I know. I said I wouldn’t be writing this week. But hide those party hats in a hurry, boys, because that’s my (very ugly and outdated and The Monkees’d) mug sketchily leering at you in that Thursday column slot once again.
Like everyone else, I want to talk about Planar Chaos.
I’m going to resume discussion on Extended next week, because (Richard and) I have a deck that we’re very, very excited to talk about. For now, though – since I am ostensibly playtesting for a Pro Tour, heh heh – I figured I’d go into how Planar Chaos is going to affect the Time Spiral limited environment. I’ll do a couple card evaluations, sure, but most of that will be covered by people with, you know, credentials. I want to focus more on how the environment as a whole will shift, and how one ought to draft accordingly because of that.
By the way, I’m not going to write exclusively potpourri columns, I promise. Next week’s piece will be a “How To Play CAL”-esque primer on a very, very good deck. For now, though, my thoughts are much more random and thus will not be nearly as structured as you might prefer/be accustomed to/whatever.
1) Kermit is a wanker. It is so extraordinarily “easy to be green” in TS-TS-PC that I have actually caught myself producing chlorophyll. You get Errant Ephemeron, Pacifism, the *very* lives-up-to-my-expectations Uktabi Drake, and the format’s first Horned Turtle slash card advantage machine. Don’t even get me started on Firemaw Treefolk, a.k.a. Deadwood Ghetto Booty, or my good Timeshifted buddy ”The guys from Muse really can” Harmonize.
2) I apologize for that last paragraph. But really, every single one of those cards is a giant house.
3) Blue, though, is even better. Nice Nekrataal, BRAH! (that one was for Strassy). Erratic Mutation is also obviously very strong, particularly in the U/G archetype that was already decent in triple TS and gets a pack of gas with PC. And Jodah’s Avenger? Strong uncommon dragon. Puh-leaze.
All of those points, though, are obvious. So why do I call attention to them? Well, the first conclusion anybody with one or two brain cells would draw from that is that the U/G archetype from triple-TS got even stronger with PC. None other than Brian Davis referred to U/G as the strongest archetype in triple-TS anyway, and while I disagree with that statement the fact remains that U/G is not a bad combination to try and establish oneself in early.
Another reason that I’d look to draft that archetype is that Big Green Monsters just got a lot better. I’m not even referring to the quality of said monsters, even though it is nice to have flying at a reasonable price finally. No, I’m referring to boys like Phantom and Havenwood Wurms, who benefit substantially from the slowing-down of the format.
Triple Time Spiral was a very fast, very tempo-oriented environment. But what made it so fast was both the abundance of early suspend spells in every color, as well as the high number of aggressive two-drops that didn’t become irrelevant in the late game. By contrast, the only PC cards that fit the latter description are Gossamer Phantasm, Mire Boa, and Sinew Sliver, and the Sliver is very hard to use properly since that deck has lost an entire pack of Might/Fury/Telekinetic/Bomb Rare slivers. As for suspend, the only common suspend man I really like (besides the 50s Horror Movie Giant Bug n green) is Shade of Trokair. The blue Suspend 4 guy is fine, but it’s very difficult to take maximum advantage of his ability. Furthermore, at the end of the day, he’s only a 2/3.
These two primary factors, plus the addition of a Horned Turtle and two common regenerators (aforementioned Creature Dash Snake is also very good on D), mean that you’ll be hitting six and seven mana far more often.
Pick up ‘dem Wurmcallings.
Along those same lines, I think my old standby R/B got substantially weaker.
I could, did, have, and will draft Red and Black cards all day in triple TS. You have a ton of removal and an unbelievably good curve, but the one thing the deck needs more than anything else is “Reach.” I believe that term is Flores’, but the jist of it is that you’ve got to get by that giant blocker at some point. Trespasser Il-Vec, Empty The Warrens, Corpulent Corpse, Urborg Syphon-mage, and even Ironclaw Buzzardiers are all good ways of doing this. You lose all of those in PC without any adequate replacements. Now, there are two good bounce spells, to be sure, but those don’t really solve your problem unless you’ve blazed out of the gates obscenely fast. With one fewer pack of Suspend and Coal Stokers, blazin’ ain’t as easy as it used to be.
