Wizards has once again gifted us with a full reveal of the new set a few extra days before the Prerelease, so I’ll be continuing on with a look at what I think are the top commons and uncommons in the set. I’ll start with uncommons this week (to give you an extra week to pick them up at events) and go on to the commons next week.
Honorable Mention
The problem with Nature’s Spiral as a replacement for Regrowth was that it didn’t pick up the most powerful cards – namely, instants and sorceries. (Although that claim may not hold water any more, since Nature’s Spiral grabs Planeswalkers.) Call to Mind brings to mind two possible comparisons: Regrowth (although, in a power-limit-testing format like today’s Standard, couldn’t Call to Mind have been 1U – or an instant?) but more notably Recoup. It doesn’t have Flashback itself, but it DOES sort of give another card Flashback, and now in a color that’s friendlier to getting a second use out of a spell. The real test will be finding the sorcery or instant that you want to cast more than four times in a game. I think that Call to Mind is a great pickup for budget players who really want to stretch out their current collection; getting a second usage out of that one-of rare is just as good as having a second copy, in most instances.
Speculative Mention
Voltaic Key is going to be hard to guess. It’s old enough that newer players won’t have extras lying around, and buying four Phyrexia versus The Coalition boxed sets for a playset doesn’t seem practical. On the flip side, we’re really going to have to wait and see what Scars of Mirrodin brings us to determine if Voltaic Key is really going to be a major player. I’d say go ahead and pick them up now and, if Scars brings us ludicrous tappy artifacts, you’re set to go. Mirrodin’s first time through brought us powerful artifacts like Isochron Scepter and AEther Vial and Gilded Lotus, as well as wacky potential in Staff of Domination and the Tower and Station cycles. While all of Scars is unknown, we should be safe in speculating that it will contain some great artifacts for Voltaic Key to hopefully untap.
10 – Back to Nature
I may be the only person fascinated by this card. If that’s the case… sorry! I keep getting beat up by Enchantress in Legacy and Zur in EDH. But this is a nice catch-all answer for Green to fight Oblivion Ring or Journey to Nowhere, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that it wipes out Eldrazi Conscription and Spreading Seas as well. It will fight for sideboard space with Naturalize, but I like the potential for two-or-more-for-ones. I’ve wiped enough O-Rings and Spreading Seas with All is Dust to know how great that situation is; doing it at instant speed makes it that much more appealing.
9 – Crystal Ball
If nothing else, Jace, the Mind Sculptor has proven that it’s worth stretching your manabase to get the amazing amount of card selection that he provides. Crystal Ball doesn’t give you the options that Super Jace does, obviously, but it does let you churn through your library looking for an answer – and in whatever color you happen to be.
Budget players will always gravitate to White Weenies that give you an upside for zero cost. Case in point? Hada Freeblade and Kazandu Blademaster, both of which have expected body-to-mana-cost ratios, but come with the nice bonus of getting bigger when you play with more Allies. Heck, they’re practically the backbone to a deck that’s viable in Standard! Ajani’s Pridemate is the same way, starting out as a 2/2 for two mana, but then from there he’ll grow at a pretty impressive rate in a deck with incidental lifegain (or facing down a Condemn-carrying opponent, even), and could become practically obscene in a deck tricked out with a bunch of lifegain effects.
4 Ajani’s Pridemate
4 White Knight
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Hada Freeblade
3 Talus Paladin
2 Felidar Sovereign
4 Path to Exile
2 Ajani Goldmane
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Graypelt Refuge
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Terramorphic Expanse
8 Plains
4 Forest
Rare Cost Summary:
Talus Paladin ($1.49 x 3 = $4.47)
Felidar Sovereign ($2.49 x 2 = $4.98)
Ajani Goldmane ($4.99 x 2 = $9.98)
The easiest way to get lifelink is to rely on Talus Paladin and the other good early Allies. Behemoth Sledge and Ajani Goldmane serve to pump up your guys in the face of larger enemies, and the additional lifegain can’t hurt either.
