*Part one can be found here.
There could be few harder materials to traverse when you weigh more than a knight in full regalia than coins. Every footstep brought a mini-landslide of them away under his weight, threatening to send him tumbling down, or treacherously gave way, trapping his short legs thigh-high in a heavy grasp. Kallorn was soon gasping with exertion. His staff, always a trusted and valuable travelling companion, could give him no purchase here, and every handheld just came away in his grasp.
“You look ridiculous you know,” chirped Dark. The vampire was stretched out, reclining cat-like on the side of the coin pile. “I must say, you sure are determined to get that Orb. You even asked me for a large favour, and agreed to my cost. That’s a first.”
“You’ll get what you’re owed. Now do you mind shutting up? I’m busy here.”
Another two steps forward, another stride back.
Of course, Dark didn’t take that opportunity to shut up. He wasn’t the sort to stop talking if he felt like talking in the slightest, and that went double where Kallorn was concerned. He continued to muse aloud as Kallorn manage to grab a hold of a gleaming breastplate that was half buried in the pile. Tugging, Kallorn was gratified to find that the heavier weight of the armour made it more stable, and he began to look for other pieces to act as anchors. His progress up the treasure increased.
“Not that I doubt your commitment to repaying services rendered, but the unusual thing is that you asked for help at all. You would as soon swallow a dagger as obtain my brand of ‘help’. So what could you be willing to stoop for? Kal, what does the Orb do?”
“It’s nothing special, just a healing aide. Something to help with all the headaches and fevers your magic causes me.”
Dark shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. What was it the priest said? “One to protect the mind…. one to guard the body, and one to….. blast, what was it…..”
Kallorn grasped the rim of what appeared to be a part of a submerged chariot, hauled himself another blessed metre closer to his goal.
“….one to guard the soul. Kallorn.”
Kallorn looked up. Dark was there, right there, right in front of him. Standing on the surface of the coins, looking down at him. Blocking his view of the orb. His smile was gone, and a scowl was on his face that Kallorn knew heralded suffering. Kallorn gritted his teeth.
“Does your soul need some guarding, Kal? Perhaps you wish to be free of an unwelcome passenger, huh? YOU PIECE OF DUNG.”
Dark clenched his fist tight, and Kallorn’s whole body blazed with the acid-burn pain of his soul coming under assault. No matter how many times he had felt its searing caress Kallorn could never prepare for or withstand Dark’s most unique punishment. He screamed, and around the treasure pile the remaining zombies took it up, dead throats letting out pained moans.
“How does that feel? Huh, Kal? You like that? You think you can just grab that paperweight and wipe me away? Squirm, you son of a maggot!”
He clenched again, howling with rage. His hand was curled into a claw, mangling the air. Mangling Kallorn. The agony shook Kallorn’s body like a leaf in a storm. It took everything he had to maintain his grip on the chariot and not fall. When his eyes focused again, Dark was in his face, his smooth features twisted with hate, transforming him into something bestial and ugly. Thick, vaguely purple veins pulsed in his face, and he had ripped his lips while speaking, causing blood to trickle from his slashed mouth.
“You are going to regret this little teenage rebellion, crusader. Oh yes. I am going to make you suffer in inventive ways….”
Kallorn let the words fade out. It was all hate and spite and intent so evil that he didn’t want to hear it anyway. All that mattered now was the Orb. The Orb was salvation, and it lay just a metre and a half away. It was going to hurt, hurt so much that fear welled in his chest. But he could do it, would do it. Kallorn quickly plotted out a likely course, and prepared himself, bunching his muscles for movement.
“…And now it makes sense. Why you never wanted to know my name. Yes, I get it. Trying to keep me at arm’s length, not as a living being, just a thing, something you could destroy without hurting your precious morality. Pathetic. When you take a life Kal, you should be up front with yourself about wanting to do it. Just one of the things that I despise about you. You weak, simpering whelp! You aren’t the only one who can stay disconnected. Every day, every day, I remind myself of why I hate you.
Dark squeezed with relish, and Kallorn bucked. He could hardly hear his own screaming.
“Your self-righteousness.”
Clench. Scream.
“Your sad, near-constant moral agonizing.”
Clench. Scream.
“Your tolerance of the unworthy and feeble!”
Clench. Scream.
“Your naivety and the delusions that you make a difference!”
Dark clenched for the longest time yet, holding the torture till Kallorn started to black out. When the shaking finally stopped, Dark stepped forward and knelt down next to Kallorn, hissed in his ear.
“You have been given incredible power, and you waste it! We could be ruling an empire that would last for a thousand years, but you would rather go around hovels and minister to peasants and scum! Pathetic.”
Kallorn’s voice was cracked and brittle. “Are you done venting yet? I’ve kind of got a lot of stuff going on to be focusing on another self-justifying lecture.”
Dark bristled.
“Oh, that is it! I am going to find the sweetest, most devout chapel in this land, and then I am going to make you…”
“No. You are not going to make me do anything ever again, Dark.”
*
Kallorn sprung forward like a stone out of a sling. His sudden movement took Dark by surprise, giving him a precious few seconds of frantic, nothing-to-lose movement. Ploughing through the coins explosively, Kallorn grabbed a protruding bust, using it for purchase he hauled himself off it to grip a stone dais just as the coins below his feet started to cascade away. Heaving a great gasp of exertion, he had just cleared the dais to aim for the last object, a huge harp of ivory, when Dark reacted. His hand clenched and Kallorn was struck by white-hot pain, but he knew this was coming. Even as his mind reeled, a small iron part of him spoke that he would never have to feel this again if he could just keep moving.
“No! I will not allow it! Fall, Kallorn! FALL!” screeched Dark. Kallorn shut him out, though that wasn’t much of an achievement when every nerve in his body was shrieking for attention in a rather more insistent way.
Muscles straining, veins rising like knotted ropes on his sweating skin, Kallorn took hold of the edge of the harp, gripped it so tight his knuckles creaked. The Orb of Warding was just there, just over the length of his arm away. But it sure felt like it was on an island across a sea. With a roar of pure animal determination, Kallorn pulled, muscles screaming in protest. He pushed off, diving for the Orb.
“NOOO!” screamed Dark in the background. There was real panic in his voice.
