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All About Spellchaser - A New Fun Format! [PRIMER]

Unknown Casual Competitive Five Color Lands Primer Spellslinger

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Storm Wincons (9)

Striplands (5)

Tango Lands (5)

Token Generation (14)

Triomes (5)

Tutors (13)

Utility Lands (Miscellaneous) (7)

All About Spellchaser (W.I.P.)

All of this primer is my own personal take on the format. I am not perfect, and don't know everything, and so if you disagree about anything here, feel free to write a comment on it, explaining what we disagree on, and how to help change it.

JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/FFCKePZ

NOTE BEFORE READING: This primer is incomplete, therefor expect further updates to unfinished tabs and sections!

Intro & Rules

Spellchaser is a non-rotating format, created by GoblinElectromancer, it goes back to Alpha, and has a power level similar to that of Legacy or Modern, with Force of Will as a major player, but Mystic Sanctuary + Cryptic Command also being valuable contenders.

The rules are relatively simple. Only Instants, Sorceries, and Lands are allowed in the format. Adventure cards are not legal, however Dryad Arbor and Startled Awake   are legal. 75 cards main deck, 15 sideboard, 4 of each card maximum. A banlist was produced, and is being upkept by GoblinElectromancer.

The following cards are all of the banned cards of the format, and a brief description of why they are there.

For a separate, updated (normally), and dedicated list, check out:

Spellchaser Banlist

Custom GoblinElectromancer

SCORE: 1 | 19 COMMENTS | 183 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

All cards referencing the mechanic "Ante" are banned in Spellchaser, the following are:

These cards go against the spirit of MTG, and therefor are effectively banned from all formats, inclusive of Spellchaser.

The Original Dual Lands are banned in Spellchaser, the following are:

These lands were banned due to budgetary and manabase reasons. Decks would become prohibitively expensive (as stated by GoblinElectromancer) and additionally too consistent for the format.

  • Ancestral Recall - A part of the power nine, and an incredibly one-sided and busted card, immediately 3 for 1ing the opponent in terms of card advantage, banned in legacy, EDH, and restricted in Vintage.

  • Ancient Tomb - A non-green ramp card, not particularly busted, as there are no artifact, but a strong card that is a powerful, color-pie breaking tool that was banned.

  • Balance - A powerful land and creature and hand hate piece that would be too aggressively powerful in this format, also banned in Vintage, EDH, and restricted in Vintage.

  • Channel - Another busted card, restricted and banned everywhere it would be legal, and is too easy to combo with effects like Fireball, especially with the 30 starting life of this format.

  • Demonic Tutor - A powerful tutor that would increase consistency too highly in the format, allowing for too easy of combos or finding of hate, also banned in Legacy and restricted in vintage, but not banned in EDH as a matter of fact.

  • Falling Star - An 'Agility' card that doesn't make sense in the current rule system, banned everywhere.

  • Force of Negation - A free counterspell that stopped the main graveyard based engines and, while not castable on your turn, like Force of Will, assumed the non-creature clause would be a real downside, being both a powerful 3 mana counterspell that stopped Life from the Loam and Past in Flames, but also being a free counterspell able to interact with turn 1 discard cast on the play, which was too powerful.

  • Imperial Seal - See Demonic Tutor.

  • Library of Alexandria - A threat that both was difficult to kill and gave free card advantage, banned or restricted everywhere.

  • Mana Drain - A Counterspell that gave too much value for no cost, and demoralized gameplay.

  • Mystical Tutor - See Demonic Tutor.

  • Shahrazad - An effect that is effectively banned everywhere due to causing too many issues with gameplay.

  • Tendrils of Agony - An effect that prevents the 30 starting life from being much of a block to storm-based decks, while also being a way to gain more life for a further Ad Nauseam or just to survive the next turn.

  • Time Walk - Power 9, a powerful threat that with Mystic Sanctuary could be easily looped to the point of having opponents never cast a spell for many turns, for way cheaper than it should be.

  • Vampiric Tutor - See Demonic Tutor.

  • Yawgmoth's Will - Incredibly high-value card that allows for blacks storm lists abusing Dark Ritual effects to 'go off' with more ease than Past in Flames, banned in legacy.

Spellchaser Theory

A Control Deck based on countermagic and instant speed interaction that allows the deck to perform an incredibly responsive amount, often winning through slower means, but ending up at a very efficient endgame, 1 for 1ing the opponent and attempting to deal with their value by creating it's own through draw spells and efficient interaction.

