Commander 2016 Spoiler Thread

[Richard Cheese]

Easy. Here's one way.

(On draw, 7 cards in hand.)
Turn 1, land+Dark Ritual, Phyrexia Fanboy.

(6 cards in hand after draw)
Turn 2, lotus petal, Cabal Ritual.
Drop LED, activate for UUU.
Dump Infernal Tutor, Ponder, Brainstorm into yard.
Crack Fanboy (BUU in pool)
Replay LED, crack for BBB (BBBBUU in pool)
Replay Cabal Ritual for BBBBB (BBBBBBBUU in pool)
Replay Dark Ritual for BBB (BBBBBBBBBUU in pool)
Replay Internal Tutor, get Tendrils. (BBBBBBBUU in pool)
Replay Brainstorm from yard (BBBBBBBU in pool)
Replay Ponder from yard. (BBBBBBB in pool)

That's nine storm and your Tendrils is lethal, without even worrying about what you drew off of Ponder or Storm. You could even replay the Petal or Magus if you needed more. And, I need to stress, it is NOT HARD to come up with initial hands of 7 that win pretty much along these lines in a typical TPS list. Try it out, you'll see that you goldfish quite fast.

The fact is, Yawgmoth's Will as an ability is ABSOLUTELY NUTTY and it's very easy to win once you're replaying tutors and mana generating cards from your yard.

EDIT: Perhaps the biggest thing to realize (if you didnt play with Will before) is that LED / Lotus plus Will makes it essentially free. Now, here we have to assume you already cast the Magus of the Will previously, but once that's accomplished, your 3 mana artifact or Ritual that you use to get the Will mana gets replayed right away out of the yard, making the ability free access to 2 storm and your entire graveyard.

Is the dude even necessary with that hand though? You're talking about opening with:

Land
Dark Rit
LED
Petal
Cabal Rit
IT
Ponder

Doesn't that get you to AdNaus and like 7 storm without passing the turn?

Edit: ninja'd by actual storm players.

[The Nobodys]

That turn 2 I described actually only requires LED and tutor for the win (assuming you can get 2 lands turn 2).

Cast tutor for another LED, crack LED for BBB.
Play 2nd LED, crack for 6B total
Crack Magus, 3 BBB total.
Play 2 LED from grave and your turn 1 ritual for 11 BBB total.
Tutor from grave for another tutor.
Tutor for another tutor
Tutor for another tutor
Tutor for tendrils, win.

[Lemnear]

That turn 2 I described actually only requires LED and tutor for the win (assuming you can get 2 lands turn 2).

Cast tutor for another LED, crack LED for BBB.
Play 2nd LED, crack for 6B total
Crack Magus, 3 BBB total.
Play 2 LED from grave and your turn 1 ritual for 11 BBB total.
Tutor from grave for another tutor.
Tutor for another tutor
Tutor for another tutor
Tutor for tendrils, win.

That line costs 12 mana and you have 11. You also cheat on your own secenario a second time my suddenly having a second land.

Edit: With that mana you could also just cast T2 Ad Nauseam and not have to fear yardhate or creatureremoval

[Cire]

Obviously the original Will is best used for storm, but does this have any place in a non-storm deck - like is their some use for him as a delayed mass-snapcaster? Turn 1 - Discard Spell, Turn 2 - Sinkhole, Turn 3 - This guy, Turn 4 if he survived the turn - tap two lands BB, dark ritual, BBBB, sac, B, dark ritual, BBB, FB discard and sink hole?

[Richard Cheese]

Obviously the original Will is best used for storm, but does this have any place in a non-storm deck - like is their some use for him as a delayed mass-snapcaster? Turn 1 - Discard Spell, Turn 2 - Sinkhole, Turn 3 - This guy, Turn 4 if he survived the turn - tap two lands BB, dark ritual, BBBB, sac, B, dark ritual, BBB, FB discard and sink hole?

Or, between this guy and Mentor, are we approaching some kind of Legacy version of Vintage Gush storm? Or, does something like Grixis Delver just toss in one of these for value? Re-cast a Pyromancer and make a couple tokens?

[The Nobodys]

That line costs 12 mana and you have 11. You also cheat on your own secenario a second time my suddenly having a second land.

