So I gotta say, after looking through the spoilers for this, I can’t see anything in it that’s going to stop Ravager Affinity in Standard. And if they don’t ban Skullclamp, then that deck can add in Steelshaper’s Gift or Moriok Rigger or whatever to that deck if it wants/needs it. Looks like the Clamp’s gotta go.
Okay yeah, so back to Type One.
[Editor’s note: Here’s a link to the MTGNews.com spoiler until we get all the card images online in our database.]
Auriok Salvagers
As everyone knows by now, this is a two-card infinite mana combo with Black Lotus or Lion’s Eye Diamond|. I guess the way to make this deck is with four copies of Intuition so that you can use Flaming Gambit as a potential kill card. I’m kind of wary of the fact that you need six mana to get this combo started, while something like Grim Monolith/Power Artifact only costs four, but this has an advantage in that you can use the three mana from your Lotus to cast the Salvagers, but you can’t use your Grim Monolith to cast Power Artifact.
Hey, speaking of Grim Monolith/Power Artifact, back in the day people used that combo in Keeper. I wonder if this combo would be worthwhile there, too.
Beacon of Immortality
I know that life gain has been cut from control as a potential Wish target, but this is a freaking lot of life that can be gained at once.
Bringer of the (whatever) Dawn
The fact that these are only 5/5 is frowns, but the important thing that I wanted to talk about is the alternate casting cost. I’m not sure yet whether or not this will be easy or not for Type 1 decks to reach. I’m thinking towards no because there’s usually one color that’s really hard to find outside of that one completely off-color Mox.
Roar of Reclamation
Wow, does Goblin Welder ever overshadow this card. The bigger problem that I see with it is by the time that you need to spend seven mana for this, you could’ve just cast that Mindslaver/Pentavus/Memory Jar and won the game. Returning any more than just one of those is overkill, anyway.
Skyhunter Skirmisher
Just what we needed: another creature for WW that doesn’t do anything to address the fact that the deck is slow and has no disruption. Yay!
Acquire
Is this good? I’m not really sure. This has less to do with the five-mana casting cost and more to do with the fact that you’re banking this card’s success on the other deck’s contents. I do have to say though, that it does seem cool how you could steal Slaver’s Mindslaver with this and use Mindslaver’s Legendary status to lock out their ability to bring out a Slaver of their own.
Beacon of Tomorrow
There’s gotta be a way to go infinite with this. The problem is that it probably requires Gaea’s Blessing to reshuffle some combination of Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor, and Lim-Dul’s Vault – and I don’t think I’ve seen Gaea’s Blessing played since 2000.
Blinkmoth Infusion
So like, you’d need what, like eight artifacts or something for this to even be remotely castable? This spell doesn’t even say”I win” on it. Frown.
Eyes of the Watcher
While I seriously doubt that this will see Type One play, I do like how R&D managed to make this effect work in a way that you can’t turn the deck into a giant combo engine, but still could possibly be playable.
Fold into Aether
Am I missing something with this card? Was Discombobulate just too good? (the wording I’m seeing on the mtgnews spoiler has it costed at 2UU and has it read”Counter target spell. If you do, that spell’s controller may put a creature card from his or her hand into play.”) Seriously, this isn’t even”skill-testing” like Arcane Denial any more. It’s ridiculous.
Serum Visions
I guess the question with this is whether or not Quirion Dryad decks should just be like eighteen mana sources and thirty cantrips or if they should be Tog decks, but with unnecessary creatures over draw. I’m hoping it’s the former, although I’m not sure that they exactly need twelve copies of Sleight of Hand on top of four Brainstorm.
Blind Creeper and Ebon Drake
Much like Skyhunter Skirmisher, these will re-invigorate Suicide Black by giving them yet another weak creature in an already-crowded spot in the mana curve that can’t disrupt the opponent in any meaningful way nor race anything. How lucky!
Devour in Shadow
Is there a deck that needs this? Does it fill in any hole that can’t be filled by either Smother, Snuff Out, Vendetta, or Ghastly Demise? I’m not sure, but I’m not ruling it out just yet. The bigger problem might be the fact that it would probably just be painless enough to splash for Swords to Plowshares.
