Laharl’s Magic Supplement: April Welcome once again as another installment of Laharl’s Magic Supplement hits your screen. Yet more insights to the world of magic the gathering and remember Dissension pre-release tournaments will be held on the 22nd of April and the set it self is released 5th of May. Hot Topic: The rise of Dragons There has been a revival of late in the use of dragons in tournament decks. Most dragons are awesome but they’re not tournament material, THE red creature, Shivan Dragon sees very little play. Other cool dragons, Two-Headed, Kilnmouth and Crimson Hellkite see little or no play. This is because many dragons are viewed as Timmy cards, big numbers for a big mana cost, making them not very practical and many of them throw efficiency out of the window. There has always been one avenue for dragons to see tournament play; in a reanimator deck, in there the big mana cost is ignored as they are pulled out of the graveyard with a spell like Zombify. Still some dragons refuse to be playable, Dragon Tyrant has an anti-reanimator clause and Kilnmouth Dragon misses out on its amplify. On the other hand some dragons love to be reanimated, Rorix Bladewing and Bladewing the Risen are good choices. The Kamigawa dragons also make excellent choices. Invasion block was strong for dragons; there was Darigaaz, the Igniter, Crosis, the Purger, Treva, the Renewer, Rith, the Awakener, Dromar, the Banisher, Draco and Tek. Bar Tek, these dragons are absurdly powerful; yet Crosis was the only one who could see possible tournament play for reanimating then using his persecute style ability on your opponent. The others are strong yes but need at least 3 colours to function properly. 7th edition brought Shivan Dragon and Crimson Hellkite, neither saw any tournament play. Odyssey block was also pretty poor for dragons. Vampiric Dragon is fun to use and very powerful but it’s very expensive and not very practical, thus it saw no tournament play. The Judgement set brought some better luck, Fledgling Dragon was a solid choice for the then dominant Threshold deck, Worldgorger Dragon got itself banned in Legacy for a combo with Animate Dead but was fairly useless in Standard. Onslaught was the tribal block and unsurprisingly Dragons where one of the tribes used, although not as much as the others. Onslaught brought Rorix Bladewing, a very popular dragon both in and out of reanimator decks, the set also had the mighty Quicksilver Dragon, another solid dragon that saw play with Astral Slide decks alongside Exalted Angel. Legions had dragons that improved dragon decks, Imperial Hellkite could find other dragons if it survived that long, a very poor dragon that saw no play, whilst the Kilnmouth needed other dragons to be just horribly powerful, again not something for Standard. Then there is the crafty Mistform Ultimus who counts as a Dragon, along with every other creature type, useful for the Kilnmouth and not much else. Scourge brought one of the most popular dragons, which was suprisingly white in the form of Eternal Dragon, Plainscycling and near immortality made this a very popular choice, it was part the Worlds winning deck of the Onslaught/Mirrodin tournament dominated by Affinity. Scourge also had a huge amount of red dragons, Dragon Mage has a very powerful ability but it also saw very little play, Dragonspeaker Shaman was a way of making your dragons actually playable, Dragon Tyrant was complete overkill and has Timmy stamped all over it. 8th Edition retained Shivan Dragon and brought back Two-Headed Dragon from the Mercadian Masques block, again both saw little play. Mirrodin block was a bad time for dragons, Clockwork Dragon was awful and saw no play and the Furnace Dragon only saw play as a way to combat the Affinity decks that dominated the format. Kamigawa block is where the revival takes root; the five dragon legends of the Champions of Kamigawa see a lot of play in tournaments, whether it is Greater Gifts or W/B control the dragons are there. In particular, the white dragon; Yosei, the Morning the Star, the blue dragon; Keiga, the Tide Star and the black dragon; Kokusho, the Evening Star have seen a lot of use, however the other are not redundant, Jugan, the Rising Star is put simply the best Green flying creature ever printed and Ryusei, the Falling Star strikes fear into weenies everywhere. The Kamigawa make excellent reanimation choices because if you’re opponent kills them again (or you sacrifice them) there devastating put into graveyard from play effects happen again. Cheap reanimation