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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Theros Legendary Enchantment Artifact

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Yesterday we saw another somewhat suspicious spoiler for Theros, the next large Magic: the Gathering set due out this fall.  There have been a handfull of Theros cards 'spoiled' which proved fake.  For this reason, we here at MTG Realm take a rather cautious approach when reporting.  Anywhoos - yesterday's spoiler via Facebook / Reddit did prove worthy and we are fairly certain we have a winner - again, we caution readers to only rely upon official previews over at the mothersite.

Yesterday, Reddit user SMDC informed the gaming community that a Facebook friend had this update - "...we noticed that the Theros release promo was spoiled on the very bottom left of the Experiment One Friday Night Magic promo poster; I forgot the name of the card... but I remember what it does!".  He went on to provide some card details and what caught a lot of MTG rumor mongers off guard was the card type / subtype - 'Legendary Enchantment Artifact'.  Wow - that is one fat Chalupa with ALL the toppings - cant we squeeze another name on this type line if we tried with a shoehorn.  We'll be at the FNM event at OMG! Games here is Barrie tomorrow, so hopefully they also have the same poster for our confirmation.  The image is reported to be at the bottom of a Friday Night Magic poster hanging up in a local gaming store.  Anywhoos - long story short, SMDC came through for the community and delivered pics.  We present to you now . . .

Bident of Thassa, 2uu
Legendary Enchantment Artifact     Rare
Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you may draw a card.
1{U}, {T}: Creatures your opponents control attack this turn if able.
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The first bit of weirdness here is that with yesterday's Planeswalker's Guide to Theros, we were intorducted to Dekella, the spear used / associated with Thessa, blue-aligned god of the sea.  The name and the art certainly is correct - a bident (not a trident) and then we go off the deep end with a legendary artifact enchantment with tap abilities.  We admit we kind of got excited about the potential in Theros to push the existing Pillow Fort build(Enchantments and Sphere of Safety), and then we had the sads - so much easier to blow this card up with Naturalize (kills artifacts or enchantments).  We will just have to wait and see if this card really is the rumored Theros Release promo, and how this will interact with the gods and heroes in Theros.

Also - a reminder - the THEROS Early Bird Special is closing today at MTG Mint Card - so get in there now.
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MTG 2013 Holiday Gift Box

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

As it is Friday, you should consider attending a Friday Night Magic event at a local gaming store, where friends and fiends meet.  You have a chance of adding a slick alternate art Dimir Charm to your Magic: the Gathering collection.  We'll be at our fav LGS, OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada-Land where we've got a few new MTG singles from MTG Mint Card to tweak that Bant hexproof stack we've been playing.

Anywhoos - some news today from the mothersite - they've just announced that they will be producing another Holiday Gift Box this November, just in time for Christmas.  We were very impressed with last year's Gift Box (look for our article / video review over here), and are certainly going to have one set aside for us this year.

Anywhoos - here's the 4.1.1. from the motersite -

The box itself can hold more than 2,000 Magic cards and is available worldwide in English on November 15, 2013. You do get more than just a beautiful box to store your cards in for the MSRP of $19.99, though! To wit:

• Four Theros booster packs
• Beautiful storage box that can hold more than 2,000 Magic cards
• Twenty Theros basic lands
• Six illustrated plastic dividers
• Sticker sheet for customizing the dividers
• An alternate-art Karametra's Acolyte from the Theros set

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Did you see that too?  Yep - a card name for Theros - Karametra's Acolyte.  Pop your speculation hat on yer noggin!  We're thinking Karametra is either the red-aligned 'god' or perhaps a legendary creature spell from the City of Akris on Theros.  Throw your comment in below!
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Lastly, here's a few pics from last year's Holiday Gift Box -

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Friday Miscellaney

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

As it is Friday, and we have our M14 singles now in hand from MTG Mint Card, we're heading off to Friday Night Magic this evening to OMG! Games here in Barrie and try to get to Top 8 to get one of those lovely Rakdos Cackler FNM promos. For today's post, we want to yatter about the new M14 Event Deck as well as drawing you attention to some stunning Magic: the Gathering wallpaper.  Let's go!

New Magic 2014 core set Event Deck - Red / Green "Rush of the Wild".  Available on 9 August 2013 for a MSRP $25, this competitive list features 8 rares and a host of other solid card choices.  Here's what you get -
• 1 x 60-card deck
• 1 x 15-card sideboard
• 1 x Spindownlife counter
• 1 x  strategy insert
• 1 x  card box

With your horde of warriors, shamans, and wild beasts, your goal is to put your opponents on the back foot, then smash through their defenses. This deck lets you take the offensive, dominating the battle and denying your enemy time to execute a strategy.

