I just hung out locally for the M11 Prerelease, playing in Compleat Games’ version of the tournament. Sure, it was a bit smaller (only 45 people) and sure, they didn’t have LSV gunslinging, but they DID have free donuts, and I am, if nothing else, a man easily swayed by an empty stomach. The way to a man’s heart, indeed.
My sealed pool was unexciting and bomb-free, unlike the set of packs I cracked for M10. (If you’ve never seen the picture, it was something like Baneslayer Siege-Gang Mind Shatter Ball Lightning Pithing Needle double Overrun. Of course, with it being a “big” Prerelease, all those goodies got shipped off to someone else, and I don’t think I’ve even touched a Baneslayer since then.) I did have an Ancient Hellkite and started Black/Red, but the Red proved lackluster aside from the Hellkite and a Fireball, and I eventually morphed into a BGr deck that had a little more beef to it. I finished 3-3 but that appears to be my modus operandi for the time being. I am currently the absolute most average Magic player in existence.
I also got a draft in. After seeing someone in the Sealed portion open 5 Tome Scours and attempt to run the mill route, there was a lot of discussion about whether it was a viable strategy or not for drafting. It needs to be one of those things where only ONE person is doing it; if you see Tome Scours going around late in pack 1, you could make a run for it, but I think you really need to pick up a lot of good defensive cards – as many Azure Drakes as possible, probably. I gave it a run but didn’t win anything. I did draft the Temple Bell + Voltaic Key combo though; that’s pretty good stuff. Temple Bell is the artifact version of Little Jace’s “okay, let’s ALL draw a card” action that I love in EDH. It makes you instant friends. Probably should put it into Erayo, since that deck needs to make friends in multiplayer.
Let’s continue this week with a review of the top commons in M11:
Honorable Mention
This one is a personal choice. Not because I like the power level (which I do, don’t get me wrong) and not because I think it will provide any more of a backbone to a Mono-Black strategy than it did previous to M11 (which it doesn’t), but because I love this card and for the longest time I had exactly three – plus one Magic Rewards copy. And it drove me nuts playing four without the same picture. Is Sign in Blood going to see any play, going forward? I think MBC needed either Mutilate or Damnation in M11 in order to really become a powerhouse, but there could still be room for a Black-based control deck, and if there’s no Blue in that deck, then Sign in Blood is the best card-drawer available bar none. It’s cheap, it’s efficient, and if Black-based control was going to have ANY chance past October, it needed to be around still.
Best Card Only Appearing in a Sideboard
I’m still high on Plummet. I played Mono-Green at FNM last week and was pretty much dead to a Baneslayer Angel. I had Windstorm in the sideboard (and got to kill multiple Celestial Colonnades with one), but there’s a wide margin between spending two mana and six mana to kill a Baneslayer Angel. Other relevant things it kills: Malakir Bloodwitch, Colonnades, Hell’s Thunder, Emeria Angel, and a pumped Vampire Nocturnus. (It might be the only time you actively HOPE that their top card is Black.) It doesn’t kill Sphinx of Jwar Isle, but not much does – and the existence of Plummet might mean ol’ Jwar-Jwar there sees more face time than he already does.
10 – Preordain
Less important for Standard but evidently more important for older formats, where it’s being compared to Ponder… that’s great and all, but here in Standard we can play with four Ponders already, and nobody really does. I’m testing it as the Mystical Tutor replacement for Reanimator – it seems like it gives you a fair amount of utility that you want there (draws you a card, but lets you ship your creatures to the bottom of the library if you need them there, and lets you pick and choose of the two cards you see rather than giving you one or the other like Ponder kinda does) and the mana cost is certainly right. I won’t feel bad about not having to spring for Mystical Tutors for the StarCityGames.com Open in Denver. (But I am still looking for a Force of Will to borrow. Hint!)
I think, as this Standard format develops (and potentially as we get to Scar), that a big-mana Red deck will start to emerge, and I think Chandra’s Outrage could play a part in that. I had numerous discussions about Flame Slash for this style of deck; it kills a lot of things that are problematic (Rhox War Monk, for instance) but what really kept it out of the deck was that it couldn’t kill Celestial Colonnade. With Chandra’s Outrage, sure, you get a little damage in on the opponent (and that’s not negligible), but the real upside is the instant speed, giving you more options against mid-game creatures.
