My, that Sun is Bright!

Well, for some reason I managed to evade writing anything for the past 5 days, but fear not! For I have returned! I would like to point out that my Mirran vs Phyrexian poll just ended and the Phyrexians won 4-3. ALL WILL BE ONE!

But down to business. Beseiged brought a new fantastic cycle of cards in the form of the Zeniths. For the first time in a long time, Green doesn't get the shaft, but instead Green Sun's Zenith is arguably the most powerful in the cycle. I was skeptical, but playing against's Mark's revamped Valakut deck. Here's what happened:

T1: Forest
T2: Mountian, Overgrown Battlement
T3: Mountain, Green Sun's Zenith --> Overgrown Battlement, Explore, Forest
T4: "Well, I have Green Sun's Zenith, but getting Avenger or Primeval Titan doesn't lock up the game by itself..."

From what I hear, that's pretty good.

Now that's just green sun, before I beat that into the ground, let's go over to another one I initially disregarded: White Sun's Zenith.

I saw a really interesting decklist on TCGPlayer.com (way down at the bottom of the article). Basically, it is a true draw-go deck where the only threats the deck runs is the 2 White Sun's Zenith. Because it's an instant, your opponent will never know if you have counterspell mana or if you're planning on herding some cats at the end of their turn. I personally am a huge fan of the board control that Gideon gives you, so I may toss in 2-3 of him, but I certainly don't need the Venser and Elspeth from my previous rendition. Cutting Wall of Omens is also fine, because the current type of aggro decks are swarm decks, which blank Wall of Omens and make great use of Battle Cry. Another interesting note is the lack of Jace Beleran, but as not-control gets better, Jace Beleran gets worse, so we can use those slots effectively with counterspells.

But wait! Black Sun keeps UB alive!

Black Sun's Zenith has been compared to Damnation, and for good reason. I feel Black Sun's Zenith is the one card that will keep UB Control in the Meta if it goes more towards aggro like I think it will. This is a fantastic mass removal spell that laughs at Thrun, the Last Troll. Although if you really want to play bad spiteful cards to beat infect and Black Sun, just play Melira's Keepers =D

But Red Sun can do things Black can't!

I play a pair of Red Sun's Zenith in the sideboard of my mono-red deck, and the main purpose of the card is the exile the pesky recursive creatures named Bloodghast and Vengevine. Red Sun's Zenith would be dreadful if it were not for the exile killed creature clause. However, just because it isn't good in Constructed doesn't mean it can't be good in limited: I played Red Sun's Zenith 5 times in one match (3 games) against a guy in the finals to win the whole thing and snag my Hero of Bladehold + Mimic Vat.

And Blue Sun! Falls short....

Card draw is always really poweful, and that is basically the only thing that the blue counterpart of any cycle does (original planeswalker cycle, Riddlesmith, Ancestral Recall, etc). Note that last one. We know by now that card draw can very easily be completely overpowered, and in turn Blue Sun's Zenith is the least exciting of all our options for cool Zeniths. Even though it's not the greatest, it's still a decent card. You can get this instead of Stroke of Genius if you want to get 2/3 off $$$wise each for your Legacy High Tide - Time Spiral combo deck. In standard though, I'm not feeling it.

But aside from that cycle, there's still plenty of excitement to be had in MBS. Obviously there has been a ton of talk about how to make new Tezzeret good. For some reason everyone has been talking about his -1 make a 5/5 ability, although that one interests me the least. Yes, I undertand the implications of making your Inkmoth Nexus a 5/5, but with Adventuring Gear and Vampire's Bite, theres enough pumps going on to not need Tezzeret. I feel his other abilities are complete whiffs in Infect. On the other hand, there's this combo deck I advertised that I have been working with. At first I was running the deck to great success, but recently it has stopped popping. Maybe I'm just lucky, or maybe I'm to fragile to disruption. First, I cut the Gallvanizors for Papa Jaces, and that has helped out a ton! However, there's still something missing. Here's the problem I have discovered with Tezzeret: Artifacts can't do everything. They can do many things, but they can't counter spells, especially that of the Day of Judgement variety. Here's a new rendition of the list with many artifacts dropped for more control magic:

4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4x Leaden Myr
4x Silver Myr
4x Perilous Myr
4x Shimmer Myr
2x Myr Battlesphere

4x Myr Turbine
3x Stoic Rebuttal
3x Brittle Effigy

2x Mox Opal
2x Swamp
5x Island
4x Tectonic Edge
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Drowned Catacombs
3x Creeping Tar Pit

This new version runs 25 artifacts, so you should still hit with Tezzeret every single time, but there's removal and countermagic for when you don't draw absolutely perfectly. Also, I chose to use Stoic Rebuttal because I almost always have metalcraft. I run more artifacts (25) than lands (22) so Metalcraft is a given. This new verison is still untested, but I am confident in its abilities.

I must go for now, but until next time stay classy!