Just Might Be Your Kind Of Zoo

March of the Machine spoilers are up, and there are a few cards to go over. Admittedly, since the baby was born I haven't had a ton of time to play. It feels like Brother's War just came out, and that was two sets ago now. But, this set has a lot of stuff that if not powerful, or that good, is at least intriguing. And wordy.

In Explorer, this excites me a lot as far as the battles go. The reason is that the front side is a solid enough card by itself. I don't think we would play Cruel Edict if given the chance, or Cruel Edict plus Planeswalkers. Jund in Explorer, though, is in the market for everything going on here. We want a removal spell, we want it to be versatile, we are okay with trading damage for a little card advantage, and we're into having a cheap creature that's small enough that you don't have to put a lot of resources into it but big enough that you can't exactly ignore it. Ashen Reaper is a real enough threat if it stays on the board long enough. The reason that this battle in particular seems good to me, in Explorer Jund, is that we might be on board for a free creature if we gift our opponent four life, we also might not be depending on the context of the game, and Invasion of Azgol lets you decide that for yourself. You've got the removal spell part of the card done, which is a perfectly fine outcome, you can try to get the full value if you want, or you might choose not to.

Battles seem like they are going to be hit or miss, since what the card does has a lot to do with how it's going to play out. I remember when Lorwyn came out and the debate about whether Planeswalkers were good or not, and it turns out that they are all contextual. Similarly to Planeswalkers, what makes them hard to evaluate is the amount of options they give you, not just the abilities written on the card, but the plays you make in-game to protect a planeswalker or to flip a battle.

You also want to have flipping battles in mind when you construct your deck, both for yourself and your opponent. In order to maximize Invasion of Azgol, or maybe to give ourselves the most options, creatures that can flip it by themselves turn into a priority. New Explorer addition Grim Flayer comes to mind, as does Voltaic Brawler, Bonecrusher Giant, Migloz, Sheoldred, stuff like that. Also stuff like Kolaghan's Command and Stomp can finish off an Invasion of Azgol that a Kiki Jiki token or an early Evolved Sleeper got a hit on. A huge Package Theory situation. Also, we want to keep the board clear to avoid our opponents being able to cast a battle and flip it on us, so cheap removal and being up-tempo might be critical in the coming format, if more battles become popular.

Finally, what's nice about Invasion of Azgol, and why not only do I like it but I like it as a four-of, is that it works so well with itself. Invasion's trigger can remove a blocker, allowing you to get in and flip the battle. Ashen Reaper is a creature that itself can quickly get up to four power and has evasion, so it's excellent at flipping future drawn copies of Invasion of Azgol. I think initially I'm going to play four copies of this to try it out.

Similarly to that last thought on Invasion of Azgol, Kyren Flamewright looks like it's really good at flipping battles as well, if we're going to go down that road. It also is a nice synergy piece with Grim Flayer, in that it helps get delirium both by being another card type and by filling the yard, so there might be something there. If you want to just be The Battle Deck, this card is probably in there.

Out of the battles, this is the only other one that looks appealing to me in Explorer Jund. It's definitely more of a setup-payoff kind of card than Invasion of Azgol, becuase four mana Murder is just not good enough. Also, the difference between needing five damage and four is huge, especially if you're planning on having four-power creatures to flip your other battles. The flipped card is just a monster, though. It's like Esika's Chariot plus a mana sink plus a removal spell and incidental graveyard hate. I'm not sure how consistently this can go off, but if it's consistent at all, it seems like a powerful top end for Explorer.

I don't have super duper high hopes for Deeproot Wayfiner, and a lot of that is because it probably doesn't go in the Invasion of Azgol deck, but this thing is solid, especially in a deck that incidentally puts lands into the bin. And by solid, like, I mean, one hit with this on turn three is going to be winning games fairly often, not immediately but down the road. And while it's not especially good at flipping battles, it does trigger even if you're attacking one, and is a cheap creature that wants to be played alongside cheap removal, just like battles would like you to do. Not sure it will make any decklist in Explorer, but I'm eager to try it, if only because I think it's been criticized quite a bit by some notable people. Or maybe those people are right and I just can't get over my disbelief that a card this pushed isn't good. Either way, worth a shot.

