The complete M10 spoiler is out. It is time to crunch some numbers and look at the impact on limited. I may even comment on a couple of cards, but given my past history of reviewing cards, I’ll keep that to a minimum. I will throw in at least one new deck.
The Amazing Shrinking Core Set
The overall size of the core set has been reduced. The current core set — Tenth Edition — has 383 cards (including the 20 basic lands.) The new set — M10 — will have 249 cards, including the basic lands. That is a smaller set. So, will that make it easier to get the cards? Not really. Let’s look at the breakdown by rarity.
Tenth Edition:
* Mythic Rares: 0
* Rares: 121
* Uncommons: 121
* Commons: 121
* Basic Lands: 20
M10:
* Mythic Rares: 15
* Rares: 53
* Uncommons: 60
* Commons: 101
* Basic Lands: 20
To get a playset of any given rare in Tenth Edition, approximately 484 booster packs had to be opened. (That’s 121 rares, times 4 per playset, without accounting for foil rares.)
M10, on the other hand, uses a slightly different calculation. Mythic rares appear once every eight packs, so the number of packs that will need to be opened to produce a playset of each card in M10, on average, is 15 * 8 * 4, or 480.
Yup – that is a much smaller set. Of course, to get the playset of Mythics, an almost identical number of boosters will need to be opened. So, if you really want a playset of Baneslayer Angels, your best bet is to buy 14 booster boxes and get cracking.
Yes, yes, I know — cracking packs is bad / foolish / evil. Whatever — the point is that to produce a playset of any give mythic, someone has to open 480 boosters via cracking, or draft, or whatever. Put another way, you should expect to open a given Mythic roughly once every 40 drafts — and after 160 drafts, you will have opened a playset.
The Prevent Your Next Win Deck
I wanted to start off with a look at the wonderful new Blue cards M10 will provide. Here’s a favorite.
Hive Mind – 5U
Enchantment (Rare)
Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery spell, each other player copies that spell. Each of those players may choose new targets for his or her copy.
Yes, Blue got shafted in M10. It looks pretty grim. But Hive Mind might find its way into a fine Emperor deck — the sort that I play once, just to prove that it works, then discard.
I’m Emperor. I have a mainly blue deck, with lots of artifact mana, a few counters and some tutors. I will basically do next to nothing until I get a bunch of mana available, and a couple copies of Sapphire Medallion, to make all my Blue spells cheaper.
I play Hive Mind. Everyone is confused. We roll around to my turn. (Yes, big assumption.)
I play Words of Wisdom (1U, Instant, You draw two cards, then each other player draws a card.) Five copies go on the stack. We all draw 7 cards. (The generally played rules at the store casual nights I frequent uses range of influence only for targeting.)
I play Prosperity for whatever I have left — probably 6 or 7, since I will be able to play a land, and maybe get the benefit of a Medallion or two. Prosperity gets copied five times. Everyone draws a lot of cards.
I play Summoner’s Pact. In response, I play Intervention Pact. I do that several times. I even play a couple copies of Pact of the Titan.
So does everyone else.
They all play their own copies of the Pacts. Then I pass the turn.
During each players’ upkeep, that player will have to pay for the triggers on all the Pacts they cast. It would take a miracle for everyone not to lose during their upkeep.
The biggest risk will be in giving everyone so many cards. My left side pawn will die, and if the opposing pawn and enemy Emperor have enough instant speed burn in hand, they may kill me before the Pact triggers resolve.
The downside is that I can’t really play Pact of Negation or Force of Will in this deck — the Hive Mind would copy those spells and everything will get countered. Worse yet, if people get smart, they might start targeting the all the Pacts of Negation at the same spell, so that the first pact will counter it and all the rest of the Pacts will be countered on resolution. If the Pacts don’t resolve, you don’t have to pay for them during your upkeep. That’s why I play all the bad, non-targeting Pacts.
It’s not a good deck, but I will probably throw it together and play it once, just for fun.
Pure Vanilla Cards
Back in the deep, dark past, Wizards printed a number of cards with nothing in their text boxes but flavor text. Wizards still does — but the number of such cards has dropped significantly in past sets. In M10, however, the vanilla cards are back. Here’s the list.
White: Elite Vanguard, Siege Mastodon, Silvercoat Lion
Blue: Coral Merfolk, Horned Turtle
Black: Zombie Goliath
Red: Canyon Minotaur, Goblin Piker
Green: Centaur Courser, Craw Wurm, Enormous Baloth, Runeclaw Bears
Boring.
