and beaten by the beckoning ocean-side forest.....
Oh, sorry folks, I went off in my thoughts. Tis the season for poetic soliloquies amongst the everflowing frozen particles of water that drifts down from the hea-
Ok I'm done with the poetic nonsense. Let's get to Magic!
Welcome back, older followers and welcome to the new ones. MtgRamblings (Cole if you would prefer) here, in the season of winter, and I find myself shifting back into the Magic mood. It hasn't taken its hold of me in a long time.....basically, a few weeks, WHICH IS A REALLY LONG TIME FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME.
So, once again, I find myself brewing decks for the commoners of Magic to get their hands on, to try new things and see the results of other people's research, or creativity. And I don't mean netdecks, where you suddenly find yourself 300 dollars poorer, or just....poor in general.
We all admit that Magic the Gathering is an expensive hobby. It is. There is no denying it. I don't care how much money you make, it's still pretty dang expensive.
(Gotta stop rambling, get to the POINT)
So today, I bring a deck, a SIMIC deck (with the newest installment to the Return to Ravnica expansion coming soon) that is pretty cheap in terms of money, but not in terms of mana cost. Without further ado, I bring you
Elves by the Sea (G/U)
Creatures:
4x Arbor Elf
4x Elvish Archdruid
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Invisible Stalker
4x Sphinx of Uthuun
4x Stormtide Leviathan
Lands:
9x Forest
8x Island
4x Transguild Promenade
Instants/Sorceries:
3x Think Twice
4x Amass the Components
4x Increasing Savagery
Enchantments:
4x Abundant Growth
Estimated average price? $29.21
So let's get into the specifics and the general ideas:
I'm sure most of you are thinking: "Cole, can you please stop trying to use these ridiculous cards that are in Standard but shouldn't make standard? JUST STAHP".
Just hear me out please? At least it isn't
Stormtide Leviathan is a pretty big fish. I mean, it basically floods the field, makes any creature without flying incapable of attacking, and just fucks up your shit with Islandwalk. But it costs 8 mana, triple blue, and in Standard, that takes a while to get to. However, mixed with this deck's possiblities, that isn't an issue.
Mr. Sphinx of Uthuun comes in the same boat (at least his boat doesn't get flooded by Stormtide). He's double blue, and is at 7 mana. Now, while it has symmetry with Stormtide Leviathan, being blue and a flier, the issue remains the same. Just not as hard.... How do you ramp into such a big creature, reaping the benefits?
(The M13 cards just keep on coming)
Elvish Archdruid had it easy when it first came into Standard. Elves that could produce mana existed. Having an Archdruid tap for 5G by turn 4 or even 3 was not impossible. Now, with M12 and Scars of Mirrodin out of Standard, the old Druid has a hard time existing. However, some elves are left over (and fit well with the deck's theme) and can help the old elf back into a fighting mood. Arbor Elf and Elvish Visionary are contributors to the deck, but are not the main force. The +1/+1 from the Archdruid isn't enough. But he helps in ramping into the bigger creatures above (while lands, such as the simple Island and even Transguild Promenade, help with the blue). Abundant Growth converts the colours of your lands, and once Stormtide Leviathan comes in, that becomes irrelevant.
Because of the card draw (in terms of Elvish Visionary, Think Twice, and Amass the Components) you're likely to set up a very consistant amount of elves, lands, and fishes. And with that, comes Increasing Savagery, which can be played and flashbacked without any concern for mana. It makes your Stormtide or Sphinx into literal monsters, just begging to be destroyed. Which makes the next card much more of a better addition:
Not an elf, not a fish, not a sphinx. So why Invisible Stalker?
If all else fails, finding and playing an Invisible Stalker early within a 5-6 turn game will get you started on gaining an early lead, or a win condition. If you can peg a normal or flashbacked Savagery onto its Hexproof 1/1 body, your opponent is on a clock OR you win the game. This will probably be this deck's big middle finger to your opponent, saying "what, you think it's just Stormtide? FUCK YOU."
