http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2243Editor's Blurb:
Stephen takes an in-depth look at Innistrad with this 40 page set review. He comprehensively examines every angle of Innistrad (and every card! -- although unplayables only receive a 1 sentence note) in his characteristically detailed style. This is the ultimate Innistrad set review. In addition, Stephen updates the Complete Vintage Checklist, a must-have for every serious Vintage player and collector!
Opening, Teaser Essay:
INVESTIGATING INNISTRADOriginality is overrated. Just about everything that is possible in Magic was sowed in the seeds of Alpha, planted nearly two decades ago by Richard Garfield and his crew. How ironically appropriate that Richard Garfield should return, once more, to the design team of the game he created for its most recent expansion.
The Return to Mirrodin was not what we expected. Mirrodin originally was a bombastic, operatic block with an array of innovative mechanics (affinity, indestructible) and broken spells (Chrome Mox, Chalice of the Void, Thirst for Knowledge, Trinisphere, Crucible of Worlds, among many others). The Vintage format gained a plethora of weapons that continue to shape the format to this day in perceptible and imperceptible ways.
Although the Return to Mirrodin brought many new cards, what emerged from New Mirrodin were really two very different kinds of cards: huge monsters and madcap magical tricks. The initial impact of Mirrodin may appear to be very much like least exciting half of original Mirrodin: Mishra’s Workshop-fueled monsters like Steel Hellkite, Precursor Golem, and Wurmcoil Engine. Yet, what we left Mirrodin with looks very different: Mental Misstep proliferating for tempo plays, Surgical Extraction and Dismember as surprise sideboard cards, Gitaxian Probe providing valuable information for free, Leonin Relic-Warder jumping out of Aether Vials, the unheralded Slash Panther tearing into Jaces, Phyrexian Metamorph and Phyrexian Revoker giving Workshop decks more utility, and the most outrageous finisher ever, Blightsteel Colossus.
In comparison to these zany tactics, Innistrad offers a return to brass tacks. Innistrad is a recentering for Magic away from free spells, eccentric tactics and tricks, and towards simplified effects and normal spells. While this may strike some as boring, it actually comes as a relief. A sense of regularity has been restored.
While Vintage may be Magic’s oldest format, it is not immune to the winds of change. In a span of 12 months, Vintage has been bookended by two major unrestrictions, and buffeted by unrelenting introduction of new printings at a pace never before seen – from Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, to Commander and M12. In between these printings has been the unrestriction of Gush, Frantic Search, and most recently Fact or Fiction. The format is running on a track that is not merely wet, but greased. Players accustomed to a deliberate pace of play and deck development may have difficulty getting their bearings, or find themselves lost without a compass.
One consequence of this inexorable and uncompromising march of new cards into the format is that potentially pivotal cards may become overlooked. It appears that Flusterstorm’s full potential took longer than expected to bear fruit, but what about cards like Leonin Relic-Warder? Has it realized its full potential, or is it just beginning to scratch the surface? What about cards that came out strong, but disappeared, like Mox Opal, Ratchet Bomb, or Steel Hellkite? What about sleepers like Leonin Arbiter, Grand Abolisher, or even Vedalken Certarch? What about solid tactics like Buried Ruin or Contagion Clasp? Or potential engine cards like Frantic Search or Riddlesmith? At what point do these cards deserve another look? More importantly, when do they get another look? Will they be lost perpetually in the metaphorical shuffle, or will they be brought into the realm of playability by their application with new printings, or to address metagame concerns?
The only scar left by the Scars block may be on the invisible subconscious of the Magic player, left with an array of dizzying tactics and no time to try them all out. In that context, we can thank the designers of Innistrad for returning Magic to brass tacks, and a return to “normalcy.” It is a set with solid tools, important plays, and a simplified design. There may be fewer overall playables in this block for Vintage, but those have the potential to be vital building blocks, not fringe answers, wild tactics, or broken finishers.
You may find these observations strange in a set that broke rules and created new ones with checklists and flip cards. These cards are merely a footnote for the Vintage player, whose implications lie beyond card play or deck design. These cards raise questions about the logistics of Magic player behavior, proxies, and card identity, but do not bear on the evolution of the format directly. As a set, and presumably, a block, the importance of Innistrad may be found in its spells, not its keywords, mechanics, or rules changes. And, for this, we may find some measure of respite. We can appreciate the design teams in R&D for their efforts to push the boundaries of Magic design in the last two years, but we can also thank them for guiding us back to calm waters.
While the flashback mechanic offers some of the most tantalizing possibilities to the Vintage designer, and may ultimately prove to be Innistrad’s most enduring legacy, both the greater portion of the set’s playables and the set as a whole read like a return to M10. Snapcaster Mage is the figurehead of Innistrad, but only because of its presence there. It is an ill-fitting symbolic representative to a set that otherwise serves a normalizing function.
More than anything else, Innistrad represents a realignment of the Magic card pool. It is not a shift in terms of efficiency or power levels. Rather, it is a realignment in terms of colors and abilities. Innistrad is a larger Planar Chaos, a reconfiguration of spells and creatures across the color pie, with modestly tweaked casting costs and effects. Old favorites have been printed in new colors (such as Null Rod, Coffin Purge, Krosan Reclamation, Faceless Butcher). Old enchantments have become artifacts (Spectral Cloak, All Hallow’s Eve, etc), as well as more recent ones (Leyline of Sanctity). And old artifacts/creatures have become enchantments (Millstone, Null Rod, Meddling Mage). A perusal of this set should stir memories, perhaps dim or even subconscious, but the perceptive mind will see in Innistrad much that is already found in Magic as a whole.
This is not a criticism. As I said, originality is overrated. The building blocks of Magic are simply designed cards creatively and synergistically utilized as tactical and strategic support options. The emergent properties of Magic are not to be found within individual cards, but from the interactions of cards within decks and across tables. Nevermore, Witchbane Orb, and Stony Silence will each see play in Eternal formats precisely because they offer important effects in elegant simplicity. This is true even of the marquee card in this set: Snapcaster Mage, which, as one of the more complex cards in the set, is nonetheless an elegant tactic that can be simply administered.
Innistrad may not offer as much for Vintage play as Scars of Mirrodin, but what it does offer is broader possibilities. This is the upside of simplicity. Simplicity does not always mean simple. The more basic the building block, the more applications it may have. Bricks will never go out of fashion. Innistrad offers them in spades.
Read my set review here:
http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2243
