The Planeswalker's Stronghold

So I managed to not attend a Prerelease even, and some how I survived. I don't even feel like I really missed out on anything. My Sealed skills have been so poor for so long, I mostly saved myself the frustration of watching my pool laugh at me all day long. I've been giving the card selections for the new set a bit of thought. I've found that I can get a un/common set for about $35. Given that the one playset I know I want will run $20, this seems like a good way to go, and all but eliminates the need to open packs, or attempt to draft the set. In other words, for the cost of one playset, and one draft, I can have the whole set. Seems good. I'm also thinking about doing the release event, but will most likely come down to what Tater wants to do. The draft could be a lot of fun for us both, and the promo card seems like a good addition to both of our collections.What ever excess cards we happen to get, could simply go to tater's box, as fodder for what ever deck...

I titled this article this way, because for the life of me I can't remember what this set is called. After all the hype about who would win the war, and what this set would look like, I don't even know what it's called. I find that this is really indicative of my overall attitude about this set: I just don't care. I really just don't care. There is hardly a handful of cards which even peek my interest. The cycle of Praetors seem kinda cool and swingy, but I think I can pick most of them up in trade. The fact that 60% of the Mythics in the set are Legendary (Karn) sends a clear signal that my suspicion about the next block will be Legendary matters is correct. Batterskull seems like a great equipment, but Standard not withstanding, is not worth it's current price. If Stoneforger Mystic rotates, it should drop like a rock. I really think there is a good case to be made that Stonforger will be reprinted in M12, but nothing definitive. The Sword is the last piece ...

This month I had the unexpected opportunity to travel to Roanoke for a Legacy GPT. Recent set releases had a lot of new ideas floating around my head, but I really hadn't played enough over the last few months to evaluate such changes. I ended this small tournament day with a 2-3 record, having scooped a team member into the top8 in the last round. (Congrats to Jeff to winning the GPT!, good luck in the GP.) It became really clear that even my possible 3-2 finish for the day, my deck had become under-matched, and really needed to be brought up to date. Let the work begin! My prior list can be found here , the only difference being that a fourth Goyf replaced the fourth Lavamancer. I began by pulling the Grave package, and replacing it with a more traditional Zoo utility lineup. I'm not sure this is the correct call, but the surprise value of the Grove Package has run it's course on the local level, so it's time to at least test other options. -4 Grove of the Burnwill...

I can't believe it took as long as it did, but it was well worth the work. After nearly 4 months of sorting, I now find myself a little over 40,000 Magic cards lighter. This bulk of excess cards has become a $200 store credit with CFB, a finished Legacy Merfolk deck, a fourth Goyf, 4 blue Onslaught fetches, several restricted Vintage cards, most of the cards I wanted from the current Scars block to date, and a handful of casual cards. Most importantly, all this bulk of under utilized cards is gone, and the room it took up is now empty. Not only can I actually find what I'm looking for far easier, even when a card has been misplaced. I also have discovered that the two bookcases in my office, are now empty, their sole purpose in life having been to house my massive Magic collection. They have found a better home else where. Before the Purge It was really amazing, not to mention startling, to discover just how much good stuff I had that I really and truly didn't even kno...

That's right folks, no typo there. I used a $25 store credit to pay my entry, and despite not opening any super chase cards, I still managed to open or trade for $32 in cards specifically on my shopping list. Of course, that is in addition to the $11 in trade-bait rares I added to my binder, and the more then 70 un/commons for my personal collection. This was a definitive win value wise, unfortunately that did not translate to match results. It has long ago come to my attention that Sealed is not my format, having not produced a winning record since the release of Xth edition. Yes really , it's been that long. My seemingly limitless lack of skill, coupled with my need to maximize my value/cost relationship of my Magic efforts, I tend to not play in these events unless there is a clear value added. This most often comes in the form of the special foil promo card distributed for participation. The card of this event, Hero of Bladehold, having a $10 value and already being on my...

