By now, I hope that each one of you has had a chance to play with Eldritch Moon and are beginning to discover the potential this set has from a Limited, Constructed, and brewing perspective. I know I’m just starting to dig in, and this is one of the deepest small-expansion sets for brewing I’ve seen in a long time.
Prereleases are great ways to get introduced to a set; I went to my own this past weekend, and after opening ringer after ringer, I played a few rounds and thought, “You know what? This set is too much fun. Playing it will just waste time that I should be brewing.” Had nothing to do with my 0-3 match start for the day, no sirree.
So enough about the Limited format, which is great despite my poor performance in my Sealed event. Let’s look at Constructed!
I love preordering cards for a new set, and guessing what cards are going to be hits and misses is a lot of fun. As such, I’ve taken to speculation over the last few sets. Like many of you, I follow Chas Andres and his finance articles closely, and I try to make the best and most judicious decisions about what cards are going to rise and fall during the first few days, weeks, and months of the format. Over the last few sets, I’ve picked some winners, namely World Breaker, Endless One, Hangarback Walker, and Eidolon of the Great Revel. I’ve also picked some bricks: Undergrowth Champion, Alhammarret’s Archive, and Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh, to name a few.
It’s fun to look back on the first card you preordered, the first one you felt like it’d be “the one.” This time?
I ordered two playsets. Did not hesitate.
Lupine Prototype speaks to me on so many different levels. First off, it’s a Wolf Construct. A Wolf. Construct. This set has some great creature type lines: Eldrazi Angel, Human Horror, Spirit Cleric…but this has got to be one of my favorites. I love that Ludevic bolted a Wolf into a machine.
Second, I love its sizing; a 5/5, once it’s up and running, is really well-positioned to dominate the format in much the same way Reality Smasher is. Neither is scared of Sylvan Advocate, Languish, or Grasp of Darkness, and this one can get in the red zone much more quickly and in more decks.
Third, I like the brews it produces!
When I first started playing Magic, this was a combo I discovered during a Ravnica/Guildpact/Dissension draft; Vigean Hydropon wasn’t really a creature, as it couldn’t attack or block like one, but for the purposes of power and toughness, it was very efficient. Sinstriker’s Will didn’t care that the creature couldn’t attack or block; it just needed the power and toughness.
This is true for Lupine Prototype too. The difference is I started mentally brewing with this Wolf Construct moments after seeing it. My first thought?
Finally, an on-curve Tormented Thoughts sacrifice! Since this card originally came out in Journey into Nyx, I was trying to find a reasonable way to pump a creature to basically force you to discard your hand on turn 3. Mind Rot? More like Mind Putrefaction!
Lupine Prototype not only provided a method to power this conditional discard spell, but it also had a payoff built in; once you’ve stuck another one, you have an undercosted 5/5 that won’t easily die in combat once you’ve forced your opponent to mulligan to two. Discard is only as good as the pressure you can apply while your opponent rebuilds their hand, and a four-turn clock for two mana might be just the thing.
Admittedly, it’s easier to destroy your own hand, so doing a little of both will help ensure that Lupine Prototype can attack consistently. It’s not lost on me that Lupine Prototype is an artifact creature, and as Hangarback Walker taught us, that’s half the card types you need for delirium on one card. You thinking what I’m thinking?
Together, these cards represent two of the most efficient delirium enablers in the format, combining razor-thin mana costs at the cost of card advantage. But hey, when you’re playing a 5/5 for two mana that requires you to be hellbent, you don’t really care about that!
Power on, robot-puppy!
Creatures (24)
- 4 Despoiler of Souls
- 4 Hangarback Walker
- 4 Endless One
- 2 Tooth Collector
- 2 Haunted Dead
- 4 Lupine Prototype
- 4 Cryptbreaker
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (20)
- 20 Swamp
Spells (14)
Sideboard
This deck is a bit shaky, but it has the right feel for a deck that has a Frankenwolf heading up the front line.
This was a bit of a test list to see how well that interaction happened. I figured in practice that the deck would push the interaction of Tormented Thoughts and Lupine Prototype heavily and that, with the exception of cards like Declaration in Stone, most decks can’t mess with a turn 2 5/5 in a meaningful way, nor do they want to. I only tested it in this form a few times when I realized that not only was the deck not high-pressure enough, but it didn’t focus on what actually turned out to be the most fun card in the deck: Strange Augmentation.
Strange Augmentation has a lot of potential without a lot of setup, and its potential is reflected in similar cards from Magic’s past. These are cheap enchantments paired with synergistic creatures that made each other very powerful. Nip Gwyllion and Hopeful Eidolon got really silly when you put extra copies of their buddy Auras placed on them. Together, each could run away with the game, providing a huge threat and pushing a huge gap between you and your opponent. Recently, Auras have erred on the side of caution with cards like Senseless Rage, Knightly Valor, and Stratus Walk. Needless to say, you haven’t seen any of those cards in Standard.
For a common, I think Strange Augmentation has a bright future.
Being mono-black comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. While I think we’ve left the days of easy three- and four-color decks behind, splashing a second color is pretty painless.
Painless. Well, for you, anyway. A delirium aggro deck must have low-cost, high-impact creatures just like Lupine Prototype that allow us to empty our hands.
