Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Star City Games Invitation Qualifier Deck

So, over the weekend, I went to my first non-FNM/Game Day/Prerelease MTG tournament, and it was an IQ at Star City Games in Roanoke, VA. First of all, I thought the inside of the largest MTG sellere would have been a bit different, but it was pretty much a bunch of tables, a couple counters with sleeves, deck boxes, and playmats, and then a giant warehouse in the back. You can buy anything there, but you direct clerks to what you want, and they order it from themselves on the website, and someone brings your order out to you once they've picked it up from the back.

Anyway, here is the deck (18th place of 36 players, by the way):

G/W Aggro (Green/White)

18th Place, Star City Games IQ: Roanoke, VA 26 October 2013

Creatures

x4 Soldier of the Pantheon
x4 Sylvan Caryatid
x4 Fleecemane Lion
x2 Fiendslayer Paladin
x4 Loxodon Smiter
x2 Boros Reckoner
x1 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
x1 Archangel of Thune
x1 Kalonian Hydra
x3 Mistcutter Hydra

Land

x4 Temple of Mystery
x4 Temple Garden
x2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
x7 Plains
x1 Island
x4 Forest

Other Spells

x4 Aqueous Form
x4 Unflinching Courage

Planeswalkers

x1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
x2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
x1 Garruk, Caller of the Beast

Sideboard

x3 Imposing Sovereign
x2 Fabled Hero
x4 Fog
x2 Savage Summoning
x2 Scavenging Ooze
x2 Pithing Needle

So, we have a bit of mana ramp involved here, with Sylvan Caryatid and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.

Sylvan Caryatid  Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

With all the Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall action, we want things to stick. Loxodon Smiter has to stay in our hand, and then Fiendslayer Paladin is protected from Black and Red. Fleecemane Lion also has assurance against spells once it is monstrous.

Loxodon Smiter  Fiendslayer Paladin  Fleecemane Lion

Other things are in there for the purpose of aggro, such as Boros Reckoner, Mistcutter Hydra, and Kalonian Hydra. We also have a lifegain suite involved with Archangel of Thune and Trostani. Soldier of the Pantheon is great for all the multicolored action going around now.

Our only spells in the main deck are Aqueous Form (unblockable plus Scry 1) and then Unflinching Courage (lifegain and trample). Both of these are important to the deck, as we can easily boost a creature, and in the case of Fleecemane Lion, have a hexproof, indestructible, 6/6 lifelink trample creature, not that trample matters if it is unblockable.

Planeswalkers were added for tokens, and Garruke was specifically to drop creatures on the field.


The sideboard has a good purpose. If opponents have too many creatures filled with haste, we want them tapped, so we use Imposing Sovereign, and Fog to stop damage. Fabled Hero is in there for extra damage if we need some more aggro in the deck. Savage Summoning is important too since opponents like countering things, and this will land a creature on their turn and they can't do anything to stop it. Scavenging Ooze is only there if we need a boost because we find our creatures die easily, or if our opponent does a lot of creature trading with us. The last piece to the sideboard is Pithing Needles, because Pithing Needle is important for stopping abilities of planeswalkers or other creatures.

Imposing Sovereign  Fabled Hero

The blue included in this deck (Temple of Mystery and the one Island) is only included for the Aqueous Form. I found Sylvan Caryatids frequently get axed by Supreme Verdict, so a little bit of blue (and scry) is nice.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Commander Mondays (10/28/2013): Geist of Saint Traft

NOTE: I'm finally catching up. Only two weeks behind, but I think I'll come out of this with everything caught up in the next couple of weeks, but ideally I'll be caught up by next week. I just have a Kaalia of the Vast deck and an Edric, Spymaster of Trest deck to get to. Shouldn't be long. I had  a couple free hours to get this one done.



There are quite a few Commander/EDH decks that I want to build, and I've wanted to do something with Geist for a little while now. He's hexproof, he creates Angels that attack and disappear every turn, and he's all around quite an interesting commander, so let's see what awesome things we can do with this guy...

First and foremost, this deck will not focus on having cards solely from the past three years, so we have a much broader range with which to play with a deck. Additionally, this will not focus on any particular guild element like Detain or Forecast from Azorius. This will be a build open to using just about anything...

