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.

Theros Full Spoiler Breakdown - Red and Green

Ok I will quit procrastinating. I got sidetracked today by putting together my newest brew, which you can find in the post before this one. But I'm getting there with getting these last colors out there and my opinions on them. So let's dig right in and start with the Red Mythics and Rares.




First up we have the God of the Forge. This is said to be the best card in the set, and you can see why. EVERY time a creature enters the field under your control, you get to deal 2 damage to the face of your opponent. Not to spoil the fun for this card, but this matches up so perfectly with Akroan Crusader
it's scary. That and Young Pyromancer
will be a good matchup for the RDW decks out there. You can cast a Dynacharge
on all your Heroic dudes, and you are gaining 2 tokens, both of which trigger this God, dealing 4 to your opponent's face at a minimum. I would say that kicks major butt. RDW is going to be hard to deal with when this combo gets going. Another one that matches up well with this is Ogre Battledriver
,which in turn gives those tokens you just created Haste and a handy +2/+0 to swing in with. Just ridiculous. But on to something else.




Our other Red Mythic, pro White, which is nasty in its own rights. So for 5, you get a 4/4 with Flying and Haste. Then for 7, it becomes a 7/7 flyer that could deal some nasty damage. You'd better hope that you don't have a full hand when that Monstrosity trigger goes off. That could indeed be a game ender.

To deal with this, you almost need a counter or an instant removal card. Yuck. Another winner for those RDW decks, and one I hope I don't come up against.










I hate it. But not because it's bad. Because it's good. Say goodbye to your little tokens, say goodbye to your weenies, say goodbye to anything that doesn't have regenerate. In my colors, I would hope I had a Golgari Charm
laying around to regen everything I had out. If not, this could really put a hurting on your deck.

I see this getting used and abused a bunch.



















Sacrifice 3 lands? I'm not so sure I understand the motive behind that. I mean, if you win the roll and go first, I guess you could play this, have a Satyr Hedonist
out there, and then turn 5 blast out the Monstrosity ability and hit the opponent hard and have your 7/8 Swallower on the field to wreak havoc with them and you at 1-2 mana each, which doesn't leave them much room to recover. But still, that seems like a not-so-smart way to go to me. But hey, those aren't my colors, so I'm not so sure I'm the one to talk to on this one.

Sooo . . . I am lost. Next card.


















What is the deal with sacking lands??? Why would you want to do that? WHY!!

I get the creatures you control have Haste, I really do. But WHY would you sack your own land?? Isn't that hurting you in the long run? How many times can you sack your own land to create a token before you have no more land??














Okay, this one makes sense. When targeted by a spell, deal 2 damage to something, even straight at your opponent. In combo with some of the aforementioned cards, this fits very well into the Heroic strategy.

I don't however, get how this made Rare over the best common in Theros. Akroan Crusader.

















The Minotaur Tribal leader. Gives all your horned bullheaded guys a boost. And Trample. Word. I like Minotaurs. I see a tribal deck happening around this guy.



















So a Giant who has a place in a Human deck? If only it was a Human Giant and not just a Giant I could see this Titan being a tribal leader himself. Still, with some Human Soldier tokens out there, 1 to the face could be pretty nasty.













Well, that's it for Red. Overall, some good stuff in there. But extremely underwhelming in my opinion. They got their bomb Mythics, and a couple good Rares in there. I for one am happy with that. Red has dominated MTG for quite a while now. It's about time they limited the power a bit. Time for them to play a little slower and not be able to win turn 4. Which in my humble opinion is what I think WOTC is going for. A more mid-range meta game. And with all the LG out there right now, even with the bombs Red is going to have to work HARD to get early game wins.

On to the Green cards!!







Well, she gives creatures Trample. Not herself, but all your other guys. And the +2/+2 for 4. Not all that exiting.

I guess the 6/6 for 4 isn't bad, and Green isn't one that's hard to get the devotion in. I dunno, I'm just not overly impressed. And watch, I'll have 3 of her the first week of the Theros release.











I'm honestly not sure what to think of this Hydra. I mean the flavor and intent are freakin cool. I'm just not so sure of it's Monstrosity ability. Probably one of the most strangely worded abilities they could come up with.

I mean, here's the deal. I'd play him just because he is aggressive as hell. A 5/5 for 4, yep, that's good. And then if you need a mana dump or need to get rid of some tokens in a hurry. He's got your back with a low mana cost Monstrosity. You can rid yourself of some pesky tokens and swing for some nasty damage. All in all, good deal. I wouldn't be disappointed to pull this.










She's good in her own rights. I actually would have picked Green if not for her being the Seeded Rare you are guaranteed in your intro pack. I'm just not a fan of the lands becoming creatures and becoming subject to removal mid-game for a turn. Not for me.

I'm not sure how this will be used, but I kind of hope to see someone try to use it.












Another 5 CMC 6/6. And next turn if you hit that mana drop you can make him a 9/9. Okay, I can see that. BUT I don't like the conditionality (I may have just made that word up) of this card. It's Monstrous ability is to destroy a creature with Flying?

Seems to me that this will be someone's sideboard card of choice against a mid-game flyer.

