The Big Blue Comeback

Eldritch Moon just unveiled two major new blue fliers. They push a new style of Sorcery/Instant strategy hard enough that I anticipate them giving birth to one or more new archetypes in the upcoming Standard format. Let’s take a high-level look at these two new weapons (neither of which happen to be mythic, which is sweet) and then take inventoryof what support we have for them already, and what holes we’re looking to fill.

Oh, did you think Aberrant Researcher transforming into Perfected Form was the end of the line?

This isn’t even my final form…

Docent of Perfection is strong in ways that are not frequently pushed. The closest comparison I can give is Emeria Angel, and like Emeria Angel, I would guess people are not immediately going to get exactly how strong it is, or the best ways to use it.

That said, it does have a lot of competition, as there is no shortage of ways for blue to take over games for five mana. Besides, how many people are even playing Dragonlord Ojutai or Jace, Unraveler of Secrets at the moment?

Is Docent of Perfection adding new dimensions that give it reason to succeed in the new world?

To start with, we’ve got ourselves a 5/4 flier for five. That’s already so much body, we’d windmill slam it in Draft. However, in Constructed, there are so many pushed creatures at the top, we’d probably have to get it for four to even consider it. That means we need to get at least a mana out of its abilities to be getting a good deal.

Next, we have a weirdly good token0making ability (for blue, anyway). Young Pyromancer’s ability is a proven winner, though paying one extra mana for it on a two-drop is obviously very different from getting it on a five-drop. That said, if we make any tokens at all, we’ve made our investment back.

You really don’t need very much on top of a 5/4 flier, and it’s not like a 5/4 flier is trivial to kill, either. It is pretty brutal that it dies to both Grasp of Darkness and Ultimate Price, but that does help inform our approach a little. Besides, there’s a good chance we’re going to be playing a substantial number of other Grasp of Darkness and Ultimate Price targets.

Of course, there’s still the flip-trigger to factor in. It doesn’t take all that much for Docent of Perfection to “go off.” If you untap with it, it’s not unreasonable to think you might flip the Docent that turn. Even if you only make two tokens, though, the following turn is generally going to be an easier target for flipping him. If neither of your tokens is killed during that turn cycle, you’re looking at attacking for twelve that turn, and that’s assuming you don’t have any other Wizards…

See, Docent of Perfection doesn’t care if he made your Wizards or if you already had them. If you cast even a single sorcery or instant, as long as you had two or more other Wizards already, Docent of Perfect will flip into an absurd, game-dominating bomb. In addition to growing to 6/5, the pump ability implies at least an extra six power, not to mention giving your team flying. Additionally, it still has the token-making ability, but now, every sorcery and every instant adds a 3/2 flier to your team.

It would seem, at least on the surface, that there are legitimate reasons to play Docent of Perfection in a dedicated Wizard-tribal deck and also just as a big win condition in a sorcery/instant-heavy control deck.

Let’s start with an attempt at actual Wizards.

Say what you will, but there’s no question, Wizards have some quality creatures in their tribe. While most of the Wizards are blue, Reflector Mage is a pretty good reason to splash. Besides, it’s nice to have access to some removal these days.

I’m not at all sure that we want to try to also be an Engulf the Shore deck, but if white or black is your splash, it’s pretty easy to support. I’m generally just a pretty big fan of Engulf at the moment, as there are just so many tokens running around.

Between Sidisi’s Faithful, Harbinger of the Tides, Reflector Mage, Unsubstantiate, and Engulf the Shore, we’re talking about an obnoxious amount of bounce. The hope is that we can hang out, eventually drop Docent of Perfection, and then completely take over the game. It might be occasionally slightly awkward that Engulf kills our Wizard tokens, but I’d guess that doesn’t come up all that often.

Unsubstantiate is a fascinating new card, giving us an extremely flexible way to make big tempo plays no matter what our opponent is playing. Sometimes, we’ll just want to bounce a creature to try to buy ourselves more time. Sometimes we’ll bounce an opposing Goblin Dark-Dwellers (on the stack) or Chandra, Flamecaller in order to effectively “Time Walk” our opponent. Sometimes we’ll bounce our own creature to save it from a removal spell, or even just to abuse its enters-the-battlefield trigger.

Unsubstantiate doesn’t have the most pushed rate or anything, but the card is so versatile and useful, I expect we’ll see a fair bit of it over the next eighteen months. I don’t think it’s an auto-include in blue decks or anything, but if you’re in the market for tempo and flexibility, it adds some new dimensions.

In addition to stalling to Docent, we can also just ride Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy all the way to victory. Obviously, Jace is a straight-up powerful Magic card, but there are some cool new interactions. For instance, Take Inventory is an excellent card to pitch to him.

