Warning: Contains Spoilers!
Previews and Spoilers are in full effect as we count down the days until M10 drops, the first core set with new content since Beta (and it’s also my Birthday, depending on whom exactly is doing the counting). I am psyched to be flying down to StarCityGames, Virginia, for the prerelease, and not just because prereleases are always fun. In this case, M10 is looking pretty freaking cool, but also I have a renewed energy about the game as a very flavorful element that I really appreciate seems to have been brought back to the surface.
See, M10 was designed with an eye towards how the original Alpha/Beta set was designed. There are mechanics, sure, but there is a very high count of cards that are top down designed, cards that feel like you are doing something more than just playing a card game.
Look at Alpha/Beta. Nightmare, Shivan Dragon, Invisibility, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Craw Wurm, Earthquake, Control Magic, Icy Manipulator, Raging River, Birds of Paradise, Island Sanctuary, Lich, Timetwister, and so on. There are so many evocative images and cards that capture the imagination.
It is not that Cryptic Command, Bitterblossom, Vivid Creek, Spectral Procession, and Noble Hierarch aren’t cool, as they definitely are (at least some of them…). It is just that it is nice to have some contrast, some cards that are a little more flavorful rather than mechanical, cards that are cool for reasons beyond “they are too good” and “they give you great options.”
The M10 rules changes may have stolen the spotlight temporarily, but as people begin to experiment with them, the issue is actually moving into the background, rather than people really jumping one way or the other. It’s becoming more and more apparent that, in real life, no one ever really triple blocks your Canyon Minotaur with three Court Hussars when you have Infest, and most of our games aren’t really coming down to mana burn anyway.
The biggest practical change, Mogg Fanatic losing his touch, is actually turning out to be somewhat interesting, as more decisions are being made. Although it is obvious, when you look at the card pool over the past couple years, that there definitely seems to be a conspiracy to print fewer creatures with sacrifice abilities that abused the old stack damage trick. It is almost as if they knew…
Regardless of if you like the new changes or not, everyone is clearly going to have their opinions, and there are arguments on both sides. The important thing to realize is that the changes are just not that big a deal one way or the other. We are talking about a couple percent gain or loss, whichever way you see the changes, at least from a game play standpoint, as the issue of making the game more palatable to new players is a separate one.
I think that the more exciting news is the actual M10 card set. As I said, the set is half new content, although that does not mean that the reprints aren’t exciting. As we talked about last week, Wizards has proved that nothing is completely off the table, not even Lightning Bolt (well, okay, I believe the official policy is that Ancestral Recall is off the table, and that Mana Drain will be reprinted after every single member of R&D gets run over by a bus).
Alara Reborn is a tough act to follow, as it is not just an all gold set, it is also a bit over-powered across the board. M10 is not going to be as powerful as Alara Reborn. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. It is not even close, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be a good set. It will have plenty of great cards and plenty of decent cards, it just needs to be evaluated realistically. Power level aside, there are definitely a lot of cool cards in the set for a variety of audiences and purposes. Remember, not every card is supposed to be a ruthless tournament staple.
I am a little nervous about how good a Limited format M10 Sealed and Draft will be, as it seems pretty bomb-driven and there are a lot of places where it seems like it will be tough to gain enough advantage to turn things around, but I am certainly going to reserve judgment until I play with the set.
There are a lot of cards catching my eye over at the MTGSalvation.com site, and I would like to take a look at a few today. Remember, all card texts are courtesy of MTGSalvation, but these are unofficial spoilers, so take care, as their accuracy is not 100% guaranteed.
Baneslayer Angel
3WW
Mythic Rare
Creature — Angel
Flying, First Strike, Lifelink, Protection from Demons and from Dragons.
5/5
Okay, what? Really? That’s right, the Baneslayer is a 5/5 for an easy-to-cast five mana. It has several awesome abilities and even a couple of fringe bonuses, with absolutely no drawback, not even legendary status? That is completely off the charts. I mean, it is still just a fatty with almost no defensive ability (beyond a 5 toughness and protection from multiple Nameless Inversion), so it is particularly vulnerable to cards like Terminate, Maelstrom Pulse, Bant Charm, Path to Exile, and so on, but the upside on the Baneslayer is just unreal.
Baneslayer probably has just about the strongest board presence of any creature that costs five or less in the history of Magic. Think about, what creature impacts the board to the same degree? Morphing in its prime could attack for 5 in the air, then untap and The Abyss them, but that costs a lot of mana and is not necessarily better.
