The Real Last Post

And back, despite poopular demand, it's me! I said I would be gone for the summer, but I had to come home for a day, so I hopped on the computer to do a short review of what I think of Magic 2011 so far, so that's what I will do. My source for what the cards are is MTG Salvation (http://mtgsalvation.com/m11-magic-2011-spoiler.html). I won't explain what the cards do here, but will instead expect that you read them yourself. Also, most of these cards are commons and uncommons, so they will have a larger effect on limited play instead of constructed

White

Ajani's Mantra - This card by itself isn't very exciting at all, however, it does synergise well with the next card

Ajani's Pridemate - This card is sick! As a 2/2 for 2, it should be included as filler for any of your white draft decks anyways, but because it has the capability to grow, it is only better. In constructed, this card synergizes amazingly with Ajani himself. +1, I gain 2 life, put on a free +1/+1 counter, and keep on rolling. Obviously this card works great with the mantra

Armored Ascension (reprint) - I only once saw this card do good things, and I expect it will stay that way. Auras provide card disadvantage, so it's not worth it

Assault Griffin - It's a white Snapping Drake. Fine for limited filler, but that's it.

Baneslayer Angel (reprint) - This is the card many are excited about. After shelling out $200 for a playset, many are relieved it's still relevent for another year. The standalone best creature in standard is coming to a booster near you (now you just need to find that booster)

Cloud Crusader - Not very exciting, but it is certainly playable. In core set limited especially, it could be great on defense for you

Condemn (reprint) - It's similar to Swords to Plowshares. I think this could see some play in constructed, it will be this or Oust because Path to Exile is gone

Elite Vanguard (reprint) - White Weenies only, the only problem is that White Weenies is a pretty weak deck.

Excommunicate (reprint) - I have never seen this card cast, but it's basically an unsummon that prevents your opponent from drawing a card, which is pretty good

Goldenglow Moth (reprint) - Paul really liked this card for the longest time, and yes if it get's some buffs, it is absolutely ridiculous

Holy Strength (reprint) - has never been exciting, and it will continue to not be

Infantry Veteran (reprint) - It's like an offensive only verison of Angelic Page, which makes it kind of a pinger. I don't think it will really see play, because it's simply a very narrow pinger

Mighty Leap - Cool combat trick, like the defensive Giant Growth. I think it could see play for that reason, it also gives evasion, which makes it more viable for attacks as well

Pacifism (reprint) - I really like this card, although it still permits abilities. Otherwise, it's very effective removal on the huge beater

Safe Passage (reprint) - Overpriced Holy Day, although is a lot more effective by still allowing you to remove their stuff

Serra Angel (reprint) - Has been around since Alpha, has always been decent, but especially with Baneslayer, it will never see play

Silvercoat Lion (reprint) - very vanilla - coresety, nothing cool to say

Solemn Offering (reprint) - I think enchantment removal is becoming more pertinant, although everyone is focused more on creatures and planeswalkers for now

Sun Titan - I am insanely excited about this card! I hope to get many and make an awesome deck out of it. This card will appear again as a combo piece (with a green card)

Tireless Missionaries - power/toughness is too low, but still, this can be the last random card to fill your draft deck

Wild Griffin (reprint) - another boring vanilla creature that will never see constructed play, but is decent in limited

Blue

AEther Adept - I actually like this creature. Similar to Surrakar Banisher from Worldwake, except that I think this is better pound for pound. It comes down 2 turns earlier, which can make the difference between living and dying, and it's still a meh body at 2/2. If i'm playing blue, this guy is in

Air Servant - Seems like this guy would go great with Merfolk Seastalkers, but I think the Merfolk's Ability is better than this guy's

Augury Owl - This card is awesome! The easiest card to compare this to is Sage Owl, and this card blows it out of the water! "But wait, you see one less card!" Guess what? Let's say your in the topdeck war and you get this guy. You play is and see land-land-land. You can pitch those all to the bottom of your library and effectively draw 3 cards because of it (saves you 3 draw steps). If you have land-land-bomb, you can pitch the lands, leave the bomb on top, and still have decent draws afterwards

Azure Drake (reprint) - This card is your vanilla limited filler

Cloud Elemental (reprint) - Almost the exact same ase the Drake, except it's a lot more aggressive. I would take this over the drake if they were side-by-side

Dimisnish - Similar to, although not as good as, Snakeform, this is insanely powerful. They attack with a Baneslayer Angel and all you have is your Cloud Elemental untapped. All of a sudden, they lose the best creature in the game and only gain 1 life for their efforts

Foresee (reprint) - I like this card as well, but for the same reason I like the Augury Owl, scry is a very powerful mechanic. for one mana more than divination, you get a card a million times better. Even if you want to keep all 4 cards, you get to pick the order you get them. And, as you pitch a card, you save yourself an entire draw step from being dead

Harbor Serpant - I can see this card doing well with Spreading Seas. You can play a 2 color deck with a set of Spreading Seas and still make this guy a pretty good beater. Previously with a card like this that would never be feasable. YEAH SYNERGY!

