Have you ever been out somewhere and you don’t see someone for a while and then later on they just appear out of nowhere? You could’ve sworn they left, but they say they were here the whole time. Some people just blend so cleanly into the background that they can move around undetected like some sort of ghost or … Spirit.
Come on, Ross. You have to admit that was a laborious set-up for a joke that was mediocre at best.
Haters gonna hate.
The point is, W/U Spirits had a lot of hype around it when Eldritch Moon was being previewed because it looked like the deck could function in the flashy “reactive and proactive at the same time danger zone” that Faeries did back in the Lorwyn days. But the power level of the cards just wasn’t there, and with the exceptions of Spell Queller and Selfless Spirit, the tribe faded into the background.
But now it appears we have a format dominated by a threatening combo and powerful midrange-aggressive decks that have good answers to that combo plus powerful planeswalkers to trump their back-up plans. One proposed solution was to simply eschew the combo and play a control deck, but the threat density of the midrange decks gave the pure control decks fits last weekend, because a single misstep could result in a resolved planeswalker that can end the game by itself.
The creatures in W/U Spirits are great at pressuring planeswalkers because of evasion but also let you hold up mana on your opponent’s turn so you can reliably answer the Saheeli Rai combo. Do you smell that? That’s a delicious cake baking in the oven. And you can eat as much as you want.
And the icing on that cake? Metallic Mimic goes a long way toward solving the issue of playing a deck with such undersized creatures. You can more effectively race against ground creatures now, and as a bonus, a single +1/+1 counter insulates Spell Queller from Avacyn, the Purifier’s trigger. These counters also help insulate the deck from Liliana, the Last Hope to some extent, although they can kill your Metallic Mimic. Fortunately, the powerful planeswalker saw a steep decline in play from the previous format as the B/G Delirium decks became more aggressive and looked toward Nissa, Voice of Zendikar instead.
A single cash finish at an Open isn’t a huge endorsement, but W/U Spirits also showed up significantly in the Classic on Day 2, taking second and tenth place. Assuming that the deck was a tiny fraction of the metagame given its lack of pedigree, I think it wise to take notice.
Creatures (30)
- 3 Archangel Avacyn
- 3 Thraben Inspector
- 4 Rattlechains
- 2 Elder Deep-Fiend
- 4 Spell Queller
- 4 Selfless Spirit
- 4 Mausoleum Wanderer
- 2 Nebelgast Herald
- 4 Metallic Mimic
Lands (23)
Spells (7)
