Shadows over Innistrad Remastered Morbid and Macabre! Limited Overview

Hey everyone! We’ve made it through the Arena Open which will mostly be remembered as a spider infestation of epic proportions. Don’t worry, all of you arachnophobes are in the clear now since we’ve come upon another rotation. As promised, I have returned to update you on the upcoming changes to SIR by going over how some archetypes will be affected as well as some thoughts on individual cards.

First off, I’d like to say that I’ve been a huge fan of how the Shadows of the Past have been playing out as it continually injects new life into a format before people get tired of it. We’re now moving on from Fatal Flashback! to Wednesday’s favorite section Morbid and Macabre!. Which means that we want things to actually hit the battlefield and die instead of just being dumped into the graveyard.

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What are we losing? I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the biggest hit is to the flashback self-mill decks since those cards don’t exist anymore. If you find a way to draft Spider Spawning when it’s not in the packs, please let me know how. (Before you all spam my inbox, I am aware you can wait to play a deck until after it rotates to get around that). You can still self-mill your way to delirium, but overall those type of cards go down in value. That means Grapple with the Past is back down to being a really good card instead of a great one.  

Dafore’s Rakdos burn deck is no longer viable with Bump in the Night leaving so that can go back to good ol madness vampires. It will also be missing Stromkirk Captain and Vampiric Fury from week one so it’s not going to be a reset to full power. Still solid, but unspectacular.

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This week does give Rakdos another option since it can have some fun with some of the new cards in an aristocrats style deck. You can steal your opponents’ creatures with Zealous Conscripts or Traitorous Blood before sacrificing them for profit. Bloodflow Connoisseur will be the sacrifice outlet of choice due to it being both common and free to sacrifice. Of course, it is that much sweeter if you get to devour their human with Falkenrath Aristocrat.

There are a ton of other sacrifice options floating around including anything with emerge. Can you imagine your opponent playing a five drop only for you to steal it and emerge a Distended Mindbender? They’ll be complaining about that one all week.  

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The Selesnya decks are losing Travel Preparations. That was actually a huge underperformer all week (as predicted by BeersSC and me) and probably tricked more people into thinking they were supposed to be in that lane than it should have. The main additions this week are going to be Doomed Traveler and Young Wolf as it tries to corner the market on common one drops along with Thraben Inspector It also gains Hollowhenge Scavenger at common which can swing a race in a hurry.

Sever the Bloodline leaving makes it safer to wade back into the waters of Rise from the Tides. While the blue based spells decks don’t gain much of anything here along with losing Silent Departure and Mystic Retrieval, they will be right back where they were during week one. That means great when they are open and awful when they aren’t.  

Requiem Angel and Murder of Crows are both chonky flyers which have proven to be a solid commodity in SIR. The angel typically provides more value through replacing your game pieces, but the crows trigger whenever you commit a Murder on your opponents creatures as well.

You’re going to have a bad time if you are trying to make Séance work for much besides ETBs and defense. The creatures don’t get haste so they just pop in and pop out EoT without getting rowdy. It also exiles so you don’t even get a morbid trigger off of it unless you have some way to sacrifice it. In general, I wouldn’t recommend it.

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Stitcher's Apprentice has potential for shenanigans if you have some reason to want to trigger morbid every turn. One thing to do with it would be to ensure that you can trigger Skirsdag High Priest. Who doesn’t want to play build-a-demon every turn?

For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure of playing against Blood Artist type cards, Falkenrath Noble might make you break out the old calculator to figure out combat math. It’s another interesting use for a free repeatable sacrifice outlet like Bloodflow Connoisseur allowing you to sac your side to drain them out.

Overall, it’s a solid collection of cards, but a bit below the power level of the previous two groups which should allow more of the main set cards to shine. The exception is that Rakdos aristocrats will be “the thing” to do for this week so have fun pillaging your opponent.

Wrap Up

Thanks for reading! Hopefully you won’t be too scared of how morbid it’s about to get in Innistrad. I’ll be back in a few days with coverage of March of the Machine and I’ll have another of these ready to go for the final rotation. Until then, stay classy people!

I’m always open to feedback, let me know what you loved, what you hated, or just send dog pics. You can contact at:

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