The way I see it…

Well now that the whole of [MBS] has been made known to the world, I thought I’d give a rundown of my favorite cards from the set… As well as what I didn’t like about it. While for the most part I play casual Magic, (E.D… Commander is my primary format), there are some cards that I’m pretty sure have (or will) make waves in standard as well. That being said, I’m not a huge fan of the set as a whole for a couple reasons… First, the whole “Reprint + Infect” gimmick… I mean, really? Blightsteel Colossus is a slap in the face to one of the most (in my opinion) iconic cards in Magic’s history, Darksteel Colossus. But that’s not the only card that does this. Obviously there’s Inkmoth Nexus (which is disgustingly powerful when combined with new-Tezzeret), but what I’m really talking about is this:

 

More like "Corrupted Control Magic", amirite?

Seriously? First, Persuasion says this is a rare effect. It’s not. Then there was Mind Control, which was Persuasion, but at uncommon. Changing rarity doesn’t make it playable. Now this? Why can’t we just get Control Magic back? I suppose this is mostly just my opinion talking, as this isn’t a bad card per-say… It’s just something which like many other cards before it, slaps an iconic card in the face. I honestly believe that Control Magic could be printable in the near future. If Mind Control + Effect = 5-CMC, why can’t Mind Control – Effect = 4-CMC?

Anyways, I could go on about what I don’t like, but that doesn’t really help anyone. There’s also obviously good cards like the Mirran and Phyrexian Crusaders, the white mythic-rare Hero of Bladehold, etc. Those need no discussion. What I’m looking at are the cards which I find most interesting in the set, and which are not so obviously good or bad.

 

White

Joyous work for you anyways...

By a pretty good stretch, Phyrexian Rebirth is my favorite white card spoiled. Sure, it obviously has its Commander applications, being a 6-CMC sweeper, but where it really shines is the latter half of its ability…

…then put an X/X colorless Horror creature token into the battlefield, where X is the number of creatures destroyed this way.

Holy $#!+, is my initial reaction.

I’m not sure about you guys, but in my Commander games, this can easily produce a 10/10 creature.

Now, obviously this is very reminiscent of Martial Coup, but lets look closely at each. First, Martial Coup costs to get the similar effect off. Phyrexian Rebirth only costs . 1-0 Phyrexian Rebirth. Second, Martial Coup can make tokens even if you don’t wipe the board. Phyrexian Rebirth requires creatures to be on the board to make its token. 1-1 Tied. Third, assuming you go for the minimum amount of effort for both cards (making sure you get something out of both besides just the wrath effect), Martial Coup makes five 1/1s. Phyrexian Rebirth makes one 1/1. 1-2 Martial Coup. Finally, the amount of recovery from the field you get from Martial Coup is just better. Having five 1/1s on the board means even if you are down in life, you have way more chump blockers than Phyrexian Rebirth, and even if your opponent plays a creature to block with, you can still sneak through for some damage. 1-3 Martial Coup. Now, all this isn’t to say that Phyrexian Rebirth doesn’t have its merits. In voltron style (that is, equipment based decks) decks, Phyrexian Rebirth could prove much more valuable. For instance, Equipping a Loxodon Warhammer onto a 1/1, while good, is not as good as equipping a Loxodon Warhammer onto a 5/5 (the reason I use a 5/5 as an example, is because it’s the equivalent of playing Martial Coup for ). Playability-wise however, this is almost a no-contest in favor of Martial Coup. Of course, I’m not really a fan of goldfishing, so I’ll probably test it out myself at one point or another. I’m not holding my breath though. But what about Standard? Well, I haven’t played in awhile. But from what I do remember, most games I played ended with maybe a max of four creatures on the board. Is that extra over Day of Judgement worth the effect of getting an X/X? I’d say not by a long shot. With all the removal available in standard (don’t get me wrong, Commander has access to removal, but as a singleton format, it’s just not worth running things like Lightning Bolt or Doom Blade in my opinion), it’s not likely you’d even get to see use of that X/X creature Phyrexian Rebirth Gives you. The two extra turns that your opponent will get to attack you (assuming a land drop every turn, and no mana acceleration) will turn Phyrexian Rebirth into an advantage for them, not you.