Jace's Erasure - I mentioned in a previous blog post that I am not a fan of milling as a deck strategy, but just like Ajani's 2 cards, this gets better with it's uncommon counterpart

Jace's Ingenuity - An instant speed Mind Spring for 3. I think this is a really powerful card that helps the rest of the deck get better

Mind Control (reprint) - This has always been a fine card, and will continue to be. (Works great on Baneslayers)

Negate (reprint) - Very powerful card as some of the most game-breaking spells are not creatures, this card is always in demand

Preordain - This is half of Foresee for a quarter of the cost. I think this card may replace Ponder, but it is very powerful nonetheless. I am still thinking about which is more powerful, and I think Preordain may take the cake

Sleep (reprint) - If this was an instant it would be insane, but as a sorcery, it's just a really weird fog

Tome Scour (reprint) - I am not a fan of mill, and that's all this card does

Unsummon (reprint) - Great utility removal for blue, will see some limited play

Wall of Frost (reprint) - If you have never played against this card, it is insanely annoying! Sometimes you can attack with a large group to get as many attackers through as possible, but this card can block a creature, which prevents damage the next turn from it, and then block another creature next turn to do a ton of 2-for-1 stuff

Water Servant - Pseudo Morphling is pretty interesting. The great thing about this guy is he can play offense and defense really well by being able to be any size from 6/1 to 0/7 as long as you have the mana

Black

Barony Vampire - A vanilla creature that is only made better by its tribe

Blood Tithe - I like this card if you want to make a great multi-player deck. Even in one-on-one though, it still does the job in a pinch

Captivating Vampire - For the 3 months that M10 and M11 are legal in standard together, this and Vampire Nocturnus are going to make Vampires really good. Even post rotation, this guy is still nice by lowering the curve, giving a consistant boost, and even being able to take control of the game in the later portions

Child of the Night (reprint) - Not very exciting, but it follows the vampire flavor It's interesting to note that the 4 black cards so far are all vampiric

Corrupt (reprint) - Tendrils of Corruption for 2 more mana and can target players. I think Tendrils is much better, so I'm a little dissapointed. Regardless, this card could still do fine in a mono-black deck

Diabolic Tutor (reprint) - never really useful, except I use it in my Reanimator deck to help me find my living deaths. Aside from that I have never seen it used

Doom Blade (reprint) - excellent removal, very powerful in all formats. Will see lots of play. If your drafting black, take this card high

Gravedigger (reprint) - I have consistantly found this card to be pretty powerful, especially in limited where you only have 1 copy of that epic creature that just got killed

Liliana's Caress - Megrim, except strictly better. It costs 1 less mana and your opponent can't use damage prevention stuff on it

Liliana's Specter - Not too exciting, but helps work the Caress. A 2/1 flying for 3 is fine by itself, and the added discard a card helps gain some card advantage

Mind Rot (reprint) - a standard discard card that is often very devastating. Provides card advantage by itself, and in many games can be a complete blowout (your opponent had 2 cards in hand, now they have 0 to your 2 or 3. They have to top deck everything, you have lots of options)

Nether Horror - This is a pretty bad card. A 4 drop that can get beat by a one drop and most 2 drops. Pass on this guy, he's Horror(able)

Nightwing Shade - Finally a shade that has flying! This guy is pretty sweet, and in some ways 1B: +2/+2 is better than B: +1/+1. Even though you have to work in packs of 2, it makes the card more playable when you have 2 colors

Reassembling Skeleton - This is how they are replacing Drudge Skeletons and I like it. You can tap out for a big spell, still block, and still retain your creature

Rise From The Grave (reprint) - A great card to use right after a Doom Blade. Nothing is worse than killed by your own zombified creature

Stabbing Pain - very powerful card that I really like. It's a combat trick, it's atter preventation, it's removal, it does it all

Unholy Strength (reprint) - like it's holy counterpart, this card isn't too exciting, and I will not play it

Red

Act of Treason (reprint) - can be a very game changing card, really good for a very aggressive deck

Ancient Hellkite - Really powerful, if you can ever get it into play. At 7 mana with RRR, that's not very likely to happen. If you're playing mono-red, they should be dead by the time this guy can come out

Arc Runner - Only good when they have no defense. Without trample, this guy becomes nearly unplayable

Chandra's Outrage - This is really good. Similar to Searing Blaze, but less conditional and capable of taking out Wall of Omens

Chandra's Spitfire - This card really makes you want to play a burn deck. Similar to, but I feel less powerful than, Kiln Fiend. The flying is a nice bonus though

Ember Hauler - This card can actually be pretty good. You could attack for 2 damage and then do a bonus 2 to finish off your opponent, or any number of things. Think of it as a 2/2 for 2 that can transform into Shock at any moment

Fiery Hellhound (reprint) - The only problem with this guy is that his toughness doesn't get a boost. A bear could step in it's way and stop all your firbreathing shenanegans

Fiery Servant - This is another card that really makesyou want to play red burn. This guy + Chandra's Spitfire + Kiln Fiend as your only creatures, then have your other spells be Lightning Bolt, Searing Blaze, Burst Lightning, and other things of the variety and you have a Standard burn deck that could be pretty decent. Keep in mind he costs 3RR, which is way above the curve for burn

Fireball (reprint) - this never really excited me, and it still doesn't. It can do small stuff effectively, but as the game goes on, the more it becomes obselete

Fling (reprint) - I am really excited for this card!. Like Soul's Fire, this can make you win out of nowhere. Your opponent may take some damage and leave themselves with a 3-5 like coushin. Cast fling and sac your beater. Game over. Creature blocked by a wall, fling it at a creature you need to get rid of, it wasn't dealing damage anyways

Goblin Balloon Brigade (reprint) - Not great at all, not worth spending time talking about

Goblin Piker (reprint) - Filler material only

Goblin Tunneler (reprint) - Printing this guy 2x in 4 months? He was never played in Eldrazi limited, and will see even less play in M11

Lava Axe (reprint) - This isn't actually too bad. It follows the red theme of insane amounts of burn

Lightning Bolt (reprint) - yay! Lightning Bolt is sick! I would 1st pick this card if I had to, and I would be very happy. After Terminate rotates out, this will see a ton of tournament play once again

Prodigal Pyromancer (reprint) - Pingers are awesome! In the Shards of Alara draft I had a pair of pingers that were always relevant. Many limited creatures have 1 toughness, and this guy om nom noms on all of them

Shiv's Embrace (reprint) - Not too exciting, as enchantments are always held back by the thoughts of the card disadvantage they provide. Card disadvantage aside, it's not too exciting for 4 mana