24 land : 4 Gruul Guildgate, 1 Rogue's Passage, 1 Stomping Ground (R), 12 Forest, 6 Mountain

27 creatures : 4 Elvish Mystic, 2 Rakdos Cackler, 2 Dryad Militant, 2 Kalonian Tusker, 2 Skarrg Guildmage, 2 Burning-Tree Emissary, 1 Pyrewild Shaman (R), 3 Slaughterhorn, 1 Wild Beastmaster (R), 1 Ogre Battledriver (R), 1 Deadbridge Goliath (R), 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager, 1 Rubblebelt Raiders (R), 1 Wrecking Ogre (R)

9 other spells : 3 Shock, 1 Mizzium Mortars (R), 1 Gruul Charm, 2 Flames of the Firebrand, 1 Clan Defiance, 1 Armed & Dangerous

15 sideboard : 1 Savage Summoning, 3 Skullcrack, 2 Naturalize, 2 Gruul Charm, 2 Act of Treason, 3 Annihilating Fire, 2 Enlarge
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Here's the latest offering of MTG wallpapers from the mothersite -
Rise of the Dark Realms, by Michael Komarck

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Goblin Diplomats, by Izzy

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Jace's Mindseeker, Greg Staples 

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Archangel of Thune, by James Ryman

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LA Mood FNM

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Happy Sunday MTG peeps,

We're back from a weekend in London (Ontario, Canada-Land) where we got in a lot of good gamery.  RSTomp and RetroTech hooked up with some friends with some casual kitchen table while yours truly, CopySix, went where a lot of Magic: the Gathering players go on a Friday evening - L.A. Mood Comics and Games right downtown.

We came to game at the Friday Night Magic event where about 20 players were taking part in the FNM standard event an another 16 in a Modern Masters draft and block draft, all organized by the friendly 'n' resourceful David Cummings.

In round one, we played against Duncan who was running a super fast Red Deck was running circles around my Bant hexproof and finished with two wins for Duncan.  

In round two Darren had brought a Rakdos party and the games were tight with Darren squeaking out a third game win.  The DCI Reporter software probably felt sorry for me and gave me a third round bye.  All in all, a ton of fun and MTG Realm brought a bunch of some very lovely Ultra PRO sleeves with random draws between rounds.

 

Some players we yattered to around the room was Mark, the youngest player that night at 13 years old as well as epic-mustache Matt, a long time player and associate at the LA Mood who was rocking at the Modern Masters draft table.  In summary, a great night of MTG with a great group of gamers, so drop by, pick up your geekery of choice upstairs whether it's a TCG, minis or comics, and then drop in downstairs where there's always a game ready to be played.

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FNM Standard

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

The MTG Realm crew has a few casual constructed builds for fun with our playgroup and one or two more serious stacks that we take to our local card shoppe, OMG! Games here in Barrie.  After our last Friday Night Magic event, we've decided to put into retirement our Bant Auras / Hexproof build.  The local metagame is well developed and bordering on the competitive which means that we have to move up our game in order just to get to Top 8.  We've also picked up a few extra singles from MTG Mint Card for this reason to get us there, but where to go from here?  As the local game somewhat mirrors what's happening in the pro circuit, we've had a look at the mothersite.  More specifically, Jacob Van Lunen's Standard Compendium from a few weeks ago as well as Channel Fireball's Power Rankings written up by Josh Silvestri and staff.  Here's two recent Power Rankings lists -
Rankings Updated:  06/16/2013
 
1. Voice of Resurgence
2. Boros Reckoner
3. Lingering Souls
4. Cartel Aristocrat
5. Restoration Angel
6. Ghor-Clan Rampager
7. Burning-Tree Emissary
8. Unburial Rites
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Rankings Updated:  05/21/2013
 
1. Ghor-Clan Rampager
2. Burning-Tree Emissary
3. Sire of Insanity
4. Advent of the Wurm
5. Voice of Resurgence
6. Unflinching Courage
7. Olivia Voldaren
8. Snapcaster Mage

In these lists there's a suggestion why our particular Bant Hexproof build may not have been delivering the way it had about a month ago.  We've been nerfed more frequently with the likes of Bonfire of the Damned as well as other cards typically in a Gruul build which ramps rapidly and threatens to blow you out of the water early game.  We've considered adding control / counter elements to that Bant build.  The problem that any control deck has now is that given the current metagame, you don't really know tools you will need until things settle down a titch more.

