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"Old Man" Mike Villa sent a message to our playtest group regarding Wonder, one of Judgement's incarnations, and asking if we'd all play it:

Wonder
3U
2/2
If Wonder is in your graveyard, and you control an island, creatures you control gain flying.

Honestly? No, I wouldn't play a 2/2 for 3U in Constructed unless it read"Morphling" somewhere on it - or perhaps"Masticore," et al. 4cc is a very late-game consideration; therefore, conventional wisdom states that it should have a game-breaking or game-sweeping mechanic. Fact or Fiction could get away with it, as it commonly said,"draw two to four cards." However, it was also an instant. Tying up the end of turn stalls the next turn for the opponent, as we've come to learn.

Now, why do you suppose Mike Villa was so excited about Wonder, while Star City's own Spencer Bogan wrote it off in a matter of eight sentences?

Subtlety, my dear readers.

It is not uncommon to miss the subtle applications of a card, while screaming the obvious. Yes, Morphling is incredible... But why is it incredible? That's the same type of question that evaluates every card. Why does Wonder suck? Because it's 3U for a 2/2... Unless it's in your graveyard and you control an island.

Harking back to my DAngel Control deck, I went on record as having never lost to U/G Tempo/Draino. One of the reasons for that was Spectral Lynx, which laughed at most of U/G's arsenal single-handedly. However, Lynx does not fly.

Remember back in MBC season? Remember a deck called Blue Skies? It was annoying because it played out cheap, high-powered flyers, then backed them up with countermagic.

Imagine a deck that played out Wild Mongrel, end of turn Basking Rootwalla, discard Wonder, untap, upkeep, attack for five flying, go. That's turn 3 - and an average draw, mind you. Imagine flying Roar of the Wurm tokens, flying Arrogant Wurms, flying tempo creatures...

The reason Tempo/Draino had trouble against me was because I could block them and stall their tempo. If they flew, I would not have been able to stop them with the current card selection. I may even start maindecking Cremates to deal with Wonder problems.

Wonder is doubly difficult to deal with because it can be played out without any investment of mana - therefore rendering it usable with only a single tapped island in play. Here is a brief list of cards that come to mind that could abuse Wonder in a tempo or evasion context: Wild Mongrel, Compulsion, Aquamoeba, Tolarian Winds, Wild Research, et al.

Wild Mongrel possibilities disturb me the most - but right behind that is Compulsion and Aquamoeba. Pay 1U to give all my creatures flying and draw a card? Nice. Pump Aquamoeba to a 3/1 and give it evasion? Nice. Not to mention the obvious advantage of Tolarian Winding away a Wonder and drawing into something more useful.

Additionally, Wonder is synergistic with Threshold. There are a lot of decks out there that seem to be going back and forth whether or not they want Threshold or graveyard recursion (i.e. Flashback, et al). This gives them one more card with Threshold synergy, making deck construction that much easier to streamline.

Wonder is an extremely good card for tempo, as it gives them yet another layer of play: Evasion. Now, we need to consider if they have a Wonder in hand prior to the attack step - and if they do, what can we do about it if they Mongrel/Compulsion/etc. it away?

Filth
3B
2/2
Swampwalk.
As long as Filth is in your graveyard, and you control a Swamp, creatures you control have Swampwalk.

If this incarnation sees play, it will either be as a sideboard card against certain decks (such as Braids, mono-black, B/x Braids, Tog, et al), or as a maindeck reaction to a metagame shift. Way back in the day, Fires.dec was the deck to beat, and a little Forest or Mountain-walking wouldn't have appeared entirely out of place. However, taking all this into context, there are far more efficient and useful options to cram into a deck than giving your creatures a very limited form of evasion. Fear would have been a stronger mechanic for Filth, however, Wizards must have decided that that was far too broken for the environment.

Glory
3WW
3/3
Flying.
2W: Creatures you control gain protection from the color of your choice until end of turn. Play this ability only if Glory is in your graveyard.

Someone in R&D must have been really annoyed with Reverent Mantra, back in the day. With many of the other incarnations requiring no activation costs, merely prerequisites, this seems almost rude. However, all that being said, the card is definitely powerful.

2W is not an entirely unattainable reach of mana, and the ability to alter the game state in such a global manner obviously hearkens to Wrath and Mutilate, etc. Which, consequently, are going to be played in abundance, but only if this card pushes WW/x decks over the top.