Geist of Saint Traft

Legendary Creatures

x1 Geist of Saint Traft (Commander)
x1 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
x1 Medomai the Ageless
x1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Creatures

x1 Aegis Angel
x1 Aetherling
x1 Aetherplasm
x1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
x1 Angel of Jubilation
x1 Angel of Serenity
x1 Archangel of Thune
x1 Archon of Redemption
x1 Ascended Lawmage
x1 Augur of Bolas
x1 Banisher Priest
x1 Blind Phantasm
x1 Drogskol Captain
x1 Elgaud Shieldmate
x1 Hero of Bladehold
x1 Invisible Stalker
x1 Latch Seeker
x1 Lord of the Unreal
x1 Luminous Angel
x1 Phantasmal Bear
x1 Phantasmal Dragon
x1 Phantasmal Image
x1 Phantom General
x1 Phantom Warrior
x1 Sky Spirit
x1 Spectral Rider
x1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
x1 Spirit of the Hearth
x1 Thistledown Liege
x1 True Believer
x1 Twilight Drover
x1 Wall of Denial

Instants

x1 Midnight Haunting
x1 Overrule
x1 Path to Exile
x1 Vanish into Memory

Sorceries

x1 Preordain
x1 Spectral Procession

Enchantments

x1 Angelic Shield
x1 Aqueous Form
x1 Intangible Virtue
x1 Leyline of the Meek
x1 Leyline of Sanctity
x1 Oblivion Ring
x1 Promise of Bunrei
x1 Steel of the Godhead
x1 True Conviction

Artifacts

x1 Azorius Keyrune
x1 Azorius Signet
x1 Inquisitor's Flail
x1 Lightning Greaves
x1 Moonsilver Spear
x1 Sol Ring
x1 Umezawa's Jitte

Planeswalkers

x1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
x1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
x1 Venser, the Sojourner

Lands

x1 Adakar Wastes
x1 Azorius Chancery
x1 Azorius Guildgate
x1 Calciform Pools
x1 Celestial Colonade
x1 Command Tower
x1 Cloudcrest Lake
x1 Evolving Wilds
x1 Flood Plain
x1 Glacial Fortress
x1 Hallowed Fountain
x1 Kabira Crossroads
x1 Mistveil Plains
x1 Moonring Island
x1 Moorland Haunt
x1 Mystic Gate
x1 Nimbus Maze
x1 Opal Palace
x1 Prahv, Spires of Order
x1 Sejiri Refuge
x1 Soaring Seacliff
x1 Vivid Creek
x1 Vivid Meadow
x9 Plains
x6 Island

Unlike the Standard format EDH decks I built previously, this one is definitely going to cost more.

Geist of Saint Traft (at the time of this writing) is already around $16 because he's good. He can't be touched unless he's blocked, 3 mana for a commander is relatively cheap to pay out of the gate, and there is so much that can be done!

Let's start out taking a look at the other legendary creatures:

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV  Medomai the Ageless  Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is already pretty cool. He makes the things your opponents cast one more, and anything white for you costs one less, blue one less, and of course, hybrids or multicolored spells you cast would be two less. With him on the field, you could make Geist two less to cast each time you play him from the Command Zone (but hopefully you won't have to). Thalia is about the same purpose, making your opponents pay more for spells, and if she makes all noncreature spells cost more, Augustin IV will even it out. Medomai the Ageless allows extra turns, which means more damage directed at your opponents. Isn't that great?

Now let's look at the themes...

Unblockable

Invisible Stalker  Latch Seeker  Phantom Warrior

So the unblockable suite (of which only a three cards are representing above) was initially started because I wanted things with hexproof, and Invisible Stalker fit the bill, but why have just one unblockable creature? Why not add more?

Illusions

Lord of the Unreal  Phantasmal Dragon  Phantasmal Image

Illusions that get +1/+1 and hexproof? This keeps your Illusion creatures from vanishing because of their abilities. So you can copy some really sweet thing your opponent has with Phantasma Image, or you can start beating them with a 6/6 hexproof flying dragon. This is just pure awesome!

Tokens

Hero of Bladehold  Twilight Drover  Intangible Virtue

I like decks with tokens. You get to have so much fun with it. For instance, you have this pretty sweet combo in Geist of Saint Traft and Twilight Drover. No matter what happens, the 4/4 Angel token created by Geist is going to go away, so you get a counter on Twilight Drover. Granted you then need mana to take a counter off and put tokens on the field, but it works well. Add Intangible Virtue to the mix, and all 1/1 tokens are 2/2 tokens (there are more things like Intangible Virtue in the deck) and you then attack with 5/5 Angels whenever Geist attacks. Hero of Bladehold has a similar effect of attacking and putting 1/1 tokens on the field (which she already makes 2/1 and mix it with any of the creatures or enchantments that pump tokens, you're doing pretty well).

