Back to Back in Black: revisiting the set review

So NPH has been out for a while now.  I've got to draft triple NPH a bit and did my first full block draft last night (went 2-1 but had to leave before the last round, by the way).  I figured it was time to go back to my set preview and see how accurate i was when evaluating the black cards of New Phyrexia.  This time i'm going to concentrate solely on limited.

Blind Zealot: As i originally thought, this card is mostly just okay.  I've  never had it do anything except trade so far.  I can see the upside of getting in for two, then sacrificing it to kill a Tyranax or something, but that has yet to happen for me.  Definitely playable but mostly it's just a grey ogre in this artifact block.

Caress of Phyrexia: This appears to be one of the many mega uncommons.  I've only played with it once (and quickly sided it out) and only got one in my booster box.  It's fine against non-infect decks, but mostly i think the cost is too high to be casting it on yourself.  I still think this card is best as a burn spell in poison decks.

Chancellor of the Dross: I faced this down and won twice last night (thanks, Blinding Souleater!).  Still, the leyline effect gives you a nice headstart and without the souleater i would've lost horribly i think.  Yup, a 6/6 flying lifelinker is good - who knew?

Dementia Bat: I've yet to play with or against this card.  I think that tells you all you need to know.  A 2/2 flier for five is barely even filler and the ability is absolutely awful for its cost.  This is a 23rd card if you're reeeeeeeeeally stretching.

Despise: Yeah, as i suspect, this is fine in limited.  Not amazing, but viewed as removal for a black mana, it's pretty solid.  The later the game goes, the worse this card probably gets, but limited is all about creatures and the chances of this card whiffing early on are low.  And just think how good you'll feel when you hit a Karn with it!  (pro tip: don't play this card  for Planeswalker in limited for hopefully obvious reasons).

Dismember: Boy, do i feel stupid right now?  This card has quickly become my favourite in the set.  I still go to the back of the pack first, like anyone, but there are few rares i'd take over this card.  It kills almost everything in the format and i've never been unhappy to pay four life.  Nice Moltensteel Dragon, dude.  Easily the best uncommon in the set and maybe in the format.

Enslave: It's Mind Control in black, costing one more but having a mildly significant bonus.  Play it, maybe even first pick it.  2nd best black uncommon in the set, or close to it.

Entomber Exarch: Gravedigger with an upside is solid.  Not much else to say really.

Evil Presence: Bad - moving on.

Geth's Verdict: As swingy as I expected.  I'd probably always maindeck this unless i somehow had four Dismembers but feel free to side it out against a swamy myr token deck.  You all know how edict cards work.

Glistening Oil: I still don't really get this card.  Is it removal or an alternate win condition?  It's pretty bad at either of them.  I haven't played with it yet either, so maybe i'm missing something, but, having spoken to other people who have played with it, it still seems pointlessly bad.

Grim Affliction: Great removal that gets exponentially better in an infect deck.  Run it, kill stuff, maybe even proliferate yourself to a victory.  It will happen and you or your opponent will sigh.  Or swear, in Eric's case.

Ichor Explosion: I've seen this in draft packs but never seen it played.  I still think it could be fine in a slow deck, but you're probably going to have to sacrifice your biggest guy for this card to do anything.  Ironically, despite being the most expensive wrath, it's probably the closest to the original that we've seen in this block.  There is no cool upside like a horror token and it's symmetrical.  At seven mana, that means that giving your opponent the first chance to rebuild could be very costly.  Against the decks where it's likely to be good (aggro infect) you're probably dead before you cast it anyway if this is your big spell.

Life Finale: I have three of these now but still haven't played with it.  I stand by what I said originally: it's a good upside on a wrath effect but again, six mana wraths don't really help you that much unless you manage to remove their last three creatures with the other half of the card.  Phyrexian Rebirth was great because it left you with a mid-to-huge sized guy.  This leaves you with nothing, and your opponent gets to rebuild first.  Overall playable but be wary.

Mortis Dogs: This is a lot better than i first thought.  With +power equipment on this guy can get insane pretty quickly and i'm happy to run him in any non-infect black deck.  Word of warning though; against infect he's, well... a dog.  Trading your 2/2 for a 4/4 is obviously great but you won't get the up-side because he goes to the graveyard as a 0/-2.  He's not great on defence either.  Solid enough card, but don't value it too highly.

Parasitic Implant: This feels so much like black's version of Quisilver Bonds.  It's decent enough removal.  Slow but with a relevant bonus of making a 1/1.  If you're in a black metalcraft deck, which isn't completely unheard of, this card gets better.  Take it around the middle of pack one and be pretty happy about it.

