So Many Insane Plays — Oh My God, Did You See Future Sight?

My intent this week was to put some serious work into the Belcher list. But then more and more cards from Future Sight were being spoiled, and I quickly grasped the magnitude of what was transpiring. I predict that Future Sight will proportionately produce more playables in Vintage, Magic’s oldest and most broken format, than Mirrodin. Yes, Future Sight is that impressive.

Future Sight pushes the boundaries of Magic design in ways that have a clear impact on Vintage. Time Spiral introduced Split Second, which has the potential to wreak havoc in Vintage, the format of logical connectives suddenly torn at the joint by the overriding logical command inherent in the Split Second mechanic. And although that door was opened, Trickbind and Wipe Away haven’t really shaken up the format as predicted. Planar Chaos seemed likely to leave a bigger imprint on Vintage with indelible changes to the color pie that would remain in Vintage forever. Unfortunately, Planar Chaos was rather mild in its color pie tinkering, at least as far as leaving its footprint in Vintage went. We arrive at the third set with low expectations only to be shocked into a stupor. Wizards not only pushed the envelope, but they have done so in a way that in sure to leave a mark on the average Vintage player.

They have printed new Split Second cards, they have combined and recombined mechanics together. They have fooled around with mana costs and design territory that once seemed verboten or unimaginable.

Brace yourself, this could hurt.

Aven Mindcensor

In the past few years, Wizards has done an excellent job in putting to print aggressive and aggressively costed White creatures that are tactically disruptive. Kataki, War’s Wage; True Believer; and Jotun Grunt are three White creatures that have incredible Vintage power. True Believer actually makes cards like Gifts Ungiven useless. Jotun Grunt attacks the most strategically important zone in Vintage, and is also a fast clock. Kataki, War’s Wage is an incredible sideboard option against Mishra’s Workshop prison decks.

This card would fit immediately into this elite cadre of spells if only it cost one less. This card affects Vintage in almost every respect. It turns off Fetchlands (like Polluted Delta and Bloodstained Mire), makes Gifts Ungiven, Tinker, Grim Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Merchant Scroll, Imperial Seal, incredibly limited, if not useless. This card has such a powerful effect that if it hits play, you tactically neuter virtually every good deck in Vintage.

The only problem is that they cost it at 3 instead of 2. Since Fish decks typically only run 3-4 accelerants (1 Mox Sapphire, 1 Mox Pearl, 1 Black Lotus, and maybe Lotus Petal), it is unlikely that you’ll have this on turn 2. However, if you could get this on turn 2, you can screw up every fetchland in Vintage, ruin Merchant Scroll, and even turn off the feared Tinker for Darksteel Colossus / Sundering Titan. Deck construction is such that it is unlikely that breaking a fetchland with this in play will enable you to find the land that you want, if there is a land to find at all! This card is a monstrous effect that is just a little bit overcosted for its natural home in Fish.

Great card and great design. Props to Wizards for coming up with such a sweet card.

Note: I almost forgot! This card has Flash! Imagine:

Tap Mox, and two lands. Tinker? In response, Aven Mindcensor! Or: Tap three lands and a Mox. Gifts Ungiven? In response, Aven Mindcensor! I guess you’re gifting for your top four cards!

Bitter Ordeal

Patrick Chapin suggested printing a card that read thus — BX: search through an opponent’s library for X cards of a different name and remove them from game. Because many Vintage decks tend to be extremely focused, they rely on only a few win conditions. This card is probably too expensive to see play, but it has potential. Unfortunately, the printing of Street Wraith makes it less likely that you can just win off the back of this. Time will tell.

Bridge From Below

An incredible tool for Ichorid. Every time you sacrifice an Ichorid to Cabal Therapy, it is instantly replaced at no cost. Well, that’s not true. The true cost of this card is essentially space. This set gives so much to Vintage Ichorid, that it will be difficult figuring out what to cut to play this.

What to cut? With other cards in this set, we may be at the place where cards like Petrified Field are no longer necessary. Moreover, my guess is that Ichorid can now be sped up to a consistent turn two kill thanks to this card and Narcomoeba. If you are interested in how to do this, look through my archive and read through the many Vintage Ichorid articles I’ve published this year. I have discussed at length how to design Ichorid and the many trade offs inherent in its design. Also, check out this article. I talk about the threat that Extirpate posed to Ichorid. This card and Narcomoeba make Extirpate almost a non-issue. More on that later.

Cloud Key

This card is appropriately costed to abuse with Mishra’s Workshop. In a deck full of Eggs, you could cycle through your whole deck fairly quickly. Of course, it would be janky as hell, but fun I’m sure.