Back in April, I shared an aggressive B/G Delirium deck that I’ve been tweaking ever since, even taking it to an event as recently as last Wednesday, where the almost card-for-card list squeaked out a 2-1 record, beating one G/W Tokens deck, losing to another, and clinching a close match against a mono-blue Part the Waterveil deck.
This deck had a bit of a +1/+1 counter theme with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Avatar of the Resolute. We have enough true delirium cards that we can move away from this into an efficient machine of beating.
Creatures (19)
- 4 Hangarback Walker
- 2 Obsessive Skinner
- 4 Gnarlwood Dryad
- 4 Lupine Prototype
- 4 Grim Flayer
- 1 Olivia's Dragoon
Lands (19)
Spells (22)
- 1 Terrarion
- 2 Tormented Thoughts
- 1 Natural State
- 4 Sinister Concoction
- 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
- 1 Vessel of Nascency
- 4 Collective Brutality
- 4 Strange Augmentation
- 1 Graf Harvest
Sideboard
This deck played way differently from the other, mostly because Lupine Prototype took a backseat. Because I was more concerned with playing the cheapest cards I could, becoming hellbent with Lupine Prototype was easy, and it fell into the rank and file of the other efficient beaters.
I dismissed this card when I first saw it. The stats, trigger, and bonus all seemed wrong for an aggro deck, but after playing with it a few rounds, the combat damage trigger proved phenomenal. Also, as anyone who plays Tarmogoyf can tell you, paying two mana for four power is really strong.
The fact that it had trample made Strange Augmentation even better. I once got this in as a 7/7 on turn 3, hitting and putting another Augmentation on top, untapping, and playing two more to swing for thirteen damage, finishing my opponent off before they even started playing the game. These two cards together were phenomenal, and I take back what I said. Grim Flayer is the real deal, despite being a bit narrow.
Finally, I wanted to test not just Lupine Prototype, but the path to get Lupine Prototype online; that is, the discarding that gets you there. Madness continues to be a powerful mechanic, and Eldritch Moon provides some tasty enablers.
Isn’t that a cool name for a creature? Bedlam Reveler? I’ve always loved the word “bedlam;” in the context of a terrified Innistrad, the name conjures up images of upturned, stripped wagons, rampant thievery and assault in the cobblestone streets, and horrified peasants fighting their neighbor for a scrap of old bread as the moon becomes eclipsed by a writhing mass of tentacles. And this Devil loves it.
Nahiri’s Wrath, on the other hand, is an exceptional madness enabler and a great way to effortlessly activate Lupine Prototype. We’ll leave Tormented Thoughts out of this; we’re just gonna try to burn them to death first. Let’s make a black and red deck; oh, those are Bedlam Reveler’s initials!
Creatures (11)
Lands (23)
Spells (26)
No sideboard this time; if you’re wreaking havoc as Emrakul, the Promised End descends upon you, you ain’t got no time for a sideboard!
This deck proved that burn’s still got it with a four-mana Collective Brutality taking eight life from my opponent at one point. Combine that with the efficiency of Lightning Axe and discard Galvanic Bombardment, and you’ve got an efficient control deck that has no problem sitting back until its creatures can attack unhindered.
It was a weird place, living off the topdeck, but it’s where a deck like this feels the most comfortable. Bedlam Reveler was a fantastic way to reload; discarding your second in-hand copy to Nahiri’s Wrath gave you immense sweeping power, and it was very easy to cast it, reload, and burn your hand in the same turn thanks to the deck’s one-mana madness spells. This deck was surprisingly efficient, and if your opponent is getting fast and loose with their life total, this deck will punish them until the cows come home (or, more likely, they’re abducted by the Eldrazi to become bovine monstrosities).
Lupine Prototype might be a 5/5 with a drawback, but it’s got a lot of heart (maybe extra hearts, muscles, brains, everything), and it’s a great card to brew with. There’s still lots more to this oversized Wolf, so it’ll stay at the top of my list over the next few months.
Lupine Prototype is an exciting card that, like any animal, needs a little love and attention to feel welcomed. This one just happens to need WD-40 and constant flow of direct current. But everyone deserves love. How have you shown this mechanical pooch some?
Comments from Last Week
Looking through the set again, Lupine Prototype could be pretty good in possibly a mono-red madness shell, with Avaricious Dragon to drop your hand.
– Gavin March
Thanks for the great find, Gavin! I’d already planned to write about Lupine Prototype, but I never considered how good Avaricious Dragon was with it until you’d mentioned it. I have you to think for that great inspiration!
I’ve been thinking about emerge to help bolster Zombies…I’m thinking that Prized Amalgam might also be good emerge fuel for Elder Deep-Fiend to open up space for 2/2’s Zombies to attack. That said, maybe Sultai is the way to go…get access to Yavimaya Coast, both Matter Reshaper and Prized Amalgam as emerge fuel…or go more all-in black Zombies with Relentless Dead. I know Zombies might not make it, but perhaps emerging Elder Deep-Fiend as a powerful way to put Zombies in the graveyard is the way to make it competitive. What do you think, Matt?
– Michael Lewis
I might have written about emerge last week, but I still can’t get it out of my head. After playing with this past weekend and in some additional testing since, I’ve been really impressed by this powerful, yet fair mechanic. I’ve actually been working on a U/B Zombie deck that features Prized Amalgams discarded by Collective Brutality, but I’d never considered that it’s a three-mana creature that you can eat. Great observation!