Locations
If You Build It, They Will (Planar) Die
To celebrate my mom’s birthday on June 1, Wizards of the Coast is releasing the first Planechase decks since the inaugural product three years ago. Also, that might not be the reason. I honestly can’t believe it’s been three years since the initial wackiness. My old group got into Planechase in a big way, and while the novelty wore off for me, the execution was solid, and the gameplay interesting if not always what I wanted.
My favorite part of Planechase and Archenemy is that it shows Wizards still cares about keeping casual sixty-card Magic vibrant. Commander and Cube go to prom with the cheerleaders, but Planechase says everybody gets to dance. Also, that might not be the analogy.
Thirty-two new planes and eight phenomena should shake things up for every way you can chase a plane. As a dovetail to this week’s spoiled cards Dragonlair Spider and Interplanar Tunnel, it’s prime time to investigate the popular ways of using Planechase with some theory and decks to build with an eye toward building a deck that’s useful in general multiplayer but has particular utility amid planar chaos.
What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting
What does the planeswalking bring to multiplayer? The easiest way for me to break it down is through the Decktagon categories:
Speed – Fast decks normally aren’t too interrupted by planeswalking, but more planes seem to speed up the game than slow them down. Academy at Tolaria West, Eloren Wilds, Feeding Grounds, Lethe Lake, Llanowar, Minamo, Naar Isle, Naya, Panopticon, Sokenzan, Stronghold Furnace, Tazeem, Turri Island, and Velis Vel could be construed as speeding things up more often than not by keeping everyone drawing cards or giving certain players a ton of mana or similar ideas.
There are planes that slow everyone down, but in general, expect Planechase to speed up haymakers. That doesn’t bode well for naturally fast decks that might have to face too many things ahead of schedule, but I’d expect aggressive decks to lose less to the format than decks focusing on raw power.
Depth – In order to survive who knows what, pack a variety of win conditions. Depth is normally important in multiplayer, so keep going that direction if building specifically for Planechase.
Flexibility – Versatile offensive utility, especially instant removal, is at a premium, even more than normal. A new plane on an opponent’s turn might turn your situation from comfortable to terrible, and the chance to deal with it as that situation changes can save loads of your bacon.
Resilience – I’m not sure there’s much room after prioritizing depth and flexibility to put in cards aimed at purely defensive measures, but a defensively oriented deck should have success if done correctly—especially if you’re playing with individual planar decks. If you can find room for defense, put it in, though—you’ll be facing attacks from the players and the terrain. Sometimes, all you’re looking for is how to hold out until you make it to a plane that will put you back in the game, and focusing on not dying is crucial to that kind of thing.
So, the main differences between Planechase and regular multiplayer lie primarily in obliterating consistency while bestowing extra favor on depth and flexibility. With that in mind, how about some decks?
Normal (!?) Planechase
I’m not sure I’ve played the initially conceived way of chasing planes, which is for each player to have a deck of ten unique planes that favor his or her deck and can be planeswalked to on his or her turn. From my own group, it appears to be an issue of supply; if everybody who wants to play needs his or her own planes, the experience is limited to those who bought the decks or very close to it. These days, the 2009 planes are a little pricey and in low stock to do things this way, but the appeal of brewing two decks for one game is too good to pass up.
That said, you have to build with the existing planes in mind. As much as I’d like access to the new planes before writing this, I have to go with the tried and true ones. There are few build-arounds, but the ones that are there—Pools of Becoming and new phenomenon Interplanar Tunnel—promise a lot of quick-rolling action with a slight focus on chaos abilities you don’t mind having all at once and independently of their planes.