Phyrexian Obliterator: Mythics are pretty irrelevant in limited so i don't have much to say here.  It probably is playable but don't expect to cast it on turn four very often.

Pith Driller: I'm a bit higher on this guy than i was to begin with.  He's a good blocker and throwing killing an infect creature is never bad.  Yeah, I do wish he had infect, but in the 50/50 decks that are becoming more popular he's still very good.  I originally overlooked the fact that he's an artifact, which means he has an up-side for almost every deck.

Postmortem Lunge: I've had this in my sideboard a few times and never brought it in.  Maybe that's wrong, or maybe it's just because i haven't played any control mirrors yet, but i haven't found a place for it yet.  Reading the card makes me think it's probably fine but i just value removal so much higher than an expensive Unearth effect.  I would probably play this card if i had to.

Praetor's Grasp: Yep, still think this card is pretty poor.  It's sideboard tech against bad decks, but you shouldn't need that anyway.  It gets a little better in the mirror i guess, but there's no way i'm first-picking this card.

Reaper of Sheoldred: This is everything i thought it was.  Excellent card for the infect decks and is still fine in a 50/50 deck.  Decent in non-infect decks too i would say, though i'd rather have a Driller in the five slot.  Somehow that sounds kinda dirty...

Sheoldred, the Whispering one: Won me three matches at the pre-release, i lost the ones where i didn't cast her.  Yeah, she's pretty fucking incredible in limited.  Still, as a mythic she's fairly irrelevant to this article so lets move on.

Surgical Extraction: Ignoring the constructed debate about this card, if you play this in limited you're probably the kind of guy who plays Squadron Hawk in EDH.  It's essentially the same card as Praetor's Grasp 90% of the time.  While triple-NPH is still around this might be sideboard-able since people will have multiples but after that it gets way, way worse.

Toxic Nim: Well, if you untap with this guy still around he's going to cause some pain.  But still, that one toughness for six mana is brutal.  If for some reason i'm dedicated to forcing infect i could see myself picking this guy up in the middle of the pack, but the rest of the time i'd be happy to see him 10th or later.  That probably won't happen, however.

Vault Skirge: After playing with this card a fair bit it's definitely gone up in my estimation.  It's not amazing, but a 1/1 flier on turn one is definitely fine.  With a bit of luck you'll have regained that life by turn three anyway.  Against infect he's pretty much just there to block Plague Stinger, though.

Whisper Specter: The Best Case Scenario for this guy is pretty awesome (Swing on turn four, putting your land-scewed opponent to four counters, make him discard six cards, win the game!).  That's pretty damn unlikely, though.  The average scenario is that this is an expensive Plague Stinger with a mediocre bonus.  The later the game goes the worse this guy gets, just like any discard effect.  How about this for a worst case, which actually happened last night?  Guy swings at me, i don't block, go to five poison with two cards in hand.  He sacs the Specter, i bolt him down to two life with lethal on-board and i discard a mountain, going to six poison.  Swingy.

Hands on with NPH drafting (aka 3xNPH sucks)

So, FNM... travelling from Barnsley to Sheffield can be quite a pain, and more than once i've done so to find out that nobody else bothered.  This is usually on draft night, due to people's dislike for the prize support (i.e. there basically is none).  But this week, ahead of the release, i decided to pop down and play some standard since iw as in Sheffield anyway.

Then half the people left, not wanting to play... seemed like a familiar tale.  And then Rich suggested we just do a draft!  Sweet!  I was just about still in 'gimme new stuff' mode, so playing triple NPH was appealing enough for me to stick around.

I drafted one of my favourite archetypes in any format: shit tons of removal.  As usual, it worked pretty well, as my shiny new Squadron Hawks can attest to (ooooh shiny!).  The format itself is sorely lacking, but it was kinda fun the first time.  The infect pinger continues to impress me, but i guess that's no surprise to anyone.  Dismember is probably my favourite card of the entire set and i learned just how often it's worth paying 4 life for (tip: almost always).  It saved me from a Moltensteel Dragon twice as well as numerous other critters.

Quick plug for Limited Resources: i really think my deckbuilding in limited has improved massively, despite not getting to draft nearly as often as i'd like.  I can only assume the gaps are filled in by listening to that show but i haven't gone worse than 2-1 in a live draft for about 2 months.  I also started drafting online a bit around Christmas, so the practice definitely helped, but monetary constraints mean I can only do that a couple of times a week at most.

