Maze's End Turbo-Fog

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

A few weeks ago we picked up from MTG Mint Card, our fourth and last card to complete a book set of Maze's End.  This fine rare land from Dragon's Maze offers a nice alternate win condition.  How a players wins a game of Magic: the Gathering is to reduce their opponent's life total from 20 (in standard constructed) to zero.  Currently, there are 4 cards in standard which provides an indirect or direct effect to win that game in a non-conventional means providing that the player fulfills a set of conditions.

Maze's end has been around for a while and we had not paid it much heed.  Then, recently there we had a match against one such deck at a Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games here in Barrie.  Know what?  We got our butt handed to us - it was completely frustrating.  We did not have an Encroaching Wastes, Bramblecrush or Pithing Needle (to affect the Maze's third ability).  It would even have been nice to have a Burning Earth.  Yep - irritating as all heck which is why we became interested in this - and not having a lot of cash for cardboard, this fit our budget perfectly.  Anywhoos - let's have a looky-loo at how to build this -
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Obviously, you will need four Maze's End and at least two of each Guildgate.  Where you go from here with your mana base is dictated by your spells.

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Time is critical and you will want to get to the Maze's End finish line as soon as you can before your opponent grinds you out.  To this end, we suggest you may want to consider 'Into the Wilds' or 'Urban Evolution' to get additional gates onto the battlefield.  Also, 'Gatecreeper Vine' will allow you to 'tutor' a gate you haven't pulled yet.

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As you are assembling your Maze's End win condition, your opponent will be attempting to bash you.  Negate any combat damage with Fog, Druid's Deliverance and Defend the Hearth.  Riot Control also works wonders and allows you to gain life which could be rather important if you opponent has a few burn spells to chuck at your head.

Speaking of life, some Maze's End players like Saruli Gatekeepers which provides a nice blocker and an almost guaranteed life gain of seven.  Since we want to pack a parachute should Maze's End goes off the rails, we like 'Crackling Perimeter' to shoot damage.

Lastly, to add some control elements we consider the robust 'Detention Sphere' to neutralize threats, and 'Supreme Verdict' to board-wipe.  Negate and Dissolve offers some counter-magic while 'Fade into Antiquity' answers any of the new Theros gods or troublesome enchantments.

Some players may want a plan 'B' to include a milling effect while others may wish heavier life-gain.  Season to taste as you wish.  Drop us a line if you have a Maze's End or other alternate win deck.
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Standard Slivers

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

If you've been reading our posts to the MTG Realm blog over the last five years, then you know we are all about playing 'non-standard' standard constructed.  We love to brew up fun Magic: the Gathering builds which would likely never see any play on the Pro Tour circuit.  To this end, we had a match a few weeks ago at a Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario with a gamer who had a Slivers deck.  Although we were running a fairly robust G/W Aggro strategy, we had our butt handed to us and we realised just how fun standard constructed Slivers could be - especially post-Theros Sliver.  We picked up a few very reasonably costed singles at MTG Mint Card and made this fun thing - Let's have a look.
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Bow of Nylea has FIVE different abilities tacked onto this legendary enchantment artifact - a solid utility.  The one ability which interests us most was the effect of giving deathtouch to all your attacking creatures.  Thorncaster Sliver gives all your attacking Slivers an upgrade pinging 1 damage to target creature or player.  Yep - that's one damage of deathtouch which means you now have the ability to wipe the board of any defenders your opponents may have as soon as you declare attackers and have the possibility of swinging on in.

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We were going for a red / green build and decided to go whole hog in with all five colours (which may be rather difficult in today's standard).  Our tech is to get Elvish Mystic dropped on turn one followed up with Manaweft Sliver on turn two which allows any of your Slivers to tap for any colour mana.

Since a big part of the deck is the deathtouch with Bow of Nylea, we've invited the one-drop Striking Sliver - because having an attacking first strike creature with deathtouch is simply sweet.  As we wanted all five colours, we also have Galerider Sliver giving all our Slivers flying.
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The other two-drop is Predatory Sliver giving your Sliver dudes a +1/+1 pump.  Other three cmc critters are Blur Sliver which is rather important as the Slivers now have haste - and can potentially tap for mana after Manaweft is out.  Hive Stirrings produces a few blockers if needed and Syphon Sliver provides lifelink which is rather handy against more aggressive match-ups.

