This weekend marks the debut of Innistrad in the Constructed Magic world with the StarCityGames.com Open Series coming to Indianapolis. Standard is
shaping up quite nicely, with various authors on this very website posting countless decklists for your viewing and grinding pleasure. Mind you, most
lists are pretty rough, but they’re a great starting point. Good ideas should never be ignored, and I’m sure there is a diamond hidden in the rough,
somewhere!
Standard is definitely a lot different now that Zendikar is gone, as well as M11, but how will the format shape up? Will control decks continue to
dominate? Is there some secret combo deck waiting to be revealed? Who stole Kali’s nail clippers? The answers to these questions are pretty difficult
to discern (except the last one, which was probably my cat), but maybe we’ll know all of the answers by this weekend!
As far as Legacy is concerned, Innistrad is ushering in an entirely new era, since the banning of Mental Misstep coincides with the new set’s release.
With the recent banning of Mental Misstep in Legacy, the format is looking to become just as open as it once was before they printed the oppressive
counterspell, and I am excited to start building again (much like many others). Decks that once thrived before Mental Misstep’s printing will now get a
chance to shine again, and older staples like Sensei’s Divining Top and Aether Vial will get the love they deserve. Countless other cards are sure to
come out of the woodworks this weekend, and I’m excited by the eagerness of the community to get out and sling some of their favorite spells!
Though I’ve been an avid fan of Legacy for a little while now, I can safely say that I enjoyed playing with Mental Misstep. It allowed control players
like myself to take control of the game as early as the first turn. Combined with Force of Will, it kept a lot of strategies in check and utterly
dominated decks relying on sticking a threat on the first turn. While this is awesome for control players, it isn’t good for the game. Decks don’t need
to be ground out of existence due to a single, free spell.
Without this oppressive force in the format, decks like Zoo and Goblins will return to action, but I’m honestly not sure they thought this banning
through entirely. With Mental Misstep banned, a few baddies are going to come out and play, and I don’t think we’re going to like where they take us.
While Mental Misstep was oppressive, it did keep one certain strategy from being the most dominant deck in Legacy:
With the unbanning of Time Spiral early last year, High Tide decks got a resurgence in strength. This helped Candelabra of Tawnos hit untold heights in
price, but the scarcity of the card itself is the real issue for its value. Unfortunately for those who owned the card, the era of Mental Misstep
helped plummet the price on the “candlesticks,” but the recent bannings have changed all that. At the time I’m writing this article, a single
Candelabra is hitting around $250 per card on eBay, with most “Buy It Now’s” sitting around $300. While availability will definitely be an issue for
those aiming to play the deck, those who can pilot the deck proficiently and own the cards will likely dominate Legacy tournaments in the coming weeks
(cough*Hatfield Brothers*cough). While the numbers won’t show that High Tide is a dominating tournament force due to the scarcity of the deck’s
staples, I still think something may need to be done about it in the future.
As far a Standard is concerned, that’s really what people will be looking at for the next few months. While everyone seems to be getting excited about
this “Tiago Chan” character, I don’t see what the big deal is:
So, you’re saying I can get a 2/1 for 1U and cast a spell out of my graveyard for paying its mana cost? That seems okay to me, but nothing broken.
Wait, he has flash? What the ****?
For those of you who’ve never played against a Mistbind Clique or a Cryptic Command, you’re in for a lot of “unfun.” What Snapcaster Mage does to a
board state is not one that most new gamers will find interesting or intuitive, but competitive players will relish. If Snapcaster Mage is in your
opponent’s hand, any spell in their graveyard can be flung back in your face for added value, on TOP of them gaining a 2/1 blocker in the process. This
can make combat incredibly difficult, but can also just frustrate the crap out of anyone who has never had to play against something like this before.
While Standard had Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic before their untimely end, you could see them coming and most likely had a plan
against them. They came into play on your opponent’s turn, and you could deal with them without your opponent putting up too much resistance due to
them being tapped out. With Snapcaster Mage, they either have it, or they don’t. If they have it, one decision tree is completely ruined. If they
don’t, then your decision will likely win you the game. The dynamic of your opponent potentially having Snapcaster Mage in hand is unlike any card
we’ve seen since Cryptic Command, which will be a real problem on the casual level. Snapcaster Mage creates a lot of complex board states and
decisions, which can have both negative and positive implications.
The negative: Magic is not chess. We can’t see ten moves ahead and figure out everything that our opponent is going to do. The randomness of the game
helps keep that in check for the most part, which is good for anyone who is not the best player in the world. Snapcaster Mage will often force a
complex set of decisions that a lot of people won’t be able to compute in a timely manner, making relatively easy situations into very difficult ones.
This is usually when the game starts to be “unfun.”
The positive: decisions are never a bad thing. Snapcaster Mage is a skill-tester card, and a lot of better players love these kinds of cards. If you’re
playing with the card, you’re going to love every minute of it. With that said, your opponent is going to hate every minute of it. People don’t like
losing, and Snapcaster Mage will make that into a reality quite often.
