Wander of Mausoleums U
Creature - Spirit
Flying

Whenever a Spirit enters the battlefield under your control, Mausoleum Wanderer gets +1/+1 until the end of turn.

Sacrifice Mausoleum Wanderer: Counter target instant or sorcery spell unless its controller pays X, where X is Mausoleum Wanderer's power.
1/1

It is a flying, scaleable curse catcher. In a void it is almost a strict upgrade to CC with both flying and the ability to scale up it, but its a spirit instead of a Merfolk so it does not have the tribal support.

Spirits have been getting good though, this could be a critical piece in a spirit tribal deck if that ever happened, though my assumption is it would just basically be Merfolk with spirits instead.

I found 1 three drop Spirit lord. The spirits generally are more disruptive than the merfolk. The Spell Queller thread is already talking about Spirits tribal

This card is insane. Cursecatcher doesn't have flying.

This card is everything Spiketail Hatchling wants to be. Spiketail Hatchling style Fish used to be a deck and I could see it making a comeback with this card.

Judge's Familiar

It being a spirit is honestly less important for lords than it is for Cavern of Souls, but there are other spirit synergy cards in that tribe as it emerges that are not specifically lords. Rattlechains for instance.

I think the comparison to Judges Familiar is ok, but they both have ups and downs. Familiar being 2 colors is not really an advantage other than mono white decks can run it and its creature type is lacking.

@desolutionist

Lol, this card is not "insane". A better term for this card is unplayable garbage.

@Saya said:

Judge's Familiar

dingdingdingdingding

Now, that said, Judge's Familiar is a very fine Magic Card. I love it to tears. (It carries a Civic Saber in its little talons like a BAWS.) However, the only penetration it has seen into eternal is Legacy Blue Martyr, that I'm aware of.

Wanderer is an upgrade over Familiar, though. It's a better tribe and it has the potential to tax spells more heavily if you're playing a bunch of Flash creatures. Like, you know, the Spirit Flash Lord himself, Rattlechains.

Good enough? I don't know. But, hey, I was doubtful that Eldrazi was good enough when they spoiled the recent midrange Eldrazis, and they've made some penetration. It did require the restriction of Golem to do that, however...

I first read the +1/+1 counters as being permanent. Now that I realize that the counters go away at end of turn, I'm rather in agreement with gkraigher.

@evouga Yea, he basically has Spiritfall. That being said spirits have a lot of good token generators.

@evouga said:

I first read the +1/+1 counters as being permanent. Now that I realize that the counters go away at end of turn, I'm rather in agreement with gkraigher.

"Unplayable garbage" is a very strong term for this card. Cursecatcher sees play, so the baseline for the ability to be relevant is there. Familiar does not see play, so we can probably conclude that adding flying is not enough to make up for the lack of tribal synergy.

Is "Spirit-Prowess" and the ability to occasionally hit your opponent for more than a Force Spike enough to overcome that same tribal deficiency? Isn't that a solid "maybe?"

Imagine this board state. You've got this dork online on turn 1 and some Flashy spirits in your hand. Rattlechains, Spell Queller, I dunno whatever. You attack. You have lots of options. If they try to block with something, you can cast your Flashy dude in response to pump. Or, if you want to play control, you hang back to cast your Flashies on the opponent's end step.

The opponent now has to factor in that you can Force Spike him for an unknown amount before he acts. If Flashy is a Spell Queller, it gets even more complicated; the Queller can hit a spell and his buddy can help win the counter war if required.

So, like I said, this card is a totally solid "MAYBE."

Cursecatcher sees play, but only in Merfolk decks, i.e. he is not playable on his own but only with the support of a critical mass of other Merfolk.

If Wanderer sees play, it will similarly be in a Spirit tribal deck, and I don't think there is a critical mass of playable Spirits to support him. And like Merfolk the strategic orientation of the deck will be very aggressive, with incidental disruption from Spirit of the Labyrinth, etc -- I don't see wanting to hold back mana to maybe Mana Leak opposing spells.

@evouga You still get to use that mana at eot to cast those spells so there is no tempo loss for flash spirits.

@evouga said:

Cursecatcher sees play, but only in Merfolk decks, i.e. he is not playable on his own but only with the support of a critical mass of other Merfolk.

Right, so the big question is whether
Cursecatcher
MINUS Tribal synergy with Merfolk
PLUS Flying
PLUS Spirit-prowess
PLUS Making other spirits into Force Spikes, basically

Is good enough. I've got no idea!

@MaximumCDawg said:

@evouga said:

Cursecatcher sees play, but only in Merfolk decks, i.e. he is not playable on his own but only with the support of a critical mass of other Merfolk.

Right, so the big question is whether
Cursecatcher
MINUS Tribal synergy with Merfolk
PLUS Flying
PLUS Spirit-prowess
PLUS Making other spirits into Force Spikes, basically

Is good enough. I've got no idea!

Yes, I agree with that analysis. It seems Spirits are being pushed in a big way power-level wise in the current set, so it's entirely possible additional playable Spirits remain to be spoiled. I just don't think the current options (Geist of St Traft, Spirit of the Labyrinth) are good enough to build a deck around.

Yeah, at the moment the Spirit Tribe is less beefy than Eldrazi, has worse lords than Merfolk or Slivers, and is less disruptive than humans.

Of course, if we get a land that taps for 3 mana of any color as long as we spend it on a Spirit, things change in a big way.

@evouga Well, I'd argue that Spirit of the Lab certainly can be built around? That being said, Spirit of the Lab alone isn't good enough!