It is usually around this time of year where we all get to stop and reflect on our lives over the past year. While a year seems to come and go so quickly, it always amazes me to think about how much my life has changed from one year to the next. I have been very fortunate this year in many facets of my life and now I would like to express a little thankfulness. I won’t bore you with my personal life, but I did want to share the ten things MTG that I am thankful for as we leave 2015 and make way for 2016.
10- Prereleases: I love these things. I find the prerelease experience to be just about the most fun you can have and the two-headed giant variant is my personal fav. I make a point of attending these whenever possible and the one in January is already on my calendar. At its core a prerelease is a fun tournament that brings out all sorts of different players and not just your local game store grinders which can make it so much more fun. As a father of a young family with not a lot of time to spend haunting my LGS, the pre-release experience allows me to whet my competitive juices, meet new people, have tons of fun with my buddy, and just really enjoy Magic.
9- YouTube: YouTube has been a blessing because it allows me to find so many different content producers, videos, and general MTG news all in one spot. When you are a little limited in the amount you can actually play, watching another (usually more skilled) player can really help you to make up some of the gap that exists between those who play sparingly and those who play more frequently. My weekly consumption of YouTube videos is pretty high and I am very thankful that they exist.
8- Hearthstone: It seems strange to put the competition on this list, but I am thankful for the advent of Hearthstone from a number of perspectives. The first is that it gives MTG players an alternative to sinking a huge amount of time into a tournament on MTGO. With Hearthstone you always have the option to get in, jam a couple of games, and then get out without feeling like you are missing something. Yes, you can jam some games in one of the other play lobbies on MTGO, but that isn’t the same as being to be able to jam some games that matter in a fairly short time frame and feel like you accomplished something. Leagues are step in the right direction on MTGO, but there is likely still a little work to be done in this regard.
The second reason I’m thankful for Hearthstone is that it gives MTGO an honest competitor in lots of regards and that’s awesome. Competition is healthy for the average consumer because it means that companies need to be mindful of what their customers want and continue to improve their product. That means that WoTC needs to continue to improve their online products or risk losing customers to playing Hearthstone. We have seen a number of recent changes to how MTGO works and some improvements to play options as a response to the growing pressure that Hearthstone is putting on the market. Sure, MTGO is very different in many respects, but they can’t simply ignore Hearthstone and that will ultimately benefit players as MTGO will continue to evolve and improve thanks to the growing competition between the two products.
7- Pucatrade: Pucatrade has seen a real explosion over the last year and it is a real benefit to players. When I signed up Pucatrade had made less than a million trades. Today they are nearing 3 million and counting. With over a 100,000 users and more changes to the online trading features of the program magic players are going to continue to see more value from the site. Personally, it means I can continue to trade cards I no longer want or need and look to pick up cards I am interested in without trolling through online vendors and dropping yet more of my hard earned money on cards.
6- The Expeditions: These have a huge revelation for a number of reasons. First off, they are beautiful. Second, unless you are a hardened enfranchised collector they represent you opening up a rather large sum of money that you can trade/sell to further offset the cost of playing the game. Case in point, my friend Dave opened a Verdant Catacombs and turned that into a healthy chunk of change that he could use to buy the cards he wanted to play. The third side effect is that because so many people were looking for the expeditions that record amounts of boxes of BFZ have been opened this fall. As a result, the price of just about every other card in the set is way down meaning that it is cheaper for the rest of us to get the singles we want for that sweet deck we’re building. Anytime this game can be more affordable is a win for the average player and the Expeditions have been a big force in that regard this fall.
5- MTGO: now I did say I wouldn’t go too far into my personal circumstances, but I think it is relevant to mention that I have two young children, a beautiful wife, a full time career and am a busy person. I don’t have many opportunities to go to the local LGS and play Magic nearly as frequently as I would like. That would mean I forgo bedtime with my boys, don’t get to spend time with my wife or take care of any other chores that need to be finished up before the end of the day. However, MTGO mitigates this somewhat by making the playing of Magic more convenient because all I need to do is turn on my computer and I can access all sorts of tournaments and game experiences. It is that convenience that I appreciate more than anything. Is MTGO perfect? No. But given the alternative of not playing it is vastly preferable.
