Pages

Sunday 19 June 2011

Card Spoiler - Kaalia of the Vast

This is one of the new multicoloured legendary creatures released in the new Commander set. The first thing I noticed was her ability;
Whenever Kaalia of the Vast attacks an opponent, you may put an Angel, Demon or Dragon creature card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped and attacking that opponent.

This card to me seems fairly broken, there's quite a few high cost angel, demon or dragon cards which have silly abilities, which you can drop by turn 5 probably even 4 and be attacking. She would probably do well in a deck with mainly high mana cost creatures.
In Commander things like this will probably be fine, it's ment to be a sort of chaotic game type, but when people start including this card into regular decks it may start getting a bit silly.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

MTG Combo - Infinite Milling

There's loads of different combos for infinite exile milling, but here's one I find interesting;
It uses 3 cards and can be used on turn 4, the three cards are, Grimoire Theif, Paradise Mantle and Freed from the Real.

For the combo, you cast Grimoire Theif, next Paradise Mantle and equip it to the Grimoire Theif. Now you can tap the Grimoire Theif to exile the top three cards of target opponents deck and get one mana of any colour, which is used for the last part. Freed from the Real allows you to pay {U} in order to tap, or untap enchanted creature.

So you enchant Grimoire Theif with Freed from the Real and equip it with a Paradise Mantle, tap the Grimoire Theif to exile the top three cards of target opponents deck, then add {U} to your mana pool. Finally use that mana to untap Grimoire Theif, you can now retap it to repeat the cycle infinitly.

What are your thoughts on this combo? Any ideas on how to possibly combine it with something else? Or got any interesting milling combos of your own? Comment below.

Monday 6 June 2011

Card Spoiler - Acorn Catapult

This is one of the new cards being released for the Commander set, Commander being the new official name for the fan-made casual EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander) variant.

The card is quite interesting, it deals 1 damage to target creature or player but in return that creature's controller or the player gets a 1/1 green Squirrel creature token, ideas for how it could be used could be to finish off a large creature, sure they get another creature in return but you've successfully removed what could be a 8/8 with trample, and 1/1 isn't going to be too much of a threat.

Or perhaps you could continue to kill the 1/1 Squirrel to trigger an enchant that has an effect when a creature goes into the graveyard from the battlefield. Token creatures still go to the graveyard and trigger effects that are activated from it, only difference is once they are in the graveyard they instantly vanish, making it impossible to recover a token from your graveyard.

Another idea is to hit one of your own creatures, this could be to simply get more creatures and possibly trigger effects that go off when a creature enters the battlefield under your countrol. In Commander even though everyone starts off with more life, if you have enough creatures you could charge with them all.

There are various differnt ways this card can be used and with it being only 4 mana to play and 1 to use, it can easily go in various decks, working well with many types of cards for interesting effects.

I also quite enjoy the flavor text of the card.

Mono-black Infect

This is a mono-black infect standard legal deck I made;

Land:
20 Swamp

Creatures:
4 Flensermite
2 Flesh-Eater Imp
2 Hand of the Praetors
4 Plague Stinger
3 Septic Rats
2 Ichor Rats
2 Contagious Nim

Other spells:
4 Vampire's Bite
4 Virulent Swipe
4 Demonic Appetite
4 Unholy Strength
2 Dismember
4 Tainted Strike or 4 Mutagenic Growth

The Tainted Strikes can be replaced with Mutagenic Growth to make it more effective but no longer mono-black.
The main plan is to just summon creatures quickly then attack with them, when one gets though throw any instant cards you have on it to buff it.
The fastest it can do is turn 3, generally using Plague Stinger with 3 Vampire's Bites to make it a 10/10 flying infect.

This deck won't really work well in games that drag on too long, also may have problems with weenie decks due to very little removal, but as long as you can get in there quick enough it's a fast and silly deck.

I was dissapointed at the lack of black buff cards in NPH though, and hope that M12 will introduce some new ones or at least reprint the good ones since a few cards no longer be standard legal once M12 is released.

Got any thoughts or questions? Post in the comments.

MTG Combos

I've seen quite a few interesting combos and since recently a new set has been released, even more new and interesting combos have appeared.

One is Splinter Twin with  Deceiver Exarch. This caused a bump in the price of Splinter Twin sending it from $3 to around $15.
The combo is simple, you play a Deceiver Exarch then enchant it with Splinter Twin, you then tap the Deceiver Exarch to get a token of it. Deceiver Exarch's text states

When Deceiver Exarch enters the battlefield, choose one - Untap target permanent you control; or tap target permanent an opponent controls.
So you chose to untap your Deceiver Exarch enchanted with Splinter Twin then tap it again to create another token, by turn 4 you're able to create an infinite amount of 1/4 creatures, all with haste so they can attack that turn.

Another intresting combo, but one that takes some building up, is Bloodchief Ascension with Mindcrank. Mindcrank causes the opponent to mill cards whenever they take damage, Bloodchief Ascension causes the opponent to take damage whenever a card goes into their graveyard.
The result? Infinite damage and infinite milling since they both cause each other to trigger, you also gain life but that hardly matters when you've won.
It's a nice combo but for Bloodchief Ascension to work, they need to have lost 2 or more life a turn for 3 turns. But in a multiplayer game, since they don't target, you just have to have 3 opponents lose 2 or more life, then once any of them loses a life or puts a card into their graveyard, they would lose the game.

New blog.

I've made a new blog for Magic the Gathering related posts.
In this I will be posting combos, wazzy deck ideas and my own decks I've made as well as new card spoilers.

Saddly I'm not much into professional Magic playing so I won't be posting too much on that, but I will provide my own insight into various cards and ideas.