Concerning:

Elspeth Tirel :: Scars of Mirrodin :: The Politics of Planeswalkers
Elspeth, Knight-Errant :: Five Mana Planeswalkers :: … Did I mention “Elspeth Tirel”?

Here is a kind of bogus picture of Elspeth Tirel, a new Planeswalker from Scars of Mirrodin:

Elspeth Tirel

I can only assume she is a Mythic Rare, but again, the picture is medium bogus.

I savagely stole it from Rob Johnson’s Facebook page, documenting the “Assault on Mirrodin” party at PAX 2010. In return, here are links to Rob’s:

• Store, OMG Games and Collectables
• Facebook page, where I stole the picture from

Thanks Rob!

Okay… What can we say about Elspeth Tirel?

Aesthetics:

1. Superficial “duh” comment – This is a five mana Planeswalker rather than a four mana one (or three, as in the case of Jace Beleren). Obviously Jace is Jace, but for the most part, the most popular Planeswalkers have been the four mana ones (Ajani Goldmane; Ajani Vengeant; Elspeth, Knight-Errant; and Jace, the Mind Sculptor). That is because in the context of competitive Magic: The Gathering, a jump to five mana is basically a jump from four-to-eight, rather than the superficial / obvious / untrained four-to-five. That is the thing holding back Planeswalkers like Liliana Vess or Gideon Jura. Remember when we reviewed Gideon Jura when he was new? We said Baneslayer Angel was the better 3WW… And really, even with the success of the U/R/W Planeswalker deck during the first part of the summer, Baneslayer Angel has had the more impressive continued performance.
2. The next interesting thing to talk about RE: Elspeth Tirel is the ordering of her abilities. Elspeth starts on four, jumps on a life gain ability that is only really useful when you have creatures on the battlefield, and drops two loyalty by building creatures. In theory you can profitably jump her to six on turn five if you already have creatures in play. Creatures — as in “multiple” — … though you can presumably put her to six loyalty at no value (or very little value and an outlook of chump blocking the following turn).I think the more common strategy (at least depending on matchup… It will be less attractive against decks with Lightning Bolt, for instance) will be to take her down to two loyalty, then build her back up to four mana with an increase in life commensurate with how many animals you’ve got in play (and presumably boosted by her Scatter the Seeds-esque [-2] ability).
3. What is actually super cool about Elspeth Tirel is her “ultimate” ability. It is not only awesome, but mono-awesome. You can jump Elspeth to six loyalty on turn five (with or without profit) then use her as an improved Nevinyrral’s Disk on turn six. Elspeth will drop down to one loyalty, but unlike the other Planeswalkers that may have been in play — yes, Elspeth Tirel is a Planeswalker-slayer among other gas), she will stick around. In addition, in a protracted game where you are using her tokens production ability, those cats (and by “cats” I mean “Soldiers”) stick around when even mighty monsters all hop into the graveyard.
4. … Which brings us to her super synergy in multiples! This is kind of the coolest thing, but it takes a second before you can get there.Josh Ravitz used to tell me that people didn’t know how to play Cloudgoat Ranger, and would give all kinds of examples of how they were under-impressive with Cloudgoat Ranger when they could have been slamming for additional damage had they been a little more precise in their play, given multiple copies. Elspeth Tirel has a similar, subtle, clause.Imagine you have a turn five Elspeth Tirel. You immediately go from four loyalty to two loyalty to deploy three Soldier tokens.

   You block, whatever (or maybe you don’t have to, I don’t know what the battlefield looks like). You use Elspeth Tirel‘s [-2] a second time and now you have six or however many Soldiers up in that.

   Now you run out your second copy of Elspeth Tirel! The first one went bye-bye because you took her from four to two to nil with two activations. Your second Elspeth Tirel, piggybacking the token production of the first one makes six life, jumps to six loyalty, and is surrounded by barns.

   Now on turn seven, you can blow up the world leaving not only Elspeth Tirel as the only significant miser on the battlefield, but however many Soldier tokens as well! Talk about teamwork!

5. What should seem obvious is that if Elspeth Tirel is good enough, she might be good enough as a four-of at the five — something very unusual for five mana Planeswalkers to date — simply because she actually rocks in multiples.

Where can I see this fitting in?

Elspeth Tirel can act as a solo Swiss Army Knife-style threat, similar to Elspeth, Knight-Errant. She does everything… Protects herself (or other Planeswalkers) not unlike Gideon Jura, produces ways to win while generating value, and manages the battlefield a la Akroma’s Vengeance.

In effect, Elspeth Tirel can be the only threat in your deck if you so wish (her [-5] ability actually Annihilates the bejeezus out of defensive permanents like Circle of Protection: White (or whatever theoretically problematic proxy you will lay there).

