Control is dead. I read it on the interwebs, so it must be true. There are no good counterspells, blue is getting screwed, and R&D hates control players. [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] was the first piece of proof, and there is more in this set. It is known.
Well, maybe. There are some sweet blue cards in this set though, even if they don’t fit the traditional blue mould. Let’s take a look:
[card]Cyclonic Rift[/card]
This might be my favourite card in the set so far. Disperse was played at 1U, and although [card]Cyclonic Rift[/card] is slightly less flexible in that it cannot save one of your permanents, it has those delicious extra lines of text that make it a one-sided [card]Evacuation[/card]. One that also gets Planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts…it’s pretty powerful. The fact that you don’t HAVE to cast it with Overload is just a bonus.
[card]Devastation Tide[/card] never took off both because of the symmetry and the fact that it was a sorcery. Your opponent got to recover first which meant you basically cast a Fog. Rift gets around both of those problems and then some. It’s almost like a split card.
The most disgusting thing to do with this I think is to end-step it, untap and blow them out with a massive [card]Rakdos’s Return[/card]. The damage might not be that much, but THEY HAVE NO HAND and no board presence. You presumably have at least a threat on board and maybe even some in hand. And a smile on your face that could sell an import to a hillbilly.
[card]Faerie Impostor[/card]
An undercosted 2-power flier with a drawback that can often be a benefit? What could possibly go wrong? At the very, very worst you bounce a cheap creature and replay it, then next turn bash with your evasive dude.
Yes of course it would be better with flash. So much better it would be utterly broken. As it stands, this little blighter is going to cause many people all sorts of headaches, both in Standard and in Modern. Heck she might even make her way to Legacy, though right now I don’t know where she fits.
In Standard she has a ton of stuff to reset. Even at sorcery speed, rebuying a [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] is just fine. Once you’ve done that and recast your Snapcaster, the Impostor is in play to blink with [card]Restoration Angel[/card] – at instant speed this time – to rebuy Tiago AGAIN. Oh, then you can play a second one to bounce the [card]Restoration Angel[/card] again.
In Modern this might slide into a Faeries build that abuses the champion mechanic on [card]Mistbind Clique[/card], perhaps in tandem with [card]Spellstutter Sprite[/card], Vendillion Clique and [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]. Maybe even [card]Eternal Witness[/card] and Aether Vial? Shouta Yasooka showed us the power of those two cards in the format, and being able to do it multiple times in the same deck as some of the best flash creatures in the game might be worth exploring.
[card]Inaction Injunction[/card]
Oh [card]Inaction Injunction[/card]…what IS your function? Some very smart people have said that this card is constructed-playable, and I can see why they would say that. [card]Mana Leak[/card] is dead, and while I do not mourn its passing I do want control decks to be viable. Many experts have said that the archetype will likely have to switch to a more tapout style, dealing with permanents instead of spells. [card]Inaction Injunction[/card] lets you do that, shutting down that turn 1 mana dork when you’re on the play AND replacing itself. On the draw it can stymie the turn 2 [card]Centaur Healer[/card] or [card]Loxodon Smiter[/card] and giving you another shot at drawing the [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] or [card]Oblivion Ring[/card].
Control decks use life as a resource, and making that resource last just a little bit longer can be the difference between drawing the sweeper and dying with it on the top of your deck. And of course it makes a decent target for [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]…
[card]Inspiration[/card]
This is not as good as it looks. The fact that it’s an instant is less important at 4 mana and in a format where counterspells look to be less dangerous. For the same cost on your own turn you can draw an extra card with [card]Amass the Components[/card], and for one less you draw the same number with [card]Divination[/card].
That said, it’s not the worst card ever printed. It conveniently inhabits the same CMC as [card]Restoration Angel[/card], causing opponents to play around it when you don’t have it. It’s also more economical than [card]Think Twice[/card], barely.
[card]Jace, Architect of Thought[/card]
When you give a card the name “Jace” it comes with a certain amount of baggage. The first time they tried to improve Jace, they broke the format (pick one, he broke it) and made arguably the greatest constructed card in Magic history. Then they tried again and made the most powerful planeswalker in Limited history.
