It’s pretty easy to be stronger than bears, apparently. A lot of times the slot of the Grizzly Bear is taken to create a 2/2 that gets stronger by using the mechanic that is big in the new set. Zendikar in particular has a whole lot of these guys. It started with the Oran-Rief Survivalist. He seems like a 1/1 at first, but he gains a +1/+1 counter as soon as he enters the battlefield. The Survivalist is my favorite of these “bears” so far, gaining more +1/+1 counters for each time another ally enters the battlefield. With allies and proliferate these guys get to be an early threat in many games.

After that, Worldwake gave us the Gnarlid Pack
Gnarlid Pack. By using Multikicker it seemed like this pack added more grizzlies for each 2 mana you had to spare. These guys are pretty useful for their versatility since you can pump them up if you happen to draw them late game. Of course you also had the option to play them early and start attacking a few turns in. For a common they were pretty neat and were an easy introduction to the Multikicker mechanic.

Rise of the Eldrazi had two great Grizzly Bears to demonstrate their two biggest mechanics. We had the Beastbreaker of Bala Ged
Beastbreaker of Bala Ged, a very straightforward leveler that became a 6/6 with trample once you put a ton of mana into it. The winner of best bear for this set though was easily Nest Invader
Nest Invader. You had your 2/2 for 1G, but he also came with his own Eldrazi Spawn as a refund.

The Scars of Mirrodin Block had one typical “bear” and also a really cool rare one. Carapace Forger
Carapace Forger was a 2/2 for 2 that became a 4/4 with Metalcraft, but Melira, Sylvok Outcast
Melira, Sylvok Outcast is a card that shows what you can do with a rare Grizzly Bear. She’s a nice 2/2 that protects your creatures from infect damage and a killer combo with Phyrexian Unlife
Phyrexian Unlife can make you totally invincible.

The new Transform mechanic in Innistrad leads to yet another incarnation of Grizzly Bears. The Gatstaf Shepherd is what we’ve come to expect from bears, even though it doesn’t look like he would be able to fight them too well. Once you make use of the Transform mechanic he becomes an intimidating force to be reckoned with. He may not be able to keep getting pumped up like the Oran-Rief Survivalist, but intimidate does make sure that you will be able to attack for three, provided they don’t have green or artifact creatures. However there is a pretty strong tribal theme in Innistrad, so these Howlers will probably be pumped pretty quickly by other werewolves.

Innistrad is looking to be an exciting set. Be sure to keep an eye out for how Magic fills the usual spots like the designated Grizzly Bears. Check out our spoilers for the rest of the cards in this set as the spoilers continue.

Nicol Bolas is the last of the Elder Dragons, from which we get the Elder Dragon Highlander format. He first appeared in the Legends set with the 4 other Elder Dragons. All of these guys were 7/7 dragons for 8 mana, with each corresponding to a wedge of mana, much like the Shards of Alara that would be the focus of Bolas later. Not coincidentally, Nicol Bolas was the elder dragon of the Grixis colors of blue, black, and red, and he by far had the coolest ability of the whole group. Palladia-Mors
Palladia-Mors had trample and Vaevictis Asmadi had firebreathing of 3 different colors, but Bolas forced your opponent to discard their entire hand if he dealt combat damage to them. With that kind of ability it’s easy to see why he is a planeswalker and we haven’t heard of the others.

With his return in the Shards of Alara block he seems to have put down his books and become the main antagonist of the Magic multiverse. He brought the five shards of Alara together, he engineered the Rise of the Eldrazi by sending the insane Sarkhan Vol
Sarkhan Vol to Zendikar, and also has plans for the New Phyrexians with his agent, Tezzeret
Tezzeret. Bolas is clearly extremely poweful and is able to manipulate even planeswalkers in his schemes. You can also become a willing pawn by summoning him to help you against other planeswalkers.

If you can get the 8 mana needed to summon him he can usually win the game for you. That can be difficult to do without green, although you can get some help from various rituals, whether they be Dark
Dark Ritual or Pyretic
Pyretic Ritual, to help you cast him sooner. From there you can destroy noncreature permanents every turn if you wanted. This is a great way to get rid of other planeswalkers that decided to help your opponent. If some creatures are giving you trouble, you can easily take control of them permanently. His ultimate ability, a more cruel Cruel Ultimatum
Cruel Ultimatum, has to be the end of the game for your opponent. It’s hard to come back after losing 14 cards while still having to deal with Bolas.

