Laharl’s Magic Supplement: March Welcome all to Laharl’s Magic supplement! Your monthly insight to the fascinating and somewhat obsessive world of Magic: The Gathering. Everything will be covered, information for pros and new players alike, the nastiest combos and the strongest decks for the smallest investment. An explanation is order to the different parts of the article, so here it is: Hot Topic-A discussion of an interesting topic within the game Advice- Help and tips for new players What’s new in tourneyville?- The current strongest decks on the tournament circuit Combolicious- Your monthly evil combo, guaranteed to win you games Deckframe- A structure for a particular type of deck, with its strengths and weaknesses Building on a Budget- Build a powerful deck for a tiny amount of cash Blast from the Past- Reflecting on a super powerful card from Magic’s early days Card of the Month- My personal favourite card for the month and a deck based that uses it. Learn Magic Terminology!- Get up to date with Magic’s own language Hot Topic: Is Magic broken? The place to start is description of what a broken card is, basically something that is way too powerful usually due to a combination of low/fair mana cost for a ridiculous effect, such as Skullclamp or Umezawa’s Jitte, cards like Myojin of Night’s Reach have very powerful effects but let down by high mana costs and no card efficiency whatsoever, you may moan about them but you know their fair in the end. The answer to that question has once again been thrown into doubt with the release of the ravnica block, most of the set is harmless yet a few cards have already come under scrutiny, Glare of Subdual is put simply ridiculous, link it with that constantly generates creature tokens like Ghitu-Vazi, the Tree City or Selesyna Guildmage and your opponent is pretty much doomed. Admittedly, it is an improvement on Opposition, the ability to tap lands has been removed and the card is two colours, making it more difficult to splash into a deck. However the Glare is in a token rich environment whilst Opposition only really had Squirrel Nest to combo with, but did have access to blue’s control spells. Next on the broken list is Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind a card that is just about acceptable in Standard despite the devastation it causes with cards like Mindmoil, Teferi’s Puzzle Box and Howling Mine. The high mana cost and double colour make it fair, however take him out of standard and bad things happen, especially with cards like Curiosity and Sleeper’s Robe. Lastly in Ravnica block is what I think Wizard’s biggest cock up since Betrayers of Kamigawa, the horrific Leylines. Ignoring the red the other four are devastatingly powerful, let’s start with the white one, Leyline of the Meek, creature tokens get +1/+1 a ridiculous effect to start the game with, playing Fists of Ironwood will now give enchanted creature and trample plus 2 2/2 creatures for 2 mana! Next is blue, Leyline of Singularity, nonland permanents are legendary, again stupid swarm decks have just lost there principle way to victory; their numbers! This one is particularly nasty as you can play it properly for a kind of Wrath of God effect depending on what’s on the board. Black is possibly the nastiest of them all, Leyline of the Void, whenever a permanent would be put into an opponents graveyard, remove it from the game instead, this is just nasty, reanimator decks just died, so did Dredge decks and so did Psychatog decks. Glimpse the Unthinkable anyone? Lastly is the green, Leyline of Lifeforce, creature spells can’t be countered, green might have actually pulled one over on it’s nemesis Blue, when you consider it starts in play so it can’t be countered a lot of the blue cards are now useless. The glaring error I see with these leylines is the lack of restriction; you can put the green leyline in a mono- red deck and provided it’s in your starting hand then that’s fine. The simple answer is to simply put more Naturalize in your decks, something that should already be there to deal with Enchantment/Artifact heavy format at the moment, you should already have to deal with cards like Glare of Subdual, Heartbeat of Spring, Concerted Effort, Underworld Dreams, Sunforger and Umezawa’s Jitte. All this said Wizard’s have mostly got it right with Ravnica block (so far) and the majority of the cards are fun and nowhere near broken. Take a walk back in Magic history and you can see Wizards have had a few ‘accidents’, at least one per block usually, Kamigawa block was Umezawa’s Jitte, a terribly powerful equipment that gave abilities to colours that the colour shouldn’t have, e.g. creature removal for green. Mirrodin block was littered with broken cards, mostly notably with Skullclamp, which turns any of your 1- toughness minions into 2 cards for 1 mana! Onslaught block had Mind’s Desire which is banned in most formats but I’m not sure why. Odyssey block had Psychatog, supposedly one of the most powerful creatures ever printed, capable of the infamous combo with Upheaval, the ‘tog has found a new friend in dredge. Although these cards are uber-powerful