Don't Shake The Tree When The Fruit Ain't Ripe

Years from now, we'll think to ourselves, "Remember that three week stretch where Omnath was legal? What the hell was that?"

I want to talk about three things today: Magmatic Channeler, Omnath, and I guess just bannings in general. Everyone has an opinion on Wizards design as of late, but whatever.

List

I've added Magmatic Channeler to the Historic deck. Having taken out Murderous Rider already, the only thing to do was throw in a few more instants and sorceries and we were off to the races. Bonecrusher Giant is a great card, but I haven't missed it.

Channeler certainly has that Tarmogoyf feel to it, where it's a 2-drop but it's a good draw step late in the game as well as early. That is certainly a welcome addition, but the other thing that's good with Channeler is that we play cards that are versatile, so it's likely that one of the two cards you hit off of it will be something you want. Maelstrom Pulse is great here, but so is Inscription of Ruin, which is a card I really hoped would be good that has exceeded expectations. Kazandu Mammoth fits in this category as well, being a land drop if you need it or a threat that's perfectly serviceable. Late game Thoughtseizes and extra lands can turn into gas, plus it turns dead cards in your hand into action that's outside of your hand, which helps with Castle Locthwain and Liliana.

Gifted Aetherborn was certainly a card I liked, but it's just a role player. I mean, so is Channeler, but I think it's better. Double-black on turn two isn't exactly the best thing, especially with Kazandu Mammoth in the deck, so Channeler is definitely better on that front.

So this thing was clearly too good for Standard, but in Historic we were beating it pretty well. Omnath the card is absolutely a mistake to print, just kind of an unprecedented combination of rate and synergry potential. However, as a deck, I don't even think it was the best deck with Uro in it. In a format where you can have your best pieces Thoughtseized, you can have them countered, you can have your mana-generating creatures killed easily and have your expensive cards stuck in hand, or you can just be attacked for 30 out of nowhere via Neoform or Bolas's Citadel or Muxus, Omnath turns from the clear best deck to a deck that's explosive but not necessarily much better than others. It absolutely could have been the best deck in the format, looking at win rate numbers, but so much so that it had to be banned?

As far as we're concerned, I was able to beat Omnath pretty regularly with Jund. Not 100% or anything, but for a deck that plays out like a Vintage deck, I wasn't awfully scared of it. I never really made any significant changes to the list to try to beat it, save maybe being one factor in swapping Murderous Rider for Maelstrom Pulse. The Omnath experiment was silly.

Bans

This rant is going to get off topic. There's a lot to talk about in regards to WotC's decisions over the last few years. I think it's important to view everything that's happened from a lens that identifies that Wizards is a company that is making an effort to make money. Also, there has been a well-documented push in the last four years or so to take a profitable company and make it more profitable, as requested by Hasbro, the corporation that owns Wizards.

This important for a few reasons, but it's important to diagnose the problems with Wizards' actions with that in mind. I'm absolutely not in favor of attacking or criticizing the game designers themselves, many of whom are Twitter active and formerly public pro players, not necessarily to protect them, although there's that, but also because they're most likely just following orders, or at least under different pressures than they were 8 years ago when Magic was at its peak. When I order a drink from a bartender and they put well vodka in it instead of Grey Goose, it's tough to blame the bartender instead of the owner who told them what they can and can't do, or how much of a margin they need to be hitting.

Another thing that comes up a lot in this discussion is that, in their articles about game design, Wizards designers introduced a design philosophy called FIRE, which stands for Fun, Inviting, Replayability, and Exciting. Folks I've seen are critical of the philosophy, but I really don't think it means much of anything. Magic was all of those things in 2012 and 2006, and isn't anymore. If you put an article on the website about how we want to make Magic fun and inviting and then the best deck in the format wins by casting multiple spells for free each turn and stealing all of your lands, then it's not the philosophy's fault, you just didn't do the philosophy.

