Surge of Salvation Deep Dive

Surge of Salvation is, frankly put, absurd.

But you probably already know that, and you're here to either find new uses for it, see what it does that you might've missed, or potentially disagree with me that it's good, and that you should keep playing Blacksmith's Skill instead.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some BSS (I won my first major tournament with Hammer thanks to the 4x BSS in the SB).

That said, Surge is better in a lot of ways (both in a vacuum, and in the context of the format. There is a lot to break down on this card, and at the end of this, I'll do a direct comparison to Blacksmith's Skill.

This is a lot to take in, so let's highlight the key aspects that a lot of people miss, 1 part at a time.

1. "YOU gain hexproof until end of turn."

2. "PERMANENTS you control gain hexproof until end of turn."

3. "Prevent all damage that black and/or red sources would deal to CREATURES you control."

So what does each part stop?

1. "YOU gain hexproof until end of turn."

-Discard Spells: Grief, Thoughtseize, Inquisition, Tourach,

-Burn Spells (to the face): Bolt, Lava Spike, Searing Blaze, Tribal Flames, Skullcrack

-Sacrifice/Edicts: Sheoldred's Edict, Liliana of the Veil -2, Riveteer's Charm

-Some Mill Spells: Archive Trap, Hedron Crab, Jace, the Perfected Mind

-Weird Cards: Shining Shoal, Necromentia/The Stone Brain, Hurkyl's Recall, Shaman of the Pack

-Combo Finishers: Archon of Cruelty Triggers, Valakut Triggers, Charbelcher, Calibrated Blast (they actually have to shoot themselves/their creature), Rotpriest

2. "PERMANENTS you control gain hexproof until end of turn."

-Blowouts: Force of Vigor, Shattering Spree, Prismari Command, Kolaghan's Command, Fury, Wear//Tear, Yawgmoth, Fire//Ice,

-Spot Removal: The highlights are Solitude, Leyline Binding, Prismatic Ending, Teferi Time Raveler (you can respond to the cast with Surge, and they won't be able to bounce any of your permanents), March of Otherworldly Light, Unholy Heat, the list goes on and on. If it targets, Surge stops it.

3. "Prevent all damage that black and/or red sources would deal to CREATURES you control." (the least important mode)

-Free blocks: You can throw dudes in front of a bunch of RB creatures and fog all the damage their creatures would do to your dudes.

-Damage-based Sweepers: Brotherhood's End

-You can block Kaldra

***Note that this card will not stop deflecting palm since it neither targets, nor does damage to your creatures.

Now, the real question that everyone is asking: which is better?

If we are really narrowing it down to the advantages one has over the other, it boils down to this:

Skill partially covers "Destroy" sweepers, whereas Surge eschews the ability to fight EE, but providing a lot more flexibility in covering all targeted removal, burn spells, edicts, discard spells, and many combo finishes.

Additionally, here is a list of the key cards that Skill covers which Surge misses, and vice versa. ***I will not cover every corner-case modern card, but rather focus on the most played cards that you might see come up across multiple archetypes.

Reactive Uses

Skill interacts with: Engineered Explosives*, Supreme Verdict*, Path of Peril*, Hidetsugu Consumes All*, Blast Zone*, Dress Down*

Surge interacts with: Force of Vigor, Shattering Spree, Prismari Command, Kolaghan's Command, Fury, Wear//Tear, Teferi, Time Raveler, Thoughtseize

One thing I want to note is that all of the cards under Skill but not Surge have asterisks next to them. This is because while Skill interacts with these cards, it only partially covers your. The reality is that if a strong opponent pops an EE for 1 or cast HCA, Blast Zone, Dress Down, Path of Peril, or Verdict, you are in a pretty terrible spot as it stands.

On the other hand, Fully countering FoV, Spree, the Commands, Fury, W//T, T3f, or discard effects (not to mention the combo kills Surge stops), you will simply often win the game from that blowout.

Proactive uses

Both cards are predominantly reactive elements, focused on countering your opponents' interaction and pushing through a kill. That doesn't mean however, that they don't have proactive angles.

This will most often come up in scenarios where either your OP has T3f in play, meaning that you can't respond to their interaction, or in situations where you expect them to have 2+ pieces of interaction available on the same turn.

Take a scenario where you want to go for an Inkmoth kill but have to fight through a T3f. You can assume your OP has creature removal, but they may also have Binding or a disenchant effect. Since neither a single Skill nor Surge can win here against both off of Aid, we will assume we have Paladin in hand. If you have Hammer in play and cast Surge, the OP has to respond with the disenchant, otherwise they lose to "Animate Inkmoth, play Paladin, equip Hammer" since both the hammer and Inkmoth have hexproof. If you have Skill instead, you have to pick either the Inkmoth or the Hammer and simply pray.

***Note that if your OP does respond to the Surge, you can simply not go for the kill, and take another line if it is available. 

***Note 2: Your Paladin will not have hexproof in the above scenario, since you have to cast the Surge prior to casting the Paladin.

Now, I am all for "Jam and make em have it" magic, but Surge making your life simpler is a big win, and it is one of the main reasons I will be leaning into the card more than Skill.

A quick "what about Spell Pierce"?

While I don't cover Spell Pierce in this article, I do want to mention it here. Spell Pierce is a powerful card that can become MUCH better or worse depending on exact timing, how hands line up, etc. The reason I am focusing on Surge vs. Skill is because both are available to every iteration of hammer (specifically the Mono White builds), whereas you must splash blue in order to deploy pierce reliably.

I also believe that Surge's ability to counter combo kills makes the card more valuable in Mono White than Azorius Hammer.

At the end of the day, I think both Surge and Skill are very powerful reactive options to play in Hammer, and while I am much higher on Surge after getting crushed by FoV repeatedly, a 4/1, 3/2, or 4/2 (Surge/Skill) split is likely correct, and can be customized based on your expected meta.

The REAL tl;dr:
"Skill good. Surge good-er. Build accordingly."