Odyssey Card Preview: Price of Glory

Brian Kibler

For as long as there has been tournament Magic, there have been control decks, and for as long as there have been control decks, there have been players who hate them. There are few experiences in Magic more disheartening than sitting across the table from a sea of islands, futilely playing spell after spell only to see them countered time and time again. As time has passed and new sets have come and gone, the weapons against these decks have changed, but each new set has a little something to keep those who prefer the Red Zone to the stack from losing their minds.

These anti-control cards have come in many different forms. Some, like Scragnoth and the more recent Kavu Chameleon and Obliterate, simply cannot be countered whatsoever, paying the price for their slipperiness by costing slightly more than comparable spells like Jokulhaups. Others prey on the common composition of control decks, with cards like Boil and Blood Oath making control players pay for loading their decks with islands and instants. The last sort punishes control players' tendency to cast most of their spells on their opponents' turn, with cards like City of Solitude, Abeyance, and Citadel of Pain all falling into this category.

Odyssey's most prominent addition to this lineage - Price of Glory - falls into the latter category. At , Price is inexpensive enough to be able to slip under the counter barrage, and if it does, the effects can be devastating. Unlike City of Solitude, Price doesn't absolutely forbid spells from being cast during another player's turn, but it's certainly quite the deterrent. If Counterspell read "counter target spell. As an additional cost to play this spell, sacrifice two lands", it wouldn't be quite as popular. The same goes for Absorb, Undermine, Exclude, and whatever other counters the control player may have in his arsenal.

The impact of Price of Glory goes even beyond counterspells alone. Because Price requires a player to sacrifice any land tapped for mana on an opponent's turn - for whatever reason - it's a powerful answer to Circles of Protection and regenerating blockers like Spectral Lynx and Nightscape Familiar, as well as instant card-drawing effects like Fact or Fiction. Your opponent will have to make the painful decision of whether to take the damage from your assault or lose his lands, with the former, and will have to tap out on his own turn to make use of the latter. Price of Glory stands to be particularly powerful in concert with haste creatures, forcing your opponent to either sacrifice land to deal with them or suffer the full brunt of your Skizzik/Blazing Specter/Fires of Yavimaya-enhanced creature assault.

Because of its single-colored mana casting cost, Price of Glory can be easily fit into many different decks, and because it punishes the general tendencies of the control strategy rather than particular deck contents, it will likely be a sideboard card of choice in the new Standard environment. With Blood Oath gone, and Boil much less likely to have a significant impact on the nonbasic land-filled control decks (due in large part to the departure of Thwart and Foil from the environment), Price of Glory is one of the most appealing options available. Look for it to figure prominently in the sideboarding strategy of aggressive g-r and b-r decks alike.

One important detail to keep in mind with Price of Glory, however, is that as much as it is a disincentive for a player to use his mana on the opponent's turn, in desperate circumstances you still CAN; City of Solitude it is not. This is mostly only relevant for race situations, like when your opponent needs to counter your desperation Terminate on his Dromar, but in these situations, it's extremely important. Unlike City of Solitude, which completely shut down the opponent's ability to react during your turn (and you during his), Price of Glory does as its name suggests - it makes them pay a hefty price to do so. Because of this, Price of Glory is likely to be much more effective in aggressive decks that put a great deal of pressure on the opponent and can make the loss of land as painful as possible rather than in combo decks that set up for big turn "going off".

As if Price of Glory weren't already attractive enough, the rotation of Masques block means the end of the "free spells", most notably Thwart, Foil, and Misdirection, which leaves control players little recourse but to actually pay mana to stop your threats. This obviously makes Price considerably more powerful, both in that it's much easier to force into play against an opponent without free counters and that there are no counters that can get around Price's effect while it is in play. Thwart's alternative casting cost may have been unattractive at times, but bouncing three lands is certainly more palatable than sacrificing them.

With the plethora of anti-control options available in Extended, it's unlikely Price of Glory will have an impact there, but it's sure to rear it's ugly head in Standard soon enough. If you hate that feeling of sitting there helpless while your opponent smugly counters all of your spells and fills up his hand with card drawing, make him pay. Price of Glory does just that.