Welcome back to Super Secret Sunday! The place and time where we discuss underplayed cards, under the radar strategies, and under-thought thoughts. Now we all know that your Ol' Grandpa Growth can get to talking. And sometimes when he gets to talking he can get pretty opinionated. Well now that Dragon's Maze has been around for a couple weeks and I have had a chance to play with the new cards I am gonna take a look back at the predictions I made in the set review and talk about some cards where my expectations were way off. That's right, we're talkin' about Grandpa's biggest screw-ups from Dragon's Maze!
So right off the bat we have to look at the Pro Tour decklists that showed up this weekend. This guy has been pulling big boy weight against every version of Esper deck in the field. Standard isn't exactly the same beast as Commander, but Sire shines even brighter in a multiplayer dominated format. I misread the role that this card can play in games. It isn't so much of a creature threat that you just want to play and attack with. The timing of this card is so critical. This is much trickier to operate than a Mind Twist, but when you hit them with it you already have a decent clock to back it up. The potential for card advantage is very high and skill testing cards in R/B are kind of rare. I like this in practice quite a bit more than I did in theory.
I called this as a big hit in the set review. I know the value of a Time Walk and I am also good as spotting one, even in a disguise this good. This card just looks so unassuming, but check the score! How much life do you need to swing the race? How many turns do you set your opponent back by gaining 12 or more life? All this and it still has the potential to trade for a card from your opponent and denies them resources in the late game. This is a huge beating. That is an understatement. I knew it was a huge beating. It is an indescribable beating.
So back on the results from the Pro Tour: this card was the finisher du jour in a variety of Blue based control decks. The analogue that I have been able to draw with Commander is how often these Standard control decks hit big mana. They are built to maximize Sphinx's Revelation and frequently control 10+ lands. In these late game situations (which happen to come around a lot in Commander) Aetherling is very difficult to race. I underestimated this cards ability to play defense. In a grind fest, you can nug your opponent with the unblockable four damage, but then blink it and leave your mana to pump its toughness to near infinite levels allowing you to block basically any single threat your opponent has. I stand by my assessment of this card as a pure threat. It is slow and expensive. What I didn't catch on to is how easily this card turns into inevitability.
I was extremely excited about this card when it was spoiled. My excitement got the better of me. I made comparisons to many very good cards. I was pretty far off the mark. This costs two more than it is really worth. You still get a basically random card, which isn't much better than just drawing a fresh card except in the smallest corner cases. This card is much easier to hate out than other card advantage outlets, for no real reason. That card advantage by the way, really isn't that great. You only ever get one extra card. Nothing special. Mind Unbound. Yawgmoth's Bargain. Phyrexian Arena. The comparisons are not as favorable as I once thought.
Well there we go youngins. A dose of my own medicine and a helping of humble pie all in one. It's good to be back doing S^3. It has been on hiatus for quite a while. Do you think I got these cards right the second time around? Let me know in the comments.
-GG
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