Auriok Champion MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Auriok Champion is a powerful asset for players looking to sustain a strong board presence. While it doesn’t directly allow you to draw more cards, it can become an indispensable part of your strategies, effectively protecting other valuable creatures with its pro-black and pro-red abilities, thus maintaining your card advantage on the battlefield.

Resource Acceleration: Though not traditionally a source of mana acceleration, Auriok Champion can indirectly contribute to resource acceleration by preserving your life total. With its lifegain ability, it enables you to stay in the game longer, using your life as a resource to leverage powerful cards and strategies that may come at the cost of life points.

Instant Speed: Auriok Champion’s strength does not lie in its speed of play but in the immediate impact it has once it lands on the field. Its resilience and passive benefits operate effectively from the moment it’s played and continues to offer advantages as long as it remains on the board, akin to the advantages instant-speed spells offer by providing benefits at crucial moments.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While the Auriok Champion does not require a card to be discarded to play, its presence on the board doesn’t prevent the need to discard when pressed by opponent strategies or effects that target hand resources. Players must weigh the Champion’s benefits against potential sacrifices elsewhere.

Specific Mana Cost: The casting cost of the Auriok Champion is particularly color-intensive, demanding two white mana. This can make it difficult to slot into multi-colored or mana-hungry decks where mana flexibility is key to a smooth game flow.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Despite its resilience and lifegain abilities, the investment of two mana for a 1/1 creature may be considered high when compared to other options. Players looking for an immediate impact on the game might find other creatures or spells more mana-efficient and versatile in a variety of situations.

Reasons to Include Auriok Champion in Your Collection

Versatility: Auriok Champion is an asset across varied deck types due to its protection abilities and passive life gain. It’s particularly powerful in decks that play numerous creatures, allowing you to optimize your life total with each spell cast.

Combo Potential: This card shines when combined with strategies that revolve around life gain or token generation. Its ability to provide incremental advantages can turn the tide in long-drawn-out battles where every life point counts.

Meta-Relevance: As the MTG metagame frequently features decks with red or black spells, Auriok Champion’s protection offers a resilient option against some of the most common removals in the game. Moreover, in metas where creature-based strategies prevail, it acts as a consistent life buffer, helping to edge out victories in tight matchups.

How to beat

Auriok Champion is a potent force in MTG, known for its resilience given the protection from black and from red. This makes the Champion a challenging obstacle, particularly in metas heavily reliant on those colors for removal spells. The key to overcoming the Auriok Champion lies in side-stepping its protection abilities. Rather than direct damage or destroy effects, one must employ board wipes that don’t target, like Supreme Verdict, or edict effects, such as Diabolic Edict, that force a player to sacrifice a creature without targeting it specifically.

Additionally, deploying creatures or spells with colorless damage sources, including artifacts or devoid creatures, circumvents Auriok Champion’s protection. Cards like Engineered Explosives offer a solution as well, since it destroys based on the converted mana cost without targeting and thus slips through protection. The Champion also folds to mass -1/-1 effects like Black Sun’s Zenith that apply across the field, again, bypassing its own protective capabilities.

Employing these strategies will reduce the Champion’s staying power, addressing its otherwise formidable defense. Understanding and navigating around its specific strengths are crucial for any player aiming to effectively deal with Auriok Champion on the battlefield.

BurnMana Recommendations

Mastering MTG is an ongoing quest, as dynamic as the game itself. Auriok Champion embodies that dynamic, offering unique strengths in both protection and life gain mechanics. Its niche role makes it a contemplative addition to any collection, ripe with synergies that can tip the scales in your favor. Looking at the MTG environment, strategic deck builders will appreciate the Champion’s resilience and its potential to enhance your plays. For those intrigued by this dual-purpose card, delve deeper with us. Discover strategies, deck builds, and comprehensive insights to not just play but dominate the game with Auriok Champion at your side.