by Ian Baker
Ian Baker has been playing competitive Magic since most of us were…not in diapers, but possibly not yet in bars (?). His love for the limited formats of Magic, and his experience playing in large scale competitive tournaments, manifests itself in his columns dedicated largely to Magic theory and strategy. Having trouble with your game? Ian Baker's got just what the doctor ordered. Check out his first article for Mana Deprived!
Sometimes it's tough to say goodbye to the people and things we love. This is going to be an article of hellos and goodbyes, of loves and hates. Since the Broken City Magic's articles have recently been picked up for syndication over on ManaDeprived.com, I am going to be doing my best to make this a weekly column. I will probably miss a few weeks due to exams and such, but I should be able to find something to write about every week. I am not sure if this article will make it over to Mana Deprived, but if so, hello to all of you Mana Deprived readers.
Since there's one of the hugest standard rotations ever coming up, it seemed to be a pertinent topic to write about. There are a lot of people writing articles about the new cards; which ones they're excited about, which ones are bad, which ones are good in limited, which ones are good in constructed. It is my opinion that this format change will be defined more by the cards that are leaving it than by these new cards. For one, there's a lot more cards leaving than entering, and it can be difficult to gauge the impact of the new cards before they're actually played. I'll leave the analysis of the new cards to others for now, and talk about some cards that are leaving that I loved, hated, and maybe just didn't care about. So without further ado, it's time to say RIP (in standard at least) to the following (in no particular order):
1. Maelstrom Pulse
This was of course a format-defining piece of removal, and not just because of its inclusion in a format-defining deck. Pulse was important because it led to frequent 2-for-1s, and it was a card that you literally had to play around, or you just lost. It was very flexible, giving you the ability to destroy any non-land permanent in the game. In the lists that played it, it was frequently the only method of removing planeswalkers. It is here that the loss of maelstrom pulse will be most keenly felt: after rotation, planeswalkers will be significantly harder to remove. Of course, in that department it's not just pulse that we're losing….
2. Oblivion Ring
Once again, a this was very important piece of removal. The flexibility of exiling any nonland permanent from the game cannot be understated. O-ring has been an excellent method of getting rid of planeswalkers since its printing. I'm a bit concerned that those notorious 'walkers will just run roughshod over the standard environment now that we've lost these first two cards. Oblivion Ring did have the drawback of giving your opponent back his permanent if it was removed itself, but its flexability more than made up for that drawback. Also, Oblivion Ring has been with us since back in Lorwyn, which is a fairly long time for a card to be in a standard environment.
3. Bloodbraid Elf
Yeah, any list of cards that are rotating out clearly must contain the poster child for the entire cascade mechanic. The reason Bloodbraid Elf sticks out over all of her cascade bretheren is mostly because she was probably the card with the highest power-level out of all of them. Additionally, she fit perfectly into both Jund and Naya strategies, bringing out Blightnings, Terminates, Lightning Bolts, Sprouting Thrinaxes, Knights of the Reliquary, or even just Noble Heirarchs to get Vengevines out of the graveyard. While some of the other cascade cards were pretty popular when the Alara block was new, none of them had the staying power of Bloodbraid. Love her or hate her, she had a tremendous impact on standard while she was around. Of course, her rotation means that Blue mages no longer have to worry about being beaten in terms of card advantage by GR decks, something that stalwart defenders of the colour pie no doubt agree with.
4. Elspeth, Knight Errant
It didn't happen overnight, but eventually people realised that Elspeth was the best planeswalker in the Alara block, and for a while, she held the title of the best planeswalker ever, until Mr. Mindsculptor came along and stole her crown. She was played in pretty much all white decks, aggro or control. She of course has the advantage of costing only four mana, and the fact that she has two +1 abilities that are both awesome and which work synergistically with each other makes her very powerful. Her ultimate probably wins you the game (although not as surely as some other planeswalkers) and she defends herself, an important ability for any 'walker. Of course, Scars of Mirrodin contains her more experienced alter-ego, but she costs one more mana, and on the whole her abilities are perhaps not even as powerful. +3/+3 and flying is tremendous, and everyone who plays Ms. Tirel will soon realise what they're missing.
