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For the last time (until the next time), Wizards and Disney are not stomping on your childhood to make a quick buck - they are, uh, repacking your childhood and handing it to your kid brother (or maybe your kid sister, who thinks Drake is dreamy) for a quick buck.  The childhood they are actually stopming on is your grandparent's, who saw Fantasia way back during the war, and is wondering what in the hell this pile of crap is all about.

Inventing a whole new douchebag as a vehicle to back-door a "MTG Movie!" is far less obnoxious than if Drake Stone were actually Urza Smith, that kid who gets picked on in the school cafeteria by that bully William Yawgmoth, until the day he realizes he is actually a powerful wizard and ensues in hilarious hijinks.

Re: 3: Jace's Ingenuity, Lightning Bolt, Mana Leak

Aw, no Giant Growth?

Also Blood Tithe or even Howling Banshee

Jul 13, 2010 -- 9:16PM, Hacimen wrote:

Right now they aren't making enough cards that say "what should I do with this?" (Bazaar Trader is a good example of such a card.) they aren't willing to because most of the cards like that are just unappealing to the massed. It is a side-effect of their approach to design. Magic sets are less like a lego set and more like a jigsaw puzzle.

This quote is spot-on and I applaud you for it.  Wizards has rolled way back on the challenging aspects, and it's probably the right decision from a business perspective, but it's still a bit sad.  Especially considering that everything except m10 and m11 is supposed to be "Expert level".

@ Mistform Mage:  The two parts of the post you quote were not intended to refer to each other.  I don't know if Nashira was even talking to me or if it was someone else who was going off-topic in her estimation.  I just thought I'd point out that, whether or not my comment was age-appropriate, it *was* directly and inevitably related to the topic of the thread.  Also I say if we can't protect kids from BEING you-know-whatted (frequently by priests), it really doesn't accomplish anything for us to protect them from the WORD.  Better that they know that a danger exists which they should be wary of, and that guys who look like this are likely suspects.

And Qmark, you are also my hero for your post, especially the word you used in it which is also probably going to get nuked by the mods (preferably by Wyvern, who excised my word with a scalpel rather than my whole post with a sledghammer, and thus has earned my admiration for the moment).  The movie you describe would definitely be a fate worse than Drake.  (I move that we now coin this phrase.)

Jul 14, 2010 -- 3:29AM, willpell wrote:

@ Mistform Mage:  The two parts of the post you quote were not intended to refer to each other.  I don't know if Nashira was even talking to me or if it was someone else who was going off-topic in her estimation.  I just thought I'd point out that, whether or not my comment was age-appropriate, it *was* directly and inevitably related to the topic of the thread.  Also I say if we can't protect kids from BEING you-know-whatted (frequently by priests), it really doesn't accomplish anything for us to protect them from the WORD.  Better that they know that a danger exists which they should be wary of, and that guys who look like this are likely suspects.

She wasn't referring to you, or unless I missed some posts anyone, as being off topic. It was just advice.

And he doesn't even look like that. He just looks like a stupid Cris Angel knockoff or kinda slightly scenish. He doesn't look like a child-anythinger. And youre allowed to take that position on censorship but you should at least use it tactfully and not "I like to complain about things so I'm going to throw random words around and see what sticks"y.

Maybe the 'offtopic' part was at me, I commented on the commenters >.>

Jul 13, 2010 -- 9:56AM, orcishartillery wrote:

Funny, I think a lot of the young kids who could be attracted to Magic by this promotion would be more fun to play against than some of the older players who are ranting and raving about it in this thread.

I will fourth this (at least I believe that's the number we're on) and I usually can't stand kids...

If people are TRULY worried about kids getting into the game, just remember a few things:

1) Kids aren't the only ones that will see this movie. Parents will be seeing it with their children, older and younger siblings will be seeing it together, and it's the adults and older siblings that are the ones paying the money to get in.

2) The products literally state Ages 13+. While I realize that this hasn't stopped anyone before, it is at the very least a deterrent.

3) The majority of annoying kids that would normally begin their venture into this game will quickly lose interest due to small attention spans, distaste for the complexity of the game, and many other reasons.

4) The kids with a decent level of maturity and composure are more likely to continue playing.

