Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Enchantress Control



4 Guard Duty
4 Journey to Nowhere
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Lightmine Field
2 Luminarch Ascension
4 Day of Judgment
4 Wall of Omens
4 Mesa Enchantress
4 Sun Titan
4 Steel Hellkite
4 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
20 Plains






Last week was mono white aggro, this week is the other end of the spectrum - mono white control. Besides control, the theme here is the lovely Mesa Enchantress. The enchantress wants you to cast enchantments and that's just what you're going to do. This deck features 16 enchants. Twelve of them are removal: Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, and Guard Duty. Two Lightmine Fields provide some defense and two Luminarch Ascensions provide some offense.

As far as creatures go, Wall of Omens buys you time and the "kill team" consists of Sun Titans and Steel Hellkites. A full set of Day of Judgements gives you time and card advantage, and a full set of Emerias work great in mono white control providing long term inevitability.

I usually build aggro decks so this is a bit of a departure for me. I'm used to trying to end the game before my opponent can cast his biggest spells, but as the control player I'm really just trying to make the game go as long as possible. If I can survive by constantly removing my opponent's permanents (enchantress drawing cards along the way) and wiping the battlefield at key moments with Day, then it should be only a matter of time before my Sun Titans and Hellkites clean up. The Sun Titan can dig up Enchantresses or Wall of Omens from the graveyard, or any of the enchants that have been destroyed. Steel Hellkite is one of my absolute favorite finishers. I cannot tell you how many times he's soared over some scary ground dwellers, dealt 5 damage, then blew up said ground dwellers.

I eventually arrived at this deck by reading a Modern Mono White Control thread over at mtgsalvation. I was impressed with the list and built a more budget friendly version (but the lack of extremely expensive cards was one of the reasons I liked it). I added the enchantress because the list had so many enchantments, then I realized it had a ton of standard legal cards so I made some substitutions (including more enchants) and this is the result.

I played ten games in the causal room.



Game 1: Vs Eldrazi spawn, Beastmaster Ascension, Furnace Celebration. I don't remember much about this game except right away I recognized the usefulness of Oblivion Ring (in this deck it hits non-creatures more than creatures) and I thought that this enchantress theme might actually work. Cantripping o-rings and journeys is serious. He concedes after my Sun Titan returns an enchantress and says "no mana", but he had four lands.

Game 2: Vs Treasure Hunt / Zombie Infestation. Seems a little goofy, but I o-ring a Quest for Ancient Secrets. I didn't think I wanted him recurring the treasure hunts, and I had plenty of creature removal. Eventually I got enough mana to cast titans and hellkites. Emeria was firing too.

Again, I'm thinking enchantress is for real. Last game I had two in play and I was just throwing down journeys and o-rings on zombie tokens to draw cards. Divination stapled to o-ring...

Game 3: Mulligan'd to five. Lost to red bloodthirst/aggro deck. I got too greedy with my Day of Judgement. I should've got a two for one on turn four, but I held it and kept taking hits. Then he plays a Chandra, the Firebrand, which I o-ringed (still taking hits). By the time I Day I had taken too much damage. Remember Day is more than card advantage but also is supposed to keep you alive. A good lesson.

Game 4: Beat a green ramp deck: Lotus Cobra, Garruk Wildspeaker, a huge Hydra. Two key Days allow me to survive long enough to get out two Sun Titans who revive a few enchantress. I top deck another enchantress to make three on the battlefield. Guard duty becomes Ancestral Recall. I throw one on his creature, draw three, throw down another on the same creature and he concedes.

Game 5: An early enchantress puts me off to a good start. I get two lightmine fields out, but they aren't doing too much. He o-rings my enchantress, I o-ring his o-ring (was worried the universe would implode, but I think it takes three o-rings to do that). I get a hellkite. He casts Liliana Vess and tutors up his best. The hellkite hits him and blows up liliana. Next turn we see his card of choice was Day of Judgement, but my two Emerias bring back the hellkite and an enchantress on my next upkeep. He concedes.

Game 6: I get a turn two Luminarch Ascension while he stumbles out of the gate. A wall of omens and guard duty let me get four counters on the ascension. He concedes when I start making angels.

