In General: (Momir) BASIC Skills

Tip o' the hat to you Zoners. Sorry about the late post. Grandpa Growth here, and today I want to talk about something a bit different. This is a blog about Commander. In General is an article series focusing on high-level strategy concepts, theory, and metagame considerations. Today though, we are going to talk about Momir Basic. I do this, so as to illustrate how you can learn different aspects of Magic strategy by playing different formats.

Commander is difficult. It has all the complexity of every other constructed format, except with an almost completely unrestricted card pool and only a loosely defined metagame. You sometimes have good ideas about what is going on. Sometimes, things are completely off the grid. It is important to isolate certain skills so that we can train them without having to worry about other difficult aspects of the game. The same way an athlete uses certain drills and exercises to improve specific aspects of their body, so too can we develop ourselves by isolating skills.

First, if you are unfamiliar with Momir Basic, it is a blast to play and I highly recommend it. You can read the full description of the format here: B00M! I am not going to discuss the actual strategy of Momir or my opinions on MtGO Avatar formats. I encourage you to mess around on Magic Online and play a few games. The rest of this discussion is going to require a working knowledge of the format.

Things you don't have to worry about in Momir:

• Mulligans - The first decision of the game. Often the most difficult. Many constructed games are won and lost by poor mulligan decisions. In Momir, you have the option to mulligan, but there is never a strategic reason to do so....therefore you never have to and you never have to think about it.
• Mana screw/flood - Your deck is entirely composed of basic lands. You choose which lands to play from your hand and you draw a new one every turn. This ensures you will always have enough mana to make a play and you will always be able to utilize all of your mana. 
• Choice of play - The voice of the internet has not achieved consensus about whether or not it is correct to play or draw. There are legitimate benefits to both, but whether the choice is relevant in any given game depends entirely on what creatures you get out of Momir. The easy trick here is that you will already have picked out your strategy ahead of time, so you will always know which option is best your for your play style. 
• 'Sandbagging' - You don't have disruption or removal in your deck, as I mentioned. As a consequence of this you don't have to think about using said removal now or saving it for later. You don't need to think about the Blightsteel Colossus in your opponent's hand...he doesn't have it.
• Hidden Information - You don't know what lands your opponent has in hand, but that isn't typically relevant. You opponent has only lands in hand and can't ever draw anything else. So basically everything you need to know is available. Sidenote: there is a generally accepted order to which lands should be played when. If available, you want to play Mountain > Swamp > Island > Forest > Plains. If you see lands played in a different order then you know either that your opponent doesn't have a certain type of land in hand or that they simply don't care (read: is not very skilled/educated about Momir).
• 'Land Mines' - You don't have to worry about losing out of nowhere. Your opponent isn't playing a combo deck. They aren't assembling some unbeatable engine. The possibility of them making a super-sick bomb is ever-present, but you can't control for that and there isn't much you can do about it except for trying to leave blockers for a Haste Creature. At some point, your opponent is going to start making a Creature on every turn, expect it.
• Resource Advantage - Caveat: Your life total matters. A lot. Other resources are somewhat fixed. In the late game, you will usually have the same number of lands (8) and the same number of cards in hand (0). Unless one of you breaks the symmetry somehow, e.g. with a mana acceleator or card-drawer, then things are going to stay more or less tied. You each have the same potential to get these extra resources and their appearance is totally random, so you don't really have to plan for it, but you do have to react appropriately when they show up.
• The Metagame - There is no such thing as a bad match-up. There are only a handful of strategies, so it is easy to familiarize yourself with the strengths and weaknesses of each. Most people just pick their favorite or the one they think is best and run it the same way each game. You have the same deck and the same capabilities as your opponent. There is no budget deck. There is no insanely overpriced card that ruins formats. It is purely read and react to what happens in the game and what your opponent's strategy is.
• Construction - Technically, the composition of your deck does matter to some degree, but most everyone can just find the tight decklist online, or right here: 15 Mountains, 12 Swamps, 11 Islands, 11 Plains, 11 Forests. Pretty simple. You don't even need to understand why this is good. Just play it and don't worry. Netdecking at it's finest.
• Zones - If it isn't in play, it really doesn't matter. The lands in the graveyard are pretty much gone. Only a handful of creatures will ever interact with them. The tokens you make get exiled and cease to exist when they leave the battlefield. So, they are gone forever. You can't 'cheat' stuff into play or fiddle through your deck that much. 
• Side Boarding - There ain't no side and there ain't no board, there is just the tokens you make.

Things you do have to worry about:

• Math - You have to keep track of life totals, power/toughness, and where your opponent's curve is topping out. Momir will develop your combat math to pro levels. Knowing when you are ahead or behind is extremely important.
• Reading - Read every single token that comes down. No exceptions. You have to know what everything on the board says at all times, this is mission critical info and tiny mistakes will cost you the game. This mental skill is one of the few advantages left in this format. You need to be able to keep track of what your opponent has in terms of creatures and lands and what you have as well. Protection, Landwalk, and Islandhome are surprising relevant. 
• Memory/Knowledge - Remembering what cards exist in the game of Magic is hard. There are thousands and thousands of creatures. But there are some key things you will want to know that can give you an edge. There are more Haste creatures at CMC 4 than at any other mana cost, for example. That could be handy knowledge if all you need is one extra attacker or one point of damage to win the game this turn. You should get an idea for the relative concentrations of cards with certain abilities at each CMC. You might be thinking that this knowledge isn't going to be useful in Commander, but there is a corollary: Start building up your knowledge base of cards relevant to Commander. Know what kinds of things a deck plays on a given turn. Both with respect to particular decks and the format in general. Even easy things are a good start. If your opponent has a ramp card they will be playing it as early as they can. Sixth and seventh turns are usually going to be spent casting threats. What counterspells can your opponent have given his open mana? These are smart questions to be asking that will help you win games through sheer awareness.
• Sequencing - When to attack first. When to make a token first. What if you get a Haste guy? What if you get a Bloodthirst guy? This happens. It is important to think carefully about how you use your turns. Know when and why to use each option available to you and do so correctly.
• Targeting - You will still have to make some choices about what to use and what to use it on. If you make a Nekrataal you still have to figure out which creature to target with the ability to maximize your chances of winning the game. It is important to think long-term and perceive the situation accurately. Don't make short-sighted decisions that will cost you later.
• Tempo/Racing - Although most games are a race, they tend to last pretty long. Every turn you can pressure your opponent increases your chances of winning. Games essentially always end with damage, every point is important. Read the board state correctly and don't let points of damage slip by. Take every advantage you can get. If you just sit around waiting for a bomb card to come out there is a 50/50 chance it will be on your opponents side of the table. Minimize the variance through superior play skill.  
• Board Stalls - Because each player generally makes a Creature on every turn...and because the majority of Creatures at a given CMC are nearly equivalent in power level, the board tends to remain at parity until the symmetry is broken by one of two things: 1. Making a Creature whose power level is dramatically off-curve i.e. big hits or misses. E.g. Oracle of Mul Daya or Cognivore. 2. Someone decides to skip a drop in order to make a creature on a later turn. Typically, people don't make one drops, but if you make one and your opponent doesn't. You will have an extra creature for several turns...for whatever that turns out to be worth. The skill to develop here is to know when it is safe to attack to try and end the board stall and what price you are willing to pay to do so. Making sure you come out ahead on creature trades and don't take excessive amounts of damage to keep your guys on the table are key concerns.

I hope you enjoyed this article. This is a new thing that I am going to be trying over the next few weeks. Talking about the merits of other formats as learning tools instead of outlets for play or socializing. It is important to try and improve your game as much as you can. You will win more and have more fun as you gain a deeper understanding of the different mental levels of the game. You may not like playing other formats. I for one, really like playing Commander. I don't like Standard, but there is always something to be learned by broadening your horizons. 

-GG

The Stack #28- Art(ist) Appreciation Day

 Hey Zoners!

We're releasing our inner Art Snob today on The Stack as we talk this often-seen-but-seldomly-appreciated part of Magic.

I've found that as I continue to play this game, art has become one of the subtle differences that has influenced my deckbuilding as of late, whether it's just playing alternate artwork to help reinforce the theme, pure pimpage, or a little bit of both.

I have a lot of respect for the creative process. So much goes into making Magic cards, and I think getting the artwork done is the most difficult part. Art on a card is a lot different than on canvas. It takes real skill to develop a piece that really complements a card's frame and border. For those who haven't played Magic since the dawn of time, they've come a long way from say, the Chronicles/Arabian Nights printing of Fishliver Oil.

This just looks like a day on the lake.
In 1973.

So it's time to be thankful. THIS IS THE STACK!

UNCLE LANDDROPS' PICK 

Uncle Landdrops-  THUMBS UP
With art and other things that are viewed as an expressive medium (music, films, literature), I tend to hold one simple-but-difficult first impression piece of criteria:

If what you're reading, watching, looking at, or listening to ever grabs your attention so completely that it floods your senses and reminds you of those things that connect you to the world, chances are it's pretty good art.

Steve Argyle's work on Admonition Angel is one of the first Magic cards that had this effect on me. Back then I didn't worry much about the top half of any card, which is something that newer players probably don't care about anyway. Admonition Angel didn't really change my sentiments either, but it did make me stop and admire, which I'd say is the beginning of my appreciation for art on the card.

