Carpe Diem Part 2: Removed from the Metagame
Urza's Saga: Carpe Diem Part 2: There is a hole in your mind
When you think about the new environment, remember that while Urza's Saga is coming in, Mirage, Visions and Weatherlight are all going out. So in part 2, I'm going to look at the most important cards that are leaving Type II, and try to figure out what each card has done to Type II, and what will happen when it leaves. But first, a few words about my first deck.
It has two huge holes in it. I was just showing a concept, and was planning to re-cast the deck once I'd seen the rest of Urza's Saga, and wanted to see if everyone was paying attention. Everyone caught one, no one caught the other. First, I put Abeyance in the deck originally, and got about 10 e-mails about that. It's in Weatherlight, and will be one of the cards in part 2. It was basically meant as a place holder, as in 'insert shut-down Urza's Saga card here,' since without something similar you can't beat COP:Red and similar cards. The other basic problem is the deck has no way to find the Fireball except a few Brainstorms; you can't Intuition for something you have one of!
So here are the stars of MiViLite:
Abeyance Abeyance is important because it forces your opponent to either counter it or give your opponent free reign. Which means that if you cast it, you don't have to put anything in your deck to deal with activated cards that devastate your deck (Example: Pursuit of Knowledge kills TurboZvi, COP:Black kills ProsperBloom). And if your opponent can only cast 1 counterspell, he can't interfere whether he counters Abeyance or not. That's devastating power for a 2-mana cantrip. Without it, your combo deck has to put something in your deck to deal with every card that stops your combination. Watch at least 1 Capsize go into many decks to compensate. This will also be a partial check on Time Spiral, since you have to risk your opponent drawing ways to Counterspell or otherwise interfere.
Dissipate and Phyrexian Furnace Blue used to have an incidental, absolute way to deal with any card, especially Shard Phoenix and Hammer of Bogarden, and there was a solid artifact that wrecked graveyard manipulation Even though almost no one used them (Dissipate due to Forbid, Furnace due to lack of space) the chilling effect (no pun intended) remained. Of course Hammer is gone too, but the loss of Dissipate and Furnace gives Shard Phoenix decks a green light to go wild. There's a decent replacement in Urza's Saga but these types of cards should remove cards as side effects or be cantrips. Otherwise they won't get played unless the situation is getting out of hand.
Empyrial Armor The Armor gave WW decks the kind of auto-win that Hypnotic Spectre used to give to Necro decks. If you bring it out quickly (and the attack is only one turn slower than a ritualed Hypnotic) your opponent has to deal with it or die. Often, Sligh literally couldn't deal with this card, except by outracing the damage. Like Hypnotic, it also can be a powerful late-game card. It was clearly undercosted, since early it will average +4/+4 or better for 3 mana. It encouraged WW decks to keep cards in their hand, and fitted perfectly into the Tithe complex. WW decks that would have just dumped creatures on the table were forced to play smart. And other decks had to have their choice of bouncing, enchantment removal or non-damage removal.
Fireblast Ding, dong the witch is dead! This is the card that allowed Sligh to beat prison, made it a turn faster and marked the change from True Sligh to The Deck Formerly Known As Stupid Red Burn. Good riddance.
Firestorm The great equalizer is gone. It took a long time to realize it, but this card is really good. It can swing whole games on its own, reversing total mana glut or mana screw into a lot of dead creatures. With four of these in your deck, your chances of getting gimped early becomes virtually zero, except against a Sligh burn draw.
Gaia's Blessing and Paradigm Shift Why do I mention Gaia's Blessing, a staple card in many decks, and Paradigm Shift, a card which probably hasn't been in the deck of anyone over 1900 since Stronghold? Because Paradigm Shift is for many decks the only replacement for Gaia's Blessing: A way to recurse your deck an infinite number of times. Feldon's Cane is a one time only offer, and is now much more important. TurboZvi, for example, can work with Paradigm Shift instead of Gaia's Blessing, but can't function without both. Now, all players will be on limited resources. There are ways to cast an infinite number of spells (for example, 2 Anarchist/Recurring Nightmare/TimeWarp/Wayward Soul/Rolling Thunder for infinite Thunder), but the lack of a true recycler stopped many decks cold this qualifier season, like dedicated Oath of Druids decks.
Gerrard's Wisdom This allowed decks with big hands to gain huge amounts of life, and win with this and Sylvan Library sometimes. Without it, there is no longer a "you lose" card against burn. This was so important to one of my decks I called it "making first contact" when I cast it the first time. But big hands are hard to maintain in Type II.
Hammer of Bogarden Once again, the threat is in many ways stronger than its execution, an important principle of chess and an overlooked one in Magic. The Hammer costs an extra R and is a Sorcery rather than an Instant, but in exchange for that it can and does win games on its own. It gives Sligh decks a new lease on life in the late game, and gives U/R decks another road to victory. In general, once you have a Hammer your mana draw is rarely bad. If you draw land, you can recurse the Hammer. If you don't, you draw something useful. Hammer can also be used as a substitute for Shard Phoenix in combination with Forbid, although the Phoenix has overshadowed the Hammer recently. But the absence of Dissipate in most decks (because of Forbid) makes this a better card right now than most people think. Hammer has also gotten worse because there are more and more ways to get card advantage with a lot of mana, with emphasis on Whispers of the Muse, which can keep pace with it. Many people forget that eight mountains and a Hammer is enough to deal with some entire decks. Removing it narrows the focus of Sligh without increasing its power by much, but other effects are slight.
Impulse and Sage Owl A moment of silence for the best card in Magic, please. Thank you.
