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?

Sample Conversation From Sheffield Magic

Patrick Bateman: Mythicthatdoesnothing is awesome, could it be good in a new control deck?  It only costs six and is almost as good as a titan.  All you have to do is sacrifice 8 creatures, discard your hand and and exile all nonland cards from your library and you have a 6/6 for 3!

John Roberts: No Patrick, you are in fact very wrong.  Titans are just better but here are four paragraphs about the subject anyway... [SEE MORE]

Stephen McAleer: That's what she said!

Michael Radford: I'm not sure, but it could be pretty good in limited.

Michael Boon: Cn i boro four of them 4 FNM this week?


Alistair Kennedy: Something something Legacy something something.

Stephen McAleer: Okay, but seriously, this card could be okay if there's a deck that wants to remove all its relevant spells and empty its hand quickly whilst discarding its hand.  Grave Titan is probably better, but Mythicthatdoesnothing might see a little play.

Andy Mather: It's not great but i guess we have to do the best we can with what Wizards gives us ^^

Owen Debenham: You're all wrong.

What i did on my Holidays: AKA my First Nationals

UK Nationals happened this past weekend.  It was in Sheffield - practically my home town (Barnsley doesn't have a real book shop, ergo it is not a real town) - so I pulled together a blue/black control list for Patriot Games pre-nats standard tournament, packed up about 50% of my belongings and headed to my Gran's house to live in Chapeltown for four nights.

Night one was literally as medicore as possible.  I went 2-1-2 (the middle is a tie, for Americans who don't know how numbers work), which I kind of expected.  I think blue/black control is fine in general, but the meta game at Patriot is sporadic, and with a bunch of unknown (to me) players attending as well, I was pretty worried about the aggro decks.  My losses came against an interesting Jund pod deck by Rob, which I feel like I should've won, and Quinton's mono red, which is basically a write-off.  The whole match with Quinton lasted about ten minutes, including sideboard and shuffling time - that should tell you all you need to know.  The draw came against a pod-less version of RUG.  I had only played against that deck once before, months ago, and i think i made a couple of play errors.  It was a very intense game, which i feel like i could have won if i was more experienced in the matchup, but that's what happens when you only play a handful of standard games per month.

My wins were fairly straight forward, not really worth talking about.  I beat a homebrew red/blue control list, which got mana screwed in both games, and a bizarre red/white/black homebrew with hawks, equipment and Dark Tutelage.  My opponent, Matt, who borrowed the deck from a friend, graciously killed himself with the enchantment in game one, while game two was a fairly straightforward Solemn-into-Sphinx demolition job.

I went home feeling like i would probably skip the standard LCQ next day, even if i scrubbed out in the limited one.  The meta felt pretty stacked against U/B, and i'm far from the best pilot for it so i went to bed hoping to open some titans in the morning.

A quick word on M12 limited.  So far, it has been cruel to me.  At the prerelease i used up all my bomb-luck by opening a Grave Titan and Sphinx of Uthuun.  Since then, i have lucked-out horribly in every draft, even if i had a decent deck (see the post about game day, for example).  In short, i felt like i was due some luck.

But if there is such a person as lady luck, i must've pissed her off more than i thought.  The first - and, tellingly, only draft - actually went okay.  I opened a Sorin's Vengeance in pack one and passed nothing in black except for a Wring Flesh.  I picked up a Berserker and Incinerate back-to-back, then saw basically zero red playables for the rest of pack one.  No problem, I would just play blue/black control in limited, too.

Pack two continued down that path, with a handy Doom Blade being the highlight.  In pack three, i don't really remember what happened, except that i somehow got a third pick Sorin's Vengeance.  Now, that seems pretty good to me; if i can stall out until seven, the game should be pretty un-losable, right?  The problem is that i got pretty greedy.  With little decent removal, i decided to splash the Incinerate and a Shock - yep, i splashed with two triple-black spells in my deck.  And no, i didn't have a single Manalith.  In retrospect i don't really know what i was thinking, but i at least had the decency to cut my Devouring Swams so i didn't need any double-mana until turn five.

The first match actually went surprisingly well, lulling me into a fall sense of security.  I won the entire match with just five attacks.  Granted, in game two he wrecked me with green beaters before i could do a single point of damage, but games one and three were comfortable wins.

Match two showed me just what was wrong with my deck, however.  I played against the U/W aggro deck with a bunch of pegasi and drakes.  Game one lasted a LONG time before he managed to "out-dude" me and finish the game off.  I did resolve a Vengeance - my only damage of the whole match, as it turned out - but i didn't see the 2nd one and couldn't draw enough guys to keep up.  In game two i mulliganed to five and got stuck on lands.  My only spell - a Skywinder Drake - got Mana Leaked and i quickly scooped.

At this point, i figured that i would drop out if i didn't win my last match.  A 1-2 record would make it so that even 3-0'ing the 2nd draft probably wouldn't be good enough.  So when i sat down opposite Russel (of Worldslayer and card-throwing fame) i did so with equal measures of excitement and dread.  Excitement because i know i'm a better player than him, but dread because i know how shitty i would feel if i exited nationals because of losing to him.

