The Burning Issue – The Disappointment… of the FUTURE!
So… this is the future, eh? This set was pretty well hyped and yet, here I sit, wondering where the majesty is. I was so excited about this set, thinking about all the things that they could with "the future" – the possibilities seemed endless. I figured boundaries would be tested, the wild would be thrown at us, and my jaw would drop at least three times at how awesome things were. Things were going to change, and we’d see totally weird things that we never would have dreamt.
Instead we get… Keyword City, Population: Ugh. The majority of promising cards are in Blue and Black (I won’t say "best" cards until I actually get to play with them at some point), there’s an apparent resurgence of vanilla creatures, and they’re printing pretty blatantly worse versions of cards they’ve already done in previous sets. I don’t know about you, but this looks more like the past of Magic than the future. This set honestly depresses me.
Last week I had fun, since the creatures were some of the more inspiring cards of the set, and Bonded Fetch, Magus of the Moat, Utopia Mycon, and Llanowar Augur aside, even the worst ones were capable of turning sideways. Actually, looking at that list, that’s a depressingly high number of guys who don’t swing for a small set. Bleh. This is like Future Lite, it feels like they tried to push things, but just didn’t push hard enough. Many of the cool new mechanics were put on cards that are probably too awful to see the light of day, so how will we ever know if they’re good?
Let’s start with Arcanum Wings, which is our demonstration of Aura Swap – a 1U Flight with a 2U cost to use the ability. Uh, guys? Flight rarely ever made it into Limited decks and was awful in sixty-card piles. Doubling the cost is not a good start to making it something people will be willing to experiment with. I mean, it could be a decent ability, but we may never know because the card it was showcased on was cack. The best possible play sequence I can think of with this (off the top of my head) is turn 1 Flying Men, turn 2 Wings, turn 3 Mythic Proportions. That’s not awful, but it does set you up for some major disappointments in the realm of instant speed removal and requires a pretty good draw to be relevant. In Standard, the best you can do is either a) use Verdant Embrace instead, or b) change the one-drop to Birds of Paradise and go for Wurmweaver Coil. This card is going to struggle to make a few one-trick-pony Casual decks at best. Yay?
The Strobe cycle reminds me of Coldsnap and that’s not generally a way to start off on my good side. Specifically, the Kindle-style cycle of cards that get better for each one drawn. They’re actually pretty nifty if you can get three of them going so that one is triggering every turn. Costing them at five+ to hardcast might have been overdoing it a little, but seeing as how they keep coming back, it will probably be worth it. I really worry about this with Reality Strobe, though. Not only is Blue the most likely color for getting multiples of these going, it’s going to feel an awful lot like Capsize if three get going, and anyone who was playing during the era of Capsize will tell you that is not a fun way to lose. Oh, and did I mention Paradox Haze is Blue?
Cloud Key scares the willies out of me. As I stated last week, it enables itself plus Future Sight / Magus of the Future plus Sensei’s Divining Top. Or double Top plus Key equals arbitrarily large Storm count. I’m pretty sure this breaks Top, and I hope it’s Top that gets the axe in Extended and Prismatic. In Prismatic, it slows the game down because pretty much everyone packs it, turns Long-Term Plans into a house, single-handedly makes Trinket Mage maindeck worthy, and can totally swing a game if only player gets theirs. In Extended, it’s just really, really annoying with Counterbalance, and of course the two combos mentioned above. But again, like every other card I’m mentioning, it makes me think a lot more about the past than the future, and that’s my main disappointment with the set; very little feels truly new. Maybe there is no future, maybe history simply repeats itself.
Coalition Relic is the first card that really succeeds for me in terms of giving a "future" feel. You can tap it for a charge counter at the end of the opponent’s turn, then use it the mana on your next turn. Cool, you’re rewarded for planning. In a pinch, you can tap it to produce a mana immediately too. That’s pretty nifty.
Daybreak Coronet is a great representative of the future. In fact, I see getting three-for-one’d in your very near future. Ugh. We all know what creature this is going to be used on, if any at all. Hint: It has "Edgewalker" in its name, but it is not a Cleric.
Sigh. Death Rattle. Delve is the mechanic I like most from this set, which is awful, because it thrives on the past. This is Future Sight. Do you see the problem here? I am not feeling the love here, not at all.
And oh boy, Delay. There’s talk of this spell making Counterspell obsolete in some formats. That cannot possibly be a good sign. I imagine this is going to be my most hated card from the set. I am envisioning a future of U/W aggro decks, using Delay and Mana Tithe to stave off Wrath effects. At least this card honestly works within the future theme, and on multiple levels, even if I’m pretty sure I’m going to hate it mechanically.
