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The Planar Chaos Standard ReviewBy David Hitchcock on February 8th, 2007 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 51 CommentsWhen Wizards began the Time Spiral block, they assured us that the entire set was ‘out of the box’ in terms of mechanics and design. Time Spiral was definitely outside the box in this sense, and yet one could still look at the various colors and recognize their attributes. Blue still countered and Red still burned things. Hello Orb of Annihilation? Extirpate: (Will Be Played... In every format ever): The card reads: Solar Flare, Firemane Angel, and assorted Martyr of Sands tricks are now totally boned. Thanks for coming out. I am Extirpate, Destroyer of Archtypes! Behold My works ye Magic Nerds, and Despair! Mirri the Cursed: (May Be Played) See now, I really think this is a solid little card. She comes out fairly fast, not much stops her in the air, since she gets the +1 /+1 counter in the first strike damage step, and yet she has 2 toughness, which is essentially a death sentence to a creature which also costs 4 mana. There is certainly potential, but how much is up for debate. Temporal Extortion: (May Be Played): Okay, four black mana for a [card]Time Walk[/card[ you cannot guarantee will resolve. Is this good? Probably not, Time Warp is pure crap and it only cost one more mana, and you knew you were getting another turn. However, Do not discount the fact that the effect is in Black, a color infinitely more capable of doing scary things on their extra turn. Will it find a home? Maybe in that Mono-Black Tron deck I wanted to make... Damnation: (Will Be Played... Only a Bit I Swear) Gee Guys, lets make a Standard where aggro has to struggle through 8 copies of Wrath of God, in two separate and powerful colors. Then, lets make it so that the sets just before the printing of our new wrath bolster the overall power of... say...black... to wonderfully mind-numbing proportions. Must. Have. Four. Shiny. Copies. The artwork pulls at my maniacal heart-strings. Red: Can't Stop Staring at Firey D-Cups... Akroma, Angel of Fury: (Will Be Played) Oh look, Akroma got morph. And she is uncounterable, and er, pro-white (aw crap.) She breathes fire too (big surprise). No haste though, unfortunately, which takes her playable level down a fair chunk. Nevertheless, she will see play competitively, since you can effectively cast and flip her over turns 3, 4, or 5 in a deck with Green. Boom // Bust: (May Be Played) The really key early game trick with this card is obviously to sacrifice Flagstones of Trokair to it, while forcing your opponent to lose land as early as turn 2. I am still conservative about the card, however, since aside from that trick you are looking at a 6 mana Armageddon effect. This is certainly playable in a Boros Land Destruction variant, but I am pretty sure that deck is tightly run as it is. Fatal Frenzy: (May Be Played) This card is a more balanced Berserk, quite possibly in the correct color (finally). What really made Berserk shine was the single  mana cost, but the effect is still powerful even at   .Volcano Hellion: (Will Not Be Played) This card is only here because it is a two card combo with Stuffy Doll, provided your opponent has less life than you at the time the triggered ability resolves. It should be fairly easy in Red to set up an opponent with a lower life total. Nevertheless, it is pretty much unplayable alone, exactly like the doll. Neat idea though. Dead // Gone: (May Be Played) This card is a decentshock style variant; solid, playable removal. You cannot hit players, but Firebolt rarely hits players anyways. It is primarily there to get rid of creatures. Usually small ones. The Gone side deals (in red!) with creatures who have a large toughness or another annoying protective effect. Solid card. My question is, is it even necessary in the format, and if it is, what deck needs it? Boros has a huge suite of burn already available to them, but perhaps this could go into the board against glare. Rough // Tumble: (May Be Played) This card is not quite Pyroclasm, except late in the game (when Pyroclasm is no longer as good) it now has the ability to wipe much harder. I pretty much assume this will remove Pyroclasm from sideboards everywhere (not that I see many in them anyways), since Zoo and gruul variants are the threats which it attempts to alleviate. Pyroclasm can hit fliers though, which may become an issue at some point in Standard. I just don't know when. Fear the Wumpi. Shivan Wumpus: (Will Be Played) I am extremely excited over this colorshifted reprint. See that drawback? That isn't really a drawback at all, sorry. In fact, that is a chance for your opponent to make a very silly set of mistakes in the first few turns. Combine this with an aggressive Land Destruction strategy, and some Simian Spirit Guide acceleration, and you have a 6/6 trample creature on turn 2 which essentially must be stopped via the land sacrifice effect or permission. You don't mind drawing it again if you have that third land to lay, which is common. I am not sure whether burning a Spirit Guide to cast this will be broken enough to make it worth while, but first turn Kird Ape and Llanowar Elves is not too bad either, as a secondary option. Brute Force: (May Be Played) This is Giant Growth, yes, but what is more important is that Red now has a precedent for in combat effects that are non-burn. Again I have to wonder which deck is going to want this. Boros? The mana cost is right, but I'd usually rather suspend rift bolt or blow out a land. Blood Knight: (Will Be Played) Silver Knight is an awesome weenie, but that is mostly because he has pro-red. Nevertheless, lets go over a list of commonly played white cards that cannot stop this little beater: Almost every card in a Glare deck, including the dreaded namesake itself. Condemn and Faith's Fetters. White's principal removal still ignores this crusader's angry fist shaking. Still, I am sure he will find a home, either sideboard or maindecked against new white archetypes as they emerge. Green: Magus of the Library: (May Be Played): The effect of this magus is clearly powerful. The question is whether or not Green cares. As a green player it is rare to have 7 cards in your hand, and