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Woo hoo! Time for a new set! That means for the next couple weeks all you’re going to be reading is new set reviews, new set expectations, and rough-looking decklists forcing the use of new cards because they’re new and exciting. I’m quite pleased with how M10 has turned out and how R&D went about cleaning up the rules. Seriously, if one more person writes/talks/thinks about how sad it is that Mogg Fanatic is reduced in value, I’m going to stick a skewer in someone’s scalp.

NEWSFLASH! We can’t play with Mogg Fanatic in Standard anymore, and now it’s clearly not good enough to make the cut in Extended Zoo decks either. So stop using him as a reference point. You know who you are…

I expected to see some more bombastic reprints after starting out with the Lightning bro’s, but that hypothesis has fallen flat except for the upgrade Crusade (Honor of the Pure), and, of course Haunting Echoes.

Funny story on that, actually. My fellow SA-town representative and play test partner Eddie Solis, who won 2002 JSS, received the original artwork of Haunting Echoes in a sick-looking frame as an additional prize for winning. After a year or two of putting it up for sale, no one wanted it… so he just gave it to the card shop in exchange for a draft set. That piece should be worth a pretty penny with the return of Echoes, and I can’t wait to show him an M10 Haunting Echoes to rub it in his face.

Awhile back, Chapin wrote about how he goes through and makes a list of all the playable cards in each new set. Well, for every set since, I’ve made it my own practice to approach things that way, and you should too. It’s a great way to not only become acclimatized to the new cards, but you’ll also start to see trends emerge that you can abuse within the popular cards being played. Much the same way this guy included Treetop Bracers and Gilt-Leaf Ambush in his main deck to have an edge in combat for the midrange mirrors, which propelled him to a Top 16 finish this past weekend at the StarCityGames.com Minnesota $5000 Standard Open.

So here’s my M10 list using spoiled cards from MTGSalvation.com divided into staples and potentials. Ctrl + T a new tab and follow along. At the time of writing, the set is 239/249 complete, missing 10 Green cards.

White

Staples (7)
Ajani Goldmane
Captain of the Watch
Celestial Purge
Elite Vanguard
Harm’s Way
Honor of the Pure
Planar Cleansing

This is a pretty good crop of powerful spells for White to play with. Kithkin finally have a suitable contender for best White Weenie crew, and they even have the tricks to follow through. Harm’s Way is the most beautiful one-White-mana Instant I’ve ever seen*. Honor of the Pure replaces Glorious Anthem well, completely murdering BW Tokens and Boat Brew, putting Kithkin in a very potent position with a leaner curve than Soldiers. And Cloudgoat Ranger is still better than Captain of the Watch in my opinion, the Flying is much too relevant as a last ditch finisher.

I’m still unsure on how Planar Cleansing is going to fit in. The six mana Wraths have traditionally been our Wrath #5-6, meaning the White control decks are going to have to do a little bit more in the early game to stop early bleeding since the opponents get two more attack phases before we bounce back.

Celestial Purge is just a removal spell, but it’s one of the best sideboard options for any White deck, similar to how Blue decks often upgrade their counters to Flashfreeze.

Potentials (14)
Baneslayer Angel
Lightwielder Paladin
Indestructibility
Mesa Enchantress
Open the Vaults
Rhox Pikemaster
Safe Passage
Silence
Solemn Offering
Soul Warden
Tempest of Light
Veteran Armorsmith
Veteran Swordsmith
White Knight

Most of the cards in the Potentials section need something to go right before they see immediate play. I don’t think Baneslayer Angel is all that hot; we’re used to getting more resiliency and power for similar mana with Cloudgoat Ranger, Siege-Gang Commander, Broodmate Dragon, and now Captain of the Watch, and I just don’t see her making a powerful impact. Mesa Enchantress and Open the Vaults pair for a decent card draw engine that can be protected by Burrenton Forge-Tender, or possibly splash Black for the numerous discard spells.

Silence is another card I’d have to play with to decide how good it will be. It’s very good against the super proactive decks like Tokens or Kithkin where it acts as a critical Time Walk to squeeze extra damage, and it doesn’t hurt so bad because they are usually low on Instants to make use of their mana. It could also be a combo enabler to get through countermagic while also being essentially a Time Warp to dig to whatever combo. Both of those situations are pretty marginal though, but for one mana curving one-drop into two-drop into two-drop plus Silence puts the opponent very far behind in some matchups, so maybe there’s something there.

Armorsmith and Swordsmith are pretty bad, but if there is a Solider deck they will no doubt see play in it. There are abundant ways to give your creatures bigger brawn and butts at the same time, and these guys only granting half is pretty weak, but I suppose we could just be a little greedy since Standard standards have recently been so high.

