Post Rotation Decks Episode 3: Emrakul Rises Again!

Hey, in case you were late to the party, I am making a series of posts called "Post Rotation Decks" where I basically think of an idea for a new deck post rotation, post a decklist I think up on the spot, explain why it's cool, and maybe post a variation.

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is the most powerful creature ever printed. And when an insanely overpowered card gets printed, everyone tries to think of ways to cheat it into play (see Polymorph). Scars provides us with another card that can get Emrakul into play called Clone Shell. WAAY back on September 5th, I mentioned how this card can be used to snatch an Emrakul. At the time I mentioned Sarkhan the Mad, but the most combolicious color of all time is.... Blue. So I am going to make a blue deck for this combo.

4x Clone Shell
4x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Augury Owl
4x Sphinx of Jwar Isle

4x Preordain
4x Foresee
4x Deprive
2x See Beyond
4x Jace Beleran
3x Shape Anew

4x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn
11x Island
4x Halimar Depths

This deck is your basic combo shell with cards like Preordain, Foresee, Deprive, and See Boyond. However, this combo si a little stranger because we don't want all of the combo in our hands, we want a piece to be on the top of our deck. So, that requires a little more work. I put in Sphinx of Jwar Isle to keep a tab on the top of your library, so as soon as you see Exrakul on top, you can cast your Clone Shell knowing it's going to be a hit. Also, I tossed in Jace Beleran to work with the Sphinx. If you don't see the card you want on top, just go -1 to draw that card and take a new chance at seeing your boom boom on top.

One card I tossed in even though I initially dismissed it is Shape Anew. The only artifact in this deck is Clone Shell, so with Shape Anew, you can do 2 things: first, you can take a risk if you're feeling lucky with your Clone Shell and if you miss, you can cast Shape Anew, which will bring out a fresh newly shaped Clone Shell, giving you another shot at hitting Emrakul. Secondly, if your opponent is lame and doesn't want to kill your clone shell by either attacking into it or refusing to block, this will also kill your Shell and allow you to do all the work yourself.

I don't necessarily think this will be a powerful deck by ay means, but if you don't want to make my mono-green eldrazi ramp deck, which can cast Emrakul in (I side it in against UW control), this is the next best way to get that behemoth of a destructive purple flying... thing... on your side of the battlefield.

Anyways, I am going to hit the hay. Stay tuned as I rack off some other deck ideas floating in my head, you never know what might come next!

Post Rotation Decks Episode 2: Suiting Up for Trouble

Hey I'm back again, talking about decks I can't make right now! I was talking to DJ about making a Boros Equipment deck, and I am also going to touch base on the mon-white version (although I feel the Boros deck will be better). So why am I still talking? You probably aren't even reading this part because you have already scrolled down to the list (or so I hope) so here it is:

Boros Equipment

4x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Cunning Sparkmage
4x Goblin Gaveleer
3x Sunspear Shikari
4x Kitesail Apprentice
4x Kor Duelist
2x Spikeshot Elder

4x Quest for the Holy Relic

1x Infiltration Lens

1x Livewire Lash
2x Sword of Body and Mind
2x Adventuring Gear
1x Basilisk Collar
2x Sword of Vengence

2x Lightning Bolt
2x Galvanic Blast

4x Arid Mesa
9x Plains
7x Mountains

This deck has an insanely low curve that you can abuse to quickly dump out your whole hand with. There are a total of 6 cards (2 Sword of B+M, 2 Sword of Vengence, 2 Cunning Sparkmage) with a cmc of 3 or greater. Stoneforge Mystic is an absolute champ in this deck, and you can abuse her to find any equipment you need for the given situation, which allows you to play no more than 2 of any given equipment. Quest for the Holy Relic will also get those equipment strait into play, all adding up to a ton of equipment floating around allowing any creature that sticks (even the Stoneforge Mystic herself) to become a serious threat. Here's one insane combo I want to bring up:

Turn 1: Goblin Gaveleer
Turn 2: play and equip Adventuring Gear to Goblin Gaveleer, attack for 3
Turn 3: play and crack Arid Mesa, attack for 7. Use 3 mana to do some crazy stuff

That is an insanely fast clock! now replace Goblin Gaveleer with Kor Duelist. You will hit for 2 on turn 2, but then 10 after using the fecth land. Ok, now replace that with Kitesail Apprentice. Hit for 2 on turn 2, then 6 after using Arid Mesa! Oh, and did I mention this only takes two cards, we're still on turn 3, and theres 3 lands you have up waiting to get tapped into?

Now, before Scars came out I had built a mono-white equipment deck. It never realy worked great, but here is the new version:

4x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Kor Skyfisher
3x Kor Outfitter
4x Kor Duelist
4x Kitesail Apprentice
4x Sunspear Shikari
2x Auriok Edgewright
1x Kemba, Kha Regent
24

4x Quest for the Holy Relic

1x Argentum Armor
1x Strata Scythe
1x Infiltration Lens
1x Livewire Lash
2x Sword of Body and Mind
2x Sword of Vengence
3x Trusty Machete

21x Plains

This deck should be overall more consistant, but it can also abuse Stoneforge Mystic more! By using Kor Skyfisher to bounce the Mystic, you can fetch up more lands, and get more counters on your Quest. Two interesting pieces of equipment I brought in for this deck are Argentum Armor and Strata Scythe. Argentum Armor is obviously insanely powerful. However, to get around its restrictive cost, we can either use Stoneforge Mystic --> Kor Outfitter, or if we have a Quest ready to sacrifice, we can fetch it strait out. Argentum Armor is probably one of te best pieces of equipment ever made if you erase the costs of playing and equipping, so it should be cheated in. Strata Scythe, on the other hand, is a piece of equipment I think could be absolutely insane in mono-colored decks. In this deck, by the time you play and equip it, it's going to give that creature about +4/+4 and can only go up from there! At the very worst, it is simply a fun card. I'm thinking a deck I may post in these series may be a mono-green deck different from the Eldrazi Ramp deck I posted the other day, which does very well with Bellowing Tanglewurm. But that's for another day! For now, I hope you like this deck idea, and stay tuned as I will simply be cranking these out whenever I get the chance (I'm starting my next one as soon as I finish this). So too-da-loo for now

Post Rotation Decks Episode 1: The Obligitory Infect Deck

Hey Hey Hey!

This is the happiest time of the year, when children can wake up, look under their beds, and see the gleaming Scars of Mirroden booster packs under their bed softly whispering "build decks with me, build decks with me." Ok, maybe not til friday. But hey, it's always nice to imagine.

This is the start of what is probably an incredibly short series where I spend an entire article talking about a deck I don't have. Today is the easy day in terms of coming up with an idea, and I will make an infect deck.

Infect, or phyrexia as a whole, is in the "snake colors" of green, black, and blue. There are 6 green and 6 black creatures with Infect (if you count Carrion Call towards a creature). However, adding blue would provide card advantage and more proliferate spells. If you want to see a BUG infect deck, there was one posted on The Professors on BlackBorder.com. I am not sold on using blue and here's why:

"However, adding blue would provide card advantage and more proliferate spells." <--While I did just say that, I am going to counter that statement before it can resolve with this:

Infiltration Lens is the new Skullclamp, especially in an infect deck. It already sucks to get hit by an infect creature, because they kill you twice as fast and there's no way to eliminate poison counters. But it sucks even worse when you have to choose between getting poisoned and giving your opponent insane card advantage while permanently crippling your creature, assuming they live.

Also, in terms of proliferating, there are only 6 proliferate cards, 3 of which are blue, and the other 3 are colorless artifacts. Theres no need to splash if you don't have to, and Contagion Clasp does the trick unless you have a low enough curve to support Contagion Engine. Throne of Geth sucks...

So basically there's no need for blue in our deck. Also, I feel that black is much stronger than green when it comes to infect cards. Black has Skithryx (which I fully agree is insanely good after seeing how awesome infect is in action) and Hand of the Praetors, which can cause you to win games without even attacking. So I will build a Black/Green infect deck and a mono-black version (of course I say that, and today's daily deck list is a mono-green infect deck http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/548 Check that out if you want to see a cool mono-green list).