Game 7: Vs red/blue bounce I'm stuck on three lands with four six drops in my hand...Finally I get the fourth land and Day of Judgements flow. I'm down to eight life and have an enchantress and titan in play. He casts Act of Treason on the titan. I'm saying goodbye to the enchantress except the attack trigger on my (his) titan digs up an Aether Adept out of his yard which bounces my blocker. I'm down to two and am just waiting on the burn to finish me, but inexplicably he concedes. You gotta draw for the burn in that case. He had at least a few turns.

Game 8: Beat some kind of artifact deck. The key moment was when hellkite flew over an army of golem tokens then obliterated them all for zero mana.

Game 9: Lost on turn 17 vs zombies. Call to the Grave was killing me. Only got one enchantress and she was immediately Doom Bladed. O-ring and Day should be able to handle Call to the Grave, but he drew more calls then I drew answers.

Game 10: One land in my opening hand. This deck can basically never keep one land hand. Mull to six: one land. Mull to five: one land. Mull to four: one land. OK then. Sometimes you keep a one land hand. Vs super aggressive mono white I almost stabilized. Needed a Day bad, but no luck.

7-3. I hate losing the last two. Ah well.


I really like this deck. We got a month or two before standard rotation. A decent chunk of the deck rotates out, but a lot sticks around so we'll see what Innistrad has to offer.

Some potential improvements may be to work in some enchantment life gain via Sunspring Expedition and maybe cutting down on some of the six drops? I feel there may be one or two too many. Timely Reinforcements would work well in this deck. Also Lightmine Field did almost nothing for me over ten games.

I hope you like it! This will be my last standard deck before the rotation, but I don't think this is the last we've seen of Enchantress Control.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Honor Pledge



4 Soul's Attendant
4 Elite Vanguard
4 Accorder Paladin
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Porcelain Legionnaire
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Guardians' Pledge
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Brave the Elements
2 Tumble Magnet
22 Plains






This week I want to talk about a Standard "white weenie" build inspired by similar pauper deck I put together recently.Guardian's Pledge was the starting point for the pauper deck, and here I add Honor of the Pure to form the core of the Standard version.

Classic Pauper features many excellent ways to generate white token creatures, but in the current Standard environment we aren't so lucky. I felt Conqueror's Pledge, Nomad's Assembly, and White Sun's Zenith cost too much mana (for an aggro deck), and Hero of Bladehold cost too much money (for me). Timely Reinforcements looked interesting for a second until I realized I plan on running out hordes of creatures starting on turn one.

So instead of tokens I focused on small, aggressive creatures and this proved much more fruitful. Squadron Hawk is the best creature in the deck. It provides huge value when combined with Honor or Pledge. Accorder Paladin may claim the second rank featuring an excellent power to mana ratio, but also providing power boosts to all attacking creatures through its Battle Cry ability. One Squadon Hawk (and by one I mean four) combines with Honor, Pledge, or the Paladin to form a very strong early threat.The vanguards, legionnaries  and skyhunters form the rest of the aggro army and Soul Attendant provides some lifegain but also isn't afraid to hit somebody when properly boosted.

Oblivion Ring and Tumble Magnet provide a bit of aggressive removal and Brave the Elements qualifies as an All-Star countering removal, countering Pyroclasms, and allowing your creatures to get through unblocked. With every card in the deck under four mana we can easily run only 22 plains.

The gameplan with this deck is to start swinging from turn two, doing as much early damage as possible, then finish the game with Honor or Pledge before your opponent's biggest threats hit the battlefield.

I played ten games in the casual room online. Note the first version of the deck had 21 plains and zero Brave the Elements (I just forgot about it). I think I also had a random Alabaster Mage.



Game 1: He mulligans down to four. He plays an elf and a Joraga Treespeaker. I play a T1 attendant, T2 honor, T3 legionnare. T4 I o-ring the leveled treespeaker and he concedes.

Game 2: I win a close one vs tokens/Fresh Meat/Warstorm Surge. Two attendants must have gained me 50 life, and the fliers are the only way I could get damage through due to his army of Kozilek's Predators. I wanted a pledge the whole game, but one Honor of the Pure enabled me to win without it.

Game 3: Vs mono red, he burns my T2 and T3 paladin then plays two Maniac Vandals (one caught my Tumble Magnet). I'm doing fine with Squadron Hawks then top deck Honor. This is when I start to realize Squadron Hawk plus Honor is really good: two cards for eight flying power.

