Set reviews are notoriously hard business. I’ve made some calls that ended up being way off the mark — the reprinting of Lands’ Edge was perhaps the one that cost me the most, as I furiously scrambled to get as many of them as possible, to no end — and I’ve made some fantastic calls. Remember Sensei’s Divining Top? Called it! Yes, Kowal and others wasted no amount of time in making fun of me for falling for a silly Sullivan Library replacement, but I think my love of the card has managed to stand the test of time.
The big thing about set reviews that makes them difficult to do well is that new sets, by their very nature, modify the value of everything else around them. You would think, for example, that the printing of a card like Hand of Cruelty would have made Black decks more powerful back in block, but instead, Black decks got worse. Hand of Cruelty wasn’t in a vacuum, and it was paired with Hand of Honor, a much more ubiquitous card in the environment. Sure, Black was supplemented by an excellent anti-White card, but there were so many more White decks out there, with enough other good White that overall Black took a big hit in the set.
The thing about how to consume set reviews is to take it all in, from everyone. Someone might notice something that you didn’t.
But, let’s not make much more ado… Last week, I presented my picks for the Top 5 Black, Blue, and Green cards in the set. This week, I’m onto what’s left — the Red, White, and Miscellany. I’ve been accused, at times, of being a Red mage at heart, though I’ve always felt a lot more versatile than that. White, on the other hand, has generally been one of the colors that I find the least interesting. Future Sight is a little better than most, though I still find it a bit less exciting than many of the other colors.
But, enough ado. Let’s get to the meat of it all!
White
#5 — Scout’s Warning
W, Instant
The next creature card you play this turn can be played as though it had flash.
Draw a card.
Long ago, Tobey Wachter – during his brief time being really excited about playing tournament Magic – wrote me an e-mail about his current version of Junk. “Picture a Crystalline Sliver stalking through a forest on his master’s bidding — Suddenly, from the trees! The Simian Grunt tears open the Sliver’s mouth, and pisses down his neck!”
I had a chuckle when I read that. Simian Grunt didn’t make the cut in the final versions of Junk that I loved, though Gerard Fabiano still ran them in his later versions, specifically because of their ability to be both a potentially powerful combat trick and a way to double-threat control. Scout’s Warning does much of the same, though since it ports this ability onto anyone, sometimes some surprises can come out of it. Personally, I think it is rife with potential. There are so many creatures that are already undercosted, but once you toss Flash onto them, they can be downright unfair. Even the simple ability to dodge Sorcery speed elimination can be incredibly critical in the right matchup, not to mention punishing a control player for tapping their mana to do something like Mystic Teaching.
If it cost much more, I never would have noticed this card, but at the low, low cost of W, it definitely makes itself worthy of notice.
#4 — Blade of the Sixth Pride
1W
Creature – Cat Rebel
3/1
Who would have thought that such a simple card would be the focus of such wildly divergent opinions? It seems like such a simple card, really, to have people disagree so much.
Certainly, once Mogg Fanatic gets printed, the value of this card is going to take a nosedive. For now, though, the Blade of the Sixth Pride seems to be a really great card. Much like Skulking Ghost, the fragile 2/1 Flier for 1B that died to anything that was pointed at it, people will play the card because it can do a lot of damage. They certainly aren’t going to make it a 3/3, so, even as a 3/2, nearly everyone that is pointed at this card will kill it. In creature combat, it’s certainly more fragile, but on the other end of things, it will also generally kill anything that it fights as well.
Most importantly, though, it joins Watchwolf as an incredibly powerful beater when unanswered. By itself, that’s enough for me to sit up and take note.
#3 — Seht’s Tiger
2WW
Creature — Cat
3/3
Flash (You may play this spell any time you could play an instant.)
When Seht’s Tiger comes into play, you gain protection from the color of your choice until end of turn. (You can’t be targeted, dealt damage, or enchanted by anything of the chosen color.)
