Quick Beats With An Icy Heart

 

I like this card. I think it's quite good in Explorer. I don't think it's going to go in every green/black/x midrange deck, but where I've landed on it is that, if you're in green and you're in the market for Bloodtithe Harvester, you're probably in the market for at least a couple Cankerbloom as well. It can sort of inefficiently solve a lot of issues we have, but most importantly, it does that at incredible flexibility, where it's just Watchwolf for a while until you need a Naturalize. Also, don't discount the proliferate ability. Cankerbloom is an incredible draw when you have a Liliana on five, and even just the ability to sacrifice it to plus one a planeswalker or a Scavenging Ooze or something in response to a removal spell is excellent. I wouldn't play it just for the proliferate ability, but there's a little extra finesse to this card beyond being just a cheaper Thrashing Brontodon.

Again, not all decks are going to want this card, but if you're trying to play a more aggressive slanted green black midrange deck, then this is worth some slots. As far as other cards from the new set go, Sheoldred's Edict has been okay but not great, Glissa has been about what you'd expect, and I haven't drawn the Sword or the Planeswalker yet. Blackcleave Cliffs is excellent, and Mirrex has been pretty solid too, in a more aggressive shell. The (bad) video I made going over the cards I liked can be found here. And this is a very rough list that has been feeling okay but I haven't had much time to test. That's it, got baby stuff to do. Thanks for reading.

Carve Your Name In Ice And Wind

 

Crossed the finish line with a list that looks like this. I spent a lot of the beginning of the month figuring things out, but I like where it's turned out.

It's a basic midrange deck with some basic parts. Removal, Thoughtseizes, creatures, utility lands, etc. But building this thing to maximize all of its parts was a tough task. Some of the cards that may look out of place or deviate from the norm are there for a reason, either because of how they work with other aspects of the deck, or because of what Explorer looks like as a format.

Liliana dictates a lot of what you want your deck to look like, not necessarily the individual cards, but the overall mana curve and gameplan positioning that you're gearing your deck towards. I talked about this when she was spoiled, but she works best when you are simultaneously able to be aggressive but have the removal spells to keep her alive. You want your topdecks to be live when you're in Liliana mode, but you also want to protect her to get into Liliana mode. Bonecrusher Giant and Bloodtithe Harvester are great there, of course, but so is Evolved Sleeper, since you can just trade off with opposing attackers early.

You also want the game to be about small edges in card advantage, such that a -2 into +1 into -2 turns into a game winning plan, and at the same time you have a low enough curve to empty your hand and not get punished by her +1 ability. That's where the creature lands come in, since you have extra card advantage built into the deck, but they don't cost any mana to get into play. By the time you've cast Liliana, your threats are already on the battlefield, waiting for you to activate them. And you don't actually have to deal 20 damage with Hive of the Eye Tyrant or whatever, you just have to pressure their planeswalkers and eat a removal spell.

What ties everything together is Riveteers Charm. It simultaneously makes up for the things you are lacking when you build to maximize Liliana, and works best in a deck with the same cards that Liliana works best with. If we're gearing our deck to have all cheap stuff, then we lack late game power. Well, what's better in the late game than Ancestral Recall? R Charm also wants cheap stuff, so we're doing great there, and it helps protect your Liliana with its Soul Shatter mode. Oh yeah, also, what's Liliana not good against? Graveyard strategies, oh look, R Charm solves that too.

I'm pretty happy with the majority of this list, there are a few flex slots that I'm not certain about but are the things that I've been most happy with so far. Unleash the Inferno is a card that happens to answer a lot of the problematic stuff in the format. Fable of the Mirror Breaker is, as its name would indicate, very good in the mirror, so being able to gain card advantage off of one of those is excellent in a midrange mirror. Unleash is excellent in the rest of the format as well, with there being a lot of decks that have both creatures and artifacts and enchantments. Enigmatic Incarnation, Esika's Chariot, Witch's Oven and Oni-Cult Anvil, Wedding Announcement. All of that stuff is excellent in a straight Rakdos metagame, where they have trouble dealing with artifacts and enchantments, and Unleash can deal with it. I like the idea of being able to answer the things that Rakdos can't answer, since if Rakdos is the deck to beat, then those strategies will naturally become more successful. Unleash is versatile and powerful, and not too expensive.

