Hello folks!
The M11 spoiler list is getting more and more complete, thanks to our friends at MTGSalvation.com, and you can find reviews of the new cards all over the place, including here on StarCityGames.com. When I read such reviews, I often have reservations when it comes to expressing myself about the new cards and new formats, especially before I see the actual new formats shaping up. I’d usually rather not say anything than say something wrong, especially in a Premium article. However, there are some great offerings this time out, and I’m willing to give it a try this time.
I am glad to see new and powerful cards that will see play and make a difference in the current formats. M10 brought a lot of new cards, as announced by WoTC when they launched the Core set, and it felt refreshing… at first. We all thought that it would feel like a new set, when in reality it didn’t really change much, expect for a couple of cards. Baneslayer Angel and Lightning Bolt – which was not exactly a new card – were the only real format-defining cards. Honorable mentions go to Master of the Wild Hunt, Great Stable Stag, and Open the Vaults. The other cards were pretty much irrelevant in the competitive deckbuilding arena.
I covered the Limited aspect of M10 in a previous article. In a nutshell, it offered very simple cards with very limited options during the games, making the sealed deck and draft tournaments not particularly skill intensive, and therefore not much fun. Losing when you can’t do anything is rarely a good time. The vanilla creatures and the “bombness” of rares made the format very unbalanced. It made for an easy format to conquer for beginners, and that is what WotC is aiming at with their Core sets.
Let’s start with a Limited overview. As I browse the evolution of the spoiler list online, it scares me more and more. Not that I expect much of the new format, but somehow, I hope things will be different. And as of now, I do believe things will be different in a way… but not in a good way. At the time of writing, 147 cards have been revealed, Angelic Arbiter and Mitotic Slime being the latest. My first feelings, looking at the list, is that the new rares are just upgraded versions of previous cards. I can easily say that I can see no card of the power level of Sun Titan or Arbiter Angel in M10 White, except for Baneslayer Angel and Ajani Goldmane, which are also both in M11. The same goes for Blue, Djinn of Wishes is nowhere close to Conundrum Sphinx given the fact that you will have common Scry cards, and Frost Titan has no match in M10. Inferno Titan is ridiculously good, and has no match in M10 Red. The comparison works with almost all colors, depending on whether Green gets its Ant Queen and Master of the Wild Hunt back, but the new Green rares fight pretty well too, regardless. [Primeval Titan especially… – Craig]
I would like to avoid too much speculation, especially when there is so much left to be revealed, but I can’t see how M11 Limited can be balanced. M10 had a fair amount of broken rares and was not balanced. M11 already has rares even more broken, and at least as many of them. From this point on, you need a lot of very good common removal to take care of these enormous monsters, some of which will have already done their evil deeds. I am focusing a lot on the rares, because I don’t think commons and uncommons will be making that big a difference during the games. And since you open three rares in a draft, you will be likely to have at least one in your deck.
For example, how do you deal with a Grave Titan? Pacifism and Ice Cage in M10. And you have to play them FAST. Remember how you used to shrug every time your opponent played a Baneslayer Angel in Limited? Expect to shrug a lot more often.
I know you are getting my point. It will be cool to play with new powerful cards for the first few weeks — days, actually — but it will get old to get beaten by them. You have heard this kind of criticism about every single set since the first time you played Limited, but not from me. I do like some formats, as I said before… I just don’t think I will like this one very much. I guess I’ll just suck it up and somehow hope I am wrong…
While the set seems very shallow and uninteresting in Limited, it does offer a whole new twist to Constructed. I would first like to discuss one very important point, one that will go against pretty much everything I’ve read online so far, and it’s about Mana Leak.
All I’ve read about Mana Leak is comments like: “Yeah! Mana Leak is back! And so is the Blue Mage!” I don’t quite agree with this statement, and I’ll tell you why.
First of all – and this will be no surprise for the people who actually know me and the kind of decks I am usually play – I have never been a huge fan of counterspells in Constructed. The reason was that I always want to be the aggressor, find ways to unlock situations, and play around my opponent’s defenses. Counterspells rarely fit this archetype. If memory serves, I have played counterspells in 4 different decks in my professional career:
– The first time was in 5CG in ’99 (PT: Chicago). Force of Will and Arcane Denial made sure you could develop your strategy for very little cost (of for free with FoW), or dig for a Survival of the Fittest with Arcane Denial (you would eventually catch up for the lost card advantage once you hit SotF) in a very RELIABLE way. That meant that you could be sure that you would counter the next spell, or make your opponent use one of his own, no matter what.
– Later in ’00, with Replenish. Good old Counterspell, the father of them all. UU: Counter any spell, thx. A way to deal with early pressure and a reliable back up to resolve your key spells.
– In Faeries from ’08. Cryptic Command, Mana Leak, Spellstutter Sprite, you name it. Why were counterspells so good in this deck? It was because you didn’t have to tap during your turn; everything was happening during your opponent’s turn. Playing your threats would not open a window for your opponent, unless you decided to tap out at a critical time when your opponent was ready to make a move.
– In Bant in ’09. Along with cheap threats —Tarmogoyf / Umezawa’s Jitte– and more counterspells like Spell Snare. You are still the aggressor, and you back up your offensive with cheap counterspells, hopefully never giving your opponent the chance to be able to pay the extra 3.
