Cheesy Victories in M19

 

Grand Prix Sacramento confirmed what I suspected—M19 is a cheesy format. There are multiple cards that read “win the game” with minimal setup. This leads to some very strange tensions in the format as you may find yourself grinding a midrange matchup only to have the game come to a halt when someone slams a Banefire or a Prodigious Growth to just lock up the game. I have never experienced a tournament where so many of my opponents who defeated me would apologize for their win because of the cheesy nature of their finish. I started doing it too. If we’re all cutting stinky cheese in this format we might as well be polite about it.
I got to play three cheesy decks in Sacramento on my way to an 11-4 finish. Let’s look at them.

Day 1 Sealed with Green-White 4 Legged Animals (6-2)

Creatures:

1x Druid of the Cowl

1x Diamond Mare

1x Shield Mare

1x Pegasus Courser

1x Centaur Courser

1x Skyscanner

3x Star-Crowned Stag

1x Vine Mare

1x Bristling Boar

1x Gallant Cavalry

1x Angel of the Dawn

1x Colassal Dreadmaw

1x Ghastbark Twins

1x Hungering Hydra

Artifacts:

1x Sigiled Sword of Valeron

1x Arcane Encyclopedia

Sorceries:

2x Rabid Bite

Enchantments:

1x Talons of Wildwood

1x Prodigious Growth

Lands:

9x Forest

9x Plains

Sideboarded Cards:

1x Rhox Oracle (large threats)

1x Giant Spider (skies)

1x Invoke the Divine (ench/artifacts)
Heading into this sealed format I knew a couple of things I wanted to do. First is to avoid 2-drops that either have 1 toughness or get blanked by 1/3s. There are so many great 1/3 value creatures in this format (I’m playing two of them) that your average Grizzly Bear variant will simply become irrelevant as the game goes on. Here with Druid of the Cowl and Diamond Mare I have a pair of creatures that are able to get me to my long game by either ramping me or helping me stay alive. Highland Game and Greenwood Sentinels were never considered.
Avoiding 2-drops creates an interesting problem, though, as I am still in a beat-down deck with triple Stag. I absolutely needed to hit those Stags so I opted into an 18 land manabase to ensure I hit my 4-drops. I also included the Arcane Encyclopedia in case I flooded out and the Talons of Wildwood along with the Sigiled Sword, a cheese card in it’s own right, also gave me ample mana sinks in case I drew too many of those 18 lands. I have also noticed how punished people have been getting for missing their third or even fourth land drop. For now I believe 18 lands is correct.
With so many haymakers in my deck it becomes a tough decision about whether to play or draw. The advantages of drawing first are that you are more likely to hit your land drops and draw additional gas, two things I wanted to do. Ultimately, though, I felt like I would be the aggressor with triple Stag and the 18th land was there to help me hit my drops. I opted to play at every instance. I am unsure if this is correct.

The Cheese: Vine Mare + auras is a well-hated win condition and for good reason. There are no edict effects and the prevalence of such a strategy has led to naturalize effects being maindeckable. Prodigious Growth is also just such a house without the horse as it can turn anything into a lethal threat out of nowhere. Don’t overdo the auras, three is probably the max and I only really like Talons and Oakenform. Swords and Axes can be even better.
Cheese Ranking: Roquefort, a stinky powerful blue that some people absolutely adore but most people wish didn’t exist.

Day 2 Draft 1 with Blue-Red Power Nap (2-1)

Creatures:

1x Departed Deckhand (P1P1)

1x Dark-Dweller Oracle

2x Surge Mare

1x Boggart Brute

2x Aven Wind Mage

1x Mirror Image

1x Enigma Drake

1x Salvager of Secrets

1x Gearsmith Guardian

2x Sparktongue Dragon

Sorceries:

1x Divination

1x Sleep

Instants:

1x Spark

1x Lightning Strike

1x Essence Scatter

3x Disperse

1x Cancel

1x Electrify

Lands:

10x Island

7x Mountain

Sideboarded Cards:

1x Gearsmith Guarding (mistake to leave out)
Opening an unplayable rare (I hate you, Detection Tower) I took Departed Deckhand as it can be a lot of damage for such a low cost. Pack 1 gave me a lot of blue cards to start the pack so I hedged on powerful off color cards towards the end, grabbing Rise from the Grave, Aerial Engineer, and Enigma Drake to set up powerful cards in whatever my second color might be. Opening another unplayable rare in pack 2 (I still hate you, Detection Tower) I snapped a Lightning Strike and committed to UR.
Leaving the second Gearsmith Guardian out of the list was an absolute mistake. During a Sleep turn having the extra power made a huge difference and games usually went long enough to play multiple 5s. Dark-Dweller Oracle was too often a bear so sometimes I made that swap. Against White decks I instead swapped it with Mirror Image as Oracle is great against Luminous Bonds.

The Cheese: Sleep is such a powerful tempo card as all that it asks of you is to have enough power to 2-shot your opponent. With triple disperse and a pair of counterspells I could reliably answer any blockers that caused problems on the second turn. Additional reach in Shock, Lightning Strike, and the pair of Sparktongue Dragons helped close so many games.
Cheese Ranking: Asiago Pressato, mild, firm, creamy, easy to eat quickly and then go take a nap from a full belly.

Day 2 Draft 2 with Black-White Holy Lifegain, Batman! (2-1)

Creatures:

1x Rustwing Falcon

2x Vampire Neonate

1x Child of Night

1x Daybreak Chaplain

2x Reassembling Skeleton

1x Mentor of the Meek

1x Skyscanner

1x Hired Blade

1x Dwarven Priest

1x Epicure of Blood

1x Regal Bloodlord (P1P1)

1x Psychic Symbiont

1x Chromium, the Mutable

Artifacts:

2x Marauder’s Axe

Sorceries:

1x Mind Rot

1x Rise from the Grave

2x Lich’s Caress

Enchantment:

1x Luminous Bonds

Instant:

1x Abnormal Endurance

Lands:

1x Rupture Spire

8x Swamp

6x Plains

2x Island

Sideboarded Cards:

1x Novice Knight

1x Walking Corpse (pull splash vs. RW)
I am typically not a fan of taking a gold card first but Regal Bloodlord was heads and shoulders above any of the other cards in the packs. However, through most of packs 1 and 2 I was unclear what my second color would be. Black flowed to me as I followed up Bloodlord with a Lich’s Caress and Rise from the Grave but then I found myself taking very defensive creatures, such as Reassembling Skeleton. I hedged into White with a Luminous Bonds and Green with a Vivian’s Invocation but mostly just took Black cards until I could see a plan. A few Neonates and Mentor solidified me with my first plan of lifegain but I also felt I had too few win conditions so I took the Blue fliers to help me finish out games. The Axes as well helped turn my otherwise unimpressive creatures into real threats. Multiple games were won with Bats holding Axes.
I was playing a long game so the Blue splash made a bit of sense, especially given the low power level of my draft. Psychic Symbiont performed better than Chromium but when I played a WR deck in round 15 I just pulled all of the clunky slowness and jammed cheap blockers. This proved correct as I was able to win both the sideboarded games.

The Cheese: The lifegain synergies of Vampire Neonate, Epicure of Blood, and Regal Bloodlord created unwinnable boardstates for my opponents. I was even able to mill out an opponent just by having an impenetrable board and a few more cards in my library. It was slow and my opponents played it out but most of my wins were locked up five to ten turns before lethal was given.
Cheese Ranking: Pont L’eveque, stinky washed rind double cream that tastes delightful (buttery and mushroomy) but stinky to anyone across the table from you.

Takeaways

• 2-drops need to do something
• But bring in bears against RW
• Splash thoughtfully, don’t go crazy
• Removal is bad, don’t prioritize it over your gameplan
• Synergy matters, even if it’s just cheesy

I hope you enjoyed my cheese platter! Go get yours! Leave comments about the format or cheeses you like.
Be well!

