Inspiration For This Report, and/or, Who To Blame (if it comes down to that)
I am submitting this article for three reasons which are: [1] I had a great time at the Planeshift Prerelease and wanted to share, [2] I was inspired by this article by Jason Dooley at http://www.7towers.net/articles/012501Dooley.htm, who admonishes us to record our Magic experiences unabashedly, regardless of how scrubby we are as players, or how skilled we are as writers, and [3] I mouthed off to FrigginRizzo about his 7th Edition Review and was quoted in his follow-up article at http://www.starcitygames.com/php/
news/expandnews.php?Article=1212. If you must know what I said, search his article on the string ‘Yet Another Net Reader Guy.’ I wrote some smartypants remark about the length of the article, and the seemingly lucrative prospect of getting paid by the word. Part of John’s point in his followup was that if you are going to criticize, you should at least write something yourself. So here goes nothin’.
In light of all that, if you do not like THIS report, your options include, but are not limited to: [1] you may lament my luck at getting the great cards that fueled my successful day, [2] you may scorn the opponents who failed to beat me, or [3] you may complain to Jason and FrigginRizzo for encouraging this little experiment in prose. In any case, write an article of your own, and send it in to "-the Ferrett". Come to think of it, if he let this thing get published, perhaps the editor himself deserves some blame also. Yeah, that’s it, blame "-the Ferrett". Even if this doesn’t get published, blame the "-the Ferrett"; you can bet I will! (Heck, I’m blaming myself right now — The Ferrett, with a CAPITALIZED "T")
What I Am Writing About
And now, the actual article.
It was bound to happen sooner or later, if only by the law of averages, but I actually had a great record at a sanctioned tournament after many previous dismal showings. In fact I had my best day of Magic ever while playing in the Planeshift Prerelease run by Aztlan Promotions at the **Costa Mesa Women’s Club in Southern California. My previous best prerelease record was 3-2, and that was rocky, with most rounds going to three games. The Saturday of the prerelease, however, everything went my way. My record was 4-1 in matches, and 8-2 in games, finishing well enough in a large field to win half a box of Planeshift boosters. I was quite a sight after picking up my prize, as I triumphantly held my bounty high overhead. I felt like a victorious gladiator. Sure I looked silly, but no telling when would I get another chance to celebrate a great day of Magic with such exuberance.
What I Got
1 Power Armor
1 Spite/Malice
1 Recover
1 Magma Burst
1 Dromar’s Charm
1 Crosis’s Charm
1 Crosis, the Purger
1 Firescreamer
1 Glimmering Angel
1 Tolarian Emissary
3 Disciple of Kangee
1 Stormscape Battlemage
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Shivan Zombie
1 Nightscape Familiar
2 Thunderscape Familiar
1 Capashen Unicorn
1 Obsidian Acolyte
1 Faerie Squadron
1 Duskwalker
1 Tranquility
1 Insolence
1 Zap
1 Overload
1 Singe
1 Gainsay
1 Confound
1 Prohibit
1 Phantasmal Terrain
1 Traveler’s Cloak
1 Rushing River
2 Sisay’s Ingenuity
1 Shoreline Raider
1 Vodalian Merchant
1 Urborg Shambler
1 Goham Djinn
1 Bog Initiate
1 Spreading Plague
3 Sinister Strength
2 Bog Down
1 Rogue Kavu
1 Scarred Puma
1 Chaotic Strike
1 Turf Wound
1 Keldon Mantle
1 Explosive Growth
1 Skyshroud Blessing
2 Gaea’s Might
1 Nomadic Elf
1 Kavu Climber
1 Pincer Spider
1 Thornscape Familiar
3 Pygmy Kavu
1 Thornscape Battlemage
2 Honorable Scout
1 Recoil
1 Restrain
1 Teferi’s Care
1 Strength of Unity
1 Surprise Deployment
1 Heroic Defiance
1 Aura Blast
1 Tribal Flames
1 Rith’s Charm
1 Llanowar Knight
1 Gerrard’s Command
1 Angelic Shield
1 Armored Guardian
1 Natural Emergence
1 Yavimaya Barbarian
1 Voracious Cobra
2 Hull Breach
1 Forsaken City
1 Dromar’s Cavern
6 Swamp
6 Island
6 Mountain
6 Plains
6 Forest
1 Archaeological Dig
1 Tinder Farm
1 Irrigation Ditch
To save the excitement of opening the Planeshift boosters, I started by cracking the Invasion tourney pack. I knew it was going to be a great day when one of my rares was Crosis, the Purger. I have opened two boxes of Invasion so far and have only pulled one dragon legend – and that was only a Treva. Pulling the Crosis was a great way to start the day! I should not ‘dis’ Treva, though, because I really like all dragons. I don’t care if that makes me a scrub, or if it makes you want to call me "Timmy, Power Gamer"; I’ve been called worse. In fact, I like dragons so much that I encourage you to send me all your spare dragons. Dragons rule!
