If You Plant Ice You're Gonna Harvest Wind

First things first, Strixhaven doesn't come out for about three weeks, so what are we doing until then? For now, I like the list as I posted last week, with a little change. Jund Food has completely surpassed the typical Jund Sacrifice decks, as noted in the metagame breakdowns for the Pro Tour. The problem with that is that Grafdigger's Cage is much less reliable in that matchup. It still stops Cat/Oven, and stops them from getting back Woe Strider, but that's about it, whereas the non-food versions have Collected Company that get shut down by Cage. Because of this, and that I haven't even really liked bringing in Cage against Goblins these days, I've switched to two Sarulf and one Klothys in the sideboard and cut the Cages. Sarulf is also excellent in most of the matchups that have Collected Company, like Angels and Gruul, but we didn't want to bring in Cage to just shut off Company. It's also great against Auras as well. I like where it's at in the sideboard, where we can bring it in for all the matchups where we basically would want extra copies of Chevill, but also would love a sweeper. As for the Klothys, I just like it. It has a lot of applications.

The trick will be to get back into Mythic before Strixhaven drops next month.

Strixhaven Reprints

So after only two days of spoilers, plus the Commands that were spoiled a while ago, I think we have enough stuff to talk about already.

First, I want to put in writing that I think this card will be extremely good, so good that it will pretty likely be banned some time soon. Just a prediction, and I'd love to be proven wrong and get to play with it forever. I would have claimed that it would be the best card in Historic, but since it was spoiled, two more cards that are likely better were spoiled as well. I'm also really excited about it for Modern and Pioneer.

It's been a while since there was a deck that played it, but I was always so jealous of decks that could play Flower/Flourish. It almost felt like cheating, this card that not only produced mana for them, but fixed their mana, and as a bonus wasn't a dead draw on turn six. I'm honestly kind of surprised that it doesn't see more play in Historic but I guess Collected Company really restricts your deck building choices.

Abundant Harvest plays a similar role to Flower/Flourish and Attune with Aether, but doesn't need any sort of synergy to make it effective. It just gets you want you want all the time. It lets us play a 23 land deck and get mana screwed at only the rate of a 27 land deck. There are other effects that do similar things in magic, but they usually aren't green, and they don't hit every single time. You'll never resolve this and miss on land when you want one. You'll also never try to hit a spell and miss.

I think that to start out, we want to play a low land count deck, something like 23 or 22. We also want to have enough green sources to play the Harvest on turn 1 as often as possible, so Blooming Marsh and Overgrown Tomb look good, possibly Stomping Ground or Pathways do as well. Green definitely becomes the most important color, so Kazandu Mammoth isn't out of the question. I also don't hate the Thriving lands here, but we have to remember that Harvest is essentially a tapped land itself, so playing a tapped land to fetch up a tapped land slows us down pretty considerably.

As for the rest of the deck, I think Jegantha might not be of much use anymore. Jegantha is great because it's action when you don't have any, but all of a sudden we will have a lot more action to play with. However, we're going to be keeping a lot of hands that are like, Harvest plus Blooming Marsh and hoping we hit a red source, so having the deck be Jegantha-ready will help our color situation.

I'll talk about it more in a second, but playing Harvest with Thoughtseize effects might not work the best. There will be times when you cast a Harvest naming non-land and hit a Thoughtseize when they have an empty hand, and that's not a great feel, especially if you're in a situation where an extra land would have turned on your Locthwain or Slumbermound. Oh and by the way, that's another great thing about Harvest, is that sometimes you just want more land to turn on your utility lands and you can just get it every time. That makes Harvest really good against discard spells, too.

This is in the format now, but it's an interesting thing. I mean, we definitely play it, but how many, and what is the mix between this and Thoughtseize? My initial thought is something like three Thoughtseize and two Inquisitions. Even in Modern, we usually play six or seven discard spells, not the full eight, because it makes the top of your deck soft. There are plenty of games where you stabilize the board but then draw two Thoughtseizes while your opponent draws two big creatures or whatever and you lose, so we don't want to increase the odds of that happening.

