Mulchy Magic: April 2022

Hello 7 Point Highlander Players,

This is my Crimson Vow set review, many months late but better than never.

Solid Human tribal card.

Excellent against control decks that rely on removal and sweepers to deal with creatures.

Plays well with sweepers. I will be adding ~ to my All In Balance deck. ~ in combination with Balance leaves you with a 3/1 and the opponent with no hand.

~ is a decent Madness outlet. Modern Horizons II didn't support white as a madness colour but there's Seasoned Hallowblade and I really like Bloodghast and therefore all the white tutors for Skullclamp.

Good in an aggro deck with lots of ≤2mana ≥2power haste creatures.

Very valuable to the Hardened Scales strategy. That deck is hungry for disruptive threats. It was already running Ranger-Captain of Eos and Ranger of Eos to find Hangarback Walker. Now those tutors have extra utility. Holding up three mana to stop Underworld Breach from casting their namesake card and killing you can be a large tempo loss but the Hardened Scales strategy has a lot of incidental activated abilities to spend that mana on.

I like this in the Spirit tribal deck (I've never seen one but I think it would be playable).

I also like it Enchantress. I hesitated to say that because you may have been turning on opposing creature removal but I believe Enchantress has been running targetable creatures for a while now since powerful ones like Sythis, Harvest's Hand have been printed.

Strong with creatures than can train ~ and protect it from removal, e.g. Cliffside Rescuer, Saffi Eriksdotter, Selfless Samurai, Selfless Spirit.

We now have 11 turn-two double strikers:

'Dreadhorde Arcanist'

Swiftblade Vindicator

Adorned Pouncer

Boros Swiftblade

Fencing Ace

Viashino Slaughtermaster

Warren Instigator

Twinblade Geist

Kor Blademaster

Lizard Blades

Steelshaper's Gift

Another 4 and I'm going to make an infect-style deck, except using double strikers. The benefit of this is the prospect of more double strikers getting printed in the future (unlike infect creatures), and you get to use the opponent's life loss from fetches and shocks.

Gaea's Might and Might of Alara are tempting for going up to 5 colours but I think I'll just stick to Naya.

If you do end up splashing blue in the Double Strike deck, you can run this too. You would need a lot of Blooming Defense-type cards and have one ready at all times. Might be too much to ask.

Looks like a draft common but I might actually run it in the double strike deck.

Back in the day I had an Infect deck and the pump+trample instants performed surprisingly well as removal. That was a different time, but it may still be true today. Would need to test.

Good lifegain payoff. It joins the ranks of:

Cleric of Life's Bond

Trelasarra, Moon Dancer

Karlov of the Ghost Council

Ajani's Pridemate

There's gotta be a good Abzan Life Gain deck out there complete with Heliod, the Sun-Crowned/Archangel of Thune + Spikefeeder + combo.

Acts like a bad Soul Warden.

Good in a deck with lots of 1mana creatures so that you can draw a card immediately on turn 4.

It specifies "cast" in the final ability, so you can't play lands off the top.

The triggered exile ability doesn't target, so you're able to look at the top card of your library before choosing which card to exile.

~ is obviously best with cantrips because they're on colour, they're cheap and easy to get in the graveyard, they also naturally set up the top of your library, so if you find another one, you'll be able to cast that with ~ too. Instants are the best because ~ says "each turn" so there's a chance you get to cast on your turn and the opponent's.

Much like Courser of Kruphix and Kess, etc, it's best to wait until you have 4 mana to cast ~ and immediately get value, lest the opponent kills it immediately.

Excellent threat for aggro. Can stop you getting combo'd out by Storm. Deals a tonne of damage to artifact decks. Can exile Uro, which is a game-over threat for aggro.

The only downside is...you guessed it, the Wrenn and Six potential. At least you can exile a fetchland with ~ and if the Wrenn and Six player hasn't got another fetch, then Wrenn and Six is much weaker.

Very cool card.

You might snag an Uro with the once-off graveyard exile, or respond to a Snapcaster Mage trigger, etc.

Hitting land is fine if you have plenty of fetches.

Hitting instant or sorcery is good if you run heaps of cantrips.

Cemetery Protector is a good tribal card because the tokens are Humans too, for cards like Rally the Ranks and Champion of the Parish.

3/4 flash is unlikely to catch a surprise block against a good opponent because they may already be wary of Restoration Angel or even Endurance if your mana also taps for GG.

