Innovations – Breaking Koth and Why the Naysayers Are Wrong About Scars

“Scar doesn’t suck for Constructed. People are not being open-minded enough. This happens with virtually every set that is released now.”

–Cedric Phillips

“The mechanics in the set force you to build completely new decks, and most people are unspeakably bad at that. Most of the negative reaction is related to that.”

–Patrick Sullivan “The Rainmaker”

Scars of Mirrodin is finally legal, and not a moment too soon, as the State Championships,
the 2010’s, are just days away. In all likelihood, the majority of those in attendance will be armed with the most surface-level technology, primarily consisting of old decks that survived the rotation, as well as a few key decks that are already being discussed online.

There seems to be a great divide between the half of the players that sees countless avenues for deckbuilding within the exotic world of Scars of Mirrodin and the half that seems to think the set is terrible and full of cards that will only see play in Limited. Which is it?

Well, it would be easy to say: a little bit of both…

…But that would be inaccurate. The people that think the set is weak are just flat-out wrong!

First of all, there’s a general perception that Scars of Mirrodin has bad commons and uncommons. I think this is blown way out of proportion and primarily a result of the “good” cards in Scars of Mirrodin being synergy driven, instead of driven by raw power. I think that at least 32 commons and
27 uncommons in this set will see Constructed tournament play! Information on which ones can be found in my Scars of Mirrodin
set reviews…)

The past few years have seen primarily stand-alone cards, cards that could slide into any deck, in any context, and be roughly comparable. Combos existed — like Sovereigns of Lost Alara with Eldrazi Conscription, Basilisk Collar with Cunning Sparkmage, and Vengevine with Fauna Shaman — but in large part, the format contained no shortage of Shards cards that asked only that you could cast them — like Sprouting Thrinax, Rhox War Monk, Cruel Ultimatum, and Esper Charm.

That era is gone.

Most of the good cards in Scars of Mirrodin require planning, foresight, and precision.

Why is Koth considered by many to be the best card in the set? It would seem at least half of the people repeating this line don’t even know why! It’s a planeswalker… so if it’s the best planeswalker, it’s the best card?

It seems that some people use that line of reasoning. Was Gideon the best card in Rise of the Eldrazi? No, Vengevine was, despite there being no obvious home for him. It’s just that when you have a card as good as Vengevine, he’s going to warp the format around him and make homes for himself.

Koth is the best card in Scars of Mirrodin, but it’s not because he’s the best planeswalker. It’s because he creates the best effect for his cost. People speculated that Vengevine would only go in Naya, but as we’ve come to see, Bant, Jund, Mono-Green, Dredgevine, various R/U/G, and R/G Tokens, among others, all took advantage of the card.

Koth will make a
lot
of homes for himself over the next two years. He is
that
good.

I’m going to get to another application of Koth in a new deck for us to discuss, today, but while we’re on the topic of how Scars of Mirrodin’s best cards require synergy, let’s look at what I consider to be the top cards.

Top 10 Scars of Mirrodin Cards

10. Elspeth Tirel                 
9. Argentum Armor                 
8. Leonin Arbiter                  
7. Spikeshot Elder               
6. Contagion Clasp                
5. Venser, the Sojourner
4. Mox Opal                  
3. Wurmcoil Engine                
2. Koth of the Hammer              
1. The five Scars dual lands combined

As a note, I think Koth is the single best card, but the five Scars lands combined are too hard to compare to a single card, and as such, combine to essentially turn the list into a top nine list.

Zvi is the perfect example of the other side of the argument, and perhaps a willing champion of the position, as he’s never afraid to put his neck on the line or risk being wrong. Zvi has taken a very vocal position that this set is the weakest in quite some time, populated primarily by unplayable cards.

Even Koth (which he considers gravely overrated) is only in his top 10 because “the bar is that low.” Just to be clear, I’m not trying to pick on my good friend Zvi at all — he’s one of the absolute best of all time, for both today and yesterday, playing Magic, building decks, and writing articles.

I have the utmost respect for this living legend. I pick Zvi because he’s the best possible champion of the other side. Zvi has thrown down the gauntlet to us all to prove him wrong. If he’s wrong — which, of course, he is — we would be doing him a disservice by not reminding him, since he tasked us with doing so.

All I’m saying is that we’d all do well to keep an open mind about the potential uses of these new cards, trying to understand exactly what they’re capable of. Would Wizard’s completely derail the Power Creep Train out of nowhere (and during Scars of Mirrodin!?).

Maybe, but I tend to think it’s a lot more likely that the power is just subtle, and this isn’t the first time this has happened.