Casual Play: 2HG and Brawl for Core 2019

One of the reasons I am still in love with Magic after all of these years is the community. While Wizards’ online Magic platforms lag far behind great games like Eternal and Elder Scrolls: Legends (seriously, WotC, just hire Dire Wolf) the one thing those games cannot compete against is the meet up, the namesake Gathering of Magic at a local game store, bar, or kitchen table. You meet new people, you hear about other’s lives, you taste new food and beer, and you play some games. I have met so many wonderful people through this game and it is those people that draw me back.
Here is my Two-Headed Giant team: Weirdo & Beardo

Weirdo & Beardo met through a mutual acquaintance who was hosting house drafts. We soon started traveling to GPs together, rocking 2HG prereleases together, and soon we’ll be co-officiating a fellow grinder’s wedding. For as much pride as I take in my GP Day 2 conversion rate, RPTQ finishes, and MTGO limited ranking, I take much more pride in the existence of Weirdo & Beardo.
If you’re like me you will be partnering up with your better Magic half for some Two-Headed Giant this weekend. With 2HG there are cards that effect multiple opponents and being aware of these tricks will change some of the ways you evaluate those cards. Additionally, some of these cards may have some play in Brawl (likely less in Commander) so I added a bonus section where I see which M19 cards crack my Aryel Brawl list.

The Weirdo & Beardo Method

Before we look at cards, let me talk about our main philosophy in 2HG as it plays out significantly different than 1v1.

1. Construct a beatdown and a control deck. We’ve found that separating the roles of each deck leads to smoother draws. Having one player focusing on deploying threats as efficiently as possible while the other is focusing on removing threats leads to more streamlined decks and less clunky draws. Your control deck should still have threats and your beatdown deck should have answers, but as a rule this formula will work out for you.
2. Always choose to be on the draw. The typical play/draw asymmetry balances tempo with card advantage, but in 2HG where you start with 30 life and will have double or triple spell turns fairly early the card advantage is huge. The team on the draw gets two card for the temp loss, a steal.
3. Play sideboard cards in the main. Since the match is best of one there is not opportunity to sideboard into your more narrow but powerful spells, like naturalize or plummet. Since you will be playing against two decks you can assume that one of them will be playing a meaningful target of those spells so feel free to slip them in there as answers.
4. Counterspells are always good. Usually I shy away from counters in my limited decks because taking a turn off against the variable cardpool of an unknown opponent can be backbreaking. In 2HG, however, you can bet that your opponents will have multiple bombs across both of their decks, giving you twice the likelihood of snagging something meaningful.
5. Shave a land. While one player getting mana screw can lead to a lopsided game, most 2HG matches are not decided by who curves out but by who has the better late game. Shaving a land can set you up in the late game to be able to draw hot when you need it the most.

Whenever Weirdo & Beardo sit down with a pool this is where we begin and build from.

Double Ups

The first thing we look for are cards that double their value based on if they say “each opponent” on them. These effects can really pile up in 2HG. So here we go:

A 4/4 for 5 is already decent enough to play but this ability can be extra valuable with enough lifegain in your deck. Hitting for two points every time you gain life just furthers the distance in life. If we have enough ways to gain life this monster is finding its way into our decks. Note that it only matters if the card’s controller gains the life, not the team. So shove all of the lifegain into one deck.
Enter Vampire Neonate. A 0/3 for 1 is a great way to stop early aggression and then later becomes a mana sink that hits for 2. This triggers Epicure of Blood or any other lifegain value creatures your team may have. Regal Bloodlord, maybe?

Infectious Horror has a great ability, burning the opponents for 4 whenever it attacks. However, it is way over-costed at 4mana for a 2/2. The average scenario for this creature is to suicide attack in for 4 damage. That is not versatile enough to get my endorsement.
Guttersnipe, on the other hand, is exactly what I want if my control deck ends up in red. Turning my removal, card draw, and counters into 4 points of burn is an unbelievable rate. Guttersnipe has a huge target on his back so think about sandbagging this until you can play a spell as well. Of course, there is nothing wrong with making your opponents burn removal on him and having your beatdown player land a strong finisher.
Poison-Tip Archer also starts hitting opponents for 2 and the fact that all creatures other than itself trigger it makes it a slam dunk if you have GB deck. Two creatures trading in combat turn into a four point swing. My only concern with the Archer is that it does not fit our beatdown/control philosophy, but I can see either deck splashing this card to great effect.