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Rounding your stack 'o' sixty out is Megantic Sliver which can pump your Sliver army up another +3/+3.  To get all these threats into your hand is Garruk, Caller of Beasts.  We are more interested in his +1 ability to float any creatures off the top five of our deck into our hand.

All in all it doesn't look that bad and most certainly looks like it will deliver a truckload of fun.  Have you tried something similar or played against something similar - drop us a line below.
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Sirens

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

We hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween event last evening.  Up here in Barrie, the weather was windy, cool, and intermittent rain.  We should have went to OMG! Games last night who were having a midnight release party for Commander 2013 - but - we handed out Halloween candy and watched scary movies instead.  We will however be heading out tonight for Friday Night Magic with a budget red deck to change things up a bit.

Anywhoos - let's yatter about today's post title - Sirens - which we will get to in a moment. We've seen quite a few game tables absolutely piled with tokens, whether they were cat tokens from Ajani, Caller of the Pride, soldier tokens from Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Elemental tokes whether from Young Pyromancer or Master of Waves.  Thank goodness we do not have anthems like Honor of the Pure or Intangible Virtue.  There are a good number of board wipers in standard (perhaps nothing as elegant and easy as Wrath of God) such as Planar Cleansing, Supreme Verdict and other conditional ones such as Anger of the Gods or Golgari Charm.

We here at MTG Realm love unpopular / marginally playable cards which can, with the right build, take advantage of the metagame.  To this end, we had a look at Shipwreck Singer to nerf the numerous tokens we've been seeing lately at our kitchen table and FNM event.  Before we go any further - fun fact time - there only two Sirens every printed by WotC.  First though - what's a siren ? 

Alluring Siren - She lures victims with promises of flesh, captures them in a net of deceit, and destroys them in the embrace of the sea.

Shipwreck Singer - Her melody melds death and beauty with such artistry that even the gods weep to hear it.

In Homer's Odyssey, Circe warns Odysseus about the dangers at sea, principal amongst them, the Sirens inhabiting the rocks isles of Sirenum scopuli. Similarly, Jason and the Argonauts faced the same dangers. Short of stuffing our ears with wax, there is not much to be done about the bewitching songs luring an honest seaman (hehehe) to their watery grave.  To this end, we are very interested in having Shipwreck Singer (with that most epic card art from Daarken) lure those soldier or elemental tokens in closer and crashing them with a semi-global -1/-1.  We just now have to flesh out an appropriate blue / black control shell and then take it for a spin for a few games.
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MTG Halloween

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Whether you are observing Samhain or hitting up a Halloween party, we wish you the best.  Anywhoos - as it is Halloween, we should probablly have a looky-loo at an appropriately themed Magic: the Gathering build to take to tomorrow's Friday Night Magic event or to play this evening.

Carved MTG pumpkins from Kevin / Abigail submitted to WotC Monty.

The obvious place to start is a creepy trio of Magic 2014 core set cards which is a top-down designed combo.  Festering Newt (Common), Bubbling Cauldron (Uncommon) and Bogbrew Witch (Rare) will never likely see play in a copetitive deck on a pro circuit but delivers big on fun.

Should you have four Festering Newts and a Bubbling Cauldron, you could potentially deal 16 damage while gaining 16 life.  Not too shabby.  One cold possibly find the Witch with a Diabolic Tutor then the Witch's ability to find some Newts and a Cauldron to have all the ingredients complete the combo.  Even by itself, the Newt is a decent value - for one black mana, you get a 1/1 which can block and kill creatures with 2 toughness.  

Here's an excerpt from the mothersite - Bruce Richard's Double, Double Toil and Trouble which was published on 2nd July this year.

Bogbrew Witch: You have a 1/3 blocker for four mana. You might want to consider activating her ability and giving the Witch a Cauldron in which to stir her brew.

Bubbling Cauldron: You can sacrifice a creature to gain 4 life. If you don't have a spare creature, then I expect your Cauldron will be safe from any artifact destruction since it doesn't threaten anyone.

