{"id":2300,"date":"2023-08-20T14:08:23","date_gmt":"2023-08-20T12:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/premodernmagic.com\/blog\/?p=2300"},"modified":"2023-08-20T14:28:15","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T12:28:15","slug":"sylvan-library-brews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/premodernmagic.com\/blog\/sylvan-library-brews\/","title":{"rendered":"Sylvan Library Brews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Premodern people!<\/p>\n

With Land Tax<\/a> gone<\/a>, you might be wondering if Parfait can be rebuilt with some new “engine”, or if the Oath of Druids<\/a> part of the deck can be used in another shell. The Oath package of Shard Phoenix<\/a>\u00a0 and Ancestor’s Chosen<\/a> is a very sharp tool against the top aggro decks of the format: Sligh, Goblins and Elves.<\/p>\n

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The package is a mere six cards, but it puts some restrictions on our deck since we cannot play any other creatures, and we probably want to include a couple of Gaea’s Blessing<\/a>. Playing Oath of Druids<\/a> encourages us to play some amount of Enlightened Tutor<\/a> to find it, which in turn encourages us to include other combos or synergies based on enchantments or artifacts. With this in mind, let’s have a closer look at a support card in some Parfait builds: Sylvan Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Even without Land Tax<\/a>, we have a good amount of shuffle effects with Gaea’s Blessing<\/a>, Enlightened Tutor<\/a> and fetch lands. That helps with card selection, but to get more out Sylvan we’ll have to abuse the peculiar way it interacts with draw replacement effects. The rules text<\/a> of Sylvan Library<\/a> reads: A<\/em>t the beginning of your draw step, you may draw two additional cards. If you do, choose two cards in your hand drawn this turn. For each of those cards, pay 4 life or put the card on top of your library.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, consider a draw replacement effect, such as Abundance<\/a>, with rules text<\/a>: If you would draw a card, you may instead choose land or nonland and reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card of the chosen kind. Put that card into your hand and put all other cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in any order.<\/em> We can apply the replacement on both our regular first draw and on the extra two cards from Sylvan. But if we replace the extra two cards, we don’t draw them, and so we don’t have to pay any life. Magic! With multiple Sylvan Library<\/a>, we even get to stack the effect (but it happens sequentially). Note, though, that if we choose to draw our normal card for the turn, but replace the extra cards from Sylvan, we still need to pay four life.<\/p>\n

Draw replacement cards<\/h2>\n

With Abundance<\/a>, we thus get to “draw” three cards per turn for free, and for each we can choose creature or non-creature. A bit reminiscent of the Tax-Rack engine, eh? Four mana is a lot however, and we cannot start profiting until the turn after, unlike with Scroll Rack<\/a> which can be used immediately. Moreover, Abundance<\/a> doesn’t do much in itself (it’s a shame, because the flavour and the Rebecca Guay artwork is so sweet). A one-shot alternative to Abundance<\/a> is Pursuit of Knowledge<\/a>, but it’s equally expensive and not very good on its own.<\/p>\n

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There are a handful of goofy draw replacement cards that don’t do much for us: Parallel Thoughts<\/a>, Mangara’s Tome<\/a> and Forbidden Crypt<\/a>. Honorable mentions: Aladdin’s Lamp<\/a> and Obstinate Familiar<\/a>. The remaining, and most interesting draw replacements, are the Words cycle cards from Onslaught:<\/p>\n