Today, a shorter article! Hurray?
When I make decks, I label them by format and color. As someone with no interest in tournament play (a pure casual player), I don't attach any special meaning or importance to this process, but it's a helpful guideline for approximate power level. Maybe. When I first got Magic Workstation and began making decks, the only experience I had was with my own crappy collection of mostly commons. With the entire history of Magic at my fingertips, I was completely overwhelmed. I didn't know enough about any old cards to make an interesting deck. So I started out making only Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block Constructed decks.
This worked okay for a while. I made some cool decks, using the mechanics from those sets. I learned the cards better, and got a feel for making decks. I gradually expanded to Standard, and threw in some Extended and Vintage. (Note: by "Extended" I mean "things that the Gatherer lists under Extended," and by "Vintage" I mean "all black-bordered cards ever.") If I made a combo deck, I'd try to keep the format as small as possible. For instance, if all the important combo pieces were in Mirrodin block, I'd try to keep the deck to Extended, even though there may have been some older cards that might have improved it.
But when I was playing some more games against mAc Chaos last night, I used some Vintage decks that include the Alpha dual lands. Whenever I have a deck that requires Vintage cards, I don't shy away from using these, because hey, they're legal in Vintage, aren't they? But he pointed out that they are unbalanced. And I realized my own hypocrisy.
Flash back to an earlier game I played against Brendan. He doesn't care about formats either, but he doesn't even try to restrict himself. All his decks have Alpha dual lands in them. And this is fine with me. But he uses Lightning Bolt. When he played Lightning Bolt, I got angry. Lightning Bolt and Shock are identical except that Lightning Bolt is better. Lightning bolt is JUST PLAIN OVERPOWERED, which is why Shock exists. If you choose Lightning Bolt over Shock, you're making a conscious decision to sacrifice fairness for power, and this is not a feature of casual play. So that's why I was upset.
As for Alpha dual lands, I justified using them because all they do is even out your mana base. It's no fun for anyone if someone can't get the right color of mana, and being able to play your spells isn't something that you should have to fight for. But when mAc made the comment about them, I recalled the Ravnica dual land cycle that is identical to the Alpha dual lands, except that they come into play tapped unless you pay 2 life. So the dual lands are no different from Lightning Bolt in this respect. And I am going to go through all my Vintage decks and take them out.
But this brings up a larger issue. What is the proper relation between fun and power in casual Magic? Is it fair to use Lightning Bolt in a casual deck? Is it fair to forbid it? There's no obvious answer to this question, but I think deckbuilders should at least be conscious of their opponents. My friend Jovan (who taught me Magic in the first place) won't even play against combo decks or control decks, so I have to be very careful when deciding which deck to play against him so that I don't ruin it for him. If mAc's fun is diminished by my using overpowered Alpha cards, then I'll take them out, because I'd rather be able to play all my Vintage decks without feeling like I'm cheating. And when I get upset at Brendan's lockdown decks or decks that make copious use of banned cards, he knows not to play them against me in the future.
Of course, you don't have to fuss over every deck you build to please every single possible opponent. Building ridiculously overpowered decks is fine - just be careful who you play them against.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Combos
I have mixed feelings about combo decks in Magic. Basically, combo decks reduce the entire game down to a single yes-or-no question: can you get the combo off? If you do, you win. If you don't, you lose. (I know not everyone would define "combo deck" in this way, but this is the definition I'm going to use here.) But the real yes-or-no question is: are combo decks fun or not?
First, the pros. Part of the joy of Magic is finding unique interactions between cards. This often results in combos that are powerful enough to be worth building a deck around. The possibility of winning the game by playing just a few cards in a certain sequence is exciting, and it motivates deckbuilders (especially Johnny types) to look for new and interesting combos. Finding a good combo, and building a deck that will make it work, is certainly fun. They also require creativity and astuteness, so they act as a good mental exercise as well. But actually playing with combo decks can be a different story.
For most Johnnies (and I list myself among them), I would guess that the joy of actually playing combo decks is in showing them to your friends. When the opponent is oblivious, and you're secretly racing against the clock, trying to pretend that everything is perfectly normal as you scramble to assemble your combo, and you try to act calm and casual despite the mad thumping in your chest, and you draw the final piece of your combo and glance at it as disinterestedly as possible even though your heart has just leaped through the roof of your mouth...that's fun. When you have three of your four combo pieces in play, and the fourth in your hand, and your opponent is studying them with furrowed brow, and you're giggling to yourself because you know you're about to win and she has no idea whatsoever because she can't foresee your brilliant and carefully planned combo, and you slam down the final piece and leap up and dance around the table hooting like a maniac...that's fun. When your opponent looks at your combo pieces, each in turn, figuring out what could possibly make you cavort about like a madman, and it finally dawns on her, and she leans back and lets out a low whistle, eyes wide and brow raised, and rakes her fingers through her hair, and you knock over lamps this way and that in your crazed victory dance, shattering ancient Grecian relics willy-nilly, whirling like a cyclone through your living room...that's fun.
So basically, for a Johnny, the fun is in revealing your combo. If you then go to play a rematch, you'll probably be much less interested, if not outright bored. The fun was all in the surprise, and in demonstrating your brilliance. Once you've done it, the game is truly nothing more than a yes-or-no question. There are no secrets to keep, no traps to spring, no magnificent schemes to unveil. They've seen it, and now the cat's out of the bag, and the deck is nothing more than a conversation piece until you find your next victim. And this is the first vice of combo decks.
They're not replayable. Once you spring the combo, most of the fun is gone. The opponent might have more fun in a rematch trying to think of ways to stop your combo, but all you're doing is waiting. And waiting is no fun at all.
I should make a quick note at this point. I know that not all combo decks are all-or-nothing. Many have failsafes, or several different combos, or a number of alternate win conditions. But the true heart of a combo deck is the combo, and that's all I'm really concerned about. If you have three different combos in a deck, it may be fun to play it more than once per opponent, but it's still limiting. And if a deck has a ton of failsafes - enough that it doesn't really need the combo to win - then it's not strictly a combo deck by my definition. So there.
Moving on...the unreplayability of combo decks is one thing, but it's a problem that mostly affects the player of the combo deck. But what about the opponent? There are some decks, like Brendan's Mycosynth Lattice/Shattering Spree deck, which can lock down many casual decks, completely neutralizing them (at least, the ones I build). This type of combo deck is bad for the opponent because it is not an instant win, but as soon as you're locked down, you know there's nothing you can do, and you just have to wait and get killed. When this happens to me, I usually get angry, because waiting to die is no fun for anyone, but if I just scoop whenever I see a lockdown deck, it's no fun for the deckbuilder either, because they don't get to show off their cleverness. So combos can be dangerous - they might be fun to make and think about, but actually playing them could end in disaster.
But not all combo decks aim at neutralizing the opponent and then winning at leisure. Many focus on winning as soon as the final piece of the combo has been revealed: a certain sequence of spells and abilities is set off which leads to the opponent being eliminated. But this too can reduce the opponent's fun. If my opponent wins the game completely out of the blue with some obscure combo, it makes me question why I was even playing in the first place. What's the point in thinking so hard about which creature to play when his combo renders my decision meaningless? Now, this may just be my own immaturity, and this argument could apply to other types of deck as well, but I find it more often with combo decks, and it's at least something to think about.
And finally, combo decks often need ways to ensure the combo works, and often this means holding the opponent at arm's length while you prepare. This frequently takes the form of hand destruction, counters, and other control strategies that can be frustrating to casual players.
So, are combo decks fun? Obviously there's no right or wrong answer to this, since it depends a lot on the context. Combo decks might be effective in tournaments where winning is more important than fun, but in the casual arena, which is my primary area of concern, combo decks can create resentment and irritation - at least, they often have for me. I don't think casual players should avoid combo decks altogether, though. They're very fun the first time around, especially if they're highly narcissistic (as in, they're only interested in themselves - they focus on their own goals and spells, and do little to disrupt the opponent's). But they should generally not be played repeatedly, especially if they exert a great deal of control over other players. At least for myself, being controlled absolutely ruins the game, and I do not wish it on others.
Now that I've talked about combo decks in general, I'll mention some in specific. I myself have made many a combo deck, and played them against friends, but I usually only play them once (or until I actually get to show them the combo - many times they don't work, and I just die before I can activate it). I am more impressed by engine-based decks (which Brendan is quite skilled at - see my previous articles), and I would much rather be able to make effective engines than effective combos. But I do enjoy a good combo, if only for the fun of proving I can design it.
So here I'll mention some combos that I've come up with recently, because I think they're cool. NOTE: If you play Magic with me, and you like surprises, don't read the rest of this post.
Panoptic Mirror + Undying Flames, with support from Paradox Haze, Sigil Tracer, and Mischievous Quanar
This is a somewhat expensive and awkward combo, but a fun and amusing one. Imprint Undying Flames onto the Panoptic Mirror, hopefully while you have some or all of the support spells in play (let's suppose you have one Paradox Haze). Then, at the beginning of your next turn's first upkeep, the Mirror triggers, copying Undying Flames. You perform its effect, and you have one Epic copy of Undying Flames. During your second upkeep, the Mirror triggers again, making a second Epic copy, and your first Epic spell triggers, making a non-Epic copy. You'll get to use the ability three times in one turn, which can often be quite deadly to the opponent, especially since many of the deck's spells are expensive. Then on your next turn, you'll get three Flames during your first upkeep (one Epic one from the Mirror and two non-Epic from the previous Epic copies), and four during your second upkeep. This will keep adding up, generating more and more iterations of the spell each upkeep, until your opponent is roasted to a delicious golden brown. (Even without Paradox Haze, the flames will still accumulate, albeit more slowly.) Finally, Braids, Conjurer Adept can help you accelerate your victory even faster by getting around the Epic restriction.
Spellweaver Helix + Mystic Speculation + Time Stretch/Searing Flesh, with support from Merfolk Looter/Bonded Fetch
This one was inspired by an article I read on the Wizards website a while ago. It suggested imprinting a cheap sorcery and an expensive sorcery onto Spellweaver Helix, which seems fairly obvious now, but using Mystic Speculation (one of my favorite cards) as the cheap sorcery seemed to me the perfect use of it. Mystic Speculation also helps you find the combo pieces quickly, which makes it even more useful. The basic idea, if you haven't already guessed, is to get Mystic Speculation into your graveyard (easy: just play it), and either Time Stretch or Searing Flesh into your graveyard (using Merfolk Looter/Bonded Fetch), and then play the Helix, imprinting them both onto it. Then, once you have another Mystic Speculation (ideally you'll already have a second one before playing the Helix), you either have a repeatable 3-mana 7-damage burn, or infinite turns, either of which will quickly result in your victory. Hilarious.
Hell's Caretaker + Intruder Alarm + Merrow Witsniper/Infectious Host
This one I'm especially proud of because I thought it up All By Myself. Get Intruder Alarm, Hell's Caretaker, and at least one other creature into play, and Merrow Witsniper or Infectious Host in your graveyard. During your next upkeep, use the Caretaker to sacrifice the other creature, returning one of the dead guys to play. This causes Intruder Alarm to untap the Caretaker. Repeat until the opponent is dead or has no library. The fact that you want guys in your graveyard is also useful, since it allows you to chump block with your first few guys.
Jhoira of the Ghitu + Dragonstorm, with support from Jhoira's Timebug, Clockspinning, Paradox Haze, and a bunch of dragons
Usually, you can play Jhoira on turn 3, and suspend two things on turn 4. If you can suspend two Dragonstorms, then you are totally awesome. The goal is to get Dragonstorm to unsuspend at the same time as one or more other spells, so you can stack them in order to build up a storm count. Paradox Haze helps you get things into play faster, and the Timebug and Clockspinning can do so as well, but can also align other spells with Dragonstorm for storm count. It takes a few turns to get going, but is rather consistent, and dragons are sweet.
Kobolds of Kher Keep + Cloudstone Curio + Cinder Pyromancer/Grapeshot
This is a variation of one of my Grinning Ignus decks, but infinite. Play the Curio. Then either get the Pyromancer in play or the Grapeshot in your hand, plus two Kobolds in your hand (one can be in play, but it's more surprising if they're both in your hand). Play a Kobold, play another Kobold and bounce the first Kobold, and repeat as needed. Poof.
Mycosynth Lattice + March of the Machines + Hurkyl's Recall
I am uncertain about this deck because it is the pinnacle of douchemastery. If you play Mycosynth Lattice and March of the Machines, all lands are 0/0 artifact creatures and die immediately. (The deck has some Lumithread Fields to save your own lands.) Then, if your cast Hurkyl's Recall on your opponent, any permanents he has left over will get bounced. Any land he plays will die instantly, so unless he has enough Simian Spirit Guides to finish you off, he's probably not going to be able to do much. I would never want to play against this deck myself, so it's unlikely that I'll play it against my friends, except just to show it off.
So, those are a bunch of combo decks I've made recently. I think they're cool. The End.
First, the pros. Part of the joy of Magic is finding unique interactions between cards. This often results in combos that are powerful enough to be worth building a deck around. The possibility of winning the game by playing just a few cards in a certain sequence is exciting, and it motivates deckbuilders (especially Johnny types) to look for new and interesting combos. Finding a good combo, and building a deck that will make it work, is certainly fun. They also require creativity and astuteness, so they act as a good mental exercise as well. But actually playing with combo decks can be a different story.
For most Johnnies (and I list myself among them), I would guess that the joy of actually playing combo decks is in showing them to your friends. When the opponent is oblivious, and you're secretly racing against the clock, trying to pretend that everything is perfectly normal as you scramble to assemble your combo, and you try to act calm and casual despite the mad thumping in your chest, and you draw the final piece of your combo and glance at it as disinterestedly as possible even though your heart has just leaped through the roof of your mouth...that's fun. When you have three of your four combo pieces in play, and the fourth in your hand, and your opponent is studying them with furrowed brow, and you're giggling to yourself because you know you're about to win and she has no idea whatsoever because she can't foresee your brilliant and carefully planned combo, and you slam down the final piece and leap up and dance around the table hooting like a maniac...that's fun. When your opponent looks at your combo pieces, each in turn, figuring out what could possibly make you cavort about like a madman, and it finally dawns on her, and she leans back and lets out a low whistle, eyes wide and brow raised, and rakes her fingers through her hair, and you knock over lamps this way and that in your crazed victory dance, shattering ancient Grecian relics willy-nilly, whirling like a cyclone through your living room...that's fun.
So basically, for a Johnny, the fun is in revealing your combo. If you then go to play a rematch, you'll probably be much less interested, if not outright bored. The fun was all in the surprise, and in demonstrating your brilliance. Once you've done it, the game is truly nothing more than a yes-or-no question. There are no secrets to keep, no traps to spring, no magnificent schemes to unveil. They've seen it, and now the cat's out of the bag, and the deck is nothing more than a conversation piece until you find your next victim. And this is the first vice of combo decks.
They're not replayable. Once you spring the combo, most of the fun is gone. The opponent might have more fun in a rematch trying to think of ways to stop your combo, but all you're doing is waiting. And waiting is no fun at all.
I should make a quick note at this point. I know that not all combo decks are all-or-nothing. Many have failsafes, or several different combos, or a number of alternate win conditions. But the true heart of a combo deck is the combo, and that's all I'm really concerned about. If you have three different combos in a deck, it may be fun to play it more than once per opponent, but it's still limiting. And if a deck has a ton of failsafes - enough that it doesn't really need the combo to win - then it's not strictly a combo deck by my definition. So there.
Moving on...the unreplayability of combo decks is one thing, but it's a problem that mostly affects the player of the combo deck. But what about the opponent? There are some decks, like Brendan's Mycosynth Lattice/Shattering Spree deck, which can lock down many casual decks, completely neutralizing them (at least, the ones I build). This type of combo deck is bad for the opponent because it is not an instant win, but as soon as you're locked down, you know there's nothing you can do, and you just have to wait and get killed. When this happens to me, I usually get angry, because waiting to die is no fun for anyone, but if I just scoop whenever I see a lockdown deck, it's no fun for the deckbuilder either, because they don't get to show off their cleverness. So combos can be dangerous - they might be fun to make and think about, but actually playing them could end in disaster.
But not all combo decks aim at neutralizing the opponent and then winning at leisure. Many focus on winning as soon as the final piece of the combo has been revealed: a certain sequence of spells and abilities is set off which leads to the opponent being eliminated. But this too can reduce the opponent's fun. If my opponent wins the game completely out of the blue with some obscure combo, it makes me question why I was even playing in the first place. What's the point in thinking so hard about which creature to play when his combo renders my decision meaningless? Now, this may just be my own immaturity, and this argument could apply to other types of deck as well, but I find it more often with combo decks, and it's at least something to think about.
