In this article I'll step through how Scheming Symmetry (henceforth written as 'SS') should and should not be played and how it may effect the meta.
I'll be using the four popular combo decks flash, storm, channel and reanimator as subjects. Chosen for their popularity and suitability with SS. If you are unfamiliar with these combo decks, you can find some example lists at auseternal.com. Note that those lists are a little out of date and builds vary dramatically.
To begin, let's determine whether simply casting SS and letting your opponent draw their card is a problem, a.k.a. casting it 'naked':
Casting Scheming Symmetry naked
To simplify things let's consider the best case scenario for casting SS naked. I mean, apart from being physically naked of course... You've won the die roll and have the option of turn-one SS:
To win turn-two after casting SS turn-one, you would need to have either Flash, Protean Hulk or Summoner's Pact and at least two lands in your opening hand. That seems quite unlikely (I haven't learnt how to calculate the probability but I should).
Hypothetically you cast SS on the play with Flash/Hulk/Pact in hand; will your opponent be able to stop you? Postboard very likely, but what about maindeck? Let's consider what cards each colour can tutor for against you when you're on the play:
- BLUE: Force of Will*, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Thought Scour, Portent, Force Spike, Stubborn Denial and many more.
- BLACK: Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize (DITS) - Most black decks run at least one of these main.
- WHITE: Judge's Familiar, Mana Tithe - That's all I can think of. Mana Tithe is not a very popular card but it is good and should see more play. As the meta evolves and players become familiar with their peers' decks, I can imagine the SS player knowing that their opponent who only has an untapped Plains, is almost certainly holding Mana Tithe. In that (unlikely) scenario the SS player can pass and wait until next turn for a third mana to pay the tithe. That line relies on having a third land though AND the opponent not having a two-cost disruption spell like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Leonin Arbiter or Containment Priest. Leveling becomes part of decision making here and it all gets very interesting.
- RED: Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast - Both maindeckable. I'm serious; especially if you have looting/rummaging effects.
- GREEN: Can't think of anything.
- COLOURLESS: Strip Mine*/Wasteland*/Ghost Quarter - Bad options but better than nothing, there's a strong chance the Flash player has a third land. Note that Ghost Quarter is a 'may', so it's effectively just Strip Mine.
Surgical Extraction - Shuffles away the opponent's top card. Great against SS but inconsistent against most decks. It could do nothing or be devastating. Can stop a recurring Strip Mine from green decks.
Naked SS in storm:
Storm can win with many combinations of fast mana and mass card draw, the best of those effects are Black Lotus and Yawgmoth's Will respectively. There are many weaker substitutes for Will, e.g. Wheel of Fortune, Past in Flames, Bonus Round, Doomsday and more, so SS will mostly be finding Lotus. Even if storm has a Will + Lotus hand, it still needs a bit more 'stuff' to get the stormcount high enough, so it's not always a turn two kill. Assuming it is though, what disruption does each colour have access to for at one mana?
- BLUE: Force of Will*, Force of Negation, Spell Pierce, Thought Scour, Portent and more.
- BLACK: DITS are less reliable here since the Lotus will be on top of the library and they may have redundant mass card draw in hand. Still very effective though.
Nihil Spellbomb. - WHITE: Mana Tithe, Dryad Militant - Unreliable but could be effective depending on storm's hand.
- RED: Nothing.
- GREEN: Dryad Militant - Horrible against Wrenn and Six and Liliana, the Last Hope but otherwise fine.
- COLOURLESS: Mental Misstep - May counter a critical Dark Ritual or Rite of Flame but not reliable. Surgical Extraction, Strip Mine*/Wasteland*/Ghost Quarter - See description in the 'Flash' section above.
In summary, against maindeck turn-one SS from storm, blue has the best answers (Portent and Thoughtscour). Black has the strong DITS and the remaining colours have unreliable but relevant options. On the play some red decks can run Eidolon of the Great Revel or Ash Zealot and some green decks can run Collector Ouphe.
Naked SS in channel:
Blue has counters; Black has DITS; White has Mana Tithe; Red and Green have nothing on the draw but could run Eidolon of the Great Revel and Collector Ouphe if on the play. Channel is far less popular than other combo decks due to its volatility and extreme deck building restrictions, so I wouldn't make maindeck card choices with it in mind.
Naked SS in reanimator:
This deck could use turn-one SS to set up a turn-two kill with Entomb and Reanimate, or Reanimate plus discarding a fatty. However, Mental Misstep is a super popular answer to Reanimate and Entomb that every colour has access to. Leveling comes into it here; Most of the time the opponent will tutor for Mental Misstep but the SS player will aim for a turn-three kill by using a two-mana discard effect on turn-two and a two-mana or three-mana reanimation spell on turn-three to play around Mental Misstep. This exposes the reanimation player to other disruption though, so it's risky.
Ok, let's evaluate everything so far; Almost all blue and black decks play counterspells and discard respectively and it's unusual for a deck not to be playing either of those colours. The remaining decks may be unprepared for a naked SS initially but if it becomes widely adopted by combo, those players can add the disruption I've mentioned. Also, you can never cast a naked SS against other combo decks. I believe it's clear that a 'naked' SS is not feasible.
