So, as I was reading this article, very slowly words began to appear in white on the large art piece of Needle's Eye. I didn't write it down, but it looked like a very short log entry from the world of Innistrad, about so-and-so being arrogant. Now when I view the article, the text doesn't appear. It happened very slowly over time, and was quite eerie. Anyone know what that was about?
Ok, cool. It finally happened again. It says: "I did it again. Coins from Cathar Trinar. He acts like I am beneath him. Like I am only Kessig scum. He comes from a landed family in Nearheath. A few coins mean nothing to him. I never knew how arrogant people from Gavonry really are.
Reika 31st of Harvest Moon, Ava. 716
Twitter.com/brauerjosh"
It's part of a longer story that Wizards has been releasing in part. A few pieces each day. I have the whole thing collected at my blog.
For linking a card to Gatherer without writting the name of said card for readers, use the autocard brackets together with and equal sign and right the name of the real card. Then put the message you want inside the tags, like you would do with autocarding. Like this:
I like storm crow because I really like crows in real life, as an animal, and the card isn't terribly stupid, but packs a good deal of nostalgia and also a chunck of the game's history. So it's perhaps one of the cards I have most affection to, but not because "lol storm crow is bad hurr hurr durr".
Although I do assume you deliberately refer to them (DCI) as The Grand Imperial Convocation of Evil just for the purposes of making them sound like an ancient and terrible conspiracy.
Now, now. 1994 doesn't quite qualify as "ancient".
Oh, it's a brilliant plan. You see, Bolas was travelling through shadowmoor, causing trouble, when he saw a Wickerbough Elder with its stylin' dead scarecrow hat. Now, Bolas being Bolas took the awesome hat and he put it on his head, but even with all his titanic powers of magic he couldn't make it fit. He grabbed some more scarecrows, but then a little kithkin girl asked if he was trying to build a toupee. "BY ALL THE POWERS IN THE MULTIVERSE!" he roared, "I WILL HAVE A HAT WORTHY OF MY GLORY." and so he went through his Dark Lore of Doom (tm) looking for something he could make into a hat that would look as stylish on him as a scarecrow does on a treefolk. He thought about the Phyrexians, but they were covered in goopy oil that would make his nonexistant hair greasy. He Tried out angels for a while but they didn't sit quite right. Then, he looked under "e" (because in the Elder Draconic alphabet, "e" for Eldrazi is right next to "h" for Hat) in his Dark Lore of Doom and saw depictions of the Eldrazi, and all their forms. "THIS SHALL BE MY HAT!" he declared, poking a picture of Emrakul, "AND WITH IT I WILL USHER IN A NEW AGE OF DARKNESS -- ER, I MEAN A NEW AGE OF FASHION!"
And so Nicol Bolas masterminded the release of the Eldrazi.
The last couple days have been roughly every perverse fetish imaginable, but it only got "creepy" when speculation on Mother of Runes's mob affiliation came up?
I like to think up what I consider clever names for my decks, only later to be laughed at by my wife. It kills me a little on the inside, but thats what marriage is about.
Of course, the best use [of tolaria west ] is transmuting for the real Tolaria.
Absolutely. I used to loose to my buddy's Banding deck for ages, it was then that I found out about Tolaria , and I was finally able win my first game.
Browbeat is a card that is an appropriate deck choice when there's no better idea available. "No better idea available" was pretty much the running theme of Odyssey era.
Modern is like playing a new tournament every time : you build a deck, you win with it, don't bother keeping it. Just build another, its key pieces will get banned.
I always find it helpful when im angry to dress up in an owl costume and rub pennies all over my body in front of a full body mirror next to the window.
Dymecoar:
Playing Magic without Blue is like sleeping without any sheets or blankets. You can do it...but why?
Omega137:
Me: "I love the moment when a control deck stabilizes. It feels so... right." Omega137: "I like the life drop part until you get there, it's the MtG variant of bungee jumping"
Zigeif777:
Just do it like Yu-Gi-Oh or monkeys: throw all the crap you got at them and hope it works or else the by-standers (or opponents) just get dirty and pissed.
Normally it's difficult to pick up on your jokes/sarcasm. But this one's pretty much out there. Good progress. You have moved up to Humanoid. You'll be Human in no time.
I loved the story. The path that Traft took was a path of corruption, which embodies the most evil. Being a saint, he had to choose the lesser of two evils; lie to an angel, or ensure the destruction of a child. The ritual was to awaken the demon...and because the priests tricked him into slaughtering innocent sacrifices, they corrupted Traft, which is better than just outright killing him (from the demon's point of view.) Then, after he called the angel, it was too late, and he was killed before the angel could help.