And finally, combo decks often need ways to ensure the combo works, and often this means holding the opponent at arm's length while you prepare. This frequently takes the form of hand destruction, counters, and other control strategies that can be frustrating to casual players.
So, are combo decks fun? Obviously there's no right or wrong answer to this, since it depends a lot on the context. Combo decks might be effective in tournaments where winning is more important than fun, but in the casual arena, which is my primary area of concern, combo decks can create resentment and irritation - at least, they often have for me. I don't think casual players should avoid combo decks altogether, though. They're very fun the first time around, especially if they're highly narcissistic (as in, they're only interested in themselves - they focus on their own goals and spells, and do little to disrupt the opponent's). But they should generally not be played repeatedly, especially if they exert a great deal of control over other players. At least for myself, being controlled absolutely ruins the game, and I do not wish it on others.
Now that I've talked about combo decks in general, I'll mention some in specific. I myself have made many a combo deck, and played them against friends, but I usually only play them once (or until I actually get to show them the combo - many times they don't work, and I just die before I can activate it). I am more impressed by engine-based decks (which Brendan is quite skilled at - see my previous articles), and I would much rather be able to make effective engines than effective combos. But I do enjoy a good combo, if only for the fun of proving I can design it.
So here I'll mention some combos that I've come up with recently, because I think they're cool. NOTE: If you play Magic with me, and you like surprises, don't read the rest of this post.
Panoptic Mirror + Undying Flames, with support from Paradox Haze, Sigil Tracer, and Mischievous Quanar
This is a somewhat expensive and awkward combo, but a fun and amusing one. Imprint Undying Flames onto the Panoptic Mirror, hopefully while you have some or all of the support spells in play (let's suppose you have one Paradox Haze). Then, at the beginning of your next turn's first upkeep, the Mirror triggers, copying Undying Flames. You perform its effect, and you have one Epic copy of Undying Flames. During your second upkeep, the Mirror triggers again, making a second Epic copy, and your first Epic spell triggers, making a non-Epic copy. You'll get to use the ability three times in one turn, which can often be quite deadly to the opponent, especially since many of the deck's spells are expensive. Then on your next turn, you'll get three Flames during your first upkeep (one Epic one from the Mirror and two non-Epic from the previous Epic copies), and four during your second upkeep. This will keep adding up, generating more and more iterations of the spell each upkeep, until your opponent is roasted to a delicious golden brown. (Even without Paradox Haze, the flames will still accumulate, albeit more slowly.) Finally, Braids, Conjurer Adept can help you accelerate your victory even faster by getting around the Epic restriction.
Spellweaver Helix + Mystic Speculation + Time Stretch/Searing Flesh, with support from Merfolk Looter/Bonded Fetch
This one was inspired by an article I read on the Wizards website a while ago. It suggested imprinting a cheap sorcery and an expensive sorcery onto Spellweaver Helix, which seems fairly obvious now, but using Mystic Speculation (one of my favorite cards) as the cheap sorcery seemed to me the perfect use of it. Mystic Speculation also helps you find the combo pieces quickly, which makes it even more useful. The basic idea, if you haven't already guessed, is to get Mystic Speculation into your graveyard (easy: just play it), and either Time Stretch or Searing Flesh into your graveyard (using Merfolk Looter/Bonded Fetch), and then play the Helix, imprinting them both onto it. Then, once you have another Mystic Speculation (ideally you'll already have a second one before playing the Helix), you either have a repeatable 3-mana 7-damage burn, or infinite turns, either of which will quickly result in your victory. Hilarious.
Hell's Caretaker + Intruder Alarm + Merrow Witsniper/Infectious Host
This one I'm especially proud of because I thought it up All By Myself. Get Intruder Alarm, Hell's Caretaker, and at least one other creature into play, and Merrow Witsniper or Infectious Host in your graveyard. During your next upkeep, use the Caretaker to sacrifice the other creature, returning one of the dead guys to play. This causes Intruder Alarm to untap the Caretaker. Repeat until the opponent is dead or has no library. The fact that you want guys in your graveyard is also useful, since it allows you to chump block with your first few guys.
Jhoira of the Ghitu + Dragonstorm, with support from Jhoira's Timebug, Clockspinning, Paradox Haze, and a bunch of dragons
Usually, you can play Jhoira on turn 3, and suspend two things on turn 4. If you can suspend two Dragonstorms, then you are totally awesome. The goal is to get Dragonstorm to unsuspend at the same time as one or more other spells, so you can stack them in order to build up a storm count. Paradox Haze helps you get things into play faster, and the Timebug and Clockspinning can do so as well, but can also align other spells with Dragonstorm for storm count. It takes a few turns to get going, but is rather consistent, and dragons are sweet.
Kobolds of Kher Keep + Cloudstone Curio + Cinder Pyromancer/Grapeshot
This is a variation of one of my Grinning Ignus decks, but infinite. Play the Curio. Then either get the Pyromancer in play or the Grapeshot in your hand, plus two Kobolds in your hand (one can be in play, but it's more surprising if they're both in your hand). Play a Kobold, play another Kobold and bounce the first Kobold, and repeat as needed. Poof.
Mycosynth Lattice + March of the Machines + Hurkyl's Recall
I am uncertain about this deck because it is the pinnacle of douchemastery. If you play Mycosynth Lattice and March of the Machines, all lands are 0/0 artifact creatures and die immediately. (The deck has some Lumithread Fields to save your own lands.) Then, if your cast Hurkyl's Recall on your opponent, any permanents he has left over will get bounced. Any land he plays will die instantly, so unless he has enough Simian Spirit Guides to finish you off, he's probably not going to be able to do much. I would never want to play against this deck myself, so it's unlikely that I'll play it against my friends, except just to show it off.
So, those are a bunch of combo decks I've made recently. I think they're cool. The End.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Goats
Today I am going to talk about goats. That is, I am going to talk about three games I played against my friend Brendan's white-blue goat deck. Here I goat!
The first game I'll discuss occurred two nights ago. However, I didn't know he was going to be playing goats, so I picked a Leyline of Singularity deck that I had made. Of course, this almost immediately ruined his entire deck, since the point of his deck is to mass goat tokens with Springjack Shepherd. But we played it out.
I didn't keep careful notes of the game, so I'll talk about the decks. My deck is based on Leyline of Singularity, and things that abuse it. There are a ton of Legendary creatures; since all my creatures are going to be legendary anyway, I might as well get good ones. I tried to keep to the singularity theme by focusing on legend-rule-based removal; no straight-up destroying or burning (unless you count Hero's Demise, and later, the devastating Tsabo Tavoc). My favorite method of removal is Shapesharer plus Unnatural Selection. As long as the enemy has two creatures, I can kill them both with just 4 mana. And if he only has one, it's usually not too dangerous. (Or if it is, I have Spitting Image to take care of it). I also have Copy Enchantment and Sculpting Steel for enchantment/artifact removal, and Hanna, Ship's Navigator allows me to do it repeatedly.
The rest of the deck is mostly just cool legendary creatures and equipment, but there are a few other neat tricks. Tsabo Tavoc (as mentioned above) can destroy any creature for 2 black mana and a tap, and Minamo, School at Water's Edge let's him do it repeatedly, or attack for an unblockable 7 on the same turn, or just stay untapped to block. Another neat trick is Forbidden Orchard, whose drawback is neutralized by Leyline of Singularity, giving me excellent mana control. (And I need it, since the deck has four colors.)
Brendan's deck, as I said, is based on goat tokens made from Springjack Shepherd (and, occasionally, Springjack Pasture). Basically, he has lots of excellent creatures with many white mana symbols such as Kitchen Finks and Knight of Meadowgrain. Then he plays the Shepherd to make lots of goats, and has things like Momentary Blink to do it again and again. His win condition is usually Mirrorweave or Fortify, overrunning his opponent with an army of beefed up goats.
As for the actual game between these two decks, it wasn't really a contest. Leyline utterly prevented him from making more than 1 goat token at a time, and I used Unnatural Selection to make even that one goat harmless, by turning it into a Fungus, Sponge, or whatever else I could come up with during each of his upkeeps. (After a while I ran out of obscure creature types and just picked fake ones like Bus, or Unicorn.) He kept playing Kitchen Finks, and then I'd finally get rid of them and he'd have another one in his hand, which was both hilarious and annoying. It bought him some time, but eventually I just got some big dudes out and smashed through for the win.
Then we played some other games, but they didn't have goats, so I won't deign to tell you about them. But then the goats returned.
This time, I was playing a straightforward green-blue +1/+1 counter deck, inspired by an article I had read mentioning that Lignify could make Vigean Hydropon into a 5/9 Treefolk attacker. He had trouble drawing though, and I had pretty much the perfect hand for my deck, so he didn't stand much of a chance. I also learned more about my deck; I have Mirrorweave in it, the idea being that I could cast it on the Hydropon (or any other 0/0 guy with a counter) for mass removal. But if I were to target Fungal Behemoth instead, I would get the removal PLUS all my guys getting (usually) much bigger. And that would be sweettacular.
The third game I played against the goatswarm was the most epic game of Magic in the history of the universe. It was so epic that I took a screenshot. But you should read about it first.
Things went pretty slowly at first. He played some dudes, I played some dudes. Not much happened...until turn [whatever number turn it was].
Here's what the board looked like: I had four Relentless Rats, just sitting back and biding their time. He had a Kitchen Finks, a Knight of Meadowgrain, and a Springjack Shepherd, plus six goat tokens. On my turn, I drew Diabolic Tutor. Ecstatic, I fetched the Ultimate Secret: Thrumming Stone. I played it. At this point, he revealed that he had a Mirrorweave in hand (which meant that he could Mirrorweave targeting the Rats, and overwhelm me with 14/14 attackers since he had 4 more creatures than me), but he was curious to see what I would do, so he held off. Instead, in preparation for the inevitably epic battle, he played Momentary Blink targeting his Springjack Shepherd, giving him six more goats...and then he played another Momentary Blink, giving him six MORE goats. He had now assembled an eighteen-goat army. Truly terrifying.
On my next turn, I played a Relentless Rats. Revealing the top four cards of my library produced...no Relentless Rats. On my next turn, I drew Relentless Rats (meaning I had been just one card away), and played it, producing...no Relentless Rats. On my NEXT turn, I drew Relentless Rats AGAIN (meaning I had been just one card away AGAIN), and played it. This time, I hit gold.
My Relentless Rats deck contains 150 cards, and 50 of those are Relentless Rats. On that fateful ripple, I got all the rest of my Relentless Rats into play, with eight more ripples on the stack. I had fifty rats, and all of them were 51/51. I passed the turn.
At the end of my turn, Brendan used Springjack Pasture sacrificing enough goats to give him 8 mana. He then cast Mirrorweave, targeting Kitchen Finks. Every goat (and Kithkin and rat) now had two white mana symbols in its mana cost. Then he flashed back Momentary Blink.
The result of this maneuver is indescribable in words. So I present it in visual form.
It was then his turn. He had 66 goats to my 50 rats. He cast Fortify and attacked. GG.
If anyone ever tells you that they have played the most epic game of Magic in the history of the universe, then that person is either me, Brendan, or a liar. And if anyone tells you otherwise, well, they have a right to hold that opinion, but I assure you, their opinion is wrong. Amen.
The first game I'll discuss occurred two nights ago. However, I didn't know he was going to be playing goats, so I picked a Leyline of Singularity deck that I had made. Of course, this almost immediately ruined his entire deck, since the point of his deck is to mass goat tokens with Springjack Shepherd. But we played it out.
I didn't keep careful notes of the game, so I'll talk about the decks. My deck is based on Leyline of Singularity, and things that abuse it. There are a ton of Legendary creatures; since all my creatures are going to be legendary anyway, I might as well get good ones. I tried to keep to the singularity theme by focusing on legend-rule-based removal; no straight-up destroying or burning (unless you count Hero's Demise, and later, the devastating Tsabo Tavoc). My favorite method of removal is Shapesharer plus Unnatural Selection. As long as the enemy has two creatures, I can kill them both with just 4 mana. And if he only has one, it's usually not too dangerous. (Or if it is, I have Spitting Image to take care of it). I also have Copy Enchantment and Sculpting Steel for enchantment/artifact removal, and Hanna, Ship's Navigator allows me to do it repeatedly.
The rest of the deck is mostly just cool legendary creatures and equipment, but there are a few other neat tricks. Tsabo Tavoc (as mentioned above) can destroy any creature for 2 black mana and a tap, and Minamo, School at Water's Edge let's him do it repeatedly, or attack for an unblockable 7 on the same turn, or just stay untapped to block. Another neat trick is Forbidden Orchard, whose drawback is neutralized by Leyline of Singularity, giving me excellent mana control. (And I need it, since the deck has four colors.)
Brendan's deck, as I said, is based on goat tokens made from Springjack Shepherd (and, occasionally, Springjack Pasture). Basically, he has lots of excellent creatures with many white mana symbols such as Kitchen Finks and Knight of Meadowgrain. Then he plays the Shepherd to make lots of goats, and has things like Momentary Blink to do it again and again. His win condition is usually Mirrorweave or Fortify, overrunning his opponent with an army of beefed up goats.
As for the actual game between these two decks, it wasn't really a contest. Leyline utterly prevented him from making more than 1 goat token at a time, and I used Unnatural Selection to make even that one goat harmless, by turning it into a Fungus, Sponge, or whatever else I could come up with during each of his upkeeps. (After a while I ran out of obscure creature types and just picked fake ones like Bus, or Unicorn.) He kept playing Kitchen Finks, and then I'd finally get rid of them and he'd have another one in his hand, which was both hilarious and annoying. It bought him some time, but eventually I just got some big dudes out and smashed through for the win.
Then we played some other games, but they didn't have goats, so I won't deign to tell you about them. But then the goats returned.
This time, I was playing a straightforward green-blue +1/+1 counter deck, inspired by an article I had read mentioning that Lignify could make Vigean Hydropon into a 5/9 Treefolk attacker. He had trouble drawing though, and I had pretty much the perfect hand for my deck, so he didn't stand much of a chance. I also learned more about my deck; I have Mirrorweave in it, the idea being that I could cast it on the Hydropon (or any other 0/0 guy with a counter) for mass removal. But if I were to target Fungal Behemoth instead, I would get the removal PLUS all my guys getting (usually) much bigger. And that would be sweettacular.
The third game I played against the goatswarm was the most epic game of Magic in the history of the universe. It was so epic that I took a screenshot. But you should read about it first.
Things went pretty slowly at first. He played some dudes, I played some dudes. Not much happened...until turn [whatever number turn it was].
Here's what the board looked like: I had four Relentless Rats, just sitting back and biding their time. He had a Kitchen Finks, a Knight of Meadowgrain, and a Springjack Shepherd, plus six goat tokens. On my turn, I drew Diabolic Tutor. Ecstatic, I fetched the Ultimate Secret: Thrumming Stone. I played it. At this point, he revealed that he had a Mirrorweave in hand (which meant that he could Mirrorweave targeting the Rats, and overwhelm me with 14/14 attackers since he had 4 more creatures than me), but he was curious to see what I would do, so he held off. Instead, in preparation for the inevitably epic battle, he played Momentary Blink targeting his Springjack Shepherd, giving him six more goats...and then he played another Momentary Blink, giving him six MORE goats. He had now assembled an eighteen-goat army. Truly terrifying.
On my next turn, I played a Relentless Rats. Revealing the top four cards of my library produced...no Relentless Rats. On my next turn, I drew Relentless Rats (meaning I had been just one card away), and played it, producing...no Relentless Rats. On my NEXT turn, I drew Relentless Rats AGAIN (meaning I had been just one card away AGAIN), and played it. This time, I hit gold.
My Relentless Rats deck contains 150 cards, and 50 of those are Relentless Rats. On that fateful ripple, I got all the rest of my Relentless Rats into play, with eight more ripples on the stack. I had fifty rats, and all of them were 51/51. I passed the turn.
At the end of my turn, Brendan used Springjack Pasture sacrificing enough goats to give him 8 mana. He then cast Mirrorweave, targeting Kitchen Finks. Every goat (and Kithkin and rat) now had two white mana symbols in its mana cost. Then he flashed back Momentary Blink.
The result of this maneuver is indescribable in words. So I present it in visual form.
It was then his turn. He had 66 goats to my 50 rats. He cast Fortify and attacked. GG.
If anyone ever tells you that they have played the most epic game of Magic in the history of the universe, then that person is either me, Brendan, or a liar. And if anyone tells you otherwise, well, they have a right to hold that opinion, but I assure you, their opinion is wrong. Amen.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Chaos Theory
Well, not really. I just couldn't think of another relevant-but-interesting title.
Anyway, it's time to talk about those games against mAc Chaos that I didn't talk about last time! There were seven of them.
