Monday, 25 April 2011

New Phrexia Set Constructed Set Review


Hi everyone!

I’m not sure exactly what happened with the massive leak from wizards about the new set and I’m sure someone’s gonna get it in the neck for it, but for better or worse we now have the complete spoiler for new phyrexia, for full spoiler see www.mtgsalvation.com

For this article I’m just going to go through some of the more interesting cards (probably mostly rares and mythics) that might see constructed play.

Karn, the Released

I wrote an entire article on this guy which can be found here:


Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

This guy is pretty powerful, kinda the new crovax. 7 mana is a lot of mana to get too to play a guy that can easily be countered or killed by pretty much anything, but his effect is powerful as a sort of continuous massacre wurm effect, whilst also pumping your guys. I think the problem with this guy is he’s suffering from a major case of 'not as good as titan-itas' while the titans are around there is little reason to play this guy in std. and if rumour is to be believed we will be seeing the return of the titan cycle in M12

Norn's Annex

Moat type effects have traditionally been quite powerful in control decks, even condition ones such as teferie's moat and ghostly prison saw quite a bit of constructed play. that said the fact that you can pay the cost on this one with a measly 2 life per creature means that the decks that want to attack through this can do so easily as the life loss tends not to matter so much against the control match up.

Phyrexian Unlife

This card is a strange one, in a normal game its pretty much a straight up 2W  gain 10 life kinda effect, the fact that is does nothing in multiples pretty much limits its use to the side board, the only other thing worth mentioning is that its possible that this card could be broken in older formats as part of a combo deck, with this in play, effects that  cause loss of life actually have no effect on you, so by pairing it with spells such as ad nauseum- draw your deck. it is clearly capable of doing some quite broken things in the right environment.

Puresteel Paladin

Aggressively costed guys that do things have usually been pretty good, the WW casting cost here is pretty restrictive, but his ability to draw cards when equipment enters the battle field seems to make him stone forge mystics new best friend, his metal craft ability is a little less relevant, having said that the decks that want him usually run at least 3 equipments so its always a possibility. He’ll probably fit best in naya, boros or possibly quest  type decks.

Corrupted Resolve

Conditional counter spells for 1U usually see play at some point, its always nice to  have options and if a good blue infect deck becomes popular you will almost certainly want to be running a couple of these in it.

Gitaxian Probe

There are quite a few cards in this set with the phrexian symbol as a cost, meaning that any colour has access to spells that are usually not available to them,
I think this is one of the better ones, being able to get a look at your opponents hand
can be a pretty big deal right now, seeing if they have that bolt for your guy, and  weather its safe to tap out for play- sword - equip - swing, will mean you can play around there spells much better and not get blown out, on top of that, it can be free when your tight on mana or you can play U when its not an issue, and it cantrips itself as well- overall a very useful and playable card. May also see play in eternal formats where cheap, cantrip, and does something is sometimes all you need in a card.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur

Another pretty sweet dread returns target for dredge wont exactly improve the deck that much as they have so many options for awesome targets already, but if you can  get this guy out first turn in a reanimator deck, then that is pretty big game. may also see some play in std control decks as a 1of, flashing him into play, blocking there guy, drawing 7 and making them have no hand for the rest of the game should guarantee you victory. even if he does cost 10

Mental Misstep

Another sweet phyrexian cost spell that can be 'free'. Not sure it'll see that much play in std but it legacy it has the potential to be kinda sick. It counters a whole ton of spells including path and eather vile even when you’re tapped out or on the draw, think it depends on the metagame how many of these you'll want in your deck though.

Phyrexian Metamorph

Clones have historically not been great in constructed, but the fact that this one is an artifact and can copy any creature or artifact and can cost 3 means he might see play, if only in block constructed. Seems to pair well with stuff that generates mana that can only be used to cast artifacts,

Tezzeret's Gambit

Another card that might see play in block, being able to draw 2 proliferate for 3 seems quite strong in the right deck. Also. Drawing cards in a red deck? When was that ever fair?

Despise

Another Duress type effect, like with counter spells it’s always nice to have options. for the purposes is std, this will probably be the go-to card for the 1 mana discard slot, being able to get walkers and creatures means it hits pretty much all the targets you want to go for against most decks, duress will still have its place in side boards but most people will probably choose to run these over inquisition in the main now.