In Modern, we also run four Inquisitions and then shave or add Thoughtseizes to go along with it. Thoughtseize might be the one that gets all the attention, but really it's Inquisition that sees more play. However, in Historic there's a huge gap in power level between the best cards and the rest, and Thoughtseize hits way more of the important stuff. Collected Company, Muxus, Teferi, Nissa, Emergent Ultimatum, Yorion, Korvold, Shark Typhoon. Thoughtseize is in the deck to prevent those cards from resolving, so the fact that we'd have to reduce our count of Thoughtseize to make room for Inquisition might not be great for us overall. 

I think we'll have to see what happens with the rest of the decks in the format before deciding exactly how many and which discards spells to play. Maybe the rest of the Strixhaven special cards will make the format much faster and the top end cards that Inquisition misses won't see as much play. Or, maybe everyone will be playing 22 land Brainstorm and Faithless Looting decks and we need all 8 discard spells, since their decks will be so redundant.

This is Brainstorm. It will be legal in Historic. 

The thought with putting this in the format is that there aren't enough Fetchlands to make it work. I'm going to put in writing right now that this is wrong. Fabled Passage is already halfway there, and Abundant Harvest, Field of Ruin, Search for Azcanta, Castle Vantress, and lots of other cards will interact with Brainstorm very well. It also is just a good one mana card that reduces your land count and helps turn on stuff, like Arclight Phoenix, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Search for Azcanta again, Young Pyromancer, and Narset.

I also want to stress that Brainstorm with no fetching is a solid enough card, and that Brainstorm with a fetchland is just off-the-wall out-of-bounds beyond bonkers, but we're just used to it because it's been happening in Legacy every game for 15 years. Like, this card, in reality, is powerful enough to be banned in Legacy, in spite of the fact that it isn't. You don't need to do any work to maximize it, all these cards are things blue players are going to be doing with their decks anyways.

There's not really much to do about Brainstorm being in the format, but all the blue decks just got a lot better. I would have said before this came out that Abundant Harvest will make it hard to justify not playing green, but that didn't last long.

Looting is actually more problematic, because instead of just being a card that makes the decks it's in more consistent and good, this will actually enable a lot of dangerous stuff. Again, it's great with lots of the same stuff as Brainstorm, like Phoenix, Arcanist, and Pyromancer, but also sets up stuff like Kroxa and Claim to Fame. What's incredible about Looting is that it's a graveyard enabler, pretty much the best one, but also helps dig through your deck to find your answers for your opponent's graveyard hate, or helps to find your graveyard payoffs. Looting into an Abrade or Feed the Swarm to knock out their sideboard card is an incredible tool to have.

At the height of its power in Modern, Looting was the lynchpin of the two decks in the format that were far and away the best, Izzet Phoenix and Dredge. During that time, folks called it Modern's version of Brainstorm. The thing is, while you can claim that the enablers for Brainstorm don't exist in Historic, plenty of enablers for Looting exist already. Get ready for the graveyard decks of the format to become extremely powerful and consistent.

Of all these new cards, I think that Looting is probably the best, then Brainstorm then Harvest. I would not be shocked if we only got about a month or so with any of them in the format. Rakdos Arcanist and Izzet Phoenix are the low hanging fruit, but maybe the best thing to do is just splash blue in Arcanist for Brainstorms and Opts and jam some Phoenixes in. Not to mention that stuff like Neoform get much better since you can find your pieces so much more effectively and for cheap.

I wanted to talk about this a little because I think it would have been pretty solid in a format without Abundant Harvest. Harvest has me wanting to cut cycling lands and lower my land count, which will make the first mode of Command miss much more often. I think that this card gets a lot better if you can depend on the first mode working, which doesn't take that much work to do but might either be not worth it or too bad in the times it doesn't work out. Having said that, in the long game against UW, one of these can destroy a Baffling End and get back a land, often times something like Locthwain, Slumbermound, or a Canyon Slough. Against an aggro deck we can pop off an Elf or Soul Warden or Bomat Courier and either gain some life or secure our next land drop. And of course, it answers both Trail of Crumbs and Witch's Oven. It's not super splashy, but it might be worth including because of its flexibility and how cheap it is. Oh, it also can clear the top of your library after a Brainstorm and helps mill over Faithless Lootings, yay.

