Fate Reforged Set Review: Part 3

This is where things get crazy.

Welcome to the conclusion of my Fate Reforged set review.Monday and Wednesday we covered updates to existing strategies and how
Fate Reforged impacts which existing cards change in positioning. Today, I’d like to take a look at crazy new strategies that might be possible with Fate
Reforged. Most of these won’t stand the test of time; however, it only takes one Constellation deck, one Delver deck, one Blue or Black Devotion deck to
completely change the format.

Besides, there really is no joy in life quite like brewing with a new set…

Rally the Ancestors is just quietly one of the coolest build-arounds in Fate Reforged. It’s a Living Death variant that presents you with the twin puzzles
of how to get creatures in your graveyard, and what creatures to get back that win the game for you before they all get exiled at the beginning of your
next upkeep.

The two main ways to go here are enters the battlefield triggers or haste, though I suppose you could also just want to sacrifice a lot of units (dodging
the exile clause). My first thought is to abuse enters the battlefield triggers, particularly that of Gray Merchant of Asphodel, as multiple Gray Merchants
entering the battlefield at the same time all get the benefit of all of the other Gray Merchants.

Three Gray Merchants entering at the same time is an eighteen-point drain by themselves; but we’re not always going to have them just sitting in our
graveyard waiting to rally. If we hit our opponent with a Mogis’s Marauder, then a Siege Rhino, then a Gray Merchant, that puts them to eleven. Rally back
all three at a later date, and you’re knocking them to two, with three haste intimidate creatures coming at them.

Nyx Weaver serves a lot of roles in this list. First and foremost, it is a self-mill enabler, helping ensure that Rally the Ancestors is fatal. It’s also a
tutor for Rally, since eventually you’ll flip one over and Nyx Weaver can get it back. It’s another source of black devotion to power our Gray Merchants.
Finally, it’s an important back-up plan for when Rally isn’t actually fatal. In games where you have to “value Rally” (perhaps inside of combat), you can
trigger your Wayfinder, block with your creatures, and then on your upkeep, exile the Weaver to get something sweet back (perhaps another Rally that was
flipped to the Wayfinder).

Nyx Weaver is also another enchantment, alongside Whip of Erebos and Courser of Kruphix. Doomwake Giant is a totally respectable card in Constellation
decks anyway, but here, we have the potential to Rally back multiple enchantment creatures at the same time, making Doomwake Giant into a legit sweeper.

I’d love to be able to Clever Impersonator Gray Merchant in a deck like this, but I’m just not sure how to make the mana work. Remember, if you Rally back
your Impersonator, it “costs double black” in time to get you extra paid off of your devotion.

Gray Merchant isn’t the only devotion card that’s abusable with Rally. Fanatic of Mogis has a similar trigger and can be lined up side-by-side with a bunch
of haste creatures like Flamewake Phoenix and Shaman of the Great Hunt to try to kill in one big attack.

I tried putting together a list that did just that, along with Clever Impersonator, but the mana was so awkward. Then I realized, Purphoros is another
fantastic way to get paid from Rally the Ancestors. It’s not uncommon for him to deal 8-10 damage because of a Rally, even if he’s one of the creatures
rallying back. Remember, if somehow a copy of Purphoros got into your graveyard and you Rally it back, if you have a second copy already in play, you’ll
get all the triggers despite having to legend rule one.

Goblin Rabblemaster is just sweet with Purphoros anyway.

Might Generator Servant belong in a deck like this? Probably too gimmicky, but worth keeping in mind.

We should also be asking ourselves if some amount of looting would serve us. Tormented Voice is a possibility, but it’s pretty inefficient by today’s
standards. Jeskai Ascendancy could also be a possibility if we increased the number of spells in the deck and added blue back in. That conflicts with the
Rally, however. Vault Breaker is also an option and makes our Flamewake Phoenix better, though it’s not the greatest hit ever for bringing back with Rally.