Volcanic Strength - another enchantment that will not get played. This could potentially be sideboard material though, as it hoses red

Vulshok Berserker (reprint) - It's like Bloodbraid without the green mana and the broken cascade mechanic. Still hoses planeswalkers and like most haste creatures, does a good job scaring your opponent

Green

Awakener Druid (reprint) - think of it as a 4/5 for 3, not a 1/1 with a buddy. Killing the 1/1 kills the 4/5. so just get in there with the 4/5 until absolutely necessary. Great fun card

Birds of Paradise (reprint) - this cars has been in every core set except 9th, where it was in Ravnica instead. Great card seeing a lot of play in Mythic right now

Cultivate - I really like this card. It's Kodama's Reach in a non-arcane version. Lots of ramping and fixing without any land sacrificing, all awesome stuff. This is great in limited, ensureing you're never mana skrewed

Fog (reprint) - a nice utility card that comes in handy very frequently when you don't want your stuff to die

Garruk's Companion - I really really like this creature. He puts on the pressure fast and puts your opponent in a tough position often before they get a second land into play. May also see some constructed play in fast green decks (Beastmaster?)

Garruk's Packleader - I really like this as well. Provides green with nice card advantage. I really want to combo this with the Sun Titan to attack with the 6/6 vigilance to get a free creature in play and card in hand (play creature you just drew to draw some more?)

Giant Growth (reprint) - One of only 2 cards to be in every core set. This was part of a cycle of 3-for-1 in Alpha (Healing Salve, Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt, Giant Growth) and this has been the most fair of them all (Healing Salve is just bad... Dark Ritual and Ancestral Recall are comepletely broken, Lightning Bolt is back)

Giant Spider (reprint) - The other card that has survived since day 1. It's interesting that the 2 cards to have survived both start with Giant... They sure do have a giant history. Just an unexciting blocker

Greater Basilisk - Very nice defender and attacker. Deathtouch is one of those abilities that gets other creatures out of the way nice and fast. Could even be a finisher, but will probably just help accelerate you to the end game

Llanowar Elves (reprint) - In M10 draft, my favorite colors were Green and Red because of Llanowar Elves, Elvish Visionary, and Lightning Bolt. Llanowar and Bolt are back, and we don't know about the Visionary. Regardless, this guy is really awesome. t1 - forest, Llanowar. t2 - forest, Cultivate. t3 - 5 mana

Naturalize (reprint) - a utility card that will always be around

Plummet - this is very powerful. Green now has an answer to all it's worst problems. Leaf Arrow was odd, but this is like a green Doom Blade. Bye bye Baneslayer!

Prized Unicorn (reprint) - A great card for punching lots of damage in one big attack. Great in an overwhelming creature deck

Sacred Wolf - I like the troll-shroud, but the 1 toughness makes it too vulnerable. Almost anything can kill it now

Sylvan Ranger - Like Borderland Ranger except 1 mana easier and -1/-1. Because it doesn't put it into play, I think this is worse then Borderland Ranger because neither actually accelerate, and the 2/2 is more relevant later on in the game as opposed to 1/1

Wall of Vines - Decent card. Can certainly hold back the enemy until turn 5 or so. Good card to fill in as a final slot

Yavimaya Wurm (reprint) - It's a Craw Wurm with trample! It's like Craw Wurn except it doesn't get intimidated by the little 1/1 dude who blocks it

Artifact

Sorcerer's Strongbox - Not exciting at all. Flip a coin stuff is just annoying, and 6 mana to draw 3 cards is frustrating as well, especially when you have Jace's Ingenuity at your disposal. Will never see constructed play, very rarely will it make limited play (if it does, you know their deck is bad)


That was exhausting! Only half the set has been spoiled so far, and official spoilers start next week, so be sre to stay tuned. I will be at camp, so I won't be able to. I think I'm going to grab a box of M11 ASAP and host a draft at camp.

One More thing. There's rumors of Ranger of Eos being printed in M11. If he is, that's epic! That would go great in the conceptual WG Card Advantage deck with Sun Titan and Garruk's Packleader.

Quick touch on the news ~~~~~~~~
New Premium Deck Series : Fire & Lightning. You're paying $35 or more for an all foil, gets beat up easily, burn deck. Not worth it at all, im not going for this.

Change in Extended. Extended used to be the past 7 years, now it's the past 4. They also banned a pair of cards which leaves no top-notch decks legal. I think this will just turn out to be standard all over again, but only more powerful. Fairies, Jund, 5 Color Control, and WU Control will probably be some of the big decks there. I am not too excited for it.

Well, now for real I am gone. Peace out!

So Long, Farewell

Well, that time has come. The time where I must make my sad goodbyes. I will be at summer camp as a staff member all summer, and because we're in the woods, I will not have internet access. This is probably going to be my last post until late August. But before we get there, let's talk about the RG tokens deck I alluded to last time.

Here's the decklist: http://www.mtgfanatic.com/Decks/ViewDeck.aspx?ID=93099&Page=1&PageSize=25

This deck is something I thought would be really fun, messing around a bunch of unused rares in the form of Goblin Assault, Awakening Zone (this is used in Polymorph, but that's it), Hellion Eruption, and Mycoloth. Beastmaster Ascension just recently made the spotlight after Zvi made his sick Beastmaster deck in Pro Tour San Juan that put a couple guys into the top 8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md5GpKZyhPA).

Skullmulcher was a random gem found while I was putting together the last couple pieces. It will simply provide you nasty card advantage for the rest of the game. Consider this:

t1 - raging ravine
t2 - mountain, Dragon Fodder
t3 - forest, Awakening Zone
t4 - forest, Kozilek's Predator
t5 - mountain, Mycoloth (devour all 7 other creatures)
t6 - do almost anything.... Skullmulcher to draw 14 cards, Beatmaster Ascention to attack for 107 damage among 15 creatures, Hellion Eruption to make 15 4/4s into play (weaker for the 18/18 Mycoloth, but net doubles your attacking power), play more tokens if it's really necessary...

