Green deck name is “Repeat Performance”
And, the Red one is name “Sweet Revenge”
Packaging is just too nice! It makes me want to get a full box of this product.
From the Vault: Realms Complete Spoiler (15 of 15)
1) Glacial Chasm
Not too shabby, I guess. The rumors that it may have been a Thawing Glaciers have been put to rest.
This was a one-of in the 40-something Lands deck in Legacy. It shut down insane amounts of aggro for sometimes NO life payment as you just recurred it over and over with Life From the Loam.
2) Dryad Arbor
At least some Legacy players can now ‘pimp’ their decks. However, I personally prefer the old art. This card makes it clear to all that it is a forest and all, but it also kind of makes it look like a ‘proxy’ card for some reason.
Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know…
3) Forbidden Orchard
This reprint seem legit. It’s good in multiplayer EDH to temporarily buy yourself an ally by perhaps providing someone with a chump blocker and it gives you any color mana as well. I think the art on it is on par with the old version as well.
4) Grove of the Burn Willows
A much appreciated reprint for Legacy as it has been banned in Modern (well, technically the card that combos with it was, Punishing Fire) . Very acceptable for EDH as well since the one life gain is somewhat never an issue. Again, can be used to buy yourself an ally if you can save someone who was about to die on the nose (unlikely in EDH) but you never know.
Art-wise, I am still a fan of the old kind of charcoal-color feel the trees have. And yes, I adore the Future Sight frame. It’s neat and well thought out as far as design goes. Th new one seems less stylized, and blends in more with a lot of the other lands/backgrounds. It doesn’t stand out enough to make a newer player exclaim: ” What on Earth is that?”
5) Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Wow! I think a reprint of this has been long awaited. Playable in just about every format it’s legal in, this land is always in high demand by new players and old. It, along with maybe Wasteland were the most anticipated ones. We have no confirmation on Wasteland so far, but we can hope. It would totally help in bringing down the barrier to entry in Legacy somewhat. Of course, this is depending on how likely players that buy this 15-card box are to trade them away or how much the reprints would sell for.
This one gets the same art treatment, so you can use it to bling your deck instead of having to track down an expensive original foil one.
6) Murmuring Bosk
Another reprint I can really get behind. It’s a fetchable dual-painland hybrid that can maybe not come into play tapped depending on the deck. Usually used in old Standard, Extended and Modern Doran decks, this land will always fix your color issues. If you play some kind of GWB deck in Legacy you can also kind of use it if Overgrown Tombs and Bayous are a little too pricy for your taste.
It’s also pretty cute that it has the little forest symbol in grey as a watermark. Comes out clean and is a great way to remember that it always counts as a forest. Nice job on that on Wizards!
I think also be more of an indication that the Shocklands from Ravnica are returning in the Return to Ravnica block. Having the split symbols on the Shocklands would be a dream come true for some players. There have been rumors that they may also be full-art ( a la Zendikar) as well, but let’s not get carried away here, eh?
In conclusion, I believe this From the Vault box in particular will be a real hot ticket item, more so than all previous versions combined. The Legends version was the least popular and is still obtainable in certain retail store for a not too high price. i really don’t see this happening with this From the Vault series.
7) Maze of Ith
Just recently announced.
Wow!!!! just wow! talk about addign value to this From the Vault series.
8) Ancient Tomb
Legacy players rejoice! This one was a long time coming, especially in the stompy builds.
It was a rather costly uncommon too.
9) Vesuva
This time the EDH community gets a nod. Not bad at all. How many FTV: Realms are you all planning to buy?
10) Cephalid Colisseum
A Legacy Dredge mainstay is now a From the Vault foil. Not bad, seeing as how a foil version of this uncommon runs you about 15$.
11) Desert
I guess they have to print some bad ones sometimes. Maybe if you play FOIL Pauper EDH. LOL!
12) Shivan Gorge
Speaking of bad reprints. Eh! You can’t win ’em all. I guess you don’t want this whole box to seem like a total cash grab…
13) Windbrisk Heights
Hm, they printed one of each ‘colored’ ability lands. This one was a staple in Lorwyn Standard Kithkin and I believe some Extended and Modern decks. All in all, some good value on this one for all formats it would be legal in (ie: all but the current Standard).
14) High Market
A wonderful little gem here!
I don’t believe they were allowed to reprint Diamond Valley. This is pretty much what you think it is: an EDH card.
It’s kind of important to be able to sacrifice your permanents for value or to save them from Control Magic effects in EDH and that is what this card does for your creatures. The 1 life gain is usually irrelevant, that much should be obvious.
A foil version of this card was quite pricey so this can now be an auto-include in all-FOIL EDH decks .
15) Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Almost exclusively an EDH card, it does see some fringe play in Modern and Legacy formats alike. Definitely a nice card in casual formats if you are tired of the control player in your playgroup.
I’d say this is one of the money card in the box set. Probably what I would consider the middle ground of the box, financially speaking.
I was a fan of the art on it, so it’s cool that they kept it intact.
+) Moving Forward …
Hopefully these reprints will breathe some more life back into Legacy and EDH for now and make the game as a whole more accessible to those who really want to play it.
Let us know what you think about this awesome little box of value by commenting this post.
Until then, may you never have to shuffle a Battle of Wits deck!
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Super Hero Squad TCG Review
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by Steve Giannopoulos
Today we will take a little break from the usual CCG discussions and shed some light on a brand new one:
Marvel Super Hero Squad TCG
Upper Deck has been trying to do something with the Marvel License for quite some time now since VS. System is no more. They also apparently changed their target gaming audience. While VS. System targeted players of about 16 years or older, I believe this CCG is targeting a much younger audience.
The game itself is really simple and well-desgined. You can literally grab 4 boosters per player, shuffle up and then duel! You heard right! This is no exaggeration. No resources/mana (like Magic: The Gathering) and no card restrictions (like color, faction,etc.). There is a maximum number of copies of any card you can pack, 4. It is rather unlikely you get more than 4 of the same card in 4 boosters. Barring some card collation errors on the factory side of things, it’s impossible.
Allright, you have your 40 cards. Now what?
Now we decide which players starts. Coin clip, Die Roll, Odd or Even card number, etc. Randomly determine who starts the duel. Each Player’s POWER Rating will be 1. At the beginning of each player’s turn, a coin is flipped to check wether or not the Power goes up by 1. It is possible, though unlikely that certain games will end with the power being 5 or lower. However, most games I have played saw the power go up to like 13.
Sure, seems easy enough.
So far so good eh? Now we will begin with the different card types.
Attacks
These are your bread and butter in this game. You need these to damage your opponent and win this heroic battle.
Also….
There is no other card type! Simple enough for ya?
While there may not be another card type, there are a lot of things to take into account. For starters, there are 6 different kinds of attacks and they are color-coded even when reference by other cards. There is never really a need to remember the names of these attacks (in fact I only recall a handful).
There is only one set so far, so these are true as of that set.
One color of attack cannot block against its own color.
Basically, each attack has one or more colors it attacks with and one color it blocks. So you can have a red attack that blocks a purple attack but not itself. This obviously prevents lazy deckbuilding , such as just making a mono-blue attack deck.
An Attack with 2 or more symbols requires the defender to block with one of each symbol.
If you can only block half, you will take the full damage regardless. Sometimes, it maybe not be worth losing a card from your hand for nothing.
When taking damage, you flip one card from the top of your deck into your graveyard for each point of damage.