We could include Heliod’s Pilgrim to find Chained to the Rocks, letting us play even more of a fair game. It may not add devotion to red, but at least it’s
a fine backup plan that gets you’re on a budget at Rally’s.

Lightform and Cloudform are the best of the manifest auras, and while Cloudform is a more attractive card on its own, Lightform has the advantage of being
the same colors as Soul Summons and Master of Pearls for the purposes of building a G/W Manifest deck.

Why build a manifest deck at all?

When you manifest either Hooded Hydra or Master of Pearls, you can “unmorph it” for its casting cost (two in both cases), rather than the five it would
normally cost you. Despite this being big savings, you still get the full effect from the flip trigger. If you Soul Summons or Wildcall a Hooded Hydra on
turn 2, you can spend GG on your next turn to make it GG for your opponent. Not only will you get a 5/5 attacker on turn 3, but if it dies, you get five
1/1s.

Master of Pearls isn’t as big a blow out on turn 2, but nevertheless, can end the game with a timely activation (particularly if your Hydra already died).
It’s nice that it has the same morph cost as Hooded Hydra, so when you actually have to morph it, you can hold five up to represent either one. Often, the
right way to play around one walks right into the other, so this can lead to nice traps.

The rest of my first stab at the deck is efficient creatures with a little bit of removal to round things out. The efficient creatures aren’t just a
“backup plan” either. If you Lightform a Brimaz, you’re often going to blow people out in combat, and even when you don’t, Brimaz is a creature that loves
flying and lifelink.

Wildcall is just a great card, whether in a dedicated manifest deck or just as a random card to use in a normal deck. Remember, extra cards on Hooded Hydra
means extra hydras if they kill it!

I’m unsure of Soul Summons, as it is just so much less versatile than Lightform or Wildcall, but it’s worth trying the more extreme version first, in my
opinion.

Whisperwood Elemental might just be awesome. The card is great at taking over ground battles and gives us an awesome weapon against End Hostilities and
Crux of Fate. That it is another manifest enabler is nice, of course. The only reason I don’t try more is that Hooded Hydra and Wildcall already give us a
lot to do with our mana, not to mention paying to flip cards.

Valorous Stance is great, and I think it is likely to be a tournament staple nearly immediately. Its value will shift from week to week, depending on what
cards are popular; but as a removal spell, it is very effective despite not being bad against reactive decks. Courser of Kruphix, Siege Rhino, and the like
are all going to take a hit from the increase in free and efficient removal appearing in people’s decks (free from an opportunity cost standpoint).

The single biggest place Valorous Stance will show up is in W/U Heroic, where it is an instant hit. We discussed this application Wednesday, so let’s take
a look at a few more speculative homes.

While there isn’t some new compelling reason to play Mono-White, new printings always carry with them the possibility that there are just enough new cards
in the right places to make a mono-color deck viable that was formerly underpowered.

Valorous Stance gives white access to so much more maindeckable removal, it really is a lot more realistic to consider not splashing. That said, it costs
relatively little to get a second color. While we have a little bit slower of mana at times, the extra scrys and lifegain triggers can actually be an
advantage. Splashing Sorin, Solemn Visitor might be sweet…

Mardu Woe-Reaper is not a huge lifegain engine or anything, but it is another two-power one-drop that can give us added synergy with Ajani’s Pridemate, not
to mention attacking opposing Flamewake Phoenixes or Hornet Queens looking to get Whipped real hard.

Acolyte’s Reward is pretty speculative, but it could be a cool added dimension if people are trying to burn our creatures or get into combat enough. If we
actually like it, we could try adding more, possibly adding Soulfire Grand Master, whose lifelink works on the Acolyte’s Reward. If we went that way, we’d
want to make sure to add enough dual lands to support the buyback activation (perhaps a dozen, and maybe an Island if we decide to go with blue).

Instead of being so lifegain aggro-oriented, we could try a more tokens-based approach, trying to build around Monastery Mentor + Phalanx Leader + Launch
the Fleet.