On a side note: Not only are entire families going to be seeing this movie but companies as well. Remember that Disney literally owns Marvel. There is a slim chance that Marvel might take more notice of Magic or ponder a partnership. I doubt this but that could lead to many good things to come if it were to happen. It's something to think about in a positive view at the very least regardless of it being unlikely.


And another thing...
I honestly don't understand why people are complaining about Drake Stone when no one seemed to complain about Ertai... They're practically the same character. Drake's appearance is almost spot on and from the little information we have I can guess he's a bit cocky and persuaded to do evil just like Ertai (I haven't seen the movie so I can't say for sure).

Most of these decks don't seem very original or interesting.  But that's just me.  The acrostic deck idea is kind of cool though.

Also, why so many Jace decks?  I had figured with 5 winners there would be a winner for each walker, Liliana and Garruk are feeling left out!

So which alternate art Jace was the prize here?

I don't want this to come out bitter because I'm really not disgruntled about not winning; its a contest which hundreds submitted to, my chances were slim like the rest. But these were the BEST decks submitted? Really? The contest gave a list of guidelines and stated that the decks would be graded on "creativity, uniqueness, and relevancy." The second factor is impossible to judge without seeing all the entries, but the first and last don't seem to belong to more than two of the winning decks. Take Anthony Johnson's deck for example (if you're reading this, Anthony, I'm just criticizing your deck as I would any deck submitted to the forums for any reason). First, it has 61 cards, which the rules seem to disallow (although the language there was a bit muddled, but even so, 19 SB cards?). Next, it uses cards outside of M11, though again I'm sure that's a clerical error. Moving past that, at only 20 land and only 3 early cards for filtering, it falls short of a stable manabase, which is a strike against relevancy. After that, it has a bundle of cards that contribute to no clear strategy; this might garner points for creativity, but have to remove them for relevancy.

So, what caused this deck to win? What made it better than the hundreds of other submissions? The story attached? Who judged this? Given this result, I'd say they judged poorly. I was hoping to see fun and interesting decks which showed off a strategy and used cards to obtain some unique goal. Forget that I even submitted a deck; someone in the group of lists had to have provided something more interesting than that.

Anyways, congratulations to the winners, especially Eric Weeden who's submission took the criteria in an awesome direction (reminded me of a Sullivan contest).

I am married to Jennifer Baca (runner up) and i can say that i think her mono-green garruk deck should have beaten out one of the jaces...i will admit my jace deck was not that good lol.

anyway, i was wondering, has anyone been contacted about winning? im trying to make sure that there wasnt some other Jennifer Baca that won lol.

also, if anyone who was a runner up reads this, you should post your list/discription. i would like to see them

Jul 14, 2010 -- 10:32PM, Rush_Clasic wrote:

I don't want this to come out bitter because I'm really not disgruntled about not winning; its a contest which hundreds submitted to, my chances were slim like the rest. But these were the BEST decks submitted? Really? The contest gave a list of guidelines and stated that the decks would be graded on "creativity, uniqueness, and relevancy." The second factor is impossible to judge without seeing all the entries, but the first and last don't seem to belong to more than two of the winning decks. Take Anthony Johnson's deck for example (if you're reading this, Anthony, I'm just criticizing your deck as I would any deck submitted to the forums for any reason). First, it has 61 cards, which the rules seem to disallow (although the language there was a bit muddled, but even so, 19 SB cards?). Next, it uses cards outside of M11, though again I'm sure that's a clerical error. Moving past that, at only 20 land and only 3 early cards for filtering, it falls short of a stable manabase, which is a strike against relevancy. After that, it has a bundle of cards that contribute to no clear strategy; this might garner points for creativity, but have to remove them for relevancy.

So, what caused this deck to win? What made it better than the hundreds of other submissions? The story attached? Who judged this? Given this result, I'd say they judged poorly. I was hoping to see fun and interesting decks which showed off a strategy and used cards to obtain some unique goal. Forget that I even submitted a deck; someone in the group of lists had to have provided something more interesting than that.

Anyways, congratulations to the winners, especially Eric Weeden who's submission took the criteria in an awesome direction (reminded me of a Sullivan contest).

If you're referring to Frost Giant, it's a typo. It should be Frost Titan, clearly.

And if you didn't win, take heart. You can always go to the theater and buy your own ticket to see Magic: The Gathering in Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice!