Blue

Staples (8)
Essence Scatter
Flashfreeze
Jace Beleren
Merfolk Sovereign
Mind Control
Mind Spring
Negate
Ponder

These are just the same old tricks Blue’s always had. Nothing too special here except Merfolk Sovereign, who might be able to raise Merfolk back into the limelight if there’s a good deck that somehow stomps White and Red aggro, but loses to the countermagic Merfolk potentially offers. Otherwise they are still an underpowered tribe that has fewer Glorious Anthems than most opponents, and a slower curve.

Potentials (11)
Cancel
Djinn of Wishes
Fabricate
Merfolk Looter
Polymorph
Sleep
Time Warp
Tome Scour
Traumatize
Twincast
Unsummon

Again, Blue didn’t add any new dimensions to its game, and is swimming in an average pool right now. Polymorph has been associating with Darksteel Colossus before, but now it has a better big dude in Progenitus so maybe there’s something there. Sleep could be cool in that Merfolk deck I talked about earlier… and, uh, that’s about it. Maybe Time Warp will see play? I doubt it, and there aren’t very many enticing artifacts to Fabricate for. Djinn of Wishes was real fun to play with in Type 4 on Sunday night. I did some pretty nutty stuff with it, like sneak it into play with Winding Canyons and Quicksilver Amulet. I got to put a Memnarch and Bosh in play for free, which enabled me to kill three of the six players by hurling artifacts at their faces. But I don’t see such things happening in Standard. A great way to sneak Progenitus into play in combination with Liliana Vess though…

I feel bad about putting Tome Scour and Traumatize on here.

Black

Staples (7)
Cemetery Reaper
Deathmark
Doom Blade
Duress
Haunting Echoes
Hypnotic Specter
Liliana Vess

Duress and Haunting Echoes… Christmas in the middle of Summer for those dark-hearted mages. Even the fan favorite Black Knight to bring the beats, alongside an interesting Night’s Whisper variant. So now we have Duress, Thoughtseize, Blightning, and Haunting Echoes. A dedicated discard deck is extremely possible; however, it will need to find a way to handle mass amounts of creatures besides jumping on their hand early. Haunting Echoes makes it possible to overload on the cheap and efficient discard spells because you have a way to really cripple whatever your playing against, as opposed to in the past when it was rough playing the 4 Duress 4 Cabal Therapy because late-game draws become flooded with useless cards that are aimed toward the early game.

Potentials (7)
Black Knight
Consume Spirit
Megrim
Mind Shatter
Sign in Blood
Tendrils of Corruption
Diabolic Tutor

Sign in Blood could be great for those Suicide Black decks that will likely be running around looking to capitalize on their newfound discard utilities. Tendrils of Corruption doesn’t have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth this time around, so who knows what kind of impact it will have? There will always be people trying the Mono-Black Control route so I wouldn’t take it off my radar as a game-changing trick against Swamps. Megrim could also capitalize on the sick discard suites available; making Blightning five damage and Esper Charm four is pretty cool. Black Knight and Stillmoon Cavalier are also much better against the Mono-White Kithkin and Soldier decks since they probably won’t be playing White Knight.

Red

Staples (5)
Ball Lightning
Earthquake
Goblin Chieftain
Lightning Bolt
Siege Gang Commander

When I started playing in 1999, I traded some guy for a fourth edition Earthquake that had a dot in the bottom right corner because he told me Ben Rubin made it after finishing second at Worlds with his Red burn deck. I didn’t know who Ben Rubin was, the Red deck he was talking about, or even have a deck to put Earthquake in, but it was a brilliant selling point which forced the trade. This story just prompted me to check Ben’s decklist via his Hall of Fame page, and I’m just disgusted that he wasn’t even playing Earthquake. It’s still a decent story though. It’s still one of the few cards that I actually own**, but I think I’m gonna take it home and burn it in a trash can.

Potentials (7)
Act of Treason
Bogardan Hellkite
Chandra Nalaar
Ignite Disorder
Jackal Familiar
Mana Barbs
Pyroclasm

Mana Barbs being back is pretty exciting, and I’ve always been a big Barbs fan. Bogardan Hellkite coming back is equally interesting, but I’m not sure he can compete in the fierce midrange and aggro environment we are entering without Wrath of God. He was previously used in control and combo decks, and those will be scarce considering the broad range of hard to handle early threats that are available.

