DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Adun Oakenshield

This three drop legendary originated from the Legends set. With its 1/2 power and toughness, it isn't all that impressive of a creature to play, but it has a powerful ability when tapped. With it you can select a creature from your graveyard and place it in your hand, at the same mana cost of G/R/B. This could work very well as a commander, especially if you have big creatures in your graveyard that you can’t do without.

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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Geth, Lord of the Vault

The daily random pick is this mythic Scars of Mirrodin Legendary Creature: Geth, Lord of Vault. For a 4 colorless and two black you can play this hefty 5/5 creature with intimidate. In case you don't know the keyword, it means that only creatures that are artifacts or creatures that share the same color as this card can block this legendary creature. If you don't have the same color or artifact creatures, then you will be taking a beating from this or any other card with intimidate. Additionally, the ability listed on this card can do some graveyard digging and also mill some of the other player's library. So even if you can block this monstrosity, it is going to cause you pain.

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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Adriana, Captain of the Guard

Today’s daily random Magic: The Gathering pick is a legendary creature with 4 / 4 power and toughness, 5 drop, from the Conspiracy: Take the Crown set: Adriana, Captain of the Guard. This legendary is a great card to have in a regular deck and be an excellent candidate as a commander.

The melee ability is a great ability to have, especially if you have multiple creatures out on the field and you’re playing commander with 8 other people. Thats a lot of +1/+1 to be distributed on the creatures you are attacking with. Not quite a “losing friends” kind of deal, but I'm sure friends will be a little mad with how powerful she can become. The other plus side if this legendary card is that it will give your other creatures the melee ability as well.

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Frontier, The new standard?

A new format, called “Frontier”, uses cards from M15 up to the current set of Magic: the Gathering. Two Japanese game shops, Hareruya and BigMagic, announce back in September 2016 that they will be holding weekly tournaments in the new format. I only recently learned about this format, as my local game shops are thinking of doing something similar. Frontier may even take its place in FNM instead of Standard.

I’ve done a little research on this format by talking to people on the Magic: the Gathering forums, as well as talking to the shop owners near my town. It seems like people were getting a little bored with standard FNM and attendance is a bit on the low side. Some believe it’s because they feel like Standard rotates out too quickly, even though a set is in Standard for a duration of 18 months.

There are currently no cards on the banned list, as far as I know. The cards that appeared in the Planeswalkers Deck, the Welcome Origin 2016 Sample Decks are also legal in this format, however the cards appearing in the Masterpiece Series are not legal.  The other rules still apply as usual; minimum of 60 cards to the deck, there is no maximum deck size but you must be able to shuffle the deck with no help of another and at least 15 card in the sideboard.

What are your feelings about this format?

Is your local game shop planning on, or already, doing this format?

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Where to find me:
Facebook: Richy Andrew MTG (give it a like to keep up with things happening!)
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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Reciprocate

This is probably one of my favorite cards to use from one of my favorite sets: Champions of Kamigawa. With one drop of Plains you can remove a creature from the game, but only if it dealt damage to you. It may be worth it to take a big hit from a 10/10 creature to just remove the threat out of the game forever. The only other time this card has been reprinted is in Duel Decks: Knights VS Dragons. I ought to get my hands on the duel deck, sounds like a fun game play.

As always, thanks for reading my blog!

DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Obliterate

This 8th edition board wiper, Obliterate, with its 6 and two red mana cost, is pretty scary to look at. I'm not just talking about the high mana cost, but what it can do and if you’re playing blue and this card shows up in front of you; no counterspells to stop it from resolving!

You can pretty much say goodbye to everything you had out on the board. The only thing it doesn’t touch is your graveyard, though destroyed permanents can’t be regenerated.

As always, thanks for reading my blog!

DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Hatching Plans

This rare Guildpact card seems like a fun enhancement to play with. Even though it doesn’t get attached to any creatures, it goes out onto the battlefield for a 1 and a blue drop. It’s a pretty good card in my opinion. You can destroy the card on your own and give yourself three new cards to use, or deter your opponent from using board wiping cards to remove other enchantments you have in play.

Would you take the chance, or would you not bother with this card?

As always, thanks for reading my blog!

DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Blasphemous Act

The old Innistrad block is one of my favorite blocks that Magic: the Gathering has put out. I can’t really say the same for the Shadows Over Innistrad block. One of the things that really throws me off is the 8 and a red mana cost; it really gets your mind running with the thought of “how can a sorcery cost this much to cast?”

Then you read the text: it cost one less for every creature on the battlefield. Not just your creatures; your opponent's creatures as well. This card could very well be costing only one red to cast! Great board clean up, stinky part is that the 13 damage goes to your creatures too, killing them unless they are indestructible.

Which crazy sorcery do you like?

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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Maelstrom Nexus

This nice ol’ mythic rare five color enchantment, from Alara Reborn, has never been reprinted since it’s release.  It seems like a real smooth way to get your big beastly creatures on the field quickly without paying anything for the mana cost. Even with it’s five color mana cost, there are ways to get this thing out quicker than 5 turns.


