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Flash Flushed Away

Finally, Flash is dead. Finally I can play legacy again. Everything becomes normal again. Or does it?

Today, Aaron Forsythe released the new B/R list on magicthegathering.com with the good news. Anyway, I think that the errata + banning set up any changes: Due to HulkFlash HanniFish was a very popular choice and I think that a lot of people will play this deck more often from now on. Furthermore I think Goblins will slowly disapear. Of course you will see a lot of goblins the next months, but I think that Flash just where the format will go: The Epic Storm and CRET belcher among others become more consistent from block to block and will finally kill this "lousy" Turn-3-kill aggro-deck - and this future sight will may have an impact already. I'm a bit sad about that, because thats what I like about legacy - its a very diversified format. On the long term, I'm sure, combo will just outrange aggro.
Mind over Matter and Replenish are 2 new combo-cards to help out, but you shouldn't be afraid of them, as they are probably a bit to slow for a format, were the fundamental turn slowly goes down from 3 to 2. Actually I'm happy about the unbannings, as I never really understood why they're banned in legacy.

Just my thoughts...

Magic League

I discovered the Magic league.
Today I played 8-person single elimination TS constructed tourney. Due to the single elimination, I played only against 2 opps before I got eliminated. I played with the following list:

// Lands
9 [TSP] Island (1)
1 [TSP] Urza's Factory
4 [TSP] Terramorphic Expanse
7 [TSP] Forest (2)

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [FUT] Maelstrom Djinn
4 [PLC] Groundbreaker
1 [TSP] Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
4 [TSB] Wall of Roots
2 [TSB] Mystic Snake

// Spells
4 [TSB] Psionic Blast
4 [TSP] Cancel
3 [TSP] Chromatic Star
3 [TSP] Careful Consideration
3 [PLC] Harmonize
3 [PLC] Utopia Vow

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [TSP] Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
SB: 3 [TSB] Spike Feeder
SB: 3 [FUT] Riftsweeper
SB: 4 [FUT] Thornweald Archer
SB: 4 [PLC] Seal of Primordium

So its a TS version of my Tarmo.dec

Round 1 - UG control (Mattmono)

Game 1
I was quite fast and Tarmo beated well. Not much the say here, but the aggro plan worked very well.

Game 2
I sided in the riftsweepers for random beats as I saw a aeon chronicler game 1. actually it worked very well - I countered multiple chronicles and prevented him from drawing a lot of cards. on about 12 life he got a stormbind out which gave me a total of 4 damage. I finally got a teferi out, which was the only useably beater on the table next to a morph from him - which was vesuvan shapeshifter. he killed teferi with it. Then I drew Urza's factory for the win, backed up with some other beats from carddraw.

2-0

Round 2 - UG control (sandoiche)

Game 1
He drew only lands and I nearly goldfished for an easy 1-0.

Game 2
Because I expected a similar list i sided in 2 riftsweeper as well, because they were so strong in the first round. I mulliganed to 4 cards, holding a bunch of lands and a harmonize. unfortunately I didnt got one of the sweepers, when the card-advantage-machine aeon chronicler hit the table once again - this time with 7 counters on it! evil. I definitely lost when hellkite, spectral force and stormbind hit the table, so I hoped for G3.

Game 3
I was playing the full seth of sweepers again. better. unfortantely it wasnt that a bomb as in the games before - still, I wrecked one chronicler, which always seems to be an important action, as it prevents my opp from drawing a load of cards, counters a big beater and is even a 2/2 beater by itself. anyway, this time this didn't help much, as we got an a stalled game quite fast. I think I made some play mistakes here, so that he kept his 15 life points, were I was on 13... then the time was up. Anyway, He was ready to turn a spectral force and some assembly worker sideways, so I would have lost anyway.

1-2 eliminated

Pro:
Tarmo.dec for being competitive
Riftsweeper for wrecking chroniclers
The games itself for being very interesting

contra:
playing 2 times against the same deck / playing only 2 times
The time for running up so fast
me for making play mistakes


So, I'm waiting for the next T2 / block mini on magic league... I'm Jadefeuer over there, just msg me if you wanna play!

see you there

The cmc 2 Bomb

1G (2), Creature - Lhurgoyf X/1+X
Tarmogoyf's power is equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards and its toughness is equal to that number plus 1. (The card types are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, and tribal.)

