This is the fourth part in my blog installments about my favorite set: Future Sight. You can read my reasons for liking this set so much on the original post (http://mtgdeckblogaura.blogspot.com/2011/01/magic-gathering-future-sight-part-1.html), but if that is where you came from, then enjoy these next cards.
New Benalia is a great alternative to a plains card because it gives white a little opportunity to scry, a very useful ability in virtually any deck. Your opening hand has too many lands? Well play this and make sure the next card isn't. Late game it can also protect you from unwanted draws so that you can get what you really need.
Nix is a rather unique counterspell. It only costs 1 to play and it counters anything that was played without a mana cost. In the context of the Time Spiral block, this makes perfect sense because of all the threats with suspend out there. Nowadays, it can be useful to stop your opponents from cheating things into play with cascade or something, but isn't much use over its brethren: Counterspell.
Patrician's Scorn is a white instant that costs 4 and destroys all enchantments. Its use comes with its second ability, which allows you to play it for nothing if you have played another white spell this turn. If you have no enchantments, mass enchantment removal can be more useful than singular enchantment removal, and the 0 cost is the icing on the cake.
Quagnoth is an interesting creature with an ability that protects your hand from some discard spells, and makes a nifty all around creature. This card is virtually uncounterable with its split second ability and has shroud, protecting it from a lot of removal. It is nice to have out, but a little costly for what you get.
Riddle of Lighting is a pretty powerful card for red, giving a scry 3 mixed in with a damager, maybe turning an Eldrazi in your deck into a 12 damage lightning bolt.
Rift Elemental is a cheap card and may help any suspend deck you have. For two mana, you can remove a time counter from a permanent or suspended card you own, and then on top of that, Rift Elemental gets +2/+0.
You can buy these cards above and more that you like from the Future Sight set from http://www.mtgfanatic.com, where you can find great discounts and amazing rewards programs to enjoy the game of Magic: The Gathering without hurting your wallet. Stay in tune for the next installment! Enjoy!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Magic: The Gathering Future Sight (Part 3)
This is the second part in my blog installments about my favorite set: Future Sight. You can read my reasons for liking this set so much on the original post (http://mtgdeckblogaura.blogspot.com/2011/01/magic-gathering-future-sight-part-1.html), but if that is where you came from, then enjoy these next cards.
Llanowar Reborn is a strange land because of the fact it has the graft mechanic, even though it is a land. It gives a nice boost to a creature you play, protecting it from Contagion Engine or giving it just enough toughness to survive a burn.
Lucent Liminid is a weird enchantment because it is a creature and an enchantment at the same time. It may have the disadvantages of being both, but you must admit it is pretty cool to have a creature enchantment out in play.
Lumithread Field is another weird enchantment, but because it has a morph cost without being a creature. I would love to see the look on an opponent's face to see his pyroclasm fall flat because your "creature" is not only dead because it is no longer a creature, but because your other creatures will likely survive too.
Lymph Sliver is cool because it gives a name to an already existing mechanic: Absorb. Whenever any sliver is dealt damage, prevent 1 of that damage. Simple, yet effective, and keeping up with the flavor of white protection.
Mesmeric Sliver is another sliver with a name-giving mechanic: Fateseal. Like one of Jace, the Mind Sculptor's abilities, when the sliver comes into play you may look at the top card of an opponent's library, keeping up with the reputation of blue control.
Muraganda Petroglyph is a niche enchantment that gives creatures without abilities +2/+2. You can use this card to either boost your vanilla creatures or make your tokens godly strong. Probably the later.
Narcomoeba isn't a particularly amazing card, although it does let you laugh as your enemies mill this bad boy into play. It may possibly be used in a threshold deck where you can mill cards off of your library, but is too situational to be good.
This is the second of my multi-blog installment of my favorite future sight cards. Check out http://www.mtgfanatic.com for all these cards and much, much more for low prices and awesome discounts. Enjoy!
Llanowar Reborn is a strange land because of the fact it has the graft mechanic, even though it is a land. It gives a nice boost to a creature you play, protecting it from Contagion Engine or giving it just enough toughness to survive a burn.
Lucent Liminid is a weird enchantment because it is a creature and an enchantment at the same time. It may have the disadvantages of being both, but you must admit it is pretty cool to have a creature enchantment out in play.
Lumithread Field is another weird enchantment, but because it has a morph cost without being a creature. I would love to see the look on an opponent's face to see his pyroclasm fall flat because your "creature" is not only dead because it is no longer a creature, but because your other creatures will likely survive too.
Lymph Sliver is cool because it gives a name to an already existing mechanic: Absorb. Whenever any sliver is dealt damage, prevent 1 of that damage. Simple, yet effective, and keeping up with the flavor of white protection.
