Back on Monday, June 29th, Wizards made the interesting decision to ban Seeker of Skybreak in Pauper. Despite the fact that the Seeker+Bow combo was legal for such a short period of time, its immediate dominance and problematic potential caused it to get axed. Yet, Hawkeye’s Bow is still here, and it appears that players are already finding other ways to abuse it.
A New Take on Bow Combo
At its core, this Temur shell that just 5-0d a Pauper League is looking to assemble a new two-card combo. Identical to the Seeker combo, Tidewater Minion and Hawkeye’s Bow create infinite damage, abusing the elemental’s ability to untap itself. The only difference between the two combos is Tidewater Minion’s massive mana value, slowing things down significantly.
To help mitigate the disparity, this deck features a handful of ways to ramp to Tidewater Minion. Pairing Cleansing Wildfire with any of your Indestructible Bridges, for example, easily gets you from two to four mana without putting you down on cards. Malevolent Rumble offers similar utility while digging for either of your combo pieces.
Both cards curve nicely into Writhing Chrysalis, netting you more Eldrazi Spawn tokens and putting a big blocker in play to buy you time. Thanks to the extra mana these Spawn tokens provide, it’s pretty easy to jam Tidewater Minion as a follow-up with Dispel or Tamiyo’s Safekeeping as backup.
Given how essential it is to find these protective elements against disruptive strategies, this deck also incorporates plenty of card draw. The best option of the bunch is Perilous Snare, which pairs particularly well with Cryogen Relic. Bitter Reunion serves as a two-mana piece of card selection, too, while doubling as a Haste enabler to make comboing off in one turn a possibility.
Fairer and More Balanced
Overall, while the Bow combo is still scary here, this deck is significantly less oppressive than previous Seeker variants. With no threat of winning on turn three, your opponents aren’t under as much pressure to mulligan for cheap removal. Similarly, Mono-Blue Terror or Faeries decks no longer need to worry about you resolving both combo pieces on the play before they have Counterspell ready.
This deck is also vulnerable to a wide range of hate cards. Artifact removal spells like Cast into the Fire not only answers Bow, but also exiles your Bridges to slow you down considerably. While Tidewater Minion does have the upside of having four toughness against the red decks, this benefit is canceled out by its weakness to Pyroblast.
Besides giving your opponent more opportunities to react, this deck’s slower closing speed is a liability versus other combo decks as well. Making things worse, you have graveyard hate versus Spy Combo and no ways to reliably kill Tireless Tribe.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t matchups where this deck shines. Slower decks like Tron can still struggle versus the combo, but this deck seems far away from banworthy territory. There is plenty of room for innovation, though, so the success of Hawkeye’s Bow moving forward will definitely be worth monitoring.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!