There's also the myth that Magic Arena has made Standard too easily solved and players don't get the experience of discovering what is and isn't good. Folks have been saying this for years across multiple formats, and I have never bought into it. Consider the card Death's Shadow. It was printed in Conflux, in 2009, and it became popular around 2016 in Modern. It existed, alongside Shocklands, Fetchlands, and Street Wraith, in Extended and Legacy for seven years before being identified as pretty much the premier threat of the format. Magic players aren't as smart as we think we are. Omnath is a pretty in-your-face busted card that's hard to miss, but we left a one mana 7/7 on the sidelines for seven years. There's no way of knowing, because there's no AI that you can put all the cards of a format into and have it spit out the best decks in the metagame, but I am unconvinced that the Omnath decks we saw at the Grand Finals were even tuned that well. It didn't take a ton of games to see that WURG for a 4/4 that draws you a card, generates four mana a turn, and casts Soul Feast every turn would be too good. Same with Wilderness Reclamation, Lurrus and Yorion, Oko, Uro, even Lucky Clover is obviously busted once you've seen it in play one time.

We have to remember that, in addition to having over 50% of the Standard bans in the last 20 years taking place in 2020 (in addition to the companion nerf, which we shouldn't overlook), in the last 15 years there have been only 2 cards banned before Wizards switched up their set release schedule with the printing of Battle for Zendikar. In my personal opinion, Battle for Zendikar is when Standard went from fun to not fun, and it must have been the opinion of other players, too. Tournament attendance went way down and something had to be done to the format. I don't consider those 2016 bans to be design philosophy problems, I consider them to be oversights. Maybe they could have seen that Emrakul was going to be unfun and broke a bunch of rules, the same with Reflector Mage, maybe Smuggler's Copter was too obviously going to be ubiquitous, and they straight up missed Felidar Guardian. Did anyone just put a bunch of Energy producers and Ulamogs and Emrakuls in a deck with Aetherworks Marvel to make sure it wasn't too good? Doesn't seem like it. It would be strange for the design and development team that gave us Magic's best years around 2012 also to have begun a downward spiral to ban frenzy land we're in now. That's why my theory is that the set release schedule change is the most important culprit for the state we're in. The design team is great, unless they're under a set of new pressures, be it time or financial.

And I also can't assume that I'm the only one to come to this conclusion. When you make a big change, then you start losing money, the easy thing to do is say, "that change didn't work." You know, unless your job is to be Hasbro Corporate's voice inside Wizards and if you ended up making the decision that cost the company millions of dollars, it's tough for your employment status for you to later diagnose the problem as yourself. Clearly, there are just a few more changes that need to be made to make the new big change work, like FIRE, or four big sets a year instead of Large Set - Small Set release schedule, or a change to Magic's tournament structure. Right?

It's wild to me that a company, that supposedly makes good decisions and therefore has become a big corporation, can see something like Magic, the greatest game in the world, and try to tinker with it. It's just a card game, but it's pretty emblematic of a lot of problems we have in society, in my eyes. So before I go too far off the deep end and start talking about how many yards of linen it takes to make a jacket, let me just say that I just hope Hasbro can start listening to Magic designers, who understand that sets are ecosystems and cards don't individually need to be super splashy to make a format Fun and Inviting and ultimately sell. I hope they see Omnath and Oko and companions and set release schedule bungles as what they are: huge failures, and a breach of trust with its players, that needs to be fixed.

I think there are some cards that have been banned in the last few years that shouldn't have been and they're pulling the trigger more frequently than maybe they should, but the root of the problem is that Magic sets have been less fun since Hasbro got more hands-on, and the cost of that is on us.

Anyways, thanks a lot for reading, and check out the twitch stream.

It Don't Take Much To Get Me On The Ground

 

Link

Happy with this list.

Not a ton of updates to anything as of late, except that I'm interested in Maelstrom Pulse quite a bit right now. Murderous Rider is a perfectly fine card, but it doesn't shine in any of the biggest matchups at the moment. Pulse can hit Felidar Retreat, Shark Typhoon, and gives you some free wins if your opponent draws multiples of stuff. Murderous Rider's 2/3 Lifelink body isn't really doing much right now, and in the matchups where that would be good, they have sacrifice abilities to counter the spell and not let you adventure anyways.