Our thoughts are now focusing on developing a Midrange of purely Aggro strategy.  Midrange is great given cards like Farseek and other mana-dorks to ramp into massive threats and giving you the fuel needed to cast whatever high cost spells you need.  Similarily, aggro decks are making use of the same green-centric mana sources like Burning-Tree Emissary and with the great selection of non-basic land, a player can easily game in a two, three, or four color stack.
After a weekend in the basement, we've decided on aggro green-white G/W tokens featuring Voice of Resurgence, Advent of the Wurm and the likes.  We had also created a somewhat control-ish black-white (B/W) strategy with Cartel Aristocrat.  We'll let you know next week how we did at the game table.
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Burning-Tree Emissary

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

This past weekend, we attended the Friday Night Magic event at Legends Warehouse (Vaughan) on Friday (duh), and then a standard tournament at Jack's on Queen in Elmvale (just north of Barrie) - and do you know what we saw ?  A truckload of builds using Burning-Tree Emissary.  Depending upon where you get your Magic: the Gathering cards, expect to pay anywhere from $2.50 to almost $3.50 for this Gatecrash Uncommon.

In our collection, we have about 8 or 9 cards we had collected over the course of the prerelease events and other sealed product purchases from our local gaming store, OMG! Games.  We knew that this card would be popular but could not anticipate just how popular it has become at least here at all the card shops here Central Ontario.  We were eventually going to get around to getting together a list featuring this Gruul (red/green) Shaman but the time for waiting is now done - not that we want to play the 'popular' decks - we just want to put our own personal take on the best 60-card pile for this little gem.  We still need to track down a few extra cards from MTG Mint Card to finish our creation but what we can say for the moment, we like the direction that Tomoharu Saito (Japanese professional player) has taken.

Here's two slightly varied lists Saito has brought together so far . . .

4x Radkos Cackler, 4x Stromkirk Noble, 4x Ash Zealot, 4x Burning-Tree Emissary, 4x Flinthoof Boar, 4x Boros Reckoner, 4x Rancor, 2x Pillar of Flame, 4x Searing Spear, 3x Ghor-Clan Rampager, 3x Hellrider
10x Mountain, 4x Rootbound Crag, 4x Stomping Ground, 2x Temple Garden
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4x Radkos Cackler, 4x Stromkirk Noble, 4x Ash Zealot, 4x Lightning Mauler, 4x Burning-Tree Emissary, 4x Flinthoof Boar, 4x Boros Reckoner, 4x Ghor-Clan Rampager, 4x Rancor, 2x Domri Rade, 2x Volcanic Strength
10x Mountain, 4x Rootbound Crag, 4x Stomping Ground, 2x Temple Garden
 
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Burning-Tree provides a decent 2/2 body which can also float two mana for your next maniacal MTG move.  Whether you want to float some critters out of your deck with Signal the Clans, or zap your opponent (or one of their creatures) with a Searing Spear, the choices are varied and many.

 






 
Happy deck-building to all~
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Gatecrash Spoiler 12

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Make sure you head out tonight and support your local gaming store - take in a Friday Night Magic Event.  Find a location to buy or play Magic: The Gathering near you, click on over here.  The Gatecrash PreRelease is going down two weeks from now on the weekend of 26 / 27 January, 2013 and as it happens (no surprises here), loads of new Gatecrash spoilers and previews today on the Mothersite and around the 'net.  Get the very latest in on our Spoiler List page.  Let's get to them now . . .
Aurelia's Fury, Xrw
Instant, Mythic Rare
Aurelia's Fury deals X damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or players. Tap each creature dealt damage this way. Players dealt damage this way can't cast noncreature spells this turn.

Mothersite preview.  This is a pretty sweet spell and Boros players will certainly want to include this critical utility in their builds.  Either burning up the field of small dudes or tapping down a bunch of blockers for an alpha swing makes this card a high pick in just about any format.


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Luminate Primordial, 5ww
Creature - Avatar, Rare
Vigilance
When Luminate Primordial enters the battlefield, for each opponent, exile up to one target creature that player controls and that player gains life equal to its power.
4/7

ManaDeprived preview. Wow. This is an interesting one - Nerfing a pesky creature is a neat ability tacked onto this 4/7 fatty.  Having that opponent gain life equal to that exiled critter may potentially be a drawback unless you have something else up your sleeve - like a spell which prevents lifegain.  Likely not a good choice for standard or limited but maybe the EDH / Commander players may welcome this.