It is not just that this is a ten-point life swing, it is also that on defense, it is almost impossible to profitably attack into, and when it starts to attack, it is almost impossible to race without an army of token. I am not selling the farm and moving all in on Baneslayers, though. Far from it, actually, as I still believe the format is being warped by the incredible arsenal of removal available to people and the existence of Cascade.
All I am saying is that this card is so incredibly powered up, it will have a ton of uses, and it will be a premier victory condition for anyone willing to cope with an opponent’s removal being live. In fact, this card is so powerful, it will further push people to play so much spot removal that people will not want to play cards that lose to the spot removal, in time actually making the spot removal worse.
Another interesting aspect of the Baneslayer is what if you board it in against someone that took out all their removal, or just doesn’t have any? If you thought Exalted Angel was sweet, you haven’t seen anything yet.
I wonder what is the Demon or Dragon that is actually going to come up to make Baneslayer’s final abilities relevant…
Sleep
2UU
Uncommon
Sorcery
Tap all creatures target player controls. Creatures that player controls don’t untap during their controller’s next untap step.
WHOA! Okay, seriously, that card is just totally unbeatable in Limited, right? I mean, assuming you have drafted some kind of aggressive U/G or U/W deck, you just tap their team, get in a totally unblocked attack, then essentially Time Walk them in many ways. Not only can they not block next turn either (at least with those guys), they can’t counter attack you either.
This is such a sick weapon, I think it may actually have Constructed applications. For instance, what if you are playing some token mirror match? Granted, you would need to be able to cast a double Blue spell, but just tap their team, attack, then free roll.
I am sure some people will use it as a defensive tool, in some sort of a Fog like strategy, but you are really missing out on the best part, tapping their guys, unless you actually take advantage of it with some sort of Stasis type effect or if you somehow play this at instant speed inside the opponent’s attack step…
Harm’s Way
W
Uncommon
Instant
The next 2 damage that a source of your choice would deal to you or a permanent you control this turn is dealt to target creature or player instead.
Seriously? Really? I know some people are calling this the White Shock, but that is not a fair comparison, as this card is SO much better than Shock. In fact, I think it is possible that this card may be better than Shining Shoal, the greatest damage prevention/redirection spell of all time.
Think about it this way, Shining Shoal let you spend a lot of mana to two-for-one your opponent (essentially, and with a lot of work). Alternatively, it let you trade two cards and no mana (although still a lot of work) to two-for-two and gain a ton of tempo. Harm’s Way will still require a lot of work, but it actually just costs a single mana and a single card. It will gain card advantage a fair amount of the time and tempo most of the time.
This trick is quite possibly “The Greatest Trick Ever,” and has the potential to help define formats. It is still just a trick, and as such is not going to have the impact that Bitterblossom or Cryptic Command or Bloodbraid Elf, but it is the defining trick that let’s you know what a White Mage can do.
Anyone that has ever played a game of Limited can see how this is just a total blowout in the 40-card formats, which revolve around creature combat, but I think it will be sweet in Constructed.
It is easy to imagine getting your Wizened Cenn out of Harm’s Way (while putting a Jund Hackblade into it) when your opponent Lightning Bolt’s your Cenn… However, what if your opponent plays Volcanic Fallout when you have a Wizened Cenn and a Goldmeadow Stalwart and they have a 4/4 Figure of Destiny?
Obviously we can sit here all day dreaming up scenarios where it looks awesome, but I am just trying to give you a feel for the type of plays I envision White decks making. As the White Mage, you can just keep attacking into your opponent every turn. What is he going to do? Block? Then you cast another creature. Now what is he going to do? Attack back?
Keep your eyes on this card and experiment with it. I would not be surprised if this was one of the Top 5 cards in the set, which I know a lot of people are going to laugh at me about, but this card just seems completely unbelievable to me. It is just “The Greatest Trick Ever,” but that might be good enough. I don’t know how good a combat trick has to be to be one of the best cards, but this one might just be the one to find out.
Keep in mind, of course, that this assumes that Standard continues to revolve around creatures, which seems probable, but is not given. I tip my hat to R&D for taking a chance and pushing the power level of a class of card that is normally never given the green light, and with the reprinting of Lightning Bolt, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Sign in Blood
BB
Common
Sorcery
Target player draws 2 cards and loses 2 life.
A sweet and elegant design, this reimagining of the popular Night’s Whisper has some interesting applications. I actually said around the time of Grand Prix Seattle that it would be interesting to have Night’s Whisper in the format, as I would certainly have considered it for 5CB, a deck desperate for two-drops.
