Deck contents: Infect
Psst - this was posted 1 year ago

Since the mechanic came out, there’s been a fair amount of stink surrounding Infect. Personally, it tickles that combo itch that I have. This is my current build of the deck:

The Creatures:

• Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon x1
• Ichor Rats, x1
• Putrefax, x2
• Contagious Nim, x2
• Cystbearer, x4
• Corpse Cur, x3
• Copper Myr, x2
• Leaden Myr, x2
• Plague Stinger, x2
• Necropede, x2
• Ironclaw Myr, x3
• Tangle Angler, x3

The Artifacts:

• Contagion Clasp, x2
• Throne of Geth, x1
• Contagion Engine, x1

The Spells:

• Untamed Might, x3
• Doom Blade, x2
• Grasp of Darkness, x3
• Gaea’s Anthem, x1 (we play old school)

The Lands:

• Forest, x10
• Swamp, x10

The Result:

In my last playthrough, I used the deck twice in a row and won both games against two opponents at once. Early damage means lots of poison counters, meaning it’s great with Proliferate.

And the creature of the match were the Tangle Anglers. Forcing Royal Assassins and other creatures to block it while the others skirt around for the poison kill is efficient and great. And if you need to keep the Anglers alive, feel free to either Untamed Might them or just Grasp of Darkness the opponent’s creatures.

Corpse Cur is a great way to bring back Putrefax for more smashy smashy.

In future builds of the deck, I’d remove the one lonely Ichor Rat, a Corpse Cur, and the Gaea’s Anthem (if you’re playing Type Two) for three Hand of the Praetors to give the others the bump. No need for four.

All hail the Sphinx Ambassador
Psst - this was posted 1 year ago

Last night we were playing Elder Dragon Highlander format Magic at my cousin’s house, in the basement, going full-core nerd.

I have an EDH deck that I whipped up that revolves around Bant (U, W, G) and has Rafiq of the Many as the general and despite not really being too comfortable with the format and having forgotten to play my general for the past few games we played, I managed to have one of the best MTG gaming experiences I’ve ever had in a couple of crazy turns.

One of my opponents had Sphinx Ambassador in play. SA is a blue 5/5 flyer for 5UU from M10. Not only is she nice and big to block creatures with, but her power is one of those easily overlooked abilities because it’s so long on the card, because nobody in mainstream play uses it, and because it’s $3 in the local shop’s binder. It’s big and expensive and the power basically does this:

If you deal combat damage your opponent, you look through their library and choose a creature card. That player guesses which card you picked. If they pick right, shuffle it back into their deck. If they guess wrong, you get to put that creature into play under your control.

It’s kind of a fluke power that I’d always dismissed as not powerful or only marginally useful.

Then last night happened.

As I said, one of my opponents played it and hit me with it, taking my deck’s Windborne Muse (I incorrectly guessed Empyrical Angel). When my turn came around, I cast Mind Control on the Sphinx to take control of it.

When my next turn came around, I played a Gaea’s Anthem (making it 6/6) and equipped it with a Behemoth Sledge so that I could make it a 8/8 flyer and do some extra damage. I attacked my cousin who had a blocker (that couldn’t make it) for 8. Because of the Sledge, it trampled and had lifelink.

Then something crazy happened - I realized that I had Rafiq in play. That meant that the Sphinx was exhalted (+1/+1 if it’s the only thing attacking) - and double strike. The Sphinx hit my cousin for 9 damage. Twice. Not only did I deal 18 damage but I also gained 18 life (thanks to the Behemoth Sledge).

After that dust had settled, the Sphinx’s power went off. Twice. First I searched his deck and he unsuccessfully guessed that I’d pulled Malfegor. I discarded 5 cards and all of my opponents sacrificed 5 creatures and Malfegor came into play under my control. Then, I grabbed some weird dragon that could get counters on him. There was nothing really fancy left in the deck.

At the end of one turn, I’d taken 2 creatures, removed 10 other creatures (5 from two different players), gained 18 life, and dealt 18 damage.

Tonight I went to the local shop and picked up my own Sphinx for $3. It will never be leaving my EDH deck.