Black Green Infect
4x Hand of the Praetors
3x Skithryx, the Blight Dragon
3x Putrefax
4x Blight Mamba
4x Corpse Cur
4x Ichorclaw Myr
3x Tangle Angler

4x Infiltration Lens
1x Contagion Engine
4x Vines of the Vastwood
4x Doom Blade

4x Verdant Catacombs
10x Forest
8x Swamp

I was actually suprised after building this that theres more green than black, but then again, it does make sense. While Hand and Skithryx may be practically essential, Vines of the Vastwood is a champ in this deck. It can protect your guys if need be, but it can also kill your opponent from out of nowhere. Attack with Ichorclaw Myr? Ok, I can go to 6 poison counters, oh wait nevermind, that's game over.

Here's the mono-black version:

4x Hand of the Praetors
3x Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
2x Ichor Rats
4x Ichorclaw Myr
4x Corpse Cur
4x Plague Stinger
3x Contagious Nim

4x Doom Blade
4x Grasp of Darkness
4x Sign in Blood
2x Infiltration Lens

22x Swamp

I think the green/black version is probably better than what the mono-back version can produce, but the mono-black version does provide more evasion and removal, so it's not a strict better/worse.

Anyways, I have other decks I am brewing in my head that I just can't wait to materialize, so I am going to go for now, and either later tonight or tomorrow, I should have my next deck(s) posted around the equipment theme!

Scars Remain

Hey Paul, guess what? I updated my blog. Yeah, it makes me happy too.

It's Sunday Morning, about 12:30am and last night/morning I was at the Toys N Things pre-launch party. It was absolutely awesome! While I doidn't blow away the competition, I went 2-2 with a fun UB Infect deck. Before i get to the deck itself, these are the rares I opened in my packs:

Sword of Body and Mind
Nim Deathmantle
Inexorable Tide
Myr Propogator
Razorverge Thicket
True Conviction
Ezuri's Brigade - foil

I made a UB infect deck that was more than half artifacts, although I didn't have any metalcraft cards in almost my entire sealed pool. I didn't know how good infect was going to be, and Inexorable Tide is my only proliferate card (although an amazing one at that), so there wouldn't be too many shenanagans going on.

Round 1: BR
My opponent for this round was a pudgy ginger that looked to be 12 years old. I didn't really like him at first because he was acting like a punk the whole time during the match. Over the course of the night I saw him from time to time and his actions simply proved he was a complete jerk. On a side note, he looks like he was 12 years old and he claims to have been playing Magic for 6 years. A little odd...

Anyways, Game 1 started off interestingly. We both were trying to poison eachother and I soon got him to 6 counters when I dropped Inexorable Tide. Now every spell would infect him. He then dropped Carnifex Demon and wound up getting me down to 4 life. He had 9 poison counters, I had 4 life. If I draw a spell I win, otherwise I lose. Top deck: Island.

Game 2 went worse for me, he only got up to 4 poison counters and he beat me down with his Demon again.

0-2
0-1

After that game I realized I was a little removal light, so I splashed red into my deck to add Shatter, Arc Trail, and Assault Strobe.

Round 2: Mono Green

Talk about meeting all kinds of people. Round 1 I was against this punk kid who had a voice like Justin Beiber and was all bragatory. Round 2 I am against a kid who has no business at the store, but said he was only there because his brother needed a ride. As it turns out he just gives all his cards to his brother and he doesn't even have any Magic constructed decks of any type at his house.

With that being said, his deck didn't actually do anything and i quickly won 2-0 without anything spectacular happening. Although I guess turn 3 Sword of Body and Mind against mono-green is pretty sick.

2-0
1-1

Round 3: Mono White
I honestly don't even remember playing this round.... According to my notes I went 2-1. Sounds good!
2-1
2-1

Round 4: BG Infect
At this point I was confident in my deck based on its success so far. Of course right when I get confortable is when I get awkward draws and go 0-2.

0-2
2-2

At that point I just dropped because I was tired and there was no chance of getting a prize. Despite my lack of success, there were a couple people of the 52 who were there who had some pretty sick stuff opened up. One guy got a foil Venser, which he smartly sold to the store as soon as he could for $50 (it's price will go down, I can almost garuntee it). Another guy opened both Elspeth and Koth, and a third guy opened Skithryx, Geth, AND Mox Opal. As he put it, "I am not normally a fan of black, but looking at my rares I really had no choice in what deck I was playing".

My initial thoughts right now is that green is amazing in limited and that there is very little removal in this set. I went through and looked at all the cards in the set and the removal is incredibly janky. Galvanic Blast and Grip of Darkness are the best removal spells, and the best removal is in green and red, but every color does have a bit of removal. The only removal in this set is mainly small damage spells that you have to sacrifice a bit of board advantage for, so if you are able to manage your recources effectively, something like Heavy Arbasest can completely dominate the game. Of the 120 creatures in this set, 55 have 3 or more toughness, so more often than not a simple shock card can kill anything. Of those 55 creatures, 16 are common, 15 are uncommon, 14 are rare, and 8 are Mythic. In other words, Almost every creature you will face will have very little toughness. The removal is also has slightly more artifact hate than average, but not as much as other people may have expected.

While I may not have actually mentioned it in this blog, most people who know me know I would much rather play constructed than limited any day. So, I shall segway into some more exciting stuff.

That time is finally here where I get to go crazy building decks for the upcoming standard. One deck I mentioned in my last post that I have been looking at and evaluating is the Primeval Titan deck. For the past while its been a GR Comet Storm deck, but I was thinking about making it mono-green. Matt Nass then wrote an article on ChannelFireball.com (which most comments stated the article felt like it was made overnight, wasn't thought out, and was written just to meet a deadline) where he mentioned putting Ob Nixilis and Primeval Titan in the same deck. My mind was blown to to how awesome that is as soon as I read it. I also tossed in a pair of Grave Titans and Doom Blades to expand on black a little more. The deck is actually very powerful, but only if you get Ob Nixilis. With the demon in play, you could attack, then in response to them taking damage you can cast Harrow. 3 damage all of a sudden becomes 15 thanks to his landfall ability!

However, If the deck didn't draw Ob Nixilis, it just fizzled. That's when I decided to try making a mono-green build with Genesis Wave like I mentioned in my last post. It turned out to be insanely powerful and WAY more consistant than GB. Here's my decklist:

4x Primeval Titan
4x Oracle of Mul Daya
3x Avenger of Zendikar
3x Overgrown Battlement
2x Kozelik, Butcher of Truth
2x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

4x Khalni Heart Expedition
4x Explore
4x Harrow
3x Cultivate
2x Genesis Wave

17x Forest
3x Tectonic Edge
4x Eldrazi Temple
1x Eye of Ugin

Sideboard
Hornet Sting
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Artifact Hate (Slice in Twain?)

I wound up playing several games against Mark with the mono-green build. We played a couple games against Pyromancer Ascension after boarding to Polymorph (we thought that would be a better matchup because a turn 4 polymorph into Emrakul would stop my deck cold). Game 1 Was pretty much neither of us drawing anything until I cast a turn 9 (slow) Ulamog. Game 2 was the Polymorph show when Progenetis came out on turn 5 and there was nothing I could do. However, I asked Mark to get his UW control deck and play it because UW control has been and will continue to be an incredibly powerful deck.

Game 1
Mark and I both kept our opening hands and I won the roll. My hand consisted of:
Eldrazi Temple
Forest
Khalni Heart Expedition
Harrow
Primeval Titan
Ulamog
Kozelik

Turn 1
Me - Eldrazi Temple
Mark - Sejiri Refuge
20-21

Turn 2
Me - [D - Explore] Forest, Khalni Heart Expedition
Mark - Island

Turn 3
Me - [D - Primeval Titan] Explore [D - Genesis Wave]
Mark - Glacial Fortress, Sea Gate Oracle

Turn 4
Me - [D - Forest] Forest, Harrow, trigger Khalni Heart Expedition
Mark - Tectonic Edge, sac Tec Edge to destroy Eldrazi Temple, Attack with Sea Gate Oracle
19-21

Turn 5
Me - [D - Kozelik] Genesis Wave (x = 2) hitting a pair of forests
Mark - Island, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Brainstorm with Jace, Attack with Sea Gate Oracle
18 - 21

Turn 6
Me - [D - Eldrazi Temple] Eldrazi Temple, Primeval Titan (fetch Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple)
Mark - Arid Mesa, Jace unsummon Primeval Titan, Attack with Sea Gate Oracle
17 - 21

Turn 7
Me - [D - Harrow] Ulamog (destroying Jace the Mind Sculptor when cast). End of turn Mark pops Arid Mesa for a plains and casts Jace's Inginuity
Mark - Celestial Connelaide, Wall of Omens, discards Jace Beleran and Elspeth, Knight Errant at end of turn

Turn 8
Me - [D - Cultivate] Attack with Ulamog (Mark sacrifices Island, Plains, Wall of Omens, Sea Gate Oracle), Mark casts Condemn on Ulamog, I cast Kozelik, Forest, then discard another Kozelik at end of turn
Mark - Celestial Connelaide, Jace the Mind Sculptor, unsummon Kozelik with Jace

Turn 9
Me - [D - Cultivate] Avenger of Zendikar, Forest, Harrow, Cultivate
Mark concedes

I wound up getting insanely lucky that game on turn 5 when I hit 2 lands off of Genesis Wave, but aside from that it was a very solid deck that, if I had my entire hand discarded and Mark cast Day of Judgement, I could use Eye of Ugin to fetch a Kozelik, cast Kozelik to draw 4 cards and just keep on going. We decided to play another game which actually wound up being a ton crazier.