In conclusion, it's a very interesting deck, and it has worked out for simplicity's sake. Because of its bareboned nature, it's easy to add things to this deck, or outright replace them. You'd be better off playing something with Craterhoof Behemoth, making all your elves have Trample and +x/+x, but it didn't seem to work in this deck's favor, considering Stormtide's presence and making anything else (just about everything else) not able to attack at ALL.
That's all this time from MtgRamblings, thanks for watching, and Happy Holidays!
-Cole
whoa...the only RtR card was Transguild Promenade....nice one Cole, nice one.....
Hello watchers, and I'm back with a new topic: how many colours should you/I play?
Magic the Gathering, from 1993 (the year of its creation) and to now, in 2012 (where Return to Ravnica is coming out in less than a month), cards have had various colour combinations, symbols, and mono colour cards.
But there will always be cards with various costs: from a single mandatory colour, to two or three different colours, to any colour of your choice (aka colourless).
But there is always a question in any players head, in any format: what colour(s) should I play? More specifically, how many?
Wizards had a suggestion in their decklist that came with my first pack of cards, the 9th Edition Custom Creatures: add other colours to strengthen the power of your deck.
I found this to be both good and bad advice. It's good in the sense for new players to learn the game in a more balanced way, learning how to make synergy between two different colours and making a more effective deck. I also found this bad because some players might prefer a more simplistic approach: if they play one colour, they have all the benefits of the colour, but also all of its weaknesses.Thus, it makes the game easier to teach and learn.
It conditions the person to the learning experience: if they play two colours first, they might be overwhelmed and not truly learn the effectiveness of each individual colour, but learn how to see the synergy between colours and certain cards. Meanwhile, if they start with one colour, their deck is wide open to being exploited for its glaring weaknesses, but play with the colour's strength to its full potential.
Ultimately, it's up to the individual player. Wizards have made it easier for colours to fit in certain decks, by finding the land necessary, or having low costing creatures, etc etc. The company has also made it easier for decks to belong in their own colour:
RDW (Red Deck Wins) was a decktype that was effective at one point in time....but recently has not done so well, it consisted of direct damage spells mixed with some aggressive creatures.
Green seems like a colour that stays to its roots, having mana ramp and aggressive offenses, with small creatures to pave the way for the big ones (this deck seems to have taken off lately as a solid solo-colour)
Black plays dirty, having a multitude of effects to play with you before finishing you off. Doesn't mean they don't take damage in the effort.
Blue plays a control game, stopping all your efforts before taking your creatures to finish you off. They don't exactly always have answers for your creatures, but you most likely have no counters to them either.
Finally, White plays small creatures with big effects backing them up, and swarm your board with an army. Throw in some Angels and you got a force to be reckoned with.
Wizards makes cards that work in various types of decks: a recent spoiler in the past week has revealed a double red card (Ash Zealot), and I read an article that said they wanted to appeal to people who wanted to do mono-red decks. It goes to show that team developers of our beloved card game really try to appeal to our various tastes.
But what about the other colour alternatives? What about three colour decks?
This is where the most experienced to go test their deck making, finding the best of three colours, and combining them in a deck that is the most effective. There are the traditional colour builds based on the plane of Alara, and the five micro-planes within: Bant (Green/White/Blue) Jund (Green/Red/Black) Esper (White/Blue Black) Grixis (Red/Black/Blue) and Naya (White/Red/Green). Then there are the other colour combinations that have no set names. These decks have their good and bad points, just like any other deck. Their main issue is how their lands work: if they don't draw the right lands, they might have trouble for the rest of the game.
The end result is whatever you want it to be. With all the various formats, and the hundreds of thousands of cards printed, it's up to you: the player. You figure out what you want to play (big creatures, spells, enchantments?), what colours to use (one, two, three, five?), what format you play (Standard, Legacy, Commander?).
That's why Magic the Gathering is such an amazing game.
Thanks for reading folks, I hope you enjoy this small insight I've had about Magic and its inner workings. I was kinda rambling, so it ties into my blog title! Till next time.
