Innovations – Scars of Mirrodin Set Review Part 5

Today is the riveting conclusion of my uncut extended length Scars of Mirrodin set review. Parts
one
two
three and four
can be found with those links. As always I’m primarily looking to understand the possibilities that each card holds as we can worry about cutting them down later. Almost exactly 80% of cards turn out to not be as good as the best 20% of cards in every set. The best way I know for figuring out what the 20% actually are is by fully understanding the interactions between all of the cards not just the ones that look good at first glance.

Blue

Argent Sphinx is the latest from the Sphinx of Jwar Isle School. I think it’s better on account of being substantially cheaper combo-ing with Day of Judgment and mimicking vigilance (you can just attack then phase out leaving it untapped to block with. You can even block then phase out again and rumble next turn). His stats are impressive enough that he’s not embarrassing when you aren’t quite at metalcraft yet but as we’ve seen from Conundrum Sphinx not every four-power flier for four with a good ability sees a lot of play.

Seeing the full spoiler has me thinking the format will probably not reward you enough for going to the trouble of making this guy work but he’s definitely at the top of the list for unkillable creatures to win with in an artifact-heavy blue deck. He’s so good at what he does he’ll probably make a number of minor appearances over the next couple of years but rarely take the spotlight for more than a week. He just doesn’t have the same kind of impact on the board that a Wurmcoil Engine does. You know?

Classic role player as the only people that will want him will have him playing an important role.

In Limited he’s a pretty insane rare that should be first-picked. A 4/3 flier for four is already unreal good and the ability here is just gravy.

Creature removal in Standard is largely defined by its casting cost. Often the best removal spells cost one and even narrow removal gets the nod sometimes at this cost. Two is pretty much industry standard. With cards like Journey to Nowhere Narcolepsy Grasp of Darkness and Doom Blade guys being removed for two mana is nothing special but not bad either. Three casting-cost removal is generally reserved for a card that has added versatility and can solve many types of problems. Previously we had Oblivion Ring and Bant Charm though no new challengers have arisen.

Four casting-cost removal? Once we’re at the point of four casting-cost removal cards have to be compared to Day of Judgment. These days there are so many powerful creatures and planeswalkers at four five and six that you using the rest of your cards to support them is pretty much the most common strategy. This leads people to use the one two and three-cost cards in their decks for primarily four reasons:

1) Early removal or permission to help buy time/solve problems until you can play expensive cards.

2) Mana acceleration to try to cast expensive cards faster.

3) Library manipulation to help smooth out draws if one is playing control or combo.

4) Early creatures because creatures are awesome.

This growing divide between cards that cost three or less versus cards that cost four puts a huge amount of pressure on any non-creature non-planeswalker permanents that cost four or more and ask to be played in tournaments. Day of Judgment kills
every single creature.
Even cards like Jace’s Ingenuity and Destructive Force are merely “okay” since you could’ve spent that turn playing a really awesome creature.

We’re living in an era of planeswalkers fatties and 187s (creatures that do something when they enter the battlefield). As such any support spell that costs four or more has to be amazing and Bonds of Quicksilver isn’t. Consuming Vapors kills two creatures and gains life and it doesn’t even see that much play.

In Limited Quicksilver Bonds is an “okay” removal spell. Having flash is respectable as it saves you enough mana that you would have wasted to feel like it’s about on par with Paralyzing Grasp in Limited in terms of power level. It isn’t “good” removal but it’s playable.

While I appreciate that Darkslick Drake‘s head is in the right place he isn’t quite there yet. Azure Drake was a respectable tournament card back in 1995 when people played him just straight up for his body. Those days are long gone however and these days we ask much more out of our four-drops.

Darkslick Drake tries to get into the card advantage game but between not getting the card until (if) he dies and not even getting the card at all if they Journey to Nowhere him Condemn him bounce him or whatever he’s just not even really a candidate. Conundrum Sphinx has so much better of numbers and doesn’t see that much play. I think it’d just take Darkslick Drake being a straight-up cantrip instead of his current ability to make him playable.

In Limited on the other hand he’s awesome. Azure Drake is one of the better M11 cards in draft and Darkslick is definitely better. One of my favorite uses of Darkslick Drake is rumbling with infect creatures as he always seems to manage to come out better for it.

On the one hand I think Into the Roil‘s stock is rising in Standard. With artifacts on the rise it’s even more important than ever to be able to deal with “target permanent.” Oblivion Ring leaving Standard means there’s a shortage of unrestricted interactions with permanents of any type.

Since it looks hard to tell who will have enchantments like Tempered Steel and Pyromancer Ascension who will have artifacts like Lux Cannon and Argentum Armor who will have creatures like Baneslayer Angel and Wurmcoil Engine and who will have planeswalkers like Jace the Mind Sculptor and Koth of the Hammer Into the Roil is an excellent way to help deal with all of these cards without risking having a dead card against so many decks.(Admittedly Into the Roil is pretty awful against R/G Ramp decks.)

Into the Roil is just a quality card that will be played even more at least until the format settles down a bit and people get an idea of what kinds of strategies will be popular.

Disperse is no Into the Roil.

Without the ability to draw an extra card Disperse is barely two-thirds of the card that Into the Roil is and that is nowhere near good enough for Constructed when we have other good options.

In Limited however the card is fine but nothing special. There are plenty of triggers to reset it can be a reasonable tempo boost it can protect your own guys and so on — but at the end of the day it’s still just a generic bounce spell.

Bounce was abnormally strong in Rise of the Eldrazi on account of how many expensive cards were being played often without a reliable way of replaying them as well as Umbras and levelers. Here you’ll often be bouncing two and three-drops anyway. A fine role player but not a high pick. Let’s put it this way: it’s a lot more “Unsummon” than “Repulse.”

See this is the
exact
kind of card that always tricks people. No Mercy tricked people. Aurification tricked people. Dissipation Field is tricking people. Eventually they’ll print (apologizes for the templating):

Electrical Field

2RR
Enchantment
Rare
Whenever a creature damages you its controller chooses to either have Electrical Field deal 5 damage to that player or 5 damage to that creature.

Electrical Field will trick people too.

Imagining this fantasy world where you’re getting incredible value every time your opponent attacks you is a trick. Remember how many times people hit you with creatures over the course of the game. Just think about how much better you’d have been doing if every time they did the creatures died! Or turned into walls with defender! Or returned to owner’s hand! Or better yet Blazing Salvoed! That sounds awesome but that isn’t reality.

In reality if you spent four mana and a card putting one of these enchantments onto the battlefield your opponent could just stop attacking you so much. If they got rid of the card swell. If not they just waited until they could kill you in one hit or some other such plan.

Electrical Field seems like it does big things but it’s actually just a worse No Mercy as it gives your opponent the option to escape and it doesn’t even kill the creature for sure.

Dissipation Field is even worse. Not only does it only bounce the creature instead of killing it it can be a major liability. Just imagine if your opponent starts hitting you with a Kemba’s Skyguard or worse a Razor Hippogriff.

You may be saying “Not every creature will benefit from being bounced.” Right but those creatures aren’t going to attack unless it’s worth it! Yes sometimes the deterrent will work out great but you’re talking about giving your opponent lots of options. Either they can’t attack till they kill you they can wait and just replay their guys with vigilance they can bounce creatures that benefit from the added triggers they can just ignore it and try to power through it or they can surprise you by removing the Field you were counting on. It just doesn’t do enough reliably.

You just don’t generally have enough life to work with to take advantage of these cards. For instance by the time you play Dissipation Field against an opponent that can’t profitably exploit it what’s your life total? Let’s be generous and say fifteen.

