This is going to be a smorgasbord this week, as we’ve all gotten over our big Thanksgiving dinner of Magic 2010 and are adjusting our belts to hold all the Christmas ham coming in Zendikar.
(I realize that having a smorgasbord between Thanksgiving and Christmas seems counter-intuitive, but hey, you gotta keep eating. Ask any of those competitive-eating guys: keeping the stomach flexible and stretchy is the way to succeed.)
The Good: Planechase
The new casual multiplayer set comes out this weekend, and now we even have all of the Planes and all of the preconstructed decks spoiled, thanks to two weeks of info from the mothership. And while it certainly isn’t for the hardcore competitive gamer, I still think it’s a pretty great product – and a good deal, assuming it sticks at its MSRP of under twenty bucks.
(More on MSRP failings in a bit.)
The Planes seem to have a lot of variety to them, and I would assume that they would cause a LOT of game fluctuation, which is exactly what you want from a set like this. I dislike the “griefer” planes like The Eon Fog, which puts everyone under Stasis – but overall the set feels like it was designed for fun, and you always have the ability to at least attempt to escape a plane if it sucks.
The decks certainly seem like juiced-up preconstructed decks, which is about what I’d expect. The decks vary in their “decent rare” quotient; while Zombie Empire has Phyrexian Arena and Profane Command, Metallic Dreams gets Door to Nothingness and Bosh, Iron Golem.
Elemental Thunder seems like the pack I would go for. It’s ridiculously aggressive, it has great Planes to go along with it, plus who could pass up stuff like Verdant Force and Rumbling Slum? Plus, and I mean this seriously: LIVING HIVE!
This is a great gift choice as well for anyone who knows a casual player. The price is great, and it seems like the format is going to get a fair amount of support as we go forward. Zendikar Prereleases are going to give out Plane cards as promos, and I bet we’ll keep that trend for the foreseeable future.
The Bad: Sorin Markov
And by bad I mean the “good” bad, not the “bad” bad. It’s like when my grandmother does John Cena’s “You Can’t See Me” hand gesture before laying the smack down with an Overrun. It’s the “bad to the bone” kind of bad.
Last week, Wizards completed the reveal of the new vampire Planeswalker, Sorin Markov:
Sorin Markov
3BBB
Planeswalker – Sorin (M)
+2: Sorin Markov deals 2 damage to target creature or player and you gain 2 life.
-3: Target opponent’s life total becomes 10.
-7: You control target player’s next turn.
/4
As many of you know, I hold a special spot in my heart for Black-based control decks, and so Sorin Markov has me really excited. He does three things that Black control decks want to have in a high casting-cost item: one, a continuous source of damage and/or creature removal; two, a way to cut off lifegain and set the opponent on a quick clock; and three, an avenue to completely alter the game and change the advantage.
Yes, his casting cost is a little outrageous, especially considering the fact that we don’t have any Black mass removal spell outside of Infest, so Black-based control as an entire DECK still needs a bit of help from Zendikar. But Sorin is, in my opinion, enough of a reason to start at least thinking about the possibility.
4 Tendrils of Corruption
4 Doom Blade
4 Bituminous Blast
4 Duress
4 Sign in Blood
2 Corrupt
2 Mind Shatter
4 Black Knight
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Mountain
14 Swamp
Terminate over Doom Blade? Possibly. I think having a red source by turn five for Vitamin Blast is more likely than by turn two for Terminate, and you definitely want to maximize the number of Swamps you have for the Corruption Brothers. But it’s a good potential start.
I saw a Mono-Black “aggro” deck on the mothership today that used Vampire Nocturnus as a finisher / pumper. In this deck, it actually isn’t so bad of an idea, as every card is black, and pumping up your Knights and Hyppies sounds like fun.
The Ugly – From The Vault: Exiled
So the new From The Vault set released this past weekend and has dominated local conversation, mostly because due to the cards included, literally NO PLACE is selling this thing at MSRP.