Most everyone understands that when it comes to eternal formats the original Dual Lands are about the best investment you can make. Which ones you get first, and how many repeaters you want really is a function of what decks you want to play. I really feel that you can't go wrong with having at least one copy of each. The Ravnica Shocklands play an acceptable role as cheap substitutes, while you are filling in your collection of originals. At some point in your collecting days, you will need to turn your attention to the power of fetchlands, and here is why. Lets say you luck up and find a Bayou on the street, so you decide to begin turning your Legacy Mono Black Control list into Eva Green. That Bayou is a great start, but is only going to show up in your opening hand about 12% of the time. Not Bad, but not very consistent to say the least, so you want more. Naturally you decide to bust your hump on you paper route and in no time you have saved up the $50 needed to get a Bayou a...

I don't normally post rumor threads, but check this out:

This last Friday, I decided to let Tater take Mass Polymorph (which needs a better name?) for a spin around FNM. After discussing the deck with GrimJack, I felt it was worth experimenting with a GU version of the deck, stripping away the red mana and most of the red spells. Refocusing the list yield this first attempt. 1 Magister Sphinx 2 Bogardan Hellkite 4 Beastial Menace 4 Mana Leak 4 See Beyond 4 Cultivate 2 Garruk Wildspeaker 3 Fog 4 Growth Spasm 4 Mass Polymorph 4 Preordain 7 Forest 7 Island 4 Halimar Depths 4 Khalni Garden 2 Misty Rainforest The deck performed really well despite the last minute changes to the brew. Scary as the fact is that you can't hard cast a single creature in the deck, the list looks to be pretty close to right. A judge playing in the event, responding to a judge call from Taters opponent, compliment Taters play regarding use of the stack, and trigger resolution. Tater went 2-3 on the night, and missed prize support by only a hair! ...

I found the rumor season for M11 a bit sad, as it revealed that Warp World would not be included for next year. This once again leaves me without a deck concept to move forward with. I turn in desperation to the clear replacement to Warp World, the new blue spell Mass Polymorph. The concept seems pretty clear. By controlling the creatures in the deck, I can hit specific targets and effects off the Mass Polymorph. In looking at my Warp World deck, the first thing that jumps out is I need to add blue to the mana base, which means I should probably drop a color. Since Mass Polymorph only effects creatures, and not lands, my prior win condition (Ob Nix) is pretty much out, so I have little need for black. The lack of land fall triggers also removes the need for most of card advantage tricks. In fact the only thing resembling a win condition from the original deck, is the Hellkites. Getting all four Hellkites out in one hit for a win condition is pretty tough, because I have to cheat ou...

In the new set M11, the five original planeswalkers, Jace Berlin, Ajani Goldmane, Garruk Wildspeaker, Chandra Nalaar, and Liliana Vess all have been reprinted along with two new cards that go with each planeswalker. If you can get all three cards in play, things will get crazy. Lets see an example: Turn 2. Play Ajani's Pridemate. Turn 3. Play Ajani's Mantra. Turn 4. Gain 1 life because of The Mantra, the Pridemate gets +1/+1 (3/3) . Play Ajani Goldmane. Use his +1 ability to gain 2 more life, Pridemate gets +1/+1 (4/4) . Turn 5. DO IT AGAIN! Like I said, things get crazy. There is one card in this set that looks very impressive. Oh, what the heck THIS LITTLE SUCKER IS AWESOME!!! Meet the Miotic Slime (4/4) . When it dies, It splits down the middle and makes two little 2/2's! And then when they die, yes, they split down the middle and make itty-bitty little 1/1 slime's!I also love the Vengeful Achron. A 7/7 flier for 4 WWW? Plus a kick butt ability that redirects dam...

So after a very unimpressive FNM, I figure it's time to put this deck back in the lab. I only one 3 games, and only one of those was going off with Warp World. The deck just seems to be a little to slow on the ramp, and many times I had great cards in my hand I just couldn't cast. Many early turns, I had nothing to do but play a land and pass.. Even worse, there was more then once I was drawing dead on an already full grip, and having to pitch cards to the yard. Ugh! I found several list which were running Growth Spasm, and had initially dismissed it since it wasn't a permanent. After a new round of testing, I've decided I was wrong. It ramps, and puts two permanents into play. Plus it leaves extra cards in my library in a post ultimate Warp World scenario, making it tougher to get milled out with my triggers on the stack. I experimented with a second Ob Nix, but ultimately concluded that I hate the Legend rule, or more specifically the fact that it doesn't use th...

