Hello my faithful readers, welcome to another edition.
Last week, we looked at the commons and uncommons you should be digging out of old boxes for use now that they’ve been reprinted in Magic 2010. This week, I think it only makes sense to check out the commons and uncommons that you will want to snatch up playsets of at either your local Prerelease, Launch Party, or from friends or the Internet.
Without further ado …
Harm’s Way — W
Instant (U)
The next 2 damage that a source of your choice would deal to you or a permanent you control this turn is dealt to target creature or player instead.
Damage prevention has always been White’s cup of tea, but damage redirection is something that hasn’t been fully explored. Wizards usually only lets you transfer damage either between your own creatures (see: en-Kor creatures) or from yourself to your own creatures (see: Kjeldoran Royal Guard). It’s few and far between when we get the ability to transfer damage to our opponent’s creatures — although Pariah has (accidentally?) been the gold standard in that ability for quite a while. When Wizards put out Shining Shoal in Betrayers of Kamigawa, it gave White a neat and tidy combat trick that could turn the tides of combat or put the final points in an opponent who had stabilized.
Harm’s Way certainly presents the same scenarios, in theory. It’s not scalable like Shining Shoal was, but it also doesn’t come with the mana or card requirements — one mana is neat and tidy for this ability. It’s possible that Path to Exile may be the flagship one-White-mana removal spell, but I think mono-White (or White-based-no-removal-splash) weenie decks will want a second combat trick, and this is less costly (and has more potential) than Oblivion Ring.
Elite Vanguard — W
Creature — Human Soldier
2/1
I remember when Savannah Lions were reprinted. They were popular enough (and still strong enough) that I traded for a playset, and they really are the historically-quintessential “one-drop,” along with Jackal Pups, I guess. But ultimately they faltered and never really made an impact during their “Renaissance,” instead just becoming another merely-good one-drop without a home.
Elite Vanguard benefits from a number of things that Savannah Lions does not. One, he has a relevant creature type now, as M10 includes a fair amount of support cards specifically for the Soldier type of guy. Two, he has a number of base-White decks to try and slot into, which will only get stronger for the next three months, and probably beyond.
It’s possible that Elite Vanguard may not make his big splash until after Zendikar rotates in, as he would have to be the second string one-drop to Figure of Destiny, but that means now is the time to pick them up.
Sleep — 2UU
Sorcery — U
Tap all creatures target opponent controls. Creatures that player controls don’t untap during their controller’s next untap step
I can’t decide what I think about Sleep. Really, if you’re using it as a defensive measure, you only get one reprieve, so I’m not sure it’s worth the four mana. I mean, it’s not like it’s DESTROYING all creatures. But someone mentioned it in the vein of using it as an attacking weapon, which… oddly enough I understand.
Back when I played Legend of the Five Rings, two cards dominated combat: Counterattack and Rallying Cry. Counterattack does what you think it does: once you’ve been attacked, at the end of combat, you play Counterattack and get your own attack phase during your opponent’s turn. Rallying Cry was the card used to fight Counterattack because it let you untap all the guys you just attacked with, standing them up for defense on the Counterattack. What essentially happened was, once you entered into a land-battle stalemate, you’d wait for your Rallying Cry before attempting to attack, so as not to get blown out by Counterattack.
Sleep works in sort of the opposite way. If you enter into a creature stalemate, you can use Sleep to lock down your opponent’s blockers without fear of retribution. It also allows you two attack steps without blockers, which should be enough for a Wake Thrasher-based Merfolk tribal deck to deal critical damage.
It’s sort of like using Cryptic Command to attack for lethal, only without the added options. Or the fifteen-dollar price tag.
Doom Blade — 1B
Instant — C
Destroy target nonblack creature.
I’m really interested to see the artwork for this one. I imagine it like a wispy scimitar hanging over some unsuspecting soldier’s head.
Terror gets a lateral move in the new Doom Blade. Now it can hit those pesky artifact creatures (nothing more annoying than not being able to Terror an Ethersworn Canonist) but you lose the regeneration prevention. That may not be relevant as often in Constructed — I mean, really, what regenerator were we playing with besides the Troll Ascetic that you couldn’t target anyway? — but it might cause Regenerate to become a playable card in Limited.
Okay, that’s a stretch.
Rise From The Grave — 4B
Sorcery — U
Put target creature card in a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. That creature is a black Zombie in addition to its other colors and types.
Zombify + one extra mana = target your opponent’s Broodmate Dragon? I like the ability to pull from any graveyard, but it may turn out that there is a cap to the amount of mana people are willing to spend on reanimation, and it’s four mana. The only reason I am recommending picking these up is because the most-played reanimation spells, Makeshift Mannequin and Puppeteer Clique, will be rotating out in a few months.
Sign In Blood — BB
Sorcery — C
Target player draws two cards and loses 2 life.
I will probably be singing the praises of this card for quite a while. And you will probably see it lots of places, as Faeries will probably be okay with using it as card-drawing, and Jund aggro decks as well.
