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| Several weeks ago, I wrote an article about Edric, Spymaster of Trest. I explained the subtle complexities of the card and how it wasn’t a card that you just slapped down on the table as soon as possible, but that it was a card that needed careful planning and preparation.
Then, Aaron Diers in the comments suggested Teferi's Veil and blew all that out of the water.
Don’t get me wrong, Edric is still subtle and complex, it’s just that Teferi's Veil makes him into a repeatable card-drawing machine for you and no one else. The politics disappear, and all that is left is pure, unadulterated card advantage . My mind started churning in a whole different direction. Using Edric in this way makes him a card-advantage machine. Am I willing to use up eight slots for card advantage? Is this better than other methods of card advantage?
The two alternative card-advantage options I generally look at are Rhystic Study and Consecrated Sphinx. The Study stays in play longer, but players generally only give you cards when they absolutely have to. Consecrated Sphinx rarely stays in play for long, but even when it only stays in play for one round, it tends to draw more than ten cards.
In comparison to Consecrated Sphinx, Edric does all right. You won’t draw as many cards as you would from the Sphinx, but you will draw fewer far more often. Edric, particularly an Edric that is phased out for everyone else’s turn, is far more difficult to get rid of than a Consecrated Sphinx. His casting cost also means that he will be in play much earlier. I’m willing to run with Edric here.
In comparison to Rhystic Study, I suspect Edric and the Study will stay in play the same amount of time—since enchantments tend to stay in play longer than creatures—but Edric will be more difficult to get rid of with phasing. I think the Study will probably draw more cards, but Edric will bring far less hate. “Did you pay an extra mana for that?” drives opponents crazy and reminds them every time you draw a card.
On top of both comparisons, it also needs to be remembered that Edric can be played without the phasing backup, leaving all the political options available.
This is what I came up with:
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Just What the Heck Is Phasing Anyway?
If you don’t know what phasing is, it means that you weren’t playing when it was around. Consider yourself lucky. Phasing is a much maligned ability that has seen significant changes in how it works. Suffice to say that if you want to give the local rules guru an aneurysm, ask a question about phasing.
Rather than go through what it used to do, we’ll keep it straightforward and just discuss the current iteration. At the start of your untap step, all permanents you control with phasing phase out, and all permanents that are phased out phase in. This all happens simultaneously and doesn’t use the stack, so no shenanigans here. Once this is complete, continue with the untap step and the rest of the turn.
Phasing in or out doesn’t cause the permanent to leave the battlefield, so leaves-the-battlefield and enters-the-battlefield effects don’t do anything. If the creature is enchanted or equipped, the Aura and Equipment goes with it and returns with it. Basically, the creature is gone when it is phased out, and it’s there when it is phased in. If you are looking to use enters-the-battlefield effects, try all the cards that blink or flicker permanents that are currently available.
Permanents can also be phased out by some spells and abilities. When it phases out, the permanent is gone until its controller’s next untap step when it phases back in. |
"Entering my Phasing Phase 1.0"
- Creatures (25)
- 1 Jhessian Infiltrator
- 1 Lotus Cobra
- 1 Trygon Predator
- 1 Wingcrafter
- 1 Wolfir Silverheart
- 2 Quirion Elves
- 2 River Boa
- 3 Acidic Slime
- 4 Mycoloth
- 4 Silhana Ledgewalker
- 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
- 4 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
- Planeswalkers (2)
- 1 Garruk Relentless
- 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
- Spells (9)
- 2 Snakeform
- 1 Revenge of the Hunted
- 4 Vanishing
- 2 Moonsilver Spear
- Lands (24)
- 4 Island
- 7 Forest
- 1 Flooded Grove
- 1 Tropical Island
- 1 Vivid Creek
- 2 Soaring Seacliff
- 2 Vivid Grove
- 3 Hinterland Harbor
- 3 Simic Growth Chamber
Before explaining the cards in the deck, you need to know this is version 1.0. This is not optimized; some cards are in here because I want to see how they work in games, and others are not in here simply because I don’t own them or they are in another deck.
