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Magic: The Gathering is getting another Universes Beyond set this month with Marvel Super Heroes, and while you may have been looking forward to playing with Black Panther, Iron Man, Galactus, and more, don’t discount Hawkeye — or, specifically, his bow.
Clint Barton doesn’t have it easy as the “guy with a bow” alongside flying armor, gamma radiation, and whatever you’d describe Vision as. Still, his weapon of choice from the upcoming set could become a borderline-busted card, and if I were a betting man, I’d wager it’ll be banned before long.
Hawkeye’s Bow is a one-mana equipment card that gives the creature to which it’s attached +1/+0 and reach. So far, so bowlike.
In trying to make the bow feel as lethal in your deck as it feels in Hawkeye’s hands, however, Wizards of the Coast has added text that says: “Whenever equipped creature becomes tapped, it deals 1 damage to each opponent.”
This ability seems pretty innocent at first look, but the nastiest players already found a way to exploit it, thanks to some old cards that never seemed that relevant until now. Attaching Hawkeye’s Bow to a Seeker of Skybreak makes this an infinite combo with two commons, since its activated ability lets you untap a target creature. Magic designers stopped making creatures that could untap themselves for free a long time ago, but this little elf is still around and can be played in a bunch of formats, including Commander and Pauper.
Slap Hawkeye’s Bow on it, and you can tap the diminutive 2/1 Elf ad infinitum to ping everyone around the table for 1 damage each. This can happen naturally on turn three, or even by turn two if you add some mana acceleration to the package. That’s probably why, according to TCGplayer, the card’s value has shot up to around $5 (and climbing) from less than a dollar not long ago. It all feels likely to be shot down (pun intended), but it’s interesting that Wizards hasn’t pulled the trigger (bowstring?) yet.
Gavin Verhey, principal game designer on Magic: The Gathering and member of the Pauper Council, posted a video suggesting that the Pauper team will be monitoring this dual common combo. Bans are expected to be updated on June 30, but that might be too soon, since the new set launches only a few days earlier. The Pauper metagame is in a good state now, but the last time a two-card combo was around (Basking Broodscale plus Sadistic Glee) it caused a massive shift and forced a ban, so we’ll see what happens once this new combo is around. Surely, not including black (the color with the most card draw in the format) looks like a drawback, but red has potential too.
If you’re looking at exploiting this in other formats, a quick look at Scryfall shows that there are not a ton of ways to untap a creature for free. Tidewater Minion has the same ability as the Seeker of Skybreak, but it’s blue and it costs five mana. If you want to push the combo to three-card territory, then Lurking Roper is an option, as long as you add a source of lifegain on top, like a Basilisk Collar. Finally, Devoted Druid is a staple of infinite untap combos, but you’ll have to add a way to remove its -1/-1 counters, such as a Vizier of Remedies.
Verhey seems convinced that players will have enough removal to weather the storm for now, but you might still want to include extra interaction in your deck to be safe.
For more on the upcoming set, check out why Doom Prevails has a big, pricey reprint, and why we’re so pleased about the return of Kindred Discovery.
