Innistrad EDH Set Review, Part 2: Blue

Blue: now with more Science!

Wondered when they'd get around to finding a way to give creatures "Flashback"... oh wait, wasn't Unearth kinda like flashback-for-creatures? Well, anyway, exiling my own creatures isn't a cost I'm willing to pay, but if you aren't a reanimation-whore like me, this could be pretty potent. But, it seems less like a generically good card than a card you'd want if you had very specific tricks in mind.

Personally, I think Mimic Vat just puts this to shame.

Damn good spell! Very good. The drawback of only being able to copy your own creatures is somewhat limiting, but for a 3-mana Instant, this just rules. Flashback is a nice bonus, but a bit overcosted on that end. Still EDH is the one format where 7-mana isn't a dealbreaker. I can see this one being widely played.

This is one of those cards I feel like I'm supposed to like, but I just can't seem to. It just seems to "spike" to me. No matter how powerful the effect might be, the downside of having to pitch the rest of the cards just makes it un-fun to me. Also, the flashback cost is just a bit too high to make it particularly exciting. I just can't picture any deck where I'd rather run this over Deep Analysis.

I'm not the expert on countermagic, but with the discard effect tacked on this seems fairly playable. Dunno. I might consider it for Wrexial, if I were the countermagic type.

Definitely good enough for Rafiq, though currently I'm running Blighted Agent in the slot this guy would inhabit. I'd rather have the Infect guy, but if there ever comes a time where I no longer want Infect in the deck, this guy will definitely be getting Blighted Agent's spot. I can also see this guy going into Edric decks.

In case Rite of Replication targeting Consecrated Sphinx isn't already broken enough to win you the game... also, Leveler combo. That is all.

 Seems slightly useful, either as graveyard hate or to recycle your own stuff.

Cool card. I like it. Don't have a use for it though. Wrexial is the obvious place, at least amongst my stable of decks, but I keep thinking that there's really not much to recommend this guy over, say, Nemesis of Reason... I'll probably try him out anyway, but I just don't know. I think it's best to just wait and see how this guy plays out.

I like to style myself a clever, creative deckbuilder. I have no clue what the f*** to do with this guy, though. Seems like setting up a huge Living Death is the only real use, but there are easier ways to accomplish that goal. I expect this to be very, VERY narrowly played, pretty much only by hardcore Johnny Combo-Player types.

Thraximundar is now a Tier 1 General? Perhaps. Mwah ha ha ha!

Woah! Yes, please! Now they just need to print some better Blue/Black flashback stuff for my Wrexial deck. Anyway, it might be hard to find enough Flashback stuff that you'd actually want to play, but if you do, this is definitely a must-run.

God, the Blue mythics in this set are awful! Nuking my own graveyard is not something I'm willing to do for a marginal 5/6 Flyer.

Okay, now we're talking; this guy friggin rules! Not surprising for an Invitational card. I love this card to death already and it will be widely played, I'm almost positive. Get 'em before they skyrocket in price. Seems tailor-made for Wrexial, but I think he'll be good almost anywhere you put him.

 Hmm. I won't say it's fantastic, but I do really like the design here. It's hard to believe they haven't paired these two abilities together until now, but it make sense. It seems like the kind of card a designer turns in and the Lead says "wait, isn't this a reprint of something? No? You sure? Huh..."

Anyway, not going to wow most players but I'll probably be shoehorning this into all kinds of decks regardless.

Man, this guy should have been the mythic, not Mirror-Mad Phantasm. Oh well, that works to our advantage, cause he'll be cheaper. Anyway, I am a big fan, and I think he'll have a fairly good chance to see some play in the format. He's a natural fit for Wrexial and similar decks where milling is a goal but not necessarily the main win-condition. You probably won't deck anyone with him, but usually that's not the point. Usually you just want to fill up some graveyards so you can exploit them as a resource. The best part is that he provides some defense by cranking out 2/2 zombies in the process.

Innistrad EDH Set Review, Par 1: White

Ah, the day has finally arrived. I've been eager to get the ball rolling on this one, as Innistrad is a pretty damn cool set. Very exciting!

We're gonna be doing things just a bit different, this time out. I'll do the breakdown by color as usual, and cover all the Rares as usual, and I'll skip the chaff and limited filler to avoid typing "this is bad in EDH" 1000 times over... as usual. The different part is that I'm going to do the Double-Faced Cards separately, in their own section. This mostly is just an aesthetic and logistic choice, as the images need to be wider to accommodate both sides of the card. So in each color, I'll skip the DFC's and get to them later.

Anyway, that's the only difference. The rest will be the same old routine. Naturally, White is up first.

Again, this card is very playable in decks which have enough support for her Tribal component, and Humans are pretty damn common as well, so she'll fit effortlessly into some decks which happen to be running a lot of humans, whether by happenstance or design. She's not the most exciting or terrifying Mythic to behold: WotC seems to be trying to address player concern of the recent trend of "power creep" among creatures in general and especially the Mythics. Angelic Overseer simply looks weak when compared to the likes of Primeval Titan or Consecrated Sphinx, but when weighed solely on her own merits, I think she acquits herself well enough and should prove fairly popular though not ubiquitous.

Very playable, in the right decks, mildly useful outside of those decks. At first glance, this Angel might seem marginal outside of a heavy Spirit tribal deck. But, once you start paying attention, you might be surprised at how many creatures bear the type Spirit. One thing I should point out is that the has a pretty cool interaction with Karmic Guide. Angel of Flight Alabaster won't be good enough to replace Karmic Guide in most decks, but she'll be good enough to run along side Karmic Guide in quite a few decks.

 Yet another card requiring you to be playing a fair amount of Humans, this guy will be a very exciting one-drop in a small number of decks, but probably won't see a huge following in the EDH format. I definitely will consider him for Jor Kadeen, but he has stiff competition in Serra Ascendant and Figure of Destiny... I definitely think this guy is solid, but the number of decks that will truly want him is rather limited.

Holy cow, do all the White cards want to you be playing Human Tribal? Well, if you are, this guy should be pretty awesome. Unlike Angelic Overseer, I don't see this guy just randomly making the cut... the Angel only needs one human at a time to be good, but this guy wants to to be pretty much all-in on Humans to be worth the 6 mana CMC. That said, I don't think we're far off from the day "Human Tribal" decks start to become a real thing. If     the rest of Innistrad block continues the trend we see here of pushing the Human type, we'll definitely be seeing them cropping up on the forums soon enough.

Man, I really want to believe this is going to be a smash hit, as a Wrath of God with Flashback seems like the most awesome thing ever. But the fact that your opponents get to save their one best creature means this spell will frequently fail to kill what you most need killed. It's also pretty bad against stuff like Uril or Thraximundar where they rarely even care about any creature that isn't their general. Alas, I think this one will pan out to be a bit     of a dud. It'll be a great boon to a few decks (I could see Uril decks running this) at most.

Cards that depend heavily on what your opponents are running are hard to predict. They're almost entirely meta-game dependent. This guy really needs your opponents to be running one or more of the listed tribes - Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies - to be interesting, but even then, he's just a 2/2 White Weenie critter. He simply won't do enough for many decks. However, decks like my Jor Kadeen build, that essentially ARE weenie decks, might make use of him, if the metagame warrants it... I think that as long as Innistrad is the new block, the tribes above will be popular enough for this guy to see some limited play. I don't see him being a long-lasting staple though.

I'd rather have O-Ring... wait, no I'd rather have Path, Swords, Exile... pretty much anything that doesn't give the creature back later.

Pretty art. Seems playable in token decks.

I'm torn on this one. It's obviously going to be very good in a token deck, especially Ghave. However, it shuts off Skullclamp, or at least turns off the Clamp's "easy mode" of clamping */1's to draw two for one mana. You can still pay another mana and sac 'em to Ghave. Meh, it's definitely going in the deck, but I'll be sad every time I draw this and Skullclamp in the same game.

Sweet! I love me some card drawing outside of Blue. This will be a lock for Ghave, Rhys, Jor Kadeen... pretty much any White Weenie deck. Seems pretty darn good to me.

Already in Ghave, thanks to the FTV: Legends set. I'm not sure he's going to be useful outside of tokens decks. Ghave, Rith, Rhys... they should be happy to play him, but he's pretty "meh" elsewhere. That's fine, though. The last block, it seemed like I was always saying "Oh, this hoses token decks", so it's nice to see some cards that encourage rather than discourage the archetype.

Quoth the raven, "This card sucks". Nah, it's actually pretty awesome/douchebag in 1v1 EDH where you obviously drop this naming your opponent's General. Outside of that narrow application, I only really see it being used to name things like Sensei's Divining Top, Sol Ring, etc... which is pretty funny but probably not actually good, per se. I am slightly     worried my group will be playing this against me, naming "Rite of Replication"...

Compare this to Tempest of Light: Same cost, same basic effect. Tempest of Light is an Instant, while Paraselen gives up speed in favor of a life-gain bonus. Which is better?
Trick Question. Fracturing Gust wins. Okay, okay, supposing you're in mono-white or at least not G/W and can't choose Fracturing Gust, Instant speed is probably more relevant and beneficial than gaining 1 or 2 life, maybe 4 if you're lucky.

Meh. Definitely playable, but arguably, there are better cards that can perform this function.

Meh, it's getting pretty easy to find really good graveyard-hate spells. This isn't one of the best, by any means, but it's cheap, Instant-speed, and sometimes you want pin-point removal instead of mass removal, just like with creature-removal spells.

Ironically, this uncommon is probably better than the rare with protection vs these tribes. Destroying the creature is WAY better than simply swinging past it. Again, it's way too narrow to be widely useful, but if these tribes are giving you fits, you probably want to retain this dude's services.

Ha ha, wow. Radiant's Judgement was just too good, I guess... let's take Cycling away AND make it 1-mana more expensive. Great idea. This is strictly worse than at least two cards, and conditionally worse than most other White removal spells. Lame.

Definitely below the curve for EDH, but I wanted to feature it here 'cause I like the art.

Ha ha suck balls. This hoses my Jor Kadeen deck pretty much... except, oh, wait I'm in White so I have plenty of ways to deal with this. I imagine this will still be pretty popular in formats where Sharuum and other similar artifact-y decks are popular. It won't stop 'em, but it should slow 'em down.
















So, that's it for White. Nothing here looks destined to become a staple of the format, but there are many cards that will be staples of specific decks or archetypes. The only really generically useful card is the Flashback Wrath effect, but it's pretty iffy as to weather than one will get the job done, or simply fail to kill the one thing you most want dead. Anyway, there's plenty to appreciate here, but no huge bombs. I'm okay with that...

Queen of the Damned

Well, first I was going to wait and build this deck after Innistrad was released and I got my hands on some of the new Vampires. Then, I got impatient and built it anyway. Then I was going to wait and post the decklist after I'd polished it up a bit. But, here I am, typing up the decklist as it stands... but I do have a good reason, besides my impatience. I wanted to leave myself some notes on what to cut for which new card after ISD drops. I was going to jot down some notes in a notebook, but then I figured: "Eh, might as well post it. Content is content."

Anyway, the mission statement is simple: Vampires. Lots of them. As many as I can realistically fit into the deck while still making it somewhat playable. I am cutting ubiquitous staples and good-stuff inclusions where possible to cram more thematic and flavorful stuff in. And as for the good-stuff that does make the cut, I try to at least justify most of those choices from a thematic perspective.

Slave of Bolas? Torrent of Souls? Barter in Blood? Sure, these cards definitely aren't specifically concepted as "Vampire" cards, but the names and what they do fit the flavor. Slave to Bolas might be named after a Dragon Planeswalker, but taking control of your enemy, using him, and then discarding him when you're through... definitely a classic Vampire move. Barter in Blood has "blood" in the name! What more do you want?

Okay, okay... I know there's no way in hell I can stretch the theme enough to make Skullclamp, Wheel of Fortune or Rite of Replication seem vampiric in flavor, but I do still want to win games with the deck. One mantra I try to keep in mind is "don't be a slave to your theme". Meaning, once your deck's theme starts to cost you games and actually makes the deck LESS fun to play, well, it's time to revisit your priorities.

I'm not saying winning should come at the cost of making your deck interesting - that's the last thing I want to impart. But, I feel the reverse is also true - the "theme" shouldn't completely neuter your deck to the point of unplayability.

So, by that logic, I feel the inclusion of a small number of cards that are just strictly in the deck to help me win games if more than fair, and still gives the deck enough room to make the Vampire theme felt through and through. But, to be honest, I'm hoping for a functional reprint of Solemn Simulacrum as a Creature - Vampire, because he's the one guy in my deck that is STRICTLY not a Vampire. But frankly I don't dare cut him - he's just too crucial to a deck without access to Green. The other 4 creatures that don't specifically say "Vampire" anywhere on the card all have the ability to become Vampires via their own innate abilities (Adaptive Automaton, Duplicant, Phyrexian Metamorph and Vesuvan Doppleganger).

So yeah, I fudged a little here and there, but only where it was important and felt like the right call. The only issue I have so far is a complete and utter inability to deal with Enchantments. I could easily run Chaos Warp, All is Dust, Karn Liberated and Steel Hellkite... but of those only All is Dust has a vampire-y enough name to kinda sorta fit the deck... the others are all huge misses on that end. But including one single card to deal with Enchantments and then having to rely on drawing it when needed... that doesn't sound like a good strategy to me. No, I prefer, in this case at least, to go with the strategy of "kill the player with the problematic Enchantments first, and hope that my Plan A is better than whatever it is they're doing".

Yeah, we'll see how that goes... right then, on to the list.

Creatures

Garza Zol, Plague Queen

Guul Draz Assassin  -->  Stromkirk Noble
Bloodghast
Kalastria Highborn
Gatekeeper of Malakir  -->  Rakish Heir
Vampire Nighthawk
Captivating Vampire
Mirri the Cursed
Sangromancer
Vampire Nocturnus
Sengir Nosferatu  -->  Falkenrath Noble
Anwon, the Ruin Sage
Malakir Bloodwitch
Soul Collector
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
Fallen Angel  -->  Bloodline Keeper
Vein Drinker  -->  Falkenrath Marauders
Mephidross Vampire
Nirkana Revenant
Skeletal Vampire
Butcher of Malakir
Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet
Chancellor of the Dross

Phyrexian Metamorph
Vesuvan Shapeshifter

Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Adaptive Automaton

Blood Tyrant
Vampiric Dragon  -->  Olivia Voldaren

Spells and Stuff

Deep Analysis
Rite of Replication
Treachery
Time Spiral

Wheel of Fortune


Vampiric Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Go for the Throat
Feast of Blood
Barter in Blood
Damnation
Patriarch's Bidding
Living Death
Beacon of Unrest
Life's Finale
Sorin Markov
Profane Command
Exsanguinate

Terminate
Torrent of Souls
Slave of Bolas
Spinal Embrace  -->  Cackling Counterpart

Skullclamp
Blade of the Bloodchief
Nim Deathmantle  -->  Curse of Stalked Prey
Sol Ring
Talisman of Dominance
Talisman of Indulgence
Izzet Signet
Rakdos Signet
Dimir Signet
Obelisk of Grixis

38 Lands


Other stuff:
Vampiric Fury needs to go in somewhere... oh dear.

EDIT: Holy shit, how the hell did I forget Blood Tribute?!

Deck Updates

Since I have already had one person ask to see what updates I made to my Rafiq deck, I'll go ahead and do a quick rundown on each of the four rebuilds. Unfortunately, the Rafiq deck is the one that probably changed the least, as it's the oldest deck in my stable, and has been tuned to near-perfection (at least for my relatively casual, laid-back playgroup - it's shown a few weaknesses in cutthroat groups, but I'm less interested in playing with those sorts of folks).

So, anyway, on to the decks.


Rafiq of the Many

Probably the biggest change to the deck, and it's not much really, is the presence of all three Planeswalkers: Elspeth Knight Errant, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Jace the Mind Sculptor. The significance is that, while all three of those have been rotated in and out of Rafiq in the past, this is the first time I fit all three in at once. Jace is actually kinda "meh" in this deck, but still good. His Brainstorm ability is good for tucking Eldrazi Conscription back into the library - much like the Standard Sovereigns/Conscription decks, drawin the 8 mana enchantment is definitely sub-optimal. Garruk replaces Skyshroud Claim as he can act like a Skyshroud Claim when needed, but he can also be an Overrun... it's like having Skyshroud Claim and Overrun in the same slot. Elspeth is just really damn good paired with Rafiq.

The other notable cards making their comback are Decree of Justice and Umezawa's Jitte. Decree got replaced at some point when Thraximundar started showing up at our table less and less often and I cut it for something new and exciting, but I forget what it was... well, now there are TWO people in my group rocking the Thrax, so Decree came back to help out! Umezawa's Jitte got cut when I added some Infect cards - it was a trade, you see: my group hated the Jitte and they hate Infect, so I didn't want to put too many cards they hate into the deck. But the overall powerlevel of the newer players in the group has risen considereably since the Commander set release, and their decks are getting stronger and better. They've shown that they can handle the Infect cards, so adding Jitte back in isn't likely to turn my deck into a monster.

Three cards making their debut in Rafiq are: Cryptic Command, Swiftfoot Boots, and Hydra Omnivore!

Cryptic is just the one counterspell that seems almost tailor-made for Rafiq. The ability to tap all creatures my opponents control is the one we're most interested in. Getting to counter something once in a while is just nice too. I'm still not a fan of countermagic in EDH at all, but I'm not the one who broke that little truce. Still, it just fit the deck's goals too well to pass up this time.

