Free…
what a word.
What a concept!
“Free” is a word that has a certain ring to it regardless of what it’s referring to. If you see that someone’s left an old television set in the
lobby of your apartment with the sign “Free” on it, you may not end up bringing that lovable loser into your abode, but you sure did take a second look at
it.
Free represents opportunity. Like, “I don’t think I have a use for this TV set yet, but I could…”
Free is an almost universally beloved term too; everyone understands the concept of a “freebie.”
If you put out an ad in the paper for “Free household waste, still in basket, just needs to be picked up,” I’d be willing to bet that at least one
(admittedly probably creepy) person would show up looking around for your waste container.
As with every good thing in this world, there’s a darker side. A seedy underbelly that most of us aren’t privy to and the ones who are, well… they try to
forget those times.
“Free” has a thriving underground in Magic history and even still today in some circles. Some of you were luckily not around for all of these, and lucky
you; however, the seasoned among us remember. Never forget!
(Okay, that last one’s going to take a bit to catch on, admittedly.)
That’s not even including cards that severely cheat on mana, like Show and Tell (and Omniscience by extension) and Lotus Cobra. Allowing “free” to replace
the mana cost of anything has been problematic in the past and, in my opinion, Narset deserves to at least tag along behind this group, kind of like the
school kid who’s cool enough to be around the cool kids but can’t quite get in the group. So he follows them around to show that he’s with him to
the other kids.
That’s Narset; she’s not Bloodbraid Elf, but she’s in the vicinity.
She’s a 3/2 creature.
She allows you to cast the cards she hits for free.
Her ability is random insomuch as you can’t control what you hit.
You have to build your deck around her in order to take advantage of her (meaning counterspells and X spells are typically no-go’s).
They’re both ladies who can kick some serious ass.
That’s where the similarities end though. To Narset’s detriment, she doesn’t have haste, costs two more, and needs you to restrict yourself to
non-creatures. She can also completely whiff, something that was impossible with Bloodbraid unless you wanted to or you completely ran out of cards with a
mana cost of three or less.
On Narset’s side, however, she can hit multiple spells, and she can cast any mana cost spell that she does hit. I’ve already covered some in my last
article, but in Standard she can hit:
…just to name a few. Obviously, this is “best case scenario” stuff: living long enough to play Narset, not being irreparably far behind when you cast her,
and having her hit these spells. Additionally, In Garruk’s Wake and Mass Calcify (and Duneblast if you want another of that effect) won’t even save Narset
from the bane of her existence, the “Declare Blockers Step”, as you can’t break timing rules with her ability.
However, let’s say we don’t just make a deck that has Narset and bunch of stupidly expensive spells in it. Let’s say we built a deck that simply had Narset
as a top end threat that could cast all of your other goodies (for free)?
That’s what I presented in my previous article: a deck that sought to play a fair game of Magic until I get to play Ms. Unfair herself (she’s obviously a
single lady, because regardless of how many liked her, she gave them a roundhouse kick instead of letting them put a ring on it. She’s like a female Chuck
Norris who can cast expensive stuff for free). Once that happens, your opponent has to have that impending doom feeling, knowing that bad
stuff is coming, and there ain’t a damn thing they can do about it.
Unless they’re Brad Nelson, and they pack four Crackling Dooms. What a jerk.
Here’s that list, for reference:
Creatures (17)
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 1 Keranos, God of Storms
- 4 Narset, Enlightened Master
Planeswalkers (10)
Lands (25)
Spells (8)
With this list, I was trying to set up big turns with Liliana Vess after playing Narset. While this did happen quite a bit (and it was glorious when it
did), most of the time I’d go to tutor with Liliana and not really need anything, but I would put Jace’s Ingenuity on top in order to gain
guaranteed value off of Narset. The fact that In Garruk’s Wake wouldn’t save Narset was more of an issue than I thought, so I started putting more and more
Abzan Charms on top in order to either kill their blocker or pump Narset to deal with a gang block (and leave behind a 5/4).
In fact, I started realizing more and more how the Charms were incredible due to their versatility. I started adding more. Sultai, Mardu, and Temur all
went in during test runs. While Mardu never really held its weight, and I always preferred another Abzan Charm to Sultai, Temur Charm was incredible. It
gave me the ability to interact on every level with my opponent, including giving me a counterspell in a deck where I had to build it without counterspells
due to Narset’s ability.
