The next Duel Decks product to be released is the latest in the sub-series of planeswalker-against-planeswalker decks. Sorin vs. Tibalt, coming out March 15, will have decks based on two individuals from Innistrad with radically different goals for its mortal inhabitants. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad wishes to protect them, and Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded seeks to use them for his twisted amusement. Traditionally, Duel Decks products have one mythic and five rares for each of the opposing decks. Since the planeswalkers of the title take up the mythic slots, the identities of the five rares for each are up in the air. So what could Sorin's be? Let me speculate:
Thematically, this is a good fit for Sorin. He cares about safeguarding the Humans and Vampires of Innistrad from harm, often from one another, and his abilities support a weenie aggro build. So an Innistrad creature that rewards getting a lot of small creatures on the board meshes perfectly with Sorin's favored strategy. Plus, it's a much-needed piece of card advantage for a deck that might empty its hand overly fast.
For obvious reasons, tokens are a big thing for this version of Sorin. White-black tokens was a massive force in the Standard of Innistrad block, and I'm reasonably certain that the Sorin deck will hearken back to that. But some of the most efficient producers of the omnipresent 1/1 white creature token aren't actually in Innistrad block. Thus we can look to the time of Sorin's debut, Zendikar block, and allow him to call an army of Kor Soldiers that'll give him a significant advantage mid-game or, when kicked, act as a spectacular finisher.
Another way for Sorin to win comes from Zendikar once again, and fits his vampiric rather than his righteous nature. It's not hard for Sorin's kind of deck to keep up the kind of consistent bleeding that the Ascension takes to turn on, and with some mass removal - which I'll get to in a moment - can let you feel like a real antihero as your opponents' life slips away.
4. Mass Calcify
Aggro decks often want for mass creature kill to clear their way in combat, but also stand to lose the most from casting it. This apparent paradox is wrapped up fairly neatly with effectively-one-sided spells like this one from Shadowmoor. Sorin will lose the monoblack portion of his army if he uses this, but his character has to make a lot of difficult choices, and blowing up Tibalt's foul fiends will be worth it.
5. Nyxathid
Tibalt wants to empty his hand, is that so? He wants to blaze away all of his resources in a furious assault of hatred, uncaring of the consequences? Ha ha ha! This'll show him!
Got your own ideas as to the rares Sorin's deck will contain? Let me know in the comments!
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