Theros Standard Budget Brew Challenge

   We here at MTG The Journey had an idea, and want to extend a challenge to you the readers. If you can get your home-brewed Standard deck to do 3-1 or better for 3 weeks straight, we want to feature your deck on here for others to see and experiment with. The rules will be as follows:

#1 - The total deck price cannot exceed more than $100 (we will give you two bonus Theros booster packs if it's less than $50!!) Also, use TCG player as the price base for your submission.

#2 - The deck HAS to be original, (your idea) and cannot mimic a net-deck that you found.

#3 - The deck HAS to feature cards from Theros.

#4 - The deck has to go 3-1 or better at Sanctioned events for 3 consecutive "*attended" weeks. (and we have to see proof of this, IE Screenshots of your Planeswalker Points showing your wins)

*attended weeks being 3 FNMs in a row that you attend, we understand if you can't make every FNM.

   If you manage to fulfill these rules, and send us your decklist in the form of an email (provided at the end of the post) we will feature your deck on the blog with you as the creator, and we will build and play the deck ourselves at an FNM event, and report how it did for everyone else to see vs. our current meta.

   The point is to get your decks out there that you spend so much time perfecting, so that other people in other meta's can use fresh and new ideas. And we want to see how people use these cards in this new set creatively. The contest will end Jan 1'st, 2014. And the top deck that was featured will win 3 booster packs of the next Theros Set, Born of the Gods, and (if we can get them made by then) a MTG The Journey T-shirt. To make the competition a little more heated.

    We look forward to seeing what people come up with, and wish you the best of luck in your brewing!!
As always, thanks for reading and stay tuned for future posted decks and contests!

    Email your suggestions to contests@mtgthejourney.com

Theros Box and Packs

   So today those of us at MTG The Journey picked up our box we pre-ordered. We didn't happen to be in the top 30 who ordered a box, so we didn't get the "buy a box" Sylvan Caryatid promo, which was rather disappointing. But we did manage to get a few good pulls, and quite a few Mythics in our box. Just to name a few:

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver 
Erebos, God of the Dead 
Stormbreath Dragon 
Underworld Cerberus 
Ashen Rider Thoughtseize 
Sylvan Caryatid 
Whip of Erebos 
Swan Song 

and many more, we played a few pack wars in the beginning, but after 5-6 rounds, just opened packs up and got excited at some of the pulls we had. We took an hour or so to do some sorting and get into our Xen mode of working through our cards. We then called it a night and said we'd sort through the commons later. All in all we got very close to $190 of worth out of our $95 box, so it was very worth our investment.

   The best part of the whole night was the packs we bought from Wal-Mart, that weren't even included in our case. We each bought one pack, just for the pure sake of getting one the day they came out. And sure enough, he pulled a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, worth $7 on the $4 he spent! And I pulled a Purphoros, God of the Forge, worth $28 on the $4 I spent! So well worth the investment! Never underestimate those random packs!

   Over the next few days, we will be waiting for our pre-orders to come in from MTG Madness and Coolstuffinc, and get ready to work on some new brews. Look forward to the Mono-Black deck we have coming up, as well as our All-American-Control brew we are working as well.

     Thanks for reading, and we hope to hear some input from you soon!

Theros BUG Reanimator Deck

Okay MTG Brewers, my friends and I on Tappedout brewed up a little BUG re-animator (yes, I know I am stuck on the re-animator thing) deck tonight and I think it warrants a look see.

Now it does have a bit of a slow get up and go, but man does it have all the tools it needs to survive. It hits hard and keeps getting stronger.