So yeah, i won FNM and was feeling pretty good about the proper release day.  Unforunately, timing meant i could only afford to draft once, but, frankly, the prospect of another 3xNPH draft wasn't all that appealing anyway.  Especially after losing to a 5x Glistener Elf and Batterskull deck (i'm looking at you, Rich!).

I drafted a U/B control-ish deck with, again, tons of removal.  I splashed a single plains for Souleater, which is absolutely worth it, i feel.  The only thing remotely resembling a bomb in my deck was Phyrexian Ingester.  I only drew it like three times, though, so it was mostly irrelevant.  For what it’s worth, I thought it was okay but not exciting, and I’d pass it for Dismember any day.

Match one i'm paired against a guy i've never played before.  He seemed to know what he was talking about when helping someone who I assume is his girlfriend and he played pretty solidly.  Fortunately i just had the removal for almost every threat he played.  Porcelain Legionnaire is awesome, but Grim Affliction isn't impressed.  I don't remember much else about our match except to say that I won 2-0.

Match two was against Russell.  I don’t really like playing against him because he’s the guy who always had the bad beat story, even if he’s won.  “Oh if I could survive two more turns… (insert unrealistic scenario).”  Just build a better deck that doesn’t need those two turns?

Anyway, he was playing some kind of bizarre black/white control deck with Norn’s Annex.  Yeah, that card is not good in control decks at all.  Granted, he had two Shrine of Burning Rage, which killed me from 17 life in game two, but obviously I just paid the life (or the white mana when I was lucky enough to draw a plains in game one) whenever I had a guy who could race it.  His deck seemed to have practically zero creatures, so the race was always in my favour, especially given my removal suite.  After losing to the Shrines, I was struggling to hold my tilt, and when he went turn 2 Shrine, turn 3 Shrine for the second game in a row, I think I probably sighed… who wouldn’t, though?

Fortunately, I just had too many guys for him to deal with.  He got the Shrines up to something like seven and eight counters, but I made him pop them on a golem token and something else.  I pretty much crushed him from there, ending the game on 18 life.  Vault Skirge was kinda funny sideboard tech, by the way.

Game three I was dreading before it started.  Rich had a foil Batterskull (from the same pack as a non-foil copy… yup, really), which was depressing enough.  He also had five (there could’ve been more, but I saw five) Glistner Elf.  In game three he cast all five of them before I’d manage to untap with a single creature.  I was on nine poison counters for about six turns before he finally finished me off.  Considering that I never drew my Souleater in all three games and had literally zero artefact removal, I was pretty happy to just lose 2-1.

All-in-all I felt myself longing to play the proper draft format.  Enslave was excellent, but I found myself longing for some decent artifact hate.  I would’ve gladly splashed for a Revoke Existence to go with the Souleater.  I was glad I never played against that stupid Infect overrun though.  I’ve still yet to play with or against it and I’m not looking forward to the latter.

NPH pre-release. Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

Ah, sealed, what an irritating luck-fest.  Still, i just can't resist it, and especially the pre-release.  New cards a free shiny thing and the slim chance of opening bombs/money rares apparently outshine the more real chance of opening a mediocre or worse pool.

When i watched Tom open a Sword of War and Peace (i knew i should've sat in that seat) i should've known how my day would go.  The one mythic i opened in my pool was basically my only bomb, but it was a pretty good one.  Sheoldred, the Whispering One might be practically worthless anywhere outside of Sealed, but christ, it's good there.  I'm not exaggerating when i say that i cast it six times yesterday and i won those six games.  The other five i lost (for my fellow maths noobs, my record was 3-2 overall).

Still, my most awesome moment of the day came thanks to Necrotic Ooze.  I've played with this card in EDH and never really had it do anything.  But in my game three of my third match yesterday he was a beast.  He had infect from Vector Asp, firebreathing from Ogre Menial and Immolating Souleater (both in my colours, i was BRg) as well as the ping ability from Fallen Ferromancer.  Yeah, that one wasn't even close.  Ferromancer is crazy good, by the way - haivng two of those in my pool really helped me stall for Sheoldred.

I could've easily been 4-1, but i mis-played against Mike.  I was in a pretty good-looking board position so i was sandbagging lands, since i had upwards of eigh in play already.  Unforunately, i kinda forgot about the Tower of Calamties in my hand, and was pretty annoyed when he cast Tainted Strike on some random dude, i forget which one.  I hate infect as a mechanic, but that was totally avoidable.  My other loss earlier in the day also came against infect.  In fact, looking back, every single deck i played was infect-based apart from Patrick's, which i kinda raped by casting Sheoldred in both games.