I'm excited about this card in Modern, where we have more ability to ensure we get a land, and there are cheaper and smaller targets for its removal abilities. I'm not sure if it's powerful enough, but two mana for a meaningful two-for-one is something worth trying out.

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It's funny, we haven't really seen anything worth talking about from Strixhaven itself, but with these new additions, all of a sudden the power level needed for a card to get included in a Historic deck just went way up, so it's entirely likely that this set, outside of Command, has just about nothing that we're going to want. When we get closer to a full spoiler I'll write out a way-too-early decklist, but that won't be until closer to the release. For now, I guess we can just argue online about how good Brainstorm will be. Check out my twitch channel, I'll be doing some streaming over the next couple weeks. Thanks for reading.

Keep Your Day Job Til Your Night Job Pays

Wanted to check in on the deck and where I'm at.

This list right now really pushes the cards that are okay early and bombs late. Three Valki and four Inscriptions means the top of your deck is super live in the late game. Quite frankly, we shouldn't be able to get away with this kind of flexibility, because our top end can go toe to toe with most of our opponents' top end, but theirs can't get cast for cheap when the game is still in its early stages.

I've moved away from Sarulf, which is not a choice that's easy to make. Sarulf has the ability to destroy some opponents pretty much by itself, but it's also very matchup dependent. There are two big problems with Sarulf, one being that it's still a creature than can get hit by Skyclave Apparition and Claim the Firstborn. A large portion of the time, if you manage to draw it against the matchups that it's there for, you can still lose if they have the answer, and usually it's a mana advantage for the opponent. Secondly, there are a huge number of matchups where Sarulf gets boarded out, like UW Control or any Yorion deck. There are things that it can do in those matchups, but it's too hard to get it going.

Of course, none of this is to say that Sarulf is a bad card. It's phenomenal when it works, but I've been finding it's not working that much in the current state of Historic. When that changes, then by all means bring it back in.

I've also cut Vraska. Vraska is likely just a worse and more expensive card than Inscription of Ruin against most of the format. All the creature decks have the ability to attack it when it's at 1 loyalty, and there are a lot fewer ways to get value out of it immediately against control decks. Again, this is subject to change if things like Narset and Search for Azcanta become more prevalanet, but even there I think I'm just as happy with Esika's Chariot and Inscription a lot of the time.

Speaking of, Chariot has been performing well against the influx of over-the-top midrange and control decks. It's a great thing to slam post-wrath, and also pretty great to bait out a wrath and have value left over. It forces opponents to deal with it at a card advantage loss, which is great by itself but the impact of that gets amplified when we're running this many Mind Rots, plus Davriels out of the board. Like I've mentioned before, don't let the Legend rule scare you with Chariot, chaining Chariots is usually just fine.

I added an additional Castle Locthwain, just to help out our long game a little bit. It doesn't really matter which of the utility lands you draw, but drawing one will help you win a lot of games, and Locthwain is the one that hurts our mana the least, even if it's maybe a little less powerful. We're now at one utility land in every 12 cards in the deck, which means that in a late game scenario, you'll be reasonably likely to have one in play when the dust settles.

I'm still happy with Jegantha. It fits so well because you are free to sideboard out threats all you want, you still have a win condition whenever you get around to it. Also, because our cards are cheap, you'll have three mana sitting around pretty often to grab Jegs, but with Inscription and Valki, we're also in the market for a little mana boost from time to time.

In the sideboard I've got Fatal Push over where we'd usually have Shivan Fire, mostly as a concession to Bishop of Wings and Youthful Valkyrie. Outside of that, it's mostly the same as it's been.