What makes the card so good in EDH is that your opponent has to guess what you’re taking - but there’s really no way to guess. You can’t pick something you have four of in the deck because you can’t have 4 of them. You really have a one in 100 chance to guess correctly or they’re taking your cards. And if you’re like me, you forget everything in your deck except for one or two key creatures.

Try it out, especially with a Whispersilk Cloak. You won’t regret it.

Magic tonight!
Psst - this was posted 1 year ago

Headed out to some games tonight with the same crew for some Thursday night Magic, first chance to see an Eldrazi cards in the wild. I think we’re going to be playing some EDH games.

Despite loving Black and Blue, my EDH deck is Bant (GWU for other n00bs), featuring a bunch of legendary creatures (Barrin, Ertai, etc.), all led by Rafiq of the Many. I’ve never used him before, having picked him up at the local card shop for $6. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Initial thoughts are that he’s a bit weird for multiplayer games as his special ability, Exhalted and Exhaulted-enabled double-strike are intended for single creatures who attack, something that doesn’t happen all the time in multiplayer games.

UPDATE:

The deck didn’t work very well at all, mainly because I forgot how to play it and also because of bad draws.

Almost all of the creatures in it are super small 1/1 or 2/1s, so when another player dropped the black Crovax Evincar (non black creatures get -1/-1), I was basically stymied for 3/4 the game while I waited for someone to do something about it (my draws just weren’t working out for any removal). This didn’t turn out too badly for me as because I wasn’t a threat, nobody ever attacked me.

I also never actually played Rafiq. Ever. For the longest time because I wasn’t playing any creatures from my hand I had to start discarding them and did so on top of Rafiq. I actually forgot I had two piles, one for a general and one for a graveyard. So Rafiq sat on the bottom of the “graveyard” and never saw the light of day.

I need to find some new, bigger creatures for the deck that might actually be able to protect me against the much larger threats my opponents were playing. Any thoughts?

Deck 2 of 3
Psst - this was posted 1 year ago

The second deck is my favourite of the bunch. It’s a three-colour Esper deck that is quick to start up, and has so far done well against multiplayer opponents.

The deck: Etherium

4x Arcane Sanctum
3x Plains
3x Glacial Fortress
3x Drowned Catacomb
1x Island
2x Swamp
2x Seat of the Synod
1x Vault of Whispers
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Vedalken Outlander
2x Sphinx Summoner
4x Lodestone Golem
2x Sphinx Soverign (ooh, foily!)
4x Esper Stormblade
1x Master Transmuter
1x Umezawa’s Jitte
2x Time Sieve
1x Master of Etherium
2x Fieldmist Borderpost
2x Mistvein Borderpost
3x Open the Vaults
1x Etherium Sculptor
2x Divination
2x Howling Mine
2x Damnation
1x Sword of the Meek
1x Thopter Foundry

This deck is a favourite because of the black and blue cards in it (as with Deck 1 of 3, Discard, you can see I’m a sucker for those colours), and because it relies heavily on artifacts, something I’ve never been to quick to do in the past.

This deck works on a bunch of different levels, all intended to deal with multiplayer games. The first way is to get a ton of creatures out. Normally, decks with multicoloured permanents take a while to get rolling because of mana requirements. This deck has 13 two-drop creatures, some of which have dual-mana costs (meaning they are either black or white). All of these creatures are great on their own, but also can help one another get bigger to take on the world.

In multiplayer, Sphinx Soverign is a powerhouse. Provided you can get her in play, she either gains you 3 life to hits one of your opponents for 9 and the rest for 3. Big enough to block attacks, a black artifact that can’t be Terrored, and flying. Pretty sweet.

The deck only has one Master of Etherium, which pumps up my other artifacts, and I think it needs two. No matter how many are in the deck since almost all of the other cards are artifacts, MOE gets huge, quick - and makes everything else get bigger too.

The Sphinx Summoner and Master Transmuter are great ways to get Sphinx Soverigns in play quickly to start the beats.

The most powerful creature in the deck has to be the new Worldwake artifact creature, Lodestone Golem. Multiplayer games are a great place for them to come into play as they make every non-artifact card cost extra mana to cast. Seeing as most of yours are artifacts, you’re pretty much set. It helps you slow down your opponents’ actions and late-game spells, giving you more time to get your combos going.

