Grand Prix: Dallas is over, and Domain Zoo (Congrats to Raphael Levy) took the main prize in an aggro-riffic Top 8. The Top 8 also happened to mark the appearance of zero Tog decks… a shock to some, after a huge buzz before the Grand Prix about how it was going to show up and destroy everything and everyone in its path. Buzz was right about how many were showing up… not so right about winning, though.
Other than Domain Zoo’s resurgence, I didn’t really find all that much interesting from the Grand Prix. Aggro and Loam decks were supposedly everywhere, along with Tog and Tron filling in for the control side. I’d like to say congratulations to my friend Mike Corley for making it to Day 2 with the “Classic Tog” list we had worked out earlier in the week. Who needs Trinket Mage and a toolbox when you’ve got Vedalken Shackles and Cunning Wish to take care of everything?
For now I’m taking a break from Extended to finally explore some other formats. Preferably one without decks that win on turn 4 or 5 and have twenty different viable decks. Yes friends, the time has come to take a look at what Planar Chaos brings to the table for Time Spiral block. It may not be relevant to everybody, but it’ll be a relevant format on MTGO for some time, and it sets good building blocks for when the final set is released and we have a PTQ format later this year.
First things first, for those who haven’t played any Time Spiral Block outside of draft, I’d suggest reading Frank Karsten’s article over at MagicTheGathering.com. He gives a pretty good rundown of the format pre-Planar Chaos, especially for what decks have been seeing play as the format evolved. My article will mainly be going over some potential new archetypes Planar Chaos brings to the table, some of the new additions to existing decks, and some general thoughts on the metagame. So let’s run down some shiny new cards for some of the current archetypes, shall we?
Planar Chaos Additions
U/x Teferi Control
Right now this is one of the most popular decks in the format, the main configuration being U/R. However that looks like it’ll soon change, since the main reason Red was chosen was due to Sulfurous Blast being the main Wrath effect in the format.
The other reason to run Red comes from Bogardan Hellkite as a finisher. The Hellkite is one of the best creatures in the format, but the ability to run a real Wrath of God in Damnation is a very tempting prospect as the general creature size grows. Then there’s the potential abuse that Enslave brings to the table in the late-game by just stealing the opponent’s finishers. Not to mention the consensus pre-Planar Chaos was that Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir was one of the defining creatures of the format, and Sudden Death sends him right away. I could easily see Black taking over Red’s duties unless Hellkite is found to be invaluable to the deck.
As for some of the Blue cards we might see getting added… Dismal Failure certainly has to be given some consideration. Currently there’s a huge dearth of counters in the format, and Cancel is being run because the deck needs some way to keep swingy effects from resolving. This just gives the Teferi deck a few more options if it wants to run additional counters, or if it simply wants to replace a Cancel.
For the more morph-centric versions of these decks, Shaper Parasite certainly looks like it can make a splash. It can take down nearly every Sliver, the majority of WW creatures, Avalanche Riders, etc. In addition, the 2/3 body is big enough actually hang in combat against many two- and three-drops. Riptide Pilferer also looks like it has potential to be a serious annoyance in the mirror, and in the artifact decks abusing Mishra, Artificer Prodigy.
Finally, in a deck running multiple Mystical Teachings, Pongify seems like an interesting addition. Pongify is a dirt-cheap, tutorable answer to practically every major creature threat in the format. Teferi, Spectral Force, Mishra, Bogardan, and really just about every larger creature with some utility value all die to this card… save Akroma, Angel of Fury. Sure, it leaves them with a 3/3 Elephant, but somehow I think you’ll be able to manage it better than a 5/5 Dragon.
Scryb & Force
Now here’s a deck that gains quite a bit from Planar Chaos. Harmonize is the biggie here, as Green card drawing in a slower build like this can give the deck a huge amount of reach, even against Damnation decks. Other potential goodies include Magus of the Library, Mire Boa, Timbermare, Seal of Primordium (in sideboards), and maybe even some of the new Dragons such as Vorosh, the Hunter or Teneb, the Harvester.
Harmonize is a pretty obvious card; either your deck will like drawing three cards or it won’t. This deck usually will, especially since more ways to kill Spectral Force are coming into the environment. The main question I see coming up is if its use is enough to give Magus of the Library a home, or if you’d need a new deck built around it. The Magus can help power out all of the deck’s future drops while also being able to abuse the draw ability if it powers out an early Harmonize.
Of course, the downside to all this talk about drawing is you aren’t playing creatures that win the game. Right now, the format is obscenely slow, so the practicality of this will go down as people slowly refine faster working decks or get the beatdown decks functioning up to par.
Mire Boa is a possible playable simply because it can force it’s way through nearly any early game fights with the force of its regeneration. Oh, and of course, scare the heck out of players running Black in their deck, thanks to Stonewood Invocation. Again, this will come down to a question of space. Can the deck really afford a two-drop that gets invalidated in combat after turn 5 against half the field? Is the Boa’s use against Black and aggro decks enough to make it useful? Time will tell.
Here’s a short summary of Timbermare:
Early game (Turns 1-5): Please don’t play me.
