After quite a few weeks of Time Spiral block Preconstructed Decks, I can make a tick behind another set that is completely featured. Well, almost completely featured since there are still two decks left for inspection. This week’s entry is the White-Black deck “Rebels Unite”. The name already tells what is going to be the focus of the package, with Rebels being an interesting tribal that excels in searching out members of their tribal but paying for this ease of access by overall lacking in over-the-top effects and rather solving things by the book; and via playing the numbers game since the library as a second hand is a powerful tool. Let’s see if the Rebels of Future Sight can deliver, or whether I am left with another “Future Shock”.
Here is the decklist for “Rebels Unite”:
Creatures (26):
2x Samite Censer-Bearer (W)
1x Amrou Scout (1W)
3x Blade of the Sixth Pride (1W)
2x Errant Doomsayers (1W)
1x Blightspeaker (1B)
1x Knight of the Holy Nimbus (WW)
3x Amrou Seekers (2W)
1x Aven Riftwatcher (2W)
1x Defiant Vanguard (2W)
2x Outrider en-Kor (2W)
1x Zealot il-Vec (2W)
2x Putrid Cyclops (2B)
1x Riftmarked Knight (1WW)
1x Big Game Hunter (1BB)
2x Ramosian Revivalist (3W)
1x Magus of the Abyss (3B)
1x Angel of Salvation (6WW)
Spells (10):
2x Dawn Charm (1W)
3x Lumithread Field (1W)
2x Bound in Silence (2W)
1x Witch’s Mist (2B)
2x Return to Dust (2WW)
Lands (24):
12x Plains
10x Swamp
2x Terramorpic Expanse
WotC also has a short text explaining what we are about to take a closer look at. Here you go:
“Explore your rebellious side! With the Rebels Unite deck, you’ll take command of a ragtag group of scrappy fighters that are always willing to rally to the cause. Their ambush tactics will help you win the day. Rebels like Amrou Scout let you search your deck for a Rebel card and put it directly into play. Ramosian Revivalist does the same, but for a Rebel in your graveyard. Whenever you have the choice, recruit a Rebel this way rather than playing one from your hand—it’s like drawing and playing an extra card! Do that enough times over the course of the game and your opponent won’t be able to keep up. Plus, you get to choose the Rebel that would help you the most. Don’t forget that Bound in Silence is a Rebel Aura! Your deadliest ally is Magus of the Abyss. Each player will have to choose one of his or her own creatures for the Magus to destroy each turn—but thanks to your Rebels, you’ll have an endless creature supply. Your opponent won’t be so lucky.”
– FUTURE SIGHT “Rebels Unite” THEME DECK PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
“Rebels Unite” starts thematically appropriate with a Rebel: “Samite Censer-Bearer” is a 1/1 creature for one mana which can be sacrificed to prevent the next damage that all your creatures would take. This is a somewhat odd effect, preventing things like “Tremor” from taking effect or gives your board that little bit extra when going all out with attacks, but little more to be honest. However, Rebels do have the interesting mechanic that allows them to search other Rebels and play them straight from the deck, with “Amrou Scout” being a rather vanilla for two mana being a 2/1 that can search Rebels for three or less converted mana cost by tapping the creature and paying four mana. One of the targets for “Amrou Scout” happens to be even more vanilla though: “Blade of the Sixth Pride” is a 3/1 Rebel creature for two mana without any effects. Yes, it deals damage for its mana cost, but since it does not survive any retaliation or even pings I am not that stoked about its inclusion in the deck. “Errant Doomsayers” are also a search target for “Amrou Scout“, albeit much more defensively-minded: The card is a 1/1 creature that can be tapped in order to tap a creature with toughness two or less; which means either small creatures or sizeable threats that are so Aggro-focussed that they lack in toughness like “Groundbreaker“.
An interesting new tool in the Rebel toolbox is “Blightspeaker“, a 1/1 creature for two mana that can also search Rebel permanents with three or less converted mana cost for four mana and tapping itself just like “Amrou Scout“, but which can also just be tapped to make a player lose one life point. With enough mana, you could use “Blightspeaker” to search more copies of itself to work towards a win by constantly tapping them; but this sadly is not an option for “Rebels Unite” since it only features one copy of “Blightspeaker“. There is also a copy of “Knight of the Holy Nimbus“, one of my favorite White cards of all time being a solid threat to other creature in the same cost bracket due to Flanking and a major nuisance to the opposing player because of its constant regeneration effect that forces them to waste mana to get rid of it. “Amrou Seekers” is an interesting card since while it only is a 2/2 for three mana, it also features Intimidate to ensure doing damage in certain matchups. “Aven Riftwatcher” is searchable since it is a Rebel creature, but while this gives the 2/3 Flying creature with life gain effect some function in the deck, it also eventually dies to its Vanishing effect. “Defiant Vanguard” is a 2/2 creature that comes with an effect that destroys both itself and every creature it blocked at the end of combat, but it can also help search out more Rebels by paying five mana and tapping it for a search pool of four converted mana cost or lower. “Outrider en-Kor” is quite an interesting tool that I already covered in “Hope’s Crusaders”, but the package of a 2/2 with Flanking means that it can still trade on even terms against 3/3 creatures, while the damage redirection allows it to even stay alive after the bout. “Zealot il-Vec” feels rather lackluster in comparison, since it might be able to deal one damage to the opponent with certainty due to Shadow and it might even be able to redirect that damage onto a creature to finish it off, but starting with 1/1 is pretty bad and the damage redirect always does one damage instead of using the power of “Zealot il-Vec“.
