Random Gatherer Draft

It's 3pm on a Thursday afternoon.  My monitor won't let me play LoL with more than 10fps and i'm very bored.  So, lets do a random Gatherer draft, yay!  For those who don't know, the idea is to click the random card button 15 times to make a pack from all the cards in MTG history and see what comes out as top pick  Here we go...

So, starting top left we can immediately ignore Flight, even if it is does combo pretty well with the next card.  Fugitive Druid seems tough to evaluate in what is essentially a vacuum (i guess i could make another seven packs but that seems like excessive effort).  There are two mediocre auras that go with it, and which are weak enough to potentially wheel.  A 3/2 body isn't bad with an upside either and with the other green cards looking pretty sub-par, this is a reasonable if unexciting pick.

Chainbreaker is far too narrow for it's upside to be good (although, it looks good against the guy who takes Incremental Blight, i suppose).  As a colourless bear it's still fine, but not a first pick.  Ice Storm, err... stone rain in green seems like it could be good.  I have basically never played with good LD since the stuff they print nowadays is unplayable but i think i'd rather take a card that progresses my own game plan first.  Mercadian Lift is like the opposite of Ratchett Bomb?  It seems fine if the format is incredibly, incredibly slow but isn't it better to just not miss your land drops and play whatever it is you're cheating in?

Nothing says twins like a single generic knight in a picture.  How good is this card?  I don't know.  If you can keep them around, two 3/4s are pretty reasonable for six mana, but with no evasion and no abilities, it seems like a weak first pick.  Red Pestilence seems like a pretty clear frontrunner here.  If you can get remotely ahead by turn four - which is practically assured in a heavy red deck - this is nigh unbeatable.  Maybe i should've cheated and put this last, but there are some good cards left to discuss.

The Witch seems pretty good but much narrower than Pyrohemia and a lot easier to deal with.  It might table though, which would be an okay pickup.  Savage Sillhoette is a card i have played with... at least, i played Zendikar draft.  Even tho i was pretty bad at Magic back then, i never picked this card and i'm not going to do it here.  Kjeldoran Elite Guard looks hillariously awesome and isn't completely horrible but is a long way behind Pyrohemia.

Coral Reef might be the worst card i've ever seen.  All that text and you get a +0/+1 counter?  No wonder Homelands got buried in a tip if this was in it.  Incremental Blight, however, is quite a card.  How can this be anything except amazing?  If they don't have three creatures on turn five, well, you're probably just winning already.  This is pretty close to Pyrohemia in my eyes: potentially killing three creatures is very, very strong.  On the other hand, Merfolk Wayfinder is the opposite of strong.  If you switched its power and toughness you still wouldn't first pick it, but as it is, you probably get this 9th pick and still pass it along.

Obliterate is a card i have somehow never played with or against, despite being an EDH enthusiast.  It seems like you need to work pretty hard get round the symmetery of BLOW UP EVERYTHING.  The fact that it leaves enchantments around would be sweet if someone passed you Pyrohemia instead of it being in the same pack, but that if nothing else makes me come back to the red Pestilence.  With the last card in the pack being pretty awful, i think Pyrohemia is a pretty clear pick.  Incremental Blight is a reasonably close second,and Obliterate is probably the most/least fun.  Maybe i'm wrong, but Obliterate just seems too symmetrical to be useful while Pyro is much easier to take advantage of.

Some Tokens

Kayle looking pretty badass

 I started making some tokens for my cube, EDH decks and standard decks.  Unforunately, i'm not artist, so i just found some pictures i like and made them in to sweet-looking full art tokens in Magic Set Editor.  I'm currently looking for a good way to print these and not have them look crap.

Anyways, hope you enjoy.  My personal favourite is probably the Vladimir vampire.

Gank incoming

Udyr isn't techinically a beast, but this pic is awesome

Not sure a 1/1 is that scary, oh well

It had to be, really, didn't it?

Rite of Replication is almost fun as jungle Shaco

Deathwing, rawwwr... or something

I guess Shyvana doesn't really fly but fuck it

Wow fanart is awesome

...and the TCG has some sweet art too

Blitzcrank looks a lot scarier than he really is

Pretty horrible, eh, Jack?

Like a metrenome... for some reason

Ugly dwarf things or hot pixel babes?

I guess the things he throws are the tokens

Spin to win!

