Life From The Low

Recently I got a game in against my buddy Jeff, who was playing a B/W ninja deck built heavily off the TMNT set. We weren't able to finish it (the pub was closing) but in the middle of a game I stopped and asked him to rewind his turn.

Jeff is pretty new to Magic and he wasn't using the Sneak (Ninjitsu) abilities of his cards at all. So I walked him through a turn where he did that, and although I could've punished him for it, I didn't. It isn't worth bringing the hammer down on new players in a non-tournament setting. I'd much rather see him be excited about the thing he built!

Now, I got pretty low on life before the game ended but I think I could've pulled it out, as I was just a turn away from being able to start to generate blockers and life. Once that happens, all I need is enough time to wipe the board with a Withering Curse. 

While I didn't get that chance I liked the performance of the deck. It felt like I could dig my way out of the situation. 

I'm headed on vacation so next post will be next Thursday! 

I'll Be A Massive Conquistador

 After a massive overhaul, I took Millionaire out for a spin. 

Not bad! The deck actually did more of what I was trying to do. Goes to show that by focusing on the theme, progress can be made. 

3 Thopter Foundry

3 Sword of the Meek

3 Glass Casket

3 Cryogen Relic

4 Etherium Sculptor

3 Disciple of the Vault

3 Tribute Mage

1 Winter, Cursed Rider

1 Confounding Riddle

4 Thirst for Knowledge

4 Mana Leak

7 Island

4 Seat of the Synod

1 Vault of Whispers

1 Ancient Den

1 Plains

2 Arcane Sanctum

4 Esper Panorama

1 Swamp

2 Dromar's Cavern

2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

3 Withering Curse

But I was noticing a bit of a problem, especially when I compared this to similar decks on Moxfield: I do not have interaction. Either I assemble the combo or I don't, and I don't have much protection for it. 

So I thought I would swap out Mephitic Drought for Withering Curse. I have eight ways to draw cards, between X and Y, and now I have seven cards to help with interactions. .

You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar But I Feel Like A Millionaire

Woof. This is a great song for a mess of a deck. 

3 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Sapphire Medallion

1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
2 Magister Sphinx
3 Sharding Sphinx
4 Stormscape Familiar
4 Etherium Sculptor
1 Sharuum the Hegemon
1 Sphinx Sovereign

3 Oblivion Ring
2 Engineered Plague

1 Spinal Embrace
4 Thirst for Knowledge

6 Island
4 Seat of the Synod
2 Vault of Whispers
2 Ancient Den
1 Plains
2 Arcane Sanctum
4 Esper Panorama
1 Swamp
2 Dromar's Cavern

So, the original deck idea came from one that was using Time Sieve in order to take multiple, if not infinite turns. 

Where's the Time Sieve, my dude?

But OK fine: I don't have Time Sieve. Budget combo with Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry isn't a terrible idea. 

Why is there all this other stuff? I get the idea: I was thinking that four copies of Sapphire Medallion would make it easy to ramp into cards like Sharuum. 

But even if they are, what is Sharuum getting back for me? 

So, there's a bunch of work to do here. 

Sigh

So, Hasbro is anti-union and it should be no surprise that their response to the folks creating a union for their work on Arena has been...less than cooperative. 

But to insist that people use their deadnames in order to vote on unionization is some bullshit.

This is your reminder that big corporations are not your friends. They aren't here to serve you, they are here to take as much money from you as possible. All of the money, if they can. 

Good luck to the unionizers. Fuck Hasbro. 

Late To The Party: Darksiders: Genesis

 I wanted to like Darksiders: Genesis a lot more than I did, but the game didn't come together as well as I think it needed to. 

The upsides to Genesis are many! There's co-op play, including couch co-op. The characters of Strife and War both play very differently, offering a nice variety. The story, while pretty standard, is carried well by the skill of the voice actors, who are charming and having fun. And the combat felt pretty engaging! It got a little same-y near the end, when it just became obvious what the best thing for Strife to do was, and as a single-player using him and then War as my backup was the clear path. But it was still good!

Unfortunately, there are a few decisions regarding the game that end up hurting it quite a bit. 

First, it's the implementation of puzzles with a isometric perspective. Jumping puzzles where the camera hides or obscures what you're doing are just bad.  I honestly thought we'd left that shit behind two decades ago. Isometric angles on the field of play work great for a game like X-COM where you can easily turn the camera to see what you need to, or Diablo or Hades where the on-field action is important. 

It's terrible when the camera is fixed and you cannot be sure of the distances you need to clear, or worse when they put the puzzle BEHIND the camera angle. You get a peek at it but no more. It caused me a lot of frustration and the best I can say about it is: it wasn't always mandatory to complete a puzzle to get past a section. 

That was the largest issue with Genesis and while it wasn't a dealbreaker for me, I can see it being one for others. 

The other problem with the game, however, was that it just ends. I spent 16 chapters being told about Lucifer's big plan, and how we had to stop it. I spent time in the arena practicing skills (which was a lot of fun!) and getting ready for the missions. 

And then when I go to confront Lucifer, the games just goes "Welp, Lucifer is getting away with it! LATER BOYS!" and that's it. 

And that is deeply unsatisfying. 

Sandstorm

Well, now we have a name for the deck! As an added bonus, it's also the name for a Transformer so I'm kinda double-dipping. 

In addition, despite the last decklist working really well, Secrets of Strixhaven gave us a card that I am testing, because I think it's very powerful: Stirring Hopesinger. This is in addition to the new removal spell upgrade, Erode, which is definitely better than Unwanted Remake. 

However that's not all! Hopesinger is a bird, and that means it gets a boost from Valley Questcaller.

Sadly, this means that something has to go, and Mabel is my cut. She's very good-and she creates an additional mana tax with Cragflame. In a deck with so few mana sources, having a flier that could boost the team just seemed better. 

Mice

 I need a name for this deck, but right now it's got it where it counts, kid.

4 Shuko

4 Heartfire Hero
3 Manifold Mouse
3 Valley Questcaller
3 Emberheart Challenger
2 Mabel, Heir to Cragflame
3 Flowerfoot Swordmaster
3 Seedglaive Mentor
1 Feather, the Redeemed

4 Monstrous Rage
4 Unwanted Remake
2 Loran's Escape|
3 Legion Leadership
2 Shelter

7 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Elegant Parlor
2 Restless Bivouac

Obviously this started as a riff on the mice deck in Standard-hey, why not build on a proven idea? Without the limits of Standard, Shuko becomes available and the deck can get sick very, very quickly. 

With 20 lands, the deck is running very lean, and I'm absolutely hoping that Elegant Parlor along with Shelter and Loran's Escape can help smooth my draws out, while not slowing me down, despite Restless Bivouac and Parlor entering tapped.

Free Pizza: Daredevil-Crimson Twilight season

 Hit my free pizza pretty early! 

went a little rogue and built a Wolverine Horseman of War deck instead of capitalizing on the new Daredevil season. Storm Horseman of Famine was both surprisingly good and frustrating, as the +2 could be immense, but the setback was no joke. That card really needs to be in a Hi Evo style deck.

Living the dream was having Mother Askani split Wolverine of course, and adding something like 35 points to the board. And while this deck did the lion's share of work getting me to 90, I also had a nice little backup deck. 

This deck has one severe weakness: it needs priority. If you get and keep priority by turn 3, you can do very silly things. Frequently, Wilson Fisk comes down on turn 3 and that can lock in Askani'son or Iron Patriot, and from there cards like Viv, Rocket and Groot and Alioth come in incredibly useful. 

Production Issues

 So far as I can tell, these are legit Magic cards.

Yet it is very clear that the cards on the right are darker than the ones on the right. 

Look, WotC: this kind of shit seemed like it never happened for years and years. Now it seems to pop up every set. Maybe this has always been a problem and it's just social media raising awareness but I'm not ever inclined to give a large corporation the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cutting corners. 

Need To Be Fast All The Time

 I think I like where this is at. 

I had to learn some hard lessons with this deck, and I'm keeping it in rotation for a little longer, because it's excellent practice. 

Seriously, if you ever want to practice how to utilize instants optimally, this kind of deck is worth playing. It's starting to change the way I pay attention to Magic and that's definitely a good thing.

Plus, I want to practice with Skycoach Conductor, since I think that will add just enough value to nudge the deck forward. Kutzil's Flanker; you're going to the sideboard!

One other thing this deck will help with is not tilting out. I recently scrapped a game against Noah when he landed a Voice of Victory and I hadn't noticed. 

I immediately scooped, but looking back at the game, I should have utilized my tools to remove the VoV and then get back into playing my game. Because I wasn't paying attention, I felt bad and did the scoop of shame. Scooping wasn't the problem; not taking a breath to see if that was the correct thing to do, was.