Festering Newt: You have a 1/1 with a minor ability that your opponents will be happy to see you use before a Bogbrew Witch shows up to make him truly nasty.

Bogbrew Witch and Bubbling Cauldron: You can block some creatures and sacrifice a creature to get 4 life. Perhaps a Festering Newt would improve your lot?

Bogbrew Witch and Festering Newt: Ahh, you have a pretty solid defense and you are likely threatening to do a lot more. Perhaps one of your opponents will decide that killing your Newt now is better than waiting for the Cauldron to appear and cost him or her life as well.

Bubbling Cauldron and Festering Newt: You are a minor threat to creatures, since the Newt will give one of them -1/-1, but really, everyone is waiting for you to throw your Newt into the Bubbling Cauldron as part of the bigger life gain and loss.

Bogbrew Witch, Festering Newt, and Bubbling Cauldron: The trifecta! If you give a Witch a Newt to throw in her Cauldron, your opponents lose 4 life each, you gain all that life, and one of their creatures is taking a serious hit!
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B/W Janky Junk

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

You may recall yesterday's article about Commander 2013 pricing.  We were yattering last evening and decided that we would rather pick up some singles online from MTG Mint Card for some of our EDH stacks this Friday and then wait a few short weeks until the second print wave hits out local gaming store by which time, prices should hopefully correct downwards a titch which will allow us to grab one or more additional decks.

Anywhoos - today we want to talk about our play style for a moment.  We love to play under-used / under-appreciated cards in our strategies.  It's difficult to look at the hundreds of cards on our shelves, all perfectly standard-legal, and not use but a fraction of them.  To this end, we enjoy developing some interesting kitchen table games (like 'pile draft' where we draft from decksets of commons), or have casual pauper matches in order to better appreciate some of the cards in our collection.

Righto - onto today's topic - black 'n' white junk.  Perhaps not an apt description but one we could use as there are some questionable card choices or just outright jank which could serve better in another format - but perhaps not standard.  It was our aim to use a few cards which we rather liked but did not quite make the cut to popular standard.  Let's have a look . . .

Nothing totally weird just yet here - a cr@p ton of Orzhov goodies - High Priest of Penance, Sin Collector, Alms Beast, Desecration Demon, Obzedat and Blood Baron of Vizkopa.

Some of the non-creature spells - thoughtseize, Doom Blade, Devour Flesh, Read the Bones and Whip of Obzedat.

Now for some of the interactions we rather like.  First and foremost is to nullify the downside of lifelink provided to creatures blocking or blocked by Alms Beast with Erebos - not too shabby.

We also would love to get Gift of Immortality onto High Priest of Penance which essentially can nerf non-creature permanents all day long and keep coming back for more.

We are also thinking about the inclusion of Ethereal Armor (gawd we do like that card a lot) in this mix as well - perhaps giving a pump and (what some players forget about) first strike.  Giving that Alms Beast first strike will mean that you opponent may never get that extra life link.

We know this may never get to Top 8 at our local Friday Night Magic event but it does feel rather nice that we are using some of our cards we might not normally use by getting in some games at the kitchen table.

Got a deck you don't feel comfortable letting off its leash at your FNM?  Drop a line below in the comment thingy.
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Theros GW Enchant

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

We wanted to yatter to you a bit about Theros Game Day last weekend.  We took a Selesnya green white aggro build with us and lost quite decidedly, which was odd as it did so well at the Friday Night Magic event just the week before.  What we did see at the card shop was a metric ton of devotion strategies, mostly blue and white.  We also saw a lot of white soldier tokens via Elspeth, Sun's Champion and blue Elemental tokens via Master of Waves.  Thank goodness that anthems like Intangible Virtue is no longer standard legal.

