I Knew It

 I didn't like The Big Score and the Professor helps lay out all the things that are messed up with it. Give it a listen: he's very clear about how this exists to burden the players. 

The Wrath Of Code

The Wrath of Code, named after a song by the excellent Dan Terminus, is my turn on the Thopter decks. I know, this is where Kappa Cannoneer has found a home but Cannoneers are spendy! Why pay for those, when I can swarm the air with tokens?

2 Mishra's Bauble

3 Urza's Bauble

1 Aether Spellbomb

1 Sunbeam Spellbomb

4 Sai, Master Thopterist

3 Emry, Lurker of the Loch

2 Master of Etherium

4 Ethersworn Canonist

2 Esperoza

3 Thopter Spy Network

4 Tempered Steel

3 Dispatch

2 Metallic Rebuke

3 Seat of the Synod

3 Ancient Den

4 Razortide Bridge

4 Plains

4 Island

1 Otawara, Soaring City

4 Mystic Gate

3 Tezzeret, Artifice Master

This should be a lot of fun.

Free Pizza: Thunderbolts

 I've made my goal of level 90 this season, so huzza! I went through level 80 and won in with...this deck of all things!

No, I don't know how that works, either. That is: I know how the deck works-use Mordu, Maximus, Master Mold and Black Widow to pump your opponent's hand, Ronan and Mystique to win lanes. But...why is that working now?

I don't know exactly why but I also don't feel like arguing with the result. I know Zabu isn't as good as it once was so I might have to figure out what to do with that slot but hey, thanks for getting me to 90!

For friends who are new to the game, this is a reminder that this week, High Evolutionary has become a card you can acquire via keys. HE is a very powerful deck with a lot of flexibility and powerful cards new players already have, so get that card if you can!

Set Review: Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Got the MTG nexus link, but we got the official one too. As always, I'll start talking about the mechanics, and then go from there. 

The take on Outlaws is certainly better than the Party "mechanic" of Zendikar Rising. While thematically fun I don't see this helping create a subtype deck of Outlaws that starts to take over. Still, I'm all for giving a boost to these kind of 'profession' types as opposed to creature types.

Crimes are a very good thing for the game. Like Landfall, anything that rewards you for doing what you want to do in the the game already has a leg up on any other mechanic. More of these!

Spree feels like the most potentially confusing mechanic of the set. You have to pay the cost AND pay additional costs just to do anything. That is not how Magic cards typically work and it seems like there's a possible 'feel bad' to this one. The card is useless at it's mana value and I don't like that. It also means that players have to think about the card differently, which isn't inherently bad but it does throw off calculations when searching for cards to build decks with. 

For example: if you need a one Blue cost spell to draw cards, then Three Steps Ahead is going to show up in your search for such a card. But it doesn't work like that at all. 

That feels frustrating.  

Plot, on the other hand looks very cool. A way to reward strategic thinking, Plot seems like it might reward players who like to get into long game situations. 

As for Commander's Bounty mechanic? Seems neat! And a way to make multiplayer games interesting without breaking things in half, unlike Exploring the Dungeon or Monarch.

The most impactful news about this set might come from The Big Score subset. I want to say outright: I hate this. 

Usually cards from The List have been cards that were reprints; cool, thematic cards that WotC could find from other sets that just didn't quite fit into the story of this set. Reprints are good and necessary for the game!

The Big Score is taking The List slot in booster packs and of the forty cards, there are three reprints that I am aware of. Which turns The Big Score into an added rarity slot, not a cool way to get older cards into newer player's hands. 

Are the cards good? Yeah, they seem quite good. Is this a shitty way to exploit players? Yes. 

Let's move on.

White
Let's not pretend they haven't been storing the names Bovine Intervention and Holy Cow for a decade. Glad to see them finally get some time in the sun.

Another Round looks like the kind of card that could be a finisher for a deck but I'm not sure what kind of deck that might be.

