Hi! Are you tired of all of these Magic terms and words getting tossed around like lunch in an old sailor’s stomach? Ever wonder if you prefer control, combo, or aggro decks? Do you prefer winning, being clever, or playing big effects? Are you competitive or casual? Are you more inclined to be rogue or run a netdeck? Whew! All of these Magic identities running around! What kind of Magic player are you? Take this simple test and find out!
Good day and welcome to the second installment of the Underused Card Hall of Fame. This is the place where I retire 30 cards, placing them in the Underused Card Hall of Fame. There are six categories, one for each color and another category for everything else. Five cards are retired from each category.
This is my excuse to write about one of my favorite topics — cards that you aren’t playing, but you should.
Unhinged really ramped up the power level from Unglued. In some areas, that additional playability is a really good thing… But some cards are simply sick in terms of power. The problem that I have with this is that is goes against the grain of releasing a casual-only set. Admittedly, these cards aren’t designed to be played in tournaments and sanctioned events…. But despite that, the power level of some of these cards is amazingly high. Take Mox Lotus, for example. A card that makes infinite mana of any color on its own is enormously broken. Sure, that concept is funny for a few minutes, but what casual table really wants it running around?
On the ballot this month are issues dealing with Mana Crypt, Gifts Ungiven, Recurring Nightmare, Restock, and the Judgment Wishes.
Has Champions of Kamigawa already inspired you towards decks of fun and joy? I know that the cards are not out yet, but my fingers itch to build decks. Champions appears to be a very internally focused set, with a lot of its cards working in tandem with each other, but not as much with outside cards. This includes several races that we have not seen, plus a new emphasis on spirits.
Gifts Ungiven
Welcome to our power card of the set. Gifts Ungiven will be acted on quickly, of that I have no doubt. Who knows whether it will see restriction or banning. With Yawgmoth’s Will away, maybe its time for small mammals to play. Look for Gifts Ungiven to be highly sought after in Five Color circles if it is just restricted, as it looks to be an auto-include in virtually every deck.
I don’t remember who said it, but someone claimed that a multiplayer group with varying levels of players will invariably find itself being held down by the poor players or being dominated by the good players. A rift will be created and the group will suffer. I’m here to put that theory to rest.
I was thinking about building a spelunking theme deck, and thinking about spelunking brought me to remembering my scouting days, which brought me to merit badges and “Voila!” I had an article idea. Sometimes it really is that easy. Let’s take a look at five decks inspired by Boy Scout Merit Badges. Each of these decks is designed to be halfway decent, and yet also gives plenty of room to the theme, and not competition.
Because I haven’t had a voice in a few weeks, I have this miscellany of things to say, deck ideas and so forth. Entailed in this article are decks, musings, opinions, and more — all wrapped into one neat package.
I love Magic and I love the movies. Isn’t it about time that we combined the two? I took five classic lines from movies both recent and of yore. Those five lines form the title of five different decks. Each of these theme decks, therefore, revolves around that classic line.
I initially remember being exposed to scavenger hunt format several years ago on a now defunct website that described alternate formats. When Ben and Matt posted that StarCityGames.com was going to host a scavenger hunt tournament, along with a list made up by Ben, I was thrilled! You see, to my way of thinking, there’s nothing better than a deckbuilding challenge.
Refusing to give in to the system, I decide to write today’s article. No Magic article has been in me longer than this one, yearning to breathe free. Writing this article is my greatest fear. And maybe my greatest joy as well.
All Suns’ Dawn is up for Banning
Bringer of the Black Dawn is up for Banning
Eternal Witness is up for Restriction
Change the minimum color requirement to twenty cards of each color.
I’ve been wanting to write another”Underused” article for a while now. In part-homage to Anthony Alongi and in an effort to more regularly hit a topic that I enjoy, I am going to quarterly retire some of the best underused cards of all time.
“Retire them?” you ask. Yessir, into an Underused Hall of Fame. These are going to be the best and brightest cards that never saw as much play as they deserved. There’s no chaff here, just solid and spectacular cards that, for whatever reason, simply are not played much these days.
So, I am reading and reviewing the Magic sites on a lazy Monday afternoon. I have completed my work for the day, finished an article for Scrye, set up a few meetings for Tuesday, judicially sanctioned one of my residents, interviewed a job candidate, and everything was looking rosy. Until it happened.