Okay… rant time. Edge of Autumn. Seriously. What is the bloody point of this card? When I play Green, I want to accelerate out a bunch of lands, drop fat things, and smash face with them. So let’s take Rampant Growth, the brokenest of cards, and let’s start by saying it doesn’t do anything at all once you have five lands. Yeah, that’s a definite good start. Now that it no longer has the option of being hardcast for an effect, you can now cycle it by sacrificing a land. Green mages don’t want to be sacrificing lands, as it’s one of their main strengths to begin with. What would have been the problem with the cycling ability without the stupid drawback of being a blank card once you’ve got five land? They seriously could keyword Unplayable. "If you control five or more lands, Edge of Autumn has Unplayable. (Unplayable cards cannot be played.)" Everyone involved in letting this awful mockery of a spell see print should get a pay cut.
Why is Emblem of the Warmind Future-shifted? What part of this is from the future? An aura that doesn’t do anything specific to the creature it enchants, maybe? And Haste? Haste is like the definition of a mechanic for the present. This comes into play. Swinging. Now. Not next turn, or the turn after, or the turn before. It’s here and smashing your face. Now.
Foresee is like the poster child for things they did right in this set. The name involves the future and scry involves the future, and it’s a pretty balanced card. I like the "pun" in the art, too. If they’d done more cards like this, this article would be totally different.
Ghostfire gives me hope – Red is already pretty crippled by enchantments and a rather sparse slice of the color pie. I hope this is a herald to an age where Red is slightly less reamed by Protection from Red, the way Black long ago turned Protection from Black into flavor text.
Grave Peril is another good Foresee style card. This card was predicted awhile ago over at MTGSalvation.com, and it fits with the block-cycle of Black removal. This was well executed.
Ichor Slick? Huh? I thought the general difference between an instant and a sorcery was one mana, drawing a card was approximately one mana or so, and Madness was supposed to be a discount. Shouldn’t this be Cycling 3, Madness 1B or Cycling 2, Madness 2B at most? In the Future, we’re going to get removal pretty much way worse than Last Gasp. Uh, good?
The Pact cycle… well, it encompasses the future nicely, although everyone I’ve asked would have picked different effects for the Pacts. The Red one was especially baffling – a vanilla creature? Huh? I mean, okay, it probably has Haste if you’re playing it fairly (i.e. intending to pay the upkeep and not winning via I Win Djinn) but still… it just doesn’t seem Red. Possibly because it’s Beast Attack Pact.
Judge Unworthy is some kind of great gift to White. Scry, good Ballista-style removal, cheap cost, and a pimp-slap from the future. Which probably means it’s the best card White is going to see for two years. Please prove me wrong.
Lost Hours: Booby Trap decks of the world rejoice!
I hope Muraganda Petroglyphs isn’t the big hint it seems to be, some massive return to vanilla creatures. I never much cared for them, and while Blade of the Sixth Pride looks rather good, I don’t think it’s going to push me to become a big fan of creatures that do nothing special. They always feel like filler to me.
Let’s all be glad Mystic Speculation isn’t quite Top or we’d be sitting through at least three months of Hell in Standard. I’m not entirely sure, but I have a good guess that a three card combo is worth it if the end result is "0: Draw as many cards as you want."
Nix… Nix, Nix, Nix. Remember we were going to have countermagic nerfed? Now there’s three fairly decent one mana counterspells just in Standard. Apparently in the future, Blue mages won’t need to worry about spells ever resolving against them. Admittedly, this will probably see the most play in Vintage, but this spell just worries me. I tend to play Green decks in the casual room because they seem to get the least amount of complaints for cheese (when you’re not using Ledgewalker + Auras), and this card just existing is going to have me pulling Allosaurus Rider from all of my decks. Farewell, Al, we hardly knew ye.
Patrician’s Scorn… hmm. There going to be a big enchantment theme next block? Or is the Future-shifted frame for the free lunch effect? I’m hoping it’s the former, since the last again relies on the past.
Petrified Plating, also know as How to Get Talen Lee to Concede a Game in the Casual Room. Turn 1 suspend, turn 2 Ledgewalker, turn 3 Blanchwood into the concede.
Pyromancer’s Swath is hopefully our hint that Ensnaring Bridge will be in Tenth Edition. Burning Bridges is amusing every five years or so.
Is Riddle of Lightning going to build Autocthulhu Wurm.dek for us? Too bad it wasn’t Autocthulhu Sphinx or we could just call it Riddle of the Sphinx.dek. I figure Glittering Wish, Congregation at Dawn, and Stormbind for the last few damage. Savage Twister and/or Wrath for critter control. Maybe some Greater Gargadons for backup Riddle targets.
Rites of Flourishing… I know I want to do something with it, I just have no idea what. I’m guessing it will involve Gauntlet of Power, where I can be relatively certain my opponents won’t be getting as much benefit from it unless they’re also in mono-Green with all basic Forests.
