New Poll: "Which deck will benefit most from M10?"

This is mostly for those who either subscribe to my blog through a reader or who click over from twitter. I have posted a new poll on my site asking which deck do you guys think will benefit most from the cards coming in the new core set. Please vote!

Please comment, email (homebrew.magic@gmail.com) or tweet (@homebrew_magic) any constructive criticism you have pertaining to this or any of my posts. Your input is both needed and appreciated. Happy Brewing!

Homebrew Pick of the Week: Meddling Mage

This week I decided to highlight one of the more notorious cards released in the Alara Reborn set: Meddling Mage. MM is a very interesting card and is pretty powerful in its own right but when combined with other certain other spells it makes for an even more explosive play environment.



Strengths:

- Efficient cost to power ratio: 2/2 for 2 mana with an amazing ability
- Combines well with numerous existing cards that let you look at an opponent’s hand
(Thoughtseize, Tidehollow Sculler, Telepathy, Vendilion Clique)

- Takes entire decks out of the game (i.e.-Swans)

- Its 2 power makes it a great Lark Target

- Can play it early to take out opponent’s early drops

Weaknesses:

- Dies to mass DD cards like Volcanic Fallout (of course you could just name Volcanic Fallout when you play your mage ;))

- Dies to every popular removal card (this isn’t really a negative because most cards do, but it is an inherent weakness in small, non-black and non artifact creatures)

- Is a creature doing an enchantment’s job and most of the time creatures are more “fragile” permanents.

Abusability:

- Play in a deck designed to take an opponent’s hand out of the game with cards like Scullers, Thoughtseizes and other various discard-type cards

- Take a Peek at your opponents hand and then chose the most strategic target using that information

- You have Telepathy out. Use your Path (or other removal) on your Lark after an opponent draws a bomb to return meddling mage to play naming that spell which forces them to drop it on the spot (if it’s an instant) or not be able to play it at all. Plus if you used Path, you get land advantage as well.

- Same as above except with Makeshift Mannequin instead of your Lark retrieving your MM from the Graveyard.


I probably haven’t even come close to showcasing the power of this card but it is something to think about as you are building control decks designed to keep your opponent from playing their win conditions. I will speak more about the synergies of the card along with the other cards I’ve mentioned throughout this post when I put the Homebrew Decklist up for this week. It should be a fun four color (W,B,U,R) “Hand Destruction” with some great discard/removal cards to go along with the powerful control of Meddling Mage.

Please comment, email (homebrew.magic@gmail.com) or tweet (@homebrew_magic) any constructive criticism you have pertaining to this or any of my posts. Your input is both needed and appreciated. Happy Brewing!

New Magic 2010 Cards!

I was going to try and get my next “Just For Beginners” post out today but it is turning out to be quite a project. I might be taking out content and making it into multiple posts but I haven’t decided yet. So instead I’m just going to write down some of my thoughts about some of the recent spoiled cards and how I think they will fit into the current meta.

White is going to be a good color for the core set. I already commented Silence which is an extremely cheap and effective control card. I can actually see this card seeing some extended play time. There are going to be some good cards for pure White Weenie decks coming in the core set as well. Probably the most notable of them is Captain of the Watch which has been recently spoiled by MTG Salvation.

Captain of the Watch
Creature - Human Soldier
Vigilance
Other Soldier creatures you control get +1/+1 and have vigilance.
When Captain of the Watch enters the battlefield, put 3 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens onto the battlefield.
3/3


As you can see its basically a Cloudgoat Ranger on roids! For 6 mana you get a 3/3 with vigilance that gives your other soldiers a boost and vigilance. Oh yeah it also gives you 3 more soldiers that gain the buff and become 2/2’s with vigilance as well. But it dies to path right?! :P This along with other cards being printed and ones that are already in standard are going to make for some exciting mono-white decks.

Along with the rest of the good white cards being printed or reprinted for the new core set is Soul Warden. This is a fun card to plan in a deck where a ton of creatures are coming into play like White Weenie. Using it with a card like say, Captain of the Watch you are not only getting 9 vigilance power for 6 mana you are also gaining 4 life! It can get kinda crazy and it makes racing your deck extremely difficult for someone who doesn’t have the same life-gaining abilities.

