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By: Psychobabble, PB
Mar 25 2015 12:00pm
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It looks like Block Constructed is effectively dead as a competitive format. Last year it was removed from its previous place in paper as an occasional pro tour and GP format, now it's no longer a MTGO daily event format. While there will still be 2-player queues for the format, they currently don't fire and I can't see that changing in the future really. Unfortunately it seems my article didn't have any effect and the format has now gone the way of extended. RIP block constructed.

So unless something changes in the future, this column will now be moving onto the standard format. I'll be keeping the column name the same as it still has the meaning of exploring a format - which is what I try and do in this column - even if the format name is no longer referenced. One other change is that while I used to try and build every deck in a block format, my usual approach to standard is a little more eclectic as I don't have the time, tix or inclination to build every deck in the standard format. I will also no longer keep my own detailed stats on the format as the manual collection of winning decklists stats I used to do for block is impractical with the far greater number of players in standard events. Instead, I'll be keeping an overview of the format by drawing on one or more of the automatic aggregator sites out there.

With that introduction out of the way, the subject matter of this column is the ever-exciting set review. As I've done previously, I'll be doing this in two parts. This part will give a few high level comments on the new set, in this case with a particular focus on the new removal options that are coming. Following that, I'll comment on cards that seem likely to be influential in the format in the colours white, blue and black. Next week I'll round the review out with red, green, multi-colour, artifact and land cards.

DTK overview

 

This set is being talked up as one of the most influential sets for standard in a very long time and it's not hard to see why. There's two ways in which this set seems likely to shake the standard format up in a big way. First of all is the usual collection of "pushed for constructed" mythics and, to a much lesser extent, rares. Once upon a time WoTC pretended that they didn't assign mythic rarity to cards on the basis of constructed power level, only due to fuzzier concepts like "unusualness", complexity or "mythic feel". That's categorically no longer the case, with even Mark Rosewater casually discussing how they toned down the power level of some of the (rare) FTR dragons to ensure that they didn't overshadow the (mythic) DTK dragons. This was described by Mark, explicitly, as a design decision linking power level to rarity - "We made them a bit smaller and made them rare rather than mythic rare". Anyway, we expect this by now but it's very obvious in this set and seemingly to an even greater degree than usual, the old "promise" that the mythics "will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards" (source) is getting more and more distant. The mythics in this set are truly pushed. There are 15 of them and all but three have pretty decent claims on playability. The two planeswalkers are amazing, at least three and possibly four of the (elder) Dragonlord cycle seem great and then all but two of the other mono-coloured cards are very strong and all up these mythics (again) make up the vast bulk of the splashy impactful cards in the set.

However, while the power-level lever has been cranked up a bit, splashy mythics, big spells and finishers are what we expect to get excited about in a new set. The biggest impact in this set though is likely to come in the form of a whole host of two mana removal spells. The type of removal that is commonly played defines formats in a big way. Prior to the rotation of the RTR block and M14, standard was defined by the following removal spells:

Ultimate Price Doom Blade Devour Flesh Abrupt Decay Selesnya Charm Azorius Charm Mizzium Mortars

These were all powerful, situational, 2-mana spells which could deal with cheap or more expensive creatures in a mana-efficient way. These cards very much defined the format. Doom Blade made it foolhardy to play four or, especially, five cost non-black creatures meaning cards like Stormbreath Dragon and (Advent of the Worm) saw less play than may have been expected. Mizzium Mortars and Devour Flesh together did a lot to keep the Caryatid/Courser combo down. Ultimate Price and Abrupt Decay fought a long running battle with Lifebane Zombie and Nightveil Specter. Once this batch of cards rotated though, Standard was left without a strong situational 2-mana removal spell for the first time in a long time. Feast of Dreams feels like it may have been intended to be that card, but it was worded in the opposite way to previous cards like Go for the Throat (most recently reprinted in an artifact block) and Ultimate Price (printed in a multi-colour block) and proved to be far too narrow to be usable. Instead Bile Blight and Lightning Strike were forced to do all the heavy lifting, meaning it was possible to blank them entirely by playing a deck without any non-hexproof creatures with toughness less than four. Chained to the Rocks is also an extremely attractive option that has at times become one of the best cards in standard, but there's so many powerful artifacts in the block that it too easily becomes a liability as it suffers from incidental enchantment hate. Hero's Downfall is an excellent card, and Murderous Cut a strong backup, but three is far more than two when it comes to removal spell, meaning that in the current standard there is room for four and five mana creatures to be heavily played. Well, things might be about to change. Here's a non-exhaustive list of two-mana removal coming up in the next set:

The first three of these will shake up the format in a big way. Right now, Ultimate Price is bananas against the top decks in the format hitting Goblin Rabblemaster, Soulfire Grand Master, Courser of Kruphix, Polukranos, World Eater, Whisperwood Elemental, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Stormbreath Dragon and Genesis Hydra. In fact it hits seven out of the top 10 creatures in standard as of writing (70%), and 16 out of the top 20 (80%). That's in "very maindeck playable" territory and will have a big impact on the playability of the larger cards on that list, which aren't currently hit by Bile Blight. I'm a little more cautious about Radiant Purge, which I think is mainly dependent on how many multicoloured non-creatures are played given that the creature base in standard has a lot of strong mono-coloured creatures. At the moment, it's mainly Jeskai Ascendancy which is around but not that common as well as Sorin and Xenagos which are also small players. There are two exceptionally powerful multi-coloured planeswalkers in this set though, and a few powerful multi-coloured dragons, so Purge could see some maindeck play. Finally, Roast is completely bonkers. There basically isn't a single creature currently played in standard that it doesn't kill outside of Sylvan Caryatid. Sure, it being sorcery speed does mean your opponent still gets value from their Whisperwood or Rabblemaster, but that's a minor quibble for such a powerful removal spell. Not being able to go to the face makes it more at home in a control deck than an aggro red deck, so this has the potential to single-handedly make URx control something to consider - maybe Steam Augury will get a workout at last, it does combo really nicely with Delve.

Those three are the potential main-deck options, the next three are stronger but unlikely to be played maindeck due to the colour limitation, assuming that the format remains at all healthy colour-balance wise; having said that, the green one has a slightly lower bar to being played in the maindeck due to its secondary mode. Even if only from the board, they will still affect the format in a big way, putting a heavy post-board tax on expensive targets of the relevant colours. Stormbreath Dragon and Siege Rhino (which is hit by all three of these) look far worse when they can be answered for two mana. The colour-hose cycle from THS block is somewhat influential in the format, but only Glare of Heresy has wide enough application to see a decent amount of play - by hitting two colours, each of these is far more likely to see play.

It's interesting and probably not coincidental that all of this strong removal is printed in a set with a bunch of powerful mythic dragons and some generally insane creatures. Their presence will put a much higher burden on such creatures having some way of protecting themselves or generating immediate advantage, and that's something to keep in mind in evaluating these new cards.

White

Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit

One way to think about this is that it's like an anthem on a body. Honor of the Pure effectively gives your team +1/+1 whenever you cast a creature, which is automatically distributed on the creature you just cast. This is a 2/2 that also gives you +1/+1 whenever you cast a creature, but it's distributed in a different and potentially more beneficial (and permanent) way. Unlike a regular anthem, your creatures aren't automatically more resistant to instant-speed damage based removal, but giving the counter effective haste when you get to attack immediately with a now-boosted creature is a not-insignificant bonus. And it's very important to stress how much better the effect is on a 2/2 body, one of the problems that decks with anthems face is that they're much easier to disrupt because they have a lower threat density and if they don't have any creatures then all of their anthems are dead. The biggest problem with the card is the (undoubtedly necessary) token clause. Anthems are obviously best when boosting up tokens that are created at a rate of multiples-per-card, in those cases they're giving you a +2/+2 or +3/+3 from the single token making card, whereas Anafenza gives you nothing. It's also worth noting that she's not a warrior (unlike seemingly half the other creatures in the set) and is also legendary, both of which might further limit her application. It's possible that she's strong enough to consider building a white weenie or RW/BW aggro strategy around her.