Davriel gets even better the more discard you have, which is part of why we're at four Inscriptions. When you land a Davriel and then follow it up with an Inscription, there's a fair chance they're going to be totally empty handed, at which point Davriel can sit there and deal them damage. This means that Davriel is good in multiples as well, so don't be afraid to have two in your opener. Also, Eldest Reborn is just about the most powerful thing we can be doing against any deck going long, and also some that aren't going that long. It's an answer, a threat, and a card advantage engine rolled into one. I nailed a Carnage Tyrant with one the other day, pog city.

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That's about it for now. I plan on doing more streaming and video making and blogging of course, plus we've got some Strixhaven spoilers coming soon. Also, I should mention that the r/MTGHistoric opens on MTGMelee are really great. They're free to enter, and there's some pretty stiff competition and lots of diversity, plus some good prizes. Thanks for reading.

Once In A While You Get Shown The Light

I made mythic yesterday and posted it on Twitter. I then got some folks who were looking for a sideboard guide, which makes sense because my last one was from a month ago. The deck is mostly the same since then, but a couple of things have changed, and more importantly, the decks you'll be facing have changed. Today I want to go over how to sideboard but also go into detail about how to play the matches. Here's the Jund list currently for reference.

Jund Sacrifice

-3 Bonecrusher Giant, -2 Valki, -2 Esika's Chariot, -1 Vraska

+3 Grafdigger's Cage, +2 Eliminate, +1 Abrade, +2 Shivan Fire

Taking out Bonecrusher and bringing in Shivan Fire might look a little strange, but you can't really rely on Stomp resolving. The difference between a one mana removal spell and two is pretty huge, as is the ability to hit a Mayhem Devil in the late game. Esika's Chariot comes out because they don't have to attack you at all to win the game.

Playing against Jund Sacrifice is simple in theory but difficult in practice. If you can break up the Cat/Oven combo, then you definitely should. Maelstrom Pulse or a Vraska -3 on an Oven is often the right thing to do. Outside of that, try to make sure Mayhem Devil stays off the battlefield as much as possible, as does Priest of Forgotten Gods. In sideboarded games, I like to mulligan semi-aggressively to find Grafdigger's Cage or Scavenging Ooze. A five card hand of Cage and some removal is often enough to win the game if they don't find an Abrade.

What to take with Thoughtseize is pretty context dependent, but if you have a Sarulf then protect it at all costs. If not, then the best thing you can do is nab a Collected Company, of course, but also Midnight Reaper. Chevill and Ooze are great in this matchup as well, but not lights out like Sarulf is if it lives. 

Gruul 

-4 Thoughtseize, -2 Valki

+3 Shivan Fire, +2 Eliminate, +1 Abrade

You're going to find that I'm not bringing in Grafdigger's Cage against a lot of the Collected Company decks because it's pretty awful when you draw the Cage but your opponent doesn't have Company. Some Company decks play Company and another card that Cage shuts off, like Jund Sacrifice and Elves. The goal with our sideboard plan is to make sure we don't get run over by their fastest draws. The card advantage of stuff like Esika's Chariot, Chevill, Jegantha will eventually get us to the win if we can get to the late game.

Timing your removal spells matters a lot. Against, say, a Pelt Collector, the best time to cast an instant-speed removal spell is after their first main phase but before attackers. You never know if they have a juicier target, like a Robber of the Rich, and also it could change their decisions on Riot creatures. Also remember that Embercleave needs six total mana plus attackers to be cast, so you can play around your opponent casting it sometimes by destroying a creature before attackers. Other times, depending on what creatures they have, you may want to bait them into using the Embercleave and destroy the creature after it's been targeted. I try not to use Maelstrom Pulse or Abrade to destroy Embercleave directly, because having one in play makes future Embercleaves dead draws. It's usually a better plan to just destroy every creature they play.

Chevill is phenomenal in this matchup, like if you have one in your opener you will win the game upwards of 90% of the time. A hand that would otherwise be sketchy like Chevill, Shivan Fire, and five lands is actually a fine keep here. Sometimes your opponent will tank and attack with a Burning Tree Emissary into your Chevill. Don't block unless you have another Chevill in hand, because if you just untap with the Chevill you'll almost certainly win the game. Ooze is good too, but you really want to not expose it as a 2/2 and leave it susceptible to opposing Bonecrusher Giants. Prioritize getting green mana into play so that you can cast an Ooze and immediately turn it into a 4/4 or 5/5 in the midgame. 

