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!

what kind of planeswalker would you be?

    Ever wonder what it would be like to possess the power and mind of a planeswalker? I admit that often times I do when I play my favorite tabletop game Magic: the gathering, there are often time I think about it when I'm not playing the game.

   Now just imagine, creatures, mountain, forest, swamp, island, and plains at your disposal to fight off anything that is a threat. The goblins can be your servant to do whatever you ask them to do because they don't know anything better than to serve their masters.

  Just because you are a planeswalker doesn't mean you have to dress like them. You have your normal attire, unless otherwise you want differently. What you wear won’t help with what type of powers you would have as a planeswalker, although surkhan's clothes looks pretty darn intimidating.

Now that you are a planeswalker with its powers, what would you choose to do? Having all the color pie as your powers might be too powerful for you to handle unless you are a elder dragon like nicol bolas. For me I think I would have to go with the power of blue, white, and red, only because I like to control and burn things. Not in real life of course, although burning stuff can be fun. 

 

  Here are the reason why I chose the colors I picked. Let's start with the blue. Blue can help me when if I have argument with my wife I can just use the cancel spell to stop the argument like it never happened. If there's someplace you rather be at than the place where you are at can work good with the clone spell, you can clone yourself and let the clone do whatever it is you don't want to do and do what you really wanted to do. Such as playing the one game at the arcade you want to play or go play magic at your local game shop.  Blue has a lot of flying creatures also, so if you want to rescue a cat from a tree or fly away from people, that would be a good use.

  White has some really cool spells to use. Such as if there's someone you don't like or someone is messing with your family or love one you can exile them. It's really quite simple thing to do as long as you are on a plains and the sun is shining. It don't matter where they get exiled to just as long as they are not bothering you or anyone else anymore.

Then there's finally the red color. The color known for burns, flying dragons, and let's not forget lightning. It would be great to be able to cast lightning on something, like if you want to start a Bon fire or some sort, then boom lightning struck and you got fire. The only real problem with lightning is that it be quite loud when it strikes, so be sure those ears are covered up when the spell is being in use. As for the dragons, they can be your pet and you can use them them to scare off people. Just don't try and take them to the park to play fetch, they might try to eat the other pets more than want to play with you.

What type of planeswalker would you be?

Thanks for reading my blog.

LIMITED DECK

I have a deck I made from sealed prerelease event of khans of tarkir. My plan is to make it into a 60 card standard deck, now for some reason a lot of people are against doing such a thing. But wither way you look at it, it’s still being constructed either way you do it.

I went 1-2 at the prerelease, but I still feel that it’s a pretty good deck to play with, which is why I want to make it a 60 card deck to use for standard FNM or whatever event that will allow standard deck to be played. What I’m going to do (if I get any suggestions) is experiment with it to see what it can turn into. I do have other cards from other sets I can probably put in, but I kind of want to see how it looks with just the khans cards.

Here is the limited deck I used for the prerelease I have it set up on tappedout.com <---click that to go to it and playtest it if you like and give some suggestions. I will make a switch up on the limited deck for my blog on Friday, Tuesday, and possibly Wednesday. I’m hoping to have a 60 card deck before then. As of when I would go and try it out at an event is still kind of up in the air for now. The maybeboard on the site are what cards I have from khans as of right now, and those are the cards I like to use to make this a 60 card deck. The other cards I have that are still standard is still an option, but as of right now I want it to be a khans deck of cards.

Leave me comments of your thoughts and suggestions for this deck!

Thanks for reading my blog!

KHANS PRERELEASE RESULTS

       

       I went to the prerelease Sunday afternoon with my brother in law. I happen to pick mardu and he picked (I think) temur (only because they ran out of mardu.) the box is pretty cool, its got a sticker (which really doesn’t show the clan symbol which I thought was odd), a pin button, a d20 roll down dice, and of course the khans booster packs and the seeded pack.

I was really hoping to get the legendary creature for my clan but I didn’t, I really don’t know if anyone really got their legendary creature for their clans but the promos some people have were pretty darn cool. Mine was “Utter End”. It’s a 2 colorless and white and black to cast instant to exile target nonland permanent. Of course I used it in my deck, it was helpful against some big creatures or threats.

There were around 15 or 16 players that attended the prerelease, so we had four rounds to play with. First player I played was his first time playing in a tournament setting. He’s got a pretty decent deck but he doesn’t really play smart. First hand went pretty well, he had two creatures out and I had at least 5 creatures out. So I had two act of treason in my hand and took control of his creatures and swing in with everything for 14 points of combat damage, in this case he only had 14 life left so I won.

        Now for the second hand, it gets interesting. I don’t have as many creatures out this time around but he played a creature called meandering towershell, which is a 5/9 with island walk and whenever it attacks exile it. Return it under your control tapped and attacking at the beginning of declared attacking step on your next turn. Notice it said “your control” in the flavor text. So I act of treason it and it became mine for the rest of the game. And since he can’t block because he controls a island and meandering towershell has islandwalk. So the rest of the game was smooth sailing for the win.


       That was pretty much the play of the day for me, my deck didn’t play as good at the other three matches, so I went 1 win and 3 loss. Either way I had a good time and got some excellent cards. For the first time ever at a prerelease I pulled a Planeswalker card, Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker. Word got out about it and everyone wanted to be my friend.

      How did you do at your prerelease?

     What clan did you picked?

      Leave a comment of your thoughts!

      Thanks for reading my blog!

5 OF A KIND

       A while ago I decided to buy myself some chromanticore cards figuring I would make a 5 color deck around the card. A while was actually quite a few months ago, and it’s been sitting in my collection box pretty much, well collecting dust (but not really since they are in sleeves).

       My brother in law calls me up the other day and challenges me to a five color deck making with me. The deal is he makes one revolving around door to nothingness and mine around chromanticore. A few hours later with interruption of taking my daughter’s temperature and giving her meds to make her feel better from the cold she has, the deck was finally done. Goldfish tested it and it looks like a promising deck to play around with.

      It’s game time now. The deck started out looking good with all the mana fixing cards but I didn’t get very far before I got destroyed by his massive amount of enchantments with life gain and my life drain because of it. The second game we decided to give it a try again and see if it does anything different. And they pretty much did. This time I was able to get more scrying done to get the cards I want on top of my library so I can draw it and play it. It helps having Patrick (it’s a nickname of what I call sigiled starfish) out there on the battlefield as well.

      About 12 turns later I couldn’t get him down on life. I manage to get chromanticore out as a bestow cost for my fanatic of Xenagos after doing the ordeal of nylea giving it 3 +1/+1 counters and gaining a land into the battle field, making it a 10/10 creature with flying, haste, lifelink, trample. Attacked and knocked him down to 10 and I gained 10 from the lifelink. But it wasn’t enough for me to stay alive for I don’t really have any removal in the deck to get rid of the door to nothingness card he had. He tapped out his mana and I lost the game.

     It was an extremely long game but it was a fun game to play.  If I could get some of the cards I actually wanted out sooner, the game would’ve ended sooner. But it didn’t end up being that way so what can I do? This is really my first ever five color deck and I think I did quite well with it. If you want to give a try I have the deck on tapped out.com <-- click that to go to the link. Let me know what you think of it or what improvement you think it needs.

How do you feel about five color decks?

If you have one what kind of deck is it?

Leave your comment of your thoughts!

Thanks for reading my blog!

KHANS ABILITY

With the new khans of tarkir set coming out September 26, 2014 (prerelease September 20-21, 2014) they comes with a new set of abilities and a returning ability, of course we all know about morph, lets talk about the other abilities that are featured on the new khans cards.

First ability is prowess, it’s whenever you cast a non-creature spell, the creature card with prowess gets a +1/+1 until end of turn.  This ability can work real well in a lot of different ways. It can be useful on both your and the opponent’s turn. I can see it being used more for blocking or saving the creature card from a burn spell, in tournaments and FNM. I don’t know about you but I think that’s a better way of using it.

The second ability is delve. This one is a neat one to mess around with. What it does is you exile cards from your graveyard and each card exiled this way pays for one colorless to cast the card with the ability on it. So with a creature that has the mana cost of 7 colorless and one swamp to cast can actually be one swamp to cast a pretty decent powerful card, providing you have at least 7 creatures in your graveyard to pay the casting cost.

Next ability we have is outlast. This ability allows you when the mana cost is paid to put a +1/+1 on that creature at sorcery speed. Some outlast ability will trigger other abilities stated on the card after you pay the outlast mana cost. Some will give you tokens or make other creatures has first strike. Nice card to mess with, but I don’t know how much play it would actually get in pro tours and such.

  What’s next is raid (no not the bug spray) ability. It triggers only when you have attacked on your turn. When the card enters the battlefield it can give you tokens or add more mana to you mana pool. This ability might be a little tricky to mess with considering the cards with the raid ability are expensive mana cost to cast.

Now lastly we have the ferocious ability. I think I like this ability a lot. Only because whenever you attack, not make damage, attack it does something cool. If you have this card out and if you control another card that has more power or toughness or if it has an ability it will give the card with ferocious a +1/+1 until end of turn. It just makes the card a little more powerful to deal damage with in an instant speed.

Which new ability is your favorite for the set?

Leave me comments of your thoughts!

Thanks for reading my blog!

THE SLIVERS ARE BACK IN TOWN

     

       With the newest core set of magic the gathering M-15 coming out officially July 18th 2014, the slivers are back. I’m sure everyone loves the new artwork for the new slivers, considering they look just about human in the last core set; now they look more like regular slivers in the new core set.

Let’s look at the biggest fattie of slivers, the sliver hivelord. It’s a 5/5 creature with the ability of giving other slivers indestructible. Sure it’s all the color of mana to drop out on the battlefield which is in some case pretty hard to do. But with the other slivers you can have in the deck with mana weft sliver and such shouldn’t be too much of a problem to bring out. The new slivers still have the slivers you control ability instead of the all slivers get the same kind of ability. Which me personally I like better because why would I want to help my opponent make their creatures better?

Some of the other slivers are pretty good to have. They seem to have one sliver for every color of the mana this time around instead of having two or three different ones for the same color. What’s also different is they have a sliver land card called sliver hive, which helps put sliver tokens out onto the battlefield by tapping 5 colorless and the sliver hive card to get the 1/1 colorless sliver onto the battlefield, but you can only do it if you control a sliver. It also has tap sliver hive to add 1 colorless to your mana pool and it also have tap sliver hive to add any one colorless to add to your mana pool only to cast a sliver. This card is very specific to what it can do only for sliver decks, then again who wouldn’t make a sliver deck with  the land card in it?

Then we have the venom sliver, a 1 and a forest to drop out onto the battlefield with a 1/1 power and toughness to give all slivers you control deathtouch. This is a great card to have in a slivers deck, you can use the venom sliver as a chump block to get rid of the other player’s creatures. If you have sliver hivelord out there with the venom sliver, your sliver will live and the other player’s creature won’t.

Belligerent sliver is 2 and a mountain to drop this bad boy out onto the battlefield with a 2/2 power and toughness and give all slivers you control “can’t be block except by two or more creatures”. This isn’t so bad for the mana cost. Although the sliver looks more like a lion sliver but that’s ok with me, the artwork doesn’t help my gameplay any.

There’s also a sliver that can provide control in your deck as well. Constricting sliver is a five and a plains to cast out. It’s a bit of an expensive sliver to cast but it’s sort of worth it to exile an opponent’s creature as long as the constricting sliver stays in the battlefield. When I say sort of, I really meant not really considering it’d be way late in the game to cast it, unless you have a bunch of spells and mana weft sliver that can give you more mana to produce to get it out quicker.

Diffusion sliver is a one and a island to cast for a 1/1 power and toughness to give all slivers the ability to counter spells or unless it’s controller pays two when they become targets of spells. This would go well against a burn, counter spells type of deck. But I’m not sure of how the counter would work, I think the sliver gets to stay put while the counter or spells that targets it goes straight into the grave yard. This can force the other player to keep mana open to do such spell and prevents them from putting anything else out onto the battlefield.

Then the last sliver I’m going to talk about is the leaching sliver which just like the diffusion mana cost but only with the swamp in the mana cost to drop a 1/1 power and toughness with the ability to give all slivers to give the defending player 1 damage whenever a sliver attacks. This card can be a good ending game win kind of card because even if the defending player blocks and they have very little life left to hold on to the 1 damage still goes to them and lose the game.

That’s all I have to talk about slivers today.

What is your favorite new sliver?

How do you like the new art work for them?

Leave your comments of your thoughts.

Thanks for reading my blog.

SHOCKERS ‘R’ US

I’ve wanted to make a deck full of burn and shock like spells with very little creatures in the deck. Until recently I wasn’t going to make it due to funding and such, well, more like not getting around making the idea happen. I’ve searched around on google (am I allowed to use that name?), and I shockingly find out that there really isn’t an extravagant amount of decks out there that has the same idea as me. I was expecting to find it the top 8 pro-tour or events somewhere but not really finding them. Surely there are people out there that have decks in the deck piles somewhere that are just shock and burn types of deck, right?

I’ve had this idea for quite some time now. Just now I’m getting around to putting it to work. Talk about being lazy right? That’s what happens when you can’t find a job for over 4 years. My deck idea is posted on tappedout.com and I tested it out a few times and kind of liked it, but I feel like something is missing or something needs to be added to the deck. Which in most cases, I feel the same way with all of my decks. Even the ones that are completed, but still have the feeling that it needs to have something else in with it. Strange right?

I have compiled my ideal burn deck on tappedout.com. completed with a huge maybe board, just because the deck in the mainboard needs something. Here’s what I have so far.

Creature (23)
3x Archetype of Aggression
4x Chandra's Phoenix
4x Ember Swallower
4x Guttersnipe
4x Hellraiser Goblin
4x Satyr Firedancer

Instant (16)
4x Lightning Strike
4x Magma Jet
4x Shock
4x Titan's Strength

Land (25)
25x Mountain

To me it doesn’t look like it could do a whole lot. So I added a maybe board just to make myself feel better. Remember I am aiming for standard. Here’s my maybeboard.

Maybeboard (39)
4x Bolt of Keranos
4x Everflame Eidolon
4x Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
4x Madcap Skills
4x Ordeal of Purphoros
4x Prophetic Flamespeaker
4x Rage of Purphoros
4x Searing Blood
4x Skullcrack
3x Spawn of Thraxes

The basic idea behind the deck is to burn (or shock) the other player’s life total down, quickly. Also I can use the shocks and bolts to burn their creatures off the battlefield, providing that they don’t get countered and or won’t do enough damage to get rid of them. I’m asking for some help with this one because well, I’m not sure which way to go with this type of deck.

What would you do?

What’s your favorite type of deck to play with and why?

Please leave comments of your thoughts.

Thanks for reading my blog.

THE INVENTORY BUILD

I’ve decided that I was going to inventory my collection onto the computer just because I have an OCD thing about it and I want to keep track of my cards a little better. I would do excel spreadsheet with them but I haven’t done a spreadsheet since jr high school, plus they are a pain for me to figure out how to use (plus I don’t even have excel on my computer, I think). If anyone wants to help then be my guest.

My original idea for me to do this is because of the Google + community full of Magic the Gathering players. The community is very helpful in helping other people without being a troll or a goblin about it (except for a certain person that can’t be named). I’m still kind of shaky with the idea of doing this because I’m afraid the outcome wouldn’t be good. In fact I almost scrapped the idea entirely and just do an inventory for myself. There was a part of me that wants to just go through with it and see what happens.

For my idea of even doing the inventory is to let the community help me build a deck (standard of course) that I can use for FNM or open trials. All the credits will go to whoever helps build the deck. I will put some input in it as well, not going to be one of those guys that make the other people do their work for them. I had a couple of positive feedback about it when I posted the idea, so hopefully it will still work out like I hope.

I will post the list in google doc for my inventory, because that seems to be the best way for everyone to see the list without it messing up the format. I am also open for trades on a lot the cards listed as well, just ask me and we will go from there. I have a wish list on deckbox.org of what I’m looking for as well. Worst thing that could happen is me saying no.

CLICK HERE to see the list. Let me know in the comments or you can email me by going onto my Google + <--click that and look at my about tab to find the email there. If it gets to argumentive between people, I’m going to put a stop to it.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Is this a good idea or a bad idea? Let me know In the comments.

TRIBUTE, A WIN-WIN SITUATION

With the official release of born of the gods coming out February 7^th-9^th 2014, I figure I talk about one of the new mechanics for the set, Tribute. It’s a great mechanic to work with. The odd part is letting the other player decide either or not to pay the tribute. It could work to your advantage either way.

Tribute comes in different shape and form. Mostly with counters if the tribute is paid. Nessian wilds ravager (which is a hydra 6/6 creature with a 4 and two green mana to bring out) has tribute 6 mechanics. The opponent chooses if it would get 6 +1/+1 counters on it or if they don’t pay the tribute, the creature then fights another target creature. This could kill the other creature that is untapped from blocking you when you attack with the other creatures on the battlefield.

Other form of tribute can do things like cast and instant or sorcery without paying the mana cost, putting tokens out on the battlefield, gaining life, gain control of another creature, etc.  They have the tribute mechanic for each of the colors as well, not just certain ones.

I like the new mechanics that born of the gods has to offer. Not just the tribute. I’ve heard a lot of people aren’t too happy with the set; I seem to like it enough. But I just know that the 3^rd set in this block is just going to be epic, which is journey into nyx and it’s coming out in May of this year.

What is your favorite new mechanic?

Comment with your thoughts

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

TRADING FAITH

          Trading is a topic I have talked about before, but this one is different. Since the EXTRA!.....EXTRA! Blog has been posted I’ve been trading with other players, through pucatrade.com and the wonderful people at the Magic the gathering community board on Google +.

          Normally I don’t trade with other players other than my brother in law, just because I fear I might get ripped off, but I gave it a try. It’s mostly form the website and the community right now, still hasn’t done it at my LGS.  The players at my LGS seem friendly enough but looks are deceiving. 

          I’ve gotten a Planeswalker and some sliver cards so far, and few more still coming in the mail. The sliver cards I got from the person who sent it to me had put some extra sliver cards in the envelope  with the one I was asking for (in protective hard card sleeve of course). Found out from someone else about that it is pretty much normal for someone to do that, which I think is a really cool thing to do.

          This tells me that the magic communities are full of great people. It really opened me up some more to the idea of trading with other players in person. Thanks MTG Google+ community and pucatrade.com for opening me up some more to start getting rid of the extras or card I have no use for to other people who needs the cards more than me.

          How often do you trade? Do you trade by the need of the card or the value of the card?

          Thanks for reading my blog, please comment your thoughts.

If you are interested in my trade and want list I will post a link for it.

Card trade list ß----link

SNOW DAY WITH MAGIC

AS I sit here on this snowy day of having about 8 inches worth of snow on the ground and still counting. I kind of had gotten bored with just sitting around and watch the snow storm news coverage where it talks about the same thing for hours on end. So I decided to get out my magic cards and see what I can do with them.

