Sometimes, a card is spoiled and I can’t help but be excited. Normally, I care most about commons, particularly removal spells, because they’re the lifeblood of Limited. However, sometimes a card comes along that just makes me brew up a new 60 card deck.
The last time I was this excited about a card was for [casthaven]Bedlam Reveler[/casthaven]. You may sense a theme: I really, really like jumping through hoops to cast [casthaven]Ancestral Recall[/casthaven]. And yes (to the best of my knowledge and rules understanding), [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] allows you to cast [casthaven]Ancestral Vision[/casthaven].
How does it compare to what came before?
There aren’t a lot of cards which let you (repeatedly) cheat on other cards’ mana costs. Some, like [casthaven]Birthing Pod[/casthaven] and [casthaven]Tinker[/casthaven] sacrifice a resource to gain a mana advantage and tutor. Some are inefficient, like [casthaven]Panoptic Mirror[/casthaven], restrictive like [casthaven]Isochron Scepter[/casthaven], or both, like [casthaven]Spellweaver Helix[/casthaven]. But let’s be honest, there’s one rather close analogue to compare [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] to: [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven].
How As Foretold is worse than Aether Vial
Mana cost. [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] costs three mana. [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] costs one. You can deploy on Aether Vial on turn one and by turn four, it’s made six mana; a [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] on turn three generates one mana by turn four.
Color cost. [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] is blue. [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] is colorless.
Timing restrictions. [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] only lets you cast spells at their normal timing. [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] circumvents timing and allows you to flash creatures in on your opponent’s turn.
Uncounterability. When you cast a spell with [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven], it goes on the stack and can be countered. [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] circumvents the stack, and could even trick your opponent into casting [casthaven]Stifle[/casthaven] on its trigger when you have nothing to vial in.
How As Foretold is better than Aether Vial
Its card type. [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] is an artifact, a card type which any Modern deck worth its salt has a sideboard plan for. [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] is an enchantment, a card type more resilient to hate.
Castable card types. This is the big one. [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] can only play creatures, but [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] can cast any card type. You can cheat in an [casthaven]Ancestral Vision[/casthaven] and cast [casthaven]Lightning Bolt[/casthaven].
Flexibility. [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] requires you to carefully manage your counters—if it’s on three, you can’t vial in a [casthaven]Thalia, Guardian of Thraben[/casthaven]. [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] has no such restriction.
Frequency of use. [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] can only be used once a turn cycle, whereas [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] can be used every turn.
Is it viable?
I think the biggest hurdle for [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] is its mana cost. While [casthaven]Aether Vial[/casthaven] exists as a tricky mana accelerant for an aggressive creature deck, [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] wants to go in a very different deck. You want to abuse it with with the zero converted mana cost, uncastable suspend spells of [casthaven]Time Spiral[/casthaven]: [casthaven]Restore Balance[/casthaven], [casthaven]Ancestral Vision[/casthaven], or [casthaven]Living End[/casthaven] ([casthaven]Wheel of Fate[/casthaven] seems far weaker, and [casthaven]Hypergenesis[/casthaven] is banned in Modern).
Of these three options, I think [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] is best in an [casthaven]Ancestral Vision[/casthaven] deck. Whereas [casthaven]Living End[/casthaven] is happy to cascade into its namesake card and already has access to [casthaven]Kari Zev’s Expertise[/casthaven] if it reeeally needs to cast [casthaven]Living End[/casthaven], [casthaven]Ancestral Vision[/casthaven] wants to be in a deck with lots of inexpensive interactive spells, a perfect setup for [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven].
It’s worth noting that [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] plus [casthaven]Ancestral Vision[/casthaven] isn’t very good by itself. Together, they’re a casting a [casthaven]Sift[/casthaven] or [casthaven]Compulsive Research[/casthaven], since [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] takes up a spot in your deck. For one mana more and a single card, you could just cast [casthaven]Concentrate[/casthaven]. All of those cards are Modern legal and none of them are Modern playable. That said, I’m still excited about [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] because it continues making mana after the fact, allowing you to cast more copies of [casthaven]Ancestral Vision[/casthaven] while holding up [casthaven]Path to Exile[/casthaven], [casthaven]Lightning Bolt[/casthaven], [casthaven]Spell Snare[/casthaven], or [casthaven]Fatal Push[/casthaven] on your opponent’s turn.
My first instinct is to return to my old standby, Jeskai Flash/Control. While Grixis has gotten more toys in recent days, Jeskai is better at playing on the opponent’s turn, and you can use [casthaven]Nahiri, the Harbinger[/casthaven] to discard late copies of [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven]. You also have no temptation to run discard spells, which don’t work as well for a deck that’s trying to play to the late game.
UWR Foretold Control
| Lands (24) 4 Celestial Colonnade 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Flooded Strand 3 Hallowed Fountain 3 Steam Vents 1 Sacred Foundry 2 Island 1 Plains 1 Mountain 1 Desolate Lighthouse Creatures (5) 4 Snapcaster Mage 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Spells (31) 4 Nahiri, the Harbinger 3 As Foretold 4 Ancestral Vision 4 Serum Visions 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Path to Exile 2 Spell Snare 3 Remand 3 Lightning Helix |
The goal of this deck is pretty straightforward: kill all of your opponent’s stuff while getting as much card advantage as possible. I excluded [casthaven]Cryptic Command[/casthaven] from the deck because Nahiri and [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] constitute a lot of expensive spells, and you really want to maximize cheap spells so that [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] does work as soon as possible.
This deck could be a ton of fun to play with, a new approach to a mostly-abandoned archetype, or absolutely awful in a format of BG/x aggro decks with discard spells. Only time will tell (even if [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] ought to know the answer already, if its flavor is to be believed). And maybe, just maybe, someone will lock the game up, get their [casthaven]As Foretold[/casthaven] to 15 and hardcast an Emrakul for no mana. That’d just be swell.
As always, thanks for reading.
—Zachary Barash
Zachary Barash is a New York City-based game designer. He learned Magic in 1994 and is still afraid of [casthaven]Living Wall[/casthaven] (don’t click it! It’ll see you). He’s currently pursuing his MFA in Game Design at NYU and designing for Kingdom Death: Monster. His favorite card of the month is [casthaven]Spell Snare[/casthaven], a counterspell which trades efficiently on mana but only in an extremely limited situation. Also, it’s a counterspell that can’t counter itself, and that’s just nice.