Rivals Of Ixalan Preview Perspectives

Where did the holidays go? New Years Eve was Sunday, and we’re already
getting slammed with Rivals of Ixalan previews. Due to Rivals of Ixalan being a smaller set, it’s common for a larger
chunk of people to fall off during preview season and not be as interested.
Things don’t feel as fresh, and the cards being previewed are hardly going
to create an entirely new archetype that we hadn’t previously seen; quite
the opposite with brand new blocks as they’re introduced.

I tend to fall in the opposite camp. Brewing isn’t something that tends to
rile me up. Tuning, on the other hand, gets me going. The last card to make
an aristocrats-styled archetype justifiable? Yes, please. A new lord to
push a tribal archetype over the top? Tell me more.

Second sets rarely break new ground, but where they lack in innovation they
make up for in their ability to fill in the cracks. This is the perfect
environment for swaths of competitive players. Sure, Temur Energy has been
king of the hill for a while now, but who’s to say that there won’t be
something that can out-grind it out in Rivals of Ixalan?

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Every time a new set comes out, writers are tasked with dissecting the best
cards in the upcoming set, and exploring what they can (or can’t) do. As of
writing this, it’s only day two of previews, and we’re already neck-deep in
great cards, so let’s dive right in!

We’ll kick things off with one of the creatures that has me the most
excited.

When working with people during coaching sessions, I tend to break down the
explore mechanic as this:

“Explore (

When this creature enters the battlefield, draw a land or Scry 1 and
put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.

)”

Obviously this is a relatively simplistic rephrasing of what the creature
does, but people tend to more easily understand things by drawing parallels
with what they know. If we apply this to Jadelight Ranger, this means that
it will effectively be one of these creatures for three mana:

-A 2/1 that draws two lands

-A 3/2 that draws a land with Scry 1

-A 4/3 that Scrys 1 twice.

Which of these is not pushed, exactly?

We’ve been living in Rogue Refiner’s world for years, it feels like, and in
a vacuum, Jadelight Ranger is much better. Naturally, this
discounts the role that Rogue Refiner has served as an energy producer, but Kaladesh won’t be around forever and it would be more than a
little surprising if it took Kaladesh rotating for Jadelight
Ranger to get its turn in the spotlight.

Elenda is so close. If she were three mana, then she’d likely be
playable with Yahenni, Undying Partisan. As is, she’s likely just a bit too
expensive to see play in competitive Constructed tournaments.

In Commander, she seems reasonably busted. Just remember that she has to
actually hit the graveyard to generate tokens, so having a way to exile her
from the graveyard (and then put her in the Command Zone), will be an
important part of the deck.

For a couple of months now there’s been a debate on whether or not Modern
Merfolk should incorporate green for Merfolk Branchwalker and co. Merfolk
Mistbinder should be the nail in the coffin for Mono-Blue Merfolk. It slots
so easily into what the deck is doing now. At the very least, it could
easily replace Merrow Reejerey and look almost identical, with a leaner
curve:

U/G Merfolk

Emma Handy

Test deck on 01-04-2018

Modern

Creatures (31)

Lands (19)

Spells (10)

Looking at green as a solidified color in the deck, it begs the question
“Why not Collected Company?”

The answer is relatively simple, honestly. Despite playing an honest game
of Magic, Merfolk doesn’t much care for accruing large amounts of card
advantage over the course of a game. Look at the Humans deck that our own
Collins Mullen has been championing recently:

Humans

Collins Mullen

1st Place at Star City Games Modern Open on 10-21-2017

Modern

Creatures (36)

Lands (20)

Spells (4)

4 Aether Vial

Sideboard

Previous to his success with the deck, Humans was generally a Collected
Company deck. What changed?

Collins realized that being aggressive and gaining a mana advantage with
Aether Vial was more important than netting cards on turn 4. Humans even
has the benefit of being able to crank out early copies of Collected
Company via Noble Hierarch.

Similarly, Merfolk is more interested in getting on the battlefield and
applying pressure via Aether Vial than it is netting a couple of creatures
with a four-mana spell. On top of that, Merfolk also plays Mutavault,
meaning that it has a different mana sink later in the game, indicating
that Merfolk would prefer to, ya know, get ’em dead.

This styling in the deck is what makes it clear that Merfolk Mistbinder is
such a natural inclusion over other lords that may have other effects but
cost more mana. Getting on the table is important. Killing the opponent is
important. Merfolk Mistbinder is going to be important.

If Woodland Wanderer was
never good enough, this sure won’t be.

— Ari Lax
(@armlx) January
1, 2018

This doesn’t even get into the fact that Awakened Amalgam has to survive in
a world defined by Abrade. Pass.