With all the Mercenary tokens being created, I'd bet Vengeful Townfolk will be a house in Limited environments, and I really like the flavor of High Noon. I'm also seeing more +1 counter stuff than I feel I usually do. But I'm having trouble mustering some excitement for this color; cards seem expensive and don't quite do cool enough stuff.

Blue
Loan Shark is, of course, far too civilized to for this outlaw town. I kinda love it. 

By now certain notions are starting to get a little clearer: I like how Blue and Red have the opportunity to use Plot to gain bonuses, as on Razzel-Dazzler. That's some nice synergy. 

More flavor wins with This Town Ain't Big Enough, too. 

Black
I think Pitiless Carnage has potential. The ability to Plot that card means you can just put it in storage; if the game goes sideways on you or gets deadlocked, there are worse things than sacing a couple permanents to fill your hand and get you going. 

Tinybones, the Pickpocket might be the best card of the set though. It's at least one of the most interesting, offering something in Black that I don't see terribly often. 

Now, this is an idea that only an old player is going to consider, and it is probably bad but Rakish Crew plus the Mercenaries of old might make for an interesting deck. Maybe something to mock up!

Red
Alright, look: Coyote-Roadrunner is pretty great. This is definitely more a 'if you know you know' but I am old enough to know. 

I also really want to like Stingerback Terror but I just don't know that there's something there. 

Green
Ah, there's more +1 counter cards. That must be the GW draft theme. Seems like it could be very strong!

Multicolor
It gets a little weird here. There's a lot of characters I didn't expect to see from places far from their origin. On the one hand; ok that's neat. But on the other; why are they there? Just because?

I'm not objecting; I actually want to know more about Thunder Junction, now. Is it a kind of dimensional wayport? Mos Eisley for Magic? I could get behind that! The story parts I've read are so concerned with the goings on of Oko and company that there isn't much setting being set. 

Artifacts & Lands
They're all fine. There are now a lot more deserts than there have been in Magic: I wonder if there's a deck to be built around that subtheme. I'm probably just hoping against hope but I do like the subtheme of these deserts doing a point of damage to opponents. The basic lands are also very striking, just another thing WotC has been doing very well these past few years.

Conclusion
I'm sure by now it's pretty clear I'm not extremely high on this set. I don't hate it: WotC is good enough at these things by now that sets are usually solid. Unfortunately, at least for me the cards don't seem to be very interesting. Or at least they aren't inspiring!

That doesn't mean this isn't worth playing! There are still plenty of Sealed matches ahead of me and Plot does pique my interest as something to mess around with. Playing the cards always illuminates the experience a lot more than just reading and evaluating Plus, there are a lot of flavor wins; Thunder Junction feels like a place I want to hang out in and see more of. 

But the obvious good cards are obvious and The Big Score leaves a very sour note in my mouth. So until I get to play some games, I'm more cautious about this set.

Just A Little Delay

 I'm working on a set writeup for Outlaws of Thunder Junction, the next game in Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion (first boss!), and just earned Free Pizza in the new Marvel Snap season  (you won't believe the deck that I hit 90 with...).

But none of it is ready yet! Sorry. Still being sick and busy has not been helpful. I'll have something up Thursday, though.

Late To The Party: Greedfall

It took me a long time to finish GreedFall. Part of that was that it was a RPG and those just take awhile but it wasn't the only reason.

The upsides: this game had a compelling story, a lot of ways to customize your character and what I felt were meaningful ways to impact the story, depending on who wanted your character to be. Gameplay was solid; combat encounters could be challenging but never got frustrating for me.

Though it helped that I decided I was going to be a gunslinger. You know what works REALLY well in arcane times? Guns. Guns are great when swords are the default.  

The medium stuff; the animation had the Mass Effect problem where faces didn't always match up to dialog, and dialog lines didn't always match up to the conversation. This was notable in the usual places; Greetings and farewells, but I feel like if you're going to play this kind of game, you have to roll with that.

