Hello fellow players, interested in Peasant magic! I'm planning on putting a series of articles on the blog about strong cards in Peasant Magic that rarely see play. Why is it with some cards that we can see the potential but they never end up in our decks? This time let's look at Qasali Pridemage.
What do we see? It's a 2/2 Cat Wizard for GW. That's a bear. It has Exalted and for one colourless you can sacrifice him to destroy an artifact or enchantment. I think we can be quick to conclude that it is a strong card: a bear that boosts solitary attackers and holds an answer to opposing enchantments and artifacts.
So, why didn't we see a single Pridemage in any Peasant decklist for ages? I think the answer lies in the fact that there wasn't a deck in which he could fit. GW decks weren't good enough because they weren't able to cope with decks like Faeries, Blink or Storm. GW decks fight fair combats where other decks pack things like Hymn to Tourach, Mulldrifter or Spellstutter Sprite. Now I'm not saying that those cards are unfair, but they are powerful and put the opponent on a disadvantage in an aggressive way. They do 2 for 1 and most GW cards don't. The Pridemage is a support card that can fix certain problems, but it won't put you on cardadvantage and isn't a part of your winning combo.
But I think it is still possible to build a quite competitive GW deck with Qasali Pridemage. Martijn Beljaars played Midnight Presence on the Peasant tournament of october. Possibly maindeck and certainly in the sidboard he could have played some Pridemages. Let me inspire you to look further into GW.
This deck is pretty straight forward and play decisions are not too difficult. It has got a few reactive cards in Vines of Vastwood and Swords to Plowshares, other than these it's just play creatures and put them sideways.
Something with a little more perseverance:
These are just example decks in which Qasali Pridemage fits. I'm sure you can do better than this and I'm looking forward to see some reactions!
Hope you enjoyed, see you next time,
Johan
First of all: I love Qasali Pridemage. It's just a perfect utility card (as you can see in many Legacy-Maverick decklists).
ReplyDeleteBut in my opinion there are some other arguments why this card won't see much more play in the near future...
1. There is no real exalted-deck around. And if you're trying to build one, you'll most likely don't end up in green. The exalted-ability seems not really necessary in most strong GW-lists (like Auraproof) you'll find today. It's a small upside, thats for sure, but you can't really count on that (especially if you plan to kill some other permanent with the wizard)
2. There is Wickerbough Elder. Sure, it's a five-mana-dude which enters the battlefield as a 3/3, but the fact that it's just green and his body is out of Lightning-Bolt-Range makes it a strong alternative to the Pridemage. Flexibility is almost everything in a format like this...
3. There are a lot of annoying artifacts and enchantments in the current peasant-meta. Thats the main argument for that awesome cat. And he deserves any sideboard-slot he can possibly get. But if you're trying to build a competitive deck in these colors, you won't build around him as some kind of center of the deck. He's kind of the perfect wingman though ;-)
yo, and over here i do think dat pridemage is underplayed.
ReplyDelete