Are you going to let your opponent hit you with that Plated Geopede? What about Vengevine? Which creatures exactly do you want hitting you even if your opponent has to replay them afterwards? If I controlled a Vengevine I think I’d generally be okay with my opponent spending four mana and a card to force me to have to pay four mana and no cards to deal four damage with a creature that my opponent is actually intentionally not dealing with to get “value.” This isn’t even getting into what happens if a Putrefax hits you!

It wasn’t worth it with No Mercy which killed the creature outright. Why will it be worth it now for a much weaker effect?

At this point you may be screaming at the screen that Dissipation Field affects all permanents not just creatures. Okay okay stop screaming. What non-creatures are you picturing bouncing besides Valakuts and Mountains when Koth has his emblem?

Let’s take a good look at those two scenarios. First of all if your opponent plays a Primeval Titan and gets two Valakuts then attacks next turn and gets two Mountains you just took eighteen and their Primeval Titan is back in their hand ready to be replayed.

What about against Koth’s emblem? Well in this scenario you definitely can slow down the bum rush to merely permanently lock you out of most creatures as well as only taking one damage a turn until you’re in Fireball range. Nice work!

Perhaps the best possibility for Dissipation Field lies in abusing it like the “best” uses of mill cards — on yourself. For instance imagine this hypothetical card:

Iocaine Powder
0
Artifact
Uncommon
T: Iocaine Powder deals 2 damage to each opponent and 1 damage to you. Iocaine Powder doesn’t untap during your untap step.
4: Untap Iocaine Powder.

This card is pretty terrible but when combined with Dissipation Field it generally kills your opponent as long as they have less than twice as much life as you. The heart of the interaction is that
Iocaine Powder (which is very much not a real card) has a “drawback” that it deals one damage to you each time you use it.

It’s this drawback that we’d be able to abuse with a card like Dissipation Field (which cleverly also circumvents the untap ability that allowed Iocaine Powder to have a casting cost of 0 in the first place).

The point is if you want to really exploit a card like Dissipation Field a card that
grants
so many options you want to do it to yourself. I don’t see the interaction with the current pool that would work in this way but it only takes the printing of one seemingly insignificant card perhaps even years from now to create an extremely powerful combination.

However the card kind of sucks at the moment.

I don’t see Limited being any better for Dissipation Field. There are just too many ways for it to bite you not to mention it not even always working when you need it to not to mention being able to get brute-forced by someone willing to just pay the mana.

Grand Architect is one of the most fascinating cards in Scars of Mirrodin. There are so many dimensions to it: it offers so much upside but it has such a strange and unique set of “costs” that there has really never been a card like it.

First as a “Lord” he’s better than blue would generally get. One of the biggest advantages Merfolk decks have gotten over the years is actual lords to pump each other adding a true aggressive element to the color. While most people always talk about Mono-Red Aggro White Weenie and Mono-Green Overrun the old adage is that the most dangerous beatdown deck is a good blue beatdown deck. Whenever blue gets a good beatdown every Counterspell becomes a Time Walk and things get totally out of hand fast (Faeries being the recent most grievous example of this).

Does this mean Grand Architect will spawn unbeatable beatdown decks? No of course not but while we’re sitting around brainstorming ways to spend all that mana note that he has other important effects on the board.

The primary reason we play Grand Architect is the mana ability which is all at once: mana acceleration virtual card advantage and an open-ended engine. As an accelerator he can turn all of your guys into Sol Rings as long as you have a deck built around him. This can provide you with an incredible amount of mana turn after turn (even fueling such ambitious plays as recurring Mindslavers) or with just one shot immediately upon summoning him — as a sort of 1UU Ritual that makes six or more colorless mana.

Either of these applications is amazing letting us use him with “haste” so to speak to summon Wurmcoil Engines Molten-Tail Masticores Myr
Battlespheres or the aforementioned Mindslaver. He’s so efficient that he’s likely to even see play in Legacy with
Sperling’s
Imperial Recruiter +Painter’s Servant + Grindstone (if you play a Recruiter or Trinket Mage on turn 3 you can get the Architect Painter’s Servant or Grindstone then kill turn 4).

As virtual card advantage Grand Architect makes each of your blue creatures produce two mana which is like being worth two cards in many regards. This mana isn’t always easily convertible but it does help provide options to leverage every turn the Architect is on the battlefield into more and more advantage.

To use Grand Architect as an open-ended combo card would be to take advantage of some loop that abuses his ability an arbitrary number of times such as with Pili-Pala. If you play a Pili-Pala turn 2 in Extended and it somehow lives (a scenario
much
more likely come PTQ season than in the current Punishing Fire driven world) you can play Grand Architect on turn 3 and produce an arbitrary amount of mana of any color. Winning should be academic at this point if you have stone-cold anything.

Grand Architect‘s third ability is mostly just a way to tie the other two together letting your other artifact creatures (such as the above-mentioned Pili-Pala) join in on the mana production or adding bonuses to the artifact creatures you summon from the Grand Architect‘s Crusade ability (such as pumping Molten-Tail Masticore or Wurmcoil Engine).

Rating:
Flagship though how effective of one still remains to be seen. An important card to explore as it has a relatively high probability of actually creating a new Tier 1 strategy somewhere somehow.

In Limited he’s excellent. You’ll generally be able to tap him immediately to cast at least a Myr Spellbomb or equipment of some sort. Then he sits around not only Crusading your blue and artifact creatures (with the spending of blue mana) but also producing extra mana here and there. Every time you tap him for two to cast a Myr or activate a Trigon that’s two less land you have to tap leaving them free to use otherwise.

@mtg_law_etc:
“This new card they just posted… it’s a Counterspell.”

Tell me more…

“It’s a cantrip!”

Yes…?

“It even only costs three!”

But…?

“It only counters artifacts.”

While I certainly think artifacts will play a major role in the new format there would have to be relatively few artifact-less decks to get me to want to maindeck Halt Order. Without a good way to cycle it’s just too much of a gamble compared to Stoic Rebuttal/Cancel types.

Now if you
know
that your opponent will play artifacts go ahead and get paid! Get that paper playa!

How can you be sure your opponent will play artifacts? Well one pretty reliable method is to only sideboard Halt Order in against opponents with a number of artifacts. Whether this is worth sideboard space or not it’s too early to tell. But it’s certainly worth considering as it does make for an effective “value-answer” to cards like Mindslaver Wurmcoil Engine Molten-Tail Masticore and Lodestone Golem as well as having game against Contagion Clasp Everflowing Chalice and various trinkets. As such it’ll see modest sideboard play.

In Limited this is just excellent. Your opponent is sure to have lots of artifacts no matter what they’re playing making it very much like the excellent Invasion card Exclude. The fact that it’s uncommon instead of common actually makes it even stronger since people won’t be playing around it as much.

Maelstrom Nexus Thrumming Stone these cards are always the same. Can you build around them? Sure. When it all comes together does it win? Yep. Is the strategy unplayable? Not at all. Is the strategy ever going to be Tier 2 let alone Tier 1? Not likely.

If you did want to build around Inexorable Tide it’s best viewed as the open-ended engine it is. It gives you something you want (proliferate)every time you do something you want to do anyway — but have to pay a cost to do (cast spells).

To really “break” this one you’d ideally want to find a way to get enough value out of the proliferate to fuel another round of casting a spell. For instance imagine you cast Searing Touch with buyback targeting your opponent while you have an Inexorable Tide on the battlefield as well as enough Molten Slagheap Iceberg Rasputin Dreamweaver-type cards on the battlefield. You can actually create a loop where every time you Searing Touchyou proliferate enough mana to cast Searing Touch again each time dealing one damage to your opponent.