YES!!!! I love it, love it, love it. Power in the Forest ladies and gents. A 4/2 for 3!! And it can be FLASHED for a pump of 4/2 to another guy. Oh man, it doesn't get much better than that folks.

This little mean Satyr is going to be used to death.















It's good. Oh yes, its good. Deathtouch bestower of goodness. I want it for my deck, I just don't have a slot figured out right now. It just has SO many uses. I could go on and on.

I will say that I see this getting used in a top 8 deck.













Non-counterable mana dump. Pro blue. Someone doesn't like control decks. He is the Anti-Control creature and is going to see constructed so much his many heads are going to spin.

I like it, and he goes in swinging with that Haste as well. This is a good investment.
















Okay, so you just don't cast him until you have 3 creatures on the field, or a Bow, or whatever. He's got some potential to be nasty.

I can get behind it. I see it being useful. Won't make constructed, but it's decent limited.























Probably my favorite Green card in a long time. Mana-fixing that can't be burned and destroyed easily. And you can defend with it.

I plan on using it. A lot.










And that's all for Green folks.  I covered all 5. Tomorrow is the multi-colored stuff and there are some doozies in there.

As always. Thanks a bunch for reading. And look forward to your opinions!

Theros Re-Animator Deck

So just taking a break for a few from the previews, I have taken some time and done a bit of research into what Whip of Erebos is capable of in New Standard. I am pleasantly suprised to see that I can stay pretty much where I want to stay with my colors and just annihilate with some re-animation. To give credit where credit is due, I first saw this on Roguedeckbuilder and liked it as a kickoff platform.

 Here is my Rough draft so far:

Creatures: (23)        

2x Angel of Serenity

2x Armada Wurm

1x Ashen Rider

4x Elvish Mystic

1x Giant Adephage

2x Lord of the Void

3x Lotleth Troll

2x Obzedat, Ghost Council

4x Sylvan Caryatid

2x Trostani, Selesnya's Voice


Sorcery: (4)

4x Commune with the Gods


Instant: (8)

2x Abrupt Decay

3x Grisly Salvage

3x Rescue from the Underworld


Enchantment

4x Whip of Erebos


Land (22)

3x Forest

4x Overgrown Tomb

3x Plains

4x Swamp

4x Temple Garden

4x Temple of Silence


Now to kind of give a rundown of some things I am looking at here in this build. This brew has the potential to get nasty real fast. It does of course have it's drawbacks, one of the main ones being the enchantment removal, so I need to have an answer for that. And it might not be as difficult to achieve as we might think.

So let's walk through this step by step here on what I hope to accomplish.

Now the base of the deck is to use the Whip of Erebos
to re-animate cards in the graveyard without paying the high mana costs associated with them. Early in the game you want to use your ramp with your Elvish Mystics
and use your Sylvan Caryatids
to ramp into the colors that you need, as well as be untargetable blockers. I think these are going to end up being early game targets for Pacifism
or Arrest
to stop me from mana fixing. Thankfully I have a good sideboard card in Golgari Charm
to deal with those pesky things.

Now once we get into the ramp, we want to start playing Grisly Salvage
and Commune with the Gods
as fast as possible to try to get to a Lotleth Troll
on the field as soon as we can. I mean, the hope is to draw into one in the opening hand, but we have to realize that isn't going to happen reliably. The reason we want him early on, is to discard away any of the big boys we might draw into so that when a Whip of Erebos
we have targets for it immediately. The other card we want to see early on is Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
because with the Whip on the field, all our creature get the awesome Lifegain ability. And when we re-animate anything, or cast an Obzedat, Ghost Council
we get just ridiculous amount of life coming back to as as we go in swinging. This will help with things like Purphoros, God of the Forge
and his ability to deal damage with creatures entering the battlefield from their side. Now it would be fun to have that guy exiled with Lord of the Void
and have him join our side for some shinanigans. But I mean, hey, we can dream right.

The main combo we want to see go off is to have an Angel of Serenity

sitting in our graveyard with a Armada Wurm
and a Giant Adephage
and something else. You target the Angel with the Whip, bring it out swinging and then it leaves and you bring those nasty buggers out just wreaking havoc and gaining life like crazy. So much damage so fast. And the other resource we have is Rescue from the Underworld
to take out something like an Armada Wurm
which leaves it's token behind, and then you get another one when it re-enters the field and brings a friend with it like Lord of the Void
who in turn is going to mill them 7, and he steals a friend from them to fight for you as well. There are some pretty nice combos that can turn up in here.

Now of course, there are going to be the hard matchups. And I am going to look at building an ironclad sideboard for this. I can see things like Putrefy
coming in very handy against, say a Young Pyromancer
who can wreak a considerable amount of damage if left unchecked.

If I was a rich man, Voice of Resurgence
would be an EXCELLENT card for this deck, but alas, I can't afford one of those right now, let alone the 2 of I would need to make it worth it in this deck. But I do concede, it does have a place here for those of you who may have it.

Well for now I am done with my explanation, have fun with the idea and do with it what you will. I'm pretty sure this is the build I am going to invest it right out of the gate. There will be more to follow with what I run into. As always, thanks for reading and I value any opinions you might have to add!