Here is a list of some important interactions in Maverick decks broken down by card. Understanding these kinds of interactions is a critical step towards becoming a proficient Maverick player since they afford a lot of power and flexibility. Furthermore, you
will face opponents who are not aware of some of these interactions and will not play around them appropriately, granting you a huge edge. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I hope both new (and even not-so-new!) Maverick players find it useful.
Deathrite Shaman
- The first ability is not a mana ability since it designates a target. Pithing Needle naming Deathrite Shaman will disable this ability.
- The target of any of the abilities must be declared upon activation, but will not be removed until the abilities resolution. If that target is no longer a valid target when the ability resolves, the ability will fizzle.
- The above means that cards like Scavenging Ooze and other Deathrite Shamans can "stifle" a Deathrite Shaman activation.
Dryad Arbor
- With an open fetchland, you can fetch Arbor to sacrifice to an Edict effect, or use as a Flash creature.
- You can block with Arbor and sacrifice it with Knight before damage to create a Fog-like effect. This will stop Lifelink, and most importantly damage triggers like Umezawa's Jitte. Trample damage will still go through this however.
- Sacrificing Arbor to Knight is a method of removing Bridge from Below from the opponent's graveyard (triggers Morbid too I guess?).
- With Blood Moon in play, Dryad Arbor is a 1/1 Green Nonbasic Mountain that taps for Red mana.
- With Humility in play, Dryad Arbor is a Green 1/1 Nonbasic Forest that doesn't tap for mana.
Gaddock Teeg
- Remember that G. Teeg shuts off spells with alternate costs that still have a CMC of 4 or greater, such as Massacre, Force of Will, and Misdirection.
- Storm decks without Burning Wish will often concede to this card in game 1, since it shuts off their win conditions (Tendrils of Agony and/or Empty the Warrens) and they have no way of removing it.
- Remember that G. Teeg turns off your own Green Sun's Zeniths!
- Here are some decks with important cards G. Teeg shuts off:
- Miracles (Entreat the Angels, Force of Will, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Moat, Terminus)
- Eldrazi (All is Dust, Chalice of the Void)
- Elves (Green Sun's Zenith, Natural Order)
- Storm (Ad Nauseam, Dark Petition, Empty the Warrens, Massacre, Past in Flames, Tendrils of Agony)
- Sneak & Show (Force of Will, Sneak Attack, Through the Breach)
- MUD (All is Dust, Chalice of the Void, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon)
- Burn (Fireblast)
- High Tide (Blue Sun's Zenith, Force of Will, Time Spiral, Turnabout)
- Omni-Tell (Dream Halls, Enter the Infinite, Force of Will)
- Tezzeret (Chalice of the Void, Helm of Obedience, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas)
- G/x Cloudpost (Green Sun's Zenith, Repeal, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon)
- Esper Stoneblade (Engineered Explosives, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Supreme Verdict)
- Enchantress (Green Sun's Zenith, Helm of Obedience, Humility, Replenish, Sigil of the Empty Throne)
Green Sun's Zenith
- You search for a creature card with CMC X
or less. Theoretically you can spend 10 mana to cast Green Sun's Zenith (X = 9) and put a 1-mana Green creature into play.
- The mana cost of this card on the stack is the amount of mana spent to cast it. So for the example above, the mana cost of the spell would be 10. This is crucial to keep in mind when playing against Counterbalance.
- The CMC of this card in zones other than the stack is 1. For example, If you were playing Green Sun's Zenith and Counterbalance in the same deck and revealed it to your own Counterbalance trigger, it would counter a spell with CMC = 1.
Karakas
- You can bounce your own Thalia or G. Teeg to save it from a removal spell, combat, or sweeper!
- In game 1 against Sneak & Show, if you can resolve G. Teeg with Karakas in play while they have no Sneak Attack, they will essentially be locked out of the game.
- If an opponent has Sneak Attack in play and multiple Red sources available for activations, Karakas will not be effective. They activate once to put a creature in, you bounce with Karakas, then they get priority to activate Sneak Attack again before combat.
- Blood Moon shuts off Karakas.
Knight of the Reliquary
- Be mindful of the clock Knight presents when deciding whether to attack or activate. If the clock doesn't change by activating, then it is generally better to activate to grow your Knight and remove land(s) from your deck.
- Sacrificing the land is a part of the cost of the activated ability. If the ability is Stifled, the land you sacrifice will still go to the graveyard, but you will not search.
- You can always grow Knight by two power with an activation by getting either a fetchland or Horizon Canopy and then sacrificing it. You can even grow it by three power by getting a Wasteland and destroying one of your own lands in play.
- With Blood Moon in play you will only be able to sacrifice a basic Forest or Plains to activate Knight's ability.
- You can time the ability to remove a certain land(s) in order to play around effects like Price of Progress, Massacre, and Submerge.
- If you activate Knight to sacrifice the only Forest you control, your opponent cannot cast Submerge using the alternate cost in response.
- Knight essentially is an uncounterable counter to Show & Tell---> Legendary creature. Put your Knight into play off Show & Tell, then untap on your turn and activate Knight to get your Karakas (make sure you have an eligible Forest or Plains to sacrifice!). Likewise, Exhume---> Legendary creature is an awkward line when you have a Knight in your graveyard.
Maze of Ith
- You can grant a creature pseudo-vigilance by attacking, then activating Maze to untap it after damage is dealt but before the combat phase ends. Especially powerful with Knight, since it allows you to attack then activate in the same turn.
- You can also "save" one of your attacking creatures in combat by Mazing it. It will become untapped, and will deal and be dealt no combat damage. This is another way of "fogging" on-damage triggers like Umezawa's Jitte.
