Monday, December 22nd – Urza and Invasion Block have so many casual gems that it’s going to take three articles to find all of the cheap, effective cards you can use to devastate your local multiplayer group! Here’s the middle installment, just in time for Christmas – and a poll to see how much further we should go!I am headed out to California to visit my relatives. By the time you see this, I’ll be in transit. So Merry Christmas to you all — and I hope Santa brings you some of these great, cheap, and casual cards from Urza, Masques, and Invasion Block!
Lifeline ($3.00)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 4
Overall: 6
Anthony Alongi once called Lifeline the most irritating deck in multiplayer — but for good or for ill, the power of Lifeline’s pretty much been forgotten. That’s a shame, since it goes so nicely with an indestructible creature or two to make sure no one can stop your Lifelining fun.
The core of a Lifeline deck is:
a) Creatures with good “comes into play” abilities;
b) Some form of sacrifice effect;
c) Lifeline.
My deck uses guys like Radiant’s Dragoons, Avalanche Riders, Karmic Guide, and Yavimaya Grangers to gain life, kill lands, recur critters, and thin your deck, with the added bonus that because they all have echo, they die automatically at EOT without me having to do anything. However, I also do have Goblin Bombardment to sacrifice anything and do damage, Spore Frog (a.k.a. “Fog frog”) to shut down the combat step, and some guys that get me back artifacts. They die thanks to sacrifice or just plain me not paying their echo costs — and thanks to Lifeline, they come back and do their CIP work all over again.
Eventually, I wind up gaining a bazillion life, pinging people every turn, destroying their lands one by one, and slowly forcing a concession. It works. And nobody expects it. And it’s fun, in a sorta-bizarre way, because on rare occasions your opponents can out-Lifeline you, using its effects to their advantage.
I’m pretty sure I need to add Realm Razer to this deck, though. Just for kicksies.
Back to you, though; yeah, $12.00’s a fairly spendy investment for a “cheap” guide, but the fun you can have with the deck once you build it makes it a fun thing to have.
Lin-Sivvi, Defiant Hero ($1.50)
Flexibility: 3
Price: 6
Overall: 5
She used to be the bane of Standard and Block Constructed; now she’s a footnote. That’s Magic for you.
Still, Rebels are still an amazing choice in multiplayer, and Lin-Sivvi is the core of any Rebel deck. Once you spend the $6.00 to get a playset of her, you can tutor up a critter every turn at instant-speed at the end of everyone’s turn and then recurse them for three mana a shot, which makes for a damn flexible deck. And if you do a Master Spoiler search for “Rebel,” you’ll see all the guys you can get — there’s a huge toolbox available, and most of them are dirt-cheap.
F’r example, Recursing Lawbringer and Lightbringer takes some time, but can be devastating against ugly big dragons and demons, and you can buy further time with Nightwind Glider and Thermal Glider. Aven Riftwatcher will get you four life a turn if it’s stopping a blocker. Big Game Hunter is frequently uncastable, but nobody sees it coming out of a White/Blue deck (assuming you have Brainstorm to shuffle it back in). Cho-Manno, Revolutionary laughs at all creatures, while Defiant Vanguard destroys ground-based blockers, and Shield Dancer does uglier things at times.
For twenty bucks and some low-priced Rebellion, you can build a darned strong deck in multiplayer; toss in a few counterspells and you have a solid control deck. What’s not to love?
Massacre ($0.50)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 7
Overall: 7
One of the better free spells in existence, Massacre gives all creatures -2/-2 — and it costs nothing if an opponent has a Plains. In multiplayer, some opponent is always going to have a Plains, making this one of the better cards printed for cleaning out weenie armies.
Meltdown ($0.40)
Flexibility: 5
Price: 7
Overall: 5
It’s not quite as potent as Shatterstorm – but on the other hand, you can ruin a casual Affinity deck’s day by casting this for three mana, wiping out their lands and a lot of their creatures a turn earlier than expected. If you can’t get Shatterstorm, get this.