This time, he wanted to play 2-out-of-3s rather than let me switch decks continuously, so he could get a better feel for his own decks and how they play in various matchups. So we did.
The first game, I took one of my favorite decks (green chroma), and he took an obnoxious black aggro deck. He gets two Stromgald Crusaders out quickly, along with two Bad Moons. This was rather troublesome because I didn't have much anti-flying. I played a Phosphorescent Feast, which gained me 14 life, but at the rate he was pounding me, that was only enough to buy me two turns. I even had some huge/awesome dudes, and I even got them into play, but there was nothing I could do to stop his fliers. So I died.
I was sad, because my deck is so awesome, but it has a lot of trouble against evasion and removal. I'll take a moment to describe its basic principle now. Basically, it has four Primalcrux, one of each green Demigod, and one of each green Liege. It also has a bunch of other powerful green guys with as many green mana symbols as possible. (Pretty much every card in the deck is rare. It would probably cost hundreds of dollars to make in real life. But that's the joy of Magic Workstation!) I use Devoted Druid, Bloom Tender, and Mana Reflection to be able to play my costly dudes as quickly as possible. However, none of my guys have flying or reach, so I have to get them out fast enough to pound the enemy to a pulp before he can do the same to me. I do have a lot of tramplers, but if my opponent's deck is too fast, there's not much I can do. I have a tendency to make slow decks that ramp up quickly in power once they get going.
Anyway, we played again, but I have the same problem and die before anything interesting even happens. Freakin' Soul Spike.
Since he had won 2-0, we switched decks. I decided to play a mono-white Equipment deck I had been meaning to try out, and he kept the same obnoxious aggro deck. In the first game, I had a bad opening hand but didn't mulligan, and I hardly even managed to get any guys into play before dying. It wasn't even noteworthy.
But the second game was better. I managed to equip a Loxodon Punisher with Sword of Light and Shadow, with a Serra's Blessing in play. With the life gain and virtual unblockability of this guy, I managed to win.
Then, in the third game, it was back to getting owned. Distress is an annoying card. Especially when he has two of them. Argh.
My Equipment deck needs a lot of work, but the basic components are pretty neat. Auriok Steelshaper allows me to equip things cheaply, and eventually for free, which sure comes in handy when I have Leonin Shikari. Stonehewer Giant lets me summon Equipment cheaply from my library, and Cloud Key lets me play it cheaply from my hand. Basically, the idea is to get these guys out, then equip them with insane Equipment, then own face. I have yet to see this actually come to fruition, though, which suggests that the deck may need some retooling.
Meanwhile, back in the arena of death, mAc and I both switched decks. I picked my Leaf-Crowned Elder deck (which I described previously), and he picked some other black deck whose purpose was not immediately obvious. All he did in the beginning was kill my dudes, but eventually I used up all his removal spells, and got the Elder out. He played Dread, which might have been troublesome, except for my two Timber Protectors. Then my engine just pumped out Treefolk after Treefolk, pummeling him to death. It was pretty sweet.
In the next game, things didn't go quite so smoothly. Persecute is brutally effective against mono-colored decks, and it made me cry. He played Gauntlet of Power, waited until he had 11 land, then Consumed my Spirit for an instant kill. Quite ridiculous. And by "waited until he had 11 land," I mean "killed everything I played until he had 11 land." It is not difficult to see why black is my least favorite color.
I didn't keep as good notes on these games as on the previous games, which is why my descriptions are shorter. They were also not wonderfully interesting games, nor wonderfully interesting decks, which made them less wonderfully interesting to talk about. But just you wait - I have several extremely cool decks to talk about for next time!
Anyway, it's time to talk about those games against mAc Chaos that I didn't talk about last time! There were seven of them.
This time, he wanted to play 2-out-of-3s rather than let me switch decks continuously, so he could get a better feel for his own decks and how they play in various matchups. So we did.
The first game, I took one of my favorite decks (green chroma), and he took an obnoxious black aggro deck. He gets two Stromgald Crusaders out quickly, along with two Bad Moons. This was rather troublesome because I didn't have much anti-flying. I played a Phosphorescent Feast, which gained me 14 life, but at the rate he was pounding me, that was only enough to buy me two turns. I even had some huge/awesome dudes, and I even got them into play, but there was nothing I could do to stop his fliers. So I died.
I was sad, because my deck is so awesome, but it has a lot of trouble against evasion and removal. I'll take a moment to describe its basic principle now. Basically, it has four Primalcrux, one of each green Demigod, and one of each green Liege. It also has a bunch of other powerful green guys with as many green mana symbols as possible. (Pretty much every card in the deck is rare. It would probably cost hundreds of dollars to make in real life. But that's the joy of Magic Workstation!) I use Devoted Druid, Bloom Tender, and Mana Reflection to be able to play my costly dudes as quickly as possible. However, none of my guys have flying or reach, so I have to get them out fast enough to pound the enemy to a pulp before he can do the same to me. I do have a lot of tramplers, but if my opponent's deck is too fast, there's not much I can do. I have a tendency to make slow decks that ramp up quickly in power once they get going.
Anyway, we played again, but I have the same problem and die before anything interesting even happens. Freakin' Soul Spike.
Since he had won 2-0, we switched decks. I decided to play a mono-white Equipment deck I had been meaning to try out, and he kept the same obnoxious aggro deck. In the first game, I had a bad opening hand but didn't mulligan, and I hardly even managed to get any guys into play before dying. It wasn't even noteworthy.
But the second game was better. I managed to equip a Loxodon Punisher with Sword of Light and Shadow, with a Serra's Blessing in play. With the life gain and virtual unblockability of this guy, I managed to win.
Then, in the third game, it was back to getting owned. Distress is an annoying card. Especially when he has two of them. Argh.
My Equipment deck needs a lot of work, but the basic components are pretty neat. Auriok Steelshaper allows me to equip things cheaply, and eventually for free, which sure comes in handy when I have Leonin Shikari. Stonehewer Giant lets me summon Equipment cheaply from my library, and Cloud Key lets me play it cheaply from my hand. Basically, the idea is to get these guys out, then equip them with insane Equipment, then own face. I have yet to see this actually come to fruition, though, which suggests that the deck may need some retooling.
Meanwhile, back in the arena of death, mAc and I both switched decks. I picked my Leaf-Crowned Elder deck (which I described previously), and he picked some other black deck whose purpose was not immediately obvious. All he did in the beginning was kill my dudes, but eventually I used up all his removal spells, and got the Elder out. He played Dread, which might have been troublesome, except for my two Timber Protectors. Then my engine just pumped out Treefolk after Treefolk, pummeling him to death. It was pretty sweet.
In the next game, things didn't go quite so smoothly. Persecute is brutally effective against mono-colored decks, and it made me cry. He played Gauntlet of Power, waited until he had 11 land, then Consumed my Spirit for an instant kill. Quite ridiculous. And by "waited until he had 11 land," I mean "killed everything I played until he had 11 land." It is not difficult to see why black is my least favorite color.
I didn't keep as good notes on these games as on the previous games, which is why my descriptions are shorter. They were also not wonderfully interesting games, nor wonderfully interesting decks, which made them less wonderfully interesting to talk about. But just you wait - I have several extremely cool decks to talk about for next time!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Switching Things Up
Last night I played several more games against mAc Chaos. They were cool. However, my friend Brendan then wanted to play, so I played some games with him as well. Now, Brendan's deckbuilding tendencies are completely different from mAc's. Mac has played in tournaments, cares about formats, tries to hone one deck to perfection, prefers one color (black black black), and repeats a lot of spells in his decks. Brendan doesn't care about competitions, builds a lot of different decks, strives to make his decks unique, loves powerful engines and elaborate combos, and plays all five colors, even though he tends to prefer blue and black. I have played many times with him, and I often found his blue and back control/lockdown decks to be extremely annoying, so I asked him to make some less restrictive decks. So he did. And the result blew my mind.
So instead of continuing the mAc Chaos saga, I'll put that on hold and talk about my games with Brendan. The first game, I picked my Wild Pair/Grinning Ignus deck, and he used a vicious red aggro deck. The game was hardly even remarkable; I had asked him to make "aggro decks," and he did, killing me before I could even deal him damage, let along get out Wild Pair. My deck was just too slow.
But red aggro isn't that special. The next deck, however, was an ingenious masterpiece. Now maybe it just seemed that way since I have so little experience, but the engines Brendan manages to think up never fail to impress me. Anyway, he played a mono-green deck and I chose my mono-white Stuffy Doll deck.
I won't give a play-by-play of the game, since he never got his complete engine out (I managed to activate my combo and kill him before he could get it rolling), but I must certainly describe his deck. I didn't even see all of it, so I don't know how many other outlets there were for his particular engine, but it seemed to be a four-part system, with the four parts arranged in a square. What I mean is, the first part is related to the second and fourth parts, but not to the third part. So when I saw the first and third parts, I couldn't immediately see the connection. The first part was Helix Pinnacle. The third part was Thallids that produce lots of Saprolings. At first it seemed liked a Saproling deck with Helix Pinnacle as a backup card.
Then he played Doubling Season. This meant that Helix Pinnacle doubled in speed, and Saprolings quadrupled. (Normally, a single Sporoloth Ancient would get one spore counter per turn, allowing him to create a Saproling every other turn: 0.5 per turn. With Doubling Season, he gets two spore counters per turn, but when he removes them, Doubling Season also puts two Saprolings into play, giving him 2 per turn: four times as many.) This was totally awesome, but I still hadn't seen the key fourth piece that tied it all together.
I had won before he could get the final piece out, but he showed me what it was: Life and Limb. Then it all came together. His massive quantity of Saprolings, made possibly by Doubling Season, would all become Forests, allowing him to pump Helix Pinnacle like crazy, with Doubling Season speeding it up even more quickly. If he had gotten Life and Limb into play, with his current array of Thallids, he would have been able to complete his Helix Pinnacle in a short as two or three turns. Amazing.
This is exactly what I long to be able to do. Brendan's intimate knowledge of the cards allows him to see connections that I cannot; if I had been trying to make a Helix Pinnacle deck, I would have thought of Doubling Season, but I had never even heard of Life and Limb. The way he was able to make all the parts work together was just completely phenomenal. I was ashamed to have won with my retarded combo.
Anyway, we played again, and I switched to yet another combo deck that I had wanted to try out. He started out with a bunch of Thallids, and I played an Academy Rector. However, my deck had been shoddily constructed so that I myself had no way of getting rid of the Rector. My deck relies on getting rid of the Rector, so if my opponent doesn't do it, I literally can't win. Anyway, I explained this to him, basically forfeiting since he had a Utopia Mycon that could block my Rector forever, but he killed the Rector, probably just to see what would happen. I fetched Barren Glory, then cast Armageddon. I would have won, technically, but it didn't really count since I sort of tricked him into killing the Rector. Anyway, you can see why I needed the Rector to die: if he never did, Barren Glory would be useless, even if I played it another way. So if I decide to modify that deck at all, I'll either get rid of the Rector or add some way to kill it myself (probably just burns). I should probably just stop making retarded combo decks.
Anyway, he then switched to his third and final deck of the night, an extremely confusing black-green deck that made very little sense to me until my third game against it. I finally switched to a deck that wasn't based on inane combos: my Grinning Ignus/Cinder Pyromancer deck (the one with Flamekin Harbinger/Nova Chaser). I got a great opening hand: a Harbinger, two Smokebraiders, an Ignus, and three Mountains. I started out by fetching Nova Chaser to exploit it as much as possible, but he began dropping Imperious Perfects like there was no tomorrow, making me think his deck was a black-green Elf deck (which it was not). Anyway, he quickly got enough Perfects and Elf Warrior tokens to make my Nova Chaser useless, so I switched to the Pyromancer strategy. However, by that time it was too late. He already had a ton of Elves, and with three Perfects, they were all 4/4. I could have reduced him to 1 life, but he would have overrun my on the next turn. So I scooped.
Still thinking his deck was Elves, I switched to one of my new favorite decks: a mono-green Treefolk deck using Leaf-Crowned Elder and Cream of the Crop to spit out Treefolk en masse. Leaf-Crowned Elder is an amazing card as it is, but when I have Cream of the Crop, I can almost guarantee that Leaf-Crowned Elder will give me a free Treefolk each turn. And since Treefolk are so expensive and powerful, I'm often able to dump a dozen mana worth of Treefolk into play for free, EACH TURN. So it's really awesome.
In the previous game, Brendan had played a Nether Traitor, which was extremely confusing since I thought he was playing black-green Elves. This game, he played a Carrion Feeder, and I saw that the Traitor would be a good way to pump it up. But I still didn't see how it connected to the Elves. In any case, by the time he could do anything useful, I already had two Cream of the Crop and two Leaf-Crowned Elders, and my massive army of Treefolk just completely destroyed him.
Then we played one more game, and I switched to white-green-blue Slivers. I felt kind of bad playing Slivers, since Slivers are usually very fast and his deck seemed rather slow. But my guilt quickly dissipated as I saw what his deck was truly capable of. When he played Grave Pact, I saw that the Carrion Feeder/Nether Traitor combo had a far more sinister purpose. When he played the second Grave Pact, I just crapped myself. I had been hitting him hard with Slivers early on, and even had 8 poison counters on him, but with two Grave Pacts and a Spawning Pit, he just kept killing off my Slivers. To make matters worse, I kept drawing five-mana Slivers while stuck at four mana. Anyways, he then played The Bomb: Protean Hulk. Apparently that was the real reason for having green in the deck at all. He could sacrifice the Hulk to bring in Carrion Feeder and Nether Traitor (among others), and completely ruin any creature-based deck (such as my Slivers which had nothing BUT creatures). I died, but he showed me his other green trump card, which was Biorhythm. Hilarious. It would have been totally unnecessary against an all-creature deck such as Slivers, but quite useful against other types of decks. It turns out the Elves were just there as a cheap source of mass creatures to sacrifice, even though he was able to use them as his main force in the first game. His deck seemed a little clunky, but it was still a neat engine, albeit a frustrating one.
So that's what I did from 2 AM to 4 AM last night. I'll hold off on discussing my games against mAc Chaos for now,so I can build up a buffer in case I run out of material because the article would be too long. I hope, as I continue building decks, that I will one day be able to create engines like Brendan's Saprolings, and I've seen him play many other decks with equally terrifying engines. As I build more decks, play more games, and learn more cards, I'm gradually expanding my knowledge, and eventually, perhaps, I too will be an awesome deckbuilder. But until then, you'll have to put up with awkward combos and goofy themes.
So instead of continuing the mAc Chaos saga, I'll put that on hold and talk about my games with Brendan. The first game, I picked my Wild Pair/Grinning Ignus deck, and he used a vicious red aggro deck. The game was hardly even remarkable; I had asked him to make "aggro decks," and he did, killing me before I could even deal him damage, let along get out Wild Pair. My deck was just too slow.
But red aggro isn't that special. The next deck, however, was an ingenious masterpiece. Now maybe it just seemed that way since I have so little experience, but the engines Brendan manages to think up never fail to impress me. Anyway, he played a mono-green deck and I chose my mono-white Stuffy Doll deck.
I won't give a play-by-play of the game, since he never got his complete engine out (I managed to activate my combo and kill him before he could get it rolling), but I must certainly describe his deck. I didn't even see all of it, so I don't know how many other outlets there were for his particular engine, but it seemed to be a four-part system, with the four parts arranged in a square. What I mean is, the first part is related to the second and fourth parts, but not to the third part. So when I saw the first and third parts, I couldn't immediately see the connection. The first part was Helix Pinnacle. The third part was Thallids that produce lots of Saprolings. At first it seemed liked a Saproling deck with Helix Pinnacle as a backup card.
Then he played Doubling Season. This meant that Helix Pinnacle doubled in speed, and Saprolings quadrupled. (Normally, a single Sporoloth Ancient would get one spore counter per turn, allowing him to create a Saproling every other turn: 0.5 per turn. With Doubling Season, he gets two spore counters per turn, but when he removes them, Doubling Season also puts two Saprolings into play, giving him 2 per turn: four times as many.) This was totally awesome, but I still hadn't seen the key fourth piece that tied it all together.
I had won before he could get the final piece out, but he showed me what it was: Life and Limb. Then it all came together. His massive quantity of Saprolings, made possibly by Doubling Season, would all become Forests, allowing him to pump Helix Pinnacle like crazy, with Doubling Season speeding it up even more quickly. If he had gotten Life and Limb into play, with his current array of Thallids, he would have been able to complete his Helix Pinnacle in a short as two or three turns. Amazing.
This is exactly what I long to be able to do. Brendan's intimate knowledge of the cards allows him to see connections that I cannot; if I had been trying to make a Helix Pinnacle deck, I would have thought of Doubling Season, but I had never even heard of Life and Limb. The way he was able to make all the parts work together was just completely phenomenal. I was ashamed to have won with my retarded combo.
