Have you heard of the FFL? That's the Future Future League that Wizards runs deep inside its Headquarters R&D. The idea of the FFL is to test cards during the design stage with the main effort being to make sure the game stays balanced and healthy. Everyone who is Wizards employee is expected to put some time in testing cards that exist only in Proxy form and can change at any given moment. Each person is supposed to build decks that we, the general population, might build in the Future. If one deck or card is too lopsided then they adjust the cards to make it more fair and balanced with the other cards in the set.

Sounds like fun doesn't it? I would relish a chance to be in on those games. Imagine knowing what is probably going to evolve in the meta game before the cards are even released. Of course most employees stay Employees and never actually get to play the cards in their final form. But I'm not here to give you a lesson on the FFL. I'm here to discuss how cool Mananation is. You see, with all the testing of the FFL, one must assume that they know what cards will be the most useful, most overrated, and most dominating. Couple that with the method that Wizards "spoils" cards and you can see that some sites are just cooler than others. Ultimately WoTC decides who gets to show the public which cards and when. I firmly believe that the Mothership chooses the best cards for the best sites or authors.

Take Mike Flores cards as an example. Lotus Cobra, Cryptic Command, Lightning Helix, Path to Exile, and now the Everflowing Chalice. That's quite a list and that's just recent memory. It goes to show that either Wizards really likes giving Mike the bombs or Mike uses Jedi-mind-tricks to make us all believe they're bombs. I would easily say that Mike Flores is probably Wizards' favorite writer. Before you ask, Wizards still hasn't invited me to preview anything but I'm just waiting for my time to shine.

Here at Mananation we have had two previews since I came on board. Both of which I think are top notch Uncommons. First was Vampire Nighthawk which is absolutely incredible in limited. It's also pretty good in Standard as well. I have often thought about presenting a deck that uses the ‘Hawk but really there are more than enough sources for Vamp list out there. The truly ironic thing is that I never once cracked a pack or was able to draft a Nighthawk. Sure I've bought/traded for a set but it's like I'm cursed to never enjoy the limited goodness of the ‘Hawk.

Then we received Kor Firewalker. Another juicy uncommon and another card that I haven't cracked yet. I was all pumped to delve into his goodness when Lauren Lee stole my thunder. She did an absolutely awesome job of playing the numbers and you should really read her piece here before going any further. It's better than I would have done.

Did you read it?

I'll wait...

Her article by itself shows that Mananation is a favored site since we got such a good card. But there are more possibilities. I do believe she missed out on a really cool aspect of the card though. Don't worry Lauren a lot of people have missed this. I thought of it the very day that I saw Trick's revealing. There is a really interesting card that goes right along with Kor Firewalker and it was previewed at the same time by Bill Stark himself. It is almost as if Wizards wanted us to see them side by side at the same time before the environment got cluttered up with chase rares and cool lands. I've seen no one talk about this angle. Maybe I'm just crazy but I was very excited.

What is the other card?

Everybody has been all about how Chain Reaction is the "Red Wrath" and in truth - it mostly is. Mana cost and final effect in most games is the same. 4 mana to kill all dudes. Actually it's more like Day of Judgment since Regeneration can still occur. But Protection from White doesn't stop Wrath from destroying your dudes while Protection from Red stops Chain Reaction from doing the same.

A quick lesson on Protection:

I've always used the acronym DEBT to remember how protection works.

D is for Damage. A creature with protection can't be damaged by a spell crafted from that color. This is the one that applies to our Kor Firewalker and Chain Reaction. While the Chain Damages all other creatures our Kor still remains untouched.

E is for Enchanted By. Protected creatures can't have an Enchantment attached to them that is the same color that they are protected from (for good or bad). So I won't be able to put Claws of the Valakut on the Firewalker. For the longest time I thought that the E was only to make the word work. Since the process of playing an Aura targets the creature but if a creature was to gain protection by some other means like Brave the Elements then all enchantments of the chosen color would "fall off" of the creature. I am not sure how this would interact with colored equipment. If I gave Kor Firewalker protection from Green via Brave the Elements would he drop his Behemoth Sledge?

B is for Blocked. If a creature with protection from a color chooses to attack then creatures that use that color mana can not be assigned to block it. So if Kor Firewalker was to attack an opponent with an untapped Bloodbraid Elf the Bloodbraid could not block it. I have seen this kind of play misplayed by some beginners. Some think that they can block it and just do no damage. Others think that the "green part" of Bloodbraid makes it an able blocker. Neither is true. On the flip side Kor Firewalker can block a Bloodbraid with no consequence since the damage can't be assigned to the Kor. Bloodbraid does take the full hit from the Firewalker though.

T is for Targeted. A creature with Protection can not be targeted by a spell of the chosen color. The interaction of Lightning Bolt and Kor Firewalker is actually interesting if the T wasn't there. A player could cast Bolt and hit the Kor. Do no Damage but gaining the Kor controller a life. However with the T there the Bolt can not even be cast at the Kor meaning no life gain. Fortunately Chain Reaction does not target so can still be played even if Kor was the only creature on the Battlefield.

So you can see that Kor Firewalker can be really abused with Chain Reaction. That day that I saw both spoiled I went quickly to Gatherer to search for Protection from Red in Standard. Turns out there isn't much out there. Sphinx of the Steel Wind and Veldalken Outlander are only choices. So my plan to have an all pro red army with Chain Reaction bombing away went by the way side.

So I put that on the back burner and got distracted by Allies. I think that a lot of players out there really want to make Allies work. They are just so similar to Slivers and those little pests will hold a special place in Magic hearts forever. So I started playing with the color combos that an Ally deck could use since there are a large enough population now that a 2 color Ally deck is feasible. When I got to R/W I searched up Kabira Evangel and the protection aspect triggered something in my head. There could be a moment when I could cast Evangel giving my Allies pro red. Then follow that with Chain Reaction wiping out my opponents field and then Alpha Strike for the win. That would be Epically cool. The aforementioned Brave the Elements could do the same as well if I concentrated on White. Turns out that White is my favorite Ally color anyway so I built this.

There's the list. Try it out. It's got all the flavor of WW plus some Ally fun-ness and a little bit of Control/Combo mixed in. I think if you give it a swing you'll see how cool Wizards thinks Mananation is and therefore how cool we really are. Tricks Awesomeness ability just gets bigger and bigger.

There's the bell. Class Dismissed. For Homework I would like to hear the Worldwake card that got your engine running the most when it was spoiled and if you remember where you saw it first. Just post it in the comments.