Dear Diary, today I Journeyed Into Nyx.

Another undefeated prerelease run for Journey Into Nyx puts me at three for three this block. Man, I love this format.

I played green again, and ended up green-white ramp with two Voyaging Satyrs and some good fives (namely the splashy promo Heroes' Bane and good ol' Nessian Asp) backed up by double Banishing Light and some random on-curve dorks.

The deck, in all its pretty-much-rareless glory:

Lands (16)
9x Forest
7x Plains

Creatures (17)
Akroan Mastiff
Chronicler of Heroes
Eagle of the Watch
Eidolon of Blossoms
Harvestguard Alseids
Heliod's Emissary
Heroes' Bane
Humbler of Mortals
Leafcrown Dryad
Nessian Asp
Oakheart Dryads
2x Satyr Grovedancer
Snake of the Golden Grove
Supply Cranes
2x Voyaging Satyr 

Other (7)
Artisan's Sorrow
2x Banishing Light
Excoriate
Font of Fertility
Nature's Panoply
Ray of Dissolution

I also traded a Hellkite Tyrant for an Oath of Druids and a shockland for a Xenagos, God of Revels, so I expect I'll be giving those a spin in Mayael at some point.

About Omen Machine

Let's talk for a minute about Omen Machine in the Mayael deck.



"But Jasper," I hear you cry, "Omen Machine is a terrible card! It's a symmetrical effect and your opponents get to go first and Guthix only knows if you'll get a decent card from it at all!"

Well, you're wrong. Omen Machine is what we in the business call "tech."

See, the Mayael deck's main gameplan revolves around building up some mana and then eventually dropping large creatures onto the board one at a time. There's not a lot of card draw and no real rush to play multiple spells in one turn. Every individual spell in the deck tends to have a high impact on the board, so while it's possible to run out of gas, the deck gets a lot of miles per gallon, so to speak.

If the opponent trades one-for-one with Mayael's fatties, that's okay, because there's another one waiting in the wings to replace it. However, if the opponent is also drawing extra cards and getting 2-for-1s, it's easy to fall behind.

Omen Machine stops that strategy cold by forcing everyone to play on the same terms as Mayael: It brings all of the action out of the hand and onto the battlefield. Mayael is already only drawing one card a turn, so for us it's a strict positive effect: instead of having to wait and tap out to cast the fatty we just drew, we get to play it for free and still have mana up to activate Mayael! Kablam! But for the rest of the table, it's not so optimal. Removal? Use it or lose it, because you won't be able to save it for a better target. Counterspells? Ha! Good luck with that. Card draw? Nice blanks you got there.

When everyone is playing Mayael's game, Mayael is going to win. You don't invade Russia in the winter, you don't start a land war in Asia, and you don't fight a topdeck war against a deck where half the spells are enormous fatties.

Now, it's possible to really abuse it, if something like Sensei's Divining Top or Scroll Rack is in the picture. Really, though, rawdogging it is just fine—and if you're not visibly "abusing" the effect, it's less likely that the other players at the table will rush to destroy it.

So there's my little love song to this little-known piece of tech. It's an awesome card that's great for punishing control and combo decks.

Dread

The MTGO beta kind of sucks for commander.

Okay, problem #1. The new client has this great new feature for finding games. It lets you pick your options and then hit "Next game." Then it drops you right into the first available game that matches your specifications, or if there isn't one, it creates one. Except you can't do this with commander because it doesn't work. There's no checkbox for multiplayer. You can't stop it assigning you into 1v1 games.

So that sucks.

Then you get in-game and it looks like this:

Let's count some of the things that are wrong here:

• Being able to collapse other players' play areas after they leave the game is great, but why on earth would they start collapsed? So that you know it's possible to collapse them? It's not worth the extra clicks if you could just auto-collapse them when they lose.
• Why are our commanders on the battlefield? What happened? Do I not have to cast them now? Do I just start with them in play? Should I be building an Ulamog deck? Oh, no, that's just where the command zone is now. Floating on the battlefield. For some reason. I guess because we're not supposed to be able to tell whether or not they're in play? It's dumb.
• When I expand the other players, they each get a teeny tiny little rectangle, and only if I minimize their graveyard areas. So it only takes a little over half a dozen permanents before all their stuff is shrunk to unreadably tiny blobs. I, on the other hand, have the entire bottom half of the screen. This is not a terribly efficient use of space.