The mill plan is very slow but I think it can be viable in multiples. 2HG games tend to go very long so if you have a blue heavy control deck and a couple copies of either Psychic Corrosion and/or Patient Rebuilding I think you can consider it. Just think: if you land Corrosion on turn 3 your opponents should have 30 cards in their deck. It will take 15 turns to deck them. That is far too long. If you hit Patient Rebuilding on turn 5 they should have 28 cards in their deck meaning they will be dead in 10 turns. Better but still not great. In multiples, however, it can be a real clock. Just make sure to always target the same player with Rebuilding. This strategy may require your beatdown deck to be a bit more defensive as this alternative victory will be made obsolete by a very aggressive partner.
Sarkhan’s Unsealing is very interesting because taking a turn off to turn all of your creatures into Flametongue Kavus is appealing. Triggering this twice seems good, more is absurd. If you hit the second clause you get to burn your opponents for 8 just by casting a creature. Your beatdown deck should be running enough 4+ power creatures to satisfy that fist ability, but here are the creatures that satisfy the second:

With all of these at uncommon or higher this will be a tough stunt to pull off. Gigantasaur and Chromium should be immediately ignored as their casting costs are just too restrictive. Inferno Hellion is a bit tough to justify normally but with this support it might be worth running. Ah, but Pelakka Wurm is just dirty with this ability, especially if the control deck is running any lifegain matters spells. Don’t count on seeing this constellation of cards in your pool but if they line up I would go for it.

Onto our mythic interactions, Ajani’s +1 can hit your teammates creatures and Nicol Bolas is just a three for one. You should play those anyway. A card you absolutely should not play is Fraying Omnipotence. As this card resolves, each team will have to resolve this effect twice, meaning your opponents will lose two halves of their life, otherwise known as all of it. While this may seem great it also happens to your team, leading to an immediate draw. While 2HG is technically a “first to 1 win,” not “best of 1,” it is not in your best interest to resolve this spell as there likely will not be enough time in the round to naturally complete a second game. This card will not fog a loss for you, it will force a draw.

Bonus: Brawl!

Brawl has become the defacto casual format for my playgroup. We all play as many PPTQs as we can, so we all are drowning in Standard cards. It was just a natural fit for us to put them together for some casual play. When one of us makes the top 8 of a PPTQ the rest of us scrubs will deal out a multiplayer game of Brawl as we wait. After a nuts prerelease pool with two copies of it, I adopted Aryel as my general. Here’s the list.

If I were more of a Vampire BW deck the new trio I highlighted here might be in contention, but I want to stick with Aryel a bit longer. Here are the swaps I plan to make.

Sigiled Sword of Valeron for Jousting Lance: I do not want to add more equipment as three seem just about right so far. Of the three, Jousting Lance is the weakest. While First Strike synergy is awesome, especially with Kwende, getting an additional 2/2 to help combo with Aryel’s Black ability seems too sweet to pass up on. Blackblade is too good to cut and Forebear’s Blade also has great utility.
Gallant Cavalry for Call the Cavalry: Essentially the same card but having one half be a card means that Unclaimed territory and the Monuments trigger.
Valiant Knight for Radiant Destiny: swapping anthem effects here is mostly to get more value from a body. Triggering Monuments again is valuable but another card that can hold a sword, tap to Aryel’s Black ability, and has its own solid activated ability are all key here.
Not making the cut: Lena, Selfless Champion is too expensive and is more suited for a tokens strategy. Her sacrifice ability cannot save my best threats.

Good luck and have fun this weekend, everyone!