In summary: sealed is still a horrible format, but if you open a bomb like Sheoldred, build around it and stall out until she takes over the game.  Just untapping once with her means the game is almost un-loseable.  Your opponent will have sacrificed a chump blocker and you'll have one of your stalling guys back.  Not to mention the awesomeness of swampwalk on a 6/6 when most decks are playing black to some extent.

Oh, and i guess as the author of a blog whose url is monoblackcontrol, i should probably be happy that my all-star card was black, right?  Still, couldn't it have been an Obliterator? :(

New Phrexia: Back in Black

Set reviews are pretty common on these here intrawebz.  So, rather than bore you all with another long-winded take on why Karn is probably unplayable and Mental Misstep will change the face of legacy, i figure i'd live up to the blog's name and take a look at the black cards only.  I'll mostly be looking at standard, since it's what most people care about, but i'll also consider limited.

Blind Zealot: This card seems pretty awesome in a black aggro draft deck.  The problem is that in MSS, that generally means Infect but maybe there are the tools to change that in the new format.  I'm not convinced, but this still seems like a solid draft pick in the middle of the pack.  In terms of standard, this seems like a worse Gatekeeper, with a decent upside of being unblockable by some/most decks.  A semi-unblockable 2/2 for 3 might be good with some recursion, but it probably doesn't do enough on its own.

Caress of Phyrexia: Pretty close to being Strictly Worse than Sign in Blood. One more card for far more than double the cost.  Card advantage/draw is great, but the price is far too high here, and is probably worse in draft that it is in standard, due to prominence of Infect.

Chancellor of the Dross: This seems pretty hillarious in something like EDH if you get it in your opener.  In standard it's far too expensive for a french vanilla 6/6 flier.  In draft it's obviously pretty solid, especially if the slowdown we saw in MSS continues into MSN (so is this what Wizards refers to when they talk about the new Magic Online?  MSN?  Rumbled!).  There are better bombs to first pick from this set, and the decent leyline effect is negated by having a seven mana card in your opening hand, but a 6/6 lifelink flier is hard to pass P1P1.

Dementia Bat: I guess i should leave the puns to LSV, but you really would have to be demented to play this in anything but limited.  Even there it's filler at best.  Nine mana for a Mind Rot on a 'meh' body?  I really hope i never have to run this.

Despise: Sweet; Inquisition for Walkers and Creatures.  This seems like an absolute auto-include in any black decks.  Maybe not a four-of, since Inquisition is better against low curve/no walker decks but you'll probably want four between the main and the side.  For black players this might be the most important card of the set.  As for limited, since it hits creatures this might actually be playable, which is rare for a duress effect.  I wouldn't try and take it early, but i'd be happy to wheel one.

Dismember: I'm not as excited as everyone else about this card.  For black players the extra -1/-1 isn't much better than Grasp since there aren't many five toughness threats played in standard right now.  For other colours, well... is killing a Thrun worth four life?  Is killing a Titan worth 2-for-1-ing yourself AND taking four damage anyway (possibly seven if it's an Inferno)?  In limited this card will be excellent but i still expect to see it mostly in black decks.  Like all the Phyrexian mana cards, though, it gets better against Infect.

Enslave: Cool, Mind Control in black.  Like any MC effect, this is obviously solid in limited, but will probably see zero standard play.  The cost is high, and black has much better ways to deal with creatures.  Looking forward to seeing someone cast this on a Vatmother and hopefully in a deck with Caress of Phyrexia.

Entomber Exarch: Gravediggers are generally playable in limited, and this one has some versatility to boot.  Granted, i can't see the second clause being used often, there are always corner cases (maybe you have an empty graveyard).  In standard this will be the same as every Gravedigger, unless someone needs an alternate win condition for their Megrim (Liliana's Caress, whatever) deck...

Evil Presence: Urborg for extreme budget EDH players?  Yeah, this is unplayable everywhere.

Geth's Verdict: I tend to overvalue cards that make your opponent sac creatures, but this one seems pretty legitimate.  In standard there aren't enough decks where shroud is relevant enough for this to be good, but in draft this could be okay.  The loss of life is a vaguely relevant upside with Phyrexian mana around, but be aware of the downsides in a format where expendable creatures abound.

Glistening Oil: Tainted Strike is somewhat playable in MSS as a finisher in a deck that couldn’t quite get the critical mass of Infect creatures.  This card is closer to Phyresis, which was never playable in any format.  The built-in recursion is nice but mentioning this in the same sentence as Rancor seems laughable, and so is any deck that plays this.

