Shoes

Oh my god. Shoes.

For a great long while, Lightning Greaves has been a staple in all EDH decks. Your deck could essentially look like this:

General
Lightning Greaves
Sol Ring
97 other cards

and you wouldn't be too far off from a winning deck. However, something new is on the horizon that is going to make all EDH players take a second look at that Lightning Greaves. Ladies and Gentlemen, Swiftfoot Boots:

Sure, it isn't the best picture ever, but spoilers are spoilers are spoilers and this is a confirmed spoiler from the new M12 set. Swiftfoot Boots reads as such:

Swiftfoot Boots
Converted Mana Cost: 2
Artifact-Equipment
Equipped creature has hexproof and haste.
Equip: 1
Uncommon

For those of you who are not in the know, hexproof is the new keyword for Troll shroud....Ugh! You don't know what Troll shroud is either?! I have to do everything around here. Troll shroud is where you can target your creature with spells or abilities and your opponent cannot. So, lets do a side by side comparison of Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves:

Lets go from top to bottom. Between the battle of names, we are going to have to give it to Lightning Greaves. Swiftfoot Boots is a pretty lame name.

Lightning Greaves: 1
Swiftfoot Boots: 0

They both cost 2 so that is a push there. As far as picture go, I really like the FNM promo picture better than the regular Lightning Greaves picture, however the picture of Swiftfoot Boots is much better than the regular picture of the regular picture of Lightning Greaves. So....push?

Okay, now that that is over, we can get down to the nuts and bolts of the card which is the comparison of which is better:
Hexproof and a Equip cost of 1

OR

Shroud and Equip cost of 0

Honestly, both are amazing. I can see both scenarios working to your advantage. I really like throwing the Greaves from one creature to the other, however, I have had times where I have had a pump spell or some kind of spell that gives a protection from a color, but I can't play them. There was a scenario where I had a Hallowed Burial, Venser, The Sojunour  and Lighning Greaves on Angus Mackenzie. My whole plan was to use Venser to exile Angus and then send everyones creatures to the bottom of their decks. I had to do some tricky maneuvering to make Stirring Wildwood a creature, put the boots on him, exile Angus and then Hallowed Burial. Swiftfoot Boots would be so easy to work around that.

However, a argument can be made for moving the boots back and forth from one creature to the other to get that haste ability without spending any mana. Equipping a Kuldotha Forgemaster, using him to sac 3 artifacts, getting Blightsteel Colossus, putting the boots on him and infecting. You can't do that with only 5 mana with Swiftfoot Boots.

So, I guess it is up to you. Do you have a deck that doesn't want your opponent to target your general but you can exile/pump/protect your general, but you have a lot of expendable mana? Or do you have a deck that just wants your dudes to just get there?

Close call. You don't want to make the wrong choice for your deck do you?

.....

Wizards of the Coasts and the Commander format and other dysfunctional relationships

In the past few days, we of the EDH/Commander format saw cards spoiled that will "help" us play EDH (I'm dropping Commander from now on in this article). I use the quotations around "help" very loosely. Wizards of the Coast saw a cash cow in the EDH format and jumped in with both feet. And then jumped on it again and again like a small child who just found a puddle.

Now, I am all for stupid, ridiculous cards that are just not fair. However, when I see that WotC is making these new decks that make me say "Well jeepers, I have to buy this to stay competitive!" it kind of makes me a little peeved. I get over that quickly and just come to terms that. Now, I start looking at the cards and about the 3rd card deep I start going into this:

I mean, holy shit snacks! Are you kidding me?! All of these cards look like they have never been play tested and are just dumb! With that being said, here are the cards I am really excited to play myself:

Easily the best land you can have in a EDH deck. Just think, you are playing some kind of Bant commander. You have Seaside Citadel in your hand and you also have this. You have to generate a mana on turn one. Is there even a argument here?!

Ways to make this card not broken: Make it Legendary. How fun would it be to battle over a Command Tower.