Is he nice? He is! I like this guy so much, I even started to play standard for my very own tarmo.dec... unfortunately it needs still a lot of tuning. I try to play every card type (tribal? I won't accept that as a card type - ever.) und some cards to get the stuff in the grave. Easy plan, isnt it? But there are a lot problems, and can't get a list which has decent match-ups against the top-tier. anyway, here's the list:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
9 [TSP] Island (1)
7 [RAV] Forest (2)
1 [TSP] Urza's Factory
4 [DIS] Breeding Pool

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [FUT] Maelstrom Djinn
4 [PLC] Groundbreaker
2 [TSP] Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
4 [TSB] Wall of Roots
2 [TSB] Mystic Snake

// Spells
4 [9E] Mana Leak
3 [TSB] Psionic Blast
2 [GP] Hatching Plans
4 [CS] Perilous Research
3 [RAV] Compulsive Research
3 [DIS] Simic Signet

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [9E] Rewind
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 2 [DIS] Voidslime
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [RAV] Shadow of Doubt


Should I play it GB? GW?
More aggro?
More control?
Claws of gix? More artifacts? Enchantments?

More synergies? Less synergy for more "good" cards?

Whats with the SB?

I'm not that happy with this deck atm, but its fun to play anyway. I'd really like to get a playable version of this deck, but i definately need some help. suggestions?

"Whiteout" or how to Make Bad Cards Good

After a sleepless night last week, I was quite bored at 8 a.m. I thought about some cards I'd need to improve my decks and how to get them. Due to a cashfree wallet and an empty bank account I decided to draw them by myself. I got some permanent markers and a tipp-ex, took some old, useless cards and started to paint those. The result is... well... it's okay for me, but I'd like to know if there is an alternative solution, because to paint with tipp-ex kinda sucks. Ideas?


and... do you like the cards?

Hulk Flash - Have Fun

Hulk Flash is recently the most discussed legacy deck. Due to an "uneratta" on the part of wizards, flash has become a one-card-combo. nearly. coupled with protean hulk, disciple and some 0/0 artifacts, it wins regularly on turn 1-2... with counterbackup. I've tested the deck this afternoon (only goldfish... don't wanna disturb the mws-community ;)) and I was shocked. Especially the post-FS build kicks ass... without any effort. you can mulligan to 4 and still win on turn 1.

I hope that this deck will be wrecked on the 1st of june, when the bannings will be updated. It let me think of the ole' affinity days in standard, back when ravager and skullclamp were best friends. But actually, I still don't know which card should be banned - Flash itself is the most obvious choice and it would solve the problem. On the other hand, the unerattaed flash would be a nice addition to the format. Of course not with all the pacts from FS and the protean-hulk-instant-win.
To ban protean hulk would kill the combo as well, leaving us with weaker combos like flash- academy rector - [humility, cheese stands alone, rancor, whatever...].

Unfortunately this change will ruin the GP in columbus, which doesnt affect me directly but the legacy community as a whole and all potential new legacy players, who'll get a wrong impression of the normally so diversivied format.

sad.

Edit: It would be great if flash - rector - the cheese stands alone / barren glory would be the future - I would laugh if I'd see -this- in a competive legacy deck :o

From station to station

I've found some time and built 2 new highlander budget decks. the first one is about the different stations from fifth dawn with a lot of artifacts and acceleration (blinkmoth urn anyone?) and door to nothingness as well as goblin canon as alternate win conditions. It works quite well, at least it worked well on monday, were I had the time to test it. One game I actually won with the allmighty stations, but a returning goblin canon was much stronger than this silly 3-card-combo. All I need is time, because I'm extremely vulnerable the first 10 turns or so... oh, and one game I lost to ivory mask - now I'm playing elf + goblin replica.

The 2nd deck is a red-black aggro-control. Basically, I just want to play kaervek, the merciless and the first thought was, that an aggro-control shell would be the best place for him. While playing I lost one game after the other. Once I got him out with no destructive decks around and he dealt over 20 points of damage. I'm still sure, that this guy can be a gamebreaker, but the deck needs some improvement. Should I build a more controlish deck?

Magus Rule

from magiccards.info concerning Magus of the Arena:

+ A tapped creature can be targeted. Tapping them again will do nothing, but they will still deal damage. [Planar Chaos FAQ 2006/12/13]

I'll put him in again and test him.

Unfortunately, I have really a lot to do for school - It's the last year and the final examinations will start on monday (at least the written part), I'll post more frequently after the exams - I promise.

This gonna be short entry, got alot of work...

