Japanese Peasants
March 4, 2005

Well, this week has been busy on the PEZ yahoo group but luckily there have been no posts that inspired an article so I can get back to my original plans and look at some of the Kamigawa cards that may fit into the PEZ environment. Before starting in, however, I would like to thank all of the people who e-mailed me and welcomed me back. I had no idea that my articles were so widely read or well received. Thank you so much. Also, I will be posting with a few additional thoughts on Reanimation decks at the end. This addendum to last week’s installment is thanks to Swawagon and his posts on the PEZ group.

*Special note: All of this was written last week and I haven’t had any time to finish this week so I’m going to split this into a 2 part article and make everyone wait for my single card selections and deck lists until next week. I’m sorry that I’m evil but the wicked really do need some rest.

Enter the Spirit Sets

As a whole, the Kamigawa sets provide some useful boosts to PEZ builds but I don’t see anything that truly breaks the format or provides for a new top tier deck archetype, except maybe the Ninja. There are a number of efficient creatures, especially for Black, and most Peasant decks will be excited to play these cards. While most of the selections aren’t game altering there is nothing wrong with solid ground-pounders or the decent number of solid and playable spells in this set.

My intent in this article is not to analyze every card in the set. In fact, I am planning on skipping over many of the spells that are simply solid or playable. Sure creatures like Kami of Ancient Law, Frostling, and Child of Thorns are all great additions to a deck. In fact, almost all the sacrifice for effect creatures in this set are, at the very least, playable. These creatures are obviously playable and the same is true for a number of the spells like Yamabushi’s Storm. Instead of spending my time pointing out all the decent cards, I hope to focus on the cards that I think are the best of the best and on the cards that I think many players will simply pass over. This will allow me to spend time with my girlfriend (we are going to spend some quality time Solomon drafting today) and I will make up for it by summarizing my thoughts on some of the card types and abilities in general.

Kami of New Abilities

The Kamigawa sets give us some new card abilities. Overall, none are really all that impressive but some do require special consideration. (Wow, that is an awkward transition, if I had the time I would fix it but for now just deal with it).

Bushido experiments with a theme we have seen before – creatures that get larger when they are facing other creatures. This is a mediocre ability. It is great in games where the majority of battles take place in the trenches but even there it tends to be a nice bonus and not a game breaker since combat tricks provide an equalizer. In addition, many of the Bushido creatures are simply too expensive for most PEZ mana curves. Devoted Retainer is the most obvious exception. He is a decent addition to White Weenie but nothing more spectacular than Mtenda Herder; which is a card that rarely makes the cut in most decks. Battle-Mad Ronin is also an exception, and the only PEZ worthy card with Bushido 2. In the Uncommon slots, Bushi Tenderfoot may be another exception as well. Regardless, the problem with all Bushido creatures is that the opponent will either have a blocker/attacker big enough to take them or will simply let the creature through since the damage from most is negligible. If you want to abuse Bushido consider making the choice of whether to block the creatures much harder, perhaps with enchantments like Sigil of Sleep or Cloak of Confusion. The Firebreathing type enchantments also make some of the Bushido creatures much more interesting. .

Soulshift is another interesting ability but, once again, most of the creatures that have it are simply out of the mana curve for most PEZ builds. In my mind, there are two creatures that may be exceptions for PEZ builds. Burr Grafter is one exception since most Green decks can easily generate 4 mana quickly and it is always nice to have free pump effects sitting on the board. I also like the Burr Grafter since he can recoup Gnarled Mass which is a solid 3/3 for 3 mana. Also, Black gains the Gibbering Kami which is nice since it has flying and it can return a number of impressive low cost creatures for Black decks. It may also be possible to play with Thief of Hope as a theme deck for PEZ (I will present a build latter). The main benefit of Soulshift is that it allows theme decks to trade 1 for 1 without generating as much disadvantage because of the added recursion effect.