This is surely not the most inefficient loop with Inexorable Tide and definitely not good but the point is to demonstrate the sort of interactions one might look for if they wanted to break Inexorable Tide. Understanding how to exploit open-ended combos is an important skill anyway — one that it seems so many kids today with their new-fangled planeswalkers and Baneslayers never learn.

This card seems really slow in Limited but at least once it gets going it creates a pretty big advantage fast. I’d probably pick good creatures or removal over this most of the time but when you pick it up late you might be able to get randomly dirty with it.

Man-o’-War is one of my favorite creatures as I like cards that bounce something and do something else so it’s no surprise that I like Lumengrid Drake. I actually really like that he costs a little extra and that you have to work for it to get the bounce at all.

The card is still effective and if it were cheaper to cast everyone would draft it. As it is the Drake provides another incentive to metalcraft and rewards good drafting. Bouncing isn’t particularly good in the set but the card is solid as an expensive Wind Drake with the potential for upside.

Lumengrid Drake would see little play in Standard at three let alone four. Aether Adept sees a very limited amount of play and a slightly more easily cast flier isn’t enough to make up for needing metalcraft
and
push it into the mainstream. At four we aren’t close.

“Enters the battlefield” triggers are nice in Constructed. Making creatures unblockable generally isn’t. I’m much more interested in the Neurok that deals the other half of Whispersilk Cloak:

Neurok NotRealimancer
1UU
Creature – Human Wizard
Common
Flash shroud
When Neurok NotRealimancer enters the battlefield target creature gains shroud until end of turn.
2/1

Regardless a 2/1 unblockable creature wouldn’t be good enough at two mana without some sort of linear support like tribal. Making another creature unblockable one time is definitely not worth a mana in Constructed. Pass.

When it comes to Limited Neurok Invisimancer seems reasonable. He’s slightly more vulnerable than average given his toughness in this hostile world filled with ways to kill low-toughness creatures but he’s still a two-power unblockable creature for three. Additionally the ability to make one of your other creatures unblockable until end of turn can vary in value but is a potentially great option to have. On the whole his rank will probably depend on how aggressive your blue decks tend to be (as he’s much better in Metalcraft U/W than U/B Control). He’s a reasonable creature but not great.

The irony with Plated Seastrider is that in almost any other set he’d be absolutely nuts. In the infect driven world of Scars of Mirrodin it’s very possible that he doesn’t quite perform at the level in Limited he would otherwise.

That said we’re still talking about a Horned Turtle for one mana less and Horned Turtle is pretty awesome. It’s actually a blessing to have a world like this if that is what it takes to be able to print a creature like Plated Seastrider.

Gerry Thompson was at my place the day it was spoiled and we both threw our hands up in celebration as this is exactly the kind of card we both love. Days later we realized the interaction with infect but that hopefully just means he ends up being easier to acquire in Limited eventually (for the love not the power).

Still extra toughness is certainly nice in this format so he’s still going to be at least solid. One last note on the Seastrider in Limited: make sure your mana base can actually support him if you’re planning on counting on him. He’s a great turn 2 play but if you don’t have double blue he drops in stock a fair bit. I recommend ten Islands though you can certainly get away with less if you have to just remember that every Island less than ten that you play drops his stock a notch.

Could Plated Seastrider find a home in Constructed?

Maybe but the truth is that power creep has had such a tremendous impact on deck construction that I have trouble imagining who it is that Plated Seastrider is supposed to be holding off. Gone are the days of Jackal Pups and Mogg Fanatics. These days Fauna Shaman Stoneforge Mystic Steppe LynxPlated Geopede Kargan Dragonlord and so on are quick to outclass this particular Beast.

He could be a nice answer to Goblin Guide and friends particularly in Extended but if you’re playing Extended it’s very probable you have better answers than one that still dies to Flame Javelin (or Flame Slash for that matter).

“Ambitious.”

Quicksilver Gargantuan is a “bigger” Clone which is cute especially when you fantasize about copying a Titan.

However when my opponent plays a Titan the
last
thing I’m thinking is “I know! Why don’t I let that Titan live untap copy it then hope a mere +1/+1 bonus is enough to maintain my massive board advantage!”

Cards that copy things always have some potential to be abused but it just seems like such a pipe dream for this guy to be better than just playing your own Titan Wurmcoil Engine or whatever. That said I have no doubt he has lots of casual applications; he’s just a trap in Constructed.

If you’re hell-bent on “abusing” him in Constructed it’d really take a creature worth copying but not worth killing that sits on the battlefield with a small body and a strong enough ability that you’d pay seven mana for it and a 7/7. For instance if there was a creature that read:

Engineered Engineer

2UU
Creature
Uncommon
Flash
When Engineered Engineer enters the battlefield you may return any number of other target permanents to their owners’ hand equal to Engineered Engineer’s power.
1/1

If such a card existed which I suppose
could
then you’d actually have a relatively decent payoff for going to all the trouble of summoning a Quicksilver Gargantuan.

In Limited this guy is big and slow. His numbers are good especially since you’ll surely pick up some good abilities such as flying at the very least. At only seven mana this is pretty good for a guy his size but I’d still greatly prefer to be playing a much faster deck with much faster cards.

Hell yes! Riddlesmith is easily one of the most exciting and interesting new cards. Looting is a great ability and Riddlesmith has the ability to loot many times a turn without spending any mana.

Additionally he can still beatdown at the same time which is particularly useful particularly in a metalcraft Vengevine deck with Kuldotha Phoenix.In such a deck every beater you’re sending into the red zone helps and Riddlesmith opens up a number of exciting starts such as:

T1 – Land Birds of Paradise
T2 – Land Riddlesmith Mox Opal (Discard Vengevine) Memnite (Discard Phoenix and get back Vengevine) Spellbomb (discard anything)
T3 – Get back Phoenix on upkeep

As you can see there are a lot of exciting potential openings for a new Metalcraft Dredgevine deck and that doesn’t count the games where you manage a Hedron Crab Trinket Mage or Fauna Shaman.

Outside of the possibility of using Riddlesmith in Dredgevine he also has chances of making an impact in some sort of Reanimator strategy if another Zombify is printed. As it is the best we have is Rise from the Grave which still gives us a turn 4 Iona Shield of Emeria or Stormtide Leviathan if we want it after curving out Riddlesmith into Everflowing Chalice.

Alternatively one might use Riddlesmith to help smooth out the draws of some sort of artifact beatdown deck. Tempered Steel is a very potent card that draws one to white but it’s no trouble at all to acquire blue or green as a secondary color for a white deck right now.

There are a lot more possibilities for ways to take advantage in Legacy a format with so many cheap artifacts and ways to abuse the graveyard but there are so many other insane things to be doing why bother? Still good repeatable effects that don’t cost mana need at least one eye kept on them.

Rating:
Role player

In Limited Riddlesmith is a solid role player. His body is good enough that it doesn’t take much payoff to make him worth it to us. Having reasonable ways to convert extra lands into spells later is a nice option to have especially with how low the opportunity cost is.

In Constructed you could have Titans and Wurmcoil Engines for a mana less. If I were in the tank (down near the bottom) looking for any shred of value here I’d say that not even a Black Lotus discount would get me on board. In other words the scrap dive sure meant it sucks.