Should we be playing Obelisk of Urd? I always found it so hard to fit enough spells for Phalanx Leader while still having enough creatures for Obelisk of
Urd. If Monastery Mentor’s tokens lined up better, it might be more tempting, but they aren’t even human, so they really just don’t mix with the rest of
our creatures.

I haven’t figured out what it looks like yet, but I could imagine there being a W/U deck that plays sort of like W/U Heroic but is more focused on Shu Yun,
the Silent Tempest and Scroll of the Masters. No question Valorous Stance would be a great consideration for such a deck. Cloudform could also be a nice
way to build a huge hexproof threat. It’s particularly nice when Cloudform hits Seeker of the Way so that we have a nearly unblockable, hexproof, lifelink
champion to carry all of our buffs.

Speaking of Cloudform, I’m looking forward to building with this one in the future, but right now, there just isn’t the support for a traditional hexproof
deck. The auras are mostly so bad, aside from the Ordeals. There are also very few options for hexproof creatures. Bassara Tower Archer? Xathrid Sly Blade?

At the moment, I think we’d be more inclined to use Cloudform in a U/G Trail of Mystery deck. I would guess it’s not good enough to just throw into a deck
randomly, but maybe we would consider it if we had enough good flips (like Hooded Hydra that we wanted anyway).

This isn’t really a new deck, per se, but it is a new kind of sideboard card. It’s super expensive and not the type of card that’s usually good, but it has
such a profound impact on the game, I can’t help but daydream about it.

Sadly, at the end of the day, it’s really just a glorified Fog that usually kills your opponent’s best creature. If it could go to the face, we might be
somewhere. Maybe there’s some crazy combo where we want to blast our own creature, but it’s hard to imagine that looking good, as we can’t even use Channel
Harm to save our own creatures from our own red sweepers.

Jeskai Barricade isn’t breaking any efficiency records, but it does provide a relatively interesting effect. It’s just too modestly costed to be worth
trying to “abuse” enters the battlefield triggers as the only thing you’re doing. We can get that elsewhere. Maybe we end up wanting to bounce Heliod’s
Pilgrim or something, but I doubt that alone is enough to make us want the Barricade.

It is, however, a flash creature, which means we can trigger Ephara, God of the Polis an extra time. In fact, if we draw two copies of it and/or Quickling,
we can draw three cards a turn as long as our opponent can’t break it up. Remember, Ephara triggers each players’ upkeep, so if we can keep playing flash
creatures, we can draw twice as many extra cards. We even get to have an extra invincible blocker every turn (since we can block with Quickling and bounce
with Barricade before damage).

Raise the Alarm gives us another instant speed way to make creatures on our opponent’s turn. We could even use Monastery Mentor if we had enough instants
to trigger it.

I was concerned about using too many Quicklings, as they are dead without another creature to bounce. It might be that I’m being too cautious and that we
can actually get away with less combo pieces and more “good” U/W Control cards.

In that vein, I wanted to try Mnemonic Wall, even though it’s surely bad. The ability to rebuy Dissolve, End Hostilities, or Dig Through Time is kind of
sweet, even if this plan is unreal slow. Being able to bounce our Mnemonic Wall with Barricades and Quicklings is a thing (as anyone that has drafted
Mnemonic Wall + Voyage’s End can tell you).

Okay, first, I’ll tell you the three things I like about Citadel Siege. First it can keep you safe even from haste creatures, upgrading each turn to the
biggest threat. It’s particularly good at beating opposing legends, since it effectively neutralizes one without your opponent being able to play a second
one. Even a Pacifism effect would get beaten by someone using the legend rule to replace their creature. Finally, Citadel Siege is a “removal spell” that
isn’t dead against reactive decks. As long as you have creatures you can put counters on, it does something (and +2/+2 a turn for no mana is nothing to
sneeze at).

