EDH: The Crazy 99

Flashback! - The best of Knowledge Pool in 2011

2012-01-01T14:55:00.000+01:00

The Knowledge Pool is a team of bloggers (authors of this blog including) who work hard to give you the best casual Magic: the Gathering content on the net. Today I present you the highlights these guys produced in 2011 in an all-mighty Flashback.

"What is Casual"
by Daryl Bockett on Muse Vessel
The best definition and analysis of casual Magic: the Gathering so far. Daryl tries to define what casual is about - and what not.
Other famous articles from Daryl include: “Security Curve Theory” (Part I and Part II) and “Worst Rule in Commander”.

"Make your Own Rules"
and "Real Talk Redeux"
by Andy aka GHoooSTS on CommanderCast.com
These two podcast episodes feature Q&A with Alex Kenny aka Ban-ki-moon, a member of the MtG: Commander Rules Committee. He explains many of the reasons why Commander is the way it is today. He also gets across some motivations behind banning or not-banning certain cards.

“Trading In The Smartphone Age”
by Dominik Schönleben on CompletelyCasual.net
This article explains how trading Magiccards has changed recently through the diffusion of the smart phone. Dominik explains how haggling and “the good deal” have been lost through technology.

“Politics, Complexity and Multiplayer Strategy” (Part I, Part II and Finale)
by Daryl Bockett on Muse Vessel
A sweeping blow about the diverse angles of politics that can happen in MtG: Commander. He separates politics from strategy and gives an in depth analysis.
"The Battle to Defend the Peaks"
by Owen aka Zimagic on The Crazy 99
This little short story illustrates how an MtG: Commander game could look like when told from a narrative angle. Owen uses his imagination to tell the story that lies behind any match.

“Life is Worth Living!”
and “Who Died and Made You F##king King of the Zombies!!!”
by C. R. Russell on Three To The Face!!!
If you like checking out decks for exotic Generals to get inspired, like us, C.R. Russel is your man. These two pieces about [card]Daughter of Autumn[/card] and [card]Balthor the Defiled[/card] are his highlights from 2011.

From the “Generally Speaking” series: “Homura, Jedi Knight”
and “Erayo, Clockwater Ascendant”
by Imshan aka Sinis on CommanderCast.com
Comparing these two articles could not be more controversial. In this article series Imshan normally surprises us with a wacky non-Magic related theme. [card]Homura, Human Ascendant[/card] aka Obi-Wan Kenobi as a prime example for this, stands in stark contrast to his very competitive variants of [card]Erayo, Soratami Ascendant[/card].

“Horde Magic: A New Way to Play Magic and Survive Zombie Invasions”
by Peter Knudson on QuietSpeculation.com
After the Epic Design Fail form Kenneth Nagle in 2011, “Horde Magic” is taking over as the only viable one-vs-many variant Magic: the Gathering has to offer. In this article Peter Knudson explains the basics of his newly developed variant and how to built your own Horde-Deck.

“If I Can Podcast, So Can You”
by Andy aka GHoooSTS on CommanderCast.com
You always thought CommanderCast is produced by a brilliant team of 20 professionals to be as awesome as it is - we have to disappoint you. Here Andy, the hard working producer behind the best MtG: Commander podcast on the Internet, explains to you “how to make your own podcast”. If you ever had the desire to get out there, follow his lead.

“I Hate Sol Ring and All that it Taps For”
by Brandon Isleib on Muse Vessel
Brandon does not like people who tell him what he has to play. Staples like Sol Ring are no exception. Find out why the obvious choice is not always the right one.
Other famous articles from Brandon include: “Decktagon” and “One Thing Leads to Another”

“Whiskey Identity”
by Sean Patchen on ManaDeprived.com
If you thought Magic: the Gathering and alcohol should not be combined, Sean proves you dead wrong. Sean, a true bon vivant, presents to you an exhaustive list of finer Whiskeys to go with each specific deck you have.

“Goblins and From the Vault: Legends”
by Cassidy Silver
This article relives a moment from Cassidy’s youth, where he had the one dream fulfilled every Magic: the Gathering player has (apart from winning the Pro Tour maybe): Meeting Richard Garfield, creator of the game we love. If you want to know why Richard Garfield first picked [card]Gobblin Digign Team[/card] in a Sixth Edition draft you must check out this piece.

“Call of the Nerd”
by Bruce Richard on Muse Vessel
No best-off list for 2011 would be complete without an response article to Alyssa Bereznak’s Gizmodo article about her date with World Champion Magic player Jon Finkel. Bruce gets on his soapbox and speaks up for the “nerds” she disses.
Other famous articles from Bruce include: “Standing Up for Sitting Back” and “Are you Done Yet?”

That’s it for Knowledge Pool in 2011. I hope you liked being flashbacked.

Keep it also casual next year, though 2012 it might be the end of days.

Yours Dominik Schönleben (Completelycasual.net)

Rules changes conundrum

2011-12-22T12:26:00.000+01:00

Players other than the controller of a trigger are under no obligation to point out that a trigger has been missed, though they may do so if they wish.

Is it me or do the rules changes for triggers spell trouble for all levels of Magic play, not just the higher RELs? The recent update to the Infraction Procedure Guide allows for a different proceedure for missed triggers and defines exactly what optional and non-optional triggers are.

Why would I, casual Commander player, get my panties in a knot about this? These changes will be enforced from 01/01/12 and only in higher REL events. We avid followers of the Commander format know from long experience with the Commander RC that any statement from an official source, even with a pretty large caveat like "in your own group, you don't need to do it like this", will be taken as a de facto blanket change. After all, outside of the target events, there's no form of official enforcement to rule one way or another on any cases that come up. Whereas before, when there was one rule, it's either printed "may" on the card and thus skipped if forgotten, or it's printed "Do X", thus it's obligatory and it's everyone's responsbility to point it out.

What's annoying in addition is being required to re-learn new complex rules in an era when Wizards are purportedly looking to make the game easier to access. We can cite the recent move by Wizards to move away from "may" triggers as they are deemed to confusing as a clear and relevant example. This change is effectively a complete U-turn on that policy making a huge swath of previously obligatory triggers effectively optional if a player or both players aren't vigilant enough. Worse still, they have set down criteria as to which triggers are optional and which are not. You'll see why I say "worse" a little later.

I don't know about your playgroup, I can only comment on mine. We have a very casual playgroup but with time restraints. Our ongoing policy (now that Marc is gone!) is that "Go!" actually means "I've finished my turn and there's no take-backs." The triggered ability on a permanent that doesn't say "may" means that it will happen, even if it's initially missed by everybody and we need to rewind. This may seem a little strict for a very casual group but it's one of the best learning tools we can implement. No-one is afraid to dish out advice, detailed explainations are available before and after the fact and we're pretty honest as to what we consider douchy plays and, for the most part, we avoid inflicting them on our group. Outside of that, it's your responsability to know your deck and to pay attention. You snooze, you lose!

Where it gets sticky is when a player decides that the new policy applies to our group. It's in the IPG after all. Who cares that Wizards say it's only for high REL events? Johnny had to play with these rules at the PTQ, the Grand Prix, States and the National Qualifier, why should it be any different here? Why do we blindly stick to the Commander rules & banned list if we're going to pick and mix other policies?

To be honest, I think we'll manage to sort it out for our group though I'm not so sure that some of the more "competitive" commander groups will weather the changes so well. After all, who actually says, when they attack with Phage: "The ability triggers and you're dead"? No, they don't, they just attack and assume you're dead. I can see the scene already when Phage hits and the attacking player just plays a 2nd-Main-Phase land without announcing the resolution of the Phage's death trigger and is literally flummoxed when the player hit by Phage has the temerity to untap and draw as normal. Let's face it, everyone knows someone who, if they thought they could successfully argue their way out of leaving a game, they'd do it. Groups where the spirit of the rules is championed over rules lawyering should be able to resolve this without too much antagonism; other groups have just found an entirely new level of wrangling and there will be additional tension.

Here's an annotated version of the definition of what now constitutes an optional ability with additional commentary on the "exceptions" (i.e.: those that seem optional but are not) courtesy of Jason Wong's excellent article over on www.manadeprived.com.

An optional ability does one or more of the following things, and nothing else:
Gains you life or causes an opponent to lose life. (Soul Warden)
Puts cards from your library, graveyard, or exile zones into your hand or onto the battlefield. This includes drawing cards. (Elvish Visionary)
Causes opponents to put objects from their hand or the battlefield into the library, graveyard or exile. (Ravenous Rats)
Puts a permanent into play under your control or gives you control of a permanent. (Sower of Temptation)
Puts +x/+x counters, or counters linked to a beneficial effect, on a permanent you control. (Shrine of Burning Rage)
Gives +x/+x or a beneficial ability to a target creature you control. (Chasm Drake)
Exiles, damages, destroys, taps, or gives -x/-x to an opponent’s target permanent. If the ability could target your own permanents, it is not optional unless that ability could target an opponent. (Kor Hookmaster is optional, Acidic Slime is not optional, Inferno Titan is optional)
Gives you additional turns or phases. (Lighthouse Chronologist)
Counters a spell or conditionally counters a spell, but only when cast by an opponent. (Chancellor of the Annex)

Abilities that trigger at the same point in each player’s turn and do something to “that player” (e.g. Howling Mine) are never optional.

Here are some abilities that you may think are optional, but are not:
Frost Titan’s first ability – In the list of allowable actions for optional abilities, there is an entry that says “… conditionally counters a spell, but only when cast by an opponent.” Frost Titan’s ability does this when your opponent casts Doom Blade, but not when your opponent activates Royal Assassin. Since it is not optional sometimes, it is never optional.
Dark Confidant – The ability puts a card into your hand, but it also does something else. Since it doesn’t fit into exactly into the options listed, it is not optional.
Crypt Cobra – This follows the philosophy of optional abilities, but it is not covered in the list of acceptable actions.
Morkrut Banshee – Like Acidic Slime, it can target permanents you control as well, while not being able to target your opponent.
Manic Vandal when only your opponent controls artifacts – The “optionalness” of an ability is not influenced by the game state. In a vacuum, Manic Vandal could target an artifact you control. Even though you don’t control any artifacts, the ability is not optional.

Particularly confusing are the differences between effects like Inferno Titan and Acidic Slime/Manic Vandal. Why would damage be optional but destruction not be optional? Both are encompassed by the same definition but a difference is being made in the application of the definition. In the same definition, Manic Vandal is not optional because theoretically you could control artifacts even if you don't just right now. The issue I have with this is that all three cards are worded to say that it happens, not that you may choose. This was my "worse still": Complex game just got more complex.

How about the +X/+X rule with something that gives multiple creatures +1/+1 counters like Mayael's Aria? If you put counters on some of your creatures but not all you've obviously not missed the trigger. Does that allow you to go back and complete the process for a creature you may have forgotten?

Jason Wong went on to talk about how not to deck yourself with Jin-Gitaxias by "forgetting" as drawing cards from triggered abilities is now optional, irregardless of whether your opponent points it out. You're no longer required to draw 7 at the end of your turn with the Praetor and his "Draw 7" now technically reads "You may draw 7".

The other side of the coin is that, if for some reason you forgot to draw your 7 cards, you don't get to rewind now. How many Commander playgroups are going to want to continue to implement the old ruling (which, I suppose, is still the current ruling seeing as Commander isn't concerned by the REL changes) when you can choose to implement the new ruling and have the Jin-Gitaxias player skip drawing those cards?

I can say with some honesty: Not many.

As a good man once said about Jin-Gitaxias, he's a Knut!!

At least, I think that's what he said.

The Best Blue Creature in Commander?

2011-12-20T16:51:00.000+01:00

Ok, here's a bold claim.

We've a couple of players that have been rocking a Time Spiral Rare over the last few months and it has iced games multiple times when it has hit the field.

While it's not exactly Primeval Titan level good, it's a great foil for the titan and any other non-vanilla creature, which is to say, pretty much the entire format. It's not Draining Whelk, it's not Deep-Sea Kraken nor, surprisingly enough, is it Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. My current top dog for best blue creatures in Commander is:

No direct damage to ping off that annoying creature that's just ruining your day? Ixidron

Some general just running away with the game thanks to their activated abilities? Ixidron

Lord of Extinction going to kill you next turn? Ixidron.

The "problem" of leaving a pile of faceless 2/2's sitting around should be mitigated somewhat by your own upturned dudes fending off similiar sized attackers allowing you to be the biggest dog on the block for a turn or two. And that's what a blue deck wants after all, isn't it? A few extra turns of not being milled, targetted or beaten down by the format's diverse set of creature abilities.

Oh and something else, death triggers don't trigger if something dies as a 2/2 morph. Suck it Reveillark!

Essentially the only ways players can get out of the Ixidron "lock" are:
1. Have their creatures die in some manner and bring them back.
2. Blink their creatures in some manner
3. Morph their creatures (Maindeck Break Open ftw!)

God forbid you managed to stick one onto a Mimic Vat. Everyone would be overpaying for vanilla 2/2s all over the place.

Artifacts in Balthor

2011-12-16T15:14:00.000+01:00

Someone in my playgroup recently mentioned to me that I have a couple of funky artifacts in my Balthor deck and that, frankly, they both sucked.

He was only half right.

My Balthor deck gets added to and subtracted from pretty often so any given section is never nailed down. I get to make hard choices (If I add a Lake of the Dead, how many basic Swamps should I be running for it to be a hit every time?) and easy choices (Is Soulless One still worth it?*)

One of the places where I do the most tinkering is the artifact section. As my deck is a top-down, flavour-driven Zombie deck (rather than a "best of Black" with some zombies thrown in) I get to make choices based on whether a Door of Destinies should really be present in a Zombie scene. Since posting my last defined list back in January** I've completely overhauled the Artifacts section.

Things like Sensei's Divining Top are, flavourfully, very easy cuts to make because Zombies just aren't known for their divining or the ability to spin a top for that matter. Gameplay-wise this is a huge cut that, along with Vampiric Tutor, as effected my deck's ability to be consistent. Following on theme, that's an acceptable thing to happen though: zombies aren't always a full-on hoard from turn 2 or 3. It also forces me to play the deck differently as I'm not always going to the same outs. If this means that I'm losing more than usual, that's fine too.

Of the original list, only 3 cards have survived the cuts up to now: Lightning Greaves, Expedition Map & Skullclamp. All the boosts, exile abilities and recurring tricks have been cut and boosts have been taken care of by the full compliment of 4 lords available to Mono-B.

In their place, I have added in a couple of artifacts to help load the graveyards. A couple allow me to live the dream of a huge turn 3-4 zombie army but the statistical changes of that are ridiculously low. Here's the combo:

If you play a Mesmeric Orb and follow up with a Basalt Monolith, you can mill your entire deck just by tapping and untapping the Monolith. If you're lucky enough to have a Songs of the Damned or a Crypt of Agadeem (and the mana to use it, of course) you have enough mana to loop your Balthor to raise the Zombie Army you've always dreamed of. Of course, later in the game this is still a valid play allowing for the need to work around graveyard hates as that would seriously crimp your style.

In the meantime Mesmeric Orb is a huge pain in the rear for a lot of decks, not everyone wants to mill for 4-6 every turn.

The other artifacts I've added are Sol Ring, Charmed Pendant (an extremely dubious mana accellerant), Oblivion Stone/Nev's Disk (some necessary protection), and a Memory Jar. The Jar allows for some silly end of turn armies that you wouldn't otherwise be able to accellerate into.

Despite these additions, even more space is needed for the Grimoire of the Dead so I'll have to go back into the tank for that.

Space must be found

So, to sum up: Yes, Charmed Pendant sucks.

____________________________________________________________

* Sadly, no. He's the muscle who's become just too vanilla. We now have cheaper and better options. Goodbye, Soulless One, you are now "Friendless One".

** Coat of Arms, Door of Destinies, Brittle Effigy, Expedition Map, Sensei's Divining Top, Nim Death-Mantle, Skullclamp, Lightning Greaves

Goodbye, Daddy M.

2011-12-07T12:43:00.000+01:00

This week a player left our playgroup.

Our principal magic playgroup is at our place of work during our lunch-hour. That's pretty neat if you can accept the various constraints, such as the strict time limit and that you could be playing your direct superior any given afternoon. While the nature of the company and commander, our favoured format allow for a certain measure of familiarity, you can't just call your boss a douchbag when he pulls out a questionable play. Luckily, despite him being one of the 3 bosses who partake in our group, this was never the case with Marc anyway.

When he was called on to give his going-away speech, he covered the professional side pretty comprehensively but he skimped a bit on the gaming side so I’ve decided to list some of the Magic things that we’ll miss about Marc now that he’s gone.

Marc is a 40+ year old Timmy. There’s something really great about a guy who just loves his Timmy moments and really couldn’t give a damn what you think. It’s all about the full-on “Leerooooooooooyyy Jenkins!” and, now that he’s gone, we’re slowly realizing that he was pretty much the only full-on Timmy we had.

The profile of Timmy caring more about the EPIC wins rather than the quantity of wins was especially true for Marc and he notched up as many war stories for his epic blowouts as for being epically blown out himself because he waited just one turn too long. He just wanted to go big all the time.

One of the things that isn’t mentioned all that much about Timmys is their love for the red zone. For Marc, there was only one way to win: laying down the beats. So much so that the attack phase was renamed the “Yaaaarrrggghhhhhh” phase in his honor. Picture this jovial, middle-aged man up off his seat, turning his creatures, tokens, playmat and sandwiches sideways while shouting “Yaaaarrrggghhhhhh!!” often accompanied by diverse charging noises and other random battle sound effects while the rest of the company looks up from their lunch platter in bemusement. A full throated bellowing of The Flight of the Valkyeries a la Apocalypse Now was for those exceptional moments of face-smashery. That was Marc every day.

Of course, these epic calls to war wouldn’t be half as memorable if there weren’t equally copious examples of “yyyaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh…….oooooooohhhhHHHHHSSSHHIITTOHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT” mixed right in there too. The attack was the “moment”, the pinnacle of all his hard work. It just that the execution didn’t always match the vision.

Still, on those occasions when when Rhys & Seedborn Muse both survive a full, mana-rich turn around the table to be boosted by Garruk & Overrun once it come back to Marc, there’s not a huge number of possible results: You either have the Fog (and he generally had it but no-one else did!) or there’s a lot of dead or critically wounded planeswalkers!

Of course, timing was never really one of Marc’s strong suits. Picture the scene: the turn passes to Marc. He draws his card and goes deep into the tank calculating his potential damage. He realizes that he has just enough to deal lethal with cards in hand if the opponent does block but he’s got to finish the job because he’s wide open for the counter-strike.

He thinks some more.

Finally he leans forward and gives us his patented “Yaaaarrrggghhhhhh!!” as he moves into his attack phase. The unlucky defending player(s) go into the tank and calculate damage and blockers and realize that, unless something funky happens, they will survive the turn and kill Marc when the turn comes round to them.

So much better like this.

“No blockers,” they announce.

“No blockers? Then….. [and here he’d pause, draw himself up majestically and shout]… OVERRUN!!”

…

Now, if this had happened once, maybe twice, it wouldn’t be interesting but it actually happened so often that it got to the point where we could tell if he had the Overrun and could stop him (or not, depending on our life totals) before he got into his attack phase. He even managed to accomplish this magnificent, speed-changing feat twice during the same game! Some humorous cad decided to print out a HD proxy of the card with “Sorcery” replaced by “Instant” and slide it into his deck just to mess with his head a bit and he was presented with a play set of these errata versions upon leaving the company.

So, what do you get when you give a Timmy a Grand Arbiter Augustin IV and tell him to make a deck?

A full on Stax prison lock? Noooooo! Counterspells? Sure, a couple. Leviathans? Of course! But a rapid Rhino beatdown was probably not what you expected. We gave Marc a GAAIV and he gave us this:

Turn 1: Land, Sol Ring, Pearl Medallion
Turn 2: Land, GAAIV
Turn 3: Land, Mirror Sigil Sergeant, go.

When your opponent starts with a second turn Grand Arbiter, you know you’re in for a rough ride. Add everyone’s early game mana development torpor to a prison effect and garnish with a self-replicating rhinoceros across the table from you and it all spells >ouch<. Fastest table kill ever and he achieved it with just one creature.

What about putting Celestial Mantle on a Battlegrace Angel before equipping on a Lightning Greaves and sending it into battle? I think we stopped counting at 3000+ life. There are games when you really need your Wrath of God to resolve and games where you really need to kill someone with your general. We didn’t get there with either solution and Marc stayed above 3000 from there on. He eventually ended up taking it out of his deck after repeated 2-for-1s but that never took anything away from that one occasion when it got there in a big way. From then on any significantly high life total has been regarded with distain and a “Pffff! Well, it’s not 3000+, is it?” by the entire group.

It wasn’t all good times though; Marc could be frustrating to play with and against. His turns would often take the following form:

“Ok, em, go!
No, wait! Land, go!
No, wait! Attack you for 15!
Eh…… NOW go!”

When it happens once in a blue moon, you can let this kind of thing slide but when it’s every other turn, it gets to be frustrating very, very quickly. Towards the end, if it seemed like it was one of those days, the table would gently nudge him along with innocent suggestions like “How may lands do you have there, Marc?” or “Gee, that’s a lot of creatures you’ve got there!!” during his pre-combat main-phases. Those touched by the Beatdown Gods have their minds on higher matters and such minutia as phases and being aware of what's happening can often be beneath them.

Picture Marc as some sort of Beatdown Buddah (but with a lot less inner peace) and you’re half-way to knowing him already.

With such great and ponderous thoughts of beatdown also comes the ability to realise belatedly what's actually going on and lead to last minute changes of mind. Being the beatdown is a complicated business. Do this first or do that first? Attack him over here or attack him over there? The number of takebacks our playgroup allows is actually pretty low with the exception of Marc who was constantly stuck on “actually, no, I think I’ll do that instead” mode.

This, unfortunately, extended to stuff that uses the stack, which, in Magic, is quite a lot of stuff. Those dreaded words “In response….” engendered a flight instinct in Marc that Norin the Wary would have been proud of. The usual response to another player’s “In response….” was always “In that case, no, I think I’ll do that instead.” If you worked it enough, I’m sure you could achieve a state of perpetual take-backs even when holding only a hand full of land.

That is until he got fed up and just pounded your face into the ground with 475 trampling damage from the pick’n’mix of creatures he had summoned. I suppose the moral to that story is not to bait the bear, the bear has claws.

And we’ll miss you around the table, old bear!

Maelstrom Wanderer: PT/Avenger enabler

2011-11-25T12:45:00.000+01:00

I’m not sure that the announcement of the upcoming Planechase 2012 product was all that exciting in and of itself as a format mechanic but a huge amount of interest has been gained from what was announced in the product and hinted at in addition to the product:

First up: cards exclusive to the Planechase product. The Commander pre-cons (and, I suppose, to a certain extent the recent changes in the core sets) have galvanized the community and led to a huge amount of interest in non-core products. If the 21 new & exclusive, planechase-product-only cards are anywhere near as awesome as the ones that went into the commander product, then Wizards will have scored another home run.

Second up: a cycle of multi-colored legendary creatures. They don’t confirm they will all be enemy wedge, but the mention of a cycle strongly suggests they will be. We know there’s at least one enemy wedge legend because they showed it to us:

While I concede that this could be extremely cool, in only 24h of interweb fapping over Maelstrom Wanderer, the idea-mongers have managed to produce just 3 ideas that everyone keeps coming back to again, and again and again.

And again.

And once more again because we’re now approaching 36 hours since the announcement.

Ways to do “cool stuff” with MW: The First

Fix the top of your deck to a Tooth & Nail.
Play Maelstrom Wanderer.
Cascade into the Tooth & Nail, paying 2 for Entwine.
Get Primeval Titan & Avenger of Zendikar.
Resolve second Cascade into whatever.
Resolve Maelstrom Wanderer.
Everything gets haste. Attack for 7+5+6+4X (where X is the number of lands you controlled when the Avenger triggered), so probably in the region of 50-ish damage.

>yawn!<

Ways to do “cool stuff” with MW: The Second

Get Momir Vig, Simic Visionary into play.
Play Maelstrom Wanderer.
Stack the Momir Vig triggers so you draw first then tutor for an Avenger of Zendikar to put on top of the library (just hope you didn’t draw either it or PT).
Resolve the first cascade into Avenger of Zendikar and play it.
With the new Momir Vig trigger, tutor up Primeval Titan and put it on top of the library.
Resolve the second cascade into Primeval Titan and play it.
With the new Momir Vig trigger, tutor up something else and put it on top of the library.
Resolve Maelstrom Wanderer.
Everything gets haste. Attack for 7+5+6+4X (where X is the number of lands you controlled when the Avenger triggered), so probably in the region of 50-ish damage. [Yes, I did just copy/Paste that]

>yawn!<

Ways to do “cool stuff” with MW: The Third

Fix the top of your deck to a Jokulhaups or Devastation.
Play Maelstrom Wanderer.
Cascade into Jokulhaups or Devastation.
Either set up your second cascade into Primeval Titan or cascade blind.
Have a fun game!!

>yawn!<

About the only suggestion that I saw that was in any way original was by putting a Selective Memory out there, exiling all those annoying little spells that you really need in your deck but are really not exceptional when you are cascading so you know that whatever you cascade into will be pure gold. That gets the thumbs-up for being ballsey from me even if the original poster was still intending to cascade into Primeval Titan / Avenger of Zendikar.

So, yeah, Maelstrom Wanderer will be huge and swingy and big and epic but only if some effort is made to make his cascades original. Otherwise he, like so many other cards, will merely become another route to Primeval Titan / Avenger of Zendikar.

Another 6 months of this before we even get to touch the card.

>yawn!<

Third up: hints at another commander specific product.

So not only do we get more commanders, more cards, more new cards, we’re also getting additional commander product?

Hell, yeah.

Gifts Given

2011-11-21T12:29:00.000+01:00

About a year ago I got an IM on my MTGCommander.com account from some random scrub in Canada asking me if I was free the following weekend to talk on Skype about EDH. It seems this guy somehow got it into his head that there was a gap in the market for an EDH podcast, of all things.

Well, much like the visionary Bill Gates, who managed to enlighten millions to a previously unknown void in their lives that could only be filled by his products, Andy, a.k.a. Ghooosts (that's 3 "O's" and plural, all over the internet), has likewise managed to convince millions (thousands) of EDH fanatics that their week is somehow incomplete without a 90-minute helping of Commandercast.

I, like many of the guys (and gal) that have been involved in Commandercast in some form or another, have been blown away by Andy's dedication to the show, something he does for no benefit to himself and on top of his work and family responsabilities. Despite his busy schedule, he's brought together the EDH community every Monday and has not missed a show, all the more amazing because Magic/EDH is apparently not even Andy's favourite game! Andy put himself out there and answered a need and keeps doing it, just for you & me.

That job in the bank must be terribly....what? He drives an ambulance for a living? Does this guy have any faults?!

So, when an all round good guy and generally inspirational character goes and asks you to send him stuff for free, you generally just send it first and ask "Why?" later. The "Why?" this time is a very good "Why?" though and one that bears repeating to anyone who will listen:

Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child’s Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Over 7 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children’s hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception.
This year, we have continued expanding across the country and the globe. With over 70 partner hospitals and more arriving every year, you can be sure to find one from the map above that needs your help! You can choose to purchase requested items from their online retailer wish lists, or make a cash donation that helps out Child’s Play partners everywhere. Any items purchased through Amazon will be shipped directly to your hospital of choice, so please be sure to select their shipping address rather than your own.

When gamers give back, it makes a difference!

For those of you, like me, who are a little caught up with daily life flashing past, watching your kids grow, taking care of your loved ones, enjoying your hobbies and building impressive collections of Magic cards, giving something back can often take a back seat. This is a charity that at once gives to those who need a little more fun and enjoyment in their lives and taps directly into our own interests as gamers.

Andy has generously extended us this opportunity to participate in Child's Play directly through CommanderCast with his Gifts Given programme, a drive that will donate all receipts directly to Child's Play.

So, take a little time to decide if this opportunity is for you and if this is the way you, as a gamer, want to give something back.

I've decided that Andy is going to get a small pile of cards from France to add to his offer in the knowledge that it all goes to a good cause.

Back Row:

Hivis of the Scale; Lorthos, the Tidemaker (French); Godo, Bandit Warlord; Arid Mesa (Fr); Marsh Flats (Fr); Verdant Catacombs (Fr); Misty Rainforest; Scalding Tarn; Aven Shrine; Quest for Ula's Temple (Fr)

Centre Row:

Wooded Foothills; Windswepth Heath (Fr); Flooded Strand (Fr); Polluted Delta (Fr); Bloodstained Mire (Fr); Marrow-Gnawer (Japanese), Eight-and-a-half-tails (Jp); Possessed Portal (Jp); Dovescape (Foil/Jp); Sedraxis Specter (Foil)

Front Row:

Wrexial, the Risen Deep (Fr); Braids, Drinker of Tears (Fr); Zur the Enchanter (Fr); Ib Halfheart, Nation; 2x Helm of Kaldra (Jp); Door to Nithingness (Jp); Heartbeat of Spring (Jp); Momentary Blink/Elvis (Fr/Alt. by Antoine)

[CommanderCast Crossover] Grimgrin v Thrax : Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun

2011-11-15T22:53:00.001+01:00

November is Crossover Month at Commandercast. Overlord Andy ordered his legion of writers to get out there onto the blogosphere, siteosphere and any other kind of -sphere they could find. Their mission: Spread the CommanderCast Word and send back writers to do the heavy lifting for them whilst they are chilling out as honoured guests on blogs such as The Crazy 99. My own Commander legionaire is Maxwell "Max" Kautsch, usually responsible for the Peasant Rebellion articles on the Commander mothership.

Welcome Max!

Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun

For Crossover month, Owen and I planned to look at the state of tribal Zombies in Commander now that we have Grimgrin, Corpse-Born in our lives. I was going to try to make a case for why you might play Zombie tribal with Grimmy rather than the defending multicolor Zombie champ, Thraximundar. So I started with Cassidy’s sweet “Grimgrin’s Zompocalypse” build and make it a little less Zombie-heavy and a little more combo/control oriented. I’ve always loved Cloudstone Curio and couldn’t resist pairing that with Rooftop Storm.

Although the deck experienced some success, mostly on the back of Curio/Rooftop Storm/Grixis Slavedriver with a Vengeful Dead and Grimgrin on the field, the biggest issue the deck faced was classic B/U: no artifact or enchantment removal. Even the best of the bounce spells (Venser, Shaper Savant/Cryptic Command) and colourless removal (Oblivion Stone/Karn Liberated) did not seem to be cutting it often enough, leaving me wanting for the red in Thrax’s color identity. My inclination to just Thrax it up myself was bolstered by discussions on the intertrons resulting in the general consensus that Thrax is still the better Zombie general. After all, Thrax has haste, a shroud-proof sac ability, and red means MUCH better artifact hate than what a B/U deck offers. I’m not saying Zombie tribal with Grimgrin can’t be good; I mean, Cassidy’s awesome Future Sight/Rooftop Storm/Gravebane Zombie combo is easier to get into play because a U/B deck makes UUU more efficiently than a U/B/R one. And his build seems amazing. But as Cassidy himself mentions in the comments of that article, any truly desirable card in that deck, including Grimgrin, could just as easily be played in a Thrax build. Yup, Owen, you were right. :)

So the question is, if Grimgrin isn’t optimal to lead your Zombie army, and if it’s doubtful he can unseat Wrexial, the Risen Deep as a better general for a traditional B/U control build, does Grimgrin really have a place in Commander other than as an auto-include in a Thrax Zombie tribal deck?

First, let’s remind ourselves why the two cards inspire comparisons. This is the entirety of the rules text on Thraximundar, a 6/6 for 7:

Haste
Whenever Thraximundar attacks, defending player sacrifices a creature.
Whenever a player sacrifices a creature, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Thraximundar.

This is the third clause of rules text on Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, a 5/5 for 5:

Whenever Grimgrin attacks, destroy target creature defending player controls, then put a +1/+1 counter on Grimgrin.

Both cards cause opponents to lose creatures when they attack, and both get bigger for each creature that hits the yard. This means that the decks are likely to share cards that derive a benefit from creatures dying. Skullclamp, Grave Pact, Butcher of Malakir, Mimic Vat, and Nim Deathmantle would be probable includes in either. Grimgrin’s ability only results in destroying a creature if it is successfully targeted, which makes the ability vulnerable in a format rife with Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots, while Thrax’s triggers a sacrifice that doesn’t care about targeting (although Grimgrin has the advantage against a token deck because he can snipe). Grimgrin is cheaper, but ordinarily can’t swing until turn 6, where haste lets Thrax swing only a turn later. Given Thrax is not disrupted by something as common as Greaves, along with haste and access to red, I would agree that the fight goes to Thrax.

Except that we forgot to mention the first and second clauses of Grimgrin’s rules text:

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born enters the battlefield tapped and doesn't untap during your untap step.
Sacrifice another creature: Untap Grimgrin and put a +1/+1 counter on it.

The knee-jerk reaction is to view these mostly as drawbacks. Yes, it is generally disadvantageous for a creature to enter the battlefield tapped. Yes, you are potentially looking at card disadvantage if you have to sacrifice one of your own creatures before Grimgrin can even attack. Yes, it’s too bad Grimgrin can’t sacrifice himself to prevent himself from getting tucked. What I find interesting about Grimgrin is not only that he first swings as a 7/7 and effectively gets two more +1/+1 tokens for each subsequent attack, but also that he is the only general in print who can control when he untaps.

Hmmm. For starters, Paradise Mantle on Grimmy results in a de facto Phyrexian Altar, a card with a track record of Commander viability. After some Gathering, a deck started to come together; it just didn’t involve Zombies. So rather than bore you with a Grimgrin Zombie tribal deck when you should just read Cassidy’s article or pull out your Thraximundar, I bring you Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun.

The deck really only needs three things to fire away, given adequate mana: Grimgrin (the gun), some tokens (ammunition), and Surestrike Trident (the pain). The Trident got some love when infect came out, for obvious reasons, but otherwise doesn’t seem to show up a whole lot. In addition to targeting your opponents, it gives the equipped creature first strike, which seems relevant for a general who can destroy creatures only if he risks a trip to the red zone. But how about that second ability with a pumpable general?

Turns out, the Trident and Grimgrin happily provide the deck’s win condition without ever getting near the red zone as long as Grimgrin isn’t summoning sick and there are enough creatures to sacrifice. A couple of “shots” is usually all it takes, depending on how long Grimgrin has been allowed to accumulate counters or if the deck is in position to make him infinitely large (and no, you can’t use the Trident to inflict general damage).

So how do we get there? The Trident costs 4 to equip, a relatively expensive thing to do at sorcery speed, so land fetchers like Wayfarer’s Bauble and Pilgrim’s Eye, along with and mana rocks and Tezzeret the Seeker, help out a lot. Ashnod’s Altar is great with tokens, and even better with Nim Deathmantle and an ETB token generating creature. Paradise Mantle can come in handy, too, and you can of course search it out with the ubiquitous Trinket Mage. Obviously the Mantle turns any old creature into a BOP, which is good, but the fun begins when it’s equipped to Grimgrin. When Grimgrin is wearing the Mantle, sacrifice a token to untap Grimgrin and give him a +1/+1 counter. He taps for mana, sac another creature, he untaps, gets another counter, and taps for another mana. Rinse and repeat.

So, what if you resolve an Army of the Damned under these circumstances? Means you get up to 13 sacrifice triggers, making Grimmy +1/+1 each time, while also making more than enough mana to tap him and unattach the Trident as many times as there are opponents. And then you can look blankly at your opponents, channel your inner Brick Tamland, and say “I killed a guy with a trident.”

Killing guys (or troublesome planewalkers, if need be) with a trident makes for good fun with Grimgrin’s untap mechanics, but are there alternative effects for his Gat? Ultimately, only Banishing Knack makes the cut because it helps shore up the deck’s weaknesses against artifacts and enchantments. Casting this at the end of someone’s turn yields a lot of targets (and yuks) for only 1 blue mana as long as Grimgrin is accompanied by some tokens on the field. It is absolutely conceivable that you could bounce all your opponent’s non-land permanents right before your turn given enough tokens.

Which brings us to an obviously important component of a deck like this: where are we going to get the tokens to feed a hungry Grimmy, and overcome the “card disadvantage” otherwise inherent in his ability? My personal favorite has always been creatures with ETB effects creating tokens, especially in black because of black’s ability to recur creatures and not much else. Blue fails when it comes to generating tokens via creatures, both black and artifacts have some good choices:

Grave Titan

Wurmcoil Engine

Marsh Flitter

Skeletal Vampire

Precursor Golem

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder

For once Oona, Queen of the Fae is less combo finisher and more token generator, and cards like Reassembling Skeleton add to the stable of token-generating creatures for our “fodder” suite. I also included persist baddies Glen Elendra Archmage and Puppeteer Clique because they can trigger two sacrifices in a pinch, in addition to their killer abilities. Army of the Damned and Rite of Replication make oodles of guys, and watch out for the old kicked Rite on Precursor Golem. Otherwise, ETB creatures such as Mulldrifter, Trinket Mage and Snapcaster Mage make for palatable sacrifices. And then there’s the Mimic Vat, a “good stuff” addition that happens to be quite on-theme.

The final necessary component is cards that provide benefits when creatures go the the graveyard, all of which fit nicely in Thrax as discussed above. The most important of those are of course Skullclamp and Gravepact. The one card I really wanted to get in but couldn’t was Falkenrath Noble. Probably win-more, but you’d think it would have its moments in a deck where the general can sacrifice any other creature for free at instant speed.

Otherwise, the deck’s choices were determined by its needs for card draw, control, and mana fixing/acceleration. As you might expect, things like Consecrated Sphinx, Decree of Pain and Damnation made it.

Graveborn Muse has nice synergy with Grimgrin and what’s left of the Zombie flavor in Grave Titan, Nim Deathmantle and Army of the Damned. Along with its ability to ramp, the aforementioned Ashnod’s Altar is one of a handful of sac outlets to help prevent Grimgrin from getting tucked; I also threw in High Market and Phyrexian Tower. Other key lands include Coffers/Urborg for ramp, Academy Ruins, and Shizo, Death’s Storehouse to give Grimgrin evasion if he needs it. Tolaria West searches out Pact of Negation, Maze of Ith or half of the Urborg/Coffers dream team.

Finally, although the deck can’t deal with artifacts the way a red deck can, its ability to win without attacking allows for long range wins that may not require the same degree of removal as if the deck were forced to win with combat damage. Even so, Kederekt Leviathan and Steel Hellkite join Karn to help with board control. Life’s Finale rounds out the removal suite; love that card with Puppeteer Clique.

So maybe Grimgrin isn’t a better multicolored Zombie general than Thraximunder, but Cassidy showed he’s absolutely viable as the leader of a Zombie horde. While my sub-Zombie theme failed as per Owen’s prediction, I have found that Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun v1.0 makes for fun games and a unique win condition. I mean, if you don’t want to kill a guy with a trident....I don’t know what to tell you.