I can understand that when you put together a set of foily cards that everyone wants, AND short-print the set, demand is going to be ridiculously high and prices will go up. Print half of them with new art, and you add a whole new set of interested parties into the mix.
But triple the MSRP? It’s like Magic was getting into the World Series for the first time, but Ticketmaster was only allocating a quarter of the seats for the game, and if you didn’t manage to get lucky online, you were stuck buying them from a scalper.
So why didn’t this happen with From The Vault: Dragons? Well, for one thing, the cards weren’t in as much demand. A foil Kokusho the Evening Star or an alternate-art Nicol Bolas is nice and all, but compared to the contents of FTV-E, it’s a Yugo among Beemers. On the singles market, Berserk alone ($49.99 here at StarCityGames.com) was enough to justify the price. Then when you add in things like alternate-art Balance, first-time-in-foil Mystical Tutor, and alternate-art Necropotence …
… Well, let’s just say Wizards is printing money.
The real thing that chafes my thighs is that they’re not printing money for themselves. Will this box set influence new players to try out some of the old formats where these cards are relevant? Will we see an upswing in Vintage tournament attendance because little Johnny has a Berserk he can play in his Mono-Green Elf deck? Seems doubtful. This set is aimed at people who already play older formats – and who (ostensibly) are willing to spend hundreds of bucks to pimp out their decks. A larger printing might have promoted interest in the format.
I’m probably not going to bother looking to see if I can snatch one at a decent price. By virtue of being a player with a long and storied history in the game, I think I have a single version of each and every one of the cards. Sure, the new Strip Mine art is pretty hot, but I’m okay knowing I have old black-bordered ones that came out of an Antiquities booster pack.
Makes me seem a lot cooler than if I had paid a hundred bucks for it.
(Well, in my mind, anyway.)
Back to Good: Wizards Social Networking Community
I went and checked out the new Wizards “social networking” site that opened in Beta last week. Seems like a fun little thing. I try and post updates to Facebook when I’m at a PTQ, but I always get the feeling that nine-tenths of my Facebook friends have no real interest in whether I played Jund last round, or if I’m 0-2 draft. They probably have no idea what it means.
I get the feeling it will be nice if I’m doing traveling and want to find a place to, say, play FNM. I was in Seattle a few months back and just happened to walk past a store that ran FNM. If I had known the store was there, and maybe some of the locals, I would have brought a deck and tried to fit it into my schedule.
But it may just be one more electronic outlet that I post to just to read my own writing.
SMS Of The Week
“Yawgmoth’s Will is banned, isn’t it?”
Local hero and Doran pusher Randy Tempelaar, asking about specific cards in Elder Dragon Highlander. My guess is that he was asking because he had just gotten wrecked by one, as Yawgmoth’s Will is wont to do. I think that’s even the flavor text.
“My name is Yawgmoth. I’m here for your face.”
Reader Feedback
I received this email after last week’s article:
“Hey Dave. Enjoyed the article today and just wanted to thank you for reminding me it’s possible to remain competitive with a family and an inability to playtest 25 hours a day.”
The thing I try and always keep in the forefront of my mind is that it’s a hobby. If I ever started feeling like I was pressured on performance or pushed to practice continuously, I’d just find another hobby. I’m sure I could find someone who would buy my collection for the price of a new mountain bike.
Or, more realistically, a La-Z-Boy recliner.
One of the things I did over on the Wizards Community is start a group called the First Husband’s Club. Ideally, it would be a place where people like myself could bounce deck ideas and card thoughts off of other people with the same family status and free time availability. No pressure. No time commitment. No hundreds of playtest games required. To all those husbands and dads out there — this club’s for you.
Next Week
Labor Day Weekend signifies the beginning of the Zendikar “official” previews, and hopefully we’ll have enough to talk about by then. The major mechanic has already been spoiled thanks to the preview cards from GenCon, so look forward to a whole new year of Kicker puns.
Until next week…
Dave
dave dot massive at gmail and davemassive at twitter and facebook