Swiftfoot Boots is just Lightning Greaves that lets me still put other Equipment or Auras on Rafiq. I can think of at least a few times I've had the win on the table, if only I could just play the Shield of the Oversoul sitting in my hand and get in for lethal General Damage... but alas Rafiq was all shrouded-up with Greaves. Don't get me wrong, Lightning Greaves is one of the best peices of Equipment in the format, but sometimes Hexproof just flat out trumps Shroud and the 1 extra mana to Equip is a small price to pay.

Finally, Hydra Omnivore. One of the coolest new cards from the Commander series, Om-Nom-Nom Hydra is a cute way to punish those uber-defensive players who like to turtle up behind Walls and other defenses. You can attack the weakest person on the board and still be whittling away at the life of the strongest opponent! But doing this 8 points at a time is just not BIG enough for EDH, so let's see what Exalted and Doublestrike do for the Hydra. How friggin cool is it to attack THE WHOLE TABLE for 18, with ONE CREATURE!

Wrexial, the Risen Deep

This list was pretty damn tight, but I managed to make room for a few things:

Sword of Body and Mind - Easily the worst "Sword of Stuff and Junk" in the cycle, for EDH purposes. Still with the popularity of Riku, Edric and Damia in my group, Pro-G and Pro-U aren't as irrelevant as they once were. Also, while "mill" is pretty weak in EDH overall, for a deck that's entire game is built on exploiting my opponent's graveyards, "mill 10" reads almost like "draw 10" in this deck. Tell me: if they'd printed one of the Swords with the ability "draw 10 cards" would you play it? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Mindcrank - No, I didn't put Bloodchief Ascension in - that's a cheeseball combo, not really any less lame than the way over-done Niv-Mizzet + Curiosity combo. But Mindcrank seems just too damn fun in Multiplayer. The great thing is that it doesn't matter if I do any damage at all. I just have to drop it and sit back, and as long as any of my opponents are taking damage from somewhere, Mindcrank will do its thing.

Swiftfoot Boots - prepare to see this becoming nearly as ubiquitous as Lighning Greaves. I was skeptical about how much the 1 mana to Equip would actually hinder this cards performance, but so far it's been almost insignificant.

Keiga, the Tide Star - This should have been in here from the start, but oops, my only copies were in other decks so it got overlooked and forgotten! See, THIS is a perfect example of why it's useful to just completely take every deck apart and rebuild... you find things like this that never should have been overlooked!

Dimir Cutpurse - It's pretty "meh" but mechanically, it fits the theme of what the deck is trying to do. And I got one in the Ajani vs Bolas Duel Decks so I just wanted to run it in something. I cut Jace's Archivist for this, and so far I'm not sure which is the "correct" card for the deck, but time will tell.

Ghave, Guru of Spores

Mikaeus, the Lunarch - Um... duh. This one is kind of a no-brainer. Haven't drawn him yet, but I have no doubt he'll perform when the time comes

Ant Queen - Seems on-theme and good enough. Just another of many ways to break Ghave's parity.

Butcher of Malakir - In my quest to have every "Grave Pact" effect in the game in the deck, I somehow overlooked this one. Well, that's been rectified.

Diabolic Intent - Basically, it's Demonic Tutor in this deck. You'll basically always have a spare 1/1 token around to sac, and with things like Grave Pact, Butcher of Malakir, Fecundity and Cauldron of Souls in the deck, sac-ing a creature often turns out to be more of a benefit than a drawback.

Phyrexian Rebirth - The deck needed another Wrath effect. Sometimes Grave Pact doesn't appear in time, or get's blown up. Ghave rarely needs to sweep the board, but that doesn't mean he NEVER needs to. With the shit-ton of creatures this deck always has in play, the Horror token should easily be 10/10 or bigger 90% of the time.

Congregation - Got removed from the Kaalia deck, but never made it's way into this one. I'm not sure the deck really NEEDS a dedicated life-gain spell, but this is clearly the best possible choice if it does.

Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer

Batterskull - Traded for one, seems like the best possible deck to put it in, no?

Scroll Rack + Land Tax - The deck needed more card draw, more ramp/fixing and more Artifacts for Metalcraft. The Scroll Rack/Land Tax combo fulfills all these needs and when you get both on the board, you can generate some serious card advantage. The one problem with Land Tax was always having more lands than you needed... well, Scroll Rack fixes that problem nicely. Scroll Rack's problem was that once you ran out of cards it was useless... enter Land Tax! OH GOD THE SYNERGY! MMMM SO GOOD!

Master's Call - Probably a sub-par choice overall, but I really wanted a way to get Instant-speed Metalcraft for those surprise attacks. It's also a last-ditch Sunforger Target if you just really need a couple of dudes.

Sword of Body and Mind - Again, it's not the best Sword by far, but since my group has been playing the shit out of Edric, Damia and Riku I thought it might be a wise investment. Like they say, it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.


Well, that's pretty much it. I warned you that these decks didn't change much.

Quick Status Update

Okay, so after my period of indecision and inability to pull the trigger on any of my numerous deckbuilding ideas, I had a fairly productive weekend. I now have a total of 5 EDH decks assembled, though four of those are simply rebuilds of decks recently deconstructed.

Still, it was helpful, in many ways, to re-assemble a previous deck from scratch. Sure, in the end, many of the cards wound up being the same, but for all of them I managed to squeeze in a few new cards, and cut a few that had proven highly playable, but played-out.

No, Rite of Replication wasn't one of them, though. I simply can't get bored with that card!

Anyway, here's a quick rundown on the current roster:

1. Rafiq of the Many - Hastily reassembled on a whim after I acquired the From the Vaults: Legends set, which of course contained the foil, alt-art Rafiq. Even though I think Wayne Reynolds is a stellar artist, his rendition of Rafiq doesn't quite measure up to Michael Komark's original art. But, a foil General is just TOO delicious to pass on, especially when it's Rafiq of the Many. Rafiq is easily one of the best generals in the game, and the deck is just so much fun to play.