Deck list here:

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves
Sword of Light and Shadow
Surestrike Trident
Paradise Mantle
Nim Deathmantle
Swiftfoot Boots

Tezzeret the Seeker
Karn Liberated

Cryptic Command
Venser, Shaper Savant
Banishing Knack
Pact of Negation
Damnation
Decree of Pain
Life’s Finale
Steel Hellkite
Kederekt Leviathan
Nether Traitor
Bloodghast
Reassembling Skeleton
Marsh Flitter
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Precursor Golem
Wurmcoil Engine
Grave Titan
Myr Battlesphere
Skeletal Vampire
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Mimic Vat
Glen Elendra Archmage
Puppeteer Clique
Army of the Damned
Rite of Replication

Wayfarer's Bauble
Expedition Map
Armillary Sphere
Memory Jar
Coalition Relic
Darksteel Ingot
Thran Dynamo
Sol Ring
Grim Monolith
Gilded Lotus
Pilgrim's Eye
Solemn Simulacrum
Ashnod's Altar
Dimir Signet

Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Rune-Scarred Demon
Bribery
Sensei's Divining Top
Consecrated Sphinx
Mulldrifter
Snapcaster Mage
Trinket Mage
Graveborn Muse
Butcher of Malakir
Grave Pact

4x Island
6x Swamp
Maze of Ith
Dreadship Reef
Phyrexian Tower
Watery Grave
Underground Sea
Ancient Tomb
Academy Ruins
Jwar Isle Refuge
Polluted Delta
Tolaria West
Bojuka Bog
Halimar Depths
Temple of the False God
Dimir Aqueduct
High Market
Volrath's Stronghold
Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Creeping Tar Pit
Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Seat of the Synod
Vault of Whispers
Reflecting Pool
Darkwater Catacombs
Drowned Catacomb
Strip Mine
River of Tears
Cabal Coffers
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Buried Ruin

EDIT: Here's the otherside of the crossover article over on Commandercast. Enjoy!

Finding the Key to the Zedruu Puzzle

2011-10-27T19:24:00.000+02:00

Quick Shot.

I'm having a huge problem solving the Zedruu puzzle. That is, making a deck where she's important but the deck isn't just a lame donate duck. Mixing control with getting the engine going and eventually winning is quite a lot for that uneasy mix of colours.

I think I've found the key to the puzzle that allows Zedruu to give away crazy permanents ....... for benefit!

Confusion in the Ranks effectively gives away almost every single non-land permanent you put into play. While your opponents will get the opportunity to fight over various permanents on the board, it's actually quite rare that, when your turn comes around, you're going to want to take one of your own permanents back. If your permanents fly back and forward between opponents, you don't care, it will still trigger Zedruu. Add in Norin the Wary and you're guarenteed to have Zedruu on your side of the board come your upkeep (if she's still alive) to pile up on those life points and free cards.

One obvious additional advantage to Confusion is that you don't need Bazar Trader, Donate or Zedruu to give away your nasty artifacts or enchantments, they just fly away automatically when they come into play. Other players are extremely unlikely to choose to pick up a Lich's Tomb or Illusions of Grandeur from some unfortunate victim which makes sure your gifts remain given.

Choosing the right Zombie general for you

2011-10-19T09:41:00.000+02:00

Building a Zombie deck

So you’ve decided to build a Zombie deck. Who’s going to be your general? Let’s assume you’re not perverse and plumping a non-zombie, you have almost 14 legends to choose from. The reason you have “almost 14” instead of just “14” is that two of those legends are pointless to actually choose.

The first non-general is Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. He’s got good stats and a cool ability, allowing you to “zombify” knights in your graveyard back into play to fight for you after they have died the first time. The only issue with Haakon is his first line of rules text:

You may cast Haakon, Stromgald Scourge from your graveyard, but not from anywhere else.

Unfortunately this includes the Command Zone. All the viable workarounds are out of color which means that you have a general you can never cast. And there’s not that many Zombie Knights anyways (14 including himself), none of which are lighting up Commander tables anywhere. Add it all up and you’ve got an unplayable General who interacts with very few zombies.

Right behind Haakon is Phage the Untouchable. Her first line of text is even more restrictive than Haakon’s:

When Phage the Untouchable enters the battlefield, if you didn't cast it from your hand, you lose the game.

She may win you the game if she connects with an opponent during combat but you’ll never know as she’ll have killed you upon entering the battlefield. The reason she’s slightly more playable than Haakon is because there are work-arounds like Torpor Orb or Platinum Angel that will allow you to survive. Until you get those solutions to stick she’s stranded in your Command Zone doing her manicure. You’re also running the risk of some smart Johnny destroying your workaround in response to your spell eliminating you with your own Phage trigger.

Another reason to steer clear of Phage is that she’s not a “proper” Zombie. Initially she was a mere “minion”, only getting elevated to zombie status in The Grand Creature Type Update of 2007. (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/424a3) You don’t want a wannabe fan-girl with issues heading up your army of walking dead, do you?

Nah, didn’t think so.

After that you have a few choices. I’m going to break these down by color: mono-B (3), BG (2), BR (2), BU (2) or BRU (3). If you’re a little surprised, as I was, about the color breakdown, it’s interesting to note that Wizards, until Innistrad, considered Zombies to be essentially mono-Black and, to a large extent, they are. There are 35 multicolored Zombies in Magic, which accounts for just 14% of the 253 total zombie creature count (this excludes cards that make zombies but are not themselves zombies most of which are black anyway) but a staggering 64% of Zombie legends have an additional color and that’s including Phage and Haakon in that count! There seems to be a trend for Legendary Zombies to dabble in other colors, something of a mystery considering zombie’s, until recently, very strict mono-color adhesion. There’s clearly some housekeeping to be done to redress these numbers to something more along the lines of what Wizards claim their color alignment should be.

Keeping it real are Balthor Bob, Geth & Korlash. They represent the color of Zombiness and don’t make any apologies. In addition they are all pretty big hitters in their own way. Let’s meet the team:

First up is Balthor the Defiled. The little Dwarf Zombie who could, Bob, as a 2/2 for 4, isn’t going to be winning many general combat damage races any time soon but Balthor benefited hugely from the Command Zone rules in Commander. An exile ability in most other formats usually reads “one shot ability” but Balthor gets to do his thing and kick back in the Command Zone waiting for an encore. What’s great about Balthor is that he really gets Zombies.

Zombies die, they go to the graveyard and, in some very rare circumstances, can crawl out themselves or maybe a fellow zombie can give a helping hand to bring them back to your hand. Balthor takes all of your zombies out of your graveyard and puts them into play. Crawling out of graves and eating braaaiiiiiiiiins are pretty much the “raison d’etre” of Zombies. He takes care of part one and lets the shambling hoards takes care of part 2.

He also takes all of your other black creatures out of your graveyard too, he’s not picky. There’s a small catch in that he does it for your opponent’s creatures (and all red creatures, a cute flavor throwback to the living Balthor who was Red) but you can always rig it so that it’s a one sided effect, especially with cards like Noxious Ghoul. All you have to do is put zombies where they belong in the first place: into your graveyard.

The advantage to running Balthor over another zombie Legend is this repeatable Raise Dead ability that you can use at instant speed. If your deck doesn’t intend to take advantage of this ability multiple times, maybe he’s not the Legend for you.

Oh, he gives minions +1/+1 too.

Next we have Geth, Lord of the Vault, another general very interested in filling up graveyards but, in direct opposition to Balthor, he wants to fill up opponent’s graveyards. Here’s where I start having one of my many doubts about Wizards ability to correctly apply Zombie color alignment. Geth, while being a very black-aligned, lich zombie in the storyline, has been given a blue/black ability. The “XB: Zombify a creature or artifact” is nailed on black but the mill ability that follows is very blue. Yes, there have been occasional black mill cards, most notably the recent Shared Trauma, however Wizards have been explicit that the milling of cards is flavorfully blue. With the chance to express this on a Legendary Zombie, a design space that’s not been a stranger to gold cards, the card remains mono-black with the majority of support cards directly related to fueling his ability remaining mono-blue.

This incongruity aside, his ability is strong: you get your opponent’s creature or artifact under your control directly from his graveyard. Again, as with Balthor, it’s an ability that he can use at instant speed, gazumping the spells and abilities opponents use to target their own graveyards. Using his ability gives you more targets to re-use his ability which in turn gives you more targets etc. etc. While not a single card strategy to himself, he can take advantage of some very powerful cards that a mono-black deck just does not have access to. You just need to kill them or mill them first, not usually an issue in mono-black or with Geth. A lot less “build around me” than Balthor, Geth is more incidentally powerful and very suited to a big black control deck (even if he’s a closet blue card).

Oh, he has intimidate too.

Finally we have big, dumb Korlash, Heir to Blackblade. Where Balthor’s stats are stuck at 2/2 for 2BB, Korlash gets to go big, generally having power and toughness each equal to the number of lands you control as Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth has enabled all your non-swamps. I’d have added “Oh, he has 1B: Regenerate too” but it’s actually quite a big deal keeping your beefcake alive long enough to be a relevant force in the game. There is one huge drawback to Korlash, however flavorful and brawny he may be: He has no evasion.

0/1 goat tokens are chumping him all day. This means that, in addition to your dedication to playing Swamps, you also have to allow for some means to connect with your beat-stick. How much of the deck will that take up in addition to the common black staples? Do you really see him as a leader of men…. em, zombies?

Do you remember Goblin Goon? Korlash is a bit like that in some ways. He’s bigger and stronger than the others of his race but he’s really just a dumb beater when you get down to it. As one of many, he has a place but as the leader of your forces, he’s not going to provide you with either the army Balthor can or the pick of your opponent’s creatures that Geth can.

Being the Heir to Blackblade also doesn’t have anywhere near the cool cache that actually being Blackblade does. As if stealing the sword of some dead hero is enough, pwah!!

Next up is RB featuring an excellent Zombie for you if you happen to be running Dragons and an old-school Legends Legend that makes Demon tokens.

Bladewing the Risen may seem over-costed at 3BBRR for “just” a 4/4 but he has evasion and two relevant abilities, just not very relevant for Zombies. You get a free Zombify tacked on to that body and you get the ability to boost all your dragon creatures multiple times with his mana ability. All in all that’s an excellent package and I’d play him in a shot if all instances of “Dragon” were replaced by “Zombie”. Regrowing a Zombie and having a scalable boost effect? Excellent!!

Oh, it’s for Dragons? Crap.

The second RB Zombie legend is Boris Devilboon who suffers from being an old legend when legends weren’t always particularly aggressively costed. A 2/2 for 3BR needs a great ability but “2BR, T: Put a 1/1 Demon creature token onto the battlefield” wasn’t really what the doctor ordered. Occasionally the older legends are either flavorfully fun or actually good but Boris is not.

His art is vomtastic too.

Here’s where we’re going to take the hint from Boris and pause to reflect on the number of times the word “Zombie” appears in the rules text of each zombie Legend. I’ll actually save you the effort of checking because it’s exactly 0. Not one Zombie Legend actually gives a damn about any other zombies in your deck. That’s a huge fail no matter how you cut it.

U/B Zombies got a new toy to play with in Innistrad: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born. I suppose he cares about Zombies because he likes eating them to untap and grow, though he can just as easily eat rats or anything else that’s around. What tempered the initial furor about getting a cool new Zombie Legend was the smart-ass who posted the combo featuring Grimgrin and Elemental Mastery:

Step 1: Tap Grimgrin to get lots of hasty elemental tokens;
Step 2: Sac one hasty elemental token to untap Grimgrin;
Step 3: Repeat as desired netting +1 token each time;
Step 4: Profit!! (aka: “attack with infinite tokens and an infinitely huge Grimgrin.”)

Hurp durp, legend ruined.

Yeah, I suppose you could just run him and ignore the combo but there are a couple of UBR zombie legends out there and I’ve yet to see many players espousing their ballin’ new Grimgrin list. I’ve seen a lot of people posting more UBR lists, especially Thraximundar*, featuring the Grim/Mastery combo and very few are running Minamo, School at Water's Edge to work around his tapped drawback in a more consistent manner..

*May contain trace elements of Hurp Durp.

Moving in a totally different direction is a very interesting (though not at all zombie themed) legend: Dralnu, Lich Lord. A 3/3 for 3UB, this Zombie Wizard isn’t all that in the damage stakes, doubly so if you consider that if damage would be dealt to Dralnu, Lich Lord, you sacrifice that many permanents instead. Em, that’s terrible, what’s to like here?

While he’s particularly stinky on the attacking side of things, Dralnu is quite the control player’s friend allowing you to flashback a broken instant or sorcery from your graveyard with a mere tap. Balance out the potentially devastating damage drawback with the ability to play your instants and sorcerys twice and you have a control general worth spending mana on in colors that lend themselves very well to control.

Very “build around me”, not very “zombie” and hazardous for your health……if you like that sort of thing!

A very recent addition to the zombie legend stable is the Black/Green combination. This is actually surprising it’s taken so long given Wizards penchant for mixing the Zombie Legends in with other colors and the benefits green has to share. Dredge, the Golgari mechanic, suggested it already and Green fills a nice hole in fat, acceleration and resilience that black doesn’t cover very well alone.

Glissa, the Traitor was our first taste of BG Zombies, thankfully avoiding Infect and having the potent First strike & deathtouch combination to compliment her acceptably-costed stats. She’s hard to block, makes for a great blocker and, most importantly, has a triggered ability that’s synergistic with her keywords:

Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, you may return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand.

Wizards put in the “opponent” clause to avoid her becoming an engine too easily, but with something as simple as an Executioner's Capsule and sufficient mana (and you’re in Green/Black, so that shouldn’t ever be an issue), she’s a machine gun. Add in a myriad of other small effects makes her deck tick over while there are always larger artifacts that you’re never unhappy about bringing back. In the unhappy event that your opponent doesn’t have any creatures for you to kill for her to trigger, throw a Forbidden Orchard or a Lifespark Spellbomb in and you’re ready to go again. The additional little joy to Glissa is that when someone wipes the board, Glissa, though dying herself, will “see” all the opponent’s creatures going to the graveyard and trigger allowing you to bring back that many artifacts to your hand. A very “Build around me” general and as simple or as complex you choose to build her, she still doesn’t really care about zombies.

Well, apart from Nim Replica maybe.

Sliding in there beside Glissa is a new player from the Commander product: Skullbriar, the Walking Grave. I don’t want to be reductive but he’s just a glorified “slith”. He starts small, grows a little each time you deal combat damage to a player and has the added bonuses of having haste and occasionally not losing his counters if he’s removed. That’s cute but, short of Doubling Season being in play, is really not very Legendary.

He also has the rarely relevant ability of being a zombie…..ah, who am I kidding?! Glissa is 10 times the general Skullbriar tries to be and has 2 relevant creature types: “Zombie” and the sadly much more useful “Elf”. Skullbriar doesn’t gain anything more from his colors than Glissa and we all know that dumb beaters just aren’t enough if they don’t have a way to evade blockers or some form of protection or resilience.

That 50/50 split brings us to the end of BG and on to the last section: UBR

We saw how the addition of Red and blue gave us some nice legends if you like non-zombie combo, non-zombie control or Dragons (or demons), what happens when you add both colors to the mix?

First we have Sedris, the Traitor King. Let’s get on top of the flavor:

Sedris was once a good and righteous king of Vithia during the early years following the sundering. It is unknown when exactly he fell from grace, but when demons tempted him with dreams of power, he submited. Sedris handed thousands of innocents over to the demons, killed his own family and advisors, and performed a dark ritual that allowed his consciousness to continue into unlife.

This sort of shit doesn’t happen every day so you have to hand it to Sedris for going all in. Like Balthor, Sedris wants to see your graveyard full so that he can give everyone another go on the battlefield. Not as suited to armies as Balthor, Sedris is king of the big one-shot hitters, though he prefers them to be 2-shot hitters (for a mere additional 2B). Like Balthor, he’s not picky about creature type and Sedris expands on color a little allowing Colourless and Blue on top of Balthor’s Red and Black. He’s still “all in” on his ability because there are notably few ways to get around the drawback of Unearth in these colors so he does create a certain tension in your deck.

Released in the same block as Sedris, Thraximundar is an interesting choice. He’s a de-facto 7/7 Haste for 4UBR if you attack into a player with at least one blocker. After that he’s a sucker for sacrifice effects, not just ones you control or instigate but every Sakura Tribe Elder and Yavimaya Elder activation, as well as a myriad of others, will add to Thraximundar’s power. What’s appealing about Thraximundar and Sedris is that both allow you to build good stuff creature decks that may or may not have much direct interaction with your general. Sedris re-uses creatures while Thraximundar is the high-end threat in a deck that’s going to be looking to constantly apply pressure on your opponents.

About their only relevance as Zombies is to benefit from whatever Zombie-related effects that you choose to add to your stack, most notably the recently released Rooftop Storm. If you can play your Thraximundar for 0 instead of 4UBR, or 2 instead of 6UBR, more power to you. Unfortunately, much like Grimgrin from the same set, Rooftop Storm is looking to be broken more than just providing some occasionally free Zombies. Lists running the enchantment seem to be running Thraximundar more as an incidentally beneficial General than any real dedication to the Zombie Nation.

Our last Legend on the list is the flavor granddaddy of all Zombies: Lord of Tresserhorn. In a time where 2/2s for 5cmc or 6cmc were more common, occasionally Wizards broke the mould if they felt the drawback warranted it. At a mere 1UBR Lor of Tresserhorn weighs in at 10/4 and has regeneration for just B.

“Where’s the drawback?” you ask.

Yeah, I was just getting there: You lose 2 life, you sacrifice two creatures and target opponent draws two cards. Yikes!! That’s probably worth more than the difference in mana he would have cost. There are ways around these like, em, Life-gain, lots of tokens with Grave Pact and Underworld Dreams, but there’s no getting away from the fact that you need to build around him and he’s quite tricky to set up. The biggest drawback is probably the “sacrifice 2 creatures” requirement as any opponent can nix your general by killing one or both of the creatures you intended to use to pay his steep COTB triggers. You still lose the life, your opponent still draws 2 cards but you’ll end up sacrificing the Lord to his own effect essentially paying 4 to hurt yourself, help your opponent and add 2 to his cost. The Phage /Torpor Orb workaround is just as valid here allowing you to pay 4 with no drawback. I suggest you go that route!

He doesn’t really care about Zombies either but he’ll happily use some of the smaller ones as fodder knowing that they’ll eventually come back. The cool cache you get from running him and the mental hoops you need to jump through not only to build the deck but also to play him out repeatedly are probably worth the effort of choosing him as your general. It needs to be as, regeneration or not, he’s still vanilla as hell but in true flavor terms he comes onto the battlefield over the backs of his own slaughtered foot-troops and taunts opponents with additional cards. Will they be enough to defeat the Lord of Tresserhorn?

I’m not going to do a top 10 of these guys. You’ll have to choose one according to your style but, if you’re really serious about your deck being a Zombie deck with a Zombie Legend, there’s really not much of a debate, is there?

Swords of Schwing and Schwang - Musings & a Top 10

2011-10-06T21:07:00.000+02:00

Swords of Schwing and Schwang.

I’ve never had a huge amount of time for Equipment in Commander. Some is obviously great, others are occasionally helpful but, on the whole, it just seems like a lot of effort to turn things sideways with benefit and I’m pretty opposed to just throwing things out into the Red zone with only the hope of Step 4 happening (Yes, that’s the “Profit” step). Up until recently the only equipment ever I really played were Jitte, Greaves & Clamp.

A very strange part of Commander is discovering that 100 cards is, in fact, not really a lot when you get down to it. Take the pre-build count of your average Commander deck, that being the obligatory 100 cards; slice off 40-ish cards for land & mana rocks; add a general; now take the entire history of magic and condense it into the kind of deck you want to play in just 60 remaining card slots……. You now have a deck.

