My mind is filled with a chaotic mass of signals and images, fresh from awakening from a series of bizarre dreams. My dreams never half-ass things anymore, like they used to – a long time ago in a land far, far away, my dreams when they came at all, would leave some clue or obvious flaw which would let me think "Okay, I’m just dreaming." Not so anymore. Probably because through the aid of copious amounts of vodka, I sleep longer than my insomnia ever previously allowed, which may also have something to do with my more vivid dreaming capabilities.
When I dream now, I can live out days, weeks, months of another life. Sometimes they’re quite entertaining, other times, terrifying. They’re like personal movies; sometimes I’ll be someone with a long-hidden, dark family secret, or another night I’ll be a werewolf or a Viking. Once in awhile, I’ll even mentally continue to be in a dream until a few minutes after I’ve physically woken up, and that is a totally eerie feeling, since for those few minutes, sometimes I have difficulty discerning between the dream and reality. This can throw me for a real loop if the dream didn’t include anything supernatural. Just this morning, I had a dream where I was someone stricken with amnesia trying to put their life back together, who kept a diary to help him try to remember new experiences, and when he’d read it, sometimes images – little snatches of memory – would blink across his mind in a very subliminal fashion. It was maddeningly frustrating, because the images would spark something in his mind, but they would be so fleeting it was all but impossible to give them any context. For example, one image was a hand-written note which said "I love you, Zach" but it was unsigned… he didn’t know who it was that loved him. An admirer? His mum? A classmate? It could have been anyone. Even after I woke up, I still saw several moments of subliminal-style images flashing for mere milliseconds across my mind’s eye. And since the last "scene" of the dream had Zach reading a diary in bed, and I was waking up in bed… the effect was very disconcerting. I’m not sure I can convey precisely how immersive the dream was. It was so thoroughly realistic that I’d have no trouble believing that somewhere, there is a Zach living exactly that life. I can recall the cornflower blue walls in the bedroom, the simple white of the bedsheets, the weight of the dairy in his hands. I can recall the strain of trying to remember experiencing the events described in the diary.
Maybe I should look for a non-alcoholic sleep aid, on an unrelated note.
The Burning Issue: To the Future and Beyond (WARNING: Contains spoilers)
So, information about Future Sight is slowly trickling in. We’ve got more in the way of teasers and nearly-confirmed rumors than actual cards thus far, however. There’s supposed to be some kind of unsolvable large Green fatties. Plural, as Talen reminds me. A cycle of spellshapers that make creature tokens. We’ve even got one spoiled; it makes Lawnmower Elf tokens. I’m thinking I’ve got a Standard Elf Tribal deck to do at some point. Of course, every time Slivers make a re-appearance, there’s a new hive leader. This one’s a doozy.
Sliver Legion WUBRG
Legendary Creature – Sliver
All Sliver creatures get +1/+1 for each other Sliver in play.
Hidden within the clicking, chittering swarm is a unique mind, still young, but growing more aware as time passes.
Illus. Ron Spears
7/7
Yeah, Sliver of Arms could be goodish. A lot of those smaller Slivers like Sidewinder look pretty good when you do something like Turn 1 Sidewinder, Turn 2 Gemhide, turn 3 Legion, turn 4 pick-a-four-drop (say, maybe Reflex Sliver) and swing for 23. Or maybe Essence Sliver, and do a 36 point life swing. And that’s just looking at G/W Slivers (aside from the Legion). Are Slivers risking being competitive in Standard for the first time since the original batch?
Another card we’ve seen is an interesting little common.
Sprout Swarm 1G
Instant
Convoke (Each creature you tap while playing this spell reduces its total cost by 1 or by one mana of that creature’s color)
Buyback 3 (You may pay an additional 3 as you play this spell. If you do, put this card into your hand as it resolves.)
Put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token into play.
Illus. Chippy
When I think of this and Locket of Yesterdays, my naughty bits get all tingly. Spell Burst and Whispers of the Muse play nicely with Locket too. Just sayin’. With this and Locket(s), you can eventually reach a game state where this costs G to play and buy it back, making it self-perpetuating (since the token itself can pay the G via Convoke). At instant speed. I’m sure you can see where this is going. It’s a good thing that Red, Green, and White can all do so much about Buyback spells. Oh, wait…
Let’s just say I hope they’re intending to reprint Aether Flash. I guess Green’s answer will be… Hail Storm? Heh. Not that it stops them from trying to kill you again next turn with an Arbitrarily Amassed Army.
I’d love to give props for a well-designed Green card, except I know full well if a deck like that comes to be, it’s going to be Blue holding it together while Green sports the win condition.
Let’s see… we’re also supposed to see a card "like" The Cheese Stands Alone. Johnny… sense… tingling… I wonder what it will be like? I’m almost always a sucker for alternate win cards. Sometimes that whole twenty-to-zero thing gets old once in awhile, you know?
Also rumored is an artifact that gives each of your creatures all of Akroma the White’s abilities. Seems like it could have some oomph in casual / multiplayer formats. It’s difficult to gauge it, though, since it doesn’t do much unless you’ve got a bunch of mid-range or fat creatures, and at that point, aren’t we drifting dangerously close to "Why Aren’t You Winning" territory? Maybe in Two-Headed Giant…
There’s the Magus cycle too, of course. Enchantments this time. Magus of the Future is a confirmed name, almost certainly a spin-off of Future Sight itself; the card, not the set.
The last tidbit to discuss is that Jhoira will have her own card, and I’m worried it might be Blue. Why worried? Well, supposedly she will be able to "suspend any card in play". Now we all what Teferi does to Suspend, right? (Let alone Madness or Flash or Instants…) Yes, it rhymes with "grape." I mean, Teferi wasn’t good enough already, so let’s give him a partner in crime which lets Blue (let’s face it, she’ll be splashed for to go with Teferi if she’s any good and doesn’t have three or more symbols from another color) deal with permanents… well, permanently. This is the first time I can remember ever fervently wishing a Legendary creature would suck. Please, please let Jhoira be unplayable trash.
…
Now we’re going to experience my own personal time warp. I work six days a week, twelve-hour shifts on Monday through Friday, so all my time for writing ends up being on the weekend, but I show up on Wednesday. What follows is my own little contribution to Fatty Week over at the mothership site, but of course it will be showing up a week late by comparison. Oops. Oh, well. Nothing for it, so let’s trudge on along now.
Ze Decklist – Format this week: Tribal Standard
So, I was thinking (how many of you have nightmares that start with me saying this?) about how to do a fattie Tribal deck and still have something to do worthwhile in the early turns. I needed a tribe that had cheap fatties to drop, and I was going to need Green or Signets no matter what, since my real plan would all end up being mid-to-late game anyhow. Fatties don’t do mornings, you see. They take their time to get started, and it’s very difficult to encourage them to rush things. Angels couldn’t do enough early, we won’t even discuss Dragons, and Vampires haven’t changed much since I last did them. There was a tribe that fit all my criteria, though, and even though I covered them before, I’d done it in different colors, and with different creatures then I’d be using this time around, so all lights were good to go. Lights, camera… action!
Creatures (28)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Maro
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 4 Rumbling Slum
- 4 Spectral Force
- 4 Sulfur Elemental
- 4 Timbermare
Lands (23)
Spells (9)
The deck gets its name from a combination of a golf reference and an anomaly of the deck’s mana curve, which it probably somewhat obvious if you look at the little mana graph. The point of the deck is to pound your opponent into a pile of their base elements. I’m so clever, I know. [/sarcasm] I just like this deck because Maro can actually get scary in it. It’s a pretty simple concept, all in all. Play fat things with Trample, or play fat things and give them Trample, and if someone tries to kill them, refill your hand instead. There’s a few more things I would have liked to squeeze in, like Flashback to go with Greater Good’s drawback, or Scryb Ranger to go with… oh, you know that drill already. Don’t act like you don’t. I needed the early D from Wall of Roots, though – which I might add also goes nicely with the above Sprout Swarm because Wall of Roots works wickedly with Convoke.
What the deck does: Drop fat, smash with fat. Maybe race some fat into play. There’s more fat here than a liposuction clinic. Skarrg and Plow make them good and angry if they don’t come that way, and Stonewood does it usual dual role of super-sizing with Avoid Fate attached. Sulfur Elemental is just that little bit of White/Blue hate that’s so trendy these days, and besides, an effectively hasty three power guy for three mana can’t be all that bad. True, he looks a tad anemic compared to his company, but I think that says good things about the efficiency of the men here. Everything else here that intends to swing tends to have power greater than converted mana cost, although Maro can falter in that regard sometimes. Greater Good to the rescue again. Not only does it have the ability to turn opposing removal into draw in response, you also do things like prevent Fetters from ever hitting play to gain life in the first place – at least if you’re applying enough pressure to force them into fettering a creature instead of Greater Good itself. Luckily, this deck has no problem applying pressure at all.
Maro’s good because he can do silly things, particularly between Skarrg and Greater Good being in the deck. Timbermare is in mostly as post-sweeper tech, or Greater Good fodder. I’ve thought at times about cutting one, since draws into them at the wrong times can be frowns, particularly when you’ve got more than five power in other guys who could be swinging if you didn’t play the Mare. Slum’s just beefy for his cost, and his upkeep trigger, while it won’t be helping Bloodthirst at all here, is more likely to annoy your opponent than you. I’m not going to bother explaining Spectral Force. If you don’t know he’s good, you’ve been out of touch with reality for awhile.
Who the deck is for: What’s that, Lassie? Timmy fell into the well? Throw this deck down there and it’ll entertain him until we can get him out, I’m certain. Tribal enthusiasts should like this as well. It’s got a fair shot of winning against many tribes, especially those really relying on their creatures to carry them since yours are probably bigger. The more creatures your opponent plays, the better your chances, especially if they tend to lean towards ones over two mana. It’s a very focused deck, however. Focused on turning things sideways. There are no real tricks but "smash more" and "smash harder." There’s no "smash smarter." Your "reach" is limited to Trample, Slum’s upkeep trigger, I guess… heh… and your anti-sweeper tech is the Plows / Timbermares. This deck is not for people who like multiple game plans available to them, or like long or controlling games. This just is not going to provide them.
What to watch out for: Uh, let’s see… Artifacts, Enchantments, Blazing Archon, sweepers, removal in general. Yeah, this deck is neither resilient nor diverse. It’s fat and dumb like Ted Kennedy. Weenie rushes, especially ones with reach, can also tear you open pretty often. The deck is driven pretty much entirely on the back of how large your critters are, and none of them do anything to dodge or protect from removal on their own, except the Plow’s ability to avoid sorceries. On the bright side, you probably won’t need to worry about much in the way of bigger guys on the other side of the table, and that’s all to the good.
Hopefully that will sate your appetite for fat for the week, or maybe a few weeks. Me, I’m looking forward to more Future Sight info, because I really am quite curious how they intend to pull this future theme off, and seeing a few parting shots from Ravnica Block mechanics has some interesting potential. Too bad Cycling wasn’t a block mechanic. Cycling and Madness on a card would be neat. Mmm. Dredge and Threshold. Yum. So many ideas, so little space. A mere 180 cards.
Signing off,
Rivien Swanson
flawedparadigm a(aye Carumba!)t gmaSPAMSUCKSil d(.)ot co[I am a meat popsicle.]m
Flawed Paradigm on MTGO (when I actually log in)