Sphinx or Sub-Sphinx M11 Visual Spoiler Review Part 3

bdm | 04:23PM on Tue Jun 29 2010

I know it has been a while since the last set of cast but with cards flooding into the M11 Visual Spoiler page on the mothership Mike and I got together, with a special guest appearance from the hirsute Steve Sadin, to discuss Conundrum Sphinx and his spoiled friends from M11. It was a fun set of ‘casts to record as the three of us have not done anything together in quite some time and there were plenty of exciting cards to discuss. Topics of discussion included the tournament worthiness of Sphinx of Jwar Isle, which cards will win the most money for the rest of the year, and which cards seem like they are being overrated (Hint: It rhymes with with Rhyme Dispersal).

Make sure to check the Visual Spoiler page and the various weekly columns for the rest of this week and next as more cards are revealed every day. And of course, don’t forget to make your plans for the M11 Prerelease in a little over a week.

Sphinx or Sub-Sphinx? Part 3

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Rise of the Eldrazi Set Review Part 2 of 2 (Black, Red, Green and the rest) by Seth Burn

Matt Wang | 12:21AM on Sun Apr 18 2010

Seth is an old time NYC player, who sent this into us on Friday. We hope you enjoy it. - Matt

Black:

Arrogant Bloodlord:

He dies because he was so offended that he was blocked by a powerless wall? Lighten up Francis. Addendum: Still playable. Black has plenty of removal to clear his path.

Bala Ged Scorpion:

Nice combo with the Bloodlord but too weak on its own to be playable.

Consume the Meek:

  1. Instant speed mass removal.
  2. Demolishes token and weenie strategies.
  3. Kills manlands.
  4. Allows your edict effects to kill their best creatures.

Yeah, this card is good. Addendum: Five is a lot of mana. I still like Consume the Meek, but I’m willing to admit to its faults.

Consuming Vapors:

Consuming Vapors combos well with Consume the Meek. I expect the two of them together will help revitalize Black control. I don’t feel Vapors is a great card, but it is a pretty good one. Most importantly it has pretty good synergy with the other Black control cards we have at our disposable. Each edict effect makes the next one even better. As creatures improve, so does the value of creature removal. Addendum: It is hard to lose if you resolve Consuming Vapors plus rebound twice. Four creatures gone, some nice lifegain, etc. Black has plenty of cheap removal spells to make sure you haven’t fallen too far behind for Vapors not to matter. As I noted earlier, it is getting harder to be a weenie.

Contaminated Ground:

Well, you don’t get to draw a card, and you probably don’t have any Swampwalk creatures. Still, for two mana you get to turn a manland or an Eldrazi land into an awful land. Might be worth sideboarding.

Corpsehatch:

Good effort, but this costs too much and is a bit too slow compared to our other options. Read the rest of this entry »

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Rise of the Eldrazi Set Review Part 1 of 2 (Colorless, White and Blue) by Seth Burn

Matt Wang | 11:58PM on Sat Apr 17 2010

An old time NYC-based Magic player, Seth Burn, sent this in to us on Friday. We hope you enjoy it!

Hello there. If you remember who I am The Sunset Squad will be arriving soon to take you away to the Near-Death Star. I feel like writing a set review of Rise of the Eldrazi, so please enjoy. I won’t be reviewing all the cards because I don’t have to, I’ll just be commenting on cards I feel are worth noting. Shall we (I) begin?

Colorless Eldrazi (AKA, not artifacts):

All Is Dust:

This card is exceedingly strong. It kills planeswalkers, enchantments, creatures, and some artifacts. All is Dust can cost as little as five mana with Eye of Ugin. I could see running this in a Green ramp deck, or a White based control deck, possibly splashing Blue or Black. It doesn’t win the game by itself (which is something you can reasonably ask of a seven mana spell), but it should put you in a good position to take control. Addendum: This card is nuts. Add Black control to the decks that can use this. Oblivion Ring just got worse, as has Journey to Nowhere. I know it costs seven, but we can painlessly play five lands main thateither make this two mana cheaper, or tap for two mana to cast it.

