​Pinter’s Picks: Murders at Karlov Manor

Pinter’s Picks: Murders at Karlov Manor

By Jeremy Pinter, Team Swish

Hello and welcome to another installment of cards catching my eye for Legacy and/or Vintage from the latest set. My normal process is to start with a blank document and copy/paste in cards as I see them pop up during spoiler season. Once things are wrapped up, I admit a bit of surprise at just how many cards were in the file. Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I feel like I’ve been too harsh in my previous reviews, so let’s see how this set shakes out.

Doorkeeper Thrull

1/2 for two mana is not impressive stat-wise, however the remaining text on the card is what caught my attention. It’s an expanded Torpor Orb that can be used to remove drawbacks from your own cards, like Phyrexian Dreadnought, or act as a hatebear for your opponent’s threats, namely Thassa’s Oracle.Turning off artifacts is where I’m not used to this effect but could see it making a bigger splash.

Intrude on the Mind

Usually I dislike the cards where your opponent gets to make the choices, because they will rarely do what is best for you at the moment. Thinking through what options get presented are interesting. A Flash, Flying 4/4 that draws a card. I would expect the baseline to end up as a 3/3 that draws two, but that will end up dependent on just what cards get flipped in your pile of five. A single powerful card could effectively be a 1/1 that draws four!

Long Goodbye

This one is more Vintage inspired, due to the ubiquity of Lurrus of the Dream-Den. While normal removal spells are played that could kill the cat, to get an edge in that matchup for sure it would need to be uncounterable. It also kills most other creatures that generally get played, but is probably best as a sideboard option.

Outrageous Robbery

I can’t think of a home currently for this card, but I think the effect is sweet enough that I would like to try to find out. I guess technically if you can generate enough mana, this would be a win condition in itself, but I see it more as an end step threat, which you can look through and use their own tools against them..

Crime Novelist

I glossed over this at first, but I saw someone else mention it next to the Thopter/Sword combo and I realized that it went infinite while growing the Goblin. That doesn’t have a home anywhere specific, but Goblins in general have been trending up. The interaction with Treasure tokens to supercharge mana could forge its own path, but I think it’s more likely to add to an existing strategy like Painter for its rate.

Analyze the Pollen

An update to Traverse the Ulvenwald isn’t what anyone was clamoring for. What stands out is that you can OVER-collect on evidence and wipe your whole graveyard in one shot to set up Thassa’s Oracle/Paradigm Shift combos. They’ve already splashed green in the past so this isn’t too far of a stretch. Tier3, but still interesting.

Archdruid’s Charm

With so many options, I didn’t want to leave it off the list and regret it. Direct search for a non-basic at instant speed is very interesting and the main draw for this in a Lands deck. Exiling an artifact or enchantment is likely to come up occasionally but a touch too expensive for rate. I don’t expect to ever use the middle mode, but I’m sure the one time my Saga token eats their Murktide will be a story I keep retelling.

Undergrowth Recon

Another possible option for the Lands deck, but the delay of triggering on the following upkeep as well as land coming in tapped reduce a lot of options. Clearly the main draw would be a long game to combine with dredging Life from Loam repeatedly. Maybe setting up Field of the Dead dominance, or being able to assemble Marit Lage again and again in the face of Wastelands.

New Land Cycle

While they clearly won’t be the main feature of mana bases in older formats, I can see these as a value play that might appear as 1-of thanks to fetch lands. Whether the surveil trigger can help build delirium, or just doesn’t hurt a deck like Lands which can benefit from having synergy with cards that hit the graveyard.

Worldsoul’s Rage

I seem to be stuck on Lands-based strategies this time around. It must be returning to the plane of Ravnica and Life from Loam’s first appearance. This has a weird push/pull of wanting to be used to accelerate land drops from your hand, but at the same time the later the game goes the more powerful the damage output from the X in casting cost. The thing I really liked about it that I missed the first time reading it was that it can pull lands from the graveyard into play as well. Whether naturally destroyed in the course of the game, or dredged there by yourself and waiting to recur. Either way, this could help be a solid end game while picking off an annoying target in play.

Insidious Roots

Last up is a combo engine that is cheap enough to actually see play. Ovalchase Daredevil is a cog in the wheel of different iterations that need discard fuel like Underworld Cookbook. It only says the creature card has to leave the graveyard, not how, so your Daredevil can trigger repeatedly and build a Plant army! Other fodder could come from Cat/Oven bringing it back over and over. I’m not sure if the token army is enough, or if we need to lean into the mana-producing from the Roots as well to fully flesh out the idea.

What do you think about my picks this time around? Did you have your eye on a card that I missed? Come find me in the All-Stars or Swish Gaming Discord @JPinterMTG and let me know. See you next time!