Lifegain

Archangel of Thune  Steel of the Godhead  True Conviction

I mean, why not? Archangel is a great creature, and you can then make it so even when blocked, Geist of Saint Traft still won't die because he is too powerful. Or, well, make him unblockable after lots of lifegain to deal all the commander damage to an opponent. Why did you think Umezawa's Jitte was in here? Oh, right, because it's so much better than just lifegain, but works great just with lifegain and Archangel of Thune.


Everything else, for the most part,works with all of these, whether it be illusions, lifegain, tokens, and also a spirit theme that pumps up spirit creatures (which works well with those spirit tokens). While a pretty expensive deck, it looks like it will work pretty well. If I can get all the cards for this, I may actually build it for play.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Jace vs. Vraska

Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska

Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska

Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska

Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska

I have comments about the art, first and foremost... That looks nothing like Jace. And Vraska... it looks something like her, I suppose. I mean... The Duel Deck art of Elspeth, Knight Errant looks like Elspeth Knight Errant. All versions of Elspeth look like Elspeth. Same thing goes for all the other planeswalkers. This looks like Snapcaster Mage cosplaying as Jace.

Anyway, this art is by the talented Igor Kieryluk, the artist behind the Duel Deck Elspeth, Knight Errant and the the original Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. He also did the art for Geist of Saint Traft and Griselbrand.

He also did the art for Jace's Ingenuity from M11, which personally represents Jace more than this art... I do like how Vraska looks like she just turned a few people into statues.


Still, a Blue vs. Black/Green duel deck will be interesting to see. Jace's deck may wind up with a second color, though.

I'm thinking counter spells and milling versus scavenge and return from the graveyard triggers.

Post-Theros Game Day Coverage

So, Saturday was Theros Game Day along with the "Face the Hydra" event.

The Hydra deck was a very interesting take on Magic, and I was lucky enough to be able to purchase one to use to play with during the event and any time after.

But this post isn't about that part of the event. This is about Game Day.


Every Game Day, I take an event deck, modify it, and then play it, and I always seem to wind up doing well with it. This time, I came in 2nd (the third game of the Top 2 match came very close with 8 life and 5 life.)

Anyway, let's look at the actual deck of the Theros Event Deck, and then my modifications.

Theros Event Deck (White/Blue)

Creatures

x2 Ascended lawmage
x2 Banisher Priest
x3 Battlewise Hoplite
x3 Dryad Militant
x1 Fabled Hero
x3 Hopeful Eidolon
x2 Imposing Sovereign
x1 Lavinia of the Tenth
x3 Lyev Skyknight
x1 New Prahv Guildmage
x1 Precinct Captain
x1 Skymark Roc
x1 Soldier of the Pantheon

Land

x4 Azorius Guildgate
x1 Hallowed Fountain
x5 Island
x14 Plains 

Other Spells

x2 Dauntless Onslaught
x2 Detention Sphere
x2 Gods Willing
x1 Ordeal of Heliod
x2 Ordeal of Thassa
x2 Pacifism

Sideboard

x2 Arrest
x2 Gainsay
x2 Gift of Orzhova
x2 Glare of Heresy
x2 Negate
x3 Solemn Offering
x2 Triton Tactics
[SOURCE] - Trick Jarrett, Magic Arcana, "Theros Event Deck Decklist

Modified Event Deck (White/Blue)

Creatures

x3 Hopeful Eidolon
x1 Dryad Militant
x2 Soldier of the Pantheon
x2 Imposing Sovereign
x1 Precinct Captain
x1 New Prahv Guildmage
x2 Banisher Priest
x1 Fabled Hero
x1 Frontline Medic
x1 Daxos of Meletis
x3 Lyev Skyknight
x1 Heliod, God of the Sun
x2 Ascended Lawmage
x1 Skymark Roc
x1 Lavinia of the Tenth

Land

x1 Azorius Guildgate
x4 Hallowed Fountain
x14 Plains
x5 Island

Other Spells

x2 God's Willing
x1 Ordeal of Heliod
x2 Ordeal of Thassa
x2 Pacifism
x2 Dauntless Onslaught
x2 Detention Sphere
x1 Sphinx's Revelation

Planeswalkers

x2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Sideboard

x2 Triton Tactics
x2 Glare of Heresy
x2 Gainsay
x2 Negate
x2 Arrest
x3 Solemn Offering
x2 Gift of Orzhova

So the first round I played, I went against a Black/Red/Green deck (which I'm still not quite sure the purpose) and I swept against that. Opponent was a kid I've helped with decks and talked through Magic history with (explaining storylines and such)

Second round, I went against Mono Black Devotion (with some splashed white in the sideboard). I got destroyed by that deck. More on that later. Opponent was a friend of mine with awesome deck builds, and one of the better players at the local store.

