Cubing and a card that will make you PISSED

I keep saying this and this time I mean it. I am going to finish typing up my cube and post it and we are going to have a little chit chat about it. For the time being, I found this screen shot from a website that generates cube packs, and I just remember it blew my mind. Let's talk about it and what pick to make first:

Pack 1, pick 1:

So, when I saw this, I was met with a dilemma....HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO MAKE THIS CHOICE?!?!?! Bwaaaah....Ok, breath...breath....breath breath BREATH RAAAAAMMMMPAGE!

So I've sat with this decision for a while trying to think of the pick order here and this is the top 5 and why I would pick those:

5. Knight of the White Orchid

The Knight squeezed it's way into number 5 by being a  great archetype for cube. Getting a white weenie deck up online is extremely fast, incredibly hard to deal with, and will absolutely win you games. That said, the problem with white weenie is that white is a great color to share. White is BFF with green and blue, it can help red be a little extra faster, and it doesn't hurt black (Death grasp anyone?). The thing that helps ole' knighty here is that there is another great white card that helps out white weenie, and that is Griffin Guide, which you can be almost assured that it will table and you will have a great foundation to a white weenie beatdown deck. 

4. Regrowth

Here is another fun pick. Regrowth is easily one of the best green cards, bar none. The best part about it is that is splashable. You are making a sick red deck wins and you need to push through that extra 3 damage but you have already used your Lightning Bolt  to kill something early game? Well look no further! Boom, mighty Zeus comes down, throws that bolt back in your face and you are ready to regale your buddies how you splashed green for your regrowth. Good for you. It's an awesome, extremely toolsie card. 

3. Sarkhan Vol

This dude is such a beast. I wish my 1 and 2 picks aren't there because this guy...holy gg on a stick. If I were to tell you that there was a card that was a Act of Treason , a Fires of Yavimaya and Gaea's Anthem and if you stick around, it will vomit out a ton a dragons. Sound cool right. Yeah. That's my boy. Sarkhan has won me more games than not. He is just suuuuch a beater. The one real drawback by picking Sarkhan in a pack 1, pick 1 environment is that you are dedicating yourself to 2 colors almost immediately. Could backfire....

Well...moment of truth, does he choose door number 1 or door number 2?

2. Ancestral Recall

This didn't hit number 1 for a couple of reasons, but you really shouldn't get down on yourself. This card is just nuts and there is a reason why it is part of the power 9. Every color got it's own 1 mana for 3 of something. White got the shaft with Healing Salve. Green got the Giant Growth. Black and Red both got really good ones with Dark Ritual and Lightning Bolt. But the Recall leaves all of them in the dust. Ever since I was a small lad, I played card games and every single game taught me this one simple rule: Card advantage = wins. This rule is even more evident in cube. In a power cube like this one, those 3 cards could turn the game around and give you that big win. 

1. Sol Ring

This is a card that requires a windmill slam (such a great link) like no other. Even more so in pack 1, pick 1. It's very rare to think of a game I've lost when I've been running Sol Ring. I mean, lets set up a actual game scenario with Sol Ring.

Player 1 (who has drafted Sol Ring): lays a Island and plays Sol Ring. Passes.

Player 2: Draws, lays a Plains, passes.

Player 1: Draws, lays a Underground Sea, taps Island, Underground Sea and Sol Ring to play Jace the Mind Sculptor.

Look at that. You are on turn 2 and you have created a serious threat on the table. Your opponent is going to have to deal with you dropping a 4 drop on turn 2, a 5 drop on turn 3 and a possible 6 drop on turn 4. Sol Ring, by itself, ramps you past your opponent by 2 turns. So unfair. I think that the  choice of Sol Ring will not lead you astray.

So there you have it boys and girls. You looked at a first pack and I gave you a run down of what I think I would take...I think I am going to do this more often. I really like it....

RAAAAAAMMMMPAGE!!!