it is easy to forget they make up about 1% of the cards from these blocks and with a carefree playgroup or effective banning, these cards shouldn’t prove too much of a problem. Advice: Getting Started Now you’re probably aware how engaging a past time Magic the Gathering can be and probably how it can devour your bank balance. There are few rules to follow if you want to play seriously without spending a fortune. Firstly find a set you like and a theme of that set you like, purchase the Theme deck you want, for example if you want an Izzet deck buy the ‘Izzet Gizmometry’ theme deck for around 7 pounds, then purchase the Fat Pack of that set, not only should it give you cards for your kind of deck, it will give you cards your friends want, so you can trade. You also get a full card Encyclopaedia, a novel and life counter. Not bad for twenty pound. Now you’ve got your Encyclopaedia use it to find the cards you would like for your deck, then instead of buying booster packs, go to a card selling website such as www.psi-soft.co.uk and order the individual you want, don’t be put off by seemingly expensive prices, for example Kokusho, the Evening Star would cost you around 9 pounds, whereas you get him in one booster or you couldn’t get him in one hundred boosters. Online ordering is the easy way to get the exact cards you need. When building decks of a theme try to keep to that theme, for example a Bloodstoke Howler does not belong in a goblin deck like a Goblin King does not belong in a beast deck. The same goes for spells, do not put Glorious Anthem in a deck with few creatures, likewise do not put Wrath of God in a swarm deck (unless you have a specific plan for it e.g. Ghostway). Next is the golden rule of Magic: Quadding up. If you have a Counterspell, Rewind, Mana Leak and a Circular Logic each in your deck as it’s countermagic try to pick one and use four copies of it, which will usually be Counterspell, only using Mana Leak in a standard deck and only using Circular Logic in a Madness/Threshold deck. The same goes for creatures, if you have a green fatty deck and your finishers are a single copy of Thorn Elemental, Rhox, Force of Nature and Primeval Force, then you should choose one and use it four times in this case Thorn Element or Rhox depending on the opponent. Although quadding up does leave you vulnerable to spells like Cranial Extraction and Lobotomy, the benefits far outweigh such risks, you deck will be most of all, consistent, the most important thing for a deck in Magic the Gathering. What’s new in tourneyville?: Owling Mine Owling Mine decks use Howling Mine and Ebony Owl Netsuke to fill the opponents hand and punish them for it. It is a sort of revival of an old kind of deck that used the same format, just using Black Vise to deal damage. These decks are pretty risky as a full hand could hold lots of unpleasant surprises so the decks are usually based in blue to ‘encourage’ card drawing and to use Counter and Bounce magic to deal with any threats. This deck is especially effective against decks from the Saviours of Kamigawa set which like having a large hand, making it effective against pretty much every control deck. Underworld Dreams is even more potent in this kind of deck, encouraging black splash. Few creatures are needed in an Owling Mine deck, although that force people to draw cards like Seizan, perverter of Truth and Lore Broker are very effective. The alternative to splashing Black, is to splash red and use cards like Pyroclasm to kill your opponents creatures and cards like to Sudden Impact to further punish your opponents large hand. This kind of deck did surprisingly well at the latest Pro- Tour event in Honolulu, here’s the deck list of the highest finisher: Land 4 Shivan Reef 4 Steam Vents 11 Island 1 Mountain 2 Mikokoro, Centre of the Sea Creatures 4 Kami of the Crescent Moon Spells 4 Eye of Nowhere 4 Boomerang 4 Ebony Owl Netsuke 4 Sudden Impact 4 Remand 4 Gigadrowse 4 Exhaustion 4 Howling Mine 2 Pyroclasm Sideboard 1 Evacuation 2 Goblin Flectomancer 2 Twincast 2 Pyroclasm 4 Gaze of Adamaro 4 Cerebral Vortex Combolicious: Izzet Guildmage+Lava Spike+Desperate Ritual Izzet Guildmage+Lava Spike+Desperate Ritual. Doesn’t look much does it? Yet with a little stack manipulation, this turns into a lethal 6 mana infinite damage combo, which is sending shockwaves through the Magic world. To pull it off you need an Izzet Guildmage in play, and six untapped mana, three of which must be Red. Play Lava Spike and Splice Desperate Ritual onto it, this costs 3, then use the Guildmage to copy it. Now here’s the clever part, copying a spell copies all the Arcane’s spliced onto it without having to pay the splice cost again. So now you have a Lava Spike with a Desperate Ritual and a copy of it on the stack. Allow the copy to resolve, adding RRR to your mana pool and before the original can resolve use this mana to copy it again with Guildmage, repeat as many times as necessary. Now you’re asking how do I stop such a combo? Each colour has an answer fortunately; White can use cards like Faith’s Fetters and Arrest on the guildmage stopping it’s activated ability