Pro Tour Honolulu is right around the corner, and this time the format is Alara block constructed. Cascade, the signature mechanic from Alara Reborn, has had a huge impact on Standard since its release. Will Cascade be showing up in the top 8 this weekend? If the results from the Season 2 Magic Online 2009 Championship Series are an indicator of what is good in block right now, then the real question is whether or a not there will be a deck in the top 8 that does not feature at least one set of Cascade spells.

Magic Online 2009 Championship Series: Season 2 <– Click here for deck lists!

32 Bloodbraid Elf
22 Bultiminous Blast
9 Enlisted Wurm
2 Captured Sunlight

The top 8 decks averaged a little over 8 Cascade spells each! 7 of the decks also featured some number of Blightning to Cascade into. See also: Sprouting Thrinax, Madrush Cyclops, Maelstrom Pulse, Terminate and Putrid Leech as likely spells to come flying into play at no cost this weekend.

~WillPoP

Flores, BDM and WillPoP go over Alara Reborn card by card, declaring once and for all which cards are constructed playable.

Alara Reborn Review Part 4

Flores, BDM and WillPoP go over Alara Reborn card by card, declaring once and for all which cards are constructed playable.

Alara Reborn Review Part 3

Flores, BDM and WillPoP go over Alara Reborn card by card, declaring once and for all which cards are constructed playable.

Alara Reborn Review Part 2

Flores, BDM and WillPoP go over Alara Reborn card by card, declaring once and for all which cards are constructed playable.

Alara Reborn Review Part 1

I had the opportunity to go to Boston this weekend and ‘gunsling’ at Rob Dougherty’s prerelease alongside Hall of Famers Darwin Kastle and Rob. I got to play in the first tournament of the day — with my opponents getting the bonus opportunity of taking a pack down for beating me — and then set up at the gunslinger station for a long, fun day of showdowns to protect Rob’s supply of Alara Reborn packs. On turn four of my first Alara Reborn match I got a close-up look at the madness that is Bloodbraid Elf when my opponent dropped one on me and got a free Jund Hackblade as the bonus spell.

I have yet to be on the right side of the red zone when Bloodbraid has hit play. I have also yet to win a game when one of these has hit play. I did draft one on the Beta the other day but it never came up in any of my games. Thus far my cascade experiences have been Enlisted Wurm and playing my opponent’s Kathari Remnant with my Sen’s Triplets into a Fleshbag Marauder. The highlights of the Wurm have been Sen’s Triplets and Nemesis of Reason while the lowlights have been Obelisk of Jund and Bone Splinters — cascade only covers not paying mana costs, sadly it does not account for additional costs such as sacrificing a creature.

Bloodbraid Elf is the clear winner in the cascade sweepstakes when you apply the mechanic to Constructed formats seeing as how it slots into a haste-driven beatdown strategy with Boggart Ram-Gang and the freshly minted Jund Hackblade providing extra sets of legs to rush the red zone off of a timely cascade. It seems fairly easy to bias your deck so that you hit nothing but creatures, burn, or additional cascade spells. The first two are clearly going to be part of many a Regionals deck but will Violent Outburst and/or Demonic Dread be joining them?

I have talked to a handful of local players preparing for Regionals and opinion has been divided on whether or not these cards are Constructed viable — although it seems much more likely that players will opt for the instant speed, damaging enhancing, Violent Outburst over the sorcery speed Demonic Dread. I had the option of playing both of these cards in my Sealed Deck pool from Boston and despite a pair of Terminates opted not to as I was not willing to bias my deck away from other 2-drops to guarantee myself a Terminate when I played one and while I think Constructed players will not face exactly the same dilemma I do think that they will find themselves constrained by deck space and the limited utility of the cards themselves.

