Laharl’s Magic Supplement: May Another month, another magic set, Dissension was released on the 5th of May and unlike Guildpact this did not disappoint, now with the complete ravnica block, the kamigawa block’s days are numbered in standard play. I strongly suggest investing in this set as the guilds are some of the best yet, with that welcome to Laharl’s magic supplement! Hot Topic: Reflection on Ravnica Block Ravnica block is finally complete and what a block it is! Definite evidence that Magic is on the rise again, after the disastrous mirrodin block I thought I’d never play again, but the superb Kamigawa block brought me back to the game and Ravnica block has continued the high standard. The first place to start with Ravnica block is obviously the guilds and I must congratulate Wizards for making every guild totally playable and not producing anything broken in the process. My biggest worry about the block, as it developed was that Wizards had no plans to build on earlier guilds except with maybe a few vanilla cards, but in Dissension the new split cards have brought new cards to the older guilds. Each guild deserves a little analysis and disscusion and I’ll start the from the beginning: The Boros are one of the best guilds in Ravnica block, the combination of cheap and frighteningly powerful creatures is always a good starting point, add to that some awesome removal and THE best guild artifact and your onto a winner. Radiance is a strong mechanic that is simply devastating against monocoloured decks. Top Cards: Lightning Helix, Boros Swiftblade, Sunforger, Firemane Angel Dimir is a very interesting choice for the U/B guild; a guild that specializes in milling your opponent’s library is a stroke of originality, Dimir can also play aggressive and control, it is the least used in tournaments but it’s mechanic is probably the most used, Transmute is probably the mechanic that is most likely to see play out of Ravnica Block. Top Cards: Glimpse the Unthinkable, Circu, Dimir Lobotomist, Dimir Cutpurse, Dimir House Guard The Golgari is the deck that copes best with Dimir’s milling, thanks to the Dredge mechanic. Something that is asking to be used by Threshold decks, also has it’s uses in block if used when appropriate and not just for the fun of it. Golgari are a very effective guild that can out muscle most of the other guilds, a strong choice especially for beatdown. Top Cards: Putrefy, Moldervine Cloak, Shambling Shell, Life from the Loam Selesnya benefits the most from the cards of later sets, in particular Leyline of the Meek, there is token generation and then there is the Selenyan Conclave, these tokens pour out then convoke to get out giant creatures, and the combo with Glare of Subdual is just lethal. Top Cards: Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree, Glare of Subdual, Watchwolf, Loxodon Heirarch Moving onto Guildpact, the Gruul are one of the strongest guilds if you get hold of the rares, Bloodthirst isn’t a particularly good mechanic but it is used well by certain cards, ironically the Gruul are the rich man’s guild. Top Cards: Rumbling Slum, Burning Tree Shaman, Scab-Clan Mauler, Giant Solifuge The izzet come across as a guild that aren’t to be taken very seriously, Replicate is very interesting mechanic that has gone wayward, with all Replicate cards being below average except for the Djinn Illuminatus, for a guild with a strong emphasis on instants and sorceries, there aren’t an awful lot that are playable, probably the worst guild in my opinion. Top Cards: Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Wee Dragonauts, Electrolyze, Djinn Illuminatus The orzhov claim the award for “least fun to play against”, as bleeding must be one of the most infuriating win conditions to ‘grace’ the game, however if you are using the guild it’s a different story, non blue control never felt so good, you can watch with glee as an increasingly desperate opponent gets ever more angry as you kill them 1 life point at a time, Haunt is an interesting mechanic but not very practical especially in a block with such heavy graveyard removal. Top Cards: Ghost Council of Orzhova, Mortify, Pillory of the Sleepless, Souls of the Faultless Finally to Dissension and to the underrated Azorius described as the “shitty flying guild” it is much more than that, the flying creatures are some of the best available and there is some effective counter magic to defend and all kinds of other ways to hinder your opponent, the Forecast ability is pretty weak but it can be useful. Top Cards: Pride of the Clouds, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, Overrule, Azorius Guildmage The Rakdos are the polar opposite to the azorius in both philosophy and play style; a Rakdos player must be reckless, ruthless and