Readers!

New year, same old series. That said, it feels like even though we examined the things we learned last year in my last article, we didn't really draw any conclusions about how to move forward in 2022. Thinking about Lands and Enchantments took up a lot of my time in 2021 and while that was totally worth the time spent, it ignores quite a lot of Magical cards. Did you know that Lands and Enchantments aren't the only card type? Did you know that in 2007, Wizards came up with 2 new card types - Planeswalkers and Tribal? If you think that's crazy, there are even more card types that were introduced to the game in 1993. Those are Creatures, which attack the opponent and block the opponent's creatures, Artifacts which are a lot like Enchantments but brown and Instants and Sorceries, which are cards I cut from my decks to make more room for Enchantments or get the deck count down to 99. Since I spent the end of last year thinking about some of the things I've come to rely on our of convenience, I want to continue that spirit of self-discovery and look at Instants and Sorceries a bit more.

Why ARE Instants and Sorceries so often on the chopping block? Speaking personally, I like to impact the board and play something that will stick around. Enchantments are great because you play them once then they do something over and over and they require your opponent to expend some energy dealing with them rather than binning themselves. (As an aside, typing this really basic paragraph about how Enchantments and Instants/Sorceries differ has made me question the premise for this article. It took effort not to scrap the whole thing). I like Enchantments, and while some of my favorite cards are Instants and Sorceries, I am very guilty of going very light on them unless I'm building a deck that relies on them such as Kykar. I'm making cards like Sunbird's Invocation and Swarm Intelligence - ENCHANTMENTS- worse with my neglect! What's wrong with me?

My New Year's Resolution is to spend more time thinking about the Instants and Sorceries slot in decks. Like most New Year's Resolutions, I plan to abandon it on February first. That said, for the time being, I'm committed to looking at Instants and Sorceries I should play more, and I few I should play less. Let's face it - I'm not cutting Enchantments or Lands to make room for more Instants or Sorceries so if I'm going to make room, cuts need to be made. Luckily, there are a few I think belong on the chopping block. Without further preamble, here's the list.

Instants and Sorceries I will play less

Boundless Realms used to be a real powerhouse of a spell. The initial mana cost is cheap, but the payoff was often very good. It encourages players to play Basic Lands, something they should be doing more in my view, and it's "fair" in that if you ramped to it on turn one, it wouldn't do anything but if you wait until you have seven lands, it's very good.

The problem with Boundy, the quicker pick-all-of-your-lands-upper is that it's almost always underwhelming. The decks where I still play it basically don't need it and I rarely get full value. I find myself running Scapeshift or even Nahiri's Lithoforming and getting much more value. Keeping the lands is nice with Boundless Realms, but you usually commit hard to a seven mana spell that can be your whole turn and if you're going to get full value on Boundless Realms, it's usually because you're comboing off, something it's easier to do with Scapeshift. With a lot of ways to get lands back from the yard, including a card I'm always happy to see, Splendid Reclamation, Boundless Realms just feels... weak to me, now.

These won't be all landfall cards, I promise, but since I play a lot of landfall decks, there are bound to be a lot of cards here I re-evaluate. I used to play Urban Evolution in every Simic-containing deck (which was most of them) and I liked it, but it's a big commitment. The instant speed, cheaper mana cost and identical number of additional lands put into play have given this slot to Eureka Moment forever. It's a huge upgrade and I have hunted down the last few Urbolutions in my decks and replaced them. I LIKED this card, but its time has come.

It's time to admit this card is never as good as I want it to be and is always just a bad Rise of the Dark Realms, which is more similar in mana cost than it should be. For seven mana, I want all five creatures and, failing that, I want to pay way less mana for the two creatures you get with Parlay. Worst of all, I was playing Parlay in a lot of Grave Pact decks (yes, I know, implying I have a lot of Grave Pact decks. I do. Sue me) which made it even more irresponsible not to be playing Thrilling Encore, a much better card in those situations. You can't get the best five creatures with Thrilling Encore, but you can get a lot more than one or two, and for fewer mana.

