The Crimes Of Kamigawa Block

With U.S. Regionals concluded, it seems that Standard will go back to its normal status as an irrelevant format for a while now. Like most other people who attended, I did not walk home with an invite to the U.S. National Championships and at least part of that would be due to a very simple breach of the rules of metagaming: when you walk into the room and you’re better than everyone else, you should be playing the best deck.

While my choice of deck would be proper for a difficult field with experienced players, instead I went to Connecticut’s Regional Championships, going for a bit of a drive before playing and only “really” having to share qualification slots with Ken Krouner. As Tooth and Nail was one of the choices I’d had prior to the tournament as far as “reasonable metagame choices,” I am kicking myself for not having a copy of the deck built and on hand on Saturday… because Tooth and Nail with main-deck Plow Unders would have been the proper deck choice for the person I am and the tournament I went to.

After all that talk of when to metagame and when not to, it’s kind of funny that I put my realistic choices of decks to play as one of two decks, then didn’t bring the other one.

With the end of a truly relevant Standard season, it’s time to settle in and take a look at Champions of Kamigawa Block Constructed, both the Pro Tour: Philadelphia results and the addition of Saviors of Kamigawa to the mix. A Block format is always easier to look into cracking than Standard is, as Standard always has at least two more big sets in it (the following standalone set, and Nth Edition) that presumably weigh in and make their presence known at least in part. Kamigawa seems to be about many colors of Green mana, both for control decks and for beatdown decks, recursive locks using Arcane and Splice, generally weak direct damage and a definite lack of reasonable countermagic. The decks that you’ll be playing will hopefully be based on the cards that help break the rules of the game…. and taking a look at all three sets for Constructed-quality cards of this nature will probably tell you about the decks that you’ll be playing.

If any of you have ever played Fluxx (and you should — The Ferrett), you look for the cards that look like they could be “New Rule” cards. Playing fair is for chumps, and playing bad cards is an excellent way to be a bottom-feeder in the loser’s bracket… not something worth shelling out $20 and a couple hours of your life attending a PTQ for.

Artifacts:

Honor-Worn Shaku
Crime: Mana acceleration for any color of deck, not just Green. Potentially capable of generating more than one mana worth of acceleration per turn, at no cost.

Journeyer’s Kite
Crime: Limited, but cost-efficient, card drawing, at least compared to the industry standard Jayemdae Tome. Enables multiple colors of mana, all with just one card and multiple activations. Slow, but potentially back-breaking (see: Budde, Kai, decks of).

Long-Forgotten Gohei
Crime: Reduces casting costs, always a potentially dangerous contender. Does something worthwhile in the meantime.

Pithing Needle
Crime: Ruthless efficiency. It may not answer the permanent in question, but it will certainly answer some aspects of the problem presented by that permanent, and possibly even nullify more than one card’s worth of cards. One-mana artifacts are not supposed to have the potential to have this influential an effect, but sitting next to Sensei’s Divining Top it doesn’t look like that great of an offender.

Sensei’s Divining Top
Crime: Changes the rules of the game to “Look at three cards, draw one.” With shuffling effects, it changes the context of the game by granting superior card-quality advantage and limited Tutoring power. Just too damn un-killable.

Tatsumatsa, the Dragon’s Fang
Crime: Recursive damage sources should not be invulnerable to every conventional means of creature control short of Cage of Hands or Final Judgment — and no card should be able to make multiple Dragons without some form of great risk (see: Day of the Dragons).

Uba Mask
Crime: Changes the rules of the game from “Draw a card each turn” to “Draw a card each turn, and use it or lose it.” While its offense may not be relevant in a permission-free environment, it does bring everyone down to living off the cards previously in their hands and off the top of their deck. That, in turn, can bring Magic games down to the level of “caveman Magic,” which mostly involves trying to hit your opponent over the head with a rock before they find a rock of their own. Exemplifies the potential for the “wrong threat” versus “wrong answer” situation to get out of hand, by punishing draws that are not immediately useful.

Umezawa’s Jitte
Crime: High crimes and treason against creatures everywhere, general shenanigans.

Lands:

Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Crime: Spells should not be uncounterable. Fortunately, without any really meaningful counterspells in the block, we can go back to forgetting about Boseiju for a while.

Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Crime: Lands should not draw you cards. Even by applying symmetry, it’s quite possible this can get out of hand in the right deck. Some decks (like Gifts Ungiven decks) can provide the opponent with more cards without their existence becoming relevant towards breaking the recursion lock that composes the main strategy of the deck.

Miren, the Moaning Well
Crime: Lifegain made available for any color. While there is a definite cost involved (and lifegain generally isn’t useful), Miren makes flipping Cunning Bandit look like a much better plan.

Tendo Ice Bridge
Crime: Good multi-colored mana at a minimal cost, useful mana fixer. The only good land in the format that can tap for more than one color of mana without an obvious detractor, such as providing the opponent with free creatures or becoming useless for a while.

White

Celestial Kirin
Crime: Adds a potentially good spell (“Destroy all permanents with casting cost X”) to all Spirit and Arcane cards. Too damn good at what he does, if you give him the support he asks for. May or may not allow for the existence of a Blue/White based control deck in the format, due to the ability to Wrath of God weenies and Jittes every time you cast something like Peer Through Depths.

Charge Across The Araba
Crime: Ruthless efficiency. In concert with several attacking creatures, can say “Win the game.” And yet it’s still not worth worrying about, because creature combat is ultimately fair…. but it’s still there to think about.

Eight-and-a-Half Tails
Crime: Protects any kind of permanent from anything short of a global removal spell, or general shenanigans.

Ethereal Haze
Crime: Counteracts an entire step of the turn order, eliminates most traditional means of winning the game (i.e., “the attack phase”) when abused, thanks to its Arcane status.

Final Judgment
Crime: Answers any question involving creatures, no questions asked, no spot missed. Fair for its mana cost, but still the best there is at what it does, and what it does isn’t nice.

Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Crime: Being an efficient two-power creature for one mana.

Hokori, Dust Drinker
Crime: Changes the rules from “Untap all lands each turn” to “Untap one land each turn.” A vulnerable four-mana Winter Orb is still a Winter Orb when it’s in play.

Myojin of Cleansing Fire
Crime: Creature with built-in Wrath of God; “pretty good” against other creatures.

Pure Intentions
Crime: Negates discard effects, which would otherwise be considered “fair.”

Reverse the Sands
Crime: General Mirror Universe-ness.

Shining Shoal
Crime: No mana in its casting cost, and an incredibly powerful effect when used properly. Represents a “trick” that must always be considered out of a White mage with at least two cards in hand, and a “trick” that affects creature combat, direct damage, and the relevance of your current life totals thanks to its ability to mimic a Fireball.

White, by the way, should not be the color of Fireballs.

Tallowisp
Crime: Limited (but not irrelevant) card advantage attached to a mana-efficient creature.

Green

Azuza, Lost but Seeking
Crime: Breaking the simple rule of “play only one land a turn.” While not the best way to do that in this format (hello, Sakura-Tribe Elder!), it’s still something worth keeping in the back of your mind.

Budoka Gardener
Crime: See above. Of the various ways of doing this, it’s tied for third best behind Sakura-Tribe Elder and Kodama’s Reach, sitting comfortably beside Loam Dweller as a reasonable candidate for extra land drops. That we probably won’t use either of them doesn’t mean they aren’t worth mentioning.

Dosan the Falling Leaf
Crime: Turning instants into sorceries. With countermagic dead, this means you’re protecting against targeted removal, which only really matters if you’re investing other cards that you absolutely need to get through the turn they are being used… like Giant Growths. Which is not currently the plan.

Elder Pine of Jukai
Crime: Cost-free (or nearly so) card advantage, focusing on drawing lots and lots of mana. A partner in crime with Sensei’s Divining Top, if the card can be used at all. Sheer nuttiness with “cards in hand” mechanic.

Genju of the Cedars
Crime: Fat for a very low cost, with built-in protection. Most of the Green decks being tossed around are using the color as a basis for playing the rest of the colors they actually want to be playing — so it’s hard to see this as anything other than a sideboard card in most Green decks, since they tend to be control decks that will capitalize on this only after sideboarding to beat down against similarly slow decks.

Hana Kami
Crime: Single-handedly breaking open the Splice mechanic, creating infinite loops of spells like Ethereal Haze and Cranial Extraction for decks interested on locking down the game. Has earned the death penalty in five systems.

Heartbeat of Spring
Crime: Excessive amounts of mana for a single card investment. “Parity” is just a word when your deck is set to abuse this and your opponent’s isn’t, which is where the Myojin start getting it on and Sway of the Stars becomes a reasonable proposition.

