Now that Planechase has been out for a while and I've had time to run a bunch of multiplayer games, it seems like a great time to write an article summing up what this fun product has to offer. I'm a competitive Magic Online player, but in real-life paper I play almost exclusively casual games with casual Magic players. 99% of the time we play preconstructed decks against each other, and ever since Planechase has been released - that's all that we play.

Today I'm going to give a brief overview of the format, a rundown of the current Planechase decks, some commentary on playing each one, and then a walkthrough of a three-player game that I played in earlier this week. If you're interested in Planechase, but haven't taken the plunge yet - this article should help you decide if this is the set for you.

Let's say you've never heard of Planechase, and don't know what I'm talking about. Here's where you want to start:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/51

As you can see, the real difference between Planechase and traditional Magic is the existence of Plane cards. Each Plane provide either a constant effects or some sort of triggered effect along with a random chaos ability. These abilities span the full range of what's possible in Magic. We're talking extra turns, extra damage, creature pumps, discard, spell discounts, Planar Cleansing, mill effects, goat tokens, life gain, clones, dragons, etc.

For the first part of this article, I'm going to give a brief rundown of the four decks involved.

Before we get into the game, let's take a quick look at the decks involved. I've attached the full decklists to an appendix at the bottom, but here's a quick rundown of the three that we're dealing with.

Strike Force

Colors: White and Red

Blurb: The "Strike Force" deck comes out of the gate quickly to deliver an endless stream of pain. Hasty creatures, fiery burn spells, and vicious double-striking monsters will make short work of all who oppose you.

Key Cards: Lightning Helix, Flametongue Kavu, Razia, Boros Archangel, Insurrection, Balefire Liege, Oblivion Ring, Rolling Thunder, Rorix Bladewing

In my experience, Strike Force doesn't exactly come flying out of the gate as the Wizards blurb states. Sure you can get a decent start with Battlegate Mimic, Hearthfire Hobgoblin, Keldon Champion, and Glory of Warfare (for example)... but it's not like you're going to be consistently goldfishing turn four wins or anything.

Personally I've found Strike Force to play more like a mid-range board control deck. Cards like Oblivion Ring, Flametongue Kavu, Lightning Helix, Arc Lightning, and Cone of Flame keep problematic permanents out of play while allowing you to sneak damage through. Akroma's Vengeance is the best reset button included in the Planechase decks, and Strike Force can come firing out of the gates quickly afterwards with cards like Rorix Bladewing, Bull Cerodon, and Razia, Boros Archangel.

In the long games, Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion has been extremely valuable for me both offensively and defensively. The offensive applications should be pretty obvious, but the defensive applications are equally important - especially in multiplayer. When one of your opponents is deciding who to attack, it often makes more sense to attack the dude WITHOUT the ability to mess up combat math with double strike.

The most powerful spell in any of these four decks is definitely in Strike Force: Insurrection. If you ever manage to make it up to eight mana and resolve this spell, then it's as close to "I win" as you can really possibly get. When there are three or four players worth of creatures in play, then it's pretty staggering how much damage can suddenly be headed through the red zone.

Zombie Empire

Color: Black

Blurb: With the "Zombie Empire" deck, legions of undead are at your beck and call! It boasts some of the greatest Zombie cards ever printed plus a supporting cast of spells that accentuate the resilient nature of the undead.

Key Cards: Undead Warchief, Cabal Coffers, Soulless One, Helldozer, Phyrexian Arena, Grave Pact, Profane Command, Corpse Harvester

In my experience, Zombie Empire comes out a lot quicker than Strike Force - and I consider it to be the most aggressive of these four decks. Festering Goblin, Dregscape Zombie, Rotting Rats, and Shepherd of Rot come down early, and two copies of Dark Ritual help to power out more expensive threats in the opening turns.

