Five With Flores

Concerning:

Calcite Snapper ∙ aka the Convertible Turtle ∙ Day of Judgment
Jace, the Mind Sculptor ∙ “synergy” ∙ … and Calcite Snapper

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who posted a comment in our previous You Make the Play post.

I would even like to thank the bums who only responded on Twitter!

The follow up post is going to take a little while to write (for reasons that will become obvious when the post appears… hopefully this weekend), so I figured I’d post something in the meantime. In this case that “something” is a Worldwake review of the convertible turtle… Calcite Snapper!

When I first saw this:

I was like wha!?! Who the!?! … What was Kyle smoking?

I guess I missed the word “Shroud” in the text box.

Without Shroud, Calcite Snapper is actually probably still playable. Antonino De Rosa won a Grand Prix with four copies of River Kaijin in his sideboard, after all.

But with Shroud? We are talking about a card on a totally different level now!

Sorry Elite Vanguard. Here is an, um, unstoppable, you know, stop sign. I guess?

Calcite Snapper is a superb blocker that can’t be [easily] “finished off” by a burn spell. It comes out on turn three for a Blue deck, making it superb pre-emptive Planeswalker defense. For instance, you can follow up the Snapper by tapping for Jace, the Mind Sculptor and be reasonably secure in your big (and by “big” I mean “financially expensive”) card’s immediate safety.

Thematically, Calcite Snapper might work well with Sphinx of Jwar Isle (if you lean that way), as a Shroud + Shroud team… but doesn’t really work well with defensive sorcery Day of Judgment. That is, you might not want to blow up your own Calcite Snapper as you take out a chunk of the opposing forces.

So in a deck like I posited in the previous post, you might want to cut down to two or so copies of Day of Judgment and make room for Calcite Snapper.

Snapper is also a decent anti-Planeswalker option in a color that doesn’t usually get them. Due to its ability to go to four power easily (and potentially at instant speed with the right kind of dual land), you can take a big chunk out of an opposing Planeswalker’s loyalty in a single swing.

All in all, an interesting card that will certainly influence deck design for the next year or two.

I must say that its presence in the format is causing me to re-think some of my original biases, such as “definitely” playing Motherloving Cup in tap-out, or perhaps going back to Grixis when I have intended for the past week or so to concentrate on base-Azorius (or Esper) Control decks.

Clearly: Staple

LOVE
MIKE