One of the big combos in the deck is Damnation and Open the Vaults or Time Sieve and OTV. The idea is, later in the game you can reset the board of creatures with Damnation and then put all of the ones you had in play back with one little white spell. Same goes for Time Sieve - sacrifice a bunch of your creatures to take an extra turn, then OTV and do it again. Taking extra turns with a couple of Sphinx Sovereigns in play is a great way to end a multiplayer game.

In one game, one of my enemies saw I was amassing too many creatures and later in the game, dropped Day of Judgement to wipe all the creatures in play out. The next turn was mine and I played OTV to bring them all back, then sacrificed some (and my Artifact lands) to the ‘Sieve to take an extra turn and finished everyone else off in two rounds.

There is a Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek combo in the deck, but I haven’t used it yet. Having said that, I’m not really sure I want to. I know it’s a powerful combo, but I think I’d like to slot in another Master of Etherium and Master Transmuter.

What do you think? Do you have a deck like this one? What do you think I should keep in or take out?

Deck 1 of 3
Psst - this was posted 1 year ago

I’ve built a lot of decks in my day, but I keep returning to three in particular. In this and future posts, I’m going to outline each of the three, talking about what they do and I still plan to change about them.

The first deck: Discard

God I love discard. I loved Hymn to Tourach and Wheel of Fortune back in the day and with some of the newer cards out there now, there is even more chance to be a jerk and make you a target and make everyone angry with you.

The contents of this deck:

• 12x Islands
• 8x Swamps
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 4x Howling Mine
• 4x Megrim
• 4x Windfall
• 4x Remand
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Feldon’s Cane
• 1x Ivory Tower
• 3x Mulldrifter
• 3x Dark Ritual
• 1x Delirium Skeins
• 4x Prosperity
• 1x Forced Fruition
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 2x Lore Broker
• 2x Capsize
• 3x Perplex

That’s the deck in a nutshell. It’s designed to force players to draw lots of cards and discard them quickly, taking two damage from each discard, courtesy of each Megrim in play.

While playing, the deck is pretty fun - for me. I can often get hands full of cards and start the damage train down the track pretty quickly. This deck is especially dangerous in a multiplayer game with unsuspecting opponents. A couple of Megrims, and a Windfall and it’s game over.

That said, there are a few cards I’m not happy with:

• Forced Fruition - I think it should be replaced with a Dark Ritual
• 1 of the Perplex - I think it should be replaced with another Arcane Denial
• 3x Mulldrifter - Should be replaced with some Hedron Crabs

I also think the deck would benefit from a suite of Hedron Crabs to add another win mechanism to the game. If my Megrims are found out quickly, being able to deck my opponent seems like a great way to pull the win out from under them. And if that’s the case, I’d better add 4x Polluted Deltas (Black/Blue fetchland) to the mix.

Anyway, the deck does pretty well in four-player multiplayer matchups. You can often take out two players at once when you start cooking. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

-MH

Faster, Vampire! Kill! Kill!
Psst - this was posted 1 year ago

Howdy, I’m James Mathias, Mathew asked me to help author this blog, and this is my first post, a little story about how last Friday I went down to my local spot for some Type 2 FNM. I decided to play a Vampire deck, as the last time I played competitively I played Jund and ended up having no fun. I promised myself I would only play fun decks from then on. I have a couple other decks that would have been fun too, but I decided that Vampires would be fun, and at least a little competitive.

By 1am, I had a record of 2 wins, 3 losses and 0 draws. Not bad, considering I’m not a really competitive guy and also considering three of the five rounds were bad match ups for Vampires.

Round one was against “Turbo Fog”. I got a strong start, then he ramped into his Angel Songs and Safe Passages, I promptly lost game one. I conceded game two, I didn’t feel like wasting time playing against a deck I couldn’t possibly beat. I told the kid that it was a douche bag deck designed to be douche-y and not fun. He packed up his stuff and left very quickly, pretty sure I damaged him psychologically. 0-1-0.

I made some big trades in between rounds one and two, I got all but two of the cards needed to complete my full play set of Worldwake. Also pretty sure the first guy I traded with stole two Stone Forge Mystics from me, bummer.

