Monday, March 16th – Joshhg asks:
Joshhg (From Our Forums):
I have a question. Will you go back and go over cards which readers have suggested, and ones you skipped over, in one big article at the end of the series?
Indeed, I will! In fact, that’s the whole point of this final article in the Casual Player’s Bargain-Hunting Guide — to talk about what people asked about!
Thing is, going through as much of Magic’s history as I have, there are a lot of cards. Everyone has favorites, but the amazing thing about Magic continues to be how many playables are out there. Unlike, say, Yu-Gi-Oh, which focuses around super-rare hard-to-find cards, you can find a buildable, competitive deck in almost every set. (You may not win against a more rare-centric deck, but it won’t collapse out from under you.)
So let’s go over the feedback before I close out what may be the longest themed series in Magic’s history!*
Alkaron pointed out that Braingeyser (which, at roughly $2.50, I recommended weakly) was functionally reprinted in Mind Spring ($1.00 at the time of this article), with one critical difference: Braingeyser can target other players, but Mind Spring can’t.
That’s a difference that comes in handy once in a while; in general, you want Stroke of Genius for your infinite-mana combo kills, but if you’re not willing to drop four bucks on a card, then the Geyser may serve. But while I keep a Braingeyser singleton in my long-standing U/R control deck (which also packs Stroke of Genius), I have occasionally used it to deck people.
In any case, Mind Spring? Not recommended, because if you’re just looking to draw cards, there are better options.
Phil_standen asks about two cards that I did not actually rate:
Flexibility: 3
Price: 8
Overall: 4
I’m not a fan of Ophidian in multiplayer. Lacking any evasion on its own, it’s good in the early game (when someone’s lagging behind and you can get in a quick hit), but bad in a later, stabilized game — which is when you most need the cards!
If I was going for something like that, I’d go with Shadowmage Infiltrator — which was a little too expensive and too underpowered to be a real casual bargain of note, but does a lot better than Ophidian.
Now, folks will doubtlessly claim that when you have the bounce, Ophidian’s a strong card… But I don’t like cards that require the presence of other cards to be stellar. I want cards that stand well on their own. Ophidian had its day, back when we had enough mono-Blue cards to counter and bounce everything in a duel. But you can’t counter everything in multiplayer (try as you might), and expending cards to clear a path so you can presumably draw more bounce cards strikes me as being a suboptimal strategy.
Flexibility: 7
Price: 3
Overall: 5
Thing about Mana Vault is that yes, it is quick mana. And at a solid cost. But in multiplayer, catapulting ahead of everyone with a second-turn Spiritmonger will generally be met with fierce resistance by the rest of your opponents. And if that happens, that life a turn can be a surprisingly grievous handicap.
So while Sol Ring was a 9, Mana Vault is a 7 in Flexibility; it’s great for combo decks that need a lot of mana for an explosive turn, and great in certain decks that can make good usage of that early mana without attracting too much attention, but it’s by no means an automatic in every deck.
Njx suggested…
Flexibility: 4
Price: 8
Overall: 4
Well, it’s from Planar Chaos — a little outside the boundaries of our discussion — but I don’t Rough / Tumble all that much for multiplayer. It’s not flat-out awful, but the sorcery speed hurts things. And while it’s delightful to wipe out Dragons, the expense of spending six mana to get it ties up a lot at Sorcery speed.
I’d rather have a Pyroclasm, which kills everything. Yeah, you can’t kill dragons with it, but clearing the skies and the ground is more than worth it.
Sambrookjm asked about…
Lim-Dul’s Vault
Flexibility: 5
Price: 3
Overall: 5
Once again, we really have a great choice for a combo deck; the ability to set up your next five turns is something that generally only works if you’re looking to assemble the pieces for some explosive set of things. For that it is extremely efficient, well worth having, and in the two colors you’re most likely to try to combo out of. But if for some reason you have a W/G combo, it’s probably not worth it to include this in your deck.
Artandge wonders about…
Flexibility: 4
Price: 9
Overall: 4
While it’s lovely having a buyback burn spell, that additional three mana cost really hurts; when you’re paying six mana to do a single damage, it doesn’t seem efficient. Now, assuming you’re routinely getting to ten mana in your casual games, hey! Go for it. But for most of us, what you wind up with is a very affordable card that is generally an overpriced, limited Fireball.
Honestly, I’d prefer Titan’s Revenge for this, since it’ll have a chance of returning to your hand more often.
Zzzsleep mentions that my love of Spike Cannibal — which I’ve never been able to use effectively in multiplayer despite years of trying — might finally be justified with the addition of Sheltering Ancient. Let Sheltering Ancient’s upkeep grant your opponents huge amounts of +1/+1 counters, then yank ‘em back with the Cannibal!
The problem is, of course, that you have to survive those counters long enough to make it worthwhile. And even when you do manage to fire it off, you wind up with a triggered effect that goes something like this:
“Spike Cannibal?”
“Sure.”
“Effect on the stack, Shock it before it gets the counters.”
