Budget Mythic Spotlight 2017-03-27

Mythic rares are a weird breed -- some are the strongest cards you can play in Standard, and others appear to be designed as sort of a "we'll throw this out there and see what happens."  Let's look at a seemingly strong budget mythic from each color, see why they are cheap, and whether you should play with any of them in Standard.

Cataclysmic Gearhulk - about 70 cents
This might be the biggest surprise of the Gearhulks.  They've all slipped a bit, but I think the white one was actually expected to have some play value.  One of the problems is that unlike the others, you can't get bonus value out of it with Panharmonicon or blink effects, but that isn't the real issue.  I think the biggest problem is that decks playing white would prefer Archangel Avacyn for their 5-drop.  If they're playing control, maybe Fumigate is what they want.  But this looks like a pretty good Commander card since it kills a lot of stuff and leaves behind a creature, and for that reason alone I was shocked that it's so cheap.

I would definitely play this card.  It is a useful effect in many decks (as long as you don't hurt yourself with it more than you hurt your opponent), it dodges Fatal Push, Grasp of Darkness, and Spell Queller, and I think it's potentially very strong.  The downside of its effect is that against popular decks right now, you might leave them with good board -- this effect really thrives against decks that are all in on one permanent type, and there is too much variety in most decks.  The big advantage the original Catacylsm had over the Gearhulk is that Cataclysm destroys lands.  If this reduced everyone to 1 land, it would be the best Gearhulk and players would love/hate it depending which end they are on.  Instead we get a partial wrath effect that punishes people for playing too many creatures or artifacts, or, more rarely, enchantments or planeswalkers.  But the creature body itself is probably worth about 2WW in Standard play, so the bonus is real if you're only paying 1 more for it.  It's possible that it will see a price and play bump either when Avacyn rotates in the fall or if decks start winning with too many redundant permanent types.

Geralf's Masterpiece - about 50 cents
This unfortunate zombie horror lives in a space where it just isn't ever the best choice.  It does avoid the same removal as the Gearhulk, and it has recursion with its ability, but it's in this weird space where the recursion isn't cheap enough to beat out weaker creatures like Haunted Dead and Stitchwing Skaab who come back for only 2 mana and 2 cards rather than 4 and 3.  The Masterpiece also requires some odd deckbuilding to be at full power on the battlefield.  A 7/7 with a built in downsizing ability is a trap -- It will be 6/6 on attack at best unless you plan to play all your cards before/during combat.

The only place where I see this working at close to 100% is a madness deck with other payoffs for having no cards in hand.  There are other cards around that also fit that theme, but they probably aren't reliable enough.  And if you want a big blue flying creature that helps facilitate graveyard strategies, you are better off with various Stitchwings.  If you just want a big blue flier, there are a ton of cheap choices at similar cost that don't get hosed by your hand size (for example Guardian of Tazeem).  In summary, I just don't think this card is good enough.

Demon of Dark Schemes - about 55 cents
A 6-mana card is pretty fringe in Standard unless it has a cost reduction ability (like this Demon's more popular and less lazily named friend, Herald of Anguish).  I'm sure there are plenty of demon decks in Commander and other casual formats, but there are also plenty of good demons to choose from.  For Standard, if you want a -2/-2 effect, you have cheaper options in the sometimes sideboardable Flaying Tendrils and its less playable 4-drop variants.  This demon gives you a lot more than just the -2/-2 effect, but it also comes out too late to stop most of the decks that will come at you with creatures that small.  Its last effect is very strong, and even though it's energy based, Demon also provides its own energy (the implied "story" of its abilities is that it makes a lot of energy for itself when it comes into play).

So is this card good?  I think it's very powerful and there are ways to build around it.  But it's also a 6-drop, which means you either play one or two copies as a finisher in e.g. an energy-based control deck, or you have some trickery to get it in play.  Unfortunately, decks that use trickery (like Aetherworks Marvel) would rather play even bigger payoffs like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.

I wouldn't say don't play it; it's still a great top-end black creature if you are playing on a budget, and people will be surprised the first time they see you play it.  But since we're done with new energy cards, there isn't much chance that cards from future sets will make it better than it is now.

Lightning Runner - about 50 cents
This card builds on a lot of the same themes as above -- beautiful art, a CMC of 5 so that it can't be hit by Fatal Push, and a lot of crazy text.  The difference here is that it is only a 2/2, so it dies to almost anything else, including Shock (How many 5-drops die to Shock?  Not many good ones).  One interesting aspect of Lightning Runner is that it is the only creature in all of Magic to naturally have both haste and double strike.  Wizards must be pretty wary of that pairing if they will only print it on a 2/2 for 5 mana -- perhaps they are testing the combination for future consideration.  It does make this card possibly interesting for decks using things like Soulflayer, Cairn Wanderer, or Odric, Lunarch Marshall to borrow its abilities.

I think the biggest problem with this card, which promises a Relentless Assault if you have enough energy when you cast it, is that it has to go in an energy deck, and most red energy decks are trying to win with Electrostatic Pummeler and other aggressive monsters before they can even cast this thing.