Take Inventory is a new Accumulated Knowledge variant with the only nerf being a change to sorcery speed. The first Take Inventory you cast is at a loss (two-mana just to “cycle”); however, each additional Take Inventory is a great deal. Two mana to draw two cards would be too good to print already, and if you ever get up to drawing three or four cards, you are really doing it.

Getting to loot away the first Take Inventory lets you skip the “bad one” and go straight into casting unfair card draw spells. What’s more, when we cast a second or third Take Inventory, we’re frequently going to be able to use Jace to flash it back, getting the undercosted card draw effect a second time. It does exile the Take Inventory, of course, so we’re not drawing an “extra” extra card on top of all of the rest, but only needing to spend two mana to draw multiple cards means we’re going to have extra mana freed up to cast them.

Take Inventory isn’t the only new card to use the “Kindle” mechanic, though…

Some have wasted no time maligning Galvanic Bombardment for not hitting players like Kindle, but we’re talking about a one-cost card vs a two-cost card. Galvanic Bombardment is a stronger card! The better comparison, however, is Fiery Impulse.

People initially underestimated Fiery Impulse for many of the same reasons, but these two cards are so similar, it’s hard to know at a glance which is better. One thing’s for sure: Galvanic Bombardment is rarely going to be played in any number besides four (or zero).

The first Galvanic Bombardment is usually dealing two damage (though obviously you can do the Jace trick here, too). The thing is, that’s true of Fiery Impulse as well. Of course, if you draw your first Fiery Impulse on turn 4, it’s typically dealing three. Galvanic Bombardment could lag in this spot.

However, Fiery Impulse never gets above three. Galvanic Bombardment dealing four or five damage at instant speed represents a major change in utility as the game progresses. How often the first Bombardment is meaningfully worse than Fiery Impulse, versus how often the third or fourth one is better, is really just going to come down to some games. My guess is that it will end up being a deck-to-deck decision, depending on the deck’s specific needs.

Like Fiery Impulse, Galvanic Bombardment is likely to appear in a wide range of strategies. Here’s an exotic U/R take on Wizards that makes use of the card:

This list is heavily about dropping Docent of Perfection and flipping it immediately. With fifteen one-cost spells, it’s easy to imagine dropping a Docent with six mana and then flipping it for a lot of surprise damage. In fact, if our spell is Expedite, we could easily be adding ten to twelve extra damage in the air this turn. The Docent gets in there for six while also giving the two (or more) Wizards you’ve got in play +2/+1 and flying.

Expedite and Slip Through Space are cheap cantrips that fuel Stormchaser Mage and Docent of Perfection, but they also make for a mondo combo with Zada, Hedron Grinder.

This combo is well-known to most who have drafted Battle for Zendikar with Oath of the Gatewatch, but it’s mostly been just a little short in Constructed, at least so far. Now we’ve got extra reason to include the possibility of one-mana draw-threes and one-mana draw-fours (which obviously start to chain together relatively quickly).

Another Wizard I did not include, but may be worth considering, is Silumgar Sorcerer.

Silumgar Sorcerer is slightly inefficient as a Counterspell, but having a flash flier is kind of nice. I’ve declined to include it, however, because of how poorly it matches up against Galvanic Bombardment and Fiery Impulse, not to mention 1/1 tokens. Besides, it’s just not that powerful of a card if you don’t value the ability to sacrifice stuff.

Docent of Perfection definitely doesn’t need to be in an all-in dedicated Wizard tribal deck, however. We can still prioritize Wizards a little, but there’s no reason we can’t just play with a bunch of sorceries, instants, and cards that reward us for them.

There are a lot of U/R cards that naturally synergize with playing tons of sorceries and instants.

Maybe we’re supposed to play more, but I worry about the massive influx of Horrors we’re seeing in Eldritch Moon.

Niblis of Frost is the other new flier I’m excited about from the new set. A 3/3 flying creature with prowess is not actually that far off and would likely be quite impressive for three mana. That you get to lock down a creature with every spell can quickly generate more than one mana of value. If unchecked, Niblis of Frost can totally dominate a creature-based game with the help of a few cantrips.

U/R is extremely overloaded with ways to stop small creatures. Galvanic Bombardment, Fiery Impulse, Kozilek’s Return, blocking with Thing in the Ice…we’ve got small creatures covered in spades. Niblis of Frost gives us some much-needed extra defense against big creatures, since you can just tap down their Kalitas every turn or whatever.

Epiphany at the Drownyard is an interesting card drawer in a world of Galvanic Bombardments and Take Inventories. If you Epiphany for four and one of the cards is Take Inventory, you’re effectively drawing a card off it, regardless of whether they give it to you or not, assuming you have another in hand or ever drawn one.