In Limited he’s fine since he does end games in a hurry once he hits but he’s slow and expensive. There are no shortage of good ways to spend a lot of mana so don’t waste an early pick on a mediocre one.

What a wasted opportunity! This card would be
so
much more interesting if you could mill target player! I could imagine some deck with Memnites and Hedron Crabs Riddlesmiths Vengevines Trinket Mages and the Phoenix that achieves a quick metalcraft then mills itself DI with guys like this. A card that can only target the opposite of what you want is generally a pretty abysmal failure. This is akin to a Lava Spike that can only target yourself.

In Limited he isn’t an embarrassing body really given the format. Additionally with metalcraft easily achievable it isn’t hard to imagine the Silcaw grinding your opponent out in five hits. As a common the games can end even faster especially if you’re fortunate enough to mise a Grindclock. Not sure if you can draft a deck that’s primarily on this plan but it could work. If this isn’t your primary plan he is at best a 23rd card.

Cards like Polymorph Tinker Natural Order they are often among the most abusable. What would it take to abuse Shape Anew?

Well it’s most like Polymorph which was generally managed by having the only creature cards in your deck be game winners while having a variety of ways to make tokens without using actual creature cards. Shape Anew is a much trickier proposition as contraptions don’t exist yet. I can think of three off the top of my head:

1) Four Trinket Mages to find the one cheap artifact in your deck. This at least makes it as though you had five copies of the target to try to assemble the combo. If you use Everflowing Chalice or Chimeric Mass you can Trinket Mage into Shape Anew as a natural curve. I recommend staying away from Memnite as it’ll get Bolted far too often.

2) Stone Idol Trap. This produces an artifact creature but if your opponent doesn’t attack you early it’s really really slow.

3) Just using lots of artifacts and having ways to manipulate the top of your library such as Preordain Jace the Mind Sculptor and Halimar Depths.While these cards are all good — why Shape Anew instead of anything else?

While it’s difficult to use Shape Anew it can be done the issue is just figuring out what is actually worth Shaping into. Wurmcoil is easily accelerated onto the battlefield in lots of better ways so it has to be even better than that. Mindslaver would cost another four to use and Platinum Emperion is defeated too easily.

I don’t think it’s time for Shape Anew yet but it’s one to watch and if you want to break it these are the questions you have to answer.

If you’re in the market for a very dubious shape a new dream that’s way too much work for way too unreliable a payoff this is the card for you.

Constructed: Compare to Sphinx of Lost Truths.

Limited: A good man as 3/3 fliers for five are fine and this ability is definitely halfway decent. While I’d tend to avoid too many expensive cards in this Limited format this is a good one.

Steady Progress is another card that has caught a lot of eyes looking for a way to abuse proliferate. It’s costed similar to Divination though it’s an instant. Divination would be great as an instant suggesting if you get at least a card’s worth of value in general you’re doing well plus there are always the games later that really pay you off for going to the trouble. For more on proliferate in full review Contagion Clasp from
part 1.

It makes your Everflowing Chalices worth a mana more which is already like getting the extra cards out of the deal you wanted. Imagine this line:

T1 – Island Preordain (Because this is reality)
T2 – Island Everflowing Chalice
T3 – Island Steady Progress then tap the Chalice to cast Contagion Clasp
T4 – Island Wurmcoil Engine

This is hardly degenerate by any means but is revealing of what may be a new breed of Mono-Blue Artifact decks. These same decks have a lot of natural benefits to proliferating which you can get even more of by using both Contagion Clasp and Steady Progress.

Jace the Mind Sculptor would obviously play a major role in such a deck and each extra loyalty counter is appreciated but perhaps the most exciting application is casting Steady Progress after you’re attacked giving Jace the one extra loyalty he needs to survive the attack while other creatures are so greedy and attacking you directly.

Additionally it’s always nice to surprise-ultimate Jace a turn early. How many counters were on Jace before Steady Progress resolved?
Eleven? That’s ridiculous. It’s not even funny.

Now there’s two things you don’t talk about: one’s levelers and the other one’s +1/+1 counters. The reason you don’t talk about them is because they combine with each other. You know what I’m saying? They are both possible ways to get paid extra but they likely combine into the category of “not as good as you could be doing” most of the time.

Instead I would look at charge counters for cards like Lux Cannon and quest counters for cards like Pyromancer Ascension. Even Archmage Ascension is a possibility once you’re casting Preordain Spreading Seas Jace Wall of Omens Contagion Clasp and Steady Progress (which powers it up double).

While it’ll take some savvy deckbuilding we’ll give this one a rating of role player.

In Limited it’s clearly the type of card that scales depending on your deck but I don’t imagine that it’s high impact enough to be an early pick though it’s definitely good. Being able to shrink creatures at instant speed (or grow them in Constructed) is certainly of value and as a cantrip you really don’t have to get that much value out of the card to be ahead.

You know how much I love a Cancel and Stoic Rebuttal is a strict upgrade. You may not have many or any artifacts but you should still use Stoic Rebuttal because there’s no reason not to and if you don’t it’ll reveal information about your deck to your opponent. While you could in theory want more than four Stoic Rebuttals bringing Cancel to the top I imagine it’s more likely you won’t even want four.

Stoic Rebuttal will certainly see play in lots of decks that will rarely give the discount featuring maybe a few Ratchet Bombs and Chalices. It’ll also see play in artifact heavy decks that actually get a substantial boost from plays like casting a Wurmcoil Engine leaving Stoic Rebuttal mana still open to protect it acting like a Deprive.

Other than maybe playing more counterspells in some sort of heavy artifact deck that aspires to produce a threat and protect it this bonus is so tiny there’s little reason to build around it. Instead just take Stoic Rebuttal for what it is: a small tempo stimulus plan by WotC.

Every blue mage that’s fighting the good fight and paying three for Cancel when counterspell was just two when we were kids now gets an occasional refund. Depending on which bracket you’re in you may get the rebate half of the time or you may get it less than one percent (more are probably on that end of the spectrum) but it’s all on the house. (Actually it’s paid by the sum total of everyone else who you’re taking the tempo from.)

In Limited the card is fine since it counters game-winning bombs but I think this format is a lot less bomb-intensive than M11 making Cancel less appealing.

You hear that? Yeah that! What the hell is all that
buzzing!?

Thrummingbird is certainly very annoying to be hit by as it’ll often create at least a card’s worth of action but fortunately it isn’t exactly durable. In Constructed it’s potentially quite potent but its lack of haste so to speak as well as how fragile it is without defending you leaves me unlikely to include it.

Contagion Clasp and Steady Progress are so much more reliable; I’d look to them first. That said Thrummingbird does do some things the best. For instance she’s one of the most mana efficient ways to continue to proliferate turn after turn. Additionally if you play a matchup where they don’t have an answer she creates a lot of value quickly especially with cards like Everflowing Chalices planeswalkers and Archmage Ascension.

In Limited this card is no bomb but it’s pretty sweet. Flying goes a long way towards making up for her body and the evasion helps ensure that you’ll be proliferating turn after turn. It doesn’t take long to poison someone out this way as well as gain lots of little edges from charge and -1/-1 counters.

Another of the top ten cards in the set Trinket Mage is an old favorite that has lots of new tricks. I don’t think it’s quite the same type of card without some sort of a Sensei’s Divining Top to ensure that you don’t run out of gas but it’s really nice to be able to solve problems with cards like Nihil Spellbomb and Brittle Effigy but that’s hardly unfair.