Omnath has certainly reared its ugly, uh, head I guess. And in Historic, not only is there Uro still around, but there's Oracle of Mul Daya and Explore and Growth Spiral if you're so inclined. It's a strong deck, but Historic has a lot more tools. We've definitely moved to a place where Historic isn't just Standard plus some other stuff, it's its own beast. Omnath is certainly good, perhaps even the best thing going on, but it's beatable and amongst a crowd of other very good stuff.

I'm going to go in-depth a little bit on each of the major matchups.

Goblins

-1 Klothys, -1 Radha, -1 Mammoth, -3 Gifted Aetherborn, -2 Liliana

+3 Shivan Fire, +2 Abrade, +3 Cage

I'm not certain that this is actually the best sideboard plan, but it's what I've been going with. Mostly, I'm on the fence about Thoughtseize, because the game will turn into a topdeck war at some point. In the first game, it's the only really good way to deal with Muxus, but when there are Cages in the deck, you're a little safer. This matchup is one of the reasons I like Abrade over Eliminate, because we can take out a Krenko, which is their only realistic way of beating a Cage that sticks. Shivan Fire, in a pinch, is also good against Krenko, while Disfigure is not for that slot. Chevill is incredible in this matchup, Ooze is okay.

Sultai/Bant/Nonsense

-3 Bonecrusher Giant, -1 Mammoth, -1 Gifted Aetherborn, -1 Bloodchief's Thirst

+2 Duress, +2 Davriel, +2 Phyrexian Arena

I very much dislike bringing in Grafdigger's Cage in these matchups. Uro is their biggest problem for you, but letting it hang out in their graveyard and waiting for them to find an answer to Cage isn't a good plan. Lately I haven't run into a lot of Ugin, so that makes Klothys a big problem for them. Try to empty out both hands and win with Castle Locthwain.

Jund Sacrifice

-1 Radha, -2 Liliana, -2 Mammoth, -1 Gifted Aetherborn

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

I like leaving in the Thoughtseizes against this matchup because Collected Company and Korvold are so deadly and it's important to know if they have Claim the Firstborn. Chevill and Ooze are great again here, of course, but don't get attached to them because they can get hit by Claim the Firstborn pretty easily. This is one of the matchups where Inscription of Ruin shines, because it deals with their best creatures but also is able to get back Ooze.

Red

-1 Radha, -4 Thoughtseize, -2 Mammoth

+1 Sporeweb Weaver, +3 Shivan Fire, +2 Abrade, +1 Cage

If you see Hazoret, then definitely don't bring in Cage. If you see Experimental Frenzy, bring in a couple, or if you don't want to, then bring in Duress. Drawing one Cage usually isn't going to make or break anything, plus it's not a terrible hedge if they have Earthshaker Khenra. I've been seeing a lot more Frenzy than Hazoret lately, so be prepared for that reality. The games themselves go about how you would expect. Protect your life total above all else. They can certainly kill you if you stabilize the board at 7 life, but 15 or something is not going to happen.

Rakdos Arcanist

-2 Liliana, -4 Thoughtseize, -1 Mammoth

+3 Cage, +2 Abrade, +2 Shivan Fire

First of all, they can't really beat a Klothys, so that's good to know. Ooze is your best card here of course, but again, don't get too attached. I like cutting Thoughtseize because it doesn't seem like it really does anything of substance. If you take their creature, they Claim/Fame it. If you take their Claim/Fame, they flash it back on Arcanist. I like just playing to the board better. I spent a long time thinking that I should use Thoughtseize to protect Cage in post-board games, but it never really works out that way. I like just having more knock-out cards than they can deal with through their Bedevil effects, and we have that in Chevill, Ooze, Inscription to rebuy them, Klothys, and Cage. Let them Thoughtseize your hand apart, sure, but if you can keep the board somewhat stable, you'll eventually draw something they can't really deal with. 

