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Looking forward to Saviors of Kamigawa

Saviors of Kamigawa fever is gripping the Magic community as we try to get as much advance information as possible in preparation for Regionals. Here's the three preview cards we've seen so far and my comment on each.

5/10 preview card
Enduring Ideal
5WW
Sorcery
Search your library for an enchantment card and put it into play. Then shuffle your library.
Epic (For the rest of the game, you can't play spells. At the beginning of each of your upkeeps, copy this spell except for its epic ability.)

Given the enchantment pool as we know it this is far overcosted for its ability, but the "as we know it" is the key phrase here. There are lots of hints that Saviors will contain a lot of enchantments (see below).

I still think this is too expensive to see play in anything but perhaps block constructed. I think decks will need to be built around this (and the other epic spells if they are similarly costed) and I would be surprised if a well-tuned Epic deck turns up at Regionals. I think it would be too easily disrupted by MUC.

5/11 preview card
Measure of Wickedness
3B
Enchantment
At the end of your turn, sacrifice Measure of Wickedness and you lose 8 life.
Whenever another card is put into your graveyard from anywhere, target opponent gains control of Measure of Wickedness.

This is another specialty card but much easier to use, especially in a black green Rock-type deck. Sakura-Tribe Elder will be key to using this effectively especially against decks such as white weenie which don't have many Instant-speed abilities. It could also be effective against Tooth and Nail if they don't have an Elder on the board (or, of course, an Oblivion Stone with five mana free).

5/11 bonus preview card
Cloudhoof Kirin
3UU
4/4 Flying Legendary Creature - Kirin Spirit
Whenever you play a Spirit or Arcane spell, you may put the top X cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard, where X is that spell's converted mana cost.

This will be great in block or Limited as a 4/4 for 5 will be difficult to deal with, especially with any kind of acceleration (hello again, Elder). It begs to be used in a Millstone deck but those haven't been playable for some time. It's hard to imagine anything but a dedicated mill deck wanting to tap out to play this creature in Constructed, and MUC already has a better five casting cost creature in Meloku.

5/12 preview card
Promise of Bunrei
2W
Enchantment
Whenever a creature you control is put into a graveyard from play, sacrifice Promise of Bunrei. If you do, put four 1/1 colorless Spirit creature tokens into play.

Promise of Bunrei could be key to new build white weenie decks. WW can play Wrath of God now and have two uses for it: as possible Shoal material or a safe way to Wrath away green threats or a Mephidross Vampire/Triskelion lock without losing their entire army. As noted in the preview article, a simple Kami of Ancient Law could be used to quadruple WW's army at instant speed (which also plays against opponent's Measure of Wickedness). Promise also helps WW rebuild after a well-timed Hideous Laughter.

This will be particularly useful in builds which use Spawning Pit. Sacrificing one creature to activate the Promise can create six creatures, four from the Promise itself and two more if you have to sacrifice those Spirits to the pit and create a couple of 2/2 tokens. It will be difficult for any other non-green deck to keep up with that many creatures.

Scour and Cleanfall are going to be much more useful cards if enchantments are, indeed, rampant after Saviors. And why do I think Saviors will be enchantment-heavy? Check Wizard's new Orb of Insight for Saviors. The Orb lets you search card text (excluding flavor text) for any one word. Enchantment results in 17 hits! Presuming there are not many cards which target enchantments that implies a lot more targets for Scour, Cleanfall and Kami of Ancient Law.

Naturalize and Wear Away just got even more useful as well, and there is a stronger argument for running Viridian Zealot over Viridian Shaman in green decks.

Another interesting result from the Orb is the seven returned for Zubera. All you casual players disappointed in the Zubera-less Betrayers should have something to look forward to here. Will there be uncommon and rare Zubera to make a Zubera Spirit deck competitive? Will Zubera be the next Sliver deck? There is reason to hope, at least. I have seen red/black Zubera decks which use Kiki-Jiki and Plunge into Darkness to interesting effect and those decks should get stronger.

Black and green decks should get some love too as there are 30 mentions of graveyard! There are only seven hits for Soulshift so there must be a lot of interesting graveyard recursion going on here. Consider that there are also 16 hits for discard---perhaps Megrim has a place at least in the sideboard of discard-based black decks now?

At least some of these discard hits are due to one new mechanic called "Channel," which allows you discard a card for a given effect. Arashi, the Shattered Sky is a 5/5 green creature for 3GG, not bad in itself, but he can also be discarded for XGG to deal X damage to each creature with flying. That will give the Skies version of WW pause. It will be interesting if there is a red Channel spell which destroys artifacts as that would provide an uncounterable way to destroy Shackles.