Back to the cards, the starter also produced a Firescreamer, a Glimmering Angel, and a Recover. These first two I like because of their respective pumpability and untargetability. I might normally have bypassed the Recover, despite the fact that I like graveyard recursion. However, I could not bear the thought of perhaps losing my Crosis to the graveyard with no way to get it back.
More support in the form of first-turn drops came from Duskwalker and Fairie Squadron. I hoped to drop these early, deal some damage, and bounce them back using some as-yet-TBD gating creature to bounce and recast with kicker. Oh, TBD stands for ‘to be determined’. Sorry for the acronym, but I am an engineer and I can’t help it; we always use acronyms. Actually, I am a right-brained engineer, but that is another story. Rounding out the starter pack was a Power Armor. The Armor allowed me to consider going with a fourth color for the +1/+1 boost it gives for each basic land type I control.
Now on to the boosters. For non-basic land, I got a Forsaken City and a Dromar’s Cavern. Having white mana available from this lair opened the door for consideration of white as my last color. Then along came two support cards that really made the case for white; Stormscape Battlemage, and Disciple of Kangee. The abilities these provide (life-gain/terror and, gives flying/makes blue respectively) as well as their synergy with my other colors and cards would really work well in this deck. I could kick the Battelmage with W to gain three life if need be, and the Disciple could give flying to one of my creatures, or turn an opponent’s black creature blue to get some black removal through.
My favorite gating creature of the day was Cavern Harpy. A Sideboard preview article on this creature made its ‘drawbacks’ sound bad – I disagree. This little bugger, who happens to fly and casts for only B/U, has the drawback of bouncing creatures back to my hand. Since I have the Faerie Squadron and the Duskwalker that I might like to bounce and recast with kicker, this drawback sounded good to me. In addition, I like the fact that if the Harpy gets in jam he can be returned to my hand for the cost of just one life.
To continue the streak of good luck, I also got Charms for both Crosis and Dromar. Then several Familiars showed up to add to the fun – Nightscape to make red and blue spells one colorless cheaper, and Thunderscape do the same for black and green spells. Last card to mention is Spite/Malice. Obviously, I was fortunate to get great cards to build from.
What I built
1 Power Armor
1 Spite/Malice
1 Recover
1 Magma Burst
1 Dromar’s Charm
1 Crosis’s Charm
1 Crosis, the Purger
1 Firescreamer
1 Glimmering Angel
1 Tolarian Emissary
2 Disciple of Kangee
1 Stormscape Battlemage
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Shivan Zombie
1 Nightscape Familiar
2 Thunderscape Familiar
1 Capashen Unicorn
1 Obsidian Acolyte
1 Faerie Squadron
1 Duskwalker
1 Forsaken City
1 Dromar’s Cavern
4 Swamp
4 Island
4 Mountain
4 Plains
The results I got:
I am not going to go through a round-by-round description of play, because it would just be a lot of – "…first I did this, and then my opponent did this other thing, and then I did something else, but not before he did something else in response to my response to his response." I will say, though, that the one match I lost was to R/G. Anyway, the real fun of the day – and the point of this article – was the deckbuilding process itself and the good fortune I received in the mix of cards I pulled. To top it off and to add to the overall fun factor, I played the deck well enough to earn a winning record and take home some coveted product as a prize. Believe me, this goes a long way if you are used to scrubbing out after the third round. Winning feels better than losing. With that being said, I do not have to be winning all the time to have fun. If that were the case, I would have pitched my cards to the wind, and quit a long time ago.
