The World Needs Bad Guys: The case for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Freddy.   Jason.   The freaky guy in the Hitcher.   Mike Long.

Bad Guys. You know it, they know it. We all love it.

Nightmare on Elm Street without Freddy scraping his claws through your abdomen? Bor-ing!

Friday the 13th without Jason silently coming on and on, again and again, implacable, unbeatable? Probably Freaky Friday tbh.

Speaking of "freaky", Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher? That's some scary biscuits right there!

A Pro-Tour without Mike Long? You know it's just not the same as back in the day. People LOVED Mike, or rather, people loved hating Mike. If you followed Mark Rosewater's writing over on MTG.com daily a couple of years back, you may remember this pieces that justified his vote for Mike Long on the Hall of Fame ballot. Here's what he said about his vote for one of the most hated professional players in the history of the game (emphasis mine):

[M]y job was to make the Pro Tour interesting and exciting. I had to make all of you care about it. And in the history of the Pro Tour three players blew everyone else out of the water. Interest in them dwarfs all the other players combined. Those players were Jon Finkel, Kai Budde and Mike Long.... How did Mike fare at star building? He's the best I ever had. If I put him in a feature match or on camera, people showed up. In large numbers.

The best example I can give of this was the PT Los Angeles won by Trevor Blackwell. Mike got into the Top Eight after a controversy with Darwin Kastle in the last round of the Swiss. Now, normally the quarterfinals are low turnout as the event starts at 9:00 am, but in Los Angeles, the room was packed. It was, at the time, the best attendance we'd ever had for a quarterfinal match. Mike wins and advances to the semi finals. Even more people turn up out of the woodwork to watch. In the semi finals, Mike loses. The finals was the lowest turnout we'd ever had. Everyone came to see Mike lose. Once he did, they left..... I quickly learned the golden rule – “show Mike”. Everyone always loves to go on and on about how they hated him yet no one could resist watching him. You'd think people would shun him to make the point that they don't like what he was doing. Yet the opposite was true. Mike made people emotionally invest in the Pro Tour.

"Mike made people emotionally invest in the Pro Tour." That's a pretty big deal to get the average non-PT player to be anyway interested in the pro-tour outside of their friend's participation or the tech they were going to net-deck off the event. For a company like WotC, garnering interest in their flagship events among non-participants is crucial as this interest triggers a renewed interest in the game at local level, renewed competitiveness, an interest in top tier decks and strategy. Mike was one of those who caught everyone's interest.


Fap. Fap. Fap.

Now we here in flying purple hippo land may or may not give two hoots about the pro-tour, but emotional investment is something we know something about. EDH deckbuilding, play and metagaming is an affair of the heart for a lot of people, a fact constantly underlined by people's attention to detail, flavour, innovation, gameplay and the emotional enjoyment of playing a game of EDH that is a blast for everyone involved. In every EDH forum there are threads with variations on "Cool things that we did when playing this format". I think, of all the other formats I have encountered, only Cube Drating has a similiar thread but is no-where near as dynamic (the threads (and the format, I suppose (Oooh! Controversial!!))) This is where people come to share individual or group emotion and successes while playing EDH. Sure, you get the occasional fapper who just went off with EWit and Time Stretch, more interesting is the "Thrash for Treasure FTW" type plays and these are rightly celebrated.


A week or so ago, I posted the following in the Cool Plays thread over on the Official EDH boards:

Just wanted to post a quick congrats to my playgroup last night. We had 3x 4-man games in which we had 12 instances of Eldrazi legends in play (counting each casting as a new copy), most of them Emrakul and not one ever entered an attack step. There was a major amount of scrambling but nothing was annihilated in the entire game.


There's nothing like sitting back after all that and saying "Ok, we can do this! Those guys (and gal) aren't so bad!"

That's not particularly earth-shattering news but interesting none-the-less for those who are currently focused on hating Emrakul, the Aeons Torn out of EDH. The very first reply was this from Mesti:

Sounds absolutely horrid. Spending a whole night scrambling to not get blown out by the same 2-3 cards over and over doesn't fit my model of fun. I'm glad your group enjoyed it at least, but this kind of shenanigans is why I don't think the Eldrazi (primarily Emmy) belong in the format.

Really "absolutely horrid"? A run of 3x 4-man games, featuring 2 developing players, constantly and effectively dealing with EDH's Public Enemy #1 again and again is "absolutely horrid"? Sure, I get the concept that it must be a pain always having to deal with these Eldrazi again and again but to go so far as to put a downer on congratulating someone for getting the job done right again and again in the face of these colourless behemoths speaks of some pretty deep-seated hatred for Emrakul and Friends.


You know when a new set comes out and everyone jumps up and down about the new "must-have" rare or mythic to the point that pre-sales post the card up at around $50-$60? And then it either lives up to the hype or flops abysmally and is always graded against the initial hype generated about it, whether fair or not.


Not Emrakul.

 Something similiar is happening to Emrakul in EDH. Very soon after she was spoiled, Emmy started being labelled "unfun". This is possible, after all fun is subjective. However, since then, there's been an increasing groundswell of opposition to Emrakul, and to a much lesser extent her two brothers. This is getting to the point where, I believe, she's suffering from negative hyperbole: people just can't stop saying bad things about her. In layman's terms, she's got a bad rep and, once you're tarred with the brush, it's pretty hard to come out clean the other end. C'mon guys, she's hardly Infernal Spawn of Evil but she's treated as such.


We all know how difficult it is to reach a full consensus in a playgroup as to what constitutes "fun". Everyone has a different read. Some think Emrakul is just flat out unfun. Others are fine with Emrakul in a vacuum but have an issue with her in any sort of combo. Some even gasp! have nothing against her at all!

My view is this:

If you're paying 15 mana, you want to be getting an effect more than simple combat damage. Emrakul provides this. Other effects that cost 15 mana, like say Death Cloud for 12, can be much worse if they don't win the game right there as they can cause it to drag on indefinitely.

If you plan on playing fair, i.e.: only hardcast Emrakul after turn 10 with normal mana generation and you win off the back of casting her, well your opponents should have done something about your potential earlier and only have themselves to blame.

If you have an Emrakul in your deck and you'll see it once in a while and play it while accepting that you are likely to have it stolen from you at some point and are ok with that, then you're probably doing it right.

Don't try this at home, kids!

However:

If you're planning on accellerating out a hard-cast Emrakul as your #1 plan, you're getting very close to crossing that mythical boundary a lot of EDH players out there have set. Linear, ultra-consistant decks intent on putting a grinding hurt on the entire table every single game are just not "fun". As EDH is about the "fun", you should probably revise this strategy.

If you're planning on constantly cheating Emrakul into play in any other way than getting her with Bribery off an opponent, you are firmly in the camp of not "fun" and should definitely revise your strategy. Quickly.

If you are planning to play, bounce and re-play Emrakul constantly in order to benefit from her "Take an extra turn" ability enough to kill everyone, just go home. Now.



Why should we be calling for a ban for a creature that embodies "The Line" in EDH? Emrakul is the perfect card to test where everyone stands on the "fun" issue in your playgroup. Just playing an Emrakul should be the first step in finding what everyone feels about her and cards of her power level. Stealing her from another player's deck will give you not only a good read on Emrakul but also on Bribery and most especially the take of the Emrakul owner as he watches his own Emrakul kill him. We had a situation where a steal effect garnered someone a bounce ability from Stormscape Battlemage. The Emrakul in his deck was pretty much ignored by the rest of the table until he found a way to combo off to infinite turns. What was most interesting was that the Emrakul player had no intention of going infinite and stated this but was told not to steal the ability to go infinite in future; his own deck didn't contain cards to allow him to go infinite on his own. That's a fair approach, don't you think?


"Get it? Bunnies, lettersz, -X/-X? Me neither."



Emrakul is also the stiffest test a lot of tables can face and setting yourself up to beat her multiple times is an excellent excercise in group metagaming and an excellent tool for up-and-coming players to find solutions and ways to find them. She's the boogey man (woman), but one that you can come to grips with if you are prepared.

For me, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is not an annoyance in EDH but essential for the development of your local EDH Group. She can't just be tarred with the "DB" brush without getting some props for what positive things she engenders in your group.

The World needs bad guys and EDH needs Emrakul.

 Oh, and fluffy bunnies.

Of Dentistry & Manucures...

Opponent #1: Em, nothing else, go! [Thinks: His board is empty, I should be safe on 33 life.]

Me: End of your turn: Vampiric Tutor [pays life, searchy, searchy, puts card aside, shuffles, puts card on top] Draw, Entwined Tooth and Nail. Anyone have any responses?

All opponent's: [Thinks: I hope the next guy has something!] They don't: [thinks: D'oh!]

Me: [searchy, searchy] Ok, Avenger of Zendikar aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnd, em........ Flame-Kin Zealot? Sure, why not?! So, I have 8 lands so I get 8 little 0/1 plant token guys. This Flooded Strand should give all the plants +1/+1, that ok? No Stifle on the Landfall trigger? Ok, activate, Flooded Strand, pay 1 life, any responses? [fetchey, fetchey] And another landfall trigger gets me more +1/+1 counters on my guys. That's, let me do a quick count,....eh, 33 power of hasty attacking. Anyone on exactly 33 life?

Opponent #1: [groans]

Me: [evil laugh!]

