This card isn't likely to make a large amount of waves in any format beyond the casual tables, but It's important to keep tabs on all of the Mythic rares of the set. Even if we could always have a Human in play, I'm not sure how good of a card this would be, although Sphinx of Jwar Isle was a finisher in control decks for a while, that also made your draws better as you could use your fetchlands more effectively.... Overall I can't see this card going many places.
This card is very interesting and depending on where things go in the metagame this could be an allstar! Think about the Tempered Steel deck. It has the capability to dump a very large army onto the Battlefield very quickly. Granted they only get up to 4 or 5 creatures usually, which would put this spell at 4 or 5 mana (same as or worse than Day of Judgement). However, this card will be an absolute boss in Multi-player! Imagine you're playing a multiplayer game, and by the time it gets to your turn 2 or 3, theres already 6 or 7 creatures on the board, just tap 2 or 3 lands and you're in business! Even if it doesn't get played as a wrath, this card will see play in Modern as a card to pitch to Blazing Shoal. Dragonstorm was used in the Mobo-blue infect combo deck because it could be tutored for by Peer Through Depths. In the same way, Blasphemous Act can be grabbed by Peer Through Depths an be pitched to make a perfect 10. So this card will be in demand, even if it's never cast.
This, alon with the next card, looks like a cycle of lands reminiscent of the colorless lands in Ravnica block that had abilities relevant to the guilds. I think there will be a cycle of lands that have ally colored abilities that will work with each of the tribes of Innistrad. This one is obviously the Werewolf land, and I really like it. To transform werewolves, you have to not cast spells. How can you press your advantage without casting any spells? By pumping your army without even having to cast spells! This land makes any creature you have in play capable of putting your opponent on a tiny clock, especially when you go to topdeck mode! I think this card will be a 2 or maybe even a 3-of in a GR beatdown deck post rotation.
And let me tell you, this card is even more exciting! I can absolutely see this card being played in UW control decks going forward, and maybe even some aggressive strategies could use it going forward. Basically, this just gives you free value out of whatever plan you were planning on following anyways. In fact, I can see this card being played in a Skaab Ruinator deck, or in a deck that I will unveil using another card to talk about today... Basically this card is very flexible and will be used in almost every UW deck going forwards!
Oh, you want a translation? You can't read Japanese? Why not!!?? Alright... fine....
~Moorland Haunt
Land
Tap: Add 1 to your mana pool
WU, Tap, Exile a creature card from your graveyard: Put a 1/1 white spirit token with flying onto the battlefield
See? This card is going to be ballin! Even when you have no cards left in hand, you can create an army out of what you were using earlier in the game.
UB Zombies have delved a little into mill from time to time (Lich Lord of Unx), and this is just another really cool card in that department. In fact, those 2 cards would work very nice together.... I think this card will be incredibly popular in casual zombie mill decks. In fact, that reminds me of a deck from 2 years ago at camp we called "Zombie Mind Skrew" where Tony would dump an army of zombies including the Lich Lord and play a ton of mill cards like Mind Funeral until there was nothing left of your opponent's deck. I can absolutely see the Undead Alchemist being a 4-of in that deck, so you may be able to move him to those people. One last thought: you could use him as a combat trick where you swing with an army of zombies and your opponent doesn't block thinking they will just get milled 10 or 12 cards, but then you Unsummon Undead Alchemist to your hand and your opponent takes a bunch of real damage. It's janky, but it does work.
Speaking of miling, check this guy out! On Twitter today, Chas Andres (the ChannelFireball financial writer) suggested combining this card with Leveler. Right now Leveler is currently sold out on ChannelFireball at $7 a piece (8th most valuable card from the set), and sold out on SCG at $3 a piece. On TCGPlayer, the Low-Medium-High is 4.48-6.41-9.71. Yesterday it was 0.21-0.44-1.04. The deck isn't even that good, but it will be very popular in casual decks which will keep both Leveler and Labratory Maniac in the $5 range. However, this combo will never work in Modern because it loses to the Punishing Fire combo REALLY hard! Regardless, this is a great card to keep in mind if you can get it as a throw-in in a trade.
And while were on the topic of milling, let's talk about a nutty card! I have been thinking about this card all day and how it could be just used, and there are 2 prevailing possibilities: Skaab Ruinator and U/x control. The Skaab Ruinator deck is a completely new archaetype, most reminiscent of Dredge, so that will take a lot of focused time to make make work efficiently, but U/x control looks very promising. As discussed in it's preview article, it's reminiscent of Rainbow Efreet. You could use traditional creatures to buy yourself time like Squadren Hawk or Wall of Omens (maybe Oculus?) until you have enough mana to cast Mirror-Mad Phantasm and protect it. Then when you untap, you have your opponent on a 4-turn clock that they can't stop short of a Day of Judgement.
There are simply so many things to think about when using this card! For example, how many do you have in your deck? The more you have, he less you will mill in each activation, but you will draw it more frequently. Maybe you want to mill more, but that would require playing less copies, and thus reduce your odds of drawing him. What if I play a clone copying him? If there was only 1 Mirror-Mad Phantasm in the deck (which is in play), then if I activate the clone's ability, I will mill my entire deck. I can also mill my entire deck using Necrotic Ooze if the only Mirror-Mad Phantasm is in my graveyard.
But do I want to mill myself? Or is that just a nasty consequesnce of saving it from a removal spell? If I mill myself, how can I use and abuse that to gain an advantage? I can't use this in a deck that's both control AND Skaab Ruinator if I want to ever get a chance of casting the Ruinator... So there's 2 different things to work out.
That's too much to think about in just one sitting. I am willing to bet one of my articles after the pre-release when we have the full set out (I can't go to the prerelease as I will be on a Canoe trip) will be about exploring the options presented by Mirror-Mad Phantasm and Skaab Ruinator. I am willing to bet there is a fantastic deck hiding in there, I just need to unearth it.
That's all I have for today, if you have any cool ideas regarding Mirror-Mad Phantasm hit me up in the comments, email, or on Twitter. Until next time, Stay Classy!
Ryan Lackie
@ThingsILack
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