Fabricate has not been confirmed yet and after the Golden Lotus incident I am reluctant to put my trust completely in spoiler lists. A guy can hope though right?!


It, along with the fact that they are reprinting almost every core set card that I use in my Artifatties deck (link is to a slightly older list than what I’m using now) is being reprinted, nearly doubles my excitement over the new set. If I can tutor for my combo pieces without the aid of Tezzeret or Sphinx Summoner it will make the deck much more efficient and reliable. Fingers are crossed!!

Next week I will also be starting a new weekly post that I'm really excited about working on. I got the idea at work todaybut I don't want to share until I've had a chance to work on it a little bit. I hope you guys will enjoy it!

Please comment, email (homebrew.magic@gmail.com) or tweet (@homebrew_magic) any constructive criticism you have pertaining to this or any of my posts. Your input is both needed and appreciated. Happy Brewing!

(Pictures and links provided by Wizards of the Coast Inc and Quiet Speculation)

Homebrew Decklist: Jund Aggro

Since the "Homebrew Pick of the Week" for this week is Bloodbraid Elf, building a Jund deck around it was a no-brainer (just like everything I do...:P). For some reason I had issues creating the land base for the deck and haven't had a chance to actually test it but it looks good on paper.. er.. on my monitor..

Jund Aggro

Creatures:

4 x Bloodbraid Elf
4 x Putrid Leech
4 x Boggart Ram-Gang
3 x Anathemancer
3 x Chameleon Colossus
1 x Broodmate Dragon

Other Spells:

4 x Bituminous Blast
4 x Blightning
4 x Maelstrom Pulse
3 x Terminate
2 x Primal Command

Lands:

4 x Savage Lands
3 x Treetop Village
3 x Twilight Mire
2 x Fire-Lit Thicket
2 x Graven Cairns
2 x Karplusan Forest
2 x Llanowar Wastes
2 x Sulfurous Springs
2 x Reflecting Pool
1 x Forest
1 x Mountain


Sideboard:

3 x Guttural Response
3 x Kitchen Finks
3 x Volcanic Fallout
2 x Pithing Needle
2 x Thought Hemorrhage
1 x Anathemancer
1 x Terminate



This deck is relatively straight forward: Play cheap, powerful creatures that give you 2-for-1's and then attack with them. OK, OK there is a little bit more to it than that but not much! Your Bituminous Blasts can cascade into pretty much everything in the deck except for your Broodmate Dragon and Primal Commands. Your Bloodbraid Elf can cascade into your removal/damage spells as well as some of your cheap-yet-powerful creatures such as Boggart Ram-Gang.

Maelstrom Pulse and Terminate are your main sources of removal (besides DD removal like Bituminous Blast) and keep your opponents minions at bay until you can swing for their head. Maelstrom Pulse was an automatic 4-of because of how well they neutralize token decks as well as just being darn good, cheap removal. Blightning is good giving you tempo advantage both early and late game, it's just a freaking good card in this decklist! Anathemancer rocks the meta because most HQ decks out there are running very few basic lands. The fact that it has unearth makes it a great card to deal with 5 color control type decks as well.

Both the land base and the sideboard are still under construction but I wanted to post it for your consideration. Please comment, email (homebrew.magic@gmail.com) or tweet (@homebrew_magic) any constructive criticism you have pertaining to this deck or any of my posts. Your input is both needed and appreciated. Happy Brewing!

(Links and Pictures Provided by mtgfanatic.com)

Card Poll Results: Uril Takes The Cake!

Yehaw! Im finally talking about the poll that has been at the top of my site for the past month or so (at least).

Results (Entries with no votes were excluded):

Dragon Broodmother: 1

Sen Triplets: 1

Thraximundar: 1

Uril, the Miststalker: 4

Jenara, Asura of War: 1

Uril is a pretty funny card if you can get it out and going. Cards like Spellbreaker Behemoth help to ensure that when he its the field, he sticks. A good enchantment pairing would be Shield of the Oversoul which makes this opponent-shroud beast a 9/9 indestructable flyer. It's a think of beauty. Though I haven't seen him in very much constructed play he is extremely good if you can get him going in a naya deck at a limited event. The funny thing about this poll is that most of the cards on it are seeing very limited play time in constructed decklists. I still like Jenara in a bant aggro deck but very few lists are actually running her. Al of these cards have potential, if they didnt they wouldnt be mythic rares! Maybe with the changes to the meta after introducing the new core set these cards will see some more constructed play.

