Ah, ok... Let's explain two basic concepts: "curving out" and "card power."

Curving out simply means you use your mana efficiently. For example, Turn 1 Copper Carapace, Turn 2 Blighted Agent, Turn 3 Equip Carapace, Swing, Turn 4, Piston Sledge, Mutagenic Growth, swing. The reason this is so powerful is because you used your mana efficiently all four turns. This is a nuts draw, one of the best things you can possibly get. In general, in this format, you want to stick to the 3-5 slots, in my opinion. That means that you don't need to worry so much about dropping something on turns 1 or 2, as long as you can go, Turn 3 Creature, Turn 4 Creature, Turn 5 Creature.

Here's what I mean. Say you play Turn 3 Moriok Reaver. That's one of the strongest(albeit vanilla) 3 drop creatures in the format. Then you follow up with Turn 4 Ogre Resister and Turn 5 Molder Beast. If your opponent missteps on his creatures during these turns, or if you have removal, you're going to be beating for 3/7/12 damage on subsequent turns. You control this by having a deck that has mostly 3 drops, 4 drops, and 5 drops.



Let's discuss card power for a second.

No matter how much you play Magic, card power is a concept that's essential to learn. basically, it's how many cards you have access to. You start with 7, and if you go first, your opponent starts with 8, one more than you, in exchange for going second. Let's say that he plays Carapace Forger on turn 2, and you immediately Galvanic Blast it. Did you gain anything? You basically traded your sweet removal spell for his mediocre creature that was nowhere near pumping itself with metalcraft. Card power wise, you guys are still even, having traded 1 for 1. Now imagine that he plays Turn 2 Gold Myr, Turn 3 Tine Shrike. You play Arc Trail, killing both. This is a 2 for 1, because you traded your 1 card for 2 of his. This is what I mean about getting value. You have essentially taken the lead. Other ways to get 2 for 1s are to play a creature that kills a card, like Skinrender, Oxidda Scrapmelter, or sometimes Pith Driller/Blisterstick Shaman; You can also play a creature that gets you another creature or card, like Phyrexian Rager, Myr Sire, and Oculus. Spells that can kill something and draw you a card, or that get you two cards, are two for one's as well. Slice in Twain, Morbid Plunder, Tezzeret's Gambit, Remember the Fallen, are good examples.

Now let's look at a card like Vapor Snag. This is a 1 for nothing, in terms of card power. You play it, and you won't kill anything(unless it's a token), because they still have their creature. However, it's a great tool to have. Let's look at our situation from before.

You play first. Land Go.

Opponent: Land Go.

You: Land Go.

Opponent: Land, Wall of Tanglecord.

You: Land, Moriok Reaver.

Opponent: Land, Auriok Replica.

You: Swinging is not beneficial. Play Ogre Resister, pass.

Opponent: Land, go.

You: Swinging is not beneficial. Play Molder Beast, pass.

Opponent: Land, complain about getting mana flooded, go.

You: Quicksilver Geyser, bouncing both creatures back into his hand. Swing with everything. Opponent takes 12, down to 8.

Opponent: Land, recast Replica and Wall.

You: Swinging is now beneficial. Swing with everything.




Why did this scenario change?

Let's say your opponent has a Wall of Tanglecord and an Auriok Replica out. You swing with Moriok Reaver, Ogre Resister, and Molder Beast. Your opponent will block Molder Beast with the Wall, block Moriok Reaver with Auriok Replica, and take 4, going to 16. However, you have just traded your 3/2 for his 2/2, and next turn, he may have something to stabilize.

However, when he's at 8 life instead of 20, taking 4 is now half his life. Because you played a tempo card, Quicksilver Geyser, which did not gain you any amount of card power, but allowed you to smash in, you managed to take the initiative, and your opponent now is on his back foot. After trading creatures, and taking 4, now both your creatures can deal lethal damage. He's on the ropes.

That's what I mean, use cards to get damage in. Your Quicksilver Geyser essentially became a spell that dealt your opponent 12 life, which is why it was so good in that situation. Playing good midrange creatures, removal, and taking a fast tempo is something that's really hard to deal with in this format.

This is pretty fascinating. I hadn't considered the ratios of cards in determining the value of a play.



Haha.



This is a good example, I think. At what point would you say that it's worth giving up card power for taking the initiative in this manner?

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be immersed

Good question! Let's talk about "Clocks."

Let's say both players are at 20 life, and have no hand.

You have 6 1/1 Goblins in play(Yeah I maindecked two Kuldotha Rebirths and got value out of my Ichor Wellsprings, so what?), and your opponent has a lone 2/2. We'll say it's a Chrome Steed, with no metalcraft.

Your best case scenario here is to swing with 6 Goblins. First of all is a situation where he doesn't block, and swings back. Clearly this is bad for him, he takes 6, and you take 2. He is on a 4 turn clock, you are on a 10 turn clock. No decent player would ever not block.

If he blocks, you will lose a creature, and he will take 5.

Let's look at the best case here. He does not drop any more creatures. This is called "On the board" analysis. Do you have him beat on the board? You smash for 5, then for 4 the next turn, then 3, then 2, then 1. 15 damage total, so you don't have him on a clock.

If he were at 9 life, You would swing without any remorse, because dealing 5 and threating 4 puts him on a 1 turn clock. He needs an answer off the top of his deck.

Likewise, if he were at 12, you would swing without any remorse, because he's on a 2 turn clock. he has 2 turns to draw something to stop you from killing him.

But even if he isn't, even in this 20/20 situation, You have 6 creatures and he has 1. You are ahead on card advantage. Would you like to reduce that by 1 in order to deal him 5 damage? Usually, the answer to that is yes. I would reduce my advantage by 1 to reduce his life by a quarter. Next turn, 4 damage? I would probably do that.

However, say he plays a Moriok Reaver after you hit him for 5. Do you want to next turn, reduce your advantage by 2 in order to deal 3 damage? That's probably not a good plan, unless he is at 4, in which case, it's conceivable.

Information, however, changes this greatly. Say he is at 9 life, and you swing for 5, his Chrome Steed blocks a goblin, then next turn, he plays Morbid Plunder, returning Moriok Reaver and Kuldotha Flamefiend from his graveyard, then plays Moriok Reaver with his remaining 3 mana. Next turn, you know that he's going to wreck all your goblins, which will then be useless because of his army of huge guys, so you want to cash in for whatever you can get, so you swing, he blocks 2, and takes 3, going to 1. You just have to hope your next 1-2 cards can deal him a damage. Spikeshot Elder, Victorious Destruction, Galvanic Blast, Geth's Verdict, Blisterstick Shaman, etc.

In general, you have to weigh how much damage you're dealing for how many cards you're losing. You don't weigh damage in amount, you weigh it in the ratio to how much life they have. 5 damage is awesome when he's at 20, and not so awesome if he's at 40.

Thanks for that explanation on clocks. It makes a lot of sense.

While reading the explanation, one card that one of the guys I play at work uses a lot came to mind: Soul Conduit. I think he has four of these in his deck, and I'm a little lost on strategy when I am playing a deck that is focused on stronger creatures.

Let's say that you have a deck that doesn't have much artifact control. Do you still take the same approach? What do you do when your opponent pulls this card out?

He uses this card almost every game lately. I suppose I should make more of a control deck?

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be immersed

6 is pretty expensive. It's kind of a 'win condition' kind of card. If you have a similarly powerful 6-drop, there's as good a chance it will win the game for you. Your strategy doesn't have to directly counter his, it just has to be able to win as fast. So building towards a more 'tempo'/speed deck could help you win before it can save him.

Also, if you're doing something like an infect deck for instance, soul conduit won't help him at all. Not to mention that most colors do have SOME artifact destruction, nowadays.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

Ah, that makes sense. I just need to be faster with such a deck, huh.

Sometimes at lunch, we play 2 vs. 2 instead of every person for themselves. When we do this, we play with 30 life per team, instead of 20 per person.

I suppose the same principle applies, though.

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be immersed

Basically, if your deck is fast, you don't have to worry about it always. If your deck is slow, artifact/enchantment/creature removal is more often necessary. I tend to like slower stuff, so I like doing more counterspells and control stuff so that I can deal with stuff like this. However, if you're fast, it's less of an issue.

And faster decks seem to win more anyways. Slow can just be fun.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

Soul Conduit, huh? The ol' Phyrexian Unlife, Soul Conduit switcheroo, I assume.

He needs 6 to play it, and then another 6 to use it. I would suggest either using Artifact/Enchantment destruction spells, or yeah, just beat his face in faster. You could also keep up counter mana, or bounce it on your turn to make him replay it again(Tempo, remember?)

What're people looking forward to in M12?

The big reprints so far are Oblivion Ring, Grim Lavamancer, and Solemn Simulacrum.

I'm looking forward to Skinshifter, personally.

If he's playing it the way I would, he's using treasure mage, grand architect, etc... in that case, there's a good chance that if he gets it out, he'll use the combo immediately, I'd bank on countermagic, if it hits board, you should be toast, so artifact destruction may not be as valuable.

Edit: actually, just enchantment removal is probably a safer bet, the danger is less in the soul conduit than it is in the phyrexian unlife. And he's going to be relying on that one heavily.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Well, I thought about the idea of "tempo", and tried to make a fast deck to counter these "control decks" that people have been playing.

It worked pretty well, and my team won. I don't know if it will work next time, since people saw my strategy, but here's the deck I used today:



I was aiming for a fast deck. It seemed pretty effective, at least for today. I'm sure someone will bring in a card like "Circle of Protection: Red", or something next Tuesday...

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be immersed

Congrats, you came up with the concept of "Red Deck Wins" all by yourself. It's the archetype that those of us will be dominated by in Magic 2012 when it is released in several weeks.

If that does happen, or if they start running protection from red(shortened to pro-red) creatures, I would recommend seeing if you can get your hands on some Leyline of Punishment, a very cheap rare, around 50 cents a pop.