Jackal Familiar sucks. He won’t see play, but I’m sure some Redhead in the forums would start some sh** because I left his 2/2 for R weak Jackal Pup impersonator out of my article.

Green

Staples (9)
Acidic Slime
Birds of Paradise
Elvish Archdruid
Garruk Wildspeaker
Llanowar Elves
Naturalize
Nature’s Spiral
Overrun
Rampant Growth

There are still 10 Green cards left to be spoiled at the time of writing, so this list is sure to change, but Green already has more Staples that all the other colors. Acidic Slime, like Chapin mentioned, is a really neat and versatile weapon for Green to have. Elvish Archdruid is pretty insane. I could never in my wildest Elvish epiphany imagine an offspring of Priest of Titania and Elvish Champion. But hey, he’s the Champ, which means he gets to pick his Elves of choice, and few are finer that the Urza’s Saga hottie that makes mana from bodies.

I was really hoping they would reprint Eternal Witness, but with Nature’s Spiral already spoiled I guess I’ll have to wait and hope when we’re drooling over M11.

Potentials (5)
Awakener Druid
Elvish Visionary
Elvish Piper
Great Sable Stag
Kalonian Behemoth
Might of Oaks

Awakener Druid is one of my favorite Green creatures. It’s really a four-drop, but as we all know four-drops are really three-drops in Green decks, so its mana cost is somewhat deceptive. The Druid has an eloquent design. It’s really a 4/5 Haste guy in the right deck, but one that is a bit more vulnerable to removal spells than a 4/5 would normally be. If they kill the Druid it turns back into a land, but it definitely has potential to see play. Kalonian Behemoth isn’t very strong for seven mana, but a 9/9 Shroud is fairly imposing against certain decks, and there are a variety of ways to sneak fat Green dudes in play. Great Sable Stag honestly isn’t that impressive to me. Obviously awesome opposite Faeries, but otherwise it’s pretty mediocre and not sizable enough to be taken seriously.

Artifacts

Staples
Coat of Arms
Pithing Needle

Nothing new here. Coat of Arms in Soldiers is hot.

Potentials
Darksteel Colossus
Howling Mine
Magebane Armor
Platinum Angel
Whispersilk Cloak

Magebane Armor and Whispersilk Cloak are a stretch, but I feel the need to buff the Artifact section a bit due to Esper being around. Speaking of, Master Transmuter into Darksteel Colossus ain’t too shabby. Although if I’m going to the effort of putting a big dude in play that ends the game, Progenitus is more reliable than Colossus.

Lands

Staples
Dragonskull Summit
Drowned Catacombs
Gargoyle Tower
Glacial Fortress
Rootbound Crag
Sunpetal Grove
Terramorphic Expanse

This cycle of lands are a slight upgrade, but Gargoyle Tower is the land that I’m really pumped about. I loved me a Stalking Stones, and this dude is a much better finisher compared to the 3/3 ground pounder.

Overall it’s pretty clear that they are making a big push toward White, with a very respectable 21 Standard playable cards to add to the list. Green will probably the second most powerful overall color. However, Red and Black both have extremely powerful reprints, while Blue is just sitting down with its thumb up its butt with nothing new to do or play. I really feel like they kicked us competitive Blue dudes in the nuts for this set. I mean, Black gets Haunting Echoes and Duress, Red gets Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning, White has all kinds of crazy goodness from Savannah Lions to Crusade, Green has Priest of Titania, and Blue gets crappy Time Warp. "Essence Scatter," and "Mind Control." Grow a pair and just print an entire set without Blue cards, because that’s basically what you did here. At least you wouldn’t have to make bad renames for Remove Soul and Persuasion.

Oh, and what’s with making Sea Serpent worse? A six mana 5/5 was moderately playable in Limited, now we have a five mana */* that’s going to be 2/2-4/4 most of the time. I’m just revolted at what a poor showing Blue has. It’s the first color I skip to every time a spoiler comes out, and when you have dud after dud after dud it wears on my soul and makes me want to do crazy bad things like bomb Wizards office in Seattle, or take Richard Garfield’s mother on a date and never call her again.

Thanks for reading…

Kyle

…

* Orim’s Chant doesn’t count because of the Kicker, obv.

** The other cards I own are a foil Concentrate on a plaque that I got for winning the 2005 Austin Limited Olympics Invitational tournament hosted by Chris Mabry, a playset of Foil Chinese Troll Acetic, a Beta Sol Ring, a couple of land that Gerard Fabiano signed for me and inked over with Sharpie, and the Foil layer of a Donate I ripped 10 years ago because I thought the card was useless and was mad it was my foil rare in an Urza’s Destiny box.