Scooping has become a recent and disappointing trend in competitive Magic.
For those of you who have been watching coverage of PTQ events, know how disappointing it is to sit down excited to watch a Pro do what they do best, only to have them scoop the moment Jace TMS hits the board.
Despite my aversion to scooping – there’s always something to be learned from a match – there are a couple situations in which I will just roll over and play dead.
One such situation involves Umezawa’s Jitte, a famously insane card from the Kamigawa block (the only block my play group despised more than the original Mirrodin).
My scoop-rule is simple and easy to remember: 2 Lé Jitte 2 Quit.
In other words, if one of my opponents has a Jitte in play and equiped, I’m done with that game and happy to move on to the next. Especially when that Jitte is attached to TCP co-owner Brad’s Dauthi Slayer.
So, the question remains: Do YOU have any quirky scoop-conditions or play group rules?
When I first looked at Myr Superion, I thought: “OMG! It’s Juzam Djinn!” (Did anyone else think for the longest time that Juzam Djinn was awesome and legendary because he cost BB and not 2BB? The “2” is so faded that I looked at my Magic: The Gathering Encyclopedia for years thinking it was an impossibly good creature. I hope I’m not the only n00b that thought so…)
Anyway, Myr Superion is a big, bad vanilla for two mana, and it appeared to me initially that I’d need a Priest of Urabrask/Gix or an elf-deck to play him (the idea of having two smaller Myr in play beforehand doesn’t seem all that viable to me).
Fear no more! Throw that bad-boy in an artifact-creature deck with a Semblance Anvil and go to town! I was already experimenting quite a bit with the Semblance Anvil I pulled at the NPH Pre-Release and found that there very few non-artifact situations in which it was helpful. However, if I’ve got Myr Superion and any way at all to go looking for him or keep filling my hand, I can play my 5/6’s for FREE!
Special Bulletin: The following cards are “confirmed” for M12. We wanted to get these pics up as soon as we could, but rest assured we’ll have an all-out M12 Visual Spoiler soon!
Check back often.
Archon of Justice
Sorin Markov
Gorehorn Minotaurs
Dungrove Elder
Chandra’s Phoenix
Furyborn Hellkite
We also have one card that are, as yet, without a visual:
6/6
Giddeon’s Avenger 1WW
Creature – Human Soldier R
Whenever a creature an opponent controls becomes tapped, put a +1/+1 counter on Giddeon’s Avenger
“The good don’t sit and wait for the evil to act. They prepare to defend. They prepare to punish.”
2/2
That’s all for now. Hopefully we’ll have more for you soon!
Our first Twitter giveaway is going on RIGHT NOW and we’re going to be giving away a number of copies of Sheoldred, Whispering One, a mythic rare from New Phyrexia.
All you have to do is “Like” us on Facebook, or “Follow” us on Twitter. We will use Random.org to choose one of our followers to receive a copy of Sheoldred when we reach the 200 Follower/Like threshold and at every 100 new Followers/Likes after that until we run out or the giveaway ends this Sunday.
We’ll be updating this post with the names of winners the arise, but for now, feel free to ogle the cards we’re giving away. We’ve got one normal copy of Sheoldred and FIVE Foil Pre-Release copies.
So, get out there and spread the news! The more follows, the more opportunities to win.
Best of luck!
P.S. This might sound crazy, but I’ll even throw in another bonus. If we reach the 500 Followers threshold on Twitter before WEDNESDAY, I will give away a FOIL Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, in addition to a Sheoldred.
Over the course of the set a lot of things have changed in Mirrodin. The Phyrexians, hidden within the core of the plane, have invaded and transformed it into New Phyrexia. The plane of Mirrodin has been corrupted and many of its inhabitants can be seen in these forms in the new sets. New Phyrexia in particular is pretty cool with the number of cards that go back to classic Mirrodin and Phyrexian cards. Here are a few of the cards that have their roots in previous Magic sets.
Compleated Elves
The Elves were the first to fall to the invasion and green has become one of the main colors of the Phyrexians. Many of the elves that have been compleated are reminiscent of the elves as seen in the previous set of Mirrodin. These elves were particularly good against artifacts and they retain that trait in their new forms. For some of these creatures the addition of Infect is the only major change.
