Single Card Spotlight: Treasure Cruise

G’day, Magic mates!

This is Danny West, formerly of Commander VS fame, poking my head out to bring you something a bit different. In fact, I’ll be poking my head out quite a
bit moving forward in 2015.

The reason? Because I’m excited about format diversity. One of the biggest complaints about Magic formats, in general, is that if you play one by itself
too often, it gets stale. Fortunately, both SCG and Wizards have mitigated this issue by allowing you to pretty much play what you want, when you want.
Whether it’s an Open Series event, an FNM, or an IQ-Grand Prix have been diverse for years-you can lobby for and play the format(s) you’re most interested
in on any given weekend.

The worst part of this is that there will be some Open weekends where I have to choose between the Legacy and Modern Premier IQ. Life is hard.

To meet this golden age of format diversity and accessibility head on, I want to devote this recurring column to showcasing an individual card across
different formats. Looking for a way to play a Standard staple in Modern? Let’s see if it’s viable. Looking to port a Legacy deck to a Commander list you
enjoy? I’ll get to work. Want to take that Vintage combo and play it in Standard? Well, you can’t and you’re cheating.

So where to begin? Well, since we’re talking about ports, we may as well talk about big stupid boats.

Drawing cards this efficiently is dumb. We all know this by now. We know this and we know it’s going to be banned in Modern. There were a few Modern ideas
I was kicking around using Glimpse the Unthinkable as delve jet fuel, but that’s probably not going to be on the table much longer, so let’s just move on.

Quick aside: there seems to be a group of people that doesn’t understand that sets are mainly developed for Standard and Limited. Treasure Cruise wasn’t a
“mistake” in the least. It’s fine in Standard and Limited. Sometimes, a card that is fair in Standard is going to be unfair in other formats. It happens.
They’ll fix it. There’s nothing to worry about.

This is in direct conflict with another group of people who stay away from sets with overall low power levels. Anthony Lowry said it best earlier this week, so I’ll defer to him:

“

I actually think it’s a pretty dangerous thing to apply that kind of logic to cards in a new set. A card doesn’t necessarily have to be as good as
another card that doesn’t exist in the format. If it does the job you’re looking for, then use it. I’m sure you’ve heard of players comparing

Courser of Kruphix

to
Oracle of Mul Daya
, but why does that matter if
Oracle of Mul Daya

was not accessible in the first place? I’m not a fan of comparing things just for the sake of comparing, and it’s much more valuable to evaluate cards
relative to what’s going on in the format, when those things are going on, and on a tournament by tournament basis.”

In other words, why be down a given set because it has strictly worse versions of older cards? It’s weird to see people not excited about a set because it
isn’t filled to the brim with Vintage staples when they’re mostly playing Standard anyway. Power level is a pretty overused term. Brimaz needs to be better
than the other three-drops, he doesn’t have to be better than Psychatog. Wild Slash has to be better than Magma Spray, it doesn’t have to be better than
Lightning Bolt.

Alright then. Back to Treasure Cruise.

Standard

I’m always fascinated by cards that are degenerate in older formats, but completely fair in Standard. Mental Misstep comes to mind, but it was obviously a
byproduct of older formats being naturally fuelled by cheaper spells. Then there’s Deathrite Shaman. Without fetchlands and strong cantrips in his Standard
format, the ceiling was pretty low.

Treasure Cruise, however, has no such limitation. Standard may not have the fast-paced breakneck speed of graveyard fuel that older formats do, but the
games are slower than Christmas, so it honestly doesn’t matter that much.

So where is Treasure Cruise in Standard?

It’s in the Jeskai Tokens deck. It makes split appearances with its co-star in the big blue control decks obviously. But otherwise?

Put simply, this card is too good to not be winning more games of Standard Magic.