Duels of the Planeswalkers: First Impressions

I will post a complete review of the game when I'm finished with the campaign (I only have to finish a couple more rounds) and do some online play but I wanted to discuss my first impressions.

Interface:



Pretty! After staring at magic workstation for hours upon hours doing deck testing Duels' interface was a welcome sight. The controls are easy enough to figure out and it is very beginner-friendly which I think was the goal for this game. That being said, there are a few weaknesses to the interface. The timer keeps things reasonable but also makes doing any combat tricks and playing instants during the combat phases very difficult. It also automatically skips phases if you have no cards that you can play during them. This has screwed me up more than once as I impatiently hit the Y button to move from my first main phase into my combat phase. It sees that I don't have anything I can play and automatically skips my main phase and goes straight to combat and of course I'm hitting the button to continue so I end up skipping my combat phase as well as my main phase. This is just an example of a few things that I will have to get used to..

Decks:

The decks for Duels are pretty straight forward for beginning players but there is very limited deck editing and customization. You cannot alter the colors of your decks ( at least in the campaign. I haven't tried custom duels yet) nor can you alter the makeup of your deck to any desirable degree. Some decks are more effective/powerful than others and you will just have to figure out which one works best for you. More to come on this subject after some online play!

AI:

I couldn't help but laugh a little when the computer opponent regnerated his tapped troll 4 times before I swung past unblocked for lethal damage. At times the AI impresses me and other times it severely dissapoints me. Overall it is fun and at times challenging (especially for newer players or older players giving duels a try) and I dont feel like it is TOO easy.



I am almost done with the campaign and mostly done with the challenges so after i complete those, unlock some more cards, try out all the decks and give the online play a test drive I will give a full report. Until then, happy dueling!

Homebrew Pick of the Week: Bloodbraid Elf

This week I decided to pick a card that has caused quite a stir in constructed deck building since its release 2 months ago as part of the Alara Reborn expansion set...

Bloodbraid Elf is filled to the brim with potential and that potential has not gone unnoticed by the Magic community. A new deck called "Five Color Blood" has been surfacing at the most recent Grand Prix, Regionals and Pro Tour events and has been doing extremely well. It has great matchups against other popular decks that are currently being piloted by tournament goers. The "Cascade" ability along with its potential to hit for 3 hasty points of damage as soon as it enters the battlefield are what makes this card extremely potent and explosive. With a converted mana cost of 4 it has the ability to dig into your bag of tricks and pull out some of the best spells and play them for free. That being said, on to the bullet points!!

Strengths

• Haste- It can hit hard and fast for 3 as soon as it enters the battlefield.


• Cascade- Can go in and grab your other powerful spells with a converted mana cost of 3 or less and go to town!


• Red/Green Coloration- Some of the best cards in Standard are red and green (and black) and Bloodbraid Elf plays nicely with all of them. It fits perfectly in R/G , R/B (with splash green), Jund and Four color builds in addition to the popular Five color builds.

Weaknesses

• Deck Building- One must remain cautious while building decks around cascade cards because you never know what you are going to get while flipping cards off the top of your deck. For this reason the Five Color Blood decks that are surfacing have very specific 3,2 and 1 drops aimed at complimenting the cascade ability. This is not really a weakness of the card but you really have to think about your deckbuilding strategy to get the most out of it.

Abusability

• Three for One's: Cascade from a card like Bituminous Blast into Bloodbraid Elf for a three-for-one combo. I especially like the cascading into a Kitchen Finks :)


• Cascade into Removal: Cascade into a Maelstrom Pulse or other cheap removal cards to decimate their defences before attacking with your hasty Green/Red Creatures


• Hasty Creatures: Cascade into other hasty creatures such as Boggart Ram-Gang or Jund Hackblade for blisteringly fast aggro bum rushes!


• Direct Damage and Control: Cascade into powerful direct damage and/or control spells like Blightning or Incinerate to get some extra damage in for free.

