mtgGoldfish

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Goldfishing: Playing a solitaire game of Magic. Used to work out the tempo of the deck and to look for issues with mana and win conditions. The name stems from the notion that you play against your pet goldfish, who does nothing.

There is an online tool we've been using quite a lot.  This is a website where we check popular cards, popular decks / strategies then hit the drawing board to create our new weapon and make purchases at MTG Mint Card or actively look for a trade.  This online resource is mtgGoldfish.

This site has been online since about 2012 and it provides you with an understanding of the online economy for Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) using price lists, historical pricing data, pricing trends and metagame analysis. We particularly are very interested in what what decklists are delivering results on MTGO to determine which 'rogue' strategies are performing well or contrariwise, take an opposite approach and see what we need to play successfully against those popular builds which will (without fail) make it to the tables at our card shop during Friday Night Magic.

We suggest you check out mtgGoldfish and perhaps if you like what you see, get the premium membership or drop some change in the tip jar because you likely know the crazy server costs involved in keeping a site floating

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MTG Deck Builder's Toolkit

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Just an update on the Deck Builder's Toolkit.

-> Also check out the MTG Deck Builder:TappedOut.net

This is the product we mentioned way back in November. Well, it's out now and available for that special gamer whose birthday is upcoming or perhaps even you to help round out your deck development to win you more games.

Here's the skinny . . .

The Deck Builder's Toolkit, which will contain 100 land cards and 125 semi-random game cards, along with
four 15-card booster packs from a variety of recent Magic: The Gathering sets for only $19.99. It's the perfect way to start a deck-building career! The Deck Builder's Toolkit will also contain a card storage box, a guide containing dueling tips, and expert advice on how to custom build the deadliest and most effective decks possible. And since no two Toolkits are the same, each one presents its own unique deckbuilding challenges!

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We have the following information from our friend in Europe who dissected the box and now provides this mini-review :

According to the information included, this toolkit should help you to build the following archetypes :

- Red Burn (Lightning Bolt, Lava Axe, Fireball, Fiery Hellhound)

- White Weenie (Elite Vanguard, Veteran Armorsmith, Kor Hookmaster, Pacifism)

- Blue Control (Mind Control, Cancel, Divination, Wall of Frost)

- Elves (Llanowar Elves, Nissa's Chosen, Elvish Visionary, Overrun)

- Mana Ramp (Rampant Growth, Frontier Guide, Howl of the Night Pack, Pelakku Wurm)

- Blue-White Fliers ( Serra Angel, Unsummon, Wind Drake, Fledgling Griffin)

- Vampires (Gatekeeper of Malakir, Vampire Nighthawk, Consume Spirit, Vampire Aristocrat)

- Black-Red Destruction (Doom Blade, Flame Slash, Duress, Lightning Elemental)

- Red-Green Aggro (Llanowar Elves, Summit Apes, Panic Attack, Goblin Shortcutter)

- Green-White Auras (Aura Gnarlid, Savage Silhouette, Mammoth Umbra, Totem-Guide Hartebeest)

- Eldrazi (Emrakul's Hatcher, Ulamog's Crusher, Pathrazer of Ulamog, Spawning Breath)


This is what was inside my toolkit :

- 4 Booster Packs = Conflux, Worldwake, Zendikar and Magic 2010

- 100 lands from Magic 2010 ( 20 each )

The key commons and uncommons are all from recent sets : Magic 2010, Zendikar, Worldwake and Rise of the Eldrazi. Looking at the list I do believe that people new to the game will like them, but I was hoping on key commons / uncommons from older sets as well...

Here are what I would consider the better commons - without thinking about the above archetypes - out of my Toolkit :

White Common 1x Iona's Judgment, 2x Pacifism, 1x Soul Warden

Blue Common 2x Cancel, 1x Divination, 1x Essence Scatter, 1x Merfolk Looter, 1x Unsummon

Black Common 1x Blood Seeker, 2x Child of Night, 1x Disfigure, 1x Doom Blade, 1x Duress, 1x Sign in Blood

Red Common 1x Brood Birthing, 1x Burst Lightning, 3x Lightning Bolt, 1x Searing Blaze

Green Common 1x Borderland Range, 1x Explore, 2x Giant Growth, 2x Llanowar Elves, 1x Naturalize, 1x Nissa's Chosen, 1x Rampant Growth

Colorless Common 1x Hand of Emrakul, 1x Ulamog's Crusher Land Common 4x Terramorphic Expanse


I received 35 Uncommons :

11x M10 Uncommons Dragon Whelp, Fireball, Harm's Way, Howl of the Night Pack, Mind Control, Overrun, Prodigal Pyromancer, Rod of Ruin, Serra Angel, Sleep, Whispersilk Cloak

4x Zendikar Uncommons Frontier Guide, Mind Sludge, River Boa, Trusty Machete 2x Worldwake Bestial Menace, Summit Apes

8x Rise of the Eldrazi Artisan of Kozilek, Dreamstone Hedron, Explosive Revelation, Lust for War, Pathrazer of Ulamog, Pelakka Wurm, Rapacious One, Valakut Fireboar

Conclusion = Perhaps a nice product for real starters, more experienced players can use it to play a very nice and solid sealed deck.

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Aura Affection

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G'Day MTG fans,

We're sure that we, like many of you out there love getting your claws and your noodle into a new set. We put our imagination to work and start generating some wonky and fun casual decks.

Our newest set, Rise of the Eldrazi, holds some fairly interesting opportunities to design something new and untried. One new keyword ability in this set is Auras. Traditionally, in the pro-tour circuit as well as around kitchen tables, auras have not really attracted too much attention and gamers have simply related them to the sideboard or worse. This time however, the new family of 'Totem Auras' has most definitely moved us to give this ho-hum enchantment some attention.

Totem armor is a static ability that appears on many Auras in Rise of the Eldrazi. "Totem armor" means "If enchanted permanent would be destroyed, instead remove all damage marked on it and destroy this Aura." One of the biggest downers previously was to drop some serious mana on an aura, enchant a creature to make it awesome and then watch your opponent dash your hopes by dealing lethal damage or destroying said enchanted critter . . . well not any more.
















One new creature card, Umbra Mystic, will allow all your auras on the field to have the new hot Totem Armor ability. Another new instant, Aura Finesse, lets you slide an aura you already have on the field onto another creature - almost like equipment - not too shabby.














What really got our creative juices flowing was some of your eMails about pre-release stories - specifically just how good Aura Gnarlid or Kor Spiritdancer was - perhaps a bit surprising to some including us. Unfortunately, these are really the only two creatures that really shine with auras. That is, unless we look a bit further back in the Shards of Alara Block . . . Remember Uril, the Miststalker and Sovereigns of Lost Alara? Uril, not only provided shroud-lite, but also gives a similar pump like the new Kor Spiritdancer. Sovereigns was a bit expensive but will allow you to tutor out and play for free an aura in your deck - perhaps worth another consideration with all the excellent auras now running around in the standard environment.

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Well, time now to chuck out a casual aura deck idea. Please drop your comments and feed us some of your ideas . .

For Auras, we choose the following with Totem Armor - Hyena Umbra, Spider Umbra (nice 'n' cheap), Eland Umbra, Snake Umbra and Bear Umbra (to help the mana flow). We could not leave our fav Worldwake aura out in the cold, Canopy Cover, which gives evasion and shroud-lite. This works well if placed on an effective creature along with Snake Umbra for additional card draws.

Sovereigns of Lost Alara and Totem-Guide Hartebeest will help you pull out the aura you want when you want. Sovereigns is certainly better as the effects are repeatable with any exalted attack as apposed to the Hartebeest which works only as a comes-into-play ability - you can bounce and return but that's extra mana and card slots you might not have. Rounding off with the awesome are Kor Spiritdancer (pump and card-draw), Aura Gnalid (pump and unblockable), and Uril, the aura fatty.

That's it for now, return soon for more crazy-burro casual deck ideas.

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Level UP!

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Hello again MTG peeps,
We hope that all who made it out the Rise of the Eldrazi pre-release this weekend had a blast and hopefully pulled a good card pool. Unfortunately, we were unable to get out but did hear from a few of you already as how things went.

We were surprised to hear how many of you did well in the tournament with blue-white levelers. To that end, we did a quick re-examine and revisit on some of the cards mentioned. Indeed, some of them are rather good . . so good it moved us to construct a hypothetical casual standard deck featuring this new mechanic.

Blue-White Leveler
(click to enlarge)

First off, in order to save your bacon, it would be nice to move some of your critters out of bolt range. For that we have the uncommon Time of Heroes, which gives creatures you have already with a level counter on it a nice +2/+2.

Next, we need to ramp things up a bit to get those sweet leveler abilities on deck in double time. For that, we have Venerated Teacher which, when he comes into play will drop two level counters on each level up critter you have on the field.














Although Venerated Teacher is great, we're kinda greedy. To double-dip on his ability, we've though that either Narrow Escape or Kor Skyfisher will do nicely for a rinse and repeat effect to multiply those level counters (too bad Gilder Bairn isn't in standard anymore).

As for the remainder of choices, some damage prevention is always nice to help your little levelers grow into fatties - for that we went with Shieldmate's Blessing to keep a theme within the block. We've always loved the disruption we spread with Spreading Seas so this was an auto-include in this as well.

There are quite a few nice creatures with level up in this set which we are certain will win some games. As we are in blue and white, we went with creepy fish-guy, Skywatcher Adept, the island-walker, Hailmar Wavewatch, the sneaky Hada Spy Patrol, the flying Merfolk Lord, Coralhelm Commander and for finishing off, the lifelinking / indestructible Transcendent Master.

Have loads of fun experimenting with builds with this new set - drop back soon as we continue doing some casual construction.
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Building An EDH

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EDH ? You may have heard of it - this is an acronym for 'Elder Dragon Highlander', a fun singleton constructed format meant for multi-player games, but can also be played head to head. We became interested in this format (just a week or so ago) because we are all about casual magic play and we also happened to have a bunch of older cards on hand collecting dust. The beauty of this game is the vast range of choices one has - more specifically, thousands of choices. The other great thing about EDH is that one does not need to collect expensive deck sets - just 'one-offs' which may be easily done ever time you open up a booster pack or peruse the dollar-rare bin at your MTG store.

We had scraped together a very simple deck (which, with your assistance we will improve) and had our very first game just yesterday. We were, of course, slaughtered BUT, not only did we have fun, we deeply appreciated the other players were very helpful in teaching us how to play and provide some tips to us. Before we show you what EDH deck we pulled together for our very first game, here is a brief summary of how to play this game.


An EDH deck must have a legendary creature as it's "general," and can be built using only colorless cards or cards of the general's colors. Note that split and hybrid cards count as both colors for deck construction purposes, and spells with off-color activated abilities cannot be played unless the off-color activated abilities are the general's color. Any card which generates multiple colors of mana cannot generate mana outside the colors of it's general. If a card would generate mana outside it's general's colors, it generates colorless mana instead. Players may choose any legendary creature (there is over 300 choices for you) as their general. The general is placed face-up in the command zone before mulligans are declared.


An EDH deck must contain exactly 100 cards, general included, typically with no sideboards. The cards may consist of Vintage legal cards and with the exception of basic lands, no two cards in the deck may have the same English name. There is a suggested 'banned list' which may be found on www.dragonhighlander.net and your local club may have other cards which may be prohibited to play. Just use Wizards Gatherer card database to seek out the best cards for inclusion in your deck.


EDH gameplay is like normal Magic in most ways, but it varies in a few key aspects. For example, both players start with 40 life instead of the usual 20. This leds to longer games, but they are still quite fun and interactive for both players. Due to the large deck size, players are allowed one "free" mulligan to compensate for any draws your deck may have given you. Your general starts in the 'command zone' - a place legally removed from the game. Anytime you could normally play a creature, you may play your General from the Romved-from-game zone by paying its mana cost. If a general would be put into a graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead. Every time your general is played again increases its cost by 2 colourless mana. A player dealt 21 combat damage by a single general loses the game.