willing to take risks, Hellbent is a very strong mechanic that is very easy to get to, I actually think Hellbent is the new threshold, being B/R this guild is not lacking removal and the creatures are disturbingly efficient for their cost. Top Cards: Avatar of Discord, Rakdos Pit Dragon, Rakdos Augermage, Gobhobbler Rats The simic seem to have taken inspiration from the izzet in the fact they are fun to mess around with but don’t seem to get anywhere for it, Graft is a well designed mechanic with some excellent synergy within the set, this guild requires a lot of dedication to get working properly. Top Cards: Simic Sky Swallower, Coiling Oracle, Plaxmanta, Cytoplast Root-Kin. And that’s the guilds of course you’ll know that’s my opinion, next is certain aspects of the block such as burn spells, removal and counter magic. Now that’s the best of the guilds, you’ll probably also want to know the worst cards in the sets, I’m taking into account that a truly bad card is rare, as you’d expect some pretty awful commons and uncommons, here are my worst cards in block: Ravnica: Grozoth, Blood Funnel, Molten Sentry, Bottled Cloister Guildpact: Storm Herd, Sky Swallower, Earth Surge, Glint-Eye Nephilim Dissension: Haazda Shield Mate, Ratcatcher, Wit’s End, Biomantic Mastery. Burn spells can count as removal but I prefer to do them seperately, Rav block is very weak for burn, Char is a solid choice but its rare, Lightning Helix is a fantastic choice but its two colour and galvanic arc is the only other solid choice, which becomes a lot better with cloudstone curio. Fiery Conclusion and Dogpile are bad, very bad. Guildpact is worse where there are the horrors of Pyromatics and Steamcore Weird. Electrolyze is a solid choice but is two coloured. And salvation arrives with Dissension; Seal of Fire is fantastic and better than shock when used in the context of the Rakdos. Demonfire is very effective and unstoppable is Hellbent, Cackling Flames is average better in rakdos, Weight of Spires is quite good in block because of all the lovely karoos, duals and guildhalls. Burn spells are definitely not Rav blocks strong point. Times have been tough for countermagic of late; Wizards announced the original Counterspell wouldn’t be making another appearance for a very long time. Rav block is affected by this decline in counter magic. The main set has the weak Convolute, Induce Paranoia is somewhat over costed unless you pay the black and then you get a decent counter, Muddle the Mixture is more useful for its transmute although the counter is there if you need it. Remand remains a mystery to me; it is little more than a boomerang that draws you a card, but it is very effective at delaying opponents. Perplex is a solid counter early game and can be transmuted for something better late game, a good card. Just when it looks like Ravnica has put counter magic back on track, Guildpact goes and kicks it on its arse. Frazzle is almost unplayable and Runeboggle is well just horrible, the worst counterspell of recent times. It’s a good thing Dissension arrived to put things right again, U/W is the king of control so it’s expected to see some solid counters, Overrule is a very solid counter and if your opponent manages to pay you still get a lot of life out of it, Soulsworn Jury is a surprisingly decent choice, in play it repels little weenies and then it can sacrifice itself to stop a bigger threat coming into play. Spell Snare is unbelievably effective in today’s format, look at all the nastiness that costs 2, Umezawa’s Jitte, Glimpse the Unthinkable, Silhana Ledgewalker, ALL guildmages, Dark Confidant and Lightning Helix. Voidslime counters absolutely everything that is possible to counter, which is always good and the wide array of things that make creatures untargetable in the simic can act as counter magic. Rav block is very strong on the removal front, with a large amount coming from black, and the other colours still get a decent portion of effective of removal, Ravnica itself offers Devouring Light and Faith’s Fetters as excellent removal for white, with Hour of Reckoning providing something more specialized. Blue is associated with denial rather than removal yet Mark of Eviction still proves to be solid, especially with aura theme in block and Peel from Reality offers something less powerful but does have a fair amount of combo potential too. Black wallows in removal as usual, Brainspoil is surperisingly effective for something with that mana cost and the transmute ability makes it very playable. Darkblast is very effective and can keep weenies at bay constantly, it is the only death spell with dredge and is a very fine one at that. Disembowel also proves strong against weenies but it most effective against creatures tokens, such as