Back in Black

[Rocks out.]

"Nine lives! Cat's eyes!"

[Stops a-rockin.]

Ah, finally!

Today was the first day since the tournament in Dayton that I played actual Magic with physical cards. And about time too! I was having withdrawal.

Seriously.

Are you telling me I’m the only one?

I didn’t think so.

Yeah, so anyway, Jeff and I played against each other tonight. I played UB Fish and a fairly janky Workshop Aggro using most of the cards that didn’t get put into Fish. What this means is that, even though blue is one of the major components of the deck, I didn’t get to use Ancestral Recall, Mox Sapphire, or Time Walk. I’m not saying that would have made the deck better, but it sure would have been nice to see that Sapphire rather than Pearl a couple of times. Oh well.

It was the first time I’d used Thirst for Knowledge in a deck, and I have to say, it’s pretty good. I’m pretty sure the only reason it’s that good is because it says “Instant” between the illustration and the text box. TfK is like Gifts Ungiven and Fact or Fiction had a baby, which in turn had a baby with Impulse and peed on it. I know my rating scale’s a little screwy, but that’s pretty good. You get to draw two cards and put stuff into that bigger, slightly less accessible hand called the graveyard. Broken!

Ah, if only I’d drawn more early Welders.

I’m sure TfK isn’t stellar, good, or even appropriate in every deck, but I think it’s pretty good. I could even play it in my Fish build if I so chose, I think. I have four Aether Vials, four Chalices of the Void, two moxes and two Jittes. That’s twelve cards, which is almost a quarter of the deck by the time I can play the card, which means that the Thirst should give me the option of discarding an artifact three out of every four times, which is decent.

Okay, it would be a lot better if I could get the discarded artifacts back somehow, but, eh. Digging three cards deep is still pretty good.

Of course, everybody knows that the color blue is, well, it’s pretty good in Vintage. I mean, you get access to the best cards every printed that don’t start with Yawgmoth’s: Mana Drain, Force of Will, Brainstorm, and the restricted gang.

No, the color that continually impresses me is black.

Even though all of black’s tutors, even Demonic Consultation, find homes in Vintage decks, and Yawgmoth’s Will shows up in almost every deck that can support it, and those cards that draw cards per life do lots of cool things for a lot of cool people, black does a lot of powerful things that get largely ignored.

For one thing, there’s Darkblast. I mean, I realize that Welder decks work without Welder. I mean, even if you can’t cheat mana costs by exchanging a cheap artifact in play with an expensive one in the graveyard, you can still ramp up to eight mana and throw down Sundering Titan like you mean business. Killing Welder every turn it enters play at instant speed for one black mana is awesome, though, quite a hindrance.

Goblin Welder is a blight on the landscape and has to be destroyed. Every time. So does Dark Confidant, which has been getting more and more popular with every tournament lately.

Even creatures with two toughness can be Darkblasted. Hit them once during your upkeep, dredge, and hit them again for the kill. More than half of the creatures in Magic have a toughness of two or less, and a lot of them are used in Vintage because cheaper is better and smaller creatures are cheaper. Basically, Darkblast kills non-artifact Vintage creatures that aren’t brought into play by a green enchantment.

Plus, if you’re using Welder or other graveyard based strategies, Darkblast puts good stuff in your graveyard. What a house!

Why isn’t Darkblast used more?

The other thing black does really well is eat graveyards. Withered Wretch, Carrion Beetles, Carrion Rats, Crypt Creeper all do similar things. They take problem cards out of the graveyard and they attack for an efficient amount of damage. Withered Wretch is especially good at this since it gets to remove multiple, selected cards every turn and still attacks for two. Good stuff. It costs double black, but that’s okay since it you’ll be playing more black anyway to support multiple tutors, Yawgmoth’s Win, and Darkblast too.

Tormod’s crypt is really good and can be used by any deck, of course, but black eats graveyards repeatedly. Planar Void and Leyline of the Void keep cards out of your opponent’s graveyard. Once they come down, no new cards to get Welded in or out and no new cards to get Willed or Recouped. That’s two major strategies kept down.

Try Withered Wretch, Planar Void or Leyline of the Void in your next deck.

Lastly, black accelerates almost as well as artifacts. Combo players have known this for a long time, but other players seem to ignore that. Anything with black mana or a colorless mana symbol higher than three is better with Dark Ritual, and I think that gets forgotten. Plus, it improves your Yawgmoth’s Wills in much the same way that Black Lotus or dead moxes do; it’s essentially free mana.

Artifact decks that use Dark Ritual can cast so many different threats on turn one. These threats should probably be actual threats like a Juggernaut or a Metalworker rather than part of a prison since the accelerations Ritual provides isn’t a permanent source, but a first turn Juggernaut is nothing to sneeze at. (It’s something to Lightning Bolt, but nobody plays that in Vintage either).

Plus, if Elvish Spirit Guide has a Rakdos equivalent coming up in Dissension, oh man. It could be responsible for getting cards restricted, even if the card itself isn't restriction worthy. It may also be for this possibility alone that I will be attending the Dissension prerelease.

Oh. Broken. Cracked in half.

Anyway, I think that with the advent of Friggorid in Vintage, the face of the game will change. Control decks will have to maindeck graveyard hate. They’ll have to. Why run an answer to aggro, like Ensnaring Bridge or Caltrops, when you can remove their aggro from the game every turn, make your next opponent’s Goblin Welder nonfunctional in your next match, and reduce the effectiveness of your third opponent’s Gifts Ungiven?

Trust me.

Tormod’s Crypt, either Void, and Withered Wretch will start showing up more and more in the top ranks of tournaments. Then, as the cycle goes, Ichorid will die down, so they’ll stop being hated, so they’ll come back, and by that time something new will come along and shake up the scene again.

So it goes.

Pooteeweet.