November 2010
1 post
Deck contents: Infect
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
...
May 2010
1 post
All hail the Sphinx Ambassador
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...
April 2010
1 post
Magic tonight!
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...
March 2010
5 posts
7 tags
Deck 2 of 3
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...
Deck 1 of 3
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...
Scars of Mirrodin →
Heck Yes!
Rise is not Colorless. →
The images prove, that Rise of the Eldrazi, the forthcoming third set in the Zendikar block, is neither an all colorless or a colorless/hybrid only set. Consider me happy. :)
4 tags
Faster, Vampire! Kill! Kill!
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...
February 2010
2 posts
My MTG is a game played in a basement
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,...
December 2009
1 post
November 2009
2 posts
Hedron abuse
I’ve written about how much I love Hedron Crab before, but that was based on unplayed decks - imagined scenarios.
Based on a few games played last night with the Crab, I believe it to be one of the best creatures ever created in Magic: the Gathering. Big words, I know so we better start backing it up.
The card
The itself is a 0/2 blue creature that costs only one blue mana to bring into...
Boros
The great thing about the way my pals and I play Magic is that we’re able to build decks with any cards we have laying around, limited only to the 4-of rule. After thinking about some old decks I used to build forever ago, I decided to build a red/white deck built for speed.
Doing some poking around online, I discovered that type of deck is named Boros after a Ravnica guild or...
October 2009
5 posts
DIY Magic
Once in a while I get an idea for a card I’d love to play.
This time its:
White Lotus Artifact, COST: 0
Landfall: Whenever you put a land into play put a counter on White Lotus. You may remove three counters from it to add three mana of any colour to the your mana pool.
Landfall and allies
I have a problem with combos - I love them.
I used to play card games like Lunch Money and got off on chaining multiple cards together into one effect.
I used to play UNO by removing all of the non-effect cards from the deck and just forcing players to draw, reverse, and skip turns all the time. It made for some short games, but being forced to draw 48 cards in one turn was super fun.
One of...
Follow the little blue bird
I want to keep more up to date on MTG players, voices, rules, tips, tricks, combos, and MTG people on Twitter.
Who do you follow? Who do you recommend that I follow?
If you follow me on Twitter, I’ll follow you back - unless you’ve got the latest celebrity gossip, are a personal motivation coach, sell discount travel vouchers, or want to date.
Treasure hunting in Zendikar
Last night was our first real exposure to the set. Having hiked to Worlds Away on Dundas street to pick up the two fatpacks we’d preordered and the box we picked up (just in time for the foil Day of Judgement card), the expedition began to the vault where we’d crack open boosters, add tokens to the communal token pile, fold “rules” cards in half to make box dividers, and...
September 2009
5 posts
Grixis multiplayer deck (60 cards)
I’ve built a red, blue, black deck that I use to take on the hordes at my local “anything goes” multiplayer games. The deck is full of easy to cast cards, only two of which require multiples of mana (Nichol Bolas, Planeswalker and Time Spiral).
For the most part, everything is one colour, then colourless. Enjoy! As always, I’m looking for your ideas on how I can make it...
Playing tonight
Another awesome nights of trading and playing with the usual basement group (a multiplayer group consisting of about 6+ people)! I am going to be playing three decks:
A white and green beater
A Grixis artifact deck
A most blue bloomy deck
The best part about my group is that we play anything goes. Provided you don’t play with more than four of anything in a deck, it’s fair game....
Joystiq reports on MTG XBLA expansion →
From Joystiq:
Duel the Dragon, the first expansion to the popular Magic: The Gathering for the Xbox 360 set, features three new decks, six more ladder levels, new challenges including “multi-turns” that require more than one turn to win, and a final boss that is strongly hinted at in the title. They didn’t announce a date for the DLC except for “soon.” Even sooner...
August 2009
9 posts
Card of the week - Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Expensive? Yes. In both store price as well as casting cost. $20 and eight (converted) mana cost means that dropping Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker onto the battlefield isn’t an easy thing to do.
If you get him into play and start using his powers, you’ll find it well-worth the pay to play cost. Add three counters to destroy a permanent? Remove two to take an opponent’s creature?...
Rules refresher →
Dig deep into the newly updated rules over at Magic: The Blogging, one of my new favourite blogs and news sites about MTG.
New Artifact deck
While I’m totally unable to build this deck, I came up with it after looking at a bunch of cards you might play in a casual multiplayer format. The deck is pretty fun I think.
CREATURES:
Misrha, Aritficer Prodigy x4 Barrin, Master Wizard x2
ARTIFACTS:
Metalworker x4 Bottle Gnomes x4 Mana Vault x3 Voltaic Key x4 Sapphire Medalion x1 Time Sieve x1 Ivory Tower x1 Black Vise x1 Spellbook x1
...
Trip to USA
The wife and I did a little trip down south(east) to Birch Run, then Detroit to do some back to school/work shopping for the family. The trip was awesome and we had lots of fun.