Also; while the movement animation was pretty good, whenever my character would run up or down stairs, they looked like they were high-stepping which was hilarious every time I saw it. 

The bad: fast travel wasn't implemented well. 

GreedFall spends a LOT of time sending the player on conversation fetch quests, and hey, that's partly why I'm there. However, traversal became a genuine slog in GreedFall. Having to walk to a travel point instead of the game just sending me to the location meant a lot of hours looking at that movement animation. 

It also meant that I began to notice when I was playing a game and when I was just running errands. That's not a great thing. So the momentum that the game would build would start to falter, and I'd set it aside for something more immediately engaging. 

Still, I liked it overall; it's a solid game made by a small team and it executes pretty well! Give it a solid B. 

Couple Videos

I'm still recovering from being sick, so posts this week will be on the lighter side. However, we persevere. 

I'm sure most have see The Professor's April Fool's joke, but still.

When you're done with that, take a gander at this overview of one of Magic's most controversial pieces of art.  

I can't say that I like the piece myself-something about the medium hits an uncanny valley for me. There's something real and unreal there and it doesn't harmonize well. But finding out more about the inspiration, background and context for the piece was incredibly interesting and let me appreciate the art in a different light. 

Out Today

 Just sick. Sorry folks. Back at it soon.

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

How to get someone who isn't into the kind of complex games I am into, into them?

Well, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion certainly seems to be helping!

This started off when my friend Kim wanted to join in but couldn't find something that worked for her. Magic is a game that has SUCH a steep learning curve, it just turned her away. 

Other games I enjoyed, like Star Realms, were taking themselves too seriously and couldn't connect with her.

But it's OK! Not all games are for all people. What I needed to do was take into consideration what was working for Kim and incorporate that in. 

The kind of games she liked to play were more party oriented. Nothing wrong with those games-they are a LOT of fun sometimes. Trogdor, Satanimals; it always helped if there was a silly theme or art that didn't fall into the grimdark category. 

Finally, I hit on an idea: what if we did a cooperative game? Perhaps one of the things making finding a game difficult was having to play against me instead of with me. Basically, I was hoping that if I gave Kim situations that offered decisions we could both go in on, and would feel like we were doing something, that it might feel a lot more engaging and fun.  

We've made it to the fourth scenario now and I'd have to say: this hunch paid off! She's having a great time. 

I do want to note the length that Gloomhaven's designers went to to make Jaws of the Lion a more accessible game. We're almost at the point where the training wheels come off, but even with that, neither of us have felt overwhelmed or like we were going to fail, while also having games that felt like they were coming down to the wire. Every decision mattered, doing our best to hopefully get it right-or just get lucky.

I can even say that my experience with Jaws of the Lion has helped me understand the base Gloomhaven game better, so I have more fun there. That is impressive. 

We've Got No Time For Plan B

Alright, so RNG is a thing. Further online testing with the combination of It Sucks To Suck and Trash Truck (now called It Sucks To Truck) has been very positive. 

I've even teched up a sideboard, just to give it a little extra workout. 

Coutnerpoint; the testing has been very limited. I've been sick the past week, so I've just gotten to play online, and Fuz has been working on a deck of his own. 

So my sample size has been small, but the feel of the deck has been pretty good. 

Current SB-untested as of yet but-

4 Force of Despair
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Pyroblast
3 Meltdown

I'm going to keep testing this. 

Free Pizza-AvX Season

Well, I did it again! While the legwork was done with some tried-and-true decks, the one I used to get to level 90 was this:

With BeastMaster (the name originally came from having Beast and Grandmaster in the deck), it keys around Annihilus giving opponents bad cards. Mobius M Mobius is the big tech card right now, but the suite of MMM, Shang-Chi and Enchantress all fill important roles. 

Enchantress and Shang-Chi might still be some of the more important cards in the game, especially with Zabu as an enabler. But I hit my mark, and that's what I care about!

Since then I've been mucking about the the Avengers/X-men unbalance patch of the week, and trying to work on the 'destroy your stuff' deck of Gladiator, Yondu and Killmonger. But it really needs Knull to shine-Death is good but a second heavy hitter helps. 

I still want to make the Kraven/Kingpin deck work (I'll call it KK-Nope), where I move the opponent's stuff instead of moving my own. But it doesn't quite seem to be there yet.

I Carry Tokens Now

 For the longest time, I never bothered with token cards. I was happy to use little glass beads as all purpose things- counters of every sort, be they plus, minus or charge, or as creature representatives, from elves to birds, it didn't matter.

Why scut up my collection or my deck with token cards? The cards are there to remind me what the token does. 

But in the past few months, as I've been playing with my friend Rebecca, who's re-learning the game she knew from the Mirage era of Magic, one thing has become very clear to me.

Magic is fucking hard. 

I already knew it was a complicated game and long time players sometimes have fun with the notion that Magic is the world's most complicated game. I certainly do. 

However teaching someone in 2024 a game that I picked up in 1995 is a very different task. It has demonstrated that if anything, Wizards has decided to lean into the complexity and make more cards that do more things. I don't know if there is a textless card that has been printed since Yargle and Multani, and the stat line on that card shows how far things have come. If you pay six mana then getting six power minimum is expected now. Those cards all come with a significant amount of text!

I've realized that I cannot just insist that new players "just remember" what a glass bead on a card or out in the field of play is. The game is just too damn complex to ask people to remember these things, when Wizards has been producing tokens to actually represent what they are, as a way to help new players.

It's unfair of me to have that expectation and I do not want to be an unfair person. It's a game. Let's have fun!

Waiting For Tomorrow When It's Here Today

Another evening of testing It Sucks To Suck and a similar result as last time-it was good but it never seemed like enough. Not enough removal or not enough pressure, the deck could occasionally put together strong games, but I rarely felt like I was doing so often. 

I could see it, but I couldn't get the pieces together. That's when Matt said: "Don't you have another deck that does stuff like this. Maybe you should put them together?"

I mean...fine. I don't have any excuses since I can mock it up online, right? I am trying to improve my decks, and streamline the number of decks I own-this does both. Should be a win win!

So I did that, and my first attempt at playing it resulted in a Burning Inquiry where I had a hand full of lands to start...and discarded every fresh card I drew. 

Four lands and one Stalactite Stalker is not going to win me games. 

The initial look isn't good. But maybe it's just the initial look?

Late to the Party: Spider-Man 2

When Spider-Man 2 came out last year, people were crowing it as a game of the year within a day of release. I, as an adult with things to do, just finished it.

It's good! It isn't great.

The gameplay is as good as ever: traversal around NYC is still as fun as it ever was, and the fighting mechanics remain the same. The switch between Miles and Peter is easy and I understand why they kept things so similar. 

The camera occasionally gave me trouble, especially when dealing with uncounterable attacks. If you need to see the color of the attack to know if you should evade or counterpunch, then the attack can't come from behind you. However, this was mostly a little thing and more often than not I enjoyed the way the game played.

The story, however, is where Spider-Man 2 really falters. Spoilers ahead.

If the big bad is Kraven in his "last hunt" scenario then just make that the game. There's more than enough there and it is a story that could easily lead to the ending that Insomniac wanted: for Peter to retire and Miles to take up the mantel by himself. Venom being a b-story that they rev up for the final game-one that is obviously coming. 

Or, and this is really the better idea, make Venom the big bad and at the end of it, the emotional toll is what causes Peter to pass the mantel on. They storyline rolls easily into it emotionally. That's where all the actual beats are. 

Watching Peter go bad and Miles have to save him, then Peter have to save Harry? That is a storyline that leaves Peter tired and maybe ready to do something else for a little while. It puts Miles in a position to take the role, having saved his mentor. 

