Welcome, one and all, to the brave new world that is the future – home of flying cars and affordable energy sources, and let us not forget the Three Seashell Method of personal waste disposal that came to us as just one of many changes brought about by Schwarzenomics. The pre-release weekend was a blast, of course… I can’t re-post a card pool because, as per usual, I didn’t play. I’ve been working the Magic pre-releases in New York City for years now, and get a lot more enjoyment helping to run the tournaments and watch everyone’s reactions. It’s better than being the bloke sitting opening cards for the first time, waxing nostalgically about the good old days before MTGSalvation spoilers telling everyone what every card did. The last time I bothered was a midnight pre-release for this wacky “Darksteel” set, where I got to be quite possibly the first person ever to say “Man, this Skullclamp card is pretty good!” at approximately 12:01 AM Eastern standard time… and with Future Sight I’m actually sad I missed it, because the set looks like it’ll blow you away!
Of course, I still don’t know what happens when a Rigger assembles a Contraption, or how to hire a Rigger who will, never mind why I’d want double the number of Contraptions… who says they’re a good thing to have, and not just a fancy new label for poison counters? (Well, besides the fact that they actually gave a fancy new label for poison counters, that is…) There’s so much busy stuff going on, and so many different interesting things tweaking my brain, that I’m looking to skip right past trying to figure out how Limited play works now in full Time Spiral block Sealed and Draft, and fast-forwarding to a first look at Constructed come Regionals-time.
The third set of a block is always the wacky one that fleshes things out and makes things go kersplode, and Future Sight is looking like it will have a lot more impact than your usual third set… perhaps because it’s all over the place, but also perhaps because we may finally be seeing an expansion with the kinds of tools we want to beat that dastardly Dralnu deck once and for all. We have in recent months been seeing fewer and fewer aggressive decks putting up any kinds of numbers on Magic Online, that futuristic prognosticator of the real-life Magic metagame. This means that prior to Future Sight rolling in, you couldn’t find a Top 8 with a reasonable beatdown contingent anywhere… it’s all Dragonstorm combo or miscellaneous Control decks (Dralnu, Tron, *yawn* et cetera) with the occasional small man attacking for two or Ravenous Rats discard “weenie” deck. I am here with the wave of one of many potential futures – a wave that looks like one of many pasts we have come to cherish, the good old days when counterspells were worse than burn spells and tapping a Mountain put those stupid Water-mages in their place, usually via premature dirt-nap.
In a world filled with a wondrous polychromatic spree, it’s beginning to look a lot like Mountains…
4 Keldon Megaliths
4 Zoetic Caverns
1 Ghost Quarter
14 Mountain
4 Scorched Rusalka
2 Sparkspitter
4 Blood Knight
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Emberwilde Augur
4 Gathan Raiders
4 Seal of Fire
4 Sudden Shock
4 Rift Bolt
3 Fiery Temper
Sideboard:
3 Ghost Quarter
4 Stone Rain
4 Cryoclasm
4 Greater Gargadon
I will post this deck with one provisional statement – I am confident about the numbers here except for as regards exactly three cards. First is the number of Mountains… I am reasonably certain that I am shaving one land more than I really want to and want a 24-land deck, since the eight Future Sight lands played here give the deck the ability to play enough lands to always hit three mana on turn 3 without missing double-Red on turn 2 for Blood Knight, without over-flooding on mana (you can fuel your pinger-lands, or just make a generic Grey Ogre). Second is the number of Sparkspitters… I am suspicious that I would like a third, to have as many one-drops as I would really like, but I’m not quite certain I really want that many copies as a second seems absolutely useless. With Keldon Megaliths, Scorched Rusalka, Seal of Fire and possibly even Rift Bolt as one-drops, I think I am still hitting my “Sligh curve” by having “just” six one-drops. None of them are quite Jackal Pup strength, or even could be without having enough Forests to support Kird Ape, and there is basically no reason to play a second color in your Red deck from what I have seen so far. The third number is Fiery Temper, which might be better than Rift Bolt overall but which I am so far hesitant to give more value to until I get to test more, figuring out the actual value of Sparkspitter and just how often I can pull off the Madness “combo.”
Control decks have in the past been able to beat aggressive decks only when the control decks have more powerful tools to work with… and this time, for once, I think the answer to this one is a resounding “no.” Dralnu is very good at gaining a slow, incremental card advantage and charging up Dreadship Reefs to simulate a late-game board advantage through one explosive swoop of a turn or two in which you somehow mysteriously die after a bunch of Mystical Teachings are removed from the game. While Dralnu is doing that, however, you might notice that Keldon Megaliths has closed from twenty, and no number of blockers or Damnations is liable to change that.
