And So It Begins...

Urza's Saga: Carpe Diem Part 1: Introduction

As it was once, so shall it be again. What was past may also be the future. On that note, we return to the Saga of the great Urza. Not only is our main character a huge blast from the past (all we have left right now is a few neat overpriced toys and some Towers, Mines and Power Plants), so are some of the cards. You thought Mana Drain, Timetwister and Fastbond were mistakes. WotC agreed, so they've been 'fixed'. But those cards weren't broken just because they were undercosted (which they were). They were broken because they had increadibly powerful effects. You'll notice that many Urza's Saga cards have built in protections to prevent their abuse, echo being a prime example. Mtgnews has provided us with a partial spoiler, and from that I will begin my Urza's Saga guide, along the lines of Exodus:SS&B. I'll start with a discussion of the three new abilities, preview two new cards with a separate new mechanic, and lay out the first deck. Remember that we're working without Mirage, Visions and Weatherlight, so the decks should on average be a little weaker than current Type II. In particular, the ProsperBloom archetype is gone and Sligh has no Fireblast.

The New Abilities:

Echo: Echo requires you to pay the casting cost on the first upkeep you have after you gain control of it or it comes into play. The basic effect is that you have to pay the casting cost of the spell twice. This can be really good, because you can get in under counterspells or force them to remove it on their turn so you don't have to pay the echo cost. It also serves as a guard against it being stolen. The obvious downside is that your opponent could take away your ability to pay, for example with Armageddon. In general, these cards are going to be good for decks that don't work on Sligh curves, but these days more and more decks do.

Sleepers: A sleeper comes into play and then becomes a useful card when your opponent casts a type of spell. Problem is that these cards are going to be really effective against decks that have to cast the triggering spell. The reason that's a problem is that if they were powerful enough to start they would be too powerful as sideboard cards. If R&D didn't care about that this will prove a good game mechanic, but I worry that, like Phasing, the cards will be too abusable and therefore have to be made too weak for constructed decks. But creature triggers are a good bet in sealed and draft.

(Cycling: X) allows you to pay X and discard the card to draw a card as an instant; this effect cannot be countered. You know this effect from cards like Brainstorm and Whispers of the Muse; if you don't like it, you can burn it. Cycling:0 would obviously place the card in every deck. Cycling:1 is a devestatingly powerful ability, if it exists. It would push the casting cost up between one and two mana, in general. Cycling:2 is good, and is worth the card having a signifigant disadvantage, particuarly with cards you don't always need, like creature removal or land. Cycling:3 or more is a minor consideration.

The Two New Cards (according to mtgnews):

Rewind, 2UU, Interrupt, Counter target spell. Untap up to 4 lands. Power Rating: Strong Think Power Surge. Just kidding. This is similar to Dismiss, in that when it works it's a great counterspell, but when you don't have the mana or have to fight a counter war it's one of the worst. The less blue decks are out there, the better this card will be. Where this card shines is if you're untapping more than just your average lands.

Time Spiral, 4UU, Sorcery, Remove Time Spiral from the game. Timetwister (both players shuffle their hands and graveyards into their library and draw 7). Untap up to 6 lands. Power Rating: Watch List Look at this card for a second. It allows you to get 7 new cards, get rid of your opponents hand, and as long as you have 6 lands do it for free. If it didn't remove itself from the game it would be way too easy. As it is, it would fit into any blue deck that gets 6 land and empties its hand. Not many of those. It could fit in a straight MoMa deck, but too many 6 cost spells spoil the curve. The key here is the same as Rewind: to untap more than 6 mana. So the key is to utilize Mana Flare:

The idea here is: drop Mana Flare and 6 land. Tap for 12 mana, Spiral to 18. Intuition to 15, Spiral to 21, Intuition to 18. At some point either skip an intuition, have a 7th land, or Rewind on a Lotus Petal for an extra 4 (that's why they're there), or drop MoMa for 5*2 - 6 = 4 extra mana, plus 6 every additional twister. You should have a very good chance of winning if your opponent is tapped out, plus you can use Rewind to counter spells for free, or Abeyance him first.

Let's do the turn 5 math (with the Flare out): Tap for 10, Spiral to 14. Intuition to 11, MoMa to 5, burn 5 cards to 15, Spiral to 19, discard to 21 and torch.

Turn 4 (with Mana Flare out): MoMa to 2, burn 2 cards to 6, Spiral to 8. Discard 6 cards to 20. Intuition, Spiral, win. You can also win by having a 2-mana land in the origional 4.

Turn 4 (without Mana Flare out): Watch this. Mox Dimaond, Mana Flare to 4. Mox/Rewind to 8. Spiral to 14, Intuition to 11, MoMa to 5, discard to 15, Spiral to 17, discard to 21, torch.

Turn 3 (with a Tomb used to cast turn 2 Mana Flare). MoMa to 1. Discard to 9. Spiral to 9. Discard to 21, torch. (interested yet?)

Turn 2 (just to show it can be done): Turn 1 is Petal/Tomb for Flare. Turn 2 is Petal, City of Brass, Spiral, Petal, MoMa, discard 4 cards, Spiral….. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

Turn 1: Who are you kidding?

Of course, this deck can disguise itself, and the mana base is a LOT less obvious than TurboZvi's, excluding Mana Flare. It's risky to have to Time Spiral in order to win 95+% of the time, but you can continue with an Intuition or Time Spiral, or Brainstorm. There will undoubtedy be more tutoring cards in Urza's Sage, and you have the mana base you need to use them all.

The power of Urza is now yours to command. Do so wisely.