Introduction

Hello, all, and welcome back to Diminishing Returns. My apologies for not having an article for you last week; I had a reasonably terrible couple of weeks, between my personal life exploding and grading after finals week. However, I have now heroically dug myself out of the avalanche of papers, exams, and quizzes, just in time to discuss the predicted New Phyrexia metagame after this past weekend’s release events.

As I usually do when there is a substantial gap between two articles, I have adjusted the threshold to $0.50. In addition, I should note that MOTL has not updated their tracker with New Phyrexia data yet, though they probably will sometime this week. With that out of the way, let’s begin!

Winners:

The recent movement in the eBay market is indicative of a widespread perception that four decks have a lot of potential to be good. Those decks are:

1. Some form of Pyromancer Ascension and Exarch/Twin combo
2. Some form of Bloodchief Ascension/Mindcrank combo
3. U/B Infect
4. Machine Red

The most important of these changes, at least as far as the scuttlebutt is concerned, is the Splinter Twin/Deceiver Exarch deck, whether hybridized with Pyromancer Ascension or in a Grixis build on its own. The combo operates in the same way as the older Pestermite/Twin combo, making an infinite—okay, arbitrarily large—number of hasty men and bashing for 1,000,000. Most of the decks revolve around a shell of filter spells (Preordain, See Beyond, Gitaxian Probe, and Halimar Depths), combo pieces (Deceiver Exarch, Splinter Twin, and Pyromancer Ascension), disruption (Inquisition of Kozilek), and defense (Pyroclasm, Spellskite, and either burn or Doom Blade/Go for the Throat).

While these decks look like they have a lot of potential, I sincerely doubt they have the potential to help Splinter Twin maintain a $7 to $8 price tag on eBay. I expect Exarch/Twin to be a competitor, but the combo is slow enough that it is vulnerable to disruption in the form of both creature and enchantment removal (Go for the Throat, Doom Blade, Journey to Nowhere, Revoke Existence, etc.). This makes me suspect the strategy will be a solid Tier 1.5 option, which means that Splinter Twin and Pyromancer Ascension should maintain $3 to $5 price tags, but not go above that. It’s also important to remember that much more Zendikar and Rise of the Eldrazi were opened than Worldwake, so it’s hard for normal rares to become Stoneforge Mystics. Conclusion: Unload Splinter Twin now.

The other combo that some people have been discussing is the infinite-mill combo of Bloodchief Ascension and Mindcrank. This combo is interesting, especially as another option for a hybrid combo with Pyromancer Ascension or Exarch/Twin and doesn’t seem to have taken off yet, so if you can find Bloodchief Ascension or Mindcrank as throw-ins, I would look to pick them up just in case. However, I don’t predict that this will be a major player. The real problem for this combo is that both pieces are dead cards unless the combo is active, whereas for Exarch/Twin, at least the Exarch is a solid tempo-turtle. Also, since an active Pyromancer Ascension is awesome at finding combo pieces because of repeatable Preordains and See Beyonds, whereas the active Bloodchief Ascension lacks synergy with Exarch/Twin, I wouldn’t expect the Bloodchief/Mindcrank combo to be a serious contender.

More interestingly, the elves at the MTG factory have given Kibler’s (or is that Keebler’s?) newest creation quite the facelift, between Tezzeret's Gambit and Corrupted Resolve. U/B Infect now has the equivalent of Divination + Shock on one card, as well as a cheap mid- and late-game hard counter. Both of these cards help the deck to protect its tempo advantage against opposing disruption, and are exactly what the doctor ordered. I would expect Phyrexian Crusader to see another small bump in price over the next few weeks, as well as expecting Darkslick Shores and Skittles, the Diseased Rainbow to hold their value.

Koth’s upward trend is due to the rise of Machine Red strategies over the last month. This strategy also gets four excellent new tools with Urabrask the Hidden, Moltensteel Dragon, Volt Charge, and Shrine of Burning Rage. Also, like U/B Infect, this deck can take advantage of Tezzeret's Gambit. Urabrask and Moltensteel Dragon are yet more excellent midgame drops for a deck that already has decent-to-excellent options in Koth, Kuldotha Phoenix, and Obsidian Fireheart, and packs Inferno Titan as a powerful late-game play. Volt Charge and Tezzeret's Gambit are excellent options to maintain pressure on opponents. Shrine is a powerful early threat that, if unchecked, can simply kill out of nowhere. Other interesting options to look at are Mycosynth Wellspring to complement Ichor Wellspring, and Artillerize to provide a sac outlet for each (complementing Kuldotha Rebirth). If any existing strategy gets a lot of new and interesting options from New Phyrexia, it’s Machine Red, and I expect it to be a significant Tier 1.5 strategy. I’m not sure what the final build will be, but I do know Koth will be in it. Hold on to them, and pick them up if you can get them at $20 in trade value.

