Future Sight opens up a lot of design doors, from artifacts that cost colored mana to play to Enchantments that can attack for damage. With over a hundred new cards soon to enter the Legacy cardpool, which ones are going to make a lasting impact? How many won’t measure up?
Dryad Arbor looks interesting, if for no other reason than that it’s a man-land that doesn’t have a mana activation. With summoning sickness, it effectively comes into play tapped if you are planning to use it for mana. I wouldn’t rate this card as something that could make new archetypes playable, but it is one of those cards to keep in the back of your head for a future date.
On the other hand, I can easily see Glittering Wish being played. However, I haven’t seen any proposals that have really amazed me. It’s probably not good enough to run as a one- or two-of and use to find sideboard answers, and it’s not worth mangling a sideboard for that. At the same time, having four in a deck makes it functionally 70+ cards, depending on how geeky you get with your wishboard. The targets for Glittering Wish are pretty interesting; Loxodon Hierarch, Pernicious Deed, Putrefy. The biggest downside I can see is that such a deck would lose to its own manabase. Green and White have terrible gold cards, so one would have to dip into other colors to really make it hum. Glittering Wish has amazing potential; it can snag creatures for beating, answers for threats on the board, or general utility cards like Deed or Glare of Subdual, or if you’re feeling greedy, Angel of Despair. In a deck making heavy use of Glittering Wish, I could see running Pillar of the Paruns.
Linessa, Zephyr Mage and Oriss, Samite Guardian both fall under the category of “probably good in some Survival of the Fittest shell.” Neither card is useful as a one-of, but think about being able to Aether Vial one of them into play and go tutor for the others. The mana cost for the effect seems reasonably cheap there. I can think of a lot of decks that would positively cry when faced with Linessa on the board and the rest of her family coming out of the deck to bounce up to twelve(!) permanents in one turn. Oriss obviously allows for an Orim’s Chant lock, but up until now those have not proven spectacular in Legacy. Both cards have clear synergy with Genesis as well.
Heartwood Storyteller is an interesting card for aggro decks against control. It follows the general trend of Future Sight in that it doesn’t obviously fit into any existing decks, but it has a lot of potential to it. You end up with a Mystic Remora on legs that’s going to be spectacular in a mostly-creature deck. It looks cute in Survival decks, but Dosan is likely better there if the intent is to screw over control. Heartwood Storyteller gets more interesting when we look at it as a Compost. In decks like Aluren that have plenty of green mana and absolutely die to B/W Disruption-style decks, it provides a recharge as well as a blocker.
Horizon Canopy is exciting. In decks running Savannah, I’d try to cram this thing in instead. I’m thinking about Enchantress specifically, but there are certainly other applications. One trades off being able to use Flooded Strand to find it with a card that cycles all the time and replaces itself in the face of Wasteland. That it doesn’t have some awful “comes into play tapped” clause makes it playable. Easily playable alongside Savannahs, and if you run fetchlands as well, you can probably cut at least two Savannahs for Canopies.
Magus of the Moon is a fantastic card from Future Sight, and I think it will be one of the most played. It shuts down a ridiculous percentage of manabases and it is light on color requirements. One of the problems with R/G Beats decks is that they always want to run Blood Moon, but can’t afford to play things that don’t deal damage. Problem solved here. In my limited testing, it has been ruthless in Survival of the Fittest decks. While it can certainly die to all the creature hate in the world, the ability is too strong to ignore for that reason. I predict it will pop up in base-Red Stax decks and the aforementioned R/G Beats. Keep in mind that the Mountains created by it are nonbasic, so things like Wasteland and Price of Progress still have great targets. It is a potent splash for B/R Disruption decks as well.
Narcomoeba really wishes it could play with Hermit Druid and Dread Return. I don’t think it has the power to make Dredge-based decks top-tier, but that’s because the format both lacks Bazaar of Baghdad and is abundant with Swords to Plowshares. It does add to the critical mass of Dredge cards, though. It might also find a home in a Cephalid Life deck, where one mills out their library with Nomads En-Kor and Cephalid Inkshrouder to power up a Dread Returned Sutured Ghoul.
Street Wraith is probably the most talked-about card in the set because for a mostly inconsequential payment, you get the benefit of a 56-card deck. Consider the following deck, which took 1st, 2nd and 9th in a GPT in Canada:
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Elvish Spirit guide
4 Simian spirit guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Land Grant
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lions Eye Diamond
4 Wild Cantor
3 Tinder Wall
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
Sideboard:
4 Shattering Spree
4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Cave-In
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroclasm
1 Simplify
The list only runs four Black cards, the Dark Rituals, in the maindeck. If one were to replace them with Street Wraiths, the result would be a slightly slimmer deck that doesn’t have awkward colors in it. From my testing of the deck, it takes significant contortions to cast Dark Ritual, abrogating its usefulness. Cutting them for Wraiths looks like a logical beginning. That also lets one cut the Bayou, probably for a fourth Tinder Wall.
