My brain hasn’t fully grasped the fact that we are merely weeks away from a brand new set. And not
just
a brand new set — a Fall big set, which means the rotation of Standard as we know it. Everything’s about to go
kablooey
.
And, depending on how your last couple of years have gone, that could be a good thing or a bad thing.
I’m assuming a lot of people will be happy about the imminent demise of Jund as a “whole deck.” Since its birth with the Cascade mechanic in Alara Reborn, Jund has been something of an omnipresent stalker — lurking around the top tables of every top level tournament, just waiting to put its curve and its potential for insane cascades to crush the hopes and dreams of creative deckbuilders everywhere. I don’t think there was a tournament in the last year where I didn’t play Jund at least three times. And that’s counting the tournament where I played Jund myself!
That said, Jund was a great deck for budget players. It had a handful of important rares, but they were spread out over each set: Maelstrom Pulse in Alara Reborn, followed by Verdant Catacombs in Zendikar, then Raging Ravine in Worldwake. Getting the rares spread out (and note that none of those are mythics) meant that we weren’t forced into shelling out hundreds of bucks all at once to buy the next hottest thing. Jund players were able to keep improving their deck for twenty bucks here and there over time — and still put up good results all the while.
Jund got something of a bad rap, but it really was a great deck for players without a ton of money to sink into a deck every week.
With the release of Scars of Mirrodin, Jund is… well, Jund is toast. The whole frickin’ deck pretty much ceases to exist, unlike other decks which lose a key piece here and there. There likely aren’t many people who will shed a tear as Jund heads for the door. But there are other cards rotating out that should also be remembered…
(I feel like I’m writing the Magic equivalent to the Remembrance section at the Oscars. Hopefully no one will mistake Dragon Broodmother for Fred Savage.)
The Tri-lands
I remember Wizards’ first attempt at tri-lands — the Lairs from Planeshift. (You’re wrong, but
I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to forget
— T.F.) The Lairs weren’t bad in their own right, although bouncing a land to use them slowed your mana production down for the rest of the game. They were just… okay.
I don’t remember them seeing much use in Constructed (we had access to both the Ice Age painlands, and the Invasion enters-the-battlefield-tapped duals) — but I also don’t remember many three-aligned-color decks that saw much action. Crosis-Go ran three colors, but ran Invasion tap-duals; Brian Kibler famous G/R/W Rith-ing-and-Armadillo-Cloak-ing deck from Pro Tour Chicago 2000 used painlands exclusively, even going so far as to use City of Brass! Even back in 2000, no one wanted to stunt their own mana development by playing a land that cost them a land, no matter how many colors it gave them.
Things were different over the last two years. The tri-lands from Shards of Alara provided three colors in a format defined around three-color pieces of pie — pain, without additional cost, with only the small side effect of entering the battlefield tapped.
And not only were they effective mana fixers! They were
uncommon
mana fixers, “strictly better” than the Invasion tap-duals and providing an easily-accessible way for all players to play the three-color Shards that Wizards had built for us.
Now obviously, going forward, there will be less need to rely on triple-colored lands — the rest of the Shards Block rotates along with them, and now we’ll go boldly forward into this new Standard, where single- and double-colored decks are likely the norm. But the Shards tri-lands were a great tool for building decks with usable mana bases, and I’m gonna miss them.
Behemoth Sledge
Now, I haven’t used Behemoth Sledge since the
last
rotation (when I played G/W Little Kid almost exclusively in Standard events), but Behemoth Sledge is exactly the type of uncommon weapon that can, out of nowhere, give you a leg up on an opponent who’s playing much more expensive cards.
Probably the only reason I didn’t continue with Behemoth Sledge once Zendikar was released was because I couldn’t find a creature that could pick it up and tangle with Baneslayer Angel. I’m still not sure if that creature is out there. Stirring Wildwood?
Path to Exile
Path to Exile was, simply put, the closest we have gotten to reprinting Swords to Plowshares in the modern age. Extraordinarily efficient, usable on offense or defense, and with a “down side” that could be managed (and sometimes turned to your advantage), Path to Exile might forever be the epitome of simple design to me. Your guy, whatever size, is now a basic land. Suck it up.
Heck, when Path was first making its big debut, there were decks that didn’t even
run
basic lands. Multi-Color-Control didn’t have any room for ’em. B/W Tokens ran, like, four. Swans, despite running forty lands(!), only ran a couple of basics as well. It’s only been recently that Path has started to be seen a little less, as nobody wants to ramp you up into your Titans — but it still will be missed.
It’s a great card. And a great tool for budget designers, even if it
is
a four-dollar uncommon.
—-
A quick aside about “high-dollar” uncommons: I never have any issue listing them in decklists (and never have any issue considering them “readily available”) because I figure that, despite costing four bucks on this here site here, there should be steady stream of them locally for budget players to be able to put their hands on. If you’re like me, you can’t go into Target without bypassing the “CCG aisle” that they have set up at the front for all the impressionable young kids to get their Pokemanz cards, and you can’t bypass that aisle without snagging a pack of whatever’s current. I never bought my Path to Exiles — I opened them here and there in packs, or traded for them.
—-
That said, it’s possible that Path might drop in price after the rotation; if you haven’t picked them up yet, or are just
now
deciding they might be good casually or in EDH or in Extended next year, give them a month. I bet they drop to half their current price.