those created by the cycle of Hunted Creatures in this very set. Hex is more for casual play, not particularly useful most of time, however if you do get it off it can usually change the game. Keening Banshee proves to a less efficient variation of flame tongue kavu, somehow I doubt we’ll be seeing something with that power again, the Banshee is a 2/2 flyer that kills your opponent’s */2 blocker when it comes into player, that’s always useful and manipulation of Mark of Eviction and Cloudstone Curio can make for some very powerful comboing. Last Gasp is almost certainly the best mono coloured removal spell in Ravnica block, 2 mana for -3/-3 is good value, that any 3 toughness threat that can be targeted dead, even regenerators and indestructibles, that annoying 4/4 attackers has just been killed by your 2/2. It also makes mincemeat out of black creatures; the big flaw with black removal is that it usually can’t target black creatures. Ribbons of Night is like a more versatile Soul Feast that gives you a card if used correctly, the problem is that Soul Feast wasn’t that good, barely playable to be honest, well to put it simply this didn’t make my Dimir deck. All the red removal is aforementioned in the burn section. Green removal basically consists of ways to get rid of flyers, something it does very badly in Ravnica with Trophy Hunter and Elvish Skysweeper. Of course the interesting removal comes from the multicoloured cards. Brightflame can be devastating with enough mana and enough targets of the same power, however it goes against the boros principle of low mana costs. Putrefy is the best removal spell is Rav block. Period. Instant death to creature or artifact with no regeneration for a comfortable mana cost, especially good when you consider very few other things get rid of regenerators in block. From the best removal I come to some of the worst, Twisted Justice is a poor card, the effect is nice but the mana cost is way too high. Chances are your opponent will sacrifice a 1/1 crap. Next is Guildpact, a poor set so you might expect poor removal, and you’d be right. White removal consists of the unplayable Sinstriker’s Will. Blue is slightly better, Repeal is playable if expensive, Steamcore Weird is not usable, one for limited only and Vacuumelt never should have left R & D. Black is usually the staple of removal and keeps Guildpact from being a total disaster; Douse in Gloom is a very, very poor Lightning Helix yet somehow is still playable; Orzhov Euthanist is pretty bad although careful stratagey with him can be very rewarding. Plagued Rusalka is one of the best black 1 mana drops in standard, a constant source of removal, if you’ve got the fuel, like your creatures that are going to be killed in combat or by a spell anyway. Sanguine Praetor’s middle name is Timmy; never use this card in competitive play. Red burn is diabolical and is mentioned above in the burn part of this article. Crash Landing is a fairly effective way to get rid of flyers from the green cards. Multicoloured gives the somewhat expensive Desolation Angel, a Vindicate reprint would be more appreciated. Mortify is almost as good as Putrefy it just allows the target to regenerate. Savage Twister is effective as it creates a Pyroclasm as big as you want or can afford. Again it is Dissension to the rescue, well with the Black/Red guild in this set you’d expect it to be the best really. The other colours get some good removal too. White has the awesome condemn, a much less broken variant on Swords to Plowshares. Blue has no removal of its own, black has a reprint of the classic Seal of Doom, a much better Dark Banishing that goes especially well with the Rakdos’ Hellbent mechanic. Unliving Psychopath is an interesting creature, not very practical but useful in casual and most of all fun to use. The red removal can be found on the burn section. Green lacks spells to deal with flyers creatures do it instead. Multicolour has a lot more removal options, Lyzolda, the Blood Witch is effective, much more so when taken out of her guild, which doesn’t like drawing cards. Rakdos Ickspitter is an improvement over Prodical Sorceror but that doesn’t say or mean much. Rakdos the Defiler is a good example of high-risk high reward, but few players are willing to take the risk with him. Twinstrike depends, if you are not in Hellbent it is very poor, it Hellbent it becomes a much better version of Dead Ringers. Wrecking Ball is an instant speed Befoul that allows regeneration and kills black creatures, instant speed Land Destruction is a very powerful ability and creature kill is always nice. Hit from Hit/Run is an Edict that hurts, a very good removal spell as it gets those who can’t be targeted or are protected. The Pure half of Pure/Simple is excellent in