While we may not all be looking forward to the upcoming release of yet another Core Set as much as, say, the next season of Game of Thrones, the Prerelease events this weekend are bound to be a good time.
There’s a certain amount of excitement involved with cracking packs and seeing brand new (or tired old) cards for the first time. Besides the novelty factor, a cool aspect of a set release is how the learning curve sort of resets for a brief moment. Obviously your experience in previous formats still counts something, but for a short time old card evaluations are thrown out the window, archetypes have to be built up from scratch, and we have to learn how to play around a whole new set of tricks.
I’ve spent a little more time than I usually would reviewing the spoiler in an effort to distill the information into something that might give you a leg up this weekend. I’m going to focus primarily on the Sealed Deck format since that what most people will be playing first. I won’t be going over the basics. 40 cards, 17 lands, that sort of thing. If you’re looking for that kind of information, feel free to ask in the Comments, or, better yet, just show up at your local store and ask around.
Another thing I won’t be doing is a complete set review. Various pros will weigh in on this over the coming weeks, and I don’t really see the benefit of adding my voice to the madness. Instead, I’m going to focus on what I consider to be the pertinent details of the format. What colours should you be looking to play, or expect to play against? What are the defining features of the format? And, perhaps most importantly, what tricks do you need to be aware of.
We’ll look at each colour and focus on the heart and soul of any Limited format: the commons. And, in particular, the creatures.
WHITE
Common Playable* Creatures:
1cc: [card]War Falcon[/card]
2cc: [card]Ajani’s Sunstriker[/card], [card]Aven Squire[/card], [card]Silvercoat Lion[/card]
3cc: [card]Attended Knight[/card], [card]Guardians of Akrasa[/card]
4cc: [card]Griffin Protector[/card], [card]Pillarfield Ox[/card], [card]Captain’s Call[/card]
5cc: [card]Battleflight Eagle[/card], [card]Guardian Lions[/card]
*As you can see, I’m using the term “playable” rather loosely. Unexciting cards like [card]Silvercoat Lion[/card] and [card]Guardian Lions[/card] are probably better off in your sideboard, but I’m including them to give an idea of what kind of options are available at each point in the curve. Cards like [card]Warclamp Mastiff[/card] that are almost always unplayable are not included.
Other Notable Commons:
[card]Pacifism[/card]
[card]Divine Verdict[/card]
Notable Uncommons:
[card]Oblivion Ring[/card]
[card]Serra Angel[/card]
The white creatures are pretty anemic overall. Many of them are ground creatures with a higher toughness than power. While stalling the ground in order to win with fliers or bombs is a tried, tested, and true strategy, you really have to be sure of your ability to dominate the air or win the long game for this to be viable
The only common creature I’d actually consider good is [card]Griffin Protector[/card]. It’s merely a 2/3 flier for four mana, but attacking for 3 damage in the air is relevant against green and red decks, and a 2/3 body shuts down most of the white and blue fliers. A solid card.
[card]War Falcon[/card] is definitely costed aggressively, but there are only a few common white creatures that satisfy the activation requirements, and a 2/1 flier that might not attack until turn 5 or 6 is not something you generally want to play. This could be a staple in a knight- or soldier-based draft archetype, but he should sit on the sidelines more often than not in sealed.
As for the spells, [card]Divine Verdict[/card] is a card that will almost certainly get panned by the pro community, and for good reason. Good players will quickly learn to play around it when you suspiciously leave four mana up. One thing to consider is that its value will never be higher than at the Prerelease. There will be an adaptation phase, and you will “get” players with this card more than you should. It’s still not a good reason to play white, but it’s a card you’ll probably want to include if you’re short on removal. I could definitely see boarding it out.
With only two legitimately good commons, you’ll need a very good reason to jam your deck full of do-nothing creatures and mediocre combat tricks. Reasons like multiple [card]Serra Angel[/card]s or rare/mythic bombs. I would not expect many white-based decks at the top tables and would encourage you to look elsewhere if your pool allows it. If you do end up playing white as a primary colour, you’ll probably have the most success pairing the defensive ground creatures with cheap blue fliers.
Splashing white for removal like [card]Pacifism[/card] and [card]Oblivion Ring[/card] is much more realistic. I’d expect people to throw [card]Divine Verdict[/card]s in as well, for better or worse.