Sure enough, i cast a Vengeance after his green and white dorks beat me down to 13.  I stablised comfortably from there and killed him.  A few nerves dealt with, but in game two it was almost as one-sided as my mull to five in the previous match.  I did zero damage while his crappy dudes, and a massacre wurm, ate my life very quickly.  So, game three, i was on the play, and I kept two Vengeances, four lands and a dude.  Oh, god, why?  I've read a lot of pro players speaking about how they will play worse and keep bad hands against a player they view as inferior and this was a perfect example.

But rather than simply crushing me, the game teased me cruelly.  I drew pretty well, and we stalled out for quite a while - me at 15 life and him at 11.  I bashed him down to 6 but then he drew guys and i stumbled.  His board was big and scary - including an un-thirsted Wurm - but I had a chump blocker and Royal Assasin with six lands, including triple black.  I untapped, failed to draw a land and passed the turn.  He untapped, slammed a Celstial Purge and killed my Royal Assasin.  No worries, I still have a chump blocker and plenty of life.  He passed the turn, I untapped, miss on land but played another chump blocker before i passed.  I still had plenty of time, I assumed.  He untapped, slammed a Crown of Empires, tapped my biggest blocker and killed me with exactly 15 damage.  Oops.

Still, with four days hindsight, there's no point in crying about bad luck.  My first nationals taught me a harsh but important lesson - one that i can apply to any of the competitive games i play.  Concentrate on the game, not on my opponent.  Sure, keep an eye for mistakes and know where you can get an edge, but you still have to play well.  Magic isn't a game where the best player always wins.  Underestimating an opponent is almost as bad as, oh, lets say, splashing cards in a deck with triple-black spells.  Splashing in a deck with two triple-black cards is stupidly greedy, especially in a high-ish level event like nationals.

I can bitch about getting unlucky with the mulligan in round two and not drawing land in round three, but they wouldn't have been such problems if i had built a better deck.  Having basically one win condition is not a viable option unless you really build around it.  This weekend showed me that i need to play a lot more than i do.

Still, on the plus side, i did play my first ever minimasters, which is pretty awesome fun.  I even won at my first ever attempt, thanks in no small part to Fireball.  I did volunteer my services to Rich Hagon, who seemed like a thoroughly decent bloke, but i ended up being too addled and busy to actually go and see him again to do some writing.  Ho-hum, i definitely need to be more prepared for the next event like this.

But overall, i was pretty disappointed with my performance at nationals.  I enjoyed the weekend as a whole, but I feel like i let myself down in terms of playing and drafting.  And as for two-headed giant, well... that seriously was annoying unlucky, completely outplaying our opponents, only to die to a stupid overrun.  Best-of-one is not cool, and if i'd known it was like that i probably wouldn't have signed up in the first place.  I still think we could've gone 4-2 if Tom had stuck around though (he went home when we were 1-2).  Our pool was incredible!

Oh well... next year, eh?

Just because Solemn is back, doesn't mean Golems is a deck

About six weeks ago, i started playing on Cockatrice.  It has its flaws, and you play against a noticable number of mongoloids, but it's free and i'm always broke.  At least it automatically adds pictures, which is an improvement on Magic Workstation.

Naturally, i've been testing Mono Black Control a fair bit and today I had a beautiful moment.  My opponent was playing an "original" white/green Golem deck using Solemn Simulacrum (good) and Tempered Steel (good) alongside the Splicers (not so much).  Naturally, i drew badly and was playing my removal spells almost immediately - the incidental lifegain just about keeping me alive.  After he cast Precursor Golem i had to use my Black Sun's Zenith just to stay alive, shrinking all his Golems to 1/1 (and killing the Splicers, but who cares).

And then my eyes lit up.  I drew Consume Spirit and laughed out loud as i sank all my mana in to it, happily raising my life total from two to 26 and killing all of his Golems, thanks to Precusor.  I was happy to stabilise for the time being, but it was even better than I first thought.  Looking at the chat window, my opponent had given me a fairly standard "??"  followed by "you targetted Lodestone." I explain to him, since he apparently doesn't understand his own cards, that it copies to every Golem since Lodestone Golem is, shockingly, a Golem.

Next, he did was any self-respecting 'netizen' would do when made to look like a moron: he left the game.

Fuck infect

Yeah, fuck infect.  That's all.

Worldslaying the M12 prerelease

So, yeah, Worldslayer is awful.  But since casual cards often make for the best stories i figured i'd throw this one out there.

I was playing against the guy who always says "if i just drew this card..." and the like.  He was playing Worldslayer... maindeck... so not really a surprise that he's that guy, right?  I was playing UB with a red splash (for Incinerate and Fireball, because d'uh) and a Grave Titan.  It was a fairly control-ish deck (although i did win one game with a bunch of bears and an Aether Adept), stalling for six lands (or seven for FoF Sphinx, who's actual name escapes me).

Villain was playing some kind of RB aggro deck with nothing super exciting.  He had a ton of mediocre one-drops, so he had me down to a single life by the time i stablised.  He had a Tormented Soul on-board when i hit seven mana to cast the Sphinx.  I hit some lands, a card i can't remember and, crucially, Wring Flesh.  For some reason unbeknownst to me, he gave me a swamp and the Wring Flesh... which is exactly what i needed.  Okay!

So i proceed to attack with my Sphinx, praying that he wouldn't draw a Shock or an Incinerate.  He didn't, and i bashed him down to Fireball range.  With a genuine sigh of relief, that was game one.

Game two, the Worldslayer came into play.  He was behind on the board, what with me having a Grave Titan in play.  So he equips the Tormented Soul, takes 4 damage from my zombies (after Assasinating my Titan with Royal Assasin) and, sure enough, slays the world on his turn.  I held back an Island and a Fireball which i had been unable to cast.  I then drew three lands in a row, followed by a Salamander Rogue (best creature type ever, by the way) and started beating at his then-14 life.  He eventually drew a guy to stall me, and cast a new Twisted Soul, with enough mana to equip the Sword of Stupid and Dumb.  We were both at 7 life by now and he was vaguely ahead on the board: two guys, one of which was unblockable, to my one.

I was still holding the fireball at this point, and drew my Manalithe to put me in-range of Fireball-ing him to death.  I was just praying he wouldn't equip the Worldslayer and reset the game again (although I did still have an Elixir of Immortality to draw at some point).  Forunately, he didn't, and i untapped and killed him with said Fireball.  The moral of the story is, even when Worldslayer might be good, it's still fucking awful.

P.S. it should be mythic.

Colour wars: a new hope? (aka my uninformed opinion on the bans)

So, this blue card just got banned.  And a white one.  They were pretty good.  You might have heard about it.  I guess there have been several billion words typed about this topic by now, but here are my thoughts anyway.

I won't lie, when i woke up and checked the Daily MTG page (after loading up the Dreamhack SC2 streams), i was pretty happy.  Happier than i thought banning a piece of cardboard could ever make me.  That doesn't mean i was dancing down the street and hugging strangers, but it made me smile at least.

That was my first, selfish reaction.  I'm on a very constrained budget and Jace has never been an option for me, so there was at least a little schadenfreude.  I once managed to borrow two of them from friends for a tournament and i once cast Volition Reigns on one, but that's it.  Oh, yeah, I've lost to it numerous times as well.

But as a wannabe journalist, i have to try and be neutral and see the other side.  Well, fine.  I can understand that people spending £200+ on 4 Jaces get pissed-off when those cards get banned.  I can understand the pros being mad because a skill-testing card has been removed from the format - the cost of cards is an irrelevance to them, so don't take their opinion on the cost of cards too seriously.

But coming at this from the perspective of someone who is involved in another niche competitive sport, the bannings are, if anything, too late.  My other biggest hobby, for those who don't know, is esports (that's professional computer gaming).  I'm also a big sports buff, and i know that the most important thing to the growth of any sport - any form of competition, really - is a constant influx and retention of new players.  Wizards does an excellent job of making the game approachable for noobs.  I'm writing this the day after the release parties of Commander - easily one of the best products they have made ever.  Appropriately, it's also a week after the release of the event deck with Stoneforge Mystic in it.  Both of these show how Wizards has stepped up their efforts in recruiting new players, rather than rest on the laurels of Zendkiar's massive sales and Duels of the Planeswalkers' immense popularity.

The banning of Jace and SFM is, in my opinion, Wizards' attempt to keep players around.  Sure, a few whiners say they will quit because they've lost value.  Maybe a few of them will follow through, but this is the internet, so i doubt Wizards is too worried.  But players have already left because of Cawblade, and that hurts Wizards in the most painful place - their wallet.  Hopefully these bans come quickly enough to stem the flow and keep the game healthy.

Wizards basically say they are banning the cards because they make standard stale.  I don't think that anyone can honestly dispute that fact.  You can say that Jace and SFM made the format more skill intensive, sure, that's a possibility - more informed voices than mine have made that claim.  But the fact is that £200 (or more) is a steep barrier that a lot of players are unwilling or unable to overcome and when the cards that cost that much are a prerequisite for the best deck (you can't replace Jace, you just can't - believe me, i've tried) it basically means you have to play a tier two or worse deck.

Tier two decks can win, as recent tournaments have shown, but those decks took advantage of the fact that Cawblade decks were so prevelant.  Control players were tuning with other control players in mind, leaving out the removal that would protect them from vampires and goblins.  That's how good Cawblade is: it can ignore half of the format and still beat it more often than not.

Now, let's be clear: i'm not insinuating that Wizards banned the cards because they are too expensive - that is not really their concern.  But the fact that Jace costs so much starts a snowball effect.  People bitch and complain that cards are too expensive and that the format is dull; players stop attending tournaments; Wizards is forced to act.  So indirectly, the price of Jace is the reason it got banned.

Stoneforge Mystic, on the other hand, is just too fucking good.  £15 is expensive for a rare in this day and age, sure, but even i could bare to part with £60 if it meant i had the best deck in the format.  The fact that it was barely played outside of Naya for the period before Cawblade arrived was simply because we had almost no good equipment.  Now that we can put a pseudo-indestructable 4/4 with vigilance and lifelink into play on turn three, things are a bit different.

So why ban both?  That's the other question people keep raising.  Jace wasn't breaking the format before Mirrodin Besieged, right?  Well, kinda.  As i recall, there were basically three decks back then: UW Control, UB Control and Valakut.  Two of those played Jace and could not function the same without him, the other two featured a then-£40 Primeval Titan in a similar "this deck sucks without me" fashion.  Pretty annoying for us budget players, but they kept each other in check, with the main three maintaining a traditional rock-paper-scissors.  Sure, there was no aggro deck, but it was better than the height of Cawblade's dominance.  Is a format where two expensive mythics dominate better than a format where one expensive mythic and an expensive rare dominate? (oh, and lets not forget, you do still need to buy the equipment too).  I don't know, but the point is that Jace did dominate the format back then too; you either played Jace, or you played cards to beat Jace - isn't that the definition of format-warping?

In combination with Stoneforge Mystic and a slew of ridiculsouly good equipment, Jace is THAT good.  But if  only Mystic was banned, UW would still be one of the top decks - you can make an argument that, with Torpor Orb tempering Valakut, UWwould still be THE deck.  From here, it's all speculation.  Would Valakut be good enough to keep Vengevine off the top tables?  Can UB make a comeback with Tezzeret?  I don't want to hazard a guess, though i'm fairly sure that monoblack probably still isn't good enough.

Ironically, one of the healthiest things to happen to magic is what highlighted the flaws.  This is hardly an original thought from me, but the SCG opens have thrown standard into the spotlight like it never was before.  Almost weekly scrutiny has made it blatantly obvious that Cawblade is better than Jund ever was.  The numbers, which are more reliable than previous years due to the increased sample size, bare this out.

I guess there is one other argument to dispel - preordain.  Apparently some people really believe this, which i found hard to, er, believe.  The argument goes that one turn one you can dig for the Jace or the SFM, which helps your mulligans, i suppose.  Okay, sure... but what are you digging for?  It sure as hell ain't more preordains.  Besides, everyone can play preordain, it's a common.

Back to Back in Black: revisiting the set review

So NPH has been out for a while now.  I've got to draft triple NPH a bit and did my first full block draft last night (went 2-1 but had to leave before the last round, by the way).  I figured it was time to go back to my set preview and see how accurate i was when evaluating the black cards of New Phyrexia.  This time i'm going to concentrate solely on limited.

Blind Zealot: As i originally thought, this card is mostly just okay.  I've  never had it do anything except trade so far.  I can see the upside of getting in for two, then sacrificing it to kill a Tyranax or something, but that has yet to happen for me.  Definitely playable but mostly it's just a grey ogre in this artifact block.

Caress of Phyrexia: This appears to be one of the many mega uncommons.  I've only played with it once (and quickly sided it out) and only got one in my booster box.  It's fine against non-infect decks, but mostly i think the cost is too high to be casting it on yourself.  I still think this card is best as a burn spell in poison decks.

Chancellor of the Dross: I faced this down and won twice last night (thanks, Blinding Souleater!).  Still, the leyline effect gives you a nice headstart and without the souleater i would've lost horribly i think.  Yup, a 6/6 flying lifelinker is good - who knew?

Dementia Bat: I've yet to play with or against this card.  I think that tells you all you need to know.  A 2/2 flier for five is barely even filler and the ability is absolutely awful for its cost.  This is a 23rd card if you're reeeeeeeeeally stretching.

Despise: Yeah, as i suspect, this is fine in limited.  Not amazing, but viewed as removal for a black mana, it's pretty solid.  The later the game goes, the worse this card probably gets, but limited is all about creatures and the chances of this card whiffing early on are low.  And just think how good you'll feel when you hit a Karn with it!  (pro tip: don't play this card  for Planeswalker in limited for hopefully obvious reasons).

Dismember: Boy, do i feel stupid right now?  This card has quickly become my favourite in the set.  I still go to the back of the pack first, like anyone, but there are few rares i'd take over this card.  It kills almost everything in the format and i've never been unhappy to pay four life.  Nice Moltensteel Dragon, dude.  Easily the best uncommon in the set and maybe in the format.

Enslave: It's Mind Control in black, costing one more but having a mildly significant bonus.  Play it, maybe even first pick it.  2nd best black uncommon in the set, or close to it.

Entomber Exarch: Gravedigger with an upside is solid.  Not much else to say really.

Evil Presence: Bad - moving on.

Geth's Verdict: As swingy as I expected.  I'd probably always maindeck this unless i somehow had four Dismembers but feel free to side it out against a swamy myr token deck.  You all know how edict cards work.

Glistening Oil: I still don't really get this card.  Is it removal or an alternate win condition?  It's pretty bad at either of them.  I haven't played with it yet either, so maybe i'm missing something, but, having spoken to other people who have played with it, it still seems pointlessly bad.

Grim Affliction: Great removal that gets exponentially better in an infect deck.  Run it, kill stuff, maybe even proliferate yourself to a victory.  It will happen and you or your opponent will sigh.  Or swear, in Eric's case.

Ichor Explosion: I've seen this in draft packs but never seen it played.  I still think it could be fine in a slow deck, but you're probably going to have to sacrifice your biggest guy for this card to do anything.  Ironically, despite being the most expensive wrath, it's probably the closest to the original that we've seen in this block.  There is no cool upside like a horror token and it's symmetrical.  At seven mana, that means that giving your opponent the first chance to rebuild could be very costly.  Against the decks where it's likely to be good (aggro infect) you're probably dead before you cast it anyway if this is your big spell.

Life Finale: I have three of these now but still haven't played with it.  I stand by what I said originally: it's a good upside on a wrath effect but again, six mana wraths don't really help you that much unless you manage to remove their last three creatures with the other half of the card.  Phyrexian Rebirth was great because it left you with a mid-to-huge sized guy.  This leaves you with nothing, and your opponent gets to rebuild first.  Overall playable but be wary.

Mortis Dogs: This is a lot better than i first thought.  With +power equipment on this guy can get insane pretty quickly and i'm happy to run him in any non-infect black deck.  Word of warning though; against infect he's, well... a dog.  Trading your 2/2 for a 4/4 is obviously great but you won't get the up-side because he goes to the graveyard as a 0/-2.  He's not great on defence either.  Solid enough card, but don't value it too highly.

Parasitic Implant: This feels so much like black's version of Quisilver Bonds.  It's decent enough removal.  Slow but with a relevant bonus of making a 1/1.  If you're in a black metalcraft deck, which isn't completely unheard of, this card gets better.  Take it around the middle of pack one and be pretty happy about it.

Phyrexian Obliterator: Mythics are pretty irrelevant in limited so i don't have much to say here.  It probably is playable but don't expect to cast it on turn four very often.

Pith Driller: I'm a bit higher on this guy than i was to begin with.  He's a good blocker and throwing killing an infect creature is never bad.  Yeah, I do wish he had infect, but in the 50/50 decks that are becoming more popular he's still very good.  I originally overlooked the fact that he's an artifact, which means he has an up-side for almost every deck.

Postmortem Lunge: I've had this in my sideboard a few times and never brought it in.  Maybe that's wrong, or maybe it's just because i haven't played any control mirrors yet, but i haven't found a place for it yet.  Reading the card makes me think it's probably fine but i just value removal so much higher than an expensive Unearth effect.  I would probably play this card if i had to.

Praetor's Grasp: Yep, still think this card is pretty poor.  It's sideboard tech against bad decks, but you shouldn't need that anyway.  It gets a little better in the mirror i guess, but there's no way i'm first-picking this card.

Reaper of Sheoldred: This is everything i thought it was.  Excellent card for the infect decks and is still fine in a 50/50 deck.  Decent in non-infect decks too i would say, though i'd rather have a Driller in the five slot.  Somehow that sounds kinda dirty...

Sheoldred, the Whispering one: Won me three matches at the pre-release, i lost the ones where i didn't cast her.  Yeah, she's pretty fucking incredible in limited.  Still, as a mythic she's fairly irrelevant to this article so lets move on.

Surgical Extraction: Ignoring the constructed debate about this card, if you play this in limited you're probably the kind of guy who plays Squadron Hawk in EDH.  It's essentially the same card as Praetor's Grasp 90% of the time.  While triple-NPH is still around this might be sideboard-able since people will have multiples but after that it gets way, way worse.

Toxic Nim: Well, if you untap with this guy still around he's going to cause some pain.  But still, that one toughness for six mana is brutal.  If for some reason i'm dedicated to forcing infect i could see myself picking this guy up in the middle of the pack, but the rest of the time i'd be happy to see him 10th or later.  That probably won't happen, however.

Vault Skirge: After playing with this card a fair bit it's definitely gone up in my estimation.  It's not amazing, but a 1/1 flier on turn one is definitely fine.  With a bit of luck you'll have regained that life by turn three anyway.  Against infect he's pretty much just there to block Plague Stinger, though.

Whisper Specter: The Best Case Scenario for this guy is pretty awesome (Swing on turn four, putting your land-scewed opponent to four counters, make him discard six cards, win the game!).  That's pretty damn unlikely, though.  The average scenario is that this is an expensive Plague Stinger with a mediocre bonus.  The later the game goes the worse this guy gets, just like any discard effect.  How about this for a worst case, which actually happened last night?  Guy swings at me, i don't block, go to five poison with two cards in hand.  He sacs the Specter, i bolt him down to two life with lethal on-board and i discard a mountain, going to six poison.  Swingy.

Hands on with NPH drafting (aka 3xNPH sucks)

So, FNM... travelling from Barnsley to Sheffield can be quite a pain, and more than once i've done so to find out that nobody else bothered.  This is usually on draft night, due to people's dislike for the prize support (i.e. there basically is none).  But this week, ahead of the release, i decided to pop down and play some standard since iw as in Sheffield anyway.

Then half the people left, not wanting to play... seemed like a familiar tale.  And then Rich suggested we just do a draft!  Sweet!  I was just about still in 'gimme new stuff' mode, so playing triple NPH was appealing enough for me to stick around.

I drafted one of my favourite archetypes in any format: shit tons of removal.  As usual, it worked pretty well, as my shiny new Squadron Hawks can attest to (ooooh shiny!).  The format itself is sorely lacking, but it was kinda fun the first time.  The infect pinger continues to impress me, but i guess that's no surprise to anyone.  Dismember is probably my favourite card of the entire set and i learned just how often it's worth paying 4 life for (tip: almost always).  It saved me from a Moltensteel Dragon twice as well as numerous other critters.

Quick plug for Limited Resources: i really think my deckbuilding in limited has improved massively, despite not getting to draft nearly as often as i'd like.  I can only assume the gaps are filled in by listening to that show but i haven't gone worse than 2-1 in a live draft for about 2 months.  I also started drafting online a bit around Christmas, so the practice definitely helped, but monetary constraints mean I can only do that a couple of times a week at most.

So yeah, i won FNM and was feeling pretty good about the proper release day.  Unforunately, timing meant i could only afford to draft once, but, frankly, the prospect of another 3xNPH draft wasn't all that appealing anyway.  Especially after losing to a 5x Glistener Elf and Batterskull deck (i'm looking at you, Rich!).

I drafted a U/B control-ish deck with, again, tons of removal.  I splashed a single plains for Souleater, which is absolutely worth it, i feel.  The only thing remotely resembling a bomb in my deck was Phyrexian Ingester.  I only drew it like three times, though, so it was mostly irrelevant.  For what it’s worth, I thought it was okay but not exciting, and I’d pass it for Dismember any day.

Match one i'm paired against a guy i've never played before.  He seemed to know what he was talking about when helping someone who I assume is his girlfriend and he played pretty solidly.  Fortunately i just had the removal for almost every threat he played.  Porcelain Legionnaire is awesome, but Grim Affliction isn't impressed.  I don't remember much else about our match except to say that I won 2-0.

Match two was against Russell.  I don’t really like playing against him because he’s the guy who always had the bad beat story, even if he’s won.  “Oh if I could survive two more turns… (insert unrealistic scenario).”  Just build a better deck that doesn’t need those two turns?

Anyway, he was playing some kind of bizarre black/white control deck with Norn’s Annex.  Yeah, that card is not good in control decks at all.  Granted, he had two Shrine of Burning Rage, which killed me from 17 life in game two, but obviously I just paid the life (or the white mana when I was lucky enough to draw a plains in game one) whenever I had a guy who could race it.  His deck seemed to have practically zero creatures, so the race was always in my favour, especially given my removal suite.  After losing to the Shrines, I was struggling to hold my tilt, and when he went turn 2 Shrine, turn 3 Shrine for the second game in a row, I think I probably sighed… who wouldn’t, though?

Fortunately, I just had too many guys for him to deal with.  He got the Shrines up to something like seven and eight counters, but I made him pop them on a golem token and something else.  I pretty much crushed him from there, ending the game on 18 life.  Vault Skirge was kinda funny sideboard tech, by the way.

Game three I was dreading before it started.  Rich had a foil Batterskull (from the same pack as a non-foil copy… yup, really), which was depressing enough.  He also had five (there could’ve been more, but I saw five) Glistner Elf.  In game three he cast all five of them before I’d manage to untap with a single creature.  I was on nine poison counters for about six turns before he finally finished me off.  Considering that I never drew my Souleater in all three games and had literally zero artefact removal, I was pretty happy to just lose 2-1.

All-in-all I felt myself longing to play the proper draft format.  Enslave was excellent, but I found myself longing for some decent artifact hate.  I would’ve gladly splashed for a Revoke Existence to go with the Souleater.  I was glad I never played against that stupid Infect overrun though.  I’ve still yet to play with or against it and I’m not looking forward to the latter.

NPH pre-release. Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

Ah, sealed, what an irritating luck-fest.  Still, i just can't resist it, and especially the pre-release.  New cards a free shiny thing and the slim chance of opening bombs/money rares apparently outshine the more real chance of opening a mediocre or worse pool.

When i watched Tom open a Sword of War and Peace (i knew i should've sat in that seat) i should've known how my day would go.  The one mythic i opened in my pool was basically my only bomb, but it was a pretty good one.  Sheoldred, the Whispering One might be practically worthless anywhere outside of Sealed, but christ, it's good there.  I'm not exaggerating when i say that i cast it six times yesterday and i won those six games.  The other five i lost (for my fellow maths noobs, my record was 3-2 overall).

Still, my most awesome moment of the day came thanks to Necrotic Ooze.  I've played with this card in EDH and never really had it do anything.  But in my game three of my third match yesterday he was a beast.  He had infect from Vector Asp, firebreathing from Ogre Menial and Immolating Souleater (both in my colours, i was BRg) as well as the ping ability from Fallen Ferromancer.  Yeah, that one wasn't even close.  Ferromancer is crazy good, by the way - haivng two of those in my pool really helped me stall for Sheoldred.

I could've easily been 4-1, but i mis-played against Mike.  I was in a pretty good-looking board position so i was sandbagging lands, since i had upwards of eigh in play already.  Unforunately, i kinda forgot about the Tower of Calamties in my hand, and was pretty annoyed when he cast Tainted Strike on some random dude, i forget which one.  I hate infect as a mechanic, but that was totally avoidable.  My other loss earlier in the day also came against infect.  In fact, looking back, every single deck i played was infect-based apart from Patrick's, which i kinda raped by casting Sheoldred in both games.

In summary: sealed is still a horrible format, but if you open a bomb like Sheoldred, build around it and stall out until she takes over the game.  Just untapping once with her means the game is almost un-loseable.  Your opponent will have sacrificed a chump blocker and you'll have one of your stalling guys back.  Not to mention the awesomeness of swampwalk on a 6/6 when most decks are playing black to some extent.

Oh, and i guess as the author of a blog whose url is monoblackcontrol, i should probably be happy that my all-star card was black, right?  Still, couldn't it have been an Obliterator? :(

New Phrexia: Back in Black

Set reviews are pretty common on these here intrawebz.  So, rather than bore you all with another long-winded take on why Karn is probably unplayable and Mental Misstep will change the face of legacy, i figure i'd live up to the blog's name and take a look at the black cards only.  I'll mostly be looking at standard, since it's what most people care about, but i'll also consider limited.

Blind Zealot: This card seems pretty awesome in a black aggro draft deck.  The problem is that in MSS, that generally means Infect but maybe there are the tools to change that in the new format.  I'm not convinced, but this still seems like a solid draft pick in the middle of the pack.  In terms of standard, this seems like a worse Gatekeeper, with a decent upside of being unblockable by some/most decks.  A semi-unblockable 2/2 for 3 might be good with some recursion, but it probably doesn't do enough on its own.

Caress of Phyrexia: Pretty close to being Strictly Worse than Sign in Blood. One more card for far more than double the cost.  Card advantage/draw is great, but the price is far too high here, and is probably worse in draft that it is in standard, due to prominence of Infect.

Chancellor of the Dross: This seems pretty hillarious in something like EDH if you get it in your opener.  In standard it's far too expensive for a french vanilla 6/6 flier.  In draft it's obviously pretty solid, especially if the slowdown we saw in MSS continues into MSN (so is this what Wizards refers to when they talk about the new Magic Online?  MSN?  Rumbled!).  There are better bombs to first pick from this set, and the decent leyline effect is negated by having a seven mana card in your opening hand, but a 6/6 lifelink flier is hard to pass P1P1.

Dementia Bat: I guess i should leave the puns to LSV, but you really would have to be demented to play this in anything but limited.  Even there it's filler at best.  Nine mana for a Mind Rot on a 'meh' body?  I really hope i never have to run this.

Despise: Sweet; Inquisition for Walkers and Creatures.  This seems like an absolute auto-include in any black decks.  Maybe not a four-of, since Inquisition is better against low curve/no walker decks but you'll probably want four between the main and the side.  For black players this might be the most important card of the set.  As for limited, since it hits creatures this might actually be playable, which is rare for a duress effect.  I wouldn't try and take it early, but i'd be happy to wheel one.

Dismember: I'm not as excited as everyone else about this card.  For black players the extra -1/-1 isn't much better than Grasp since there aren't many five toughness threats played in standard right now.  For other colours, well... is killing a Thrun worth four life?  Is killing a Titan worth 2-for-1-ing yourself AND taking four damage anyway (possibly seven if it's an Inferno)?  In limited this card will be excellent but i still expect to see it mostly in black decks.  Like all the Phyrexian mana cards, though, it gets better against Infect.

Enslave: Cool, Mind Control in black.  Like any MC effect, this is obviously solid in limited, but will probably see zero standard play.  The cost is high, and black has much better ways to deal with creatures.  Looking forward to seeing someone cast this on a Vatmother and hopefully in a deck with Caress of Phyrexia.

Entomber Exarch: Gravediggers are generally playable in limited, and this one has some versatility to boot.  Granted, i can't see the second clause being used often, there are always corner cases (maybe you have an empty graveyard).  In standard this will be the same as every Gravedigger, unless someone needs an alternate win condition for their Megrim (Liliana's Caress, whatever) deck...

Evil Presence: Urborg for extreme budget EDH players?  Yeah, this is unplayable everywhere.

Geth's Verdict: I tend to overvalue cards that make your opponent sac creatures, but this one seems pretty legitimate.  In standard there aren't enough decks where shroud is relevant enough for this to be good, but in draft this could be okay.  The loss of life is a vaguely relevant upside with Phyrexian mana around, but be aware of the downsides in a format where expendable creatures abound.

