Today, we will be discussing the answer cards in the set. An answer is something that you use to stop, slow, or disrupt your opponent. Removing threats, destroying Lands or other resources, countering spells, exiling cards from graveyards or libraries, discarding cards - These are all forms of disruption. Basically anything that hinders your opponent's path to victory falls into this category. Let's take a look at some of the cards.
I often teeter back and forth about whether or not 'Hate Bears' are threats or answers. As Creatures with aggressive costs, they seem poised to attack for the win, like a threat. Also, they have some line of rider text that ostensibly makes life hard for your opponent, think Gaddock Teeg. This genuinely allows them to serve as both, and normally I just move them to whichever article has less cards in it, as a way to balance out the length of the articles.As for Aegis, we have a historical precedent, so let's consult it: True Believer. Aegis is less color intensive, and Hexproof is flat out better than Shroud. Getting a 2/1 is worse than a 2/2, but not by much. So, by the measurables, Aegis is the best of its kind. However, I highly doubt that there is a deck in Commander that has been waiting for this. Some decks do play 'hate bears'. Some do want to be shielded from targeted discard. In general though, I wouldn't expect to see much of this, despite the fact that it is a solid card.
Do you feel it? The colossal let down. The niche answer. The ultimate stop gap in case the God cards got out of control. Standard needed this, in theory. It works perfectly there. My sole complaint is that this is essentially blank in Commander. Against a God card being used as a commander, this is strictly worse than Revoke Existence, which was already under-powered. In exchange, you do get the right to look through your opponent's deck to examine their list, but most people play Commander against close friends in a home setting. They already knew most of their opponent's list anyway, so this advantage is very minor. I know it is not R&D's job to design exclusively for Commander, but it always feels bad to be left out. This card could easily have been reworked to make it useful with only a minor change in templating. The basic effect of the card could have been left intact. Very disappointing. As is, this card is stone unplayable in Commander, but I wanted to take time to examine the opportunities that it missed.
This card sets a hard limit on the number of spells you can play in a turn. I wish there was something that set a hard limit on the number of cards with bad flavor text Wizards would print in a year. If Erayo were legal for use as a Commander, this would be a critical piece of the format. As things stand now though, this card is out of place. There are ways to abuse it, perhaps a hard lock with Isochron Scepter, but attractive alternatives already exist. It is unclear to me whether or not it is better to have an Enchantment Creature or just an Enchantment. While one can attack and wear equipment, it is also much more vulnerable to opposing removal.
New design space explored, achievement unlocked! This is something that we all saw coming. A Bestow card that you were supposed to put on your opponent's Creatures. I dig it. This is a little slower than my learning curve wants to go, but hey; you have to teach to the slowest student in the class right? As a Creature this is too small to matter. As a Control Magic, this is too expensive to be competitive....so....bad? Bad.Is it just me or does it look like that cyclops was cut-and-pasted into the art? Its foot is hanging off the edge, but the pose makes it look as if it is standing firm. Is it about to fall? Is it walking on air? Is the line between siren and harpy a little too thin in this set? Perhaps. It seems like the rule is this: Attractive? Siren. Ugly? Harpy.
Similarly to Banishing Light, this is an update of Mesmeric Fiend, following the same changes in templating. That card is awesome in Pauper and even makes the occasional appearance in Cube. I doubt Brain Maggot will see much play in Commander, but it can be tutored up with Zur, a characteristic that has boosted the playability of many seemingly innocuous cards in the format.
This is some art. The format doesn't need any more expensive Wrath effects, but Black makes great use of board sweepers. But dat art! That is an OG line up if I ever saw one, save for the fact that Pharika's card turned out to be garbage. Imagine this was a JRPG and you chose these guys as your party! Badass alert.In my opinion, this is by far the best offering from emerging talent Chase Stone. He began working on the game with Duel Decks Venser vs. Koth and has made steady contributions in each set since. Notably: Experiment One, Mirko Vosk, and the alternate art Sorin, Lord of Innistrad.
We're now going to have a moment of silence for the premier rare removal spells that have been skipped over because they were too expensive. Would this card really be that good if it only cost three? If its Strive only cost two? I'd argue not. Card advantage isn't expensive, in fact, in recent sets Wizards has established a precedent that pure card advantage is actually getting cheaper than it has been in the past, but they are backing off from printing things that have powerful effects on the board.This is a consequence of R&D trying to move the game from a 'spell focus' to a 'creature focus'. They want the game to be on the battlefield, not on the stack. Naturally, if you want the game to STAY on the board you can't keep printing good cheap removal. 'Kicking' this a couple times will shatter a board state. If all you have is Creatures and then someone kills all your Creatures....you're gonna have a bad time. Unfortunately for those of us that play eternal formats, we are unlike to see as many good answer cards being printed in the near future.
I have a Nicol Bolas all-spell, no Creatures deck that thinks this card is really good. I also have a Maelstrom Wanderer deck that thinks this card is garbage. Scry on removal spells is really sick. It helps to set up the game state such that you can gain a tempo advantage. Kill your guy, play my own guy, for example. It is cheap, it is likely to get the job done a high percentage of the time, and it rewards you for doing something you probably already wanted to do. That is a recipe for success to me.
I have said it before and I will say it again here: the designers have become much better at spreading the core card concepts around the color pie in recent sets. Red needs card draw. Blue needs aggressive Creatures. Green needs removal. I dig it. The fight mechanic has done wonders for opening up design space in Green. They are probably over-using it a bit, but they have more than a decade's worth of lost time to make up for.Mechanically, this is more of the removal spell I am looking for. Somewhat conditional, but that condition is simply that your deck needs to be doing what it was designed to do: Have bigger dudes and more of them. This is an Instant. This is extremely cheap. This has potential for card advantage. This can change the texture of the board immediately. These are the characteristics of good removal. Setessan Tactics, despite having a silly and incredibly set-specific name, is everything I could hope for from a rare iteration of Prey Upon.
That's all for today folks. Do you agree with our evaluations of the new cards? Did we leave out something that you want to hear about? Let us know in the comments. Next time, we will finish the set review with a look at mana and utility cards. I hope to see you then!
-GG
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