Having been a functioning person in modern society over the last couple years, it’s practically inescapable for you to not have come across stories about how the pandemic affected the global supply chain. It impacted serious, important goods. It impacted frivolous, pointless goods. In some way, shape, or form, nearly everything that was made in one place and sold in another felt a pinch at some point. The most visual proof is / was when a particular item was simply not being available on a store shelf or company warehouse, a result of shortages, delays, or setbacks in manufacturing. The second most notable example is when the scarcity of that item drove prices up. It’s pretty basic economics: if the supply of one thing goes down, the price inevitably goes up.
For much of 2020, and even part of 2021, most of the disruptions were seen as temporary, and as such companies (generally) were willing to roll with brief shortages rather than jack up prices because they could. Luckily, many products ended up being that case; they weathered the proverbial storm and carried on. For many others, however, it was either deliberate choice or seen as inevitable prices would have to go up to offset increases in things like freight costs, competition for resources, and manufacturing delays. For the last 9 months or so, we’ve seen more and more examples of this, including (because it’s such a fixture in American cultural psyche) a rise in gas prices – particularly around the time of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February.
Moreover, although some aspects of the economy have settled down as bottlenecks have eased up, others have become more volatile. And such fluctuations are far from over.
Now, no one is here today to talk about supply chain logistics, the obtuse and geopolitical complexities around how global fossil fuel prices are determined, or how these things influence inflation (aside to say it is indeed something affecting people globally and not just in this country). Instead, it’s merely to illustrate how resource scarcity can cause ripple effects in environments large and small.
Including on Magic’s battlefield.
While there are exceptions, usually – usually! – your odds of success in Magic are directly proportional to your available options in that given moment. This takes many forms. Throughout much of the game, for instance, this can equate to the amount of mana you have available to cast spells. After all you aren’t going to be much of a threat after all if you can’t cast anything. But this can also refer to the number of cards you have in your hand or the number of creatures you have in play. Even just the difference in scope between the size of your board and an opponent can be a notable indicator of your chances. Part of the endless appeal to Magic is that conditions can change rapidly and a single spell or event can completely upend that calculus. Yet statistically it’s beneficial for the person with the largest arsenal to press their strategic advantage when able, and woe be to the person in such positions who dallies.
Although I am not the most aggressive Magic player in terms of pressing battlefield advantage, but I have long, long, long been an advocate of the tactic in Magic (and gaming in general really) that one of the best resources you can use to further your ambitions is…your opponent’s resources. Why agonize over how to match your best asset on the battlefield when I can just Clone my own copy? Or animate one from your graveyard? Or just outright steal it out from under you? Usually at less of an investment to do so than the time and mana you spent to put it out in the first place. It’s a very Blue mage sort of thinking, but it’s where my headspace goes when playing that color. Using one of my cards to take away one of yours is simple attrition. Using one of my cards to take control of one of yours is a loss for you and a gain for me. That’s a 2:1 advantage swing. As the color of guile, Blue has more than its fair share of such board manipulation.
If you can believe it though, the color once had even more options.
For instance, while the creature stealing Red card Threaten and its myriad variants in almost every set nowadays, Blue used to (albeit infrequently) have access to temporary card theft as well. Indeed, one of my all time favorite Blue instants is still Ray of Command. In theory it’s still something the color can be justified in doing, but for balance reasons that effect has largely been ceded to Red – barring it a couple rare modern appearances in the forms of and Power of Persuasion and Sakashima’s Will.
There have been a couple times when both colors share the effect, though. And that brings us to our card this week.
Today we have: Catch / Release
Name: Catch / Release
Edition: Dragon’s Maze
Rarity: Rare
Focus: Permanent Stealing / Board Wipe
Highlights: Pound for pound, Dragon’s Maze may have been one of the best sets of all time with its concentration of Commander-friendly utility cards, in no small part due to the sheer volume of appealing, creative, and powerful multicolor options. Its series of Fuse-enabled split cards are one of many such assets to consider, assuming your deck is capable of handling their particular tricolor combination. Catch / Release is certainly among the more strategically versatile among them…if you are running a minimum of Blue, Red, and White.
Like any split cards, this is the card’s main limitation. Unlike normal casual multiplayer, where you are capable of slotting the card in your deck solely for Catch or Release, the rules nature of Commander requires your deck be able to support casting either side even you don’t plan to. There are numerous examples of split cards over the years where one side is worth it whereas the other is not. Regrettably this can lead to cases where many split cards don’t find their way into EDH usage, but that is the tradeoff of the format we all ascribe to.
Fortunately, both Catch and Release each have their own set of worthwhile merits.
On one side we have Catch, a three mana sorcery that harkens back to temporary card theft. It has the same mana value and overall intent as Threaten – stealing an opponent’s card for the turn, giving it haste, etc. However, its multicolor nature expands the scope from just creatures to any permanent on the battlefield, making it a slightly cheaper to cast Word of Seizing, albeit at sorcery speed. Nevertheless, this dual colored spell allows you to cast a wider net on what Catch can, well, catch. While taking someone’s card for a turn is short-lived, taking the right card at just the right moment can lead to pivotal shifts in board advantage. This is particularly true if the card taken can be lobbed against them, undermine their defenses, or otherwise weaken the card’s effect (e.g. removing counters, getting it killed in combat, activating negative loyalty planeswalker abilities).
On the other side is Release, which you can either see as a Red / White version of Decimate on a larger scale or a less brutal version of Razia’s Purification. Either way, Release is one of a growing number of selective board wipe cards which stipulate a number of cards to either keep or get rid of. In this card’s case, for six mana Release mandates every player sacrifice one of each permanent type they own, including a creature, artifact, land, enchantment, and planeswalker. Depending on the timing of when it’s cast and the volume of cards opposite you on the battlefield, this could be a minor inconvenience to an opponent – or it could be absolutely game changing. No permanent type is spared, and its forced sacrifice gets around indestructible nuisances that may be littered about if it’s their only sacrifice option. This can be especially useful if trying to even the playing field somewhat or if you have far less to lose than your opponent.
Finally, you have the Fuse option, which allows you to cast both at the same time. It’s an extensive option, coming in at a total of nine mana, but it would allow you to both steal a permanent and then guarantee that specific card is sacrificed, or steal your opponent’s primary choice to sacrifice to Release and guarantee something else is destroyed instead. No matter how you splice it, that’s a win-win on your end. Ultimately Catch / Release is better for individual usage than combined due to the costs involved, but Fuse at least gives you the option for later in the game when mana is less of an issue. It is the epitome of manipulating supply and demand.
Except, you know, the demand in this case being the maw of a giant wurm.
Keep an eye out for us to be regularly featuring other more accessible-but-worth-it Commander cards going forward. In the meantime, we’ll keep the light on for you.
You can discuss this article over on our social media!