Black should also be hopeful in the 13 hits for game coupled with nine for remove and four for removed. Since black is the color which usually gets to remove things from the game (the uncommon block of removal spells from Betrayers/Urza's Destiny not withstanding) then black should have even more answers for Tooth and Nail's indestructible fatty and for getting rid of Kokusho's and other nasty creatures which trigger graveyard effects.

Other interesting results include 10 hits for bushido and four for equipment. If the bushido creatures are even mostly white these results seem to give WW yet another boost.

The last new mechanic we know about is Sweep (thanks MTGNews), which allows you to return X lands to your hand when you play a Sweep spell to create an effect. There are several white Sweep cards which give a target creature or all your creatures +1/+1. In a deck which doesn't need more than four plains this could be a very powerful effect without much drawback. It might also provide an interesting answer to Death Cloud.

So what effect will all this have on the Regionals metagame? We haven't seen anything yet which gives a big boost to either green or red decks, and red decks already have trouble with enchantments so they could get even worse. Green may have to move those Naturalizes back to the main deck if they haven't done so already. WW gets lots of new toys and should be a solid Tier 1 deck. Mono blue doesn't seem to gain much from what we've seen but it didn't really need a lot of help. Black has reason to hope but it also has trouble with enchantments and WW is already a tough matchup. Tooth and Nail? It's already crammed full of as much acceleration as possible and we haven't seen anything likely to work into the main deck yet. TnN definitely needs those Naturalizes in the board though.

I hope I've given you some things to think about. Remember, the prerelease tournaments are May 21-22. Go and have fun!

Standard: The Curse of Mono

Has there ever been a time when a format has been so dominated by mono-colored decks? Mono green aggro and mono blue control firmly established themselves as tier one decks during the French Regionals. Tooth and Nail is basically a mono green deck, sometimes splashing red or black and sometimes running as true mono green. White weenie is, of course, white, and mono black Death Cloud has been a force at least since Cranial Extraction made a splash at States last year. Finally, there are various mono red decks which are probably “tier 1.5” and vary from straight out creatureless sligh decks to more control-oriented decks with Pulse of the Forge.

So you can now choose your color and stick to it and have a viable, tournament quality Standard deck. This situation leads to a number of questions.

First, is this good or bad? Overall I would argue that it’s good since it points to a diversity which was sorely lacking during Affinity’s reign. Amazingly, even mono-colored decks were too slow to keep up with the insanity which was Affinity. However, I’ve always felt that mono-colored decks to some extent go against the spirit of the game. The very fact that dual lands were included in Alpha to me points to an intention for players to play with decks of more than one color. This is just a philosophical or personal preference issue but I think it makes the game less interesting if everyone is playing mono-colored decks. They also tend to make land destruction a non-viable choice but many would argue that’s a good thing.

Second, how did this come about? I think it has to do with the quality of the artifacts in the last five sets. Artifact block, remember? As it turns out there were a lot of good artifacts in the Mirrodin block which let decks like Tooth and Nail function. Even if Tooth were still available post rotation it will lose Darksteel Colossus, Sundering Titan, Triskelion, Duplicant, and Platinum Angel, which constitute most of the attractive Tooth targets. It’s also interesting to contemplate that the card which single-handedly revived white weenie is Umezawa’s Jitte, a legendary, rare artifact. Who would have predicted that? Jitte also brings mono green up a notch although it’s not included in all builds. And how will mono blue decks fare against white weenie or green aggro without Vedalken Shackles? Even the loss of Stalking Stones and Guardian Idol will hurt mono blue and mono black as it removes one of the relatively few creatures from those decks. Mono-red decks even get into the act by using Blinkmoth Nexus as recurring damage or Shrapnel Blast targets.

Third question, how long can this continue? As I just alluded to, the loss of the Mirrodin block will be devastating to many or even most of the current top decks. We don’t know what will be reprinted in Ninth Edition but it’s unlikely cards like Jitte and the Colossus will see time in a standard set (try explaining the ramifications of Indestructible to someone trying to learn the game). It’s hard to imagine mono blue and mono green decks being as effective as they are now since both of those lose other staples: mono blue loses Condescend in addition to those key artifacts while mono green loses Troll Ascetic, Rude Awakening and Beacon of Creation which should seriously slow those decks down. Even white weenie will lose the two amazing Swords, Mask of Memory and Bonesplitter.

