This was what all the hype [on Twitter] was about:

I already wrote the full Preview over on the mother ship so go read what I have to say about Lotus Cobra over there: The Dave Price Rule and the Upper Limit.

I really think this is one of the most insane cards in years… Seems so much faster and different in flavor and function when compared with other Zendikar cards. What do you think?

Best two-drop of all time or what? (Obviously better than Dark Confidant! Come on!)

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 9)

Zendikar rare Scute Mob is not quite Tarmogoyf… Does it matter?

Scute Mob is looking to be one of the most signficant cards in Zendikar… and that’s saying something!

No, you didn’t read that wrong… Scute Mob is probably a terrible one drop, as far as one drops go. That is, don’t look for it to be much more effective than, say, a Mon’s Goblin Raiders, at least not on or around turn one.

The value of Scute Mob is that as the game progresses–past turn five or so depending on the acceleration involved–it is an extremely powerful card.

Imagine Scute Mob in a control deck of some sort. It is probably needlessly narrow to say a U/G control deck given the mana options, but suffice it to imagine a control deck capable of producing G and countering target spell.

Scute Mob is a perfect card to play with five lands in play. The contol deck in question will have four lands left to fight permission wars, either over Scute Mob (that is, resolving it) or keeping the opponent from doing some kind of funny business.

The next turn, Scute Mob will be a 5/5… That is, a 5/5 for one mana.

Okay, there is already a cadillac control creature, a pair of them in fact, Broodmate Dragon and Baneslayer Angel. The first turn around, Scute Mob will not be able to tangle with Baneslayer Angel, but remember it is already far faster than Broodmate Dragon, and a fight–specifically the double block–may be significantly less profitable than it may look from afar.

The greater problem is that Scute Mob is going to be 9/9 the next turn, and 13/13 the turn after that (and so on) provided its daddy has five or more lands in play. It will jump past Baneslayer Angel in the course of one turn, and be completely out of control before too long.

Now our previous hypothetical outlined playing Scute Mob in the middle of the middle turns, and potentially fighting over it (or stuff going on around it). There is no reason the control player couldn’t just play Scute Mob at some point (even turn one) and wait for it to eventually grow up. That is a possibility, and might even be the right play against either another counterspell deck or a combo deck that needs to be put on a clock.

The even more interesting interaction may be Scute Mob piggybacking Ranger of Eos. Think about that tag team! Ranger of Eos already “implies” having four lands… five lands is just one more than that. It is entirely possible to see Antoine Ruel digging up a pair of Scute Mobs and playing them both immediately, presenting 13 or so power the following turn.

Un

Real

I see Scute Mob as being a clear Staple. It is just too cost effective. Go get your playset immediately; it is the second coming of Tarmogoyf, everything Figure of Destiny wanted to be and more.

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Nikolai Dante: Beast of Rudinshtein (Rebellion 2000ad)

My Favorite New Card is Emeria, the Sky Ruin!

Well, I am not 100% sure that my favorite new card from Zendikar will be Emeria, the Sky Ruin… but I’m pretty sure it will be.

Emeria, the Sky Ruin is functionally quite similar to old favorite Debtors’ Knell. It does not gobble up creatures from the opponent’s graveyard, but it has a tremendous upside: You Don’t Have to Resolve It. That was the “problem” with Debtors’ Knell (if you can really say there was a problem with a Standard and Block staple)… It coexisted with cards like Remand and Mana Leak so it could be challenging to get into play against Blue opponents. Emeria, the Sky Ruin, on balance is “just” a land, so you just lay it out there to, you know, run (“Sky Ruin”) the opponent’s day.

So of course as cool as Emeria seems, it has some limitations.

The most obvious is that you have to have seven Plains in play before it does anything. You know, when we first started chatting about new Zendikar cards, BDM (aka @Top8Games) said he just knew I would love me an Emeria. I mean, how could I not?

This card touches not on the “Greenest Mage of All” aspect of michaelj (aka @fivewithflores), but the part of me that ran a B/W cycling Eternal Dragon deck in an Extended Pro Tour, the side that produced the first ever Windbrisk Heights / three token “combo” deck (grafted onto a, you know, Eternal Dragon-based Extended deck), or the part of me that went full-on Martyr of Sands for last year’s Exteded PTQ season (you know, with Eternal Dragons and Decree of Justice and all that). The sad irony is that this card would be bananas in one of the Eternal Dragon decks that I always seem to make in Extended (down to returning Martyr of Sands for free, and / or Eternal Dragon itself) without any kind of an unintended interaction with Akroma’s Vengeance.

So let’s think about this jobber in Standard…

We are going to lose Windbrisk Heights — probably the single strongest nonbasic land in current Standard — as Lorwyn Block makes way for Zendikar. That means that straight White decks aren’t going to have a lot of conflict for non-Plains in terms of making space. You can probably run 20-22 Plains and four copies of Emeria, the Sky Ruin in your White deck and have a solid expectation of having seven Plains alongside your Emeria, the Sky Ruin come turn eight (or whenever you actually have eight lands in play).

The interesting thing is…

We don’t know what kinds of creatures are going to fit best with Emeria, the Sky Ruin… at least not in Standard.