Anyway, here's the decklist!

2 Skycoach Conductor // All Aboard

4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student

3 Sigrid, God-Favored

4 Brineborn Cutthroat

2 Merfolk Trickster

3 Errant and Giada

2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Fire Nation Occupation

3 Opt

4 Counterspell

2 Path to Exile

4 Brainstorm

4 Tundra

7 Island

4 Plains

1 Swamp

2 Contaminated Aquifer

1 Sunlit Marsh

4 Meticulous Archive

SB: 2 Kutzil's Flanker

Going Too Slow

Let's talk about Force of Virtue.

This was a card I subbed in for a bit, thinking it would be a great fit for the deck. My creatures are small, the Flash quality of Force of Virtue meant I could play it off the top of my library if Giada was out, or play it for free boosting all my other creatures. 

But what this card actually represents is "win more". 

I get caught on this all the time. Why win when you can SUPERWIN? The Glory of Cool Things biting me in the ass. 

But...no. I don't need to do that. Just win. That's enough. I have Snapcaster Mage, a card that is practically waving a giant sign telling me to add it to the deck and I was just blowing past it because I was looking at white cards.

Cynicism

Hey, they announced a 2-Headed Giant event for the Avengers Academy set coming out! That's pretty cool I think it's rad that 2HG is getting some time in the spotlight, I think it's a great way to play Magic. Let's see who the theme deck characters are....

Lessee...Best Known Comic Guy, Best Known Movie Guy, Best Known TV Guy, They Can't All Be Men, and They Can't All Be White. 

What an interesting lineup of choices!*

*My point is not that there shouldn't be women or non-white characters heading the decks. There should-the game should appeal to a broad group. My point is that you have the most cliched picks possible with art that couldn't be more boring if it came with bong hits. It's just too bad that there aren't any real choices when it comes to Avengers you can pick!

Should've Been Faster

OK, back at it.

I was lucky to make some tweaks right away! I had Meticulous Archive and added that to the deck promptly. Then put it to the test against Rebecca playing a RW mice deck (going to write about that soon!) 

First lesson: I need Brainstorm. Tamiyo is a powerful effect, but the investment to get her to flip is really only helpful if she can do it cheaply. This deck isn't built like that and it needs to be. 

Second: Merfolk Trickster can be used after attackers are declared to make creatures with flying or first strike lose that ability. I learned it the hard way but it is useful!

Third: Fire Nation Occupation is very strong and one of the deck's win conditions. Brineborn Cutthroat is solid, but I haven't seen it pop off like I would hope-yet. What I'm concerned about is having enough threats to win the game. 

Fourth: I do not have Aven Interrupter available right now. What is up with that?? But I do have Errant and Giada and this might be perfect!

Union

Hey, WotC employees got a union now!

Sure, it's for the Arena devs but still. Good for them.

Secrets of Strixhaven Set Review

The mechanics. The set. Let's go.

I think this set is a very cool one. Why bury the lede? Prepare is a great twist on the Adventure mechanic that fits in really well with a Strixhaven set. Repartee is probably the coolest BW mechanic since Extort, and possibly just as powerful. Increment does something really fun with the UG school, cementing it as the 'big mana' style of play colors. And the others, Flashback, Infusion and Opus all feel like they fit their respective takes on the color pairs (RW, BG, and UR respectively).

The introduction of the Avatars as the next Eldrazi style big bads is great, as it presents a nice mechanical counterpoint to the Eldrazi, caring a lot about color. 

 This set has me excited to play with it! 

Part of this is the mechanical overlap I'm seeing that reminds me of another set I really liked: Dragonstorm.

For example: Opus wants you to play spells, but if the spells cost 5 or more, you get an extra bonus. However, if you're slipping in a few Increment cards that also get bigger if you spend more mana, well isn't that just frosting? Or, if you have a deck using Flashback, isn't that pretty cool for some cards with a Repartee ability? 

I feel like WotC has been doing a very good job of presenting 3 color sets without making them 3 color sets, and it's definitely making for a more dynamic game. 

Let's talk colors. 

White
Interestingly, the White Emeritus is probably the weakest of the bunch. It probably doesn't matter much because there's some really good removal in this color and Stirring Hopesinger looks like an incredibly powerful effect. 

However, I should note that the Emeritus of Truce can also represent a swing in the boardstate if you're behind. That's not nothin'. 