Emrakul, The Aeons Torn:

You get what you pay for. Possibly the best Summoning Trap target in both Type II and block. The immunity to spells isn’t quite all it appears to be as Day of Judgement and Journey to Nowhere can deal with Emrakul. I can’t imagine I’ll pay 15 for it too often, but I am excited to pay 4GG during my opponent’s end step for it. Polymorph is a cheaper option, and given the amount of token generators available it should be fairly consistent. Addendum: I’m glad this guy is the prerelease card, I have a lot of decklists right now with four Emrakuls.

The Prerelease Card

The Prerelease Card

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth:

Am I the only person waiting for Blarthmein Dragon, Accountant of Truth? Anyway, Kozilek is the one Eldrazi creature I am planning on casting as well as trapping. Between Eye of Ugin, Eldrazi Temple, and our ramping options I’m fairly confident Kozilek’s casting cost is reasonable. Unfortunately Kozilek doesn’t have any defenses against removal, but for only costing ten mana (only ten mana!), I’ll let that slide. Addendum: 10 mana is a lot less than it used to be. Green decks can have him online consistently on turn 6, and occasionally on turn 5.

It That Betrays:

Not that All Is Dust needed any help, but the combo is pretty sweet. Addendum: Which is not to say that It That Betrays is any good.

Not Of This World:

Pretty narrow but I could see sideboarding this. It can’t protect Emrakul, but Ulamog and Kozilek are both vulnerable to targeted spells.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Material Possessions by Scott McCord

bdm | 05:06PM on Wed Mar 17 2010

Scott McCord is a former professional Magic player who made the Top 4 of Pro Tour Boston as a member of Slay, Pillage, Gerard with Jon Sonne and Gerard Fabiano. He also has reached the Top 8 twice in Grand Prix competition. He sits in 80th place in Total rating and has made infrequent Pro Tour appearances on that basis. He is also a long time friend of the Top8Magic crew and one of the best Limited players I have had to good fortune to play with and against over the years.

Despite a career that involves working with words and possessing formidable Magic skills, Scott has written very rarely about the game. If you have ever watched someone better than you play a game of Magic and wondered why they made the decisions that they did, this article should provide some illumination into the higher level thinking that goes on in a game of Magic. It certainly did for me.

Material Possessions

I’m sitting around watching a draft game recently between a couple of friends.  One of them, Steve, is playing a u/b deck and has just tapped uubb for a 3/2 flier.  His opponent, Mark, is running r/w and attacking with a 2/2 flier.  Steve declines to block and falls to 16.  Mark plays a 3/3 and passes.

“Steve, why didn’t you block?” I ask.

“Pretty simple, I think; he’s got a 2/2 and my guy’s better,” he says.  “But thanks for the advice; I hear you’re the ninth-best player by rating in the world.”

“I’m not even the ninth-best player in this conversation.”

“Sad but true.”

I’m looking at Steve’s six-card hand.  He holds Living Tsunami, 2 Mysteries of the Deep, Bog Tatters, Bojunka Brigand, and Whiplash Trap.

Why should Steve have traded his 3/2 for a 2/2?  The answer comes from a concept gleaned from chess: material vs. time.

In chess, aggressive players will frequently sacrifice pieces in order to gain positional advantage for a decisive attack.  The last thing the aggressor wants to do is trade straight up without improving position, because doing so nullifies the sacrifice and gives him fewer tools with which to win the game.  Magic often works the same way.  The attacker has time; that is, positional momentum.  The defender has material resources.  Trading material decelerates the game and allows a material advantage to cancel a temporary time advantage.

In this case, Steve has a lot of potential material (the creatures and card advantage in his hand), but not a lot of time (his life total, lack of defense, a potential land shortage).  He should be looking to trade creatures so that his cards in hand can take effect; Mark should be looking to avoid trading while pushing as much damage as possible.  In other words, Steve should strive to make material advantage, and not time advantage, the game’s deciding factor.

Let’s examine some reasons and situations to consider when choosing whether or not to block: Read the rest of this entry »

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Angelfire 2.0 by Frank Lepore

bdm | 05:34PM on Tue Aug 25 2009

This marks the return of guest writer Frank Lepore who previously authored the much talked about, “Has Magic Lost Its Way” on this site. With barely a weekend remaining in the current PTQ season he offers up a last minute control deck that has performed well for him online for those of your scrambling for a blue envelope this weekend.