I've been out of Standard now for a long time, too long honestly. People can give a lot of reasons for not liking Standard: It's boring, It's too expensive, It rotates to fast, but the fact remains that the majority of sanctioned Magic is Standard. If you want to play in a sanctioned event with any regularity, you have to play Standard. On the other side of the coin, I've been in love with Legacy for the last 9 months or so. While nothing has changed in my love for the eternal format, I've found that I allowed myself to fall into a trap. While I have done very well focusing my limited budget into assembling an ever growing Legacy arsenal, I've nearly exhausted my resources, and don't have the funds to enter Legacy events. Doh! So it seems to me at least, that the best thing I can do to try and leverage my remaining resources, is to hit some Standard events. Now comes the real problem. You see in my mind Standard really is boring, expensive, and rotates too...

Lucky number 13 in the series! It was brought to my attention that I have not been writing much recently. This is mostly due to personal distractions, and there really hasn't been much going on in the front of the house. So I'll take a minute to catch you all up on whats been going on behind the scenes. I've been working a massive trade through CFB, netting a pair of Goyfs, a FoW, a Wasteland, a LED, and a few odds and ends. I was also able to pick up a 3rd Goyf trading in a dual land. I hated to trade away the land, but it was a 20% and a card I needed. I have also been able to pick up several pieces of foil for the deck, including a Pridemage, a full set of foil textless Lightning Bolts, and a 2nd Nacatl. If things go as planned, I'll be able to foil one of my Arid Mesas next week. I've also made a minor tweak to my list. I have found that Invigorate only reaches max utility when I have a Kavu on the board, other times it's only a mediocre combat trick. I de...

Well folks, it's that time again when everyone who writes about Magic does their mandatory review of the new set. I try to take a little different road at these times, as my article will primarily focus on the common cards of the set, which are often overlooked by other writers. These cards tend to flex their muscles most often in the Pauper format, Limited (Sealed/Draft), and the casual table. So off to the races! Colorless: There are only two commons in the Eldrazi category. Hand of Emrakul will really depend on value of other cards that make spawn tokens, because 9 mana for a 7/7 beater, even with annihilitor1 is a bit over costed. Ulamog's Crusher on the other hand, a 8/8 annihilitor2, is on or above the curve. Oh it has to attack each turn if able, but we all know that really isn't a draw back. The only common land in the set is Terramorphic Expanse hiding from it's creditors under another name. Prophetic prism is an artifact which does color fixing in the color...

Q: What is Rise of the Eldrazi? A: Well M.T.G.(Magic the Gathering) releases new cards in sets. Rise of the Eldrazi is the newest set. Well, actually, it's not out yet. Q: What is a spoiler? A: Spoilers are basically a preview for a new set that hasn't come out yet. It tells about new things like cards and other stuff, but mostly cards. Q: What's new in Rise of the Eldrazi? A: Rise of the Eldrazi brings several new abilities including: Annihilator, Rebound, Totem Armor, Level Up, Colorless Eldrazi creatures and spells. So the set is called Rise of the Eldrazi, right? So where's the Eldrazi? Got it right here for ya'. Readers, meet Emrakul. Oh, yeah. LOOK AT THAT BEEF!!! Annihilator means that when the creature attacks, the defender sacrifice's that many permanents.(A permanent is a land, creature, enchantment, planeswalker, or artifact.) That is pretty sweet! And, when it attacks, he has to sac 6 -yes, I said 6- permanents. It doesn't even matter if it do...