Gilded Light on a body was how I first heard this card described at the prerelease. Maybe for a lot of people, that wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but as a long-time Gilded Light lover, that’s very nearly enough by itself, for me. Stopping a Persecute, Gifts Ungiven, or a Tendrils of Agony is nothing to sneeze at, even at three mana. If that is all that it did, it wouldn’t quite be worth it, but it has this mean little way that it affects combat as well.
It’s a little bit more than that, though. It’s also a kind of Chameleon Blur. You can set up a strategic block that will let through any difficult to handle creatures and kill the rest of them, and yet take no damage. You can alpha strike, and drop the Tiger as a Fog-body that might kill something.
The Tiger isn’t generally a card that is so exciting that you’ll be clamoring to get multiple play sets. But, hey. It’s White. What do you expect?
#2 — Oriss, Samite Guardian
1WW
Legendary Creature – Human Cleric
1/3
T: Prevent all damage that would be dealt to target creature this turn.
Grandeur – Discard another card named Oriss, Samite Guardian: Target player can’t play spells this turn, and creatures that player controls can’t attack this turn.
Once again, we have a Grandeur Legend near the top of the list for a color. Once again, the power of the creature itself in a vacuum makes it worthy of note, but not worthy of exclaim. In certain matchups (generally not involving the colors Blue or Black), Oriss can chop the leg off of a damage-dealing opponent, particularly if it is paired with other cards that might help stop potential follow-up killing strokes. While a bit smaller at 1/3, he’s still a card that can easily turn a match up around.
Once we toss in the Grandeur, we start walking into combo territory. Any kind of recurring Raise Dead effects can set up the Scepter-Chant style lock. Undertaker, Oath of Ghouls, and many other cards can all be used to set this up. While it isn’t as solid a lock as Scepter-Chant, it’s still a lock, and anything that does that is worth taking a look at.
#1 — Aven Mindcensor
2W
Creature – Bird Wizard
2/1
Flash (You may play this spell any time you could play an instant.)
Flying
If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.
This is a card that is going to cause some cursing. Mark my words.
While reasonable as a main deck inclusion in some formats, it would generally be only barely worth considering against a deck that doesn’t run Tutors. Three mana for a two power evader is not that particularly exciting, even if it does have Flash. But, “only barely worth considering” versus some decks has to be matched with “complete blowout” versus other decks.
Gifts Ungiven is turned into a truly bad Fact or Fiction. The fetch-lands of Extended and beyond start to look incredibly unappealing if they have a strong chance of whiffing, not to mention a huge possibility of simply sucking even if they don’t whiff. Dragonstorm has to get more than a little lucky, unless they manage to get the Storm count incredibly high.
This one is going to see play all over the place.
Red
#5 — Riddle of Lightning
3RR
Instant
Choose target creature or player. Scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. Riddle of Lightning deals damage equal to that card’s converted mana cost to that creature or player. (To scry 3, look at the top three cards of your library, then put any number of them on the bottom of your library and the rest on top in any order.)
I expect a lot of people to be baffled by this one. So, with that in mind, I’d like to mention Beacon of Destruction.
Dealing five for five is a pretty good deal in general. We’ve been able to deal the same amount with Shrapnel Blast, of course, for “less” mana, but it does require that extra bit of investment of time and potentially mana, not to mention the extra card.
Since this isn’t Limited, the amazing thing about our decks is that we get to actually put whatever cards we want to in them. The Instant Erratic Explosion can make great use of that if you “cheat” a little bit with your mana costs. We’re in luck in that regard, too. Even in Standard there are nearly infinite ways to cheat with the mana costs of spells. With Suspend, Morph, Cycling, Split Cards, and alternate costs to spells (like Avatar of Woe) can make for a lot of damage. I’m totally willing to put Greater Gargadon in a deck for the off chance of turning it into ten damage.
