Thursday MTG Miscellany

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

More specifically, Happy Groundhog Day.  The American Sciuridae, Punxsatawney Phil predicts six more weeks of winter weather but our very own Wiraton Willie (right here in Ontario, Canzda) is predicting an early spring.  Whatever you may think of rodents prognosticating meterological events, you should still be watching the eternal classic, Groundhog Day (1993) starring Bill Murray and Andie McDowell.

You may also wish to expand upon the repeatable effect the Groundhog Day movie (or other time-loop movies like Edge of Tomorrow), we suggest you hit the drawing board tonight to construct a decklist with Aether Revolt's 'Gonti's Aether Heart' to take to tomorrow's Friday Night Magic event to take an extra turn during a Magic: the Gathering game and mimicing the Groundhog Day movie.  Our  standard constructed weapon of choice won't be this but we will be rocking our updated R/W Humans list.  

Anywhoos, let's get on to some content for our MTG Realm readers -

Yesterday's Magic Story, titled 'Renewal' wraps up the Aether Revolt story.  Tezzeret has been defeated and fled, the denizens of Ghirapur and Kaladesh at at large are returned to a more peaceful and collabrative state.  The Planeswalkers of the 'Gatewatch', now plan their next move against Tezzeret and his master, the Elder Dragon Nicol Bolas.  It appears that the next confrontation is to be on the Plane of Amonkhet, the very next set.  In fact the name Amonket is mentioned about eight times during the Renewal story.

We learn from Wizards of the Coast that the Amonkhet Magic Story will be kicking off around March 29th, with the regular Magic story offering being supplanted by podcast interviews with members from the Wizard's Magic Worldbuilding Team.  Definitely looking forward to that.

Next up, you suggest you check out Gathering Magic's Aether Revolt Art Review by Mike Linnemann.  His keen and discerning eye catches all the beautiful minutae in the Aether Revolt illustrations.

Lastly, we want to yatter about our Red / Green Energy decklist we've run previously.  This deck generates a solid volume of energy to power out a swing for lethal damage by Electrostatic Pummeler.  The foundation of this build is mostly within Kaladesh, but Aether Revolt had also offered up a few interesting pieces to consider for inclusion.

Specifically, a green coloured one-drop creature in the form of Greenbelt Rampager as well as a versatile two-drop red instant Invigorated Rampage.  We consider our latest build rather powerful but not quite predictable as we should like it, so it has stayed away from Friday Night Magic and is played at our Kitchen table.  

The new post Aether Revolt standard environment also contains a number of popular decklists running Fatal Push, Shock, and Walking Ballista all threatening to shut down Electrostatic Pummler before it gets off the beachhead.  This build may still be viable however given the very decent result in last weekend's StarCityGames classic.  Andrew Jessup placed Top 16 with this G/R Energy list.

Creatures (20)
4x Longtusk Cub
4x Servant of the Conduit
4x Voltaic Brawler
4x Electrostatic Pummeler
4x Bristling Hydra

Spells (20)
4x Attune with Aether
4x Blossoming Defense
4x Harnessed Lightning
4x Invigorated Rampage
4x Larger Than Life

Lands (20)
4x Aether Hub
1x Botanical Sanctum
8x Forest
4x Game Trail
3x Mountain

Sideboard (15)
1x Island
2x Natural State
4x Shock
1x Heroic Intervention
2x Negate
4x Lathnu Hellion
1x Arlinn Kord

If this standard decklist seems to you a refreshing break from the top two dominant lists of G/B Aggro / Delirium (to see who gets the Snek out first) and the Saheeli-Cat combo, then we suggest you pop on over to this Reddit thread and join in the discussion.
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