It’s also being hinted on Wizard’s site that Ravinca, the next block, will encourage multi-color decks. We don’t know exactly what that means yet but when you couple those hints with the green mana fixers from Champions of Kamigawa (Sakura-Tribe Elder and Kodama’s Reach) it should not be difficult to build competitive decks which actually use two colors. It’s also been hinted that the allied-color pain lands will be back in Ninth Edition but it’s difficult to tell if that’s really going to happen or if it’s just wishful thinking.

So enjoy those mono-colored decks in Regionals this year. It looks like their days may be numbered.

Is Tooth and Nail Viable for Regionals?

Regionals is just a couple of months away and I've been sharpening the deck which I assumed I'd play, Tooth and Nail. It's generally regarded as a Tier 1 deck but is it prepared to deal with all the hate associated with being the kind of the hill?

I favor the Bloom and Nail build which uses Vernal Bloom rather than the Urzatron or Cloudposts for acceleration. I've found this version much less vulnerable to land destruction or simple bad luck. I originally ran the Urzatron version but often found myself with either tons of mana available due to having the tron but unable to go off because I only had one forest (either due to bad luck or ld) or with two of the three pieces of the 'tron and the inability to find the third piece or keep it in play.

And now between mono blue which will spend the first four turns accumulating counter magic and bounce and white weenie which can just kill you in four turns, I'm wondering if the plan to build up to a nine cc Sorcery is going to work after all.

I recently played this version at a local "box" tournament (two boxes were split among the top four players). This wasn't a highly publicized event but still drew top players due to the prize support. Several players with GP, PTQ, GPT and/or JSS Top 8's played. I wound up 2-3 in the swiss and really should have been 1-4, and got beaten by a variety of decks. Maybe I just had an off day since I'd finished 4-0 at a FNM a couple of weeks before with the same build but I'm thinking not.

Here's what I ran:

Land (22)
---------
17 Forest
3 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp

Spells (16)
----------
3 Cranial Extraction
2 Fireball
4 Kodama's Reach
4 Tooth and Nail
3 Vernal Bloom
Artifacts (3)
------------
3 Sensei's Divining Top

Creatures (19)
--------------
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Duplicant
4 Eternal Witness
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Mephidross Vampire
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Viridian Zealot

Sideboard (15)
--------------
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Duplicant
3 Echoing Decay
1 Leonin Abunas
4 Naturalize
1 Platinum Angel
3 Silent Arbiter

The results:

Round 1 vs. mono black Death Cloud
0-2 match and overall

My opponent was the player who I'd originally seen put Vernal Bloom in Tooth and Nail so he knew my deck very well. I had main deck Cranials to deal with his threats and managed to cast one in game one but his timing was amazing. In game one he DC'd for one when all I had in my hand was the Tooth which was going to kill him the next turn. In game two he used Cranial Extraction just in time for the same effect.

Nezumi Shortfang was very good in this matchup and is, I think, underrated. I played it in my aborted version of mono black and decided to take it out as being two slow. After watching it in action against me I'm going back to the position that's it quite good. It forces your opponent to deal with it or they will lose their hand and take up to six damage each turn. Nasty.

Round 2 vs. UW control
2-1 match
Overall 1-1 matches, 2-3 games

Here I played a friend who has helped me playtest my deck. He was playing a deck I'd created which countered or destroyed everything until it can get a Pristine Angel out and keep it untapped with Pulse of the Fields. He took a chance and put the angel out early in game one and just rolled over me when I had no response. Game two I got tooth early. Game three he had me down to four when I Toothed. He didn't attack the last turn, allowing me to win. Not a good sign for the rest of the day when I basically started 0-2.

Round 3 vs. mono green Beacon
0-2 match
Overall 1-2 matches, 2-5 games

My opponent was playing a somewhat rogue version of this deck which actually used Wood Elves, but he was able to accelerate into early Creeping Mold and Plow Under followed by Beacons in both games. I just couldn't keep up with the creature parade and the mana denial slowed me down just enough that I couldn't Tooth in time.

Round 4 vs. green/blue Meloku/Rude Awakening
2-0 match
Overall 2-2 matches, 4-5 games

I played against one of the younger players in attendance here, no surprise looking at my record. Game one I just played more threats than he could deal with. Game two he made play mistake which cost him the game. When he Quashed my Tooth and Nail he saw that I had Echoing Decay in my hand. I still had it a couple of turns later when he cast Rude Awakening entwined and swung with everything. I happily cast Echoing Decay targeting an Island, then blocked his Minamo, School at Water's Edge, thus denying him any sources of blue. I swung in with various creatures for the win after that.