Zombie Empire really turns up the heat in the mid-game. Death Baron, Undead Warchief (sometimes DOUBLE Undead Warchief), and Nefashu make blocking super difficult for your opponents. Recently I won a game with Zombie Empire by just playing out Zombies, then playing out Lords, and attacking a few times. This obviously gets harder the more players involved, but in the three-player game I'm talking about nobody was able to stop my rush before I finished off both opponents.

Zombie Empire is also well equipped for the late game. Helldozer, Ascendant Evincar, and Nefashu are ridiculous creatures. Grave Pact is one of the most powerful cards in all of Planechase, and really works hard to keep the board under control. Phyrexian Arena and Corpse Harvester provide card advantage. Cabal Coffers helps the deck win 'out of nowhere' by powering out a gigantic Profane Command or Consume Spirit. Cabal Coffers also allows you to roll many planar dice in the late game when you don't have anything else to do.

One of the non-obvious weaknesses of Zombie Empire is that the deck is mono black. Take a look at this Plane:

It sure sucks to roll chaos when Bant is in play and you're running Zombie Empire, doesn't it? Not only do you miss out on any sort of benefit, but chances are you'll be forced to turn one of your opponents' creatures into an indestructible powerhouse! Major bummer. There are some Plane cards that benefit a mono-black deck, but there are more that benefit the other colors. Here's one last example:

Sure rolling chaos is cool for the zombie deck in this situation, but the spell cost reduction abilities do not help you at all.

Elemental Thunder

Colors: Red and Green

Blurb: The "Elemental Thunder" deck packs big creatures that become more powerful with every move your opponents make. Everyone will wince as you put creature after creature onto the battlefield, each with the potential to single-handedly defeat an opponent in a few turns.

Key Cards: Smokebraider, Taurean Mauler, Living Hive, Fires of Yavimaya, Verdant Force, Forgotten Ancient, Explosive Vegetation, Rockslide Elemental

The most powerful creatures in Planechase currently reside in the Elemental Thunder deck. Each deck has some serious threats, but in my opinion Elemental Thunder's suite of Verdant Force, Living Hive, Rumbling Slum, and Tornado Elemental (amongst others) currently takes the cake. Smokebraider, Search for Tomorrow, Fertilid, Fertile Ground, Rampant Growth, and Explosive Vegetation ramp up your mana in order to make these expensive creatures a reality. Flamekin Harbinger searches through your library to make sure the correct threats are in your hand when you need them. Fires of Yavimaya gives them haste.

Elemental Thunder isn't all expensive threats though. Some of the scariest creatures in the deck hang out at the lower casting costs. Taurean Mauler and Forgotten Ancient grow up +1/+1 whenever spells are cast, and in a big multiplayer game - lots of spells are cast. Rockslide Elemental grows bigger whenever a creature dies, and in a big multiplayer game - lots of creatures die.

A while back I was playing one-on-one with my girlfriend, and this was our opening Plane:

Before you knew it, I had six goats and she had nine. Then suddenly she had double Rockslide Elemental, which completely removed my ability to attack. If I attack then Goats die and her Rockslide creatures become giant monsters. Pretty cool game state!

One card that has been surprisingly strong in the games I've played so far has been Mage Slayer. This seems like slow equipment, but it has the potential to be enormously powerful in this deck. If you think Mage Slayer seems weak, then talk to me after you've dealt with it attached to Living Hive or Verdant Force!

Equipment in general has almost always been fantastic in Planechase games that I've been involved in. The reason is that these games often turn into giant attrition battles, with threats being removed and clashing in the red zone. Being able to power up whatever you have left over has been very valuable in my experience.

Personally I'm not really a huge fan of Elemental Thunder. I absolutely love the Taurean Mauler/Forgotten Ancient Plan, but the deck only runs one of each. The big creature plan feels a little too 'all in' for my liking, and Verdant Force is a lot less scary when there are two, three, or four players worth of removal at the table to stop it. This deck isn't terrible by any means, but just not really my style.