With an explosion of gold he smashed into the pedestal, somehow managing to grasp the Orb as part of his frenzied tackle. The momentum of his charge then took Kallorn down the other side of the treasure pile. He tried to curl into a ball, protecting the Orb with the bulk of his body as he tumbled. The outside world blacked out in a haze of pain, but as he fell Kallorn gripped the Orb with mortal intensity.
“Orb, shield my soul. I wish to be free,” thought Kallorn as the bottom of the pile of treasure rushed up to meet him.
*
With a massive crash, Kallorn come to a stop. Coins tumbled and clinked all around him. Suddenly the pain was gone, and Kallorn gasped, face staring up at the sky as his body tingled at the sudden change. Kallorn may have lain like that for some time, staring at the sky, clutching his hard-won prize, had not a scream taken up his attention.
“No. No, no, no, no, no, no! NO!!!”
Dark was writhing around on the gold. Dark streams of energy were streaming off him, flowing away and dissipating. The vampire was screaming, a pleading note in his voice. It sounded as though he was in pain, grievous pain.
“Ugh, it hurts… hurts so bad. You can stop it, Kal. Just put the Orb down. Please.”
Slowly, very slowly, Kallorn stood. Not a shred of mercy could be seen in his eyes.
“That’s not going to happen. You’ve had this coming for a long time. A shame it wasn’t sooner.”
Dark opened his mouth, as if to speak, but didn’t. His thrashing grew weaker. His movements slowed, like a clockwork toy winding down. Dark extended one hand to Kallorn, though whether asking for mercy or trying to torture was impossible to tell. Finally, with a whispering rattle, Dark fell back.
“You lied, Kal. You said it wouldn’t…” and then he was still.
Kallorn stood before Dark’s body, the Orb gently orbiting his hand. Savage triumph flooded through him. At last, after countless atrocities, the vampire was dead. Kallorn’s destiny was his own again.
“Yes, I lied. And I’d do it again.”
It was right then that Dark’s body started to move.
*
At first Kallorn thought it was some sort of after-death spasm, his mind projecting a natural event onto an unnatural situation. A moment later, Kallorn realised the shaking was laughing.
“‘Yes, I lied. And I’d do it again.’ Oh, Kal, Kal, Kal. Such a bad habit.”
Kallorn’s heart skipped a beat as Dark straightened up and stood. The dark energy that had been streaming off him whipped back, pouring back in rivers.
“You look surprised. You really shouldn’t be. You always were easy to fool. Is the Orb not living up to your expectations?”
Kallorn looked at the red Orb in his hand. This didn’t make sense. Unless…
“It’s a fake, isn’t it?”
“One sec. Just have to do a touch of cleaning.”
The last of the black energy poured back into Dark. As soon as it had come to rest, it exploded out in a huge wave, scything through the Temple of Silence. There were only a few zombies and Returned left, still slugging it out. As the expanding wave of energy passed through the zombies, they explosively ruptured without protest, corpses coming apart and sharp shards of bone hurled in all directions. The Returned had no chance. Shredded bodies hit the floor and lay still, but wisps of almost invisible energy sailed from their forms and into Dark, who drank it in eagerly. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, the picture of perfect vampiric health once more.
“Ah, that’s better. Now where was I? The Orb? No Kal. Not a fake. It was just never going to work. It was a decent plan on your end, but you are dealing with subjects far beyond your scope. Souls? That’s not really your thing. I get the thinking. ‘If the Orb wards Souls, then having it ward me should cast out my dear buddy, Dark.’ And it’s true, the Orb will protect you, for what it’s worth you need never fear possession again. But it can’t cure what is already ailing you. I was here first, it can’t work on me. So sorry.”
Kallorn’s head fell. His dream, reduced to dust. Dark had outwitted him with considerable ease. Still trapped with a monster.
“You knew I was lying, didn’t you?”
Dark smiled.
“From the very beginning. You are not very good at it. Don’t worry, it’ll come with practise. I’m quite proud of you, truth be told. You tried to murder me, and lead me to the slaughter unknowing. How… diabolical! Where’s the honour, Kallorn? I thought you Bantians valued it more than life itself. Such falling standards. But don’t worry. We won’t tell anyone, eh? If they ask, we can always… lie.”
Kallorn’s head spun, and he sank to his knees. Disgusted, he let go of the Orb, but rather than roll away it floated up and began to orbit his head, winking its faded red light. Kallorn drew in great shuddering breaths, mixed with coughs as Dark sauntered over.
“This has been fun and all. But business calls. You asked for my help in getting the Orb, you have the Orb. Now, it’s time to return the favour. There’s a priest further in who is in possession of a scroll that has magic on it I want. You will help me get it, yes?”
Kallorn rose, stiff as an old man. He picked up his mage’s staff. Head down, unable to look at Dark, he walked.
“Are we going to have to hurt anyone?”
“Oh yes, I’d say so.”
Kallorn stopped.
“Then I won’t do it.”
“You could of course refuse. Putting aside the fact that I will make you regret it, that means it would be known that Kallorn ‘the conflicted’ gave his word, his bond, knowing the intended consequences, and then he backed out of it. What happened to your precious honour, Kal. Going to toss it away so soon? Whatever will the children say about their noble protector?”
“No one would know.”
Dark smiled, the smile of a chess grandmaster that has put his checkmate move into play.
“Well, I’d know. And more importantly, you know who else would? You would.”
And there, for perhaps the first time, deep in the depths of the underworld, Kallorn thought about what it truly meant to keep your word.
Just as Dark intended.
After a long moment, broken only by the gentle whisper of the wind, Kallorn walked again, following Dark.
“Whatever, let’s just get this done. I want to be gone from this damned place.”
And so the monster and its unwilling keeper disappeared into the depths, the pale glow of the red Orb marking their progress.
Now, the Temple of Silence truly lived up to its name.
Magic the Gathehring fanfiction by Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
I love it when a new set comes out. There are so many new and interesting options available. Can some cards be used in Modern? Can that card there be a sweet new addition to an existing Standard deck? Is a whole new archetype going to emerge with some of these new cards? There are just so many possibilities and that is a truly exciting prospect. Old cards and new cards can combine in ways that make for some terrific new options to get my brewing juices flowing.
