1. What do you think about Sire of Insanity, Scott? If Mishra’s Birthing is a deck, and I’m honestly not sure that it is, that seems like a pretty good 6-drop in a number of key matchups. It might also be something worth Dread Returning in Dredge or other decks, but I haven’t thought that through yet.

  2. I love Notion Thief in every format. I really don’t know enough about Classic to know its differences, but do you think card could make a push for playing little Jace? Two theoretically playable cards that are absurd together.

    Still so iffy about Beck being played as backup glimpses. Not that the card is unplayable, but I think you really need to abuse the token aspect to justify the cost. Affinity with Genesis Chamber seems like the strongest.

    But more importantly, Has this Varolz-Pod been discussed somewhere? I’m interested.

  3. The problem with Sire of Insanity is that it’s not an enters the battlefield ability. Pod can drop it in as an instant, but it still allows an opponent the opportunity to interact with something like a Swords to Plowshares since it has to be in play at the beginning of an upkeep. Dredge probably just wants to win when the Dread Return, so Flame-Kin Zealot is likely just better.

    As for little Jace, it could gain some value since it would be +1 draw 2 and your opponent zero, but I’d say that’s probably a better play in Modern. Drawing cards with a 3 mana spell is not quite so amazing in Classic where there are strictly better options do draw (Thirst, Gush, etc.). You also need to advance your board quickly and a 3/1 and a 4 loyalty Planeswalker don’t strike much fear in people playing Oath, Workshop, and Dredge.

    I’ll defer to others that are more familiar with Affinity to say if Beck has a chance there. To me it seems like a completely dead card without the mana to cast it (Mox opal/Springleaf drum) and Genesis Chamber to abuse it.

    I don’t know of any instance of Valroz-pod beyond PlanteWalls’ comments in the article. That said, Pod’ing into Dreadnought doesn’t seem productive unless you have Stifle to negate the ETB trigger.

  5. Right, Denial is a may ability, so it wouldn’t work as well as I thought. Thanks for pointing that out. It wasn’t a competitive combo in the first place, but it’s now even less impressive as a novelty.

  6. Yes, I should also say that I was kind of joking about Varolz-Pod in Classic. Sorry for crapping up your article, Scott.

  7. Combining those last couple, Beck + Blood Scrivener is a nice combo w/ Zombie Infestation…not that 3 card combos are where it’s at.

  8. When the power come out, how do you think they will be released? Being a mythic rare seems weird.

  9. Thorme – Interesting that you noticed that. I did not see it, but to make it “infinite”, you need to get to exactly 3 cards (2 to discard leaving one in hand triggering Beck to draw 1 card to get to 2 and then, each token draws 2 cards to make another token). It is Modern legal, however.

    With regards to Power 9, as time goes by, my prediction keeps changing. I could probably write an entire article on it, but my guess is that they hand them out as a promo for entering events, possibly once v4 is the singular client. This would be for a limited time and would give out foils for going 4-0 and non foils for 3-1, or something like that. The Power 9 have the have some mystique. They can’t be handed out like Halloween candy which might ruin the paper Vintage scene since it would then be much cheaper to play online. Then again, ask me in 2 weeks and I might change my mind!