This is similar to a now-extinct game called WWE Raw Deal. It’s a great design as it allows you to keep playing without having to keep track of things such as life totals.
If you flip a card that can block the attack while taking damage, you will stop taking damage.
Now, this is very important. If you think or know that you can block the attack from the top of your deck instead of your hand, you probably want to do that instead of using an actual card from your hand. Again, even if you block it at 2-3 damage instead, it may be worth it.
You lose the game when you have no more cards left in your deck AND no more cards left in your hand.
This is quite the change from Raw Deal as it allows you to mount a last-ditch blitz to rally and possibly win the game. I have had games go down to 1 card in hand on each side. If the active player plays his last card and in turn forces his opponent to use up his last card, the attacker wins. That makes sense right? You want to force aggression.
Keepers are like planeswalkers in Magic: The Gathering.
There are cards called keepers that will allow you to produce a bonus/ongoing effect if your attack hit the opponent for a at least 2 damage (sometime more). This will cause the card to stay in play and trigger its effect when the time comes.
For example, one of the keepers does something simple like hit your opponent for 1 damage at the beginning of your turn. This damage CAN be blocked and if it is, will cause the keeper to be discarded. Also, flipping a block from your deck while taking damage will cause the keeper to get discarded.
the Counterattack ability is not as good as it sounds.
Basically, if the card has the counterattack characteristic, it will deal a small amount of damage to the attacker when you block with it. They are usually attacks that cost more for the amount of damage they can deal as attacks, due to the fact that they can potentially do some defensive damage.
Most attacks are really balanced. There are no ‘strictly better’ cards.
Even vanilla cards are decent as they have a pretty good damage output compared to attacks that produce effect. This is a rather refreshing change from most CCG’s where you are stuck with filler cards that seemingly have no use except for diversifying the limited format.
You are not allowed to check graveyards.
This is super important as it wastes a lot of time in any CCG and you don’t want to have younger kids waiting around while their opponents sifts through his graveyard. Also, in this game , It can provide a lot of information as to what would be left in your deck and influence your decision as to how and if to block. It promotes having a good memory instead of fussing around endlessly trying to figure out that odds of a block of the appropriate color being flipped.
There are teams/affiliations but they only provided bonuses and not restrictions.
No card is unplayable in your deck. Just that some of them gain bonuses if certain conditions are met. This is a really nice feature for players who are starting this as their first CCG. It saves them a lot of time deckbuilding.
As a general rule, you want to diversify your block symbols.
Since there is no ‘stronger’ color of attack, this makes sense. You will have about 6-7 of each block symbol in your deck. This will prevent you from getting totally overwhelmed by your opponent’s attacks and not being able to block/minimize damage.
It is generally a good idea to have a kind of ‘curve’ in your deck.
This is probably the most important piece of advice for deckbuilding. You generally want to have a lot of your attacks in the meaty part of the curve 3-6 and a few high end attacks as well. Generally you may want to add low cost keepers that will grant your other attacks bonuses.
You can only play 1 Attack per turn.
Simple concept there!
When blocking you don’t need to have the Power level of the card.
Blocks can be done at all times, regardless of power level. Again, not super obvious at first, but you get used to it.
You are not forced to block if you don’t want to.
I know it’s kind of an obvious one, but for the younger players this can be important. You need to make decisions in this game and this is probably one of the most important ones. Don’t waste a card to block when you can use it on your turn to do big damage.
That about covers most of the game’s concepts. There are cards that increase your Power level temporarily and that decrease your opponent’s as well.
This is only a first set, but there are already little mini-themes that give you a heads up on how certain teams/characters play.
Spider-Man has the Power 1 theme where all his 1 Power cards kind of ‘combo’ together in a string of attacks. Hulk/She-Hulk gain bonuses from playing with no cards in their hand such as attack boosts and damage resistance.
There are also super finisher cards that cost like 12+ power and have insane effects. The likelihood of those getting played in a game is slim unless you can decrease the power they require to play. Oftentimes a 15 damage attack will just get overturned on 3 damage, so the actual number on the damage is not as relevant as one might think.
In conclusion, I would like to note that if you are looking for a CCG to get your young ones into and, like myself, you are finding games like Pokemon, Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! a little too complex for them. Try this card game on for size!
Rating: B +
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I hear there are Loot cards in certain packs?
Yes, there is approximately 1 Loot card per booster box which can be scratched off and used in the Online game, giving you access to some goodies.
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Where can I get some Super Hero Squad TCG Singles?
We will be carrying singles for this game as soon as our back end is setup for it.
Look for them in the coming month!
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G/W Maverick in Legacy
Maverick, the non-blue Legacy deck
by Steve ‘DDT’ Giannopoulos
I remember a few years back, during the beginnings of the Legacy ‘boom’. Force of Will and Brainstorms were everywhere and in that respect, not much has changed. As a player that prefers decks that are more ‘fair’, I abhorred the idea of Free Counters and card filtering. It seemed kinda lame that it was a strictly blue ability and more or less forced you to play the color or just lose ( General Assumption, but more or less true). I shelled out my then Type 2 cards and some cash in order to obtain these Legacy staples at the then ‘ridiculous’ price of 25-30$. I had somewhat of an idea that these cards would maintain or gain value seeing that the format was a nice break from the Type 2 format which was dominated by Fairie decks at the time, which many people, including myself despised.
At the time, I became more familiar with a site called mtgthesource.com. I frequented the forums during slower periods at tech support job (they were few and far in between). I fell upon what I thought was a pretty awesome deck called Death and Taxes. I am sure most of you are familiar with it. For those who are not, you can probably Google it and read the primers. One of the main ‘tricks’ the deck does is activate Mangara of Corondor then in response to his ability bounce him back to your hand with Karakas, Stonecloaker or a Aether Vial’ed in Flickerwisp. The deck relies on little tricks such as this to slowly gain an advantage over the opponent and beat him down with creatures like Serra Avenger (which can be vialed in as soon as turn 3 instead of cast on turn 4). I played the deck endlessly and became known as the White Weenie guy. I didn’t really like that term because the deck wasn’t entirely a White Weenie deck, but it was the existant archetype that it most identified to. I like to think of it more as a Tricked Out Creature deck.
Fast forward a few years to the point where Alara block is now Standard. The release of Alara Reborn produces perhaps the most pivotal creature in the Maverick deck or at least one of the main reasons for the then Mono-White deck to splash green. I had often considered such a deck with Green for the Tarmogoyf splash (of course) and Krosan Grips in the sideboard. There was still a hole to fill. In comes … Qasali Pridemage! How awesome is this guy? I remember the initial spoiler did not even include the fact that he had exalted and I still thought he was awesome. Rarity was not officially spoiled either and I was obviously thinking Rare,right? Nope. Just wow!
This dude allowed the deck to get to the ‘next level’ but of course, the deck still had a long way to go. I won’t go over all the long and boring-ish details about how all the other cards for it fell into place to produce this Legacy Staple. I will however mention that Scavenging Ooze and Green Sun’s Zenith were pretty key.