The obvious problem here is that, in those 60 card slots, there’s really only so much you can do. You have your criteria for the deck you want to build and that’s going to form the greater part of these slots. If Equipment isn’t an integral part of that strategy, you need to have a very good reason to make room for it.

A lot has to come together to get "value" from equipment: A creature, the equipment and, usually, a successful attack step. Bearing in mind that the equipment (artifact) and the creature involved are the two most gunned-after card types in the format and there's a whole table of guys worried that whatever scariness you've cobbled together is coming their way. This makes for a very hostile environment.

Probably the most played equipment in Commander is Lightning Greaves. It’s cheap, equips for free and grants two excellent abilities: Surprise and protection. The only-slightly-less-exciting version that M12 gave us, Swiftfoot Boots, trades off an additional 1-mana equip cost for the ability to interact with your own creature. I expect Lightning Greaves to stay top dog in the equipment stakes because general-centric decks really, really need to protect their general and "Das Boots" does this. (Amusing sidebar: Lightning Greaves has long been nicknamed “Das Boots” despite actually being a pair of greaves. Now that we actually have a functionally similar pair of boots, will we have to dub them “Das Greaves”?)

Past fancy footwear, equipment is either incredibly niche or exceedingly high on the cost/benefit scale. Some form of protection or evasion is a minimum requirement and triggered abilities or granting some sort of stat/keyword that’s outside the usual remit of your colors is the bar against which successful EDH equipment is gauged.

This leads to a very short list.

One of the inherent drawbacks associated with equipment, the congruence of all the favourable elements, was addressed with the Living Weapon mechanic in New Phyrexia. Suddenly you didn't have to make a guy and protect it while you played your Axe and paid to equip it. By giving you the token, weak as it may be, you're essentially making a mana saving of "X+Y" where "X" is the cost of the creature and "Y" is the cost of equipping the Living Weapon and a card saving of whatever creature you’d have attached the non-living weapon version to. Sure, the creature you're given is a 0/0 but even a 0/0 has it’s uses, including dying piteously should the situation require it, and it can still attack (all living weapons grant a toughness boost of at least +1). A 0/0 with +10/+10 is still a 10/10. While the initial popularity for Living Weapons seems to have tapered off, we are still left with 3 that are getting some serious play: Bonehoard, Lashwrithe & Batterskull; essentially a huge beater, a huge beater and a one-man army.

I have to admit that my main experience with equipment is Clamp, Greaves, Jitte and seeing small, cheap strength boosts, Banners and Jittes across the table in an aggressive deck or the occasional Sword in a 1v1 game but, on the whole, really nothing very overbearing.

Then I completed a trade that finally saw me getting my hands on a Sword of Fire and Ice and, about 2 days later, I cracked a Sword of War and Peace and thus completed the full set of Swords of One-thing and Something-Else. The only small issue was what to do with them now that I had them?

I initially thought about parceling them out between different decks or, possibly, constructing a new Voltron deck, though neither appealed to me all that much. In the end, time and utter laziness won over and I dropped them all into my Thada Adel deck, kicking out some of the less friendly artifact stuff. This was the only change I made to the deck overall so it was still theoretically a slow rolling artifact/control deck that can go big quick but generally turtles until it can swing some mid-game hay-makers and ride the tempo to victory. Needless to say, I didn’t expect the swords to make all that much difference to the deck as a whole.

What I didn't realise was that just adding 5 swords (with the possibility of a couple more in copy-artifact effects) turned Thada into an aggressive show stopper and it's all on the sholders of to those 5 Swords.

Case in point: Yesterday playing a 4-man against Ghave Combo-Tokens, Sapling Good-Stuff and Glissa. A little explosiveness on my part allowed an early Consecrated Sphinx (backed up with Reliquary Tower) which survived a couple of turns around the table before getting killed. Its demise coincided with Ghave landing Aura Shards and destroying every non-land permanent I controlled. A couple of turns later, I passed my turn after landing a Myr Retriever and a Maze of Ith and possessing pretty much nothing else but a precarious life total and a large hand filled with land and spells that had nothing to do just at that time.

Oh, and a Sword of War and Peace.

I then eliminated one player in each of my next three attack phases with that lowly 1/1.

Here's how it happened:
Ghave, after wrecking my board, fell low on life to a Massacre Wurm. Subsequent attack phases from Sapling and Glissa meant he would have perished before I untapped unless I saved him with my Maze of Ith, which I did.

Leaving him on 1 life and no board to speak of allowed me to untap and drop the sword onto the mighty Myr gaining a boatload of life courtesy of a Reliquary Tower and the earlier Consecrated Sphinx and, most importantly eliminating the Aura Shards from the game. I played a Memory Jar and passed the turn

Neither Sapling nor Glissa had the power on the table to finish me off on their turns and the turn came back to me. I cracked the Jar, drew into Sword of Feast and Famine and, with it, hit Glissa for exactly 12, enough to kill him. I untapped my land and added a second Sword of War and Peace in the form of a Sculpting Steel and passed the turn, recovering my exiled hand from the Jar.

Sapling saw the writing on the wall with 17 damage heading his way and no means to block and conceded the game.

Mighty Myr carried the day (and the Swords) with a victory that was facilitated in large part by a lot of card drawing but truly unlocked by the Swords themselves.

The subsequent game went in a similar vein with Swords flying around between whoever could hold them and proving too much advantage in the red zone. With the level of search and recursion the deck has for artifacts anyway, adding 5 equipment has proven to be a very aggressive step for Thada allowing resources to be sandbagged elsewhere while all the relevant colored generals around the table worry about lowly merfolk swinging swords.

I think I’m revising my stance about Equipment in Commander…..

I don't usually do Top 10s but I thought I’d do one here to see what I could come up with. How do you balance cards that have hugely varying power-levels depending on the deck they are in? For example, Jitte is great in a creature-heavy build but doesn’t particularly suffer against creature decks ether so can go in any build that has enough creatures to support it, whereas a sword of the incorrect combination for your playgroup could end up being just a +2/+2 for your opponents' defenders to chump all day.

10. Lashwrithe/ Bonehoard

I put these up last because they are “only” Strength boosts. Both fail on evasion and suffer on cost but make up for it with the potential to go big. If your target creature has evasion already, that's half the battle. Bonehoard is slightly weaker because of the necessity of playing graveyard hate in Commander but Lashwrithe has a color drawback that restricts its use. Even Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth won't turn your General's color identity Black! I hesitated long about putting Loxodon Warhammer in here but, in the end, the Living Weapon aspect gives these the edge.

9. Sword of Body and Mind
8. Batterskull
7. Sword of Light and Shadow

Being the least useful of the swords in commander (from a triggered ability rather than a protection standpoint), Sword of Body and Mind scores low in the top 10. It’s just behind Batterskull that scores on both resilience and Lifelink keywords but possibly loses out on cost. If you don't have either a lot of available mana or some means to cheat on costs, you're probably looking at a Time-Walk in anything but the late game and, while it may gain you some life, it doesn’t grant any protection. Rounding out this section is the Sword of Light and Shadow: It gains very relevant protections but once again the abilities are not as impressive as the other Swords. The ability to put a better creature than a 2/2 wolf back into your hand and subsequently into play is what gives it the edge over its blue/green brother.

6. Sword of War and Peace
5. Sword of Fire and Ice
4. Skullclamp

Putting Swords of War, Peace, Fire and Ice into the Top 10 is a no-brainer but they have to be edged out by much, much better equipment as they are either huge on the damage stakes or huge on the card- / board-advantage stakes.

Here’s where it gets divisive: How do you relegate one of the most broken pieces of equipment to a mere 4^th on the list of best Equipment in a format? An advantage to Skullclamp is that you don’t really need to build your deck around it to benefit. Once you have a decent creature count, it can do its thing peacefully enough because your creatures will die often during a game. Having a deck built specifically to takes advantage of ways to abuse it is why it got banned in the first place and it speaks of a power-level in Commander that’s extremely high. What could possibly beat one of the best and most controversial equipment ever to the top 3 spots?

Why, more "best" and "controversial" equipment, of course!!

3. Sword of Feast and Famine
2. Umezawa’s Jitte
1. Lightning Greaves

This is roughly where everyone looks at the number one and says: "Holy-Moley!! He put Greaves in first!!" Simply put, it's not on the same power level as most of the rest of the top 10 but it's so ubiquitous, efficient and useful that it's hard not to put it into every single Commander deck you build. It protects your commander, it allows you to grant scary beasties haste and is generally one of the most annoying permanents in the early- to mid-game.

Coming hot on the heels of Das Boots are Sword of Feast and Famine and Umezawa’s Jitte. The Sword has been the subject of quite a lot of attention in recent Standard due to the ease of finding it with Stoneforge Mystic. It enables "double" turns by allowing you to play spells in your pre-combat main phase, attack and untap to allow you to play more spells either during your post-combat main phase or your opponent's turn. You got your cake and you ate it.

Two very relevant protection colors added to this "double turn" ability make this sword just as potent in Commander as outside. The only small downside is the second triggered ability, discarding an opponent's card, can often actually facilitate his gameplan.

In compiling the list I had an issue not including things like Sunforger who’s restrictions are both color and build-based though, when you have those two combined, it’s very strong, arguably stronger than Bonehoard or Lashwrithe. Where do you think more specialised equipment like the Sunforger or, Loxodon Warhammer, Blade of the Bloodchief, Darksteel Plate, Swiftfoot Boots, Konda’s Banner, Nim Deathmantle, Skullclamp, Thornbite Staff & Umbral Mantle fit in on the list of top equipment?

An open letter from Bob to MaRo

2011-09-20T14:32:00.000+02:00

666 Crumbling Remains

Somewhere beneath Innistrad

Residence of Mr. Balthor "Bob" Defiled, Esq.

Hey, Mark!! How's it hanging?

You're pretty good at dropping Magic bombshells, but I honestly never felt all that impacted. Sure, innovations would change things, and decks and colour trends come and go, but Zombies are, you know, hard to keep down. There's almost (almost) always a Zombie in the set, sometimes there's even a non-Zombie that shares the love, (here's looking at you, Mr. G.T.!) and, even if we lose some pallor once in a while, it's never long until someone leaves a grave - or twenty - open by mistake, and we all come shambling out again. Even the occasional Undead Slayer can't keep the vitally challenged from our un-lives for very long. Hey, it's even a bit of a compliment that there's a dedicated hate card in an expansion with no particular Zombie theme; shows us you still care, you know?

Now, picture the scene a few months back, when you announced that you were coming to Innistrad to celebrate the classic "Horror Tropes". We were all very happy: we gave the tombs, coffins and general underworld a bit of a dusting; got the spiders working on some killer cobwebs; wiped the oil and grease off the door-hinges and rattled a few tombstones. You have to understand that there's a lot of expectation here. We're going to see new faces, do new things, get out and shake it all about, and for a few expansions, feast on some brains. The vitally challenged are BACK, BABY!! Right on!

So, spoiler season comes around and Noel goes first: BOOM! Blue Zombies. WOW!! It's not like we've never had them before, (they are like the side of the family that doesn't get brought up much, except at Halloween when every-one's had much too much Alco-brains and that always ends up the same way: a 100-way game of "Which one is my Metatarsal") but, cool, this is a good thing, right? The scene has changed since Alara, Invasion and, eh, Homelands...

Anyway, a Rooftop Storm? Frickin' AWE-SOME!! (though I failed to see the connection.) It means we have to work with that arrogant ass (assin) Thraximundar instead of me, but I'll happily take one for the team if it gets people clamouring to actually become Zombies just to join in the fun!! It's like we've become glamorous Vamps all of a sudden.

Then on September 5th, you drop the bomb.

I said that while I didn't mind having flesh golems, I still wanted the more traditional zombies. [snip] The Dawn of the Dead zombies could stay in black where they've always been. The Frankenstein's monsters / flesh golems, though, could play into a theme we wanted to explore in blue: the mad scientist. Blue has always been about knowledge, so the idea of crazy men doing horrific experiments in a search for knowledge felt perfect for blue.

Ok, so far so good.

As this was top-down design, we also realized that the two types of Zombies wanted to play differently. For the black Zombies, I was interested in building a Zombie deck I'd never seen. Magic has had a few Zombie decks over the years, but they tend to be fast and aggressive (more like what are sometimes called zoombies). That's not how zombies work in an archetypal zombie apocalypse story. Zombies, individually, are slow and not particularly hard to kill.

Woah!! Wait, wut? We've never been "fast". Maybe a couple of guys got in close with some knights and horrors, but that's hardly representative of the entire Zombie Nation!

Scathe Zombies aren't scary, but how about thirteen Scathe Zombies? How about twenty-six? The "enter the battlefield tapped" text you'll see on a few of the Zombies is our attempt to convey the flavor of them being slow.

Enter. The. Battlefield. Tapped.

What. The. Frick?

You take one of the two most debilitating come into play abilities in the history of competitive Magic, and you slap it on an entire type because you watched "Shaun of the Frickin' Dead" once too often?

Are you shitting me?

What's next? Merfolk getting "can't attack if opponent's don't control an Island"? Kithkin get -1/-1? Or wait, no, let's give "Ping" to elves because they have bows in Lord of the Rings!!! It's not like the colour-pie matters any more anyway, eh? Treefolk are physically rooted to the ground, even they don't have this new keyword: "Slow"!

Worse still, you run to twitter for some digital high-5s with the rest of the Anti-Zombie League over an 8-mana sorcery that does exactly nothing when it's played!! Adding the "Slow" mechanic to Army of the Damned makes an already expensive card unplayable. Who's going to "W00p!!" their top-decked, 8-mana sink "solution" if it's never a solution?

maro254 Mark Rosewater

I'm curious on everyone's thoughts on Army of the Damned. (I'm a longtime zombie fan if you were unaware.)

5 Sep Favorite Retweet Reply

Woah!! Wait, wut?

(I'm a longtime zombie fan if you were unaware.)

Yeeaaaahh, we’ll just come back to that bit later.

The only saving grace is that you made Army of the Damned a Mythic, so, hopefully, the rarity value will keep it from ever getting played. Looking at it from another angle: You sacrificed a Mythic slot for this...... >shudder<... and we really LOVE sacrificing things. The other thing that got sacrificed is that awesome name! Army of the DAMNED!! I love it!!

What's that? It's attached to the card that won't save me? Hang on, I'm sure I've got a dead clown around here who'll do a frowny face for you.

Ok, ok, I get it: You want to make the set flavor-full. That's cute and all, but this is a burning brand to all my brethren. Go screw with Vampires! You've got Day/Night now, right? Make them burst into flames every second turn. Where's the "flavor" now? I'm not really savouring it if it gives to everyone else but screws around with just one group. At least you're not printing more cards that hurt Zombies.....

.....Right? Coz you're a "fan".

What’s surprising and, frankly stunningly obvious, is that you have yet to make any sort of mechanical reference to our dietary preference: munching on brains. Unless....no, wait! Did you give the mono-blue Rare Zombie, Undead Alchemist, one of those “Frankenstein monsters”, the expressly very “black” zombie mechanic (according to your own criteria) of draining an opponent’s deck, their “brains”, as it were?

What a shock!! Blue gets the black mechanic. What the hell is a Frankenstein Monster doing eating, or in any way encouraging others to eat, brains?

Hang on: What’s going on with those interloping, Mono-Blue zombies anyway?

1.) A mythic Mono-U Zombie, maybe a little under-costed. Oh, and it flies too.
2.) A similiar, uncommon trampler.
3.) Another under-costed flier at common in the same vein. Cheap, flying and trampling for Zombies, eh?

Number of Zombies in Gatherer: 240.
Number of Zombies with flying: 15
Number of Zombies with trample: 2
Blue gets 3 with these in a single set. I guess that's fair.

Rolls eyes.

4.) The aforementioned "Brain Eater".
5.) To accompany the “undercosted” theme, why not just go for “free”? Oh, you did: Rooftop Storm!!

Seriously, why don’t you just copy and paste “F**k you, Mono-B Zombies! And you COTB Tapped too! Ha-Ha!” into their flavor text?

Could this have been even more of a slap in the face if you had actually tried? (And, no, that’s not an invitation!) But wait!

(I'm a longtime zombie fan if you were unaware.)

No, seriously, start supporting Elves or Merfolk. “With friends like this”, and all that.

So, yeah, have your fun, your little laugh, but let's not make a habit of it, eh? If this goes on, I’ll seriously have to think about being re-animated as a Demon or even >shudder< a Horror!!

And MaRo, when you're finally under my dominion, we can sit down and have a long talk about the flavour application of mechanics!

Sincerely,

There's a STORM tonight, Oglor!!!

2011-09-01T09:10:00.000+02:00

RAISE THE LIGHTNING VANE!!!

Balthor Says "Magic 2012 delivers!!!!"

2011-06-27T15:31:00.000+02:00

A 5/4 Deathtouch Zombie for 2BBB? That's a pretty good deal!!

A recurring targetted Dread effect from your graveyard tacked on for free.... That's just flabbered my ghast!!!

Balthor says:

Me Likey!!

Archenemy Sidebar

2011-06-23T15:46:00.000+02:00

Someone in work mentioned breaking out the Archenemy cards next week for a return to that brief period last year when we rocked them for about 3 weeks solid before a new release dragged out eyes away from them like a cat following a laser dot.

Since then, I've been thinking about whether to break out existing EDH decks and just pick the relevant schemes to go with that deck (which I'll proabably do for at least 2 decks) or whether to re-build an old, dismantled deck just to maximize on the effect of "Perhaps You've Met My cohort." There's nothing quite like the roulette of seeing which scheme you're getting and have it show up All Aces on Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, especially in the early game. Now our Nicol has a new friend to make that early choice just that little bit more interesting. I think the right choice is always going to be Bolas then Karn, but having the two allows you to draw one and not need to find your Jace or Scroll Rack to get in back in before a Scheme hits, especially if you're slow on mana.

The main reason why the deck got taken apart and the main block to rebuilding it is the toll it takes on the mana bases in my other decks. Removing duels and shocks from multiple decks just to fuel a single deck, is a huge pain.

I suppose I could get away with a full set of Fetch lands, Alara Shard fetches and a lot of land searching in Green to get over this but I wonder inflicting that restriction won't water the deck down so much that it would become unwieldy. As I've been itching to make a proliferate deck as well, I'm leaning towards actually getting this done. It's just a pity that there's not a proliferate scheme. As a "Super-Friends" deck goes, it's got potential to be a huge headache for my opponents.

Irregardless of how I build the deck, which deck I build or whether the world is due to end tomorrow, there's a scheme that will always be included in any scheme pile I make as a 2-of: Plots That Span Centuries. This is the Twincasted Time Warp of Archenemy Schemes. You get to trade this turn's scheme doing basically nothing into a turbo-fuelled scheme turn the following turn. If your opponents are unfortunate enough to have you flip into the second copy on your next turn as one of the first 2 schemes, you'll end up getting 4 schemes in one turn.

Just as bad, if you flip it as your third scheme on that turn, you'll get 2 active schemes this turn and 3 guarenteed hits next turn (as both your "Plots" will be tucked under the scheme pile).

About the only downside to having multiple schemes flip on a single turn is that you have to be very careful how many X schemes you've included in your pile. It's all well and good to flip a "Plots....." early on only to subsequently flip 2x "Every Last Vestige Shall Rot" and 1x "My Genius Knows No Bounds" on a paltry 1 or 2 mana. That said, it's kinda hard not to include both as they are pretty crushing at the right moment given enough mana.

You are either drawing a lot of cards and gaining a lot of life, or you're wiping away the entire non-land board that someone has developed over subsequent turns but giving them nothing in return. Resolving multiples of either with sufficient mana during a game is essentially game over for those players as the nature of the Archenemy set-up invariably requires one player to over-extend. Wiping one away and repeating it on a second player is just a horrific amount of card advantage.

