Beyond the Cards

Hello hello! In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been posting much, and there's a pretty straitforward reason for it: I haven't been playing much magic recently. So how have I been connected to Magic at all for the past few weeks? Well, we just need to look a little beyond the cards.

One thing that is so great about magic, that in turn makes it hard to play when all your Magic friends are everywhere else in the world is how there's a communtiy. All the guys I would normally play with are off to college, and I wouldn't say anyone at TnT Gaming would be a close friend of mine. So where else to turn to but facebook?! I don't know how I play magic on facebook, but it's the best way I could segway into this next part... For fun, I decided to friend a bunch of Magic Pros on Facebook, and to my suprise, I actually have been accepted from time to time.

Pros who friended me:
Conley Woods
Patrick Chapin
LSV
David Ochoa
TSG

I have actually found these guy's profiles awesome. Yeah, I'm a bit of a facebook stalker, but I wouldn't be surprised if these guys had 2 facebooks: one for personal use (hidden from searches) and one for fans, like the ones I found. Often, their walls are filled with Magic commentary and random things like "Just had a sick SOM draft and won the 8-4". Other times you see this:

Isn't the internet wonderful? I couldn't stop laughing when I read this thread, which is why whenever I read an article anywhere, I always take the time to peruse what people have commented, there's always something really interesting there (except on Conley Wood's first deck doctor. 95% of the comments read "Dude, Eye of Ugin fetches for Wurmcoil Engine").

Another thing I like to think about is the flavor of Magic as a whole. While I have minimal knowledge of Magic flavor, it's enough to suit my demand. I was texting Mark the other day while pumping gas, and we were talking about how Garruk and Lilliana are the only 2 of the Lorwyn planeswalkers to not get reprinted. Based on the webcomics, and the Duel Decks, Garruk and Lilliana should be together, with Lilliana being printed in the first set and Garruk in the second. The Planeswalker Duel Decks are Jace vs Chandra, Garruk vs Lilliana, and Elspeth vs Tezzeret in that order. Jace and Chandra appeared in Zendikar block together with Chandra getting worse and Jace becoming insanely good. This year, we have Elspeth printed in Scars of Mirroden worse than her original version, and I suspect Tezzeret will be in Mirroden Beseiged (and Karn will be in the 3rd set). This makes me think that Garruk and Lilliana will get some new abilities come next block.

As of right now, there have been 19 Planeswalker cards printed. However, there are only 14 Actual Planeswalkers. Ajani, Chandra, Elspeth, Jace, and Sarkhan all have been brought back in later sets. Technically Venser is a new card, but he did appear on a card before, it was just before Planeswalkers were printed. So what of the other 8? Garruk should be coming back with Lilliana, so that leaves us 6 Planeswalkers. But wait, Nicol Bolas has been a character since he was first printed. In Shards block, he caused the Conflux that reunited Alara and caused war, then on Zendikar, he made Sarkhan go Mad by making him defend the Eye of Ugin. And now, he is using Tezzeret as a pawn for some reason on Mirroden. Also, I am going to remove Koth right now from this chain of thought, because his story is just emerging and developing.

So after all that, we have 3 Planeswalkers to think about: Gideon, Nissa, Sorin. These 3 haven't been reprinted yet, and I have no idea where they could go from here. Interestingly, they're all from Zendikar, and they all fought against the Eldrazi. Is that it? Case closed? I don't think so. Planeswalkers are like Magic's superheros. They don't just appear once, never to be thought of again. I am willing to bet that all 3 of these guys will come back in the next 2 years for more planeswalker and bad guy pwning.

But there's more to flavor than just Planeswalkers. I like to think from time to time about the flavor of decks as a whole from any format. Obviously Tribal decks have a straitforward flavor: you pissed us off, now face our wrath! Mess with that little fish, and get smacked by a legion of Merfolk. Or get overrun by Goblins. Or get assaulted by Elves. Or get your mind messed up by Faeries. Or get pimp slapped by Treefolk? I just refer to Lord of the Rings when it comes to Doran decks. Basically tribal decks all spawn from Llorwyn (hey, it worked!). Let's take a look at the current standard Meta:

Vampires: Tribal deck, just a lot creepier

Ramp: Talk about flavor! I can imagine Primeval Titan exploding up from underground flipping stuff over. If it's Valakut, then fire starts raining and everything dies. If it's Eldrazi, then Primeval Titan is soon followed by Ulamog and Emrakul and they go on a rampage together everywhere.

Mono-Red: Most are heaviest of Goblins, but they feel like a single beserk Fiend or Dude-on-Dragon running around with the occasional shot of thunder and lightning. With Koth on board though, it looks a lot more chaotic with rocks flying around and many more explosions

Quest: This is a tricky one to envision, maybe because I just spend the last 60 or so words talking about burning and blowing everything up. Kor Duelist is flavorful, and I can see Fauna Shaman, Vengivine, and Squadran Hawks, but having the Gods lay upon you this epic suit of Armor just doesn't make sense when you get there by playing 0/2 dudes. It just doesn't feel like an Ornithopter should be able to find a Holy Relic.

Control: This is probably the hardest to envision, until you have a planeswalker in play, especially Jace TMS. Then I can imagine them literally sculpting your mind and messing with everything you have. What does a counterspell look like? In most arts its a planeswalker with a spell melting at their fingertips, but that just doesn't work in my mind.

Pyromancer Ascension: This one looks col in my head. Maybe just because I like thinking of red Magic with all the explosions and craziness. Pyromancer's Ascension only makes everything nuttier!

RUG: This makes so sense at all. Seriously. What the heck does this deck do? Yay, it works mechanically, but it's boring to think about.

That's all the big decks I can think of for now in Standard. I think I hit all of them... Regardless, it's getting late and I do still work full time. One last thing before I go, I read this article on SCG today that reminded me of this website alot. I think you enjoy it as well.

One Legacy note before I go. I just ordered a playset of Personal Tutors online. Almost no websites have it, because it's from Portal, which was a minimally printed set, so I wound up getting 2 each from AdventuresOn.com and Hot Sauce Games cleaning out 1 and dropping the other to just 1. They were only $15 a piece, which is amazing. This time last month they were $30 a piece, but then Survival became nuts. I'm guessing Survival will get some bannings tomorrow, so Personal Tutor should go back up in price. It's from Portal, where even bad rares can sell for $5 - $10 a piece. Also, this is exactly what my Reanimator deck needs! Before, you could use Mystical Tutor to grab Entomb, but we can get Buried Alive. Sure it costs more, but it can be tutored for. Also, Personal Tutor can grab Reanimate or Exhume, so we can still effectively get our creatures back from death. The only thing that's really bad that we lose is fetching up a counterspell, but regardless, it's good.

Anyways, that's all for now, until next time let the art come to life! And stay classy