Subject: Type II Stronghold Commentary Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 07:05:28 GMT From: Arthur Kimes It's time for that tri-annual exercise where I comment on cards from the new expansion that I deem tournament worthy in Type II. Note that there are many STRONG sealed deck cards in this set that for various reasons (usually having to do with the prevalance of mana denial strategies) are merely ok or marginal in Type II. I'll also mention a few cards that look good but might be a little too combo dependent or slow for tournament consideration. --Black-- Bottomless Pit A frightening card. Pure disruption. I was never able to build a deck that exploited Elkin Lair properly. This should be easier to work with. Think of Paupers Cages, Scalding Tongs, Cursed Scrolls, cheap blockers... A permission deck would be horrified to see this played on the first turn - wouldn't a burn deck be hurt almost as much? If two popular deck types can be hosed by Swamp, Ritual, Pit then the card requires close examination. If this works, obvious sideboard responses would be cards like Sandstone Golems and Managara's Blessing. The obvious response to that would be Phyrexian Furnace. Brush with Death Probably not a tournament staple but it's worth pointing out that it deals loss of life, not damage so it gets around COP:Black. Death Stroke Useful creature removal. With this and D. Edict you might not use Terror... Megrim Looks like a solid source of damage in a discard deck that doesn't rely heavily on creatures to deliver the kill. An amusing counter-measure to Stormbind in Extended. Mind Peel Interesting how there are buyback alternatives to many of the staple artifacts. Mind Peel for Disrupting Scepter, Whispers for Jay Tome and so on. They are all more mana intensive and susceptible to counter-magic and discard but they have the virtue of not putting a vulnerable permanent in play. However, Mind Peel is inferior to Disrupting Scepter against the opponent who most fears the Scepter - the permission player. Revenant Sorry Len, I don't see how this is much inferior to the Lhurgoyf. Sure it only counts your graveyard creatures but it FLYS! Lhurgoyfs get chumpblocked a lot. No worries about it being stolen by a creatureless player either... Stronghold Taskmaster Bummer. all the pre-release spoilers had this as a 4/4. There's a big diff between a 4/4 and a 4/3! Wall of Souls I'm getting sick and tired of taking 6-9 points of damage on turn three (Ball Lightning plus whatever was summoned on turn one and two) because I tapped out to play a diamond or something. This wall (and the green and white ones) are fine answers to that problem. The black, blue, green and white walls in this set look VERY solid and I expect to see them in deck after deck. The black and white walls in particular are begging to be in decks with En-Kor critters. 1B Summon Wall Uncommon Deals damage to target player equal to damage recived in combat. 0/4 --BLUE-- Dream Halls A chase card. Too expensive except for wierd combo decks. (It might show up in things like ProspBloom) Mana Leak A star counter spell. A strong alternative to Memory Lapse and Arcane Denial in the "1U" casting cost category. A Worb deck could skip Counter Spell completely and go with just Lapses, Leaks and Disrupts. Mind Games Decks that use 4 blue Medallions and Capsize will love this. Shift Pretty strong card drawing for a deck that can afford to tap out before the opponents turn. Note that the card you discard can be any card in your hand, not just one of the three you draw. Silver Wyvern EXCELLENT beatdown creature. It'll fight the the slot held by Rainbow Efreets, Air Elementals and Waterspout Djinns in the control decks. Relative immunity to pingers gives it an edge over the Rainbow. Spindrift Drake Looks good to me but then I like Phantasmal forces too. Tidal Warrior 4 in every Merfolk deck Wall of Tears Ok, you don't want to block a Ball Lightning with this but other than that... SO STRONG in Worb decks. --GREEN-- Constant Mists I can see this providing lockdown. Say you have a creature the opponent can't handle directly. A big flyer or a largish shadow guy. Your opponent is fighting back by his creature onslaught. You can easily buy 3-5 turns of unopposed beatdown with this. Hermit Druid Strong. Just by itself it's better than Sindbad. (Sindbad is a pretty good card but was rarely seen in Type II when it was legal). In connection with stuff like Mirri's Guile or Sylvan Library you've got card power. (Sindbad gave that too but you had to play U/G to get that combo). But, unlike Sindbad, the druid will almost always give you a land even without help. It wouldn't hurt to have a Lhurgoyf or 4 in a deck with Hermits . Primal Rage Think about how often G creature decks use Giant Growth to get past good blockers like White Knights. With PR not only do you