Revolution is one of the largest custom card constructed formats. It’s a rotating, standard-esque format made up of six high-quality custom sets. Despite being a rotating format, however, sets stay in the format for a long time - so much so that not all of the sets that initially made up the format have rotated out yet! One of the old guard that recently rotated out was, Ghariv: The Quaking City (GQC), a Custom Magic: the Gathering set designed by CanterburyEgg. As one of the six inaugural sets that were present when the Revolution format was first created, it laid the groundwork for the format’s landscape and provided consistent access to tools that have underpinned many of the format’s best decks. That being said, like the lifespan of any set in a custom card format, Ghariv’s tenure saw it undergo various periods of discovery, where cards that were previously overlooked suddenly got chance to shine, either through interactions with cards that just rotated in, or sometimes just because they were underrated in the first place!

Flavorfully, GQC follows the events of its predecessor, Ghariv, The Sacred City, which first introduced us to this setting. In it, we meet Jorah, high Priest of the directly named God. He preaches the good word and gospel, and has founded the eponymous walled city of Ghariv to act as a safe haven from the growing Darkness ™ that threatens the outside world. Through the events of the set, however, we find out that he's playing both sides; while he’s genuinely drunk his own Koolaid and believes he’s carrying out God’s word, this fanaticism also means that he believes his end justifies the means. In secret, Jorah’s true power comes from good old fashioned blood sacrifice - his own or his disciples, he ain't picky. He consorts with and creates Demons, and in doing so kills two birds with one stone - he creates a credible threat that makes people flock to him and increases his influence, while also literally giving himself more magical power through the rituals he performs.

In GQC, we see this perverse balance upset by intruders from another world - the Eldrazi. For the first time, Jorah has found a foe that is not only stronger than him, but also cannot be reasoned with, cajoled, or threatened. Jorah creating Ghariv - and the events of his whole life - have been spent preparing for this moment. As the war progresses, Jorah has to accept a grim fact - he is, for the first time in his life, losing. Faith in him is waning, and privately, so too is his faith in himself. This conflict is represented in the mechanics of the set, with a “faction” mechanic for the Eldrazi and Jorah’s forces, and then one shared mechanic representing the inhuman, metaphysical nature of the paragons of both sides.

The first of these mechanics is Reverent. Reverent is a batching mechanic that lumps Angels, Clerics, and Demons together - a representation of the motley crew that follow Jorah in his fight to preserve Ghariv. This is the mechanic that saw the least competitive impact - while people did brew with it in white-black aggressive shells, both the nature of the mechanic - demons and angels generally being both high-cost and powerful on their own - and its payoffs being Fine to lackluster made it hard to find any footing in the format.

Next up is Propagate. This was essentially a sidegrade Fabricate, where on ETB you could either put N +1/+1 counters on the creature or create that many 0/1 Eldrazi Spawns with the ability to Sacrifice them for C. This mechanic obviously represented the Eldrazi faction, and similar to Reverent, didn’t have that much competitive impact.

Finally we have Coalesce, a returning mechanic from CyberChronometer’s Rail War. This one is a doozy if you haven’t heard of it before, but it is effectively flashback, but you also get a creature. The text reads as: You may cast this for its Coalesce cost from your graveyard. If you do, put it onto the battlefield as a [Type] Horror creature after it resolves. Exile it if it would leave the battlefield or not resolve. It goes on instants and sorceries, and essentially means that when you cast it from your graveyard, you get the spell effect, and then it resolves as a creature which potentially has its own abilities. Coalesce, unlike the other mechanics from this set, was an instant and enduring staple of the format; its 3-for-1 nature meant that any slower deck naturally wanted them, and its presence was one of the reasons that grave control and management was such an integral part of the format in the months following its inception.

If you’re interested in learning more about the set and the specific cards from it that made a splash in Revolution, check out the full article here!

Revolution, January, 2022 – The inaugural event of Revolution’s sixth rotation, Grand Prix Berginon, concluded this past month. With GP Berginon came the Revolution debut of Matt and Chumbeque’s Duelists of Vereaux, a set themed on Europe during the Enlightenment, Inquisition, and French Revolution. 19 players registered decks across 16 different archetypes, including everything from low-to-the ground red-based aggro decks to greedy 3+ color control piles, and everything in between. And these decks were replete with newly-minted iconic staples from Duelists of Vereaux likeHold to the Flame, Studies in Cognitive Motion, and Let them Eat Cake.

Although URx-based decks featuring Smolderwing were the favorite to win going into the tournament, representing about 16% of the field, the final confrontation was between Epid’s greedy five-color control deck that sought to leverage triggers from Hold to the Flame into a win, and Matt’s blisteringly fast RW aggro deck powered by the fires of revolution. After a nail-biting two-game match, Matt emerged victorious, attributing his success to explosive one- and two-drops like Assemble the Mob, Mob Instigator, and Bravewing Hero in combination with cheap tools allowing him to resist and recover from interaction like Lichbane Wardwielder and Revolutionary Class. These tools combine to drive the deck to victory by producing frightening amounts of damage through powerful combo-adjacent turns, while also possessing the tools to grind out longer games.

Although it was a complete unknown coming into this tournament, Matt’s Mob Justice has proven itself to be the new deck to beat, and Revolution players are already considering how best to exploit its weaknesses.

Congratulations to Matt on his win, and remember if you're looking to pick up a fun new custom format, the best time to join the revolution is now!

Click here for a full look at the deck lists featured in this month's GP.

To see the final match for yourself, you can watch this video, also made by kayiu!