Classic Phyrexian Designs
The Phyrexians that took over Mirrodin are not the same that served under Yawgmoth, but there are some designs still within their memory. The Phyrexian Hulk
Phyrexian Hulk is the most obvious example in this set, being a reprint. Mortis Dogs and Hollow Dogs are different cards but it is easy to see the inspiration. Cards like these show that there is some identity to Phyrexia even though it corrupts every other creature with its oil.
Perfected Phyrexians
There are some Phyrexian creatures that have returned to the new plane with some changes. The Priest of Urabrask
Priest of Urabrask is a red Priest of Gix
Priest of Gix. The priest in red will certainly be a welcome addition as a “free” creature that can keep a red deck burning. However the coolest creature that has been improved is sure to be the Phyrexian Obliterator. This new Phyrexian Negator has definitely reached perfection. No longer do you have to weigh risks when playing the Phyrexian Negator, for only 1 extra black mana you can have your opponents sacrificing permanents instead!
Corrupted Mirran Artifacts
The Phyrexian have lent their touch of perfection both to their own designs as well as classic Mirran artifacts. Golems have received a huge boost in power thanks to the splicers that are in white, green, and blue. These creatures come into play with some 3/3 golems and also power up all golems you control. These Phyrexians can further improve even one of their grandest artifacts: Blightsteel Colossus
Blightsteel Colossus. For specific cards that have been compleated in New Phyrexia, you can look toward the Etched Monstrosity. This guy has been beefed up from the uncommon Etched Oracle from Mirrodin into a card at the mythic rare level. What was once a little 4/4 at max that would probably die to draw 3 cards is now a 5/5 that can become a 10/10 if you use it to draw those 3 cards. The Phyrexians have added some awesome new twists to these antiquated Mirran artifacts.
Iconic Lands now Tainted
Remember the artifact lands from Mirrodin? Well now they’re back, but maybe not as you would have hoped. Now they’re back as basic lands corrupted by the Phyrexians. We have received new basic lands from each set in this block, showing us just how much the terrain has changed and the return to these unique lands show that even the great centers of power for the Mirrans have been lost to the Phyrexians. This corruption leads all the way to the very core of the plane. Mirrodin’s Core
Mirrodin’s Core was once a land that allowed you to charge up colored mana but the new Phyrexia’s Core instead eats artifacts for a bit of life. While it is a bit of an odd twist in its mechanics, the name Phyrexia’s Core
Phyrexia’s Core establishes that the plane has been forever changed.
These are some of the cards I found that go back into Magic’s past and bring back what we associated with the planes of both Mirrodin and Phyrexia. There are reimagined forms of these classic cards as well as some cool combinations of what both planes do best resulting from the invasion of Mirrodin. Try to look through your old collection of Mirran or Phyrexian cards and see if you can spot any links between then and now.
Players have always had a love/hate relationship with MTG’s ever-changing, yet reassuringly cyclical nature. I’ve heard from gamers who left MTG for Warhammer or D&D primarily on account of the ever-changing play environment of Standard and the necessity for keeping up with the latest expansions in order to have viable decks for FNM.
Even playgroups who stay away from Standard in favor of Legacy will periodically have to buy a playset of the latest and greatest in a series of spells that is central to a long-standing deck.
On the other hand, the rhythm Wizards has established of releasing an annual (since 2009) Core Set, one block with a stand-alone set and two smaller expansions, and a multiplayer product (Planechase, Archenemy) keeps the play environment fresh and gives players and event-organizing a lot to look forward to.
While, I may not be entirely on board with the increasing number of smaller products like Duels of the Planeswalkers, From the Vault, and the Premium Deck series which have been regularly released over the past couple years, I do like the way Wizards does marketing and I’m the type that loves following the rumors and spoilers as they appear. So, for those of you like me, who want the scoop on what’s coming, here’s a taste of the next few months in Magic*:
Commander: June 17, 2011
So, the first big debut of the summer is MTG:Commander. The Elder-Dragon Highlander format has become just popular enough that Wizards is ready to take their cut. In all seriousness though, it’s sometimes difficult for the casual player or newbie to get into a format like EDH due to a small card pool. These five, one-hundred card, tri-color decks will give you a great base for building a competitive EDH deck and will cost $29.99 each. You can also look forward to 15 new cards in each deck and 51 new cards total.
Each deck will showcase three legendary, over-sized commander cards with one of these in each box being part of the Legendary Dragon series from Planar Chaos. The three colors will be a “wedge” trio, meaning they will consist of two allied colors with one enemy color.
Also, if you’re a little bit confused about why it’s called Commander and not EDH, then you’re in good company. The choice is deliberate and explained, more or less, at the official EDH site: http://mtgcommander.net/questions.html
We’ll keep you updated as we learn more about what cards will be reprinted in MTG:Commander and what new additions will be made. At any rate, we’re excited to get our hands on these decks and will be planning on finding a Release event to attend.
M12: July 15, 2011
As we mentioned on Monday’s podcast, the TCP crew hasn’t been terribly enthused by core set releases in the past. Of course, most of us started playing back in the day when core sets sported the horrible white-bordered cards that started looking “used” way too quickly and stood out like a sore thumb in an otherwise aesthetically pleasing deck. However, the introduction of black-bordered core sets didn’t do nearly as much to change our minds as the introduction of titans in M11.
The titans were an incredible addition to the standard environment and did a lot to shake up the format. If M12 follows suit, I assume they’ll be a mythic-level incentive to buying the core set in every color – that is, an incentive in addition to the reprinted planeswalkers.
Earlier this week, Wizards released what is, by far, their best promo video to date. In it we find Gideon Jura recounting in brief his inter-planar struggles (especially his encounters with Liliana Vess) and hinting that there are big changes coming in the planeswalker storyline.
The tagline for M12 is “Gather Your Allies” and at the end of the video Gideon hints that he has somehow found a way to unite the planeswalkers (at least planeswalkers who aren’t Liliana) under a common banner. Is this actually storyline? Is this just a weird way to talk about the role of the player as a “controller of planeswalkers”? There is plenty here to speculate on, but we’ll save that for a later date.
If you haven’t already watched the video, check it out.
Duels of the Planeswalkers2012: Summer 2012
In addition to the reprinting of the planeswalkers in M12, there will be a new edition of Duels of the Planeswalkers appearing this summer. The announcement by Wizards indicated that the picture below is representative of the planeswalkers that we’ll see in both M12 and DoP. So, it looks like Liliana and Ajani have disappeared (though only temporarily) and been replaced by Sorin Markov and Gideon Jura.
Based on precedent, I doubt that the M12 planeswalkers will be anything but reprints, though they may have some new name-associated cards like Jace’s IngenuityJace’s Ingenuity or Chandra’s Spitfire
Jace’s Ingenuity.Either way, I hope beyond hope that we won’t be seeing Jace, the Mind Sculptor return to Standard for another year.
Innistrad: September 24, 2011
Finally, what interests us the most here at TCP is the announcement of the next block: Innistrad. There are several things to be excited about with Innistrad. First of all, it’s the first set that the game’s creator, Richard Garfield, has co-designed since Ravnica: City of Guilds. The tagline of the set is “Horror Lurks Within” and there is already some speculation that we may be returning to Ravnica in this block.
Whether or not we can look forward to a return to the city-plane, it does look like this set will have a flavor similar to that of Torment – the black-centric expansion to Odyssey.
There’s been some debate (though I don’t know why) about whether or not this is a picture of Liliana. Let me put your minds at ease – when I right-click saved it from the Wizards announcement, the picture’s default name was “liliana_innistrad”.
We have Liliana on the throne, a corpse with a smoking chest-wound in the background, a full moon (please reprint Bad Moon), and two zombie-like husks in the background. Also, the Game Day for Innistrad is October 29-30 – as close as can be to Halloween (please reprint All Hallow’s Eve).
While I would love to see mono-block come back in a big was in Innistrad my greatest hope is that Liliana, who seems to have been left out of M12, get a makeover in Innistrad. Especially as Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Jace, the Mind Sculptor leaves standard it would be great to have a new mega-mythic game-changing remake of a planeswalker.
*You might notice that we passed over the Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas duel decks. Right now there isn’t enough information on the decks to have much fruitful speculation. We’ll let you know when we know more.
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Kiora Atua
Jace’s Ingenuity