Glistening Oil: Tainted Strike is somewhat playable in MSS as a finisher in a deck that couldn’t quite get the critical mass of Infect creatures.  This card is closer to Phyresis, which was never playable in any format.  The built-in recursion is nice but mentioning this in the same sentence as Rancor seems laughable, and so is any deck that plays this.

Grim Affliction: This seems okay in Limited, where it goes into basically any deck thanks to the abundance of one toughness creatures.  It’s marginally better in an infect deck, of course, but I’d rather have almost any other black removal spell.  As for standard – no.

Ichor Explosion: If you’re looking for a wrath effect in black in standard, clearly this is not the card you want.  Even in limited, seven mana is a lot for a conditional card that kills your stuff as well.  This kind of card is the downside of drafting the last set first because in pack three you will have a better idea of whether your deck wants this card or not.  Expect to wheel this in a decent pack with good players.

Life’s Finale: This seems like a pretty huge blowout in limited.  Wrathing for six with an upside has proven to be good already in this format thanks to Phyrexian Rebirth.  In certain board states this is probably even better.  Removing all villain’s on-board threats AND three that haven’t been cast yet seems insanely good.  In standard this is probably too slow, and there are better things to do with six mana nowadays, if you hadn’t noticed.

Mortis Dogs: This seems like pure limited filler.  You should get it late in the pack, which is nice, and I expect to see at least one case of a killing his own Dogs to drain the last few points in a stalemate.

Parasitic Implant: Clunky removal and even clunkier combos with a card like Mortis Dogs above does not make a good card.  Run this if you’re light on removal but you don’t need to pick it high like you do with good removal.

Phyrexian Obliterator: Wellllllll… is it good enough to bring back our beloved control deck?  On its own, probably not, I’m afraid.  There are other tools, but this card alone won’t make or break a deck.  That said, it is good, and it can only be played in mono black for obvious reasons.  Being a 5/5 on turn four is obviously great, but in a world of titans, ‘dies to removal’ is huge.  This leaves nothing behind after being ‘Throated’ but if it sticks around for a turn or two it will warp the game around it.  Even dying to a Titan is probably beneficial for you since sacrificing six permanents is back-breaking.  In draft you’ll probably windmill slam this for value, and then try desperately to draft mono black.  In standard, as much as I want this card to be amazing, I really can’t say how good it is yet.  Then again, if it isn’t tier one, I can at least get them a little cheaper #banmythics

Pith Driller: This seems reasonable but not great.  If it had infect this would be awesome, but without it… meh, killing a Myr on turns four-through-five is not very exciting, neither is a 2/4 body.  Less Driller Killer and more Filler Driller.

Postmortem Lunge: This seems like a sometimes better/sometimes worse take on last set’s Morbid Plunder.  It’s better if you’re getting back an evasive guy but getting back anything else for this cost is not really worth it.  Moreso than most reanimate effects, this one really scales with the quality of your creatures and is probably not first pickable in draft.

Praetor’s Grasp:  I hate using smilies in any article, but… what the heck o_O  This card seems awful.  Maybe I’m missing something, but even out of the board in game two in limited, this does almost nothing.  I guess if your opponent’s deck has just one win condition… you’re probably going to win anyway because they don’t know how to build a draft deck.  I expect Tom to open at least six of these in his packs over the next year or so.

Reaper of Sheoldred: First-pickable in a weak pack, this card seems pretty solid to me.  Obviously it’s not constructed-viable but in limited this is an awesome reach card for the infect deck.  Even as a blocker it has inevitability and as an attacker it’s always getting in for one unless they have removal.

Sheoldred, the Whispering One: In limited this is the windmill slam for black in this set.  This is what you get for seven mana, and it’s definitely worth it.  In standard is loses to Titans and will probably never see play unless mono black becomes a deck, since it’s pretty sick in the mirror.  Personally though, I’m eyeing up a black EDH deck.

Surgical Extraction: Seems like all of the contentious cards from this set are in black.  I’ll just go with Alexander Shearer’s article from last week: “How to Waste two Life at Instant Speed.”  There’s not much more to add; this card is bad.

Toxic Nim: Bleh, I’m not a fan of infect, and this just seems overpriced to me.  Regenerate for one black seems good but even in limited there are better things to do with six mana.  Left alone, this is going to eat through the opponent’s board pretty quickly, but it dies to EVERYTHING and is a liability in the infect mirror: Tap six, play Toxic Nim, say go. Opponent casts Virulent Wound, timewalks you.

Vault Skirge: Cute design, right?  You pay two life to get it in play in an off-colour deck, then it gets the life back… eventually.  The art is cool, the frame is sweet, the card, however, is awful.  With infect, this would be a strict upgrade from Plague Stinger, without infect it’s close to strictly worse.

Whisper Specter: I exspecter (sorry…) this to be 15^th pick on a regular basis.  Specters are very hit and miss, but this is definitely the latter.  Three mana for a 1/1 that only makes villain discard if you sacrifice it?  Awful.