Ugh. Moving on. (Love Command Tower)

I like the Join Forces mechanic. I really REALLY like the Join Forces mechanic. I like, even more than the Join Forces mechanic, Collective Voyage. Sure, you can draw some cards with the blue one or make a dragon really beefy, but for one mana, you can excel your turn 4 into turn 6 (1 to play Collective Voyage, 2 mana to search out 2 lands, turn 4 you play your 6th land). This means, for those of you not getting it, if a turn 4 Primeval Titan, who turns your turn 5 into turn 9 (Same as above, but add two more lands from the Titan)! Holy land ramp Batman! Joining Forces is fun, but I really like the idea of watching people tap out then playing a card like this.

Finally:

I've always thought that red has gotten the shaft in EDH. You can't burn them out and trying to out control a blue deck is...well...Link to funny "Not fair" picture .

Stranglehold are what blue decks are going to be saying that isn't fair (you can just click on the link with the picture again). I would have loved to see this card cost 1 red, but at 4 mana, you can still get it in under the wire before they can go off with Time Warp. This one card makes me want to start playing decks with red in them...now if there was a good general with red.....Hmmmm....

Nope. Can't think of one.

Tolarian U.

Going through my academics, I found out that film really appealed to me. There was something really fun about going to class, watching a film, and then talking about it. That is pretty cool. Of course, I had a hidden reason why I liked film so much. Film has a lot of unique and rich history, but the history of film only dates back to around 1880's-1890's. That means that film has only been around for 130-120 years, and for a good number of those years, there wasn't a whole lot of narrative story lines. It was mostly people kissing or trains pulling into stations. In the grand scheme of things, that is not all that long. Therefor, it made it a lot easier, in my own opinion, to study film as oppose to, lets say, history of Europe. This got me thinking a bit:

Magic the Gathering has been around since 1993. This means that in 2013 it will have been a game for 20 years. To many people, they use it as an income. They call themselves "professionals" at the game. The time people put into tuning decks, studying the metagame and playing in tournaments is usually more than the time it takes to study for some tests.

My question to the peanut gallery: How long until Magic the Gathering becomes an academic course in college?

Now, my other question is this: How freaking cool would it be to major in Magic the Gathering?! Granted, you would forfeit any chances of ever having sex again in your entire life, but you could write your dissertation on Dredge!

Imagine going to class and learning about the philosophy of land base construction. Your instructor would say something like this:


Please pull out a piece of paper, write me 38 lands for a commander deck that is for a blue, black, white land base. I would like the general theme of the land base to be man lands and graveyard manipulation.

I am being totally serious. I bet there is a school that you can major in Magic...maybe one of those independent, feel good-ery type schools. There is also a great deal of history you can go into with Magic such as when it was released, general pro-tour winner knowledge, evolution of decks, etc.

I think it is a great idea. Maybe it's because I went to one of those feel good-ery type schools.

Dice on my cards

For those of you who know, I love having dice on my cards. How much do I love it?

I have to point out the saproling in the middle. That is a die with a whale on it. Big win. (Black player only has one die on their cards...fail).

Breaking Melira, Sylvok Outcast

So.

For a bear, she has two pretty good abilities and one amazing, stupid, broken ability. Can you find which one it is? 


If you said you can't get poison counters you are wron-....what? Phyrexian Unlife?  Yeah. I guess that is pretty good.


Ok. So two pretty great abilities. But the one amazing one is the one that says "Creatures you control can't have -1/-1 counters placed on them". This is one of those abilities that start getting the juices flowing. The first thought you might have is breaking something like this:

Holy board wipe Batman! So when this bad boy starts to Persist, it won't get those -1/-1 counters. So you can just keep blowing up everything. Oh yeah, you will also have infinite mana. That's pretty darn good.


Yeah, but you are above that kiddie stuff and you want some down and dirty standard brokeness. Well, have you thought about Black Suns Zenith for a one sided board wipe? How about this gentleman:

Want some rules to back this one up?


121.5. If a spell or ability refers to a counter being “placed” on a permanent, it means putting a counter on that permanent while it’s on the battlefield, or that permanent entering the battlefield with a counter on it.


Lawyered.


The list for Melira just goes on and on and on and on.  So here is a pretty good standard deck that revolves around Melira that I've been cooking up:

6x Swamp

5x Forests

4x Verdant Catacombs

2x Marsh Flats

2x Misty Rainforest

4x Inkmoth Nexus

3x Birds of Paradise

4x Lotus Corba

4x Melira, Sylovk Outcast (brroooooken)

4x Phyrexian Crusader

1x Phyrexian Vatmother

1x Skithiryx, The Blight Dragon

2x Etched Monstrosity 

4x Inquisition of Kozilek 

2x Despise

4x Go for the Throat

1x Doom Blade

4x Green Sun's Zenith

3x Black Sun's Zenith

SIDEBOARD

4x Nature's Claim

4x Torpor Orb

2x Doom Blade

1x Black Suns Zenith

2x Duress

2x Hex Parasite

So, the big "combo" of the deck is Melira + Etched Monstrosity. 10/10 for 5. Also, you can use Black Suns Zenith with Melira in play to Plague Wind at a super discounted rate. You can go with the Infect rout or the damage rout. The sideboard is as follows: Nature's Claim and Tropor Orb for Caw-Blade/anything with Splinter Twin. Extra Duress' for Spinter Twin. More Black Suns Zenith and Doom Blades for dumb decks that think that they can beat me with creatures. 

Most importantly, this is NOT Caw-Go, Caw-Blade, Hawkward, anything with Squadron Hawk and Jace....cause those are dumb.

Cube drafting (In the past!!)

I use this site called Bestiaire  and it generates packs and it creates AI's to draft with you. It ranks each card and picks them from there. It's pretty cool. It doesn't really recognize archetypes (such as Infect or good decks) but it still gives you an okay idea about how to draft.

The other cool thing about Bestiaire is that you can draft a cube...down side is that it's a little dated. How dated?.....Well, to give you a hint: Lebron James was still a Cavalier. The Phillies were about to win their first world series since 1980. Live your life by T.I. and Rhianna was number 1 on the billboard charts. AND Shard of Alara was hot off the presses. WIth this particular draft, I wanted to draft in the morning and see if I would make the same picks later that evening.

SO! Go blast your T.I., remember what it was like to live in a simpler time and draft a simpler cube:

Pack 1 Pick 1

There are a few good cards in here, but only one first pick. Library of Alexanderia is just so good. If you haven't had a chance to play with it, I highly recommend it. It is so choice. Gifts Ungiven and Karmic Guide are both good. But yeah, windmill slam your Library and feel good about yourself.

My morning pick: Library of Alexandria
My evening pick: Library of Alexandria

Pack 1 Pick 2

This pack is pretty crunchy. Two different Derm's, Oversoul of Dusk, Harmonize, Decree of Pain and City of Brass. I usually want my second pick to keep me open and flexible. When I look at this, I see that Harmonize is pretty good, but I already have Library as a great card draw engine and I want to win games and not just draw lots of cards. The Derm's are cool, but blockers mean they will disappear soon and I will get no benefit. Decree of Pain really locks you into black and I found that City of Brass ends up hurting more than helping. Now: Oversoul of Dusk. 5 mana for a 5/5 is okay, but a 5 mana 5/5 that can end games against certain decks? Yes please.

My morning pick: Oversoul of Dusk
My evening pick: Oversoul of Dusk

Pack 1 Pick 3

Well, seeing that Oversoul puts me into Green/White, I want to look for something around those colors, but since it is only pick 3 out of the 1st pack, I figure I can explore into different colors. The pack before this one had a Jungle Shrine in it so it might be a little feisty to grab something in red, play Naya and start to really beat face. With that being the case, it might be fun to grab Fires of Yavimaya or Sudden Shock. But in the morning I thought about Oversoul and Library as my picks and thought it might be better to go with a slower, more controlling rout. Plow Under is a really fantastic card and is incredibly underrated in cube drafting. Putting your opponent behind two turns and messing up your opponents draws for turn turns is amazing. Even more so when you can put one of those Dissension lands like Azorius Chancery type or a tapped land on top of their deck. Cube drafting also makes Plow Under really powerful because if you can draft some ramp, you can really mess up your opponents plans.

My morning pick: Plow Under
My evening pick: Plow Under (Morning me is pretty smart)

Pack 1 Pick 4

Hey, remember a few blog posts ago when I was talking about how Regrowth is nuts? You know how nuts it is with Regrowth?