I have most of the pieces for this deck, but I don't think I will haev time to put together and playtest it before camp starts, so its going into the concept bin for now.

The GR tokens deck will soon be followed by a really interesting deck that Paul and I (95% Paul, 5% me) have been conceptualizing is a colorless deck that wins with the crazy Legendary Eldrazi. You cast them using Fist of Suns and Mycosynth Lattice/Kaleidostone. Here's the decklist: http://www.mtgfanatic.com/Decks/ViewDeck.aspx?ID=93205

One thing that is really cool about the deck, aside from casting Emrakul for 5 mana, is how each land produces more than 1 mana. The only exception is Mishra's Factory, but that's a broken man-land which gets better the more you have.

Basically, this deck is walls and threats. Walls consist of Shield Sphere, Ornithoptor, and Steel Wall, while there are plenty of threats. 2x of each of the legendary Eldrazi and the Darksteel Colossus are all very dangerous when they hit the field.

Obviously, this is the best deck to run All Is Dust, because there are no colored spells in your whole deck! The only problem that can occur is if your opponent plays Painter's Servant. Then you and he would lose everything and essentially restart the game.

I'm sure there is something even more epic you can do with just colorless mana, but that's what I threw together for now.

With that, I will be signing off. I hope you enjoy your summer, I know I will enjoy mine. And when I return, expect the longest blog post I have ever written, trying to fit a summer's worth of magic into one huge report! After all, these are the people that got me back into magic. Until then, never fear tapping out! I will be back in 10 weeks.

Sleeving up Shards

Hello everyone, yesterday was quite the day for magic. Nick had purchased a Shards of Alara box as a graduation to hinself a week or so ago. I suggested that he host a free draft where he keeps all the cards afterwards, and that is what happened yesterday. However, before I get there, to keep everything in chronological order, I had a small slice of exciting stuff happen on Monday.

I got a Black Lotus!

Well... not really. I was poking around Target with some of my friends and I saw this interesting package of Magic cards where for $8 you get a Worldwake booster pack, a Dissension booster pack, and 8 bonus cards. I picked up 2 of these, and I also picked up some top quality deck sleeves to see if I like them or not. In the first Worldwake booster I opened, I wound up earning all my money back by getting an Abyssal Persecutor, a card that currently goes for $17. The Dissension packs were both fairly unexciting, but my worldwake pack got me a Stoneforge Mystic, who currently goes for $6, and is expected to go up when Scars of Mirroden is released.

But wait, what about the Black Lotus? The card sleeves I got had Black Lotus as its art.

I found these sleeves are superb! Aside from their awesome art, the sleeves themselves are very nice. Before I start talking about the sleeves, if you don't play with sleeves I highly recommend you do. They protect your cards from the environment, and prevent them from peeling. In addition to allowing to be played more by being more durable, it also maintains the monatary value of the cards so if you ever feel like scrapping the deck for cash, your rares wont be stripped of value simply due to them getting beat up. With that in mind, there have been 3 kinds of sleeves I have seen sold.

The first is the clear thin sleeves that go for 100 @ $1. They are cheap sleeves that are great for all purpose playing. I have found that over time, they can get gritty on the outside and sometimes make the cards stick together. Also, sometimes the endge bends, and can prevent ideal shuffling.

The second is the solid-color backed sleeves that go for 50 @ $3 or 100 @ $6. They are very durable sleeves. I have broken one sleeve of this variety in the past, but I had plenty of extras to make up for it. I generally don't have any complaints about these sleeves.

The third kind is the art-backed sleeves liuke the Black Lotus one above. They go for 80 @ $8. While these are the most expensive per sleeve (10 cents a sleeve as opposed to one penny or 6 cents), they are also the highest quality. In addition to being so high quality, they also have great art. Another advantage is that they come in packs of 80 as opposed to 100. This is the perfect amount so you have enough for a 60 card deck + a 15 card sideboard with a couple extras in case something breaks. With the sleeves, I found I wanted each deck to be a different color for quick recognition, but then I had several extra sleeves that were fairly useless. Also, packs of 50 are simply awkward.

Overall, I would suggest buying the first type of sleeves for general use, because they are so cheap. The second type is better for an FNM because there is a ton of playing at an FNM and these sleeves are more consistant with shuffling while still not breaking the bank. The third type of sleeves, I would reserve getting unless you're either loaded or going to a Grand Prix or PTQ.

Now back to our feature presentation, the draft at Nick's house:

So as I was saying, there was a draft at nick's house and the format was Shards/Shards/Shards. The 6 people there were Myself, Nick, Paul, Mark, Eric, and our new comer Dan.

Conveniently, each shard was drafted by one person, except for Naya, which was drafted by 2 people. Starting with me, and going around the table to the left we had:

Me - Grixis
Dan - Naya
Mark - Esper
Nick - Naya
Paul - Jund
Eric - Bant

Personally, I thought I had a really powerful deck. It was focused on Red and Black, with only 1 mono-blue card and the other blue cards mainly being xUBR. My deck had a ton of removal including 3 Executioner's Capsule, a Magma Spray, and Grixis Charm, with a Resounding Thunder in the sideboard. In addition to all that removal, my deck had a very low curve, where I had 60-70% of my cards at 3 mana. Only 3 or 4 were 4 mana, and everything else was 1 or 2.

Drafting

I was only able to play 2 rounds because i had to leave early for boy scouts, but I went 4-0, where my 2 opponents were Nick and Paul. I was hoping to play against Mark's Esper deck, because it seemed to be a very interesting matchup (and the archenemies would get to battle again). During the 3rd pack, all of a sudden Mark gave an excited yell over a bomb card he just opened, but wouldn't tell anyone. After a little bit of guesing, it turned out he opened Tezerret. Come to find out by the end of the draft that mark had the only 2 mythics opened in his deck (the other was Sphinx Sovereign). It seemed his games went longer, but he was able to dominate when they did. It would be a classic aggro vs control match.

Check out that shiney new planeswalker

Despite my leaving early, I still had a ton of fun, and Nick sold me a short stack of cards before I left, so I have some exciting new tools to work with (RG tokens deck in my next post). Until next time, keep cardslinging

The Format Less Battled

t has been a while since I last updated this blog, 5 days I believe, and I have been busy in that time. Grad parties and gigs among other things have taken up my time. Leading up to my gig, I had to e-mail one of my friends who has a ton of random drum parts that I have used to update my drum set. I used my dad's camera to take pictures of my broken part so he could get it for me, and when I uploaded it to my computer, I found a couple fairly old pictures from september or so:

I am a big fan of alternate formats, and this is a snapshot of me and my brother in the middle of one. We were playing a double headed giants game, where 2 players play per team and share 30 life. Teams take turns at the same time and go through steps at the same time (draw, combat, etc). On the say this picture was taken, it was only me vs kevin, so we both played 2 decks.

The 2 decks I am playing are Grixis and Bant

The 2 decks Kevin is playing are Merfolk and Naya Allies

Yeah, we all felt that way...

Anyways, after a short trip down memory lane, I want to talk about a couple alternate formats that I think would be really cool to play. The first I want to mention is EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander). I have no idea what that name has to do with how the game is played. In EDH, you have to select a legendary creature and then make a 100 card singleton (no repeats besides basic lands) deck using only the colors in that legendary creature's casting cost. That legendary creature, by the way, is called your general. He starts in exile, but can be cast during your turn as if he was in your hand. I made one just for fun (though it has never actually been used), whose general is Sedris, the Traitor King.

Another cool format, which I have played a ton of is Emperor. This is a 3 vs 3 format (although if you're like me you play 1 person vs 1 person, where each person plays 3 decks) where you have 2 "peons" or soldiers on each team and an emporer in the middle. A team wins when the opposing emporer loses. The emporer cannot be attacked, however, until one his soldiers goes down. The soldiers on either side can only battle eachother, while both emporers can get in on both sides of the battle at all times. Once any soldier goes down, the emporers can start firing off at eachother and everything insane starts happening, because the emporers have had a long time to set up, and have amazing board positions. This is a ton of fun, and I highly recommend playing it whenever you can (although it can take a really long time)

There is another format I have read about, but never delved into called pauper magic. In spite of the rising cost of magic cards (Jace, I'm looking at you), pauper magic is a normal legacy constructed deck consisting only of commons. Some cards have changed rarities over the course of their reprints, so a card that has ever been a common is permitted (Ex: River Boa was printed as a common in Visions, but has since been reprinted as an uncommon in 6th Edition and Zendikar). This sounds like a great format for people who don't go out and buy singles, because you get 10x as many commons than rares per booster pack, so you have an abundant supply of them. This is a format I look forward to tossing a deck together for some time.

Deck Tech Time!

A couple posts ago, I talked about my discard deck that started as a Br deck that soon became mono-black. After making it mono-black, I had a play set of Terminate and another of Blightning sitting next to me. After some trades with Nick, I got Sarkhan the Mad, a 3rd Sprouting Thrynax, and a Mind's Eye. What makes Jund so good in standard is the fact that it is aggressive colors with card advantage provided by Blightning and the Cascade cards. Not having any cascade cards, I instead grabbed Mind's Eye, a supposed junk rare from Mirroden. I think this card has potential though as a way to draw tons of extra cards, especially late game when you have a ton of mana and nothing to with it because your just top decking like crazy. I call the deck Junk Jund simply because it has loose parts of a jund deck that I just happened to have, and didn't spend a penny on it.

News Time!

The big news right now is the approach of M11, the new core set. Today, Wizards announced the pre-release and release cards. As it has been since Mythics were first created, the pre-release card is a Mythic Rare and the release cards is a rare. Also, starting with M10, half of the cards released are brand new. With that being said, check out these epic cards (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/471). While the release rare isn't that exciting (Flameblast dragon had the firbreathing dragon flavor much better), that Giant Mythic Rare got me excited! 6/6 for 4WW is fairly standard, but then toss in Vigilance (a very powerful mechanic is you have never seen a game dominated by huge vigilance creatures) and you have something pretty cool. But wait, theres more! Every turn (unless if they have something very very scary) you get cards back from your graveyard to help finish the fight. Talk about epic! I think this guy may actually see good tournament play. I know if he comes by on a draft table, he is getting snagged immediatly. Some current deck he could go in include UW control, where you could bring back Wall of Omens from your graveyard, drawing you a card at the same time for free. 

Let's rewind to M10. The release card was Vampire Nocturnus. It was a vampire lord that was a miserable mythic until Zendikar released and Vampires were easily the best race there. The Nocturnus's price exploded, and he is still $17 - $18. Now compare the art on the Sun Titan to this (http://www.blackborder.com/q/sites/default/files/images/409_ra4j02p19b.jpg). That art is some of the pieces of art released for Scars of Mirroden, the new set coming out in the fall. I'm just guessing, but Wizards is always trying to hint the future releases.

Vampire Nocturnus (M10) -> Vampires in Zendikar

Eldrazi Monument (Zendikar) & Eye of Ugin (Worldwake) -> Eldrazi Craziness

In planeschase and archenemy, they included a card from the upcoming set in each of the decks (Planeschase ->Zendikar, Archenemy -> M11).

Anyways, I see the sun rising, so it's time to go to bed. Peace

WINNAR

At precisely 1:08 am today, I was crawling into bed, when all of a sudden my cell started vibrating. Because it was on the windowsil, it was quite loud as the entire windowsill resonated. I opened my phone to see a txt from Eric reading, "I don't have an online account, but the answer to your challenge is...THE PROFESSORS!!"

Yes, as I told Eric, that is the correct answer. The Professors is a weekly magic show on youtube that always ends saying "We're tapped out for now, but will untap later". You can find the professors on BlackBorder.com

Congrats Eric, and I hope you enjoy your free Terminate

Call me Venerated Teacher because you just got two-upped!

In case you have been living under a rock, Rise of the Eldrazi is the current set out, and it is awesome! While at first I was not a huge fan of Annihialator (and it's still iffy), there is one mechanic that I am a huge fan of! That is the level up mechanic. Basically what it means is that you can play a small dude and progressively put mana into him (sorcery speed) and soon they become an epic game-ending behemoth. For example, here is a mythic rare leveler called Kargan Dragonlord (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193482).

It starts out as a 2/2 for RR, which is perfectly fine by itself. It's not spectacular, but it's a nice low drop that fits in the curve. However, after putting 4 mana into it over the course of a couple turns (while playing other spells to maintain tempo) you have a 4/4 flyer. This is a lot more powerful, yet at the same time it fits for that point in the game. A 4/4 flyer that has been around since magic started is Air Elemental, a 4/4 flyer for 3UU. Right when your opponent can lay this card down, your Dragonlord matches its size and abilities. As early as the next turn you could get that 4/4 dude to his ultimate level as an 8/8 flying trampling firebreathing slap in the face.

When levelers were first announced, people didn't like them because you could sink a lot of mana into them, only have it killed by a Doom Blade or something. However, I think quite the opposite of levers. I think they are great because they provide card advantage, not mana disadvantage. Consider this mock start to a game:

Turn 1: Good - Mountain; Evil - Plains
Turn 2: Good - Mountain, Kargan Dragonlord; Evil - Island, Glory Seeker
Turn 3: Good - Mountain, Level Karan Dragonlord up 3x (level 3); Evil - Island
Turn 4: Good - Mountain, Level Kargan Dragonlord up 4x (level 7), Attack for 4 (20 - 16); Evil - Plains
Turn 5: Good - Mountain, Level Kargan Dragonlord up 1x (level 8), Attck for 8, use firebreathing to push 4 more damage in (20 - 4); Evil - Island, Air Elemental

Yes, I know it would embarrasing for this to happen, and it probably never will because there are so many other factors and card that would get played. But take a look at the card advantage. Aside from lands, Good used 1 card and has completely taken over the game from beginning to end. Evil has played 2 vanilla cards and is so far behind he has no hope of coming back. Even if he were to Narcolepsy the Dragonlord, he would be down 16 life and have spent 3 cards to Good's 1. If good is playing mono-red, it is very likely he could just play Lightning Bolt and Burst Lightning and end the game on the spot.

So levelers are awesome by themself, but an army of levelers is even cooler! An amazing card that helps an army of levelers is Venerated Teacher. A 2/2 for 2U is fine in limited, but with his ETB ability he is nuts. WHen he enters the battlefield, all creatures with level up get 2 level counters on them. Obviously this is nuts with 4 or 5 levelers in play, but even with 1 the teacher is amazing. Let's say you have Zulaport Enforcer in play and no other creatures. By playing a Venerated Teacher, you are putting 8 mana worth of level counters on a guy AND getting a 2/2 for blocking purposes. Even with a card like Transcendant Master, whose level up cost is 1, you are spending 3 mana for put 2 mana worth of level counters on the Master and getting a 2/2. You are effectively getting a 2/2 for U. A quick gatherer search shows that all creatures with power and toughness both greater than 2 for 1 mana all have disadvantages, whether it is paying life, not being able to attack or block, or having to sacrifice it or other creatures. The only 2 cards that don't have that disadvantage are Goblin Guide and Isamaru, Hound of Konda. However, thay are both rares and cost $7 and $4 respectively. Venerated Teacher is a common, and you can get a playset for a buck.

Because Venerated Teacher is blue, any deck that seriously wants to consider playing a level up deck is essentially required to play blue. I decided to design a UB Level Up deck that would be all about speed. Here is the decklist I ended up with: http://www.mtgfanatic.com/Decks/ViewDeck.aspx?ID=92751

The deck is all level up creatures besides 3 spells: Spreading Seas, Doom Blade, and Ponder.

Spreading Seas - Mana skrew your opponent while maintaining card advantage and giving you Halimar Wavewatch some islands to walk on
Doom Blade - Great  all-around removal spell just in case something gets in the way
Ponder - This card is basically required for any deck playing blue. It allows you to set up your next couple turns or at least get rid of them for better things, and replaces itself

The other thing that is great about this deck is its low cost. After removing the lands, the entire deck costs $20. $12 of that $20 comes from the Guul Draz Assassin, which was the buy-a-box promo card for ROE.

Quick Aside:
The buy-a-box promo cards the past year have been:


M10: Honor of the Pure (Used heavily in the White Weenies deck that was big a couple months ago)
Zendikar: Day of Judgement (Used a lot in the UW control deck)
Worldwake: Celestial Connelaide (Used a lot in UW control)
Rise of the Eldrazi: Guul Draz Assassin
M11: Birds of Paradise (Has been around since magic started, and has always been frequently used)

All of the buy-a-box promos have appeared in tournaments, and the Assassin is sick, so expect to see him sometime soon.

