Ho Hum Standard

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.

NPEs - Scraping the Gloss off with a Wire Brush

This is a tale of two decks.

This is a tale of two games.

And this is also a tale of two games that someone found to be very NPE (Negative Play Experiences)

Tuesday evening I got a baby-sitting pass as the good lady went out to a concert with her lady friends. Once the fatherly duties were finished, I was free to sling some cardboard with 4 other guys invited expressly for that purpose. Benoit & Arnaud#2 showed up first sporting Major Teroh/Soldiers and GAAIV/Control respectively and there were quickly followed by Antoine playing Thraximundar/Annoyances and Marc with his new "Vampire!" deck. There was some quick re-sleeving to get Anowon, the Ruin Sage into place at the head of Marc's army (though, in retrospect the Ascendant Evincar he had originally would have much more of an impact across more games than Anowon. We pointed this out afterwards and he'll probably change it. ROWR! Go Vamps!)

Facing this onslaught, I played my mono-blue artifact monstrousity "TA-DAA!!" (Thada Adel). A quick note on the deck: I've made changes to it recently, the most notible being the inclusion of Spawnsire of Ulamog. The intention was to eventually go for the 20 point shot and bring out a swarm of Eldrazi. Unfortunatly, with the recent rules change disallowing this, I have integrated the 3 legendary Eldrazi & It That Betrays to the deck. I had intended to cut the Spawnsire itself but forgot to do so before playing, something which I intend to do soon, adding it in most likely for Gather Specimens as a foil to Grave Pact.

You can see our merry group of player's here (From the left: Marc playing "Vampires!", Benoit in red playing Major Teroh/Soldiers, Arnaud top left playing GAAIV and the back of Antoine's head (he of card alter fame), bottom right of the pic. Antoine was playing Thraximundar/Annoyances.)

I had a decent opening hand into a turn 3 Vedalken Archmage. The additional draws got me an Expedition Map which got me a Tolarian Academy. With Darksteel Forge protecting my artifacts and no Wastelands in sight, a couple of turns and some artifacts later, the legendary land and Minamo, School at Water's Edge got me enough mana to drop Eye of Ugin, tutor for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and play her even working around the in-play Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. It was about turn 7 and the game had taken an hour to get to that point. An hour of saying "TA-DAA!!" every time you play a spell can get a little old. ;o)

Here's a quick shot of my board coming up to the end of the game.

GAAIV has a Mystical Tutor that he has flashed but not played so he's an obvious candidate to be Annihilated as he can just fetch a Wrath of God effect. Major Teroh is also sporting some annoying Wrath effects and "Vampires!" has an Icy Manipulator on the table, though it's effectiveness is restricted by Minamo, School at Water's Edge being able to untap Emrakul. I decide to work counter-clockwise around the table and hit GAAIV to destroy his board. He is left with no permanents and essentialy ends the game as an observer. I can see he's not too happy about it and I offer that we go to game 2 but the table thinks it can deal with Emrakul and play continues.

I attack Major Teroh next and, after a few turns wearing him down, he's next to leave. In the same turn I kill him I play back-to-back Ulamog & Kozilek with It that Betrays already in play. One is countered but now there's a critical mass of Eldrazi and a lot less in the way of allies to help fight against them and the game disolves. One of the last few plays from Marc, the "Vampires!" player, is exiling Emrakul with an Oubliette, just to show that he could and, I have to say, Journey to Nowhere in black is generally not what you expect and is an excellent anti-Emrakul card. Cudeos for the cool play!

So, the outcome of the game was a win for the Eldrazi but a loss for fun, because one player was pretty much iced on turn 6-7, another scrabbled in vain not to be overrun and there was little that could be done by the remaining players to stem the tide. Despite being a couple of cards short of where I'd eventually like it to end up, the deck still man-handled the table playing loosely. Sure, everyone enjoyed playing Magic but there was a feeling of enevitability about the outcome from very early on and the game culminated in the sum of all it's fears as player after player fell powerless before it. (Sorry for the flowery rhetoric, I'm building up to something. Work with me!)

What am I going to do with this monster?

The same thing we do every night, Pinky: TRY AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!



Wizards are releasing a new product this month in support of their "Summer of Multiplayer" called Archenemy. In a twist on the traditional multiplayer teams, attack left, pentagon, chaos or any of the other popular variants, this product supports a Hero (or Evil Genius) going up against a host of enemies. One of the decks on offer is "Assembling the Doomsday Machine" which, during the game last night, I felt I was doing already. Now that's a concept I can get behind: Eldrazi making you weaker, making me stronger! Taking over the world!! MMMWWWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahem.

I have no idea if it will work but I'm willing to give it a try. Just even announcing the flavour texts on the Scheme cards while doing my best "Brain - Evil Genius" impression is definitely a dream to be lived at least once and, if I get to trample the weak & meek with huge Eldrazi, well, what of it? I'm an evil genius! I'm going to talk more about Archenemy once the last deck is spoiled, but it looks like it's a set made with EDH players firmly in mind.

Shuffling up for the second game, I wanted to diffuse some of the ill-will and rather than re-playing "TA-DAA!!" or bringing out Rafiq, I had a rummage and found I had a full Phelddagrif deck so I pulled it out. If I can help some people do some fun and extravigant stuff, then everyone will appreciate it, right?

Em, maybe.

Seats and decks around the rest of the table remained as they were and we got underway for round two.

Major Teroh didn't buy the whole "I have a Group Hug deck, I'm nice, don't attack me" line and started out attacking yours truely. At this point I predicted that Major Teroh would turn out to be the eventual victor, he has a way of just pulling games out of the fire and defeating opponents in one fell swoop and I didn't fancy my chances of stopping him. The others were understandibly happy to let him have is way. My slow land start eventually developped into an Iwamori of the Open Fist (which netted zero other legends) and a Wall of Denial which I then hid behind for a few turns. My next significant play was Hive Mind which stayed until the end and ultimately resulted in the game ending play.



Now, I don't know if you have any personal experience with Hive Mind, but it's not the huggy-touchy-feely card it makes itself out to be. Probably the worst interaction is the win condition of Hive Mind + Pact: All of the pacts are free to cast so once you have Hive Mind in play you're free to throw any one, or multiples, of them out. Hive Mind's copy effect is not optional, it's obligatory, so everyone gets a Pact to put onto the stack. The Pacts cause you to lose the game if you don't pay their upkeep cost however, if your general is not in that colour, you can't generate the mana to pay the cost and you lose the game. That's a pretty low play and obviously not what a Group Hug deck runs. Only thing is, when you have Hive Mind in play, it doesn't account for other players running Pacts. Even if one player pays for the pact, the chances are that you've thinned the field enough to win in some other way quite quickly.