4- Limited: I am thankful for limited formats because I like the mental challenge of building a deck from a smaller pool of cards. I know many players enjoy playing constructed, but I relish the challenge and diverse game play limited offers. From Draft, to Sealed, to Cube it is that experience playing these ever changing formats that is super refreshing and helps keep Magic fresh and exciting for me.
3- Siege Rhino: Only the most omnipresent card in Standard since he dropped in Khans. Abzan is everywhere and this is in every Abzan deck. He’s not easy to cast but a 4/5 trample plus a 6 point life swing at 4 mana is worth the time and energy. Personally, I’ll be sad to see him rotate out in 2016 because he’s my boy, but he’s had a good run and is likely good enough to see play in modern going forward meaning he’ll get a renewed lease on life.
2- Fetch Lands: These have helped make casting tri-coloured spells like Siege Rhino, Crackling Doom, and Mantis Rider a thing and have now pushed mana to the point where 4 colour decks are the norm. The fetches have been hugely influential for Standard and have uses in every constructed format making them highly sought after. I have often stressed that good mana is paramount in any format you happen to play because if you get blanked on one type of land your game plan falls apart. The fetches have helped mitigate this substantially and have been extremely powerful and important cards for all of 2015 and I wouldn’t be doing my job if they weren’t on my list somewhere.
1- Double-Sided Planeswalkers: I was very thankful for these guys this summer when Origins was released because I like the flavor that each of them brought to the game. The way they changed from a Creature to a Planeswalker, and how they each did it, was a very interesting and fun dynamic to have as part of the game. Now, not all of them are equally good, but their abilities and the lore they each brought to the game was fun and exciting. I feel like these were excellent additions to the pantheon of Planeswalkers and I was happy to see them arrive on the scene. Let’s ignore the fact that Jace is silly expensive, the design was good, the flavor was a nice addition, and the cards have a been a fun addition.
Well, that’s it for me in 2015. Thank you to all of you who stop in and read my little corner of the internet. I’ve had plenty of fun and spoken to lots of interesting people this year thanks to Magic and I look forward to continuing with what I’ve started in 2016, So, until then, enjoy the time with your family and a friends and find a little MTG thankfulness in your life. See you all soon for another Casual Encounter!
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
@bgray8791 on Twitter
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
I have an admission. I have recently decided that I would dust off my old MTGO account and resurrect it. The intent behind me opening up my MTGO account again was ostensibly to get some more repetition at drafting. I’ve gone and started a few drafts and have fared reasonably well and opened up some very sweet cards. However, by the time I convert any rares into tickets the pool of residual cards is too poor to take on the Standard decks running around these days. However, they are perfect for building a perfectly reasonable Standard Pauper deck and that is exactly what I have done.
In the drafts I have played I seem to usually end up playing G/X meaning that my card pool has a fair amount of Green. That suits me just fine. So, I was browsing through my collection online and noticed I had a pretty reasonable U/G deck. The deck reminded me of a U/G Flash deck I built from RTR/Theros standard that I really liked to play and so I pieced it together. I have been running it against other home brews and decks that lack some of the firepower of full on Standard decks and have been faring reasonably well. It suggests the deck has a certain amount of play that can have it hang around with more robust builds and grab a win. Here’s the deck list.
This deck doesn’t really want to play on its own turn, like any Flash deck, but the reality is that the creature pool generally lacks a variety of common Flash creatures apart from the Cloaked Siren. The way this usually plays out is that you cast your creatures on your turn, and then at Instant speed bounce their stuff or get their critters when they block by pumping your creature. It can do some pretty mean things and set your opponent back with some sizable Tempo plays quite easily giving you an edge to resolve your threats, load them up, and smash face.
The creature package should really have MORE War-Wing Siren as they are just about the best card in this deck. The 1/3 flier with Heroic does an awful lot of work and can get very big very quickly. It becomes a 5/5 if you Bestow the Nyxborn Wolf on it. That’s a full on Dragon. It’s a 4/6 if you cast a Feral Invocation. There are plenty of ways to target this creature, meaning it can get out of control super quickly and really turn up the heat on your opposition.
The other piece that I wish I more of is the Pheres-Band Tromper. This guy is an all-star if you can give him flying with a Stratus Walk because every time he untaps he just gets bigger. Connect a few times with him and you will quickly erase any deficit.
The Asp, the Siege Wurm, and the Benthic Giant are just general all-purpose fatties that plug up the ground and can go on the offensive once you’ve bludgeoned them and need to finish them off.
