Archive for April, 2010

Emrakul, The Aeons Torn, what can we say about this card? Holy crap this thing is so easy to abuse.

Let us first analyze what this big guy does. First thing you’ll notice is he’s a 15/15. So he’s really, REALLY, big. He cannot be countered, so right away you cannot stop him from entering the field which wouldn’t be too bad I guess if it weren’t for the fact when he enters the field you get to take another turn. From this point in the text it really just becomes ridiculous. Flying, so not only is he big but he has evasion and can dodge non flying creatures. Protection from all colored spells, this means that you cannot remove him as soon as he comes onto the field and he will be able to attack you before you can do anything to prevent him. The only way possible to remove him of course being a field sweeper like day of judgement or martial coup unless there is some colorless removal spell I am somehow unaware of. Annihilator 6, which is a nice way of blowing up half your field before he even applies damage, and finally we have the typical graveyard shuffle of the Eldrazi creatures. This makes him impossible to kill and makes your deck entirely immune to being milled.

But the 15 manas a pain I’ll admit, making him seem fair. Even with all the Eldrazi based mana ramp, harrow, and everlasting chalice 15 is a huge number to pull off. Unless you know the T2 format well enough to abuse a few cards that exist.

Let us look at a couple of good cards in the T2 format that never see play.

Elvish Piper: You can use it to drop Emrakul on turn 5 or before if you have mana ramp without a hitch so long as she isn’t countered or killed after she comes out.

Summoning Trap: Pay 6 and hope to god you pull Emrakul because this is the other affective way of dropping him turns before your opponents would ever suspect him to hit the field.

Of course perhaps Emrakul could be a new pawn in blue white control. Theres a lot of potential for him. As soon as he hits the field though the game is over. I would watch out for this big guy because he means business.

Some time ago, FallenWolf made a post about Cunning Sparkmage. A few days ago, I created a similar combo in a casual game, using Wojek Embermage, and that led to very awesome results.

At the time, I used a Quietus Spike, but if one combines Basilisk Collar with the Embermage, there will be some serious mass-removal and some life-gaining for a mere tap.

After some additional research on the subject, I realised there is a great potential for Wojek Embermage.

Take for example, Charisma, a Marcadian Masques rare. One tap, and boom. All the creatures of one colour are under your control.

Can’t find Charisma? Your enemies regenerating? No problem, just pop on your Sword of Kaldra, and exile your problems away. (If Sword of Kaldra is too hard to find, just use a Betrayers of Kamigawa Neko-Te to eternally tap your opponents’ creatures.)

Obviously, this could be problematic if your creatures can be hit by the effects as well. So, if you make a deck, pick creatures that are colourless. Artifact creatures and even the Eldrazi that is newly released. Be sure to include a Moonlace or two to protect your Embermage though.

Having problems with opponents using shroud or Privileged Position? Easy, just summon a chump creature and use Distorting Lens to make it the right colour, and tap away.

To make this deck, I would use a red-blue artifact deck. The colours should mainly be used for spells, (blue can even be used for bouncing your own creatures if they are in trouble) and your creature base should consist mainly out of colourless creatures.

That’s all for now. I might post the deck if it turns out well. Hm.

If you’re a long time Magic: the Gathering player it’s likely that you’re already aware of the “buy a box” promotions Wizards of the Coast has ran in the past. If you’re unfamiliar, however, the concept is fairly simple. Each participating store out there would love to get a good initial push for the game’s new expansion set Rise of the Eldrazi, so the first 20 players to buy a booster box from said store get a promotional foil card for free along with their purchase. This expansion’s card is the Guul Draz Assassin, who you can see below.

Now previous expansions have had the same promotion and if you’re thinking some of the free foils that came with them were better than this…well you’d probably be right. On the other hand it’s a free card, so don’t bite the hand that feeds you, eh?

The expansion will officially prelease this Saturday on April 17. Your best bet is to contact your local comic book/card store and see if they’re running an event you can get to. If not you’ll just have to wait!

Here are some further possibilities to increase the effectiveness of your deck.

Number of Cards and Synergy

When you include cards that work well with your deck, very often there are way too many cards for one deck. When this happens, one tends to put in more cards than is useful, simply because one cannot decide which to take out.

Now, this isn’t a must, but try to keep your card count to a minimum. I am aware that some decks, such as an all-colour deck (as I myself have said) will probably have to have more than 60 cards. However, on average, a deck with fewer cards work much better than one with a lot.

Try to keep a deck between 60 and 65 cards, preferably 60. It will be hard to take out cards that you like or that is powerful, but it should be done.

When selecting the cards to be taken out, ensure that you do not remove cards that are vital to your strategy. While this may seem obvious, there will be some cards that are vital, even if you don’t realise it. You will only be able to see this in playtesting. With the testing, you can also identify the cards that don’t have good synergy with your deck, even though they form part of your strategy. Take them out.

Mana curve

B-Ric wrote a piece on this a while back, so I’ll only quickly touch the subject. Check your deck to ensure that your mana curve is not too steep. Having no creatures on the field for the first four turns can cost you the game.

There is no need to add one creature of every converted mana cost number, but make sure you include cheaper monsters.

On the other side of the argument, having a bunch of cheap creatures is not a must. However, it is important that you will be able to do something early game. If you include only spells that cost 6 or more mana, you will lose against any aggro deck. Even a well-constructed control deck could take you out before you can play your second spell.

A possibility is to add burn, bounce, or creature removal spells for your early game, so as to keep the other player away from you.

(Okay, so that wasn’t as brief as I thought it would be…)

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To conclude, a lot of playtesting will be involved to get these two things right. If you have no other players to play immediately, play against one of your other decks or guppy. That’s all. Hm.