My article for this week’s “Spotlight on Future Sight” review series will focus on the new set for competitive play. The formats I’m going to talk about are the ones used in the next major events, both for Grand Prix and Pro Tour play: individual Limited (Sealed and Draft), Block Constructed, and Two-Headed Giant. These are the formats I’ll be playing in the coming months.
I’ll start with individual Limited, since Grand Prix: Stockholm is this weekend. It features Future Sight both in Sealed Deck and Booster Draft. It’s been a long time since I’ve played a Grand Prix in this format – one of my favorites – but I’m still unsure that I’ll be attending even though I’ve bought a plane ticket. I’ve recently been mired in high fever with an illness that required me to stay in bed, but I still have some days to recover, so I’ve not given up hope. Whether I’m at the Grand Prix or not, I’m trying my best to prepare.
Sealed Deck
In Sealed Deck, we’re given a card pool comprised of 45 cards from a starter, plus 30 cards from two boosters. Let’s dissect these numbers.
In the beginning, when there’s only the large set from the block, all 75 cards are from the same set. When the second expansion is released, the two boosters given are from the second set. This means 45 cards are from the standalone set, and 30 cards are from the new set. Thus the second expansion — in this case Planar Chaos – has a large impact on the format, as 40% of the cards in the pool are from the new set.
But what is the impact when the third set comes out?
One of the two booster packs is replaced by one from the newer third set. The card pool we’re given to work only has fifteen cards from Future Sight, which means the impact of the third set in Sealed Deck is less than the impact of the second set. It also reduces the impact of the second set. The card pool is now composed of 45 cards from Time Spiral (60%), 15 cards from Planar Chaos (20%), and 15 cards from Future Sight (20%).
Knowing that a deck in this format has approximately 23 cards plus 17 lands, there will be (on average) four or five cards from Future Sight in each deck. In a game of Magic you’ll also only see a part of the deck, reducing their importance further… so I don’t think it pays off to memorize every possible card from Future Sight that your opponent might have in any situation.
It’s hard to tell how the format has changed, because Sealed Deck with one Time Spiral starter and two Planar Chaos boosters was not played. Instead, let’s concentrate on what Future Sight brings.
Scry
There are nine cards with Scry, and eight of them appear to be playable in Limited. You could also defend Putrid Cyclops, but he doesn’t feel like he has Scry because you’d like to put a card that you don’t really want on top most of the time, and he only has Scry 1. In this case you’re not looking to Scry, but rather to ensure he has a 3/3 body. I think Scry is quite good in Limited, especially in Sealed Deck where it smoothes your draws and gets you closer to finding your power cards. Usually, Sealed Decks are less synergetic and consistent than Draft decks, so your deck relies more on individual power cards. In Draft, you can argue that your deck is a lot more than the sum of all your single cards. Plus, some of the cards with Scry are very good, like Judge Unworthy and Riddle of Lightning (that both deal with a creature), or Llanowar Empath (that should generate not only card selection, but also card advantage).
Morphs
Future Sight brings us even more morphs, but apparently Wizards listened to some of the complaints about the morph environment in Onslaught / Legions / Scourge. There, roughly 50% of the morphs had to be blocked, while the other 50% you clearly didn’t want to block on turn 4. Some of them were “Infiltrators,” that triggered an effect whenever damage was dealt to a player, while others could unmorph and survive the combat on turn 4 against another 2/2 creature. This created a very random element in morphs that many players disliked (I liked it, but I wasn’t playing at the top level like I am now).
However, Future Sight morphs follow the trend seen through Time Spiral block in Limited, where you don’t really want to block the morph. In the two previous sets, the only morphs you wanted to block on turn 4 were Brine Elemental, Slipstream Eel, Liege of the Pit, and Thelonite Hermit, as they’re the only morphs that can’t unmoprh with four mana. Riptide Pilferer is the only Infiltrator morph, but most of the times you don’t mind discarding a card to have him reduced to a 1/1 creature, rather than trading him with a 2/2 creature on the board. In Future Sight, all the morphs are capable of entering combat on turn 4 with an opposing 2/2 and surviving. Some of them will unmorph into something bigger, while others will unmorph into other card type that is not destroyed by damage. Plus, there’s also the threat of being a Gathan Raiders, which can provide a huge tempo advantage.
Relevant Instant Tricks
White has Judge Unworthy, but since it costs only two mana there’s not many ways to play around it. I imagine a scenario where your opponent has no blockers and is at six life, while you have a 3/3 creature and holding Brute Force. Maybe you might want to cast it before declaring attackers.