Feel free to slam Esika's Chariot on turn four if you get the chance, and trade off the vehicle in combat if given the opporunity. If they don't attack into the chariot, then you can immediately get aggressive if you want to. Also I like to make it a point to get Jegantha into my hand, since a 5/5 just happens to be an effective blocker against their deck.

Rakdos Arcanist

-2 Bonecrusher, -2 Sarulf, -2 Thoughtseize

+3 Grafdigger's Cage, +2 Eliminate, +1 Abrade

Bonecrusher again loses a little bit of value because you can't rely on it resolving if your opponent has Village Rites in their hand. Sarulf is a little too slow and not that effective. I also trim Thoughtseize because your life total matters, often times all they have are cards that want to be in the graveyard anyways, and because it's a midrange mirror, where you want to optimize your topdecks.

What's nice is that in any matchup where your opponent shows you Lurrus, be it Arcanist, either variety of Auras, or Lurrus Rock decks, your ideal hand is going to have either Chevill or Scavenging Ooze and some removal. However, we can't really depend on our creatures surviving because our opponent is going to have their own removal, so you just have to take your medicine.

Clearly we want to keep Kroxa off the battlefield, which is easier said than done. Unlike Uro decks, Kroxa can usually just be cast three straight turns if you just try to use removal spells on it. Try not to cast Ooze without open green mana. You want to use every green mana possible, so you should do things like London Mulligan away non-green lands, plan on using your Pathways as green, and manually tap your lands leaving up as much green as possible. Also, try to prioritize bringing back Ooze from your graveyard with Inscription of Ruin and leave yourself lots of green mana available when you do it.

If I have an opening hand of Grafdigger's Cage and Thoughtseize, in this matchup I would cast the Cage on my first turn, and vice versa against Jund Sacrifice. That's because it's likely that your opponent will Thoughtseize away that Cage on their first turn when you're playing against Arcanist, but against Sacrifice the cards in your hand are usually safe.

Auras

-2 Esika's Chariot, -1 Forest, -2 Vraska

+3 Shivan Fire, +2 Eliminate

I've been experimenting with different sideboard plans here, but I think the key is to just make sure you keep your mana curve low. You want to fill your deck with as much interaction as possible, which includes Ooze because it can stop Lurrus, and Valki because it can steal Spiritdancers and Srams.

Clearly the best thing you can Thoughtseize is Kor Spiritdancer and Sram. A hand without Spiritdancer or Sram is a hand where the opponent is hoping to draw one, so your best hits are Blue Cartouche and Angelic Gift. If you're playing against the black version, Hateful Eidolon is important to keep off the table, and you'll want to watch out for Claim/Fame and Agadeem's Awakening.

"Keep Spiritdancer off the table" is a more difficult plan than it might seem, but there's not much else you need to do.

UW Control

-2 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Eliminate, -2 Sarulf

+3 Davriel, +2 The Eldest Reborn

Ooze and Sarulf have a hard time doing much outside of just attacking and blocking. Boarding out extra removal is an idea and leaving creatures to pressure their planeswalkers doesn't quite work as well as we'd hope, since they open you up to getting Wrathed. Targeting a Teferi with Bloodchief's Thirst is usually a two for one in the opponent's favor, but so is getting two Scavenging Oozes killed by a Wrath, and then we have no defense for the Teferi when it comes down.

Given the chance, take Search for Azcanta with your discard spells. After that is Shark Typhoon, then Teferi. Narset is also pretty good if you don't have a way to stop her. After sideboard though, if it looks like you can resolve Davriel, just take whatever you can to get it into play, and also try and nab Sharks so they can't attack it down.

Ideally your hand will have a way to effectively contain Narset. This doesn't mean Maelstrom Pulse or Eliminate, but something like Chevill or Bonecrusher Giant or a cheap creature that can attack her. You basically get a card out of their hand by removing two loyalty off of her. Always put your Chevill counters on Narset because you won't be drawing any cards until she's off the table.