Nicol Bolas is a great finisher for casual decks, well as long as you are playing him. With the duel decks coming out September 2 you can easily pick up this powerful planeswalker and a cool deck that fits his theme well. One of the coolest modifications to this deck has to be the addition of the original Nicol Bolas creature. Know anyone that has been the victim of an attack by Nicol Bolas and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker at the same time?

Doom Blade
Doom Blade

Go for the Throat
Go for the Throat

Fresh Meat is a great card that can replace your lost army with some beasts after your opponent wipes the board with Day of Judgement
Day of Judgement or any of the many other mass removal spells in Magic. Really though, it doesn’t need to be your opponent that sent your creatures to the graveyard. You can sacrifice all your creatures if you feel that some 3/3 beasts would serve you better. This works great with the Eldrazi Spawn that usually aren’t doing anything but waiting for you to sacrifice them.

Eldrazi Spawn, like any creature in Magic, will go to the graveyard when they die. The rule that is different for tokens is that once they hit the graveyard they cease to exist. They still count for a creature being put into the graveyard for fresh meat though. Any Eldrazi Spawn you sacrifice that turn will get you a 3/3 beast if you use Fresh Meat.

Combined with even a few Eldrazi Spawn this can be devastating. An army of hungry beasts is pretty good. An army of hungry beasts with a huge Eldrazi to back them up is great.

Crew:

Brad Osborne
Leroy Phipps
DJ Clark
Joshua Fassett

Today’s Lineup

EDH Lots of talking bout this
Pizza – Its good for you
EDH Comic

Crew:

Brad Osborne
Leroy Phipps
DJ Clark
Joshua Fassett

Cao Cao and Sun Quan are both from the set Portal Three Kingdoms, based on the Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The novel portrays the events of three separate kingdoms vying for the Imperial Throne of China after the Han dynasty was overthrown in 169 and split apart. This time period and the novel that was inspired by it has been a popular source of material for all types of games, most notably perhaps the video game series Dynasty Warriors. Of course, this was also the inspiration for Portal Three Kingdoms, a whole set of Magic cards.

Portal Three Kingdoms, released in 1999, was the third of the Portal sets, made up of very simple cards used to introduce players into the game of Magic. This set was released for East Asian and other Pacific markets with English cards mostly in Australia. Naturally, being based on Chinese history, it didn’t have a whole lot of the fantasy stuff we come to expect from Magic these days. There were no elves or goblins and hardly any, well, Magic. Because of this an ability like flying wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense, though it was still pretty important to have some type of evasion to put on creatures. Horsemanship is the Portal Three Kingdoms version of flying and it works exactly the same way.

If a creature with horsemanship attacks, only creatures with horsemanship themselves are able to catch up and block. It makes great sense for the set, but now it’s a little weird when we have Armored Warhorse and it can’t block against creatures that have horsemanship. Most of the time in legacy or casual games the horsemanship ability is going to be equal to unblockable. With Sun Quan being reprinted for this From the Vault set we will now get the chance to make use of this powerful ability. This card is definitely a great pick that was made more in the interest of fun than actual competitive cards and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing the faces of my friends as I play Sun Quan and react to this ability they would have never seen otherwise. The real nice thing is that Sun Quan isn’t really all that bad a card. You get a 4/4 for 6 mana, which is not too bad considering it is a blue card that can survive a Lightning Bolt. Really what makes the card great though is that it gives all of your creatures horsemanship, including himself. What could be better than winning a game by putting your Sphinx of Uthuun
Sphinx of Uthuun on a horse and riding past all your opponent’s flyers to victory?

The other side of Portal Three Kingdoms in this package comes in the form of Cao Cao, Lord of Wei. You get a pretty strong 3/3 character for 5 mana, but like any good rare the best part about him is his ability. It’s a very straightforward ability that allows you to simply tap him to have your opponent discard two cards. It’s probably about as close to instant-speed discard as it gets in Magic, being as fast as an instant but you are forced to use it during your turn before you attack. It’s not too big a deal, since forcing your opponent to discard will rarely affect the game unless a spell on the stack is counting cards in hand or something. It can be weird not being able to use the ability after attacking, as the may draw cards after your attack, but this is an ability you can use to get rid of two cards every turn. There aren’t really any nifty tricks about Cao Cao, he’s just a good engine for discard that is a great fit in decks that use Megrim
Megrimor Liliana’s Caress
Liliana’s Caress.

