Lands of Theros: Beyond Death

This is just a fantastic deep dive into the art for the lands in Theros: Beyond Death.

Competitive EDH Bans?

I thought this article, which takes a look at the issues the competitive Commander format is facing with the Flash Hulk deck, to be a well thought out look at why Flash needs to be banned.

I've been playing since Ice Age and I have to admit, if you'd told me that Flash would be a problematic card in Legacy and Commander, I'd've thought you were crazy. It just such a bad card...until it wasn't.

Animate Dead

I found this story about members of the Netrunner community coming together to build more expansions to the game to be neat as heck.

Dinosaur Splash Damage

And now I'm back to Magic again-playing my Trypticon deck. I had some more robust games against Matt, who I believe better represents the general 'meta' of Magic.

Don't get my wrong: my friend Jason builds crazy, interesting decks but they're often weird. Weird is rare.

For example; the two decks I played against Matt were a riffs on more established types, using cards that we all know are pretty solid (Land Tax, Cabal Therapy, etc.), frequently involving a graveyard loop.

So here's where having the creature removal suite was relevant, and even Bojuka Bog became important. I had a few misplays in this respect: not leading with my discard spell before playing the Bog, for example, but I'm starting to get the hang of things. Still: Bojuka Bog gives me a little extra oomph with no real drawback.

I had initially thought that going to two Aether Snaps might be wise, however, the cool thing about Aether Snap is that it kills planeswalkers, in addition to helping me do what I want to do. There are more planeswalkers than ever now and this is a pretty sweet deal.

However. Aether Snap is limited and creature removal may be more necessary. I love that Aether Snap does well against go-wide token decks and planeswalkers while giving me a 20/20 in return, but I've held that card in my hand and not been able to deal with the slowly rising tide of creatures, desperately searching for a Languish.

Decisions decisions, right? I don't want to remove any copies of Vampire Hexmage, because it can allow for a turn three 20/20. Aether Snap is the weakest card by being expensive and situational. Maybe there's room for it in the sideboard?

Theros: Beyond Death Impressions

The full set list is here! So let's talk about it-first the mechanics. (This went up a day early than I meant! Sorry-your Thursday post is Wednesday!_

Escape: hey, they fixed Delve! Well, no; but they didn't fix Flashback either, instead giving us a hybrid between the two. Magic is frequently about getting as much value from the cards you have (hand, graveyard), instead of the cards you wish you had (library) and this is an interesting way to help push that value.

I don't know if it will make a huge impact but it certainly seems to be useful in limited doses, just as Delve is, and less inherently broken, unlike Delve.

Devotion: is back! A popular card condition making a return doesn't suck to me. I still hesitate to call it a mechanic, except that the word is shorthand for 'abilities in a Magic set'. Aside from that, I have to admit that it was more interesting than I gave it credit for, and gave deckbuilders a tangible goal to hit, with reasons to hit that goal. Glad to see it return.

Constellation: or Enchantment landfall. It's a good thing to put a clear enchantment theme into an enchantment block and Constellation does that as well as anything. With the addition of cards from Journey Into Nyx, it's possible we could see the skeleton of a deck using Constellation as its linchpin.

Sagas: This gets an A+ for me in regards to fit. Sagas are an excellent spot to put in a set with these themes and it was a very savvy decision to bring them in. Are they good? Eeeehhhh...they're as good or bad as any other mechanic. But they're cool, they do interesting things, and they fit well here.

Now let's get into the colors.

White
 I'm certainly glad to see a card like Eidolon of Obstruction, let's just admit that a) it's not nearly enough, and b) it's late.

The new Elspeth is mechanically interesting and a new execution in White with the all minus abilities and graveyard recursion. Just goes to show they'll bend anything into a color if the story suits it.

After that, I'm not seeing a lot to glom on to. It's not bad-the typical arrangement of decent white cards are there, including a creatures sweeping spell, which we could use. I don't know how much it does to address white's general lack of oomph as of late but with the boost to enchantments and white's synergy with them, maybe white will see new avenues of play.

From this set, maybe even a WR aura deck? There's a skeleton, I think. 

Blue
Now here's where things are getting interesting. The theme in Blue and Red where you get bonuses for playing spells on your opponent's turn is a cool idea to me. Does it place too much emphasis on Instants? Probably. Is that risky? Yeah, because those two colors are already strong in that arena and being able to play your game on your opponent's turn is one thing that made Blue so dominant in past years. However, I don't know if it's good. I just believe it's interesting and Red especially could use some extra themes to play with.