Needless to say I never realized how many cards I actually have (other than from putting together a trade list). Many are the same name or I forgot I had that certain card in my collection. With me finding those extra cards I would add them to the trade list or maybe try to put a deck together with some of them.

For example I noticed how many cards I have that have the battalion trigger ability on them so I made a red and white battalion deck, still need a few more of some of the creatures in the deck but it would make do for now. Then I remembered I was getting Xenagos, the reveler Planeswalker card in the mail soon. So I went ahead and picked out a bunch of cards to build a deck around the Planeswalker. Granted I picked out about 90 or so cards I thought would be helpful but I’m definitely going to cut it down to 60 cards and maybe have a sideboard with some of the cards I’m cutting out.

Then for the final part of the magic the gathering deck building is sleeving the cards in their nice white leather card sleeves. It’s a tedious job, but something’s got to protect my cards from those other players shuffling my cards. Plus it makes them look all shiny and nice looking and not mess up the card in any way shape or form.

What do or would you do for your boredom from staying in the house?

Please leave a comment.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Ral Zarek…party of one?

Sitting at my coffee table opening booster packs from M-14, dragons maze, and gatecrash. I would’ve had theros but they didn’t have any more of them at the store. As I am opening these booster packs, I was getting ok to pretty cool cards and most of the cards are what I already had in my collection, which is no big deal, more the better right? Some of the rare cards in the booster packs were pretty good, until I got to the last booster pack to open which was the dragons maze pack.

I write down my booster pack cards in my notebook, which is like an O.C.D. thing I have. As I write down the cards one by one, from the top to the bottom, I like to be surprised with what rare or mythic rare was in the pack. Now I am at the 2nd to last card in the pack. When I reveal the last card after writing down the card before it in my notebook, my jaw and my pen fell to the ground. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I thought I was either day dreaming or hallucinating; I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t sleeping and sure enough I was awake. I was hearing angel music in my head and the card seem like it had a nice glow of light animating from it. Then reality kicked in, there was no light or day dream or hallucinations. It was the real thing.

Ral Zarek, most people hate him and most people love him. Since the first time I’ve heard about the Planeswalker, I prayed to get him at some point in the future. Who knew that I would get him after theros came out, but since it’s still standard I can use him at a FNM event. Regardless of when I got the Planeswalker card, I was happy I didn’t have to spend over $10 for a single card and got him for the price of the booster pack.

What I like about Ral Zarek is that the mana cost to bring out isn’t high. It is two of anything and a blue and a red to bring out. It’s a great fourth turn card to bring out and start kicking it up with its abilities and hopefully don’t get killed in the time it is out on the battle field. To start right off the bat coming into the battlefield it gets a 4 loyalty counters and you can get started right away with the abilities listed on the card.

+1 on the loyalty counter gives him the ability to tap a target creature and untap a target creature.
-2 on the loyalty counter allows Ral Zarek to deal 3 damage to target creature or player
-7 on the royalty counter gives you extra turns for every 5 coins you flip that lands heads up.

For me I think the abilities are good to work with. The last ability on the card is what seems like what people really like. Let’s hope that you don’t have bad luck playing and get all tails, then you would not only lose your Planeswalker (if the loyalty counter was low enough to kill him) you lost your chance to do any extra damage. I think this Planeswalker would be good for a burn/control kind of deck, only because of the first two abilities listed on the card. It seems like the logical thing to do. As soon as I get a deck together I will post a deck list for it.

Aside from Chandra the firebrand and Ajani, caller of the pride Planeswalker cards, Ral Zarek is my favorite Planeswalker and now I own him.

Who is your favorite Planeswalker? Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Thanks for reading my blog.