This card makes for some awesome plays and can really turn a game around if you are in a pinch. The fact that the cascade ability goes off even if they decide to counter your elf (cascade triggers when you play the spell not when it resolves) forces your control-playing opponents to make difficult decisions about how to play their counter spells. I'm not surprised that so many decks are being built around this card and I'm excited to see what it can do with the new Magic: 2010 cards. Later this week for the Hombrew Decklist I will showcase a Jund Cascade list that I've been messing around with for a while. Should be pretty interesting!

Spoke Too Soon..

Apparantly the post I wrote about the spoiled card "Golden Lotus" that was supposedly part of the Magic 2010 core set was just me speaking too soon. It was up on MTG Salvation and turned out to be a fake card according to their forums and the fact that it is no longer up on their site. Im actually relieved because it almost seemed too powerful in certain situations. It would have been interesting but I'm more excited about Lightning Bolt being spoiled on their site. Three for one!

Lighning Bolt Card Art

Just For Beginners: Starting From Scratch

The basic idea behind magic is that you are an extremely powerful wizard that can travel between dimensions. As a "Planeswalker" you can use your powers to call forth creatures from the different planes of the multiverse and use those plane's energies to cast powerful spells. The most basic knowledge needed to play the game of Magic is so well known to veteran players that they have trouble explaining it to new players or simply skip over it and go straight into the meat and potatoes of the game. This leaves many questions that later must be answered anyway and often hinders the experience for both teacher and student. I figured I would just throw a little basic information out there before I started doing more "Just For Beginners" posts with more in-depth content.



Players:

-Any number of players may play a game of magic as long as their is a turn-taking structure that is established before the onset of each game.

- Normal tournament structure is "one on one" gameplay

-There are many different variations on multiplayer gameplay which are popular in many playgroups. Here are a few examples:

--Free for All: Any player may attack any other player in an every-man-for-himself free for all

--Two-Headed Giant: Essentially two versus two. You share a 30 point life total and each team takes turns together.

--Attack Left(or Right): Each player may only attack in a predetermined direction around the table.




Decks:


-Tournament decks must have a minimum of 60 cards along with a 15 card sideboard (covered later)


- There is no maximum deck size as long as you can shuffle your deck without assistance.


Zones:


-Library: Once you have drawn your hand the remainder of your deck is placed face-down in front of you. This is known as your "Library" and it is your draw pile.


-Hand: The cards that you draw from your library are known as your hand. Your beginning hand starts out at 7 cards.


-In Play: Creatures or other cards that remain in play permanently(or until removed) are known as permanents (covered in detail in a later post). The "In Play" zone is where your permanents are placed after they are successfully cast (played from your hand).


-Graveyard: The graveyard is where you place your creatures or other permanents after they have been killed or destroyed and your spells once they have been either unsuccessfully or successfully cast. It also serves as your discard pile.


-The Stack: This is where spells are placed while they are "waiting" to be resolved. After players have finished putting spells on the stack, they resolve in reverse order of which they were played and either move to the "In Play" zone or the "Graveyard" zone. The stack is extremely complicated and it will be covered, in depth, in a later post.


-Removed from the Game: Also known as "Exiled"(with the new Magic 2010 rules). This is where cards go when a spell or ability has "removed them from the game". This will also be discussed in detail in a later post.


First Turn:


-First turns are decided by the rolling of dice or flipping a coin. When rolling dice both players must agree whether the higher roll wins or the lower roll wins.


- Each player may draw a new starting hand if they dislike the cards they received. However each time a player uses a "mulligan" they must take one less card then they drew in the previous hand.


-The player who plays first in a one on one match may not draw a card during their draw step (turn structure outlined in later post). This is known as being "on the play"


-The player who plays second may draw a card during their draw step as they normally would. This is known as being "on the draw"


Later posts will have more detail and will be focused on a specific section of Magic gameplay.

Homebrew Decklist: Oh God Your Breath!!..of Malfegor..

Yeah...so this week's decklist is built, as usual, around the Homebrew pick of the week: Breath of Malfegor!!

Huzzah! Ohhhhhhhhhh Shiny..