2. Jor Kadeen - I'm not 100% sure, but this one might be my most expensive deck, simply by virtue of the exhorbitant cost of the Swords of Stuff and Junk that make the deck run. Stoneforge Mystic, Batterskull and a few similar bombs also jack the pricetag up, but I got the Batterskull this weekend for a song, and really, there are few things in Magic as fun and satisfying as slapping some Equipment onto a guy and storming the red zone.

3. Wrexial, the Risen Deep - The last two were pretty much straight Aggro, but on the Control side of the equation, we have the like of Wrexial. Blue/Black is pretty much THE definitive color pairing for a dedicated control strategy. Blue/White was once the gold standard, but with the printing of Damnation and a fairly good selection of other Damnation variants, plus Black's discard and spot removal, UB is just the best combination you could ask for if your goal is to not let anyone else do much of anything. And the best part about Wrexial is that we don't have to agonize over the right mix of Answers vs Win Conditions... just load up on answers and let your opponents provided you with your win conditions via their own fallen champions.

4. Ghave, Guru of Spores - Sort of the sleeper hit of the Commander series, the Counterpunch precon ironically packs the least "punch"... at least on paper. No Edric, no Chaos Warp, no Martyr's Bonds... And Karador, while a great card in his own right, just felt far too similar to Teneb to make much of a difference. Some people will prefer Karador, some will prefer Teneb, but at the end of the day they're pretty damn interchangeable. Ghave, however, is a whole different beast. He's far more unassuming at first glance than, say, Animar or Mimeoplasm. Those sorts of creatures just scream their intentions and their power is obvious to all - when Damia hits the board you know that you need to kill her ASAP or be buried in a slow avalanche of card advantage. But Ghave, when you first see him, seems cool and flavorful but not particularly scary. Oh, sure, even a newb can immediately peice together that he's broken with Doubling Season in play, but on his own, you wouldn't expect him to just take over a game. But I've been playing with and against Ghave long enough now that I'm not fooled by first impressions anymore. Folks, now when I'm at a table with an opposing Ghave player, I watch that player's mana. When the Ghave player hits 5 mana, if he makes ANY play other than casting Ghave, I don't care WHAT he does, I am breathing a sigh of relief.

And now we come to the new kid on the block:

Garza Zol, Plague Queen

Since Innistrad spoilers started I've been excited at the prospect of building a UBR Vampire Tribal EDH where the Blue and Red weren't just there as an excuse to play a few off-color spells like Slave to Bolas and Rite of Replication. That, and, I hate monocolor decks.

Well, I just couldn't wait for Innistrad to drop. I had to get the deck sleeved up right away. I knew I'd have to include a healthy dose of bad Vampires just to make the tribal theme come through. I wasn't forced to resorting to playing the dregs - no Barony Vampire, at least. But Vein Drinker? Vampiric Dragon? Yeah, those are pretty awful, really. Still, I was okay with this: It'd be fun to play a deck that make some concessions to power-level for the sake of theme and flavor. Playing with bad cards can be fun, after all, if done right.

And apparently I did something right, because the deck, even in it's raw, unfinished, untuned, underpowered state, it was a fucking BLAST to play. I actually won one game with it, and the game I eventually lost was one of the most epic, back-and-forth battles I've ever fought. Any fool can win with Consecrated Sphinxes and Primeval Titans... winning (or even coming really close to winning) with utter chaff like Kalitas, Bloodcheif of Ghet, Sengir Nosferatu, or Blood Tyrant (ok, he's actually pretty good in multiplayer) is just hilariously good fun.

As it stands now, Garza Zol commands what is arguably my worst EDH deck to date, at least in that it contains the highest number of cards that I just really shouldn't be playing. Time will tell if it actually is better than it looks, or if I just got amazingly lucky with it those first few games, but I have high hopes for the deck to really stand out as a powerhouse despite my intentionally trying to cut powerful cards in favor of on-theme choices. I will make a concious effort to keep the "good stuff" inclusions to a minimum, though stuff like Rite of Replication just HAS to be there to make the deck have a chance.

So now the inevitable question is: "Where are the decklists?" Well, for the first four decks, they're rehashed builds of lists I've already posted here, some more than once, and all of them have had posts detailing my most recent builds. The new decks all vary to some degree, but none are different enough to make posting another stupid list of the same deck worth my typing OR your reading. If you really want to know what I did differently to a specific deck, just drop me a comment and I'll do a quick post just to touch on the new tech.

Garza Zol will definitely be getting full list and write-up at some point, but there's still some minor tweaking and tuning to be done even before Innistrad drops, but I really don't want to post the list until after the new set comes out, because in my mind the deck will never be more than a work-in-progress until that time. Plus, I haven't played it enough yet to know if it's even as good as it seems right now, because it may all have been a fluke that it performed well at all in those two games. Like most artists, I don't like anyone to see my works until I feel they are complete and ready for viewing, so when the deck gets to where it feels "done" I'll share.

Enjoy.

Hindsight Is Always 20/20... And Has Flying, Trample and First Strike

One of the problems with doing set reviews is that you want to do them as soon as possible so that people actually care about what you’re saying. They want to know which cards they should buy or trade for. But doing set reviews before you’ve had time to play with the cards requires you to rely on speculation, assumptions, and theoretical information. Some folks call this “theorycraft”, a rather clever way of putting it, actually.

And, the thing with theorycraft is that sometimes you get it wrong. One of the best recent examples of this was the early hype around Time Reversal. The card initially debuted in the per-order market at like $40. Now you can buy a 4x playset for $2.00. Sometimes a card just looks great on paper, but turns out not to be so hot.

Well, so that folks can’t accuse me of not admitting when I’m wrong, I’m here to say: I was wrong. Not as wrong, mind you, as some folks were about Time Reversal. But I did misjudge Birthing Pod. This card was my #1 pick for EDH from New Phyrexia. While I recognized and acknowledged even then that this card was at best a “fixed” Survival of the Fittest, and was ready to grant the Pod “goes in every deck ever” status, it has turned out to be rather disappointing in many of the decks I’ve put it in. That’s not to say it’s bad at all – it’s terrific when it is in the right deck. It’s just that “the right deck” turns out not to be “every deck that runs Green”.

