Invasion Card Spotlight: Void

Michael Flores

Void Sorcery Rare Choose a number. Destroy all artifacts and creatures with converted mana cost equal to that number. Then target player reveals his or her hand and discards from it all nonland cards with converted mana cost equal to the number. Illus. Kev Walker 287/350

I don't know how many times the blue mage has said "I would pay Anything if this Nevinyrral's Disk didn't come into play tapped." Over the course of the years, different mages have attributed different extra amounts to that "Anything," depending on everything from their honest attitudes on how much an untapped Nevinyrral's Disk should cost, to their relative desperation, to how much mana they actually had in play while staring down an army of angry creatures. The blue mage never really got a chance to answer the question conclusively, although the red mage has Obliterate, and has had a variety of other opportunities to destroy lots of non-enchantment permanents at a time, without waiting for a Nevinyrral's Disk to untap.

Nevertheless, mages of all colors summoned (unearthed, really) Nevinyrral's wondrous artifact until the powers that be at Wizards of the Coast decided it was a little too powerful for Standard.

More recently, Powder Keg replaced Nevinyrral's Disk in Standard. At first, there were grumbles about how Wizards of the Coast was sticking the players with yet another Time Warp in place of a Time Walk, a Seal of Fire in place of a Lightning Bolt. After playing with the card for a while, the blue mage, especially, realized that Wizards of the Coast had given him a very powerful new defensive addition; no longer was Powder Keg the "bad Disk," but it became the "better Disk." At just 2 mana, it largely replaced Nevinyrral's Disk in Extended. In fact, Chris Pikula once commented on how a red deck's Cursed Scroll was supposed to send the blue mage kicking and screaming for mommy... but had become little more than an invested annoyance, a slower Shock, an invitation to card advantage, against the Keg.

The reason I begin with this analysis is that for its initial thrust, Void strikes me as "a faster Powder Keg." No, it is not faster than the 2 mana casting cost of the original, but it can, upon casting, accelerate to any number of counters. Again, the blue mage gets no vote as to how much the faster sweeper costs... but at least this time, red has to share the card with the best color in Magic, black.

Void is at once a confusing, versatile, and extremely powerful card.

It is confusing in the sense that it should be easily broken in a Constructed deck... I am just not sure what deck is going to break it. The card may open up the door to a B/R board control archetype that will simultaneously destroy many opposing permanents, protected by an almost permission-like ability.

Void is very versatile in the same way that Disenchant is very versatile. It makes people think, make specific decisions, when constructing their decks. It comes out of nowhere. Void is strong against many different opponents, but can be reasonably dodged by a patient one. In Masques Block Constructed, players could play around Seal of Cleansing, but often found themselves sniped by a Disenchant while tapped out or relying on a Parallax Wave or Rising Waters. In the current Standard, players can dodge Powder Kegs, but will not necessarily be able to predict a Void sweep, or anticipate the number named upon its resolution.

The only way to battle Void's board control is to either not play any artifacts and creatures, or to radically stagger casting costs. If you consider the 2 and 5 mana cost white decks, the 3 casting cost laden B/G decks, and equally 3 cost heavy blue decks from Masques Block Constructed, Void is going to start off with many delicious targets. Likely the format will have to reshape itself around this card, at least somewhat.

At its minimum, Void is exceptional spot removal. Who wouldn't go 1 card for 1 card in B/R against the hard-to-hit Blastoderm? In many cases, a Void player's greatest danger may be mistakenly trying to maximize card advantage rather than destroying the right target.

All of this should lead us to understand the power of Void. For a reasonable mana cost (roughly the equivalent to a Wave of Reckoning), we have an accelerated Powder Keg, which especially against larger or more expensive creatures and artifacts, is much better than the similarly-costed Cave-In; unlike the more expensive Jokulhaups or Wildfire, Void demands nothing in return for the board advantage it provides.

And we haven't even touched upon black's contribution, the discard element, to Void!

I am not sure what the second part of Void represents, to be honest. It is in some ways similar to Persecute, but replaces color-naming with mana cost naming. This is obviously better against some decks (those with low mana curves and redundant costs) than others (monochrome decks, which, I predict, will be less common in the new Standard). Whether or not creatures and artifacts are in play, Void will reward good research before a tournament, allowing the prepared mage to predict what cards (and therefore what mana costs) are lurking in the opponent's hand.

Finally, Void is an interesting tester. On its face, the card can deliver reasonable card advantage or completely reset a token-laden board. On the other hand, players with the intuition of Jon Finkel or the keen eye of Bob Maher Jr. may be able to destroy an opponent's hand by sheer force of when, unpredictably, they cast this card.

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Bonus Saturday Feature: Jeff Donais blows you away with Urza's Rage!