Many of you remember the transition from Invasion block to Odyssey block. Zvi won the Invasion Block Pro Tour, and Invasion, ironically, was home to countless “good cards” that didn’t rely overly on synergy.

Sound familiar? When Odyssey followed, it was heralded by many players as a disappointment, a major step backwards. Rosewater and Buehler tried to tell players that the set was far more powerful than they realized, but it wasn’t until much later, once the mechanics and cards were more fully understood, that people began to realize just how powerful Odyssey block was. To my knowledge, Zvi wasn’t one of the Odyssey naysayers, to be clear.

But the point is that a lot of people spoke out against Odyssey because the cards didn’t fit into the cookie-cutter mold that Invasion had left.

Scars of Mirrodin is stronger than people realize.

The 2010 (State) Championships are just days away, and thus far, we’ve seen primarily decks revolving around Primeval Titan or Jace, the Mind Sculptor, as well as to a lesser degree, both small green and small white creature decks.

For reference, here’s a pretty basic starting gauntlet taken from the Top 16 of last weekend’s TCGPlayer.com 5K:

 

[
Editor’s note: Apologies if the finishes of the decks are wrong.
Correct me
if so.
]

There are tons of variations on these types of strategies, such as R/G Destructive Force, U/R Control, Naya or R/U/G Shaman, and Tempered Steel, but so far, we’ve seen little outside of these four basic strategies.

Whatever you’re planning on playing at States, you better be comfortable with your game against Primeval Titan decks and Jace decks at the very least, as they’ll probably occupy well over 66% of the field in the winners’ circle.

I tend to think there are five key cards in Standard right now, not four (assuming we count Fauna Shaman as a key card, despite some green creature decks not playing it).

Top Standard Linchpins:

Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Primeval Titan
Fauna Shaman
Argentum Armor
Koth of the Hammer

I see an uprising of Koth decks coming, and not just Mono-Red Aggro. We’ve already begun discussing Big Red decks and Ponza decks, as well as using Koth in a ramping strategy.

Recently, I had the privilege of working on decks with another strong RIW deckbuilder, Dan Clark. We mostly brewed possible proliferate decks, and this is one example of the types of decks we’re experimenting with. The list is very rough in this incarnation, but I think it could lead to something big.

As you can see, this is a very different take on Koth of the Hammer, revolving around the abuse of proliferate.

To understand this strategy, let’s start with the central idea that drives the deck: if you ultimate Koth, you generally win the game. Normally, Koth is a force that puts a ton of pressure on opponents, forcing them to throw everything they have at it, often at great expense.

That’s completely awesome, so we certainly don’t want to take anything away from merely taking advantage of Koth as a powerhouse. However, this deck is even greedier.

Machine Red seeks to abuse proliferate by attempting to create a scenario where you can ultimate Koth faster than one should normally be able to. The idea is that if you can do this reasonably cost-efficiently, you can actually use Koth as a generic strategic tool, not just a potential end-game finisher. Let’s look at some typical openings.

T1 – Mountain, Voltaic Key

T2 – Mountain, Contagion Clasp

T3 – Mountain, Pilgrim’s Eye

T4 – Mountain, Koth of the Hammer, untap a land and protect with Galvanic Blast

This line is very common, and most of the cards are easily interchangeable with other cards you could draw, making this a very baseline start among games you draw Koth. The implied threat is that you’ll ultimate on your very next turn, giving your opponent one turn to get through your blocker plus a removal spell, on top of the removal spell you may have already used.

Once you have Koth’s emblem, it becomes academic to systematically decimate your opponent’s board, then his life total.

This is a pretty excellent way to start a game, but Machine Red is capable of much better. For instance:

T1 – Mountain

T2 – Mountain, Everflowing Chalice

T3 – Mountain, Koth of the Hammer, untap a land to protect with Galvanic Blast

T4 – Mountain, Throne of Geth, ultimate Koth with three Mountains untapped

As you can see, this scenario is still very basic, requiring very few cards to achieve, with a payoff that’s extremely difficult to beat. This is the sort of nut draw that Michael Jacob talks about when deckbuilding, as many opponents will not be able to beat this start. Still, we can do even better, if we get a bit lucky:

T1 – Mountain, Voltaic Key, Mox Opal

T2 – Mountain, Throne of Geth

T3 – Mountain, Koth of the Hammer, Sacrifice Mox Opal to Throne, then play a second Mox Opal and Voltaic Key your Throne, then activate again

This scenario, while certainly a bit less likely, actually lets you fire off Koth’s ultimate on turn 3! That’s pretty insane, no question, but what about the games where we don’t draw Koth?