Mid game (Turns 6-9): Rawr, I smash for five and then hang around because so little in the format is as big as me! My butt looks cute!
Late game: Have you met Scryb Ranger and Spectral Force?
I think she’ll fit into most builds of this deck because of the inherent synergy the tap ability and Ranger has. Not to mention a lot of the format relies on late-game trumps. Tapping all of the opponent’s men and then swinging in for five (which could be as much as ten, thanks to Invocation) is pretty good. Then add the possibility of swinging in with another creature besides her, and the idea looks much better.
The dragons are a bit of a stretch, but this kind of a deck is going to live and die on its late-drops in the mirror and against slower decks. A dragon of your own, which can face down Hellkite and fly over everything else, suddenly looks rather appealing. Considering just about every Scryb & Force deck is already dual colored, it’s simply a matter of running Search for Tomorrow, Terramorphic Expanse, and the proper storage lands.
Of course that may end up being more trouble than it’s worth.
Also note that the colors in this deck may stay mainly Blue, but it wouldn’t shock me to see cards like Mystic Snake get included to help hold down Wrath and other obnoxious effects.
White Weenie
WW, other than Slivers, probably gains the most from Planar Chaos. There are at least seven or eight cards that have a viable shot at seeing play in the maindeck or sideboard here. Of course the irony of the situation is that White also gains the best anti-WW card possible in Magus of the Tabernacle. Oh well, let us focus on the good for now.
The gating creatures have the potential to be MVPs in the mirror and against other creature decks. In addition, they completely nullify popular bounce effects in Snapback and Riftwing Cloudskate by stopping any tempo loss. I expect Stonecloaker would see the most play simply due to the evasion. A 3/2 flyer can become a significant clock in this format when backed by possible pump effects and a small army on the ground. Dust Elemental simply creates too much of a tempo vacuum, and Whitemane Lion is going to be awful whenever you aren’t fizzling a spell with him.
Crovax, Ascendant Hero is a bit too much for the deck, even in this format; otherwise I’d love to see a couple of copies get in the deck somewhere. The same goes for Voidstone Gargoyle, although that won’t stop people from adding both of these guys because of the cool effects they bring to table.
Calciderm is the big addition to the build, as the 5/5 frame will stand up to every creature short of Spectral Force or the Akroma sisters. Considering the amount of Riftwing Cloudskate floating around, it shouldn’t surprise anyone when this becomes a quick set in WW builds.
Sunlance and Mana Tithe are both interesting inclusions to the deck. For a while now, people have had to decide between Soltari Priest or Temporal Isolation, since casting Isolation on the men you’d normally want too would lead Priest to become useless post-haste (Barring Griffin Guide). Now there’s a viable alternative that kills the creature outright and allows Priest to be run without any potential issues. Of course, the problem is that it can’t kill the bigger of the baddies. However, with Stonecloaker, Priest, and Griffin Guide, odds all you’ll be attempting to smash around them anyway. Ultimately some combination of Sunlance and Temporal Isolation will probably become the norm until the metagame is clearly pro-small or pro-fat.
As for Mana Tithe, it’s one of the only ways WW has to stop fatties from hitting the table and make an opponent think twice before trying to tap out for Damnation. Ultimately I expect it to become a permanent addition to the deck, but my question is if it’ll be worth it in the maindeck or if the value will come purely as a board card. For that answer we need the format to stabilize a bit.
WW will slowly transform from a deck all about two-drops to a more diversified and powerful builds utilizing more evasion creatures and more overall utility. Expect Damnation and the larger creatures decks to be fought with full sets of Griffin Guide, Serra Avenger, and Mana Tithe.
P.S. – The card I’d like to try most in WW past the obvious suspects is Shade of Trokair. It gives the deck a much needed one-drop, can delay the casting of Wrath by just threatening to come out the next turn and has a cheap enough pump ability to be deal 3-4 damage in the mid-game without issue. Something to consider…
Slivers
All of the Slivers already clearly state what they will and won’t do, so I won’t bore you with details about what viable slivers did or didn’t get printed.
Basically there’s going to be two possibly viable Sliver builds from what I can see. First, there’s a R/W/B aggressive version built around using the pump effects of Sinew and Sedge Sliver. With those two it’s possible to build a force of very strong Slivers in a hurry… now add in the long-term reach Cautery and Necrotic Slivers give you, and you can have a very potent deck. In this format, it’s rare to have a bunch of efficiently priced dorks with the ability to destroy large threats, cut mana, and deal direct damage all in the same build.
The obvious downside is the mana becomes a pile of poo and forces you to run Gemstone Mine, Expanse, and Prismatic Lens. However, you basically get the best aggressive Slivers and direct damage to actually win if it reaches the late-game.
On the other hand, we can go with the mana friendly Sliver builds and go G/R/B or G/R/W. Again the principles of the deck are going to be largely the same. Play some early men, beat up the opponent, use the abilities to stay ahead until you can finish them with Disintegrate or Stonewood Invocation / Tromp the Domains. The key difference is you run fewer utility slivers and lose out on either using Sedge or Sinew in exchange for Gemhide Sliver, a huge pump spell, and overall mana stability. So you have to weigh the consistency versus power and figure it out for yourself.