I kept my opening hand while Mark mulliganed to 6. My opening hand had:
3x Explore
Forest
Eldrazi Temple
Cultivate
Primeval Titan

Turn 1
Mark went first starting with a Celestial Connelaide. I responded by playing a Forest [D - Harrow]

Turn 2
Mark played a Mystifying Maze, while I [D - Explore #4!!] played an Explore [D - Forest] and then played the forest.

Turn 3
Mark played a Wall of Omens followed by a Tectonic Edge. I [D - Forest] played my Forest then cast an Explore [D - Genesis Wave] and then cast my 3rd Explore [D - Forest] and played that Forest.

Turn 4
Mark played an Island and passed. I [D - Forest] played a Forest, and then cast Explore #4 [D - Forest] and played a second Forest. When I tried to play Cultivate though, Mark dropped a Flashfreeze on it.

Turn 5
Mark Played Jace Beleran and used its -1 ability to draw a card. I [D - Khalni Heart Expedition] played Primavel Titan, and fetched up Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple

Turn 6
Mark used Jace Beleran's -1 again and played a plains before passing. I [D - Forest] played Khalni Heart Expedition and then my Forest. Mark then used Tectonic Edge to destory Eye of Ugin because I had spent the mana preventing me from beng able to fetch an Eldrazi in response. I then cast Harrow, which wound up getting countered by Deprive, so I lost a land. I then attacked with Primeval Titan, whose ability allowed to get 2 Eldrazi Temple and then trigger Khalni Heart Expedition, but before I could deal damage Mark had a condemn for the Titan.
26 - 20

Turn 7
Mark played an Island and used Jace's +2 ability [D - Genesis Wave], then passed. I drew and played Avenger of Zendikar, but Mark had another deprive for the Avenger. After that I cast Harrow and passed.

Turn 8
Mark played a Glacial Fortress and used Jace's -1 ability. Then he cast Elspeth and dropped a soldier token in play. I [D - Cultivate] cast Genesis Wave where X = 10 and got a monster hit. I revealed Avenger of Zendikar, 2 Primeval Titans, 2 Overgrown Battlements, Kozelik, Oracle of Mul Daya, Emrakul, Forest, and Cultivate. I couldn't play Cultivate or Emrakul, but I did drop Avenger of Zendikar first getting me 13 plant tokens, which all got 5 +1/+1 counters after dropping the forest and the 2 Primeval Titans, which both fetched up a pair of lands.

Mark started to scoop, but then commented out loud about how he forgot for a moment he had Day of Judgement in his hand, so we kept on going!

Turn 9
Mark played Day of Judgement, which was followed by Elspeth making a Soldier Token and Jace going -1 to draw a card. After that he played an Island and cast Preordain (1 on top, 1 on bottom). On my turn [D - Overgrown Battlement] I played the Overgrown Battlement and passed

Turn 10
Mark used a Tectonic Edge to destory an Edlrazi Temple, then used Jace's -1 again to kill Jace. He then played Wall of Omens and used Elspeth to give the Soldier token +3/+3 and playing to bash for 4. I [D - Harrow] cast Harrow, followed by Cultivate, and then I played the Forest in my hand from Cultivate
22-20

Turn 11
Mark played Glacial Fortress followed by Baneslayer Angel, and then used Elspeth to attack for another 4. I drew Harrow and passed.
18 - 20

Turn 12
Mark used Elspeth's ultimate Ability to make everything indestructable, then played another Elspeth to make Baneslayer an 8/8 and bashed with the Angel. I drew and played a Primeval Titan which fetched me an Eye of Ugin and a Forest.
10 - 28

At this point I thought to myself that if I could survive the turn I had enough mana to fetch and cast Emrakul, which would then allow me to fetch other Eldrazi on my extra turn. However, Mark showed me that he had enough mana to animate Celestial Connelaide for the win.

While I did lose that last game, it was against a powerhouse deck (and I did win the first game, so I split). Mark agrees with me that this could be the next big deck on campus. I really look forward to making the sideboard, getting comfortable with the sideboarding process, and taking down an FNM. I am pumped!

I look forward to making other decks in the near future. Some decks im currently working on are Mono-Blue control, Mono-White Myr, and Boros Equipment. Stay tuned for more updates whenever I can about all these new decks. Even if they won't take down a tournament, if they're fun, that's all that matters.

Until next time, never stop thinking about new decks and variations of your old ones, you never know when you're about to strike gold

The End of SoM spoiler season is near!

Geez, it has been a long time since my last posting, a whole 4 days! While on one hand it's only half a week, I honestly really enjoy writing these posts and its good to be back. I was busy all weekend and then started a job Monday that prevented me from doing 1am posts or posts around noon, and whenever I get home the computer is getting used and I don't want to write 3 pages on an iPod touch. Despite all that, I am back and pumped to talk all about some Scars that remain (point to whoever gets the reference).

Monday and Tuesday provided a smattering of articles with spoilers which can be found here. I will start with those first.

Well, I'm going to skip the first card because theres not much to say about it... So let's get to Mark Rosewater's card! Obviously this card really depends on how good proliferate is. If a deck comes out where proliferate is insane, this will be an auto-include. My initial thoughts of what to combine this card with is right here:

With those 2 cards in play, after you get your first counter on the Culling Dias, every spell you cast efferctively becomes a cantrip spell (spell that does something then draws you a card to replace itself). As long as you have 1 mana up at all times, your opponent will never spend a removal spell on this card because their spell will fizzle and you will draw 5 cards. Maybe this is a 2 card combo for UW control? Chump block with Wall of Omens, then sac it to put a charge counter on the Culling Dias, and play as normal. Whenever you cast a counterspell or removal spell you get more charge counters (and if you have a creature in play when you cast Day of Judgement, you only get more charge counters and card drawing). Finally after expending your entire hand, spend 1 mana at the end of your opponent's turn to draw 8 cards and continue abusing your opponent. That's my best idea to completely unfairly abuse Proliferate so far (and yes, it keeps your planeswalkers going and infect and +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters and everything under the 5 suns).

Another application for Culling Dias could be in the GW token deck I talked about before. If you have a consistant way to make tokens (Awakening Zone) then you can pump this up 1 a turn without actually losing cards and then draw a ton of cards whenever necessary.

But back to WotC spoilers: Steve Sadin from Limited Information previewed a card which at first seems pretty loose, but when he mentioned its applications in the Infect deck, my eyes lit up. I knew Giant Growth and Vines of the Vastwood were completely nuts, but I don't think green is very good with infect. It has 3 infect creatures, all of which have some things lacking. Theres a 5/3 haste for 3GG, but it dies at end of turn, so if your suprise attack doesn't do much you lost a card for nothing.Theres a 2/3 vanilla infect creature for 2G, and theres a 1/1 regenerator for 1G, but despite it having the lowest p/t it's probably the best of the 3 because it's tougher to kill. Also, as Mark pointed out to me, enemy colored decks are going to be hard to support post rotation. There are no lands that produce an option of enemy colors (like when I played Crumbling Necropolis in UR Pyromancer Ascension) and the only color fixing in lands is 8x Terramorphic Expanse and Zendikar fetch lands. That being said, Giant Growth and Vines of the Vastwood (especially cuz it costs GG) probably can't be efficiently used. Fear not, Trigon of Rage can slap on 3 extra poison counters for just 2 mana a pop after an intial 2 mana investment. This won't be a 4x in a dedicated infect deck, but I can definitely see it being a 1x or a 2x.

