Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re taking a look at Standard via the results from the recent StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open in Indianapolis, where a whopping 432 players duked it out, and still Five-Color Control comes out on top there and in the Cruise Qualifier. We’ll also take a look at the latest Alara Reborn spoilers beginning to trickle out amongst us and what Wizards has in store for us in just a few weeks. Let’s go!
Indy, Standardized
So this past weekend in Indianapolis over four hundred players went nuts with the new Standard environment. The Top 16 represented some old favorites, some new concoctions, and some clever choices. Let’s take a look at the winner, Five-Color Control. Here is a deck that had quite a few interesting choices. One of them is going heavy on the Planeswalkers, with a total of 5, meaning you’ll probably have one in your opening hand or first few draws. Secondly it runs a singleton Banefire, something that can simply end long, drawn-out games with Faerie players, and it runs two incredibly clever cards. The first is Wild Ricochet, a card that sneaks up on pretty much everyone. The brilliance of this four mana surprise cannot be underestimated. When your Dark Bant opponent attempts to Path to Exile your Plumeveil and you Wild Ricochet it to both the Rhox War Monk and the Doran the Siege Tower to leave them with a lone Noble Hierarch and an expression of horror…you’ll know what satisfaction really feels like.
The second awesome inclusion in this deck is Obelisk of Alara. Another sleeper, this guy ends so many games. Gaining five life a turn for just two mana is No Joke, particularly as you won’t be dropping this mana-heavy monster until you have a million mana anyway. Sure you have Walls of Reverence, but they can be killed or removed. Virtually no one but Bant Charm players have a maindeck answer to this card, as it’s even more handy than a Planeswalker in the Five-Color mirror. At least a Planeswalker can be attacked, while this just sits there and destroys them. Cryptic Command is generally the only card capable of even targeting it, so go nuts with this mad technology.
Moving down to third place we spot a new archetype, G/W Overrun. This is a very cool Play Monsters and Bash Face kinda deck. It runs both Ajani Goldmane and Elspeth, Knight-Errant, powerful token generators like Spectral Procession and Cloudgoat Ranger, and instead of using black mana for Bitterblossom, it uses green mana for acceleration into huge spells like Martial Coup and game-enders like Overrun. Debate has been had over whether Garruk Wildspeaker wouldn’t be a better fit, as he is more versatile and still provides the Overrun ability, albeit a turn later. My guess is the surprise factor of a spell like Overrun is the deciding factor. It’s a card that is difficult to play around, and your control player must always have a Negate or Cryptic Command handy to stop it or they simply scoop to the five mana green sorcery.
Moving down the list some more finds plenty of Red/White decks, as they’ve completely drenched the metagame in Ajani Vengeants, Knights of Meadowgrain, and other Spectral Procession-laden decks that sometimes run Reveillark, sometimes not. Patrick Chapin showed up rocking powerful lands that masqueraded as spells, such as 3/3 trampling Apes and lands that gave you free spells just for turning dudes sideways. This apparently is enough, in conjunction with such hits as Noble Hierarch, the almost-forgotten Chameleon Colossus, and game-enders like Profane Command, where he can provide you game situations like this, showing you how a real Magic pro wins games in very difficult situations. Per Patrick’s forum comment:
I have Chameleon Colossus, Cloudthresher, and two Wilt-Leaf Liege, as well as 8 land. My only card is Thoughtseize. I have 10 life.
My opponent has been playing off the top and has a Siege Gang, 4 Goblin tokens, an Elspeth, an Elspeth token, two Stillmoon Cavaliers, 2 untapped mana, and 17 life.
What is the play?
I drew the Profane Command and immediately showed it to him very happily, hoping to draw the concession. He does nothing.
I say, It is a Profane Command. You are at 17, right?
He says yes, but what are you going to do with it?
So, I think and have to decide in a split second whether to kill Siege Gang and be likely doomed in time or try a bid at the win somehow.
I tap all 8 land and say,
“Profane Command, you lose 6 life and all of my legal targets gain fear.”
Then I think he asks me something to the effect of, do you attack with everything?
Then I turn all of my creatures sideways and attack with the team.