You get the red Fear guy and two pingers if you want them, but pinging is slow and the double red for Skirk Shaman can actually be a tremendous pain in a deck that wants to make Tendrils as good as it possibly can be. The one upside is Thirst, which answers Penumbra Spider as well as any card in the format, but still can’t be profitably dropped early.
Mainly, though, you lose your big incentives. Obviously everyone drafts R/B looking for a ton of removal – specifically, Strangling Soot – but now you’ve got a pack less of that. More importantly, other colors have access to the removal that the Red and Black players used to monopolize. Blue is the removal color in PC, and its spells are gooooooooooood. So having six removal spells to the other players’ two or three just becomes a whole lot less likely now that the tables have turned.
I’m not saying that the color combination is unplayable, but rather that you have to be a lot more cautious when drafting it.
Other notes:
I like White a whole lot, but its impact is difficult to gauge in a larger context. It’s obviously the sickest thing ever in triple PC because you can go Sinew Sliver or bust and have absolutely none of your guys die ever courtesy of Whitemane Lions. And, certainly, searching out reusable Soul Feasts with Amrou Scout “is nice.” But, excepting Sunlance, there aren’t a lot of commons that make me *scream* I REALLY WANT TO BE IN WHITE.
Even Sinew Sliver is awkward to me because I usually don’t want early-game White mana in the Sliver deck unless I’m picking up a lot of Thrills. The deck could accommodate itself to be more entrenched in White – particularly because I don’t think many people will pick up Sinews just because they need two-drops, with all the quality in White’s existing two-slot – but then again I’m usually spending my early turns mana-ramping. It’s often much more productive to splash removal or bombs than it is worrying about White for increased synergy, especially when I like Watcher Sliver more in non-Sliver U/W control decks! You want to beat down with the Hive, not chill out, after all.
Also, two cards in particular have skyrocketed in value: Jhoria’s Timebug and Thick-skinned Goblin.
Now, Timebug was already solid in Storm/Suspend decks, but with the addition of Vanishing (and oddly enough the Red Charm, which is good even without the Time ability) the card is now a true powerhouse. It certainly doesn’t belong in every deck, and you’re usually only going to have four or five things to do with it. However, the extent to which it affects those four or five things can swing the game around entirely. As an example, at the Prerelease I played a Timebug on turn 2. On turn 3 I suspended Errant Ephemeron. Turn 4, it faded to three, I Timebugged it, and Red Charmed it to come in for four damage on turn four in the air–with two mana open to drop a guy! I didn’t lose that one. Now, that is obviously a very rare circumstance, but the fact remains that Timebug can Just Win given the proper circumstances. Keeping a 2/3 flier around forever, or killing the opponent’s terribly annoying 3/3 or 5/3, is also not too shabby. I wouldn’t pick these up early, but be on the lookout for ways to abuse that little man. You can also regenerate him with Swarmyard. Ha.
Goblin was a high pick to begin with just because he’s a 2/1 with a good ability. I love obvious statements. But the issue in triple-TS was that most of the Echo guys you weren’t exactly thrilled to run. Subterranean Shambler and Flamecore Elemental are both fine men in some decks, but Uktabi Drake and Goblin-O-War (or whatever he is called) are *nuts* anyway in almost all circumstances. Getting them for free can completely swing a game around.
Is Rathi Trapper really the best Black common?
Is the 1/2 for three that gives creatures -2-0 [Saltfield Recluse. – Craig]closer to Kabuto Moth or Squire?
Is Red Akroma really better than White Akroma? (yes)
Cradle to the Grave is awful, just like Nick says, by the way. The thing is that it’s not *removal*. It’s like a… really bad Remove Soul, except that you can still get wrecked by comes-into-and-leaves-play abilities. Now, sometimes you have to buckle down and play Remove Soul, but rarely are you excited about doing it.
The Charms have all been very good for me. I didn’t like the black one very much, but Alex Kim swears by it and I sure couldn’t beat him a single game this weekend, so. Dawn Charm probably could afford to cost a mana less, but it’s not awful even as printed. It sure can counterspell a Tromp the Domains.
I hate to cut you short this week, but I’ll be back with an epic come February. Feel free to e-mail me or forum me some comments or questions.
Zac