What a week it’s been in the world of Magic! Ixalan preview season
is upon us and there’s no lacking in the wow department here! From
revisiting a tribal-themed set, the likes of which we haven’t seen since
the days of Kithkin and Faeries back in Lorwyn, to some of the
most shocking reprints to happen in the past several years, Ixalan
seems poised to have a major role to play in Standard and I couldn’t be
more thrilled!
First things first, let’s have a brief moment for the following cards that
will no longer be with us in Standard and will have to leave the safe
shores of Standard and make their way across the Multiverse to the stranger
tides of Modern and perhaps into the realm of Legacy.
The list of cards that made an impact in Standard that are finally leaving
us could go on and on for quite some time, but these are some of the more
notable ones. While several hold a special place in my heart, others I’ve
been holding the door open for to get the heck out for quite some time now.
We won’t dwell on the past, as we’ve been given a laundry list of new toys
to “explore” (see what I did there?) with the arrival of Ixalan.
First, I’d like to highlight a few cards that I believe are being undersold
by the masses and that you’ll likely see me slinging at some point over the
next few months in an attempt to regain my slot atop the Standard metagame.
The first and most important thing to get out of the way here is that this
card costs three mana. While that’s bluntly obvious, since the 1UU casting
cost is printed clearly in top right of the card, people seem to be
forgetting that when I’ve been reading or listening to people’s feedback
about the card. There’s a short list of planeswalkers that haven’t made an
impact in Standard that cost only three mana, and I’m pretty certain Jace,
Cunning Castaway won’t find himself it.
A card that I expect to see paired alongside Jace, Cunning Castaway that
might not be immediately obvious is Heart of Kiran.
With Gideon, Ally of Zendikar leaving us, Heart of Kiran needs to find a
new home. While several comparisons have been made between Pirates from Ixalan and Faeries from Lorwyn, I don’t see why Heart of
Kiran couldn’t be the next Bitterblossom-grade annoyance for this format.
Perhaps a U/W or Esper Vehicles deck exists using Toolcraft Exemplar and
Heart of Kiran into Jace as its curve!
Creatures (22)
- 4 Scrapheap Scrounger
- 4 Toolcraft Exemplar
- 3 Glory-Bound Initiate
- 4 Nimble Obstructionist
- 3 Hostage Taker
- 4 Siren Stormtamer
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
It’s unclear if playing blue in this type of deck is worth a departure from
Veteran Motorist and Pia Nalaar, but Jace might just be the payoff we need
to do that.
While the design of this card’s “ultimate ability” made way for the change
in functionality of how planeswalkers work, now having them follow the same
rule that legendary creatures do, Jace packs two highly relevant abilities
in his own right. The seemingly innocuous “+1” ability is worded in such a
way that it doesn’t require a target in order to work with his
token-generating “-2” ability, which creates an Illusion creature. Now, of
all the decks in the format that survive rotation, can anyone think of a
deck that benefits from a looting ability?
More toys for what’s become one of my favorite decks that will survive
rotation! While Jace, Cunning Castaway doesn’t fit all too well into the
maindeck configuration as we’ve come to know it of various God-Pharaoh’s
Gift decks, it seems like the perfect semi-transformational sideboard card
to pair with Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Glorybringer, giving the deck
an additional angle of attack!
The most common way people have been fighting such a strategy is by loading
up on cards like Abrade to simply undo all your hard work. What happens
when you eschew that avenue and simply slam a Jace, Cunning Castaway on the
table and get to work sculpting the perfect hand to play a normal gameplan?
I can also see Jace having a similar role to what control decks were trying
to do with cards like Thing in the Ice or Dragonmaster Outcast in mirrors
as a relatively cheap threat that can take over the game if left unchecked.
Being able to generate multiple 2/2 creatures while developing a
planeswalker feels like it could be lights-out for unprepared opponents.
The biggest argument against Jace I’ve heard is that the 2/2s he creates
are Illusion tokens, meaning they’ve even more susceptible to being
removed, leaving your planeswalker unprotected. While that’s certainly
true, outside of Walking Ballista, there aren’t that many cards that your
opponent could play that deal with your Illusion token that wouldn’t have
been able to kill any 2/2 creature as-is. There’s even the small upside
that if a Harnessed Lightning targets the Illusion, they don’t get the
additional energy they would have if the spell simply resolved.
All in all, I’m excited to play Jace, Cunning Castaway, not only in
God-Pharaoh’s Gift variants but across the board in any blue-based creature
deck or deck that wouldn’t mind a good looting or two!
Speaking of looting, there’s my pick for the most underrated card in the
set so far!