If Night’s Whisper is worth considering, how much different is Sign in Blood? First of all, as long as Twilight Mire and Graven Cairns are in the format, the double Black restriction is not particularly important, in my opinion. The fact that you can target your opponent leaves you open to Swerves, but I don’t think that is particularly relevant either.
To me, the option to target your opponent as a burn spell is deceptively hot. We have all played cards like Night’s Whisper, Polluted Delta, or Vampiric Tutor, and found ourselves too low to actually use them later. It sucks to have such good cards become such dead draws on account of one or two life points.
Sign in Blood has a way out, though. Usually, later in the game when you would actually be down to 1 or 2 life and no longer able to Sign, you are just looking for enough to finish your opponent off. Obviously making them lose two life is not a big deal, but if it is their last two life, it sure is sweet. I mean, we are not even talking about corner cases, like beating Worship here. I am just talking about when you are racing and you can’t afford to pay 2 as it would decrease your opponent’s clock by a turn, so instead you hold it and plan to use it as a sort of Shock to finish the opponent off with an Alpha Strike, a couple of Lightning Bolts, and a Sign in Blood.
For the most part, I think Sign in Blood will function a lot like Night’s Whisper, but I think that the option to burn your opponent will prove to be worth the stricter mana requirement, at least in Standard.
Planar Cleansing
3WWW
Rare
Sorcery
Destroy all nonland permanents.
What do you want first? The good news or the bad news?
The good news is that Planar Cleansing is an Akroma’s Vengeance variant that should see a lot of play, as it has some nice features. First of all, it kills Planeswalkers, which was always a big weakness of Austere Command. I think that a Wrath that also cleans up Bitterblossoms, Anthem type effects, Elspeth, Sledge, and so on is kind of sexy.
It is more restrictive in its cost and doesn’t stop artifact lands in Extended, but for the most part, I think this is a nice sweeper that may not be quite as undercosted as Wrath, but does a lot of stuff that you want done. Wrath wasn’t even positioned well in the format, so I think this card will actually prove to be a better tool in many regards.
The bad news is, there is no Wrath of God in M10. I know it is kind of sad, but it is part of the plan that R&D is executing, and as we have seen from Lightning Bolt, the plan doesn’t mean things are gone forever. Wrath of God is a nice card to exist in many respects, but it is a little annoying that the block Wraths never get to shine because of always being overshadowed. It will be nice to see what cards get a chance to see some play as a result. Austere Command? Scourglass? Planar Cleansing? There are a lot of great options, and there will be more this fall.
I have to admit, Planar Cleansing is not quite as iconic and awe-inspiring as Wrath of God, so there is a definite loss of coolness points here, but I am just glad it is a functionally worthwhile replacement, and I am actually glad it costs triple White, so as to make the people that are using it actually mean it and to help discourage “splashing White for Wrath.”
Goblin Chieftain
1RR
Creature — Goblin
Rare
Other Goblin creatures you control get +1/+1 and have haste.
2/2
Read that again. I know that the first time I read Goblin Chieftain, I actually thought it was the card from Onslaught block. That’s right, Goblin Chieftain is not Goblin Warchief, nor is a functional reprint, as it grants other Goblins +1/+1 instead of making them cost a mana less. What are the implications?
Well, to begin with, the best part of Goblin Warchief was always the Haste part anyway, so they successfully captured the primary appeal, but what is better, the mana or the bonus? In the abstract, I would say reducing the cost by 1 is probably slightly better, but pumping your guys has the potential to scale better, as multiple Warchiefs sometimes result in diminishing returns, once you run out of colorless mana to save.
Still, playing more Goblins faster and cheaper is generally going to be better than pumping them, as your opponent can undo so much of what you have gained by killing your Goblin Chieftain, especially at instant speed. Conversely, even if your opponent kills a Goblin Warchief, the damage is done, as you saved the mana.
Does this mean that Goblin Chieftain is not gonna cut it? Far from it, actually. I think that there is plenty of room for a creature to be worse than Goblin Warchief and still be sick. Besides, if Goblins was so good that it dominated the format, people would play a lot more anti-Goblins cards. Just look at all of the Engineered Plagues that people play as a result of Goblin Warchief.
Goblin Chieftain is competitively costed and will have a home, I just don’t think it will be format warping (which is a good thing). Haste is fun, but it was always annoying that Goblin Warchief had a tendency to lead to hopeless situations where you just know you can’t possibly ever come back, and I think that Goblin Chieftain does a good job of avoiding that problem.
Great Stable Stag
1GG
Creature — Elk
Rare
Great Stable Stag can’t be countered. Protection from Blue and from Black.
