You’ve already read this in every article this week, but it’s impossible to look at the results from #SCGINDY and not come away with a singular focus on the success of Smuggler’s Copter. A new card getting 32 copies in the Top 8 across archetypes in four different color combinations is incredible. Some of those decks, like Grixis Emerge and G/B Delirium, used known shells where Smuggler’s Copter wasn’t necessarily a strictly obvious inclusion. Other players played G/B Delirium and Emerge strategies without Smuggler’s Copter, but only versions that found a way to include it made the Top 8.
Yes, this is the first week. Yes, results will skew toward aggressive decks. Yes, Smuggler’s Copter is a new card that requires a specific kind of answer and people will figure out how to build decks that can answer it. So no, we don’t know that this is the second coming of Skullclamp, but to think this will be anything short of format-defining seems crazy at this point. Even if it doesn’t continue to dominate at this level (on the one hand, it’s almost impossible to dominate at this level unless it starts coming close to 64 copies in the Top 16, so predicting a fall is easy; on the other hand, I’m not anticipating that it will stop being the most successful card in the format), it will still shape every deck that plays it or doesn’t play it, massively decreasing the number of planeswalkers and sorcery-speed creature removal while increasing the number of small creatures and instant-speed removal spells.
Theoretically, the first week is dominated by aggro decks, and after that, things change as people figure out the best control strategies to beat them. However, this seems particularly challenging in Kaladesh Standard because you can be attacked from so many different angles. Put simply, it’s hard to find a deck that can beat Smuggler’s Copter; Prized Amalgam; Gideon, Ally of Zendikar; and Emrakul, the Promised End. Those are all very different angles of attack that all demand a completely different kind of plan.
Creatures (21)
- 4 Thraben Inspector
- 4 Selfless Spirit
- 3 Depala, Pilot Exemplar
- 2 Pia Nalaar
- 4 Toolcraft Exemplar
- 4 Veteran Motorist
Lands (24)
Spells (15)
Meanwhile, a deck like W/R Vehicles isn’t concerned with what its opponent is doing. It has a fast clock, a lot of synergy, a wide variety of threats, and an impressive ability to play at all stages of the game. Because it has bigger Smuggler’s Copters than other players, it doesn’t have to worry about answering opposing Smuggler’s Copters, so it gets to play Declaration in Stone while closing a game quickly enough that the Clues aren’t necessarily a problem.
If the opponent tries to lock up the battlefield with blockers, Depala, Pilot Exemplar can Crew any Vehicle at the end of the opponent’s turn to spend all your mana drawing cards to break through, and Skysovereign, Consul Flagship can break through almost any defenses.
This means you need to either get under them (which can be hard to do given that they have a one-mana 3/2), you need to be sure you can kill every single one of their creatures, or you need to turn the corner very quickly.
Also, answering Smuggler’s Copter isn’t as simple as playing Grasp of Darkness, because your opponent still decides whether you can actually use Grasp of Darkness on Smuggler’s Copter. If they decide not to Crew it, you need to either be willing to use your removal spell on their creature or you need to have some other productive way to spend your mana. To my mind, this means you want not only a good number of instant-speed removal spells but a full instant-speed gameplan if you’re trying to play a reactive game against Smuggler’s Copter.
Moving forward, I think four-mana creatures might see a lot more play as decks that wanted Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and other planeswalkers move away from them. Mindwrack Demon has been brought up as an answer to Smuggler’s Copter, but I think Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and removal spells form the better approach, as it offers a fast turnaround against aggressive decks and allows you to exile Prized Amalgam, Scrapheap Scrounger, and Haunted Dead against Grixis Emerge.
I’m also interested in Rashmi, Eternities Crafter as a way to pull ahead in a Bant deck:
Creatures (23)
- 3 Reflector Mage
- 4 Sylvan Advocate
- 3 Archangel Avacyn
- 3 Tireless Tracker
- 2 Spell Queller
- 2 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
- 1 Verdurous Gearhulk
- 1 Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter
- 4 Servant of the Conduit
Lands (16)
Spells (21)
I’m not sure that this is specifically good against other Thopter decks, just brainstorming, but I like that Blossoming Defense can turn what the opponent expects to be a favorable Thopter exchange for them into a favorable exchange for you, and it plays really well with Smuggler’s Copter against Grasp of Darkness, since you can choose to only expose the Smuggler’s Copter when you have mana for Blossoming Defense.
Moving toward Archangel Avacyn rather than Verdurous Gearhulk is done out of respect for Smuggler’s Copter and for synergy with Rashmi, where Archangel Avacyn might come with another flash creature.