This is where we look at the redundancy, which you hear so much about. This build of Machine Red also features Chandra Nalaar and Lux Cannon to take advantage of the proliferation.

To begin with, Chandra is obviously an excellent planeswalker to ultimate, though she rarely gets to. Most of the same lines that can be taken with Koth are possible with Chandra, though often a turn or so slower. Her ultimate doesn’t always put away the entire game, but the threat of it is very powerful, especially if you use it as a mid-game “sweeper.” In addition to the possibility of using her as the biggest Flame Wave ever, she’s an excellent solution to cards like Baneslayer Angel and Titans, which are normally too big for a lot of red decks to handle.

Even if you’re not using proliferate (or perhaps just Contagion Clasp, which you will be in the future), Chandra is a card that should see a big increase in popularity. There are a lot less cards that hose Chandra (Sprouting Thrinax, Bloodbraid Elf, Time Warp, Sovereigns of Lost Alara) and a lot more cards that it matches up well against.

She isn’t in the same league as the big boys, but she’s pretty good and very underrated. In this case, we get to see an excellent example of using a card that is good on its own (as a removal spell, a victory condition, and a “Tome”) but is also a card that highly synergizes with our linear strategy (in this case, to proliferate).

Lux Cannon is an even better card to proliferate, as a single Contagion Clasp gives you an instant speed Vindicate every other turn. The Lux Cannon is significantly weaker than Chandra on its own, but we have a plethora of ways to give it extra power. The most notable of these is Voltaic Key, which is the primary reason for the Key’s inclusion in the deck at all.

Voltaic Key does the same thing as Contagion Clasp, here, but for only a single mana. Simply destroying a permanent every other turn will be enough to beat many opponents, but remember, the machine starts to snowball, somewhat like a Stax deck dropping lock component after lock component until the opponent is rendered unable to cast another spell.

It’s a common tactic to burn a variety of resources in an effort to charge the Cannon as much as possible, using all of the Thrones, Clasps, and Keys you can to try to get enough Vindicates fast enough to stabilize.

It should also be noted that Lux Cannons are cumulative with proliferate, so a single Contagion Clasp gives you an average of one Vindicate per turn. Additionally, it’s quite common to pump planeswalkers at the same time you’re charging your Cannons, forcing opponents to attack the walkers turn after turn. Meanwhile, you start to get ahead on the Cannon, as well as build a larger mana supply with your Everflowing Chalices. This growing supply of colorless mana can allow you to start Voltaic Keying your Contagion Clasp instead of a single Cannon, further building the machine.

Everflowing Chalice is actually probably the best card in the deck, as games where you start with it take on an entirely different texture. Now, it’s like you’re getting a bonus Mox every time you proliferate. This is pretty absurd, in practice, as it mostly removes the cost of using the Throne (just keep sacrificing Mox Opals, Pilgrim’s Eyes, extra Thrones, Necropedes, and more) and lets you build a mana supply for accomplishing degenerate things.

Every time you can proliferate and get more than a card’s worth of value out of it, you’re doing something pretty powerful in the abstract.

Everflowing Chalice is another very potent way to take advantage of Voltaic Keys when you don’t yet have a Lux Cannon. Just remember, it takes a Chalice for two or more to net mana. Voltaic Keying a Mox Opal doesn’t net mana, however it can filter mana (for instance if you need a second red to cast a post-Destructive Force Chandra).

Voltaic Key is also deceptively good with Throne of Geth. It can be easy to run out of artifacts, but when used correctly, you’ll often get Koth’s Emblem or what amounts to a Violent Ultimatum. The Throne of Geth isn’t a simple card to wield, by any means, as it can often be difficult to figure out the exact time and place to use its ability, as well as what to sacrifice. However, the potential payoff is worth the trouble.

One important interaction to understand is that of Necropede and Throne of Geth. If you use the Throne to sacrifice a Necropede in response to your opponent’s fourth level counter on a Kargan Dragonlord, you’ll be able to put a -1/-1 counter on the Dragonlord before the proliferate actually resolves (which doesn’t target).

Not only do you get to -2/-2 a creature, but your Chalices, walkers, and Cannons all grow. Another common scenario is when you’re attacked by two 2/2s — block one with the Necropede, then put the -1/-1 counter on the other. This leaves both creatures weakened so that when you use the Throne or Clasp on your next turn, you hit them both.

Necropede is actually deceptively good in Machine Red. He’s one of the best cards to put in front of a fast aggro start, as he’s a difficult blocker to remove. Additionally, there’s good value in artifacts that want to be sacrificed (turning Throne of Geth’s drawback into an advantage). Perilous Myr and Panic Spellbomb are well worth considering for these same reasons.