Anyway, we played again, and I switched to yet another combo deck that I had wanted to try out. He started out with a bunch of Thallids, and I played an Academy Rector. However, my deck had been shoddily constructed so that I myself had no way of getting rid of the Rector. My deck relies on getting rid of the Rector, so if my opponent doesn't do it, I literally can't win. Anyway, I explained this to him, basically forfeiting since he had a Utopia Mycon that could block my Rector forever, but he killed the Rector, probably just to see what would happen. I fetched Barren Glory, then cast Armageddon. I would have won, technically, but it didn't really count since I sort of tricked him into killing the Rector. Anyway, you can see why I needed the Rector to die: if he never did, Barren Glory would be useless, even if I played it another way. So if I decide to modify that deck at all, I'll either get rid of the Rector or add some way to kill it myself (probably just burns). I should probably just stop making retarded combo decks.
Anyway, he then switched to his third and final deck of the night, an extremely confusing black-green deck that made very little sense to me until my third game against it. I finally switched to a deck that wasn't based on inane combos: my Grinning Ignus/Cinder Pyromancer deck (the one with Flamekin Harbinger/Nova Chaser). I got a great opening hand: a Harbinger, two Smokebraiders, an Ignus, and three Mountains. I started out by fetching Nova Chaser to exploit it as much as possible, but he began dropping Imperious Perfects like there was no tomorrow, making me think his deck was a black-green Elf deck (which it was not). Anyway, he quickly got enough Perfects and Elf Warrior tokens to make my Nova Chaser useless, so I switched to the Pyromancer strategy. However, by that time it was too late. He already had a ton of Elves, and with three Perfects, they were all 4/4. I could have reduced him to 1 life, but he would have overrun my on the next turn. So I scooped.
Still thinking his deck was Elves, I switched to one of my new favorite decks: a mono-green Treefolk deck using Leaf-Crowned Elder and Cream of the Crop to spit out Treefolk en masse. Leaf-Crowned Elder is an amazing card as it is, but when I have Cream of the Crop, I can almost guarantee that Leaf-Crowned Elder will give me a free Treefolk each turn. And since Treefolk are so expensive and powerful, I'm often able to dump a dozen mana worth of Treefolk into play for free, EACH TURN. So it's really awesome.
In the previous game, Brendan had played a Nether Traitor, which was extremely confusing since I thought he was playing black-green Elves. This game, he played a Carrion Feeder, and I saw that the Traitor would be a good way to pump it up. But I still didn't see how it connected to the Elves. In any case, by the time he could do anything useful, I already had two Cream of the Crop and two Leaf-Crowned Elders, and my massive army of Treefolk just completely destroyed him.
Then we played one more game, and I switched to white-green-blue Slivers. I felt kind of bad playing Slivers, since Slivers are usually very fast and his deck seemed rather slow. But my guilt quickly dissipated as I saw what his deck was truly capable of. When he played Grave Pact, I saw that the Carrion Feeder/Nether Traitor combo had a far more sinister purpose. When he played the second Grave Pact, I just crapped myself. I had been hitting him hard with Slivers early on, and even had 8 poison counters on him, but with two Grave Pacts and a Spawning Pit, he just kept killing off my Slivers. To make matters worse, I kept drawing five-mana Slivers while stuck at four mana. Anyways, he then played The Bomb: Protean Hulk. Apparently that was the real reason for having green in the deck at all. He could sacrifice the Hulk to bring in Carrion Feeder and Nether Traitor (among others), and completely ruin any creature-based deck (such as my Slivers which had nothing BUT creatures). I died, but he showed me his other green trump card, which was Biorhythm. Hilarious. It would have been totally unnecessary against an all-creature deck such as Slivers, but quite useful against other types of decks. It turns out the Elves were just there as a cheap source of mass creatures to sacrifice, even though he was able to use them as his main force in the first game. His deck seemed a little clunky, but it was still a neat engine, albeit a frustrating one.
So that's what I did from 2 AM to 4 AM last night. I'll hold off on discussing my games against mAc Chaos for now,
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Chaos Continues
Last night I played 6 more games against mAc Chaos, trying out a bunch of new decks. This time, I kept a brief journal of the games so that I would be able to recall them more accurately when writing this article. Hurray!
The first game, I tried out my Wild Pair/Grinning Ignus deck (see how much I like Grinning Ignus?) against his black Zombie deck. His deck seemed to be built around dangerous and evasive Zombies such as Stromgald Crusader and Nantuko Husk. My deck is based on getting out Wild Pair as soon as possible, then playing any creature (all of which have total power and toughness of four) to summon an Ignus. This allows me to summon tons of creatures for 1 mana each, popping the Ignus and replaying to trigger Wild Pair over and over. However, Wild Pair is 6 mana, so it takes a while to get rolling. I use Teferi's Puzzle Box to cycle through cards as fast as possible to get Wild Pair. Anyway, the game.
As expected, I got off to a slow start as he pummeled me with Stromgald Crusaders. Luckily for me, he was stuck at 3 mana, which gave me time to drop enough Murderous Redcaps to finish off his pesky fliers. Still with no Wild Pair or Puzzle Box in sight, I managed to win by playing two Goretusk Firebeasts from my hand. Even though I managed to win without even using the signature combo, it was somewhat of a hollow victory since he was so helplessly mana screwed the whole game.
So we had a rematch. This time my opening hand had just 1 land in it, so I mulliganed to a hand with 5 land and Jeska, Warrior Adept. I decided to keep it since my dudes are expensive anyway, and Jeska would be effective at picking off Stromgald Crusaders. However, I drew nothing but land the first few turns, giving him time to hurl dudes at my face. By the time I got a Teferi's Puzzle Box out, I was down to 11. The Box brought me a Wild Pair shortly after, and my deck exploded. I won with 2 life left, one Soul Spike away from doom. Quite a close game.
Then we switched decks. Actually, I'm not even sure if he switched, because this deck also had Nantuko Husk and Soul Spike. But since many of his decks have a lot of the same cards, it could have been the same one. I may never know!
I picked a deck based on Juniper Order Ranger and cards with persist (particularly resilient against black removal). I had heard about the combination from somewhere else, probably the Magic website, and decided to try it out. To support the Ranger, I have Cream of the Crop (useful with persist guys) and Llanowar Reborn (to protect the persist guys until I get a Ranger).
I got a Ranger quickly, but he immediately Soul Spiked it. Not that I was expecting much else, since the Ranger doesn't have persist himself and is easily removed. Meanwhile, Cream of the Crop is helpful for getting what I want, while he hits me with shadowy dudes. I eventually get him to sacrifice them to Nantuko Husk, and with Heartmender (a less effective but more resilient Ranger) and Scuzzback Marauders, I seal the deal. One particularly amusing moment was when he blocked my attacking Heartmender with his Nantuko Husk, intending to kill it while it had a counter on it, but when my Heartmender came back, I grafted onto it with Llanowar Reborn, eliciting a shriek of frustration from poor Mac. Juked.
So we switched decks again. He decided to try a black control deck, and I picked a blue-red control deck that I had seen a friend often dominate with. However, I didn't remember exactly what was in the blue-red deck, or the proportions of cards, so I just guessed, erring on the side of too many counters.
The game itself was absolutely hilarious. Neither of us played any spells for a while, except for my Izzet Signets and Compulsive Research (and other various mana artifacts and blue draw spells). Occasionally he would try to play a spell, and I'd Remand or Mana Leak it. But it was a long time before I got any creatures, so all I could do was wait. When I had a bunch of artifacts out, I cast Wildfire with no creatures in play, hoping to slow him down in case he had some huge spells or something. But as he built his land count back up, I still didn't draw many creatures. I knew my friend's version of my deck never had trouble finding creatures, so I was baffled. Anyway, I kept playing artifacts and destroying lands en masse until I drew Akroma, Angel of Fury. At this point I was sick of not doing anything useful, so I played her face down, and she died instantly.
This went on for some time until FINALLY I drew Aeon Chronicler and Triskelavus. With these two guys, I was able to start dealing some actual damage, but they still eventually died. After a while, he just gave up. Since I had kept destroying his lands, he never had enough mana to play anything dangerous (he discarded several Dreads - or maybe the same one several times - due to card overflow), so he figured it was hopeless. At that point he was at 11 and the only damage source I had was two Triskelavus tokens. I pointed out that I had 14 cards in my library, and he may have been able to win if he had just waited it out, but the agony of stagnation had apparently overwhelmed him. Moral of the story: don't play control vs. control.
I remembered right at the end of the game that I had in fact been several creatures short. I had forgotten about Teferi and the two Bogardan Hellkites that were supposed to be in my deck, which would have certainly been useful. Still, I don't know what the exact proportion of cards should be, but at least now I think I know all of the cards that were in it.
Since his black had lost him four games in a row, mAc decided to switch back to Astral Slide (see yesterday's article). I decided to try out my mono-white Stuffy Doll deck, based on enchanting Stuffy Doll with Guilty Conscience, then tapping him for an instant win. To keep the enemy at bay until I could get the combo out, I stuffed the deck with dudes en-Kor and things that provide protection, such as Mother of Runes. The idea was just to protect the Stuffy Doll, and to use the en-Kor to redirect damage to it as well, but the deck turned out to have some even more interesting uses that I discovered accidentally. I love when that happens.
Anyway, the game. I was somewhat mana screwed, but since all my creatures were 1 or 2 mana, I could still play a ton of them. Mac didn't draw his Lightning Rifts or Astral Slides immediately, but he got an Exalted Angel out much too early for comfort. The Angel pounded away and I pounded back with a ton of dudes, but his lifelink was too powerful. Eventually he DID get the enchantments out, and that's where I discovered some fun things.
I had three en-kor dudes, two Mother of Runes, and one Benevolent Bodyguard, all of them tapped from having attacked. He cycled Slice and Dice, hoping to kill off most of my guys in one shot. What I did then was totally awesome. I sacrificed the Bodyguard to give one Mother of Runes protection from red. Then I had all the en-kor dudes redirect their 1 damage to her. I only lost one Mother and the Bodyguard, rather than almost all my dudes. The revelation here is that the Mother and the en-Kor dudes, which I had intended for completely separate purposes, work together very well. If I had had a Mother untapped, I wouldn't even have had to use the Bodyguard. As long as I can give one creature protection, I can redirect all damage from en-Kor dudes to that creature and they'll all live. This of course works well against Astral Slide, which has lots of burns. However, he still had the flying lifelinking Angel and there was nothing preventing him from Lightning Rifting ME, so I died. But the discovery was an awesome one.
Since I hadn't drawn Stuffy Doll at all that game, I threw in some Teferi's Puzzle Boxes before the next game, since they worked so well in the Wild Pair deck. This time I managed to get Stuffy Doll out reasonably early...but I couldn't do anything with it. I couldn't stop his Exalted Angel, and he just threw Lightning Rift at my head. So I died. And then I went to bed.
Later, I tweaked the deck a lot to include Pariah, as well as Leonin Abunas and Privileged Position, just to protect the Doll from outside interference. He may be indestructible, but Astral Slide proved that he is quite vulnerable to a variety of effects. Hopefully, just making him completely safe from outside interference should be enough to get the job done. I haven't tested the new version yet, though.
So, that's what happened. I've made even more decks since then, and I hope to try them out when I get the chance. And of course, I'll let you know how they perform!
The first game, I tried out my Wild Pair/Grinning Ignus deck (see how much I like Grinning Ignus?) against his black Zombie deck. His deck seemed to be built around dangerous and evasive Zombies such as Stromgald Crusader and Nantuko Husk. My deck is based on getting out Wild Pair as soon as possible, then playing any creature (all of which have total power and toughness of four) to summon an Ignus. This allows me to summon tons of creatures for 1 mana each, popping the Ignus and replaying to trigger Wild Pair over and over. However, Wild Pair is 6 mana, so it takes a while to get rolling. I use Teferi's Puzzle Box to cycle through cards as fast as possible to get Wild Pair. Anyway, the game.
As expected, I got off to a slow start as he pummeled me with Stromgald Crusaders. Luckily for me, he was stuck at 3 mana, which gave me time to drop enough Murderous Redcaps to finish off his pesky fliers. Still with no Wild Pair or Puzzle Box in sight, I managed to win by playing two Goretusk Firebeasts from my hand. Even though I managed to win without even using the signature combo, it was somewhat of a hollow victory since he was so helplessly mana screwed the whole game.
So we had a rematch. This time my opening hand had just 1 land in it, so I mulliganed to a hand with 5 land and Jeska, Warrior Adept. I decided to keep it since my dudes are expensive anyway, and Jeska would be effective at picking off Stromgald Crusaders. However, I drew nothing but land the first few turns, giving him time to hurl dudes at my face. By the time I got a Teferi's Puzzle Box out, I was down to 11. The Box brought me a Wild Pair shortly after, and my deck exploded. I won with 2 life left, one Soul Spike away from doom. Quite a close game.
Then we switched decks. Actually, I'm not even sure if he switched, because this deck also had Nantuko Husk and Soul Spike. But since many of his decks have a lot of the same cards, it could have been the same one. I may never know!
I picked a deck based on Juniper Order Ranger and cards with persist (particularly resilient against black removal). I had heard about the combination from somewhere else, probably the Magic website, and decided to try it out. To support the Ranger, I have Cream of the Crop (useful with persist guys) and Llanowar Reborn (to protect the persist guys until I get a Ranger).
I got a Ranger quickly, but he immediately Soul Spiked it. Not that I was expecting much else, since the Ranger doesn't have persist himself and is easily removed. Meanwhile, Cream of the Crop is helpful for getting what I want, while he hits me with shadowy dudes. I eventually get him to sacrifice them to Nantuko Husk, and with Heartmender (a less effective but more resilient Ranger) and Scuzzback Marauders, I seal the deal. One particularly amusing moment was when he blocked my attacking Heartmender with his Nantuko Husk, intending to kill it while it had a counter on it, but when my Heartmender came back, I grafted onto it with Llanowar Reborn, eliciting a shriek of frustration from poor Mac. Juked.
So we switched decks again. He decided to try a black control deck, and I picked a blue-red control deck that I had seen a friend often dominate with. However, I didn't remember exactly what was in the blue-red deck, or the proportions of cards, so I just guessed, erring on the side of too many counters.
The game itself was absolutely hilarious. Neither of us played any spells for a while, except for my Izzet Signets and Compulsive Research (and other various mana artifacts and blue draw spells). Occasionally he would try to play a spell, and I'd Remand or Mana Leak it. But it was a long time before I got any creatures, so all I could do was wait. When I had a bunch of artifacts out, I cast Wildfire with no creatures in play, hoping to slow him down in case he had some huge spells or something. But as he built his land count back up, I still didn't draw many creatures. I knew my friend's version of my deck never had trouble finding creatures, so I was baffled. Anyway, I kept playing artifacts and destroying lands en masse until I drew Akroma, Angel of Fury. At this point I was sick of not doing anything useful, so I played her face down, and she died instantly.
This went on for some time until FINALLY I drew Aeon Chronicler and Triskelavus. With these two guys, I was able to start dealing some actual damage, but they still eventually died. After a while, he just gave up. Since I had kept destroying his lands, he never had enough mana to play anything dangerous (he discarded several Dreads - or maybe the same one several times - due to card overflow), so he figured it was hopeless. At that point he was at 11 and the only damage source I had was two Triskelavus tokens. I pointed out that I had 14 cards in my library, and he may have been able to win if he had just waited it out, but the agony of stagnation had apparently overwhelmed him. Moral of the story: don't play control vs. control.
I remembered right at the end of the game that I had in fact been several creatures short. I had forgotten about Teferi and the two Bogardan Hellkites that were supposed to be in my deck, which would have certainly been useful. Still, I don't know what the exact proportion of cards should be, but at least now I think I know all of the cards that were in it.
Since his black had lost him four games in a row, mAc decided to switch back to Astral Slide (see yesterday's article). I decided to try out my mono-white Stuffy Doll deck, based on enchanting Stuffy Doll with Guilty Conscience, then tapping him for an instant win. To keep the enemy at bay until I could get the combo out, I stuffed the deck with dudes en-Kor and things that provide protection, such as Mother of Runes. The idea was just to protect the Stuffy Doll, and to use the en-Kor to redirect damage to it as well, but the deck turned out to have some even more interesting uses that I discovered accidentally. I love when that happens.
Anyway, the game. I was somewhat mana screwed, but since all my creatures were 1 or 2 mana, I could still play a ton of them. Mac didn't draw his Lightning Rifts or Astral Slides immediately, but he got an Exalted Angel out much too early for comfort. The Angel pounded away and I pounded back with a ton of dudes, but his lifelink was too powerful. Eventually he DID get the enchantments out, and that's where I discovered some fun things.
