With the runaway success Magic hass een on the X-box live Arcade and Steam networks, it isn’t too surprising that my favorite digital iteration of MTG has hit the Playstaion Network now as well.
The game is now available on PSN for $10, and you an fork over $5 per expansion depending on how far you’d like to go. Wizards of the Coast is offering a real-life limited edition Magic card to go along with your purchase as well.
Previously I mentioned that Pledge Under a Setting Sun (M-716) and Detonating Clay: C3 Ohako (J-746) make a sort of useful succession combo; however Detonating Clay: C1 Snake (J-743) can also take its place in this grouping. Like Detonating Clay: C3 Ohako, Snake is an Earth jutsu. However, by using it, you’ll probably come out with a more defensive stance. As I said in the Detonating Clay Mines and C2 Dragon article, Earth attributed decks often form a good basis for defensive maneuvers. While some players might feel that defense is unnecessary, and prefer to play from an offensive-only, this is often foolish. If you have no cards left to mount an offense because you had no way of protecting them, then you’ll quickly loose.
The Pledge Under a Setting Sun mission card will mess with an opponent’s chakra balance, and prevent them from mounting an effective offense if they play very chakra heavy attacks. Moreover, when properly paired with a water ninja this card brings back some discards of yours into the chakra area. This can be a great way to stall for time and build up a better position at the same time. Of course, the more copies of the card you have, the better. Deck building models built around this concept will surely stress that fact.
While Pledge Under a Setting Sun stalls you time, Detonating Clay: C1 Snake will hold off any further offensive material that your opponent might try to mount at you. It targets an opposing jutsu in play and negates it, moving that card to the bottom of the owner’s deck. This can remove a particularly tenacious jutsu card from play, which is especially useful if you’re unable to defeat something any other way. Perhaps this is best thought of as a sort of defensive screen from which to act behind.
Many Magic players take magic more like a board game than a card game. By that I mean they try to get the best pieces and play them in the best way possible. They work toward the strongest interactions in order to overcome their opponents.
Sounds like Magic right? Well if you look at the game from another angle, there is the card playing aspect. In that light, magic has a great deal in common with Poker.
It doesn’t matter what card you have in your hand, a well placed bluff can keep an opponent off balance, playing cards more or less aggressively than they need to, despite having the cards to win.
There are all kinds of cues we puck up in the backs of our heads which could tell us about what the other player’s choices could be. The first tip, is don’t look at your cards the whole time. It’s difficult to read a book, when your aren’t looking at the pages.
Next tip, know your tell. If you have a nervous tick that you just can’t control, then try to keep it going all the time. Or try to use it randomly. This seems like basic logic, but they are things one must keep in their heads often, if not all the time.
But to keep it short, the best players aren’t just good at choosing decks and playing creatively. They play their opponents as much as their opponents decks. So keep your heads up and see what you can figure out. Good luck and good hunting.
The Masters Edition IV is set to be released soon, and if you’re not familiar, it is an online-only version of cards that were originally printed in previous sets. These cards run the gambit from all the way back to antiquities to the more recent Portal. The cards will have their original style frames.
All told, the set will have 269 cards and random premium cards. They go on sale online starting January 10, 2011. If you’re curious (and you play the online game) you can purchase a booster pack for $3.99 in the Magic Online store.
Pledge Under a Setting Sun (M-716) and Detonating Clay: C3 Ohako (J-746) go together quite well. While once again not exactly combos in the way that one would usually think of combos, the Series 19 Path of Pain cards have several jutsu and mission cards that can be mixed and matched pretty well together. By properly combining these cards together in one deck, several quality maneuvers can be attempted.
This match up is particularly useful if you prefer to play a mixed type deck, and have both water and earth cards featured heavily. Ohako is going to require Earth to enter, and has a relatively high entrance cost of 5. However, the C3 chakra is going to simply rip through a cheap opposing army. It gives two damage to any ninja who has an entrance cost of two or less. Therefore, anyone who plays against people who strategically field large, but inexpensive forces will be able to tear them apart.
As if damaging them physically wasn’t enough, you can mess with their chakra balance by playing Pledge Under a Setting Sun afterwards. Make sure to pay the hand cost of the card with a water ninja so that you can get threw cards out of your discard pile. These are moved to the Chakra area. Then, for every copy of the card in your chakra area, remove one of your opponent’s Chakra.