Dakmor Salvage

Another potential Ichorid component. It dredges for two, so it can’t be included on that basis alone. However, it does dredge. It may be a decent inclusion on the ground that you can use it to activate Ashen Ghouls. This card may have more application in a Legacy Ichorid variant.

Delay

Oh boy. This card probably won’t see play in light of the fact that Remand exists, but it is another counterspell to consider. Mono Blue in 2002 had to run cards like Prohibit. Since then they’ve printed Rune Snag, Remand, and now this. In many ways, this card is much closer to counterspell for 1U than any of the cards I just mentioned. Nice design!

Emberwilde Augur

I mention this card because it is another tool for Legacy burn decks.

Glittering Wish

Despite being put into the two worst colors in magic, this card could still see potential… someday. I’m glad that they decided to return to the Wish cycle, perhaps indicating another cycle of Wishes someday? Unfortunately, there aren’t enough multi-color or gold cards to justify running this in anything, as of yet.

Grove of the Burnwillows

I bring your attention to this card because it carves out new design space. The traditional approach of forcing you to take damage to pay for high utility multi-color mana sources is inverted. Instead of suffering a detriment, you benefit your opponent (which are often the same thing). It will be interesting to see not only if they print other lands like this, but how far they take the idea of inverting a harm into a benefit for your opponent.

Mystic Speculation

It’s very difficult to evaluate exactly how good this card may be if it were an Instant. The real problem with it is that it is a Sorcery spell. At instant speed, I think you’d be looking at another playable Vintage spell. As is, this is probably just another decent search card.

Narcomoeba

No sooner is Extirpate printed than the complete solution is presented.

In fact, this card may be so good that it may just be better than Nether Shadow!

The creator of Manaless Ichorid, Albert Kyle, has had a long diatribe in the Vintage forums about why he liked Myr Servitor. His arguments never made sense to me. Myr Servitor had too much going against it, the least of which was that it had to be in your opening hand. It also had to remain in play until turn 3 to be usable. The first thing you want to do with creatures on turn 2 is sacrifice them to Cabal Therapy. Then add the fact that you also need mana to play it and the card was completely worthless in my view. His arguments for Servitor were nonsensical. I understand the need to protect against Extirpate, but that’s not compelling when you could play Factory.

It’s all moot now. This card is the inverse of Myr Servitor. You don’t want it in your hand. It only comes into play if it has never been in play. The faster you dredge the more this guy will come up. What an absolutely incredible card. Auto-inclusion in Vintage Ichorid. I’m sure it will find a home in other decks, good or not, as well.

Nix

I love the design move with this card. There are plenty of cards that have alternative casting costs or are free such that this card is potentially a viable counterspell. This is especially true of Vintage where Force of Will and Black Lotus are omnipresent. That said, this card is probably not worth a slot.

Pact of Negation

Mike Flores wrote (link to his article) that this card could be better than Force of Will!

I need hardly remind this audience that Force of Will is the most played card in Vintage. Although printed over ten years ago, the card’s influence in Vintage remains at an apogee.

Let me begin by reiterating something I’ve stated elsewhere: this card is fundamentally broken. I am shocked that this would see print simply because the danger is so apparent. Counterspell itself is incredibly good. Spending UU to stop a threat, usually one that costs at least as much and often much more than two mana, is a tempo play that is too undercosted for modern Magic. Free spells are universally recognized as powerful and one of the biggest design mistakes, according to Wizards, was the cycle of free spells printed in Urza’s Block: Cloud of Faeries, Rewind, Time Spiral, etc. When Jon Finkel tried to get “Wrath of Leknif” printed after the Invitational, it was met with derision: a free Wrath of God! Please!

When the Pact cycle was announced, I think most Vintage players expected some free bounce spell (see Snap!) or something along those lines. I would never have predicted a free counterspell!

Now, after we’ve recovered from the surprise and take a clearer eyed view of what’s before us, we have to recognize there are some critical limitations:

• It can’t be used to protect yourself (from Stax lock parts or other disruption) before you have a turn.
• It can’t be used to protect mid-game spells that won’t necessarily be the win this turn — i.e. turn 1 Ancestral or turn 1 Draw7, or even turn 1 Necro.

Force of Will can. Force of Will protects can be used defensively and offensively.

Interestingly, although Force of Will is best known as being a control card, as Flores rightly points out, the most egregious use of Force of Will is offensively.

Take a look at the deck affectionately known as “Pitch Long”

Notice how this deck resolves its spells: 4 Force of Will and 3 Misdirection. This deck is packed to the brim with restricted goodness and then uses these “free” counterspells to protect them.

