The Weekly Guild Build: The Ferrett's Not In Right Now...

I gotta be honest with you people: My heart’s not in my column this week. As I type this missive from my fingers to your eyes, all I can think about is Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a new and very deep roleplaying game which I installed on my computer Friday afternoon.

I have been doing very little since.

Right now, locked in limbo on my computer hard drive, is a character called The Weaseler, who is currently suffering from Porphorytic Hemophilia, or Vampirism, and whenever he goes outside in the daytime his skin burns. He must feed on sleeping victims or he will eventually burst into flames when the sunlight touches him.* I must remove this hideous curse, which I can only do by traveling to the distant duchy of Skingrad to talk to the Count’s advisor, and yet here I am typing.

Don’t you see? Writing this very sentence is wasting precious time that I could be leveling up The Weaseler!

I imagine this is how Brian Kibler feels. You may remember Brian; he used to play Magic and Vs and stuff. And then World of Warcraft sucked him into its messy little bowels, and now he spends every spare moment leveling up a Dark Elf or whatever the heck it is you do in that game.

Brian is a far better player than I am, but I am smarter than he in one vital fashion: my game has an end. Eventually, though that day may be many weeks from now, I can beat the Big Baddie at the end, step away from the keyboard, and walk into the sunshine, at which point I will have stayed inside for so long that my skin will begin to burn from natural sunlight.

My precious. My precious Elder Scrolls.

But that’s the thing about gamers vs. Magic vs. time. One of the questions that I frequently get as an editor is, “Why don’t you have Magic writer X write a weekly column?” And the answer is, “Because I can’t hold a shotgun to his head and make him.” It all depends on what you find fun.

See, for me, writing this sort of silly intro is fun (even though it’s not as fun as saving poor The Weaseler from his vampirism! Agh!). I like sitting down at the keyboard and pounding out something for entertainment; in some ways, it’s better than playing Magic. So for me, writing an article and playing Magic is a win/win synergy.

For others, though, writing is distinctly Not Fun. They sit down at the computer, and though they can anticipate the card you’re going to play seven turns before you ever play it, laying out an opening paragraph is like chewing tin foil for them. They stare at the keyboard, write half an article, decide it’s not good enough and they don’t like writing anyway, and then they blush guiltily when I ask, “Hey, love your stuff. When’s the next article?”

The problem is that if you’re reading this, you’re a gamer… And you’re probably slightly on the obsessive side, if you’re going around to various sites to read multiple articles on Magic: the Gathering. That means that when you’re faced with the choice of “Do your chores” or “Go have fun,” most of you are going to choose the fun seven times out of ten.

You like games. And you don’t like just Magic. I daresay there are any number of you who do like the WoW (as the kids say), or you can’t wait for a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, or maybe Kill Doctor Lucky, or even a side of Poker or the videogames of Dragon Quest VIII or some other form of entertainment. If you are a gamer, there are always a thousand distractions out there.

You don’t see Donald Trump playing games. You know why? Because if he gamed, he wouldn’t have time to build casinos that lose money.

(And think about how totally awesome you have to be to lose money at a casino. That’s a level of incompetence that leaves me in the shade.)

And when you game, there are a thousand distractions, both from real life tasks that need doing… And ironically, some of those distractions come from other games. A new game can sweep you off your feet for awhile, and I am a smitten kitten. And I suspect that if Magic was the only game you could play, we’d see more articles about it, but alas! Some Magic pro with good intentions sits down to write an article, and then someone says, “Hey, wanna play a game of Werewolf?”

But that’s the great thing about Magic; you can leave it alone for awhile, and when you come back to it it’s different and new. People don’t play Magic for years at a time, usually. They come in, they have a swirl of interest, they find something else, they get out. Magic’s that girlfriend you’ve been dating on and off for a couple of years; you see other people, sure, but you know you’ll be back come that lonely PTQ when you need the hookup.

Me? I’ve got a new girl now (and she’s a lot like you**), and my eye’s off the Magic ball. I’ll be back. But for a week, I figured I’d be honest and tell you where I’m at. It ain’t here. At least, not entirely.