 It's messed up, basically. Far worse than the current client.

Gatecrash previews have officially started. All the guild mechanics are out in the open. There's a bunch of cards already spoiled, and the set looks superb so far. I'm looking forward to the prerelease.

Top guild right now: Orzhov. Extort looks like lots of fun. That'll be my current top pick for prerelease guild. We'll see if this changes later, I suppose.

Runner-up: Gruul. I'm imagining having an aggro deck with a million gazillion combat tricks and blowing my opponents out repeatedly. Mmmm...

I don't actually have a lot to say beyond that. This format is going to be awesome.

Good news. My new machine has the muscle to record and stream video. Fun. ^_^



Here's two commander games. Not exactly drowning in viewers, I suppose, but commentating on games like this is a good exercise even if nobody's watching.

Braaaains

The zombie exploits continue. I shambled together some more games. A few rounds of 2HG, and some 1v1 during the downtime in between.

You know what's sweet? Brains. Zombies should eat brains. But Undead Alchemist is the only zombie that actually eats brains. Luckily, Undead Alchemist is also heaps of fun to play with.

Unluckily, Endless Ranks of the Dead is underperforming. It's still ghoulishly difficult to get it going, and even when it works, it tends to be win-more. Really, I didn't expect much more, but it's still disappointing.

Even more disappointingly, I've never even been able to cast Army of the Damned. I'm thinking I might need to add in a bit more of the ol' Twisted Abomination + Lord of the Undead combo if I want to get anywhere on that front.

endlessranks.dec

So I thought I'd experiment with a 60-card deck, and I dug up 6 tix (80% of which were consumed by Zombie Apocalypse and Grave Titan, the only two mythics) to stitch together this silly little Modern zombie brew based on Undead Alchemist and Endless Ranks of the Dead, with the intent of playing it in some 2HG or something. (Because two brains are tastier than one.)

It seems I made a grave mistake, since from what I can tell, nobody plays 2HG in any formats except Standard and Classic.

But I did manage to shamble together a couple of games, and, uhhhh...meh. Endless Ranks of the Dead is pretty difficult to work with. Getting it going is hard. On the upside, if it does get going, it's a rot of fun.

The true story of how I milled the table without playing a single spell

Shuffled up Mayael the Anima
Against Niv-Mizzet, Wydwen, Kaalia
My op'ner needed one green mana source
But I refused to mulligan, of course
Niv-Mizzet's Sol Ring promised a quick start
And lo, his next play nearly stopped my heart
For on turn 4, he grinned and played Hive Mind
Sharing spells could be construed as kind
But trouble came when, with mischievous glee,
Wydwen untapped and cast Prosperity
Again, a card that might seem generous
But her gifts showed themselves as treacherous
When Niv-Mizzet tapped three more of his lands
For Windfall! Everyone tossed out their hands
(Already filled with eighteen precious spells!)
To draw that many more, as it compels
But Hive Mind's trigger had to interject
And three more times, repeated the effect
Until our libraries were very small
With hardly any cards in them at all
Our decks were down to just three measly draws
And running out would leave us with a loss
Niv-Mizzet's Howling Mine sped up this clock
Our time was ticking down -- was it a lock?
Not so! For I had one trick up my sleeve
By which a vict'ry I might yet achieve
Discarding at the end of my next turn,
I binned my Vigor and my Worldspine Wurm
Their triggers sent them back into my deck
And I was leading, though 'twas neck and neck
Three turns passed by, and three opponents down
With two cards left, I proudly took the crown!
I sat back, quietly musing, "Well, well, well --
I won the game, but never cast a spell!"

Mayor the Anima

It would explain why Townsville keeps attracting giant monsters. And he does call up The Powerpuff Girls...

#MayaelFTW returns

Time for another round with the #MayaelFTW deck.