Third round, I went against Bant Hexproof Enchantments (One game I almost lost if not for a Detention Sphere targeting Ethereal Armor). I swept that match. Opponent was another of the better players at the store.

So, I get seeded 7 in the top 8 as a result (15 players). Seed 2 is none other than Mono Black Devotion. Rematch time! I won that 2-1 because he got some bad draws in game two and three. On to Top 4.

My Top 4 match was against a Boros aggro deck. I swept that match too. Opponent was a kid who, while had a good deck, made some bad plays. Boros Charm could have eliminated some of my board, but was instead used to take down 4 life after I was using lifegain.

Top 2 Match was against Mono Blue Aggro, and yes, this is a thing. Think Master of Waves, Nightveil Specter, Thassa, and assorted other cards, this was pretty difficult. Opponent is one of the better players in the store as well, but he hadn't been around lately. I lost 1-2, but still walked away with store credit.


Honestly, there were some things I could have done (like used Judge's Familiar from RTR and duplicats of other cards, buti think I did pretty well considering I just changed only 6 cards in the entire deck. But Daxos of Meletis is very powerful, and both Detention Sphere and Lavinia of the Tenth have saved me many times on Game Day. Definitely a good deck, worth buying and modifying with other White/Blue cards that could benefit you.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Commander Spoilers Part 3 (Countdown: 2 Weeks & 2 Days, to Release Date)

Let's start today with the cards Mr. Trick Jarrett put up on Reddit Monday as they didn't make it into our list that day...

Gahiji, Honored One


So, quite obviously, this belongs to the Nature of the Hunt deck and is the second of three Legendary creatures for those three colors.

So, with this card, all of your creatures that attack get a +2 boost to their power. That really is quite good, and this one will probably make it out into the world of Commander, finding its way into popular custom decks...

Nekusar, the Mindrazer


Not a bad card, and not an easy creature to get rid of... Obvious found in the Mind Seize deck.

So essentially, every gets to draw a second card in their draw step. This means you would draw two cards, as would all your opponents... However, whenever one of your opponents draws a card, they lose two life, so with this is play, you opponents lose two life in their first main phase.

Sydri, Galvanic Genius


Sydri, Galvanic Genius is the second legendary creature for the Eternal Bargain deck. I personally really like this particular legendary creature.

For three mana, you get a 2/2 that can make a normal artifact an artifact creature where the power and toughness is equal to the converted mana cost (similar to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas's second ability) and also give artifact creatures deathtouch and lifelink. Having the ability to turn any artifact into a creature for one blue mana and then being able to give it deathtouch and lifelink with a white mana and a black mana.

I can see people using Sydri outside of this deck since she has some great abilities and defines Esper's primary identity of artifacts, along with the deathtouch of black and lifelink of white (and black).

Curse of Inertia

Curse of Inertia

Another curse (probably going in the Mind Seize deck) allows for a chosen permanent to be untapped by a player who attacks the cursed player.

Diviner Spirit

Diviner Spirit

Five mana for a 2/4 creature that allows for you and a player you attack with it to draw a number of cards equal to the damage dealt to that player. As long as your opponent cares about card advantage, they may not care about taking too much damage if they can get more cards in their hand.

This card will probably be found in the Evasive Maneuvers/Bant deck.

Tempt with Immortality

Tempt with Immortality

Five mana for returning a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield and offering the option to your opponents (in exchange for you getting another creature back) is a pretty good card and there may be some interesting shenanigans that will go into a deck with The Mimeoplasm from the 2011 decks outside of these decks, so it could definitely see play in EDH (and potentially become a black staple in the format).

I'm not sure which deck this could show up in, but might be in the Grixis/Mind Seize deck.

Primal Bounty


I feel like this belongs in the Naya/Nature of the Hunt deck, although it may fit with the Jund/Power Hungry deck. I'm torn, really... Tokens and Counters may be involved with whatever deck this is in, and that kind of describes a portion of both Jund and Naya.