When the itch gets you to build a particular deck, you just have to go out and build it. While reading over in the strategy forum about everybody's favourite Tooth and Nail targets, I decided to get it going on and have come up with a deck to make a very Rare-heavy change from our current decks (Balthor/Zombies and Ashling/Burn Peasant decks) This may just be the most expensive deck I've ever sleeved!!

Right, the idea is simple. Comb through everyone else's ideas over on the other thread (thanks guys!), add a couple of my own, mix in some land and it's insta-deck time. So that's what I did.
 
There's a couple of cards I don't actually own that were listed in the thread, like Mephidross Vampire, so I excluded the Triskelion combo. The idea of the deck is to repeatedly hit Tooth and Nail for shennanigans either from your graveyard with Eternal Witness or back from your deck via Wheel of Sun and Moon with tutors.

There are a few caveats with the deck: You're totally running for the multiple Tooth and Nail plan, thus you have to forget about things like counterspells and boardwipes outside of what the combo can get you. You're also completely dependant on your manabase panning out so, if someone decides to Dust Bowl-lock you at 6 lands, you just have to accept that until you or some other nice soul finds a way past that.

I'm not suggesting this deck as anything competitive or complete, the obvious exclusions are testament to that. You're trying to TandN an Emrakul and Iona to semi lock a board or even some Flame-kin Zealot/Avenger of Zendikar/Fetchland goodness (damage easily into the 30's on this one!) out onto the battlefield so it's only fair that you leave a door open for your opponents to have some fun. No Wraths, No counters, nothing that's not already on a creature.

Here's the list:
Progentius - General

Creatures
Admonition Angel
Avenger of Zendikar
Butcher of Malakir
Clone
Crater Hellion
Duplicant
Empyrial Archangel
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Eternal Witness
Flame-kin Zealot
Fleshbag Marauder
Grave Titan
Iona, Shield of Emeria
It that Betrays
Karmic Guide
Keiga
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Primeval Titan
Rafiq
Realm Razer
Seedborn Muse
Solemn Simulacrum
STE
Sundering Titan
Sylvan Ranger
Teferi
Terastodon
Thrashing Wumpus
Vigor
Wood Elves
Woodfall Primus
Yavimaya Elder

Artifacts
Basilisk Collar
Brittle Effigy
Coalition Relic
Crystal Ball
Darksteel Ingot
Mind Stone
SDT
Skullclamp
Sol Ring

Spells
Beseech the Queen
Cultivate
Demonic Tutor
Enlightened Tutor
Idyllic Tutor
Intuition
Kodama’s Reach
Harmonize
Mystical Tutor
Harrow
Tooth and Nail
Tunnel Vision
Vampiric Tutor
Wargate

Enchantments
Greater Good
Wheel of Sun and Moon
Survival of the Fittest
Wild Pair

Lands
Exotic Orchard
Fetch x10
Flagstones of Trokair
Forest x3
Gaea's Cradle
Island x3
Mosswort Bridge
Mountain x3
Plains x2
Shockland x10
Swamp x2
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Murmuring Bosk
Maze of Ith

Well, let's have a look then, shall we? There's a small group of players who exist only to work your mana base: Solemn Simulacrum, STE, Wood Elves, Yavimaya Elder and Sylvan Ranger are pretty much the bare minimum you can run without just hoping that your mana will sort itself out. Of course they have some support from the spell section but these guys run the double duty of chump blocking like champions.


After that we have the combos:

• Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with Rafiq or Iona, Shield of Emeria

Emrakul is pretty much the accepted archetype bad guy/gal at the moment. If you have something that can give her haste in play (like an untapped Kiki-Jiki and a Flame-Kin Zealot) you're pretty much bringing a bigger gun than most to the gun fight. With Rafiq of the Many, it's a gun that can upgrade or become very hard to deal with should you have chosen Iona instead. Of course you could just choose Flame-Kin Zealot and have her attack directly for 16.

• Flame-kin Zealot with Avenger of Zendikar or Terastodon

Speaking of Flame-Kin Zealot, these are two moves that can pull out huge damage very quickly. Presuming that you're running the Tooth and Nail off 7 lands and 1-2 artifact mana sources, you're getting 17 points of attack by dropping Avenger/Zealot. However you're not going to do this unless you have the land or fetch in hand for the additional 7 or 14 points on your plants so realistically you're looking at 24-31 attack for this move. There's a few advantages to the Avenger over the Terastodon here: Firstly, you're scaleable so you can decide based on your land count if your potential damage is worth getting one or the other and secondly, you have a lot more targets that need to be removed to reduce the damage and thirdly, you can combo with other cards that you may have on the table such as Kiki Jiki (copying the Avenger with the Zealot's CIP ability still on the stack will double your tokens and double any +1/+1 counters any subsequent landfall triggers give you) or Primeval Titan (which will give all your plants +2/+2 if everything attacks together). You can see that going this route is really only a question of how far you can push the boundaries.