Balefire Dragon is taking the place of Vagrant Plowbeasts. With Spearbreaker, Avacyn, and Deathless Angel already protecting my guys more effectively, Plowbeast has become less useful. Balefire Dragon is a card I've been meaning to try out since Innistrad, but never got around to. It seems pretty strong. I don't have much in the way of Loxodon Warhammer sorts of things to buff it, so it might not be superlative, but even without support, the ability should be good on its own.

I took out Akroma, Angel of Fury for Utvara Hellkite. Akroma has been consistently so-so. She's decent against decks she has protection from, but even in those matchups, she's not exactly winning games singlehandedly as a Shivan Dragon variant. She's been on the bottom of the pecking order for a while, and I don't feel too bad cutting her. Utvara Hellkite is a card that--as I may have mentioned in my RTR set review--interests me. I think it's worth testing. And hey, I even added another dragon. (Dragon count: 4)

Lastly, I've swapped Hellkite Charger in favor of Mana-Charged Dragon. I haven't been liking Hellkite Charger very much. Its ability is rarely useful, and the haste isn't relevant when I play it on someone else's turn, so it's been a vanilla 5/5 flyer pretty often. Mana-Charged Dragon still fills the "Mana sink for alpha strike" role, but it adds trample for free, and there's an off chance that someone else will pump it for me.

The list looks like this now. (Click to enlarge.)

Then I played a few games for testing and never saw any of the new cards, so meh.

Mayael and friends

#MayaelFTW: Return to Ravnica review

Okay, it's time to share my thoughts on how the new cards affect Mayael the Anima. I've been playing Mayael for a long time now, and I'm still continually tuning my list, and there's a new batch of cards that could be worth adding. Let's get right to it.




Right off the bat we have a sweet one! Angel of Serenity does something we don't have a lot of access to: it's a fatty that's also a multi-target pinpoint creature removal spell. Sure, we've had cards like Hateflayer, Living Inferno, Bogardan Hellkite, Admonition Angel--but none of them are remotely close to this level. Angel of Serenity offers a powerful, unique, useful effect at a reasonable cost with a healthy-sized flying body, and I feel comfortable pegging her as one of the best cards for Mayael to come out of this set.

Even if she dies immediately, you still get to bounce the creatures. And she can target your own creatures in your graveyard, too--they'll go back to your hand when she leaves play. There are also those ever-popular tricks to permanently exile the targets with instant-speed sacrifice or blink sorts of effects, if you're so inclined.

Basically, a great creature removal spell that is also a fatty. What's not to love?




This one I'm not so hot on. Basically a worse version of Prison Term, which isn't even particularly good. Not much to say here--it's overcosted and underpowered.




Now this is a hoser. It turns off all the graveyard shenanigans, past, present, and future, and it does so with merciless efficiency. My build is very light on graveyard interactions, so I went ahead and added this card, and it's been performing very well so far. There's always at least one deck at the table that wants to abuse the graveyard for loopy card advantage shenanigans, and loopy card advantage shenanigans are one of the easiest ways Mayael can lose. Rest in Peace shuts that down. It might seem narrow, but it's actually a lot more universal than you'd think.

If my deck were heavier on the shenanigans itself--like one of my past builds that played around with Death or Glory and Marshal's Anthem and that sort of thing--I might want to skip this, since it is symmetrical. But it's a big whammy against a very large portion of the field, and making unfair decks play fair is powerful.

If you run just about any white deck, you should strongly consider Rest in Peace.




Making the team indestructible actually isn't the worst. This is a little too much mana to pay for that effect, though, especially since so many fatties already have some sort of built-in resistance to ordinary destruction.




Vanilla flyer with only 6-7 power? Yeah, that's not gonna do it. If you're running Chaos Imps, it's because you have some very serious card availability issues.




Pauper interlude! I've played Incurable Ogre in Pauper Mayael with no shame, and Cobblebrute is strictly better. Cheap fat is hard enough to come by that this man should be a strong consideration in Pauper.