 










We did appreciate our inclusion of the hexproof Witchstalker and the pro-blue Mistcutter Hydra, but wish we had addressed the increased numbers of Planeswalkers and those irritating tokens.  No worries, we fiddled a bit and made some room in the sideboard.  We also are now thinking of putting more of a hexproof aura slant on this with Nylea, that Green god card and Heliod, the white one to help boost the enchantment count for our Ethereal Armor - we might order a few extra cards from MTG Mint Card in a week or two.  Anywhoos - here's the build as it stands today . . .
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Firstly, we would like to grab another Loxodon Smiter, Voice of Resurgence and Temple Garden, but we would rather make rent and eat.  After a few weeks of this iteration, we may include the green and white gods and may even consider Oath of Ancient Wood.
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 Sideboard for our local meta-game right now addresses the biggest threats presented by all those blue and white builds, their Planeswalkers and token producers.  Anywhoos - it's a lovely work in progress.

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Better Red Than Dead

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Today on the MTG Realm blog, we wanted to yatter a bit about the new Magic: the Gathering standard constructed environment and in particular about a fairly fun build around devotion to red.  Similar to that older 'Chroma' ability in Eventide, the 'Devotion' mechanic in Theros has you sum up all the stated mana symbols within a specific colour and subsequently delivers a particular effect.  The official rules (700.5) states that 'A player's devotion to [color] is equal to the number of mana symbols of that color among the mana costs of permanents that player controls.'  

In Theros, there are about 16 cards with Devotion tech - 2 in white, 2 in blue, 5 in black, 2 in red, 4 in green and 1 reference in Nykthos, the legendary land card.  We realised quite some time ago, that going 'all out' on one particular stategy does not make for a robust build of 60 cards in that it blew out more than it would win, and it was less adaptable to an opponent's sideboard.  To that end, we worked on a few derpy builds to test out and settled on the two red cards - Fanatic of Mogis (which has a ping equal to devotion upon eotb) and Purphoros, God of the Forge which evolves from enchantment to creature after a devotion of five, similar to that of the other Theros 'god' cards, and arguablly, perhaps one of the better cards in this cycle of five.

To this end, we assembled a short list of cards to help us across the finish line - bascically any card with a double or triple count for red mana. Burning Tree Emissary, Ash Zealot, Frostburn Weird, and Boros Reckoner all made the cut.

After some time playing, we added Hammer of Purphoros and the R/G Planeswalker Xenagos, the Reveler.  We discovered just how much we enjoyed the synergy Xenagos had with Purphoros - generate a Xenagos token and have Purphoros ding two damage each time a creature dropped on the game table.  We went even so far as to explore a Naya build (Red / Green / White) with creature tokens from Molten Birth Birth and Elspeth, the new White 'Walker.  Alas, we dropped this idea and may now consider going with a Red / Green monster strategy with Domri Rade and / or Garruk, Caller of Beasts.

We don't know where this may go but we do know for certain that this is a work in progress and there will likely be a few more singles purchased at MTG Mint Card before we call this particular deck finished.
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FNM Report 10-04-2013

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Happy Saturday MTG peeps,

We wanted to do a quick follow-up to yesterday's post about the new Magic: the Gathering standard constructed environment and which direction we are taking our 60-card stack at FNM to deliver a polished product for Theros Game Day.

As misfortune would have it, the green / white Selesnya aggro strategy we had hatched out earlier was placed in jeopardy when it was time to head off to the store and we realised we were short a few cards (traded / lost / mischievous gnomes?).  With only about an hour before OMG! Games started the first match, we scrambled and put together this list :

4x Elvish Mystic, 3x Soldier of the Pantheon, 3x Fleecemane Lion, 2x Voice of Resurgence, 4x Selesnya Charm, 4x Witchstalker, 3x Fiendslayer Paladin, 3x Ajani, Caller of the Pride, 3x Loxodon Smiter, 4x Unflinching Courage, 4x Advent of the Wurm, 3x Temple GArden, 3x Selesnya Guildgate, 9x Forest, 8x Plains.
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At OMG! Games, the crowd was lighter than usual with about 27 players.  First match was lost rather quickly to Chris who had played a blue / black strategy.  The next four matches (to Rob, TJ, Hunter, and Simon) did go rather well, usually going to game three with wins all going to our Selesnya build.  There seemed to be quite a few control decks  (like that delicious hand shown above with Supreme Verdict, Detention Sphere, Swan Song, and Azorious Charm) in the field but that certainly does not mean the same kind of showing next week.  For now, we're going to pick up a few extra missing singles from MTG Mint Card and stick with aggro for the next several weeks.