If properly played, this sort of a tactic should really prevent your opposition from standing for very long. Players who know that they will soon be up against an opponent like this might want to keep a few copies of these cards, along with the appropriate shinobi, in a side deck. Of course, a Path of Pain combination set can also become the basis for a whole new type of deck building.
Hey,
In my last post, I covered Burning Land. Burning Land is a burn card which affects both players over each turn it stays in play, dealing 500 to a player during his or her standby phase. I’ve got an upgrade to Burning Land:
Dark Snake Syndrome is like Burning Land in that it is a continuous spell that deals damage to players. Damage is dealt to both players during the controller’s standby phase.
Over each turn, the damage produced from Dark Snake Syndrome increases exponentially. Here’s the breakdown:
1 Turn – 200
2 Turns – 400
3 Turns – 800
4 Turns – 1600
5 Turns -3200
Dark Snake Syndrome trades stability for raw damage. While it has the potential to kill an opponent quickly, it also has the same ability to kill you quickly.
The damage dealt to you from Dark Snake Syndrome is far too great for life gain. I strongly recommend playing with Des Wombat to negate the damage so that Dark Snake Syndrome is less of a risk. Des Wombat also provides a nice 1600 damage should it be needed.
A way to prevent attacks is also necessary. Dark Snake Syndrome needs a couple of turns for it to start dealing damage, so you must have a way to survive both the damage from Syndrome and from attacks. Standard stall cards such as Messenger of Peace, Gravity Bind, and Swords of Revealing Light card buys turns necessary for Dark Snake Syndrome to deal a significant amount of damage.
For the most part, Dark Snake Syndrome can be used in the same way Burning Land except that extra precautions must be taken for the damage dealt. This extra risk means that more damage can be dealt to the opponent. Killing your opponent faster means that he has less time to prepare a counter measure for your assault.
While I think it needs a deck dedicated to it, Dark Snake Syndrome is a great card to try if you enjoy high risk, high reward play.
There was a point where my favorite deck in the entire world was Zoo. It didn’t matter what kind of Zoo, what format, or what kinds of cards were available to me, I wanted to build a Zoo deck. The reason I loved it so much was inevitability. A good friend of mine, and excellent Magic the Gathering theorist Scott MacKenzie once said “Zoo has inevitability, and that is the way you have to play it. It will deal it’s damage one way or another.”
From that point on, I have thought about aggro decks like bombs. What do I need to happen to win? Do I need any specific card, or combinations of cards? Or do I just need to not have my board cleared? Do I need to clear a path? Can I just keep swinging and cross my fingers?
These are the questions which set apart a good aggro deck from a second rate aggro deck. It all boils down to your ability to apply pressure. Can the deck consistently apply pressure. So here are a few cards which apply pressure in standard right now.
Wurmcoil Engine is (at least in my area) referred to as the 6t Titan. The titans are all amazing, and apply a lot of pressure, but are expensive. I picked Wurmcoil Engine because it can soak up a piece of removal and still swing. It blows up almost anything in it’s path, and gains life, which can throw a wrench in an opponents game plan, and go through a lot of trouble, just like the rest of the Titans.
Vengevine is another All-Star when it comes to applying pressure. He comes back, he has hast, and wins games. He isn’t quite as good without Bloodbraid Elf and Ranger of Eos, but can still be a star, especially with Fauna Shaman.
In order to keep the list short, I’m going to skip to an old favorite of mine to wrap this up, Nantuko Shade. He costs BB, and pumps. The guy is amazing. Play him early, play him late, it doesn’t matter. Late game he can dodge removal, and can grind an opponent into the ground, because he is both efficiently costed and cheap to pump.
So freinds, when building a midrange or aggro deck, find a way to hang the sword of Damocles above your opponents head, and keep pressure. Good luck, and good hunting.
Tomorrow the premium deck, Fire & Lightning, will be released worldwide. For those who don’t know, the Fire & Lightning deck is a 60-card deck of all foil burning goodness. It’s a dream come true for all the red mages out there, filled with cards both old and new, all with the new frame.
The Magic site released the decklist some time back (8 November), and it is filled with the might of red. An interesting addition to the deck is Jackal Pup, who even got new artwork by Kev Walker.
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On another note, as I went through the product list on the Magic site, I couldn’t help but notice another deck that is awaiting release. Knights vs Dragons. The release date is set for 1 April 2011, (I just hope this isn’t an April Fools joke) and I really can’t wait.
