Unlocking the Vault #46 – Classic Set Review of Dragon’s Maze

Before I dig into the review, I want to highlight the fact that the Classic Quarter League QT #4 is right around the corner. This is my last chance to give the heads up since decklists and registration are due by Saturday, May 18th at 11:59 PM EDT on gatherling.com. I’ve made a change to the way that people are to contact their opponents for each round. More information on that and everything else for the QT can be found here. QT #4 will be the last chance to qualify for the Classic Invitational on July 20th!

As has become tradition with the release of each new set, a slew of writers flock to their computer and pound out an article outlining what cards are the best and most playable. Myself, I’ve done this several times over the last 2 years and have tried various ways to convey my thoughts on the newest cards and how they relate to Classic. I’m not sure there is a universally understood preference to organize one’s set review; some people review every single card, some review all cards that seem relevant, while others only mention the cards that they are confident about. I think people respect the latter type of review, so that’s what I’m going to do today and I’ll briefly mention the other “interesting” cards at the end.

Set reviews for Classic must now come with the caveat that the format may not last much longer. With Wizards announcing that the Power 9 will be making their way online in the near future, this could be the last Classic set review that I will write. It’s always been my assumption that the Power 9 will arrive once the “Beta” client, or V4, is the singular way to play Magic Online. With the upcoming Wide Beta spotlight and the tentative plan to “switch over” in mid-July, it seems that Vintage could be right around the corner. Or, it could be another 2 years before they decide anything. Who knows, but for as long as there is a Classic format, I’ll be making these reviews for it. I’ll make a nod in each review if the value might go up or down when Vintage comes online, but I’ll admit that I’ve never played a single game of Vintage in my life so it’s all speculation.

Let’s jump right in and start with the card that I think will make a notable impact in Classic! First up:

First things first: Ral is in no way shape or form in the same league as Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Jace is still better than all, and I don’t foresee any reason for Wizards to print another card as powerful as Jace any time soon. That being said, he will see play in Classic, although he won’t be the focal part of any existing deck.

The only planeswalker in the set, Ral’s first two abilities are definitely relevant to the Classic format. The +1 ability is essentially a double Twiddle. While Twiddle is never played anymore, it was the first, and only, way to abuse Time Vault in the old Type 1 format. Clearly, this is still an important play in Classic these days even with Voltaic Key being more efficient at untapping a Time Vault. This is where Ral gets slightly better than a plain old Key. Ral can uptap lands, creatures, and of course, other artifacts. Untapping a Tolarian Academy is a big play and could allow a player to do something truly degenerate, such as playing Ral and Jace on the same turn. Untapping the plentiful artifact mana is also a great way to generate mana advantage with Ral.

Ral can also mess with creatures and combat. Tapping down a potential blocker to clear the path for one of your creatures can be quite useful. Ral can also give one of your creatures pseudo-vigilance. Ral is not a great answer to a creature that was cheated into play via Oath of Druids or Show and Tell, however, as that creature can still untap, unlike the +1 ability on Ajani Vengeant, or Tamiyo, the Moon Sage for that matter.

Finally, he’s blue, so you can even pitch him to Force of Will.

One exciting opportunity to introduce a new deck into the format with Ral is as a home to combo with Stasis. Stasis’s drawback is that without any help, you will eventually run out of mana to pay for the upkeep costs. Previous Stasis decks would rely on things like Forsaken City to pay for the upkeep… or skip the upkeep phase altogether. With Ral’s +1 ability, that is no longer the case. If you +1 Ral, you can tap down any open mana that your opponent might have put into play on their last turn and you can untap one of your blue mana sources. You can do this for several turns, and once you’ve built enough loyalty, you can use the -7 ability to take a few turns in a row, which should lock the game up for you. Here is a rough outline of the deck I might build to start out with:

The deck is probably a couple turns too slow. TurboStasis decks of old were never really that fast either, so my thought process is that if it’s more controlling, it might be able to get to the mid-late game to let Stasis do its thing. TurboStasis decks also have to concern themselves with the number of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn that are running around the format, something that was never an issue in years gone by. Black Vise might be the preferred alternate win condition in that case.

As for Ral’s -2 ability, Lightning Bolt has been a staple in every format it’s been legal in. The best part of Ral’s Bolt ability is that it’s not a spell and thus cannot be countered by Mental Misstep, but also that it can be used to kill other planeswalkers, namely those called Jace. In the past, once your opponent drops a Jace of their own, there is little you could do to answer it besides play your own Jace or flash in something like a Vendilion Clique at the end of their turn. Now it’s possible to play Ral, kill their Jace, and follow that up with a Jace of your own on the next turn.