Assuming an otherwise empty board for you, do you really want to hit Violent Outburst off of your Bloodbraid Elf? Even if you hit a Jund Hackblade off of the Outburst, you are only going to get one extra point of damage from it since the Bloodbraid Elf will still be waiting around to resolve as the last spell in line and won’t get any bonus. It does give you a chance to play a creature as an instant which is a definite plus but is that good enough to take up a precious slot in a Constructed deck? We only have to wait a couple more weeks until Regionals to find out.

Alara Reborn Card Preview: Glory of Warfare

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Second and third thoughts on bombtacular Alara Reborn monster Lord of Extinction.

If you haven’t already read my first thoughts on Lord of Extinction over at Five With Flores, you might want to check out Alara Reborn - Lord of Extinction before reading this. Or… You could just keep going here

So originally I was fixated on Lord of Extinction purely as a Lhurgoyf. Why did they not call it a Lhurgoyf? Upon some small amount of additional reflection I think I have decided that the Lhurgoyf lockdown might be needlessly superficial RE: creature type. Newcomer Lord of Extinction is obviously Lhurgoyf-plus for one more mana, but the fact that we are counting so much more than just creatures puts it out of an obvious “just” Lhurgoyf zone. Upon reflection he seems more Cognivore- or Magnivore-esque (check those creature types), which we don’t think of as attrition attractors but instead just big and synergistic finishers in their respective decks. You know, big guys that belong.

Lord of Extinction is just huge (or it should be). Consider a Black deck that does anything early (hand destruction, trading with creatures, and so on). Lord of Extinction is a little bit expensive, but the only word is huge. I can see it 10/10 on first appearance without imagining very hard. This is also a fine follow up to some sort of Wrath of God (from either side of the table, honestly).

The second thing that jumped into my craw is that not only was Lord of Extinction not made a Lhurgoyf (nor some kind of Lord), it was made an Elemental. Is that a top-down hint?

What do we know about Elementals? Smokebraider is friendly… But maybe not too friendly with this one (first turn nothing, second turn Smokebraider… you jet the unexciting gist for the third turn). But what about Evoke? Don’t many fellow Elementals go to the graveyard voluntarily? (Think Evoke mechanic.)

In fact we have some nice opportunities for card advantage with the somewhat forgotten Mournwhelk (a once and future favorite) and maybe even a revisitation of Makeshift Mannequin (I “invented” Broodmate Dragon at States 2008 in part due to Spencer Reiss suggesting Broodmate + Mannequin, which I think you will agree would be super sick). Lord of Extinction does not itself have any specific synergy with the Evoke mechanic on other Elementals, but there is certainly a flavor connection and a subtle synergy at play.

Though this creature is “only” very big (like the often criticized best two drop ever Tarmogoyf), Lord of Extinction may be specifically challenging from a conceptual / design standpoint. Like it’s not hard to recognize the Velocity-rewarding Quirion Dryad-ness of a Nyxathid (Quirion Dryad-ness in a Black Thumb sense of course)… Though it is a little harder to see the same on a Lord of Extinction. But think about it just a second, and you will see that the same Black Thumb sort of pump is available on Lord of Extinction, and in many cases, in a more pronounced sense.

For reference:

4 Quirion Dryad
4 Faceless Butcher
2 Spiritmonger
1 Thrashing Wumpus

4 Pernicious Deed

4 Vampiric Tutor
4 Tainted Pact
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Diabolic Edict
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Smother
1 Skeletal Scrying

4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Tainted Woods
14 Swamp
1 Wasteland

Sideboard
1 Massacre
2 Vicious Hunger
1 Engineered Plague
2 Terror
2 Naturalize
3 Choke
1 Cursed Totem
1 Perish
1 Smother
1 Stronghold Taskmaster

We can play much the same kind of Magic in the upcoming Standard, perhaps with a Mannequin strategy grafted on for our Elementals; Makeshift Mannequin will also reward us with more big creatures should our opponents refuse to cooperate by killing them. To wit:

2 Mind Stone

4 Makeshift Mannequin
4 Mournwhelk
2 Shriekmaw

4 Broodmate Dragon
4 Lord of Extinction
3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Murderous Redcap

4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Gift of the Gargantuan
4 Rampant Growth

5 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Twilight Mire
4 Treetop Village

Given how Standard works this deck could probably be improved by adding some colors (for example expainding Red for Volcanic Fallout) but I feel like the combination of super powerful threats and Makeshift Mannequin plus acceleration and disruption might be rewarding.

