It's a rather unusual context to write in—with the whole set spoiled so long before the actual set release, and even longer before the expected late MTGO release. We're in the realm of prognostication, speculation, and theory, where the set reviews assign numerical indications of worth to cards with all the precision of "look at me, I'm the DCI." After last week's initial impressions, it's time to start finding applications for the new cards, though I won't be able to implement any of them for a month or more. The format that is going to see the biggest shakeup is Block, and as one of my favorite formats, that seems like an excellent place to start.

Tempered Steel

Now, while Block is pretty wide-open in terms of what decks you can play, there is one strategy that is most frequent—Tempered Steel aggro. Mirrodin Besieged gave this deck a real shot in the arm, with Signal Pest really shining when paired with the eponymous enchantment, getting a boost to its own meager body while giving a further enhancement to your other weenies. Hero of Bladehold is quite a powerhouse as well—when your weenies have eaten all your opponent's removal, Hero can quickly end the game unaided. Incidentally, there is a large discrepancy in price between the paper versions of these and the MTGO ones—$5 versus 14.5 tix. Absent any other explanation, this is usually a good indicator of a card to pick up—post-rotation, if not before, we will likely see Hero of Bladehold increase in price somewhere over $10.

But back to Tempered Steel! While Phyrexia may have won the war, their incorporation of artifacts means that even an artifact deck can benefit from the conquest of the artifact plane. The weakest cards in the deck, to my mind, are the Glint Hawks—while they are cheap and evasive, they just aren't artifacts, and without a heavier Battle Cry element, they tend to fall behind in importance. Fortunately, NPH provides a powerful new artifact creature that demands a place in the deck, and I think Glint Hawk's days are numbered. Enter Porcelain Legionnaire, a 3/1 first-striking artifact creature for who initially escaped my notice, but when considered as a 2-drop, he is far more impressive than as a 3-drop. Curving this guy into Tempered Steel lets you attack with an unparalleled threat on turn three, potentially alongside Memnites and/or a Signal Pest. While he doesn't speed up your nut draw any, the power level of Legionnaire is substantially higher than some of the rubbish guys the Steel deck has been playing, which makes him a much stronger top-deck than, say, a Memnite. Legionnaire is certainly a four-of starter for the new Steel deck, but what other cards may be lurking in the new set?

Dispatch is certainly an eye-catching card for an artifact-heavy deck—when fully powered, it allows easy point-and-click elimination of any targetable creature. Removal hasn't been a high priority for the Steel deck so far, however, with Arrest as an occasional sideboard option—generally, the deck plans to win before the opponent's large creatures become an issue. Small creatures from any other strategy aren't normally an issue, as Tempered Steel provides such a boost that the opponent's nonartifact blockers are mere chumps at best. I expect Dispatch will be getting the nod over Arrest for those pilots who like the removal option, but it won't make a big impact either way. Dismember is another removal option the deck might like to consider, and one every deck is going to have to take into account both for and against. Blade Splicer, one of my favorite new cards, could find a place in the deck as well. The card is super-efficient, and provides two bodies to get pumped by Battle Cry, one of which is conveniently an artifact.

Phyrexian mana has a rather confusing impact on card evaluation; if you're willing to pay the life, you can ignore the color of the card entirely. Spined Thopter, Vault Skirge, Postmortem Lunge, Act of Aggression, and Moltensteel Dragon are just some of the nominally colored cards that could easily find a home in the mono-White deck, but to fit some or all of these in, one has to consider just how much life you can afford to pay—after all, when you're low on life and holding an off-color Phyrexian card, you may not be able to play it at all. Turn-one Vault Skirge into turn-two Legionnaire into Act of Aggression puts you down 8 life before your opponent has even made a play. I'm intrigued to see how far people are willing to go with paying life, especially including off-color cards into their decks—the mechanic has negative synergy with itself, so while a four-of Legionnaire won't be too dangerous, go much further than that, and you might end up killing yourself more often than you'd like.

Where were we? Ah yes, Steel Aggro. Hex Parasite is another new creature that makes a strong bid for a place in the starting lineup—I would be ditching Chimeric Mass to find a place for this versatile little guy, since apart from any other shortcomings Mass may have, it is a loser with Parasite's introduction in other decks. While it's always a little flippant spreading lists around so far in advance of the format, we have to start somewhere, so this is what I'd be looking at for Tempered Steel the first day NPH hits MTGO.