Here's the decklist so you can check it out for yourself

Creatures:(21)

2x Desecration Demon

2x Giant Adephage

2x Kalonian Hydra

4x Lotleth Troll

2x Prime Speaker Zegana

3x Reaper of the Wilds

2x Shadowborn Demon

4x Sylvan Caryatid


Instant(s):(10)

3x Abrupt Decay

3x Dissolve

4x Rescue from the Underworld


Enchantment(s):(5)

2x Bident of Thassa

3x Whip of Erebos


Land:(24)

4x Breeding Pool

4x Swamp

2x Forest

4x Overgrown Tomb

3x Temple of Deceit

3x Temple of Mystery

4x Watery Grave


So that's the deck. I think it's got a ton of potential. Early game you have the concept of feeding the larger creature to the Troll until you get established, dropping the Reaper early game (turn 3-4) for defense and then following with either of the Demons. Once your board presence is established, you Whip or Rescue your larger creatures from the graveyard for serious mid-game damage.
And you still have the counters and removal to deal with any serious threats, and the Bident for some card draw as well. Lots of weapons to use here.

Let us know what you think, and as always, thanks for reading and we hope you check out our other decks and articles. Including the one we just did reviewing MTG Madness, go check out their website and give our review of them a read! Until next time, keep brewing!

 Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering, the tap symbol (), the mana symbols (), and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the United States and other countries. © 2009 Wizards. All Rights Reserved. MTG The Journey is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC. All use of card names, text & images are for journalistic and informational purposes only.

Checking out MTG Madness

So for those of you who may have seen ads for, or are thinking of checking out MTG Madness to put in some card orders, or to take advantage of those free $5 coupons or Booster Packs they advertise all the time, I am going to review their website, and offer some quick and easy info and feedback on how it goes.

So since Theros is getting ready to release this weekend, I think I am going to Pre-Order cards from the Theros set, to see if they quickly deliver on the cards that release.

Okay, so upon arrival at the site, there is already a $5 off coupon blinking at us to use. That's a good feature, if I decide to shop here, that can come in handy. Never hurts to get money off right from the beginning of the site. Second thing that catches my eye, they have articles that might be helpful for me in deciding what cards to buy. Let's check one out.
   So I clicked on Theros Spoiler: Second Impression and it seems to be some pretty sound breakdowns of some of the cards. If nothing else, it at least gives me an impression of what the cards might do, or take the place of in a deck that I might currently have.

Let's check out the Rewards section before we decide what to order. We might get more free stuff if we order a certain dollar amount of cards or something of the like.
   Hmm, so it seems like you do earn points for every dollar you spend, and those translate into emblems. And as you earn emblems, you can also trade those in for bigger emblems, which we can only assume will give us more discounts in the future. It seems a little confusing, but I guess if you spend $100 you will get $1 off of a future purchase, and those can be stacked up to 5 of those, and then you will jump from getting $4 to getting a $12.50 off an order once you hit the $500 spending mark. It seems like the points will go away if you are inactive on the site for a certain amount of time.
  I would say they could improve on this rewards system page by explaining the Emblem system slightly better. I had to give it a few minutes thought to figure it out. All they have for an explanation is a small graph in the bottom right hand corner. Still not a bad rewards system all in all, if you order a lot of cards for your brews, saving future money is a good plan.

  So without further ado, let's get into searching for some cards.

So looking up Temple of Deceit
, which I need for my BUG Re-Animator deck. Is going for $5.99 on here. In comparison to Coolstuffinc, it's exactly equal, it's also going for $5.99 there. So comparative pricing for Pre-Order there. So I added 2 of those and 2 Temple of Mystery
.
   Now one thing I do like is when you click the "Buy" button, you get a detailed message telling you how much your total is.  I like that because sometimes I think "Only $6 each, wow!" And then don't see til the end that a full playset of them is like $24

   So I also want to pick up another Prime Speaker Zegana
for my deck. I searched it out, and as it turns out, they don't have it in stock. That's okay. There's a few other things I need as well.
   As it turns out, they also don't have the Lord of the Void, Obzedat, Ghost Council
, Giant Adephage
or Desecration Demon
. I am pretty disappointed in that. Those are all staples I need to build my deck.
   They did, however, have the Breeding Pool
I needed. At $13.99, which is going for $11.99 on Coolstuff, not a huge difference, but on TCGplayer the average price is $10.09, still not awful though.
   And they had the full playset of Manaweft Sliver
I needed for $1.49 each. Which is once again, the same price as Coolstuff.
   Almost picked up the Shadowborn Demon
to placehold for a Lord of the Void
. They had it for $9.99 on there, but then I cross-checked prices (and anyone who orders cards online SHOULD do this BTW) and found it cheaper for $5.99, which is too far of a gap for me to justify.
    So I added a Dissolve
pre-order for $0.99, exactly the same as everywhere else. And I added in 3 Bident of Thassa
for $1.50 each, also dead on for price. I also picked up two copies of Jarad's Orders
for $0.49 each for that deck.

