Gatecrash Top Non-Rares

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

We are very happy to received our bulk lot of Gatecrash 4x Uncommons and 4x Commons we pre-ordered from MTG Mint Card.  The order was processed on Friday 1st, shipped from Hong Kong and was in our paws on Monday 4th, February -THAT was damn fast.  With 101 commons and 80 commons, we now have 724 Magic: the Gathering cards obtained at a very good price.  Why?  After two pre-release events, a fat pack, and a handful of boosters, we were still missing quite a few rather important cards we wanted to build with, and definitely nowhere near the decksets we needed to go forward.  

Anywhoos - now that we have all the uncommons and commons, it's time now for our Top 8 picks for both these rarities.  Our selection is based upon what we experienced during sealed gaming and our evaluation of how we feel these non-rares will perform in the new standard constructed environment.  Here's the video first . . .
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Gatecrash - Top 8 Uncommons : Boros Charm / Skullcrack / Dimir Charm / Burning Tree Emissary / Ghor Clan Rampager / Orzhov Charm / Simic Charm / Wight of Precinct Six

Gatecrash - Top 8 Commons : Devour Flesh / Basillica Screecher / Smite / Cloudfin Raptor / Forced Adaptation / Executioner's Swing / Pit Fit / Beckon Apparition

If you have an Uncommon or Common card that you think will rock standard, please drop your thoughts in the comment thingy below.
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Top MTG Lords

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

We caught a recent episode of Magic TV over at Channel Fireball yesterday which got us all nostalgic for some of our older Magic the Gathering cards. In the video, Tristan Gregson and Luis Scott-Vargas went over their picks for the Top 8 Lords.

Magic the Gathering Lords are essentially creatures which grant effects to other creatures according to their creature types, colors, or other attributes and are most often used in tribal decks. Typically, only creatures which give (at least) +1/+1 to all others of its creature type without any sort of activation are considered 'Lords'. Creatures that pump entire colors or that shrink entire colors are not considered lords.

Anywhoos - here's the video :


Top 8 Magic the Gathering Lords

8 : Drogskol Captain
7 : Coralhelm Commander
6 : Imperious Perfect
5 : Scion of Oona
4 : Goblin Warchief
3 : Merrow Reejerey
2 : Elvish Archdruid
1 : Lord of Atlantis

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Since every MTG player has their own individual taste / character and game style, we invite you to provide additional honorable mentions for your favourite Lord. Some cards which we have a fondness for are :

Vampire nocturnus
Lord of the Undead
Master of Etherium
Bloodline Keeper
Adaptive Automaton / Brass Herald
Daru Warchief
Death Baron
Field Marshal

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Altough not strictly Lords according to the definition, we did want to mention our special inclination for the quasi-Lord 'Liege' cycle in the Shadowmoor mini-block. Each of the Lieges in this block has a mana cost of XHHH, where H is a hybrid mana symbol and X a colourless mana. Each liege had two seperate abilities which provided a +1/+1 bonus to a creature that matched either colour, and which stacked for those that matched both. There was also a cool ability or effect appropriate its colors.

The lieges from Shadowmoor have allied-colour costs and the Knight creature type — Thistledown Liege, Glen Elendra Liege, Ashenmoor Liege, Boartusk Liege, Wilt-Leaf Liege. The lieges from Eventide had enemy-colour costs and the Horror creature type — Deathbringer Liege, Mindwrack Liege, Murkfiend Liege, and Balefire Liege, Creakwood Liege.
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Also of note - the folks over at MTG Mint Card has cracked open a few more boxes of Innistrad and has now restocked. If you've been looking for that special hard-to-get sorcery or Planeswalker, drop by.
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Mirrodin Besieged Crazy 8's

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

We now have some of our pre-orders in and are rather happy with our Mirrodin Besieged Uncommon & Common set we got from MTG Mint Card. This lot provides a deckset of each uncommon and common in the latest Magic the Gathering set and the price was right. Considering the relative monetary value of some of the more sought-after uncommons, we declare great deal.

Anywhoos - Here's a short vid giving you some Show 'n' Tell of our new cards. We also go out on a limb and give you our opinions of the Top Eight Uncommons and Commons in Mirrodin Besieged for standard casual constructed.

