The Stack #57- Stack-zarus, Come Forth!

Breaking Bad. That was a Breaking Bad reference.

So in case you're not familiar with the recurring trope that is used in Comedy Central's longest running raunchy cartoon,  people happen to come back from the dead a lot. Frankly, the rate of resurrected characters has been astounding across the many programs I follow.

Whether it is because I'm in the resurrecting or reanimating spirit, or just because the truth of the matter is that TGZ's best co-collaborative segment never really did die- it just went and hid out in New Hampshire for several months under a different identity so as to gain perspective- we're back. By we, I mean, The Stack, and there's soon to be a whole host of new guests getting featured.

To honor this momentous occasion, the re-launching features twice the theme- our favorite cards with Flashback, and our favorite cards to Reanimate.

So yeah, we're playing it again, cause The Stack is great, and it never gets old.

Time to throw it in reverse for thirst!
THIS IS THE STACK!

TOM

Tom- THUMBS UP
OK, yeah, I know. Technically, not so much a target for reanimation as it raises itself. Still, that raid trigger is kinda like a Creature-based version of Flashback, so I'm throwing caution to the winds and including the card anyways.

For a deck that runs off death triggers and reanimation, Bloodsoaked Champion is...well, a champion. He's an ideal early turn play to couple with your Skullclamp for immediate card advantage. He's super easy to recur and he gets around the pesky non-token specification for cards like Grim Haruspex and Harvester of Souls. Best of all he can be reanimated repeatedly per turn for so long as you have mana and a sac outlet, making him practically a boardwipe when combined with Grave Pact, Ashnod's Altar and a handful of Swamps.

Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP
Mad props to BS Champ. I've literally pulled my playset of this card from Sealed and Draft, where it's probably even better than it is in Commander: eating Morph dudes for breakfast and being personally responsible for the best Aggro decks in both environments. If it wasn't for Sagu Mauler, I'd say it was the best Creature in those environments.

The big flavor question me and the rest of Reddit want to know though- How does he not block if he's holding two shields?

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
The card is pretty great, but I have to admit, I hate it. Wizards has printed more quality Skullclamp enablers than they have quality exiling removal to deal with those enablers. There are a dozen or more Creatures that look nearly identical to this, which all scare the crap out of me. BSC isn't even the top contender in this category, but it is still enough to get my attention. The added benefit of having a bunch of these cards in your deck is that your opponent often starts losing life very early on AND they can't expect to weasel out of harm's way using a Wrath effect. Just adding card advantage to any Creature makes them into the perfect threat.

UNCLE LANDDROPS

Uncle Landdrops-  THUMBS UP
This is the most common Flashback card I play in my decks. Along side Merfolk Looter, this becomes a serious amount of card draw, even when all I'm doing is flashing it back.

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
This is a super high-impact common, which I love. It is a great way to generate a ton of card advantage throughout the game. It presses your opponent to have multiple counterspells. Is it a little expensive? Sure, but this isn't really an early game type of card. This is the kind of thing you are either sandbagging or celebrating when you draw it late.

Tom - THUMBS UP
Overcosted, Sorcery-speed card draw is pretty meh. On the flipside, anything that allows for "target player" to draw cards wins out over straight self-draw for the added flexibility; Nekusar and a few other decks want that, and even in non-janky non-combo decks giving free cards to beleagured players can be an interesting political tool.

I like the Flashback cost as well. Anything that asks such a small life cost is much better in EDH than elsewhere and two mana + three life for two cards = solid.

GRANDPA GROWTH

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
If you know me, and you know what this card does, then there is no more explanation necessary. This was a close pick for me though, there are probably half a dozen cards that I could very easily claim are my 'favesies'. Army of the Damned, Creeping Rennaissance, Cackling Counterpart, Fervent Denial.

I just want to point out that Landdrops and I both picked commons for this topic. Go Pauper. Whoo!

Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP
Pauper cards are really helpful in making not just deck designs, but also, Commander, much more exciting.

I love Mystical Teachings, and I often find that I make sketchy U/B decks just so that I can play some of my favorites with these specific color identities. Teachings is definitely there.

That Black in the color identity is what I think makes it both very strong and very scarce in terms what decks this card can go in, relative to our format. I'm not playing Tutors-on-Tutors so much anymore, but this one that I've definitely built several different packages around.