End Quick Aside


Everything else is a common except for the Hada Spy Patrol which is uncommon. So I built the deck and played it against Nick. After a couple games, I found that Venerated Teacher is epic, just like I thought he would be, but also that Guul Draz Assassin is absolutely nuts! In one game I had all 4 in play together and no matter what Nick played it quickly died.

Also, I discovered that once they are fully leveled up, the levelers all have some sort of evasion. Null Champion has regenerate which is pseudo evasion because your opponent knows that blocking will not help their board position and will instead just be sacrificing creatures to save life. The Assassin doesn't have evasion either, but you never need to attack with him, you just kill everything. Because of their evasion, I found Doom Blade to be a dead draw more often than not. However, removal is still important, so I cut 2 Doom Blades for an island and swamp.

If you are looking for a cheap, powerful deck, I recommend playing UB levelers. No one is expecting it, and it is simply fun. I'm tapped out for now, but will untap later. peace

Sacrificing Time for the Sideboard

When I went to my most recent fnm a couple weeks ago, one of the guys said something there that stuck around with me for a little bit. He said that a big transfer for a player is learning how to sideboard, and that Magic is really a 75 card game, not just 60. A side board is something that sometimes can feel impossible to make, but at other times can pratically build itself. I find a great way to start building a sideboard is to not build one. I play a bunch of games without a side board and I think to myself "What would be an awesome card to draw right now?" If your deck is built right then it will be in there, but for various matchups you won't have the best card available. For example, I recently shared on my discard deck. I was playing that against Paul's Boros Bushwacker deck, and I kept hoping I would top deck tendrils of corruption. It would remove a creature and gain same life to patch the damage that has been done by the small but numerous attackers.

With that in mind, here is how I started to build the sideboard for the discard deck:

2x Tendrils of Corruption - aggressive matchup
4x Mind Sludge - against control decks that go nuts with Mind Spring
1x Guul Draz Specter - against slower decks that allow this guy to get huge
3x Sadistic Sacrament - turns off Polymorph before it starts, takes essential cogs from most decks
1x Nyxathid - Turn some knobs based on the deck
4x Deathmark - Some nice color hating

The sideboard will always change based on how the meta evolves. The sideboard is a great way to manipulate your deck. I have twice seen jund decks that sideboard in blue. The first brought in Cruel Ultimatum, and the other brought in Sedraxis Specter. The decks completely changed in certain matchups in such a way their opponent was not expecting, making it feel like an entirely new deck.