Luckily enough, this wasn't the case for us, our problem was more one of scale.

The second issue with Hive Mind is that every effect is magnified, causing a huge imbalance towards board control effects. Wrath of God is still Wrath of God even if it's copied 4 times however, a creature like Reveillark, which would usually net you a creature or two after a Wrath of God effect, now nets you a creature or two after the last copy on the stack resolves and you subsequently lose them both when the second-to-last copy resolves. No, the bigger problem is more the smaller spells. Doom Blade now kills up to 5 non-black creatures ("up to" because two players can target the same creature with their copy and the second will fizzle), Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile now exile up to 5 creatures, Innocent Blood becomes a Wrath of God for {B} and so on. And very soon the game dissolves into ways of trying to keep creatures in play or winning through other means.

Hive Mind is also not a good card for decks that like to counter things as all the counterspells get copied too and the chances are that one of the original spells will slip through the blanket of Counterspell flak that Hive Mind automatically generates. Obviously the player playing the original spell wants it to resolve so it's more than likely that he will direct his own copy of the counterspell towards another copy of the counterspell, thus ensuring that their spell resolves.

The Group Hug concept is to help other players: Give target player some life, give another target player some cards, everyone puts one or multiple permanents into play for free (though the deck should probably be called "escalation" rather than "Group Hug"!), but it's also true that "you can get too much of a good thing" and with Hive Mind, giving someone else too much of a good thing can kill you, and everyone else, just as easily.

Now, I have to take a moment to slap the Major Teroh player on the wrist because he had the foresight to pack a Seal of Cleansing and run it out early enough. He could have stopped the madness at any time. He didn't. He chose to kill an Underworld Dreams so he could keep drawing cards painlessly and this is the sort of action that could lead to you winning the game but not necessarily very many friends!

Bad boy!

Thraximundar thought it would be a good idea to play a Mind Funeral and everyone got targetted by the copies losing anywhere up to 20 cards into their graveyards. Vision Skeins and Truce got played, Hive Mind copying them both, filling up hands and, at EOT, graveyards. "Vampires!" then decided that he preferred the creatures in his graveyard to those he had in play and played a Living Death (though, to be fair to him, Thraximundar was about to do the same thing).

You know the moment at the top of the fairground ride where everything pauses for a moment and you have this peacefull pause before you start the terrifying downhill descent which either ends up in shrieks of excitement or the guy in the front seat regurgitating his burger and fries all over the passengers in the cars behind him? Well, Living Death on the stack with a Hive Mind in play is one of those moments.

Just resolving the 4 copies and 1 original Living Death took the best part of 45 minutes, some time during which there was a debate about the comes into play interaction of Kor Skyfisher and a Parallax Wave and how the triggers could be stacked to permanently remove creatures from the game (just fyi: in this situation they can't), Tempting Wurm was dumping hands into play and we had additional CIP triggers from 7 or 8 creatures, leaves play triggers from Reveillark and goes to grave graveyard triggers from Noble Benefactor, Veteran Explorer and Deathgreeter. And when we were done resolving the first, it was time to start again and repeat everything another 4 times.

Somewhere in the middle of it all we lost our Grand Arbiter player to complete incomprehension and confusion. I can't blame him.

When the dust finally settled, "Vampires!" passed the turn to Major Teroh who played a Reverent Mantra for black on his army and took the "Vampires!" out of the game. Not sure if it was in revenge for the Living Death turn but it was pretty final! He passed the turn to GAAIV, who simply drew and passed, completely disenchanted by the complexity of the previous 45 minutes.

With a hand of 14 cards hand and a Windfall, I was in a position to finish the game and, given the potential for everything to drag out significantly, I decided to do so. The game ended though, due to a slight oversight on my part, I managed to give the victory to Major Teroh. You see Hive Mind copied Windfall 3 times. GAAIV's copy resolved first and we discarded and drew 14 each. Major Teroh's copy then resolved with the same effect. We then resolved Thraximunder's copy resulting in GAAIV, Thraximundar and myself being decked. At this point each of our spells are removed from the stack and Major Teroh is the only one left standing with a mere 3 cards left in his library. My prediction that he would pull out an unlikely victory turned out to be accurate after all!

So, some fun was had, that's for sure. Brains aren't designed for 5 Living Deaths at midnight after a long day of work and this left everyone with a pretty dazed impression of the game and, in one case, complete bewilderment. Between being on the receiving end of an Emrakul in game 1 and having "the turn of the 5 Living Deaths" inflicted upon him in game 2, I think that GAAIV ended up not fully enjoying his evening of Magic.

So what do we take from this and where do we go from here?

Of course big plays should still be actively rewarded and attempted and generally those plays mean that someone (everyone?) is going to be on the receiving end of a lot of magical hurt. I think I'll re-align "TA-DAA!!" into my Archenemy deck as I said and try to avoid inflicting it on the unprepared.

What about Hive Mind in my Group Torture deck? I may leave it in. There's a possibility that it will draw enough hate to nullify the worst ravages or players will be a little more careful running out huge spells if they are aware that everything will happen multiple times.

As for our GAAIV player, I think he needs a deck that he has built himself, where he knows what everything does and where he can best influence the game. We've told him as much and I think he sees how he can feel more implicated. As to being crushed by the Eldrazi?

Well, there's only so much I can do about that!

Rafiq of the Many - And many are the ways!

I started EDH about two and a half years ago now and skipped from deck to deck a fair bit, stopping only on Ghost Council of Orzhova for any length of time. Rafiq is the first general I got really fixated on. No matter how long I play with him and his Bant-aligned colours, I can always find new ways to make him fun and interesting and, probably most important, relevant to my metagame.

He started life as an exalted beatdown deck aiming for the general win before morphing into a voltron somewhere along the way still with general beats in mind. The next step was intended as a lesson to my metagame and was one which functioned very well as Hermit Druid, Golgari Grave Troll, Attunement and very aggressive Life from the Loams allowed me to Replenish my graveyard full of enchantments onto Rafiq or another of my creatures to slam in for the win in short order. Once graveyard hate became the mot du jour, Rafiq got to try on new armour into an early version of the deck that, after a few changes, became the following:

== General (1) ==
1x Rafiq of the Many

== Land (37) ==
3x Plains
4x Island
4x Forest
1x Maze of Ith
1x Riftstone Portal
1x Darksteel Citadel
1x Strip Mine
1x Wasteland
1x High Market
1x Flagstones of Trokair
1x Eiganjo Castle
1x Tolaria West
1x Tranquil Thicket
1x Lonely Sandbar
1x Secluded Steppe
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Windswepth Heath
1x Flooded Strand
1x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Selesnya Sanctuary
1x Azorius Chancery
1x Simic Growth Chamber
1x Yavimaya Coast
1x Brushland
1x Adarkar Wastes
1x Breeding Pool
1x Temple Garden
1x Hallowed Fountain

== Artifact Mana (5) ==
1x Sol Ring
1x Darksteel Ingot
1x Selesnya Signet
1x Azorius Signet
1x Simic Signet

== Non-Mana Artifacts (8) ==
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Skullclamp
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Whispersilk Cloak
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Behemoth Sledge

== Enchantments (5) ==
1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Aura Shards
1x Rhystic Study
1x Greater Good
1x Mirari's Wake

== Instants (11) ==
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Worldly Tutor
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Path to Exile
1x Trickbind
1x Intuition
1x Krosan Grip
1x Capsize
1x Careful Consideration
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Opportunity

== Sorcery (8) ==
1x Life from the Loam
1x Regrowth
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Wrath of God
1x Catastrophe
1x Concentrate
1x Tidings
1x Spitting Image

== Creatures (23) ==
1x Coiling Oracle
1x Sakura Tribe Elder
1x Wood Elves
1x Trinket Mage
1x Mirror Entity
1x Eternal Witness
1x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Yavimaya Elder
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Academy Rector
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Body Double
1x Karmic Guide
1x Mulldrifter
1x Reveillark
1x Acidic Slime
1x Genesis
1x Seedguide Ash
1x Blinding Angel
1x Krosan Tusker
1x Kederekt Leviathan
1x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1x Woodfall Primus

I firmly believe the consistancy of the mana base is what makes or breaks an EDH deck first. Playing a tri-coloured deck, you need to make absolutely sure you have the mana you need early in the game whether it is WW, GG or UU. To this end the mana base is varied and as balanced as I could make it. It's very rare that I cannot pick and mix the availability of my coloured mana based on the requirements of my hand. To help me get there, outside of the lands themselves, I have 7 creatures that net me lands either directly on coming into play or though a tap or sac ability. In addition there's one sorcery, 5 mana artifacts and a metric buttload of direct or creature-connected card draw that is independant to the attack step.

Here's where we start theorising about Rafiq builds. I've now made Rafiq every which way from total control to damage triggers all the way up to and including a Rafiq combo-dredge deck. I've moved away from and argued against decks based around damage triggers in a multiplayer setting. The pervasive arguament for this style of deck is that "there's always someone to attack". Unfortunatly that's not any truer than "Your board will get wiped and their dudes will just be bigger than yours when you rebuild." Small beaters trying to take down three 40-life opponents don't get there. That leaves various renditions of Combo-Rafiq and Aggro-control Rafiq. My deck sits firmly in these two camps. It's an Aggro Control deck that can combo but there is a really important aspect to knowing when you can and can't combo. Very simply put: If somebody is going to Douchebag you, you put the DB trigger on the stack and destroy them in reponse. Otherwise the combo elements in Rafiq should only be used for their excellent CA properties. This health warning was brought to you by your friends.

So what can this deck do?

It can Wrath & Armageddon (Catastrophe). Seems simple but it's necessary. Use the 'Geddon effects sparingly for your continued health.

It can destroy trouble lands, enchantments and artifacts from a number of different sources.

It can accellerate land and fix mana. This would be a bit of a "Well, duh!" statement except that I am not simply referring to the start of the game. At any point where you can recur a Wood Elves multiple time in a turn you can go from 0 to 5-6 green sources, not to mention any additional colour those lands would produce. That extra land is an additional Rafiq, a hardcast Woodfall Primus or similiar accelleration.

It can kill individual creature threats either by removing them from the game or, in the case of Generals or other legends, just legend-rule killing them repeatedly with Spitting Image.

And what about winning the game? Well, there's Rafiq himself who generally gets the job done either by getting big and tramply, potentially unblockable in addition or by giving his bonus to a couple of big beaters, the Knight, Priums or Akroma. A few guys with Mirror Entity and a LOT of mana can also cause problems.



I do have one exception to my "No damage based triggers!" and that is the little pearl known as Blinding Angel. Now, a 2/4 is not going to win a 4 man pod all by her self (not today anyway, she may be finished before breakfast!) but with Rafiq she hits for 6 flying and the added bonus of shutting the defending player down for 2 turns. Sure, they can still play stuff but by the time they can attack again, you've attacked them again and they are down another 2 attack phases. Maybe this attrition war doesn't appeal to you but it's a great way of getting someone off your back while you deal with other players. It's also worth mentioning that, even if she's killed, the attack phases are still skipped so concentrating multiple double-Strike attacks on one player for a couple of turns will net you 4 non-attacking turns irregardless of whether someone deals with your little angel. Oh and she's a Reveillark target with her two power in addition, which is nice.

The deck is very focused on getting what it wants: More land, specific coloured land, more cards, specific cards through the various tutors and everything permanent tried to be a 2-for-1 or better. When you re-use these effects again and again, it starts to swing the game in your favour quite often.

Now this is never a finished work. There's a long list of cards that are in and around the deck and these two are on that list. I have Clone, Loxodon Warhammer, Glen Elendra Archimage, Garruk Wildspeaker, Armageddon, 3-4 more Wrath effects and a few others in the wings. As it is currently, I'm looking to stay away from a build where I always go straight for the kill. I'll generally not look for any other enchantment with Academy Rector than Mirari's Wake unless I need to clear a lot of artifacts/Enchantments (Aura Shards). Rhystic Study, Survival of the Fittest and Greater Good generally just get drawn.

Now, all of that was pre-Rise of Eldrazi and our friend Rafiq is looking to suit up against some unleashed gods. Basically we need more table control and the question is really down to how much of the rest of our deck do we want to cut back on?

Here's what I'm looking to add in:
+ Treachery, + Bribery, + Roil Elemental.
If you're going to run monstrously huge Eldrazi, I'm going to do my level best to steal them from you. All three of these are abusable and all work on each of the legends except for Treachery on Emrakul, that is unless you find it with Academy Rector which nicely circumvents the targetting requirement and protection ability from the largest of the Eldrazi. Bribery is for the sneaky early Eldrazi from your opponent's deck and Roil Elemental will probably make the cut despite it's fragility simply for the ability to take control of multiple creatures which will either form a wall or annihilator fodder against the Eldrazi. One of the many interesting tricks is putting the Annihilator trigger on the stack, cracking a fetchland or using Knight of the Reliquary to find a land (or, better yet, a fetchland), stealing the Eldrazi themselves and sacrificing them to their own Annihilator ability. Bazinga!



Two other additions, or rather one reappearance and one addition are:
+ Oblivion Ring, + Riftsweeper
Oblivion Ring is pretty much on the fence right now but I'm going to push it in there somewhere as it's effectively another Academy Rector target as well as being perfectly acceptable on it's own. The one reason it's currently out is that it's relatively poor in a Child of Alara enviornment which is where I find myself. Riftsweeper is to combat the afforementioned realisation that graveyard hate is good and to re-use Academy Rector if needed. She's currently a one-shot and that's a shame. Should a key card or a large portion of my deck/graveyard be exiled, looping Riftsweeper through Reveillark/Body Double/Karmic Guide can recover those cards into your library. As long as Riftsweeper itself isn't one of those cards! ;o)

What's likely to hit the cutting-room floor?
- Akroma, - Skullclamp
These are the first two as the focus of the deck shifts subtly towards other player's creatures, Akroma is not as important. As it stood, she was more likey to be Body Doubled or Karmic Guided into play rather than hard cast. Replacing a 6/6 Tea & Coffee for 5WWW with a 15/15 Tea & Coffee for 3UU seems like a much better deal. As long as Emrakul is sitting in a deck opposite, Bribery will be getting the "Fatty" nod in the deck. Skullclamp is a source of cheap card drawing that generally does too little in the deck as it stands. The hope is that this loss will be offset by the flashier plays that Treachery could provide.

Two of the remaining three slots likely to see play will take the place of Whispersilk Cloak (purely for the costs involved) and one of Sword of Light and Shadow / Behemoth Sledge and I'm currently on the side of the Sword for both the protection and recursion over the Trample and unchecked, unrestricted lifegain.

I have a feeling that the final cuts will be rather painful. Testing will see what works.

Getting your Annihilator on!

Ah! It's been a long month of sealed and draft and pre-releases before we could get back to some serious EDHing. Rise of Eldrazi has really gotten a rise (geddit?) from the playgroup and we've already had our share of Annihilating and annihilation. The expected presence of Lands Ungiven has materialised in numerous decks:



However, we're still a little short on other additions. One of the reasons for that may be that Marc, our Uril player, has yet to level up his legend and I'm really not looking forward to that. I can confirm, though, not that it needed to be confirmed, that Channel is pretty strong and this previously ignored card is now at the centre of the debate regarding its continued viability in the format.



It didn't take long for it to surface in only our second post-RoE EDH game. Taking things chronologically however, first came a quick heads-up game with Rafiq getting served by Phelddagrif:

1v1, Rafiq (me) Vs Group Hug (Arnaud) for the giggles.

Arnaud decided to try to win with the full-hug version and managed to land a Forced Fruition before losing it to an Oblivion Ring. Unfortunalty he followed that with an Eye of The Storm & Windfall and I couldn't kill it right away so I went for the throat. He chumped a couple of times before I tried to push through the win by dropping a Shield of the Oversoul on Rafiq with Finest Hour out. He played Swords to Plowshares for Rafiq, Misdirection on the Shield and followed it with a Krosan Grip. The extra 30 cards drawn off the Forced Fruition didn't really help me with the attack phase over and the next turn Prosperity & the copied Windfall finished me. Hippo deck wins! Wham!

Another aside: What's better than a Flying, Purple Hippo?

Answer: a Flying, Purple Hippo with Firebreathing!!!!!!



Get it made R&D! You know you want to!!

Checking back with our EDH team, we have a 4 man set up: Me (Kazuul/Big Red/Eldrazi) Vs Marc (Nath/Eldrazi) Vs Arnaud#2 (GAAIV) Vs Arnaud#1 (Rafiq)

Going first on his turn 3 Marc plays Channel into Pathrazer of Ulamog and Kozilek. That's pretty bad, though it could have been a lot worse. Still, if we can kill them, Marc is only at 9 life (we play 30 life games) and very likely to get crushed. Kozilek eats a Path to Exile right away, but the Pathrazer gets in one attack stripping me of all my permanents. This is essentially the big play in the entire game whenI convince Marc that all I need is to play my third Mountain to "deal with" the Pathrazer. He falls for it.

When Arnaud#1 then asks what's in everyone's graveyard (after only 2-3 turns) and him with 5+ mana coming free when he untapps his lands, Sol Ring and signets, it can only mean he has a Body Double in hand and I know that we can pull it out. I have no land and a full grip of things that really could have done with me getting Planar Lens online (without the annihilation, of course) so I could either play the remaining mountain in hand or discard..... It that Betrays hit the bin hoping for my intuition to be right about Body Double.

Arnaud not only had the Body Double, he also has a Hall of the Bandit Lord which I hadn't noticed so It That betrays slammed into Marc for the 11 needed to kill him on the spot. Channel that!



Two Eldrazi down, one to go!

I played a mountain & Arnaud#2's Island meant that Arnaud#1's Dancing Boots went away to a Mogg Salvage before it could be an issue & Arnaud#2 had the follow-up Swords to Plowshares right after to make it final.

Then we played a normal, Eldrazi-free game and had a lot of fun though I may have overdone the "flinch and you take 2" effects. Dying to your own cards, and not even in the hands of your opponents, is a bit weak.

Eldrazi 0, Rest of the Plane 1



Over the following weekend I shamelessly copied Jeremy's Karrthus/Eldrazi deck off YouTube, made a couple of changes and got ready to battle again.

You can find Jeremy and his lovely wife on their YouTube channel (there's that card again!) extolling the virtues of this great format: ElderDragonHighlandr This is a great visual resource by theway and I highly recommend giving up a few minutes (or a few hours) to watching these videos.

The first chance I had to play Eldrazi-Jund was actually against the deck. Friday we pulled out 5 decks and randomly assigned them. Here's where we got to after the opening few turns.



Arnaud#1 rolled the Karrthus/Eldrazi deck and has powered out enough tokens and land to play Emrakul but doesn't have it in hand, though he's also just dropped Eye of Ugin with a stack of mana open and passed the turn so it's as good as having it in hand! He's got a couple of chumps apart from the tokens but nothing that flies or otherwise effects the board. Very importantly he has Anger in the GY so his Eldrazi are going to hurt someone fast when they come out to play. He has a full hand and passes the turn on 38 life.



Arnaud#2 is playing Thada Adel/Artifacts and it must be said, he's playing it very badly. He has 10 cards in hand (and a Reliqary Tower), Propaganda, about 10 mana, Aeon Chronicler with a Basilisk Collar on it, and Magus of the Future showing Island. The deck is a monster being driven by someone who doesn't understand its power and that's a bit sad because I'm fairly sure that he should be the #1 threat at the table. He has just gone back up to 40 life by attacking with the now tapped Chronicler.