I've stared at this art many times since, and there's just so much to love about it. The perspective is sweet, the light and contrast are immaculate. Even the stained glass has beauty to it. Argyle is particularly fond of this color palette (Pink-Purple-Orange-Black), and you probably see a lot of his work without even knowing it. Everflowing Chalice, Deathrite Shaman, Chandra Ablaze, New Nevinyrral's Disk, Somberwald Sage- it's all Argyle. So not only is his art pretty cool, it's also printed on playable cards.

Johnny Confidant- THUMBS UP
I'm Always appreciative of Argyle's work, not to mention I have some of his aformentioned cards as key players in my Primary edh decks. New Bloodbraid elf, Praetors Grasp, and not to mention Damia are all cards he's done that are personal favorites of mine.

Mythic card, Mythic Art, Nuff said

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
Up above UL talked about appreciating Carl Critchlow's work more in the Modern card era. An important transition began to happen around this time that redefined Magic from an artist's perspective. The creative department started mandating that art come to them in a digital medium. This had a number of effects, chiefly that old school artists like rk post and Terese Nielson and other big names had to shift how they created their works. Paint on canvas was no longer an acceptable medium. This created a huge style shift within the game and one that I think ended up being a net positive. Steve Argyle is part of what I consider the 'new wave' of MtG art. This logistic policy change allowed him to enter the game and showcase his incredible color, balance, and attention to detail. Now he is well known and well established within the game and is frequently called upon to work on high profile cards. He is in high demand at large events and conventions because fans of his work constantly want sketches, signatures, and alters of his cards.

Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
UL's quip about newer players not really caring about artwork much is absolutely true! Unless we're talking about my brief obsession with MTG when I was 8, before I realized it was an actual game with rules and strategy.

This card does have some impressive illustration though, which certainly fits the card's title. In a dark background, an angel shines light from her halo, and bears a sword (possibly, a sword of admonition?) to vanquish the evil that lurks in the darkness.

Then again, it is a cathedral, so what evil could lurk there except the one lady who falls asleep during all the sermons? Also, isn't the ground in Zendikar a bit to unstable to build a solid foundation for a church? These are just some technicalities that are running through my mind looking at this card.

VENSER'S JOURNALIST'S PICK

Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
Nothing is more refreshing than seeing a cool stream of water run through some misty looking trees. If I were thirsty and in a desert, this card would bring tears to my eyes. If I were in a dentist's office, this artwork would ease my mind, if only a little bit. Oh, beautiful streams of Blue mana, bear unto mine eyes this beauty in every Blue deck that I've built!

Johnny Confidant- THUMBS UP
 Probably one of my favorite Land arts of all time, Recently in the M14 set Jonas De Ro has some impressive artwork pairing with Andreas Rocha with the Sunrise/sunset look of the lands. Artwork on lands are gateways to the world that we are in, core set aside it is truely the only way to see the environment of the plane while you play in it.

Uncle Landdrops-  THUMBS DOWN
This particular art isn't doing it for me, but I do like John Avon's work a lot. The river rocks in this one are the big turn-off. GG will talk about Avon a little later, particularly concerning land, but I like a lot of his nonland pieces as well. I play a lot of cards with Avon art, and I don't tend to believe that's just a coincidence.

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
Lorwyn had plenty of inspiring pieces of art. From a creative perspective, choosing to have islands depicted in rivers rather than in oceans is a stylistic breathe of fresh air. John Avon is a true master and an artist that the game simply couldn't live without. He brings in players. When people who are unfamiliar with the game see his art they know that the cards are a beautiful and professional product. Often, people are familiar with some of his pieces without being familiar with the artist himself.

GRANDPA GROWTH'S PICK

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
Obligatory explanation of thumb criterion:  In the game of Magic there are two artists that I think really impacted the game so significantly that it couldn't exist without them (at least not in its current form). These men are John Avon and Rob Alexander. They are best known for their landscapes, which are immaculate. They are two of the most popular, most utilized, and without a doubt most skilled artists in the history of the game. You get a thumbs up if your art is in the same league as the these two.

There is a greater challenge to illustrating creatures though. They have to seem lifelike. Not just beautiful, but also animate. They need to display anger, fear, kindness. These things don't always translate well onto the inhuman forms that populate the game's art. Critchlow is one of the best artists specifically for his work on creatures. He has been around the game forever and has illustrated some of its most iconic cards, particularly with respect to relevance in Commander. To name a few: Wildfire, Overrun, Memnarch, Darksteel Colossus, and Exhume. He also crafted the art for my favorite card: Sakura Tribe Elder. He is  an excellent choice for reprints, as well. He has made fabulous updates such as the core set Phyrexian Arena and the Onslaught Clone shown above. In case this wasn't clear to some of our readers: this art is significant because it calls back to the original Clone art from Alpha; in a humorous way to boot.

Johnny Confidant- THUMBS UP
Originally I was going to say i've hardly used cards by this artist, but upon a quick Gatherer search i was proven Wrong. Sakura-tribe elder his previously mentioned friends are among my decklists not to mention edh infinite mana combo friend Exsangunate is also illustrated by him.

Not to sure, but i think my first rare from a pack was this Clone, Thanks for the nastalgia GG

Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
I am not an art aficionado nor do I have a particularly favorite MTG artist. But, I like the concept this art is seeming to portray. If you ran into a clone of yourself, and be honest, would your first instinct be to kill it? The philosophy of MTG knows no bounds.

Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP
With few exceptions, I'm not really fond of his work pre-Kamigawa. I find that before this point there are quite a few cards of his that lack definition and the contrasts that I prefer. Fortunately for us, his iconic cards were obviously given a lot more attention, which is economical and appropriate, and that's something I value. I like Quillspike, Murkfiend Liege, and Darksteel Colossus a lot, and his work on Legendary Creatures is pretty great- Rith, Memnarch, Infernal Kirin, and Heartless Hidetsugu are also nice, gritty looking cards which I find really define Critchlow's style.

JOHNNY CONFIDANT'S PICK

Johnny Confidant-  THUMBS UP
Terese Nielsen has long been a favorite of mine, perhaps my most favorite artist. If there is a card I have that she has drawn I'll go grab it and use it. Her artwork is a soft and detailed expression that sometimes even blends together many different symbols and pictures into one work. Enter the Infinite, Decendant's Path, and Hunter's Insight are such examples.

Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS DOWN
Terese Nielsen art is fine. I'm not as much a fan of it.

Many people have theories about what art does and doesn't do. To me, all artistic mediums should work towards carving identity, which is what I find to be lacking. Her technique, as mentioned, is good.

Looking at Basandra, we can see exactly what I'm talking about. The best qualities of this piece aren't exactly "her" in this picture, but the way the we're drawn to the objects "around" her, which in this instance, also includes the wings attached to her. Though life-like and lovely, they are still a distraction as we attempt to look at a Legendary Creature, which is supposed to, in my opinion, have a little more identity. This probably would've been better for a non-Legend creature, which we can't necessarily totally blame Terese for in this case, but Wizards still didn't say "No."

Again, I find her to be a much better artist than someone who really can understand its appeal on the card. When we look at cards JC mentioned, like Enter the Infinite, or Hunter's Insight, I'm not wowed. These intangible things aren't particularly demonstrated well to me through her work for me to say I'm impressed.

Dryad Militant, Secluded Glen and Angel of Jubilation are pieces of hers that really work for me. None of the others really stick out for me.

Grandpa Growth - THUMBS UP
She is a true master and has been around the game forever. She is very active at conventions and has an impressive portfolio of non-Magic art as well. Her pieces, even older ones, have a unique look to them. The balance in her color use gives her art a very realistic feel. The soft earth tones and natural greens...there really isn't another artist in Magic who's colors look like this. This is what feathers look like. This is how they react under light. A stark contrast to the high-gloss, over-saturated look that many modern cards have.

Venser's Journalist- THUMBS DOWN
A little too gothic-cathedral-stained-glass-window for me; but, it fits the description of a Battle Seraph. Eat your hearts out, zealots, and gaze at this airbrushed beauty (whips don't seem so angelic to me...but oh well).

Well that wraps it up for this week. Be sure to share your favorite artist or art in the comments below.

Until next time, this UL and the TGZ gang telling you to take a day off, go look at a painting, and pretend you know what you're talking about. Enjoy your Saturday.



-UL/VJ/JC/GG

(Bringin' It) Back From The Brink #2: (Potentially) Returning Dragons

Precedent as well as other Magic-Speculators looking ahead at Commander 2013 believe this cycle to be included in each of the five expansions set to come out in early November.

Color me more skeptical on this particular set, but it isn't off base. Wizards likes to combine bang-me-over-the-head obvious inclusions with the scathingly surprising.

I guess that means I won't be surprised if they aren't, and I think that might be a good thing.

All of them except Dromar got new border updates in Wizards specialty products over the past few years.  Darigaaz, Rith, and Treva were part of Duel Decks: Phyrexia vs. the Coalition. Crosis saw new art in the Graveborn Premium Deck, and Rith got this sweet alternate upgrade in FTV:Dragons.

WotC likes to put nostalgia in circulation, and these cards certainly have that kinda quality. Commander was originally based on building around the Elder Dragons after all, and then by extension these guys, and their distant enemy-colored cousins in Time Spiral.

So if they do get printed, you're probably going to favor the shiny newness over the Old Guard, and that's pretty natural for us.

Still, I think there's quite a bit of fun left in these old dragons, and with much of the new tech, I think it's time we tried to get back to our Elder Dragon roots and brought these guys Back From The Brink.