"NPH Tempered Steel"

• Creatures (24)
• 4 Hero of Bladehold
• 4 Leonin Relic-Warder
• 2 Memnite
• 2 Phyrexian Revoker
• 4 Hex Parasite
• 4 Porcelain Legionnaire
• 4 Signal Pest

• Spells (14)
• 4 Tempered Steel
• 4 Glint Hawk Idol
• 4 Origin Spellbomb
• 2 Mox Opal

• Lands (22)
• 18 Plains
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Mirran Crusader
• 2 Dismember
• 2 Dispatch
• 3 Act of Aggression
• 4 Divine Offering

Buy This Deck

U/B Control

At the other end of the Block spectrum is the U/B control deck—few early plays, tons of removal, and no artifacts. The deck relies on gaining card advantage and minimizing the damage inflicted by its opponent's threats in the early game, then taking over the game with far superior cards in the later stages like Consecrated Sphinx and Massacre Wurm. One thing New Phyrexia has in spades is expensive bombs; between the Chancellor and Praetor cycles, there's no shortage of new uses for a whole bunch of mana, though none of them are particularly game-changing—Consecrated Sphinx is quite enough to close out the game for the most part. Chancellor of the Dross is worth considering—he doesn't give you any card advantage like Sphinx does, but he is a huge Lifelink body, and the early drain effect may buy you a little extra time. is quite a hefty casting cost; however, the deck already can play a Massacre Wurm.

More significant is the removal side of affairs. Grasp of Darkness's days are likely numbered, with Dismember and Geth's Verdict both jostling for a place in the removal suite. While paying life is not what this deck wants to do, with such hopeless mana in this format, it's nice to have the option to not pay so early. Geth's Verdict is also an extraordinarily powerful removal spell, getting around high toughness, Shroud, Protection, and Indestructability. The only problem is if your opponent has a 1/1 Myr or 0/0 Germ token lying around ready to take the bullet for his Steel Hellkite or whatever. Vapor Snare will also have to be considered in the Steel Sabotage slot, but this—like all control-deck card choices—depends to a large extent on what threats you need to stop, which could be changed considerably with the new set in the mix.

One alternate plan the deck might like to consider is an Infect and Proliferate plan—playing Blighted Agents in the Commando slots, for example, along with some Inkmoth Nexuses. This would let the deck take advantage of the new Infect Counterspell, as well as more defensive measures, relying on Proliferate to take down the opponent rather than fat creatures. This would be a markedly different deck, however, and would likely have to play artifacts—especially of the Contagion variety—removing one of the main appeals of the U/B control archetype. As always with new formats, it will take time for the control decks to adapt to the new questions the aggressive decks are asking. As such, there's little point speculating on a list—the deck is very strong as it is, and the new cards offer only minor upgrades in several areas, though not strict ones by any means.

New Strategies

Mono-Red, White control, Infect, Tezzeret, Chapin's R/U/G control—there are a large number of other strategies, with no real clear tiers standing out anymore. This will certainly change by the time PT: Nagoya is in the bag, but until then, we can speculate about potential new strategies that New Phyrexia may throw up. Birthing Pod is a powerful potential build-around card, though I doubt any color but Green can afford the life loss, which adds up quickly with repeated activations. Trading a Viridian Emissary for a Viridian Corrupter is the obvious way to start, but your creatures don't necessarily need to be Green—you could trade that Corrupter for a Phyrexian Obliterator, if you were so inclined. Speaking of Obliterator, between it, Lashwrithe, Parasite, and the new removal spells we could have the start of a powerful mono-Black midrange deck. Caged Sun could give Grand Architect a kick in the pants, giving a very real prospect of paying retail for Jin-Gitaxias. Glistener Elf and Mutagenic Growth raise the prospect of a mono-Green Infect deck, that could even play Creeping Corrosion as a powerful hoser to the artifact decks. Defensive Stance enables Blue decks to destroy opposing Phantom Beasts for only 1 mana. Jor-Kadeen has a powerful Metalcraft effect—but is it possible to bend the Steel deck's mana to pay Red without slowing it to a crawl?

While I won't hold my breath waiting to see a Standard Top 8 not dominated by Jace before November, Block is promising to be an interesting format, full of questions and difficult choices, both in deck-building and in play. I hope the pros can refine it without breaking it over in Japan! I'd love to hear your early thoughts on the new Block format in the comments; what new strategies will you be testing? Which of the old decks will be getting stronger? Which will be weakened? Let me know here or over on Twitter.