Warning: Spoilers!
Dark Ascension spoiler season seems to have rolled up real quick-like, and it isn’t messing around!
A week and a half into spoilers, and we now know a third of the set. The diesel revealed thus far is without question high octane, certifying this set worthy of building on the triumph that was Innistrad. Obviously, we can’t know for sure whether Development made any blunders yet; however the sheer number of sweet cards that have been revealed already is inspiring. It isn’t just the number of cards undercosted in obvious ways, but the cards that are powerful in ways that are going to push tournament Magic (especially Standard) in new directions.
One of the ways Wizards is able to plant the seeds for new archetypes is to print powerful “build-around-me”s. Some power cards are very versatile and meant to go in all sorts of decks (Snapcaster Mage and Liliana of the Veil). Others are narrower and require precision in execution (Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Birthing Pod). Cards like Tezzeret and Birthing Pod can be used in moderation as merely reasonable cards in non-dedicated decks (U/B Control or Wolf Run with a few Pods, for instance). However, when you build around them, they are among the best cards in the format.
Dark Ascension’s flagship chase mythic, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad is one such card.
Jam him into a random deck, and he is like Elspeth Tirel, which is to say fine. Build around him, however, and he goes absolute nuts-o!
A common critique of Sorin, Lord of Innistrad has been, “Sure, he looks pretty good, but where does he go?” Well, apparently Wizards of the Coast did not want to leave anything up to chance and printed such insane support that I can say confidently B/W Tokens is back in a big way. B/W Tokens is going to be a popular mainstream archetype and will probably be tier 1. Tezzeret has always been a powerful card, but he has to do a lot of heavy lifting by himself. We are only a third of the way into the set, and already Sorin has far better support than Tezzeret ever had between all sets combined!
It’s not just that Lord Sorin has key support cards in the right places (though he does). Some of the “support” cards are actually absurd and clearly only costed this way to push the B/W Tokens deck and to make sure that Sorin hits the scene hard. This guy was destined to be the face of the brand for the first quarter.
I want to break down Sorin, ability by ability, but he is such a contextual card that it seems more prudent to break down the support first. Let’s start with the most important card, the card that brings the entire archetype together, the Blightning to Sorin’s Bloodbraid Elf.
How is this a real card? I sort of want to call this the Bloodbraid Elf of the two, really. Who thought this was a fair cost for this? These B/W Tokens decks would be willing to use Midnight Haunting, which is a perfectly reasonable Magic card. Lingering Souls loses instant speed (which is something) but gains an ability far better than cantrip. How good is 1B flashback? I mean, 1B to get two 1/1 white fliers is already extremely aggressively costed (Spectral Procession good). That is the card you get to draw for free!
Look, if you think this card is merely great, we still have a ways to go.
We would use Midnight Haunting anyway, so how good is 2W “Put two 1/1 fliers into play. Draw card.”?
Obviously, that is too good. But wait, it gets better. The card we are drawing is better than a random card. In fact, the card we are drawing is better than many of the cards in our deck (if not most). We would probably pay a mana to be able to ensure that we drew that card. As if that wasn’t enough, the card draw is uncounterable!
Lingering Souls is literally a card so good we would play it even if it weren’t a cantrip, and its cantrip is way better than a cantrip. This card is so absurd that it is not just going to be in B/W Tokens (where it will merely be one of the two best cards in the deck, along with Sorin). This card is going to revolutionize Esper Control and pseudo-control. Imagine pitching this to Forbidden Alchemy! This card singlehandedly demolishes Delver/Moorland Haunt decks!
Not convinced yet?
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“Wait, wait, wait,” you might be saying, “Squadron Hawk had synergies with Jace.” Sure, but my mom had synergies with Jace. Who didn’t? Besides, Lingering Souls is going to have synergies like “Whoa” with each and every card that mills, loots, or rewards tokens. If you thought killing 1/1 fliers was important in the old format where people had Moorland Haunt and used Snapcaster Mage to flashback Midnight Haunting, just wait until the Midnight Hauntings start flashing themselves back.
In an effort to actually get back to B/W Tokens and Lord Sorin, himself, let’s table the lingering discussion for a moment. Suffice it to say, we need to make it a top priority to evaluate every card from the standpoint of whether a B/W token deck can use this. Additionally, extra attention should be paid to what the natural hosers are (if any). Are there any Curse of Death’s Hold types in here? Cunning Sparkmage? Deeds or Disks?
Could Ratchet Bomb get any better?
In the vein of Lingering Souls, but nowhere near the power, we have Gather the Townsfolk.