block but near useless out of block unless you go to Invasion block. Lastly on Rav block is the strong theme of auras developed in the block, something introduced by the auras in Ravnica with ‘come into play’ abilities, these are Faith’s Fetters, Flight of Fancy, Strands of Undeath, Galvanic Arch and Fists of Ironwood, each is an aura similar to what you’d expect from the colour, Faith’s Fetters is an upgraded Pacifism, Flight of Fancy mimics Flight, Strands of Undeath gives blacks regeneration ability, Galvanic Arch is like Reflexes and Fists of Ironwood copies Primal Frenzy in its trample effect. However what makes these auras interesting are the come into play abilities that are like other spells of the colour, white gets life gain, blue gets card drawing like Inspiration, black makes the opponent discard as in Mind Rot, red gets a version of Lightning Bolt and Green gets some saprolings. Of these Faith’s Fetters has quickly proved itself to be the best and Fists of Ironwood comes second. Each colour seems to get a second much less effective common aura; these are Conclave’s Blessing, Stasis Cell and Necromantic Thirst. Red and green ignore this cycle. Black even gets a third common aura in the form of the underrated Clinging Darkness. Next are the uncommon auras, of which there are only 4, blue’s Mark of Eviction is outstanding in limited play and is solid control in constructed. Red’s Instill Furor is very poor, not very playable whereas Green’s Moldervine Cloak is one of the best auras ever printed, +3/+3 for 3 mana and a low dredge make this awesome, few things can rid of it permanently, most of which are graveyard removal except for Scour. Pollenbright Wings has a very powerful effect but it is very highly priced but it is still playable especially with green’s mana acceleration. Lastly the Rare auras, which strangely outnumber the uncommon ones. Flickerform can allow any creature to ‘sidestep’, a helpful ability that becomes even better when enchanting something with a come into play ability (Belfry Spirit?) and better still if that creature is already enchanted with an aura that has a come into play ability too (Fists of Ironwood?). Dream Leash is a limited Confiscate that sees little play as a result of it as Confiscate is still standard legal. Followed Footsteps on the other has much more potential, it may be a little unreliable but you’re a blue player, you make sure things go your way! Red has Breath of Fury, a Relentless Assault variant that has good combo potential and can lead to multiple combat phases per turn. The main aura focus in Guildpact lies the magemarks with vary from very playable (Infiltrator’s Magemark) to not very playable (Guardian’s Magemark). Looking at the other auras in the set, white has Shadow Lance, a very playable card especially in Orzhov Aggro when used with Mourning Thrull, Sinstriker’s Will is the opposite, a horrible card that should never see play. Blue, Black and Red have no auras other than their respective magemarks. Green has the very comboable Wurmweaver Coil (thinking Dowsing Shaman) as well as its magemark. The multicoloured cards bring the last and possibly the best aura in Guildpact; Pillory of the Sleepless. A Pacifism that slowly kills your opponent fits perfectly into the bleeding guild but sees a lot of play outside the Orzhov too. Dissension brings few auras with it due to the focus on multi colour cards, no white auras can be found, blue brings the limited Ocular Halo, which works best in limited play, nothing special in constructed. Psychic Possession is very playable and a unique card as it is the first enchant opponent, very useful against decks that draw a lot of cards, like blue decks. Writ of Passage is also better in limited although you can enchant a 1 power creature, attack to make it unblockable then put a Might of Oaks on it or something similar for a nasty surprise. Black has Nettling Curse something that is not that effective, although it is useful against things that you want to get rid off or have to attack every turn. Red’s Taste for Mayhem is a very powerful aura that can decimate an opponent very quickly, especially in Hellbent (something not hard to achieve). Green brings the rather poor Elemental Resonance (this is a rare!) unless you have some kind of plan; chances are you will be mana burning yourself a lot. Utopia Sprawl is a solid producer in a block that is weak in terms of mana production. To the multicoloured, Leaf Drake Perch is a bomb in limited by less useful in Constructed. Plumes of Peace is very poor and is limited material at best, the last two auras are hybrid, Riot Spikes is another strong card in limited but there are simply better cards in constructed, Shielding Plax, although very strong with Simic Guildmage it