It seems to be best in decks with access to black. For example, in my heavily gaveyard-themed Damia deck, it’s great. I can tutor it up with Dimir House Guard, recur what I sac to it with Geth or Coffin Queen, and pairing it up with Mimic Vat or Grave Pact is usually game-winning. But in, say, my Rafiq deck where I only have one or two ways to recur creatures, it tends to be a disappointing draw, more often than not.

Again, it’s a good card, and it has it’s uses, but it just isn’t the universally-playable bomb I expected. So, for the record, I was wrong about this one.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

It’s hard to be wrong in hind-sight, though. Looking back at the last block, Mirrodin 2: Electric Boogaloo, it’s pretty easy to see which cards have panned out as well as expected (or better).

Scars of Mirrodin

Top Pick – Mimic Vat

                When looking for the most universally-playble card, looking at colorless cards is always a good place to start – after all they have no “Color Identity” to restrict their playability in EDH (save the few odd-balls like Bosh, Memnarch or Proteus Staff). However, the fact that most Artifacts can be played in virtually any deck means WotC usually reigns in the power of Artifacts so as not to completely screw up the color pie. Remember things like Cursed Scroll, that got played in every single tournament deck ever, regardless of color or strategy? Yeah, that’s the sort of thing WotC tries to avoid with Artifacts. They don’t always succeed, though. While Mimic Vat is no Cursed Scroll or Aether Vial in regular old 60-card Magic, it’s arguably better than either of those two in EDH. Creatures die in EDH – this is simply reality. Mimic Vat allows you to profit from the doom of your creatures or anyone else’s. It’s a card advantage machine and a possible game-ending threat all in one cheap, colorless package. If any card in Scars deserves “Every Deck Status”, it’d be this one.

Runner Up – Geth, Lord of the Vault

                I will happily put this guy in any deck with Swamps and innumerable games worth of experience with this card have only solidified my opinion further. Repeatable, Instant-speed Beacon of Unrests, with a built-in mill effect as a nice bonus, attached to a 5/5 Intimidate body… holy cow.

Sleeper Hit – Nim Deathmantle

                 I’m pretty much the sole hold-out on this card. The rest of the format seems to have gone head over heels for the card, but I keep trying it out, keep giving it chances, but darn it all, it just keeps underperforming, by my standards. I think I’ve gotten to activate it’s death trigger exactly once and it was just on evoked Mulldrifter so I could draw four cards instead of two. The Intimidate part actually was relevant more often than the other ability. Oh well. But, one dissenting voice in the crowd doesn’t change the fact that this piece of equipment is extremely popular with the EDH fanbase.

Mirrodin Besieged

Top Pick – Consecrated Sphinx

                Weather you love it or hate it, you can’t deny this card’s impact on the format. It is ubiquitous and powerful, and easily competes with the most powerful creatures in the format, possibly even outstripping Primeval Titan as the best six-drop in the game. Some people have decried it as too powerful and call for it to be banned by the EDH Rules Committee, who have thus far declined to answer such pleas, but I am pretty sure they’re watching the card closely. The RC has claimed many times that Kokusho earned his spot on the banned list by being such a dominating force that he could warp individual games around him the minute he hit the board. If that doesn’t sound like an equally appropriate description for Consecrated Sphinx, I don’t know what does.

                A more appropriate comparison might be to Yawgmoth’s Bargain (nicknamed Yawgmoth’s Broken in some circles), another 6-mana card-drawing powerhouse. Bargain also happens to be banned in EDH due to the 40-starting-life rule making it twice as powerful in EDH as in 20-life formats. Consecrated Sphinx is, in my opinion, a Yawgmoth’s Bargain that doesn’t cost you any life and swings in the air for four damage.

                Not that I think he should be banned – I’m a huge fan of any potent card-drawing enabler, and honestly the Sphinx is probably second in that category only to the mighty Ancestral Recall.

Runner Up – Sword of Feast and Famine

                This easily could have been the top pick, but Consecrated Sphinx is just too overwhelmingly powerful. I was initially cool on this Sword due to the very mediocre discard half of the ability, but I really underestimated the untapping portion of the card. Having since been fortunate enough to play with SoFF in a couple of decks, I can see where the strengths of the card more than make up for the weakness. By simple virtue of being powerful and colorless, I think SoFF is easily more universally playable than the Sphinx, but the Spinx is just overwhelmingly powerful, and Blue is possibly the most-played color in EDH…

                Either way, Sword of Feast and Famine will be a widely-played staple of the format for a long time to come.

Sleeper Hit – Black Sun’s Zenith

                I’m not too sure of this one’s popularity in the format as a whole, but in my experience it has exceeded all expectations. I expected Green Sun’s Zenith to be the powerhouse of the cycle, and while it’s fantastic at being a second Primeval Titan, I just keep finding new situations where having to tutor for a Green creature led to my being forced to get the WRONG creature. I didn’t think the restriction would be that much of an issue, after all, how often would I actually want something other than Primeval Titan? It turns out the answer to that question is: Very often. So GSZ makes way for BSZ to rise to the top of the heap. I didn’t realize how badly Black needed another good board sweeper until I started slotting this one into decks to supplement Damnation and Decree of Pain. That Black Sun’s Zenith is scalable and hoses Indestructible and Persist creatures is not insignificant either.

New Phyrexia

Top Pick – Phyrexian Metamorph

                It’s hard not to love a card that can literally be just about anything you need it to be. It can be a threat, a utility creature, or removal for an opposing Legend. It can be any artifact, even an Equipment. It can be a Mirari’s Wake, even, if you have Liquimetal Coating tricks going on. I can’t put it more plainly than this: I will gladly play the Metamorph in every deck I legally can, and I will never be unhappy to do so. It’s fan-friggin-tastic.

