Insert Column Name Here – Let’s Review The New Conflux Cards!

Smell that? Ah, it’s the sweet jasmine scent of a new set release coming soon! And as always, Wizards is cracking open the window just enough that we can nose out the beautiful rares.

‘Course, you have to realize that Wizards is clever. They’ve learned what sort of rares get people’s attention, and so they’ve homed in on the Timmy/Spike/Johnny demographic to cull the sweetest rares to present to you. And as usual, some of the rares they’re previewing look so darned good that the foam on your lips will leak into your eyes, blinding you to the fact that they can’t possibly be that good. If they were as good as they looked, Wizards wouldn’t print them.

I should note that Tarmogoyf was not a preview card. Neither was Bitterblossom. No, Wizards listed the cards that they’d tested into the ground, cards that made the playtesters go “HOLY MOTHER OF MACREE!” before they eventually realized that hey, it’s okay.

So now we have positive Timmygasms shaking the ground. But are they good? Let me weigh in and give my opinion on the cards that have been officially previewed on Magicthegathering.com and StarCityGames.com, with one exception because man, it was too neat to pass up. I’m not discussing everything on the spoiled list, because that would take way too long.

(Yet for the record, I will be attempting to purchase four copies of Martial Coup, thankyouverymuch.)

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
4UBBR
Planeswalker — Bolas
5 Loyalty
+3: Destroy target noncreature permanent.
-2: Gain control of target creature.
-9: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker deals 7 damage to target player. That player discards seven cards, then sacrifices seven permanents.

Now, the big question is, “Is this a good card?” Sure, it’s the kind of powerful effect that leaves bukkake-style splatters all over Wizards’ casual boards, and if left untouched it will win you the game. But how likely is it to be untouched?

I’m going to evince a new theory here, and that theory is this:

The efficiency of a Planeswalker is directly proportionate to the delta between its casting cost and the cost you’d pay for its “normal” effects.

Which is to say that Garruk Wildspeaker is a good card because 2GG is not an awful price to pay for a 3/3 token. It’s overpriced, but the delta between that and Call of the Herd isn’t unreasonable. It gets a little muzzier when you realize you wouldn’t pay 2GG to untap two lands, but you might pay 1G for the chance at a delayed-cast Overrun the next turn. So Garruk is good.

On the suck side of the planeswalkers we have Chandra Nalaar — where you pay 3RR to either deal a damage to a player, or to do six damage to a creature at sorcery speed. Not the greatest of deals, so Chandra is one of the weaker Planewalkers.*

Somewhere between Garruk and Chandra, we have Nicol Bolas — and what do you get? Well, for eight heavily-mixed mana, you will often get to cast Naturalize and then have it die. Not the greatest investment.

Likewise, spending eight mana for a Dominate? Well, you’d often pay eight mana to get an eight-mana creature, so that’s a little more blurred — especially when there is the argument that you can yoink the biggest creature on the board to serve as a defender, and in the late game that defender is often going to be something that’ll keep the punters away. So that might be worth it.

But I think given the world-destroying nature of Nicol Bolas, you’re often going to have people at your multiplayer table go, “Okay, I gotta kill that,” and a Lightning Bolt to Nicol’s dome means that one activation is all you’re going to get.

It’s good. I’ll probably order it from SCG if it’s cheap enough, which it almost certainly won’t be because this is a Timmygasm. But for multiplayer, I don’t see this as being a ZOMG FOUR-OF, but rather something I can wait to crack in a pack and then toss it as a one-of into my RUB deck. Because I think that more often than not, I’ll be spending eight mana to steal someone’s tapped Prodigal Sorcerer.

Meglonoth
3RWG
Creature — Beast
6/6
Vigilance, Trample
Whenever Meglonoth blocks a creature, Meglonoth deals damage to that creature’s controller equal to Meglonoth’s power.

Ah, now that’s the kind of multiplayer guy I like to see! Magnificent on defense, great on offense, beautiful when clad in an Armadillo Cloak or (as Kelly noted) Scourge of the Nobilis.

It doesn’t block flying, and that’s a major issue when Demons and Angels and Dragons go sailing by overhead. But on turn 6, you can have a really difficult Beast on defense; anyone who tries to swarm you with weenie tokens is going to get six to their face before damage resolves, which makes this a potent tool against swarmy decks. Then, assuming you and Big Megs survives, you can attack back.

Harsh color requirements aside (and three colors isn’t terrible by turn 6 in a Constructed deck), this is one of the better multiplayer creatures we’ve seen recently. I’ll be trying my best to snap up four!