However, for the first time this spoiler season, Serious Fun provides a card that I can seriously get behind. What am I going to use Genesis Wave on? Well I have been thinking recently about the RG Valakut Ramp deck, and how almost every spell is green, and the red is only in there to get Valakut going. While it is really powerful, it requires playing 28 lands and straining the mana base. So, I have been thinking about making it a mono-green deck. Some advantages to this include playing Overgrown Battlement and Leatherback Baloth as low drop creatures that have a high toughness to protect the life total and it works its way up. Overgrown Battlement also produces mana, which doesn't hurt in a ramp deck. The deck would also play 4x Eldrazi Temple and use Kozelik and Ulamog as finishers. Genesis Wave is amazing because it can help make the game a complete blowout in the late game. Lands are permanents with cmc 0 so even if I play this card where x = 5 and I see 5 lands, I can 5x landfall that turn (Avenger of Zendikar smiles at this). And guess what? If I play it where x = 5 and I see an eldrazi that I can't play, it goes to my graveyard and shuffles everything back in, so I can draw it again. This card gets better the later in the game you draw it. Let's say you have 15 lands in play, you draw this, cast it where x = 12, see a quarter of your deck, play everything (thoroughly scaring your opponent) and proceed to smash face. Against Day of Judgement decks, just hold onto one copy until they blow everything up, then bring it all back!

This is another card previewed by Patrick Chapin, and as the Innovator always does, he puts it way better and more thoroughly than I ever could, so here is his article, and I'm moving on.

The first thing I thought when I saw this (besides how sick it is) is how it's a throwback to Shadowmoore - Eventide "remove a -1/-1 counter from this creature:" cards. This guy is awesome, but also makes combat tricky. As a 4/4 he can take down a 7/7 without dying. However, the one thing to note about this guy is that he also gives -1/-1 counters to your creatures. So the moral of the story is always to be careful when meddleing with Demons.

 

As if I need any more convincing to make the mono-white equipment deck, they print another Kor Dueslist. With an equipment deck you are likely to have 3 equipment floating around, which conveniently happen to be artifacts. Get a bunch of artifacts in play and suit up this guy with some weapons and let the hacking and slashing begin! I can't wait to open this puppy!

 

 

This is an amazing card, no doubt, but it will never see constructed play. If you play both Infect and regular creatures in your deck, you are basically letting your opponent start with 30 life as they don't synergize at all. The only creature where the eception is made is Thrummingbird because it effectively has poison when it proliferates. While yes, this would be amazing on Thrummingbird, that's too narrow to be played. However, I can see this getting limited play if you have a ton of infect creatures, this equipment will help make your normal beaters go to the Phyrexian side.

And finally we have a card that I have been texting Mark all night about. If elves weren't good or relevent, you better change your mind and hope you never sold yours. This guy is nuts! First, he offers great protection from Wrath effects, especially when combined with Elvish Archdruid, and the overrun ability is simply unfair. Previously, Eldrazi Monument was how you finished games with just a little power boost and some evasion, but tacking on Overrun on a stick gives you 8x game finishing cards. Unlike normal Overrun, this isn't dead when you draw it with no creatures in play because he can make himself a 5/5 trampler AT WORST. And if for some reason (ultimate Nissa, tap Archdruid) you have nuts amount of mana, you can always double or triple your overrun power. I think you may want to watch out for Elves trampling over a deck in front of you!

But over the weekend, while I was busy, I did manage to fit in a little bit of Magic. There was a High Stakes tournament at Toys over the weekend. I finished in the Top 8 and for my efforts I won... a free Scars of Mirroden booster pack... Okay, I went 1-2 and there were only 8 people there. I was playing UR Pyromancer Ascension with transformative Polymorph sideboard. The deck does well because my opponent will sideboard into an anti-Pyromancer deck, which I respond to by switching to a different deck, causing a bunch of cards in their deck to be completely dead.

Round 1: 4 Color Titan

Theres always "that guy," the one you never want to play Magic with. Well, I was paired up against "that guy" round 1. It's not the level of competition that makes someone more/less likable, but how they play and what they do when not playing that really matters. I lost round 1 due to a promising opening hand with nothing off the top of the deck while he dropped Primeval and Grave Titan. I transformed to Polymorph hoping to catch him off guard. However, after not drawing lands I had to discard a card and I chose Progenetis because it would just go right back to my deck. He realized what I had done and cast Thought Hemmorage naming Polymorph and in turn turned off me entire deck. After conceding he proceeded to tell everyone in the room exactly how I was playing a transformative sideboard and how he beat me "just by playing one card." Thanks dude?

0-2

0-1

Well, I lost in 15 minutes, so I watched mark play a tough game. Mark was running Esper Control and was against UB control. I strolled by in a tense moment during game 2. Both players have a ton of counterspells, so every spell has to count. After many rounds of draw-go, Mark finally cast Malakir Bloodwitch. This is how it all went down (keep in mind everyone was watching):

 

Mark - Malakir Bloodwitch

Opponent - Cancel

Mark - Deprive

Opponent - Mana Leak

Mark - Mana Leak

Opponent - *pays 3 mana*

Mark - Deprive (now completely tapped out)

Opponent - *smiles* Deprive (now tapped out)

Mark - MINDBREAK TRAP!!!

Well before we get to how the entire room exploded with yells and cheers and as many variations of "OH S**T!!!" you can imagine, maybe we should remember what the heck Mindbreak Trap does. Ok, well anyways, the entire room exploded with yells and cheers and as many variations of "OH S**T!!!" you can imagine. Mark's opponent was in utter shock as to what just happened because Mindbreak Trap was never played in almost any format because it was created to stop Storm decks, which it did, and then it has seen no use (explaining it's drop from $14-15 when it came out to its current $1-2). That was Mark's special tech for Pyromancer Ascension decks and the control mirror, and it was oh so sweet. But the sweetness was short as Mark's opponent untapped, played Jace, the Mind Sculptor and unsummoned the Bloodwitch, and countered it again when Mark tried to play it again. Sadly, Mark lost that round.

Round 2: Esper Control

Well, as it always seems to happen, I was paired against Mark, but this time I did not fair too well. Without much pomp and circumstance, I went 0-2 against him and proceeded on to play in the toilet bowl (the toilet bowl is the loser's version of the Super Bowl. Instead of the 2 best teams/players, it's the 2 worst teams/players)

0-2

0-2

Between this round and round 3, there was a short 20 minute break for food. Mark and I didn't want to get food, so we decided to play another game. Here is where "that guy" re-enters the story. "that guy" is Mark's opponent next round, and he decides to be a douche and watch our game from Mark's POV so he could see every card in Mark's deck and how he played them. Well the level of BS got to be too much for Mark and I before we even drew our opening hands that we proceeded to switch to some other decks I had brought and play casually.

Round 3: UW Mill

I knew this guy was playing mill because I saw a giant graveyard from across the room during round 1. Basically it was a blue mill deck that splahed white for Day of Judgement and some spot removal. To say the least, mill stood up to everything I said about it and I quickly won game 1. After sideboarding, I switched to Polymorph with Emrakul as the only target to ensure that I would get maximum value out of his milling my boom-boom. Game 2 didn't last long either, and in short time I went 2-0.

2-0

1-2

After that round, Benzo and I deck teched it, and I explainedthe need for black to make sure everything stays gone after he finishes it (and Haunting Echoes is simply nuts in a UB mill deck).

Mark wound up losing his round to "that guy" as well, se we both finished 1-2, probably due to texting up to 2 or 3 am, then waking up to go to 8am Mass...

Despite not doing well, I had a little fun and won a SoM booster pack for my efforts. After the tourny I picked up a playset of All Is Dust, and did a ton of trading to get some awesome cards.

I think I have talked enough for now, so I shalst depart. The first thing you should do tomorrow is NOT to go to this blog or even look at Daily MTG articles, but instead at Gatherer. The entire SoM set is getting released tomorrow on Gatherer, and while it will mainly be commons and uncommons spoiled, that doesn't mean they aren't good, and there are still a pair of Mythic Rares not accounted for and many rares still to be hatched. So until next time, stay classy, and don't despair when you don't win at a tourny of any level, just make sure you're having fun. If it's not fun, it's not worth it. Peace out

Woah, We're 2/3 of the way There!

Woah, We're 2/3 of the way There! Livin' on a Prayer!

Ok, it doesn't have the same effect as halfway there, but right now we are 2/3 of the way through SoM spoiler season! Time time next week, we will know every single card in the set and can start having dreams about what our ideal booster to open would be (Koth as the rare, with a foil Koth as well)

Over the past 2 days, there have been 4 articles on the mothership. Here they all are. But as always, we have others to talk from around the multiverse, I mean interwebz.

