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Reviewing Evaluations

Watch out! Spoilers!

Happy New Year everybody and all the best for 2013! There is a lot to be excited about, and the new Magic the Gathering set, Gatecrash, is definitely among them. As most of you will know, the spoiler season for that exact set has started already, and you can see Wizards’ visual spoiler here.

Now, spoilers are a lot of fun, but what I mostly enjoy are the reactions to the spoilers. People will see cards like this one:

Gideon, Champion of Justice – mythic – 2WW

Planeswalker – Gideon

+1: Put a loyalty counter on Gideon, Champion of Justice for each creature target opponent controls.
0: Until end of turn, Gideon becomes an indestructible Human Soldier creature with power and toughness each equal to the number of loyalty counters on him. He’s still a planeswalker. Prevent all damage that would be dealt to him this turn.
-15: Exile all other permanents.
[4]

Illus. David Rapoza #13/249

… and instantly start spouting all kinds of nonsense.

“It’s insane!”

“It’s terrible!”

“It’s like old Gideon, but worse!”

“It’s like an improved old Gideon!”

“Totally fake. The collection number doesn’t match our expectations, and the name is awkwardly placed. Seems like a bad ‘Shop. Also, the card is way too close to original Gideon. Not very creative.”

Etc., etc.

I enjoy this probably more than I should. In the end, evaluating new cards is very hard, and I cannot blame anyone for not getting it spot-on at first sight. However, I think it is possible to improve on your first evaluation, to prevent you from dumping a ton of money into an “insane” or “overpowered” or “broken” card during presales. Hopefully this article will help you evaluate future previews, or if you are already a master, perhaps I have some out-of-the box ideas to help you getting your testing process started.

The problem

Why are new cards so hard to evaluate? There are a few of reasons:

  • Cards are presented in a vacuum, but exist in an environment;
  • They bring along other cards that change the environment;
  • Our first strategy is always to relate the card to something we know.

When we are talking about evaluating cards, context is everything. Everybody raved about how overpowered [card]Lingering Souls[/card] was (and it was indeed absurdly powerful), but in today’s Standard, how much play does it see? Barely any. Why?

Because the card does not exist in a vacuum. The environment changed, and it changed for the worse for poor [card]Lingering Souls[/card]. The top deck in Standard right now is probably BR Dragon Zombies, and [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card] is very good against [card]Lingering Souls[/card]. On top of that, a lot of the other decks moved to compete with the Dragon Zombie decks, playing for example 4 [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card]s (main or out of the board) or a ton of lifegain and sweepers like Bant does. These answers happen to be very effective at nullifying [card]Lingering Souls[/card], and when people started losing with the Souls, they moved to different decks.

The environment is hard to predict. When looking at preview cards from Gatecrash, it is hard to say whether an Orzhov deck will actually be good. We’ve seen some good Orzhov cards, but not even enough to see what strategy the guild will follow in constructed. Will it be aggressive? Controlling? More midrange (God, I hope not)? We can’t say right now. What we can say is that the mana will be available, and that any Orzhov cards can always slot into shard-decks like Junk (WBG) and Esper (WUB).

Until we get closer to the full spoiler, the new environment will be very hard to predict, and even then, we can only predict new decks, not decisively say whether they are tier 1, tier 2, or just a pile of Commander playables.

On top of these difficulties, we trick ourselves with our most common strategy of card evaluation. When building decks, we look at certain cards and compare them to other cards that could fill the same slot. We can say things like “In this deck, [card]Jace, Architect of Thought[/card], is a bad [card]Amass the Components[/card].” We can look at what our deck is trying to do, we know what the cards we are talking about do (we’ve played with them in other decks, in limited, etc.), and we know what the environment looks like (the top decks in Standard are easy to find online).