I had three en-kor dudes, two Mother of Runes, and one Benevolent Bodyguard, all of them tapped from having attacked. He cycled Slice and Dice, hoping to kill off most of my guys in one shot. What I did then was totally awesome. I sacrificed the Bodyguard to give one Mother of Runes protection from red. Then I had all the en-kor dudes redirect their 1 damage to her. I only lost one Mother and the Bodyguard, rather than almost all my dudes. The revelation here is that the Mother and the en-Kor dudes, which I had intended for completely separate purposes, work together very well. If I had had a Mother untapped, I wouldn't even have had to use the Bodyguard. As long as I can give one creature protection, I can redirect all damage from en-Kor dudes to that creature and they'll all live. This of course works well against Astral Slide, which has lots of burns. However, he still had the flying lifelinking Angel and there was nothing preventing him from Lightning Rifting ME, so I died. But the discovery was an awesome one.
Since I hadn't drawn Stuffy Doll at all that game, I threw in some Teferi's Puzzle Boxes before the next game, since they worked so well in the Wild Pair deck. This time I managed to get Stuffy Doll out reasonably early...but I couldn't do anything with it. I couldn't stop his Exalted Angel, and he just threw Lightning Rift at my head. So I died. And then I went to bed.
Later, I tweaked the deck a lot to include Pariah, as well as Leonin Abunas and Privileged Position, just to protect the Doll from outside interference. He may be indestructible, but Astral Slide proved that he is quite vulnerable to a variety of effects. Hopefully, just making him completely safe from outside interference should be enough to get the job done. I haven't tested the new version yet, though.
So, that's what happened. I've made even more decks since then, and I hope to try them out when I get the chance. And of course, I'll let you know how they perform!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Seven Games of Chaos
Last night, I played some Magic (over Magic Workstation) with my internet friend mAc Chaos. He had only learned MWS recently, and so he only had a few decks, but we played a total of seven games. Allow me to tell you about them!
For the first game, I chose an all-Eventide white-black hybrid deck that I had created by simply throwing a bunch of white-black hybrid cards together and calling it a deck. He played a version of Astral Slide, a famous deck which I had heard of but never seen.
I started out with Nip Gwyllion, immediately enchanting it with Edge of the Divinity. Since his deck was a little slower, I got quite a bit of damage through before he managed to get rid of it. However, by that time I had the advantage of momentum, and my Nightsky Mimics and Voracious Hatchlings gobbled him up.
In the next game, I wasn't so lucky. Everything I played got burned away before it could deal significant damage, and even though my Gwyllion Hedge-Mages seemed to disturb him, Astral Slide took care of the tokens with ease, and Lightning Rift finished off everything else. So I died.
Then for the next game, I switched to a Lorwyn/Shadowmoor all-Enchantment deck I had, hoping that my Runed Halos and Declarations of Naught would permanently protect me from his Lightning Rifts and Exalted Angels. However, since all he had done with most of his cycling cards in the previous games was cycle them, I hadn't really paid attention to what they actually DID. So when he Wiped me Clean, there wasn't much I could do. And with Astral Slide, I couldn't even make Hoofprints of the Stag tokens without them dying instantly. So I died.
Then after a break, we switched decks. He played black Clerics, and I played a white Cleric combo deck based on Nomads en-Kor, Daru Spiritualist, and Worthy Cause (with plenty of backups), plus Test of Endurance to seal the deal. This is a cheap (in the sense of low mana cost, but also, arguably, in the sense of lame) combo I learned from a friend. Here's how it works: the Nomads can use their redirection ability targeting the Spiritualist. Even though the ability won't necessarily do anything, the Spiritualist's ability still triggers, and he gains +0/+2. Since the Nomads' ability costs 0, I can continue doing this until the Spiritualist's toughness is arbitrarily high. Then I use Worthy Cause to sacrifice the Spiritualist, gaining however much life I feel like. Then, of course, if I can play Test of Endurance and keep it there for a turn, I just win. And if not, then hopefully the fact that my deck is 90 cards will keep me alive long enough to deck the opponent, since most of my creatures are not especially strong.
Anyway, I started off with a couple of Children of Korlis to protect me until I could get the combo out. Mac had various awesome Clerics like Withered Wretch, Cabal Archon, and Dark Supplicant. However, I eventually got the combo off, and he scooped.
I didn't want to play that deck again since it's not really that fun, and it's much less exciting when the opponent knows exactly what you're up to. So I switched to an experimental blue-red-black deck I had recently made that was based on Underworld Dreams plus Wheel of Fortune-type effects. However, I never drew Underworld Dreams, so I just sat there while he broke my face. I don't plan on playing that deck much in the future.
Then I switched once more, to a mono-red Elemental deck that can have a very fast start and has some quite potent synergies. As I played, I even discovered an awesome two-card combo (sort of): Flamekin Harbinger and Nova Chaser. Just champion the Harbinger with the Chaser, then charge, and when he dies, the Harbinger comes back into play, allowing you to summon up another Chaser. I only had 2 Nova Chasers in my deck at the time, so I couldn't make quite as good use of this combo as I had wanted to, but I later put two more Chasers in for the future. The deck also has Incandescent Soulstoke, Rite of Flame, and Smokebraider to get it going very quickly. But the real point of the deck was to combine one of my all-time favorite cards, Grinning Ignus, with guys like Cinder Pyromancer (conveniently also an Elemental) and Balefire Liege. With either of these in play, you can pop the Ignus repeatedly to hurl damage at your opponent's head without even having to attack. In the first game, though, Nova Chaser did most of the work, with Cinder Pyromancer just cleaning up.
The next game (a rematch) didn't go quite so well in my favor, but I managed to abuse my deck's synergies as ruthlessly as possible. Even his dreaded Scion of Darkness died before it could do any real damage. This game lasted a while with a lot of trading back and forth, and we both got down to 1 life, but I managed to draw more dudes and finish him off.
So that's my report. I really enjoy playing a wide variety of decks, and I got to play 5 different decks that night, so it was quite fun. It was also useful to learn what worked and what didn't in various decks; the Underworld Dreams deck turned out to be pretty much useless (since the card advantage it gives the opponent often vastly offsets the damage they're dealt), and I discovered new synergies in other decks that I hadn't noticed before (the Nova Chaser/Flamekin Harbinger one in particular). I won't bother with posting decklists, since I described the basic function and important cards of each deck. (Also, I don't have Mac's decklists, and we both modified our decks afterward, so any decklists I posted wouldn't even be complete or accurate.) I'm excited to play more, and I've already thrown together some new decks. I'll also try to make some more hilarious decks; my Cleric combo and all-Enchantment decks were intended to be hilarious, but one was just rather straightforward and the other got completely destroyed. But I have plenty more up my sleeve; and for that reason, I'm off to the tailor to get these rips in my sleeve mended.
For the first game, I chose an all-Eventide white-black hybrid deck that I had created by simply throwing a bunch of white-black hybrid cards together and calling it a deck. He played a version of Astral Slide, a famous deck which I had heard of but never seen.
I started out with Nip Gwyllion, immediately enchanting it with Edge of the Divinity. Since his deck was a little slower, I got quite a bit of damage through before he managed to get rid of it. However, by that time I had the advantage of momentum, and my Nightsky Mimics and Voracious Hatchlings gobbled him up.
In the next game, I wasn't so lucky. Everything I played got burned away before it could deal significant damage, and even though my Gwyllion Hedge-Mages seemed to disturb him, Astral Slide took care of the tokens with ease, and Lightning Rift finished off everything else. So I died.
Then for the next game, I switched to a Lorwyn/Shadowmoor all-Enchantment deck I had, hoping that my Runed Halos and Declarations of Naught would permanently protect me from his Lightning Rifts and Exalted Angels. However, since all he had done with most of his cycling cards in the previous games was cycle them, I hadn't really paid attention to what they actually DID. So when he Wiped me Clean, there wasn't much I could do. And with Astral Slide, I couldn't even make Hoofprints of the Stag tokens without them dying instantly. So I died.
Then after a break, we switched decks. He played black Clerics, and I played a white Cleric combo deck based on Nomads en-Kor, Daru Spiritualist, and Worthy Cause (with plenty of backups), plus Test of Endurance to seal the deal. This is a cheap (in the sense of low mana cost, but also, arguably, in the sense of lame) combo I learned from a friend. Here's how it works: the Nomads can use their redirection ability targeting the Spiritualist. Even though the ability won't necessarily do anything, the Spiritualist's ability still triggers, and he gains +0/+2. Since the Nomads' ability costs 0, I can continue doing this until the Spiritualist's toughness is arbitrarily high. Then I use Worthy Cause to sacrifice the Spiritualist, gaining however much life I feel like. Then, of course, if I can play Test of Endurance and keep it there for a turn, I just win. And if not, then hopefully the fact that my deck is 90 cards will keep me alive long enough to deck the opponent, since most of my creatures are not especially strong.
Anyway, I started off with a couple of Children of Korlis to protect me until I could get the combo out. Mac had various awesome Clerics like Withered Wretch, Cabal Archon, and Dark Supplicant. However, I eventually got the combo off, and he scooped.
I didn't want to play that deck again since it's not really that fun, and it's much less exciting when the opponent knows exactly what you're up to. So I switched to an experimental blue-red-black deck I had recently made that was based on Underworld Dreams plus Wheel of Fortune-type effects. However, I never drew Underworld Dreams, so I just sat there while he broke my face. I don't plan on playing that deck much in the future.
Then I switched once more, to a mono-red Elemental deck that can have a very fast start and has some quite potent synergies. As I played, I even discovered an awesome two-card combo (sort of): Flamekin Harbinger and Nova Chaser. Just champion the Harbinger with the Chaser, then charge, and when he dies, the Harbinger comes back into play, allowing you to summon up another Chaser. I only had 2 Nova Chasers in my deck at the time, so I couldn't make quite as good use of this combo as I had wanted to, but I later put two more Chasers in for the future. The deck also has Incandescent Soulstoke, Rite of Flame, and Smokebraider to get it going very quickly. But the real point of the deck was to combine one of my all-time favorite cards, Grinning Ignus, with guys like Cinder Pyromancer (conveniently also an Elemental) and Balefire Liege. With either of these in play, you can pop the Ignus repeatedly to hurl damage at your opponent's head without even having to attack. In the first game, though, Nova Chaser did most of the work, with Cinder Pyromancer just cleaning up.
The next game (a rematch) didn't go quite so well in my favor, but I managed to abuse my deck's synergies as ruthlessly as possible. Even his dreaded Scion of Darkness died before it could do any real damage. This game lasted a while with a lot of trading back and forth, and we both got down to 1 life, but I managed to draw more dudes and finish him off.
So that's my report. I really enjoy playing a wide variety of decks, and I got to play 5 different decks that night, so it was quite fun. It was also useful to learn what worked and what didn't in various decks; the Underworld Dreams deck turned out to be pretty much useless (since the card advantage it gives the opponent often vastly offsets the damage they're dealt), and I discovered new synergies in other decks that I hadn't noticed before (the Nova Chaser/Flamekin Harbinger one in particular). I won't bother with posting decklists, since I described the basic function and important cards of each deck. (Also, I don't have Mac's decklists, and we both modified our decks afterward, so any decklists I posted wouldn't even be complete or accurate.) I'm excited to play more, and I've already thrown together some new decks. I'll also try to make some more hilarious decks; my Cleric combo and all-Enchantment decks were intended to be hilarious, but one was just rather straightforward and the other got completely destroyed. But I have plenty more up my sleeve; and for that reason, I'm off to the tailor to get these rips in my sleeve mended.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Knowledge
It's been almost a week since my last post. Before that, I was posting an article a day quite consistently. What's the deal? Where are the posts about Eventide's White-Black and Black-Green cards?
Well, I realized that I have nothing to say. All I can do in these Eventide posts is look at the cards and say "oh they're cool." I don't know anything about Standard. I don't know how well they'll do, and I don't immediately see interesting combos. I really just don't know.
Now, the Lorwyn articles were a little better. I did know something, because I backed it up with hard data. I made a few errors, sure, and I didn't know what the ultimate significance of my study was (again, a product of my lack of knowledge about the game), but I had information I wanted to share, and I succeeded. Those were good.
But this Eventide prediction stuff just isn't for me. I enjoy talking about cards, and even thinking about how they might interact, but you won't get much value out of it. Just the ramblings of a newbie. This thought occurred to me most profoundly when I was reading articles on MtG's very own website, some of which were, indeed, about Eventide cards and the impact of Eventide on Standard, etc. But when I mentally compared my own articles to theirs, I wasn't saying anything new. I was just saying that they were cool, whereas the professional writers of articles for Wizards' website said that they were cool AND were able to explain why.
Now, I want this blog to be about Magic. But I also want it to be about me. I want the articles to be about how I perceive the game, and about the aspects of it that I like, but there are limits to what this should mean. It's true that the Eventide articles expressed my own opinions, and for that reason, at least, they have some value. But my opinion was mixed with information, information which I was quite unqualified to analyze and interpret. So, although I would have continued the Eventide articles for the sake of expressing my own interests and talking about which cards I thought were cool, I'm not going to. I don't want my articles to be the musings of an amateur, passionate though I may be.
So that's why I haven't written anything for a while. When I thought, "hm, I should write a blog post," it was mixed with other thoughts, too: "but I don't really know what I'm talking about, which is unfair to my readers, few though they may be;" and "I don't really care that much about black-green, I'd just be half-heartedly finishing a cycle for the sake of closure." And those aren't good thoughts. So I'm not going to write those posts.
So now the question is: what next? Do I crank out more statistics? Do I talk only about cards I know? Do I just repeat the words of others? Or do I stop altogether?
Nope. If I have any more inspirations like the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor color/creature type study, I'll certainly pursue them, but I'm not going to go chasing after statistics about things I don't really care about. And I'm not going to stop altogether either. I've come this far; I'll think of something.
And I have! One thing I CAN write about with confidence and accuracy is my own experiences. As fun as it might be to spout predictions and evaluations, I have no experience with them, rendering them ultimately meaningless. But if I talk about things I have experienced, I can be sure to stay true to my purpose. So I'll talk about decks I've made (be they physical or online), and the decks I've played them against. And I can talk about the cards in them, and how they work in that deck, and if they don't, why not. I can talk about cool ideas for decks, or ones I've seen that I admired.
Now, this pushes the blog in another direction: decks. Before, I was talking about sets and cards; there is nary a mention of decks in my previous posts. So this will be a change. But even if I am terrible at deckbuilding, and my opponent is too, and we are both playing casually, I can still learn things about cards, and about deckbuilding, and I can pass on this knowledge. It may not be crucial knowledge, and it won't help aspiring Pro Tour players, but it will be fulfilling to me, and hopefully useful to casual players, new players, or just players who are looking for something new. So, for the next few articles, at least, I will probably be talking about decks. And that's all I have to say.
Well, I realized that I have nothing to say. All I can do in these Eventide posts is look at the cards and say "oh they're cool." I don't know anything about Standard. I don't know how well they'll do, and I don't immediately see interesting combos. I really just don't know.
Now, the Lorwyn articles were a little better. I did know something, because I backed it up with hard data. I made a few errors, sure, and I didn't know what the ultimate significance of my study was (again, a product of my lack of knowledge about the game), but I had information I wanted to share, and I succeeded. Those were good.
But this Eventide prediction stuff just isn't for me. I enjoy talking about cards, and even thinking about how they might interact, but you won't get much value out of it. Just the ramblings of a newbie. This thought occurred to me most profoundly when I was reading articles on MtG's very own website, some of which were, indeed, about Eventide cards and the impact of Eventide on Standard, etc. But when I mentally compared my own articles to theirs, I wasn't saying anything new. I was just saying that they were cool, whereas the professional writers of articles for Wizards' website said that they were cool AND were able to explain why.
Now, I want this blog to be about Magic. But I also want it to be about me. I want the articles to be about how I perceive the game, and about the aspects of it that I like, but there are limits to what this should mean. It's true that the Eventide articles expressed my own opinions, and for that reason, at least, they have some value. But my opinion was mixed with information, information which I was quite unqualified to analyze and interpret. So, although I would have continued the Eventide articles for the sake of expressing my own interests and talking about which cards I thought were cool, I'm not going to. I don't want my articles to be the musings of an amateur, passionate though I may be.
So that's why I haven't written anything for a while. When I thought, "hm, I should write a blog post," it was mixed with other thoughts, too: "but I don't really know what I'm talking about, which is unfair to my readers, few though they may be;" and "I don't really care that much about black-green, I'd just be half-heartedly finishing a cycle for the sake of closure." And those aren't good thoughts. So I'm not going to write those posts.
So now the question is: what next? Do I crank out more statistics? Do I talk only about cards I know? Do I just repeat the words of others? Or do I stop altogether?
