The Brothers' War

A look at the Clerics in The Brothers’ War

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

If you follow this blog, you know that I have enjoyed playing Orzhov Clerics for some time. Unfortunately, rotation was not kind to my clerics with many potent cards falling out of Standard. There weren’t many strong additions in Dominaria United and the latest iteration of Orzhov Clerics is definitely not a potent deck.

With the release of The Brothers’ War set came hope that new more powerful clerics would help improve this deck. Unfortunately, there are only three new clerics: Airlift Chaplain, Yotian Medic and Evangel of Synthesis. The last one is a Dimir cleric so is immediately out. The other two are simply not that great.

There are some interesting Prototype creatures, like the Steel Seraph or the Phyrexian Fleshgorger, that could slide into the deck to give it some heft but we’re moving away from the deck being cleric tribal.

At this point, I will make two substitutions in the deck:

  • Replace the four Inspiring Overseers with four Yotian Medic to leverage its lifegain capabilities and blocking (thanks to that 4 toughness)
  • Replace the two Boon of Safety with two Loran’s Escape

Here is what the new deck looks like:

Deck

  • 3 Infernal Grasp (MID) 107
  • 2 Anointed Peacekeeper (DMU) 2
  • 1 March of Otherworldly Light (NEO) 28
  • 2 Valorous Stance (VOW) 42
  • 3 Evolved Sleeper (DMU) 93
  • 9 Plains (THB) 250
  • 7 Swamp (THB) 252
  • 3 Shadow-Rite Priest (DMU) 106
  • 2 Voice of the Blessed (VOW) 44
  • 3 Shattered Sanctum (VOW) 264
  • 4 Lunarch Veteran (MID) 27
  • 2 Scoured Barrens (NEO) 274
  • 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire (NEO) 278
  • 2 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire (NEO) 268
  • 4 Yotian Medic (BRO)
  • 4 Markov Purifier (VOW) 241
  • 2 Loran’s escape (BRO)
  • 2 Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim (DMU) 198
  • 3 Phyrexian Missionary (DMU) 27
  • 2 Liliana of the Veil (DMU) 97

Sideboard

  • 2 Farewell (NEO) 13
  • 1 Cut Down (DMU) 89
  • 2 Chaplain of Alms (MID) 13
  • 1 Voice of the Blessed (VOW) 44
  • 1 Intercessor’s Arrest (NEO) 20

I don’t think that these changes will turn this deck into a tier one contender but let’s see if it makes it a little more powerful at least.

Today’s mystery: Hurkyl, Master Wizard

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

I’m spending a bit of time going through the cards of the upcoming The Brothers’ War set. I was looking at cards using the new Prototype mechanic after my interest was peaked earlier when Phyrexian Fleshgorger was first previewed. As so often happens, that initial search took me down a bit of a rabbit hole. Before I knew it, I was looking at Hurkyl, Master Wizard as a possible include into one of my Commander decks.

There are two versions of the card in the set, the regular one and an extended art version. For whatever reason, the former is a Rare and the latter is Mythic.

While it’s not unusual for cards to change rarity from one set to another, it’s far more unusual for the same card to have different rarities in the same set. But it has happened before. For example, Midnight Hunt Commander (MIC) had two such cards. My understanding is that the Commander decks came with one while the Collector Boosters had the other rarity.

For its part, Wizards confirmed this oddity, adding “As far as we know, this is the only card from The Brothers’ War that has this difference.” That phrasing suggests that this may not have been intentional.

I can’t think of this difference in rarity causing any game play issue so this is more of an interesting little story than anything else (although Wizards may be reviewing its QA processes). One day in the future, players may gather around the table and ask “Remember the time when Wizards printer Hurkyl at different rarities in the same set?”

The Brothers’ War Prototype mechanic: The return of Adventure?

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Previews for The Brothers’ War have kicked off and, along with a few new cards, we got the low down on the mechanics coming (back) to the set. There are two new and two returning ones. They are:

  • New: Prototype
  • New: Powerstones
  • Returning: Meld
  • Returning: Unearth

When I saw that first card supporting Prototype, Phyrexian Fleshgorger, my first thought that the Adventure mechanic first introduced in Throne of Eldraine was back. As with those cards, there are two text boxes, offering two casting options for different mana costs. Unlike the Adventures though, you’ll only get to cast one of the two. The spell does not go “on an adventure” where you have the ability to cast the second option.

Giving this a bit more thought, Prototype is in fact more like the Kicker mechanic than Adventure. Pay the lower cost and you get a less powerful option than you would if you pulled the full, or kicked, cost (albeit with the abilities). Where it differs from Kicker is in how it behaves if you find a way to flicker it. When you do, it will re-enter as the fully costed version rather than the lower cost version. Effectively, you could cast Phyrexian Fleshgorger for 3 mana, flicker it, and end up with a 7/5 with Menace and Lifelink and a pretty potent Ward.

This could be something fun to build a deck around. Once we know how many cards will sport this mechanic, we’ll have a better idea of what such a deck could look like and how well it could work.

As for Powerstones, the mechanic allows you to create a tapped Powerstone token when you discard one more artifact cards (but only once each turn). Essentially an artifact-friendly Treasure token that can also be used to trigger abilities. We’ll see how that one plays out.

If you’re curious, I’m lukewarm to the returning mechanics. I don’t play much graveyard shenanigans so not sure how much I will gravitate to Unearth. As for Meld which was introduced in Eldritch Moon, I recall it being a difficult mechanic to trigger – but fun when you did. We’ll see what I pull from packs but not sure I will go out of my way to collect the cards to build around it.

Let’s see what previews bring next week. Maybe I will need to rethink all this once we know more.