An Early Look at Aether Revolt
Christmas came early this year for us Magic players! Aether Revolt spoilers weren't supposed to start until the beginning of January, but due to a comedy of errors involving various Wizards Facebook pages accidentally posting card images, we have some early previews of some very powerful-looking cards from the set, including a new mythic Vehicle, a planeswalker, a potential combo piece for Modern, and a Cancel / Stifle hybrid! As such, today we are going to take a few minutes to go over every Aether Revolt card spoiled (or leaked) so far and talk about how they fit in both Standard and Modern. We'll also have some spicy deck lists to show off the potential power of the cards! Let's start by talking about what is probably the most hyped card so far: the new mythic Vehicle Heart of Kiran!
Heart of Kiran
As odd as it sounds, in most decks, Heart of Kiran will likely end up being a fixed version of Smuggler's Copter, and it seems unlikely it will be able to supplant the rare Vehicle in decks like RW Vehicles, Emerge, or GB Delirium, simply because the upside of being able to loot is way higher than the upside of crewing for free by removing a loyalty counter in these decks. While a two-mana Serra Angel sounds absurd, having a crew cost of three rather than one like Smuggler's Copter is a big deal. While some decks mind more than others, Thraben Inspector, Cryptbreaker, Bomat Courier, Insolent Neonate, Thopter tokens, and Servo tokens are on the list of popular cards that are licensed to fly a Smuggler's Copter but are not quite powerful enough to pilot Heart of Kiran. As a result, if you simply slot Heart of Kiran into existing decks, the "crew rate" (percent of creatures that can crew a vehicle by themselves) drops from 100% to around 80% and is even lower for RB Aggro. As such, I expect that most decks will stick with Smuggler's Copter and then possibly play a couple copies of Heart of Kiran as Smuggler's Copters five and six.
On the other hand, in decks with planeswalkers, the equation changes significantly thanks to the second line of text on Heart of Kiran. While the ability to crew for free by removing a loyalty counter is different enough that it's challenging to evaluate, I expect that Heart of Kiran could be the vehicle of choice in planeswalker-heavy decks. Unlike other Vehicles, which necessitate creature-heavy decks, it may be that Heart of Kiran is at its best in a control or even superfriends list with very few creatures, where it can play almost like Celestial Colonnade does in Modern, defending planeswalkers and then, once the game is under control, going on the offensive and finishing off the game in only a few attacks. While Heart of Kiran can't attack through Ishkanah, Grafwidow, it does battle with pretty much everything else in the air all the way up to Archangel Avacyn, while also dodging a reasonable amount of removal like Fiery Temper, Ruinous Path, and even Harnessed Lightning (sometimes). I might start with something like this:
Now, of course, this list is completely untested, and how good a deck like this could be will mostly depend on the metagame. However, it does provide an interesting example of how Heart of Kiran can work in and even enable decks in which Smuggler's Copter would be a dead card. Playing a Heart of Kiran on Turn 2 into a Saheeli Rai on Turn 3 is pretty close to a build-your-own Thassa, God of the Sea. You have a 4/4 flying blocker to protect your planeswalker, and then you can simply +1 Saheeli Rai every turn to scry and deal a damage to the opponent. The other amazing thing about this deck is how well it maximizes wraths like Fumigate. Not only do all of our planeswalkers naturally dodge wraths, but our biggest threat—Heart of Kiran—does as well! The only thing I'd say is this: keep an eye out for the next Tezzeret. It's very possible that it works really well with Heart of Kiran, in which case the right colors for our superfriends deck could very well be Grixis rather than Jeskai, or even four colors, allowing for both.
Oh yeah, as far as financial stuff. Please don't buy Heart of Kiran now, at $17. There are currently three Masterpiece sets in Standard, and in these sets, there are a total of three cards that have been able to maintain the current price of Heart of Kiran: Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance. So, unless you think that Heart of Kiran is going to end up the single most expensive card in Aether Revolt (and this seems unlikely to me, considering that planeswalkers get a natural edge thanks to their card type), there's no place for Heart of Kiran to go but down.
Disallow
I've spent a lot of time complaining about the sad state of counterspells in Standard since Wizards pushed counters from two mana to three mana. While Disallow doesn't solve the problem of countering a Grim Flayer on Turn 2 on the play, it's the type of three-mana counterspell I can get behind because the upside is immense. Typically, the upside we've seen on three-mana counters includes things like exiling instead of putting the spell into the graveyard or scrying one like Dissolve, which aren't really enough to make up for the extra mana. On the other hand, with Disallow, we have a Stifle stapled to a Cancel, which is enough to not only make a three-mana counter playable but to make it very, very good. If you haven't played much Legacy, you might not understand the power of countering activated or triggered abilities, so let's take a minute to run down the things you can do with Disallow in Standard and then Modern.
