Gruul Mechanic - Riot

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

With Borbrorbygmobos nowhere to be seen, it is becoming apparent that Domri may now be large and in charge of the loosely affiliated Gruul Clans.  Enough of that for the moment, we are here to talk about the next Magic: the Gathering set,  Ravnica Allegiance, and the new Gruul Clans Mechanic.  Here are all of them to date :

Guildpact : Bloodthirst

Gatecrash : Bloodrush

Ravnica Allegiance : Riot

Our OCD is suggesting that perhaps we should be calling this Bloodriot, but as Wizards of the Coast may want to develop a new nomenclature, who are we to argue.  Riot is a keyword ability, which allows you to choose between +1/+1 counter or haste when a creature enters the battlefield.  The two new Ravnica Allegiance cards previewed as part of the unveiling of this new tech are -

• Gruul Spellbreaker, 1GR, Creature - Ogre Warrior, illustrated by Zoltan Boros

• Frenzied Arynx, 2RG, Creature - Cat Beast, Illustrated by Filip Burburan

Looks like someone has snuck an Arynx off Tarkir through Ravnica customs, and now the killer kitteh is full grown.  As for Grull Spellbreaker - WOW.  The Riot tech is already pretty damn good with the hasty critters, and then you add trample in the mix, you've got a winner.  The conditional hexproof puts this over the top and into our hearts - we want a deck-set.  Here are all the Ravnica Allegiance mechanics so far, and to say we're excited to see what Wizards has for Azorius, would be an understatement.

• Cult of Rakdos - Spectacle

• Orzhov Syndicate - Afterlife

• Simic Combine - Adapt

• Gruul Clans - Riot

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Burning-Tree Emissary

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

This past weekend, we attended the Friday Night Magic event at Legends Warehouse (Vaughan) on Friday (duh), and then a standard tournament at Jack's on Queen in Elmvale (just north of Barrie) - and do you know what we saw ?  A truckload of builds using Burning-Tree Emissary.  Depending upon where you get your Magic: the Gathering cards, expect to pay anywhere from $2.50 to almost $3.50 for this Gatecrash Uncommon.

In our collection, we have about 8 or 9 cards we had collected over the course of the prerelease events and other sealed product purchases from our local gaming store, OMG! Games.  We knew that this card would be popular but could not anticipate just how popular it has become at least here at all the card shops here Central Ontario.  We were eventually going to get around to getting together a list featuring this Gruul (red/green) Shaman but the time for waiting is now done - not that we want to play the 'popular' decks - we just want to put our own personal take on the best 60-card pile for this little gem.  We still need to track down a few extra cards from MTG Mint Card to finish our creation but what we can say for the moment, we like the direction that Tomoharu Saito (Japanese professional player) has taken.

Here's two slightly varied lists Saito has brought together so far . . .

4x Radkos Cackler, 4x Stromkirk Noble, 4x Ash Zealot, 4x Burning-Tree Emissary, 4x Flinthoof Boar, 4x Boros Reckoner, 4x Rancor, 2x Pillar of Flame, 4x Searing Spear, 3x Ghor-Clan Rampager, 3x Hellrider
10x Mountain, 4x Rootbound Crag, 4x Stomping Ground, 2x Temple Garden
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4x Radkos Cackler, 4x Stromkirk Noble, 4x Ash Zealot, 4x Lightning Mauler, 4x Burning-Tree Emissary, 4x Flinthoof Boar, 4x Boros Reckoner, 4x Ghor-Clan Rampager, 4x Rancor, 2x Domri Rade, 2x Volcanic Strength
10x Mountain, 4x Rootbound Crag, 4x Stomping Ground, 2x Temple Garden
 
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Burning-Tree provides a decent 2/2 body which can also float two mana for your next maniacal MTG move.  Whether you want to float some critters out of your deck with Signal the Clans, or zap your opponent (or one of their creatures) with a Searing Spear, the choices are varied and many.

 






 
Happy deck-building to all~
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Gatecrash Bloodrush

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Merry Christmas MTG peeps,

We sincerely wish everyone everywhere a peaceful, joyous time with friends, family, pets, and of course all the Magic: the Gathering loot you may have received as presents during this holiday season.  Over on the mothersite, there was, as promised yet another  special Gatecrash gift.  There will be one new piece of slick cardboard each day this week ahead of the official previews which will begin on the 31st December. 

If you cannot immediately find today's special Gatecrash spoiler on the page, click on the present appearing on MaRo's article banner to open.  Today's new game card is appropriately red and green and features the new Gruul guild mechanic.  Let's have a look now . . .

Rubblehulk, 4rg
Creature - Elemental, Rare
Rubblehulk's power and toughness are each equal to the number of lands you control.
Bloodrush - 1{R}{G}, Discard Rubblehulk: Target attacking creature gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of lands you control.
Illus. Raymand Swanland
#191/249

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So - not surprisingly, the new Gruul tech involves land and potentially is a combat trick every turn.  The only thing we can say now, without having seen the remaining cards is that this appears very promising in limited but perhaps not so much for constructed format.  Our first concern is that for this mechanic to really shine, we would like to see some trample on the potential damage.  We've heard it rumoured that Bloodrush will simply be a discard and pump spell spell which may make some Gruul players less than satisfied, but we will withhold judgement until we can see this in context of the entire previewed set.  We are looking to the future standard where we may make extra use of discarded Gruul cards with a Golgari Scavenge mechanic.

Anywhoos - click on over to MTG Mint Card and make sure you have your ramp environment spells like Farseek in hand when this new mechanic hits game stores near you.
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