The Charms
Wizards’ third (fourth?) (seventh?) go at charms provided some real utility — and definitely a higher level of power than charms of the past. But I guess since you’re paying three different colors of mana for them, you expect to get a little more out of them.
Esper Charm went through its entire life as one of the premier card drawers in Standard (despite not being overly used), Bant Charm was oftentimes seen as Path to Exile numbers five through six (and definitely saw play in Extended last winter), and Jund Charm and Naya Charm both saw play, filling niches (like Naya Charm in early Pyromancer Ascension decks) or as strong sideboard options (Jund Charm for pretty much
all
of its modes).
I wonder what Grixis Charm ever did to Mark Rosewater.
Terminate
Terminate’s second go-round through Standard sure went over a lot better than, say, Domain’s did (sorry, Conflux!), and it might actually have been seen more often than when it was first around from Planeshift.
Some of that might have to do with there being at least one powerful deck already in the right colors, I guess. I know we still have Doom Blade and Smother — but for flat-out absolutely-sure-he’s-dead killin’ of everything short of Kor Firewalker, Terminate just cannot be beat.
Speaking of black-red decks, I never did post up this decklist:
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (9)
Spells (44)
Rare Cost Summary:
Inferno Titan ($7.99 x 3 = $23.97)
Destructive Force ($4.99 x 4 = $19.96)
Chandra Ablaze ($3.99 x 3 = $11.97)
Sarkhan the Mad ($14.99 x 1 = $14.99)
Dragonskull Summit ($4.99 x 4 = $19.96)
Some day.
Some day
, I am going to make Chandra Ablaze work. And I’m going to figure out how to make her work
competitively
. I tried
her in R/W with Ajani Vengeant, and it was just… missing something. Maybe now with the Titans, that color pairing
oh for crying out loud Ajani Vengeant is rotating
.
Anyway… I put this deck together to play in my most recent Friday Night Magic, and didn’t fare too well. On the surface, it looks like it
should
always have a burninating answer for whatever your opponent plays… but what really happens is that you get clogged up with six- and seven-mana junk in your hand, and then your opponent plays a Primeval Titan, and you have Literally No Way to deal with it with any kind of value.
Chandra Ablaze’s +1 ability needs to scale. I’d discard two cards to it if I could do eight damage to something.
I had an enjoyable time until the last three rounds, where I played against Primeval Titan in every single round. Odd that I don’t remember hating that guy quite so badly when I played Pyromancer Ascension at the Star City Open last month. Odd that I don’t remember actually
seeing
that guy at the Open, and yet I can see a dozen over the course of three rounds at my local FNM. Colorado Springs must breed some real spenders.
In short, the deck has no way to deal with a Primeval Titan… or rather, it can kill the Titan, but it can’t handle what Primeval Titan
gets
, since in this case it was either Valakut (nope, no answer) or Eldrazi Temples that make Eldrazi (pray for Sarkhan — a dragon is easier to handle than those guys) …
Yeah. Next on the Dave Meeson Hit List: Figuring out a deck that proactively kills Primeval Titans dead forever. I’m comin’ for ya, Jolly Green Giant.
I’m just sad it took me this long to figure out the interaction between Chandra Ablaze and the Borderposts, and
then
to realize I only had two Veinfire Borderposts.
Qasali Pridemage
There are times that I really think Wizards knows what they’re doing. Qasali Pridemage was simply great at the start of his career (as I killed nearly infinite Bitterblossoms with him), and became a strong contender in Bant or Naya decks as a way to fight enchantment silliness like Eldrazi Conscription.
But it might have actually been
too
potent in a world full of juicy Mirrodin-fueled artifact targets. So I’m definitely gonna miss the guy (whose time has come just as he gets his own FNM card) … I’ll be looking forward to playing more of him in Extended come January.
Warp World
As Shards of Alara goes, so too does M10. There are a dozen other cards from M10 that I’ll be missing — Bogardan Hellkite (see you in Extended, buddy)… Master of the Wild Hunt… Siege-Gang Commander… but they all seem to tie back in to the Johnniest of Johnny rares from M10, good ol’ Warp World.
I think I may have written about Warp World more than any single rare since the beginning of this column. Good times. I’m not sure why I have such a love affair with this eight-mana sorcery, so I’m probably correct to blame Bennie Smith for it. He was probably involved somewhere along the line.
It’s Not Goodbye, It’s Au Revoir
It’s a short goodbye, as we’ll likely see some or all of these cards as Extended rolls around in January, but I always get a little teary-eyed thinking about all the great cards that rotate out of Standard every October.
*sigh*
It’s hard to get excited about all these great new cards when
oh who am I kidding gimme new cards
! I hope you all are making your plans to attend a Prerelease, whether it’s one of the big Premier TO-driven events, or at your local brick and mortar game shop.
I, unfortunately, will be missing the Scars Prerelease as I’ll be on another continent — and while the missus has given me permission to find a prerelease while we’re in Paris, that just doesn’t seem like a romantic way to spend a Saturday. So we’ll do the Top 10 Commons and Uncommons from Scars when I return.
And everyone start thinking about The 2010s!
Until next week,
dave
dave dot massive at gmail and davemassive on twitter and facebook