Again, here you get an extra ability “for free” on top of a regular old Grizzly Bears. In this case, it might be that War Priest of Thune sees more play in Neo Extended where he can blow up Bitterblossoms or Zektar Shrine Expeditions while leaving behind a body to get pumped up by Honor of the Pure. He has enough value in Standard as well that picking him up is worthwhile, and then we’ll see what else the new Extended format has for us.
6 – Jace’s Ingenuity
This set certainly has enough pieces to start pointing us away from the “tap out” version of Blue-White Control and back into the old “instant-speed” version of Blue-based Control, doesn’t it? Mana Leak, the Blue Leyline that lets you drop guys that aren’t named Teferi at instant speed, and now card-drawing that might actually be considered “good” in the context of current Standard? Tidings was mostly playable when it was in Standard, and here you’re trading one card for the ability to cast it during your opponent’s end step.
I feel like Reassembling Skeleton has the most potential for use in a combo deck. I’m not sure what it is yet – of course, in my mind, it’s some weird Ashnod’s Altar / Bog Initiate infinite recursion engine, which gets convoluted once you start trying to add in win conditions / infinite lifegain triggers or whatever else you want to add. It may end up being only a utility creature, confidently standing in the way of Sprouting Thrinaxes and returning to later fight another day, but I like to believe that he’ll have broader applications.
4 — Combust
I really appreciate Wizards’ effort to bring some parity to the color-hosers that we have in the base set. Deathmark, Flashfreeze, and Celestial Purge all see a good amount of sideboard play, but I can’t even tell you what their Red and Green counterparts are. Between Combust and Autumn’s Veil, I think they’ve brought the group up as a whole to an even playing field. Combust does pretty much exactly what you want it to do: kill Baneslayer Angel, which is Public Enemy #1 to Red decks – I learned this much playing Frank’s Red Hot, which couldn’t handle a resolved Baneslayer Angel in any practical way, shape, or form. It obviously doesn’t hit Sphinx of Jwar Isle, which means that he may see even more use as a big finisher for Blue-based control decks, but we can’t win them all.
3 – Ember Hauler
I really like “Double Mogg Fanatic” or “Red-Only Goblin Legionnaire” here. Red’s two-drops quickly get outclassed by Walls, and having the ability to fly through the air for the last couple of points of damage isn’t trivial. Mono-Red has traditionally been a great place for players with a limited budget to pick up a solid, competitive deck, and Ember Hauler fits the bill.
2 – Autumn’s Veil
We’re gonna need to come up with a new name for this ability. Hateshroud? Autumn’s Veil takes the best part of Guttural Response (the ability to “counter” a counterspell) and adds in the (essentially) trollshroud part of Vines of Vastwood, all for a tidy Green mana. No, it won’t counter Path to Exile or Condemn, but you shouldn’t be worried about burn spells taking down a big Green fatty anyway, and this stops targeted removal like Doom Blade and Terminate, and even bounce like Jace’s ability.
1 — Condemn
We are coming into a golden age of White targeted removal, aren’t we? We already have Path to Exile, which has proven to be one of the best attempts at reproducing Swords to Plowshares that we’ve seen so far. We have Oblivion Ring and Journey to Nowhere. Heck, we even have Celestial Purge if things get really hairy. The addition (or, I guess, re-addition) of Condemn might seem superfluous, but it’s important to remember that Path to Exile heads out of Standard coming up in October. Condemn is likely on its way to being the high-priced uncommon of this set (see Bloodbraid Elf); the only thing preventing that is that it’s been reprinted once already (in Tenth Edition) so you may already have some lying around.
These are the twelve uncommons I’d be looking for around your M11 Prerelease. Next week I’ll look at the commons that you should be working to pick up!
Until next week…
Dave
dave dot massive at gmail and davemassive at facebook and twitter