Squee is a weird one in a list that doesn't play Fable or Graveyard Trespasser, but I've found it to do a lot of the things I'm looking for. First, it's another card that plays well with Liliana. You're not afraid to discard it, and it allows you to tick up a Liliana to make them discard a removal spell or counterspell they drew before casting it from the graveyard. Second, it turns out to be excellent in the Rakdos mirror, when you can set up an attack with it. The mirror seems to be a lot about pressuring planeswalkers, gaining card advantage off of your threats, pressuring life totals, and not running out of gas. Squee does all of those things, so I like it quite a bit, and it's a more aggressive and consistent threat than a lot of other cards for that slot. Whether a threat is what we want in that slot is up for debate, nevermind the fact that it's a three mana play in a deck that's already heavy on threes, but I think we can do worse.

I'm not sold at all on the sideboard selections, but The Eldest Reborn is the best choice I can find for a mirror hammer that has extra utility in control matchups. I've tried Workshop Warchief, but it's abysmal against The Wandering Emperor and anything else out of the blue/white decks. But, four big spells to bust up mirrors is something I like a lot, and Kolaghan's Command is useful there too. One thing I will say I'm fairly sold on is Culling Ritual, which is absolutely lights out in the matchups where you want it. It can take setup, but when you resolve it, it's unfairly powerful.

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Quick one today, but just wanted to get something down now that I feel that I've finally figured out how to build this thing. I recorded a video a little while ago and I'm editing it now, hopefully to be released this weekend. It features a list that was maybe one or two versions before the current one, but still had most of the same things going on. I hope you give it a look when I get it live, here's a link to the youtube channel. Thanks for reading.

Extended Thoughts on Evolved Sleeper

I want to go in a little further on why Evolved Sleeper excites me and why I think it will be useful in Explorer and possibly also Pioneer. This may be because I’m on a long road trip vacation right now, but I’ve been thinking about this card a lot and am really excited to play it. I’m writing this on my phone in a hotel room, so, sorry for the bare bones post.

I think it’s important to identify what’s going on in the format and what a card brings to help in expected matchups. Explorer is all about the Rakdos Midrange mirror right now (or pseudo-mirror if you’re playing Jund like me). Typically, your lowest impact cards, and therefore your cheapest cards, are the weakest cards in a midrange mirror, since the games are not usually going to be about tempo and more about card advantage. This hasn’t really been my experience in this matchup, though. The Rakdos decks have a lot of cheap removal and hard hitting medium sized threats to put a lot of pressure on you, and you wind up losing card advantage battles that are tougher for you than they would be because you’re under pressure. So, Sleeper does some things in that matchup that are useful while keeping your deck low to the ground, helping you not get run over early while keeping your top end live as well.

There are a few ways that you lose the Rakdos matchup. First, is just tempo. Bloodtithe Harvester into Trespasser or Fable, then more heavy threats every turn as you try and catch up. Part of what makes the deck so good is that they can just straight beat you up, while still have a good board control and discard element. Sleeper is good here because it’s a cheap spell to cast. That’s really it, it’s just something that gets out of your hand quickly, and if you can trade it off against an opposing creature or removal spell, then that’s great.

The second way to lose is by Chandra. Chandra is both a tempo swing and a card advantage engine. When she comes down and -3’s one of your creatures, the opponent is ahead on cards because Chandra is still around, but if they start netting cards off of her +1 the next turn, then they get a card advantage engine for basically no mana. If you use a removal spell on Chandra, you’re not only down cards, but down on mana usually because of the mana you spent to kill her plus the mana of the creature she nuked. What Sleeper does against Chandra is just exist as an extra body that entered play cheaply to attack a Chandra after she -3s your creature. Sleeper is extra good at attacking Planeswalkers because it can increase its power and hit for more loyalty, leaving you with a bigger sleeper when all is said and done.

Another great way to lose against Rakdos is to force yourself into using spot removal on their Cemetery Trespassers and Fable tokens. Being able to trade with Trespassers and block Fable tokens without spending extra cards to do it is important for getting out of those early turns and having cards left over to battle on with.

Sleeper isn’t going to annihilate Rakdos or anything, it’s not really supposed to. But what it does do is lower the overall mana curve of the deck while not giving up on top end power. That’s going to help your matchups across the board and the effectiveness of the deck without sacrificing too much in the Rakdos matchup.