rarer still that you want to pace yourself slower in order to abuse this card advantage. Still, I never discount card drawing, especially when this fellow's home is a power nine card in vintage. However! This magus in particular does something that the library does not: it accelerates, which means that the card is never useless, only potentially sub-par. I am sure that I am under-rating this card's potential effect on Standard, but I am a cautious fellow. Groundbreaker: (Will Be Played): Oh look, Ball Lightning. Combine with Timbermare to sock your hapless opponent for 11 damage, for the low low price of  ... Eh, it is Standard! The card is still good. Just in case you were wondering, you play the Timbermare first.Green needed this Harmonize: (Will Be Played) Green got card drawing. Not only that, it is effective card drawing. It is way out of color, and it curves out way too well for the color of mana production. This neo-Concentrate is probably hands down the best uncommon Green has had in a long, long time. Pick up four, if only to boast that you can finally tap birds of paradise and three Forests to draw three cards. Seal of Primordium: (May Be Played) Seal of Cleansing back in Standard, in color and in flavor. A nice option for boarded or maindecked Disenchant-style removal. Excellent for its "fire-and-forget" nature. Is it better than naturalize? In most situations yes. But is Naturalize boarded much anymore? Not that I know of. Timbermare: (Will Be Played): Ah the lovely Thundermare comes to Green, aggressively costed and raring to go.Scryb Ranger and this card also skip hand-in-hand to victory, especially if Scryb's old buddy Spectral Force is around. Be sure to feed your mare nice wholesome grains and oats after it has mule-kicked your opponent into the losing bracket. Possibly a cube of sugar or two as well, thanks. Ignore the Echo cost, the game is probably over anyways. Blue: Blue got the shaft in this set, and it makes me very sad. So Alone in the Set! Argh! Serra Sphinx: (Will Be Played) Instead of going into detail as to why a 4/4 Vigilant, Flying blue lady for  is good, I would rather just whine about the incredible shaft that Planar Chaos hits blue with in terms of Constructed playable cards. Blue's PC removal suite is innovative, flavorful and highly amusing, but largely niche and draft-playable as opposed to simply strong. Blue's rares, outside of perhaps Aeon Chronicler in Tron decks, are uniquely terrible among Planar Chaos' rather large selection of crappy ones. I shudder quietly when I think about how they justified printing Spellshift. Multi-color, artifacts, and Land Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: (Will Be Played) Most likely as a color-fixing one-of, although I am sure there is a swampwalk deck out there or something... ahem, not that I am building a Swampwalk deck or anything. I am also curious about the mana diversity possible with Mono-black and Tron now, seeing as we seem to have a full suite of powerful black effects and now colour fixing in case one draws too many tron pieces. But really, how can black abuse Tron? Only time (People with too much of it) will tell. Possible Archetypes: Red / Green: Land destruction was largely under-represented in standard for a long time, with the TS metagame as no real exception. KarstenBabyKillerbot variants aside, LD was lacking something. This is simply no longer the case. Green finally has card drawing after years of waiting, and Red got the colorshifted Argothian Wurm (Shivan Wumpus). The LD deck can curve out on Avalanche Riders and the Wurm in the 4 drop slot, alongside an extremely scary hand refill ala Harmonize. I predict that we will see a strong and reliable LD agro deck emerge quickly into type 2 because it has such fantastic game against control and combo decks, and can subsequently board against aggro. Finishers include Akroma, Angel of Fury, the Green Ball Lightning, and the amazing Shivan Wumpus. Blue / White Tempo: Despite the shoddy quality of blue cards in the set, I do feel as if this archtype has finally been equipped with enough low costed removal and permission to make it an effective archtype. Consider the effective use of mana inherent in the following potential suite of removal: Ovinize, Condemn, Sunlance and Pongify. Look at how cheap the tempo counter-magic set is: Remand, Mana Tithe, Rune Snag, Mana Leak. Now consider some of the smaller creatures you can slide in on the cheap, and the undercosted fat that you can lay down after they finally resolve a Wrath: Savannah Lions, Voidmage Prodigy, Pride of the Clouds, Suntail Hawk, and then Karstoderm and Serra Sphinx. I believe that there is definitely potential to explore this color set. Mono-Green Beats: Boy oh boy did Green get some serious love in Planar Chaos, right up there with Black in my opinion. With so many hasty creatures, Green can come out of the gates swinging to bait a wrath, and not even bat an eye as it smashes down a Timbermare the next turn and swings in again. Green has acceleration, card drawing, and lots and lots of very angry Man Plan. A deck dedicated to just pounding down is often a viable strategy and I think Mono-Green certainly will have a chance to prove this philosophy soon. Even splashing other colors whil maintaining the same general idea is a great option, since we still have access to the glories of Ravinica lands and multi-color deck support. Conclusions: Planar Chaos as a whole is not a very powerful Standard set. It is rather small on powerhouse rares, but the ones that will make an impact will do so in a big way. I am obviously referring to Damnation, Extirpate and Akroma, Angel of Fury, cards that no one can really deny are extremely strong. I feel that Planar Chaos' major strength in Standard is how well it is nurturing the environment of experimentation and innovation in deck design. There are so many possible decks out there now that I have no clue what I even want to play anymore. Everyone coming out to FNM is bringing different decks and having a ball. For that I have to thank R&D and Wizards, regardless of their painful shift of the color wheel. By David Hitchcock on February 8th, 2007 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 51 Comments |
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