Jace 4.0 is building on a shaky foundation to start with, as he shares a mana cost with the Mind Sculptor. He won’t be breaking any formats in the near future, but he’s the best planeswalker in the set and possibly in Standard right now. His +1 might look weak but it really isn’t, especially not in tandem with [card]Curse of Death’s Hold[/card] or Tamiyo at 5 to complement him. Anything that throws off combat maths and makes it harder for my opponent to construct a winning board position is good in my book.
His -2 ability is the one that you will often be using when behind, and it’s a good one. [card]Fact or Fiction[/card] effects generally reward the better player: either the piles will be made incorrectly or the wrong one will be taken. All other things being equal, with hidden information on both sides the player who acts last has the advantage. That will always be you when using this ability.
If you ever get to ultimate him, you’ll have to get unlucky or play badly to lose. Jace goes in a slower control deck with a few fat finishers, which will generally be what you want to fetch from your deck. What you fetch from his deck will depend of course, but stealing their best card is rarely incorrect.
Of course we don’t play planeswalkers for their ultimates, and Jace has proven in testing to be very versatile in control. He plays a similar role to [card]Gideon Jura[/card] (albeit not as effectively) in forcing the opponent to commit more resources to deal with him, but also has the advantage of being able to dig you to your answers if you need to.
[card]Psychic Spiral[/card]
I can’t help it. I’m like a moth spiralling to my certain death in a naked flame, but yet I know that at some point I will be playing this card in constructed. I already want to try the self-mill strategy with [card]Splinterfright[/card], Jarad and maybe [card]Ghoultree[/card], and being able to play either [card]Laboratory Maniac[/card] or [card]Psychic Spiral[/card] as alternate win conditions (or dare I say…both?) isn’t doing much to discourage me. Now I’m not telling you that this deck is the next constructed powerhouse or anything, but boy would it be hilarious to pull it off!
[card]Search the City[/card]
Someone told me once that if you have to read a card more than twice to fully understand what it does, it will never be any good. Sometimes cards like this are shrugged off with the ubiquitous “it will be good in EDH” line, but…yeah. I guess maybe in the [card]Relentless Rats[/card] EDH deck? OK, I’m stretching here. I’m searching for some sort of explanation for the card, both in terms of flavour and playability, and I’m coming up blank.
[card]Sphinx of the Chimes[/card]
I want it to be good, because it has those three delicious words on it. A beefy flier that fills up your hand should be all sorts of amazing, but the nonland restriction make it incredibly unlikely that you will be able to activate the ability. Except, AGAIN, in the [card]Relentless Rats[/card] EDH deck. Someone in R&D must be a fan of that card.
A 6cc Sphinx with 6 toughness that draws you cards should ring a few bells, but if you’re looking for the replacement for the Consecrated One, this is not the Sphinx you’re looking for.
[card]Syncopate[/card]
Once your opponent knows you have it, it becomes an interesting subgame of mana tapping and land counting. I remember when [card]Power Sink[/card] was still good, and it really created an unfun environment of control players just making land drops to make sure they could Sink whatever you had. Times have changed and we now have things like [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] and uncounterable creatures, so this sort of spell obviously loses some power. Having said that it IS an interesting reprint and at worst makes your opponent respect you having 2 mana open. The exile clause is sometimes relevant but rarely a bad thing, though I doubt anyone will play this specifically because it exiles the spell.
You don’t need me to tell you that [card]Mana Leak[/card] is better than this in many cases, but in longer games when [card]Mana Leak[/card] became irrelevant, [card]Syncopate[/card] still has value. That makes it just as spicy with Snapcaster as Leak could be, which is an angle some opponents might not see.
Thoughts on Blue
[card]Cyclonic Rift[/card] and Jace are the two all-stars here, and I have been testing both of them. Both are better than they look…and they look pretty darn good if you ask me. [card]Psychic Spiral[/card] is funny and I really want it to work, even if it only works once. Generally though the offerings from blue are somewhat sparse and I wouldn’t be too happy if it weren’t for the gold cards coming up a little later on…
Chris is a deck brewer, podcaster and lover of bacon. He’s recently realised he isn’t completely terrible at this game.