Using it for utility purposes is probably the best reason to play Trinket Mage right now but it’s also reasonable to try to do unfair things like getting a Memnite (which can trigger metalcraft or Vengevine) or getting a Voltaic Key to do something crazy like fire a Lux Cannon repeatedly.

One of my favorite uses is to fetch Basilisk Collar to attach to my Cunning Sparkmages. I think this core interaction will form the basis of tons of new decks and could be one of the fundamental pillars of the metagame. Whatever the uses Trinket Mage will certainly be a staple in every low-powered format and an occasional role player in Eternal.

Trinket Mage will see lots of play in Extended as the toolbox will be much appreciated in a world of such different and unusual strategies as you’ll face.

In Draft it’s easy to acquire Spellbombs at the very least and there are a variety of pieces of equipment that you might want.

Turn Aside is probably not going to see much play given how much more versatile Negate and Spell Pierce are but at least it’s the best at doing what it does. If all you want is to protect a permanent from a spell at the absolute lowest cost with the most reliability Turn Aside delivers. Most mages will never be in the market for such a tool but there‘s a non-zero number that will.

As for Limited you have to try to make this worth it but it can be playable. It does have the potential to give you a nice tempo boost without losing card economy but I wouldn’t value this highly nor feel bad about cutting it.

One of Michael Jacob dream cards this is the latest example of “Transmutation Creep.”

• First Transmutation cost two.

• Then About Face cost one.

• Next Inside Out cost two and was a cantrip.

• Now Twisted Image costs one and is a cantrip.

What’s next? How long can this madness continue?

Twisted Image is definitely much less appreciated in blue than it would be in red as red often is in need of answers to cards like Wall of OmensDoran the Siege-Tower and Overgrown Battlement.

Blue cares about what? Birds of Paradise? Hedron Crab? Well those are two great reasons that are often in the same deck (along with Cunning Sparkmage) so maybe there’s hope yet.

The big question is whether the value you get from it when it works is worth the mana you waste trying to cycle it otherwise. If you have Wall of Omens or better still Sea Gate Oracle (take that enemy Jace!) you might be able to cycle it often enough to ease the pain of when you face creatureless decks. You should be able to cycle it off of opponent’s guys enough to not have to worry much about getting blown out by a Bolt to your Sea Gate in response but it’s a non-zero factor.

There are so many great cards and you (hopefully) already have four Preordains so it’s unclear if you can make room for such a toy.

As a sideboard option you’re assured of only having it when it’s good but then the question becomes: is it the best use of sideboard space? I’m not sure how or why but the power level on this has been pushed so much that I think it’ll see play. Spreading Seas is to Phantasmal Terrain what Twisted Image is to Transmutation. This effect may not be relevant against everyone or even most people but make it a cantrip and drop the mana cost enough… eventually it’ll see play.

I doubt it’ll be anywhere near staple but the card has chances of being a role player. I’ve played a cantrip for U that just gave you scry one (Opt) and this is a stronger effect than that albeit more situational.

In Limited the card doesn’t have much cost at all so if you get any value at all out of it you’re probably ahead. That said it costs a mana every time and if you don’t get paid very often you’re just wasting mana and deck space (plus potentially messing up your mana ratio). So many creatures in this format have the same power and toughness that I’m not immediately drawn to it but the cost is so little that I plan on working it.

This is one card that definitely delivers exactly what it’s name promises not a penny less not a penny more. If you want to vault one of your dudes skyward like a
freaking tornado this is the card for you. Personally I think this is freaking crazy.

I’d be very hard-pressed to use such a card even in Draft but it’s possible to make use of it as a trick. Flying is certainly nice but the ability to untap a creature can effectively turn this into a bad removal spell. For instance if you have a Cystbearer that’s tapped from attacking and your opponent tries to counter attack with a Glint Hawk Idol…

While it’s unfortunate that Vedalken Certarch is no Merfolk he’s a very reasonable creature to help fuel a Grand Architect deck. Grand Architect wants you to play with blue one-drops and have them not suck when you don’t draw the Architect. While it’s debatable whether the Certarch accomplishes this task he at least presents a reasonable argument. An Architect deck is the exact kind of deck that should be able to achieve metalcraft without too much trouble. That makes the Certarch into a very relevant piece on the board.

He’s actually very mana-efficient mana denial especially when combined with Lodestone Golem and Tectonic Edge. Additionally having answers to creatures is very helpful for what is most likely a Mono-Blue Artifact deck. He doesn’t just slow an attacker a turn he does crazy things like stop Argentum Armor from ever hitting you.

He’s also able to bottleneck people by tapping a permanent on the opponent’s turn then doing the same on your turn. That’s an awful lot of hard work for a blue one-drop. Besides if he eats a removal spell they probably didn’t gain an edge unless they used a card like Cunning Sparkmage or Spikeshot Elder and every Bolt that hits him is one less for Grand Architect.

This is the exact type of card that helps demonstrate why it’s so useful to approach a new card pool with an open mind. It’d be so easy to write this guy off instead of looking to find his uses.

When I discount many of the cards I do it’s just because they’re strictly worse versions of existing cards. One doesn’t play a card like this just for the ability; you have to want more out of it and in this case we looked at the different elements of the card.

It wasn’t a Merfolk so we can’t get paid that way but thinking about Merfolk reminded me of the last Merfolk deck I built. That Grand Architect deck just wanted one-drop blue creatures period. It wanted ones with good abilities but they weren’t exactly everywhere. Vedalken Certarch will probably not end up dominating Standard but understanding what he does better than any other card can be very illuminating as to what the future could hold.(He’s probably the best blue one-cost creature for an artifact deck in Standard.)

In Limited I’m unsure of how to rate the Certarch as of yet. He’s just a 1/1 and very fragile those times he does become relevant but that ability is so hot that I imagine he’ll turn out okay. Besides he can be an awesome cheap tempo card which has me interested.

Volition Reins may look like a Confiscate that potentially untaps a creature to block with but it’s also the beneficiary of a massive change in context. Confiscate never really had the pleasure of taking possession of planeswalkers. This is Volition Reins‘ best use.

With Oblivion Ring and Pithing Needle gone dealing with Planeswalkers is more important than ever. Stealing a planeswalker is better than average anyway as planeswalkers essentially have “haste” so you always get an extra use out of them. Additionally planeswalkers often cost more than a lot of creatures making them especially juicy targets. Finally you have the ability to steal a planeswalker that’s about to go Ultimate. Even if they have a Nature’s Claim or some such you have priority first so you can just steal the walker then activate the ability.

Volition Reins costs the same as some really powerful bombs but I think it’s going to see a lot of Standard play because it generates such a powerful effect. Even when your opponent doesn’t play planeswalkers you can always steal something. Who doesn’t play creatures or walkers? It can even get you out of some jams against Pyromancer Ascension or Valakut! This card is a big big winner.

In Limited it’s obviously absurd. Have you played against Mind Control? This card is harder to cast but approximately as unbeatable when not destroyed. To be fair there will be more maindeck Disenchant-type effects but the card is still bonkers.

Black

While I do love haste I just don’t think this guy is there on the numbers. I don’t play Lightning Elemental and this guy is similar. He still pumps twice as fast but a four-drop is a lot harder to pump than a two-drop. If you want four-drops Hand of the Praetors is far superior.

In Limited he’s a nice addition to the obvious deck. It’s unclear how safe it is to draft cards like this in pack 1 given the chance that they don’t mesh well with your other guys but the infect strategy seems great if you can get it. Haste adds an excellent dimension to the infect plan which is very aggressive by nature. This guy’s numbers are still mediocre but if you want the deck he’s certainly good enough.

