Here's my take on what's good and fun - they may not be stellar choices, but they'll be funny cards. 1. Akuta, Born of Ash - black should be pretty good at wisdom - since you'd likely be whacking your opponent for his cards to gain card advantage - its that simple. 4 to cast 3/2 - not too bad for a recurring creature. 2. Ayumi, the Last Visitor - 5 to cast 7/3 - with legendary landwalk - its 3 toughness makes it hard to burn with Shock, but the legendary landwalk makes it valuable in Standard - being low cost - soul shifting this is also good. 3. Blood Clock - are you thinking what I'm thinking? Control the board! 4. Kirin - I believe most of the Kirin are really good things to play - always play an expensive spirit spell. *grins evilly* 5. Captive Flame - Firebreathing across the board is never bad. 6. Charge Across the Araba - Game ender - proves that red isn't the only one who can sacrifice lands for damage! 7. Choice of Damnations - This, I suspect - is gonna cost hell of a lot - it's 6 to cast - and at that kind of late game, it's likely to end it also. 8. Dense Canopy - Turn flying into shadow (hehehehehehe...)! 9. Descendant of Masumaro - This is a funny card that can grow or shrink - but while the ability is green, you cannot play a monogreen and expect this to grow - it's a card you have to play in combination with other cards to gain supreme advantage. 10. Elder Pine of Jukai - More and more mana acceleration is in Kamigawa - which leads me to believe Ravnica is going to use some of this madness. 11. Enduring Ideal - Hondens, anyone? 12. Eternal Dominion - What's more fun than taking your opponent's stuff to use as your own? Owning him in Magic by doing nothing but that. :D 13. Evermind - seems useless? two mana per card per spirit or arcane spell isn't bad - plus, it adds to wisdom! 14. Feral Lightning - Expensive - but helpful once you've slaughtered everything else! 15. Footsteps of the Goryo - Reanimate something that does something useful when it lives, or when it dies. A Legendary Dragon Spirit would be fine. 16. Gaze of Adamaro - How else would you deal with a wisdom based opponent who has card advantage? 17. Ghost-Lit Redeemer, Ghost-Lit Stalker - 'nuff said! 18. Glitterfang - Spirit spell that stays to trigger spiritcraft for as long as you like... (I'm thinking Evermind...) 19. Gnat Miser - *grins evilly* What about taking away your opponent's wisdom? 20. Hand of Cruelty - get this if you play black - undeniably useful. 21. Hidetsugu’s Second Rite - a burn spell that is truly value for mana. 22. Homura, Human Ascendant - play it, kill it - have fun with your 6/4 flying Viashino Sandstalker or 3/3 Glitterfang. 23. Ideas Unbound - looking for one card? This is what you need. 24. Iname as One - nearly not usable, but adds to the cool factor when you win with it. ;) 25. Kaho, Minamo Historian - I can't stress more how useful this is in games - so I won't. ;) 26. Kataki, War’s Wage - see that annoying Jitte? Make him pay for it! 27. Kiku’s Shadow - not completely useful, not completely useless. 28. Locust Miser - make life more difficult, shrink your opponent's hand. 29. Manriki-Gusari - hate equipment (thinks Jitte) - kill it! 30. Measure of Wickedness - bored? Play this and have fun! 31. Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker - seek the truth - and kill weenies and blasters. 32. Murmurs from Beyond - How to get what your opponent's think you don't need... *grins* 33. One with Nothing - What's this for? Many people can argue this out for years. I'd say - seek and ye shall find! 34. Oppressive Will - Card advantage = Blue, Counterspell = Blue, Card advantage dependent couterspell = Genius 35. Overwhelming Intellect - Saw that Iname As One? Wanna get something from it? 36. Pain’s Reward - you willing to pay for four cards? Go ahead! I dare you. 37. Pithing Needle - anti Ravager - but that's not around anymore now, is it? 38. Promise of Bunrei - creature generation 39. Promised Kannushi - Something you play to kill, and get something better back. 40. Reverence - Rever me - or actually... 41. Sakashima the Impostor - mirroring was never this flexible 42. Sakura-Tribe Scout - no comment needed 43. Seek the Horizon - I seek land, so give it to me! 44. Sekki, Seasons’ Guide - chase this card to the depths of the ocean, 8 to cast 8/8 annoyance. 45. Twincast - What could be better than to double your take?
Artifacts Still Haunt Standard...
I thought I was just going to post a simple rant here to warn people to bring lots of artifact hate to constructed tournaments. What would that artifact be? Just a simple artifact - called Umezawa's Jitte. While I have completely hammered its potential power, apparently, it's an extremely powerful rare. I have one or two in my collection, but I haven't sold them yet. :D It was weak before thanks to the gruelling artifact hate in Standard as well as the existence of Affinity decks. Artifacts have come back to haunt - and they aren't going to back down until it's over. I've dismissed Umezawa's Jitte as a threat for many reasons - first of all, I've never seen one in action and still haven't. To me, it's too expensive to lose to a Naturalize. To me, that's four mana down the drain. Why? I carry artifact hate as much as I can because as long as Mirrodin is around no one is safe. Casual players are actually more immune to simple Jittes simply because they always have something to deal with it. It hits the table - time to bring in more stuff to kill it off. It's madness because it will most definitely kill something if it manages to deal combat damage the first round it's in.