Antoine is packing Sharuum. He's Acquired Thada Adel's Darksteel Forge and played a Platinum Angel on previous turns but is down to 11 life. His latest play is a KRoR on the Angel which leaves him tapped out but with 24 power of indestructable flying on the board. He has 5 cards in hand when he passes the turn.



Player 4 is Me, the active player, playing Group Hug. I have 8 mana, Gomazoa, Indentured Djinn and Swans of Bryn Argol. I have 40 life and a full hand of 6 land, Swords to Plowshares that I've just drawn and Trade Secrets.



Player 5 is Rhys - G/W Elves. He had a full hand, Garruk on 5 counters, 5 creatures and had announced that he has Overrun in hand. He's on 25 (or 26) life.

As the active player with only Trade Secrets able to effect the game significantly, who do you target? Ok, accepting that you can just pass the turn to Mr. Double Overrun to your left, you don't have to play the Trade Secrets, but it's going to go downhill from all sides anyway so you may as well pick someone to help:

Player 1 who will have Emrakul the next turn irregardless.

Player 2 who won't be able to profit from cards he draws through inexperience.

Player 3 who has 6 indestructable Platinum Angels already

or

Player 5 who can annoy the hell out of almost every player but actually kill none before he passes the turn to Emrakul.








I can help Thada Adel but I won't because he should be completely dominant already and he's randomly discarding Rings of Brighthearth before asking what the point of the Basalt Monolith is or not choosing the Acquire pile in an otherwise empty FoF split despite having Sharuum sitting opposite who has just Acquired his own Darksteel Forge the turn previous only because his own Acquire is in Japanese. The Emrakul player is helping him a lot with advice and reminders and but is having to hold back because any more help and he's essentially just playing the deck himself. I'm not going to give him any more though choices on what to play with Trade Secrets, because those choices are not going to solve the situation currently developing. Unfortunatly for him, this essentially relegates him to the status of "sacrificial goat" for no other reason than having Darksteel Forge in his deck.



Sharuum is winning the game quite well on his own, thank you very much. Emrakul is likely to try to do a number on him as Sharuum has noted the lack of fliers and, well, 6x indestructible Platinum Angels is a bit of a threat.



So that leaves Rhys. I think I can convince him to try to kill Thada Adel as quickly as possible so as to give the imminent Emrakul a shot a beating off Sharuum but the Propaganda is a pain. He can't play both Overrun & attack with everything, so he's got to use Garruk & attack then do it again but with the Basilisk Collar sitting opposite, it could take a lot of time without outside help and he risks being caught in a return attack. There's very little overall benefit to be reaped by helping him as it can't add damage to his attack.


So I help Karrthus. I actively help the Eldrazi take over. I must be mad!!!


Emrakul is currently the only way to beat Sharuum. Either he attacks directly (not a good idea because the 20 power of untapped flying indestructible will kill Emrakul even after the Annihilator 6) or he kills Thada Adel to get rid of the Darksteel Forge that Sharuum controls [When a player is killed all cards and permanents he/she owns are removed from play and the stack immediatly lethal damage is resolved]. The rest of the table have a couple of turns to find a way to deal with Emrakul once he's been unleashed and it's coming out anyway so helping is immaterial to what's going to happen on the next turn anyway.


So why am I helping at all?


Sharuum can untap and SDT/tutor or draw into an O-Stone or Disk and just win if he can do it before Thada Adel is killed. He also has 6 Platinum Angels in play. Me & Rhys are not really threats until Sharuum is gone and Sharuum gone means that Thada Adel is too. Rhys becomes potent especially if Sharuum takes some life off Emrakul but it's not in Rhys' interests to kill Emrakul until Sharuum & Thada have been dealt with. This is a pretty twisted situation where two players are actively ignoring the two biggest threats to help eliminate another player so that a domino effect can be triggered. It's really all just hoping that, once the beast has fed, it will roll over and take a nap letting the mice scurry in for the kill.


So what happened?


It went pretty much as I had calculated, cajoled, pushed and manipulated. I played Trade Secrets and Karrthus drew about 15 cards while I drew about 10, one of which was Hallowed Burial. I smile and pass the turn while getting roundly cussed!


Rhys goes into the tank in his first main phase and, I slip in for a quick dip and to expand on the idea that A beats B to get at C and we should help. Seeing no better solution appart from passing the turn, he attacks into Thada Adel, using Garruk's Overrrun & paying for 4 creatures for 22 damage. Thada goes to 18, loses his Magus of the Future and Rhys passes the turn.


Emrakul is searched out with the Eye of Ugin at EOT and played. He starts tapping for an all out attack on Sharuum when I suggest that he should probably attack Thada Adel with his Kozilek's Predator. He does a double take and looks at the board again before attacking Thada Adel with both for exactly lethal. Darksteel Forge goes away and Sharuum is a bit stunned. He wasn't expecting that at all!

Karrthus untaps for his additional turn and plays Artisan of Kozilek getting Dread Drone back into play. He attacks into Sharuum with all three. Annihilator 8 destroys his mana base and he blocks Emrakul with 4 Platinum Angel copies, killing Emrakul and losing 3 of the copies. He takes 14 from the Dread Drone & Artisan (-3).


Since Thada Adel is dead, Sharuum is next up, plays a land and an empty Chrome Mox and passes a bit disgusted that his grand plan is in tatters.


I untap and draw Forced Fruition, attack & kill Garruk with my Indentured Djinn, much to Rhys's total disgust. I play Hallowed Burial. Sharuum dies. He cries. It's sad when a Sphinx cries. Worse than doves.


Eye of Ugin ends up tutoring out the Eldrazi one after the other and killing off myself and Rhys. Giving an Eldrazi a billion cards that he can use to just recycle his graveyard into his library at will and tutor back is pretty strong against a deck that hopes to inadvertantly win through milling while doing it's best to help you to win! Had it been an Eye of the Storm rather than the Forced Fruition to go with the Swords to Plowshares I had in hand, I would have been much happier but it wasn't to be and it only takes a single hit from Emrakul to crush your manabase to the point where hoping to cast a 7cc enchantment, if you ever draw it, is just foolish thinking.

Eldrazi 1, Rest of the plane 1

So, we're going to sign this one off as a score draw but those pests will take some watching! Next week is Cube week with a surprisingly huge number of cards from Rise of the Eldrazi making the cut into the Common/Uncommon cube I shamelessly copied (where have I seen that before?) from Klug over on MTGS.com which you can find here. Take a quick visit even if you're not a cuber, it's pretty pimp!

Rise of the Eldrazi - All the new legends

Rise of the Eldrazi is finally here, only 5 days to wait for your pre-release and it seems that we've been spoiled all the new legends due for this set if the Orb of Insight is to be believed. There are 3 Eldrazi, an Angel, a Vampire-Shaman & a Goblin/Golem. All of us in the EDH community wait with baited breath to see what is going to be the next big, fun general to build around. Let's have a look at what the set has given us, starting with the triumvirate of Eldrazi Legends.