BLUE
Common Playable Creatures:
1cc: [card]Kraken Hatchling[/card]
2cc: [card]Welkin Tern[/card]
3cc: [card]Scroll Thief[/card], [card]Watercourser[/card], [card]Wind Drake[/card]
4cc: [card]Archaeomancer[/card], [card]Vedalken Entrancer[/card]
5cc: [card]Faerie Invaders[/card]
6cc: [card]Harbor Serpent[/card]
Other Notable Commons:
[card]Divination[/card]
[card]Encrust[/card]
[card]Essence Scatter[/card]
[card]Negate[/card]
[card]Unsummon[/card]
Notable Uncommons:
[card]Sleep[/card]
[card]Switcheroo[/card]
[card]Talrand’s Invocation[/card]
[card]Welkin Tern[/card], [card]Wind Drake[/card], and [card]Faerie Invaders[/card] are all legitimately good evasive creatures, and will form the backbone of many good tempo-based blue decks. While [card]Scroll Thief[/card] and [card]Watercourser[/card] might not be the most exciting, they’ll do a reasonable job of making sure you don’t die to random bears while your fliers pick at your opponent’s life total. Both of them do have the ability to become relevant attackers in certain situations.
As for the spells, [card]Essence Scatter[/card] and [card]Negate[/card] provide cheap answers to many of the rare and mythic bombs that people usually build their decks around. While they’re obviously both situational, the game will usually get to a point where you can afford to keep two mana up to stop your opponent from doing something potentially game-breaking. Cheap situational counterspells like these are valid reasons to want play blue.
[card]Unsummon[/card] is a card that is almost always underrated, even by players who think it’s good. They deal with auras, provide a tremendous amount of tempo advantage, and can save your important creatures from removal. Especially good when you want to tap low for sorcery-speed card draw like [card]Divination[/card]. Barring an exceptionally broken pool, I would say the first two are automatic inclusions and I’d almost always include the third. Also combines pretty well with [card]Switcheroo[/card].
[card]Encrust[/card] is a little harder to evaluate. It deals with attackers and utility creatures, but doesn’t prevent a creature from blocking. It will help you catch up, but won’t be as useful when you’re trying to force through damage. It’s almost certainly playable, but I don’t think it’s on the same level of a card like [card]Pacifism[/card].
[card]Sleep[/card] kind of underperformed for me last year. I’m not really sure why since it seems completely ridiculous on paper. It’s obviously great in any sort of race situation, and I would still consider it a very good card. Just be aware that it becomes much less useful in attrition situations or when your plan is to sit back on counterspells and removal until you draw your bombs.
Overall, blue is a strong contender for best colour in sealed. I would expect a lot of the best and most consistent decks to be base-blue. Any deck can win some games by drawing a flashy bomb that the opponent can’t answer, but blue tempo decks have the ability win a lot of the normal games where players have to battle with the weaker halves of their decks.
BLACK
Common Playable Creatures:
1cc: [card]Duty-Bound Dead[/card], [card]Tormented Soul[/card]
2cc: [card]Bloodthrone Vampire[/card], [card]Ravenous Rats[/card], [card]Walking Corpse[/card]
3cc: [card]Giant Scorpion[/card], [card]Servant of Nefarox[/card]
4cc: [card]Bloodhunter Bat[/card], [card]Liliana’s Shade[/card]
5cc: [card]Zombie Goliath[/card]
Other Notable Commons:
[card]Essence Drain[/card]
[card]Mark of the Vampire[/card]
[card]Murder[/card]
[card]Sign in Blood[/card]
Notable Uncommons:
[card]Public Execution[/card]
[card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card]
I suppose [card]Bloodhunter Bat[/card] might be the best creature, but that doesn’t make it good. [card]Liliana’s Shade[/card] is a quality creature in a black-heavy deck, but the motley assortment of rats, skeletons, and scorpions you’d have to play to make that kind of deck possible is underwhelming to say the least.
[card]Tormented Soul[/card] can’t rely on the Bloodthirst mechanic for relevancy any more, but there might be enough random exalted creatures to avoid ruling him out completely.
[card]Murder[/card] and [card]Essence Drain[/card] are both effective removal spells, so I guess the strategy of killing all of your opponent’s relevant threats and winning with a random [card]Zombie Goliath[/card] is not completely horrible. [card]Mark of the Vampire[/card] suffers the same weakness as all the other enhancement auras, but probably becomes playable if a single hit with a marked creature justifies the card that you probably lose to if you get 2-for-1’d the following turn.