Game 4: I honestly must have had 15 of my creatures burned this game. He blasted me with two Whipflares, and seriously, like eight other burn spells. I drew a lot of land, then drew into three honors (all my creatures are in the graveyard). Note this was before the Brave the Elements which still didn't cross my mind.

Game 5: Lost vs Golems. I was stuck on two lands the entire game, and I might have won anyway if wasn't for his "gain 10 life" War Report.

Game 6: He mulligans to five and quits. Cool.

Game 7: My notes are sparse on this one: "Beat an Arachnus Spinner deck. Squadron Hawk is so strong in this deck". I think this game involved a Tumble Magnet locking down the Super Giant Spider to make way for the boosted hawks.

After playing seven games I, for some reason, remember I need Brave the Elements, but I can only find room for two. I fear hands full of Honor, Pledge, Elements, and no creatures. I can't bring myself to reduce the number of Honors or Pledges.

Game 8: A very close one vs Goblins. I'm at 12 and busts out a double Goblin Grenade! I thought for sure he had a bolt to finish me, but he just passes the turn. I have one honor on the table and swing with Soul Attendant, a paladin, and a legionnaire. He's at 13, has one Goblin Guide left, and doesn't block. I pledge for the win.

Game 9: A guy quits on me around turn two. So i'll make it 11 games.

Game 10: Lose to Birthing Pod. Multiple Inquisition of Kozileks terrorized me. I still managed to get him down to 2, but too little too late against the insane Birthing Pod chain of Skinrender into Acidic Slime into Massacre Wurm (it was a massacre) into Sheoldred, Whispering One.

Game 11: Beat some kind of ramp deck. A key Oblivion Ring exiled a Chandra, the Firebrand. He didn't get too much besides that. Squadron Hawks and Skyhunter team up with Honor and Pledge.



By no means is this a completely optimized list. I'm wondering if maybe Conqueror's Pledge may work as a two-of at the high end of curve. Also, depending on options for white weenie post-rotation, I may reevaluate whether to fork over the cash for a few Heroes.

I happy with the performance of the deck. I know its just the casual room, but this deck has four rares (and they're cheap). Try it out online, at FNM, or at the kitchen table. I love to hear how it went.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Modern is the Future



Wizards of the Coast announced the Modern format a few weeks ago, and last Friday changed the format of the upcoming Pro Tour Philadelphia from Extended to Modern.

There has been some of backlash about what some feel is a heavy handed ban list, and the short notice for the Pro Tour change, but these are smallish, temporary problems. The main contention has been over the ban list, but as Tom LaPille pointed out in his announcement, the ban list can be changed.

I'm excited about Modern and I think this is going to be a major format. In fact, I think it will become the eternal format at some point in the not too distant future.

Modern was created because the Vintage and Legacy formats are becoming too expensive. Due to Wizards' long-standing and unfortunate reprint policy they have no power to control the pricing of some of the eternal format staples. Vintage has long since been an "enthusiast only" format. With extremely expensive cards like Black Lotus a competitive deck can easily cost thousands of dollars. Legacy doesn't allow the ridiculously powerful and expensive "Power Nine", but supply and demand with no reprints is driving the price of Legacy staples up also. You'll be hard pressed to find an Underground Sea for under $100 (and that's just one of your twenty something lands).

Modern is a new eternal format starting not from Beta, but from the original Mirrodin block (2003) going forward. This new set conveniently excludes every card protected by the reprint policy.

Wizards' has said multiple times they wish the reprint policy never happened, but it's a promise they intend to keep. Some people think they should break their promise "for the benefit of the game", but I disagree. Whether or not they broke a promise they made many years ago is only part of the problem. The other problem is related to what the reprint policy was actually trying to do: protect collectors.

Imagine if you wanted to play vintage and you finally saved up $2000 and bought a set of moxen (you got a really good deal). Then you find out Wizards decided to break their reprint policy and sell a special edition, from the vault, tournament legal box product with the same set for $100. What a slap in the face. Doing this for the legacy staples would have a similar (though not as severe) effect. Disrespecting your most die-hard fans and breaking a promise you said you intend to keep multiple times does not seem like the best thing for Magic.