With Temur Charm, I could flip it with Narset and be just as happy as having one in hand since it would allow me to either clear a lone blocker while
growing Narset or make it so that all those cute little Elspeth tokens couldn’t block while my ragtag team of mana dorks and Narset finished off
the Champion of the Sun.
I started realizing more and more how I didn’t really need Liliana Vess to make Narset good and that drawing In Garruk’s Wake and Worst Fears sucked more
than I could put into words. The worst was when you would attack with Narset, flip over one spell (or whiff completely) then your Courser of Kruphix
flipped over In Garruk’s Wake (meaning you’d be drawing it next turn).
Ugh…
So I thought about dropping black altogether. The issue? Losing Abzan Charm was nothing to scoff at. But I wanted to give it a shot to see how it went.
Creatures (17)
Planeswalkers (8)
Lands (24)
Spells (11)
Sideboard
I ran some games with this against Ari Lax’s Abzan Midrange deck and, despite how “janky” this list may look and how it would seem that Siege Rhino would
instantly invalidate Narset, I won more than I lost against the list. The truth is, Narset is ridiculous, especially against a deck that wants to kill
everything you play with Hero’s Downfall and Utter End. When their gameplan is to one-for-one you with Thoughtseize and the aforementioned cards before
Sieging you to death, a card that lets you cast cards for free off the top of your deck (combined with Courser to get free lands off the top) completely
invalidates both the kill spells and the discard effect.
The great thing about this list, the thing that really makes me enjoy playing it, is how much advantage you can squeeze out of every single card
if you truly put the effort into it. This isn’t a blunt-force-trauma deck (meaning I’m not going ” Desecration Demon, go. Okay, attack. Attack. Attack. You dead.“), it’s a highly nuanced list that will reward you if you take the time to plan out
the optimal play at every turn. In that regard, this is quite similar to the Temur Lotus Cobra decks from a couple of years ago in that you’re truly
rewarded for eeking out advantage from everything you play.
In here, with Courser of Kruphix, Kiora, Narset, and all the ways to adjust/reset the top of your deck, you can truly have busted sequences that allow you
to “draw” way more cards than one person should be able to draw or play in a turn. Courser helps us when trying to maximize our Narset activations by
clearing out excess lands on top. Our Temples also help in this regard immensely. I included a couple of Wooded Foothills to give some extra shuffling as
well. If you take the time to plan out your plays, this deck will reward you.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “hmm… those Dig Through Times look an awful lot like Jace’s Ingenuities. Obviously, Michael just had a rather lengthy
typo.”
Nay, my friends, I have not made such a typo; the truth of the matter is, I simply cannot delve enough to make the card worth it. I’m the only person
around who has to pay full price for their Digs, and at full (or near-full) price, it’s just not that great when I can pay five to draw three. And in this
deck, five mana isn’t a ton, so I’m okay with just playing the “bad” card draw.
You may be thinking, “why not just play the fetches necessary? Dig is just that good.” The issue there is consistency with casting non-Dig spells. I want
to have green mana on turns 1 and 2, double green mana on turn 2 or 3, but after that, I start wanting double white or Jeskai colors or double blue mana. I
need green mana at first, but then I stop really needing too much of that color. If I simply add fetches and assume that my mana is fixed, I’ll start
having issues with actually being able to cast my non-green spells later in the game. It’s just not worth it when I can play something similar and easier
to cast in this deck in Jace’s Ingenuity.
The sideboard easily gives away my biggest fear with this deck: red aggro decks. Even with the optimum draw of a turn 2 Courser of Kruphix, this deck just
feels irreparably far behind at all times against all flavors of red, especially Boss Sligh with their critical mass of “can’t block” effects. Circle of
Flame is incredibly good against that deck, with Goblin Rabblemaster being the sole issue and even that is kept decently in check by Circle. I wanted to
make sure though, so thus, why you see the Rams and Sprays in there as well.