Kodama of the North Tree
Crime: Being a damn good tree. Dodging targeted removal, requiring either a global sweeper (Final Judgment, Myojin of Cleansing Fire, Kagemaro, First to Suffer) or interaction in combat.

Kodama’s Reach
Crime: Card advantage, mana acceleration, and mana fixing, all rolled into one tight and reasonably-priced package. With so few true sources of card advantage around, this stands out quite nicely, even if it is fairly innocent.

Loam Dweller
Crime: One of many cards that allow you to play a second land a turn. I think they might be trying to tell us something.

Molting Skin
Crime: Providing cheap and reusable protection from the combat phase and most targeted removal. Small and likely forgettable, as it only really shines in creature combat… but worth remembering if there is just one creature you really need to protect from effects that might destroy it.

Myojin of Life’s Web
Crime: Playing many things for no cost. Proven innocent at trial, due to sheer dumb cost… if you can pay nine for this, how is it saving you mana to use its ability?

Orochi Leafcaller
Crime: Money laundering for the Mob. Is currently doing community service in the Bronx, picking up trash along the highway. Efficiently washes mana into any color needed, but with a lower initial mana investment than any other card in the format, short of Tendo Ice Bridge.

Orochi Sustainer
Crime: Costing too much for a Llanowar Elves. It’s almost sad that some decks are quite content to pay as much as this guy is asking for. If the Leafcaller is laundering money, this guy’s definitely going up the river for racketeering.

Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
Crime: Excessive mana acceleration. With Orochi Sustainer, this can lead to eight mana on turn 4. With both and Orochi Leafcaller, this can lead to ten mana on turn 4, of whichever colors you need.

Sakura-Tribe Elder
Crime: Kamigawa’s Most Wanted, #1 on the list. Practically defines the format all by himself, by providing excellent mana acceleration and color fixing while doing everything else a creature normally does — which includes early blocking that is bound to slow down a beatdown deck’s initial tempo.

Sakura-Tribe Scout
Crime: Playing more than one land a turn. As we might be reminded by the Magic Hall of Fame Ballot, if your opponent asks “Have I played a land yet this turn?” the answer is always “Yes.”

Sayasa, Orochi Ascendant
Crime: Absurd amounts of mana. Plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor, later found innocent on appeal when we realized five seconds later that we’d never have seven lands in our hand.

Soilshaper
Crime: Turning one form of resource into another, if only marginally. Converts “spells cast this turn” into “potential damage from attackers”, at a 3-to-1 ratio.

Sosuke’s Summons
Crime: Recursion. Making two 1/1 guys may not seem like a big deal, but the ‘buyback’ aspect can be quite a difficulty — especially if we find some way to discard the cards for profit instead of just attacking with dorks.

Time of Need
Crime: Outright Tutoring. It searches up the power fattie of choice — or even Umezawa’s Jitte, if you go through an intermediary first. This allows for redundancy when playing decks built around Sachi for mana, and it gets you things to do with that mana too.

… this is far and away the longest list for any one color, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that the best decks in the format (at least as of Pro Tour: Philadelphia) used Green as their base color.

Red

Adamaro, First to Desire
Crime: Power and toughness (potentially) far greater than his casting cost. A high-risk card that can, theoretically, kill your opponent in three swings if they don’t do anything, and attacks as early as turn 4. (Turn 3 off of Hall of the Bandit Lord!)

Brothers Yamazaki
Crime: Breaking the Legend Rule. Good in multiples, if not downright insane.

Cunning Bandit
Crime: Getting opposing creatures out of the way, regardless of cost, creature type, or other limitations that are otherwise put on this effect in this block. Good size for its mana cost, when flipped, combined with a potentially game-winning effect in opposed creature combat.

Fumiko the Lowblood
Crime: Reduces the opponents’ plans for attacking and blocking down to plans about “just attacking,” which removes a step from combat that otherwise can give Red quite a bit of problems — namely, attacking past larger creatures. Can serve as a stand-in for The Abyss under the right conditions…. not that this is why anyone would use Fumiko.

Genju of the Spires
Crime: Unlicensed imitation of Ball Lightning; providing a repeatable damage source to a color that really, really appreciates being able to get in there for two, never mind for six.

