Rise of the Eldrazi – Gelatinous Genesis

Concerning:

“At what point is a Gelatinous Genesis good?”

I find Gelatinous Genesis a genuinely interesting card to think about.

No, really.

Cards like this one are intriguing. The mana cost is considered; the potential upside of the card, considerable.

Should we instantly dismiss it?

Or: Is it awesome?

A card like this one has different value at different mana costs.

A simple comparison would be the card Drain Life.

A little over a year ago I wrote about “Magic Writing That Can Change Your Life”; in particular a PTQ report by BIll Hodack that changed my life. Bill played a B/R Necropotence deck that ran both Lightning Bolt and Drain Life (one Incinerate in the sideboard). In a deck that can easily access both sorts of mana (and in particular a deck that plays the card basic Mountain), Lightning Bolt is the superior card on bases of speed, flexibility, mana efficiency, and almost every other reasonable metric. Drain Life is superior only when you have an excess of mana. Like Gelatinous Genesis, it is increasingly useful as you have an increasing amount of mana; there is a minimum threshold where Drain Life becomes useful (the line that has stuck with me for 14+ years is “I wanted low casting cost spells. Drain Lifes become useful[l] at about 5 mana[.]” This simple statement helped create a framework in my mind that I have carried with me as a deck designer, player, and so on for all this time.

The practical implication is “At about four mana, you can kill a Black Knight and get something out of it… It just gets better after that.”

Gelatinous Genesis, I think, is going to be like that: It should become useful at a certain mana point; after that it will be very good. No one is really writing home for a four mana, Black Knight-killing, Drain Life; we play it for the dramatic swings it can create later in the game… But without a measuring stick, some kind of basis for evaluation at all, we have less of a rudder to help steer the strategy of our “ship” … and we can dismiss a card that is, quite frankly and by most evaluation criteria, significantly inferior to a Lightning Bolt.

So is Gelatinous Genesis awesome, or even super awesome?

At this point, I am not sure. It compares interestingly (and even favorably) to other historically playable cards at similar mana points. Let’s discover them!

Gelatinous Genesis has no effect at one mana and can’t be played for two mana. Let’s begin at three mana.

THREE

At three mana, Gelatinous Genesis puts one 1/1 creature onto the battlefield.

This is most like a Pyknite (without the cantrip-ness).

Originally I was thinking of a Wood Elves (without the attached Rampant Growth)… But I have qualified for the Pro Tour with Wood Elves, and the main reason we play Wood Elves is for the Rampant Growth-ness, not the 1/1-ness, so that would be a horrible insult to Wood Elves. But Pyknite… At three mana this card is just a terrible Pyknite.

And no one credible ever played with Pyknite.

FIVE

At five mana Gelatinous Genesis puts two 2/2 creatures onto the battlefield; it generates a net of one permanent simultaneous with four power. It is not so different from an Indrik Stomphowler.

There are actually lots of things that it is comparable to at this mana cost…

Turntimber Ranger – Gelatinous Genesis, were it only a five mana spell, would be far worse.

Bestial Menace – Ditto; Bestial Menace generates both more permanents and more power.

Grizzly Fate – Gelatinous Genesis on five is exactly an unenhanced Grizzly Fate. However Grizzy Fate, which was a much sought after bomb had both Flashback and Threshold. Was it much, much better than a five mana Gelatinous Genesis? Certainly! … But I think we might be hitting our Bill Hodack minimum usefulness threshold. Bill didn’t play Drain Life to kill Black Knights and we won’t be playing Gelatinous Genesis as a poor man’s Grizzly Fate. But at this point we might have a card — especially as it nets a “card” — we have a not-totally embarassing play, especially if we are going to consider chaining Genesis into Genesis.

SEVEN
At seven mana, Gelatinous Genesis produces three 3/3 creatures, or nine total power.

In a sense this is like a Terastodon, which produces three 3/3 creatures… But also not like a Terastodon at all (it is seven mana versus eight mana, the controlling of the 3/3 creatures is probably much different, no one becomes immediately manascrewed, there is another nine power in the mix); so I would put it much closer to a Simic Sky Swallower.

Why a Simic Sky Swallower?

They are both non-automatic, but playable sevens.

I remember the first time I held a Simic Sky Swallower in my hands. It was the first time we drafted Dissension at Jonny Draft. My deck had either one or two copies of this gigantic seven, two Experiment Kraaj, and five Coiling Oracles. I managed a 2-1.