Back to setting up for next week, I have a set of schemes chosen for what was my Thada Adel deck, now Memnarch, and I think I'll run them as chosen:

2x Every Hope Shall Vanish
2x Surrender Your Thoughts
2x Only Blood Ends your Nightmares

2x I Delight in Your Convulsions
2x Realms Befitting My Majesty
2x Every Last Vestige Shall Rot

2x Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom
2x Plots that Span Centuries
1x My Undead Horde Awekens
1x I Bask in your Silent Awe
1x Tooth, Claw & Tail
1x Behold the Power of Destruction

This is pretty much my basic package for any deck with about 5-10 of the slots being mutable for flavour reasons. For example, while I'm quite likely to build a Scheme stack for my Balthor deck, I'll be pretty much obliged to start two copies each of "My Undead Hoard Awakens", "Mortal Flesh is Weak" (though nothing is mentioned about Undead flesh, so that's acceptable) and "The Dead Shall Serve".

So that's my Archenemy sidebar, I'm looking at playing Memnarch, Balthor and, if I have the patience and time to build it, a 5 colour Planeswalker/proliferate deck. If anyone else out there is still rocking Archenemy or has favourite individual Schemes or even a favourite full 20, let me know in the comments. I'll be back in about 2 weeks with a follow-up to tell you all how it went.

The Blue One (URG)

2011-06-20T17:18:00.000+02:00

All good (or generally ok with some flashes of "slightly better") things must come to an end and thus we line up the Fifth and last of our Preconstructed Commander Deck reviews: the URG deck in the Blue packaging, Mirror Mastery.

Strategy

Copy and paste. Copy your spells and creatures with Riku and paste your opponets with them. In practice, it may be a little more conplex, but that's the basic idea.

And it's a good idea. Any creature is better when it's got a copy of itself sitting alongside but when that creature is a Simic Sky Swallower or similiar, you're talking great value. Two very synergistic legends in Riku & Animar and a lot of fun tricks with their abilities and the stack.

There's very little that is bad about Riku. You could argue that, 1.) given the huge mana demands he automatically generates, he's a little too expensive at 5cmc and 2.) I have a little niggle with the spell copying ability (that is, it being just "Copy that spell" rather than "you may play a copy of thet spell") but, all in all, he's a huge engine in a little body. Now, the counter arguament to my niggles are equally valid: 1.) He's expensive so that he's not too dominating, you're required to invest in him fully, and 2.) What? Did you want him to do your laundry, fetch your shopping and make you a cup of joe too?

My small niggles are essentially only to have something to detract from what is otherwise all upside. He slices, he dices, he spawns, he copies. As all of us in a relationship know, going solo is ok, but having a partner is a lot more exciting. Riku provides this by playing in a most excellent way with himself.

That.....came out wrong.

You get a non-token creature into play (note that it's not "play a creature spell"), pay a little extra and suddenly it's National Twins day. A Llanowar Elf is nice, two is better. Same for spells: A Cultivate is nice, two is better, etc., etc. That's the basics. In the Riku deck, you should be expecting to copy Simic Sky Swallowers, Prophetic Bolts and, repeatedly, Call the Skybreaker each time getting an extra 6/6 Shroud Flying Trample, 8 damage with 2 Impulse attached or lots of 5/5 fliers.

Or a pair of Nom Nom Hydras.

Also included in the deck is a spattering of Evoke creatures. While the seemingly obvious Mulldrifter is surprisingly missing (possibly because he's a little too good if you have means to copy and recur him repeatedly and you do, in a limited fashion) the strategy is fundamently sound: Pay less with evoke, copy the incoming creature, get the Kiss-Cool effect of the original and the copy, allow the original to die and keep the copy in play. So, for the missing Mulldrifter you'd pay 2GUU rather than 4U to get 4 cards and a flying 2/2 rather than 2 cards and a flying 2/2. What? You're not even paying more,just tapping your mana differently? In-sane.

The deck designers realised that the deck was very mana hungry so, at first glance, there's a lot of land-cyclers, Elvish Abberations and other cards like Magus of the Vineyard or Veteran Explorer, more often seen in Hug decks, that seem horrible but they are really very much in their element. You have to ramp your mana and this deck will do that, even if it's helping other players as it does so. Collective Voyage, a new "New Frontiers", is another example of getting the mana & to hell with the consequences because the upside of all this is that, once you have the mana, you are the best deck at the table because everything you cast is doing double duty.

Potentially excellent cards include anything that will boost your own mana exclusively rather than help out everyone else; Seedborn Muse seems like it could be very, very strong; Mulldrifter (did I mention him?) is an obvious exclusion and really should be added right away.

The huge "downside", if you will, is that this Riku deck, while being hella-fun to play, is very, very mana hungry. The packaged deck addresses this in it's own way but that will not appeal to those players who abhor giving opponents a hand up, whatever the circumstances.

Not a Fierce Empath

Secondly, a couple of thing need to go right for you to win. You need to get your mana up to about the 7-9 mark and have Riku in play. Then you need spells and creatures that will be worth copying and, in addition, provide some card value when you play them. That may sound like a lot, but when your last card is a Fierce Empath (which you copy) to get a Nucklavee & something else, you'll start seeing why. Or rather, if that last card wasn't a Fierce Empath, you'd rather it had been.

The next "issue" with Riku is not just that he's mana hungry, he's very colour mana intensive. Both his abilities and the spells/creatures you're casting require a colour investment of at least 3 coloured mana, likely more for CC spells: UX+Spell. What this essentially means is that accellerating colourless mana is not really the road you want to take unless your upper curve is all Eldrazi & artifacts. This necesitates you to run a fair number of land searching spells which, especially if copied, can get you out of the starting blocks. But you need to hit them early because drawing everything the wrong way round would be a drag.

You're starting to see the downsides but in reality, it just takes one or two of the right kind of cards early on to get you rolling and, when Riku gets rolling, you'll start having fun with the deck. Build a tight deck around Riku and this shouldn't be an issue. The last two "bad" points of the sealed product are the inclusion of two strategies generally held in very low regard within the EDH community: LD & Tuck. Ruination and a couple of other LD creatures feature as does the new Hinder. This is not going to go down well if the current view on both tactics holds true.

The Legends

A couple of things to note about our lead legend Riku: He puts a copy of an Instant/Sorcery directly onto the stack so he'll not help your storm count. This comes up because there's a Storm spell in the deck, Hunting Pack. In addition, when you play Hunting Pack and choose to copy it, you'll get just once copy, not a copy with accompanying Storm trigger. This is so contrary to what the deck is trying to achieve that it's a wonder they included it (unless to illustrate exactly that point).

Next is his inability to copy tokens that enter under your control, which begs the question about whether Call the Skybreaker wasn't also chosen to illustrate exactly this though it makes sense to avoid silly loops. Conversely, any spell that brings a creature directly into play from any zone can be copied as can both creatures brought into play in this manner. A clear example of what to do when you have UUURGGX open and are otherwise at a loss for what to do with it!

At 2/2 he needs to be protected though so think hard about that when switching up the deck.

Lots has been written about Edric already so there's not a huge amount to be added here. In multiplayer games featuring players who put a premium on card drawing, he's brilliant and he will force attacks just so players can draw cards, best of all, those attacks will be going elsewhere.

If there's a token horde out though, and it's not yours, think twice about throwing Edric out as a blocker as there's some cards advantage that will inevitably equal too much card advantage!

He's going to be huge heading up token decks of your own so I'm looking forward to an Elf Rogue deck!

Maybe a general for a different deck, Animar still has his place in here by helping you out on those creature mana costs as the game goes on. In fact, in the right metagame, he could be quite explosive as protection from White & Black are extremely relevant abilities and he will also benefit from any sort of +1/+1 counter or Proliferate strategy.

Get a few markers on him and your Blightsteel Colossus could be costing 6 or 7 mana. Scarily, if you also have Riku in play, for a mere UG more you'll have 2 Colossii....

Shrieking Drake, Palindron and all sorts of Shennanigans are probably extremely happy with Animar's appearance but hopefully all that will get very old, very quickly and we can get on with non-insta-win Commander.

The New
Spell Crush, have I mentioned it already, golly gee!! It's in here too as is Ruination. Tuck & Mass LD: two of the most hated strategies in the format. In addition, with Riku in play, it's as good as certain that the original or a copy or either will resolve.

Some cards come along and are harbingers of new decks and strategies, some are upgrades of existing cards and some are metagame defining. Homeward Path is one of the latter. A colourless, free answer to any sort of creature stealing strategy, this must be dealt with before any shennanigans can ensue.

Is the extra step to control or destroy the Path sufficient to stall those kinds of decks? I think that it will be relevant more often than not. From having played a lot of Memnarch/Shackles, it would pain me to be required to steal or destroy a land before I could start ripping off everyone's creatures. A very solid addition with no drawback as it's available to every colour.

Geth, Shackles, Bribery, Debtor's Knell: This is your Nemesis!! (or speedbump!)

In this specific sealed product, a deck that wants it's lands in play rather than in exile, this seems like a strange choice. In addition, for the ability to be in any way relevant, the number of exiled land must be superior to six as the exiled land count replaces the printed P/T, not adds to it. Here, it's relevant because there's no LD in any of the other Pre-cons and a couple of trampling 10's could be used to seal the deal.

That said, huge, trampling beast is huge, trampling beast. An interesting card that could have a place in a gutsy Mana Severance deck or metas that continue to eschew land destruction.

Also, the strange additional rules niggle is the order or resolving the triggers: do you get a 6/6 with additional land-search or a 12/12 with additional land search?

Force of Magma: Yes! Red finally gets it's very own Force of Nature with 3 damage replacing the Saproling token (and not some lame "gain 3 life" clause). The Riku flavour text titillates with dreams of having two in play at once. It is repeating damage and a decent, if chumpable, body for 8 mana.

The only niggle (I'm allowed another niggle, amn't I?) is that 3 damage isn't really very much.

Yes, I'm greedy!!

Here he is, Nom-Nom Hydra, the one you've been waiting for, the new (almost) best green creature in Commander (ok, Primeval Titan is kinda hard to knock off the top rung but even the idea that he could compete is exciting, isn't it?!) The only thing keep this off the top, and that's a very big claim, is the lack of Trample but, hey, you're in green, how hard could it be? On any given table, there's someone you want to kill but is too well entrenched. In those situations and there's generally means to damage one of your other opponents, especially if you figure out the trample part.

What Nom-Nom Hydra gives you is a way to kill player A by killing player B. Any sort of evasion and boost on this guy is worth the slot which is evidently where the idea to include Colossal Might in the deck came from as it solves both issues. I'd have happily gone for the more resillient Rancor except that Colossal Might is Riku-able and almost certain to resolve at least once on one or, heaven forfend, both of your Nom-Noms.

And don't let that 8 attack fool you, it's really 8*#opponents, so, about 24 usually. A 24/8 for 4GG? What are you smoking?!

Summary:
This is a planning, tricksy, thinky kind of deck that URG mages will love and finally, with Riku, there's a general worth playing in those colours. You also get Animar who will spawn multiple decks of his own. This is far and away my favourite preconstructed Commander deck, and not just for the content in the decks, the style & challenges speak to me as a deck-builder much more than the others.

And there's Nom-Nom Hydra.

Top 5 non-legends (in no particular order):
Mana-Charged Dragon
Martyr's Bonds
Hydra Omnivore
Homeward Path
Stranglehold

Honourable Mention: Command Tower

Top 5 Legend (again in no particular order):
Vish Kal
Riku
Animar
The Mimeoplasm
Edric

The Black One (BGW)

2011-06-20T14:46:00.000+02:00

Welcome to the Fourth of our Preconstructed Commander Deck reviews. Let's get right on into the BGW deck in the Black Packaging packaging, Counterpunch.

Strategy

It would be unfair to label this as a glorified "Rock" deck just because it's in colour but sometimes you just have that feeling. The +1/+1 & Saproling token subtheme is good if you enjoy filling your time that way but it just feels a little forced for me, something to do when you don't have a bomb to drop. That's not to be disparaging about the deck, it does have very strong lines of play though there is a feeling that you'd rather be playing with some of the methods that the UGB/Ooze deck is employing to benefit from the graveyard.

The up side is that any token generator and a means to sacrifice them makes the included Butcher of Malakir and Grave Pact quite insane. When you get to make big plays, they tend to be huge though there's a lttle too much spinning wheels as you draw land after land while playing cards that find you land when you're really just prefer to be doing something huge. I haven't heard any stories of this deck dominating any pre-release whereas I've come across at least one instance of each of the others winning a table.

Like the URG/Riku deck, it is very mana intensive (thus the need for all teh search effects) though with seemingly fewer explosive plays, this is one precon, like the WUR (Red) deck, where you're usually going to spend your time slowly grinding out small advantages until you can win. So, em, like I said, it's a "Rock" deck.

You could get the nuts General, Mana & Skullclamp draw and there are tricks in the deck, don't let me give the impression that it's a bad deck I'm probably biased away from this style of deck and towards broken good stuff because the Teneb list I'm running is trying to push the attrition/cost cutting envelope as far as possible.

Maybe part of the disillusionment is that there's less "new" effects and more of what we've already seen in different forms. Reprinting Spawnwrithe and Symbiotic Wurm doesn't really cut it either unless you've just attacked unblocked with a Nantuko Husk and while the others could be acceptable bit players in specific decks, they aren't going to induce you to buy this deck in teh same way the Devour for Power list would.

There is at least one very brightly shining light however, which is Vish Kal.

Boom! He's the highlight of the deck and the tipping point between keeping up and taking over. He's dominant in this deck but would be downright stupid in any other Teneb-Graveyard style deck.

What makes him just that little bit better than what's out there at the moment is the huge confluence of useful abilities. Sure, he costs 7 but for that you get:
1.) Lifelink, an ability to keep you in the game and occasionally put you out of reach;
2.) Flying, while not the ultimate evasion that "unblockable" gives you, is still relevant enough to get there;
3.) Sacrifice outlet, an effect that every deck should have in some form or another, especially in a Control Magic-heavy metagame, is the cornerstone for a vast number of advantage engines. UNlike Greater Good's card drawing or Mirin's lifegain, this one just gives you a much bigger monster to beat face with;
4.) Removal, is sweet on any beast but doubly so when it's renewable free and doesn't cause the source to tap out to use it. Vish Kal is a math's testing monster as he gets you to tally up when you need to sacrifice to him in order for the count to be on the money when he transfers over those -1/-1 counters.

Imagine this line of play: Saffi + Sun Titan + Vish Kal. Or how about Reveillark + Karmic Guide/Saffi + Blade Splicer + Vish Kal. Both of these will give you infinite optional loops on how best to kill the targettable creatures on the table and, incidently, an infinitely large Flying, Lifelink Vampire. If only there was some way to give him trample........

Scavenging Ooze, or Baby Ooze as I like to call him now that we have "The Ooze", is one of only 3 graveyard hate cards in the sealed product which puts you at an advantage against a couple of decks if you have the G open to benefit at exactly the right time. He's also the little ooze who could, giving you both a beater and life in addition to the pinpoint graveyard removal. A sweet addition.

I'm adding Hornet Queen to illustrate the extremely fine line between playable and chaff. Had this created 4 insect token with just flying and ignored the deathtouch part that hideous mana cost would render the card unplayable but deathtouch is a game changer, luckily for the Queen. Now you can hold off attacks though the air with some, admittedly very flimsy, blockers that will cost the attacking player a goodly part of their attacking force.

Another advantage is that the queen has 2 power or less, normally a disadvantage when you want to block or attack big but here allows her to be used with Reveillark for repeat deathtouch tokens.

Leaving off the deathtouch would have meant Raid for the Queen's little swarm. Such a little thing that makes a card useful..... or not.

The Red One (RWU)

2011-06-17T16:15:00.000+02:00

Welcome to the third of our Preconstructed Commander Deck reviews. Let's get on to the RWU deck in the Red packaging, Political Puppets.

Strategy

This is your classic "wait and see" deck, you're likely not going to be the aggressor until you have complete control. What's in question is do you have the tactical nous to be that player? The deck is defensive, almost agonisingly so, and the card selection is certainly not for the aggresively minded: Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, Windborn Muse, Azorious Guildmage, Fog Bank (seriously) and friends leave you feeling that Ken Nagle had to have outside help in to design this one, it's just not the beatdown.

The Good & the Bad

Now, the deck was supposedly built around Zedruü, who has a funky ability but has no real means to benefit from it within the presented deck without constantly ceeding advantages (if you consider Fog Bank an advantage) despite the tactics insert recommending you to be "agressive" wth his donate ability (and seriously Wizards, where's the actual Donate? SMH!), I can see Zedruü being a really fun general to build around but here there's seriously only 1 or 2 cards that I'd happily donate to an opponent to profit from his drawing and life-gain ability and no, surprisingly enough, neither one is Fog Bank. Red, White, Blue and Artifacts have enough global abilities that don't necessarily benefit just the controller and there's almost none in the deck, Howling Mine being the sole exception. Ok, I wasn't expecting Rule of Law or Arcane Lab but I feel that this avenue wasn't sufficiently worked during development and the deck is the poorer for it as it has no real connection with the listed general. That said, to start getting a pretty serious life- and card-advantage engine going, you really only need to hand over 3 or 4 permanents in total as the defensive nature of the deck should allow you to retain that advantage once you start benefitting.

Now, don't let this suggest that the contents of the deck are in any way inferior. You just can't have enough Insurrections or Reins of Power in any Commander metagame. This deck also increases the number of False Prophets in circulation [Was that a groan I heard in the back there? Ed.] Like I said, the deck does defensive very, very well and a 2/2 that will exile the board is often just what the doctor ordered.

The Legends

Zedruü, who the deck is apparently built around, would benefit from having a deck actually built around him. Start with Illusions of Grandeur, Delusions of Mediocrity and Puca's Mischief and work from there. There's a lot of creative space here for anyone who wants to put the deck-building work in. I'll be doing a deck tech with Zedruü very soon and it will blow your socks off with its selection of "Zero to Hero" cards. Two thumbs up for the goat! Em, Minotaur... Seriously? She's at best an Elan or a Gazelle, but a Minotaur? Never!

Nin: There's possibly a deck for Nin, but probably unsurprisingly, this isn't really it. You are either ceeding resources to gain card advantage (as with Zedruü's ability) or donating card advantage to remove threats. On top of Zedruü's ability and Ruhan's incongruity, Nin is just a step too far for the deck; at some point you're going to want to keep your stuff and the number of tricks are limited given the cards selected. How many times are you going to get away with a sneaky 1-damage ping on your own stuff just to draw cards with a 1/1? Not very often. People don't like their opponents to have unfettered card drawing and will generally send at least one ping of an Electrolize Nin's way, just because. Elsewhere, with cards like Stuffy Doll, there are opportunities to be discovered.

Big, stupid beats will really only be relevant if you end up hitting the same person repeatedly and your statistical chances of that happening decrease the more players are in the game. This makes Ruhan less than appealing. In addition, he's completely out of place in this particular deck as he only wants to attack and the deck generally only wants to defend. Sure, you need something to close out the game when the dust has settled and you're 1 on 1 with your last opponent but you'd really prefer to have something with any kind of evasion when this situation arises. A figurehead in a chaos deck is a possibility as is his borderline playability heading up a 1v1 deck, but overall, he's underwhelming.

His only seeming advantage is to replace Doran in 1v1 beatdown for those players who prefer the RWU colour mix to the treefolk's BWG. I prefer neither in a beatdown deck so this leaves me cold.