More WoW TCG art

Awesome AND appropriate for lifelink

This was my favourite MTG art anyway

MUNDO GOES WHERE HE PLEASES

DKA Game Day Disaster

Well, game day went very poorly for me, but at least there were some cool stories.  I went 2-2 in standard on the first day with Esper Control.  I swapped four cards around for Sunday's games and went 1-3.  Control is just too hard to build right now, at least that how i'm finding it.  In limited I drafted black/white both times - making a total of four black/white decks in five drafts.  Both my decks seemed really good: Saturday had two Lingering Souls, Sunday had a Sorin.

Anyway, enough wound licking, more story-telling.  In the third round of Sunday's standard event, i was tied at 1-1 against a homebrew Grixis Heartless deck.  The game was largely stalled out and he was beating me down with a Perilous Myr, ignoring my Karn who was ready to restart at any time.  My confusion was cleared when he hit me down to five and cast a Devil's Play, neatly playing around my Mana Leak.  With Devil's on the stack, i cast a think twice and naturally drew a second Leak.  Oh, incidentally, i only play two total Mana Leaks, but i was due some luck. It doesn't end there, though.  I -14'ed Karn and, amusingly, villain didn't scoop.  I got to play a turn one Gideon and, unsurprisingly, won in no time.

In the draft, I was watching two other people play after my game.  Player 1 cast a Tree of Redemption, passes the turn.  Player 2 made a dude and passed.  Played 1 draws, looks at the board, pauses, and giggles to himself.  He casts Travel Preperations and flashes it back, putting two counters on his tree.  If you don't instantly see why that's a funny story, i'll spell it out: tap the tree, go to 15, the tree becomes a 0/20 with two counters on it.  Next turn, untap, tap the tree, go up to 22 and the tree becomes a 15/15 with +2/+2.  The first game ended with just three minutes on the round, meaning the ridiculous Tree "combo" player won 1-0.

In my own third round game, i managed to resolve Sorin and started ticking him up.  I felt fairly stable, until villain cast a Markov Blademaster and hit me down to three.  Sorin was on six, though, so i felt okay, despite him having a Skirksdag Cultist.  I ultimated Sorin, targetting Cultist, Blademaster and a Manor Skeleton, leaving him with a Zombie token and a One-eyed Scarecrow.  Except... he sacrificed the blademaster to shoot the cultist, giving me a pathetic looking skeleton and a pair of vampire tokens.  I lost, but i still think it was the right play, although maybe i should've taken the more defensive scarecrow.

Overall, a deeply disappointing weekend, but one full of incident and amusing anecdotes.  And, hey, a Sorin!  Maybe i can trade towards a new standard deck, because Esper Control really isn't working out for me.

24/1/12 Cube Update

Hey, so, I have a commons/uncommons cube.  It's been an ongoing persuit for about a year now.  It started with quite a few medicore cards due to my limited collection of old stuff but building and pimping it over the months (and continuing, no doubt) has quickly become one of my favourite Magic-related hobbies.  The admin work that goes along with it has, perhaps sadly, become almost as enjoyable as playing with it.  Anyway, with that in mind, I decided it might be fun to post whenever I make a large update and explain my reasoning.  Maybe it will help fellow cubists, or maybe it will just be completely self-indulgent, but here goes...

Black

Fume Spitter > Dismember

Shrivel > Infernal Harvest

Giant Scorpion > Boneshredder

Ruthless Cullblade > Snuff Out

Wicked Reward > Reanimate

Crypt Ripper > Dread Return

Footbottom Feast > Animate Dead

As you can probably see, a lot of this is just routine maintenance.  My old card pool is severely lacking and so a fair few cube staples are missing.  Most of the choices are obvious: mediocre creatures replaced by must-have cube cards; medicore spells replaced by far superior ones.  Nothing all that exciting, but at least the sweet Premium Series foils look suh-weet!

Blue

Dispel > Mystical Teachings

Runeboggle > Capsize

Force Spike > Willbender

Again, some regular mainenance, but you might notice that all of the 'outs' are conditional counterspells.  Counterspells are not as good in limited anyway, and I find that almost nobody uses the conditional ones.  Even Spell Pierce, which I like much more than these three, is ready to be chopped when I come across something better.  The replacements are fairly obvious inclusions which, again, I just didn't have access to when I first built the cube.

Green

Snake Umbra > Rancor

Territorial Baloth > Harmonize

Wild Nacatl > Eternal Witness

Snake Umbra was basically a deliberate substitute for Rancor until I got hold of one, not much to say there.  Harmonize was something I always wanted to add but seemed to always forget when I was cube shopping.  Finally traded for one so in it goes.  Eternal Witness was a similar story, except now I have a sweet FNM promo one.  Wild Nacatl seemed like an easy exchange since, without duals or even fetches, it's not very good.  Printing some proxy duals and fetches for my cube is something i've considered, but i don't know how much they'd swing the balance in favour of the guy who has them.