Crosis, the Purger

Discard is strong, but playing
the guessing game and the strength
of his peers really render Crosis Obsolete.
Ranked Third in this cycle, but doesn't
outclass Dromar by much. 

Having Nicol Bolas as your Elder hasn't exactly been great for Crosis, who's just outclassed in Dragon-ness and nostalgia by the most Evil Lord of Evil in Magic. Bolas also has a far superior discard mechanic.

And I know, there are even other, better options in Garza Zol and Thrax if you're trying to get your Grixis on.

Still, Crosis isn't terrible. The 6/6 for six defense will get old in this little review, but he is a little bit better value if you want to have something that's slightly more castable and similar to Bolas.

If you're looking for metagame choices, Crosis is much better than Bolas against mono-colored decks. He comes out a turn or two quicker, which is usually the difference in someone preparing for Bolas and not preparing. His ability can also pressure an opponent to play their spells a little bit earlier than they'll want to, which could give you stuff to counter. Just remember to bring Haste.

Mostly though, I think Crosis is for the folks who like Flying Purple People Eaters and other assorted EDH Hipsters. He's definitely more theme or casual than function, even when he's not a Commander.

Rith, The Awakener

Rith is the best in this cycle.
Has access to two quality strategies:
Tokens, and Commander damage. 

Rith is a deck I saw quite a bit when I first starting playing EDH. He doesn't have a lot of problems in Naya because the options are few and mostly bad. Just ask GG about Hazezon Tamar.

Tokens are an EDH archetype, and Rith's definitely one of the leading leaders in Saproling-making technology.

Moving forward, I see Devotion giving Rith some extra power. I know that sounds strange when you look at his CMC, but if you've ever played against a Rith deck, your opponent basically wants to cast green permanents to match the color of the tokens. If you get an early hit in without anything but Rith on the field, or you're already overrun by your opponent, you might have other choices.

Red and White are mostly support colors. Rhys and Trostani have really taken off as the primary token Commanders, but the big advantage to Rith is that there's a little bit more tempo and versatility that can be created with access to Pyroclasm effects and evasion. Rith is also much more sizeable, which means he can also present lethal Commander damage on the board, using the tokens to chump, whereas the tokens in these other decks really need to swing because their Commander isn't going to get there.

Dromar, the Banisher

Poor Dromar. Maybe someday we'll
have a reason to pull him out of the
clouds and play him. Still manages
a Fourth Place finish in the cycle.

For many, many reasons, Dromar is definitely the one I most pity in this cycle.

If this were the Hundred-Acre Woods, our Esper Dragon here would definitely be "Eeyore." His design doesn't let him get out of his own way, which means he's kind of a mess. To quote my favorite reporter on the street, Mr. Brian Fantana, "Against 60% of the color pie, he will bounce himself every time."

Even worse- he is also severely outclassed by Sharuum, Zur, Merieke, and even Ertai the Corrupted.

That said, I can find a few decent reasons to use him. I like the concept of building around Commanders as a "Safety Valve," or even as a sort of "Poker Face" to confuse your opponent.

Like Crosis, Dromar's a pretty good candidate if you like to go deep. With access to decent control colors, it's probably safe to say that not many creatures are going to find their way on the board. If they do, token decks won't stay very long. Mono-Green decks in general are pretty bad matchups against him. So if you have a Timmy/Ramp style metagame, maybe this is a better option than it looks.

Also, being able to bounce him to your hand for control matchups make him a lot more re-castable than the rest of the cycle. I'm not sure if that's good, but I like to keep costs low and have a good threat at all time. Combined with counters and discard, this could prove to be a grindy way to maintain card advantage into the late-late.

Treva, the Renewer

I'm convinced Treva is worth playing.
The clear Number Two in this cycle,
and makes a strong case against Rith
because of his versatility.

Treva's actually my favorite in this cycle for several reasons.

The most unimportant of these is that I get to call him Falcor, and use my rarely seen and seldomly enjoyed "Neverending Story" comedy routine. Like this one.

Atreyu and Falcor walk into a bar, and sit down. Bartender says, "Hey, the bar's getting ready to close up soon." Atreyu replies, "Don't worry, we won't be here long." They get up and walk out of the bar, walk back in, and sit down. Bartender says, "Hey, the bar's getting ready to close up soon." Atreyu says, "Don't worry, we won't be here long." They get up, walk out, and walk back in. This time, the bartender says, "Okay guys, what's the story? You can't do this all night. The bar's getting ready to close." Atreyu looks at Falcor, then says to the bartender, "Sorry, we have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but don't worry we won't be here long." Bartender says, "Sorry to hear. Is there anything that can be done? Like, is there a cure?" Atreyu sighs, looks down at the bar, and says, "No. Unfortunately, it never does." Then they get up, walk out of the bar, and walk back in again.

Ba-dum pshhh...

Anyway, Treva's best quality is his color-access. Though they sometimes don't mix too well, having access Ramp, Wraths, and Counters means you're going to weather the storm.

Third, I think he has the most relevant ability of the cycle. Some people will tell you gaining life is irrelevant, which is true against strong Voltron decks and Stompy decks that go unchecked. However, I tend to think it's probably the most threatening thing people can do and still stay under the radar in multiplayer matchups.

Treva's basically the "Rith" of the Life Gain decks. There are a couple of nice little sub-archetypes that would really align with Treva well, like Turbo-Fog or Combo Life-Gain (The decks with Felidar Sovereign and Test of Endurance). Basic control decks really stretch that extra 2-3 life a turn to max value, using him to pose a threat and keeping Treva from being messed with.

The thing people most forget is that Treva can pick other colors with his ability, which is where his coloring also tends to help control versions of this deck that don't like to have a lot on the field. Overall, I just have a lot of high praise for Treva. One of the most underrated Commanders.

Darigaaz, the Igniter

Terrible. Just terrible. Outclassed in
just about every category I can think of,
including artwork. This is the ugliest thing
I've ever seen. Fifth n this cycle, and
even lower in his own colors. Not worth it.

The days of using Darigaaz were over early after Kresh and Karrthus pushed him down the totem pole, and that doesn't look likely to change after Commander 2013 comes out. Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, which was spoiled at Comic Con, is likely to outclass him in the dragon department and simply provide a better alternative to those people who don't want to play Karrthus.

Deep down, I think we all know Darigaaz was never any good anyway. Playing the guessing game with his ability hardly feels worth it for extra damage, because if you have him out, and that damage is going to be a significant factor in the game, chances are you're already winning.

Overall, I find him to be the worst in this entire cycle. I'm sure there are some nice interactions with Furnace of Rath, Gratuitous Violence, Nature's Will, Sword of War and Peace, and Double Strike, but if your general needs to find Magical Christmas Land to eke out W's, the prognosis is not good.

That's all I got for today. As always, feel free to speculate with me about Commander 2013, opinions on my opinions, and good strategies to bring these guys BACK FROM THE BRINK.

Until then, I'll be working on my Neverending Story comic routine. I suggest you work on your own pop culture joke skills too.

-UL

Theros Set Review: Utility and Mana

Hey there Zoners! It's me Grandpa Growth. We're back for the final installment of the Theros set review. Today we are going to be balling out, talking about the remainder of the cards. That means the generic utility cards and stuff that gets your mana base looking all sexy.

First up we have something sharp and apparently also pointy. Glorious Anthem sees some play in token decks. Particularly builds like Ghave or Rhys, but also more fringe decks like Darien. Since this is just a strict upgrade in a singleton format I expect this to be replacing pretty much every copy of Anthem in every single deck. There are certainly better pump effects, but this has the added benefit of giving you a free Reciprocate every turn which is pretty sick. I like these legendary weapon cards; they play so well in longer, attrition-based games and they can provide so much incremental value. You can expect to be seeing quite a bit of them in the near future.

This one feels a little bit weird to me because the abilities don't really work all that well in tandem. If you have a big token army on offense you probably don't have a problem just throwing a soldier in front of their guys or whatever, but I like how this added versatility plays. It keeps this permanent relevant even in situations where the Anthem effect is no good.

This is a huge update to Coastal Piracy, although I am not sure that is relevant because it never saw much play. The first effect is insanely powerful. The 1 Drop Edric deck completely flipped the competitive format and made us all re-imagine what a decklist, and a single Magic card for that matter, can mean in a game of EDH. Flying Men really isn't a thing in Commander, but if you draw a card every time it hits, and it gets to hit early and often, then we are talking about a sick little one drop.

This is what synergy is all about. And this card has synergy. It is insane in the Aggro-Control decks that want it, but completely worthless outside of that archetype. The second ability lets you theoretically control the board and get your guys to connect and draw cards, but...let's be honest. If you are playing a good Edric deck, all your guys have evasion anyway and your opponent isn't ever going to resolve a spell so they certainly aren't going to be able to block ever. Also, why forks? Fish don't need forks. Silly creative team.

If you are part of the 'in crowd' then you will know that drawing cards is the hip thing that kids are doing these days. If you are even further 'in' you are probably playing Night's Whisper and Sign in Blood in your Black decks. Cheap card advantage wins games.

Early advantages can snowball as the game continues and they often prevent you from getting pinned down by disruption or a board stall. Being a whole turn slower than the two previously mentioned cards is a significant cost, but if you top deck this later in the game it is much more powerful. If you have ever cast Divination and been disappointed you'll know what I am talking about.