               

Runner Up – Beast Within

                The only uncommon to make this list, but I think you all would agree, Beast Within is one of the most useful and versatile utility spells in the entire block. It’s an Instant-speed Vindicate with an almost laughable drawback of giving your opponent a 3/3 token. Folks, this is EDH, and if you’re doing it right EVERYTHING in your deck should be scarier than a vanilla 3/3. It kills Planeswalkers. It kills lands (think Gaea’s Cradle, Academy Ruins, or Volrath’s Stronghold – all WAY scarier than a 3/3!). It kills creatures – not a commonly found ability in Green! It kills artifacts and enchantments too, but okay, I’ll grant that Green does have way better options for THIS application. But yeah, people have been harping on card advantage for a long time, but in my experience versatility is just as important, and Beast Within is a Green player’s best Swiss Army Kife.

Sleeper Hit – Chancellor of the Spires???

                I really don’t know that this set has any true sleeper hits. New Phyrexia arguably had the highest density of very good EDH cards in the block, with the Praetor cycle, Karn, and several more cards that are somewhat niche cards, but very, very good in the right decks. Chancellor of the Spires is just one of many such cards – it’s hardly an auto-include in every Blue deck, but I’ve found room for it in most of my blue-containing decks, and have been pleasantly surprised by the results I’m getting. It’s most at home in my Wrexial deck where it’s frankly a perfect fit, but I was surprised to find it was quite useful in the Riku and Damia as well. I don’t really foresee him getting widespread love throughout the format, but he’s getting a lot of love in my playgroup.

                Karn is an X-Factor for this set, because no one in my group has acquired one, so I have zero real-world experience playing with or against him. I haven’t really seen him popping up in a lot of decklists on the EDH forums either, but his price has stayed quite high, so someone is playing with him, that much is clear.

                All of the Praetors are quite good (ok, they're all powerful, but "good" is a bit subjective), and while I’ve been advocating Urabrask as the pick of the litter, I have found Elesh Norn to be better than expected despite the higher mana cost. Sheoldred is pretty damn great, too, but I was expecting her to be, so it’s no surprise. I’d still rank Urabrask as the best of the Praetors, but I think Sheoldred and Elesh Norn are both very close behind him – closer than I’d expected.

Underacheivers Represent!

Some cards didn’t quite pan out. For whatever reason, they didn’t live up to the hype. That’s not to say they’re all stinkers – many are still quite playable, but perhaps less powerful or more narrow than initially thought. Here’s my list of the cards that didn’t quite measure up, based on early evaluations.

1.   Birthing Pod – seeing as I spent the first part of this post talking at length about how I was wrong about this card, it’s only fitting that it tops this list. I must reiterate my point that in no way is Birthing Pod a bad card. It’s just that it’s not as universally playable or as game-breakingly powerful as I initially expected. The comparison to Survival was fair to  make, but it just didn’t ring true in the end.

2.   Phyrexian Rebirth – I think I actually picked this over Consecrated Sphinx for the best EDH card in MBS. Wow, looking back, that seems utterly stupid. For the record I still think Rebirth is one of the best Wrath variants out there, and it’s been played quite a bit in my group. It’s great in Jor Kadeen, in that it always leaves you with a man to equip shit to after the fact, and it’s great in Rafiq for similar reasons. It’s good in Ghave because it’s very easy for the token to be 12/12 or bigger. I rank it as better than Day of Judgement but worse than Wrath of God, whatever that’s worth to you. But I can’t deny that the card just hasn’t taken off in EDH the way I hoped and expected.

3.   Triumph of the Hordes – This makes the list simply because I feared it would be the straw that broke the RC’s back and made them adjust the poison rules to 15 or 20. It obviously has not had that effect yet, but it still seems to me like a very egregious “win out of nowhere” card, and can just really be unfun for a lot of people. I like to think most players have avoided this card for just that reason, and are “self policing” the most offensive of the Infect cards…

4.   Blightsteel Colossus – Of course the one card in the block that had threads calling for a pre-emptive ban would HAVE to win a spot on this list. Obviously Blightsteel Colussus has not been banned yet, and I think most players got tired of it and quit playing it before New Phyrexia was even released. The few hangers-on that still think it’s clever to win with such a card a few enough that the card isn’t worth banning.

5.   Caged Sun – I have to clarify that I think this card is still worth running in pretty much EVERY mono-colored deck ever. It’s just that I never EVER play mono-color decks, so I tried to make this work in two-color decks by pairing it with Sculpting Steel. That just didn’t pan out as I’d hoped. It was fantastic if I actually got both out, but stetting it up was more work than it was worth, because I’d usually be scrambling to catch up once I got my dual Suns online. I’m still a huge fan, and still suggest giving it a try in all your mono-color decks.

6.   Green Sun’s Zenith – Another one I mentioned above. I really had this pegged as a huge bomb, but the restriction that you have to get a Green creature with it just proved to be more of a detriment than I anticipated. In a mono-Green deck, of course it’s phenomenal, but I usually play three colors, and GSZ just was a dud far too often. Still a great card, but far less so than I thought.

7.   Praetor’s Council – Extremely good when it actually goes off, but I see this getting cut from decks more often that I see it being cast!

Well, that concludes our backwards look at the Scars of Mirrodin block. I misjudged a few cards and so did the community at large, but all in all, I feel like most of my theoretical snap-judgements about the cards in this block were pretty close to the mark. Few cards had more impact than expected, but quite a few made less of a mark that we hoped (or feared in some cases). If I were to grade this block as a whole, for EDH purposes, I’d probably give it a B+. Some of the cards that were clearly designed with the EDH crowd in mind either over-shot their mark and wound up a bit too good (Consecrated Sphinx) and some were just too mean and unfun to be widely appealing (Jin Gitaxis). But at the end of it all, the block provided us with a good mixture of big splashy bombs and solid utility spells, and more than a few Artifacts capable of being slotted into almost any deck imaginable.

Worries about Infect, or power creep, or Torpor Orb, or broken artifacts “ruining” the format all proved to be quite unfounded, as the format seems to be healthy – or at least not any worse off than before Scars of Mirrodin. All in all,  a largely successful and fun block.

Not A Decklist...