What does Future Sight bring to the table? Let’s meet the key players, in case you haven’t read the set review here on StarCityGames.com yet…
Keldon Megaliths – Land
Keldon Megaliths comes into play tapped.
Tap: Add R to your mana pool.
Hellbent – 1R, Tap: Deal 1 damage to target creature or player. Use this ability only if you have no cards in hand.
Zoetic Cavern – Land
Tap: Add 1 to your mana pool.
Morph 2. (You may play this face-down as a creature spell for 3. Yadda yadda yadda.)
These are two impressive additions to a beatdown strategy – it’s not often you find even one land you can use to deal damage to an opponent at a reasonable rate, and almost unheard-of to have access to two reasonable lands that can damage the opponent without playing a second color for a second “man land.” Zoetic Cavern isn’t impressive like Mishra’s Factory is… but it still lets you up your land count in a beatdown deck so long as you can use the colorless mana for something, without slacking on the potential damage sources in your deck as well. A Grey Ogre is nothing impressive, it’s true… but it’s a pretty impressive capability for a land. Keldon Megaliths isn’t free, that tapped land-drop has a definite cost, but so long as you don’t mind emptying your hand by pointing burn spells at the opponent it has a definite add-on benefit by shooting fire at a reasonable price. But of course the question needs to be asked… is going hellbent where it’s at?
Let’s see… I know I was going somewhere with this…
Gathan Raiders – 3RR or something, no one’s going to pay full price for this.
Morph – Discard a card. (Not at random, for once… a surprise, Red usually gets a bit of a shaft when it comes to paying the price via discarding.)
Hellbent – Gathan Raiders gets +2/+2.
3/3
Not too long ago I was going on and on about the virtues of Akroma, and to a lesser degree Saffi, because I like big butts and I cannot lie (as the song says). I still like big butts, it’s true… but I like ‘em better when they cost three mana instead of eight, because it takes a lot of work to get Akroma down fast. Here, all you have to do is tap any three. Getting Hellbent is easy when this guy’s helping, and there’s that slight hint of a Madness sub-theme as well with a few Fiery, Tempers but really I don’t mind discarding anything at all to swap this guy from generic 2/2 to humongous 5/5 stats. And getting Hellbent is also easy when you just point fire at the opponent’s noggin to do it… I know, math is hard, but lighting people on fire is easy. I promise.
Sparkspitter – R
R, Tap, discard a card: Cast Spark Elemental. Yes, the same Spark Elemental we always laughed at in Fifth Dawn draft. Every turn, until you die to it. ‘Nuff said.
One mana, three damage, all you have to do is have access to the combat phase to do it. Lightning Bolt is a pretty good break-even point for the Philosophy of Fire, and the combat phase isn’t actually a problem most of the time unless there are creatures clogging it up, and I only count two pro-Red creatures that can actually block… Tivadar, and Paladin en-Vec. Pally will probably make a bit of a comeback now, since Red is actually good again and pro-Black is useful too against most Dralnu decks, to at least some extent. If they gum up the ground with a Paladin, forget about this guy and point everything else at the face. It’ll do in a pinch.
In previous versions of a deck of this sort, I didn’t advocate using Keldon Marauders, because I felt that you had to have more stable early damage sources for the deck before you could really go all-in with cards like that, choosing to try and have some disruption via Avalanche Riders instead of trying to squeeze five points out of the Marauders here. Well, my somewhat-janky Gruul Guildmages have been upgraded, and I want to have lands now thanks to Keldon Megaliths performing a reasonable Cursed Scroll impression for a zero-cost card, so out with the old and in with…
Emberwilde Augur – 1R
Sacrifice Emberwilde Augur: Emberwilde Augur deals 3 damage to target player. Play this ability only during your upkeep.
2/1
Just your perfectly average Firebrand Ranger sort of guy… generic two power, falls over in a stiff breeze. Standard Red two-drop, nothing impressive on its face, from the stats alone… so we’re looking at the special ability to see where this is going. He can be traded in for a Lava Spike during your upkeep, netting you one more damage than his attacking that turn would get you… but if him attacking another turn is unreasonable, you cash him in with zero mana cost for a guaranteed three damage. Even that isn’t necessarily very impressive, I guess… we’ve been really spoiled with aggressive creatures nowadays and can routinely get three power for two mana… but put him alongside a bunch of other guys who do similar things and a bunch of burn spells and see what develops. To whit:
4 Scorched Rusalka
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Emberwilde Augur
Twelve creatures that can deal direct damage to the opponent’s face, regardless of whatever else is in the way. They do one, two, and three damage respectively, and one of each combines to deal seven damage altogether for seven mana and three cards, split up however you need over multiple turns. Your creatures can emulate burn spells… and your lands can emulate burn spells (remember the Megaliths?)… and your lands can emulate creatures. Not all of this fire is necessarily good… but you have reached a critical mass of it, which is always key to note when it comes to Red Deck theory. As I said, I’m not certain about all of the numbers… but I’m reasonably certain about the key players, at least in the first 60 cards… 67 if you go further to include the Ghost Quarters I am certain will have a use in a UrzaTron environment – especially one that may or may not be bolstered by a Transmuting land that finds Urza’s Whatever You’re Missing – and the Greater Gargadons that will likely prove key in the Red Deck attrition mirror. Stone Rain and Cryoclasm were merely a best-guess sideboard presumption, as the decks that are most likely to have a chance of beating the Red deck probably want lands in play, and usually the Red deck only needs to stall for a turn or two before it’s able to seal the deal.