I don't think this is good enough for Explorer, but what's worth focusing on isn't the abilities, necessarily, it's the numbers. This card has (pretty much) the same play pattern as Jace, Architect of Thought. Four loyalty, +1 to play some defense, -2 to gain some value. You start by using the -2, if it survives until your next turn, you +1 and spend your turn setting up to defend it, then you -2 again the next turn for more value, rinse and repeat one time and you've drawn three cards and played some defense and fixed your mana. A planeswalker that has +1 defend itself and -2 gain a semi-large piece of value turns out to work nicely. I'm just not sure that a card like this that doesn't put anything tangible on the board the turn it enters play is good enough to see play. Three mana, four loyalty, +1, -2, those are the things I like about this card, the actual ability effects are just probably not going to be useful enough.

A pretty good removal spell. Compare to something like Vraska's Contempt and Eat to Extinction, and it's a little bit worse at face value because of "destroy" vs "exile", but okay. This will probably work nicely if you're expecting to be blocking, where you can use the convoke after blockers and before damage on their biggest unblocked creature. Surveil 2 is no joke. It looks great if you can depend on having creatures in play to convoke it, Explorer Jund kind of can't.

Every once in a while I try and go way up the mana curve for a sideboard midrange hammer card. Usually that means something like Casualties of War or Chandra, Awakened Inferno. In Jegantha decks it's usually Garruk, Cursed Huntsman. Kogla and Yidaro could take that spot in a non-Jegantha deck. 7/7 Nekrataal is pretty nice, as is just trample and haste to either go face or hit a planeswalker (or battle). But the backup ability of being an uncounterable Slice in Twain is really nice too. Lots of the decks you'll want to bring this in for will have incidental stuff it can hit, like Fable of course, but also Portable Hole, Leyline Binding, stuff like that, not to mention the Enigmatic Incarnation deck. I've actually like Jegantha lately, and six mana hammers aren't always the thing to be doing, but it could be worth a shot in specific instances. I don't think it's the most powerful card for that slot, but it might be the one that gives you the most options while still being very powerful.

So you've probably heard that the trick with Invasion of Ikoria is that in Modern (or Legacy I guess), you can cast it for 2 and go fetch Vampire Hexmage and get a Thorn Elemental. Seems cool, but is four mana Thorn Elemental really that good? Well, yeah it kind of is. Murktide Regent isn't that powerful of a card compared to Ulamog and Primeval Titan and Ad Nauseam and whatever, but the reason it's good is that it goes in a deck that is just playing a normal game until you cast it. This combo is the same way, you can just cast Thoughtseizes and Fatal Pushes and Tarmogoyfs and then when you hit four mana, you get Thorn Elemental. Also, note how it makes all your creatures Thorn Elemental too, so it busts through a board stall if you have a couple of Goyfs in play holding down the fort.

What makes it most exciting to me is that plan A of flipping the battle is solid enough, but you've got a ton of cool plays you can make with the Invasion to fetch up silver bullets, and in Modern that's a big deal. Finale of Devastation doesn't make your Jund deck in Modern just to fetch Collector Ouphe, but if you could just cast it for X=2 and get 8/8 reach unblockable, it probably would. Even just fetching a Tarmogoyf and having the battle later to flip can work out. A singleton Dryad Arbor can turn a double Invasion hand into a turn three Zilortha fairly easily, and there are plenty of awesome hate piece creatures you can put singles of in your board and have five copies when the time is right. Maybe play one Godless Shrine and then stuff like Gaddock Teeg, Leonin Arbiter, whatever else you might want. Plus if you draw the Hexmage, it's not like it's that bad of a card. I think it's the closest thing Jund is going to get to Natural Order in Modern, which is to say, the ability to do something a little beyond fair Magic, something that's maybe not on-theme but isn't specifically off-theme and adds an extra element to the deck.

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So there's that. My two cards I'm most excited about are Invasion of Azgol in Explorer and Invasion of Ikoria in Modern. I'm finding that it's not that feasible to climb the ladder with a two month old in the house, since it's hard to have a win rate that can overcome having to close the program and go put out a fire or whatever every few games. But I'll get some games in and come back with a list at some point for Explorer, and maybe the same in Modern. Thanks for reading.

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.