Also, why am I always boarding out Mammoth? Can't really think of anything else to take out, but also you've gotta imagine that your deck is a little more streamlined post-board that flexibility isn't quite as necessary. You can kind of adjust your land count in your 60 by trimming Mammoths.

Gruul

-4 Thoughtseize, -1 Radha

+3 Shivan Fire, +2 Abrade

If you can keep pace early, you're usually good to go. Chevill is awesome here, but don't be afraid to just throw it out there early and cross your fingers. If they have Domri's Ambush it kind of stinks, but lots of them play Primal Might instead, and even if they have it, it often means they have to take a turn off from curving out. Don't be afraid to just nail their last two cards with Inscription of Ruin to try and play around Embercleave.

Mono Blue

- 2 Mammoth, -1 Klothys, -1 Radha, -2 Inscription of Ruin

+3 Shivan Fire, +2 Abrade, +1 Sporeweb Weaver

Inscription is just a little slow for what's going on here. The idea is that you want to just have as much instant speed and cheap interaction as possible. Unlike most of the other aggro decks in the format, I don't usually like to just jam Chevill on turn 2 if I can help it. If you run into this a lot, try putting Murderous Rider back in the deck over Pulse, it's really good here.

Omnath

-3 Gifted Aetherborn, -4 Mammoth

+2 Duress, +2 Davriel, +2 Phyrexian Arena, +1 Shivan Fire

My best results against Omnath have come from turning into a control deck that seeks to win with discard and just amass more cards. That seems a little crazy, I know, but the games really don't come down to Elvish Warrior and Trained Armodon. A much better plan is to play a low-land count and answer everything you can, snag their key pieces, and keep up on cards from Chevill and Phyrexian Arena. Try to save Maelstrom Pulse for Felidar Retreat if possible, which is strangely their best card against us. Please, if given the chance to kill a Lotus Cobra, take it.

~

Magic is a weird game. Omnath is clearly the most powerful deck out there, but in a format like this, you can't really ever be too far ahead of everyone else. Historic is in a pretty nice spot right now where the power level is low enough for interesting games but the card pool is large enough to provide you with lots of answers for the stuff you might see. I like where we're at with this list, but I would imagine the Omnath lists get streamlined some and we might have to adapt. It's a tough deck to attack, but when you've got Thoughtseize and Chevill on your side, anything is possible.

Bebop Baby How Can This Be

 

Omnath seems to have destroyed Standard. Somehow, I haven't run into it in Historic. Why is that? Someone please kill me with this thing. I can't try to figure out how to beat it if no one plays it. And if the answer to all of this is "It's not as good in Historic because there's more discard and removal for Cobras" that's just serious balogna. Look at this thing! That deck plays like a Vintage deck, it's obscene. 

In the meantime, the format hasn't shaken up a huge amount in Historic. After a little less than a week of Zendikar Rising, this is where I'm at now.

I've cut all the five drops from the deck. I'm not sure that they're too slow for the format, but between Glorybringer, Thragtusk, Elder Gargaroth, or Angrath, you really want to have the right one for the right moment, and that's not super easy to pull off. If that's the case, then I'd rather have stuff that's less powerful but hits the board earlier. This was my initial thought with Nighthawk Scavenger, a card that's cheaper but has the ability be strong in the late game and close the game. Scavenger has been fine, but I cut them because I wanted another Mammoth and I wanted to add Radha and Klothys back into the deck. Don't sleep on Scavenger, depending on what you're looking for, it could definitely be right to include. With rate like it's got, you can't really mess up too bad by playing it.

