Author: carteblanchehobbies

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Return to Ravnica Draft Mini-Report

by Zac Clark

Friday 10/12/12

Chase Culpon emailed me back to inform me that there was an early Draft today and that he’d be there to test Standard and get a draft in around 2:00pm. Others on the Email list for the store chimed in. I was hankering for a little standard myself, just having finished most of my American Control Deck, but I really wanted to practice limited. Philly is a couple weeks away and I’m terrible at Draft right now. On the bright side I’ve been opening the money rares the whole time, so I guess life could be worse.

I arrived at the store near to 2 pm on the dot. Chase greeted me with his Standard deck and some Dunkin Donuts. This guy is all class! After losing terribly to his Human deck in Standard (I still need to tweak this thing), a bunch more people show up and we get this show on the road.

Two 6 man pods.

I’ll never get why everyone complains about the number of people in a pod exactly. I mean I understand that 8 is what you want and how cards table and that sort of thing. I also believe that 99% of the people complaining about this sort of stuff are looking for reasons to loose. 2 man draft, 8 man draft, 18 man draft I do not care. Let’s crack packs and build decks! Li Xu sits at my right, and says something I definitely took away from the draft: “Pick two colors and make a deck. A bad two color deck is better than a mediocre 3 color deck.” Sounds good to me! I’m so sick of getting mana and color screwed so I’ll listen to anyone that gives me advice on how to not have that happen.

Pack one pick 1: Chaos Imps… I decided that this is a pretty nice rare for draft… and not much else. I then decided to draft red for the rest of the pack. With hope for solid black or blue cards  as well.

After 3 packs of RTR draft I ended up with this fancy little number

20ss 10/12 RtR Draft 3-0

8 Mountain

1 Overgrown Tomb
8 Swamp

17 lands

1 Viashino Racketeer
1 Dead Reveler
1 Guttersnipe
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Hellhole Flailer
1 Perilous Shadow
1 Dark Revenant
1 Slum Reaper
1 Splatter Thug
1 Gore-House Chainwalker
2 Grim Roustabout
1 Daggerdrome Imp
1 Tavern Swindler
2 Rakdos Shred-Freak
1 Chaos Imps

17 creatures

2 Cremate
1 Launch Party
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Traitorous Instinct
1 Pursuit of Flight

6 other spells

Sideboard
1 Firemind’s Foresight
1 Pyroconvergence
1 Spawn of Rix Maadi
1 Racecourse Fury
1 Sundering Growth
1 Goblin Rally
1 Armory Guard
1 Vandalblast
1 Destroy the Evidence
1 Deviant Glee
1 Mind Rot
1 Survey the Wreckage
1 Ogre Jailbreaker
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Terrus Wurm
1 Rites of Reaping
1 Guild Feud
1 Chemister’s Trick

18 sideboard cards

I was extremely happy with the number of Unleashed “undercosted” creatures and a few neat bombs as well as the Deathrite Shaman for that extra reach and value. You’ll notice I picked up an Overgrown Tomb (thanks Li). I used it in the deck for the Shaman in case I could get a little value from it, but I knew mostly he’d be dealing in pain over pleasure. That said, I’m very light on removal and was not totally comfortable with that.

Game 1 Chase Culpon (UWg)

I won the die roll to PLAY.

Chase was living high from the beatings he gave me earlier from Standard testing.

The first game my turns went like this:

Turn 1, Swamp, Deathrite Shaman, go

Turn 2, Mountain, Rakdos Shred-Freak, Swing for 3

Chase 17

Turn 3, Swamp, Guttersnipe, swing for 3

Chase 14

Turn 4, Cremate, Draw Traitorous Instinct, GS deals 2 from trigger, Attack for 5

Chase 7, He plays a Kordoza Monitor

Turn 5 TI the KM and attack for (whoops GS trigger)… attack for 10

Chase -5

Game 2

It was much of the same. Chase’s deck could have stabilized with his Dramatic Rescues and high toughness Flash blockers, he just didn’t get the love and I really punished him for losing the die roll. Game 2 ended on turn five as well. I felt much better about the deck. Hell, I felt pretty good about the deck as a Standard deck… Turn five in draft, pretty good!

Guttersnipe

1-0

Round 2 Li Xu

I really like playing Li. I think I’ve been matched up against him more than any other 20ss regular. I had the pleasure of knowing for a fact that his deck contained no Delvers so I was feeling pretty good about that. Li lost round 1 and I got paired down. I was hoping to get paired down, just not against Li (for the obvious reason that he’s good at Magic). What can you do, at least we’re gonna have some laughs, right?

Game 1:

Turn two Rakdos Shred-Freak followed by turn three RSF he had some Rakdos creatures coming strong too. We raced, but in the end I again won the die roll. My clock was more Cuckoo than Grandfather and I took it. Though once I feared he had an Electrickery which would have been terrible for me.

Game 2:

We went 5 turns again. My horde of B/R guys just kept at the gates, and of course there was a game changing swing with one of his guys (Hellhole Flayer) with my Traitorous Instinct. I really, really like that card in aggressive decks. I ended the game a turn after with Rakdos Charm.

2-0

Traitorous Instinct

Li and I played a few games of Modern while we waited. I’m clueless in this format. Thanks to RtR I was able to afford a mana base for my Merfolk deck. More on that at a later date though.

Round 3 Kyle Schwartz

I won the die roll again!

Tragically, Kyle got land screwed both games against me. I will say this though, I like Daggerdrome Imp. It’s important to have interactions with him, say like Scavenge or Pursuit of Flight. As I’ve learned in M13, drafting flying lifelinkers is good. Kyle was cool about getting mana screwed, and I offered to play him another game, he told me to not worry about it, he wasn’t too attached to his deck.

So I went 3-0 and literally won every game.

Daggerdrome Imp

Three games on turn 5!

Rakdos is pretty sweet. But I also won every die roll. I was happy with my deck and really did a good job of making sure my curve filled out during draft. I’m sure this deck would have suffered in the late game, but did have a few nice big creatures and cards like Hellhole Flailer and Deathrite Shaman to get in the rest of the damage.

Hellhole Flailer

Other Underrated stars… Won game 2 Vs Li with Rakdos Charm‘s last ability, Guttersnipe is OK as a Gray Ogre… but with cantrips and removal spells he really gets nasty (even if he looks like a chicken thief). Tavern Swindler is not too shabby as a bear, its ability is sort of lackluster but it attacks for 2 on turn 3 sooooo…..

Matt Jones showed up after round 2.I had procured his classic T-shirt in size medium. He and Li tried to persuade me to play at States. I almost took off work for it, but realized I had a show with ZAC CLARK and the GRISWOLDS the next day.

Come On Down EP cover art

More over, I was pretty excited about what everyone was going to play for Standard FNM. It’s Friday night and I have to bartend. I wanted to play, but life gets in the way from time to time. I’ll have plenty of chances to play later. Still looking forward to Tuesday nights Standard at 20ss. Since rotation, Standard is like “Let’s Make a Deal” right now  and I’m the guy looking to trade a small box for a tiger or a boat.

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M13 Limited: PTQ Report

by Zac Clark

Friday Night:

It was 2am. Finally time to leave work. Energy drinks were starting to wear off, and I was genuinely tired from a long day at the grind. Slinging drinks, while easy work, takes its toll in other ways. I hop on my bike, and bust out 2.1 miles toward home in a sleepy 15 mins… not my best time, but I don’t want to get my heart rate up, I’ll have trouble sleeping. I walk in the door and crash at 2:30 after setting and alarm.

Saturday Morning 7:20am

My alarm wakes me. I’m up. No really, I am. I feel like a zombie though. Which would be apropos if this was a Standard tourney. That said , I’m glad it’s sealed. I’ve played Standard so much I’m having night terrors about playing against Delver of Secrets. I shower, think about shaving and decide it makes me look slightly more intimidating and get dressed. White Oxford black pants and shiny dress shoes. If I’m gonna win this thing I want to look good doing it. And, Hell if I don’t win this thing, no one ever said, “You look a lil over dressed to be going 0-8 in a PTQ.” But yeah, like I said: I’m awake, sorta.

The L to Union square… nothing happens its the L on Saturday Morning at 8… Everyone is either still drunk, asleep, or still too non-functional to make plans for Saturday’s inevitable Mimosa/Bloody Mary brunch brigade. So it’s just working class folk.

Union Square Q platform. Wait for the train… pretty sure that dude plays at Twenty Sided. I’ll wait to see if he gets off at the King’s Highway stop. Music to wake up is prolly better than talking right now, I’m still not feeling social. Train ride ends, he gets up. ”Hey, man. Do you know where we’re going?” I smiled (man I really hope this guy plays at Twenty Sided this could get weird).

“Yea, its around the corner.” Relief washes over me in an awesome way.

We walk to the store, reintroduce ourselves, turns out we interact with each other on the 20ss google group. Josh Fetto, spots Matt Jones locking up his bike. We all grab coffee, and bagels, while we wait for the store to open. It does, we sign up and hang outside the store and bullshit while other 20ss regulars roll up. Monique and Rob K, Jordan Morgan, Michael Glanzer, and a few other guys I’ve met but can’t remember names yet. There’s a discussion about Mike S. who moved to Seattle (sadly) and Michael Glanzer’s boy “Nugget”.

Deck Reg/Construction

I receive packs and rip them open and begin marking the deck down… not a really interesting pool… the guy who gets this did receive an Ajani, Caller of the Pride. That’s about it! “I’d be less than happy with this” pool I tell myself. Pool passing happens and I open my pool and decide on my deck. Here’s what I came up with/decided to play.

PTQ – King’s games 9/22/12102 cards, 62 sideboard

9 x Mountain
8 x  Forest

17 lands

1 x Mwonvuli Beast Tracker
1 x Timberpack Wolf
3 x Bladetusk Boar
2 x Goblin Battle Jester
1 x Elvish Visionary
1 x Dragon Hatchling
1 x Goblin Arsonist
1 x Rummaging Goblin
2 x Deadly Recluse
1 x Spiked Baloth
1 x Flinthoof Boar
1 x Garruk’s Packleader
1 x Torch Fiend
1 x Centaur Courser

18 creatures

1 x Volcanic Geyser
1 x Rancor
1 x Krenko’s Command
2 x Searing Spear

5 other spells

Sideboard
1 Plummet
1 Show of Valor
1 War Falcon
1 Crippling Blight
2 Disentomb
1 Guardian Lions
1 Aven Squire
1 Chronomaton
1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
1 Boundless Realms
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
1 Smelt
2 Faerie Invaders
1 Augur of Bolas
1 Switcheroo
2 Tricks of the Trade
1 Encrust
1 Negate
1 Ranger’s Path
1 Bountiful Harvest
1 Vile Rebirth
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Public Execution
1 Liliana’s Shade
1 Pillarfield Ox
1 Volcanic Strength
1 Craterize
1 Safe Passage
1 Silvercoat Lion
1 Bloodhunter Bat
1 Dark Favor
1 Duty-Bound Dead
1 Guardians of Akrasa
1 Healer of the Pride
1 Jayemdae Tome
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Cathedral of War
1 Spelltwine
1 Captain’s Call
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Smelt
1 Arctic Aven
1 Fog Bank
1 Sleep
1 Watercourser
2 Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
1 Downpour
1 Serpent’s Gift
2 Fog
1 Bond Beetle
1 Veilborn Ghoul
1 Tormented Soul
1 Mark of the Vampire
1 Harbor Bandit
1 Pacifism
1 Craterize
1 Trumpet Blast

62 sideboard cards

Looking back I think I could have went UBr or URb and maybe had a better maindeck (at least with a few bombs) but I was tired and decided that I should play an aggressive strategy that I’d be less likely to make play mistakes. R/G looked good and the manabase for the deck was nice as there wasn’t a lot RR (only 1)and no GG casting cost spells. I was confident that I could play this well, and with the three burn spells I could even stall out and have the extra reach I needed.

Round 1 – Liam B

Liam wasn’t really happy with his deck (he told me when he sat down). Good for me. I was riding high on the Redbull I just pounded not to mention the coffee from earlier. Shuffle. Cut. roll. win. Keep. I curved out the first game… Goblin Arsonist into Timberpack Wolf into some three drop perhaps Centaur Courser, and then Bladetusk Boar… Liam spent his first three turns playing land and saying “Go.” By turn six it was pretty obvious I was taking this game.

“My deck is pretty greedy.” Liam told me. I noted he was playing three colors, sided out Krenko’s Command and Mwonvuli Beast Tracker. In came Plummet (he played a flyer) and Smelt (he had some artifacts, I figured I could use a conditional removal spell over a couple of 1/1s and a 2/1)

Shuffle. Cut. Draw. (5 land and two Searing Spears) Mull… 4 creatures(1Red 3 Green) 2 Lands both Mountains. Shrug. Keep. I stalled out after not drawing land until turn 5… I did 0 damage to Liam in this game. Them’s the breaks… I made a promise to mull hands like that from now on.

Game 3. I shuffled like 10 times… I was determined to not get manascrewed. Once again I curved out, but Liam and I raced a little, a well placed searing spear stopped his clock and I used my army of beasts to clean it (his clock).

1-0

I was done pretty quickly. Standard Zac Clark fashion the round was over in 15 mins. I shook hands with Liam and chilled downstairs, waiting for my fellow 20ssers to share their tales of combats won and planeswalkers crushed. Josh and Tony Loman took their first rounds as well. Matt Jones was pissed about some mana problems Rob K. wasn’t looking happy, and I think Monique lost round one, but I couldn’t tell (I forgot to ask) because I assume from her demeanor she had won. Jordan I think also won. We talked decks and pools and showed each other our builds, B$ed the new Standard after rotation then Round 2 was up.

Round 2 Eric Vogel U/W

Shake hands. Shuffle. Cut. Roll. Win. SNAP KEEP.

Game 1: I remember being really really disappointed when I dropped a Rancor onto my turn one drop and Eric Unsummoned it… goodbye Rancor… a turn later I crashed into his untapped 2/2 Chronomaton with him having a land open to activate it… like a boss (you know the one you complain about on Facebook, being incompetent).

Game 2: So After handing him game 1, I was more than ready to step it up game 2. AND I DID! I killed the things that had to die and slammed through the gates with a Bladetusk Boar and Deadly Recluse (after his Trading Post stabilized the board for him).

Game 3: It was close! But in the end he drew and cast Switcheroo and left me with a Wall while he had enough to kill me two turns later.

Eric played well and deserved the win. I played like a robot and got what all robots deserve… rusty rusty death.

1-1

I was still confident about my chances here. Although I would have been happier if I had playtested a little more. When I last played, tapped blockers dealt no damage in combat. I knew otherwise now, but forgot long enough to lose a creature in game one. Eric’s deck had a suite of removal in Pacifisms and Encrusts as well as a Spelltwine and a Switcheroo. I wasn’t ashamed to lose to him.

Round 3 Andrew H. B/R

My opponent sits as we shuffle and he unravels his playmat with his 3 top 8 PTQ pins. I was like OK, this dude wants to play the intimidation game… sort of a hard sell for me. Working in a bar has made me socially numb to this stuff… Luckily his friend came over and joshed him for the pins. I actually defended him. ”Where else are you gonna put them? It’s not like you wanna wear them on your lapel for like a date or something. If they’re for luck you might as well use them. But I do want to beat you even more now.” I was worth a chuckle from him and his friend.

Game 1: HOLY CARD DRAW BATMAN! Rummaging Goblin and Veilborn Ghoul engine: Engage! It was a slugfest, but I just ran out of things to do and he had like 4 cards in hand when I died.

Game 2: Again a slugfest, but I was able to remove blockers and my Volcanic Strength‘d creature and my blockers where too much. I got there a couple turns earlier than he could.

Game 3: This game came down to just card for card trades. He Chandra’s Fury’d me to win. Had he not I had him the next turn. Rough. That’s cardboard, he played correctly around my Volcanic Geyser which I had waiting, so hats off. Solid play wins games, he wasn’t greedy and it panned out for him.

1-2

I go into positivity mode and convince myself I can still do this. I just have to win out the next 5 rounds.

Then… there’s a chance!

Round 4 Tristan G/R

Tristan was at my table while we were building decks. He got me in three games… pretty handily, just three quick games, nothing fancy. He was playing a deck much like mine, but with y’know better stuff. His Garruk’s Packleader into Mogg Flunkie into Mogg Flunkie was pretty tragic for me. Similar plays during the second game but I had Volcanic Strength and ran for the end zone. Third game was a blowout as his deck was just better and more consistent after turn 4. He piloted it well and knocked me (and my Pro Tour dreams) for a loop.

1-3

What happened? I started so strong…

Everyone of my losses so far had been 1-2 though. I was sticking around, I took off work and I wanted my Planeswalker Points. I was gonna stay’ til the bitter end. Other 20ssers looked like they got hit by a grenade. We might not have been at our best as a store that day, but we certainly were the coolest… in my opinion at least. I REDBULLED, pizza steaked and pounded a 5-hour energy. I think I have a problem, but I wasn’t feeling so tired and that’s the goal after you start to falter.

Round 5 Rob K.

I remember high fiving Rob right as he left the store, presumably to get lunch or something… WRONG! Apparently, the High Five was for the free points he gave me when he failed to drop and left the tourney…THANKS ROB!

2-3

Round 6 Stefano Black B/R

I sat down and thought about how funny the last 12 years of not playing was, and how much I’ve changed since then. I was the scrawny blonde haired kid with the glasses and Morrissey T-shirt back then. Pretty much Magic defined me. I was eating sleeping and drinking Magic. 12 years later, I’m the Robot Tattoo’ed shaved head guy, with the Black Glasses who’s maybe a little too loud, and laughs a bunch at tourneys (mostly at my own jokes, which normally only I get) I’ve branched out from Magic to writer, photographer, bartender and even lead singer in my own band… Socially, a lots changed in 12 years, but I’m still that scrawny 20 year old at heart. I’ll say this though, 12 years ago Stefano would have scared me to death. Peircings and tattoos (which obviously don’t mean much more to me than style of dress that day) would have me thinking this dude is tough as shit. Now, I’m like “RAD! a fellow old school punk, maybe.”

We both b*tch about bad beats and joke about maybe sleeping better for the next one of these things since NOTHING is on the line here.

Game 1: goes to Stefano. We traded life but his creatures were slightly better and he managed to get 20 before I could.

Game 2: He Mulls to 5 and I snap keep my hand it’s over in a few turns…i curved out again and he was still looking to get out of manascrew.

Game 3: Stefano mulls again. I keep a solid hand. And I’m off to the races. It’s Goblin Arsonist out of the Gate followed by Flinthoof Boar, and a turn 3 Searing Spear for his blocker. Before long I had a Volcanic Strength on the Boar (played when he tapped out, I was getting better at that).

After the match we bullshitted about how we were both tired. He drove in from Jersey… Old Bridge. We reminisced about the Birch Hill, and our respective careers in our creative industry. Switched up info for the Twitters (@Stefanoblackest) wished each other luck and on to the next round.

3-3

REDBULL BREAK… please hold

“We don’t know what it does, but it does something…” – Patrick Chapin

Round 7 Dan J – UWr

Let me just start this round off by saying I was feeling pretty slow (even with the Taurine boost) My opponent told me he was 3-0 three rounds ago. I did that once I told him. It a sad run when you are riding high only to be crushed, and then left out for the trashman. Dan wasn’t too worried though, looked like he shrugged it off.

Game 1: I’m having a little mana trouble (no red) but eventually get off the ground, sadly too late as his Faerie Invaders kills a Timberpack Wolf and he flies in for the kill over the next few turns.

Game 2: I start strong, really strong! Dan stabilizes and then play a Water Courser and Welkin Tern. I have a Plummet and a Searing Spear…he’s low on life I Spear his Courser and swing in to put him on a two turn clock… He Pacifisms my attacker and Welkin Tern goes to work on my life over the next few turns. Knowing he has Faerie Invaders and other Boss-level flyers I save the plummet. Flinthoof Boar, Haste, he’s at 1 life. He plays a ground blocker Welkin Tern finishes me… I wish i had saved the Spear instead of the Plummet. This is the second game my opponent was at 1 life and I couldn’t finish him.

Terrible, just terrible.

3-4

ROUND 8 David R. R/B

Let this be a lesson round. SIT IN YOUR ASSIGNED SEAT even in round 8.

We went to move for a little more room and the judge said he was gonna mark us at dropped. He didn’t but y’know better to be careful. Judges don’t get paid, so they get to be a lil crabby after 8 rounds of swiss and stupid “My opponent ‘accidentally’ drew an extra card”questions. It’s their right. Anyhow we did relocate and David and his friends all had the same record. Shuffle. cut. good luck. roll. WIN

Game 1: OK keep, nothing amazing but I had the Rancor. Rancor wins games.

Game 2: David had some removal and although I think he may have played a few risky cards in his deck, he took this game after a board stall followed by a Talrand, Sky Summoner and we went to game three.

Game 3: My side of the board looked like this

Turn 1: land go

Turn 2: land Timberpack Wolf

Turn 3: Land Flinthoof Boar, haste 5 damage

Turn 4: Rancor wolf and Volcanic Strength the boar attack for 9.

He slimes my Strength and (Arbor Elf helped) and began to stabilize but soon Rummaging Goblin had me looting toward the red zone. I killed his Talrand with a Volcanic Geyser. David’s response was “Rude!” I replied that rude is free 2/2 fliers, sir. And Rancor got me home again.

4-4

Handshakes, well wishes and a quick look around indicated  I was the last 20sser still there it seemed. Exhausted, I made my way home. My date for the night cancelled, which I was sorta happy about. I was in no shape to be cool at a bar, plus I needed a wash. I got home and crashed hard.

Deck Analysis

Looking at this deck I’m thinking now that I definitely should have played U/B/r, something like this:

7 island
7 swamp
2 mountain
1 Evolving Wilds

2 Searing Spear
1 Crippling Blight
1 Chronomaton
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
2 Faerie Invaders
1 Switcheroo
1 Encrust
1 Negate
1 Vile Rebirth
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Public Execution
1 Liliana’s Shade
1 Bloodhunter Bat
1 Duty-Bound Dead
1 Jayemdae Tome
1 Spelltwine
1 Fog Bank
1 Sleep
1 Watercourser
1 Veilborn Ghoul
1 Harbor Bandit

Risky mana base, but the Wilds would help a little maybe have another mountain and one less island. Like I said though, this style of deck needs a stronger pilot. I was playing asleep at the wheel. Not a solid battle plan. As it was, I was happy with my performance on the day. First serious level event in 12 years, 4-4 I’ll take it. Add 85 pts to the Seasonal record for a total of 149 this season and I’m only a month in. Pretty good in my book!

I’d really like to hear what you have to say about my strategy on the build, and my second build especially. I’ll stop crying about the lack of sleep now because that’s getting old. The next big event I play you can be damn sure I’ll rest up a little more. If you have a build you think would have been better please add it to the comments.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:

I decided this week, that I’m going to GRAND PRIX LISBON. That’s right in Portugal!

I’m already playing in Philly, and I hope to do really well there but I’ve been looking to travel (some of you might know I’m Inked Magazine’s travel writer) and my job allows me to write off some travel expenses (I think) so I’ll be saving up and practicing my a$% off for both events, which are Sealed.

If you think you wanna tag along, hit me up! I don’t wanna be the only scrub in Portugal!

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Return to Ravnica: Top 5

by Zac Clark

Here’s an RTR preview of top 5’s. (Limited and Constructed)

In the past (WAAAAAAY in the past), I was sort of averse to spoilers. I liked being surprised by the new cards and I wanted to experience a set in a face to face kind of way. Things change (I’m still not using a freaking playmat!), though, and I really dig the way the MTG community uses the weeks before a set’s release to generate interest, speculate and brew on SH*T THAT’S NOT EVEN REAL YET! It’s genius, really. So, I’ll back it up. I’d like to talk about my favorite 5 cards from the Return to Ravnica and their various applications. 5 for Contructed and 5 for Limited.

Here goes nothing…

Constructed

5. Epic Experiment

Right, I know what you’re thinking. JOHNNY!

Calm down I’m not brewing with this yet, I’m simply saying this: someone will break this. It might not be until the next set or maybe the set after, but it’ll get some play. You’ll groan like you do now when you loose to infect, it’ll be second tier likely, but man! when this card gets cast you’ll be sorry. It’s a real good thing Overload won’t work with this. I expect this to be a set-up for Grixis tap-out or a one of in a Delver variant (which will need a mid and late game strategy with a lack of free spells). I don’t know, I think it’ll be important eventually. Mark my words! (shakes cane in the air).

4. Cyclonic Rift

I remember Boomerang… man I loved Boomerang. So many great applications. Turn 2 bounce a land and TIME WALK. All sorts of cool stuff… You could save your Air Elemental from dying. You could bounce a potential blocker, and you could bounce an attacker. Nothing was safe from, well, bouncing. Cyclonic Rift can’t target your stuff to save it, but it does have another application… AND THE BOARD IS CLEAR! and by “THE”, I mean “YOUR”. OH, I don’t not look forward to being on the business end of a C-Rift. It’s got the early game thing down, the mid game thing it’s still very important, and the late game it just wins games. Mizzium Mortars doesn’t do this as well. Sure it kills things dead but if your deck is built right, you shouldn’t have a problem making the next untap count.

3. Rakdos Return

Can you say late game Combos?

C-rift End of Turn… Rakdos Return during my main phase… RESPONSES?! Mike Flores said it first, but I’ll repeat. DON’T C- Rift a Snapcaster with open counter mana and a Dissipate or Syncopate or other counters without PATE in them, … (You will be laughed at). But like C-Rift (yea I’m gonna keep calling it C-Rift), it deals with Planeswalkers. It’s a mid-game phase 2 kinda card and it doesn’t affect the board, so stop crying and build around it, you baby.

2. Angel of Serenity

Did you read the part about when your opponent inevitably deals with this creature (ala Ultimate Price) the things you chose go to hands, AND NOT BACK INTO PLAY? SHEEEIT! wait you can target things in Graveyards? And ANGELS? Just sayin’ bro. She’s even easy on the eyes without making me feel all pervy (I’m looking at you Liliana of the Veil).

1. Jace, Architect of Thought

The Magic: The Gathering version of Batman, Jace is in full Dark Knight Returns mode here (He’s not the Planeswalker this city wants, but he’ll be the Planeswalker this city needs).

Plus, look at that sweet cape flair. I bet he conjured a large fan to blow that breeze. He’s got a defense, and a sweet a$% -2 ability. You’ll be card advantaging the willies out of you opponent. I’m not really thinking the Ultimate will see much action (You’ll be too busy drawing to want to build him up) but if that goes off I bet you’ll figure out a way to make it good.

Limited

5. Lyev Skyknight

It’s an Uncommon so i bet you can find this guy in the draft. NO! I don’t know what # pick. But he’s good.

I remember night unto a day when (gset up from rocking chair) 3/1 blue fliers for 3 mana couldn’t block non-fliers. AND WE LIKED THEM JUST FINE! This guy can block if you need him to. And he’s a Twiddle (for all intended purposes) at his least effective. You won’t always wanna throw him down the second you draw him.

4. Dramatic Rescue

I like tempo strategies in draft. This card helps. It saves your guy, it stops his, it buys you a turn, it gains you 2 life. It has a sexual joke between a man and a fat Hawkman in the flavor text. Did you know that in Ravnica they use the American system of measurement? TONS. 4000lbs of Pure HAWKMAN LOVE!

3. The Charms

  

 

Duh! Options are good – taste the rainbow.

I think Izzet is the best in Limited then Selesnya, Azorius and then Gogari and Rakdos are tied.

2. The Guildmages

  

 

Mid and late-game mana sinks, expect to lose if your opponent gets to produce 3/3 centaurs each turn while you draw another land.

1. Mercurial Chemister

The John Wayne Gacy of the set, in that he’s goofy looking but deadly. Pogo the Clown here draws two cards then he kills things. Untapping with this guy twice should win you games. With 3 toughness though, he’s a lightning rod. Mostly he’ll trade 1 for 1. When he gets going, look out! I’m playing Izzet at the prerelease based on Hypersonic Dragon and maybe maybe opening up this guy.

Special SUPER SECRET TECH

0. Pack Rat

After playing some online sealed with a friend, we both immediately notice the raw power of this card in limited. What’s that you say? Never draw a land and wish it was something else.

If you play this card on curve its good. But even though I believe this set is removal poor I’d suggest waiting until you can copy him. Once copied nothing short of two removal spells or a detention sphere can stop you. If you play this turn 5 and copy it. On turn six with a land drop you have 2 2/2’s. Not bad but nothing to write home about. You attack and create (with the land you dropped) two 4/4’s with two 4/4’s blocking from there it just gets insane. I’d switch to splash black in the third pack for this card. It won the board each time I untapped with it. It’s my favorite card in limited and it’s power might just be good enough for constructed.

So that’s my take on the RTR scene. What’s your favorite card for Limited/Constructed?

Disagree with me? You’re probably not correct but I’ll read your rants in the comment section.

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Junk or Jank?

by Steve Giannopoulos

The new Standard has arrived and with it many brewing options. A lot of big mana strategies seem to be the thing and the aggro strategies seem to be relegated to Zombies, WG Aggro and Mono Red.

Mono Red is always the kind of deck that thrives at the beginning of a format and has pretty much no late game to speak of. Cards like Vexing Devils kind of just hit play and sit there staring at bigger dudes not doing much but probably chumping. You can always rip a Thunderous Wrath and randomly win but that’s sort of like relying on luck a weee but much for my taste.

I was personally inclined to the play a Green-based Aggro deck with Rancors as they seem rather well-placed in the current metagame. I called a friend and asked him for his decklist for the upcoming Grand Prix Trial the day before. He was kind enough to provide me with one:

JUNK by Xavier Biron

Creatures
4 x Arbor Elf

4 x Avacyn’s Pilgrim

4 x Strangleroot Geist

4 x Loxodon Smiter

4 x Dreg Mangler

2 x Deadbridge Goliath

3 x Disciple of Bolas

2 x Sigarda, Host of Herons

Spells
3 x Rancor

4 x Abrupt Decay

2 x Tragic Slip

2 x Sever the Bloodline

Lands

4 x Overgrown Tomb

4 x Temple Garden

3 x Isolated Chapel

1 x Sunpetal Grove

1 x Woodland Cemetary

2 x Gavony Township

1 x Vault of the Archangel

1 x Swamp

1 x Plains

4 x Forest

Sideboard
2 x Crushing Vines

2  x Thragtusk

2 x Ray of Revelation

1 x Sever the Bloodline

2 x Tragic Slip

1 x Sigarda, Host of Herons

3 x Knight of Glory

2 x Rest in Peace

You might recognize the deck designer’s name. He recently got in the Pro Tour and will be going to Seattle to battle it out with some of the world’s best players. He won a Pro Tour Qualifier with a Green/Blue Infect deck. It was a somewhat rogue deck and caught a few people by surprise. He usually has a good understanding of the metagame and can back up a lot of his card choices by indicating a lot of situations in which they would be better than the cards that are usually played or proposed to him.

The Junk deck above is not exactly revolutionary, but it is somewhat unusual. You will notice that the color white is very minorly represented in the list but it does pack quite a punch.

Sigarda, Host of Herons

This little angel has become increasingly better for a few reasons. The main one being that 2 out of 3 monoblue clones just hit the curb with the arrival of the new Standard format. Incidentally, this was a big reason Olivia Voldaren was held back for quite some time. The only option now for clone shenanigans is Clone or Evil Twin. At the moment, they are suboptimal, but you never know…

                       

Remember these guys?

She invalidates Liliana of the Veil’s -2 ability as well as making Killing Wave, Barter in Blood, Tribute to Hunger and targeted removal utterly bad. She is definitely a good target to slap a Rancor on. There’s not much slowing her down save mass removal or a bigger angel like Angel of Serenity, which is seeing some play.

Loxodon Smiter

This bad boy makes Liliana of the Veil’s +1 rather risky. Often compared to Obstinate Baloth minus the lifegain, this guy is a lot more relevant as he comes down a turn earlier AND cannot be countered. It almost seems like the ‘cannot be countered’ cycle came out a set too late. With Mana Leak no longer in the format and Syncopate not nearly as effective, a lot of decks can afford to play less carefully around counters. It also helps that the control decks start to shape up more after the aggro ones do, since you obviously need to know what you need answers to. The best answer in this case is Mizzium Mortars, which incidentally is also the answer a lot of times your opponent ‘Miracles’ Entreat the Angels on his upkeep. Early on this guy just goes through unmolested against most decks and he is sizeable enough to play with the big boys later on. As a side note, I believe he is probably a very valid addition a Maverick-style Sideboard in Legacy, but most probably more in Modern. He punishes Jund’s discard and steers clear of the Lightning Bolts. this is similar to Obstinate Baloth of course, but the Smiter feels more Maindeck-worthy.

Gavony Township and Vault of the Archangels

                     

The Township has been gaining popularity as of late. The only real risk in activating it is put a counter on Strangleroot Geist and not being able to bring it back after a Supreme Verdict or the like. It definitely gives your mana dorks (Avacyn’s Pilgrim and Arbor Elf) some value in the mid to late game. It can also fatten up one of your creatures to sacrifice to Disciple of Bolas and get a pretty massive card draw and lifegain advantage.

The Vault offers somewhat different benefits. It allows your little dorks to trade with bigger creatures, thus warding off some aggro at times. Also, it’s really great with Strangleroot Geists since you have no qualms about trading them against other creatures and having them come back for a repeat performance. In mirror-matches (well, kind of . ie: Zombies and GW aggro) it can present a real dilemma to your opponent when he is trying to decide how to attack and not incur a major life swing  in the process. You would activate it on after blockers are declared to make some unfair trades and then on your turn when you hit him back for more life.

The Scavengers

Deadbridge Goliath and Dreg Mangler are really well-costed for their size. Not only that, but they allow you to recover pretty well post-board whipe. Everything went boom and you just drew an Avacyn’s  Pilgrim? No problem! just play that bad boy and ‘equip’ him with some +1/+1 counters courtesy of the Scavenge mechanic. As a side note, don’t forget that they can also add +1/+1 counters to an Unleash creature and make it unable to block. This is really marginal, but probably an interaction people should be aware of (mostly in limited).

The Goliath is Blastoderm-sized and probably slightly better than even Blastoderm would be these days. Sure he isn’t Hexproof or Shroud, but he does provide an advantage after his untimely demise. Blastoderm would probably just 2 for 1 a couple of creatures which is ok in the current Standard. Goliath can do the same or eat a removal and probably force another removal when scavenged. The difference is that the Goliath stays in play much much longer and is better if Counterspelled (also probably a reason why it’s a Rare).

Dreg Mangler is basically Strangleroot Geists # 5 through 8. Again, with some added value if they are Countered or milled (unless of course, if they get Dissipated or Syncopated). Just like pretty much most of the aggressive creatures, it’s really good with Rancor. 5/3 trample haste? Yep! Sign me up!

Card Advantage?

Yes, there are many forms of it. The more direct advantage comes from recurring Rancors and drawing cards off of Disciple of Bolas. Disciple is so good in this deck since you can probably recoup the things you sacrifice. Sacrifice a Rancored Deadbridge Goliath, get Rancor back to your hand and scavenge the Goliath later on. Did I mention this thing is the Release Party card? I would probably get a playset on the cheap at the moment as they are probably undervalued.

Removal? in Spades!

Tragic Slip continues to be good in this metagame. It kills early game accelerators (Pilgrim,  Arbor Elf) and also is a card that deals with Falkenrath Aristocrats. Obviously, you can get more value out of it when you trigger its Morbid ability, since it can kill other nuisances such as Lotleth Troll and Wolfir Avengers.

Sever the Bloodline was somewhat hyped for a small time during the past Standard season but never really saw play. Now with the absence of Doom Blades and Go For the Throats, it is much much better. Add to that the fact that it removes the creature, so it’s an ideal removal for Geralf’s Messengers and other Zombies. In other cases, it will just board-whipe tokens, namely Entreat the Angels tokens. The fact that it has flashback is rather nice, since control decks can cast it after having dumped it in the grave with Forbidden Alchemy later in the game.

Abrupt Decay is somewhat pricey at the moment with good reason. In the current environment it can really kill way to many things. Oblivion Rings, Keyrunes, some Planeswalkers, tokens, Detention Spheres and the list goes on. The fact that it cannot be countered simply adds to its goodness. It seems to be a good future staple in formats that are more mana-efficient as you can deal with more permanents. It’s also quite better than Murder, since using your turn 3 to cast a Murder is not quite what you want to be doing in a mostly aggressive deck (unless your turn 1 was a Pilgrim and turn 2 was a Loxodon Smiter, of course).

Sideboard

This sideboard is basically an anti-graveyard, anti-aggro one. Also, as the Knight of Glory indicates, we are prepared for a heavy black metagame. Crushing Vines versus Angels mostly and perhaps the odd artifact here and there as Scars Block has come and gone. Ray of Revelation do a great job against Oblivion Rings and Detention Spheres.

More removal follows, just in case you are not always the aggressor.

Value is now harder to spell… T h r a g t u s k

Thragtusk is just overall good, so why not? Also, he is a great ‘target’ for Disciple of Bolas.

This covers our small trip to Ravnica Standard for today. Stay tuned for further decks and articles!

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Real Steel

by Steve ‘DDT’ Giannopoulos

Well, Return to Ravnica is soon upon us and it will be pushing out a Scars of Mirrodin Block from Standard. Lots of the older Magic: the Gathering players are happy to greet this new set as they have great memories from the original Ravnica block. Not too many people are concocting any new Standard decks in the current metagame now, but I always try to play a few rogue-ish decks in the final weeks of a month were a block will rotate.

I was never a huge fan of the Mirrodin artifact theme personally. It took a lot of color-specific abilities and put them on artifacts, thus negating the color-commitment aspect. I did eventually slowly got over that and think they did a great job with the artifact theme this time around. One thing that I think most people didn’t fully exploit in Constructed was the Living Weapon ability. It basically allowed some of your equipment to come into play pre-equipped, while not allowing you to do much else with the Germ token.

The deck we will be examining today makes fine use of these equipments and I believe positions itself pretty well in the current Standard environment (for however long it has left). On the plus side, if you decide to build this deck, acquiring the necessary cards should not be a huge problem as they are almost all from the old block (Scars). In addition, I believe this is a deck you can keep sleeved up and play many casual games with for a long time to come.

Here’s the decklist:

Real Steel

Lands

4 x Cavern of Souls

4 x Glacial Fortress

4 x Inkmoth Nexus

1 x Moorland Haunt

6 x Plains

4 x Seachrome Coast

Creatures

2 x Etched Champion

2 x Glint Hawk

2 x Grand Abolisher

2 x Mirran Crusader

1 x Phyrexian Metamorph

4 x Puresteel Paladin

2 x Spellskite

3 x Trinket Mage

Artifacts

1 x Accorder’s Shield

1 x Batterskull

4 x Flayer Husk

1 x Grafdigger’s Cage

3 x Mortarpod

1 x Silver-Inlaid Dagger

4 x Sword of War and Peace

1 x Sylvok Lifestaff

Other Spells

3 x Dispatch

Sideboard

1 x Celestial Purge

1 x Dispense Justice

1 x Divine Offering

2 x Leoning Relic-Warder

2 x Mental Misstep

2 x Mirran Crusader

2 x Oblivion Ring

1 x Snapcaster Mage

1 x Spellskite

2 x Sword of Feast and Famine

The first thing you will probably notice is that Puresteel Paladin plays a key role in the deck. In fact, you can pretty much say that he is at the heart of the deck. He pretty much gives all your equipment extra value and makes it extremely easy to attack safely with swords and then re-equip them for free to be able to defend  against whatever counterattack your opponent might have planned.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve won many games without ever having drawn a Puresteel Paladin. It’s just that it requires much more effort. On top of it, the effect is cumulative. This means that if you happen to have two Paladins in play, you will draw 2 cards per equipment that hits the battlefield.

Let’s give the deck a more in-depth examination:

Lands

We have our basic dual configuration: the 4 Scars of Mirrodin duals and the 4 M13 Duals. Not too costly and definitely needed.

Next up we have 4 Cavern of Souls. Now these are somewhat costly, but they should be viewed as an investment for anyone planning to play Standard or any kind of tribal deck. They make sure the majority of creatures in our deck do not get countered. Yes, humans again! Sometimes you might want to name Soldier so your Etched Champion comes down equips a bunch of stuff and goes for the throat.

It also does wonders with Grand Abolisher. You land a creature that can’t be countered that will make it so that all your other spells will not get countered.

Inmoth Nexus makes an appearance in this deck as a great utility card. Be it giving you Metalcraft or swinging with a few equipments on it, it plays its part well. Post Day of Judgment, it will either be chump blocking if your opponent recovers before you or attacking for 1 or 2 infect and giving you a slow but steady win condition. You can activate its ability to allow your Etched Champion to survive a Slagstorm or something like a doom blade.

The lone Moorland Haunt allows you to make more dudes at the end of your opponent’s turn and start equipping them and attacking on your turn. You realy don’t want this and Inkmoth Nexus in your opening hand as your only mana sources as you often times need at least 2 white mana to cast most of your nonartifact creatures.

Creatures

You obviously run 4 Puresteel Paladin here. He screams ‘build around me’ and he is always an affordable card. If you have to decide what needs to be equipped, make him your number 1 option. He will affect the board more than any of your other guys.

This deck uses a long-time favorite (Trinket Mage) extremely well. He fetches you a Zombie/ Birthing Pod hate card in Grafdigger’s Cage. Aside from that, he can get you a Sylvok Lifestaff in order to gain some life and stand a better chance in the late game. The staff will combo really well with Mortarpod. You shoot a creature for 1 while gaining 3 life, at the small cost of a Germ Token. Remember that you can also do the same with Inkmoth Nexus which will cause infect damage. This can be a great way to close out a game with a final 1 or 2 points of infect.

Trinket Mage can also fetch a chump blocker in Flayer Husk allowing you to spam the field and have a better mid to late game. He can also double block with the token to kill a 3-toughness attacker if needed. However, if you are trying to press your advantage, I believe the best option is Silver-Inlaid Dagger. This little knife will give almost any creature in your deck a +3 attack bonus. Keep in mind that even the base + 2 attack is pretty nice also, especially when equipped to an Inkmoth Nexus.

Usually reserved for White Weenie decks, I believe Grand Abolisher does an awesome job in this deck. It allows your equips to go uninterrupted and prevents nasty surprises on your opponent’s side (Restoration Angel). You just don’t want to see him too often, which is why we run only 2.