Glacial Ray
Crime: Efficiency and card advantage, provided to a color that doesn’t usually get the latter and in a form that really, really matters… because it can go to the head, if you just want to count to twenty, or can remove multiple creatures from play.

Godo, Bandit Warlord
Crime: Putting Umezawa’s Jitte directly into play. What a Cheatyface! Also wanted for being the “Tutorable” copy of Umezawa’s Jitte, when used as part of a Time of Need chain.

Hanabi Blast
Crime: A repeatable burn spell, capable of turning one resource (extra cards in hand) into another that Red dearly cares about (damage to the face or to your man).

Hidetsugu’s Second Rite
Crime: Causing many sleepless nights whenever anyone asks “So what are you at?” Provides an entirely too-efficient ten-point burst of damage, even if it’s technically in a “fair” fashion thanks to its strict limitations.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Crime: Making copies. Providing false IDs to underaged token creatures. Enabling lockdowns with Rootrunner, even if no one is likely to use that particular combo.

Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Crime: Elvis impersonator gone awry; finally given time for his inappropriate Masticore impersonation. Did you know this guy was a Shaman, to go with Sachi?

Lava Spike
Crime: Shenanigans (see: Glacial Ray).

Thoughts of Ruin
Crime: Putting multiple lands in the graveyard at one time. Disrupting the flow of play of mana-hungry decks (such as the ones that did well at Pro Tour: Philadelphia) by throwing much of their hard work into the graveyard, forcing them to “play fair” at the cost of your remaining Lands.

Through the Breach
Crime: Potential discount pricing for unreasonable creatures, such as Kuro, Pitlord or Iname, All As One (or both!) without a care for otherwise reasonable barriers like “casting cost.”

Undying Flames
Crime: Dealing direct damage every turn, regardless of what else is going on. Finishing games when all other resources have been spent already, if that is what you want to do.

Zo-Zu, the Punisher
Crime: Mishra called; he wants his Ankh back. Stapling an Ankh of Mishra to a Legendary 2/2 doesn’t sound like much, but Red really likes damage, and Kamigawa Block so far seems to have a lot of land drops being made.

Black

Blood Speaker
Crime: Free recursion and limited Tutoring ability, searching up Demons. Unfortunately, searching up Demons doesn’t seem like it gets you anywhere interesting.

Cranial Extraction
Crime: Impersonating a level-five DCI Judge, or half the staff of Wizards of the Coast’s Organized Play department. Answers any problem not currently in play; breaks the back of truly degenerate effects so long as they don’t rely on permanents that are already in play.

Distress
Crime: Being a fair card living in an unfair world. Serving as low-cost pinpoint discard when neither pinpoint discard nor countermagic are otherwise what one thinks of when they think of “effective.” Works well at both setting up and defending from Cranial Extraction, a repeat offender.

Goryo’s Vengeance
Crime: Experimentation on human subjects without a license. Offering better prices than the norm for things you should have no business paying this little for… which means that someone will try.

Hero’s Demise
Crime: Blood-spattered, ruthless efficiency. It doesn’t care who needs to die, merely that they are famous enough for it to get its rocks off in the meantime. One of the best low-cost removal spells around, considering how good decks filled with Legends are proving to be.

Hideous Laughter
Crime: Mass board sweeper, key for defending against early creature rushes. Arcane, and spliceable, to boot.

Horobi, Death’s Whisper
Crime: While not proven guilty of any travesties right now, he is under watch by the United Nations for potential war crimes and mass slaughter. He served a very unique role in the world of Affinity…. and this role could prove vital once again if things break in an unlikely fashion.

Horobi’s Whisper
Crime: Repeating, efficient removal all at the low, low cost of “nothing” if you are able to abuse it a few times.

Infernal Kirin
Crime: Breaks the “Legend War” game from the Pro Tour in half, since more than half of the good Legends are also Spirits. Play your Legends, force your opponent to discard any copies they might have, and get a respectable 3/3 for four with flying at the same time?

Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
Crime: Big nasty monster with built-in regeneration, a la Spiritmonger, and a built-in reason for creature decks to block it rather than trade life points blow-by-blow. One of the very few creatures in the format that can battle with the standard Kodama Northside and live.

Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Crime: Well, once you get into this class of murder, it’s not really considered a “crime” anymore. If somebody kills someone, that’s murder, and they go to prison. You kill ten people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that’s what they do. Twenty people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever. More than that, and you just kind of have to congratulate them for their accomplishments. We’re almost going, “…Well done! You killed 100,000 people? Ahhh. You must get up very early in the morning. I can’t even get down the gym! Your diary must look odd. Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, lunch… death, death, death, afternoon tea… death, death, death, quick shower.”

In the Splice deck, powered by recursive Soulless Revival/Hana Kami, this gives a repeating Wrath of God effect to go alongside the already-common Ethereal Haze, at effectively no cost to the deck (replace a fatty of your choice for the technical kill). He also helps potentially justify the existence of a black control deck, similar to his effect in Standard.

Kuro, Pitlord
Crime: Double-fisted pump-action shotgun action, wiping out the opposition. Too bad he costs nine; paired with Iname, All as One, this is a likely target for those looking to “cheat” something into play, possibly in a deck with Ideas Unbound and Through the Breach.

Nezumi Graverobber
Crime: An effective mix of versatility and efficiency. The ability to become a four-power beater, plus the ability to remove cards from the graveyard to break a Hana Kami/Soulless Revival lock, plus the potential to reanimate creatures from either players’ graveyard, make this well worth the two-mana investment.

Nezumi Shortfang
Crime: Instant-speed, undercosted discard with built-in punisher effect to finish the game. In a format that is slow enough to allow cards like this to flourish, and in which there are very few true means for gaining card advantage, this little gem is a wonderful thing when your opponent gives you the time to take advantage of it. Don’t let them… but that’s not necessarily as easy as it sounds.

Night of Souls’ Betrayal
Crime: A diamond in the rough, for answering small creature threats (Snakes, White Weenie) while also negating some controllish cards (Hana Kami, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Nezumi Shortfang) permanently. Pre-emptively negates an entire class of cards that sounds like it should be limited but isn’t — namely, one-toughness creatures.

One With Nothing
Crime: Being printed. Worse yet, someone might play it in some sort of weirdo Reanimator-style deck. Worse yet, they couldn’t even make it Arcane.

Seizan, Perverter of Truth
Crime: Changes the rules of the game from “draw one, play whatever” to
“draw three, lose two life, play whatever”… also drastically altering the tempo game, regardless of its impressive 6/5 body, because sitting on your ass can’t help you for too many turns. Obviously your opponent gets to benefit from this first, and he may get the best of it, especially in a format where Hero’s Demise is one of the most efficient removal spells around — but it is still worth noting.

Sickening Shoal
Crime: Free. Creature removal. Free. Arcane spell. Free.

Soulless Revival
Crime: Monopolizing the “winning decks” strategy, along with its partner Hana Kami. Both pleaded innocence, but nobody believed them after the Philadelphia incident.

Thief of Hope
Crime: Subtly changes the rules to favor Spirits and Arcane spells with a life-drain mechanism, allowing for the potential to kill your opponent outside of the attack phase just by casting enough of them. Probably not good enough unless suddenly aggro black is good enough, and maybe not even then.

Toshiro Umezawa
Crime: Impersonation of Yawgmoth’s Will. Only a passable impersonation in a dark alley in the middle of a thunderstorm, but still pretty good for a three-mana creature these days.

Blue

Callow Jushi
Crime: When flipped, a very efficient beater with built-in countermagic protection. If the Ninja Fish decks can squeeze enough Spirit or Arcane cards in here, this might be quite a reasonable addition.

Cloudhoof Kirin
Crime: Splicing Dampen Thought onto every Spirit and Arcane spell. Still probably garbage, due to the time it takes to deck someone, the inability to play multiples, and the inherent fragility of Blue creatures.

Disrupting Shoal
Crime: Free. Countermagic. Free. Arcane spell. Free.

Eerie Procession
Crime: Limited tutoring, but for a very relevant class of cards. Potentially enables Splice decks lacking the Gifts Ungiven-into-Revival/Kami splice lock… also known as, the less good ones. Probably quite reasonable in a U/R Splice Control build.

Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
Crime: Changes the rules of the game to negate your opponents’ first spell each turn. Pretty sexy for a two-mana creature, especially since the work needed to get there after that isn’t too extensive.

Eternal Dominion
Crime: 7UUU, Win the Game. If you cannot win the game, quit playing Magic. Competes with another ten-mana Blue spell that should effectively say win the game, and which does so more reliably from a variety of different situations.