Street Wraith has broader applications as well, and I think it will take a long time before we realize what it fully can and cannot do. Mike Bomholt pointed out to me that it makes Mirage tutors a lot better. Just as we don’t run 61-card decks because they are non-optimal, I wonder whether we will be moving, as a format, to 56-card decks. The first step, it seems, is to work on fitting Wraith into every deck played right now and see what it does. I just wish it had better art.
At long last, we’ve come to a card that’s worth tossing into an existing deck: Tarmogoyf. It can easily replace Werebear in Threshold, and it will be getting to Werebear size and surpassing it with frequency. Among Mental Note, Serum Visions, fetchlands and the inevitable dead creature in a graveyard somewhere, opponents will be staring down 4/5s for 1G. Not too shabby. By the way, did you read the reminder text? PLANESWALKER? Whaaaaaaaat?
Tolaria West looks like a card that would be right at home in a deck that doesn’t exist yet. 43 Lands can probably run one or two, as it is better than Crop Rotation, being that it’s, well, a land and all. Could Tolaria West be the cornerstone in a Tron or Eight-Post deck? My preliminary testing with those decks sans Tolaria West shows them to have a bit of potential. A list with Gifts Ungiven, based around the recent Extended lists, might be in order. I can see this land going into Eight-Post decks because they can run at least four more actually colored lands; Tron decks already hurt for Blue mana. Outside of Big Mana decks, it could have a home in Landstill-style decks. Transmuting at Sorcery speed is awful, yes, but this grabs a bunch of really neat lands like Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale or Maze of Ith. It even Transmutes for Chalice of the Void, Engineered Explosives and Ancestral Visions. It’ll be a hard card to sell, but it certainly has potential.
Tombstalker, what a giant tank. I think this goes into Reanimator decks because it’s easily an alternate win condition and will probably come out inexpensively. It looks really hard to actually “Tinker” out with just BB because, obviously, you need a lot of cards already in the graveyard, almost as many as you start the game with. I can see it as a strong secondary creature for Ill-Gotten Gains decks. I think that, especially against Threshold and the like, which are full of annoying Meddling Mages, the plan will become dropping this guy out for absurdly cheap mana costs. He doesn’t beat Leyline of the Void, however, and Jotun Grunt might pose a problem in setting it up. That said, this is a strong consideration for Storm decks, as well as ones that can get a lot of cards into the graveyard quickly, like Reanimator. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother; Black control decks have better cards by the time this can come down cheaply.
Yixlid Jailer is a fascinating card: a Humility for graveyards! It does not stop Reanimate, Goblin Welder, Ill-Gotten Gains, Recurring Nightmare or a host of other somewhat-common cards. It does stop Dredge… but Legacy doesn’t have that. It stops Cabal Therapy and other flashback cards, which is certainly nice. This is another tool for Black’s already formidable graveyard removal creature suite. Is it better than Withering Wretch? No. It’s on par with Crypt Creeper, and that doesn’t say much. If this format were looking down the barrel of an Ichorid, I’d run Jailer in a heartbeat, but it’s just no good right now.
The Pacts, in general, look enticing, but ultimately bad. The only ones to really talk about are Summoner’s Pact and Pact of Negation. The former is only going to be run to get Elvish Spirit Guide or Tinder Wall in Belcher. However, many stable Belcher kills involving Empty the Warrens are erased when one has to worry about the upkeep of the Pact rolling around. Storming up for twelve Goblins on the first turn, while normally unicorns-serving-me-rainbow-ice-cream-awesome, becomes unworkable if that plan requires Summoner’s Pact to work.
Pact of Negation is terribly awkward. Again, it will only be run in combo decks. If the opponent has a counter in hand, woo, you foiled it! If they do not, you have a completely worthless card in hand. How is that better than Duress? I don’t see control decks running this because by the time you have enough mana to pay the killer Echo, you are probably able to cast draw spells as well as counter opposing spells. Most of the draw in Legacy is Instant-speed anyway, so having something available when one taps out on their turn isn’t necessary at all.
There are now more Rebels in the critical mass of that verge-of-playable Tribal deck. Rebels will not be relevant until they have some truly amazing cards, if that ever happens. It’s a pity too; Rebels could be a fantastic deck, if Goblins weren’t around to completely roll over it. I could certainly see Rebels being a strong aggro-control deck in the format. In any case, Future Sight only succeeds in serving up the Rebels some more false hopes.
The same thing is true for the Slivers in this set. While they’re going to appeal to a lot of casual players, these Slivers offer nothing playable. Slivercycling is too expensive and poison counters will never accumulate in time to kill an opponent where normal damage would not. Wizards has to print fair versions of Slivers these days, and that means Legacy isn’t going to get many stunners.