You’ll need a really good reason to play a lot of [card]Swamp[/card]s in your deck. [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card]s and some number of rares or mythics most likely. Splashing for cards like [card]Essence Drain[/card] and [card]Public Execution[/card] will usually be the best option.
RED
Common Playable Creatures:
1cc: [card]Goblin Arsonist[/card]
2cc: [card]Dragon Hatchling[/card], [card]Mogg Flunkies[/card], [card]Krenko’s Command[/card]
3cc: [card]Reckless Brute[/card], [card]Rummaging Goblin[/card], [card]Wall of Fire[/card]
4cc: [card]Bladetusk Boar[/card], [card]Canyon Minotaur[/card], [card]Goblin Battle Jester[/card]
5cc: [card]Fire Elemental[/card]
Other Notable Commons:
[card]Chandra’s Fury[/card]
[card]Searing Spear[/card]
[card]Turn to Slag[/card]
[card]Volcanic Strength[/card]
Notable Uncommons:
[card]Flames of the Firebrand[/card]
[card]Mark of Mutiny[/card]
[card]Volcanic Geyser[/card]
[card]Mogg Flunkies[/card], [card]Reckless Brute[/card]s, [card]Bladetusk Boar[/card]s, and [card]Canyon Minotaur[/card]s will form the building blocks of a reasonably sized red army. Intimidate is a pretty good ability on a red creature, and, as long as you don’t care too much about blocking, [card]Bladetusk Boar[/card] might actually be better than a 3/2 flier.
[card]Goblin Battle Jester[/card] figures to be an important card against decks that want to stall the ground in order to win with evasion, and you really only to sneak a few good attacks in before [card]Chandra’s Fury[/card], [card]Searing Spear[/card], [card]Flames of the Firebrand[/card] and [card]Volcanic Geyser[/card] threaten to end the game prematurely. [card]Mark of Mutiny[/card], even without the annoying [card]Bloodthrone Vampire[/card] combo, can also ruin a defensive battle plan in one fell swoop.
[card]Rummaging Goblin[/card] might be the best common red creature, but it doesn’t really synergize that well with the other red cards. Do you play [card]Rummaging Goblin[/card] on turn 3 to start sculpting your hand for the long game, or do you just want to play a [card]Reckless Brute[/card] to activate your [card]Mogg Flunkies[/card] and attack for 6? It would be a great blue card, but it’s hard to see exactly where this will fit in to red’s plan. Still a solid card, but how good he turns out to be remains to be seen. He might be seen occasionally on the splash.
Overall, red is probably slightly weaker than blue or green, but definitely has the depth to form the core of a very good aggressive strategy. It might not have the best set of creatures, but it has some excellent burn spells and other removal to clear the way. Not every sealed pool can be built in a hyper-aggressive manner, but the ones that are- will be very difficult to beat. With [card]Volcanic Geyser[/card] in the format, no single-digit life total will be considered safe.
GREEN
Common Playable Creatures:
1cc: [card]Arbor Elf[/card], [card]Bond Beetle[/card]
2cc: [card]Deadly Recluse[/card], [card]Elvish Visionary[/card], [card]Timberpack Wolf[/card]
3cc: [card]Centaur Courser[/card], [card]Yeva’s Forcemage[/card]
4cc: [card]Primal Huntbeast[/card], [card]Spiked Baloth[/card]
5cc: [card]Sentinel Spider[/card]
6cc: [card]Vastwood Gorger[/card]
Other Notable Commons:
[card]Farseek[/card]
[card]Naturalize[/card]
[card]Plummet[/card]
[card]Prey Upon[/card]
[card]Titanic Growth[/card]
Notable Uncommons:
[card]Acidic Slime[/card]
[card]Garruk’s Packleader[/card]
[card]Rancor[/card]
As usual, green has a solid assortment of unexciting common creatures. Replacing [card]Giant Spider[/card] with a 5cc version is an interesting choice. [card]Sentinel Spider[/card] will still be very good and one of the best green commons, but I think it’s probably worse than the original. The extra mana is very relevant and exposes you to getting [card]Unsummon[/card]ed out of the game. [card]Deadly Recluse[/card] will trade up for almost every creature in the format, and should always make the cut.
[card]Prey Upon[/card] is an interesting reprint, and gives green much needed removal for a very efficient price. Not much to say about the other green commons. With a reasonable number of playable artifacts and a lot of the common removal being enchantment-based, [card]Naturalize[/card] is a decent option to include in the main deck. [card]Plummet[/card] probably deserves consideration also, but I would usually leave that in the sideboard unless my deck is particularly vulnerable to fliers.