Like many players I have turned my attention increasingly to playing EDH or Commander and am starting to like the idea more and more. I have two decks built already that I play with a friend when we get together once a month and have found the format to be very engaging and lots of fun to play. I can certainly see the appeal for so many players. However, when I saw the full spoiler for Shadow over Innistrad I got excited to see one new card get spoiled. This guy!
This is one UGLY dude, but it is in one of my favorite colour combinations. There is just so much text that you can’t ignore it. I think perhaps the best part of this card for Commander is the fact that you can sacrifice your land to keep him in play, but if you need to you have the option of NOT paying the upkeep, losing your Frog Horror, and having the ability to replay it later when you are comfortably back on top of the land situation. That just feels like a very powerful choice that can be leveraged by a clever player and is part of the game inside the game with this card.
I have to say, it has proven to be a big relief that this guy has been printed. In the last several sets there haven’t been a ton of good G/B commanders to choose from. There’s Pharika, God of Affliction and she’s pretty solid. There’s Meren of Clan Nel Toth who is very strong in her Commander 2015 supplemental product. Anafenza the Foremost gets you Abzan colours, but to get a real nasty G/B commander in a new set is pretty fun and exciting. It opens up a whole lot of possibilities and blows new life back into this colour combination and gets everyone all excited about building a fun new deck with lots of new treats from the latest set.
Now, anyone can build a list for a G/B deck. Heck, you could just borrow the G/B decklist from the Commander 2015 product released last fall. However, sometimes what makes Commander decks fun is when you have a fun theme. The Gitrog Monster lends himself to a very easy theme…and that’s UGLY. I wanted to build myself a Commander deck for the Gitrog Monster that is using all the most ugly cards I can find. And by ugly…I.mean stuff that is as ugly as we can make it. Now, my list isn’t perfect and it can’t JUST be ugly cards because it does still need to be relevant and able to get a win, but when it came down to a tie breaker I would pick the uglier card in order to stay as true as possible to my theme. Here’s the list I’ve put together.
The game plan for the deck is pretty straight forward. You want to self-mill to improve your card quality, play gross creatures, play gross removal and out gross your opponent to victory. I think the real trick is really in The Gitrog Monster because it is not only huge, but it can be a major source of card advantage once you start grinding away. Each and every land that you sacrifice to appease Gitrog is an opportunity to draw another card. Coupled with the fact that you will be dumping things in your yard, have a mild amount of Delve to fuel, can Scavenge up a few other targets or just reanimate them with a number of other spells and you could have something extremely fun to play.
There is no doubt that this initial version is very budget conscious because I can immediately think of a number of very expensive additions. Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze both seem like very strong additions to this sort of deck. Also, Life from the Loam would be a fun addition to this sort of deck as you move get back some lands to keep feeding Gitrog. Verdant Catacombs and Overgrown Tomb would also be nice additions to the deck. I’m sure that there are a few other things that I could find to help spice up the deck without going overboard and going from being fun to being oppressive and uncool for my friends to play.
What new Commanders are you excited for coming out of Shadows over Innistrad? Are you stoked for The Gitrog Monster like me? Do you have your eyes on another sweet prize? Let me know what has got your attention by leaving a comment down below or by finding me on Twitter. Also, if there are any sweet or ugly cards that I’ve overlooked, let me know. I’m always on the lookout for cards that are cool or underplayed and might fit the bill.
Be sure to stop by next time for another Casual Encounter!
-Bruce Gray
@bgray8791 on Twitter
It may not be Friday the thirteenth, but we’re in for some frights!
I originally wanted to do my Top 13 Shadows Over Innistrad (SOI) cards in honour of today being (unfortunately, not a Friday) the 13th… what with thirteen being of such relevance in the world of Innistrad). Ultimately, I felt that was a little too cliché.
Instead, I’d like to try something a little different. Hopefully you’ll all enjoy it. Since this week is the release week for Shadows, I felt that this would be the best time to do something we, as Magic players, all love to do: Let’s open some booster packs!
Ah! That new card smell, that satisfying sound when cracking a pack, those sweet new cards. There’s a reason this game is colloquially referred to as Cardboard Crack.
I’ve set aside three packs to share with you. We’ll be cracking them for the fun of it, but we can also play “Pack 1, Pick 1”. Pack 1, Pick 1 (also known as P1P1) is a quick game Magic players will engage in when cracking packs. The purpose is to determine which card would be the “first pick” in a draft environment. Since we’ll be opening three packs, we can play this two ways: 1) For each pack, what would be our P1P1 if this were the first pack we would open in a draft and 2) What would be our pick if these were opened sequentially in a draft (i.e. pack 1, then pack 2, then pack 3).
Let’s dive into our first pack, shall we?
Here’s a look at our Common cards from our first pack.
No, we’re not jumping right to the rare. It’s called “building suspense”. If you really want to spoil the surprise, there’s nothing stopping you from scrolling down.
So what have we got here? Well, truthfully, nothing really stands out for me amongst these Commons. I’m a big fan of Vessel of Ephemera, which I talked about in my last article. It provides bodies on the board and fuels Delirium if we end up in a Delirium deck. The other Common I’m looking at is Howlpack Wolf. I’ve found the card to be extremely strong in Limited. Its “drawback” of not being able to block without another Wolf or Werewolf on the battlefield isn’t detrimental enough for me to not include it in a deck. More often then not, attacking is what I want it to be doing anyway. A 3/3 body on turn 3 in an aggressive RG (Were)Wolf strategy is exactly what I want. Like most Red mages say, “what is blocking?”
That’s all I’m really looking at in terms of these Commons, though. Let’s see if there’s something spicier in the Uncommons…
Eek, nothing fantastic here either. I like Tenacity. It’s a good combat trick that people often don’t see coming. I’m also a fan of Spectral Shepherd, especially in the Spirit deck. I really like his synergy with Apothecary Geist; Using the Geist as a blocker that I can bounce back to my hand with the Shepherd and then recast him again to gain life is pretty fun. I’m not sure, however, if either of those cards are first picks at this point. Let’s check out the Rare and Double Faced Card (DFC) and see if we’ve opened something exciting.