When you have 4 copies of this card in your deck, you can't play them all at once; you have to let one cascade spell resolve at a time. It would be easier to do it all at once, but rules are rules, whether you are at an event, local game store, or even at the kitchen table.


How well would cascade would work for you?


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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Anti-Magic Aura

This uncommon 5th Edition enchantment basically gives you a form of hexproof for your creature. I don’t think it requires any further explanation! This is probably one of my shortest blog i’ve ever made.


How would you use this card? Would you use it protect your own creatures, or to prevent your opponent from enchanting theirs...


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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Gristleback

Most people who have a Bloodthirst filled deck probably have at least a few of this card in it. Today ‘s chosen card is Gristleback, a three drop 2/2 creature with Bloodthirst 1. It is a good way to gain a little bit of life, by sacrificing this beast and giving yourself a nice little 3 life gain, as long as you dealt combat damage to an opponent.

This seems like a good card from Guildpact. I imagine it would fit in a white/green deck, perhaps called “Bloodthirsty for Life”, complementing the endless possibilities of life gain that comes with white.

What are your thoughts on this card?

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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Death Pits of Rath

Kill deck anyone? Destroying creatures is your favorite thing to do? Are your friends really your friends? Not if they keep your board clear with this bad boy out on the field. Originating from the old school 8th Edition set, Death Pits of Rath has been reprinted three times.

How skillful is your kill deck?

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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Arcades Sabboth

This card comes from the Legends set and lives up to the name. This beast of a dragon can do some nasty stuff with your creatures, nasty stuff to your opponent, and make you sad if you keep up with the upkeep. But none of that will bother you, because by the time you get to use him on the field, mana is not an issue considering the cost to even bring him out.


Arcades makes a very good commander card. This one is my editor’s favorite elder Dragon Legend and I feel like I should have a Blog on it. I am very appreciative that a total stranger is willing to take on my Blogs and make them, well... make sense. Thank you Marc [Editor: no problems, it’s a pleasure!].


What are your favorite Legendary creatures?


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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: Reckless Spite

In the life of playing Magic, there are funny cards,  nice cards and even awesome cards. But some cards are not nice; they are downright mean. Today’s chosen card appeared first in Tempest. For a loss of five life you get to destroy two target nonblack creatures; I never liked the idea of losing life to get rid of other kinds of cards. But I guess in order to survive you sometimes don’t have a choice.


What’s the meanest card you have?


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DAILY RANDOM MTG CARD: CROOKED SCALES

Today’s daily pick is an artifact from the set of Mercadian Masques, which is the only time this card has been printed with the old school painting. A real coin flipping card to take a huge chance on destroying a creature. The mana cost seems a bit high for my liking, particularly for this kind of chance; I don't usually win at flipping coins.  

Would you tap out your lands for the chance to lose out on the coin flip?

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THE RED STATE WINS WITH RED

   

Fort Worth/Dallas Texas held the largest Grand Prix in the history of Magic: The Gathering events; 2,019 players have shown up with their Modern format decks to play their way into one of  the top 8 spots.

    

Corey Burkhart has made a name for himself in the past using his Grixis control deck, which helped him to go undefeated with a 14 win and 0 loss standing: pretty impressive! Corey even took down Michael Mei's Infect deck in the semifinals. One more win and he would have beaten every single deck with no loss in one weekend. He made it to the finals and faced one more player in his attempt to take home the trophy and prizes.

Kevin Mackie, a native Texan, made a surprising appearance in the top 8. He brought with him his mono-red “Skred red” deck, an aggressive powerhouse featuring Infect and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.

As the final game drew to a close, Corey Burkhart was left facing a pretty powerful planeswalker: Koth of the Hammer. Corey tried to find a counter spell for Koth but it failed. Next, Corey looked to his “Ancestral Vision”, which also failed and just gave him three lands instead of something useful to keep alive. The only thing left to do was put out Tasigur, the Golden Fang, which was quickly taken out by Skred. Then Kevin made Koth go ultimate. His ultimate ability, if you’re not familiar is:

• −5: You get an emblem with "Mountains you control have ‘: This land deals 1 damage to target creature or player.'"

While the judges and players looked around the feature table for an emblem to represent Koths ultimate, Corey Burkhart had a better idea. He grabbed the trophy with a smile on his face and handed it to Kevin saying “Congratulations”.

Here are their decks, in case you are interested in what cards they used.

Kevin Mackie’s deck:

Planeswalker (5)

4 Koth of the Hammer

1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Creature (8)

3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

3 Stormbreath Dragon

2 Eternal Scourge

Witchcraft (3)

3 Anger of the Gods

Instant (9)

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Skred

1 Magma Jet

Artifact (10)

1 Pyrite Spellbomb

4 Relic of Progenitus

4 Mind Stone

1 Batterskull

Enchantment (3)

3 Blood Moon

Terra (22)

20 Snow-Covered Mountain

2 Scrying Sheets

Corey Burkhart’s deck:

Creature (7)

4 Snapcaster Mage

3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

Sorcery (8)

4 Ancestral Vision

4 Serum Visions

Instant (22)

2 Countersquall

4 Cryptic Command

3 Kolaghan's Command

4 Lightning Bolt

2 Spell Snare

3 Terminate

4 Thought Scour

Artifact (1)

1 Engineered Explosives

Terra (22)

1 Blood Crypt

2 Creeping Tar Pit

3 Island1 Mountain

4 Polluted Delta

4 Scalding Tarn

1 Spirebluff Canal

2 Steam Vents

1 Sulfur Falls

1 Swamp

2 Watery Grave

As always, thanks for reading my blog!

