Pattern Recognition #241 - Live Fasterer and Die Harderer

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

26 May 2022

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Hello everyone! This is Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series as written by myself, berryjon. I am something of an Old Fogey who has been around the block quite a few times where Magic is concerned, as as such, I use this series to talk about the various aspects of this game, be it deck design, card construction, mechanics chat, in-universe characters and history. Or whatever happens to cross my mind this week. Please, feel free to dissent in the comments below the article, add suggestions or just plain correct me! I am a Smart Ass, so I can take it.

Many, many years ago, back when I was first starting out with this series, and I was but a simple and humble contributor to this site, I wrote an article here about the convergence of Trample and Haste as two mechanics that synergized well together and were a whole greater than the sum of their parts. Now, over 5 years later, I'm going to come back to that article and give it a do-over. So, let's Liver-er Faster-er and Die-er Harderer!

This article began way back in with the Kaladesh spoiler season, when I spotted a card that I had seen numerous times before, and was quite impressed with how Wizards had melded this old concept and the new-at-the-time mechanic of Vehicles together. For those of you who haven't read the previous article in order to keep yourselves in suspense (WHY!?!?), I am talking about Ovalchase Dragster.

This card the latest iteration of a very minor theme running all throughout Magic's history, something that I would never expect to go into every set, or even once a year. (Note to self, put one in the set I'm making.) It's a minor thing, really, but one that I hold near and dear to my heart because of how much it helped shaped my early Magic experience.

Let's talk about the X/1 Creatures with Trample and Haste.

There are, at the time of this writing, 16 creatures that are or create tokens that are this sort of creature. They are, in alphabetical order; Akoum Stonewaker, Ball Lightning, Blistering Firecat, Charging War Boar (as long as you have a Domri Planeswalker in play), Giant Solifuge, Groundbreaker, Hellspark Elemental, Life of the Party, Lightning Serpent, Lightning Skelemental, Impetuous Devils, Ovalchase Dragster, Spark Elemental, Spark Trooper, Viashino Sandsprinter, and Yavimaya Ants. There are cards like Rite of the Raging Storm that also generate tokens that do this, but are not in of themselves creatures, so they do not count. There is also Kolaghan Forerunners, which mimics the effect, thanks to the Dash cost, but it also has three toughness, so it's right out. And so some of you might be wondering why I would be making such a fuss over these few creatures.

It's because they are AWESOME, that's why. And I don't need any more reason than that.

But I suppose I should step back and explain my reasoning here.

The combination of Trample and Haste is one of the most devastating synergistic evergreen combos in the game, along with Deathtouch and First Strike. And to understand this, I need to show how each of the component pieces work, then how they work together.

First, and definitely least, is Trample. For those of you who are just starting out in the game, welcome! I deal n more advanced concepts, but I do try to explain things simply for you. Anyway, Trample is a creature based Keyword that states that when this creature deals lethal combat damage to all defending creatures that are blocking it, any excess damage is applied to the defending player of Planeswalker.

Now, in the bad old days when the years were in the 90's, Trample worked differently because damage went onto the Stack. Once the Stack existed, that is. Back then, when a creature blocked, it would assign its combat damage, going onto the stack in the process. This would allow players to respond to the damage, knowing what was coming. and really liked this, as well as and to a lesser extent. You see, damage dealt to a defending creature stayed with that creature. So if I swung a Craw Wurm at you, and you blocked with an Eager Cadet, then the Craw Wurm would assign all 6 of its power as damage to the Cadet, and the Cadet would assign 1 power to the Wurm. From there, could give the Cadet Protection from Green, which would null the damage. could Unsummon their defender, taking all the damage with hit, while would sacrifice the creature for inscrutable purposes. would consider throwing more direct damage on top of the Cadet to try and kill the Wurm, while didn't do much for the longest time, except cast Giant Growth, which should have been done before damage went on the stack, as a 4/4 trading for a 6/4 is the better choice.

But where Trample got involved in this, was that at the time, was in how damage was allocated. Say I was attacking with Elder Land Wurm (yes, you read that one right), and it was blocked by the same Eager Cadet. Well, in this case, I as the attacking player, would have assigned 1 lethal combat damage to the Cadet, then 4 to the defending player. That's how it works, and has worked for over 20 years now. But because damage went on the stack, if after I assigned the damage, and the stack was in play, what if the defender cast Shield Wall?

My 1 assigned damage was now no longer enough to kill the defender, even as the trample damage went through.

Wrap your heads around that.

Now, in more sane and intelligent times, such as today, damage doesn't go on the stack, and any modifications to power and toughness happen before damage occurs, so Trample works as it was intended, and not as the rules-as-written would have you.

On the other side, we have Haste. Haste is far more important, for a few reasons. The first and most important of which is that it breaks the tempo of the game.