 

Myth Realized

This seems like an interesting option for something like a RW/Jeskai tokens strategy, possibly even UW heroic, maybe with Monastery Mentor and more of a prowess/non-creature spell flavour than just auras and targeting effects. It's a really weird kind of one drop. The advantage of a one drop in an assertive deck is normally that it's cheap and gets the beats going early, before your opponent has had a chance to set up. This is neither cheap nor fast in attacking, it's more of a card that tries to give you late game inevitability - but by then hasn't your opponent either got their removal ready or have already gone over the top of you? This isn't a good fit for pure control, as it'll just turn on your opponent's removal.... I dunno, I can see some upside here (dodging wraths, getting huge) but it seems slow, and like it requires a lot to get it to work and not much to undo it. Maybe the right shell can be found for it though.

 

Ojutai Exemplars

Here's white's "pushed for constructed" mythic. Hmmmmm. Can this win the game on its own? Probably not. Against creature decks, it's easily outclassed by any number of 4/5s or bigger running around and you can only tap so many of their creatures down. Against control decks, it's slow, it's vulnerable the turn it comes down, dies to wraths and only has effectively one line of text. So this definitely needs help to win. But the more help you bring for it, the less non-creature spells you have to cast to trigger its abilities. So maybe you bring along non-creature spells that give you creatures? Planeswalkers like Sorin, token-makers like Hordeling Outburst, Myth Realized? Doesn't Monastery Mentor already do that though (i.e. win the game if you get to untap and cast a string of non-creature spells)? I dunno. The lifelink here is certainly something, and maybe he's the extra redundancy that a Monastery Mentor type strategy needs to work, but I'm inherently skeptical of creatures that need a bunch of non-creature spells to be good. What type of non-creature spells do you need to trigger the removal protection on these guys? Cards cast at sorcery speed don't cut it, counterspells don't work (or do, but in a redundant way), instant speed removal is dicey because you probably don't want to save your removal to only use in response to your opponent's removal so you're basically left with card drawing or cheap cantrips - the new blue cantrip Anticipate is one sweet option, but you rapidly run out of options after that, even stuff like Defiant Strike doesn't necessarily work because the blink effect will cause it to fizzle, so you don't draw your card. At some point it becomes impossible to build a consistent deck with a sufficient balance of lands, creatures and non-creature help for this type of creature to win.

 

Secure the Wastes

If this was a sorcery then it wouldn't be in the picture, but instant speed token makers start to become very interesting. Just as a card in a random white deck, you're unlikely to ever play this. The rate is always worse than what's acceptable on a creature and it's somewhat variable whether having the power and toughness spread over multiple bodies is a benefit or a liability. In a warrior synergy deck with anthems though? Now we might be talking. WoTC has been pushing, pushing, pushing to get a BW warrior deck played in this format, this might not be the missing piece but it's a pretty scary end of turn threat with a (Warrior's Spoils) or Chief of the Edge or Jeskai Ascendancy available. A Jeskai deck with some controlling elements seems the most promising direction overall, being able to hold up counterspells or pull the trigger on this if you don't need to counter anything could be quite strong.

Blue:

Anticipate

Oh boy, it's been a while. Ever since Ponder rotated (with the release of RTR), standard has been without a strong cheap blue cantrip/card manipulation spell. Control decks in the RTR era relied on Quicken and Azorius Charm for early velocity, while they've been forced to sink to even lower depths recently by tapping out and casting Divination. No more. Anticipate is a format-changer. It digs almost as deep as Impulse, which is an enormously powerful card, and in a format with Delve it's not too far off costing effectively one blue mana over the course of a couple of turns. Anticipate also gives these control decks something pro-active to do on two mana if their opponent doesn't cast anything relevant, or anything they can interact with their two mana conditional removal, something they sorely lack at the moment. People always underestimate how important cards like Think Twice, Azorius Charm and Ponder are to the smooth operation of blue-based control decks, but the impact from Anticipate is likely to be immediate and obvious because it's such an enormous jump above the existing options in the format.

