You Best Not Miss

So the new Conspiracy full spoiler is out, Take The Crown and you know what they say about comin' after the king...

First things first: I think this is the biggest risk that WotC has taken in years. The reprints of Show & Tell, Inquisition of Kozilek and Berserk alone show a genuine if tentative willingness to address the rising costs of popular cards in the Legacy and Modern formats. Add in Serum Visions, Burning Wish and even Birds of Paradise-which I've never heard anyone complain about-and the evidence points to Wizards being willing to introduce some necessary cards into the available pool.

While I can't agree with everything said by SaffronOlive, (notably, I think reprints in Standard are fine and people just like to complain) I am certainly on board with the notion that Take The Crown represents a genuine step forward. It is not be the step WotC ought to take, because there are still some big issues revolving around the reprint policy and the shunning of younger or more impoverished players, not to mention the flat out gouging of consumers that was Eternal Masters/Modern Masters 2. But Take the Crown is at least pointed in the right direction.

Now, looking at the rest of the set:

I think the Monarch idea is an interesting one and allows for some rapidly shifting power dynamics in multiplayer. That's a good thing and the implementation doesn't appear to be overpowered.

White is so clearly the bees knees in this set it's hard to overstate it. And this comes down to two cards: Recruiter of the Guard and Sanctum Prelate. Even reprints like Berserk and Show & Tell haven't gotten as much attention as those two cards and with good reason. Nothing I'm seeing in this set has the same level of impact on Legacy.

In draft? Well, that's a horse of a different color. It looks like a whole lot of OK.

Blue's cards seem overcosted to me-at least for draft. Making sure you hit 4+ mana is going to be important but even if you do, what's the payoff? Probably a solid support color and Desertion is always an interesting card for multiplayer. The shiny shiny that is Show & Tell doesn't really distract me from the fact that there doesn't seem to be a lot to do.

Black provides some interesting stuff: first, the Archdemon of Paliano, as difficult as it may be to use in draft, in Constructed offers a 5/4 flier for four with zero drawback in black. This is better than Mindwrack Demon. That could make it a contender for a finisher in a lot of decks. Even in draft, if it's a pack 1 pick, the drawback is really zero. After that, there is a lot of removal here; Murder and Death Wind are at common, Infest at uncommon; if you can get it to work, Black should go a long way for you.

Red gets a bit weird; I really like Grenzo but Subterranean Tremors feels out of place. It doesn't fit thematically (there are only 10 artifacts in the set) but as a solitary flavor win, I dig it. What remains to be seen is how mechanics like Goad work in practice. It's a weird political mechanic for multiplayer and I suppose that fits in with Red's general themes. I'm just not sure how strong it is. The removal isn't as awesome as Black's but it looks like there's enough to keep you in the game.

I don't have much in Green to get excited about. Sevala is the nuts and of course Berserk's reprinting is cool but it's just 'make more mana than you to win' and feels pretty linear.

The artifacts are a pretty sorry bunch, with only Spy Kit doing something unusual but even that oddity doesn't have much payoff. Sure, there's the bridge to the Conspiracies and "note" cards but the advantage seems so incremental for four mana. I can't get excited about Platinum Angel and would rather have seen Platinum Emperion. The lands do a little better, having more obvious functionality but it's a cold day before anyone is hyped about Dread Statuary.

The Conspiracy tactics have an interesting new slant to them, requiring colored mana to offer more variety. Nothing groundbreaking but at least there's some room in that mechanic to breathe which makes me hopeful for Conspiracy 3: Revolution (or whatever they call it).

Lastly, of the six new multicolored cards, only three really catch my eye: Leovold, Kaya, and Daretti II. The reprints aren't terribly exciting, if reasonably curated for multiplayer but I'm glad to see Dragonlair Spider, since that card was only really available in the Planechase set.

The Sky Cracks Open

With my new Energy Field'd deck, I brought it to the table against Noah, playing a WB aggroish token thing. Not dissimilar to the RWB deck Lauriel was playing that smashed me, only this time Planeswalkers and angels were taking up the red slots.

I had to hustle out my Recycle/Spellbook combo and then I had to play the combo again to keep the cards coming.