   So in the checkout page, it's very simple and straightforward, AND the totem thing is explained better here. You have the ability to redeem your points for a one time shot, or you can save them to use later for a bigger discount. The promo system is easy to use and works instantly. You have the option to ship in a bubble envelope for $1 extra (I took this option) always be safe when shipping your cards! I like the fact that this option is presented.

   You can either pay with a Visa, Mastercard, or PayPal, which I like, because PayPal is so easy to use, and can be filled by people of any age, who may not want or have the ability to use a credit card. Good points for them in my opinion here. However, I did take the time to notice, that any dollar amount that is discounted with a promo code will not be applied to your total spent at the site towards your points, which makes sense.
   So now I will wait, and the rest of this article will be finished as soon as I receive the cards in the mail, as I cannot finish the rest of the review until I can comment on how fast the cards arrived. And it will be after the 27th that the pre-ordered cards will ship.

So far, my assessment of the site is as follows on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the best

8/10 - EASE OF USE:
For the most part I found the site very easy to use, and it flowed extremely well. I did notice that it is extremely hard to use the hover-over card feature on a cellphone to add cards. Hence I had to wait until I got to my house to use the site. Also the confusing thing with the points system from the Rewards page needs to be addressed.

SOLUTION: Having a manual feature below the card so you can add the cards to the cart and having the price featured there would be extremely helpful. Also adding a further explanation of the Rewards benefits I think would be great.

7/10 - PRICING :
A couple of the cards seemed a bit overpriced. The pre-release cards were dead-on what everywhere else was. Competitively, the pricing discount seems to even things out though. (Once again, it deems to be noted that this company is new on the scene, so their price margins can be expected to be a bit higher, due to not having as much stock and business flow as other sites and stores that have been established for longer.)

SOLUTION: Perhaps check out other sites and figure out who is offering cards at the lowest price, and match them a little closer. In the long term, I do not foresee this being an issue, because the longer they stay in business and the more customer base they build, the more even their prices will be. I would expect to see even prices along this whole new set, and better availability of product moving forward. 

6/10 - PRODUCT AVAILABILITY:
It should be noted that this site is very young, and more product will be available the longer they are around. However, I was extremely disappointed in the lack of cards that I wanted to buy being there from the RTR block. All the cards I wanted to pre-order from Theros were available, which was a plus. But the ability to get what I want when I want it is crucial to where I buy cards from. I don't mind having to spend a bit more, especially when I am getting rewards points for doing so, but I want a one stop shop. As long as Theros stays in stock, and has a high level of availability, I would raise my evaluation, but that remains to be seen moving forward.

SOLUTION: One thing I can see that will help this website resolve this issue, is giving users incentives for turning in their own cards for store credit. Plus it will help them with their inventory problem. And cards that they see as being really high in demand, or are on a WANTS list, they could offer just a touch more for them. Not, obviously, at market value, but say a card is worth $9, offer them $4 to turn it in, they still net a $5 profit, and get a card they need to inventory on the site. They could have a $10 minimum on the amount turned in or some such . . . I'm rambling, just an idea.

SHIPPING:  7/10 (Incomplete)

COST: Shipping seems a bit pricey, with the cheapest shipping being around $4. However, this company is located in Israel. So pretty much everything is international shipping for them. I feel that as their company grows, it will improve, and the cost of the shipping will go down.

SPEED: I recieved a notice on (9/29) that my cards had shipped. So 2 days after the release the cards were in the mail. That seems to be right on par if not a little earlier than I expected. I really wasn't expecting a shipping notice until Monday, the 30'th. They arrived in the country on 10/2, and arrived to me on 10/10 in good condition with the packaging intact and the cards safe. Due to the fact that this is internationally shipped I would say 10 total days isn't bad. .