Hoo boy, this card. It's pretty crazy. I am always on the lookout for wacky chaotic library effects like this one, and so far, I think it passes muster. It's nowhere near the power level of Lurking Predators, of course, but it does a good job of creating an exciting minigame.

The thing you need to understand if you're thinking about playing Guild Feud is this: you're not going to win every time. Some amount of the time, you're going to flip three noncreatures, and your opponent is going to get something awesome. Now, the Mayael deck has a lot of very good creatures, and the odds of winning are going to be pretty high. But you can't win them all. If you're not comfortable with that, don't play this card, because it will make you rage.

For my part, I'm happy rolling with it, rawdog-style. Random moments like this are what #MayaelFTW is all about.




Pauper interlude! Another common fatty, and its stats are respectable, I guess, albeit nothing special. What's most notable here is that this is indeed a beast, which means it works with Wirewood Savage--not irrelevant. I'm not sure if it makes the cut, but it's worth thinking about.




This is an exciting effect, but I've been burned by Godsire before, and I'm not sure it's good enough on its own. I could be convinced, but my initial reaction is that it'll need dragon synergy to be worthwhile.

That being said, it's certainly not unreasonable for Mayael to run dragons. I don't know what critical mass is, but if you've got some number of big red flyers, you might do well to check this dragon out.

Also, shout-out to the token subtheme, which is getting more and more viable with each new set. Rith, the Awakener was never much of a powerhouse to begin with, but it's almost embarrassing how much worse she is than this guy.




Much like Rest in Peace, this is a nice hate card. However, artifact hate isn't at quite the same premium as graveyard hate, since there are a lot more options to choose from. Rest in Peace is easily the biggest and baddest of its category, but Vandalblast has steeper competition to contend with. Woodfall Primus and Terastodon already take out artifacts, and if you want to go real deep, you can also run Hoard-Smelter Dragon or Rustmouth Ogre. And those guys are creatures that work with Mayael. For noncreature spells, you've already got your mass removal suite, Akroma's Vengeance and the like. Oh, and Fracturing Gust, which is instant-speed, hits enchantments, and gains you life. Shattering Pulse only hits one thing at a time, but it's an instant, which is a big deal.

You get the idea--the market for artifact hate is very competitive and the slots are very limited. It's easy to hate on artifacts incidentally without dedicating a whole slot to it. Also, a large portion of the time, Vandalblast is only going to be a value card that you play as a 4-for-1 to set the opponents back on mana a little. That's good, but it's not exactly an essential effect.

I'm not ruling it out, but I don't think I want to spend a slot on this. I wouldn't fault you for including it if you're so inclined.




The problem here, I think, is that it's essentially vanilla. 5/5 for 2GG is efficient, sure, but the Scavenge ability costs a hefty chunk of sorcery-speed mana. A lot of the time, Deadbridge Goliath is just going to be a 5/5.

I could imagine a build where "just a 5/5 for four" is good enough. Like an aggro sort of deal focusing on cheap fat, with Mayael as a late-game post-Wrath card advantage engine. And it's not a bad card. The Scavenge will be relevant in some games. +5/+5 on something with trample is no slouch, and it resets Persist creatures.

I imagine most versions of Mayael just won't be interested in it, though.




Here's a card.

There are a few other fatties already fighting for the "10+ mana unkillable creature" slot. How does Worldspine Wurm stack up? Well, I'm pretty sure Ulamog and Blightsteel are more powerful. However, they have the big drawback of being, uh, you know... unfun. They can be pretty miserable no matter which side of the table you're on. But Worldspine Wurm, not so much. It's a straight 15/15 trampling monster--good, clean, fatty fun.

Then there's Darksteel Colossus, who is more traditionally indestructible. I feel like Worldspine Wurm is the clear winner in that fight; 15 is significantly more than 11, and its token-making brand of indestructibility works better against sacrifice effects, which is a big upside. (Or with sacrifice effects, don't forget--Worldspine Wurm with Greater Good is quite the blowout.)

There's also those other Eldrazi, but they're all worse than Ulamog anyway, so meh.

You don't want to have too many eleven-mana creatures, but Worldspine Wurm seems like it's as good as they come.