Dismember

More sweet phrexian cost cards, letting you kill a guy using any colour mana for 1 is really quite strong, I’m not sure weather is just worse than the other black removal in black decks, but having access to this in blue or green could be quite strong, and again, it will likely see play in older formats due to no colour requirements and cheap cost. Just be careful not to pack too many into your decks or you might find yourself on low life a little too soon

Phyrexian Obliterator

This card is very tough for its cost and can be a pain for some decks to get rid of, unfortunately at the moment it suffers from miserably failing the jace test, once jace rotates out of standard, he might have a place in some decks, although BBBB to cast is pretty restrictive,

Praetor's  Grasp

I don’t think any other card printed does quite what this does, at least not in the same way, cant think of many uses for it in std right now, but could be a useful tool in older formats or causal formats (edh)

Sheoldred, Whispering One

blah blah blah edh blah

Surgical Extraction

I keep trying to tell people this card is not good (except against vengvine) and they don’t believe me. For further convincing see :

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/in-development-how-to-waste-two-life-at-instant-speed/


I mean I could be wrong, I might be waaay off the mark and it might be just great, but I’m pretty sure I’m not.

Act of Aggression

As we all know, red has been trying to imitate blue spells since alpha, because they are the best, and has had varying degrees of success, any now after years of having medioca threaten effects they at last have there very own ray of command!... except its not really their very own... due to the crafty phrexian mana cost now any colour has access to the life intensive version of the best threaten ever. Still, limited bombs aside, it might well see some play in constructed too. stealing their titan or guy with sword and swinging could be pretty big game, and gives decks that have trouble with these types of threats a reasonable answer (vamps or example)

Invader Parasite

I have a soft spot for land destruction, not sure if this guy is good enough, but when he goes after a land it tends to stay gone, could be a pain for valakut etc.

Moltensteel Dragon

Everybody should be aware that this dragon exists, I’m not sure he’s going to be good, or even see play, but having a 4/4 on turn 4 can be pretty awesome, and if your mono red you can swing for 16 on turn 5 all by himself, having said that he dies to pretty much anything. But I really want to see someone combo him with phrexian unlife and swing for infinite, that would be sweet ^^

Slag Fiend

Tarmagoyf this guy certainly is not. But if an artifact deck that runs red becomes any good he might have a home there.

Urabrask, the Hidden

Red hasty guys with an ability are usually pretty good, at the moment I think hero of oxid ridge is just better though.

Beast Within

This is the kinda card that makes me want to play green. i mean seriously, instant speed vindicate is just absurd! And the decks that are playing this really don’t care that much about the 3/3
Their opponent has that used to be a jace or a gideon, Bop- T2 get their land is also strong, and sometimes you might just nuke your own stuff to get a 3/3 blocker / haste guy at instant speed. I really like this card in RUG, where if you have mana up T3 and they jace, you can kill their jace, play your own on your turn and bounce their token, seems strong. Also hitting equipment is a big deal. A very powerful card that I think will see a lot of play.

Melira, Sylvok Outcast

Everyone loves a hate bear right? :p this is bit of a weird one, to make infect useless against you then take it away from your opponent seems counterproductive. but still, infect creatures are usually pretty puny once they lose infect. Also, play her after resolving phrexian unlife and laugh as they fail to kill you! (untill she dies of course)

Batterskull

A lot of people have written a lot of things about this card, suffice to say it’s broken with stone forge mystic and leave it at that.

Hex Parasite

Hear we can see versatility in action, a cheap creature that has the ability to kill planeswalkers, swing for a potential ton of damage, accessible in any colour and deals with stuff like tumble magnets and everflowing chalice. I think this lil guy will see play in a couple of different decks and do powerful things in all of them

Immolating Souleater

Turn 3 combo with phrexian unlife! sign me up :P

Mycosynth Wellspring

I really hope that with this and ichorwell spring, someone will make an artifact sacrifce deck would be soo good if that worked, I dunno what with yet though- maybe koldutha rebirth?

Myr Superion

Can you cast this off the spirit guides in legacy? (credit to john and owen if you can)

Soul Conduit

blah blah blah phrexian unlife blah.

Spellskite

Being able to change the target of any spell or ability to this guy seems pretty strong, target player draws 3 cards? I think you'll find spellkite draws 3 cards! (can you change the target of a spell to an illegal target? maybe not.) But still. There is a lot of potential for this guy to be though, and as a 0/4 he's not a bad blocker either.