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about this Standard format and my experiences with it. First off, yeah, it’s healthy, and yeah, it’s diverse. But it’s also
very “chunky.” What I mean by that is that although you can metagame and make your deck malleable given any number of powerful mythics and
efficiently-rated creatures, it is still often going to come down to a grind-out where someone bricks more than someone else. Of course, I’m not talking
about Heroic or Red Aggro matches. I’m talking about Whips and Sorins and Hornet Queens (oh my).

The observed chunkiness of the format isn’t a criticism or the revival of the perpetual skill versus luck futility storm; it is simply the black and white
truth that sometimes after the dust has settled and the parity is all there is in the one-for-one trade parade, you draw the Forest and they draw the
Elspeth.

In other words, I’m tired of drawing the Forest.

Abzan Cruise

Danny West

Test deck on 01-15-2015

Standard

Creatures (13)

Planeswalkers (4)

Lands (25)

Spells (18)

Sideboard

Instead of drawing a Forest and shrugging over mirror losses (and let’s face it, in a lot of these grind-fests, it feels like a big fat mirror regardless
of what green-colored tri-land they’re playing), the Treasure Cruise speeds ahead. No really, what is the 56-60th card in most of these decks? Wingmate
Roc? A second Utter End? A miser’s Nissa? I’ll take three random cards over those any day. And I’ll sure as hell take six.

In last year’s Standard, it was an adage that the first Sphinx’s Revelation got the game under control before the second one buried you. This Treasure
Cruise business feels much the same way, especially when the first one puts you over your hand size limit and fuels the next one soon after. I have 35 or
40 matches with this build, and I can’t tell you how many times I played a pseudo-mirror where we were both on an even playing field, except that I had two
or three cards in hand and they were hellbent. Wonder how that happened.

The other great thing about this list is that it takes the criticism of midrange (not fast enough for aggro, not long enough for control), and ignores it
entirely. When most of the format is baseline midrange, you can build your deck as philosophically poor as you want to as long as you’re gaining an
advantage on the decks everyone else is playing. The number of formats where this deck would be a disjointed slow mess is innumerable, but because everyone
is taking their sweet time building up their gameplan, you have all the time in the world to do the same and then some.

Wayfinder fixes the admittedly ghastly mana, fuels delve spells, and chumps. Courser of Kruphix gains you a million life and blocks little guys all day.
Siege Rhino, well…yeah…Siege Rhino.

One big thing to keep an eye on if you want to mess with this one is that you need to remember your basic land count. It may dress up like another midrange
nonsense deck, but it plays a very control role in virtually every matchup, including against U/X Control decks. You need to be in it for the long haul,
and screwing up a scry and losing your second white source that you’ll never find again is a great way to lose a game out of nowhere that you should’ve
easily won. Don’t get stuck with a game-winning Elspeth in hand because you didn’t plan accordingly.

And on that note, you also need to pay careful attention to all of your win cons. Having the deck stacked with removal and Treasure Cruises means you have
enough win conditions, but you certainly don’t have an abundance. Take this Satyr Wayfinder trigger for example:

If you already had a Siege Rhino Thoughtseized, you need to think very carefully about how many Wayfinders you cast for the rest of this game. I had one
game against Abzan Aggro where I killed my opponent from four to zero with my last two Coursers with zero cards left in my library. Remember what you scry,
know exactly which creature or planeswalker needs to win you the game, and be ready to ballpark percentages. As much fun as casting Treasure Cruise is, you
may need to leave the third or fourth one stranded in your hand if the game is going way too long. The same applies to playing too many lands from the top
of your library with Courser of Kruphix.

Once Fate Reforged finally knocks the door down in a week or so, I may experiment with this fellow. I don’t think this is the list he wants to be in, but
just having an efficient threat beyond Rhinos and the nearly unbeatable Sorin + Elspeth dance would go a long way. He’s sort of in the same boat (ha!) as
Villainous Wealth-occasionally strong, but far too situational in certain matchups. I think the deck would probably have to change structurally to
accommodate, as well as lose another delve spell.