(Plus, Kelly gets major props for referencing Art Linkletter in his article. No, 90% of you don’t know who he is. But I do, and go Kelly.)

Master Transmuter
3U
Artifact Creature — Human Artificer
1/2
U, Return an artifact you control to its owner’s hand: You may put an artifact card from your hand into play.

Okay, Wizards, I know the drill: I’m supposed to look at this and go, Oh my God, I can put an undercosted Darksteel Colossus into play! Or Sundering Titan! Or Triskelion! How awesome!

And yeah, it’s a great effect. But the cynic in me wonders how often it’ll actually fire; this is a huge effect on a fragile body at a mid-level cost, so one suspects that the Master Transmuter will read more like “Summon Removal Spell.”

Plus, Master Transmuter is the kind of card where you have to build the deck around her if you want it to be truly effective, so what you have is a combo deck enabler that’s reasonably narrow. Cards like this are why I generally pack a copy or two of Eradicate in my black decks; take this away, and watch it crumble.

Don’t get me wrong — I could be wrong. Sometimes, Wizards judges a little wrong, and the effect turns out to be unstoppable. But generally, when Wizards encourages their Johnny columnist to go flat-out nuts like this, it means that they’ve tested it to high hell and it’s not nearly as good as it looks.

It is, however, astoundingly good art.

Bloodhall Ooze
R
Creature — Ooze
1/1
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control a black permanent, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Bloodhall Ooze.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control a green permanent, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Bloodhall Ooze.

Hi. I am a creature for Limited. No one will play with me in Constructed, and they are probably correct to do so.

Once again, Mark Rosewater gets enthusiastic about the mechanics, and it’s an interesting mechanic but not that splashy — or, in the end, nothing that people will get too thrilled about. Yes, sure, you can Gift of the Deity this up and have it get gigantic, but sans a quicker build-up or some form of evasion, this is a boring, inefficient thing for multiplayer games.

Apocalypse Hydra
XRG
Creature — Hydra
0/0
Apocalypse Hydra comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it. If X is 5 or more, it comes into play with an additional X counters on it.
1R, remove a counter from Apocalypse Hydra: Apocalypse Hydra deals one damage to target creature or player.

Okay, confession time: My first rare ever was a Rock Hydra, and I’ve had an undue fondness for Hydrae ever since. But Hydrae have never, ever been good in the history of competitive Magic**, and this isn’t much of an exception…

…except that it can be so huge in the late game that it’s not even funny. I mean, it’s not unreasonably in a long game to pump eight mana into it, and what then? WHAT THEN? Plus, in a pinch — which will be most of the time — you can cast it earlier and feel that tug in your gut as man, I shoulda waited.

This will be great in Limited, where you can get a guy and ping away the opposition. But in multiplayer, it’s probably a tad too slow to be effective, and lacking trample or anything else juicy in the way of evasion, it’s not gonna be my first choice.

Except it will be! Because it’s a Hydra!

Noble Hierarch
G
Creature — Human Druid
0/1
Exalted
Tap: Add G, W, or U to your mana pool.

I should be more excited by this, I really should. I mean yeah yeah, Birds of Paradise, yeah yeah Exalted. I’m even being hypocritical here, because I always say that multiplayer needs are good, low-mana cards that are also useful on turn 11. That’s why I adore cards like Taurean Mauler and Viashino Heretic.

So why isn’t this floating my boat? Is it because it feels done? Is it because we’ve taken Druid of the Anima, dropped its power and swapped a mana, and added Exalted? There’s nothing new here, just pure undercosted efficiency.

This only tickles my inner Spike — and let’s be honest, Inner Spike isn’t that ticklish. (“Tickling is an inefficient martial art,” says Inner Spike, in a voice uncannily like Dwight Schrute.) And it’s a rare, which means that getting four will be a huge pain in the ass.

So in the end while I like Noble Hierarch, I can’t get all thrilled up on it. Sorry, guys.

Progenitus
WWUUBBRRGG
Legendary Creature — Hydra Avatar
10/10
Protection from everything
No, you can’t put this in your Reanimator deck. Don’t even try.

Much like the Hierarch, I want to get excited about this, but I can’t. Yes, it’s catastrophically huge. Yes, it has protection from everything. But that means that once you leap its purposely-dickish mana restrictions to put it into play, player interaction has all but ceased. They either have a Wrath effect or they don’t. And if not, then you die in X turns, where X is your life total divided by 10.

Oh, I suppose it’s a little more interactive because if you have enough creatures you can just swarm past Progenitus and kill you, making it somewhat of a race — but this is the height of Timmytastic cards, and honestly it just feels like pandering. Mana costs aside, it’s a very strong card but there’s not anything particularly interesting about it.