Once again, green is a very deep colour and rivals blue for top honours. [card]Farseek[/card] facilitates a splash to shore up weaknesses or include off-colour bombs, but there’s a reasonable chance you’ll want to splash even without it
ARTIFACTS
Notable Uncommons:
[card]Gem of Becoming[/card]
[card]Ring of Evos Isle[/card]
[card]Ring of Kalonia[/card]
[card]Ring of Thune[/card]
[card]Ring of Valkas[/card]
[card]Ring of Xathrid[/card]
All of the rings are powerful and worth playing if you have a reasonable chance of equipping to a creature of the appropriate colour. I’d say you want at least five or six growable targets in your deck, but I’d be a lot happier with eight or nine. The minor benefit you get from equipping an off-colour creature is almost certainly not worth a card.
[card]Gem of Becoming[/card] does qualify as mana fixing, but it’s slow and expensive. You might want to play it if your mana is particularly bad or you have a good reason for wanting a ton of land in play. It’s too costly to be considered a mana replacement, though, so you’ll have to cut a card for it. That’s not something I’d want to make a habit of.
Overall, I’d rank the colours as follows:
1. Blue
2. Green
3. Red
4. White
5. Black
I’d expect a lot of blue and green-based decks as people will naturally be drawn to the deepest colours. There’s enough quality burn that red will show up as well. White and Black will likely be seen most often as a splash colour, though I’m sure some will be tempted by [card]Sublime Archangel[/card] and friends.
You do generally want to play your bombs, so that decision is not necessarily incorrect. Just make sure you understand the sacrifice you’re making. You won’t draw your planeswalker in every game, and your opponent will occasionally be able to deal with it even when you do. Can you realistically win the games in which your bombs are not a factor? There’s no hard and fast rule, and things will often come down to what options your card pool provides.
I hope that gives you a decent overview of what to expect this weekend. I’ll leave with what I consider the most important part of preparing for a new set: a list of tricks to play around. People will eventually figuring all of these out, but why do you need to lose once to [card]Divine Verdict[/card] to learn your lesson?
While knowing how to play around various tricks would be an article in itself, just knowing what’s out there should give you a leg up. Common tricks are obviously most important, but things like knowing what kind of mass removal is in the format helps in those games where you’re so far ahead that you just want to avoid losing to the one card that can beat you.
Here’s a list of what I consider to be the most important tricks in each colour. Most of them are instants, but I’ve included others like potentially lethal burn spells and discard that encourages you to keep extra land in hand.
Common & Uncommon White Tricks:
[card]Divine Verdict[/card]
[card]Safe Passage[/card]
[card]Show of Valor[/card]
Common & Uncommon Blue Tricks:
[card]Essence Scatter[/card]
[card]Faerie Invaders[/card]
[card]Negate[/card]
[card]Unsummon[/card]
[card]Rewind[/card]
[card]Sleep[/card]
Common & Uncommon Black Tricks:
[card]Essence Drain[/card]
[card]Mind Rot[/card]
[card]Murder[/card]
[card]Cower in Fear[/card]
[card]Public Execution[/card]
Common & Uncommon Red Tricks:
[card]Chandra’s Fury[/card]
[card]Searing Spear[/card]
[card]Turn to Slag[/card]
[card]Flames of the Firebrand[/card]
[card]Mark of Mutiny[/card]
[card]Volcanic Geyser[/card]
Common & Uncommon Green Tricks:
[card]Naturalize[/card]
[card]Plummet[/card]
[card]Prey Upon[/card]
[card]Titanic Growth[/card]
Mass Removal:
[card]Planar Cleansing[/card]
[card]Mutilate[/card]
[card]Magmaquake[/card]
Other Rare Tricks to be Aware of:
[card]Faith’s Reward[/card]
[card]Redirect[/card]
[card]Reverberate[/card]
[card]Predatory Rampage[/card]
[card]Yeva, Nature’s Herald[/card]
Well, that about covers it. Feel free to add anything I missed in the Comments, and let me know if you find this kind of information is useful. I’ll be starting to write more regularly for Mana Deprived and would welcome any feedback or article suggestions.
Jon Stern is a grinder who has won over a dozen PTQs in his career. In 2010, he returned to the game after a 4-year hiatus, leading him to win another PTQ in 2012 for Pro Tour Seattle.