This one is much more of a nuts and bolts role-player. There is already a fair bit of competition at the two-spot, with Shrine of Loyal Legions, Honor of the Pure, and Intangible Virtue. Still, if we want another way to make tokens, this is a good cost and designed to fit all the synergies. They are Humans, which isn’t likely to help our token deck much but is going to make some pretty busty 3/3 Champions of the Parish. Of course, it is possible that someone builds a G/W/B Token deck to take advantage of Gavony Township, which could open the door to Mayor of Avabruck and Avacyn’s Pilgrim.
In addition to being Human, they are white, which primarily means Honor of the Pure is still hotness. On top of this, we have the fateful hour mechanic. This one is tough to evaluate, but it is nice that it appears to cost very little on the card. Finishing off a tokens deck is potentially more difficult when they have the ability to power up some of their spells when they are nearly dead. Mounting a last-ditch comeback is a very real possibility.
It is unlikely that focusing primarily on the fateful hour mechanic is the key to this one, but it is a possibility. It is probably a different deck, but someone, somewhere is going to absolutely wreck their FNM with a Phyrexian mana/fateful hour deck. This is a risky maneuver, of course, but you can use Phyrexian mana to reduce your life total to five in a hurry, if you are so inclined. For instance:
Turn 1: Hex Parasite
Turn 2: Pay 15 life, Gather the Townsfolk for five, attack for one.
Turn 3: Thraben Doomsayer, attack for 18!
Figure out how to turn this natural 19 into 20, and you might have something…
Jumping back in with B/W Tokens, it isn’t clear that Gather is the right two-drop, but it is certainly a very reasonable option to consider. A far more unique new card that is going to add an extremely powerful new dimension to the deck is Vault of the Archangel…
If B/W Tokens is able to get away from blue for Moorland Haunt or green for Gavony Township, this is the card that makes it worth it. One of the fundamental constraints in Magic is that you need enough land early to cast your spells, but later in the game, land can be a dead draw. Lands that are like spells can be extremely powerful, as we have seen from Moorland Haunt, Gavony Township, Kessig Wolf Run, Creeping Tar Pit, Raging Ravine, Mutavault, and Tectonic Edge. So… how good of a spell is Vault of the Archangel?
The closest comparison to Vault of the Archangel is Gavony Township, as it gives a bonus to all of your creatures for 2BW and tap. This means it will be at its best in decks that make lots of creatures (convenient…). How good is giving all of your creatures deathtouch and lifelink? First of all, those abilities are really nice. Each time you activate this land, it is as though every single creature you control has a Basilisk Collar!
The life boost is going to make it hard to race you, while deathtouch ensures that most creatures will not be able to slow down your token assault. Vault of the Archangel is the perfect tool for a token deck, as it makes every single creature you control a complete nightmare in combat. This card is definitely cut from the same cloth as Haunt, Township, and Wolf Run. It also suggests that the reign of business-lands in Standard is expanding!
We have only seen a third of the cards in Dark Ascension, so there is very likely even more support coming. Still, it is clear we already have enough tools to work with to see that B/W Tokens is going to make a major run at the top tier. Let’s take a look at the flagship, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad.
At four mana, Sorin is already costed to compete. Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Ajani Vengeant, Koth of the Hammer, Garruk Wildspeaker, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas—there is no question that four-mana walkers have historically been costed the most aggressively (well, I suppose you could argue a case for three-mana walkers…).
In evaluating his abilities, Tezzeret is the walker that most closely corresponds to Sorin. Let’s try comparing the abilities one-by-one.
First, how good is +1: Put a 1/1 black Vampire onto the battlefield with lifelink? Well, a 1/1 lifelink creature is probably worth roughly a card, although this is the type of thing that depends on how your deck is set up. On its own, it is easy to get outclassed and not quite live up to a card. Likewise, in a non-dedicated Tezzeret deck, his +1 is possibly worth less than a card. However, once you dedicate your deck to making Tezzeret awesome, the ability is worth more than draw a card. In general, I give a small edge to Tezzeret’s +1 in the head to head; however Tezzeret does ask you to warp your deck in a much more unnatural way.
Next, we come to the -2 ability: give yourself an emblem that reads, “Creatures you control get +1/+0.” This is really a pretty unprecedented ability. After all, the only other emblems—from Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Koth of the Hammer, and Venser, the Sojourner—are all ultimates that you can fight to keep from ever firing. Sorin’s second ability can fire immediately and is permanent. That is actually kind of unsettling and surely his best ability. Just think about it for a moment. When you play Sorin, you can immediately emblem-up, and now for the rest of the game, you have an Anthem of sorts that your opponent cannot get rid of, and Sorin himself is still in play making tokens every turn.
