The Burning Issue: Getting Back to Basics
I’ve enjoyed Ravnica Block, I really have. Huge number of playable non-rares, possibly to make up for all the chase rare lands; the wacky manabases; and the first strong exploration into some of the enemy color pairs and what they could accomplish together. I expect some slight bias, as I have always enjoyed multicolored cards since way back in the early days. Okay, maybe not so much in Legends, but Ice Age and Alliances had some truly nasty stuff in them that was fun to play.
I can say with conviction that I believe Ravnica Block did even more for multicolor decks than Invasion Block, and I love Invasion Block a whole lot. But after awhile, something Talen complained about to me a few months ago started to bother me. The underlying message of his complaint was that he hated all the nonbasic lands running around in Standard. He was sick of seeing four color Good Stuff decks, tired of people being able to play basically any card in any style of deck they wanted so long as they could finagle a manabase to support it (which was rarely difficult, no pun intended) and the total lack of almost any reason at all to play a basic land.
I’m not bothered by the nonbasic love so much, but it did resonate with me at some level. It made me think that we’ve had two blocks now dedicated to multicolor, but there hasn’t been a block done to push mono-color decks. I personally like to build with at least two colors, usually with the intent of one color shoring up the weaknesses of the other, rather than relying entirely on what one color can do to in order to force a victory. But I’m willing to give a dedicated mono-color block a shot.
Right now in Standard the strongest reasons to play mono-color are either Mono-Green Aggro, or some sort of Gauntlet of Power deck. I’d suggest that Korlash might be a good sign, but on the other hand, Black is the one color who’s always wanted all of your attention. Black has the strongest tendencies towards putting multiple mana symbols on all of its good cards, and borrowing abilities from other colors in order to make itself more self-sufficient. It tends to get a fair amount of cards that care how much Black mana was spent to play them, or how many Swamps one controls. And on top of all that, there’s nothing preventing Korlash In Hand from fetching (via Korlash In Play) Blood Crypt and Watery Grave and dropping Sol’Kanar the Swamp King next turn without batting an eyelash, in a move that will make Talen get up and strangle someone at some point. Or at least strongly consider it and desire to. I think that these and other ideas could push an interesting mono-color themed block. Consider:
Jungle Giant 3G
Creature – Giant
Rare
Jungle Giant comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it for each tapped card named Forest you control.
Remove a +1/+1 counter from Jungle Giant: Jungle Giant gains Trample until end of turn.
1/1
Turn 2 Rampant Growth, turn 3 5/5? Yeah, it resembles Imperiosaur to a point, but this has more late-game potential. I didn’t want it to constantly Trample without some effort, but I always like futzing around with +1/+1 counters, and I wanted to be a tad more creative than "this has power and toughness equal to the number of cards named Forest you control +1."
Secluded Study UUU
Sorcery
Uncommon
Spend only mana produced by basic lands to play Secluded Study.
Draw three cards.
Tap three basic Islands, draw three cards. Simple, to the point, and a reward for sticking to one color. Granted, there’s generally a good reason to stick to mono-Blue anyhow. It starts with "w" and ends with "inning", if you weren’t sure.
Volcano Seed 3RR
Instant
Common
Deal damage to target creature or player equal to the number of cards named Mountain you control.
These will get more creative, I promise. Although if it helps any, I wanted to call it "Harnessing the Mountain’s Heart," but I’m pretty sure that would never fit in the title line.
Ancestral Guidance WW
Instant
Uncommon
Deal damage to target attacking or blocking creature equal to the number of White creature cards in your graveyard.
If some of the creature cards in your graveyard aren’t White, gain that much life.
White Weenie Player: "G’wan, play a sweeper."
Control Player: "Sure, sweep you. Drop four in the grumper."
WWP: "Make another weenie."
CP: "Make a dragon."
WWP: "Swing into it."
CP: "Block."
WWP: "Ancestral it, they trade, I gain 4."
CP: "Oops."
WWP: "Oh, and make another weenie."
Whisperborn Wraith 3BB
Creature – Wraith Rogue Common
Fear
If all lands you control are named Swamp, this has Swampwalk.
3/3
Sure, he looks pretty annoying, although it’s tough to tell where he’d get played. He’s just a Gluttonous Zombie in Limited more likely than not, too expensive for Constructed aggro, and probably too small of a butt for Constructed control. But someone out there would love this thing a lot.
Oh, and as usual, I release all legal ownership of the cards above or their general likenesses to Wizards of the Coast to use or not use as they see fit. I’d rather good cards (if that’s what these are) see print than niggle over who has a right to use them or whatnot. Yeah, I’m pretty sure some tiny little aspect of intellectual property laws prevents them from actually doing this directly, but if nothing else, I’m saying here I won’t throw a fit if they use my ideas, with way too many witnesses to back out of having said it. Yes, that was copy and pasted from Magic Grab Bag #6 (albeit with "below" changed to "above"), but it still applies (and will always apply to any speculative cards I post in an article) so I’m using it.
Of course, not every card in the block need be so obvious on the mono-color theme, but they struck me as good examples of things which might not normally see print that cover some interesting design spaces. I’m probably not the best designer on the planet (safe bet, don’t ya think?) but these get the gist across. It would be interesting to explore for two years what each color can really accomplish on its own. From time to time every color has managed a mono-color tournament deck with some success, but I’d be honestly very interested in a format where not only would any color have a decent shot at monochromatic victory, but that there was an honest-to-goodness reason to avoid multicolor decks. I still love Invasion and Ravnica, but I’d like to explore the opposite side of the spectrum for a bit, because we’ve honestly never really been there before, and yet it seems like there’s so much potential for design space and making some truly powerful and unsplashable bombs. Not to mention that it would be a wonderful block for teaching people, if executed right – no tricky manabases to worry about, lots of examples of color identity, and an excuse to do five precons for awhile, just like the Core Set ones.