Speaking of delving, I’ve been using good form in casting Treasure Cruise by making stacks of exiled graveyard cards separately. 2014 was a pretty big year
for catching cheaters in Magic, and I’ve found that a lot of players just sort of chuck their graveyard aside and go. By stacking my exiled cards
separately for each delve spell (often perpendicular on top of one another), I allow my opponent the courtesy of re-counting the number of cards I’ve
delved. It’s good form, old chap, good form.

Now that we have all that good news and praise out of the way, let me say that I’m fairly certain the W/U Heroic matchup is trash and that there is nearly
nothing I can do about it. I won three straight against Heroic the other night at the local event, but mulligans were positively everywhere. The initial
inclination is always that playing against Heroic with inexperience is the culprit, but after three straight matches, I’m convinced I know what I need to
do, I just can’t do it with this deck. The number of mulligans they had against me was astounding, and though I was able to do some cute protection pinch
tricks with Kiora, I’m convinced that even the cards that look good on paper against this deck are still super situational. I’m interested in trying
Ulcerate, but aside from that, it may just be a fingers crossed kind of matchup. I’m not terribly afraid of anything else (there are still Boss Sligh
holdouts lurking in most local shops, to be fair), but I always feel uncomfortable against Heroic.

For discussion purposes, this was my final sideboard plan after three consecutive matches against it given the list above:

Out:

In:

I had initially done the “play or draw” dance with Thoughtseize, but I’m now convinced they need to be in no matter what. I need to give a good hard look
at Fate Reforged’s lesser hyped commons and uncommons to see if a solution is there as well.

At any rate, discuss my crap matchup as much as you’d like. That’s right, you there in the back: solve my problems!

Enough about Standard, you scurvy cur!

Commander

It is recommended you click play before continuing.

I don’t really know much about Ramirez except that the flavor text says he’s a liar and that he’s insecure about being asked for his ID when he buys
alcohol. But that isn’t what’s important. Get Eric Klug-greatest artist since Phil Foglio himself-to stick Johnny Depp on there if you don’t like what
Ramirez is sporting. What matters is he’s a pirate, you deck-scrubbing scalawag.

Ramirez DePietro

Danny West

Test deck on 01-15-2015

Commander

Creatures (23)

Lands (36)

Spells (41)

Like most Commander decks I build, this one is the perfect amount of cool, low-power thematics and things that occasionally will actually kill people. I
resisted the urge to add Seafarer’s Quay, but you can be certain that anyone attacking me with their legends in a band will not only be unblocked, but I
will do everything in my power to ensure they win the pod.

The gameplan of this deck is to be a course-voiced idiot in the beginning (“Pirates, y’arr!”), throw giant sea monsters at your opponents in the middle,
and then win with Great Whale and Deadeye Navigator if all of that hasn’t yet done the trick. If you’re playing with a group on a budget and their decks
are just unreal terrible, you can lend out a nice group hug to Prosperity everyone back up to snuff.

This infinite mana combo can fuel Capsize buybacks, infinite decking Prosperity-castings, and a host of other nonsense that you can defend by insisting
it’s on theme. Nobody can be mad at you if your deck is on-theme. It’s a rule. Look it up.

If that isn’t enough fun, you have the ubiquitous Desertion / Bribery to take your opponent’s best stuff. Can’t get mad! It’s on theme! I mean seriously, this deck doesn’t play Sol Ring or Command Tower due to theme concessions. They can get over it.

Lastly, you have a few sac outlets to throw your opponent’s junk away after you’ve taken it should they have a Brooding Saurian or Homeward Path. Fun for
the whole family!*

*Pretty much just you.

Cruisin USA

So there you have it. Treasure Cruise 101. I’d like to thank Wizards for printing a blue card that even I can enjoy (still waiting on a red one), and for
your attention to my new column! Feel free to suggest cards you’d like to see worked with in the future. I’ll brew your face off.