In the meantime, there's cool things for Blink style decks, and possibly the strongest Lesson with Restoration Seminar? 

Blue
The hype machine that is the Emeritus of Ideation has got to be a thing, right? Five mana for that suite of abilities and the ability to Ancestral Recall? 

I know it's a terrible idea but I want to be the guy who makes the deck with Echocasting Symposium and Phage. Still, someone should live that dream!

I have a feeling that Encouraging Aviator will be a rockstar in limited. If I am reading it right, you should be able to attack with it, have it become prepared and in response to your declaration of attackers, cast Jump to give another creature you control flying. That's pretty strong.

I think Skycoach Conductor might have a place in my new Flash deck, and I really want to see how the Increment creatures go in my 1000 Shards deck. Future me actions. 

I think I like how Orysa Tide Choreographer can help dig players out of stalemates but I'm not sure it's good enough. Neat concept though.

Black
I feel like this color is the most consistently powerful in the set. It isn't incredibly flashy, but it feels very reliable. 

Even Ral Zarek, the planeswalker doesn't seem over the top. That's a good thing! (Also quite a character shift!)

It also seems like it has the most creatures that can re-prepare themselves, and that's interesting. And every Black creature with Lifelink just got a boost in their stock. 

Red
They are really trying to reward the '3 spells in a turn' deck happen, aren't they? Emeritus of Conflict seems like a fairly good reward. Add in Blue flying creatures and card draw for a little bonus and you can go a long way on very little mana. 

I'm very glad to see a card like Maelstrom Artisan. Land destruction isn't a popular strategy but non-basic land destruction should've been a dial WotC turned often. Keeping greedy manabases in check is a good thing. 

But aside from that card, like Black I feel like this color is reasonably consistent. I don't think they're doing anything new in Red, however developing its reach in the Instant and Sorcery area of the game is good. I also believe there's a nice balance between the creatures you want to run for payoffs, like Thunderdrum Soloist, and the spells you cast.

Green

While Green has a very strong Lesson-giving your creatures a permanent +2 every turn should end games rapidly-I feel like this color might be the underpowered one in this set. There's a lot of land searching, but having a bunch of mana for the Quandrix school is reliant on payoff cards and I don't see much in the way of big haymakers. Generating mana to cast spells to grow creatures means having spells to cast. Similarly, I count 3.5 ways to gain life in the color while I could 6.5 ways (I count pest tokens as a half) in Black. So how effective is it to build into Witherbloom?

I'm not saying that Green is bad; just that it seems like a great support color and not a main reason to go in a particular direction. 

Multi

This is where one would expect the set to shine, and it does. This is where I'm finding the support for going into GB-really a lot of glue for any color combination. I see this especially at uncommon, where a lot of these cards will be relevant in draft, however I'm excited for all of my enemy-paired Liege decks which should get some dynamite creatures to add!

Art/Colorless

The artifacts all fall in the 'workhorse' class for me; small effects you add to your deck to help smooth things out where your colors might be lacking. Nothing seems particularly bad nor exciting. 

The colorless creatures are, to me, all about teasing a future set. Yes, they're supposed to also be payoffs for a 4 or 5 color deck in sealed/draft, excepting The Dawning Archaic, which has some weird combo potential I'm only vaguely aware of right now. But what I really see them doing is taking another big bad slot as the Eldrazi did, as I mentioned before. 

So it's too bad that they aren't very exciting. I don't think they are awful, and they are clearly designed for Commander but...they also aren't very threatening and require a lot of setup for their rewards. 

Lands

I'm always happy to see dual lands of any sort get reprinted, and the new common lands function well for their ability. I think that Skycoach Waypoint is overcosted for what it does though: four (3 + tapping the land) to prepare an unprepared creature is taxing and honestly I think that if the cost had been reduced by one, you'd generate more excitement. 

Petrified Waypoint is obviously a niche card meant to help solve a problem I don't know we have, and Great Hall of the Biblioplex is unexciting as well. 

Still! I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this set. I think there's cool things to do, the limited gameplay looks interesting and there's already some cards I want to utilize in decks I already have. Really happy with this one!

260%

 I did not realize how many more Magic cards we were getting but the Professor lays it all out. 

It is...well it is just unhealthy for the game for us to get this many cards. I feel like we've been getting really lucky with sets lately, insofar as the cards seem interesting.