Tom- THUMBS DOWN
A personal preference, but I don't really like to tutor. Granted, it's understood that sometimes you just need a very specific card, but when building decks I err towards redundancy so that there are several cards which can fill any role required. Being able to search the library for answers is undeniably useful, but also - for my money - leads to repetitive games as the "best" answers are usually tutored up or used to win a game out of nowhere. It's funny and cool the first time, but after several games end the same way it grows stale. Not to mention the endless searching/shuffling drawing out the pace of a game can be exceptionally annoying to other players. Putting Flashback on a tutor card is guaranteed to have me grinding my teeth.

UNCLE LANDDROPS

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
This card dominated Standard, shines in Commander, and should be in every Cube out there. The card is just completely bananas at all points in the game. It resists/pairs well with some of the best cards in the format: Removal? Psssh. Show and Tell? What a joke! Upheaval? Deal.

On a related note: I just watched Firefly last year. It wasn't that good. Things I don't like: Nathan Fillion, Joss Whedon, Science Fiction.

Tom- THUMBS UP
I had thoughts to put here, but got all distracted by GG's closing statement. Blasphemy. May the Angel of Serenity smite you.

The best thing about the card is the flexibility. It can be a recursion engine for your graveyard, a multi-target Oblivion Ring for your foes or a bouncing engine for your own ETB creatures. Sweet value in every instance. I run the Angel in my Roon copy/blink deck, and under the right circumstances - like when paired with a Progenitor Mimic or a kicked Rite of Replication - she can spirit away entire armies of opponents' beasties.

Uncle Landdrops-  THUMBS UP
Well, I have no clue what the hell Grandpa is thinking. Firefly Rulz. Hopefully there are enough Browncoats and Jayne's Hats that enjoy what's going on here. This is my altered version (credit to the unknown Deviant Artist for this) for the Angel of Infinite Card Advantage and Beatdowns, but I believe everyone will recognize Return to Ravnica's premier reanimate target.

I play this in Saffi, and I can't tell you how design predicated on Reanimate-Reinforcement makes this so filthy. Sac outlets and trigger stacking make her one of the strongest synergies I have in a deck where there are plenty of synergies that actually end the game outright as opposed to denying resources. She's still one of the best cards in the deck and has saved my skin more than a few times, making her not just an Angel based on card type alone.

Alright, well that wraps 'er all up. Be sure to holla in the comments below if you have a card to contribute, you have a topic you'd like us to tackle, or you'd like to be a guest on a future episode of The Stack!

Until next time, be sure not to let this Wookie win.

Pass.
-UL/GG/Tom

Khans Cards, Part I: Black and Blue

Happy Thor's Day Zoners!

I've been out real-life planeswalking since we got the taste of Tarkir during prerelease, and I'm anxious to bring you a few of the hidden gems I've been digging since sealed, limited, and cracking open my big box of Khan goodies.

As you saw in GG's Set Review last week, there's a lot to like, and probably not a whole lot aside from a cycle of charms and a cunning replica (Clever Impersonator) that are going to immediately make their way into the market. Eventually, everything finds its way back to EDH, but even the response time of social media's finest isn't always going to be right on the money.

So today I'm going to do a little bit of speculating and forecasting, you know- the usual Landdrops meditation and meandering on cards I like, cards I want to play, and cards I hope and expect to see at the kitchen table nearest me, and by Interwebz extension, you.

We'll start things off nice and slow with a spicy, nasty little blue card.

Earlier in the week, I had a chance to have a chat with VJ about this card, and we both agreed that it's a nice one. Honestly, I'm a little more pessimistic about its impact in the Commander metagame, but it's not going to stop me from playing it. VJ called it a "Counter Target Commander" spell, which I think feels pretty accurate, though I'm still unsure how good that is.

My skepticism only really concerns how many gigantic spells we want to counter. Generally, that is threats, whether they're from the Command Zone or otherwise, and every big X spell, which yes, will change on the Stack (Genesis Wave for 7 on the stack is GGG+7= CMC 10). So there's some upside.

Being a more aggressive version of Thoughtbind, I'm liable to want to play this. Again, it's a counter with a low intensity for blue whose design is going to force even the worst control players to hold up a spell until something big is on the stack. While it's not going to be your most trustworthy counterspell, if you like having a handful for tempo, this might be worth taking for a test drive.