LANDS OF CONFUSION

      If you were anything like me when playing magic the gathering where you get mana screwed, then I know how you feel. You can build your deck and think it will be awesome to use and come to find two mana on the battlefield with the opposite color mana cost creatures and spells in your hand. Nothing can be more annoying than having that happen, well except for having to hear the gundam style song and seeing the dance constantly, and the opponent showing no mercy and destroys you in a few amount of turns.

     I decided to do some internet search on how to not get mana screwed, after a few dozen websites or so, I finally found it. It’s called the land formula. It seems pretty interesting to read and of course I had to read it a few times because I got easily confused on what it was telling me I should do. I realized there’s math involved, which anyone who knows me personally would think “oh crap”, yea true story. But I understood it a little better when I tried out the math problems on paper.

     I am going to use my Minotaur’s sword deck to use as an example for this formula.  First you separate the single and the multiple (such as RR) mana cost symbol and separate the color if you are playing more than one color deck. Take those single color mana cost symbol and count them up.

     First up are the red symbol cards:

1x Canyon Minotaur
2x Fanatic of Mogis
2x Minotaur Skullcleaver
2x Deathbellow Raider
1x Furious Resistance
2x Punish the Enemy
1x Thunder Strike
2x Madcap Skills

     There are 13 single red mana symbol in this deck, now let’s count up the multiple mana symbol of  the same color cards.

2x Borderland Minotaur
1x Rageblood Shaman
2x Rakdos Shred-Freak

      There are 5 multiple red symbols. Multiply it by 1.5, and get the total of 7.5. Add it to the already 13 to make it 20.5 to your total.  Let’s count up the black cards.

Black mana symbols:

2x Felhide Minotaur
3x Undead Minotaur
1x Doom Blade
2x Wring Flesh
3x Deviant Glee
1x Mark of the Vampire
2x Quag Sickness
2x Rakdos Shred-Freak

There are 16 single black symbol cards. Now for the multiple black symbol.

3x Minotaur Abomination
1x Hero's Downfall

    There are 4 multiple black symbols in this deck. Multiply the 4 with 1.5 to make it 6. Add that to the already 16 to make it 22 total.  To figure out the ratio you add the 20.5 with the 22 to get 42.5. Take the 42.5 and divide it with 20.5 to get 48.23% of your cards in your deck to produce red mana. Basically everyone wants to (or need to) have at least 24 mana in the deck. Because really any more than that would get you mana flooded unless you’re playing EDH, then it wouldn’t be a problem, right?

    Take the 48.23% and minus it with 24 and the answer will be 11.57. So round that down to make it 11 simply because there’s no way to put in .85 of a land, that can be quite difficult to do. The answer 11 is how much red mana you are going to need in the deck. Now I understand that Rakdos shred-freak is a hybrid red and black card since there are two in the deck you can divided them evenly by putting in 2 red mana and 2 black mana. You can divide the 22 black with the 42.5 and see what you can get out of the total, which is 51.76% and do the minus with the 24 and get 12 as your total. But if you are planning on a 24 land deck, you can figure that part out.

     It seems like when I do the math problem with the black cards, I come up with 23 lands total. So does that mean I add one more creature or spell in? Would that mess up the math I just did? It didn’t really explain that part of it. But they do say that having 20-23 lands are an aggro kind of decks. I will have to research it a little further to see if I can get a better understanding of this land formula. But whatever you do don’t do (as I did) the 20 land, 20 spells, and 20 creatures. It just doesn’t work very well in your favor as a new player to the game.

     As for the colorless lands you feel the need to put in, remember every two nonland source of mana lower the land count by one. But when adding trick colorless lands, add an extra land for every two colorless lands you put in.

Confusing right? Yea something to read into a little bit more.

     I hope that this will help with your mana troubles in a way. I know I might’ve not explained as well as I should, but I’m only writing this as I understood the article I read online. So don’t hate on me about it, which I know some of you might just do.

    What ways do you build you mana base around to make your deck work smoothly? Leave me your answers in the comments.

   Thanks for reading my blog; I hope it didn’t confuse you as much as it did to me.