The main problem I have with the card is that the bar is really high for what we can get for four mana these days. If our opponent isn’t attacking us with
a single big creature, Citadel Siege is a little bit of a clumsy removal spell. For instance, it is quite poor against Goblin Rabblemaster, Stormbreath
Dragon, Hornet Queen, and planeswalkers.

There are also a lot of ways people can pick up enchantment removal without much trouble. Getting it Erased is real harsh if you were counting on it, but
Reclamation Sages and Utter Ends are everywhere maindeck. Obviously, nearly everything dies to some kind of removal, but this is the type of effect that
can cause serious unexpected problems when it’s removed by surprise.

If Citadel Siege finds a mainstream home, it would problem have to be in a deck that is happy to get counters a high percentage of the time and not just as
a “backup plan.” It just doesn’t seem like a great sideboard card in a control deck, since so many people will assume you have Banishing Light anyway, and
board in enchantment removal.

He’s probably not good enough as a 4/4 vigilance for four is a mana more than we’d realistically pay, and that ability doesn’t look worth a mana to me. It
would take a bit of an unusual metagame to think that moving around your own +1/+1 counters is going to exert enough influence to be worth paying that much
for. Three is a lot.

Maybe we could use him in some kind of dedicated legend deck (because of Hero’s Blade), but if we’re into Daghatar, my guess is it is because he can steal
your opponent’s +1/+1 counters. Now that is worth three mana. Not sure how often our opponents are getting +1/+1 counters, but it’s something to
keep in mind, particularly if the next set has some sweet card with a drawback of giving your opponent’s creatures +1/+1 counters.

While it can have a big effect on the game, it doesn’t give you any value immediately and requires you to already be “winning” to do its thing (attack with
a bunch of creatures every turn). Add to this its frail body, and I am off it.

Even with this drawback, a 4/1 for two hits hard enough to get us to sit up and take note. The key is that most things that target it would have killed it
anyway. While it can get jacked from half an Abzan Charm, amusingly, it has some amount of resilience against Bile Blight. I actually think the more common
way it goes wrong is getting blown out by cards like Raise the Alarm, Doomwake Giant, and Jeskai Sage.

This means, for the most part, Frost Walker is a 4/1 for two, which means we want to use it in a very aggressive deck, like taking advantage of how cheaply
it enables ferocity. We also want to be able to clear blockers out of the way.

Putting Frost Walker next to sixteen haste creatures means we are going to hit hard and fast. What’s interesting is that we have way, way more lategame
than an aggressive deck like this would normally have. Flamewake Phoenix can basically always come back, and Stormbreath Dragon hits hard late. Savage
Knuckleblade can have a big impact when you have enough mana to play its games.

Shaman of the Great Hunt is a hard hitting haste creature that can really help press the advantage by pumping your whole team. What’s interesting is asking
just how much the card draw ability is worth. You can get blown out if you try to use it when Shaman is your only creature (wasting mana), but it is
usually four to draw at least one card, and sometimes it’s a way to draw a ton of cards in a hurry.

Shamanic Revelation is a sideboard card I’m looking forward to using here, as it seems like it would be an easy way to gain eight life and draw three cards
against a lot of aggro decks.

Another possible home for Frost Walker and Shaman of the Great Hunt is in a straight U/R deck:

We really can play a basically Mono-Red Aggro deck and splash Frost Walker (plus some sweet sideboard cards), but it’s nice to make sure we have enough
mana to activate our Shaman of the Great Hunt, digging to lots of burn. Make sure to sideboard Treasure Cruise in a deck like this, as it is a great way to
fight attrition-based strategies like Abzan.

This is too expensive to play unless we are trying to abuse it. Maybe it has a home in some kind of dedicated Shu Yun deck or as a mana engine in a
Karametra’s Acolyte deck, but I just want to untap my Humble Defector and get nasty…

Untap with Humble Defector and now your Refocus is a two-cost Ancestral Recall. Activate its ability, then with the trigger on the stack, untap it and
activate it again. You’ll draw five cards total, and they’ll get the Humble Defector… unless you draw another Refocus!