Lordy, I feel so jaded.

Fusion Elemental
WUBRG
Creature — Elemental
8/8

For all five mana, you get something large and vanilla. I’m glad this is an uncommon, because it may be a beating in Limited but it feels played to me. If you get full domain, you should get something better than Avatar of Might, not worse.

Matca Rioters
2G
Creature — Human Warrior
*/*
Domain — Matca Rioter’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of basic land types among lands you control.

Again, not really a Constructed all-star; Wild Nacatl’s managed it, but that’s because there’s a huge difference between one mana and three. As it is, what you have here is a Limited filler, the kind of thing that, if you’re lucky, will be decent on turn 3 and solid on turn 6 — but never the card that people will be excited to put into a deck.

Exploding Borders
2RG
Sorcery
Domain — Search your library for a basic land card, put that card into play tapped, then shuffle your library. Exploding Borders does X damage to target player, where X is equal to the number of basic land types among lands you control.

This, however, is a creative usage of domain; I approve of landfixers that go to the dome! I’m not saying it’s necessarily good in multiplayer decks, but particularly in Domain-themed ones this one can (theoretically) do twenty damage if you draw all four at one shy of domain. And it thins your deck.

Generally, you want your mana-fixing early, but this one is intended to get your off-color lands, so it’s not awful. I’m not sure it’s going to find a home, though, since you’ll probably need a land-fixer to enable your land-fixer, meaning that it’s eight landfixers in a single deck (and possible creature acceleration to boot), squeezing out your action cards and making your deck less effective overall.

Still, though… Neat!

Mirror-Sigil Sergeant
5W
Creature — Rhino Soldier
4/4
Trample
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have a blue permanent, you may put a token into play that’s a copy of Mirror-Sigil Sergeant.

From a creative perspective, this card’s a slam-dunk. Any time I see the words “Rhino Soldier” on a card, I immediately get a little giddy. And the mechanic matches the name perfectly, so winnz0r on the flavor!

The card itself? Slightly overpriced for its effect, but that’s understandable because after two triggers, you’re going to have a whole army at play. It’s the standard “Win big or go home” card; either none of your opponents will have an answer and you’ll get a zillion charging rhinos, or — as is more likely — someone will have a removal spell for your more fragile Blue dude and will stop this dead in its tracks.

Still, it’s a fun card to look at, if not necessarily to play, and I suspect I’ll lose some Limited games to cheap, mirrory goodness. We’ll see if I still like it then.

A Side Note: Nom Nom Nom Nom
Craig sent me an email informing me that it’s SCG Oscar season, where the columnists are asking you to vote for their favorite columns. But I have problems with this for three reasons:

First, I don’t think I stand a chance against Patrick Chapin and Evan Erwin. I mean, I like much of what I wrote, but for strategy you go with Chapin (or GerryT), and for entertainment you go with the funny video guy. So if it comes to voting, I’m like that art film that got decent reviews but is now going up against Lord of the Rings.

Second, my best columns are actually series. My two personal favorites for 2008 were the Casual Player’s Bargain-Hunting Guide — which will probably be fourteen articles before it’s done, slopping into 2009 — and my The Art of the Crap Rare contest earlier this year, which wound up chewing up five weeks with discussions of how to make unplayable cards.

Third, I appeal to different people depending on who I’m writing to. My casual players could care less about my tournament-friendly “Lessons From Hollywood, And The Intarwebz, And Every Other Big Event,” which details how to filter out noise from signal when it comes to reading Internet articles. But those tournament players won’t give a crap when I write about The Second Most Fundamental Skill in Multiplayer, which I thought was a breakthrough in theory (and I intend to write upon it some more). So I’m schizo.

So I have a poll here. I am being contrary and putting some series on here, too. We’ll see what ch’all like. But I’m gonna get steamrolled, and I’m cool with that.

I’m pretty sure Chapin, being publicity-smart, will put this at the top of his article so that everyone votes right away. We’ll see, Chapin! We’ll see!

Signing off,
The Ferrett
TheFerrett@StarCityGames.com
The Here Edits This Site Here Guy

* – What about Liliana Vess? Well, at 3BB, she’ll cause an opponent to discard a card or she’ll Demonic Tutor — and given that “discard a card” is traditionally 1-2B and the fixed tutor is 2BB, she’s a little overpriced on the whole. So she’s okay, not great, but everyone wants to fire her Ultimate effect, so she’s still popular.

** – Okay, Ancient Hydra saw some play. Not much, though.