Worldwake Up Call

Ready or not, Worldwake is going to make its way onto Magic Online very soon. This is exciting for a number of reasons. The obvious ones are that you get to play with the new cards whenever you want, and you get a bunch of fresh Constructed and Limited formats. But the release of a new set also means that you get to play in some pretty exciting tournaments. If you are looking to “go infinite,” a great place to start is by cleaning up during the first couple of weeks after the online release of Worldwake.

Release Events are some of your best opportunities to win tons of prizes and pick up cards while they still have significant resale value.

I’ll admit that I’m not intimately familiar with the Magic Online economy, but I’ll venture to guess that Worldwake rares (and especially the Mythic rares) are likely to reach and maintain a pretty high value even after the set has been out for a while. The next set, Rise of the Eldrazi, is set to come out in just a couple of months. Rise of the Eldrazi is technically a part of the Zendikar block (which is relevant for Constructed), but it’s a large set that’s designed to be drafted on its own. That means that you’re only going to have around three months where Worldwake drafts are the primary form of drafting. With Worldwake comprising a mere one pack in most online drafts, it’s going to be hard for players to get the cards they need for constructed. Especially if Mythic rares like Jace, the Mind Sculptor become tournament staples.

Worldwake Sealed Release Events are a particularly good place to play with the new set and rack up a bunch of prizes at the same time. The prizes are good, and the competition tends to be soft, so by all means look to play some Sealed!

But maybe you’re not in the mood for Sealed, and you still want to rack up the Worldwake packs cards. In that case, why not check out some triple Worldwake drafts?

When the lands stop falling

Worldwake/Worldwake/Worldwake is a format that doesn’t get much live play, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be looking to draft it online. While Worldwake has a lot in common with Zendikar the sets are have enough subtle, and not so subtle, differences that you have to approach triple Worldwake in a different way from how you would approach triple Zendikar.

Unlike in straight Zendikar Limited, Worldwake does not have a significant number of cards with landfall. Further, there aren’t as many cards with intense color requirements so you don’t need to worry as much about being able to get your colors right.

So while it’s very rare that you can find a straight Zendikar deck that shouldn’t be running 18 lands, it’s not at all unreasonable to think that your straight Worldwake deck might be able to function smoothly with 17 lands.

In a Zendikar/Worldwake event, be it Sealed or Draft, it is still unlikely that you are going to be able to run 17 lands profitably, but there is at least some chance of it, especially if you don’t pick up many good landfall cards. Even though it is possible that you could get a deck where you might want to run 17 lands in Zendikar/Worldwake, you should still consider it your default to run 18, only straying from this in rare, corner case situations.

While the correct number of lands to run might seem like it is of little importance, but if it changes as little as one game in thirty, that’s still a very significant difference when you are trying to minimize your Magic Online expenses.

Looking at your spells

As a whole, the allies in Worldwake are significantly more plentiful, and consequently more powerful than they were in Zendikar. That means that triple Worldwake drafts are likely to be defined in large part by allies.

However, because Red, Green and Black don’t have too many overly impressive allies, you will have to be White or Blue to take full advantage of being allies. Sure if you get a bunch of Bojuka Brigands and Vastwood Animists you will have a rock-solid deck, but in general that will still be less impressive than most Blue/White ally decks.

Halimar Excavator is a fine card in Zendikar/Worldwake Limited, but when your only way to deck your opponents is with one or two Excavators, it isn’t going to be too special in the majority of your games. But if your deck has three or four Excavators to go along with some Join the Ranks, your opponents are going to be in for a world of hurt.

While Join the Ranks is a pretty good card in Zendikar/Worldwake Limited, it tends to be insane in triple Worldwake. You should not hesitate to first pick a Join the Ranks if you open it, and if you get passed one, you should consider it a pretty strong signal. Same with Halimar Excavator. If you are ever able to acquire many multiples of the milling two-drop, your opponents are going to be pretty much helpless.

I could go on extolling the virtues of having a bunch of allies for a while, but that really isn’t that productive for anyone. It’s easy to see how you can waltz through your draft if you have an awesome ally deck, but how can you win Worldwake/Worldwake/Worldwake if you didn’t get a sick ally deck?

The short answer to the question is that your deck has to be fast, or you have to have a lot of removal. Preferably, your deck will both be fast and have a lot of removal.

Unless it is backed by a ton of removal and/or a couple of huge, game breaking bombs, defensive strategies are going to have a ton of trouble keeping up with ally decks. Because allies are enemy #1 in Worldwake/Worldwake/Worldwake that pretty much invalidates defensive strategies unless your first pack and a half tell you in absolute terms that you have to be defensive, you should be looking to make your deck as fast as possible.

If you sit around, trying to take over a game by playing marginally more powerful cards, then you’re probably just going to succumb to an army of allies (not to mention that you are likely to get overrun even by straightforward aggressive strategies).

For this reason, defensive cards like Guardian Zendikon won’t be worth much, and even reasonably sized bodies like Snapping Creeper are unlikely to be of much consequence (though you might still need those Snapping Creepers to fill out your curve).

While Snapping Creeper is pretty good in Zendikar/Worldwake Limited, being able to block all sorts of good aggressive creatures while still being able to sneak in for some damage, you would be way better off picking up say a Goblin Roughrider in triple Worldwake.

But fast, efficient aggressive creatures are going to be as good as ever in triple Worldwake. Your removaless White/Green deck that is full of Fledgling Griffins and Groundswells will often be able to crush through your opposition, even if they have picked up a ton of top-notch allies. Similarly, your Red/Black deck that’s got a good amount of removal and cheap efficient creatures (and Zendikons) will often have the ability to blast away key blockers and allies long enough to punch through 20 damage, even if your opponent’s deck is “insane.”

Individual cards that get significantly better in triple Worldwake

Dispel is really, really good in triple Worldwake. Being able to cut ally decks off from their Join the Ranks, and Red decks off from their Searing Blazes for the low, low cost of a single Blue mana is pretty special. Save for Ionas Judgment, Dead Reckoning, Feral Contest, a couple of rares, a couple of equipments and a couple of enchantments, pretty much every relevant non-creature spell in Worldwake is an instant. So you really don’t have to worry about Dispel rotting away in your hand an inordinate amount of the time as you would in many other formats. Additionally, if you are playing allies, being able to protect your Halimar Excavators is immensely important.

While it appears to be very different from, and is in many ways inferior to Dispel, Veterans Reflexes goes significantly up in value in White/Blue ally decks that have Excavators, as it allows you to protect your crucial miller from Searing Blazes, Urge to Feeds and a lot of Dead Reckonings.

Dead Reckoning, while already quite good in Zendikar/Worldwake, also goes up in value a bit because of its ability to kill Halimar Excavators with ease.

Wind Zendikon gets much better when you don’t have to worry about Disfigures or Burst Lightnings. This means that you can (reasonably) safely cast it on Turn 1, and begin beating with it as soon as your land gets freed up.

Happy smashing!

Ultimately, triple Worldwake is a pretty straightforward format. So long as you go into it looking to draft something that is very powerful, and you don’t fall into a trap and accidentally draft a defensive deck, you should do pretty well for yourself.

Thanks for reading,

Steve Sadin