The Hero Dominaria Deserves?

Burchett talks Teferi, Friedman loves Looting, and Thompson manipulates Moxen

Newsletter Thursday, May 3rd

"Hero of Dominaria" sure was apt, wasn't it? When I first saw Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, I thought it would be a pretty good card. With three solid abilities and a reasonable starting loyalty, it was extremely likely that the U/W planeswalker would see at least a little bit of play in Standard. But I can't say I expected this! Teferi not only put numerous takes of U/W back on the map, it made Standard's most offensive card, The Scarab God, obsolete! Don't believe me? Well, I've never been much of a control player, so that makes sense. That's why I enlisted the expertise of Autumn Burchett, the 2017 English National champion and recent MOCS winner, to talk all things Teferi. If Modern's more your speed, Ben Friedman's got the lowdown on why Faithless Looting is Modern's version of Brainstorm. And for those of you still trying to figure out if Mox Amber is the real deal? Pro Tour Amonkhet champion Gerry Thompson is hard at work breaking Magic's newest shiny artifact. Are Teferi, Faithless Looting, and Mox Amber as good as advertised? Perhaps a few rounds will help us find some answers, as the SCG Tour heads to Charm City for the Baltimore Open Weekend. I'll be joined by Todd Anderson, Nick Miller, and the rest of the @SCGTour crew as we work our way through fifteen rounds of Team Constructed action to see Teferi is the hero Dominaria deserves. Be sure to join us all weekend long at twitch.tv/scgtour! And don't miss the answer to this week's Possibility Storm below! It's a real doozy! — Cedric Phillips, Content Coordinator

May 19-20 Modern     May 26-27 Modern     June 2 Modern     Playing U/W Control In Dominaria Standard   By Autumn Burchett   Teferi, Hero of Dominaria is wholly unreasonable. Part of what always made Chandra, Torch of Defiance so scary out of Temur Energy a few months ago was that often she could plus to make mana the turn she hit the battlefield and you could immediately Abrade or Harnessed Lightning whatever creature was threatening her, leaving her sitting on an empty battlefield. In that deck, Chandra's mana-generating ability was secretly her most powerful mode. The fact that Teferi's +1 ability untaps lands achieves a similar effect. On curve on Turn 5, he lets you hold up your two-mana interaction to Seal Away your opponent's attacker or counter their next threat, whilst later in the game the extra mana can go so far as to allow you to hold up Settle the Wreckage to protect him. Briksza, Job, and Basoco team up to win at SCG Atlanta!   Charles Porges Standard  Classic     Kendall Burdette Modern  Classic     Dakotah Cotton Legacy  Classic     Faithless Looting Is Brainstorm   By Ben Friedman   "The two decks with the highest win rate in the tournament are built around abusing Faithless Looting, the card I have been saying is the most egregious offender in Modern. It's as if the data is supporting my claim..."—Craig Wescoe, April 2, 2018 "I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was! Now what I'm with isn't 'it' . And what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me."—Abraham Simpson "It," in this case, is traditional evaluation of the meaning and significance of card advantage in the context of current Modern. I, like many players, have some long-ingrained habits and heuristics surrounding what it means to gain an advantage in a game of Magic that are simply less true in Modern today than they've been in any historical format during my tenure with the game. This is unsettling, to say the least, but it offers the consolation of yet another example that demonstrates that, within the infinite game of Magic: The Gathering, there are very, very few universal rules for gaining an edge. There is always more to learn, and the case study of Faithless Looting provides an excellent object lesson.

Breaking Mox Amber   By Gerry Thompson   Is Mox Amber broken? Unplayable? Merely good? I wanted to find out. My journey to find the truth went deep. You've been warned. Moxes tend to be their most powerful when you're accelerating to bigger spells sooner than your opponents. Ramping from two mana to four mana tends to be more powerful than ramping from four to six. Getting an early mana advantage tends to turn into a tempo advantage, which will snowball. A small amount of acceleration later is typically less impactful. My descent into madness started with a single card.

Possibility Storm: Make Benalia History!

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