My morning pick: Regrowth
My evening pick: Regrowth

Pack 1 Pick 5

With Oversoul, Plow under and Regrowth, it looks like we are in fact going with Green with the chance of white. With that, there is still a chance of grabbing a different color, but there are two pretty great green cards. One being Primal Command, the second being Viridian Shaman. I think morning me is wrong here and didn't think that Viridian Shaman isn't that good. Primal Command is pretty sexy with the things that you can do with it. Gain 7 life? That can turn a game around. You can also put any non-creature card back into their deck and stop any kind of Reanimator deck in it's tracks. However, Viridian Shaman is a two for one and in cube there can be some pretty nasty artifacts.

My morning pick: Primal Command
My evening pick: Viridian Shaman (maybe morning me isn't that smart)

Pack 1 Pick 6

Maze of Ith!? KER-PLOW!

My morning pick: Maze of Ith
My evening pick: Maze of effing Ith

Pack 1 Pick 7

Little hard here. Rude Awakening can win games by itself but I have a bunch of 5 drops alreay. Pristine Angel is pretty bomb-y but pretty white. But Ohran Viper has death touch and can draw me more cards, which can also help out the Library.

My morning pick: Ohran Viper
My evening pick: Ohran Viper

Pack 1 Pick 8

If I wanted to be more aggressive, I would have picked Treetop VIllage or Moldervine Cloak. I really like Orim's Chant though. If played correctly, it can win you the game. In cube, saying "draw go" is essentially giving your opponent a free Time Walk. The two aggressive cards fit into our (so far) mono-green deck, but I like more of a control deck and splashing white will help us out with that.

My morning pick: Orim's Chant
My evening pick: Orim's Chant

Pack 1 Pick 9

Nothing really fun here. Should have went with the Wooded Foothills. Went instead with:

Morning pick: Duergar Hedge-Mage (ew)
My evening pick: Wooded Foothills

Pack 1 Pick10

Well, that Jungle Shrine came back so I could have gone into red. Oh well. The Armadillo Cloak is in colors and, on the plus side, it's good. Putting it onto things like....Oversoul of Dusk? Yes. Yes I will.

My morning pick: Armadillo Cloak
My evening pick: Armadillo Cloak

Pack 1 Pick 11

Moment's Peace. Move along.

My morning pick: Moment's Peace
My evening pick: Moment's Peace

Pack 1 Pick 12

Divinity of Pride can be a bomb in certain decks....but quadruple white? Sprout Swarm....ugh....12th picks are 12th picks for a reason.

My morning pick: Sprout Swarm
My evening pick: Sprout Swarm

Pack 1 Pick 13

Ok, this took a second. I usually like hate drafting Rack and Ruin here, but I went with the Signet here. Meh. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I can foresee myself getting more artifact ramp later and I should have went with the Rack and Ruin.

My morning pick: Azorius Signet
My evening pick: Rack and Ruin

Pack 1 Pick 14

At least the Signet has one of my colors.

My morning pick: Golgari Signet
My evening pick: Golgari Signet

Pack 1 Pick 15

Ugh. I'm not a big fan of Signets and my last three picks were Signets. Oh well. I guess they can be backup ramp if I need to. I'm actually okay with this one and the W/U Signet because they make it possible for me to splash a little blue, in case I get a Recall or Time Walk later.

PHEW! Pack 1. Lets see what we have so far

Signet's o-plenty. I like our green base and having Library and Maze just make it easy to build a deck. 38 cards + Maze + Library = Winner. Plow Under. Man....that card is such a beast.

Pack 2 Pick 1

Ok. We have to make some tough choices here. No windmill slams. The cards I see that could be cool in our deck are:
Platinum Angel, Knight of the White Orchid, Serra Avenger, Temple Garden. Slim pickings. I never never never hate draft on the first pick of a pack and if I was ever tempted, it would be grabbing the Vampiric Tutor. My morning self went with Knight of the White Orchid. I'm a little skeptical of that pick now that I am actually looking at Platinum Angel, but the tricks you can pull off with the Knight are just too good. Plus, if we are lucky, the Temple Garden will come back around and we can grab that out of our deck with the Knight. I think that was the main reason why I grabbed him. If I had grabbed the Rack and Ruin out the the first pack, I might have been more temped with the Angel.