It seems so obvious, too, so I’m probably missing something. Chances are Wizards considered doing something like this a long time ago, found it too boring or restrictive, scrapped it, and will be pointing and laughing at me not long after this sees print. But now I’ve written it and you’ve read this far and now it’s stuck in all of our heads, so there. Be infected by my rudimentary thought processes! Moo ha ha ha moo! (And no, that’s not a spoiler about the first World of Warcraft Un-style expansion, "The Secret Cow Level.")
Ze Decklist – Format this week: Core Set Constructed
By request a long, long time ago, someone wanted to see a Core Set Constructed deck, and I’m finally delivering on that now that it’s been brought back to the MTGO dropdown game menu. I’ve only gotten a few games in with this (the format really is not that popular…yet) and this struck me as an appropriate article to put the list in to, what with that whole "going back to simpler times" thing I’ve got going here. And true to that, I’ve even used a very basic archetype. I alluded to this deck last week (man, that whole having a plan for next week’s article thing was great…) and so now I shall present it in all of its glory.
Spells (48)
- 4 Counterspell
- 4 Wrath of God
- 4 Plains
- 12 Island
- 2 Opportunity
- 4 Fellwar Stone
- 4 Rewind
- 4 Mana Leak
- 4 Boomerang
- 4 Inspiration
- 2 Confiscate
Sideboard
I’d love a shot at getting into a weekend eight-man with this, but that will probably never happen. Yeah, the Chastise would rather be a 4th Reprisal, but I only own three and hey, maybe the Chastise would be useful anyhow. Especially if the opponent tries to play around "the other three." Hey, if I’m going to play control, why not control the psychological game too? That’s one of the benefits of playing "the answer deck," your opponent will always wonder just how many and what type of answers you have (if you aren’t netdecking). If you play ones that punish them for advancing their game plan, you can make them do some real thinking about how they play. This doesn’t work with every card – Wrath, for example, you’d better have the second one when you need it. It’s a strategy that works best with situational, but very swingy cards like Chastise. Draining Whelk is another prime example that works, albeit not in this particular format.
What the deck does: With just the main deck, or in game 1, the plan is to sit back, maybe drop an early Fellwar Stone, and counter anything threatening while you work your way up the mana curve. On turns you don’t counter something, you typically hope to end with Inspiration or Opportunity – or on turns you counter something with Rewind. The key here is what you define as threatening – anything over two power on a creature probably counts, for example. Think about any Artifacts or Enchantments they’re trying to resolve, but remember you’ve got four Boomerangs in case you make a mistake or just don’t have a counter at the time. Wrath when the creature situation on the board displeases you. You’ve only got four reliable win conditions (the Angels) and possibly two more if your opponent is playing anything worthy of a Confiscate. As such, be careful that you can protect an Angel before dropping one. If you’re playing a match, the SB is mostly against aggro decks – you’ll want to drop out expensive cards like Confiscate, Opportunity, and Rewind for Chastise, Reprisals, and Remove Souls. Strongly consider the CoP over some of your Fellwar Stones if Red if a heavy component of the opposing deck. Disenchant is mostly in as a "just in case" thing. Defense Grid and Greater Good would be the two biggest ones I could think of offhand.
Who the deck is for: It’s kind of a sixty card tutorial on how to play a control deck and learning threat assessment skills. As such, it’s a fine teaching too. It doesn’t run so many counters that it can counter everything (although it comes close), but it’s a little more forgiving than some of the old school control decks that only ran two Angels; there’s a little more margin for error here. This being Core Set Constructed, the cards are fairly simple all around in form and function, but yet quite effective. Since its main defense is countermagic, it’s a very flexible deck with few exploitable weaknesses, some kind of Obliterate / Form of the Dragon deck probably being the most glaring thing I can think of. Although that might be fun to build some time too. I might try it if Obliterate isn’t as expensive online as I think it would be. Obviously this deck offers little for those who like to win by swinging for two, or combo-oriented players. It’s a very strict control deck through and through, and should be treated as such.
What to watch out for: … Not a whole lot. If you play carefully and have pretty good threat assessment skills, any decent draw has little to fear, especially in a match where you can compensate for the opposing strategies of the other deck via sideboarding. Your worst enemy is a bad draw and a reluctance to mulligan. Don’t keep a hand without at least one counterspell if you can help it, and hope for two. That alone is usually enough to put you well on your way to victory. Your worst matchup is another control deck piloted by a better player – although aggro can tear you up pretty good in a single game if your Wraths are not forthcoming. Burn can be frustrating too, in a single game scenario. Obviously if you get to sideboard, CoP comes in and makes burn boy cry like a toddler who just dropped his ice cream on the sidewalk. But all in all, you can deal with most threats pretty well. After all, you’re playing Blue at just about the height of its glory; Counterspell with Instant card draw and backed with Wrath. And yes, for those of you wondering, the deck title is in fact based on the advert campaign for a particular tobacco product in the U.S. – too bad those boxes couldn’t hold a deck, since it would be slightly amusing to carry this around in one. I mean, if you played with physical cards and all. Heh.
Next week will probably bring some more crowing or kvetching about Future Sight, depending on what we know by then. Given that I probably won’t be writing it until Sunday, there will probably be a full spoiler available. If it’s a reasonably accurate one (not sure if Wizards’ spoiler will be up before Monday), I’ll remember to review by creature type.
Signing off,
Rivien Swanson
flawedparadigm a(aye Carumba!)t gmaSPAMSUCKSil d(.)ot co[My third eye is squeegeed quite cleanly.]m
Flawed Paradigm on MTGO (when I actually log in)