Welcome back to the Modern Flashback Series! This week I'm jumping right in with the colors of Champions of Kamigawa!
White Commons:
White is off to a surprisingly strong start—I was warned Kamigawa had a low power level! The midrange Samurai creatures
Kitsune Blademaster and
Mothrider Samurai are strong in combat, while
Kabuto Moth makes combat one-sided (while blocking as a 2/4 flier). White also has a surprisingly strong anti-spirit theme, with both
Kitsune Diviner (note the lack of a mana cost on the tap ability) and
Kitsune Riftwalker. On the non-creature side,
Cage of Hands is a reusable
Pacifism, while
Blessed Breath is a reusable
Stave Off—I'm noticing a lot of recursion and reusable effects already, and this is just one color's commons.
White Uncommons:
Blue Commons:
The main creatures in blue are the Moonfolk, which have a shared mechanical theme of returning a land to your hand as a cost to activate their abilities. That isn't the most important part though—they all fly and most have decent stats (though the commons in Champions of Kamigawa are fragile), so the activated ability becomes an upside. Other than the Moonfolk,
Teller of Tales is a 3/3 flier for 5 with a great upside in its Spiritcraft ability.
As for the non-creatures, the
Sift Through Sands trio of cantrips is the backbone of support for the Arcane archetype (though
Sift Through Sands is ironically the worst unless you're trying to set up Soulshift), while
Eye of Nowhere and
Consuming Vortex give the set a large number of tempo tools (and even
Psychic Puppetry helps with that—note that it also can serve as color fixing if you Splice it). However, if you're looking for raw power,
Mystic Restraints is
Claustrophobia with Flash, and is a perfect card to mix in with all your instant Arcane spells (though unfortunately the counterspells aren't that great outside of the anti-spirit
Hisoka's Defiance).
Blue Uncommons:
The problem with blue's uncommon creatures is that they're over-centralized: only one of the seven cards (
Graceful Adept either doesn't have Flying or cares about Flying. In addition, the (Moonfolk) got bigger and more expensive, both in the mana costs (which unfortunately don't get the stats to really match for the most part), as well as the activations (including some which require returning multiple lands to your hand). While that makes these cards good mana sinks, Splice is already a good mana sink with a much better payoff. Speaking of Splice, the Arcane strategy gets its main win condition in
Dampen Thought, as well as
Eerie Procession to help find it if necessary.
Black Commons:
Black is surprisingly aggressive this set, beyond having multiple creatures that can't block.
Wicked Akuba is a surprisingly efficiently costed shade variant for the period at common, while
Nezumi Ronin is another creature that attacks well but dies if you look at it funny (which actually makes it a good blocker).
Villainous Ogre exposes another subtheme: Demon/Ogre tribal—there are only five Demons in the set and the two uncommon ones have big downsides if you don't control Ogres, so I wouldn't start trying to draft this, but instead would just look at it as a possible upside. Soulshift is also a strong theme in black, notably on
Scuttling Death (which is strong in a format of X/1's, even if it isn't as strong as it would have been when damage stacked). On the non-creature side, black has plenty of removal as always:
Befoul is flexible, especially if you need to take out a legendary-matters land, while the duo of
Rend Flesh and
Rend Spirit is strong (though you need to be ready to side out one or the other if you find a lack of targets). As for non-obvious picks, I think this is a good format for
Waking Nightmare, as it looks to be slow and grindy, while you want to keep your Splice cards in hand.
Black Uncommons:
At uncommon, we start with a category I haven't mentioned much: the flip card. While most of the flip cards have an awful starting side,
Nezumi Graverobber starts out great with reasonable stats and a great ability (as it counters Soulshift), while the back side is dominating. We also see the appearance of Demons, and I'm not sure they're worth the effort for the stats—
Gutwrencher Oni might be fine in a different format (that didn't have you keeping Splice spells in your hand), while
Painwracker Oni needs a decent Ogre count (or at least some token generators) to be playable. Going back to the spirits, Modern Masters 2015 all-star
Thief of Hope is still good if you have the targets and enough ways to Spiritcraft it. Unfortunately the non-creatures don't live up to the commons—
Hideous Laughter seems good in a format of small creatures and
Swallowing Plague is an okay
Consume Spirit variant (that can't hit a player), but nothing else looks spectacular.