My morning pick: Knight of the White Orchid
My evening pick: Knight of the White Orchid (with some skepticism...double white is never fun...ever)

Pack 2 Pick 2

Ugh! Where are my bombs?! Oh well. So, this looks a lot like a Hometown Buffet salad bar. There are things that look just okay and you wonder if they are just keeping all the good stuff in the back for themselves. It's come down to Cloudthresher and Magus of the Disk. Going with my G/W tempo strategy, I am going with the Disk. He will clear the board, keep the good stuff around, like Maze and Library, and I can always Regrowth him later. Cloudthreser is cute for the same reasons, but 2 damage to flyers isn't enough to cut it in cube. He is also quad-green which can be awkward. Also, lets be sneaky and see if that Sanctuary comes back around. That would be great with Knight of the White Orchid.

My morning pick: Magus of the Disk
My evening pick: Magus of the Disk

Pack 2 Pick 3

Pulse of the Fields. Now there is a great card. If can really win games when it's not dealt with. However, there is actually a better, two for one card here. Can you find it? Is it:
A) Duplicant
B) It's Duplicant
C) This is me picking Duplicant and crossing my fingers that Pulse of the Fields comes back
D) All of the above

The answer is: C.
.......Um.

My morning pick: Duplicant
My evening pick: Duplicant (So good)

Pack 2 Pick 4

I did a bonehead thing here and went with the card that jumps out at you when you play G/W. Yeah. I went with Aether Vial. The actual pick I should have made was getting ramp (Llanowar Elf or Farseek) or go with the Guildmage. I think the Farseek is pretty special because it can grab duals. Smooth move morning Wilson.

My morning pick: Aether Vial
My evening pick: Farseek

Pack 1 Pick 5

*sigh* Okay, here is a rule in draft. When you are making a deck that controls the tempo of the game and you want it to go late and you see a bomb like Akroma, YOU PICK THE AKROMA.

My morning pick: Archon of Justice
My evening pick: Akroma, Angel of Wraith.....ugh. Pack 2 isn't going so smoothly.

Pack 2 Pick 6

Not too many goodies here. I feel like I am going to be left with the Signet, but I make my first good pick in the last three picks. Reveillark is pretty great and it's a shame Karmic Guide was in pack 1 (remember when you windmill slammed the Library? There were other cards in that pack...Don't feel bad, I didn't see them either). Revillark is going to be great with Knight of the White Orchid and Magus of the Disk. I'm excited about this.

My morning pick: Reveillark
My evening pick: Reveillark

Pack 2 Pick 7

This pack is really tricky. There are two great white creatures and a Mishra's Factory....but there is also another card here. Palenchron is nuts....but take a gander at Glare of the Subdual:

Remember that Sprout Swarm I "ugh'd" about? Doesn't this card make us look smart for having that in our decks? Doesn't this card help a lot with our tempo? I went with this because the Spectral Lynx doesn't fit into our color scheme (and it creates a nonbo with Armadillo Cloak), the Priest is double white and not very fun. The Mishra's Factory is the other one that I would want, but the colorless mana it produces outweighs the 2/2 it creates.

My morning pick: Glare of the Subdual
My evening pick: Glare of the Subdual

Pack 2 Pick 8

 Kind of a snore fest here. I went with Rafiq of the Many because of the two Signet's I already had. Plus, a turn 4 Rafiq, turn 5 Oversoul of Dusk puts them on a two turn clock.

My morning pick: Rafiq of the Many
My evening pick: Rafiq of the Many

Pack 2 Pick 9

Temple Garden! Woo-hoo! I am so smart! I am so smart! Smrt! Now let's see if the Sanctuary is in the next pack....

My morning pick: Temple Garden
My morning pick: Temple Garden

Pack 2 Pick 10

USA! USA! I had no doubts it would come back I knew it would come back all along. I rock.

