That thing about Decay being an out to Boromir and Lavinia i totally missed, good catch. That, in addition to being an out to Vortex if you have more than 5HP and Deafening Silence/High Noon if you can wait a turn, could be the Final push Show needed to go into unbeatable territory. It's already format warping enough, but having a maindeckable out to the 2 most popular cards against It, which Is also good generic removal, Is pretty big. Dimir Mill seems the only truly viable deck against It.
Mana Drain is very interesting. It was only ever legal in vintage, and most of the time it was restricted, until it was unplayable. However there was a short period of time where you would play it in a gifts control deck. I could imagine Drain opening up for larger Delve packages. I can see decks packing both treasure cruise and either Tasigur or Hooting Mandrills as a package to go with Mana Drain.
One thing to note about Aven Interrupter is that it completely shuts off any counterspells since Plotting can only be done as a sorcery if I'm not mistaken. Final Showdown is a card that could have some implications in the future, shutting of the abilities of creatures is something very interesting to have in a format. Insatiable Avarice has some potential at least in a format with Dark Ritual, still not good enough most likely. Lively Dirge might be another interesting card in a reanimator shell, getting back Lurrus + Shadow for example for four mana doesn't sound terrible and there is the (admittedly expensive) graveyard tutor that's attached to the card as well. Magebane Lizard might be a sideboard option for RDW but there are better options. Smuggler's Surprise is a card that I believe in. It might not see immediate play but a lot of flexibility plus a potential game ending mode all in one card gets my hopes up. Vaultborn Tyrant is another big dumb monster to cheat into play but there are more than enough good options for that already. Anyway that's some of the cards that, I think, have some (slight) chances to see play. Great set review as always, very excited for the set.
Yoo thanks for this, appreciate it! Some good suggestions here so gonna give my thoughts on them below. That interaction with Interrupter and counterspells isn't something I thought about initially but that's a pretty meaningful upside for sure so good spot, it also makes cards like Bowmasters a lot less effective. Final Showdown is a card I considered including but it felt a little too expensive to me, if a deck is interested in both of the cheap modes like maybe Death's Shadow then I could potentially see it. Insatiable Avarice is another one I thought about but neither mode seemed that great to me, if the tutor part put the card into your hand, or there was a black deck in Timeless that could make a lot of mana similar to Modern Coffers then then I'd be a lot higher on it. Lively Dirge is a cool one but it seems too expensive to me. If we already had a second cheap reanimation spell like Persist/ Goryo's then the Entomb part could be appealing but it feels a little too expensive imo. Magebane Lizard is an interesting one against storm decks but I think Eidolon does the same thing a bit better while also being more verstalie, and I think the focus atm needs to be against Show and Tell so it's kind of eclipsed by Roiling Vortex, if SnT starts to fall off and storm starts seeing more play then this could be a consideration. You might be right about Smuggler's Surprise, I def have this one on my Historic/ Explorer and Alchemy set reviews to talk about but couldn't figure out a good build for Timeless, this could maybe be good to provide redundancy for a Sneak Attack deck maybe but my main concern was it being pretty mana intensive. Vaultborn Tyrant I'm not very high on tbh, I think we have much better options to cheat into play, the death trigger alongside Sneak Attack is interesting but Sneak Attack already isn't very good and Worldspine Wurm is likely better in that role.
You were asking what we plan to do with reanimate (and mana drain) in timeless. I was thinking something like this: 1 Stifle 1 Lorien Revealed 3 Sauron's Ransom 4 Orcish Bowmasters 4 Reanimate 4 Troll of Khazad-dûm 4 Calim, Djinn Emperor 3 Counterspell 4 Mana Drain 3 Mystic Sanctuary 4 Fatal Push 4 Brainstorm 4 Flooded Strand 2 Island 4 Polluted Delta 1 Swamp 2 Watery Grave 3 Undercity Sewers 2 Dig Through Time 3 Thoughtseize I think Calim could be good redundancy for Troll+Reanimate, with the added bonus that it is good in slow grindy games and plays itself if the game goes on long enough. I also like how Mana drain can boost you into an early troll or Calim. I'm really not sure about some of the choices in instants and sorceries, but I feel confident that a mystic sanctuary mana base is good, since getting back mana drain is so powerful, and fetchland-Sanctuary + Calim can get any card out of the graveyard for 2 mana. I was originally thinking of playing The one ring, but I think there is enough here to take advantage of the extra mana. I think realistically, opponents will learn to play around mana drain anyways.