   I will have more to come as soon as the cards arrive. Look forward to my full review and recommendation as soon as they get here! As always, thank you for reading and check back soon for more!

   So our package arrived on the 10'th, I checked with the website and they said it is not uncommon for things to get hung up in customs, so that was probably the reason for the delay. Either way, our cards arrived in the bubble envelope that we had the option to select in the shipping selections on the MTG Madness website for $1.

The Bubble Mailer

   So we opened up our package to find the cards bundled nicely in-between two top-loaders.

The Cards In-Between Top-Loaders

So we took the top-loaders apart, and they had them in two penny-sleeves to keep them safe.

The Cards In Penny Sleeves

And then we looked through the cards, and everything seems to have arrived safely and in order.

The Cards Arrived

   So in conclusion, we would definitely recommend this website as a place for you to give your business, as they are reliable, and do deliver what you order. My experience with the management was good, they responded to any questions I posed through e-mail within 24 hours and tried to be as patient and as courteous as possible.
    Even though they are a small company, they are trying to build their base and compete with some rather large established gaming companies. And while they do have room to grow, I do believe they will do so well, and fulfill a lot of the options that people are looking for in time.

    As always, thanks for reading, and we hope to see you soon!

Rant on Netdecks, just because.

   So Kevin on Roguedeckbuilder.com hit on a subject that is very near and dear to me, in the form of people who play Netdecks. But more specifically, how it seems that all the top decks in Standard are people who either play a variant of, or an exact copy of a Netdeck. There is just no originality. Nobody doing anything out of the norm or off the beaten path. It's seriously freakin annoying.
   And of course, you get excuses for why people do it too.

   "I'm no good at building my own decks."

   "I don't have the time do that much homework."

   "I'm just going to lose if I try to brew my own ideas."

You know what all that sounds like to me, you just don't want to put forth the effort to make something good on your own. And this is why every common and uncommon in a set never gets used. Or people say, "Oh, you know what would work better there, a (fill in rare that runs $30 a card)."

   I run G/W/B all the time, and the most common card I get recommended is Voice of Resurgence
and it is sure annoying. If I wanted to run Voice of Resurgence I would. I don't honestly see the card as being THAT good. Not to justify spending $50-$60 a card. I will find something like I like a LOT more than that to run. I even have stated on Tappedout before that I DON'T want to run VOR and people still try to convince me that a deck needs it.

Or like just recently, my new BWG Re-Animator deck, I just got comments that it will never see competative play because Scavenging Ooze
exists. Really? I would think that Rest in Peace
poses more of a threat than that! But both can be removed from the field with Abrupt Decay
without too much problem, and there are tons of other answers as well! The advice they gave was to make a more mid-rangey style deck that relied heavily on creatures and not so much on re-animator. IT'S A RE-ANIMATOR DECK!!!! If I can't do what I want with it, then why bother even trying? I mean, if your best advice is build a different deck, then save your opinions. That's not what I want. YOU build a different deck. I want to get mine to work or fail trying, but at least I'm not copying someone else's idea and winning like it's mine.

Okay, I'm done now. Just wanted to get that out of my system.

Theros Pre-Release 3-2-1

Well, as it was a midnight release and I had super long games, my ability to update was extremely limited. So from what I remember from round 3: My lifegain went off like crazy (I will post pictures and decklist later on today) in this match, with the Whip of Erebos playing a huge role. I went 1-2 against his blue white. The first game went 35 mins though and he came out on top after his Shipbreaker Kraken hit the field. The next two games went quickly though. Round 4: I played a R/G deck that I went 2-0 against. I had amazing hands and my Reaper of the Wilds and Grey Merchant of Asphodel played huge roles! There was so much synergy it was nasty. Round 5: This guy picked the Path of Ambition as well, and moved from W to a R splash, and played it well. I went 1-1-1 against this guy and it went to time with him at 3 life and me at 12. My opening hand two out of 3 games was just unreal though. I really could have used some trample here. Round 6: Played against a girl that had only been playing for around a month. She did well though and was playing R/G as well. I went 2-1 and only lost the second game due to horrible mana screw. The last game I had to mull down to 5 and then had all the right answers at the right times. I promise I will detail more later, but for right now, its time for the sleep. As always, thanks for reading and we'll see you soon

