FNM B/W Vampires - 1st Place

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We have some news we are happy about from the Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games Barrie.  Before we get to that, a quick look at the week two metagame evolution with results from this weekend's SCG Classic in Philadelphia.  Here are the Top 16 Standard Classic Decklists :

1st Mono-Red Aggro Aiden Brier
2nd Mardu Vehicles Robert Stanley
3rd UW Eternalize Austin Herrick
4th Grixis Energy Tomas Hoffman
5th Grixis Improvise John Hughes
6th G/R Monsters Kevin Michael
7th Grixis Control Nicholas Ailes
8th U/B Midrange Benjamin Ragan
9th Jund Midrange Craig Rocco
10th Grixis Control Andrew Lopez
11th Grixis Energy Kevin Jones
12th B/R Aggro Aaron Schwarcz
13th R/B Aggro Ryan Carey
14th U/B Control Jacob LeJeune
15th Mono-Black Aggro AJ Kerrigan
16th Mardu Vehicles Joshua Schaffer

Still nicely diverse with no monoculture and we love where the game is at right now.  At my local gaming store, it appears that Grixis Energy as well as G/B Constrictor were representing fairly well, with the rest of the field quite diverse as expected with innovative and exciting decklists such as Abzan Tokens, Grixis Control and tribal strategies with Dinosaurs and Vampires.

With 4 Wins and 1 Loss, we think although we did well, we realise that there were a number of critical 'top decks' which helped push Black White Vampires through the field.  Instead of going through the decklist we used (it has already had a few minor amendments for next weekend), we should cover the core basics of the list as well as notes of some cards which had performed very well during the games.

The Buff
Legion Lieutant, Metallic Mimic and Radiant Desitiny all had a full four copies to buff the vampire team.  The Radiant Destiny anthem effect worked well and did produce the extra bonus of delivering vigilance (Ascend / City's Blessing).

The Ping
Both Vicious Conquistador and Sanctum Seeker's ability to deal non-combat damage to a player should not be underestimated.  We had anticipated Seeker's double-black casting cost to be awkward in a list which is around 60% white spells, but Unclaimed Territory (naming vampires) went a long way to smooth this out.

Honourable Mentions
What we had thought worked quite favourably.  Dusk Legion Zealot was great for card advantage which is critical when most of your creatures are low to the ground.  Legion's Landing is necessary later game to create a vampire token which typically hit the game table buffed.  Duskborne Skymarcher provided a solid creature, often buffed to get in some evasive damage.  Gifted Aetherborn also did some leg-work which forced opponents to think twice about attacking.  Dusk // Dawn reset the board, often with our own pumped creatures hitting the graveyard, but the Aftermath ability rapidly replaced board presence.

Should you be thinking about a post Rivals of Ixalan vampire tribal list, we will suggest you may be well served in reading ChannelFireball's article, Vampires with Rivals of Ixalan By Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, which supplied us with motivation in starting with this tribe.

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Rivals of Ixalan Release

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

The latest Magic: the Gathering set, Rivals of Ixalan releases today, so get thee out to your local gaming store and dive into the new set this evening.  

Although we had a few iterations of an Energy decklist, we really will not be complaining loudly about the recent banning.  We had been waiting for Rivals of Ixalan to release and complete the full tribal theme of Ixalan block.  With Energy in the picture, exploring some great new deck ideas personally curtailed us as we knew what the best list in standard constructed was.  

Where to go ?  Everywhere we think - the MTG Realm play group want to have at least one of each tribe.  

Dinosaurs already had a fairly solid shell in Ixalan and Rivals is bringing new power to the table.  Whether it is naya or gruul, expect big monsters.  We think Boros may be the more popular option.

Pirates have a large number of strategies whether it is midrange / aggro, tempo, or focusing on an ability such as flying (Favorable Winds).  This is one tribe which may not produce a popular tribal decklist due to the options.

Merfolk seem, from gamers we've been talking to, as the more popular tribe to build with.  Whether it is with the +1/+1 counter theme, aggro or go-wide, the best path forward will be determined in short order.

Vampires have a lot of potential as well and a number of very interesting builds have been suggested.  Personally, our first dip of the toe into this new standard is with a mono white vampire build with Oketra's Monument.

Anywhoos, get ready, set, and build.

For now, here are some sensible chuckles from our MTG Realm page on Tumblr - http://mtg-realm.tumblr.com/
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Rivals of Ixalan Standard

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

This weekend is the much anticipated Magic: the Gathering PreRelease for the newest set, Rivals of Ixalan.  The best way to enjoy this cold 'n' icy weekend if you find yourself in Barrie, Ontario (an hour north of Toronto) is to attend one of many scheduled Ixalan PreRelease events over the course of the weekend at OMG! Games, conveniently located off Highway 400, near Georgian College in the City's North end.  If you are just getting into MTG and wish to learn more about PreRelease events, click on over to this informative Wizards of the Coast page here. 

A number of Players that we have been talking to recently have expressed a dissatisfaction with the current dominance of (Kaladesh block) Energy decklists and are looking forward not only to the upcoming new set but anticipating possible ban / restriction announcements anticipated on Monday 15th January.

Whatever does happen, we are still very much looking forward to a number of cards in this set to complete and enhance tribal strategies.  As always, we love to see what the professional players are thinking, an to this end, pop on over to this link for the full HareruyaWayfinder "Rivals of Ixalan" edition from Kenji Tsumura and associates.  Hareuya has been doing this for some time now, and we do look very much forward to seeing their innovative and creative take on the new standard game.

Deck 1 "RW Metzali" by Yoshihiko Ikawa

Deck 2 "RB Pirates" by Pierre Dagen

Deck 3 "UW Control" by Christian Calcano

Deck 4 "UG Merfolks" by Martin Muller

Deck 5 "RG Dinosaurs" by Grzegorz Kowalsk

Deck 6 "Blue Aura" by Atsushi Ito

Deck 7 "Sultai Energy" by Oliver Polak-Rottmann

Deck 8 "GW Ghalta!" by Yuuta Takahashi

Deck 9 "UR Pirates" by Kenta Harane

Deck 10 "Vampire's Monument" by Petr Sochurek

Deck 11 "Jeskai's Gateway" by Kenji Tsumura

Deck 12 "Mardu Aura" by Tomoharu Saito

Deck 13 "Ascending Vampires" by Marc Tobiasch


Deck 14 "Blood Stompy" (Legacy) by Javier Dominguez

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Ixalan Commander Overview

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

When we are not getting crushed by standard constructed, we enjoy Commander at the Kitchen Table.  As always, there are three or four of the MTG Realm playgroup slinging that carboard from the tall stacks so we have decided to deliver our thoughts on some of the new potential Commanders from Ixalan which the group is excited about.  

Here is a quick re-cap of the available legendary creatures which are available as your Commander - in order of our personal favourite to least -

Gishath, Sun's Avatar 
Naya Tribal Dinosaur for the win!  Not a very complex build as one is using pretty much all the dinosaurs offered in Ixalan, and there are just enough to fill the ranks.  Beyond that set, use available in-colour Shapeshifters such as Chameleon Colossus, Mirror Entity, Adaptive Automoton and Metallic Mimic.

Admiral Beckett Brass
Grixis Tribal Pirate build.  Similar to Gishath, the lion's share of the creatures are coming from Ixalan, so not that much critical thought is required to get a working prototype off the ground.  Don't overlook to add some flavour with Pirate Ship (Time Spiral).

Tishana, Voice of Thunder
Simic Tribal Merfolk may be a bit of a stretch here but players who are using Thrasios, Triton Hero (from Commander 2016) may disagree.  The more popular choice here may be a simple blue / green shell for ramping into monsters while introducing an element of classic control

Kopala, Warden of Waves
There are around a dozen rather good legendary merfolk creatures already of which are really only two which are suitable should you want to task your list to merfolk tribal. There is already Sygg, River Guide in blue / white so we feel that Kopala is best placed in riding shotgun with Sygg.

Vona, Butcher of Magan
Pretty neato as Commander in the right lifegain theme build as one would expect to have an ample volume of life to spend on Vona's ability to nerf non-land permanents.  Certainly not suited for a vampire tribal Commander in our opinion so we suggest sliding this in to an existing vampire-centric list such as Edgar Markov (Commander 2017).

Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
Not suitable as a Commander.  There are simply not enough white suck-heads printed to support this.  Again, look for a spot to support vampire-centric list.

Captain Lannery Storm - See Admiral Beckett Brass, as we do not think that is likely a good Commander.

Supporting cards for Ixalan Tribal
Vanquisher's Banner, Unclaimed Territory, and Pillar of Origins are all solid choices to either assist in fixing your colours or providing an anthem effect to pump your team.  Do try out similar card to support your tribe such as Door of Destinies.

Another note -

Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun is the cat's meow.  Any creature-heavy list looking for ramp will love to have this gem.

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Ixalan Tribal

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

There are a number of new (and one previously spoiled / now officially confirmed) Ixalan cards out today.  Before we get into into it, here is a brief summary of all the new Magic: the Gathering cards to be released into the wild at month's end.