Blue has the usual bounce spell with a new twist that allows him to return suspend spells to their owner’s hand, and also Leaden Fists which, despite not providing any big effect, gives Blue plenty of options in just a single card. It almost can be seen as a Blue Charm, thanks to its multiple possibilities.
Black has two new removal spells. Ichor Slick only costs three mana at Sorcery speed, but to cast it at Instant speed requires six mana. On the other hand, Death Rattle costs six but can be played by a much cheaper cost later in the game thanks to Delve. At least your Green creatures are immune to it.
Red has the usual “burn” spells that allow you to kill small to medium-sized creatures. There are too many of these in the format right now for you to be able to predict which ones your opponent may have, so just remember that if he has Mountains untapped, chances are he has something… otherwise why would he be playing Red?
Green has only a cheap Instant that regenerates all creatures you control, which I don’t feel is good enough to be in my main decks. Many players defend that in Sealed Deck, after the bombs, the most important thing are the big creatures or evasion creatures, in order to hit your opponent. Green has the largest creatures in the block, and all the removal spells of Future Sight are damage-based. Even the Black ones have trouble against Green. One can’t kill creatures bigger than three toughness, while the other can’t even touch them.
Notable Sealed Deck cards in Future Sight
Akroma’s Memorial
It’s been said many times that Sealed Deck is about creatures and creature combat, and since the format is slower, stalled board positions tend to happen. This card seems much better in Sealed than in Draft, where some archetypes don’t really profit from having this in play.
Angel of Salvation
This is my favourite card from Future Sight for Limited play. I hope I open one of these at Grand Prix: Stockholm, but what are the chances of that happening? I need to get better from the fever first. Then I need to open one in my card pool, with my one Future Sight booster, and then I need my other White cards to be playable. I would also need to draw them, but if these conditions met, I would be a very happy person! (Actually, I’ll be very happy if I recover in time to play.) I believe this card to be better than Bogardan Hellkite. More often than not, without even knowing that my opponent had Bogardan Hellkite, I saw it coming, but it’s almost impossible to see Angel of Salvation coming, thanks to Convoke.
Whetwheel
This morph trick means it can sneak some points of damage, or do some blocking, but after you unmorph it, in Draft you’re left with an almost useless artifact – unless you’re Rogier Maaten, who doesn’t like creature decks. But in Sealed, the Whetwheel can be a valid win condition, if both decks balance each other and create a board position where neither player can win through creature damage. It also weakens a lot the previously-mentioned Scry cards. If your opponent scrys one card to the bottom and leaves two on top, you can negate these cards too. Imagine if Judge Unworthy suddenly becomes a card with a random element, with a decent probability of missing.
Sprout Swarm
If you haven’t won before this card becomes active and out of control – and most likely you won’t in Sealed Deck – then it’s going to be virtually impossible to get your creatures through if they don’t have evasion.
T/P/F Draft
I usually follow three safety rules regarding the third set. First, I won’t be forcing any colors just because they’re amazing in the third booster (for example, Green in Saviors of Kamigawa), because it’s very difficult to control the colors of your right neighbor. He will be passing to you in packs 1 and 3, and if you end in the same colors as him, in Future Sight you’ll be picking the leftovers he didn’t pick himself.
Second, I won’t try to force any archetype that revolves around a single card from the third booster. If, by any chance, the card you’re looking for is nowhere to be seen – if someone else picked it, or if the packs opened contained zero copies – then it’s too late to go back, and you’re left with a weak deck. For example, I’m unsure about going all-in drafting Shadow Slivers and cheap Slivers, because if I don’t see any Virulent Slivers in Future Sight then I’m left with a really bad deck with no way to recover.
My third rule? By the time you’re drafting the last pack, you already know what colors you’re playing, so you have eliminated many decisions regarding color positions and commitments, thus making the drafting process much easier. You simply need to choose from the cards in your colors. During the review period between the second and the third booster, you should pay close attention to stats such as number of creatures, number of removal spells or tricks, and what your curve looks like. This will make your choices a lot easier when drafting any unknown third pack.