First Round Theros Pre-Release

Okay, so I picked black. The path of ambition. My rare for my seeded pack was Triad of the Fates, and my supporting color in my packs was by far green. I drew the Bow of Nylea and Reaper of the Wild with the Bow of Erebos in tow. Solid stuff to play with, lots of high mana cost tho. My first match I lost both games, against a guy playing a Minotaur Tribal deck. The first game I mana screwed big time and lost. Second game I played into my Reaper of the Wilds and completely misplayed 6th turn for the loss. We played a third game for fun and I was close, but misplayed a Nemesis of Mortals and lost again, but that game was much closer. My second match the guy dropped, so 2-0 by default. So at this point I am 1-1. Moving forward I am going to be playing much more carefully and hoping to have better matchups. (Live from Main Street Magic and Miniatures)

Welcome to Facebook Friends

I just created a Facebook page for MTG The Journey and just wanted to welcome anyone who ends up here from Facebook.

Here I try to give an honest opinion of the Magic The Gathering playing experience from just a normal everyday guy. I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I want to share my experiences and opinions as I learn more and grow in my skill with this game so that everyone else can reap the knowledge I might acquire.

I have a ton of fun doing this, and I hope we can learn a lot from each other on this journey through the game that is Magic The Gathering.

Theros Mono-Black Pre-Release

Okay MTG fans, I've decided not to go over the multi-colored cards or the artifacts. I want to just go ahead and jump straight into our limited build capability. I can without a doubt say that I am looking extremely forward to tomorrow night, and I can't wait to get my hands on some of these cards. I did run across some spoiler info earlier today, in case, ya know, you're interested. Of course you are, you wouldn't be here if you weren't. Anyhow, while they were up on YouTube very shortly, someone had their hands on some promotional WOTC materials, (I.E. - The Pre-Release Packs) at the request of WOTC they took them down. They won't be back for a few days at this point sadly. But it seems as though you will get the following in your seeded packs.

- 1 Promo Card in your color Choice

- 1 Rare or Mythic (apparently the only Mythic you have a chance at pulling is the god for that color)

- 3 Uncommons

- 11 Commons

Now you have to look at it like this, those cards are all going to be in your colors. From what I understand, the UC/R could be a dual colored card . . . don't quote me on that, but I believe I saw that info somewhere. To me, I don't really care for that. I mean, I guess it could help you build a decent dual colored deck, but I would rather have a card I know is solid in my colors, than have a good card that's one color off.

Anyhow, since I did skip the multi-colored cards, I do want to give a quick shout out to these cards:

The Temples are going to be useful. Okay, so Scry is going to be useful. In midrange. If you play aggro, probably not for you. I have to say tho, I like them, if nothing else for the reason that it makes a late game mana drop not so useless. Anyhow, to get back to the real point of this post.

So I'm going to mostly be looking at a black build for pre-release. I want to do mono-black, but that will really all depend on my draws. We know that Abhorrent Overlord
is going to be our Pre-Release Promo in Black. So knowing that, let's look at some synergies we can expect to find in Black first of all. Now we know right off the bat that this guy needs devotion to his color. So we are going to want to try for creatures that have a means of evasion (I.E. - Regenerate, Flying, Protection, Hexproof) and there aren't likely to be many of those.






So we know this guy can protect himself as early as turn 3 if we are playing mono-colored. In a dual colored build, depending on if we run ramp or not, it could be a turn 2 regen.


And he is a common, so our chances of seeing him are pretty decent. Especially since our seeded pack contains 11 commons.













Now this guy has flying, which syncs up well with the Abhorrent Overlord. And when he enters the field he hits them for 1 life. Could be as early as a turn 3 drop with Flying. We will be looking for this.