Seems solid. Getting the token immediately puts it well ahead of Utvara Hellkite off the bat. And ten power of trample is a lot. Oh, and of course there's synergy with flicker effects and whatnot.

Yeah, pretty solid. I could definitely see myself running it and being happy with it. (And again, shout-out to the token subtheme.)

I wouldn't call it an auto-include, but it's good.




If you're looking for a four-mana lifegain creature with a big butt, Wall of Reverence is that-a-way. Populate is cute for that token subtheme, I guess.




Hmm, yeah, seems nice.

If you're in the market for a mana rock, I think this is worse than Darksteel Ingot or Coalition Relic. I also think it's worse than Selesnya Keyrune, but I could be wrong there.

You could certainly do worse, I suppose. If you want your mana fixed, Chromatic Lantern will definitely fix it. It works with Maze of Ith and Diamond Valley too, if that's your cup of tea.

So yeah, it's fine. Nothing special. Don't get too excited.




I actually like this, as far as mana rocks go. The 3/3 body isn't impressive, but it is relevant--it can keep early attackers off your back sometimes, and it's cheap enough that you can activate it and still have enough mana for your Overrun effect when you alpha strike.

Mind, I'm not actually going to run it, because I favor land-based ramp. But if you like artifacts, I think this is better than the Time Spiral totems (if only by virtue of tapping for two colors).

Again, I'm going to go ahead and post my homework. This is the essay from the outline I put up two days ago.

Fifteen

    From across my desk, I hear a whisper. “Open me...oooopen meee...” Oh no. I look down. It’s the booster pack again.
    I know the voice is only my imagination, but my gaze is drawn, as if by an Izzet electromagnet, to the glossy blue-and-indigo foil of the Return to Ravnica booster. The wrapper crinkles invitingly under my touch. The Selesnyan mage adorning the package seems to beckon.
    Opening a booster pack is one of the purest thrills in the game of Magic: The Gathering. Whether it’s the indigo trim of my Return to Ravnica booster, the silvery white of Avacyn Restored, or the jet-black of Magic 2013, every expansion set’s booster packs bundle fifteen randomized cards in crisp foil wrapping: eleven common cards, three uncommons, and most precious of all, one rare. The rarity distribution is more or less constant, and the cards are all from the same expansion, but the exact contents are always a mystery.
    Return to Ravnica is Magic’s newest expansion, released earlier this month. Back in 2005, when I was still new to the game, Wizards of the Coast released Ravnica: City of Guilds: a set that took place in a world where one sprawling, ecumenopolitan cityscape covered the entire globe, and society was controlled by ten “guilds”, each representing two of the game’s five colors. It was wildly successful, both critically and commercially. Now, seven years later, Ravnica is still one of the most beloved settings in Magic’s history, and as of this month, the long-awaited sequel to City of Guilds has finally arrived to bring the guilds to a new generation of planeswalkers. Return to Ravnica features five of the ten guilds from the original. The other five are slated for Gatecrash, the followup expansion to be released this winter. All of them are eagerly courting fresh recruits. Join the white-blue Azorius Senate, Ravnica’s bureaucratic legislative guild! How about the blue-red Izzet League, a guild of mad scientists notorious for their explosive experiments? Perhaps you’re more interested in the black-red Cult of Rakdos, where the success of a wild party is measured by its body count. Or do you prefer the black-green Golgari Swarm, caretakers of both life and death?
    I know where my loyalty lies: with the Selesnya Conclave, the green-white guild dedicated to harmony and unity. So when the time came to choose a side for the Return to Ravnica prerelease — a special event to celebrate the unveiling of the new set — I already knew exactly which guild I’d be playing. Sure enough, I shuffled up a green and white deck (with a splash of blue) filled to the brim with efficient creatures ready to overwhelm my foes. And for good measure, I signed up for a second flight later that same day. After battling through eight rounds for the glory of the Conclave, I stood strong with a 7-1 record. Hardly daring to breathe, I hovered tremulously near the counter where prizes would be paid out. Finally, my name was called: twelve packs. Twelve. Twelve packs. Twelve honest-to-goodness Return to Ravnica booster packs.
    But today, there’s only one booster pack on my mind. Just one of the twelve. Once again it whispers: “Go on...you know you want to...ooopen meeee...”

