Pattern Recognition #347 - Foundations Signposts (part 1)

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berryjon

21 November 2024

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Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!

Oh man, this has really gotten away form me, hasn't it? Well, for those of you just joining me, I've been spending way too long going into the nitty and the gritty of the set, and yet I can't really stop myself. Something about being as awesome as I am. I know, it's a hard life I lead.

Anyway, moving on, today, I'm going to talk about the Signpost Uncommons in this set, and what they can mean for set design for the next few years. For those not in the know, Signpost Uncommons are cards in a set that encapsulate the basic colour combinations of the set and to guide the player in how to optimize their decks in 40 and 60 card formats. 100 card formats usually don't need these. But because Foundations is a 5 year set to anchor Extended, the signposts here and going to be core going forward for that period of time. They're not going to be locked to the set and style of the fiscal quarter, and have to have to have longer legs.

To that end, these cards have to be viable for a long period of time, and how they are build and worded will hopefully give me an idea of how to expect these colors to develop for some time, so let's just get into it shall we?

For Azorious, we get Cloudblazer and Empyrean Eagle. I've talked before about how this colour pairing gets rightly labeled as the 'No Fun For You' colours thanks to their abundance of control options, and seeing these two cards not be that pleases me.

is the color of flying, and has been for a very long time. That these two Signposts exist to reaffirm that these two colours in conjunction will be working toward putting out creatures with Flying as their go-to means of maintaining a board presence and swinging for the win.

The Empyrean Eagle also brings to the table and interesting conceit. As we'll see later on, this isn't the only Signpost that includes 's Lord effects, as this creature affects all Flying creatures and making them just a little bit bigger. This effect is across several of 's cards this set, and it's something I enjoy seeing as it helps maintain the sense of community involved with this colour. Of course, is here to remind the other half to focus its efforts on something specific, rather than just being a Glorious Anthem. That if you have multiples, they affect each other is just a wonderful way of looking at things.

On the other side, Cloudblazer does a lot of things. While on the surface it's still the same excellent mid-game refill and refresh that it was in Kaladesh with the drawing a card to replace it in your hand and gaining two life, it does a bit more than that. First that you see is the classic construction of the card. With Flying being there to help indicate something that both colours do, it synergizes perfectly with the other Signpost. Which is intended, I assure you.

But the really important part about this creature comes about when you step back for a moment and look at a lot of other cards that are not only in the set, but across existing standard and therefore into the future. Blink exists. Sure, it may be limited in Foundations to Charming Prince and one other card I'll get to in a moment, but that means nothing when it's a commonly occurring mechanic in every set. Well, maybe Bloomburrow is just spoiling me, but still. With blink effects, you can get to reuse this creature's Enters effect multiple times. And if you have a solidly reusable source of it? Well, that's a lot of life and card draw you can encounter in a game.

This is what good Signposts do. They don't force you down a narrow path, they enable you to play in different ways, and the Cloudblazer is a good start to it.

But the best part about these two is how they interact with the Rare creature in these colours. Kykar, Zephyr Awakener looks at these two and combines both Signposts into a single creature. When you cast non-creature spells, you can make more fliers for the Eagle to boost, or you can Flicker/Blink the Blazer for an additional card that would allow you to do it all over again!

Moving on to the Orzhov, we get one Signpost Creature, and one Signpost spell.

Fiendish Panda is a new card in this set, and I would like to remind people that Pandas are more closely related to Raccoons than Bears, meaning that it should be a Raccoon Demon and not a bear Demon. But that would be redundant. Anyway, this creature starts off with something well within 's wheelhouse - that being the gaining of line makes this creature bigger. Something shared with Ajani's Pridemate which is also in this set. These two colours do lifegain fairly easily as they share Lifelink as a keyword. However, tends to just generate life with a card and then take a secondary effect from it, while sees it as a drain effect, where something has to take damage for you to gain life.

The second ability is a good play on this. is the colour of self-sacrifice for the greater good, and wow this chocolate isn't melting at all! When the Panda dies, you can return a non-bear to the battlefield like a non-Cleric version of Orah, Skyclave Hierophant. And given how much of a headache I have with him when he's limited to Clerics and an MV of or less, that the Panda can go much higher and isn't Legendary so you can have multiple go off at the same time. And of course, the way stacking and simultaneous effects works, if this creature is caught up in a massive board wipe, it can return an otherwise legal creature to the battlefield that died to the same board wipe.

Internally, this synergizes well, with lifegain enabling a larger creature to be brought back. This helps teach newer players that the Graveyard is a resource, and just because a creature has wound up there, it doesn't mean its the end of things. You can still get it back. You can still have value out of this, you just have to earn it.

On the other side, we have Mortify. This classic card is a melding of Murder and Demystify, and it does both well enough. Oddly enough, I don't see this as a Signpost at all, as it's more each color contributing to solving a problem the other colour has trouble with.

The Panda works well enough with Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim at Rare, as it feeds lifegain, and when you're ready, you can use Ayli to sac the Panda for effect.

Where I'm seeing this go is a lot of life gain chicanery going on. has, thanks to Bloomburrow and this set, an infinite Lifedrain combo in just two cards. What I see here with the Panda just reinforces this concept. Life is a resource. Use it. Then refresh yourself by taking it from someone or something else. And you can kill a lot of things. Lots of things.