Misdirection ($10.00)
Flexibility: 9
Price: 2
Overall: 3
At $40.00 for a playset, Misdirection’s at the upper end of any “bargain” price — but on the other hand, it comes in so amazingly handy in multiplayer that you start to wonder how you ever lived without it. Hijack those irritating Beacon of Immortalities to double your life totals instead, turn those Demonfires upon the player who’s irritating you the most, change that Terminate to point at a much better target, have your opponent steal a measly 1/1 token instead of your Darksteel Colossus.
And you can do it when you’re tapped out and everyone always thinks they’re safe. At $40, I’m not claiming it’s cheap at all, but if you’re looking to spend some serious dosh on a card that you’ll find infinite flexible uses for, this is pretty much it. Invaluable in any Blue casual deck.
Mother of Runes ($2.50)
Flexibility: 8
Price: 4
Overall: 5
When an uncommon card that never saw much tournament play is going for $2.50 a decade after it’s been released, that’s a sign that it’s very, very good. For the cost of a single White mana and living through the first turn’s summoning sickness, you can give any non-protected creature you own protection from any color.
That’s sweet. It also means that two Mothers working in conjunction make it damn near impossible to kill one of your guys unless people gang up on you. And even then, they generally face the ugly choice of, “Do I kill the guy I want to kill, or do I spend valuable removal to kill a measly 1/1 now that the gates are down?” And you’re always happy when they’re burning removal on a one-mana card.
Only global effects and colorless effects (like Ghostfire and Triskelion) can kill a pair of Moms, if you play it smart. That’s really nice. As such, these are great support cards in any weenie deck, allowing you to blitz past colored blockers, block colored blockers without trample all day long, and fizzle removal effects.
$10’s a bit steep, I grant you, but it is a $10 you’ll use a lot.
Multani’s Acolyte ($0.25)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 8
Overall: 6
At two Green, this isn’t going to find a home in anything but a mono-Green deck — but as an early two-drop that replaces itself and can kill a Grizzly Bear, it’s a slightly upcharged version of Elvish Visionary. Especially nice in conjunction with Priest of Titania, discussed below.
Multani, Maro-Sorcerer ($2.00)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 5
Overall: 6
My multiplayer group hates this card. If you can get it out early, you wind up paying six mana for a shrouded 30/30 dude who can’t be stolen or killed by traditional means. It gets even nastier if you do it on turn 3 with a Llanowar Elves and a Natural Order, creating a beatstick that’s going to hurt when it connects.
The downside is that it doesn’t have trample, and thanks to its shroud you can’t really give it trample barring something tricksy like Brawn in the graveyard, meaning that a Drudge Skeletons can block Multani all day long. But on turn 3, a Multani is such a powerhouse that people find it hard to deal with, meaning that you can kill the guys without Drudge Skeletons and then mop up afterwards.
It’s not the greatest card, but it is an invaluable addition to any “Toolbox Green” deck when you know your opponent’s going to steal or kill anything you cast. They can’t do it with this.
Nemata, Grove Guardian ($1.75)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 5
Overall: 6
If you’re looking for a solid token-generator, Nemata is particularly sweet, since she can churn out a large number of 1/1 tokens and then make them much, much bigger through the miracle of sacrifice. Gaea’s Cradle is a significant investment at this point, but it is worth noting that Nemata+Gaea’s Cradle gets really crazy in just a few turns, generally leading to death by weenie. Also noteworthy is a quasi-infinite combo with Mana Echoes and some sort of thing that can turn Red mana into Green.
Orim’s Thunder ($0.10)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 9
Overall: 8
The question of whether your deck needs artifact/enchantment removal or whether you should let the other n00bs kill them for you is one of the prime questions of multiplayer. However, if you have a W/R deck and you want enchantment/artifact removal, then this can severely punish those who like casting Triskelions and Darksteel Colossuses. (The Thunder won’t destroy the Colossus, but the secondary damage trigger will go off, making for a particularly bad time.)
