Despite the weeks that have passed since Pro Tour: San Diego finished, the metagame featured there is still looming large over standard discussions across the internet. Most writers are still dissecting the results out of that event, and weighing up the decks that dominated there – Jund, Naya, UW Control and Mythic getting the most coverage, followed by Red Deck Wins, White Weenie and Vampires. Most of the Worldwake cards that featured were reasonably predictable for the informed observer – the manlands, Jace, Tectonic Edge, Kor Firewalker, Stoneforge Mystic and Basilisk Collar all have inherently high power levels and can be compared favourably to past tournament worthy cards. One major surprise, however, was the success of the little Tim that could: Cunning Sparkmage.

A tiny creature that taps to deal 1 damage to a creature or player is not a new area of design space – far from it. Prodigal Sorcerer featured this ability in Alpha, the very first set (As an aside this is where creatures with this mechanic picked up the nickname "Tim", as players at the time thought the Prodigal Sorcerer art looked like the Monty Python character 'Tim the Enchanter'). Prodigal Sorcerer featured in every core set up to 6th Edition, when blue was weakened by moving direct damage abilities out of its part of the colour pie (see also: Psionic Blast). Tim was colour-shifted in Planar Chaos to red as Prodigal Pyromancer, who is still in standard today featuring in the M10 core set.

That is not the only secret to Cunning Sparkmage's success, though.

Dozens of variations on this ability have appeared over the years, from mediocre limited cards like Anaba Shaman to the absurdly powerful Goblin Sharpshooter or Legacy staple Grim Lavamancer. Some of these variations have seen constructed play and some have not, but in general the standard 3 mana, tap for 1 recipe has not met with a lot of success without a substantial additional effect – Sharpshooter and Gelectrode are both usable multiple times in a turn if certain conditions are met, allowing them to take over the board if you untap with one in play. Cunning Sparkmage doesn't have reusability, but what he does have is haste. Haste means you don't need to hope your Sparkmage survives the opponent's turn before you get value out of it, you can kill your opponent's X/1 immediately. That is not the only secret to Cunning Sparkmage's success, though.

Whether he is some sort of hyper-intelligent canine or he just likes to give his parents what for by dressing up in leather and studs, the Sparkmage has a particular fondness for Basilisk Collar. Giving deathtouch and lifelink to a 0/1 creature might not seem like a smart move at first glance, but once you realise that both of these keywords affect his tap ability's damage the synergy starts to become clear. Need something taken down with more than one toughness? Deathtouch will do the job on even a Stone Idol Trap token. Baneslayer Angel giving you trouble? A collared-up Sparkmage will take her down faster than a battery of AA guns. The trouble with Visara the Dreadful is getting enough mana to get her into play, and having her stick until your untap step. Sparkmage & Collar does the same job for less mana, and has haste to boot!

In the Wild

So, given we have this insane duo, where do they fit in? Obviously red mana is a requirement, but there are many decks that do or can play red in the current standard. Red Deck Wins as it currently exists probably does not want the Sparkmage as it is too busy playing 6 power hasty tramplers on turn 3 and its late game is all about reach, not board control. Boss Naya is the GWR deck that brought Sparkmage to the world's attention, so we'll start there instead. Tom Ross and team ChannelFireball included Cunning Sparkmage as a devastating sideboard plan, running both Basilisk Collar and Stoneforge Mystic in the main deck. When the Green/X midrange opponents would attempt to go bigger than their Naya decks, LSV and co. would bring in the Sparkmage plan and shoot down the opponent's Baneslayers and Knight of the Reliquaries. Mythic is a deck particularly susceptible to this plan as it relies on sticking more huge threats than the opponent – but when that opponent has a collared-up Sparkmage taking down one huge threat every turn and Mythic has almost no way to interact with that Sparkmage, the plan falls apart.

