18th June 2010 Banned & Restricted Announcement and Analysis

For those who do not know it, the following changes are made to the banned and restricted list the previous week:

Extended:
4 years of Magic are out, leaving only Time Spiral block and 9th ed onwards. Hypergenesis and Sword of the Meek are banned.

Legacy
Mystical Tutor is banned. Grim Monolith and Illusionary Mask are unbanned.


Look at the official announcement here:

Wizards Hate Combo

And we all know it. Mystical Tutor is a centerpiece of Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT) and an intergral part of Reanimator. For reference, here's some decklists.

ANT – Tomoharu Saito (4th place GP Madrid, 28th Feb 2010)

Mana (16 lands + 18 accelerants)
2 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
2 City of Traitors
1 Island
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

Disruption (6)
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize

Business (19)
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Ad Nauseam
2 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard (15)
4 Dark Confidant
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Reverent Silence
1 Thoughtseize
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Extirpate
1 Slaughter Pact

Reanimator – Gerry Thompson (Winner GP Madrid, 28th Feb 2010)

Mana (16 lands + 1 accelerant)
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Dark Ritual

Disruption (10)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Thoughtseize

Business (33)
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Echoing Truth
4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
1 Show and Tell
2 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
2 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Blazing Archon

Sideboard (15)
1 Animate Dead
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Misdirection
2 Perish
1 Show and Tell
3 Spell Pierce
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Wipe Away
1 Woodfall Primus

The ban on Mystical Tutor severely handicaps ANT because before, MT was one of the ways to get the 2-of Ad Nauseam into your hand. The 2 other ways are LED + Infernal Tutor, and lucksack into it via draws/cantrips. Out of all these, MT is the best way as it requires 6 mana to go off (MT for Ad Nauseam during upkeep), 4 if you played MT end of turn and have a land drop next turn. The only comparable IT requires 7 mana for you to cast Ad Nauseam on the same turn, out of which LED provides 3 mana. However, LED + IT is a 2 card combo, and is more susceptible to Force of Will than Mystical. It also cannot fetch Duress to clear the way of counterspells. Fetching Tendrils after drawing a bunch of cards is also often done via Mystical. In actuality, Brainstorm into Ad Nauseam requires more time than MT, and increases chances of fizzling especially when you're facing fast aggro decks like Zoo.

In sum, ANT is heavily neutered by the ban on Mystical Tutor.

Reanimator also relies on Mystical Tutor to fetch its discard outlet (Entomb), reanimation spells (Reanimate and Exhume), and protection (Duress, FoW). However, the build with Careful Study and more creatures is less reliant on MT due to the additional redundancy in creatures and draw spells that act as discard outlets. MT can effectively be replaced by Ponder in the main deck with no large repercussions.

The main concern for Reanimator however, is that it can no longer rely on MT to fetch out singleton bounce spells to deal with opponent's sideboard hate. This should increase the effectiveness of graveyard hate. In fact, this is one point where I applaud Wizards. In my opinion, the unbanning of Entomb was a wise decision in response to cries of Ichorid warping the format. In the past, dedicating 4-5 sideboard space just for Dredge was unjustified. That is, until the unbanning of Entomb on September 18th 2009 brought in Reanimator. The rise of Reanimator as a tier one deck suppressed the number of dredge top-8's as players now have to face round after round of graveyard hate. The ban on Mystical may bring about a further detrimental effect on Dredge. Unless, of course, people lax on the hate with the weakening of Reanimator.

The Rise of the Robots

It is no surprise that Grim Monolith was brought out of the banned list. Outspoken legacy enthusiasts have long argued for its unbanning and they now have their wish come true. If you use it as a mana accelerant the turn you cast it, it is significantly worse than Lotus Petal as it does not provide coloured mana. However, it does provide slightly more consistency to combo decks such as 2-land Belcher in that they can focus on red and green, eschewing black and its Dark Ritual. Sadly, other combo decks do not require such a temporary boost of mana to warrant inclusion of Grim Monolith.

The real potential for Grim Monolith is in its ability to net you 6 mana on turn 2. Turn 1 Ancient Tomb, Grim Monolith; Turn 2 land gives you 6 mana, 7 if that land is a City of Traitors. We're talking mana through the roof Vintage style here! Add Lodestone Golem, add Metalworker, add some robots from Scars of Mirrodin, and you might have the Decepticons wreaking havoc on Earth. (Edit: Apparently, someone has made turn 2 kills just by accelerating to 6 mana. Read about it here!)


Apart from a mono-brown list sporting the above cards, both Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond provides coloured mana, so you can have 3 colourless and 3 coloured mana on turn 2 if you go land, Mox, Monolith turn 1. However, what you can do with the 3www (Stax) or 3rrr (Dragon Stompy) is beyond me at this moment in time. The one thing that such decks need to improve on is their consistency. Does Grim Monolith add consistency to a mana-and-bombs strategy? I'm sure someone more ingenious than me can figure something out.


And oh, Illusionary Mask is unbanned. Cute.

Oh, and there goes extended. Go Faeries! Counter that Scapeshift and you win.

So what's gonna happen now?

So what decks would see more play now? Zoo definitely would be glad that ANT is off tier one. And control decks would pack more stuff to handle Zoo, especially now that Matt Elias won the Star City Games Open with Zoo. Firespout and Rhox War Monk anyone? Surprisingly, some other sort of combo might wrench the game, probably some combo that is not as reliant on its life points and the graveyard, yet is resilient enough to fight against disruption. That deck is not going to be High Tide, Iggy-Pop, Spanish Inquisition, nor Belcher. I'm placing my bets on Doomsday, and maybe someday soon, we'll see Emrakul annihilating someone into oblivion.

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