For instance:

Turn 1:

Pitch Long: Mana Crypt, Underground Sea, Tinker.

Control opponent: Force of Will your Tinker.

Pitch Long: Misdirection pitching Brainstorm.

Tinker resolves. Find Memory Jar. Win on turn 2.

With Pitch Long having recently emerged into the Vintage landscape, it is truly timely that Wizards would print Pact. I am the first to admit, however, that Pact doesn’t seem to immediately replace Misdirection and Force of Will for the second reason mentioned above: Pact can’t be used to protect mid-range, mid-game spells that aren’t necessarily going to win the turn now. For instance, turn 1 land, Dark Ritual, Necro is something certainly worth protecting with Misdirection and Force of Will, but impossible to protect with Pact.

In many ways, the closest comparison then is not Force of Will, but Misdirection. This card will be incredibly aggressive at protecting your own spells — your game winning spells — but will be weaker than Misdirection at protecting your turn 1 threats like Necro. Since Misdirection is used almost entirely offensively (or proactively defensively) to shield your own bomb, then Pact should be viewed as a narrower, but less costly, Misdirection.

That said, here is what Pact does do:

• Protect Yawgmoth’s Will for one spell at no mana cost
• Doesn’t require a Blue spell to pitch
• Protect any game-winning bomb.

Just scan through my article archive and articles like “Offshoots and Ladders” to see just how central Yawgmoth’s Will is to modern Vintage. The two premiere decks in Vintage – Gifts and Long — are both centered on this card.

Pact is enormously powerful at protecting Yawgmoth’s Will, and possibly raises, once again, the question of whether Will should be banned.

In any case, I think that if this card is to be broken, it will require a different approach to deck design to maximize. Our old templates were based on the assumption that you have to wear your opponent down somewhat. Specifically, you should be looking at decks that win at a particular juncture. Think about Rector Trix. Rector Trix just needs to resolve a Rector. Then you flashback Cabal Therapy to find the Bargain and win the game immediately. Pact would fit at home in any deck like that.

Here are two other decks in which Pact would be great:

High Tide.

Pact is a perfect fit into the High Tide deck I put together a couple of months ago. The problem with Force was that you had to remove a crucial spell from game. Pact doesn’t require such a draw back. I think Pact deserves a home in that deck for sure. I would start by just cutting the Xantid Swarms for Pact and then try to work 3 Swarms back into the deck. That deck should have little trouble going off on turn two with Pact backup.

Also, note that Merchant Scroll can find Pact!

Perhaps the most impressive and most obvious home for Pact is in a deck I’ve been discussing the last several weeks:

Belcher.

The article introducing Belcher.

Gifts versus Belcher, pre-board.

Gifts versus Belcher, post-board.

Take a look at those games. Now imagine we cut the Pyroblasts for Pact. I admit that some of the time we were playing Empty the Warrens, but that card (aside from the mana used to play it) is uncounterable. Thus, Pact can be used to protect the resolution of Belcher. Moreover, and hysterically enough, you can upkeep activate Belcher with the Pact’s upkeep trigger on the stack. Watch:

Turn 1:

Land Grant for Taiga.
Play Taiga
Play Mana Crypt
Play Mox Pearl
Play Goblin Charbelcher

Opp: Force of Will

You: Pact of Negation

Turn 2:

With the Pact of Negation trigger on the stack, activate Belcher and kill your opponent.

This card has a clear home in Vintage. The only uncertainty is exactly how good it will prove to be. Vintage has moved from combo decks that win through a combination of forces to decks that aren’t really combo decks at all — they just play spells and then cast Tendrils. Pact of Negation would demand a return to the more traditional style of combination deck that actually use a particular combo card and then be deployed to protect them. I don’t think it will turn Vintage on its ear, but I do think that this card could serve to bring marginal combo decks back into the mainstream. I’m all for it!

But if it were to truly break Vintage, I’m convinced that it would be because of one reason: Yawgmoth’s Will. That is, Pact would be put into a deck that is extremely aggressive at playing and protecting Yawgmoth’s Will. Time will tell.

Street Wraith

My favorite card in the set. Screw Pact of Negation, this card is insane!

When I updated Meandeck Tendrils last year for Repeal, I said that if I ever won an invitational I would request this card (before they started requiring creatures).

As I explained here:

Repeal is the key new tech. Repeal breaks the golden ratio – it is a free cantrip. The key bottleneck in this deck is mana, and so this card is a godsend. It’s the closest we will ever come to actually printing:

Broken Urza’s Bauble
0
Tap, sacrifice: draw a card.