Potentially, Stubborn Denial just might outclass Disdainful Stroke. Here, I like the versatility more. This is easily better than something like Turn Aside, which I always played but never cast, and really going to make your opponents think twice about casting Treachery, Removal, or a Planeswalker-level threat. Bonus added, obviously, if you're ahead.

I think it's good enough to be in the conversation because it's almost as good as Complicate or Daze, but it's not too underpowered that you want to rip it in half. It's the kind of card Control players want to play, particularly in 60-card formats, where you have access to multiples and only a couple of game-ending threats. Again, I think this can be replicated and supported with the combination of older, better versions, so this strategy could become a good one for EDH too.

Our last blue card is another Instant blessed the Ferocious Temur mechanic- Force Away.

This is another card which I'm really riding high on. While I was a little bit disapointed about not having enough Mid-Range Fatties (Temur's "Not-A-Theme" Theme), like this horse in the artwork, I'm chomping at the bit to get an Unsummon and a Looter on tempo. It just seems cool.

Despite Mid-Range Fatties being silly, I think Ferocious turned out nice. The power level of cards like this and See The Unwritten will find their full potential in Standard and Commander, where they can be more thoughtfully designed around, while giving a nice little tempo-based answer with incentives in Limited and Sealed. Nice job all-around on Ferocious.

Big card is big, Black card has Zombies- I know it's not incognito, being mythic and all.

Still, I have something to say to people who feel its cost is going to keep this from being relevant.

Delve Makes This Card Real.

Even with Gristlebrand Quadruple Black, this card is going to get a lot of surprise kills. Mono-Black already plays Army of the Damned, which, with Flashback is immense value and pressure. Like Stubborn Denial, ETP is just more reinforcement. Since most Mono-Black decks aren't without Cabal Coffers and Urborg, and probably a Crypt Ghast and other Swamp-Doubling shenanigans, Empty the Pit is going to be huge, going to be done at the end of your last opponent's turn, and it will finish off the table. Because when you can supplant the cost by delving for one of the X's, a BBBBX spell is very easy to manage with all the tools. This is going to be a house very quickly. So get your own, and be on the lookout for others with a copy of their own.

While the morph mechanic on GH is a little more for limited, Haruspex's other ability, when anticipated correctly, is going to yield nice return with a sac outlet in play.

I like this card a lot. It's not Harvester of Souls, but it's a decent, cheaper costed alternative for mono-Black and other token sacrifice decks.

Last card for today is the BS Champ.

I've got a lot of things to say about this card. At prerelease, it was in my Sealed pool, directly contributing to my second place finish with a very average Abzan deck.

Later, I was asked why he can't block when he has so many shields. While I have no idea about the answer to this question, I can explain why he won me so many games, and more importantly- why he'll do well to translate back to Commander.

A relentless threat, BS Champ is basically a functional reprint of Bloodghast. Unlike B-Ghast, which needs to see land to stay alive, our new version prefers seeing action, which is just as low of a barrier. And with 1 toughness, is in the perfect space to be a complement to EDH Equipment Extraordinaire, Skullclamp, and any Grave Pact trigger you can get your hands on.

While Champion was effective because the Sealed and Draft formats don't really get online until players start dropping Morph dudes, he's going to be just as good in Commander because he's resilient, so people will take the damage, or he'll get blocked, die, and you can go get him back either immediately or on your following turn. And if you don't need him for that, he becomes an excellent little utility sacrifice dude. Get your copies while you can. I have a feeling this could be real in some 60-card formats.

Pass Turn.
-UL

Khans of Tarkir Set Review: Threats

Hello and welcome to The General Zone's Review of Khans of Tarkir! I am Grandpa Growth and I will be guiding you through the myriad landscapes of Magic's newest multicolor set.

First, let us establish the ground rules. Same as always:

• The set review will be broken into multiple parts, separated by the function the cards serve within the game. Threats, answers, utility cards, mana producers/fixers, and Legendary Creatures, which get their own article because of how important they are to the Commander format.
• Being that this is a blog about Commander, we will be looking at these cards through the lens of a Commander player. I will make notes about other formats, but in general my comments are meant to be taken in the context of Commander. 
• I will not be reviewing any cards that are not relevant to Commander. If you feel that we skipped a card that should have been included please make your case in the comments. Additionally, no reprints will be mentioned in any of these articles. Their place in the format is already known and doesn't need to be re-evaluated just because the card got new art. Remember also that there will be several segments of this review and just because a card doesn't appear in this segment doesn't mean that it has been ignored. It probably just got moved to another post.