Edit: With that mana you could also just cast T2 Ad Nauseam and not have to fear yardhate or creatureremoval

Edit: Math was right after all. But I also don't think I'm "cheating" to assume the hand gets 2 mana sources. There should be 4 more cards. If these aren't mana sources, then they're combo pieces and thus going to the yard for the combo. The ideal card with Magus in a storm deck is probe, to see if removal is present.

[MaximumC]

And now please realize that this hand would have won T1 if you go for Ad Nauseam or PIF instead. Excellent example ... not. I also did ask for a different secenario, just saying

Sheesh, picky, picky. Your question initially was: "How can you win if you start with a T1 Magus," not "In what situations can you win with Magus where PiF or Ad Nas are not better?"

My point was not that it's better or worse than existing options, just that it's really powerful and easy to win once you resolve it. It's almost impossible to lose if you are allowed to go Will'n. That's also true of the other key cards you mentioned.

If you want to find cases where one is better than the other, then I'm sure you can find them. Heck, let's say you're staring down Gaddock Teeg or Thalia. I could imagine Magus finding a way out of that where something like Ad Nasuem and Past in Flames, which might not even get started, could not.

Or, between this guy and Mentor, are we approaching some kind of Legacy version of Vintage Gush storm? Or, does something like Grixis Delver just toss in one of these for value? Re-cast a Pyromancer and make a couple tokens?

I think that's possibly viable, but it depends on your land count. Don't Delver lists usually put out 2 lands, maybe 3 tops in the very late game?

[Lemnear]

The ideal card with Magus in a storm deck is probe, to see if removal is present.

This still does not get us around the core issue: You drop a creature and pass the turn for your opponent to be able to search for a solition to the creature OR the upcoming comboturn with a WHOLE TURN of Probe/Ponder/Brainstorm/Preordain/SDT shenanaigans

Sheesh, picky, picky. Your question initially was: "How can you win if you start with a T1 Magus," not "In what situations can you win with Magus where PiF or Ad Nas are not better?"

The claim was winning with ritual, Magus, IT, LED by turn 2, which is not possible even with another manasource as seen. Magus was in your scenario as relevant as the cantrips you discarded

Moreover the example has proven that the Magus needs so many resources, that you could outright go for PIF and AN and be better off, heck even winning a turn earlier. The ability to Replay lands and artifacts is no argument in favor anymore, if the drawbacks are that big. PIF and AN are the benchmark for Magus and he fails to come close to either

[Poron]

Whatever turn 0, 1 or 2 combo you play that is based on the graveyard will be forever worse than a simple Sire of Insanity or Griselbrand.

It's like those strange combo in a world with, simply, SnT.

It is just better

[mistercakes]

I hope this card gets played. At worst you can bring back a land (or petals/rituals) and get some value out of it.

[Zombie]

That line costs 12 mana and you have 11. You also cheat on your own secenario a second time my suddenly having a second land.

Edit: With that mana you could also just cast T2 Ad Nauseam and not have to fear yardhate or creatureremoval

It should work?

Start:
BF: Magus, land, land
GY: DRit
Hand: IT, LED
Mana: 0
Storm: 0

cast LED, IT with lands, crack LED, search LED, cast and crack LED:

BF: Magus
GY: DRit, LED, IT, LED
Hand:
Mana: BBB BBB
Storm: 3

Activate Magus:

BF:
GY: DRit, LED, IT, LED
Hand:
Mana: BBB
Storm: 3

Replay mana:

BF:
GY: IT
Hand:
Mana: BBB BB BBB BBB
Storm: 6

Recast IT from GY, tutor for IT:

BF:
GY:
Hand: IT
Mana: BBB BB BBB B
Storm: 7

Cast IT from hand, tutor for IT:

BF:
GY:
Hand: IT
Mana: BBB BB BB
Storm: 8

Cast IT from hand, tutor for Tendrils:

BF:
GY:
Hand: Tendrils of Agony
Mana: BBB BB
Storm: 9

That looks like a kill to me. Frail, but a kill nonetheless.

[Lemnear]

That looks like a kill to me. Frail, but a kill nonetheless.

LED, IT, LED, Rit, LED, LED, IT, IT, IT, ToA works. Card is still junk, because if you have 7+mana and IT in hand, everything wins

[Ebonclaw]

if you have 7+mana and IT in hand, everything wins

This is what I DON'T like about the card. Yes, he enables some different lines of play, but are they any better than what Storm decks are already doing with similar resources? This is the biggest issue with finding him a home in existing decks. Whether or not he's playable really depends on if an entirely new storm deck can be designed with him in mind, and if it is, is it any better than ANT/TES or even SI? Doubtful, but there are a LOT of Magic cards out there, so while it never hurts to screw around with something, and this is Yawgmoth's frikking Will with legs, you're also talking about cooking up something to compete with decks that have had years of fine tuning, upgrades, and honing.