The stats don’t call to me but I guess you could play some sort of Phylactery Lich deck that achieves metalcraft with ease. Once you’re operating from that framework that ability’s actually pretty good. How much would I pay for the Soul Feast these days? I suppose I could imagine paying 1BB. How much would I pay for a 4/3? Well I’d jump at a chance to do it for BB but I wouldn’t touch it at three. It can be tempting to just jam costs together when evaluating cards that do multiple things but that is not how Magic works in the real world.

For instance a common costing convention is to cost a card that does two things of the same mana two higher than either of those things would normally be. For instance it would be easy to print:

Bear with Snake
1GG
Creature – Bear
Common
When Bear with Snake enters the battlefield put a 1/1 green Snake creature token onto the battlefield.
2/2

This card is pretty straightforward. That’s a very standard amount of action to get for 1GG. Trained Armodon is another classic card for 1GG;though I suppose Centaur Courser is the current level. Adding these effects together the default cost is 3GG not 4GG (or 3GGG or whatever). This
isn’t a hard and fast rule but it’s a very common costing convention (that participants in the
Great Designer Search 2
would do well to grasp).

Adding together casting costs doesn’t take into consideration how much more five mana is than four how much more six is than five and how much more seven is than six. When we talk about card choices for deckbuilding in Constructed often we view seven mana as being between one and a half and twice as much as six mana for the purposes of evaluating how much value we ought to get. There is a reason why Cruel Ultimatum doesn’t cost 10UUBBBBRR!

Anyway Bestial Menace was only barely better than Trained Armodon and Bear with Snake and I imagine Bleak Coven Vampires would only barely be better than a 4/3 for 1BB or Soul Feast for 1BB and that’s only if you had metalcraft every time. If only he were a 4/4 he’d have such better chances.

Still he’s an Obstinate Baloth for black a color that desperately wants that type of ability; you just better be damn sure you can metalcraft. He costs one mana more but it’s like he has better haste. He’s easier to kill and requires metalcraft but you aren’t a green or white mage so would probably be happy to have the life gain.

In Limited his physical checks out but he certainly plays much nicer with some of the kids than others. A lot of the other cards lend themselves to an infect strategy which this guy is far from supporting. I suspect it’ll be somewhat easy to acquire multiples of this guy as there will often be only one drafter at the table playing black without being mono-infect. This might open up the door to some sort of really aggressive metalcraft beatdown deck but it’ll take a lot of drafting to discover the viability of such a plan.

Yeah Magic is really easy to explain to the Muggles. It’s a game where you can summon horrors like Blistergrub (think about that name) who walks the Swamps. If he ends up in a “graveyard” your opponent loses two life!

Blistergrub sounds about as appetizing in Standard as he does out loud. Even if you made them lose the two life up-front he wouldn’t be aggressive enough compared to all the far better options.

In Limited his abilities are a bit more appreciated but he still doesn’t mesh with the infect strategy. That said Bog Raiders sees plenty of Limited play and this guy is a small upgrade. Fine to cut but nothing wrong with playing him either and definitely a reasonable sideboard for some decks.

This guy is totally outrageous in Limited of course giving you a 6/6 flier and helping sweep the board in a format that has an especially high concentration of low-toughness creatures.

His one primary weak spot is that if you tap out to play him he’s vulnerable to Galvanic Blast and Grasp the Darkness. Hopefully if your opponent is the type to have that sort of thing you’ll be the type to have the discipline to wait until seven.

In Constructed his numbers are okay though I think maybe not quite as good as Grave Titan or at the very least Wurmcoil Engine. Fortunately he does do some things better than anyone else.

For instance if you want your fatty to also sweep the board of 1/1s immediately Carnifex Demon is your man. He hits shroud creatures protection from black and token armies. He combos with Contagion Clasp. Two of them in play at the same time is super sick (well as super sick as have two six-drops in play at the same time working together to lock out other creatures in much the same way a single Wurmcoil Engine or Grave Titan usually will).

He’ll certainly be in the discussion for which creature to close with in a lot of decks especially if we have realistic chances of playing him with a mana open. In the end I love him but I’m not
in
love with him.

He’s definitely an option for a Mono-Black Infect deck in Standard (B/G can do
way
better) but he’s not exciting. Ichor Rats aren’t even that good and this one is even worse. I’d try to avoid this one unless you absolutely need five or more three-mana infect creatures in your budget Mono-Black Infect deck.

In Limited he’s actually pretty good at what he does and is a solid card for the archetype.

Anyone else notice just how many more on-board tricks there are in this format? I like it but it’s a little surprising given the crusade to reduce the number of on-board tricks in the game. Maybe it’s because of the naturally attrition-filled games that follow infect. Maybe it’s to avoid too much graveyard business or known information about the top of the deck or in people’s hands. Maybe it’s just a response to players that asked WotC to increase the complexity of the game a notch.

I just hope everyone that who complained during M10 about the complexity of Magic supposedly declining speaks up about how thrilled they are that Scars of Mirrodin has so many complex on-board abilities. If you think this set is easy I hope you win Grand Prix Nashville.

Corrupted Harvester has a respectable body for Limited and his regeneration ability is actually very well used. I especially like having the option to do things like sacrifice my Perilous Myr proactively. Holding him back of course is his casting cost. You’re probably sick of hearing about my feelings on this subject so let’s move on to his Constructed uses…

Now let’s move on to Dross Hopper.

While he doesn’t pay you nearly as well as Bloodthrone Vampire if you’re in the market for another cheap black creature that lets you sacrifice things you want dead Dross Hopper would like to apply for the job. I don’t know who would be looking to hire someone for that position but beyond that I think he sucks. The problem is he suffers from “MostCreaturesAreOnThisCurveToMakeBaneslayersLookGood-itis.”

In Limited he takes a big hit from only have one-toughness. I haven’t seen enough creatures that pay you enough to want him (i.e. Perilous Myr) but at least he hits for two so he is “okay” in a non-infect deck.

Not being able to hit creatures really takes the sting out of a Fireball doesn’t it? Gaining life is nice but it’s interesting that this card is worse here than it would normally be from not meshing with infect nor helping you against it. Still it’s a reasonable finisher in that Bleak Coven Vampires Draft deck we discussed.

I could imagine a world where this is the right kill card for some strange combo deck that makes twenty or more colorless but doesn’t have access to red. However you don’t want to be draining people with this just to do it unless your game has a bunch of people in it and you are the type that Syphons Soul.

This card has some cool aspects killing any creature making them lose some life letting you sacrifice things that you want dead anyway.

Unfortunately it has some serious problems. It costs four doesn’t work if you don’t have a creature you want to bin doesn’t work if they don’t have a creature you want to bin it’s a sorcery and it doesn’t actually solve any problems you need solving.

There are plenty of ways to sacrifice things so the most interesting element of this card is the open-ended life loss aspect. If you could somehow manage to produce a ton of creatures that all went to the graveyard in one turn this card gets exciting. This not-real (and extremely clumsy) card for instance:

Putrid Air

3BB
Sorcery
Suspend 1—1BB
Put five 0/1 black Maggot creature tokens onto the battlefield under each player’s control. Then each player sacrifices all creatures they control except one.

For the time being however I doubt Flesh Allergy is where you want to be in Constructed.

It is of course a fine removal spell in Limited plus it combos with cards like Dross Hopper to give you more ways to Fireball your opponent out.

A black Mogg Fanatic is certainly worth considering as there’s a reason Cunning Sparkmage is so good. I don’t know what deck would have use for such a card but as far as black one-drops go if you want Carnophages there are already plenty of those in Zendikar. If you want a passable utility creature this is actually a playable option albeit a very modest one. He doesn’t have a home yet but I’d keep him on the list to think about.