These two were probably a big surprise to everyone that looked through the list of cards in the From the Vault: Legends set but they do show an interesting period of Magic. Our world is a part of the Magic multiverse, and if the flavor text from historical novels aren’t a big enough clue, cards like these and the whole Portal Three Kingdoms set are one of the best ways to prove it. It’s pretty neat to get a curveball from the wizards at Magic at times with cards that are more focused on interesting interactions between cards or even the sometimes goofy history of the game.

Today’s Lineup

From the Vault  /  Original announcement

Crew:

Brad Osborne
Leroy Phipps
DJ Clark

Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt

The coolest thing about this card is that it is so cheap. You can bring one of these out at turn two, ready to counter your opponent’s shuffling shenanigans. With Psychic Surgery on the field, a lot of tutor cards can be completely shut down. The second ability of Liliana Vess
Liliana Vess and the harbingers from the Llorwyn block put the chosen cards on top of the library, then Psychic Surgery activates and you can exile that top card – the one they specifically wanted – or the next card if that looks more threatening. Of course you also have the option of not removing either of those cards, if you think they wouldn’t be particularly useful to your opponent. This would naturally happen any time your opponent searches for something, whether it is from the tutors or even simple lands like Terramorphic Expanse
Terramorphic Expanse.

There are plenty of opportunities to make use of this card even beyond your opponent searching for cards. They may be putting cards back into their library, there are plenty of those cards in standard right now. The Legendary Eldrazi shuffle back into their library when they’re put in the graveyard from anywhere. Perhaps you can remove the knowledge to bring those monstrosities out from your opponent’s mind. Other heavy hitters like Blightsteel Colossus
Blightsteel Colossus are put back into your opponent’s library as well as the cycle of Zeniths. Any way these cards are put back into the library, your opponent will have to shuffle, giving you the chance to operate on them.

Of course, if your deck just includes Psychic Surgery while hoping your opponent shuffles their deck a bunch of times, it isn’t going to get too far. There are plenty of cards that can get your opponent to shuffle their library with a variety of other effects that allow you to control the game. Acquire
Acquire or Bribery
Bribery allow you to use your opponent’s cards to your own advantage, taking an artifact or creature from their own library and putting it onto your side of the field. Because their library was searched, they then have to shuffle, allowing you to choose what card they draw next turn. Polymorph
Polymorph is another similar card that can allow you to destroy a creature that they control. While they do get another creature, they also have to shuffle their library and perhaps the tradeoff will be worth it.

Outside of blue, black has plenty of spells that will have your opponent shuffling their library. Praetor’s Grasp
Praetor’s Grasp is a new card that also digs through your opponent’s deck for a card that you might like to play, then shuffles their deck. Surgical Extraction and Memoricide are only the newest of a cycle of plenty of cards that remove copies of cards from an opponent’s library to ensure that your least favorite cards are never played while still allowing you to control their draw with Psychic Surgery. Similarly, Life’s Finale
Life’s Finale will allow you to destroy all creatures on the field as well as a few more from your opponent’s library. For those that can pay the kicker cost, Sadistic Sacrament
Sadistic Sacrament can be the nail in the coffin for your opponent. With one Psychic Surgery, you get to exile 15 cards of your choice as well as one more card that they would have drawn. With cards like these in your deck, your opponent will feel like they have to shuffle their library every turn!

With so much shuffling going on, it would be wise to include other cards that have similar abilities to Psychic Surgery. Cosi’s Trickster, from Zendikar, is another cheap card that gets better the more you opponent shuffles. With some smart control from Psychic Surgery and other blue spells you may be able to keep her around to be a major threat. For an additional threat to their health, you can lay down a Psychogenic Probe
Psychogenic Probe. With all of these cheap cards out, you can start getting bigger creatures, controlling your opponent’s draw, and bringing their life down to 0 with each shuffle of their library. There are certainly some great combos waiting to be had with these cards, some mass removal like Life’s Finale
Life’s Finale, and Bitter Ordeal. Your opponent can be shuffling for each permanent put into the graveyard, also allowing you to pick through their deck for anything you don’t like.