Necropede can also be used as a threat against control. Sometimes there’s no way for a control deck to avoid getting hitting by it. This is a strange sort of deck that only needs to poison the opponent once to put them on a surprisingly short clock. With the amount that this deck proliferates, a single poison counter can prove fatal within just a few turns. We don’t want much more infect creatures because that isn’t our primary game plan; it’s just an added bonus that gives us a completely different angle of attack to make life harder for opponents.

Pilgrim’s Eye is another artifact that makes an ideal sacrificial lamb. It’s an excellent potential blocker, but it’s primarily used to help keep our artifact count high and our land drops consistent.

Prophetic Prism is another such card, but one that I think is only worth it if you splash another color. That said, Pilgrim’s Eyes, Prophetic Prisms, Mox Opals, and fetchlands make it very easy to splash a color without disrupting your primary Koth of the Hammer plan.

I’ve already written at length about Contagion Clasp
here,


but to summarize, you get a removal spell that kills a lot upfront, but becomes even more against those where it doesn’t. In addition, it’s generally functional as a Jayemdae Tome, netting you a card in value or more each turn you can afford to use it.

Against fast opponents, its value as removal is surprisingly potent (even leaving you an artifact to sacrifice later, if you need), and against slow opponents, its value as a Tome shines, where it makes each of your Cannons and Walkers into much stronger threats while building your mana supply. I disagree with Zvi the most on this card, as he gives it one star, and I think it is in the top 10 cards in the set.

Galvanic Blast and Pyroclasm help provide some much needed defense to buy us time to put our plans in motion. Pyroclasm is the perfect sweeper against many decks, and depending on your metagame, I could easily see using three or four main. Pyroclasm gains a lot as a result of the rotation and will help shape the card choices people make in the months to come.

Galvanic Blast is far better than Lightning Bolt in this list, as it almost always deals the full four damage after the second turn (and during turns 1 and 2, you rarely need to deal three damage anyway). It’s not just that you can hit bigger creatures, Galvanic Blast also provides crucial planeswalker defense, particularly against your opponent’s Koth.

On top of this, Galvanic Blast helps protect Koth at instant speed, most notably from Vengevine or manlands. It may be crazy to not play four, as the damage is just so great. Hitting your opponent with a Koth a couple of times takes a pretty big chunk out of their life. A couple Galvanic Blasts later, and that’s game, boys.

Finally, we come to Destructive Force. Destructive Force is a very important weapon, as it gives you a way to lock people out of mana beyond just the full-on Cannon lock. Additionally, it’s an incredible tool for “catching up,” and the symmetry of the card is totally broken by the planeswalkers and artifacts you get to keep on the table.

Everflowing Chalice, Mox Opal, and Voltaic Key open up lots of avenues for fast Destructive Forces, but it’s Koth’s second ability that will scare your opponent the most. While they may be able to keep Koth off of six, if they can’t keep him off of two (or three), they’re continually under the threat of Destructive Force as early as turn 4.

It’s easy to see: Koth, untap, and drop Destructive Force, but another important play is to cast Koth with five Mountains and an Everflowing Chalice on one. Now, remove two counters and you get a ritual effect, allowing you to Destructive Force a turn early, as well as to leave a Koth on the battlefield (almost always a winning position).

Some other cards to consider include Wurmcoil Engine, Molten-Tail Masticore, Culling Dais, Temple Bell, Panic Spellbomb, Prophetic Prism, Perilous Myr, Kuldotha Phoenix, Inferno Titan, Cunning Sparkmage/Basilisk Collar, and other colors.

Certainly, though, I recommend reading a list of every artifact, land, and red card in the set and see if any of them spark ideas in you. There are so many possibilities! For instance, imagine using four Galvanic Blasts and four Lightning Bolts (maybe more) and triggering Chandra Ablaze early, thanks to proliferate…

To know how to use Koth “well” is easy to do immediately.

Mastering Koth takes much longer, as he truly is a thinking man’s red card. Still, he’s so off-the-charts good, it would do us good to blaze the trail. I can’t promise I won’t Sculpt Minds, but if I don’t, you can bet there’s a good chance it’s because I’m Hammering.

I haven’t settled on what I will play this weekend, but whatever it is, I’ll reveal it Friday, in my next article. See you then!

Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”

P.S. Just realized, it’s going to be tough to run the rub-ins with Zvi when he designs the best deck at Worlds, as he’s prone to do. Oh well, small victories, I suppose.