There’s a Twitter account I follow that’s good for the occasional chuckle, Amazon Movie Reviews. The account highlights- as you’d expect- snippets of movie reviews on Amazon, but not the good ones. No, this is the home of the bad review, the ones that went wide of the mark to slip quietly past the edge of reason. Reviews like this one:

Now not every review is quite that ridiculous, and certainly some folks enjoy deliberately being obtuse, but I was reminded of Amazon Movie Reviews the other day when I came across this review of Eternal on the Reddit:

As it happens, I also have a fairly solid background in Magic: the Gathering. And while ultimately experience and enjoyment are subjective, it was the “no decks which promote synergy” remark that raised the eyebrow.

No decks that promote synergy?

Are we playing the same game?

On that note, let’s unwrap today’s casual offering, a deck I like to call Sneaky Pete.

I’ve seen some decks which use infiltrate to augment a solid core, but part of the fun of casual play is that we can really push the narrative. Every card here is designed to give you extra value, winning first through incremental advantage- and then through overwhelming force.

Like my previous deck, Spellslinger, Sneaky Pete can feel like one of the challenges in Puzzle mode, trying to find the best combination of cards and plays that will get your units behind enemy lines for best effect. This lends a lot of fun and replayability to decks. When I’m feeling competitive, I may take my Burn Queen or Stonescar Aggro decks for a spin, but I’ve found just for pure enjoyment these casual decks never seem to play the same game twice.

As before, I’ve built the deck around a core concept without using any Legendary cards. Don’t get me wrong- they’re a blast to play, but they’re also very expensive to craft. I’d like the decks here to be as accessible as possible. Let’s take a look at the key cards and interactions.

All of the Infiltrate cards advance the deck forward, but if there’s one card that does the most heavy lifting, it’s this one. A 1/1 for three Power is a bad deal, but an aggregate 11/11 for three is well worth the effort.

This will usually be your highest-priority unit, though if you’re up against an opponent with a heavy unit in the air you might need to lean on the killing power of Desperado. It’s always good to have options!

Now here’s the secret of the Direwood Beastcaller- the Beasts never have to end! Yes, it’s going to be a challenge to smuggle a brittle 1/1 to the enemy’s backline to trigger the dog whistle…but what if things don’t go according to plan?

These three cards form a brutal recursive combo with your infiltrate units. See, once your Beastcaller (or other utility option of your choice) winds up in the Void, you can bring it right back with Haunting Scream for a surprise. Now your Beastcaller can zip above the fray to connect with your opponent and net you another pair of 5/5 Beasts.

In a deck with only a couple flying units, your opponent is unlikely to be prepared for the play. Typically, players tend to lean on ground units for defense while attacking with flying ones, so you have a good chance of catching your opponent with their defenses down.

And here’s the best part- Charge and Flying are persistent attributes! Yes, you’ll lose your Beastcaller at the end of the turn as part of the Scream’s effect, but now your Beastcaller is permanently evasive and hasty. A Dark Return will pop him right back out of the Void to your hand, ready for another surprise attack. How many Beasts is too many? I haven’t found the answer to that question yet, and not for lack of trying.

Finally, each piece of this synergy is independently useful. If you don’t get all three together, you’re not stuck holding useless combo pieces. Infiltration can be a dangerous business, and you’ll seldom want for a target in the Void. Remember that a brief dirt nap will refresh a unit’s Infiltrate ability so you can use it all over again.

In terms of pure fun factor, this is my favorite card in the deck. The thrill of hitting the unpredictable on the flip is what makes cards like Warp World staples in Magic’s Commander format, and it’s just as much fun in Eternal. Sometimes you nail a Legendary hero or the unit the opponent has been trying to warcry into colossal size and it’s a backbreaking play. Other times, you get whiff on something like Talir’s Favored and have the game tell you that it couldn’t find any Time Sigils in the deck.

Still, it’s a delight to be able to test-drive cards you might not even own, or find clever ways to make do with what you get. I once defeated an opponent who had a pretty solid ground game after connecting with the Recruiter. The flip was discouraging- a Ticking Grenadin– until I saw the path to victory through a pair of Haunting Screams in-hand. I chumped with the Grenadin (3 damage), Screamed it next turn for 1 damage (followed by 3 as it re-died), then Screamed it again the following turn for the win.

“Very, very little complex gameplay” indeed! This deck has plenty of these moments of magic when you puzzle out how to win, and half the fun of the thing is finding them.

The Jekk’s Bounty expansion might not have brought us a ton of what you’d call “constructed playables,” with only the Copperhall Bailiff and Quarry coming to mind, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some casual gems in there. The Spymaster takes everything this deck does and turns it up to eleven.

It’s worth noting that despite specifying “units” in the rules text, having a Spymaster onboard will allow you infinite reuses of the Beastcaller’s Amulet as well. A gift that keeps on giving! And if you manage to stick the Amulet on an actual Beastcaller, well… better stockpile some meat in the freezer because that’s a lot of mouths to feed.

The rest of the deck is rounded out by additional Infiltrate units and the cards that enable them. A pair of West-Wind Heralds are your top-of-curve creature, as you only really need to see them later in the game when you have some spells in the Void. About the only thing as fun as multiplying Beasts is to have a Spymaster in play alongside a Herald, and a copy of Deathstrike in the Void!

The enablers come in the form of removal, with two Crystallizes there as a safety net. If you happen to encounter attack zone gridlock with a bunch of Infiltrate units unable to make profitable attacks, one of these will part your enemies like Moses and the Red Sea.

General Notes

I did test the Argenport Ringmaster, with a concept version of the deck packing a pair. I found them to be generally underwhelming. Sure the payoff can be substantial- five units from your enemy’s void!- but I found them to be what’s called a “win-more” card.

If you’re in a position to be hitting your opponent with a 5/5 body and get full value on the Infiltrate trigger, then you’re probably already well enough ahead that you don’t need to gamble on having a six-drop bump up the curve. Remember, the deck’s objectives are about slipping through enemy lines more than actually killing the enemy units. One of your best forms of removal, Permafrost, doesn’t even send its target to the graveyard.

If you’ve never played a unit with Deadly and Quickdraw like the Gorgon Swiftblade, it’s a bit like deathtouch in Magic. The Swiftblade is very painful to oppose once it’s triggered its Infiltrate, because it will kill the first two units opposing it before it can even begins to take damage from a third.

Finally, Eternal’s mulligan rules seem to reward running Power-light, and I only run 27 here. The cheaper curve and playset of Vara’s Favor level that out for the most part, but 2-3 Power in an opening hand is ideal.

In conclusion, while everyone’s entitled to their opinion, I think Sneaky Pete highlights rather well some of the complexity and on-board intricacy that Eternal offers.

For those wanting to give it a try, here’s the decklist:

4 Dark Return (Set1 #250)

4 Permafrost (Set1 #193)

4 Gorgon Swiftblade (Set1 #377)

4 Haunting Scream (Set1 #374)

4 Vara’s Favor (Set0 #35)

2 Beastcaller’s Amulet (Set1 #282)

4 Desperado (Set1 #273)

4 Direwood Beastcaller (Set1 #271)

2 Spur On (Set2 #152)

4 Cabal Recruiter (Set1 #283)

4 Cabal Spymaster (Set1001 #14)

4 Deathstrike (Set1 #290)

2 Crystallize (Set1 #232)

2 West-Wind Herald (Set1 #231)

6 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)

9 Shadow Sigil (Set1 #249)

4 Feln Banner (Set1 #417)

4 Seat of Cunning (Set0 #62)

4 Diplomatic Seal (Set1 #425)