This deck seems like it would be really fun to play, as long as your opponents don’t mind shuffling all the time. It can easily be put together with those situational rare cards that are probably overstocked at your local card shop. What do you guys think? Is there potential in a deck like this in casual play?

Now to what you want to see:

From the Vault: Legends Decklist

Legends: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir X1 Kresh the Bloodbraided Kresh the Bloodbraided X1 Progenitus Progenitus X1 Doran, the Siege Tower Doran, the Siege Tower X1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker X1 Sun Quan, Lord of Wu Sun Quan, Lord of Wu X1 Cao Cao, Lord of Wei Cao Cao, Lord of Wei X1 Captain Sisay Captain Sisay X1 Omnath, Locus of Mana Omnath, Locus of Mana X1 Oona, Queen of the Fae Oona, Queen of the Fae X1 Rafiq of the Many Rafiq of the Many X1 Sharuum, the Hegemon Sharuum, the Hegemon X1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre X1 Visara the DreadfulVisara the Dreadful X1 Mikaeus, the LunarchMikaeus, the Lunarch X1

Glimpse the Unthinkable
Glimpse the Unthinkable

I longed for those days until I saw this new little diddy that we have to play with in M12. All you have to do is add equal parts Jace’s Archivist to Jace’s Erasure.

Most people recognize that the erasure is annoying, but it doesn’t really give you too great of an edge over your opponent as your library is dropped by the same cards that they lose.

What if you could get a little edge, and speed the whole thing up? Well that’s exactly what Jace’s Archivist does for you.

You get a fresh 7 cards, and your opponent gets a fresh 7 cards, but your opponent also has to mill 7 more cards. Now, you’ve just turned Jace’s Erasure into something of an annoyance.

You just put your opponent on a 3-4 turn clock, and, as a blue mage, you have nothing but answers in your hand every turn thanks to Jace’s Archivist.

Building a deck around this gem is all too easy since it just takes 4 Mana Leaks
Mana Leak, 4 Unsummons
Unsummon, and 4 Negates
Negate to ensure that you won’t have to worry about too many things.

The Unsummon works like an effective counter since they are discarding their hands. For added fun, throw in Phantasmal Image
Phantasmal Image to ensure that any creature coming out finds itself staring down its own barrel.

Also worth mentioning, if you happen to have any merfolk mesmerists, you could put those in just for some added color. It will also help when you didn’t have to do anything defensive and have some extra mana to burn at the end of your opponent’s turn. I know two isn’t a huge gain, but it will put their clock down to three turns if you’re playing with the combo out.

Sundial of the Infinite
Sundial of the Infinite

First it’s important to realize just what ending the turn does. As the card says, all the usual stuff like discarding down to your maximum hand size and removing damage from creatures happens immediately. Effects that last until the end of the turn also end. By far the best ability of this card is that the end of the turn exiles all spells and abilities, removing them from the game without allowing the effects to activate effectively countering the spell or ability.

This kind of ability can quickly put a stop to any opponent that tries to do some tricks on your turn. A Leyline of Anticipation
Leyline of Anticipation that belongs to your opponent becomes a little less useful when they know they can’t wait until the end of their turn to use their spells. If they try to use a spell on your turn that you don’t like, you can just end the turn and their spell fizzles. Of course you do have to give up your turn to counter a spell, but exiling the spell is one of the few ways to counter spells that state they cannot be countered. Similarly, if your attack isn’t looking good because your opponent cast a spell or did some trick you didn’t anticipate you can end the turn and all your creatures will stop their attack.

Ending the turn on command can be used for more than just countering your opponent’s tricks. You can counter your own abilities too. Specifically, this card is most useful with cards that have abilities that trigger later, such as Ball Lightning, which you normally would have to sacrifice at the end of the turn. If you can have it survive its attack for 6 damage you can end the turn when the ability to sacrifice it is on the stack. Then you get to keep it around for another turn to deal another 6 damage. However for cards like this you do have to be able to end the turn early every time if you want to keep it around. With abilities like unearth there is only one trigger to sacrifice the creature and if you exile that ability then you get to keep them around for a while longer. But they do still go to exile once they are finally destroyed again.

