This season is about to get a lot more brutal! Corvus Glaive has arrived and is the season's wild card. He can arrive as your savior, discarding precisely what you need out of your hand, or as your worst nemesis, discarding both cards you need to win. Do you fancy your odds?
Corvus is a 3-mana 5-power card, which is a premium stat line. But his Glaive is double-edged, cutting two cards off your hand and rewarding you with one extra energy every turn. Two cards are a steep price— but can we use that in our favor?
Whenever a new card comes out, I try to compare it to an old one and see how it stacks up, and what comes to mind this time is Electro: they both cost 3 energy and give extra energy. The significant difference is their drawbacks. Glaive's best decks will likely try to use both discard and ramp to win— something that Electro decks cannot do.
The answer seems simple: have both cards that want to be discarded and cards that we can drop on the board with the extra energy. Is it that simple, though?
Discard Renaissance…?
When Discard needed America Chavez the most, she vanished.
Since that fateful day when Chavez was nerfed, Discard Decks have been far less reliable, and, due to that, they have fallen quite a bit behind. Corvus isn't here to fix that central issue, though. He won't make the Discard more reliable, but he'll be a powerful new tool for the archetype. Energy has always been a powerful tool, and having more for discard decks might be what the archetype needed.
Last season, we got Miek, who breathed new life into Discard Decks, and this time around, we'll get two more cards: that match made in heaven, Corvus, and Proxima Midnight. Even though we'll need to wait another week to put them together, the couple was meant for each other, and I believe they might elevate the archetype together #relationshipgoals.
Alongside Miek, maybe all three will be the boost Discard needed(although getting them all might be expensive).
Show Them the Pointy End!
Usually, when I pay close attention to a new card, I try to think of cards that could wreck our plans, and I must say that Corvus doesn't have a single counter. No card in the game counters extra energy. Likewise, there are no cards that prevent you from discarding. The only possible counter that Corvus has is himself… discarding precious cards that you need could feel pretty bad no matter how much energy you get in exchange.
Now that we've discussed the new cards, let's talk about some great synergies that our General Glaive has:
Firstly, we need to look at cards that want to be at the end of his Glaive: cards that want to be discarded. We have a few of those:
Some cards benefit from discarding cards and could further benefit from Corvus being a cheap discard outlet:
There is another possibility, leaning on the ramp side of his effect. One deck out there that likes energy and doesn't care much about losing cards because they often play just one each turn: I'm talking about Sandman Ramp. Glaive, alongside Electro and Wave, could help that deck ramp even more efficiently.
Now that we have discussed who could pair well with Glaive let's look at some decks:
Dualglove's Day 1 Corvus Glaive Decks
Give and Take
How do we not worry about discarding cards? By making more cards to discard, of course! This deck is similar to Loki in that it can be pretty unpredictable, winning by discarding cards and adding new ones to our hand to raise Morbius, The Collector, and Miek or by playing the random stuff we generate, streamlined by Quinjet's discount and Corvus' extra energy.
Ol' Reliable
This is the Apocalypse shell that we all know and love with the addition of Miek and Corvus. Corvus will be a risk like Hellcow was, but he gives you more energy and is cheaper, which I believe will make this classic better than it ever was.
Corvus' Cassino
Do you have Lady Luck by your side? Are you the ultimate gambler? If you answered yes to both questions, this deck is for you. We have some cards that could empty our entire hand here, but we won't worry about that since we are blessed by divine luck, constantly getting Hela on the last turn by drawing her or through Lockjaw.
Glaive Ramp
Remember what I said about Sandman? This deck uses only the energy side of Glaive, but it uses it well. More consistently getting one more energy to fuel all these big drops and combos is quite powerful. A surprising trick you can pull is a turn 4 Black Panther, a Zola on top of Panther on 5, and an Odin on top of Zola on 6(trust me on this one, it's an obscure combo that most people don't know).
Corvus' Invisible Army
Another classic with a new twist— Corvus- adds another possibility to win without relying on the MODOK Hela combo. You can use his ramp to drop some of your big guys earlier than usual without needing Limbo or Invisible Woman to function. Getting a new combo line on a deck is valuable and shouldn't be ignored.
Variants
Corvus' Spotlight Variant is looking good, and it matches the other members of the Black Order. You can't skip this one if you've been collecting them so far! We also have another menacing, vicious variant on the trigger for Corvus that will arrive somewhere in the future. This is the first art from Seth Adams on Snap, and he is making quite an entrance— though it's currently unknown when this variant will be released.
But is Corvus the Herald of the Discard Revolution?
I cannot honestly say if he'll be worth your precious tokens or keys, but I'll say that he feels incomplete without his counterpart, Proxima Midnight. I suggest you grab neither if you can only grab one of those two. But if you can get them both, I believe they will be awesome together. All the decks that focus on Discard that I listed above should be more powerful with the inclusion of Proxima, so keep that in mind when weighing your decision.
One positive for Corvus is that his spotlight has two unique cards, so if you miss them, they might tip the scales for you. Gladiator has been a staple in decks that need raw power in a 3-cost card, and X-23 is a card that elevates the Destroy deck into a menace.