Some references for you to read further -
http://forum.dragonhighlander.net/EDH_Forum
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=377

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Here is our premier deck which we hope, with your help, to improve. As mentioned before, there are a lot of choices to be had and we expect this deck will be forever changing as we tweak it or come across awesome cards to include . . .

As you can see, we went very simple with our first deck and developed an mono-white soldier build:

Darien, King of Kjeldor (General), Trusty Machete, Akrasan Squire, Goldmeadow Harrier, Soul Warden, Cenn's Tactician, Elite Vanguard, Coordinated Barrage, Piety Charm, Unified Strike, Brave the Elements, Harm's Way, Path to Exile, Dolmen Gate, Veteran's Armaments, Aven Squire, Ballyrush Banneret, Kazandu Blademaster, Kor Aeronaut, Honor of the Pure, Militia's Pride, Shared Triumph, Pacifism, Weight of Conscience, Temporal Isolation, Journey to Nowhere, Pollen Lullaby, Redeem the Lost, Whispersilk Cloak, Kithkin Zephyrnaut, Veteran Swordsmith, Field Marshal, Intrepid Hero, Premeninet Captain, Oblivion Ring, Mobilization, Prison Term, Oblation, Door of Destinies, Deathrender, Sword of the Paruns, Loxodon Gatekeeper, Benalish Commander, Daru Warchief, Rhox Pikemaster, Enlistment Officer, Kithkin Rabble, Taj-Nar Swordsmith, Armored Asension, Ajani Goldmane, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Resurrection, Catapult Master, Cloudgoat Ranger, Conqueror's Pledge, Captain of the Watch, Crovax, Ascendant Hero, Knight-Captain of Eos, WindbrisK Raptor, Mass Calcify, Martial Coup,
Lands : Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Daru Encampment, Forbidding Watchtower, 36 PLAINS.

Your turn now - if you play EDH or know the older Magic cards, help us out and drop some suggestions in the comments. We will develop a video sometime hopefully before the official Worldwake previews / spoilers get under way to showcase some of the potential improvements.

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MTG Deck Builder's Toolkit

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This appears to be the second day in a row where have dipped into Wizard's Magic Arcana to feed our Magic the Gathering blog. Hopefully this does not become a habit and we here at MTG Realm simply become a re-publisher. Anywho, Let's have a look at the latest shall we.

Wizards of the Coast has yet another product to entice novice players . . . a Deckbuilding Toolkit. This is a product which is intended to target new players just starting to accumulate cards to build their very first deck. The product, aptly named Deck Builder's Toolkit, appears to have everything this new player requires - namely a big mana pool which to include in the finished deck as well as 125 MTG cards of unknown set and rarity. To boot, the product even includes 4 booster packs to give the kids their very first taste of ripping through blister packaging to get to that cardboard crack. Just about everything that new player needs to build his very first MTG Monster.

All and all, really not that bad for the price to get a firm MTG foundation constructed in which to develop your new-found game. Personally, when we first started, we purchased an intropack - then known as a 'theme deck' back then. Specifically, we got theme decks from Urza's Legacy - the mono-green Crusher and the blue-white Radiant's Revenge. We played these two decks for months on end and rather enjoyed it. This new product reminds me of those starter boxes back in 1999 and 2000.

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Well that was a pleasant trip down memory lane - back on topic - let's have a look at the corporate skinny for the Deck Builder's Toolkit :

Starting May 21, 2010, you can hook up a friend (or yourself!) with the Deck Builder's Toolkit, which will contain

100 land cards and
125 semi-random game cards, along with
four 15-card booster packs from a variety of recent Magic: The Gathering sets for only $19.99. It's the perfect way to start a deck-building career!

The Deck Builder's Toolkit will also contain a card storage box, a guide containing dueling tips, and expert advice on how to custom build the deadliest and most effective decks possible. And since no two Toolkits are the same, each one presents its own unique deckbuilding challenges!

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A final word - -
Since this product is really intended for the new player orientating themselves and developing competencies and strategies, they will likely be the last to care about rarity distribution and the presence (or lack) of an expansion symbol . . . they just need to get on top of their game before striking out to the hostile world of standard Friday Night Magic.