These are some of the simplest ways to use the Sundial of the Infinite. It can stop your opponents tricks during your turn and stop some nasty abilities from affecting you. Nearly any trigger that has you paying an extra cost or sacrificing a creature could probably be exiled on your turn with the Sundial of the Infinite. What are your favorite combos with the Sundial?

Murasa
Murasa

Cliffside Market
Cliffside Market

While the plane is very new, the ability of dealing damage when creatures enter the battlefield is not. Pandemonium
Pandemonium is a cheaper alternative that allows creatures to deal damage equal to their power when they enter the battlefield as well. However this card is more like the Immersturm plane than Warstorm Surge, allowing even opponent’s creatures to deal damage. Where Ancients Tread
Where Ancients Tread allows you to deal 5 damage whenever you play a creature with power 5 or greater, appropriate to the theme of Naya. Yet this card isn’t able to truly make use of the power of creatures like Warstorm Surge, which can deal even more damage if you can get creatures that are big enough for it.

The biggest drawback of Warstorm Surge over these other cards is that it costs 6 mana to play. In red that’s a lot of time that could be spent burning your opponent to death, but this is definitely a casual card to build a deck around. A Pyretic Ritual
Pyretic Ritual or two can help get you the enchantment out a little earlier. Otherwise the deck can be filled with creatures. Burn spells aren’t really needed since Warstorm Surge turns every creature into a burn spell. There are plenty of red creatures with tons of power that can utilize the Immersturm well. Even if they have low toughness they can now get through to deal damage. Lightning Elemental
Lightning Elemental can scorch your opponent or perhaps that one creature that is blocking for them. Even a wall can be a deadly opponent in the Immersturm, particularly one made of torches. The coolest card for this from M12 is definitely Furyborn Hellkite. If you dealt damage to your opponent then that means you can get 12 more damage on him from one creature entering the battlefield! So late in the game that should spell the end for your opponent.

Warstorm Surge can also be very useful with help from its ally colors, black and green. Green is a clear winner for having the most big creatures to fling damage at your opponent. Garruk’s Horde
Garruk’s Horde is 7 damage right there and it can help you draw into even more creatures for more damage. Doubling Chant
Doubling Chant can get you more damage from some creatures that may have already been on the battlefield prior to the Warstorm Surge being played. In black there are some trickier ways to get damage through with Warstorm Surge. Reassembling Skeleton
Reassembling Skeleton can be a constant source of 1 damage if you’re willing to pay the two mana to bring it back every time. Grave Titan
Grave Titan, a 6/6 himself, also comes with two 2/2s that allow you to distribute damage a little bit. Sutured Ghoul
Sutured Ghoul also has a lot of potential late in the game. You can exile the rest of your graveyard to make him as big as you want, perhaps even beyond 20 to win the game with one attack!

Warstorm Surge is a great card with an effect that we don’t see on a whole lot of cards. For a little more mana than Pandemonium, it keeps the damage-causing effect to your creatures only. What kind of creatures do you think would fit well with Warstorm Surge? I know I’m itching to make use of Norin the Wary
Norin the Wary with this card!

Sign in Blood
Sign in Blood

Abyssal Persecutor
Abyssal Persecutor

Tormented Soul gives black mages a way to consistently get damage through to your opponent. If your opponent doesn’t take out the Soul then they are put on a clock, having at max 20 turns to win the game. That’s certainly plenty of time for your opponent to pull some answers, especially if all you have is a little 1/1 that can’t block. Of course, any clever planeswalker can make use of this guy to pull off some easy wins.

His appearance in M12 goes great with Bloodthirst, giving those creatures with the ability those extra +1/+1 counters they need without needing to waste a spell or worry about the creatures being blocked. In a black deck this can power up all of your vampires, especially with the Bloodlord of Vaasgoth
Bloodlord of Vaasgoth. The clock will continue to wind down for your opponent and that continuous damage will only make the clock go faster with the addition of more powerful bloodthirsty creatures.