get the creature kill from the Giant Growth, you dump at least 3 damage on the opponent as well. Jol-Rael's Centaur appreciates the help as well! Verdant Touch Decent late game card. Volraths Gardens REAL nice sideboard card against burn. WAIT a minute. I just noticed that you have to play the ability as a sorcery. Needs testing. Wall of Blossoms Ahhh. Now I can have a little time to develop my game. Even against a creatureless deck the wall gives you back a card. --RED-- Fling Didn't like this at first. Then I thought about Ball Lightning. The cool thing is that once you've delivered 12 points off a single BL the opponent has to consider burning up valuable utility creatures (like mana elves) as chumpblockers against future ball lightnings so the BL doesn't survive combat. Heat of Battle and Invasion Plans These both seem reasonable in weenie decks that don't expect to do a lot of blocking. These enchantments affect both players so it might turn against you if you can't dispose of opposing creatures with spells or by killing the opponent so fast it doesn't matter. Mogg Flunkies Didn't like these but I didn't like Mogg Conscripts until I played with them. These fit the Sligh mana-curve perfectly. Mogg Infestation Hmmm. A one-sided Wrath of God. Assuming that you can deal with what could be a LOT of little goblins (Subterreanean Spirit, Aether Flash, Barbed Foliage). Note that you can use it on yourself to double the number of your own creatures. Mogg Maniac My favorite card of the set. Good in burn decks and good VS. burn. Ruination 5 color what? Shard Phoenix Good lategame card. Although it appears similar to the Hammer of Bogardan, you don't want to see the Phoenix in your opening hand so just one or two per deck seems right. Note that you can sac the Phoenix during your upkeep, pay RRR to put it back in your hand, cast it and sac it again on the same turn to deliver a total of 4 points to non-flyers. Shock mildly better than kindle due to the lower casting cost. 4 of these should go along with 4 Incinerates in Sligh style decks as they make for a better mana curve (than kindles). --WHITE-- Change of Heart Could see this in control decks. Contemplation Might not be in the main deck but should be in the sideboard of U/W decks for use against any deck that deals a lot of quick damage. Hidden Retreat So much for that 14 point Kaervek's Torch... Lancers en-Kor These en-Kor guys are real interesting. The Lancers might have too high a casting cost but they deserve a good test. Nomads en-Kor Where will I put that damage... How about that Wall of Essence! Pursuit of Knowledge Does this work with Island Sanctuary? I've heard that if you have a Sylvan out you can decline to draw all three cards thereby satisfying the requirements after just one turn! Shamen en-Kor Another en-Kor. I suspect these are strong cards. Smite I think this is pretty good but TG mentioned that Gallantry will kill the attacking creature almost all the time AND let you draw a card. Anybody use Gallantry much? How has it worked for you. Spirit en-Kor More en-Kor. Wall of Essence So I can block the Ball Lightning and GAIN 4 life? Warrior en-Kor The basic fighting weenie in En-kor decks and possible white weenie decks in general. Should be fun to redirect damage from him to a Zhalfirin Crusader... --GOLD-- Crystaline Sliver If you're trying to make a sliver deck, start with 4 of these. W/G/U slivers sound good. --ARTIFACT-- Ensnaring Bridge It affects your creatures too but who says you have to play with creatures? Note usefulness of this with Bottomless Pit. Heartstone I'm not sure how good this is until I look over all the creatures that have activation costs. Horn Of Greed I want this in my permission decks (that typically have lots of land). Sort of fun if you have Quiron Rangers or Flooded Shoreline. Mox Diamond Candidate for chase card of the set. Looks like a REAL GOOD card too. Where are those Mox Monkeys when you need them? Sure you can have UU available at the end of your first turn. But what about this trick? Turn one Land, Mox Diamond (discard land), Harvest Wurm (get land back from graveyard). Now you have a 3/2 in play on the first turn and you will have 3 mana available on the 2nd turn to REALLY mess up your opponent. --LAND-- Volraths Stronghold Note that using the special ability to put a creature card on top of your library doesn't involve tapping so you can use it as long as you have mana. Bottle Gnomes plus Necro plus Stronghold. Any Questions? Overall, I like the set. The walls plus the en-Kor dudes will add a lot of interesting twists to deck construction. However the new buyback spells (and the necessity of dealing with them) will mean that mana denial (Worb, Armageddon) or counter magic will be even more popular and that's a bit boring. "We'll have no unnecessary floating aboard this ship." - General Merritt