The obvious synergy between Green and White in the new set may push folks into a tempo G/W creation, which would have access to a host of Pro-creatures, already. With a Glory pitched to, say, Wild Mongrel, and 2W open, we can see a lot of really irritating combat tricks cropping up. Also WW/u could crop back up with the ability to not only protect its weenies at instant speed (Glory), but also the ability to drop flyers at instant speed (Wonder) through various effects (Compulsion, Aquamoeba, etc.).

Anger
3R
2/2
Haste.
As long as Anger is in your graveyard, and you control a Mountain, creatures you control have Haste.

Now, this little bugger is just rude in the extreme. Decks like Frog In A Blender and perhaps even some tempo red-splash decks are just salivating over this little treat.

One card in particular comes to mind in combination with Anger: Rites of Initiation. This is primarily because Anger then becomes part of the Rites effect, as well as adding Haste into the equation. Some disgustingly fast games could be sealed with both of these cards. Expect Angry Rites decks to at least make an appearance, probably first as an experiment with Frog In A Blender strategies, then as a strategy all into itself.

Brawn
3G
3/3
As long as Brawn is in your graveyard and you control a Forest, creatures you control have Trample.

Trample has yet to be premiere among evasion techniques, especially in an environment with beasts like Gurzigost and Thorn Elemental already possessing their own evasion abilities. Trample, it must be said, is only really useful when your creatures can overwhelm the hindquarters of your opponents, especially when said creatures survive the combat exchange.

To that end, we're looking for mammoths. There is obvious synergy with R/G decks, especially to try and bust through in the mirror match-up, however, this lends no additional pluses to either power or toughness, making it a weak consideration in an exchange.

All in all, right down there with Filth as a weak mechanic. It gets the nod over Filth, though, in that Trample can be useful, especially with the synergistic Wild Mongrel.

Last weekend's Grand Prix: Milwaukee (congrats to EDT, even though he never returns my email) and the German Nationals bring us a slice of metagame data, and perhaps some information on where and why Incarnations may or may not be played.

Psychatog
Still dominating the data is everyone's favorite Dr Teeth. (The thing looks like one of those critters; it's disturbing.) The only Incarnations that could, potentially, fit into Psychatog would be Wonder or Filth; perhaps Brawn or Anger, if we got all weird. Wonder may have applications here, though, as a flying 'Tog would be a lot more difficult to deal with than a ground-based one - and may warrant a rise of Burning Bridge decks if this turns out to be a trend.

Honestly, though, how many slots does 'Tog devote to either creature control or disruption? Eight? Something like that? It stands to reason, then, that at least one Wonder may find its way into the deck, based solely the evasion theory. However, 'Tog's slots are pretty tight as it is, and I can't really imagine 'Tog weakening its overall build in order to get a conditional evasion game state on.

Trenches
The newcomer and proud stomping deck of EDT, Trenches seems to have evolved out of the Star-Spangled Slaughter decks from earlier last year. Wonder, Glory, and Anger all fit the color scheme of the deck; however, I don't feel any of these cards would strengthen the otherwise control-oriented build. Control should be devoting its slots to control spells, playing only creatures that are otherwise recursive or have some form of evasion built-in, so it can play less creatures and devote more slots to control spells.

Squirrel Opposition
Wonder and Brawn fit the color scheme, but Squirrel Opposition suffers the same utility problem as Trenches above. There are enough recursive creature generators and no real need to further build in evasion. Squirrel Opposition locks down and plinks, sometimes overwhelming with sheer numbers. Its build is control and would not benefit greatly from the added evasion.

Tempo U/G
Now here's a deck that's looking at Wonder and Brawn with salivation. We've covered this above, so I won't bore you, here, again.

4-Color Braids
Capable of packing Glory, Anger, Brawn and Filth, this deck will benefit from none of these, unless Glory can somehow protect Braids, furthering the lockdown. I don't anticipate Incarnations showing in these decks, as the theory is all askew. Braids does not benefit from Haste, Trample or Swampwalk, as it typically neuters its opponents into submission as it is. Evasion is not necessary, as the Braids lock already has taken away their ability to fight back. Plus, there are fewer ways to get an Incarnation into the grave than one might think in a deck like this.

Burning Bridge
The builds I've been seeing run Grim Lavamancer and little else, so Anger would do nothing to aid the overall win condition of the deck. Especially if you consider the lack of synergy between Anger and Ensnaring Bridge.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this has given some food for thought for all those Tempo and Frog players out there.

theBruce