And here’s the other thing: Scry makes your draw better. It’s not just that you’re getting out a bunch of damage, but that you’re also making your next draw or draws better than they were likely to be. On the off-chance that you completely whiff, or that you simply don’t want to draw the spell that will cause the damage, you can always just hope that spell number four on the deck is worthwhile, and treat the Riddle of Lightning like a bad tutor — if the cards really are that bad, you’ll be glad you did.
#4 — Tarox Bladewing
2RRR
Legendary Creature — Dragon
4/3
Flying, haste
Grandeur – Discard another card named Tarox Bladewing: Tarox Bladewing gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is its power.
Once again, the Grandeur cycle gets a mention. That makes all of them, except the Blue one (which registers only registers “okay” on my scale). Tarox is the one that I think is going to have a lot of people really excited, mostly because of the incredibly splashy things that you can do with it.
Doubling the power of an attacking creature is nothing to sneeze at. Even without any other help, the traditional “ugh” draw of drawing three Legends can suddenly be a game-winning proposition. Even the fear of drawing a second one can put a player on an incredibly uncomfortable clock-guessing game.
With help, though, Tarox becomes ridiculous. Even the simple Brute Force can make the double into a fear-inducing 14 damage. Throw in some tutoring of any kind, and a game can end incredibly quickly. In a few test games I’ve played, I powered out a turn 3 Tarox, top-decked another Tarox and tutor for a copy to end the game on turn 4. It doesn’t happen very often, but with tuning, it can…
#3 – Rift Elemental
R
Creature — Elemental
1/1
1R, Remove a time counter from a permanent you control or suspended card you own: Rift Elemental gets +2/+0 until end of turn.
I’m sure that this one will come as a surprise to people, but it seems to me that here is a cheap creature that can just end up coming in for an incredible amount of damage. A 1/1 for one isn’t exactly the most exciting thing out there, but activating it any number of times can a total beating.
On another front, though, in the non-beatdown sense, it can be an exciting way to just bust out suspended cards long before they are due. Timecrafting and Fury Charm can pull the same trick, but they don’t actually have that much use when there isn’t something out there to bring out earlier. Also, they have this silly habit of going into the graveyard without any help from your opponent, where a Rift Elemental will stay out for repeated use, attacking, or chump blocking if need be.
Expect to see this one primarily used to express out Pardic Dragons, Gargadons, Riftwing Cloudskates, and Errant Ephemerons. Messing up the math on Curse of the Cabal doesn’t seem that bad either. Maybe this is the kind of card that makes Chronozoa good? Who knows? I just know that I expect to see a lot of use made out of this card.
#2 — Magus of the Moon
2R
Creature – Human Wizard
2/2
Nonbasic lands are Mountains.
Magus has the distinct pleasure of probably being the only Magus that might simply be better than the spell he represents, or at least arguably so. The problem with a card like Blood Moon is that drawing it in multiples is completely useless, except as insurance. I know I’ve been in that position before, where I sided in the Blood Moons versus an opponent who would be sorely affected by them, was happy to draw it in my opening hand, and then lost the protracted game by drawing my second and then third Blood Moon when I needed to draw an actual spell.
Magus of the Moon never ends up being extraneous, though the extra Magus may end up being only mediocre. At least it can attack, though. A back-up Magus is somewhat more useful just because of the increased fragility of creatures, and sometimes you’ll curse the Magus for having a power and toughness when you are the victim of sweeping spells. That said, we live in a time where a lot of decks are really working their mana hard, trusting in their various dual-lands, pain lands, storage lands, and who knows what else to keep their multiple-color spells afloat. Magus of the Moon is such a kick to the teeth of these strategies, that its place near the top of the heap seems very worthwhile.
#1 — Storm Entity
1R
Creature — Elemental
1/1
Haste
Storm Entity comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it for each other spell played this turn.
I’ve always liked Slith Firewalker. “Protect the Firewalker” has been a fun game, plenty of times. Storm Entity reminds me a lot of the Firewalker, except it might just be a little more broken.