 

It's pretty hard NOT to find "treasure" that large...

Blue

Oh Wizards… How sad you make me with this card.

Well lets get going. First impression: worse Trinket Mage. Blue thrives on being able to keep counterspell mana open while still playing spells. Trinket Mage is a chumper, plus a tutor for things like Sensei’s Divining Top, Library of Leng, Ivory Tower, Sol Ring, etc. The value you get out of Trinket Mage far surpasses his “bigger” brother.

That being said, lets compare slots in a couple of my decks just to see what Treasure Mage could nab for me…

In my Azami deck, abso-freakin-lutely nothing. It’s mono-blue, which means the most expensive spells in my deck are reserved for winning me the game (that is, cards like Time Stretch, pickles combo, Palinchron, etc). In fact, nearly all the artifacts in the deck are dedicated to mana acceleration.

In Sharuum, my general, for one (which is useful if your up against a lot of tucking effects), Duplicant, Sundering Titan, Filigree Angel, Memnarch, Magister Sphinx, and Inkwell Leviathan. This is where it makes me sad…

If the CMC was reduced to 5, there is so much more this card would hit in both of these decks… Gauntlet of Power, Scourglass, Ethersworn Adjudicator, Gilded Lotus, Glassdust Hulk… I could go on but you get the point. What you may not see though is that all the power in Sharuum at the very least lies at CMC<=5. I can’t say for certain since New Phyrexia hasn’t been released yet (you do know that’s what it’s going to be right? [I don’t know for sure, but all signs point to this]), but Trinket Mage hit on some pretty key cards in its block (Skullclamp and AEther Vial come to mind), where as far as I can tell, any tournament-breaking artifacts have been constrained outside of Treasure Mage’s metal detector.

Even so, the artifacts I don’t have yet to put into Sharuum (Mycosynth Lattice and Darksteel Forge, and now Spine of Ish Sah) are what would put this over the edge and into the playable bin for me. For now though, it just barely misses the mark. If you aren’t a combo player like myself, you’ll probably go more the pure-card-advantage route with Consecrated Sphinx, and I wouldn’t disagree that it’s a nuts card. The possibilities that New Phyrexia could present to Treasure Mage excites me though, so for now I’ll hold my breath.

 

Black

Now we know who's loving people's faces...

Wow are there some great picks in this color… However, looking back to one card in [SOM], the choice came down to what you see to the right: Phyrexian Vatmother. As I stated, there are some real obvious picks in this color like there was in white, like Black Sun’s Zenith or Massacre Wurm. I don’t care about those, because it’s obvious they’re good.

The card I’m looking back at is Skytherix, the Blight Dragon. Why? Because poison is ridiculous. In standard, it cuts your opponent’s life in half. In Commander, it cuts opponents’ lives in fourths. When you’re playing an aggro general, 21 damage is less than 40, but 10 is even less than that. Playing infect in Commander is going to be brutal, and this card supports that theory. In a format where Sol Ring and Dark Ritual are legal cards, Phyrexian Vatmother can come out as early as turn two, and in just a couple turns after that, you can down an opponent.

In standard, I don’t see a whole lot of discussion surrounding this guy, and maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but this seems almost like it would be a staple in infect.dec. Only time will tell though. We still have another set to go to the completion of the [SOM] block, and the situation doesn’t appear to be getting any better for the Mirrans (50% of [MBS] is dedicated to each side, minus one card [Tezzeret]).

 

Galvanoth... It Galvs... you... anoth...er... hole to breath breath out of? Yeah that was a stretch even for me.

Red

One word: Galvanoth. I REALLY like this card. Probably one of my favorites in the set. Not because it’s a Johnny card really (though it obviously has its implications when combined with something like Time Stretch), but because it’s a step in the right direction for red.

Red is notorious for having a hard time generating card advantage. Sure, in 1v1 it might be easy to just burn out your opponent’s creatures… but in multiplayer, you will just never draw enough direct damage to hold off everyone.

With Galvanoth, not only are you potentially getting a free spell each turn, you are also drawing a card on top of that! Now, it’s nothing much, I get that. But with the release of the new Commander set, WotC appears to be at least trying to rectify one of the worst colors (if not the worst color) in the format, starting with this guy.