Just in case they want to make themselves more depressed? :P

so did any of you watch the movie yet? i did last nite. its a good movie in my opinion but i was a little dissapointed with the advertising of Magic: the Gathering. all i saw was a couple of posters in the movie. i dont know if i wasnt keepin a good eye for them or not but i didnt see any actual magic cards or anyone actually playin it... =/ possibly got cut out of the movie and Wizards wouldnt hav known about it until after the movie was released? i dont know. i mustve missed it somewhere...

Frost Titan still costs six. 20 mana sources for 3 6cc and 4 5cc? Echoing the above thoughts, isn't that drastically low? Isn't that the number a sligh deck typically uses? I'm going to agree with Rush_Clasic on this one. And the rules said a 15 cared sideboard since its following constructed rules, so wouldn't a 19 card sideboard disqualify the deck?

I love that the chandra deck has liliana in it...clearly another typo.

I acn't believe that a deck that spelled out a planeswalker's name won. Wow.

Anyways here was my submittion, which didnt even make the top fifty:

Ajani's D20X

Ajani Goldmane is great at two things: extending your life expectancy and pumping up creatures. These two ideas are the foundation of the deck “The Ajani D20X Workout”, the hot new workout sensation sweeping the nation. In this deck, there are several different ways to stretch out your life, which is good for several reasons: pumping *clap* up Ajani’s Pridemates, meeting the Ascendent’s weight benchmark, and doing enough reps to play your Triskelion. There are also several ways to pump *clap* up your creatures: Ajani’s steroid ability, the cocoon (where exercisers rest between intervals), and the Steel trainers ‘errrrr’ Overseers. All of these abilities place +1/+1 tokens on your triskelion, allowing it to maximize its potential. A puny 0/2 flying Ornithopter for free is nice, but put it through a superset of a Pridemate and a leyline, it becomes a 0/3 flying musclebound creature, you gain one life, and your Pridemate gets +1/+1. High fives all around! There is of course the muscle confusion synergy between the Voltaic Key with the Overseer, or the TempleBell. The glow moth and the mystifying maze are also training partners: block with the glowmoth, and then remove the attacker from combat to gain four life a turn; pumping *clap* up your pridemates! Talk about teamwork to get ahead! Ajani, being the amazing personal trainer he is, can also pump *clap* up the initially scrawny Ornithopter and Goldenglow Moth.

 An ideal workout would include flexing a leyline from your opening hand, then on turn two crunch up Ajani’s Mantra, and on turn three cast the Pridemate, and hopefully cast a bunch of quick cheap creatures to pump it up (possibly the glowmoth or an Ornithopher turn three), gain life as they come into play, and chump block. If Ajani comes out turn four, he can either gain more life or give all of your cheap creatures a +1/+1 token, making your Ornithopters 1/4 flyers, and you should have a 4/5 or 5/6 pridemate attacking turn 4. As you chump block, your graveyard will become full of new workout partners that can be brought back to life from the Sun Titan (the original pump master); or cast your Triskelion and have him kill blockers to let your ripped Pridemates through.

 While this wouldn’t make a great HGH Performance Enhancing tournament deck, it would be a fun casual workout deck and does a great job of showcasing, and maximizing, Ajani’s training skills.

 

Ajani’s D20X Workout Decklist

 

Creatures (20)

2 Serra Ascendant

4 Steel Overseer

4 Ornithophers

4 Ajani’s Pridemate

3 Goldenglow Moth

2 Triskelion

1 Sun Titan

 

Other Spells (20)

4 Voltaic Key

2 TempleBell

3 Ajani Goldmane

4 Ajani’s Mantra

2 Primal Cacoon

2 Condemn

3 Leyline of Vitality

 

Lands(20)

3 Mystifying Maze

2 Forest

9 Plains

4 Sunpetal Grove

2 Terramorphic Expanse

 

Sideboard

3 Safe Passage

2 Celestial Purge

3 Plummet

2 Day of Judgment

2 Brittle Effigy

3 Autumns Veil

Jul 15, 2010 -- 5:25AM, grandadmiralpug wrote:

I love that the chandra deck has liliana in it...clearly another typo.

For that deck you're supposed to be chandra, and Liliana is helping you. With that deck my only issue is that Chandra's never been displayed as being a 5 tool (colour) planeswalker on any of her cards, and since its pre-mending you could pretty much swap out the name Chandra for any other. You could have said young Ajani, Jace, lilianna, or even garruck and justified them being five colour.