This is a lot more powerful than meets the eye, as emblems are still not fully understood. Let’s say you Tezzeret some artifact into a 5/5. That’s great, but your opponent can kill that artifact creature and then kill Tezzeret and catch back up. Even if they have to kill three tokens and waste twelve damage fighting Elspeth, Knight-Errant, they can still eventually neutralize all the great things she did.
When Sorin does his thing, there is no getting better.
When you drop a Sorin and -2 it (which should be the default), you immediately and irrevocably get a permanent bonus to all of your guys. Now, even if your opponent deals with Sorin, they can never undo what he did. On the next turn, he makes a 1/1 lifelink creature to contribute to the cause, but even worse is now threatening to emblem-up again! It is very possible that you won’t want to sacrifice him, but the threat is there so that if another Crusade kills your opponent, you can pull the trigger. Even if they have a spell to buy them another turn, they can’t undo what has been done. Your guys are just +2/+0 from here on out!
How many times have we seen Jace Brainstorm, then die? Ajani Vengeant shoots something, then dies. Liliana edicts someone, then dies. Often, we will play a key walker, use a great ability, then it dies. On the next turn, we drop another copy and repeat. Each time, we get some incremental advantage, and that is good, but they can still catch back up. When we drop Sorin and use it, that’s it. We are locked in. If they deal with it, we can drop another Sorin, and now we are +2/+0 permanently.
How good is a +1/+0 emblem? It is hard to say for sure, but my first instinct is that getting such an emblem is worth somewhere between two and three mana and a card. Tezzeret’s second ability is totally awesome, to be sure, but I gotta give the head-to-head to Sorin’s second ability on this one. The fact that there is such incredible support is just too good to pass up. Turn three Lingering Souls into turn four Sorin, Lord of Innistrad is the new fix.
What about Sorin’s ultimate? Well, destroying up to three creatures and/or walkers, then stealing them is flavorful and cool, to be sure. How good is it, really? This one is tough to evaluate because it is clearly a fantastic ability. It is significantly better than three Control Magics, remember. First of all, it hits walkers, obviously. More subtly, however, it also pays you for all enters-the-battlefield triggers. This ability is a bit less “Win the Game” than many walkers, but only costing six loyalty means you can threaten to use it pretty fast, if you are so inclined. The bigger limiting factor seems to be the temptation to use the -1 ability early and often. After all, if you build up Sorin to six, and he gets Purged, you have nothing to show for it besides a bunch of Vampire tokens.
Of course, really, we aren’t always going to be in such a good board position that we can afford to spend our Sorin Emblem-ing. Sometimes, we will be a bit more on the defensive and just making 1/1 lifelink tokens each turn. Under such a scenario (especially if we are confident our opponent has limited means to directly remove Sorin), we are advancing the board in a meaningful way and quickly threatening to make a major play that will totally turn the tables. If we can pull off the Ultimate, we generally going to turn the tables and take over.
My snap-evaluation is that most people are going to be so busy making emblems that Sorin doesn’t get to ultimate all that often. However, upon further thought, I could imagine very easily that people are so heavily incentivized to fight tokens that Sorin has to go with the “back-up plan” more often than people first guess. Emblems are just the bee’s knees against spell decks, but in creature slugfests, it is very reasonable to picture the token deck just using their tokens to protect a Sorin that they are threatening to ultimate very quickly.
How good is Sorin, Lord of Innistrad? Verdict: Flagship. His raw power is comparable to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. On the upside, he doesn’t require as much unnatural dedication. On the downside, he is B/W instead of U/B, a much more “unnatural” color combination that doesn’t have the best mana. On the major, major upside, Sorin has not come to the party alone. Between Lingering Souls and Vault of the Archangel, it is clear that Sorin is not taking no for an answer.
How good of a buy is Sorin at $59.99? I suppose that depends on what you are trying to accomplish. So on the surface, we go through this every time. The hot planeswalker is over-hyped, then drops when the set is released, right? Well, except that isn’t how it always happens. Jace, the Mind Sculptor wasn’t the only walker to go up in price after the set was released. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is easily excluded because it came before Jace, right? So what about Liliana? That one spiked to its peak after the set was released. What about Gideon? He climbed another $10 after the release. What about Tezzeret? He gained $20 after the release. Clearly, not every walker peaks before the release date.
