Release date: November 18th 2022
Latest points change at the time of writing this - The Lord of the Rings - Tales of Middle-earth
Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.
Hello! I'm still so far behind on set reviews! One more down! let's go:
Excellent removal for Mono White. Here is my current 8point Monowhite list but there's also the nonLurrus version with the powerful initiative creatures, Mox Pearl, Palace Jailer and Solitude.
~ goes infinite with Paradox Engine and enough nonland mana producers to cover the activation cost + casting cost of your cheapest nonland permanent.
Thoughtseize
Leyline Binding
Gitaxian Probe
Urza's Bauble
Mishra's Bauble
On Thin Ice
Could be ok in Lurrus Breach? Probably too slow. I'd have to ask one of the experts.
I like her for sacrificing Bloodghast and using the powerstones to equip Skullclamp. Fits naturally into Aristocrats and Contamination (when I eventually build them).
Brennan Crawford played ~ in his Lurrus Breach deck to a top8 in Sydney last weekend.
Traverse the Ulvenwald
Arcum's Astrolabe
Abundant Growth
Lightning Bolt
Snuff Out
etc
Good at turning on delirium.
She makes zombie tokens, which allow you to recast Gravecrawler to sacrifice again.
Is a 1mana legend for Mox Amber, which is big potential.
Obviously less favoured than Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress of Dread Fugue, but to make it into a tuned list of one of the best strategies in the format is impressive. Whether Brennan sticks with ~ remains to be seen. I suspect he won't.
Surely there's something you can give your opponent that they really don't want...Immortal Coil...Lich's Tomb? Covid19?
Hard to block. Kills quickly late game.
You can get punished by Bonecrush Giant, Mawloc or Flametongue Yearling for tapping out, but that's not game ending.
~ stops scary things like Protean Hulk combo, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Skullclamp.
She clearly creates purple soldier artifacts, cummon.
Basically all Young Pyromancer decks run blue already, so ~ is a big upgrade. Triggers off Urza's Bauble, Mishra's Bauble and random sideboard enchantments in the UR decks. The tokens are colourless so if someone brings their deck from 10 years ago, you'll be able to block that creature holding Sword of Fire and Ice.
~ isn't just for UR decks though; It is a good addition to artifact combo, especially since the tokens are artifacts.
Works well in Jeskai Ascendancy.
Black for convoking Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and adds to the graveyard for delve too. That strategy often runs cards like Bloodghast and Pox Walkers that you would like in your graveyard.
The static ability is tricky to turn on in decks that naturally want ~. Maybe you can run Skullclamp, Urza's/Mishra's Bauble for delirium and delve. Ledger Shredder works too.
Legendary for Mox Amber. You may have to go multicolour for the critical mass of legendaries though.
~ allows you to chump attack and finish off the fat blocker with a burn spells and not feel too bad about it because you get the exiled card.
~ is insane if you can trigger it every turn but unfortunately for ~ there are only 9 fetches in Jund Goblins; 10 if you add Prismatic Vista. That's not enough to make ~ playable in a conventional Goblin list. Perhaps if you really tweak your build you can make ~ work, e.g. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Goblin Grenade, Fury, Pyre of Heroes, etc.
Surprisingly I don't want to run ~ in my Black Metal deck because I'm already weak to Null Rod et al and I already have plenty of gas.
Hasn't seen play as far as I know, but I think this is pretty good in decks that need to discard key cards.
First let me say that Hermit Druid combo isn't what it used to be. Much more exile removal has been printed, as has better graveyard hate, and general disruption, but the tutors are all the same.
Answers Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes for 5 mana, albeit you spend 1 more mana than them and you take 4 damage...Minsc and Boo is too good.
~ is a very minor upgrade to the suite of creatures you can run as lambs for Dread Return; how many lambs to run is a personal choice. I like to run 3: Narcomoeba of course, Fatestitcher and finally Combat Courier, which replaced Sacred Cat. I run the 3rd creature because this allows you to still combo if Narcomoeba is in your hand (Hermit Druid is available for saccing). It also lets you combo if you need to cast Cabal Therapy as well as Dread Return, which comes up a lot.