Of the rest, Thassa's Oracle's new win condition is neat. I have no idea if it's possible but it looks cool, doesn't it? Also, it's a little strange to see the "big creature" theme play out in Blue with Thryx, The Sudden Storm. Last time they leaned into it that I recall was during the Tarkir block-but with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths coming up next, it's a perfect time to plant some seeds!

Black
HOLY CRAP THE ART ON ASPECT OF LAMPREY.

Ok. Let's just...ease past that card. ~shudder

People are hyped on Drag to the Underworld but I don't see it. Yes, it's cheap removal starting on turn three...but so is Murder. It's good, but is it great? Cheap removal is still cheap removal.

 I don't understand why Enemy of Enlightenment costs six: that's a very expensive creature with a pretty legit drawback. The upside doesn't seem all that great, although that's probably because it costs six.

Gravebreaker Lamia seems interesting, although it is likely for Commander. Still, a tutor is a tutor and I'd be surprised if it had zero value in Standard. And Nightmare Shepherd is going to be a wrecking crew. A twist on God-Pharaoh's Gift seems pretty good.

Hm. Black seems to have gotten a lot of cool cards this round.

Red
Furious Rise could be a real boon to big creature decks. I know that I've really liked the variant of that ability in my Red Alert deck. But it does have the drawback of doing nothing the turn you cast it, so again: probably a Commander card.


Also: Note that the Hero cards come in at 2, 4 (white), 3 and 5 (red). That's a pretty sweet curve with creatures that have a decent ability.

I will admit, I don't understand what's going on with the art in Impeding Doom: maybe I just need to hold that card in my hand to get it. I also like the attempt to make Labyrinth of Skophos relevant with the thematic tie to Skophos Maze-Warden. (But the Labyrinth is bad).

Storm Herald does something weird for red and I just don't know what to make out of it. That feels like the kind of effect that should end a game: load up the graveyard with Auras, cast this, bring the Auras all out and just win, right there.

But what Auras do you pull? Is this card actually strong or just seems awesome? I have no idea what the ceiling is here. That's a good thing!

Green
Alright, somebody is going to have a life-changing moment after looking at Dryad of the Ilysian Grove.

There seems to be a definite push for creatures with reach/against flyers. Gift of Strength, Chainweb Aracnir, Nylea's Intervention, Plummet. Again, I'm wondering if they're laying some groundwork for further sets or if this is just to help green have some interaction.

Multicolored
They seem OK. Yes, the Titans both appear pretty crazy, not unlike the Titan cycle of old. Other cards look to be filling in niche spots-Dalakos, Kunoros (which I especially like), Enigmatic Incarnation is waiting for someone to break it.

So they're fine.

Artifact/Land
Unsurprisingly, not much interesting in the artifact realm. Decent role players: Altar of the Pantheon, Thundering Chariot, Traveler's Amulet, alongside Nyx Lotus which has "Untap this: Win" all over it.

And the scry lands coming back is great! I am a fan of those, as they proved to be worth it. I was almost certainly too hard on them back in the day, but I have come around and advocate for those lands. They do good stuff.

That's about it for me. Seems like a pretty solid but not shockingly powerful set and it should shore up some holes in decks I like to play, so I'm good with it.

Skittles

"Grenade Launcher isn't a common," my opponent said during testing.

Why sure it i-oh no. No it is not.

So that happened.

Fortunately, since this happened during testing and I didn't have to worry about having an illegal deck at the tournament. I tested with Crowbar but I wasn't entirely happy with that. Not unhappy but it's no Grenade Launcher.

So after a few more adjustments, this is what I went with:

Upgrades
3 Escape Plan
2 Kinetic Intensifier Whip
3 Improvised Shield
2 Basic Combat Protocol
3 Enforcement Batons
2 Erratic Lightning
1 Bashing Shield
2 Kinetic Converter

Actions
Repurpose 3
Ready For Action  2
Frag Toss 2
Head-On Collision 2
Defensive Formation 2
Battlefield Report 2
Brainstorm 3
Leap Into Battle 3
Escape Plan 3
Surprise Attack 3
Swindled 3

And I went 1-3.

First things first: I had a lot of fun in the games I played and I very much have a notion where to take this in the future. Just because I lost, doesn't mean I didn't have a good time! I learned a bunch and that is the most important thing.

Round One:
I was facing 5-wide team lead by Captain Impactor, with a heavy emphasis on bold. Game one I got run over. Game two I was able to stabilize but when even Private Tote is attacking for 11, that's just trouble.