Over the years, the Blue Mage has been feared. I liked playing counterspells in the archetypes above, but I never considered myself a “Blue Mage.” They have been very successful in a lot of different archetypes, and mostly in Control. Blue has had, for years, the most powerful spells in the game. Why were they so good? Because those powerful spells were INSTANTS, and you could decide what to do with your mana on your opponent’s turn. All the draw spells were instants; when they first started printing draw spells at sorcery speed, the Blue Mages shed a tear. To me, the last time you could play counterspells, and they were actually good, was in Time Spiral Block Constructed along with Mystical Teachings, Think Twice, and a way to make up life when you couldn’t deal with the first threats with Tendrils of Corruption. Cancels were key in Guillaume Wafo-Tapa winning deck in Yokohama. Since then, it’s been going downhill… (Since I don’t know much about Legacy/Vintage, please excuse me if I’m missing something here.)
All of this to make my point: I don’t see how Mana Leak can be format defining. I am in no way saying that it’s a bad card. It will be played, a lot. But unless I am missing a LOT of important cards in the coming format, I just don’t see how it can be any more format-defining than Negate or Essence Scatter. Mana Leak is a fine counterspell, but I can’t see any deck that wants it that badly in the current format. I don’t see it played in any aggressive decks. Aggressive decks are tapped out most of the time, and most of the time they have one thing to counter, and that’s a Wrath of God or a Planeswalker. In that case, the counterspells will be in the sideboard, and Negate would probably take the slot anyway. I can see control players needing Mana Leaks in the early game to counter the first threat on turn 2 on the play, or turn 3 on the draw. Mana Leaks are quite bad in the late game when players play around it. I believe they are fine/good if they are played along with other counterspells, so your opponent has a harder time playing around them — if he knows you might have another counterspell in your hand, he may not wait to have three mana available to deal with your Leak and run into it anyway. In that case, you are playing a heavy control deck with lots of counterspells… I don’t really see that strategy being any successful in the current format. Threats are just too powerful, too fast, and you don’t have reliable card drawing engines to fuel your countering machine. Jace’s Ingenuity is cute, but five mana might be just too much.
Until we see a new Fact or Fiction or a set of new flying flash creatures, you can leave the so-called Blue Mage to rest in peace. As you may have understood, this part of the article was a response to Patrick Chapin “it is probably safe to say Blue is too good.”
Except for that comment, I pretty much agree with everything else that Patrick is saying about M11 cards, so I am not going to insist on how good Obstinate Baloth is against Blightning, As for some of the other cards, I have seen a lot of overcosted monsters that will be unlikely to see any play in Constructed (but be sure that they will break your Limited games). Among them, we have the Titans. What we have seen these days is that 6 mana is a hell lot of mana. The only card that costs 6 mana in tournament-winning decks is Sovereigns of Lost Alara, which wins the game almost right away, in exchange for a little stability (you have to run Eldrazi Conscription and therefore lower the stability of your deck). When you see that Baneslayer Angel is no longer a four-of in most decks, you understand that creatures need to be “Godlike” if they cost more than five. Even Broodmate Dragon often doesn’t make the cut anymore.
However, I like to think that Inferno Titan has some potential. It can end games very quickly, even though it misses haste. I know, I have been complaining about how good some rares were, and now I want to add an ability to a huge Limited powerhouse? Okay, okay… Actually, if there was anything playable giving the Titans haste, they would definitely be worth having a look at. So what do we have… Battle Rampart (nice!), Battlethorn Taunter (Oh yeah baby!)… and Sarkhan Vol.
Inferno Titan could be fine along with Sarkhan Vol. The Green-Red planeswalker has hardly seen any play since it appeared in Shard of Alara. I’ve tried to build decks with it many times… unsuccessfully. Then I saw a deck Inferno Titan could find a home in. The following deck was played in a PTQ here in Toulouse:
Creatures (22)
- 2 Siege-Gang Commander
- 4 Hell's Thunder
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 4 Goblin Bushwhacker
- 4 Goblin Guide
- 4 Nest Invader
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
First of all, I haven’t been working on the deck myself. It’s been tested by a local player, and he has been doing quite well in local PTQs with it. I am sharing the list he played to give you another option if you’re looking for an original deck to play in the upcoming PTQs. The list might be a little off and suboptimal, but I believe it has a lot of potential. So feel free to tweak it and work on a reliable sideboard (Forked Bolt, Goblin Assault, Cunning Sparkmage…).
The deck is very stable and extremely fast. It runs most of the cheap token generators to power up your Beastmaster Ascension. You might want to run more Devastating Summons (something for you to work on) since you can “combo” your opponent out with both Goblin Bushwhacker and Sarkhan Vol to give your Elementals haste. The deck is very straightforward, but it doesn’t make it easy to play. You’ll have to do the math every turn to see how worthy your attack is, and that usually happens when you can’t load your Ascension to 7 and would lose guys in combat. If you can’t push enough damage on one turn, you can just stack some more creatures and wait for Sarkhan, a Bushwhacker, or an Ascension
The matchups against Jund is pretty good. His creatures are too slow, and it takes him too long to set up his kill, especially when he can’t pump his Leeches. Jund Charm is however a card you don’t want to face. The matchup against WU is even better, since they have a really hard time dealing with your Goblin Assaults after board. The real concern of the deck is Bant. While it’s not an unwinnable matchup, you will have to heavily sideboard against it to make sure he doesn’t spread too much (Forked Bolt and Cunning Sparkmage).
If you’re in search of something new for your next tournament, give it a try!
Until next week!
Raph