It’s incredibly easy to play Storm Entity as a 2/2 Haster. That, by itself, makes it a great spell. But, more notably, it is also incredibly easy to play it as something much larger, even at an early turn.
Mana spells like Rite of Flame or Seething Song can go into setting up a larger entity. Suspend spells (Rift Bolt comes to mind) also help. And I don’t mind tossing in Mishra’s Bauble into a deck running Storm Entity. My friend Ian DeGraff mentioned to me something I hadn’t considered, as well: Storm Entity is actually better than storm if it resolves in the face of counterspells. A (probable) 2/2 Entity is cast after a Bauble, with U1 back. The opponent counters, and has their counter Remanded. Now, the 4/4 Entity swings, and makes life incredibly hard for the opponent.
Maybe Storm Entity could mark the beginning of a viable Blue/Red Aggro-Control deck? It also seems like a reasonable alternative kill in some storm decks. We’ll see…
The Rest (Artifact/Gold/Land)
#5 — Graven Cairns
Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
B/R, T: Add BB, BR, or RR to your mana pool.
Graven Cairns is not an incredibly exciting card, it’s just an incredibly useful card. I’ve seen a lot of people comment that there really doesn’t exist a Black/Red deck right now, and that Graven Cairns won’t change that.
Having powerful mana is always a reason to play a card. Back when I designed a deck for the Magic: the Gathering Invitational Auction of Geniuses, I jumped on the Birds of Paradise Avatar because of the power of perfect mana. Graven Cairns is going to enable Black/Red in a way we haven’t seen in a while. Of course, you’re going to need the spells to make this work, but the cards are out there. Dark Confidant is going to be good as long as it is in print. Red is chock full of great spells. If you end up running other duals lands that involve Black or Red, the Cairns really help you fix your mana in ways that are pretty surprising, letting you draw a single land to get the double color that you need.
#4 — Keldon Megalith
Land
Keldon Megaliths comes into play tapped.
T: Add R to your mana pool.
Hellbent – 1R, T: Keldon Megaliths deals 1 damage to target creature or player. Play this ability only if you have no cards in hand.
This card isn’t as ubiquitously good as some people would have you believe, but neither is it as overhyped as other writers seem to think. In a lot of ways, Keldon Megalith acts a lot like an uncounterable Cursed Scroll. It’s only one damage, but it’s one damage that can target Protection from Red creatures. Getting out multiples of them can overwhelm a control deck’s ability to handle your damage, and it isn’t a creature source that will let them escape with a Urborg-powered Tendrils of Corruption.
Obviously, it requires that you have Hellbent (a drawback) and it comes into play tapped (another drawback). The very fastest decks are probably not going to be excited about having it in their hand in the early game. But there are more Red decks than the very fastest decks.
To me, the obvious first thought for the card is a deck like Ponza. Ponza wants to run a lot of lands itself, but it also wants to have something to do with those potentially “excess” lands. Megaliths are great for that very reason. Another great way to apply the card is to put them as additional lands in a deck that runs semi-expensive cards like Akroma, Angel of Fury or recurring Skarrgan Firebird. Here, being able to drop the card as a mediocre three-drop is fairly unexciting, but having extra land to flip an Akroma is just fine. Megalith also seems like a great card in conjunction with Jaya Ballard or Magus of the Scroll. This card just seems to have a lot of potential to see play in competitive decks.
#3 — Nimbus Maze
Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
T: Add W to your mana pool. Play this ability only if you control an Island.
T: Add U to your mana pool. Play this ability only if you control a Plains.
Nimbus Maze isn’t actually as powerful as Graven Cairns, and it doesn’t afford as much mana-fixing potential for the three or more colored deck, but it does have an incredibly strong built-in card pool that it works with. That, in and of itself, makes it very worthy of note, and places it higher on my review.