Opening a booster pack is a gamble. As long as it’s unopened, its value is fixed — it’s a solid $4 no matter what’s inside. But once I crack it, I’m stuck with whatever I’ve got. I could end up with a powerful land card like Overgrown Tomb or Hallowed Fountain. I could be the lucky recipient of a rare and valuable planeswalker card like Jace, Architect of Thought. Or... or I could open a useless junk card like Guild Feud, Search the City, or Volatile Rig. There’s plenty of space in between, of course — a mid-tier rare like Loxodon Smiter might be worth around the same price as the original booster it came in. Not the most exciting card to pull, but it’s better than whiffing.

My hands itch. My pulse quickens. I want to rip the foil off of that booster pack and flip straight to the rare. I can already hear the crinkling. I can smell the fresh fragrance of ink and glue. I can sense the cards inside calling to me, begging me, pleading for me to release them into the world. It’s no use resisting. I don’t have the strength to hold back. I can’t...I have to...I...

The wrapper is torn. Tenderly, I tug the cards from their broken shell. One at a time, I inspect the spoils.

The commons are always in front. The first is Drainpipe Vermin: a dinky little rat. Worthless.

Swift Justice: a white spell that powers up a creature temporarily. Unexciting.

Horncaller’s Chant: a green sorcery that summons two enormous, trampling rhinos. Meh.

Chemister’s Trick: an Izzet confusion spell that can be overloaded to cause mass panic. Eh...

Golgari Longlegs: a simple, boring creature with reasonable stats, but no abilities.

Axebane Guardian: a druid that grants its caster additional mana. Useful, perhaps, in a deck with expensive spells like Horncaller’s Chant.

Keening Apparition: an efficiently-costed creature who can sacrifice itself to dispel an enemy enchantment. Could be worse.

Viashino Racketeer: a shady back-alley salesman who trades a card in your hand for a random one from your deck.

Sewer Shambler and Drudge Beetle: two Golgari monsters that can rise from the grave after being defeated.

Eleven commons, none of them particularly interesting. Here come the three uncommons. Soul Tithe. Ouch, that’s a weak card. It has a few interesting rules interactions, but I’d never put it into my deck.

Slitherhead. Hmm, not too bad, I suppose. It’s another Golgari zombie that can buff a creature from beyond the grave.

Bloodfray Giant. That’s one of the Rakdos Cult’s heavy hitters. Monstrous stats at a bargain price. Unfortunately, it’s not very good at playing defense.

There’s also a basic Forest with beautiful new artwork by John Avon, and an advertisement insert pointing me to the Planeswalker Points website. But that’s not important. It’s time for the moment of truth. The rare. Is it a hit? Is it a miss? It’s...

    Nooooooo!

    I toss what’s left of the foil wrapping into the trash. It croaks out one final, mocking crinkle. The cards will probably languish in a shoebox. Search the City will get an obligatory place in my Junk Rare Box, yearning in vain for the day it finds a real home. I hold out little hope that such a day will arrive. The adrenaline rush is over; the booster pack is gone.
    From across the room, I hear eleven more whispers...

I've got an essay to write. Here's my outline!

In which I attempt to draw the RTR guild symbols freehand.

Huh, that didn't turn out very good at all.

Return to Ravnica prerelease report

So. RTR Prerelease weekend.

The first flight went well. 3-1 with Selesnya.

My Selesnya deck didn't have much that was particularly exciting. Wins came on the back of a solid creature curve bolstered by combat tricks. Two-drop into three-drop into four-drop can get there. Call of the Conclave, Centaur Healer, and Deadbridge Goliath (the latter of which was essentially just a vanilla 5/5 for 2GG, since I never used the ability) were all-stars, as were Selesnya Charm (most-used mode: +2/+2 and trample) and Swift Justice.