This is a combination of 2 cards, Spellbook and Ivory Tower. Combined that would be amazing in a blue draw-go deck! If Mind Spring was in M11 (so it would be in standard post-rotation) then we may see a blue draw-go deck with Leyline of Anticipation where you cast everything during your opponent's turn and leave them wondering. However, as it is, Mind Spring will rotate out of standard and this won't see play. Even if Mind Spring was in M11 though, I think what I just said would be a little sketchy. Spellbook costs 0. Ivory Tower costs 1. 0 + 1 = 1. We will also add 1 because this has a better life-gaining ability than Ivory Tower, and we will add another 1 because this is more efficient as it is all contained in one card. 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 right? Well, at 5 this is a little too overcosted, which sadly is its downfall. If this cost 3, you could sign me right up!

This card is almost broken.
Remember when I just said that Venser's Journal would be good if it cost 3 instead of 5? If I imprint an artifact on this card then the Journal does cost 3 and not 5! However, that's not the first thing that came into my mind. The first thing I thought of was, "Hey, my mana-producing Myr cast 0! They're like Moxes on a stick!" The More I see Scars of Mirroden unfold, the more I want to make a UW Myr deck. W is awesome for Tempered Steel (makes Myr not little weaklings) and Myrsmith (doubling all your artifact spells). U is also awesome for things like Trinket Mage (fetch up some Brittle Effigys) and Shared Discovery (wait what? Yeah, Shared Discovery + Myr Galvanizer makes a 0 mana draw 3 spell if you have mana-producing Myr!). After drawing all those cards, play them for free thanks to this Anvil and get lots of bonus Myr thanks to the Myrsmith. Next turn, you can bash with all your 3/3 or larger Myr (thanks to Tempered Steel, Myr Galvanizer and Steel Overseer) for a cool tribal obliteration.

This card is really cool, because it helps red decks (in particular RDW) actually have a sideboard against certain decks. Where does this Elemental shine? Against ramp decks like my Valakut Ramp deck. Propping this guy on turn 2 could end the game right there if they didn't side in cheap removal. Consider this:

turn 1, land
turn 2, land, Khalni Heart Expedition (opponent plays Tunnel Ignus during their turn)
turn 3, land, Harrow, take 6 damage (trigger Khalni Heart Expedition during their turn, take 2 more damage)
turn 4, Primeval Titan, take 3 damage

So by playing Primeval Titan turn 4, the ramp player is already down to 8 life, which if you're playing against RDW means you are probably already dead because they have already hit you 2/3 times with Goblin Guide and tossed a few Lightning Bolts into the pot. I think this guy will see play in the sideboard of red decks as a way to hose ramp decks that became ever popular with Zendikar and landfall shenanigans (mono-green ramp, UG TurboLand, RUG, RG Valakut Ramp, RG Destructive Force, etc).

That being said, I did find a cool mono-green ramp list online that cuts red and Valakut and replaces it with more consistancy in the form of Leatherback Baloth and more bomb finishers in the form of all the Legendary Eldrazi. I think I'm going to make it, and see whether it's better or worse than my current RG build.

This card absolutely shocked me when I first read it. Green infect?! It just doesn't make sense.... The only thing I can think of flavor-wise is that this card represents the Phyrexian infection spreading to the kin of Mirrodin. This card is really cool flavorwise, but beyond that, I don't think much will come of it. I wouldn't be suprised if this is the only non-black, non-artifact infect card as a prelude to Mirroden Besieged, and I don't think it's worth spreading to a new color just to get another infect card when there should be ample cards in Black and Artifacts (and blue if needed for more proliferation) to get the job done.

Speaking of infect, lets jump forwards to BDM's preview card today, Hand of the Praetors. This guy is awesome! He will be a staple in any/all infect decks! Let's take a moment to look at what we have for an infect deck so far:

4x Ichor Rats
4x Plague Stinger
4x Skithiryx
4x Ichorclaw Myr
4x Hand of the Praetors
4x Contagion Clasp
4x Thrummingbird
4x Steady Progress
4x Doom Blade
24x Land

While there is still more to come, so far it seems this is not a deck that you want to get in the way of! On closing thought on having Green in your infect deck: Giant Growth is insane with infect! You thought that little 1/1 infect was going to hit you effectively for 2 damage, but then he gets huge and you effectively take 6 extra damage for G!

Moving on, we have a couple more cards that aren't necessarily very exciting, but have a lot of potential. First is the Necrotic Ooze, which can be cool, but I probably will never play it. I think the coolest thing you can do with him is get Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet into your graveyard and star dominating the game 3 turns faster than normal. Note he doesn't get insane if Baneslayer Angel makes it to your graveyears, because those are static abilities, not activated abilities.

Flores showed us a card that can be very devastating to a deck I mentioned could appear thanks to all these new cards: GW tokens. Ratchet Bomb is really cool and almost always playable against every deck (and should be in the sideboard for every deck because it is so efficient) but you can draw it late while staring down an invasion of tokens, pay 2 mana, and then immediatly sac it to obliterate your opponent's army that they spent precious time puttign together and using Elspeth to clear the war for. In addition, this can be insane against plaeswalker decks. Imagine your opponent has 3 planeswalkers that cost 5 in play (Elspeth, Gideon, Venser) and you have had this bomb in play for a couple turns slowly ratcheting it up for a bigger boom. It hits 5 counters and BOOM!!! All the planeswalkers have left the battlefield. Planeswalkers are considered to be the ultimate in card advantage, but cards like Ratchet Bomb help balance the format and make those of us who don't want to shell out for planeswalkers have effective ways to remove them.

And finally, as we get with every block, we have our new wave of Dual Lands. As Explained in the article, these lands are going to make aggressive multi-colored decks better (namely BR) because they come into play untapped under more aggressive-friendly conditions. I believe these will see play because every dual land sees play. I think they are definitely better than the refuge cycle because the gaining 1 life is much worse turn 1 than no loss of tempo.

Well, that is about it for today! I hope you are all excited about SoM, I know I certainly am. I can't wait to get a whole new exciting pool of cards to work with. From the release of the 3rd set of a block - nowish is always the worst time for deckbuilders because there is almost no new tech to work with. Yeah M11 gave us.... Fauna Shaman and Titans to work with, but that is nothing compared to a whole set of goodies. I am not going to the FNM tonight at Toys because I have a band practice to attend, but I think theres going to be a late night magic party at someone's house, so maybe a game report or 2 will pop up tomorrow. Who knows? Regardless, stay classy

Bulk Rares

Hey, check it out, I am putting up an extra post today! Well, WotC isn't the only website that has SoM previews, and a bunch of previews came out in the past couple days that I never got to talk about. So in this bonus episode of Casual MTG Creations, I will show you 5 new cards (4 rares, 1 uncommon) that have insane potential to be devastating. So let's get to it!

Bojangles! In all of the history of Magic, there are only 5 creatures with a printed toughness of 13 or greater, so this card can kill off the other 5834 creatures ever printed (not including SoM) in one hit. Of those 5 huge creatures, one is BFM from unglued, so you will probably never have to stare it down (although if you do, run! It's a 99/99 that can only be blocked by 3 or more creatures) and the other is Death's Shadow, which unless you have an Abyssal Persecutor or your opponent has a Platinum Angel and they have 0 or less life, will have 12 or less toughness anyways and won't survive the calamities. While yes this card is incredibly powerful, I don't think it will ever see play, even in limited. It costs 8 mana to completely overkill a single creature. While yes, it doesn't require using extra cards, there's a point where you just need to stop.

Another cool note about this card is how it fits in with original Mirroden. Back 7/8 years ago when Mirroden came out, there were 4 towers that cost 4 mana, and had a very powerful ability for 8 mana and tapping. Their arts all showed a big epic tower, and the background suggested what color of mana it represented. The cards are:
Tower of Eons - White
Tower of Fortunes - Blue
Tower of Murmurs - Black
Tower of Champions - Green

It's cool to see how Wizards finished the cycle so many years later.

Mind Control is a really cool card, right? You like your opponent's Kozelik, so you steal him to your side and continue the annihilation, but just going the other way. How about using Mind Control on everything? For the extra investment of U, you can stel anything, from an opponent's Mox Opal to their Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Wait you can steal Planeswalkers?!?! Yeah, that is probably what this card will be doing whenever it hits play. Imagine you spend a long time using + abilities on your planeswalker (let's say Jace, the Mind Sculptor) and your opponent steals the card and immediatly uses its ultimate ability on you (which in Jace's case means you almost immediatly lose for putting love and care into your 'walker). If your in Game 1 against a player not running planeswalkers, you can steal anything you want, even a land if you really want to! This card isn't actually horrible by any means, and if you have this in your limited pool and you're sold on blue, this could be a huge bomb when your opponent drops Platinum Emporion, and you steal it.