3/3
I have never in my life seen such a “developer card.” I mean, this guy has a lot of cool stuff going on, but let’s take a minute to examine the thought process behind such a card.
A “developer card” is a card designed in the development process and by a developer, as opposed to a designer, and is generally engineered to accomplish a specific function, often involving convoluted combinations of numbers or abilities to ensure that the card is “the right card for the job.” This is in contrast to designers designing cards around an idea or a mechanic or a flavor, etc.
For instance, Sign in Blood was designed to capture the flavor of trading life for knowledge, with the interesting twist being that this variant let’s you force your opponent to do it if you want. It could exist in a variety of times and places, and is just a beautiful card.
Great Stable Stag, on the other hand, is the epitome of methodical design, bred to help contain the Faerie menace. The Great Stable Stag is as carefully constructed as “Press Hop” with Allen Iverson by DJ Steve Porter (Youtube it if you haven’t heard it!) Take it from a guy who was there when we had the meeting to engineer a card to beat Astral Slide/Lightning Rift/Slice and Dice (Troll Ascetic), this card was 100% for sure brewed up in a meeting where the agenda was to create a “Troll Ascetic” designed to punish Faeries.
How do you build a creature to beat Cryptic Command, Mistbind Clique, cheap countermagic, Agony Warp, Terror, Sower of Temptation, Infest, and Mutavault?
Well, for starters, protection from both of the colors goes a long way, as it ensures that the GSS doesn’t get bounced, killed, blocked, or stolen. Next, GSS is uncounterable, knocking out the other half the deck. Finally, just for good measure, GSS has a large enough power to be a fast clock, but at the same time a toughness that lives through Infest and Mutavault. All of this and a body that is actually respectable enough to run against non-Faeries players (a la Cloudthresher) and a convenient casting cost keeping it Bloodbraid Elf friendly.
Does this mean the end for Faeries players? Hardly. To begin with, Faeries is such a robust strategy, you don’t just “hose it.” Faeries is already no longer as dominate a deck as it once was, although it is still quite good. Will the Great Stable Stag hurt it? Absolutely. This card is obvious enough that everyone and their mother will stick it in their deck when they are sick of losing to Faeries, and it will work pretty well.
There is still Thoughtseize, Vendilion Clique, Scion plus Mutavault, splashing a color, tap your team, racing, and so on, so I mean it is not like there aren’t ways to try to fight back, it is just going to be a powerful tool that a lot of people have built into their decks.
That said, I don’t know how good I would feel about sticking a 3/3 for 3 into my deck in a format that just gained Lighting Bolt. I have to admit, it is pretty sweet that this guy dodges Terminate, Maelstrom Pulse, and Bituminous Blast, all while Blocking Putrid Leech, but he certainly lacking against straight Red spells, or against White.
At the end of the day, I think Great Stable Stag is good at what it does and will probably be often played for the wrong reason, but it will turn out to be pretty good in the big picture. This is totally a card that I see living the life cycle of everyone going crazy about it, saying it is the greatest thing in the world. This will be followed by a brief period of time where it is “cool” to diss the GSS, by pointing out the ways that people can adjust to it and its flaws.
Then they will play it and it will seem insane. Then tons of people will stick it everywhere, and meanwhile Black Mages and Blue Mages will begin to adjust. Once these adjustments have taken effect and the market is supersaturated with Stags everywhere they don’t belong, it will become right to take them out of decks again. This backlash will only serve to further the arguments of those hipsters that bashed them a month prior.
A resurgence of Black and Blue decks will begin, and eventually we will move toward an equilibrium that features both Black and Blue decks as well as Great Stable Stags, with the GSS being used at least partially as a safety valve every time Black/Blue decks experience a jump in popularity. It will also be a fundamental deck building problem that designers will have the ask themselves. In the big picture, I think Great Stable Stag will be a good card, as it has enough raw power that I think it will have many homes and many days under the sun.
Doomblade
1B
Common
Instant
Destroy target non-Black creature.
Terror 2.0 is very much welcomed, as Terror has been a reasonable role-player for some time now, but could certainly stand a small boost in power. Doomblade is more elegant, more generally solid of a card, less frustrating to play with, and still captures the “cool” element of Terror.
Many people will not care about the ability to kill artifact creatures, but remember, Dark Banishing has often seen play over Terror, and this card is just a mana less than Dark Banishing for the same cost. What artifact creatures will people play with besides Tidehollow Sculler? That remains to be seen, but I for one am happy to see a cleaner, small upgrade.