Regarding Populate, it was...not bad. Druid's Deliverance ended up being an instant-speed 3/3 or 2/2 vigilance for two mana most of the time, and Eyes in the Skies as an instant-speed Hill Giant that comes with a 1/1 flyer is quite good. That's pretty good. But on the downside, without at least a Centaur token in play, they're super-underwhelming. I'm pretty sure Naturalize and Fog are not maindeckable cards in this format. So, hit-or-miss: high highs, low lows.

I splashed blue for New Prahv Guildmage (and Righteous Authority) because New Prahv Guildmage seemed absurdly powerful. In hindsight, I believe this was definitely incorrect--I should have splashed red for Mizzium Mortars (AKA Flame Slash) and Explosive Impact. New Prahv Guildmage was definitely very good, but in my deck, the burn spells would have fit much better with the gameplan. For the record, New Prahv Guildmage was very good for pushing through damage and dealing with opposing threats, but as a splash (I couldn't use the Guildmage's abilities more than once a turn), Explosive Impact would have done the same job more efficiently.

I had a Korozda Guildmage I could have splashed, but that seems clearly worse.

My one loss came in the third round against Azorius. He had Dramatic Rescue for my tokens, which is the other big drawback of Populate: getting destroyed by bounce spells. Got an 8/8 token? Nope! I nearly had him in the final game--he had Azor's Elocutors on four, but I had a lethal alpha strike. Cue Blustersquall. Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu...

Anyway, I won four packs, went home, and passed out as soon as I got in bed because by this time it was six in the morning and I'd been up all night.

So then I had a second flight in the afternoon. This time: Izzet.

Dressed for blue-red success

Well, my Izzet pool was certainly more...interesting.

It was difficult to build because I had a lot of noncreature spells. Splashing black was an easy decision, as I had Stab Wound, Ultimate Price, and Dreadbore, all of which are amazing removal spells, plus Rakdos Keyrune as my only (nongreen) fixing.

I ended up cutting Traitorous Instinct, Dynacharge, Electrickery, both copies of Paralyzing Grasp, and all but one copy of Inspiration. At the last second, I got wishy-washy on Mizzium Skin and added it to the deck.

This time, I had two awesome bomby rare creatures: Hypersonic Dragon, obviously (even though I wasn't playing any relevant sorceries), and Mercurial Chemister, the rare from my guild booster. Wow, is that guy sweet! I got him out several times, and without exception, he dominated the game. It was about as powerful as you'd imagine.

Teleportal was the big all-star this time. It's the real deal. You remember Overrun? And how casting it is always a total blowout that wins you the game on the spot? Yeah, it's like that. Except they can't block at all. I had a great game in the first round where I went Stab Wound, bleed, bleed, bleed, Teleportal to attack for 13, bleed and you're dead. Now that's some whammies right there.

And again, I got a healthy share of wins just by playing efficient beaters. Bloodfray Giant was another all-star, as were fellow Unleashers Gore-House Chainwalker and Dead Reveler. So was Cobblebrute: a vanilla 5/2 might not look like anything special, but it pulled a lot of weight because I could use effects like Soulsworn Spirit to take out their blockers or just straight-up make it unblockable with Rogue's Passage or--of course--those game-winning Teleportals. I definitely won a few games off of unblockable Cobblebrutes.

I managed to draw a fair share of cards off of Izzet Keyrune and Stealer of Secrets as well, which was lots of fun. And I got to bring in Sewer Shambler out of the sideboard against Rakdos and Golgari, just for value.

With my sweet Izzet-splash-black deck, I swept the competition, going 4-0 in matches and 8-1 in games (losing in the finals against a fellow Izzet) to win eight packs!

The spoils of war.

And on top of that, I got hold of all the cards I wanted for Mayael. I traded one of the derpy bulk rares out of my binder for a Guild Feud--also a derpy bulk rare, but one I'm excited to play with. I picked up Angel of Serenity in exchange for Ajani Goldmane and a handful of other casual-quality rares. And finally, the guy with Worldspine Wurm didn't find a card he wanted from me, but he was happy to trade it for one of my prize packs.

All in all, today was a good day.

Selesnya first impressions, cont.