I am The Weaseler. And I got at least thirty hours of gameplay*** to go before I can call this a night and come back to where I belonged.

Oh Yeah, The Cards
Here’s what I pulled this week.

Sealed Deck Pool

Ferrett Steinmetz

Test deck on 04-02-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (42)

Lands (8)

All right, let’s break this down by rares. Okay, that’s not going to work again: there’s nothing so strong that it’s going to pull me into a color by itself. So once again, we forge ahead into the colors and start trying to pick them out.

Now, the problem with this week’s card pool is that it’s strong across the board. There are strong gold cards in almost every color combo that has gold cards, and every color is playable. Thus, I expect a lot of differing calls in the forums… And because of the ever-present pull of Oblivion, I didn’t have the time to try out different combos and tell you which one actually worked better.

White’s Strong Cards
Absolver Thrull, Benevolent Ancestor, Conclave Equenaut, Droning Bureaucrats

Now, in these articles, most writers try to create a sense of suspense by not telling you what colors they played. But in this case, I have to break that silence and inform you that yes, I played White — and in a cardpool as evenly spread as this, that is a questionable call.

However, I took Nick Eisel advice and played Dromad Purebred… And though I’d been writing it off as dross, it is actually better than you’d think. It shuts down a lot of the Red/Green onslaught, forcing them to burn a spell to get through it… And the lifegain usually soaks up some damage to help stabilize the race. And since it was never going to go on the offensive anyway, if they burn a spell to take out the Dromad, it helps you win later on in combat when you start trying to establish an assault and they’re empty-handed.

I should also add that the conclusion I’ve come to recently is that in Ravnica, I’m not paying enough attention to the mana curve in my quest for big, powerful effects. Look at my decks, and you’ll see that their curves start at three and go up… And given that a) Guildpact has made things just a tick quicker, b) Bloodthirst punishes you severely for tempo loss, and c) I’ve always been opting to go last, neglecting a good curve is going to cost me something fierce. I’ve been going for power over defense, and paying for it when I get a single, destroyable creature out on turn 5 and am facing three critters.

Green’s Strong Cards
Battering Wurm, Bramble Elemental, Carven Caryatid, Civic Wayfinder, Recollect, Wildsize

Otherwise known as “Okay, we’re playing Green.”

I should add that I like Carven Caryatid a lot more than other players, and possibly I’m overvaluing it. But I love the way it stalls up the ground, and anything that says, “Draw a card” is golden to me.

Silhana Ledgewalker is great if you have enchantments, but really, really useless without. I’ve seen a lot of people playing with her, and perhaps I should given what I just said about the mana curve, but in general if I have a Moldervine Cloak I’d rather throw it on something beefy than a 1/1 with marginal evasion.

Skarrgan Pit-Skulk’s also a very decent card. I just don’t know whether it’s a strong card.

Red’s Strong Cards
Fiery Conclusion, Flash Conscription, Hypervolt Grasp, Living Inferno

Fiery Conclusion has been moving up my personal ranks, but it’s all about how you play it. Five damage is enough to take out almost anything in this format, and the way to do it is to throw something stupid into combat, put damage on the stack, and then kill. It’s not an ideal method, but it’s been a nice answer.

Hypervolt Grasp is also a great card, and it can decimate a weenie deck. But you knew that. I didn’t play with Living Inferno, but I know people who like it.

Black’s Strong Cards
Dimir House Guard, Disembowel, Exhumer Thrull, Necroplasm, Ostiary Thrull, Poisonbelly Ogre, Restless Bones, Vigor Mortis

Also known as “Okay, we’re playing Black.”

Seriously, a double-Ostiary Thrull’s a strong pull towards White, and having Disembowel plus Recollect is always a nice play. Stir in a little Vigor Mortis, and to me that says, “Hello, Black/Green/White.”

And all right, all right; I said Restless Bones was chaff, and I kept playing it because people insisted it was decent, and now it’s decent. I do have to admit that it’s got a great pair of abilities; the regeneration helps stall off the early attacks that I keep dying to, and the swampwalk helps my biggest guy get through against most of the decks out there. Or have you not noticed that because it has the best unconditional removal package, everyone’s playing Black?