Functional and Semi-Functional Reprints
Severed Legion & Dread Warlock
At first I thought this was a straight reprint, with a new and “more flavorful” name. That’s not quite the case. Severed Legion has fear, which means that it can be blocked by black and artifact creatures. Dread Warlock, at least according to the spoiler, can only be blocked by black creatures. That is an interesting change. Does it mean that fear, as a keyword, is dead? Probably not — personally, I suspect it is because Shards block is full of colored artifacts. After all, does it really make sense, from a flavor perspective, that a Court Homunculus should be able to block an undead that can pass by any living being? Whatever. The better-than-fear-fear is an interesting change, but not one that will matter outside Limited. Even making a creature completely unblockable generally isn’t good enough to find a creature a home in Constructed. (I was going to leave out the “generally,” then I remembered seeing Jhessian Infiltrators on some block decklists. So, maybe — but I doubt it.)
Terror is out — and right after Wizards gave people textless Terrors as promos for online loyalty. (Of course, they also gave out textless Fireballs a while ago, which are back in Standard. The foil Incinerates that are supposed to be given out next month, though, bother me.) . Anyway, that’s beside the point.
Doom Blade is the new Terror. It has the same cost — 1B — but it can hit artifact creatures. This change may result from the same things I discussed above — White artifacts, etc. On the flip side, the spell loses the “cannot regenerate” clause. That is not huge in M10 Limited play — the only targetable non-black creature with regeneration in M10 is Cudgel Troll. Of course, the card Regenerate is supposed to survive in M10. That card sucks a tiny bit less with this change. In Constructed — well, I’m trying to remember the last time I played anything for which this would matter. I play Troll Ascetic once in a while, but he is not targetable. I have also played Kathari Remnant in Block, but Terror / Doom Blade are not played in Block [and the Remnant is Black regardless — Craig]. Offhand, I can’t think of anything that might regenerate. (This is your cue, of course, to head for the forums and tell me what I’m missing.)
On a related note — is Wizards trying to make Regeneration good again? For years, all the serious kill spells prevented regeneration, to the point that it became pretty much a limited-only trick. Now, however, we are losing Terror and Wrath of God, and all the replacements simply destroy things. Regeneration might actually make a comeback. Of course, a lot of stuff now removes creatures from the game, so maybe regeneration is still not worth playing.
At first I thought this was just a renaming — same card, same stats, new name — and I wondered why Master Decoy was not good enough. I liked the old card — and I really liked the fact that, if I could somehow find a way to play him in constructed, I could use my old Tempest copies. The Tempest versions had the better art (hey, I like Phil Foglio), and the old frames (which are 1000 times better. The frame changes killed Magic, don’t forget.)
This reprint is not total — something did change. Master Decoy is a Human Soldier. Blinding Mage is a Human Wizard. That change actually makes sense. Master Decoy was a first pick in Ninth Edition drafts. Having the same card, but having it get the benefit of Soldier pumping from some of the other common cards in M10, would make it ridiculous.
Spirit Link & Life Link
Um, sure, whatever. Actually, at first I was going to be worried about changes like this. The main result of changing the name is that I am going to have to get new playsets of all these cards. (Well, not including Life Link, of course. I won’t play that in Constructed . Well — wait a minute. Lifelink no longer triggers, so it effectively says “Enchanted creature deals no damage if unblocked” when you play it on your opponent’s creature. Hmmm. The card is better — maybe a lot better. Have to remember that at the prerelease.)
Orcish Artillery & Goblin Artillery
Same thoughts — but I have a Beta copy of Orcish Artillery. It is already a high pick in Limited, and unplayable in Constructed. Will making it a Goblin — including type Goblin — possibly change that? The new Goblin Lord/Captain could help, but if it does, now I need to get yet another playset of cards that few people will pass in drafts. (In Alara Block, I had a dozen copies of some uncommons before I got my playset of Path to Exiles.) Well — if I play in some sealed events at the prereleases (online, offline and at the release parties), I might see some. Let’s do the math: I get 18 uncommons per event, and there are 60 uncommons. I only have to do 13 such events to get a playset, on average — and less if the events have a top-eight draft.
GPs have Top 8 drafts…
Yes — same card, although if the spoilers are to be believed, it has moved from rare to uncommon. That’s fine. The card, as a rare, was useless. As a uncommon, it might show up often enough that you have to at least think about it. After all, it is not a bad combat trick / removal spell. It certainly isn’t Path to Exile or Condemn, but it isn’t dreadful. Of course, if my opponent taps one White and casts an uncommon — and it is Righteousness — then I will be happy. Happy that it was not Harm’s Way, that is.
Drafting M10
I do a fair amount of drafting online — and Tenth Edition has often been one of the “free” draft formats, so I have done dozens of Xth drafts. In Tenth Edition, blue, and especially UW, was a great archetype. I have won a ton of packs drafting it. That probably won’t change.
Let’s look at the colors. First, though, let’s look at the mana fixing.
That’s it. The rare lands fix mana, a bit, and Green has Rampant Growth, but the set has nothing like the common and uncommon multicolored land and artifact cycles we are used to seeing in the expansions. Good M10 draft decks will be mono- or two-colored, or might have a very small splash. Five color good stuff won’t work.