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What I'm Playing 8

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Hello and welcome to yet another post of 'What I'm Playing'. This is where we, the abecedarian begrudging your greater experience in this our admired game of Magic the Gathering propose to you a standard constructed deck and you, advanced by years of experience, sagely provide us betterments.

So, without further ado, admit me, the constructor of this deck, who prologue-like your humble patience pray, gently to read, kindly to judge our Deck List.

Sneaky Kor . . .

Spells - 39
4 x kor duelist
4 x trusty machete
4 x harm's way
4 x brave the elements
4 x armament master
4 x kor aeronaut
3 x kor skyfisher
4 x kor hookmaster
4 x whispersilk cloak
4 x captain of the watch
Mana -21
17 x Plains
4 x Kabira Crossroads

Our thanks to Trick at ManaNation for developing MTG Url from which we had obtained the following graphics. Here are the Links to the LIST and ANALYSIS.

Creature - 23 / Artifact - 8 / Instant - 8 / Basic Land - 21

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We were for a time rather unsure of the Kor at this time. Certainly there are some very worthy cards but perhaps we had held too much stock in Armament Master who lacked a particular vigor in order to stay long enough on the board in order to provide benefits to his fellow Kor.

That was, until a colleague at Friday Night Magic suggested the use of Whispersilk Cloak which not only provided the much needed shroud required to maintain the Armament Master but also provided a very nice ublockable ability.

The construction so far proved to fair not that badly with the few casual kitchen table games we had played with a limited variety of other builds. We were very impressed with the Duelist, who we had placed a Trusty Machete on and then followed up with a Whispersilk Cloak. This piece of nastiness was at one time (with an Armament Master on board) swinging for 10 points of sweet unblockable pain. As the build happened to turn out all soldiers, we just auto-included Captain of the Watch.

We very much understand that this build is still far from complete and would like you to suggest improvements before we unleash this at our next FNM. Please remember that we, of limited income, may not be able to acquire the hotness which you may suggest so please also think in terms of budget.

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We are also thinking about a build with Emeria Angel and the very popular Hedron Crab. If you have any ideas with this deck that won't break the bank, please drop us a comment.

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What I'm Playing 7

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Just taking a quick break from the Zendikar land spoilers to drop yet another edition of 'What I'm Playing'. This is a MTG Realm feature where we post a real deck of physical cardboard goodness and yatter about it's particular qualities.
We also ask you, the blog reader, to provide constructive input as to how to tweak it.

(!) Just before we get into the nitty-gritty of the decklist and you provide comments, just know that these decks are intended to play casual at a sanctioned 'Friday Night Magic' event (standard constructed format) and that, because money does not grow on trees (at least, not around here), we often are unable to get a deckset of the latest hotness (although we wish we could). Let's go . . .

BIG BANT

click to enlarge

This deck is called 'Big Bant' as it gets big. Rather an original name we thought. It has been played about a dozen times at the kitchen table and has also been out to a FNM perhaps thrice now and has performed rather well to date. Altough it does not yet have a sideboard, it did take us to semi-finals (with a participating crowd of 25 to 35 players or so) during said FNM plays. We just need you to help us out to take spot number one at least once or twice to call it a solid build.

Anywhoos - We include six mana accelerators found within four Nobles and two BOP to provide juice for the engine. Nobles outweigh the Birds as not only they tap for Bant colours but also it provides exalted. Also you should know that there have not been any games to date that Knight of New Alara has not come out at least once per match (quite usually once or more per game) . . . perhaps I have an akwardly-placed lucky horseshoe.

Here is the next critter. The two-drop Bant Sureblade, although a 2/1, easily becomes a 3/2 with first strike with all the multi-colour deck love and typically gets a huge boost from the Knight to sprout it into a honk'n 6/5 by turn 3. At the moment I am considering Esper Stormblade over the Sureblade to give me a 5/4 flier instead.