I almost never maindeck the Poisonbelly Ogre, but he’s so great against any token-producing deck I invariably side him in. Interestingly enough, he rarely screws me, even when I’m low on life, because I only cast him once the board is mostly stabilized, and if it hasn’t stabilized then I throw him in the way of something.

I should add that I tried playing Golgari Thug because I kept running into him, but I hated him. He wasn’t good in the early game, where his death cost me a turn’s worth of cards, and casting a 1/1 in the late game just didn’t do it for me. Of course, I had a strong recursion package in this deck, so perhaps it could be good in a different deck… But I doubt it.

Blue’s Strong Cards
Convolute, Drift of Phantasms, Train of Thought, Vedalken Entrancer

Good cards. Not great set, but certainly a nice side package if you need it.

Boros’ Strong Cards
Skyknight Legionnaire, Thundersong Trumpeter

It’s not bad, and considering that the Red is decent and the White is decent, it might well be a good Red/White/splash something. But no combination suggested is better than Black/Green/White, in my opinion.

Gruul’s Strong Cards
None. Scab-Clan Mauler is nice, but unless you have a strong early presence with Red/Green — which we don’t — then I don’t want to put both of them in.

Golgari’s Strong Cards
Gaze of the Gorgon, Shambling Shell

If I were a really clever writer, I’d come up with something clever to say here. But, um, you’ve seen these cards a zillion times before, and I’ve written on them a zillion times before. What else is left to say aside from “Hey, they’re good”?

Izzet’s Strong Cards
None. Okay, maybe Schismotivate.

Dimir’s Strong Cards
I really like Moroii, even with White’s “stop him and let you bleed to death” strategy. And with the already-present recursion-and-sacrifice theme present in this particular Black card pool, it makes a strong case for a Black/Blue build of some sort.

But enough talk. In the end, this is what I went for.

1 Battering Wurm
1 Benevolent Ancestor
1 Bramble Elemental
1 Carven Caryatid
1 Civic Wayfinder
1 Conclave Equenaut
1 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Disembowel
1 Dromad Purebred
1 Droning Bureaucrats
1 Exhumer Thrull
5 Forest
1 Gaze of the Gorgon
1 Golgari Signet
1 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
1 Gruul Turf
1 Orzhova, the Church of Deals
2 Ostiary Thrull
4 Plains
1 Recollect
1 Restless Bones
1 Shambling Shell
5 Swamp
1 Terrarion
1 Vigor Mortis
2 Wildsize

So how’d I do? Well, I went 5-3. Not great, I know — but unlike previous weeks, where I’d go 4-3 and the three losses were no-hope matchups and the four were smashes against inexperienced opponents, here we had three squeakers and a bunch of smash-faces against decent players. I felt in it with this deck, which was a good thing.

The Weekly Plug Bug
Hey, I know you’ll all be amazed to hear it, but I have this Webcomic that I’m writing. This week, we’re finishing up the “Introducing Izzy” storyline, and today’s comic in particular deals with the very strange courtship that happens when two nerds meet.

Next week, some real interesting things happen. But stay tuned.

Signing off,
The Ferrett
TheFerrett@StarCityGames.com
The Here Edits This Here Site Here Guy

* – And yeah, you get superhuman strength and cool spells, but you have to find a victim every friggin’ night. Okay, I could live with being a bloodsucker, especially since I don’t actually kill anyone by feeding, but the tedium is what’s really driving me.

** – Name that reference. Oh, you did? You’re old.

*** – I always wonder when someone says, “Ten hours of gameplay,” are they talking ten hours in the game, or ten hours spent playing the game? I mean, there’s a large difference. Right now, I’ve probably spent about ten hours in the game, but I’ve had to reload a few times (particularly when trying to kill an absurdly deadly mountain lion), and those times add up. I’ve probably spent thirteen hours playing the game (including re-doing one sadly glitched quest), but ten hours in the game. If someone can get through this game in forty hours total, I envy them. Deeply.

The Weekly Guild Build: The Ferrett’s Not In Right Now…

Creatures (42)

Lands (8)

Spells (29)