Adanto Vanguard
Captivating Crew
Charging Monstrosaur
Dire Fleet Ravager (confirmed)
Imperial Lancer
Makeshift Munitions
River Sneak
Vicious Conquistador

Righto, if you've been following the MTG Realm blog for a good stretch, you will most likely know we have a thingy for Tribal.  This fondness may be a function of just when we came into the game - Lorwyn - a block which most definitively tribal in nature.  

We also do not count ourselves among good standard deck-builders and we admit that often we take an easy path by choosing a tribal 'Lord'.  Specifically a card which provides an advantage to playing with the same creature type.  Often this is basically a simple buff to power and toughness.

In the upcoming set Ixalan there are the four following 'tribes' - 

• Pirates (blue-black-red)

• Dinosaurs (red-green-white)

• Vampires (white-black)

• Merfolk (green-blue)

To date with just over half of the Ixalan set now revealed, there only appears to be two conventional 'Lords' as well as a handful of other cards lending some synergy to a creature type.  The following Ixalan tribes have a conventional Lord -

• Dinosaurs - Thundering Spineback - Other Dinosaurs you control get +1/+1.

• Pirates - Admiral Beckett Brass - Other Pirates you control get +1/+1.

Not to fear however.  Should you wander down the tribal path in the new standard constructed format, you will be very well served in securing copies of the following cards - 

• Arcane Adaptation - All will be one.  This enchantment is a great equalizer.

• Pillar of Origins - Mana rock to play any colour for the chosen creature type.

• Vanquisher's Banner - Buff's P/T as will as given you a card draw - damn good.

• Unclaimed Territory - same as the pillar, but in Land form.

We are certainly excited about taking tribal for a spin in this set and are hoping for additional support cards forthcoming this week.  We suggest that you may wish to Sam Stoddard's article today on the mothersite 'Developing a Tribal Set' to receive a better appreciation of some of the tricky and strategic work that Wizards of the Coast does to make tribal work in balanced and engaging game environment.

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Commander 2017 Spoilers

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

A lot of our local friends here in Barrie, Ontario will be heading down to Toronto (about an hour's drive south) for the Toronto Grand Prix event.  There may be a fewer attending our local gaming store, OMG! Games, but we suspect the competetion will still be fierce to battle our way into Top 8.  

Anywhoos, we want to yatter a bit about the upcoming Commander 2017.  During any given Friday at the local store, the number of Magic: the Gathering players are roughly split down the middle, with half the gamers playing Commander and the other half playing Standard.  There has been quite a lot of speculation after Wizards of the Coast announced that this year's Commander product is to be Tribal themed.  The discussion hit high frenzy yesterday after WotC had updated their Commander 2017 product page with the following images - 

Speculation - 5-Colour Dragons

Speculation - Mardu (Black / Red) Vampires

Possibly Edgar Markov or Runo Stromkirk?

Speculation - Selesnya (Green / White) Cats

Speculation - Orzhov (Black / White) Clerics or Humans?

Righto - Here is handy information you may need to know.

Commander returns with four new tribal-themed, 100-card decks, featuring 56 all-new Magic cards legal in Eternal formats (Vintage and Legacy). Cards from Commander (2017 Edition) will be featured and distributed in connection with a future offering on Magic Online.

Set Name: Commander (2017 Edition)
Number of Cards: Four 100-card decks, a total of 56 new cards across all decks

Contents: Each deck contains a ready-to-play 100-card Commander deck including never-before-printed Magic cards.

Release Date: August 25, 2017
Official Three-Letter Code: C17
Twitter Hashtag: #MTGC17
Languages Available: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish
MSRP: $34.99 (per deck) *Applies to U.S. Only
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Post FRF Warriors

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

As promised yesterday over on MTG Realm on Tumblr, we will be dropping a post regarding our thoughts for standard format Black / White Warriors.  

If you've been reading the MTG Realm blog for any length of time (apologies to you), you'll know that we have a thingy for weenie and token strategies.  There is nothing quite as satisfying than emptying your hand of low costing critters (sometimes with a pump spell), and turning cards sideways.  One of the very fist decklists we developed was the rather obvious 'build around' pair of 'Chief of the Edge' and 'Chief of the Scale' (the 'Chieves') from Khans of Tarkir.  Unfortunately, we scrapped this not long after in favour of Abzan Midrange and latter, Mardu Tokens.  You can see our article on this from November right here.