Round Two:
I was facing a Dreadwing deck, supported by Bombshell! That was super cool and the matches were quite grindy, both of us eking out damage against the other. But I was able to hold off Dreadwing and eventually get the win. It was in this game that I was able to do things like one-shot Bombshell, something I couldn't do against the...not very defensive wide deck?

Sometimes, I do not understand this game.

Round Three:
This player was using Captain Astrotrain for damage and Sergeant Springer to draw a ton of cards. Against a two-tall team, I thought I had a shot, but I couldn't draw the cards I needed to heal, and I couldn't press any advantages. I figured out by game three that I had to take out Springer to keep the card engine from taking over, but the flips were not in my favor. Twice I flipped blues on attack, leaving my team vulnerable on the counterpunch-and leaving Springer with just one health left. One more orange pip and we untap with my two characters to his one but alas, that was not to be.

Round Four:
Another three wide team, this time using Optimus Prime-Freedom Fighter's innate bold ability to hit for a lot. Bold is a heck of a thing and it's helping me re-think how I build this deck. I was able to hit Optimus for eight in game two, letting me pull the victory out, but in game three I just couldn't get my deck going.

So what did I learn? In a big picture sense: I got distracted by shiny new cards (Reprocess, Defensive Formation) and forgot some basics that would've been a help. My biggest oversight was not including Forcefield in the deck, at least as a sideboard card. Bold attacks for 11 become a lot less scary when they hit for only four and I can heal one the next turn. But there were some specific things that I learned, too.

First: Repair Bay should've been in this deck, instead of cards with only black pips; as an orange card that heals the entire team, it fits perfectly. Second: I think I had too many white pips in this deck! Which is weird-the numbers say that generally one wants 9-11 white pip cards but I couldn't get consistent attacks and that might contribute. Third: more card draw (Incoming Transmission would've been fine) to assist Swindled could have helped, too. Finally, if there had been a way to incorporate New Designs, that would have been ideal. Card draw is huge (Kinetic Converter is excellent) but it needs to be followed up with pressure.

And that's it! Congrats to the winners and I'll have something better next time.

Beastmode

Here are the upgrades I've made to the deck for the tournament (updates in bold):

Upgrades
3 Grenade Launcher
3 Escape Plan
2 Kinetic Intensifier Whip
3 Improvised Shield
2 Basic Combat Protocol
3 Enforcement Batons
2 Erratic Lightning
1 Bashing Shield
1 Kinetic Converter

Actions
Repurpose 3
Ready For Action  2
Frag Toss 2
Head-On Collision 1
Defensive Formation 2
Battlefield Report 2
Brainstorm 3
Leap Into Battle 3
Escape Plan 3
Surprise Attack 3
Swindled 2

I leaned towards an aggressive build, eliminating Handheld Blaster for Grenade Launcher to increase the strength of the flips I would be making. Head-On Collision is there because I don't ever flip Raider Tailwind and Runabout's strongest attack mode is its bot mode, and a fourth copy of  Leap Into Battle is pretty good.

I also increased the green pip density for Raider Tailwind. Every little bit of offense or defense will help and while there isn't a ton of green pips, seven is still more than one.

The Sideboard is going to be
1 Stable Cover
1 Defensive Formation
2 Vaporize
2 Crushing Size
3 Crowbar

Motormaster, Stunticon Leader

Here's my reasoning:

Motormaster meets a critical point for my support character: it doesn't transform. Again: all the focus is going to be on Runabout and Runamuck for my flip actions, so the support card has to be solid as is.

And I chose Motormaster because of Private Sunrunner. Of the other Patrol teams, this is the only one who can do non-combat damage, which I think is a strong ability. While I expect the Air Strike Patrol to be a thing (they're the best Patrol at the moment) there aren't any real counters for what it does. I'm hoping to use the healing flips of Runabout to keep me in the game long enough to make an opponent's Raider Tailwind not matter.

But Motormaster takes a definite cut at Sunrunner's ability and that's what the sideboard is for.

Defensive Formation comes in vs the 4-5 wide decks, and if I can play it as my final action before they attack with two characters that would be ideal. Extra Stable Cover comes in against the black pip decks-I fully expect there to be a two-tall, heavy pierce deck. The characters and cards are there to support it, Raider Nova Storm can hit hard and I feel like it would be foolish to ignore the strategy.

Crushing Size and Vaporize are important because there are quite a few good Utility upgrades, especially ones that draw cards, and while Marshawn does a lot, it doesn't hit those very well or easily.

Crowbar is my wildcard at the moment: double pierce pips seem good against a heavily defensive deck. Is that a good idea? I don't know. But I'm not sure what else I should add in: more copies of Bashing Shield? Reprocess? I'm hoping to get a little testing in to help clarify things in time for Saturday.