So, for five mana, tokens get doubled when they enter the battlefield and if +1/+1 counters are placed on a creature, that number of counters is doubled. Of course, this resembles Doubling Season except for a small change... Primal Vigor does this for all tokens and all counters, not just yours. Not sure if this is really something good or not, but here's hoping the deck that this belongs in has some sort of shenanigans to stop doubled tokens and counters that your opponents control.

Surveyor's Scope

Surveyor’s Scope

This card fits with the multiplayer aspect of Commander in that it allows you to search for a number of basic land when that number of opponents has two or more land than you, and you get to place them on the battlefield (not tapped). Surveyor's Scope is exiled when doing this.

Eye of Doom


Welcome to another language lesson... This card is in... Italian, which as I said last time, is one of the Romance Languages along with Spanish and French. So, let's get the basic understanding of this card before letting you know exactly what it says...

So, starting out, this is obviously an artifact card frame, so "Artefatto" means "Artifact." Simple enough, right? So, now for the name... Other than "del" meaning "of," I can't get any of it. But the people over at MTG Salvation say this is "Eye of Doom," so we'll trust them.

With my background in French, I can pretty much read the first couple of lines. Sort of. Anyway...

In French, "quand" means "when." so I will therefore infer that "Quando" is Italian for "when." Let's now consider the phrase "entra nel campo di battaglia," well, what does that look like to you? "Entra" must mean enters" and "campo di battaglia" probably translates to "field of battle" or "battlefield." Simple, right? "When Eye of Doom enters the battlefield," and then it gets difficult.

"un permanente" clearly means "a permanent" since it closely resembles it, and then we have "non terra" which has to mean "non land." Later, we see "destino" which is probably destiny, or fate. Then we see "Sacrifica" or "sacrifice" and "Distruggi" probably means "Destroy" since it resembles that word.

Ready for the full text of it? Here we go:

"When Eye of Doom enters the battlefield, each player chooses a nonland permanent and puts a fate counter on it.
[2], [TAP], Sacrifice Eye of Doom: Destroy each permanent with a fate counter.

I think I did fairly well. Looking at the translation with the card, "ogni" must mean "each," "segnalino" means "counter" and "giocatore" must mean player. But see how much you can glean off foreign cards without having to translate the text with Google or a dictionary? And I promise I did this with a clean slate. I only looked at names, and then at cards, not the other details, so therefore these small translations by me are actually just my knowledge and ability of figuring out meaning of foreign cards.


Hope you guys enjoyed this edition of Commander Spoilers.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Commander Spoilers Part 2 (Countdown: 2 Weeks & 4 Days, to Release Date)

Commander Spoiler Week is here! Let's check out some of the cards!

Baleful Force



8 mana for a 7/7 that has you draw a card and lose a life EACH upkeep. So on each opponent's turn, you get one card and each of your turns, you get two cards when this is in play. I like it, I like it. And you know what? This seems to pair very well with Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. You all remember him, right? If not, once again, Oloro everyone!


So most likely, we will find him in Oloro's deck, Eternal Bargain.


And... wait... nothing else? Let's search the internet some more, not just Wizard of the Coast's site...

Bane of Progress


Ah ha! Got one! So... this will destroy all artifacts and enchantments when it enters the battlefield and adds counters to it. Starts as a 2/2 but costs 6 mana to cast. You know, this feels a lot like it would be good for a counter-centric deck. So... that reminds me of our new friend Marath, Will of the Wild!


My prediction is that this creature will appear with Marath in the Nature of the Beast deck.

Curse of Chaos


I hate speculation of foreign cards in languages I can't read. Actually, that's a bit of a lie. I can read part of this. for anyone who does not know, this is German. Being a European language, it shares a little bit of the Romance Languages (Spanish, French, Italian), despite being, well, Germanic (like English). As a result, the 7 years of French I have had seem to have paid off (but I have a basic understanding of other languages, enough to get a jist, not to fully read, understand, and/or speak).

"de" in French is "of" or "some" (I think. Definitely "of" though).

We can interpret "Chaos" to mean, well, "Chaos." 

"Fluch" appears twice on the card: in the type and title. "Verzauberung" appears in the rules text and the type, and "Aura" is in the type.So, this has to be an Enchantment - Aura "Fluch." "Fluch" is therefore quite possibly meaning "Curse" as we've seen Aura Curses in the Innistrad Block, so the title is "Curse of Chaos" of the "Enchantment - Aura Curse" type. This makes sense, since in Innistrad, the Aura Curses were names "Curse of _."

