Naya Collar

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Happy Friday MTG fans,

As this is Friday, and many of you are heading out to your local gamery store latter this evening to partake in Friday Night Magic (location / details HERE on the Wizards site), this may be a good time to take the tarp off what I think I will be running tonight - friends at my store please do not look lest you start side-boarding before we even sit down to do battle.

Righty - here is the casual Magic deck we have to date and will likely be modifying after some playingtesting at FNM tonight - please have a look at what we'll call Naya Collar for now . . .


Apocalypse Hydra
Prodigal Pyromancer
Woolly Thoctar
Cunning Sparkmage
Stoneforge Mystic
Druid of the Anima
Birds of Paradise
Wild Nactl
Whispersilk Cloak
Quietus Spike
Gorgan Flail
Basilisk Collar
Jungle Shrine
Forest
Mountain
Plains

One of our fav new cards will have to be Stoneforge Mystic, followed by Basilisk Collar . . . do you see where this is going ? - yep - straight to Timmy-Land. Prodigal Pyromancer and Cunning Sparkmage are both perfect for this - being able to sling a point of deathtouch over the battlefield at a board threat without committing to a combat stage is rather nice. As these two cards also can poke your opponent for one as well, we had decided to include Quietus Spike to knock down their life a large chunk at a time (about 50% + 1 point by our estimates). :-)

Another (perhaps odd) inclusion is Apocalypse Hydra. We thought somewhat apropos as this provides late game options - either a fatty or to give your arsenal an extra timmy ability. Again, we will have to wait to see how well this may work against the local meta-game.

Woolly Thoctar is big, furry and cute and a perfect three drop threat - no opponent is really evar excited to see a 5/4 beasty on turn two or three. Turn two you ask - why yes - with our mana accelerating Birds of Paradise (and Druid of the Anima), we hope to set ourselves up ahead of the game and ready ourselves for some whopping. We will report back on the MTG / FNM twitter hash-taggy.


Anywhoos - please provide your suggestions as what to keep and drop - we REALLY DO value your opinion and read through all your eMails and comments and take them under serious advisement.

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Next Up - total randomness again . . .

Recall our saying that Mr. Woolly Thoctar is big, furry and cute ? Today at work was show and tell. A fellow Officer popped into our office with a Fisher which had been found unfortunately expired beside a road. As this is the first time we've seen one, we took an interest . . .

From the Wiki - The fisher (Martes pennanti), also referred to as fisher cat, is a medium-sized mammal native to North America. Fishers are widespread throughout the temperate regions of North America.

Recent studies, as well as anecdotal evidence, suggest that the highly adaptable fishers have begun making inroads into suburban backyards, farmland, and even semi-urban areas.

Anywhoos - yet another request Wizards - can we see another badger like critter in the next set ? We love 'em Badgers, Badgers, Badgers.
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Planted Green

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Good Day folks,

With all the awesome cards we are expecting in the very next set, Rise of the Eldrazi, we figured we would do a revisit and re-tweak of some of the casual decks with the notion to put up some sort of defence against Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and the like.


To this end, this particular deck we scrapped together was rather big on the fun factor at the kitchen table and we encourage you to assist us in some of the slot choice.

Let's have a look - here is Planted Green . . .

Avenger of Zendikar
Eldrazi Monument
Mycoloth
Leatherback Baloth
Snapping Creeper
Deadly Recluse
Elvish Visionary
Canopy Cover
Vines of the Vastwood
Arbour Elf
Llanowar Elves
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Khalani Garden
Tectonic Edge
Forest
















We were actually rather impressed with Lawnmower Man V2.0, Arbour Elf. Together with the ubiquitous Llanowar Elves, we had found that we could mana accelerate ahead of our opponents to our deck's punch-line, Avenger of Zendikar and Mycoloth.


And of course Eldrazi Monument is without doubt, the bee's knees. This allowed all our our Plant and Saproling tokens to become a deadly airborne cloud.

Some protection is afforded through Canopy Cover and Vines of the Vastwood which on more than one occasion frustrated the heck out of our opponents. These of course are the go-to cards for green decks who are lacking any white protection a la Brave the Elements or Sejiri Steppe, etc.

Finally, we were rather pleased with how Deadly Recluse worked for us during play - a death-touch critter with reach really does provide a level of threat on the board which will make your opponent think twice before swinging.

That's it for now but please fire off your comments for improvement - we are still looking for something better to replace Snapping Creeper.

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FNM RoundUp 1-15

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Hello again wise and generous blog MTG Realm fans. Today we need your assistance with yet another casual standard constructed deck.

As our local meta-game dictates, one has to either play Jund or play something that is able to win against Jund. To this end, we put together a modified 'Spreading Seas' deck to disrupt the opponent's mana base. Just in case we went up against someone not playing Jund, we included a deckset of Convincing Mirage and a bunch of other stuff like additional Journey to Nowhere, Pacifism, etc., we thought was good at the time.


4 x Spreading Seas
3 x Into the Roil
4 x Path to Exile
2 x Pacifism
2 x Journey to Nowhere
2 x Luminarch Ascension
4 x Oblivion Ring
3 x Mesa Enchantress
4 x Wall of Denial
4 x Sigil of the Empty Throne
2 x Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 x Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 x Open the Vaults

4 x Seaside Citadel
4 x Terramorphic Expanse
8 x Island
8 x Plains

Match One : Realm Razer

Game One - Totally creamed my oponent by denying him the right coloured mana he needed.
Game Two - Crappy Draws, lost tempo and lost game.
Game Three - A very close game - it all came down to one turn really.