Nope. If I have any more inspirations like the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor color/creature type study, I'll certainly pursue them, but I'm not going to go chasing after statistics about things I don't really care about. And I'm not going to stop altogether either. I've come this far; I'll think of something.
And I have! One thing I CAN write about with confidence and accuracy is my own experiences. As fun as it might be to spout predictions and evaluations, I have no experience with them, rendering them ultimately meaningless. But if I talk about things I have experienced, I can be sure to stay true to my purpose. So I'll talk about decks I've made (be they physical or online), and the decks I've played them against. And I can talk about the cards in them, and how they work in that deck, and if they don't, why not. I can talk about cool ideas for decks, or ones I've seen that I admired.
Now, this pushes the blog in another direction: decks. Before, I was talking about sets and cards; there is nary a mention of decks in my previous posts. So this will be a change. But even if I am terrible at deckbuilding, and my opponent is too, and we are both playing casually, I can still learn things about cards, and about deckbuilding, and I can pass on this knowledge. It may not be crucial knowledge, and it won't help aspiring Pro Tour players, but it will be fulfilling to me, and hopefully useful to casual players, new players, or just players who are looking for something new. So, for the next few articles, at least, I will probably be talking about decks. And that's all I have to say.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Eventide: Blue-Red
Finally back to Eventide! Today I'll be talking about Eventide's blue-red cards. Blue-red is a difficult color pair to place, because they don't really have much holding them together. In Guildpact, of course, they found unity in the Izzet guild and Replicate, but in Eventide they're just a bunch of weird monsters. However, each Eventide color pair does have one or two clans or creature types that shows up more than once. For blue-red, these are the Noggles - strange, donkey-faced gremlins that are basically pretty silly. Still, blue and red overlap in so few places that their combination ends up being very weird indeed.
Despite being odd, blue-red has plenty of good cards. Their Avatar (Dominus of Fealty) is a 4/4 flying that steals things. That is, "at the beginning of your upkeep, you may gain control of target permanent until end of turn. If you do, untap it and it gains haste until end of turn." Not bad. This guy can steal not only creatures, but ANY permanent. If you have some sort of sacrificing outlet (Greater Gargadon being a popular one in Standard), you can basically just destroy one of anything each turn, for free. Of course, you can also use what you steal, either to smash the enemy's face in with his own dudes, or to snag a particularly useful enchantment (like Mana Reflection or Thought Reflection).
What's more, his Liege (Mindwrack Liege) has good synergy with him. The blue-red liege is actually more expensive than the Avatar, costing 6 mana. However, his ability is quite good, and combines well with the Dominus. For 4 blue/red mana, he allows you to put a red or blue creature into play. This means you can play the Dominus (or other Mindwrack Lieges) more cheaply, AND with flash. Pop in a Dominus at the end of an opponent's turn, and you get to use him immediately. There are also plenty of other red and/or blue creatures in Eventide and Shadowmoor that cost more than 4 mana.
The blue-red aura (Clout of the Dominus) is pretty sweet. It gives haste to red and shroud to blue, all for 1 mana. On creatures like blue-red's Hatchling (Shrewd Hatchling), this can be a deadly combination, giving you what amounts to a 6/6 with haste and shroud for 5 mana, with the potential to become an 8/8 unblockable with shroud. Not an easy guy for your opponents to deal with.
And speaking of unblockable, blue-red has several other (mostly) unblockable creatures as well. The blue-red Mimic (Riverfall Mimic) becomes a 3/3 unblockable whenever you play a blue-red spell, and Noggle Bandit can only be blocked by defenders (of which there are only a few in Eventide).
There is also a fair amount of flying in blue-red. The 1/1 Stream Hopper is a great way to get damage through early (and even more so with Clout of the Dominus), and Call the Skybreaker is a great way to get damage through late. The Dominus also has flying.
Blue-red has a bunch of other cards that are quite interesting, some of which are throwbacks to old Izzet cards. Unnerving Assault is like Schismotivate, but spread across the whole team, and Nucklavee hearkens back to Izzet Chronarch. Others incorporate some of the few effects that blue and red share (as Mark Rosewater mentions in a recent article), such as swapping power and toughness (Crag Puca, Inside Out) or copying spells (Mirror Sheen). Noggle Bridgebreaker makes you bounce your own land, but this could even be useful with Retrace.
But one of the coolest blue-red cards in Eventide is Crackleburr. This stretchy lightning-fox is the only card with both a tap and an untap ability. If you have any two other blue-red creatures, they can hook up with Crackleburr, do the Wave, and start seriously messing with the enemy's creature line, as long as you have the mana. Just four mana is enough to deal 3 damage to each of two creatures, and bounce two more. I urge anyone playing Crackleburr to bring some friends along so that they can do the Wave with you whenever you use both of his abilities in a row. Not only will your opponent's creatures go flying, but he will be intimidated by your strange ritual. Maybe do the Electric Slide too.
There are, of course, a few blue-red cards that I didn't mention, but they're not especially cool. (I don't like the Hedge-Mages, for instance. I just don't like them.) But I'll show them to you anyway: Noggle Hedge-Mage, Noggle Ransacker, and Talonrend (who is technically blue but has a blue-red ability). Discarding cards at random? No thanks. Talonrend is actually pretty cool, but rather expensive.
Anyway, that's it for blue-red. Although they don't really have much unity, they do seem to enjoy being unblockable, and switching power and toughness, and they have a stretchy lightning-fox, which has gotta be worth a lot. Right? ...Right...?
Despite being odd, blue-red has plenty of good cards. Their Avatar (Dominus of Fealty) is a 4/4 flying that steals things. That is, "at the beginning of your upkeep, you may gain control of target permanent until end of turn. If you do, untap it and it gains haste until end of turn." Not bad. This guy can steal not only creatures, but ANY permanent. If you have some sort of sacrificing outlet (Greater Gargadon being a popular one in Standard), you can basically just destroy one of anything each turn, for free. Of course, you can also use what you steal, either to smash the enemy's face in with his own dudes, or to snag a particularly useful enchantment (like Mana Reflection or Thought Reflection).
What's more, his Liege (Mindwrack Liege) has good synergy with him. The blue-red liege is actually more expensive than the Avatar, costing 6 mana. However, his ability is quite good, and combines well with the Dominus. For 4 blue/red mana, he allows you to put a red or blue creature into play. This means you can play the Dominus (or other Mindwrack Lieges) more cheaply, AND with flash. Pop in a Dominus at the end of an opponent's turn, and you get to use him immediately. There are also plenty of other red and/or blue creatures in Eventide and Shadowmoor that cost more than 4 mana.
The blue-red aura (Clout of the Dominus) is pretty sweet. It gives haste to red and shroud to blue, all for 1 mana. On creatures like blue-red's Hatchling (Shrewd Hatchling), this can be a deadly combination, giving you what amounts to a 6/6 with haste and shroud for 5 mana, with the potential to become an 8/8 unblockable with shroud. Not an easy guy for your opponents to deal with.
And speaking of unblockable, blue-red has several other (mostly) unblockable creatures as well. The blue-red Mimic (Riverfall Mimic) becomes a 3/3 unblockable whenever you play a blue-red spell, and Noggle Bandit can only be blocked by defenders (of which there are only a few in Eventide).
There is also a fair amount of flying in blue-red. The 1/1 Stream Hopper is a great way to get damage through early (and even more so with Clout of the Dominus), and Call the Skybreaker is a great way to get damage through late. The Dominus also has flying.
Blue-red has a bunch of other cards that are quite interesting, some of which are throwbacks to old Izzet cards. Unnerving Assault is like Schismotivate, but spread across the whole team, and Nucklavee hearkens back to Izzet Chronarch. Others incorporate some of the few effects that blue and red share (as Mark Rosewater mentions in a recent article), such as swapping power and toughness (Crag Puca, Inside Out) or copying spells (Mirror Sheen). Noggle Bridgebreaker makes you bounce your own land, but this could even be useful with Retrace.
But one of the coolest blue-red cards in Eventide is Crackleburr. This stretchy lightning-fox is the only card with both a tap and an untap ability. If you have any two other blue-red creatures, they can hook up with Crackleburr, do the Wave, and start seriously messing with the enemy's creature line, as long as you have the mana. Just four mana is enough to deal 3 damage to each of two creatures, and bounce two more. I urge anyone playing Crackleburr to bring some friends along so that they can do the Wave with you whenever you use both of his abilities in a row. Not only will your opponent's creatures go flying, but he will be intimidated by your strange ritual. Maybe do the Electric Slide too.
There are, of course, a few blue-red cards that I didn't mention, but they're not especially cool. (I don't like the Hedge-Mages, for instance. I just don't like them.) But I'll show them to you anyway: Noggle Hedge-Mage, Noggle Ransacker, and Talonrend (who is technically blue but has a blue-red ability). Discarding cards at random? No thanks. Talonrend is actually pretty cool, but rather expensive.
Anyway, that's it for blue-red. Although they don't really have much unity, they do seem to enjoy being unblockable, and switching power and toughness, and they have a stretchy lightning-fox, which has gotta be worth a lot. Right? ...Right...?
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block and Color: Merfolk, Goblins, and Kithkin
And finally, I get to talk about the Little People: Merfolk, Goblins, and Kithkin. (Well, Merfolk might not be all that small, but I tend to think of them as small. They certainly don't have many 5/5s, at least.) These are the tribes that have changed the most over the course of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. Each race gained a previously untouched (or very, very lightly touched) color in Lorwyn, then a second color in Shadowmoor, and a third in Eventide. Basically.
First, the Merfolk. Before Lorwyn, there were 54 blue Merfolk, plus four multicolored Merfolk from Invasion block that were blue/red, blue/green, blue/black, and blue/white. So every Merfolk printed before Lorwyn was blue, though a few brushed other colors very slightly. In Lorwyn block, there are 23 blue Merfolk, 6 white Merfolk, and the white/blue Sygg. Six isn't a very big number, but as I've said over and over again in these articles, it's still something new. So, Merfolk begin splashing white in Lorwyn.
In Shadowmoor (the set, not the block), there are 6 blue, 1 black, 7 blue-black, and 1 white-blue Merfolk. That's eight new Merfolk that can be played in mono-black decks. Again, a change. Then in Eventide, there are 5 blue, 1 black, and 3 green-blue Merfolk (the Selkies). Again, 3 isn't a big number, but it's the first time that the possibility of playing Merfolk in a mono-green deck (changelings aside) has been possible. So Merfolk have progressed from mono-blue to splashing white to splashing black to splashing green. Four color natures, as I mentioned previously.
Goblins follow much the same pattern (though of course with different colors). Before Lorwyn, there were 156 red Goblins, 2 black Goblins, an artifact Goblin, and 7 multicolor Goblins that were red plus one other color. They were decidedly red.
In Lorwyn, there are 14 red Goblins, 24 black Goblins, and a black/red Goblin Legend. TWENTY-FOUR BLACK GOBLINS. Not only is that a massive increased in Magic history's amount of black Goblins, but there are more black than red in Lorwyn! This situation can only be described as crazy-wack. Goblins had hardly even seen black before, and now they're drenched in it, like a Vermont farmboy falling into a puddle of oil. Okay, that may not be the most accurate or useful analogy, but it gets the point across.
Then in Shadowmoor, there are 6 red Goblins, 1 green Goblin, 1 black-red Goblin, and 10 red-green Goblins. That's 11 green Goblins - Spiderman's worst nightmare. And Peter Parker does in fact play Magic (scroll down to Monday, May 13). First black, now green - it's like some sort of crazy man has taken over Magic design! Oh wait, that's Mark Rosewater.
Now in Eventide, there are 2 red, 1 green, 2 red-white, and 1 blue-red Goblin. Ravnica had Boros Recruit (a hybrid red-white Goblin), the first Goblin playable in a mono-white deck (besides the artifact one), but now there are two more. PLUS, the first Goblin playable in a mono-blue deck. And to make matters worse, the green Goblin in Eventide has a green-blue activated ability. This is madness!
Madness? THIS IS EVENTIDE! Now I don't know how much of the decision to let Goblins run rampant down Rainbow Road was directly in the control of Mark Rosewater, but I don't doubt that he was heavily involved. He loves doing that stuff. He's like the Joker, teaming up with the Green Goblin, and...all right, my metaphors and analogies are getting a little out of hand. But anyway, Goblins have shifted from almost entirely red to heavily splashing black to modestly splashing green to splashing God-knows-what. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if Shards of Alara had orange/purple Goblins.
To tone down the drama a bit, let's take a look at the Kithkin. Their splashing is a bit less violent (their feet are smaller, you see), but it can still be felt by nearby color-frogs and color-fish. If this doesn't make sense, then that's good - you're still sane.
Before Lorwyn, there were hardly any Kithkin at all. There were only five, all of which were mono-white. In Lorwyn, there are 28 Kithkin, plus two green and a green/white Legend. It would be a stretch to say that Lorwyn has changed the face of the deeply entrenched Kithkin mythos, since there isn't a deeply entrenched Kithkin mythos. So although technically the Kithkin have gone from mono-white to white splashing green, their nature as mono-white was founded on a mere five cards, only one of which was even printed before Time Spiral.
In Shadowmoor, there are 8 white, 2 blue, and 7 white-blue Kithkin. Now this is slightly more surprising or significant or whatever you want to call it, because "previous Magic history" now includes Lorwyn, which DOES have a lot of Kithkin, solidly founding them as a white tribe splashing the tiniest bit of green. With nine new blue Kithkin, Shadowmoor is clearly changing the established norm, even if that norm had only been established recently.
Then in Eventide, we get 5 more white Kithkin and one solitary red-white guy: the first red Kithkin. However, there are two other red-white spells in Eventide which, while not Kithkin spells, depict Kithkin in their art. So it's safe to say that Kithkin have become just a tad angrier in Eventide, and are splashing into red, although more lightly even than Lorwyn's green.
So the Kithkin, with their tiny feet and flattened features, have progressed from mono-white to splashing a little green to splashing a lot of blue to splashing a little red. As a relatively young tribe (aside from old granddaddy Amrou Kithkin), and a rather small one (card-wise, at least), the Kithkin don't have much of a precedent to defy. But they still change over the course of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block, enough so that I included them in the same article as Merfolk and Goblins.
Finally, I have reached the end of this increasingly tedious analysis of color and creature type in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block. Once again, I will remind you that I don't know what the significance of my "study" really is. It might mean that Mark Rosewater is off his rocker, or that Magic is opening up its design space, or just that Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block is weird. Or it could be meaningless and trite. (Again, I invite comments.) But I wanted to see what the patterns were, and I at least had fun relating them and trying to see how they fit together.
But now I can get back to talking about things that might be interesting: Eventide! I recently got Magic Workstation, and have since fiddled around with making Eventide sealed decks (from 5 Eventide boosters) and playing them against a (much more experienced) friend. So far, I'm liking what I'm seeing, and I hope to experiment more in the coming days. Eventide has been added to the Gatherer, and I expect the full Visual Spoiler will be up on Monday, which is very convenient, as well as totally awesome. So hopefully, in my next few articles about Eventide, I will be better informed. Already I'm learning new things, such as the power of Retrace (as my friend beat me down with Oona's Grace and Monstrify after I cut them both from my own deck like an idiot), so I look forward to being able to write articles where I almost - just maybe - might have some idea of what the hell I am talking about.
First, the Merfolk. Before Lorwyn, there were 54 blue Merfolk, plus four multicolored Merfolk from Invasion block that were blue/red, blue/green, blue/black, and blue/white. So every Merfolk printed before Lorwyn was blue, though a few brushed other colors very slightly. In Lorwyn block, there are 23 blue Merfolk, 6 white Merfolk, and the white/blue Sygg. Six isn't a very big number, but as I've said over and over again in these articles, it's still something new. So, Merfolk begin splashing white in Lorwyn.
In Shadowmoor (the set, not the block), there are 6 blue, 1 black, 7 blue-black, and 1 white-blue Merfolk. That's eight new Merfolk that can be played in mono-black decks. Again, a change. Then in Eventide, there are 5 blue, 1 black, and 3 green-blue Merfolk (the Selkies). Again, 3 isn't a big number, but it's the first time that the possibility of playing Merfolk in a mono-green deck (changelings aside) has been possible. So Merfolk have progressed from mono-blue to splashing white to splashing black to splashing green. Four color natures, as I mentioned previously.
Goblins follow much the same pattern (though of course with different colors). Before Lorwyn, there were 156 red Goblins, 2 black Goblins, an artifact Goblin, and 7 multicolor Goblins that were red plus one other color. They were decidedly red.