MVP
Crosis, the Purger – it was brutal when my opponent had no immediate answer, and I got six through, used the ability, and ‘guessed’ wrong, only to deal six again the next turn and clean out their hand. Ouch!
Best Supporting Actor
Cavern Harpy – came in handy many times, in many different ways. In addition to the ‘bounce and recast’ aspect of gating, I find it very useful to be able to replace a tapped creature that I had just used in an attack with an untapped one; this, of course, results in having another blocker available for my opponent’s upcoming turn. In the case of the Harpy, I got a reusable flying chump blocker, since I could always return him to may hand for the cost of only one life.
My Favorite Artifact
Power Armor – several times I had four different basic lands out, and was able to get ten through with a Power-Armor-Assisted-Crosis!
My Favorite Instant
Magma Burst – 3R, Instant, Planeshift Common
Kicker-Sacrifice two lands.
Magma Burst deals 3 damage to target creature or player. If you paid the kicker cost, Magma Burst deals 3 damage to another target creature or player.
I think this speaks for itself.
My Favorite Land
Hard to choose, but using Forsaken City and Dromar’s Cavern together was a lot of fun. Tap the City for whatever color you want, then play the Cavern to gate the City, thus avoiding the discard price to untap the City on a later turn. This came in handy several times.
My Favorite Sorcery
Recover worked great in this deck, because I did not have to worry all that much about losing Crosis once and for all. It is also very demoralizing to your opponent to return a heavy hitter to your hand right after they might have just spent their best removal spell on it.
Summary
Well, that is the story of my great day of Magic. I really had a lot of fun and I enjoyed playing each of my opponents.
Before I signoff I want to thank Jan for cutting up the grapefruit that I took along for breakfast, and for listening to all my Magic stories. I hope you enjoy the Foil Hippo – and don’t worry, we’ll complete your set of foil split cards soon!
Looking forward to Apocalypse (wow, that sounds weird, huh?)…
Have fun playing Magic, but don’t use cheesy cards like Vexing Arcanix or Maze of Ith… Crooked Scales is pretty cheesy also! And I almost forgot; am I ever sorry I introduced Armadillo Cloak to my casual multiplayer playgroup!
Michael Jay LaRue
Artist/Engineer Legend
Proud member of Team AWAALLJALOOM
* – Note that this is a pretty standard title; however, if I ever get published here again, I am going to call the next article ‘Adult Supervision #2’. This article would then be posthumously known as ‘Adult Supervision #1’ in a manner of speaking. This choice of a title has its roots in my most enjoyable play format, which is casual multiplayer. My playgroup is composed of adults only, by choice, and we are all compatible with the Team AWAALLJALOOM player profile. Note that we have nothing against kids really. However, we find the cussing, the fighting, and the throwing of cards to be particularly unbecoming, and as such we do not want to expose these behaviors to the youngsters.
** – As an aside, if you want to see the world’s smallest men’s room, visit any Magic event at the Costa Mesa Women’s Club. Aztlan Promotions does a great job running the pre-release tournaments there. However, the restroom facilities for a crowd that regularly exceeds 250, are ridiculously inadequate. Case in point – the 2 urinals (that’s right, there are only two) are separated on the same wall by no more than one inch. Two guys cannot stand side-by-side and attend to business without pressing shoulders with the adjacent wall on one side, and their ***co-urinator on the other side. Don’t even get me started on the smallness of the commode and its stall. Suffice it to say, one can not sit down, or later stand up without banging one’s head on the stall door. Note that where I come from, both sitting down, and standing up are required motions for this activity, unless of course you are very strange. In any case, the name of the facility should have been a tipoff to me regarding the relative importance that might be placed on the comfort factor of the mens’ room; after all it is the Costa Mesa WOMEN’s Club. So take that all you magic player guys!
*** – first time use of this word in the whole history of human communication. Remember that you heard it here first; another crowning achievement for StarCity.
C:TEMPPlaneshift Pre-Release TR LaRue v1.doc