The GU Team recently announced a huge list of balance updates to the existing Divine Order set, presumably to put these changes in before the current Balancing Phase ends on 26 Feb. The list of changes includes nerfs to most auto-includes like Orcish Elite, Radiant Dawn, and Falling Star as well as buffs or complete overhauls to cards that almost see no play currently. One of the more interesting changed cards is Stormfield, and I'd like to zoom in on it in more detail as well as my playtests of Combo Mage in the PTR. Let's dive right in!

Stormfield and Combo Mage

Stormfield's overhaul adds another tool to OTK Mage's arsenal, giving up to 6 Spell Boost for 2 mana. There's definitely a lot of potential here, even though most decks probably won't find it too useful since having a wide board is not a goal of most Magic decks.

One possible 7-card 28-damage combo, although very unlikely to happen, could be:

Sad to say, this combo costs 9 mana on an empty board and isn't practical for most cases. After all, if you're at 9-mana you could probably win with other 9-mana creatures without having to keep 7 dead cards in your hand for half the game.

Perhaps if we move away from an OTK and allowed for some set-up, Stormfield might be better able to show its potential. Let's try again. This time, let's assume we have 1 creature on the board. This shouldn't be too hard of a condition to fulfil since Magic has plenty of creatures with Order like Demetrios and All-Seeing Spire which fulfil other roles in the deck anyway.

Since Stormfield rewards you for going wide, we might as well throw in a Form of Unity into the deck. This 7-mana combo results in a 14 damage Form of Unity. Not bad, although 14 damage is only half a god's health.

Given how the mana system in GU works, high mana combos are much harder to pull off, since it requires you to survive for many more turns than it seems. A 7-mana combo can be done 7 turns earlier than a 9-mana combo! So after thinking for a bit, I decided that trying to do any sort of an OTK without set-up is simply not feasible in GU; previous turn set-ups are essential.

With the help of cost reducers like Assistant Alchemist, Warp Engineer, and Arcane Transcendent, the cost of these combos can go down but surviving without playing any part of a combo piece is extremely tough in the current meta. It doesn't help that the cost reducers don't have great stats and there's a large chance of you simply dying while collecting your combo pieces.

My playtests in the PTR seem to support the idea that my idea of Combo Mage seems slow.

Playtesting in the PTR

I fiddled around with a few variations of the deck but eventually settled on this one. In general, it's hard to get a feel of how strong your deck is in the PTR due to people trying out all sorts of wacky decks that you wouldn't find in during the Weekend Ranked event. While playing the deck, I felt that the deck was slow to get started, and Stormfield was never as good as it seemed to promise.

Essentially, the deck revolved around surviving and drawing tons of cards with Demetrios, Pallas' Wand, and All-seeing Spire before slapping down a bunch of weenies, casting Stormfield, and barraging the enemy with spells. Reality dictates that it is nowhere near as imposing as it sounds though.

Rod of Rodents and Cardshark were my "spell boost fodder" creatures, but most of the time they just felt like dead cards in my hand. Playing the Rod early is nowhere near as good as something like the Necroscepter because every rat simply gives free favor to your opponent. The fact that this deck doesn't aim to establish a board presence means that the Rats are pretty useless half the time. Only when it is combo-ed with Stormfield are the Rats useful, and the same goes for Cardshark.

The only way that these cards earned value was if:

• I somehow managed to clear the enemy's board
• Oni Spellsword's Wards prevent these from dying to some sort of 1-damage AoE spell.

Not great.

I decided not to put in certain Magic staples like Assistant Alchemist since they didn't provide draw and were pretty fragile. Trying to save the cost reductions for combo pieces usually led to me losing any advantage that I had and handing the initiative over to the opponent. Instead, I tried to improve my draw with cards like Dimension Door, with the rest of the cards being included for survival.

I have a recorded game of a match vs a Light deck which culminated in an 18-damage Form of Unity for lethal, but I feel like it doesn't count for much because Light has abysmal removal abilities in its current state. Nevertheless, if you're interested in how this deck might win, here's the match in its entirety. Disclaimer: I'm a total noob at playing combo decks.

Conclusion

Perhaps I just don't have enough deckbuilding finesse as of now, but I can't seem to think of a combo mage deck that utilizes Stormfield to dish out 15-damage spells consistently. It's definitely a card to look out for, but the current state of things seems to suggest that it won't be as strong as I initially thought.

Have you tried out the new Stormfield? What did you think of it?