This week in M15 news…

Black

In Garruk's Wake

If you get in his way, you will be destroyed. Garruk no longer cares whether you are creature or planeswalker, all will be destroyed. This Plague Wind upgrade costs approximately a million mana, but in a control shell it could see play as a one- or two-of. After taking a whiff, this smells like a Commander card to me though. Pick up a couple in case they see play but only because they are so cheaply obtained.

Liliana Vess

How many printings are we at now? A comprehensive Gatherer search tells us that this is the sixth printing as long as you include the elusive Duels of the Planeswalkers promo. This Commander staple has never had her time to shine in Standard and this may finally be the year.

Once Jace, Memory Adept rotates out of Standard there will be an opening for a planeswalker that directly attacks a control deck. Also, she could be good in the Black Devotion mirror. Lilly and all her promos may be making her main stage debut at a tournament near you soon. Don’t miss her possible farewell tour.

Necromancer's Stockpile

The bodies are piling up in the corner with flavor on this one. There is a neat interaction with Tymaret, the Murder King creating a draw engine. Other than that don’t put your stock in this stockpile until we see what other synergies the next block adds to the mix.

Sign in Blood

With the reprinting of Sign in Blood, it seems like all the black mages of the world gathered their dark energy to make black as unbeatable as possible. This cheap draw spell is an obvious card that will see play immediately. Most likely it will see play post-rotation as well. Not much else to say about one of the best black draw spells of all time.

Soul of Innistrad

My main complaint for putting your efforts into casting a Soul is that Silence the Believers will be seeing more and more play. I know I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. You would be much better served ramping into a card that doesn’t get completely butchered by a commonly played removal spell.

Stain the Mind

For a Cranial Extraction remake, Stain the Mind may be the next coming. I’ve seen black devotion decks splashing red primarily for Slaughter Games and now they don’t need the red mana.

In addition, I love this card for black aggressive decks. Extraction effects are best suited for aggressive decks because they take away your opponents' options for dealing with them. Adding convoke allows you to curve into one-drop, two-drop, Stain the Mind which could be situationally amazing. This sorcery is a multipurpose sideboard tool that allows your deck to permanently remove the hardest card to beat ahead of time.

Ulcerate

Yet another solid black removal spell, this time with Eternal playablility. Ulcerate may be too much of a liability in Standard, but it’s at a good enough rate that it may be worth giving yourself some mouth pain to play it. Against the red swarm decks it seems terrible, but taking out Fleecemane Lion would be sick. Definitely playable, but it will range in playability depending on how the format shapes up.

Waste Not

The Magic community did not waste their time creating a boring card this time. There is so much going on with Waste Not that it seems overwhelming. The short of it is that you are rewarded by making your opponent discard cards.

While this could be the card 8-Rack has been dreaming of in Modern, Standard doesn’t really have the tools to support the strategy yet. Fighting against discard is never fun, but it could be a powerful deck to play depending on what tools are available. If you think this card is playable right away, please post your thoughts in the comments.

Xathrid Slyblade

I wanted to mention this hexproof card because it was my MVP in the first M15 sealed I played in. Obviously it gets worse in Standard because players have more removal, but especially against decks with little or no removal, this assassin brick-walls your opponent’s offense force. Doubtfully the Hexproof deck will want to play swamps, but more options are never a bad thing.

Red

Aggressive Mining

Wizards was digging pretty deep into the flavor department in M15 and this enchantment doesn’t fail to deliver. Drawing extra cards is the best thing you can do in Magic and red doesn’t get this powerful of an effect so it’s worth thinking about whether you want to start some Aggressive Mining in your red decks. Again, this card seems powerful but exactly how powerful, only testing will tell.

Altac Bloodseeker

R/W Burn already has enough great creatures but this is a powerful new option to consider. You can even play this on turn three or four along with a burn spell to kill their guy and hit for a lot of damage. I’ve seen this human seek a lot of blood in Limited and he seems good enough to make the transition into Standard.

Borderland Marauder

This Gore-House Chainwalker impersonator is an easy inclusion for your red aggressive decks and should replace the Ravnica block card once rotation shows its beautiful self. Borderland Marauder may be bland, but it’s still a powerful aggressive tool.

Frenzied Goblin

When in doubt, make your opponent’s creatures not able to block. While Frenzied Goblin is blatantly playable in any aggressive red deck, my hope is that goblins is a playable tribe again. M15 gives us some great goblins to work with and hopefully we will follow up with some more in the next set.

