Moving On: Drafting in Masques

Gary Wise

One of the things that keeps Magic interesting is the ever-changing environment. With the addition of Prophecy, players have one less pack of Mercadian Masques to work with. Things don't stay too stable for too long in this game, and that means there are no absolutes.

It is when we come to this understanding that we can appreciate that cards play values fluctuate. While no card goes from just plain good to just plain bad, there are many degrees of good and bad, and the changing environment can force a card's value up or down a couple of rungs on this all too inconsistent ladder.

Here then are what I consider to be the strongest examples of this. You may actually learn something to help your draft game. Well, at least until the next environmental change.
The Winners

Bribery - Not that this wasn't already good, Prophecy provides us with an extraordinary number of extraordinary targets for this card. Not only is the best common in the format (Troubled Healer) a creature, but also we suddenly find ourselves playing a set that uses a number of 8 casting cost creatures. There's nothing better then killing your opponent with their own Avatar of Woe.

Carrion Wall - It isn't so much that Carrion Wall jumps leaps and bounds in terms of where you should be taking it, or that it wasn't good before: it was. With the increasing aggressiveness of the environment and the rising popularity of red and green's ground creatures, the Wall will often be the difference at the end of the race as you attack with your black evasion creatures.

Cowardice - Because of the sheer number of cards in Masques, you couldn't be certain you'd get the few cards that combined well with this potentially explosive enchantment. The only common that works really well with it in Nemesis is Defender En-Vec. That combo forces you to play white and you're far from assured of getting one. Now there's finally a playable blue common - Rhystic Deluge - that gets picked low enough that you're virtually assured of finding one in a draft set that only has a 40-some odd common card run. In other words, you'll almost definitely get one.

Defender En-Vec - In the final round of the draft portion of US Nationals, I covered Jon Finkel's match against Waiken Soo. Playing with an amazing 4 Withdraws, Jon was able to play his Defender in such a way that he prevented over 25 points of damage with it. The Defender, Jolting Merfolk, Ancient Hydra and any other fading creature whose counters have alternative uses therefore increase in value if you're playing blue.

Groundskeeper - I've always affiliated Groundskeeper with Squee, so its interesting that one got better while the other got worse. Not only does the 'Keeper combine extremely well with such cards as Troubled Healer, Trenching Steed and Agent of Shaku, in the mid to late game it virtually ensures that opposing Rhystic Spells will be reduced in efficiency. All this and it's a 1 drop for your mana curve.

Horned Troll - Another generality, it isn't so much the Troll that gets better as it is the ability it possesses: Regeneration. As I've already pointed out, the aggressive ground game is more of a factor now and this ability makes such a strategy grind to a halt. On top of that though, Prophecy has almost none of the 'destroy without regenerating' effects we see throughout the black commons of the other two sets. That means it's harder to get rid of.

Lawbringer - Actually, in some ways this card gets worse. As I will discuss later on, the rebel engine has weakened with the addition of Prophecy, with red rising in its place. It's because of the latter that the Bringer and all other anti red cards are now elevated in value over their anti black counterparts.

Noble Purpose - Through the first two sets of this format, I believed that Story Circle was the better of these two cards. No longer. With the race being paramount, this nasty enchantment ensures that if your opponent insists on racing, you're going to win, often derailing them from their game plan.

Power Matrix -Wasn't this nuts before? Well sure, but now it's the essential idea behind the entire format. I can't stress enough how important aggression is with the addition of Prophecy. The result is that the Matrix probably passes the Scales as Masques' best limited card.

Rishadan Port - Another aggression card, I put it here more to let players know its playable then anything else. I cannot count the times that I've seen the Port go late in Net Drafts. Hindering your opponent's mana development is good; helping their color screw is better. You should see what this thing is capable of in sealed deck play.

Seismic Mage - Still not a main deck card in my opinion, the Mage, much like all land destruction in the environment becomes more important as a sideboard card with the introduction of Prophecy. The newest set in Masques block contains a number of extremely powerful land enchantments and you need a way to deal with them.

Spidersilk Armor - With the addition of Prophecy we lose another pack's worth of the anti-flying green cards of Mercadian Masques. Armor, Squallmonger and other such cards therefore increase in importance when you see them.

Submerge - If Green is good, anti-Green is good. Simple and to the point.

War Cadence - Long underrated, Prophecy's red creatures make this thing a powerhouse. With cards like Keldon Berserker, Spur Grappler and Scoria Cat requiring you tap out to increase their effectiveness; what better way to tap out then one that makes these huge damage dealers virtually unblockable?

Waterfront Bouncer - Another good aggression card. My teammate Zvi Mowshowitz, who drafts aggressive decks combining two of red, blue and green almost exclusively says that he may take the Bouncer over Stinging Barrier now. I think I still prefer Barrier, but I can definitely see it going either way.
THE LOSERS

Arms Dealer - Simply put, there are no playable Goblin cards in Prophecy. What this means is that for the last two packs of the draft, the best Goblin is Mogg Toady. On top of this, also gone is a lot of the graveyard manipulation that dominated the earlier stages of this format. Now you only get 8 packs in which you can find an Undertaker or a Haunted Crossroads, as opposed to the 16 or 24 you used to get. This also means that fading creatures would lose a step if they weren't so big.

Crooked Scales - Don't get me wrong, this is almost an automatic first pick, but with the speeding up of the format, There are now two uncommons I'd consider taking over the Scales-Volcanic Winds and Cateran Enforcer-where suggesting such a thing used to be considered heresy.

Defiant Falcon - I remember it like it was yesterday. The slow format that just got dominated by decks that contained 15 Rebels. Now, the second and third packs full of Nightwind Gliders are replaced by Nemesis and Prophecy packs full of 2/2 rebels for 3 mana which, if you draw them before you fetch them, are just plain bad. I'm not saying the Falcon isn't playable, but I am saying there are better reasons to shuffle nowadays.

Hired Giant - The argument for the Giant used to be that in the mid to late game, getting that extra land really didn't help your opponent. Now, with so many cards based around sacrificing land, every land helps. The Giant is one of those cards you pray to not draw in your opening hand. You don't want to be playing those cards.

Hunted Wumpus - Bribery's antithesis, the Wumpus is now a real danger to play, even when your opponent has only one or two cards in hand. Now, there are a bunch of cards beginning with an 'A' followed by 'vatar' that will absolutely wreck you if they are played turn 4. I'm not saying it isn't worth playing, just be ready to deal with the consequences.

Lightbringer - There is very little in the way of playable black in Prophecy compared to the pack of Masques it replaced. This means anti-black cards won't be as good as they once were.

Massacre - Another powerhouse that made this list, Massacre, along with Cave-In, loses a little bit with the addition of Prophecy. Prophecy's black creatures are almost all cursed with a toughness of two or less, and that means that it's really hard to use this card to get board advantage. Cave-In doesn't drop quite as much because Keldon Berserkers and Zerapa Minotaur have 3 toughnesses. With the high number of three and higher toughness common creatures in Prophecy (Ribbon Snake, Coastal Hornclaw, Silt Crawler, Thresher Beast, Vintara Elephant, Rib Cage Spider, Zerapa Minataur, Keldon Berserker) it is now a viable strategy to take Seal of Doom over this mass kill.

Squee, Goblin Nabob - Lets see: fewer Arms Dealers and fewer Spellshapers means fewer homes for Squee.

So there you have it. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them to JGaryWise@yahoo.com. I hope you've found this useful.