Round 5 vs. mono blue
0-2 match
Overall 2-3 matches, 4-7 games

I played an experienced mono blue player who just pecked me to death with little critters. I was in control game one when he was finally able to bounce, steal or counter all my threats and just whittled away at my life with a Thieving Magpie. Game two I managed to force through two Tooth and Nails but by the time I'd done so many of my threats were in the graveyard already. I'd boarded out Darksteel Colossus to avoid having him Briberied away. This turned out to be a mistake in this match but since Kiki was already in the yard the Colossus might not have mattered anyway.

So what to do if I can't beat blue, black or green? I have added two more Boseiju's to the sideboard. In previous testing I'd found that two was enough but I was taught the error of my ways. Against mono blue you simply MUST have a Boseiju early to force a quick Tooth through. Having more than one isn't bad because they will usually board them in too so you'll probably lose the first one.I'm also thinking Beacon of Creation in the sideboard would be good instead of the Arbiters. Against mono green or mono white I need some blockers to give me time to set up for the Tooth and an alternate win condition. I think the Abunas/Platinum Angel combo will finally have to come out for that. I'm not quite sold on this idea; I think Rude Awakening might be good instead but seems like more of a "win more" card to me. Also, the threat of having my own land killed or stolen is not appealing since most of the deck revolves around having lots of land in play.

I'm also considering taking out red to put in some Oblivion Stones. Fireball was an alternate win condition in the past but with both mono green and black running mana denial and mono blue just countering such a threat it seems too slow for this metagame. Blowing up the world would be far more useful, even if I have to sacrifice a Bird to do it, and with a Bird I can force one out turn two against those speedy white weenie and mono green decks. Most white weenie decks I've played against don't have any artifact destruction main so they'll be caught off guard in game one. The Stone doesn't play well with Vernal Bloom either but there are times against almost every deck when a reset button would be useful. If not, just the threat of the Stone on the board will make some players hold back and that will give you enough time to Tooth.

So here's my revised deck list.

I'll post results as soon as I pilot this in another tournament but early results look good. I can still get the turn four Tooth and I have more ways to deal with an early Nezumi, Rude Awakening/Beacon, or Hokori, Dust Drinker due to the main deck Echoing Decay and board sweeping ability with the Oblivion Stones.

So is Tooth and Nail a good Regionals choice? I think it's too early to tell but you'd better have a way to deal with quick bursts of creatures and blue countering or the answer is "no."

Land (22)
---------
19 Forest
3 Swamp

Spells (12)
----------
4 Echoing Decay
4 Kodama's Reach
4 Tooth and Nail
4 Vernal Bloom

Artifacts (7)
------------
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Creatures (19)
--------------
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Duplicant
3 Eternal Witness
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Mephidross Vampire
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sundering Titan
2 Triskelion
1 Viridian Zealot

Sideboard (15)
--------------
2 Beacon of Creation
4 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Cranial Extraction1 Duplicant
4 Naturalize
1 Oblivion Stone

Capping Control Slaver

You've read many articles recently about Control Slaver variants. I'm here to add my two cents with a card you may not have considered: Jester's Cap. You know, the funny clown-looking card from Ice Age. It's no joke when this hits the table, especially considering that many prominent Vintage decks are one trick wonders. Consider that just one early Cap activation will strip all the threats from these decks:

* TPS (1x Tendrils of Agony, 1x Darksteel Colossus)
* Control Slaver (2x Mindslaver, 1x Platinum Angel)
* Meandeck Oath (1x Akroma, Angel of Wrath, 1x Spirit of the Night)
* Long Death (1x Tendrils of Agony, 1x Burning Wish)
* Dragon (3x Worldgorger Dragon)
* Kobold Clamp (3x Tendrils of Agony)

Of course this works best if you can play an activate it early, but it costs less to Cap someone early than it is to Mindslaver them and the deck is named after Mindslaver, right? With some combination of Moxen, Black Lotus, Sol Ring and Tolarian Academy you should be able to get a Cap on the table early. Often an early Capping against one of these decks moves your opponent directly to the scoop phase.