Blue mages, you are on notice. The Mountains are coming! The Mountains are coming! If Regionals doesn’t do it, perhaps a set rotation that brings Mogg Fanatic will… either way, the prognosticating Elf says “soon” with its flame-broiled corpse upon the ground.
I don’t quite understand how Future Sight was a disappointment coming into the rumor season leading up to just before the Prerelease. I mean, the Friday before the pre-release every single card was spoiled on MTGSalvation.com, and you could find over a hundred and fifty pages of discussion about the new cards (and why “Goblinses it” is the correct answer to anything having to do with Legacy, and the movie “Grindhouse”) over on MiseTings.com. You’d think that just because StarCityGames.com has a “shared” writer pool with The Mothership, a.k.a. MagicTheGathering.com, that people had to have a negative reaction just to be hip and cool whenever “we” seem to be saying something positive. Future Sight is all about playing with a wide assortment of shiny toys, all of which might have some unseen potential if you can just figure out what to do with it. It’s a set that brings five allied dual lands with it – helping the polychromatic spree that started with Ravnica and pushed all through Dissension – while also giving us “better basics” that have a small cost we are by now familiar with to reap potential benefits later in the game. It helps mono-colored and multicolored decks, and gives us a remarkable option for aggressive mono-color decks by printing a land drop that can substitute as a creature to help make sure that over-flooding doesn’t happen. It doesn’t have to be a good creature, it just has to not cost too much and attack for two, which it clears in both cases.
Constructed is interesting when there is tension. Too much good, easy mana and you see things like five-color Red decks courtesy of Richard Feldman and the Pillar of the Paruns. Too little good, easy mana and you see five different monochromatic decks, or perhaps four because the Green deck got the shaft again… courtesy of Masques Block Constructed, if anyone remembers back that far. If you print a good reason to restrain yourself from going hog-wild, like a cycle of “basic lands with benefits,” you’ll find rewards for staying with only a few colors and rewards for going overboard, giving you a lot of different options without any of them invalidating each other. This is a good thing. Hose nonbasics a little and the tension stays interesting (see: Ghost Quarter, a.k.a. Unrestricted Strip Mine as far as some decks are concerned, or the newborn Magus of the Moon sitting next to his enchantment grandpappy), hose them too much and things stop being interested because you’ve taken too much away (like, reprinting Price of Progress on the Time Spiral Timeshifted sheet. Awesome, but a little too awesome).
“Tension” is a bad thing in Limited, as that is where you usually see the skill-tester cards, as you try to figure out if you can get enough benefit out of the good parts before the weaknesses or drawbacks kill you. In Constructed, however, it rewards good deck-builders and good strategists by providing tools to work with an avenue of approach, which is why it is so amazing to see a fresh new cycle of on-color dual lands… now the allied color arrangements really are better than the enemy-colored ones, at least as far as ease of generating colored mana is concerned… and some very strong non-dual-lands to reward those who aren’t trying to tap for four or five different colors in the first five turns of the game. You can stay monochromatic – see the deck above – or go crazy if that’s what you want to do, because the tools are there, and meant to be played with.
And this is merely how Future Sight helps Standard with ten of its 180 slots, not counting the fact that it also includes a second “better basic” Forest (the land is the 1/1 Elf) and a second land that can help smooth your draw consistency in a presumably one- or two-colored deck (Zoetic Cavern, again), being either a land or a man. You also have a shiny host of new tools, from a new Wish to all sorts of wondrous things, just no Riggers assembling Contraptions just yet. Dragonstorm is a “‘known problem” going into Regionals this year… and they printed two different White cards to fix the “known problem,” depending on how you look at it, with a Flash-creature that gives you protection from the resolving Hellkites and a second Flash-creature that makes searching your library for four Dragons awfully darn hard when you can only peek at the Top 4 instead. There are new strategy-hosers, like Yixlid Jailer, that need to work their way into the metagame, as it completely nullifies a Dredge-oriented strategy… and new strategy enablers as well, from simple tools like solid creatures (see: Red deck, above) to quirky new counterspells (Venser, anyone?) and potential “answers” to suspended cards like Detritivore to answer to powerful threat it was beginning to put forward. This is a set jam-packed with potential that is going to take a long time to really see bloom, but it will.