This rules out Academy at Tolaria West, the chaos ability of which is only useful if you’re on the plane. So, what’s the ideal planar deck for ultimate control? Based on the chaos abilities being safely okay every time and the planes being things you’d want to choose off the Tunnel, I recommend the following deck:
Taken as a whole, this deck wants you to play with creatures—preferably white ones—for Agyrem and have a use for extra cards. Some support spells for Otaria’s flashback would be nice, but the focus is on the creatures. So, what to build with it? Let’s try this: a mash-up of several of my G/W decks for normal multiplayer:
"Busta Grimes"
- Creatures (24)
- 2 Mitotic Slime
- 2 Requiem Angel
- 2 Wilt-Leaf Liege
- 4 Doomed Traveler
- 4 Geist-Honored Monk
- 4 Mausoleum Guard
- 4 Roc Egg
- 2 Asmira, Holy Avenger
- Spells (12)
- 2 Fresh Meat
- 3 Hour of Reckoning
- 3 Superior Numbers
- 4 Gutter Grime
Innistrad gives plenty of nontoken creatures that make tokens, whether directly becoming Spirits or feeding Oozes. Most of these are white, which is handy for Agyrem, as you can let a Mausoleum Guard die, make two Spirits, and then bring the Guard right back to the field. This gives you the advantage with Hour of Reckoning, Fresh Meat, and Requiem Angel, especially on Agyrem but also on card-drawing planes such as Undercity Reaches.
It’s likely someone at the table will have very few creatures and you’ll have a healthy amount. Dealing direct damage to creatures in green is always fun, and there are enough planes out there that encourage you to do things like this. (Also, since Superior Numbers has two targets, it can’t be infinitely copied with Glimmervoid Basin. It’s always nice to be semi-safe from that one.)
The built-in, partially incidental resilience of this deck is the kind of resilience that’s good for Planechase without requiring several deck slots to it. I’m not sure I’d give this a spin if I couldn’t choose my planes, but if I’m bringing a planar deck, I’d totally rock this.
All-Globbed-Together Planechase
So, what does that look like? I’d start in G/U for two reasons (three if you have the money for Stifle): Voidslime and Trickbind. Planeswalking and chaosing are triggered abilities with a window for response. The official rules say this is a window “before it resolves,” but presumably, that’s because they didn’t want to mention the exactly five cards that could mess with it. Don’t feel like planeswalking? Trickbind it! Don’t want chaos? Voidslime that fool! (You also could Time Stop or activate Sundial of the Infinite, but in the latter case, why were you rolling anyway?)
Here’s the deck:
But I Like This Plane; They Know Me Here
[cardlist]
[Creatures]
3 Charmbreaker Devils
3 Dragonlair Spider
3 Hanweir Watchkeep
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Veteran Explorer
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Trickbind
4 Voidslime
3 Primal Command
4 Aether Mutation
[/Spells]
[Lands]
5 Mountain
7 Island
9 Forest
3 Terramorphic Expanse
[/Lands]
[/cardlist]
Planechase encourages you to hoard mana, and Garruk’s untap ability helps you roll the die a couple more times per turn. You might not want to deploy Veteran Explorer—a creature probably everyone in the game will want dead—until you have something to cast with the mana. I never need an excuse to include Coiling Oracle.
Once you have your mana sorted, Primal Command can find your important creatures and do whatever mode fits the situation. Dragonlair Spider and Aether Mutation give you the creature base to let Garruk’s ultimate kill someone with a minimum of cards. Charmbreaker Devils is random, but you want everything it can retrieve, especially as you start to lock up the game. Get to a plane you want, and then recur Voidslime or Trickbind to encourage people to stay there. I don’t know how effective that will be, but it sounds completely fun to try.
Give it a go! Nuts on the road!
Conclusion
It takes some effort, but you can make Planechase-oriented decks for however you like to play it. What we know about the 2012 product is that you’ll be able to customize things even more to your liking, which should liven up proceedings nicely. Enjoy the spoilers, enjoy what they mean for the future of casual gaming, and enjoy extracting the maximum fun out of rolling a mostly blank die!
(And don’t ask me what happens when you Voidslime a phenomenon trigger since the trigger needs to resolve to continue planeswalking. No idea.)
