Onslaught is what Fallen Empires was not: A set about creature types. But Onslaught is good, whereas Fallen Empires was woefully inadequate. I have a deck stock binder where I place rares in the binder that I use and play with, and are not for trade – and I have seven spots devoted to Ice Age cards. That’s one-half of a page dedicated to an expansion similar in size to Odyssey and Onslaught – and five of those slots are painlands!
The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated – and I suspect that it is largely my own fault. I certainly seem to have a knack for staying qualified for the Pro Tour, but what’s the point of competing in these events if I don’t have a real shot?
* Opponent 1’s turn: Your stuff untaps. Tap Savannahs and Elf, make a soldier. Tap Cradle for five mana, tap bird, make two soldiers.
* Opponent 2’s turn: Tap Savannah’s and Elf, make a soldier. Tap Cradle for eight mana, tap Bird, make three more soldiers.
* Opponent 3’s turn: Tap Savannahs and Elf, make a soldier. Tap Cradle for twelve mana, tap Bird, make three soldiers and draw a card off J-Tome.
* Opponent 4’s turn: Tap Savannahs and Elf, make a soldier. Tap Cradle for sixteen mana, tap Bird, make four soldiers and draw a card.
* Your turn: Draw a card, play land, tap everything but Cradle, make a Soldier (with two mana floating) tap Cradle for twenty-one mana, play Planar Portal, search with Planar Portal, play Catapult Master, make two soldiers. (Nineteen soldiers in play.) Tap soldiers and Catapult Master to remove four opponent creatures from play.
When running, your legs tend to move in a bicycling pattern; they do not flail about wildly in the extreme positions as shown on Deftblade Elite and Glory Seeker. If I were an enemy soldier witnessing these two run towards me in battle, I would probably laugh at them, thinking, It won’t be long before these two uncoordinated twits fall over on themselves.
“Morph trigger” is actually Echo in reverse. You get the ability and a creature by paying a lot of mana spread over two turns. Now, compare Bone Shredder to Skinthinner. With the Urza’s Legacy predecessor, you get the Terror ability you need up front, then decide if you can spare 2B for a puny 1/1 next turn. With the new Legions version, you have to pay for the 2/2 before you can pay 3BB for the Terror you really wanted.
One day I noticed there were quite a number of cards that benefit all players when played. So, I thought, what if I were to build a deck that wasn’t necessarily concerned with winning per se, but that would allow me to help any players I wanted to, and that could be instrumental in deciding who would win? Well, I built it and it works. And isn’t Valentine’s Day all about gift-giving?
I’ll wager that there are very few dust-ups over a game of chess; you have no excuses in chess. Magic, on the other hand, well… There’s no other game where you have to stroke your opponent just to keep him from blowing his top at the table. How many butts have you kissed to keep things civil when there are land-drops being missed? A thousand? More? I know I’ve puckered up and smooched a few landflooded behinds in my day.
I think that I finally (fingers crossed) figured out a solid mono-white Birds deck. I say this because I started 5-0 at this weekend’s tourney, not losing until I faced David Dyer and his RWg Astral Slide deck. That, and I debate with the pros, find a home for a poor lost wizard, and discuss the R/G Anger deck that everyone’s been asking about!
After a week or two, Chris and I had played pretty much all of the decks and came to the conclusion that there was really only one deck to play. There really were only two decks that had a”just win” opening hand, and only one of them that could put a fight up against all the others.
I will freely admit I simply threw a Lavaborn Muse deck together and expected it to do hideously poorly. The thing is… The deck sort of surprised me. Lavaborn Muse did its job a lot better than I thought it would. Muse range is a great place to put your opponent. So with that in mind, I playtested the other four Muses to see how they did…
Compared to old Necro decks, which needed to get Necropotence into play as fast as humanly possible and had little chance of winning without the power of the skull, this is a considerable upgrade. Graveborn Identity leans heavily on Graveborn Muse, but it’s not a crutch.
I am painfully aware that further writing about my Kamahl/Goblin Sharpshooter topic is silly; It is a deck no one but me will play nowhere except the”Casual Constructed” room of Magic Online. However, one thing I never get to do in my writings on Magicthegathering.com is really dissect a pet deck and follow its evolution. So how where do you go with Sharpshooters and Kamahl Mark 2?
The Graveborn Identity deck that’s been floating around for the last couple of weeks is interesting – but as Jimmy Bean said to me, it plays”Candy Ass” cards like Words of Worship that are absolutely horrid, if somehow – inconceivable as it might seem! – your Muse actually dies. Then all you have is a really bad enchantment on the board that allows you to not draw cards in order to gain life.
With such a limited card pool, what does the face of Diet Five look like? It actually looks a lot like Five normally does. Sure, Jackal Pups and Lightning Bolts have been replaced with Grim Lavamancers and Firebolts; yeah, there are no classic power cards and combo elements have been significantly neutered. The online decks look more similar than normal. But despite taking a big whack out of the Mighty Card Pool of Olde, the format translates well into Magic Online.
That’s right; there’s nothing too earth-shattering. It’s blue, right? Blue sucks in multiplayer. No, there’s nothing too powerful – at least, until you play the Galina, shortly followed by the Unnatural Selection next turn, followed by the red burn to destroy anything I don’t like.