The deck we’re playing is changing too, and being a sleeker and cheaper deck is going to be critical with Liliana in the list. I’m going to assume that Rakdos decks will pick up Liliana as well, so everything that makes Sleeper effective against Chandra also helps against Liliana. The best way to beat Lili is to have enough pressure so that they can’t untap with her, just like Chandra. But Sleeper also goes well with our own Liliana, getting out of the hand early so you can have it empty and +1 for value, and using extra mana that you’ll have because both players are light on action.

Sleeper also looks like it will be great in conjunction with Riveteers Charm. It’s cheap and proactive, which makes it an excellent card to exile off your library with Charm. Charm is going to be great in the Liliana decks just like it’s been good in the Tireless Tracker decks, so I’m interested in maximizing its strength.

I’m mostly excited about playing Sleeper against UW decks and other matchups where we’re the aggro deck. Sleeper requires an answer by itself, and it’s not that that is super hard to do, but it’s going to open the door for stuff like Liliana or your other bigger stuff to hit. Plus, if you can use Thoughtseize to take away their cheap answers like March and Portable Hole, then they are forced to spend a bunch of mana to deal with your one drop, or you can activate it and draw cards until they have the mana to wrath it.

To touch quickly on Knight of the Ebon Legion vs Sleeper, I think that Knight might be a little underplayed at the moment. It’s a great card, a good draw early and a good draw late. But, it’s a little bit one-dimensional, and that causes it to only get played in a few decks. Plus, black aggro feels like quite an underdog against Rakdos, which is just not where you want to be. I think that Sleeper is going to fit better in midrange decks than Knight, since it ties your mana up less and leaves you with cards after they find an answer instead of just damage, and I don’t think that Knight was that far away from making the cut to begin with.

I’m less confident in Sleeper than I am in Liliana out of this set, part of that is because Liliana is a known entity, part of that is because Sleeper is a style of card that isn’t done very often. Cards like Sleeper have been hit or miss in the past, but there’s potential there. There have been some solid role players and all-time great threats among cards with this design. But mostly I’m excited for Sleeper because I think it’s going to be really fun to play with. It gives the player a ton of options and it looks to be the type of card that gets better with practice. I plan on playing them for a while and finding out just how good they are.

Gimme Five, Still Alive

 

I think we jam four of these in Explorer.

She has her limitations, for sure. Clearly she's pretty bad against stuff like Witch's Oven, but there are a bunch of token decks out there where she's not going to be good. Also, the plus 1 ability can get you into trouble against stuff like Phoenix and Parhelion, but whatever. She's still the queen.

What do we need to build around her? Not a lot, really. In fact, stuff like The Raven Man are kind of a trap with Lili, because they don't protect her well and are bad topdecks. You gear your deck to keep the board clear and get everyone down to zero resources, then topdeck stuff. This is kind of the whole strategy of black midrange anyways, but she pushes that to the max. Your weak topdecks are going to turn into blanks when Liliana is on the board and in cruise control, since a Fatal Push with no creatures just gets binned to her +1, but you definitely need that effect. The cards in the format that I think are going to work well with Liliana are Bonecrusher, Murderous Rider, maybe even Blacklance Paragon, removal spells that you can just cast proactively if you draw them and your opponent doesn't have any creatures. Cut to Ribbons is a neat one as well. Other planeswalkers fit this description too, but they're not going to be your early plays.

Liliana works well with Kroxa, of course, but any escape or graveyard cards get a little bit of a boost from her. I've found Polukranos to be really good in Explorer at the moment, and there's stuff like Tenacious Underdog and a new card that are good too. Not necessarily that it's a great value play to put a Kroxa in your graveyard, just that you've gotta discard something, so it might as well be that. It's nice that she "enables" your graveyard synergies but is a threat in and of herself so if they have the graveyard hate you just win with Lili.

I think you're also just going to want to keep your mana costs down. A pretty common thing in Modern is when your hand is just two copies of Bloodbraid Elf or whatever and you want to tick up your Lili, but you can't. If you can empty your hand quick, then the +1 has no drawback for you.