The Maze really makes it feel like you get to be running eight Hallowed Fountain. That’s pretty sweet for a Blue/White deck. Maze is lovely, also, in that it fills you in on the color you’re missing, if you happen to be looking for that color. Blue/White decks have often had to run cards like Adarkar Wastes that they weren’t too keen on playing before, and the Maze really makes it seem as though you don’t need to do that any longer. Maze does have the distinct disadvantage of being unable to produce any color on turn one, if you lay it then, but seeing as there are so few turn 1 plays for Blue/White in Standard anyway, and also seeing as though you’re likely to have another land in your hand if you have chosen to keep the hand, I don’t know that this is too much of a big deal.
#2 — Epochrasite
2
Artifact Creature — Construct
1/1
Epochrasite comes into play with three +1/+1 counters on it if you didn’t play it from your hand.
When Epochrasite is put into a graveyard from play, remove it from the game with three time counters on it and it gains suspend.
Here, we have one of those critters that can be so resilient that it can keep affecting game play for a long time. Sakura-Tribe Elder is the first two-drop that comes to mind to compare this guy to. The Tribe Elder has a huge amount of power because of its ability to improve your mana, and function as a speed bump. Epochrasite is a little bit different.
A lot of times, a controlling deck just needs a little more time to get things set up. Tossing down an Epochrasite on turn 2 can set up a trade with a small creature from the opponent, if you’re lucky. Regardless, when it dies, it can start its continuous return by turn 5, suddenly being far less of a nuisance and far more of a threat, or even attack-stopper. Against another control deck, it is likely to only be a nuisance, but once it dies, for whatever reason (Smallpox, perhaps?), it an be a relentless killer, with very few ways to get rid of, short of countermagic. I expect to see this deck in a lot of people’s main decks come Regionals.
#1 — Tolaria West
Land
Tolaria West comes into play tapped.
T: Add U to your mana pool.
Transmute 1UU (1UU, Discard this card: Search your library for a card with converted mana cost 0, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library. Play only as a sorcery.)
I feel like this is the biggest gamble in my Best-of review. Tolaria West could end up turning out to be a very overhyped card, but I’m not sure that that is the case.
Blue has managed to do a do-si-do with Green for some of the mana fixing. Tolaria West certainly is slow, but it seems pretty crazy at the same time. Urza’s style decks are the first thing that spring to mind. While a lot can be said about the ability of simple card draw to fix the Tron, quite often, especially in the face of land disruption, it can be very hard to assemble. Having Tron versus not having Tron makes such a world of difference, that it almost is like you’ve kicked in the Nitro on the engine, without burning anything out.
Even for other decks, as a simple mana fixer, this card has a lot of use. Finding a specialized card like an Urborg or a Urza’s Factory before your opponent gets one going can be incredibly important in slow, control matches. Maybe your deck really wants to run two copies of an Academy Ruins, but you really can’t afford to draw a “dead” land.
It doesn’t just get land, but it can also dip into grabbing spells. The more powerful your format, the more that it can grab. Grabbing a Black Lotus seems pretty good, though in Vintage it might be just a little too slow to take the time to do. Chalice of the Void, Engineered Explosives, the Pacts (eventually), Moxen of all kinds, Zuran Orb, Tormod’s Crypt, and a slew of odd creatures are at your grasp.
And, heck, it even makes Blue mana! This one is a good-un.
The Best Five of the Set
So, which cards are the best of the set?
#5 — Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
In any deck that wants him to be, this guy is going to be a monster. I’ve already played a number of test games where I played this guy out on turn 3, and used Infernal Tutor to get the second and third copies. Turn 4 involved an 8/8 regenerating Korlash, perfect mana, and five mana open to cast spells. It was pretty good. Even in less perfect situations, Korlash still makes an incredibly powerful creature without any help. A Tarox can potentially do a lot more damage in a similar situation to a Korlash, but is far more vulnerable every other time.
