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Understanding 7th
After all the rumor, all the speculation, all the
guesses and lies, Seventh Edition is now legal for
tournament play. Take
it or leave it, if you want to continue to play
sanctioned constructed Magic, you have to deal with it
and be prepared for it.
Everyone is going to feel the pinch and plenty
coming with this set.
You end up losing important cards like the
Tutors, Hammer of Bogardan, and River Boa, to name a few
of the important maindeck cards that will be passing out
of standard. Perish
is also a departing hero for black, as is Cursed Totem.
Armageddon is very surprisingly leaving as well,
which will directly effect the viability of several
decks.
Of these, the most significant departure is
Armageddon. It
leaves a hole in aggressive decks as a way of fighting
the control deck over a longer game.
An example would be anything in the G/W genre, as
it almost absolutely needs Armageddon to compete beyond
the first rush of creatures.
This will probably affect play fairly
dramatically over the short term, but players will find
ways around this over time.
Personally, I think that Wizards of the Coast has
done a fantastic job constructing this set.
They've given players a lot of tools they are
comfortable with, but put them into new situations.
Let's take a quick look at this on a color by
color viewpoint: GREEN:
probably the big loser out of the group.
They got Might of Oaks and Thorn Elemental, both
fine cards as far as big hitters go.
Wood Elves and Elvish Lyrist are also strong
choices, and may have homes in some decks.
Reclaim is a dark horse that may pop up again.
Green has the honor of holding the strangest card
to be reprinted: Elvish Champion. Still a new card, it was dropped into the new set for no
apparent reason that I can discern.
There aren't any significant gains here, only
significant losses. WHITE:
I don't think anything can overcome the loss of
Armageddon. However,
they do make some significant gains with Glorious Anthem
and Gerrard's Wisdom.
Wisdom is an older favorite, and will probably
find a home in a deck or two.
Pariah and Worship are also back, an interesting
tandem from Urza's Saga. And, of course, the mighty
Serra finds a home here.
You may find some a sleeper favorite in Sunweb:
six toughness stops the Blastderm, but the five
on the front end kills it.
Even with the huge loss of the mighty 'Geddon,
there's hope yet. BLUE:
this is an interesting situation.
While they didn't lose anything too significant,
they didn't make really huge gains, either.
Mahamoti Djinn, Thieving Magpie, and Force Spike
are the three most playable cards that come to mind,
though Hibernation out of the sideboard is a powerhouse
returned. I
am working on fitting the Magpie into a deck presently,
though it doesn't seem to have an apparent home.
Opportunity is another plausible card, providing
some well-needed card drawing.
The mystery cards here are Opposition and
Temporal Adept; will these cards find decks to make
themselves homes in? RED:
while Hammer made it's way to the Senior tour
(a.k.a. extended), the new Hammer made it's way
in....well, okay, just Volcanic Hammer, and it's not
that fantastic, but it does provide red with another
fairly efficient burn spell to supplement Shock and
Rage. Shivan
Dragon and Wildfire will probably make the cut ahead of
the Hammer, though, providing very powerful questions
for control decks to find answers for. Wildfire jumps in to substitute for Jokulhaups, redefining
yet another genre of recently-discovered decks.
Seismic Assault is a possible surprise here,
though it will take work to fit a triple-red spell into
any deck. With
Storm Cauldron around, it may find a home. BLACK:
the real champ out of the change to 7E.
Duress, Corrupt, Engineered Plague, and Persecute
all can help to rebuild an archetype which has been
dormant for some time.
Mono-black really has powerful enough cards to
make a serious push into the echelon of dominant
archetypes, in my opinion. There are several other cards in black that I feel could make
their presence felt in standard, including Necrologia
and Befoul, though they have lost the Vampiric Tutor,
and the strong hosers Dread of Night and Perish. ARTIFACTS/LANDS:
a few notable mentions.
There are people who are already very serious
about working Static Orb into decks, no matter how many
times it has failed in the past.
Both Coat of Arms and Ensnaring Bridge could
sneak into certain deck and hold their own, though
there's no mechanism to really make the Bridge as
powerful as it had been in the past.
Caltrops and Phyrexian Colossus could be the
surprises here, though my doubts are high for both of
them. The
loss of the sacrifice lands makes it almost unbearably
difficult for Turbo-Haups to survive the transition into
7th.
First impressions, and some ideas for what I will
be doing, as well as the other players around the
country and world.
Take some time and play with
the cards; Nationals and the grinders are lurking
just around the corner, as well as the block-constructed
qualifiers. Take
care, folks! -Jonathan Pechon
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