Hello World

Hello World!

My name is Ryan Lackie, and this blog will be dedicated to talking about Magic: The Gathering. I'm not much of a spike player, so this blog is dedicated to all the Timmys and Johnys out there. I am relatively new to the game, I played a little during the end of Ravnica block, but then came back near the end of Shards block, and have been a much more involved player during the entirety of Zendikar block. Some things you should about me and blogging is that I am usually a poor speller, and that i love puns. My comeback to whenever someone comments on my spelling is that I explain how I am a computer programmer, and that i can name variables anything i want, so matter what it represents. I could make a variable "asgfbvaev" if i wanted to.

Introductions aside, its time for my first bit of content. I will usually talk about cards in standard simply because that is what i know, but i do have friends who have very old cards and they can make guest appearances. As far as new content goes, how about cards that haven't even been officially released yet? Yes, Rise of the Eldrazi is all the talk these days, and I am going to talk about a couple interesting things i see from this set, let's go!

First, I think it's really funny how in the preview articles, they said cards like Glory Seeker (vanilla 2/2 for 1W) were going to be very weak in this set because of how the limited environment was. They used that specefic example at least 3 times leading up to the pre-release. Low and behold, what do i see in the visual spoiler, but the Glory Seeker himself. Well isn't that just glorious? To be completely honest, if your seeking glory, you can pass by this guy.

One of the decks that I play is an Izzet RU deck, and of course i made sure to include a pair of Niv-Mizzet, the Fireminds in there. In addition to just being a cool dragon in my colors that thematically IS Izzet, i say it makes all my blue cards more aggressive. One game i had him out, with no cards in my hand. I drew a mind spring and cast it, with X = 6. Draw 6 cards, 6 free damage to take out a pair of 2/1s and 4 damage to the face all for 6UU? When it comes to things like this, i like to break it up and see how i could represent this one cards ability as if i was casting multiple cards at once. Heres one combination of cards i came up with: Electrolyze (2 damage divided as your choose [take out 2 2/1s], draw a card 1UR) + Flame Javelin (4 damage [to the face] RRR) + Divination (Draw 2 cards 2U) + Ancestral Recall (Draw 3 cards U). That totals up to 1UR + RRR + 2U + U = 4UUURRRR. 11 mana and 4 cards vs 8 mana and 2? I'll go with the later.
What i'm getting at is that I think Niv-Mizzet is the man, because he can also tap to draw more cards and do more damage for 0 mana. So then i saw an ROE card released called Snake Umbra (Enchantment - Aura, Whenever enchanted creature deals damage to an oppenent, draw a card, +1/+1, Totem Armor). While it didn't hit me immediatly, i soon realized that you could combo that with Niv-Mizzet and instantly win as long as your library has more cards in it than your opponent has life. If you for some reason have less cards in your library than your opponent has life, than you can stop stop drawing at any point because Snake Umbra specifically says that you MAY draw a card. So now you can draw 8 cards at the beginning of your turn, do 8 damage to your oppenent and then proceed to bash with all the sweet spells you just drew.

So lets build a deck with this combo. I like to keep my decks budget friendly, because while its cool to talk about how have 4x Jace, The Mind Sculptors would be, i don't want to drop $220 on something that someone could kill with a $1 playset of lightning bolts. That being said, This deck is interesting, because it is 3 colors, but not in a shard. UGR. I see this as bieng a combo of Blue draw spells, Green land fetchers/color fixers, and Red removal. Here is my decklist:

Creatures:
3 Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
3 Rampaging Baloths

Other Spells:
4 Harrow
4 Rampant Growth
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
3 Electrolyze
4 Snake Umbra
4 Flame Slash
4 Ancient Stirrings

Land:
10 Forest
7 Mountains
5 Islands


I always work out the non-basic lands last btw. When i looked at this list, i felt it was too heavy on the green lend fetching and too light on actual damage outside of our combo, so i decided to cut the Ancient Stirrings for 4 deprives for some defense. So here is the final list, which a budget mana base:

Creatures:
3 Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind
3 Rampaging Baloths

Other Spells:
4 Harrow
4 Rampant Growth
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
3 Electrolyze
4 Snake Umbra
4 Flame Slash
4 Deprive

Land:
5 Forest
4 Mountains
4 Islands
4 Kazandu Refuge
4 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Halimar Depths


I look forward to putting it all together after ROE is released, but i don't think it will cost much at all to put together, The rares are:
Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind (3 x 9 = 27)
Rampaging Baloths (3 x 5 = 15)
For a rares total of $42. <--- How perfect!

I was actually shocked when i saw that Niv-Mizzet was going for $9, i bought 2 a few months ago at $4 for the Guildpact one, and $8 for the FTV: Dragons one. Now its $9 and $12 respectively.



Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed my very first post on this new blog. I will be returning as often as i can for fun deck creations, or developing thoughts. One thing that I'm thinking about is a great infinite mana combo consisting of Filigree Sages + Training Grounds + Khalni Gem. Considering all the crap blue has been getting, i will make a mono-blue deck that can take advantage of infinite mana. I'm thinking Mind Spring.... Lorothos, the Tide Maker....
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this article! Let me know what you think!

Lackie_XC_06@yahoo.com