Onto the decklist :
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Updated Maverick
1 x Aven Mindcensor
1 x Loyal Retainers
2 x Qasali Pridemage
2 x Scavenging Ooze
3 x Fauna Shaman
4 x Mother of Runes
4 x Noble Hierarch
1 x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 x Gaddock Teeg
2 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Spells (10)
2 x Umezawa’s Jitte
Lands (23)
1 x Plains
2 x Forest
1 x Dryad Arbor
1 x Horizon Canopy
2 x Cavern of Souls
2 x Misty Rainforest
4 x Savannah
4 x Wasteland
4 x Windswept Heath
2 x Karakas
Sideboard (15)
2 x Gideon Jura
2 x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 x Purify the Grave
1 x Spike Feeder
3 x Choke
1 x Harmonic Sliver
1 x Bojuka Bog
1 x Maze of Ith
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For starters, it should be noted that this list always goes through certain modifications to combat a lot of the other Legacy deck types that are becoming more and more popular (in this case, Reanimator).
We will go over some of the card choices and see how and why they are useful and chosen over other possible candidates.
Lands
Previous versions only played one copy, however with the emergence of more Reanimator and the rise of the Show and Tell / Sneak Attack deck popularity, this card is becoming even more of a necessity. It can also be used to bounce and save your legendary creatures from the likes of cards like Swords to Plowshares . Also, there is the off-chance that a dredge deck Dread Returns an Iona of their own (usually they won’t do that if you have Karakas already in play). It will allow you to then bounce it to continue to play your white spells (usually the dredge player will name white, usually). Against Reanimator, it will bounce their Griselbrand which will keep them off the lifelink plan after they have drawn 7 and paid 7 life thus allowing you to win via your smaller creature beatdown.
We are playing Green and White, in a Legacy format. If you feel these are somewhat expensive, then by all means, you can opt for the cheaper dual Temple Garden.
The seemingly useless land from Planar Chaos, now one of the key cards in the deck. This card allows us to do quite a few interesting things:
Ramp – yes, a turn 1 Green Sun’s Zenith for 0 will in fact allow us to put this land into play thus giving us a potential access of 3 mana on turn 2 assuming we play a land on turn 2. This then allows us to play our ‘fatties’ like Knight of the Reliquary.
Potential Infinite Blocker – I say Potential here because some versions play Scryb Ranger or Quirion Ranger that will allow us to bounce our Forest / creature back to our hand after blocking opposing creatures. This in turn can avoid things such as opposing Umezawa’s Jitte’s from getting charge counters put onto them since combat damage will not be done.
Potential post board-whipe Jitte carrier – So you’ve overcommited or just lost all your dudes to a Terminus courtesy of the Miracles deck or a Pernicious Deed. Luckily, you’ve ‘brilliantly’ foreseen this or simply played well by leaving an uncracked fetchland open. At the end of your opponent’s turn you proceed to fetch for a ‘forest’ which turns out to be Dryad Arbor . On your turn, you equip your awesome critter with the Jitte and go to town.
That’s quite some high expectations from this little guy eh? It should be ok, as long as you don’t draw him in your opening hand. 🙂
This IS Legacy we’re talking about. Why would you not play this land? Everyone is running non-basics and you get the upside of being able to search for these with your awesome Knight of the Reliquary. It is not uncommon to ‘Waste’ your opponent’s subsequent landrops by simply playing Forests or Plains and turning them into Wastelands with your Knight. Unless your opponent can draw basics or play fetches to get basics into the battlefield … they are in pretty big trouble.
Fetchlands
Effectively thin your deck and pump your knight by putting more lands into the graveyard and some basics or duals into play. These are also key to defensively pumping your knight of the reliquary when he is blocking by increasing his power/toughness by 2. You sac a Forest/Plains then you go grab a fetchland to crack it and fetch for a land again. 2 lands would have gone to your graveyard this turn and your knight will have grown. Again, better players will see this option so it’s not exactly a trick really.
It does, however become a trick if you are playing Scryb Ranger and flash it in so you can untap your knight and repeat the process. This is a +4/+4 play, much much more effective usually as it will maybe be killing something pretty large and surviving to tell the story.
What? I thought this was Legacy! Odd … or is it?
Take a look, 16 of the creatures have a common creature type. In fact, you too, fellow reader share this creature type: Human. Yeah, ok kinda lame, I know.
Let’s take a look at why this might be useful.
There is still the combination Sensei’s Divining Top / Counterbalance running around in Legacy. This effectively counters all your one drops (and you run quite a few) as well as whatever else is in their top 3 cards (provided they have that extra mana open to change the order). It can be quite frustrating for this deck to get locked by this and thusly, Cavern of Souls gets the nod.
Elves might be the other creature type named with the Cavern, if you then want to start fetching other dudes with Fauna Shaman and simply need him to stick. You can also go get this land with Knight of the Reliquary which can be key in doing things like naming wizard to flash an end of turn Aven Mindcensor or simply get a Qasali Pridemage into play to then pop him and destroy say, a Counterbalance.
Of course, you can always just name ‘Praetor’ and drop an Elesh Norn for some real backbreaking action! But I digress …
Spells
The creature removal choice in Legacy since 199x. I mean seriously, you are playing white and need to sometimes get rid of their dudes. What ELSE would you play? If you were more aggro, you could opt for maybe Path to Exile. In this deck however, you are also running some mana denial and can’t really afford to have them go get lands. The life gain is ‘usually’ negligible. Even if you are using it on a Griselbrand. The dude will still gain 7 life if he gets to swing, so just do it!
This is probably the card that makes it all possible. You pretty much tutor for most creatures in your deck. You just need to make sure not to cast Thalia or Gaddock Teeg because that will cause some problems when you want to cast this spell. It can easily happen if you don’t plan out ahead and need to cast Gaddock Teeg in order to prevent a deck from casting things like Jace the Mindsculptor or a combo deck from casting Ad Nauseam. (in the later case, it’s not THAT bad)
What doesn’t this equipment do? It’s pretty much your removal against aggro, your lifegain vs. Burn decks and your clock vs. more control-oriented decks. I am sure after reading the card you will not need to understand why it’s legendary and why it’s worth over 20$. It’s that good. You will notice the absence of Stoneforge Mystic in this deck as an equipment fetcher. This is because we are rather equipment-light, the Jitte being the only search target. Also, Stoneforge is not something you can fetch with Green Sun’s Zenith.
However, a case can be made for including one copy seeing as how we run multiple Fauna Shamans. Feel free to experiment and gauge for yourself at its efficiency in the deck.
This is here for when your creatures fail to get the job done. Excellent vs. control decks especially the ones that are old school and run Humility (the rest of the deck does pretty much nothing against that card). But those are OOOOOOLD school. You never know though, they might make a comeback. Also, she acts as an equipment for when you can equip your guys and do extra damage and end the game. Post board-whipe she is awesome. Also works well with the Dryad Arbor plan fetching at the end of your opponent’s turn. This card has been praised to no end in almost all formats. No need to repeat what’s already been said except to say that some decks opt not to run her in favor or an extra Fauna Shaman.
Creatures
This is what it’s all about. Interact with your opponent’s board through creatures and provide the beatdown. First off, we have the 1-drops:
Similar to Birds of Paradise in Standard, this little girl provides us with the acceleration we need to drop accelerated threats in play ( such as Knight of the Reliquary) and potentially turn 3 Elspeth. Contrary to the Birds, this creature can properly attack with an Umezawa’s Jitte. It’s rather embarassing to equip a Jitte and then try to attack with the flying 0/1 and expect to do damage. However, the ‘Exalted’ keyword (something M13 brought back) rectifies this with the Hierarch.
Seemingly inoffensive until you see what it can do. I remember playing against this when me and my friend started playing back in the summer of 2001 and we didn’t fully understand the awesomeness of they protection keyword. It does a lot of neat stuff in your deck (again, even more ridiculous when paired with Scryb Ranger as it can double up on the effect).
It can single-handedly stop opposing ground creatures from hitting you and triggering their equipment or allow your guys to get past opposing defenses. A lot of times it will force your opponent to have a second removal card in hand as it efectively negates one on its own. Even when summoning sick, the opponent will be likely to Swords to Plowshares it or Lightning Bolt it in fear of having those cards be less effective vs your other threats later on.
I for one, would love an alternate art reprint. The artwork is ok, but seems dated by today’s MTG card art standards.
Let’s continue with the Legendary Creatures (aka. guys you can reanimate with Loyal Retainers)
Realistically, this deck would not have played such a creature. However, the combination of Fauna Shaman and Loyal Retainers makes it rather potent. Add to that the fact that you can actually amass enough mana via a Gaea’s Cradle to actually cast it instead of simply reanimating it. She probably will give you the upper hand in some kind of mirror match or vs. something like merfolk (despite their infinite Lords). Against Dredge, it will not leave them with many options either. Also, if your opponent would have a removal saved up for her, you can protect her via Mother of Runes or Karakas as well.
The little Kithkin with a infinite wisdom (or at least that’s what the flavor text implies). He stops Soooo many cards that they are just numerous to list. Eventhough Legacy revolves more around 1-3 drops, there are still a lot of cards at 4 or more that greatly impact a game.
If you can manage to play him or search him out with Green Sun’s Zenith (after a turn 1 zenith getting Dryad Arbor) against Ad Nauseam Combo, you have a great chance of clinching the game. It also stops Sneak Attack from being cast as well.
An almost strictly better version of Glowrider aside from the fact that she’s legendary. However in this deck the legendary ‘drawback’ is not so bad and is oftentimes an advantage.
A little note of interest:
She can be bounced to hand after first strike damage with Karakas. This is only really relevant if she had a jitte equipped and you wanted to get counters on it without having her die to the opposing creature. Granted, you can always add jitte counters to have her survive or finish off the bigger creatures. There are times where the opponent’s creature will be too big for the jitte counters to kill it, so just pointing out that option.
This creature will greatly slow down any kind of control deck especially if you can Wasteland their third land drop afterwards and keep them off mana for awhile. She also can be reanimated with Loyal Retainers, although this rarely happens. I guess against some decks it might be relevant though. Maybe even simply for the fact that drawing a late game Loyal Retainers with her as your only target is still better than just keeping a Loyal Retainers in play. Then again, you would just wait for something more relevant to go to the graveyard.
You can kill quite a few annoying creatures in Legacy with the first strike ability, such as random goblins and Scavenging Oozes with no creatures in graveyard.
The big white angel makes its appearance in a deck not featuring Dredge shenanigans. More often than not this is definitely getting discarded to Fauna Shaman (obviously better if you are running a version with 4 Fauna Shamans.
If she can be reanimated early enough, she will completely shut down an opposing color and oftentimes an entire deck. I’m not really a big fan of its inclusion in the deck but I can see it being an awesome silver bullet and an additional way of providing this deck some reach.
As an aside, she does great things like trade with a Griselbrand. She can also be pitched with Fauna Shaman and then reanimated when your Reanimator opponent cast Exhume. Again, this may or may not happen depending on if your opponent thinks this card is in your deck. If you name black against Reanimator, it may pretty much be game at that point. Against a lot of other white-based aggro or control decks, naming white will automatically make her immune to Swords to Plowshares.
Other random fact is that putting her into play and declaring a color named by painter’s servant will completely lock your opponent if he is playing the Painter’s Servant / Grindstone deck.
I know right? 
The other guys
a 4$ uncommon from a set that’s not super old has to be good right? I personally would try hard to fit in a second one as deck searching is super common in Legacy. A lot of times he will act like a Stone Rain by having your opponent fail to find one of his lands in his top 4 cards after flashing him in response to him cracking a fetchland. Sometimes he will simply render a stoneforge less useful. Really awesome card in the mirror match!
I think I have covered this card enough in the previous paragraphs. If you don’t have it, you can always just play a version of the deck that is lighter on legends and pack more utility guys (like an extra Qasali Pridemage).
Its 120+ dollar price is somewhat out of reach of most players. Barring a reprint he should maintain or gain value as it is obviously also a great card in EDH.
The greatest little common that could! This cat packs a mean punch and allows this deck to aggro more and of course gives the deck access to naturalize/ disenchant effect. Dropping him on turn 2 allows your turn 1 Noble Hierarch to attack for 2 and then of course on turn 3 your Qasali Pridemage can attack for 4 damage!
Be sure to use him conservatively as you only have so many in your deck and make sure to activate him at the best possible time and not simply play him and do something like pop an equipment right away. The longer he can stay in play, the better. Force your opponent to force you to use him. Make him have to pay 2 mana to equip his sword/jitte/whatever and then sac him. Get some value! That is the message that should be getting accross.
Again, as mentionned earlier, he is a wizard so you can make him and Aven Mindcensor uncounterable with Cavern of Souls. A bonus to not be overlooked.
A peculiar little guy that appeared in the Commander decks. Initially, it didn’t make a big splash. In fact the commander deck it came in was the lowest priced one in almost all retail locations. Currently, I believe the Counterpunch Commander deck is the priciest one. Of course this is due to the fact that Scavenging Ooze is valued at about the 40$ mark.
Even more impressive is that it has replaced Tarmogoyf in this deck. It shrinks opposing Tarmogoyf and really does a number on Reanimator decks. Sometimes even, it can gain you enough life to keep you alive against Burn decks. Add to the fact that it gets +1/+1 counters and it’s almost like a reverse-Goyf. This and Knight of the Reliquary are your most likely targets with a Green Sun’s Zenith as they can really control the board with their effects.
Recently, there has been a Red-White-Black Zombies deck featuring Goblin Bombardment. Scavenging Ooze single-handedly kills that deck. It removes Gravecrawlers for good as well as Bloodghasts and Lingering Souls. It really does whipe the table with that deck provided you have the mana to activate it as it is in play. Otherwise, don’t be too hasty and just hold off on it until you can activate the slime 2-3 times. Seeing as how the Bombardment Zombies deck is essentially a sort of Burn deck, the slime also provides you with enough life to survive.
I recommend to at least trade for a couple if you plan on playing Legacy in the future as it does not really show signs of slowing down. If you can maybe find the random lesser frequented hobby shops or some random store that usually has only sealed product and not singles, you might be lucky enough to still obtain the Counterpunch Commander deck.
THE definitive Green – White creature! What doesn’t it do? From getting Karakas to bounce some legendary creature to fetching Gaea’s Cradle to get a huge amount of mana and drop Elesh Norn or fetching a Bojuka Bog from the Sideboard to whipe an opposing graveyard. In some builds, it can even fetch a Tower of the Magistrate and unequip a creature at instant speed thus throwing a wrench in your opponent’s plans (especially if it was a pro green or pro white sword that was equipped). Knight just feeds itself to get bigger and is thus an self-sufficient creature. Sometimes you can Bojuka Bog your opponent’s graveyard so that your Knight kills his.
The Knight used to be somewhat harder to get but was reprinted in the Knights vs. Dragons Duel Deck and is still somewhat available for purchase at some retailers I believe.