The previous statement holds true for Mirran Crusader. He’s usually a powerhouse against a lot of decks or even just when regularly equipped. There are however many decks against which he is not so hot. Games with him can end quickly if you are facing something like a Green/White deck and he is equipped with a Sword of War and Peace.

Etched Champion is your big bruiser. He may not seem like much, but he does pack quite a punch. When facing down against Wolfir Silverheart –enhanced creatures, you will be glad he is on your side. Metalcraft should never really be a problem and as mentioned earlier, you can always activate an Inkmoth Nexus if you need to protect your Champion. The main problem he has is playing defense versus a Rancored creature. That can become a huge problem really quickly.

Glint Hawk and Phyrexian Metamorph provide a nice little overall utility for the deck. Obviously we all know how awesome Metamorph is. Wether it’s killing a legend, doubling up a busted equipment or simply another copy of Etched Champion, he’s doing something useful.

The little Hawk on the other hand, is used mostly to reset living weapons or sometimes bounce back a Champion to give it pseudo vigilance. Oftentimes, you will even be bouncing back any equipment to your hand in order to replay it and draw a new card off of Puresteel Paladin. He can also fly over a stalled field and chip in to provide a few points of damage. There are also instances in which he will be equipped with a Sword of War and Peace in order to indefinitely hold off a Restoration Angel. These are good times!

Other Spells

This section is rather brief since we only run 3 Dispatches. This means we need to use them conservatively. If the creature you dispatch is in no way hindering your path to victory, it was a bad move. You usually want to use it on a Primeval Titan that will clearly become a problem. The same goes for Talrand, Sky Summoner. Again, use your judgment and avoid liberal uses of Dispatch.

Another small warning about this spell is that it it’s almost always cast with Metalcraft. Metalcraft is also checked on resolution, so be sure to have an Inkmoth Nexus ready to respond when your opponent busts one of your artifacts to make Dispatch lose its Metalcraft effect. You want to probably do it when you have 4 or more artifacts just to be sure.

Artifacts

Pretty much all equipments here except for the lone Grafdigger’s Cage.

We can afford to have a maindeck Cage here as our Trinket Mages can make sure we can find it when needed. One copy is more than enough, since we really do not want this in our opening hand.  It does a great job versus Snapcaster Mage, Zombies and Birthing Pod.

The lone Batterskull is just awesome in this deck. You can easily play it, equip it for 0 due to Puresteel Paladin’s ability and beat down your opponent while gaining life. Then comes the great part: you can re-equip the Batterskull on Puresteel Paladin afterwards in order to protect him from something like a burn spell, Black Sun’s Zenith or Mutilate. If you are digging for something like a Mortarpod or Dispatch, you can also always bounce the Batterskull back to your hand and replay it so you can draw a card off the Paladin.

Flayers Husks are the little drones of the deck. They get played early on, get a few points of damage in, die, get equipped and then enable Metalcraft. A nice little life for a 1-cost equipment,no?. Oh, I even forgot to mention: draw a card. Well, most of the time. Your opponent will almost never want to trade his 1/1’s with a Flayer Husk, so don’t be shy and attack him when you can.

A small amount of the deck’s removal also comes from Mortarpod. This mini-removal can be very effective as there are quite a few little creatures in the format. You will often be needing to take down things that have more than 1 toughness with it. That’s also where the Puresteel 0-cost equip ability comes into play. A word to the wise: use it almost immediately on a Blade Splicer. You don’t want to get greedy and keep the Germ Token to block an attacker and then try to kill the Blade Splicer. This will almost always be met with a Restoration Angel flash in response and you will be losing all sorts of ‘value’ because you opted to be greedy. It’s bad enough you didn’t kill a 1/1 token producer, now it’s back and it brought back a little friend.

The big difference making equipment in this deck is Sword of War and Peace. A lot of decks out there play white, making the protection very relevant. The life gain/burn ability gets out of hand quickly and can end the game in a flash. Although less decks are playing red creatures, but keep in mind that it will protect your equipped creature from something like a Bonfire of the Damned. It’s a hugely popular card right now and very effective. So slap your sword on the creature you value most.

Accorder’s Shield may not look like much but it does a few decent things for its 0 cost. It can be fetched by Trinket Mage and played immediately, usually drawing you a card off of Puresteel Paladin. It also give your creature vigilance, which is pretty insane with Etched Champions. It allows them to play both sides of the field and eventually win the game. The extra 3 toughness is hardly a laughing matter either. It makes even the lowliest creature useful on defense. You can even pretend you are swinging with a mini-Serra Angel when attacking your opponent with Glint Hawk.

The other two one-ofs were pretty much covered before. They are both retrievable with Trinket Mage and each fills a completely different role. Go get Silver-Inlaid Dagger if you are going on offense. Alternatively, go fetch Sylvok Lifestaff if you need the lifegain, or if you want to do Lifestaff/Mortapod shenanigans.

Sideboard

This sideboard is somewhat metagamed but I think it’s reasonably flexible. You don’t absolutely need a Snapcaster Mage in there, but he is rather good if you are planning on siding in the Instants. He’s also uncounterable with Cavern and another body you can remove to make a spirit token with Moorland Haunt. Other than that, I would maybe tweek it a little more to combat Curse of Death’s Hold. That is a huge card against this deck. The few games I have lost with this deck can be attributed to 1-2 copies of that card in play. When there are two copies, the Leonin Relic-Warder should be good to permanently exile one of them.

You cast the Relic-Warder. If he is not countered, he will enter the battlefield. Once on the battlefield, his come into play ability will go on the stack, however state-based effects will be checked and see that he is a 0/0 and thus dies. This will cause his leave the battlefield ability to go on the stack. The stack will resolve in a last-in/first-out order. The leave play ability resolves, doing pretty much nothing. Then the enter the battlefield ability resolves, removing the Curse forever and ever. It’s a neat little trick that is good to know, since aside from Oblivion Ring and Celestial Purge, is one of the only outs you have in that situation.

I would like to experiment more and see what the optimal number of Dispense Justices is. The environment is pretty aggressive right now. Anytime you can get a two-for-one out of this bad boy is just great.

You will usually swap out Swords of War and Peace for Swords of Feast and Famine if you are facing a deck that has anything Green or Black in it. I believe it needs to be stated even if it seems obvious to a lot of you.  Other commonly sided out cards are: Glint Hawk, 1 x Mortarpod, Flayer Husk, Grafdigger’s Cage and 1-2 x Trinket Mage. You always want to keep the core engine running in almost all situations. There are some really rare times you will want to take out the Dispatches. A good example is if your opponent is playing a version of the UW Hallelujah deck not aware that it was a Block deck and not a Standard deck. It happens more often than you think, since a lot of people will just do a straight port instead of adding in the non-block stuff.

That wraps it up for today. I will try to write more articles on a more regular basis.

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Duel Deck: Golgari vs Izzet Spoilers

Lands (24)
1 Forgotten Cave
10 Island
2 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Lonely Sandbar
9 Mountain
1 Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind

Creatures (15)

1 Djinn Illuminatus
1 Galvanoth
1 Gelectrode
1 Goblin Electromancer
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Izzet Guildmage
2 Kiln Fiend
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
1 Ogre Savant
2 Shrewd Hatchling
1 Steamcore Weird
2 Wee Dragonauts

Other Spells (22)

1 Brainstorm
1 Call to Heel
1 Dissipate
1 Fire
Ice
1 Force Spike
1 Invoke the Firemind
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Izzet Charm
1 Izzet Signet
1 Magma Spray
1 Overwhelming Intellect
1 Prophetic Bolt
2 Pyromatics
1 Quicksilver Dagger
1 Reminisce
1 Sphinx-Bone Wand
1 Street Spasm
1 Thunderheads
1 Train of Thought
1 Vacuumelt

Lands (24)

1 Barren Moor
1 Dakmor Salvage
8 Forest
2 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
10 Swamp
1 Tranquil Thicket

Creatures (23)

1 Boneyard Wurm
1 Brain Weevil
1 Doomgape
1 Dreg Mangler
2 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Eternal Witness
1 Gleancrawler
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Rotwurm
1 Golgari Thug
1 Greater Mossdog
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Korozda Guildmage
1 Plagued Rusalka
1 Putrid Leech
1 Ravenous Rats
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Shambling Shell
1 Stingerfling Spider
1 Stinkweed Imp

Other Spells (14)

1 Feast or Famine
1 Ghoul’s Feast
1 Golgari Germination
1 Golgari Signet
1 Grim Flowering
1 Life
Death
1 Life from the Loam
1 Nightmare Void
2 Putrefy
1 Twilight’s Call
1 Vigor Mortis
1 Yoke of the Damned

Looks like an awesome value package!