Lets go over the basics. The Eldrazi, long forgotten scourge of the Zendikar plane, have become worshipped as Gods by the native populace. The only small fly in the ointment is that they are not the benevolent EDH-Group-Hug-Purple-Hippo type of God, these guys are the eternal embodiment of horror and destruction. To be fair to them, they probably aren't even the "fire and brimstone" type of Gods either. They fall more into the we-will-devour-your-plane-and-every-living-thing-on-it category. That's not going to go down well with the faithful. Now, these beings have been kept imprisoned within (or by) the Eye of Ugin for a few Aeons, so you can understand that some people/merfolk/goblins, who only live a few decades at most, have forgotten who or what they really are. Waking up in the morning, you don't honestly expect to meet your chosen god on your way to your job at Tuktuks Adventuring Emporia ("For ALL your adventuring needs!"). It's got to come as a shock. To discover, in addition, that the beings you venerated on your knees by your sleeping pallet every night weren't exactly here to reward you for your prayers but rather here to sound the knell that heralds the apocalypse, well, that sort of thing can get you down, really ruin your day. You may be distraught and flee. You may be pissed. You may even decide that a little deicide is in order. (Heh!).

Either way, there will be blood. Most likely yours.

What of these fearsome beings? Well, you know the way your Grandma's skin got a little pale and lost its pigment as she got very old? Well, imagine that process multiplied by aeons.

And add tentacles. (This might not be necessary if your Grandma already has tentacles, delete as appropriate.)

So, these guys have lost all colour (but, very importantly, are not artifacts), which is extremely important for us as EDH general choosers. This hugely restricts what you can and cannot play in your EDH deck when you choose them as generals including basic lands (that is to say: none). If you want to bring the thunder with the Eldrazi, you're bringing it colourless Karn-style with all the associated restrictions. This, more than any other aspect of the Eldrazi (though probably in conjunction with their mana cost), will preclude them from seeing widespread play as generals.

What have they gained despite losing their colour? First of all, they have gained a lot of resiliance. Each has a clause that forces them to skip the whole death thing (what do you expect, they're Gods?!) and return to the burdgeoning potentiality that is just another card in your library. Why would they even need such a clause? Well, it's because they are kind of kick-ass. Each is huge, weighing in at 10, 12 & 15 smackers. Pretty much par for the course for something that would devour a plane. Now this is both a good thing and a bad thing.

Good thing: They will shuffle the entire graveyard into the owner's library when they hit it from anywhere, putting a pretty big stick through the spokes of any graveyard recursion deck. Players won't get to abuse the graveyard as a resource and get juicy Eldrazi God goodness in addition. It's one or the other. There is a pretty significant loophole however, it's not a Darksteel Colossus replacement effect, it is a triggered effect so people with instant speed reanimation will get to shoot for the hoop before the buzzer sounds.

Bad thing: If they can't abuse the graveyard easily, then neither can you. It also means that you have to make some pretty big deckbuilding choices as regards graveyard removal and cards that thrive on having targets in the grave to choose from. Reveillark is not their friend. Black and Green, which like to zombify and recycle a little more than the other three colours, are grinding their teeth!

In addition, each has an ability that allows them to ANNIHILATE YOU! It's their very own keyword: Annihilate, generally followed by a little number that tells you how much you wish Stifle was in the format. "Annihilate 4" means you really wish you had a Stifle, "Annihilate 6" requires at least a full box of tissues to dry your eyes! When each of these monsters attacks you, you get to sacrifice X permanents, where X is their "Annihilate" number. Our Eldrazi Legends aren't the only ones with Annihilate, but they are the highest Annihilate indexes. Fitting really.

Hum, let's pause there and take stock:
Don't stay dead: Check
Humongously large: Check
Will devour you when they attack: Check

That's pretty good, but that's not all. When you cast these bad boys/girls/things/Gods, there's a super-extra-bonus round. Yes, they have cast triggers! A very important thing to note is that these are not "comes onto the battlefield" abilities, but bona-fide enchantress/cascade-style Cast triggers: you resolve the effect before he/she/it comes into play. Unless of course, someone has a Stifle. This hankering after a Stifle may become a recurring theme....

Ok, enough with the vague plane-devouring generalities, on to the meat and two veg. I'll start with the the lightweight first. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre (Source: MTG Visual Spoiler)



This is the lightweight?! >laces on sneakers, starts warming up.....<

In terms of his base stats, yes, this is the runt of the trio. A mere 10/10 for 11, Ulamog is decidedly underwhelming but he does make up for a lot of that weight in his cast trigger (Destroy a permanent) and his keyword ability (Indestructible) Let us compare him to another 11cc Indestructible, Darksteel Colossus:



Ulamog gains on the "Destroy target permanent", draws on "Indestructibile", looses out on P/T (though not by much) and, in my opinion, loses out hugely on Trample. There's a slight advantage in the afforementioned graveyard trigger being a trigger rather than a replacement effect but, in essence, you have to decide between: "Destroy target Permanent" or "Trample" on your Indestructible fatty. Each to his own but Ulamog gets blocked by 0/1 brood tokens all day.

Silly me, I forgot that he also eats your plane!! Where were we? Oh yes, I cast Ulamog, destroy a permanent, get an Indestructible 10/10 and then get to go Pac-Man on you whenever I attack even before I deal damage....... Farewell, poor DSC, we knew you well.

Ulamog Rating: As a huge beastie? Pretty hot. As a general? Probably not.

The other "runt" is Ulamog's slightly bigger brother, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth (Source: MTG Visual Spoiler) Now, I'm not sure why anyone would hate a butcher, they provide a valuable community service. Indeed, Kozilek has made it his mission to re-educate the deziens of Zendikar to the essential nature of their so-called Gods. It's not his fault that these puny beings have been deluding themselves for so long, he's basically a good kid who just wants the record set straight.



>....Starts stretching and gets ready to run....< Ok, fair enough, he's using methods that are, shall we say, heavy-handed, but it can be tough for a big kid like him to guage his own strength. He's better than Ulamog on the cost-to-beef ratio, then again he is a butcher. 12/12 for a measly 10 mana is nice. He shares his brother's appetite, annihilating at a rate of 4 per attack. Where he shines is when he's cast, netting you 4 new cards. On the flip side, he is more fragile and lacks the indestructibility his brother is always flaunting. There's not really much more to him than that, like I said, he's a simple boy who just wants to learn (and learn you!).

Kozilek Rating: As a huge beastie? Hot, hot, hot. As a general? Probably not.