COMMANDER 2016, LEGENDARY SHARING?

On november 11, 2016, WOTC released a set of five different 100 cards, 4 color, commander decks with 52 new magic cards that can be used in vintage and legacy, but not allowed in the standard, block constructed, or modern formats.

Like the last set of commander decks they allowed the use of planeswalker as a commander, which in my opinion should’ve been allowed from the start. They did something a little bit different with the commanders this time, the key word is “Partner”

What exactly is “Partner”?  I’ll let the card (picture below) explain itself.

Will it be useful in a game like commander?

The answer is very simple, YES. the use of using two commanders in a deck can make it an very interesting game among the other players you play with. In commander if you get hit with 21 total points of combat damage the game is over, and in the new sets of commander with Partner on the card can hit you up to 21 points much quicker than just having one commander out where it can only do a little bit at a time.

Just a warning: you may not have friends anymore after you kill everyone with your two powerful commanders. Just saying.

Play on players, play on like it’s your last day on earth.

As always thanks for reading my blog!

PAUPER EMERGENCY BAN?

In recent Magic: The Gathering news, in the lesser known format, pauper had added a emergency ban on Peregrine Drake (pictured above).  Erik Lauer from Magic R&D had this to say about the ban:


“Before Kaladesh, R&D looked into whether to ban Peregrine Drake. At the time we were discussing changes, Izzet Drake had been about eleven percent of the competitive metagame over the previous month, though it varied from week to week. It was the strongest performer, but not by a large margin. The metagame over that month was still diverse, so we decided to not take any action. Since then, the deck has increased in performance. Its presence in the competitive metagame has doubled, and its win rate has also increased. It is now significantly harming the diversity of the competitive metagame. For those reasons, we are banning Peregrine Drake from Pauper.”


The ban list for pauper is not really that big compared to the Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage format. Here’s the list:

• Cloud of Faeries
• Cloudpost
• Cranial Plating
• Empty the Warrens
• Frantic Search
• Grapeshot
• Invigorate
• Temporal Fissure
• Treasure Cruise

Pauper is a Magic: The Gathering online format, but some local game shops are adding a paper version of the online format to their regular schedule. It seems like the popularity of the format being on paper is growing, not fast or too slow, but it is gaining momentum. Give it time, I'm sure lot of players would love to have a use for those commons, which would otherwise be laying around collecting dust in a binder,  in a deck that can be competitive against other players. 


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PLANECHASE ANTHOLOGY, will it be worth the high price?

On November 25, 2016, Wizards of the Coast will be releasing PLANECHASE ANTHOLOGY for a msrp price range of $149.00. Is it worth spending that much of your hard earned money? Let see if the contents of the product match the price tag.


Planechase Anthology will have the planar and normal cards from Planechase and Planechase 2012, including the following:

• 4 ready to play decks from Planechase 2012 edition
• Each deck has 8 rare cards
• 35 double sided tokens
• Special edition planar die
• 4 spin down counters
• 4 slide deck boxes

Brian Tinsman is the lead designer and concept on this set. He is also known for being the lead designer for the sets of Judgement, Scourge, Champions and Saviors of Kamigawa, Time Spiral, Planechase 2009, Rise of the Eldrazi, and Avacyn Restored.


We don't know exactly what cards are going to be included in the set as of yet. Perhaps if there are spoilers we will get a better idea of whether it is worth $149.00 or not; it's kind of hard to say at this point. For some, it may be a bit much to spend all at once, especially so close to Christmas time. Perhaps if you share the cost with someone else it will make a good gift, or you could split the contents with a friend. The decision is really up to you.


As always, thanks for reading my blog!

THE STACK, what is it used for?

The Stack is a game zone area where spells and abilities are played and wait to be resolved. Spells and abilities go to this area as the first step in play and are removed from it as the last step of playing. It’s also an area where other players can ‘respond to’ with their spells and/or abilities while it's still on the stack. The stack is played from the top to the bottom, where the ‘respond to’ spells are played first since it's on the top of the stack. The picture below depicts the stack and is the best representation I have found.

Actions that do not use the stack are as follows:

• Paying cost.
• Playing mana abilities.
• Turning a face down creature face up (Morph).
• Playing a land card

I’m sure most experienced players have a good idea of how the stack operates. To a new player, when we mention the stack, they probably think it means this:

Be sure to use the stack as often as you can, as correctly as you can, if you are in a Pro Tour or Grand Prix-like event, where they will have judge’s all over the place. Also, be sure to explain to the new players what the stack is and how to use it. Sure it will be confusing at first, but if they like the game enough they will learn about it quickly.

As always, thanks for reading my blog!