Even on his own, the Tormented Soul can be pumped up to become a fearsome creature on his own. Equipment are great additions, able to be swapped to different creatures when needed. Even something as simple as the Greatsword
Greatsword can give a huge boost to your unblockable creature. A 1/1 is still pretty easy to beat with any spell that deals damage. Giving him shroud or hexproof with cards like the Swiftfoot Boots
Swiftfoot Boots and Vines of Vastwood
Vines of Vastwood can give your Tormented Soul the extra power needed to win the game for you. If you need lots of extra power to turn the game around Tormented Soul is also a great candidate for the Worldslayer. Sometimes you just need to destroy the world in order to earn that victory. That is certainly no problem for a planeswalker who dabbles in black magic.

This week we’ll be looking at a couple of fun combos to try while M11 and M12 are both in Standard. When the rotation occurs with the arrival of Innistrad (check out spoilers here), these fun combos will be gone as well.

First, please keep in mind that all of our combos are meant for casual play, not made to be tournament winners. They are fun little mechanics to build a casual deck around, and while they may not stand up to Caw-Blade at FNM, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be a kitchen-table hit.

This combo in particular is one that will please players who like to win big. There aren’t many good reasons (other than some psychological troubles that we’re not going to get into) to hit yourself hard enough to induce memory loss, but that’s exactly what we’re asking you to do in this combo.

The procedure here is simple, use Traumatize to dump (hopefully) two or three Vengeful Pharoahs into your graveyard. Then, sit back and just see if your opponents are willing to attack.

Once half your library is in your graveyard, Visions of Beyond becomes Ancestral Vision
Ancestral Vision allowing you to draw (and discard) more Pharaohs, hit your land drops and draw into Sorin’s Vengeance
Sorin’s Vengeance, or to refill your hand with Mana Leaks
Mana Leak.

Reassembling Skeleton
Reassembling Skeleton would love to find his way into the dustheap this way as well.

Throw in a few Tormented Souls
Tormented Soul and you’ll have your opponent on a clock. Or, to ensure that you’ll be bringing your Pharoahs back from the dead, play R/U instead of U/B and let Rage Nimbus force your opponent’s creatures to attack.

Untap, Swing, Fling, repeat.

All this combo brainstorming makes me want to brew this thing up myself… Any thoughts about what else to include? Leave us a comment.

Note: For those of you anticipating the release of M12 on MtGO, I highly recommend picking up our guide.

It’s time to look to the future of Magic. We have seen that future, and the future is awesome:

Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas

First up, chronologically, is AvNB, the latest in the Duel Decks series.

What we Know: This product will consist of two 60-card decks, based around the two eponymous planeswalkers. The basis of this battle royale is the storyline from the novel Alara Unbroken which chronicles the fierce leonin’s pursuit of vengeance against the terrible, legendary dragon.

Presumably both decks will contain a more or less equal distribution of the component colors of their respective planeswalkers – that’s R/W for Ajani and U/B/R for Bolas. If the deck strategies are based on the abilities of the planeswalkers, then Ajani’s will likely be an aggressive burn/weenie deck, while Bolas is likelier to have a drawn-out, control-based strategy.

While the abilities used by Nicol Bolas are much more powerful than Ajani’s, it will be a serious chore just to get him into play without any mana acceleration.

We only know two of the 120 cards to be included as of right now, and those are the planeswalkers themselves, though even that little bit of information is exciting when they come with new art.

Release Date: September 2, 2011

Innistrad – “Horror Lurks Within”

The upcoming release that the TCP crew is most excited about is the newest “large set” to be released, and the beginning of the latest 3-set block. Previously codenamed “Shake”, we can now plainly refer to Wizard’s newest offering as Innistrad, a 264 card set that will be replacing the Zendikar block in Standard.

What we Know: Actually, quite a bit. Or at least we have some good hunches.

Our Innistrad spoiler page has already been populated with the latest in speculation on the set. Check it out, and check back often in the coming weeks for updates:

http://casualplaneswalker.com/innistrad-visual-spoilers/

Based on the promotional art released with the formal announcement of Innistrad (below), we can also predict that Liliana, who was apparently slighted in M12, will be back and will likely have a new card with new abilities.

We’re also betting that the zombie/vampire theme which was supported in M12 will be continued in Innistrad, along with a strong graveyard focus, based on the spoilers we have thus far (and our deepest hopes and dreams).

