Flailing Soldier: An Upside?

Pauper forum

Posted on Aug. 2, 2021, 9:16 p.m. by BruhYouFarted

(Ill refer to Flailing Soldier as he/him.)

Flailing Soldier is a 1-mana 2/2 with an interesting ability. Any player can spend 1 colorless to give him -1 -1, but can also give him +1 +1. On the draw, he doesn't do much more than tap 2 lands and mildly screw your opponent's tempo. So instead, I will examine him on the play. To his upsides. He can survive one round of his own ability, so as long as your mana goes toe-to-toe with your opponent, he will stick without further intervention. He is also a great defensive creature. However, I believe the best usage of him is just him laying on the battlefield. He is very good at stalling the game out, due to scaring attackers or making you opponent tap all their lands, he can stall enough to be able to take the game over with haymakers in the late game. (P.S: When boosting him, let each of his boosts resolve before boosting him again. In response to multiple boosts at once, your opponent can tap out and kill him before the boosts resolve.)

Now, the downsides. Opponents don't have to activate his ability, so make sure to have relevant instants or cards with flash in hand in case they don't attack or spend their mana on a spell. Also because of his irrelevancy on the draw, make sure to add discard -> draw spells (like Faithless Looting for example) to pitch him more better cards in the situation.

In all, Flailing Soldier could be a great 1-drop for a control-type deck and he could just be a great fit in many sideboards against creature-based aggro strategies. If he can leave you alone from creatures for at least 2 turns, he has done his job. If he makes your opponents tap-out to kill him, he has done his job. If he can outperform any 1-drop could in a situation, He did his job. As a 1-drop, Flailing Soldier is horribly overlooked, and deserves more play.

Gruul_Ultimatum says... #2

nah it's too weak and easy to remove. you can't really say it's done it's job in any of those situations. if your opponent kills it with it's own effect, they just gained card advantage by using 0 cards to kill 1 of yours. a control deck would rather have Delver of Secrets  ^Flip.

August 2, 2021 11:18 p.m.