Let’s suppose you’re drafting Red/Green, and among the cards you open in your Future Sight pack you have Ghostfire, Fomori Nomad, and Nessian Courser. In my pick orders, I have Ghostfire over both creatures. But if you already have enough spells, and you’re lacking creatures, knowing that Red/Green is an archetype extremely dependant on creatures, maybe you’ll have to go for one of them. The choice is determined by the current state of your mana curve. If you already have many four-, five-, and six-drops, you definitely want the Nessian Courser. I also tend to draft the card with the cheapest mana cost when I’m facing a close call. A harder pick would be between a vanilla 2/2 creature for two mana and another medium-sized creature at four or five mana. The most expensive creature is always a better card, one that will have the most impact on the game, but by pack 3 you have to know how to identify those drafts where you need to lower your mana curve, to ensure you’re drafting cheaper cards instead of better ones.
Another useful analysis that you can do when facing a new set is to count how many good commons each color has, to evaluate the depth of each color. By “good commons,” I mean those cards that you want to have in your deck, not just “playable” cards. After checking a Future Sight spoiler, I made this list, which doesn’t follow any power or pick order.
White (6)
Judge Unworthy
Knight of Sursi
Lucent Liminid
Lumithread Field
Whip-Spine Drake
Gathan Raiders
Blue (6)
Aven Augur
Foresee
Infiltrator il-Kor
Leaden Fists
Whip-Spine Drake
Gathan Raiders
Black (4)
Ichor Slick
Death Rattle
Deepcavern Imp
Gathan Raiders
Red (6)
Fatal Attraction
Gathan Raiders
Riddle of Lightning
Flowstone Embrace
Fomori Nomad
Ghostfire
Green (8)
Kavu Primarch
Llanowar Empath
Sprout Swarm
Edge of Autumn
Nessian Courser
Sporoloth Ancient
Thornweald Archer
Gathan Raiders
It seems Green is the color with the most playable cards, while Black the color with the least, just like in Planar Chaos. In the middle stand White, Blue, and Red. Whip-Spine Drake benefits both Blue and White, as it can be hard-cast as a five mana 3/3 flyer, or as a morph that unmorphs into a 3/3 flyer for 2W. Following this logic, Red lost a card to the other colors: Gathan Raiders. Despite this, I still think that Red has an edge in quality over White and Blue, as we can see in my Top 10 common list for Future Sight.
1 — Gathan Raiders (colorless)
2 — Sprout Swarm (Green)
3 — Ichor Slick (Black)
4 — Judge Unworthy (White)
5 — Ghostfire (Red)
6 — Infiltrator il-Kor (Blue)
7 — Whip-Spine Drake (Blue)
8 — Riddle of Lightning (Red)
9 — Fatal Attraction (Red)
10 — Kavu Primarch (Green)
Time Spiral Block Constructed
Thanks to Pro Tour: Yokohama, we now have a real life metagame to augment the online equivalent. With the release of Future Sight we can find cards that fit into existing decks… but history shows us that many times it’s the third set, the one that completes the Block, that produces the powerful cards for Constructed. I’m thinking of Urza’s Destiny, Apocalypse, and Scourge as examples. I am not a Constructed deckbuilder, but I will give you my Top 10 list of cards that I think will be played in this Block.
1- Graven Cairns / Grove of the Burnwillows / Horizon Canopy / Nimbus Maze / River of Tears
All the multi-coloured decks in Time Spiral Block play with Terramorphic Expanse, so these new dual lands should help fix the mana. I would have definitely played Graven Cairns in my deck at Pro Tour: Yokohama – Black/Red splashing Blue for Chroniclers – as it would have helped me a lot casting those Damnations and Bogardan Hellkites. River of Tears also seem to be good in U/B Teferi Control, as you want to have Blue on your opponent’s turn for Cancel and Teferi, and Black on your own for Damnation (although the Black mana is not 100% reliable). Red / Green mana accelerators and fatties deck would certainly have loved to be able to play with Grove of the Burnwillows.
2- Ghostfire
An obvious inclusion in the Red Deck Wins. It kills Soltari Priest with Griffin Guide, which was pretty much the only way White Weenie could win against Red Deck Wins.
What I dislike about the Green/Red decks in this block is the need to have a mana accelerator in order to have four mana available on turn 3. Those decks played with Search for Tomorrow; Wall of Roots; Radha, Heir to Keld; and / or Prismatic Lens. Edge of Autumn is one more mana accelerator and fixer, that unlike the others it doesn’t contribute to mana flood in the late game: it cycles, and you don’t even need to pay mana for it.
4- Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
Speaking of the deck I used at Yokohama, I think I would try to make room for four copies of this creature. In Yokohama I played with two maindeck Plague Slivers. On turn 3, thanks to Prismatic Lens, the Plague Slivers are much better, and a big threat for the opponent to handle. Korlash will be a lot smaller than the Plague Sliver in the initial turns, eventually becoming on the same size a couple of turns after. But what I’m especially looking for is his Grandeur ability. The Black/Red splash Blue is mana hungry, and already plays with 4 Prismatic Lens plus 4 Phyrexian Totem. I think Korlash will only be better than the Sliver if you draw two copies, or in the mid-late game, but the possibility of ramping two mana up in the beginning of the game leaves me thrilled. I like this card a lot… let’s see if it will make it onto the tournament scene.
5- Bonded Fetch
Before the Pro Tour there were some attempts to put together a Reanimator deck. After all, there are good reanimation spells and good creatures to be reanimated… but there aren’t many reliable ways to discard them to the graveyard. Looter Il-Kor was a possibility, but it could be killed, and it needed to attack the opponent. If your goal is to dump the fatties into the graveyard, Bonded Fetch is the perfect card for that, and it’s also a good Madness enabler.
It’s only strictly inferior to a Mountain due to coming into play tapped, but it can provide the final points of damage in an uncounterable way. I believe Mono Red Aggro decks want to use this.
7- Logic Knot
Usually there aren’t many good counterspells in Block Constructed, so any addition is welcomed. I believe in this block that Logic Knot is better than Pact of Negation. Both are late game counterspells, but Logic Knot can conditionally counter some spells as early as turn 3 (or even 2 if you sacrificed a Terramorphic Expanse on turn 1). In the late game, I dare say that you can also tap out for your spells (Damnation, Careful Consideration, Teferi), as it’s not hard to leave two Blue open for Logic Knot.
Three damage for three mana at Sorcery speed is nothing to be excited about, but once you’ve use it the first time, it’s in the graveyard waiting to be re-used, just like Hammer of Bogardan. Once you have five mana, every single creature becomes a threat that’ll have to be killed or blocked, even Mogg War Marshal and his tokens.
The reason why I like this card is because it’s so cheap to cast. Control decks are happy to play it, if they have White, but White Weenie can also use it to kill an opposing Sulfur Elemental.
There are many decks in Block that play very few creatures, and against those the Storyteller will draw you at least one card: the one they spend to kill it. It’s likely they’ll kill the Storyteller first, and then the better creature after, but you still drew a card, forced him to spend two removal spells or a mass removal card, and your other guy lived longer. The problem is that I don’t see a deck where Heartwood Storyteller can find a home. Maybe in the sideboard of Green/Red.
I saved this format until now for a number of reasons. Not only I will play individual Limited and Block Constructed events before playing 2HG, but it’s also a format I don’t particularly like. All the top commons for individual Limited are also good for 2HG, so instead of making a new list which will look a lot like the previous one, I’ll be trying to find more subtle cards that are actually better in 2HG than its individual counterpart.
In 2HG, attacks and life swings are huge, so Vigilance should be a lot more useful, as it leaves you a lot less exposed for a strike back.
* Spirit En-Dal
This card combines powerful effects in 2HG: re-usability and evasion. You should always use it for the forecast, to turn one of your team’s creatures into an unblockable machine. This way, they can’t deal with it unless they kill all your creatures.
At six mana to play and three mana to suspend, this card seems just too slow for individual Limited. The Red version is a lot better, because it’s cheaper and the effect is more powerful, but I think both are fine for 2HG. If the game lasts for a while, you’ll get a free effect every three turns.
Countermagic is also a lot better in 2HG. Every time we had a big spell, we tried to play it when the other team was tapped low so that they couldn’t counter it. Now, even that is no longer an indication of safety. Having this card allows you to tap out more aggressively and safely, and most must-counter spell are going to be played after turn 5.
Since you have twice the opponents compared to individual Limited, it’s likely that this card will kill a suspend spell. It’s also a fine answer for those spells that suspend themselves back after resolving, such as Arc Blade.
For the same reasons it’s better in Sealed than Draft, it’s better in 2HG than in individual Limited
…
After the coming individual Limited and Block Constructed tournaments, we’ll be back to 2HG with more detail, to prepare Pro Tour: San Diego. Meanwhile, Future Sight starts being used in major events this weekend… let’s see if my ideas and predictions prove to be valid.
Thank you for reading,
Tiago