Then in the third game you bring in Kraven, one who becomes outraged that the Spider-Man he came to fight isn't the one he wanted at all. He instead starts to pursue the "real" Spider-Man, bringing in Electro and Vulture as extra mooks, enlisting Doc Ock and now you are two-thirds of the way towards a Sinister Six! Don't tell me you can't find two more villains, just because Mysterio and Sandman are reformed in the game. Maybe Sandman and Mysterio are fighting under duress, and you have Miles desperately trying to keep all these people away from Peter, or throw them off the trail. Or not tell Peter at all, afraid that contacting him might expose Peter!

Instead it feels like there is half of a Kraven game and half of a Venom game. But Kraven isn't fleshed out very well and there's a surprise c-story appearance adding to that storyline when 90% of the game is over! Kraven isn't even there anymore!

Venom isn't served well either, which is unfortunate. While I really like the story direction that was taken (which has the symbiote becoming the source of Harry's 'cure'), I was never clear if the symbiote coveted Peter, or was motivated by Harry. Does it want revenge or does it want everyone to join it? 

Plus, the peppering in of Peter's regular life isn't strong enough to get me to see why he'd want to hang up the suit. Everything about Peter in the game is about how sorry he is he hasn't done right by his loved ones and he will do better.

By...quitting the thing that partially defines him? It just doesn't track, emotionally and that's a problem for me.

However, a good game is still good. Playing it feels great, and that counts for a lot. 

Free Pizza-Black Order Season

I honestly didn't think I was going to make my goal of hitting level 90. I'd barely gotten to level 85 when I went on a spiral, and dropped to level 68. Minus 17 levels in two days? Woof.

Then I saw someone on the Marvel Snap subreddit talk about how they were beaten in Conquest mode by someone running a basic Taskmaster deck. 

Well shit. I got one of those. 

Thing is; this puppy got me from 68 back to level 84, and I did it in about two days. It seems a bit shocking how few decks are prepared for two 28 power characters, until you realize what the meta is and then it makes sense. 

Enchantress has been the key card for this season. Taking out Morbius (a heavy hitter in the discard decks) and Living Tribunal, she's been an absolute rockstar. 

But the meta is very much based around Hela decks that want to use their turn six to resurrect the biggest characters in the game: The Infinaut, Giganto, Magneto, things like this-after discarding them to Modok. 

I didn't have a Modok and countering the Hela deck is rough. Apparently one of the best players in the world was using the Black Knight deck to rank up and this was what I used to get to level 90. 

This is doing something similar to the Hela deck yes, but has the flexibility of creating a Black Sword that effectively cannot be interacted with. It means that locations that would reduce or destroy it, just don't and as a turn 4 play or even as a 3 cost play-well if you can put 10, 12 or 20 power in play for that? You're doing pretty well. 

I get why it's such a good deck, and though I'm not sure it's better than the current Hela meta (which is getting a bit tiresome, in my opinion, because there isn't much to interact with) I enjoy playing it more. 

However, this month was the month where I realized that the insistence that I make level 90 to "make my money back" was eating at my enjoyment of the game. I give them $10 a month because I'm having a good time, not to try and take it back from them. Why am I making things unfun by forcing myself to achieve an external goal (level 90) rather than an internal one (play well & have fun!)? I have little control over the first, but significant control over the second. 

Because there's a reason why, as soon as I hit level 90, I went to reddit and asked for spicy lists. And when I didn't get much, (someone suggested Agatha which is just...not spice) I leaned into two ideas I've been messing around with: destroy your stuff and move your stuff. 

It's been more fun than I thought and hey, sometimes I even pull wins.

Everybody Hates The World In A Special Way

I was testing this deck at the same time Fuz was testing his new Pride of Hull Clade deck. 

I got beat the hell up. 

In fairness; I think that the matchup is a bad one for me. With a sideboard that could change the match but his creatures were just too cheap for me to remove with what I had. Fury, as great as it is, doesn't do as much as I would like when confronted with Wall of Junk and Wall of Blossoms.

Did I make an Avatar of Discord on turn two? 

You bet I did. 

