Despite all of MTG Aetherdrift’s new tools, a reprint seems to be making the most waves. Many Standard fanatics have been begging Wizards of the Coast to reprint Spell Pierce to make it Standard legal. Thankfully, Aetherdrift has finally delivered. The card may have been upshifted into being uncommon for the first time, but it’s still as good as ever.
A Standard $5K was played at SCG Con Portland – the same place where the American Regional Championship took place this weekend. A decent amount of winning decklists had Spell Pierce somewhere in the 75.
Spell Pierce is Back
Standard is all about efficiency. The format is filled with cards with minuscule mana values, and every card needs to pull its weight. Spell Pierce functions incredibly well in this environment. It allows you to start presenting interaction as soon as you have untapped mana, and can easily trade up into spells that have a higher mana value than it. Trading one mana for a two or three-mana spell can win tempo mirrors in Standard’s current environment, and Spell Pierce is primed to offer that trade.
Spell Pierce only being one mana also lets you forward your game plan while holding up interaction. One man is a small ask, allowing you much flexibility with your turn. Whether you need to protect your game plan or ruin your opponent’s, Spell Pierce is primed to do it all.
A Breakout Performance
Esper Pixie seemed to be the breakout deck of the weekend, with four copies getting into the top eight. One Dimir enchantment rounds out the bouncy strategy for five total top-eight placements. The deck also managed to take down the event utilizing some new tech.
Of the eight decks that finished in the top cut, five of them used Spell Pierce. Many of these decks used Spell Pierce in the sideboard, while some included a couple in the main. Notably, no single deck in the top eight included more than two Spell Pierce in the top eight.
This makes a lot of sense. Not only can multiple copies of Spell Pierce get stranded in your hand, but the card also doesn’t perform too strongly against decks that run a lot of creatures. None of those decks seemed to have a good run in the $5K, which might suggest that Spell Pierce’s stock may rise even further.
Spell Pierce appears less frequently in decklists the further you go down the results. This means that the most successful blue decks are utilizing it. Spell Pierce is predominately appearing in Esper Pixie and some variants of Dimir Midrange, Bounce, and Aggro.
Many decks that finished near the top cut are utilizing full playsets of Negate instead of Spell Pierce, but these cards play slightly different roles. Spell Pierce is at its best when you can forward your game plan while holding up one mana. If you can hold up two mana, Negate might be better since it has a larger range of what it can deal with. Slower strategies that are less focused on playing a tempo game prefer Negate over Spell Pierce, but tempo strategies that can now disrupt bigger spells definitely won the weekend.
Adjustments are Still Early
Spell Pierce may have had a breakout weekend, but Aetherdrift isn’t even officially released yet. This means that many MTG players who may have wanted to try out the new cards weren’t able to get the cards for it. With prereleases dominating local game stores throughout the weekend, there were very few events for paper Standard fanatics to try new cards in. All of this is to say that, while Spell Pierce had a successful first outing, anything could happen from here on out.
Spell Pierce is also a really easy card to implement in comparison to new Aetherdrift cards. The MTG playerbase already knows that the card is good. There’s no question as to whether or not a new toy has what it takes to compete in the Standard format or not.
So, while Spell Pierce certainly looks like it has found a home in Dimir and Esper tempo strategies, time will tell whether the card is appropriate for the metagame. We’re already starting to see some new strategies that Spell Pierce might struggle to keep up with thanks to the Aetherdrift card Afterburner Expert.