 

Dragonlord's Perogative and Silumgar's Scorn

Each of these cards incentivizes control decks towards playing dragons as finishers, as does one of the lands I'll be covering next week. Silumgar's Scorn is pretty amazing if you can trigger it reliably, there is an obvious tension between building a deck that controls the games with counterspells and playing a bunch of dragons to trigger your counterspells reliably, but at least you can Force Spike even without the trigger. As for Dragonlord's Perogative, Opportunity saw some limited amount play even alongside Sphinx's Revelation in the previous format that it was legal in, either as copies 5+ or as a budget replacement option. Drawing +3 cards is a really powerful effect, and this is Opportunity with (somewhat minor) upside, although upside that is most relevant in the kinds of games that you don't mind waiting around until you can get the dragon trigger. Competing with Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time is pretty tough, but this gives more raw card advantage than either and should at least see some sideboard play for control matchups. As I said, each of these cards is only part of the puzzle, but I do believe that they will help incentivize control decks towards playing some of the new dragons as finishers in their decks over existing options like (Ugin the Spirit Dragon) and Pearl Lake Ancient.

 

Shorecrasher Elemental / Gudul Lurker / Silumgar Sorcerer / Stratus Dancer

Shorecrasher Elemental looks like it was printed to encourage players to take another look at Master of Waves and Thassa, God of the Sea. And look I will, it's a highly playable card with the enormously powerful three blue devotion pips. Three pips is huge, it means that you only need one additional pip to turn Thassa on, and it also means Master of Waves gives you 10 points worth of power which is fairly reasonable for four mana. Its abilities are all relevant, if somewhat mana intensive, and it lacks the evasion that was one of the reasons Nightveil Specter was so good, but is still a solid card overall. Gudul Lurker gives another "playable" one drop to go with Hypnotic Siren, although both are definitely stretching the definition of playable - neither have close to the power level of Cloudfin Raptor, or even the utility of Judge's Familiar. You may want to just skip the one drop slot and focus on 2-drops, Stratus Dancer in addition to Vaporkin means you now have eight 2/1 flyers for 2. I'm not entirely sold on Silumgar Sorcerer either, but it does give the deck a nice angle that it's generally lacked, i.e. interaction with your opponent's creatures. In the past, the mono blue devotion plan was to just ignore whatever your opponent was doing through evasion (including flying and Thassa unblockability), but you could still have problems sometimes with a monstrousing Polukranos or just being raced on the ground. The deck still seems a long way from its previous heights - Tidebinder Mage is essentially irreplaceable, and Shorecrasher isn't as threatening as Nightveil Specter against creature decks - but it at least bears thinking about again.

 

Black

Damnable Pact

Hmmm, so the life-loss does make this a lot different to sorcery speed Stroke of Genius, it's downside because dying, but there's also the upside of killing your opponent. I'm not sure that this is better than a card like Read the Bones for, say, an Abzan deck but they're certainly fighting for a similar slot and a couple of copies of this might get there in the board. Blue has the better card draw spells for a control deck, and red has the better Fireball, but in an Abzan deck without access to either of them I could see this having some play.

Deathbringer Regent

The cost is a little steep, but the reward is here if you can trigger it. Mana dorks, Satyr Wayfinder, Elspeth Tokens.... Abzan control anyone? It's obviously bad against control, but it's a great mirror-breaker and a tool against Gx devotion decks, my biggest issue with it is that it's too slow for aggro decks and midrange decks are usually playing so many cards which are good against wrath (Whisperwood Elemental, Mystery of the Unseen, Outpost Siege, the planeswalker card type) such that a conditional 7-mana one might not be good enough even if it does come on a 5/6 flying body.

Duress

Given how frequently this appears in core sets, it's just worth pointing out that this isn't in the format yet. It's a great sideboard option to have for black decks alongside Thoughtseize, there's some really strong planeswalkers coming in this set and it'll be very nice to be able to pre-emptively answer them for one mana.