Did I win that game? I did not, because there are 0/8 flying walls. 

There was also another hitch in the gitalong: Avatar of Discord is an unreasonable target for Animate Dead. 

So maybe the Carnage Interpreters really are necessary?

It Sucks To Suck

The name took me longer than I thought it would, but eventually I was hooked by this masterpiece from the latest Striker album.

3 Currency Converter
4 Mox Diamond

3 Hazoret the Fervent
4 Fury
4 Stalactite Stalker
2 Rix Maadi Reveler
3 Troll of Khazad-dûm
3 Blood Scrivener
3 Avatar of Discord

4 Animate Dead
1 Seal of Fire

3 Dangerous Wager

8 Swamp
8 Mountain
4 Raucous Theater

3 Molten Collapse

So what's up with this? Why is it so different from the first list?

My first discovery was that Grief was in a BW deck and I wanted to keep it there. Similarly, Resurrection is elsewhere and the next cheapest thing was Animate Dead. But as options go, that isn't bad!

The Blood Scrivener has been a nice card. It isn't perfect, but as a solid turn two drop that then helps feed me do what this deck wants to do, I'm pleased with it so far. 

Avatar of Discord is there because at the last time of writing, I didn't have Carnage Interpreters. Apparently that card gets released tomorrow and I have no idea if it's good. It seems good but so does a 5/3 flier on turn 2, which is something this deck can do.

Molten Collapse doesn't have an excuse. That card should almost certainly be Terminate or Kolaghan's Command.  Bedevil might also fit, and I probably have copies of all of these cards somewhere.

While searching Moxfield.com for ideas, I saw someone using Seal of Fire to contribute to their Stalkers and I thought one wouldn't be a bad idea.

So that's why I'm with this list for now and I'm looking forward to seeing how it does!

Distractions

After testing these two decks against each other, the one that had obvious problems is the one I took interest in. That was the Mavinda deck. 

For a few days, that's what I worked on. Trying to find the key to unlocking the combo-like potential of this deck. I got some advice from a buddy, had some tweaks to make, like adding in Abeyance or Charge Through. 

Then another friend dismantled the GW deck with a solid mono-W tokens build. That is when it struck me: if I cannot get past a basic, solid concept then is it really worth putting energy towards this? Building an entire deck, sleeving it up, only to slam my head against decks that are just stronger? 

Is that how I want to spend my time?

I decided that no, it wasn't. There's a reason I am starting to prototype decks and this is it! So I don't find myself overwhelmed with decks I don't even want to play. 

That BR deck though, that had some legs. Yes, it's absolutely using some Scam architecture but so what? Great artists steal*.

*I am not a great artist.

So I built it in paper, sans Grief but using Blood Scrivener and with Molten Collapse instead of Terminate because they were right there in the binder near the Stalactite Stalkers. I still need the Raucous Theaters, but I can give it a whirl. 

I got a couple matches against Caitlin, won one, lost one, and she took a look at the deck. 

"The tokens from the Raven Man aren't that strong; if you want to use that ability, maybe you should partner it with Green or White, to buff them."

And a lightbulb went off. There's already a good tokens deck using white & black. 

So I sketched out a new deck.

4 Staff of the Storyteller

3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos

3 The Raven Man

3 Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

3 Timeless Dragon

2 Undead Gladiator

3 Devouring Sugarmaw // Have for Dinner

4 Intangible Virtue

2 Bastion of Remembrance

3 Bitter Triumph

10 Swamp

12 Plains

4 Lingering Souls

4 Hymn to Tourach

No, I am not going to start playing this deck-yet. It's a protoype too, and I want to actually finish what I start. For now, this means the RB deck, and that deck needs possibly two things:

Carnage Interpreter, and a name.

Helldivers II First Impressions

I've put nearly nearly 14 hours into Helldivers II now and here's what I think:

They launched the game too soon.

