For an individual like me who has played nearly every spell, the prospect of playing with new Magic cards is an exciting and welcome one. I prefer the sense of possibility that comes with a brand new format to the rigidity of the defined metagame one tends to encounter before a new set is released.
Even though I have only played with Dragon’s Maze by proxy, the insight and information I’ve gathered is real. The experience of learning how cards will interact with and designing decks for them is an aspect of the game without parallel. The first weeks of building new decks is the time when players are most encouraged and rewarded for being creative and trying out their own ideas.
Many of my fondest MTG memories are of building, tuning, and testing at RIW Hobbies with Patrick Chapin, Michael Jacob, Ari Lax, and the rest of the Michigan guys. Back in those days, when a new spoiler went up, Patrick would build and proxy decks faster than the rest of us could reasonably test them against one another. At the end of an evening of playtesting, there could be as many as fifteen or twenty proxy decks on the table!
Anyone with a little experience can look at a card on the spoiler sheet and reach a reasonable conclusion as to whether the card is potentially playable or not.
Magic players can reasonably speculate that:
Sphinx’s Revelation = Playable
Utvara Hellkite = Unplayable
But wait…Sphinx’s Revelation didn’t come out of the gate like gangbusters, but once people got to cast the card, its popularity took off like a rocket. Conversely, Aurelia’s Fury was a card people looked at and said, "Wow, that card is powerful and could be good in Constructed" (the $35 preorder price tag reflected that attitude), but in practice the card was underwhelming for a number of reasons and never got off the ground.
It isn’t that Sphinx’s Revelation is an intrinsically broken Magic card or that Aurelia’s Fury is not powerful, but at the end of the day, context is everything when defining how high impact any individual card will be in Constructed. With that being said, I usually try to suspend judgment on how good a card is until after I have gotten a chance to play with it first.
Things have certainly changed since those Michigan glory days (Chapin went west, Ari went east, M.J. went online, and many others went various places), but I still keep the spoiler season tradition of building new decks alive here in Michigan. In today’s article, I will share the decks I have been working on for Standard with Dragon’s Maze cards.
Let’s first pick up where I left off last week:
Creatures (12)
Lands (26)
Spells (23)
I scaled back the number of copies of Advent of the Wurm to keep my curve a little bit lower. I have also really been enjoying the Loxodon Smiters in the maindeck because they allow the deck to be much better at attacking and blocking, especially early in the game.
I like that the deck has a lot of creatures and that each one is good at being aggressive and defensive depending upon what the occasion calls for. Loxodon Smiter is the best blocker in the format and is equally adept at quickly ending games on the offensive as well.
Turn // Burn is a card that I have really enjoyed having access to since it is great at shooting down big creatures later on in the game. I found myself wanting this kind of effect later on in the game after I had cast Sphinx’s Revelation to kill problematic cards such as Blood Baron of Vizkopa, Sire of Insanity, Olivia Voldaren, etc.
"One good turn deserves a good burn."
I continue to be impressed with Voice of Resurgence, and the card keeps finding its way into more and more of my decks. I have found that the card is absolutely amazing against control and very fast aggro but lacks a little bit against midrange style decks with a lot of very high quality creatures. Basically, against any Esper Control deck or Burning-Tree Emissary deck, Voice is one of the better sideboard options.
"A card that speaks to my tastes."
Of all the cards I have seen from Maze so far, Voice of Resurgence is the one that has most captured my imagination. The Voice has exceeded my expectations, and I believe it will be one of the most played cards from Dragon’s Maze. It is a card that can go in sideboards to attack specific matchups, but it is also a powerful enough card to build a deck around.
My favorite new deck so far is a disruptive G/W/B aggressive deck.
Creatures (30)
- 3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 3 Strangleroot Geist
- 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- 4 Restoration Angel
- 2 Thragtusk
- 4 Dreg Mangler
- 4 Loxodon Smiter
- 4 Sin Collector
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (25)
Spells (6)
This deck reminds me a lot of the Jund decks from Modern because it is very aggressive but also has aspects of disruption and card advantage built in. It has very quick and powerful draws where it can attack and kill a stumbling opponent outright, but it can also take a path where it can grind people out.
"Feels so filthy I can hardly believe it is real."
One of the big reasons that this deck is so good at grinding is the addition of Sin Collector, a card that punishes the opponent for trying to play Magic with you. First of all, it generates card advantage, which is often a difficult task for an aggressive deck to accomplish. Most importantly, Sin Collector knocks the best spell out of an opponent’s hand, which can often win the game outright in many cases.
"Not this game."
If an opponent was banking on a Verdict or Mortars to get back into the game and you Collector it away, they may very well just be dead. Also, I can’t overstate how awesome it is to play with perfect information of an opponent’s hand because it allows the player with that information to make superior plays.
Also, keep in mind that the Sin Collector exiles the card, which makes it quite useful against Snapcaster Mages, Unburial Rites, and even flashback cards like Think Twice.
But that’s not all folks! Combining Sin Collector with a Restoration Angel (especially after they draw for their turn) to get a second card (or to ensure they didn’t topdeck a Supreme Verdict) is downright filthy. In a game where your opponent mulligans and you Collect them twice, it is pretty much impossible for many decks to win the game from that position.
"Pick it up or knock it down."
I also really enjoyed the interaction of Orzhov Charm bouncing my Sin Collector to get another Duress effect in matchups where a kill spell isn’t very good. It really speaks to the power of the card when one is looking to play more ways to recur the effect again and again.
Sin Collector was so good that I decided to build another deck for him, this time an Esper Control deck.
Creatures (10)
Lands (26)
Spells (22)
Sideboard
When I saw Far // Away for the first time, I didn’t actually believe it was a real card.
"Far and away the best split card in the set."
There are so many tokens in Standard that the card is often going to get you two of their guys, but the best-case scenario is that one gets to bounce a Snapcaster Mage, Sin Collector, or Augur of Bolas to get card advantage. The card has a ton of play and can always generate value one way or another.
Far is also great early on in the game to simply soak up some damage from a Blitz deck because it essentially gives Esper fourteen two cost or less ways to interact with a Burning-Tree Emissary deck.
Unfortunately, the entire spoiler isn’t up as I’m writing this, so there may still be some gems that would help some of my decks, invalidate them, or enable completely new ones!
So far the set looks awesome, and I am really excited to play some tournaments with the new cards and to see what new decks come out of it.
I hope you guys are all enjoying brewing new decks as much as I am!
Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Brian DeMars