MTG Challenge - ProLev

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Happy Monday MTG Realm readers,

The recent Rise of the Eldrazi set gave Magic the Gathering players quite a smörgåsbord of options for your casual game. One mechanic that did set our imaginations off to brew some builds was the 'level up' keyword ability. Creatures with the this level up keyword are able to become larger or acquire new abilities with an investment of mana. The number of level counters on a creature indicates its current level, as well as its power, toughness, and extra abilities. We love level up as it is a sorcery-speed ability that can often take your opponent by surprise. What we did not really care for very much is how fragile and prone to spot removal some of the levellers were before we could put level counters on them.

Having stated our hesitation, we do appreciate the help that Time of Heroes (a pump of +2/+2) - the downside - one could only benefit from this if the creature already had a levlel counter on it. This could be partially addressed by using Venerated Teacher to place two level counters on each level up creature you control.


Unfortunately, timing the teacher was difficult - too often one had this in hand with only one or two levellers in play on your side of the game table, or the teacher was late for class and did not show until you were up to your elbows in goblins. Training Grounds was indeed a great card to have in a build such as this by reducing the sometimes expensive levelling cost (or any other activated creature ability by 2. We continually tweaked some of the casual brews we had and soon just abandoned any thought of a deck with a level up theme.

Fast forward to the release of Scars of Mirrodin and the sweet new tech - proliferate. Proliferate is a new keyword action that allows you to choose any number of players and / or permanents that each have at least one counter of any type. You would then place another counter on each player or permanent with one more of that type of counter. Poison counters are the only type of counters a player could accumulate, but the rest of the field was pretty much wide open. The popular choice for many casual standard players is proliferating poison counters on players and -1/-1 counters of creatures. The Trigon cycle (Trigon of Mending, Trigon of Thought, Trigon of Corruption, Trigon of Rage, Trigon of Infestation) also enjoyed attention with proliferate.

Soon after the Scars of Mirrodin spoiler was complete, we revisited the Zendikar Quest cycle with our new proliferate tech to determine whether we could abuse any of those cards. Quests are enchantments from Zendikar which counters are accumulated to trigger various abilities for specific events.

Quests came in different rarities - the Common Expedition cycle (Sunspring Expedition, Ior Ruin Expedition, Soul Stair Expedition, Zektar Shrine Expedition, and Khalni Heart Expedition), the Uncommon Quest cycle (Quest for the Holy Relic, Quest for Ancient Secrets, Quest for the Gravelord, Quest for Pure Flame and Quest for the Gemblades) and the Rare Ascension cycle (Luminarch Ascension, Archmage Ascension, Bloodchief Ascension Pyromancer Ascension, and Beastmaster Ascension). From these, only the rare Ascension cycle did not require the player to sacrifice the enchantment which meant one could possibly rinse and repeat. We are still looking at the Ascension cycle to proliferate but want to explore the levellers one last time before dismissing them for the time being.

Hence - your challenge this week -

Sorry - no cool prizes to hand out - just the notoriety we award you for your master home brew skills. Your homework - use these proliferate cards (Inexorable Tide, Steady Progress, Thrummingbird, Contagion Clasp, Contagion Clasp, Contagion Engine, and Throne of Geth) with a level up themed deck.


The levellers : Caravan Escort, Hedron-Field Purists, Ikiral Outrider, Kabira Vindicator, Knight of Cliffhaven, Student of Warfare, Transcendent Master, Coralhelm Commander, Echo Mage Enclave Cryptologist, Hada Spy Patrol, Halimar Wavewatch, Lighthouse Chronologist, Skywatcher Adept, Guul Draz Assassin, Nirkana Cutthroat, Null Champion, Zulaport Enforcer, Brimstone Mage, Kargan Dragonlord, Lord of Shatterskull Pass, Beastbreaker of Bala Ged, Joraga Treespeaker, Kazandu Tuskcaller
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And finally, las chance reminder about the promo MTG Mint Card is having - its a Thanksgiving Sale with 7% Store Wide Discount from today until the 25th November. Just enter coupon "THANKSGIVING" during checkout.
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Archenemy Spoilers

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Good Day folks,

You may recall our post back in April regarding Wizards new product, Archenemy. This new multi-player game format expansion is scheduled to released within the next two weeks and will feature a “one vs. many” style of game that pits a single player against any number of opponents allied against him / her. At the San Juan Pro-Tour, folks such as Bill Stark and Evan Erwin were provided an opportunity to play. Other lucky participants also indicate epic gaming was had.


Undead Apocalypse, Doomsday Machine, Elemental Forces, Dragonfire are the four different decks one can get. Here is the skinny on two of them :

Bring About the Undead Apocalypse

Creatures:
1 Festering Goblin, 1 Dregscape Zombie, 1 Reassembling Skeleton, 1 Rakdos Guildmage, 1 Bog Witch, 1 Urborg Syphon-Mage, 1 Cemetery Reaper, 1 Avatar of Discord, 2 Infectious Horror, 1 Corpse Connoisseur, 1 Shriekmaw, 2 Twisted Abomination, 1 Extractor Demon, 1 Kaervek the Merciless, 1 Avatar of Woe, 1 Vampiric Dragon, 1 Scion of Darkness, 1 Artisan of Kozilek

Spells:
1 Reanimate, 2 Rakdos Signet, 1 Zombie Infestation, 2 Sign in Blood, 2 Terminate, 1 Infest, 1 Makeshift Mannequin, 1 Zombify, 1 Inferno Trap, 1 Torrent of Souls, 1 Beacon of Unrest, 1 Incremental Blight, 1 Bituminous Blast

Lands:
13 Swamp, 7 Mountain, 2 Barren Moor, 2 Rakdos Carnarium

Schemes:
2 Choose Your Champion, 1 Dance, Pathetic Marionette, 2 The Dead Shall Serve, 1 A Display of My Dark Power, 2 Every Hope Shall Vanish, 1 I Delight in Your Convulsions, 1 Introductions Are in Order, 1 Mortal Flesh is Weak, 1 My Undead Horde Awakens, 2 Only Blood Ends Your Nightmares, 1 Realms Befitting My Majesty, 2 Rotted Ones, Lay Siege, 1 Surrender Your Thoughts, 1 Your Fate is Thrice Sealed, 1 Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom.

Assembling the Doomsday Machine

CREATURES
1 Metallurgeon, 1 Ethersworn Shieldmage, 1 Juggernaut, 1 Lodestone Golem, 1 Synod Centurion, 1 Leonin Abunas, 2 Sanctum Gargoyle, 1 Master Transmuter, 1 Architects of Will, 1 Duplicant, 1 Magister Sphinx, 1 Memnarch, 1 Sundering Titan

SPELLS
1 Everflowing Chalice, 2 AEther Spellbomb, 1 Synod Sanctum, 1 Azorius Signet, 1 Dimir Signet, 1 Lightning Greaves, 1 Sun Droplet, 1 Batwing Brume ,2 Agony Warp, 1 Obelisk of Esper, 1 Thunderstaff 1 Fieldmist Borderpost, 1 Mistvein Borderpost, 1 Unmake, 1 Skullcage, 1 Sorcerer's Strongbox, 1 March of the Machine, 1 Unbender Tine, 1 Spin into Myth, 1 Dreamstone Hedron

Included Scheme Cards:
1 All in Good Time, 1 Behold the Power of Destruction, 1 Embrace My Diabolical Vision, 2 Feed the Machine, 1 I Delight in Your Convulsions, 2 I Know All, I See All, 2 Ignite the Cloneforge!, 1 Introductions Are in Order, 2 The Iron Guardian Stirs, 1 My Genius Knows No Bounds, 1 Nothing Can Stop Me Now, 2 The Pieces Are Coming Together, 1 Realms Befitting My Majesty, 1 Your Fate Is Thrice Sealed, 1 Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom

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Lastly - Of great interest - We have from MTG Mint Cards, their TOP TEN selling Rise of the Eldrazi cards for May, 2010.

1. Gideon Jura (Chinese)

2. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

3. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4. Stirring Wildwood (Chinese)

5. Scute Mob

6. Vampire Nighthawk

7. Wall of Omens

8. Devastating Summons

9. Gideon Jura

10. Lightning Bolt

After some new decks developed with ROE cards, the Gideon Jura became the best seller, for both English and Chinese version. Its weird to see the Stirring Wildwood Chinese version on the list, probably due to the lower price compare with the English version.

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Random Bulk Lots

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Good Day folks,
We want to yatter to you today about the deals to be made from some online retailers.

We first started thinking about ordering sets or lots of cards - both random and organised sets after corresponding to our good buddy over at Casual Magic. We were a bit tentative about this but thought that this route may have some benefits over purchasing packs or boxes of booster packs. We had also read some good and poor reviews of this . . . well, this is ours.

There are 249 cards in Rise of the Eldrazi. More speficially, there are Mythic Rare, 53 rare, 60 uncommon, 101 common, and 20 basic lands. As we wanted to cherry-pick our rares after the release of RoE, we thought about pre-ordering a bulk random lot of RoE uncommons to obtain a near-instant collection of the latest 'n' greatest set. To this end we went to Troll and Toad and purchased 3 (three) X 50 Random Rise of the Eldrazi Uncommons - that's a total of 150 cards for $1.99 each (now $2.49 at time of post).

Here's the video dissection . . .