Now we just need a Scout’s Warning for Artifacts and Enchantments so we can stop printing these cards.
Shapeshifter’s Marrow fits into the curve right before Spin into Myth, which becomes active right about the same time as Spectral Force. Just sayin’.
Spellweaver Volute + Early Harvest + sorcery card draw, maybe? There’s got to be some kind of fun to have with this card, although its focus is split between the past and the future, I still like it. It’s like some really odd knock-off of Yawgmoth’s Win for Standard.
Take Possession? Really? You couldn’t come up with any better names? Appropriate comes to mind, as does Purloin. I mean, you guys have access to www.thesaurus.com too, right?
So, what’s the message from the future on Whetwheel? That mill will still be unplayably awful in the future too, if it’s not coming from a 55-point Stroke on turn 1? Which wasn’t even technically mill?
Going over this list, I see a total of about six cards that actually please me and / or actually seem to be somehow based in the future. I call that a pretty low score myself. No, I probably couldn’t have done any better (you think?), but then again it’s not my job to do so. Mark got us hyped up for this set about stuff from the future, except it seems to yield up stuff mostly from the past and present. But the best part is that Wizards can, at any point, design a set which has even the most feeble of links to any cards from this set and go, "We told you this was from the future, we friggin’ told you, but did you believe us? Nooooooo." and automatically be right.
Ze Decklist – Format this week: Tribal Standard
Well, that was a wholly depressing exercise. Now I’ll bring in the list I was going to do last week before I noticed I’d already written a ridiculous manifesto on all things tribally Future Sight. It’s a deck I’ve been tinkering with now and then ever since Lovisa existed, and I think it’s currently the best it’s ever been thanks to the Planar Chaos upgrade. Let’s have a look, shall we?
Creatures (23)
- 4 Civic Wayfinder
- 4 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
- 3 Lovisa Coldeyes
- 4 Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
- 4 Keldon Marauders
- 4 Stingscourger
Lands (11)
Spells (26)
Why, Warriors, of course, of course, including one who’s half a horse! I wonder if I should take to calling him Mister Ed. Terrible jokes aside, we’re looking at slightly-tricky midrange beatdown here. My one regret is never squeezing any actual acceleration in, but I never wanted to cut Evolution Charm, as it either set up my third land drop for Civic Wayfinder to set up my fourth, launched fat into the air, or raised a dead Legend. And with no Warriors who have any other way of getting me any land, I didn’t want to drop Civic either, so I never did quite get the acceleration in. I am going to have to find a way to squeeze at least one Boldwyr Intimidator in here even if just for flavor, of course.
What the deck does: The plan is to use an early attack force of Marauders, Civic Wayfinders, and Skarrgan Pit-Skulks to survive into the late game where either Lovisa or Stonebrow with either Skarrg or Gruul War Plow can come in to make your guys meatier and crush the opposition. Char is the all-purpose removal spell of choice for early irritants or clearing out late-game blockers. Once in awhile it’ll even go to the dome. As the deck is built for the mid-to-late game, Harmonize comes in pretty much automatically to keep the cards flowing. Stingscourger is supposed to be the trick up your sleeve, as with Lovisa around, he becomes a 4/4 hasty underpriced Man-o’-War, not to mention that if you’ve put Lovisa in play, you’ve got the mana to play at least two in the same turn. Skarrg turns any of your critters into a legitimate threat even without one of the deck’s Legendary champions in play. The lone Desert is for popping off any Shadow creatures without having to throw a Char at them (not to mention the most played one is immune to Char anyhow).
Who the deck is for: It’s beatdown, but not so fast that the opponent doesn’t get a chance to mount a defense, and if you can keep either of the champions in play, your guys can eventually tangle with the big boys too. It’s kind of like a thinking man’s beatdown deck. I regret not finding room for Rough / Tumble to give it some controllish backbone, but hopefully you can out-muscle the weenie decks and force them to spend more time blocking than attacking. This kind of deck won’t go over well if you’re in a controlling mood since it would be entirely bereft of control elements without Stingscourger and Char.
What to watch out for: Same problem most of my tribal decks have, really. Artifacts, enchantments, sweepers, and Slivers. Slivers you can maybe do something about if they don’t start off explosively, but others you just have to grin and bear. And maybe bite the pillow. Anyone else miss Viridian Zealot? Just wondering. Heck, I’d even settle for a Hearth Kami style guy right now, and when you’re pining for Kamigawa Block, you know you’re in a bad way.
Signing off,
Rivien Swanson
flawedparadigm a(aye Carumba!)t gmaSPAMSUCKSil d(.)ot co[Someone call Miss Cleo. The future looks like it sucks.]m
Flawed Paradigm on MTGO (when I actually log in)