Now, I could give you a full rundown of what I think it says (like how it says "einen Spieler" which should loosely translate to "a Player") but... let me just give you MTG Salvation's text:

"Enchant player
Whenever enchanted player is attacked by one or more creatures, the attacking player may discard a card, then draw a card."

Where does this fit? Hm... getting rid of cards... Curses being an Innistrad thing and coming in Blue, Black, and Red during that block... well, that leaves it obviously with...


That's right, Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, a Vampire Wizard from Nephalia, the Blue/Black area in Innistrad. So, Curse of Chaos should show up in Jeleva's Mind Seize deck.


Hope you guys have enjoyed checking out these new spoilers, where I think they'll belong, and also the brief lesson in foreign languages.

Modern Mondays: Orzhov Tokens

So I had been wondering what kind of deck to build for the Modern tournament for FNM at my local store. Then I thought about doing something with Orzhov, but it didn't quite come together. I later woke up at 2 AM to walk around for a minute before going back to sleep, but I woke up with the epiphany about this deck (which I later built in 15 minutes before running off to the store to play). So here is my Orzhov Tokens build for Modern:

Orzhov Tokens (White/Black)

Creatures

x4 Blood Artist
x4 Mourning Thrull
x2 Vampire Nighthawk
x2 Divinity of Pride

Land

x3 Isolated Chapel
x3 Godless Shrine
x4 Orzhov Basilica
x5 Plains
x5 Swamp

Other Spells

x1 Blind Obedience
x4 Gather the Townsfolk
x4 Gift of Orzhova
x2 Righteous Charge
x4 Pillory of the sleepless
x4 Lingering Souls
x4 Necromancer's Magemark
x3 Killing Wave

Planeswalkers

x2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Sideboard

x2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
x4 Douse in Gloom
x4 Cremate
x3 Oblivion Ring
x2 Withstand

This deck has a pretty mean combo: Make all these tokens, have at least one Blood Artist on the field, and then Killing Wave.

Blood Artist  Killing Wave

The best part is you can Killing Wave for 0, and sacrifice all your creatures to trigger Blood Artist, as I had planned to do in one test game (but didn't have to with my opponent at 6 life, and three 1/1 soldiers on his side).

So for token creation, we have Sorin, Lingering Souls, and Gather the Townsfolk. Lingering Souls is key. I was playing in that same test game against America Control where I was being milled by Jace, Memory Adept. Having access to flashback helped win the game as he put all my Lingering Souls into my graveyard. Gather the Townsfolk was great, but caused some issues like how I kept gaining life in one game and couldn't pull off 5 tokens when I needed blockers against a Kalonian Hydra... Still, two tokens isn't bad.

Lingering Souls  Sorin, Lord of Innistrad  Gather the Townsfolk

Now, please take note that everything here came from the Innistrad block, Return to Ravnica block, Modern Masters, and Guildpact. It's what I had access to, and I had recently purchased a "brick" (as I call it) of Guildpact commons. My local store features playsets of commons from many sets in shrink-wrap, and Guildpact happened to be one of them. I actually bought it for a different modern deck (infinite storm with Grapeshot) because of a common in it (Wild Cantor), but it worked out I had access to some great Orzhov commons (like Orzhov Basilica).

The only problem I encountered was Blood Moon, but there is probably a red enchantment buster, and if my non-basic lands are mountains, POW! Sideboard, of course... but yeah.

This deck in the tournament went 2-0 against a slow Boros, 1-2 against Artifact Affinity, and 2-0 against Gruul aggro.

In testing, it constantly failed against mono red Modern (Young Pyromancer, burn spells, Vexing Devil, and Blood Moon), and then it went 1-0 against America Control for Standard (maybe 1-1, can't remember exactly).

Overall, just using cards I had from Innistrad Block on and then the $8 brick of commons from Guildpact, i think I made a pretty decent deck.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Commander 2013 Boxes

So yesterday we had the reveal of all of the five main commanders for the new release of commander decks. Well, let's look at the boxes:

Commander 2013 Decks

Eternal Bargain, featuring Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Power Hungry, featuring Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

Evasive Maneuvers, featuring Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

Nature of the Beast, featuring Marath, Will of the Wild

Mind Seize, featuring Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge


And one thing to clarify about the boxes: There will be three oversized foil commanders (probably stacked together), 100 cards in each deck (which is a given, and three of which will be non-foil regular sized versions of the three commanders, of which we only know one from each box), and then there are 15 new cards in each box, but 51 new cards overall, meaning some will appear in multiple boxes (or possibly in all of them).