Or, she can team up with cards like Conqueror’s Pledge for more immediate value on her [+2]. In effect, she can be good in any kind of deck that can afford to cast her. I would not expect Elspeth Tirel to find mass adoption in White Weenie type decks (as Elspeth, Knight-Errant did), but I also wouldn’t be too surprised to see her in creature decks. After all, the previous Elspeth was an “obviously offensive” type Planeswalker, but was successful in every strategy from Mythic (mono-creatures) to U/W Control (mono-defensive). Even combo decks used Elspeth, Knight-Errant; for example Polymorph variants that used her as a non-creature card source of Polymorph fodder.

Snap Judgment Rating:

For once, answering this actually requires more than two words. Elspeth Tirel is kind of like a Wild Mongrel. In some decks she will act as a centerpiece, a four-of finisher; in other decks she will be a high level role player, acting as a sweeper that has other potential applications (sort of both the Icy Manipulator and Wrath of God in Mike Donais’s Swords to Plowshares-less Canadian National Championship deck). It is probably not difficult to imagine decks that can’t beat Elspeth (kind of like decks that can’t beat Gideon Jura, but worse). You can milk and milk with the tokens and life gain; fire off the Nevinyrral’s Disk if and only if you are actually falling behind, but otherwise make the other guy’s life miserable.

And of course, her [-5] craps all over other Planeswalkers, making Elspeth potentially invaluable in the post-Bloodbraid Elf world.

In sum, potentially Flagship.

LOVE
MIKE

I was recently inspired by Brian Kibler’s Pro Tour Honolulu qualification with his “Cabal Interrogator” deck.

When Brian told me he qualified, that is what he told me he qualified with. I think it took me a few days to discover that he had actually just played a templated Loam deck, and that the Cabal Interrogators were in his sideboard. Details.

The reason is that as deck designers, we are very interested in whatever clever thing we can point at to show how, you know, clever and / or different we are. Really! I know it is difficult to believe. Some of us play with four Umezawa’s Jittes instead of three and call ourselves geniuses (and / or are voted geniuses into the Magic Invitational), for example.

The problem with these cards is that for every unique and shining gem, you usually have four or five stinkers, ergo the fine line between tech and jank.

In this spirit Five with Flores brings you five cards that have made me feel clever:

1. Card: Meddle
   Deck: Flying Beatdown
   Story: Meddle was a medium-inflexible if obviously trish-advantageous two-for-one, and I have always been a sucker for a two-for-one. Ergo, Meddle, sticking out like a sore thumb. In the first appearance of the wildly popular Penn Flying Beatdown, altran defeated Jon Finkel at a Gray Matter $1,000 tournament in probably no part due to pointing a Meddle at a “bolt” (Incinerate?) Jon had intended for Albert’s Man-o’-War at Finkel’s Jackal Pup. In a commensurate display of maturity, I danced around the tournament area yelling “Finkel lost to the Flores card!”

   In a wild turn of events (for any of you who followed that deck list link)… There isn’t even a Meddle in the Decks to Beat published version of Flying Beatdown! I guess by then I had mentally relegated it to Jank, in favor of Honorable Passage.