Endless Whispers
Worst. Wording. Ever. This was like Dead Ringers-level confusing the first time that I tried to read it. At least this won’t be playable, so judges won’t need to worry about running around all day explaining this. Unfortunately, it looks like an interesting casual card, so it’s going to take work for the person playing the Endless Whispers deck to go through how this works.
Fill with Fright
While I know that Hymn to Tourach isn’t even good enough for Type One any more, would it seriously kill them to drop the casting cost on this to 2B or 1BB? I mean, Unburden didn’t get played very much, and it only cost 1BB. I do want to say that this is the perfect kind of card to put Scry on, because it does help to fix Black’s horrendous topdecking.
Night’s Whisper
There is a right way and a wrong way to play this card. The right way is to play it in Quirion Dryad decks so you can get something at least approaching Gush’s power level. The wrong way is to play it in Suicide Black.
Plunge into Darkness
I could potentially see this as a backup in Bargain decks, in that you could Entwine it, sacrificing Academy Rector to it and paying like fifteen life or something, and then fetching Illusions of Grandeur with Rector and Donate with Plunge into Darkness. You don’t gain the twenty life from the Illusions until after Plunge into Darkness resolves, just so you know.
Relentless Rats
Here is a sample Relentless Rats deck:
24 mana sources
4 Desperate Research
4 Oversold Cemetery
4 Skullclamp
24 Relentless Rats
Worst. Curve. Ever.
Ion Storm
I’m sure that there’s a John Romero joke to be made here, but I can’t think of what it is.
Reversal of Fortune
Too bad that this costs more mana than anything you’d be able to copy. And as I was writing this sentence just now, I just thought to myself”Wow, just how much worse than Fork can you get?”
Channel of the Suns
I just want to point out that technically, this does net a mana, so it’s gotta have a restriction just around the corner!
Eternal Witness
I’m trying to figure out what deck you’d play this in. Personally, I think that Regrowth can be unrestricted, since it only seems scary to me when you combine it with Intuition, and Regrowth is cheaper than this.
Tel-Jilad Justice
This card will tell us just how good Scry is. It’s gotta compete not just with Oxidize and Naturalize, but with Artifact Mutation, Disenchant, and Rack and Ruin. I can’t seem to see it competing with Artifact Mutation, since that card’s extra ability can very much win you the game in a turn or two, while this only might win you the game in a turn or two.
Arcbound Wanderer and the Sunburst All-Stars
In general, I think the Sunburst creatures that don’t start with a positive P/T are simply far too weak. The really interesting Sunburst cards to me are the really expensive creatures that cost about seven mana or so. Any of the Sunburst cards that cost only a few mana just won’t have a powerful enough effect, but any of the ones that cost around five or six mana probably can’t be utilized fully. The seven-to eight-mana Sunburst creatures like Solarion and Lunar Avenger tend to cost more because they’re starting with power and toughness. Seeing how you can’t pay more than five different colors of mana, you can use Mishra’s Workshop here to help power these out, so it’s almost like a bonus. In a deck like Workshop Slaver or 7/10 Split, the other four mana for Solarion that should be colored are pretty easy to make, since you’ve got your dual lands or five color lands to generate say, two of the colors, and then you could probably pay the other two colors with off-color Moxes.
Blasting Station
There’s probably some sort of combo with this featuring Genesis Chamber or Skullclamp or something. Then again, I could also make some sort of comment about how this combo deck would then also need to be better than the two-card combo that Dragon is based on or the one card combo that Belcher and Draw-7 are based on.
Crucible of Worlds
First things first – the”combo” version of this deck is horrible. You need three cards, one of which (Fastbond) is restricted, and the other is more or less useless outside of the combo (Zuran Orb). Furthermore, the combo doesn’t win the game by itself (Dragon can deck you and Slaver can kill you with Fastbond by replaying your fetchlands or Wastelands over and over,) so then you need an X-spell or something.