Enter the Unknown is a tough nut to crack. On the surface, it is at least
“Draw a land card or Scry 1 and put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you
control.” The additional land drop ensures that this card is absolutely
worth the card required for investment.

The issue is finding a home for it. Perhaps as we see more of the set, more
of an explore deck will get fleshed out, and we’ll find a way to make
Wildgrowth Walker into a useful card. It feels as if it’s already pretty
close. A few more reasonable explore creatures and payoff cards are all the
deck is missing to really take off.

Daring Buccaneer is… complicated. Previous to Rivals of Ixalan,
Hostage Taker made it so every version of Pirates was both black and blue.
Daring Buccaneer is one of the best one-drop creatures we’ve seen in a
while, being a 2/2 without much of a drawback, except that it has to be
built around.

So why not just make the deck Grixis?

The short answer is mana. Three-color decks don’t have great mana at the
moment without incorporating Aether Hub and energy. Playing something that
can support Daring Buccaneer on one, Daring Saboteur on two, and Ruin
Raider on three isn’t exactly reasonable.

The next place to look is at other decks that already play Pirates and may
be interested in playing a 2/2 for a single red. Something like….. Ramunap
Red.

Pirate Red

Emma Handy

Test deck on 01-04-2018

Standard

Creatures (30)

Lands (22)

Spells (8)

This is the absolute extreme of little creature aggro in red. The goal is
to maximize the number of triple-one-drop hands the deck can create and use
cards like Built to Smash and Metallic Mimic as sort-of payoffs for having
so many little creatures in the deck. Metallic Mimic and Bomat Courier also
play quite well with Built to Smash, as they’re the creatures that the
opponent are most heavily incentivized to block, and giving trample to
specifically those creatures plays to that interaction quite nicely.

This likely isn’t going to replace the current versions of Ramunap Red so
long as Whirler Virtuoso is still popular, but if the Thopter-generator
falls on the wayside, I’d very much expect a lower-to-the-ground variant of
red to make waves. I’d be hard-pressed to believe that Ramunap Red would be
excited to maindeck copies of Harsh Mentor and Rampaging Ferocidon
otherwise. Shaving lands from the deck in order to give it a higher
spell-density is just another bonus.

This card seems much better than the $10 price tag it commands as of
penning this article. Against slower decks that don’t commit to the
battlefield as well, Angrath’s +1 instantly nets a card and some pressure.
Against the decks that get on the table a bit sooner, his -3 is great at at
least being a removal spell.

Think of this card as very similar to Ob Nixilis Reignited. None of its
abilities are the flashiest things you’ve ever seen, but it’s hard to deny
their efficiency. The -3 in particular will generally kill a creature the
opponent controls one way or the other, either killing the creature that it
steals, forcing some sort of chump block, or trading in combat against what
the opponent still has. This doesn’t even get into games where it steals a
creature that gets to kill a creature.

The biggest hurdle for Angrath, the Flame-Chained is finding a shell that
wants a B/R five-drop. Ideally, there will be an Unlicensed Disintegration
shell that makes use of the fiery Minotaur Pirate. Only time will tell on
this one.

Ghalta, Primal Hunger is likely going to play a role similar to Carnage
Tyrant in Standard. Normally, big dumb creatures just aren’t particularly
good, and it’s easy to sneer at ability-less 12/12s on the preview page.

It’s much harder to sneer at the creature when it’s across the battlefield
from you. Harnessed Lightning has been compared to Terminate left and
right, but Ghalta requiring nine energy in addition to a Harnessed
Lightning is where we need to admit that Harnessed Lightning is not as
clean as Terminate, and we’re going to need answers to a creature this
large before it kills us.

Divination is a mainstay in Standard control decks, and this card is a
nearly-strict upgrade. Secrets of the Golden City becomes particularly
exciting when you factor in that there are multiple sweepers in the
format’s premier control deck, U/W Approach. Wizards of the Coast promised
to start putting more enablers at common and uncommon in sets in order to
flesh archetypes out, and this is them making good on that promise.

I don’t frequently play control decks, but Secrets of the Golden City has
single-handedly convinced me to put some Search for Azcantas in my cart. It
might not be during week one, but at some point during its lifetime in
Standard, Secrets of the Golden City will be a four-of in the best deck in
the format.

There’s More To Come

All of these thoughts are when we have approximately 20% of the set
previewed! Normally we would expect most of the relevant cards in the set
to be shown at this point, but with half of the best cards previewed so far
being commons and uncommons, it’s safe to say that Rivals of Ixalan is going to be chock full of goodies for all
formats.

What are some of your favorite cards that have been previewed so far?