Also, the Knight is a staple for both modern and Legacy. Getting a playset of this girl is probably essential if you are planning on competing in those formats and would like to try out various deck instead of jsut using the same one. Of course, it’s also an EDH staple because it does waht EDH decks like to do most: it searches.
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Sideboard – Sideboard – Sideboard – Sideboard – Sideboard – Sideboard – Sideboard –
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I won’t waste too much time on this aspect as it’s oftentimes a huge metagame call but again, since Reanimator is a dominant deck, you can clearly see the hate for it in this sideboard.
I can’t help but be fascinated by Gideon Jura in this sideboard. It seems really awesome actually. I have not had the chance to use it, but I can definitely see it being rather good. You can waste a Wasteland to target a land like Savannah on your opponent’s side of the field. In response he will tap his Knight of the Reliquary to sac the land (because he can, LOL)
I have to take a brief break from this to mention to you that this is what causes soooo many mistakes in this wonderful game of Magic: the Gathering. The more options that will become available to a player, the most likely he is to choose the wrong one/ play badly.
So here, we are presenting our opponent with a choice:
A) let your land die and keep the knight as a potential blocker
B) Sac your land and go get whatever land you think you need at the moment so you don’t just freely lose a land for nothing
Now, to be fair, most people will not be expecting a Gideon from the sideboard. Heck, I was surprised when I saw 2 of them in there. But if your seemingly skilled opponent is wasting his time to bust your land knowing you can sac it to replace it, he is probably baiting you.
Most likely. Especially if he has nothing great to mount an offense with. So what you expect to happen occurs and you then play your Gideon Jura and -2 his Knight of the Reliquary. Almost as if by Magic!
An absolute beast in the mirror match and vs. Elves. She is also legendary so all the benefits of being a legend I listed above for this deck apply.
Hope to draw it early post-side versus storm or Elves. You can hope to tutor for it on turn 3 with Fauna Shaman and play it. It does what it’s supposed to do very well but you only run 1 copy (Again, adjust to your metagame if playing these Legacy decks locally)
More Thalia to slow down the slow decks and also very effective against Storm as well.
I know what you are thinking: Why?
This card barely sees play in Standard. Why Legacy? Reanimator, right?
Yes… I think that is evident. But why not just Surgical Extraction ?
Well…. those decks play counters of course. Do they have 2 counters for your Purify the Grave ? They better! Then again, will you have 2 white mana available when the time comes? Let’s hope!
For when your opponent plays Show and Tell ? Check. Do you have an active Fauna Shaman in play? ditch whatever irrelevant creature you have in hand and go get this guy. He will just clone Emrakul, Griselbrand, Progenitus,whatever. Legend Killer!
Also probably the only out to decks that still play Natural Order > Progenitus.
At worst can also bust an opposing Jitte.
I think this one is obvious. Just mayyyyybe don’t play against merfolk? Still not 100% on that though. At least not the Aether Vial versions, which i think is in ALL Merfolk decks.
For when your opponent has negated your ability to activate Qasali Pridemage with a Pithing Needle.
We went through this one, right?
A nice little way to deal with creatures that need to attack. Also, a somewhat shrouded trick is to activate the Maze at end of combat after damage has been dealt but while your creature is still considered an attacker. Works wonders with Knight of the Reliquary in this respect as it gives her pseudo-vigilance. Against opponents who are not aware of this ruling, it can get a few free point of damage in as they will think that your Knight is now tapped for when they want to attack.
Clearly this article has gone on for some time now and you are probably getting sleepy. I invite you to give this deck a try if your budget permits or if you want to test it out with proxies before commiting to the real deal.
Cheers!
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Mono Black Control with the Arrival of M13
by Pierre Coulombe
Hello Everyone,
Today’s Carte Blanche Hobbies article is about living the dream that many magic players, including myself, share.
M13 is coming out this week and is going to bring a bunch of new tools for Standard and other formats but out of these new cards, a handful have caught my attention. I’m talking about a reprint from Torment and the ‘’new’’ Black planeswalker in particular. That’s right folks ! Mutilate is getting reprinted for M13 and the new Liliana of The Dark Realm is right behind to back this card up. After seeing Liliana’s abilities, one would normally figure that this article is in fact about the most obscure of decks, Mono Black Control. So I started with this idea in mind and thought about how I could make a fun MBC deck while making it viable in a competitive environment for Standard. You may find something in the decklist that is not of your liking, feel free to change it to your preference/metagame!
First, we need creatures:
That’s right, even though we play control we still need bodies to defend ourselves (+4 x Vampire Nighthawk)/finish the game with(+1 x Griselbrand ). We also need bodies that don’t mind a Mutilate here and there (+4 x Reassembling Skeleton) (+4 x Mutilate). The reprint of Nighthawk in M13 made a lot of people happy and also some unhappy. Happy because we get to play with it for another year. Sad because we get to play against it for another year.
This creature is simply amazing : 2/3 Flyer Deathtoucher Lifelinker… FOR 1BB? Sign me up! This guy will stop anything that crosses its path and half the time stay alive to tell the story. 3 toughness might seems low but keep in mind that in today’s standard environment, there’s a lot of creatures with only 2 power (Thalia, Geist of saint Traft, Strangleroot Geist (kills its Undying version too). The lifelink ability is just a bonus. You will stop the attackers and gain life in return. Pretty Sweet!
Now for the recurring creature, Reassembling Skeleton!
At first sight, a 1/1 for 2 might seem unappealing since it doesn’t deal with a lot of creatures. The fact that it stays around forever as a blocker can really bug your opponents and slow them down. It gives you something to do with your mana every turn and with other cards that I will mention later.
The finisher, Griselbrand is just a bonus, it’s a big body that has a good ‘’enter the battlefield’’ ability and can finish the game on its own if left unanswered.
Now one last creature before we move, a completely new addition to Magic from M13: Disciple of Bolas . Just for utility reasons, one is enough. If you’re running out of life later in the game you can Tutor for him with Increasing Ambition, sac your highest power guy and gain life as well as card advantage. I almost forgot, even though it Lashwrithe doesn’t count as a creature, I like to include it in this section because it often times fills the role of a body and also helps your creatures out. Think Lashwrithe + Disciple of Bolas, 5-9 Life+Cards. Think Lashwrithe + Vampire Nighthawk ; Titan sized flyer with lifelink and deathtouch. You will gain so much life you won’t even need to worry about your opponent’s retaliation. Think Lashwrithe + Reassembling Skeleton ; recurring minimum 5/5 for 1BBB or even 1B 4 life if you can affort it.
The possibilities are just endless.
Secondly: Spells!
We play black and we need ways to disrupt the opponent’s board position.
(+4x Tragic Slips/Go For The Troat/Doom Blade/Dismember…) hand (+3 x Despise, +2 x Duress), and we have a lot of ways to do it. I personally prefer Tragic Slips as removal since they deal with a lot of creatures in the early game, which is where you have to start taking control. It effectively kills Birds of Paradise and any other ‘mana dork’ plus the fact that you play Vampire Nighthawk and Reassembling Skeleton , a lot of the times a creature will die , making the Morbid trigger often enough.
As for discard, Despise is the key to deal with undying creatures, and the planeswalkers. Black doesn’t have a lot of ways to deal with walkers and other card type and that is a problem. That’s why we run 2 more discard spells. Duress, a new M13 reprint deals with those threats. Add to the mix one of the most amazing black Draw spells in Sign in Blood and you have a decent amount of Instants/Sorceries.