But the reason I love the story so much is because of the perfect interpretation of corruption. Which, you have to ask yourself; "which is more evil; to kill the holy, or to corrupt them?"
HOW TO AUTOCARD! When posting in a text box, type [c]Plains[/c] to make your post showPlains . Are you making a casual mill deck? Please read.Show
Control is the key of a mill deck. You should free up your mana as much as possible so that you can respond to whatever your opponent is doing. Having some way to remove threats, both real and percieved, is necessary to survival. Real threats are those that are already on the field, and are something a simple unsummon or doom blade can remove. Percieved threats are those that aren't on the field, something a simple duress or counterspell can deal with. Controlling the board will allow your mill deck to continuously perform, if you use permanent style mill, that is.
One-Shot Mill spells are something you should avoid. You can toss tome scour s at your opponent until your hand runs out, but that isn't going to be enough to mill them to death. With 1-shot mill spells, like tome scour , you have to treat them like burn spells. Therefore, the only "good" 1-shot mill spells are sanity grinding (in the right deck) and mind funeral . Try to find more permanent styles of milling, like memory erosion , hedron crab , and curse of the bloody tome , so that you don't have to waste your mana each turn doing something that those permanents can do with a single mana/turn investment. Keeping your mana open allows you to respond with control elements.
Traumatize Rant. Traumatize is a terrible card for a multitude of reasons. First, it costs 5 to cast, which is a large investment for a mill deck. Milling half a library sounds neat, but if you do the math, it really isn't that much. An average 60 card deck starts with drawing 7 cards. Then, barring any draw spells on their end, or ramp on yours, 5 turns will go by, where they draw 5 more cards, leaving 48 in the deck. Unless they had a deck with more than 60 cards, or you ramped it out, the most you'll ever mill with a single Traumatize on turn 5 is 24 cards. That's not too shabby, but hang on, there's more! If they drew any additional cards or if they were milled before turn 5, that number will be much lower. In addition, any more Traumatize's you draw will only mill less and less as the game goes on...which is the point of a mill deck. My whole point on Traumatize is the it is NOT worth the 5 mana investment, not even with haunting echoes . You can mill more than 24 before turn 5...which you can then cast the echoes.
If you look at a mill deck like a burn deck, you'll notice that it takes longer to win with mill than with burn. For example, lightning bolt costs 1 and does 3 out of the 20 damage needed to win (barring any lifegain or damage prevention). For mill, that same investment of 1 would have to mill 9 cards out of an average 60 card deck to be the equivilent of lightning bolt . The problem is that there is no mill card that can do that...except hedron crab , over a period of time. The initial investment of 1 will pay off in 3 more land drops to make the crab equal to a bolt. However, the crab nets you more mill beyond those 3 land drops, making it better as the game draws on. Other cards, like curse of the bloody tome , are excellent ways of milling an opponent because the initial investment of is all you have to pay in order to put your opponent on a clock. All you have to do is stay alive, which is the true goal of a mill strategy.
There are other ideas for mill decks that are specific to certain types of strategies. Combo mill decks can mill an entire player's library out from under them. Secondary mill strategies are usually tied to another strategy, like drowner of secrets in a merfolk deck, or halimar excavator in an ally deck. Milling can be done in certain decks that are able to ramp out enough mana to make use of the higher costing mill spells, like using 16 x post to pay for X on sands of delirium or for ambassador laquatus . Multiplayer mill decks are even tougher to build, but can be done. Being a slower environment[/c], it is easier to ramp in multiplayer, allowing for big X spells, like mind grind , to be useful. Consuming aberration is another star player. The more straightforward strategy is to use mesmeric orb and dreamborn muse while being the only deck at the table that can deal with it . There are always new strategies coming out with each new set, so check gatherer for any new mill cards that you find to be the most fun for you!
Now you can say that you haven't fallen into the trap that most new players fall into when they build their first mill deck!
: Order, Law, Faith. : Knowledge, Artifice, Control. : Corruption, Death, Self-Interest. : Freedom, Destruction, Victory. : Nature, Growth, Life. : Progressive, but too controlling. : Focused, but short sighted. : Skilled, but hypocritical. : Unified, but without a sense of self. : Cunning, but devious. : Inquisitive, but incautious. : Rational, but impulsive. : Powerful, but spiteful. : Instinctive, but selfish. : Fearless, but reckless.