Mammoth has been great. Five damage a turn is nothing to sneeze at. Mostly with Mammoth originally I was worried that the added flexibility and draw-smoothing wouldn't be worth it because neither the land side or the creature side would really be worthwhile, and I can officially say that that's not the case. By lowering the curve of the deck, a couple lands that enter tapped aren't the end of the world, so the land fits in fine. And also since we're lowering the curve of the deck, an aggressive blunt object 3-drop has a much more synergistic role in the strategy. We're moving away from the Thragtusk/Huntmaster/Bloobraid Jund strategy where you win through two-for-one threats and more of the Thoughtseize-Tarmogoyf strategy where you use your opponent's dwindling life total as leverage.

Inscription has also impressed me. What's funny is that Mind Rot is a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing on turn three in quite a few matchups, but just not enough matchups where you'd actually want the card Mind Rot in your deck. However, sometimes even in matchups where you wouldn't necessarily expect it, the Mind Rot mode turns out to be useful. If you have a board that's stable and suspect your opponent's last two cards are Hazoret or Collected Company, nail em. The other thing that makes Inscription so good is that having a Scavenging Ooze that survives is critical in a lot of matchups, and so having the ability to rebuy an Ooze in the late game is enormous, something I overlooked. Even against a board of opposing creatures that are more expensive, Ooze still is the king of a board stall.

My belief, at least for now, is that Bloodchief's Thirst is just too good of a card to not play four of. Unlike Fatal Push, drawing two of these against something like Blue White Control is not a death sentence, but similarly to Fatal Push, drawing one significantly hampers your opponent's ability to tempo you out of the early game. Just an unreasonably good card. 

In my last post, I said that I would stream an MTGMelee tournament last weekend, but some stuff came up, but this weekend I've definitely got the weekend cleared. My plan is to play in the MTGA Zone tournament that they usually hold on Saturdays at 1pm Eastern, and I'll stream it.

List

 First draft of what I think the list looks like on Thursday, when Zendikar Rising comes out on Arena. 

Link

A couple posts ago I said that I'd be annoyed if they only printed six of the Pathways, and only the red/green one for us, and guess what, they did and I am. Not a huge deal though, I'm not really certain that I would play them anyways. I think the mana is pretty reasonable here, and we'll try out the Kazandu Mammoth and see how it goes. I could honestly see any number 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 being right on those and also having no clue how to decide if they're good or not.

I'm lowering my count of 2-drop creatures to just 9 and I honestly don't love it. I think it's really important to have the ability to just establish something on the board early so we don't waste mana if our opponent doesn't have anything that needs answering. The most important things that I would say we are missing are the last two Gifted Aetherborns and a 1-of Klothys, which I've liked a lot.

I also am back on my Angrath bullshit, as you can see. It's such a house against Uro, which is just about the most popular card in the format. Beyond that, it's a great threat against control decks, and at worst steals and kills our opponents' best creature, since most decks aren't playing anything more than three mana. At the moment, I feel like Angrath is the best 5 drop for how the format looks right now, but I'm also interested in lowering the curve in total, so who knows. Thragtusk is on the chopping block.

We also have gotten to a place where Maelstrom Pulse isn't in the deck anymore, and that could certainly be wrong. We cannot destroy an artifact or enchantment in the main deck, and while that's kinda scary, sometimes you gotta just let Thoughtseize be enough security against that kind of thing. I'm excited to try out these other removal spells in its place, like Inscription and Bloodchief's Thirst, but if those don't line up well with what's being played in the format, well, Pulse always lines up.

Also, a whole separate issue: at some point it might be right to *gasp* cut red? Between Eliminate and Bloodchief's Thirst, and Disfigure out of the board, we kind of have enough cheap removal in Black to make up for what Red's really good at in the deck. That's an issue for later, but Bonecrusher Giant's utility sure has gone down now that all the best decks with small creatures play Village Rites, Phyrexian Tower, and Woe Strider, and it doesn't kill the two of the most important creatures, Mayhem Devil and Dreadhorde Arcanist. That said, no other removal spell can just yolo as a three mana 4/3 when you wanna clock em. It's an incredible card.