So, there is quite a lot going on in the Magic world, yet I remain silent here, except for a few EDH decklists. Well, I’m still kinda in a weird slump after our move, and while I have settled into a comfortable routine now with the new apartment, my Magic habits have temporarily fallen by the wayside in the face of insurmountable distraction around every corner. I just hit Prestige 10 on CoD: Black Ops, my wife and I just finished watching Lost on Netflix (seriously, folks, BEST SHOW EVER!) and we still have a lot of work to do before the house is in any shape to sell. So, yeah, I’m busy with other things, and what’s worse is I have taken apart all of my decks. ALL of them. I really needed to get a handle on my collection and sort out what I have and what I lack.

For example I found that I had 5 to 6 copies of several of the painland duals (as in Adarkar Wastes, Caves of Koilos, etc…) but only 2 or three of most of the Ravnica-block duals. Furthermore I own zero copies of Mystic Gate and only one Fetid Heath, so those two lands will be given top priority on my list of things to acquire. Acquisition, however, is at an all-time low as well, because my wife is currently unemployed and we have a house and an apartment to pay for.

Combine all that with the fact that this Modern format is completely ruining the secondary market prices. In case you hadn’t notice WotC announced a new format called Modern, and after that came to light, cards that are expected to be staples of the format have skyrocketed upwards in price. The Ravnica-block duals like Temple Garden have pretty much tripled in price, some as high as $40 a piece. Dark Confidant shot from $15 to $50 and Tarmagoyf… well, let’s not even go there.

Fortunately, cards like Dark Confidant and Tarmagoyf are pretty lackluster in EDH, so I have little interest in those “Spike” cards. I actually have a Dark Confidant for trade, BTW, if anyone is interested (and if you live in the Tulsa area and frequent Wizard’s Asylum or Dragon Crown)… so leave a comment if you’re interested. But, sadly, I am quite interested in Ravnica duals and other cards that have a cross-over appeal between EDH and the tournament crowd. Vesuva is now a $30 card where a year ago, you could get them for $5 at most. Ugh. Just awful of WotC to do this to us right after the Commander decks cause a HUGE spike in popularity of the EDH format. Yeah, really great timing, geniuses. See, before Modern existed as a format, there  was a whole section of cards that were just not really relevant in any tourney format, and the only thing driving their prices was casual and EDH demand. Now, suddenly, just as the Commander product from Wizards has caused an influx of new people to this “Casual” format, they also had to go and announce a new tourney format that encompasses quite a bit of that section of cards previously only sought after by the EDH/Casual crowd. So we have an increase in demand from the Casual market driving prices upward, and now we also have Tourney-player Spike’s lusting after our cards as well!

So that sucks…

On a more lighthearted note, Innistrad spoiler season is well underway, and there have been some pretty juicy things spoiled. The biggest buzz, of course, comes from the new double-faced cards that “Transform” into another card when some condition is met. The public reaction to the news that for the first time ever Magic cards are being printed without the traditional Magic back has been, to say the least, mixed. I don’t want to get too far into a debate on whether or not this “innovation” will herald the End of Days for our beloved game, but I’m leaning toward the side of “Do Not Want”. The idea of werewolves in Magic appeals to me. The idea that they shapeshift back and forth between Human and Werewolf form also appeals to me. The way they chose to execute this mechanic, though completely ruins my excitement to play with the new werewolf cards. The main reason is that I simply think the hassle of having to take the card out of the protective sleeve it’s in, flip it over and re-sleeve it, then try to remember to flip it BACK to its starting side once the game is over seems like it’s way too much of a hassle to be FUN.

I seriously believe that this time next year when Mark Rosewater does his annual State of Design article, he’ll be apologizing for the failure that double-faced cards wound up being, and hopefully he’ll promise never to bring double-faced cards back and in a few years they’ll go back to the Werewolf tribe with a new mechanic.

You must understand, though, that my dislike of the mechanic comes strictly from a practical and pragmatic viewpoint. IF the tribe ends up being compelling and fun enough that the logistical hassles of playing with double-faced cards is actually worth the hassle, then I’ll be far more lenient on the mechanic. But, for now, I feel like double-faced cards are more of a gimmick than a proper mechanic. Time will tell, I suppose.

Fortunately, though, Vampire have far less to do with this silly mechanic, and most of the new Vampire cards spoiled are very, very exciting to me. I don’t really want to discuss individual cards yet – I have to save that material for my Innistrad EDH Set Review, after all – but I’m already brewing ideas for a Garza Zol Vampire Tribal EDH deck. However, one card already spoiled – Rooftop Storm – has me longing to rebuild my Thraximundar deck too. I don’t think I have the card pool and non-basic land pool to properly support two Grixis-colored decks at once, so I have to choose between Thrax/Zombies with Rooftop Storm, or Vampires a la Grixis with Garza as their Queen. What’s a girl to do?

This and other, similar dilemmas of choice are why I have not yet rebuilt a single Magic deck. I wanted to build a Grand Arbiter Agustin IV deck, and a Nin, the Pain Artist deck, and well… long story short, I have a surplus of IDEAS and a deficit of CARDS. I simply don’t have the necessary stuff to build EVERY idea I have rattling around in my head right now, so I’m trying to come up with some sort of prioritized list – what do I want to build the most? I have no idea, though, and so progress on the deckbuilding front has been slow (ok, non-existent would be more accurate). But I really need to get some decks together because I need to play, damn it!

The biggest problem right now, for me, though is money. Magic has never been so expensive a hobby as it is right now, and I’ve never before been as broke as I am right now. And that just sucks, cause Innistrad is shaping up to be one of the coolest sets since Ravnica (and that’s even despite the immense disappointment I feel over the Transform mechanic). And if that’s not enough, it’s rumored that the next block after Innsitrad will be a return to Ravnica. Sweet.

Well, folks, that’s pretty much where things stand for right now. As soon as I can get over my indecisiveness and actually put together a deck or two, I’ll let you know what I build, and of course once the whole set is spoiled I’ll start cranking out my Innistrad EDH set review.

Enjoy.