So what happens if your opponent already has their key threat in hand? This is where Force of Will, Mana Drain or Mindslaver come in. If you know your opponent's deck (and after reviewing their entire library, you should) then you will know which threats you absolutely have to counter. If you have removed most of their threats from their library already then your counter magic should be that much more effective.

Even if you do play an opponent who actually has more than three threats left in their library or threats in hand the psychological effect of being able to catalog their library and remove three of their strongest cards cannot be underestimated. For example, I recently played this deck at an unsanctioned Vintage tournament. In game one against a rogue Scepter Chant build I thought my opponent was actually going to slap my hand after I activated the Cap and reached for his library. "What the heck are you doing," he exclaimed, "I've never seen Jester's Cap before in my life!" His face grew long as I reviewed his library and he considered the repercussions of a good Capping.

Jester's Cap also avoids the problem with Mindslaver: any Slaver player has had the experience of activating a Mindslaver and expecting to wreck your opponent when in fact you see that they just have a hand full of land or threats which you don't want to see hit the table (like their own Mindslaver) and which you can't counter. Yes you do get to see their hand but somehow tapping their land and saying "go" isn't the most satisfying way to spend their turn.

OK, so how about the deck list?

--Mana Sources (22)
1 Black Lotus
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland

--Artifacts (8)
3 Jester's Cap
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
2 Mindslaver
1 Sol Ring

--Spells (21)
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Force of Will
2 Intuition
2 Mana Drain
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

--Creatures (9)
1 Duplicant
4 Goblin Welder
1 Memnarch
1 Pentavus
1 Platinum Angel
1 Triskelion

--Sideboard (15)
1 Echoing Truth
1 Lava Dart
3 Pyroblast
2 Rack and Ruin
4 Stifle
4 Tormod's Crypt

There are a number of differences between this build and the standard Control Slaver builds. First, I'm only running two Mana Drain. This was a tough decision but again based on the observation that many Vintage decks only have a few win conditions. If you're facing an uber-fast deck such as Kobold Clamp or Oath which can go off turn one or two then you really have to mulligan until you get Force of Will/random blue card, or a Stifle after sideboarding. Against other decks you should have enough time to find a Force of Will or Mana Drain to counter any key threat, which sneaks past the Caps.

Second, I made room for two Wastelands and a Strip Mine. Just one of these can slow down decks that rely on Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop or Tolarian Academy enough for you to get and activate the Cap to strip their threats (or make room for your Academy). Without Bazaar of Baghdad, Dragon has to work a lot harder to set up their combo, and Stax is significantly slower without a Mishra's Workshop. I had to sacrifice the Darksteel Citadels to work these in but without some way to slow down a Workshop-based deck such as Stax you will have trouble keeping up with it.

Third, I'm not including Boseiju, Who Shelters All main deck or sideboard. If they're countering your artifacts you can just Welder them back anyway. If they're countering your search then they have one less counter for your threats. If I'm facing an opponent packing a lot of counter magic then I can board out some of my more specialized threats (Duplicant, Memnarch) and board in the Pyroblasts. It's fun to counter a Force of Will for R.

Fourth, no Fact or Fiction or Skeletal Scrying. These are slow card drawing spells and you already have better options in the deck (Thirst for Knowledge, Ancestral, Brainstorm, Intuition). Also I do not like the way Skeletal Scrying strips your graveyard of Yawgmoth's Will targets. These make room for the two Intuition.
My build also uses a significantly different sideboard than other Slaver decks. I chose not to go with the Cunning Wish/fill the sideboard with instants strategy. Between Jester's Cap and counter magic you should be able to either strip or counter their threats. For rogue decks or decks with multiple threats (including more diverse Welder-based decks) the sideboard concentrates on graveyard removal (Tormod's Crypt) and combo-disruption (Stifle). I usually swap these for these are Tinker, Duplicant, Memnarch, and possibly even a Mindslaver or a Cap. If you're facing a deck that can go off before you can then Mindslaver/Cap such as Kobold Clamp or Oath them then you need to stop the turn one or two threat, then set up for the endgame. Having access to Stifle is absolutely essential against the various Storm-based decks popping up and Tormod's Crypt is key to the mirror match and Dragon. Lava Dart is also useful in the mirror and Echoing Truth is for random threats that you can't deal with otherwise---it's good to have a backup plan in case you face something you're not prepared for. It can also buy you a crucial turn against Oath.

I hope this article has given you something to think about as you consider the optimal build of Control Slaver for your metagame. I like this Jester's Cap version for players who like to be a little more aggressive and prefer to take control of the game rather than just countering threats as they are played.