"That's two cards," Noah says when I play the second Spellbook.

Huh. Why, so it is!

And that's how we began one of the silliest games we've played in a long while. Noah put out three different planeswalkers, generating tokens and buffing them while I drew an insane amount of cards per turn while hiding behind Energy Field.

Then the whole game swung of if I could finish the game before he could destroy Energy Field, somehow. I kept drawing cards-too many, it seemed-and although I was able to play and protect a Stormtide Leviathan, Noah had enough removal coming to him that he could force me to use Capsize on my creature instead of attacking with it.

One turn had me using eighteen mana in order to protect my creatures from his removal, drawing six cards, then replaying those creatures, drawing six more.

Eventually, I just ran out of cards and milled myself to death.

Hell of a way to lose. Wish you'd seen it.

Matt started watching the game about halfway through, suggesting Reliquary Tower while it was going on. While I'm balking at something that doesn't provide me colored mana, the extra ability is probably worth it.

By the end of the game, though, he suggested Wheel of Sun and Moon.

"How does that help?"

Noah explained: "It's a replacement effect so your cards never go to your graveyard."

The light went on. They saw a way for me to not sacrifice my Energy Field or deck myself. But with that combo, the drawback to playing Counterspell or Anticipate goes away which means I can look for ways to close the game and protect that without having to subject myself to pure grinding. And I own a couple Wheel of Sun and Moon, which means it's a great time to try that out.

We Still Pretend

When in doubt, go for overpowered.

It's not a bad way to go, when looking for ways to improve a deck. Which is why when I saw a Garruk on my desk, I thought 'Well, maybe we just overpower them.'

But not with Garruk: that card doesn't exactly help me if I've got a Recycle out but no Spellbook. And Jace generally doesn't provide a win condition unto itself.

Enter Kiora, the Crashing Wave.

So with a deck tweaked to add KtCW, I went to play Jason online. I told him: I'm testing this but it's just not working out and I need some help.

He started throwing some decks at it, specifically looking at aggro decks because we know that's where things are bad.

They were still bad. But better bad!

Capsize-buyback is pretty good with Prophet of Kruphix. Elvish Fury however, isn't. In game after game, that card just didn't matter, even when I was in a position to use it.

So after a multiple games I finally put it to Jason: what do I do?

His first thought was a Fog effect. Lull was the first thing that came to mind, with Respite being a close second.

I can't say I'm entirely surprised about this: Saga block is one Jason frequently references because it's power level is just so off the charts. I thought that Respite might might be a better effect-Fog + lifegain = more time.

Our test of Respite didn't really impress us.

Kiora, however, showed some potential. Getting her ultimate off was something Jason was constantly trying to stop and that took pressure off of me and gave me more time to get things set up. An ultimate on her would, we agreed, be incredibly good for The Wretched.

"What about Energy Field?" Jason asked.

That's a pretty damn good idea. I mean, I had some small reservations but I know better than to dismiss Jason's out of the box ideas. So we tested it.

That test went incredibly well. I had to be careful about putting creatures into play, along with making some very deliberate decisions about when to use Counterspell but the pressure was immediately transferred to Jason to find an answer, once Energy Field came down.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Another Day, Some Other Way

As is becoming my habit, I ran The Wretched without changes so I could really get a feel for the glaring holes.

And boy, did I get that.

Aggro decks. Lauriel was playing a very nice BRW tokens deck and just killing it. While I had...well, you can see the picture. Nothing.

Granted, I had scooped my board at that point but the fact remains! I had nothing and did very, very little.

So I took out Brainstorm and Ancestral Vision for Anticipate and Gitaxian Probe (as suggested by Matt), removed a Stormtide Leviathan for Kruphix, God of Horizons, along with adding three Prophet of Kruphix while removing Fable of Wolf and Owl.

Games against Matt the next evening merely enforced the weakness, though: I can't stabilize the board fast enough. I don't have enough action to start forcing opponents to play the game on my terms. I need to try and brainstorm something for this deck that can't quite be a combo deck and isn't exactly a control deck.

So, what next?

Jason. 