Now on top of this @rickiep00h on Twiter got me thinking about Lord of Extinction in a non-fair context. For example there is no reason this card can’t be the local Terravore or Sutured Ghoul in a deck that can Dredge most of its library away quickly. Tonight at Jon Finkel’s house a bunch of us — including Tuna Hwa, Lan D. Ho, and Danny OMS — brainstormed about ways this card could be exploited in Extended using Dread Return.

I feel like Lord of Extinction could be a double edged sword in some formats, playing both the really good Tarmogoyf role and the possible combo out.

Let’s keep thinking about this card!

LOVE
MIKE

Mike and I often joke about a “bloodbath waiting to happen” when referring to certain cards before a new set is released. There is no joking when it comes to the exclusive Top8Magic preview card. We are going to need a towel to talk about Glory of Warfare because the bloodbath is about to begin.

Somebody get me a towel!

This is no ordinary Crusade we are talking about here. Speaking strictly from an offensive persepctive it represents two Crusades when you have more creatures than your opponent and are doing the math for a alpha strike. I guess it also represents two Crusades when you are on your heels as well. Imagine a board full of token creatures — maybe you happen to playing Spectral Procession and Siege-Gang Commander in a deck that can support the Glory of Warfare for some reason — and your opponent attacking with a Woolly Thoctar. Obviously your opponent would never actually do that but imagine for a moment that they did. You could put four tokens in the way and your opponent could only kill one them since you have a +2 on defense from the enchantment.

This card is ideally suited to Windbrisk Heights powered decks. Green-white tokens has become a popular deck based on its success at the recent 5K results. I had been wary about the inclusion of Overrun in that deck simply because there were scenarios where it was going to be a dead card in your hand. The counterargument that was made for the inclusion of Overrun in that deck over Garruck Wildspeaker was that you could tuck the Overrun under the Heights.

Brian Kowal, the brewmeister of the very popular red-white tokens deck that has been ubiquitous in Standard commented on Overrun in the green-white tokens deck saying, “You don’t know fear until there is a possiblity that Overrun is under a Windbrisk Heights.” Tucking Glory of Warfare under the Heights may be 33% — or more when you factor out trample — less scary, it does allow you to upgrade from green to red and all the fiery goodness that implies. The deck already has a handful of creature based card advantage engines that can play well with Glory of Warfare:

• Spectral Procession — This becomes a squadron of Rishadan Airships that will usually finish your opponent off in two turn
• Siege-Gang Commander - Bigger nastier goblin gangs make for happy commanders.
• Cloudgoat Ranger — The landlocked version of Spectral Procession without the Siege-Gang ability to grenade themselves. Still when they send their Ranger skyward it is as a 7/3 flier. Like I mentioned earlier each creature getting a +2 to their toughness makes for some difficult-to-attack-into board positions
• Windbrisk Heights — This card is possibly the most impacted by the inclusion of GoW in the Standard format since it means that if there are sufficient attacking creatures to activate the Heights you have to worry about at least six more points of damage if this enchantment is hiding under there.

Other token generating cards that may get a boost from Glory of Warfare include:

• Dragon Fodder — In block I could see this getting some play…especially when played in conjunction with…
• Goblin Assault — Spitting out a 3/1 hasty attacker each turn sounds a lot more appealing. They will never have much of an opportunity to benefit from the boost on your opponent’s turns but let’s be honest…who cares?
• Spore Burst — I don’t know how much domain is going to get played in Standard or Block but you rarely get to see this many tokens out of one card if you can meet the requirements. It also brings to mind the old standby…
• Ordered Migration — Even better than Spectral Procession but even if this somehow got played in a format old enough for it to be legal I would be shocked to see Glory of Warfare make it there as well.
• Martial Coup — A staple card in Block Constructed, Glory of Warfare will make the army of Coup tokens into a formidable team that may only need one attack step to mop up the game.