In fact, in some ways Repeal is better because it adds two to the Storm count. Pretty exciting stuff!

Boy, was I wrong. They actually printed the card I was talking about. Granted, you can’t up storm with it, but this card, at least in Vintage, should fundamentally change Vintage in ways we haven’t seen since the printing of Fetchlands in Onslaught.

This card changes the basic rules of deck construction and should be a presumptive inclusion in every Vintage deck.

My preliminary testing actually suggests that this card is even better than I expected. I actually become giddy when it’s in my opening hand. Vintage is full of tutors like Mystical Tutor, Imperial Seal, and Vampiric Tutor.

In my very first test game my opening hand had two Street Wraith. I cycled the first one and drew Vampiric Tutor. I then Vamped for Black Lotus and cycled the second Wraith to draw it and play it. What an incredible series of plays! I won the game on turn 2, by the way.

A side bonus of this card is that cards like Extirpate and Jester’s Cap become irrelevant. Hide / Seek can go away now.

As good as I think this card is going to be generally, this card makes me tear up when I reflect on its inclusion in Vintage Ichorid.

Do you understand how synergistic this card is in Ichorid? If I wanted to design a card for Ichorid, I doubt I could come up with something this helpful:

1) It is a free turn 1 dredge: Turn 1 Bazaar discarding Ichorid, Golgari-Grave Troll, and Nether Shadow. Cycle Street Wraith to dredge (hopefully revealing Narcomoeba). Now you not only have more cards in your yard, but you will probably also be able to return Nether Shadow into play on turn 2! Kill them on turn 2 quite easily! Hell, you may even be able to flashback a Therapy on turn 1 off of a Narcomoeba! Especially if you have two Street Wraiths.

2) It removes to Ichorid since it is a Black creature

3) It helps activate Nether Shadow

4) It feeds Sutured Ghoul with real power. One of the problems that Ichorid has is that you really want to run Sutured Ghoul, but most of your creatures don’t have sufficient power. Since this creature has three power, it makes achieving lethal power a non-issue.

5) It can be removed to Unmask since it is a Black card.

This card is auto-inclusion in Ichorid, and a presumptive inclusion in every non-Fish, non-Oath deck in Vintage. It’s absolutely incredible.

You know those little pie charts that have color breakdown of decks? Those are going to be screwed up forever because of this card.

Storm Entity

What an aptly named creature. There has been some discussion of including this card as a Living Wish target in R/G Belcher. It’s a pseudo Empty the Warrens that could put your opponent on a quick clock.

Summoner’s Pact

This card could also go in a Meandeck Tendrils variant. It thins your deck by finding an Elvish Spirit Guide, ups your storm count, and generates you a mana at no cost. Pretty good.

Take Possession

I realize that this card is too overcosted to see play in Vintage. I bring it up because it is pushing new design territory. The Split Second mechanic is a mechanic that is inherently powerful in Vintage, where spells are flying around like laser bolts in a Star Wars film.

Tolaria West

I bring this card to your attention because Transmute is a powerful effect that they decided to bring back. This card can Transmute for Black Lotus or a land (as I understand it). In other words, it can be used to tutor up Tolarian Academy, Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra’s Workshop, or Black Lotus. Grim Tutor is often justifiably used to find some of those cards. I doubt it will be played, but it is worth mentioning.

Yixlid Jailer

Creatures printed at the two-mana range with this sort of effect just provide more and more options to aggro-control players in Vintage. This card is at the upper end of the scale for these decks. This card single-handedly neuters Ichorid, an archetype that makes enormous gains in this set. It also turns off Recoup, a card that sees quite a bit of play. This card is highly disruptive and cheap. It has an advantage over Withered Wretch in that this is a turn 1 play.

There are a number of other cards that I haven’t mentioned which are interesting for their design properties alone. I think this is an incredibly exciting set that should reinvigorate every Magic player, reminding them not only how much fun the game is, but also how young it is.

I am going to be make a prediction. I think the tremendous design advances in this set signal a new era in Magic design. I feel like Magic is finally leaving adolescence, the awkwardness of that age, and entering adulthood. All of the blemishes are going away and the game’s designers seem more and more confident that they know what they are doing. Great stuff.

It’s time for my Top 5 list.

Here are the cards that I think will have the greatest impact on Vintage:

1) Street Wraith
2) Pact of Negation
3) Narcomoeba
4) Yixlid Jailer
5) Bridge From Below

Until next time,

Stephen Menendian