PROS
We rounded out our collection of the new set very nicely. We also actually received 157 cards - instead of the 150 - yeah(!) T'n'T get bonus points for the seven extra cards they had slipped into our order. We're not sure where you live but up here in the great white north, one can expect two things - polar bears knocking over garbage cans and expensive magic cards. Single uncommons usually run around $1 each and more if they are rather good cards. Having puchased a bulk random lot essentially saved us close to $120 for 150 cards after factoring in shipping up here - a very decent deal.

CONS
These are a random bulk purchase so expect random - multiples of one card and none of others - even with three lots purchased. Absent cards of note - Soulbound Guardians, Time of Heroes, Wall of Omens (!), Inquisition of Kozilek , Jaddi Lifestrider, Joraga Treespeaker, Pelakka Wurm, Enatu Golem, and Skittering Invasion. If you really want to get a hold of a specific card in a random lot, just simply purchase the single and don't hope you will get what you want.

Here are the details of what we received in three 50-card uncommon lots.

TOTALS
Count Name
3 Affa Guard Hound White
1 Emerge Unscathed White
2 Kabira Vindicator White
4 Luminous Wake White
4 Mammoth Umbra White
4 Oust White
0 Soulbound Guardians White
3 Survival Cache White
0 Time of Heroes White
0 Wall of Omens White
4 Crab Umbra Blue
2 Domestication Blue
2 Drake Umbra Blue
1 Enclave Cryptologist Blue
2 Guard Gomazoa Blue
2 Hada Spy Patrol Blue
3 Merfolk Skyscout Blue
3 Phantasmal Abomination Blue
1 Reality Spasm Blue
5 Unified Will Blue
3 Arrogant Bloodlord Black
2 Corpsehatch Black
2 Curse of Wizardry Black
7 Escaped Null Black
0 Inquisition of Kozilek Black
5 Nirkana Cutthroat Black
4 Pawn of Ulamog Black
2 Skeletal Wurm Black
2 Suffer the Past Black
4 Virulent Swipe Black
1 Akoum Boulderfoot Red
7 Brimstone Mage Red
5 Explosive Revelation Red
4 Forked Bolt Red
4 Lust for War Red
5 Rapacious One Red
3 Soulsurge Elemental Red
4 Surreal Memoir Red
2 Traitorous Instinct Red
3 Valakut Fireboar Red
2 Beastbreaker of Bala Ged Green
5 Boar Umbra Green
2 Bramblesnap Green
4 Broodwarden Green
2 Gravity Well Green
4 Irresistible Prey Green
0 Jaddi Lifestrider Green
0 Joraga Treespeaker Green
0 Pelakka Wurm Green
3 Prey's Vengeance Green
2 Artisan of Kozilek
1 Dreamstone Hedron
0 Enatu Golem
4 Not of This World
2 Ogre's Cleaver
1 Pathrazer of Ulamog
3 Pennon Blade
3 Runed Servitor
0 Skittering Invasion
4 Warmonger's Chariot
157

Summary - this is a decent deal - make tracks now. These guys had fast shipping and were the first to get to my door. There was a small issue with a customs brokerage fee as it had come across the border but it was put to bed by the great folks at Troll and Toad in a efficient and effective manner.
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A Time for Heroes

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We were toying with the idea of a casual level-up deck for the past few days. We had originally some serious concerns about levelling being too mana-expensive or just too slow - but - we like a challenge, more so if we can tweak out a (somewhat) budget deck out of it.

One challenge was that most of the levellers hit the battlefield as functional beaters for very little mana, but now present you with quite a few critical decisions during the following turns. Whether you play a new creature, or neutralise board threats (removal / spell counter), or invest your mana levelling up the critters you have out.

Some cards to consider is Time of Heroes. This card works well with other level up boosters such as Venerated Teacher and Training Grounds, which will enable you to dump level counters on your critters rapidly so they will grow up to be considerable board threats (you'll be such a proud father / mother). Another consideration for your mix is Champion's Drake which also does not level up but will certainly enjoy the synergy of your levelled creatures.

As for the expense part of it, Training Grounds is certainly a solid answer by giving you the Wal-Mart discount of 2 colourless mana off the price of all activated abilities of creatures you control. The only drawback here is that this will not reduce the mana cost to less than one. Not too bad at all.

The goal is to be able to play and keep alive cards such as Student of Warfare, Caravan Escort, Hedron-Field Purists, Kabira Vindicator, and even the defense oriented Ikiral Outrider to be able to put a dent in your opponent's life and hopefully win you the game.


One method of 'cheating' additional counters into play is using Kor Skyfisher of perhaps Narrow Escape to bounce Venerate Teacher back into your hand to play it again for its very lovely comes-into-play ability - rinse and repeat our friends.

You have a LOT of choices with regards to filling the ranks on your level-up deck.

Just ensure you have appropriate defenses in place to protect your leveller army. We are thinking along the lines of a blue / white deck : which way would you go ? > drop us a line or comment below.

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