I guess the only other thing is to make sure you have some plans on what to bring in for matchups where she's not good. In Modern, I'll board out Liliana in a lot of matchups, like basically and deck with Inkmoth Nexus or Mutavault or Noble Hierarch. She's not great against Thalia, either. And of course, Dredge and whatever. If you can figure out what cards are good in the matchups where she is bad, say, Lava Coil, then you'll make sideboarding a lot easier for yourself.

This is the card I'm actually most excited for. It works excellently with Liliana, being a one mana card that empties your hand quickly but is also a fantastic late game topdeck. It plays defense halfway well against aggro decks. It also just gets on the board quick so that you have something on board and can't get blown out by planeswalkers. It kind of does fills the role that Knight of the Ebon Legion does but you get blown out by removal less often because its activations cost less, and it gives you more material advantages so removal spells are too late once you've put your mana into it.

Unlike stuff like Warden of the First Tree (which I like a lot and might play if given the chance), drawing cards is a great way to close out a game, instead of just getting big. If you hit with a big Warden and they rip a Fatal Push, they're right back in the game, but if you've drawn two cards with Sleeper before they find the Push, they might be buried. And it's not like attacking for four or five is nothing, the game will end quickly either through attacking or through the card advantage. 

This is going to require some more black mana sources early, like Blooming Marsh, so maybe we go right up to four Overgrown Tombs and four Blood Crypts. I'll talk more about that later.

I think there might be spots where this is an improvement over Chandra, but the -2 removal ability just pales in comparison to Chandra's -3 so badly. However, I don't think that that's what Jaya is supposed to do, be a removal spell plus a free card every turn. She's supposed to protect herself with the Monk token, then use her -1 five times and be five copies of Preordain basically. If you can make that work, then that's great, because the -1 will be great in late game situations where you're just looking for gas, and if you're setting your deck up to be ahead or even on board in the midgame to facilitate Liliana, then that works for Jaya, too. Again, that's a lot easier said than done. But if you have her in play for one turn and then she gets hit by Murderous Rider, that's usually going to be better than Chandra would have been, so if you expect that to be the case most of the time, then she might be a good choice. Just not sure that that's the format we're living in.

If you're ever playing a list that's got a more aggressive slant, then a Squee or two might not be the worst idea. Haste creatures are excellent against Planeswalkers, which is a lot of what the format is about, and it gives you material every turn, so that's great too. Plus, it's got some graveyard synergy, which is a welcome addition in the Liliana decks. The damage piles up fast, and it's going to be hard to effectively remove. Worth a shot, but I'm not really loving playing 2 toughness creatures for 3 in the Bonecrusher Giant format.

This card has reach and trample, and the ability is 7G: Return from your graveyard to play and exile it if it would die, and it costs 1 less to activate for each land type you control. So for us, it's usually going to be 4G, so that makes it a little like a Seasoned Pyromancer. 4/3 reach trample for 3 are great stats for a card that can be a little bit recursive. You're not sad to pitch it to Liliana, it hits really hard for a three mana card, and it also protects you against flying creatures with Curious Obsession. I like what's going on here, but the three drop slot is just so crowded, and we're trying to trim our mana costs down.

There's a lot going on here, and I don't think that we're going to really be able to grasp everything until we try it. It's got really good size for its cost, and can get you value immediately, even if they have removal for it. It's got a slight graveyard synergy thing going on, but can get around graveyard hate by just being a four mana 5/4. It's got a slight build-around aspect, but can also just do its thing without a ton of help. Five power creatures are a sweet spot in Explorer, since they can attack down a Teferi or a Sorin after they +1, but four toughness is not great against Chandra. Soul of Windgrace seems like the type of card that is going to look really good in the games where it works, but won't get to work very often because the format is a little too hostile for it. For what it's worth, the reason why Evolved Sleeper is good even though it costs a lot of mana to maximize is because it's cheap to start with, Soul of Windgrace is a mana sink that already costs a lot of mana.

This card intrigues me because flying and haste are so good against Chandra and other planeswalkers. The fact that you can just spend two mana and pick off a Chandra, or you can spend 10 mana and win the game, all of that looks great. Probably going to be a lot better in Standard, but two mana to pick off a low loyalty planeswalker and leave behind a flying body is a great split card to put on Thundermaw Hellkite.

