Bloomburrow spoilers are coming out in full force, and there are a bunch that have players excited. There’s a new variant of Dark Confidant with some sweet potential. Hearthborn Battler is an aggressive threat that, like Ledger Shredder, rewards you and punishes your opponents whenever someone casts two spells in a turn. Ygra, Eater of All has opened the door for a bunch of new Food combos, too.
Today, we’re going to talk about one of the most hyped-up cards revealed thus far: Jackdaw Savior. Jackdaw Savior, like Ygra, will surely give rise to a bunch of combos in EDH and beyond. In a Standard environment, we have high hopes for this card to make its presence felt even without going infinite. Let’s see what all the buzz is about.
Scrap Trawler for Fliers?
Jackdaw Savior is a powerful card that is very reminiscent of Scrap Trawler. In Scrap Trawler’s case, any time an artifact is put into your graveyard, you can return an artifact with lesser mana value from your graveyard to your hand. Jackdaw Savior’s ability is similar, but this new card triggers when fliers you control are put into your graveyard from the battlefield.
Scrap Trawler was an integral part of the oppressive Krark-Clan Ironworks deck in Modern whose dominance ultimately led to a ban of the namesake card. It’s unlikely Jackdaw Savior will appear in a deck that is quite as broken, given how much easier it is to build a deck with a ton of cheap, value-centric artifacts in Modern than fliers.
However, there are a few key differences that make Jackdaw Savior stand out. First of all, whenever a flier you control dies, you get to bring back creatures with lesser mana value directly to play. This means that you don’t have to worry about paying the mana to replay your fliers from the graveyard. Secondly, while Jackdaw Savior’s ability only triggers whenever a flier you control dies, you are more than welcome to return creatures without Flying to play. These two important distinctions give Jackdaws Savior a lot of combo potential, as we will see in the upcoming sections.
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Vesperlark and Karmic Guide EDH Combos
Since Jackdaw Savior was spoiled, many players have tried to come up with any infinite combos they can centered around this card. As it turns out, there are a bunch of new combos out there for Commander players to enjoy. In general, most of these combos revolve around a few key pieces in addition to Jackdaw Savior, such as a repeatable sacrifice outlet like Ashnod’s Altar.
The first combo we are going to go over involves four cards. These are Jackdaw Savior, Vesperlark, Aarakocra Sneak, and Ashnod’s Altar. With Jackdaw Savior, Ashnod’s Altar, and Vesperlark in play and Aarokocra Sneak in your graveyard, you can create a loop where Aarokocra Sneak enters the battlefield infinite times! This lets you Venture into the Dungeon over and over. Because one of these Dungeon rooms forces a player to lose five life, you have the opportunity to win the game outright by following these steps:
- Sacrifice Vesperlark to Ashnod’s Altar.
- When Vesperlark leaves play, use its triggered ability to return Aarokocra Sneak from your graveyard to play. Venture into the Dungeon when Aarokocra Sneak enters.
- Sacrifice Aarokocra Sneak to Ashnod’s Altar. This will trigger Jackdaw Savior, allowing you to return Vesperlark to play
- Repeat the prior steps over and over
What makes this whole process work is that Vesperlark can return a flier with higher mana value than itself to the battlefield. When combined with Jackdaw Savior and a sacrifice outlet, looping your other fliers becomes trivial. A similar combo is available with Karmic Guide, which can also bring back high-cost fliers to play. With access to Ashnod’s Altar, Jackdaw Savior, Karmic Guide, and Soul of Migration in play, you can generate infinite mana and infinite Flying tokens by following these steps:
- Sacrifice Karmic Guide to Ashnod’s Altar
- Sacrifice Soul of Migration to Ashnod’s Altar. This will trigger Jackdaw Savior, letting you return Karmic Guide to play.
- When Karmi Guide enters, return Soul of Migration to play. You get two 1/1 Flying tokens.
- Repeat the prior steps over and over
Of note, there are plenty of variations of these combos, including different sacrifice outlets or big fliers other than Soul of Migration.
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Additional Shenanigans
Up to this point, we’ve focused on Jackdaw Savior’s ability to return creatures with Flying to play. However, we mentioned that Jackdaw Savior can technically return any creature to play, so long as the creature that left the battlefield had Flying. As a result, if you have Luminous Broodmoth in play, the world is truly your oyster.
Now, when a creature you control without Flying dies, it will come back with a Flying counter. Then, if it dies again, it will trigger Jackdaw Savior, letting you return a creature with lesser mana value to play. This is obviously an incredible value engine.
Another way to get extra value off of Jackdaw Savior is to get a copy of Wonder into your graveyard. Now, all your creatures dying will trigger Jackdaw Savior, even if they didn’t have Flying naturally. There are almost certainly more combos that become available with Luminous Broodmoth or Wonder in the picture, so make sure to be on the lookout for any cool synergies that players come up with.
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A Fairer Approach
Unsurprisingly, players are very intrigued by Jackdaw Savior’s combo potential. Still, the card is very strong in Standard when you simply play some other strong creatures to recur. In the Esper colors, there are a ton of potent fliers that survive rotation. Getting to curve Deep-Cavern Bat into Jackdaw Savior in Orzhov midrange seems very powerful. This way, you can take your opponent’s removal spell and pave the way for Jackdaw Savior. Throw in a one-drop flier like Faerie Dreamthief, and you’re in business.
For Azorius shells, we’ve seen tempo decks with lots of Flying threats perform well in the past. Spyglass Siren and Faerie Mastermind are great cards to pair with Jackdaw Savior. The reality is, if the opponent can kill Jackdaw Savior right away, assuming you have any creature to return, you are still getting a two-for-one on the exchange. If the opponent can’t kill it, combat becomes a nightmare for them, since your other fliers can generate value whenever they trade off with opposing creatures.
Jackdaw Savior is truly an awesome card. Chances are, there will be more combo lines that arise in the coming weeks as more players put their brains together. It’ll be cool to see how this card performs, both in an EDH and a Constructed setting. Expectations are high, and there’s certainly a lot to like.
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