Anyway, when a card is this successful in Standard, the next question is whether it has applications in Modern.
Modern is a format with a lot of creatures, so Crewing Smuggler’s Copter isn’t necessarily difficult and it could potentially fit naturally into a wide variety of different game plans.
To start with, it’s an artifact, so it’s natural to consider whether it deserves a place in Affinity. It plays well with Affinity’s general evasive plan and Memnite and Inkmoth or Blinkmoth Nexus in particular are great pilots. Looting isn’t something Affinity’s had access to before, but it’s definitely something it’d be in the market for, since it plays so many cards that contribute to good starts but that you don’t actually want after the first turn, like extra Springleaf Drums, and it has a few extremely high-impact cards that you’d really like to draw more of, like Cranial Plating.
Additionally, while Affinity’s primarily concerned about artifact sweepers like Shatterstorm, Anger of the Gods and Damnation are also very effective against them, so getting another threat that dodges those is great. I’m fairly optimistic that Smuggler’s Copter over Etched Champion / Master of Etherium would be an improvement for Affinity.
Creatures (23)
Lands (16)
Spells (21)
This would be the simplest execution of Affinity with Smuggler’s Copter, and I think it’s a good starting point to test it out. Ultimately I’d be open to playing two or three Smuggler’s Copters and one or two three-mana creatures, but I’d start here to get a feel for how much I liked Smuggler’s Copter.
Continuing the theme of playing Smuggler’s Copter because it’s an artifact but taking it in a very different direction, we could add Smuggler’s Copter to Abzan Delirium, which was really looking for an artifact anyway. Looting plays well with Lingering Souls, which is also a great way to Crew Smuggler’s Copter. Aside from Lingering Souls, Abzan is worse at Crewing Smuggler’s Copter and already has a lot of great two-mana creatures, so I don’t think I’d be looking to play four Smuggler’s Copters, but playing a couple could easily be the best way to get some artifacts in the deck with fairly large upside.
Creatures (14)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (20)
Spells (22)
While I’m less optimistic about it, if we wanted to focus more on the fact that Smuggler’s Copter is a looter than on the fact that it’s an artifact, we could even consider playing it in Dredge, which has plenty of small creatures that can Crew it and gets a ton of value out of looting. It’s not optimal to take a deck like Dredge that usually doesn’t care about removal and add a card that Lightning Bolt is great against, but it’s possible that the rest of the deck is strong enough against removal that you don’t care, and getting a big flier can also really help with one of the failure modes of Dredge, where your opponent just plays enough large blockers that you can’t effectively clock them with Prized Amalgam.
Creatures (24)
Lands (18)
Spells (18)
- 3 Mountain
- 2 Life from the Loam
- 2 Conflagrate
- 1 Lightning Axe
- 4 Faithless Looting
- 2 Smuggler's Copter
- 4 Cathartic Reunion
Sideboard
It’s not easy to make room in Dredge. When I played Dredge last, I played Tormenting Voice, which some people don’t play, but I think now that it can be upgraded to Cathartic Reunion, I definitely want to play four of those. So I was only able to fit two Smuggler’s Copters in comfortably, but that sounds like a safe number to test to me anyway.
While those are the most obvious and successful homes for Smuggler’s Copter in Modern, it’s reasonable to consider it in any deck that has a large number of small creatures that doesn’t have a good reason not to play it (like Collected Company). This means that it could show up and perform well in a deck like Faeries, but there’s a real question about whether the core of Faeries is strong enough to succeed even if Smuggler’s Copter is good there.
In general, Lightning Bolt creates a very high barrier to entry for three-toughness creatures in Modern that may minimize Smuggler’s Copter’s presence, but I think there’s a very good chance that the strength of the card will outweigh that. Between being colorless and only costing two mana, it has the right cost and the right power level for the format, so I think it’s not a question of whether it will show up in Modern as much as when, where, and how much.
However, when it does show up in Modern, it will just be another good threat; it won’t be format-warping and nowhere near format-defining. There are already very few planeswalkers, and everyone is already playing as many cheap instant-speed removal spells as they possibly can.
It says a lot about just how busted the card is in Standard that I’m optimistic about its ability to survive a shift to a Modern format that is already playing huge numbers of the best possible cards against it, like Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay, tools that we don’t have anything close to in Standard.
Moving forward in Standard I don’t think Smuggler’s Copter is the kind of card you have to either play or prepare to beat; I think it’s a card you should look to play and prepare to beat.