The more memorable thing was thinking about the Simic Sky Swallower. We had very little frame of reference for seven mana creatures in Constructed. It seemed immediately Constructed playable to me, but I also had a healty measure of skepticism. This is how Simic Sky Swallower ended up, you will probably recall. Played in decks with an excess of mana (non-Staple in UrzaTron decks, not played even in some with Simic Signet), generally but not always played in Team Constructed, not universally played; not fast enough for many strategies.

So which is better?

If a deck is willing to muster seven for a threat, they can be held one against another. Gelatinous Genesis, overall, is the more flexible card. As a seven, strictly, it is sometimes better and sometimes worse than Simic Sky Swallower. This is the first mana point where we can really say that. It is much “bigger” than Simic Sky Swallower, and generates “card advantage” by itself. A Wrath of God (or the equivalent) is about equally good against both threats. Attacking into a swarm, Gelatinous Genesis is often superior. Against a specific kind of threat (Firemane Angel being an important consideration when Simic Sky Swallower was current), Simic Sky Swallower is much better: It could hold off Firemane Angels or attack into one; Gelatinous Genesis [on seven] is much less effective against Firemane Angels (though I don’t really see that being an issue at present).

Three or four years later, we still have relatively little data about how and when sevens are playable. However if they are / would be (and consider there are or were times when we would invest in threats that were “just” sevens), I think we can say at this point that Gelatinous Genesis starts getting “good”. It is the first point where power exceeds mana, at least.

NINE

A nine mana Gelatinous Genesis produces sixteen power across four permanents.

The closes point of reference is Iona, Shield of Emeria.

Why do we choose Iona?

If we have little data on sevens, we have even less on nines. However Iona is a nine that is both current and played; so we can ask questions like “When, if ever, is Gelatinous Genesis better than Iona, Shield of Emeria?”

You can’t really compare them in Extended, when Iona is played on the second turn in lockdown situations (I would also hazard that Gelatinous Genesis will never be played in large numbers in Extended); however we can talk about the two cards “playing fair” in Standard. There are multiple decks that will play Iona for retail (mono-White, U/W), and some that even try to cheat out Iona, Shield of Emeria as a “five mana spell” (Solar Flare).

When is Iona, Shield of Emeria better than Gelatinous Genesis [on nine]? I think that the kinds of decks that play Iona give us a good indication of when it would be better. Iona is better when you can play her over and over, relentlessly, as in a deck with Emeria, the Sky Ruin. It might also be better when you are a controlling counterspell deck that can use it to cut off a large portion of the opponent’s game with the objective of locking down Stage Three.

I would argue, on counterpoint, that a nine mana Gelatinous Genesis would be better in most other situations, most specifically in a Green deck that has nine mana to spend. If you aren’t specifically playing to lock down an opponent’s game, Iona isn’t that great. Big girl, will probably win… But what do you think you are getting for nine mana? However, think of the times you can lose with Iona in play: “You are getting swarmed” is first on the list. Four 4/4s are better at “not getting swarmed” than one gigantic Mythic, no?

It’s not clear that a gigantic Genesis is better than Iona, Shield of Emeria… But it’s also not clear that a [fairly played] Iona is better than this increasingly flexible sorcery, at this stage.

ELEVEN

An eleven mana Gelatinous Genesis will give you twenty-five power across five 5/5 creatures.

We have essentially no frame of reference for threats at this mana level — before Rise of the Eldrazi that is — so the closest thing I can compare it to is Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre.

Why Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre?

It costs the same?

It is almost silly to compare the two effects head to head. Twenty-five power, unchecked, is death. I can’t imagine that facing down Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, with its Nekrataal-come-Darksteel Colossus frame is much easier to beat; not with Annihilator 4. Either one should put you in a commanding position; Gelatinous Genesis being superior in most non-Haste cases due to its resistance to Path to Exile.

Yet there are certain implications to it costing the same (and the presence of other very expensive Eldrazi); the most important, of course, is the presumption that these cards are playable. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is Mythic. Presumably it is the one-Eldrazi wow factor. There are so many cards that are so flashy and so expensive I have to believe that we are entering a universe where at least some decks will have the resources to produce twenty-five power across five 5/5 “little” guys.

Snap Judgment Rating: Role Player

LOVE
MIKE

BONUS: The Gelatinous Genesis Quick-Reference Chart