I can't really figure out if I like this or not. I think it might end up being a little too narrow, but we're always in the market for cheap removal. Strangle and Bloodchief's Thirst look a little better in my eyes for Fatal Pushes 5 through whatever, but this could do some work.

I wouldn't say that we really missed having these in Arena, but it's another good option. You don't really want to draw two painlands, and you don't want them in decks where you don't have many colorless mana in your costs. Like, say, you're taking one damage for sure if you're casting a Bloodtithe Harvester on two, but not if you're casting a Scavenging Ooze, so lots of RB or BRG costs will end up costing you. I like the idea of playing more turn one black sources, but if the cost is dealing damage to yourself each turn, then it really puts a damper on some of the cheap black cards we're trying to facilitate, like Thoughtseize and Evolved Sleeper.

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I'm going on vacation starting in about twenty minutes from when this will go live, so I'm doing a spoiler season post a little early, and then I'll be back just in time for the set to go live on Arena. I'm really stoked about Liliana, obviously, but the whole set looks great, and I also just love playing Jund mirrors, so I hope more people are incentivized to play Liliana decks going forward. Thanks for reading.

Shotguns Full Of Silver, Bullets Made Of Glass

 

I get a lot of questions about Tireless Tracker when it comes to Pioneer, or like, what my wish list would be for Historic/Explorer and what would be on it. Well, now we have Tracker in Explorer, so it's not a hypothetical anymore. Tracker is at its best in a deck that is built with it in mind, which isn't to say that it needs to be a specific archetype, but more that it needs to exist at a certain part of a curve and for a deck that is geared to utilize it.

Landfall abilities necessitate having a slightly higher than normal land count, which is funny because they usually are proactive abilities, like Kazandu Mammoth or Steppe Lynx. A Boros aggro deck doesn't usually run 26 lands or whatever they did back in the original Zendikar days, but when you have stuff as powerful as Steppe Lynx and Plated Geopede, you want to get those triggers as much as possible. This isn't the hugest problem for Tireless Tracker, because if you have too many lands, then you'll also have clue tokens to spend your mana on. But in the draws that don't have Tracker, you'll find yourself getting flooded too much.

The other thing that Tracker wants is cheap spells to go with it. First of all, your ideal plan is to cast Tracker on turn four and make your fourth land drop. A one mana spell to follow up with is excellent, like say a Thoughtseize to make sure the opponent can't untap and kill it, or a Fatal Push to keep your life total high and utilize your extra card advantage. Bloodchief's Thirst and even Shivan Fire are nice, because they are solid when you're flooded or when you're tight on mana. Additionally, though, all the cards that you draw off of a Tracker cost you an additional two mana, so if you want to be able to actually cast them, you want them to be cheap. I think the other factor here is that Tracker is a pretty slow card and you need to set it up, so you want to make the board as clear as possible before landing it, kind of like a Planeswalker. It doesn't want to be forced to play defense and it doesn't attack and block especially well right out of the gates, so keeping up on tempo is really important, and then let the Tracker take over the game.

So then, we want a deck with lots of lands and lots of cheap spells, sounds like a recipe for mana flooding. You're going to want to play cards that mitigate your land flood as much as possible, like creature lands, cycling lands, and even Jegantha. I like Tenacious Underdog as a mana sink/early play, and Valki as a card that fits the program but can be a good late game topdeck.

What makes Riveteers Charm so good in a deck with Tracker is that it's a removal spell, so that's obviously good at keeping pressure off yourself, but it also excels in a deck with cheap spells and a high land count. Your best three card exile for a Charm is like, removal spell, land, threat, and if your deck is set up with Tracker in mind, then you're likely to be able to cast all of it. I think there's something good here, mixing Tracker with Charm and all kinds of cheap stuff, so that you can keep the cards flowing and out-value people while keeping your curve super low and not getting tempo'd out.

Witherbloom Command is another card that works well with high land counts that can do some work for us. Now that Elvish Mystic is in the format, more ways to pop off little guys for value seems like it's useful, and Witch's Oven is always a problem.

I've gotta say, in the first little while playing with Tracker, I have been impressed. Not floored, but it's better than I had anticipated. You have to get away from the typical Chandra/Fable/Trespasser Rakdos decks that are all over Explorer, so nothing is very set in stone yet, but I think something's there.

