Awoo!
Werewolves of Innistrad
I recently talked about Innistrad and the mechanics of double-faced cards. Today I want to talk about werewolves in specific. Why? Because I was initially very concerned about how well they would play, if they would be any fun, and if they would work at all, and I’ve heard those concerns echoed by a lot of others out there on the ol’ interweb. So now that I’ve had a chance to actually use them, I wanted to talk about what I’ve found, for those of you who are still holding out.
In case you don’t know, all werewolves transform on the same trigger: if no spells were cast last turn, all werewolves transform into their “night side.” If a single player cast two or more spells last turn, all werewolves transform into their “day side.” In general, the night side is the scarier one, though most werewolves are actually relatively playable (in limited, anyway) even if they never transform.
At first glance, it seems like it’s hard to get your werewolves to transform. Or, rather, costly. A whole turn of not playing spells? What a waste! That’s going to lose me the game! There’s a couple of things to think about though, at least as far as limited is concerned:
Firstly, depending on how much your deck relies on werewolves, you may never have to bother skipping that turn. If you’ve only got a couple werewolves, you can just run things normally, and keep pressure on your opponent. Eventually, he’ll run out of steam and pass a turn without casting spells, and that’s when you’ll get full mileage out of your werewolf. Or, alternatively, you might empty out your hand and just not have any plays naturally. And, as I said above, even if they never transform, most werewolves are fairly playable.
Secondly, if you have enough werewolves (or one really powerful one, like the Mayor of Avabruck, for example), in a limited game, it can be well worth your while to skip a turn, even if it’s a complete waste besides the transformation. An early transformed werewolf can very well end the game by himself, no questions asked. And a later transformation (with three or four werewolves on the field) will be almost impossible to come back from…without transforming them back, anyway.
And that’s where werewolves get really fun: when games become a tense struggle over which side of the werewolves are up. I can only speak from my experience, but let me tell you that werewolves tend to get pretty busy once you decide to invest in transforming them. I had a few games where I started to feel sorry for the little guys, because they were transforming almost constantly, back and forth, as my opponent struggled desperately to keep them from staying werewolf long enough to overwhelm him.
Not all games were like that, of course, but a lot were. Sometimes they’d just transform and kill everything right away, of course. Other times, I’d need to keep casting spells to avoid being overrun myself, and couldn’t afford to transform them. But most of the time, in my experience, when you get a lot of werewolves together, the game stops being so much about directly opposing your opponent, and more about whether those werewolves are feeling hungry, or if you can keep them satiated with enough spells.
It’s true that it sucks when you skip your turn to transform your werewolves only to have your opponent Think Twice at the end of the turn, and it’s also true that it’s frustrating having to worry about casting two spells on the same turn once they’re transformed (I’ve occasionally had this be the correct play, though, and that was fun as well), but generally speaking, in my experience, if you can get a werewolf flipped and ready to go, you’ll probably be in a position where such setbacks won’t matter that much.
As for constructed, I don’t pretend to know anything about high-level constructed play, or about the situation at your kitchen table. I can tell you this, though: generally speaking, constructed play sees much more removal, and much better removal, so chances are you’re going to get less mileage out of your werewolves as they get continually pacified/doom bladed/beast withined/unsummoned/etc.
Still, they’re powerful, and a dedicated werewolf deck might very well be able to perform in your casual playgroup, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few constructed zoo decks picked up a few of the better werewolves. And then of course, there’s Moonmist, which allows for easy transformations (plus acts as a one-sided fog). I’ve heard a lot of talk about a “defensive” werewolf deck, that drops wolves, waits for the opponent to attack all-out, and then casts Moonmist to destroy the opponent’s field and then swing for massive damage next turn. While I’m not sure that that would ever work a second time, constructed’s easy access to transformation makes werewolves a much more appetizing deck idea.