Both Knights and Dragons have always had a special place in my heart, so having them both in one product seems like a great idea to me. Plus, the epic pitting of these arch enemies is sure to produce some awesome battles.
It will probably be a while before any decklists are revealed, but when they do, I’ll let you guys know.
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That’s it from me. Fire & Lightning is coming out soon, then the Knights vs Dragons much later. Both of these are pretty awesome and I’m glad to see Wizards creating such clever products. Hm.
Today is Tuesday. Its not as bad as Monday, but it isn’t as good as Wednesday. But I’ve found there is one thing that always brightens up a Tuesday, Rock Decks.
Rock has been my favorite deck type for as long as I’ve known about it. I played Gifts Rock a few years ago at a PTQ and I fell in love. With so many ways to put out tokens right now, Rock could be back in a big way, but what makes Rock, THE Rock.
Rock, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is a midrange deck, which uses board presence and card advantage to keep opponents off their game plan. Usually it is a black/green deck. There have been variations with as many as 4 colors (Like Gifts Rock).
So, the old Rock decks used Phyrexian Plague Lord and tokens, sacrifices them to deal with creatures. So, what do we have to create tokens and deal with creatures?
So, we have great token generators in things like Awakening Zone, which double as mana excel, or anything else which makes those 0/1 mana producing tokens.
So what way do we have to do with all those 0/1 tokens? Furnace Celebration. So we can sac a 0/1 token for a mana, then pay an extra one, and do 2 damage? Wow, that sounds fun!
Blowing up opponents creatures is an amazing feeling right? So, the trick is to give it some push, or keeping an opponents board clear is going to keep you going very slowly. So here are a few extra fun bits for you all to think about.
Mimic Vat and Emrakul’s Hatcher is a great way to put on the pressure, and make a ton of tokens. Think about the kind of card advantage that can net.
But for this installment of Rock Tuesday, I have to give credit to a great player named Jon Denney who was the one to show me this interaction.
So good luck friends, and good Hunting
So, with a new set coming and a few new and interesting mechanics to explore, there are a few oldies but goodies. There is Sligh, there is Goblins, There is Big Red, there is U/W Control, and my personal favorite archtype, Mono Black Control, or MBC. We haven’t seen it be competitive since… Odyssey?
Sure, I could post a deck list, but that isn’t really the point I’m trying to make. I want to get the feel of MBC across, so you can all go out and make your own.
So, what does Control do? Well, in short a control deck wants to lock its opponents out. It wants to keep it’s opponents from be able to really do anything. So, what does black have? Black has discard, which generates great card advantage. Case in point is Mind Sludge, have your opponent pitch a card for each swamp you control.
That by itself isn’t likely to win you a game. But with the creatures available, you can keep opponents off the board. Skinrender and Gatekeeper of Malakir. Deal with a creature, and get a creature. Good stuff. So chances are they will need to use a card to take care of your creatures, so two for one for your creatures? Yes please!
MBC basically works by punching your opponents basic tools, like hand and board position. So, how do you create a lock by being aggressive? The short answer is bombs. Anything you can put in the deck to swing the game is good.
Just like an aggro deck, control decks have a curve as well. The curve is very different, but still necessary. Why, you ask? Because having a hand full of 3 drops is great for about 3 turns, then your not likely to be able to get the most out of your mana.
MBC is a lot like a tempo deck. It wants to use as much of its mana as often as possible. Its a tap out kind of control, not like the counter heavy blue control decks of old.
What the deck is really about is upsetting opponents. Think of all those black cards you have used, or have been used against you over the years, put them in one deck, and imagine your frusteration. Like someone playing Kokusho, swinging next turn, playing death cloud for 5, having been put at 10 by Sorin Markov. While none of those cards are even in Extended anymore, I think you get the idea.
MBC wins by putting the game out of reach for an opponent. So, when creating MBC ask yourself, how are you going to put the game out of reach? What are you playing against? What do you have available? And most importantly, why are you staying mono black?
The last consideration I had when building mono black was what artifacts to put in. Depending on how the deck works, you might want to run Phylactery Lich which needs artifacts, or you may want to take advantage of proliferate mechanics, or even use poison counters!
MBC is wide open right now, but it could have a break out season, we just need a few more ingenious people working on it. Good luck friends, and good hunting.
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