Phasing
The first real question for the deck is how to phase Edric. Aaron’s recommendation of Teferi's Veil is a solid start. Let’s look at the contenders:
Reality Ripple – This lets you phase out when someone tries to kill Edric. The downside is that it is only going to work once. I thought about Isochron Scepter, but now we are talking about a three-card combo, and we don’t have any way to actually do damage.
Teferi's Veil – This enchantment offers the repeatability that Reality Ripple doesn’t have. While having every creature you attack with be phased out can be a negative, we can probably work with this.
every turn if you want the creature phased out, so it is the most costly of the options so far. It does provide protection to your creature from removal spells since you can respond by phasing the creature out.
Vodalian Illusionist – The Illusionist offers the same thing as Vanishing, but you can use its ability on any creature. You can save other creatures you control or phase out creatures that are attacking you. The cost is higher than Vanishing and this is a creature, so you may find that you are using his ability to save himself.
Cloak of Invisibility – The Cloak doesn’t provide any protection from removal, but it does make the creature it is enchanting practically unblockable. This would work if you are attacking with Edric, but it is somewhat limited.
The whole point of using phasing is to take Edric out of the game during your opponents’ turns. If you can get something more from it, great. Given that, Vanishing seems like the best way to go. Edric leaves only when you want him to leave, so you can keep him in play and reward your opponents for attacking elsewhere or you can just phase him out at the end of your turn.
The Creatures That Are Going to Get You More Cards
Since the only way we are going to draw a bunch of extra cards is to actually do combat damage with our creatures, we need to find either creatures with evasion or a way to give some type of evasion to our creatures.
The creatures I liked for this were Meloku the Clouded Mirror and Mycoloth. Meloku is great because it produces a token pretty much whenever you need it. While I rarely make more than one in a turn, if you are hard pressed, you can feel free to make several. When you stop thinking of Meloku as a way to get a bunch of tokens in one turn, the drawback turns into a benefit. An opponent trying to destroy your favorite land is going to be very sad to see that land back on the battlefield on your next turn. Save your Maze of Ith and make a 1/1 Spirit token!
Even if no one is threatening your lands, there are plenty of enters-the-battlefield effects on lands. I recently ran Meloku in a U/B deck and Bojuka Bog became a recurring headache for several opponents. Meloku also allows you to reset your Cavern of Souls to a different creature type or put 3 tokens on your depleted Gemstone Mine. After all of this, don’t forget that the tokens have flying. The ability to make instant blockers for your opponents’ Dragons and (soon to be seen in plenty at a kitchen table near you) Angels is a wonderful thing. The built-in evasion on the tokens is nice since you can usually find someone who can’t block two or three flyers!
And it doesn’t hurt that I own these cards and no copies of Avenger of Zendikar. Obviously, the Avenger1 should be in this deck, so run ’im if you’ve got ’im. Following in the vein of cards that I own, I wanted to try Garruk Relentless. I would love to transform Garruk and play Revenge of the Hunted on one of his deathtouched Wolves! Another card I want to try is Moonsilver Spear. I know the costs on that card are probably too much, but adding a 4/4 Angel every turn just seems like a good idea, particularly if it only costs me a 1/1 Saproling to get it.
I’ve spoken with some judges who tell me that if a creature in play has phasing and is paired with a soulbond creature, the pairing doesn’t break when it phases out since it doesn’t leave the zone. Perhaps I could pair a Mycoloth with Vanishing to a Wingcrafter. Tamiyo was added as a way to tap down opposing blockers and because, hey, I luck-sacked into it in a recent two-man Winchester Draft.
So, the theory seems strong. What about the practice?