First off, in either Standard or Modern, Disallow can counter anything, with no restrictions, so whether your opponent is casting an instant, sorcery, planeswalker, or creature, Disallow is an answer. In Standard, probably the most powerful activated abilities to counter come from planeswalkers, especially planeswalker ultimates. Say you're playing a blue control deck and your opponent slips a Liliana, the Last Hope through your defenses. Your opponent pluses for a few turns and then goes for what will almost certainly be a game-winning ultimate. You can simply cast a Disallow targeting the ultimate trigger and undo all of your opponent's work. In fairness, you can do the same thing with Summary Dismissal, but at four mana, it's pretty challenging to make Summary Dismissal work in the main deck. On the other hand, three mana is the going rate for counters in Standard, so the ability to use Disallow to counter a planeswalker ultimate is pure upside. Of course, you can do the same thing in Modern, perhaps countering a Nahiri, the Harbinger ultimate, and if an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn happens to slip through, you can always counter the Annihilate 6 trigger to keep from sacrificing your board.
Discounting countering spells outright and interactions with planeswalkers, there are a ton of juicy targets for Disallow in Standard. In theory, you can counter a Reflector Mage trigger, for example, but in this scenario, it's almost certainly correct to just use Disallow to counter Reflector Mage itself, so I left our these kind of examples (typically enters-the-battlefield abilities on creatures, where you can just counter the creatures). Probably the two best targets for Disallow in Standard are Selfless Spirit and Aetherworks Marvel. Since Selfless Spirit is only two mana, it's pretty easy for opponents to slip it in under a counterspell, and then, they can sacrifice it to counter a wrath or use it during combat to keep all their creatures alive. In these situations, Disallow can counter the "make all your creatures indestructible" ability, which is a huge deal. Meanwhile, the new Aetherworks Marvel decks are much more likely than older versions to activate Aetherworks Marvel multiple times before winning the game (thanks to the deck cutting down on huge Eldrazi like Emrakul, the Promised End and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger), and Disallow can counter the "look at the top six cards" ability while also draining six energy from your opponent! Other standard targets are slightly less exciting but include things like Eldrazi Displacer activations, Vessel of Nascency, or even a Smuggler's Copter loot trigger.
In Modern, there are too many targets to name, but some examples include countering the "exile all cards from all graveyards" trigger from Rest in Peace (although cards that go into the graveyard in the future would still be exiled), a Thought-Knot Seer trigger after it's blinked with Eldrazi Displacer, an Expedition Map activation that's about to search our your opponent's last Tron land, or a Narcomoeba trigger that's going to return a bunch of Prized Amalgams to the battlefield. However, in Modern, there's one target that stands out above all others: the fetch lands.
While Disallow isn't nearly as powerful as Stifle when it comes to working like pseudo-land destruction (because you can't Disallow a Turn 1 fetch land activation), being able to randomly counter a fetch land trigger is one of the biggest upsides of Disallow in Modern. While there are a handful of decks in Modern that don't run fetch lands (think Tron, Merfolk, et al.), most decks run fetch lands, and in these decks, fetch lands often make up somewhere between 35% and 50% of the mana base. Against this decks, countering a fetch land activation, especially if the opponent keeps a land-light hand or gets a clunky draw, can potentially be a game-winning plan. In fact, we've seen control decks in the past run Shadow of Doubt primarily for this purpose, and Shadow of Doubt is far more limited than Disallow.
As such, the question is whether the ability to Stifle fetch land activations and other abilities is enough to make a three-mana counterspell playable in Modern. Unfortunately, I'm not 100% sure. On one hand, we have Voidslime, which is the same card as Disallow but has the downside of requiring green mana, which means that the most popular control decks in Modern (UW, Grixis, UR) can't really play it, and Voidslime sees essentially zero play in the format. Actually, looking over the list of three-mana counters, very, very few see play in Modern, with Counterflux likely being the most played, and even Counterflux is typically a one-of sideboard-type card. On the other hand, I'd argue that the being a mono-blue Voidslime is a card that offers more upside than any of the other three-mana counters in the format. Is Stifling enough upside to put a three-mana counter into main decks? Probably not at the moment, considering the speed of the format, and definitely not as a four-of, but it seems like Disallow is very close to being Modern playable, and if the format ever shifts back towards slower, more controlling decks, it could get a chance to shine. Plus, it lets us play this on Against the Odds!
