AER High Impact Cards: Fen Hauler

As we get ready to begin a new season of Standard Pauper events with Aether Revolt added to the cardpool, I want to spend the next couple weeks looking at cards that I think will have a big impact on the format. Today I want to take a look at Fen Hauler

Like Bastion Inventor (which I looked at earlier this week), this card is a big creature in a color that doesn't normally get them. At first glance, this doesn't seem to be that good. However, this card is nearly identical to Gurmag Angler from Fate Reforged. It has the same casting cost, the same Power and Toughness, a cost-reducing keyword mechanic, and even has the additional bonus of sidestepping Artifact creatures in combat. While Improvise is never going to be as mana-efficient as Delve was, in the right deck you should be able to get at least a couple mana discount, which makes this a pretty good deal. The fact that it is so large almost means your opponent may find themselves in a situation where they have to chump-block each turn. In that case, the fact that it can't be blocked by Artifact creatures may actually become relevant.

The Simic Emerge decks that were so strong a couple seasons back proved that a deck that can quickly power out big creatures can be quite a potent threat. Between Fen Hauler and Bastion Inventor, Dimir looks like it may be able to pull off a similar archetype, backing it up with potent removal, permission, and card-advantage spells. I for one can't wait to see what surprised Aether Revolt has in store for us.

See you next week for the start of MPDC Season 36!

Improvising an Aether Revolt

We're not even through the first week of spoilers, and already most of Aether Revolt has already been revealed. Last time, I took a look at three Commons that showcase the new Revolt mechanic. Today, I will once again look back to the Aether Revolt Mechanics article to bring you the other new mechanic: Improvise. Let's take a look at three Commons and see how it plays out.

Foundry Assembler is pretty unassuming as a 3/3 for 5 generic mana. In an "artifacts matter" themed set like Aether Revolt, just the fact that this is an artifact does make it better than a vanilla 3/3. Of course, it also has the Improvise mechanic, which means that you can tap other artifacts to help pay for that cost. This card reminds me a lot of Frogmite from Mirrodin, but costs one more mana for another point of Power and Toughness. Obviously the cost reduction from Improvise isn't nearly as powerful as Affinity, but it should be relatively easy to get this down for 3 mana early and potentially for free in the midgame.

Mana Leak returns to Standard with Metallic Rebuke, a card that is good enough to potentially see Modern or even Vintage play. Being able to hold up a soft counter for only one Blue mana (plus two untapped artifacts of any sort) is quite good. And even in situations where you don't have any artifacts - either in play or even in your deck - a slightly more expensive Mana Leak certainly isn't the worst. This card is going to push many players towards an artifact-heavy Blue midrange deck, and I suspect that such a deck will be quite strong in Standard Pauper once Aether Revolt is released. While not great late game, at any other point this card is very strong.

Sweatworks Brawler is another card that would already be decent even without the Improvise mechanic but becomes much better with it. A 3/3 with Menace is already tough to block early on, and it doesn't take much work at all to get this down on Turn 3 or drop this plus another creature once you've reached the mid-game. While even in the best case this card probably won't dominate the game, Sweatworks Brawler could easily play a solid role in a Gruul monsters or Rakdos style deck. On its own though, the payoff isn't quite good enough to be worth running artifacts in your deck without some other strong incentives.

So that's going to do it for my first looks at Aether Revolt this week. However, with how quickly the cards are being spoiled, I suspect I will be working on my first set review of 2017 by this time next week. What cards have impressed you from this set so far? Let me know in the comments below. See you next time.