He does not block with anything but the two Stillmoons, and is dead as a result. I immediately tell him afterwards, both for his personal use in future situations and to avoid any confusion with random people watching the feature match pointing out that he could have blocked afterwards.
I believe that in every aspect that turn was legal and I took great care to in NO way indicate that Colossus had fear, as I did not point to it, I did not say all of my guys have fear, I did not say the team gets fear, etc. Also, he did not ask me any questions regarding any of my creatures after I played the Profane Command, beyond “So this is a 6/6? And this is a 9/9?”
Now this situation, ladies and gentlemen, is where you can expert Magic playing. This is the sort of Jedi mind trick that many players fall for – it’s the ability to phrase a question where it is true but vague enough where they trip themselves up. Patrick’s careful wording along with his exact timing caused his opponent to not pay attention to either Profane Command’s wording or Chameleon Colossus’s ability. This leads me to discussion Olivier Ruel recent article “Triggers for Success” where he discusses Magic players at different “Levels” of the game, another metaphor that gets a little iffy as you move along. Either way, you start out Level 1, and by Level 10 you’ve slayed at least a few hundred Boss Monsters and now have the Level 13 Sword of Trilithium Power and can slay Pro Tours in a single swish.
You see that Level 13 Sword of Trilithium Power? Yeah, that’s the Profane Command play I was talking about. It’s the ability to wield that mental weaponry that separates the kitchen tables to the Pro Tour Sundays. The metagame at that level is far more than what may be in their hand, but what might be on their mind.
Speaking of what’s on their mind, did you see what won the cruise qualifier? Five-Color Control with…four Demigod of Revenge? In a world full of Path to Exiles? However, it did run a single copy of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, and that’s just badass. I’ll be seeing Mr. Matt Owens in Jamaica next February thanks to this craziness, and suggest you find yourself a Cruise Qualifier near you and get a free ride through the Caribbean yourself.
Alara Reborn Spoiler Time!
Yes! Finally we have something to talk about in regards to Alara Reborn spoilers. It’s a shame that Magic magazines are going the way of the dodo, because by now Scrye would’ve been published and given us a few goodies to chew on, but instead we have a Japanese magazine and one big monster.
The big monster is Spellbreaker Behemoth. You may recognize him from the packaging of the Alara Reborn intro pack “Rumbler.” Anyway, he’s one bad mofo. Check him out.
Spellbreaker Behemoth
1RGG
Rare
Creature – Beast
Spellbreaker Behemoth can’t be countered.
Creature spells you control with power 5 or greater can’t be countered.
5/5
Illus. Jason Chan #60/145
Now that right there is a frosty can of fresh ass-whoopin’, ladies and gentlemen. That is a Turn 4 monster that is going to hit play. Not since they gave us Split Second creatures to get around counterspells has such a scary monster been so easily pushed into play no matter what blue has to stay about it. It also has the best flavor text I’ve seen in a long time: “Some think its immunity to countermage evolved because of the constant mage attacks on Naya. I think it just ate a bunch of wizards.” – Broka, drumhunter.” Ha!
Now before we get to the It Dies To Everything argument again, let’s appreciate, for a moment, the exact wording of Cryptic Command. Because you perform a spell in the order it’s written, if you have a Spellbreaker Behemoth in play and try to resolve, say, a Woolly Thoctar, your opponent can not simply play Cryptic Command to bounce the Spellbreaker Behemoth and counter Woolly Thoctar. What would happen is that the Spellbreaker Behemoth would return to your hand, but Woolly Thoctar would resolve. So kudos to semantics! It makes Spellbreaker Behemoth that much more fun.
Besides, are there really any two words that sound better together than “Uncounterable Tarmogoyf”? That’s just music to any aggro player’s ears, and remember that Tarmogoyf always has its current power and toughness in any zone, whatever that value may be. With this fantastic monster as a starter to our Alara Reborn treats, what else does Wizards have in store?