Next up - Giltspire provides elimination should I take a hit from a creature. Most players in my neck of the woods take the Avenger seriously and takes him out first before doing anything. The life-linking 3/4 Rhox War Monk also grows to a 6/5 with the Knight. Unfortunately, I have only 3 Jenara presently and must admit this creature is awesome in play. With the Knight, this thing is a sizeable 6/6 flier and I have often been able to dump extra mana to drop additional counters on her.

I'm not altogether sure of the cascading Captured Sunlight. I do ejoy dropping a Jenara or a Rhox Monk but presently think this card's inclusion is somewhat shaky. Knight of New Alara has made this deck shine in past games and, as mentioned earlier, has always seen play. Moreover, I cannot count the times I have top-decked this cardboard win. This essentially gives 5 of my 9 creatures a full 3 power boost.

Next on the list is some critical control for late game. We have a full set of the Bant-coloured four-drop 3/4 Stoic Angel to greatly restrict our opponent's ability to untap more than one creature. To couple this is another set of Murkfiend Liege. This creature really is a 'horror' as a follow-up to Stoic. He (or it?), not only bumps all your blue and green creatures by +2/+2 but also allows you to untap all your blue / green critters at your opponent's upkeep, essentially providing vigilence to your critters.


Quite similar to always having the knack of drawing Knight of new Alara, I seem to have very good luck being able to have the Stoic / Murkfiend couple out (just slightly more than half my games).

Here is the list shizzle . .

BIG BANT

37 Spells
23 Lands

4 x Noble Hierarch
2 x Bird of Paradise
4 x Bant Sureblade
4 x Giltspire Avenger
4 x Rhox War Monk
3 x Jenara, Asura of War
4 x Captured Sunlight
4 x Stoic Angel
4 x Knight of New Alara
4 x Murkfiend Liege

4 x Seaside Citadel
9 x Forest
5 x Plain
5 x Island

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Sideboard Assistance

Sideboard is currently non-existent but I do have some half-formed ideas.
Reborn Hope may be a candidate to provide some recursion. Esper Stormblade may be swapped out for Bant Sureblade for better aerial defence. Favour of the Overbeing is a decent aura to provide most critters flying / vigilence and a +1/+1 pump. Snakeform is a hilarious card and make most opponents cry - there really is no other reason for sideboard inclusion other than having an insurance policy against a your opponent's Fatty McFatster.

Anywho - Please drop us a comment and help us fix this up ! Thnx !

Post M10 Soldiers

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If one were to simply peruse new Magic 2010 white cards, it would become rather apparent that Wizards is pushing tribal soldier builds with this core set. The soldier creature subtype is anything but new. Just as recently as Lorwyn block, solidiers had been given design attention. In upcomming tournaments, we should expect to see a return to popularity of white weenie builds featuring new M10 cards. To this end, this post is my postulations regarding a standard format soldier build.


There are cards too numerous to include in this post as to what may or should be considered for inclusion in a soldier build so we will try to stick to what we think may constitute safe or wise choices. To follow up on this post, we also hope to (in the very near future) report back to you playtesting notes and evaluations of the soldier build.

Personally, one of the easiest ways for me to start designing a deck is to start with a theme - we have it already with soldiers. As most of these good cards are typically white, we already know that the build will be mostly white potentially splashing one or two other colours.

The second step I typically take is building from the top down - the late or end game 'bomb' and then track a path chronologically backwards to determine how best to get to the punchline. The card I will consider for the bomb is 'Martial Coup'. Why ? No solid reason other than that I already have a deckset ready to include and this board sweeper incorporates our theme of soldiers. Getting 5 or more 1/1 soldier tokens WHILE destroying all other creatures currently on board is just plain good.


An issue we see immediately by using Martial Coup is that perhaps we may want to keep some of the creatures we already have in play. To this end, we can consider using Dauntless Escort to provide indestructibility when the hammer comes down. We may also contemplate other cards which are able to deliver similar safety from the sweeper such as Elspeth's third ability, Shield of the Oversoul, or even the new M10 card Indestructibility. Both auras may not be the best fit (Indestructibility being almost unplayable), so we will use Elspeth, Knight Errant. I am biased to this choice as well because I have a few already available to be inserted into the build. Elspeth also supports our theme by churning out soldier tokens.

