1.5 with it's B/R list separated from Type 1 (Vintage) now.
Ah. Well, feel free to post here with substitutions valid in that format, but my original ground rules stand ('cuz it's my thread): unless it's Standard-legal, please identify the format in your post.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Yes, I mean the new 1.5 (still doesn't have a new name yet). As far as Standard legal goes, I don't really know what is Standard legal. I know what sets are legal, of course, but I'm not familiar with those sets, except for the cards that have an impact on Type I. I can identify almost any pre-Odyssey card by the name, but around there it gets hazy...

That's what I get for quitting the game around Apocalypse and then returning without buying cards...
 
R

Rooser

Guest
Mur, this is a laid back forum, and you're trying to impose order on it. Nobody's gonna talk dirty about your insistence on keeping this a type 2 thread, but bear in mind that perhaps a new member of the forums shouldn't be so pushy with vets who have tendencies and in-jokes your not likely to have picked up on yet. Just chill out and enjoy the discussion and don't fret if it doesn't take the direction you intended.

As for my contribution, I'd like to suggest that Wrath of God can become Retaliate fairly easily.
 
H

Homestar

Guest
A sub for Ravager could be Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer or Atog.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Actually, he's not so "new", been registered for a couple of years. He's just started posting again (similar to other guys here I know ;) )

I think it's fine that he's trying to keep it in "his direction"; some people don't read all the way through or skip posts before posting themselves.
 
T

train

Guest
and that's when the threads go off-topic...

which is not what needs to happen here....

so my sub would be...


... pop rocks... and soda...

:p

(seriously - I'm still working on a "great" sub)
 
H

Homestar

Guest
er, i dont kno if slobad was goblin tinkerer , so, we will just say "Slobad"
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Oh, nevermind about the Goblin Tinkerer thing then. They really should not do that thing with the names...

Anyway, that Slobad guy is horrible. I would go with Atog or Megatog definitely...
 
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