Why Enduring Ideal Is No Good

Several days ago, I decided to try out an Enduring Ideal deck. Since I have a lack of Sensei's Divining Tops, I had to rely on pure luck to draw Enduring Ideal - including the use of Honden of Seeing Winds. The deck is a five-colour deck: running at least one of each basic land, 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder, 4 Orochi Leafcaller and 4 Kodama's Reach to pull out the required lands. The deck list is as follows: 11 Forest 7 Plains 1 Island 1 Swamp 1 Mountain 3 Ghostly Prison 3 Final Judgment 3 Solar Tide 1 Seismic Assault 1 Reverence 1 Meishin, the Mind Cage 2 Honden of Cleansing Fire 2 Honden of Seeing Winds 2 Honden of Night's Reach 2 Honden of Infinite Rage 2 Honden of Life's Web 4 Orochi Leafcaller 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Kodama's Reach 3 Enduring Ideal 1 Sensei's Divining Top

Did this deck run well? Honden of Seeing Winds did dig up some pretty interesting cards and the Top proved to be indispensable. However, the deck itself proved to be quite a problem to run - it was always short on mana to play Hondens whenever I didn't draw an Enduring Ideal. I soon stumbled upon a solution taking a cue from Myojin Flare, I put in 4 Heartbeat of Spring to spruce up whatever little mana I had.

The deck now ran in complete madness - usually meaning I got to play a beautiful Solar Tide or Final Judgment followed by an Enduring Ideal. Sweet. Goldfishing showed that the deck was slow, but it had a stylish way of winning - loads of Shrines and enchantments locking down on your opponents and you finally run through with everything you have (1/1 spirit tokens).

Off to try it out against a real deck: a simple burn deck. Obviously, the matchup was horrendously bad, but it revealed that in actual play, you wouldn't win for way too long. Inconceivably bad for a deck with such synergy. The moral of the story? Play Myojins. :D And that ends the tale of my Honden deck. The mana base was actually fundamentally the same as Myojin Flare. All I had to do was remove the enchantments, some Solar Tides, put in a few Myojin, some Maga, Traitor to Mortals, Time of Needs and the deck was absolutely complete! As for the playtesting of this deck, let's just say it went pretty well and far more consistently than Enduring Ideal.

Enduring Ideal is still a good idea for casual though.

Tribal Decks I've Tried

I've tried building tribal decks out of Rats and Snakes, which were abundant in Kamigawa. My Rats was a Standard deck, played like a casual deck, but is actually far more capable of shutting down decks than I had originally imagined. Creature removal, Distress and Ravenous Rats seem to be effective at shutting down decks. My Snake deck, was built just last night, and while it was playtested lightly in Apprentice, real life play showed a few crazy things that should never happen in casual Magic games. Thanks to the light playtesting it did go through in Apprentice, I found that my randomization was far worse than Apprentice could ever go. In one game, I drew all four of my Sosuke's Summons. In another, I drew 3 Loxodon Warhammers. Sosuke's Summons were made even better when I drew a lone snake: Seshiro the Anointed. I generated over 14 Snake tokens in that game. As for the game I drew 3 Loxodon Warhammers, I gained 32 life with a lone creature attacking in a single turn (with the help of Junkyo Bell), so I think I needn't elaborate further on how that game went ( I went from 8 life to 40 in one attack, needless to say, that was game).

Those were the only two Tribal decks I've tried. My younger brother has tried out building a Samurai deck (using tribal cards from the earlier blocks), but with little luck in the way of coming close to beating my Snake deck due to a mana problem. I've suggested to him the use of Gift of Estates to fix his mana - and I wonder if he'll take my suggestion. :D

Magic Party: 9th Edition

I went for a 9th Edition release party last Sunday (July 31st 2005). I got six boosters for my RM50 entry fee, which of course, most of the players did. I was most unfortunate to get a set of cards that were extremely difficult to draft with, which was about the same position for my younger brother. The event was Sealed Deck, of course. One of the better players there was even stumped when they saw my brother's cards as to what to do with them. I, however, did get what people there would called me profusely lucky for: Loxodon Warhammer. I believe I won every match in which the Warhammer showed up, and I found it extremely broken in draft. Few people had removal for artifacts, so my Warhammer was godlike, allowing me to gain large amounts of life at little or no cost to me. To me, the experience I gained was absolutely priceless. In the first round, I faced an experienced drafter who obviously knew the ropes: he trounced my poorly drafted deck to win with an outright 2-0. The organiser was nice enough to allow us to rebuild our decks between rounds - so I did. I removed by blue cards - and replaced them with white ones. The mana curve when I used blue indicated that it was far too steep. I found myself being one of the few who drafted only two colours: and I found that I was probably the only idiot doing so. It then came to me that I should have drafted 3 colours, but my new deck remained as it was for the remainder of the game - I decided that my drafting skills were too low to draft three colours, since I was a newbie.

After both my brother and I lost in the first round, we faced each other - and I managed to play a Skyhunter Prowler enchanted with a Spirit Link and equipped it with my Loxodon Warhammer. What happened after that is obviously insanity, with me gaining 8 life every turn. My new green-white deck had the synergy that I had not earlier. I beat him 2-0.

With my now better record, I faced a people who drafted a similar deck, but he had Reclaims which I didn't, and splashed red for direct damage. I only won 1 game, and was defeated 2-1. The following round, I played a better player with my slightly better record. He played an obviously better deck. I lost the first game. When I fought the second round, I drew my Loxodon Warhammer and played a good Magic game: one I had not had for many years. The game lasted a long time. I was gaining life to sustain myself - and finally won. I was too exhausted from my long bouts, and I believe I was low on blood sugar (I hadn't eaten for about 14 hours). So I gave him the last game, I believed he would have won anyway. :D

I walked away with exactly what I expected: plus the unforgettable feeling you get when you play at a sealed deck. The experience of playing in a Limited environment was a lot of fun. I believe Limited is such as success thanks to the hardworking people at development for Wizards of the Coast. I find 9th Edition drafting to be a little quick for my taste, with most games ending pretty quickly. Control is difficult to play in this heavily speed environment, but I believe white is now a viable colour for control. The steeper mana curve for blue has made it real bad, but with that being said: good blue cards did see print: just that they are not quite as viable in Limited as they would be in well Constructed.

After 9th Edition, I believe I will slow down on my Magic spending. I do not see much benefit in spending money on Ravnica, since I won't be around to collect from the rest of the block, but I will not overlook good cards from Ravnica: I believe it will not disappoint as a good cards will come. I believe that going through two blocks is how it should always be when you enter or leave Magic. I entered in Urza Block, and left in 6th Edition. I believe that this time found, I will enter in Mirrodin and end at 9th Edition, probably grabbing a few good Ravnica cards on the way and leaving Magic until much later, when I decide to reenter again: likely in several years time. :D

Don't expect these articles to stop though. I will continue to explore funny decks for years, using Apprentice as my tool. Things will be fun for a long long time. ;) I hope that these endeavours will help me improve my skills to bring into the fun zone. :D

Bug Generator

This is the ultimate challenge card. How would you abuse the ability on this cog to its full ability? ;) Bugs disappear at the end of the phase. Originally, it would create 0/0 tokens, and not be removed, but that was too easy to use. A Coat of Arms for Bugs would have made for a deadly combination with Lightning Flashes. So, I decided to destroy the Bugs at the end of the phase. How would you abuse them now?