like Goryo’s Vengeance and Footsteps of Goryo bring them back to play for a turn, with the vengeance a way of sacrificing is needed, 4 words, Miren, the Moaning Well. As these spells put the dragons back into your graveyard for you. 9th Edition has the usual Dragon lapse, retaining Shivan Dragon again, dropping the Two- Headed for Rathi Dragon, neither of which sees play. Ravnica block also has dragons that are being used in the standard format; Ravnica itself has the impressive Hunted Dragon, whose little friends can be dealt with by the use of Pyroclasm, or the Leyline of Singularity. Guildpact has the near broken Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, who is also a lot of play, and one to look out for the Rakdos Pit Dragon soon to be released in Dissension, is also looking near broken, it’s official dragons are back and they mean business! Advice: How to identify a good card There are three schools of thought for a magic player; these are Timmy, Johnny or Spike. These types affect a player’s ability to recognize top cards. Spikes are best at it and Johnnys are pretty much as good, it is the Timmys that struggle. Card efficiency is one of the most important aspects of Magic: The Gathering. A creature is considered efficient if its power is equal to or exceeds its mana cost, spells are more difficult, spells with effects larger than their mana cost such as Shock or Giant Growth are considered efficient. Other spells like Enchantments and Artifacts are more difficult to identify efficiency, common sense covers a lot of it. Mana costs are better the lower they are, for example Isamaru, Hound of Konda is considerably better than Scathe Zombies, the same stats, only Isamaru costs 2 less, 1 mana for a 2/2 is exceptional, whereas 3 mana for 2/2 is limited only at best. Next is Power and Toughness, of which power is much more important than toughness, does toughness kill you opponent? No. That is why a 2/1 Savannah Lions is rare whilst a 1/2 Nova Cleric is uncommon and the also ½ Norwood Ranger is common. Toughness is nice but not overly useful, 3 toughness is good to be out of Shock range, large and amounts of toughness and low amounts of power such as those found in Chorus of the Conclave are not good, easily earning the chorus the title of worst guildleader to date.  Which of these cards would you use? Hunted Horror Watchwolf Selesnya Guildmage Wild Mongrel The horror should grab your attention, 7/7 for 2 mana! That spits on efficiency, beats it up and steals its lunch money. Then when you look closer you see the nasty drawback, 2 3/3s protected from your deck more than likely, without some kind of combo maybe involving Leyline of Singularity or Necroplasm. Watchwolf is looking a better choice, 2 mana for 3/3 with no drawbacks is always good and at first glanced it would seem better than the guildmage, play in the Watchwolf in the mid/late game what do you get? A 3/3 and it is probable that your opponent has something bigger in play. The guildmage on other hand should have the mana to play its abilities, a constant source of Saproling tokens and once you have enough you can use its other ability to send them in for the kill. To the untrained eye Wild Mongrel may not seem anything special, 2 mana for a 2/2 is always good, then add its ability +1/+1 for each card discarded is pretty good, colour changing to protect against Black kill spells is fantastic and what block is this? Odyssey block you say, so it can discard cards with Madness so you can play them for the madness, and what's that cards in the Odyssey block can get nasty bonuses from Threshold, such as Werebear and Krosan Beast and the Hound can help you fill up your graveyard for this purpose, still not finished? Discard cards with cheap Flashbacks costs and use the flashback to play them earlier, as in the case of Roar of the Wurm, I think we have a winner, was it your pick? What’s new in tourneyville?: Hunted Decks Hunted decks focus upon the cycle of hunted creature featured in Ravnica: City of Guilds. The black creature, Hunted Horror is especiallt popular, but most cannot survive as mono black so another colour is added, with which comes another hunted creature. Blue brings Hunted Phantasm and Red brings Hunted Dragon. That’s all well and good but what are you going to do about the tokens, Necroplasm is a solidc answer just make it doesn’t kill your Horror too! But easily the best way to run a hunted deck is to use Leyline of Singularity, which makes all non land permanents legendary so all the tokens are legendary and kill