Mindbreak Blog: A Zendikar Vintage Set Review

Well, that was a good, long break.

For those of you who don’t know, last few month’s hiatus from “Magic to the Nth Degree” was thanks to my getting married.

The Game of Life makes this seem really easy. You just put the little pink peg next to the little blue peg (or vice versa, or as otherwise fits your sexual preference), collect presents, and go.

In real life, though, this took more time than I expected, since it also involved several arts-and-crafts projects (making save-the-date cards and programs), getting to and from the wedding (which was in scenic Springfield, Ohio), and moving into a shared apartment. Not to mention all the sorting, storing, sometimes returning, and thank-you’ing that go along with receiving wedding presents. And the honeymoon! If you ever get the chance to visit Jekyll Island, Georgia, I highly recommend it.

Marriage so far has been great, and I highly recommend that as well.

Not right away, of course—when you and your significant other are ready. You’ve got plenty of time.

One thing to be sure of before you get married is that you’ll still be able to play Magic, of course. Though I didn’t think to get anything in writing beforehand, I do have several verbal agreements from my lovely bride that, under normal circumstances, I will be able to maintain my usual schedule of Magic a couple times a week and several tournaments a year.

For example, did you hear that Columbus is getting another Legacy GP, summer 2010? I am very excited about this. The last Columbus GP, in 2007, was an incredible amount of fun. I had very high hopes going into it, having top-two’d and top-four’d the two Soldiery tournaments leading up to it, but my performance didn’t live up to those expectations. This year I’d like to do better.

Also, I would like to eat at Thurman’s.

My chances of making it to this are higher than usual because, hey, my new wife is from Columbus. She gets to spend the weekend with her family; I get to spend the weekend gaming with my friends. It’s a total win-win, and so is exactly what marriage should be.

Anyway, Vintage.

I had really wanted to write up a Zendikar set review like everyone else, because that’s the cool thing to do when a new set comes out, but I ran out of time. You’ll just have to bear with me as I run through them anyway. In brief: Zendikar has some neat cards! I don’t think any of them will throw Vintage for a loop (i.e. none of them sounds the death knell for Time Vault), but there are plenty that will almost certainly see play between maindecks and sideboards.

Unfortunately for you (and me) the only Zendikar cards I really have any experience with or against are Spell Pierce and Iona, Shield of Emeria.

I guess Mindbreak Trap is somewhere in our testing sideboards, but it hasn’t come up yet. Mindbreak Trap is exciting, especially because it gives some of the slower control decks like Oath and Tezzeret a solid all-round answer for the fastest combo decks like Grim Long and Ad Nauseam. However, since fast combo isn’t really a relevant threat in the current metagame (despite my best efforts), I don’t expect to see the Trap in any significant numbers anytime soon.

Iona Oath, however, is everywhere. It seems any idiot can win with Iona on the table, especially when most opposing decks are significantly blue. Plus, shutting off counterspells allows Oath to combo with impunity on their second Oath by putting their library in the graveyard and recurring Yawgmoth’s Will and Time Vault (or Timetwister or any number of other combo cards) for the win.

(I might have more on this deck later since I’ve been playing against it quite a bit recently. Personally, I don’t think that Oath is a better Time Vault deck than Tezzeret, and I’m not sure that Iona Oath is better than a similarly equipped version of agro Oath).

Handily, the Oath combo is supported very well by Spell Pierce.

Actually, Spell Pierce is the real new tech to come out of Zendikar. Because the Spell Pierce tax is two rather than just one, it’s often effectively a hard counter on non-creature spells through the first two or three turns of the game, and after that you can still catch the random big spell or, ahem, pitch it to Force. Robert Vroman recently said Spell Pierce is better than Mana Drain simply for its being able to win counter battles more efficiently, and he could very well be right.

In Oath, for example, Spell Pierce can back up your namesake spell on turn two with a Mox draw, and you might still have a Force of Will to back up even that. Likewise, Tezzeret can support early tutors and draw spells with Spell Pierce or use it to knock down its opponent’s spells and keep their game in check.

As a Belcher player, I am very afraid of Spell Pierce. My opponent might have Force of Will for my first big threat on turn zero, and then won’t have to dig very far to find a second counter for the next one. Thank goodness for Goblin Welder.

Thank goodness, also, for Sadistic Sacrament. “Sad Sack,” as it’s being called, is a Jester’s Cap and activation rolled into one easy-to-Dark-Ritual-out package. It provides a new, potentially game-ending threat against the most dominant decks in the format, Tezzeret and Oath, since neither one runs more than three cards that win the game pre-board. Tendrils of Agony combo decks like TPS and Ad Nauseam take splash damage, and many Stax decks can be reduced to just Welders with which to win, forcing the game to go significantly longer.

Of course, TPS and Ad Nauseam run Dark Ritual and can use Sad Sack for themselves. Whether that’s better than just winning the game via combo still remains to be seen.

One card that hasn’t shown up in Vintage as much as I expected is Bloodghast. The little recurring vampire was supposed to be an undead godsend for Ichorid, but nobody has been able to quite make the numbers work. You end up adding lands to trigger landfall to a deck that runs better with fewer lands in it. Seems awkward.

Bloodghast also made appearances in theoretical Stax and Mono-Black Aggro and Control decks It hasn’t shown much promise there either, however. Stax would rather have another cheap lock-piece and win on the slow side, and Mono-Black would rather disrupt the opponent than play silly tricks with Bloodghast and Skullclamp.

I still think there’s a chance for Bloodghast, though. Getting free creatures with your land drop seems like a strong play, and it may be that the right mix of Bloodghasts and other cards is out there and hasn’t been found.

Anyway, it’s probably too little, too late, and too unoriginal, but that’s my take on Zendikar. Several of the cards have obvious applications in vintage, a few are already making waves, and the landfall and trap mechanics are exciting enough to make me look forward to the rest of the block. It should be good.

And I waited long enough to write this up that it’s almost here!

As it is, I’m on my way to the Philadelphia Open IV to play a little Vintage today. In fact, I’m crossing into New Jersey riiiight… now. (I know that Philadelphia isn’t in New Jersey, but apparently its Opens are. Whatever).

Hopefully, I’ll be able to write a report on the way back home