Saturday, March 26, 2011

Caw-Blade Combo

Playing Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk with equipments, or Caw-Blade as it has come to be known, is the most powerful thing in Standard right now. You get a win condition, hard to deal with evasion, and card advantage out of this simple two card synergy.


Spot removal doesn't work. If you play Lightning Bolt on a Squadron Hawk, he'll have three buddies right behind him to pick up the slack. It may delay you for a turn, but using spot removal will be a losing battle.

If you have a Naturalize or a Crush, you can destroy the Equipment that Stoneforge brings in. The problem is, you've used up a card in your hand and your opponent still has the 1/2 on the battlefield.

One card that's seeing more and more play to stop this combo it Tumble Magnet. It never actually destroys a creature, but it can stop the sword bearer in its tracks for 3 turns. And unlike Naturalize, it works against non-equipped creatures, it works well with Proliferate, and it can be replayed thanks to bounce effects.

Two creatures that have are good at stopping Caw-Blade are Linvala, Keep or Silence and Baneslayer Angel. Even with a Sword, Squadron Hawks will not want to attack into either of these angels. It should also be noted that because these creatures are white, they will not be able to be stopped by either of the swords, where a card like Abyssal Persecutor would.

The most effective thing to do against Caw-Blade is playing a creature that can destroy artifacts. The creatures in Standard that do this are Manic Vandal, Oxidda Scrapmelter, Kor Sacntifiers, Virridian Corupter, and Acidic Slime. These cards allow you to remove the sword, while still keeping a creature on the battlefield. It's really the only way to keep up with the card advantage that Stoneforge provides.


I've got a R/G/W decklist that both uses the combo effectively and has the power to stop it quickly. I'll put it up sometime later today or tomorrow.

15 comments:

  1. I've used to play this with my friends but eventually sold all the cars... was a big mistake

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  2. you know what? i think ill get into it, one of my childhood friends was into something like this. let me know where i could learn more about it.

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  3. I don't play magic, but I enjoy reading all of the insane combos, and new mechanics they put into the game. It's just too expensive combined with 40k is the thing though. I can't do both!

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  4. Great post! Was a really good read! thanks for sharing!

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  5. I use to play Magic way back when, haven't been able to get back into it, very expensive.

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  6. I've always heard Magic is a pretty hard game to play. Is this really true?

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  7. @Jackie: The best place to start would be finding a small store that host events and sells cards. There you can watch a few games. If you want to start playing you can buy 2 pre-constructed decks and find a friend who will play with you. Here's a link to the official site, which has a sotre locator. You could also getting Duels of the Planeswalkers, which is a game for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 which runs about $10 and helps new players to get a firm grasp on the rules.
    http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=events/magic/fnm

    @gamthen & Wintermute: Magic is pretty expensive to play. I generally play on third party software called LackeyCCG. It allows you to construct any deck using any cards you want, and play other online. I also like to play Draft, which is a format where you don't need to bring any cards to play. You usually pay $12-16 and get three packs worth of cards that you use during the tournament. Everyone starts on the same level, so it comes down more to skill than how much you spend on cards.

    @Bebas Pikiran: It's a complex game, but it's not especially hard to play. If you are looking to get into it, it would be good to start with Duels of the Planeswalkers. Here you will see that the rules are simple, but that it can be hard to decide which move will be the best to make.

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  8. A few of my friends and I tried to get into Magic because a lot of our mutual friends played, but we quit after one of our friends destroyed us in a 1v1v1v1v1v1 match. He wrecked every. Single. One. Of. Us. And then we found out it was because he spent about $400 putting together the perfect deck. And that's when we quit.

    I admire people who are good, but when you find out stuff like this, it's like finding out a great sports player is taking steroids. It's not always cheating, but goddamn if it isn't close enough to piss me off.

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  9. My friends and I were thinking about getting into this sort of thing, your blog definitely looks like it'll be a great reference :) Following!

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  10. Never been to into card games. If I had a little bit of extra cash I could start something nice. I do enjoy competing so this was helpful and awesome.

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  11. Hmm..this looks like a well thought out game, following

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  12. I can honestly say I knew practically nothing about this topic until now, so thanks for the info. Following.

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  13. Very cool my fiancee really into magic and has been trying to get back into it so I'll give him this blog link! Thanks for follow me btw!

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