The Casual Planeswalker

Tag: Casual Friday

Casual Friday–Our Place in the Multiverse

With the release of From the Vault: Legends next week coming fast, we are going to be getting a second look at some very old cards that are very unique in Magic. Legendary creatures are very unique on their own, only being able to have one of them with the same name out at a time, but there are two cards in this little package that are unique even in the Magic world: Cao Cao and Sun Quan. Interestingly enough, these cards are based on real people. This effectively shows that our world is also one of the many worlds that make up the multiverse of Magic: The Gathering.

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.

August 19, 2011
Casual Friday–The Doctor is in

As a bit of a Johnny, I’m always looking for cards that need to be figured out. They aren’t simple cards like Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt that can be useful in almost any deck; oftentimes these cards can be worse for you if you don’t build a deck to suit them! I’ve been looking through my pile of extra cards and found Psychic Surgery, a relatively new card appearing in New Phyrexia. It’s a nifty card that allows you to, in a sense, control your opponent’s draw whenever they shuffle their library. It can certainly be useful against decks that try to tutor for their best cards, and with some clever deck-building, it could be a fun card to build around.

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?

August 12, 2011
Casual Friday–The End of Time

The most exciting things about new sets are always cards that do brand new things in Magic. Artifacts are a great place to find unique abilities that don’t fit into any of the 5 colors of Mana. The artifact that has people thinking up the most new ideas for it would certainly be the Sundial of the Infinite
Sundial of the Infinite. This card immediately ends the turn which sounds pretty great, but you can only use it on your own turn. Why would you want to end your turn? Well, it turns out that ending your turn can be pretty great too.

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?

August 5, 2011
Casual Friday–The Surge of the Immersturm

The Planechase format brought about a new way to experience the many places of the Magic Multiverse. We had a look at planes both new and old, from Murasa
Murasa in Zendikar to Cliffside Market
Cliffside Market from the plane in which the set Mercadian Masques originates. The planechase set also gave us a look at planes that have not been used or even seen in any cards before, with the Immersturm of Valla being one such card. Now with M12’s Warstorm Surge, we can harness the power of the Immersturm for ourselves.

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!

July 29, 2011
Casual Friday–Everlasting Torment

Black mages are always looking for more power, at any cost. When looking through black cards to use in your deck you can probably find some with very powerful effects but these also come with various drawbacks. These can be things like losing life to draw more cards, seen commonly in cards like Sign in Blood
Sign in Blood, to Abyssal Persecutor
Abyssal Persecutor, gaining a 6/6 flying trampler with the drawback of not allowing you to win the game. M12 gives black mages a cheap 1/1 creature that is unblockable. However, this creature is so focused on attack your opponents that it can’t block at all.

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.

July 22, 2011
Casual Friday- Win with Dignity

Blinding Angel
Blinding Angel was a popular card that can frequently cause opponents to skip combat phases. For those without answers to a simple 2/4 flyer, they may never have the chance to attack again! With the release of M12 today there is now a new creature that causes opponents to skip combat just when it arrives on the battlefield.

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?

July 15, 2011
Casual Friday–The Grand Illusion

M12 is set for release next week with the usual pre-release tournaments coming up this Saturday and Sunday. I am already thinking of how to use the latest new cards in the set and many of them are very exciting from classic cards being reprinted to new twists on old cards to some brand new cards with totally new abilities. This week I would like to look at one of my new favorite blue cards that give us a new form of the classic card Clone.

Clone has come in a variety of shapes and sizes over its many years in Magic. Even in the latest block, Scars of Mirrodin, there are a wide variety of creatures with the clone ability. From Scars of Mirrodin we have Quicksilver Gargantuan
Quicksilver Gargantuan making huge 7/7 forms of creatures that can turn little utility creatures like a Royal Assassin
Royal Assassin into a killing machine. Mirrodin Besieged gave us Cryptoplasm
Cool Card which can copy a new creature each turn, adapting to the changing flow of battle. With New Phyrexia, the Phyrexian Metamorph
Phyrexian Metamorph was a very exciting card, able to copy a creature or an artifact. With a cost of Phyrexian mana it was also usable by decks of any color for the payment of a little life.

With M12 we will have yet another Clone card to work with and this one is yet again different from those that came before it. This Clone fits in with the Illusion tribal theme that is featured in blue along with Phantasmal Bear and Phantasmal Dragon. With this card you get a Clone at half-off, only 2 mana instead of 4, but the creature is also an Illusion and has the typical Illusion ability of being sacrificed once it is a target of something. This tribe looks to be really cool and Phantasmal Image is definitely a favorite.

The best part about this guy is certainly his cost. At a cost of only 2 mana you have a lot left over for counters or other control spells popular in blue. The drawback of sacrificing it when it is merely targeted is a huge drawback that you need to work around but it is not always so bad. Against black, red, and white decks many of their cards that opponents want to use on Phantasmal Image are most likely kill spells anyway so either way it is probably gone. Against blue and green the Phantasmal Image may run into a little bit of trouble but hopefully they are forced to waste a Titanic Growth
Titanic Growth or Turn to Frog
Cool Card on it. The greatest threats to this guy will most likely be creatures with cheap, repeatable effects. Luckily none of the mage cycle will be able to target your creatures, but something like Gideon’s Lawkeeper
Cool Card can really ruin the day of any illusion deck.

M12 does include a great Illusion lord that will turn all your illusions into formidable creatures that are untouchable by your opponents. Lord of the Unreal will give all your illusions +1/+1 as well as hexproof. With Phantasmal Image, Lord of the Unreal becomes even better. If you copy him than he also becomes an Illusion, pumping himself and gaining hexproof! A deck can easily be run with 4 of all the illusion-based creatures of this set and it would probably be pretty fun to play.

There are a few tricky rules things that can be used if you play an Illusion or are going up against one. The first thing to know is that like Clone, Phantasmal Image does not target anything. As long as the creature is out there you can copy it. You can copy a nasty Thrun
Thrun, the Last Troll that is giving you trouble on the other side of the board to destroy him with the Legend rule. If you wanted more Phantasmal Dragons you could copy them and you wouldn’t have to sacrifice anything!

What if you’re going up against Phantasmal Image and Lord of the Unreal? Hexproof is pretty tough to get around, but there is one new card that may help you: Redirect
Redirect. If your opponent is running any spells that target creatures, perhaps by trying to Unsummon
Unsummon your creatures, you can redirect that spell and target their creatures because they are still the controller of the spell even though you are changing the targets! This is a great tip for anyone playing an Illusion deck as well. A deck like this can be a lot of fun but you don’t want your cards to be used against you!

What do you think of the new Illusion tribe? I think they’re going to be really cool and their challenge with becoming targets are really great to work around. Are there any other cool tricks you can do with Illusions?

July 8, 2011
Casual Friday – Feel the Heat

Planeswalkers are some of the coolest additions to Magic and each new set comes with a few of these game-changing cards. We have come a long way since they were first introduced in Lorwyn. While those first five planeswalkers were reused in multiple sets, it seems their time is over. The release of M12 is just weeks away and none of those old cards are in it. Ajani and Liliana will be replaced with Gideon Jura and Sorin Markov from the Zendikar block. The remaining planeswalkers, however, are getting brand new cards that show off more of their abilities. The latest planeswalker revealed for the new set looks to be one of my favorites for M12: Chandra, the Firebrand. M12 won’t be released for a while yet, but I’m not wasting any time thinking of awesome ways to make use of the new Chandra.

The mana cost of Chandra, the Firebrand is one of the most awesome things about this card. It only costs 4 mana first of all, so she can get out on the field pretty quickly. She also only costs 1 red mana, so it is pretty easy to play around with colors in a deck that is built around Chandra. In other colors and even a little in red it is very easy to get Chandra out early. With a Dark Ritual she can be ready to ping opponents as early as turn two!

The pinging is pretty great as a first ability. It’s much improved over the earlier Chandra, allowing you to deal damage to creatures as well. Llanowar Elves and Lotus Cobras are no match for red burn, but who wants to waste a burn spell on such creatures? Chandra easily takes them out one-by-one, slowly taking down a deck with a lot of creatures for mana ramp. Also like any proper planeswalker card in the core set, this abilities works well with any of her other themed cards. It can pump up Chandra’s Spitfire and bring back Chandra’s Phoenix.

Chandra’s second ability is definitely where casual players can get the most fun. 2 counters lets you copy the next instant or sorcery you cast. This ability can double any instant or sorcery, it doesn’t even have to be red! Although even in red there are a ton of awesome ways to make use of this ability. A simple Lightning Bolt becomes 6 damage, but if it were a volt charge that’s 6 damage plus 2 counters on Chandra as well as any other things worth proliferating. For even more damage you can add a Fire Servant. With that out, something as simple as a Goblin Grenade can end the game! Geosurge copied can give you 14 mana, plenty to cast some huge creature spells, perhaps Emrakul? In terms of outright removal, the most fun card for this has to be Chaos Warp. You can take out some threats on your opponent’s side of the board or hope to polymorph one of your own permanents into some kind of game-ending dragon.

It’s possible to play around with Chandra’s second ability forever, but when it comes time to end the game, her ultimate can get the job done in any format. For 6 counters you can deal 6 damage to 6 different players/creatures. The best part about this new ultimate is that it is more useful in multiplayer games. You aren’t just picking on one person, dealing 10 damage to everything they own. It’s less damage, sure, but it can reach everywhere. You can deal some damage to opponents directly, maybe taking some out of the game, while dealing some other threats. 6 damage should be able to take out all but the biggest creatures in green, and you would still have mana open for some extra burn.

Red burn is going to have yet another great card to show opponents why it’s called Red Deck Wins. Chandra looks like she will be great for both standard competitive decks as well as some imaginative casual decks that want cool effects and big spells. She is certainly my favorite planeswalker of the new set. What do you think of the newest version of Chandra?

July 1, 2011