The modality of this card made it appealing to me and I kept up with it so long, reasoning that it was basically 2 cards in one, that I ignored some of the cards that came along to do basically the same thing as I usually ended up doing, but better. I was getting an Artifact most of the time because Black has better ways to kill creatures and zero ways to kill Artifacts (well, a few). The problem is that if you want to get an Aritfact in a Golgari deck, Culling Ritual is going to usually get what you were going to Putrefy. If you're going after something with a higher CMC, it's later in the game and the mana savings you get playing Putrefy over something like Mortality Spear is negligible. Putrefy has gotten me out of some tough jams, but do I love it because I love to smoke a Sol Ring for three mana or do I love it because original Ravnica came out when I was in college? Assassin's Trophy is boring, but it's played more for a reason.

This one may be controversial, and I could probably write a whole article about this decision, but I never want to play this overloaded when I draw it. If I'm already so far ahead that overloading this wins it for me, I didn't need it, and if I'm behind, this just adds a half hour to the game. I hate adding a half hour to the game.I want to play another game with a new deck, not watch three people play a sub-game where they try to do 5 turns worth of board development at once. This is a format staple, but I don't have to like it and I certainly don't have to run it. I also don't want anyone sending this article to me in 6 months when I submit a decklist with Cyc Rift in it.

Instants and Sorceries I will play more

I love this card and I absolutely terrorized people with it in Limited but for some reason, despite having more than one Mardu deck, I run 0 copies in my decks. That should change - this is one of the best Edict effects ever printed because it doesn't let them pick what they sac the way other Edicts do, ensuring you get something good. You're in goofy colors, but since I love that goofy color combination, the real goofy is not playing a card that is this efficient. Also, if I run Crackling Doom, I resist the urge to run Ruinous Ultimatum, a card that adds a lot more than a half hour to a game.

I know this is a good card - I've been neglecting it because I don't run a ton of Instants and Sorceries, not because I forgot this was Black Blink. This is more than Blink, though - this is sometimes a Black Avoid Fate and sometimes it's a Black Heroic Intervention. I'm not using this paragraph to point out that I realized it's a good card, I am pointing out I have an Olivia, Crimson Bride Sneak Attack deck where this would keep a sacced creature in business, a Ghen, Arcanum Weaver deck that scoops if Ghen dies, a Teysa Karlov Grave Pact deck and a Valki deck and this card does something different in all of them. None of my Black decks should not have this card, basically. I always knew it was good, but 2021 Jason didn't care that it was good because he wanted to make the world run 40 lands. Fine. Don't cut a land, cut a Makeshift Mannequin instead.

I have a lot more Dimir-containing decks than I used to, yet somehow I never included a modular murder/counterspell that gets better as the game goes on meaning there is never a bad time to draw it. Again, this article isn't me realizing that this card is good, it's me realizing my Eloise deck plays a Counterspell and a Murder effect and I could have been running a modal version of both this whole time. If you're going to write an article in defense of modal cards, start running good ones.

This card took longer than it should have to capture everyone's attention but now that the price is at an all-time high, I'm finally taking notice. Better late than never, I guess. If I could run a Force of Will in a White deck and pitch a White card to it, I can't think of too many scenarios where Flawless Maneuver would counter different effects than I would counter with that Force of Will. Am I saying Flawless Maneuver is better than Force of Will? Well, in a deck with White and no Blue, it definitely is, and I have a bunch of those.

"Decimate is a bad card" is a holdover from my days of 40 card Magic. This, Hex and other spells you literally couldn't cast unless you found targets for all modes (which sometimes required you to hit your own stuff) were deemed bad by me in 2005 and I basically haven't thought about them since. I have quite a few decks with Gruul colors and all of them are running removal that hits one of these card types but not all of them. I didn't even run Decimate either time I put together a Riku of Two Reflections deck. This card does more than Decimate, because rather than blowing up a tenth of someone's permanents, you're likely blowing up an even greater percentage, and that's good, I hear. We're not playing Limited anymore, we're playing a game with 4 boards worth of targets, meaning you'll get to play this as soon as you want to without having to wait for someone to play into it. I'm sold.

This is just my first foray into re-evaluating how I feel about a card type I mostly neglect. I might not run more Instants and Sorceries than I have been, but you can bet I won't be just throwing a handful of staples into those slots to get my deck up to 99 cards. This is step one on a journey of committing to being more thoughtful with all of my inclusions, even the ones that only do a thing one time then go to the graveyard like some sort of ... temporary Enchantment. New year, new me. I'm looking forward to catching up on 2018's Instants while everyone else laughs and calls me a dinosaur. Until next time!