and cards like Ivory Mask prevent you being the target of it. Blue can use a counterspell on the first copy in the chain stooping it in its tracks or play the ever-useful Timestop. Black can use cards like Cranial Extraction to remove parts of the combo, or just place a death spell like Dark Banishing onto the stack in the same place Blue would put a counterspell. Red must do the same with a burn spell like Shock after the first copy. Green has the most difficulty a card like Lure can be used to make the guildmage block something much bigger than its self. Perhaps the best part of this combo is the availability of the cards, Lava Spike and Desperate Ritual are both commons from Champions of Kamigawa and the Izzet Guildmage is an uncommon from Guildpact. Deckframe: Poisonbelly Ogre. Poisonbelly Ogre, a seemingly harmless common from Guildpact has some nasty combo potential. Cards that give opponents creature tokens like Forbidden Orchard and Hunted Phantasms give your opponents lot’s of creatures, hence they lose lot’s of life. Even better cards like Engineered Plague and Night of Souls' Betrayal kill all the tokens before they can even do anything! Poisonbelly Ogre also ‘deters’ your opponent from mass token spells like Saproling Symbosis and especially Storm Herd. To make a deck in this style you’ll need to get your Ogre out as quickly as possible, cards like Elvish Piper and Aetherplasm make this easier, also ways to drain even more of your opponents life will prove useful such as Undermine, Clutch of the Undercity and Underworld Dreams. This deck is best suited to fighting Selesyna tokens decks, which are already producing hordes of tokens. It will have difficulty with decks that can easily dispose of the ogre, such as Boros decks and decks with few creatures and countermagic, such as Magnivore decks. Not bad for a common that normally wouldn’t get a second look! Building on a Budget: Golgari Beatdown (Standard Legal) The mechanic of the Golgari is ‘dredge’ and although it is useful it is not massively important to this kind of deck, it can have uses. The first thing you’ll need for this is to establish a consistent, effective mana base. However you’re on a budget, which rules out most rares, say Birds of Paradise or Utopia Tree. Fear not, there are plenty of alternatives, try experimenting with Llanowar Elves, Elves of Deep Shadow, Farseek, Golgari Signet, Rampant Growth, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Kodama’s Reach, Civic Wayfinder; all of these are common. Now you’ve established you can concentrate on your creatures, which you’re going to have a lot of because it’s beatdown. Look for low costing efficient creatures such as Shambling Shell, Trained Armodon, Takenuma Bleeder and Greater Mossdog. You can also try low cost creatures that are hard to block or have powerful abilities such as Silhana Ledgewalker and Golgari Guildmage. You should also include a pretty big finisher: Golgari Rotwurm is perfect, not only is it a 5/4 for 5 mana it’s ability can finish off opponents stalling the game on low life. The next part is your other spells; a golgari beatdown needs a mixture of threat removal and spells that make your own creatures bigger, doing more damage. Threat removal is plentiful in standard at the moment; the best two on budget are probably Last Gasp and Putrefy. Other possibilities include Dark Banishing, Rend Flesh/Spirit, Kiku’s Shadow, Cruel Edict, Eradicate, Horobi’s Whisper, Darkblast, Brainspoil and Disembowel. Then there’s creature enhancement; Moldervine Cloak is an absolute must, it turns any creature into a potential game winner, other possibilities include Giant Growth, Gather Courage, Kodama’s Might, Strength of Cedars, Unchecked Growth and Roar of Jukai. There is also the slightly more unorthodox Vigor Mortis, which technically enhances the creature, it just needs to be dead first. The final part to the deck is the rares, there isn’t a lot available without having to pay a fortune, if use elves for your mana base and also use Silhana Ledgewalker and the guildmage, why not use Elvish Champion? And sticking the creature enhancement theme Might of Oaks is very cheap, a total surprise and very, very painful. Neither guildleader is particularly expensive, however Sisters of Stone Death fits much better into this kind of deck, whereas Savra goes better into a control deck. Here’s a deck I made for less than 10 pounds using the guidelines mentioned above: Budget Golgari Beatdown (Standard Type 2 65 cards) Mana (30) 11 Forest COMMON 9 Swamp COMMON 4 Llanowar Elves COMMON 4 Elves of Deep Shadow COMMON 2 Golgari Signet COMMON Creatures (13) 4 Shambling Shell COMMON 4 Silhana Ledgewalker COMMON 2 Takenuma Bleeder COMMON 2 Golgari Rotwurm COMMON 1 Sisters of Stone Death RARE Creature Removal(9) 4 Last Gasp COMMON 1 Putrefy UNCOMMON 2 Dark Banishing COMMON 2 Darkblast UNCOMMON Creature Enhancement (13) 4 Moldervine Cloak UNCOMMON 4 Giant Growth COMMON 1 Might of Oaks RARE 2 Vigor Mortis UNCOMMON 2 Elvish Champion RARE All you need to do is get a decent creature out and put Moldervine Cloak on it, and then proceed to beat the hell out of