Prerelease Deck #1: Izzet Any Good?

Sorry, Mark Rosewater started a thing about puns based on the Ravnica guilds, so I had to...

So, I opened the box up on camera, and now I'm going to show my deck (I got about 18 out of 52 people). Video will be uploaded later...


Izzet Deck:

Creatures
Faerie Impostor x1
Crosstown Courier x 1
Frostburn Weird x2
Guttersnipe x1
Stealer of Secrets x1
Cobblebrute x1
Runewing x1
Hypersonic Dragon x1 (foil promo since you can use it in the prerelease!)
Minotaur Aggressor x2 (one foil, one regular)

Lands
Island x7 (1 from the original Ravnica and 6 from Zendikar)
Mountain x7 (all from original Ravnica)
Izzet Guildgate x1
Transguild Promenade x2

Other Spells
Mizzium Skin x1
Blustersquall x1
Downsize x1
Chemister's Trick x2
Izzet Charm x1
Pursuit of Flight x1
Essence Backlash x2
Inspiration x1
Traitourous Instinct x1
Survey the Wreckage x2
Explosive Impact x1

The Land of Return to Ravnica

Basic Land - Plains

    

All of the basic lands have great artwork, so I can't really say much more than that... I will say that the fifth artwork here is a reprint from the original Ravnica block...

Basic Land - Island

    

Ditto to everything I said about Plains. This is probably a recurring theme, so I'll just post the rest of the basic land. I will say this: I want some full arts of all of these... In addition, it appears that John Avon is doing one of each land type, and Richard Wright is doing two of each land type. Well, more accurately, one of the lands by Richard Wright for each color is the reprint from the original Ravnica block and the other is new artwork for RTR.

Basic Land - Swamp

    

I can't read the numbers off these... I just assume Gatherer has them in order. Anyway, fourth one is the reprint.

Basic Land - Mountain

    

This time the third one is the reprint...

Basic Land - Forest

    

Third one here is a reprint... You know, back on the subject of full-art land, I hope Wizards is like "Here, have a fat pack" and then inside are full art lands and they are like "Hah! You got full arts. Thought you were getting regular lands, didn't you?" but that probably won't happen sadly. They'd probably make a publicity thing about it since they were popular in Zendikar...

Shocklands

    

I don't think I need to say anything about these... Other than watch my eBay account... I don't think I'll use them, but who knows... I might find a good purpose for losing two life for immediate use of a dual land...

I probably just don't understand the appeal... If someone would like to explain, please do so in the comments, but when I look at these, I see dollar signs...

Gates

    

The "Land - Gate" type is the common set of lands that replace the bounce lands from the original Ravnica block. This was done to differentiate and add more cards instead of reprinting multiples, which the bounce lands were reprinted in Commander... And by bounce lands, I mean lands like this. Those types of lands bounce a land back to your hand but give you two land and was also a cycle of land that was marked as common... Essentially these are shocklands without the shock ability. They come in tapped whereas the shocklands come in tapped unless you pay two life, so these are a bit watered down. They also add a mechanic to the game where some creatures or abilities benefit from you having a Gate card on the field. Not a bad idea...

Other Lands

  

Anyone who thinks Grove of the Guardian is pointless, obviously doesn't know green/white decks, and definitely doesn't understand the Selesnya mechanic "Populate".

Rogue's Passage is okay... I have a blue/black unblockable deck where pretty much all the creatures are unblockable, or I'm swinging with some inquisitor's flails and trepanation blades... It's pointless unless I'm pairing it with the 8/8 creature token from Grove of the Guardian...

Transguild Promenade is a functional reprint of Rupture Spire... That's about it...

One final deck using Scars of Mirrodin block cards before October 5th!