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Removal in Core 2019 Limited

I am a monster. Some call me the fun police, some call me predictable, but the fact of the matter is that I love drafting removal spells. Cube, Chaos Draft, or even Core Set all I want to do is ruin my opponents plan and win eventually. Early in a format I am usually taking all the removal I see and drafting some kind of Rakdos control deck until I figure out what is actually good in the format. For those reasons I want to take some time to evaluate the new tools we have to ruin our opponent’s fun.
There is certainly a hierarchy of removal with Black at the top, Red and White toggling back and forth for second place, leaving Blue and Green forever in the basement. I will go through the removal available at lower rarities in each color and talk about their nuances.
(Keep in mind that there is always one creature nothing can hit, our good friend or hated enemy, Vine Mare.)

Black, the Removal Color

The best place to start is with the best. Murder and Lich’s Caress hit everything except that green horse. This is your big dino/dragon/angel/sphinx killer. The difference between the two is that the uncommon card is faster and cheaper without the lifegain bump. Two mana and instant speed is certainly better than three life, even in the lifegain deck.
Strangling Spores is a fine removal spell as well. It’s less expensive than Lich’s Caress and though it doesn’t hit as many creatures the fact that it can be cast at instant speed turns it into a combat trick as well. Right now I would prioritize Spores in my more aggressive Black decks.

Skeletal Archer and Plague Mare do more than just pick off x/1s, they can be post-combat tricks where you suicide in an attacker and get some value after the fact to help trade up. So while they may score low on the targets they kill their flexibility make them excellent options, especially in attacking decks to pick off pesky blockers. Skeletal Archer being able to go to face is also relevant. I fully expect this to be the best Black common creature and, depending on how fast the format is, it might be better than Spores or Caress.

Nightmare’s Thirst is another tricky removal spell. Getting -1/-1 for B is fine enough without support. It is not as good as Skullduggery or Fungal Infection but it is in the same discussion. However, in a lifegain deck this card can scale immensely. Imagine giving your Child of Night first strike with Calvary Drillmaster and firing off a Nightmare’s Thirst after first strike damage. G. R. O. S. S. There’s a reason they made this uncommon as it can get out of control, especially in multiples.
Most of the black removal seems to entice you to be attacking so I am inclined to think this will be a faster format. When paired with Red or Green you certainly want to be on the beatdown/attrition plan. White is a bit trickier but Thirst seems like a real payoff while Caress is an enabler. Ultimately removal is removal and that will be good enough in the Blue control archetype.

Red and White, Good in Situations

White has two excellent pieces of unconditional removal in Luminous Bonds and Hieromancer’s Cage. Cage is more versatile as it can also function as a Disenchant or Hero’s Downfall and an Oblivion Ring for one more mana is still a great rate in limited. Bonds is a pricey Pacifism and that’s just fine as well. Bond’s weakness is that creatures with activated abilities still retain some value but luckily there are not too many creatures that fall into that category. These are good and splashable so expect to see them everywhere.

However, they do suffer the weakness of being victim to enchantment removal. With Vine Mare and some pushed auras in the format main decked Reclamation Sage and Invoke the Divine might be reasonable. They can also not be too great against Red and Black decks as they have a sacrifice archetype. They have to sac in response to the Cage but they will certainly get value off of a Bonded creature.
Take Vengeance is an awkward spell. If an opponent’s creature is tapped on your turn that means you’re getting beat down on. If you’re getting beat down on this is a very reactive spell and the opponent is getting some value out of their creature before you can respond. Removal is removal and sometimes you do what you must but I do not like this card and I hope to never play it.

Electrify is going to the be the staple removal spell in red. It kills nearly everything in the format, whiffing on a mere 11 lower rarity creatures and hitting every flier. Shock is another great removal spell. It hits a little less than half the creatures in the format but there are a lot of high power evasive creatures like Snapping Drake, Boggart Brute, and Two-Headed Zombie that are just blown out by Shock. Lightning Strike is another great card, hitting 80% of the creatures in the format for a low cost. Absolutely a beast.