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Just wanted to get something down real quick about Tracker, I'll know more soon after more testing. If you're planning on trying Tracker out, those are the things I suggest. Again, not 100% sold that it's the best thing, but I think there's a re-tooling of the current Jund deck that can make it really strong. Thanks for reading.

Sitting Plush With A Royal Flush

This is the deck I crossed the finish line with this month. By finish line, I mean obtained the incredible achievement of reaching the Mythic rank in the game Magic the Gathering Arena, but the run was solid. I went 26-4 through Diamond and Platinum, so there's definitely something good going on here. If I can do that, then you can probably get the clean 30-0.

There's a lot of experimentation going on with this list as posted, so it's not clean at all. It also feels a little clunky with the amount of three drop threats compared to two drop threats, but I can't really argue with the results. If you think of this as a straight Rakdos Midrange deck with a green bonus, then so far I have to say that the splash is certainly worth it.

First is Riveteers Charm, which has been worth the splash purely by itself. Not only does it turn into a late game draw engine, but it deals with whatever the biggest problem you have is at any given time, including times when most other spells wouldn't be able to deal. Planeswalkers, Hazoret, Rhonas, stuff given Indestructible by Selfless Savior or Dauntless Bodyguard, Glorybringer, Elder Gargaroth, Hall of the Storm Giant, opposing Graveyard Trespassers. All of this stuff is tough for you to deal with, and Riveteers Charm handles it.

I think that the reason behind it being so good in this list specifically is that the cards in this deck are able to be defensive or proactive depending on the situation, and Riveteers Charm fits that role too. You get around the classic midrange "wrong half of the deck" problem by having cards that able to play multiple roles. The Act on Impulse ability might not read like an aggressive one, but in this deck you can win with life total pressure or by gaining card advantage in the late game, either one will work. Riveteers Charm translates into life total pressure by drawing you in to creatures to attack, Thoughtseizes and removal to clear their way, and lands to get up to enough mana to activate your Dens.

I also like that this is a Jund list that has the ability to play Den of the Bugbear. Hive and Lair and some of the other creatures lands are also good, but Den is just the best thing going for utility lands, and when you can play it on turn two and still curve out because the mana costs of your spells works with it, it becomes excellent. Den is at its best when you've gotten yourself out to a fast start already, so if you can cast a two drop and a three drop on curve, your Den not only helped you get there but will clean up the job your quick clock started.

Of course, what I'm really saying is that Chevill isn't in the deck anymore, but I think that's okay. Some of the stuff that Chevill is great against in Historic doesn't show up in Explorer, like Gruul and Goblins and Auras. I similarly found that Chevill didn't quite do it for me in Pioneer. That could definitely change, but as for now, I like the more aggressive slant to this deck.

The sideboard is a mess but I should talk about some of the stuff there. Similarly to Chevill, Sarulf is a card that's not present here because it's not quite exactly what we want against this meta. Instead I've got Culling Ritual in that slot to help against some of the Humans decks, where Sarulf is good but liable to get hit by a Skyclave Apparition or Brutal Cathar. No, the Golgari Anti-creature Legend that we've got here is Polukranos, and Big Luke is a card that has been really good at times in the past and is solid enough as a one-of here.

Klothys is nice to have, something that the normal Red/Black decks don't get access to. I like that it's basically a better Graveyard Trespasser in the matchups where you would want to board in extra Trespassers, either to dodge removal when you're trying to be aggressive or to hit their graveyard consistently. I've never been a fan of Scavenging Ooze as a sideboard card, for what it's worth. Also, we just don't have enough green mana to utilize it fully.

I also should mention the Elder Gargaroths. I like them, they seem like they might be the best thing to have in that spot, but I'm not a hundred percent sold and could be easily swayed one way or the other. What I like about it is how well it plays against the removal you're likely to see out of Red/Black, which is usually Fatal Push, Abrade, Chandra, Stomp, or Glorybringer. It beats up on Chandra and Glorybringer pretty nicely, so it beats their best stuff and is hard to stop. Sounds great, but it might not be the best against the field at large. I enjoy the stop sign it represents against Red decks, but it's also a lot of mana to invest into a Brutal Cathar target or Absorb target. Angrath, Glorybringer, maybe even Doom Whisperer could all work as a midrange trump, and possibly the right thing to do is continue up the mana curve and try Liliana Dreadhorde General or Garruk Cursed Huntsman. The next card on my list to test in that slot is actually Workshop Warchief, of all things, which I'm hoping works out because it's a Rhino in suspenders holding a big gold wrench. Gargaroth is really only ever as good as you can expect it to live, so if you're expecting it to die, play something else, because lots of stuff out there actually is great at dying.