Of the rest, the Centaur Courser are lacking in punch and other abilities, but in a deck where you need some fodder or just to keep some more pressure up, these guys make for good pals. Sedge Scorpion is the ideal first turn drop and trades with almost anything acting as a real deterrent. I really like the Scry on the Sigiled Starfish to help smooth out those rough patches. The last guy I want to talk about is the Nyxborn Wolf which is probably my favorite common from Born of the Gods. This innocuous Bestow creature really packs a mean punch at +3/+1. Suit up anything with this guy and you have an instant threat. I would happily trade the pair of Coursers for a pair of these guys to round out the deck, but I’m not quite there yet.
On the whole, the deck performs quite well against decks that are of a similar power level, which seems to make it an ideal casual brew where the focus is more on having fun than on winning every single time. There is no doubt this deck suffers from some inconsistency because of the lack of play sets and the relative high variance, but considering it is made up of spare parts it seems to overcome that. And of course, since we all like to win, even if we’re playing around the kitchen table, the fact that this can just about steal a win out of nowhere is also a nice treat.
If this is something that catches your fancy give it a try and let me know what you think. I think it’s fun and surprisingly tricky to balance out the need to go aggressive with the need to hold up your mana for tricks. There is no doubt this sort of strategy is not a full on aggro assault and so patient players are more likely to come out ahead. However, it is fun, interactive, cheap, and deceivingly powerful. Give it a whirl. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
Thanks for reading and until next time keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
@bgray8791 on Twitter
Magic Online (MTGO) is Wizards of the Coast’s digital version of Magic: the Gathering, for anyone who is unfamiliar. It is host to every format and card you can think of. On top of that, it allows you to play high-level magic at almost any time of day! Imagine my excitement when I first stumbled on this amazing software. However, there was one elephant (token) in the room that I just couldn’t remove and that was the cost to play.
Like most people, I don’t have massive amounts of expendable income. I already play the paper version and almost never miss a Friday Night Magic (FNM) or Prerelease at my local game store (LGS.) This puts me in a position where, given my income, playing both online and offline regularly just isn’t going to happen. BUT WAIT! We have to at least try to get the most out of a limited budget. In this article, I am going to tell you how I broke into MTGO and grew my investment in order to limit the amount I would need to spend in the future.
So when I first looked at MTGO, I tried to figure out which events would give the most payout for the lowest investment. After evaluating my options, I figured out Standard queues would yield a reasonable amount of prizes with a relatively low risk. With this option, there was a small start-up cost, however, unlike draft, there was less capital needed to enter each tournament.
Obviously, if constructed is my game, I was in need of a deck. Since the name of the game was economics, the deck had to be cheap. I began looking at deck lists online and browsing Gatherer (Magic’s card database) in order to construct a list. Finally, I found a relatively cheap list that won a few standard tournaments in different forms and I figured I could make it work. What deck was it you ask? Well, it was none other than our good friend, Red Deck Wins (RDW)! After price checking the cards needed to construct this list, I had a thought. I am sure I can cut some corners and make it even cheaper! Eidolon of the Great Revel is a strong in RDW, however, the cost of a play set was high so I decided to take it out. I also replaced some slightly more efficient removal and changed the number of certain creatures in my list to reduce cost.
Now as you can probably see by this deck list, there is not too much power in this deck. The deck is mostly chalked full of cheap creatures with efficient removal/burn and ways to “punch through” to your opponents life total. On the other side, you also probably don’t see too much cost in this deck either. This is especially true for MTGO as prices are scaled down slightly due to a smaller demand. The only card that is worth a decent amount of money are the Stoke the Flames. I found that card too important to cut as it has the potential to kill so many creatures in the format as well as burn enormous amounts of damage.
This sideboard may appear to be filled with crap, and to a degree, you would be correct. Some of the cards here are really cheap and poor answers to certain threats that the deck would otherwise lose too. For example, Torch Fiend for Whip of Erebos, Harness By force for midrange matchup, and Bring Low for Abzan (I guess). However, some of these cards are really big all-stars in the right matchup and no one ever sees some of them coming. Scouring Sands pings (deals one damage to) each creature your opponents control and gives you scry one for a nice cherry on top. This is very good against Jeskai Tokens, Aggro Mirrors, and also gave me some scraping wins by breaking me through a swarm of hornets. Searing Blood is also very efficient creature removal in the current standard format. This is another card that comes in against other creature decks.