The best plan of action is to have just a single creature on the table if possible. You can handle Teferi if you have a board presence, but without one you're getting two for one'd and spending your mana on removal when you need to try and get ahead. More than one creature, though, and you're getting Wrathed, which isn't great either. If given the chance, save your Maelstrom Pulses for hardcast Shark Typhoons, Search for Azcantas, and sometimes double Baffling Ends. Use Castle Locthwain and Gnottvold Slumbermound aggressively. 

The matchup is not especially bad as far as winning percentage goes, but it's a long, grueling fight with lots of important decision points you can mess up. Knowing when to be aggressive at their life total and when to hold back is just up to your own judgment most of the time.

Angels

On the play

    -2 Esika's Chariot, -2 Thoughtseize, -4 Scavenging Ooze

    +2 Eliminate, +1 Abrade, +3 Shivan Fire, +2 The Eldest Reborn

On the draw

    -2 Esika's Chariot, -4 Scavenging Ooze

    +2 Eliminate, +1 Abrade, +3 Shivan Fire

This matchup is sort of like the Gruul matchup, except that their creatures are sort of just better and they have Skyclave Apparition to deal with Chevill. They also have flying, so it's pretty much impossible to depend on blocking, hence why Ooze and Chariot hit the bench. We want all the removal we can get. On the draw, I like just having extra Thoughtseizes to one-for-one them as much as possible and stop Company and Skyclave. On the play, you can keep pace with them better and easier set up a big Eldest Reborn.

The most important card to take with Thoughtseize is pretty obviously Collected Company. I'll usually take Company even if their hand only has two lands. Their next best card is Righteous Valkyrie, unless you have Chevill in your hand, in which case it's Skyclave. The other best thing you can do is try and set up a big Maelstrom Pulse if they have any doubles in their hand, since they don't have a ton of play other than just jam their creatures. If their hand is something like Valkyrie, Valkyrie, Resplendent Angel, maybe take the Angel if you have Pulse in your hand. You can set this up with Glasspool Mimics as well.

Try to pressure their life total if at all possible. Their deck gets a lot less scary when they are at 15 life or so, since they can't randomly get up to 27 and kill you out of nowhere. This is easier said than done, since Soul Warden will keep their life total high and you can't waste your best removal spells on it, since Valkyries and Angels are so powerful. Also, you'll always want to put your Chevill counters on Linvala.

Goblins

-4 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Forest, -2 Vraska

+2 Eliminate, +1 Abrade, +3 Shivan Fire, +2 Grafdigger's Cage

Cage is not the ultimate knockout blow against them, because they can just win by attacking if their draw works out that way, and they have Goblin Trashmaster after sideboard that they can tutor for. I've also seen Masked Vandals out of a green splash. I'm honestly getting to the point where I'm thinking I should just not bring Cage in for this matchup anymore. If your opponent has black mana producing lands (other than Phyrexian Tower of course) then I'd consider leaving in some Oozes, or at least prioritizing bringing in Cage, since they could have Call the Death-Dweller or other reanimation spells.

Of course the most important thing to Thoughtseize away is Muxus, then after that Goblin Matron. Sometimes, though, your hand doesn't afford this to you, since you can't otherwise beat their Goblin Chieftains and Krenkos and stuff, which are dangerous themselves. Try to get an idea of how you're going to line up your removal with their threats.

Chevill and Sarulf are gold here of course. Getting either of them to stick should lead to some wins. Try and save your removal for Krenko and do whatever you can to keep the haste creatures off of the battlefield so they can't activate Krenko the turn they play it.

If your opponent does resolve a Muxus, it's not the end of the world sometimes. Ideally you can save an instant speed removal spell and hit a haste creature before they have the chance to attack you. With a Chevill or Sarulf, you can actually turn around a post-Muxus game pretty nicely. Always set an upkeep stop when you have Sarulf in play so you can respond to its trigger and kill off more things if needed, adding to its counters and allowing you to Eat Realm more.

