Every Damn Thing But The Jailhouse Keys: Four Drops

We're getting into territory here that's somewhere between top-end and middle of the road, depending on the speed of the format. In something like Modern, we can afford something like Bloodbraid Elf and Huntmaster of the Fells, but that's about as high as we can go up the mana curve for a deck like this. In Standard, Huntmaster and Bloodbraid were the cheap-to-middle of the curve threats. Same deck philosophy, same cards, different roles. That has a lot to do with the speed of the format, but it also has to do with the narrow margins that games are decided on when the cards are cheap and efficient. That same Huntmaster that takes over games in Modern looked pretty helpless in Standard when the opponent was casting Sphinx's Revelations and Angel of Serenitys.

Historic is in a speed and power level area in between Modern and Standard and maybe a little slower than Pioneer. You wouldn't quite say that four mana is expensive, but you really can't go much higher. Not only are a lot of games over quickly, but the power discrepancy between something like Chandra Torch of Defiance and Glorybringer isn't as pronounced, because both cards are pretty unbeatable if they stick. So, what we're looking for is something that can stabilize a board and then turn the corner. It's a tough ask, but at four mana, there are some cards that are up to the task.

Speaking of, Chandra just seems to be the best card here. She nukes a creature the turn she comes into play, which is pretty similar to every other Planeswalker. The mana ability is useful from time to time, and the +1 is a little worse than drawing a card but applies pressure, which is what we're looking for.

Also unlike most Planeswalkers available to us, she has the ability to actually win the game on her own, or pretty close to it, with her ultimate, and it's pretty attainable. This facet of Chandra is part of why Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Jace the Mind Sculptor were so good. As long as you can keep pace with what your opponent is doing while Chandra is on the table, you don't really need to worry about pressuring the opponent, she can handle that herself.

Chandra, more than most cards we can play here, does something special which is that she helps you dig through your deck. In a format like Historic where we have some lights-out sideboard cards, the ability to have extra shots to find those cards will win a lot of games. Grafdigger's Cage and By Force come to mind, but you can also play stuff like Sporeweb Weaver or Witch's Vengeance in your sideboard if you anticipate those decks. As decks get more singularly-focused and these knockout sideboard cards look a lot better, so does the ability to find those knockout cards. When Kaladesh Remastered was released I was worried about replacing Liliana, Waker of the Dead with her because I needed that ability to go after the opponent's hand. Instead, Chandra turns out to be great at that effect because your deck has lots of that effect and she draws you cards.

Chandra gets hampered by the Legend rule pretty badly, since her +1 misses if she hits another copy of herself. That said, she also gets around the Legend rule by killing the opponent. I think playing two copies is the right number at the moment.

Liliana is a great card. She's a lot like Chandra in that she can come down and kill a creature, then get to work on your opponent's resources. She's a good topdeck because, like Chandra, she can turn her +1 ability into a clock when it otherwise wouldn't be useful.

What she lacks from Chandra is that she's graveyard dependent, meaning that her -3 and -7 abilities aren't going to be as useful in a format with Scavenging Ooze. Not only does her -3 do next to nothing against an Ooze, the -7 isn't great in conjunction with our own Oozes.

What I will say about Liliana, though, is that she can do a lot of the same things as Chandra while not being named Chandra Torch of Defiance, so she's a totally fine choice if you want more Planeswalkers but don't want to go higher on Chandra. Note also that Liliana's Legend Rule problem isn't that bad, since you can just discard excess copies of herself. I don't think there's too many cases where she's going to be better than Chandra, except in a case where you want to cut double-red costing cards from the deck.

Vraska is of course in the same league as Chandra and Liliana but has some significant differences. One is that the +2 ability is pretty useless for us, we don't have very much graveyard synergy and we want to keep our lands if possible. However, the ultimate is pretty strong here and she gets there pretty quick since she climbs by 2 loyalty a turn.

Vraska's biggest upside is when you start to see opponents playing things like Search for Azcanta and Narset. All the Planeswalkers can pick off creatures and get a little value while they climb to ultimate, but Vraska adds in a little bit of versatility to fight against some stuff that we normally have difficulty dealing with. She also gets back up to three loyalty after just one turn if you use her -3, ready to Abrupt Decay another permanent.

If I had to rank them, at the moment I like Chandra, then Vraska, then Liliana.

A different route, but Questing Beast can get some work done for us. The thing here though is that for Questing Beast to be at its actual best, we want to pressure life totals, which we don't really do that well most of the time. You can tune the deck to be more proactive if you want to, sure. I really like Questing Beast when it's pressuring their life total and doing something else, which is to say blocking, killing planeswalkers, and sometimes even countering Fog effects. When the format had lots of Teferi Time Raveler and Haze of Pollen, Q Beast was great.

Anyways, this all is on a package that just gets hit by Doom Blade effects, unlike Planeswalkers. And also unlike Planeswalkers, if we hit them from 20 down to 8 with it and then they find their removal spell, then the game just continues as normal. With Planeswalkers, you've usually gained a bit of value off of them just being around and trying to get to their ultimate.

Questing Beast is pretty consistent, though. It's never going to be a terrible card to cast on turn four and never a terrible topdeck. I don't hate it, and again, if people start playing more decks with Planeswalkers that this thing can gobble up, give it a shot.

When Rekindling Phoenix was spoiled in January of 2018, I wrote this:

"This card is really cool, and I think it's really good, but I really can't imagine it's going to see play until Chandra rotates out of the format. Watch out for this one being really good in the future. It does a lot of cool things that a lot of decks are looking for, but Chandra just does better."

Phoenix is a fantastic card, and it stabilizes a board and turns the corner like we want, but its inclusion in the deck at this point is based pretty much solely on Chandra. There will be times where Rekindling Phoenix is great, where blocking and being good against removal are important in the format. Phoenix's problem is that in that specific universe, Chandra is really good too, and she'll be good all the other times too.

I also didn't mention this with Questing Beast, but as of right now, in the back of our minds we should be thinking about Uro with just about every card that we put in the deck. Planeswalkers at least can try to kill Uro and keep it off the table or dig and try to find Scavenging Ooze. Phoenix and Questing Beast kind of just lose to it, so that's another detractor.

I actually like this card quite a bit. I mentioned Huntmaster of the Fells earlier in this post but Polukranos does a pretty good Olivia Voldaren impression. Unlike Olivia, the turn Polukranos comes down it's already big enough to tangle, and you don't care that much of it dies.

Polukranos's downsides are kind of the same as Questing Beast and Rekindling Phoenix's except that it hits in really big chunks. Six power is a lot, and an Escaped Polukranos may as well be Phage the Untouchable, which means that it has a ton of ammo to shoot down opposing blockers. Six other cards in the graveyard is a long time in this deck, since we don't play anything to really facilitate it, but in matchups where you're getting to six mana, you're likely going to get to six cards as well.

Additionally, Questing Beast is the right recipe of useful mana sink and body that's good enough if we don't have the time to use it. It costs mana, but Polukranos can do something useful while it's in play, unlike Questing Beast who can only attack for four and then pass the ball back to Jimmy.

I like playing a Polukranos from time to time, when I expect to not get tempo'd out by playing it and when my opponent is likely to have small creatures. It's versatile, consistent, easy to cast, and is high-rate.

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Of course, there are a lot of cards that are perfectly reasonable to play at any price point in these colors. These are the ones I've found to be the best, but if you think I've missed one, or have a different opinion, let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading.