A Handful of Gatecrash Mythics

Hello everyone!

At 2:04 am this morning a post went up on an MTG Salvation forum that includes pictures of 5 foil Mythic Rares from Gatecrash! There is some really exciting new options for us on the table, so let's get right to it!

Starting things off we have the obligatory dragon of the set. With the exception of Lorwyn, Morningtide, Eventide, Rise of the Eldrazi, Betrayers of Kamigawa, and Saviors of Kamigawa every single set in Modern has a Dragon in it. They usually aren't exciting or good, and this isn't much of an exception. Unlike most dragons this isn't grossly overcosted and a 6/5 trample flying body is fine, but this isn't going to win you anything significant. If it's in your limited pool or you open one in a pack snap pick it, but that is where its dominance comes to a close. One thing to know about this card is that it will be very popular in the casual realm. Dragons already hold a little allure, but any time a card says "........you win the game" immediately it's value goes up. Even a card like Darksteel Reactor, which I feel is one of the worst "you win the game" cards has people building decks entirely around!

Moving up the ranks of playability we have the new Gruul guild leader! For a measly.... holy crap this costs 8 mana! The last Borborygmos cost 7 mana, but this one is clearly better. In fact, he might even be playable. This guy has an immediate effect when he comes into play and can completely dominate the board after a single untap. Sadly we don't have Life from the Loam in standard, but there are other ways to get lands into you hand. In standard we have Borderland Ranger, Gatecreeper Vine, Lair Delve, Mulch, and Seek the Horizon. Seek and Delve really aren't playable, but the others could be used in conjunction with the rest of the ramp deck to make Borborygmos Enraged playable. The only thing holding this guy back is that he costs 8 mana.

Next we have the Boros guild leader who is actually rather exciting. At first a 3/4 body on a 6 mana creature looks really weak, but after considering how it grants extra attack phases it's more like a 6/4, which is far more respectable. Unfortunately, unlike Borborygmos I don't think Aurelia has any hope of getting cast. She is really only good in a beatdown deck, which usually wants to curve out at 3 or 4. Costing 6 mana, no matter how spicy, is usually not in the cards. In limited though, this is simply insane! When you're ahead of your opponent on board you can immediately end the game. When you want to get damage in but can't afford tapping your creatures Aurelia untaps all your creatures at the end of combat so they effectively gain vigilance. As a 3/4 vigilance body herself, she is a respectable force while in play.

WOW! This card is absolutely INSANE! Sure it costs 12 mana, it wins you the game on the spot! Well... It SHOULD win you the game on the spot. At 12 mana we can't just casually toss this into any old deck, so we have to have a plan. My initial idea was to play this in High Tide. High Tide can often get up to ridiculously high amounts of mana quickly, and drawing your entire deck (putting back land) guarantees that you won't fizzle. 14 cards in the deck draw more cards, there are about 19 lands and 4 Time Spirals which are useless, so we have about 23 cards in the deck that we can actually cast to build up storm. Another place I thought about the card was in the sideboard of Omniscience to Burning Wish for. However, Petals of Insight already auto-wins the game, so Enter the Infinite doesn't actually get us anywhere.

Omniscience pushed Dream Halls out of the format, but this could be the card that brings Dream halls back! One of the things that makes Dream Halls a better choice than Omniscience is that Dream Halls is reasonably castable whereas Omniscience is 100% reliant on Show and Tell. When we use Enter the Infinite as a direct replacement of Conflux, we no longer have to play 4 Progenitus (we would still play 1 so we can use it to cast the False Cure, then Ponder to get it back, then use it to cast the Beacon). One of the problems before with Dream Halls is that Show and Telling in a Progenitus was a 2-3 turn clock that didn't disrupt the opponent , so it usually never won you the game. Now we can play other sexy Show targets like Emrakul and Griselbrand!

I think that High Tide is already a powerful enough deck that Enter the Infinite won't do much to improve it. Dream Halls is the real winner here!

Wrapping things up we have a new incredible planeswalker! At 3 mana this card is absolutely bonkers! A 3 mana planeswalker that has a +1 to draw a card? Sounds fair... Then we have a -2 that generally reads "Destroy target creature" so it protects itself.... Then we have an ultimate that is just stupidly good! Did I mention it only costs 3 mana?!?!?! Turn 1 Stomping Grounds, pay 2 life, Arbor Elf go. Turn 2 Forest Domri Rade +1 go. How do you plan on winning this game??? At first I thought about playing this guy in the sideboard to grind out against control, but the more I think about it, the more I think he can be an easy 4-of in the maindeck. Ferver Jund is a deck that hasn't gained a huge following, but with the printing of Stomping Grounds Flinthoof Boar will be insane and I think this planeswalker will really help pull it all together. Consider this deck:

4x Arbor Elf
4x Strangelroot Geist
4x Flinthoof Boar
2x Ash Zealot
4x Dreg Mangler
4x Falkenrath Aristocrat
4x Hellrider
2x Thundermaw Hellkite

4x Domri Rade
4x Searing Spear

4x Stomping Grounds
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Blood Crypt
4x Rootbound Crag
2x Woodland Cemetery
2x Dragonskull Summit
2x Forest
2x Mountain

With 28 creatures Domri Rade has a 47% chance of hitting a creature on the +1. A lot of these creatures have very reasonably sized bodies so the -2 will be able to kill just about anything. The one thing that I'm not sure about with this deck is Strangelroot Geist and Ash Zealot. They are both very good, but they are both very hard to cost. Arbor Elf may be able to clean up that problem by itself, but it's definitely something to consider. Every single creature (besides the Elf) has haste, so this almost plays out like a mono-red burn deck! Strangelroot Geist, Falkenrath Aristocrat, and Dreg Mangler all have resistance to Supreme Verdict as well, so there is some resiliancy. If you do manage to ultimate Domri Rade the haste doesn't matter but Double Strike, Hexproof, and Trample basically wins you the game by itself!

These cards are clearly awesome! Especially those last 2! However, it is important to remember that these are not necessarily real cards. If they're not, then we had an exercise in mental deck building which is always good to have too. That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack