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.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Monday, 11 July 2011
Saturday, 9 July 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 20 June 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, 19 May 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 16 May 2011
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.
Sunday, 8 May 2011
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? :(
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? :(
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