Now that we have the introductions out of the way let's talk about the set. The long awaited, the much touted WEDGE SET! It is the end of an era. Wizards has made major announcements regarding the future of Magic set releases. The block structure we have been using for almost two decades is going away. Khans is the last of its kind. Is it going to be the grand send off that we all deserve? Signs point overwhelmingly to yes, but let's take a look at the cards just for good measure.

In this article we will be discussing the threat cards. A threat is something that you try to win the game with. Usually Creatures and Planeswalkers, but any card type can manifest itself as a win condition in the right deck. Since the set is so jam packed full of juice, these articles are going to get pretty lengthy. To compensate, I will endeavor to treat each comment with an application of brevity...starting now:


Here we have a mediocre token generator. This is unlikely to shine anywhere except limited because of how slow and costly it is. Ending up with a handful of tokens and a single large Creature after several turns of a heavy mana investment is not a great plan to win the game. If you are interested in effects like this, you already have a deck full of better options. Leave this at home.





Surprise kills are huge. It is simple to visualize a scenario where casually flipping this thing up can create a lethal amount of damage. It is also much more innocuous than your run-of-the-mill anthem effect. It can come down early and deal damage on its own, without alerting your opponent to the imminent threat that it poses.

I don't often play token swarm decks, mainly because I feel they are overly blunt. Adding a touch of subterfuge could go a long way towards improving the archetype as a whole. In the same way that Overrun effects steal games for Green, this can do the same for White.


This card is worse than Broodmate Dragon in a variety of ways. It is also better in some other regards. Neither is ever going to be relevant in Commander for any reason other than nostalgia. This card will tear up Standard in the coming months, but it is a few birds shy of a hen house when it comes to EDH.

Lifegain, the ability that most clearly distinguishes it from its predecessors, is nearly irrelevant in a format where you start with a huge chunk of extra health.. Play Geist-Honored Monk instead.



This will be the single most impactful card from the set. It has no peers in Khans of Tarkir. One could make the argument that widescale availability of Onslaught fetchlands to newer players will create upheaval in decklists, but I am going to lay that discussion aside for another time.

This card is the most significant update to cloning technology that we have had since the massive rules overhaul last summer. Clever Impersonator is going to be in every deck that can produce Blue mana. No exceptions. If you aren't playing it, you are intentionally lowering the quality of your decks and your play experience. Get a hold of as many copies as you can because if the prerelease is any indicator, they will be sought after for years.



For a while it seemed like every set had an obligatory giant Red monster. While that remains mostly true, obligatory Blue monsters are starting to appear equally frequently. Why? Heck if I know, loyal reader. I literally can't think of a single deck in the format that needs this card. It is most useful as a way to protect your lands from Strip mine, but land destruction is most effective when used early and often so if you made it to seven mana against a ponza deck, you probably won.

The truth is that there are just so many better finishing Creatures in Blue. You are much more likely to win the game with something else. It is so replaceable that the question begs to be answered: "Why am I still talking about it?"




We now have a rare version of Aetherize and it is attached to a big Flying body.  I prefer to think of this as the Blue Sunblast Angel, which places it in a pretty strong position.

This is going to be a standout limited bomb and is likely to see some sparse adoption at casual tables as well. It is competing for a small number of spots against some other very impressive cards, but players who are new the format or looking for a refreshing change of pace will quickly realize the power of this card. Decks can always use a good token hoser.




Good golly. I wish Wizards would stop printing Creatures that look like this. They are powerhouses in Standard aggressive decks, often make it into aggro-slanted cubes, and generally make games of EDH unfun. The flavor text might as well just read: "Combine with Skull Clamp for best results." Token sacrifice decks everywhere are salivating at the chance include even MORE redundancy into their already air-tight decklists.





So, it is basically Army of the Damned as an Instant. Bear in mind that the aforementioned zombie-bomb is real, represents an immediate clock even in the late stages of the game, and makes more chump blockers than you can shake a severed limb at. It is not unreasonable to think that this will make more, potentially many more, tokens than Army ever did. It doesn't have Flashback, which is a high price, but I consider the two relatively equal at this point in time, which means that this is an auto-include in many Swamp-based decks.



Speaking of being good with Skullclamp...