Epiphany at the Drownyard also has the special bonus feature of being castable for just one mana. Even if we don’t draw a card off of it, sometimes it’s nice to have the option to grow our Niblis out of range of Fiery Impulse (while also locking something down). It’s especially great when we already have two Wizards on the battlefield and our opponent tries to Grasp of Darkness our Docent. Suddenly it’s a 6/5, so it lives, not to mention making a 3/2 flier and buffing our team.

It’s probably too much big stuff, but another option to consider is Disciple of the Ring. It’s a Wizard, sure, but it also gives us another option going long for dealing with big creatures and locking up games. I would guess Niblis of Frost is better, but the ability to counter noncreature spells is attractive.

An interesting feature of these Wizards is that they are frequently Humans. Is there any way to combine Thalia’s Lieutenant decks with Docent of Perfection? After all, the tokens created by Docent and Final Iteration are Humans…

The challenge, of course, is balancing the desire to play a lot of creatures for Thalia’s Lieutenant with the desire to play a lot of sorceries and instants for Docent. If only there was a two-cost spell that makes two 1/1 Humans and costs two…

Here’s a first attempt at Human/Wizards, but I think we’re not there yet.

It is sweet that this deck makes such good use of Essence Flux despite not being a Spirit deck.

Essence Flux is an extremely efficient way to protect our Docent, but it also re-triggers Reflector Mage, Knight of the White Orchid, Thraben Inspector, Thalia’s Lieutenant, or Archangel Avacyn.

If we’re willing to pay two, Long Road Home is an interesting alternative.

Long Road Home gives you the counter, no matter what creature type, but it’s actually got two other important differences from Essence Flux besides the cost.

To start with, the creature doesn’t come back until the end of the turn. This makes it stronger against sweepers like Planar Outburst. In general, though, it is a bit of a weakness, as you have to wait on Lieutenant or Reflector Mage triggers.

The other difference is that Long Road Home can be used against opposing creatures. At level one, this can remove a blocker or provide a safety valve against Auras. However, when combined with Hallowed Moonlight…

Hallowed Moonlight is extremely maindeckable these days. Its ability to counter token-making is super-valuable, and worst-case scenario, you just have to find a spot to pay the two mana to cycle it. If your deck has Long Road Home in it, though, you can actually set up a turn where you exile your opponent’s best creature and then make sure it doesn’t come back with Hallowed Moonlight.

Here’s a brew that tries to do just that:

Rattlechains is kind of nice on its own, but it’s super-sweet with Niblis of Frost!

Being able to flash down such a big threat is already a big game. That you can also follow it up with cheap instants like Essence Flux and Long Road Home can make for some surprising end-step or attack-phase blowouts. Just be careful not to mess up your blinking with Hallowed Moonlight in effect!

If we want to do the Spirit thing even harder, we’ve got a few more options.

Spectral Shepherd is slow and mana-intensive, so I’m not super-keen on it, but it is on-theme in a variety of ways. It’s also possible that the first one adds a nice dimension.

My concern is that I think it’s going to trade down for a Fiery Impulse or Galvanic Bombardment too often to be worth it. Even an Ultimate Price or Grasp of Darkness can represent a major tempo loss. Yes, some of the time you can threaten to pay two to get it back, but we don’t always have that kind of mana lying around. That’s kind of the opposite as a tempo-based plan.

Topplegeist is at least cheap and tempo-oriented, but it might actually be non-trivial to set up delirium. We could use Evolving Wilds, sure, but I think we’d really have to value a 1/1 flier. We’ve even got Niblis of Frost to help us tap down creatures.

I’m not sure where Nearhearth Chaplain fits in, but depending on what Spirit incentives get printed in this set, it’s both a Human and a source of multiple Spirits. It’s also a solid card that’s never really found its niche, since you have to exile it as a sorcery. That it has graveyard interactions is at least interesting if we somehow end up playing some kind of an Epiphany at the Drownyard strategy or something.

Another possible home for Docent of Perfection is in some sort of a mono-blue deck:

This might be too much bounce, but there’s some cool stuff going on here, and maybe this deck can be hybridized with the mono-blue Engulf the Shore decks people have been playing lately. I just think there’s something very attractive about having all of your lands enter the battlefield untapped (particularly if Thalia, Heretic Cathar gains widespread adoption). The biggest hole, at the moment, would appear to be the lack of one-cost spells. Maybe Sidisi’s Faithful is needed, but we sure do have a lot of that kind of thing.

There is still the question of whether to stay mono-blue or splash. One very exciting possibility in red is Fevered Visions, which works exceptionally well with all of the bounce. Another possibility is to look to stuff like Day’s Undoing or Brain in a Jar.

Spoilers are really picking up, and we’re getting hit with a lot of new cards at the same time. Let me know what you want to work with first, and we can make that the focus Monday. See you then!