Volley Veteran ranges from a worse Skeleton Archer to a better Flametongue Kavu. The ceiling is really high and the floor is pretty ok too. I love this card but I’m not sure what kind of goblins I would be willing to play to make this better. Boggart Brute and Goblin Instigator seem fine. Guttersnipe is more of a Blue card but could make the cut with enough removal. But Goblin Motivator seems just too narrow to make it into my deck.
Fiery Finish is a great answer to anything in your way. It kills everything but at the high cost of six mana. I do not think this will be that bad of a deal as the creatures that Finish hits that Electrify canot are all five or more mana. I think I want one copy in my more midrange red decks.
Finally, there’s Thud, a sorcery speed Fling. This will be great in the Black Red deck and pretty situational everywhere else. Ideally you want Thud to be a finisher but only aggressive decks will want this effect.

Blue Green Basement

Dwindle does Blue’s best impersonation of removal but does set you back on tempo just a bit as the opponent does get one block out of it. It gives the opponent too many choices to be premium but Dwindle can answer powerful threats. It shines in a flying strategy to stop opposing ground pounders.
Switcheroo is a beautiful card that is technically card disadvantage but can be a huge trade in tempo the further away the casting costs of the two creatures are. Imagine swapping your Dwindled or Luminous Bonded creature for their best bomb. The only time this card is bad is when you’re winning or you have no board and have already lost.
Rabid Bite is one of the best removal spells Green gets and in the past has been a great one-way fight card. All that it asks of you is to play creatures, something you should be doing in Green anyway. You do want to make sure you’re over 15 creatures in your deck and the card will prove fine. It can be countered with your opponent’s removal so be careful playing it into open mana.
Plummet I feel deserves a mention as there are 23 fliers or flying producing cards at the lower rarity, almost a quarter of all common and uncommon creatures. Nearly every deck will have a target and if you have a green deck low on giant spiders and removal Plummet seems reasonable to play in the main deck.

First Picks

If I opened the nuts pack of all removal what would I pick?
Uncommon:
Murder vs. Lightning Strike vs. Heiromancer’s Cage

Cage hitting non-creatures is nice but Limited Magic is defined by creatures so I don’t prioritize this effect and would pick one of the cheaper spells. Strike is an great card, efficient, and can sometimes deal the last points of damage. However, four toughness is a real deal and Strike will struggle sometimes against some cards that demand an answer. Murder is my pick. It is versatile, reasonably costed, and only demands that you play mostly black.
Common:
Lich’s Caress vs. Strangling Spores vs. Electrify vs. Shock vs. Luminous Bonds

Luminous Bonds is the cheapest and would draw my eye first but with a RB sacrifice archetype and good enchantment removal I would pass for the time being and look at the red and black spells. Between the red spells I would lean towards Electrify as it just kills so much. Shock is very efficient and by the end of the format it may be correct but I am hoping to answer x/2s with my own creatures. Strangling Spores is just a worse Electrify so it is out of consideration. Lich’s Caress is a great control card as it kills anything and gains you a bit of life to help you get back in. However, Electrify is easier to cast and for that reason it’s my pick.
What did I get wrong? Leave a reply and let me know!

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Reading the Signs of Core Set 2019

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my first article for Team Rankstar! My name is Victor and my main focus is on limited Magic. I just got back from Grand Prix Vegas with a disappointing 5-3 finish and am looking forward to the new Core Set 2019 format. The full set when live today so my very first step in evaluating each format is to look at the so-called “Signpost Uncommons,” the 10 card gold cycle that lets you know each color pair’s archetype.
New sets are the most exciting time in the Magic calendar so I’ve accompanied each archetype with a summer cookout themed hype level. See which colors I can’t wait to shove into my mouth and which I’ll leave on the table.
So whether you’re waiting to draft on MTG:Arena or are heading to your LGS for some Pre-Release sealed I hope this forcast helps. Let’s dive in.