Okay, so, wrapping my mind around this...it's like a combat trick, but it also makes a creature. But you have to already have a token in play. Hmm. Okay. Well, uh, I guess it depends how many tokens are in my pool. If I have a good amount of centaur or knight tokens or whatnot, I'd expect it to be very nice, and if not, it's gotta be bad, right? I'm really not sure. I guess I'd have to see it in action first. Reserving judgement.




And here we see a solid three-drop obviously intended for Limited. I can't imagine it being bad. It's a fine three-power body with relevant lategame upside. Just a random dude for the curve, basically--nothing exciting, but fills a role.




So here we have a card that I would first-pick even if it didn't populate. I'm certainly playing this, and when I do I'll want lots of token-makers around, and beyond that I don't quite know what to say.




See, these "Populate as an extra rider" cards are giving me trouble trying to evaluate them. This is not an unreasonable trick on its own, and the potential upside of getting an extra creature should be good. And I do expect to play these cards, but I also feel like I don't really understand them. I don't get the flavor. Why can I only make more tokens of tokens I already have? That's so...weird. I mean a token is just a creature. It's an ordinary knight or centaur or wurm just like any other. Shouldn't I be able to populate my ordinary nontoken creatures too? What is special about being a token? I am so confused.




Okay, not so confused about this one. It makes two rhinos for eight mana. That I can understand. Uh...mostly. I mean, it's sort of roundabout, isn't it? How often will you be populating something else? Double Rhinos are nice, but it seems hard to get any more value out of it.





Oh hey, how about instead of two 4/4s for 8, we get two 5/5s for 6? That is a lot of power for six mana. Very impressive. Let's see the other guilds top that. And take that, Broodmate Dragon!




Well, it's an efficient creature that works with populate. I dunno, I still feel weird about this new Selesnya theme. It used to be all about making lots of little tokens. Now it's all about making really big tokens. But I liked making lots of little tokens!




I guess I also like beating down with efficient creatures. Trained Armodon with upside is a good one. If you can't beat down with twelve 1/1s, try beating down with four 3/3s?




This should be a good combat trick, but I don't think I have much to say about it. It's pretty mundane as far as these things go. I like it as a throwback to Seeds of Strength, and I like the art. Those sharp angles and the sense of motion are classic Raymond Swanland. Very nice.




The "Make two creatures with one spell" thing is clearly a recurring theme here. Two 3/3s is definitely reasonable at six, and the populate has more potential upside than it does with the double rhinos. I think I like this better than Horncaller's Chant.




Ah, aha, I see what you did there, Wizards. Yes, very clever.




See, this is what I'm talking about! Repeatable token generation. The new guildmage here is probably my favorite Selesnya card revealed so far. It does just what I want to be doing: it sits back and makes an indomitable army, one centaur at a time. Yes, I approve. That's the Selesnya I know and love!




One thing we love at the Conclave: destroying artifacts and enchantments. First it was Sundering Vitae and Seed Spark, and now the tradition of combining Naturalizes with tokens continues! I'd be comfortable maindecking this in Sealed with all those keyrunes and such running around. The fact that it also populates makes me feel better about it.




Hey, speaking of keyrunes, it's a 3/3 mana rock! I like it! In fact, I like this whole cycle. I am a fan of manlands in general, so by extension, I am a fan of man-rocks too. All five of them seem sweet, and I hope the cycle continues in Gatecrash.


 

And finally, the Guildgate. What a lovely piece of architecture.

Time for some Selesnya limericks!

A Glorious Anthem times three:
Just what token decks want to see.
It's like Overrun,
But prob'ly more fun
If you're casting it preemptively.




More Populate! Hmm, I approve
Of Selesnya's signature move.
Some creatures may die,
But there's more standing by
And enchantments are hard to remove.




What's this? I don't see tokens here!
This beatstick's vanilla, I fear.
On the other hand, that's
Quite a nice set of stats
Like a Watchwolf with really big ears.




Gain life and overextend?
I can guess how that's going to end.
I'm not blown away
This card is okay
Gives new meaning to "Make a new friend."