Minister of Pain / Sidisi, Undead Vizier

 

These seem like the most powerful cards with the new extort mechanic in the set, and it's no accident they're both in black which is usually the keenest to sacrifice its own. I think both of these are playable to some degree even if you don't build a deck around them by having creatures to sack for value (i.e. even if you assume they sacrifice themselves a decent proportion of the time), but it should be easy enough to find a Satyr Wayfinder or surplus mana dork in a GBx deck and if you go a little deeper then there's options around like Jeskai Sage, Sultai Emissary or Bloodsoaked Champion. Minister of Pain is an interesting variant on Orzhov Pontiff, the one-sided Shrivel is really nice against token strategies although the inability to get -2/-2 under any circumstances is a big knock. Probably only a sideboard option, but one that wouldn't shock me if it saw maindeck play in the right situation.

Sidisi is interesting, five mana is overcosted by one for Diabolic Tutor and that isn't constructed playable except in very odd circumstances. For five mana you need some fairly large upside, and in this case it comes in the form of a 4/6 body if you can find another target to exploit. Maybe a black devotion deck with Disciple of Phenax or (Gray Merchant), or just a GB deck with some of the afore-mentioned dorks and wayfinders. One way or another, it shouldn't be too hard to find a creature worse than a 4/6 deathtouch to upgrade and then this gives you access to your late game finisher or situational answer right after you stabilise the ground game - could be quite strong.

Risen Executioner

As has been discussed elsewhere at greater length, there's a few ways that this could go - the only finisher in a creature-less control deck, a lord in a zombie themed creature deck or a lord in a zombie themed token deck. The latter two seem very speculative to me, so I'll focus on the idea of using this guy as a finisher in creatureless control. It certainly has inevitability, and the drawback isn't a drawback if you don't have any other creatures. My problem is that it isn't a particularly good finisher. It's a five turn clock at best, has no evasion whatsoever and doesn't do anything more for you than attack for (at most) four a turn. Compared to other wincons like Ugin (wrath), Pear Lake Ancient (flash/block), Silumgar (token killing, or mind control for the new one) - Executioner is just such a one-trick pony. There have been "pure inevitability" cards like this before, albeit weaker ones like Rot Farm Skeleton that haven't come close to seeing constructed play. Clearly this is pushed a lot harder, but I'm unconvinced if for no other reason that I can easily see players timing out trying to win with this on MTGO.

Conclusion

Well, this is clocking in at over 4,000 words already - join me next week as I round out the review with a look at the red, green, artifact, land and ever-exciting multicolour cards. Let me know in the comments if you think I've missed anything so far or if you disagree with any of these assessments, it's my first time tackling the bigger standard format in one of these, will be interesting to see how these predictions ultimately pan out!

4 Comments

Radiant Purge won't hit a by Rerepete at Wed, 03/25/2015 - 18:43
Rerepete's picture

Radiant Purge won't hit a planeswalker: Creature or enchantment only.

Exemplars doesn't blink unless you want it to (ie dodge removal).

Thanks for the pickup, that by Psychobabble at Wed, 03/25/2015 - 19:18
Psychobabble's picture

Thanks for the pickup, that makes purge even worse.

Re: exemplars I was talking about a situation where you were trying to save it from removal and trying to think about cheap instants that you might randomly be happy to cast in that situation. In that scenario you DO want him to blink so a defiant strike or other targeted cantrip won't work.

Shorecrasher Elemental is by Rerepete at Wed, 03/25/2015 - 19:48
Rerepete's picture

Shorecrasher Elemental is great when you have 6 or more mana, flicker and unmorph at once.

Sorry to hear it. I have seen by Paul Leicht at Thu, 03/26/2015 - 00:01
Paul Leicht's picture
5

Sorry to hear it. I have seen a number of authors who specialized in certain formats lose those formats to WOTC's lack of care. You certainly showed enough dedication and interest.