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Those are the majority of the matchups you'll face on the ladder, but all matchups can basically be categorized into two groups: you're either bringing in the removal, or you're bringing in the Davriels and Eldest Reborns. If you've got any questions, feel free to ask in the comments or message me on twitter, @griffinzoth. Thanks for reading.

Can't Stop Wondering Just What You Got

Thursday, it was sorta leaked that there would be a new Historic Anthology. Friday the cards were announced. Next Thursday, March 11th, the cards go live on Arena. Let's check them out.

I don't think any of these cards will be big players. There's a lot of duds in this Anthology. I think that's actually a good thing. I see a lot of posts on Reddit and whatever about what your Historic Anthology wish list would be, and lots of people write in stuff like Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile and even stuff like Wasteland. My opinion is that Historic is good the way it is. I don't want a ton of changes. Little new toys to play with are cool, but I'm having a good time as is. If it ain't broke.

What's funny about Coldsteel Heart is that it's a mana rock that's bad with Forsaken Monument. That said, most of the Mind Stone decks in the format are single colored, since Mind Stone et al only add colorless mana. That doesn't have to be the case anymore. Coldsteel Heart is the closest thing to Farseek we have, so if we ever want to go towards a Farseek style Jund deck a la INN/RTR Standard, now is the time. And it's colorless too, so it's probably even a better card than Farseek, but that probably depends a lot on context. I think this card will be good in Grixis control.

Maybe it's a little weak, but Think Twice always impressed me when it was in Standard, and I've seen it do some good work in Modern as well. Granted, Modern five years ago was kind of a different animal, but this is a lot more useful than it looks. I think that one thing that keeps UW Control in check in Historic is that there aren't that many good two mana instants to use with Teferi when you cast him on your fifth turn. Think Twice isn't going to change that by itself, but it's a start.

I feel like Wizards really didn't want to shake things up in Historic too badly, because this is definitely the worst of the swords. It's great on cheap utility creatures, since you will often have leftover mana dorks lying around to either equip or use to cast it quickly. It gives you a bunch of staying power and value. However, Collected Company does all those things too, and this is a miss with Company, so it's gonna be tough for it to find a home. Maybe it's a sideboard card.

This card saw a lot of play in Standard, but it's exactly the type of card we like playing against. We are in the market for two-for-oneing our opponent at every opportunity. The key is to have cheap creatures, so that you aren't losing a bunch of mana on the exchange, and that the cards you draw off your clue are castable the turn you crack it. For now I think that Baffling End is better, but if it picks up in usage we might want to just have it in mind when deckbuilding.

It's possible that there's a Tempered Steel deck out there that just needed Blinkmoth Nexus to become viable. If that's the case, then it'll be really good there. Bonesplitter is a card that puts out a lot of damage really quickly for not much mana. It might have a home in an artifact-based creature deck as well.

I think this is subtly the best card of the bunch. It's going to make the Company decks a lot more consistent. You can't play all three drop creatures, but you also need to make sure that when you hit your cheap stuff off Company they are impactful. Inspector does that really well, plus it basically cycles in the late game when you're digging for more Companys. Also, it might be the piece that was missing for Toolcraft Examplar to see more play. Bonesplitter does that too.

Shadow loses a lot by not having Fetchlands in the format. First is that they make you lose 1 life, but they also give you more control over your life total. You can take just one damage if you want, or three damage. Historic also doesn't have Street Wraith or any Phyrexian Mana stuff, which is another knock. Additionally, Historic does have a lot of the answers to Death's Shadow, like Fatal Push, Bloodchief's Thirst, and Skyclave Apparition. What Historic does have, though, is Lurrus. Death's Shadow can pretty easily slot in to Rakdos Arcanist, since Scourge of Skyclave was already seeing some play and doing okay.

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That just about covers it. Really not a huge shake up, just a few cards that might see some play but won't turn the metagame on its head or anything. That's probably for the best. Don't go on Reddit and ask Wizards to put Wasteland in Historic please. I'm more interested in Strixhaven than anything else, but we're also supposed to getting Pioneer Remastered somewhere down the line. Anyways, I just put a new video on Youtube and you can check it out here. Thanks for reading.