Finally! One of the most interesting, If not THE most interesting card type: Planeswalkers! That’s right! Black now has a new friend named Liliana of the Dark Realms to play with.
Nice Huh?
Having an assured land drop every turn past turn 4 seems like it’s not that big of a deal but it really is. Especially when you play control. The deck doesn’t play any mana acceleration but it doesn’t need to. Its constant land drops more than make up for it and, because of that, the deck can effectively run high CMC cards such as Karn Liberated and Griselbrand. The -3 ability on lili 3.0 may seem weak but sometimes you just need to kill a creature. Most of the time the ability will succeed in doing that. If you prefer, you can use it as a creature boost. You can also use this ability on a Vampire Nighthawk that was equipped with Lashwrithe to finish the game.
As for her ultimate ability… it may never happen, but the fact that it’s an option might scare your opponent enough into trying to deal with your Lili. By the time they figure a way to do it, you’ll be doing other shenanigans that will likely win you the game (Consume Spirit).
One last thing before we close this section: Lili3.0 little sister Liliana of the Veil fits pretty well here.She deals with hexproof creatures when you need her to. She works well as a one-way discard when combined with Reassembling Skeleton. Much more could be said about the planeswalkers in this deck ,however this article is already goin long and it’s getting late.
If we sum everything up and add some Swamps (+24x Swamps), salt and pepper, the deck should look something like this:
Mono Black Control (M13)
By Pierre Coulombe
Lands
24 x Swamp
Creatures
4 x Reassembling Skeleton
4 x Vampire Nighthawk
1 x Griselbrand
1 x Disciple of Bolas
Spells
3 x Liliana of the Dark Realms
1 x Liliana of the Veil
4 x Mutilate
3 x Despise
1 x Increasing Ambition
4 x Tragic Slip
2 x Lashwrithe
4 x Sign in Blood
2 x Duress
1 x Consume Spirit
1 x Karn Liberated
Thank you! And have fun fellow Black Mage!
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M13 Text Spoiler
Blue (40)
Black (39)
Red (39)
Green (40)
Multicolor (1)
Artifact (21)
Land (9)
Basic Land (20)
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Magic: the Gathering July FNM 2012 Promo
Here is the promo cards that will be given out at your local FNM for the month of July:
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WWE: Raw Deal – Boogeyman Non-BASH
Decklist:
Boogeyman RAW/Heel/Fan Favorite
only 5 Year Anniversary as Backstage card
Pre:
Rochester, NY
Vince GRA
Tick Tock of the Clock x 3
For the Love of the Game
A No Show
Underrated Superstar
<Revo> Cruiserweight Title
Fans love an Underdog
Mid:
Fortitude Surge
Can You believe the Witte Retort
The Ref got in the Way!
This is Between you and me
Cheaters Never Win
You’re as Graceful as a cow on Ice
Unscrupulous SOB
Road to Victory
Restricted Use in this Area
Took That on the Chin
Action Hybrids (20)
Too Many Rules and To Many Refs
Mouthful of Worms x 3
I am The Boogeyman x 3
…And I’m coming to getcha x 3
Volley This! x 3
Iron Will x 3 (2TB)
Don’t Try THis at Home
Escape the Rules
Don’t Hate the Playa, Hate the Game! x 2
Reversal Only (18)
Elbow to the Face x 3
Revolution of the Mind x 3
Unexpected Turn of Events
Quick Reflexes
Get the ‘F’ Out!
Manager Interferes
It’s Great to be Back here In…
Get Back in the Ring
Lift a Boot
The RAW DEAL Revolution
Divine Intervention
<Revolution> Off your Mark
<Revolution> Two For the Show
Get Out of Here!
Maneuver Hybrids:
Back Fist x3
Ap Chaki Kick x3
Rverse Clothesline x3
Knee Lift THROWBACK x 3
Rolling Neckbreaker x 3
Swinging Neck Breaker
SideWalk SLam
Brass Nuks Shot
Spine Buster (TB)
Leg Drag THROWBACK
The Bottomless Pit
Power Slam THROWBACK
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Tournament Report
A while ago, us Montrel players decided to initiate what is referred to as : “the Boogeyman challenge” . The challenge consisted of making a non-bash Boogey deck and winning a tourney with it. The best record so far was 4th place.
I made the deck primarily volley since they have a lot of good ‘0F’ maneuvers and they allow you to throw them turn after turn if the opponent is just ‘turtling’. Also, the ability to remove a reversal from ringside can disrupt their ability to use the volley # on the card since they might be short a card or two .
So I go into the tournament expecting the worst as I pretty much know everyone’s playing style.
Round 1. vs Hurrifriends
He builds his handsize to astronomical heights and I do not meta for this. a 15 or so hand means he gets to maybe fall victim to a road to victory. However he gets some easy fort and fetches the 4f action reversal for hurricane making me lose all hope ot collapse his handsize. I pointlessly throw volley after volley to no avail. I end up dying to a flurry of uniques and being stuck at 0F.
0-1
Round 2 vs. Chris Benoit chain.
I pray that my Revo <Cruiserweight title> goes through without him playing vince before, but no such luck. Had that been the case, this match woudl almost have been an auto win, as all the 0f commonyl played chains have ‘cannot be reversed’ text.
The match starts off pretty well for me as my backfists keep getting tossed at him until one sticks. He never drew a maneuver after reversing me, so I was pretty much picking it up and tossign it each turn.
Game ends with him popping ‘Mania’. However, he had 0 reversasl to shuffle back in. Also, A lot of his cards liek chained heat and iron will were removed form the game thanks to my ‘Witte Retort’. 
I finish him with a random volley move plus the reverse clotheslines were sooo wrong versus his chain moves.
1-1
Round 3. vs. The People’s Champ
I am really nto worried about this match. While my initial volleys are stuck at 1d, they still have the volley trait. He tries a vince interfeeres which gets DTTAH‘ed. I backfist, he elbows.go. I pick up bakcfist agian, he revo’s .go. he still plays nothing, I pickup backfist again and he lets it through. He then goes with a scoop slam TB on his turn. It’s too costly for me to reverse, so I let it through, he then tries a random high risk which i brass knucks.
At this point I am just hitting his Rolling neckbreakers and reverse clotheslines. I activated 2 and I’m coming to getcha and was a few F away from winning via it’s win condition, but he only has 0 cards left when I ‘Two for the show’ his Atomic lariat’
2-1
I know have tons of hope going into my final match vs. Randy Orton (who had just gotten through trouncing the really rude Hurrifriends deck).
Final Round vs. Randy Orton
I am pretty confident going into this match and I feel even better that he cannot play his Boston,Massachussets venue vs. me.(this is honestly what won me the game as it allowed me to throw quite a few pain reversals vs his set-ups.
He plays 2 x t givin’ em High 5’s and gets the Ego Cutter in his hand. This is just total bad new for me at this point as I did nto have room to play any anti-search in my deck (ie: spinner belt, ie. belt no one plays and more importantly play, the belt HE played).
I basically eat the cutter and flip a revo on it. My turn, I backfist him only to get revo’ed. I know he has another revo in hand but no move to throw from hand and he has a cowboy bob orton, so the goal is to not let him get to 15 F at which point I am almost assuredly screwed. I do however have F, via a For the Love of the game in pre-match and a two for the show on his atomic lariat. At this point, he volleys’ my Backfist , I have no other good 0F to throw except a Ap Chaki kick. I weigh my option on how i would play this. And here comes the miracle play:
He uses his ability to search, I play a ‘Can you believe the Witte Retort?” . It doesn’t actually reverse, but it does count as a card played. He plays a Youngest Champion in WWE History (whipes 7 cards from my hand)
He then plays the between the ropes he searched for with his ability (he knew it woudl go through since no cow and since I did not volley his discard 7 cards card, eventhough it was in my hand) card #3.