So for those of you who are new to the game, one of the major drawbacks, if not the major one is that Creatures have Summoning Sickness. This community colloquialism - for you will not find it on any card in the game. Rather, it is a built-in rule to the game that when a creature comes under your control, be it by entering the battlefield, or changing which player controls it, it cannot attack or use any abilities that require it to tap. This can be bypassed if an outside effect causes it to tap, such as with the Crew ability on a vehicle.

Notably, this applies to all permanents, even if they are not a creature when they enter the battlefield, but become a creature before your next turn. Things like Man Lands such as Faceless Haven can tap for mana on the turn they come in, but if you turn them into a creature before your next turn, then they are under all the restrictions of creatures, preventing them from tapping for mana.

This restriction goes away from all permanents you control at the start of your turn, meaning that your creatures will usually sit around doing nothing for a full turn rotation before you can use them, unless they have passive abilities, or activated abilities that don't require them to tap to activate, such as with Mavinda, Students' Advocate.

This was a choice made in the basic design of the game itself, one which has caused problems large and small since the earliest days of the game. The Tempo of the game can be set and measured by how the creatures affect the board state in terms of active and reactive plays. I'm sure I've looked at this subject before, but I don't feel like digging too much into it at this point at it would be a distraction.

What Haste does is break that parity-pause between the players. Haste allows a creature to act in the now, and not in the later. The tempo and the pace of the game change when you deny your opponents the ability to respond to the creatures on their turn, on their own terms. Your opponents lose the tempo when they choose to respond to a Hasty creature that you control and you can act with.

With this breaking of the parity of the game, you gain an advantage, however slight, and you can tell how experienced a player is by how they treat Haste.

But what these two combine into, when on a creature, is a surprise slug to the face.

Now, I've said it, but I don't think I've made clear just what I'm trying to convey. Creatures with these two abilities aren't just creatures with these two abilities, they're effectively direct damage on a body. This was something of a revelation to me all those years ago as I pieced together what I knew into something that made a bit more sense.

Normal creatures with Haste, as gets in Primary in the current version of the Colour Pie, can come down and swing, but they can be blocked by anything, losing the tempo to a good defense. Creatures with Trample, such as how gets in Primary, show up, and can ignore any smaller creatures, but not anything their equal or bigger. However, they have to wait for their turn to come around before they can start hitting.

But when a creature has both? Look again at that list near the top where I name the 16 creatures. They are all and/or . Because those colours now have the other ability as a secondary Keyword, meaning that they can have them on occasion, and not be too far out of sorts with their abilities. Yes, this means that Groundbreaker is not just a Colour-shift to a potential alternate universe, but completely in-colour, and honestly something that could be printed in a Standard Legal set today.

This is the core of Aggro, the ability to throw down a creature and have it slam into the opponent with no warning and little chance for a response. It's sorcery speed direct damage that also has the ability to remove creatures in the process. A Groundbreaker that has Irresistible Prey cast on it, or is the target of Neyith of the Dire Hunt's activated ability can remove a problematic creature, and then hit the opponent as well in the same action.

Of course, this does come with a slight downside. Of those cards that make this sort of thing, quite a few of them do have a drawback. You see, the cost for having cheap creatures that can do so much is that they tend to be sacrificed at the end of the turn. And yes, the trigger is worded such that it checks at the end of each turn, and not just yours, meaning that flicker shenanigans won't save you forever.

You're never really intended to actually keep most of these creatures around, which is part of their charm. If they get blocked, that's where that Toughness of 1 comes into play, where even a slight breeze, or a Cosmotronic Wave can push these creatures right into the graveyard, let along being blocked by any creature with a positive power. Except Little Girl. She won't be able to do it by herself. Or Char-Rumbler, but I did specify positive values.

So either way, with these high-power, low toughness creatures, if they don't die in glorious combat, will die anyways at the end of the turn. To Live Fast and Die Young, that's what these creatures do. And I appreciate the simplicity of it.

You don't need massive amounts of text on a card to make it effective. I'm looking at you Questing Beast. Some of the most devastating cards in the game only need three words to do what needs to be done, so having just two on a creature can and does track. Or just one if that word happens to be Cascade.

And of course, because creatures like this tend to be very cheap due to their self-destructive actions and relatively short lives, this makes them good, mana efficient feeders into cards like Warstorm Surge on the way in, and Stalking Vengeance on the way out. Why no, I haven't done that, why do you ask? There's plenty of things you can do with this sort of creature, and hitting people in the face with them is just the first thing they can do. Sometimes the last, but that's just the fun of it, right?

So, join me next week when I talk about something different. It's the roll up to Issue #250, so I think I should make that fun and amazing! Or at least try to.

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!