isn’t that useful on its own. Advice: Losing Heart? Magic not what it used to be? Wizards printing too many powerful cards too often? Always get a kicking? These are valid reasons to be put off the game, but your giving in easy if you use these. Magic is not the game it used to be is a very poor excuse, unless you have some kind of fetish with portal and the starter sets then the early sets of magic are much more broken than those of today, Black Lotus? Time Walk? Necropotence? Chaos Orb? Be very thankful these cards are banned and stand no chance of being reprinted with being severly weakened, let’s looks at what happened to Black Lotus, it originally became Lion’s Eye Diamond, with the additional cost of having to discard your hand to get the mana, that became Gilded Lotus in Mirrodin, which had the mana gaining ability and it doesn’t involve sacrificing the artifact to get the mana, just tap it instead, the problem is it’s a 5 mana artifact. The cards from the starter sets are still around and actual good cards to accompany them. Wizards are printing too many powerful cards too often again a poor excuse, yes Wizards make mistakes, Umezawa’s Jitte anyone? However if people would stop complaining about it and how broken it is and actually looked at the standard environment they’d see that there are plenty of ways to get rid of the Jitte, examples: Hearth Kami, Wear Away, Splinter, Terashi’s Grasp, Naturalize, Shatter, Seed Spark, Smash, Sundering Vitae, Tin Street Hooligan, Shattering Spree, Spell Snare, Pure/Simple and Trygon Preadator, and to the excuse of “I don’t want to put cards in to deal with one card”, then you really should be running some artifact/enchantment removal already for the likes of Underworld Dreams, Sunforger, Glare of Subdual and the Leylines. And lastly some things everyone can do People losing heart can: -Not be a hypocrite, claim they prefer creature combat whilst using a Psychatog deck -Hissy fits do NOT get your point across; they make you look like an immature ass -If an opponent pulls off a good move, try giving them some credit for it rather than screaming “that’s fucking gay” -If your deck building skills aren’t up to scratch don’t be afraid to ask more experienced players for advice -If you genuinely enjoy magic, don’t be afraid to invest a little to get the deck you want. -Some decks are better than others. FACE IT. Moaning isn’t going to make a nephilim deck better than a Gruul. -Lastly enjoy your games; it is only a game after all. Other players can: -Offer advice as to where the player is going wrong -Not boast about victories like an arrogant fuck -Not use competitive decks in casual play What’s new in tourneyville?: Heartbeat A Heartbeat deck wants as much mana as possible as quickly as possible, one of the easiest ways to do this is to use Heartbeat of Spring, hence the name of the deck. Early Harvest is another key card to this deck, untapping all your land so you get more mana. Now you’re wondering how does a deck like this finish the opponent, that’s easy, get a ridiculous amount of mana then kill the opponent with a Blaze, Demonfire, Invoke the Firemind or Maga, Traitor to Mortals. Another key card to Heartbeat decks is Drift of Phantasms, almost entirely on it’s transmute mechanic, it can find your mana cards in Heartbeat of Spring and Early Harvest and it can also find your finishers like Maga, Traitor to Mortals and Invoke the Firemind. This is a combo deck and as a result is eaten alive by Cranial Extraction but remains popular on the tournament scene regardless. Here is a Heartbeat deck from the Pro-Tour event at Honolulu: Weird Harvest Land 10 Forest 10 Island 1 Mountain 1 Swamp Creatures 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 3 Drift of Phantasms 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals Spells 4 Remand 3 Sensei's Divining Top 4 Muddle the Mixture 4 Kodama's Reach 1 Compulsive Research 4 Heartbeat of Spring 1 Weird Harvest 1 Recollect 2 Giga Drowse 2 Mana Leak 4 Early Harvest Sideboard 2 Mana Leak 1 Invoke the Firemind 3 Rending Vines 3 Savage Twister 3 Shadow of Doubt 2 Wood Elves 1 Dosan the Falling Leaf Combolicious: Bronze Bombshell+Sky Swallower Bronze Bombshell actually brings use to some of the lesser rares of Ravnica block; Spawnbroker and Sky Swallower in particular. The bombshell is a 4 mana 4/1 that gets sacrificed when another player gains control of it and deals 7 damage to that player. So with a Bombshell in play, play a Spawnbroker and swap the Bombshell with for one of your opponent’s creatures, a task made easier by the Bombshells 4 power. The bombshell blows up, opponent takes 7 damage and you get one of their creatures with power 4 or less. However there is an even better combo with the bombshell, involving the