The Games
After that point, I wasn’t attacked again until there were only three of us left. Everyone wanted to draw the extra cards, so they were constantly looking for ways to sneak damage through to someone else. The comical part was that only three or four cards were drawn by anyone else the entire time Edric was out. One player was able to do significant damage, but he was doing it with a single large creature, so he would hit for 8 and draw one card.
I brought out a Ledgewalker and Meloku soon after. I attacked with the Ledgewalker every turn, drawing an extra card. I used Meloku’s tokens mostly for defense, but occasionally for offense. It wasn’t until the end of the game when I finally bounced three lands to my hand and overwhelmed the final opponent with flying that I managed to pull out the win.
The second game (played a week later with mostly different opponents) left me wondering where all my creatures were. Edric and several copies of Mycoloth were there, but a Mycoloth without any counters on it isn’t all that impressive. I put Vanishing on Edric to see what would happen. Unfortunately, this plan became moot when I equipped Edric with the Moonsilver Spear. This move drew more hate to Edric than I expected. Every second turn, I was phasing him out simply to keep him from being hit with removal.
I managed to take out Tyler with a flying Edric (due to Wingcrafter) targeted by Revenge of the Hunted. Bryan was the last opponent. He had a Stuffy Doll that was hitting me every turn. I did manage to get rid of it by Snakeforming it in response to it doing a point of damage to itself. Unfortunately, I couldn’t deal with the other Stuffy Doll or the 3 points of burn that killed me soon after.
Changes
The end result is that I’m not sure if phasing belongs in this deck at all. Right now, everyone is treating Edric like a Howling Mine, and my opponents are willing to leave me alone. If this holds true, Vanishing is a wasted card in the deck. Should my playgroup turn on Edric, expect me to come back to Aaron’s suggestions.
The deck did demonstrate that the token theme needs to be strengthened or removed. Mycoloth is struggling to be relevant while Silhana Ledgewalker is an all-star. If I am going to overwhelm opponents, overwhelm them. If not, dedicate those slots to creatures with true evasion. Based on what I’ve seen, the next draft of the deck should be like this:
"Leaving my Phasing Phase 2.0"
- Creatures (27)
- 1 Lotus Cobra
- 1 Trygon Predator
- 1 Wolfir Silverheart
- 2 Quirion Elves
- 2 River Boa
- 3 Acidic Slime
- 3 Wingcrafter
- 4 Jhessian Infiltrator
- 4 Silhana Ledgewalker
- 2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
- 4 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
- Planeswalkers (2)
- 1 Garruk Relentless
- 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
- Spells (7)
- 4 Snakeform
- 1 Revenge of the Hunted
- 2 Moonsilver Spear
- Lands (24)
- 3 Island
- 7 Forest
- 1 Vivid Creek
- 2 Vivid Grove
- 3 Soaring Seacliff
- 4 Hinterland Harbor
- 4 Tropical Island
The minor changes:
- Add one Meloku the Clouded Mirror. The flying tokens that can be produced at instant speed are just too good for this deck. I would instantly add four, but having that many copies of a legend with its mana cost seems ridiculous.
- Add two Wingcrafters. Flying was just too good to pass up. I want more.
- Add three Jhessian Infiltrators. I never saw the single copy I put in the deck, but with the Silhana Ledgewalker working so well, this just made sense.
- Changes to the mana base. The Simic Growth Chambers don’t work well with Meloku. Now that the deck has become my premier U/G deck, it gets the full treatment with the four original duals.
The main changes involve removing Mycoloth and Vanishing. The deck would need many more creatures that I wouldn’t mind devouring for Mycoloth to stay. While I still like the idea of phasing with Edric, my metagame is currently against it. Aaron can expect me to come back to his excellent suggestion when Edric stops working so well politically.
I intend to come back to this deck periodically to look at further changes. I’ve already tried one suggestion, and I’m always up for more. Leave your suggestions in the comments or contact me on Twitter or directly at bnrichard at hotmail dot com.
Bruce Richard