Dark Ascension MBC Spoiler Review

It's new set time again, and since Innistrad was so awesome (and i'm trying to get back into the writing habit) I thought i'd give the black-centric set review another airing.  However, rather than bore you with the usual long-winded "unplayable in constructed, okay in limited" fare, I decided i'll spare you the boring cards and just talk about the ones that most people are probably insterested in.

Well, shit.

Curse of Thirst

Before you get all up in arms, no, this is not a good card.  It's noteworthy to me, however, becaues i feel like curses in general have been a massive disappointment - a missed opportunity.  It feels like there was a lot of cool design space opened up by being able to enchant players but only one of them has seen any constructed play and one other is good in a niche limited deck.  Curse of Thirst is a prime example of a card that sounds like it could be reasonable, but when you realise that you have to play a bunch of awful cards to turn it into a more expensive Sulphuric Vortex you should be immediately turned off.

Death is red now?

Death's Caress

In limited, this card is very acceptable.  I just wish it cost a bit less so it could make me not hate Standard as much as i do right now.  Then again, it still doesn't deal with Geist of St Traft, and Delver will still have done six damage before you gain a measly two life.  Never mind!

Value, anyone?

Farbog Boneflinger

In years gone by - or if this cost one or two mana less - this might've been a reasonable constructed card.  As it is, it's an excellent limited card with just the kind of value that i love.  It's pretty much a gauranteed 2-for-1, what more needs to be said?  It's no Skinrender, but it's probably better than Mokrut Banshee and it's easier to cast than either of them.

I guess she taps for Bloodline Keeper

Fiend of the Shadows

I'm writing about this card because it's the kind of effect that people always want to be good, but never lives up to the expectation.  Remeber Praetor's Grasp from New Phyrexia?  Remember all those sweet decks it got played in?  At least in limited a 5/5 flier for three is fine and if you play against another black deck the upside is potentially huge.

Everything but the Kitchen Finks

Geralf's Messenger

Sorry, but this absolutely is not the new Kitchen Finks.  The comparisons are natural, but they are only skin deep, and this guy doesn't have a lot of skin to begin with.  Let's be clear, this is un-castable outside of monoblack, whereas Kitchen Finks' hybrid mana made it very easy to play.  Undying may be stronger than Persist and doing two damage is usually better than gaining two life, but all of that is irrelevant when you can't cast the spell in the first place.  Plus, it doesn't even work with Melira in modern, meaning that this will probably be one of those powerful but homeless cards that crop up in every set.

He's coming, very slowly

Gravecrawler

This is a really tough one for me.  The fact that it only dies to graveyard hate is good, but the fact that it's a 2/1 with no evasion is less good.  It's cheaper and easier to cast than the obvious comparison, Bloodghast, but its recursion is much less powerful without haste or any form of evasion.  I want this guy to be good, but i'm not sold.  Would it have been too good with Fear for one more mana?

I hope I don't fa-aaaaah

Tragic Slip

Cheesiest art in quite a while, but this is a card.  In limited, this is probably the best Morbid card after Reaper of the Abyss.  In constructed, is this strictly better than Wring Flesh?  Maybe not strictly, but being able to kill a Delver on turn one, and then being able to kill ANY non-hexproof creature at any given time is something that gives me a little hope for control in standard.

Alara un-unbroken (as in, it's broken, the book was very bad)

It was about three years ago now when I found The Gathering Dark in a charity shop for 50p.  Having just gotten back into magic earlier that year, I snapped it up (and what a bargain – Amazon lists it at £14.99!).  It was a fairly appropriate first step in a way, despite being several years old.  One of the themes of the current set was ‘trap’ cards, and The Gathering Dark was certainly that.

Having read a fair few Warcraft and WoW novels (several of which are written by the same author as TGD), I had low expectations but they were actually somewhat exceeded.  Now, let’s be clear, this was no classic of fantasy writing, but it was solid enough – a sort of literary equivalent of period costume movies like Kingdom of Heaven: entertaining enough if you don’t wish to tax your brain too heavily.

The plot made sense, the characters were just about deep enough to be fairly engaging, and the writing was passable.  I soon learned that this was the exception rather than the rule.