Coming in 4th place, we scored five Theros packs and the Friday Night Magic foil promo card Ghor-Clan Rampager.  

What was rather awesome was that we were actually looking to acquire (trade / buy) 3 of the 5 cards we were able to pull - Xenagos, Thoughtseize, and Temple of Abandon.  Not too shabby.

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Post Theros FNM

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Tonight we here at MTG Realm along with thousands of other Magic: the Gathering players will be heading out to local gaming stores to take part in a Friday Night Magic event.  We'll be at OMG! Games (best card shop in central Ontario) will be our first time to the store since Theros, the latest MTG set hit shelves worldwide.  Tonight was particularly difficult to prepare a new standard constructed stack to play since a number of our fav cards from Innistrad block rotated out of the format.

We received our big pile of MTG Theros singles pre-ordered from MTG Mint Card and it sat on the table for a few days while we attempted to come up with a 60-card strategy.  Where we finally began to make progress was with which decks were performing good in Return to Ravnica block constructed and decided to go with a Green / White Selesnya aggro build - aggro is a good default choice in the first few weeks of the new metagame.  There are a lot of powerful creatures in these colours and building it is fairly straightforward.  We'll eventually move on to some other build latter but here's what we have . . .

CREATURES
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Soldier of the Pantheon
3 Experiment One
3 Fleecemane Lion
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Witchstalker
3 Fiendslayer Paladin

SPELLS
4 Advent of the Wurm
3 Selesnya Charm

LAND
10 Forest
5 Plains
4 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Temple Garden
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Some of the decisions here was based upon the local metagame, our budget, as well as what cards we actually own.  The new Theros cards now in the Selesnya vehicle are Soldier of the Panteon (solid choice after a 'gold' multi-colour block like Return to Ravnica), and Fleecemane Lion (hexproof / indestructibly after monstrous is pretty sweet - especially if we encounter any of the new 'god' cards).  We'll continue to work tweaks on this over the next few weeks (considering adding Boon Satyr) until the games shifts again after which we really want to brew something up with B/W control or R/W aggro.

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Ordeals of Theros

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

With Theros now out and many players now with these new Magic: the Gathering cards now in hand, we wanted to an informal series of posts over the next few weeks about some of the interesting cycles in the new set.  We have all our singles preorders in from MTG Mint Card and from working on some fun 'n' derpy builds, we've come to appreciate the interaction between the 'Heroic' mechanic and the five colour 'Ordeal' cycle of cards.  In less refined times, an 'ordeal' was a test of guilt or innocence by which the accused was put to severe pain, and survival taken to mean divine proof of that person's innocence.

Heroic is an ability word where a creature with a heroic gives the controlling player powerful benefits every time he casts a spell that targets that creature.  Ordeals are a cycle of uncommon Auras, all with the converted mana cost of 1X (where 'X' is that colour in that cycle).  This tech gives a +1/+1 counter for each times the enchanted creature attacks and after it sacrifices itself (the aura) when it has 3 or more +1/+1 counters you get a sweet trigger a ability.  The ordeal cycle in Theros is Ordeal of Heliod, Ordeal of Thassa, Ordeal of Erebos, Ordeal of Purphoros, and Ordeal of Nylea - and with about 18 cards in the set with the 'Heroic' ability, additional benefits are realised.  Anywhoos, lets have a looky-loo . . .

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After derping with some of the cards, we've realised that most of us here at MTG Realm are sort of evil at our core in that we just wanted to skip dinner and go straight to desert.  What we're talking about is foregoing all the work and time in acquiring +1 counters when we attack with our enchanted dude and bee-line it to the bonus without much bother to undergoing the 'ordeal'.  Kinda like this . . .

Yeah.  Dude, enchant with ordeal, next turn attack and cast something that will drop additional +1 counters on it to get the cake.  Still working out which one(s) suit our taste and our particular build, but we're certainly going to investigate this further.

Until tomorrow, happy brewing folks! 
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