Mother of Runes
- Outside of matchups like Eldrazi and MUD, almost never sideboard out Mothers. She is a lot more useful than she may appear in most matchups.
- Don't be afraid to attack with her in some situations. Against combo or control decks in particular the clock can be very relevant, and every point of damage counts.
- Against a combo deck such as Storm, if you have Mother and a hatebear in play when your opponent casts Pyroclasm, err on the side of using her to protect the hatebear rather than herself.
- Against combo decks with Cunning Wish such as Omni-Tell or High Tide, you can't always rely on the Protection effect due to the frequent presence of Wipe Away, Sudden Shock, or Kozilek's Return in the opposing Wish-board.
- Don't get complacent once you have an active Mother of Runes. Be wary of your opponent trapping you into activating Mother and then doing something to get around it in response.
- If you control a creature with Protection from White, you cannot target it with your own Mother of Runes! This can come up if you are playing Sword of Light and Shadow/Sword of War and Peace or have already resolved a Mother activation granting Protection from White in the same turn.
Qasali Pridemage
- Be wary of leaving only 1 mana for the activated ability open in the form of a fetchland. If you crack the fetchland with the intent of activating it, your opponent can use a removal spell on your Pridemage in response while you don't have a mana available, denying your use of the ability.
Scryb Ranger
- In my humble opinion, Scryb Ranger is one of the strongest cards in Maverick. It took me a while to realize this. She appears to do nothing, but in reality she does
everything. Now I can safely say I would never play Maverick without her.
- You can re-use your two best creatures with tap abilities, Mother of Runes and Knight, at instant speed. This means for example you can use Mother to push through damage with a protected creature, then untap it to provide protection from a removal spell as necessary. You can also Wasteland twice in one turn with Knight. If you have no Wastelands in play or in hand, note that you must have at least three Forests or Plains in play in order to do this (sac one, bounce one to untap Knight, sac another).
- If you are missing a land drop you can generate an extra mana with a Ranger activation. If you also have a mana creature in play, you can generate two extra mana.
- You can create a Fog-like effect in conjunction with Dryad Arbor by blocking with the Arbor and bouncing it with Ranger before damage. This will stop Lifelink, and most importantly damage triggers like Umezawa's Jitte. Trample damage will still go through this however.
- You can also protect your Arbor from removal using this ability, or protect a Forest from a Wasteland.
- Remember Ranger's ability can be used once per turn. You can use it once during your turn, then once during your opponent's turn.
- Ranger will block Delvers forever, come out on top in a fight with a Clique or Strix, and cannot be bounced by Jace.
- No matter what the format, Flying is still one of the best abilities in Magic, particularly in a deck that battles almost entirely on the ground. Flying plus Exalted or Equipment can be very powerful.
Stoneforge Mystic
- Your opponent has a chance to respond to the activation before you place your Equipment in play. For example, this means they can target you with a Vendilion Clique trigger and put the Equipment in your hand on the bottom of your library in response to the activation. If this scenario arises when you have two Equipments in hand, you will be able to elect to put the second into play instead. If the card you draw off Vendilion Clique's ability is an Equipment you have the option to put it into play as well.
Sylvan Library
- This ability is a triggered ability, not an activated ability like the card text on the 4th Edition printing would lead you to believe.
- When resolving the trigger, make sure to keep the cards drawn separate from those in your hand.
- You can replace any number or order of drawn cards with a Dredge. If you Dredge any draw, you will have to pay 4 life to keep an additional card and 8 life to keep two additional cards. You cannot put the card you Dredged back on top of your library.
- Having two Libraries in play is generally redundant, but with an instant speed shuffle effect such as a fetchland available, you gain the option to use Library twice in a turn. On your draw step, you first draw a card, then resolve draw step triggers. Place your shuffle effect between the two Library triggers on the stack, resolve your first library trigger, shuffle, then resolve your second library trigger to see two fresh cards.
- If you have Courser of Kruphix in play, you must reveal the two extra cards you draw from your Library trigger, then reveal the top card of your library. Once you decide what cards to put back remember to make sure the top card of your library is revealed.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- If your opponent has no mana available and you have Thalia in play, any free permission in their hand will be turned off, giving you free range to resolve spells.
Thespian's Stage
- A Thespian's Stage that is a copy of a basic land cannot be targeted by Wasteland.
- When Thespian's Stage is a copy of another land, it adopts the name of that land. This can be relevant when name effects like Pithing Needle come into play.
Tower of the Magistrate
- You can give your own creatures protection from Umezawa's Jitte activations or Sword of Fire and Ice's Fire trigger.
- You can target opposing creatures to "unequip" them. If you target a Batterskull-equipped Germ, the 0/0 Germ will die when the Batterskull falls off it.
- You can "Fog" a Modular trigger.
- Shardless Agent, Baleful Strix, and Mishra's Factory are artifacts.
Wasteland
- Wasteland can target itself. This is a useful option to have when playing around Price of Progress or to grow Knight in a pinch.
- Against the Thespian's Stage + Dark Depths combo, do not Wasteland Dark Depths in response to the Thespian's Stage activation targeting Dark Depths. Instead, wait until they select which copy of the Legendary Dark Depths to keep. Then, another trigger will be placed on to the stack ("When Dark Depths has no Ice counters on it, sacrifice it. if you do..."). You should respond to this trigger by Wasting the Dark Depths. Dark Depths will go to the graveyard, and the trigger wont't find a valid Dark Depths to sacrifice and fizzle. Doing it this way means they lose both Thespian's Stage and Dark Depths instead of just the Dark Depths.