....and The New
Spell Crush (& Oblation). Do you like Tuck? Maybe the fact that you tuck this tucker upon resolution will make this more palatible though I seriously doubt it. How important is it that your Hinder goes into the graveyard when you play it? In some sort of counter-beasts UG build that can flicker Eternal Witness repeatedly for infinite Hinders, I suppose it could be an issue but as I've just described the personal Hell of a vast majority of EDH players, I doubt that it's an issue so tucking your own Spell Crush under your deck is really just an excuse not to reprint Hinder. What's the point?

Champions Helm: A boost and troll shroud for your general is a nice set of abilities and it's not too expensive especially as the back-end cost is so low. Essentially, once it's in play, you're happy. A one-of in the product, it's a real pity it's not in the Riku deck but it's just as necessary here with the entire deck hanging on whether you can get Zedruü online and protected. This is essentially a Lightning Greaves #2 as the boost is not going to save your general from the bigger threats in the decks without additional help.

Chaos Warp gives red the ability to deal with any permanent with the chaotic possibility that you could reveal the very permanent you mixed into the library or something worse. Given that it can whiff on the reveal, I'd say this is pretty much an auto-include (sorry) in mono-red decks against problematic enchantments. If it reveals a non-permanent, you've effectively dealt with a tricky permanent with zero downside. Or you can hit an Angelic Arbiter on your first shot and a Consecrated Sphinx on your second and be reeeeeeaaaalllly conservative with it from there on out. Still, the chaos aspect is a blast but if you don't like rolling the dice, don't play at the craps table. That apart, um, wow!

Sometimes.

Crescendo of War: R&D tried to give every other colour a "Force of Nature - every upkeep" type card in the set, this isn't it though you'd be forgiven for wishing it was. The actual White Force of Nature-Like guy gives 3 life....... Less said the better. Crescendo of War is a strange fish in this deck: an aggressive card in a defensive deck, even if you do benefit when blocking, is terribly out of place. Despite the personal bonus, you're more likely to lose defenders than keep them even if you do take out the opposing attackers.

Personally, if an opponent played this, I'd happily ignore it and switch to aggressive mode but with the Zedruü deck, that's kinda hard as beating down with defenders is a rare (though wonderful) occurance. This is a stellar card in aggressive, multiple attacker decks but a baffling choice here.

Flusterstorm: Ah, Eternal fodder here we go. One of the eternal strategies that works well is Storm specifically because you essentially need to resolve one of 2 cards currently in print to fight it (Trickbind & Stifle) The storm mechanic's own counterspell, Hindering Touch, is too expensive for the eternal formats at 4 mana. What development decided to do was to reprint Force Spike. With Storm. Now that Tendrils is 33% less likely to resolve and Eternal SBs have become even more competitive.

Outside of that it's occasionally a better Spell Pierce but the "Instant or Sorcery" clause really puts into a certain niche. Depending on how the eternal metagame develops it will be a part player or a core counter.

What? You want EDH applications? Em, occasionally you can Force Spike someone.

Head and shoulders above these is Martyr's Bonds: Grave Pact and Karmic Justice had a lovechild, costed it at 4WW and unleashed it on the Commander world and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Killing any non-land permanent the Martyr's Bonds player controls, even including shitty little plant tokens, now costs you your Titan or other huge beast.

Worse still, the trigger is not source sensitive so the Bonds player themselves can put together a litttle creature sacrifice loop and force you to sacrifice in turn.

Even worse still, if that loop contains a creature with multiple types, like "Artifact Creature" they can clear the table of artifacts and creatures. Removing the last loyalty counter from their Planeswalker will spell doom for any others opposite them and sacrificing a Seal of Anything will do the same for Enchantments. Luckily they put in the non-land clause, imagine this with any type of fetch land or strip effect?

Grave Pact cleared shops and cleaned clocks on many an EDH table in years past and this is, frankly, better in almost every single way: it hits more targets, it's easier to splash and you have two chicks with Zendikar-angel halos (but no wings) holding a sword to the throat of the rest of the table. I won't say that this goes into every W/x deck because, well, that much is pretty obvious already except.......

..........except it's seemingly not obvious to the makers of the Zedruü deck who overlooked that killing a non-land permanent you control will allow them to destroy the non-land permanent you had painstakingly donated to them to benefit from Zedruü. Multiple turns of set-up undone in an instant. Essentially the presence of this card in the deck is a huge hint that you should only be donating lands if you really want to benefit from Zedruü's triggered ability and, let's face it, who wants to be constantly be giving lands away?

Summary:
The deck: Good if you like defensive stuff and political machinations. Now-where near the amount of visceral "OOOOMPH!:" of the Mimeoplasm or Kaalia decks. As for the new legends, there's definitely something there, just out of kilter with the deck WotC have provided us with. Zedruü looks like a great addition to the format. We'll see what the brewmasters can cook up for us. All in all, not my preferred style of deck but someone out there will love it and the new legends are interesting if not very well supported here. Martyr's Bonds and, in certain decks a couple of other cards, is top drawer though.

The Green One (GUB)

2011-06-16T16:00:00.000+02:00

Welcome to the second of our Preconstructed Commander Deck reviews. Let's jump straight into the GUB deck in the Green packaging, Devour for Power.

Strategy

As the strategy insert suggests, it's all about getting things into the graveyard and having cards that care about the greaveyard both in terms of size and content and this includes your opponent's, not just your own. Any means of getting those cards in the bin is deemed appropriate: Milling, destroying & Burying things Alive. This plan plays into the strength of the deck itself but also the strength of The Ooze.

The first time we saw The Mimeoplasm play, it was a 7/7 with seven additional +1/+1 counters for a mere 5 mana. 14/14 generals usually get the job done very quickly. In addition, the two chosen targets were not in his owner's graveyard so he provided a very brief and painful glimpse in one play of what was not going to feature for that opponent during that game. To make matters worse, the creature he copied had Trample so, of course, he had trample.....

To sum up quickly: 2UGB, double cremate, 14/14 trampling monster. What's scary about this is that it's not even close to being the best play. The first thing you think of when you see The Mimeoplasm in action is "FLICKER!!" and the second thing is "Damn it! He's not White!!" followed quite swiftly by "VANISHING!! OMG!!" The rest is all just finding ways to get nasty fuel into various graveyards. If you know your playgroup well enough, things like Life's Finale will probably be all-stars in a Mimeoplasm deck so you're not stuck relying on constantly hitting yourself for a 3-for-1, however strong you can build those to be.

And, of course, he's an Ooze.

The three big advantages of the Mimeoplasm's colour scheme are 1.) Black has the tutors to find what you need and the mass destruction to fill graveyards with creatures when needed, 2.) Blue has the counters and mill that, while not the best strategy in EDH, can get you fuel for the Mimeoplasm to scavage and 3.) green for the almost obligatory Riftsweeper to recycle some choice exiled creatures back through the Mimeo-Blender.

Given his copy/paste ability, he's going to crush in the late game if there are any sort of stacked graveyards around. In the unaltered pre-cons, there's next to no graveyard hate so he is going to have fuel to smash face. Speaking of playing in the unaltered pre-con metagame, while the WBR Kaalia deck may have the most aggressive potential in the series, the GUB Mimeoplasm deck has by far the most synergy and it's one glaring weakness, graveyard hate, is sorely missing. While this won't be the case in constructed where any self-respecting play-group will have what it takes to thwart the Ooze, it's something that's obvious when playing directly out of the box.

In addition to the Mimoplasm the deck boasts six other legends: Damia, Wrexial, Skullbriar, Vorosh, Patron of the Nezumi and Szadek.

I'm an avid player of Zombies and really appreciated seeing Skullbriar both for the abilities he has and the colours he's flashing. Traditionally Zombies decks are either mono-black or Black-Blue Red (for Thraximundar, Lord of Tressorhorn or Sedris) but this is only the second Green/Black Zombie legend after Glissa and she didn't exactly scream "Build Zombie tribal!!" around her.

The attraction of moving into green is that you get to plug all the holes that mono-black decks traditionally can't just by adding a single other colour. You also get recursion and access to a lot more dredge, if that's your thing. In addition, Skullbriar himself is sweet.

A turn 2 attacker that grows is not hugely impressive, think Slith Firewalker. In fact, he's exactly that: a GB legendary Slith Firewalker. What sets him apart from the Slith, apart from his vastly superior creature type, is his ability to keep all his counters in all zones barring the library and your hand. You attack with him in the early game while your opponents are just fiddling with their mana bases and get some quick hits in. He'll eventually get killed but will be back, all hasty, later in the game still as big as he was when he left. This may not seem much of a big deal but cheap aggro generals tend to get left behind in the power stakes in the later game, often rendering them obselete and the Skullbriar neatly (though with some interesting rules bending) gets past this issue. He'll be nice at the head of GB aggro decks or as a voltron commander.

The very small worm in the apple is the small possiblity that someone puts a -1/-1 counter on him when he's still only 1/1. Unfortunatly, his ability will ensure that the -1/-1 counter remains on him rendering him exceedingly difficult to play there-after.

The other big card in the deck is the second legend, Damia, Sage of Stone. Only 4/4 for 7, she doesn't have great stats but seems, like Kaalia, to be right in that sweet spot for both being playable while still being a size your opponents can reasonably handle.

Deathtouch is nice, but obviously not a surprise on a gorgon. That's followed up with the famous "Skip your draw step" text that has been used on some of the most powerful cards in the history of the game. Here the disadvantage is that if you empty your hand you get a free draw 7 only at the start of your own upkeep, so she has to survive a turn around the table. The advantage is that you get a free draw 7. If you drop a Paradox Haze on yourself, you have a shot at emptying your hand during your upkeep before you get a second free draw 7 (and when I say "draw 7" here, I really mean "draw up to 7")

I can see it being good with Zombie Infestation or other cards that allow you to discard for fun and profit but it would need to be a pretty solid plan if you're waiting until the mid-game to see your legend effect the course of things. At 7 mana, you're unlikely to be cheating her into play early too often and I think that she's just that single extra mana too expensive for my tastes.

If you hate Hinder or any other sort of tuck sepll, you're going to hate this because Spell Crumple is Hinder Mk.II. I've added it here because when you're playing out of the box where there's no tutors, a Spell Crumple is pretty much au revoir for your general. While I think tuck has it's place in the format, giving an extra tuck counterspell is a pretty gutsy move from Wizards. At best it counters something unimportant. At worst it will ruin a new player's introduction to the format. The additional downside is that Spell Crumple is not even the only tuck spell in the product and with a second copy, two Oblations and a Chaos Warp allso in various decks, there's a good chance that this effect will crop up more often than not during pre-releases.

Overall this deck has gone more for the synergistic approach so you'll have a lot of cards that go well with "filling graveyard" strategies but sadly no new cards that have that extra "Wow!" factor. To make up for it WotC put a lot of "WOW!!" into the reprints they included in the deck: Vulturous Zombie, Avatar of Woe, Living Death, O-Stone, Grave Pact, Buried Alive, Butcher of Malakir, Eternal Witness, Solemn Sim, Troll Ascetic. I've seen all of these played a lot more than the reprinted legends and I expect to see them more than the new cards in this deck (barring Mimeoplasm) so the deck is worth something to your collection in terms of playability even after you break it down.

If you're looking for a solid deck for the pre-release that's well placed in the sealed product enviornment, this is for you. Ditto for a deck that will add valuable staples to your collection, especially in Black & Green.

Enjoy your meal!! (Get it? Devour for p.... Oh, Never mind!)

The White One (WBR)

2011-06-15T20:59:00.000+02:00

Welcome to the first of our Preconstructed Commander Deck reviews.

Each post will give a quick overview of the style of the deck, where it's looking to make it's mark, the legends in the deck and the top new cards

General Product Overview

We knew a couple of weeks back that we'd be seeing a lot of Lightning Greaves and a Sol Ring in each deck. What was also obvious with enemy wedges was that, for the product to be playable out of the box a lot of effort needed to go into stabilizing the mana base. What the developers did with this product was go to the best common and uncommon land fixers in the wedges and stuff them in. While this may be disappointing to some who were expecting colour-fixing reprints of rare cards, it allows each deck to have a similiar and stable mana base without taking up rare slots (though I agree that rarity in a product like this is somewhat of a misnomer).

What you'll find in abundance are: Ravnica Signets & Karoos, Darksteel Ingots, Armillaire Spheres, Onslaught cycling lands (a mixture of card selection and the assurance of basic colours), Time Spiral stockage lands, Rupture Spires, and a spattering of other fixers (Vivids, Expanses & Zendikar bi-lands). You'll also get a copy of a new multicolour staple in each and every deck: Command Tower.

This new non-basic will be a staple in pretty much any non-mono-coloured deck, guarenteeing you the colours you need. Previous cards in this slot included City of Brass or Reflecting Pool but now you get the City without the pain and the Pool without the possibility of occasionally not having what you need. The other advantage is that it's in each deck and completely useless outside of Commander so there will be copies in circulation, though maybe not enough for all of your 25 decks!

One of the cycles that the Commander product has added is an interesting take on auras (with each deck getting the relevant wedge colours, you'll see them a lot in non-altered games). These are the "Vow" auras. Each aura grants an ability (Flying, Intimidate etc.) and a boost (+2/+2 except in the case of Green's +3/+3) along with the addition that the enchanted creature can't attack you or a planeswalker you control. Of course you can put it on your own creature and ignore the second ability but there's no problem with slapping it onto an opponent's and sitting back to watch the carnage unfold.

On your own creature it's just another pump & ability aura with the corner-case advantage that, if it ever gets stolen, it can't attack you, usual aura card disadvantage applies. Any other time, it's more likely to resolve because 1.) you aren't going to counter it or kill the creature in response and 2.) the owner of that creature is less likely to counter it or kill that creature in response as it gives them an advantage over the remaining players. You're reducing the number of players with the willingnes to respond.

It's not as big a card disadvantage as Auras usually are if someone does kill the opposing target creature either as 1.) You lost the Aura, 2.) opponent A loses the creature and 3.) opponent B loses the kill spell leaving 4.) opponent D the only "winner" in the card advantage stakes. Generally any auras you play on opponent's creatures cripple the creature targetted in some way. Leaving it not just fully functional but more dangerous than before actually encourages removal to target that creature thus pulling fire away from your other permanents.

On to the decks! Let's get the ball rolling with the WBR deck in the white packaging, Heavenly Inferno.

Basic Deck Strategy

Heavenly Inferno has 3 oversized generals: Oros, Tariel and the wedge legend that the deck is built around: Kaalia. It's probably the least cerebral of the pre-cons but that's not important. What is important is that it takes a line of strategy, aggression (usually of the flying type), and shoves it down your throat. Takes this line of play directly from the pre-con:

Turn1: Land, Sol Ring, Signet
Turn 2: Land, Kaalia
Turn 3: Land (maybe some Lightning Greaves?), attack, resolve Kaalia's ability by putting Red Akroma into play attacking.

That's one possible passage of play just from the unaltered product. I'm sure you can see ways to make this a little better by adding to the deck yourself. Dragon Tyrant maybe? Or Demon of Death's Gate, Iona or Knollspine Dragon? Cheating Rakdos in after the "declare as attacker" trigger step is conveniently past seems good too.

In the product itself there are 23 creatures other than Kaalia that you can cheat into play with her ability. That works out, after your opening hand, at 1:4 of every card you draw which is a nice enough ratio for a pre-con. What seems to be the tactical part of playing this deck is deciding whether to cheat in creatures with Kaalia or to cast them if they have relevant abilities that only trigger when you cast them from your hand such as Reiver Demon. Otherwise, it's just beat down with your general as often as you can.

What's particularly interesting about Heavenly Inferno is that it's opening up essentially 4 lines of deckbuilding for when you get the deck home and want to customize it yourself: BWR Goodstuff, Angel Tribal, Dragon Tribal or Demon Tribal. Each of these has more than enough support to fill out an entire deck by themselves but wouldn't have really cohabited before. When tricks like Conspiracy (naming Demon) & Blood Speaker combine, suddenly you're pretty much always sure to have food for Kaalia's ability irregardless of which if the three tribes you choose: everything is a demon and you're investing 3B every turn to churn out huge flyers.

The small drawback with Kaalia is that she's not very resillient at only 2/2, though that's probably good given what she's capable of (turn 3 Iona anyone?). In colour you have access to pretty much any burn, exile or destroy removal you could ever want so clearing a path shouldn't really be an issue, however, if you can't clear away defenders but still need to trigger her, you would be well served by Maze of Ith or Whispersilk Cloak.

At 7, this deck has the most legends: Oros, Kaalia, Tariel, Bladewing the Risen, Red Akroma, Malfegor & Basandra. That's a pretty good starter kit for other decks if you ever decide that you can do without them in this particular build

Looking at some of the new cards: Avatar of Slaughter.

Pretty much the only disappointing aspect of this deck is the biggest "win more" card doesn't trigger off Kaalia but that's probably for the best considering how early she caould cheat things into play! This should be your top-of-the-curve game ender in any deck that plays red and lives in the red zone. A fat body that doesn't need to attack to do it's thing (though you're probably giving it haste somehow anyway) your miniature army can flat-out win games with the Avatar in play. Add trample to taste.

Mana-Charged Dragon

There seems to have been a printing error on this card in that the name, "Boom! Headshot!" seems to have been changed to read "Mana-Charged Dragon". There's been some derision about the Join Forces mechanic but I can assure you that it's purely down to not having played the cards yet. Once MCD hits play, it needs to be killed STAT. Trust me, there is no bigger threat in play if the Dragon is on-line because there's no-one in the game that can afford not to help kill you if it flies in your direction.

I've seen it happen and it has one-shot killed each player it has attacked every single time because, when the calculations about the possiblity of staying alive are made by each other player, the rest of the table will take those odds every time and pump sufficient mana into it to finish you. Evasion & trample mean that it's almost always going to connect too. If you're the unhappy recipient, I recommend dumping your hand onto the table if you can't kill the MCD yourself and hope that there's something in there that someone else wants you to play and will try to keep you around. It's basically your only chance. This is top drawer multiplayer gold and will be in my top 5 for the set at the end of this series.

Stranglehold

Solutions! Give me solutions!! Apparently these two effects, reducing opponent's ability to tutor/search and stopping extra turn shennanigans, were on the cards for the set from very early on and the lead designer came to Sheldon with a card that brought them together. Stranglehold is the fruit of that union.

It's not flashy but it is effective and it's in a colour that needs some really good niche cards to help carve out a bigger piece of the EDH pie. While Red didn't get every single piece of goodness in the set, we're only one deck in and already there's red 3 cards worthy of taking for a spin.

That's all for Heavenly Inferno. It's an excellent aggressive starter deck for a new player while still providing something nice for seasoned veterans. Enjoy!

Oh, for tuck's sake!!

2011-06-15T16:00:00.000+02:00

tuck [tuhk]
–verb (used with object)

1. to put into a small, close, or concealing place: Tuck the money into your wallet.

2. to thrust in the loose end or edge of (a garment, covering, etc.) so as to hold closely in place (usually followed by in, up, under, etc.): Tuck in your blouse. Tuck the edge of the sheet under the mattress.

3. to cover snugly in or as if in this manner: She tucked the children into bed.

4. to light a neon sign over one's head denoting "griefer" or "douchebag" when playing Commander: Jon responded with Hinder on Mary's General before casting Spin into Myth on Mike's. What a dick!

A lot of people seem to be ragging on the "tuck" cards recently. While this started before the information release of the recent commander product, the news that two additional tuck cards have been added to the mix has re-opened the debate.

Some say they're not good, other say that your deck is not optimised if you don't play them. What exactly is the deal with tuck spells?

A tuck spell is one where, during the resolution of that spell a card is moved from one zone either into or under a library. In 60 card magic this was never really a big deal (either positively or negatively) and the effect, while occasionally played, didn't create much in the way of debate.