Gifts Ungiven
Crime: Not playing fair. Ever since people figured out the secret of this card, that being asking yourself what would happen if you searched for Y, Z, Foo, and Bar, and finding a set of four cards that says you win the game. (Soulless Revival, Stir the Grave, Hana Kami, Ethereal Haze / Cranial Extraction, for those not in the know.)

Honden of Seeing Winds
Crime: You draw one, I draw more than one. For five mana, sadly, that’s… fair.

Ideas Unbound
Crime: Providing hideous draw power for the mana paid, regardless of “drawbacks.” Allows for early (and profitable) discarding of large creatures later to be used for reanimation, or simply smoothing things along enough to work with Through the Breach. Either way, it sets up Iname, All as One to take advantage of its leaves-play effect by tossing fat Spirits in the bin.

Jushi Apprentice
Crime: Remember when I said card advantage was hard to come by? Blue has it easy. Blue also, for the most part, stinks. This is how easy it can be for Blue to draw cards, with a benefit as well; this is how sad it truly is that cards like these are left without any backup.

Kaho, Minamo Historian
Crime: Excessive free card advantage, with tutoring power, stapled to a vulnerable 2/2 body. The chase wizard of the set, but sadly it’s still not good.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Crime: Alters the rules of the game to negate the first spell or effect targeting a creature you control. Still dies to Hideous Laughter and Final Judgment. Sad, really.

Meloku the Clouded Mirror
Crime: Ruthless efficiency; can win the game from absurdly “behind” positions thanks to his attached army of flying cohorts, be they additional attackers or blockers. The first, and occasionally only, blue card worth playing in a deck.

Myojin of Seeing Winds
Crime: Also in the “7UUU, Win the Game” category, this creature allows you to draw an absurd amount of cards, and thus “win the game.” This card, more than Sway of the Stars, made Heartbeat of Spring worth playing; Sway of the Stars made it worth playing regardless of the risk and is a likely companion to any deck that expects it can reasonably and profitably cast this Myojin.

Ninja of the Deep Hours
Crime: When paid for with its “real” casting cost, it’s an undercosted creature with built-in Curiosity. How bad you have to make your deck to pay the “real” cost, and take advantage of it, remains to be seen. A blue-white Ninja build did reasonably well on the backs of Isamaru and Lantern Kami for Ninja support — but consistency and power are two things you have to watch very, very carefully.

Overwhelming Intellect
Crime: A clunky six-mana counterspell that could look like Opportunity along the way, or perhaps just counter a spell and cost you infinite mana. Considering that there are very reasonable beatdown decks that laugh at your intention to keep six mana untapped, this might not be the best place to start looking for power cards to exploit during deckbuilding.

Sakashima the Impostor
Crime: Impersonates the Legend (or other mundane creature, for that matter) of your choice, for the same cost as what you’d expect to pay for a Clone. Utterly fair, if good.

Soratami Savant
Crime: A flier with built-in Counterspell mechanism; presumably, it is hard to lose the game if you get to untap. Some decks won’t care, while others will just kill it while you’re tapped out…. but it’s a marvelous idea, even if it isn’t the best game plan.

Sway of the Stars
Crime: Being a Blue card worth playing, in a format that otherwise seems to have four real colors and Meloku. Highly abusive with anything that lets you float a lot of mana, such as Heartbeat of Spring or Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro. Possibly the coolest card in the format, simply for its ability to get you out of any situation at all period. Hangs out in the mile-high club — home of the blue cards that cost ten mana and win the game — of which there are three. Clearly the most affordable of the three, as it’s shaved a colored mana off its cost to be more tempting (and to suggest you put it into decks that are less dedicated to the color Blue).

Multicolor

Iname, All As One
Crime: Being the best (or at least most tempting) target for the Sneak Attack or temporary-reanimation spells that abound in the format, such as Footsteps of Goryo… a reanimation card so awkward that only leaves-play triggers could make it worthwhile.

Next week:
Putting this all together in a Kamigawa-block jam session, and taking a look at the early PTQ results. My first pass through Kamigawa Block, starting with reading up on the Pro Tour and looking over a fair wad of archetypes, has led me to consider the following for early season PTQs:

Sean McKeown
[email protected]

“What ravages of spirit conjured this tempestuous rage? Created you a monster, broken by the rule of love? And fate has led you to it; you do what you have to do…”
— Sarah McLachlan, “Do What You Have To Do”