Now for "Modern Magic" the reprint policy is behind them. Reprints are fair game. Of course the ability to reprint a card doesn't decrease its value, you have to actually reprint it. Can we count on Wizards to reprint the Modern staples which are becoming too expensive? Take Tarmogoyf for example. This guy is listed on Star City Games for $80 (and sold out). To me, that's already too expensive, but over time the price will only go up. Will Wizard's reprint Tarmogoyf?

I'm no expert on the trading card business, but I suspect the longer a card is out of print, the less money Wizards makes off it. Most constructed players buy their cards individually from retailers, but every card purchased ultimately comes from a product sold by Wizards of the Coast. So when players buy cards for their Standard decks this increases the demand for sets currently for sale. Wizards sells mass amount of booster boxes to re-sellers who then sell the boxes or open them and sell the cards individually. However, the second, third, fourth, and fifth re-sales of those cards bring zero money to Wizards. Wizards isn't selling any more boxes of Future Sight so as the demand for Tarmogoyf goes up, there are no more boxes to sell - only secondary price skyrocket.

If, however, Wizards added the mighty Tarmogoyf to the next core set as a mythic rare, you now have extra demand on the new core set which sells more cards for Wizards, and since there are now more goyfs in the world now, its price drops. Interestingly, the fairly recent of invention of the mythic rare can be used in this case to have a more controlled price drop of a reprinted card (as opposed to reprinting at rare). This is a win-win situation: Wizards makes money off a high demand reprint and players have access to cheaper cards.

From a business point of view it makes sense, but what about for the game? What would happen to Standard if Tarmogoyf was reprinted in a core set? The new yearly core set release schedule allows for reprints to be Standard legal for one year instead of two. This would make it less risky to introduce a questionably powerful card into Standard and allow for dominant cards to get in and out quicker.

Then again, Standard is the main format of Magic. I doubt many risks would be taken with Standard for Modern's sake. You could imagine a situation where Modern needs a card reprinted but it would harm standard so the card would not get reprinted. The solution here, and probably the best solution overall for supporting an eternal format, is to reprint cards that aren't Standard legal. I think the best way to do this is with something like event decks. You can put very clearly on the front of the package "Modern Format". This should minimize the unpleasant situation of players buying the product then finding out it's not legal for Standard. Event decks, box sets, or from the vault sets can contain key Modern reprints without affecting Standard. Wizards could price each product to engineer the price of the card post-reprint. I imagine they would aim to drop the price of an expensive card but not tank it. Controlled price drops protect the investment people have already made in their product. Again it's a win-win situation. Wizards prints cardboard and sells it for insane profit while players feel like they're getting a steal.

Modern, free from the shackles of the reprint policy, is a solid foundation on which to build an eternal format. Right now it's a far cry from the madness of Vintage and Legacy, but over time, as more and more sets are released the difference between Modern and its father formats will decrease. Eventually Modern will become the eternal format and Legacy will join Vintage as an "enthusiast only" format featuring ancient artifacts of immense power and extreme cost.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Pledge



4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Veteran Armorer
4 Icatian Crier
4 Raise the Alarm
3 Mana Tithe
2 Journey to Nowhere
4 Guardians' Pledge
4 Righteous Charge
2 Fortify
21 Plains






This pauper deck's goal is twofold: First, generate as many creatures as possible. Second, boost those creatures for maximum damage. My original version of this deck started out as red-white and sported the very interesting Raid Bombardment. Raid Bomb can be very effective, but since your small creatures don't get any boosts they often end up dying during battle. Raid Bomb also only provides you with one damage per attacker per turn while something like Guardians' Pledge gives you two extra damage per attacker instantly. With the M12 printing of Guardian's Pledge I decided to cut the red and focus on mono white. I prefer Pledge over Raid Bomb and cutting Raid Bomb let me switch to one color which results in smoother, faster games (don't have to worry about being stuck with the wrong color lands or tripping over a Terramorphic Expanse.

The "Soul Sisters" can result in some insane life gain, but also double as 1/1s. I like 1/1s in this deck. In fact, I think I won a game just by swinging with 3 or 4 Soul Wardens a few times.

Veteran Armorer plays a very important role. While the generic +0/+1 to all my creatures is nice, this guy's main role is to get my 1/1 army out of board sweep range. Most of the multi-creature kill spells in pauper can only reach 1/1s. Running into a Tremor,Krark Clan Shaman, or Shrivel can wipe out all you've worked to set up but the Armorer prevents this while providing an efficient, speedy attacker.


The star of the deck is Icatian Crier. Give her a few turns and you will have a huge army. What to discard? For starters, this deck is fully operational on 3 lands. This means I can trade lands 4, 5, and beyond for 2 1/1s. She also combos very nicely with Squadron Hawk. After the initial hawk fetches up 3 of his friends, I can then chose whether I want 3 more 1/1 fliers or (given some time) 6 1/1 non-fliers. She also plays nicely with Mana Tithe.

In order of importance, Guardians' Pledge, Righteous Charge, and Fortify provide a way to make that 1/1 army deadly. Get 4 or 5 creatures out, cast one or two of these and your opponent will often be dead.

The original version of the deck was slightly different than the list above. I had Inspired Charge instead of Righteous Charge and ran a few copies of Gaze of Justice. Mana Tithe and Journey to Nowhere weren't in the original build.

I played ten games in the casual room. Here's a brief walk-through.

Game 1. T1 soul attendant, T2 armorer, T3 crier. He Castigates a pledge. After I swing a few times vs an empty board (he's playing some kind of dredge) he's at 14. Then 9. He removes a soul attendant and my armorer. I cast Raise the Alarm during his end step then pledge for the win.

Game 2. All he does is play lands and suspend an Errant Ephemeron. I play t1 warden, t2 armorer, t3 warden, squadron hawk then he concedes. A pledge would have killed him next turn.

Game 3. My opponent had some land trouble. He played one creature with infect, an aura, and an equipment. I played armorer, armorer, crier, used her ability then pledge for the game. It's like the poor man's Overrun.

After game 3 decide I don't like Gaze of Justice because I usually need removal when I don't have creatures on the board. Plus with a deck this fast I'll never get enough mana to cast the flashback. I look to Journey to Nowhere but then Mana Tithe catches my eye. I also discovered the high quality Righteous Charge. After some deliberation the final modifications after game 3 were swap the charges (better to be Righteous than Inspired apparently) and swap mana tithe in for gaze. Countering a t2 Grizzly Bear would actually be a really good idea for this deck.

Game 4. Lost vs land destruction/Cloudpost. Died with a ton of boosts in my hand. Are there too many? -2 Fortify (I was running 4) +2 journeys since that would have be great vs that Ulamog's Crusher that just annihilated me.

Game 5. I had the crier + squadron hawk hookup. He quit after he tried to counter an ability.


Game 6. His early 2/2 puts on my brakes... and his essence warden is really a pain. I can tell his deck is built for a longer game and mine isn't. He has two Mulldrifters. Now he was two essence wardens... he's gaining too much life for me to finish him with boosts. Three mulldrifters... He's got some kind of Pit Keeper loop going. That's not good. Fourth mulldrifter. He digs another out of the graveyard to make five mulldrifters. Rule of thumb: concede after the fifth mulldrifter.

By now I've realized how much better Righteous Charge is than Fortify. That two extra toughness makes a big difference. Especially when you have to play the attrition game.

Game 7. He staggershocks two of my dudes. I'm drawing too many lands, but he's getting even more. This is the game I attacked only with sisters and boosts and won.

Game 8. Raise the Alarm and one activation of the crier gets me 4 creatures. He shocks the crier and Mind Rots me. I swing the 4 1/1s, he doesn't block, and I don't use my boost. Next turn I do use the boost for the final 12 damage.

Game 9. Four creatures and two Guardians' Pledge. This is the first game I really put the Mana Tithe to work. I think a snagged a mana producing signet when he was behind on land drops. I had two more mana tithes in my hand, but with crier on the table I could save mana for a potential counter then use the mana for her ability even pitching the tithes if I felt I wouldn't need them.

I've noticed a pattern by this point: Get four creatures out and a boost or two should do it. It's pretty brutal.

Game 10. Lose vs cloudpost. Got him down to 6 with the usual suspects but he drops a turn five crusher and a turn 6 crusher... gg.


7-3 in casual room. I don't know if the severe weakness vs Crypt Rats and Pestilence would keep it from doing well in a more competitive environment, but it seems pretty effective.



Wednesday, August 10, 2011

M12 Illusions


A mini-post to test out and show off my new tech.