Sword of War and Peace

Another strong equipment to dominate std with, most decks that run stone forge mystic will probably want a copy of this, the ability to hit there face then burn their planes walkers pretty good, it just gets obscene with another sword on the same guy, and gaining life isn’t a bad side effect either.

Torpor Orb

Would be awesome if it either cost 1, or drew a card for you. But it doesn’t, so it isn’t. it might see play in a sideboard somewhere. Maybe.

So that about wraps it up for constructed cards. They are probably a couple of things I’ve missed out, cards that seem awful to me now will probably be worth loads in a couple of months. Anyway, I hope this has been vaguely helpful to people looking to find out how the new set will have an impact on the constructed formats. Personally I think this set will change std for the better. I think the same sort of decks will remain to be good until rotation, but the way they play and the tools used to combat them will differ with this set. And what will after rotation who knows!? Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Till next time.

Andy Mather



Sunday, 17 April 2011

Karn, The (not yet) Released


 Hi everyone! Its time for another unnecessarily long Andy article full of nothing that you didn’t already know- enjoy anyway ^^

So originally I was going to write an article about all the rares and mythics we’ve seen previewed in New Phyrexia so far, but after thinking about it I decided that Karn as this sets (only?) planes walker probably warranted enough attention to have an article all to himself.

I'm pretty sure that a couple of months ago i read an article somewhere that specifically said karn would not be released as a planes walkers in the next set, never the less it is now clear we are just a few short weeks away from having the new father
of machines stomping around the standard metagame.

Karn, the Released (Oh Hai!)                        7

Planeswalker - Karn              Mythic Rare

+4 Target player exiles a card from his or her hand.

-3 Exile target permanent

-14: Set aside all non-Aura permanents exiled with Karn. the restart the game.
The put all cards set aside this way onto the battlefield under your control.

Loyalty 6

So. planes walkers are good right? - nuff said - but seriously, for those of you that didn’t know: I. Freakin. Love. Planes walkers! so there is a chance that this article might turn out slightly biased, but I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum :-)

NB: it’s worth noting at this point that when I’m talking about Karn in this article I’m talking about playing him in standard unless it specifically says otherwise.

Karn is the first colourless planes walker we've seen, although his price tag of
7 mana may seem a little high; he can actually go into any deck with his casting cost and has the ability to vindicate something or discard and go to 10 loyalty off the bat making him a pretty tough guy to deal with.

That said there are some decks that are going to want him more than others. A cost of 7 is pretty high whichever way you look at it, having said that Nicol Bolas was 8 total and in 3 colours and still saw some play in Grixis control. It’s pretty clear that this guy is too expensive for most aggro decks. their plan of simply ripping your face off and running away laughing is exciting to them. Getting to 7 mana is not.

He seems to most naturally go into control decks (who knew?), where getting to 7 mana is just eventually going to happen naturally, and finding your copies of him in a pile of 60 cards isn’t a big deal. (I mean- your gonna draw all your cards in your deck eventually anyway… right?)

He could also fit happily into mid range decks and ramp decks quite easily. Ramp decks would have no problem landing him on turn 4-5 (even 3 if they have tasty nuts) but I’m not sure that Karn is what they would want to spend their mana on, mostly they just want to cast instantly game breaking spells// creatures (Emrakul anyone?) and whilst Karn is sweet, he doesn’t actually win the game on his own on the turn you cast him.

I could see some midrange decks playing a couple of him, just as a powerfull high end card, mostly used for his vindicate//discard abilities rather than doing broken things with his ultimate.

Let’s take a closer look at some of his abilities: because it’s Sunday morning and I feel like laying in bed writing about planes walkers :-D

The +4 ability here is pretty sweet, gaining that loyalty is gonna keep himself around without you having to put much else into it, the decks that are capable of dealing this much damage in one shot would probably just rather swing at your face and hope to kill you. This ability is never bad when taking a card out of someone else’s hand, Liliana only got +1 for doing this, and Karn doesn’t have the disadvantage of accidently putting their Vengvines into the bin. Another thing to keep in mind is that this ability also combos with his ultimate, so a sweet thing to do is target yourself in order to exile the cards you want in the next game then ultimate to restart the game with yourself waaay ahead. (Seems fair?)