Metallic Dreams

Colors: White, Blue, Black (with Sunburst/Artifact Lands)

Blurb: The "Metallic Dreams" deck utilizes artifacts to draw on the power of every color of mana. Small mana-producing creatures fuel your ever-growing army of more powerful machines. Under your command, they'll all work hand-in-shiny-metal-hand to extinguish your opponents.

Key Cards: Vedalken Engineer, Master of Etherium, Cranial Plating, Broodstar, Fabricate, Darksteel Forge, Etched Oracle, Loxodon Warhammer

Metallic Dreams is essentially a mono-blue artifact deck with a slight splash into white and black for two Esper cards and five-color action with six or seven sunburst cards. A full set of color-producing Myr along with Vedalken Engineer work to power out serious cards like Myr Enforcer, Pentavus, Bosh, Iron Golem, Qumulox, Broodstar, and the non-creature artifact lord: Darksteel Forge.

As mentioned above, I've found equipment to be extremely powerful in this format. Elemental Thunder's Mage Slayer is pretty good - but Metallic Dreams has (by far) the best equipment in Planechase. Cranial Plating and Loxodon Warhammer can both create ridiculous threats, and if you get both of them going at the same time then forget about it. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how powerful these pieces of equipment are. Last week I managed to equip both on a Broodstar - the game did not last long.

The manabase of Metallic Dreams consists of a bunch of Islands, two Seats of the Synod, one of each other artifact land, and then a few of each other basic land. One thing to note is that getting the 'artifact land draw' is really important for this deck. Metallic Dreams contains a bunch of cards that care about how many artifacts you have lying around: affinity, Master of Etherium, Cranial Plating, Lodestone Myr, etc.

There are other cards in Metallic Dreams that exploit the number of artifacts in the deck: Skeleton Shard provides a powerful recursion engine, Fabricate tutors for pretty much anything, Sludge Strider messed with life totals, Serum Tank and Thirst for Knowledge provide card advantage.

Speaking of card advantage, there are two powerful non-artifact driven card advantage engines in Metallic Dreams. The first is Keep Watch. I've drawn eight cards off of Keep Watch while one of my opponents was attacking another of my opponents with a bunch of Living Hive insect tokens. Nothing wrong with that! The second is Etched Oracle, whose sunburst ability is absolutely essential for this deck. Not only does it provide an eventual Ancestral Recall, but it provides a solid 4/4 body even if you haven't been able to get a bunch of artifacts into play.

The last thing I want to mention about Metallic Dreams is that it runs one copy of Door to Nothingness. I've had this in my hand a few times, but have never been ANYWHERE near able to cast and activate it. There are a few Planes that could help with that type of mana generation, but I've never pulled it off.

So Let's See a Game

So now that you've got a basic idea of the decks and strategies we're working with - let's run through an example game. The time is earlier this week, the place is my apartment, and the event is a three-player Planechase battle. I shuffled up Strike Force, Kathryn was on Zombie Empire, and Ben played Elemental Thunder.

Things start off pretty poorly for me when I have to mulligan my opening seven. My six are decent, but didn't include any sort of access to white mana. I do have three lands and only one card that requires white (double white actually for Prison Term), so I decide to keep. Things start looking even better when the opening Plane came down:

Pretty awesome, huh? This is probably my personal favorite Plane. Not only does it provide a way for me to get access to some white mana through recycling my hand - but it's also the coolest chaos ability around. Triggering off three random chaos abilities can run the full range from amazingly powerful to excruciatingly ineffective. This is what Planechase is all about.

Unfortunately for me, Kathryn planewalks before I get a chance to filter away my hand and I remain stuck on red and colorless mana for quite some time. I may not have white mana, but I do have double Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion in play. As I mentioned above, these lands are great in the late game... I just need to survive until then!

Here's our new plane:

... but then we almost immediately planeswalk here:

Fields of Summer can really extend the game, and expect life totals to double or triple if it stays on the table for any length of time. Ben plays out Flamekin Harbinger to tutor up Forgotten Ancient, and then casts Rampant Growth. Kathryn lays out Festering Goblin and then Dregscape Zombie. I can't really cast anything, so I spend most of time taking beats, hoping to draw a Plains or Boros Garrison, and managing to hit chaos for ten life.