The same problem NEVER occurs when you cast Foresee. Even if the cards you end up with are just as bad, you had CHOICE, which is crucial. You DIDN'T have you draw two bricks followed by another two bricks, you get to skip the feel-bads. Scry allows you to orchestrate better sequencing to maximize the time-value of your plays. It allows you to see more cards and thus gain more information about your future draws and the composition of your deck. Even just from a purely psychological standpoint, this will result in you feeling better about your draws whether they are truly better or not. Sidenote: I find cognitive biases a fascinating area of study and one that has direct applications to the mastery of strategy games.

I have no shame about low hanging fruit. You can waste time feeling guilty or you can grab that mess OMNOMNOMNOM.

Soooo yea. Lifelink, eh? Honestly, the first line of text could read: "This is a meat popsicle" and I would still play this card. The activated ability is just that powerful. Rebuying creatures is an incredible way to punch through damage late in the game, generate card advantage when your opponent has to block, and in conjunction with the Lifelink it will keep you alive.

Black decks typically have no problems leveraging their life as a resource. Gaining big chunks of life is pretty cheap and its easy to turn that life into extra cards or Buyback on Slaughter, etc. I am very excited to play this because of its high power level and high level of synergy with cards like Necropotence, Dream Halls, and Geth.

Many mono Red builds include Fervor: Heartless Hidetsugu, Goblin Combo, Godo. So, in terms of power level and instant inclusion in existing decks, this card is a win. 3/3's are also pretty big for tokens, but sacrificing a Land is a high price to pay.

Even silly Red aggressive decks have ways to take advantage of extra mana and expensive late game spells that they want to be casting. I see this being most useful on an empty board where you control some equipment, just after a board sweep, for example. Making a token and suiting it up with a Sword is excellent value and very likely to get you back your 1 card down payment.

Finally, we have arrived! This isn't my favorite card, we will get to that later on, but it is assuredly the card that I will be playing the most from Theros. This is oozing value from every pore and I love it. I have never met an incremental advantage that I didn't like. I can't think of a Green deck that doesn't want this and there are a LOT of Green decks in Commander. Between The Stack, my spoiler articles and this Set Review I have given this card ample treatment so I will leave it at that for now.

This card is expensive, especially for a mana producer, but it has high upside. There are boards where it could conceivably produce upwards of ten mana in a mono Green deck and any card that produces multiple mana is subject to abuse in combo decks. Now, I don't actually think that this potential will be realized; this card is just a little bit too weak to see mainstream play in quality decklists

This is more like it. Fixes all five colors and blocks early threats. That is a lot of work from a mana dork. It reminds me especially of Sakura Tribe Elder in that it prevents some early damage and can solve all but the most intense mana problems.

While this is an upgrade on Birds of Paradise because it resists Mental Misstep and Lightning Bolt, but it still isn't good enough for Grandpa Growth because it dies to Wrath of God, which Tribe Elder and Rampant Growth can both safely ignore. I still expect this card to see a lot of play in multiple formats so the initial price tag could be a bit of a barrier.

 This will see play for the full length of its Standard legality, but if it can't make the jump to Modern the price boom should eventually come down, leaving more available copies for casual formats, where this card will enjoy a long and prosperous future.

This is kind of a dorky card and there are already plenty of cards with similar effects. This card may not see much play, but the ability to tap a Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers multiple times in a turn is powerful enough that it is worth mentioning. I am unsure what effect this being a 1/2 instead of a 2/1 has on its playability, but I typically think of lower power as being worse for a creature regardless of its toughness.

On a separate note, this is a Satyr, which is one of my favorite mythical creatures so that is a plus in my book.

If Bow of Nylea isn't my favorite card then this certainly is. I love me some Fact or Fiction. I love it so much that I play it in literally every deck I own that can manage to put an Island in play. It is basically never bad. Five cards is so deep into your deck that you will almost always find something useful. I have Jhoira, Niv-Mizzet, Nicol Bolas, and Maelstrom Wanderer decks that can't wait to get a hold of this.

Unfortunately , this isn't fact, fiction, or Fact or Fiction, so let's go through some of the changes and what they mean. First, this card is more colors. It is harder to cast and forces you to play Red (you wanted to be playing Blue anyway, trust me). This restricts the card to only being played in these multicolor brews. As it happens this is one of the most powerful two-color combinations in Commander though, accounting for some of the top decks in the format.

Second, let's talk about the changes to the wording. Everything sucks. FoF allowed you to choose the better of the two stacks, yielding superior results essentially every time (assuming you make optimal decisions, which isn't a trivial assumption, mind you). Keep that parenthetical statement in mind, we will be returning to that idea.

Your opponent is most likely going to award you the worse of the two piles, barring some sort of multiplayer political chicanery. This makes it so that Steam Augury CAN brick where FoF never would. If you only flip one relevant card, no matter how devious your split is your opponent will be able to keep you from having it. In the situation where you flip over a good mix of relevant cards then it may make the choice difficult, that doesn't change the fact that your opponent now has the easier skill test.

With FoF they have to choose the split without knowledge of your hand. By forcing you to move first and making the split yourself you are giving your opponent information about what you value and what you may need. From a sheer numbers perspective, with FoF you only ever have two options, which makes choosing between them an easier task. With Augury you must make a choice that has a minimum of ten possible outcomes and the actual permutations of a five card set, where every card is unique and every split is legitimate, number well over a hundred. That is a lot of room to make mistakes ...which you will now be making instead of your opponent (as I hinted at above).

Overall, this card is substantially worse than its predecessor. Is it still good? Most likely yes. Remember that even bad versions of good cards are good because of the need for redundancy. Gifts Ungiven is very similar, but simply more powerful in this regard. The results are likely the same: you get the worst two cards from the available set, but I can think of a few stacks of cards where that is still quite good. I know I kind of went bananas about this card, but this is an area of game theory that is of keen interest to me and a topic that I will be visiting upon in greater depth in a future In General.

Colorless mana fixers are excellent, particularly when they provide card advantage. I make consistent use of both Armillary Sphere and Gem of Becoming. The fact that this can block, attack, carry equipment, and actually accelerates you on mana means that this card is poised to make something of a splash in both multicolor value decks and dedicated artifact theme decks.

I haven't talked about how much I hate the creative team for about thirty minutes while I have been writing this so I figure I am about due for a diatribe. Why is this an elk? Who makes these kinds of decisions? Why is it an anything? I am of a mind to think that all Artifact Creatures should be Constructs. Since it was built by something else (confirmed by flavor text),  it is a Construct...or a Golem, which is just a magical construct. If it wasn't built by some other type of creature then it really shouldn't be an Artifact seeing as it isn't artificial.

It seems like every block nowadays has a cheap knock off of Lightning Greaves. Some colors don't have as much support for Flying as others so I can see it being necessary to have some effects like this every once in a while, but those colors: Green, Red, and Black, have Haste creatures. Not to mention other types of evasion. Ergo, this card is either redundant (in the bad way this time) or unnecessary.

A good threat will have one of these abilities or some kind of protection from removal already. Greaves is so sick because Flying is way easier to come by than Haste or Shroud so it tends to work out in the general case AND Shroud and Haste don't typically occur in the same color so there is very little overlap. In fact, only Green and White have ever really scored this Haste, Evasion, protection trifecta and even then it only happens at the highest rarity.

Well. This isn't the kind of thing I typically go in for. It places you at a raw disadvantage on cards. An investment which you can only recoup by blind-flipping more relevant permanent cards than your opponent. This requires a big commitment in deck building to have both: more relevant hits than the sum of your opponents and better ways to manipulate the top card of your library. The problems with this are manifold:

-You don't want to fill up your deck with instants so you will be short on counters and removal, which is hardly ideal.

-You will inevitably have a number of 'soft hits' things like extraneous lands and ramp, Sensei's Divining Tops and associated Trinket Mages, etc.

There is almost no way that this can contribute to a victory in multiplayer. It will create interesting game states and the sort of over the top plays that Commander is famed for. However, not every one appreciates it. The randomness of this card and the general trend that it will help out your opponents some, even if it helps you more, lends itself to a political style of game play that can be both appreciated and hated.

I personally do not play and do not recommend that other people play group hug or group slug decks. If you want to play a deck with dedicated themes, that is fine, but if you are only building your deck with the intent to skew multiplayer games you are neglecting the most basic strategic concern within any game: you are supposed to try and win.

Compared to previously printed cards that fall into a similar vein (Knowledge Pool, Eye of the Storm, Cast Through Time, etc.) this has a unique advantage: It's is cheap to get into play. If you are playing something like this you are obviously trying to abuse it, so savvy opponents will know to try and disrupt your plan, but at one mana this is virtually never going to get countered on turn one. I just can't see myself using a Force or a Spell Pierce to fight this. To be honest, I can't imagine fighting over this on any turn, it just isn't good enough to be worried about.

Phew, I have gone on some long-winded asides today. Let's see if we can tighten up for the home stretch here.

Nykthos is a powerful card. Anything that produces multiple mana can potentially be abused to great effect in Commander. Devotion is a new thing. It is going to take a while to really get your head around keeping track of Devotion in multiple colors for multiple players. I can virtually garuantee that the God cards will be popular, so in the near future Commander players will be building their decks with this concept in mind.

After that learning curve has taken its course we will be seeing a lot of this card and it will be doing a lot of work. Start picking up copies now, you will need them for the days to come.