White is a very good color. It has two common fliers, a couple good defensive ground pounders, and, as always, Pacifism and a good tapper, and a reprint of Neck Snap. It also has a soldiers sub-theme, with two common soldiers that pump other soldiers, including each other. In triple M10 drafts, there will be 2-3 (the math says 2.4) of these in each draft. White also has some good uncommons, and the smaller set size means you should expect that every uncommon will be opened by somebody, sometime during the draft.
Blue got weakened, but still has some fliers, as well as Horned Turtle to hold the ground. It keeps Wind Drake and Snapping Drake. A quick look through my collection shows me that I have well over 50 copies of Wind Drake and the Turtle, and lots of Snapping Drakes. Blue’s air force takes some significant losses, however, with Aven Fisher, Cloud Elemental, and Aven Windreader all leaving. It was much easier to draft a potent air force with four common 2 power and two common 3 power fliers in the format. Sea Monster and Puppeteer are also gone, as is Boomerang. On the plus side, well, there isn’t much. Blue did get a new mill card (U, sorcery, mill 5), but it is not great. Even in triple M10 drafts, the odds of getting enough to win by milling are unlikely. It also got a Pacifism and 3/4 flier, but both die if they get targeted with anything. The only saving grace, if you do open a blue bomb, is that you probably won’t be fighting with too many other blue mages.
Black is pretty nice. It has the new/improved Terror, Tendrils of Corruption and Assassinate as common removal spells, 2 evasive guys (1 flier, 1 with fear) and the traditional regenerator and pump dude. Its main losses are Afflict and Cruel Edict, but it does gain a new card drawing common in Night’s Whisper. Black’s uncommons are decent. The downside of black is that, just like people tended to splash Dark Banishing in Tenth, other color combinations are going to steal black’s best removal (except Tendrils, of course). Mono-black should be strong.
Red is interesting. I will need to play it to see what has really changed. Obviously, Lightning Bolt and Fireball (at uncommon) are da nutz, but other colors might steal and splash them far too often, meaning that even with just two red drafters, you still might not see either card. OTOH, Spitting Earth is now an instant, but still common. That’s an improvement. Bloodrock Cyclops is now a 4/4 for 4R — a mixed blessing, but since the Blue and White common defenders are generally 1/4s, it’s probably better. Slower, but better.
Green has never been a favorite color in core set drafts, and I’m not sure it has gotten any better. It is still remarkably short of evasion and removal, and full of dumb creatures. The difference is that the dumb creatures are BIG. They are also slow, but if the format is slow enough that the big guys can be played, that could be a problem. Terror (new style) and Pacifism will stop a 7/7, but Lightning Bolt and Unsummon are not really answers. I’ve never really liked Green because Green in Tenth was basically a big, dumb club. In M10, it still is, but it is a bigger, scarier club.
The uncommons, in most colors, look pretty decent. Some rares and mythics, however, look like bombs. If Baneslayer Angel is really the way she was spoiled — and not another 4/3 Giant Solifuge — she will be nuts. Okay — I just saw the preview. She’s real. Mythic, but still a bomb. In M10, it appears that the only cards that can kill her are Doom Blade, Divine Verdict, Assassinate, Fireball, the new Spitting Earth, Deathmark, Tendrils of Corruption and Consume Spirit, Royal Assassin, Capricious Efreet (if you get lucky) and Windstorm. A flier or reach dude with enough pump too survive five points of first strike damage could also do it. Actually, making this list makes me think that Baneslayer Angel is not completely broken — just really, really good. There is more removal in the set that it first appeared; so much of it is conditional.
Looking at the cards, I could see pushing for Mono Black and Mono Red, and possibly other colors. Traditional drafting — and even signaling — is back.
As I was completing this part of the article, I decided to try a last Tenth draft. (There were seven people in the queue — tough to resist.) I want to draft something other than UW, but a seventh pick Snapping Drake snapped me back into blue. I ended up UBw, with the black being an early pick Essence Drain, 3 Dusk Imps, an Afflict, a Gravedigger, 2 Severed Legions and a Royal Assassin. The white was for Pacifism, Cloudchaser Aven and Condemn. My round one opponent had a pretty good Grb deck, with multiple Civic Wayfarers, Rampant Growth, a number of smaller beaters, Spined Wurm, several Craw Wurms and Avatar of Might. I crushed him in two straight games. Blue is just too good in Tenth. In the semis, I got steamrolled by another UW deck. He had 4 Aven Windreaders and a Persuasion for my Royal Assassin.
After consideration, and thinking about Tenth draft and sealed, I think M10 Limited may be a pretty good format. Drafts look pretty balanced. On reflection, none of the bombs look as bad as Loxodon Warhammer or Jitte. The colors look a lot more balanced. GP: Boston should be interesting.
This weekend is the prerelease. Go.
PRJ
“one million words” on MTGO and at the Sunday prerelease at Pegasus Games in Madison.