Of course, now somebody will come up with some Opposition variant or something just to spite me.
Blink Riders
The impact card coming out of the set for this deck has to be Akroma, Angel of Fury. The ability to get a flipped Red Akroma into play on turn 4 or 5 has to be one of the most tempting things to try in this slow format. Even without haste, Akroma is going to end the game in a big hurry. In addition, it gives the deck a way to get around potentially awful mana starts (as suffered by all three-color decks in the format) by trying to end the game faster.
Other than killing or bouncing Akroma before she flips over, the answers to her are limited at best. In fact, other than Damnation, Stingscourger, or Shivan Meteor, realistically there isn’t a good answer to her in the format. This means decks need to plan around more than just stopping Blink recursion and Cloudskate bounce.
Of course, that’s not all; Stingscourger has also joined the party to make Green players lives more miserable. I mean really now, Cloudskate wasn’t enough to bounce elephant tokens and Spectral Force until the cows come home? Now the deck gains a Blinkable bounce creature to go along with the usual Avalanche Riders and Bogardan Hellkite.
The news isn’t all bad for Green players though… the mana is still going to cripple the deck in a number of games. Although if the deck moves to a more two-color oriented (only keeping Blue for Momentary Blink flashback and one other card) build as the metagame dictates, then things could get real bad real fast.
Mishra
Yes, there is indeed a Mishra deck floating around, for those who haven’t played / watched on MTGO yet. Basically the deck is built around Mishra; tons of artifact mana like Chromatic Star, Prismatic Lens and Totems (usually Phyrexian or Thunder); along with Serrated Arrows and Triskelavus. For draw, the deck usually relies on Mindless Automaton and multiple Chromatic Star cantrips, which Mishra is great for. The rest of the creature base is usually dependent on the person, as I’ve seen variants include Hellkite, Cloudskate, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, Shadowmage Infiltrator, Clockwork Hydra, and Teferi. Basically a host of good creatures from the three colors in the deck.
My personal preference is to use Infiltrator, Hydra, and Teferi. But I wouldn’t fault anyone for using Hellkite to supplement the late-game in case Mishra gets killed or isn’t drawn for any particular reason. Typically the remainders of the deck (if there’s any room left) are cards like Snapback and company, to help build time for the deck to set-up. I expect Damnation to be the main boon for the deck, but I’m open to any other suggestions in the forums.
Possible New Archetypes
Whew, I’ve already gone over a quite a bit about the format and what may be coming into the existing decks. So right now you can take a look at some new decks that we’ll hopefully be talking more about in the weeks to come.
Wild Pair
Wild Pair itself reminds me of a weakened Survival of the Fittest; and those with good memories probably remember how busted that was. Essentially this card enables a limited search engine that, at worst, gives you a duplicate of every creature you play and at best can let you search your deck for the proper answer to a given situation.
For example, I’ve seen one proposed build that was running a creature selection that could answer just about everything in the format and all fit under four power / toughness numbers. When his mana actually functioned correctly (which wasn’t very often… the bane of untuned decks), he was having all sorts of fun with creature tricks.
Scryb Ranger into Draining Whelk
Groundbreaker or Scragnoth* into Teferi, or simply another Groundbreaker
Yavimaya Dryad into Voidmage Prodigy
And the list goes on, plus this was only a two-color deck! My favorite from a variant with more colors was Timbermare into Hellkite; good job taking ten for free.
*I swear only a dozen people remember this guy got reprinted.
Pair decks are going to be a big deal once people start ironing out more streamlined lists and realizing what creatures are cool and work, and what ones are just cool. The effect is simply insane for such a slow format and with limited ways to stop the card before it actually hits play.
Stuffy Doll
You know people are going to try this deck out… they have to, because it’s freaking Stuffy Doll. With Planar Chaos, the deck gains two key cards that make it more than a cute joke deck. Shivan Meteor is the obvious one, to which everyone screamed, “zomg, 13 to Doll, winner is me!” Meanwhile the more potent of the two has been less trumpeted outside of Limited, yet is even better for the deck. That card is Volcano Hellion, which allows for one-shot kills with Stuffy Doll.
Consider this:
Turn 1: Land + Suspend Search
Turn 2: Land + Prismatic Lens
Turn 3: Land + Stuffy Doll
Turn 4: Doll pings itself for 1, then you cast Hellion and win the prize.
Obviously that’s the nut draw, but it’s simply to give you the idea of how good Hellion is with Stuffy Doll. My basic build is R/G for the maximum amount of mana acceleration along with the components to maximize Doll damage, not to mention Disintegrate as a back-up kill. Of course, without a good way to tutor for Doll, this deck will probably just stay “cute,” but it packs a lot more punch
Even though there are a number of other potential archetypes, I figure that’s enough information for one article. In the weeks to come, we can check out the metagame and see what other new decks are lurking around. Good luck to those that are playing the format online; and the same to those still slugging it out in the Extended qualifiers.
Josh Silvestri
Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom
Team Reflection