A Durdle's Guide to Gatecrash - Gold

The meat and potatoes of our set review is upon us as we tackle the mammoth gold card section. There are plenty of cards in here that have my brewing juices flowing, and even a few that are just obviously powerful. Let’s not wait then, it’s time to start the gold rush!

[card]Alms Beast[/card]
Last set had a 6/6 flier for 4 that had a “drawback” which actually caused it to get bigger AND remove an opponent’s creatures. With [card]Alms Beast[/card] we’re paying the same amount to get the same body, only without evasion and with the drawback of lengthening your clock. Initially I thought I’d be keeping this beast at alms length, but I’m starting to come around on it now.

Sure, we’re occasionally giving our opponent some life. The kind of deck in which this will see play is not likely to care much about that, and is also not likely to leave too many blockers alive to gain lifelink. Combining it with all the strong removal in BW is a natural plan, and I also wouldn’t be against playing this in combination with [card]Havoc Festival[/card]. Even if the odd blocker survives, it IS going to die when blocking your Beast in all likelihood. Is this better than [card]Desecration Demon[/card] for our brewing purposes? I still don’t think so, but it’s certainly not the hot, steamy garbage I thought it was.

[card]Assemble the Legion[/card]
With so many hard-to-kill creatures in the format, as well as [card]Boros Charm[/card] promising to be a major player early on, the onus is going to be on control players to put together an army that can keep them alive for a few turns. Board sweepers are pretty much the only way to deal with the deluge of hexproof beaters that we saw just before Gatecrash’s release, and they have a tendency to take out our creatures too. [card]Assemble the Legion[/card] may just be the answer that those decks were looking for.

One of the decks I really want to try is RWB with Sorin, [card]Assemble the Legion[/card]s, Obzedat and a ton of removal and sweepers. Perhaps even [card]Gisela, Blade of Goldnight[/card]. I swear that card is actually playable. Nonetheless, Assemble gives you a hard-to-handle permanent that keep churning out chump blockers turn after turn. Soon you will have enough to chump block AND attack for a couple of points. Eventually you will get enough of them to kill the thing you’re chumping, and then you can switch to full-on attack mode. Heaven forbid you land an [card]Intangible Virtue[/card] at some point.

Assemble the Legions just provides inevitability, as not many decks will be able to deal with it. One of the achievements around this will be to put 10 soldiers into play in one turn I think, and there will probably be another one around killing someone with only Soldier tokens. It wouldn’t surprise me if, by the time you read this, we’ve seen this card on camera at the Pro Tour.

[card]Aurelia, the Warleader[/card]
One of the best things about being a judge-brewer is that you see cards from angles that other players might not. As soon as I read Aurelia, I lamented that she was an Angel but instantly wanted to pair her with [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card]. Why? Because when she returns from exile, she is a new creature. That means that she’d be attacking for the first time again, which gets you another combat step. If you have creatures that tap for more than U1, you can have unlimited attacks. Yes, that’s going to be an achievement.

There are a few other fun things to note with Aurelia. For example, Batallion will trigger twice, so your [card]Boros Elite[/card] would become a 5/5 on the second attack. Shock Trooper gets a second attack. [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] gets to make another Angel token, though the first one will have gone away by then. [card]Battle Cry[/card] will trigger again, as will Exalted. Fun times will be had!

It is, however, a 6-drop. This isn’t just going into every aggro deck and win you games, but I think it does go very well in a midrange strategy that clogs up the board and needs a finishing punch.

[card]Aurelia’s Fury[/card]
Possibly the most overrated card in the set. Not to say it’s bad, because the text on the card is crazy powerful and would make anyone look twice. I just don’t think it goes everywhere, which is what a lot of people seem to be saying. Although firing this off in response to a miracle trigger or in the beginning of combat step will make many an opponent furious, how often will your aggro deck want to keep up the mana to do so? You need at least 3 mana to do anything, with an additional 1 for each creature and 1 more for the player. You can’t prevent him casting [card]Thragtusk[/card], [card]Boros Charm[/card] works better against [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] for less mana and [card]Skullcrack[/card] does a better job of nullifying [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card]. If you just want some X burn to dome them, [card]Devil’s Play[/card] is still legal. If you want to blow everything up, Bonfire is an option too.

I don’t want it to seem like I have no time for Fury. I do, I think it will play a powerful role in some midrange decks to enable the kill, possibly as a precursor to She Who Has Fury herself. It’s the other things that people want it to do that cause me to scratch my head in confusion.

[card]Biovisionary[/card]
You knew this was going to happen, right? I mean, it practically has “Achievement Unlocked” in the flavour text. Well, it might as well. You didn’t have to be some sort of psychic to know that I would want to build around this, and oh boy do I.

My first thought was [card]Infinite Reflection[/card], which would only need you to have three other creatures in play to win the game. It does cost six though. [card]Cackling Counterpart[/card] allows us to populate him, as would [card]Stolen Identity[/card], [card]Back from the Brink[/card] and Sénce (though the last two are risky). [card]Immortal Servitude[/card] and [card]Angel of Glory’s Rise[/card] can bring four back from your graveyard in one go. Of course we can just use Clone and Evil Twin as well, if we want to be BORING.

I kind of wish he was a 2/4 or had some form of innate protection, just to make him more viable as a wincon. At least he doesn’t suffer from the [card]Laboratory Maniac[/card] disease of being fatal to you if he bites the dust, and he isn’t easy to exile with [card]Pillar of Flame[/card] if we want to go the reanimation route. Not only will I be doing this at FNM in some form, but I fully expect someone to show up at PT Dragon’s Maze with some sort of combo deck based around it.

[card]Borborygmos Enraged[/card]
Every now and then, someone in the community comes up with an awesome name for a card that just sticks. Marcel and Tyrone on an episode of MTG [card]Brainstorm[/card] coined the epithet “Bobo” for this guy, on account of his name featuring too many awkward dipthongs or whatever to be easily pronounceable by English mouths. I’m going to call him Angry Bobo to distinguish him from plain old Bobo in Guildpact. Side note: what is with the red-aligned guild leaders in this set being mad? Bobo’s enraged, Aurelia’s furious…somebody needs to go see Charlie Sheen!

I digress. We have here an eight-mana legendary dude that dies to removal and doesn’t win the game the turn he comes down. His ability looks sweet (and is) but as he costs eight, you’re unlikely to actually HAVE any lands to pitch by the time you can cast him. If you manage to untap with him and perform some shenanigans (I’ve heard everything from [card]Enter the Infinite[/card] to [card]Creeping Renaissance[/card] in Standard) you will probably win, but that’s a massive if. Oh Sunder, why weren’t you reprinted in 8th Edition?!

Of course you could cheat him into play. Casting Bobo is always an Unexpected Result, so we can try that card. He sadly doesn’t share a creature type with anything relevant, so we can’t play Descendant’s Path. Reanimation is always an option. The earlier we can land our giant Cyclops, the more lands we will have to pitch at our opponent’s face. And if that imagery doesn’t make you want to unlock an Achievement, you might be a communist.

[card]Boros Charm[/card]
Close to broken. It would not surprise me if this card starts to see LEGACY play, let alone Modern. Four damage to the face for 2 mana is already as good as (if not better than) [card]Flame Rift[/card], which sees play in Legacy burn. Making all your permanents indestructible (yes, it’s not just creatures. I learned that the hard way) gives control decks fits, and the double strike can be the cherry on the chocolate sauce on the whipped cream on the banana in the middle of which is the delicious ice cream on the warm, gooey brownie.

You don’t need me to tell you how good this card is though. If you’re here it’s because you want some goofy combo and/or deck ideas. [card]Boros Charm[/card] is part of a 3-card infinite life combo with [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] and any card that can give it lifelink ([card]Vault of the Archangel[/card], [card]Vizkopa Guildmage[/card] and [card]Nearheath Pilgrim[/card] being the best). Throw in [card]Vizkopa Guildmage[/card] and you win the game. It’s possible to do this for as little as 5 mana. Boom!

[card]Call of the Nightwing[/card]
Call me crazy, but in the testing I’ve done with this it’s been pretty powerful. I had it in a BUG Delver shell with [card]Quirion Dryad[/card] and I found that the 1/1 fliers were often relevant, on both attack and defense. That’s without even considering how good cipher is with the Dryad, who grows fast.

Unlike a lot of cipher spells, Call is not dead when you have an empty board, as you can encode the spell on to the first token it creates. Hardly ideal, but in a pinch it works. If Call is one of your principal finishers in a control deck, knowing that you can flash it back with [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] and still encode it is crucial. An interesting card that I think can be a role player at the very least in the new Standard.

[card]Clan Defiance[/card]
Would you play a card that said “4RG, Sorcery. Destroy target creature, this deals 4 damage to target player” in Standard? You might. What about if it occasionally let you kill TWO creatures for 6? Now we’re getting closer. And if we could scale the damage to the player with more mana? Bingo.

Standard has a lot of powerful fliers right now: [card]Restoration Angel[/card], [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card], [card]Falkenrath Aristocrat[/card], [card]Angel of Serenity[/card], [card]Griselbrand[/card], [card]Olivia Voldaren[/card]…the list goes on. [card]Clan Defiance[/card] can finish the game from a stable board, clearing out a pair of blockers and doming the opponent before you swing for the last few points. Bonfire is better off the top and against decks that flood the board, but against the midrange decks that play [card]Thragtusk[/card] and Resto, you clan use this to defy their lifegain and sweep the board.

[card]Consuming Aberration[/card]
I kind of like mill. And by “kind of like” I mean “absolutely adore.” It might be because it’s another alternate win condition, or it might be because people keep saying it sucks and is not a viable win condition even in Limited. It could even be that people HATE losing to mill, and their faces when their $40 cards are unceremoniously dumped in the graveyard by my $0.50 bulk rares is like sweet ambrosia for my evil side to consume.

Maybe people are right. Maybe it’s a mix of all the above things. Regardless, [card]Consuming Aberration[/card] is one of the best mill cards we’ve seen in many years. One of the biggest arguments against mill has been that it doesn’t affect the board; with Aberration, and to a lesser extent [card]Wight of Precinct Six[/card], it does affect it in a very tangible way. He allows you to focus less on pure mill spells since everything you cast will deplete the opponent’s library. All the while, this guy is getting LARGE. He presents a threat that other decks have to answer before he gets to one-hit-kill territory, while still attacking them on another front.

I will be looking to beat people with this card, both by mill and with a one-shot for their life total. Maybe it’s just an aberration but I think we might just see this guy teaming up with [card]Jace, Memory Adept[/card] and perhaps [card]Mind Grind[/card] in some competitive events in the very near future.

[card]Dimir Charm[/card]
All the hype for Charms in this set has been around [card]Boros Charm[/card], which is undeniably a very powerful spell. However people have been sleeping on the others in this set, which with one exception ([card]Gruul Charm[/card], clearly) are all tournament-playable.

Dimir Charm, fittingly, might secretly be the second-best of the lot. Countering a sorcery can do everything from keeping Bant decks off their ramp spells to stopping Naya decks from burning you out or control decks from sweeping your board. Well obviously it won’t stop [card]Supreme Verdict[/card], but both Terminus and Mutilate are sorceries.

Although the kill spell can’t get the near-ubiquitous [card]Boros Reckoner[/card], it does take out [card]Silverblade Paladin[/card], [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card], small Champions of the Parish, [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card], Thalia…it’s a hefty list with some important entries on it. With the only restriction being on the power of the target, we can kill things that [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] and [card]Ultimate Price[/card] would otherwise not be able to destroy.

The real gem on the card though is that third mode. Delver hasn’t been played since Ponder rotated due to a dearth of ways to set up the flip. [card]Dimir Charm[/card] does that while also enabling you to turn [card]Azorius Charm[/card] into removal and effectively super fateseal your opponent. Along with [card]Duskmantle Seer[/card] and [card]Hands of Binding[/card] this card has proven to be one of the best in the BUG Delver list I am testing out, with this mode being more versatile than I thought.

[card]Domri Rade[/card]
The second planeswalker in the set, Domri is almost universally accepted as the better of the two. I can’t disagree. As much as I believe Gideon is underrated, Domri just does more. He’s something of a build-around to avoid constant whiffing with his +1, but loading your deck with creatures has become far more viable in recent years thanks to all the effects we get stapled on bodies now. If you can use something like [card]Mwonvuli Beast Tracker[/card] to ensure you get a hit on your +1, you have a nice little tutor effect. Limited application maybe, but worth noting. It also enables him to protect himself in some regard, though it’s likely you won’t be able to cast the creature right away if you drop Domri early.

The fight mechanic has caught on right away, with cards like [card]Ulvenwald Tracker[/card] and [card]Daybreak Ranger[/card] seeing tournament play. Letting your [card]Acidic Slime[/card] or [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] fight any other creature is pretty special, especially if you can get multiple uses out of it.

The ultimate is, like most ultimates, game breaking. Turning all your creatures into absolute beatsticks seems like a decent way to win a game, especially when you have by necessity loaded your deck with them in the first place. I am sorely tempted to set myself an achievement of getting two Domri emblems, just because that would be both absurd and pointless. I think I want to throw him the the [card]Guild Feud[/card] deck with things like [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card], just for even more fun.

[card]Duskmantle Guildmage[/card]
I doubt I’m ever going to lose the second ability in constructed. There has of course been a great deal of chatter about the first ability and how quickly it can kill people with [card]Jace, Memory Adept[/card]. Now that’s what I’m talking about, pure achievement material waiting to happen. Six mana, deal 20. Not much else to say here, but you can bet you’ll be seeing ol’ Dusky in some Lansdurdle concoctions this season.

[card]Duskmantle Seer[/card]
[card]Dark Confidant[/card] is pretty much the best black creature ever. If not, it’s close. The Seer is already an efficient aggro creature as an evasive 4/4 for 4 mana, but the question is whether the ability is a drawback or a bonus. At least, that’s the question for competitive brewers.

For me, all I see is a way to get extra cards in my hand and at the same time shorten my opponent’s clock. Oh sure they get some extra cards too, but mine can counter or destroy theirs and I have a 4/4 flier. I probably have a 3/2 flier as well, and [card]Dimir Charm[/card] to set up their draws or mine for maximum/minimum life loss. I am definitely going to try and kill people with just damage/life loss from SuperBob (because he flies and is stronger), and I’m looking forward to proving all the naySeers somewhat wrong.

[card]Fathom Mage[/card]
I’m nominally Boros, but as so many of the cards that intrigue me are Simic I am seriously considering switching allegiances. [card]Fathom Mage[/card] says right on the card that we get to draw cards. Potentially lots of them. We don’t even have to keep evolving her to do it, we can put counters on with stuff like [card]Gavony Township[/card] and still draw some cards. We can pair her with [card]Master Biomancer[/card] and draw 2 cards right away, then blink her and draw three more. Sure she’ll be a removal magnet, but when she DOES survive you will fill your hand in a hurry.

My achievement here will be to draw some number of cards, probably 5, with one [card]Fathom Mage[/card]. Like Gyre Sage, there comes a point when you can just turn her sideways and smash face, having drawn all those lovely cards. Plus the artwork is just so beautiful!

[card]High Priest of Penance[/card]
There has to be an unfair way to do something with this. Obviously we can boost his toughness and ping him with an [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card] or something (go go four colours!) but I’m hoping to find some sort of combo that lets me wipe the board in some way. I don’t think it’s possible in Standard right now but if anyone knows how, put it in the comments and I will set it up as an achievement.

As the Priest is a human, it might be playable in Humanimator as a way to answer troublesome permanents on the other side of the board. Even if you can only nuke one permanent, it’s often enough. He will stop ground attacks as long as the opponent has something they need to keep, and it seems like a decent candidate for a Séance or [card]Cackling Counterpart[/card].

[card]Lazav, Dimir Mastermind[/card]
I have liked pretty much all the guild leaders, and Lazav is no exception. We all know how disgusting hexproof can be as an ability, and Lazav lets you make a hexproof copy of any creature you can manage to get into your opponent’s yard. Counter it, kill it, mill it…Lazav can copy it. Now obviously this means your opponent needs to be playing something better than a 3/3 hexproof guy, and it also means you don’t get any ETB triggers from the likes of [card]Craterhoof Behemoth[/card] or [card]Angel of Serenity[/card], but when they Mulch and hit a [card]Griselbrand[/card] the turn after you cast Lazav you certainly won’t mind.

I’m going to want to copy a [card]Griselbrand[/card] for sure with this guy. Perhaps a couple of other legends too. I will not be copying something like [card]Nimbus Swimmer[/card] however, that will lead to a bad time. Killing an opposing [card]Boros Reckoner[/card] in response to [card]Blasphemous Act[/card] is also funny and absolutely going to happen.

[card]Master Biomancer[/card]
Anyone who’s been lucky enough to open this card in Limited can tell you what a bomb it is. It’s also one of those cards that I think is so good in Limited, it has to be playable in Standard somewhere. For four mana you not only have an anthem effect but one with tangible upside when it comes to things like persist creatures, anything that can use +1/+1 counters (like Fertilid), [card]Fathom Mage[/card] and cards like Humility. Playing a second one is also better than playing a second anthem in general, though a creature is a lot easier to remove than an enchantment.

I really want to play this guy with some sort of copy effect. [card]Infinite Reflection[/card] would be bonkers, as would being able to populate token copies somehow. That will be an achievement for sure. In Modern he can slot into Melira Pod as a more robust way to combo off that doesn’t die to a Bolt, and he makes [card]Dryad Arbor[/card] off a fetch into a dangerous blocker.

[card]Mind Grind[/card]
When you pump 6 mana into a [card]Devil’s Play[/card], you expect to take out a planeswalker or large creature, or perhaps kill someone after a grindy game. When you pump 6 mana into a [card]Mind Grind[/card], you expect to deplete about 15-20 cards, more if they’ve been ramping or fetching. [card]Increasing Confusion[/card] was the first attempt at a playable X spell that milled, and it was just short of being playable. I think [card]Mind Grind[/card] might be better. It’s unpredictable but it’s also going to be far more powerful on average, perhaps even than a flashed back [card]Increasing Confusion[/card].

I don’t mind playing this as our only dedicated mill spell, even potentially in tandem with Jace and [card]Consuming Aberration[/card]. Finishing an opponent with it will be on my list of achievements, but I know at some point I will hit X lands in a row and be very sad.

[card]Mystic Genesis[/card]
I’m trying to decide if it would be funnier to counter [card]Enter the Infinite[/card] with this or just a hard-cast [card]Omniscience[/card]. I was a big [card]Mystic Snake[/card] fan and wish it could have been reprinted, but it would have been too good with [card]Restoration Angel[/card] and even [card]Cloudshift[/card] in the format…not to mention [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card]. Although this costs a mana more, it does give us something bigger than a 2/2 most of the time, and we can populate that something. Countering a [card]Thragtusk[/card] or a big [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card] with this will be all sorts of blowout, they’re expecting to gain life and get a threat or draw cards and you get a big creature instead. Countering an X spell and countering something with CMC over 5 will both be on my list.

[card]Prime Speaker Zegana[/card]
It’s very fitting that Zegana has GG in her mana cost, because resolving her late in the game could very well mean just that. Both [card]Thragtusk[/card] and [card]Wolfir Silverheart[/card] curve perfectly into her, drawing you oh so many delicious delicious cards and providing a beatstick of large proportions. She’d be pretty good if that was all you could expect, but when you throw in [card]Restoration Angel[/card] as a way to repeat the feat I think Zegana is primed to make a showing in some top 8 decks.

For my part I want to draw as many cards as possible with her. I’m not sure if putting her in a RUG shell with things like Wolf Run, [card]Ghor-Clan Rampager[/card] and [card]Deadeye Navigator[/card] would be best, or if I want to go the Bant route for Resto over Deadeye. Either way, blinking her will be an achievement. Considering that we play 3/3s for 3 with some small upside, a 3/3 for 6 that draws you 3 cards should not be something we balk at.

[card]Signal the Clans[/card]
I can see myself playing this at some point. It’s quirky, it’s weird, it’s hard to control, but one lesson we’ve learned over and over again is that tutor effects are very powerful, which is a signal to me that we need to try and make this work. Sure it’s a random choice, but the creature does go straight to hand and we know from cards like [card]Gifts Ungiven[/card] that with some effort, we can make it a win-win-win situation for us. With a [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] on board we fetch Resto/Zealous/Deadeye for example? Perhaps we want to swing for lethal and we tutor for [card]Ghor-Clan Rampager[/card], [card]Wolfir Silverheart[/card] and maybe [card]Silverblade Paladin[/card]. Early game, you can get [card]Burning-Tree Emissary[/card], [card]Strangleroot Geist[/card] and [card]Flinthoof Boar[/card].

It will require some testing and there will be times I’ll draw it and want to give a completely different kind of signal to it, but that’s the case with a lot of cards. Don’t overlook the fact that it’s an instant, so if we get to a point where we’re playing three bloodrush creatures, we have a combat trick here. It might not be game-breaking, but it’s the kind of card I want to have a playset of just in case.

[card]Spark Trooper[/card]
I was always a big fan of [card]Ball Lightning[/card], so an easier-to-cast version with the upside of gaining you 6 life ignited a fire in me right away. This guy represents a huge life swing when he attacks, especially if you happen to get him through unblocked. The 4-mana slot is already stacked for Naya and Boros Aggro strategies, but I know I will want to pair this with a [card]Silverblade Paladin[/card] at least once. Yeah, that’s the good stuff right there.

[card]Unexpected Results[/card]
Oh man. Oh MAN do I want to do things with THIS baby. I was a big fan of [card]Djinn of Wishes[/card] in Standard because of what it let us do, although that let us stack our deck before activation. We might not have the same ability here but the tension on the shuffle and reveal will be awesome.

For four mana (which we’re going to want to hit on turn 3 as much as possible) we can cast any spell in our deck or ramp with buyback. Neither of these options is terrible if we build our deck correctly, though hitting a Farseek will suck. Everyone and his dog has talked about building Omniscience-Enter the Infinite-Borborygmos Enraged with Results in it, but I think we can have as much fun with [card]Guild Feud[/card] and [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card]. Unlike the Bobo deck, you won’t mind hitting lands off your Results. We’re also not relying on Results to get our fat into play. Not as competitive perhaps, but certainly more fun!

[card]Vizkopa Guildmage[/card]
I love infinite combos, and this guy is part of two at least. The first one is with [card]Exquisite Blood[/card] and is likely singlehandedly responsible for that card tripling in price. Simply deal damage to your opponent or gain life in some way after activating the Guildmage’s second ability, and you win from a cascade of triggers. Fortunately we can play both of these in a fairly normal Junk shell to both maximise our ability to gain life ([card]Deathrite Shaman[/card], [card]Centaur Healer[/card] and so on) and also win without the combo. This will be the first achievement.

My other aim is to use this to win the game with the now-famous Boros Reckoner/Boros Charm combo. Perhaps we can even throw in [card]Frontline Medic[/card], [card]Nearheath Pilgrim[/card] and [card]Vault of the Archangel[/card] for redundancy. And of course [card]Blasphemous Act[/card], because that’s hilarious. The first ability might not be used as much, but I’m sure it will come up at some point.

[card]Zameck Guildmage[/card]
I really, really like this guy. Apart from his Modern application in MeliraPod as a replacement for Melira with more upside, I think we can play him in Standard with the cheap evolvers like [card]Cloudfin Raptor[/card], undying guys like [card]Strangleroot Geist[/card] and things like [card]Fathom Mage[/card] and [card]Gavony Township[/card]. Drawing cards and making big creatures are things I generally enjoy, so a card that lets me do both is likely to be in my good books.

One thing I really want to do here is activate the first ability and then bring a bunch of guys into play at once. Maybe the [card]Korozda Guildmage[/card] can help there, something that would be even better with a [card]Master Biomancer[/card] in play on my side. Yup, just built another deck…

Thoughts on Gold

As you would expect in a block focused on 2-colour guilds, the gold cards are where the real gems have been hiding. I love most of the Simic cards, and Boros also has some fun stuff. There’s plenty here I want to build around, and I can’t wait to get started on FNMs and unlocking some achievements!

Simic is definitely where I’ll be starting. All the card drawing and counter manipulation is right up my alley. Most of the pairings will be with white or red I think. My favourite cards are [card]Unexpected Results[/card] for the fun, [card]Spark Trooper[/card] for the potential and [card]Prime Speaker Zegana[/card] for power level. Can’t wait to get to brewing!