Both boys are overshadowed by their big sister, Emmy:

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (Source: MTG Visual Spoiler)


>Runs like hell..<

OOoooohh, Boy! Houston, we have a problem!

There's a joke on MTG Salvation about Magic R&D basically deciding to make the most stupid fatty they could without simply printing "You Win the Game" on it. Bearing in mind that they had just brought out Progenitus, how were they going to top "Protection from everything" on a 10/10?

Well, they started by making her the biggest printed P/T in the business at 15/15. If you're paying 15 mana and casting 1 spell that doesn't win you the game right there, well, you want it to resolve, don't you? So she can't be countered. Fine.

Unwilling to stop there, they tacked on her Annihilate index at a monstrous 6 and a cast trigger that makes it highly likely that you're going to get to benefit from it by granting you an extra turn. She doesn't have haste, she has pseudo-haste!

She slices, she dices AND she flies, neatly side-stepping the biggest drawback on her smaller legendary brethern: the inability to steam-roll a 0/1 brood token. R&D REALLY, REALLY want you to smash face with Emmy when you have spent your pocket-money on getting her into play.

Oh, I forgot, silly me!! What if some smart opponent has some mana open and decides to ruin your plane-devouring fun by bouncing her or otherwise removing her at instant speed? That would be disappointing, so our friends decided that she also has protection from coloured spells. Why not, she already has everything else?! Basically, if there's not an on-the-table response (and in the case that there is, you'd be a bit silly to run her out into the firing line) she is going to attack and she is going to kick puppies and steal teddy-bears from cute children. What a *****!

What can you do about her? Any instant speed, untargetted removal, either global or spot, will do the trick. An effect that tricks Auras into play will slow her down. Other than that, you're just hoping that she really wants to kick Rofellos hard in the fork rather than your general. (Mental note: build a Rofellos deck to lend out within the playgroup!) Just hope she's not being played alongside Rafiq & Finest Hour..... Once you get to untap, there are numerous other options, I just hope for your sake that you have them in hand!!

Emrakul Rating: As a huge beastie? Well, there's loads of keywords that she could have had... Only joking!! She's a stone cold beast, blessed with the ability to take over the game completely from the moment you have 15 mana and a way to bounce her every second turn. Choose your moment right and it will be time for the next game as everyone shuffles up in disgust. As a general? Here's the thing again: if you play her or her brothers as a general, you need to be able to generate lots of mana which any artifact deck can do in multiple ways even excluding the powerful Tolarian Academy. Infinite mana is something artifact decks can achieve in multiple ways so casting them shouldn't be a problem, however infinite mana or other infinite loop decks take us right into the heart of the debate about douchbaggery in EDH: Can an infinite mana or other infinite loop be anything other than DB-ery? Following on from there, where do you draw the line on other card like Channel for which the least (if you can believe that) DB route would be paying 15 life to cast Emrakul. EDH is going to change in a way that's freakily similiar to the plane of Zendikar itself with the introduction of the Eldrazi and all their associated cards: Some will run, some will stay true to their beliefs and carry on the good fight, some will sell their soul to defeat this new menace and more yet will be conscripted as agents in the return of the Eldrazi Gods. Shockwaves will be felt reverberating long into the next block! So, for a general Rating, I'd have to say: DB.


And who stands in opposition to the Eldrazi? Who rallys the races of this besieged plane to face this dedly foe?

A Vampire Shaman
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief (Source: Star City Games)



Drana is actually a really good general if your thing is mono-black. She's a decent evasive body attached to an acceptable cc but, most importantly, she has built-in removal and self-pump. Sure, this is limited and restricted to your available mana but very few things aren't so that't an acceptable restriction. In a normal progression when you hit your land drops up to the turn after playing her, you can kill an x/4 (potential blocker) and get in for 8 general damage. As EDH is rife with artifact mana, this can be achieved earlier than turn 5 as all that's needed for both her ability and to cast her is BB and an ever increasing quantity of X to pump her. This lack of a colour requirement also allows her to kill someone with 21 general damage in one shot should she have a source nearby that can produce that mana. Arbitrarily large, or infinite, mana loops once again rear their heads here. The one drawback to her ability, however, is if there's no legal target to point the -X at, she can't benefit from the +X, but that's a small fly in otherwise very sweet ointment.

Drana Rating: As a Creature? Very solid and a good compliment even if she's not heading your army, just a footsoldier in any B/x build. As a general? One of the better Mono-Black Generals and, while not the best, definitely in the top 3 or 4.

Two more to go and let's start with Tuktuk!

Tuktuk the Explorer (Source: MTG Visual Spoiler)



Here we have a flavour- and storyline-driven legend that really works well as a cardboard representation of his character, he literaly gets turned into a legendary Goblin Golem! When you're looking for 6 power from 3 mana, he's a pretty decent investment but there's a rather huge snag when it comes to selecting him as a general for EDH: He must go to the graveyard to trigger and give you the 5/5 Golem replacement. Normally that wouldn't be an issue except that in choosing Tuktuk as a general, you're restricting yourself to Red & artifact cards (and colourless I suppose now!), neither of which contain an abundance of cards that will allow you to recover your general. In fact, red has one card, Search for Survivors, that will allow you to bring him back for another go around and even that puts restrictions on what you can play in your deck. The only other viable options are cards that exile your graveyard allowing you to move Tuktuk to the command zone to start a new life as a normal Goblin. This is a pretty circuitious route to take however so think seriously before choosing Tuktuk!

Tuktuk Rating: As a creature? Once again, as with all the Legends in this set, an excellent creature with a role to play. Tuktuk will shine in a deck that allows you to bring him back from the dead to die again (Goblins seem to get targetted for this treatment quite often!). As a general? Once again, probably not. The format colour limitations are huge for Tuktuk and Red has it's fair share of playable legends not to need to turn to what will often amount to a one trick poney and an effect non-commensurate with the importance of his role as your general.

Finqlly, we'll finish on an uplifting note, an angel: Linvala, Guardian of Silence (Source: MTG visual spoiler)



Linvala is an intriguing Legend to have access to as a general: She's in the right colour for rules setting and can be surrounded by a lot of cards that can make life very uncomfortable for the rest of the table, restricting them in what they are allowed do and dishing out severe punishment should those new rules be enfringed. Her effect is not sweeping but it's impressive on a rising scale. I'll explain: If your playgroup revolves around a lot of creature interaction and generals with activated abilities, she is a house. If your playgoup echews creature-centric synergies for big-spell control, dumb beaters or even activated abilities on other permanent types, she will be less impressive. At a certain point you'll have to decide if she's 1.) worth going mono-white for and 2.) worth choosing as your general, i.e. a card you have quasi-guarenteed access to all throughout the game.