WU – Artifacts Matter

White-Blue returns to familiar territory by caring about artifacts on the battlefield. The main thing to keep in mind with this type of synergy is to evaluate cards in terms of their floor and ceiling. Look at Aerial Engineer, for example. A gold 2/4 for 4 is way below rate. It’s floor is pretty low. If you ended up in these colors and didn’t manage to draft a single artifact this card would not make the cut. However, looking that the ceiling–a 4/4 flyer–and, wow, this is a limited bomb. A threat of that caliber is often 5 or 6 mana. Getting a beater like that a turn early is what pushes someone into this archetype.

The fact that so many of these cards seem to have a low floor tells me that you really need to prioritize artifacts to turn these on. Ideally you’d want at least 8 strong artifacts to make this deck work. That’s a real cost to the deck, though, as artifacts tend to be low power due to them being open to any color. All in all this is a type of deck I hate drafting. The nightmare scenario of drawing the wrong half of the synergies is too much for me to take the gamble.
Hype level: coleslaw

UB – Value Control

Blue-Black is also making a familiar return to control. While not a ‘synergy’ per se control is more of a macro archetype of the game. The idea is simple: remove your opponents threats and then pull ahead in the late game with card advantage. In limited you’ll end up playing more creatures in your control decks than in constructed but those creatures should function as both answers and finishers. Psychic Symbiont is an absolute house. It’s a clean 3-for-1 which on turn eight can really help pull you ahead. Flying also helps it be a finisher or an answer to smaller flying threats.

I default to wanting to play this kind of control in limited because everyone ends up playing some amount of filler until they get to their game plan and strong removal just wrecks that. It’s not sexy but it wins. Just don’t durdle too much. If all you do take turns off to draw more cards your life may be too low to come back!
Hype level: andouille sausage

BR – Sacrifice

Another familiar mechanic (welcome back, Core Sets!) Black-Red will be sacrificing some creatures for a greater value. Brawl-Bash Ogre is already an ok card as a 3/3 with menace but being able to eat an irrelevant early drop to get big is amazing. Pair this with creatures that want to go to the graveyard like Reassembling Skeleton and you have a clunky but effective fire breathing. Best of all, you’re able to take a normally bad card like Act of Treason and turn it into a modal spell: take a blocker/add damage or removal.

Haste is all over red in this set and sacrifice effects help give some creatures a pseudo-haste in that they have some aggressive value the turn they come into play. Being able to do damage out of nowhere can put opponents in tough positions where they have to hold back attackers in case you have an explosive turn. This is an aggro deck with a lot of choices and ways to present lethal out of nowhere in an almost combo-finish. I’m really looking forward to this one.
Hype level: jalapeno poppers

RG – Dragon Ramp

Red-Green is going big with a ramp package that ends in dragons. Getting big, flying beaters turns ahead of your opponent is a clear path to victory but needing the right balance of ramp to payoff is important. One of the tensions of ramp decks is what happens when you draw payoffs too early and ramp too late. Draconic Disciple does a good job of being both an enabler and a payoff along with having a reasonable body to keep you from getting ran over if it takes longer to find the beasts.

I would want to have at least five payoffs to make this strategy consistent but don’t jam too many unless you have also stuffed your deck with ramp. Also look for non-”dragon” finishers. Dragons are cool but Treefolk, Hydras, and Dinos get it done just as well.
Hype level: corn on the cob

GW – Enchantments Matter

Green-White brings us an enchantments matter signpost in Satyr Enchanter. The Satyr Druid tries to help mitigate one of the problems faced by auras in that they can generate card disadvantage if answered quickly. While it’s not clear how well removal will line up with threats just yet, it will have to take more than the enchanter to make some auras playable. The risk, I find, is often too great, especially against removal colors like black, red, and white.