Refocus isn’t even the best way to untap the Defector, as Jeskai Ascendancy combines with it so well, it is the stuff dreams are made of.

I’m real unclear on which cards to actually be shaving for the Humble Defector package, so I like cutting a little of everything and seeing what we miss
and what is working. Soulfire Grand Master, Shu Yun, and Valorous Stance are all fine cards to try as well, not to mention Jeskai Sage, which I sort of
just want to put in every single deck.

If you want to really shove all in on Humble Defector, you could put it alongside Kiora’s Followers, which gives you Refocus every turn. Yisan, the
Wanderer Bard works great with Kiora’s Followers anyway and can help set up the Humble Defector combo. Besides, people are going to try to kill your
Defector if they know what is good for them, so it’s nice to follow up with another must-kill like Yisan.

The tough part about Kiora’s Followers alongside the Defector is that it puts us into three colors already, and we haven’t even gotten to add Jeskai
Ascendancy. Maybe there is a super greedy manabase that can pull it off, but it’s going to be clunky at times.

The stats on the Archfiend are just a little low to excite me, as 5/5 would be a huge upgrade, living through Stoke the Flames or Siege Rhino. Even with
the four-toughness though, I could actually see Archfiend of Depravity appearing once in a while, perhaps as a sideboard card. If you’re playing a deck
that doesn’t play many creatures main and can actually imagine letting your opponent keep three or more creatures in play at the same time, you really
don’t pay much for an ability that pays for itself basically the first time you ever get to use it.

Grave Strength is a better enabler than it might seem on the surface, as long as you have a critical mass of cheap targets. If you give a creature +2/+2
after your mill, it’s not even that embarrassing. More than that and you are starting to create a big, if unwieldy effect. In a dedicated
self-mill deck, it’s not actually going to be that uncommon to give a creature +10/+10.

It all falls apart against a lot of black or white removal spells, but some of the time it will just dominate the board, and even a single hit by surprise
can hit hard enough to be worth the risk. I just wish there was a good lifelink creature to pants up. I guess that’s what Whip of Erebos is supposed to be
for, but I’d kind of like to try Grave Strength in a more aggressive deck.

Strength from the Fallen has a lot of similarities to Grave Strength and stacks quite well. Interestingly, we actually have over twenty enchantments, since
so many of the best black aggro creatures are enchantment creatures.

Nighthowler fits our theme, of course, I just would love to find a little more self-mill to try to make it even stronger. Maybe Nyx Weaver is our guy, but
it is so slow, and our deck so fast.

Not the best one-drop ever, but it effectively does two damage a turn and can be somewhat evasive under some circumstances.

Sixteen one-drops is so many, but Mogis’s Marauder loves how all-in this version is. Mardu Strike Leader is a bit out of place, preferring instead to be
part of a deck with a ton of removal that wants the game to go on a few turns. Maybe we should make it a Thoughtseize?

Soulflayer is one of the most intriguing cards in the set, as there is so much you can do with it. The power level isn’t through the roof on its own, but
you can make it disgustingly strong if you are willing to build towards it. The biggest question is whether you are supposed to just settle for whatever
abilities appear on creatures good enough to play anyway, or if you should actually play crazy stuff like Chromanticore.

I know which way sounds more fun…

Chromanticore obviously adds tons of abilities, but it’s missing some great ones, so this list tries to surround the Chromanticore with creatures that
supply the best missing keywords.

Sylvan Caryatid is such a perfect way to pick up hexproof, but Sagu Mauler isn’t bad either. The Mauler is a great target to bestow with a Chromanticore,
and if we play it as a two-cost morph, it ends up in the graveyard early and often.

Prophetic Flamespeaker is pretty out of place here, but double strike is a really, really good ability to pick up, and trample is totally
respectable if we don’t already have it.