I really like this new set of dual lands. Always coming into play tapped is kind of a bummer and really hurts decks that really on tempo at critical spots on the curve.

Scry is powerful though and it will let you keep a larger variety of hands knowing that you will be able to influence your draws, even if it is only by a single card. New Benalia is deceptively strong and it is whole leagues behind this cycle. It doesn't produce multiple colors and the color it does produce isn't Blue, Black, or Green.

Even if this theoretical cycle of 10 isn't completed these five lands will still see significant play. They are excellent tap lands for people who are into that sort of thing and the control they give you over your draws is useful both early and late.

Last and most certainly least we have a Shimmering Grotto knock off. The original iterations of this card didn't even make it into my Pauper decks so it's unknown whether or not I will ever actually start this in Commander.

Well that is it. Theros in three easy payments. I am very excited for this set and am looking forward to many great stories for the prerelease, which at the time of this being written, has not yet occurred. Get out there and slay some monsters my friends and remember to leave your feedback in the comments below!

-GG

Theros Set Review: Answers

Welcome back! I am Grandpa Growth and this is part two of the General Zone's set review of Theros. If you missed the first part, make sure you scroll all the way down and check it out. Today we are going to be discussing the answer cards in the set.

Answers cards are things you use to stop threats and thus stop your opponent from winning the game. They can also be answer to answers. Sometimes they can be preemptive disruption. Things like counterspells, creature removal, land destruction, discard effects, and hate cards all fall into the this category. Let's just jump right in and you can see for yourself.

We will kick things off with a flavorful top down design that is drawn directly from the myth of the titan Prometheus who, in punishment for stealing the secret of fire from the gods, was chained to a mountain for eternity and was constantly eaten by vultures, but never died.

As far as this removal spell goes, I am not a big fan. It is limited to being played only in the various combinations of Red and White, none of which are very appealing and there is NO competitive level deck that contains both colors. Depending on who you ask it is a legal maneuver to place any type of basic land card in your deck even if it doesn't match the color identity of your commander.

If this is an axiom that you support then you could just include a fetchable mountain in any brew containing White so that you would be able to then play this, but...well let's just say that might be going too deep. One drop removal is good, but it is good because it is cheap, convenient, and efficient. This card gets countered by Strip Mine. You don't have to make it this easy on your opponent.

I have a problem with the templating updates they had made in recent sets. Previously, removal like this or Oblivion Ring had two separate abilities that told you exactly what to do and when to do it. Maybe it was a bit wordy, maybe it had the unintended consequence of working a bit strange if the triggers got clogged up on the stack and the creature was gone forever, but it worked just fine. Now we have the current wording of "until blah blah leaves the battlefield." How is this in anyway better if we now need additional reminder text anyway?

Watch the video, that's all I can think about when I see this card. I just imagine it is Achilles and he is pointing at the beaches of Troy and the Myrmidon are just out of view to the left.

This card is really kind of a joke, it looks alright on the surface, but it's really pretty horrible. Bouncing the creature kills the aura. You have a big window to kill the creature a second time before the aura becomes reattached and it doesn't do anything if the creature is exiled from the battlefield or at instant speed while it is in the graveyard. It is probably just worse than making your creature Indestructible or giving it some sort of Shroud effect.

Huge flavor fail: The Gods are immortal. Which is modeled within the mechanics as having the Indestructible keyword. This, for some reason, works differently. Also, it literally says dies on the card. Immortal things don't die; that is was im-mortal means. This should be called gift of resurrection or revival or reconstitution or something. Just saying.

BAAAAAAACCCCCOOOOOONNNN!!!!!! This card is everything you wanted an a ham sandwich. It is a Sorcery, which sucks, but it is a Pongify that you can point at multiple creatures and the exile effect is always significant upgrade to every removal spell. The next time your opponent starts to breathe down your neck with a squad of giant brutes, tell them to stick a pork in it. I think you guys know I could do this all day, so we better just move on before things slip out of hand....because they are lubed up with bacon grease.

This is a potentially very powerful effect. Anyone who has ever played Condescend can attest to how sick it is to stop a threat and then top a great card on the Scry. If you aren't playing Condescend I really don't know that is wrong with you. Maybe this just isn't your game. Try Go Fish instead.

Only getting to Scry 1 is pretty lame; it gets exponentially more powerful the higher that number gets, but having a hard counter is a nice consolation. I will be giving this a try, but there are already plenty of better counterspells in print. It will have to take something better than this to make me trade in my Cryptic Commands for something new.

Remember everything I just said? Good, think about it while looking at this card, but now we will compare to Daze. This card is not as good as Daze. Free is way better than cheap...and for what you are getting, this card isn't exactly a bargain.

The only reason I bother mentioning it is to make a point about soft counters in Commander. People tend to think that they are bad because games always go long and you will have a bunch of extra lands, thus allowing you to pay huge sums of extra mana to defeat Mana Leaks, and Power Sinks, and so on.

Want to hear a secret? People never stop tapping out in Commander. Mana utilization is at its absolute peak in this format. Spells are ridiculously expensive and even Force Spike type effects will easily find targets. They tend to hit at the best possible times as well: People will leave up exactly enough mana for their counter spell or will wait to play a threat with counter backup, but will rarely consider the need to pay extra mana for said counter spell. Seasoned Legacy veterans will play around Daze LITERALLY every chance they get. Lucky for us, most people in a game of Commander are casual players and have zero discipline when it comes to this type of thing.

Usually counter spells say, "No." This one says a different word...and it is bird. Bird is the word. One mana counters are fantastic. Pretty much universally playable in every format. This one has much more flexibility than most, but it has a potentially serious drawback.

This will most likely stop it from seeing play in Legacy or Modern, which should keep the price down. In Commander a 2/2 isn't as relevant, but Flying is a huge bonus and the prevalence of equipment means you could just be trading one threat for another. I don't believe this is as strong as Spell Pierce, particularly because it can't stop Planeswalkers, but it shouldn't be too far behind.

YES!!! We got there! Instant speed planeswalker destruction with no drawbacks! I feel so fulfilled. This is flexible, powerful, efficient, and sure to cost a million dollars because it is going to be seeing a ton of play in virtually every format except Legacy where better options, albeit very few, are available. Not much else to say here. Get copies, play them. You won't be disappointed.



I don't always play Red, but when I do I play control. I play Volcanic Fallout. I play Pyroclasm. I play Slagstorm. I will play this as well.

Exiling is a nice bit of added value, but isn't really necessary since this will mostly be killing tokens and low-value utility creatures. It just doesn't do enough damage to kill the types of things that you would want to reanimate anyway. The format doesn't really need another Red token hoser, but options are always nice and this has much better flavor than the alternatives which does appeal to some (silly) people.


Well this is it. Short list from this set, but there were definitely some good cards and don't forget that there were plenty of reprints that would normally be discussed if they just had different names.

I am a huge fan of Hull Breach. This card is pretty far behind in terms of power, but there is always going to be a need for Artifact and Enchantment removal. Damage to the face isn't all that relevant, but this gives you a way to power up any Bloodthirst creatures you have or get a Rakdos, Lord of Riots into play.

I will be back soon with the final installment of the review: Utility and mana cards. I hope you are enjoying your week long celebration of all things Grandpa, see you soon!

Break Time

We're taking a little R&R day Zoners while Theros prerelease is underway.

We'll resume GG's Theros Set Review Tomorrow.

Till then, take 'er easy, Dudes. And may the gods be ever in your booster packs. 

-UL

Theros Set Review: The Legends

Earlier this week, Grandpa kicked off the set review with some of the better threats in Theros (say that five times fast).

Today though, we're going to take a quick break from GG's review and extend the conversation we had on the Stack last weekend about the Gods, and by extension, the rest of the Legends from Theros.

QUICK OVERVIEW

For those who haven't figured it out yet, I am a rankings slave. I love Top 5 lists almost as much as I love land.

Therefore, we're going to be doing this a little different than GG's card-and-chat style. Continuing in the same vein as last weekend's Stack installment, we've got my real ranks for the Gods, as well as some of the other newer options for Commanders out of Theros.

THE GODS, AND MY RANKINGS

I feel I may be repeating one of my TGZ homies, maybe even myself, when I say that I believe all of these cards are going to be played in Commander.

There are three main reasons why, and they're printed on every single card:

Indestructibility
Pretty self-explanatory, but in case you didn't hear what GG said about Fleecemane Lion on Tuesday, here's the gist. Mass Removal is much more prevalent in this format than the kinds of spot removal required to get these cards out of here.

Aggressive costs
The value is enormous. In general they provide a solid set of card advantage and function at a fraction of the price. We've also talked before about the CMC-to-P & T ratio. Devotion obviously makes this a little more "fair" in terms of these cards being creatures, but it still doesn't make up the difference. EDH is the big game format. Nothing's going to stop people from getting an attack with Devotion if you can help it.

Devotion
I have a feeling most people will be playing a preventative style game around the gods, keeping people off of the Devotion trigger to avoid Commander damage or extra beatings.

Let's be real though. Just the presence of one of these guys is good enough. We don't always play Commanders simply because we want to smash face with them. In fact, I'd argue the better decks in most metagames are probably ones where your Commander isn't smashing face every turn.

Also, remember that in the same way that Devotion may keep your Commander from being a creature, it also keeps your Commander from being exposed to the more commonly used pieces of spot removal in the format- Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile. This makes some of the Gods that need to be creatures a lot worse, but it makes most of them better.