Maybe I'm wrong, was this what Chandra was actually like pre-mending? Does she actually know Lilianna? I'm not nit-picking, I'm asking a legitimate question about the characters continuity since the deck here is apparently using one (by incorporating TS events) and if they have a past together then the deck is enhanced flavorfully. As it stands, I really don't like the 'if chandra used to be more powerful, here's 5c spells that would work if she was' flavor.

Its a creative deck, I'm just not sure how much of the reality of chandra had to be rewritten to get that creativity, and if thats a good thing for a deck where you are supposed to be an actual character. 

Yeah, it seems like the decks that won just used "more" cards; the actual integrity of the deck of the creativeness of the card use had no bearing at all on who won.  The decks that won do a better job of "advertising" the cards of M11; decks that used too many Rares or Mythics seem to have been discarded in favor of people who used 2-ofs of a lot of different commons.

And I have to say, Ajani's D20X workout is brilliant.  I can't beleive that deck didn't make it in over the name-spelling one.  I actually want to build that deck so I can talk like Arnold Schwarzenegger as I PUMP UP my creatures.  Ahahaha!

Anyway, I posted my deck idea in another thread, but I'll paste it here too.

Decklist Show

The basic idea is that the main deck is Liliana "before" her Planeswalker days, where she's just a powerful Necromancer.  The deck uses discard to get powerful creatures into the grave from both her own hand and the opponent's and then resurrects them with Rise from the Grave and Liliana's -8 power.  Lots and LOTS of removal keep the board clear while she powers up for her ultimate.

During the second match, you side out all the fatties and grave-themed cards for the full sideboard, and Liliana "grows up" into her Planeswalker self and the deck becomes a full-on discard deck.  I've always loved these kinds of "about-face" decks and figured maybe I'd score some points with the idea, but I guess not.

ya, i like thees decks a lot, i just wish i hadnt been so Jhonnytastic when me and my friends were building decks. my team submitted a mono black lilli deck  a mono blue jace, and a mono green lilli...since they are all mono colored walkers lol

i think that what they were looking for was slightly misreoresented in  the contest post...thatbeing said, those are some really good ideas

congrats to all the winners. GG everybody

When they said they wanted the decks to be relevant I don't think they were talking about "good enough to win a sealed event" type of relevant. It was more along the lines of "good enough to win a 4 player multiplayer game 12% of the time" kind of relevant. I didn't submit a list so I am not upset about that but I do think that anyone whining has legitimite beef (specifically with the mill decklists which don't look consistent at all and 2 of them look the same with one splashing black). I just don't see the reasoning behind selecting 3 mill decks. Supposedly the mill alternate win condition is considered to be "creative" and/or "unique" but when you're making a M11 JACE decklist it doesn't seem to be either. It does seem creative when you build a sucessful mill deck but when you are told to build a deck around 5 options one of which is jace beleren and the deck you build isn't competitive at all it seems like a poor selection for "most creative, unique and relevant".

This is what I submitted.  Now, I have an EXTREMELY common name so I might be one of the runner-ups, but thus far I have not received any emails or phone calls from Wizards.  But I think my deck was really original.  I do have to say I was disappointed to see so many typical Jace decks.

This is exactly what I submitted below:

Liliana Vess curiously examined a small statue depicting a hunched-over man she had unearthed after plundering the tomb of an ancient Femeref prince. At first glance this statue did not appear out of the ordinary. An almost imperceptible smile creased the lips of this statue; almost as if it were in on some inside joke. A faint gleam deep in its eyes belied something far more sinister. After staring at it for several seconds she could begin to feel the evil magic eminate from this seemingly innocuous trinket. Bored with the usual methods of tormenting her hapless victims, a wicked grin began to spread across Liliana's face as she contmeplated the havoc she could wreak with such a deceptively powerful artifact...

Liliana's Jinx

3 Liliana Vess
1 Grave Titan
4 Jinxed Idol
4 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Corrupt
3 Doom Blade
3 Quag Sickness
2 Assassinate
1 Rise from the Grave
3 Sign in Blood
3 Phylactery Lich
4 Demon’s Horn
1 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Brittle Effigy
25 Swamp

Overview
This deck revolves around the tutoring power of Liliana Vess to assemble the combo of Jinxed Idol and Reassembling Skeleton. The deck establishes control through removal spells, defensive creatures, and life-gain to give it the time needed to protect Liliana. Jinxed Idols can then be passed at will to the unfortunate opponent as the recursion ability of Reassembling Skeleton will assure that the Idols will always stay in the opponent's hands! This deck also showcases the powerful new card of Phylactery Lich along with a host of singleton cards that Liliana can tutor up based on the situation at hand.


