Wizards have printed a bunch of new playable Regrowth variants recently, and I for one am excited. I like regrowths more than in cube than anywhere else (and I love them everywhere else) because they're simultaneously goodstuff and promote archetypal decks (hit Eternal Witness and you can get back the Collected Company that found it, Treeternal Witness gives you up to three Wildfires). When you get a couple together in a deck it almost has a toolbox feel; I promote this as an archetype in Sultai and it's super cool. Red can regrow Fireball effects to get in on the party, and if you have any blink in white these are some primo targets.
The other really exciting thing about them, though, is the late-game reach they can give some decks. When you and Villain are topdecking, for
you can set up a Cryptic Command / Eternal Witness soft lock and counter a spell every turn. The new Mystic Confluence and Greenwarden let you do it too, for an even larger amount of mana. For just Cloudshift and a Witness provide a chump blocker forever, Eternal Witness / Profane Command is a straight house, JVP flashes back key spells, &c. - recursion is a lot of fun in singleton (or largely-singleton) environments!
If you're looking to enable "combo" or prison in the form of soft locks, these effects tend to go well with blink, bounce and reanimation (to reuse the ETB effect), especially if it's part of a modal spell that does something else beyond just loop cards for Prowess triggers. (bant prowess with cloudshift/witness sounds fun, maybe?)
This raises a couple of interesting questions to me. First, why am I not running double Witness? It's so versatile and great, and they even combo with each other for infinite chump blocks. Second, how do I enable recursive 'combo' that isn't 'llark combo? (I wasn't super into the Saffi Eriksdottir loops but Body Double ones might still be interesting)
Recursive cards are tricky because they 'draw' you a copy of the best spell you've played so far, so overloading your early game with them leads to stumbling. But you only need a couple of cards in a deck to enable a late-game archetype switch, and even the average case (removal, fetchland) is still quite good. Run more recursive dudes, I guess!
The other really exciting thing about them, though, is the late-game reach they can give some decks. When you and Villain are topdecking, for
you can set up a Cryptic Command / Eternal Witness soft lock and counter a spell every turn. The new Mystic Confluence and Greenwarden let you do it too, for an even larger amount of mana. For just Cloudshift and a Witness provide a chump blocker forever, Eternal Witness / Profane Command is a straight house, JVP flashes back key spells, &c. - recursion is a lot of fun in singleton (or largely-singleton) environments!If you're looking to enable "combo" or prison in the form of soft locks, these effects tend to go well with blink, bounce and reanimation (to reuse the ETB effect), especially if it's part of a modal spell that does something else beyond just loop cards for Prowess triggers. (bant prowess with cloudshift/witness sounds fun, maybe?)
This raises a couple of interesting questions to me. First, why am I not running double Witness? It's so versatile and great, and they even combo with each other for infinite chump blocks. Second, how do I enable recursive 'combo' that isn't 'llark combo? (I wasn't super into the Saffi Eriksdottir loops but Body Double ones might still be interesting)
Recursive cards are tricky because they 'draw' you a copy of the best spell you've played so far, so overloading your early game with them leads to stumbling. But you only need a couple of cards in a deck to enable a late-game archetype switch, and even the average case (removal, fetchland) is still quite good. Run more recursive dudes, I guess!