The flexibility makes for some great design space too. The Gods that I ranked higher tended to be useful in either sphere, supporting designs that could manage both sides of devotion.

Gods Ranked as Commanders

5. Nylea, God of the Hunt
Again, this doesn't mean she's terrible, just comparatively not as good when compared to the other Gods. Having a 6/6 indestructible creature is good value- it just doesn't go too much further than that. She's definitely the one I most expect to show up as a creature. Green puts a lot of G's in their converted mana cost, and they tend to have more stuff on the table versus other decks.

As herself, she doesn't pose much of a threat though- even when devotion is activated. Most noticeably, she doesn't give herself Trample, which doesn't sit well with me. Also, opponents will have a field day interacting with her Devotion because of Wrath and having Disk/O-Stone effects sitting up on an opponent's turn. The bottom line is Nylea still needs dudes to win, and that's a plan that can be most easily dealt with if she's your Commander. In terms of Mono-Green, there's just better options for that.

4. Heliod, God of the Sun
Heliod is surprisingly not the worst here. It is a little more expensive for his tokens, but there's also some extra value to be had with some of the better white cards in the format. Serra's Sanctum and Ajani's Chosen provide great support and combo potential, and with access to other tutelage, this is a perfect "enchantment-themed" deck, if you're into that.

This is the one I'm most unsure about. If I'm playing against him, I don't think I care about whether or not he's a creature. His tokens aren't going to turn on Devotion either, and I find it hard pressed to think of a white card with four W's in its cost. That just doesn't exist.

I imagine this one being pretty mediocre overall. There's a Wrath/Tempo game that could be played, but it just involves too many White mana symbols, and it looks like a lot of work. Heliod's probably just another option in White for breaking Skullclamp.

3. Purphoros, God of the Forge
This is actually the card I'm most excited about, but he's gonna be so-so as a Commander. I'm still sure Krenko is a better to have for consistent token generating, but that's what Purphy's going to want to do. Whittle down life totals to enable aggro beats.

The upside is that he probably won't become a creature if all you're doing is making tokens- so removal isn't going to help your opponent so much. The bad news is you're still playing Red, which has a lot more ways to make tokens than it used to, but probably still isn't enough.

Overall, I think Hidetsugu is probably just quicker at doing this same thing- but if you like tokens, and you wanna take a shot, I think the space is there for this deck.

2. Thassa, God of the Sea
Probably going to be the most unfair, due to counterspell access to protect devotion and the ability to get there with Commander damage that you can send unblocked. With her Bident, all the scrying she does is incredibly efficient, and it inhibits an even more definitive mono-U Aggro-Control strategy than Thada Adel.

I really see no downsides. There's no fairness, and no way anyone wins a game against it without some serious battling. Gonna be almost too good. It doesn't have to commit to a serious amount of creatures like Azami does, so it can focus its threats and play a lot of counterspells while also getting damage in. Thassa is going to be featured in a metagame near you. I've already heard it said in mine.

1. Erebos, God of the Dead
Like GG, I'm also excited about this one. Consistent ways to stop incremental life gain is incredibly underrated, and will be great against mirror matches that rely on Exsanguinate. It's not Phyrexian Arena, but card draw is still card draw, and there's plenty of ways to make it up.

Of all the Gods, Erebos is the most equipped to handle the Devotion/Non-Devotion modes I was talking about. Being a 5/7 is sort of irrelevant when you're indestructible, but it's the highest toughness of all of them, so it seems a little better as a chump blocker. I'm guessing that this will be a big function when you tell everyone they can't gain life.

Having this in your Command Zone is a thousand times better than having to waste a tutor on it. The power of having relevant hate that's tough to deal with oozing and flowing out of this card.

Gods Ranked as Support Cards

5. Heliod, God of the Sun
Sure, he's more tutorable- but I can't find a situation where I want to waste a tutor on this. Multicolored decks aren't going to want to be friends with him any more than his home in mono-W. That tutor probably also wants to be another Land Tax, if that's the case.

Again, I'm really unsure how he's going to get played- and I think pre-sale values reflect accurately just how much weaker the card representing "Zeus" really is.

4. Nylea, God of the Hunt
Not being the center of attention helps Nylea's case a little bit. I'm unsure how Trample is going to be though, and here's why. Most Green decks are going to have access to this, so it might be redundant. Also, her chances of getting in for damage increase slightly, being that she's no longer threatening to kill someone with 21 damage.

3. Erebos, God of the Dead
Erebos gets worse as a support card, in my opinion. At four CMC, Erebos is the first card an Erebos EDH is probably going to play unless an opponent plays a relevant threat. He wants to be out and available as early as possible, and putting him in the deck versus making him a Commander doesn't help you much. Drawing cards and paying life are much easier to do early on in the game. Also, drawing into life gain is probably what you want to be doing anyway.

2. Thassa, God of the Sea
Thassa is the most reliable card, which is to be expected. Unlike Nylea and Heliod, Thassa is one of the most useable threats across color lines. Lots of decks would love access to her. She's tutorable with Zur and Transmute-able via Drift of Phantasms. It's stupid how good she is.

1. Purphoros, God of the Forge
So perhaps this is a little biased, but I think he will be one of the most welcomed additions to some of the weirder token and dude-based decks that have come out in the last couple years. Animar, Ruric Thar, Rosheen Meanderer/Wort, Rith, Krenko/Ib Halfheart, and the relatively new Anax and Cymede deck will all seriously value the extra damage. It's a sleeper, and kind of a stretch, but I think it is more of a need for these kinds of decks than Thassa is to whatever deck she fits into.

NOW, FOR THE REST OF THE SET...

We start with one we've had plenty of time to talk about.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Boros. Different people mean different things when they make a statement like this. Sometimes it means bias. If you were to hear GG say it, that usually means he wouldn't be caught dead playing it.

For me, saying "I'm not a big fan of Boros," will probably mean, "I'm really bad at playing this color combination. I need to improve."

I actually like A&C. Not sure I'll play it, but I think it's definitely a card people have not fully understood yet.

(Combat) Trick Voltron is much more possible than people realize yet. Several months ago I helped to design a fairly casual but pretty quick Lu Bu deck aimed at playing spells to pump up Lu Bu and give him extra combat phases, etc.

I see a good version of this deck being similar to Lu Bu, possibly quicker.


There's one thing we can like about this card, and none of these things can be found in Anthousa's text box. I really dig this art, and I'm sure someone's going to come up with a real hipster-y deck here, but seriously- don't try. This is extremely unplayable.

I'm even more skeptical about the flavor here. You're telling me that Anthousa, the very hero of Setessa, a woman that can hold two minotaurs in a chokehold, is AT BEST going to turn a few lands into creatures? And Wizards' plan was to PRINT THIS CARD?

This is the exact kind of card that would make me lose all my confidence in Chancellor Valorum, if he existed, and I was part of the Galactic Senate. I get that not all cards are things I'm supposed to like. I don't see why that sometimes means making cards no one wants to play.

And then we have the beatdowns.

Kids, this is the hero we need right now. I will be bringing him to a theater near me shortly after he comes out, and I'm relatively excited about it.

I liken Daxos to a potentially more abusive Thada Adel. Though his ability doesn't give you the opportunity to search for what you want, it's going to be a house against creature-heavy metagames.

The lifegain provides another great dimension for design space too. Equip this guy and go to work. He's going to be a house.

Faith restored. Onto the next lull in this rollercoaster ride.

Okay. Hythonia is not bad. Loved the artwork when I watched the Comic-Con presentation.

I just wanted it to be two colors- and I was hoping for some blue. The Mermaid tail had me hopeful. It'd be a whole lot more exciting, even if it was traditional Gorgon Black/Green.

Don't get me wrong. This is a quality threat. Wraths that create advantages for you are always welcome in my decks. Deathtouch furthers its presence as a "rattlesnake" card, either swaying opponents from attacking, or keeping blockers away early. Making her monstrous not only eliminates threats, but also puts your opponents on a short three-turn clock. And if you activate her during attacks, chances are that clock could be even smaller.

Perhaps the most unfair card they printed for Commander in this set is this- the most ageless of Sphinx Technology.

This is one I'm not particularly happy about for our cozy little Magic variant. I find it to be more offensive than the Gods.

Someone over at R&D is really pushing these oppressive U/W cards out like a fiend. Render Silent, Lavinia, and now Medomai.

I wish they'd spread the hate around a little. In my playgroup we talk a lot about the Timmy/Johnny/Spike aspect, and there's a working theory that there is a couple hidden player types.

If this theory is true, this is definitely a card for Dave, the "Asshole."

I like powerful cards, but this is just too much.

Speaking of which, it's time to talk about Wizards' latest fetish.

This is particularly exciting to me. I like a lot of the fight-style cards that Wizards has created, and I'm glad the two of us could find a nice compromise between their insatiable desire to make everything Hydra-powered, and my need for cool creatures that provide removal.

Polukranos also sports a great CMC-to-P/T ratio. I like him both as  support card main deck and a Commander. Recasting him in Green seems very likely, and with access to things that give him deathtouch, removal has never been so easy amongst those who favor Forests.

The one thing I don't get- Why this art over the one from Heroes vs. Monsters? This close-up is a little less endearing.

My Magic OCD kicked in on this one.