8 – Duress
Duress’s value depends completely on the cards it’s nabbing. If he’s hitting Oblivion Ring? Meh. If he’s hitting Planeswalkers? Probably decent. If he’s hitting Destructive Force? Makes me feel better about myself as a person. Duress is a great utility card that’s currently sitting in sideboards for this reason, but may become a bigger player as we head into Scars and lose Jund and all those Mythic guys.
Garruk’s Companion makes the list on sheer power creep alone. In the beginning, GG bought you a 2/1 first-striker named Elvish Archers. (Actually, it looks like the Alpha version was actually a 1/2. *boggle*) Eventually we got a 2/1 that drew a card (Multani’s Acolyte) but that was deceptive, since if you wanted both you actually paid GGGG. Then Elvish Warrior and his buddy Nissa’s Chosen came along, trading that generic mana from Grizzly Bears for an extra toughness. Garruk’s Companion probably would have been fine as a 3/2, but the trample means he is going to push through a lot more incidental damage in the mid-game when your opponent is forced to chump-block with their tokens or Birds of Paradise. Sadly, he still can’t crash through a Wall of Omens.
6 – Foresee
Foresee has made it into every Blue-based EDH deck I’ve ever built. Being able to see (potentially) SIX cards for four mana is great in that format, where they’re likely to all be different. I don’t think Foresee will make it into PTQ-level decks simply because the four-slot is full in those with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and other planeswalkers, but for a budget player trying to build for FNM, Foresee is a decent replacement for Jace, fitting into his cost slot and (at least partially) into his established role in the deck. Foresee also has potential to see play in a combo deck where you need that one remaining piece of the puzzle, simply because it digs you so deep – the only question then is, WHAT combo deck?
5 – Doom Blade
(Inspiring hilarious set reviews since M10)
Let’s face it, Doom Blade is still top of the heap in terms of targeted creature removal, and this will be especially true when Terminate rotates out in October (along with those Jund creatures that just randomly happen to be Black). The most important thing to remember about Doom Blade, possibly, is that it doesn’t have the “non-artifact” restriction that Terror had.
4 – Negate
Negate is probably still choice numero uno for a Blue-based control deck, simply because they’re likely to be packing both targeted and mass removal for your creatures, and Negate is a hard counter where Mana Leak loses steam as the game goes long. That being said, this is the third opportunity now in the last year-and-a-half that you’ve had to pick them up; if you don’t have them by now, you probably aren’t too choked up about it.
3 – Cultivate
Ah, the non-Arcane Kodama’s Reach. In a Standard where we have access to Rampant Growth, Harrow, Khalni Heart Expedition, and Explore, it’s hard to imagine that yet another land-fetcher spell could find relevance, and yet here it is. Cultivate ramps you up a land like Rampant Growth and Harrow, but also guarantees that you’ll hit your next land drop at the same time – and Cultivate doesn’t rely on other things like you playing more lands (KHE) or having an extra land in hand (Explore). Cultivate is kinda like a GUARANTEED Explore – it’s Explore if Explore said “You may play an additional land this turn … from your deck. Draw a card … that’s guaranteed to be a land.” I’m hoping Cultivate will spawn some new big-mana decks similar to what Kodama’s Reach did (those Death Cloud decks were pretty amazing) and we also have Neo-Wildfire to watch out for…
2 – Lightning Bolt
You always see those Sealed decks where someone got five Tome Scours. How come you never hear about the Sealed decks where someone gets five Lightning Bolts? We get another year of playing with the most efficient burn spell ever printed, and I’m pretty happy about that. Lightning Bolt has proven to be GOOD but not format-breaking; we still see people playing a ton of three-or-less-toughness creatures despite the likelihood that they’ll eat Lightning.
1 – Mana Leak
Mana Leak is top dog for me because it has a host of applications. It can be used in a control deck to counter early plays (and make a midrange opponent have to alter the mid-game plans to play around it), and it also can be used in Blue-based tempo decks to keep pressure on the opponent while avoiding their mass removal. In addition, Mana Leak hasn’t been around for five years; despite it being common, being reprinted will give newer players a chance to pick up a counterspell that plays great in a number of formats.
These are the commons I recommend picking up as you attend your Launch Parties and start trading for cards; they are the commons that will see the most play in Standard and give you a good foundation for building decks for the next year.
Until next week…
Dave
dave dot massive at gmail and davemassive on facebook and twitter