Don’t even get me started on how this fleshes out Block Constructed, starting with OMG we finally have dual lands to fix our mana! to just how radically these new cards shift the Time Spiral – Planar Chaos metagame seen at last weekend’s Pro Tour in Yokohama, Japan. You might remember that this had a surprise outcome that few would have seen coming going into the tournament, but which feels about right if you look at the end result and how things played out, much like the Solution deck “solved” Invasion Block Constructed. If White Weenie is the deck to beat Day 1, and decks that beat White Weenie are the decks to beat Day 2, well the deck that wins Day 3 is the deck that beats both, one would presume. Fortunately, Future Sight gives us a plethora of new tools before we have to play this somewhat stagnant format as an actual format of interest to the PTQ-level crowd, so we get to play with a similar foundation without it resolving back into Rock-Paper-Scissors-Grenade as we saw at the Pro Tour last weekend.
Speaking of detractors…
A few weeks ago, I wrote an April Fools article in the guise of Mike Flores, taking my personal favorite Mike Flores article of the past year and writing a heavily plagiarized version chock-full of humorous jabs and respectfully applied pokes in the eye. Yes, I was a bit sad that at least one forum poster said it was my “best article ever,” since while it was a careful and loving plagiarization in the name of satire, it still could not be confused as “my” work… and seeing how I’m actually starting along writing a book myself nowadays, to take my “authorship” to the next logical level I guess you could say, I almost winced when I read what was intended I’m sure as a compliment. (Nor, apparently, the only StarCityGames.com writer to start writing a fantasy novel… I hadn’t even conceived of mine until after I’d learned that The Ferrett finished his.) However, it would seem that I am not the only one to write an April Fools article “by Mike Flores,” as it was eventually pointed out to me that someone by the name of William Spaniel was making a fuss over on what used to be known as Brainburst.com, but which is known for some reason now as “magic.tcgplayer.com.” because that really rolls off the tongue.
As a previous writer for Brainburst.com under Scott Johns before he migrated to the Mothership, where I wrote until I quit Magic for a time and consequently got fired, I have to admit that I wasn’t aware that this site even still existed now that Frank Karsten was writing for the Mothership… and as such I had missed this William Spaniel’s Magical Musings for however many weeks it has been running. And oh, the seething petty hatred I found there penned each week by one William Spaniel. Certainly, some issues were valid and relevant… yes, our own MisterOrange, Evan Erwin, was born south of the Mason-Dixon line, and thus when it comes to English well he doesn’t speak the Queen’s.
Yes, Zac Hill went over the top with his “Entitlement” article, while describing a sequence of events that has happened to most people who care enough about improving their game to read about Magic strategy on the internet… getting scooped into the Top 8 when you get paired down against someone who can’t make it even with a win. Borne out of (self-) righteous indignation, or perhaps a mis-application of wit, his verbal abuse of a fellow spellcaster pushed the envelope of intelligence and taste. But where I lovingly applied wit and sarcasm to attempt to be a reasonable facsimile of MichaelJ, and thus a pleasure to the eyes of the reader, when I read the works of this William Spaniel I found it hard to believe that these sorts of tirades were what counts as acceptable on the Internet.
Harping on every little stylistic detail, every little arrogant pat on one’s own back, nit-picking and slinging filth with crudely-drawn mock-ups that make a second-grader with a sixteen-pack of Crayola crayons look like the Renaissance painter or Ninja Turtle of your choice… this is your substitute for wit and style? If you are going to make fun of someone because of how they write, Mr. Spaniel, I would suggest learning how to do so yourself with some wit or aplomb that pleases the eye and tickles the mind as you read it. If, instead, you are going to make up silly names for people like “Cave Flores” and “Mr. Entitlement,” I would suggest you be prepared when people look at you and decide your first name is “Cocker,” Mr. Spaniel. We Internet writers are a friendly bunch, and we can all take a good ribbing when we earn it… and I expect I’ve just earned one, in the dark, indulgent corners of your mind that don’t want to hear the lesson I am seeking to impart here, or perhaps empower yourself by drawing a Sean McKeown card that makes fun of my well-established “propensity for verbosity.” You are on notice: play nice, or don’t play.
If all we wanted to read was self-congratulating articles about how great you are, we’d read a Mike Flores article. At least his reputation backs it up a little, and his way of mincing words (while not entirely proper) is at least pleasing to read.
Sean McKeown
dr.emmet @ brown.edu
If I could turn back time
If I could find a way
I’d take back those words that have hurt you
And you’d stay…
Cher, “If I Could Turn Back Time”