your opponent with it, Silhana Ledgewalker makes a good target because your opponents can’t target her but you can. Use your removal to kill enemy blockers and creature enhancement to rack up to damage, someone blow up your Moldervine Cloak? Not to worry, simply dredge it next turn and put it back on! Elvish Champion ensures other green decks don’t stand a chance thanks to the forestwalk. Blast from the Past: Time Walk Part of the Legendary P9 cycle from the early days of Magic, this beast is feared by all and players in Legacy and Vintage play are limited to a single copy of each of the P9 in there decks. At a mere two mana giving a ridiculous like taking an extra turn a card like this would never be printed in today’s format, although Wizard’s did try in Guildpact with Stitch in Time, this is a lot fairer, firstly it costs 3 mana and the players needs Red and Blue mana, then there is the coin flip element, cards that rely on coin flips are generally not very good. Wizards have attempted other TimeWalk clones, Odyssey had Time Stretch, which although it gave the player two extra turns it cost 10 mana! Later that block in Judgement Seedtime tried again, was Green and it cost 2 mana but you can only play it in your turn, further more an opponent must have played a blue spell that turn, making it much more difficult. Time Walk remains the king of the extra turn takers by a long way (excluding Time Vault, another of the P9). The sheer amount of turns the play got with this cards and combo it with other P9 cards like Black Lotus and your opponent doesn’t stand a chance. Card of the Month: Djinn Illuminatus Now this guy is one cool card, with it being a hybrid card he fits into Red decks and Blue decks, not to mention Blue/Red Izzet decks like he’s intended for. Get this guy on the board and thinks get interesting, in a mono-red deck, one Shock becomes seven! Likewise in a mono-blue deck one Unsummon becomes seven! Admittedly the djinn is fairly useless in Ravnica block as most things already have replicate or aren’t worth using in the first place, you could try replicating spells like Telling Time and Dogpile. However take the djinn out of block and the fun really begins, a simple Lava Spike becomes enough to kill most players, Red’s Land destruction becomes particularly nasty, Stone Rain and Pillage at least double in potency, also Blue’s countermagic can benefit from Replicate, this is only usually useful against copy effects like Replicate and Storm. Of course in you combine the colours you can create a rather evil land destruction deck. Try a deck like this: U/R Land Destruction (Standard Type 2 60 cards) Land (21) 10 Mountain 9 Island 2 Izzet Boilerworks Creatures (6) 4 Magnivore 2 Djinn Illuminatus Spells (33) 4 Stone Rain 4 Eye of Nowhere 4 Boomerang 3 Demolish 3 Annex 2 Confiscate 4 Pyroclasm 3 Sleight of Hand 2 Compulsive Research 4 Volcanic Hammer A simple theme to this deck. Simply stop your opponent playing things! If you go first play an island, let them have a turn they play a land, you play another land and play a Boomerang or Eye of Nowhere on one of their lands, then on your next turn destroy a land with Stone Rain. Your opponent will now be on turn 3 still with one land. The primary tool for victory in this deck is the Magnivore, who gets bigger with each Sorcery any player plays! Notice how your deck is full of sorcery spells to pump up your Magnivore(s). Bar the Magnivore and Djinn this deck is fairly cheap to order, try www.Psi-Soft.co.uk, the djinn is here to spoil your opponents fun if there is late game at all, Replicated Pyroclasms will wipe out your opponents forces, and Volcanic Hammers quickly reduce the life total of your opponent and in the late game your opponent does manage to get anything threatening out take it for yourself with Confiscate. Learn Magic Terminology!: Timmy’s broken Top Deck Broken: A term given to a card that is way too powerful for play and can be easily abused, quickly draining the fun out of the game e.g. Umezama’s Jitte, Skullclamp. Efficiency: An efficient creature is one that typically has power matching or exceeding it’s converted mana cost. Beatdown: A style of deck that focuses on pounding your opponent with efficient huge creatures. Standard: A magic format that only uses cards from the two latest blocks and the latest Core Set, so at the moment Standard consists of Champions of Kamigawa, Betrayers of Kamigawa, Saviours of Kamigawa, Ravnica: City of Guilds, Guildpact and 9th Edition. Bounce: A term given to effects that “return cards to their owners hand” Mulligan: If you are unhappy with your starting hand, you may mulligan, that is reshuffle your deck and draw one less card than your previous hand Top-Deck: A card you have drawn from the top of your library. Timmy: Refers to a player who is impressed by big stats and powerful effects regardless of any downfalls. Mana Lock: A term given to a complete lack of lands and mana, this is one of the most common factors that lead to defeat. Mana Flood: The opposite of Mana Lock, where you get far too much land and mana, it is preferable to Mana Lock but still not very useful.