At the Kuala Lumpur GP this past weekend, a lot of the day 2 qualified players were playing Boss Naya almost card for card. The only other decks to feature Sparkmage was a single Jund player, Calvin Ong, with 3 in the sideboard, a crazy four-colour planeswalker deck from Hiroaki Yamakawa, and James Wong playing GerryT's Koros deck that debuted at the Midwest Masters Qualifier. The Koros deck is the most interesting example as it plays 4 maindeck Sparkmages, 3 Stoneforge Mystics and a tutorable Collar, including an extra Mystic and Collar in the sideboard. This is a significant investment of deck space and it is obvious the Koros player expects to get a Sparkmage and a Collar into play in any game that goes long. As this is a deck that can compete with Jund, Naya etc the maindeck Sparkmage plan is working and working well. In Gerry's own words:

"The fact of the matter is Sparkmage is absurd against all the Green decks right now, and with access to a lot of Collars, your matchups against those decks are great."

"My Koros list performed pretty well overall, with another two copies in the Top 16, and the person I beat playing for Top 8 finishing in 17th. That's quite the performance, but I don't feel like the deck will be good for long. Once you stop getting free wins from Cunning Sparkmage, your matchups become a lot worse."

Fight the Power

The green decks he is talking about are the "horde of big fatties" decks like Mythic, some varieties of Naya and GWx Junk, and to a lesser extent Jund. What can these decks – whose plan is to play one massive creature each turn and hope the opponent runs out of removal before they run out of creatures – do to combat a plan that kills one massive creature a turn with no expenditure of cards or mana?

1. Kill Sparkmage

The key to this is timing. As Sparkmage has haste, there is no window of time after he hits the board that you can kill him without them being able to activate him at least once. What you can do is kill him in response to the equip activated ability on Basilisk Collar so that they aren't able to deal deathtouching, lifelinking damage. While this one point might still kill your Birds of Paradise or what not, it is certainly better than letting them get your Knight of the Reliquary.

The tools for this job are any instant speed removal that can take care of a 0/1 red creature – Lightning Bolt, Celestial Purge, Searing Blaze, Path to Exile and so on. This is a kinda ugly solution as they still get to zap you, but all the cards that are good for this job are good in other contexts and for other matchups.

2. Kill Collar

The green decks that Cunning Sparkmage causes so much trouble aren't afraid of having 1/1s picked off every turn, but of 5/5s being picked off every turn. The reason Sparkmage can do this is his good buddy Basilisk Collar. Once again, you can turn a bad situation into a good one with clever timing and instant speed removal. Imagine your opponent has a Basilisk Collar in play, and you have a Baneslayer Angel, a Noble Hierarch and a hand of Naturalize. Your opponent plays a Sparkmage and equips the Basilisk Collar to it. You could Naturalize the Collar here but if you wait until your opponent puts the Sparkmage's ability on the stack targeting your Angel and respond by Naturalizing the equipment, you get to save both your creatures for another turn as the Angel takes one non-deathtouching damage.

Green and White fortunately have the best tools against artifacts – Maelstrom Pulse, Naturalize, Kor Sanctifiers, Oblivion Ring, Bant Charm. Sideboarding one or more of these answers is a good plan going forward.

3. Neuter one or both

Rather than trying to fight Sparkmage and Collar with removal spells, how about trying to ignore them? This can be done in a number of ways – playing indestructible creatures like Thornling, making your creatures indestructible with Eldrazi Monument, playing protection from Red creatures like Kor Firewalker, playing shroud creatures like Uril, the Miststalker, protecting your creatures from non-combat damage with Mark of Asylum or rendering Sparkmage impotent with judicious use of Pithing Needle. I am pretty keen on the Pithing Needle sideboard plan as this card is alternately amazing and terrible. In current standard it answers Sparkmage, the manlands, and planeswalkers just to name a few. The only downside is it is vulnerable to the artifact hate listed above for game 3.

4. Redirect the damage

The cutest plan by far is to turn the deathtouching Sparkmage damage back on your opponent's fatties. Harm's Way and Refraction Trap are both cheap instants that can turn the tables on your opponent in this way. Harm's Way has already proven itself playable in early Boros Bushwhacker decks and Refraction Trap has been strong enough to show up in successful extended decks, so this could be a nice incidental plan against Sparkmage.

Hopefully this has brought everyone up to speed on standard's latest golden boy, and given you some ideas on how to fight back. I'd like to hear of any other ideas you guys and gals have for beating Sparkmage/Collar. If you're pro-Sparkmage, I'd like to know what you think about running the combo without Stoneforge Mystic, is it viable? Any other comments are as always welcome and I'll see you all again next week!