Ajani Unyielding
Ajani Unyielding is almost exactly the GW version of Sorin, Grim Nemesis, with a plus ability that generates card advantage, a minus ability that kills creatures, and an ultimate that should win most games. Unfortunately, this comparison isn't encouraging in terms of Standard play. At his peak, Sorin, Grim Nemesis was a one- or two-of in very specific decks, and this is probably the most we can hope for in regards to Ajani Unyielding.
The good news is that all of Ajani Unyielding's abilities are pretty powerful. Assuming you constructed a deck with very few non-permanents, the +2 should draw about 1.5 cards per turn, which is solid. Of course, this comes with a fairly heavy deck-building restriction—with every Declaration in Stone, Void Shatter, or other spell you add to the deck, the number of cards the +2 draws drops. Meanwhile, the −2 ability is pretty much Swords to Plowshares, which gives decks another way to answer hard-to-deal-with creatures like Emrakul, the Promised End and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. While gaining the opponent a bunch of life is annoying, getting rid of these creatures permanently is actually a big deal in a world of Liliana, the Last Hope and Grapple with the Past.
Now for the bad news: like Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Ajani Unyielding is likely close to unplayable in a format featuring Emrakul, the Promised End. Perhaps the biggest downside of having a card like Emrakul, the Promised End in the format is that she destroys the diversity of top-end threats in the format. When it comes time to build a deck, you have to ask yourself, "Do I want a powerful value-generating six-mana planeswalker, or do I want a six-mana Eldrazi that quite literally wins the game on the spot?" In a huge majority of decks, the correct answer is going to be Emrakul, the Promised End (this is backed up by the play pattern of Sorin, Grim Nemesis, who was fairly popular before Eldritch Moon was released but has been almost totally missing from the format since).
As such, I expect that Ajani Unyielding will have to wait until rotation next fall to have any real impact on the format. Perhaps if an Abzan or GW Midrange deck comes to the table, it could see play as a one-of, but this feels like Ajani Unyielding's ceiling for the next nine months. During this time, I expect the value of the planeswalker to plummet down to the $5 range, at which point it seems like a really good buy, not so much because it could show up in Standard next fall but because it feels like a great casual planeswalker for Superfriends lists (which keep getting better, set-by-set, as Wizards prints more planeswalkers and more cards that support planeswalkers). If you are building a Commander / Casual Superfriends deck, Ajani Unyielding seems like an auto-include because the ultimate is amazing, the +2 finds more planeswalkers, and the −2 helps keep your superfriends alive. Assuming it dodges a duel deck printing, I imagine that Ajani Unyielding will be among the most expensive Aether Revolt cards three years from now.
Yahenni's Expertise
I talked about Yahenni's Expertise during our Brewer's Minute this week, so I'm not going to spend a ton of time rehashing everything here. If you want a full breakdown, watch the video or check out the article. However, I will say this: in Standard, the value of Yahenni's Expertise is mostly as a black sweeper with upside, so just how good it ends up being in the format will depend on just how many creatures −3/−3 will kill. In our current format, it's a surprisingly high percent—7 of the 10 most played creatures in the format and 14 of the top 20 creatures in the format die to Yahenni's Expertise. Of course, we don't know what the format will look like after Aether Revolt is released, and it's very possible things will change in the next couple months. That said, the value of Yahenni's Expertise depends heavily on the matchups. Against UW Flash, RW / Mardu Vehicles, RB Aggro, and the like, Yahenni's Expertise is pretty close to a wrath, killing most (if not all) of the creatures in these decks. On the other hand, against GB Delirium and Aetherworks Marvel, Yahenni's Expertise is close to a dead card, which might mean it starts off in sideboards. If Aether Revolt Standard ends up aggressive, then Yahenni's Expertise could be the second coming of Languish; if it ends up full of midrange, control, and combo decks, it could be the next Flaying Tendrils—only time will tell. Meanwhile, in Modern, Yahenni's Expertise supports insanity like this:
Trophy Mage
Trophy Mage is really good at doing one very narrow thing, but that one thing might just be good enough for Trophy Mage to see Standard play. Dynavolt Tower Control has proven to be just on the cusp of playability, and perhaps the biggest problem with the deck is that it really struggles when it doesn't find a Dynavolt Tower. While it isn't especially efficient, Trophy Mage essentially gives the deck eight copies of its namesake artifact while also allowing the deck to play a tutor package, including Deadlock Trap to deal with planeswalkers and Emrakul, the Promised End, Filigree Familiar for some life gain against aggressive decks, Cultivator's Caravan and Pilgrim's Eye for mana fixing, and Magnifying Glass or Seer's Lantern for some card advantage / filtering and ramp.