Phoenix(es?) is a sweet, flavorful Creature type that has been occasionally asserting their claim on the upper rarity of Red's set skeletons for years. This is an excellent addition to that crew. Guaranteed to come back, guaranteed to smash face. I can dig that. I have a mono Red build that I will be debuting on Ill-Gotten Games in a few weeks that could really use a card like this.

As a general rule, every Morph Creature becomes slightly more powerful with the printing of every other Morph Creature. It just becomes harder and harder to accurately predict which card you are playing against. Some Morphers demand removal before they turn up, which is a scary and skill-testing situation. Given the growing volume of Morph, you can expect your opponents to guess wrong a solid percentage of the time.


Whoa, whoa, whoa...he gets Indestructible too?! Original Gideon must feel pretty silly. This card is just awesome. The best Red planeswalker that we have seen in my opinion. Each ability is powerful. Each will get used quite a bit. It can protect itself. It can generate pressure and card advantage. It has a very reachable ultimate that, while it doesn't win the game, puts you into an advantaged position.

I rather like the idea that a planeswalker's ultimate doesn't necessarily need to do something insane and gamebreaking. Can't we just make it cheap, strong, and efficient like normal cards? OH! We can? Thanks, I'll take it.

OBLIGATORY HYDRA! This time with Morph. Wheeeeeeeeeeee! In all seriousness though, I have always seen Symbiotic Wurm as being just outside the fringe of playability in Commander. This is scalable, so it doesn't need to be so dog garn expensive. I can get behind that. I don't expect it to replace any of the standard Green beaters that we see already, but it is worth a thought if you are looking for something off the beaten path.






You know I have to say it...

Bonus points for the Dubstep Remix!


If you had told me they were going to print a Creature with Haste, First Strike, AND Deathtouch I would get nervous. This gives keywords to your whole team, which is a pretty sweet bonus. I do have some misgivings though, like what do you say to declaring no blockers? This just doesn't do enough damage to present a realistic clock. It is only good if you have a giant army that is slightly less giant than your opponent's. Frankly, I don't get into situations like that all too often because, ya know, Wrath of God.

This isn't Legendary and that feels like a missed opportunity for fans of Commander. I will always appreciate a sweet Creature when it is printed. Ditto for reanimation engines. Being three colors though, I just don't see where this is getting played outside of Commander and with that in mind, BUG isn't the deepest color combination in terms of potential Commanders. I would really have liked to be able to sleeve this guy up at the helm of a value mill deck. BUG is just so much more enticing than RBU because of that all important Green.

On a side note, I am not looking forward to people using the terminology Sultai instead of BUG. That doesn't feel like an improvement.



This has already drawn favorable comparisons to Putrid Leech, a card which dominated its Standard environment and even saw some Legacy play in its prime. Cheap, efficient Creatures are never going out of style and you can never have too many of them. Deathdealer has the added bonus of becoming a huge source of damage rather quickly, resisting removal, and being able to trade (or not) with much larger, more expensive threats.




It has a lot of abilities. Some are pretty good, I guess. It has efficient numbers, but I just don't see this being good enough for Commander. This color combination in particular has access to basically every kind of giant face-smashing monster you could ever dream of, so why settle for this one that is hard to cast, and doesn't provide any avenues for card advantage.







Our final card for today, yet another version of Sorin. Now he has the added bonus of an even sweeter, less flavor appropriate trench coat. I wonder what his sword is named? Ever since Elspeth got her own Legendary weapon I am (blood)thirsty for more. BUT I DIGRESS.

Solemn Visitor has some generic color appropriate abilities that are neither exciting nor groundbreaking. As far as planeswalkers go, this is an exceedingly mediocre one. Also, because of the relative dearth of strictly B/W commanders, this is a card that isn't likely to see much play in Commander.

I am happy to see Sarkhan and Sorin reunited in the same block because it marks a return to the storyline that brought us such historical high notes as Jace TMS and the Eldrazi. I don't think that it is a coincidence that this set also features fetchlands, just like the last time we saw these two pdubs together. I am very interested to see how this story unfolds and I look forward to the inevitable return to Zendikar for the dramatic final showdown with the uncolored alien overlords.

What do you think of the set so far? Do you agree with my evaluations? Did you have a blast battling it out with the new cards this weekend at your local prerelease events? Get at us in the comments!

We will be back Tuesday, Thursday, and again next Sunday with ongoing coverage of the set, so look for new segments of the set review as they go live!

-GG