Marshawn

I'm taking a quick break from Trypticon to write about a Transformers deck I'll be running this Saturday at the Red Castle Games event!

Raiders Runamuck and Runabout: a delightful pair from Siege I and the very first cards I stumbled on when my buddy Adam suggested making pauper decks. They have good synergy together and reasonable stats so I figured that I'd give this a go.

Turns out, just goldfishing the characters feels pretty powerful and I had room for a five star character! But while there are a lot of interesting places to go, I quickly narrowed the field because of two criteria.

First, an all Decepticon team would open up some cards that otherwise wouldn't be available to me. Second, as a flip-heavy deck, having a character that I didn't need or want to transform was important, since I need to spend those actions transforming Runamuck or Runabout.

With the initial build, Raider Road Hugger took the spot, because it has the highest health and power over the other characters. However, with the arrival of Siege II, Raider Tailwind may take that slot, because its health is one more and there are no car-affiliated battle cards at common. 

So I collected the Raiders and named the deck after Marshawn Lynch, because he's awesome.

Upgrades
Improvised Shield 3
EM24 IR Laser Launcher 2
Erratic Lightning 2
Spare Parts 1
Basic Combat Protocol 2
Enforcement Batons 1
Primary Laser 3
Security Console 1

Actions
Repurpose 3
Ready For Action  2
Frag Toss 3
Defensive Formation 2
Battlefield Report 2
Brainstorm 3
Leap Into Battle 3
Rapid Conversion 2
Surprise Attack 3
Swindled 2

As it turns out, using Raider Road Hugger appropriately is important, since attacking with it at the right time can give you more opportunities to flip the Battlechargers. However, there isn't a rule for doing so that I've noticed, yet. Sometimes, it should attack second but this is usually only true once everyone had has a chance to untap. Generally, Road Hugger attacks third because then you can sculpt the hand to provide it with the strongest possible attack, loaded up with Upgrades and Actions.

That said: the big help in this deck is Ready for Action. I am reluctant to add a third, since this is a mixed-pip deck. If it was heavy orange or blue, the piplessness would matter far less. However, without a lot of Bold or Tough, and without a focus on aggro or defense, eking every bit of color out I can matters. 

On the other hand, every time I get to untap one of the Battlechargers I feel as if  Marshawn is in a fantastic position to win the game. The extra turn step is huge. It's possibly worth testing, and definitely worth putting in the sideboard.

The cards with the green pips are in there mostly to swap out, in case I get an Improvised Shield in hand. There are also cards from Siege II to consider, Kinetic Converter and Kinetic Intensifier Whip being highest on my radar.

However, this is the casual version of the deck. There's a tournament on Saturday! That means I need to do two things: shape up this deck for a tournament and figure out a sideboard. Thursday, I'll show off what I came up with.

Hip Deep In Smoking Rubble

While playing against Jason's U/G mill deck, I discovered an unexpected benefit to Mire's Toll: it can let me pick lands to discard. That fact became very useful when my turn one Duress revealed two Maze of Ith.

It took a little luck and planning, but I managed to force him to discard both cards before getting my Marit Liege out and winning the game. So that didn't suck, especially since in game two, he lead turn three with a Maze and that was it: I conceded right then.

Game three was a slog, where I was able to force Jason into topdeck mode, while being in topdeck mode myself, unfortunately. The superstar there?

Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage. It kept chipping damage away and allowing me to keep the discard pressure on. Eventually, I rode copies of it and two Vampire Hexmages to a win, because neither of us was doing anything else. On the one hand: color me surprised! On the other: Hexdrinker rule in effect?

Jason wants me to add in Sinkholes and cut all the discard from the deck save Duress. Replace them with Nevinyrral's Disk 'because at mono-black, you can't deal with Enchantments or Artifacts'. Then use Duress as the "is it all clear" card before pulling off the combo, with Sinkhole and the Disk to set opponents back on the board.

I'm just not convinced. The game is so creature-centric now, having mass creature removal is just more important in the mainboard. The sideboard; yeah, let's get those Disks! And if I use Duress and see two Swords to Plowshares, how do I remove the other Swords? I only have three copies of Duress left! Still, it might be worth testing.

What that final game did do was make me think about a transformational sideboard...into 8 Rack. This probably isn't a good idea, but some of the cards in 8 Rack could be things I double up on, in case my matchup is unfavorable: Bontu's Last Reckoning, Collective Brutality and Shrieking Affliction could all be put in, along with the Disk and a Pithing Needle.