Single Card Spotlight: Shaman Of The Great Hunt

Before we begin, I should point out that, unlike two weeks ago, I need to request cards for this
column. See, I’m spotlighting individual cards and their many uses, and like a fool, I forgot to ask for additional requests last time. The good news is
that because I failed to do that, I just get to pick the card myself this time, which is awesome.

I should also note that the Facebook-centered comments section likes to eat my Yahoo-oriented replies. So to many of you who have been commenting: I
replied, you just don’t know it. [CEDitor’s Note: Dude, it’s 2015. Get a Facebook account.] Rest assured you received some combination of praise,
gratitude, and/or brilliant criticism that you took to heart immediately, depending on the nature of your comment.

But enough about the past, let’s talk about the future:

Now, I don’t know that this card is actually “the future” in terms of what a format revolves around or focuses on strategically, but I do know that it is
the future of this column for the next few minutes because it’s the card I’m talking about this week. I don’t want it to get conceited and think it
deserves a nickname like “The Future.” It doesn’t.

So what can this innocuous little mythic do? Well, the Pro Tour was Modern, so let’s start there.

Modern

Interesting factoid about Modern manabases: they’re absurd. No, seriously, you can pretty much do whatever and just fix the mana afterwards. Take a look at
this madness:

Pillar Aggro

Brian Kibler

Test deck on 07-25-2014

Modern

Creatures (26)

Planeswalkers (5)

Lands (22)

Spells (7)

Sideboard

This was a project Brian Kibler worked on last summer, whereby he put a boatload of gold creatures in the same deck and then drew up the nonsense mana that
would enable it later. This sort of philosophy is important to understand when designing Modern decks because there are so many powerful multicolored cards
in the format. Want to play Voice of Resurgence and Broodmate Dragon in the same deck? Who am I to stop you? It’s Modern, go wild!

Of course, being that the Pro Tour metagame was heavily tilted towards Splinter Twin (a sit back and kill you when I feel like it combo deck), Burn (a sit
back while I kill you immediately deck), and Abzan (a more rock solid version of the all the other rubbish-loaded creature decks), you have to be a tad
selective with your nonland cards. It isn’t that you can’t play any number of cards you want in the format, but those cards need to be in their
deck, not just any deck. Cards need to be as good as they can be to make the cut in a non-rotating format.

For instance: You can play Balustrade Spy in Legacy. But you need
to be playing it in its deck. Try to play it in another context, and you’re going to have a bad time. Or maybe a good time. I don’t know. If
you’re playing Balustrade Spy at a Legacy event, you’re probably the type to have a good time no matter what’s going down. Good on you, friend.

“I’m just here to have a good time.”

So what does Shaman of the Great Hunt do better for four mana than those it competes with in the format? Why would one opt for Shaman over something like
Siege Rhino?

Because the Shaman is good with an army. Siege Rhino makes a fine army on its own most of the time, but if I have a half-dozen faerie rogues, I think the
Shaman is my guy.

Mardu Tokens

Danny West

Test deck on 02-11-2015

Modern

Creatures (7)

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Lands (23)

Spells (30)

Sideboard

The only real traction that any token strategies received during the Pro Tour was based around Lingering Souls’ unbelievable utility against most of the
format, especially Infect. It’s sort of fun to think about how much of a warp the format had just based on the fact that everyone knew Tom Ross would
attend. Anyway, Stanislav Cifka’s W/B Tokens deck got a bit of camera love, but the strategy was mostly fringe. There’s a lot of reason for optimism,
however, in that token strategies are something that R&D likes to embrace. There is every indication that token-creators are only going to become more
present as Magic proceeds, and recent hits like Young Pyromancer and Monastery Mentor are proof of that. The kids love tokens, and there’s no denying it.
It should also be noted that W/B Tokens was undoubtedly a very small section of the field, meaning that it could have put up quality finishes given more
pilots.

This is probably a good place to provide a special aside on top 8 decklists and archetypes in general as they pertain to the shape of a format. I strongly
believe there is a misguided belief that Magic tournaments consist of fewer different decks than they actually do. If you spend time only looking at top 8
results, and yes, there are a lot of them to look at these days, it’s very easy to think of formats as smaller than they are. You’ll get no argument from
me that Abzan Midrange and Jeskai Tokens are strong strategies and that they’re worth every consideration, but there seems to be a sentiment from players
who don’t attend or haven’t yet attended many tournaments incorrectly painting pictures of a lack of deck diversity. (Of course, this is a horrible time to
have this discussion, since the current Standard is incredibly varied even if some of the decks have a lot of strategic overlap.)

I recall a year or two back when Sphinx’s Revelation decks were really becoming a prominent player at the top tables of most Standard events. At an
Invitational during this time, great players like David McDarby and Justin Parnell brought big B/R decks centered around Rakdos’s Return. They didn’t win
the event. They didn’t get top 16 finishes, but they were playing for money near the top tables deep into the tournament weekend.

The point is, just because you haven’t heard of it or because it doesn’t push a self-fulfilling metagame prophecy doesn’t mean that the deck isn’t worth
building, testing, or even sleeving up for a given weekend. W/B Tokens didn’t put up a great finish, but if almost no one played it, what does it even
matter? If we ran back the Pro Tour and everyone had the exact same decks, how different do you think the standings would be? Winning at Magic tournaments,
especially at that level, is extremely difficult, and things need to go your way here and there to really excel. The top 8 decklists are a piece of the
pie, but they aren’t the whole pie, and they only give you a hint of what it tastes like. You’ll be much better served by trying to understand how the pie
was baked and what kind of pie you can expect to eat next week.

Mmm. Pie.

Occasionally, fellow SCG columnist and Magic veteran Adrian Sullivan provides some great format numbers and statistics in amazing detail. If you really
want to see the way metagames look, skim one of those articles and walk away brilliant.