You don't need to be all basics to turn on ~, but adding nonbasics will make Blood Moon, Ruination and Price of Progress worse. Adding green could give you access to tricks like dropping an extra land turn3 with Atarka's Command.
Win condition for Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin combo.
Protects Lurrus of the Dream-Den
Can be cast for free with Bard Class.
You can of course protect ~ with Mother of Runes et al.
Once she's online, for 4 mana she can net you 3 spells worth a total 5 mana, every turn, which is crazy. To maximise the chance of hitting all three mana values, you'll want a lot of cards in hand. This is easy if you cast ~ turn3, but late game you'll have less cards, which is why I think Skullclamp and Stoneforge Mystic are good choices for the deck.
You don't cast the cards that ~ returns, so she works well with cards like Eidolon of the Great Revel, Archon of Emeria and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.
I have visions of ~ in a Grixis control deck with The Lost and the Damned, See the Truth, Reckless Impulse, Wrenn's Resolve and all the 1mana discards.
Everyone has dreamed of running Phyrexian Obliterator. Just make sure your only basic lands are Swamps. NO LANDS THAT DON'T PRODUCE BLACK MANA. I'M SERIOUS.
Goes infinite with Acererak the Archlich + Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy.
Good in Channel + Lich's Mirror combo.
Performs the role of Zuran Orb in the Fastbond + Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator combo.
Go find Field of the Dead and Kessig Wolf Run.
Another Field of Ruin except it doesn't force either player to shuffle, which makes ~ slightly worse. Running colourless lands greatly limits which spells you can run. I can see ~ being played in a landfall deck to get extra triggers. I can also see it in a mono brown or Eldrazi deck where the metagame contains powerful lands that you need to kill, e.g. Urza's Saga, Tolarian Academy, Gaea's Cradle, etc.
Crucible of Worlds is playable because it lets you go infinite with Fastbond and/or set up early Strip Mine locks. Comparitively, waiting until you reach 5 mana for ~ will give the opponent too much time to set up a board before they get Strip Locked. However, in the case of going infinite with Fastbond, ~ is effective. The graveyard tutors:
Dies to Wrenn and Six but having some lategame reach is nice in aggro.
Surprisingly there are more than 100 blue soldiers! And several of them are 7PH playable. At this stage I'm not sure whether I'll be Bant or Abzan when I build it:
Paul Atreides vibes.
Nice freebie in Bant. You wouldn't run ~ if you weren't blue though.
Amazing in artifact beatdown. Gets a lot better turn1 if you have Urza's Bauble/Mishra's Bauble/Mox Opal, etc. ~ will eventually become huge. Game winning 1drops are always worth taking note of.
Nice backup for artifact combo decks or nonblack creature combo decks, although I would only run this if the combo I'm trying to reassemble doesn't use the graveyard, otherwise they have probably brought in graveyard hate, which will make ~ ineffective.
Could go in eggs, I dunno, something like below. It's definitely not 60 cards and I didn't bother filling out the land base but you get the idea:
+2/+2 is huge. Goes straight into Tempered Steel artifact beatdown. I think you'll have to keep it to Azorius for mana consistency.
Goes infinite with Tolarian Academy + Candelabra of Tawnos.
I wouldn't call this "forging", would you? Pretty handy for the storytellers to have a character that can make almost any device imaginable at will.
Looks like draft chaff but I can imagine a deck that incidentally produces a lot of spare artifact tokens. Such a deck would effectively make ~ a 4/4 haste that ETB draws a card.
Decent 2drop for mono red artifact stompy.
I run this in my Black Metal deck, which I've linked here. I can't imagine ~ being run anywhere else.
Yet another addition to Black Metal.
Notably, if you reveal an instant or a card with flash, you can get the end step powerstone trigger and still cast the exiled card before the end of the turn. V-v-v-v-v-value!
Nice with companions Jegantha, the Wellspring and Keruga, the Macrosage.
LAND STRATS
~ triggers from lands entering the graveyard from anywhere, so dredging Life from the Loam gains a couple life most times, hopefully buying you the time to find a combo.
Plenty of players are happily running Endurance maindeck; Obviously ~ and Endurance have very different abilities but it shows that a 3/4 reach body for 3mana is passable.
Lands decks typically run a few land tutors, so melding Titania, Gaea Incarnate is a realistic possibility.