I have talked before about how milling isn't really a viable strategy (with that being said I recently found a video from Worlds last year where a mill deck did really well, here's the deck tech vid. I still dont' like mill) and this is an initially difficult rare that gives mill a new perspective. Mill is typically UB, and blue is where we have seen all of your proliferate cards so far (and I expect all proliferate cards will either be artifacts or blue) so you could drop this on turn 2, tap it to put the first counter, then turn 3 play Steady Progress and tap to mill 2. Now for the rest of the game you don't have to put any mana into your Millstone which can only get better as you hit more proliferate cards. As much as I don't like milling, I will give it this one pitch: Leyline of the Void is in standard once again thanks to its reprinting in M11, so mill won't completely crash and burn to an Emrakul deck when all your hard work of milling your opponent is lost when they mill Emrakul and shuffle it all back. So maybe mill is something to look into. I will do it just to quiet all of the haters (DEFO!) in due time

Back in the day I had a BR discard deck that quickly dropped red to go mono-black, and then soon got scrapped because it never really worked right. Well, this could be the missing piece that gives the deck a lot more gas! If your deck is doing it's thing properly, then they should have no cards in hand within a turn of playing this card (Mind Sludge --> Painful Quandary) and then they have some tough choices. Either they can get 2-for-1ed every turn by losing an additional card every time they play one (which if they have no cards in hand means they can only play a spell once every 2 turns) or they can lose a quarter of their life for each spell they cast. That's just cruel! The discard deck loses Hypotic Specter, but still has Duress, Inquisition of Kozelik, Mind Rot, Guul Draz Specter, Mind Sludge, Liliana Vess and Quest for Nihil Stone, so it is still a potentially powerful deck going forward. I still have all the cards (except a Liliana which I had traded 1-for-1 for a Sarkhan the Mad =D) so I will probably bring this deck back out from my trade binder and cause some headaches around the table.

Geez! This card is wicke powerful. Even if you equip this to a 0/1 plant token, you can hit your opponent for 6 and destroy something every turn (like a chumpblocker that would get in your way). Wow, this is absolutely insane. Oh wait... it costs 6 to play? Ok, that's managable at the top of the curve. Wait, it costs 6 to equip as well?! I don't think I can invest 12 mana into this card... Fear not! There is a way to avoid all of these futile costs. Using white Kor, we can do some insane things. Check this out:

Turn 1: land, Trusty Machete
Turn 2: land, Stoneforge Mystic (fetch: Argentum Armor)
Turn 3: land, use Stoneforge Mystic's tap ability to get Argentum Armor in play, Kor Duelist
Turn 4: land, Kor Outfitter (equip Armor to Duelist for free), equip Machete to Duelist, attack for 18

The Machete isn't even required for this setup, I just threw it in there because it fits perfectly with the extra mana from playing the 3 creatures. Without the Machete, you are still hitting for 14 on turn 4, which is nothing to laugh at. Another awesome equipment for the deck is Sword of Vengence, and a less powerful, but still solid creature to equip is Kitesail Apprentice, and there is a card coming out in SoM which puts tokens in play if you have it equipped. That's another deck that I have had, scrapped, but can probably bring back. Bone Saw is gone, but there are other cards that should be able to replace it.

Start aside:

This card's flavor text suggests that Karn, who created Mirroden, but dissapeared during Time Spiral block will come back. The novel for this block is called "Quest for Karn," and about a year ago Mark Rosewater hinted there would be a colorless planeswalker in this block. To add to that, Karn was just reprinted in From the Vault: Relics. 2 years ago, they reprinted Nicol Bolas in From the Vault: Dragons, and he was reprinted as a planeswalker in Conflux. Everything here points to there being a card printed in either Mirroden Beseiged or "Action" named something to the degree of Karn, Planeswalker. I will probably be more accurate in my guess when the name of the 3rd set is released, but right now, this is how I am guessing the flavor of this block will roll:

Scars of Mirroden: Introduction to plane, hint at Phyrexian takeover
Mirroden Besieged: Phyrexia has regrown and is bringing the heat, some people go out on an expedition across the multiverse to find Karn who can put away Phyrexia again
"Action": Karn was found and now returns to Mirroden to clense the land of the Phyrexian invasion and restore peace to the plane

So I think Karn will be printed in the 3rd set in this block. He will be a pretty sweet colorless planeswalker that makes artifacts come alive and do his bidding, but Karn himself will not be able to directly interact with creatures.

End aside

So, why did I call this article Bulk Rares? A bulk rare is basically a rare that actually stinks and you don't want to play it (Baneful Omen, Disaster Radius). Currently the prices on these cards on SCG are:

Tower of Calamaties: $0.59
Volition Reins: $0.29
Grindclock: $0.99
Painful Quandry: $0.99
Argentum Armor: $1.49

Even though they don't carry a hefty price, these cards aren't necessarily bad, you just need to work with them. Cards like these, which require a full deck to be built around them, are what really got me into deckbuilding and I look forward to continuing to make experimental rogue decks.

That's all for now folks, until next time, don't doubt the rare in that pack until you have given it true justice

Single(color) Minded Decks

Hello there once again, today there really isn't any new groundbreaking spoilers, but instead some expansions upon what we already knew. Well, there is one spoiler, it's not too exciting, but I do have some food for thought about it, so let's take a look:

The Dredge-Uh-Vine deck loses Extractor Demon as a very powerful target to bring up and do insane damage with alongside its Doppleganger. While much less powerful, this Pheonix has the graveyard recursion ability, which doesn't even require you to play red. Vengivine doesn't require you to play green (although you should anyways because of Fauna Shaman) so theoretically you could play a mono-blue deck and bring back up Vengivine and Kuldotha Pheonix from the grave.

With that in mind, I want to point out how dramatically the core of decks is shifting from a few years back. In the time of Lorwyn-Shards standard, there was no such thing as a mono-colored deck that was good (except mono-red because it's a deck that will never die) and one of the best decks was 5-color control. Yes, all 5 colors! That was because there was the vivid lands in lorwyn that could tap for a mana of any color, all the lands in shadowmoore/eventide that could create crazy color combinations with whatever mana you provide (put an island into Cascade Bluffs and get back RR), and Reflecting Pool from Shadowmoore. On top of that, there was the shard-lands from Shards of Alara, the pain lands from the core set, and the tribal lands from Lorwyn/Morningtide. All in all, it was WAY too easy to mana fix, and being multi-colored was very easy and convenient. Many decks didn't even bother with such primitive tools called basic lands. That was 2008. Flash forward to a couple weeks from now where Shards will rotate out of standard, and multi-colored will be much more of a rarity.

Zendikar block has a overwhelming total of 3 multi-colored cards. Novablast Wurm has never seen play, and probably never will because that's the kind of ability you want in your UW Control deck more than a GW Beatdown deck. Wrexial I think is a fine card, but the meta has all been about creatures so crazy spells to steal from your opponent's graveyeard consisted of utility stuff and that's about it (unless you're against pyromancer ascension, but by the time you can attack with Wrexial, they should be taking infinite turns and burning you to death). And finally we have Sarkhan the Mad, who is aggressive and very difficult to use. He showed up in Jund decks, but has never really found a home. Unfortunately, his aggressive abilities are held back by the whole card advantage thing and the fact that to make him have good card advantage you have to pull more strings than it's worth.

Then in M11 we had no multi-colored cards, as goes with the WotC policy of not having overly complicated things like multi-colored cards in core sets (no I'm not lying... They think multi-colored is too dificult of a concept for new players.... BOO!!!!). And the next set coming out is artifact based, and only has 1 multi-colored card so far, and a third of the set has been previewed. That being said, the only multi-colored card is the weakest of the 3 planeswalkers and a very awkward one at that. If your opponent plays a Day of Judgement, he justs chills and does absolutely nothing. Yes, he can save a select creature of yours from a Day of Judgement, but that's about as good as it gets when it comes to that key piece of the UW strategy.