The counterpoint to this, of course, is that most of the walkers settle back down. The longer they are in print, the further they drop. Walkers that were $50 drop to $40, then $30. Walkers that were $40 drop to $30, then $20. Eventually they drop even lower than that, as walkers only hold their value long-term if they have major applications in older formats (like most every Magic card).
Why was Jace different? Jace was the perfect storm of a number of different factors. Not only was he the best walker ever, but he went in each and every deck as a four-of (once people stopped being silly). He also came from a second set that wasn’t drafted as part of the third set (Rise of the Eldrazi was drafted alone). Interestingly, Worldwake was the only set to do this since the advent of mythic rares…
…until Dark Ascension.
Avacyn Restored will be drafted alone, meaning that the supply of Dark Ascension will be artificially limited. What does this mean for Sorin’s value? I am not sure, as this is a unique mixture of circumstances. After all, Sorin is nowhere near as universal as Jace. Additionally, it is clear that Dark Ascension is going to have more good mythics than Worldwake (alleviating a little pressure on the price).
On the flipside, B/W Tokens is surely going to be a mainstream, popular, and successful deck; and it is going to want four copies of Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. My guess is that Sorin stays high for at least a little bit, due to B/W Tokens actually living up to the hype. Then he drops off, as the market corrects itself on account of $60 not being a sustainable price for in-print cards. Tezzeret was briefly $60; Liliana was briefly $60.
Basically:
- Sorin is the real deal.
- B/W Tokens is the real deal.
- Over-hyped cards usually drop over time.
- Dark Ascension may be artificially limited in supply because of Avacyn Restored being draft-alone.
- If you want to use the card, you really do have to actually have it.
- My evaluations of the card are based on its applications in-game, not as an investment.
- Sorin is way better supported than Tezzeret and will be played by more people. That said, this is still a Tezzeret, not a Jace.
What would a B/W Tokens list look like? All disclaimers about still having over 100 cards to go from the spoiler and not yet knowing the metagame to tune against, here is my first draft:
Creatures (11)
Planeswalkers (8)
Lands (13)
Spells (28)
What else to look for? Well, we certainly would like another playable one-drop. I am not sure what that looks like, but it would be nice if it existed.
The biggest Achilles’ heel so far is the manabase. If B/W Tokens manages to get any more support, the help they could use most is a playable mana-fixer. Fortunately, it looks like B/W Tokens can be built base-white, with a black splash, taking some pressure off of the manabase. That said, one of the keys to making B/W Tokens work a couple years ago was the technology of Arcane Sanctum as a “dual land.”
It is not clear that Shrine of Loyal Legions is actually better than Gather the Townsfolk, especially since it doesn’t get buffed by Honor of the Pure. Of course it is not clear that Honor of the Pure is what we want, given that it doesn’t buff Shrine or Sorin tokens. Still, two-mana Crusades are exactly what this strategy wants, so I would start there.
Blade Splicer over Midnight Haunting is definitely questionable, but I would want to start that way for a few reasons. First of all, Sorin and Lingering Souls are so good that between them and Moorland Haunt, people are going to want to fight 1/1 tokens harder than ever. Having some 3/3s gives us a line of defense against Curse of Death’s Hold and the like. Midnight Haunting may get buffed by both Honor of the Pure and Intangible Virtue, but it takes two Crusades before you even break even on power. Flying is certainly nice, but Blade Splicer is just more raw power.
It is not at all clear that Hero of Bladehold is the second four-drop we want, but it is the best on raw power (so far). Day of Judgment is another important option to consider and has historically been a good tool for such decks. I would sideboard it, if nothing else. Elspeth at five is my default on raw power, but Geist-Honored Monk is also a great option to consider.
Why only three Vault of the Archangel? That is a lot of investment, and the second one doesn’t do much. Besides, we aren’t exactly short on power anymore, so I am trying to keep an eye on consistency, and our mana isn’t the best.
This strategy is so front-end loaded, it is probably going to take the format a little bit of time to properly adjust to it (meaning Tokens will probably perform well, at first). The key to being really successful with Tokens is likely going to be making the proper adjustments to cards like Ratchet Bomb, Curse of Death’s Hold, Ray of Revelation, and the like. Ray of Revelation is back in Dark Ascension and if heavily played might be enough to encourage token decks to play Gather the Townsfolk or Mikaeus, the Lunarch instead of Honor of the Pure.
Does B/W Tokens want Oblivion Rings or other removal? Any discard? Any other one-drops? A third color? After all, Gavony Township and Moorland Haunt are both very exciting possibilities.
There are so many questions to answer surrounding this archetype, but one thing is for sure:
Sorin Lord of Innistrad and B/W Tokens are the new major players in town.
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”