Ah, the last day of a Daily. It feels like Shahrazad at the end of the 1001 Nights, this whole “finishing up” thing, except that instead of being a hot Arabian princess in a palace I am a scruffy college student kicking aside beer cans in a seventy-year-old apartment, and instead of wooing a king in the royal bedchamber I spend most of my time with fat nasty Magic Players sweating it up in a small room trying my hardest not to cry myself to sleep every night. But those, gents, are only superficial differences. Well, those and the cool name. I mean, how weak is “Zac,” now, really?
As alluded to yesterday, I really did want to go out in a fiery bang, ending with something so renegade and controversial and brilliant as to ignite passions and furies in the hearts of Magic players worldwide. Alas, instead I will be writing about Magic: The Gathering cards from the Guildpact expansion. Sometimes, even we writers fail to deliver.
But, good citizens, worry not: out of the East, riding valiantly in the rising sun, cometh a Savior. His balding pate shines brilliantly in the morning dew, his wispy hair fluttering with the gait of his steed. Yes, Glory has arisen out of the sunbeams themselves, and the Earth joins in calling it Doctor Mox.
So, dear readers, I leave you in capable hands. Very…capable…hands, if you must know. Not that I’ve learned from experience or anything. Of course not. I just hear stories.
JP, I heard that giggle. Stop the tomfoolery already!
Ahem.
You know the drill by now, and not the one your dad bought from Sears. These are the Guildpact cards that I see people playing constantly when I don’t believe they have any reason to – or, at the very least, the cards that are rated much too highly for their value. It’s not to say that they could never make a deck, of course, but I do believe you need to think about why you actually want to include these cards in your pool, and what purpose they would be serving by your doing so.
Wild Cantor
…Why?
At least 80% of the time I see this guy in someone’s stack, and I ask what on Earth it’s doing there, I am greeted with this classic response:
“Um, dude, it’s strictly better than Blood Pet.”
Right.
As if Blood Pet is the pinnacle of achievement against which all other one-drops are measured. As if little baby one-drops grow up with huge posters of a certain Creature-Thrull in their bedrooms, furiously downing Wheaties so as to become more like their favorite dripping sac of grease. Let’s face it, kids. Being strictly superior to Blood Pet is like being better than William Hung at karaoke. Not to knock my man Mr. Hung.
Here is the thing. 1/1s without board-affecting abilities are almost always virtual card-disadvantage anyway, since they get blocked by almost anything on the table within the first few turns of the game and never really get a chance to significantly outweigh the investment. With this guy, you can sack him for mana, whereby he turns in to real card disadvantage. It’s truly a lose-lose situation. Pure acceleration in Ravnica Sealed is not terribly valuable anyway, due both to the abundance of cheap common removal and the inherent acceleration present in the Convoke mechanic without any investment on the front end. As far as fixing your mana, you ought to be constructing your deck in such a fashion that you don’t need acceleration so desperately that you’d run this guy. He’s also often seen in tandem with…
Scab-Clan Mauler
Two mangled dudes does not a Watchwolf make. Do you see pointy ears? A cute snout? A coat of fur? Do you hear howling at the full moon, panting at the thought of new prey? I didn’t think so.
Don’t get me wrong, this guy can be fine. A 3/3 with trample on turn 3 or 4 is still very reasonable, especially if you can drop him along with another guy on the same turn. But he is not a Watchwolf, nor is he really a two-drop. When you’re laying out your mana curve, don’t stick him in the second column. More importantly, don’t go around playing a bunch of awful cards so as to try and get this guy active as soon as possible. It’s just not worth it. Especially when people can guess your hand and actively try to prevent you from ever getting Bloodthirst. It’s a form of virtual card disadvantage to load up on Bloodthirst guys, because if the opponent is able to mount some kind of defense (or simply cast an Alabaster Wall) you’re looking at a bunch of awful, awful men in your hand. Ghor-Clan Savage as a 2/3 is, well, not very.
Sinstriker’s Will
It should have become readily apparent to you that I don’t like spending four mana in this format if the possibility for card disadvantage sits wide out in the open with a huge target on its head. I understand that Heavy Ballista was a bomb, but this is no Heavy Ballista. For one thing, it begs to be put on a huge fatty, but said huge fatty generally wants to be turning sideways to damage players, not bearls. In addition, you’re presenting gigantic opportunities for the opponent to wreck your face beyond the scope of even normal creature enchantments. If you’re relying on this to help force your little guys through because the opponent doesn’t want to make a lopsided trade, he can just kill the guy who is enchanted with this and block the little guy, getting a three-for-one in the process. Also, he doesn’t necessarily have to kill your creature to wreck you in this fashion. Because the possibility is so wide open for maindeck enchantment removal, especially with the addition of Absolver Thrull into the lineup of reasonably solid creatures, you can’t really rely much on the makeshift Elite Archers to stick around for long. Overall, I am not the biggest fan of this guy, not in the slightest.
Spelltithe Enforcer
Okay, I know this man is a rare, but he is borderline playable at the max. One does not traditionally take victory laps over five mana 3/3s. “But it’s card advantage!” the masses cry out. Nossir. By the time turn 5 rolls around, typically people can afford to spend one whole additional mana. If they can’t, it’s not as if you’ve delayed their casting Sisters of Stone Death for a turn. They simply look at you like you are a moron, place a Forest card in the graveyard, and proceed to curb your face like Edward Norton. Meanwhile, your overcosted 3/3 sits on its ass, unable to enter the Red Zone on account of its dweeby size, and unable to do anything else constructive because, oh, it’s ability is nonexistent. Keep this one on the bench with all of your Charmanders, kthx.
Vacuumelt
2U
Sorcery
Sorcery
Sorcery
Sorcery
Sorcery
Sorcery
Sorcery
Sorcery
Replicate 2U
Return target creature to its owner’s hand.
Spot the problem?
Gruul Scrapper
Does this guy ever just severely underwhelm anybody else? I am the world’s biggest fan of the Haste ability, and I thought I would love this guy, but this strictly-worse Vulshok Berserker always ends up sitting in my hand. Green has a lot to do at the four slot, or alternatively can just bypass it entirely, and with the abundance of 2/x critters dotting the landscape, usually this guy rather unexpectedly becomes tempo disadvantage. I might have just been having bad experiences, but I strongly suggest leaving this guy behind – especially in Sealed, where he will rather quickly become overshadowed by bearlfaces who matter more. I will still keep him in my forty cards a good deal of the time, but I am getting less and less happy about it.
…
Well, there it is: my first daily featurette. How quaint. I suppose when I am like 90 there’ll be a little scrapbook with all of these articles, clustered together in some sort of bow-wrapped pink-bound notebook, and my family will gather around it and go, “Aw, how cute!” But thank y’all for sticking through with it this far, and I look forward to reading Doctor Mox come next week. I’m in the process of drafting up an article on Rav-Rav-Guildpact Limited in general – not just a card-by-card analysis – so here’s to hoping that turns out alright. Hopefully I’ll qualify this weekend in Atlanta and add some authority to my Limited voice. Shotgun not losing in the finals, etc. Any of y’all want to talk about anything, post it in the forums. I troll them like a champ.