In Draft-o Fume Spitter is an excellent tempo play. Playing him early can get you a little tempo boost and he generally trades up. He makes combat hard he combos with infect he’s often a great removal spell (or at least a reasonable one) he almost assuredly does something you want and he’s fast. I like this guy a lot even if he doesn’t have the biggest impact on the game.

This seems totally unbeatable in Draft or Sealed Deck. He’s big enough to live through a lot he’s massive and hard to block he produces extra creatures every turn and he can even mill people out sometimes. Probably one of the absolute top-tier bomb mythics in the format.

It seems unlikely that you’d play this in 60s as it appears a little more designed for 150s. With a body so much less impressive than Wurmcoil Engine Grave Titan and Carnifex you’d have to
really
want to activate that ability. That world could exist but I’m pretty sure it isn’t ours.

A passable removal spell that fills a niche. In a base black deck this card does a much better job at doing what Smother aspired to do (in Standard anyway). Whether or not it’s better than Doom Blade is debatable (and not even
@semisober
could successfully argue that it is) but if you end up wanting answers to creatures in a world where black creatures are more commonly desired targets than creatures with a toughness of five or more this is where to look.

I think the trend of Baneslayers Primeval Titans and so on is going to continue so Doom Blades it is!

An excellent removal spell in Draft. You’ll consistently trade up gain tempo hit key cards blowout combat and in general reap the benefits that everyone always talks about when they say to value removal highly.

The infect lord is actually reminiscent of Undead Warchief as both are basically 3/2 for four that give their “tribe” what amounts to +2/+1 while also providing an additional ability for those instances where they actually live. The numbers are fine on this guy and he’s certainly miles better than Blackcleave Goblin but it’s unclear if this is the right way to pump your guys. Maybe:

There are obviously a lot of ways to go with this but as you can see the mono-black build has a very different texture than the mono-green one and one can definitely fuse the two but which cards to keep is going to take some testing.

In Limited this guy is obviously a total animal. He is too fragile to be a top-shelf broken rare but he’s definitely fantastic in the archetype.

While I definitely appreciate the effort these guys put in they aren’t exactly the best numbers in the biz. They’re certainly the best three-drop in at least Mono-Black Poison but a B/G build leaves some debate as to whether the extra poison counter is worth the reduced toughness of Cystbearer. Pyroclasm suggests the Cystbearer will win but we’ll see.

At the very least they help the mono-black build but I’m already counting down the days until I hear some gushing story about winning with Contagion Clasp in a mono-red or a mono-blue deck against a poison deck by killing him with his own infection.

In Limited these guys are fine additions to the deck though it can be a bit tricky to not lose value on them in combat. Having only one-toughness is a real liability in this set. Definitely nothing special however.

For more on the problem with this card in Constructed see Quicksilver Bonds in Blue.

In Limited this is a quality removal spell. Not only does -1/-1 kill a lot but the infection can quickly proliferate into something much worse. Also drawing a card is drawing a card not to mention the ability to trade up by using this in combat.

A fixed Cranial Extraction (removing messy arcane business) Memoricide is almost surely destined to be a sideboard card. The damage dealt by Thought Hemorrhage was never a particularly big deal and the casting cost makes Memoricide a safer bet.

Regardless this is the type of card that solves problems if formats get out of hand. In Extended it’ll primarily provide another way to deal with cards like Scapeshift. However with Grove of the Burnwillows Living End Restore Balance Mystical Teachings Dragonstorm and Angel’s Grace all leaving the format it will get a lot less play than it would have.

In Standard it’s been a little while since we had any combo decks worth Cranial Extracting though you may just be that desperate in your mono-black deck to beat Vengevine or Primeval Titan. Given the wide array of victory conditions people play with now such as Celestial ColonnadeJace the Mind Sculptor various fatties and so on I see little hope in using it as a method of depleting players of their victory conditions.

However it should be kept in mind during deck construction as this is the exact type of card that always gets used more than it should. It should also be noted that this card improves slightly when used in conjunction with Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek — probably not enough but some.

Not for 40s.

In case you’re playing a Vampire deck in Extended with Barony Vampire but without bonuses for playing Vampires in a field full of Undead Slayers you now get an upgrade!

It’s cards like this that really make infect an interesting mechanic to have in Draft. While the Scudder doesn’t work well with infect he’s especially good against it with both a big body and a drawback that’s irrelevant against the Phyrexians. If I were playing“Bleak Coven Vampires the Deck” I’d love for Necrogen Scudder to play a starring role. He can be a little hosy sometimes when he just eats the removal or bounce spell they would’ve used on anything but I love how much you get for your mana with this one.

In Constructed the Necrogen Scudder may have flown years ago but it’s nearly just udder garbage these days.

Another hot topic this is a somewhat open-ended combo card with some interesting twists. First of all it’s a 4/3 for four mana so it isn’t actually an embarrassment raw. Next the exact types of decks that would play this guy will have lots of activated abilities already in them (Fauna Shaman maybe some sort of looter etc).

In addition there’s at least one “bomb” activated ability that’s worth “reanimating” with Necrotic Ooze: Gigantomancer‘s. Even a single copy gets you there because you use your Fauna Shaman to get the Gigantomancer then pitch that to get Necrotic Ooze and you’re in business. It’s kind of sweet that even if your opponent kills your Fauna Shaman they now have to kill every Necrotic Ooze on sight since each one functions as a Fauna Shaman and can immediately go get the Gigantomancer.

It may also be that the right way to play this guy is to play a bunch of Gigantomancers and just hope to mill it with Hedron Crab or loot it away with Enclave Cryptologist or Riddlesmith when you don’t stick a Fauna Shaman.

Whatever ends up being the best way to abuse this guy he has the makings of a powerful alternative angle of attack for Standard. He may just be a glorified reanimation spell but he’s one that you can fetch with Fauna Shaman is always at least a medium-sized guy and only costs four(making him the cheaper Rise from the Grave the poster boy of today’s reanimation spells).

In Legacy and Vintage he takes on a more brutal tone. If you can get him onto the battlefield with just Phyrexian Devourer and Triskelion in your graveyard you can make short order of your opponent. Even if you accidentally flip something that will kill him you can keep responding to the triggers with more activations.

Possible ways to set up this scenario in Legacy include: Survival of the Fittest Buried Alive the usual reanimator stuff — like Entomb Careful Study etc. — as well as by providing another option for Breakfast decks using Cephalid Illusionist + Nomad en-Kor.

Vintage opens up another angle with Hermit Druid providing a potent way to flip your whole deck. The downside to these plans is that graveyard hate is not exactly uncommon in either of these formats and it isn’t clear how much better if at all this is than any other graveyard deck you could be playing.

For instance you could play some deck that uses Buried Alive to go get Devourer Triskelion and Necrotic Ooze. Now any reanimation spell is game. The problem with this is that you could’ve just cast Entomb and then reanimated Iona or something. Why go to all this trouble? It’s possible but technology will have to improve. For the time being I see this being a bigger player in Standard which is to say one at all.

In Limited he has a healthy body even if you don’t get much mileage out of the ability. Besides you never know when you’ll invent some never-before-seen Limited combo. While he is a healthy body he doesn’t really compare to bombs or removal in the slightest.