There's good stuff here;  solid game loop (kill aliens, accomplish objectives, get out before time runs out), a fantastic vibe clearly leaning into Starship Troopers except taken up a notch (we are the bad guys, folks), and a progression system that has players feeling like they are a small part of a giant collective, contributing to the war effort.

So it's a real bummer that crossplay has had so many crashes. That the tutorial left me feeling like I didn't know nearly enough to play-and I was right. I fumbled and often messed up how things worked. That the chat audio frequently lead to feedback issues. 

Most damning for me, though, are the controls. They feel too lose: I don't reload a weapon when I feel like I should, and this game lives and dies on being able to reload your gun. I don't swap weapons like I should: I have tried to swap from a gun to a grenade and back multiple times and been frustrated that I hadn't and the game is terrible about letting me know what I'm currently armed with. Clicking the button to run doesn't happen sometimes and that's bad.

These are fixable things. But they should've been locked in on day one. I'm willing to give Helldivers a chance because there's already been a patch for a game that launched on Friday and there is always a learning curve to a game. If I threw it out just because I wasn't instantly having a good time, then I'd probably never play Magic again. 

There's also some interesting design at work: the game utilizes the d-pad more than any modern game I've played. But this creates a tension when I need to move and use the d-pad, since I only have one thumb, like most humans. My buddy's solution was to reach over with his right thumb to keep his character moving and use the d-pad with his left.

This is...not ideal. It is awkward as fuck. It's a design choice that was likely made for people with mouse and keyboard setups, and without consideration to those with handheld controllers. OR, it is a deliberate choice the game has made to make a specific kind of gameplay. The tension of punching in the d-pad while hordes descend on you is a choice to make.

In my experience it isn't a good choice and it might be the thing that breaks the game for me. If my options are try to call in support and just getting my ass kicked, or do this awkward movement with my hand every time just to play the basic game, how is that a good choice?

Still; it's just entertaining enough that I'm sticking with it, at least for now. But heads up: they hype is overdone. 

Ideas

 I got struck with a couple ideas last weekend.

A G/W spells deck, and a R/B Raven Man deck. 

I've been trying to make The Raven Man a thing for awhile and it just isn't coming together. I tried it in Sabotage, and I just don't like it there. Sabotage is as deck that is almost there and The Raven Man just isn't the deck to push it over the edge.

The G/W spells deck is a bit more straightforward:

4 Mavinda, Students' Advocate

4 Phalanx Leader

4 Dragonsguard Elite

4 Leonin Lightscribe

4 Mutagenic Growth

4 Defiant Strike

4 Path to Exile

3 Charge Through

3 Legolas's Quick Reflexes

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Warriors' Lesson

2 Grand Crescendo

5 Forest

8 Plains

4 Temple Garden

2 Sunpetal Grove

3 Faerie Guidemother // Gift of the Fae

SB: 2 Verdant Command

SB: 2 Recruit the Worthy

SB: 2 Grand Crescendo

SB: 2 Abeyance

The idea: use Mavinda, Students' Advocate to replay cards buffing Phalanx Leader, Dragonsguard Elite, and Leonin Lightscribe and win with big creatures. A little like a GW storm deck, if you will. 

The R/B deck looked a little like this

3 Currency Converter

4 Mox Diamond

4 The Raven Man

3 Hazoret the Fervent

4 Fury

4 Stalactite Stalker

2 Rix Maadi Reveler

3 Troll of Khazad-dûm

4 Grief

4 Reanimate

3 Dangerous Wager

3 Terminate

8 Swamp

8 Mountain

4 Raucous Theater

I wanted to use The Raven Man to make tokens, and I thought that if I coupled it with Stalactite Stalker to ensure that I'd be able to benefit from other cards emptying my hand. Fury and Grief both empty my hand, and Reanimate is a known package with those cards and Troll of Khazad-dum. 

Calcium Powder

Getting back to Bonecrusher to wrap that up.

At some point, I have to admit I'm being contrary for the purpose of being contrary. And why be like that? I'm tired of just putting in cards that are cool without having much of a plan for them. 