Long Explanation
I settled on using Liliana Vess as the planeswalker to feature as reusable tutoring is a very powerful ability and I wanted to design a control deck based around this. I quickly decided upon a mono-black deck as this would allow spells such as Corrupt and Quag Sickness to be especially powerful. After looking further into the card list for M11, Phylactery Lich and Jinxed Idol immediately jumped out at me. The Lich is possibly one of the most flavorful cards designed in years and I knew I wanted to take advantage of it. Jinxed Idol is such a fun, tempting, Johnny-esque card that I also had to include it. After seeing Reassembling Skeleton I knew I had the core of the deck established.

The goal of the deck is to use early removal and recursive skeletons to defend until you can get either a Lich or Liliana on the board. The liches can sometimes accidentally win games on their own due to a turn 2 Demon's Horn, turn 3 Lich. Once Liliana comes down, she can begin to search up Skeletons and Idols to assemble the combo. The recursive skeletons will always ensure that you have something to sacrifice to the Jinxed Idol so that it will always be in the opponent's control. The Idols will eventually peck the opponent to zero. A few 'silver bullets' are in the deck that Liliana can tutor for, should the need arise.

This deck is very beginner friendly as it contains many cards that could be considered core to the flavor of black. Doom Blade, Corrupt, Sign in Blood and other such spells clearly demonstrate the core concepts in Black's color pie. While life-gain is typically considered ineffective, new players love life-gain cards and the Demon's Horns actually serve a nice double purpose in this deck by providing an early life cushion and supplying a necessary artifact for the Liches. After playing a few sample games I noticed that the mana curve works out very well with this deck. Having eighteen 2cc spells allows this deck to curve out nicely with a turn two spell, a turn three spell, and then either two 2cc spells on turn four or a 2cc spell and activation of a dead Skeleton.

Could you use spoiler tags next time?

This is what my wife submitted (still waiting to find out if she is the runner up lol):

Garruk Claus

By Jennifer Baca

Creatures: (23)

4 Garruk’s Companion

4 Garruk’s Packleader

1 Prized Unicorn

4 Elvish Archdruid

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Sylvan Ranger

2 Fauna Shaman

 

Spells: (20)

4 Elixir of Immortality

3 Giant Growth

2 Naturalize

2 Fog

2 Leyline of Vitality

2 Overwhelming Stampede

2 Back to Nature

2 Cultivate

1 Warlord’s Axe

 

Land: (17)

4 Mystifying Maze

13 Forest

 

Sideboard: (15)

4 Plummet

4 Dryad’s Favor

2 Fog

2 Back to Nature

2 Naturalize

1 Forest

 

 

 

'Twas Christmas in July, when all through the planes
Not a creature was stirring, not even a drake
The relics were hung by the Temple Bell with care
In hopes that St. Garruk soon would be there.

The saprolings were nestled all snug in their brambles
While dreaming of thallids and devouring fungus.
And dryads in their 'kerchiefs, and humans in caps
Had just settled down for a long July nap,
When out in the forest arose such a clatter,
They sprang from their leaves to see what was the matter.

Away to the clearing they flew, climbed, and crawled,
Tore open the vines and broke through the fog,
The moon on the face of the elves they then saw
Gave the lustre of royalty to the forest's gaped jaws.

When, what to their wondering eyes should appear,
But a vine-ridden sleigh and eight companions near.
With a war faced driver, and muscles so thick,
They knew in a moment it must be Garruk.

More rapid than slivers his packleaders came,
And he loudly shouted and called them by name:
"Now Beasts! Now Companions! Now Packleaders come!
On Leylines! On Stampedes! On, Prized Unicorn!
To the top of the trees! To the top of the sky!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away, guys!"

As dry leaves before the wild faeries fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the treetops the companions they flew,
With the sleigh full of relics, and St. Garruk, too.

And then, in a roar, they heard on the ground,
The haste and trampling of all beasts around.
As they drew in their heads and were turning around,
To the ground St. Garruk came with a bound.