That Christmas, I asked for the Shards block novel, Alara Unbroken.  My God, what an awful mess of a book!  AU showed me clearly the difficulties that must stem from attaching a story to a game, rather than vice versa.  The first problem was that the overarching story of the Alara involves five different worlds or ‘shards.’  In-game, this gave identity to cards and colours, and worked very well.  In the novel it was a disaster.  The author, Doug Beyer, tried to give page time to all five shards, meaning a whole host of characters of varying importance was necessary to breathe life into the shards.  And yet, almost all of the well-developed ones were on Bant, rendering the other shards’ characters redundant.

The novel lacked direction, and would have been far better served to ignore the other shards.  Sarkhan’s subplot on Jund was tedious but relevant, so too Ajani’s on Naya.  Grixis and Esper are barely memorable – something about humans trying to escape the demons of Grixis, while Esper was something an artifact chap swimming in the sea… or something.

Then, of course, all the loose threads (a very appropriate description) culminated in a huge battle between Ajani and Nicol Bolas, making the other subplots feel even less important.  These kinds of fights are rarely entertaining and, in my experience, most novels try to avoid them because of it.  Not to be perturbed, though, Beyer dived head first into his best impression of a Dragonball Z battle.  It was dragged-out, dull, and oh so very predictable – and I don’t just mean in the fact that the good guy won.  The way Ajani won could be seen coming from the first time you knew they would fight one another.

A lot of MTG story nerds decry the fact that there is only one novel per block nowadays (there used to be one per set).  AU showed me both sides of that coin.  Heads: less books means less poorly-written novels tacked onto a story which is designed primarily to be a card game.  Tails: more books would have given each shard room to breathe and develop in Alara.

As I alluded to earlier, the problem really comes from trying to staple a novel onto a card game with only skin-and-bones story.  The fact that very few decent authors need this kind of work is also an issue, of course.  Sometimes it’s going to work, other times it will fall flat on its face but almost never is it going to be better than a “real” book.  Experience has borne this out for me to the point where I will only buy canon novels when they’re a) cheap and b) I have nothing better to read.  Then again, with Innistrad being famously ‘top-down design’ perhaps the next novel will be readable.  Fingers crossed!

Sexiest Plays of Innistrad so far

Innistrad has been playable for a few weeks now, and the response has been universally positive in my experience.  The flavour is probably the best ever, the cards are fun, and as a limited format it has been very enjoyable so far.  Having drafted the format a few times I've already had a handful of fun/silly plays, so let's count 'em.

Snap Pick: Last Wednesday I finally managed to open a Snapcaster Mage - yeah, i was pretty happy about it.  However, I was drafting from my fatpack and fell prey to the urge to rare draft for value.  I ended up with a three colour deck, and Owen convinced me to play a single Plains to flashback my Unburial Rites.  I got crushed in match one, got a bye in match two, and then the magic happened in match three.  Up 1-0, I had milled Devil's Play and was only running two Mountains (yeah, this was a SWEET deck!).  I'm pretty far ahead on-board, but I can only swing with my Invisible Stalker and he's on eight life.  Then I draw Tiago Chan: sweet.  Swing for one unblockable, put you to seven; cast Snappy, flashback Devil's Play with my one in-play Mountain with X = seven.  Fun times.


Slow?  If you say so: The general consensus has been that Innistrad is a fairly typically slow limited format.  But yesterday I had a turn five kill and, messed up a turn six kill and almost killed on turn six off a mulligan to four.  Yeah, I was red and yeah my opponent did little-to-nothing, but it was pretty fun... for me.

Turn one: Reckless Waif, go. 
Him: Plains go.
Turn two: flip the Waif, swing for three (17), cast Village Ironsmith.
Him Forest go.
Turn three: flip the Ironsmith, swing for six (11)
Him: chump blocker, go
Turn four: swing for six, gets blocked (8)
Him: chump blocker, I Brimstone Volley his face (5)
Turn five: Swing for six, one guy gets blocked (2), Bump in the Night (-1)

So, yeah, it's possible but won't happen all that often.

Could've, but didn't: Back to my four-colour monstosity for a moment. I had the opporunity to make a ridiculous but ultimately pointless play against the same guy.  Snappy and Devil's Play are both in my graveyard thanks to Trepidation Blade.  I draw Unburial Rites with eight lands on-board.  So the fancy but uselesss play; cast Rites (three lands untapped), put Snappy in play (one land untapped), flashback Devil's Play for zero!  Sweet, right?