Who doesn't like her? Rofellos and Azami spring to mind. "Rofellos? But his ability is a mana ability!" you say. Guess what? With Linvala in play, you have a Null Rod set to creatures. If someone were to play, say Kormus Bell and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, (even the Linvala player, as the Tomb doesn't contain a black mana symbol) no land could be tapped for mana as all lands are swamps, all swamps are creatures and Linvala would stop them fro using their activated "Tap: add one mana" ability. Quite apart from such screwy interactions, have a run through your favourite deck and put aside all the creatures that would be turned off by Linvala being in play. You may be surprised by how many there are and that's quite apart from General centric decks like the afforementioned Rofellos and Azami who would need to find a solution very quickly or be overwhelmed by the rest of the table.

Linvala Rating: As a creature? She has a stout body, evasion and is at a good spot on the curve. Her ability ranges between very relevant and crushing depending on your matchup and she exudes an aura of "build around me!". As a general? This is one to watch and will be very metagame dependant. I hope to see her one day so I can flex my decks against her restrictions!

That's all for my pre-release Rise of Eldrazi information. More after when we've seen the rest.

Considering Uril

One of our playgroup members plays Uril, the Miststalker, a general which I touched briefly on myself before moving on. Playing Uril to get the most out of the general himself is extremely linear: Play Uril, put an aura on him, attack. It's not the most exciting process and your support suite is pretty much reduced to getting the mana to play your Uril, finding and playing Auras and removing a couple of bothersome permanents along the way.

Marc, the Uril player, asked me a couple of days ago to have a quick look at his deck and make some changes as it lacked a certain "Oomph!" More to the point, it wasn't winning and Marc likes to win. I honestly didn't change all that much in the deck, taking out some fragile creatures and useless Auras and adding in 12 cards in total: all Auras or Enchantress effects. It's no-where near a list I'd have considered refined however, almost immediatly, after a little pep-talk on my part about focusing on the strengths of the general and his interactions with useful auras, he started winning. In fact, in the 7 games he's played since the changes, he's only lost twice: a duel against a very tuned 1v1 Horde of Notions deck and a 6-man, 2-team game (where you could very easily argue that he did what he could to keep his team in it for so long)

A word on Marc as a player. Marc is extremely impulsive and just wants to get the cards out there NOW, rather than waiting for the opportune moment. He's also emotionally attached to certain cards and adverse to others which effects his deck construction if we're talking about building optimaly. In short, he's the EDH player to the Nth degree: It's all for the "Wows!", but he also wants to win doing it. He's involved in a lot of our cool plays so that's obviously all good times!

Playing 2HG alongside his Uril deck and across the table in 3-man team, chaos & 2HG, you can't help but notice that the simple strategy of Hulk-smashing with Uril is disconcertingly effective. He's no slouch at a 5/5 for 5. He has some of the best auras in Magic available in his colours as well as the enchantments to protect them and the cards to find those enchantments, it all slides together very nicely. Troll-shroud allows Uril to play Auras with relative impunity and anything which boosts his P/T in addition to his built-in boost is a real boon.

How do you answer such a monster? Deathtouch, sacrfice effects, bigger monsters, Wrath of God effects. Sure, we've seen a lot of options and most have some sort of solution readily available within the arsenal of Urils bag of Auras. Even Wrath effects can be countered by Indestructibility or Shield of the Oversoul. And now we have an all-purpose, all-singing, all-dancing solution to all the ills that ail Uril in the upcoming Rise of Eldrazi set. These two are taken from the Visual Spoiler:





The Totem Armor ability allows you to remove the Aura to replace the destruction of a creature, whether by damage or by a Wrath of God effect. As it's a replacement effect, not a regeneration effect, it nicely sidesteps the "cannot regenerate" clauses that are generally found on these cards. In standard, giving +1/+1 & First Strike or +3/+3 & Vigalence with a side portion of "hard to kill" is pretty sweet. In EDH, plonking either one of these on a Uril is Bad News Bears (tm). As hard as he is to destroy currently, post-Rise of Eldrazi will surely spell a new era in Uril being a huge pain in the rear. And that doesn't exclude the Uril player from running the Eldrazi himself! ;) I forsee a lot of work for Clone in the weeks ahead. An 8/8, first strike, troll-shroud, semi-indestructable merely by adding W? I'd buy that for a dollar! Or maybe less as this is a common. The larger friend is an uncommon.

To expand on these known cards into the realms of speculation, should this not be an exclusively white ability, we could be seeing them in every colour at each rarity at the very least. Should that be the case, what's in store for Uril at White Rare, Green common/uncommon/rare and Red common/uncommon/rare? Flying in White? Haste, Fire-breathing, First Strike in red or something even more spectacular? As for Green, I'd expect Reach and Trample in the common and uncommon slots. What does a Rare, Green Totem ability have in store for us? Marc is excited, me less so! ;)

A quick look at the EDH banning mindset & the importance of the social contract.

On the EDH social/ban list in general, this is my take:

You can't ban everything, you shouldn't try. Prismatic is a painful lesson in what happens to a great format when you go that route. With this in mind, the only cards on the ban list should be those that are inherently unfun, those that almost never generate potentially fun game states and those that are financially restrictive as outlined by the banning principles.

Unfortunatly there are exceptions to these principles both on and off the list, that's my opinion. And that brings us to the huge elephant in the room:

The banning guidlines are extremely subjective and, as a logical result, leave a huge grey area both in the definition of unfun and the financial barrier. This grey area is highlighted and explained by Geno in his "Misinterpretation..." thread. It's better to err on the side of ban list brevity and to trust players. Prismatic is the QED of this theory. What do you do when you don't trust players however? (apart from councelling) I'd put it to you that 99% of players calling for additional EDH bans belong in this latter catagory.

Every opportunity should be taken to impress on players that they can do what they want however they should remember that opponents expect adherence to the social contract laid out by Sheldon & the other founding fathers but also that their interpretation of that social contract may not be as strict/loose as your interpretation. Communicating the social contract successfully is a huge task because it's now intended as a global social contract, rather than a local social contract. Maybe Sheldon and the RC are on to the new thing in international relations!

And this is what I think the RC and everyone else in the EDH community will have to work really hard to impress on those that will inevitably cry for widespread bans even more-so than before with the advent of Rise of Eldrazi:

It's each player's responsibility to make the choice to break or not break a set of cards in EDH and assume the responsibility for that choice. The ban list can't be the apron strings that protects players from negative feedback from other players as to how they build and play their decks.


Relevant reading:
EDH Banning guidlines can be found here
The current EDH banned list can be found here
Sheldon's article on the Social Contract and the 4 basic principles