He was dressed all in armor, from his head to his foot,
And his pieces were all tarnished with rust and with blood.
A bundle of relics he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a Giant just opening his pack.
His eyes - how they pierced! His jawline how scary!
His hands were like boulders, his knuckles so hairy!
His thin lipped mouth was drawn tight and shut,

He was frightening and big, a right intimidating chap,
And I laughed when I saw him, as anxiety crept.
A glare of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had much to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And covered all the branches, then turned with a jerk,
And laying his axe aside of his pose,
And giving a nod, back to the treetop he rose.

He trudged to his sleigh, to his companions gave a shout,
And away they all stomped like the lofty treefolk.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere they drove out of sight,

"Merry Christmas in July, enjoy your dang materialistic plight!"



The chance to win a display and tickets to an awesome movie? Sounds like Christmas in July to me! And who better to be a jolly bearer of gifts than Garruk? He has Companions and Packleaders to carry his sleigh, and elves to help him gather relics as gifts. He has a Prized Unicorn to lead the group, and even an Elixer of Immortality for sustenance throughout his trip. He carries his axe as he delivers his spells to the delight of hearts throughout the forest.

As far as playability, the elves, companions, and Packleaders carry the theme of Garruk to the battlefield. Enchantments, sorceries, and instants back up and bulk up Garruk's little helpers, while delivering a Merry Christmas in July of extra mana to the player who wants to get the Overwhelming Stampede in play for a winning condition.

See if an entry like the garruk one above had won, I would have no qualms with it. That was what I was expecting to win this contest. Not someone who spelled out Ajani's name and threw in a juggernaut because he needed a spell that started with J. (I don't mean any disrespect to the person who designed that deck; I just thught that the judges wanted a bit more thought to go into their deck)

That poem is awesome.

The same with the black deck above.  While not, in my opinion, as cool as the garruk deck idea, it is a solid deck and, again in my opinion, a better entry then some of the winners.

Jul 15, 2010 -- 4:09AM, b321gonzo wrote:

so did any of you watch the movie yet? i did last nite. its a good movie in my opinion but i was a little dissapointed with the advertising of Magic: the Gathering. all i saw was a couple of posters in the movie. i dont know if i wasnt keepin a good eye for them or not but i didnt see any actual magic cards or anyone actually playin it... =/ possibly got cut out of the movie and Wizards wouldnt hav known about it until after the movie was released? i dont know. i mustve missed it somewhere...

Really? That would seem like an epic failure after the hype on the Arcana, lol (not as epic a fail as The Last Airbender though, obviously).

Poem deck is amazing.  I love it.  If it didn't win at least runner up, then this contest was rigged.

thank you guys very much! i'm sure she will really like to hear that from you guys i have been checking her mail all day and it was just confermed, she took 2nd i cant wait for her to get home so i can show her

I protest at choosing a deck with a 19-card sideboard as the winner! It's not a legal deck!

Also, three of the decks were full of two copies of a bunch of cards, which just bugs me. Were they trying to imitate Intro Packs? Doesn't seem like good deck design, and yet these are the winners?

The 19-card sideboard is most likely a cut/paste error or other typo in getting the information ready to be posted. I'll check it out. Also, some of the cards are not displaying their M11 versions automatically, even though they are in M11 (like Mana Leak).

Re: Card of the Day: Garruk:

I wonder how long until Garruk realizes that the toughest predators in the multiverse are other planeswalkers, and starts hunting them down.

BG Garruk, anyone?

Jul 15, 2010 -- 10:11PM, demauk wrote:

Re: Card of the Day: Garruk:

I wonder how long until Garruk realizes that the toughest predators in the multiverse are other planeswalkers, and starts hunting them down.

BG Garruk, anyone?

It sounds like fun however, many of the planeswalkers have shown the capacity for black and it's characteristics. Sarkahn, Tezzeret and even some of the others to a certain extent. I just don't want to see every planeswalker in a X/B form.

Jul 15, 2010 -- 10:11PM, demauk wrote:

Re: Card of the Day: Garruk:

I wonder how long until Garruk realizes that the toughest predators in the multiverse are other planeswalkers, and starts hunting them down.

BG Garruk, anyone?

He wouldn't have to be black to play the Most Dangerous Game (which sadly isn't Game of Chaos ), but him turning black is a distinct possibility given his current storyline status.  (He's been  tainted by Liliana; so far it's just making him sick, but maybe it'll eventually corrupt his soul and turn him evil.  After all, he's pretty close already.)