I'm going to test a few different ideas- I don't really expect any to pan out any better than what's out there, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and he does grant some nice capabilities to some cards like Gitaxian Probe as a draw engine when he's been activated.

[Cire]

Or, between this guy and Mentor, are we approaching some kind of Legacy version of Vintage Gush storm? Or, does something like Grixis Delver just toss in one of these for value? Re-cast a Pyromancer and make a couple tokens?

Yeah . . . for example this rough deck:

4 Young Pyromancer
3 Baleful Strix
3 Magus of the Will
2 Gurmag Angler

4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Innocent Blood
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt

1 JMTS

4 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp

It's a bad, rough list. . . . but the idea here is that this is a more powerful version of Snapcaster. That if you untap with it, you get ridiculous amount of value.

I think people are right that current storm tools are better than this, but I feel that this effect is so powerful, that you'll find a place for it in Legacy even outside storm.

[BenBleiweiss]

The pump this gives your creatures the rest of the game is insane. I know that normally you'd want an "immediate effect" pump spell - but is permanently Giant Growthing a creature a turn for the rest of the game good enough with a one-turn delay in use?

[Ace/Homebrew]

Hah! Is that Wolverilla?

[MaximumC]

It's at least POSSIBLE that slapping Will on a creature makes it unplayable. I grant that. Look at the other Magi: Magus of the Moat sees no play despite Moat being amazing and expensive, Magus of the Candelabra sees no play despite Candelabra of Tawnos being similarly absurd, and so on. All other Magi suffer from key problems that just gum up the works in whatever deck they're in too much. The easiest one to see that in is Magus of the Bazaar: you can't pay 1U to get rolling in Dredge. Magus of the Candelabra costs G, which exposes High Tide to wastelands and that's really, really bad because of how the deck rolls. Magus of the Moat dies to creature removal, which is very contrary to its purpose. And so on.

Magus of the Will might be different, though. It's in the right colors and at the same cost (per turn) as Will. It's just a turn slower due to summoning sickness, really. I bet R&D considered making it cost more, and I applaud them for not doing so. Paying 3 mana to (essentially) draw 4 - 8 cards is really, really good, and that's basically what Will does for you.

Given all of that, I think Magus of the Will will actually pop up in Legacy somewhere, even while his brothers have not.

Anyway, let's talk about the card getting so little press that not even the major retailers have figured out his preorder price yet:



This guy is not splashy, he won't cause people to freak out when he lands, but he seems really, really strong to me. For 2 mana you get a x/3, which is great at stopping early beats or even punching through 1 damage against x/2s. Once you hit 4 mana, if you are playing a draw-go deck, this is the best Jadmeaye Tome ever printed. 4 mana to draw a card OR put the land right out there? And he doesn't tap to do it? So he can block or attack and still give you access to this ability? On top of all of that, he's a win condition with infinite mana. We're not really at a loss for those, but the most comparable way to win when you go infinite is Ambassador Laqatus, and this card is probably just completely better than the Legend because it has more general utility.

The other direct comparison is Azure Mage, which is also a fine card that wins when you go infinite, but a 2/1 body is not exactly what a deck that wants to play draw-go (leaving mana up for the draw ability) is going for. And, of course, it doesn't accelerate your land like the Triton Lord does.

I'm intrigued!

The pump this gives your creatures the rest of the game is insane. I know that normally you'd want an "immediate effect" pump spell - but is permanently Giant Growthing a creature a turn for the rest of the game good enough with a one-turn delay in use?

Incoming buyout on Kulrath Knight, Devoted Druid?

[Ace/Homebrew]

I'm impressed by the design of this card.




Other stuff:

[Megadeus]

The biggest issue to all of the magus's is that they are creatures. Either being summoning sick or vulnerable to removal or both makes their abilities generally not good. The only two magus that are even remotely playable have static abilities in Moat and Moon. And Moat is only because it's better against elves than Actual Moat

[rufus]

Other stuff:...

That 'control anything' card is strong - steal a planeswalker, steal a tassigur, steal a goyf... It's a bit of a pity that it's weak vs SnT -> Griselbrand.