The absolute madness can only be stopped by total annilation of the equipment - so go figure. I've just realised its power. The other reason I didn't see it was because it cost four mana to play and equip - and was most definitely beyond a logical threat - no one would be crazy enough to be able to use it on turn three. I was probably wrong on that point. I've been rethinking the card and realised its pretty abusive - thus the legendary tag. How do we solve this problem? Destroy it. How? Dismantle. Naturalize. Anything - including your own Umezawa's Jitte.
And by the way, white equipment decks are likely to rule with this card here. Would you play more than two Jitte in one deck? I don't think so though - unless Jitte warps the metagame that badly.
May the Jitte's madness rule all.
Gotta Love the Bans
On the 1st of March, the DCI announced what would be remembered as one of the most welcomed, yet the most drastic banning ever. The bannings left 7 commons and 1 rare out of the running. They banned the six artifact lands: Vault of Whispers, Seat of the Synod, Tree of Tales, Ancient Den, Grea Furnace and Darksteel Citadel. They also banned the famed Arcbound Ravager as well as its partner in crime: Disciple of the Vault.
What happened? Too many cards turned broken. It was like the Urza block had come back to life. It was obvious that Disciple had to go. It was probably printed as an innocent opposite to the Leonin Elder, but became too broken in a world of engines, where artifacts became mana or +1/+1 counters. Imagine sacrificing a simple 10 artifacts to win the game (you must have another win condition, of course). With affinity in the game, it was obvious how the game would be won. It would not be by attacking or a Fireball, but it would probably be by a simple one black mana costing creature. To ban this card was a no-brainer. There is no need to explain anything. The card is extremely abusive - two in play would be murderous. You could just swing small 1/1 artifact creatures at your opponent - it'll be take it or take more - and it'll be endgame next turn. This banning was a no brainer.
What about the six artifact lands? They could do little harm with Ravager and Disciple out of the running. This would what you would be thinking if you were one of those players who just download decks from the net and build them. Experienced players would catch why instantly. The first thing is that artifact lands allow the other engine card to go off early. Krark-Clan Ironworks would have easily taken the cake that was left by Ravager and destroy all point of banning Disciple and Ravager. Affinity would rule. What's the next problem? 24 artifact lands in your decks would be a good combination with Myr Incubator and Krark-Clan Ironworks. Without artifacts lands, Myr Incubator would likely to produce around 20 tokens. With them, probably around 36 tokens when it goes off. We all know that seems like a small problem, but it's actually huge. On turn three, if you had 3 artifact lands and 3 affinity creatures in play and possibly a talisman and a Pentad Prism, you would be looking at a win already. All you would need is Myr Incubator and Mass Hysteria or Fireball (both red) in your hand. While the banning of artifacts lands destroyed affinity and the identity of the Mirrodin block, it was necessary to bring affinity to its knees rather than see another affinity deck like KCI take the cake with Cranial Plating.
Now, we're on to Arcbound Ravager. This seemingly innocent card got banned too. Heck, they banned the six problem commons, why ban this? The problem with Arcbound Ravager was probably that it was supremely flexible. Sacrifice it, and suddenly there is another bigger creature on the table. It also hits the table way too early than it should. Arcbound Crusher is at 4, and while Arcbound Crusher could get pretty big, it's only a turn 4 drop. Arcbound Ravager is a turn 1 or 2 drop. It's uncanny chemistry with anything in play that you could sacrifice would actually make affinity a big bomb. It could probably still go off on turn 4. It's extreme flexibility also means it's extremely difficult to terminate. Two Arcbound Ravagers could pile on an opposing player very badly. Which one to block? Doesn't matter - which ever is the bigger blocker is bound to die anyway. It's not a huge leap to see what happens after your opponent runs out of stuff to block with. Not a no brainer - but it was probably possible to keep in the game for a while longer to see if it would change then environment. I don't think it would have made a difference - banning Ravager might have been just to send a message that Affinity decks were going off too early.
Where does that leave Affinity now? Playable. Why do I say that? It's not unplayable - affinity is playable. It's not as consistent - probably only as consistent as my Mycosynth Golem deck, but it's playable. We still have Pentad Prism + 2 mana cost artifact (add anything you like here: Talismans, Frogmites, go figure) and more things to help Affinity get off its feet. I've been looking at the metagame - I don't how the new decks work because I haven't played them - but IMHO, most of them are being too complacent. All it might take if one good KCI-Affinity deck to wipe them all out as from what I've seen from the top 8 lists - the lack of artifact removal is astounding - as low as 25%. I'd say it's likely there is a KCI-Affinity build that is extremely playable in the new Standard environment - and Magic Research and Development knows what it is.
