Musings on the topic of SOM

The full spoiler has been out a few days and we've all had some time to give it some thought.

My impression of Scars of Mirrodin is that it is a very weak set. Two of the new mechanics, Metalcraft and Imprint, are terrible. It is nearly impossible to activate metalcraft with the current card pool, there aren't enough good artifacts to make the few good metalcraft cards worth playing. Imprint usually costs you two cards to use, and the rewards are not worth that cost. Infect has potential, but again there aren't enough quality infect creatures to build a deck with in the current card pool. The entire set feels like it is waiting for the next two expansions before it reaches its potential.

SOM is so different from Zendikar block that the new cards don't really fit into existing decks. This leaves us with a standard that is much weaker than the last as none of the old decks improved, many were completely wiped out, and the new decks won't have a big enough card pool to compete.

Also of note, the creature removal in SOM is much worse than Alara block and the Planeswalker removal is non-existant. Terminate, Pulse, Path, and O-ring have not been replaced. Creatures and Planeswalkers will be even stronger in the new standard now that they can't be destroyed as easily.

Yup.

Thing is, we're losing the entire Alara block and only gaining one set to replace the three. Can't expect everything to balance out right now, would be unrealistic.

Agree with the assessment of Metalcraft; Imprint isn't exactly a new mechanic but I agree that the cost is high if you want to take advantage of it. Proliferate looks really clunky too, falling into the category of being attached to cards that have the potential to "do nothing" if the circumstances aren't just right.

I think Black will become more popular in Standard, not because it got so many amazing new cards but because all the best White removal is leaving, putting Black into the position of the primary/most effective creature-killing color. Plus Vampire Hexmage is going to be one of the few reliable non-creature-damage ways to kill Planeswalkers with O-ring gone.


One deck I'm going to keep my eye on is U/B Control, using some combination of the cheaper/playable artifacts, Trinket Mage, Skithiryx the Blight Dragon as the finisher (I mean hard to kill, 3 turn clock, haste, evasion, what's not to love?) and maybe a few of the decent proliferate cards (the cantrip one? not sure yet) in conjunction with all of the good UB cards from previous sets (Jace/Consuming Vapors/Gatekeeper of Malakir maybe?). Creeping Tar Pits will be even more valuable now considering its efficiency at dealing with Planeswalkers.

At the very least, the art looks good on most of the cards lol.

I agree with what you're saying because it is factual, the question is will this relatively lower power level going to be enjoyable? Well fucked if i know.

The thing i always liked about shards was the risk vs reward of running a shard instead of mono colors. You had access to higher tier spells but at the risk of being color screwed and the spells were allowed to have dynamic effects because of their multicolored casting costs.

Infect seems interesting, will it be anything more then pesudo double strike? Metal craft seems cheesy to me, any destruction of your shit could be doubly damaging as suddenly your 4/4 is a 2/2 and dies with everything else, of course that swings both ways etc etc

Infect is better than double strike because the -1/-1 counters given to opposing creatures are permanent. A 1/1 infect creature is still relevant at all points in the game because it will at least "shrink" creatures it chumps.

I am thinking the same thing as you Brandon. Mono Black may become a powerful deck simply because it maintains good removal as well as vampire hexmage to deal with planeswalkers. U/B infect will become a powerful archetype, though maybe not until the next set(s) are released.

Once rotation happens i think, that if you are running a deck that does not include Jace, Vengevine, and/or some yet-unknown infect deck, you are probably doing it wrong. The best colors in standard will be Blue, Black, and Green. White and red are going to be utility, but any deck that has one or both of them as main colors is just going to flop to Jace or Vengevine or Hexmage.

The cards that seem really good to me are: Genesis Wave, Skithiryx, Infiltration Lens, and Spikeshot Elder. Also, I think all the tools for an Infect deck are there, they just need to be put together properly.

Genesis Wave is fucking nuts and will singlehandedly brings elves back to competitive play. I can envision several draws that could result in casting the wave with X >= 5 by turn 4, dropping any monuments and planeswalkers that are on the top of your library directly into play.

Llanowar Elves
Joraga Treespeaker
Elvish Archdruid

Nissa Revane
Garruk Wildspeaker
Nissa's Chosen

Eldrazi Monument
Genesis Wave

You can add blue to the deck for some proliferate action off of Oran-Rief, Joraga Warcaller, and the planeswalker

I moved Adam's and Warren's discussion about post-SoM deckbuilding to the proper sticked topic, since people still seem to ignore that it exists. Technically should have moved the entire thing, but the topic started on the subject of the set itself.


Now. my thoughts about the set: For the most part, I'll wait and see until I play with the cards myself to some satisfiable degree. I haven't been much into the game in the past two months with my current situation, anyhow.