Along comes the huge upsurge in popularity of EDH/Commander and suddenly there's a tuck target that is really worth tucking: an opponent's general. You see, if you bounce an opponent's general, he can just re-cast it. If you exile or kill it, that opponent can choose to move it to the Command Zone and replay it with the additional tax. All you're doing in those situation is sending the general away for a short period of time after which he (or she) is back. You have to start all over again!

Collateral damage!

The logic using tuck spells on generals is quite simple: Your opponent has built his deck around his general. If you put his general in the one place he cannot access it easily, his library, then you're gaining a large advantage over that opponent. This advantage is greater or lesser depending on two factors: 1.) that opponent's ability to search through their library and find their general again and 2.) their dependance on their general for the deck to function. An opponent has to expend turns and resources recovering their general only to see you tuck it away again the moment it resurfaces.

This naturally leads to some disgruntlement.

So it's clear that there is a significant tactical advantage to this move but this begs the question: Why would you want to do this? It's clearly not going to result in a fun game for your opponent and after all, fun is what EDH is about. It turns games into a variation of German Highlander with strange colour restrictions and, if that's the case, why not just play German Highlander?

On the other hand, if this form of removal is so efficient in this format, what is the strike against it? Surely everyone is free to run the most efficient spells at their disposal? Many say that tucking a general is a step too far. I say that there's quite a lot of other cards and spells that are worth tucking away, not necessarily just Generals.

Proposed rules change

There's a small but vocal body of posters who would see the ruling changed from its current wording to one that sees a general being tucked and offers the option to move that general to the Command Zone, exactly the same as when you would exile or kill a general:

Terror: Graveyard or Command Zone?

Swords to Plowshares: Exile or Command Zone?

Hinder: Tuck or Command Zone?

While I have no truck with the blanket tuck haters out there, especially those not down with Hallowed Burial, there is probably something to this suggestion. How important is the General to the core identity of the Commander format and to what lengths should the RC go to protect the integrity of Generals within each and every playgroup?

A recent rules update stated that this will soon be added to rule 12:

"If a Commander is discovered in exile face-down by any player, turn it face up and move it to the command zone."

This suggests that the RC are willing to take steps to stop what they see as playable loop-holes to permanently divest a player of their general but the announcement also added the caveat:

"We continue to believe that tuck (putting a general into the library) is an acceptable part of the format as a temporary answer to degenerate Commanders, but it does have unfortunate interactions with some cards in the game that move cards out of the deck face-down."

So, if you want the rule changed you'll have to convince the RC that tucking is sufficiently difficult to get around in all colours collectively and individually in order for them to consider it.

Until then, everyone is free to tuck it!

Zombie Sleeves

2011-06-07T16:05:00.000+02:00

Balthor Deck, I'd like to introduce you to your new sleeves!

New sleeves, Balthor deck.

Nice to meet you.

Dooooonuuuuuuuts!! (Or finally seeing the Birthing Pod light.)

2011-05-16T10:55:00.000+02:00

I admit, I was foolish. I saw the gift horse and I looked it directly in the mouth. For this I will don my Dofus-Cap and go stand in the corner. I would appreciate a moment of patience on your part while I complete this operation.

........

........

Ok, I'm back and I have got something to say: I just got excited by New Phyrexia.

I mean really excited. Homer excited.

It happened about 30 minutes ago and only the rising tide of my homer-esque donut-inspired drool threatening to drown me finally managed to break my delirious funk about a seriously interesting card.

Everyone ready with their best Homer-seeing-fresh-donuts voice?

Birrrrrrr-thing Pooooooooooooood!!

I may have mentioned previously that I wasn't particularly excited about Birthing Pod, I mean, what's another tutor when we want better monsters, eh? It turns out that the Pod is a monster too, just a different sort of monster. As I was pondering what to do in my sealed deck, with a Pod in play beside a Trinket Mage and a Deceiver Exarch hiding somewhere in the untapped potential of my library. This is pretty insane as either one gives you and extra use to jump straight from your 2-drop right to your 4 drop (one with the COTB trigger, the other searching out a Voltaic Key)

What would happen if we opened this out to a Vintage card pool where we don't just have undercosted monsters, we also have a large number of overcosted monsters with benefits that allow us to skip up the chain a little Maelstrom Djinn & Scornful Egotist both allow you to invest 3 to play a morph, a similiarly pithy amount to flip it over (3 & 1 respectively) and skip directly from a 3 mana creature to a 9 mana creature with the Pod. Now there many not be anything at 9 worth adding such pityful cards to your EDH deck for.... what?! There is?

All the Bringers are 9 mana as are Inkwell Leviathan, Iona, Reya, Spirit of the Night, Nullstone Gargoyle and Demon of Death's Gate. The Bringers & the Demon raises another interesting category of creatures: Creatures that you can pay less for.

The sacrifice cost of the Demon allows you to pay no mana for a 9cmc creature. This allows you to trade up into a 10cmc creature for an investment of 1-2 mana with the pod. Allosaurus Rider allows you to do the same for an investment of 2 green cards (ouch!) though Vine Dryad pitching a single green card allowing you jump directly to 5 seems like a workable deal.

The cost cutting doesn't stop there as all suspend creatures with a suspend cost inferior to their cmc will give you value when recycled through your Pod. It's perhaps fortunate that the Pod ability is only available at sorcery speed given the playability of evoke creatures, paying 2 or 4 to process a Mulldrifter through play and into your graveyard and a Primeval Titan onto the battlefield from your deck is probably a little too good.

A bit of noise has been made about Melira, Sylvok Outcast and creatures with Persist when combined with a sacrifice effect. It's also interesting to note that there are persist creatures on the curve from 2cc all the way to 6cc before skipping to 8cc with Woodfall Primus. With a means to re-use your Birthing Pod and sufficient mana, you can Pod your way to any CC up to 10cc without losing any of the creatures you are sacrificing barring your chosen 7-drop.

There's also another way to skip up your curve with Birthing Pod if you already have a creature-based, cotb, untap effect in play such as Deceiver Exarch or Pestermite. You play Clone / Sakishima / Phyrexian Metamorph into Vesuvan Doppelganger into a 6 drop. Unfortunately, there's two holes in the plan: firstly, you have to keep the Exarch or Mite in play to be copied by the incoming Clone and you'll have to skip a spot on the curve before you get to your Quicksilver Gargantuan but you'll either want to stop at 6 anyway or your 6-drop has given you some value on the way in (a Titan) or out (Wurmcoil Engine). The Gargantuan allows you to get to 8, the number of Akromas, Avatars, Hellkites, Terastodons and Elder Dragons among many others.

And while we're on the subject of Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite, let's look at the following chain: Pestermite -> 4 drop + Voltaic Key -> Karmic Guide (targetting your dead 'Mite) -> Gleancrawler. Here we're going to go straight from 2 or 3 directly to 6 and, if Gleancrawler makes it to the end of the turn, get everything back in addition to an extra creature from the returning Karmic Guide.

There are also a couple of creatures that you want to kill off for various reasons: Noble Benefactor, Veteren Explorer or something your've stolen from an opponent. Having it active in play beside a Grave Pact or a Butcher of Malakir sounds like it could be a lot more fun for you for you than for your opponents. While you are climbing up the curve, you get to fritter away your opponents' creatures.

Ok, it's obvious that you can play it and that it will be useful but where are you going to play it?

Untapping seems to be where the value lies which suggests that the Pod best be paired with Blue, the colour of untapping and finding cards that untap artifacts. Tezz 1.0, Clock of Omens and Voltaic Key along with the afforementioned Deceiver Exarch & Pestermite seem like nice fits. It also gives you Filigree Sages and, if you can transform the Birthing Pod into a creature, Voltaic Construct. These last two are of most interest to us given that they both benefit from Training Grounds. Suddenly your Pod reload costs UG or just G and it's re-usable.

Blue for the artifact related stuff and Clones; Green for the Pod itself and all of the "advantage" creatures you can search out; Black for the Oversold Cemetary that's benefitting from you throwing all this lovely food into the graveyard, White has some advantage cards as well like Sun Titan and Karmic Guide.

I think all that's left to say is that this little machine is restricted only by your imagination.

Oh, and sorcery speed.

And green Commanders.

Apart from that, what have the Romans ever done for us, eh?

New Phyrexia (Already?)

2011-04-29T12:35:00.000+02:00

New Phyrexia

(or "Old Mirrodin" if you're Thrun or Melira, pretty much the only ones not Borg-ed)

The Leak:

I'm not sure what's more annoying about the leak (or should I say "leaks"), that it utterly spoiled (heh!) one of the most hotly awaited spoiler seasons since Tarmogoyf spoiled "Planeswalker", or that there's an overwhelming sense of entitlement from the forum-rats that this was not only "deserved" for them but a measure of come-uppance for WotC. I've read a lot of the back and forth on this topic on various notice boards and it's quite stunning the utter disregard that the community has for WotC's right to disseminate their own intellectual property when and how they wish to do so.

Whatever side of the fence you sit on for this debate, you can't argue that anticipation and build-up to the release of this set is in any way better than it would have been had WotC been permitted to follow their usual schedule. As I write this, it's still 10 days until the release events and already the set reviews are a week done and dusted. There's nothing to do but wait for release day.

Quite apart from the financial concerns involved in a complete set leak a full 3 weaks before it was due to be officially released, all the buzz over 10 cards has killed the buzz for the remaining cards in the set. No-one is rushing to find out what else NPH has in store; there's only planning purchases now, no excitement.

Worst. Spoiler. Season. Ever.

EDIT: The announcement was made last night regarding the source of the leak. As more and more elements come to light it seems that the moral of this particular story is twofold: Don't mess about when you've signed an NDA and, if you're going to be foolish enough to break your NDA, choose your collaborators very wisely. It seems Guillaume Matignon didn't and is paying the price. From what can be garnered from the information coming out, it seems that WotC has decided to be extremely lenient regarding sanctions with a 3 year ban for the current World Champion and 18 months each for the subsequent links in the leak chain. Not the finest hour for France's cadre of Pros and sad that two great players will be off the scene for a significant period of time. As an additional sanction, Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, considered by many as a shoe-in for the next Hall of Fame, will not now be on the ballot for this years vote.

Maybe players with access to unreleased information will think twice about revealing it now.

Back to the serious stuff.....

The Pitch:

You have to admire the Phyrexians. They were wiped out to the last drop of oil (bar one) on one plane only to come back, seemingly stronger than ever, on a completely new plane (albeit one that is pretty much tailor made for them.) Not only that, but they did it with a panache and ease worthy of glorification in an internet meme:

Step 1: Just when everyone thinks you're done for, slip unnoticed inside the very weapon that has been assembled specifically to defeat you.

Step 2: When that weapon builds its own plane (delusions of grandeur much?), slide back out and contaminate it.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Profit!! (And pay your dues to the association for the free distribution of gory, blood-spattered art. That shit is nasty!)

I bet that's an R&D development meeting that took a while to get through.... (not)

Maro: Ok guys, What are we doing after the Eldrazi? It's gotta be big!!
Guys: Phyrexia?
Maro: Nah, they got dusted in Invasion block.
Guys: So? The players swallowed Coldsnap whole, I'm sure we could dream up some semi-coherent clangers and it'll be fine.
Maro: What if Karn was infected by Phyrexian oil !!!!!1111!!one!!!

.........and the rest is history.

The Very Indepth Review:

Now, I've done a couple of these set review things now and had originally planned to continue the tradition (you know the one where I totally miss out on one of the huge cards but somehow find space for a couple of duds that end up never getting played?)

Thaumaturge, along with a few others, has already set bytes to blog-page and come up with some good stuff (though I obv. disagree with your Torpor Orb assessment, Thaum). What use is another blogosphere hack adding to the cacophony when a suitable symphony already exists?

You can find his review here at The Commande Zone.

The "Hur-Hur" Corner:

WotC did an excellent reveal of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in Phyrexian script early on in the publicity campaign and she's become the poster-girl for all that's mythic, big, nasty and artistic in the set. Somehow the gore-fest that represents the majority of her body is offset by the stunning porcelain-like metal headgear she's sporting. Apart from the obvious wardrobe malfunction it represents in reality, it's a pretty majestic piece of art.

Which is why our French friends' utter lack of respect for this grand figure is somewhat amusing. One of our gallic colleagues noticed within about 1 hour of the first full-card image being posted that, with the help of some censorship boxes, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, probably needed a different title.

For any of you who don't speak French, here's an introduction to the joke: >sniggers!<

"Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite" with part of the title blacked out becomes "Elesh [censored] nobite" (just as shown in the picture), which, in French phonetics, conveniently becomes "Elle leche nos bites"*. Running this through Google may give you a different answer than the one intended, but either way, don't try this on your French teacher.**

The Actual Cards:

I'm not giving you a set review, you've had them already. What I intend to do, very briefly, is indicate which of those cards that I will and won't slot directly into my decks and why. This has no bearing on their playability elsewhere and ignores other OMGWTF cards that someone else may be fapping over. First up are the exciting 'In" crowd.

I start with some sad news however. Thada Adel is no more. In preparation for the prominance of Phyrexia on his plane, the insane meglomaniac Memnarch has displaced the diminutive merfolk and has started terrorising kitchen tables everywhere. He's been sending me post-its too:

Hey, Lame Ass! Get me:

Phyrexian Metamorph
Unwinding Clock
Phyrexia's Core

STAT!

I told him the set only comes out in about 3 weeks but you know how meglomaniacs get, eh? You can't argue with him about the card choices though, these three are gold in Memnarch's machine. Despite the additional 1 mana investment over the creature original, "High Market: Artifacts" is always going to be useful. What's a little surprising is that a Phyrexia's Core equivalent hasn't been made before. It's also interesting that a second ex-standard combo becomes possible in standard with the Core. After Splinter Twin/Pestermite, we now have Spine + Sac outlet + Sculpting Steel available. Which brings me nicely to my next choice.

We've seen the virtues of Phyrexian Metamorph prated elsewhere: Half-Clone/Half-Sculpting Steel, it's the ultimate cheap hooker card that everyone loves (because it can be anything you want it to be!) As a bonus it remains an artifact so when you have everything covered with a Darksteel Forge, your clone of a Primeval Titan is indestructible. Usual Master Transmuter shennanigans apply. This is artifact awesome-sauce and as an added bonus for us foil-magpies out there, it's a release promo with, once again, sick-ass art.

The third welcome addition, Unwinding Clock, made me re-check the casting cost a couple of times. Surely a hardier "Seedborn Muse: Artifacts" should cost more than its creature equivalent? Apparently not. R&D do realise that Seedborn Muse is one of the most annoying and abusable green creatures in Multiplayer, right? Why in their right minds would they give a sick mind like mine the same effect for artifacts at a cheaper price? I thought they had lost it with Mirrorworks (they had) but it seems there's no end to the insanity. If Memnarch had a fantasy Magic set, Unwinding Clock would be in there. Now it is.

Golf clap for R&D.

We've not been gifted with the most original three cards here but they are all really excellent and I expect them to crop up everywhere there are lots of artifacts and, in the case of the Metamorph, just everywhere.

For my Ashling deck well, she's red and red got the shaft, what's new? For EDH, I count 1 interesting red card (maybe 2 if you play Bosh) and that is Bludgeon Brawl (and Moltensteel Dragon). Bludgeon Brawl is worth the look, if only for the hilarious potential you have of turning a non-artifact you control (like Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker) into an artifact with Liquidmetal Coating and "equipping" it through Bludgeon Brawl to a creature you control (Like Nicol Bolas - Elder Dragon Legend) and getting into the red zone for 14 flying with a dragon wielding a more powerful verson of himself as a weapon. Add Mycosynth Lattice & Vulshok Battlemaster for additional hilarity.

There is only Puresteel Paladin in the knights section and, in Zombies, the single 4/1, infect & regeration for 4BB is leaving me pretty cold so we can move on to Green/Black Good-Stuff. Hold on to your hats!

I'm somewhat interested in Life's Finale. The ability to Day of Judgement the board (it's missing the 'no regeneration" clause unfortunatly) is nothing new but you also to Buried Alive an opponent for 2 additional mana. 4BB is not too high especially if you plan to bury a player's Geth and animate it somehow. This will allow you to animate the other two targets you found with Life's Finale. Conversely you can drop or reanimate your own Geth and profit in a similiar vein. Of course if your opponent(s) have means of utilising this resource it could be a double edged sword but that's a risk you'll have to evaluate in-game. You could also find an Eldrazi as one of the three targets and have a player shuffle their graveyard back into their deck if they have an over-reliance on their graveyard as a resource. While this isn't a Tormod's Crypt, it's at least of occasional strategic value. At the end of the day, it's another Damnation for Mono B decks which is nothing to be sniffed at.

Everyone's talking about Phyrexian Obliterator and with reason, it's a very interesting card. It can function as a very scary wall or an equally impressive beater with optional Annihilator X. Who wouldn't be eager to attack into a fully loaded Lord of Extinction with a lure effect on this? I'm still not sure it will be a hit but it's potentially very playable. Sheoldred is another card advantage monster (with more scary art) that will find a place, though, at 5BB, I'm not sure she'll be your general very often. What's interesting with Sheoldred is that, once again, it's a card that's a combination of two existing cards (The Abyss & Debtor's Knell). The more these crop up, the more we should start asking when R&D will finally run out of ideas.

Praetor's Grasp is the stone cold nuts. If you play black, you will need this card though there is a potential downside: It will slow down your games unless you know exactly what you're going to get. Of the black cards listed here I'll try them all in my BG good stuff but this one I'm already sure will make the final cut when changes need to be made and I'm fairly sure you can't have too many Wrath effects either. It's going to be a tight squeeze!

Moving onto the Green cards I'm adding to the deck when I get them, there's only 2 and one of the ommissions may surprise you (and one of the two inclusions) I'm not sold on Birthing Pod due to the sorcery speed restriction despite the obvious potential it has. Maybe it's partly because I'm already tired of seeing everyone fap over it since the spoil but it hasn't resonated with me just yet. When you already run Fauna/Survival/W.Tutor/Command/Pact/Zenith/Wave/T&N along with black hand and graveyard tutors, just another tutor is not doing it for me right now. Maybe it will grow on me but I'd honestly prefer better green creatures than another way to find creatures.

Beast Within is one of my two includes. The 3/3 beast being almost an irrelevance in EDH, there's nothing not to like about this card: the speed, the cost, the flexibility; it's just all round excellent.

My personal sleeper for the set is Triumph of the Hordes. A mini-Overrun granting Infect & Trample to your entire team is an effect that, given enough creatures, can one-shot entire tables. Add some measure of card recursion (EWit/Regrowth) and you don't need another infect card in your entire deck. For once though, the art has let us down: an infected Glissa version of Jack Skellington is just terribly wasted on an otherwise decent background, the trampling hoards of beasts, Porcelain Legionaires and ..... em..... giant snails. This one is going under the brush as soon as I get a copy.

Fin:

Overall it has been an interesting ride for New Phyrexia. Let's hope that the gameplay lives up to the hype, but, most of all, we unearth a plethora of sleepers forgotten in the clamour to expound on the glories of free counters, peeks and slippery BSA equipment.

I want to finish by remarking on a disturbing trend in the most recent blocks: the traditional story-line bad guy has been winning a little too often lately. Ok, Lorwyn wasn't exactly a victory for the bad guy but the artistic structure of the block suggested heavily that the darkside took precedence over the "lightside"; Alara resulted in Bolas openly pulling strings to forward his fiendish plans and he's still out there somewhere; Zendikar didn't end well for pretty much anything that cost less than 10 though the tentacled ones are stuck there for now; and Scars of Mirrodin has re-unleashed the scourge of Phyrexia. If Innistrad doesn't end up with either another bad guy coming out or at the very least a title fight between all the current players, I'll be mightly disappointed!

It'd be terrible to buck the trend now and have the little guy win it for once.

___________________________________________

* Basically: "She licks our dicks"

** Unless she's, you know, likely to respond a lot more "positively" than simply sending you to the principal.***

*** There's a part of the teenage boy psyche that firmly believes that, one day, this could actually happen and we leave our teenage years behind with the crushing disappointment that it never actually did.****

**** And proceed to make millions in the Porn industry.

That Old Chestnut (aka what the community wants banned!)

2011-04-10T15:34:00.000+02:00

Ah, I love the smell of bannings in the morning!

Actually, recently it's been the internet warriors chumpioning their favourite target for "The Hammer" that's been smelling up our mornings because nothing got banned (or, more controversially, unbanned) during the last update. Sheldon's announcement (which you can read here in his aptly nammed column on SSG: "The Banned List") pretty much ammounted to a ringing of the evening bell and a hollered "MIDNIGHT AND All'S WELL!"

Of course, the majority of the faceless masses, who had been pushing for one unbanning in particular and individually hoping for a wide range of bannings, were unhappy with the RC maintaining the status quo and hopped right onto their righteous indignity to bemoan the presence or lack there-of of their pet/hate card in the format. [We're going to gloss over the whole "in your own playgroup do what you want" thing; hand holding has been set to 100 for the purposes of this post. Ed.]

One enterprising poster on MTGSalvation, Tantarus, decided to take the discussion to the next level by opening a new thread that welcomed players to "ban" up to 5 cards and, if they wanted to, "unban" one. The unbanning was by-and-large ignored but 9 pages in we have a list of the 344 submissions comprising 115 different cards, of which 14 were legendary and accounting for 29 votes. This 0.08% representation in the vote by your mosted hated generals suggests that it may not be the leaders of opposing armies that you hate but rather the armies they lead and the tools they ply to beat you. Let's have a closer look at the generals first and get them out of the way.

Iona & Erayo both got 5 votes followed by Kiki-Jiki on 3 and a group of five on 2 votes: Arcum, Azusa, Jhoira, Niv-Mizzet & Rofellos. The list is rounded out with a group of 6, each garnering a single vote each: Sisay, Gaddock, Hokori, Phelddagrif, Clique & Zur. Personally I'm surprised that Zur & Arcum didn't figure much higher on the list given the almost unilateral distain the community holds for those generals. Iona at 5 votes also suggests that, while she may not be the white general of choice, she's annoying enough in the remaining 99 to be the most hated non-general legend in the format.

In a study (and I use that term very losely here) with anywhere between 70 and 85 people where the opinions of the previous respondants are visible to subsequent posters, there was a certain amount of herd behaviour happening (This would explain "Island" in the top 20 and could also go some way to explain how "Forbid" somehow managed to garner 3 votes*). As a result we can look at certain cards garnering a lesser number of votes as pertinant and original opinion rather than one-offs and certain higher scorers as just those following the herd mentality. Those finishing near the top would probably end up near there anyway, especially when functional similiarities are taken into account. Let's look at the top 5 to see what's up there:

Sol Ring 24
Mana Crypt 22
Magister Sphinx 17
Sorin Markov 16
Sundering Titan 14

Ok, yeah, there's a message here somewhere, let's see if I can discern it.........

1.) Fast Mana = Bad
2.) Dropping someone to 10 life = Bad
3.) Destroying multiple lands repeatedly = Bad

Point 1.) is that old chestnut in EDH, fast mana. While a lot of players really enjoy it and get a kick out of it, others see it as the evil core of the format. Just for completeness Mana Vault (5), Grim Monolith (3), Cabal Coffers (2) Gaea's Cradle (2) Rofellos (2), Azusa (2) and Primeval Titan (10) are all in there making fast mana and it's associated enablers account for 20% of the vote. People just don't seem to like their opponents having a lot of mana, though, given the presence of a wide range of land destruction spells on the list as well, the don't seem to like having their lands blown up either (Point 3.)). Maybe what we're really seeing here are answers from players sitting on either side of the arguament: the Mana Players and the Mana Haters? [Don't be a hater. Ed.]

The other obvious aspect of the top 5 is your opponents ability at any time to drop you to 10 life and honoured member of the lowest hanging fruit club. I initially doubted that Sorin's "Mindslaver" ability was a relevant reason for his being voted so high until I looked lower in the top 10. Man, that guy is pretty hated coming and going! Players want to play, not be knocked out at the earliest opportunity. While there's no rule that says that everyone has to have been given a fair shot at winning before they are eliminated, using Magister Sphinx or Sorin offensively in the early game is just a really unwelcome strategy.

Moving on to spots 6-10 there some more of the same and a couple of new candidates:

Sensei's Divining Top 12
Mind over Matter 10
Mindslaver 10
Primeval Titan 10
Time Stretch 10
We've mentioned Primeval Titan briefly but there's another aspect to him that goes over and above mere "ramping" mana and it's that the format is chocked full of land based questions, utility and answers, not just another couple of basic land. Imagine quickly the mana ramp version playing a GBx deck: You have 4-6 lands in play when you hit the PTitan, you get an Urborg, ToY and Cabal Coffers (2). Without playing any other land the following turn you go from 6 mana to 11-13 just by untapping and every land you play now essentially gets you BX.

That's the Ramp, what about when you are under pressure? Maze of Ith (1) and Vesuva (copying the Maze) is going to keep two threats off your back for quite a while while you use your Titan to find more land or just be a blocker. Why not both actually? Attack with PT, resolve his ability and untap your own PT to stay back as a blocker. That works for me.

And if he get's killed as sometimes happens? Volrath's Stronghold. Protection against him getting stolen? High Market and it's ilk. Need regeneration? Yavimaya Hollow. And so on, and so on. There's litterally no other creature in the format with this much potential once it's in your deck. Opponents tired of crushing defeats masterminded by the slippery fish that PT can potentially become would naturally want him banned. Let's face it, if you build your land base properly, there's nothing he can't do. And he makes a mean expresso too.

The remaining cards between 6 and 10 are not surprises either. If you have sat across from 2 or 3 opponents constantly stacking their Tops, you know how annoying it can be. This one is purely a time and annoyance card and, while I disagree that a ban is needed, it's certain that people need to play their Tops quickly and efficiently or not at all.
Mind over Matter is a combo enabler, nothing else. What we're talking about here is a card that may have nice applications but in reality will be used to fuel a game-ender. The intent of the MoM player will often determine if you're going to have a fun game but I've yet to meet a player who put the card in a deck for the LOLs rather than to power out a stupid "I win!" moment. Time Stretch is the same. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if the person playing Time Stretch hasn't essentially won the game by the time they have finished their 2 extra turns, they are either toying with you (thus are annoying) or are deliberatly annoying (thus are idiots). Remember, no-one plays Time Stretch unless they can concieveably replay Time Stretch multiple times.
The last card in the top 10 is Mindslaver. I'm going to put this one down to intent and on a par with MoM and Time Stretch with a rider: Mindslaver can be a great one-shot effect. It's when players start to recur it repeatedly that it becomes an issue. As much as Time Stretch gives you, well, time to win the game and multiple Time Stretches actually win you the game, Mindslaver does the same if repeatedly recurred. MoM is never used for the fun, it's used to just finish playing the game alone and eventually declaring that you've won, much like 'Slaver and Time Stretch. None of these are any fun when played like this (or at all in the case of MoM and possibly Time Stretch) and, as the saying goes, if you wanted to play with yourself, you can do it in the privacy of your own bedroom. We don't need to see it.

Do these cards need to be banned? It depends. If you want the RC to make all your decisions for you, hold your hand and tuck you into bed at night, sure we can ban them. If not, you may have to exercise that most elusive of qualities: discretion.

There's a lot more on the list but they, generally, fall into catagories already mentioned: Ramp or cards that enable you to do something a lot earlier than you normally could (Bribery, T&N, Acquire); cards that stop other players playing their spells (Erayo, Iona, Winter Orb & Land destruction); combo cards (Power Artifact, Kiki, Arcum); and cards that allow a player to draw a large number of cards (Consecrated Sphinx, Necropotence)

It's also nice to see that players retain a sense of humour when replying to these threads as evidenced by the basic lands and that power-house Kithkin Healer (1). Geez, I hate that guy!

Here's the remainder of the list for completeness:
Power Artifact 9
Consecrated Sphinx 8
Bribery 5
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant 5
Infect 5
Iona, Shield of Emeria 5
Island 5
Mana Vault 5
Necropotence 5
Shahrazad 5
Armageddon/Ravages of War 4
Winter Orb 4
Blightsteel Colossus 3
Crucible of Worlds 3
Forbid 3
Forest 3
Grim Monolith 3
Hermit Druid 3
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 3
Mountain 3
Obliterate 3
Ruination 3
Serra Ascendant 3
Arcum Dagson 2
Azuza, lost but seeking 2
Blood Moon 2
Cabal coffers 2
Decree of Annihilation 2
Force of Will 2
Gaea's Cradle 2
Jhoira of the Ghitu 2
Knowledge Pool 2
Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind 2
Plains 2
Rings of Brighthearth 2
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary 2
Seedborn Muse 2
Skullclamp 2
Survival of the Fittest 2
Swamp 2
Tooth and Nail 2
Tunnel Vision 2
Warp World 2
Yawgmoth's Will 2
Acquire 1
Aether Vial 1
Apocalypse 1
Back to Basics 1
Boil 1
Capsize 1
Captain Sissay 1
Contamination 1
Curiosity/Ophidian Eye 1
Death cloud 1
Demonic Tutor 1
Duplicant 1
Extraplanar Lense 1
Felidar Sovereign 1
Flashfires 1
Font of Mythos 1
Gaddock Teeg 1
Gauntlet of Power 1
Genesis Wave 1
Giant Strength 1
Grip of Chaos 1
Hall of Gemstone 1
Heartbeat of Spring 1
Hive Mind 1
Hokori, Dust Drinker 1
Hornet Sting 1
Imperial Seal (Price cards) 1
Insurrection 1
Jokulhaups 1
Karma 1
Kithkin Healer 1
Leyline of the Void 1
Life from the Loam 1
Lightning Greaves 1
Magus of the Moon 1
Maze of Ith 1
Minions' Murmurs 1
Myojin of night's reach 1
Nihil Spellbomb 1
Oath of Druids 1
Palinchron 1
Phelddagrif 1
Phyrexian Battleflies 1
Relic of Progenitus 1
Rhystic Study 1
Sorrow's Path 1
Strip Mine 1
Strong tutors 1
Tangle Wire 1
Tempting Worm 1
Thawing Glaciers 1
Timesifter 1
Tormod's Crypt 1
Trinisphere 1
Tuck 1
Vendilion Clique 1
Voracious Cobra 1
Wasteland 1
Wild Nactl 1
Withered Wretch 1
Zur the enchanter 1

*I've been cataloguing the suggestions made on MTGCommander.net for bannings, those cards that someone makes a serious case for banning. The inclusion of "Forbid" on the MTGSalvation list reminded me of some of the wacky suggestions that the community has come up with.
http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=84654#p84654

Ho Hum Standard

2011-04-05T12:29:00.000+02:00

Normally this blog is about EDH and, for the most part, I want to keep it so, but I really need to get this down somewhere to get it off my chest:

I hate standard.......

.......but I want to play regionals.

This has put me into a difficult position. We've been running a gauntlet at work and, so far, I like none of the decks I've been testing. Here's the run down:

RDW has stupid "I win" hands on occasion. It also has terrible hands that require you to top-deck the win every turn and your opponent to fall flat in order to have a chance. That's just game 1. In game 2 the fact that aggro strategies, not just RDW, are a viable strategy in the format means that every Tom, Dick & Harry has some sort of hate that will splash you. If they fear Red-based decks in particular, they can crush you out of the board. Life is too short and time away from a slow Sunday with my girls too precious to put your regionals fate in the hands of the dice roll. I'm prepared to bet against the occasional "Hurp-Durp" opening hand that RDW gets, and just not play it.

One of the early decks I championed was Caw-Blade which then became Dark-Blade and Spark-Blade. I never felt comfortable playing the decks. That may have had something to do with our rogue Vampires just destroying it all day but it just simply came down to another decision about whether I really wanted to spend the day playing a deck I didn't enjoy playing.

Paris style Grixis-Tezz got bombed out very quickly in the gauntlet and was replaced by UB Tezz Infect which didn't really last much longer. There's always the terrible feeling that you're not as controlling as half the metagame requires you to be and too controlling for the other half. You feel bad sitting back and worse going for it. The metagame seems to be pretty split into Control (UW and now UB), Aggro board-Control (Caw-X and RUG) and aggro (WW/Quest/KRed/RDW) and the big elephant in the room: Combo.

My most recent audible is a combo deck of sorts, Eldrazi Ramp. It's a pretty straightforward strategy; play mana dudes, play bigger mana dudes, play Eldrazi, profit. The real issue with this strategy (apart from the availability of Ulamogs) is that it uses the red zone. There's got to be a way to circumvent adding that extra step. In addition, once you've played Valakut often enough, you can't play Eldrazi Ramp without wishing all your searches were getting Valakuts/Mountains, Hurp, Durp, take 18. When you look at both decks side by side and accept that both are essentially just goldfishing in very similiar ways to get to a very similiar point, would you prefer to be dropping Ulamog and waiting a turn or just, you know, winning?

One deck I'd love to try out (ok, one of many decks, some others being Mono-W Angel Control and UW Venser/Spine and anything that uses Mirrorworks) is anything that just goes to town on your opponent's mana base. Unfortunatly when your LD suite starts at 4 you generally have to make some calls on the start of your curve to get your mana up and running. The natural extension of getting your mana-count high quickly in current standard isn't a 4CC LD spell, it's a 6CC Titan. If your opponent can get the Titan online before you get Demolish, Melt/Roiling Terrain, then you're pretty screwed. Even then a turn 3 LD spell is probably still too late. An opposing turn 2 Overgrown Battlements means you need to kill the Battlements, not a land, as killing a land will still enable a turn 3 Battlement/Wall of Tanglecord with 2 mana open. That's an invitation for a turn 4 Titan and suddenly you need to either kill a 6/6 or destroy 2 lands per turn just to keep up. While you can't really argue with the 9 ways to destroy any land for 5 mana or less in the current standard, maybe the format would be healthier (and a lot more honest) if Stone Rain or Rain of Tears were legal. As it is, too many commonly played cards obselete a land destruction strategy in the current enviornment.

And we haven't even started on JTMS.

Valakut? >pfft!< I don't know.

Rats and Reanimation: A Zombie PBP

2011-03-30T16:31:00.002+02:00

After having Thada's butt swiftly kicked by Elves (along with that of Wrexial and Treva too) in a game that totalled a mere 40 minutes, I verbaled into Balthor's Zombie Legions (c) for what would hopefully be an equally swift second game as we had only 25 minutes on the clock.

My opener had 2 Swamps, Twisted Abomination, Reanimate, Grave Defiler, Lord of the Undead and Rotting Rats. I can cast everything in my hand but the Defiler off that hand and still have a potential 6/4 regenerator in play. I decided to keep.

Turn 1: Playing first, I drew Swamp, played Swamp and passed.

Turn 2: I drew Carrion Feeder, played Swamp and passed with the intention of going EOT: Swampcycling, untap Reanimate. Instead I Swampcycled and drew a Grave Titan in my draw step......... Hum.

Turn 3: Swamp, play Rotting Rats discarding Grave Titan. Play Reanimate targetting the Grave Titan and end the turn with the start of a small army.

Turn 4: Swamp, play Lord of the Undead, revenge attack Rys with the Titan, the 2/2 Rat and two 3/3 Zombies. He takes 14 on the chin. During his turn he Oblivion Rings the Grave Titan.

Turn 5: Swamp, Grave Defiler finding nothing. Meh. Send the team (without Lord) back into Rhys. He chumps two of the tokens and takes another 8, slipping to only 4 due to damage from the other 2 players.

Turn 6: Bury Alive for Noxious Ghoul, Death Baron and Vengeful Dead. I neglect to play the Carrion Feeder and it costs me a Grave Titan. When I kill Rhys his Oblivion Ring leaves play. In our playgroup we get back what's under Rings etc., a decision that Treva & Wrexial are now regretting. I get two more tokens but Treva sends it on a Path to Exile before I can profit any more.

Turn 7: Death Baron and attack to kill Wrexial. The Wrexial player has put a Quietus Spike on a Rotting Rats and attacked Treva the previous turn. This, along with my leftover attacks, leaves Treva very suceptible to having his brains eaten the following turn. His draw doesn't yield solutions and he splatters his brains over the canteen roof rather than join the shuffling legion.

Total game time: 15 Mins. Moral of the Story: Don't f%#k with dead people. Or Grave Titan on turn 3 is good.

Either one.

PS: I'm currently re-reading The Walking Dead. It's thrilling and sickening in equal parts. I don't remember thinking about the human condition this much when I read it the first time. Maybe I've matured. Maybe I'm secretly interested to see if I'd make it. And, just a tiny little bit, maybe I'm curious to see if I could do what needed to be done, if it really had to be done.

I'm pretty sure it's an accurate description of what people would be capable of given the lack of any social restraint. Chapeau bas!

The battle to defend the peaks.

2011-03-18T17:05:00.000+01:00

A scree of pebbles sprayed outwards as Aisling bounded down the sheer mountainside. “Fighting after lunch always gives me heart-burn,” she grumbled, casting her eyes at the exhausted Vedalken as she swept back past him. “A slap on the wrist, just a taste of what that Sphinx will get if she pokes her nose into the mountain passes. She can stay on the wet lowlands! The mountains are no place for such as her. Keys and Dynamos: Devices, toys, gadgets! Useless thrash, polluting the ground, spewing smoke and restricting the magic of free folk, though, that's hardly a bad thing when it come to the “dragon”.

"What sort of dragon doesn’t spit fire? How can a beast with no affinity to the high places, the crags and peaks, no molten flame in her blood, call herself a "dragon"? Pwah! She’s a soft thing of the woods and plains and water! Water!? Unnatural! A cow with wings, no "dragon"!

“Ah, Koth, my friend, there you are. The summits bless you for answering my call! My thanks for bringing these mighty gauntlets. Do you see what I must contend with? Endless plains, seas, bogs and trees with only the strength of the mountains as my comfort. Can you see?! That mythical throw-back has started a Forge in the foothills and that flying Cow thinks a pair of boots can protect her!! An abomination! There will be vicious repercussions, I will have them fleeing in fear from the very shadows cast by my flames.

“You must speak with Tezzeret for he has signed a pact with worse than Bolas if he thinks to serve that junkyard scavenger Sphinx. If we’re lucky, the “dragon” will see his duplicity and chase him off. Look Koth, she’s even brought a friend, a metal Hellkite, another unnatural creation. Koth? Answer me, Koth!"

Ashling cast round frantically for her ally, panicked by his loss but strangely bouyed by the mountain rock under her feet, thrumming in harmony with her heartbeat, pumping fiery blood though her veins. Understanding came even as she noticed Koth's Hammer sigil etched into the rock-face where she had last seen him standing. She smiled; what odds that he didn't stand beside her in the fight if the mountains themselves could rise up to defend themselves? She turned to face her adversaries crouched below her and raised her voice.

“YOU DARE COME TO MY MOUNTAINS?! YOU DARE?! You will feel the fiery claws of the Molten Pinnacle! You will feel my elemental fury! I promised repercussions and you shall have them! I AM YOUR FLAMING DOOM!!”

.

.

.

.

.

.

--------------------

Treva settled, exhausted, upon the scorched plain and licked at her burns. “It will heal”, she thought peacefully, “It always does.”

She lifted a booted claw and turned it to better catch the sun shining on the lightning flashes etched down the side.

“She can certainly deal with Sphinxes in rather explosive style but she has no taste in fashion, that girl!”