Maze’s End – MTG Throwback Thursday (2013)

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Everything sounds bad if you explain it. Maze’s End, for example, is a land – thus uncounterable and hard to interact with – with an activated ability that can make you win the game on the spot. Of course, it requires your deck to play somewhere in the vicinity of twenty lands that come into play tapped, and somehow survive to activate it at least once and usually more than once, and have most of the deck dedicated to keeping you alive in some way. That’s actually quite fun in casual settings, where it can occupy the niche that hard control decks do in competitive without being overbearing. Nowadays it can also be a one-of alternate plan in other Gate-heavy decks, like the Gatebreaker Ram / Gate Colossus midrange that’s popular on Arena, although with those in your deck I can’t imagine you would need the Maze (or vice versa). 

Constructed: 1/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 2/5
Mutiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

And now we have one of the iconic cards of the otherwise dire Dragon’s Maze, Maze’s End. Any alt-win con card is promising to try and build around, and this one is no exception…you can win just by playing the game. And given enough time, you can get there! Maze’s End is a slow way to win and payoff for Gates.dec, but there’s no denying that it’s very slow to get there and takes an extra turn to pop each turn. The deck can work, but it’s definitely a casual star, since you need a lot of time to get the various guildgates assembled (either through Maze’s End or through Gate support cards). It presents an interesting puzzle to try and solve, but don’t come to FNM with this deck ready to roll. It won’t end well.

Constructed: 1.75
Casual: 4
Limited: 2
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander: 3.75