This boy is so exciting to me and it makes me pretty sad that I just can't see it being right to play it. I love Sprouting Thrinax, but Historic in general does not seem to be about this kind of thing right now. This card is phenomenal at the things that it actually does, like getting into combat on the ground, one-for-one removal, giving yourself wrath protection. I keep talking about how Claim the Firstborn is going to wreck this thing, but I mean, if those decks were to drop in popularity, Grakmaw isn't especially good against Uro or Ugin, either, whereas something like Nighthawk Scavenger is pretty solid against everything in the format right now. I think there's a world where printings, bannings, and just trends transform the format into something where Grakmaw can shine, but we certainly aren't there right now. Keep this one on the back burner.

I'll know more about it by the weekend, but Thursday afternoon should be some fun. I'm hoping to fire up the stream when the new set's out but may have to wait until Sunday to actually get a good session in.

A Few More Zendikar Hits

 

I think that this card is exceptional, but I also think that you can't really play it in the Claim the Firstborn format. It's really too bad, because this thing does everything we want. It's a low-ish mana investment, it has reasonable stats, and it loves getting into combat with opposing creatures. It's like a toned-down Thragtusk, and that's a pretty great place to be, unless, like I said, the two top decks in the format all play Claim the Firstborn and sacrifice outlets.

Here's the first, and I think only, double faced card that I'm really interested in, and it's a real nice one. The rate on this is solid enough, and attacking for potentially 5 is a really nice spot against things like Teferi. It certainly does close the game quickly if you have the lands, which is fine because if you're casting it as a creature then you probably will have the lands. Double green is not our favorite, but you know what? If you don't have the double green for it, you'll have it for the next one you draw. I'm guessing that at least a few of these have a spot in the deck.

I don't think that this is a Historic card, at least not for us, but how about Jund in Modern? I've talked about the graveyard trap before, where a lot of Jund's cards are good because of how they utilize the graveyard, but the more you lean on that the better our opponent's graveyard hate becomes. Channeler seems like it's still totally fine against a Rest in Peace, and even if you don't warp the list to maximize on instants and sorceries, Channeler helps fuel itself, first by discarding unused spells, and second by digging for more. I would even go so far as to say that this is a card that's tailor-made for Modern in general, since decks are often so focused and sideboard cards are so good. You can discard your blanks and help dig into your hate cards. I'm talking myself into it while sitting here writing, but it still just might be too slow to work in Modern for Jund. We'll have to see, but the potential is there. 

Thank You For A Real Good Time

Last week I participated in the MTG Arena Zone Historic Open on MTGMelee. I had a great time, played some Chrono Cross in between rounds, and even got featured a couple times on stream. You can check out the stream vod on my Twitch page and also the official stream here. I was on the official stream twice, once from my stream, once from my opponent's, and they tried to do one more but my opponent had technical difficulties.

I ended up 5-2, not too terrible. I guess I must have caught the eye of Reid Duke, who did a quick write-up about the deck on ChannelFireball. It's pretty cool, since Reid is kinda the whole reason I play Jund in the first place. In '09 and '10, I would chat with Reid and Ian at PTQs in New England. They're obviously really great dudes and fun to chat with, and then of course I noticed that they were really really good. I decided at some point along that I would just play whatever the Duke brothers were playing at tournaments, which wasn't hard since every week at least one of them top 8'd a PTQ. Naturally, I was hooked on Modern Jund as soon as I saw Reid playing it in the Magic Online Championships and never went back. So it's cool to see Reid himself do a write-up of my Jund list.

So I guess if that's all happening, we better keep up with the deck tuning, eh? I'm going to be playing in the same event here in a few hours with an updated list. I've moved away from Merfolk Branchwalker and to Gifted Aetherborn, among some other small things. I think this should help out against all the aggressive decks I run up against, but I do like Branchie. I'll miss ya, buddy.

Here's what I'm playing this afternoon:

I can't really convince myself to board in Grafdigger's Cage in Uro matchups, but Uro is, of course, a problem. So that's why Klothys is included. It's in an interesting spot in the metagame right now where gaining 2 life a turn, dealing 2 damage a turn, or exiling a card every turn are all effects that come up.

