Porcelain Legionnaire
Wow, so right off the bat we’re looking at not only a fantastic draft card, but also a great card for the standard format. Porcelain Legionnaire is a colored artifact creature reminiscent of the ones in the past Shards of Alara block. This seems like it would detract from its feasibility because it ties you to playing white mana, but that’s where a novel mechanic from New Phyrexia shines: Phyrexian Mana. This new mana symbol allows you to pay the cost either with one white mana or two life. Two life might seem harsh as a cost, but when put toward a first strike 3/1 package that you can play as early as turn two in any color deck is truly a minimal cost at best. I predict this card will see a lot of play in the popular “White Weenie Quest” or “White Weenie Tempered Steel” deck in standard as it fits into the color scheme already and is another great early threat in an already fast-paced agro deck. An early 3/1 first strike package that can fuel the Quest for the Holy Relic or come in as a 5/3 first striker with Tempered Steel is certainly nothing to scoff at.
Wow, so right off the bat we’re looking at not only a fantastic draft card, but also a great card for the standard format. Porcelain Legionnaire is a colored artifact creature reminiscent of the ones in the past Shards of Alara block. This seems like it would detract from its feasibility because it ties you to playing white mana, but that’s where a novel mechanic from New Phyrexia shines: Phyrexian Mana. This new mana symbol allows you to pay the cost either with one white mana or two life. Two life might seem harsh as a cost, but when put toward a first strike 3/1 package that you can play as early as turn two in any color deck is truly a minimal cost at best. I predict this card will see a lot of play in the popular “White Weenie Quest” or “White Weenie Tempered Steel” deck in standard as it fits into the color scheme already and is another great early threat in an already fast-paced agro deck. An early 3/1 first strike package that can fuel the Quest for the Holy Relic or come in as a 5/3 first striker with Tempered Steel is certainly nothing to scoff at.
Out of all of the commons from New Phyrexia, this common is my personal favorite. Let’s break down the card a bit first. This card also uses the Phyrexian mana cost mechanism, which means that despite being a blue card this gem can fit into any deck looking for some card advantage that was previously reserved for the favored blue decks. For either two life or one blue mana you can observe the threats in your opponent’s hand and then thin your deck out a bit by drawing a card. For the standard format blue/black control player, like myself, this card really shines. So long as I have a black mana source on turn one, I can Gitaxian probe my opponents hand, draw a card, and then Duress or Despise away whatever threat my heart fancies without any chance of whiffing with my discard cards all…on…turn…ONE. Card advantage and knowledge all from a one drop is truly a powerful package (fitting nicely into the niche that Ponder left open when it rotated out) that will make an impact in all formats of magic and could help in bringing back more combo decks of past formats.
Uncommons! Very rarely do you come across a Magic set that has uncommons that are valued as much as most other rares or even mythic rares in the set. Mental Misstep was the obvious staple that the Legacy format could just scoop up and its value definitely shows that. But there are a good number of other gems in the uncommon pool that we’re going to tackle now.
Uncommons! Very rarely do you come across a Magic set that has uncommons that are valued as much as most other rares or even mythic rares in the set. Mental Misstep was the obvious staple that the Legacy format could just scoop up and its value definitely shows that. But there are a good number of other gems in the uncommon pool that we’re going to tackle now.
In the current standard format, black mana has not been as heavily represented as it was last year when blue/black control was king. Nowadays, we have the generic blue/white Caw-blade and the many color variants flooding the market. That’s not to say black mana had a weak package of utility. In fact it was quite the contrary. When it came to one-drop discard spells, standard black decks could look to M11’s Duress or Rise of Eldrazi’s Inquisition of Kozilek. Duress was your go-to card for anything that wasn’t a creature or land. IoK was the go-to card for anything with a converted mana cost of 3 or less. The combination of these two cards could handle most of the current standard format threats including: Squadron Hawk/Stoneforge Mystic/ and other small creatures, Sword of War and Peace, Sword of Feast and Famine, Mana Leak and other counterspells, planeswalkers, etc. However, it couldn’t handle larger threats like the Titans from M11 that dominated the standard format since their release. Well no more! Despise is what I consider to be the replacement for IoK, which would be rotating out at the end of this year anyways, in the standard blue/black or mono black control decks. Between Duress and Despise there are no card types, besides lands, that could be missed in the discard process.
Though I’m not an avid fan of the green mana in standard play, this card is rapidly changing my mind. Beast Within is a ridiculously powerful card that I’m surprised to see at the uncommon rarity. Let’s break the card down so you can see just what I mean. At a cost of two colorless and one green mana, this spell is not on the costly side for the green mage. But a CMC of 3 is nothing revolutionary so lets keep reading. “Destroy target permanent”….WOAH, wait what?! That’s right folks, you can use this gem to get rid of Jace TMS, Gideon Jura, Valakut the Molten Pinnacle, Sword of Feast and Famine/Body and Mind/War and Peace, any of the Titans, and whatever else you want that is threatening your board so long as it’s on the field. Not only that, but you can deal with the threat at instant speed! The one downside is that in the place of whatever permanent you destroyed, a 3/3 green beast creature joins that side of the battlefield. But compared to the threat you removed with this card, a 3/3 beast is a simple problem to fix. All of that for 3 mana is simply too good to pass up so make sure you get your playset of these as early as possible.
I highly doubt we’ll ever see another counterspell in the standard format as powerful as the one aptly named “Counterspell” from much older sets, but Corrupted Resolve comes darn near close. Now this card will not be as widely used as the current standard format staple known as Mana Leak mainly because it has the requirement that the controller is poisoned before it becomes active. This is a pretty hefty price, but the upside is that at one colorless mana and one blue mana, it’s a more lenient counterspell than the cost of two blue mana for “Counterspell” and it doesn’t become useless like mana leak does in most late game situations where paying the three mana cost to negate it is more viable. What really makes me believe this card will see play in the standard format is the recent rise of blue/black infect-control decks. Up until this point, Infect decks have not really been a viable standard powerhouse in relation to RUG/BUG or the crowd favorite, Caw-Blade. However, with access to this counterspell all that has to be done is get one poison counter on the opponent and this card is active for the rest of the game! With old cards like Virulent Wound or Inkmoth Nexus and newer cards like Blighted Agent, getting that first poison counter on the opponent in the first few turns has never been easier.
If you enjoyed Nick's post about NPH cards and their impact on standard, let us know in the comments or on our MTG Casual Network Facebook Group!
Great stuff, Nick! It's a wonderful set that brings so much to the table for every format.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I hope to keep adding insight into other fantastic cards from this set. :)
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