Match Two : Red Burn

Game One - whaa happened ?! - dead before I knew it.
Game Two - Repeat of Game One but this time with more pain - thanks - we hurt all over.

Match Three : Blue Control

Game One - Easily won with a half-dozen Angle tokens out.
Game Two - Another easy win - more Angel token goodness.

Anywhoos, we think that we may be on the right track but just need to get this thing tweaked a bit more - so - help us out and drop in a comment please.

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Speaking of Friday Night Magic, we will be making a gruelling three hour trip to London across the frozen wastelands of Ontario to take in an FNM at World's Away. If you happen to be thinking of going, look for us - we will be the one's kicking butt and taking names. Here's the 4.1.1 for Brad's cool shop.

Worlds Away
Phone: (519) 433-1267
666 Dundas St
London, Ontario, Canada, N5W 2Y8

"The home of Friday Night Magic."
FNM : 5:30 p.m. Friday - free to play and prizes to be had.

Hours :
Monday and Tuesday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
Wednesday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
Thursday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.,
Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.,
Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.

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What I'm Playing 9

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Good Day my Peeps and welcome to another post as to what we're playing (Magic the Gathering of course!). We've moved along from our recent 'Sneak Kor' deck (post HERE) as it was rife with issues. We hope to revisit this build after further support (hopefully) is found in the next Zendikar expansions of Worldwake and / or Rise of the Eldrazi is released.


Anywhoos - the particular itch we had to scritch involved employing the power found in the cards Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, and Sigil Captain. Both these cards would love to dump extra counters on critters as they come into play. Specifically, Oran-Rief will drop one extra counter on EACH green creature which entered the battlefield and Sigil Captain will grant TWO additional counters for each 1/1 critter which entered play. With the right token producers and the correct planets aligned, the player would be able to puke out vast numbers of 4/4 Insect or Saproling creature tokens to outpace Rampaging Baloths or just simply overwhelm an opponent.






















Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's have a look at the build so far . . . remember that this is a casual deck that does not want to go anywhere but on the kitchen table or an FNM and more importantly, the 'fun' factor was at a satisfactory level.

Rief Captain

Creatures [25]
4 x Birds of Paradise,
4 x Tukatongue Thallid,
4 x Steward of Valeron,
3 x Dauntless Escort, 1
4 x Sigil Captain, 1
4 x Mycoloth, 3
2 x Ant Queen, 3

Other Spells [15]
3 x Path to Exile,
4 x Behemoth Sledge, 1
3 x Oblivion Ring, 2
2 x Elspeth, Knight-Errant, 2
3 x Martial Coup, X

Land [20]
4 x Oran Rief, the Vastwood
2 x Sunpetal Grove (cuz we only have two!)
7 x Forest
7 x Plains
(EDIT - there is 20 lands)
You will immediately note that there is only 20 Lands in the deck. We have not had an issue with manascrew yet in playtesting. What really helps is the 8 mana-accelerators in place with Birds and Steward. We have on several occassions dropped the Mycoloth on turn three which speaks onto the tempo of this build.


We have an issue with Tukatongue Thalid. Sure this this is fairly economical by providing two 1/1 critters for just one green mana, and it does reap the benefits of the Captain and Vastwood but we have a feeling we may be better served by something else in this slot. Send us your suggestions please.

Dauntless Escort is good economy (a 3/3 for 3 mana) and goes hand in hand with Martial Coup just like Spongebob and Patrick. We have yet to witness this combo go off in playtesting as we have usually won the game before we needed it (really, really), but we're cetain it is sound.

Now - the to the coda / finale of this opus in G () major . . . The most lovely synergy of Sigil Captain / Oran Rief, the Vastwood with the token producers Mycoloth and Ant Queen.


For 5 mana, you get a 4/4 Mycoloth with Devour 2 - which means for every creature you sac, this big Fungus comes into play with twice that many counters. We recall one particular game during playtesting that on turn five, we were swinging with a 10/10 Mycoloth which also happened to have a Behemoth Sledge attached to it. A 12/12 lifelinking trampler is rather a beautiful thing to behold in action.

We found that with the level of mana production available to us in this build, we required a safety valve come mid to late game. One should always attempt to avoid untapped mana (unless of course you are running counterspells or other strategic instants). The answer for this was found in Ant Queen, which not only takes advantage of the Captain / Vastwood synergy but also presented a convenient place to dump extra mana to generate additional tokens.

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Our Play-Testing results . . .

The deck performed very well against a variety of builds. We played against a mono-black Vampire deck, a Zendikar Ally deck, and an Esper Artifact / Control deck.

Very fortunate for us our opponent who was playing the Vamp deck did not get the opportunity to play Blood Seeker which certainly would have had a very adverse effect upon our life total given all the tokens we were throwing out on the table.

For the multiple matches we had against each of these decks, it appeared that the winning condition resided quite solidly in our ability to outpace the opponent and drop more creatures than they.

Even with removal of one of the token producers (Mycoloth / Ant Queen), there was either another one just around the corner or the tokens produced before removal was good enough to win the game. In one interesting game, we had our token engine removed but still had a handfull 4/4 Insect or Saproling creature tokens, one of which had the Behemoth Sledge equipped to still win the game. An Ant with a hammer is just plain funny.

Well, drop us a line and suggest some improvements to make this build either more effective or fun. Also - we are going to need some help generating a side-board with this.

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