Chandra is an experiment but I have high hopes for her. Lots of the most important creatures to kill have one toughness, like Young Pyromancer, Skirk Prospector, and all the mono-blue stuff.

I'm not 100% confident in any of these updates since the CFB article, but we'll never know unless we try. I'm most skeptical about my decision to grow out my beard. If you watch my stream, don't be scared that the ghost of Brent Mydland is playing Jund now, although I bet he'd be a Jund player if he were still around. The deck's been pretty solid as of late, so hopefully I can top 8 this time. We'll see.

Zendikar Rising Spoilers

Yeah let's get into the real stuff baby.

I have yet to wrap my head around these things. How good would Taiga be if it didn't have basic types? Would you play them? At first glance they seem great, but if you're anticipating having a shockland or Canyon Slough in play, then Rootbound Crag is a strict upgrade. I think it's easy to disregard how good it is to be able to add one color one turn and then another the next.

However, it's also really easy to disregard how bad it is to not have a shockland in play and draw Rootbound Crag, or how bad it is to draw all shocklands against Skewer the Critics. But the synergy between the two is so good, any new dual land would have to be exceptionally strong to be better than that combo, since it's not like I'm going to add these in place of spells in order to play them and not throw off my land type count. If I want to play all Pathways, and cut Rootbound Crag et al altogether, then what are we replacing the shocklands with? Because we do need to have some number of lands that can be activated for multiple colors, not just make sure we're hitting red, black and green.

Also, why have they only spoiled six of these? We're missing B/G and R/B, and two others for the bad colors. Are they just going to leave some out for no reason? I might not end up playing these but that would still piss me off.

First of all, I want to say that Party is the coolest mechanic. Second, is this good? It's probably not worth warping the deck around but if you had some warriors and wizards lying around, this gets a little bit better. I think I might try making a Party deck for funsies, but this card is a little soft.

I think some of these haven't been spoiled yet, including a black mythic and a green mythic, I think. This is, so far, the only one spoiled that I could see myself playing. The problem with these cards is that, while they give you a lot of options and reduce your variance, neither side is really worth playing. Sure, your spell could be used as a land instead of a spell so you don't have to mulligan, but you also lose a lot of games because your lands enter the battlefield tapped, and you lose a lot of games because your three mana sorcery didn't affect the board. Don't get me wrong, I love the flexibility, but I think this card is worse than Tranquil Thicket and I'm pretty sure 0 is the right number of those, for now.

I get why this is good, but I think I'll just play Murderous Rider instead.

Okay, so do we have room for a three-drop creature that's just rate? Well it depends on the rate, mostly. It trades early, it's great against the mono blue decks, and it attacks and races for a million later on. I think it depends on how the format shakes out, but yeah, this card seems like a solid inclusion. It's an all-star against a large portion of the field, an early-ish drop that has tons of staying power, and can simply win the game by itself. It's also important to remember that decks with Thoughtseize have a little more agency in making sure their creatures avoid removal.

A note on Modern: are these cards worth playing? It's a tough call, they don't really do anything against Valakut decks, so they are targeted Tron hate that might not even be as good as Stone Rain. They sure would be good if Field of the Dead was still legal though.

Love it. Just an exceptional card. It scales up in power as the power of the format scales up, it's great early and late, it's easy to cast. Mwah! Probably going to play some of these in Modern as well as Historic, possibly even Legacy.

This is kind of like if Uro was a black card. Just a huge mass of value. Unlike the Bala Ged Recovery card and similar stuff, this thing has the ability to directly affect the board when you're in the control role, so your seven mana monster value card isn't a blank against anything.