Oh, and by the way:

Get ready to see this card EVERYWHERE. You are going to be so sick of this card it will be ridiculous. What? What's that you say? It won't counter a whole lot? Want me to list a few? No? Too bad:

Swords to Plowshares

Path to Exile

Sensei's Divining Top

Green Suns Zenith (for 0)

Noble Hierarch

Birds of Paradise

THIS CARD

Dark Ritual

Thoughtseize

High Tide

Brainstorm

Ponder

Lightning Bolt

Aether Vial

Hex Parasite (Who will ruin your day)

The list goes on and on and on and...dude. THIS card will ruin your day....and guess what? I haven't even gotten to the most insane part about this card:

It card be played in any color.

Yeah. Sucks. Think you are safe playing against a mono-green deck and you can just start tossing all those Bolts and things at his dudes. You're wrong. Dead stupid wrong. 

rampage.

Planeschase, cutlery, and garage sales.

So. Planeschase. About that.

I was fortunate enough to come upon a set of planeschase cards. I guess the easiest way of summing up planeschase is that planeschase is like Taco Bell. You are really excited for it, you think it's a really great idea, then all of the sudden you are terminally ill and the need to vomit is immense. We have played a few games of note that were particularly stupid. And here they are, Letterman style (but only top 3 [not enough for 10]):

3. This actually happened last night and it was pretty cool. We are at The Great Forest and I have three creatures all with about four power and I am sitting at a cushy one life. My opponent was at at four and had two creatures, one of them with flying, and a Serrated Arrows. I look at the board, do the math, and see that I am totally boned. I am all tapped out. Boned. So, I say "well, I think that's it." High fives were exchanged and that was that. Then I saw it. That little die sitting in the middle of the table. And in a moment of desperation, I say "what the hell" I roll the die and it comes up as chaos. +0/+2 and trample and all my boys are like Doran. That's the ballgame.

Gamers: 1 Planeschase: 0

2.  Ugh. The Glimmervoid Basin game. It's become partially a tall tale in our gaming circle. Here is the scene: Four player EDH, we are duking it out. We have been at this Planeschase EDH match for about a hour and a half, so we are invested. Glimmervoid Basin then showed up to the party. Already sloppy and breaking things as he walks in the door. One of my opponents is about to pass his turn and tells us to wait, and after a long time in the tank, he plays Grixis Charm, a normally harmless, terrible card....except it targets all of the permanents in play. Then he says it copies for all of his permanents, then he plays a counterspell type card to counter all the the Grixis Charm copies that target him. Long long long story short, we argued about how the stack works, and finally we came to the conclusion that Glimmervoid Basin is a douche bag and we are not inviting him to our parties anymore.

Gamers: 1 Planeschase: 1

1. Well, with the score tied up, we move onto my favorite planeschase game. Wanna know why? Well: We had just started a four player planeschase with our 60 card, what I feel like I can only refer to as "legacy" decks (it's really hard to have everyone play just standard or just extended, so anything goes). I was actually playing a elf deck that really closely resembled this except no Swamp and an extra Forest. So it was about the third turn and I had an Arbor Elf and maybe something else. This is where Otaria hits the board. I have a lot of dispensable mana so I start to roll. I hit chaos. I get an extra turn. On the extra turn I roll. Chaos. I keep going. This happens six times.


....pardon me? Are you still reading because I passed out at that moment. Six extra turns just made the Elves go nuts. Extra turns for a green deck? Please. Put that in the win column.

Gamers: 2 Planeschase: 1

Well, the score board shows it. It was a good day at Taco Bell. They only got your burrito wrong and have you Sierra Mist instead of Sprite. Today won't be such a bad day after all.


By the way, they spoiled the new sword. Ready?

Sword of War and Peace

Bonkers.

Moving on.

