One of These Things is Not Like the Other

I'm not typically into Vorthos-esque commentary, but how do these cards have such similar names? I was halfway through this article before I realized that the card name I was writing about was not the card I was talking about if you grok.

Is This for Real?

Apparently?

I was on a pleasant little run with my trusty Mono-White deck [read: TZIO's Mono-White deck] when my opponent made a Raffine's Informant into a Reflection of Kiki-Jiki.

I swung with everything.

I wasn't sure if I was going to Depopulate post-combat. It would suck. I was "winning" [at least on the battlefield], so the Depopulate was going to be a little painful. But probably not as painful as an unchecked Reflection of Kiki-Jiki (even if its playmate was a lame two-2).

Don't worry, MichaelJ! my clearly helpful opponent silently "said" across the digital divide. I'll take care of that for you.

Reflection jumped in front of my incoming Soldier token or buffed 2/2 doggy or whatever. Really?

I wasn't sure if I was going to Depopulate anyway. But now I didn't have to waste the brain cells. Okay, here comes Sanctuary Warden instead!

I guess I should have been paying better attention to what the SEEMINGLY pleasant opponent had been discarding on turns two and three.

"Invoke Justice?"

One with the Multiverse!

Yes, that is in fact a "permanent".

All of a sudden there was a Phyrexian Portal Portal to Phyrexia on the battlefield. Uh-oh.

Thinking quickly, I animated Mishra's Foundry. Sorry buddy. Foundry and a pair of tokens went down to preserve the life of Sanctuary Warden. This was going to be a race.

Spoilers!

It didn't end up much of a race. Heroes fought valiantly, but OneWithTheMultiverseReanimator.dec was chock full of Faithful Mendings also. So, though we put in a lot of attacking in the air, the opponent kept just a little too high before snowballing advantages.

Moral Victory: At the end of the game it took all four copies of Portal of Phyrexia to put us away.

Do you know who doesn't need moral victories? Winners. Frowny face emoji.

This is Also Unbeatable

Let's imagine for a moment you are an honest control deck. You wander over to the Forgotten Realms closet to Plate Armor on one White mana at a time. What are you supposed to do about this combination?

The problem is that without specialized answer cards (or at least permission), you can't interact very well with this two-card combination, provided the opponent can pull it off.

What's the problem, exactly?

Portal to Phyrexia is expensive, but as we've already discussed, specifically crafted Blue decks can get it onto the battlefield. When I played against Portal + Cityscape Leveler, it was in the context of a Mono-Green Ramp deck. Obviously a fair-and-square deck casting Portal to Phyrexia can also cast Cityscape Leveler.

Cityscape Leveler has a built-in "weakness" (if you can call it that), in that its Unearth re-buy is a one-shot move. But Portal to Phyrexia gets around even those audacious Planeswalkers who can interact with a giant 8/8 187 even once or twice.

Of course, the dastardly opponent won't get the immediate "cast" trigger on Cityscape Leveler when bringing it back with the Portal... But I'm sure you can imagine how quickly they make up for that fact once attacking again.

Cityscape Leveler is good at destroying big cards on the opponent's side of the battlefield (and any random ones later on). But what about some of these specifically destructive Eed cards?

That Was Lucky

The first End the Festivities came off the bonus card on Feldon, Ronom Excavator. The opponent had just enough mana (one) to cast the one card that got flipped over. That was lucky!

In this particular game my losses were pretty outsized considering its cost and the weird confluence of events setting End the Festivities up.

It wasn't until I lost a long, surprisingly grindy, game against what looked otherwise like a stock Mono-Red beatdown that I realized what a problem child this card is.

It just kind of does everything.

Stray loyalty on The Wandering Emperor after an exile? 1 toughness left against countless different kinds of supposedly successful combats? I was shocked at how well this card mopped up so many different post-action situations.

It seems great in mirrors as well. There are so many Red creatures with 1 toughness! Phoenix Chick (see also, below), tokens off of Squee... Even Epicures in throwback decks.

End the Festivities is a rare Common that is so unspectacular on paper but so surprising in application.

It turns out that my opponent wasn't actually that lucky. By the end of the game - having seen three copies of End the Festivities (the third being the last mite of face-burn needed to finish the game), I assume they played all four. Every single one threatened to end my fun, at least.

It Really Should be Obvious

It wasn't that I was so surprised at how good the card is (it's built on a model with everything from Anger of the Gods to Slagstorm, that shows effective DNA).

No, it's how difficult the card was to play around.

I was running the MWC deck on first contact, and it really seemed like there was no way I could navigate the battlefield (other than not playing out cards) that could avoid a three-for-one or worse.

The first time was particularly painful. You don't think about artifacts - especially non-creature artifacts - getting swept in Standard. But that first one took out two copies of Reckoner Bankbuster and a Treasure.

Later I got all my Citizens and good doggies gobbled; isolating the big girl for Invoke Despair.