While there, we stopped in Target and I bought a blister pack containing two packs of what I thought were M10 cards.
In the blisters were two packs of M10 and a pack of Conflux and Alara Reborn. This is what I got:
...
Card of the Week - Capsize
Back in my day, if you were playing blue and you weren’t packing four Capsize, you might as well have gone home.
If you don’t know, Capsize is a Boomerang variant (according to Magiccards.info, Capsize was out in the Tempest set) that costs one more mana to play (plus three if you want to use its special ability).
The real power with Capsize is that not only can you send any...
First deck
Here is a full list of the 60 cards in my blue/black mtgnoob deck. The deck is designed to be played in very casual multiplayer environments.
1x Onyx Goblet 3x Psychatog 2x Doom Blade 4x Royal Assassin 4x Mulldrifter 2x Shriekmaw 3x Mana Leak 1x Time Warp 2x Sign in Blood 1x Urborg Syphon Mage 2x Black Knight 1x Clone 3x Icy Manipulator 2x Capsize 3x Remand 2x Tendrils of Corruption 1x...
5 tags
3 tags
Card of the week - Master of the Wild Hunt
First things first - this card is a mythic rare. Chances of getting one in a pack are pretty slim. If you can find one, I’d suggest you do your best to pick it up. Even if you don’t play green, it’s an incredible bargaining tool.
Each turn, you get to add a 2/2 wolf into play. If he leaves play, the wolf tokens do not. That’s pretty important to note.
You can tap him to...
3 tags
MTG balance sheet
So, with the new M10 set on everyone’s minds, I think we should do some comparing about prices. Some shops offer special prices when you buy a bunch of booster packs at once versus one at a time (altho buying an entire box feels cheaper in the long run).
With prices, costs, and discounts in mind, I want to know - How much is a booster pack at your local shop?
July 2009
13 posts
3 tags
5 tags
Card of the week - Soul Warden
Even though Soul Warden is one of those “no brainers”, I thought I’d bring it up anyway.
First, it has a lot of great things going for it, chief of which is the single white mana casting cost. Drop one of these on your first turn and whenever you or your opponent put another creature into play (notice it doesn’t say card - so I’m assuming token creatures count too),...
1 tag
MTG balance sheet
I have spent a pretty penny on Magic in the past, more than I care to admit. I think I bought a Mana Drain for $15 once.
If there’s a card you need for your deck, or need to complete a collection - how much would you pay?
Answer today’s question: how much is too much to pay for a single card?
3 tags
4 tags
Protecting your cards - updated
After writing an earlier post about Protecting your cards, Screwnut (no blog, sadly) and Spoot both suggested that I don’t invest a ton of money into card protection, that I (and you) should pick basic to middle of the road coverage for your minions.
With that in mind, I picked up two 100 packs of UltraPro sleeves. So far, they’re great. Super easy to load, and easy to shuffle.
...
Stay in the loop →
A totally handy guide to the sets that are current and what old cards you own that are being rolled out of legality. Published by Wizards of the Coast so you know it’s too legit to quit.
4 tags
Card of the week - Gravedigger
At first glance, Gravedigger might seem like a pretty boring card - it’s pretty expensive and is only 2/2. But consider this:
In a mtgnoob deck full of common Vampire Aristocrats, the (also common) Gravedigger is a great way to bring back sacrificed creatures. And on the battlefield, cards like Cemetary Reaper can give this zombie a boost.
Gravedigger is also a great card for a multicolour...
2 tags
Always bet on black
So I’m building my first real deck in a long time. I love black and the life-stealing powers that come along with it. My problem: having been out of the game for so long, I’m looking for some good black creatures to put in the deck.
Background: Decks that I play are typically fast and sneaky. I loved some of the older creatures with shadow and wicked stuff like Carnophage. From M10 I...
3 tags
MTG balance sheet
Back in the day when I was elbow deep in Magic, I went halfsies with a friend on a box of Weatherlight cards. I remember when that package came in the mail - it was terrrific. We split the kit right down the middle and I got the only Lotus Vale that came in the box (some would argue not an amazing card to get, but I loved it).
The first question in an ongoing series about the amount of money...
3 tags
Follow mtgnoob on Twitter! →
Are you on Twitter? If so, add mtgnoob to your friends list! That way, you’ll be updated when the site’s updated!
3 tags
4 tags
Protecting your cards
I’ve used blackbacks, flapjacks, knick knack, and other brickabrack to protect my cards. I actually had a deck protected by hardbacks once (the kind of shells you put around hockey and baseball cards).
The two I’ve had the most luck with are blackbacks and the flimsy clear sleeves. I really like the flimsy ones for the ability to quickly change up their contents. The blackbacks just...
MTG on XBox Live Arcade at GDP →
A favourable review I wrote about the new MTG game on XBLA over at The GAMES DAY Podcast.