Mono-Blue Draw-Go (Spellchaser)

Unknown SynergyBuild

8 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Loam/Sanctuary Control is a slower, grindier deck aimed at looping it's lands and spells with Life from the Loam and Mystic Sanctuary, getting loops with Field of Ruin, to eventually empty your opponent out of lands, Cryptic Command to bounce, tap, or counter threats, Archmage's Charm to steal them, Sinkhole to blow up lands, etc.

Most variants run numbers of countermagic, ramp, draw, and occasionally land destruction/discard loops.

The decks can run Field of the Dead, Westvale Abbey  , Celestial Colonnade, Lumbering Falls, Creeping Tar Pit, Finale of Glory, Secure the Wastes, or any other wincon, including mill or big burn X spells like Banefire and Torment of Hailfire.

Twist Loam Control (Sultai Control Spellchaser)

Unknown SynergyBuild

11 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Sultai Syn's Build

Unknown SynergyBuild

8 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Simic Land Control (Bant Field Spellchaser)

Custom SynergyBuild

2 COMMENTS | 89 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Temur Field Control

Unformat SynergyBuild

14 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Mill is a strategy based on dumping your opponent's deck into their graveyard, ending with them 'decking themselves,' or drawing on an empty library. While this may seem harder in a format with 75 cards starting deck, and no Mesmeric Orb style permanent mill effects, but with a control backend and payoffs like Visions of Beyond, Into the Story, Drown in the Loch, etc. the deck can actually play a strong counter-mill (as opposed to counter burn) strategy.

UB Mill (Spellchaser)

Unknown SynergyBuild

SCORE: 1 | 12 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Land destruction decks are lists based on ripping apart the opponent's manabase and attempting to gain advantage through grindy value engines. Often using Dust Bowl or Life from the Loam (with Dust Bowl, Field of Ruin or Ghost Quarter) as engines, or individual spells, ranging from single target, like with Sinkhole or Molten Rain, to mass land destruction spells, like Armageddon or Ruination. These larger spells often can be abused with effects like Brought Back or Splendid Reclamation.

Mono-Black Land Destruction (Spellchaser)

Unknown SynergyBuild

SCORE: 2 | 7 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Field Ramp decks base themselves around Field of the Dead and efficient ramp spells such as Explore, Growth Spiral, as well as the king, Hour of Promise. They often back it up with efficient ways of abusing that mana advantage through land synergies such as Dark Depths/Thespian's Stage, Spells, Bigger Spells, or draw spells/tutor chains.

Simic Field Spellchaser

Unknown SynergyBuild

11 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Temur Field Midrange

Unformat SynergyBuild

8 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Variations of decks aimed at casting many spells in the same turn, often building up a "storm count" to end the game with a Grapeshot or Brain Freeze.

Spellchaser TES

Unknown SynergyBuild

16 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Spellchaser High Tide

Unformat SynergyBuild

26 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Spellchaser is much more about the moment than other formats. Many formats care about the field, and what's on the field is what matters is how much damage is out, combat maths, life totals, enchantments, artifacts, walkers, etc.

Without Creatures, Artifacts, Enchantments, and Walkers on the field, there are really only two types of Permanents; Tokens, and Lands.

While Spellchaser is the name of the format, the lands are what makes the games tick. You worry about mana, you worry about interacting with your opponent's lands, with your own, etc. If Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage is a combo you worry about, now you slot in Field of Ruin, and you now have worse mana, or if you didn't run any basics, now you do, etc.

The limited amount of viable cards means that the decks often have to branch into multiple colors to get the threats and interaction and effects it wants, meaning that splitting your manabase and lands for turn into interactive and proactive qualities can be difficult. Many more lands than you may expect is recommended, and while the equivalent to 24 lands in a Standard deck would be 30 lands in this format, remember that if you run more lands with utility as the focus than with color fixing and mana, going to 31, 32, 33 lands is perfectly acceptable. I have run and won with decks with 37 lands to even 42 lands, though many of those decks had specific usages for that many lands.

Play with that in mind, and remember that considering the threats of the formats are either token based, with Dark Depths, Field of the Dead, Martial Coup, Secure the Wastes, Westvale Abbey  , Empty the Warrens, and Finale of Glory being major culprits, or manland based, such as Mutavault, Mishra's Factory, Faerie Conclave, Creeping Tar Pit, Lumbering Falls, Ravaging Ravine, Dryad Arbor, Celestial Colonnade, and Westvale Abbey   (again) meaning that all creatures are effectively 0 CMC, so a card like Fatal Push could be a Murder, Drown in the Loch can kill any creature, and against tokens, Repeal does wonders.