Garruk and Liliana are the only original PWs who don't yet have a second version, though only Ajani (and non-original Sarkhan) changed color.  I'm hoping we'll see this change soon; the moment Ajani Vengeant was confirmed, I wanted to see all the PWs gain the second color to their right.  Of these, only UG Jace felt a little strange; for all of the others it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world for that character IMO.  But of course these are the flagships for the color so we probably shouldn't expect to see their personalities vary too much from one of MaRo's talking color-pie exemplars.

(And on the subject of planeswalkers, I'm cheesed that Gideon Jura gives us our third white distinct PW when we've never had a mono-red PW who wasn't Chandra.  Sarkhan Vol 's card has absolutely no abilities which could not have remained on him if he was mono-red; he was given that green mana symbol either for vague flavor reasons or solely as a shoehorn into Alara's multicolor theme, and this saddens me greatly.  If they errata'ed him to a CC of 2RR, there'd be a full cycle of new monocolor PWs who could have replaced the originals in m11, and Gideon would be giving us a head start on the third without it qualifying as discrimination against a color more deserving of advancement.)

Jul 15, 2010 -- 5:34PM, WotC_MattT wrote:

The 19-card sideboard is most likely a cut/paste error or other typo in getting the information ready to be posted. I'll check it out. Also, some of the cards are not displaying their M11 versions automatically, even though they are in M11 (like Mana Leak).

I was fairly certain that those were just clerical errors, but they still needed to be pointed out. What really bothers me (as some have mentioned) is how poorly the first deck was designed and how similar two of the other Jace decks were to each other. As a community builder, I'm not looking to incite a riot, and I'm not asking for any judgment to be revoked, but I'm curious to know why the judges picked these specific decks. I've been building decks almost as long as Magic has been around: some for competitive play, some for multiplayer fun, some for Johnny-tastic originality, some to satisfy bizarre urges (EDH deck using only art where the characters look to the right? Seroiusly?). And as an avid and addicted deck-builder, and as a winner of previous deck-building contests held in articles on this site, I find the selections unworthy (not all of them, but as a whole). If the judges could find a moment to provide a few words on why each deck won, it'd be interesting to see. Hell, I'm not even requesting a review of my own submission!

Speaking of which, since everyone else is throwing their decklists into the mix:

Spoiler: Show

Jul 15, 2010 -- 5:34PM, WotC_MattT wrote:

The 19-card sideboard is most likely a cut/paste error or other typo in getting the information ready to be posted. I'll check it out.

Hopefully the Stormtide Leviathan is one of those clerical errors, otherwise the winning deck, which would be the best submission you got, is honestly expecting to switch in a creature that costs 8 mana to cast (in addition to its other 5 anc 6 cc) with just 20 mana sources. From my first couple of months playing Magic, let me tell you thats not a good strategy, if you didn't know.  

RE: Drake Stone

So Magic gets some big screen coverage, and this is the guy who's supposed to be representative of us players?  Really?!?

I haven't seen the movie, but from what I've seen and read, it seems like they made this guy up to be just an arrogant jerk.  That's really not the face of the game I'd like to see put out there, and I think it really does us a diservice, and does more to discourage rather than encourage new players.

Maybe my experience is unique, but the group at my local shop ranges in age from 10-50, and our games are always very friendly and people are there to have a good time.  Maybe that's just not "cool" enough for a movie, but personally I'd much rather see advertising that promotes the sort of friendly atmosphere and fun gameplay that keeps me coming back.

Ha, I'm sorry, but calling Yuuya's deck "innovative" seems like a big stretch. Seems like it's just a smattering of two very popular decks.

Being thoroughly unable to go to San Diego on a week's notice, I hope anyone who does go to that panel and see preview cards can provide a report of their observations, right here on this very thread.  I'm as curious about Scars of Mirrodin, M12, and Mystery Sequel to Archenemy as anyone else, but real life comes first and I don't have a couple thousand dollars to plan a major expedition just so I can get the hot scoop.  Hopefully someone was planning to go anyway and can share what they learn.

It does seem like I would probably have an easier time just driving down to Renton. Assuming that this event is at 630pm I could actually make this...but I think I will have to pass for now.