So I decided to build one last deck and it utilizes Myr in order to use Door to Nothingness. This is a fun deck I plan to use at the last FNM to include Scars of Mirrodin block cards in Standard. So here we go:


Basic Land

Plains x 8

Island x 3

Swamp x 3

Mountain x 3

Forest x 3

Spells

War Report x 2

Artifact Creatures

Gold Myr x 4

Silver Myr x 4

Leaden Myr x 3

Iron Myr x 4

Copper Myr x 4

Palladium Myr x 1

Myr Battlesphere x 2

Memnite x 3

Wurmcoil Engine x 1

Platinum Emperion x 1

Artifacts

Golden Urn x 3

Trigon of Mending x 2

Golem Foundry x 3

Myr Reservoir x 1

Mox Opal x 1

Door to Nothingness x 1

Honestly, if I had more Doors to Nothingness, I would have included at least one more. I only had 3 Leaden Myr, so I went with that, and the reason the basic land is a majority of white is to guarantee that War Report can be used. Myr are used solely as mana for the Door to Nothingness, but are used in the secondary win possibility of using Myr Battlesphere and tapping untapped Myr.

Deck works well on it's own based on mana draw and mana acceleration, but whether it works in a match is yet to be seen...

Hope you enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMJ3yC-CmkA

Most expensive cards of Return to Ravnica

This post is outdated. For up-to-date prices for the most expensive cards, please click here.

So once again, we find ourselves upon a post about the most expensive cards...

Shocklands

    

With the shockland reprinted, we have them ranging from about $12 to $20. So for the breakdown, Blood Crypt is about $12, Hallowed Fountain is about $15, Overgrown Tomb is about $20, Steam Vents is about $15, and Temple Garden is about $12.

Planeswalkers

 

Alright, so we have two planeswalkers in this set... We have Jace, Architect of Thought coming in at about $30, which I don't quite understand... I don't see how it could be used in a game of Standard. He appears to be designed for a multiplayer game, and even then, I'm not quite so sure that his final ability is quite worth it... Personally, I'm not worried about playing anyone with these unless someone comes up with a stupid combo that actually makes him good in Standard. Vraska the Unseen on the other hand is the BEST planeswalker yet. Coming in at $40, you're three turns away from dropping three Assassins and only one of them needs to touch your opponent. Even the +1 ability is awesome. This will see play, and I think Vraska may actually go up in price... I'd expect it to hit $50 by December...

Everything Else

Abrupt Decay is an awesome card for destruction and definitely helps by not being able to be countered... Currently listed as $20.

I'm seeing another Restoration Angel, Cloudshift, Thragtusk combo coming with this card... Use a this to blink three Thragtusks, Cloudshift this, bring the Thragtusks back, exile them again, etc... Possibly in the end, an Oblivion Ring would end the blinking... Good card coming in at $15...

It's a wurm that creates another wurm that essentially copies itself and the copy is only green... Yeah... enough said about that... Definitely will be found in some blinking decks with Restoration Angel... Priced at $12...

This is a nice Oblivion Ring that has the same converted mana cost but takes out everything with the same name... Priced at $10...

Interesting card... Starts as a 2/1, but any number of creature cards you discard, you could get +1/+1 counters. I like that... Discard a creature, then not only give a +1/+1, but you could do the Scavenge cost as well and add more counters... This looks fun... Priced at $10

Possibly the better Niv-Mizzet? Deal damage with him, draw a card... pay a blue and a red, and you deal 1 damage and thus draw a card... If you have 3 blue and three red, attack and not be blocked, then pay blue+red three times, you just drew four cards. Not a bad turn, I'd say. He's coming in at $10.

Deal X damage as determined in the cost, and they discard cards... This could work out pretty well... Priced at $15...

And we have Rakdos himself... Deal damage to an opponent, cast him in your second main phase, he flies, he has trample, and for each damage an opponent takes, your creatures cost less? This is good, and he is only $10, yet the card above is $15? Someone got their prices mixed up... Or else Rakdos, Lord of Riots will go up in price...

Well, that's it for RTR cards that are $10 or more... There are plenty of cards under $10 that are great, but I'm just covering these for now...

I'd like to apologize to anyone following the blog (no subscribers, so I assume no one is following it) as I've been getting acclimated to college, I neglected to make posts... this is the first one I had time to do and even then, I have to run and grab a bus in about 10 minutes... So hope you enjoy this. I hope to get a couple more posts out and I plan to go to two pre-releases and film them, so keep checking my youtube channel for more videos...