Casting Scheming Symmetry whilst breaking symmetry
Now let's get pragmatic; Considering all the above I believe SS is only playable if you can reliably prevent your opponent from drawing their card. To do that you can either draw your card first and combo-off immediately or you can shuffle/mill/exile their card off the top of their library.Let's call these symmetry breaking effects 'break effects'. How many break effects do we need to reliably use SS? Let's do a rough calculation: Say we're happy with having one ~85% of the time and say we need to kill no later than turn-four, which is around when an aggro deck is killing you or your control opponent has too much disruption to fight through. So, 7 card hand on the play; That's three draw steps and one of our cards is SS. Online hypergeometric calculator tells me roughly 10-12 effects are required to meet 85%.
Here's what 12 draw effects looks like.
Gitaxian Probe
Brainstorm
Preordain
Ponder
Thoughtscour
Serum Visions
Opt
Chromatic Star
Chromatic Sphere
Darkwater Egg
Skycloud Egg
Peek
Of course there are plenty others for customisation: If you're red you get Manamorphose and Faithless Looting; You may have a point spare for Sensei's Divining Top; Arcum's Astrolabe is a nice one if you have plenty of snow-basics and fetches, etc.
There are also many non-cantrip, non-egg cards that let you draw for one or zero mana the following turn. For example, Teferi, Time Raveler, and in his case you can even cast SS in their turn and draw your card first that way.
I didn't list two-cost draw effects because they're too slow for SS + combo off.
Here are some cheap enough shuffle/mill effects:
Thoughtscour (helps in both ways)
Predict
Portent
Assassin's Trophy
Winds of Abandon
There are plenty other ways to mess with your opponent's library but they may not be cheap enough to pair with SS before turn-four. Here are some slow yet playable ones:
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
Ashiok, Dream Render
Aven Mindcensor
Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Field of Ruin
Including 10-12 break effects is a significant deck building restriction. Once you add lands and combo pieces you may not have room for much else. You may have to cut luxury things like mana acceleration.
Let's theorise how these break effects play out in the combo decks:
SS in Flash with break effects:
Flash dedicates A LOT of slots to combo pieces. I looked up a couple lists and they only run 3-4 cantrips. For flash to employ SS it would need to choose a 'Hulk pile' requiring as few slots as possible to make room for break effects. Piles with less cards are easier to disrupt, e.g. Titania, Protector of Argoth + Sylvan Safekeeper versus a ~7 card Body Double Reveillark loop versus a ~10 card Mogg Bombers kill.
Assuming that flash can run SS, it would go turn-four SS + cantrip + Flash. We probably don't have space in the deck for mana acceleration to speed that line up. Using eggs instead of cantrips speeds this line up too but I believe flash combo prefers the card selection of cantrips.
Using SS takes away one of the deck's greatest strengths, comboing at instant speed.
I don't expect flash to adopt SS.
SS in Storm with break effects:
Storm is the strongest SS deck because Black Lotus overcomes the 'mana bottleneck' of casting SS in the same turn as your combo. Storm already ran 10+ cantrips/eggs before SS was printed. It can go turn-two SS + cantrip into Lotus and possibly combo off depending on its hand. Note that Manamorphose and the Odyssey cycle of eggs require two spare mana to draw their card.
SS is very scary in Storm.
SS in Channel with break effects:
Channel already plays several draw effects but they're mostly purposed for converting colourless mana to black mana for Lich's Mirror tutors. Most of these consume two mana, so the line would be SS + two mana card draw + Channel = 5 mana, i.e. too slow. Channel requires a high life total to cast its first Lich's Mirror post Channel. Therefore, you really need to hit that 5 mana by turn-three. The deck plays mana acceleration but not enough to reliably be two mana ahead.
SS can find Lich's Mirror mid-combo if you have a card draw effect, which is nice.
Hard to tell if SS is strong or meh in the deck.
SS in Reanimator with break effects:
Entomb and Reanimate have no one-mana substitutes. You only draw them occasionally. Therefore, turn-four SS + Entomb + Reanimate is unlikely. Most of the time you will be discarding your fatty beforehand then on turn-three going SS + cantrip + Reanimate.
Reanimator decks already played about six cantrips. Adding 4-6 more isn't a huge problem. SS seems really good in Reanimator.
Other issues to consider with Scheming Symmetry
- You're depending on going-off the same turn with a draw effect a lot of the time. This loss of one or two mana on your critical turn is a big issue against opposing disruption.
SS is very risky against counterspells. If your opponent has a counterspell you probably won't have the mana to win the counter war and they will untap, draw their tutored card and you will be down. - Your opponent may have instant-speed card draw. If they have enough mana untapped they could draw their tutored card and cast it to stop you. This combined with the counterspell weakness mentioned above makes SS particularly poor against blue decks.
- Your opponent may have an instant-speed effect to shuffle or mill your card in response to you trying to draw it. Some popular ones are: Thoughtscour, Assassin's Trophy and Field of Ruin. As players become more aware of SS they may play more effects like this and they will be more likely to hold up mana for them.
Note that Chromatic Sphere and the Odyssey eggs draw a card as part of their mana ability and hence can't be responded to, but other draw effects can be. - If a player has shroud/hexproof you won't be able to cast SS.
Conclusion
Ok, those are my thoughts on Scheming Symmetry. I expect it to be adopted by storm, channel and reanimator. It will significantly effect how channel and reanimator are built.I believe SS is good, powerful and players should respect it. However, given it's build cost, it's natural weakness to ubiquitous blue cards and given players can adjust their decks and play patterns against it, I don't expect SS to be point-worthy. We'll see. It feels a bit like Rhystic Tutor.
May your schemes be asymmetrical,
Luke Mulcahy
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