And Wizards has spoken: Goblins is meant to be a R/b deck. If you're gonna branch out, Black is your support color, not White. Why am I fighting this?

3 Goblin Lackey
3 Goblin Matron
3 Goblin Ringleader
2 Warren Instigator
3 Goblin Chieftain
3 Putrid Goblin
3 Murderous Redcap
4 Skirk Prospector
1 Sling-Gang Lieutenant
1 Pashalik Mons
2 Munitions Expert
2 Goblin King

4 First Day of Class
4 Sheoldred's Edict 

12 Mountain
6 Swamp
4 Foreboding Ruins

It's Muxus free and that's probably incorrect. But it can vomit out a ton of goblins and do some damage, so I'm certainly happy about that. 

MKM Pre-Release (2-1)

Special thanks to Red Castle Games for hosting a great event, making things a lot of fun! Extra thanks to my teammate Rebecca for being a good human to play with, and making some great plays that absolutely won us games. 

I've put our respective decklists at the end, but we were able to put together a solid GB deck with some real haymakers for her, and a more complex UR deck for me that could power through some shortcomings. UR artifacts & clues did me some good!

Round 1 Vs Milo & Vin

Got out to a fast start with a Frantic Scapegoat and Snarling Gorehoud, but some key Reasonable Doubts kept Rebecca’s stuff of the table. They put a  Topiary Panther out and we held off on dealing with it because I had thopters, and Rebeca was bound to topdeck something else. Instead, she drew three lands in a row and by the time we were able to stabilize our side of the board, we were down to six life, just like them. The final blow was countering a Cornered Crook once they had solved The Case of the Gateway Express. We almost got there...

Round 2 Vs Daniel & Joe

After the turn four No Witnesses board sweep I thought we were in trouble: Rebecca lost one creature, but I lost three. Fortunately, I was able to make two Clue tokens off that, which kept me in cards. Then Rebecca followed up with a Vein Ripper, and I used my clues to generate more creatures. This was critical, because they were using Warleader's Call to ping us for two, every time Daniel cast a creature. Plus, they were able to use Makeshift Binding to keep our early pressure off.  Fortunately, the Vein Ripper did what it was supposed to do: completely wreck a game. Killing creatures came with the punishment of a four point life swing each time, and 6 damage in the air per turn did them in after that. 

Round 3 Vs Alex and Nick

The game started fairly evenly, until Rebecca used Analyze the Pollen on turn 3 to get the Vein Ripper, and we put massive pressure on them after that. I kept the smaller beats going with the low key help of Gleaming Geardrake and a well timed Felonious Rage, but make no mistake about it; once the Vein Ripper arrived, they were on a clock and they just couldn't quite get there. 

In the end, we came in fourth overall and our only loss was to the team that won the entire event. That feels pretty good!

The GB deck:

Kraul WHipcracker

Nix Weaver

Urgent Necropsy

G

Topiary Panther

Rubbelbelt Mavrick

Pompous Gadabout

Analyze the Pollen

Tunnel Tipster

Axebane Ferox 

Sample Collector

Vitu-Ghazi Inspector

Nervous Gardener

B

Hunted Bonebrute

Repeat Offender

Unscrupulous Agent

Nightdfrinker Moroii

Extract a Confession

Snarling Gorehound

Toxin Analysis

Undercity Eliminator

Murder 2

Vein Ripper

The UR deck

Multi

Gadget Technician

Gleaming Geardrake

R

Case of the Burning Masks

Garbage Orangutan

Person of Interest

Suspicious Detonation

Frantic Scapegoat

Torch the Witness

Bolrac-Clan Basher

Crime Novelist

Innocent Bystander

Vengeful Tracker

Harried Dronesmith

Shock 2

Corners Crook

Reckless Detective

Felonious Rage

U

Deduce

Hotshot Investigators

Burden of Proof

Steamcore Scholar 

Dramatic Accusation

Cold Case Cracker

Escape Tunnel 2