The Bolt ability is also more effective at fighting off Lodestone Golem than Jace is. Bouncing a Lodestone is only profitable if you can counter it on the following turn when your opponent re-casts it. Ral gets rid of Golems for good! Jace is still superior in fighting off Emrakul and Blightsteel Colossus, however.

Ral’s ultimate has a high degree of variance, but certainly qualifies as game-ending. It’s probably better to tick Ral up to 8 loyalty so that you can use him on your subsequent free turns, but also to hedge against the likelihood that you may win the flip only one or fewer times. This will happen far more times than one may think, sadly.

Overall, I think Ral can find a home in Turbo Tezz style decks as a one-of. The 4-mana slot for planeswalkers is very crowded in Classic and would normally be grounds for not seeing play at all (see: Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas), but since Ral can fight an opposing Jace and can combo with Time Vault, there should be room for a single Ral in several decks. Perhaps we are nearing a time where there is a critical mass of playable Classic planeswalkers available to squeeze into one deck? Unlikely, but it’s something I would love to see.

With regards to Vintage, Ral is probably downgraded slightly, though most of what was said above holds true in Vintage as well.

Next up is:

The Hate Bears deck has been a viable strategy in Classic for a while now. Duranoth won QT #2 with his GWB Bears deck, and ChrisKool made it to the finals of QT #1 with GW Hate Bears, so you don’t have to go far back in time to find a winning list.

What makes this a decent Bear? For starters, it makes most blue decks have to respond to it on your terms (read: on their turn). While not as effective as Grand Abolisher in curbing countermagic, it is a fascinating tug-of-war that your opponent must consider. If they do counter your next spell (likely a creature), you get a token that is at least a 2/2 and scales to the number of creatures you have in play. Things can get out of hand in a hurry. In addition to countermagic, your opponent will have to think twice about that end of turn Brainstorm or Snapcaster Mage.

Where things start to break down for Voice is against non-blue decks. Affinity and Workshop decks won’t care about casting any spells on your turn and as a 2/2 body, it trades quite poorly against their massive creatures. Finally, Swords to Plowshares played at sorcery speed completely nullifies this card. As such, it seems best suited as a sideboard card to replace Abolisher. In the end, it probably still isn’t any better than Gaddock Teeg for the 2 mana GW slot in Hate Bear decks. [Editor’s Note: It does leave something behind if you ever sac it to a Birthing Pod. – PlanetWalls]

In Vintage, Bears are not quite as powerful as compared to Classic. As such, it’s unlikely to see much play.

The next card is one that I have bounced back and forth on:

Clearly, this card is powerful enough to be useful in Classic. This card hoses Brainstorm and Jace more than any other card I can think of. Catching your opponent off guard with the Thief causes you to draw 3 and they still have to put two cards back on top of their library. Unless they have a fetch land readily available to shuffle away their junk, this is sort of like a 5-turn swing!

The problem that I’ve been wrestling with is that this is something that any decent blue mage must now account for and can thus play around, just like Daze out of Blue Tempo decks. If your opponent is holding up 2UB, you’ll have to consider if it’s worth the risk of being blown out by it. Having a Cavern of Souls can help get it onto the battlefield, but once there, it’s a 3/1 body with no evasion, so it is imperative to get value out of flashing it into play with Jace’s +0 ability or a Brainstorm on the stack.

Further, this card just simply does not pass the Workshop test. It is next to useless against Workshops, and at 4 mana, it’s already a hefty price to pay without any spheres in play. Sure, it trades with Lodestone, but you have to spend at least 5 mana just to cast it (4 if you are somehow fortunate enough to have it in hand and the mana available to cast it when Lodestone is on the stack)! This card will be boarded out for Games 2 and 3, but while it’s there for Game 1, it’s only real use is to pitch to a Force of Will.

One relevant and interesting aspect of this card is its ability to shut down Gush engines and Standstill. Neither of those are all that popular in Classic these days, but it’s worth noting for the future.

Another interesting interaction is with Draw 7 spells such as Wheel of Fortune and Memory Jar. Drawing 14 cards to your opponents zero (and them having to discard/exile their hand is an incredibly powerful effect. If there were a Storm deck that could reliably get to 4 mana to flash this in at the end of your opponents turn and follow that up with a Draw 7, that would likely be an easy victory. Unfortunately, getting to 4 mana for a Storm deck is quite difficult in a Workshop-heavy environment.