We are going to lose our Evoke Elementals (Mulldrifter and so on); there is no clear path for a Fulminator Mage-style lockdown; and even in Extended, Eternal Dragon and such cycling creatures will have rotated. The best thing I can come up with off the top of my head is Glassdusk Hulk… But surely we can come up with something better than this…

Surely we can come up with something better than this…

Regardless of the specifics of how to break (or at least “best exploit”) Emeria, the Sky Ruin in a long game, the basic principles seem to be clear…

1. It’s about as good as a Debtors’ Knell once you have it going.
2. Counterspell-based defenses will be insufficient.
3. Removal-based defenses will eventually be exhausted.
4. … And it ain’t exactly fast.

The question is whether it will be good.

I, for one, have always enjoyed creating and trying to properly position these esoteric corner-case decks that generate unexpected Stage Three situations… and Emeria, the Sky Ruin seems like the Flores long-game cream dream all bundled up in a single card that you don’t actually have to resolve.

So yeah, Emeria, the Sky Ruin is, at least at present, my favorite new Zendikar card. I look forward to cultivating a long and card-profitable relationship with it.

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Invincible, Book 11: Happy Days

A White Nekrataal? Meet Zendikar Rare, Devout Lightcaster!

Earlier we talked about Gatekeeper of Malakir, which for BBB is like a Scathe Zombies grafted onto a Cruel Edict (and for BB is versatile enough to be just a Scathe Zombies). This is the White version:

This card is kind of like an Eager Cadet stapled to a Celestial Purge (kind of).

Now obviously for WWW we have a very powerful and highly playable card that generates self-contained card advantage. It is the kind of effect that we simply don’t expect from White. I mean maybe we expect it now that a deck that can consistently produce WWW has everything from Unmake to Path to Exile to the aforementioned Celetial Purge… But we don’t necessarily expect it on a body… Certainly not at a reasonable mana cost; not in White.

But what might be even more unexpected is that this card might just manascrew you.

Manascrew you?

In White?

Yeppers!

Manascrew.

I have a theory that with all these Gatekeepers and other little—and clearly Constructed playable—Vampires, that our old buddy Vampire Nocturnus will be superb. Vampire Nocturnus rewards players for running a lot of Black cards, and I think that that might translate even to lands. The solution? I am guessing that we will see increased play for both Veinfire and Mistvein Borderpost. Why? With Black Borderposts taking up “land” slots, the Vampire Nocturnus has a slightly higher chance of setting up its global Vampire Unholy Strength. I could see a Black Vampire weenie mana base looking something like…

4 B/W sac dual
4 B/G sac dual
4 Veinfire Borderpost
4 Mistvein Borderpost
8-12 Swamp (12 would probably be a bit high, even in a Tendrils of Corruption deck).

The duals (whatever they are called) will allow the Vampire Nocturnus player to shuffle his deck, mid-combat if need be, to get a Black permanent on top of it. The deck would probably have problems hard-casting a Borderpost, but with essentially all basic lands (functionally so, anyway), running them out there one mana soft style should be a complete non-issue.

So… manascrew?

Devout Lightcaster dropping on top of one of those Borderposts on the third turn could be quite the pisser… Stone Rain, but with a Rakeclaw Bears attached.

Oh I guess it can kill some gigantic Black fatty and/or a one mana Quest enchantment that is right about to go off, too. Whatever those!

Snap Judgment: Staple (but sideboard)

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Invincible, Book 11: Happy Days

A quick review of Zendikar uncommon, Gatekeeper of Malakir. Is it unreal good?

Gatekeepr of Malakir is a very interesting modern application of the Kicker mechanic.

To me this card is highly reminiscent of Kavu Titan… After all, Gatekeeper of Malakir is a fine 2/2 for two… Just like most of the two mana creatures we play across the formats and colors. What is interesting is that Gatekeeper of Malakir is also a kind of cheaper Nekrataal.

For BB you get a Black Grizzly Bears… Nothing you would want to pay for under normal circumstances, but very reasonable given the option on Kicker…

For BBB you get what amounts to a Chainer’s Edict with a 2/2 along for the ride.

If you figure that a regular Chainer’s Edict or Diabolic Edict costs 1B, you basically get the value of a 2/2 body for only one additional mana… Kind of like a Carnophage with no down side.

Black has always had some kind of creature kill capabilities… But this particular stripe could not have come at a more opportune time. You see, Great Sable Stag threatens to hassle the little Black creatures… But if you can isolate him from his friends, Gatekeeper of Malakir can kick him down the staircase.

All in all, Gatekeeper of Malakir is a very clearly playable Constructed card.

But where would you play him?

There are actually a fair number of places where this card might make sense. You can run it alongside Vampire Nocturnus (and other tiny Vampires) productively. It can also be run in any deck that can make BBB in the main deck as just a card that you might want to play… Very much like the Chainer’s Edict we touched on, above.

Gatekeepr of Malakir can also be a very solid sideboard card for a controlling Black deck. It can change the tempo of the game by giving Black a clock when there isn’t a lot of time on the clock in a three-game match (you know, because your main deck was so slow), or it can give a deck some faster removal. Look at the Black deck I posted a few days ago… Gatekeepr of Malakir can speed up the defense of a deck that first starts reacting with a four mana Tendrils of Corruption, a stand-in for Shriekmaw.

So how does it compare to Shriekmaw or Nekrataal?

Generally speaking I would put it on better than Nekrataal and worse than Shriekmaw (due to the latter’s versatility, evasion, ease of cost, and synergy with Makeshift Mannequin). However Gatekeeper of Malakir will shine against other Black decks, and kind of wrinkle its nose against Green decks that make a lot of tokens.

That said, the card should be Staple.

LOVE
MIKE