The Wretched

This deck has been sitting on my desk for months now, waiting for me to pay attention to it. Time to get that done. (Quick aside: I know this is a flavor fail deck, since it's blue/green and has no space for The Wretched. I have no defense against that, sorry!)

10 Island
10 Forest
3 Simic Growth Chamber

4 Spellbook

1 Simic Sky Swallower
4 Quirion Elves
3 Stormtide Leviathan

2 Fable of Wolf and Owl
4 Recycle

3 Capsize
2 Elvish Fury
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Rethink
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell

It's a Recycle-Spellbook deck. Step 1, play Recycle, step 2, drop Spellbook to negate the drawback and have the opportunity to draw the deck out. Step 3 is where I'm a little more concerned because the winning part is a bit less clear.

I added Fable of Wolf and Owl years ago because it seemed like a natural fit: play the enchantment, use the buyback ability of Capsize and Elvish Fury to create an army for free and then win. That's the theory, anyway. However, it's a six mana enchantment that doesn't win me the game on the spot and I already have one of those. The Fable is probably a story for another deck.

As you might imagine, this deck was built back when Tempest block was legal, which means I laid the groundwork for it in 1997. Some of the card choices certainly reflect that. However, 20 years is a long time and this is why I cannot remember why I named the deck after the Nine Inch Nails song. Then again, given how this deck may perform, calling it wretched might be more appropriate than I would like.

The most obvious thing to add would be Prophet of Kruphix to help boost my buyback spells. Spells with Rebound may be worth testing, if I can find something that's useful: The list is not encouraging. Ancestral Vision and Brainstorm may not be the best fit either, with Anticipate being a better choice because I'm not running fetchlands. Don't get me wrong: Ancestral Vision is powerful but I'm thinking I need to be more proactive.

Gigantor final list

So it's come to this:

6 Mountain
3 Jund Panorama
6 Forest
1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
3 Swamp
2 Jungle Hollow
2 Bloodfell Caves

4 Fertile Ground
3 Rampant Growth
3 Naturalize
3 Painful Truths
3 Crux of Fate
2 Radiant Flames

1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
4 Fierce Empath
1 Bladewing the Risen
1 Steel Hellkite
3 Kilnmouth Dragon
1 Harbinger of the Hunt
1 Destructor Dragon
1 Atarka, World Render
1 Swift Warkite
3 Thunderbreak Regent
1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
1 Thundermaw Hellkite

I think this is a solid decklist for me. Perfect? No. Is it going to win even a Modern event? Not without heavy sideboarding. 

But after playing a few games against Jason last Sunday, I have to admit: I never felt out of it, never felt like the tools were out of reach, even as, in the picture, I saw my cards getting milled away. 

That feels pretty good. Is Gigantor brilliant? No. Should I be looking to slot Belbe's Portal? Absolutely. But for now, I think this deck is in a pretty good place. 

Wheedly Guitar Solo

So it has come to this acknowledgement: creature based mana reduction is bad.

Dragonlord's Servant, as much as I wish was useful, isn't helping. Fierce Empath is still pretty cool and there's a neat little combo that can come up with Swift Warkite, helping to fill my hand with useful tools.

But while I was gone I played several games against Fuz and Noah against almost all aggressive decks and what it came down to was: those creatures aren't as good at mana ramping as the green suite of ramp is.

Now, while that's as it should be, it is a little silly that it took me so long to work it out. So I'm callin' Radiant Flames back in to add to the removal suite. I'm also keeping in Bloodfell Caves and Jungle Hollow because the lifegain, while very small, is enough to blunt the worst of Painful Truths.

I also feel like I could use a different dragon: three Kilnmouth Dragons, as perfectly fitting as they are for this deck, seem like overkill. But I'm not sure where to go; dragons tend to warp towards cool, not win and as a result it's been challenging to find a proper fit in a deck that already has enough cool.

Finally, I'm not sure I can convey how discouraging it is to play Grand Coliseum. It's not even that the card is bad-although it isn't good. So I'm cutting that and at the moment, likely candidates are Flameblast Dragon, Balefire Dragon and Utvara Hellkite. Although Stormbreath Dragon can't be overlooked either. It may just depend on what I have.

If I have the money, a single Thundermaw Hellkite is also a clear winner.