So, I have to give a special shout out to my girlfriend. Why? Well, she dragged me out of bed on a Sunday. Made me coffee. Dragged me kicking and screaming (well, neither...it was too early to do either) to a couple of local garage sales. So here I am, looking through all this shit and there, amongst the discarded bridesmaid dresses, old blenders and crossbows (yeah, a dude had a crossbow), I find a binder of Magic cards. I flip through it, ask the price and now I'm $20 poorer and more Magic cards richer. So, inside this binder was an Intuition, a Birds of Paradise (Sixth edition? Ew), a couple Unglued Lands and a bunch of other great cards. A lot of the cards I flipped for a Inkmoth Nexus, Go for the Throat, Pestermite foil and a bunch of other cool stuff. So, overall, a big win.

Moral of the story? Listen to your girlfriend. Get out of bed. Go to garage sales, thrift stores, and flea markets.

Sword of War and Peace. Bonkers.

Jace the Mind Sculptor should be ___________

We are going to play Magic the Gathering Mad Libs. I will help out a little bit, but fill in the blanks with what's in your heart. Ready? Okay:

Jace the Mind Sculptor should  __________ (noun that rhymes with "manned" and can be prefaced with the word "not be" or "be" if you'd like). I mean, he is played in every format. Is he ________ (adjective that, when misspelled looks like "borken")? No. Is he abusable? ____ (noun, the opposite of "No").  He certainly is too expensive for the common player to play him. In short, is Jace the Mind Sculptor the next to hit the banned list? ______ (Put your own answer here....Yes? No? Panda? Your choice).


Wasn't that fun!? No? Well.....want a fun fact to make up for it?

At Grand Prix Dallas, in the top 16 decks there were 60 Jace's. There were more Jace's being played at this Grand Prix then there were basic lands.

.......!?!??!?!??!?!??!?!?!??!


Sorry I just fell out of my chair. Did I just read what I wrote 30 seconds ago correctly? Yes. It was reported that Jace is the end all be all of standard right now. So this brings up the question. Should he be banned? Well, if you take a look at the other cards that were banned, they kind of follow the same pattern and the best one I can bring up is Sensei Divining Top. When top was around, every deck ran it. It slowed the game and it created an unhealthy combo environment (Counterbalance I'm looking at you). By banning the top it shook up the environment and created a healthier tournament scene.

Now, in my own personal opinion, I do NOT think Jace should be banned.....yet. We are coming up to a new set with a very obvious planeswalker silver bullet. Also, the Zendikar block will rotate in about 6 months so there is light at the end of the tunnel. Albeit, a long, expensive, Squadron Hawk (oh for god's sake, they are making it a FNM promo. FML) infested tunnel.

So hang in there buddy. 6 months isn't that far away. So start investing in those Green Sun's Zenith (because they are borken), Phyrexian Crusader's  (I actually played with these for the first time the other day and they are SOOOOOOOO good. First Strike and Infect is the greatest one two punch ever. Plus I had to rub it in Mike's face when he tried to Swords to Plowshares  my crusader...fail) and Hex Parasites (simply because they will ruin your day). You have plenty of time. Black/Green: You won't regret it.

Why Hex Parasite will ruin your day.

I am telling you now. If you don't like to read spoilers, then don't read this post. These are not the posts you are looking for. Move along.

Ok...ready? One day you are going to get out of bed with a smile on your face. You are going to have a great day at work. You are going to go over to a buddies house or to a pizza place or something, throw down with some Magic the Gathering and Hex Parasite will ruin your day.

God. What does this little asshole do? I mean, it can't be that bad....Is it?

It is.

Are you happy now? No. You aren't. But life is tough. I'm here for you. Lets look at some ways that Hex Parasite will be a game changer. I don't mean format changer or really good in limited. I mean it will change the game of Magic the Gathering entirely.

Relish the days you have now, because when you think you are care free and playing Jace The Mind Sculptor without a wisp of uncertainty, Hex Parasite is windmill slammed onto the table and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

Now, lets spin the table around. You have just watched your opponent collapse like poorly build domed stadium  (I just wanted to post the video) and now you are ready to make his day even worse. You scan the board for what he has been setting up: Luminarch Ascension, Everflowing Chalice, Tumble Magnent. All of these things, Hex Parasite will rip counters off all of these.

