Return to Ravnica Spoilers and Review: Tech

Ok this is the second and final part of my review, covering the rest of potential bombs and tech RTR has to offer. Wizards did a pretty good job overall in my opinion, enough to ensure that RTR is definitely an EDH worthy set. So here we go:

Tech:

Most of the time this is just going to target three cards in my graveyard so its not a complete waste when it dies, it can also be used to help abuse ETB effects. Although this should rarely be used as removal, its nice to have that option for desperate times.

Could be broken if you find something to repeatedly blink this card in and out of play. Deadeye Nav... Nevermind nothing to see here! xD

Good card all in all, should definitely see some play

8/10

They knocked the ball outta the park with this one. 10/10. I'm impressed. This is probably the best permanent card that hoses graveyards to date, much better than Leyline of the Void or Grafdigger's Cage though the Cage is useful in other ways.

Needless to say, this should be part of a package rather than standalone GY hate as there is such a thing as removal. =)

Already a staple, and should see tons of play.

Not as widely playable as the former two cards but definitely useful in the decks that can make use of it the most.

I'm going to try to find a slot for this in my Bruna list. It should be right at home there.

Not taking into account its playability, this card is a 7/10. Since even in the decks that can use it, it would be a tad difficult to really make it worthwhile and this makes you want to play all of your enchantments, possibly overextending into a Fracturing Gust or Austere Command. If your general is Bruna and/or you have a Replenish/Faith's Reward handy, it should be ok though.

One-sided board wipe at instant speed? I'd happily pay 7CMC for that. Shut up and take my money wizards!

Doesn't permanently get rid of pesky permanents, but its good enough. 9/10















Interesting tech, I can see that Ghave has been getting a lot of love since Innistrad's release. Playing this will instantly make you the target of the table though since no sensible opponent is going to sit there while you gradually suck up all the creatures on the board.

Nice card, 8/10 for Ghave. 7/10 for everything else.

Fleshbag Marauder had a brother?

This is a must run for Ghave decks. 9/10.


















Basically a Time Stop reprint, though it gets the job done in a different way and is slightly more efficient. 10/10



















Nice tech for any deck using the new Rakdos, however I can see that it can potentially backfire. I can't rate this one until I've played a few games with it but if all goes well it should be really broken.

Staple. Nothing to see here.

Another card I plan on using in Rakdos. Probably should have a nice home in Rafiq as well.

















Thats it for my RTR spoilers and review, next up should be either a Momir Vig or Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck. Whichever I feel more inspired to do. Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing and if you have any input or differing points of view then please leave a comment!

Thanks for reading, 'till next time.

Return to Ravnica Spoilers and Review: Legends

Alright, so here I am after a brief sabbatical to deliver some more MtG goodness. Today we're looking at RTR and what it has to offer, and all in all I think a lot of decks got some interesting new tech as well as some decent new generals entering the fray. So lets get started.

Legends:

Isperia is the name, political control is her game. She probably isn't as good as Edric at politics but she can get the job done while filling the role of a decent beater. I'd definitely play a deck with her at the helm. She could have done with a bit more toughness though since with her current PT total she is a target for Flametongue Kavu and the like.

6/10.

Hello! I'm lovin' Niv-Mizzle's new look. Same CMC for basically the same effect (arguably better since now he doesn't have to tap and its repeatable) and a slightly larger PT total. Would you like more awesomesauce with your winburger sir?

Sadly, this Niv doesn't combo with Ophidian Eye or Curiosity but I'm going to go ahead and count that as a plus as well.

10/10.

Just in case Animar thought he had the monopoly on creature cost reduction, Rakdos is here to prove him wrong. One could say that Animar is more reliable but Rakdos definitely has the potential to be more... well... explosive than his RUG cousin.

Cards that come to mind with Rakdos at the helm are: Pyrohemia,  Mana Barbs, Shivan Gorge and even Bloodgift Demon can play his part! Curse of Bloodletting would also be a great addition and would ensure that cards like Ulamog or Blightsteel Colossus get to come out and play as well. If thats your cup of tea, that is. =)

Considering the kind of deck Rakdos would pilot, his drawback isn't that bad at all.  

9/10.

Great synergy with cards like Mitotic Slime, Wurmcoil Engine and the new Worldspine Wurm. Not sure what else to say about him except I feel like there is something really great about this card that I'm missing. I'm not enjoying the fact that I have to sac lands so if I ever do play with Jarad I'll have to use Life from the Loam to try to compensate.

He has the potential to get really big but with no evasion he won't be getting very far. Also, he encourages you to fill up the yard but doesn't assist with reanimation. I'm not sure what to make of him.

5/10.

I feel tempted to run a similar list to my Treva deck with Trostani except with more tokens, obviously. Though there isn't much more to say, he/she/it/them makes for a very good general for a gain life themed deck. Perhaps even better than Treva but that is debatable.

7/10.

He's a Riot at Parties

RTR is almost completely spoiled folks, its looking like its living up to the hype. Spoiler and review post is on its way probably followed by a Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck and a Momir Vig deck as I said I would like to do.

Lets start a Riot!