In Lorwyn, there are 14 red Goblins, 24 black Goblins, and a black/red Goblin Legend. TWENTY-FOUR BLACK GOBLINS. Not only is that a massive increased in Magic history's amount of black Goblins, but there are more black than red in Lorwyn! This situation can only be described as crazy-wack. Goblins had hardly even seen black before, and now they're drenched in it, like a Vermont farmboy falling into a puddle of oil. Okay, that may not be the most accurate or useful analogy, but it gets the point across.
Then in Shadowmoor, there are 6 red Goblins, 1 green Goblin, 1 black-red Goblin, and 10 red-green Goblins. That's 11 green Goblins - Spiderman's worst nightmare. And Peter Parker does in fact play Magic (scroll down to Monday, May 13). First black, now green - it's like some sort of crazy man has taken over Magic design! Oh wait, that's Mark Rosewater.
Now in Eventide, there are 2 red, 1 green, 2 red-white, and 1 blue-red Goblin. Ravnica had Boros Recruit (a hybrid red-white Goblin), the first Goblin playable in a mono-white deck (besides the artifact one), but now there are two more. PLUS, the first Goblin playable in a mono-blue deck. And to make matters worse, the green Goblin in Eventide has a green-blue activated ability. This is madness!
Madness? THIS IS EVENTIDE! Now I don't know how much of the decision to let Goblins run rampant down Rainbow Road was directly in the control of Mark Rosewater, but I don't doubt that he was heavily involved. He loves doing that stuff. He's like the Joker, teaming up with the Green Goblin, and...all right, my metaphors and analogies are getting a little out of hand. But anyway, Goblins have shifted from almost entirely red to heavily splashing black to modestly splashing green to splashing God-knows-what. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if Shards of Alara had orange/purple Goblins.
To tone down the drama a bit, let's take a look at the Kithkin. Their splashing is a bit less violent (their feet are smaller, you see), but it can still be felt by nearby color-frogs and color-fish. If this doesn't make sense, then that's good - you're still sane.
Before Lorwyn, there were hardly any Kithkin at all. There were only five, all of which were mono-white. In Lorwyn, there are 28 Kithkin, plus two green and a green/white Legend. It would be a stretch to say that Lorwyn has changed the face of the deeply entrenched Kithkin mythos, since there isn't a deeply entrenched Kithkin mythos. So although technically the Kithkin have gone from mono-white to white splashing green, their nature as mono-white was founded on a mere five cards, only one of which was even printed before Time Spiral.
In Shadowmoor, there are 8 white, 2 blue, and 7 white-blue Kithkin. Now this is slightly more surprising or significant or whatever you want to call it, because "previous Magic history" now includes Lorwyn, which DOES have a lot of Kithkin, solidly founding them as a white tribe splashing the tiniest bit of green. With nine new blue Kithkin, Shadowmoor is clearly changing the established norm, even if that norm had only been established recently.
Then in Eventide, we get 5 more white Kithkin and one solitary red-white guy: the first red Kithkin. However, there are two other red-white spells in Eventide which, while not Kithkin spells, depict Kithkin in their art. So it's safe to say that Kithkin have become just a tad angrier in Eventide, and are splashing into red, although more lightly even than Lorwyn's green.
So the Kithkin, with their tiny feet and flattened features, have progressed from mono-white to splashing a little green to splashing a lot of blue to splashing a little red. As a relatively young tribe (aside from old granddaddy Amrou Kithkin), and a rather small one (card-wise, at least), the Kithkin don't have much of a precedent to defy. But they still change over the course of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block, enough so that I included them in the same article as Merfolk and Goblins.
Finally, I have reached the end of this increasingly tedious analysis of color and creature type in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block. Once again, I will remind you that I don't know what the significance of my "study" really is. It might mean that Mark Rosewater is off his rocker, or that Magic is opening up its design space, or just that Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block is weird. Or it could be meaningless and trite. (Again, I invite comments.) But I wanted to see what the patterns were, and I at least had fun relating them and trying to see how they fit together.
But now I can get back to talking about things that might be interesting: Eventide! I recently got Magic Workstation, and have since fiddled around with making Eventide sealed decks (from 5 Eventide boosters) and playing them against a (much more experienced) friend. So far, I'm liking what I'm seeing, and I hope to experiment more in the coming days. Eventide has been added to the Gatherer, and I expect the full Visual Spoiler will be up on Monday, which is very convenient, as well as totally awesome. So hopefully, in my next few articles about Eventide, I will be better informed. Already I'm learning new things, such as the power of Retrace (as my friend beat me down with Oona's Grace and Monstrify after I cut them both from my own deck like an idiot), so I look forward to being able to write articles where I almost - just maybe - might have some idea of what the hell I am talking about.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block and Color: Elves and Giants
Last time, I talked about Treefolk and Faeries, races which exhibit two color natures each: a pre-Lorwyn one, and a Lorwyn-Shadowmoor one. To explain, I'll use an example: Treefolk. The color nature of Treefolk before Lorwyn was green. Yes, there was one green/black one, but Treefolk were predominantly green. As of Eventide, the color nature of Treefolk is green splashing white and black. The splashing of white and black came about with Lorwyn block, and remained fairly consistent throughout Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. Thus, they had two color natures.
Today I'll be talking about two races which exhibit three color natures: Elves and Giants. The division here is pre-Lorwyn/Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. (Later I'll be talking about Merfolk, Goblins, and Kithkin, which each have four natures.) Taking a look at the numbers (once again), we find that prior to Lorwyn, there were 130 mono-green elves, and 21 elves that were not mono-green. Of those, 5 were non-green. Elves have made their way into all five colors, with (by my previous system) 7.5 white, 4 black, 4.5 blue, 2 red, and 1 artifact. (There have never been mono-blue or mono-red elves.) With such small numbers, calling Elves "diverse" would be much like calling a private college "diverse": hilarious.
In Lorwyn, Elves are green and black. The black doesn't represent anything really sinister, though - just pride, a fairly mild sin. In any case, Lorwyn block has 27.5 green Elves and 9.5 black Elves. With only 4 other black Elves in Magic's history (only 1 of which was mono-black), Lorwyn's 9 mono-black Elves certainly stand out. Of course, there are plenty of green elves (and many more green than black), but it's still a lot of black compared to what they've had before. So far, this discussion sounds a lot like the one about Treefolk.
But then there's Shadowmoor block. Shadowmoor block has 9, green, 2 white, and 10 green-white Elves. Since I count hybrids fully in both colors, that's 12 white Elves. This isn't as big a contrast as black - there have been 3 mono-white Elves printed before Lorwyn, and Shadowmoor only has 2 - but it's still a change, and certainly a change from Lorwyn. A quick note that will become more relevant in my next article: Eventide only has 4 Elves, and they are all mono-green.
So Elves have three color natures: heavily green, heavily green splashing black, and heavily green splashing white. The splashes are fairly small - like the Treefolk's - but they are noticeable. The difference between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor is explained by flavor - the Elves are now the "good guys" - but from a purely color perspective, it's still something rather new. And now on to Giants.
Before Lorwyn, there were 31 red Giants, 10.5 white Giants, 8 black Giants, and 5.5 green Giants (including multicolored cards). Giants have never touched blue (they are stupid). Giants are invested most heavily in red, but there are practically as many Giants of other colors as there are red ones. They're much more diverse than Elves, Treefolk, and even Faeries. Still, it's clear that they prefer red, and this theme carries over into Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block.
In Lorwyn block, there are 15.5 red Giants and 8.5 white Giants. This is not a huge difference compared to previous Magic history: a ratio of about 2:1 red:white, where previously it had been 3:1. Even so, that is a large number of Giants to add to the pool (24). Lorwyn block increases the total Magic Giant count by almost 50%. Now the thing is, when I started writing this article, I thought there were fewer non-red Giants, and when I went to do the research just now, I saw a lot more than I expected. So my initial statement about three natures is not quite accurate for Giants. And by not quite accurate I mean totally wrong. Read on.
In Shadowmoor block, there are 7 red and 1 white Giant, but also 2 green and 3 red-green ones. Now, five isn't a huge number (see my discussion of Treefolk previously), but...no, it's just not a big number. I was wrong. Damn.
So although Giants change between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, they don't change completely (there's still a white one in Shadowmoor, even though he's a Spirit), and their changes are not particularly significant in light of previous Magic history. Nevertheless, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block added a ton of Giants into the mix, giving them a tribal unity that was previously lacking.
Well, that's it for now. I guess I was somewhat off on my intuitions today; there were more off-color Elves and Giants that I had expected. But I have already done my research for the next article, and I assure you, it is infinitely more shocking.
Today I'll be talking about two races which exhibit three color natures: Elves and Giants. The division here is pre-Lorwyn/Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. (Later I'll be talking about Merfolk, Goblins, and Kithkin, which each have four natures.) Taking a look at the numbers (once again), we find that prior to Lorwyn, there were 130 mono-green elves, and 21 elves that were not mono-green. Of those, 5 were non-green. Elves have made their way into all five colors, with (by my previous system) 7.5 white, 4 black, 4.5 blue, 2 red, and 1 artifact. (There have never been mono-blue or mono-red elves.) With such small numbers, calling Elves "diverse" would be much like calling a private college "diverse": hilarious.
In Lorwyn, Elves are green and black. The black doesn't represent anything really sinister, though - just pride, a fairly mild sin. In any case, Lorwyn block has 27.5 green Elves and 9.5 black Elves. With only 4 other black Elves in Magic's history (only 1 of which was mono-black), Lorwyn's 9 mono-black Elves certainly stand out. Of course, there are plenty of green elves (and many more green than black), but it's still a lot of black compared to what they've had before. So far, this discussion sounds a lot like the one about Treefolk.
But then there's Shadowmoor block. Shadowmoor block has 9, green, 2 white, and 10 green-white Elves. Since I count hybrids fully in both colors, that's 12 white Elves. This isn't as big a contrast as black - there have been 3 mono-white Elves printed before Lorwyn, and Shadowmoor only has 2 - but it's still a change, and certainly a change from Lorwyn. A quick note that will become more relevant in my next article: Eventide only has 4 Elves, and they are all mono-green.
So Elves have three color natures: heavily green, heavily green splashing black, and heavily green splashing white. The splashes are fairly small - like the Treefolk's - but they are noticeable. The difference between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor is explained by flavor - the Elves are now the "good guys" - but from a purely color perspective, it's still something rather new. And now on to Giants.
Before Lorwyn, there were 31 red Giants, 10.5 white Giants, 8 black Giants, and 5.5 green Giants (including multicolored cards). Giants have never touched blue (they are stupid). Giants are invested most heavily in red, but there are practically as many Giants of other colors as there are red ones. They're much more diverse than Elves, Treefolk, and even Faeries. Still, it's clear that they prefer red, and this theme carries over into Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block.
In Lorwyn block, there are 15.5 red Giants and 8.5 white Giants. This is not a huge difference compared to previous Magic history: a ratio of about 2:1 red:white, where previously it had been 3:1. Even so, that is a large number of Giants to add to the pool (24). Lorwyn block increases the total Magic Giant count by almost 50%. Now the thing is, when I started writing this article, I thought there were fewer non-red Giants, and when I went to do the research just now, I saw a lot more than I expected. So my initial statement about three natures is not quite accurate for Giants. And by not quite accurate I mean totally wrong. Read on.
In Shadowmoor block, there are 7 red and 1 white Giant, but also 2 green and 3 red-green ones. Now, five isn't a huge number (see my discussion of Treefolk previously), but...no, it's just not a big number. I was wrong. Damn.
So although Giants change between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, they don't change completely (there's still a white one in Shadowmoor, even though he's a Spirit), and their changes are not particularly significant in light of previous Magic history. Nevertheless, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block added a ton of Giants into the mix, giving them a tribal unity that was previously lacking.
Well, that's it for now. I guess I was somewhat off on my intuitions today; there were more off-color Elves and Giants that I had expected. But I have already done my research for the next article, and I assure you, it is infinitely more shocking.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block and Color: Treefolk and Faeries
As I got to thinking more about Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block and its new and unique interactions between creature type and color, I couldn't help myself from writing another post. I already talked about the elementals, but there are still seven other tribes in the block that I need to talk about. But don't worry, I don't need an entire post for each one - just half that many. The tribes can be grouped in certain ways that allow them to be discussed together. Merfolk, Kithkin, and Goblins share a certain pattern, Treefolk and Faeries have another, and Elves and Giants, a third. As you can read in my previous post, Elementals are one of the tribes that has changed a lot throughout the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block, at least in terms of color. For now, I'll talk about two tribes that have changed relatively little: Treefolk and Faeries.
I don't want to get too bogged down in numbers, but they're a very useful measurement of change, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do. So I'll start with some numbers, and some Treefolk. Before Lorwyn, there were 25 Treefolk. 24 of them were green, and one was green/black. (As a point of terminology, when I say "green/black," I mean a green and black multicolored card, and when I say "green-black," I mean a green-black hybrid card.) Lorwyn block added 3 white, 4 black, and one white/green/black Treefolk (Doran, of course) to the mix. Treefolk had never had any connection with white before, and only half a card's connection with black. Printing 7 non-green Treefolk is certainly a change. However, 7 is not a tremendous number. Treefolk may not be as huge a tribe like Elves or Goblins, so 7 might seem like a fairly large number in proportion to the total Treefolk population, but in the face of the entire history of Magic, it is but the tiniest fraction. So it's not that huge a change.
Then there's Shadowmoor block. Shadowmoor block adds 5 green Treefolk, plus one green-white and two green-black. Aside from the fact that they're hybrid, these Treefolk have nothing new or unusual in the way of color. There are only 3 new Treefolk that aren't mono-green, and even those ones are all hybrid green. So although the Treefolks' flavor has changed a lot in Shadowmoor (what with the canker and all), they have not changed significantly in color. And with their color changes in Lorwyn being fairly minor, Treefolk are basically one of the least experimental tribes in the double-block. But I guess that fits with their personality, doesn't it?
The Faeries are slightly different. When I went to look up the stats on Faeries, there were a lot fewer than I thought. There have only been 13.5 blue faeries printed prior to Lorwyn! (See the previous article for my tallying conventions.) And what's more, there have been 11.5 green ones, a white one (well, two halves), and even half a red one (yay Wee Dragonauts)! So when I was thinking about faeries and assumed they had a long and deeply entrenched history of being mono-blue, I was sorely mistaken. However, almost all of the green faeries are from very old sets, which I have much less exposure to than the newer ones, so my mistake was perhaps understandable. I guess green faeries have fallen out of style.
But whether or not faeries are blue or green or purple, one thing that IS true about them is that prior to Lorwyn, they had never been black. Faeries aren't evil or death-dealing creatures, they're just playful. But in Lorwyn, where everything is a sunny meadow filled with happy bunnies, black IS playful. And so, Lorwyn's faeries are blue-black. There are 15 blue faeries in Lorwyn, 13 black ones, and a blue/black Legend. That means, with Lorwyn, the number of blue faeries has increased by over 100%, and the number of black ones by a percentage so large that it's mathematically undefined! That's a lot of percents. But the blue isn't that surprising; Lorwyn faeries are as tricksy as Hobbitses, and that's blue all over. But giving faeries black is completely new to Lorwyn and, like the Treefolks' new white and black dudes, of middling significance.
Then comes Shadowmoor block with its crazy hybrids, wacky mechanics, and obnoxious kids that won't get the hell off my lawn. Shadowmoor block gives us 6 more blue and 2 black faeries (not very many), plus 4 blue-black, 2 white-blue, and one green-blue. The blue-black theme of Lorwyn continues into Shadowmoor, but they also pick up the tiniest bit of white and green in three hybrid cards.
According to the flavor of Shadowmoor, the faeries are one of the races least affected by the Aurora. Colorwise, this remains mostly true. However, the faeries do change more than the Treefolk, who supposedly changed a lot with the Aurora, but I guess that just goes to show you that flavor and color are not so tightly bonded.
In conclusion, Treefolk and Faeries are two Lorwyn tribes that have a fairly minimal impact on the relation between color and creature type. Compared to Elementals, at least, the Treefolks' 11 and Faeries' 22 new color-deviant folks are a tiny ripple in the Magical ocean. Furthermore, neither tribe changed very much at all within the Shadowmoor block. This was also the case with Elementals; although they changed a lot more between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, they stayed fairly solidly rooted in red-black in both Shadowmoor and Eventide. The Treefolk changed only insofar as they gained some black-green hybrids (which weren't available in Shadowmoor, but were consistent with Lorwyn), and the Faeries gained only one green-blue hybrid. But faeries have already seen their fair share of green, so even that one creature can barely be considered deviant. So yeah: Treefolk and Faeries? Not very color-deviant.
So that's all for now. Next time I'll look at Elves and Giants, two tribes which, compared to Treefolk and Faeries, changed color much more between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, though they changed about the same amount between pre-Lorwyn and Lorwyn. I need to start making my sentences shorter.