Bothers me that they named the land yet didn't make it legendary, just like Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
Lands decks don't run many green legends, so this will enter tapped most of time, which hurts a lot. The token making ability is also sorcery-speed only, which makes it significantly worse.Of course your opponent will have a whole turn before the meld occurs, so if they have removal they will probably use it to stop the meld. This scenario will make it rarely correct to search for Argoth. You're better off hoping you naturally have both.
Remember you can run a split of Forest and a Snow-Covered Forest to help Field of the Dead.
- Entomb
- Goblin Engineer
- Intuition
- Buried Alive
- Unmarked Grave
- can now act like Crucible of Worlds. That's a huge percentage increase in that effect. Obviously you're vulnerable to instant-speed creature and graveyard removal, but you were anyway with Ramunap Excavator. As always, Fastbond remains the bottleneck of the combo. There are much fewer tutors for enchantments than for creatures, artifacts and lands.
~ has a very cheap unearth cost compared to its mana value, second only to Fatesticher. This opens up Birthing Pod, Eldritch Evolution and Neoform exploits.
SOLDIER TRIBAL (LEGIT)
~ requires white to activate but I think ~ could work well with Gaea's Cradle.
There are now a tonne of W, 2/1's. Poor Savannah Lions, now only good in Ruxa or Cat Tribal.
The token ability is handy against sweepers, which is obviously a huge weakness of tribal decks. Especially with the popularity of Fury.
Dennick, Pious Apprentice
Harbin, Vanguard Aviator
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
Pippin, Guard of the Citadel
Lavinia of the Tenth
Zephy Sentinel
Wing beater
I think you need to pickup a Soldier... to push ~ over line of playability.
Soldiers rarely have good ETB's so it's unlikely you'll get extra value there.
~ is playable in metagames where sorcery-speed targeted removal is popular. Currently we are in a Fury metagame so that is definitely the case.
ARTIFACT STRATS
Gets an extra boost in the Hardened Scales deck.
The 1 life every artifact is not to be overlooked also.
I dunno who this character is but I like him.
Possible inclusion in Hardened Scales. I'm imagining putting a couple counters on Hangarback Walker then sacrificing it to Arcbound Ravager to make a few thopters and they each get counters.~ is similar to Metallic Mimic but you'll get more triggers thanks to artifact lands.
Goes infinite with Lesser Masticore and a saccer.
Sevinne's Reclamation already exists but you can run both.
EGGS
Mishra's Bauble
Urza's Bauble
Chromatic Sphere
Chromatic Star
Terrarion
Wizard Rockets
Conjurer's Bauble
Darkwater Egg
Mossfire Egg
Skycloud Egg
Shadowblood Egg
Sungrass Egg
MANA
Lion's Eye Diamond
Mox Opal
Grim Monolith
Lotus Petal
COMBO
Auriok Salvagers
Displacer Kitten
Trinket Mage
GAS
Ratchet, Field Medic
Forging the Anchor
Wheel of Fortune
Memory Jar
The Reality Chip
Expressive Iteration
Second Sunrise
Scrap Trawler
Open the Vaults
Expedition Map
Bolas's Citadel
The Mightstone and Weakstone
POINTS
Balance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tolarian Academy
Mana Vault
Tinker
Urza's Saga
REDUCERS
Urza, Lord Protector
Herald of Kozilek
Etherium Sculptor
Stenn, Paranoid Partisan
Enthusiastic Mechanaut
Cloud Key
Foundry Inspector
LANDS
Glimmer Void
Spire of Industry
7 artifact lands
City of Traitors
Artifact decks are hungry for mana and generally lack removal, so even though ~ is expensive I think it's good enough.
2drop colourless artifacts get a little better in decks with ~ because it's efficient to cast them the turn you tap out for ~.
Nice with Blinkmoth Nexus and Mishra's Factory
That activated ability probably goes infinite somehow: Mana Echoes in a Myr deck?
Keep replaying the with The One Ring.
The copy ability is protection against counterspells for Time Vault.
When you're building this deck, max-out on artifacts including all 7 untapped artifact lands. Then ~ should draw about 4 cards, which is game winning.
Strong in red artifact stompy. The unearth cost can be hard to pay for if one of your lands is Mishra's Workshop, but if you have a Workshop, you've probably won already.
