Deck Building 2: Spread the Plague

Hello, fellow deck builders!

Wow, I haven't posted anything in a while. ><

I guess I'll start off with a new casual deck a recently built. This is a weird one. One of the coolest things about Magic is the enormous amount of possible synergies between cards. It's like playing chess, except you have 15,000+ possible pieces to choose from.

This deck started out when I first saw Ghostflame Sliver, probably one of the strangest slivers of all time.

Also, with the Premium Deck Series: Silvers deck coming out next week, this is probably as good a time as any to make a sliver deck. : )

When I read Ghostflame Sliver's ability, I had one of those "what's the point of that?!" moments. I didn't really think being colorless was a very sought after Sliver ability. But then I started to think about the more recent magic cards that care about color. For example, the Radiance mechanic from Ravnica had some pretty powerful red spells that did damage to each creature that shared a color (Brightflame anyone?). Also, being colorless has tremendous advantages against cards with Protection from a color or colors.

So, how could one take advantage of this nifty little ability...

I began by looking at cards that care about colors in general. Since Ghostflame Sliver is , I decided to go with those colors for the deck. There were two cards from Invasion that immediatley caught my attention:

Yes, I know that Tsabo's Assassin is not a Sliver, but that can easily be fixed with Hivestone. It's about time I found a good use for that artifact. With both Ghostflame Sliver and Hivestone on the battlefield, the assassin's ability becomes your own personal recurring Terminate. The same idea applies with Spreading Plague. Since colorless creatures can't share a color, your opponent's creatures will be the only ones affected by Spreading Plague. Hehe...

I also wanted to take advantage of the new Intimidate mechanic from Zendikar. This is another interesting ability that works to your advantage if your creatures are colorless. There are currently only four cards with the Intimidate ability, so I ultimately went with Halo Hunter.

Halo Hunter provides enough punch for the late game, and with Dark Ritual, the early game as well. Add to that the presence of a Hivestone and the demon will most likely be getting a lot of other devastating benefits.

So now we just need a few more slivers to complete the arsenal. One of the slivers I've been dying to include is Sedge Sliver. This sliver seems to be a perfect match for a deck, and regeneration is never a bad thing.

So this is what I came up with:

Main Deck:
60 cards

Lands (22)	Creatures (20)	Other spells (18)
2 Bloodstained Mire 4 Dragonskull Summit 8 Swamp 8 Mountain	4 Bonesplitter Sliver 2 Frenzy Sliver 2 Fury Sliver 4 Ghostflame Sliver 2 Halo Hunter 2 Sedge Sliver 4 Tsabo's Assassin	2 Breath of Malfegor 4 Dark Ritual 4 Hivestone 4 Spreading Plague 4 Terminate

It's pretty clear that you're gonna want to be attacking a lot with this deck. Hopefully, the abundance of removal will guarantee that.

That's my attempt at a quirky sliver deck. Please leave your comments and/or any tips you may have to make this deck better. Until next time!

Custom Cards 1

Most of us have had those moments where we are playing Magic and we come across a situation that makes us think "Man, they should make a card that..." Well, I found an awesome program called Magic Set Editor that allows you to make custom cards using authentic Magic templates. It's a lot of fun, let me tell you.

I'll post several of my custom cards from time to time, just for fun. I'll try to do a new one every week. My readers are always welcome to leave comments and ideas for their own cards as well.

So here's this week's card:

My roommate is a huge Symphony X fan, and when he bought their newest album, I absolutely loved the cover art by Warren Flanagen. So I decided to make a card using that piece of artwork.

The untap ability is an intriguing mechanic because it requires a bit more planning and strategy. Although a good card to play right away on turn 3, it would be best to wait till you have 5 mana available in order to take advantage of the untap ability that same turn. Either way, a few of these on the offensive will get nasty real quick.

So that's Metallic Valkyrie! May she pummel her way into your heart. : )

Deck Building 1

Hello, fellow deck builders!

This is my first deck building post, in which I'll showcase one of my decks and then you guys can comment on it and give me feedback on improvements and such. One of the greatest benefits of playing Magic is the wonderful community of gamers you can rely on to be not only formidable opponents, but also constructive critics. Since I'm still fairly new at the game, it's only logical to seek out the wisdom of more seasoned players.

So this a casual G/W combo deck I titled Gaea's Revenge:

Main Deck:
60 cards

Lands (20)	Creatures (21)	Other spells (19)
2 Flagstones of Trokair 5 Forest 2 Ghost Quarter 4 Llanowar Reborn 4 Plains 3 Terramorphic Expanse	2 Gaddock Teeg 2 Juniper Order Ranger 2 Knight of the Reliquary 2 Mystic Enforcer 3 Saffi Eriksdotter 2 Serra Avenger 3 Scryb Ranger 3 Tarmogoyf 2 Wilt-Leaf Liege	3 Disenchant 3 Edge of Autumn 2 Gaea's Anthem 2 Griffin Guide 3 Sunlance 2 Temporal Isolation 4 Thrill of the Hunt

I suppose this deck could legally play extended, but I probably wouldn't take it to a tournament. This was one of the first viable decks I ever built. The addition of Knight of the Reliquary from Conflux prompted me to include the Ghost Quarters. The deck works by allowing all of the creatures to help each other in some form. I usually try to get Gaddock Teeg and Saffi Eriksdotter out in the early game for defense. Once I get Serra Avenger and Wilt-Leaf Liege on the table, I'm usually able to pull enough damage for the win. Once Alara Reborn is released, I'm definitely going to make room for Knight of New Alara in this deck.

So that's it! Please feel free to let me know what you think of the build.

Until next time, peeps!

Magic in the coming months - 2009

This year is building up to be an exciting one for Magic players new and old. With 2 new major sets coming out later this year, as well as several smaller ones, we are in for lots and lots of fresh deck-building goodness. Here are some of the releases I'm looking forward to:

Alara Reborn: This is the third and final set in the Shards of Alara block, set for release on April 30th. I can't wait to see what crazy goodies are in this one, since it's pretty much confirmed that it will be an all-gold set. For plenty of yummy spoilers, drop by MTG Realm!

Magic 2010: This is the next core set (11th edition) due out this summer. According to the MTG website, this set is expected to bring back some much needed classic Magic flavor. Classic cards like Black Knight are coming back, but they are also doing something new with this one. This will be the first core set to include brand new cards unique to the core set. I'm also anticipating those new "dual lands" everyone is talking about.

Zendikar: Not much is known about the October set beyond the release date (Oct. 2nd) and some early speculation. However, along with the official announcement, they gave us a slogan to begin fueling the rumor mills: Deadly Perils, Priceless Treasures. This has caused people to think everything from dinosaurs to pirates. Personally, the name and slogan invoke images of jungles, temples, and booby traps (MISTA JONES!). I guess we'll just have to wait till the fall.

Duel Decks: Divine vs. Demonic: It's about time Wizards released a set of "good vs. evil"-themed decks. This type of theme has been a staple of Magic flavor since the beginning, when Lord of the Pit first hit the table. Should be interesting to see what cards they include in this one.

From the Vault: Exiled: According to the official announcement, this set is going to include 15 of Magic's most powerful cards that were once banned, but are now playable again. 8 cards are gonna have new art, and the set will come with a unique spindown life counter. It looks like Balance is going to be part of this set.

Seems like the spoiler hounds have a lot of their plates! I too will try to keep up to date on any news from upcoming sets.

Happy Planeswalking!

A new beginning for this blog...

To date, there has only been one post on this blog...that was almost a year ago. I haven't really had much to blog about, but it's a new year and I'm going to start anew with this blog.

So this is the start of my new blog: The Life and Times of a Planeswalker...

Ajani Vengeant - Wayne Reynolds

For anyone not familiar with the concept of a Planeswalker, it is pretty much just a person in the Magic: the Gathering Universe that has the ability to travel between an infinite amount of worlds at will. This "gift" is called the Planeswalker's "spark".

Although purely fantasy, I do find the idea of a Planeswalker to be an appropriate metaphor for the way my life is going at the moment. I'm currently a sophmore at the Savannah College of Art and Design, majoring in Animation (minoring in Sound Design), and at times I do feel very much like I'm traveling between an infinite amount of creative worlds. As an artist, I too have my own "spark" that I need to learn to control and focus.

So the basic premise of this blog is going to be a discussion about my various interests and hobbies, mainly focusing on the Magic: the Gathering trading card game. I'm still a fairly new Magic player, say maybe 6 months now since I bought my first booster. Since then, I have become extremely obsessed with getting to know every facet of the game. That is partly why I decided to reinvigorate this blog; to share my Magic experiences with everyone. I also want to be able to document my deck/combo ideas, talk about upcoming sets/spoilers, that kinda stuff.

Some of my other interests include music (I play guitar), art, linguistics, and a lot of other nerdy things, so there are bound to be posts about those things as well.

I can't wait to see how this all goes! I look forward to open discussion with all my fellow magic players out there.

Stay tuned! Feel free to leave comments!