But I've also noticed physical mistakes-miscuts and the like.

And, as the Professor notes; the redundancy is going up, with cards doing nearly the same thing, set after set. 

That is inevitably going to make gameplay stale. It's going to burn players out. 

Sigh. I do not like late stage capitalism. 

Fast All The Time

So....I don't care about Merfolk.

What about this? 

4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
2 Kutzil's Flanker
3 Sigrid, God-Favored
4 Brineborn Cutthroat
2 Aven Interrupter
2 Merfolk Trickster

4 Fire Nation Occupation

4 Opt
4 Counterspell
4 Path to Exile
4 Consider

4 Tundra
9 Island
6 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Contaminated Aquifer
1 Sunlit Marsh

Flash decks can be a thing and I have seen some neat ones. They're usually UB but I'm wondering if WU with a little Black can work. 

Fire Nation Occupation is one of the obvious rewards but my real goal was to implement a deck that did nearly everything on my opponent's turn. It's a little underpowered: Brainstorm, Meticulous Archive, and Flooded Strand would probably all help. 

Still, a Tamiyo is apparently incredibly powerful, Brineborn Cutthroat is a scaling threat, I highly doubt anyone is goign to see Merfolk Trickster coming so let's see what can be done!

The deck's name is taken from a great track by Nylitia. 

How Long Does A Joke Last

 It's a legitimate question. 

Marvel Snap introduced "Arena Grande", a limited time game mode inspired by Deadpool's comic antics. With "wacky" pre-made decks to play, it became clear rapidly that the destroy deck (the one highlighting Deadpool) was the best deck to play. 

Ha-ha. You think you have options but it's really just Deadpool doin' Deadpool stuff.

Very droll, yes? 

But it isn't fun.

So I said so on Reddit. And was soundly rebuked for my take because I was "complaining about a gag game mode".  

Yes. A gag game mode they expect people to play for two days, with a reward track, in an environment that is deliberately skewed and unfun.

So: I don't care if it's supposed to just be a joke. The joke goes too long.

I don't care if it's free. Free means that it doesn't eat my time.

I don't care if it's easy. Easy doesn't equal good. 

I don't care that other people don't like my take. 

I care that they fucked up the one thing this game is supposed to do before all other things: Be fun. 

Jokes only last until the punchline. No punchline lasts 48 hours. 

Late To The Party: Psychonauts 2

Sure, I'm 5 years behind but the game was free...

Is Pyschonauts 2 good? Yes.

Is it worth your time? No.

Because there are two things that make Psychonauts feel very out of date: first is the story, which is far more haphazard than it should be. Raz, the main character, is mocked and beat up by his classmates who, mysteriously, all show up to bail him out in the final scene. 

There's no setup for that; Raz's interactions are almost entirely with the adults who have created a mess. That story is pretty solid! There's an interesting progression of showing how well meaning adults have their plans go bad and how that inevitably impacts the future-and how trying to bury that history always leads to someone trying to exploit it.

However, the game is just too damn long. EVERY single level is going to require three things; three librarians, three seeds, three whatevers. The repetition gets pretty dull, and there's no reason for things to go this long. The player isn't rewarded with extra story content, and Raz doesn't get notably stronger. Once he has all his abilities I didn't feel like I was able to use them in new ways to do odd things, nor become a powerhouse that made the game easy. 

It was fine. Really! I enjoyed much of my time with Psychonauts 2. 

But it wore out its welcome and I don't ever want to pick it up again. 

The Diversion

It started, as these things often do: hey that's neat!

And it turned into a project.

Because as it turns out, people have made actual versions of this format in paper. Some of them going all out, with a cabinet that has every card, but others with a more manageable idea. 

Which is what I did! The results of which turned into a 17 page document. My guideposts for my Momir Vig Basic format? For mana values 1-6, I kept the format Pioneer legal, after that in order to fill things out I needed to make things Legacy legal. But who doesn't want to see a Bringer at 9 mana??? Energy, pirates, and minotaurs, cards with activated abilities, with the occasional 'does nothing' card. I mostly avoided cards that added mana or drew cards and I included a little recursion-the online format creates tokens but here I wanted the occasional Gravedigger to be useful.

And that got all messed up when I saw this video and was informed that unless players were willing to skip activations of Momir, anything above the 7 mana value slot would be out of reach!

Still, I'm going to get this sleeved up soon and see what happens. I'm psyched for this one!