What Time is It?

Yes! You're absolutely right! It is time for me to do another blog!

I have obviously take a long hiatus from the blog. It seems to me that this was because I bit off a little more than I could chew. Honestly, once a week is a bit much for a guy like me. After working and cleaning and taking care of a Young'un (as the natives here in Tennessee so quaintly call them), I'm beat! And it takes the better part of a week to write these things, since I can only devote a couple hours a night. I have standards of quality, you know.

So, here's the new new gameplan. Biweekly. Once every two weeks, and in Blue Moons (please don't hold me to that, I have no actual idea of when or how often a Blue Moon actually occurs). This gives me two things: More time to figure out what I'm writing about; and more time to think about what I decided I will be writing about. Sound good? I'll assume your silence is a 'yes'. Good.

I do have an agenda, though. There are a couple topics I want to cover in the coming weeks.
1. Cartoons. As much as I could possibly help it, I didn't want this blog to become a strictly Magic blog. Although its close to it, I feel obligated to keep that unspoken promise to myself now and again. So I'll take a topical look at some cartoons I've recently invested way more time in than I initially planned. Which ones? You'll see.
2. Tournament Formats. Formats can be complicated. Especially to a new or very casual player. So we'll explore the DCI Sanctioned Tournament Formats and some prominent decks for each one.
3. Comprehensive Rules Tips. Some things are confusing about interactions between cards in Magic. Some just get so crazy that its hard to grasp. Others are enables only by finer points and nuances in the Comprehensive Rulebook. Things like Priority, Layering, Copying, The Stack, Resolution, and just when to do what. We'll examine some of the FAQs my readers have, and I'll do my best to address them!

Until then, stay sharp, keeps your decks on hand, and be absolutely sure to check out the latest and greatest game on my personal friends originally named site, Reviews of Games!

New Phyrexia Assesment: What I like about [U]

Okay! So the New Phyrexia set has been SPOILED! And in response to this Wizards of the Coast has released the ENTIRE Visual Spoiler! And needless to say, we are all very, very excited. So how about we skip the foreplay and jump right into it aye?

First today, we will be looking at the Blue ([U]) cards from the new set. A couple really stand out here, and the offensive power and defensive force the Scars and Besieged lacked is definitely here in all its gory glory. To prove this, we have a lovely little combo to start things out with:

 

So obviously, we see where these two cards shine together. I can see both being a playset for a U/G or U/B Infect deck. But here's the really cool part. Previously, the best option for me was to cast Distortion Strike, and then after the opponent Declares Blockers, respond with as many Virulent Wounds and Vampire's Bites as I could muster out, and hope for a ravaging 5-10 poison fiesta. Won me a couple games, quite a few, even. But never any match for the Kuldotha Red or W/U/G Caw-Go decks and their Vengevines. This, however, gives us room for proliferation, and a cheap (albeit conditional) hard counter alongside Spell Peirce, Deprive or the possible Stoic Rebuttal, and a launchpad for Proliferation a la Contagion Clasp/Engine or Inexorable Tides. Or other cards I'll get to momentarily.

Now we've all seen the Phyrexian Mana, written shorthand as [P(C)], where C is the color. Obviously. 2 Life, or a specific mana. Seems easy right? Well, no. Because half of you think the 2 Life is the easy choice, and the other think its just more pragmatic to pay the Mana Cost. Yes. Okay. lets break it down. 

2 Life is deceptively large. Maybe not so against an Infect deck, but thats 10% of your Life Total a pop. It adds up quick, especially when we look at the fact that 5 Life in the game right now is a precarious position to be at. If possible and still plausible, I will always go with paying the mana. But, the situation where this arises is one which we have never seen in Magic before. Anyone can cast a Phyrexian costed spell. I can play Birthing Pod in a Mono-Blue deck without adding anything at all to add Green mana, and still cast and activate this card without "cheating" it into play. And now I will show you two reasons why this is going to have a huge impact on all formats.

Mental Misstep and Gitaxian Probe are probably going to be the most played cards in any deck, in any format, from this set. The applications are huge. Lets start with Mental Misstep. 

"Counter target spell with converted mana cost 1." In Standard, I can see some decks like U/W or Mono-U Control keeping a couple copies in the mainboard. Otherwise, I can see this being an auto-playset in the sideboard. Not only does it counter the one drops like Kuldotha Rebirth, Distortion Strike, Giant Growth, Lightning Bolt, even Green Sun Zenith and Untamed Might, but other control spells like Preordain and Spell Pierce. And in Legacy, where the games first four turns are the most vital, this card is a heartbreaker. Channel Fireball's Magic TV actually touched on how this could turn into an "attrition battle" between Mental Missteps when a card like Aether Vial is on the stack. This is a picture perfect example of a metagame changing card.