Innistrad appears to be the name of an all-new plane, but only time will tell exactly where we’ll be in the next block, how Liliana got there, and who that dead guy is at her feet.

Also, Innistrad-related events will span the month of October, leading up to a Game Day over Halloween weekend. What could be spookier?

Release Date: September 30, 2011

Premium Deck Series – Graveborn

Finally, we’d like to mention the next installment of the Premium Deck Series. This one is called Graveborn and it has the potential to be our favorite one thus far. 

Premium Deck Series are 60-card, all foil decks which include 8 rares, and are centered around a prominent archetype or theme (Slivers, burn, and now graveyard recursion).

In the announcement for Graveborn, we were promised (obliquely) that we’d see the standard reanimator fare: Entomb
Entomb, Exhume
Exhume, Reanimate
Reanimate. Along with an all-color suite of ginormous creatures just begging to be cheated into play.

While the price tag on the Premium Decks has always been a little bothersome to us (typically in the $35 range), this particular offering will be a good way for newer players to experience the fun of graveyard-based mayhem after receiving their introduction in necromancy from M12 and Innistrad.

The probable inclusion of Entomb, Exhume, and Reanimate, also indicates that these cards will NOT appear in Innistrad, which is a bit of a disappointment to Swamp-things.

Release Date: November 18, 2011

Blinding Angel
Blinding Angel

When Stonehorn Dignitary shows up at your opponent’s doorstep they must attend to him instead of going to war for a turn. On its own he can save you from a threat that is looming over the horizon, perhaps from a spell you know is going to be played on the rebound like a Distortion Strike
Distortion Strike that would get the last few points of damage through with no chance to block. This guy is one part of a new, defense-focused strategy that protects you along with cards like Grand Abolisher
Grand Abolisher and Personal Sanctuary
Personal Sanctuary.

This guy has a great ability, but it only happens once: when he enters play. To really make use of his ability you should have ways of playing him multiple times. Venser
Venser,The Sojourner is, naturally, the best choice in standard to keep the dignitaries coming around each turn. This will have your opponent skipping combat just as many times as Blinding Angel would do attacking each turn. It isn’t just Venser that can keep this guy coming back though. Mimic Vat
Mimic Vat and Splinter Twin
Splinter Twin are both available in standard to create copies of the dignitary at least once a turn.

If you can get this guy out multiple times in a turn then the effect just keeps getting better. This ability is cumulative so if you play two Stonehorn Dignitaries, they have to skip their next combat, then skip their next combat again. It doesn’t matter if it takes multiple turns, they will be skipping however many combat phases as you play this rhino! If you can put this guy into play every turn, they will need to give themselves extra combat phases just to have a chance to attack!

I’m certainly seeing this guy as a nice addition against decks that rely on beating face with creatures. At common he is sure to be easy to use in any number of decks. Do you have any decks that would be able to take advantage of Stonehorn Dignitary?

We’re really excited about M12 here at The Casual Planeswalker. We’ve been preparing for the release of the Core Set for quite some time and we’ll have a big announcement pertaining to M12 later this week. Stay tuned!

Core Sets are a great way for new and inexperienced players to play with classic cards and play in a Limited environment which is easier to learn and understand than standard expansions.

White, in M12, has some great enchantment support, so a red/white enchantment build make for a really fun casual deck. Consider making this combo a fun centerpiece of that deck.

First of all, let me just say that I love the flavor text on Manabarbs. As much as I admire the sentiments of Kamahl, pit fighter, a central character from the Odyssey block, I’d rather have a way to turn that double-edged sword into a strictly offensive weapon.

Personal Sanctuary is a great way to do just that. It allows you to tap your lands without feeling the burn during your turn.

Unless your opponent is packing green/white enchantment removal, this is going to be a hard combo to break up. Add in an Aegis Angel
Aegis Angel to protect one of them and you’ll test just how tolerant your opponents really are.

If you continue to build around this combo, feel free to throw in a few Auramancers
Auramancer for extra insurance, a Mesa Enchantress
Mesa Enchantress for card draw, and you’ve got a fun, casual enchantment-based deck.
We’ll keep the M12 combos coming this week, along with some addition discussion of the newest core set and what’s coming next!

Look for Innistrad spoilers to start later this week!!!