1. 300 is awesome. I watched it thursday (openin night) with my girlfriend and... I actually I've probably never seen such a good movie. I like it even more then Lord of Rings. Right, even more!

2. School sucks. Our german teacher is a @#°@¬#!

3. The preview cards on mtg.com are hot. Remove a spell from the stack? gain protection as a player? I love these Ideas.

4. Finally I got fable! I know, It's nearly an old game by now, but I had it on xBox from the first day - unfortunately my xbox crashed every time I wanted to play it. So now I got it on PC... okay, maybe I won't work too much tonight. Hey, at least I'm honest.

see ya later!

Blue (Da Ba De)

The Magic: The Gathering what-color-are-you-quiz:

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Yeah, I'm blue. You?

Squee's embrace + Magus of the Arena + Avalanche Rider

I'm not very confident with this 3 cards in my R/W control. We were playing some multiplayer games this afternoon when I decided to go over the whole deck to kick out the weakest links. I haven't done this for a while but changed a card from time to time (e.g. I put in the avalanche rider because he's so shiny in foil).

out:

Squee's embrace
To kick this one out was an easy decision. back when I build this deck it was more like a Boros deck wins with some controlish elements. I played Skyknight Legionnaire and Boros Swiftblade among others and the 3 balances weren't even part of my collection. After I built in some control elements, it brought my fatties back and had some senergy with balance - thats probably the reason why it stayed so long in my deck. Now it's time to replace it.

Magus of the Arena
I opened a Planar Chaos booster last week, and he was the rare card. I looked at him and thougt: "wow, this guy will be fun - a 6mana 5/5, 3 mana, tap, let him fight against any anoying creature!" I put him into my deck immediately. Well I should have read the card more accurately. The Problem with this guy is, that you have to tap him for the ability and then tap another creature for the effect, so he won't ever stay in the arena himself. Long story short: I have just not enough creatures to support him.

Avalanche Rider
This was a though decision and I'm still not sure about it (Did I mentioned that he's foil?). He's pretty strong after a balance or against some random lands. However, More often than not he's just a 2/2 beater (which probably can't attack anyway) and you don't want him to play pre-balance. This anti-sinergy was in the end the reason why I dismissed him.

Now the cards I test in these slots;
In:

Riftmarked Knight
You'll get 2 2/2 creatures with protection black /white, flanking and haste for 3 mana. Okay, you have to wait some turns, but I think thats worth it. I wont mention the singergy with balance here.

Keldon Marauders
On the first sight, this guy doesn't look to impressive. but he's a 2 mana 3/3 and you'll like to see him after a balance for some cheap action on the table if you haven't got a game-winning gargadon. you may even like to see him pre-balance: he blocks for a turn or two, makes some damage and helps to stall the game until you can play the balance with zero creatures on your side.

Pyroclasm
At the moment utility creatures are quite popular in our meta and mass-removal is always a good choice. I'll test it, but I think this card has deserved a slot.

Magic Set Editor 2

The Magic Set Editor 2 Is a nice tool to make your own magic cards. It supports some cool things like flip cards, textless cards etc.

For the picture I used fotoshop to combine reset, wrath of god and myself.

I'm working an a small fun set right now and I'll probably post a card from time to time.

/wave

Ketchup-Mayo

Welcome to another post ;)

I'd like to show you my favourite Multiplayer/Highlander deck: Ketchup-Mayo! When you play highlander (if you're not familiar with it) you're allowed to play only one copy of each card except basic lands. You play only one game, so a sideboard isn't necessary - but that means that artifact and enchantment hate should be packed in the maindeck. In a multiplayer game, aggro decks are a bad choice, because you'll probably die to your 2nd enemy after you've killed your first one. At least if you're not playing an all-vs-all, with this type of multiplayer I'm not that familiar. so, our playgroup sees rarely an aggro deck, but Aggro-control isn't that uncommon - all you need is a backup plan for the late-game, e.g. a genesis in the grave.