Red Commons:
I hope you didn't get used to red being the dominant color, as that's looking to change in Kamigawa block. The creatures look awful—
Ember-Fist Zubera and
Brutal Deceiver are both comparable to the rest of their respective cycle, and
Ronin Houndmaster has decent stats, but it just falls off a cliff after that. The one exception looks to be
Frostwielder, as while a 4-mana pinger is overcosted for the time period, X/1's are prevalent, and the exile clause is relevant due to Soulshift. Thankfully the non-creature spells pick up the slack, as
Glacial Ray is another standout of the Arcane deck and
Yamabushi's Flame is another decent burn spell with a relevant exile clause.
Devouring Rage is another card to look out for (though I think you're more likely to splash it, as red isn't the best Spirit color), as there's no way this swingy of an effect could be common these days. Even the aura
Uncontrollable Anger isn't awful, since Flash means it's a pump spell that just stays on (assuming you don't care about the must-attack downside).
Red Uncommons:
Red's creatures certainly get better at uncommon, as
Pain Kami is a great removal spell on a stick (note it doesn't tap to deal the damage, so it could be a straight removal spell if necessary), while
Akki Coalflinger dominates a board while having decent stats on its own.
Earthshaker is also one of the few good Spiritcraft spells in red, especially since you're more likely to have a random
Lava Spike to trigger it on the turn you cast it if necessary. The non-creature spells aren't as dense as at common (mostly due to the lack of burn spells), but
Blind with Anger is an important card to know about, like most
Ray of Command effects. One card I'm not sure how to evaluate is
Strange Inversion—it might just be good enough as a random Arcane spell, but how good is a repeatable
Twisted Image effect? In a format full of X/1's it can serve as a mini-
Fog, and that feels like a good effect in the UR Arcane deck.
Green Commons:
Other than having a lot of Spirit synergies (mainly being one of the primary Soulshift colors), green has another odd theme: Snakes! While there aren't many actual tribal synergies (at least at lower rarities), the Snakes of Kamigawa have two main themes. The first is mana (on Snake Shamans), and while
Sakura-Tribe Elder is the poster-child everyone knows from constructed (and is obviously still strong), cards like
Orochi Sustainer also play in this space. The other theme (on Snake Warriors) is much stranger from a modern color pie perspective, as well as in general: many Snakes freeze (tap, and it doesn't untap for a turn) the creatures they deal combat damage to. Green had some control of tapping creatures at this time (and still does to some extent, though it mostly appears on combat tricks), but it mostly was untapping your own creatures—the freeze ability feels very out of place in green, especially in such large numbers (three creatures at common). As for the playability of the cards, they seem good, especially since they have decent stats, though they are more defensive (with
Orochi Ranger being the notable exception). The non-creature spells aren't that exciting, but
Kodama's Might feels like a decent pump spell (though I don't know if green is the best color for Splice shenanigans just based on the lack of instants and sorceries), while
Kodama's Reach seems very good in this format—not only is
Cultivate just a good card, it seems great in a format without much color fixing, and you have Arcane synergies as well.
