Archive for June, 2010

There’s always been something appealing about gargantuan creatures that bring the pain and something extra. You know, the kind of creature that strikes fear into the heart ofo your opponent as soon as it comes into play. I prefer a more subtle approach, but the Primeval Titan, the last in the M11 core set “titan cycle,” is anything but subtle.

Now as with it’s titan cousins, this green beasty provides a uniquely beneficial effect when he comes into play or attacks, and that’s allowing you to get any two land cars you want and putting them into play. The key part of the language here is that you aren’t limited to basic lands, any two lands you want. At 6 mana he isn’t really incredibly expensive, and the additional lands will allow you to summon just about anything you could possibly want.

After all even if he gets smacked down as soon as he comes out, you’ve benefited, and every subsequent turn means an explosion of land in your favor, allowing you to play some more protected creatures like Gaea’s Revenge, for example.

After years of being indoctrinated into Magic: The Gathering, I let out a guffaw when I first heard that in Japan they were going to be releasing the Jace vs Chandra Duel Decks and replacing the art for two planeswalkers with manga versions of the characters. Even being an anime/manga fan myself it just didn’t fit the style of much of the artwork we’ve seen both past and present.

After seeing the cards for myself though, I was actually plesantly surprised. I think they capture the spirit of the original cards quite well, and I wouldnt mind having them around for use in my own decks if the opportunity present itself. If nothing else it adds a new and unique flavor in the artwork, although we’ll see if it extends beyond this one release. If not, you can bet that collector’s will be scrambling to get the only two magic cards ever to come out in Japanese anime format.

If you like copying things, you’ll love Pyromancer Ascension. It’s like a Mirari, only you don’t have to pay anything, and you can have more than one on the field.

Using Pyromancer Ascension effectively requires that you use a lot of instants and sorceries. Hm, sound familiar? Indeed, the Guildpact set Izzet mages used the same idea. Think Wee Dragonauts and Gelectrode.

So I think a Red-blue deck would work very well with Pyromancer Ascension.

Start off with knowing that four copies of each instant and sorcery you have would help your deck most, since Pyromancer Ascension works with copies in the graveyard. Burn spells, like Banefire, Lightning Bolt and even Lava Axe works wonders with the Ascension card. As for blue, get some cards that help you get to Pyromancer Ascension quicker. I’m thinking Ponder, See Beyond, and Mind Spring.

Now is the time to add some creatures. Four copies of Wee Dragonauts and four copies of the new Rise of the Eldrazi Kiln Fiend. Four copies of Gelectrode. Just a side note—remember that the copies don’t activate the abilities of the three mentioned creatures.

For some extra fun, add some Twincasts. Picture this: You play a Lightning Bolt with two active Pyromancer Ascensions on the field and cast Twincast on it. First, you’ll start off with three copies of Lightning Bolt (one for each Ascension). When you play Twincast, you copy it as well (three times) and choose Lightning bolt as each target. That’s six copies in total. Aim all that damage at the opponent’s life, and you’ve just done 18 damage for three mana. Not bad.

A last bit of fun can be achieved by adding some Time Warps. Four extra turns after this one? Why, thank you. Very awesome.

That’s all for now. Hm.

(It seems I’ve missed Luminarch Ascension, so I’ll talk about that one next time.)

As the M11 spoilers for the upcoming core set continue to trickle out, we have the always useful Diminish, a blue card that primes one of those big bad creatures for a small poke to their doom.

At only one blue mana to cast, it’s nice and cheap. Usually against blue most players are likely more worried about being unsummoned or countered, but Diminish gives you one extra trick up your sleeve and helps to keep your opponent guessing as long as you have an untapped island available.

It also helps in laying traps for your opponents, although admittedly not exactly as terrifying as Doom Blade or even the sturdy and reliable lightning bolt, but still a nice pick and useful in a number of situations.

Yet another addition to the new multiplayer format for Magic, Archenemy, has been revealed. Named Your Inescabable Doom, it has the following effect:

“At the beginning of your end step, put a doom counter on this scheme, then this scheme deals damage equal to the number of doom counters on it to the opponent with the highest life total among your opponents.  If two or more players are tied for highest life total, you choose one.”

Unlike other schemes we’ve seen so far, there’s no abandoning this one, which is appropriate since it’d be a little silly to be able to escape the inescapable right? Anyway, it basically remains active until one of two things happens: you die, or your opponents die. There are a few ways to delay the inevitable like Runed Halo, but ultimately it’ll give the single player an edge against his numerous opponents. 

Beastmaster Ascension was my previous post’s subject. This time, I’ll discuss the black Bloodchief Ascension.

There are quite a few types of decks you can make with this card, and it fits well in any black deck as well.

First one I can think of would be a discarding deck. Fill it with a few cards like Nezumi Shortfang or Silent Specter, and you can quickly fill in the damage to fill up the counters, then rely on your Bloodchief Ascension to finish the player off. However, this can quickly become an empty pool if the opponent starts playing topdeck.

For this, you can add blue. Add some milling cards like Ambassador Laquatus and Memory Erosion. You can even add Jace Beleren for a 40 damage life drain.

Another way to ensure the life draining to continue is to kill creatures your opponent summons. A well-timed Damnation can be devastating with both the creatures it kills and the life you can then drain.

A deck based around Bloodchief Ascension can be quite slow, so settle in for the mid or end game. Be sure to put out some early defence and make sure you can damage your opponents enough to activate Bloodchief Ascension in the first place.

Cards that I would recommend in the deck is an unblockable 2+ power creature. Hada Spy Patrol works well. Also, be sure to put in an Ambassador Laquatus along with a Training Grounds. It makes for a killer combo with a fully active Bloodchief Ascension.

That’s all. Hm. The blazing Pyromancer is next.