Another issue is mass sweeper effects. True, we don’t have Wrath of God/ Day of Judgment/ Supreme Verdict to worry about, and End Hostilities isn’t really
doing much these days, but Anger of the Gods is seeing quite a bit of play and you can be 1000% certain that your opponent will board in every single copy
they can get their hands on. Thus, you’ll notice the Ephemeral Shields; while something like Gather Courage could feasibly do the job, I like that
Ephemeral Shields also gives protection in combat even if it’s not an Anger of the Gods situation and that it can be convoked by Narset for its colored
mana cost, meaning I can surprise my opponent with a card they weren’t expecting based on the amount of open mana I have.
I didn’t know if this version truly made me okay with losing access to Abzan Charm, however, in order to determine which of the two paths (Charm or no) is
better, not only must we take into account how good Charm really is, but we also need to account for how much worse off we are if we include black. In
order to add enough black mana producers for me to be comfortable with playing Charm, I’ll either have to sacrifice in the consistency department or the
life total area. Basically, I can either load up on more tapped lands like Opulent Palace or Sandsteppe Citadel, increasing my ability to hit my colors on
time but giving me more enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands, or I can play more painlands like Caves of Koilos or Llanowar Wastes. The second option
obviously prevents me from having curve issues like a tapped land would, but I’m already playing four Mana Confluences, four Yavimaya Coasts, and a
Battlefield Forge, which means that even more painlands will do just what you think they will: bring the pain.
In a format that has two of the biggest decks being Jeskai Aggro and Boss-Sligh-Rabble-Burn-Goblins-HunterFaceroll.dek (or whatever the new name is this
week), having that much pain in one deck is a bit much. Courser of Kruphix can only do so much.
Back to Narset though. This isn’t the only place we can use the enlightened one another concept we could focus on could be a token-based strategy with
Narset as a top end as well. It could either be similar to the one listed above (in that it uses mana accelerants as well) or could be a Jeskai deck with a
pure token focus. The benefit here is that we’re playing ways to generate creatures that don’t detract from Narset’s awesomeness; again though, this goes
back to risk vs. reward when considering the two strategies. If I don’t play any mana accelerants and focus solely on Jeskai colors, I will have more
awesome Narset flips, but I may have some issues casting her on time. Conversely, the more mana accelerants I have, the less awesome my flips will be, but
none other than Magic: the Gathering master tactician, General George S. Patton, said it best:
“A good plan, violently executed now, is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
In other words: if I wait until turn 6 to cast my Narset (because I filled my deck with nothing but sweet spells to hit with her and no mana accelerants),
my perfect plan may come too late. Even if I hit a smaller percentage of the time with Narset when I include the likes of Sylvan Caryatid, it’s better to
hit less than to never hit at all (because you died before you ever got a chance to use Narset).
As such, the more you go down the non-accelerant path, the more your deck starts to skew towards, and look similar to, the Jeskai Aggro deck; if you want
to play Jeskai colors with a spell-based strategy, just stick with that deck (otherwise, you’re breaking a cardinal rule of Magic: never play a worse
version of another deck).
Let’s look at the Four-Color Tokens deck:
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (8)
Lands (24)
Spells (16)
There’s so much room to explore Narset that I haven’t even touched on yet; what if I were to include some number of Jeskai Ascendancy in my current list?
It would allow me to filter my draws even better, as well as allowing me to keep up mana after countering something with Temur Charm. Additionally, all of
my non-creature spells would have mana costs reduced by X, where X is the number of mana dorks I can use this turn. It doesn’t have to just be a combo
piece.
What about the black mana route I’ve eschewed? Abzan Charm really is that good and Sultai Charm ain’t too shabby either. And you get In Garruk’s Wake and
Worst Fears (along with big daddy Garruk). I think this is going to solely depend on your metagame and how aggro-heavy it is, but if you’ve got a shop that
loves their midrange and control decks, I would snap-include Abzan Charms there and possibly some number of these other cards.
I’d say to give Narset a shot in either some of these decks or even one of your own, cards that truly allows you to cast your spells for free have
historically ended up being some of the most broken cards in Magic’s history, and Narset could be in the same family tree (if still off on some weird 15th
cousin branch of that tree).
Have you used Narset yet? Got any “good beat” stories of a Narset flip gone oh-so-right? Or have you been on the receiving end of a ridiculously good flip
by your opponent?
I’m hoping after this weekend that my opponents will have plenty of “he got so lucky when he flipped…” stories to tell.