The other way to play this is in a control deck. I’m not sold on it there because it only works over the long term and you can still lose to a deck that’s capable of generating tempo with relatively little mana. The two Slaver decks are perfect examples of the tempo aspect, because of Goblin Welder and Mishra’s Workshop, and suffice it to say that a long-term way of drawing cards or destroying lands isn’t usually the greatest plan against stopping fast aggro decks like Food Chain Goblins.
Door to Nothingness
This takes fifteen mana, and while it does say”You win the game,” you could not play bad cards and just Fireball them for fourteen and win.
Doubling Cube
So like, you need the ability to produce something like seven mana for this to even net you anything. The whole”Well, I have Academy and five artifacts blah blah blah” doesn’t even work here since if this was like, well anything else, it would still probably produce only about one or two mana.
Engineered Explosives
This is very likely the best card in the set for Type One play. You get to save a ton of time with this versus something like Powder Keg and it gives combo the ability to clear out multiple scary cards at once, like a Gorilla Shaman and Root Maze at the same time.
Ensouled Scimitar
This had better have reminder text on it like March of the Machines, because otherwise there are going to be a lot of rules nightmares about people trying to equip their creatures with this while it’s animated.
Eon Hub
What breaks this? I don’t actually know, but there’s gotta be something out there somewhere that makes this a two-card combo.
Etched Oracle
So, Concentrate? I always thought that 2UU was easier to get than four different colors
Fist of the Suns
What a waste of cool art. I mean, your spells have to cost six or more mana for this to do anything unless you’re trying to cast like, Lich or something.
Healer’s Headdress
For anyone that didn’t know, the point of”WW: Attach Healer’s Headdress to target creature you control” is so that you can Equip your creatures at instant speed.
Helm of Kaldra
This is just like, beyond disappointing. This is a legendary artifact, but it does the same thing as Vulshok Battlehorns. At least Sword of Kaldra had a really big effect. And the combined thing is totally underwhelming, too. You can do a lot better than a 9/9 token creature if you’re spending a million mana and three different cards.
Mycosynth Golem
I’m assuming that this costs eleven mana. I could probably see it in Slaver or TnT, which doesn’t exist any more. With a Mishra’s Workshop and a few Moxes, you only need two more random mana to cast this and then trigger a flood of large men and whatnot. And at worst, he’s still a 4/5, so it’s a strong creature in its own right.
Possessed Portal
I guess that this is a really solid one-card lock card, but it seems like it’s inferior to Memnarch to me. Memnarch is one mana less to cast and it lets you control what your opponent loses.
Razormane Masticore
Masticore really hasn’t been played much right now, and this one doesn’t add much. The three-damage blast will usually be probably wasted, since most creatures in Type One aren’t larger than x/1 unless they’re like x/million. This one also can’t mow down the creatures that Artifact Mutation on it would make from targeting it because it uh, would be dead.
Silent Arbiter
Because now only one Phyrexian Dreadnought can kill you this turn!
Synod Centurion
So is this better or worse than Su-Chi when it comes to 4/4 artifact creatures for four? And more importantly, is this even a relevant question any more.
Vedalken Orrery
I really feel sorry for the judges with this one. Not because the card is hard to understand or anything, but you know that there are gonna be tons of questions to Rune and Sheldon that end”… and in response I cast Humility.”
Completely Arbitrary Top 10
Engineered Explosives
Night’s Whispers
Serum Visions
Eh, whatever. I think that the problem with this set, other than the fact that it only encourages Ravager Affinity in Standard, is that any sort of”combo” set really either needs to be heavily nerfed in order to keep them from being ridiculously broken in Type One or has been designed to work at a much weaker power level than Extended and Type One. A card like Staff of Domination provides a useful outlet for an infinite mana combo in Standard, but in Type One you could use something like Whispers of the Muse instead which is useful both before the combo and after you’ve generated all your mana. Or you’ve got a great card like Wayfarer’s Bauble that is just pointless in Type 1 because nobody plays basics.
–JP Meyer
jpmeyer at optonline dot net