It’s just a simple, elegant card. The price for two cards in Black has always been two life (Night’s Whisper, Phyrexian Gargantua) — and the big powerful enchantments like Necro and Bargain offer at the same rate. The twist on this card — being able to target your opponent — comes only at the price of making that mana be colored, which is practically free in today’s multicolored environment.
This is the first card I’ll personally be trying to pick up a playset of. I tried to build some sort of Black-Red control deck for Regionals earlier this summer, and the real sticking point was that I couldn’t keep up with decks that drew cards. Now, at least, I want to try out the deck again, this time with a little card drawing of my own.
Burning Inquiry — R
Sorcery — C
Each player draws three cards, then discards three cards at random.
A sort of miniature Wheel of Fortune? Malevolent discard? A potential combo enabler? I have no idea how to rank this card. I went into this article thinking I needed four to try in Extended Dragonstorm — it’s a cheap Storm enabler and could help you draw into the combo pieces if you’re in a tight spot. But that random discard scares me.
And the disparity of it makes me nervous too. You could Inquire yourself into discarding the same three cards you just drew, and your opponent could pull the burn necessary to finish you off while discarding cards he can’t cast. But it could happen the other way around, and those times it would be AWESOME.
I think you could make an argument that it would work great in a Grixis Unearth-based deck, where you don’t necessarily care that you’re pitching stuff into the graveyard. I like that idea.
4 Sedraxis Specter
4 Anathemancer
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Shambling Remains
4 Hell’s Thunder
2 Extractor Demon
4 Burning Inquiry
4 Terminate
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Grixis Charm
4 Crumbling Necropolis
4 Vivid Crag
2 Vivid Marsh
4 Terramorphic Expanse
5 Mountain
4 Swamp
1 Island
Rare Cost Summary:
Sedraxis Specter ($1.25 x 4 = $5.00)
Hell’s Thunder ($2.49 x 4 = $9.96)
Extractor Demon ($0.59 x 2 = $1.18)
Game plan? To build yourself a nice aggressive curve with the creatures, remove blockers with burn and Terminate, and if you hit a land-glut, mini-Wheel yourself. If you get creatures and ditch the land, great. If you ditch the creatures, they all come back.
Jackal Familiar — R
Creature – Hound — C
Jackal Familiar can’t attack or block alone.
2/2
A miniature Mogg Flunkies. I think the Jackal Familiar is only missing the Goblin creature type to make it really playable, as I think Goblins as a tribe will experience a bit of a resurgence. I’ve heard people say, well, the casting cost doesn’t really matter because he can’t attack until turn 3 anyway, but if you’re following him up on turn 2 with Hellspark Elemental (which definitely could happen) or on turn 3 with Ball Lightning, you circumvent the drawback.
And if you’re playing this guy, you want to be attacking with multiple creatures each turn anyway.
Nature’s Spiral — 1G
Sorcery — U
Return target permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.
Wizards was correct in thinking that Regrowth would be too good in today’s Standard — although I’d wager that it’s more dangerous in Extended where you could regrow Glimpse of Nature — and this “fixed” version of Regrowth loses some of the punch, but is still pretty strong. You won’t be able to re-use removal spells or game-breaking sorceries, but you WILL be able to regrow what Green is proverbially “good” at: creatures.
Recently, I’ve been contemplating a revamped Planeswalker Control deck, and I think Nature’s Spiral would be pretty good in that. It gets back critical elements of the deck (Planeswalkers, Wall of Denial) that are extremely impacting to the game once they enter play. That deck, however, is not appropriate for this column due to the fact that Planeswalkers are so darned expensive — hopefully with the reprinting in M10, some of the original Walkers will come down a little in price.
Windstorm — XG
Instant — U
Windstorm deals X damage to each creature with flying.
Would you trade Hurricane’s ability to finish a game (or draw it) to get rid of its sorcery-speed? I started sideboarding Hurricane into my Green-White deck this summer because it’s pretty good against W/x Tokens and Faeries, and I think it would actually be BETTER if I could take down a flying Cloudgoat Ranger after he leaps into the air. Being able to respond to Ajani’s activation is pretty good, also. The direct-to-player damage is a sad loss, but I’ll manage to survive. This card will be a good sideboard player as long as Faeries are around, and that probably goes for Extended as well.
It Seems Like It Was Just 2009
Magic 2010 gets out its “new card smell” in Prereleases all over the world this upcoming weekend. I hope you have your plans in place. They’re a great way to expand your collection, interact with other people with the same hobby, and maybe even take a little bit of the prize pool home with you. I’ll be in Denver, most likely both days — if not to play in the Sealed pods, at the very least to take some packs home from gunslinging against Honolulu Top 8 (and local hero) Conley Woods. Hope you all get out and play some M10 this weekend!
Until next week…
Dave
dave dot massive at gmail and now davemassive at twitter and facebook