each other due to the legend rule, true this does limit you to one of each hunted creature at a time, who cares when their drawback is completely ignored. The best part is you can start the game with the leyline in play if it’s in your starting hand, even if your playing black/red hunted deck! There are plenty of other options to, Pyroclasm kills the knights and goblin tokens brought by the Dragon and Phantasm, Torpid Moloch can kill the Centaurs created by the horror and remember bounce spells are effectively kill spells against tokens, so Peel from Reality can get rid of a nasty centaur token and bounce something of yours, preferably not the Horror, Necroplasm maybe? Here is the highest finishing hunted deck at last month’s Pro-Tour event in Honolulu: i regret to inform you for some reason there aren't any Hunted Decks from Honolulu and that being the only pro-event since guildpacts release there aren't any others so you can thank me for a gap in the market later Combolicious: Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro+Orochi Leafcaller+Free from the Real. To alter the quote of Baal from Grandia, “I have obtained infinite MANA!”. This is yet another nasty combo that is totally legal in Standard. Sachi allows all shamans you control the ability to “Tap: Add GG to your mana pool”. Orochi Leafcaller is a shaman, but more importantly it has “G: Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool”. Simply enchant either of these with Freed from the Real, and then tap for GG. The clever part is to use one of your G to activate the “U: Untap enchanted creature” on Freed from the Real. This leaves you with one Green mana, which you can change to any colour with the leafcaller. Leave this mana in your mana pool, and retap the recently untapped Sachi or Leafcaller for GG, then repeat then process until you have enough mana to do what you want. This could be to power out giant creatures and spells such as Patron of the Orochi and Endless Swarm, or you could use it the sinister way. A card with an X in its mana cost is an infinite mana combo’s best friend. In standard try Blaze, Orochi Hatchery, Psychic Drain or Maga, Traitor to Mortals, if you feel like going extended try Fireball, Consume Spirit or Verdeloth, the Ancient. This combo is pretty easy to stop. White can throw a Demystify in the works, or use the ever useful Faith’s Fetters to disable the Freed from the Real, Loxodon Gatekeeper makes sure you have the advantage when using the Faith’s Fetters. Blue can have the most fun, counter magic can stop the pieces ever coming into play, well placed bounce spells can screw the combo and perhaps the nastiest of all, wait for the combo to produce more mana than you opponent has life, the play Time Stop. That mana has got to go somewhere, your opponent is mana burned to death, quite the reversal. Black can easily stop the combo, Dark Banishing or Rend Flesh and the like can dispose of the creature side, and spells like Coercion and Nightmare Void can rip it straight out of their hand. A well placed Shock or Char is Red’s solution, Green has it very easy, Naturalize to get rid of the Freed from the Real and you can just play a Sachi of your own, with the Legend rule preventing the combo from ever happening. This like last month’s combo is very easy to collect the parts for, Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro is an uncommon from Champions of Kamigawa, Orochi Leafcaller is a common from the same set and Freed from the Real is a common from Saviors of Kamigawa. Deckframe: Tidewater Minion The minion appears to be a decent card, something useful in limited but little else. It just so happens this guy can produce infinite mana of any colour except blue (once Dissension is released anyway). Freed from the Real once again proves it is not a junk common, all you need with it is karoo land, these are the common non-basic lands from Ravnica, that add the appropriate guilds mana to your mana pool, with this guy your only interested in the blue guilds, that is Dimir, Izzet, Simic and Azorius, the latter have not been released yet, so I’ll focus on Dimir and Izzet. You’ll be needing a Dimir Aqueduct and Izzet Boilerworks then. I’ll use the Boilerworks for this example. Enchant the Minion with Freed from the Real, tap your Boilerworks for RU, use the U to untap the Minion, who then taps to untap the Boilerworks, when then taps for RU and the process is in motion. What will you do with this newfound infinite red mana? Blaze is always a good choice, but because you’re using Izzet, replicate