On the topic of how to deal with the Field, bounce, such as Cryptic Command, Repeal, and most of all, Echoing Truth should be looked at. They deal with nearly any creature, and though for manlands, temporarily, they get through indestructible on Dark Depths, and permanently deal with tokens. On this topic, abusing the fact that all permanents are 0 cmc, try Archmage's Charm, it is an incredibly delightful feeling, taking a Depth's Token. These are some of the most powerful cards in this format, in comparison to the best removal of other formats, for more options like these, check out Removal, under Staples.

The last bit is land destruction. Lands that can destroy opposing lands are incredibly valuable, they give you the out to stop opposing threats, like manlands, Westvale Abbey  , Field of the Dead, or Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, but also let you cut opponent's mana, and that can cause concessions it's so powerful. Ghost Quarter, Field of the Dead, Dust Bowl (A huge player in the format), and Tectonic Edge can pull this off, but remember that the more of these you run, the less consistently your mana will get the colors you want as well.

Sinkhole, Molten Rain, etc. can also be strong effects, especially if looped with Mystic Sanctuary and the like, as it lets you have strong one-sided land destruction, that doesn't affect your manabase, and can be very effective at targeting lands like basics that a Dust Bowl might miss. Armageddon, Ruination, etc. may also work in some situations, letting you clean out opposing fields and steal a win if you can get it under interaction with just some tokens out or something, and these land destruction effects can greatly impact the boardstate, leading to win scenarios that if your opponent could go off with their lands, wouldn't come to be.

But hating the field doesn't let you win. That's why it's Spellchaser, you aren't chasing the permanents.

In Spellchaser, after the field, interaction like bounce, etc. becomes less relevant. Instants and sorceries are the gameplan, and the best ways of dealing with those? Negate and Duress. These two are the poster children of the format. They show up effects like Counterspell and Thoughtseize, two powerful cards in other formats and show the difference. You don't worry about non-creature.

Taking Negate as an example, though more options are under Countermagic, in Staples, you'll see that holding up mana at the right time is important, and in a format like Spellchaser, timing isn't just important, it's everything. Every land you play, every spell, whether to go off now, or wait until you can pay for a Miscast, Flusterstorm, or a counterspell yourself.

Knowing when you should or shouldn't go off is important, sandbagging threats to dump is a key part of why this format is so good. Knowing when to counter war is important too, sometimes just playing threats when you can is right, keeping the pressure on. The goal is to do whatever your opponent doesn't want. If they are cut on mana, but have cards, sandbagging threats until they can't stop them all is right. If they have lots of mana, but probably not much interaction, lay it thick, draw a threat? cast it. Make sure they can't stockpile resources, and they have to use them immediately. This Axis is the Stack, it lets you

Discard is another key element, a different axis than either the field or the stack, it hits threats before they become one, being able to remove problematic cards that decks that can't counter them need to remove. It also can be a powerful way to gain card advantage, with effects like Hymn to Tourach or Mind Twist. Duress, Thoughtseize, and Inquisition of Kozilek are also powerful effects, and for a repeatable version, Raven's Crime.

The last main axis to fight on is the graveyard, fighting on that axis is where you need to fight cards like Raven's Crime, Mystic Sanctuary

Who made this?

SynergyBuild, the current maker and upkeeper of this primer. That's me!

GoblinElectromancer made the format, and owns it and operates it's banlist.

Special thanks to the Spellchaser community for their support of this project.

Thanks for reading through this primer, more will be added soon, so stay checked up on it!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Partially Done - Discord Added — Sept. 6, 2020
Edit

Working More on the Primer, for chatting with me or other members of this community, head over to the discord: https://discord.gg/FFCKePZ

Going to add a separate page I'll move the staples too, as they clutter this one. I'll then flesh out the primer further with tabs explaining each card's relevance to the format, yes, all 200+ currently up, and more!

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Revision 4 See all

(4 years ago)

+1 Gamble main
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #14 position overall 4 years ago
Date added 4 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

This deck is Unknown legal.
Rarity (main - side)

13 - 0 Mythic Rares

144 - 0 Rares

52 - 0 Uncommons

57 - 0 Commons
Cards 277
Avg. CMC 2.34
Tokens Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Angel Warrior 4/4 W, Dwarf 1/1 R, Goblin 1/1 R, Human 1/1 W, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Marit Lage, Plant 0/1 G, Soldier 1/1 W, Soldier 2/2 W, Warrior 1/1 W, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B
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