So why make the card? In all honesty, I think that this card was created well before Jace, the Mind Sculptor dominated Standard, and cards like
Snapcaster Mage seemed “just okay” by comparison. While Snapcaster Mage is quite good, I don’t think he breaks the bank. After all, he’s just a 2/1
that gains you a card, but the card he gains you is generally going to be a very good one, and that’s the key. Every U/x control deck will play some
number of them, which is probably not healthy for Standard in general, but I don’t think he will be nearly as oppressive as Stoneforge Mystic or Jace,
the Mind Sculptor. Time will tell just how good he is, but I really hope he isn’t as good as everyone says he is.
While Snapcaster Mage has already hit a decent spike in price due to the large preorder demand, I think they’ll end up settling at a reasonable price.
As of now, they’re almost sold out on StarCityGames.com at $29.99, which seems absurdly high for a non-mythic rare. This feels especially out of place
considering that we’ll be drafting three packs of Innistrad for quite a while after the release, meaning a hefty number of them will be entering the
market in the subsequent months. I would look for Snapcaster Mage to drop to about $20 in the next few weeks and eventually settle around $15 in the
long run, which is still higher than almost any other rare in Standard in the last few years.
While Snapcaster Mage is the best rare in the set, I don’t think there is an argument that Liliana of the Veil is the best mythic rare in the
set. While there are a lot of cool things you can do with Liliana, I think her biggest strength lies in her “edict” ability. Sure, if you -2 her all
day, she isn’t going to be able to use her ultimate, but she protects herself quite well. Most planeswalkers are deemed playable or unplayable
depending on their ability to interact with the current game state. Liliana doesn’t just interact; she dominates. Patrick Chapin has already devoted an entire article to her here.
While I don’t think Liliana of the Veil interacts terribly well inside of a pure control deck, she does gain you a ton of tempo and value if you use
her wisely. Much like Jace Beleren, you don’t always have to use her abilities. I’ve left plenty of Jace Belerens sitting in play on a single loyalty
counter, and I’m sure the same will happen with Liliana of the Veil.
Here is my current control build using Snapcaster Mage and Liliana of the Veil:
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (26)
Spells (21)
Sideboard
This list is inspired by Shaheen Soorani article, which can be found here.
A lot of our differences stem from some of my notions about certain cards in the format. For one, I think that Solemn Simulacrum is not a card I would
want in a deck like this. He provides you with a little card advantage but forces you to tap out on turn 4 in order for him to make much of an impact.
This allows your opponent’s big spells to come online right when they need to be and is definitely not when you want to be vulnerable. Instead of them
trying to play around Mana Leak and Snapcaster Mage, they’re going to be jamming their baddies into play.
I’m also a huge proponent of making Snapcaster Mage as good as possible, but I’m pretty sure I’m missing something. For one, my removal suite isn’t
diversified, but I think that’s simply due to the fact that I’m not sure what I’m going to face in the early days of the new Standard. As the format
grows and changes, different removal packages will take hold, which is the general trend for control decks when a format is new.
Snapcaster Mage does a lot of work in this deck, and I don’t think people are abusing him enough. Ponder and Despise allow him to become active as
early as the third turn, so I would start by maximizing those before anything else. Ponder isn’t going to be nearly as effective as Preordain was, but
I think that has a lot to do with the fact that Preordain was too good. Now, at least we still have a solid card that interacts well with our newest
toy and can give us decent card selection at any point of the game. Unfortunately, we don’t have fetchlands to shuffle away the chaff anymore, but
that’s something I can live with.
Despise is a card that I’ve grown to love, and even more so now that Inquisition of Kozilek and Duress have left the format. The best part about this
is that Despise gets even better now that everyone is going to be playing Snapcaster Mage in control decks. You’ll almost always have a solid target
for Despise, and having the ability to drop a threat/defender on the third turn while stripping a second card out of their hand is just icing on the
cake.
Snapcaster Mage also plays incredibly well with both Doom Blade and Dismember. Having the ability to cast Dismember out of the graveyard for a single
mana can make an attack from your opponent have devastating consequences as early as the third turn. As mentioned before, with the added stress put on
your opponent for having to play around multiple cards, they’re bound to make a lot of mistakes. I honestly wouldn’t put it past a lot of aggro decks
to start running Gitaxian Probe to gain some valuable information before making their decisions. This could end up being a trend in the early days of
the format, but once people figure out how to play against Snapcaster Mage, it will die down in popularity.
The big threats, Grave Titan and Consecrated Sphinx, are the best options available, but I’m not sure which one is better than the other. They both
have their merits, which makes me want both. Grave Titan can end the game rather quickly, but Consecrated Sphinx can bury someone under a mountain of
card advantage. I think having access to both, and possibly Wurmcoil Engine as well, is where the control decks want to be.