Next we have the whole Arcane spell list. Ideally, all the Splice cards should be solid since card advantage is so important to winning games of magic. Having said that, however, many of these cards are underpowered, overcosted, or both. Basically, there are too few solid Arcane spells to make Splice a strong ability and splicing cards ends up being an expensive proposition. The best cards like Blessed Breath, Glacial Ray, Horboi’s Whisper, Kodama’s Might, Psychic Puppetry, and Wear Away are all examples of solid cards before Splice onto Arcane effects are taken into consideration; although Wear Away has an overpriced Splice cost. The key is that for each spell with Splice you are going to want to make sure that there are at least 4-8 other Arcane spells. All of a sudden you are looking at filling up 8-12 spell slots with, at least slightly, sub par spells all so you can generate card advantage. Most decks are going to find that this equation actually results in disadvantage.  The exception is when the Splice cost is not only reasonable but the effect is strong and helps support the deck. Horboi’s Whisper for example is a powerful card with an insanely cheap Splice cost. This makes it worth your while to play cards like Rend the Flesh and Soulless Revival which would otherwise be mediocre but still playable. Also, remember that you can Splice onto a spell cast by Isochron Scepter. Suddenly, if you have a card like Psychic Puppetry you could get huge duty out of a Scepter imprinted with Eye of Nowhere or Glacial Ray. That definitely requires a second look even though it is very mana intensive.

Ninjutsu is the final ability that was added by the Kami block and it more than makes up for the mediocrity of the other abilities. Frankly, Ninjutsu rocks but probably not as much as most people think. Confused yet? Well, here is the problem – Ninjutsu actually slows your deck down. Most players think that you are just trading creatures and your creature count pre-Ninja is exactly the same as the count post Ninja. Yes, that is true, but the creature that the Ninja just shot back to your hand probably had Evasion or some other ability that made him, pound for pound, a better creature than the Ninja. Secondly, you used mana to pay for the Ninja and will probably have to wait until next turn to recast whatever returned to your hand – that means summoning sickness all over again. So, if the Ninja have so many problems why do I still think they are good? Basically, all the ninja provide an additional effect that is probably worth the cost. Mistblade Shinobi results in an almost even tempo trade and can be quite useful when targeting a truly dangerous threat. Ninja of the Deep Hours is Ophidian and that card was very solid – this card actually reads “1U: deal 2 damage and draw a card”. The last extremely playable PEZ Ninja, Throat Slitter, is also great with the ability to destroy an opposing critter. Also, the disadvantages are easy to work around. You could use First Strike critters so they deal damage and the Ninja also gets a shot in the same turn – you helped solve the tempo disadvantage since you recouped a full turn worth of damage. You could also provide Evasion to the Ninjas and suddenly they are probably on par with whatever you returned to your hand. Other options exist as well but I believe that you should work to find solutions that make the Ninja not just playable but advantageous. They are good enough that you owe it to them to put in some extra deck building effort (plus Ninjas are crazy cool). I will present a Ninja deck build latter as well.

Genju of the Intensive Mana

We all know that some cards look so good on paper but become bad when put into a deck. I am one of the many people who looked at the Genju and thought they would be great only to discover that they are simply too mana intensive. In a fast environment like PEZ it is simply impossible to miss your 3^rd turn drops and still have a good shot at maintaining momentum. Even the aggressive Genju of the Spires ends up being less useful than a regular 3 cost critter. There are some exceptions to this, specifically a deck that uses cheap permanents to maintain board control, but overall the Genju slow down your deck too much to be of any use.

There are two exceptions to this rule. First, Genju of the Cedars is almost like having a Blastoderm on your side and Green can avoid the mana issues thanks to elves and Wall of Roots. Whether or not it is playable in the Uncommon slots, and when it may need additional backup from more elves or Vine Trellis, is another matter. Second, Genju of the Falls makes a perfect win condition for slow Blue control builds. It has evasion and is difficult to kill. Also, it comes down in the mid/late game where mana constraints aren’t as serious. It may also be possible that Genju of the Fields is playable if only because you can activate the ability multiple times to gain additional life (each time you pay 2 mana it gains the life gain ability again). Genju of the Spires is, as I said, only useful in Red decks that can maintain board control on the cheap and it seems clear that Genju of the Fens is by far the weakest selection among all these enchantments.  

Lone Wolf

Here is where I get to highlight individual cards that, to me, standout as being truly worth of PEZ fame – or at least inclusion in PEZ build.

Actually, here is where I end this article so I can get something that resembles a little rest from this insanely hectic week. I will be back next week with the rest of this article and some deck builds so I will see you then 

Jason Chapman

chaps_man@hotmail.com