Overall, at the time of purchasing this deck, the overall cost was approximately 20 dollars. For anyone who plays Magic, they can’t help but smile at that price for a competitive deck. And let me assure you, this deck has beaten every deck in the format at least once. It has even taken down some unlucky souls who decided they wanted to try their hand at rouge brewing. There are two main reasons this deck is successful: Mana and Speed.
This deck has a much easier time with its’ mana compared to many of the decks in the format. Its’ mana is one of its strongest characteristics especially in a sea of three to five color decks. In fact, I won a chunk of games just because my opponent’s mana wasn’t well supported. Due to this deck being monocolored, you will never be unable to utilize your hand to its full potential. An even bigger upside is the cost of the creatures. Since the top of your curve is basically a two mana spell, land drops are not much of a problem even if you get land screwed. I often keep one land hands as long as I have a creature and a Titan’s Strength. The scry is usually enough to dig me to a second land before I need it.
The second great attribute this deck has is its’ amazing speed. It can close out games often before many decks can establish a strong board presence. By the time your opponent has one or two creatures, your Hammerhand and Frenzied Goblin will push your creatures through for the win. You will also have them at a low enough life total from suicide runs that a top deck Stoke the Flames is often enough.
Often times, this deck has a very explosive start. I think my favorite opening in the entire deck is as follows:
Turn One: Land, Swiftspear, and smash for one.
Turn Two: Land, Swiftspear, and smash with Titan’s Strength for five. Play another creature.
Turn Three: Mogis’s Warhound bestowed, hit for five more plus an additional one to two for your other creature.
Seems pretty scary huh? The great part is, I got this draw fairly often. In the worst cases, Valley Dasher or War-Name Aspirant would eat up my turn two. The worst creature you want to see hit the battlefield is a Sylvan Caryatid. Even when this happens, you can often grow your creatures big enough to punch through or just swarm past them. As far as I am concerned, it just slows me down.
Well, as I said, this deck gave me great success on MTGO. At the point of writing this article, my cumulative record with it in tournament queues (I practiced with it for a while before putting money on it) is a whopping thirteen to two. Not bad for such a cheap way to play. Now, on MTGO, constructed queues require two tickets for entry and pay out one pack of Khan’s to the winner. A pack of Khan’s is currently worth approximately three tickets. Using my record as an example along with my initial 10 tickets left over from my thirty dollar investment, I am currently up nine tickets. With some serious grinding, assuming my record continued, you could make a massive profit. I know most people just want to use MTGO to draft. At least that is how it is for me. Anyway, you will earn a draft after about 30 – 40 games with some tickets to spare. I know that doesn’t sound like the most attractive option, but efficiency and lower variance almost never is. If you tried to do the same infinite drafting with limited, you would have to get first or second in every single draft. This is also factoring in the fact that all tournaments are single elimination. I guess an alternative solution would be to just pull a foil fetch every draft, however, we are sticking to a realistic approach.
So I bet you are wondering, are there any other ways to play on MTGO without throwing money at it? Why yes, there actually is a way to draft for cheap that is much easier to play infinitely. This is in the form of Wizard’s various cubes that they host throughout the year.
In order to maximize fun and value, I always play in the swiss as opposed to the single elimination events. The reasons being: One, you will always get to play in all of your rounds giving you more time to enjoy some of the blasts from Magic’s past, and two, they are much easier to rinse and repeat. It is true that the single elimination cube drafts have actual older set pack payouts, however, they require at least a two to zero record. In addition, you will need tickets in order to draft that set with a two to zero record so, unless you get first, you still have to shell out two dollars. In the swiss events, you can just win two of any of your matches and it will allow you to gain free re-entry. These queues use a special currency called phantom points and you earn enough to hop right into another event after a two to one record.
Well, I hope this article helped you out and possibly pushed you to give MTGO a try. It will take a little time to learn how to effectively use the program, but once you get over that initial hump, your magic skills can take over. If anyone is interested in seeing MTGO play of either the legacy cube or the RDW I described earlier, please leave a comment below. I look forward to writing more for you guys next week as I have a column in the works but I am going to be on my way to GP San Jose next week so expect to hear about the main even in next week’s article!
Until next time, Happy Planeswalking!
By Roy Anderson @Sockymans on Twitter
