maandag 31 oktober 2016

Card Spotlight: Diversionary Tactics

Tokens is an archetype I've always been fond of. When Urza's block was standard legal, I played blue/green with Deranged Hermit. In Ravnica block, I loved Selesnya tokens. The biggest reason I liked those decks?


Sadly, both Opposition and Glare of Subdual are not peasant legal. Which, especially in the case of the ridiculously powerful Opposition, might be best for the format. Still, the effect has become iconic (for me) in Magic, and one of the reasons I built my cube years ago was that I could play with cards and archetypes I've always loved playing - within the boundaries of peasant.

Flash forward to a month or two ago, when my buddy and I where looking for obscure white enchantments to push the green/white enchantment-matters archetype. My buddy is doing a Gatherer search, and stumbles upon this little gem:


First, we laughed it away, reminiscing about Opposition and Glare of Subdual. You have to tap TWO creatures? This can't be good. Can it? Wait, can it? White does have a good number of token makers on its own. If you add green to the mix, there are even a couple of cards that make (multiple) tokens each turn.

We decided we'd try it, just to see if it was any good. To the surprise (and satisfaction) of both of us, it actually turned out way better than we could've imagined. This card, in the right deck of course, has been singlehandedly responsible for multiple game wins and turnarounds over the last couple of months. It's able to break stalemates, tap down big tramplers or flyers that the token deck otherwise can have trouble with, even tap down whole boards of attackers in some occasions.


You do need the right deck for it to shine. In a deck with 10-12 creatures, it's plain bad. But, as long as your deck has a couple of ways to make multiple creatures with one card, Diversionary Tactics can be great. We're at a point where we pick it very highly in token decks. Opposition, it's not, but it's the closest thing I've found for peasant.

If a card is described multiple times with statements like "I should've held removal for it", "the only thing that could save/wreck me now is Tactics" or "oh crap", you know you've got a winner.

Geen opmerkingen:

Een reactie posten