We opened a Mythic Rare! Seasons Past is a very neat card and I like the potential it harbours, but it’s a very difficult card to build around in Draft. Breakneck Rider, on the other hand, looks amazing right now. He’s a little more mana intensive than the Howlpack Wolf, but the Rider’s potential explosiveness when he transforms into Neck Breaker is worth it to me. That attack bonus is exactly what I want if I’m playing Red aggro. He’s a strong contender for P1P1, so let’s take another look at the pack before we make any decisions, just to make sure we’re satisfied with that pick.
Overall, not the best first pack to open but I feel the Breakneck Rider // Neck Breaker really saves it. I would be happy with P1P1ing the Rider. When this pack comes back to me in a draft, I would be hoping to “wheel” either the Howlpack Wolf for the synergy, Tenacity if I end up in White or the Wicker Witch if I’m in an aggressive deck.
So far so good! Let’s move onto our second pack!
Check it out, our second Vessel of Ephemera. This pack also has a second Vampire Noble as well… Wait a second! There’s only eight Commons here! This means we either have a second DFC in the pack or perhaps a premium card. This is exciting!
In terms of P1P1, if this had been out first pack, I like the Vessel, as I mentioned before, but I also like the Voldaren Duelist. I think it has a good ability on a solid body. If we view this pack as our second pack in the draft, following our Breakneck Rider pack, I like the Voldaren Duelist even more since he’s in our colours. Let’s take a look at the Uncommons, see if anything strikes us as better.
I love Silverstrike. I think it’s one of the best Common/Uncommon removals in the format. Sure, it’s a little expensive and it requires an attacking creature which isn’t irrelevant, but the three points of life has gotten me out of quite a few jams in games so far. I also like the Graf Mole. A 2/4 for 3 is an excellent defensive creature and he’s very solid in the Clue deck. That being said, if this were our P1P1, I’m definitely favouring the Silverstrike. If this were our P2P1, assuming I’m in Red with Breakneck Rider, I’d consider splashing White for Silverstrike. I don’t know if I could say the same about the Mole. I feel I would only pick the Mole if I was already in Green.
We’ve still got our Rare and DFC to check out! Will they be better than our last pack?
BOOM! Flameblade Angel, Accursed Witch and foil Silverfur Partisan. All of these cards are great. Personally, I’m really happy to have opened the Silverfur Partisan because he’ll be going into my Tribal Cube for the Wolf support. What’s a Cube you ask? That’s another topic for another time. But I digress…
For now, of these three cards, as much as I really like Silverfur Partisan, I do feel he’s the weakest of the batch. Accursed Witch is very strong and was an integral piece in my Release Day Sealed pool deck that lead me to a 5-0 victory, so I’m certainly going to give her pause. That being said, Flameblade Angel is the very definition of a bomb and will win games on her own. She’s currently my top pick, but let’s review the entire pack once more before we make a decision.
If this were my P1P1, I’d be hard pressed to choose anything over the Flameblade Angel. I definitely like Silverfur Partsan, Accursed Witch and Silverstrike, but I feel the Angel is the clear pick. Assuming this was our P2P1, following the Breakneck Rider pack, I’d be windmill slamming that Angel. She’s in our colours and she’s a fantastic top end to a Red deck.
This is going pretty well so far! Let’s see what’s in store for us in Pack 3…
Boo! Nine Common cards. Oh well; No foil or extra DFC for us. There’s the Apothecary Geist I was talking about before that could have combined well with Spectral Shepherd. If this were our last pack after our P1 Breakneck Rider and P2 Flameblade Angel, I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of either of these Red card. Hulking Devil is underwhelming and Ember-Eye Wolf is a 2 drop that I’m fine with including in my deck, but I’m not particularly excited to do so. If this were our P1P1, I’d be leaning toward the Murderous Compulsion. It’s cheap, efficient removal with a slight drawback that could be negated if we wheel that Stern Constable.
Let’s move on to our Uncommons.
Now these cards are a little more exciting. Pale Rider of Trostad is a very interesting card for the Skulk/Discard/Madness decks but I think I like Incorrigible Youths a little more. It’s a big beater with Haste and its Madness cost makes it an insane value card if you can cast it on turn 3. Youths is definitely at the top of my list right now. Let’s see if our Rare or DFC can beat it…
DISREGARD EVERYTHING. We opened the Man in the Popped Collar Leather Jacket on Top of a Hooded Cloak himself, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets. Lambholt Pacifist, you’re a pretty good card, especially in a deck with Breakneck Rider and Flameblade Angel, but I think the pick here is Jace. Just to be sure, let’s review the pack one more time.
It’s Jace, right? Jace? Yeah, I think it’s Jace. If this were our P1P1, it’s definitely Jace. If this were our P3P1, it’s still Jace because come on, it’s Jace. If Jace wasn’t in this pack, I’d be looking at the Youths or the Murderous Compulsion. That being said, he’s in the pack and I don’t think I have the fortitude of character to simply pass Jace, although I can tell you stories of those who have. But I digress…
I hope you enjoyed our very first “pack cracking” here on Optimum Jank. I’d be very interested to hear if you agree or disagree with my picks. Would you have gone in a different direction? Would you have passed the Jace in Pack 3 if you were already solidly in Red? Leave a comment in the Comments section and share your thoughts. If you’re in the area, Three Kings Loot hosts SOI drafts on Monday, Thursday and Friday. You should check it out if you enjoyed what you saw here and would like to try it yourself!
JP Vazquez – Optimum Jank
With the set releasing this weekend, I thought today would be an excellent opportunity to go through my top ten casual cards from Shadows Over Innistrad for all of you. Now, these may not be all the hottest competitive cards. Sometimes there are other cards that are spicy and fun to play with, but may not be particularly good in the competitive Magic scene. However, even casual players appreciate mana-efficient, powerful cards so don’t be surprised if some of those also appear on this list too. Let’s get down to business and see what I’m excited for in this new set!
I always get excited for new land cycles because having good mana is so crucial to playing this game. I have maintained now for a long time that good mana is often better than having the premier spells because you can reliably cast your spells if you’ve got the correct mana. The new lands give us one more tool to help fix our mana, but the interaction with the Battle lands, namely that the Battle lands are dual typed, means that you can have this new cycle come into play untapped quite reliably. They aren’t exciting and most people aren’t thrilled about them, but I think they are one more viable land option. The other piece is that these lands should be fairly readily accessible and inexpensive for the foreseeable future making them an inexpensive investment and something that helps casual players get the mana fixing they want without breaking the bank..
