Crashing Down Your Gates

Hello everyone!

Camp is SUPERFANTASTIC right now as we start our 5th week of program out of 8 today! We are full to the brim again this week, which is very exciting to see how every year we continue to get bigger and bigger despite being one of the biggest scout camps in New England already! While scouring the interwebs today, I discovered some information from the multiverse regarding Ravnica: The second set in the RTR block has been revealed: Gatecrash.


                                                       


Unlike a name like Rise of the Eldrazi or Avacyn Restored, knowing that the set is called Gatecrash doesn't tell us anything. So I can't really talk about the flavor side much, I can talk about some of the other information that came out with it. First, they announced that the guilds are still present, which at the end of the original Ravnica block were apparently dissipated. 5 guilds will be featured in RTR and the other 5 will be featured in GTC. Then in the final set of the block there will be all 10 guilds featured. I actually like this a lot because it allows us to have some development in our favorite guilds even though there won't be much love. Now here's the part that I don't like:

Gatecrash is going to be a large 249 card set

Recently, wizards has been experimenting with different ways of doing block structures. Traditionally it has been Large-Small-Small, but since Llorwyn it has been occasionally played with a little. Llorwyn block was Large-Small-Large-Small. Other obscure large sets include Rise of the Eldrazi and Avacyn Restored. Gatecrash will be the first time that the second set in a block is large. This would naturally make me think that  the third set in the block will be a small set. I highly doubt they can get away with selling 4 large sets in a year and not make people get very frustrated.

Now lets do some basic math. Large sets are about 250 cards, so that's basically 50 cards per guild for RTR and GTC. Small sets are about 150 cards, which means there will be 15 cards per guild. That's actually a lie though - there are cards that are not associated to any guild, so I'm guessing there will be more like 20-30 cards per guild in RTR and GTC, which would leave 100-150 cards that are not associated. I am expecting there will be about 8-10 cards per guild in "sinker" which would leave 50-70 cards not associated to any guild. So this doesn't actually give us a whole lot of cards to actually sink into our guilds of choice once we account for breaking up between commons, uncommons, rares, and 1 or 2 mythics.

I like that WotC is willing to try new things, however I don't like how the draft formats get changed so frequently. I started drafting in Zendikar block, so my only normal block of drafting was with Scars block, which I really enjoyed! Having a growing beast over the course of the majority of a year was something I enjoyed developing. Also, having more cards printed means there are more cards you have to get to get the set and it messes up how the financials work. Of course, I am a purest in most things and I like tradition, so maybe it's me sticking to the good old ways...

That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack

We Have Internet Back!

Hello everyone!

It's been a very long time since I last posted, and that is because today we finally got internet here at camp and I have been able to catch up on Magic 2013 and get a chance to finally post something up! Magic 2013 is a very cool set for a lot of reasons, but there are some certain subtleties that I feel do need to be addressed in the set, starting primarily with the bread and butter commons:

Counterspells:
There will no longer be mana leak in standard! The good counterspells that will be around post rotation will be Negate, Essence Scatter, and Dissipate. That really isn't a lot of choices, and frankly Essence Scatter is never really good so it's just Negate and Dissipate.

Creature Spot Removal:
Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Galvanic Blast will no longer be around, so our default creature removal is taking a hit. Our choices include Dead Weight, Geistflame, Pillar of Flame, Tragic Slip, Unsummon, Victim of Night, Murder, and Barter in Blood are basically where our choices lay which are either muck more narrow or more expensive than before.

Sweepers:
Day of Judgement is not being reprinted! Magmaquake, Mutilate, and Terminus are our go-to choices which all have their drawbacks.

Hand Disruption:
Duress is back!! This is huge! We're losing the completely useless hand disruption we had before and now we're getting one of the best pieces of hand disruption ever printed back!

Library Manipulation:
We're losing Ponder and it is being replaced by Index which does not replace itself upon resolution so it is basically useless.

All of these things combined makes control seem like a very difficult task to accomplish. However some specific cards, most notably Duress, Barter in Blood, and Mutilate make me think that mono-black control could become a legitimate thing. I haven't had much time to mull it over, but here is where I would start with a mono-black control deck:

4x Duress
4x Tragic Slip4x Sign in Blood
2x Murder
2x Barter in Blood
4x Mutilate

2x Curse of Death's Hold



4x Liliana of the Veil
4x Vampire Nighthawk
2x Bloodline Keeper
4x Bloodgift Demon


24x Swamp


I feel like there are some clunky elements to it, like being too dude-heavy, however I do think it's a good start. One thing I considered doing is adding Liliana of the Dark Realms, Griselbrand, and Army of the Damned, but I think Bloodgift Demon is the way of the future! Two cards that stifled it from seeing play - Go for the Throat and Dismember are rotating out and our big Dark Confidant will have its time to shine! In the list above, Bloodline Keeper is the odd man out since Nighthawk is so good with Sign in Blood and Bloodgift Demon in addition to simply being amazing by itself, and so I would consider looking for something else to replace it.


As I was looking at the black cards, some other ideas came to mind, and that is going back to my good old trusty Zombies!


4x Diregraf Ghoul
4x Gravecrawler
4x Blood Artist
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Disciple of Bolas

4x Duress
4x Tragic Slip
2x Vile Rebirth
2x Dead Weight
1x Killing Wave

23x Swamp

The special additions here are with Vampire Nighthawk and Disciple of Bolas. Both of these may actually be complete duds, but they seem good. Nighthawk is good on its own right, but Disciple of Bolas in exciting! Sacrificing Gravecrawler or Geralf's Messenger is where we get our super value from. I think Disciple will be better than Nighthawk, but Nighthawk is so good on its own that I feel it deserves a slot.

That's all I have for today! Now that I have internet back, I should be able to post periodically whenever ideas start developing so hopefully you shall hear from me more often. It feels great to be back online posting my ideas again! But until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack