Green - White Tokens

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We hope you had a great weekend and had time to get some Magic the Gathering games fitted in. As for ourselves, we had an opportunity to make tracks over to the local gaming store, OMG Games in Barrie, Ontario where they had a good turn out of 48 players competing for a Worldwake Fat Pack. Unfortunately we had to drop early but were sure we will find out if the winner met with success with the Jace 2.0 lottery. On Saturday we went back to the binders and looked over some of our older (still standard legal) cards and reminisced a bit. To this end, we brewed up an nostaligic casual deck, which although might not be able to take on some of the premier net decks, still would deliver very well on FUN. This had won only half the games we played with so far (against an Elf deck and a Tempered Steel deck) but they were certainly very close.

Let's have a look at this odd brew of Green / White tokens . . .


SPELLS - 38
4 x Birds of Paradise
4 x Wall of Omens
4 x Explore
4 x Harrow
4 x Emeria Angel
3 x Garruk Wildspeaker
2 x Day of Judgement
3 x Eldrazi Monument
2 x Elspeth Tirel
3 x Rampaging Baloth
3 x Avenger of Zendikar
2 x Novablast Wurm

LANDS - 22
9 x Forest
9 x Plains
2 x Sunpetal Grove
2 x Stirring Wildwood
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The deck will generate -

0/1 Plant tokens (Avenger of Zendikar),
1/1 Bird tokens (Emeria Angel),
1/1 Soldier tokens (Elspeth Tirel),
3/3 Beast tokens (Garruk Wildspeaker), as well as
4/4 Beast tokens (via Rampaging Baloths).


Altough we are not aiming for an overun effect (a pump / trample spell), there still is that capability with Garruk's last ability. Primarily, we are focusing on putting our opponent on a fast clock by puking a variety of tokens (most of which are provided with landfall triggers) and getting to a point where we can set up a variety of win conditions. Resetting the board with Day of Judgement, Elspeth Tirel or even Novablast Wurm and a fast recovery and a swing in for lethal damage.


Extra critical card draws are provided with Wall of Omens and Explore while additional land drops to trigger landfall abilities are provided with Harrow as again with Explore.

Should we be able to get Eldrazi Monument out followed by Day of Judgement, Elspeth or Novablast, then things are certainly going quite well and promises of a game win is almost assured.

Anywhoos - as always, please pipe in with suggestions for the maindeck or sideboard (as we have not yet developed one) in the comment thingy below or by eMail. If this build gets some decent games in, we may even consider taking it from the kitchen table for a spin at FNM.

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Finally, as you know from some previous posts, MTG Mint Card is donating an incredible 30% of its sales to Doctors Without Borders who provide much needed front line medical aid to areas adversely affected by disasters around the world. This campaign which has run almost all month long will come to an end on March the 31st.

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GW Landfall

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Good Day folks,

We are trapped in Toronto this week on business but thankfully they have coffee down here and a connection to the interwebs. We don't think we will go into Magic the Gathering withdrawal either as 401 Games & Collectibles is within walking distance from our lair away from home. Not sure if we will be able to get daily MTG posts to the blog but we will do our best.

Anywhoos - We finally got around to putting together a real cardboard Magic the Gathering deck for the new post-Worldwake Landfall. The deck we had finally scrapped together for playtesting is Green / White featuring Emeria Angel, Rampaging Baloths and Avenger of Zendikar.


Right off the get-go, let's have a look at the video and then we'll get to some notes . . .

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To date, we have had only two playtest dates with this build - one against a mon-red (Red-Deck-Wins build) as well as an interesting mono-green Elf / Ally deck. Both matches show some promise and we will be taking notes for improvement.

We were initially taken by surprise just how many plant, bird, and beast tokens this particular build vomited out on the board. We guess we should not really be that surprised as Knight of the Reliquary (to search for any land - basic or otherwise) and Ruin Ghost (which temporarily bounces lands back to your hand) does a fairly decent job in dropping extra lands into play triggering all those awesome landfall abilities.











We had taken out Oran-Rief, the Vastwood and it appears the wheels did not in fact fall off. The land that really did impress us was Sejiri Steepe - especially when coupled with Ruin Ghost which when used in tandem is kind of like a 'protection on tap' and worked quite efficiently for us. Another land which did not yet really shine for us in this build was Stirring Vastwood - this man-land may eventually get pushed off into the sideboard.

Well, we're certain it has quite a bit to go to get this FNM ready but one important goal has already been reached - this is one heck of a FUN casual deck to play.

Stay tuned, not sure exactly when the next post will be but we are off to 401 Games right now - if you happen to be in the hood, we will be hanging out there for several evenings this week.

:-)

World's Rome - Day 1

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Some great action happening in the world of professional Magic the Gathering in Rome Italy today. For complete coverage, pop over to Wizards to see the latest, including blogs from event coverage staff, Podcasts, and videos from everything to feature matches, deck-tech analysis, and player profiles.

We were very much hoping not to see a bunch of Jund mirror-matches and are not disappointed. It is estimated that the current meta-game king (Jund aggro decks) made up approximately 35 to 40 % of the field. One deck that had stood out for us is that which was brought along by Pro-Player and MTG writer Manuel Bucher who is piloting a Bant deck featuring Emeria Angel, Knight of the Reliquary, and Baneslayer Angel.

Unfortunately, for most of us (as we like to eat), Baneslayer commands a price anywhere from $40 to $60 . . . DANG ! - Should be calling it Wallet-Slayer Angel. But hey - Budget players are an ingenous bunch and can be relied upon to find a solid replacement - perhaps something not as prone to Aven Mimeomancer.

Anywhoos - Let's have a look at Manuel Bucher's DECK.

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Also of great interest . . .

At approximately 11:30 EST from Evan Erwin’s twitter account that US Team member, Charles Gindy had been disqualified from Worlds for ‘Fraud.’ Many people were shocked and upset and a lot of speculation had been made since Evan's first tweet until just a few moments ago when, we had word finally from Wizards as to what officially happened.

Gindy controlled a Master of the Wild Hunt, along with a pair of Wolf tokens, one a 2/2, and the other a 3/3 thanks to a counter from Oran-Rief the Vastwood.

Gindy activated his Master of the Wild Hunt, targeting one of his opponent’s creatures, in order to kill it. His Wolves were tapped, and his opponent’s creature was killed by the 5 damage from Master of the Wild Hunt’s ability, but the opponent did not assign damage back to either Wolf.

At the end of the match, Gindy asked why his opponent had not assigned damage to kill one of Gindy’s Wolf tokens when Master of the Wild Hunt’s ability resolved. This made it clear that Gindy knew that one of his Wolf tokens should have been assigned damage, but had chosen not to say anything at the appropriate time.

It is mandatory that the ability of Master of the Wild Hunt be completed in full, and by intentionally allowing the card to be misplayed, Gindy committed fraud as defined in the Infraction Procedure Guide. With Master of the Wild Hunt, a clear assignment of damage must be made for the ability to have fully resolved. It is not an option to see an opponent making a play outside the rules and allow it to happen.

. . . DANG ! We should think that his team-mates have a few things to say in private latter on . . .

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