Forgotten Ancient hits the table for Ben, but I'm able to immediately take out that potential problem immediately with Flametongue Kavu - the first spell I've cast all game! Still no white mana though. Kathryn plays out Undead Warchief, attacking Ben for a bunch. Ben takes his turn and planeswalks:

Ben follows up with a chaos roll and names me, so I'm totally shut out of casting spells until we planeswalk again. He casts Savage Twister and clears the board. Knowing Elemental Thunder, he's likely on planning to reload with a powerful creature. Kathryn takes her turn and doesn't have a play, but she does manage to roll chaos and name Ben. Until we hit up a new Plane, she's the only one who can cast spells.

I untap and start rolling the planar die, which is all that I can do. I land chaos and name Kathryn, so now all three of us are locked out of casting spells. Orim's Chant all around! We spend a few turns each rolling blanks and building up our lands. This continues until I planeswalk:

... and then immediately roll chance for a Dragon! Everyone can cast spells now, but I've got a head start going with the Shivan Dragon. Time for some old school beatdown techniques!

Kathryn uses her turn to play Cabal Coffers and Corpse Harvester; Ben plays out both Fertile Ground and Explosive Vegetation to ramp his mana. I use Lightning Helix to take down the Corpse Harvester and start to get in there with my Shivan Dragon. Ben untaps and casts Living Hive, which is obviously a serious problem - and I don't have anything to deal with it. Hopefully Kathryn has Innocent Blood?

Everyone is rolling planar dice, hoping to get a Shivan of their own - but my original Dragon is still the only one on the table. I roll myself and don't get another dragon, but I do trigger off a new plane:

I may not be able to take out Living Hive, but it doesn't matter. Remember how great I told you Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion was? Well it's even better with Stronghold Furnace in the mix. I fly over with a double striking Dragon for twenty and take Ben out of the game! Now it's down to me and Kathryn. I have a Dragon token and she doesn't have much.

Kathryn untaps, and can generate a whole ton of mana with Cabal Coffers. She plays out Phyrexian Ghoul, and then starts rolling. We planeswalk:

This may not be terrible, since we're reasonably close in life totals... but Kathryn immediately rolls chaos and trades her Phyrexian Ghoul for my Dragon! This may be bad, but I am able to start unloading some serious threats. I play out Keldon Champion, and Bull Cerodon, while Kathryn plays out most of her hand into a Zombie army. We're at a bit of a standstill, since neither of us can deal lethal and Cliffside Market will just flip the life totals of whoever attacks first into a counter-attack death.

While we're staring each other down, I roll and planeswalk:

I can't empty my hand, and have to pass my turn. Kathryn manages to empty her hand by burning away two Dark Rituals, and gets seven new cards. Things are NOT looking good. I'm not sure what to do, so I just start rolling. I'm lucky enough to roll chaos and discard my hand, which means that I get to draw seven cards... including Insurrection!

Kathryn untaps and plays out her entire hand of Zombies, presenting a ridiculous force and drawing seven more cards - preparing for a serious beatdown. I untap and cast Insurrection, swinging for about a million damage and the win!

Wrap-Up

As I mentioned at the top of this article, my casual playgroup has been 100% converted over to Planechase. So do I have any complaints about Planechase? The only major complaint is that only four decks currently exist. I want more! The only current solution is to swap in other decks. Most of the time my playgroup has stuck to the actual Planechase decks, but we have experimented with substituting in other preconstructed decks. This has worked out pretty well, but it's definitely noticeable that Jace vs. Chandra (for example) was not designed for either Planechase or multiplayer. I've found that the Shadowmoor/Eventide preconstructed decks work out pretty well.

Thanks for reading!

Steve Gargolinski

spgmtg@gmail.com