Choosing the Terastodon allows for slightly chunkier beaters and a set attack value but at the cost of  three non-creature permanents which in turn may reduce your ability to repeat the Tooth and Nail any time soon if those three permanents were mana sources. What it lacks in scaleability, it makes up for in utility as the decks' main threat against opponent's non-creature permanents. Whatever Elephants you spread around the table will be smaller than your own as yours will benefit from the Zealot's +1/+1 until EOT ability. It's likely that they will throw their elephant under the bus anyway as the moma elephant, Terastodon, inexplicably for an elephant, doesn't trample. Major flavour fail Wizards!!

• It that Betrays with Fleshbag Marauder or Butcher of Malakir

This is a nasty little trick at a certain point in a game when all the chumps have been cleared away and all that's left are the big hitters. Drop It that Betrays and Fleshbag Marauder and collect a free creature from each of your opponents. If you have times it right, it will be something that was worth getting from each and every one. For a more long-lasting effect, go for the Butcher. This is especially good against larger armies if you control a means to kill off some of your own smaller guys, say, an Avenger of Zendikar with some tokens and a Thrashing Wumpus. Unless the potential return is apt to be a stunning sweep of unbeatable creatures, you're probably best advised to do this later on when you have ways to trigger the Butcher repeatedly. Oh, you also have a Skullclamp if you haven't already boosted your Plants past 0/1 for +2 cards and +X free creatures, a great way to spend some mana.

• Keiga, the Tide Star with Clone

What happens when Keiga and Clone both come onto the battlefield at the same time? You steal two target creatures! If it's legendary and you don't want it to go to the graveyard, or in the case of the Eldrazi back into their library, you only need to find a way to off your own Keiga to profit. That way is targetting it with your own Clone and killing both Keigas through the legendary rule. You then get two creatures from across the table.

If the creature concerned is not a legend, you can simply copy it with Clone and use the Keiga as a threat to steal the original. Obviously Clone is the perfect companion to a lot of other creatures in your deck, I think it goes without saying that 2 Avengers of Zendikar is better than one!

• Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker with Woodfall Primus or Grave Titan or Primeval Titan or Duplicant or Karmic Guide or Eternal Witness

Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker, what a stunning creature! It's simple and yet so powerful at the same time. I've included some of the options here but really it can go with anything non-legendary in the deck.  One of my favourite plays was having it in play, playing a Tooth and Nail for Clone and Karmic Guide and having the Clone copy the Guide as well as Kiki Jiki. I went from just having the Kiki Jiki to having 3 Karmic Guides, a Flame-Kin Zealot, It that Betrays and a Fleshbag Maurader that had appeared, and were dealt with, in the early game. The Fleshbag/ItB combo brought me another 3 guys from the other players: Omnath, a 1/1 dork and a Bird of Paradise. Of course, I put the Flame-kin Zealot trigger on the bottom!

I'm fairly sure the combinations with Woodfall Primus, the Titans, Duplicant or EWit don't need to be gone into. They are all board or hand advantage doubled by Kiki Jiki.

• Realm Razer with Admonition Angel

This nasty little combo came straight off the EDH boards. Tooth and Nail for both parts and remove all lands from the game. Find a Landfall trigger and use the trigger to remove the Razer from the game with the Angel's ability. All the lands come back into play tapped but also giving you a pile of landfall triggers. You use these triggers to remove your opponent's threats. Now they have the dilema: Do I kill the Angel knowing that I will also lose my lands?

• Teferi with Seedborn Muse

A variant on the Vedalken Orrery/Seedborn Muse combo, Teferi grants a little more protection by slowing your opponent's spells down to sorcery speed and allowing you to "EOT: drop a creature, untap" at every end of turn.

• Vigor with Thrashing Wumpus or Crater Hellion or Empyrial Archangel

This one is my personal favourite. Vigor is a 6/6 Elemental that makes your other creatures impervious to damage. Better still, for each damage they take, they grow that much instead. If you already have some creatures out, go and fetch Vigor with Crater Hellion to give everyone a permanent +4/+4 while destroying a large part of your opponent's board at the same time. For a more lasting effect, you can use Thrashing Wumpus, itself a good friend of Seedborn Muse. The ultimate defense pairs Vigor with the untargettable Empyrial Archangel to prevent all damage to you and turning the Archangel into a flying monster at the same time.

Vigor - Likes Birds.

That's a quick tour of the deck and some of the possibilities involved though you can always mix and match between the given options. If you decide to run the deck, have a blast and don't be afraid to come back and leave some comments!

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!

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.