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UNCOMMONS

Go for the Throat : Is solid cheap spot removal which we will consider to be on par with Doom Blade. DB can't hit black creatures while GftT can. The only drawback is the stoopid name as well as it's limiter to non-artifact creatures which by the way, standard environment has a few of.

Signal Pest : Battle cry on a one-drop is great. This thing has a target on it from Kuldotha Rebirth or other sac outlets or simply by itself swinging a piece of equipment.

Goblin Wardriver : Good cost two-drop for two with Battle cry which may see play in agressive goblin decks. One is pretty much limited to mono-red decks here.

Accorder Paladin : A two-drop Knight with an odd 3/1 body but hey - here's Battle cry again. Look to see him in a Knight Exemplar build or perhaps equipping him as this is still fragile.

Sphere of the Suns : This is an excellent target for proliferate as well as players who want to see some metalcraft action in their game. We almost prefer this over Everflowing Chalice.

Plague Myr : This is a great addition to your infect deck. Several players we know are replacing their Copper or Leaden Myr with this fella. Sure it provides a colourless mana but dropping another infect creature into play is good - especially with a Hand of the Praetors already out.

Treasure Mage : Will allow you to run singles of your fav artifact fatty to free up space in your deck. Popular cards to pull out of your deck with this may be Blightsteel Colossus, Platinum Emperion, Myr Battlesphere, Platinum Angel, Argentum Armor, Contagion Engine, etc. - you get the idea.

Lead the Stampede : Is vastly improved over Beast Hunt. This may see play in mana-ramp type decks which prefer less lands and more mana-dorks. This may also work well with Fauna Shaman allowing a larger pool of discard to find that singleton fatty.

COMMONS

Steel Sabotage : Great common in a metagame full of artifacts. Use in your sideboard to counter or bounce - we're thinking that your opponent who just dropped a Blightsteel Colossus into play will cry when you sabotage it.

Master's Call : Speaking of BSC, this is the go-to card of choice. An instant-speed two 1/1 myr for three mana is not at all bad - especially to push your game's metalcraft tech or give your Tempered Steel threat more bodies.

Leonin Skyhunter : We're not seeing any downside to a 2/2 flier for two - As this is a Knight, we expect to see this as a high pick for any mono-white Knight builds.

Ichor Wellspring : Card draw is simple card advantage. This one may be sacrificed to Throne of Geth or Kuldotha Rebirth to net you a card. Alternatively, it's come into play ability may be abused by Venser - not bad.

Crush : Not the best artifact destruction card out in standard right now but still decent. We're thinking that any black-red build will have both Crush and Go for the Throat in their sideboards.

Blightwidow : Infect decks finally have some good aerial cover. Previously we were limited to only Skittles or Plague Stinger to keep the unfriendly skies clear but now this nasty fella with reach provides another option to block or wear down your opponent's attack.

Horrifying Revelation : Although this does not provide the selection of Duress, it does eliminate two cards which may result in messing up your opponent's tempo which is never a bad thing. We're thinking of strategies with Agadeem Occultist, Bloodchief Ascension and the like.

Myr Sire : Two 1/1 chumps for two mana is mana well spent. Look for synergies with Culling Dias, Mortarpod and perhaps Nim Deathmantle. Great creature to sac and get one more rinse 'n' repeat.
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Please feel free to pipe in and provide comments below (we have several already on YouTube) as to your Top 8 picks for uncommons and commons.
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Jund Aggro

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A quick review of Wizards Decks of the Week is a very decent place to start when looking for either Magic the Gathering deck ideas or to start thinking about developing an answer for these popular decks. If one were to assess the new hotness, look to the summaries of Standard on Magic Online top deck tournment returns, it becomes rapidly apparent that the deck to beat at the moment is Jund Aggro. Today, we will have a look at the common build for this deck.

For a deck list link from MTG Url, click HERE, for the analytical break-down, click HERE.

Main Deck : 60 cards

25 lands
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Savage Lands
4 Swamp
3 Terramorphic Expanse

15 creatures
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Broodmate Dragon
4 Putrid Leech
4 Sprouting Thrinax

20 other spells
3 Bituminous Blast
4 Blightning
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Resounding Thunder
4 Terminate

15 sideboard cards
4 Duress
4 Great Sable Stag
4 Jund Charm
3 Pyroclasm

Most variants include the hasty Bloodbraid Elf which cascades nicely into Putrid Leech, Sprouting Thrinax, Blightning, Ligthning Bolt, Terminate or even a Malestrom Pulse. This is very decent by any metric you may want to use. The idea here is to obtain the best deck effeciency by tunning your deck to include a good number of two and three drop spells. Bituminous Blast also acts in the same way to cascade into pretty much everything else with the exception of Broodmate Dragon which is typically reserved as the game finisher.