So about those illusions... The day M12 came out online I was getting beat up by Phantasmal Bears, Phantasmal Dragons (especially this one) and Phantasmal Images on more than a few occasions. I was mainly playing a green deck whose plan was basically play green dudes and Overrun so I couldn't target them to make them poof.

So until illusion craze fades, I'll be running a set of shiny Tumble Magnets (a card I like, especially for green, anyway).

Maybe I just hope he doesn't draw the Lord of the Unreal. Or I draw my overrun first.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Spoils of Victory

After a long battle against javascript, css, browser quirks, and the intricacies of absolute vs relative vs fixed position I present to you (mouseover):

Spoils of Victory

There is more work to do before I can use this effectively, but my hope is that soon when I talk about cards each one is right at your fingertips.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

On Losing and Sample Size



I have plans to write an article about an M12 sealed league I'm in at work. We buy a few boxes, dish out the packs, and for six weeks battle it out in a conference room over lunch. I was going to wait until the league was over before the full report but two weeks in I already have a theme I want to write about: losing. Me losing. Badly.

My match record right now is 0-4. In a sealed environment it's easy to attribute your success or failure to your pool. Sometimes a pro couldn't build a winning deck with the cards you get. But the thing is, I don't think my deck is that bad. It surely isn't great but I can't really complain too much with a Grave Titan and a Serra Angel.




So, I thought, maybe I'm terrible at Magic? I can't win a match! But why did I lose? Thinking back on it... is it possible I just got a string of bad luck? I remember drawing the all-powerful Grave Titan twice out of ten games (one of those times I watched him rot in my hand stuck on four lands the entire game). I remember facing off against Chandra all three games in one match and four fireballs across two games in another. I remember a top deck Sorin's Thirst copied by Chandra to take out my Serra Angel one turn before she would have won the match. I remember my opponent, out of cards and one turn away from death, drawing a Jace and milling my last 9 cards away. What, am I cursed?

Time for an experiment. Thanks to high quality random data from random.org, I simulated 100 matches for an average Magic player. There was an equal chance for 0 (loss) or 1 (win) meaning this player's average win ratio is 50%. In this particular set of 100 matches his average was actually 51%. The first match is in the top left, the second match is one square to right... left to right, to top bottom.

I highlighted stretches of four or more wins or losses in a row, and as you can see it doesn't take a voodoo curse to get four losses in a row. Look at that stretch of nine!

This image demonstrates it is a mistake to extrapolate sets of data with small sample sizes to reach broad conclusions. You shouldn't conclude you are a terrible Magic player because you lost four matches in a row. Similarly, you shouldn't think you're going to become a Pro Tour champion because you managed to win a Friday Night Magic.

You can make the same mistake when evaluating a deck. If you put a new deck together and lose three games in a row you cannot necessarily conclude the deck is bad. You have to look back at why you lost. It may be that you drew the wrong cards and your opponent drew the right ones. However, it's also possible that those games highlighted fundamental problems with the deck. This is the kind of information you're looking for. Understanding the games you play is much more important than remembering your win percent.

Remember those red and green streaks when you win or lose a few in a row! The last games we play are always freshest on our mind but don't let your recent win percent get in your way of focusing on what matters: understanding the game and playing well. Do these and you will win more over time.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Some card designs



One of my favorite things to do in spare minutes (or hours) here and there is design magic cards.I think designing a magic card is a lot of fun because there are a huge amount of parameters to tweak and tune but enough limitations to generally prevent being creatively overwhelmed. To explain what I mean, imagine you were give 5 one inch cube wooden blocks and told to make something creative and interesting. You say... Ok... let's see I can line them up this way... or that way... or maybe like this or that... meh.There aren't enough options to make the design interesting. Now imagine you were give 10,000 such blocks. My response would be Ummmm... a creative wipe-out. I feel like designing magic cards gives you just the right amount of blocks.




In fact, designing a deck can be viewed in a similar way. It's a creative process with a large but manageable number of number of parameters. I think creative process is a big part of why I enjoy magic so much.

For more about Magic design check out Wizards of the Coast's Great Designer Search. It was an open Magic design contest where the judges (designers) critiqued the contestants designs as a part of weekly feature on Daily MTG. It piqued my interest in Magic design. I believe the first one took place around 2007 and the second one wrapped up recently.