So basically from those 4 multicolored cards, theres no reason to play a multi-colored deck unless you acually feel the need to go to another color for synergy or to expand on your strategy. Ex: UW Control will still be a deck because blue and white go so well together to make a nice control deck. However, all shards will be gone from being decks. It is possible to support them, but it will become more difficult. There are plenty of viable mono-colored strategies, and many decks could be so artifact heavy that they are technically mono-colored, but hardly use cards of that color. An example of that would be a mono-white deck whose only white cards are things like Tempered Steel to give your whole team a huge pump. With the mainly colorless dekc though, it becomes amazingly easier to splash, because it's almost impossible to get color skrewed when 3/4 of your deck doesn't have color requirements. With that in mind, splashing blue for the likes of Trinket Mage is easy, and probably encouraged.

I'm going to go around the wheel and discuss mono-colored deck possibilities in each color:
White - Equipment deck with Kor and Leonin getting pumps for being equipped
Blue - Utilize Grand Architect to pump out all the insane, expensive artifacts. Run both Platinum cards (Angel/Emporion) without any worries of them costing too much for their effect and slow roll the victory
Black - Vampires with backup from Geth to provide a dominating undead army and run the board
Red - Mono red aggro with Koth adding more mid-range firepower
Green - Ramp up to casting Eldrazi using the likes of Primeval Titan

Some other decks that will likely be viable:
Life-gain
UW Control
UB Infect/Proliferate
GW Tokens
Artifacts

Artifacts are solid in the Esper colors (isn't that weird how that works?) thanks to the likes of Tempered Steel, Trinket Mage, and Phylacatory Lich. An artifact deck that I think will actually be relevent will be a Myr tribal deck. There are 41 cards with Myr on them in Scars of Mirroden according to the Orb of Insight. Compare that to the entire Mirroden block, where there were 22 Myr Cards! I initially said Myr Battlesphere was a janky card, but the more Myrs are released, the more I see it as a viable win condition. In both of the articles today on the mothership, we got cards that make Myr much better. The first let us get a quick army or Myr and gain card advantage by having every single artifact card effectively gain Kicker: 1. If you paid the kicker cost, put a 1/1 Myr artifact token creature into play. Then if getting more for your cards isn't enough, if your Myr die, you can just bring them back to the Reservoir and play them again (and then use the Myrsmith's ability again and get more Myr!). The Myrsmith costs 1W, which isn't a drawback at all, because as Jacob Van Lunen explained, we could just use white for removal and Tempered Steel (yeah this is like the 5th time I have mentioned him so far, get it as soon as you can!).

Let's say your little Myr can't get through, that's where the Myr Battlesphere comes in! With 7 toughness, there isn't much that can kill it, and whenever you attack, even if they have a wall or chump blocker in the way, you can just make all your Myr become pingers for a moment and still nail your opponent for lots of damage each turn. You're playing white anyways, so why not tap all your Myr, incite a counter-attack and hit them with Safe Passage before taking the turn back and swinging for insane damage and ultimate victory.

Mono-white Myr is essentially a deck that is completely contained within Scars of Mirroden, so I look forward to cracking some packs and putting the whole thing together. Right now I am not sure whether Steel Overseer will have a place in the deck or not, but I hope he does because I just traded for a full playset of Overseers!

Well, that is all for now. And just remember, if you see sketchy oil chasing you some day, don't touch it, it will make you Phyrexian! And you know what they say, "Once you go black Phyrexian you never go back"

Get a Life!

Well hello there, thanks for stopping in today, I have a gormet of spoilers to talk about today, so why even waste time talking, let's see them cards! I will start with the cards not from the mothership first.

There really isn't much you can say about this card except that it absolutely will see play up and down the chain. From limited to constructed, you can expect to see this card around all the time. First, it's a hard counter for 1UU, which is the same as cancel. However, it can also get a reduced cost, down to that of Counterspell. Counterspell is absurdly powerful, while Cancel is more begnin. They have tried all sorts of ways to push the power level of counter spells without actually reprinting Counterspell (Deprive), and this is another card to do it. Fitting well with the artifact theme, if you have lots of artifacts, this is awesome because it's a 2 mana counter spell with no loss of tempo.

Continuing with the theme of blue and artifacts, we have what can really just be considered the artifact version of Polymorph. I don't think this will see play though, as there are no cool targets from Zendikar Block or M11. Obviously that will change with SoM, but even getting a Platinum Emporian only goes so far (it has no evasion to put your opponent on a clock with). Also, how can you make this card consistant? I don't think there is an artifact token maker right now that isn't an artifact itself ever, so no deck in any format will be able to support this card.

But you know what's awesome? How about some Angels that will make your day miserable, check out these sick cards:

Patrick Chapin already talked at length about this card, so theres nothing I can really add to what he said (after all, he is the innovator, and I aint). However, to put his story shorter and to add my own spin on it. I don't think this card will see play competetivly. It does what a mythic SHOULD do: look and feel awesome, but not have such a game-breaking effect that ruins the game.

But that's not the cool angel, this is the cool angel:

Finally! The card whose art we have seen previewed for the past 6 months or so. This card is simply awesome. First thing that popped into my head is you could just cast Sleep, and then play this card the next turn for a one sided Wrath. Also, if you get hit by the alpha strike, dropping this angel can create such a huge tempo swing that your opponent may not be able to recover. Another great thing about this card? It's a cover foil in a starter deck, so everyone can get their epic angels. I know I will definitely be working out a way to play this card and make it do awesome things!

But wait, that's not all, there are 2 articles from the mothership that must be addressed! (1 - 2) Etched Champion, the card that convinced many people that sunburst was coming back in SoM, is absolutely solid (once Metalcraft status has been reached, until then it kinda stinks). I think the coolest thing about artifacts with metalcraft is that they themselves count as one of the 3 artifacts to activate their own ability. So if you have 3 artifacts all with metalcraft, then they all get better. That being said, theres going to be some seriously awesome metalcraft decks popping up in the near future. Combo this guy with the likes of Steel Overseer, Lodestone Golem, Mox Opal, and Phylacatory Lich (you need to have a color of some kind), and you have a beast to be had.

That card's low cmc is why it's ability is awesome, yet not mind blowing. In Adam Styborski's article, we get a card that doesn't hold back on cmc or awesomeness. In some ways, this card is very comparable to Eldrazi Monument, because when it hits play and sticks, you effectively can't lose. Lifelink is all of a sudden becoming a huge deal in Magic with the entire Soul Sisters deck, Baneslayer Angel, Basilisk Collar, Behemoth Sledge, Rhox War Monk, Sphinx of the Steel Wind (legacy reanimator deck), Talus Paladin, and Vampire Nighthawk all making big scenes in one form or another over the course of the past year. But not only does this give everything you have lifelink, it also gives them double strike, which could be more relevent. Double Strike is like first strike in that it removes the blocker before your creature gets threatened. However, when dealing damage to a player, if I hit with a 2/x double striker, you take 4 damage. This doubles the damage of all my cratures abilities, and in turn doubles the life I gain off all my creatures. While Baneslayer is already awesome with 5/5 first strike, and lifelink, imagine if that first strike became a double strike? 10 damage to the face and I gain 10 life?!?! How rediculous is that? Imagine having Felidar Sovereign and True Conviction in play together. Felidar Sovereign gains you 8 life a turn and activates himself that much faster! After rotation, Soul Sisters loses Soul Warden, Ranger of Eos, and Elspeth, but I think with some tech like this card, the life gain deck will remain prevalent as a deck to fear.

That is all for now folks, I will likely be back tomorrow with more juiciness lined up. Right now 14/15 mythics have been spoiled, and once number 15 is released, I will do an article on the preorder price of mythics (right now it's astronomical!). But until then, may the force be with you

TnT FMN 9/10/10 *Top 8* 3-2

Oh hey there! As you can tell I decided that trying to think of witty names for the FNM each time I play (almost every week) is insanely difficult because there isn't alot that actually changes about the FNM from week to week. So, let's cut to the chase and get to it!

Round 1: UW Mythic

Before the FNM even started I found this guy just chillin off to the side watching other people play, and I decided to chat with him. After a few minutes of small talk, low and behold we are against eachother round 1! This makes me think that the people I hang out with before the FNM are the people I play round 1 because the last 2 weeks I would hang out with Mark and then play him. Now when Mark isn't here I am placed with the 1 guy I was chatting with before the cardslinging began.

But regardless, Game 1 took a bit of time as I was both trying to figure out what he was playing and having difficulty getting the right cards. The cards in hand I had but didn't necessarily need consisted of 3x Path to Exile though, so I knew there was a good chance I could stick it out for a while. He played Sovereigns of Lost Alara, and I immediatly Pathed it because I didn't want him to counter it. He eventually played a second Sovereigns, which I also Pathed. By now I was actually drawing threats, and soon took over the game from there.