Generator Servant

Not too often are we given potent mana acceleration in red, but if you want to generate a powerful end game, this may be the 2/1 for you. It's certainly not a bomb in Limited, but a cheaper Blood Vassal or a less color intense Satyr Hedonist seems like a great constructed tool. It’s unclear what we want to be ramping into, but it’s worth keeping in mind when brewing.

Goblin Rabblemaster

If you want a rabble of hasty goblins, this is the master for you. They work well in multiples and attack for a ton of damage if unchecked even for one turn. Goblin Rabblemaster will be the core of the Goblins deck and makes the deck worth building just for him. This theoretical deck seems like tons of fun but we’ll see whether it can make its way to the top of the heap.

Hammerhand & Inferno Fist

M15 is pushing card design in a number of areas but one of the most exciting is in the realm of auras. Both Hammerhand and Inferno Fist are great ways to increase the speed of your aggressive deck while not losing card advantage if they kill your creature. For one and two mana, these auras definitely pull their weight in utility. Which way will you be upgrading your grip?

Shrapnel Blast

Shrapnel Blast may not be a plant for the next block, but there may be enough artifacts floating around to start blasting your opponent for five damage. Then again, Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient is in the set also, so who knows what red artifact decks will be possible.

Stoke the Flames

Four mana for four damage isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but adding convoke to make it cheaper could add the additional potency needed for this card to see play. Curving Young Pyromancer into Stoke the Flames seems incredibly good. Because it typically costs less than four mana, it may even see play alongside Warleader's Helix.

Artifacts

Ornithopter

While this little flyer that could seems innocent, his power is already a known quantity since Affinity has been killing their opponents with this guy for a decade. He has some synergy with a couple of M15 cards like Spirit Bonds and Illusory Angel. I don’t know if these interactions will be enough for this little guy to make another appearance in Standard, but it seems like a fun U/W Skies deck might be there, though probably not good enough.

Phyrexian Revoker

Hate bears unite! Phyrexian Revoker is here to ruin the day of planeswalkers of all colors. What I’m looking forward to the most is finding this disabler off of Chord of Calling in response to my opponent casting their planeswalker. Revoker has many other applications as well and deserves your maindeck spots.

Soul of New Phyrexia

If I was planning on my opponents killing all of my creatures, Soul of New Phyrexia would be a great card to ramp into. With so many ways to remove creatures without killing them, my stock in this Soul has gone down quite a bit. Maybe I’m wrong and their won’t be enough tools to stop all of the Souls from impacting Standard, sadly I don’t think I am.

Too Slow

The following options are all great cards that seem too slow to make an impact. The Chain Veil, Scuttling Doom Engine, Obelisk of Urd, and Perilous Vault are all great cards but they take so much time to get online. Cards like this are typically unplayable in Standard.

Lands

Painlands

Battlefield Forge, Caves of Koilos, Llanowar Wastes, Shivan Reef, and Yavimaya Coast are powerful new tools to add to your manabase for these color combinations.

Outside of Caves of Koilos, which has had the Modern Event Deck reprint to stymie its price, the others have not been printed enough or recently enough to keep their price from rising quickly. Get in soon or miss your window for cheap prices on these painlands. It would not surprise me if the ones that see play double in price before the end of Summer.

Slivers

Sliver Hivelord

There may only be six slivers in M15, but they sure are sweet ones. Lots of players will be trying to Manaweft Sliver their way into indestructible creatures via Sliver Hivelord. Sliver Hive should help with consistency as well and most decks will not be able to beat that sequence. There are many answers to synergistic strategies in Standard, but pulling off this combination is difficult to stop especially once it’s in play.

The two-mana slivers, Diffusion Sliver, Leeching Sliver and Venom Sliver, all seem like huge power level buffs to the sliver deck. Belligerent Sliver seems great as a bullet to help fight against decks that can block well but Constricting Sliver is likely too slow.

Slivers is like Mono-Green Devotion. Once the snowball starts down the hill, it quickly turns into an unstoppable force. Add Chord of Calling to this equation equals the ability to locate your situational sliver bullets. Start killing those slivers early and often otherwise you will not recover.

M15 seems like it has tons of expertly designed cards poised to create fun and interesting decks. I hope the set lives up to it and makes Standard fun again.

M15 Financial Updates

Have you seen the price of Nissa, Worldwaker this week? She has nearly doubled! Forty dollars seems like the ceiling for her or close to it so if you don’t need your copies, move them into this hype. I doubt she can sustain this price for long.

Until Next Time,

Unleash the Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com