On to the cards!

Moonstone (rare)
3
Legendary Artifact
Whenever you draw a basic land card you may reveal it to draw another card. Use this ability only once per turn.

I was playing a game recently and had a Farsight Mask in play.I've always thought that was a pretty bizarre card, but sometimes it can be pretty good. I thought, "it basically randomly draws you cards". Then I thought, "Hey that would be cool. Let me design a card that randomly draws cards" and the result is Moonstone. My first thought was to use a coin flip, but for some reason every time I see that on a card I hate it. Randomness is a big part of the game, but that just seems to make it too obvious or something. Also I don't really want to flip a coin every turn. Then I thought to use Magic's built in randomizer, the card draw. I was looking for an approximately 50/50 split, land vs non-land. I was sensing this was too powerful so I chose to trigger off land (will trigger less often) and added the basic land restriction to tone down power a little more and reward using basic lands. Legend status and one per turn restrictions add more control. I think this card is interesting because it increases the value of all of your future card draws; its value increases over time. For this reason it would probably fit better with control decks than aggro. I can't decide if this is too powerful or not. It probably is, but my imaginary development team can tweak the cost as needed.

Boomslang Shaman (rare)
2gu
Creature - Human Shaman
2/2
[card] enters the battlefield with 2 +1/+1 counters on it.
Shroud.
gu: Remove a counter from [card] and place it on target creature. That creature gains shroud until EOT.
I built a creature heavy green-blue Heirloom deck (the Heirloom format will surely be the topic of a future post) loaded with hybrid creatures. I wanted a 4 drop to instantly protect all my smaller creatures. Inspired by Simic Guildmage and Plaxcaster Frogling, this is what I came up with. I think this is a neat combination of the green and blue colors and very within the "Simic" mindset. Built in shroud was to avoid shenanigans targeting himself or other copies.Originally the ability didn't cost any mana, but that might be a little much. I think it's kinda cool how if you drop it on turn 4 your opponent has one turn to take out one creature (but not your Boomslang Shaman) then you get into safe mode, but if you draw it later in the game and have 6 mana out then you get insta-protection.The cost on the ability made be feel better about the fairly generous 4/4 stats also.
Haunted Marsh (uncommon)
Land - Swamp
When [card] enters the battlefield you lose 2 life.
bbbb: [card] becomes a 4/2 black horror creature until EOT.
Inspired by casing Tendrils of Corruption with a Barren Moor on the battlefield. Many black cards require not just black mana but swamps. However, I always found it a bit dull to run 24 swamps even though it was probably optimal for my Tendrils, Corrupt, and Mind Sludge. I figure this is sort of the swamp version of Dread Statuary (I love that card by the way).
A Gatherer search revealed Leechridden Swamp serves a similar role.
Tyrannosaurs Rex (mythic)
4gg
Creature - Lizard
7/7
Trample, Haste
[card] gets +2/2 for each creature blocking it.
This one is inspired by one of Ethan Fleischer's designs for his pre-historic world in GDS2. I even stole his 4gg, 7/7, trample stats. A mythic T-rex is just super epic. One of the judges said that's the kind of card they could put on the front of a booster box to sell a set. So naturally I wanted to try to come up with a design that did justice to the awesome parameters of "mythic t-rex".

I thought 4gg, 7/7, trample was an excellent starting point. My main goal was to make this feel like a T-rex but also be very powerful. If my design wasn't powerful then I failed the T-rex. Trample on a large creature makes blocking much less valuable, but if you are low on life then you can start feeding the monster creatures to reduce damage by their toughness. Multiple blockers can absorb all the damage or even team up to kill the attacker. This design's +2/+2 for each blocker makes blocking even less effective, particularly with multiple blockers. It's kind of like super-trample which seems appropriate for this card. The T-rex for all intensive purposes is unblockable, a huge 7 hit clock. Of course he's not technically unblockable so you certainly can try, but carnage will ensue.

Haste wasn't on there until the last minute, but I thought of Terra Stomper and realized my T-rex needed more power. I love Terra Stomper but he doesn't win tournaments so I need one more ability to push the T-rex over the edge. I thought about defensive abilities like protection or hexproof, but that's not really T-rex. He is fast though. Huge, mean, and fast.