The Many Flavors of Galvanic Relay in Post-Ban Pauper

In one of my previous articles, I mentioned that Pauper might be entering a new combo era. Indeed, not long after its publication, Pauper became almost unplayable because of , which was an oppressive and unhealthy strategy for the format.

After 's inevitable ban, Storm lost its main win condition, which was a Squirrel army backed by . However, the entire mana-generating base and most importantly still remained in the format. Although we have had storm cards like or in the format for ages, until now we have not had any as interesting and fitting as many strategies as .

In this article, I want to look at three different decks that use storm and the titular card. The presence of Galvanic Relay in combo, control or big mana, and midrange rosters shows how versatile and desirable the storm mechanic can be.

Big Mana's House

Generating massive amounts of mana via the Urzatron plus huge card advantage off seemed like a natural fit. To tick up the storm count, it is perfect to use cheap cards like , , , and other mana rocks that also draw cards. After completing a set of the three Urza's lands and having the appropriate amount of fixing on the table, we are able to shoot the opponent in one to two turns thanks to and .

However, the deck struggles in the early game. Gathering Tron lands and fixing takes some time, and the lack of early defensive cards like is painful. With a little bit of luck, can clear the board and let us live into the late game, where Galvanatron is unmatched. The deck is hard to play, the correct sequencing often not obvious, but winning grants a lot of satisfaction. Let's be honest, who doesn't like casting a fireball for lethal?

Marathon Mana

Another intriguing example is the spiritual successor to Squirrel Storm, but with a big twist. basically turns into a that allows you to finish the game. Unlike the previously discussed Galvanotron, we don't have mana coming from Urza's lands here. Instead, we benefit from depletion lands and acceleration in the form of , , and . Card advantage is provided by , , and of course . Multiple Blight-Priests on the battlefield make the combo even easier to set up, because each of them triggers separately for each Weather of the Storm copy.

The deck has a few weak spots, like land destruction or tempo decks that counter key spells and keep up pressure at the same time. Its power level definitely is far from before the bans, but the gameplay feels similar and will appeal to storm fans from other formats.

Mighty Morphin Midrangers

Green and red strategies aren't usually destined to generate such card advantage. However, almost half of this particular deck are cards that at least replace themselves, like or . The big mana bursts find themselves replaced by simple ramping from and . (The latter turns into a cantrip when it targets one of our own indestructibe lands.) They enable us to cast a few spells in one turn, which of course makes more powerful. But even without Relay, it's hard for this midrange build to run out of gas. The big bodies of Packmate and Party deal a lot of damage. Even one or two hits from our creatures can be deadly, when supported by and .

Unfortunately, the current metagame is still adapting and grappling with its strongest deck at the moment—Affinity. Like every deck, Red-Green Storm is sensitive to artifact removal like and gets ricochets for Affinity's guilt.

may well prove to be one of the format's most important cards in the future. It's worth always keeping it somewhere in the back of your mind when building your decks. Perhaps no one has found the best home for it yet, or it is waiting for some future release to turn the format upside down again.

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