Green Uncommons:
Green's uncommons double-down on the Snake theme, as we see the first actual Snake tribal. While
Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro isn't awful (as it taps for GG itself),
Sosuke, Son of Seshiro is obviously the stronger of the two as it has the better stats, the abilities are more relevant, and the Warriors are more likely to benefit from the lord effect (especially the Warriors not in green—
Villainous Ogre and
Nezumi Cutthroat certainly appreciate proto-Deathtouch). In addition,
Orochi Eggwatcher is another good flip creature, even though you'll almost never flip it (and rarely want to flip it). Other than the Snake theme, the card I want to highlight is
Rootrunner. The mini-
Plow Under effect seems powerful, the stats are decent, and it even has Soulshift! However, one thing to note is that all of the creatures that sacrifice themselves will be weaker than when the format debuted due to damage not using the stack anymore. Keep that in mind when reading older recaps of the format. Unfortunately, the non-creature spells are even worse than the commons.
Honden of Life's Web seems okay,
Gale Force is a good sideboard card, and
Strength of Cedars could be built around, but there's nothing that is obviously good.
Colorless:
When looking through the artifacts, I was surprised at what was missing: creatures! Sure,
Jade Idol does a nice impression of a creature, and a couple rares can make tokens, but nothing has "Artifact Creature" on the typeline. Instead, we have a couple of average equipment and a bunch of weird rares—it's still weird to not be in artifact world anymore. As for lands, we do have a cycle allied dual lands, but unfortunately it isn't very good. The
Cloudcrest Lake cycle is actually a functional reprint of a cycle from Tempest, and the fact that they aren't a reliable source of colored mana means they probably aren't worth it in the average 2-color deck.
Now that we've gone through all the colors, let's see how the color pairs are looking. While the archetypes aren't as cultivated as in recent sets (where each color pair has a clear plan and a tentpole gold uncommon representing it), they presumably still have some kind of plan.
The standard UW fliers/evasion appears to be alive and well with efficient creatures and a surprisingly decent amount of quality removal.
The UB deck doesn't really have a plan I can see, so these decks will likely just be efficient cards put together, which might not be good enough in a synergy-based format.
The most aggressive deck is generally BR, and the large number of 2-drops solidifies that here, and if an aggressive deck can be put together, I think it could do well in a format with grindy Splice and Soulshift shenangians.
In many formats RG is a ramp deck, and that appears to be the case here, but I'm not sure how much of that comes from the red cards—as such this deck doesn't seem to be as synergy-based as the average deck.
Both green and white have Spirit synergies, but the Soulshift theme in white is so minor I don't know if GW would work that well—I'd stay away from this deck if possible, especially since the card quality doesn't seem to be there.
This deck feels like a little bit of everything (as there are Samurai and Spirit themes in both colors), which generally doesn't work well, but unlike GW the WB deck appears to have enough card quality to make due with only minor synergies.
This is obviously the Splice deck, and thus the one that will look the most different than a normal limited deck. I'll have to try it at least once, but I think a deck could have almost no creatures in it, especially if an aggressive deck doesn't show up.
As would be expected from the graveyard color pair, BG is the deck looking to abuse Soulshift. This also works well with the ramp, as you likely won't run out of things to play if you have the mana to do so.
If any deck can be built around Samurai, the RW deck will be the one to do so, especially since the good aggressive creatures are mostly Samurai.
I have no clue what the GU deck would even try to be—I think it's supposed to be ramp combined with all the Moonfolk to use as mana sinks, but I don't know how good that is. Try this if you want to experiment, but not if you want to win, at least until you learn more about the format.
I hope that these two articles have given you some information on what appears to be a very complicated format. Next time in the Modern Flashback Series we'll add Betrayers of Kamigawa to the format, and with it the Ninjas everyone was expecting in the first set. However, that might not be the next time you see me—Eternal Masters was finally announced, and I'm working hard to get an initial design done—I'm hoping I can get it done by next week, but I'm making no promises at this point.
Vincent
@CheaterHater1 on Twitter
2 Comments
Again, I write these articles at a first glance of the set (and this one is weird since it's the second part of a two-part series where the first part is stuck in publishing hell) and I didn't know how reliably the UR Splice deck can work when your two most important cards are an uncommon and the best common in the set.
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