Tuktuk Hates Artifacts

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Good Day MTG folks,

Happy Thursday to the lot of you. In today's post, we will yatter a bit about our thoughts about an artifact hate deck. To say that Scars of Mirrodin has artifacts may be an understatement - there's a truck ton of artifacts in Scars and it just dumped on the standard environment.

Smart Players will of course have the appropriate cards in the sideboard (or perhaps mainboard depending upon your local metagame) such as Manic Vandals, Shatter, or Naturalize but we strongly believe in reduce, re-use and recycle when it comes to our fav game.


To that end, we dusted off a casual Ally build we had half built some time ago (our place is full of half completed decks waiting to be completed), and with a little manipulation we inserted a deck set of Tuktuk Scapper which only a few short weeks ago was un-trade-able (is that a real word?) but with Scars of Mirrodin, we were assured quite a fireworks show of blowing up artifacts when our allies hit the table. Join The Ranks is not very well liked (4 mana for two 1/1 s is not good) but it is a great instant one could use to trigger an Ally effect in repsonse to a spell your opponent just dropped - the trick is to ensure you left mana open for it.

Anywhoos, we liked what we saw with this red-white build but soon realised that it was mostly just white Allies with only Tuktuk as the single odd goblin with a pick-axe at the Ally kegger party. A little further searching in our binders, we came across Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs and Rage Nimbus which were sitting side by each. It took several longs moments (yep - we're slow as winter molasses most days) and then we thought we smelled sweet synergy. Using Rage Nimbus, we force an vulnerable creature on the opponent's side to attack and then threaten to drop 3/3 Ogre tokens unless they pay - not bad we thought.


Right -
Drop us a line a tell us how you would attempt a casual artifact hate build using Allies or by a completely different method altogether.

Lastly, if you were not aware, MTG Mint Card has some very kewl Scars of Mirrodin foil singles as foil basic lands available - check 'em out.
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Zen Block Allies

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We all knew just within a few hours after the Rise of the Eldrazi mini-site and Orb of Insight went live that some significant changes were coming down the tube which would certainly change the standard game. Obviously, one of the bigger changes was the introduction of the massive Eldrazi cards hitting the gaming table but also on almost the same footing was the lack of any new 'Ally' cards - we saw them in Zendikar, and then Worldwake. Many thought some decent Ally creatures and (quasi) tribal cards were on the way in Rise of the Eldrazi but unfortunately not . . . welcome to Frown Town - population - Ally fans.


To add insult to injury to this slight, Wizards today in their Daily Deck List, had provided a list for Green-White Allies with this deck list :

With Rise of the Eldrazi now available in stores, Daily Decks will spend this week examining popular archetypes from Zendikar Block Constructed events held on Magic Online. That's a format that will really be shaken up by the coming of the monstrous Eldrazi, and we're here to give you a jump start on the competition. Today we start with Green-White Allies. Are there cards from Rise you think can make this deck better? Take a look through the searchable spoiler to decide for yourself.

Really, the only creature spell of use in the new Rise of the Eldrazi block to allow you to trigger all those great Ally effects may be that new shapeshifter, Renegade Doppelganger.

Perhaps, Wizards thought that Allies would not be as popular as it was with casual Magic players like us. Perhaps it was dictated by the story-line - alliances and expedition houses broke up with the new Eldrazi threat - whatever it may be, We're sending scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt, and any thing that may not misbecome the mighty senders to Brian Tinsman, Matt Place and Doug Beyer.

Anywhoos - thanks everyone for letting use rant on a bit like that - lets get back to that deck list we were yattering about before the design rage took us . . .

Green-White Allies
Main Deck : 61 cards
24 lands

7 Forest, 2 Graypelt Refuge, 8 Plains, 4 Stirring Wildwood, 3 Tectonic Edge

33 creatures

3 Graypelt Hunter, 4 Hada Freeblade, 4 Harabaz Druid, 3 Kabira Evangel, 4 Kazandu Blademaster, 4 Oran-Rief Survivalist, 4 Tajuru Archer, 4 Talus Paladin, 3 Turntimber Ranger

4 other spells

2 Grappling Hook, 2 Join the Ranks

15 sideboard cards

3 Journey to Nowhere, 4 Ondu Cleric, 3 Quicksand, 4 Refraction Trap, 1 Turntimber Ranger

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Well that's a wrap for today's post - we hope everyone had played some great games during this weekend's release event - stay tuned for more rants, casual deck ideas, and news.

If you need to pick up Zendikar block Allies, they should be at a fairly reasonable price - check out MTG Mint Card - all the Rise of the Edlrazi singles are now up and ready for pre-order. BONUS - just enter "MTG-REALM" on check out page and you will get $5 off on your order of $50 or over. This code is good until the end of April, so plan your purchases now.~

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Worldwake Allies

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Good Day folks,
We are now sitting at around 143 of 145 cards spoiled or previewed. Most likely within a few hours of this post, we will have the entire Worldwake set in our hands.

We will be doing what we always do when we have a new Magic the Gathering set on the table - build a casual deck. We will of course be revisiting our Vampire build but today we will explore the new Allies we have . . . Just remember that some of these cards are not yet officially spoiled so accordingly not yet set in stone.

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We have about a 11 new Ally creatures and also an Ally Spell. Let's go quickly through them and get some thoughts out after.

Hada Freeblade,
Creature - Human Soldier Ally, Uncommon
Whenever Hada Freeblade or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Hada Freeblade.
0/1

Join the Ranks, 3
Instant, Common
Put two 1/1 white Soldier Ally creature tokens onto the battlefield.

Talus Paladin, 3
Creature - Human Knight Ally, Rare
Whenever Talus Paladin or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may have Allies you control gain lifelink until end of turn and you may put a +1/+1 counter on Talus Paladin.
2/3

Halimar Excavator, 1
Creature - Human Wizard Ally, Common
Whenever Halimar Excavator or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, target player puts the top X cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard, where X is the number of Allies you control.
1/3


Jwari Shapeshifter, 1
Creature - Shapeshifter Ally Rare
You may have Jwari Shapeshifter enter the battlefield as a copy of any Ally creature on the battlefield.
0/0

Agadeem Occultist, 2
Creature - Human Shaman Ally, Rare
{T}: Put target creature card from an opponent's graveyard onto the battlefield under your control if its converted mana cost is less than or equal to the number of Allies you control.
0/2

Bojuka Brigand, 1
Creature - Human Warrior Ally, Common
Bojuka Brigand can't block.
Whenever Bojuka Brigand or another Ally creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Bojuka Brigand.
1/1

Akoum Battlesinger, 1
Creature - Human Berserker Ally, Common
Haste
Whenever Akoum Battlesinger or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may have Ally creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn.
1/1

Tuktuk Scrapper, 3
Creature - Goblin Artificer Ally, Uncommon
Whenever Tuktuk Scrapper or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may destroy target artifact. If that artifact is put into a graveyard this way, Tuktuk Scrapper deals damage equal to the number of Allies you control to that artifact's controller.
2/2

Graypelt Hunter, 3
Creature - Human Warrior Ally, Common
Trample
Whenever Graypelt Hunter or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Graypelt Hunter.
2/2

Harabaz Druid, 1
Creature - Human Druid Ally Rare
{T}: Add X mana of any one color to your mana pool, where X is the number of Allies you control.
0/1

Vastwood Animist, 2
Creature - Elf Shaman Ally, Uncommon
: Target land becomes a X/X Elemental creature until end of turn, where X is the number of Allies you control. It's still a land.
1/1

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After reviewing our new Allies, it appears that the cards that stand out are Join the Ranks, Agadeem Occultist, Harabaz Druid, and Vastwood Animist.

With the instant spell, Join the Ranks one is able to strategically play this when the most benefits are available - example - when you need to gain life (Talus Paladin), gain protection (Kabira Evangel), beff up your Allies (Kazuul Warlord), or timmy at fatty (Murasa Pyromancer). Agadeem Occultist appears to also provide some very decent recursion from your opponent's graveyard and Vastwood Animist looks very versatile in animating a temporary man-land for fun shenanigans.

One basic issue with Allies in Zendikar was being able to produce the correct mana as this quasi tribe is all over the colour pie. Harabaz Druid now appears to provide some relief with that.

The challenge is now being able to take the best Ally cards from Zendikar and Worldwake to construct that fun casual deck we have all be thinking about for the last few months. Following is a visual summary of the previous Allies now in our tool belt.

Whereever your Ally deck takes your casual game, we are fairly certain you will have fun. Drop a comment and tell us how you would build the next new Ally deck.

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