A response to Will Price of Progress’s tongue-in-cheeck Tweet RE: Sages of the Anima.

Recently seen on Twitter:

Translation:

<Will Price> BDM, what are the odds that michaelj will build a deck with Congregation at Dawn and Sages of the Anima?

I have found Twitter to be both fun and awesome for communicating. Like if I hadn’t happened upon Will’s post I might not even have looked at Sages of the Anima.

For myself I know this is true, but Will, Matt, and Brian would all have to answer for themselves… A lot of the time I don’t have the time to answer every Facebook email, personal email, and so on (even blog comments) that friends, readers, and so on send my way… But on Twitter? I find myself engaging much more with people’s questions just due to the nature of the format. If you want to follow any of the Top8Magic team on Twitter, here are our handles…

• FiveWithFlores / Michael Flores
• Top8Games / Brian David-Marshall
• sloppystack / Will Price
• MattWang97 / the elusive Matt Wang
• Top8Magic / Top8Magic Blog Updates and Other Surprises! [Added by Matt Wang]

Anyway… Back to Sages of the Anima…

So why does he think I am going to make a deck with Sages of the Anima and Congregation at Dawn?

The combo is kind of obvious; when you have Sages of the Anima in play, you can potentially “Ancestral Recall” if there are three creature cards on top of your library. Lo and behold - Congregation at Dawn can put three such creature cards on top of your deck.

Unfortunately I don’t think it very likely that I will play those two cards together in a Constructed deck any time soon. Here are the top five reasons why:

1. What happens when I draw them in the wrong order?
   That is, what happens if I have an open to resolve the reasonably but not exceptionally sized Sages of the Anima, but haven’t drawn the other side of my combo yet? That’s right; I’m never going to draw the Congregation.
2. I like drawing lands.
   With Sages in play, I’m not going to be drawing many, ever again. Heck, with Congregation at Dawn, I’m going to be setting myself up to not draw any! How am I supposed to afford these fives with no lands?
3. It actually goes against everything else I have been moving towards given my personal realizations in the last few months.
   See…
   • The Grinch That Stole Mike’s Rating,
   • Previous Level Green, and…
   • The Physical Reality of Magical Spells
4. What would I really be getting out of it?
   Ultimately… not a whole lot. This is a two-card combo where one of the cards is an expensive but not overpowered rare adn the other half is a pretty good “helper” card that has had some successful builds under its belt… But in Extended, where this combo would probably live, I’d like to hope I have something better figured out.
5. Like I’m really going to bogart some idea that Will published on Twitter.
   You know… like I’m really going to bogart some terrible idea that Will published on Twitter, first.

For a broader look at the same new card, check out my non-Will Price of Progress / Congregation at Dawn exploration of Sages of the Anima at Five with Flores.

LOVE
MIKE