Well, firstly they’re going to give us back Terminate, another Invasion Block classic that will be ending the lives of many creatures in the near future, I presume. It’s sorta like red and black’s own Path to Exile. Except it’s two mana. And kinda hard to cast. Ah hell, just run Vivid Lands and play both. It’s not like Five-Color Control won’t have a field day with Alara Reborn anyway, cherry picking the best spells and providing even more long, drawn-out gamestates.
Moving on, the Alara Reborn Prerelease Card was given to us in the form of Dragon Broodmother, a pretty vicious monster for kitchen tables and EDH games of all sorts, but the real surprise I think comes in the form of Knight of New Alara. I think it’s difficult to appreciate how powerful this pseudo Glorious Anthem / Light From Within / Blessing of the Nephilim guy is. As a Turn 3 play after dropping, say, a Turn 1 Noble Hierarch and Turn 2 Rhox War Monk, the 7/8 you have smashing into the red zone this turn is very much akin to the Double Striking bonus provided by Rafiq of the Many, except that this guy is a bit more susceptible to removal but is infinitely easier to actually play. I could use examples such as Tidehollow Sculler rocking as a 4/4 or Doran the Explorer as a 3/8, but I think you get my drift. Even Woolly Thoctar as an 8/7 seems pretty ridiculous to me.
New mechanics from the new set are also popping up, and the latest one is called Double Cast. Check out what is currently translated as “Tar Shards”.
Tar Shards
3BR
Instant
Uncommon
Double Cast (When you play this spell, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card with lesser converted mana cost. You may play that card without paying its mana cost. Put the rest of the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.)
Tar Shards deals 4 damage to target creature.
As for the new Double Cast mechanic, it reads: “When you play this spell, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card with a lesser converted mana cost. You may play that card without paying its mana cost. Put the rest of the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.” Oh boy, free spells! This can only mean one of two things: Either this will be broken in half by cards like Vampiric Tutor or the Planeswalker version via Liliana Vess, or it will be so random and wacky it never makes an impact. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to try it out. Free spells are pretty much never a bad thing, and I can’t imagine who wouldn’t want to flip over an Ajani Vengeant or even go really nuts with this spell by flipping over a Twincast or Wild Ricochet. Oh the possibilities!
Up next we have the fully upgraded Cranial Extraction, currently called “Exsanguination”
Exsanguination
2BR
Sorcery
Rare
Name a nonland card. Target player reveals his or her hand. Exsanguination deals 3 damage to that player for each card with that name in his or her hand. Search that player’s graveyard, hand, and library for all cards with that name and remove them from the game. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
That’s right, not only will I Cranially Extract your Reveillark, I really hope you’ve been saving up on them in your hand so I can kick you in the teeth for playing it. That goes the same for cards like Cryptic Command, Ajani Vengeant and Path to Exile. This is a vicious and powerful tool that will hopefully provide Red/Black Blightning Aggro decks the ability to disrupt powerful late-game decks like Five-Color Control and perhaps – just perhaps – lessen the impact of Reveillark on this metagame. But I doubt it.
Lastly I want to confirm that yes, Alara Reborn has hybrid mana! That’s right, hybrid is back baby, and it’s good enough for Alara Reborn. Check out “Marisi Twinclaw”:
Marisi Twinclaw*
2 (W/R)G
Creature – Cat Warrior
Uncommon
Double strike
2/4
That’s right, what is essentially a 4/4 will be going nuts with Equipment and can fit in both Red/Green and White/Green decks. This confirms two things: One, that hybrid is “evergreen” enough to be used in any set that calls for it, and two, that the set number on this creature — 140 out of 145, means that we probably will not be seeing any one-drops out of the set, even if Alara Reborn does feature hybrid mana. You see, pure hybrid cards come after gold cards, so with only five cards left, that would leave only five spots for one-drops. I have my doubts as to whether we’ll actually see one, and this could be the first set to ever not have a single card with converted mana cost of one.
So that’s another week in the world of Magic folks. Remember to keep track of the Magic Show on Twitter at twitter.com/misterorange and StarCityGames’ new Twitter feed at twitter.com/starcitygames. So until next week when there’s sure to be plenty of Alara Reborn goodness to go over, this is Evan Erwin. Tapping the cards… so you don’t have to.
Evan “misterorange” Erwin
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