Jul 18, 2010 -- 10:41PM, willpell wrote:

Being thoroughly unable to go to San Diego on a week's notice, I hope anyone who does go to that panel and see preview cards can provide a report of their observations, right here on this very thread.  I'm as curious about Scars of Mirrodin, M12, and Mystery Sequel to Archenemy as anyone else, but real life comes first and I don't have a couple thousand dollars to plan a major expedition just so I can get the hot scoop.  Hopefully someone was planning to go anyway and can share what they learn.

You watch, 2 hours after the event is finished, some 3rd party website will have all the hot scoop, and more posted.

So in that regard, can't wait :P

They will probably be in FSS anyway. That's the place for non-website spoilers.

I dunno. These days mixing two popular decks together seems to be about as innovative as you can get. Of course THEN the hybrid decks become the decks to beat so they become the popular decks and the circle is now complete. I see Yuuya's deck is $750 worth of pure goodness. At least he kept it under $800 by not using a 4th Jace.

Jul 18, 2010 -- 10:12PM, croftstr wrote:

Ha, I'm sorry, but calling Yuuya's deck "innovative" seems like a big stretch. Seems like it's just a smattering of two very popular decks.

The trouble with this deck is that its worst match up is RDW and is becoming very popular (seems to be winning alot of nats!)

I feel that this deck needs to be tweaked so that it has a good match up game 1 against RDW.

Obstinate baloth is a great addition, and is obviosuly very good against jund.


Sidenote: I run a very simular deck, and i play with jace berlen which is fine (not as perfect as JMS) but my version runs alot of 4 drops already and having berlen out turn 2 is really sweet.

Also i prefer to run garurk over eldrazi monument, but thats just my preference.

After today's Arcana, I have a strange urge to build a Christopher Moeller deck...

you can't polymorph into Dizzy Spell or Crush of Wurms.

Oh my god, Mass Polymorph has a Chimney Imp in the art? This is going to break standard in half.

Jul 19, 2010 -- 9:41PM, strammermax wrote:

you can't polymorph into Dizzy Spell or Crush of Wurms.

You can if you... wait... no, that won't work. How about... nah, that's no good either.

Nope, it's pretty muich completely impossible to do what they describe. Funny how the most prominent creature in the art isn't even on a creature card.

Not a fan of Mass Polymorph; I wonder why they've pimped it twice in the past week.  It's generally less good at what it does than normal Polymorph, and costs more; most of its value lies in Magical Christmas Land I suspect, it's a lot of potential fun, but in play terms it's pretty much all theory and no action.  (Not that I can complain, of course.)

Jul 19, 2010 -- 9:41PM, strammermax wrote:

you can't polymorph into Dizzy Spell or Crush of Wurms.

Time for House Rules.

Revealing Dizzy Spell as a result of Mass Polymorph gets you a 3/3 red Minotaur creature token and a Crush of Wurms gets you a 6/6 Wurm.

If you get all 9 creatures out with exactly 9 creatures, you win the game. If all 10 cards (including the Mass Polymorph ) was signed by Christopher Moeller, you win the entire match.) This rule only applies if you're playing a Christopher Moeller Artist Deck.

Soooo...the Aven Fisher in the Mass Polymorph art looks human, at least in the face. Am I missing something?

So, I thought you could not submit more than one deck?  It appears as though Jennifer (who took 2nd) submitted more than one.  I'm not complaining about her winning (because I like her decks), but I more upset that I tried to follow the rules and submit only one deck (I had 4 great ideas).  Anybody else try to actually follow the rules provided?  

Jul 20, 2010 -- 9:09AM, Michael_Bender wrote:

Soooo...the Aven Fisher in the Mass Polymorph art looks human, at least in the face. Am I missing something?

He's in the process of being polymorphed into the aven.

Jul 20, 2010 -- 2:40PM, VorthosianLoreWeaver wrote:

Jul 20, 2010 -- 9:09AM, Michael_Bender wrote:

Soooo...the Aven Fisher in the Mass Polymorph art looks human, at least in the face. Am I missing something?

He's in the process of being polymorphed into the aven.

Which causes minor nausea and makes you unnable to write a complain report. Quite a dirty move, actually.

"Hunters' Feast – Magic 2011 common. 

Historically, cards have tended to target either one player or all of them, with a few Fireball-style cards that cost mana for additional targets. Hunters' Feast takes a new path, letting you distribute life to only those players you deem worthy."