2. Card: Unforge
   Deck: Kuroda-Style Red
   Story: You probably know from the more famous version of Kuroda-style Red that we eventually cut Unforge; however Regionals-era I was stuck with them. And by “stuck” I mean I played them. Like four. You see I got spooked into thinking due to the renaissance of Jamie Wakefield (“Joshie Green”) at the time that any and all would be packing Troll Ascetics and equipment at Regionals, and Jamie kept telling me that my deck couldn’t beat his deck. Well I’ll show him, I thought, and figured out how to win. And by “figured out” I mean I was dealt Unforge tech by Brian David-Marshall and / or Seth Burn. In actuality the real gold of this deck was the Culling Scales technology that proved unbeatable at Nationals for especially the then-popular White Weenie deck. However I soldiered into Regionals with Unforges; they came up once. Yes I killed a Troll Ascetic (the big selling point was that the opponent would typically tap out to equip an Ascetic). Lost anyway, game and match.
3. Card: Gnarled Mass
   Deck: Critical Mass
   Story: It’s been like four years so now I am comfortable coming out with the truth. We’re all friends here. The Masses weren’t that Critical. Certainly the idea of Gnarled Mass was groundbreaking. Sadin especially latched onto them like they were Blake Lively’s boobies. They were good and helped out in the Black and White matchups but Steve for some reason kept siding them in and siding Keiga out in like every matchup “for tempo” (you got me — kid won a Grand Prix). But right before the PTQ I cut the one I had main deck for the Enlightened Bushi when Josh pointed out that one kills North Tree and the other one doesn’t; by the Grand Prix Gerard was up to two Isaos main deck! But we still had four “critical” Gnarled Masses in the sideboard up to the morning of the PTQ… half of which were culled before opening bell for Consuming Vortex. I maintained at the time that the cards were indistinguishable because they were both “good against beatdown” when in fact I won my match against Tim Gillam for the slot purely by top decking Consuming Vortex when I would have just died to his 5/5 flying the next turn had it been a 3/3 Spirit.
4. Card: Annex
   Deck: URzaTron
   Story: Let’s dial it back to the last Pro Tour Honolulu. Osyp’s URzaTron deck… I get a lot of credit for this deck (most of it self-propelled) but the real process was me making a bunch of bad decks and Osyp and Josh testing everything… Turns out the ‘Tron was actually pretty good. The most defining card in the sideboard (which was arguably the best part of the deck, and mostly Osyp’s) was Giant Solifuge, which was borrowed from a Red Deck I was high on at the end of testing, to superb effect. However the one card I insisted would be great was Annex. You see I had this theory that we could steal other people’s ‘Tron parts. It would be bonzer! The Annexes mostly worked out for Osyp. He looked great all tournament of course. Josh missed Day Two by taking a Mountain (right play I believe) when his opponent’s kill card was Maga (could have ended it right there by swiping Swamp, which was also on board). Eugene Harvey, who also played the deck but not to Osyp’s success, told me he thought that the Annexes were flat out bad, unplayable on the draw, and that he never wanted more than two in his deck.

   Oh well.

   Did I mention I single-handedly designed this awesome URzaTron deck that was the only undefeated Day One deck of the last Pro Tour Honolulu? It was really great and I made it all by myself. If I had been qualified I probably would have done even better than Osyp, but he did okay I guess.

5. Card: Muse Vessel
   Deck: Charleston AngelFire
   Story: To this day I maintain I was very happy with my Muse Vessels. I won almost every match I sided them in. That said, blame Brian Weissman. Brian told me he really liked them in his update to The Deck (Standard) and I mean COME ON, it’s Brian Weissman! So when we were working on Block (where Muse Vessel was legal) I decided that we should play all four because I had the inside track Weissman tech, and most teams would probably be stupid and not play any Muse Vessels at all, let alone all four (and for a while I insisted we play all four main because they were obviously so good). By the way not even my teammates or intimate playtest partners from that summer knew the true origin of Muse Vessel — but now you do.

   Now going into the last week of testing we had a problem that our U/R/W deck was losing to our B/W deck at about a 7-3 clip in favor of B/W in Game One despite being ahead for most of the games (this carried into the Pro Tour where I — armed with B/W — bashed basically every Angel opponent). I didn’t understand this at all because the U/R/W seemed to be so much better equipped in terms of card advantage in every way. I concluded at the end of about 30 games that I played against myself on Apprentice that U/R/W didn’t have enough “stuff” and that the card advantage and Angel-centric card advantage were going nowhere because the deck was just drawing and drawing into more draw and B/W was winning close corner games with well-placed Mortifies all all that kind of stuff. So I concluded that U/R/w needed more “stuff” … Why not the other guy’s stuff?

   The inclusion of Muse Vessel turned around the matchup to between a 6-4 and a 7-3 in favor of U/R/W, which made me happy.

   It did not however make Steve happy, and he always sided out Muse Vessel.

   Here are two points of potential embarassment: 1) Because we played two Muse Vessels main, we didn’t have room for cards like the fourth Demonfire, which probably would have pushed us from no money to the Top 4, and 2) We fundamentally misunderstood the U/R/W deck’s positioning in the control “mirrors” … It wasn’t until after the Pro Tour that we realized Steve was always winning as the beatdown and that all our Muse Vessel and Train of Thought into Swift Silence and Mimeofacture (jank I accidentally picked up from MTGO one night) was actually a colossal waste of strategy when we were winning against control with Lightning Helix to the face, mostly. The problem was that we assumed Steve would be playing against the fast deck, when he kept playing against the slowest deck. Would that we could have swapped Steve and Paul in that Pro Tour…

   Did I mention “blame Brian Weissman” yet?

I’d say “I hope you enjoyed this” … But I already know you did.

LOVE
MIKE

P.S. Speaking of enjoying reading something awesome that I wrote, there is this pretty historic Magic book name o’ Deckade that is back in print over at Top 8 Magic. If you like what you read here, the Podcasts you listen to over there, or you just want to look back at ten years of my fabulous, Magical, life – signed copies are once again available.

Buy Deckade. You know you want to.

Oh, and you’re welcome