Mesmeric Sliver is another sliver with a name-giving mechanic: Fateseal. Like one of Jace, the Mind Sculptor's abilities, when the sliver comes into play you may look at the top card of an opponent's library, keeping up with the reputation of blue control.
Muraganda Petroglyph is a niche enchantment that gives creatures without abilities +2/+2. You can use this card to either boost your vanilla creatures or make your tokens godly strong. Probably the later.
Narcomoeba isn't a particularly amazing card, although it does let you laugh as your enemies mill this bad boy into play. It may possibly be used in a threshold deck where you can mill cards off of your library, but is too situational to be good.
This is the second of my multi-blog installment of my favorite future sight cards. Check out http://www.mtgfanatic.com for all these cards and much, much more for low prices and awesome discounts. Enjoy!
Magic: The Gathering Future Sight (Part 2)
This is the second part in my blog installments about my favorite set: Future Sight. You can read my reasons for liking this set so much on the original post (http://mtgdeckblogaura.blogspot.com/2011/01/magic-gathering-future-sight-part-1.html), but if that is where you came from, then enjoy these next cards.
Force of Savagery is one of those low cost cards with high power with a drawback. The drawback of this card is its 0 toughness, which is quite strange, meaning it will instantly die upon its summoning. You must have a card that can grant your field universal toughness, and if you do, enjoy your 9/1 trample for free.
Ghostfire is a card that's awesome in more ways than one. It may cost 2 more than lightning bolt, but it does have the added bonus of being colorless, and thus avoids protection and other card restraints. The other awesome thing is that in the storyline, the ghostflame is the way that Chandra and Jace defeat Sarkon, also inadvertently activating the Eye of Ugin, a plot that wouldn't be released until years after this card's printing. As a side note this card even mentions the Eye of Ugin in the flavor text.
Grinning Ignus is a reusable ritual card, granting two free mana with its ability. Even though its ability was nerfed by M10, it is still an invaluable card, giving a player 6 possible mana by turn 4.
Grove of the Burnwillows is a pretty decent land, but what makes it awesome is its art. Like a few other lands of the set, it has full color, and a grove of fiery trees makes a pretty sweet field too.
Imperial Mask is a very useful enchantment, especially if you enjoy the two headed giant game. This card, which is the only card to mention teammates, gives you and all of your allies shroud from the enemy, without a heavy color investment. You will find yourself enjoying the shielding from burn and discard this gives your team in any 2v2.
Imperiosaur is a great 4 drop creature for a 5/5. Like all amazing creatures, the catch is that you have to pay this cost with only basic lands. I personally like this, because I do not have a very lucrative money supply, so all I can afford are basic lands. Like most of these cards, it is an amusing stipulation.
This is the second of my multi-blog installment of my favorite future sight cards. Check out http://www.mtgfanatic.com for all these cards and much, much more for low prices and awesome discounts. Enjoy!
Force of Savagery is one of those low cost cards with high power with a drawback. The drawback of this card is its 0 toughness, which is quite strange, meaning it will instantly die upon its summoning. You must have a card that can grant your field universal toughness, and if you do, enjoy your 9/1 trample for free.
Ghostfire is a card that's awesome in more ways than one. It may cost 2 more than lightning bolt, but it does have the added bonus of being colorless, and thus avoids protection and other card restraints. The other awesome thing is that in the storyline, the ghostflame is the way that Chandra and Jace defeat Sarkon, also inadvertently activating the Eye of Ugin, a plot that wouldn't be released until years after this card's printing. As a side note this card even mentions the Eye of Ugin in the flavor text.
Grinning Ignus is a reusable ritual card, granting two free mana with its ability. Even though its ability was nerfed by M10, it is still an invaluable card, giving a player 6 possible mana by turn 4.
Grove of the Burnwillows is a pretty decent land, but what makes it awesome is its art. Like a few other lands of the set, it has full color, and a grove of fiery trees makes a pretty sweet field too.
Imperial Mask is a very useful enchantment, especially if you enjoy the two headed giant game. This card, which is the only card to mention teammates, gives you and all of your allies shroud from the enemy, without a heavy color investment. You will find yourself enjoying the shielding from burn and discard this gives your team in any 2v2.
Imperiosaur is a great 4 drop creature for a 5/5. Like all amazing creatures, the catch is that you have to pay this cost with only basic lands. I personally like this, because I do not have a very lucrative money supply, so all I can afford are basic lands. Like most of these cards, it is an amusing stipulation.
This is the second of my multi-blog installment of my favorite future sight cards. Check out http://www.mtgfanatic.com for all these cards and much, much more for low prices and awesome discounts. Enjoy!
