Only Love Oblivion

The first test: Invigorate. 

This card was determined not to show up at all in any matchup. 

The second test: A Dark Depths package. On the upside: I was able to do the thing (put Depths and Thespian's Stage into play) and make a 20/20!

The downside: It came too late to matter.

So perhaps I'm coming at this incorrectly and I need to utilize Maze of Ith to give me more time? Karakas to protect Tifa?

Or perhaps it's all RNG right now and I just need more time. It's hard to say and I need more games, honestly. 

Line Goes Up

I'm not the only person who's noted that WotC's decisions are about money. But Seth digs into the quarterly earnings and if he's reading it right, Magic is the only moneymaker Hasbro has...which is not a good sign for the game.

Look, I really enjoy playing this game, even if the decisions being made by WotC/Hasbro are compelling me to carve out my own version of Magic. And I don't feel like trying to gatekeep the game away from people who enjoy Universes Beyond properties. It's an old, tired attitude and I don't feel like being exclusive. 

But I can't help but raise concerns when product starts to flood the market like this, all to buoy a company that is really flailing everywhere else. This isn't a sustainable model, or at least it doesn't feel like one. 

I still want to play the game-so I want it to continue, just in a way that builds a future for Magic, and not for other IPs.

Soaked in Glow

I have come to the point with Kingbreaker where I'm a little stumped. I feel like the strengths (it can win in a single turn) and weaknesses (the threat density is light) are known.

How to address that is trickier. On top of that, there is some questions on my part whether Invigorate should take the spot of Scale Up in this deck. 

I can do some incredible things with this deck and I like the puzzle it can represent, going all in on one turn. But it also has an uneven feel to it and I'm not sure how to fix that part. One signal I was reading about a weaker deck online has always come in the form of "you need to mulligan aggressively". 

That unfortunately seems to fit here.  

One thought has been to work in a Dark Depths package. Think something like this. I'm dubious because it feels like I'd be splitting two good ideas into one half idea.

But I am wondering if there's something I can learn from the Lands decks-some research here might be helpful. A pretty base list here isn't a bad place to start.

In both cases though you can see how those decks are doing something so different than what Kingbreaker is. 

At the same time, should I be considering cards like Maze of Ith in order to extend the time I have to assemble the combo?

Is Malevolent Rumble a better card than Dark Confidant, for purposes of digging and acceleration? 

I may have opened up a bigger can of ideas than I thought.

Things I Didn't Know

 The Story of Ghazban Ogress. 

There's...a lot to unpack here. As someone who was playing at the time but not as plugged into things, I had no idea that this card was in reference to mock a well respected woman in the game.

And that fuckin' sucks. 

But damn if Ms. Nicoloff doesn't seem like a badass. Props to her. I'm glad she got a chance to tell her story. 

Magic has done some great work, bringing a more accepting attitude to the game--certainly a hell of an improvement over this. But it is good to know the history so we can do better. 

I also saw in a Reddit thread on this, that Mark Rosewater has made an apology to Ms. Nicoloff, which is the least he could do-but that is a good thing.

On vacation again: Hoping for posts resuming Oct 9th!

Broken But In Control

The first few tests with Kingbreaker proved that it could do some crazy stuff. I went up against Noah's goblins deck and was able to take the match to 3 games. I got him down to 2 but ran out of steam when my Tifa died. 

I played against a control deck Matt had and was able to create very large Tifas to end the game in one blow in two matches. 

The deck works.....sometimes. In these tests, I was using Bristly Bill and while that card is good, Scythecat Cub is a stronger card for this deck, and isn't legendary. 

So when I got proxies of those I added them in. After multiple plays, I'm realizing that Kingbreaker is a combo deck, in much the same sense that Doomsday might be. You set your hand and board up as best you can in order to try and win on one turn. 

Sure you can do it over a couple turns-there's nothing wrong with attacking with a Dark Confidant if nothing else is on the board. 

But what this deck really wants to do is make a 16+ power creature and trample for the win. 

Dark Confidant was my way of ensuring that cards would get into my hand, but sometimes that just doesn't happen. I'm in the 'what do we do to streamline' stage of deckbuilding. What do I cut or adjust to make this better, what just needs to go to a sideboard? 

Kingbreaker

 Once upon a time, I had an idea. This is what I turned it into.

Named after The Armed's song, thanks to Rebecca for the song idea. 

3 Dark Confidant
4 Tifa Lockhart
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Voice of Victory
3 Elvish Reclaimer
2 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Scythecat Cub

2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fatal Push
4 Crop Rotation
3 Berserk

2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Forest
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Temple Garden
1 Bayou
1 Godless Shrine

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Scale Up

This is what I ended up going with. It took some refining, as I didn't have Berserk to start with. Turns out you can do a lot with this deck just using cards like Royal Treatment.  

However, I really wanted this to work, so I started cannibalizing other decks for a Bayou, and I happened to open a Godless Shrine from my Edge of Eternities pre-release!

With an appropriate level mana base, I want to test this out. 

Note: no posts until the 25th, I'm out of town!

Free Pizza: Visions of the Future

This was a LOT of fun. I hit my Free Pizza this month on the back of two decks, which I am enjoying quite a bit of. I hope you find some inspiration in these, because I've had a great time playing them.

While this says Auto-Air Walker, I just didn't change the name after messing around with it. 

This deck wants to use the destroy package to ideally trigger Air Walker into Morgan Le Fay. Moira X isn't necessary but IS a but of fun in this deck, potentially setting up multiple Morgan triggers. But even if Morgan isn't used, there's a nice destroy backup: The Thing First Steps and Lady Dethstroke can flip lanes, which can't be overlooked.

I didn't build this entirely from scratch; Uncle Ben is a character I added after seeing someone with a list online, for example. But it's been pretty neat to play with and it definitely pushed me up in the ranks. 

This next deck I'm really proud of: 

I started off using Viv Vision as a card in a move deck, and she was terrible. But once I shifted the deck to a Sebastian Shaw- boost deck it came alive. Frankie Raye Nova and Nakia are flex slots: Frankie is a fun card to pair with Sasquatch, and Nakia really could be something better. Red Guardian is probably a better choice but all in all; this is fun!