Mono-Black Preesh?

 Hey guys, Its Now I'm going to have to apologize because I've been out all day and just got back from a modern tourney, so the quality in this post may be a little lacking. I didn't do so hot so I'm not gonna talk much about it. Although Ryan did and he made a cool $50 off it so I'm sure he will fill you in tomorrow. Anyway, I got a request for a decent, relatively cheap mono-black deck so here it is. These are just a few I found online and these are really not the best I've seen. Now if you have the money a sword of war and peace or Feast and famine all fit VERY nicely in here. Now some other cards that go well in mono-black are Tribute to hunger as well as Phrexian Obliterator  which I can't believe are not in here. Now all of these are still expensive but they are magnificent additions to a deck!

4 Gravecrawler
2 Fume Spitter
3 Skirge Vault
2 Diregraf Ghoul
2 Cemetery Reaper
4 Geralf's Messenger
1 Skinrender

4 Tragic Slip
2 Mortarpod
4 Geth's Verdict
2 Doom Blade
4 Distress
2 Altar's Reap
3 Lashwrithe
21 Swamp

 VS.
4 Gravecrawler
2 Fume Spitter
4 Diregraf Ghoul
3 Cemetery Reaper
4 Geralf's Messenger
1 Skinrender

4 Tragic Slip
2 Mortarpod
4 Geth's Verdict
2 Doom Blade
4 Distress
2 Altar's Reap
3 Lashwrithe
21 Swamp
Thanks for reading, and sorry for the lack of quality, but I have had a long/tiring day and I'm going to bed. But I will make it up to you guys. Expect some good reads tomorrow from Ryan and hopefully Drew Monday. Best of luck to all of you and your adventures.

Delver is not the new Jace/Stoneforge #2 (by: Ryan Clark)

Hey guys, It's Ryan.  I was going to wait until Sunday to post an article talking about the change of seasons (magic seasons not weather), but with all the talk on twitter and by other people I know saying Delver of Secrets should be banned, I thought I should clarify on some things.

                                                                                                        THE NUMBERS

This is where most of the controversy begins. Five of the top eight decks at last week’s GP Salt Lake City played four copies of the card. Seems high, but obviously there are other decks that made it so it’s not that bad. Plus, if you watched the coverage all weekend, you would notice that a lot of other decks were played such as BU control, humans of all colors, RG Ramp, RG agro (which most delver players would say is their worst match-up) and many other decks.  Right now, if you even wanted to play mono red, you would still have a playable deck that wouldn’t get destroyed.  However, some people have started to make the comparison to the CawBlade deck of the past year… Really guys? Do you not remember how bad CawBlade was, and how delver looks so tiny in comparison? Remember GP Dallas last year, and all 32 copies of Jace TMS in the top eight? Yeah, everyone who made top eight had four in the main deck… Or GP Singapore that had seven of the top eight decks playing Stoneforge Mystic... Doesn’t that sound fun playing against the same cards every round?

Brewing is possible

       Here’s a little story for you.  As new phyrexia came out, one card in particular caught my eye.  Phyrexian Obliterator. Sure it was BBBB for the mana cost but I felt like there were enough cards in black to almost make mono black and then splash with the dual lands for blue. However, after a few games of testing, I realized why Cawblade is so good.  Turn two, I played Stoneforge and got the sword of feast and famine (protection from my deck basically). Turn three, Hawk and go find the rest. Turn four, Jace and fait seal so I never find my obliterators or if you’re lucky you play your obliterator turn 4 after he taps out to play Jace. And then they -1 Jace to return him to your hand so they can mana leak it this time. This situation doesn’t just apply to Pyrexian Obliterator. Any bomb in standard had to meet the “Jace test”. How does it handle Jace? Would I rather play it over Jace? When the answer to the first question was “badly” and to the second one more often then not,“no”, they would go back to the tried and true method of just playing them and trying to out-play everyone else in the 30 mirror match-ups you would have against it.  In the current standard, we haven’t seen a ton of Delver until this past weekend, since Conley won GP Orlando with his GBR ramp deck. Saying one card is hurting the game after a strong performance for one week after 2 ½ months of being on the back burner is, at least, a jump to conclusions.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

       Wizards of the Coast have even come straight out and said the reason they banned Jace and Stoneforge was because people weren’t having fun, and were playing less magic as a side effect.  With each of the new sets, that doesn’t seem to be the case right now. I don’t know about you, but I’m having the most fun ever playing magic (saying most of my magic career until now was during Cawblade). There are so many angles of decks to make, and ways to draft that even the pros make dramatic changes on what they play from week to week. If you’re the kind of person who wants to make rouge decks, you’re fine, you want to play delver, you’re fine, if you want to play control, you’re fine, and even the mono red player has a spot in this meta game.  So please stop trying to get cards banned in standard as quickly as possible. The banning of Jace and Stoneforge was needed, but should not be repeated for every good card that leads the pack in standard. Until next time this is Ryan, and may you never get mana screwed.

MTGO- RedVelvet

Cockatrice- RedVelvet

Twitter- @RedVelvetMTG

Puzzle Thursday #1

Hey everybody it's Cal and welcome back to MtG General! So I think I'm gonna do a Puzzle Thursday  starting this week. So tell me what you guys think. Here is your scenario.
  Your opponent Cubemaster Bill has been beating you down with Sword of War and Peace (i.e. Sword with protection from your deck) for most of the game. You were doing a fair job of keeping up with the damage, but a Plow Under really set you back.  You considered casting an upkeep Magma Jet to scry away the lands, but then you realized that the Mountain on top is exactly what you need to win the game this turn.

After drawing your Mountain, the board looks like this. It is currently the beginning of your first main phase.
You CAN win this turn. How would you guys do this? I'll comment on this in a day or so with the correct answer.
 Follow/Comment and tell me if there's anything you want me or the other writers to write about! Best of luck on you and your adventures.
<3 Cal.

Future Sight

 Hey guys its Drew. Today i will be talking about the role prediction and other skills play in magic games and how helpful they can be. Knowing what deck your opponent is playing before you play them is a huge advantage. When you play different decks you have to change your strategy to work around and beat their ploys. right when the game starts look to see what land they play. In standard you can begin to formulate what your opponent is playing when they play their first land. If they play a island their deck can range anything from delver, spirits, esper and solarflare. The color of the mana gives insight into what strategy your opponent will be playing based on the behavior traits of the color. If your opponent plays a forest it is easier to decipher what they are playing much faster than with a island. The only green decks in the meta game are G/R ramp, and mono green aggro. these green decks will often always have a 1 drop on the first turn instantly revealing what they are playing. A darkslick shores suggests the deck is either control or aggro or perhaps a mix. When you see darkslick shores expect either zombies, esper, U/B control, or delver spirits.
    Think logically. You can often predict what your opponent will play on a certain turn based on how much mana they have. By predicting this you can save your removal spells to take care of the threat right away. If I am playing against a green deck then i can expect a solemn simulacrum or Thrun the last troll on turn 3 or 4 depending on their ramp speed. By saving your answers for cards that you anticipate you will be one turn ahead of your enemy. This strategy is used by professional chess players to work around and defeat their opponent's plans. Prediction is a skill that takes time to learn and master as well as a lot of practicing and reading up on what the current decks played in the metagame are.
   Think slowly. By slowing down and taking every factor into consideration you will be much more unlikely to make a play mistake. Speeding through your turn and making hasty decisions can and will cost you the game even if you draw good cards. A good player will be able to use a mediocre hand with skill by taking time and thinking slowly and logically. Always think before you cast a spell, how much mana does my opponent have untapped? How many cards do they have in their hand? what kind of deck are they playing? think through everything before you play your card.
Throughout the game think about the following; how am I trying to win the game right now? what am I doing to accomplish this goal? What is my opponent doing to try to win the game? what are they doing to accomplish this goal? How am I preventing them from winning? By thinking this over constantly you will realize a potential combo your opponent may have and it won't catch you off guard.
  Practicing these skills WILL make you a better player over time. Take your time on your turn it isn't a race and when you go too fast that's when the big mistakes that will cost you the game are made. Until next time, Happy casting, Drew.

Draft #1

Hey guys it's  Welcome to draft Tuesday! This being our first week I'm just gonna post a pack and talk a little about how it would work in a sealed deck environment. Hopefully soon we might be able to do our draft Tuesdays on Cockatrice or something and get an actual draft with people. Anyways, here is the pack!

Now looking at this pack there is one MAJOR player here, and that is of course Hellrider. Although I have yet to see him be played in sealed I can definitely see relevance in him.  He is definitely a deadly 4 drop in a draft. I would almost be inclined to build my whole deck off of him if this was my first pack. But lets say you got all your bombs, or Hellrider just doesn't fit in what you have so far. Well if you really can't squeeze in Hellrider from this pack there really aren't any other solid options. Hinterland Hermit and Pyreheart wolf are some good fillers. Falkenrath Torturer are also pretty decent in sealed. Anyway, this pack (other than Hellrider) really is not all that unfortunately.   Well That's all I can write today sadly, but I hope to see you guys again soon! Remember to follow if you enjoy this blog and also comment and tell me if you guys would be interested in a draft on Cockatrice. Best of luck to all you guys and your adventures. See you soon.

Angels and Praetors

Hey guys! my name is Drew Cordell, I will be blogging on Magic The Gathering General with Cal and Ryan. I have been playing for just over a year and have learned a great deal of information from reading pro player articles and they have really helped me improve as a player. I play on cockatrice often, my user name is Emperion, so feel free to add me on there.  Anyways lets get started with my topic of the day; Avacyn, Angel Of Hope. Avacyn at first sight looked like a very overpowered card that was quite possibly broken. seeing as the set is named after her,  I had to force my self to slow down and go over every word of text on the card to properly evaluate the card  without jumping to hasty conclusions.

