Hello and welcome to Council of
the Wyly, the article series about the constructed formats of Magic. This week
we're talking a very powerful sorcery from Urza’s Saga called Show
and Tell. Show
and Tell is one of the most
efficient ways to get big powerful permanents onto the battlefield and has been
seen in numerous different archetypes.
Sneak and Show is a blue red
combo deck that tries to get massive creatures onto the battlefield either
using the sorcery Show
and Tell or the enchantment Sneak
Attack and sometimes uses Show
and Tell to put Sneak
Attack into play. This deck
became one of the premier combo decks in 2013 and has picked up steam over the
last year after being piloted by Hall of Famer Huey Jensen. The current
creature suite is just Griselbrand and Emrakul,
the Aeon's Torn in the main—Griselbrand to draw a new hand of action and Emrakul to, well, Annihilate—but has included
cards like Angel
of Despair and Ashen
Rider in the sideboard.
Some players prefer to just win
the game on the spot after casting Show
and Tell and those people
recently have been drawn to Omni-Tell. This Show
and Tell deck puts either Dream
Halls or Omniscience into play, followed by casting Enter
the Infinite, then wins with whatever win-condition they feel like, which is
usually Release
the Ants (try winning a Clash
when the only card left in the library is Omniscience).
Omni-Tell relies a lot more on Show
and Tell than the other lists
here simply because the only ways for it to get Omniscience into play is either Show
and Tell or Dream
Halls, but they much prefer to win on turn two if they can.
Reanimator has been using Show
and Tell in their board for
years, but has begun moving them into the main to help with matchups with
mainboard graveyard hate (such as the ubiquitous Deathrite
Shaman). Reanimator usually cheats a massive creature into play from its
graveyard using efficient spells like Exhume and Reanimate,
but Show
and Tell allows them to
"go off" with even less setup and is harder for fair decks to answer.
The archetype has gotten a lot of love in recent years as Wizards continues to
make insane creatures, leaving none of the deck’s creatures to have a printing
before Ravnica: City of Guilds. Their main targets are Griselbrand (for aforementioned card draw), Iona,
Shield of Emeria (to lock
most decks out of the game), Elesh
Norn, Grand Cenobite (to hose
creature decks) and Tidespout
Tyrant (for built-in control)
with additional creatures in the board for certain matchups.
Hive
Mind is a deck that has kind
of fallen off the map but is still a real deck in Legacy. The plan is to get a Hive
Mind into play, then play the
Future Sight pacts—Pact
of the Titan, Slaughter
Pact, etc—causing Hive
Mind to trigger and the
opponent to control a copy of the spell, which causes them to lose in their
upkeep when they fail to pay. This deck doesn't always need Show
and Tell since it is possible
to cast Hive
Mind as early as turn two in
this deck full of "sol lands" and the ever-powerful Grim
Monolith. There’s not too much you can change in the list, since certain
cards are just needed to go off, but it’s worth a look if you're into cheesing
opponents.
Twelve Post is very different for
a Show
and Tell deck as it uses Show
and Tell as a back up instead
of their main plan. This deck easily casts its monsters using Cloudpost's massive mana potential (with back-up
from Glimmerpost and Vesuva,
all "Locus lands"). Recent lists have been splashing red for cards
like Bonfire
of the Damned to Flame
Wave-plus any fair opponents and clear the way for their world changing
creatures.
The last Show
and Tell deck I'm going to
talk about today is a relic of an Extended past and was incredible in that
format. In its transition to Legacy, the deck has gained additional consistency
and speed. Hypergenesis is the Time Spiral version of Eureka and can possibly come out turn one by
using the Cascade mechanic provided by Violent
Outburst (with no other cards below CMC 3, Hypergenesis is always cast off Cascade), but
usually happens turn three and onward. Again Show
and Tell is the backup plan
here, either putting a massive creature into play or just Omniscience to cast those creatures. This variant
is not very popular because the other versions of Show
and Tell have fewer moving parts and provide more consistency.
Show
and Tell has become one of
the most powerful sorceries in Legacy and will continue to do so as long as
Wizards keeps printing cards like Griselbrand and Omniscience. Show
and Tell is the format's
premier way to cheat permanents into play and honestly just a fun card to play
with.
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