Pernicious Deed ($9.00)
Flexibility: 9
Price: 2
Overall: 6
For my money, this is the best card ever printed for multiplayer. Yes, $9.00 is a lot. But if you ever play with B/G decks, this will go into it or UR DOING IT RONG. Hence, I recommend this.
Priest of Titania ($3.50)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 3
Overall: 6
If you have a casual Elf deck, this is the card that superpowers it without launching it into the Elf Combo area. It’s pretty easy to get up to sixteen mana with a pair of Priests and some other Elves, making for backbreaking plays when you get, say, Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, or a Vitalizing Wind, or something else that just wants a crap-ton of Green mana. Yeah, $14’s a fair amount, but once you play with these puppies you’ll see why all the other self-tappy Elf mana-producers (well, except for Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary) are inferior.
Radiant’s Judgment ($0.10)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 9
Overall: 8
You’d rather have Swords to Plowshares, of course, but that’s pricey. This costs less than half a buck for a playset of four, and it’ll destroy any large, non-regenerating thing that looks at you sideways, and it cycles when you don’t need it. That makes it a solid pick for almost any White deck.
Rancor ($2.00)
Flexibility: 8
Price: 5
Overall: 8
The $2.00 price tag for a common card should tell you that Rancor’s like salt; it makes any Green deck better. Seriously. Anything with creatures, Rancor makes more efficient.
You can turn a measly 1/1 into a 3/1 trampling threat, and attack, and who cares? You’ll get your Rancor back! If you’re lucky, you get the super-Rancor draw and then attack with a 9/1 trampling guy who you don’t care if he dies. And every other guy gets similarly supercharged.
At $8.00, it’s worth a playset. Every casual player who likes the combat phase should have a full four. Fo’sho. (Just don’t get all red-faced when someone destroys your guy in response to you casting Rancor and it goes to the graveyard. That’s jes’ the way the rules work, mang.)
Rhystic Study ($0.50)
Flexibility: 8
Price: 7
Overall: 7
Essentially, this reads, “Every player gives you an extra card unless they pay an extra mana. Which they frequently forget to do. Or don’t have.” So for three mana, you get an enchantment that will often get you five or six cards as everyone grudgingly goes, “Okay, you can have that.”
It’s not the kind of card where you want four of them, because all it does is draw slow cards and nothing else. But it’s a great two- or three-of in a Blue control deck, especially when someone wants to get into a counter war with you and has to choose between squeezing out the mana to cast extra Counterspells or handing you more potential Counterspells.
If you’re cutthroat, the value of this rises to a must-have, because people will forget in the chaos and fury and you can just yoink the card gratis. In more forgiving environs, you’ll have to ask whether they want to pay the mana. They usually will, but not always.
Rout ($3.00)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 4
Overall: 6
Wrath of God is a solid card. Instant Wrath of God for three more mana is an amazing option, because a) you can cast it at normal speed for less if you’re pressed for time, and b) politically, it benefits you because you can hold that Wrath until you know for sure that someone’s pointing their massive army at you. Why irritate people when you don’t have to?
Because it’s a Masques card, people forget that this card even exists. But it does, and for a cheap price you can teach them the lesson of why old cards are often awesome.
A Question For You All:
I’ll finish up this series through the end of Invasion Block next week — but the question is, how much further should I go? The interest in this series has been pretty darned high, ranking it among the more popular Casual series I’ve done, but are you getting tired of it? Some folks have emailed me, saying, “Go all the way to the end!”, but that’s silly; you know what’s a good Casual card now, and nobody’s forgotten about them. Still, Invasion was nine years ago. So we have another poll!
Signing off,
The Ferrett
TheFerrett@StarCityGames.com
The Here Edits This Site Here Guy