Makes infinite dudes with Food Chain + Squee/Eternal Scourge/Misthollow Griffin

Strong stats. Passes the Bolt test. Doesn't pass the Jace, the Mind Sculptor test though.

Combo potential in artifact decks, e.g. plug the Reality Chip into this puppy and draw your deck with Sensei's Divining Top.

Good incidental graveyard hate if you're struggling against Uro.

I think you can run this in a 'good stuff' midrange deck and be pretty happy. A 3/3 for one is a decent threat even in the midgame when you're tightly exchanging cheap removal and threats. Then late game the extra card draw could be all the difference.

A rare strong Zombie Tribal payoff.

Combo potential, e.g. Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler.

Normally creatures that have power and toughness equal the number of lands you contorl are not good to cheat onto the battlefield early, but ~ is definitely an exception, in fact the earlier you do it, the more lands you'll have in hand.

I think this is worth of Natural Order, Eldritch Evolution and Neoform.

Craterhoof Behemoth is probably still the best in general, but sometimes you don't have mana creatures. Obviously you may not have lands in hand, so ~ isn't always great. Probably a good to run a mix of Craterhoof, Hornet Queen/Somberwald Beastmaster and ~.

I like this as a land replacement in combo decks. As long as you have ≈15 untapped turn1 green sources, I think you can run this in a land slot.

I haven't seen Painful Truths played in a long time, so perhaps 3 mana draw 3 isn't good these days? That can't be right. Not losing 3 life is a big deal against aggro decks.

The drawback means you only want ~ in decks that can drop their hand quickly lest you discard to hand size.

If you're running Eldrazi titans in your deck, then Jacob is very powerful. He 'loots' to find the titans and then casts them for 6 mana, with the trigger and everything.

I also like ~ in decks that are maximising all the 'second draw' payoff cards like Improbable Alliance, Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse, Irencrag Pyromancer and Jori En, Ruin Diver

~ triggers Stonebinder's Familiar each of your turns.

~ doesn't die to Wrenn and Six unlike most looters.

I think you can run Jacob in midrange decks. All it takes is casting a 4mana spell off Hauken's Insight and you've basically broken even. From then on the card advantage and free spells will take the game. The only catch is getting to 6 mana in the first place, which is not hard in control/midrange.

A looter for madness decks that doesn't get rekt by Wrenn and Six.

May have niche in a turbo Affinity for Artifacts / Improvise / Tolarian Academy deck. Turns on Mox Opal by itself.

Good disruptive threat. If your creature deck is losing to combo a lot, ~ is a good option.

You can use Hullbreacher to deny the opponent's draw.

3 power Menace attacking on turn 3 is good for pressuring planeswalkers.

Good against removal because you commit the 3 extra mana on your terms, e.g. if they're holding up removal for when you try to transform, you just put your companion in hand or cast something else instead. And if they do remove it before you transform, you only spent 1 mana.

4 toughness good against Bolt.

1mana cost is good against counterspells.

~ is really a 4mana creature but you can run it with Lurrus of the Dream-Den. And it protects Lurrus.

All these things combined make ~ quite solid.

10 years ago you wouldn't run this but power creep has dropped mana values low enough, that you will almost always hit with ~. It's probably better than Duress on average.

Excellent for stopping combo and protecting your own combo.

Good for filling up the graveyard for big Delve creatures and then protecting them by discard opponent's removal.

Good for protecting Dreadhorde Arcanist and giving it something to recast.

Discard Sorceries are a tempo loss (because your opponent doesn't spend mana on the card you discard, but you spend mana on the Sorcery), However, if your deck has very few 1mana spells, you probably weren't using that mana on turn1 anyway, in that sense you don't lose tempo. There's also the possibility that the opponent will have nothing to do on turn2 because you made them discard their only 2drop, in that case you actually gain tempo.

Good in madness where you're discarding every turn anyway.

Gives you some protection from opposing discard effects.

I would run a bunch of looters (with preference to the ≥2 toughness ones because Wrenn and Six).

~ can trigger on yours and your opponent's turn, a possible two zombie between each of your turns.

Solid top-end threat. There are so many to choose from. Each deck probably has room for about two to four 4drops. Which ones you go with depend on your deck's weaknesses and synergies. I can see ~ getting played in:

Mono black, Vampie Tribal and decks which are having trouble with True-Name Nemesis and Kappa Cannoneer.

Yet another powerful game winning 4drop. ~ will need plenty of removal from your to keep him alive and also to keep your life total high enough that you can +1 a lot.