I suggest making sideboards for your casual decks. Even if you just put in color hating cards like Deathmark, Flashfreeze, and Celestial Purge, it can still dramatically improve your deck and reduce the number of dead draws you get.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey if I gave you a random card, do you think you could build a deck around it?"
"Sure, tell me whenever you come up with one"
~~~couple days later~~~
"Okay, how about some Grixis Sacrifices [Thraximunder]?"
"Ok, it will appear in the next blog"

That was a slice of a conversation I had with Paul recently. The first thing I thought of when assigned to making Grixis Sacrifices is the Eldrazi which makes your opponents sacrifice permanents. Thraximunder gets +1/+1 counters when any player sacrifices a creature, even yourself. With that in mind, I decided to put in a bunch of Eldrazi spawn generators. Heres same cards I selected as I scoured Gatherer:

Butcher of Malakir - You kill me, I kill you
Consuming Vapors - Kill 2 for 1, gain some life, possibly some +1/+1 counters
Cruel Ultimatum - This card is broken
Emrakul's Hatcher - Spawn Tokens are cool
Gatekeeper of Malakir - +1 creature for me, -1 creature for you, that's fair right?
Mortician Beetle - We need some low drops, and this guy will get big fast
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker - 8 mana planeswalker? This guy is absolutely nuts!
Pawn of Ulamog - makes all your creatures extra helpful
Rapacious One - This guy is fun to play with and all tokens are appreciated
Thraximunder - The Inspiration
Vampire Aristocrat - Sac a bunch of stuff, pump him, toss around some +1/+1s, everyone is happy
Bloodthrone Vampire - Same as the Aristocrat, we will use him if we need it for the curve
Ponder - If you are playing blue, you play ponder
Artisan of Kozilek - Budget friendly, very powerful annihialating dude
Everflowing Chalice - we need every drop of mana we can get
Blightning - Early disruption pays off in longer games
Sedris, the Traiter King - He is very cool.
Calcite Snapper - We need walls to slow things down
Wall of Frost - Our opponent needs to chill a little

That is a bunch of cool ideas, so let's see what I can do with that.

3x Consuming Vapors
2x Cruel Ultimatum
3x Emrakul's Hatcher
4x Mortician Beetle
4x Pawn of Ulamog
2x Thraximunder
3x Bloodthrone Vampire
4x Ponder
2x Artisan of Kozelik
4x Everflowing Chalice
4x Wall of Frost
25 lands

I think this will work, let's do a mana curve and intensity check:
Curve:
1 - 8
2 - 8
3 - 7
4 - 3
5 - 3
6 - 0
7 - 4
8 - 0
9 - 2

Intensity:
Blue:
1 - 6
2 - 6

Black:
1 - 12
2 - 4
3 - 2

Red:
1 - 5
2 - 2

I think this is pretty safe, nothing looks too reduclous. We have 25 lands, so we have tons to work with, starting with the obvious 4x Crumbling Necropolis. I'm also going to toss in 2x of each of the man lands. I think I can have the rest be basic lands and put in a ton of Terramorphic Expanses and Evolving Wilds to land thin and fix. Heres our mana base:

4x Crumbline Necropolis
2x Lavaclaw Reaches
2x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Island
5x Swamp
2x Mountain
3x Terramorphic Expanse
3x Evolving Wilds

Here is our entire decklist:

Creatures:
2x Artisan of Kozelik
3x Bloodthrone Vampire
3x Emrakul's Hatcher
4x Mortician Beetle
4x Pawn of Ulamog
2x Thraximunder
4x Wall of Frost

Instant/Sorcery:

3x Consuming Vapors
2x Cruel Ultimatum
4x Ponder

Artifact:
4x Everflowing Chalice

Land:

4x Crumbline Necropolis
2x Lavaclaw Reaches
2x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Island
5x Swamp
2x Mountain
3x Terramorphic Expanse
3x Evolving Wilds

I now have a challenge to everyone out there reading this. There is a weekly magic show on youtube that always ends with, "We're tapped out for now, but will untap later". Anyone who can tell me will get a free card! Post your response in the comments below. Peace out

-rLack

Dis-card is awesome!

I seem to have been writing about the news a lot recently, so I want to get back to talking about a deck. This deck, called "Discard Cage", is one I conceptualized a long time ago, but only recently built. Here's the decklist:

Creatures:
4 x Guul Draz Specter
3 x Nyxathid

Spells:
4 x Duress
2 x Liliana Vess
4 x Megrim
4 x Quest for the Nihil Stone
4 x Lightning Bolt
4 x Burning Inquiry
4 x Blightning
4 x Terminate

23 Lands 




Basically what this deck does is get Quest for the Nihil Stone into play, destroys the opponent's hand, and then grinds their life total away while your opponent is forced to only top deck. If your opponent doesn't play what's in their hand, it is simply becomes fuel for megrim. If they do play that card they drew and have no hand, Quest for Nihil Stone deals them 5 damage, Guul Draz Specter is a 5/5 flier for 2BB, and Nyxathid is a 7/7 for 1BB. If they manage to stick a creature, Terminate and Lightning Bolt clear it off quickly. If they aren't playing any creatures, Lightning Bolt also doubles as cheap direct damage.

I played this game a couple times against Mark. I played against UW Control twice, Goblins once, and Soldiers twice. I went 0-5. I learned a lot about the deck in those 5 games though, staring with Mind Spring sucks for me. However, I also found that Megrim and Burning Inquiry can be very dead draws. I had originally included Burning Inquiry so that a late draw of Quest for Nihil Stone would immediatly get juiced. On the second game vs UW control, I had:

Turn 1: Swamp, Quest for Nihil Stone
Turn 2: Mountain, Quest for Nihil Stone, Burning Inquiry

So I had 2 Quests ready to go by the end of my second turn. However, aside from that and Megrim there isn't anything that actually happens by my opponent discarding cards. It's when they have no cards that my deck turns on. Also, when I burned my entire hand, Burning Inquiry was the epitome of a dead draw as it basically read, "Mill yourself 3". Even when I had it early game, it only messed with my hand, so unless I had a hand of land (which shouldn't happen if you know how to mulligan) it was worse for me than it helped. Basically, I decided it has to go.

I also realized that I could soon start topdecking all the time myself, so I needed card drawing. The only card drawing in BR is sign in blood, so in it goes. Another card that I was less than pleased with was Nyxathid. It was basically just a large body for cheap. However he doesn't do anything else. It was killed in various ways from burn spells to draw spells. Also, Guul Draz Specter was often a Hypnotic Specter that just cost one mana more. With that all in mind, heres the changes I made:

-4 Burning Inquiry
-1 Lightning Bolt
-1 Nyxathid
-1 Guul Draz Specter
-1 Megrim

+3 Sign in Blood
+2 Hypnotic Specter
+3 Inquisition of Kozelik

I also want to include a couple Mind Shatters in the sideboard to go against Mind Spring.

It was at this time that I realized that there was almost no reason to have red in the deck. Heres a list of all the red cards in the deck (and a card it can be replaced with):

Blightning (Mind Rot)
Lightning Bolt (Doom Blade)
Terminate (Hideos End)

3 cards taking up 11 slots with fairly replacable effects don't seem to be that important to me. Also, now that this is mono-black, the first thing I thought of was Vampires. The only reason why vampires can get you is the card Mind Sludge. Mind Sludge is also almost always better than Mind Shatter in a mono-back deck, so I can take that out of my sideboard. So now, what can I replace these with?

-4 Blightning
-3 Lightning Bolt
-4 Terminate

+2 Hypnotic Specter
+1 Sign in Blood
+2 Tendrils of Corruption
+4 Doom Blade
+2 Haunting Echoes

Hypnotic Specter: I need more dudes, and he is quite excellent
Sign in Blood: More card drawing makes me happy
Tendrils of Corruption: Great removal for mono-black and also plays great defense with the bonus life
Doom Blade: I need removal to replace Terminate
Haunting Echoes: I almost put in Sadistic Sacrament to effectively discard cards before this ever hits play, but I think will be much more effective. If they discard 5 cards with different names, that could be up to 20 cards removed for 3BB!

After all these changes, here is the current decklist:

Creatures:
3 x Guul Draz Specter
4 x Hypnotic Specter
2 x Nyxathid

Instant/Sorcery:
4 x Doom Blade
4 x Duress
2 x Haunting Echoes
3 x Inquisition of Kozilek
4 x Sign in Blood
2 x Tendrils of Corruption

Enchantment:
3 x Megrim
4 x Quest for the Nihil Stone

Planeswalker:
2 x Liliana Vess

Land:
4 x Evolving Wilds
4 x Terramorphic Expanse
15 x Swamp


I think this build will do better overall, so I played against my own Enchanting Angels deck. The angels deck wound up winning, but thats what typically happens when your opening hand is Luminarch Ascension, 3x Oblivion Ring, 2x Plains, Emeria the Sky Ruin (and then drawing Wall of Omens). Despite that, the discard deck able to almost come back by quickly destroying white's deck with Duress and Inquisition of Kozelik.

Overall, I really like this deck and think it has a lot of potential. As I become more familiar with it, I expect it will make many more appearnaces in this blog.