Finance: Grading the M14 Mythics

(modified from the great MythicSpoiler.com)

There are 10 new mythics and 3 reprinted mythics in Magic 2014. I ranked the new ones by their chance of being good in standard:

Chandra (60%). The point of this would be to +1, survive to untap, and then start getting a free card a turn. It wouldn't go in a 19 mountain aggro deck, and the +0 doesn't interact well with counterspells or Bonfires. Probably a Farseek deck is best; Jund could be adapted to play some cheap blockers -- Elvish Visionary?

Shadowborn Demon (50%). I had this much lower until I read Owen Turtenwald's M14 piece. "Destroy target creature" less powerful in current standard than it sounds, but Owen points out that sacrificing creatures is pretty easy.

Scourge of Valkas (25%). Obviously this does nothing today, but if, say, two good cheap dragons are printed in the next block, Scourge of Valkas will start looking real.

Garruk, Caller of Beasts (25%). A sideboard card for a hypothetical Bant. I don't know if people will want more than two copies.

Archangel of Thune (10%). You'd need, like, Sol Wardens and Soulmenders to make this work -- creatures that can gain life for zero mana.

Kalonian Hydra (5%). Wolfir Silverheart is underplayed, but this does so much less than Wolfir Silverheart.

Rise of the Dark Realms (1%). I'm not sure how much play 7BB for "Win the game" would see.

Devout Invocation (1%). If you have seven mana and a lot of untapped creatures, there are other cards that just win you the game.

Windreader Sphinx (1%). It's tough to see where this does more than Angel of Serenity / Sphinx's Revelation / Aetherling.

Primeval Bounty (0%). You'd have to be playing a very slow deck with a lot of creatures in it somehow.


The "good mythics" are Chandra and Shadowborn Demon, which will open at (rightfully) high prices.

The mythic I might speculate is Scourge of Valkas -- I'd want to buy low in August and then hope for a Dragon deck in standard by 2014. But the price might not go low enough -- Scourge of Valkas has casual appeal and other people might be making the same play as me.

My plan for now is to sell every mythic rare I open.

Limited: M14 common synergy and strategies

UPDATE: Instead of this post, please try reading pick orders by Frank Karsten and Owen Turtenwald. Karsten and Turtenwald are top pros who wrote based on a lot of experience; the post below is just my guesswork from reading the spoiler before the set was released.

GW Slivers: Probably the best three common slivers are Predatory Sliver, Sentinel Sliver, and Hive Stirrings.  There are common Slivers in red, but they are not as good.

RB Aggro: There aren't many "bears" in M14, but the best ones are probably Child of Night, Corpse Hauler, and Goblin Shortcutter. Those plus Festering Newt should go well with Lightning Talons and the red finisher commons (Lava Axe, Act of Treason, Seismic Stomp).

Auramancer and Quag Sickness.

Trained Condor and Scroll Thief: Drafting Condor is probably harder than drafting Tricks of the Trade was, but this is still cool.

UR Archaeomancer: Stuff like Essence Drain and Murder made Archaeomancer best in UB for M13, but M14 doesn't have as many common black targets for Archaeomancer. It can still recur stuff like Chandra's Outrage and Lava Axe.

Pick this early.

Blue Control: The general weakness of the creatures in M14 means "durdle cards" like counterspells and Divination are good, and it makes Disperse good by forcing people into auras like Mark of the Vampire and Trollhide.

Big Green: There isn't anything like Timberpack Wolf or Centaur Courser at common in M14; the best green cards are the Llanowar Elf, Hunt the Weak, and Sporemound. Rootwalla instead of Yeva's Forcemage also makes green a mana-hungry colour. Verdant Haven should be very playable now.

Things I don't recommend:

- 5-colour green. The fixing is there (Verdant Haven and Shimmering Grotto), but there are no gold cards, so all the bombs in this set cost heavy coloured mana and aren't really splashable.
- UW flyers. This strategy works better when there are exalted creatures in the set. In M14, UW flyers will just mean attacking for 1 with Seacoast Drake and Griffin Sentinel. The best blue common (Trained Condor) encourages you to play a bunch of non-flyers.
- GR Advocate of the Beast. There are only two common beasts in the set.
- White weenie. Master of Diversion will make people try this deck, but the common white attackers are pretty bad in this set.

Standard: Xathrid Necromancer Aristocrats for future standard

From the M14 spoiler, Xathrid Necromancer seems like a really good constructed card.

Rotlung Reanimator was amazing in standard about ten years ago -- just for fun, here's a Zombie deck that won French Nationals in 2003:

Now, here is a deck played by megafone and ar7ic that can put many Humans into the graveyard and can also make good use of Zombie tokens:

Human Aristocrats
4 Champion of the Parish, 4 Doomed Traveler
4 Cartel Aristocrat, 4 Knight of Infamy, 2 Skirsdag High Priest
3 Silverblade Paladin, 2 Lingering Souls
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Zealous Conscripts
5 removal
2 varying slots
24 lands (including 4 Cavern of Souls)

This deck uses Champion of the Parish and Cavern of Souls for synergy with the "Human" creature type on stuff like Doomed Traveler and Cartel Aristocrat. It goes light on normal "token combo stuff" (with 0 Blood Artist, 0 Sorin, and only 2 Lingering Souls), instead playing "pump creatures" (Knight of Infamy and Silverblade Paladin) to attack with a giant Champion of the Parish or a giant flying Vampire.

Xathrid Necromancer fits this deck's strength -- it is a Human; it cashes in on Humans; and it makes lots of tokens. Here's a sketch of an all-in Aristocrats combo deck for summer standard, using the same WBr Humans mana-base:

Future Human Aristocrats
4 Champion of the Parish, 4 Doomed Traveler
4 Cartel Aristocrat, 4 Blood Artist, 2 Gather the Townsfolk, 3 Skirsdag High Priest
4 Xathrid Necromancer, 4 Lingering Souls
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat, 2 Sorin
3 removal
24 lands

This weakens the mana-fixing power of Cavern of Souls a lot, so it might be optimal with something like 12 shocklands, 4 Clifftop Retreat, 4 Isolated Chapel, and 4 Plains. I've called Blood Artist weak, but sacrificing creatures will be much more affordable when Xathrid Necromancer is legal.

Here is a fun turn-4 goldfish:

T1 Champion of the Parish.
T2 Gather the Townsfolk, attack for 3.
T3 Xathrid Necromancer, attack for 4 with Champion.
T4 Blood Artist, Cartel Aristocrat.

Attack for 5 with Champion of the Parish. Sacrifice 4 Humans to drain 4 life and make 4 Zombies. Sacrifice 4 Zombies to drain the last 4 life.

Wackier options include Intangible Virtue, Bloodthrone Vampire, Disciple of Bolas, and Maw of Obzedat. Brian Braun-Duin sketched a WB Humans deck with Mutavault and suggested the glorious option of Increasing Devotion. A more sensible option might be to play a 4c Human Aristocrats deck with Avacyn's Pilgrim and Mayor of Avabruck, using the Necromancer just for value instead of for combo potential.