Let's run down the checklist:

Name: Triad of Fates.
Artwork: Has Three People In It.
Abilities: Three.
P/T: 3/3
CMC: 4

Do you see what's wrong with this picture? There's no argument in the 'verse that can convince me this would be so busted at 1WB. It still takes a two turns to create anything. Original Teysa is 1WB, even with all her annoying combos, and it's not encroaching on similar territory at all.

It hurts my heart to see this tragic flavor slip. Normally, I wouldn't be so up in arms about a CMC, but I think this one missed the boat. There's a big difference between 3-cost and 4-cost Commanders in non-green decks, and the Triad really need all the help they can get. Without access to something like Thousand-Year Elixir, Triad will be operating on two-turn blinks, which seems slow to me. And the only other card I can think of that has fate counters is Oblivion Stone, which is even more mana-intensive.

We'll see. I'm definitely interested in trying to prove these initial reactions wrong.

The name Murder King has such a horribly wonderful ring to it. Of all the names in this block, it's one of the cooler ones.

I also like the art. The gold masks really make this piece pop.

I'm mostly worried about the rest of the card. Competing with Lyzolda is no joke. She provides a ton of flexibility (creature or player damage, and drawing cards), including the fact that the change in the sacrifice mechanic hurts Tymaret's chances at edging the Blood Witch out for control of Rakdos beats.

I see Tymaret as a decent support card, acting as a worse Lyzolda in her decks, as well as a mediocre Zombie Tribal deck or an engine-creator for Sedris Unearth builds. Nothing more.

That's what we got for today.

Per usual, we love to know what you like and don't like about what we say. So speak up if you've got an opinion.

Stay tuned as we continue to talk Theros through the weekend.

Until then, strive to be the Hero we deserve. Not the one we need right now.
-UL

All the memes in this post remixed with little success by Uncle Landdrops

Theros Set Review: Threats

Welcome to The General Zone's Review of Theros! It's me, your ol' Grandpa Growth and I very excited to discuss the new cards from this set.

From the first day of spoiler season we were put on notice that this set was going to be a run away hit. It is dripping with succulent flavor. It breaks new mechanical ground and innovates on the mono-color-matters theme, which we haven't seen for years.

On sheer power level it is an instant competitor for G.O.A.T., including three brand new planeswalkers, five wicked cool God cards, a new cycle of dual lands, and tons of tournament quality cards sure to impact every format.

This set is a designer's dream, two scoops of popular reprints like Magma Spray and Thoughtseize, the return of a fan favorite mechanic in Scry, card cycles at every rarity, and fresh takes on Enchantment themes including previously unexplored card type combinations.

Basically, this set has it all. The best of everything about the game of Magic: the Gathering. I am bursting with excitement for this set, it is easily in my top 5 and I haven't even cracked my first pack!

Ground Rules
Let's go over the basics in case you haven't caught any of the previous set reviews. Around these parts we break it down like this:

1. This blog is about Commander. 
I will only talk about a card in the review if I expect it to have at least some Commander playability. Unless otherwise stated, the comments I make about any particular card are specifically geared toward the Commander format.

2. I will not discuss any reprints, only new cards, nor will we be talking about any of the Legendary Creatures.
It seems like that would be important stuff for a format that revolves completely around them, but fear not! check out Uncle Landdrops article where he will be talking about each of the new potential commanders in greater detail.

3. The articles will be broken down into categories not by card color or type, but by what role they play in decks. 
Threats, Answers, and Utility/Mana cards each get their own article. Because I want to give each new card a chance in the spotlight these articles can sometimes get pretty lengthy so bear with me.

Threats
Threat cards are what you use to kill your opponent or to put pressure on their resources. They are often the creatures and planeswalkers of the set, but occasionally take other forms like Reanimate effects or even some disruption. Some combo pieces fall into this category while others do not, but the explanation of why is obviously important. Without further preamble let's check out some cards!

Since I am just going to gloss over Celestial Archon, the new Elspeth is the first card on the block. This lady isn't messing around. A CMC of six isn't really a draw back in Commander. If this turns out to be a bust in Standard I would be happy; that will keep the price tag at a reasonable level.

This card is very scary in Commander. It just generates a ton of value every turn. Its tough to see this making less than six tokens on average and that is a lot of free creatures for a card that can also act as one-sided Wrath. The ultimate? Maybe not ultimate. Maybe...penultimate. Who cares?

There are plenty of token based strategies in the format and this card fits right into several popular decks. Ghave, Rhys, even fringe junk decks like Doran or Sen Triplets can use another planeswalker. Having a huge and immediate impact on the board is a surefire way to score points with me.

I am digging the new art as well. Elspeth now with a spear...lance? Maybe even a double bladed sword. Whatever. It looks sick. Eric Deschamps still making solid works that give the game a beautiful face. I really like the background landscape. It looks like it is calling back to the Unglued Island artwork, which you can see here: B00M! Maybe a sweet crossover in order with Chickens and Donkeys and all mana of silliness.

There are plenty of cards like this already available in the format that don't see a whole lot of play. The new legend rules affect Commander in a very interesting way.

Previously, Blue could use Clone effects as spot removal for Legends, which made them very powerful and very versatile. Now they are less appealing as a whole, but some of them are worth playing.

I don't know if this one has what it takes to make it, but I am not going to call it early. Heroic presents interesting challenges for deck building. I think this is one of the worst Heroic cards in the set simply because it does still suffer substantially if they have removal in response to the trigger, but once you get this into the shape of a Hexproof guy then you are pretty much in business.

This card has been given the juice. For four mana you get at least four power and one of those bodies has a relevant protection ability. If you have something like Future Sight or Mind Over Matter chilling on the board then this guy provides an entire army for a bargain price. Blue token cards are somewhat rare and they are rarely this good. This is an offensive powerhouse that is sure to get in some surprise beats.

Unfortunately, this card has a huge vulnerability to spot removal and can't trade profitably because the tokens won't stick around, but this card should still see plenty of play in Aggro-Control decks like Edric.

Enter Meletis Charlatan. Many of my comments about Artisan of Forms also apply here. There are plenty of other cards that have similar effects already available. This isn't exceptional among them and it isn't that strong of a card on it's own. Some upsides: it doesn't require a down payment on of cards or mana like Elite Arcanist and Echo Mage. Downsides: It doesn't allow you to take much advantage of your opponent's spells. It is still multiplayer friendly in theory, but it is just a little bit too friendly for my tastes. I think this one is better left at home, but I am sure I will see it pop up every once in a while.


UNLEASH THE KRAKEN!!! Just what I always wanted: another big silly Blue monster. Giant sea creatures figure prominently in Greek mythology and we all knew there would be several coming in this set.

I like the flavor and art on display in this card. It is a big beast, but when it goes monstrous it shuts the whole board down until they get rid of it. Without built in protection, investing eight mana is an easy way to get blown out, but in conjunction with Shroud, perhaps from a set of Greaves, this could represent a legitimate win condition.

There sure are a bunch of token producers in this set. There is a similar uncommon six drop in White as well. The advantage here is that for an extra colorless mana and the upkeep drawback, you get a 6/6 with Flying and all of the tokens it produces Fly as well.

This is the kind of card that will really only shine in EDH, and it's the perfect place for it. There are several mono Black generals that support the token sacrifice theme, such as Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder.

This plays well with Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter as well. In a generic junk deck this card won't be all that exciting, it is a pretty mediocre finisher and doesn't have any significant upside versus Grave Titan, except perhaps that it will never command a high price tag so it will get consideration in budget conscious lists.

This is an interesting card to me. On the one hand, Black has too few Buyback or Retrace cards that can even trigger the Heroic ability. On the other hand, it is an aggressive threat with the potential to clear away blockers and provide card advantage. I am skeptical that this will see mainstream play unless some absurd Heroic enablers get printed, but I am genuinely unsure about the power of the mechanic in general. It could be that I am underrating it significantly.

Power uncommon of the set. It is almost like a Black Overrun. Essentially all of your Black creatures get Haste and evasion. It reminds me of Profane Command. Every mode on that card is powerful, but the Fear mode makes for a powerful finisher. This effect just gives you so much reach late in the game. Sneaking through 5 or 6 decent size creatures is going to represent a boat load of damage.

In the M14 set review I talked about the rising power of mid-range creatures. That trend seems to have continued into Theros as well. This is a sizeable body with the promise of late game disruption. Getting a 7/8 on a board where you just wiped about a third to a half of your opponents lands is going to put you in the drivers seat.

Monstrous is a mechanic I can really get behind for use in every format. These cards have been aggressively costed to begin with and have the promise of added value later if you flood out on mana. The uncommon Gorgon that lets you pick off one of your opponents dudes when it powers up is a great example. If you are stuck on playing creatures, play these ones. They all turn into serious damage threats and often provide extra utility by attacking on a different axis once they are monstrous.

...Or they just do even more damage. This card got carried away with itself. Sometimes I am reading a card and I have no choice but to think that R&D considers me an idiot. I find my self thinking: "Yea, I get it, Red likes to do damage. This is going to be a very relevant card in Standard where a particular five power Hasty dragon already sees play.

I don't think this is quite as good as Thundermaw, but it is likely to be the chosen successor in Red based aggressive builds. Protection from White is relevant, even if Restoration Angel and Lingering Souls are rotating.

The monstrous trigger is an excellent way to punish Sphinx's Revelation, but I guess I just rather be the guy with a bunch of extra cards and a few less life most of the time. Pretty much everything I just said also applies in Commander. Don't fall into traps like this. Drawing cards is good. Mono Red is bad.