Now Gitaxian Probe is cool too (and notably susceptible to a Mental Misstep), but it has a slightly narrower niche. If only just barely though. A first turn cantrip is never a bad option -never the best, but not bad. Unless that cantrip is free. You get a free slot in your deck, and it lets you see your opponents hand. Extremely valuable information, especially early game when you need to know what to hold your Mana Leaks, Mental Missteps, Spell Pierces or Corrupted Resolves for, or when you need to know if its safe to go out on a limb and cast your critical spell, or if you need to test the water with a bait spell, or if you need to just concede there, sometimes. Whatever. The point is, this one is utterly amazing, and probably worth the 2 Life on your first couple turns to play free. I expect to see these pop up in quite a few Pro Tour decks.

 

These two are in here for one reason only. Proliferate. Tezz has a nice feature card, Divination for anyone, and Proliferate -as I talked about in the past- has many applications outside Infect and -1/-1 counters. Planeswalker Loyalty, +1/+1, Charge, any counter you could imagine! Here's why I like it on these cards specifically: Cheap, effective, or reusable Proliferation versus expensive or inefficient alternative like Contagion Clasp or Steady Progress. 

Tezzeret's Gambit costs only one more than Steady Progress if you pay the [U] instead of {2}, and it has double the card advantage. Huge if you manage to proliferate -1/-1 counter and take some creatures out, or at least out of combat. So we have a Phyrexian Divination and a Blue Priests of Norn. Pretty good, but I don't know how much competitive play these will get. 

And thats what I like about Blue. Pretty cool, counters spells and doesn't afraid of anything.

Decadent Decklists: Extended - Mindfuck Mill

So, after all this time of blogging about Magic, I cannot believe I haven't yet had a deck posted! So, it's time I rectified this issue. Without further adieu, the until-recently unnamed Mindfuck Mill:

Mindfuck Mill Extended

Main Deck:

4 Hedron Crab

1 Jace Beleren

2 Nemesis of Reason

2 Wall of Frost

4 Call to Mind

2 Haunting Echoes

1 Keening Stone

4 Memory Sluice

4 Mind Funeral

2 Pyromancer Ascension

4 Spell Pierce

2 Sword of Body and Mind

4 Tome Scour

2 Traumatize

2 Cascade Bluffs

2 Darkslick Shores

8 Island

7 Swamp

2 Vivid Creek

2 Vivid Marsh

Sideboard:

4 Archive Trap

2 Broken Ambitions

2 Doom Blade

2 Memoricide

1 Nemesis of Reason

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

2 Wrexial, the Risen Deep

So, as you can see, it's obviously a deck that is supposed to get as many cards in the graveyard as possible, without the need for the overly priced JTMS. There are a couple things I'll probably change before trying it out for Extended Season, but we'll focus on the big players for a moment.

Memory Sluice/Hedron Crab: First turn, four cards. Second turn, eight, if you have a Hedron Crab on the field. In which case, you'd get 12. So on turn three (which we hope to follow with a Mind Funeral), we can have as many as 20 cards milled out. Very nice, if I do say so myself.

Traumatize/Haunting Echoes: This of course is a combo that is as ageless as the cards themselves. After a couple small mills to start the game off, a well placed Traumatize followed up next turn with Haunting Echoes could very well eliminate your opponents entire playable base.

Nemesis of Reason: The thing I love about this card is that it never has to connect to your opponent. Like the Annihilator mechanic on the Eldrazi cards, the effect triggers as soon as you declare him as an attacker. So even if he lives one or two rounds before he gets killed by a Go For The Throat, you still managed to take a chunk out of their deck.

One thing people seem to immediately notice is the Pyromancer's Ascension, which is red in a U/B deck. Well, it is a little off-base, but I have two Cascade Bluffs and 5 Vivid Lands with 3 Charges each that can be used to cast it. So if I I have two Quest Counters on it, I can Call to Mind two Tome Scours, which in turn will mill ten each, for a total of 20 for 5 mana in one turn, and thats thinking small. Look at Traumatize or Mind Funeral. A probable mill-win.