An example

Let’s take a look at the new Gideon:

Gideon, Champion of Justice – mythic – 2WW

Planeswalker – Gideon
+1: Put a loyalty counter on Gideon, Champion of Justice for each creature target opponent controls.
0: Until end of turn, Gideon becomes an indestructible Human Soldier creature with power and toughness each equal to the number of loyalty counters on him. He’s still a planeswalker. Prevent all damage that would be dealt to him this turn.
-15: Exile all other permanents.
[4]

What can we compare it to? This card is brand new, and we likely have no idea how it plays in the Standard environment it will be played in. On top of that, he is a planeswalker, which we all know are notoriously hard to evaluate. Thus, what we all (often mistakenly) do is compare it to its old version, if available.

I say mistakenly, because [card]Jace, Architect of Thought[/card], is not bad because [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card], was good. Jace AoT is not great right now because the environment he is in is not friendly towards him. His plus ability is mostly irrelevant with how the format is right now. He would be an all-star if everyone and their dog went back to playing with [card]Lingering Souls[/card] and cut the [card]Falkenrath Aristocrat[/card]s and [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card]s out of their Zombie decks in favor of more small creatures. This explains why the card went from $15-20 during presales to $40-50 at the start of Return to Ravnica Standard and is now back to $15-20 right before Gatecrash. If the Boros battalion deck becomes popular, Jace could creep back into decks again too.

But, back to the task at hand, Gideon, Champion of Justice! Is he a worse old Gideon? A better one? If you’ve been following along, you know the answer is neither. He is in some ways similar to old Gideon, and in a vacuum his powerlevel might be lower (which means jack squat). We can compare the two if we are trying to figure out which one we could play in Modern or Legacy, but for Standard? Not very helpful at all, this old version.

How do we rate Gideon then? Well, we actively try to figure out what Gideon would do for us when he is in play.

Gideon starts on four loyalty counters and goes up to at least five the turn he comes into play (unless we’re playing [card]Fervor[/card], maybe). If the opponent has no creatures, next turn Gideon attacks as a 5/5 indestructible creature and takes no damage. Then, next turn, he is a planeswalker again, so they can’t [card]Terminus[/card] him either.

Their possible answers to prevent Gideon from killing them are [card]Oblivion Ring[/card], [card]Detention Sphere[/card], [card]Selesnya Charm[/card], [card]Dreadbore[/card], or direct damage spells on their turn. Control decks right now do not play many of these cards, so Gideon will probably be pretty good against a creature-light control deck at the start of the new Standard.

What if they have creatures?

Gideon comes into play with four loyalty and uses his +1 ability. Your opponent controls an [card]Avacyn’s Pilgrim[/card] and a [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card] with a wolf token. Gideon goes up to eight loyalty, enough to survive an attack and a flip on your turn if your opponent passes without casting a spell. Gideon would be at three or one, and can either go up another four (or five if they cast another creature), but Gideon loses ground if their creatures are bigger than 1/1s, in which case he resembles [card]Jace, Architect of Thought[/card]. But Jace does something when he (barely) survives: Jace draws cards. Gideon can become a tiny creature.

What if they don’t attack Gideon?

It takes Gideon three turns to reach 16 loyalty if they constantly have three creatures, and he could ultimate the turn after if your opponent lets him or you have a way to keep him from being attacked that turn. In those four turns, if those three creatures were once again a Pilgrim, a Huntmaster and his Wolf, you would take fifteen damage. That is, if your opponent plays only irrelevant, non-creature spells, and thus doesn’t flip Huntmaster. If he does flip Huntmaster, you are dead before Gideon ultimates (you take seven each turn for a total of 21).

If you had a [card]Fog[/card] for the last turn, you could now ultimate Gideon, leaving everyone without permanents and you with a one-loyalty Gideon. This is an advantage, sure, but not a very big one. You would need to use his plus ability a few times before Gideon starts dishing out some reasonable damage, and you just destroyed the creatures that would help him grow faster.

If he is your only action, Gideon does not seem very impressive against creatures, so, unlike his old version, he is probably not a control deck’s planeswalker (unless there are a lot of other control decks).