Hex Parasite, since it is an artifact, will be played in every format. It will be a great addition to Mud decks:

Metalworker MUD
A deck, by Nicholas O'Conner
6th place at a tournament in Bloomberg, Pennsylvania on2011-04-03
Print this deck!

---

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Sculpting Steel
1 Sol Ring
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Tangle Wire
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere

Artifact Creatures
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Metalworker
4 Steel Hellkite


Legendary Artifact Creatures
2 Karn, Silver Golem

Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Mishra's Factory
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian AcademySideboard:

3 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Duplicant
1 Triskelion
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

---

Stats:
Average mana: 1.68
Average creature mana cost: 4.43
Average creature power: 3.71
Average creature toughness: 3.43

Deck Composition:
Artifacts: 46.67%
Artifact Creatures: 20.00%
Lands: 28.33%
Legendary Artifact Creatures: 3.33%
Legendary Lands: 1.67%

And can be used all the way through to standard decks like Tezz Control:

Tezzeret Control A Standard Magic deck, by Daniel Nisthal 5th place at a StarCityGames.com Invitational Qualifier tournament in Spring Lake, North Carolina, United States on 2011-04-10 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Click here to see a summary of all decks from StarCityGames.com Invitational

Maindeck: Artifacts 2 Contagion Clasp 4 Everflowing Chalice 4 Sphere of the Suns 3 Tumble Magnet Artifact Creatures 1 Blightsteel Colossus 4 Kuldotha Forgemaster 1 Myr Battlesphere 1 Wurmcoil Engine Legendary Artifacts 1 Mindslaver Planeswalkers 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas Sorceries 2 Black Sun's Zenith 1 Duress 4 Inquisition of Kozilek Basic Lands 4 Island 5 Swamp Lands 4 Darkslick Shores 4 Drowned Catacomb 4 Inkmoth Nexus 1 Marsh Flats 1 Mystifying Maze 1 Scalding Tarn Sideboard: 2 Ratchet Bomb 1 Platinum Emperion 2 Phyrexian Crusader 1 Treasure Mage 2 Vampire Hexmage 2 Go for the Throat 2 Into the Roil 1 Black Sun's Zenith 2 Memoricide

So yeah. Hex Parasite. I warned you about your day being ruined. Don't come to me crying saying I didn't.

Land ho!

There have been many conversations with my ever patience girlfriend, Lauren, and I have told her that Magic can be viewed as a art form. Of course, this is met with a series of eye rolls. But I submit to you this counter argument Ms. Eye Roller, I think that the way that you decide to construct a deck and the basic lands you decide to use in it speaks volumes about the way you want your deck to feel. Do you put in all of your foil lands? Do you use extended art Zendikar lands? Do you run something different every time so it doesn't get repetitive?  Or do you just go old school and put in revised lands?

I've had many conversations with my play group about lands and which feel good basis a deck feel around and snow covered lands come up quite a bit. Yes there is the strategy to run Extraplanar Lens and really benefit the whole playing in the snow theme, but there are also a lot of different ways into building your deck. But this is about the art of it, the finished product. Not what tools were used in shaping it.

I have been watching some of the Star City Games open tournaments and seeing what kinds of land each player used. There was one player playing High Tide   (a deck that revolves around High Tide, Candelabra of Tawnos, and rapping your opponent with Blue Suns Zenith) all his lands were the same and they were all from Portal. Yes. No Zendikar lands, no Unhinged lands, just regular Portal Islands. I thought that was very interesting. There are also players who play foil lands no matter what the picture is because...hey...shiny mana is quite better than regular mana.

What is pretty intriguing is the fact that it is pretty hard to find two players. Both playing the same deck, card for card (which happens a lot in higher up tournament scenes), but often finding that their choice of art for their lands is never really the same. Just a concept in Magic that happens to be glazed over is just the fine choices of picking lands.