Time for the decklist:

RW control a.k.a. Ketchup-Mayo

// Lands
7 [CHK] Mountain
1 [RAV] Boros Garrison
1 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair
1 [BOK] Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
1 [RAV] Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
8 [7E] Plains
2 [UNH] Plains

// Creatures
1 [PLC] Magus of the Arena
1 [AP] Goblin Legionnaire
1 [RAV] Firemane Angel
1 [FD] Silent Arbiter
1 [MR] Duplicant
1 [TSP] Greater Gargadon
1 [TSB] Avalanche Riders
1 [LE] Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 [ON] Exalted Angel
1 [CHK] Kami of Ancient Law

// Spells
1 [FD] Beacon of Destruction
1 [JU] Browbeat
1 [TSP] Rift Bolt
1 [CHK] Hanabi Blast
1 [DIS] Seal of Fire
1 [FD] Magma Jet
1 [TSP] Sulfurous Blast
1 [OD] Balancing Act
1 [RAV] Boros Fury-Shield
1 [MR] Awe Strike

1 [TSP] Restore Balance
1 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [DS] Darksteel Pendant
1 [IA] Zuran Orb
1 [RAV] Boros Signet
1 [TSP] Word of Seizing
1 [AP] Squee's Embrace
1 [RAV] Lightning Helix

1 [TSP] Wheel of Fate
1 [TSP] Sudden Shock
1 [CHK] Yamabushi's Flame
1 [8E] Wrath of God
1 [6E] Disenchant
1 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
1 [RAV] Faith's Fetters
1 [4E] Balance
1 [PLC] Dawn Charm
1 [BOK] Terashi's Grasp

[Gameplan I]
Stall the game, play a fatty, win.

[Gameplan II]
stall the game, suspend a gargadon, play one of the 3 balances, sac everything, win.

[Gameplan III]
Burn the sh*t out your opponents. Works at its best if your opponents fighting each other.

As you see, I have 3 different ways to win and even if my [gameplan I] looks solid, my fatty often dies quite fast. most of the time I win with the gargadon-combo. Our games take a lot of time, so I can wait for my combo pieces to wreck my opps afterwards.

But of course, there are some problems:
Problem I
Counterspell. "I sac everything to gargadon and play with the mana in pool a balance -", "counterspell". Thats the worstcase, but it happens seldomly and I'm always aware of untapped islands*. Of course counterspell wrecks all my fatties too. But hey, they can't counter everything... or can they?

Problem II
Graveyard-strategies. This is really a problem of ketchup-mayo. With the current deck, I'm unable to hate they're grave and a glory or genesis in the yard is back-breaking. GY-recursion is extremely strong in multiplayer and I feel that my deck need some cards to abuse this as well. suggestions?

Problem III
Bounce. This is just a problem of the gargadon gameplan. I play only 21 lands, and sometimes a bouncespell could kill me.

Problem IIII
A 2/1 shadow pro-red creature. quite hard to handle, but possible *sigh*

Now it's your turn, do you like the deck?

Lastly I want to add a marvellous finishing move in a highlander-duel against my old friend alex:
We seesaw some turns until he turns a stronghold overseer and a morph sideways, with me at about 13 life while he's at 11. The overseer alone couldn't kill, so he morphs up a liege of the pit. that's right, a 7/7. and I haven't got anything on the table. Luckily, I've got the perfect answer and enough mana. I tap my Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion and give his liege doublestrike. And I'm smiling.

think about it, why should I do that?



right,

I've got Boros Fury Shield in Hand.
Man, that game was fun.

Thats enough for today,

/wave




*now

Solidarity...

It is a strong deck in legacy - I think.
It is fun to play the mirror match - I think.
It is hard to play correctly - I think.
It can trough all sorts of hate - I think.

May I think to much. I'm building this deck right now* and goldfished it a few times** and tested it on MWS***.
I've brought it to our casual table, and, well... I probably won't ever be allowed to play this deck again in a 4-player-game again. Actually, even the duel is disliked. What a surprise.
What I want to say is the following: I need a competent test partner for the deck. And a T1.5 Tournament near my hometown.

Anyway, what do you think about Deep6er's Red Tide? I personally prefer the MonoU version because I would fear wastelands.I thought the combo would stay MonoU forever. It is interesting, though, and sometimes probably a good Metagame call. I'll may test it one day on MWS.


/Wave

* Where the hell are all these Resets?
** 200 - o. poor, poor goldfish. I'm sorry.
*** Actually you should never use "test" and "MWS" in the same sentence. I tried it at least.

First of all...

Hi!

So, why am I here?

I thought you're may interested in the life of a 18-years-old swiss guy who have nothing better to do than to playing magic the gathering, learning for school and starting another senseless blog.

I'll try to keep this blog on topic: Magic. I hardly ever make it to a tournament, so most of time I'll write about some casual games with my friends or a legacy deck from the source - if you are interested in that, welcome to my blog =)

/wave