Okay so lets go over the key components of the card, we have a 8 drop with 3w in the cost. She is a 8/8 with flying and vigilance and makes all of your creatures indestructible. At first glance she looked like a very solid and playable card, however  with the current state of standard there are many answers to this card once it resolves such as vapor snag, oblivion ring, Geth's verdict, tribute to hunger, Liliana of the veil etc... Once Avacyn hits the battlefield she does not provide any ridiculous benefit right when she resolves and could result in a wasted turn. However if paired with swift foot boots this card could be very powerful if you manage to get the combo. the 8/8 flying vigilance puts your opponent on a fast ticking clock to death but in the end Elesh norn grand cenobite is the superior version of this card.

at a cheaper mana cost Elesh Norn the clear choice to play at 7 mana with 2w in the cost Elesh Norn is easier to cast in a 2 or three color deck, whereas the 3w in Avacyn's cost inhibits your ability to play her in multi-color decks . Elesh norn's static ability "creatures your opponents control get -2/-2." becomes active the second Elesh norn resolves resulting either in a massive board clear, or rendering your opponent's creatures into petty obstacles in your wake of destruction. Even if your Norn gets hit by a kill spell when she resolves you have still destroyed your opponents tokens and small creatures. At a smaller mana cost with more benefits, Elesh norn gets the slot in the deck over Avacyn. At $30 USD Elesh norn is quite pricey but can save you numerous times in a difficult situation. She is a very solid investment to make because the standard metagame is more or less focused on tokens at the moment.
 I predict that Avacyn, Angel Of Hope will cost around $4-10 which could be a good replacement for budget players if you aren't looking to spend a lot  of money on a couple copies of Elesh Norn. When Elesh norn cycles out of standard Avacyn might be the replacement depending on what appears in the m13 core set. In modern Avacyn has no place. Iona shield of emeria is much more powerful due to being able to completely stop your opponent from casting spells of a chosen color. With Avacyn Restored being the largest set in the block it looks promising for housing lots of new playable cards as well as changing the metagame.
           
   Thanks for reading and feel free to comment and share your opinions Happy casting everyone! Until next time, Drew.

A New Start #1

Hello and welcome to my first article on the Magic General. First of all my name is Ryan Clark and go by RedVelvet on MTGO and Cockatrice (for playing legacy and vintage because we all know what it’s like to get old cards on MTGO). Im also on Twitter @RedVelvetMTG. I’m always open for new people who enjoy magic so don’t be afraid to message me and follow me on twitter.  With that said Ive only been playing magic for a year now but have quickly moved up to where I regularly attend local PTQ’s (with spurts of success) and now hope to reach the next level and actually make a Pro Tour.  One of the main goals of me writing for this blog is to help improve my game.  I’ve been a regular reader of many pro players online articles, many of which said one of the things that helps their game the most is writing about it because it forces you to collect honest data and not be bias in your decisions. I hope for people reading this will learn from the stories and ideas I’ve accumulated over the past year and will continue to advance on.  Anyways now that you have a small sliver of info on me  I will just finish this article talking about the FNM I went to last week with Cal. In his post before Friday he was right that I was going to play tempered steel, however with a few pesky scars commons missing and realization of our local metagame I talked myself out of it.  I ended up playing a friend’s Esper “planeswalkers” deck because he couldn’t go and I wanted to try something different… (not that different). I have the “”s around planeswalkers because that’s what he called it even though it only had 1 Karn 1 Giddeon 1 Elspeth and 1 Lilliana…. Let’s just say my opponents were right to think they were playing against esper control and not planeswalkers. When I looked through it I noticed one other problem… 1 copy of lingering souls. I had some of his other cards with me he wanted to trade which included 7 lingering souls so I know it wasn’t card availability so I called him up to see if he just messed up the conversation went a little like this….

Him: “hello”

Me: “You’re an idiot”

Him: “what?”

Me: “how many copies of lingering souls are in your deck?”

Him: “just 1 it’s not THAT good”

Me: insta hang up.

It might sound like we are fighting here but we are just best of friends and give each other as much grief as possible at the others expense.  Needless to say after our conversation I fixed the souls problem but didn’t have enough time to really work on the whole deck so I don’t think its really worth showing the list. Just know there were 4 planes walkers and two Elesh Norns and the rest pretty normal for either espercontrol or planeswalkers…. Without the counter spells…. Oh wait I lied… he had TWO mana leaks and that’s it…. Didn’t really see them till my opponent’s would have enough mana to pay for it. Anyways I ended up only going 1-3 even though I force game 3s in all rounds I lost (going 2-0 in the win) wasn’t really blown out except for when my opponent played. Phyrexian Obltterator pass. Play Falkenrath Aristocrat swing for 9. Play another swing for 13… sick. Anyways better luck next week.  Remember to follow me on twitter @RedVelvetMTG and check back next week for a new (in more detail) article yet to be decided on. Untill next time this is Ryan, may you never get mana screwed.