But there is hardly anything worse than the worst card in Future Sight: “Putrid Cyclops” is a 3/3 for three mana that allows you to Scry 1, then gets -X/-X for the rest of the turn depending on the converted mana cost of the top card of your library. So, if I want a decent creature it will kill itself, and Scry 1 as the only thing that keeps you from being vanilla is not good enough. “Riftmarked Knight” can work both as a solid card to search and play directly from the library since a 2/2 with Flanking and Protection from Black might be exactly what you need in certain situations, but it also brings its cousin as a 2/2 Flanking and Protection from White creature when played via Suspend and therefore creates more of a force on the board with waiting time. “Big Game Hunter” is also an interesting card to search and play from your library since it brings a removal effect against creatures with power four or greater. Yes, the Madness ability is worthless in “Rebels Unite” but since you can get it in other ways I do not really care about that. “Ramosian Revivalist” is incredibly expensive, being only a 2/2 for four mana and asking for another six mana for the tutoring effect, however it might be worth since the tutoring actually revives from the graveyard and therefore gives you access to a zone that the Rebels normally would have been lost to. That leaves us with the two Rares of the deck, both of which have hardly anything to do with the strategy that “Rebels Unite” has in mind. “Magus of the Abyss” is a 4/3 creature for four mana that forces every player to destroy a non-artifact creature they control during their upkeep, which might be something that does not hit you so hard since you play lots of creatures in “Rebels Unite” but is not searchable since it is a Wizard not a Rebel and does not really work with any of the themes the deck has introduced so far. “Angel of Salvation” then opens a completely different can of worms: A 5/5 creature with Flying, Flash, and Convoke which prevents five damage when it comes into play is nice to have, but the eight mana cost does need to be paid in some way; and I doubt that “Rebels Call” will be able to tap enough creatures to make this creature cheap.
Spell-wise, there are a few tools available to “Rebels Unite”, even though they range from functional to absolute gimmick. “Dawn Charm” is definitely one of the better spells the deck has to offer, since the choice out of damage prevention, regeneration, and countering a spell that targets you is always going to be helpful in some way. “Lumithread Field” can give you some additional fighting power since it can be placed as a 2/2 Morph creature, but the effect of giving all of your creature +0/+1 is not worth that much in my personal opinion seeing as “Rebels Unite” plays on numbers and has options to redirect damage, regenerate creatures, or even revive them when they hit the graveyard. “Bound in Silence” basically reads like a “Pacifism” that costs one extra mana, but the fact that it is an tribal enchantment with the Rebel affiliation allows your searchers to play the card straight from the library, which gives the card some added value. “Witch’s Mist” is what I would call a gimmick card: It does nothing straight away after you played it for three mana, and using its rather situational effect since you cannot control where your damage goes without burn effects is not being helped by costing yet another three mana and even tapping the card. There are White options in the Time Spiral block that could work with “Witch’s Mist” like “Sunlance” or “Icatian Javelineers“, but without something to deal damage to creatures you want to get rid of directly this is mostly a waste of mana. And while “Disenchant” was available in the card pool for the deck since they Timeshifted it, they rather went with double the cost for “Return to Dust“, which is not necessarily a choice I would have made.
“Rebels Unite” is definitely one of the weaker Preconstructed Decks of the Time Spiral block. And it feels like it should not have to be this way. Four copies of “Blightspeaker” alongside “Paradise Plume” or “Thunder Totem” to have more mana for the tutoring effects would already have done wonders, but the way it is like right now it feels like a worse version of “Hope’s Crusaders” and not a worthy remembrance of the Mercadian Masques deck with the same idea called “Rebel’s Call”. My biggest problem is how random the card selection seems to be: “Putrid Cyclops” is a terrible choice, period, but while only one “Blightspeaker” is questionable, there is also only one “Amrou Scout” making the early-game searching much less potent than it could be; and that is only one thing I could point the finger to. The entire thing with the Rebel tribal is that there effects are not as crazy because you have easy access to the entire roster of your deck for the entire time as long as their is one Rebel with a tutoring effect on your side; and not making use of that simply shafts the tribal which cannot work to its full potential. The deck is comparatively cheap, with starting orders at 15€, but you can do better than that even in the confines of the Time Spiral block; which is why I would say you should not bother getting this deck.
Cubic Creativity 