Tag: M12

  • Casual Friday–The Surge of the Immersturm

    Casual Friday–The Surge of the Immersturm

    Warstorm SurgeThe 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. Immersturm

    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. Furyborn Hellkite

    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!

  • What’s In Store – M12, Duels of the Planeswalkers, and More…

    What’s In Store – M12, Duels of the Planeswalkers, and More…

    Two Schools of ThoughtKarador

    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

    Death by DragonsSo, 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.

    Several cards, like Death by Dragons
    Death By Dragons     (coolest card name ever?), have already been spoiled. Check out the full announcement here.

    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.

    Devour for Power

    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.Sun Titan

    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 Planeswalkers 2012: 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.

    Also, this next installment in the video game series will include at least one new planeswalker.Kiora Atua

    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.

    Planeswalkers 2012

    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.

    Liliana Vess

    *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.