Diamond in the Rough #1: Abolish

Heya,

This is the start of a series of articles on cards that have practical applications in Vintage but either haven’t found the right deck yet or are still waiting for a critical mass of printings to happen in order to become relevant. This is more or less a “cards to watch” series that looks at spells and effects that meet the Vintage requirements for power and utility but for whatever reason, have not made an impact.

Today I’m looking at Abolish. The card reads, “1WW, Instant, You may discard a Plains card rather than pay Abolish's mana cost. Destroy target artifact or enchantment.” Okay, so what have we got here?

Instant speed? Check
Alternate casting cost? Check
Affects critical cards commonly played in Vintage? Yep
In popular deck lists? No way

Sounds like a Diamond in the Rough! It’s kind of funny, but Disenchant effects are amazingly powerful right now, and likely always will be going forward. Seal of Primordium, Seal of Cleansing, and Qasali Pridemage are seeing a good amount of play in Vintage right now. So cards with Abolish’s effect are generally accepted as solid utility cards. That’s score one point in favor of this card.

Pitching a land is sometimes a problem and sometimes not in Vintage. In the opening grip, it’s usually pretty bad. You need at least your first two land drops to get your deck running. However, as the game goes on, those extra lands become less relevant and playing spells becomes more important. You’re likely to draw into land you don’t need. Abolish gives you the ability to tap out to play some other card, then when you opponent thinks your weak, give you to option to pitch a card you don’t need to play a powerful effect. In a color like white, tapping out is necessary in almost every game at some point. Abolish can let you bait your opponent into exposing a critical card that you can blow away on his end step. Score half a point here.

But what’s keeping Abolish back? Well, honestly, there’s just way too many more efficient cards out there that do basically the same thing. The aforementioned Seals along with more dedicated cards like Oxidize, Ancient Grudge, Krosan Grip, etc are just better at destroying relevant cards. It just lacks a good hard casing cost, cantrip, or some other intangible to make it a viable choice over other cards right now.

So why might Abolish someday be a card that shines? The answer is speed. Every few sets, we get some new mana acceleration card. Elvish Archdruid, Simian Spirit Guide, Rite of Flame, and Chrome Mox are some more recent examples. These are going to keep adding up. Examine how much faster Vintage is today vs. oh let’s say the Mask block era when Abolish was printed. There are so many more ways to generate card advantage and mana on turns 1, 2, and 3 now than there ever were back then. Chances are good, in three to five years, there will be even more plays possible on the opening turns. Thus cards like Abolish will gain more importance. You may not have time to get to your second or third land drop before a Time Vault combo is established or a turn 1 Oath + Time Walk combo is pulled off. It is very conceivable that some time down the road, being able to kill an artifact or enchantment before your first land drop becomes one of the most important plays you can make.

I’m not telling you to run out and buy a playset of these now. But what I am telling you is to not forget about this card down the road. You never know when it might become the next big tech.

Peace,

-Troy