Ok there is a definete possibility that I have been working too much and have forgotten how to write blog posts without sounding insane or just plain overly excited. I will try my best to overcome this sudden handicap and describe this weeks deck without scaring you too badly. Actually..I'm not sure I can do that so I'll just get straight to the decklist!

Oh God Your Breath!!..of Malfegor.. (Yes this is the name of the deck not just a clever post title..)

Spells:

4x Breath of Malfegor

4x Volcanic Fallout

3x Magma Spray

3x Incinerate

3x Terminate

4x Blightning

2x Banefire

1x Chandra Nalaar

Creatures:

4x Anathemancer

4x Hellspark Elemental

3x Shambling Remains

3x Viscera Dragger

2x Malfegor

Land:

13x Mountain

7x Swamp

This budget deck is fun to play in multiplayer. It is geared towards multiplayer gameplay but is also a great deck to give a new player because they only have to learn a few mechanics and it's pretty straight forward. You burn everything and everybody and you can get tons of mileage out of the creatures because almost all of them have the unearth ability. This is important in multiplayer games because of multiple decks running board wipes (at least in my playgroup). I like to play something like this in multiplayer because it allows me to not have to pay attention to every minute detail of my opponent's plays. I just burn them or everybody if I think they are getting to much board presence. The only problem arises when you burn too much too early which causes you to gain aggro from pretty much everybody at the table. If you are playing a deck like this just lay back and use your spot removal and get some unearth creatures in the graveyard by small attacks and blocks before really hitting them hard after establishing a decent mana base.

P.S. Sorry this post is 2+ weeks late. I will try and be better about getting posts out when I'm either busy or out of town.

(Pictures and links provided by magiccards.info and Wizards of the Coast Inc.)

Rules.. Rules..

With the introduction to the rule changes that are going to be made with the addition of the Magic 2010 core set that will be released next month there have been a flurry of blog articles discussing them. Here is the best one I've read yet. I agree with most of what was said in this particular article at top8magic.com and just wanted to talk about my views and reactions concerning these changes.

Screw it! Never mind. The only one I really care to talk about is changing combat damage so that it doesn't use the stack. This is the only change that really scared/angered me. My chin hit the floor as I quickly re-read the paragraph concerning this change and I am just now starting to realize it is actually going to happen! Combat tricks are my favorite part of magic. Period. I love everything about the game but pulling off some crazy shenanigans at the last second to both confuse/frustrate my opponent is the most fulfilling part of playing the game. I can't even fathom the effect its going to have on the game overall. Cards that were especially good for combat tricks currently will be, most likely, severely weakened.

The rest of the changes that are being made are mostly flavor related or are geared towards making newer players feel more comfortable playing. Those I'm really pleased with because without new players Magic has no future. They did a good job of "recapturing the flavor" which seems to be Wizard's main goal with this new set. Sorry if this ended up sounding like a rant but I guess that's exactly what it is. Players will just have to learn to adapt to these changes and new ones that they make in the future. Part of why I love magic is because it's an ever changing and adapting entity.

P.S. Here are the cards that were spoiled in the article ( some are reprints with awesome new art!)

(Pictures and Links provided by Wizards of the Coast inc. and Top 8 Magic)

Golden Lotus

****EDIT**** Golden Lotus is now being considered a fake card and has been removed from mtg salvation and other preview sites. See my post about it here. Just figured I would put this here because of the hits I'm getting because of google searches about the card.

Golden Lotus

Legendary Land

Shroud

Golden Lotus enters the battlefield tapped.

When Golden Lotus enters the battlefield, sacrifice three lands, or sacrifice Golden Lotus.

Tap, Sacrifice Golden Lotus: Add nine mana in any combination of colors to your mana pool.

Golden Lotus is quite possibly the most intriguing card I've seen in a while. It can be paired with several cards to be insane. It can go off on at least turn five (if you don't use cards that fetch lands and put them into play) to do, well, pretty much anything you want it to. Banefire for at least 8-9 or maybe just hit for 9-10 with a turn five Hellkite Overlord. Oh, and Crucible of Worlds anybody? Powerful and elegant are the two words that best describe this card. Check out this and the other 39 spoiler cards for Magic 2010 currently on display at mtgsalvation.