By Guo Heng
Magic Origins is finally out and Standard is coming back under the limelight after two months of Modern action. Though the Modern PPTQ season is not officially over, Standard is going to be at the forefront of the competitive spotlight as we boldly venture into a new Standard format in the following weeks. And with the Pro Tour coming up, the Standard hype will reach fever heights in no time and it will be an interesting few weeks for #mtgfinance.
Today we are going to take a look at a few Standard mythics. Standard, but not Magic Origins mythics. I shared my thoughts on the Magic Origins mythics in my two reviews last week and the week before. With the bulk of attention laser-focused on Magic Origins right now, a lot of playable Standard mythics from the previous sets are at an all-time low. And that’s what we are going to turn our financial telescopes on. It’s a good time to pick those cards up as most players would be scrambling to get their hands on the flipwalkers, Languish, and Day’s Undoing (I feel sorry for those in the latter camp).
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.
ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.
I don’t know about Narset, shes kind of a do-nothing card. I’m much more interested in Sarkhan and Sorin post-rotation.
Narset is a lot better in action than on paper, which I realised when I got wrecked by an opposing Narset in a control mirror in an FNM a while back. An opposing Narset is super hard to remove once she gets on board if you are a control deck. She functioned like Ashiok in control mirrors as a cheap threat that you can cast with counter protection early on and eat away the game within a few turns.
I haven’t seen Narset in action against midrange or aggro decks, but her abilities look to have a wider range of relevancy compared with Ashiok’s, one of the reason why I think she has a good shot at seeing more play post-rotation.
Speaking of Sarkhan and Sorin, I’m writing about them in today’s article!
The March spike for See the Unwritten coincided with the announcement of Battle for Zendikar so there was plenty of initial excitement about using this to cheat in Eldrazi at that time. I just guess the Magic public is not patient enough to maintain this price of 7 months so it has become undervalued again.
Fair enough!
“She is a powerful planeswalker in her own right.”
This is the sentence that I take exception with. Yes, she has loads of loyalty but her +1 draws a card some of the time (~40-50% in a dedicated build?). Land her ASAP (t4) against an aggro deck and she literally does nothing. Maximum use is as a Sideboard two-of for one deck (UW or UWB Control) to be brought in for one match-up: the mirror. Even then, I think that deck will be able to summon a better threat than Narset. Would you rather have a DL Ojutai perhaps?
I just think that she does nothing in too many situations and that the one case that she might be good, she might not be the best option.
I agree that Narset is not at her best against aggro, but as Soorani put it, “even Jace, the Mind Sculptor would get mauled by an opponent with four one-drops before he had a chance to resolve.” (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30627_The-Sound-of-Esper.html)
Besides aggro decks, Narset is pretty insane against midrange and control decks. Yup, her +1 only nets you a card 50% of the time, but it does put her at a disproportionately high number of loyalty counters for a four casting cost walker, and she is a threat that opposing midrange and control decks would have to answer risk being buried by the card advantage from her -2 and the occasional card her +1 nets you.
I actually prefer Narset over Dragonlord Ojutai in the control mirror. I’ve played in an Esper Dragons mirror where my opponent sported Narset instead of Ashiok and I was impressed with the threat Narset posed in the mirror. Narset is very much like Ashiok, except she kills faster and is way harder to answer. There is no way a control deck could remove Narset via the damage route, and if you don’t answer an opposing Narset within two turns of her hitting the board, you lose. Well, that was how I lost both games.