By the way, am I playing Affinity? Nope. :D I do intend to try when I do have the time to build a viable Affinity deck though. Time to get to work on my next article on some really red decks. I honestly hate the way the game is now. There are so many players who merely download decklists of the Internet and go off the tournaments without actually rebuilding it. You want to know what's funny about red? Yam actually built a deck that was more consistent and far more capable of winning Extended than the current Red Deck Wins Extended archetype, if it came to a one-on-one, it would be obvious that Yam's deck would win - and guess what, it's a pretty light deck compared to what people and maindecking. Of course, I won't be talking about his deck - that's for him to talk about and surprise people with at tournaments. I will be talking about how to build a red blaster deck. :D Come on, I know everyone wants one. :D
Magic the Gathering Turbo
(This is taken from an old post from the original Random Ideas blog. It is now an archive, but will never be forgotten. This deck was the most fun deck I've ever played, and probably the most entertaining, since it usually goes from zero to total overrun in one turn. :D The Onslaught block has since been rotated out, and while this deck was never played in a tournament (due to my exams). Therefore, some comments about it being Standard-legal refer to the month of July 2004) Originally published on cfgt2001.blogspot.com on the 22nd of July, 2004. Hyperlinks updated.
One day, I saw a really fun game progression in one of Mark Gottlieb's articles. It was a Standard deck that was actually quite scary. I was laughing my head off looking at the deck. Of course, it had a serious weakness, but I could live with that. I was so enticed by the crazy idea I actually built the deck to the new Mycosynth Golem.
Turn 1: artifact land Turn 2: artifact land, Talisman, Serum Visions Turn 3: artifact land, Fabricate for whatever is missing Turn 4: artifact land, a 10-mana Mycosynth Golem (you have 5 artifacts, so it costs 5), Composite Golem (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 10 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Triskelion (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 10 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Fabricate for Darksteel Colossus, Darksteel Colossus (free!), mana burn for 2, go.
Now, instead of doing that, because Mycosynth Golem now costs 11 mana, I did this: (I've hyperlinked the first occurence of each card.)
Turn 1: artifact land Turn 2: artifact land, Pentad Prism, Talisman of Dominance, Serum Visions Turn 3: artifact land, Fabricate for whatever is missing turn 4: artifact land, Mycosynth Golem, Composite Golem (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 11 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 11 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Fabricate for Darksteel Colossus, Darksteel Colossus (free!).
(If you're wondering what happens, I literally put down about 10 HUGE creatures for free, and (thanks to Sundering Titan) remove about two to three of my opponents lands.) OK, everything looks the same for now right? Here the change I made to the deck that just made life a little more painful, and makes playing this deck a little more viable without the perfect hand.
turn 4 (continued): 2 mana left in mana pool, Mass Hysteria, mana burn for 1. Attack with: 2 Mycosynth Golem 2 Platinum Angel 2 Sundering Titan 1 Darksteel Colossus
OK, I'm actually undermining what actually happens. I played once with Yam, and I got it off only on turn 7, but with the following to attack with: 3 Mycosynth Golem 4 Platinum Angel 3 Sundering Titan 1 Composite Golem (If you're wondering, I was playing the deck without a Darksteel Colossus, it was at home. :D I deemed it too valuable. If I did, Yam would probably be screaming already :D) He blocked off 4 creatures, but the remaining 5 dealt 20 damage, killing him instantly as we both laughed at how close it was: I was at 1 life when I defeated him. Talk about close calls. Of course, I actually casted a Platinum Angel when I was at 3 life, so... not really that close. :P When I finished him off: Note this: he had no lands in play anymore. :D I destroyed every plains and island he had, and I wasn't playing basic lands.
Now, what does the game look like now? Damn freakin' ugly. Playing this deck, I realised what tourneys felt like. Solitaire games with two people playing. :D That's the story of a Ravagerless Affinity deck. I'm probably going to keep this as one of my most prized decks, being able to instill some fun into watching about 10 creatures come into play for free. I don't think I'll be able to play at the Grand Prix this weekend. If I do, I hope the deck gets some notice, because I don't think anyone is playing it, yet. The deck is worth a lot though, having a four Platinum Angels, four Fabricates, four Mycosynth Golems and four Sundering Titans. But then again, who could argue that having four Platinum Angels isn't good? No one you're against can win until they get rid of it. Hehe. Oh yeah, it doesn't work so well in multiplayer unless you have two players by your side countering everything that threatens your two key cards: Mycosynth Golem and Rush of Knowledge. Oh yeah, since you're actually playing so many spells per turn, you could add quite some pain to the deck with a certain card with Storm that costs 5 mana to play. I'm still contemplating that card as it's Standard-legal, and can make sure NOTHING blocks your way. :D