otherwise almost unplayable Sky Swallower, simply have 3 or 4 bombshells in play (by transmuting with Dimir House Guard or Clutch of the Undercity or by playing a tutor spell such Infernal Tutor), when you have the right amount of bombshells in play the Sky Swallower, your opponent gains control of all your other permanents including the Bronze Bombshells, then BOOM! 21 or 28 damage, you could even get away with 14 damage from 2 bombshells then go in for the kill with the Sky Swallower. This is a Johnny combo, and much easier to stop than Spike combos of earlier articles. Bombshell only has 1 toughness making it vulnerable to just about every removal spell in the standard. White can just kill it with Artifact removal such as Terashi’s Grasp and Seed Spark, Blue can easily counter the Spawnbrokers or Sky Swallower, failing that, bombshells are easy target for the likes of Prodical Sorceror. Black can kill the bombshell with just about anything in its arsenal of removal spells, Red is spoilt for choice, does it use artifact removal like Smash or burn spells like Shock. Even Green has it easy, artifact removal like Naturalize and Sundering Vitae make short work of the bombshell. For once the parts for a combo in this article are rares, Spawnbroker is a Ravnica Rare, Sky Swallower is a Guildpact Rare and Bronze Bombshell is a Dissension Rare, fortunately all three are classed as junk rares and shouldn’t be too expensive to order. Deckframe: Transguild Courier With a card like Transguild Courier you just know Wizards have made cards to go with it, and you’d be right. Might of the Nephilim and Blessing of the Nephilim are just asking to be played on the Courier, the blessing makes an 8/8 for 4 and W and the blessing gives it +10/+10 until end of turn for 1G! Of course the courier is every colour even when its not in play so cards that search for certain colours work on it, such as the demand side of Supply/Demand. It also triggers all the abilities of the guild champions, in particular Momir Vig, Simic Visionary lets your get any creature in your deck (another Courier maybe?). It also works well with Grand Arbiter Augustin IV who makes the Courier cost a measly 2 mana. Now you need a way of making the courier get through, Ethereal Usher and Smogsteed Rider make good choices, and once your courier slips through, bang! Might of the Nephilim, opponent in much pain. Another good thing about the courier is the fact it’s an artifact meaning it can fit into any deck and your manabase is based on the cards you are using around the Courier. Of course the courier has drawbacks the main one being he is vulnerable to every colour hoser that effects creatures or spells, Perish, Hibernation and Execute are all nasty examples. Despite this most colour hosers don’t appear in Rav Block keeping him safe in block play and it is only uncommon making it pretty easy to get hold of. Building on a Budget: Azorius Beatdown The Azorius Guild is one that prides itself on its flying creatures, a good starting point for an aggressive deck, it your opponent has difficulty blocking your attackers it makes your job easier. Of course the main question is what should you use with the fliers, defensive cards and counter magic make strong choices, although this doesn’t seem very aggressive it is primarily to protect your attackers. The obvious place to start is with the flying creatures that are going to maul your opponent, there are countless flyers in standard, however your not allowed rares, that doesn’t lower the number very much…here are some of the better choices available to you: Suntail Hawk, Leonin Skyhunter, Sage Owl, Storm Crow, Kabuto Moth, Lantern Kami, Soratami Cloudskater, Araba Mothrider, Courier Hawk, Drake Familiar, Snapping Drake, Belfry Spirit, Mourning Thrull, Beacon Hawk, Mistral Charger, Azorius First-Wing and Sky Hussar. I also advise to use Azorius Guildmage, although it isn’t flying, its tap ability can tap a potential blocker and an ability counter is useful beyond words. Now you’re going to need ways to protect your fliers, Bathe in Light does a fantastic choice as it stops the majority of anti-flying cards i.e. Hurricane and Arashi, the Sky Asunder, Faith’s Fetter’s Neutralizes almost anything, like the irritating Silklash Spider for starters and you get life out of it, speaking of double purpose, Overrule stops your opponents threats ever hitting the table and gains you life in the process. Condemn acts as a sort of mini Swords to Plowshares, the limitations make the card much more acceptable in the game, who cares if your opponent gained some life, they won’t be seeing that creature again this game.  