Dealing with Rhystic Study in cEDH
With Dockside Extortionist gone and cEDH as a whole having slowed down substantially in recent months, it should come as no surprise that Rhystic Study has emerged as the card of the format. Love it or hate it, odds are that you're either playing it or have a very compelling reason not to (for what it's worth, I count playing Flubs, the Fool as being compelling).
So, with so many copies of Rhystic Study running around, what's the best way to deal with it? I'm here to tell you that the answers are far broader than simply "counter on sight," although I yield that that is certainly a valid option, so let's get into it.
Clone It
First off, a brief history lesson from cEDH's Dockside Extortionist days. Back when Dockside was around, so too were creature clones of every sort. Phyrexian Metamorph, Flesh Duplicate, Phantasmal Image, the list goes on and on. Granted, cEDH had plenty of potent creatures to running around which were worth cloning, but don't be mistaken: the entire point of running clones (beyond Sakashima of a Thousand Faces) was to capitalize on someone else's Dockside Extortionist.
The premise was, if someone cast a Dockside and didn't win then and there, then it was up to the next player to find a clone, copy Dockside, and huzzah! The clone-player didn't even need to have a Dockside-centric combo: with that much mana available, the odds were pretty good that the game was going to end that turn.
These were the same card.
The proof of Dockside Extortionist's capacity to warp the format towards one full of clones is evident in how things have changed since after its banning. Nowadays, you'd be hard-pressed to find a deck running more than one clone unless it's specifically geared to abuse it with self-contained synergies (Atraxa, Grand Unifier and copying its triggered ability, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy and cloning just about anything an activation can find, etc).
So, what does this ramble about Dockside Extortionist teach us? That the best threats in the format aren't just worth stopping, they're worth copying. If a nonred deck would run up to three clones just for a creature it couldn't entirely break, then why on Earth aren't cEDH players copying one of the most prolific and powerful draw engines in the game?
I don't know about you, but I like drawing cards even more than I like making mana, and that means I love having a Rhystic Study on my side of the field, even if that Rhystic Study is really a card like, I don't know, Copy Enchantment, perhaps?
These should be the same card.
Beyond Copy Enchantment, cEDH also has access to Mirrormade, which trades in a slightly more prohibitive mana cost relative to Copy Enchantment ( vs ) in order to allow for the cloning of artifacts. The One Ring is still a very relevant card nowadays, so that one pip of blue mana is frequently worth it, especially in low color decks than can readily afford it.
Steal It
Next up on our triage for Rhystic Study is good old-fashioned theft. There's no opening scrawl about Dockside Extortionist here, but I will remind you that Gilded Drake is pretty good and as such I imagine a Gilded Drake for the best card in the format is pretty good, too. So, how are we stealing Rhystic Study? Simple: Steal Enchantment.
Did you know this can also grab cards like Smothering Tithe?
For , Steal Enchantment is an Aura with "Enchant enchantment" and one simple-but-powerful effect: "You control enchanted enchantment." Like Gilded Drake (up until the printing of Volatile Stormdrake, that is), this is a pretty unique effect from across Magic cards, especially at the two-mana-value slot. So, unlike Copy Enchantment, if you want to steal a Rhystic Study for a reasonable price (which I maintain that you should), then Steal Enchantment is your option.
So, now that I've sung the praises of Steal Enchantment as a solution for Rhystic Study (Pay two mana to effectively destroy one and get your own? Sign me up!), I do have to caution everyone on too readily deploying it in your games: it may seem counter-intuitive, but a Steal Enchantment on the stack will often times face more of opposition than an enchantment clone. Why? Because whoever controls the original Rhystic Study will, most likely, fight Steal Enchantment with their lives.
Like I mentioned earlier, Steal Enchantment represents both you gaining a Rhystic Study and an opponent losing theirs. Simply cloning a Rhystic Study presents the opportunity for whoever owned the original one to imagine themselves as still outpacing whoever cloned it (you'll both be drawing cards afterwards, so parity is maintained in that sense). Stealing, on the other hand, removes the opportunity for that future parity balance, presenting a significant threat to the original Rhystic-player.
Remove It
Finally, we come to the classic: just blow it up. In all seriousness, I believe that cEDH players don't presently run enough ways of interacting with the board these days. Valuable creatures, valuable artifacts, and - a la Rhystic Study - valuable enchantments. For most decks, answers to these nuisances come via the usual removal swath - Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares - some number of noncreature counterspells, and a bounce spell or two.
Certainly a potent toolkit that has done its fair share in balancing cEDH over the years, but not enough to realistically deal with cards like Rhystic Study which tend to be painfully sticky once they hit the board.
So, what are some top picks for dealing with Rhystic Study? My top three are Haywire Mite, Pick Your Poison, and Force of Vigor. Looks like were swapping from the blue to the green part of this article.
Haywire Mite
First, Haywire Mite. For , this little 1/1 Insect packs an important ability: the option to exile a noncreature artifact or enchantment. Simply pay and sacrifice it at any time to get rid of something pesky, from an indestructible The One Ring to this article's namesake Rhystic Study, Haywire Mite hits it all. Plus, you'll gain two life as a separate triggered ability when Haywire Mite dies. All in all, not a bad card; certainly worth the two mana (in total), especially since you can spread it out over multiple turns.
Pick Your Poison
Next, Pick Your Poison. For just , this mini-board wipe presents you with two routinely powerful modes to choose from, plus a third occasionally useful last choice: each opponent sacrifices an artifact, each opponent sacrifices an enchantment, and each opponent sacrifices a creature with flying (as if Kraum, Ludevic's Opus wasn't dead enough already).
Now, thankfully enchantments aren't a particularly abundant card type, so when you choose to have every opponent sacrifice one then you'll most likely see somebody sacrifice whatever enchantment it is that you were particularly worried about (unlike sacrificing artifacts, where players would much more frequently sacrifice a mana rock than their The One Rings). Plus, since this spell doesn't target, there's no worry about Deflecting Swat or the like interrupting your plans. That's pretty good for one mana.
Force of Vigor
Finally, Force of Vigor. You know what's better than one mana? No mana! That's right, we've finally reached an answer to Rhystic Study that costs nothing, save for the green card you'll have to exile from your hand in order to avoid paying the normal mana cost of . So, once you've paid either another green card or , what do you get? An instant that let's you destroy up to two target artifacts and/or enchantments.
Free cards are usually good in Magic, and Force of Vigor is no exception: even before our current midrange format, Force of Vigor was running around in some of the more responsible decks. Maybe it's worth giving it a try in your list?
Wrap Up
Rhystic Study is a very good card, but don't let its noncreature typeline fool you: there are far more ways to deal with it than just countering it. Clone it, steal it, destroy it; interaction extends far beyond the stack, and we'd all be a bit better off for remembering that.
