Magic: The Gathering – Page 10

Virign Pie – M10 Edition – Rares

M10 Rare Ah, that little gold symbol. You get one, maybe if you’re lucky a foil one as well, in each pack. They can be the best of times, they can be the worst. That one card can determine what colors you play in draft. You may open 10 of a certain one and can’t pull any of the one you really want.

Rares are interesting: they’re the cards that you want the most yet get the least, hence representing that they’re rare. In terms of price range in the second market they can range from 50 cents to 20 bucks for a new rare opening out of the pack.

But which ones were right for the color? Again, these are new rares printed this is core set. If you haven’t been paying attention the past few posts, well then I can’t save you. You can check them out below.

Black

Sanguine Blood – 3BB
Enchantment
Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life.

This would’ve even made a great White/Black Gold card, but it is perfect in Black. Thanks to some lifelink creatures as well as some black drain life spells, you do a vampire effect: you gain stronger while your opponent gets weaker. This is an interesting twist on the lifelink concept but it gets you more bang for you buck if you do that way. Example: one of my EDH decks has Sygg, River Cuttthroat as my general, with Subversion and Sanguine Blood. I tend to draw cards while gaining like and making my opponent’s lose it; very very black.

Also Ran –
Cemetery Reaper for being a great way to “zombify” your opponent’s creatures and making your Thriller army. Continue reading “Virign Pie – M10 Edition – Rares”

Virgin Pie – M10 Edition – Uncommons

M10 Uncommon Yesterday was commons and today we go up in the rarity scale to uncommons (as seen by the title). There are some interesting choices here in silver land as I believe one of the best cards in the set will be shown here today. One color was completely hard to choose since there was so many new good choices. I really like what Wizards did here in this Core Set identifying the colors, much better than previous Core Sets.

Remember, these cards are one that haven’t been printed before since this is the first Core Set with new printed cards. I’m also not looking at functional reprints (bye bye Act of Treason) nor cards that changed rarity (welcome back Serra Angel). As the name suggests, this is “virgin” pie, something I’m sure that most gamers are familiar with (Ugly stereotype, I know it is but the jokes write themselves).

Black

Rise from the Grave – 4B
Sorcery
Put target creature card in a graveyard into the battlefield under your control. That creature is a black Zombie in addition to its other colors and types.

While it does cost more than Zombify, I believe it’s a better one. If you brushed over the card due to it’s casting cost, please note that it does say “in a graveyard.” As we learned in Fight Club it’s company policy never to imply ownership…, it’s always a, not your. As a Black mage you should be able to take control of your opponent’s graveyard. Also, the fact that it now turns the creature into zombie (which would’ve made more sense on Zombify) is perfect flavor for Black.

Also Ran –
Howling Banshee for paying life for a good flying creature (bonus that it hurts your opponents as well). Continue reading “Virgin Pie – M10 Edition – Uncommons”

Virgin Pie – M10 Edition – Commons

M10 - Common By now M10 has been released and hopefully you’ve been playing with it for a few weeks now. This will be a different type of set review as I won’t look at cards that you should be playing, but cards that should be printed due to the Color Pie. Sometimes they’ll be a little over-costed or not powerful enough to see serious play, but they’re great examples of what the colors should be.

As you know by now, Wizards printed new cards in a Core Set since Alpha. This, by very definition, are virgin cards. I am not going to look at functional reprints of cards (Runeclaw Bears, Essence Scatter) nor am I looking at Mythics (every color got at least 1 new Mythic card and we may save it for next year).

Today we look at the commons from M10. There are some very good first timers here as Wizards wanted to get back to more of a fantasy route. I believe they hit it out of the park. Without further ado, let’s look at the cards.

Black

Black is the color for getting whatever it wants for a price. As various cards in the past have shown, Black is always comfortable with paying life to draw cards. While I was campaigning to have Night’s Whisper in a Core Set, this is not good if not better in various situations. Not only can you draw a card, but you have a teammate draw or even an opponent if you want them to lose life or deck themselves. I am really surprised this card is common, but it is really that good and fits black perfectly.

Also Ran –
Soul Bleed for making a creature deal damage to its controller (very Black), and Child of Night for getting the Vampire flavor just right (sucking someone’s life blood and taking it as your own). Continue reading “Virgin Pie – M10 Edition – Commons”

Monthy Mailbag – Magic 2010 Edition

What has become a tradition around here is introducing new columns (including after breaks of time where I’m busy making money working for the man). I get messages and e-mails from readers wanting advice on creating cards or why Wizards did certain things in their sets. Well, my mailbag was full of questions about Magic 2010, the new Core set coming out later this month and I wanted to share with you some of those e-mails today. Let’s just dive right in and see what we pull up. Note: these deal with the spoiled cards found on a certain site. I won’t names site, but you should know where it is.

What a minute, they’re bringing back Lightning Bolt and Duress, but not Counterspell? What gives? Counterspell is way less powerful than either of these two cards. Wizards is giving every other color but Blue cheap, powerful spells like Silence in White. Why can’t I get my Counterspell back?

Yeah, because Blue hasn’t been powerful at all; it’s always gotten the shaft when it comes to card selection. The reason why there isn’t Couterspell in Magic 2010 (note, you do get Cancel and other counterspells, just not the card Counterspell) is the fact is the card is too powerful. There’s a huge difference between Coutnerspell and Duress.

If I was going to play Cryptic Command and you play Counterspell, I had to spend 4 mana while you had to spend 2. You have used up half as much mana preventing my spell as I did playing it, which is why so many people like to counter spells. I you play Duress and discard my Cryptic Command, I didn’t use up any mana and you used up one. You still got the same effect (nullifying the spell and putting it in the graveyard) but both are different means for different colors. (I won’t go into the full math of card values in the hand while in play; this is just the basic logic of it).

Plus, Counterspell can stop any non-land card, Duress can only hit non-land/non-creatures and Lightning Bolt can only hit creatures/players. This is a huge difference. At only costing two mana, Counterspell gives you enough leeway early on to stop their spell and play something else if you wanted to, making it really efficient. Cancel, at three mana, is enough to where it’s good, but not too good and is more acceptable as a hard counter. Don’t worry, Blue will still have other toys to play with. Continue reading “Monthy Mailbag – Magic 2010 Edition”

If Alara Reborn Art Were Movie Posters

Summer movie season starts next week with Wolverine, and that’s when Alara Reborn releases. I decided to celebrate my two favorite loves (after my wife): Magic and Movies. Let’s do some Mash-Ups and see what would happen if some art from Alara Reborn were movie posters:

Every Summer seems to have a Horror Film, and this one looks awesome as if Dead Rising, Alara and George A Romero mixed all in one. With Romero directing you know there’s some underhanded political message. It doesn’t matter, it would look awesome.

movie-poster-zombies-reborn

Continue reading “If Alara Reborn Art Were Movie Posters”