This card is a mythic for a reason, people. Yes, the random clause on the
discard element of this card makes it a little inconsistent, but in decks
where cards in graveyards are the same as cards in hand, this card looks
amazing! Also, mind you, just imagine Rowdy Crew without the random aspect
of its discard-two on it. It becomes an Oath of Jace for one more mana that
also would likely be attached to a 5/5 trample creature. If that’s not the
most broken creature ever printed at four mana, I don’t know what would be!
So why is this card so good? Yes, it does have a lot of competition in red
at the moment, with such powerhouses as Chandra, Torch of Defiance; Hazoret
the Fervent; and Glorybringer all giving red the mid-game punch they’ve
been lacking for a long time, but I don’t think we’re talking about your
grandfather’s red deck here. We’ve been graced with an influx of looting
effects in Standard as of late, and this card gives us the critical mass we
just might need to abuse those effects.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Cathartic Reunion and Champion of
Wits, they’ve just been given a new best friend in Rowdy Crew to
potentially abuse such powerful enchantments as Drake Haven and creatures
like Hollow One. Those two cards have flown pretty under the radar this
past season, mostly because lack of inherently good cards you’d like to
pair alongside them. We’ve seen Hollow One do some broken things alongside
Vengevine and Street Wraith in Modern, and it’s only a matter of time
before it gets its time in the sun in Standard.
While it’s true we’re losing the best enabler for a deck that wants to loot
a bunch, Insolent Neonate, we’re gaining a powerhouse threat that churns
through its deck at an alarming rate. Similar to Jace, Cunning Castaway, I
fully expect any God-Pharaoh’s Gift deck to take advantage of a creature
that can put more creatures into its hand and graveyard for free, giving it
more of a mid-game punch when its primary gameplan isn’t operating as
intended. In all seriousness, when a Gate to the Afterlife is on the
battlefield, does that deck really care about any of its cards in hand? The
short answer here is no! I fully expect this card to appear in more decks
than people will give it credit for initially.
While those are the two cards I’m picking for making the biggest impact in
the format that people haven’t been giving them credit for, I’m most
excited for the big bad Dinosaurs we’re getting!
When Ripjaw Raptor was initially revealed, we hadn’t seen all too many of
the Dinosaur tribe and I was evaluating it in the context of a normal deck
that might want a four-mana body that survived Glorybringer and Chandra,
Torch of Defiance. While it’s true that this hungry Dinosaur is immune to
those two Standard powerhouses, it also has the added upside of being able
to be used as a draw engine in conjunction with Walking Ballista. While I
don’t think that you should build your entire deck around using Walking
Ballista to draw cards, it is a happy coincidence that those two cards pair
quite nicely.
The beauty of the Enrage mechanic as a whole is that it’s a perfect check
against Ramunap Red. Any damage-based removal triggers it, any chump
blocking you have to do leaves you better off than you were before, and any
time where you’re able to press an advantage and start attacking and
they’re in the unfavorable position of having to throw their creatures
under the bus gives you an added bonus turn after turn!
If you want my unbiased, unsolicited advice as to what card is going to be
new Standard’s card to jump in price more than any other, it’s Walking
Ballista. Controlling the early-game and being a powerhouse late in the
game with a ton of excess mana while enabling all the Enrage goodies we’ve
been given makes me want to start every deck with the full four copies.
Creatures (24)
- 4 Walking Ballista
- 4 Carnage Tyrant
- 4 Regisaur Alpha
- 4 Ripjaw Raptor
- 4 Drover of the Mighty
- 4 Ranging Raptors
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (22)
Spells (12)
Sideboard
Now this is what I’d hoped when I first heard that Dinosaurs would be a
thing in Magic! They’ve certainly given us all the tools to make the
battlefield feel like a prehistoric time period; it’s just on us to find
the right combination of cards.
This was the second Dinosaur we saw after Ripjaw Raptor, and it’s more like
“Jaw-Hit-the-Floor” Tyrant! I’ve heard many opinions of this card; those
who enjoy playing non-Magic and believe that playing draw-go and ending the
game with whatever is left over or casting an Approach the Second Sun twice
is enjoyable seem to have been the most offended of the bunch.
There aren’t all too many cards that have the text of “can’t be countered”
as well as “hexproof.” One of the only cards that comes to mind is Thrun,
the Last Troll, and he had his day in the limelight fighting the good fight
against Jace, the Mind Sculptor with relative success. The big difference
here is the additional line of text, “trample.” Trample can make all the
difference when it comes to a fatty in Magic, and this one certainly ices
the cake just how I like it.
There are answers to cards like this, but they’re few and far between, so
you’ll have to work to fight it, which is perfectly fine in my books. The
sixth point of toughness on this card is just as relevant as the fifth
point on Ripjaw Raptor, allowing Carnage Tyrant the ability to survive Hour
of Devastation as well as survive blocking a Hazoret the Fervent in combat.