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You will not win on Turn 1 !

by Mario Armenti

You will NOT win on the first turn of the game in Magic the Gathering (in Standard play). If your goal however is to win on the first turn, you might consider playing Type 1/Vintage MTG and spending vast sum of money compared to Yugioh.

Magic the Gathering is a turn based game that relies on costs. Yugioh has cards that are banned if they become too powerful and cause you to gain significant advantage over your opponent.

The  following should give you a fair idea about what Magic the Gathering is when starting it after playing Yugioh.

Yugioh has a style of gameplay that allows you to play many cards in one turn and many abilities. However, the term cookie-cutter is a term very commonly used in the game of Yugioh. Whether you’re playing an Inzector or Dino Rabbit deck in the present yugioh metagame, these decks are all similare because they are all playing mostly the same cards (with a few exceptions here and there). These exceptions are called “Tech” and are considered cards that adapt to a player’s playstyle and allow him/her to just have fun with these cards. A personal favorite of mine in the Advanced play of Yugioh is Enemy Controller.

 

This quick-play spell card allows you to either turn one of the opponent’s creatures to defense mode or by sacrificing one of your creatures, you can take control of one of theirs for the turn. Pretty powerful stuff!

I’ve been through it all. From Beatdown decks in 2002 with Gemini Elves and Spear Dragon, to Hand Control with Yata Garasu and Don Zaloog (massive favorite back then for me, still all-time favorite card today) in 2003, to Chaos Control in 2004 with Chaos Emperor Dragon and Black Luster Soldier (that is still played today). Afterwards, the first-ever banlist came and all of these decks were literally shot to the ground. Most of the aformented cards were not able to be played and new, weaker versions of cards that were banned started to appear. Lightning Vortex was an imitiation to Raigeki that targets face up monsters. Pretty weak stuff!

    

From this point on, I started to drift away from the game of Yugioh. I still remained in the loop however. New decks started to emerge and anything with individuality was very appealing to me. Theme decks do not have a grasp on my interest as a player, so when I mix and mash powerful cards together is when I’m having the most  fun.

Also, the player base in yugioh is generally adolescent. I do however play here and there and get criticized at how I must be very knowledgable about a game that is mostly for them. This is when you know that it’s not your time anymore.As a card gamer  and as an Italian, there is more than just Scopa and Briscola (Italian card games).

Now enters Magic: the Gathering. I tried the game as I was on a descent of interest in Yugioh, but the rules were just so complicated at the time. I did however win important matches, but we can say that my wins didn’t solely come from my skill in the game. The game became more like Yugioh in terms of difficulty in remembering key terms and became fun and enjoyable for me. Many things you had to watch out for were essentially gone, and I started this ‘new’ card game.

Here are key lessons I’ve learned playing Magic the Gathering:

–          The financial cost of key cards are significantly cheaper

–          There is not only a Standard play (Advanced in Yugioh), but Draft and Sealed play

–          Draft and Sealed play bring their own way of playing Magic to the table and can be played with friends, and is very cheap compared to creating your own deck

–          Knowledge is acquired very fast. This is admittedly much easier done in Yugioh because the card text is simpler when compared to magic, but the gameplay is tremendous.

–          The only way to get better at yugioh is by playing the only format that exists, Advanced, and playing versus better players.

–          The many ways of getting better at magic is playing Legacy (older format), Modern (moderately latest format), Standard (latest format), Draft and Sealed (Limited formats).

As you can see, Magic has many ways of offering practice to a player of any level. It is also much, MUCH harder to win at Magic than it is Yugioh. I’d honestly differentiate both games between University and High School and/or College, because the gap is definitely that big.

Yugioh would be much more enjoyable on a short term basis because the games do not last very long. Everything is very straight forward, even if there are rules questions as there are in every game, questions of card combinations arise much more often than what a card does. Magic’s rulings are much more hidden. A card can state a text but much more often than not the text can be confusing if we haven’t seen much of it already.

Essentially, a new Magic player would want to start Drafting. That is how most players I know have started the game because not only is it the cheapest method of learning how to play the game, but it also brings a flavor of Magic that only playing Draft does. Players are given 3 packs then they open one, pick a card and pass it around. This goes on until all three packs are opened and you make a 40 card deck with provided lands (usually 17 lands and 23 non-lands). Sealed play is more simple, but twice to three times the price. 6 packs and lands are provided, and you again make a deck of 40 cards.

However, the main lesson that every starting magic player that has transitioned from yugioh needs to learn is the concept of a Cost.

Not the kind of cost in Yugioh while playing with your cards, but the cost of actually playing the card. Lands are required in a deck of 60 cards and this is used to pay to play your cards. Symbols of colors on the top right hand corners of cards are what is needed to play the card from your hand. Therefore, a sole green (forest) symbol from the top right hand corner means that once your turn starts, you play a Forest, tap it (turning it to Defense mode like in yugioh) then play the card which you paid for its cost for from your hand.

Finally, a key way to transition skills acquired in Yugioh is to play with colors and cards that you like. Usually, player will want to play something more aggressive such as White, Red or Green colors and their monsters. Black and Blue are usually more control-based and are less aggressive which might not be as appealing to new players who mostly want to have fun.

Thank you for reading!

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A Limited Review : Black in M13

by Ronald Be

Blood Reckoning

I never really play this card as I consider it a little too sketchy in a limited environment. I suppose if you are playing a really controlling deck or your opponent is playing more of a token-spam strategy, you might want to play this card.

Otherwise I would almost always pass this in Draft and ignore it in Sealed.

Bloodhunter Bat
It’s hard to argue with this, since:

A) it’s a decent-sized flyer with a good ability.

B) You will always include this in your decks for both the agressive and the control type of deck since you get an attacker, blocker, some damage and lifegain.

Bloodthrone Vampire
What made this vampire playable in M11 was because of two card, Act of Treason and Fling.

They had an amazing synergy between each other. In this set though, the Act of Treason effect is now an uncommon card in Mark of Mutiny and Fling was not printed. I could see Bloodthrone Vampire working alongside Disciple of Bolas if you want to process all your useless creatures to draw and gain a lot of life or with Fungal Sprouting as a method of boosting your Vampire or having a high powered creature.

Cower in Fear
I haven’t had much experience with this yet. It looks like a neat combat trick while removing all of your opponent’s one toughness guys, of which there are a lot in this set. This is a decent pick in draft but it’s still not as good as Murder.

Crippling Blight
This deals with the problematic one toughness creatures and puts a stop to Giant Scorpion and Deadly Recluse. I would play at least one in my deck, and side in some more if necessary.

Dark Favor
I have mixed feelings about this enchantment.

On one hand, if they don’t deal quickly with your enchanted creature, you will win (i.e. putting this turn two on a Tormented Soul). On the other, you always have the chance of getting two-for-oned. When making your deck, you can go either way and during sideboard you adjust accordingly to the number of removal you’ve seen in your opponents deck.

Diabolic Revelations
This card is powerful but very hard to use in my opinion. The main difficulty stems from how long do you keep it in your hand. If you’re a greedy person by nature, try to cast this for less value than you’d like. If you think about it, getting any two cards in your deck is already great.

Disciple of Bolas
Disciple of Bolas fits a deck with big creatures, so it pairs well with Green. Even if you sacrifice a four-power guy, you can get a lot more in 4 cards.

Disentomb
This sorcery can be regarded as adding B to any of your dead creatures, so if you have any creatures worth bringing back, add this to your deck.

Duress
Usually decks have between 4 to 8 non-creature spells, so playing this maindeck can be decent. Personally, unless I see something that I really need to get rid of or that I don’t have enough playables, this will stay in my sideboard most of the time.

Duskmantle Prowler
The question you ask yourself here is, would you pay 3B for a 3/3 haste? I would in a heartbeat. Of course, it’s not always going to be a 3/3 but that’s balanced by the fact that he has Exalted and that it would stack with other Exalted triggers.

 

Duty-Bound Dead
This is probably my second favorite black common from this set. It can provide the early attack, stay back and defend later in the game while still boosting your attacker. One of the most versatile creature in M13.

Essence Drain
Removal is removal even if it costs 5 mana to cast.

Giant Scorpion
Great defensive creature. If you compare this to Deadly Recluse, it doesn’t have Reach and costs one more. But the biggest difference here is the additional toughness, it gives him so much more survivability in combat. Usually creatures can simply trade with the spider, The Scorpion just blocks most of them because your opponent won’t want to trade a 3 powered guy for this.

Harbor Bandit
You need an Island to play this creature, don’t add him to your deck if you don’t. When you do have the required land, this guy becomes a scary monster for your opponent.