~Five-Alarm Fire, 1rr
Enchantment, Rare
Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage, put a blaze counter on Five-Alarm Fire.
Remove five blaze counters from Five-Alarm Fire: Five-Alarm Fire deals 5 damage to target creature or player

BJ Shea's Geek Nation preview.  This may be a decent inclusion in several builds, especially if you have creatures with double strike.  A decision for several players is that this may complete for the 3-drop slot against Brimestone Volley - all we can say is that Five Alarm is able to provide a repeat performance.  We played with Shrine of Burning Rage and loved it, we'll likely use this as well.

~Serene Remembrance, g
Sorcery, Uncommon
Shuffle Serene Remembrance and up to three target cards from a single graveyard into their owners' libraries.

Mothersite Preview.  This is a neat little spells to get some of your spent strategic spells back into your library.  Alternatively, this may cause your opponent some small degree of grief by removing some choice cards from their 'yard which could potentially become targets for flashback or recursion.  Too bad this this is not an instant.

~Skarrg Guildmage, rg
Creature - Human Shaman, Uncommon
{R}{G}: Creatures you control gain trample until end of turn.
1{R}{G}: Target land you control becomes a 4/4 Elemental creature until end of turn. It's still a land.
2/2

Svenska Magic preview. This is a very handy little card.  Trample enabler for your bloodrush tech is great and we can see the animate land effect beating face, especially in limited.

~Boros Charm, rw
Instant, Uncommon
Choose one - Boros Charm deals 4 damage to target player; or permanents you control are indestructible this turn; or target creature gains double strike until end of turn.

Evan Eriwin (The Magic Show) preview.  Evan's fav colour is red and we're certain he's rather ecstatic getting this particular preview card.  The card itself is amazing and is highly adaptable to the game state you are facing.  Choices of three very relevant and powerful effects makes this card a winner.

~Simic Keyrune, 3
Artifact, Uncommon
{T}: Add {G} or {U} to your mana pool.
{G}{U}: Simic Keyrune becomes a 2/3 green and blue Crab artifact creature with hexproof until end of turn.

Gatecrash Card Image Gallery.  This card is a puzzle to be solved and that's the way the Simic like it.  Animating this for a 2/3 body is OK but the hexproof ability is odd.

~Ground Assault, rg
Sorcery, Uncommon
Ground Assault deals damage to target creature equal to the number of lands you control.

LevelUp.com (Latin America) preview. This came across the Reddit radar last evening but we could not find it on the LevelUp site. This is a nice Gruul card which has the potentially for spot removal of a fatty late game.  This may not quite make the cut for limited or constructed as this is not an instant.

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FNM Love

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Indeed, one of our fav day of the week.  Tonight, Friday Night Magic tournaments are being held in game stores all around the free world.  These events are designed to be a beginner-friendly introduction to Magic the Gathering organised play.  Here at MTG Realm, we've had around 1,100 posts since January 2008 and have had about 4.5 million visitors drop by to read the latest MTG spoilers, news and reviews.  We've never been to a professional event and spend a lot of time at the kitchen table slinging cards - but - we rather relish our Friday evening visits to the local game store as is provides a great cross-section of different 60-card builds put together by intelligent and innovative players, which keeps us on our toes and never lets the game get stagnant.

If you've not participated in an FNM event, we encourage you to do so.  Check out the new 'n' improved Store / Event Locator with some slick fetures to find your nearest store.  To prepare for your evening of MTG merriment, you should check out this article over at the Wrong-Way-Go-Back website, written up by our Twitter buddy Thomas (aka hobbesq).  In addition to giving that a read, perhaps it's time to watch our all-time favourite video put out by Wizards of the Coast.  We have yet to meet a player who did not care for the vid.  Here is the Magic the Gathering Friday Night Magic promotional video filmed at Games & Gizmos in Redmond, WA featuring Music by Caspar Babypants and WUBRG, a crazed MTG Muppet who now loves FNM.

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Tonight, we're off to OMG! Games in Barrie, Ontario which is home to Ontario's (maybe even Canada's) largest Friday Night Magic events to try our luck to win one of those fancy promo cards.  Here's the list of FNM promos so far this year . . .

1/2012    -    Glistener Elf
2/2012     -    Despise
3/2012    -    Tectonic Edge
4/2012    -    Dismember
5/2012    -    Ancient Grudge
6/2012    -    Acidic Slime
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And here is some 4.1.1 for Gamers who want to hit up the Friday Night Magic event at OMG! Games :
FNM Standard starts at 7pm Cost $6, or free without prize support. FNM Draft draft queue opens at 5:30pm and will start upon 8 players Cost $14.  The store, near Georgian College is easily accessible from the highway.