Outside of artifact strats, I think ~ is good in hyperaggro hand dump decks: Rarely can an opponent safely choose to take 4 damage every turn, therefore ~ will naturally end up in your graveyard from combat. Which, is exactly where you want it for Reanimate, Unearth, Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord, Balduvian Atrocity, etc. When it comes to ≤3 mana value, white is also good at reanimating: Sevinne's Reclamation, Recommission, Brought Back, Patch Up, Revival // Revenge.
Generally the power ranking for colourless manlands currently goes like this:
- Blinkmoth Nexus - flying makes it better than Mishra's Factory because of the initiative and the monarch.
- Inkmoth Nexus - see above.
- Mishra's Factory
- Mutavault - below Mishra's Factory because tribal decks are colour intensive and artifact synergies are more relevant in decks that can justify colourless lands. Also, this can't pump itself when blocking like Factory can.
- Mishra's Foundry - below Mutavault because extra mana to activate.
- Hostile Desert
- Dread Statuary - I played this years ago and it was surprisingly good back then.
- Mobilized District - below Dread Statuary because 4power important against Minsc and Boo, and because artifact synergies.
- Faceless Haven - a better mana rate than ~ but I can only imagine this in a monocolour snow deck.
- Frostwalk Bastion - see above
- Stalking Stones - activation cost too high
There are heaps of other colourless lands which make tokens, but to simplfy things and narrow the scope I just ranked the ones that become creatures, which is better for taking initiative, alpha striking and killing planeswalkers.
~ dies to Wrenn and Six but has a chance at vengeance by unearthing.
The graveyard exile ability triggers Imotekh the Stormlord, as does unearthing ~. In that scenario it may be correct to unearth second main after ~ died in combat, which is pretty funny.
Black Metal is a deck for a very specific metagame: graveyard-centric with everyone sleeping on artifact hate, very unlikely, but! Necrons are a patient race and their time will come. I don't mind waiting either, gonna take me decades to save up for Mishra's Workshop anyway.
The return ability is very relevant but if the opponent is ahead, they can choose to deny it; The initiative and Blood Moon force everyone to run 1 or 2 basics, and fetchlands make those basics easy to access. Also, 7PH curves are low enough that most decks function well on 4 lands. Add those two facts together and the opponent can choose to sit on 3 nonbasics and 1 basic.
I don't think you would run ~ outside of artifacts because there are better coloured options that don't see play, e.g. Skyclave Shade.
I've seen this in Mishra's Workshop decks. Makes sense to me, it wins the game by itself, which is what you want when you spend the rest of your hand ramping.
Strong payoff for Tinker, Shape Anew and Channel. Hard to imagine losing against midrange or aggro after triple edict. ~ is maindeckable because creature decks are the large majority right now, but in some metagames ~ would be more suited to the sideboard.
Strong synergy with Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker and the modular/Hardened Scales space.
Also features in my Black Metal deck.
I think ~ would be good in blink decks, especially if they run Umezawa's Jitte.
Another Reclamation Sage. Nowhere near as powerful as Null Rod, Seeds of Innocence or Fracturing Gust, but if you're running a few artifacts/enchantments of your own that you don't want to mess with, and if you're running creature tutors, and if you're running blink effects, then ~ is good. I suppose she is also good if you're Human Tribal.
Super niche but I can see this as a catch all for Esper combo decks that run the 2mana transmuters, i.e. Muddle the Mixture, Shred Memory and Dimir Infiltrator. You can exile their hate piece in their end step and combo off in your turn.
Good for counterspell decks that struggle to deal with the graveyard, e.g. Blue Moon or Mono Blue; and also want something against Time Vault and Underworld Breach combo, which have many ways of returning their key combo piece from the graveyard.
Good in the sideboard of Hogaak decks against aggro.
Excellent sideboard against both aggro and artifacts. This duality may have freed a sideboard slot for some players.
Supplements Rampaging Ferocidon and Tibalt, Rakish Instigator, but Outside of Omnath, Locus of Creation lifegain isn't too popular right now (at least not in Melbourne).
You would prefer Creeping Corrosion, Seeds of Innocence and Collector Ouphe but if you expect to verse Tolarian Academy and it's a bad matchup for you and you have the sideboard space then you can run those 3 and Fade from History!
~ adds utility to Karn, the Great Creator, Urza's Saga, Trinket Mage, Ranger-Captain of Eos and all the creature tutors. I wouldn't rely solely on ~ as your anti-artifact/enchantment card though because it doesn't deal with creatures, e.g. Eidolon of the Great Revel, Eidolon of Rhetoric and Traxos, Scourge of Kroog.
If ~ gets counterspelled you still get the cast trigger and the ability to unearth and attack for a final trigger.
Robo ape dab.
I was recently made aware of T-pose Tribal in Commander. Surely there's enough cards for Dab-pose.dec! That is Commander at it's best.
Surprised that I have never seen anyone cast ~ ever in any format. Card advantage, unblockable, scaling. Seems good, what's going on!?
If this card is not as good as it seem it must be playable with Tolarian Academy and also in Lurrus Azorius. Tolarian Academy gets you to that final ability quickly.
PROTOTYPE SPELLS
Prototype rule from gatherer:
"When cast ~ as a prototyped spell, that spell has the mana cost, power, and toughness characteristics shown in its colored, secondary text box rather than the normal values of those characteristics. Its color and mana value are determined by that mana cost. The permanent that spell becomes as it resolves has the same characteristics. If the spell leaves the stack in any other way, or the permanent it becomes leaves the battlefield, it immediately resumes using its normal characteristics."
Prototypes let you cheat on companion conditions, which is pretty cool, e.g.
They are also good with flicker effects because they return full size. However, the prototypes with powerful ETB's have the 'if you cast it' clause, which stops too much abuse.
Another card that works for See the Truth.
Anything that recasts spells from the graveyard is powerful in 7PH. However, when you invest most of your points into Ancestrall Recall or Time Walk, you don't want to exile them. Therefore ~ is better suited as a general value card, e.g. Expressive Iteration/Hymn to Tourach - or as a backup for key combo spells that only need to resolve once, e.g. Flash/Tainted Pact/Demonic Consultation/Channel.Having them pay life for ward is much better on aggressive cards. ~ is a midrange card but the ward is still a bonus. Ward is a triggered ability, so in the right spot you could pump ~ in response to ask them for more life, e.g. by saccing your Arcbound Ravager.
~ is very good in damage races, which comes up often in this initiative metagame.
You can prototype ~, draw a card, blink it into a 3/3 double strike and draw another card.
SIDEBOARD CARDS
~ is sorcery-speed, which makes her ineffective against artifacts and enchantments that effectively win the game the turn they enter, e.g. Time Vault, Bolas's Citadel, Aluren and Underworld Breach. Against those cards Cathar Commando, Qasali Pridemage and Outland Liberator are better.
~ reminds me of a crazy game: Isaac Lee Vs Chifley Cole in the semis of Masters this year (2023). Chifley was applying a tonne of pressure with his Naya Initiative deck with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben on board. Isaac is on artifact combo and he casts multiple Timetwisters finding Zuran Orb at the last moment to pass the turn and survive Chifley's next attack on 1 life after saccing all his lands except Tolarian Academy. Isaac still has just enough mana to cast Karn and find Ensnaring Bridge. Chifley had none other than Loran of the Third Path on the battlefield to make Isaac draw a card in end step and another when untapped, allowing Chifley to attack, which was very sweet. A few turns and a few hundred game actions later, Isaac miraculously squeezes out the win, which was impressive considering we already played 8 rounds.
Super niche but I can see this as a catch all for Dimir Time Vault decks that run the 2mana transmuters, i.e. Muddle the Mixture, Shred Memory and Dimir Infiltrator. You can bounce their hate piece in their end step and combo off in your turn.
Creature decks often run equipment and moxes, so it's really nice to have the choice of which to kill.
~ further pushes the significance of 4toughness Vs 3toughness in this Lightning Bolt format.
~ is also a nice blocker against mono red where the life gain trigger really matters.
Nice utility for Karn, the Great Creator.
CONCLUSION
Here are my pick for best cards in the set:
Glad to see a sideboard card taking first place; Means Wizards are learning to tone done the power level. Well done The Brothers' War development team!
Mulch
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