Magic: The Gathering Future Sight (Part 1)
My favorite set of all time is Future Sight, for a few reasons. First of all, I like the card design that some of them have, although we shall see if that is forewarning of things to come. The second thing was the weird one trip mechanics they threw in, stuff like Aura Swap. The last one being the hints into the future the set gave us, like the Planeswalker card.
I will discuss some of my favorite cards from this set, and why.
Aven Mindcensor is an awesome card for a few reasons. First, it allows you to shut down your opponent’s fetchlands, and also do it the moment they activate the ability, taking them off guard. The same goes for decks that rely on tutors and other such cards to win.
Bitter Ordeal is a nail in the coffin card (no pun intended). With its ability gravestorm, you can Damnation the field and then remove a multitude of awesome cards from your opponent’s deck, completely shutting out aggro decks with the Damnation and combo decks with the card that follows.
Boldwyr Intimidator has arguably one of the best rules text ever, and is extremely useful in any red deck, especially a warrior one. It was a very nice card and I hope to see more of cowards and warriors.
Darksteel Garrison is a nice way to counter pesky land removal on your most valuable lands, while providing the game with yet another artifact subtype: Fortification. Plus, anything with the name Darksteel instantly makes it awesome.
Dryad Arbor is the only land in the game to permanently be a creature and a land at the same time. Although this gives it some inherent weaknesses such as pyroclasm, it is a pretty cool combination of cards we haven't ever seen again.
Fleshwrither was a card whose keyword ability made him completely amazing. For just three mana, you could take any creature in your deck with a mana cost of 4 and put it right into play. This makes cards such as the Nephlim actually playable.
Flowstone Embrace is one of the strangest auras the game has ever seen. (We will get to the strangest one later). For the first time in Magic, it mattered whether that aura was tapped or not, making players look twice after reading it.
This is the first of my multi-blog installment of my favorite future sight cards. Check out http://www.mtgfanatic.com for all these cards and much, much more for low prices and awesome discounts. Enjoy!
Magic: The Gathering R/G Pyromancer Ascension Deck
Recently, I’ve been inspired to create a deck around the card Pyromancer Ascension. It is a quest card that when the user casts an instant or sorcery copy that player puts a quest counter on that card. If that player casts an instant or sorcery spell, and the Pyromancer Ascension has 2 or more quest counters on it, you copy that spell and choose new targets for that copy. Being able to do this to your spells will almost always create a win condition, because every spell you cast doubles.
In building this deck, I realized it would become seriously flawed against white and green because of enchantment removal, and flawed against blue because it’s ability to bounce cards, removing all counters from them. Then I decided to rely on mana acceleration to get out heavier cards like Chandra Ablaze and Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs. I then looked for cards that would also benefit from mana accel and I found the land Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and the creature Dragonmaster Outcast. The Valakut turns every mountain into a Lightning Bolt and Dragonmaster Outcast gives me a strong creature base, much like Kazuul.
So, all there was left for me to do was to decide what spells I wanted. I obviously went first for Lightning Bolt because it is a very potent card that can get rid of an annoying creature or deal damage to an opponent or a planeswalker. I then went to other burn spells like Chandra’s Outrage. Dealing 4 damage to a creature and then 2 to its controller was very appealing, especially as an instant. Pyroclasm and Cerebral Eruption also were good options for the deck because they both do damage to mass amounts of creatures, to control swarms. Cerebral Eruption may be a little unpredictable and it may cost a little more, but it only deals damage to your opponent and his creatures, and it gives you a peek at his top card.
I then went to find the green cards to put in my deck. Cultivate was a must, allowing an extra card out and one into my hand. Explore was also an attractive option, granting another land onto the field and giving a draw. The last green card that I put in my deck was Slice in Twain. This card also granted a draw, and destroyed enchantments such as Leyline of Sanctity or Aestheticism that would otherwise run amuck with my deck.