Again, the deck has been constantly in flux, but there's definitely something going on here that's working. The good news is that lots of stuff can slot in here if the metagame calls for it and it'll fit right in, like Witherbloom Command, more Kroxa, a higher curve with five drops in the main, a lower curve with more Underdogs, whatever feels right. Riveteers Charm, a solid mana base, and high-rate versatile threats seems to be a recipe for success.

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That's about it for today. Wanted to get something down since it's been a while, but I have been managing to find a little time to stream on twitch most weekends if you're interested. Explorer seems to be a lot like Pioneer but without some of the stuff that makes Pioneer annoying, like Lotus Field combo and Treasure Cruise in Phoenix, so it's been a lot of fun, give it a try if you have a chance. Thanks for reading.

Shame Those Boys Couldn't Be More Copacetic

My personal theory is that the reason the Ravnica sets are some of Magic's best sets is because they create an environment for good games to take place. There is plenty of mana fixing, good utility spells, and lots of different color pairings to build a cohesive deck around. The same can be said of Khans of Tarkir, which might have been the last time that a Standard format was really fun, at least in my eyes. Multicolor sets allow designers and developers to push the envelope on rate a little bit while still being beautiful and simple. And they can get away with it because most of the cool unique stuff they're doing are just utility spells. A card like Lightning Helix is above-rate, but at its core it's just a burn spell, it won't ever destroy a format. These are the kinds of cards that I look for in a set like this, cheap and versatile utility spells. And in New Capenna, there's plenty of that to be had, but maybe a little less of it in the Jund colors.

Riveteers Charm is excellent, above my expectations for sure. I was expecting something more in the way of Void Rend or Endless Detour in Jund colors, and didn't really get it. We did get a lot of cool stuff though, so let's check it out.

I've been trying to wrap my head around this card for a long time and I think I'm just going to have to admit that I have no idea if it's going to be good or not. Well, I mean, it's going to be good, but I don't know if it's a "You're going to need a reason to not play this in a Black and Red deck" type of card or a "If you have the pieces to support it, it will make your main deck" type of card.

Ob Nixilis is a three mana planeswalker that can defend itself, and if we were to stop right there, it's absolutely worth trying out. Beyond that, I like the synergy that Ob Nixilis has with the second copy of itself, and the squeeze that its +1 ability puts you in is going to be helpful either way. It looks like it has good synergy with Bloodtithe Harvester, not only because it's a creature you don't mind using for the Casualty ability, but because the additional pressure put on by cheap creatures will force the opponent to discard cards to the +1 ability more often. It also will have some nice synergy with Fable of the Mirror Breaker, allowing you to sacrifice Kiki Jiki's tokens instead of real creatures. And, it probably won't come up too often, but an Ooze that gets out of control big can be sacrificed and dome the opponent for seven out of nowhere.

The potential is there, but I'm not going to come out and say it's a 10/10 A+ Superstar until I've tried it.

Similarly to Play with Fire, anything that's at least a little close to straight Lightning Bolt needs to be considered. My gut feeling here is that I'm going to have a tough time playing Strangle in a format with Fatal Push or Bloodchief's Thirst, but who knows. It's not only worth a shot, but also worth keeping in the back of your mind for the next time a Narset deck or whatever turns into the best thing to be doing.

