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If you've never seen it, Teferi's Veil is one of the worst of the rares in Weatherlight, a set that abounded in bad rares. I first started playing right when Weatherlight came out, and one of the first rares I got that people didn't immediately snatch up was Teferi's Veil. Of course, it seemed really bad even to a novice like me, so that might have explained it. After Tempest came out (and I had had phasing explained to me several times), I thought the card had potential and I set out to break it.
Eight years later, Teferi's Veil is one of the cards that gets me killed in multiplayer just for casting it. People fear the Veil, and rightly so. It lets me phase out creatures that nature never intended to phase and it saves my attackers from removal.
Without further ado, here is the list for the current incarnation of my Veil deck:
Veilhaups
3 Fog Elemental
4 Thalakos Seer
2 Soulgorger Orgg
4 Merfolk Looter
3 Waterfront Bouncer
3 Kris Mage
4 Teferi's Veil
4 Jokulhaups
4 Obsessive Search
2 Fervor
3 Fire / Ice
2 Fiery Temper
13 Island
9 Mountain
This deck takes advantage of two of the unique properties of phasing, and one of the unique properties of the Veil.
- Phasing triggers "leaves play" effects but not "comes into play" effects.
- This makes Soulgorger Orgg into the best fattie in red. He will eat your life - but if you attack right away (courtesy of Fervor), he gives it back. And this is the crazy part: He remembers what he took when he phases back in. Common plays will be "Soulgorger for fifteen, attack. Back to sixteen. Next turn, do it again. Go to thirty-one."
- This also helps Thalakos Seer, who now acts as a super-Ophidian that hits for a point of damage every turn and draws you a card.
Creatures in the phased-out zone are not in play and are not affected by things that only affect creatures in play. This is crucial to your strategy. A large portion of your ability to make the Veil broken is the ability to generate a non-symmetrical Jokulhaups. Often you will all-out attack with your dorky men into a superior force just so two of them will survive the coming apocalypse. Jokulhaups also leaves your Teferi's Veil behind, since it doesn't touch enchantments, so your Thalakos Seers will continue to generate card advantage.
If you have two "at end of combat" triggers you control, you choose what order they go on the stack. Fog Elemental seems really dumb until you realize this. Once you figure out that you can stack the Veil and the sacrifice so the Elemental survives combat, a flying 4/4 for three that is immune to sorcery-speed removal doesn't seem so bad now, does it?
Cards That Didn't Make The Cut
Spellgorger Barbarian
He seems like Thalakos Seers 5-8, which I always wanted for this deck. But he never survives combat once Veil is out, so no good.
The Viashino creatures/Ball Lightning
I tried them in the Fog Elemental slots, I tried them in the spellshaper slots. They were cool, but not cool enough. Just like the Spellgorger, they never survived combat.
Saprazzan Outrigger/Phantom Whelp/Windscouter
Not undercosted enough to make them worth Veil tricks.
Obliterate
Too much mana. I love the uncounterability, but you have a hard enough time amassing six mana, let alone eight.
Overtaker
Whatever you are thinking, this does not work. When a temporarily-controlled creature phases out, it phases back in under its owner's control.
Wormfang Manta
Same problem as Obliterate and all the other unused creatures; it costs too much and does not survive combat.
Grim Lavamancer
I actually have him in my deck instead of the Kris Mages. He does very well; in fact he wins me more games than any other card. Most people don't have them, though, and they certainly wouldn't trade them if they knew you were going to build a deck like this.
In conclusion, any deckbuilder who uses Soulgorger Orgg as a combo piece should be checked for brain damage.
Until next time,
Rob McKenzie