Grim Affliction: This seems okay in Limited, where it goes into basically any deck thanks to the abundance of one toughness creatures.  It’s marginally better in an infect deck, of course, but I’d rather have almost any other black removal spell.  As for standard – no.

Ichor Explosion: If you’re looking for a wrath effect in black in standard, clearly this is not the card you want.  Even in limited, seven mana is a lot for a conditional card that kills your stuff as well.  This kind of card is the downside of drafting the last set first because in pack three you will have a better idea of whether your deck wants this card or not.  Expect to wheel this in a decent pack with good players.

Life’s Finale: This seems like a pretty huge blowout in limited.  Wrathing for six with an upside has proven to be good already in this format thanks to Phyrexian Rebirth.  In certain board states this is probably even better.  Removing all villain’s on-board threats AND three that haven’t been cast yet seems insanely good.  In standard this is probably too slow, and there are better things to do with six mana nowadays, if you hadn’t noticed.

Mortis Dogs: This seems like pure limited filler.  You should get it late in the pack, which is nice, and I expect to see at least one case of a killing his own Dogs to drain the last few points in a stalemate.

Parasitic Implant: Clunky removal and even clunkier combos with a card like Mortis Dogs above does not make a good card.  Run this if you’re light on removal but you don’t need to pick it high like you do with good removal.

Phyrexian Obliterator: Wellllllll… is it good enough to bring back our beloved control deck?  On its own, probably not, I’m afraid.  There are other tools, but this card alone won’t make or break a deck.  That said, it is good, and it can only be played in mono black for obvious reasons.  Being a 5/5 on turn four is obviously great, but in a world of titans, ‘dies to removal’ is huge.  This leaves nothing behind after being ‘Throated’ but if it sticks around for a turn or two it will warp the game around it.  Even dying to a Titan is probably beneficial for you since sacrificing six permanents is back-breaking.  In draft you’ll probably windmill slam this for value, and then try desperately to draft mono black.  In standard, as much as I want this card to be amazing, I really can’t say how good it is yet.  Then again, if it isn’t tier one, I can at least get them a little cheaper #banmythics

Pith Driller: This seems reasonable but not great.  If it had infect this would be awesome, but without it… meh, killing a Myr on turns four-through-five is not very exciting, neither is a 2/4 body.  Less Driller Killer and more Filler Driller.

Postmortem Lunge: This seems like a sometimes better/sometimes worse take on last set’s Morbid Plunder.  It’s better if you’re getting back an evasive guy but getting back anything else for this cost is not really worth it.  Moreso than most reanimate effects, this one really scales with the quality of your creatures and is probably not first pickable in draft.

Praetor’s Grasp:  I hate using smilies in any article, but… what the heck o_O  This card seems awful.  Maybe I’m missing something, but even out of the board in game two in limited, this does almost nothing.  I guess if your opponent’s deck has just one win condition… you’re probably going to win anyway because they don’t know how to build a draft deck.  I expect Tom to open at least six of these in his packs over the next year or so.

Reaper of Sheoldred: First-pickable in a weak pack, this card seems pretty solid to me.  Obviously it’s not constructed-viable but in limited this is an awesome reach card for the infect deck.  Even as a blocker it has inevitability and as an attacker it’s always getting in for one unless they have removal.

Sheoldred, the Whispering One: In limited this is the windmill slam for black in this set.  This is what you get for seven mana, and it’s definitely worth it.  In standard is loses to Titans and will probably never see play unless mono black becomes a deck, since it’s pretty sick in the mirror.  Personally though, I’m eyeing up a black EDH deck.

Surgical Extraction: Seems like all of the contentious cards from this set are in black.  I’ll just go with Alexander Shearer’s article from last week: “How to Waste two Life at Instant Speed.”  There’s not much more to add; this card is bad.

Toxic Nim: Bleh, I’m not a fan of infect, and this just seems overpriced to me.  Regenerate for one black seems good but even in limited there are better things to do with six mana.  Left alone, this is going to eat through the opponent’s board pretty quickly, but it dies to EVERYTHING and is a liability in the infect mirror: Tap six, play Toxic Nim, say go. Opponent casts Virulent Wound, timewalks you.

Vault Skirge: Cute design, right?  You pay two life to get it in play in an off-colour deck, then it gets the life back… eventually.  The art is cool, the frame is sweet, the card, however, is awful.  With infect, this would be a strict upgrade from Plague Stinger, without infect it’s close to strictly worse.

Whisper Specter: I exspecter (sorry…) this to be 15^th pick on a regular basis.  Specters are very hit and miss, but this is definitely the latter.  Three mana for a 1/1 that only makes villain discard if you sacrifice it?  Awful.