Some Rise Some Fall Some Climb

Let's go.

Mode one is Crackling Doom that hits Planeswalkers but doesn't deal 2 damage. This would be a Standard playable card in its own right, probably wouldn't see much play because of the restrictive mana cost, but a deck in these colors might consider it. It hits Goldspan at a mana advantage, so that's a big deal in its own right. This is likely worse than a Hero's Downfall, but there will be cases where this wins you games where Downfall wouldn't, like against stuff with Hexproof or against Dive Down type stuff. One of the reasons I like Abrupt Decay at the moment in Pioneer is to stop Graveyard Trespasser cleanly, and this does that as well, plus you don't take 2 damage from Bonecrusher Giant.

The fact that this hits planeswalkers is a huge deal. I try to incorporate things like Dreadbore, Murderous Rider, and Bloodchief's Thirst into my decks when I can, so it's very welcome to be an answer to hard to answer things. The decks that run few creatures and your removal is bad against will often have planeswalkers, which can be hard to deal with if you're not getting under them. I lost a game to Jace, Wielder of Mysteries on stream this weekend when I had a Phoenix opponent locked out of the game, so this would put a stop to that. This mode is excellent, about as good as could be expected.

Mode three is just a Tormod's Crypt activation, which seems like it's not worth three mana until your opponent has three Arclight Phoenix triggers on the stack. What makes Dredge and Dredge-adjacent decks so good is not that there aren't graveyard hate options, it's that you actually have to put those cards into your deck. When it's good, it will be really good, and when it's not, the other two modes on this card are flexible enough that you would play it with just two modes.

Mode two is the big one and maybe most important one, because it's the proactive one. The problem with removal spells is that if your opponent doesn't do anything, and all you have is removal in your hand, then you don't do anything either. This mode lets you punish your opponent for wasting their mana by giving you some advantage. It also lets us play it in the main deck and we'll never run into a matchup where it's dead. Also, it's just a lot of cards. Lots of times your opponent doesn't have anything going on with their graveyard, lots of times they don't have creatures or planeswalkers in play, but even if they do, you might use this mode anyways. When discussing Abzan Charm, Patrick Chapin once said that if you're on the fence between exiling a creature and drawing two cards, you should usually draw two cards, and that is likely to be the case with Riveteers Charm too.

I wouldn't say that this effect is restrictive on your deckbuilding, but some cards are going to be better to flip than others. The first thing that comes to mind is Bonecrusher Giant, who can just be cast as a 4/3 if the removal spell doesn't line up. The same is true with Bloodthirsty Adversary, which can either go top rope in the late game or just be a 2/2 haste and allow you to cast multiple spells off one Charm. Kolaghan's Command and Witherbloom Command are great because there are lots of options and you can usually find one that will work. The removal spells you do play will want to be as versatile as possible so they can be useful more of the time, so things like Maelstrom Pulse or Mythos of Nethroi. Also, of course, cheap creatures. I think you're going to want to keep your mana costs down a little bit so you're more likely to be able to cast two cards out of it. Casting this on their end step turn three and flipping a five drop won't work, so four might be as high as our curve wants to go. But that's okay now, because you can get away with cheaper spells when you have card advantage built into your deck. Funny enough, Riveteers Charm itself isn't the greatest hit, but again, you might use the draw mode even if your opponent has creatures in play, then use the edict mode on your turn.

It's also not out of the question to main-phase this in the ultra late game. Similarly to something like a topdecked Inscription of Ruin when you have eight lands in play, this should set up a pretty explosive turn to try and turn the corner.

In Pioneer, as I've mentioned before, the metagame is combo-heavy, which rewards having the right sideboard card at the right time, and therefore digging for those specific cards becomes very useful. Courser of Kruphix, Grim Flayer, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, all these cards get much better when you're not just gaining an extra card here or there or ditching lands and finding action, but you're getting one card closer to your Damping Sphere or Culling Ritual or whatever to put the game out of reach. Riveteers Charm adds just a little bit of extra juice to your sideboard and allows you to lean into the knockout-blow kinds of cards over the general purpose cards, because you're more likely to find them when you need them.

My way too early diagnosis on this card is that you're going to want to play two or three copies in Pioneer and Historic, probably a four of in Standard if a Jund deck is viable there, and I even have a little optimism for it in Modern as a flex slot. The Light up the Stage effect has a pedigree for being strong enough in powerful formats, as Expressive Iteration has shown us. The older the format, the more value an extra card has, and the more likely you are to be able to cast the stuff you hit because it's cheaper. Plus, a Tormod's Crypt can actually steal a game in Pioneer and Modern from time to time, whereas in Standard this is almost always going to be a removal spell or a draw spell, which is totally fine with that power level. All in all, I think this is about the same power level as the Obscura and Maestros Charms, and possibly even better. It feels like the kind of card that's going to take some practice to play correctly and some reps to tune a deck around, but I'm optimistic.

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Still a long ways to go before we actually get to play with this, so I'll be continuing to play the Pioneer Challenges every weekend. My first run was a 10th place finish, but this weekend I bombed out pretty severely. I've been toying with a Jund version of the deck that has Fable of the Mirror Breaker and it's been impressive so far, so maybe I'll try that this weekend if I can tune it up during the week here. I'll see you then, thanks for reading.