Losers:

Given the number of cards in the above chart, I’m going to focus on some cards I think you should pick up for Standard season, as well as a few you should ship.

Acquire:

1. Goblin Guide – I am aware that Zendikar is rotating, but this card was $10 at one point because it’s tied for “best Red 1-drop ever” with Grim Lavamancer. More important, he has a new buddy to play with: Furnace Scamp. On top of normal RDW-style decks, there are other interesting “little Red” brews running around—such as Chapin’s Strobe Red, relying on Immolating Souleater, Kiln Fiend, and Assault Strobe, but backed up by Goblin Guide.

2. Fauna Shaman – There are two reasons to pick up this card. The first is Birthing Pod. Birthing Pod is a really interesting card that acts in a similar way to Fauna Shaman, enabling an interesting—and very powerful—hybrid engine. The second reason is the resurgence of aggressive Red strategies in the metagame, which will act as a counterweight to the oppressiveness of Caw-Blade once the metagame stabilizes. Like most control-aggro decks, Caw-Blade is vulnerable to decks that can get ahead of it on the board, and thus the Red deck provides a predator for the menace. What this does is open space for more midrange beatdown/rock decks that can grind out card advantage, and thus prey on the Red deck while maintaining decent matchups elsewhere. Some form of Fauna-Pod deck is likely to be one of those, and I would pick up Shamans at $5 to $6, expecting them to rise into the $8 range.

3. Vengevine – See my predictions regarding Fauna Shaman. This will obviously be a major part of the engine, especially now that the decks running it don’t have the “what do I do if I don’t draw Fauna Shaman?” problem (largely fixed by Birthing Pod). If you can get these for $18 to $20 in trade, pick them up.

Ship:

1. Primeval Titan – I would like to announce the death of Valakut. With the emergence of real Red decks against which Valakut lacks a substantial defense, as well as the further pressure of midrange aggressive decks that should result from this change, Valakut just doesn’t have any real prey. Plus, the Titan cycle has been confirmed for M12. Ship these now while you still can get some value for them.

2. Gideon Jura – I don’t think Gideon is going to drop by a lot, but I do think he will drop back down to his stable $20 range as Caw-Blade’s stranglehold loosens up. In addition, WotC has strongly hinted that Gideon is going to replace Ajani Goldmane in M12, which should send his price the way of Baneslayer Angel’s (remember when that card was $50?).

3. Jace, the Mind Sculptor – A month ago, I suggested that people look at picking Jace up in the period between April and GP: Providence. If you can pick them up at $75 in trade, I would still pull the trigger, because I do expect the card to stabilize and trend slightly upward (into the $85 to $90 range). However, because New Phyrexia contained so many cards that fleshed out strategies in need of support—most of which don’t need Islands, or at least don’t need Jace (oddly not the same thing, for once)—I no longer expect Jace to break $100.

4. Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas – This card is a short-term ship, but long-term hold, as he will likely gain value once Innistrad is released, because Scars block will provide a great deal of inertia, limiting deck design until the entirety of Innistrad is released (much as Zendikar block did this year through the dual menace of Jace and Valakut). If you have a large enough collection to reliably pick up $25-to-$30 mythics, I would ship Tezzy with an eye to picking him up between the release of M12 and Innistrad.

Conclusion

All in all, I am really looking forward to this Standard season. I’d been quite frustrated by Standard over the past year, given the oppression of Jace and Primeval Titan, and the lack of space for creativity in the metagame. Now, it looks like that problem has been solved. The new metagame has a lot of space for innovation, as New Phyrexia plugged the holes in a number of strategies that had potential, but were missing one or two crucial pieces. My general advice is to pick up the cards in previously lightly played strategies (G/W and G/W/R Vengevine, Big Red, U/B Infect, etc.) that have a lot of space to grow.