Infect: Good and Good for You

The return to Mirrodin has been filled with nostalgia. I mean, we are seeing direct results of Urza Planeswalker's meddling, right from day one. Karn the Silver Golem created Mirrodin, and he was created by Urza, who used a Phyrexian Heartstone from his late companion Xantcha (a Phyrexian traitor) that still leaked Glistening Oil. Whats more awesome than returning to the roots of Magic after a couple years of wandering the Multiverse an visiting planes like Ravnica, Alara, and Zendikar? Nothing, that's what.

But the nostalgia isn't just in the storyline, its in the mechanic. Back in Fourth Edition, we saw poison counters make their debut on a couple cards like Pit Scorpion and Marsh Viper, and several more. Of course, these were what are now eratta'd as Poisonous 1. No matter how big they got, damage always resulted in exactly 1 poison counter per hit. This made actually using the strategy extremely difficult and very limited. Even then, there were far better strategies available. Mark Rosewater has stated on several different occasions though that he is a huge fan of alternate win conditions, so it was only a matter of time before they came back with a little extra juice. What extra juice? Allow me to explain.

Infect has super-octaned poison counters by using them as a damage system. Let's look at the Rules Text on the cards to help us out a bit:

This creature deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters

So a 4/4 creature will deal you 4 poison counter, not just 4 damage and a counter to boot. Now, lets look at what the comprehensive rules have to say real quick:

• 120.1c. If a player has ten or more poison counters, he or she loses the game as a state-based action.

Ok, so 10 poison counters to lose, versus the 20 life we have in damage. So, if we need half as much poison as damage to lose, and creature with Infect deal damage directly in poison, then Infect creature have de facto twice as much power as printed. Above and to the left you'll see a card affectionately dubbed "Skittles" by players. It's a whopping 4/4 Infector with flying and regeneration for 5 mana. It has a niche, definitely, but a very big one. Say...every worthwhile Infect based deck? If an equally powerful card was printed outside of this gritty, nifty little mechanic, it would be an 8/8 with flying and regeneration. For 5 mana. Two words: Hot, Damn,  Play a couple Ichor Rats to get the ball rolling, any proliferate card (which I'm getting to, don't worry) and drop Skittles turn 5 or 6 to watch the sweat start to bead on your opponents face. The regeneration bit makes him a tough cookie to get rid of.

Profliferation (Not Covered in the SALT II)

Rules Text: You choose any number of permanents and/or players with counters on them, then give each another counter of a kind already there.

Proliferate is like the quirky, more flexible sidekick who eventually moves on to bigger and cooler things, Like Robin. Robin became Nightwing. Cool, amirite? Anyways, I digress. 

Proliferate is very useful of course in the theme of  -1/-1 and poison counters going on in the Scars of Mirrodin block, but has many more practical applications in every format. Much like a favorite of mine, Gilder Bairn, it is a completely Johnny mechanic and can do some epically wacky things. A Contagion Engine once saved my legacy deck against a swarm of Epochrasites, for example, by endlessly proliferating their time counters until I could fully charge my Darksteel Reactor (also helped along by the proliferation) for an alternate win!

Now Proliferate is cool and deserved mention, as do many other mechanics in this set. But all of that is for another article, if for no other reason than I would have to write another article-sized section to fit in all I want to mention and show about them. What I really want to show case here is a couple awesome combos we can get with some cards you may not have expected. 

I've heard a bunch of mention and seem a lot of play with and about White/Black decks. Now that Phyrexia and their infectious charms have settled into the White portion of the Color Pie,  this is a very, VERY viable option for players. W/B was somewhat popular in the Shadowmoor block, but most enemy color combos were too. Now, though, we see some real synergy going on, even from sets that didn't expect them. Why? Because White has always had a thing for beefing up creates, and sometimes even in gross, mob packaging. Look at cards like Inspired Charge,

Mighty Leap and Celestial Mantle. Just to name a couple I could look up in Gatherer quickly. Ajani here is a great one. Used to buff al your infect creatures and giving them vigilance is a good thing for an aggressive offensive. Even better, using the afforementioned Celestial Mantle and Phyresis on Ajani's Ultimate Token is bound to just absolutely wreck whatever measures your staring down at that moment.  All you need is 10, so even if your taking a beating, you still get a very potent creature on the board. Throw in another favorite with infect, Vampire Bite. Or two or three. In this combo, you can use the kicker to create a recursive effect that only makes your next swing twice as big, or if you have more than one in hand, you can drop several on a couple creatures to tie the game up. Either way, you can turn the tables with this one even at the last moment and survive to fight the good fight. 

I'm not done with Infect, don't think for a second that I am. But the rest will have to wait. I plan on posting again before Friday, but no guarantees. When I do post though, I'm going to do one more Magic article before recentering on something else for a minute. What, you ask? I'll give you a hint: your friends may beat you savagely.  Good night everyone!