The other card that really stands out in most of these builds is the Jund Charm to wipe the board of tokens and smaller critters. This card is most often used to pump up Putrid Leech which one could even pump yet again to handle a Baneslayer Angel if necessary.

Of note also is the inclusion within the sideboard of Great Sable Stag. This is typically reserved should you go up against a similar Jund build. This card will offer a definite advantage in a mirror match due his protection against black. One can now feel safe with the typical Jund removal and be able to effectively block Putrid Leech and the ilk.

All in all, this is a very decent deck. The drawback (for very many of us) is that this is no budget deck which comprises the meat 'n' potatoes of the casual kitchen / FNM Magic that this blog is dedicated to. Expect to pay in excess of $300 were you to buy all of these cards as singles.

ProTour Kyoto

Since I am a casual player through-and-through, it is rare that I take in the Pro-Tour coverage. This weekend was an exception however and am I ever glad to have caught the webcast. There was an interesting (unexpected) blend of fresh faces and old veterans in the top eight. The unstoppable Luis Scott-Vargas and the experienced vetran Gabriel Nassif were heavily favoured to win the 2009 Pro-Tour Kyoto.


Of the top eight, I would select the most interesting deck as that belonging to Brian Robinson. Brian, although new to the Pro-Tour had built a 'Four-Colour Doran' or 'Dark Bant' deck. Others at the tournament nick-named this new / fun deck 'Doran of the Many'.

Although the final match-up between LSV and Nassif was very good to watch, it was somewhat anticlimatic especially when compared to some of the earlier quarter-final matchs. LSV played at a blistering-hot speed with some games over in less than 3 minutes with his Black-White token deck.

By far, the best game was the match-up between Matteo Orsini Jones and Gabriel Nassif. This pair had 2 games a piece and were facing their final fifth game to determine who would go on. I think it best to borrow the coverage from the very eloquent Nate Price who covered this most epic of games.

Nassif was at 8 and taking 4 a turn. Before Orsini Jones dropped Nassif to 4, he Thoughtseized him, revealing a Reflecting Pool. Orsini Jones was one turn away from advancing to the Semifinals, and Nassif only had one draw to find something to stop him. Nassif put his top card in front of him, face down, and then went about arranging his lands. “I’m preparing my Cruel Ultimatum mana.” He slowly peeled the card back before snapping it into his hand and hiding it behind his Reflecting Pool, all without looking at it. He then dropped the Reflecting Pool, tapped seven mana, and blindly dropped his card onto the table. The roar from the spectator packed observation area threatened to level the Arena with a wall of sound. Nassif had topdecked the Cruel Ultimatum he had set up the mana for. The stupid grin that seems to be the human body’s natural reaction to BEING ABSOLUTELY AMAZING still had yet to fade from his face. Barely audible under the still raucous crowd in the next room, Nassif simply managed to utter, “Ridiculous.” After resolving the superfluously cruel Ultimatum, Orsini Jones and Nassif exchanged fortunes, and within one more turn, and under the crushing wings of a pair of Dragons, Orsini Jones finally fell in one of the most epic finishes to a match I’ve ever witnessed. Gabriel Nassif defeats Matteo Orsini Jones 3-2 and advances to the Semifinals!

Here is a video of this most amazing 'called shot'.



I actually feel somewhat sorry for Matteo who essentially had lost to a top-decked card, but hey - it's the luck aspect of the game.

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Of the 381 players in the tournament, only 6 fellow Canadians were in attendance. Unfortunately, none had made it into the Top 8. Speaking of the final standings, here they are.

1. Nassif, Gabriel
2. Scott-Vargas, Luis
3. Yamamoto, Akimasa
4. Robinson, Brian
5. Phillips, Cedric
6. Ruess, Jan
7. Orsini Jones, Matteo
8. Tanahashi, Masayasu

Be sure to check out the Top 8 Decklists and the dossiers of the Top 8 Players.