Pharika isn’t waking up all that much, though Soul Flayer does contribute two devotion. The ability to make snakes is sometimes going to help against
reactive decks, but mainly we just have dreams of making our Soul Flayer indestructible.

Mantis Rider and Flamewake Phoenix aren’t always the easiest to cast, but flying and haste are huge. Haste, in particular, is exactly what you want when
you get Soulflayer back. It is kind of fun that we happen to naturally have a lot of ways to get Flamewake Phoenix back and can flip it from our
self-milling.

Another direction to go with Soulflayer is to just play it “for value,” rather than bending over backwards. For instance:

Okay, Child of Night is probably too cute, but at least we aren’t trying to sneak Gurmag Swiftwing in here!

The main thing we’re building is a 4/4 flying haste creature, though double strike and lifelink can occasionally let us go even bigger. That may not sound
like that big of a game, but we’re often going to be doing it for just two mana, letting us make another good play that same turn. That kind of a tempo
boost can be surprisingly important.

Vaultbreaker is a little clunky, but the selection is solid, and it helps get creatures into our graveyard to Flay. Discarding Flamewake Phoenix is also
hot, since we can get it back next turn with the Vaultbreaker. Remember to consider actually casting the Vaultbreaker, particularly if you have a lot of
removal in hand. It doesn’t have to always be dashed.

While Mardu Scout is going to show up in a lot of “normal” red decks, like red aggro and red devotion, it is a goblin, so we might as well get the
obligatory Goblin deck out of the way. What is the Goblin King this time around? I guess Rabblemaster is (sometimes), but the main payoff is Obelisk of
Urd.

I’m super not sold on Goblin Heelcutter, but there’s no shame in trying it. If people are big into blocking with Siege Rhinos and Courser of Kruphix, it
could actually be fine.

Man, if Firedrinker Satyr was just a Goblin, we might actually be getting somewhere. Instead, we should probably just cut the bad Goblin cards and replace
them with bad auras:

Nothing too much has changed strategically, but it is important to keep in mind that this is a deck that really appreciates the one-cost nature of Wild
Slash.

We’ve already discussed Shamanic Revelation a fair bit, but what about using it in a token deck to try to Draw All The Cards?

Yeah, we’re not exactly maxing out on Shamanic Revelations here, but we do have lots of other expensive stuff to do to. If testing proves Shamanic
Revelation to be as great as we hope it is, it is easy enough to trim other expensive stuff to make room for more. Even trimming stuff like Courser of
Kruphix is easier here than it would normally be. We aren’t really trying to just ride a Courser for long games the way Abzan and Sultai do.

Hero’s Blade can be used as a fair piece of equipment in any random creature-based aggro deck that happens to have half a dozen legends, but it might be
fun to try to go all the way. Hero’s Podium gives us a legit reason to play nearly all legends, and Fate Reforged has so many playable low-cost legends,
let’s try the impossible:

If we want to go even harder, Alesha, Tyramet, Sidisi, and more are all available, but the mana seems so much worse once we go four colors. Maybe enough
Mana Confluences and Evolving Wilds gets it done. Maybe Sylvan Caryatid is the key. I just think if our mana is that screwy, we lose a lot of the value of
how efficient most of the legends are.

Okay, I’m out for this week, but there is still so much more to try in Fate Reforged before eventually just playing Tasigur, the Golden Fang.

What about Dark Deal?

Temporal Trespass?

Crucible of the Spirit Dragon?

You didn’t even drop the Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck!

Well, Crucible of the Spirit Dragon sucks until next set, but the rest have other purposes. Temporal Trespass and Dark Deal both excite me for Modern, so
more on that to come (though ultimately both will likely fail). They could work in Standard in strange circumstances, but I bet they won’t. Dark Deal can
do some cool things in a Soulflayer deck, so maybe that’s the way, but I feel like it might just prove so inconsistent as to not be worth it.

As for Alesha?

The more I work with her, the more I realize she deserves her own article…

See you Monday!