Pteramander

Creature — Salamander

Flying

: Adapt 4. This ability costs less to activate for each instant and sorcery card in your graveyard. (If this creature has no +1/+1 counters on it, put four +1/+1 counters on it.)

Discussion (51)

Kazierts on Fast and slippery

4 weeks ago

This is a very interesting archetype that can be build on a budget and there's more than one way you can do it. However, these types of decks, called "Bogles", normally use cheap creatures, like Slippery Bogle. So maybe you could replace Murkfiend Liege and Sturdy Hatchling for cheaper creatures like: - Faerie Seer - The faerie isn't unblockable but flying makes it easier to avoid your opponent's creatures. Also, it's ability to scry can help you set up your next turns better. - Gladecover Scout - Just a green version of the bogle. - Spire Tracer - A cheap attacker with decent evasion. - Pteramander - Just in case you decide to invest in a more instant and sorcery heavy build. I have some other suggestion regarding auras if you're interested. For some reason my comment wasn't working properly unless I put it weirdly like this, so I'm sorry if it's hard for you to read this way.

Bolo33 on Please Help - cheap deck ...

1 month ago

Standard. Cheap?

That's hard to bear, for most. The thing I do to keep my decks cheap is avoid Shock Lands( Steam Vents and the like) and cards like Fabled Passage . I'm not denying their value, but are they really 10-20 times more valuable (in the game) than a card like Temple of Epiphany ? They both tap, and both give an add on.

Also, Sleeves exist, to protect cards. Cards can be bought cheaper when they are in a less-than-new condition. And foils are also a bit unnecessary, if your goal is to stay cheap.

Now for an actual idea. I was looking at the cards you liked at the top of this post. Pteramander and Crackling Drake are both big on instants, and getting Humongous as a result of them. Enigma Drake has already rotated, it is no longer standard legal. Two other red and blue cards that get Gargantuan as a result of instants/sorceries are Erratic Cyclops and Wee Dragonauts . Cards that help you cast such spells are Goblin Electromancer , and (sorta) Spellkeeper Weird . The instants/sorceries you want to cast with this can be damaging type, card advantage type, orcreature buff/debuff, or even the first two of these combined. (Counterspells are essential, too)

For Damage, Shock , Lava Coil and Electrodominance are good. Card-Drawing, Opt , Winged Words , and Chemister's Insight all draw and give card advantage. Infuriate , Sure Strike , and Sonic Assault both buff/debuff. Ral's Outburst both damages and gives card advantage. For a damaging deck, you may want Electrostatic Field . For a card-drawing deck, The Magic Mirror and Niv-Mizzet, Parun make a great combo. If you want to simply buff your creatures to victory, make sure to keep the pumping creatures.

Counterspells are essential, I find Quench is surprisingly useful. Ionize is great too, and everyone seems to love Mystical Dispute too, although it is pricey. Convolute is a cheaper (monetary-wise) thing to use.

I hope this helped you decide on cards!

Obrubnik99 on Please Help - cheap deck ...

1 month ago

Hello! About a half year ago my friends showed me MTG and i fell in love with this game. Until now, I only played with my friends so we didn't really care about the formats of MTG. I used three decks that i bought used from some guy. I think he didn't know much about MTG, because i bought all the three decks from him for like 3$. The decks were: 1. Preconstructed Planeswalker Deck Mu Yanling from Core Set 2020 (I think...) 2. Preconstructed Challenger Deck Second Sun Control 3. A blue-red nonpreconstructed deck in a plastic box with the name Izzet Drakes on it. It consists of cards like Crackling Drake or Enigma Drake or Pteramander and a bunch of sorceries and instants.

Now to the point. I would like to try some tournaments at my local shop. I'm not really familiar with the formats (so maybe someone could explain it to me, please) but the reason why i posted this in the Standard section is because two reasons: 1. There's a tournament for Standard every week that is free (I don't want to pay a lot when I'm beginning) 2. Someone told me once, that a competetivdeck in Standard will be much cheaper than in Modern

So i would like to probably build a competetiv deck for Standard, unless someon recommends me a better format. The reason why I want to build a new deck is because: 1. I don't think any of my current decks is good enough to be played in some (even small) competition 2. The only deck that is fully legal in Standard is the Mu Yanling Planeswalker Deck, which is probably the worst of the three

I want the deck to stay under 30$ if possible, and the other thing, that is probably impossible, but i will say it here anywayw is - I know that every autumn four of the oldest sets rotate out of Standard, so could it be possible to recommend a deck that would NOT rotate in autumn 2020? Please recommend some decks and help me! Thanks for all your answers!

Martin

P.S.: Sorry for the long post...

Robbie2540 on $5 Izzet Drakes

2 months ago

Thanks for posting I’ve been looking for a budget Izzet Drakes deck and this is perfect for me! any advice on a budget but viable side deck? Also have you thought about Murmuring Mystic or Improbable Alliance ? For some added chump blockers? Or would that slow it down?? And would Thing in the Ice  ^Flip be the upgrade to Pteramander ? Thank you!