Kaervak's Torch It should be noted that all the decks that used Torch for their kill will now be using Fireball, Disintegrate or some new Urza's Saga X spell. This is good news for blue, but bad news for weenie decks.
Man-'O-War This is a card that blue should never have had, with many players splashing blue for a beatdown creature. We won't miss it as much as we think, because much of its popularity was due to the other coming-into-play creatures that are leaving Type II, and due to Empyrial Armor, and Ophidian. What would blue force through now?
Mind Stone, Marble Diamond, Sky Diamond, Charcoal Diamond, Fire Diamond and Moss Diamond Offering a way to play extra mana sources quickly and avoid Winter Orb and Armageddon without risking mana glut made these good cards before Medallions, and Mind Stone also guarded against mana glut. They will be survived by the Medallions and the new Cycling:2 basic lands that come into play tapped. But with only Mox Diamond as viable artifact mana, Winter Orb and Armageddon both become that much more dangerous. And we should see less Mox Diamonds around (still a lot, but less) because many cards that work well with Moxen are gone.
Nekrataal At one point, every black deck had 4 of these and many people went without vulnerable creatures. Nowadays it still serves as a key part of the Survival/Nightmare decks, and allows for solid card economy gain. Without it, Death decks are much weaker, and tapping out for beefy non-black creatures becomes a much plan. Interestingly, black not only loses a key creature but a key strategic reason to play black creatures in general. But shadow creatures and Wall of Blossoms have already brought this card down from wonderful to solid.
Ophidian It took a while to be treated as such, but Ophidian is now recognized as the new Hypnotic Spectre. If you can keep one on the table, it sustains itself and turns the whole game around. It must die. Without it, monoblue decks have a hard time putting down a real threat early, basically being restricted to Tradewind Rider. Unless there is a strong replacement, the whole Forbidian type idea (Medallions + threat creatures with permission) is dead, forcing focused blue mages to play Cuneo Blue.
Prosperity, Squandered Resources, Cadaverous Bloom, Infernal Contract and Natural Balance I wonder what those cards have in common? So ProspBloom…. Bye, bye!
Tithe One of the attempts to fix Land Tax, it ended up being really strong with dual lands but narrow in Type II, since you needed white mana to get more white mana. But it combines well with Mox Diamond, Empyrial Armor and Firestorm, and with Armageddon, making it ideal for WW.
Uktabi Orangatang This is the card that the Living Death decks in Rath Cycle miss the most, and is about a third of the difference between them and the current Type II Nightmare decks. They are one of the primary cards holding Nevinyrral's Disk and Cursed Scroll in check right now. Decks that could play incidental artifact removal, or even tutor for it, now face the difficult choice of either using dedicated artifact removal or risking devastating cards like Nevinyrral's Disk and Portcullis that they can't deal with.
Undiscovered Paradise, Gemstone Mine, Lotus Vale and the Fetch Lands Recently, anyone wanting to play a 5 color deck could choose between Undiscovered Paradise, Gemstone Mine, City of Brass and Birds of Paradise. No more. Now, with only Mox Diamond, Birds of Paradise and one 5-color land available, even mainly green mages will pay a much higher price for the spice of life. The Death deck in Rath cycle proves it's not impossible for such a deck to do well, but no longer will it be automatic for decks like WW to go five colored. There will have to be a consolidation toward more solid mana bases. The fetch lands are a minor loss, of course; they've always been mainly Extended cards. Lotus Vale is important only for MoMa and other silly tricks, but with Rewind and Time Spiral coming in it could have been much more dangerous, as could Shattered Ruins.
While They Last: Other solid or fun but unimportant cards in MiViLite:
Ancestral Memories: Needed for certain piles.
Alas, my deck (and many died, and there was much rejoicing): Effects on the "Decks to Beat": Deadguy Red: Dead. Without Fireblast, the deck is a turn slower, and losing Hammers isn't that good either. But it's not dead yet! It's like the old saying: Red burn never dies. It just changes cards. But watch for it to be significantly weaker.
Capt. Cali WW: If you're going to abandon all the good 5 color stuff anyway this isn't going to hurt as much, but still. Empyrial Armor and Tithe. Ouch.
CMU Blue: The most important card this deck loses is Quicksand. Not as trivial as you think, but Cuneo is in really good shape.
Finkel Blue: Dead.
New Jersey Suicide: Intact! Except Sewer Rats, but whatever.
Battle Brooch: When I understand why it's a deck to beat, I'll let you know. It loses a lot of cards regardless.
Counterhammer: No hammer, no counterhammer.
TurboMulch: No Blessing, no TurboMulch.
Spike Girls: Still more or less intact. Nekrataal hurts a lot, though, as does Stampeding Wilderbeasts.
5-Color Kastle: Again, no Nekrataal, but otherwise not bad.
Static Oath: No Blessing, no Static Oath.
Tradewind Geddon: The name lives, this particular decklist doesn't. Tradewind decks with Geddon, the basic U/G deck with a little white, is what remains.
ProsperBloom: Die! Hah, hah, hah, Die!
The Type II Deck: This type of deck can always adapt. But they won't play green anymore. And oh, Gerrard's Wisdom!
Countersliver: Sliver Power! It lives.
Pandedread: It loses a lot of good tutors and support cards. Oh, and the Dreadnought.
Conclusion The format is down to the Rath Cycle decks, plus Cuneo Blue and U/W Control, both of which use the mass removal cards from 5th Edition, which are the only cards in it worth using. Watch for the renewed power of the few good cards in it: Armageddon, Wrath of God, Nevinyrral's Disk, Winter Orb, a few others.