Okay, so this guy is an Uncommon, one that we can pray to see in our seeded pack, as he packs a punch. Especially with Abhorrent Overlord. His dual-black casting cost is really going to help us out with devotion.

Plus he has Flying and Lifelink!! Gaining life by turn 4 in a mono-black deck would be excellent.












So although this isn't true evasion, he is a Defender. And if we happen to splash Blue he can attack as well. And a 3/3 Defender for 2 is never going to be a bad deal.









So those are our black cards with the ability to really take care of themselves. Not bad really. If I pulled all those in my starter pack I would be exceptionally happy. There is tons of potential there. That's a 1 drop, 2 drop, 3 drop, and 4 drop all with some type of evasion. And that's already 5 devotion on the field by turn 4-5, and in this slow format, that's going to be HUGE. By turn 7 if we hit all our mana-drops, that would be a total of 7 Harpy tokens that are in the air. And a 6/6 Flyer that's bringing 7 Flyers with him, you are looking at swinging 17 damage in the air by turn 8. That's good.






Now this guy is just going to be stupid good in limited, and I think he will see a lot of Standard Constructed as well. I mean, he hits the field before the Abhorrent Overlord can. And let's just say we hit him on turn 6 with our drops being off. You have a couple of the other creatures we've already mentioned on the field. He is going to hit the field and do 5 damage right away, and you are going to net 5 life. And his 4 defense is going to play a big role.

I like this guy in limited too. Once again, he isn't hitting until turn 4, and he gives himself 2 devotion right away. So if you have even 2 more devotion on the field, by turn 4 your opponent shouldn't have more than 5 cards in their hand. So you are going to hopefully see their whole hand and choose the best one for them to discard. That could be key in winning matches.













Now this has some potential. He's a 3/3 for 4 with the ability to pump himself early game, late game he gives another creature 3/3 and gives them the ability to pump themselves if you are holding small creatures that won't really be relevant late game. That's a pretty good shift and would change games.







There are some other decent cards in black, but let's look at some of the support cards we might see. Your deck is nothing without your instants/sorceries to back it up. And we are going to rely on those pretty heavily in this set.







So you get the ability to pump your guy with 2 more power and regen it. Great for a blocking creature defending something slightly bigger than himself. Instead of dying he will take their guy out and stick on the field. Sure, you lose 2 life, but with some of the LG that might not be a huge issue for you.













Hey, remember we just said that that 2 life being lost might not be a big loss. Well, here you go. Boost up to 2 creatures, and they get that life back for you. Sounds like a good plan to me. A little pricey, but in limited it will be worth it.














"Dangit, I really didn't want to trade those guys, but I had to because otherwise he's dealing too much damage to me this turn." Okay, well next turn you can just bring them right back. A dynamite common for limited. Game changer by card advantage.













Not too bad, you are pumping as long as it's attacking. And then hits them for two cards in a couple of turns. Not my favorite of the cards we have, but still, it gives you a devotion point and is doing some nice stuff for us in the form of some card advantage later on. I would probably stick this on a flyer to maximize it's potential.














I can see this being a good early game card in mono-black, take out their guy, gain 2 life. Not bad at all. That's a momentum shift that leaves you open to swing away.















Limited gold. I can't say enough about how valuable the Scry is going to be on this card. Just amazing.
















Pump and draw, never a bad combo, plus it nets you more devotion. I am liking the flavor as well.
















This is going to be good sideboard. Potential for shutting down someone's awesome ability.









So why aren't you covering any of the bomb Rares like Thoughtseize
or Agent of the Fates
? Well our chances of hitting those in 5 packs and a Seeded Pack are pretty slim, so I don't really want to count on them. There are tons of multi-colored matchups that we could go over. But I don't really have the time to go over a lot tonight, so this is about it for me. I want to play mono-black, and hopefully this will help some people when building.
As always, thanks for reading. And look tomorrow night or Saturday morning to check out how my matches went and what my build ended up being for the pre-release.