5. Cruel Ultimatum
The ultimate in big, splashy sorceries. Cruel Ultimatum is the kind of card that just spawns stories: the time you came back from getting Cruel Ultimatumed twice, the time you cast four of them in one game with pyromancer's ascension… Normally seven mana cards with very strenuous mana requirements are laughed at in constructed, but Five Colour Control showed how doing a little work could net you a huge gain. Grixis control decks with the card continued to show up from time to time right up until rotation. Gone are the days when people will lose to Cruel Ultimatum, and now people will just have to settle for losing to Emrakul or Ulamog… it seems so easy to get to 11 mana when you don't have to worry about what colour it is.
6. Knight of The Reliquary
Well, I'm not gonna make any crazy claims like Knight of the Reliquary being better than Tarmogoyf, but she's pretty damn good. Knight of the Reliquary was a sleeper card. Until Zendikar came out and fetchlands made an appearance, she did not see much play, but afterwards, she showed up everywhere. She had great synergy with Lotus Cobra, and being able to tutor up things like manlands and Sejiri Steppes made her an important toolbox card, as well as a creature that gets pretty huge pretty fast. Allowing your opponent to untap with Knight was usually a very bad idea. Naya and Bant decks lose a tremendous role-player in this card, and that will make them both significantly weaker (and in naya's case, with the loss of both knight and bloodbraid, perhaps unplayable).
7. Path to Exile
Once again, we lose a tremendously efficient and flexible removal spell. Of course, path only targets creatures, but the ability to exile rather than destroy is very important, and you get to do it for one mana. Of course, the drawback of allowing your opponent to both accellerate and fix their mana is pretty large, and path is no swords to plowshares. Still, after rotation we will have no white unconditional removal spells. Condemn and Oust are both interesting, and fill different roles, but they lack the raw flexibility of path.
8. Blightning
Few cards are as feared as Blightning. Blightning wrecks opposing hands, kills opposing planeswalkers, and generally just helps you win races. There were frequent times that I was hit by Blightning that I'd be so concerned about which two cards I had to discard I'd forget to take three points off of my life total. Eventually Obstinate Baloth showed up to take some of the wind out of Blightning's sails, but it was only for the very end of Blightning's reign of terror. Of course, Blightning was especially good because frequently it would come along with a 3/2 hastey creature, but it was still excellent in a lot of the Grixis lists that played it. Despite people's harrassing of Jund as being not skill intensive, Blightning is actually not an easy card to play properly, and required a sense of what cards exactly your opponent had in hand. Still, I, for one, am glad that I will no longer have to worry about possibly discarding two cards and taking some damage starting on turn three.
9. Ranger of Eos
One of the best invitiational cards ever made, Antoine Ruel's contribution to magic will be sorely missed. Ranger was played in a variety of decks since his release, and continued to have a standard impact right up until rotation, seeing play in Soul Sisters. The card advantage generated by this card is amazing, and fuels a variety of creature-based strategies. Of course, Ranger will still most likely see play in extended, so you won't have to go too far to keep playing him.
10. Vampire Nocturnus
The only M10 card on the list, and basically the only reason why vampires was a playable deck. I continue to run into vampire decks online to this day, and I hate playing against them, not really because they're usually great, but losing to vampires is always a frustrating experience. I want to say that with the rotation of this card people will stop attempting to make vamps a playable deck, but at least I'll lose to them a lot less often. I am not sad to see this guy go, at all.
Honorable Mentions: Ajani Vengeant/Seige-Gang Commander/Esper Charm/Hell's Thunder/Hellspark Elemental/Martial Coup/Banefire/Noble Heirarch/Anathemancer/Behemoth Sledge/Quasali Pridemage/Putrid Leech/Open the Vaults/Mind Spring.
I'm sure I've missed some cards that were your favorite standard standouts from Alara and M10, but it's difficult to remember all the cards. Feel free to comment on cards that you loved and hated that are about to rotate.
Also, I'd like to say goodbye to one more thing: M11 Limited. I can pretty safely say that M11 Limited is the best limited core set that wizards has ever made. There's enough tricks, and enough deck types to make it fun. I mean, UW skies was still a really good deck, but it wasn't the only deck. I really grew to enjoy M11 Limited during my training for Portland, and I had a blast playing it in Portland. I'm sure Scars of Mirrodin limited will be pretty fun too, and you can still play M11 limited, but it won't be nearly as important.
Until next week,
Ian "The Doctor" Baker
This article was originally published over at the Broken City School of Magic.
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites. He is also the lead host of the First Strike podcast.