My morning pick: Selsenya Sanctuary
My evening pick: Selsenya Sanctuary

Pack 2 Pick 11

Wow. Everything I want comes back. This is how to draft. There was a moment where I thought that Life/Death would be a interesting card, but I didn't pick it for the same reasons why I didn't pick Rude Awakening. Pulse of the Fields just fits too well into my deck though.

My morning pick: Pulse of the Fields
My evening pick: Pulse of the Fields

Pack 2 Pick 12

Vandals makes my the next three guys have to pick lands. I like that.

My morning pick: Keldon Vandals
My evening pick: Keldon Vandals

Pack 2 Pick 13

Force Spike is a card I never like having played against me. I could care less about the other two.

My morning pick: Force Spike
My evening pick: Force Spike

Pack 2 Pick 14

My morning pick: Eyes of the Wisent
My evening pick: Eyes of the Wisent

Pack 2 Pick 15

Let's take a look at what the deck looks like now:

I like what it looks like so far. More white now. Still some cool tricks. I am really excited for pack 3. Let's get going.

Pack 3 Pick 1

I am personally not a fan of Mana Vault, however, this deck needs some ramp pretty badly.

My morning pick: Mana Vault

My evening pick: Mana Vault

Pack 3 Pick 2

For those who have played against me know of my affinity of Mindslaver-ing people. However there is a bomb creature that fits into our G/W tempo deck and that would be Yosei, The Morning Star. I do not like passing Demonic Tutor, but not being so deep into this pack and not being in black would just be a wasted pick. You don't win cube drafts by hate drafting. There are a few support cards that would be cute if they tabled. 

My morning pick: Yosei, the Morning Star

My evening pick: Yosei, the Morning Star

Pack 3 Pick 3

Lots of fun blue cards here. Arrest is actually going to be my pick here. Morning me and evening me agree with this one. Fantasic tempo card. Faith fetters is strictly better though...oh well.

My morning pick: Arrest

My evening pick: Arrest

Pack 3 Pick 4

Oh hello Faith's Fetters! So glad you were able to make it to the party!

My morning pick: Faith's Fetters

My evening pick: Faith's Fetters

Pack 3 Pick 5

Lots of great cards here. Paladin en-Vec is temping, however, double white is tough times. I think he is the appropriate pick here. However, morning me went with the mana fixing Wooded Bastion. I don't fault morning me for this. However, I already have Temple Garden and Selesnya Sanctuary to help fix things. I think a more aggressive approach to this pack was needed.

My morning pick: Wooded Bastion

My evening pick: Paladin en-Vec

Pack 3 Pick 6

2 for 1's are good. But 4 for 1?!

My morning pick: Cloudgoat Ranger

My evening pick: Cloudgoat Ranger

Pack 3 Pick 7

Nothing really impressive here. Went with Ancient Tomb. Should have gone with Celestial Crusader.

My morning pick: Ancient Tomb

My evening pick: Celestial Crusader

Pack 3 Pick 8

My morning pick: Harrow

My evening pick: Harrow

Pack 3 Pick 9

Wistful Selkie is tempting, however, he would be three green. Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers is the correct pick.

My morning pick: Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers

My evening pick: Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers

Pack 3 Pick 10

My morning pick: Heartwood Storyteller

My evening pick: Heartwood Storyteller

Pack 3 Pick 11

Spitemare would have been cool here, but nothing to combo with. Gemstone Mine is a good mana fixing source.

My morning pick: Gemstone Mine

My evening pick: Gemstone Mine

Pack 3 Pick 12

My morning pick: Rendclaw Trow

My evening pick: Rendclaw Trow

(Just going through the motions here...)

Pack 3 Pick 13

My morning pick: Light From Within 

My evening pick: Light From Within (would have been great with Paladin en-Vec)

Pack 3 Pick 14

Doesn't really matter. Went with the Specter. Slightly more playable.

Pack 3 Pick 15

So lets look at what the deck looks like after that marathon:

Pretty nifty little G/W tempo deck. I really like how it shaped up. Library and Maze really make the deck what it is. Overall, I give it a B+. It won't win any awards, but it will get there.

Here is what the deck looks like after cuts:

Good curve, nice earthy tones. Good stuff.

For my next post I'll talk about some standard deck lists now with the new set out.