Tribally I cannot imagine any group being more excited about the Glory of Warfare than the Kobolds — and any 0/1 tokens that are kicking around out there.

• Kher Keep — This has shown up in a handful of Extended decks and seems exciting with Glory of Warfare. This represents a real threat that can mount over time. Again, not sure that the decks playing with this card want to be playing with GoW but it does call to mind another land that has seen play in Standard…
• Springjack Pasture — I could see this being a one-off card that provides a steady stream of 2/1 or 0/3 critters for the tokens decks playing with Glory of Warfare. The ability to sacrifice goats and make mana could also play nice with Martial Coup.
• Springjack Shepherd — I have dreams of this guy being Constructed playable but I know it will likely not come to pass. You could easilly power out an army of six or seven tokens on turn four with a seamless draw but despite the upside potential he is nearly useless without the Glory of Warfare in play and does not give you the guaranteed card advantage of cards like the Procession or Cloudgoat. Still the dream of the Draw Goat deck lives on.

One of the more interesting ramifications of this card comes on the defensive side of the table. Assuming that weenie players can use Mark of Asylum to shut down Volcanic Fallout this card will close off Infest as an option. It also shuts down Pyroclasm or any sorcery speed sweeper that does two damage. I have been talking about tokens mostly but if you take 2/2 creatures into account it also shuts down Firespout. All in all this is a pretty exciting card that should justify the bloodbath pronouncements at the beginning of the column!

Of all the cards to show up on the Alara Reborn Visual Spoiler so far, this is the easilly the most exciting creature of the bunch. What is not to love about a 3/3 flier for three mana that can grow as big as needed? The only downside I can see to this critter is  its legendary status when everyone is going to want to be playing with this card. Jenara is going to be exciting for players looking for the Noble Hierarch into 3-drop into Rafiq parlay and is a suitable finisher for 5-color players.

I am very excited about this card in the 5-color decks. I have been playing around with one list that was more or less creatureless with a handful of counterspells and Martial Coup as the only way to win. With Alara Reborn I can see this deck making room for anywhere up to a full set of four — although you rarely see four-ofs in a deck that have the legendary tag.

I think it has to draw inevitable comparisons to the Serra Angels in Brian Weissman’s The Deck from the primoridal days of competitive Magic and it is not far off. It is not too hard to imagine scenarios where this is getting played once a player has five or six mana — to protect it with either Hindering Light or Cancel — and using mana to pump it only when there is a clear window to do so.

There is a flexibility to Jenara that is unmatched by the game’s first contol deck finisher — as any 90’s era player who has stared at a useless Serra Angel in hand while getting smashed by Savannah Lions and White Knights can attest. Mono-white Exalted has been taking the top spot in MTGO Block PEs for the past few weeks. Jenara seems like a fine weapon to come down early and scale with the exalted threat from your opponent.

Basically, this card is vying with Broodmate Dragon for the creature slot in these decks so it will become a question of mana cost versus card advantage. While the Dragon is the clear winner on the table the ability to drop this guy early and slow down opponents playing more agressive strategies will certainly merit some attention.

In the Bant decks Jenara will be vying with Rhox War Monk, which comes with a crucial fourth point of toughness and the ability to double up on the lifelink with Battlegrace Angel to put the damage race out of reach very quickly. Flight and pumpability vs. Lifelink with the drawback of legendary status weighing it down on the first side. My guess is that in Hierarch based block decks Jenara will serve as 3-drop’s five through eight (or maybe only six or seven) to ensure that Noble Hierarch has something to power out on turn two.