Round two was against a Bant variant. Bant, even with Birds and Noble Hierarch is too slow for a good opening Vamps hand. This match went to 2 games I won both handily. 1-1-0.

Some more nice trades in between two and three, which netted me 3 of the 9 cards I needed to finish my Zendikar full play set. Boom!

Third round, against my friend Andy, who played “Summoning Iona”. First game I overran him with tiny vamps, and dropped a Vampire Nocturnus turn 4, he scooped. Game two, he faired much better and dropped Iona naming black on turn 5. I scooped. Game three I got a great opener and ran him down again quickly. 2-1-0.

More trades, now I have all but 3 cards for Zendikar, and a few new generals for EDH and a play set of WolfBriar Elemental for my son.

Round four, I got paired with a Red Mage. “Red Deck Wins” is a bad match for Vamps, really bad. Game one went like this, Not kidding. Mountain, Bolt, 3 to face, pass. Swamp, pass. Mountain, Burst Lightning, 2 to face, pass. Swamp, Gatekeeper of Malakir, pass. Mountain, Ball Lightning, 6 to face, pass. Swamp, and so on. He did 11 points of damage to me before I got to swing. Needless to say this match went 2-0 him. 2-2-0.

Traded for another general and a few cards for M10, including Garruk Wildspeaker and two Ant Queens.

Last round, against Boss Naya, boo. I won the first game, easily. Second game went to him, easily. Pretty even match so far. Game three. He drops a Sunpetal Grove. I drop swamp and Vampire Lacerator. He misses his second land drop but plays a Noble Hierarch. I drop swamp and then Gatekeeper of Malakir, 2 to his face. He misses third land, plays another Noble Hierarch. I’m swamp, and Nighthawk. He misses land, Great Sable Stag, I’m “Oh, No!” He won the game with two Stags and three Noble Hierarch and one land.

After all was said and done I came in 21st in a field of 43 players, not too bad for my fifth Magic competition ever.

While waiting for my buddy who made top 8, I made some final trades that netted me a full play set of Worldwake, including one epic trade for Jace the Mind Sculptor. Also picked up another General, who I think I will be building my next EDH deck around.

All in all it was an epic night, and a ton of fun.

My MTG is a game played in a basement
Psst - this was posted 1 year ago

Every two weeks I get together with three to five friends at my cousin’s place 30 minutes away to play Magic: the Gathering.

My MTG is a fun game, one where the rules are tight but mistakes are very easily forgiven. Players are permitted to go back multiple actions and reply actions. Players share dice, counters, and whenever we get token cards, we bring them to my cousin’s house, leave them there and add them to the pile for future use.

The games are never for a prize, nor is there direct competition, although we sometimes will do a booster draft for fun. I never win.

We protect each other, counter spells intended for one another, and if Nicol Bolas is one counter away from going ultimate, even if it’s under someone else’s control, we want to see what happens and will chastise the person who targets it (although I have Into the Roil’ed a six-counter Chandra Ablaze before).

Everyone starts showing up around 8pm and games begin around 8:30. Depending on how quickly or slowly talk is over - which is usually about either new, crazy land cards (my cousin collects lands) or about insane card prices - we get down to business.

I always lose the roll and almost always go second or second last.

Decks are always interesting. Some people play with whatever uncommons they dredge up from their collection, while others play decks designed to punish multiplayer environments. One of my decks (which I’ll post about in the future) is one of those decks. It has no name, but it doesn’t need one. It often kills all opponents on the same turn. And we all love it. Other people’s decks are pretty incredible and they’ve been playing for so long that you never know what they’re going to play next.

The only thing you do know is that white is out. No one there likes white. Black is the white. I’m often the only person playing white and having four Wall of Denials and a couple of Windborn Muses is enough to Protect Ya Neck for a few turns. Until someone casts Damnation.

That’s not to say that I’m the best player at the table. I am far from it. I am the newest player, but maybe the oldest player. Whenever a card is played from between Urza’s Saga and M10 I always have to read it or ask what it does. I am a total noob.

The atmosphere is friendly and inviting. Despite constantly trying to remember, I almost always forget snacks.

I just wanted to make a quick post about my Magic: the Gathering. I plan to write some more fun articles about my style of play and some fun nights we have in the future. For now,