10- Sigarda, Heron’s Grace: While the other angels have gone crazy, Sigarda has stayed pretty true to her original printing. She’s still 5 mana, is a good body, but now she gives your humans and you hexproof. This doesn’t seem like it is very relevant, but she goes in tribal human decks very readily. Whether you are playing human Allies, Warriors, or even pre-transformed werewolves, she is relevant and could make life difficult for your opponents. I’m not sure if she has a future in constructed decks yet, but I know casual players will be excited for her to be played in tribal decks.
9- Triskaidekaphobia: I feel like this will be one of the cards that leave a lasting impressions on this set long term. Triskaidekaphobia is not likely to see much in the way of Constructed play, but it is templated beautifully for Multi-player games giving it more appeal for Casual players. The real draw here is that it is an alternate win condition for a deck that is interested in that sort of thing. I know some EDH deck is going to brew with this thing and I have a few friends who will take a stab at making this viable, but that will only see the light of day around the kitchen table. The art on this card is insane too in that it calls out to so many different instances of the number 13 that it is almost comical. This will certainly be remembered and is extremely unique even for a set as rich and flavourful as Shadows over Innistrad.
8- Seasons Past: As a casual player, this speaks to me very clearly. For 6 mana I can regrow MULTIPLE targets? So, sure, it is NOT what a Constructed deck wants, but I can imagine getting all sorts of things back in a Casual game very easily. Just think about your favorite 1 drop. Do you have it in mind? Great. Now a 2 drop. Repeat that for a 3 drop. Keep going…how about 4 now…and 5, and 6, and, and, and. Seasons Past is exactly the sort of card that will scale ridiculously depending on what’s in your deck and we all know casual players are more apt to have bigger, splashier things in their deck. This could be amazing… and the stories you will tell will start like this “Remember when I cast Seasons Past and got back…”. Yeah. I’m pumped.
7- Odric, Lunarch Marshall: Wow…so, you know when I had Sigarda playing guardian angel for a tribal humans deck? Well, I want this guy to be the reason I win that game because he just grants all my other creatures silly abilities. It isn’t hard to imagine this guy being ridiculous and casual players are ready and willing to give this guy a brand new home leading their decks. Just a sweet new treat to make decks unbelievable. Fellow looter JP Vazquez is also excited by Odric, so check out his article if you haven’t already!
6- Thalia’s Lieutenant: Hmmm…tribal humans just got another lord. Ok. Sign me up. I could almost see this guy helping to build the foundation for a silly Humans build in Modern playing alongside Champion of the Parish and Hardened Scales but even without that push this is hard to miss.
5- Second Harvest: I read this card and had to stop and look at it again. For 4 mana for that ability doesn’t seem THAT good. Oh wait, what am I talking about. I’m clearly wrong and can’t wait to play this and do some degenerate token shenanigans with it. Think about playing this in some of the EDH decks out there that are focused on token strategies: Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice, Ghave, Guru of Spores, Rhys the Redeemed, just to name a few. These decks look to go wide. This lets them go WIDER. At instant speed. We’re all going to die to this card in EDH. I accept it and want my chance to try and cast it too.
4- Epiphany at the Drownyard: This is perhaps my favorite card in this whole set. I love drawing extra cards and nothing makes me happier than being able to do that at Instant speed. The fact that this scales in the late game when I have a pile of mana is very appealing and could help me stock my hand all over again. The similarities between this and Fact or Fiction is unmistakable and further adds to the appeal of the card because I love forcing my opponent to make a choice and see if they make a bad one for me to capitalize on. This is a very strong card and certainly not something I will overlook.
3- Trail of Evidence: I’m using Trail of Evidence as a placeholder for cards that allow you to create multiple Clue artifacts. I think these Clue artifacts are an ingenious way to help smooth out limited play by allowing players the chance to draw more cards. If you can draw more cards you might find that answer you desperately need to stave off your death. The result is very positive for Limited. However, for a Casual player, these Clue tokens create a very interesting opportunity when paired with Ghirapur Aether Grid because you can use your Clue tokens to help deal damage to your opponent. Any time you can weaponize something that is essentially harmless you have something that will appeal to a certain type of Casual player.
2- The Gitrog Monster: This is a wild card that has entirely too much text on it for it to NOT be something that Casual players are going to drool all over. Don’t ask me where it goes…maybe it is the general for a whole new EDH deck…but I know that this thing is a) stupid big b) packs a ton of powerful abilities and c) has super cool art. I want me one of these guys.
1- Arlinn Kord: This was a tough choice because I kind of wanted to put Avacyn in this spot. The reason I picked Arlinn is just because she is the first Planeswalker with the ability to flip back and forth under your control. Garruk Relentless flipped over and stayed that way with no chance of flipping back. Same for the more recent flip Planeswalkers in Magic: Origins. This is the first time that we’ve seen a walker who can go back and forth at will. That makes her unique and something that can’t be overlooked ever. She will undoubtedly be a strong competitive card in Constructed, but Casual players are going to love her too. I mean, she packs 5 abilities, is a Werewolf, and looks amazing…she’s a casual all star and takes top spot on my list.
Well, there we have it. My top ten is likely very different from most top tens. Heck, I left Sorin, Avacyn and Relentless Dead off my list! Don’t get me wrong, these are going to be amazing cards but they will find their home in Constructed Magic right away. Some of the cards on my list will see competitive play, but there are others that will never see the light of day at a major tournament and will shine brightest around the kitchen table.
Was there anything else that caught your eye or has you super excited? Let me know by finding me on Twitter or by leaving a comment down below. This is clearly going to be a terrific set and I’m excited to see these cards dominate kitchen tables for years to come.
Until next time good luck and have fun wherever you play Magic and be sure to stop by next time for another Casual Encounter.