I opted to run Baby Jace here for one real reason in particular. The Draw. Firstly, some cards can't be milled. They get shuffled back into the Library if they hit the graveyard. These don't come up often at all, but they can be a problem if I have to force a turn pass and wait to see if they can come up with a Death Throw and kill me before they receive draw priority to be officially milled. Secondly, I may or may not need an additional draw to get that last card I need. Yes, yes, JTMS would be better because he can Brainstorm, and his Ultimate is a for sure finisher. But Big Jace automatically draws attention away from you, so his ultimate rarely gets to go off. If ever. And last but not least, in fact foremost, I cannot afford the big bad Mind Sculptor.

The other thing here is that I have a set of Archive Traps in the sideboard. This isn't so much because I don't think they're useful, quite the opposite. But I really want to maximize playability. Lets say you draw 2 opening hand. If the opponent plays a fetchland like Scalding Tarn or Arid Mesa, you automatically get a 26 card mill without playing a land. Now if you draw 4, then you get 52, exactly the number of cards left in a deck after the first draw.

I have been pondering some different aspects of the deck, and I know for a fact that while being very cool to think about, it isn't yet optimized, and for the moment, I will be focusing on doing just that for this deck. If there are any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

Next time...My own Cardset!

Public Service Announcement

 So, many of you who have read this at some point play, have played, or are currently learning to play Magic: The Gathering. Well, thats good. Tis what we call a "target audience". So, I get to advertise two things today. The first is a really awesome freeware product, and a true paradigm of OpenSource programming, the other is a community conscience thing.
Enter: OCTGN. OCTGN -an acronym for Online Card and Tabletop Gaming Network- is a tremendously popular alternative to the Official (but costly) Magic Online game. Why is it so popular? Good question. One of the biggest things is that its free and safe, on all fronts. And it isn't just for Magic players. It has a plethora of Game Definitions (available game you can play) including WoW TCG, Warhammer 40K, HeroClix, and others. The sets and equipment needed are free as well, and you can find the downloads to each individual set in the official forums. Please note that if you plan on downloading them all, you'll want a Download Manager, like the Firefox add-on DownThemAll! The only drawback to this kind of program is that running it on anything but a Windows box is a little tricky. The Ubuntu layer-converter Wine doesn't accept it, so you need a OS Emulator, which in itself can be troublesome. But the better news is that thanks to hard work and efforts of some new members of the community, you no longer need a VPN client like Hamachi (or the Linux GUI front-end Haguichi) to network with people in the IRC channel (Which by the way is on irc.ircstorm.net, channel name #OCTGN). OCTGN now has a lobby that you can use to host or join games without the need for extraneous software. Of course this is a recent development, and there are still people such as myself who simply prefer the interaction of networking for the pure purpose of gaming.
Now, this brings me to my second point. Remember how I said that getting the program to work in a non-DOS environment could frankly be a real bitch to do? Well, for the same reason I seemingly abandoned my post [pun intended] I recently had to do just that. Hence my swap to the new Lobby system. After several days of fragmented efforts in my spare moments, I finally was able to get up and get a game going. Oh boy! All those hours wasted toiling for a pass-time I loved finally coming to fruition! I get on my box, open it up, make sure my deck files are there, make some last minute changes, and off to the races! I host a new game entitled simply "Standard". I see another game labeled "Competitive Legacy: please know how to play" close. The same guy who was hosting joins my game. I accept and we start. Now, as I'm playing inside an imaginary computer inside a real computer, theres a bit of lag. And he's pretty much going through the motions as fast as he can after I tell him this. Fine, he probably doesn't know. We start playing. Over the course of the match, several incidents arise. Time and time again I explain that it takes a couple seconds for things to appear correctly. Every 3 or 4 seconds he tells me what just happened, how much life I lose, or why something does or doesn't resolve. After he starts getting upset because I haven't tapped my Drowned Catacombs yet, I concede and leave the match, disgusted and not wanting anything more to do with the game I labored so hard to get up and running for the rest of the night. Not because his deck was obviously better than mine, or because he may have known more or been quicker to spot things than I, but because regardless, he wanted to let me know he knew this. He wanted to be a elitist. Now, this could just be a troll, and I kinda hope it is, because generally people playing online already know and love Magic. They're there for a reason. You can expect people to expect it once in a while. But if I where a new player, I would have already gone to do something else, not talk about it more. And this is a big problem.
So many people stop doing something because their initial experience with it was less than suboptimal. People like this drive new players away. People who play to win and let you know they're better than you for it. Please, don't be that person. Few are intentionally, but it happens. I ask everyone to consciously make an effort to be constructive, not critical. If the game stops being fun, no one will play it.

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!