As for other formats, I expect that Trophy Mage will be a Commander staple because it tutors for any member of the Sword of Fire and Ice cycle (and also Sword of Vengeance), and many of the swords show up on the list of the 1,000 most played cards in the Commander format. While Stoneforge Mystic is almost certainly a better way of searching up swords, in the land of 100-card singleton decks, there's more than enough room to run Trophy Mage alongside Stoneforge Mystic; plus, Trophy Mage comes with the additional upside of searching up non-equipment artifacts. Thankfully, some of the best mana rocks in Commander happen to be three mana. Trophy Mage allow a deck to not only find a sword when it needs one but also a Chromatic Lantern or Commander's Sphere for fixing and ramp. I imagine playing the card in every single Commander deck running multiple swords and in a relatively high percentage of blue decks because the other targets are good as well.
Pia's Revolution
My initial reaction to Pia's Revolution is that it's completely and utterly unplayable. I mean, it looks a lot like one of the most disappointing mythics of recent years: Athreos, God of Passage, whose triggered ability is essentially the same as Pia's Revolution but for creatures rather than artifacts. After thinking about it some more, I still think that Pia's Revolution is close to unplayable, but there may be one exception in Standard.
While we don't have many good artifact sacrifice outlets in Standard (although we could get more in Aether Revolt) and I don't think that Pia's Revolution is playable as a value card (e.g., sacrifice a Puzzleknot and force the opponent to take three damage), a dedicated combo deck with Metalwork Colossus could work. Metalwork Colossus decks already want to flood the battlefield with cheap card-drawing artifacts to reduce the cost of Metalwork Colossus, and in a deck like this, a Metalwork Colossus from the graveyard can generate a ton of value (or damage). The trick here is to activate the "sacrifice two artifacts" ability of Metalwork Colossus multiple times by maintaining priority, which puts the opponent in the position where they will either drop to an extremely low life total or have to give you back a bunch of Prophetic Prisms, Terrarions, and Metalspinner's Puzzleknots, which will draw you more cards, allowing you to repeat the process and hopeful find a finisher to close out the game. While punisher cards like Pia's Revolution are typically unplayable, with careful deck building, there may be a way to reduce the downside and take away the opponent's choice. Unfortunately, I don't have a list yet, so if you have some ideas of how to abuse Pia's Revolution, make sure to let me know in the comments!
The Rest
- Dark Intimations looks like a miniature version of Cruel Ultimatum but still costs five mana, which is a lot for a sorcery. I imagine most of the time, your opponent will discard an extra land and sacrifice a Thraben Inspector while you question your deck-building choices. On the other hand, the fact that Dark Intimations is Grixis colors makes me believe that whatever version of Nicol Bolas we get in Amonkhet block will likely be in those colors as well. If getting one extra loyalty on this yet-to-be-seen planeswalker does something crazy, the power and playability of Dark Intimations could go up, but until we see the new Nicol Bolas, this one stays on the sidelines.
- Battle at the Bridge is mostly exciting because of the improvise mechanic, which is pretty much convoke for artifacts. Any mechanic that reduces the cost of spells has potential to be playable or even broken, and while I don't expect Battle at the Bridge to be the broken improvise card, it's an exciting preview of what could come in the rest of Aether Revolt. As for the card itself, if there is an artifact-heavy black deck (perhaps featuring the yet-to-be-revealed Tezzeret from Aether Revolt), Battle at the Bridge could be a major part of it. One mana, tap a bunch of Prophetic Prisms and Puzzleknots, kill a creature, and gain four or five life seems like a very playable card. Of course, there are a lot of "ifs" in the future of Battle at the Bridge—if Tezzeret is good, if a black-based artifact deck is playable, if there isn't a better instant-speed removal spell printed—but if most or all of the "ifs" come up in favor of Battle at the Bridge, it could end up an archetype staple.
- Scrap Trawler is very purposefully worded in a way that makes it extremely hard to use as a combo piece. While it's still possible someone way smarter and more creative than I am will figure out a way to make it work, I just don't see it. Without combo potential, Scrap Trawler is a relatively underpowered value card, that is going to have a hard time finding a home in Standard with much better options in the three-CMC slot.
- Quicksmith Rebel is my pick for the worst card spoiled (or leaked) so far. While it's theoretically a 3/2 for four that deals two damage when it enters the battlefield (and two more each turn, if it lives), two damage just doesn't do a whole lot, especially on Turn 4. If it was three damage and could kill Spell Quellers, Reflector Mages, Sylvan Advocates, and Smuggler's Copter, I'd be on board, but Quicksmith Rebel takes a bit of work for the payoff, and the payoff simply isn't very good.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. What Aether Revolt cards are you most exciting about? What ideas do you have for abusing these cards in Standard or Modern? What else are you looking out for as more previews roll out in a few weeks? As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com!