Bruce Gray
@bgray8791 on Twitter
The Shadows Over Innistrad Prerelease is behind us and we are just a few days away from the official release date of the new set. I hope you all had a chance to participate in a Prerelease event or two because Shadows Over Innistrad (SOI) is amazing. Perhaps my early impressions are overly favourable because I loathed Battle for Zendikar (BFZ) so much, but I feel my instincts for this set are on the mark: Shadows Over Innistrad is going to be tremendous fun.
One of the more fascinating aspects of this set are the sheer number of moving parts – from the mechanical elements of the game down to the story and presentation – working in unison in a truly meaningful way. If I may take a moment to contrast Shadows Over Innistrad with Battle for Zendikar, the story of BFZ was that of the Zendikari fighting alongside the unbelievably poorly named “Gatewatch” superteam of Planeswalkers to vanquish the terrorizing Eldrazi menace rampaging across Zendikar. While BFZ’s premise may have been presented as everyone working together to defeat a common foe, in reality, the entire block felt disjointed and divided into three separate entities each trying to do their own contradicting thing. The Eldrazi mechanics mostly worked parasitically meaning they didn’t really work well with anything else in the set… which is fine. The Eldrazi should feel different and alien. The Zendikari, however, were all over the place. Some were Allies which worked with everything… including the Eldrazi, which doesn’t make any sense at all. Others were… just there? They didn’t really do anything, nor were they Allies, so I guess they didn’t mind the Eldrazi being there? I have no idea. Maybe non-Ally Zendikari simply hate Zendikar. They weren’t overly synergistic with the Eldrazi either, so I’m not really sure why they were there in the first place. Finally, we had The Gatewatch, functioning in their own space to the side by their very nature of being Planeswalkers. For a story and set about teamwork and working together, nothing meshed well nor made any sense.
I’m speaking in broad, generalized terms, of course, but I’m sure you get the idea.
Shadows Over Innistrad is pretty much the exact opposite. There are both obvious and covert synergies between many of the cards and mechanics in a set with a mythology in place that brings rhyme and reason to the improbabilities of certain cards or tribes working together. The madness currently overwhelming the plane of Innistrad gives us a credible reason for why humans would be working side by side with vampires or werewolves or zombies. In fact, in a large majority of the art, the humans are scarier than the actual monsters! Have you seen the art for Rabid Bite?
That human is BITING A WEREWOLF. This is amazing.
As if that weren’t enough, SOI just feels more powerful and more exciting than anything found in BFZ. There were a number of times I would be looking through my sideboard during the Prerelease thinking to myself: “I should be running this card… and I should be running this card too.” The reason for that is a lot of the cards feel like they could be role players in multiple strategies.
Take Vessel of Ephemera, for instance. It can provide attackers, blockers or sacrificial fodder, it can fuel Delirium, it works with cards that care about Spirits, at worst it can be pitched for Madness costs… the list goes on. That’s just one common. Imagine an entire set that has that level of synergy. The major problem of SOI isn’t a lack of options, its problem is having too many!
Since we’re on the subject of powerful cards, let’s talk about a few I was very impressed with because they turned out to be far more powerful than I had initially anticipated and a few that turned out to be a little less so.
I was lucky enough to pull these two cards in my first Prerelease pool and yes, I was able to live the dream once: I flashed in Avacyn at the end of my opponent’s turn to save one of my creatures. During my next main phase, I sacrificed five creatures, transforming Westvale Abbey into Ormendahl, Profane Prince which in turn transformed Archangel Avacyn into Avacyn, the Purifier. It was pretty glorious.
Archangel Avacyn is everything you would expect her to be. She’s a fantastic card when you’re ahead, when you’re at parity and when you’re behind. That being said, she’s not as clear cut a card to play as you would believe her to be. I played against another player with his own Avacyn and I felt there were times he would run her out too soon. She’s strong, but she isn’t unbeatable and well placed removal will send her to the yard. More often then not, I liked holding her back in my hand: If I was already ahead, I didn’t need to use her frivolously and get her killed. If I was behind, she was my insurance to get me back to parity. Knowing she was in my hand ready to fly in at instant speed certainly gave me confidence when making combat decisions. Archangel Avacyn strongly reminded me of the Queen piece in chess: A lot of power that is often best held back until it’s time to strike.
On the other hand, Westvale Abbey is an incredibly difficult card to use in Limited. Simply having it on the board – even if I wasn’t anywhere near activating it – definitely made my opponents play more aggressively and use their removal more liberally.
Activating Westvale Abbey in Sealed was very hard to do. I can see him being much more powerful in Draft or Constructed formats where you have more control over deck building and can take advantage of sacrificing creatures or building up your board with tokens. In Sealed, getting 5 creatures on the board isn’t easy. Using five mana just to get a 1/1 token was a tough pill to swallow. Sacrificing my board and hoping my opponent didn’t have a way to interact with Ormendahl was agonizing. I realized early on that transforming him against anyone running Blue was usually the wrong thing to do: Just the Wind was everywhere. Sending my entire board to the graveyard only to have Ormendahl return to my hand didn’t seem like the wisest of actions. If you could build a Draft or Constructed deck that could take advantage of powerful leave the battlefield effects when your creatures died or had a means of generating a large number of tokens you wouldn’t mind sacrificing, I could see how Westvale Abbey could be an absolutely crushing card. In my case, however, it was more often a land than it was a game-ender.
Where did this card come from? Who okayed this card? Because this card is insane.
Auras are usually frowned upon by the majority of Magic players because they often lead to potential 2-for-1s, i.e. enchanting your creature with an Aura followed by your opponent casting a removal spell targeting your enchanted creature. Your opponent only used one card (their removal spell) to get rid of two of yours (your creature and the aura). Gryff’s Boon completely disregards this weakness because it keeps coming back whenever you want it to. What makes it even more insane is that it doesn’t return to your hand like you would expect it to, it goes right onto the battlefield attached to whichever creature you’d like to turn into an immediate threat. Anything and everything in your deck has the potential to be stronger and fly. Short of exiling the enchantment, you’re never going to get rid of this thing. I had two players simply crush me with this card because I had very few ways to interact with it. Let me tell you, turning Inspiring Captains into 4/3 fliers can be backbreaking.