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Avacyn Restored Release

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

The big Magic the Gathering news today is of course, the official Avacyn Restored release.  Most players will be heading off to their local games store this evening to buy new cards or packs and possibly score that special alt-art promo at the FNM Avacyn Restored Release tonight.

As for us, we headed down to our local store, OMG! Games in Barrie, Ontario very, very early this morning (just after the stroke of midnight actually), to chat with players, collect some cards and crack some packs.  Here's the video . . .

 

www.OMGgames.ca * 130 Bell Farm Rd. Barrie * 705.721.4263
 
Pulls : 

PACK 1 : Bruna, Light of Alabaster (foil Into the Void) 

PACK 2 : Wolfir Silverheart 

PACK 3 : Conjurer's Closet (foil Moonlight Geist) 

PACK 4 : Cathar's Crusade / PACK 5 : Dread Slaver
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Don't forget to get to an Avacyn Launch Friday Night Magic event tonight.  We'll be headed out to OMG! Games again this Friday to hopefully score a lovely looking foil Restoration Angel.

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The Obliterator

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Hello again MTG peeps,

As you can read in our last post (which just went up) where we covered off another slew of new Avacyn Restored spoilers, we did feel a bit bad not having a daily post for you on Friday.  We want to make it up to you with an additional post - FNM gamers and fans of Magic the Gathering standard constructed, this ones for you.  Our buddy at OMG Games, Jon T., provided this write up for a mono-black deck he has been playing for a while now.  

Here is Jon's notes and list . . .

The deck plays really well and the cards interact with each other in a way that feels really natural. Black hasn't been this strong in a while and I'm pleased at the power level of the deck.

The Deck with No Name (Mono-Black)

(We'll give it a name for you Jon - we'll call it Jo-Bliterator)

Creatures:
4 x Gravecrawler
4 x Geralf's Messenger
4 x Phyrexian Obliterator
3 x Grave Titan
3 x Phyrexian Metamorph

3 x Liliana of the Veil

4 x Despise
4 x Go for the Throat
3 x Tragic Slip
3 x Altar's Reap
2 x Lashwrithe

3 x Drowned Catacomb
20 x Swamp

I've been playing Mono-Black in Standard since Zendikar block. It lost a bit of steam when strong cards like Vampire Nighthawk and Abyssal Persecutor rotated out, but with the addition of Dark Ascension it found some new toys and it's now firing on all cylinders again. Basically, the main deck is a strict bread-and-butter assembly of black's all-star cards. There are a few black builds floating around the internet right now but I feel like mine has a different plan in mind than some of the others -- most of which are dedicated zombie builds.
The deck hits its stride around turns three and four, when I gain access to cards like Messenger, Liliana, Obliterator and Metamorph. The first couple of turns allow me to set things in my favor quickly with cards like Despise and Gravecrawler, either of which is a fine first turn play for the deck. Altar's Reap interacts wonderfully with the Crawler and Messenger, allowing me to refresh quickly without any drawback. At the high end of the curve is the Grave Titan, who comes in on clean-up duty to keep up the pressure into the late game.
Sideboard:

3 x Phyrexian Crusader
2 x Spellskite
2 x Hex Parasite

3 x Surgical Extraction
3 x Doom Blade
2 x Black Sun's Zenith

The sideboard is designed specifically to tighten up the deck versus the individual decks in the local playgroup. While it's true that I'm mixing my damage types when I side in Crusader, against a red or white deck he becomes essentially an Obliterator one turn earlier. Red decks stop in their tracks when a Crusader hits the table, and if I follow it up with the Obliterator, they'll usually scoop. Surgical is a useful tool against a lot of the current decks, including the mirror match. We don't see a lot of Tempered Steel around here any more so I've opted for Go for the Throat in the main, but Doom Blade is an easy swap if I run into a heavy artifact build. Hex Parasite helps out against infect and Super Friends builds, and Spellskite allows me to push some of my harder threats versus decks that could otherwise deal with them, like Black-Blue and Black-Red.

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Comments, questions, hate eMail ? Just abuse the comment form below . . .

Also of note - Did you know that MTG Mint Card has a very lovely page you could input your Magic the Gathering deck list for show and tell ? Check out 'Deck Central' and this aptly named 'Zombieland' deck idea.
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