We thought that there would be no further goodies in the next set for our original list - second sets sometimes suck lemons - but we were pleasantly surprised.  Fast forward to Fate Reforged previews when Mardu Strike Leader and Brutal Hordechief were previewed.  Yep - we were estatic and wanted to revisit this 'tribe'.  First, let's have a looky-loo at a list :

Orzhov Warriors - Work in Progress by MTG Realm

30 Creatures
4x Mardu woe-Reaper
4x Bloodsoaked Champion
4x Tormented Hero
4x Mardu Shadowspear
4x Battle Brawler
4x Chief of the Edge
4x Mardu Strike Leader
2x Brutal Hordechief

9 Other Spells
3x Bile Blight
3x Pharika's Cure
2x Valorous Stance
1x Return to the Ranks

Strategy
This particular strategy is all about dropping as many early beaters as possible (there are 16 x 1-cmc creatures) to achieve an early game win.  In game two, carefully considered cards in the sideboard are brought in to provide an element of control while attempting to wrap up the game no later than turn five.

The sixteen cards with one converted mana cost are all 2/1, or theoretically a 2/1 in the case of Mardu Shadowspear.  Mardu Woe-Reaper is good against recursion / Whip decklists, and Bloodsoaked will typically always have 'raid' bring it back to the battlefield.

The 2-cmc cards are a bookset of Chief of the Edge (solid 'tribal' pump) and Battlebrawler, which in most games we've tested so far has typically been a 3/2 first striker.

A deckset of Mardu Strike Leader occupies the three slot.  Dropping 2/1 Warrior tokens  is neveer a bad thing - especially when they are potentially 3/1 with Edge Chief. 

Only two Brutal Hordefhief round out the creature side of the list and is meant to provide a route to push the last bit of damage through with either it's static ability or activated one.

For non-creature spells, we've packed light as to not dilute the strategy.  There are 3 Biles and 3 Cures in this list all very relevant to today's metagame where we see loads of goblin tokens (from Goblin Rabblemaster and Hordeling Outburst) as well as Manifest / Morph creatures.

A pair of Valrous Stance is our parachute if the game goes sideways and  one copy of Return to the Ranks serves as our reserve chute to get all our dudes back in the game.

Some Notes
There are a long list of cards we really, really want in this list like Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Mardu Ascendancy, Abzan Ascendancy, Obelisk of Urd, Athreos, God of Passage, Brimaz, etc. - the list goes on.  We cannot take these on, no matter how much we want to, so that our primary stategy is not diluted and our game one is slowed down.

Sideboard
As we've mentioned, this is still a work in progress.  Some considerations we've be having for sideboard includes, but is not limited to, Utter End, Thoughseize, Merciless Executioner, Hero's Downfall, Boon of Erebos, Drown in Sorrow, Sign in Blood, Read the Bones, etc.  All these will have to be considered against what decklists are posting good results in our neighbourhood.


That's it for now, Happy Brewing everyone !  
We'll update you as to how we did at next Friday Night Magic at our local gaming store OMG! Games, here in Barrie.
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Lord of War

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  One of the first first new standard format decks we had derp'd out with after Khans of Tarkir came out was a Black / White Warrior build featuring Chief of the Edge and Chief of the Scale which we pre-ordered from MTG Mint Card the day it was previewed.  We kinda have a thingy for these sorts of pump and 'Lord' effects and think perhaps it was mainly due to the timing of when we first experienced Magic: the Gathering - Lorwyn block - a block with a heavily featured tribal theme.  This was a theme which made it a bit easy for novices like us to start deck-building.  We had a lot of fun with changelings as well.  The 'Lord' moniker was provided perhaps from Lord of Atlantis from Alpha which also had Goblin King and Zombie Master.

The very next and natural progression for us was to continue along creature-based strategies using 'lords'.  A lord essentially is any other permanent, very often a creature, which granted a bonus, most often in increased power and / or toughness to the same creature type.  We had Faerie deck lists with Scion of Oona, Goblin builds with Mad Auntie, Fish tech with Merrow Reejerey, etc., ad nauseam.  We think we even had a list for each of the Lieges in Shadowmoor as well which were 'colour lords' - a boost to any of your creatures with the stated colour.  Latter on in our our MTG journey, things got really interesting with other not-so-typical Lords such as 'keyword' lords like Hand of the Praetors, or other 'selectable' lords like Adaptive Automaton.  The horizon stretched very far indeed.  One of our most favourite recent builds was one which featured a nut-ton of token generators and Intangible Virtue.

For and interesting article on the mothersite from MaRo, you should check out 'Lord of Things' (from back in 2012).  If you are contemplating a starting point in building a Commander list and just cannot decide on a Commander (General), you may be well served working backwards from creature, keyword, or colour lords.  Back in 2012, Channel Fireball did a cool 'Top 8' or best 8 MTG Lords - 

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

 
For some lulz, we will leave off with two 'Un-Lords' - Chicken a la King which gives Chickens a +1/+1 counter whenever a 6 is rolled on a 6-sided die, and the unforgettable Assquatch, which pumps your donkey's power / toughness by +1½.

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