When this card was first spoiled, I though it was okay. I wasn’t certain how detrimental giving your opponent cards would be. My strategy, if it were to be played against me, was to either A) outrace my opponent with damage or B) get my hand size down using discard outlets if I needed to. Turns out, I was correct in my assumption that it wasn’t as good against aggro/Madness decks, but I was wrong about it being easy to get my hand-size down to a manageable number if I needed too. If your deck lacks methods to discard cards and you’re running a control deck, you’re essentially racing against inevitability. You’re being punished for doing what a control deck loves to do – draw cards. In retrospect, I feel I should have somehow sided into a more aggressive deck with a lower curve to beat this card; playing my control deck against it was an exercise in futility.
I still don’t think this card is amazing, but I’m definitely giving it a bit more credit then I initially gave it.
My first impressions of Shadows Over Innistrad have been overwhelmingly positive and I can’t wait until Friday when we’ll finally get a chance to draft it for the first time. I’m very excited to see if SOI Draft is as rich and nuanced as it appears to be from its Sealed environment. If you’re in the Montreal area, Three Kings Loot will be hosting SOI drafts all day on Friday starting at noon, followed by a 6:30 Sealed event. If you’re interested in playing with the new set all day, you should absolutely swing by and check it out. As always, if you liked this article or have any questions, feel free to leave a comment in the Comments section below!
JP Vazquez – Optimum Jank
Wizards has dropped a bomb on us. Let’s take a look!
Announcement Date: April 4, 2016
Effective Date: April 8, 2016
Magic Online Effective Date: April 13, 2016
Modern:
Eye of Ugin is banned.
Ancestral Vision is unbanned.
Sword of the Meek is unbanned.
Vintage:
Lodestone Golem is restricted.
The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here. The full list of cards banned in Modern is here. The full list of cards banned and restricted in Vintage is here.
Next B&R Announcement: July 18
As we approach the release of a new set, Wizards of the Coast examines tournament results from each competitive format. If a format becomes very imbalanced, or too many games are not interactive, we examine the cause.
Here are our changes:
Modern
Since Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch, Eldrazi decks have been dominating the Modern tournament environment. At the Pro Tour, Eldrazi were represented in six of the Top 8 decks, including Jiachen Tao’s winning deck. On the weekend of March 6, three Modern Grand Prix were held, in Melbourne, Bologna, and Detroit. There were 24 players who had Top 8 performances, fourteen of whom were playing Eldrazi, including two of the three winning decks.
Results on Magic Online are quite similar. Eldrazi decks are running rampant. The format is very imbalanced, and far from a healthy mix of competitive decks.
While the Eldrazi decks have a lot of powerful cards, the powerful draws are generally based on the mana acceleration from Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin. Rather than ban multiple creatures, we find it preferable to ban a single land. We made our choice by examining how one would build a deck, and how it would play, with the land that remains legal.
If Eldrazi Temple is banned and Eye of Ugin is legal, the deck focuses on playing multiple lower-casting-cost Eldrazi per turn. A discount of two mana for each Eldrazi becomes a discount of four or more over the course of a turn. The deck becomes more explosive, more focused on a single build, and the powerful draws are still not interactive.
If Eye of Ugin is banned and Eldrazi Temple is legal, the mana supports a more diverse set of builds. There still is a small percentage of games with two Eldrazi Temples powering out huge plays. However, there are more games where only one Temple is drawn, and the deck is powerful yet beatable.
We also considered that Eye of Ugin is played in other decks, most notably “Tron” decks using Urza’s Power Plant and similar lands. While the Eye does add a lot of late game power to the deck, the core gameplay of the deck—casting large threats with the Tron lands—remains intact. It is regrettable that banning Eye of Ugin also impacts these Tron decks, but weighing everything in consideration, we feel this is the correct solution to the Eldrazi menace and makes Modern the most fun overall.
For these reasons, Eye of Ugin is banned in Modern.
When Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch were in development, the development team knew that all the Eldrazi creatures in the block would be more powerful in Modern because of these two-mana lands. While there was some risk that Eldrazi decks could be too strong, there was also the possibility that a fun new competitive deck would emerge. At the Pro tour, only about eight percent of the field played Eldrazi deck—the same amount played Infect, and more played Burn or Affinity. It was not clear to most professional players that the Eldrazi deck was too strong, or even as strong as the alternatives. In such a big format, it is very difficult to know how strong a deck will turn out before holding high-level tournaments, and much of the enjoyment of Magic for many players is seeing that play out. Ultimately, as the results of the Pro Tour and Grand Prix have shown, the Eldrazi deck has proven to be too strong and has had an unhealthy effect on the format.
We also looked at our banned lists for cards that could increase the richness of the format. Currently, the format tends to favor aggressive decks and quick-kill combo decks. We looked for cards that tend to work best in slower decks.
When the initial banned list was made for Modern, we looked at decks that had dominated similar formats and used those to guide our process. While there is some risk that these cards will cause further problems, we think that risk is small. Sometimes unbanning these cards doesn’t create any change in the competitive metagame. In that case, players who love playing that deck now have a new deck to work with.
Ancestral Vision is a very efficient card-drawer. Historically it has been strong in decks using the cascade mechanic, which immediately casts Ancestral Vision from the deck to draw three cards. It has also been strong in blue-based decks that are playing a longer, attrition-style game. With the current banned list, including Bloodbraid Elf, the types of cascade cards usually played with Ancestral Vision are not available. While there are some control decks that would use Ancestral Vision, it is an underplayed portion of the metagame. To allow for an increase in the number of blue-based control or attrition decks, we are unbanning Ancestral Vision.
Sword of the Meek makes a powerful, but slow, combination with Thopter Foundry. This combination was part of a format-dominating deck in the Extended format that Modern replaced. However, another element of that deck (Dark Depths, used with Vampire Hexmage) is also banned. Sword of the Meek might enable some slower combo decks, perhaps of the combo-control variety. It could be used as an alternate win condition in Lantern Control, which is powerful when unexpected but not currently a large part of the metagame. To allow for an increase in the number of controlling combo decks in the format, we are unbanning Sword of the Meek.