Thanks for reading, 'till next time.

Stay cool! (Cuz damn its hot!)

My Apologies

Just wanted to apologize for the lack of content lately as I can't seem to tear myself away from World of Warcraft (which I've recently started playing).

At this point I have to say that, sadly, I'm lacking the interest to continue my YotD series of decklists and it will have to be either postponed or cancelled until further notice.

On a positive note though, I still have full intentions of doing a spoiler and review post for RTR when it is completely spoiled though the review probably won't be too in depth. I'll most likely just cover the legends and any other potential EDH bombs that I see.

On another positive note, Rogues in WoW are completely broken and I'm having a blast sneaking up behind people unseen then stunlocking and doing massive damage before they can even respond. I hear Death Knights are also pretty OP and will have to get around to making one perhaps when I'm bored of my rouge.

Some of you out there may see this as adultery but I will remind you that the holy trinity of geekdom is MtG, WoW and D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) which I would like to play but have been unable to get enough people who are interested. It is also worth mentioning that my friends and I who were interested are all complete newbies to D&D and it would probably help if we had someone more experienced to guide us. Anyway I'm babbling at this point.

Bottom line: RTR Spoilers & Review - Coming soon to an academy near you! ;-)

Stay tuned and stay cool!

Thanks for reading, 'till next time.

Brief Intermission: Return to Ravnica

Taking a little pause between my YotD theme decks to talk a little about the upcoming Return to Ravnica set. In my excitement I decided to take one of those zany personality tests to see which guild suited me best.
I wasn't surprised to see that my answers to the test led me to:

Seriously, how cool is the Simic Guild? Designing your own creatures to adapt to any environment. For me personally I'd probably just stick to designing my own ideal pet or something but the idea of the Simic guild is one that intrigues me.

Okay, maybe I answered some of the questions knowing that the test result would be Simic but that doesn't mean that the answers weren't true! ;-)

Anyway, RTR is shaping up so far to be a pretty cool set. It has been confirmed that each guild will again have its own mechanic, however, none of the old keywords are making an appearance.

Populate is looking like the Selesnya keyword and it involves creating copies of creature tokens you control.

Now, as some of you may know the Simic Guild had disbanded and its leader, Momir Vig, was killed in dissension but I'm hoping they make a reappearance, though it won't be in RTR as the five guilds they are focusing on are: Azorius, Izzet, Rakdos, Golgari, and Selesnya.

I'm actually feeling a little inspired to make a Momir Vig deck but if I do it will be after our look at the Invasion and Planar Chaos dragons. Which I will try to wrap up as soon as possible but I make no promises. ;-)


Stay tuned for Dromar!

Thank you for reading, 'till next time.

YotD Theme Decks: Treva, the Renewer

Today's deck is going to be a life gain theme deck revolving around Treva, the Renewer. It should be noted that this deck is far from competitive as life gain strategies in EDH are stifled by the general damage rule, though there are a few notable cards that make decks like these formidable if things go your way.
*cough*Felidar Sovereign*cough*

I should probably also say that I kinda felt like a fish out of water building this deck since this is the first time I've attempted any sort of life gain theme in an EDH setting so I was initially at a loss as to what cards would make good inclusions. Either way, I think it turned out well enough, though you, my readers, can be the judge of that.

Now, on to the deck!






The first thing we'll need is cards that focus on what this deck is supposed to do: gain life. Anything along these lines will do, from creatures with lifelink like Baneslayer Angel to more subtle cards like Lifegift. The inclusion of cards like Lifegift also leads us to include a healthy ramp package for double utility and luckily for us we just got some shiny new toys in M13 so this should be no problem.

Anyway, here's the life gain cards we'll be using:

Batterskull
Behemoth Sledge
Loxodon Warhammer
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of War and Peace
Venser's Journal  (Great with Well of Lost Dreams)
Well of Lost Dreams

Baneslayer Angel
Drogskol Reaver
Felidar Sovereign
Rhox Faithmender
Serra Ascendant
Shattered Angel
Wurmcoil Engine (Great beater, and leaves behind little dudes to equip stuff to)

Boon Reflection
Cradle of Vitality
Lifegift
Recumbent Bliss
Words of Worship (Absolutely disgusting with Drogskol Reaver)

Fracturing Gust (We probably won't want to use this most of the time but its a backup plan)
Swords to Plowshares (Technically not a life gain spell for us but it can be in a pinch)

Primal Command (The first ability was the only excuse I needed. ;-) )

I wanted to include Ajani's Mantra at first as I figured it was subtle enough to fly under the radar of removal and if played early it can gain you quite a bit of life over the course of the game, I decided not to include it though due to the fact that its a horrible late game topdeck. I suppose that we all have horrible topdecks sometimes no matter what, but in this case I figured that Recumbent Bliss deserved a spot just a little bit more than the mantra. I also wanted to include cards like Dawnglow Infusion and Heroes Remembered but I figured that cards with repeatable life gain effects would have more value than one shot effects. Not to mention that if you suspend Heroes Remembered on turn 1 (which is the best time to suspend it anyway) you attract too much attention and thats something you try to avoid in multiplayer.