becomes an option, Pyromatics anyone? The combo also works very well with Dimir, as soon as you’ve got enough mana, cancel the combo, then tap the karoo for UB, use this as the base cost for Pyschic Drain, then spend the rest of your mana eating your opponents library, instant decking! A deck around this combo should use cheap blockers to buy time for the minion, such as Vertigo Spawn or Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch, and should use clear the board such as Hideous Laughter or Pyroclasm; counter magic such as Mana Leak is useful to make sure nothing bad happens to your minion. Even if you find you happen nothing to use your infinite mana on the minion makes a pretty decent finisher. This deck will not like U/R Land Destruction, not only because Karoos are incredibly vulnerable to spells like Stone Rain and Boomerang, also the mana lock will deny you the mana to play the minion, decks like this usually have a Magnivore to finish you too. So Tidewater Minion proves he has some use outside of limited. Building on a Budget: Selesnya Swarm (Standard Legal) The Selesnyan Conclave has the Convoke mechanic something that can be very useful to this deck. As always an efficient, consistent mana base is order, but you’re on a budget, so that’s no Birds of Paradise, Utopia Tree, Weathered Wayfarer or Temple Garden. There are alternative of course, try looking at Llanowar Elves, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farseek, Kodama’s Reach, Rampant Growth, Selesnya Signet, Selesnya Sanctuary and Civic Wayfinder, all of which are common. With your mana base sorted you’ll want to get some saproling token generation, and again there is no lack of these in standard, Fists of Ironwood, Scatter the Seeds, Selesnya Evangel, Selesnya Guildmage, Vhitu-Gazi, the City-Tree, Seed Spark, Orochi Eggwatcher, Honden of Life’s Web, Belfry Spirit and Bramble Elemental are all possible choices. Next your going to need something for all those Saprolings to do, convoking out nasties is always nice, nasties such Guardian of Vhitu-Ghazi and Siege Wurm, also your guildmage can change occupation, after he’s finished making your saproling Horde, he can then pump them up and send them in for the kill. Overwhelm is another good card for finishing the game with an army of 4/4 tokens. The saprolings can also be put to work for creatures that have abilities that tap creatures to activate such as Sandsower or Nullmage Shepherd. Speaking of finishers, Shinen of Life’s Roar makes a suprisingly good one, either attack with drawing all the blockers to it and letting your hordes through or channel it and let a saproling share that fate instead. Budget decks of course need budget rares and there are three strong choices for this kind of deck. Leyline of the Meek is put simply ridicolous, start with it in play and play a Fists of Ironwood on your second turn giving a creature trample and giving you two grizzly bears for the price of a grizzly bears!? The standard community don’t seem to have caught on to its horrific power and as a result these are very cheap to order, around 2 pounds from sites like www.psi-soft.co.uk . Scion of the Wild is another solid budget rare, he gets very big from all those Saprolings and shouldn’t cost in excess of 2 pound to order. Doubling Season is a bit more expensive price wise but this is also ridicolous and dangerously close to being broken, Scatter the Seeds gives you 6 tokens, this is just one example of the insanity caused by this card. Here’s an idea for a Selesnya Swarm deck that is very inexpensive to order. Selesnya Swarm (Standard Type 2 60 cards) Mana (25) 9 Forest COMMON 9 Plains COMMON 2 Selesnya Sanctuary COMMON 2 Selesnya Signet COMMON 3 Rampant Growth COMMON Tokens (18) 4 Scatter the Seeds COMMON 4 Fists of Ironwood COMMON 3 Selesnya Evangel COMMON 4 Selesnya Guildmage UNCOMMON 1 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree UNCOMMON 2 Seed Spark UNCOMMON Finishers (17) 3 Leyline of the Meek RARE 2 Scion of the Wild RARE 2 Shinen of Life’s Roar COMMON 3 Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi COMMON 1 Doubling Season RARE 2 Sandsower UNCOMMON 2 Nullmage Shepherd UNCOMMON 2 Overwhelm UNCOMMON  Just pour out the tokens, and attack mercilessly, especially if a leyline of the Meek was in your starting hand, enough tokens can convoke guardians and make a devastating overwhelm that little bit cheaper to play. Sandsower shuts down decks that have few creatures and Nullmage Shepherd wreaks havoc amongst artifact/enchantment decks. If you get enough Leyline in play your godly saprolings will laugh off Pyroclasm and other attempts to clear the board!  