Graveyard hate ranges somewhere from Leyline of the Void to, like, Scavenging Ooze, where Leyline is a blunt-object sideboard card windmill slam, and the power behind Scavenging Ooze is that it's a maindeckable card with an effect that's usually not in your deck for game one. Cards like Hearse are in a weird spot where, it's clearly effective against a graveyard deck, but if it's not quite maindeckable, and it's not the hardest hitting graveyard hate you can put in your board, where does it see play? The thing about the Hearse is that, depending on the format you're playing, tapping to exile two cards might be the most graveyard hate you need. It does this every turn, at instant speed, for no mana. It deals with two Phoenixes at once, it keeps their delve food low, it eats Kroxa, it can get rid of a Parhelion, it counters Bala Ged Recovery. If Hearse can play as your go-to graveyard hate, then it's a big deal, because you can get in some outrageous attacks with this thing. Turn two Hearse, eat your graveyard for a while, attack for 20. That's an actual plan against what's probably the number one deck in Pioneer. I think the potential is there, and the vehicle ability makes Hearse a card you might not mind bringing in even if the only thing they have going on is a couple miser's Kroxas or something. I don't think I'd suggest Hearse for Modern or Vintage, but if the Hearse is all the graveyard hate you need for Pioneer, then it could absolutely be an upgrade to Leyline and other straight-up graveyard hate decks.

The Underdog looks like a card that is tailor made to go in a deck that runs Ob Nixilis, that's for sure. Additionally, though, it looks like the kind of card that goes in a deck that is in the market for some early pressure but doesn't mind the game going late. Usually this type of card has an "enters the battlefield tapped" or "can't block" type of clause that makes it really only good at offense and not defense, but Underdog is also totally fine with trading off with an opposing creature and giving you a couple of pseudo-Castle Locthwain activations later on. My gut feeling here is that this is the type of card that we're looking for, but might not be the power level necessary for Pioneer. I don't know though, I've been impressed with Bloodtithe Harvester, just because it's a 3/2 for two with some extra stuff thrown in, and that's a great description for Underdog, too. I think I'll start with two of these and see how it goes, I don't have high hopes but wouldn't be surprised if it worked out.

A card that I was hoping for out of this set was a Jund Siege Rhino or Huntmaster type of card, something that could gum up a board, could swing a race, and also be good against opposing removal. The Envoy looks like a solid enough card, but not exactly what I was hoping for. However, untapping with an Envoy is going to translate into wins a large amount of the time for a four mana card, so it's worth taking a look at. The Blitz mechanic on it is especially exciting, because it works well with cheap aggressive creatures in two ways. First, as Jamie Wakefield says, it's the last fatty that kills you, so if the opponent is under pressure and has to fire off removal spells against your early threats, the Envoy is more likely to survive and take over the game. Secondly, Blitzing in for five burst damage will steal some games that your cheap creatures got started. Because of that, I think the Envoy is well suited for an aggressive-slanted Jund deck. In general, as far as Pioneer is concerned, I'm wary of a card that costs this much and dies to a Chandra, but it's powerful enough to try. There are a lot of good things going on here.

This is an interesting one. The power is certainly there, especially in Pioneer. Most decks will have something along the lines of Oni-Cult Anvil, Trail of Crumbs, Portable Hole, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Esika's Chariot, the list goes on. Tagging a Greasefang plus a Portable Hole or a Winota plus a Fable of the Mirror Breaker on chapter two can turn a game around for sure. At its worst, it's Hero's Downfall. In the end, again, I think it's worth trying out, but four mana is a lot. When it's good it's great, but it might be too hard to engineer the game to a point where this will swing it for you. For what it's worth, Unleash the Inferno might be the sickest card name ever.

I can't really imagine playing this in Historic or Pioneer, but man this makes me want to play Standard again. I just love Thragtusk, and while it's easy to look at this and think of it as a nerfed Thragtusk, there are plenty of cases where it's actually the better card. The token it leaves behind is a 4/4, big enough to crew a Chariot and also big enough to beat serious face. Trample is a big deal on a card like this too, where they can't just chump block it, so they might have to trade, which gives you your value. The Blitz is kind of an afterthought, but six mana to kill a planeswalker, gain three life, make a 4/4, and draw a card, sounds good to me. It's got amazing synergy with Fable of the Mirror Breaker. Also I love the art. It's a rhino wearing suspenders holding a gigantic golden wrench, and in the background is a mural of himself. I really want to bonk some people with a gigantic golden wrench.

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These are the cards that I think have the most potential for Jund in this set. If you think I missed any or my evaluations are stupid, let me know in the comments or harass me about it on Twitter. I didn't do any streaming last weekend due to being away for family obligations, but I'll be rectifying that for this weekend's Pioneer Challenges. Check it out if you're interested. Thanks for reading.