Periodically, this great game of ours finds itself in a position which requires a change. With Wizards recently announced back peddle to more stringently enforce the Reserved list, I believe the game finds itself at the precipice of just such a change. Brief History of Magic Formats: 1993 (290 cards) Magic debut with Alpha late 1994 (1 year, 9 sets, 985 cards) Magic deck construction rules are formalized and Standardized by the Duelist Convocation, giving birth to what would later be called type 1. late 1995 (2 years, 14 sets, 1,446 cards) Magic deck construction rules were officially split into 2 separate formats, Type 1 and Type 2. Type 2 was later called Standard, Type 1 Eternal. (Type 1.5 was also used to signify a format with which the type 1 restricted list was instead banned) late 1996 (3 years, 16 sets, 1,903 cards) Extended was created as a format. Standard had a rotation of approximately 1 year, Extended 2 years. 2002 (~8 years, ~45 sets, 6,056 cards) Standard and Exte...

So I decided to take my fully powered list to the SciFi Weekly Legacy event, and see what happens. The new prize structure was just too much to pass up. This is the final list I used for the event. Creatures: Kavu Predator x4 Kird Ape x4 Tarmogoyf x4 Qasali Pridemage x4 Wild Nacatl x4 Grim Lavamancer x3 Spells: Invigorate x3 Lightning Bolt x4 Sylvan Library x2 Swords to Plowshares x3 Punishing Fire x3 Umezawa's Jitte x2 Land: Arid Mesa x4 Grove of the Burnwillows x4 Plateau x3 Savannah x2 T-A-I-G-A x2 Windswept Heath Wooded Foothills Forest, Mountain, Plains 1 each. Sideboard Pithing Needle x4 Tormad's Crypt x2 Relic of Progenitus x3 Krosen Grip x2 Pyroclasm x3 Wind Shards I really like this list, and it just hammers home how good Goyf is for this deck. Wing Shards seems like on-color tech against Progenitus, which appears to be a growing segment of the meta, both local and regional. I may be running a bit to much graveyard hate, but with Reanim...

Sunday in Richmond was really a great time. I went 2-2 drop, which honestly was better then I had expected. I was able to do some real trading, picking up a promo Jitte, my last two dual lands, and my last two fetch lands. Now I have a one of set of duals, and fetches. I also picked up a pair of textless Lightning Bolts, and about a dozen other cards from my shopping list. Oh and there was tournament also! Going in there were certain match ups which I simply new were not good ones. CounterTop Progenitus was one of those match ups, and there it was across the table from me in round one. Game one all I could do was cross my fingers and race. I got lucky, and got him as low as 10, despite a Warmonk on the board, before he was able to resolve a late game Progenitus. Game two, I brought in the side board tech, and used my main list Kavu's for a surprise factor, which I road for the win. Game three was a different matter, on turn two I was looking across at 2 lands and a hierarch. I ha...

Now that's Big! Please note the card number is 6 of 248. This means if they stick with traditional set numbering, that this set is most likely all colorless, having no colored mana symbols in the costs. It could also indicate that there have been a change to the numbering system, and that either colorless creatures come first, or that all Mythics or Eldrazi spells come first. My money is on all colorless, after all they just did the first all gold set! Please note how the art extends into the frame. I love it! is this something we will see on all future cards, just this set, just Eldrazi? Don't know but I like it. In other news, this little corner of the Multiverse had another stellar month. Both January and February generated +1400 unique hits to the site.

So here I sit, with under 24 hours till the big event in Richmond. I've been watching the Standard coverage for today's 5K, and the player total just kept climbing! 561, that is a bit scary, since many of these players may stay for the Legacy event, and it may be much bigger then I anticipated. More players, means more random decks, and less effective sideboards. Oh well, not much I can do at this point. I did make a couple of last minute adjustments this week. I've been testing -1 Grove, +Wooded Foothills all week. My final call is to keep the list the way it is, but I need to get on the ball and pile shuffle every time. I refuse to lose games and matches because I fail to shuffle. After all the prep work I've put in, that would just be stupid. I spent a large portion of my time this week testing against CounterTop, in an attempt to nail down my sideboard. Turns out Shusher is just not getting the job done. There is simply to much spot removal, to try and ride this g...