Blast from the Past: Mana Drain Think Counterspell is broken? Be glad you haven’t had to play against this beast. It costs 2 Blue mana to counter target spell just like Counterspell, but wait there’s more, then at the beginning of your next first main phase add X to your mana pool where X is the countered spells converted mana cost. Broken much? Anyone who says you will mana burn your self needs reminding that mana drain comes from a time in magic where cards like Braingeyser where in use, oh look I just countered your Silvos, Rogue Elemental and drew six cards for it the following turn. Somehow Mana Drain has a rival for most powerful counterspell, this rival is Force of Will, pretty bad when played regularly, but horrifically powerful when pitched you get a counterspell for a blue card in your hand and 1 life, something that puts Disrupting Shoal to shame. Unsuprisingly both are banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. Mana Drain in today’s format can be used to give a healthy boost to your Psychic Drain, Invoke the Firemind and Orochi Hatchery. Card of the Month: Samurai of the Pale Curtain This is one nasty samurai, a 2/2 with Bushido 1 for 2 mana is a good deal, and then add a devastatingly powerful ability and you have a monster. She shuts down decks that rely on the graveyard single handedly. Originally intended to be a counter measure for the spirit theme of the Kamigawa block. With her in play Soulshift can no longer work, arcanes are removed from the game so they can’t be gotten back later with something The Unspeakable or a Hana Kami (which gets removed when it does it’s ability), in particular the Zubera theme of Kamigawa becomes totally useless. However the fun doesn’t end there, Reanimator decks are now useless, as the creatures they dump in the graveyard to be reanimated are removed from the game instead. Psychatogs power is halved; the “removes two cards in your graveyard” clause is all but useless with a Pale Curtain play. Dredge becomes a useless mechanic, as the cards you mill from your library get removed from the game and any future dredge possibilities don’t even reach the graveyard. Golgari decks that focus on Savra, Queen of the Golgari are doomed, as they slowly lose sacrificial candidates. Threshold decks get a kicking too, as they can’t actually reach threshold. The Orzhov can’t use their Haunt mechanic, and the list goes on… In general decks that like to revive or recycle things in their graveyard hate Samurai of the Pale Curtain! Samurai of the Pale Curtain is right at home in a White Weenie deck or a Boros deck, neither of which care about there graveyards, Pale Curtain truly in a deck like this White Weenie (Standard Type 2 60 Cards) Land (20) 2 Eijango Castle 18 Plains Creatures (31) 3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda 4 Savannah Lions 4 Hand of Honor 4 Leonin Skyhunter 4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain 4 Lantern Kami 4 Suntail Hawk 4 Kami of Ancient Law Spells (9) 4 Glorious Anthem 3 Bathe in Light 2 Terashi’s Grasp Swarm your opponent with hordes of efficient weenies that quickly grow in size, the amount of flyers destroys most opponents very quickly, combined with your ground force few things can stand up to it. Any nasty suprises like Pyroclasm can be stopped with Bathe in Light, which also makes an excellent breakthrough card. The main problem with this deck is that it is very expensive to order the parts, but if money is no object then this kind of deck is a solid choice. Learn Magic Terminology! Karoo: A term given to the common cycle of non-basic land in Ravnica, such as Golgari Rot Farm and Gruul Turf. Limited: A format of magic where players are restricted to a tournament pack and three booster packs and given around 30 minutes to an hour to construct a deck. Don’t miss the OGC limited tournament later this year! Johnny: A type of magic player who likes to be creative and create all kinds of combos, sometimes referred to as a good player with bad decks Spike: A type of magic player whose main focus is reducing the opponent’s life total as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Spikes play to win and are sometimes referred to as good players with good decks. Reanimator: Decks that put creatures in their graveyards and use spells like Zombify to put them straight into play. Swarm: Decks that get huge amounts of creatures in play, usually tokens and simply overwhelm their enemies.