Lastly you’ll need some Rares, the only Rare this deck needs is Pride of the Clouds, 4 of them is preferable and shouldn’t cost in excess of 10 pounds on a site such as www.psi-soft.co.uk and it is well worth the money. Here’s an example of this kind of deck Azorius Beatdown (Standard Type 2) (60 Cards) Mana (20) 10 Plains 8 Island 2 Azorius Signet Creatures (31) 4 Pride of the Clouds 4 Mistral Charger 4 Suntail Hawk 4 Lantern Kami 4 Beacon Hawk 4 Azorius First-Wing 4 Azorius Guildmage 3 Sky Hussar Spells (9) 3 Faith’s Fetters 3 Overrule 3 Bathe in Light This deck is very easy to use, maul opponent with flying creatures, Pride of the Clouds in particular which quickly becomes too big for your opponent to deal with, your counter magic and protection spells make sure nothing happens that you don’t want to your flying hoard, Beacon Hawk proves rather useful as it can untap the largest attacker instead of itself deterring your opponent from attacking you back. Bathe in Light not only saves you from mass kill spells such as Hurricane but it can open the way to finish your opponent, what worse than an army of fliers? An army of fliers that have protection from your blockers Blast from the Past: Necropotence Necropotence has a funny story behind it; it was originally designed by Wizards to be a junk rare in Ice Age, yet it became one of the most powerful cards ever printed, how you ask? Simply with huge card advantage, it gives the player far too much tempo for that the other player can’t keep up. What’s worse is that Dark Ritual often led to Necropotence being played on the first turn. There is the drawback of the life loss, but the tempo gained is usually enough to kill the opponent. Original Necropotence decks made use of Skirge Familiar and Soul Feast to exploit the card advantage. However Necropotence may have been at it’s most lethal when it wasn’t played on the first turn, instead the dark ritual is used to play a first turn Hypnotic Spectre, turn 2 play Hymn to Tourach and then play Necropotence on turn 3. If you play your first three turns like that you’re pretty sure of the win.  Card of the Month: Avatar of Discord Now usually big creatures at 3 mana have some kind of horrific drawback, especially the non-green ones, think Phyrexian Negator. Well the Avatar of Discord is a 5/3 flier for 3 mana, pretty insane yes? Now the ‘drawback’, sacrifice it unless you discard 2 cards, wait a second, this is the Rakdos guild isn’t it and don’t they like an empty hand? Yes they do, so you’ve just a got an awesome creature and took a large step towards Hellbent, what a harsh ‘drawback’. However it’s not all good it you can’t discard the cards the Avatar dies, so it’s less useful late game, chances are it’ll be discarded to something else i.e. Rakdos Guildmage, Nilhitic Glee to ensure your Hellbent status, or you could just play it and get it killed to get it out of your hand. However, the real fun with Avatar of Discord begins when you remove the shackles of the standard format, try discarding the incarnations Anger and Filth for a 5/3 Flying, Haste, Swampwalk creature for 3 mana, not bad hey? You could discard Basking Rootwalla and get a free creature; likewise a discarded Fiery Temper becomes a Lightning Bolt when played for its Madness cost. There are also mana acceleration spells that work well with the avatar, Dark Ritual equals first turn avatar, ouch. Some players complain that the avatar is vulnerable to removal spells, that your losing 3 cards to their one, which is a fair point but the avatar is designed for the Rakdos where the drawback might as well not exist. The avatar is at home in a Rakdos deck such as this one: Rakdos Beatdown (Standard type 2 60 Cards) Mana (20) 4 Blood Crypt 9 Swamp 7 Mountain Creatures (30) 3 Avatar of Discord 4 Gobhobbler Rats 4 Rakdos Augermage 3 Drekavac 3 Squealing Devil 3 Jagged Poppet 4 Rakdos Guildmage 4 Demon’s Jester 2 Dread Slag Spells (10) 4 Hit/Run 3 Delirium Skeins 3 Taste for Mayhem Empty your hand (and take a large chunk of your opponents with it) and maul your opponent with hellbent nasties, Avatar makes a very effective finisher, as does the Dread Slag. This decks is aggro and likes to play other aggro decks, or its favourite the deck that is unsure whether its control or aggro (i.e. Simic), the nemesis of the Rakdos deck is the Owling Mine deck which maims it horribly. Learn Magic Terminology! Vanilla: A basic card that has no abilities, e.g. Trained Armodon, Storm Crow. Removal: Spells and abilities that get rid of creatures Milling: Spells and abilities that put cards from the top of libraries and put them into the graveyard Bleeding: The term given to the “target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life” effect. Sidestep: Effects that remove something from game and return it to play at the end of turn. Tutor: Spells that let you search your library for specific cards.