He then plays a shoot lockup (card # 4) which is met by an ap-chaki kick (since it’s hybrid it can totally reverse the shoot lock up) And as my 2nd reversal, I play a ‘Great to be back here in…). Everyone is freaking out how ap chaki kick actually saved the day.
I am pretty confident at this point, so I throw a I am the boogeyman at him. He volleys and passes. I then play a don’t hate and pickup 2 I am the boogeyman’s and a rolling neck breaker. I play ‘I am the Boogeyman‘ get rid of an Rko and his ego cutter. I then ability his RkO so I never had to worry about it again!
The match goes back and forth a bit with him building up some f with a shoot lockup played between the ropes. He gets ahead 9on F, because I let him and I have a couple of Knee Lift TB‘s in my hand. he cant’ resist to go for more discard and tosses fully evolved at me, which gets knee lifted’. I then play a mouthful of worms which gets shoot countered (obviously). But it was bait for a ‘I’m coming to getcha‘ which gets SOB‘ed. It then goes back and forth with no one gettign the upper hand, except that his hand was under control due to 2 mouthfull of worms as actions. Towards the end of the game, we each have about 8 cards left in arsenal. I know he has a Cowboy bob in his hand, because I peaked at it earlier in the game with a ‘I am the boogeyman‘ so I abstain from tossing non-uniques alltogether.
I keep using ym ability which pays off and he has like no ringside ile left because of multiples uses of destiny earlier on and volleyin’ a few of my moves. It’s down to the nitty gritty as he baits me with a ego boost which I sidewalk slam (the only one in my deck). He still has a card left on his turn, draws and then smiles becasue he is close to 100% sure I canot reverse the next cards. However, he underestimates my knowledge of Superstar cards.
He throws a Legend Killer, and I can either reverse with a ‘Too Many Rules, Too Many refs‘ or a Volley This ( I didn’t play any all game, because I never realyl had any reason to. And, since i didn’t impulse reverse any of his stuff before, he felt I did not have the card in my hand. I was not 100% sure that ‘too many rules’ woudl pin him, so I throw a volley this! for the win and show him my hand with the ‘Too many rules’. Everyone pretty much agrees the rules would have pinned him as well, but we are still not 100% sure.
final record: 3-1
PS: Hurrifriends cheese only went 2-2. Just goes to show that actual player skill makes all the difference.
I will post a decklist soon, but I assure you, it’s maybe just different i the amount of reversals but not in the actual reversals themselves. Ie: the deck ran 1 manager interfeeres as i didn’t think it would be super easy to reach the 10f mark, so I opted for leg drags and other smaller reversals to build up F in the bginning.
Slop: I was missing Armaggedon in the deck. this woudl have won my the game vs orton as I still had a tick tock left to activate and he had nothing to reverse it as an action. 3 turns woudl have passed and he would of either discarded his hand or ring area. However, looking over the deck, it’s hard to decide what would of been taken out for it.
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Mono Red Control in Standard MTG
Original article written on march 14, 2012
Mono Red Control ?
Are you tired of going to your local game store and always seeing the same Blue/White deck or Blue/Black control deck at a Standard (Type 2) tournament ?
I know I am.
A lot of stores and players are getting rather lazy with deckbuilding these days. I mentioned stores here, because they are usually the first point of contact for new players looking to play the game more seriously and invest more of their hard earned cash. Usually, the store clerk will recommend a popular archetype: UW Spirits, UW control, UWB control, UB control, Mono Black Zombies, UB Zombies, RG ramp, UW humans, Monowhite Humans, RG Aggro or Tempered Steel.
Now it may see that there is some variety here, but don’t be fooled for one second. First you’ll notice the abundance of the color blue, especially paired with white. It is by no coincidence that the blue/white duals in both Scars of Mirrodin and M12 are the most expensive followed by the blue and black duals. The demand for these is mind-boggling. Not a day goes by at my local shop where someone doesn’t ask me if I have one of these for trade.
This is both frustrating as a player and a trader because it kills diversity. We can easily conclude that diversity in gameplay is down because almost everyone is playing the same one or two decks. However, this also works for trading. If everyone is out for the same cards, how will trading for them work out? Not particularly well I’m afraid. New deck ideas need to be pumped out. A lot of players need to start becoming more deckbuilder-oriented instead of just net-decking what won last week’s tournament. Now I know this is a little harsh, but it needs to be said. The game now is becoming more and more about just grabbing a a decklist (more commonly referred to as a list) and assembling it with little to no playtesting a few days prior to a Magic: the Gathering event. This rather lazy approach was rather scrutinized a few years back, however now it is more or less becoming the norm. I will not deny that I have never done this when I am lacking time to assemble my own concoction.
The truth is: people have jobs, other hobbies, families,etc.
In that respect, it is OK for them to simply spend less time building a deck in order to maximize their playtime. It’s totally understandable and in fact, a bunch of Magic websites are oriented towards them. There are however still a lot of brewers out there who enjoy the prideful feeling you get when you win with your own home-brewed concoction.
It is for these ‘rogues’ that I provide the following list. While it may seem rather underpowered, it does take down a lot of the format’s top control or agro decks. As a side note, you will notice that they are currently rather inexpensive to build if you’ve been surveying prices for Standard decklist.
‘Big Red’
By Steve ‘DDT’ Giannopoulos
Lands (23)
3 x Phyrexia’s Core
4 x Inkmoth Nexus
16 x Mountains
Planeswalkers (6)
4 x Koth of the Hammer
1 x Chandra , the Firebrand
1 x Karn Liberated
Spells (24)
2 x Whipflare
2 x Slagstorm
1 x Blasphemous Act
4 x Mycosynth Wellspring
4 x Ichor Wellspring
4 x Galvanic Blast
3 x Devil’s Play
1 x Faithless Looting
2 x Kuldotha Rebirth
1 x Batterskull
Creatures (7)
3 x Solemn Simulacrum
2 x Kuldotha Phoenix
1 x Wurmcoil Engine
1 x Inferno Titan
Sideboard :
3 x Manic Vandal
1 x Torch Fiend
2 x Blasphemous Act
2 x Slagstorm
3 x Perilous Myr
2 x Kuldothe Phoenix
1 x Spellskite
1 x Batterskull
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Updated decklist:
1 x Karn Liberated
1 x Whipflare
1 x Kuldotha Rebirth
1 x Batterskull
1 x Inferno Titan
1 x Wurmcoil Engine
1 x Druidic Satchel
1 x Blasphemous Act
3 x Kuldotha Phoenix
4 x Galvanic Blast
4 x Ichor Wellspring
2 x Red Sun’s Zenith
3 x Slagstorm
1 x Forest
14 x Mountain
1 x Kessig Wolf Run
4 x Inkmoth Nexus
3 x Phyrexia’s Core
Sideboard:
3 x Ancient Grudge
1 x Druidic Satchel
1 x Karn Liberated
3 x Perilous Myr
2 x Ratchet Bomb
1 x Slagstorm
1 x Spellskite
1 x Chimeric Mass
1 x Blasphemous Act
Tokens:
6 x Goblin Tokens
1 x Germ Token
1 x Koth Emblem
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
I think most people will have to look up a great deal of these cards. The would be considered somewhat ‘janky’ or unplayable. I guess this means I will have to explain the card choices. Here we go!
