Hot Potato

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I trust that those who had attended the Eventide Pre-Release party had a great time last weekend and wish the best of luck to those who plan to attend the Release tournament on the 25th / 26th . . . may you pull the spectacular rares !

Today, Wizards has posted the full Eventide sortable spoiler and Eventide visual spoiler. I for one will attempt to orientate myself with the new cards and hopefully identify some synergies and combinations for the Release Party.

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We have a special treat today for Blog readers . . . a guest post !
The guest I refer to is 'Retro Teck' (AKA Mrs. CopySix, better known as the better half).

She has been playing casual Magic for about 8 years and owns a variety of MTG cards going back to Alpha and Beta. From the current Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block she plays two decks. These are aptly named 'Controlling Elves', a mostly Green combo deck and 'The Counter Deck' which uses plus and minus counters. Her article today is called "The Hot Potato" and was inspired by a game she had played with our one son last weekend.

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'Hot Potato', by Retro-Teck

"The Counter Deck" uses several mechanics to put creatures with counters on them (+1/+1 or -1/-1) into the graveyard. I'm going to talk about one combination today which I call "The Back Catcher"

This combination requires three cards: Blowfly Infestation, Chainbreaker, and Fate Transfer. The idea is that a -2/-2 counter is passed around the opponent's creatures, destroying them as it goes and then returns to my creature, not unlike a back catcher throwing and receiving a ball. Here is how it works.


Turn two - When Chainbreaker (a 3/3 Artifact Creature) comes into play it has two -1/-1 counters on it.





Turn three - Cast Blowfly Infestation Enchantment which is nasty in the sense that it keeps -1/-1 counters in play as creatures with counters go to the graveyard.




Turn four (or when most appropriate) - cast Fate Transfer - transfer the counters from Chainbreaker to a creature with strength 2 or less.



When that creature goes to the graveyard put a -1/-1 counter on another of the opponents target creatures with strength 1.

Assuming all the remaining creatures the opponent controls at this point are strength 1 or less you can wipe them all out.

Once the last creature goes to the graveyard, return the -1/-1 counter to Chainbreaker.

Benefit
For the cost of 2 you got rid of one -1/-1 counter from Chainbreaker (this creature's ability to remove counters from itself costs three).
You remove all creatures your opponent controls of strength 1 and 1 creature of strength 2.
You still have counters on a creature to use for future battles.


The Hot Potato
So this sounds straight forward but even then I screwed it up. Here the board I had:

Blowfly Infestation and 2 Chainbreakers with -2/-2 counters on them.

My opponent attacked with a 4/4 Ashenmoor Gouger. I started The Back Catcher maneuver. I used the instant, Fate Transfer, to move two -1/-1 counters to a -2/-2 creature and killed it, I used Blowfly Infestation to kill two others and then placed the -1/-1 counter on the 4/4 creature.


The Mistake
I then blocked the attacking creature (my mistake) with my 3/3 Chainbreaker. They both went to the graveyard, but the -1/-1 counter had to be placed on a creature. All that was left was my other Chainbreaker which currently had two -1/-1 counters on it, making it a 1/1 creature. Like a hot potato it was thrown reluctantly on to my last creature. I had no mana left and could not remove any counters so it went to the graveyard as well.

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Please provide fan-mail / feed-back to our guest columnist Retro-Teck via the comment form below.
Until next time, Happy & Safe Gaming !