This competes somewhat favorably with cards like Cloudthresher and Stingerfling Spider. It is sure to supplant Silklash Spider in non-combo Momir Vig builds.

The fact is a giant beater is nice, but Green has plenty of options superior to this if that's what you are looking for. As part of a toolbox this has some limited uses, but the vulnerability to removal and the high blowout potential make me think that this isn't useful as an answer to Flyers.

On a separate note, Monstrous should grant Trample by default. That just seems like a given to me. Look at this thing. It shouldn't even be able to get blocked by small things at all.

Oh yeah, time to lower the boon on somebody fool. A four power Flash guy for three isn't all that bad, but not all that exciting either. An instant speed combat trick aura thing has absolutely no place in the format whatsoever. Play this at your own risk. It isn't worth getting embarrassed over.

Can't be countered. Can't be Mind Controlled. It can get Bribed though. You tell me how the flavor works. This is a reasonably efficient creature with sufficient built in protection to see some limited play. It really isn't anything that great, but there is always a market for creatures that trump counterspells. It is good early and late. I can see the value in a line like say, cast it for x equal to three, then play and equip a sword the next turn.

The real trouble with these uncounterable 'Blue hate' cards is that they aren't enough of  a threat on their own.

The counterspells will hit something eventually so they will always be good, but a creature like this has to kill very quickly or else it will just get blanked by a bigger threat or caught in a board sweep.

Free damage, usually even a good bit of it, isn't worth falling behind on cards by playing underpowered threats that can't dominate the board. Haste does give this a good shot at ending the game immediately if top decked late. An X over 10 is going to put you far enough ahead on life that basically anything makes for a reasonable follow up.

Remember that time that they printed Wight of Precinct Six and it was just a cheap Black Tarmogoyf? Well now it is back in Green and is basically always going to be a 10/10. Ghoultree does see play just for being a crazy efficient beater. Stuff like this is insane post board sweep in decks like Animar or Karador. It will always come down with some kind of discount. All the draw backs I discussed above apply here. It tanks to removal and sweepers, doesn't have trample, and can be countered or stolen. Unlike the Hydra though, this card is reliably cheap and aggressive.

This card...is not good. I know it looks good, but compare to something like Dungrove Elder or Wild Beastmistress. This isn't as big and doesn't do as much, but still costs the same. If you want a goofy beater that dies to Doomblade, you have better options. See above. Or below. Basically anywhere.

Apparently there are a lot of creatures in this set that just want to smash face and don't care about anything else. This characteristic is acceptable in one and two drops. Anything more than that and I start expecting more from my creatures. This could easily be a 4 or 5 power guy on turn 4. Which represents a lot of damage if you're into that kind of thing. I have had my fill of talking about these cards. I won't be playing them and I will be happy to play against them as much as I can. This card is about 30 power short of beating Wrath of God.
People are going to talk about whether or not this is better than Angel of Despair.

It's better. Clearly. More importantly though- who cares? That card sees an absurd amount of play and is a fan favorite. This fights Indestructible things (it's not like there are any of those in this set or anything) and generates even more value.

It still has a very reasonable cost for its impact on the board and there are just not enough of this kind of quality removal to be picking and choosing. Play both. Every time you can. Be happy about ruining your opponents board and smashing them with an incidental beater.


This card is pretty easily the worst pdub in the set. Not a big deal. It still pretty sweet and plays nicely with some popular casual themes in the format.

It doesn't do anything for the board, but it does go up to 5 loyalty immediately and should almost always be able to grab a creature after the second activation.

This also doesn't represent much of a threat so it is a bit more likely to get ignored than a more aggressive or impactful planeswalker. It is still pretty sweet to have laying around on an empty board or in a board stall and the bar for what a 3 cmc planewalker needs to do really isn't that high.

I talked about this card last weekend in my spoiler article so I won't get into too much detail about it this time around, but I do want to reiterate how scary this card is to me both in terms of its play value and what it means for design.

R&D is getting closer and closer to make a threat that literally just can't be answered. It took a long time to get Indestructible and Hexproof onto a single creature, but if in the future a creature like this ever gets uncounterability then what? Do I just pack up my fun and go home?

There are enough high quality equipments and auras that this card is just unbeatable once it gets powered up. I guess this is what I deserve for making fun of creatures all the time. Sooner or later they were going to print one that was so good I actually had to play it.

If you go for the bull's eye my friend, you're going to get the horns. I am so down for minotaur tribal. It really bothers me that the most heavily supported creature types like elves and vampires continually get support in every new set, but other flavorful fantasy creatures get hardly any at all.

This card is a little bit to expensive to be competitive, but it is still cool. A casual card that scratches a very needy itch. Hopefully this is a signal of future fun creature type lords in the future.

This is substantially worse than Eternal Witness, but you could say that about 99% of Magic cards and be completely correct. Stuff like this is always underrated. Increases in flexibility often overshadow decreases in power level or marginal const increases. This is way better than Gravedigger in your typical game of Magic and getting stuff out of the Graveyard is a key part of many Commander deck's strategy.

I am excited for the future sets in the block. There have been hints at several most named characters. These will almost certainly be most legendary creatures, but could potentially be additional God cards as well. Maybe even something like a demigod card. Maybe the demigods start as creatures and become indestructible enchantments if your devotion is high enough. That would be pretty sweet no? Other potential ideas: Cthonic gods. Jeeeeeeez.

So, the 4/4 Cyclops has Trample, but the 6/6 Giant doesn't? This card is an egregious flavor foul for me.

Partly because the flavor of an Enchantment Artifact or an Enchantment creature doesn't make any sense to begin with. If it is a magical device, it is an Artifact. It might be enchanted, but then it should have Enchantment Aura on it. Same for creatures. That is what it means to be enchanted. That is the flavor established by Aura cards.

Polis Crusher crushes cities. Pretty obvious. Why then does he destroy Enchantments? They aren't even enchantments or artifacts. Usually they are lands, actually. Ember Swallower should be named Polis Crusher. Polis Crusher should be called Aura Swallower.

I don't blame design or development. This isn't their job. The creative team, though. I want all of them retrained. They don't understand English. I hope that the localization teams in different countries make cards like this work in other languages. Also, this card isn't really worth playing.

Momir Vig decks have gotten so much better in the last two years. This is pretty insane. Not only do they get another Seedborn Muse, they get a Seedborn Muse that triggers both of Momir's abilities.

Oh, and all of your dudes have Flash. Because fairness. This is an extremely powerful card. If it had a home in more decks it would be much more scary, but the fact that really only RUG and UG can take advantage of this.

I don't see any Bant generals that were in desperate need of this, but Maelstrom Wanderer, Animar, Riku, and Momir can all make excellent use of this gem of a card. Pick up your copies now, this will figure into Commander for years to come.

This on the other hand...is very disappointing. It is way to expensive for such a narrow card and you still have to pay the mana to cast the chosen card later. Where is the value?

If you want to disrupt their hand, play Thoughtseize. If you wanted to disrupt their graveyard this would need to be an Instant or exile the whole thing.

I am seeing this as like an Instant for just UB with the same text box. Or perhaps with the same type and mana cost, but you get the chosen card from their hand and their entire graveyard and you can cast all of them for mana, or maybe just one of them for free right now as part of the spell's resolution. This is just very bad. Don't play this.

GO GO GORGON TRIBAL! Hexproof has made some very bad creatures very good. And also some pretty sweet creatures absurd, but about the former: Don't underestimate the incremental value of the Scry effect. This is a big body for the cost, provides a long term advantage, can't get hit with removal, and can trade up at any point.

I am not sure what kind of deck wants this, but it is a decent card. Sisters of Stone Death Gorgon Tribal deck. Savra, sacrifice decks. Maybe even Sek'kuar token decks.

Graveyard hate has gotten pretty spicy in the past couple of sets. It is now aggressively costed and attached to a nearly unblockable and gigantic beater.

This is an excellent tool for aggressive decks. They will almost assuredly have to kill it because they cannot block it. If you are up against a slower control deck you are almost guaranteed to have lost more creatures during the course of the game which means you're going to get a fully stocked hand of duders with which to continue the beat down. And it is a Cerberus. It guards the underworld, so you can't get things out of graveyards, but when it dies all the people can escape their eternal torment. This is good flavor. On a good card. Wowee zowee.

Phew. Finally to the end! And I saved a spicy one for last. This card looks sweet. It isn't in a very attractive color combination for Commander, but it certainly has the goods. It helps you ramp up your mana and will almost assuredly help you jump a few spots on the curve, but it also gives you a progressively larger army of Hasty beaters the longer it stays in play.

This compares favorably with many quality planeswalkers that already see plenty of play in EDH such as: Garruk Wildspeaker and Sarkhan Vol. The ultimate isn't exactly insane, but it should put you up at least a few cards, even if some of those are lands. That isn't so bad though, because you can almost always find something to do with extra mana in a game of Commander.

Just imagine if you play this and make a guy, next turn you are at 6 mana with no real investment. This card is well positioned in several formats and will command a decent price tag for the foreseeable future. Play them if you got them and hang onto them if you can. This will have a place in Commander for a while.

That brings us to the end of today's installment. If you think I left anything out make sure to share your thoughts in the comments below.  There is still plenty more Theros to talk about so tune in next time when we will be going over the Answer cards.