Vintage
We continue to see an imbalanced metagame. In particular, Mishra’s Workshop–based decks continue to be significantly overrepresented, reducing the competitive metagame. While this issue could be solved by restricting the namesake card, if possible we would like to keep the deck at a competitive level, but played to an extent that the format is more diverse overall. Lodestone Golem leads to some of the less-interactive games. We are hopeful that limiting Workshop decks to one copy of the card leaves the deck at an appropriate strength. For that reason, Lodestone Golem is restricted.
Hello fellow Looters! We are in the midst of the final week before Shadows Over Innistrad (SOI) releases. The pre-release was this past weekend, and I hope you all had fun playing with the new cards! So with SOI so close, I figured it is time to talk about Standard. There are going to be a lot of changes from this last season and this is one of the benefits, (or detriments, depending on who you ask,) of the Standard Format. Obviously, we won’t know until the cards hit the table (hopefully in sleeves…) but hopefully this will get you thinking about the format.
The biggest way we will see standard change during this rotation is the power reduction of available mana. Now, we are not losing the ability to play multiple colors as there are still plenty of lands in the format (Pain Lands, Battle Lands, Man Lands, The new SOI land cycle, etc.). Let me put it in perspective, though. Currently, with fetch lands and battle lands, it is possible to use one fetch to get one of any four colors and even untapped a good portion of the time. This allowed four color decks like Abzan Blue, Mardu Green, Four Color Rally, and every other deck with an uncreative name to run rampant. To put it in the words of Patrick Chapin, “You don’t have to ask yourself if you can afford to play this card, you have to ask yourself, why not?” Why not splash Jace or Siege Rhino? With the loss of the fetch lands, we are now losing the ability to have such a streamlined mana base. In addition, tri-lands and gain-a-life duels are out the door as well. It is still very possible to run that many colors but you run a heavier risk of stumbling and your deck will be a lot slower with more lands entering tapped. I fully expect to see many more two to three color decks during this standard format, which will be a welcomed change for me.
KHHAAAAN!’s of Tarkir is parting ways with standard and ushering in the slow climb of fetches until Wizards decides to reprint them. It is taking its buddy Fate Reforged with it and, between the two of them, that is a lot of cards (454 to be exact). The most notable cards we are losing from standard, aside from fetch lands, are the hyper-efficient three-color cards. This includes things like Siege Rhino, Mantis Rider, Abzan Charm, Crackling Doom, Big Knucks, and a bunch of other cards loved by these four-color decks. There was nothing stopping decks from jamming these cards for almost no additional effort and it really crushed the playability of some otherwise great cards. Mana is supposed to be a restriction and I am glad we are returning to a world where more tough deck-building choices need to be made.
Oh yeah and I guess Ugin is leaving too… Maybe he wasn’t too happy with Jace over that whole Eldrazi thing?
Abzan Aggro – Will Abzan completely disappear? Probably not, but with the loss of Khan’s of Tarkir, they are losing a lot of the cards that make the deck super powerful. Warden of the First Tree, Siege Rhino, Anafenza, and Abzan Charm are all rotation which leaves the wedge less supported.
Rally – When a deck loses its namesake, it is usually not going to survive rotation. That being said, most of the other pieces remain short of Grim Haruspex. Depending on what graveyard synergy we see, from Eldritch Moon and with Collected Company still in the format, we could see an efficient creature combo deck remain strong. Plus we still have to deal with Reflector Mage…
Hardened Scales – Same goes with this namesake card. Khans also housed a good number of counter’s matters cards which will squish counter strategies until they are better supported. Counters will go from being a combo to just being… regular I guess. There are still plenty of powerful counter strategies that could make their way into standard.
Most 4/5 Color Decks – They won’t be impossible to build but we definitely will not see as many of them moving forward. That being said, I could probably 100% see a 4 color super friends deck or something similar being in the format.
Tribal (Vampire, Werewolves, and Zombies Oh My!) – There are so many awesome tribal cards that we are seeing from this set. I would not be surprised at all to see Zombies, Spirits, or Werewolves become a playable Standard deck. This being said, I don’t see any of them being top tier. The simple fact is, you limit yourself when building around a specific tribe which at times can cost you a slot that would have gone to a slightly better creature. This won’t stop people from building tribal decks as they are some of the most fun decks to play and they are really well-supported this time around! I could fully believe a Humans, Vampire, or Werewolf deck taking down a GP at least once as well. Eldritch Moon should make this category even strong as it will add cards without causing a rotation.
Reanimator – This was a deck that saw a lot of play in the original Innistrad Standard environment and was very powerful. Ever After and Necromantic Summons are two very powerful spells that bring things straight from the graveyard to the battlefield. I think we need to figure out some better targets as currently most of the powerful effects trigger on casting the creature rather than entering the battlefield. That being said, I am all for another Reanimator deck, (assuming there is hate for it in the format, of course).
Artifact – Color me crazy, but this archetype is something to investigate. Origins is host to all sorts of Artifacts with a high power level. Cards like Thopter Spy Network could take over an entire game and with the introduction of Clues, I think there could be something here. There are not too many constructed playable clue producers, however, in my head I have delusions of tapping six Clues with Ghirapur Aether Grid to have a repeatable Lightning Bolt. You never quite lose that ecstatic brewer in the back of your head. We also still have creatures like Hangarback Walker and all of the various thopter producers as well.
I think the format is going through a well needed change. Normally when a new block rotates in, it has a theme and it is supposed to have hate cards that weakens previous strategies to allow new cards to shine. Battle for Zendikar fell short as it failed to bring much to the table and did little to break the hold that Khan’s of Tarkir had over the format. There was little punishment for player playing tons of colors. Aggro was in too weak a spot as removal was everywhere. Now that Khans is rotating, I am not sure how Standard will look but I am a big fan of keeping things new and exciting which is why I love the Standard format.
Roy Anderson
@Sockymans on Twitter
Sometimes you just really need to find a land. In all probability, a Tron land. Fear not, friends! Your favourite tool in RG Tron is here, and with sweet new art by Christine Choi, the artist who has done a number of cool cards recently, chief among those the enemy filter land expeditions!
Although RG Tron is the most popular home for this card, it is still in standard for a while and it’s possible it’ll find a home there. Cards that are legal in Standard and played in eternal formats are generally pretty good to pick up, so make sure you play in some FNM tournaments this June to get your hands on this sweet Sylvan Scrying FNM promo!