I like this effect when paired with enchantments that act as removal, like Luminous Bonds. Being able to kill something and draw a card is quite powerful. This pushed GW out of it’s normal aggro-midrange role and into control. But control and auras don’t go together and auras help you race. All together this seems like a mess and I’ll be avoiding this deck until someone else breaks it.
Hype level: macaroni salad

WB – Lifegain

White-Black walks the line of life and death with a focus on lifegain, a much maligned ability because newer players tend to overvalue their life totals and try-hard spikes tend to undervalue it. Much like other enabler/payoff mechanics you need to find the sweet spot but incidental lifegain raises the value of cards. Lich’s Caress and Dwarven Priest are reasonable cards without their lifegain bonus, though both are defensive. Flying vampires will certain help close out the game game and Regal Bloodlord’s ability to spit out bats will certainly help stabilize and finish things off.

This deck is defensive and can sit back and rely on it’s triggers to close out games. However, with all of these 2/4s it seems primed to be a defensive, grindy deck. Be on the lookout for other ways to force through damage to finish off the game. Angels and demons are your friends.
Hype level: vegetable skewers

UR – Spells

Ah, Blue-Red spells! Easily one of my favorite archetypes in all of Magic. Enigma Drake becomes a flying Tarmogoyf the longer the game goes and burn and tempo spells help you push through damage while card draw gives you more fuel for your game plan. Look out for defensive ground creatures that will function as removal as you setup your game plan.

This is an aggro-control deck where you slap down an early, undercosted, evasive threat and spend the rest of the game protecting it. It requires a bit of strange deck building as you do need a lot of spells so you may find you’re running fewer than ten creatures. It may seem wrong but, believe me, it’ll feel so right.
Hype level: ribs

BG – Value Grind

Black-Green does two things really well, death and dudes. This is the grindy color of attrition where your removal is better than your opponent’s and your creatures are also better. Every card should not only trade but leave you with some incremental advantage. Poison-Tip Archer is great at this as it encourages you to trade in combat. Skeleton Archer and Rhox Oracle also have reasonable bodies with excellent enters the battlefield abilities.

When BG curves out it can be really hard to deal with because once the deck gets ahead it tends to stay ahead. The removal appears to be slow so the main weakness is against fast decks and decks with a ton fliers. Giant Spiders and other speed bumps may be necessary for you to set up your attrition game.
Hype level: burgers

RW – Go-Wide

Another classic archetype, Red-White go-wide focuses on swarming the opponent so that they can’t block effectively. Sometimes you’ll sacrifice half a card in a chump attack to force through damage so your combat math has to be on point. M19 introduces two common level 2-for-1 bodies that help with this strategy in Goblin Instigator and Gallant Cavalry. Heroic Reinforcements seems like an absolute beating if the opponent isn’t set up up. It’s four hasted power in addition to added power to whatever creatures you already have. Even without Reinforcements two other anthems exist in Trumpet Blast and Inspired Charge.

The main weakness of this deck is that your creatures are small and do not trade well. If an opponent stabilizes you have to find other ways to get through damage so though you want to have a low, consistent curve it is often correct to pack a good finisher or two like a dragon or angel. This is as aggro as it gets and a great choice if you like to win (or lose) quickly.
Hype level: bag of chips

GU – Tempo

Green-Blue is an awkward color pairing as neither have the removal necessary to win midrange battles on their own. Rabid Bite helps significantly as it uses greens strength, having larger creatures than your opponent. Blue helps disrupt the opponent enough to get your big creatures in creating a tempo archetype. Your goal is to land a large threat and then use bounce and tap effects to tie up your opponent’s mana while you stop face. Skyrider Patrol helps give those big green boys some evasion to help clock your opponent even faster.

Tempo strategies can be absolutely devastating if your opponent is relying on expensive creatures that do not generate value as they enter the battlefield. Personally I get a bit shy if I don’t have great removal but Skyrider Patrol looks to be a bonkers Magic card that can take over a game if unanswered.
Hype level: fruit salad

Where do we go from here?

So what whets your appetite? This summer I’ll be slapping some ribs, sausage, and jalapeno poppers on my plate. What about you? Don’t be afraid to let your archetypes blend together on your plate, fixing allowing. Dual lands will float around in the land slots and there are some uncommon fixers.
Leave a comment about what sounds good to you and good luck in your drafts, everybody!