I don't want to get too bogged down in numbers, but they're a very useful measurement of change, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do. So I'll start with some numbers, and some Treefolk. Before Lorwyn, there were 25 Treefolk. 24 of them were green, and one was green/black. (As a point of terminology, when I say "green/black," I mean a green and black multicolored card, and when I say "green-black," I mean a green-black hybrid card.) Lorwyn block added 3 white, 4 black, and one white/green/black Treefolk (Doran, of course) to the mix. Treefolk had never had any connection with white before, and only half a card's connection with black. Printing 7 non-green Treefolk is certainly a change. However, 7 is not a tremendous number. Treefolk may not be as huge a tribe like Elves or Goblins, so 7 might seem like a fairly large number in proportion to the total Treefolk population, but in the face of the entire history of Magic, it is but the tiniest fraction. So it's not that huge a change.
Then there's Shadowmoor block. Shadowmoor block adds 5 green Treefolk, plus one green-white and two green-black. Aside from the fact that they're hybrid, these Treefolk have nothing new or unusual in the way of color. There are only 3 new Treefolk that aren't mono-green, and even those ones are all hybrid green. So although the Treefolks' flavor has changed a lot in Shadowmoor (what with the canker and all), they have not changed significantly in color. And with their color changes in Lorwyn being fairly minor, Treefolk are basically one of the least experimental tribes in the double-block. But I guess that fits with their personality, doesn't it?
The Faeries are slightly different. When I went to look up the stats on Faeries, there were a lot fewer than I thought. There have only been 13.5 blue faeries printed prior to Lorwyn! (See the previous article for my tallying conventions.) And what's more, there have been 11.5 green ones, a white one (well, two halves), and even half a red one (yay Wee Dragonauts)! So when I was thinking about faeries and assumed they had a long and deeply entrenched history of being mono-blue, I was sorely mistaken. However, almost all of the green faeries are from very old sets, which I have much less exposure to than the newer ones, so my mistake was perhaps understandable. I guess green faeries have fallen out of style.
But whether or not faeries are blue or green or purple, one thing that IS true about them is that prior to Lorwyn, they had never been black. Faeries aren't evil or death-dealing creatures, they're just playful. But in Lorwyn, where everything is a sunny meadow filled with happy bunnies, black IS playful. And so, Lorwyn's faeries are blue-black. There are 15 blue faeries in Lorwyn, 13 black ones, and a blue/black Legend. That means, with Lorwyn, the number of blue faeries has increased by over 100%, and the number of black ones by a percentage so large that it's mathematically undefined! That's a lot of percents. But the blue isn't that surprising; Lorwyn faeries are as tricksy as Hobbitses, and that's blue all over. But giving faeries black is completely new to Lorwyn and, like the Treefolks' new white and black dudes, of middling significance.
Then comes Shadowmoor block with its crazy hybrids, wacky mechanics, and obnoxious kids that won't get the hell off my lawn. Shadowmoor block gives us 6 more blue and 2 black faeries (not very many), plus 4 blue-black, 2 white-blue, and one green-blue. The blue-black theme of Lorwyn continues into Shadowmoor, but they also pick up the tiniest bit of white and green in three hybrid cards.
According to the flavor of Shadowmoor, the faeries are one of the races least affected by the Aurora. Colorwise, this remains mostly true. However, the faeries do change more than the Treefolk, who supposedly changed a lot with the Aurora, but I guess that just goes to show you that flavor and color are not so tightly bonded.
In conclusion, Treefolk and Faeries are two Lorwyn tribes that have a fairly minimal impact on the relation between color and creature type. Compared to Elementals, at least, the Treefolks' 11 and Faeries' 22 new color-deviant folks are a tiny ripple in the Magical ocean. Furthermore, neither tribe changed very much at all within the Shadowmoor block. This was also the case with Elementals; although they changed a lot more between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, they stayed fairly solidly rooted in red-black in both Shadowmoor and Eventide. The Treefolk changed only insofar as they gained some black-green hybrids (which weren't available in Shadowmoor, but were consistent with Lorwyn), and the Faeries gained only one green-blue hybrid. But faeries have already seen their fair share of green, so even that one creature can barely be considered deviant. So yeah: Treefolk and Faeries? Not very color-deviant.
So that's all for now. Next time I'll look at Elves and Giants, two tribes which, compared to Treefolk and Faeries, changed color much more between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, though they changed about the same amount between pre-Lorwyn and Lorwyn. I need to start making my sentences shorter.
What Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block is Doing to Color
I'm going to take a break from talking (exclusively) about Eventide to talk about Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block as a whole. But first, a few more quick comments about red-white in Eventide.
First of all, it seems that the red-white Avatar has flying and not haste. This means that although he is slower, he also has evasion, which is something red-white doesn't get much of, so it's welcome. I'm not sure whether it's strictly better or worse than haste for this card, but I don't think the overall effect on gameplay is significant enough to change my mind about whether or not I'd draft it. I still think it's a powerful card, it's just powerful in different ways now. The red-white aura is also a bit more useful on him when he has evasion, allowing you to hit the enemy for more direct damage (at least 7) and gain that much life. Pretty cool.
And now that the rest of the Eventide cards have finally been spoiled (though, as evidenced by the previous paragraph, they're not entirely definitive), I can talk about the final red-white card. It could have turned out to be some lame dude that doesn't do much, or another combat-based instant, but instead it's a nice little creature with an ability that fits right into the red-white theme of power pumping that I mentioned before. It's a 2/1 for 3 mana, but his 2-mana untap ability gives attacking creatures you control +1/+0 until end of turn. This means that he's basically a 3/1 with vigilance, and if he can be given first or double strike, all the better. A welcome addition to red-white's arsenal, to be sure.
And now I can get to what I actually wanted to talk about: Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block and color. This is mostly a set of observations; I'm not sure what to conclude. But I'll talk about that more later, and hopefully I can get some feedback.
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block does things with color that break a lot of rules, conventions, or just patterns that have developed over the years of Magic, specifically with regard to creature type. Lorwyn is about creature type, and Shadowmoor is about color, and the way these two features interact is quite interesting in both miniblocks. I tend to think about it on a tribe-by-tribe basis, so that's how I'll explain it. I'll start with perhaps the most unique tribe in terms of color: elementals. (There's enough to say about elementals alone that I'll leave the other tribes for another time.)
Throughout Magic's history, elementals have basically been random magical dudes that do neat things, with little tribal cohesion. I did some research about elementals and color and drew up some numbers - the number of elementals of each color printed before Lorwyn. Since this is mostly a flavor issue, I ignored changelings. I considered "elemental" to be any card with the creature type Elemental, including Tribal cards. As for color, I counted multicolored "gold" cards as half a point for each color, and hybrid cards as a full point for each color. I ignored artifact creatures since there was only one.
So here's what I found: prior to Lorwyn, there were 3.5 black elementals, 9 white elementals, 25 blue elementals, 41 green elementals, and 47.5 red elementals. This broad range was somewhat interesting: black and white have hardly any, green and red have a ton, and blue has an amount somewhere in between. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, and it kind of makes sense: elementals are often made of fire (red) or are creations of nature (green) or intellect (blue). White tends to have a lot of humans and humanoid races with little interest in magical entities, and black has mostly zombies, undead, and things that smell bad. What's also interesting is that red and blue are both elemental colors - fire and water - and green is sort of a general "nature" color, also containing the element of wood. White and black, however, have no connection to elemental magicks; white is the color of light, and black is the color of death, neither of which is easily manifested into an elemental form. So it basically makes sense.
Then I counted the elementals in Lorwyn block. There are 6 black, 7 white, 8 blue, 6 green, and 5 red elementals, plus 20 red flamekin and Horde of Notions (which is all five colors). What's unique about Lorwyn elementals is that they have both one and five colors, unlike the other tribes, which either have a solid two colors, or have one main color and splash into one or two others. But elementals are split into two types: the classic random magical beasts, which are distributed evenly among the five colors, and the flamekin, which are all red. However, each of these categories diverges significantly from previous Magic history, and in quite different ways.
The flamekin are unique in that they are a cohesive tribe. Previously, elementals were just random magical dudes, but in Lorwyn, they have a consistent shape, color, and creature subtypes. Never (or rarely) before have elementals had sentience, tribal unity, OR subtypes. This makes the flamekin quite unique as elementals, but of course they fit right into Lorwyn, where that's the norm.
The other elementals are unique in the mere fact that they are evenly distributed among all five colors. There are more black elementals in Lorwyn block than in the entire history of Magic before that. This is partly because the elementals in Lorwyn have a certain unique Lorwynness that separates them from previous ones. They're weird combinations of animals, mostly, and a lot of them have Evoke. The black ones aren't manifestations of death, they're combinations of pigs and centipedes, snails and crabs, or...well, a lot of them are difficult even to identify. But they're NOT manifestations of death, even if some of them deal directly with it (Shriekmaw). They're just...weird...things.
So that's all right. Elementals now have a foothold in all five colors, and are pushing red even further ahead in the lead. But then there's Shadowmoor block.
In Shadowmoor, elementals gain black. This is part of the flavor and story of Shadowmoor - the red, fiery flamekin burn out and become the vicious, resentful cinders. Black is the color of decay and withering, so of course, flavorwise, it makes sense for them to shift into black. But when you look at the data, it is almost astonishing. In Shadowmoor block, there are a whopping 26 black elementals. That's more than SEVEN TIMES the number of black elementals printed before Lorwyn, and the number is still THREE TIMES as many if you include Lorwyn into the mix. Now, the number 26 includes red-black hybrid elementals (and other hybrids), but they are no less black for also being red (or other colors). You can still play them in a mono-black deck, and they definitely have aspects of blackness, so it is fair to count them on par with mono-black cards. This pushes the number of black elementals almost past blue in the grand total. Going from a black-to-blue count of 3.5-to-25 to 35.5-to-38 is a massive leap in proportion.
Of course, elementals are still red, too. There are 20 red elementals in Shadowmoor block (including hybrids of course), which brings red's grand total for elementals even further out in front. No big surprise there. And the other three colors each have a few more elementals of their own, several of which are hybrids, pushing those numbers up further as well.
So for a final bit of number crunching, I calculated the percentage that each color has increased their total elemental count since before Lorwyn, and the grand totals for each color as of Eventide. Black's elementals increased 914% for a total of 35.5, white's increased 156% to 23, red's increased 95% to 92.5, blue's increased 52% to 38, and green's increased 32% to 54. Red now has a huge lead over all the other colors, and black has surpassed white, leaving white at the bottom. Now here's the thing: I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS. Does this mean that Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block is ruining sacred traditions of Magic? Is it exploring and opening up new design space? Is this entire study irrelevant? If there's anyone out there who can answer this question - or who at least has SOME opinion on it - I would love to hear it.
First of all, it seems that the red-white Avatar has flying and not haste. This means that although he is slower, he also has evasion, which is something red-white doesn't get much of, so it's welcome. I'm not sure whether it's strictly better or worse than haste for this card, but I don't think the overall effect on gameplay is significant enough to change my mind about whether or not I'd draft it. I still think it's a powerful card, it's just powerful in different ways now. The red-white aura is also a bit more useful on him when he has evasion, allowing you to hit the enemy for more direct damage (at least 7) and gain that much life. Pretty cool.
And now that the rest of the Eventide cards have finally been spoiled (though, as evidenced by the previous paragraph, they're not entirely definitive), I can talk about the final red-white card. It could have turned out to be some lame dude that doesn't do much, or another combat-based instant, but instead it's a nice little creature with an ability that fits right into the red-white theme of power pumping that I mentioned before. It's a 2/1 for 3 mana, but his 2-mana untap ability gives attacking creatures you control +1/+0 until end of turn. This means that he's basically a 3/1 with vigilance, and if he can be given first or double strike, all the better. A welcome addition to red-white's arsenal, to be sure.
And now I can get to what I actually wanted to talk about: Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block and color. This is mostly a set of observations; I'm not sure what to conclude. But I'll talk about that more later, and hopefully I can get some feedback.
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block does things with color that break a lot of rules, conventions, or just patterns that have developed over the years of Magic, specifically with regard to creature type. Lorwyn is about creature type, and Shadowmoor is about color, and the way these two features interact is quite interesting in both miniblocks. I tend to think about it on a tribe-by-tribe basis, so that's how I'll explain it. I'll start with perhaps the most unique tribe in terms of color: elementals. (There's enough to say about elementals alone that I'll leave the other tribes for another time.)
Throughout Magic's history, elementals have basically been random magical dudes that do neat things, with little tribal cohesion. I did some research about elementals and color and drew up some numbers - the number of elementals of each color printed before Lorwyn. Since this is mostly a flavor issue, I ignored changelings. I considered "elemental" to be any card with the creature type Elemental, including Tribal cards. As for color, I counted multicolored "gold" cards as half a point for each color, and hybrid cards as a full point for each color. I ignored artifact creatures since there was only one.
So here's what I found: prior to Lorwyn, there were 3.5 black elementals, 9 white elementals, 25 blue elementals, 41 green elementals, and 47.5 red elementals. This broad range was somewhat interesting: black and white have hardly any, green and red have a ton, and blue has an amount somewhere in between. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, and it kind of makes sense: elementals are often made of fire (red) or are creations of nature (green) or intellect (blue). White tends to have a lot of humans and humanoid races with little interest in magical entities, and black has mostly zombies, undead, and things that smell bad. What's also interesting is that red and blue are both elemental colors - fire and water - and green is sort of a general "nature" color, also containing the element of wood. White and black, however, have no connection to elemental magicks; white is the color of light, and black is the color of death, neither of which is easily manifested into an elemental form. So it basically makes sense.
Then I counted the elementals in Lorwyn block. There are 6 black, 7 white, 8 blue, 6 green, and 5 red elementals, plus 20 red flamekin and Horde of Notions (which is all five colors). What's unique about Lorwyn elementals is that they have both one and five colors, unlike the other tribes, which either have a solid two colors, or have one main color and splash into one or two others. But elementals are split into two types: the classic random magical beasts, which are distributed evenly among the five colors, and the flamekin, which are all red. However, each of these categories diverges significantly from previous Magic history, and in quite different ways.
The flamekin are unique in that they are a cohesive tribe. Previously, elementals were just random magical dudes, but in Lorwyn, they have a consistent shape, color, and creature subtypes. Never (or rarely) before have elementals had sentience, tribal unity, OR subtypes. This makes the flamekin quite unique as elementals, but of course they fit right into Lorwyn, where that's the norm.
The other elementals are unique in the mere fact that they are evenly distributed among all five colors. There are more black elementals in Lorwyn block than in the entire history of Magic before that. This is partly because the elementals in Lorwyn have a certain unique Lorwynness that separates them from previous ones. They're weird combinations of animals, mostly, and a lot of them have Evoke. The black ones aren't manifestations of death, they're combinations of pigs and centipedes, snails and crabs, or...well, a lot of them are difficult even to identify. But they're NOT manifestations of death, even if some of them deal directly with it (Shriekmaw). They're just...weird...things.
So that's all right. Elementals now have a foothold in all five colors, and are pushing red even further ahead in the lead. But then there's Shadowmoor block.
In Shadowmoor, elementals gain black. This is part of the flavor and story of Shadowmoor - the red, fiery flamekin burn out and become the vicious, resentful cinders. Black is the color of decay and withering, so of course, flavorwise, it makes sense for them to shift into black. But when you look at the data, it is almost astonishing. In Shadowmoor block, there are a whopping 26 black elementals. That's more than SEVEN TIMES the number of black elementals printed before Lorwyn, and the number is still THREE TIMES as many if you include Lorwyn into the mix. Now, the number 26 includes red-black hybrid elementals (and other hybrids), but they are no less black for also being red (or other colors). You can still play them in a mono-black deck, and they definitely have aspects of blackness, so it is fair to count them on par with mono-black cards. This pushes the number of black elementals almost past blue in the grand total. Going from a black-to-blue count of 3.5-to-25 to 35.5-to-38 is a massive leap in proportion.
Of course, elementals are still red, too. There are 20 red elementals in Shadowmoor block (including hybrids of course), which brings red's grand total for elementals even further out in front. No big surprise there. And the other three colors each have a few more elementals of their own, several of which are hybrids, pushing those numbers up further as well.
So for a final bit of number crunching, I calculated the percentage that each color has increased their total elemental count since before Lorwyn, and the grand totals for each color as of Eventide. Black's elementals increased 914% for a total of 35.5, white's increased 156% to 23, red's increased 95% to 92.5, blue's increased 52% to 38, and green's increased 32% to 54. Red now has a huge lead over all the other colors, and black has surpassed white, leaving white at the bottom. Now here's the thing: I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS. Does this mean that Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block is ruining sacred traditions of Magic? Is it exploring and opening up new design space? Is this entire study irrelevant? If there's anyone out there who can answer this question - or who at least has SOME opinion on it - I would love to hear it.
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