#4 — Street Wraith
There are a lot of times when this card is simply too limited to be of any use. In the decks where this card isn’t so limited, however, like Manaless Ichorid, this card seems to be ridiculously powerful. The more that the game is dominated by all-or-nothing win situations, the less relevant the two life drawback becomes. This card may not be as versatile as some of the others, but in the realm that it is useful, it is just incredibly powerful.
#3 — Storm Entity
For aggressive decks, be they straight up beatdown or aggro-control, and potentially for combo decks, this card is going to be a monster. In addition, much like Giant Solifuge sometimes has a place in control on Control mirror matchups, Storm Entity can be a potent surprise to drop on an opponent. It’s two casting cost makes it incredibly cheap, and after a counter war, having two mana left to drop what is likely to be a 3/3 to 5/5 or 6/6 haster can be a knockout punch.
#2 — Pact of Negation
Solitaire players are going to rejoice once this card comes out. The fast that the deck is, the more that Pact of Negation begins to looks like Force of Will++. Sure, it can’t protect you from a Duress, but a decent search or Tutor effect can protect you from a Duress, not to mention a Brainstorm. I’ve played plenty of combo decks where I would have been able to win if I had just had the Blue card to pitch to Force of Will. Now, I don’t have to.
#1 — Summoner’s Pact
Yes, this Pact is the best one. We’ve already talked about the limitations of Pact of Negation in helping protect a combo. Tutors can mean you don’t even have to protect a combo. You can just win. There are a shocking amount of combo decks that need a Green creature to do their work, and even decks like Storm don’t mind upping the storm count by one by tutoring for an Elvish Spirit Guide. Grabbing Dosan ain’t half bad either. There are more combo decks than I can count that are going to use this thing to be able to power through disruption or simply be too fast for disruption to even matter. There might even be the rare non-combo deck that will want this card just to get the perfect creature at the perfect time, though I’m sure that will be the overwhelmingly vast minority of uses of the card.
Three cheers to Summoner’s Pact, one of the many cards we might get sick of seeing before it’s two years are over.
Special Bonus Deck Section
This bonus deck isn’t intended to be a major tournament winner tomorrow. I did do a fair amount of testing with it versus prospective new decks and established old decks, and it generally managed to be within a 10% of 50/50 versus everything that it played against, which is a pretty good sign that there might be something worth pursuing here.
This deck only runs two new spells, but it really is built around the ability to make them quite potent. And, more than that, it is incredibly fun.
4 Wall of Roots
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Tarox Bladewing
4 Riddle of Lightning
4 Assault / Battery
4 Hit / Run
4 Greater Gargadon
3 Akroma, Angel of Fury
4 Boom / Bust
25 Land
I would give a land count here, but I keep changing it and twiddling it around. I’m not exactly sure what the average Riddle of Lightning does for damage, but it sure does seem to do eight an awful lot. The average casting cost of a spell in the deck is officially about six, but the actual amount spend on spells is actually around three. I’ve won a huge amount of games by simply dropping a Tarox and hitting for four, and then resolving a Riddle for ten. Their own lands took care of that remaining six.
Infernal Tutor is fantastic to either get a redundant Tarox (or the second or third redundant Tarox) and make a very quick kill that way. Even casting two Riddles is often enough. Hit (of Hit / Run) can finish someone off or set them up to be finished off, and sometimes you just have them low enough that it is clear that your suspended Gargadon will be ready to go to town.
There are probably many other cards that could be fit into a deck like this. There are over 40 cards in Future Sight Standard that cost eight mana or more, and many of those have their own particular alternate costs that make them not so difficult to actually play as spells. It’s amazing how often randomly dealing eight to someone can steal the game.
I hope you enjoyed this deck, and my look at Future Sight. I’ll be in Chicago this coming weekend to attempt to wrest a Two-Headed Giant PTQ win with my partner Jim Hustad. Wish us luck!