While we are yattering about soldier tokens, let's have a look at possible generators for our theme's cause. I have very fond memories of Lorwyn's Militia's Pride - specifically dumping extra white mana to fill the battlefield with a swarm of hasty 1/1s. Also up for consideration is Knight-Captain of Eos which brings along 3 soldier tokens. Knight-Captain may also deliver a 'fog' effect for damage prevention should your games go south of cheese.


Having a supply of ready and available soldier tokens steers us now to consider using this resource to pick up and sharpen into a respectable board threat. This may be accomplished by using Sigil Captain which dumps two additional +1/+1 counters on each soldier token growing them immediately into 3/3s. The new M10 hotness, Captain of the Watch also gives your soldiers (and soldier tokens) +1/+1 and vigilance. (Edit: Phillip has a valid point regarding when the tokens 'comes into play' - Sigil Captain can only pump if they are coming in as simple 1/1s, so this works against you if Captain of the Watch is already on board.)

Some other cards for consideration;

Preeminent Captain - to cheat other soldiers out into play.
Cloudgoat Ranger - brings along 3 tokens and provides some defense against flyers.
Ballyrush Banneret - accelerating tempo by giving you cheaper soldiers (and Kithkin).
Cenn's Tactician - nice one-drop with two solid abilities.
Rhox Pikemaster - giving all your soldiers first strike ability.
Veteran Armorsmith - nice two-drop and giving one additional toughness to soldiers.
Veteran Swordsmith - giving soldiers one additional power.
Veteran's Armaments - standard issue soldier equipment.


There are also exists numerous cards which we can consider for inclusion to our sideboard. I really must leave this up to you to decide as only you know what your local metagames like. Personally, I will consider protection from burn (Mark of Asylum), defense against flyers (Wall of Reverence), and spot removals such as Path to Exile or Oblivion Ring.

Hope this sheds some light on the potential soldier builds.
Please drop a comment and tell us what you think might include.

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Naya Aggro Math

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Something I hope to try next Friday Night Magic -

I just overhauled a deck I had recently discussed in the last 'What I'm Playing'. Why ? Some of the most aggressive decks in standard today have something rather similar in common - a healthy smattering of Naya cards (red / green / white). I wanted to try and construct / pilot a deck that would incorporate the best synergies of the big 'roid Naya beaters to deliver a severe kick to the face on almost every turn.


To this end, I turned to Knight of New Alara, and Colossal Might which couples rather nicely with most every tri-coloured Naya creature. To keep the pain sustained and maximize the synergies in play, Gloryscale Viashino got drafted as well onto the team.

Beaters . . .
Meglonoth (6/6)
Gloryscale Viashino (3/3)
Woolly Thoctar (5/4)
Jund Hackblade (2/1 -> 3/2 haste)

With Knight of New Alara in play . . .

Bigger Beaters . . .
Meglonoth (9/9)
Woolly Thoctar (8/7)
Gloryscale Viashino (6/6)
Jund Hackblade (6/5)

With Colossal Might (+4/+2 and trample)

Stupid Huge Beaters . . .
Meglonoth (13/11)
Gloryscale Viashino (13/11)
Woolly Thoctar (12/9)
Jund Hackblade (9/7)

Gloryscale Viashino (3/3) while Knight of New Alara is in play is an enviable 6/6. When you play the multicolour spell Colossal Might, Gloryscale gets pumped by +3/+3 making it now a frightening 9/9. Your evil mind knows that this is the time to target Gloryscale with Colossal Might which now makes it an insane 13/11 with trample . . . just crazy!

I am also rather pleased that Bloodbraid Elf cascades more than half the spells currently within the deck. As it sits currently, Bloodbraid could hit (in order of preference) Woolly Thoctar, Jund Hackblade, Colossal Might, Stun Sniper, and some other critters which I will not let you in on (in case someone from the club is reading).


My suggestions for FNM dinner - invite a couple of large beaters, and let them party with Knight of New Alara and Colossal Might. I hope to report back to you with details as to how this Naya build performed against the various other decks.

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