A hilarious interaction that I had to share regarding the Thief is with an old favorite spell of mine from the early days of Magic, Arcane Denial. With a Thief on the table, Denial turns into Counterspell + Ancestral Recall! I hope to live the dream one day and be able to finally profit unconditionally off of Arcane Denial, though it probably won’t occur in any sanctioned Classic matches.

It’s also worth noting that against Dredge, it’s important to get Thief onto the battlefield before your opponent can get a dredger into their graveyard. Since dredging is a replacement effect for drawing, Bazaar of Baghdad will not trigger Thief’s ability, however, if there are no dredgers for them to utilize, Thief is a great hoser against Bazaar decks.

Vintage is better equipped to put this card to good use as the mana acceleration will help cast this card long before Turn 4, which can allow it to actually have a chance at surprising an opponent.

Next up is the first of three cards using the new Fuse mechanic:

Unsummon and Diabolic Edict effects have been popular in Classic for a long time. Oath and Tinker, and to a lesser extent Show and Tell, have been cheating large creatures into play and Edict effects are a great way to get around strategies such as Hexproof and other similar protection abilities. Jace is the only Unsummon effect being used in the format, but fusing both abilities seems to be the best of both worlds, despite their increased casting costs.

For the premium of one mana for each spell, you can get the flexibility of two different cards, much like split card of the past such as Fire // Ice. The Fuse mechanic allows even greater flexibility as you can get to cast both halves of the cards at the same time. If your opponent has 2 creatures in play, you can bounce one and force them to sacrifice the other. This is a great follow-up to a Show and Tell (unless they cheat in Griselbrand). Alternatively, you can bounce one of your creatures, such as a Snapcaster, to gain more virtual card advantage and edict your opponent.

What makes this card destined to be relegated to the sideboard is that the incremental costs for each half of the card make it difficult to use outside of matchups where creatures being cheated into play are the main focus. Against Workshop strategies, the sphere effects make this card nearly uncastable. That said, it’s a great option to replace or compliment decks that already want to use Fire // Ice or are Blue-Black Tempo decks. (Plus, it’s an Edict effect you can pitch to Force.)

Vintage will probably have the same uses for this card that Classic will.

The next Fuse card that is Classic playable is:

We’ve seen this combination of abilities before in Hull Breach, but not as an instant, and not in these colors. Being an instant makes this something of interest. Evaluating each piece of the spell, this card is one half Shatter and one half Demystify. Sadly, Shatter has been out-classed by Smelt recently, so the Shatter effect is not quite as potent.

Being in red and white, there are not many decks in Classic that could regularly utilize this spell. There is also the realization that there simply aren’t that many applications where someone would want to destroy an Artifact and an Enchantment at the same time. Oath decks are probably the only such instance it could come in handy, though a Storm deck with a Necropotence on the battlefield might qualify as well.

There is one deck that is already looking to utilize both aspects of this card from their sideboard: Dredge. With the two most common and powerful hate cards being an artifact (Grafdigger’s Cage) and an enchantment (Leyline of the Void), Dredge players must utilize both types of hate cards. There are even some decks that use both hate cards to fight off Dredge!

A Dredge player will have to build their manabase slightly differently, but if there is a reasonable way to get both red and white mana, this card could see value as a way to consolidate answer in the Dredge sideboard. Lotus Petal is already the best answer to casting spells from the sideboard, but there might need to be more mana sources available to be able to cast both for maximum value.

Vintage applicability of this card is nearly the same; however, Oath is less prevalent in that format.

The final Fuse card worth mentioning is:

Elves decks have not been a major part of Classic for a while now. Will the added consistency of Glimpse of Nature numbers 5-8 be enough to get it back on the radar? I’m going to say that it could; however, the majority of Classic players today will not want to pick up the deck.

I do not have any experience with playing an Elves deck, but there are some good tools, in addition to Beck, that have been printed recently that I think could make Elves stronger than it may appear. Craterhoof Behemoth is a fantastic finisher for Elves. Cavern of Souls is a great way to make sure you land an early mana-Elf through a wall of countermagic. It won’t help cast Beck, but it will certainly help get the deck going. The mana issues of adding blue might lead to inconsistency, but I would have to believe Legacy players will be trying this out. It may be that a straight port to Classic is the best way to go, so I will be anxious to see what those Legacy players come up with.