His -3 is also sweet, exiling any permanent is just awesome, this effect is reminiscent of Nicol Bolas type abilities, except that, again like his +4 ability, these poor exiled cards have no chance of coming back from the yard. I also like the fact that he can come into play and immediately deal with any opposing walkers that are causing you problems, not matter what loyalty they happen to be on. (Also seems fair?)

Currently in std it seems to be the case that your planes walkers tend to get very grumpy when you pass priority with them on 3 loyalty, because for some inexplicable reason, this turns them into lightning rods and shortly thereafter they'll be winging their way off your plane of existence and onwards through the multi-verse onto less lightning filled pastures. But to be fair, all you have to do to avoid this is keep your Karn above 3 against decks that run lightning bolt. And, if rumour is to be believed, we wont have to worry about it at all if bolt isn’t reprinted in M12.

-14 eh? seems like a lot, but then again starting on 6 and having +4 means its only going to be a couple of turns until your starting game 2... or 3... or 4... or... well you get the idea.
So restarting the game, don’t think I’ve ever been able to do that before. Lets see if I get this right:

First you set aside all (non-aura) cards exiled specifically with Karn (I think this only counts the ones exiled by your current incarnation on Karn, not any other previous versions that have since died) then to restart the game, each player shuffles all their other cards, including normally exiled cards, (so that’s: hand, board, graveyard, exiled zone, and library...yes, yes, and suspended cards etc...) into their library, life totals become 20, poison counters become 0, each player draws 7 cards. I guess you get to mulligan as normal?

Now what I’m not sure about is who gets the first turn. when this ability resolves does it end the turn? Or when the game restarts does the player who started the last game start this one as well? Or do you simply continue playing from the turn you were on when you ultimated Karn. At first I thought this last option seemed the most logical, but restarting the game must include resetting the turn clock as well since there are some cards that care what turn it is (Serra Avenger), so now I’m not so sure. If anyone has any insight into this please feel free to share it with the class.

Moving on. Once the game has restarted you put all the cards that were set aside into play under your control. Pretty broken. Basically this means once you ultimate Karn, you shouldn’t have any problem locking down// wining the next game (kinda) due to the advantage you've built up in the first. One of the more fun (/un fun) things to do is to have 2 Karns in your deck, and use one to exile the other from your hand before you ultimate, thus letting you start the next game with Karn in play. This process can then be repeated until your opponent gets bored and scoops. (After the first time this happens it shouldn't take too long in future.)

So yea, seems pretty good, I’m not sure how he's going to impact older formats like extended and legacy but i get the feeling he's gonna be a bit too expensive for them.

Not really too much to say about him in limited either. You opened Karn, well done, play with him, win with him, be happy about it.

Overall I think Karn is a pretty solid card, he's going on eBay at the moment for around $170/£110 for 4. This is a little higher than I would have predicted, but its understandable due to him being awesome and colourless.
I’ve invested in these at this price for a couple of reasons, firstly, it's certainly a card that I will want to play, so I’m gonna have to get them eventually at whatever price. I’m also not sure weather the price is going to go up or down, my instinct is to say it might drop slightly some time after release, as not many people will want more than 1-2 in a deck,
but I don’t think he'll drop that much as he is clearly very playable, he might even go up- who knows. if the worst come to the worst and he turns out to be terrible I can always trade him away or use him in EDH.

Another reason I’m buying him on pre order is that the prices of mythics tend to rise slightly just after there release then settle back down to an overall lower price a couple of months down the line, this is fine if your willing to wait that long to get your 10% discount but I personally feel I’ll want to be using him right from the release day, so getting him asap is important for me to get most value from him.

My advice to people thinking of purchasing him would be, if your gonna want to play with him a lot. Get a couple now as he's not that much, and your almost certainly not going to lose out that much in the long run, if your not that bothered, wait a couple of months and see what price he stabilises at.

Well that’s about all I have to rant about for today. Hopefully this article will have provided some insight into the latest addition to the planes walker family, and spark some interesting ideas for future use, and has not just been a complete waste of time and space. (Dr who would get grumpy with me for that)
Hope you all have fun casting your Karns in the near future ^^ and as always feel free to post your comments (helpful or otherwise :p) below

Thanks for reading.

Andy Mather