“Boo.”
And when you get the Cannibal, you may have something huge, but in the end it has no evasion. So a Drudge Skeleton may foil your entire day.
I know all of this. And yet, somehow, the weak cry of my inner Johnny wants to see this combo work anyway, because it’d be awesome.
Judah mentions that Crusading Knight is far better than Marauding Knight (both of which I recommended for multiplayer use) because you can make a Crusading Knight absolutely bombtastically huge with the addition of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. As an added bonus, since laying a land doesn’t use the stack, your opponents won’t be able to respond to it, so you’re almost guaranteed to get in a free attack with a gigantic bonus. I like it.
Hival says:
“I went back through the previous articles looking for a reference to Flood, but couldn’t find one. I figure it’s really worth mentioning if you’re doing duels or multiplayer battles and someone lands a big ol’ fattie on the table that nobody wants to experience. It’ll catch Colossi off guard and it lands very early in the game and ends up looking innocuous. It’s a blue answer to creatures that can get multiple ones at a time, and it’s splashable in other blue-heavy aggro-y decks that want to tap down blockers or stop the counterattack.”
Interestingly, I’m not a fan of the Flood — well, I am, but only if it’s the album with “Birdhouse in your Soul” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).” Yes, it’s cheap, but two Blue mana to tap a single creature is very inefficient in multiplayer game. It might well be okay in a duel, but tap effects are generally underwhelming in multiplayer.
Why? Well, the problem with tap effects is that you want to use them for one of two reasons: Either you’re looking to tap a dude to get through for damage, or you’re looking to tap a dude to prevent it from attacking. The first works well in multiplayer, the second doesn’t.
See, by the time attackers are declared, it’s too late to actually tap them. Which means that you have to tap before they tell you who they’re attacking. In duels, hey! They’re always coming at you. There’s no one else! But in multiplayer, Anthony could very well want to go after Janet.
Which means that you’re left with an ugly choice: Either act prematurely, tapping Anthony’s creature and annoying him because you’re getting in his way of bashing Janet… Or let it go, and discover all too late that whoops, he was planning on attacking you.
Add two mana to the cost of such uncertainty, and you find something I’m distinctly against.
Vault Ninja asks: “Why do you rate Twisted Abomination over Eternal Dragon?”
The answer is easy: While Eternal Dragon is better than the A-bomb in many ways, there are two very significant ways in which it is worse:
It is far more expensive (currently $5.00 as opposed to A-Bomb’s $0.25), making it a much better bargain, and:
White has any number of ways to fetch lands, whereas Twisted Abomination is fairly unique among Black (or at least was before Absorb Vis was printed).
White has Land Tax, Tithe, Knight of the White Orchid, Oath of Lieges, and Weathered Wayfarer to get its land — and though Land Tax and Tithe haven’t seen print in a while, they’re so powerful that I’ve recommended you all get your hands on them. Whereas Black has very few ways of getting its land. Yes, Eternal Dragon is good, but it’s ultimately more replaceable for its color — at the time I wrote it, Black had the A-Bomb and that was about it.
(And yes, you can use a Vampiric Tutor and such to fetch a land, but that seems like such a waste.)
Sambrookjm mentions that Shepherd of Rot and Tombstone Stairwell, both of which were recommended at the time, go well together. Dude, it’s peanut butter and chocolate, Rice Krispies and milk! What a fantastic idea. Y’all should do that.
ScrappyKid says:
“Aether Snap kills Planeswalkers as well as Tokens, which I would imagine is relevant in some playgroups.”
Yes, it does. I haven’t really seen Planeswalkers dominating multiplayer groups thus far, but Aether Snap’s counter-removing ability does off Magic’s latest card type. So if that’s the case, bump it up a point or two. And for really, really cheaply.
Marc-Andre says:
“I already had a Heartless Hidetsugu deck with Circle of Protection: Red, and I tried to stick Spirit Links on him but they got Disenchanted. A friend of mine suggested the use of Paladin of Pravh. Forecast is a lot harder to handle than an typical Aura, and it’s pretty idiotic how much life you can gain with that Hidetsugu.”
In general, trying to Johnny up a Heartless Hidetsugu into some combo of infinite life strikes me as being a fool’s voyage; yeah, you’ll do it, but a Hidetsugu is enough of a threat already. Add seventy life a turn onto that card, and everyone will gun for you… Or, rather, they’ll gun for your 4/3, which isn’t too hard to do.
That said, if you are going to do it, Paladin of Pravh is probably the most solid way of making it happen, and I like it.
Ken says:
“Vanishing is a fun complement to Coalition Honor Guard.”
Ya know, it probably is.
Signing off,
The Ferrett
TheFerrett@StarCityGames.com
The Here Edits This Site Guy
* – Series like “Casual Fun” may well have run for longer, but they were very loosely-themed. Whereas this is a very tightly-themed, going over a specific subset of Magic cards. If there’s a series that’s been this devoted to any aspect of Magic and has run for more than fourteen instalments, trust me, I want to know.