With just a single card, Dreadwing Scavenger is another Foundations-first card. And much like , it has Flying, so in decks with less color restrictions, it can benefit from the boons to fliers that the others have. But it is also an indication that will get into Flying as well, though it won't be as often as will get.

Upon entering, and when this creature attacks, you do get to loot though. This draw and discard can let you refresh some dead card in your hand and get rid of a space-waster. For a lot of new players though, they will see the card draw as the more important part of the card, and see the Discarding as a drawback of sorts. Which isn't wrong. A straight up Flier that draws a card when it ETBs without anything special would be purely , but when it is combined with , we get Cloudblazer, and gives us this card.

This is what the first of our Keyworded cards gets us. As I talked about last week, Threshold is a mechanic that checks the number of cards in your graveyard, and gives you an added bonus if you reached it or not. What this creature does is help you get to that point faster. Once the players make the mental leap from 'drawing a card is important' to 'drawing and discarding are both important in different ways', they can begin to see the value of deliberately filling the graveyard, rather than letting it naturally occur over the course of the game.

And speaking of filling the graveyard, the Scavenger doesn't just also do its thing when it enters, but also when it attacks. I've never seen this color pairing as much of an attacker, save for closing out the game. But here, with this encouragement as well as the Flying to help it stay away form a lot of threats, the fact that your graveyard fills up faster to enable the slightly larger stats can only be a good thing. And because it's a Keyworded mechanic, it's something that will show up more often, or at least is easier to enable as your card pool expands.

This creature doesn't synergize with the Rare, so we can ignore Consuming Aberration.

We have three cards here, and I'll go down each in turn.

Teach by Example is not a Signpost uncommon, but I'll look at it anyway. As our first Hybrid card (there will be others), this card teaches players the importance of your mana symbols, and when you can be lax with them. It also brings to the table spell copies. Spells that aren't cast, but created on the stack as a duplicate of another spell. There's a lot to unpack with this, but it doesn't meet my criteria.

Enigma Drake is a Signpost. It has Flying, thanks to its colours, more than , but still viable. It also has a bit of graveyard awareness thanks to its variable power. By casting spells, Instants and Sorceries really, you make this creature bigger and bigger. And they don't have to be spells that directly affect your creatures either. Casting Teach by Example, for example, helps make this more and more powerful.

It isn't too much of a jump in logic to realize that this creature gets more and more powerful the longer the game goes on, and while you may wind up removing cards thanks to Flashback, in a sense, this is an easy to understand creature that encourages you to cast spells and when you're casting, you're probably going to start optimizing.

Which leads us into the real treat. Our first Legendary Uncommon that I'm covering. Balmor, Battlemage Captain. You sexy, sexy, glorious creature you.

ahem

Sorry.

Balmor introduces players to the concept of the "Legendary" creature. That being you can only have one copy of this creature on the battlefield at any time. I won't get into what that all means now, but this card maybe a new player's first introduction to this concept. So when they ask what it means, it will also be their gateway into the wonderful world of Brawl. But back to the creature itself.

Like the other Signpost, Balmor has Flying. This once again reiterates the necessity of being able to evade creatures in combat, as well as being able to block them as well. In fact, the printed power and toughness lend this creature more to the defense than the offense - until you read the real meat and power of the creature. "Whenever you cast an Instant or Sorcery, creatures you control get +1/0 and Trample until the end of the turn.

Look at the Enigma Drake. Look back at Balmor. And back to the Drake. And back to the Captain. When you cast an Instant or Sorcery, Balmor makes things bigger that turn, and when the card is in the graveyard, it makes the Drake bigger. But these are additive. And Trample solves the big problem of the Drake - getting damage through. Though this is also the first introduction - by colour - to Trample, so explaining that to players is important. That simply being blocked when you attack no longer means the opponent is safe. They have to be more comprehensive in their defense, which means that you can attack more freely.

As long as you are casting spells. That's the important part. You have to throw down and throw hard to make the most of this creature. Yes, Guttersnipe is getting a reprint, but Archmage of Runes will add fuel to the fire. Throw down and keep throwing. You've got this. You don't even need many creatures to work with. Balmor works with everything you've got, so go wild!

Of these cards, the best synergies are with Ovika, Enigma Goliath, who turns all these spells you're casting into creatures. Creatures with Haste, which means they can attack this turn. Just beware about your staggering, as creatures made when you cast won't be affected by bonuses from Balmor that have already resolved. It's like a slope, which is how I envisioned it and built it on my table.

On the other hand, Thousand-Year Storm has more in common with Teach by Example, as copies aren't cast. Two parallel lines hear, and one is much more robust than the other. It's not like the Magecraft Ability Keyword.

Sunnova URZA! That could have been the replacement for Prowess! Then that might be too much popping off... especially when Storm comes into play. Thank you, Ral, Crackling Wit.

You know, this is getting long in tooth again. I think I'll call this here, and come back next week with another round of cards and what they mean. This looks like it'll take me a couple more weeks to finish up, and that's alright by me! See you all next week!

Thank you all for reading! Please leave your comments below, and I look forward to discussing my subejct matter in more detail!

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