Liliana of the Dark Realms
Whenever you play a Planeswalker, it’ll immediatly put a target on their head. In Liliana’s case, I think that’s her best ability, followed by her removal and her deck thinning, land searching ability. It’s quite an awful Planeswalker to have in Limited.

Knight of Infamy
A very cost-effective creature. It affects the next attacking creature and if you drop it early enough, it can get some serious damage in.

Liliana’s Shade
This is a good Shade. First, you don’t lose any card if it gets destroyed. Second, the land you get is useful to his Shade ability.

Mark of the Vampire
Auras are always a risky gamble, if you control a Blue Ring, Black Ring, Hexproof guy. You might side it in if you see that your opponent has no removal.

Mind Rot
In all my years of playing Magic, I still don’t have any clue on how to rate this card. You can get card advantage if you draw it early enough, but late game, when all of the spells are ripped from the top of the deck, it becomes a dead card. I would play it if I don’t have anything else to play.

Murder
Best Black Common. It gets rid of almost anything. In a Draft, the good (and bad) thing about this card is that it costs 1BB, which means that it’s not splashable. It’s bad because when you’re gonna see it while you’re not in Black, you’ll just pass it. And good when you’ll be in Black because there is going to be a higher number of Murder in circulation.

Mutilate
Even if you’re playing light Black, as long as you’re able to cast it, you’ll at least get -2/-2, which is in my opinion, very good.

Nefarox
Flyer. Check
High power and high toughness. Check
Reasonable casting cost. Check
Good abilities. Check
This is a Bomb.

Phylactery Lich
Maybe if you have between 5-8 artifact, this could be playable. And even then you still have the problem of the harsh mana requirement of BBB.

Public Execution
This is what you get when Murder and Cower in Fear have an infant.

Ravenous Rats
It’s very good in this set since you have exalted in Black, which can give the rats a second use.

Rise from the Grave
Black is the color that kills creatures. It can effectively bring back any creature you’ve had trouble with and turn it back against its master.

Servant of Nefarox
It has a direct effect in game when played and it has a nice attacking body.

Shimian Specter
If your opponent can’t deal with this, he’ll go into top deck mode. Plus, you get to see what he plays in his deck to make your future choices including sideboard.

Sign in Blood
Good card draw. I prefer this over Mind Rot in terms of card advantage, also it can kill your opponent if needed.

Tormented Soul
Very good in aggressive decks. The only thing I dislike is his one toughness, which is very important in this set, since there’s so many things that can affect that single point of life that the creature has.

Vampire Nocturnus
I would always play it if I play heavy black but else i’d leave it out for a few reasons, if you don’t play heavy black you might not get the bonus and you always have to reveal the top card of your library which is information that your opponent can make use of freely.

Veilborn Ghoul
This is better than I thought, it’s basically target opponent sacrifices a creatrure. and if you have exalted, he or she will have to have more power.

Walking Corpse
Okay creature, fits the curve if needed.

Vampire Nighthawk
One of the most solid creatures in the format. It’s one of the best defensive card in the set while still being very useful offensively. It has evasion, it can kill any creature and wins in a race situation, what else is there to add.

Vile Rebirth
Good combat trick, can remove cards like Veilborn Ghoul or creatures that are targetted in the graveyard.

Wit’s End
This has Wit just like Battle of Wits, both dearly unplayable.

Xathrid Gorgon
It a very good ground blocker and slowly transforms your opponents creatures into walls. Combined with either evasion creature or alternative win conditions, this becomes a great support card. Worse case scenario, this becomes a 3 powered attacker.

Zombie Goliath
Usually you have better 5 drops instead of this, but if you have no finisher, you could reluctantly insert this in your deck

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Nothing to See Here

by Sebastien Owens

Killing your opponent by bringing his life points to zero is sooooo mainstream!

I mean there are so many other ways to do it!

Ok, hipster glasses off!  Defeating our opponent by bringing him/her  to zero is a fine way to win the game, but frankly we’ve done it so many times it just isn’t that special anymore. Am I right? Ok maybe not.. Taking down an opponent is always great no matter what. But it is always cool to win by other means! That’s why some people are drawn to infect or stuff like High Tide or combo such as Hive Mind.

Alternate win conditions are fun and will always be. Be it by dealing 10 poison or by having more than 200 cards in your library. Thing is: most of those alternate win conditions exept for infect (but frankly to me it just feels the same as punching him right in the Hit Points) are out of Standard. Also, Battle of Wits is already beeing explored by many pro players. Strangely enough, Battle of Wits isn’t the only alternate win condition M13 brought along with it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Door to Nothingness!

This card is so cool, it doesn’t just win you the game… It makes your opponent LOSE IT! BLAM! Right in the self-esteem!

Thing is, Door to Nothingness isn’t as easy to win with as Battle of Wits. It doesn’t win on its own.You need to get 2 of each color of mana in order to activate it AND you must be able to untap with it!

So in order to win with this card you have to work for it… Hell! I’m a control player if I didn’t like to work for my wins I don’t know why I would ever play that archetype! So I set on a quest to build a deck that can reliably open the Door to Nothingness! (Epic quest music playing in the background … maybe something from the Lord of the Rings)

– Flavor text from door to nothingness

Oh,ok so I’m an imbecile too ? That was uncalled for Wizards!

The first requirement to open the Door to Nothingness : Lands!

And how do we get such lands into play? Ramp spells!

… And other stuff that fetches us lands. So here is what I was thinking:
4x Farseek
4x Rampant Growth
4x Mycosynth Wellspring
4x Sphere of the Suns
4x Primeval Titan
4x Solemn Simulacrum

Phew!  that is a lot of ramp spells! Thing is : you want this if you want to be able to have the right mana consistently. Plus these spells let us have the core of a Wolf Run deck which is good. Also, I like having the Wellsprings because while not ramping you it does at least assure you a land drop so you can be sure that you at least play a land per turn. The Sphere of the Suns are great here because even though someone would destroy one of your lands you know you have the Spheres as backup. Solemn Simulacrums are great because they provide defence and card drawing until you can find your Door.

Ok so what is next?

I don’t like to have the whole deck based on drawing and winning with the door. I wanted to be able to tutor it up and have other ways to win, so I splashed black for tutors and Grave Titans and added a Kessig Wolf Run. That way, we could use our lands for damage.

2x Diabolic Tutor
4x Ichor Wellspring
2x Grave Titan
1x Kessig Wolf Run

As I said in my previous articles I think Grave Titan is the best titan because he can take over a game on his own, giving you an army to block and attack with. Even if they get rid of the titan his remains are still very powerful (Hehe, remains) . Ichor Wellspring just draws you cards, which is usually good. With all of this said I ended up with something like this:

Door to Nothingness deck wins!

2x Grave Titan
4x Primeval Titan
4x Solemn Simulacrum

2x Diabolic Tutor
4x Farseek
4x Rampant Growth

4x Door to Nothingness
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Mycosynth Wellspring
4x Sphere of the Suns

10x Forest
2x Island
1x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Mountain
3x Phyrexia’s Core
2x Plains
4x Swamp

Notice the absence of Standard dual lands. The thing is that I wanted all my lands to be fetchable, so that I don’t have any problems with my colors to activate the door. The sideboard is still a work in progress, but feel free to add anything from any color.

The mana configuration is so good that you won’t ever have any problem casting anything. This deck has been performing very well for me thus far and  I am sometimes able to activate door to nothingness’ ability on turn 6! With all that said, I don’t think this deck will ever be a serious contender but it is a hell of a lot of fun to play!

Alright folks, thats it for now! Before I go, next FNM I will be playing a deck that I have been itching to play for a while:

Stuffy Doll !

Here is the list so far.I will try to make a small report on how I did in my next article. See ya folks!

4x Stuffy Doll

2x Harvest Pyre
2x Volt Charge

4x Blasphemous Act
4x Faithless Looting
4x Pillar of Flame
4x Slagstorm
4x Whipflare

4x Shrine of Burning Rage

4x Chandra, the Firebrand

2x Buried Ruin
2x Cavern of Souls
4x Hellion Crucible
16x Mountain

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Commander’s Arsenal

These contents seem very commander-like.

Oversized Commanders. Check!

-/+ counters. Check!

Sleek sleeves. Check!

FOILY staple cards. Check!

Exclusive life counter. Check? woah!

Pretty epic, huh?

Value?

Definitely Check!

Full contents:

  • 18 premium foil cards
  • 10 oversized premium foil cards
  • 120 UltraPRO foil card sleeves
  • 20 double-sided Battle Marks (+ and –)
  • A life counter that goes up to 99

These are sure to go fast, so make sure to grab them when you can at your local card store.