Control decks in Standard are in this weird spot. They lost The Meathook Massacre; but not so long ago they don't remember it. Despite recent set rotations, that sweeper feels like it really should be legal in the format. The decision for many has been to move more toward one-for-one removal or to add copies of cards like Make Disappear to slow down the opponent rather than catch up later.

What have you seen? More stuff along the lines of Burn Down the House or conditionally limited Black sweepers?

I think that you should try Brotherhood's End if you're in the market for a sweeper in your Black deck (that can cast it). It's great against grindy decks and will occasionally catch an artifact jockey completely unawares.

The Shuffler's Fine

This card is not particularly new, but I don't remember it being this difficult to beat last Standard!

Phoenix Chick has three things going for it that create an extremely hostile battlefield environment. The first is just that it flies. The Chick gets in consistently because it's difficult to block. Not impossible... But the flying is bundled in essentially for free at 1 mana.

The second problem is the graveyard recursion line; and that one really is problematic. Even decks with cards like Corpse Appraiser can struggle keeping pace with Phoenix Chick because it's so fast.

The third thing - and this is subtle - is how devastating the card can be in multiples. Or, as a certain favorite streamer often says, "The shuffler's fine." Multiple Phoenix Chicks obviously represent compounding damage... But every one demands specialty answers. Unless an answer is something like Farewell (which can impact multiple creatures on the battlefield and / or multiple cards in the graveyard simultaneously) answering any individual Chick can feel hollow. Subtly, because Phoenix Chicks themselves have haste, drawing multiples can help you re-buy dead Chicks.

The combination of recursion, forcing opponents to focus specialized cards on something so cheap, and a context including many other creatures with haste + direct damage reinvigorates an angle for Standard that we haven't seen in some time.

Weirdly, this is a case where the specialty cards - the kind of cards we often associate with permission or interacting with a graveyard - can just be life gain. Life gain, if you're in the market for life gain, is often spectacular. Or at least the answer outweighs the rate of the threat in a way that Healing Salve just didn't do back in 1993.

But if you don't have it?

Phoenix Chick and company are proving to be very good at painting opponents - even ones with grinding defensive White decks - very much into a corner.

Another Way to Get Manascrewed

Back in 2003, my friend (and probably your hero) Brian David-Marshall declared his hatred for Wonder.

Wonder is unassuming if you have never played Odyssey Block Constructed.

A 2/2 for four? Who cares if it flies?

But Wonder was less about being a 2/2 flyer itself and more about making your whole squad fly over their whole squad. This could manifest in a single lethal attack, as with a lone Psychatog discarding a singleton Wonder, but you'd more often see Wild Mongrels and Aquamoebas against their landlocked brethren.

"I hate Wonder," he told me. "It's just another way to get manascrewed. Instead of not drawing lands, you just don't draw Wonder. But they drew Wonder. They're not better than you; they didn't build their deck better than you did; you're just Wonder-screwed."

Wonder was a problematic card from a deck design perspective. It wasn't like Umezawa's Jitte... Where the best way to bias was often to just play more copies. "Yes, a second Jitte has no value," the thinking went. "But if they're not answering my first Jitte, they're probably already dead."

More Wonders were pretty bad. On rate, the Wonders themselves were 2/2 for four. They weren't scaring anyone in a fight. Worse, they did little by themselves. Without a Wild Mongrel, Aquamoeba, or Merfolk Looter to set Wonder up... It was far from wonderful.

And don't get me started on the card basic Island...

2022 has, I think, brought us a new kind of look at Wonder.

I've been extremely impressed playing against Harbin.

If I'm honest, I hate the card.

It's quite a bit too good on rate. 3/2 for two is basically a Green card; and its text box is chock full of stuff that is too cerebral for stupid White Weenie.

But if I'm even more honest, I have to recognize that the Soldiers player on the other side of the table kind of has to plan for the Harbin alpha sequences. Yes, this card is great on turn two, where it's a Skittering Skirge without the prohibitive downside.

But the more impressive Harbin games are the ones where Soldiers is in a standoff against nakedly better cards... And then Harbin shows up and ends it in a pair of Alpha Strikes.

When you're attacking with five or more creatures, Harbin creates a non-interactive Red Zone. Even if the opponent also has Harbin they probably can't block.

There are ways around this card, but as is the theme of this article... You tend to need specialty answers. I guess a Play with Fire is not that specialized of a card, but we are talking about instant speed point removal that can hit White creatures with toughness below four... Or sweepers to keep the opponent under five attackers for the flying mini-overrun.

Regardless... The card feels un-fun to lose to. It's clearly a much better designed and balanced card than Winota, Joiner of Forces; but the actual activity of losing to Harbin feels, in this writer's experience at least, very Winota-esque.

Nice job winning the lottery with your legend, etc.

Legend

Just to remind you.

This creature is still game. They made a unique stop just for it in Arena! Everything in the format revolves around how (or whether) you can interact with Sheoldred.

I've been testing the newer Grixis builds that replace Sheoldred with Bladecoil Serpent and Phyrexian Fleshgorger; and I have to say, for four mana, Sheoldred has been more than holding her own.

Biggest problem child in Standard, hands down; and still.

LOVE

MIKE