Now then, what’s this deck got going on?

The deck basically eschews cards like Spectral Procession out of the old W/B strategy for more efficient and flexible removal, burn, and the best
token-creators money can buy. With Modern mana being so good, you’d be a fool not to take the concept to the fullest. Wasteland keeps Legacy mana in check
most of the time, but here, by the time you’re under threat of Tectonic Edge, you’ve already got a fleet flying to the other side of the table. What’s more
is that Shaman of the Great Hunt can grow the army out of control in a hurry, preventing you from being forced to overextend into a Supreme Verdict or
Thundermaw Hellkite. It allows you to hold back and re-explode using cards like Rise of the Hobgoblins into a second Shaman. In this deck, the Shaman very
much plays the role of a sort of Hellrider, except that the single red makes the Shaman much easier to cast.

Now for the obvious: Shaman’s second ability doesn’t fit into Mardu at all. My advice? Pretend it’s banding. Seriously, if there were a 4/4 banding
creature for W, would you really let the banding distract you from crushing people? Just ignore it. In fact, every time I try to think of the Shaman in a
Temur build or a two-color aggro deck, I just get distracted and think about how many better options there are for the slot. I really just want to hit
people with a bunch of growing tokens, and if green and blue ever get more of those (and I mean real tokens, not Frog Lizards or whatever the hell), I’ll
rethink the Shaman’s purpose.

We also have the prerequisite disruption of Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, but unlike in the Abzan and Jund decks, we can extract a lot of
additional value from them in the lategame because they create tokens. A dead self-Shock in most decks is a 1/1 Elemental or Monk with prowess for us. It
goes without saying that these are great tools to fight Splinter Twin combo and the haymakers that Abzan and Jund can throw.

Another important perk of this deck is that it makes Liliana of the Veil look like absolute clown shoes in most scenarios. Miss Vess and the spot removal
(Abrupt Decay, etc.) she likes to hang around with look super foolish when most of your cards create multiple creatures. Don’t sleep on the fact that
Shaman has haste as well, which interacts very well with opposing Lilianas.

I didn’t include them here, but if you really want to go for the gold, you may want to include a host of Phyrexian spells in your build. Since Pyromancer
was first spoiled (and certainly now that Monastery Mentor is on the scene), I’ve wanted to build a token deck with boatloads of free spells. Dark
Confidant seems to be on the way out, but if you’re playing against decks with loads of Vendilion Cliques, opposing Pyromancers, or what have you, don’t be
afraid to live the dream and board in a Gut Shot or two for the old tapped out blowout.

So now that we’ve hit people in Modern, let’s do it again in Standard!

Standard

Again, I tried to do the Temur thing, but if you’re on that plan, you could just be doing something else. I want to pair Shaman with as many tokens as
humanly possible. Defense is lame.

R/W Tokens

Danny West

Test deck on 02-11-2015

Standard

Creatures (13)

Lands (24)

Spells (23)

Sideboard

Again, ignore the Temur blue-green crap (though if you do it using the Mana Confluences, bravo!) and just smash their brains out. It’s been generally
bemoaned recently that this matchup is very play/draw-dependent. That stands to reason because of the nature of what R/W Aggro wants to do, and though you
can roll the dice on a nice lineup with Arc Lightning out of the board, that is far from a guarantee at breaking serve. Frankly, I’d rather maindeck a few
Shamans and just put them on an unexpectedly faster clock. They can either stay back and block, or your tokens can start wailing while getting bigger in
the process. The choice is theirs. (Spoiler: Either is good for you.) Naturally, if this becomes the new standard, you’re on your own to come up with
another mirror breaker. I’ve done my part for this week.

Commander

Finally! I can use the second ability!

As usual, Commander is where we go to do the fun stuff we can’t do in the other formats. Apparently, using the bottom lines on Shaman of the Great Hunt’s
text box is one of those things. So since we didn’t use it in the other sections, let’s not only use it here, but use it well.

Surrak Dragonclaw

Danny West

Test deck on 02-11-2015

Commander

Creatures (63)

Lands (37)

Do you even ferocious, bro?

This deck has nothing but creatures, and every single one of them has at least four power because creatures with less than four power are weak and should
have been obsoleted years ago. If you want to add in some noncreature spells (Where Ancients Tread), do so at your own risk of being less awesome.

Behold:

Wee! The best thing about this combo is it is actually low on your curve. If you’re in a pod and people want to kill you even though you haven’t done
anything as of turn 4, you need to relocate because those folks are not cool. Using mana artifacts and the like is for weaklings. You know what’s cooler
than mana artifacts?

Wee! Why do we waste all these turns with Mind Stones? With Cluestones? If you’re going to do something, do it awesome or do nothing. This is Commander!
They can have their signets. Plus, drawing mana acceleration in the lategame is lame. You know what’s cooler than that? A creature with four or more power.

In fact, you could actually use the Wanderer as your commander, but I think that draws more ire than something like Surrak. Plus, the four-power theme
takes away traditional mana help, which means you’re going to need to draw the first handful of lands naturally. It’s a lot easier to draw five lands than
it is to draw eight. It’s possible this deck wants three or four more lands, but you can tweak as necessary. I wanted to provide as many big stupid
creatures as I could to showcase the concept. Plus, Surrak’s trample ability works better with Shaman of the Great Hunt.

Brooding Saurian and Keiga is a non-bo. You’ve been warned.

And with that, I make my Great exit in order to Hunt more cards to spotlight. Shaman. Throw your favorites my way, and I will merrily examine them. Unless
of course they don’t do anything. Like Balustrade Spy. They should call that deck “Oops! All Losses!”

“Ha ha. No, but seriously, I’ve top 8’ed stuff.”