Crappy Rivals metagame preview

It's been a while since we attempted some hard-hitting strategic insight here at magicanotes. Mostly this is good for comedy when viewed at a safe distance. Let's take a peek at some the defining cards of Rivals and see if we can break free of the unabashed aggression of Ixalan.

Remember these?

  

First, it's worth a quick look at some of the causes of the relentless aggression of XLNx3. First, the quality of the attacking two-drops was simply outrageous. All three of these are common, two-drop that attack with 3 power. They can't even block each other! When combined when comically weak "defensive" options, there wasn't a game plan other than curve out and stomp. Compare the following two cards:

 

You can squint and see an outline of a plan for the Kinjalli's Caller. Cheap blocker, ramp up to a creature. But the 0/3 was effectively useless. Compare that to the Wall from HoD. 0/4 was a plausible defensive threat and the pinging actually brought some real inevitability for control decks.

Jed's Rule of Thumb: if you're not curving out, then you need a game plan that keeps you alive, increases your resources (mana/card), and provide an end-game threat. If you're going slower, then you need cards that achieve two of these. Otherwise your draws are just too fragile, demanding drawing everything in the proper order.

Let's look at some Rivals!

Removal is BACK

       

Guys, these are just the removal options at COMMON. In a small set too, you will see plenty of these. But these are better in every way than what we had in XLNx3. Oblivion Strike is reborn in black, Hunt the Weak is a perennial favorite, same for Claustrophobia. It's possible that our days of being terrorized by One with the Wind are over, or at least more limited.

Creatures

The two-drops are a lot less terrifying as well. At common, there are no 3-power attackers, thank Crom. There are some evasive options: a red 2/1 menace, a blue 2/1 flier, a green 2/1 with quasi-skulk. So aggression is still an option. But I'm hopeful.

Defense (clap-clap) Defense (clap-clap)

   

I think these are some decent defenders. I think the Gleaming Barrier is going to grossly overperform. It's still not more than a C+ but it's going to stone a lot of attackers AND leave behind ramp/splash AND help with Ascend. The Knight of the Stampede reminds me a lot of Naga Vitalist from HoD too. A four-drop that ramps you and brings some serious defense to the table.

More Splash/Acceleration

  

I'm a little iffy on the relic, doing nothing on turn-3 just for some colorless mana is... unpleasant. But two reasonable options to help enable splashing is nice to see.

In conclusion, I am theorycrafted optimistic that Rivals will be slower. The low creatures look more reasonable and there are some key x/4s that I think will allow a non-curving out deck enough time to survive.