Now, since we have Lifegift, we'll deal with our ramp package next. It looks something like this:

Primeval Titan
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Burgeoning
Boundless Realms
Ranger's Path
Skyshroud Claim

I couldn't resist playing with the shiny new Boundless Realms card, as its probably the best mana-doubling card to see print ever, at least in my opinion. Mirari's Wake and Mana Reflection are cool too, but with Boundless Realms, should it resolve, you have double mana for the rest of the game; whereas Wake and Reflection can be targeted by removal to end the effect. The only drawback is that you need to play with a higher number of basics to get the most out of it but that's no problem for me.

So life gain is the theme, but we need more than a theme. We need a strategy. This is deck isn't aggressive, short of a turn 1 Serra Ascendant, and we don't have too many game ending bombs so we need a way to slow things down to our pace. So I included:

Norn's Annex
Windborn Muse
Dissipation Field  Aurification
Ghostly Prison
Propaganda

Commander Eesha
Silklash Spider

If your sitting behind a Dissipation Field Aurification and a Propaganda your opponents will be heavily encouraged to swing elsewhere while you put together a game plan and Commander Eesha and Silklash Spider are stellar blockers, not to mention that the spider doubles as removal. So the above cards pretty much cover our theme and strategy and now its time for the standard things that every EDH deck should have: removal, tutoring... etc

Removal:
Acidic Slime
Beast Within
Fracturing Gust
Sword to Plowshares
Treva's Charm (Wouldn't be a theme deck without it! xD)
Austere Command
Rout

Recursion:
Sword of Light and Shadow
Eternal Witness
Genesis (I swear, this must be my favorite green card)
Reveillark
Faith's Reward
Creeping Renaissance

Card Draw/Tutoring:
Well of Lost Dreams
Consecrated Sphinx
Drogskol Reaver
Mulldrifter
Treva's Charm (Card draw when we have no better options, but good for discarding Genesis)

Academy Rector (Will mostly be used to fetch Dissipation Field Aurification or SotF)
Fauna Shaman
Survival of the Fittest
Eladamri's Call
Enlightened Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Worldly Tutor
Idyllic Tutor

These cards are pretty much my concessions to good stuff inclusions in order to maintain a balance between theme and power. We still want to be able to win a few games, after all. ;-)

Now we just put it all together, and throw in a few more useful cards and you get something like this:

Commander: 1
Treva, the Renewer


Artifacts: 14
Azorius Signet
Batterskull
Behemoth Sledge
Loxodon Warhammer
Norn's Annex
Selesnya Signet
Sensei's Divining Top
Simic Signet
Sol Ring
Swiftfoot Boots
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of War and Peace
Venser's Journal
Well of Lost Dreams


Creatures: 20
Academy Rector
Acidic Slime
Baneslayer Angel
Commander Eesha
Consecrated Sphinx
Drogskol Reaver
Eternal Witness
Fauna Shaman
Felidar Sovereign
Genesis
Mulldrifter
Primeval Titan
Reveillark
Rhox Faithmender
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Serra Ascendent
Shattered Angel
Silklash Spider
Windborn Muse
Wurmcoil Engine

Enchantments: 10
Boon Reflection
Burgeoning
Cradle of Vitality
Aurification
Ghostly Prison
Lifegift
Propaganda
Recumbent Bliss
Survival of the Fittest
Words of Worship

Instants: 8
Beast Within
Eladamri's Call
Enlightened Tutor
Faith's Reward
Fracturing Gust
Mystical Tutor
Swords to Plowshares
Treva's Charm
Worldly Tutor


Sorceries: 8
Austere Command
Boundless Realms
Creeping Renaissance
Idyllic Tutor
Primal Command
Ranger's Path
Rout
Skyshroud Claim

+ 38 Land


In addition to Treva's Charm I also added Treva's Ruins for the sake of theme, but aside from that, the mana base is pretty standard including High Market, Kor Haven, Reliquary Tower...etc

So move along there's nothing to see here!

Oh, and we have the Karoo lands to help trigger Lifegift. ^.^

Off topic: You guys must be wondering why I post a ton of decklists but no game reports or decklist changes and I'll take the time to explain now that, sadly, I am currently without an EDH playgroup so I haven't had a chance to test any of the decks I've built. My friends and I really only play Type 4 and Modern at the moment but plan to start some EDH sometime soon (hopefully).

I could play on cockatrice but it comes without the social interaction that makes EDH so much fun in the first place so I only really use cockatrice now for deckbuilding purposes.

Anyway, thats it for our look at Treva, the Renewer. Dromar is up next. Stay Tuned!

Thanks for reading, 'till next time! ;-)

Year of the Dragon Theme Decks: Intro

Seeing as how this year is the year of the dragon according to the Chinese Zodiac, I decided to do a series of posts based on the Invasion and Planar Chaos dragons where I will attempt to make a theme deck based on their abilities.

Starting with the Invasion dragons and with White as the first color then Treva, the Renewer is first up.

Looks like its going to be a gain life deck. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading, 'till next time. ;-)