By the time I had scrolled down to the artwork, all the white letters were there. I guess I must be a slow reader?
So that makes two of us.
Or three of us.
The short story was simply great. Much of the angelic host has disappeared, perhaps because their ties were to Avacyn herself rather than the plane or the people. Those that remain seem to be either fiercely protective (Angelic Overseer or Trest's guardian angel) or else fill some other purpose (Angel of Flight Alabaster ).
Good article. Good story. Good card, at least from a gameplay perspective.
However, am I right in thinking that there's a cycle of mythic multicolored legendary creatures, one from each tribe, and this card is the Spirit in that cycle? Making it the equivalent of Grimgrin, Corpse-Born and Olivia Voldaren? If so, then sorry, but I'd say I'm really disappointed by it. The Geist has no tribal effects, nor even any synergy with its tribe as far as I can tell, unlike the other two. (I guess there might be some kind of "spirits like angels" theme, like with Angel of Flight Alabaster, but that would be kind of weird.) It's not a card you can really build around; hexproof means you can be more free about putting auras on it than other creatures, but other than that you just attack with it rather than doing anything clever. The fact that it's blue doesn't make sense with the story or with the Geist's other abilities, it's just blue because in Innistrad Spirits are blue and white, and Spirits are blue and white in Innistrad because they needed to put some tribe in that slot.
Well, it's good card and almost every cycle has at least one that makes the least sense (and for that matter maybe I'm jumping to conclusions about this being part of a cycle at all), but I hope the werewolf and human resemble Grimgrin or Olivia more than this guy.
Good article. Good story. Good card, at least from a gameplay perspective.
However, am I right in thinking that there's a cycle of mythic multicolored legendary creatures, one from each tribe, and this card is the Spirit in that cycle? Making it the equivalent of Grimgrin, Corpse-Born and Olivia Voldaren? If so, then sorry, but I'd say I'm really disappointed by it. The Geist has no tribal effects, nor even any synergy with its tribe as far as I can tell, unlike the other two. (I guess there might be some kind of "spirits like angels" theme, like with Angel of Flight Alabaster, but that would be kind of weird.) It's not a card you can really build around; hexproof means you can be more free about putting auras on it than other creatures, but other than that you just attack with it rather than doing anything clever. The fact that it's blue doesn't make sense with the story or with the Geist's other abilities, it's just blue because in Innistrad Spirits are blue and white, and Spirits are blue and white in Innistrad because they needed to put some tribe in that slot.
Well, it's good card and almost every cycle has at least one that makes the least sense (and for that matter maybe I'm jumping to conclusions about this being part of a cycle at all), but I hope the werewolf and human resemble Grimgrin or Olivia more than this guy.
The human is Mikaeus. The werewolf got pushed off into the next set. But yes, you are correct, there is a cycle. And I do agree that this card does not make sense being Blue, but I'm willing to accept it being Blue in order to have Hexproof.
Great story, great card, but it has spawned quite the discussion amongst my play group. Would he get the benefits from Exalted?
Tough question. I think it would because the angel token is not declared as an attacker, it just enters the battlefield tapped and attacking as a triggered effect. However, I'm not a judge and I haven't even looked that up (the Alara FAQ would be a good place to start), so don't take my word for it.
Great story, great card, but it has spawned quite the discussion amongst my play group. Would he get the benefits from Exalted?
Tough question. I think it would because the angel token is not declared as an attacker, it just enters the battlefield tapped and attacking as a triggered effect. However, I'm not a judge and I haven't even looked that up (the Alara FAQ would be a good place to start), so don't take my word for it.
I'm saying he wouldn't. The wording on Exalted is 'attacks alone', which he is not doing. If the wording was 'is the only creature declared as an attacker', then he would.
Nobody seems to be agreeing with me, though
[edit]Looks like I'm wrong:
* Some effects put creatures into play attacking. Since those creatures were never declared as attackers, they're ignored by exalted abilities. They won't cause exalted abilities to trigger. If any exalted abilities have already triggered (because exactly one creature was declared as an attacker), those abilities will resolve as normal even though there may now be multiple attackers.
: Order, Law, Faith.
: Knowledge, Artifice, Control.
: Corruption, Death, Self-Interest.
: Freedom, Destruction, Victory.
: Nature, Growth, Life.
Keino
=100 Class: 
x 236 Diety: 
125/200 
=2x
dmg/
=4
dmg)