The Blue/White control matchup, be it in Standard, Modern, Legacy, or even friggin Sealed Deck, comes down to the fact that they have to get ahead of you in cards and on the board. They absolutely have the tools to do that, but they have to do both, and we also get to Thoughtseize them to make one of those propositions tougher. A couple quick creatures are going to beat down enough to beat a hand of all Search for Azcantas and Chemister's Insights. Similarly, Castle Lochtwain and Planeswalkers will beat a hand of all Wraths and Seal Aways. What's fascinating about Inscription of Ruin is that it can play either of these roles, either getting back a creature from your graveyard, or making them discard cards. Add to that the ability to go way big and do it all, and that all the control decks will have creatures to target with the removal ability thanks to Shark Typhoon, and we have an excellent card in a number of matchups. It's not super flashy, but it's flexible and powerful, and what more can you ask for?

Cowboy Neal Behind the Wheel

Just as we get to a place where I feel like I know what's happening in Historic, another massive change is around the corner. Amonkhet was an interesting block with some really busted stuff like Hazoret and The Scarab God, and also solid midrange stuff I liked quite a bit. There's also apparently some other goodies in the remaster set for some reason, so let's take a look.

Yeah, this gets to be in Historic for some reason. This would have been useful before Nexus of Fate and Wilderness Reclamation were banned. It's certainly a 4-of in the list, but the life loss is pretty crucial, since we can't play Blackcleave Cliffs or Blooming Marsh, and we also aren't fetching Swamp on turn one. Starting the game at 16 isn't ideal, but will be necessary sometimes. Thoughtseize certainly makes me want to lower the mana curve of the deck, for two reasons. One is that we're going to be doing additional damage to ourselves, so there will be an increased need to play shocklands tapped. The other is that we need to keep pace with the more aggressive decks, or at least aggressive hands, since we're starting the game at 18 instead of 20. That, and having cheap cards is just good to do.

What else does Thoughtseize do for the deck? To be fair, I'm already playing Agonizing Remorse in the deck and it's been okay but not great, so it's an effect that I'm looking for. Thoughtseize speeds us up considerably though. The fact that you're spending one mana instead of two is crucial, because no matter what card you take, your opponent has spent 0 mana on it. You're only losing half the tempo you otherwise would from Thought Erasure or Agonizing Remorse.

I think that Thragtusk still stays in the deck, because it's so good to counteract the shocklands, Thoughtseizes, and Castle Locthwains that we're running. I think it'll be necessary since it enables all those cards, but also is a straight up two for one against removal and attackers and blockers. Moreso than in decks in the past, this deck actually utilizes lifegain even when the opponent isn't pressuring you, since you have Locthwain, and life total management is going to be key going forward.

The Triomes were appealing to me a while back and Canyon Slough is just a strict upgrade from Savai Triome. I dislike Barren Moor, but I also dislike how much mana it costs to cycle a Triome. I'll start by trying three of these.

I was really high on this card back when it was in Standard. It's cheap removal but not extremely flexible, and it has some upside in the late game that actually does come up pretty often. In matchups where you want a cheap creature removal spell, changing the math of the race can be a big deal, since they can't attack you if you're going to crack back, put them to seven or whatever, and then Ribbons them out. So in that instance, it's just the threat of the card that gains you advantage and you can continue to play normally but it'll change your opponent's decisions. It hits all the goblins, all the Gruul creatures, and all the mono-blue creatures. I like it better than Abrade, but that depends on whether there's artifacts in the format or not.

This is also in here for some reason. I like the idea that you can pick off small creatures and then get some value, but there really isn't a ton in the way of 1 toughness creatures that are still sticking around by turn four. It's certainly worth a shot, but Liliana and Vraska are already sort of on their way out in my mind.

Does Glory Banger have a slot here? I'm not sure but I think it's a very, very good card. It hits everything in the format, nails planeswalkers, and races very well. It might be necessary just in order to fight against opposing Glorybringers that the Gruul decks will likely start running. What really sells this card for me is how good it is with Chevill, whether we're exerting and nuking a creature or hitting a planeswalker with the haste and evasion. It's almost got to have a place in the deck, if it weren't for the Thragtusks that are already there. I think we'll just have to see if we want one or the other, or some kind of split. How many five drops can we reasonably have in the deck? I guess we'll find out.