Lands (23)
You have your 16 basic mountains. They can be Zendikar textless if your budget permits, LOL. Not much to say here except that you should never be short on mountains and they are needed due to all of Koth’s abilities.
Next up, we have 3 Phyrexia’s Core. A lot of my opponents have to read this card before saying : “Wow! That’s pretty good!” Indeed it is. It not only provides you a small amount of lifegain, but also allows you to double up on all your wellspring effects. In addition, it ca do other nifty tricks like sacrifice Wurmcoil Engines when your opponent drops a Phantasmal Image or Phyrexian Metamorph to clone them (note: you have to sac the Engine before the clone creature enters play. Ie: when it’s on the stack) Post-sideboard it also turns your Perilous Myrs into Shocks when your opponent isn’t willing to make badtrades.
Inkmoth Nexus may seem weird here, but I assure you it is a warranted inclusion. It is a great alternate win condition against slower decks and decks that cannot deal with flying creatures. Also, if your opponent gains to much life and you are unable to race, you may be able to win with these little guys. Another noteworthy use is if you have a Kuldotha Phoenix in your graveyard, you can transform a nexus if you didn’t already have Metalcraft in order to put the Phoenix back into play.
Planeswalkers (6)
No surprise to see a monored deck running 4 Koths. The actual surprise here is the amount of times you will play Koth and opt for the -2 ability right away. This will oftentimes allow you to play the mighty planeswalker plus a creature to protect him or just a massive Devil’s Play to finish your opponent. Say you have 10 mountains, a regular Devil’s Play would only do 9 points of damange. With Koth of the Hammer, this becomes 10-4 to play Koth = 6 +10 generated by Koth = 16 damage! Quite the difference there!
Chandra, the Firebrand as a one of is rather nice mostly due to the fact that she can keep shutting down weenie strategies by pinging their little guys. Her ultimate is so-so, but her second ability much like Koth’s is where I think she truly shines. She can copy your burn spells at -2. This is more versatile than you think. One of the rarer uses is when you think your opponent is holding a counterspell. You can use Chandra to copy say a Galvanic Blast for 4 in order to get a final 4 points of damage through to finish your opponent. This literally creates a +1 card advantage as it would be like you drew another Galvanic Blast.
The second and more common use would be with Slagstorm or Whipflare. In situations where your opponent’s creatures are too big to hand with any of these board clearing spells, you can double the damage and kill off opposing titans and the like. The final use is rather nice: she can copy a Kuldotha Rebirth without having to sacrifice a second artifact. Pretty cool , eh?
Karn rounds out the planeswalker roster. He is here mostly due to problematic permanents that a monored deck has a really tough time handling. Phyrexian Obliterator, Consecrated Sphinx, creatures with protection, equipment,etc are all rather problematic for this deck. As a side note, he is one of the first cards to get the boot while sidedecking against an agro strategy. Also, if you do get to use his ultimate it is most likely your opponent will concede.
Spells (24)
As you will instantly notice, the great majority of these are in fact burn spells. As you will have wrongfully concluded, the majority of these are for clearing away your opponent’s creatures and not for burning them in the face.
The singleton Faithless Looting is a remnant from when the deck ran 4 Kuldotha Phoenix maindeck and allowed you to dump 1-2 phoenixes or Devil’s Play in order to use them later on in the game. With the rise of agro strategies, this number has been reduced to 1. I was at a loss for what to cut for this as it does its job extremely well even as a one-of.
The 8 wellsprings along with the Phyrexia’s Core are the little engine of the deck. You draw cards, fetch basic lands and sac your wellsprings to gain random life and do it all over again. Fun stuff! Also works extremely well with Faithless Looting if you wanted to sac Mycosynth Wellspring to get a land and then ‘loot’ to see more cards and most likely ditch the lad for a real card. These should be played early on as your control opponents are unlikely to counter them and they provide you with more and more cards. Kind of like a red Think Twice.
Kuldotha Rebirth here is a nice card since it either A) buys you a lot of time vs. aggro decks or B) allows you to be the aggro. Early on vs. late game control strategies. Also, it is another sac outlet to your wellsprings when you do not have a Phyrexia’s Core out. You can if need be sacrifice an Inkmoth Nexus to it if you are in dire need of creatures.
Finally a Batterskull , because it’s just really good. A lot of times it provides you with just enough life to survive the mid-game ad win. It is also a recursive threat versus a lot of control decks as you can simply return it to your hand and play it again when need be.
Creatures (7)
While this deck has an almost all-time low number of creatures, they are extremely worthwile.
Firstly, the Solemn Simulacrums do everything that this deck needs. They accelerate you to the 5 mana mark, they chump block perfectly, they usually draw you a card and on super rare occasions: they even attack!
The 2 Kuldotha Phoenixes are there because they always come back. It’s a great turn 5 play vs. control opponents due to the fact that if it gets countered, it can come back later one. The fact that it has haste is very relevant in this format due to the shortage of creatures that have haste, much less flying.
Inferno Titan was suggested by a friend of mine and I want to kick myself for not having run it in the first place. I do believe however, that it’s somewhat a drawback at times as it gets cloned wayyyyy too often.
Wurmcoil Engine is like the end boss. Usually ends games or allows me to survive for wayyy longer than I should. Much like titan, I cannot run more than 1 due to fear of having it cloned. It’s also probably the worst thing to have copied, as your opponent then also gets the little Deathtouch and Lifelink babies as well when it dies.
Sideboard:
As far as this goes, here’s a brief run-down:
3 x Perilous Myr
Awesome vs. Aggro. Usually 2 for 1’s a lot of Zombies as well. However its one random drawback: If you block a Strangleroot Geist, it will not be able to hits the now Undying 3/2 geist for 2 because your effects as the non-active player resolve first and his Geist will not be in play yet. Also works wonderfully against creatures with protection or equipped with swords.
3 x Manic Vandal + 1 x Torch Fiend
These are there for the obvious equipment that is rather back breaking in type 2 right now. I also side them in Vs. RG Wolfrun decks to kill their Sphere of Suns and completely slow down their mana ramping.
2 x Kuldotha Phoenix
Always get sided in vs. the slower control strategies, especially the ones that sometimes mill you.
2 x Slagstorm, 2 x Blasphemous Act
These are great for slowing down the super agro strategies, especially the UW spirit deck. Blasphemous Acts come in when you need to kill stuff like Titans or if you feel you can play it early enough against something that swarms you a lot early like Tempered Steel. Definetly take you’re the Whipflares in that match-up.
Another awesome blocker that is also good against the few intimidate creatures. He can eat an Oblivion Ring for one of your more prized permanents. Also, don’t forget that he can force your opponent to target it via Kessig Wolf Run but not with equips.
It’s soooo good that it needs to be here twice. No but seriously, this card is worth investing in. I could play another Wurmcoil Engine here, but this card strikes me as being less vulnerable. It’s self-bouncing ability is sooo good. Sometimes, I even -2 Koth to play this so that I can leave 3 mana open to return it to my hand if need be.
This concludes my first awesome article about Magic: the Gathering and the like if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at: carteblanchehobbies AT yahoo DOT com .
Cheers!
Brother Of Runes 