Gather round everyone, its time for another Magic history lesson!
Back in the day, there was a super sweet value creature by the name of Nekrataal. This card is straight up cold blooded. It comes into play and right off the bat destroys another creature, without even batting an eyelash.
Call the Phyrexians, same number, same hood. …It’s all good.
At the time Nekrataal was printed, West Coast musicians, such as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Sublime, were popularizing the use of 1-8-7 as a slang term. This is based off of California Penal Code Section 187, which defines the elements of the crime of murder. It’s not hard to see how Magic players of the time made the connection. Soon any creature that destroyed something upon entering the battlefield became known as a 187 creature. Over time that definition broadened to include any creature with any enters the battlefield effects.
As any good EDH player knows, the best way to take advantage of 187 creatures is with “blink” effects. First entering into the Magic player lexicon with Ice Age’s Blinking Spirit, the term really took off with the introduction of Time Spiral’s Momentary Blink. If you have not put it together yet, blinking refers to exiling a creature just to bring it back into play, hopefully for added value. Now if only there was a way to repeatedly blink 187 creatures turn after turn for amazing value…….OH WAIT!!!!!
Blink-187
| Creatures (14) 4 Deathrite Shaman 1 Stoneforge Mystic 2 Containment Priest 1 Flickerwisp 1 Snapcaster Mage 1 Vendilion Clique 1 Blade Splicer 1 Stonehorn Dignitary 1 Sin Collector 1 Nekrataal Planeswalkers (8) 2 Venser, the Sojourner 3 Kaya, Ghost Assassin 1 Liliana of the Veil 1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant Spells (15) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Brainstorm 4 Force of Will 2 Thoughtseize 1 Council’s Judgment Artifacts (2) 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Batterskull | Lands (22) 3 Tundra 3 Underground Sea 2 Scrubland 4 Polluted Delta 4 Flooded Strand 2 Plains 2 Island 1 Swamp 1 Karakas |
Blink-187 was also the name of Jace’s College punk cover band
Super Friends Assemble!!!
First and foremost, I want to say how cool of a design Kaya, Ghost Assassin is. Glenn Jones really knocked it out of the park with this one. While we have seen planeswalkers who have no plus ability (Sarkhan the Mad), and we have seen planeswalkers that can “blink” (Venser, the Sojourner), we have never seen the two ideas combined in such an interesting way before.
By “blinking” Kaya, Ghost Assassin, you can use her sweet minus abilities effectively forever. Where she gets really interesting though is when she turns her “blink” ability sights on other targets. The deck is chock full of 187 creatures designed to get repetitive use. Think Snapcaster Mage is good? How about a Snapcaster Mage every turn for free? Using this trick, Blink-187 can grind out with the best of them.
I never realized this before, but Venser has bigger mutton chops then the local butcher
Venser, the Sojourner acts as your secondary Kaya. He is a bit more expensive, and can only hit your own permanents, but he brings to the table the ability to blink any permanent. Did your Batterskull germ token die? No problem. Want to use Kaya’s -2 ability, but still need to have her at 5 loyalty to survive an assault? Venser can do that too. This deck really kicks into high gear when you are able to “blink” two different things on the same turn. What it really comes down to is that you can only have one of each Planeswalker in play at a time. So we run both Kaya, and her older brother Venser to double down on the effect.
Jace, the Mindsculptor, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and Liliana of the Veil round out the Super Friends group. Elspeth is a one woman army who is a great win condition by herself, or when she is pumping up your dorky creatures into beaters. Liliana plays great with Kaya’s -2 ability. Effectively shredding your opponent’s hand and giving you some much needed ammo against combo decks. Jace is in the deck because he is Jace, the Mindsculptor, ‘nuff said.
As talented as he is, Jace never really recovered from Blink-187 breaking up after graduation
187 Creatures
Here is where things get really interesting. Deathrite Shaman is the only four-of creature in the deck. This is because as a three color deck, that curves out at five, we really need the added ramp and mana fixing to stay competitive. The rest of the creature suite is silver bullets, each with their own special role, each ready to be blinked over and over again.
A single Stoneforge Mystic is all we need, Kaya or Venser will blink her anytime we need another equipment.
Flickerwisp can keep an annoying permanent like a planeswalker, or creature, off the table. If you blink Flickerwisp, it comes into play on your end step, then exiles a permanent until the beginning of the next end step, a.k.a. your opponent’s end step. This way they will never get to attack with that creature, or activate the planeswalker’s abilities.
Words cannot express the amount of animosity I have built up for this card over the years
If you really want to deal with a creature permanently though, look no further than Containment Priest. Now with the good Priest in play, Kaya and Flickerwisp just straight up say “exile target creature.” This is a bit of a non-bo as you shut off your own value creatures from being blink abused. Honestly though, you are probably going to win the game anyways with unlimited free removal.
You can target yourself with Vendilion Clique and blink it as a pseudo loot effect. Or you can use the standard combo with Karakas to lock your opponents out of drawing anything good for the rest of the game.
Snapcaster Mage is pretty straight forward, everything in your graveyard has flashback now.
Blade Splicer makes an army of 3/3 first strike tokens, which can put to shame all the Monk and Elemental tokens running around.
Sin Collector is one of our few answers to combo decks. It is a bit slow, but hey we will take all the help we can get in this match up.
Of course I had to add Nekrataal. He is the OG, the Original Gangster, not including him would be a crime against history! (In all honesty though, Shriekmaw would probably be a better choice for this slot)
Haha look at that Rhino wearing armor! How dignified!
The Spicy 61st
This was a real tough one this week. Part of the reason there are so many singleton cards in this deck, is that it is so hard to choose among all the goodies. Eldrazi Displacer, Meddling Mage, Grave Titan and Kitchen Finks were all in the deck at one point before being cut. I expect many of them to end up in the sideboard along with many others I did not name.
In the end though, the honor of the 61st slot belongs to a lowly common from M12. Stonehorn Dignitary may not look like much on paper, but he is an all star when you can blink him. Skipping a combat phase for one turn is a nuisance for most decks. Skipping the combat phase for the rest of the game is downright unbeatable for many of decks in Legacy. The best part is how resilient Stonehorn Dignitary is. He costs four so you can’t abrupt decay him, and he also has four toughness so Lightning Bolt is out. Delver and Eldrazi are two of the most popular decks in the meta right now and I just can’t see them beating a Stonehorn Dignitary lock.
I have already rambled on about this brew for far longer than I should have. But if you still need more sweet Blink-187 action, I will be discussing the deck on my podcast Leaving a Legacy on MTGcast.com. The episode will be coming out Monday, August 22nd, 2016. See you all next time!
P.S. shout out to Lyle Cadorette for providing the name for the deck. As well as to the individual who drew the Plansewalker Band picture, unfortunately I could not find your name to give you credit.
Jerry Mee is a Boston Native who has been playing Magic since Onslaught Block. Primarily a Legacy player, he cohosts the weekly Leaving a Legacy Podcast found on Mtgcast.com. He can be reached on Twitter at @Jmee3rd