This is a very ambitious attempt to really capitalize on discard spells and likely too ambitious. Still if you’re going to try it it should probably be the five-drop in a very aggressive black creature deck that also knocks cards out of the opponent’s hand — mostly likely with Mire’s Tolls Inquisitions of Kozilek and Duress though Mind Rot is also a fine option. Mind Sludge may be very powerful but in situations where you’ve successfully Sludged your opponent and dropped a five-drop I recommend a better five-drop.

If you can attack your opponent’s hand aggressively they end up with a Painful Quandary; should they play into it and lose life or should they only play a card every other turn?

This all sounds well and good but the real problem is that unless your opponent is already on five or less life this card won’t exert that much influence over them the turn you play it which is a real tough problem for a five-drop to have. If you’re going to do it anyway just make sure you’re hitting them hard enough to make them feel the potential life loss.

In Limited I’m not sure what to make of this card as it does create a sort of card advantage though it’s a bit slow. I’d guess that it’s playable but not great though I’ll certainly over-value it in Draft the first time I see it in order to try it and gain some experience.

The Painsmith certainly has an ability that scales well and I love that she costs no mana to use and that she can target herself. Additionally the fact that she does her thing “with haste” is very exciting. I can definitely imagine games where you just drop her and then a bunch of Memnites Ornithopters Mox Opals and so on and get busy.

The deathtouch aspect works well with creatures with trample if that happens to fit your program. Another very potent option is to use her in conjunction with infect creatures. Between Ichorclaw Myr Necropede Vector Asp Adventuring Gear and maybe even Strider Harness or Corpse Cur just to name a few there are a lot of possible ways to build an infect deck that really takes advantage of the Painsmith.

The biggest obstacle in Painsmith‘s way is that black is not the natural color to use with any sort of metalcraft or artifact creature deck because of the difficulty in using Tempered Steel and Painsmith in the same deck not to mention all of the good aggro metalcraft guys being green or white. I suppose it’s possible that whatever the Phylactery Lich deck is might also be the Painsmith deck though I really don’t even know how that would work.

One last point given the open-ended nature of the Painsmith we’d do well to keep an eye on potential ways to replay artifacts over and over again. With such a powerful payoff for doing so we’d actually be willing to pay mana to do this (whereas often these types of cards are only abusable if you can do it for free and arbitrarily often).

In Limited this card is very aggressive and a fantastic addition to any black deck regardless of affiliation.

I’ve written so much about Plague Stinger and infect creatures in general that I’ll save much discussion on him here other than to sum up with:

Double strikers want to be pumped and unblockable; this guy is on the right page.

In Limited he’s certainly one of the better poison creatures as he functions very much like a Mistral Charger with big upside in a format where we want to be fast. Not as good as good removal but better than bad removal as well as most creatures if you’re going to draft the deck.

It’s really hard to make this card good enough because most of the time it won’t hit what you want even if it does generally hit a spell. For one mana we’d be happy but at two it’s too big of a tempo loss just to gain the promise of maybe buying it back.

Buy it back? Will it be a playable the next time around? We don’t want another Psychic Miasma in our hand! The problem with the dream outside of being a pretty small dream is that it’s your opponent that decides when you buy it back or not. Most of the time we just won’t get to. When we do it’ll be because they thought it was worth it or their hand is all land. When their hand is all land we’re generally not really in the market for a discard spell anyway.

In Limited you can at least generally trade with something so it’s not the worst but it seems comparable to Specter’s Wail which was rarely where you wanted to be in your drafts other than as a sketchy 23rd.

This card is
such
a trap. Countless players are tricked by its looking like a removal spell (since Shatter is so good in this world) and by wanting to push their “infect theme.”

The problem is that it’s the worst of both worlds.

When it comes to fighting artifacts paying three mana to get rid of an artifact is “decent” but this doesn’t get rid of it at all. If it’s an artifact creature the creature can just stop attacking! Then to make matters worse you’re now giving your opponent the option to use it anyway— all it costs him is a poison counter.

I don’t care if you’re mono-infect that’s a terrible deal because there will be countless times where your opponent will take the bump from five to six counters in order to use his Trigon of Contagion again or whatever. The card is like a really bad Blazing Salvo that only hits artifacts is an enchantment that can even be removed and costs three times as much.

As a source of poison it’s once again terrible. Here it only provides poison counters at the luxury of the opponent. It gives them options rather than takes them away. That doesn’t always make for a bad card but the card has to have a lot of inherent power. This one has power that’s pretty far into the negatives.

As for Constructed I’d probably not play Relic Putrescence if it cost zero
and
were a cantrip.
That’s
how bad it is.

The latest Flametongue Kavu/Nekrataal. This one has respectable stats but appears poorly positioned. These types of cards tend to be much better when they can function without a target. Most of your opponents may have targets but he’s so bad against the ones that don’t. You might be able to mitigate this a little if you’re using a card like Perilous Myr or some other card you might want to sacrifice like a better Roc Egg.

In addition so many of the most important creatures to take out aren’t prone to having their skin rended such as Primeval Titan and Wurmcoil Engine.

As a sideboard card he at least ends up fighting fights he’s comfortable with so he has chances here. Still the question is as always: is this better than whatever else you could be doing? I could imagine a pretty sweet black deck with this guy and Gatekeepers of Malakir that just ruins the day of a lot of FNM opponents; however what are you going to do against R/G Ramp? U/W Control? Mono-Blue? I sure do like this guy against fast red fast green and fast white decks.

I cautiously rate him a fringe role player.

In Draft he’s obviously totally absurd and should be windmill slammed into your pile assuming the rare isn’t better. There are a few other cards that I’d consider picking over it but it’s definitely one of the better cards in the set no matter what kind of a black deck you draft.

Where to start with Skithiryx? Well to start with her name is actually very easy to remember how to spell.

Invest In Youth

When you remember that expression you’ll remember how to spell Skithiryx’s name. The consonants are actually very intuitive if you’ve said her name out loud a few times. Also I apologize if she’s actually a he I’m just going based on the
list I was so kindly given.

Say “Skithiryx” out loud then say “Invest In Youth.” Do this three times and you should be good to go.

As far as Skithiryx herself she hits really freaking hard albeit only if you plan on winning with infect. She could be the only creature or one of the only creatures in some Mono-Black Control deck but she’s significantly worse at controlling the board than Wurmcoil Engine Grave Titan or Carnifex Demon.

She hits so hard however (like an 8/4) that she could be a very nice top end to a mono-poison deck. She works fine as a five-drop but she really shines as a six-drop where she provides the perfect follow-up to the Day of Judgment that’s sure to annoy the hell out of your dorky-creature beatdown strategy. Her regeneration ability is not always going to be online but when it is it’s just icing on the cake.

In Limited she’s totally busted in half and very difficult to defeat. I wonder how many players will remember to play around Dispense Justice when they attack with Skithiryx for the kill.

In an effort to close out my
Scars of Mirrodin Set Review
with a little class there will be no jokes about Tainted Strike’s name unless you count this sentence based on the insinuations.

As for the card itself it’s not likely to work in Constructed on account of better options and getting to play as many infect creatures as you want out of the gate.

As for Limited it’s a bit conflicted seeming to only thrive in poorly drafted decks. I think this is not always going to be the case however as it can randomly power-up Myr Painsmith Skinrender busted rares filler creatures and support creatures from other colors not to mention at worst cashing in for an extra poison counter by surprise.

I don’t think particularly highly of this card but it’s a potent trick to have available to you especially if things go wrong and you have to get a little grimy.

Thanks for joining me this whole week it has been a blast. See you next week as we turn our focus to Standard and preparing for the State Championship-esque 2010’s!

Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”