Some exposition:  A while back, on ChannelFireball, Gerry Thompson threw out a Grixis control decklist in an article that never got very much attention.  I never saw it or a list like it ever make any headlines, but the deck always performed solid for me.  The threats were all resilient (Wydwen, Demigod, Banefire) and almost every card was a two-for-one (Jace, Cryptic Command, Cruel Ultimatum, etc.).  This was the deck I played at the last PTQ, going 6-2 and getting 13th.  My only losses were to mono-red, which prompted me to put four Magma Spray in the board for Anathemancer/Hellspark Elemental/Figure of Destiny/Outlander which I hoped would give me the time I needed to stabalize.  Well, I gave the deck to my friend Sal to play at an FNM and he immediately fell in love with it.  He took it to the finals and from then on wanted to play it at every FNM.  But something happened.

You know how sometimes a deck no longer feels viable, even though you can’t really explain how or why you feel that way?  Like the times have just changed?

Well, that was how I had felt.  Even though nothing from M10 had really changed in the deck, it just didn’t feel like the deck to play.  I didn’t know why though.  All the cards were still great!  The deck didn’t lose anything and the format hadn’t gained anything that really hindered the deck.  Maybe I just didn’t feel right that I was the only one playing this deck; maybe I was overlooking something, or getting lucky.  Either way, I kept telling Sal to play something else.

Well, last week (8/7) he texted me with a list he wanted to play and it seemed really good.  I got to the store early and started putting it together for him, changing a few cards here and there, tweaking the mana base, and making a sideboard for him.  The final list ended up as follows:

AngelFire 2.0

Baneslayer Angel

Baneslayer Angel

2 Essence Scatter
2 Negate
4 Broken Ambitions
4 Cryptic Command
4 Jace Beleren
3 Ajani Vengeant
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Baneslayer Angel
2 Bogarden Hellkite
3 Plumeveil
2 Hallowed Burial
1 Banefire
3 Rugged Parerie
3 Cascade Bluff
3 Mystic Gate
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Vivid Creek
2 Vivid Meadow
1 Vivid Crag
3 Island
2 Plains
2 Mountain
Sideboard:
4 Kitchen Finks
1 Hallowed Burial
3 Runed Halo
2 Celestial Purge
1 Pithing Needle
2 Essence Scatter
2 Negate

Before Sal got to the store, I played a few games against Brad playing Faeries and it went 2-1 pre-board against them.  I loved playing the deck because it felt like I was always in control of the game.  It was then I realized that the list was just the Grixis deck but with white instead of black!  Ha!  Sal had managed to convince me to let him play the deck he wanted to play by simply switching out one color for another and forcing me to see the deck with new eyes.  I was impressed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Op-Ed: Has Magic Lost Its Way? by Frank Lepore

bdm | 06:07PM on Wed Jul 1 2009

Frank Lepore is a long-time Top8Magic listener who has previously written a tournament report for Top8Magic.com about his attempts to reach the beaches of Hawaii. This most recent piece was inspired by events at his local FNM store as well as the recent changes to the game’s rules and base set card pool.

Has Magic Lost Its Way?

The following is my cumulative opinion of three separate events that transpired last night which lead me to believe that not only is Magic in more frightening shape than it has perhaps ever been, but that it may never return to the form that I once fell in love with. Before going any further I would like to completely stress the word “opinion.” Nothing said is by any means meant to be presented as fact, and I not only welcome but encourage counter points and arguments.

The first event occurred while I was running the local FNM last night. At one point in the night, I was leaning on a counter that overlooked a game that was in progress and I began to watch. One player who was obviously less familiar with the intricacies and timings of the game, Magic’s token casual player if you will, had a Chameleon Colossus in play. He was piloting a sort of red green aggro deck. His opponent, a player who had even won a Regionals once, was playing Cascade Swans. His relevant cards were a Seismic Assault and a Ghitu Encampment with one land in hand.

The incident in question happened when the Chameleon Colossus attacked into the Swans player. He in turn activated his land and blocked. After this was declared, the Colossus player played double Colossal Might on the Colossus – which should not be said five times fast – without stopping to ask for responses or pass priority. It was at this point that his opponent said to him, “After first strike damage, kill it before the Colossal Might resolves?” Read the rest of this entry »

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