I mean itll happen for sure, but i dont think it’s anywhere near reanimate’s ceiling. It is one mana better than just thoughtseize into bowmasters, but not instant speed.
@@AlexLawson98 i took the example of bowmasters because thats the most common creature in the format. also you could hit something like an atraxa or prime time quite easily
Really looking forward to running a UB reanimate/control package in Timeless. Mana Drain seems perfect to offset the hands where there is no reanimation spell. I still think Grief and Entomb need to be in the format before the deck is solid though. If we get Force of Negation at some point, I think Stoneforge will be a house. Even If she is removed, Jace can come down on turn 4 and plot a coat, leaving counter magic up. Aegis also pitches to Force and Solitude. But that's getting ahead of myself : )
I think surgical extraction is an insane powersurge in bo1 for jund and sultai or black green midrange decks in general, since they now just dunk on the meta. Discard spell into extraction beats show and tell and other combo decks like sorin vampires, Assassin's trophy into extraction is one of the few simple ways to beat field of the dead. Now dump a few bowmasters and a sheoldred on top against control decks, deathrite shaman, uro and goyf against mono red and there is basically no meta deck left to fear.
If you're running a very high density of discard spells/ counterspells then I could maybe see Extraction being reasonable in the maindeck outside of mill in Bo1, but a lot of decks don't care about specific cards eg. Yawg and Winota can still win with their namesake card if you take Natural Order and vica versa/ Zoo and burn have diverse threats etc. and it's not great if you don't draw it alongside discard/ counters so I'd be worried it'd be dead/ inconsistent a lot of the time. It does seem better vs Show and Tell in Bo1 though when they're less likely to have Veil of Summer but some Bo1 versions I've seen are also on Leyline of Sanctity so I'm still a bit skeptical even in Bo1.
Reanimate could work well with Lamplight phoenix, Altar of dimentia combo. Can also work with Vesperlark Body Double as a second way to reanimate cheaply if you have the pitch cards. T2 big boys/t3 combo seems powerful. Lotsa hate now though...
Mill seems like the best home for reanimate right now, just reanimate or surgical the opponents stuff instead of playing a mediocre reanimator shell. If we get entomb at some point that could change.
Yea reanimation sadly may need alot more than reanimate to give it legs. I might try it in show and tell and maybe a non-lurrus shadow deck with crocodile and troll, mais…
Nah I don't think so, Archmage's Charm is better imo and already doesn't see much play since needing 3 mana to counter is quite slow especially if you're on the draw, and I'd probably max out on Archmage's Charm before running any copies of Three Steps Ahead since the mana cost isn't much of an issue with fetches when you already want double blue on turn 2 for Drain/ Counterspell.
@@mtgazonecom but the new One has the same effects, Is less mana intensive than charme but could do more things at same time in late game. If you think about this, for me Is Better the new spell
The same way Omnitell was the n°1 deck on week 1 of the MKM meta, Death Shadow Reanimate will be OTJ week 1-2 deck to beat. Then we should analyze which decks will raise as the new tier 1 decks for that meta, the same way Zoo, UBx Death Shadow and Burn raised as the 3 best decks (acording to Bo3 winrate data) in the post S&T meta.
Time to make a control deck with Jace, Valki, Release to the wind and one ring. Release to the wind gives you redundancy plus it lets you reset one ring. A deck like that can only be called Fart Control 😂
I REALLY hate these additions, I feel like it takes Timeless away from the degenerate identity that makes it fun and more into just classic Legacy. I've been a huge Timeless fan so far, but I might just fully quit on Tuesday.