Liliana is the backbone of the deck, but not in the way you’re thinking of. All of her abilities are incredibly relevant, which is not something you
could say for Jace Beleren. I think people will eventually figure out how to abuse her, but it is too early to guess exactly what deck will make the
best use of her. Solar Flare variants (U/B/W Reanimator) have been cropping up in various articles, but I haven’t seen a list that I like very much.
Sun Titan can bring Liliana back from the graveyard, which is pretty absurd if you think about it. The singleton Karn Liberated is generally solid and
can break stalemates in control mirrors. Without Inquisition to clear the way of Mana Leak, he might be a bit more difficult to stick, but I still
think he’s worth the inclusion.
The sideboard is rough but has a decent amount of range. Sorin’s Thirst is a mediocre removal spell aimed at helping out against Mono Red matchups, but
can easily be brought in against aggressive decks that have a lot of small creatures. It might be a little difficult to cast, but it still has
applications outside of red decks and shouldn’t be set aside just because it’s for “that matchup.”
Flashfreeze is similar in this regard, since it can be brought in against a plethora of decks, but most people just settle on bringing it in against
one particular matchup (which was Valakut pre-rotation). It is mostly a hard counter against Birthing Pod decks, though countering their namesake card
is most important. Stopping their Acidic Slimes is just icing on the cake. I also wouldn’t regret siding in Flashfreeze against most red decks, since
they might be going a little bigger with Koth of the Hammer and Hero of Oxid Ridge. Flashfreeze is a versatile counterspell that Snapcaster Mage makes
better.
The biggest problem that this deck faces is Shrine of Burning Rage, but I haven’t really figured out a way to solve that problem just yet. Without
Inquisition of Kozilek or Spell Pierce, your ways of interacting with it if they cast it on the second turn is non-existent with the current list.
Disperse is a much worse Into the Roil, but probably the best answer at the moment. However, the card is really bad, so I wouldn’t spend that much time
working with it unless every other person in your metagame is slinging Furnace Scamps.
While Shrine of Burning Rage is a problem, it is at its worst when your opponent is on the play. When your opponent is on the draw, Mana Leak usually
handles it nicely, but that’s only assuming you aren’t forced to cast a spell on the second turn, or you even drew a Mana Leak. Decks like U/B Control
will be typically weak to cards like Shrine of Burning Rage because their colors have very few cards that interact with non-creature permanents that
hit play early. Without something like Inquisition of Kozilek, we might have to resort to another color.
The rest of the red deck is usually fairly easy to handle, and especially so when you’re given sideboard access. Mental Misstep is bonkers against
them, especially when you’re flashing it back with Snapcaster Mage. Secondly, Sorin’s Thirst kills every single creature in their deck while gaining
you a valuable two life. If they don’t have a Shrine of Burning Rage on the second turn, you should be fine. Otherwise, you should pray to whatever
deity you believe in, asking that they never draw their third land.
The Azure Mages in the board will likely help out against the variety of control decks that are sure to crop up. Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of
those are going to be centered around Burning Vengeance, since graveyard cards seem to be all the rage. If that’s the case, then it might be safer
looking into a third color to help out with artifacts and enchantments. Azure Mage is good, but not when your opponent kills him for free while
flashing back their Think Twice.
White seems like the obvious go-to color to help out with artifacts and enchantments, since Revoke Existence deals with so many cards that you wouldn’t
normally be able to deal with in U/B Control. While green has similar answers, the mana base wouldn’t be nearly as good and could lead to a lot of
inconsistencies in the early game. With Seachrome Coast and Darkslick Shores, Ponder can help you dig out of early mana problems with ease. I would
probably stick to playing more Islands than any other basic, in order to help Glacial Fortress and Drowned Catacombs come into play untapped more
easily. Since the deck will be base-blue, I don’t know if you can realistically fit too many Isolated Chapels into the mix, as they will come into play
tapped a significant amount of the time.
Innistrad is getting a lot of attention and for good reason. The set looks to be a lot of fun for every type of player in the game. Casual players get
a lot of cool goodies to play around with, and tournament players have some “Spikey” new toys to work with (and potentially break). With SCG Open: Indy
this coming weekend, we’ll get to shine the spotlight on the new Standard format. While card availability might be something of an issue early on, I
think this could shape up to be a healthy and diverse metagame, which is something we can all appreciate.
The Legacy portion of the event will be the first time Mental Misstep hasn’t been legal in four months, and I’m hoping a lot of new decks will crop up
with the older favorites. If you have some brew you’ve been working on lately, but just couldn’t get past blue’s wall of counters, have no fear! Force
of Will is the only thing standing in your way, and they have to 2-for-1 themselves in the process!
While Snapcaster Mage will also make his debut in Legacy (and it is sure to be a good one), I don’t think he will be nearly as powerful without Mental
Misstep as he could have been with it. Some people are arguing that he is the next Dark Confidant, but I’m arguing that he could be better. I
guess we’ll just have to wait and see how many make their way into the Top 8!
Thanks for reading!
Todd
strong sad on MOL