Alara Reborn: Arguing for Nemesis of Reason
bdm | April 10, 2009 | 3:55 pmNemesis of Reason — or should I write it, “NEMESIS OF REASON!!!!!!!!!!!!” like the forum denizens do when talking about this card? — is the kind of card Tony Tsai used to pay his mortgage with. Tony was a long time eBay seller of Magic cards and he could often be seen at various PTQs, Prereleases, and Regionals trading away Polluted Deltas, Cranial Extractions, and the like for as many Nut Collectors and Traumatizes as he could get his greedly little shark fins on. Nemesis of Reason is a card that tournament players sneer at but will clearly the centerpiece of many a kitchen table top masterpiece.
Constructed or no?
When you look at previous cards that had similar effects; Scaplexis, Traumatize, Glimpse the Unthinkable, and Sanity Grinding, to name a few, you do not find many Constructed all-stars. Hell you can’t even find a utility infielder in that bunch but I can’t help but wonder if this card might have a role it could play in a sixty card deck. It is an obvious powerhouse that is justifably a first pick in Limited, where it will usually end the game in two swings and is capable of holding the ground admirably against the fattiest five-power dudes Naya can throw at you. Seven toughness for five mana is nothing to sneeze at. But what about Constructed?
The first place to look is Block Constructed — a format relevant for players heading to Honolulu and MTGO players hoping to mise a seat at the 2009 MTGO Championships. I can see this card causing all sorts of problems for players who have a dozen lands that come into play tapped but they still get a turn to deal with it but if you have one…there may be three more where that came from. Over the course of a long game you may only need to untap once with this in play to defeat the 5Color player.
One of the problems with this guy in Block could be that there are number of strategies that are built around getting guys into your graveyard. The Esper decks are much more comfortable with their graveyard as a resource than their deck or hand and Nemesis of Reason may just be doing them a favor. Similarly the Blightning colored decks are pretty happy to take three, mill ten cards and unleash a barrage of Extractor Demons, Dredgescape Zombies, and Shambling Remains on the next turn. If he could mill either player when attacking — he is worded to only affect the defending player — he would be a much more likely candidate for this format. If he does see play it would most likely be as a sideboard card against 5Color but I don’t lean strongly in that direction.
In Standard he seems even less likely despite having more tools to make him effective; Makeshift Mannequin, Heat Shimmer, various doppelgangers, and shapeshifting changelings. I just have a hard time imagining a format that can be as quick as this — think about staring at him in your opening hand against Black-White Tokens — finding a place for this card. But when you look at the winning deck from Kyoto, played by the amazing Gabriel Nassif, you see a deck that hopes to nullify aggro strategies with Plumveil and Wall of Reverence. Imagine for a moment a deck playing against the Nassif deck that, instead of trying to deal twenty damage, transformed to a post board version with four copies of Nemesis of Reason which is not going to die to their defensive creatures, and aimed to mill twenty instead.
Hmmmm…maybe I am talking myself into this. I can imagine this guy getting imprinted on a Soul Foundry on the old formica tabletop but I could also see a shot at him making a case for himself in sideboards in Block and possibly even Standard. Whatever you do, don’t let these go to cheaply at the Prerelease even if it never makes the Top 8 decks page on the mothership.
It is a hilarious Mirrorweave target at least.
Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore was a potent Kesselgimp control card; this has +1 toughness and +0 colors (because really, if we’re looking at it from a controlling perspective, the deck is already blue) and an upside instead of a drawback.
I’d say it is very likely to see play in both Block and Standard, as it is a solid finisher in control decks in that it probably hits at least as hard as Keiga. You don’t need more than four swings to finish the opponent, so its “virtual power” is much higher than his as-printed stat of a mere three. The difference between this real-deal creature and those terrible ones you mentioned is the huge toughness on the card: it can actually get in a creature rumble and survive, plus it doesn’t need to connect to trigger its ability, just swing. And unlike those terrible spells, the decking is almost incidental, it’s just the secret sneaky way in which they managed to make the card say “When Nemesis of Reason attacks, your opponent loses one-quarter of their life”.
Not a Flagship card; you don’t want to build “the Mill deck” because obviously that is miserable. But as a niche kill card in a non-Faeries U/B deck, such as we will see coming around with the next block rotation to take the Faerie Menace out of Standard at last, it is at least a Role-Player.
I don’t see where you get off saying any of those cards are terrible Sean. Each one is very useful in it’s own right.
I recently played FNM Constructed at my local shop with a deck based around NoR and Minion Reflector. I came in 3rd of 16, mainly because the top two were running Bloodbraid Elf/Behemoth Sledge decks. In my opinion, NoR actually has the ability to be a staple in many decks. People were going crazy as I had my Reflector out on the 3rd or 4th turn (via Etherium Sculptors), and was milling like a madman. I was throwing Elder Mastery on him for giggles and then people were milling AND discarding. He’s nothing to turn your nose up at by any means.
Nemesis of Reason is still one of the essential milling cards for Blue-Black Alara-block Milling, along with Mind Funeral, Telemin Performance, and other stuff. (However, finding ways to get Nemesis out of other control cards in M10, such as Pacifism (I faced one today), is key! (My deck has lots of bouncing, but this time it was the uber-bouncer we call Soulquake))
With the Addition of Zendikar into the Standard format, Nemesis of Reason is now a turn 6 game winner. How? Simple: Bloodchief Ascension. I like playing 3 colors, so I have 4 of these guys and currently 2 Bloodchief Ascensions in my deck
Ideal turn flow would be as Follows:
Turn 1: Play Swamp, followed by Bloodchief Ascension.
Turn 2: Play Mountain, followed by Lightning Bolt or Burst Lightning (I prefer Bolt) small creature for 1 black mana for chump blocking if you have it.
EoT, BA gets a quest counter.
Turn 3: Play Island followed by any combination of “burn” cards. Lightning Bolt, Burst Lightning, Blightning, play small creature if available.
EoT, BA gets 2nd quest counter.
Turn 4: Play any mana-producing land. Rinse and Repeat of turn 3
EoT, BA gets 3rd quest counter.
Turn 5: Play any mana-producing land, Followed by Nemesis of Reason.
Turn 6: Swing with Nemesis. Doesn’t matter if it’s blocked or not, just for swinging the defending player mills 10 cards, which activates Bloodchief Ascension’s ability, dealing 20 damage to the defending player and giving you 20 life.
This also works incredibly well with Archive Trap. If the opponent searches their library on turn 4 or after, that’s game because the BA would deal 26 damage to him/her, and you can always hard cast it on turn 5. Now your typical mill deck has become a direct damage deck, with some late-game heavy hitters.
I run a black/blue/white zombie deck with two of these, a mind funeral and a necromancers covenant. Its one me several games, but I also pack a lich lord of unx and a fatesticher in that deck as well just i case