Sour: The Grapesening

What's the deal with all of the flavor texts involving people rationalizing their situations recently?

Is this some sort of weird subliminal effort on Wizards's part in making the players accept a slow decline in product quality? Or just a general decline in quality of life overall? "Well, at least these booster packs aren't filled with bedbugs and anthrax samples."

Yearn to Burn

The cycle of finales from War of the Spark are variable as any X-spell is, but are clearly intended for the late-game big play with that X ≥ 10 clause. There is already no shortage of mana-heavy spells that can blow the game wide open, but what intrigues me about one of the finales is what happens if it's in fact played for as small a return as possible.

I'm sure the Timmies out there are wringing their hands with the thoughts of getting to replay Time Stretch and Searing Wind from the graveyard three times each, but that's not the type of situation that's going to regularly come up in competitive play. So if cost is an issue, what happens when you only pay 1 for X?

Mono-red burn decks have been around since day one and still have a showing in even Type 1 play. These decks are often built around many cheap spells that do as much damage as possible, aiming to maximize that magic formula of three-damage-for-one-mana. So for a measly three mana, Finale of Promise could recycle a Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning from your graveyard for six damage! Not a bad addition of firepower to these strategies, seeing as their cards in the graveyard are generally fodder for Grim Lavamancer at best.

Consider playing Monastery Swiftspear on turn one, Lightning Bolt and Lava Spike on turn two, then Finale of Promise on turn three: since you do indeed cast the cards from your graveyard with the Finale (as well as the Finale itself!), each instance triggers Prowess for the Swiftspear. This means you can do those 20 necessary points of damage in three turns and with only four cards. That got you burn players salivating, didn't it?

I'm not saying that this is necessarily the ultra secret tech that all burn decks were waiting for and it will become a new staple of all legacy burn decks because... well, it won't. But it's certainly a powerful option if you can get the right setup with enough Lightning Bolt variants. Nevermind that the three cast triggers means the Finale can immediately bring back Arclight Phoenix with essentially one card, meaning this could even have potential in Standard. Even the casual format would appreciate six damage off of Guttersnipe in addition to whatever spells you cast from the graveyard. Of course, if you really want to capitalize on working smarter rather than harder, you could Finale for 0 to cast Ancestral Visions and Evermind out of your graveyard. Two red for four cards isn't so bad, now is it?

Enchant Enchantment

Local enchantments always want to be stuck on something else. Enchant creature, enchant player, even enchant world! Perhaps most accommodating of all is the enchant permanent, which can be stapled to anything at all, even... well, even another local enchantment, come to think of it. Is there something that can be done with this fact?

Consider this: play Indestructibility on one of your cards. Now play a second Indestructibility, enchanting the first one. Lastly, use Simic Guildmage to make the first Indestructibility instead enchant the second one (which is enchanting it in turn.) The result is two auras that are only kept in play by virtue of enchanting the other. Oh yeah, and in this case, they happen to be indestructible, too? Weird stuff.
"Something here is indestructible."
"What is?"
"The indestructibility."