Ultimately, Future Sight is a set with a lot of "wow, they did that!" cards that are gimmicky and pretty neat, but don’t have any real playability to them. While being able to Rebel up a Pacifism or morph a land into play is neat, it’s not going to be useful in any format. Future Sight is neat but not much else. Most of the playable cards end up as bridesmaids. They won’t help spawn new archetypes, and at best, they will supplement existing decks. When Street Wraith is the most hyped card from the set, we have to think about what it is really offering us. Despite the initial glitz of Future Sight, I don’t foresee it having a monumental impact on the Legacy scene in the way that recent previous sets have.
The fascinating cards in this set are still going for low prices; pick up Tarmogoyf, Street Wraith, and Magus of the Moon before they pick up steam. Let showy things like Pact of Negation drop a little bit before picking them up.
Bonus Section – In Which I Give Out Savage Techs For GP: Columbus
If you are going to the Grand Prix, run Chalice of the Void.
The reason is simple; it is a colorless way to shut down entire decks. Legacy has several decks that bottleneck at relatively low mana costs. Threshold and High Tide both convulse to Chalice at 1, and decks based on Life From The Loam run into real problems when it hits at 2. Not to mention, Chalice stops Storm combo pretty easily for zero mana.
The problem comes up that Chalice is symmetrical. However, I don’t think this is a serious issue; one does not need to rebuild their deck to fit it in pre- or post-board. Unless you are running one of those decks that does die to Chalice at 0 or 1, Chalice will be your best friend. In Vintage, Stax ran, and still runs, Chalice, even though it often has conflicting cards with what the deck aims to set Chalices at. For example, it still runs Moxes, even though Stax often sets Chalice for 0. Cards on the board that seriously shut down an opposing strategy are always going to be more valuable than the theoretical screw from drawing a card that might conflict with the played Chalice. In short, even if you have to 6-for-1 yourself, you’re probably 22-for-1-ing your opponent. Not bad.
Good decks to fit Chalice into include the Blue Affinity list that Chris Coppola wrote about this week, as well as the Survival list I wrote about several months ago. Other options include Angel Stompy and Terrageddon decks. I would certainly work on maindecking Chalice in anything that I could. If Faerie Stompy were a little bit more stable, it would be a fine choice, thanks to its Trinket Mages fetching Chalices. I’m serious when I say that this is probably the best card in the format right now. Legacy is showing an upswing in combo decks, as well as many decks lowering their overall casting costs to be faster. Chalice punishes this a lot.
Consider the following adaptation of Goblins with maindecked Chalice, and then form a vitriolic response to say to me in the forums. Hey, the only people that welcome change are babies…
Artifacts
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
Creatures
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-gang Commander
1 Goblin Tinkerer
Basic Lands
6 Mountain
2 Taiga
Lands
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard:
4 Tranquil Domain
4 Pyrokinesis
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Pithing Needle
1 Tin-Street Hooligan
2 Tormod’s Crypt
This list gives up a few singleton Goblins as well as the third Siege-Gang Commander and a land. In return, it gets combo hate in the first game, as well as a very potent tool against several decks. Goblins has trouble at times when it gets pulled into the long game and has to face recursion engines. For example, a Devastating Dreams from Aggro-Loam backed up with Life From The Loam can force Goblins right out of the game. In addition to obvious anti-combo benefits, Chalice gives a fighting chance to stop those recursions from happening.
With Threshold decks primed to be at least 25% of the field at the Grand Prix, maindecked Chalice is very strong in Goblins. It takes a slightly favorable matchup, but swings it heavily by running four must-counter cards in the maindeck. I’ll say that I’ve tested a lot against Threshold in many forms and with many decks, and I have never seen it win through Chalice of the Void set to 1. The setback from it is monumental if it hits at any point in the game.
When considering deck changes like this, it is important to weigh what one gains against what one loses. In this deck, you are out a Commander, but you make up for it in the lategame with Chalice anyway, and you’re down Goblin Sharpshooter and Skirk Prospector from the maindeck as well. Those are not epic losses in any case; the only concern to keep in mind is that this drops your Goblins count by three more creatures, weakening Goblin Ringleader a bit. I think the tradeoff is fair though, and that Chalice is going to win a surprising amount of game-ones against decks that you would normally have no chance to.
Goblins, obviously, isn’t the only deck that can and probably should be running Chalice. Any deck that can’t already handle combo in the first game or can reasonably safely set it at 1 is a candidate for consideration. If you’re thinking about running some combo hate on the sideboard, Chalice of the Void is basically at the top of the list; that you usually have to set it at 1 means it doesn’t play nice with Orim’s Chant, Cabal Therapy or Duress, but that’s another kink to work out and it’s possible to fit two or more playsets of those cards in the same deck.
Good luck at the GP, and show up the night before because Morrissey is playing a show on Friday in Columbus.
Doug Linn
Hi-Val on the Intarweb
Special thanks to the Legacy community on TheManaDrain and Team Meandeck