Another card that would just help your deck in general is Unstable Footing. It's strictly better than Lava Axe in your deck, and like... 10 cents. Most people will give it to you for free.

By the way, you don't happen to have Shrine of Burning Rage, do you? Because it's not only damage that can't be hated out by story circle, circle of protection(unless it's CoP:Artifact), and pro-red cards, but they also can't kill it profitably if you keep up mana to use it in response to them trying to destroy it. It also keeps increasing every turn(regardless of whether or not you miss the trigger on your upkeep, since it is not a may), and gets stronger for each of your red spells. Even if your deck runs out of gas, you still have this growing source of damage that your opponents can't effectively stop, making it definitely a great card to be used. I've seen shrines do 27 damage before, it's kind of disgusting.

If you don't feel like getting the cards, here's one thing that you can do if people start drinking haterade. You can switch up your deck into a support deck. Switch out your Arc Runners and Lava Axes and Assault Strobes and offensive creatures for more burn spells, and suddenly, you're a Mono Red Control-type deck. Your role changes from being the fast beat stick to being the guy who destroys your opponent's creatures so that your teammates can get in unhindered. If they all start running shroud/hexproof/pro-red creatures, things could get annoying, and it may then be time to switch deck ideas.

Spine of Ish Sah
Viridian Corrupter
Kuldotha Flamefiend
Piston Sledge
Spread the Sickness
Blightwidow
Phyrexian Rager
Morbid Plunder
Ichor Wellspring
Divine Offering
Blisterstick Shaman
Burn the Impure
Fangren Maurader
Leonin Skyhunter

Replying to first post.
Since every card is just fantastic, the best option is to go for the Spine of Ish Sah for 3 reasons:
1) It is colorless
2) It is removal
3) You might get a way to break it in the SoM packs

Assuming it was gone, you probably take Flamefiend/Spread the Sickness depending on first pick.

Flamefiend without a doubt.

I've only had experience of NMS though so I'm just going to pretend the format has the same speed/archetypes (which is obviously very wrong).

Ordering the rest is tough though

Viridian Corrupter (I could see myself dropping this down the list as there are less artefacts in NMS)
Spread the Sickness
Burn the Impure (Doesn't deal with bombs as well as Spread the Sickness)
Blightwidow
Fangren Maurader (This loses some value in NMS)
Divine Offering (I'm guessing would be above blightwidow pre NPH)
Blisterstick Shaman (This would be below Spine if NPH didn't have so many good 1 toughness cards)
Spine of Ish Sah
Morbid Plunder (Obviously great but not good enough for strong colour commitment first pick)
Phyrexian Rager (How can you open a pack with this card 11th pick?)
Leonin Skyhunter (" " 12th " ")
Piston Sledge (I'm guessing this was better before NPH or maybe I'm undervaluing it)
Ichor Wellspring (I like this card but the pack is stupid)

How can some peoples earlier posts have had Piston Sledge so high? Piston Sledge over Spread the Sickness surely can't be right. Were pre NPH draft games all over before turn 5?

It comes from not wanting to push into a color first pick. Back in ZEN/ZEN/WWK drafts, trusty machete was a strong first pick. This comes from the same idea. Drafts by definition are creature based formats and as such, equipment like piston sledge are really strong in either infect or real damage.

This is a similar to reason to me drafting Spine of Ish Sah. While it isn't necessarily the undisputed best card in the pack, the fact that it is colorless allows me to be gently pushed into a color when I see the best cards getting passed to me instead of fighting over Black and Red across the table.

@Violence:
Thanks for the tips. Of course I think that Shrine of Burning rage would be a nice addition (I don't have the card right now), but Leyline of Punishment sounds particularly intriguing.

Just to confirm, "Damage can't be prevented" overrules "Protection from red", right (it's a "red card", so some might argue that its abilities are "protected from")?

In general, how do you make this type of distinction?

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be immersed

The rules text of circle of protection from X is, or was, 1: Damage from a source of (the specified color) is prevented.

Now, pro-red creatures can't be targeted by red spells or effects from red creatures, if I recall correctly, but there is no protection from red for the player, and non targeted spells, such as creature destruction that destroys all creatures, still affect protection from X creatures.

If 'all creatures on the enemy team take X damage, damage cannot be prevented' is the text of the card, then that card is the holy grail of protection killing.

Now, for all 'rulings' you'll want to check specific cards, and read up on their rulings, and there are some good databases online to let you do that. Do a google search for the card you specifically want to research, and it should pop up in one of the magic databases, and the rulings should be present in the screen somewhere.

Well, with the red leyline in play and a slagstorm, that holy grail exists!

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

After attending Anime Expo and seeing the massive number of players in the MTG tournament they held in the tabletop gaming room, I really regret not getting into MTG when I first heard of it 8+ years ago . It just feels too late now.

It's actually quite easy to get into, Solch, you just learn how to draft the newest few sets, and slowly make standard decks.

The most common format only encompasses the last year or so of cards, and new cards are released 7 times a year.

The latest core set comes out soon, and it's a great time for beginners to get into the game without paying out the mouth for specific cards.