Vintage will likely be no different than Classic, though Elves might be more popular as a budget option once it hits online.

The last card I will discuss that should see some Classic play is:

Immediate comparisons to Dark Confidant are clear. Both are wizards, have the same casting cost, and have the same power/toughness. They are also both from Ravnica-themed blocks and “draw” cards at the expense of life. Unfortunately, their similarities end there, and in fact, they are anti-synergistic when combined. Confidant is not a “draw” effect and having both in play will likely nullify the Scrivener ability for the draw step unless the card you put into your hand off of Confidant is either an instant or has flash (and you have the mana to pay for it).

While these cards have their similarities, there are situations where Scrivener could be better than Confidant. Over the course of several turns, Scrivener’s life loss could be much less than Confidant. Also, there is the chance that you can trigger Scrivener’s ability twice in the same turn.

Focusing on the cards that either help make Scrivener’s ability trigger or facilitate a draw trigger from somewhere other than your hand, here is a short list of cards that could make a deck centered around Scrivener’s card advantage:

Lion’s Eye Diamond
Bazaar of Baghdad
Sensei’s Divining Top
Liliana of the Veil
Zombie Infestation
Seismic Assault (to discard drawn lands)
Deep Analysis

That list is not likely everything, but it represents the most Classic playable cards that I could find. Is there a deck to be made out of these? I think there is a very real chance, but it’s debatable if it will be anything other than a fringe strategy mainly because those cards rely too heavily on the graveyard as a resource. If there is one format that is best known for hating out graveyard strategies, it’s Classic.

That said, the synergy with things such as unrestricted LED as well as Tops and Bazaars seems that there could be a Bx deck capable of competing in Classic. Since Scrivener is also a Zombie, it adds value to cards like Gravecrawler. Toss in some hand disruption and it could work.

With LED restricted in Vintage, things become much more difficult to dump your hand quickly. As such, it probably won’t have much impact in Vintage.

The rest of the cards that I want to briefly discuss are those that are really fringe and will only see play out of the sideboard, if at all:

Skylasher – If Delver of Secrets decks come back to take over the format, this guy could find use out of the sideboard of Bears decks.

Sin Collector – A situationally better Tidehollow Sculler, the added cost and more fragile body make it nearly unplayable. If there were a cheap way to blink this guy repeatedly, then it would be playable as a way to strip your opponent’s hand. Until such a card is available, this is nigh unplayable.

Varolz, the Scar-Striped – Similar to Scrivener, but worse, as it depends entirely on the graveyard and likely a couple turns too slow at 3 mana. If there is a deck to use this guy, it would be one that combines the Stifle-Phyrexian Dreadnought combo, but it’s probably too slow in Classic and gets hit by Mental Misstep. [Editor’s Note: What about Classic Junk-Birthing Pod? Pod Voice of Resurgence into Varolz, then next turn Pod the Voice token into Phyrexian Dreadnought, scavenge, and attack for 14! – PlanetWalls]

Council of the Absolute – Has value in a Jace mirror to lock your opponent out of legend ruling your Jace while also dropping the casting cost to only UU. However, if you are going to cast a 4-drop, just cast Jace and get it over with.

Gaze of Granite – A much slower Pernicious Deed, it is immune to Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker and it has the upside of hitting planeswalkers. Unfortunately, to hit the most common ‘Walker in the format, you would need to have 7 mana, which is highly unlikely if your opponent has had an unimpeded Jace for several turns (or at least unlikely to not get countered).

Ruric Thar, the Unbowed – While in theory it’s a sound candidate for an Oath deck, the reality is that he still doesn’t beat out Emrakul or Griselbrand.

That’s all for the Classic cards worth mentioning from Dragon’s Maze. I think I captured everything, but there are always cards that slip through the cracks. Hey, we can’t all be perfect!

The next new non-Core Set that will be released is Theros. It seems that the block is built on Greek Mythology, which could mean that we can expect more absurd giant creatures worth cheating into play. The last such set to have this “deity” theme was Rise of the Eldrazi, which gave us the card by which all other ridiculously large creatures are judged: Emrakul. Here’s to hoping that we will see something that can replace Emrakul in certain situations and can contribute to deck diversity.

Please share your thoughts on these cards in Classic in the comment section below. Feel free to call me out for anything I might have missed or am completely off-base on!

enderfall
Clan Magic Eternal
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