All in all, this is one of the cards I’m most excited about in the set, and
come the first week of new Standard in Dallas, this is the card I most want
to include in my deck.
Another card that’s been sneered at by many because of its comparison to
cards like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Chandra, Torch of Defiance is
Huatli, Warrior Poet. On the surface, it’s a five-mana planeswalker that
requires you to have a creature on the battlefield for its plus ability to
have any text, and the text on it is lifegain, which isn’t appealing to
most Constructed formats. With that being said, we do live in a Ramunap
world and Red is certainly a deck to worry about. The other ability is
simply a 3/3 Dinosaur factory, spitting out a green trampler every turn,
which may or may not be powerful enough, depending on the battlefield
state.
The reason I’m a fan of this planeswalker is actually its versatility and
the high impact it has depending on the matchup. Gaining life isn’t great
against a control deck or even a Temur Energy deck most of the time, but
against Ramunap Red, this can be the most backbreaking card you could
possibly cast against them.
We already talked about Carnage Tyrant being a huge body that comes down
and can take over a game, but imagine following up a play like that with a
five-loyalty planewalker that gains you seven life and demands an immediate
answer or it can just do it again! The takeaway here is that the plus
ability is either almost irrelevant, in which case the zero ability to make
tokens is an option, or the lifegain is the most powerful swing you can
have and could win a game entirely on its own.
Oh yeah, there’s another line of text to this card! While not being able to
go to the face or hitting other planeswalkers with this ability is a
seemingly big downside, the clause it has of making the creatures it
targets not be able to block seems like this is well worth the trade-off.
Normally, sitting behind a horde of large creatures and gaining life isn’t
all that great, since your opponent can surmount a battlefield filled with
problematic creatures or just cast annoying chump blockers that can make
closing out the game very difficult.
Not any more, they can’t! Just take a turn or two off and amass a
battlefield of ferocious-looking sharp-tooths and then have Huatli, Warrior
Poet let them all dig right in to your opponent’s life total. That seems
like a winning recipe to me, and we haven’t even mentioned how she enables
the Enrage mechanic on your own creatures, should the situation call for
it!
This Broodmate Dragon impersonator is certainly the built-in
card-advantage-type creature that, upon initial review, any Dinosaur deck
was severely lacking. The added bonus of giving the Dinosaur you create
haste as well as any subsequent Dinos such as, I don’t know, Carnage Tyrant is just gravy! This card has my full attention and
may be one of the only creatures in Standard that you can hold next to
Glorybringer and actually have a decision to make as far as which card to
include in your deck.
The last card I want to talk about is the glue to making any Dinosaur deck
work. Savage Stomp, to many, seems like it’s Limited-only, where a card
similar to this such as Hunt the Weak has always been a great removal spell
for green decks. I say people are wildly underrating this card and a more
accurate comparison to it is Dromoka’s Command, which literally defined
Standard throughout its legality.
While it’s not an instant, Savage Stomp does only cost one mana when used
with a Dinosaur. One of the midrange Dinosaurs, Ranging Raptor, will likely
see a lot of play because of its ability to Rampant Growth you if it
tussles with any creature while it’s on defense, but it happens to pair
exceedingly well with Savage Stomp to fight cards sure to see tons of play
in Standard: Hostage Taker, Whirler Virtuoso, Ahn-Crop Crasher, Winding
Constrictor, and many more.
Prey Upon wasn’t ever a Standard powerhouse, but the simple +1/+1 counter
makes all the world of difference. Imagine a mirror match where one player
has access to four copies of Savage Stomp and the other doesn’t. You both
cast a Ripjaw Raptor, but the one player pays an additional singular mana to kill the opposing one! If that’s not a tempo
swing, I don’t know what is. Much like before, that’s all before
considering the implications of any Enrage triggers you’d get.
The counter-argument is that Savage Stomp is a card that can lead to you
getting the bad end of a two-for-one if your opponent kills your creature
in response, but all it takes is proper timing and you can easily avoid
that. Not to mention it’s hard to be in a situation where you’re not able
to play two cards in one turn and catch them trying to develop, and when
they are tapped out for creatures, you’re looking to feed to your Dino
pals.
My advice? Don’t sleeve up Ripjaw Raptor and friends without four copies of
Savage Stomp somewhere in your 75.
Ixalan
is shaping up to be what seems like a powerhouse of a set full of cards for
almost every kind of Magic player. I can’t recall being this excited about
a new set since I first laid eyes on the original Ravnica: City of Guilds way back when. We’re about halfway through
preview season and I can’t wait to see what else this plane has in store
for us.