Magnanimous on U Control

2 months ago

Remove most of your creatures. Most of these decks focus on using small evasive threats to pressure and gain card advantage, by the time you cast your 4+ CMC creatures (or Bident of Thassa ) it will likely be too late to really make an impact, especially for such underwhelming threats compared to Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet , Questing Beast , etc. If you do want bombs, I'd suggest 6 at most that should all be castable on 4 lands or fewer without Thassa, God of the Sea like weaknesses. Your three drop creatures ( Uninvited Geist  ^Flip and Thassa, God of the Sea ) are at best a 3/3 unblockable and an easily disrupted threat that will most likely not be a creature for most of the game. Departed Deckhand is also way to fragile in my opinion, but if the downside doesn't factor into gameplay often then it could be fine.

This format has two competitive mono-blue decks that I know of, Mono-Blue Devotion in Theros (starring Master of Waves ) and "Burchett Blue"/Mono-Blue Aggro from a relatively recent set. I recommend basing your deck off of one of those lists and adding more powerful cards, making the deck cheaper/faster (standard allows for slower games), and/or changing the deck to suit your metagame ( AEtherize might be a great sideboard card).

I'd prefer to play the Burchett Blue variant but heavier on control with few threats and tons of instants. The threats would likely be a total of around 8 Pteramander , Thing in the Ice  ^Flip, and Baral, Chief of Compliance . The other direction is a more creature heavy version that wants to end the game quickly with Tempest Djinn and Master of Waves , using tempo creatures and Curious Obsession for value. That version would have few non-creature spells, likely just 4 Curious Obsession and up to 8 counters/interaction cards. This is the only deck where I think Leyline of Anticipation could be good, but I generally dislike the card as most of your threats are cheap (allowing you to easily keep mana up anyway) and there's not a huge advantage to playing creatures at instant speed. You could also do something in the middle, but try to have some idea which side you fall on, spell heavy or creature heavy.

Suggestions/Cards to think about: - Chart a Course - Spectral Sailor - Pteramander - AEtherize - Tempest Djinn - Master of Waves - Tidebinder Mage - Mausoleum Wanderer - Merfolk Trickster - Siren Stormtamer

Kjartan on UW Flyers

2 months ago

FOkay, I have some ideas for upgrades.

First off. You overall playstyle is pretty aggressive, but you have some cards that are geared to a very slow playstyle.

Perhaps you could do with fewer lands, and cutting the Absorb s, and like I said earlier, the Vensers.

Absorb forces you to keep mana open while you would really rather be committing to the board, growing your forces. If it's not too expensive, you could play SpellQueller instead. Otherwise, a couple Spell Pierce would be a fine replacement. They allow you to commit power to the taple, while just keeping a single mana up when needed. Personally, I would only play 2 counters, though.

Venser, the Sojourner is easily your worst card, though. Other than being pretty expensive compared to your relatively fast playstyle, his abilities just don't work too great with your cards. Making your team unblockable is not that valuable in a flyers deck, where most your team can't be blocked anyways, and you only have 2 cards in the deck that you would really like to flicker, so his +2 is not powerful either. A lot of the time, he's going to just sit there and do nothing.

Pteramander is a fine card. Nothing much wrong with it, but you're only ever going to grow it when the game goes really long. So you could possibly find a replacement for them. I recommend at least a few Spectral Sailor

Some other random suggestions that are not insanely expensive would be Pride of the Clouds and Supreme Phantom

Also, unless you specifically wish to play modern, which I don't knock, modern is awesome, you could easily make this a Pioneer deck.

Mdmaster13 on Golgari Scales Aggro

2 months ago

One of the toughest things to learn in Magic is printed costs are often not their actual cost lol and yes Avatar of the Resolute is one of them. One of the cards I had to learn it for was Pteramander . Some cards need settup. Although, leading T1 with a Pelt Collector or E1 means a t2 Avatar would at least drop as a 2 mana 4/3 which is nothing to sneeze at. Remember you can stack your evolve and Avatar triggers

Gekix on Izzet Burning Delver

3 months ago

I think Dreadhorde Arcanist is very good in this deck, especially if you add some more cantrips ( you're not using alot of them, but they're really helpfull because they translate into land drops early and your threats are low costed in a way you can find them easily by chaining cantrips ). Also, instead of going full burn, try to play some soft counterspells like remand or spell pierce. That way your threats can stay longer and generate more value than the burn spell you'd cast with the same amount of mana. And one last thing is that playing some Young Pyromancer 's in the main is a good idea because that way you are not too punished by single target removal and you have alot of bodies to either chump block until you can find lethal or just get past blockers so that you can find lethal.

In general I play Izzet Delver at my LGS and these are the main differences i can spot between our decks ( usually some slots are up to preferance... for instance I like running Pteramander s because I have more cantrips, or I try to abuse more spectacle cards like Light Up the Stage because it becomes a 1 mana draw 2, but you can add other cards if you feel otherwise in those slots )