I decided on the planeswalker Chandra because she could a) Deal 4 damage with a more useless burn spell, b) Use her second ability to let me put cards into my graveyard and let me draw a new hand of cards, making it easier to play activate Pyromancer’s Ascension, and c) Using her ultimate to take all the burn spells and launching them into the face of my opponent.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
A red/blue coin flip deck
COIN FLIP DECK
As we know, coin flip decks are a very casual archetype that sees relatively little mainstream play in Legacy. However, with the right cards you can pilot one of these decks to as early as a 4th turn win. The card that makes this all possible is the Mirrodin artifact: Krark’s Thumb. With this card you are allowed to re-flip an unfavorable result on a coin toss. Based on the number of coin-dependent cards in this deck, that is a very important card to have in play. Some of the main cards that will make this kind of deck win are Goblin Bomb and Chance Encounter. With Goblin Bomb, after each successful upkeep coin toss, you get a fuse counter; keep in mind you lose a fuse counter for each lost flip. At five fuse counters, you can sacrifice Goblin Bomb to do 20 damage to your opponent, you can pretty much assume you’ve won at this point. To get to five fuse counters even faster, you can use Clockspinning to add an extra existing counter of your choice to your Goblin Bomb to get to that magic number five even faster. With this in mind I would strongly advise using a Red-Blue Coin Flip deck. You gain access to cards like Stitch in Time and Squee’s Revenge, Which both give you massive card and turn advantage, if you’re lucky of course. Another card you absolutely need in your coin flip deck is Chance Encounter. With Chance Encounter out, all you need is 10 successful coin flips you win the game! What could be better? But, as you have probably guessed there is in fact an instant-win combo that you can get done by turn 4. With Frenetic Efreet, you can generate an endless number of flips no matter what the results of the flip before are. Because you can use the ability even when it phases out. This was updated in a later card Frenetic Sliver that specifically says that it must be in play to use its effect (no stacking coin-flips). The errata for Frenetic Efreet got a similar update around Odyssey that was later changed back. To this effect Wizards said (If you care):
“This card got power-level errata when Chance Encounter was printed in Odyssey. Frenetic Efreet lets you play its activated ability as many times as you want in response to itself (since the cost is just ). When the first such ability resolved, you'd flip a coin and Frenetic Efreet would go away (either to the graveyard or the phased-out zone). According to Frenetic Efreet's original wording, all the rest of the abilities would still resolve, causing you to flip a coin each time. Nothing would happen to Frenetic Efreet (it's gone by now), but you'd get the easy opportunity to win lots of irrelevant coin flips and put plenty of luck counters on Chance Encounter, allowing you to win the game when your next upkeep started. To combat this combo, and the otherwise pointless free coin-flipping this card facilitated, Frenetic Efreet got errata stating that you flipped the coin only if it was in play.”
”In keeping with our current policy regarding power-level errata, the Efreet is going back to its printed functionality. If this proves to be broken, it'll be addressed with bannings and/or restrictions.”
”In keeping with our current policy regarding power-level errata, the Efreet is going back to its printed functionality. If this proves to be broken, it'll be addressed with bannings and/or restrictions.”
So with these basic combos you can basically construct a very fun coin flipping deck that might actually do quite well. These are the cards you absolutely need:
4X Goblin Bomb
4X Frenetic Efreet (you don’t need this but it’s only 37 cents on: www.mtgfanatic.com, plus it’s a good combo)
These are cards that you should really put in your deck:
4X Fiery Gambit
The rest is up to you…and luck! Have fun deck building!
And if you need cheap cards go here: www.mtgfanatic.com
I’m not even kidding.
Magic: The Gathering card spotlight: Prismatic Omen
Prismatic Omen is a card that makes all your lands every basic land type, allowing them to produce any color of mana and become affected by any spells that involve those types. This opens the door to many combos, and I will discuss them with you.
Draco- With the highest mana cost in the game, Draco is certainly hard to cast. However, his Domain ability makes him cost 2 less to play for every basic land type you control, letting you hardcast a 9/9 flier for 6. His second ability makes you pay 10 during your upkeep or sacrifice him, but this cost is also reduced like his converted mana cost, making it nothing.
Voices from the Void- This card forces your opponent to discard cards equal to the number of basic land cards on your field. With the omen up, it will force your opponent to discard 5 cards for 5 mana.
The Bringers- The Bringers from the Fifth Dawn set normally would cost 9 converted mana cost, but with one of every color, it can be played for five. My personal favorite is Bringer of the Blue Dawn, allowing you to draw two additional cards at every upkeep.
Clearwater Goblet- This card comes into play with a charge counter for every mana used to play it, and at the beginning of your upkeep, you gain 1 life for every charge counter. It is very nice to have gain 5 life per turn, starting at your fifth turn.
Coalition Victory- This card makes you win if your control a land of every type and a creature of every color. If you own an every colored creature, you win the game for 8 mana.
Last Stand- This card has numerous effects, and they all increase for every land you control on the field. Lets say you had 5 mana and you played this, target opponent would lose 10 life, you would deal 5 damage to target creature, you would put 5 saprolings into play, you would gain 10 life and draw then discard 5 cards.
Overall, this is a very powerful card, and its uses are numerous, from sunburst to domain. You can get these cards and more on http://www.mtgfanatic.com, with discounts and great rewards programs.
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