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

Concerning:

Bestial Menace (Worldwake uncommon)… and that’s pretty much it, actually.

Aesthetics:
Five mana, six power (but no evasion or anything… trample… nothing like that). That puts Bestial Menace slightly above expectation RE: mana v. power and toughness. For example Kodama of the North Tree (five mana for six power) was two toughness shy of this spell; and Bestial Menace also has three bodies to distribute more / better blocking possibilities. In a word, good.

I think it was Evan Erwin who first called Bestial Menace the Green Cloudgoat Ranger… This card might be slightly less powerful than Cloudgoat Ranger for the “same” mana (Cloudgoat Ranger was six power over five bodies, or potentially five on a flying body, but it also had additional utility, such as using the tokens from a fresh Cloudgoat Ranger to pump up one already ready to brawl). That said, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood makes for something else alongside these tokens.

And to go the full-on aesthetics, Bestial Menace is quite flavorful. I love anything with a Snake, but I think a Bear might have been a more iconic 2/2; that said, the presence of cards like Master of the Wild Hunt actually increases the value of Wolves, so we can’t complain on that front.

… But how did this card not include a Beast? It’s in the g-d name!

Where Can I See This Fitting In?
In short, lots of places.

If there is an equivalent of last years’ G/W tokens deck (Standard), Bestial Menace would be a fitting fit in the Cloudgoat Ranger spot (and Cloudgoat Ranger was probably the strongest [non-Planeswalker] spell in the mix.

The modern inheritor to those decks, Mono-Green Eldrazi / Nissa Revane decks can LEGO Monument to Menace in two ways (the latter with the poor 1/1 Snake token likely giving its life for the good of the team and the bad of the bad guy’s life total).

As for boogeyman Jund? Not at this juncture… But I have been wrong before.

Snap Judgment Rating: Staple

LOVE
MIKE

Concerning:

Well, if the Champ says so…

So here comes the first of Five’s Worldwake card chatty chatties. And it’s a big one… in a little package. If you want to read — or actually listen to — more Worldwake chats from me (and @top8games, and @sloppystack) give this a listen: Worldwake Preview, Part 5. That is one of several parts of a Podcast that BDM, WillPop, and I ran this week over at Top 8 Magic. Good stuff, as ever.

So what about Dragonmaster Outcast?

Aesthetics:

This card seems pretty good.

As Coimbra says, it is a monster if you go and get it with Ranger of Eos. The question is whether — as a singleton or a redundant threat — it is superior to Scute Mob.

The advantage to Dragonmaster Outcast is that many 5/5 flying creatures over many turns are more powerful than a single, increasingly powerful (but non-evasive) Vampire Hexmage victim-to-be.

The advantage to Scute Mob is that it is a much faster threat. As soon as you hit your mana threshold, Scute Mob can start to battle, whereas there is a full additional turn in between the appearance of your first Dragon and the first attack that you get out of it.

Another possibility is that you just play a whole bunch of these little guys. When initially testing Naya Lightsaber, I often lusted for a second copy of that bullet.

Where Can I See This Fitting In?

Beyond the obvious Naya / Ranger of Eos action, another option would be a regular old one drop in a Red Deck. Is it as offensive as Goblin Guide? Not on the first turn, certainly. However, Red Decks have never needed great — or even very good — creatures to excel. This Mons Goblin Raiders can get some pro-action under its belt, and really pan out later in the game (should it go long). In particular, Dragonmaster Outcast is almost necessarily synergistic in a Red Deck with Valakut in Standard.

Snap Judgment Rating: Role Player - High *

LOVE
MIKE

* Was obv kidding with that Flagship comment on Top 8