In a creature-on-creature matchup though, he shines. You have creatures to fight off theirs if they try to attack Gideon, and you have a nigh-unkillable, giant monster to attack them with that they cannot even try to gang-block to get rid of. You can even just keep him below five loyalty to have a 4/4 indestructible attacker that can’t be [card]Selesnya Charm[/card]ed.

He might not be the best in a race on his own though, as he cannot block unless your opponent chooses to attack him. You really need creatures to support him so he can keep pounding on your opponent. In many ways, Gideon is more like this card:

Obzedat, Ghost Council – mythic – 1WWBB

Legendary Creature – Spirit Advisor
When Obzedat, Ghost Council enters the battlefield, target opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
At the beginning of your end step you may exile Obzedat. If you do, return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control at the beginning of your next upkeep. It gains haste.

[5/5]

Than like this card:

Gideon Jura – mythic – 3WW

Planeswalker – Gideon
+2: During target opponent’s next turn, creatures that player controls attack Gideon Jura if able.
-2: Destroy target tapped creature.
0: Until end of turn, Gideon Jura becomes a 6/6 Human Soldier creature that’s still a planeswalker. Prevent all damage that would be dealt to him this turn.
[6]

Like Obzedat, Gideon is a hard to kill creature that hits for a lot of damage. It is not a creature-control machine that finishes your opponent when he’s done, helping you clean up.

Looking for implications, not comparisons

When evaluating a new card, the most important thing is to look for implications rather than comparing it to other cards. What does this card mean for the format? What would it do in situations that I am familiar with?

[card]Deadbridge Goliath[/card] is not good because [card]Blastoderm[/card] or [card]Juzam Djinn[/card] was good. It is not bad because [card]Jade Leech[/card] or [card]Saprazzan Outrigger[/card] was bad. It is a card, and its uses are made up by the environment it lives in. In the same way, a card like this might be very good in Standard, whereas in other Standard formats it might have been completely unplayable:

Biovisionary – rare – 1GU
Creature – Human Wizard
At the beginning of the end step, if you control four or more creatures named Biovisionary, you win the game.
[2/3]

The format as we know it has almost no instant speed removal for multicolored creatures that do not attack, so if you can put four of these in play during your turn, you most likely just win. Might I suggest trying a shell like this:

[Deck title=”A Vision of Glory by Jay Lansdaal”]

[Creatures]
*4 Nightshade Peddler
*3 Izzet Staticaster
*4 Biovisionary
*4 Huntmaster of the Fells
*4 Angel of Glory’s Rise
[/Creatures]
[Spells]

*4 Chronic Flooding
*3 Izzet Charm
*4 Mulch
*3 Tracker’s Instinct
*4 Unburial Rites
[/Spells]
[Land]
*2 Cavern of Souls
*2 Breeding Pool
*2 Glacial Fortress
*2 Hallowed Fountain
*1 Hinterland Harbor
*1 Rootbound Crag
*1 Steam Vents
*4 Stomping Grounds
*4 Sulfur Falls
*4 Temple Garden
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*2 Cavern of Souls
*4 Cathedral Sanctifiers
*2 Ray of Revelation
*1 Rolling Temblor
*3 Seance
*1 Geist-Honored Monk
*2 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

The sideboard here is not great, but it functions as a way of showing you how far you can go with your combo. With [card]Séance[/card] to put it into play, [card]Mirror-Mad Phantasm[/card] mills your entire deck, ensuring you have all your Biovisionaries in your graveyard. At that point, [card]Laboratory Maniac[/card] works about as well but is a tad more vulnerable, being mono-colored and only two toughness.

Good luck brewing with the new set, and enjoy the spoilers for what they are. Most cards will be cool but not very playable, but that is okay. We have enough people complaining about [card]Thragtusk[/card]s and [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card]s as it is.

Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter and MTGO

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