Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Sewers Under Kasprah – Red Burst & Green Backup

Burst is such a fun mechanic. There's a massive variety of things to do with it. Here are some ways Red gets to play with Burst.

Tunneler Boa, Hot-Tailed Flailer, Smashing Ogre, Intimidating Ogre
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Tunneler Boa lets you trade land for land, which is of course useful for when a player is lacking lands already or is missing a color, but there are a few nonbasic lands in this set you may want to get rid of. Since Tunneler Boa is expensive without the Burst, you may want to sideboard it until you know you need it. Hot-tailed Flailer gives you a nice aggressive 3/1 body while letting you lightning bolt something for the bonus Burst cost. Hot removal! Smashing Ogre lets you come in hot and fast, and if you are Burst-heavy aggressive, a hasty, first-strikey 4/4 might really help close out the game. Intimidating Ogre gives you a threaten effect as well, and while threaten effects aren't always a great option, you're not wasting a card by having a 4/4 for four in your deck, so the threaten effect is a nice bonus.

Terrorizing Crocodile, Junkers, Aggrandizing Druid

Terrorizing Crocodile can similarly close out a game by giving all of your creatures menace when you Burst it onto the scene. Note, however, the Terrorizing Crocodile doesn't have haste, so the 3/3 body shouldn't be relied on to help. Junkers is great for red-style card draw, of course. Aggrandizing Druid practically lets you cast something even bigger for free!

Like Flush, Backup is a relatively simple mechanic, so most cards don't have too much to say about them, part from the extra features and occasional synergies.

Wired, Purging Party, Dwarven Salvager

Wired is an enchantment that grants Backup. Purging Party is a fairly average Backup card, though it's a big boy, since green is the color of big boys. Dwarven Salvager has Backup, and then has Backup for lands, essentially. It's a bit like when Prowess was introduced in Tarkir, where some cards had Prowess, and another ability that would trigger at the same time.

Shrieking Slug, Noisy Lizard, Alarum Sergeant, Minacious Crocodile

Shrieking Slug has a double instance of Backup. Noisy Lizard and Alarum Sergeant have a bonus way to untap all creatures you control, on death and on ETB, respectively. You can kind of see the theme of "waking up" with the titles of these cards. Minacious Crocodile is effectively unblockable, so it's locked away as a rare bomb.

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