As far as constructed play goes? I don’t see it happening anywhere in the near — or far — future. The cards to support it simply aren’t there. In Commander, this is easily comboed with things like Sensei’s Divining Top, Long-Term Plans, or Soothsaying. I know two of those are blue, but let’s face it: Niv-Mizzet is a beast general.

Not to mention, for five mana, white still gets Walletslayer Angel.

 

Green

Problem, Red/Black player?

Well, since I’m not trying to take the obvious route of either Praetor’s Counsel or Green Sun’s Zenith… There isn’t a whole lot left to pick from in my opinion. That being said, I suppose Thrun fits here.

My first impression was that it would probably never see play. But then I thought about it for awhile, and realized that Jenara is played in standard if I remember right. This guy is on par with her, and is even a nearly strictly better Cudgel Troll. Can’t be countered, can’t be targeted, regenerates after Day of Judgement… Yeah, this will see play in standard.

In Commander, I see this guy being a big meta breaker, on par with Isamaru, Hound of Konda. In playgroups that are control-heavy, Thrun is definitely going to go the distance. He definitely seems to want to be in a voltron style deck, and I don’t disagree with that. With green as one of the major Phyrexian infect colors, he could even be support for that strategy when equipped with something like Grafted Exoskeleton.

The real question is, is he better than Uril? My guess at that answer? No. Uril will by far outpace Thrun due to the huge amount of synergy he produces in his colors. If you want to play mono-green, by all means, go ahead and try out Thrun, though I think Omnath rules those grounds. That being said, Ezuri has been making waves in my playgroup, so maybe Thrun could be sneaking in under my nose. I don’t know for sure. Even so, if you are playing green, you should be running this guy.

 

Multicolor

Well surprise surprise. We get two multicolor cards with MBS, both of which are obviously very good. What’s my pick though?

 

Definitely more like Tezzeret, Agent of Crushing Bolas if you know what I mean ;).

Yeah, not so surprising. While she’s good in standard and as an auto-include in B/G Commander decks, Glissa just isn’t my style, so for that reason if nothing else, I think Tezzeret is the better pick here. There is something else though. While Glissa herself can kill creatures to trigger her own ability, and black kills creatures just because that’s what it does, green and black are not traditionally colors which like artifacts for one reason: they have no means to protect them. While green does get cards like Nature’s Spiral, it doesn’t have any proactive measures by way of counterspells the same way that blue does. The same goes for black. Hence, as a general, Glissa isn’t really a good pick in my opinion.

In any case, Tezzeret is obviously an auto-include for my Sharuum deck. He might be good in a few other commander decks, but I think there it’s pretty obvious how sick he is. For , even if he doesn’t survive, you get your mana’s worth, especially in a deck built around digging out combo pieces as quickly as possible. Even if you don’t use him for that, a 5/5 artifact creature for four mana isn’t a bad deal either (assuming you use that ability on something you don’t care about dying). In standard, as I said earlier, he creates a sickening combo with Inkmoth Nexus. 5/5 Flying + Infect? Yes please! I can see the deck developing itself already. Bad news is, he’s a mythic. And like all good mythics, he’s going to be hella expensive.

 

Artifact

Of course I would almost forget what the block is all about… Artifacts!

Well, we all know Blightsteel Colossus isn’t winning this game, and I think I’ve adequately described how good poisoning your opponents are… So Decimator Web is out… I already hinted that Spine of Ish Sah is pretty epic in Commander… Well how about…

 

Hmm...

A Mirari remake for artifact spells? Does that mean we’re not going to see a reappearance of the interplaner-chaos-creating device? Hopefully not. But more to the point, you will be seeing me play this in Commander. Standard? Probably not so much. With Master Transmuter in Sharuum, two Vindicates a la Spine of Ish Sah for  sounds pretty beast to me. How about double Gilded Lotus? Double Sharuum for infinite life loss a la Disciple of the Vault? Yeah, this thing is nice.

Standard however, I don’t really see this as any sort of threat.

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Well hopefully that was at least somewhat enlightening. I plan on doing one of these for every set from now on, so expect to see a lot more news about upcoming sets.

Also I’m aware that I’ve kinda jumped around my planned posts for now, but don’t fret. I’ll get there when I get there ;).