Captain of the Watch
4WW
Creature – Human Soldier
Rare
Vigilance
Other Soldiers you control get +1/+1 and Vigilance. When Captain of the Watch enters the Battlefield put three 1/1 White Soldier creature tokens into play.
3/3
Captain of the Watch takes a minute to compute, as there is a lot going on here. To begin with, you are getting 9 power worth of creatures split over 4 bodies. That is superior to even Broodmate Dragon in some regards. Next there is the Vigilance to account for, which is nowhere near as good as Flying, but still useful, particularly in conjunction with Crusade effects (the new Crusade is Honor of the Pure, which is just 1W and gives your White creatures +1/+1).
Keep in mind, Captain of the Watch gives all of your soldiers Vigilance, not just the ones he makes. This means that when you play him, you develop your board a great deal, but then you also get to attack with your team and still have your defenses completely up.
Next you factor in the pump ability. There are a ton of soldiers in M10, and Soldier is a very common creature type. The Captain pumps all of them (even Mutavault), which makes him a totally incredible play on 6 (or under a Windbrisk Heights…)
The fact that you are getting so many bodies as well as a relevant lord is going to take a while to sink in. I mean, he beats Terminate, Path to Exile, Volcanic Fallout, Lightning Bolt, Jund Charm, and Maelstrom Pulse. No question each of these cards beats a part of him, but he gains card advantage against each.
Will Captain of the Watch be as good as Cloudgoat Ranger? It is hard to say. It is certainly a much more powerful effect, though six mana is a lot more than five. Compare this guy to Deranged Hermit, though. He has a similar impact on the board, although Vigilance is a cool bonus and Soldier is a much more common creature type than Squirrel. The cost of six mana is actually very comparable to the cost of five mana plus echo, so on the whole, I think if you liked Deranged Hermit, you will like Captain of the Watch.
I predict this one is a hit, and with Wrath of God out of the format, it will be interesting to see what people to do combat powerful end-game bombs like this.
Gargoyle Castle
Land
Rare
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
5,T, sacrifice Gargoyle Castle: Put a 3/4 colorless Gargoyle Creature Token with flying on the battlefield.
The final card I am taking a look at today is a Stalking Stones update, probably mostly for flavor. The activation of 5,T is essentially the same as the 6 activation on Stalking Stones, but you get a 3/4 Flier instead of a 3/3 that counts as a land and taps for mana. With the reprinting of Lightning Bolt, I see this as a solid upgrade.
What deck will want this card? Well, it would certainly appear to be another incentive for people to start thinking about playing two-color decks. For instance imagine the following manabase:
2 Fieldmist Borderposts
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Mystic Gate
3 Gargoyle Castle
7 Islands
6 Plains
This guy is no superstar, but he is a fine role player and will help players (such as everyone in the country of Japan) fill the void left by the loss of manlands, such as Faerie Conclave and Treetop Village. This card is certainly no Treetop Village, but I think it may actually be better than Faerie Conclave a lot of the time.
While we are on the topic of manabases, I want to mention that the new dual lands actually work really well with Terramorphic Expanse (which is also in M10). Terramorphic Expanse has seen some play but has never really shone. However, it is very interesting that if you draw Terramorphic Expanse and a basic, you curve out fine. If you draw a new dual and a basic, you curve out fine. If you draw a Terramorphic and a new dual, you still curve out fine. It is really pretty sweet to think you could end up with your lands coming into play tapped a lot less often, while still not taking pain and still having reliable mana.
Picture:
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Drowned Catacombs (the U/B dual)
4 Arcane Sanctum
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Island
3 Plains
2 Swamp
Although, perhaps Arcane Sanctum is the awkward part of that equation and that a different build might feature:
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Drowned Catacombs
4 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Mystic Gate
2 Sunken Ruins
4 Island
3 Plains
2 Swamp
Although it does seem strange to play such a deck without Arcane Sanctum. I don’t know, yet, what all this means, just that it is exciting to think about manabases besides 11 Vivids, 4 Reflecting Pools, 1 Exotic Orchard, 7 Filter lands, and 3 Basics or “All the dual lands you can play, Manlands/Heights, and some basics.”
Alright, I am out of here for this week. Thanks again to everyone that has been offering feedback on Next Level Magic; it has been a thrilling experience, as well as an educational one. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see the community rally behind me on this endeavor, and I hope to see other great Magic writers releasing books on Magic in the years to come, as Magic culture and Magic theory is absolutely fascinating to me. I really think there is a demand for books on the game. Articles are fantastic for up to the minute technology and decklists, but the book format has its advantages, and I wish there were more books on Magic.
Take care.
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”