A Well-Oiled Machine

Pretty Fucking Sweet, eh? Yes, our favorite Esperite Planeswalker is back with a new bag of tricks for all the girls and boys wanting to cash in on Mirrodin's artifact-rich environment. I know, I missed Alara too. But so far, none of the planeswalkers have stayed out of rotation very long, in one form or another. Tezzie here is now the fourth planeswalker (after Jace, Chandra, and then Elspeth) to get the buffout makeover and the third to be kept in Standard play without being part of a core-set. But you already knew all this, so why am I making such a big deal out of it? Because of a couple key things here. First, I want you to read his [-1] ability. Now picture it with this:
 
Okay, so we'll say its turn 5, and you have 3 Islands and 2 Swamps. You have Liquimetal Coating already on the field and just popped Jace last turn, using his [+2] immediately when you gain priority. You peek at a Blightsteel Colossus on your deck and bottom deck him. So, now what? You next draw goes into top-deck mode, and you drop another Island and Tezzie 2. Use your priority to tap LMC into Jace, that way if they respond, you lose a 2-drop you tutor up for and not a Planeswalker. Assuming theres no responce, Jace is now an Artifact Planeswalker. Use Tezzeret's [-1] ability, and...then what?

This is where things usually start to get tricky. Our first assumption is that Jace, The Mind Sculptor becomes a 5/5 Artifact Creature Planeswalker with the subtype Jace, and retains his loyalty counters and abilities.
This in fact is absolutely correct. I can cite some rules on artifact interaction and type changes, but there's is one rule that is overly pertinent here:

From the Comprehensive Rules

• 103. The Magic Golden Rules
  • 103.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation. The only exception is that a player can concede the game at any time (see rule 102.3a).

So, here we get to the weird part. Jace now abides by three sets of rules. Anything that targets anything except lands can now affect him. And here's a general breakdown of "falls-to"s:

• He can attack an opponent and use his loyalty abilities anytime he normally could.
• He can be dealt lethal damage.
• He can be destroyed or sacrificed
• He is now vulnerable to -1/-1 counters and other State-Based Actions. 
• Damage dealt to him comes out of his Loyalty because he is still a Planeswalker
• Per above bullet, being dealt lethal damage, having his toughness reduced to 0, having his Loyatly reduced to 0, or having another Planeswalker with the subtype "Jace" enter the battlefield are all ways he can be destroyed now. 

Doesn't sound very appealing on your end does it? The fact is, a Blue/Black deck isn't going to need the extra aggro that often, but it has enough practical (if not situational) uses to come up often enough to need widespread addressing. Now I am not a Rules Advisor nor a DCI Judge, but after examining the rules, This is what I got from it.

This isn't the first time things like this have come up, though. If we look at an example from a nice Vintage format view, we see possibilities not at all unlike the one described above:

 

 In this case we see Bolas is a whoppin', badass 8/8 Indestructible Artifact Creature Planewalker with the subtype Bolas, and 5 Loyalty with the usual table-turning abilities. This wasn't an issue when Mycosynth Lattice and March of the Machines came out because there were no planeswalker cards. And the two never really mingled in Standard or even Extended, so nothing was really addressed. 

When Mark Rosewater was doing his usual recap of interesting stories from the design process of Scars of Mirrodin ( Click Here for the Article), he said that the wording on Liquimetal Coating was a huge mistake on Design's part. I do think that had it been intended to do what we're using it for now, it would have been a rare. But we have to live with it for two more years in Standard Constructed, and even Limited for another 6 months. So I suggest we make the most of it, and as I'm sure Spank and The Meister would say "cause as many ridiculous shenanigans with it as possible."

Till next time, when we take a look-see at some really cool Infect combos!

-Zetsu

Gathering the Magic

I've already said that I'll be talking about my job. I really like my job sometimes. But most of the time, I'll be writing about it because it somehow pissed me off. And I don't like that, and you won't like it if the only thing I write about is why someone pissed me off, and how. So, I want to talk about my hobbies.
I am a musician, I can play just about anything with strings, to varying degrees of skill. So, I plan on occasionally posting an awesome new band, album, instrument, whatever. But, my real hobby, and the keeper of my sanity, is Magic: The Gathering.
I talk about it a lot away from the game table, and hardly at all while playing. So I'm going to get most of that out here.
As many of you know, I am currently designing a set for Catherynne Valente, the author of The Orphans Tales, as well as novels like Palimpsest, a personal favorite. So one of the focuses I'm going to be putting into this is the current design trends, how it relates to what I'm doing, and how I can use this to further my set.
I also like to talk about current playsets. With Mirrodin Besieged now on the up and up, a whole slew of new expliots are available for crazy off the wall play ideas.

So drop in again soon, as my next post will be a MTG post concerning, wait for it, Planeswalker Artifacts! Thats right! Combo's with things like Liquimetal Coating, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Mycosynth Lattice, Smash, and March of Machines!

Tips for Customer Service: An Introduction

The whole point of making a blog is because I need to write. Like I need to eat. In fact, I need this more (the human body can go weeks without food).
Not really, I'm just doing it because tis the hip thing to do.

But with a blog comes readers. And if you people are going to read something, I should make it worth your time. After all, you could be spending these moments at a much more established and flashy page on the internet.  So, One of the big things I'm going to talk about alot is my job, since it seems to bring lots-o-lulz to listeners.
But more than that, you can make someone else's day MUCH better by using most of these ediquette guidelines when calling customer service. Not to mention, your call call really will be handled with more attention and care than the others if you make it painless for us as well.

So look forward to snippets and snatches and tales from the home office RIGHT HERE! Until tomorrow, readers!