Game 2 was very interesting. As we were conversing throughout the whole game, I discovered he got back into Magic with the release of Rise of the Eldrazi (thanks to his girlfriend) and so his deck is very budget. Then he played Jace the Mind Sculptor with a little pink slip of paper in it. I immediatly asked him about why he has Jace TMS in a budget deck, and what the heck that pink slip was about. As it turns out, he bought about half a box of Worldwake packs and opened up 2 Jace the Mind Sculptors. Then, he bought a single pack for his girlfriend for a reason I didn't catch, and in that one pack was another Jace TMS! The pink slip just meant that was his girlfriend's Jace. Talk about beginner's luck! (And talk about a really cool girlfriend!) But after that whole interlude, we continued to play and he dropped a Sovereigns, but I had no removal. He attacked with the Sovereigns, and I took 15. Next turn, he attacked with Sovereigns again, I took 15 more. Next turn, he attacked with Sovereigns again, and I took another set of 15 damage and was still kicking (with no removal). Then finally, on his 4th strike with the 14/15 trampler (+1/+1 when Exalted) I lost.

For Game 3, I made sure to board in more removal like War Priest of Thune. However, it wound up not being necessary because I was able to run him over before he even layed down a Sovereigns.

2-1
1-0

Round 2: GW Stompy

I don't really know what this deck was, so I am going to call it Stompy. It had white removal and green fatties. Game 1 went by really fast as I played 4 Soul Wardens and a Serra Ascendant and he couldn't do much about it. Game 2 though took me by suprise. I found out later that his sideboard had 3 Day of Judgements. I was nearing victory when I top decked a Ranger of Eos, so I played him and the two 1 drops he fetched to keep the pressure on and end my opponent the next turn. He played a Day of Judgement to punish me for overextending and then proceeded to play the boom booms every turn for the rest of the game until I was very dead. Game 3 I held the Ranger of Eos I drew in my hand in case of the Day of Judgement (which never came) and managed to beat him.

2-1
2-0

Round 3: UW Control

This should be a good matchup for me, but he only ever seemed to get his Baneslayers when I had no removal, or I would only get my removal when he would have his deprives. In game 1, I went through trying to survive against a pair of Day of Judgements right in a row. He played one, then I bounced back with Ranger of Eos, then he played another. For game 2 I sided in Felidar Sovereign, but it was all for naught, with the Felidar in play, I got up to 36 life before my life total peaked and came back down for the lose.

0-2
2-1

Round 4: Valakut Titan Ramp

This variation of the Valakut Ramp deck (adding in the red Titan) is one of my worst matchups because the Inferno Titan is able to very quickly eat away at all of my Soul Wardens, stop me from gaining life, then use his green and red Giants to deal damage to me in case the mountains dry up. I was able to win game 1 though, simply because he mulliganed to 5, got stuck on 1 Raging Ravine and cast an overwhelming 2 spells all game: Lightning Bolt and Lightning Bolt. Because of that I had no idea what to do for sideboarding reasons and quickly lost game 2. Game 3 I actually was able to sideboard against him, but my special tech never showed up and he was able to firebreathe his Inferno Titan up 8-9 times every turn.

1-2
2-2

Round 5: GR Stompy

At this point, it was getting late, so people decided it would be a good time to draft. I said, "what the heck!" and signed up for the draft. Meanwhile, I am also looking through a guy's trade binders (he had 2). Then my opponent shows up with a deck I once again can't really describe as being part of the Meta anywhere, so I will call it Stompy for its big tramplers. Playing distracted because I was searching for trades, I quickly ran over his creature based deck as I simply gained a ton of life off every one of his spells until he was finally very dead.

2-0
3-2

So now I finished 3-2, it's time to draft! I drafted a UW janky fliers deck, where I first picked a Steel Overseer, and second picked a Juggernaught before getting into a color. I wound up going 1-2, but got a good amount of rares I needed. After picking my 3, we found a Goblin Chieftan and a Phylacatory Lich just lying around and I took the liberty of cleaning them up from the store. All in all, it was a great time, and I didn't get back to my house until 1 AM! Unfortuantely though, it is my last FNM for at least 3 weeks because I have lots of band rehearsals prepping for an upcoming gig at my church. So until next time, please pre-order Koth of the Hammer and then give him to me for free for being your favorite Magic writer. I will love you forever

Phew! Week 1 is done!

Week 1 of previews for a new set are always the most epic, and of course this is a whole new block, so the amount of awesome has been turned up to 11, and Friday definitily doesn't dissapoint. First, let's start with 2 cards I discovered at 11:30 on Thursday night (sounds like a recurring theme). Let's start with a nice Legendary:

I currently have a Kor artifact deck, but this seals the deal for that deck. The only immediate change that I need to make is to remove the Armamant Master and replace him with this guy. There is so much awesome to this card! For the cost of pumping up my creature to make him more dangerous and powerful, I get a free creature every turn who is big enough to be relevent and deal some serious damage. Sounds like a good deal to me! Mark and I were talking about a potential GW tokens deck that used Beastmaster Ascension as a win condition, similar to the Zvi list from block constructed but utilizing white for good removal. This is potentially a card that could make an appearance in it. I will take time this weekend to explore that possibility.

But before I can make a tokens deck, I must show you our first green mythic:

Obviously this guy rocks, but just be weary you don't get wrecked by a Day of Judgement. This card allows you to choose any number of lands that you wish, so maybe using 4 of your 8 will be enough to quickly send your opponent packing. This is a great example of raw green power, and it's nice to see the big guys still have friends.

But one more thing that's really cool before we even get to today's articles on the mothership! Finally, only 4 days late, the Orb of Insight has been launched. If you aren't aware, the orb of insight allows you to make one word searches through the SoM gatherer page, and it spits out a number of how many results there are. For example, I input "planeswalker" and it returns the number 3. That means that 3 cards in the set have the word "planeswalker" somewhere in its rules text. You can also run mana costs in the search. 3 planeswalkers (Elspeth, Venser, Koth) have already been released, so that means there are no more planeswalkers in this set and no cards that specifically target planeswalkers (which all 3 of them are currently $50 on SCG. Don't buy them now, their price will plummet in short time I think). Here are some other results from tests I ran:

Myr - 41
Artifact - 144
Koth, Elspeth, Venser - 2 (very interesting...)
0 - 7 (mana cost?)
Proliferate - 7
Metalcraft - 22
Imprint - 5
Charge - 33
Myr - 41
Spellbomb - 15
Land - 37 (20 of those should be basic lands)
Infect - 22
Intimidate - 4
Legendary - 6
Flying - 31

I could go on forever, but if I make this list any longer you will probably just skip the whole thing. I encourage you to mess around with the orb of insight, with a little practice, it can be very revealing!

But after all that pomp and circumstance, let's get the last previews of the week. I doubt the Myr Battlesphere will really ever see much play. Even on the casual battlefields, there is a major drawback to this guy and it is the lack of trample or another form of evasion. With that being said, you don't need to attack with this guy on the field to win. All you need is a bunch of Myr and 2 Myr Galvanizer from the other day. Tap all your Myr except a mana Myr and 1 Galvanizer to the Battlesphere. Then use the last 2 Myr to untap all your Myr except that first Galvenizer. Then keep on using the mana Myr and the untapped Galvenizer to keep the endless combo going until your opponent is dead, no attacking required. All this is colorless, so you could pick whatever color you want to provide all the necessary support spells of your choice to protect this combo.

The other card previewed today is a great card that can really mess with your opponent. This card can singlehandedly stop the Valakut Ramp deck by preventing them from utilizing the card advantage provided by Primeval Titan if they want to play him turn 6. Also, if you get this guy out turn 2, your opponent's fetch lands become a burdon more than a convenience because they have to hope to topdeck another land before their fetch can produce any mana. Please note though, that the best way to beat this card is to pay 2 mana at the beginning of your turn, then activate 4 fetch lands at the same time, then do other search effects all in the same turn. This guy is going to be very solid.

But of course, the only previews for friday don't belong to the mothership exclusively, here are some other cards from around the interwebz to go gaga over:

In the right deck, this is Lightning Bolt, but a whole lot more unfair

Very aggressive card that is a nice reference to an old goodie, Masticore

If this guy gets involved in combat, it's tough to win from there. Put him side-by-side with Palakka Wurm and your opponent is in for a world of hurt!

Well, that is it today. I am trying not to ramble on like I normally would because I have many things to look forward to later today that require waking up. Stay classy