Let's compare it to Aurelia, the Warleader and Hellkite Charger, two very similar cards.  Like Aurelia, it isn't too hard for Lightning Runner to give you extra combats the same turn you play her, although Aurelia is far better in that she requires no resources to trigger and tends to survive the combat, not dying to any random 2/3 blocker.  But the strange advantage Lightning Runner has is that, like Hellkite Charger, if you have enough resources to spend (in this case energy instead of mana), you can just keep attacking over and over.  For every 6 energy you already have, you get one additional combat phase, if Lightning Charger survives.  Or, if you somehow have 4 Lightning Runners, they generate enough energy on their own to keep attacking.

Long story short, with its unique effects, this card is correctly placed at mythic rarity. But it is also extremely fragile for its cost.  It sure seems cool, but I don't know if there is a deck you can build where this is your best choice for a red 5-drop.  And like the Demon, this relies on energy, so it probably won't get better with new set releases.  The only thing I can see making it more competitive in the future is a way to cheat it into play -- for example a card that can only reanimate low-power creatures from the graveyard.

Decimator of the Provinces - about $1.25
Emerge is in a pretty good spot as an ability, as it naturally dodges Fatal Push and Spell Queller and triggers Sanctum of Ugin, all while also being castable at a discount.  Unlike most of the emerge creatures, which can easily be cast on Turn 4 by sacrificing a 3-drop (emerge CMC 7), this ball of pigs naturally casts on Turn 5 by sacrificing a 4-drop (emerge 6GGG).  That's not a complete disadvantage, because you ideally want some other creatures on the board when you play it.  The triple green mana does mean you need to be heavily in green.  I don't think this card has been a complete failure, as it still holds some value and I've seen it suggested in some deck builds.  It just doesn't fit in the most popular decks right now.

I think this is a very strong finisher for a certain kind of deck, and I would completely advocate playing it on a budget.  What I think you want is creatures that give you value, spread out wide, and help you survive while you wait to make your big attack.  Eyeless Watcher cries out as a perfect emerge sacrifice for Decimator, and Eldrazi Scions in general fit in with the Decimator plan.  Creatures with deathtouch are also good because they provide defense and because deathtouch synergizes nicely with trample (Wizards generally considers it too strong or un-intuitive to print both abilities on the same card, even though each ability frequently appears in green).  I don't really think this card is likely to become much more popular before it leaves Standard, but you might be able to roll over some people with it on the cheap.

Oblivion Sower - about $1.00
Unlike the other creatures in this list, this one is cheap not because it isn't played, but because it got a bonus high-run printing in the Battle for Zendikar preview Duel Decks.  Both the regular version and the Duel Deck foil version are about the same price, so you have your choice of art.  Strategies using Oblivion Sower have been less mainstream since we got out of the heavy Eldrazi days of BFZ and OGW standard, and its price has fallen off accordingly.  But it remains one of the strongest -- and weirdest -- ways to ramp your mana up to cast your expensive game-enders.  With the right mix of mana producers, this can come out on turn 4 or 5 pretty regularly, and it both gives you a big blocker to help stabilize and gives you 1 or 2 free lands from your opponent's deck on average, assuming you aren't doing anything else to exile their cards (bonus points if you cast Oblivion Sower after using Crumble to Dust to pull a set of 4 fancy nonbasics into exile).

As you can see, I think this is still a great card.  There are a number of angles you can take, but they all require you to want to cast something even bigger than a 6-drop 5/8.  Most of the best bigger targets are also not cheap, like Ulamog, but that doesn't mean you can't find something else good to do with 10 mana.  Heck, you could even hard-cast Decimator of the Provinces.

Mirrorpool - about $1.20
Ok, so "land" isn't a color (literally), but I wanted to look at this one.  BFZ block gave us a ton of rare lands, and just one mythic land.  It isn't legendary, and it also isn't weak.  But it falls into the trap of being a colorless mana producer that comes into play tapped and requires colorless mana for its abilities.  Remove any of those three restrictive elements, and this card might have found consistent use or even a powerful combo.  Even with those restrictions, it still holds that potential.  Copying a spell for virtually (since you have to tap Mirrorpool) 4 mana or copying a creature for virtually 6 mana is probably about the right cost since this can go into a deck of any color and work at instant speed.  Add to that the fact that as a land ability, this effect is extremely hard to counter.

If I had a copy of Mirrorpool, I'd consider tossing it into a mono-color deck along with some Blighted lands just on the off-chance that it occasionally does something exciting.  But I don't know if there's a particular thing that you're supposed to do with it.  My expectation is that this was a card that Wizards R&D tried to make as an open-ended quest for players (much like the more recent Planar Bridge and Paradox Engine), but in the end took a more cautious route just in case players figured out how to break it open.  I still think you should try 1 copy in any deck that has enough colorless mana support and see what happens.


So that's what I think, and I hope some of the discussion is useful in evaluating other cards.  Let me know what you think in the comments.  Are there other budget mythics that people should be playing?