Very niche, but I've run this as a way to find, fuel and cast Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, and also as sacrifice fodder to Grist, the Hunger Tide. Performs a similar role to Stitcher's Supplier and Satyr Wayfinder.

Excellent threat in mono red. Mono red naturally has a lot of singleR cards for you to cast on turn3 when you cast ~ and add a mana.

From then on you just exile cards from library to defend Chandra and ultimate her.

Upgrade to Magma Spray, or a. Good for dealing with Bloodghast, Voice of Resurgence and other pesky returning creatures or death-trigger creatures.

It's easy to missread this card as "this turn", but it's "Until the end of your next turn". Similar to Light up the Stage.

Expressive Itteration has been one of the most quickly adopted cards for any deck that can cast it. Honestly, Reckless Impulse is not that far off. 2 cards for two mana.

You don't want to cast Reckless Impulse if you've already played a land for the turn, because if you exile two lands, you won't be able to play both of them.

Running ~ does put a cap on the highest cost cards in your deck, for example, if you cast ~ turn 3 and you reveal a 5drop, you won't be able to cast it. In general you should avoid running anything costing more than 4 if you're running ~.

You want to build your deck such that you can cast this turn2 and no matter what you exile, you will be able to cast, i.e. you don't want anything costing more that 3 mana in your deck. At that point you may as well play Lurrus.

Wrenn and Six is a big risk, so I would go Mardu for the 4 good 1mana discard spells plus Mother of Runes and Giver of Runes to minimise that risk. The discard can also protect Lurrus.

Decent aggro threat.

Flashing Solitude in combat could be a blow out. Same with Gush, Snuff Out and Submerge.

Fury is also nice to grow ~ ahead of 4mana.

Nothing tricky here. I just think 4/4 trample haste for 2GG is actually decent.

Good at thumping planeswalkers, pressures life total.

Can't be chumped by mana drok or tokens in a race.

Obviously not as good as Questing Beast, but I like it.

Vampire tribal only. Possibly a metagame call, he's better against colours that can't exile him.

Gets around opposing Hullbreacher/Narset, Parter of Veils/Leovold, Emissary of Trest.

Ideally you want to play both cards you exile with Eruth, therefore the lower your curve the better with nothing costing more than 4.

You won't wont be able to keep any counterspells you reveal with ~ but you'll be exiling so many cards that you won't care. In fact the counterspells can protect Eruth and let you pull ahead.

Eruth doesn't want you to run all the cantrips because you might end up spending all your mana on cantrips and not being able to cast any cards left in exile.

Eruth must be killed if the opponent wants to win the game lest they be buried in card advantage. In that sense she's little like Courser of Kruphix.

Clearly a good card but I wasn't sure where to place it.

I think it is good in Yorion control decks which use non-creature ETB effects and are always looking for good answers to opposing threats.

I think it's good in delirium decks where you have enough creature presence for a left-over 2/1 flier to do work but it is also garaunteed to find something you need.

Just a generally good card. It can kill a Lurrus or Hullbreacher and leave a blood token to sac late game. A 3/2 early game survives Wrenn and Six, blocks Dreadhorde Arcanist and generally always trades for a card.

Good in a Shape Anew deck.

A must kill threat, otherwise he will amass a bunch of 2/2's.

Makes infinite dudes with Food Chain + Squee/Eternal Scourge/Misthollow Griffin.

Good mana fixer and win condition in Balance focused decks.

Another draw brick for Semblance Anvil/Krark-Clan Ironworks/Ugin, the Ineffable combo.

SIDEBOARD ONLY

Good in the sideboard of a Paradoxical Outcome deck with as many cheap things as possible that gain value when they enter, or that net mana e.g. Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Mox Sapphire, Sol Ring, Mox Opal.

Decent sideboard card for Spirit Tribal against decks that don't have many blockers. Tribal decks are desperate for their sideboard cards to be on-tribe because of the critical mass required for cards like Realmwalker and Collected Company.

Zombie Tribal is not a thing yet due to the lack of good payoffs and the lack of disruptive Zombies for combatting combo and things like Jitte. There are however, a tonne of playable Zombies. All it would take is ≈5 powerful tribal payoffs.

~ is too slow to maindeck but I like it in grindy matchups. I alos think blue would need to just be a splash so that the opponent doesn't board in Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast.

Not very good with Legendary Zombies unfortunately.