Best card in Fate Reforged

As stated in my set review here, my favorite card in Fate Reforged is Tasigur, the Golden Fang.

In LSVs article today he said the following:

"this is very likely the best card in Fate Reforged for Constructed."

SCG and CFB are currently selling Tasigur for $5.99 but you can still pick him up from TCGPlayer and eBay for around $2.99 a pop. As stated in my set review, Tasigur only gets better when Treasure Cruise is banned in Modern/Legacy. The main things holding Tasigur 's price back are that he was a foil promo and that he is a legend, so he will likely only be played as a 1-2 of in Modern/Legacy. At ~$3 each it would be remiss not to pick up at least 1-2.

Cheers,
Simon

Edit (1/22/2015) - SCG sold out of Tasigur @ $5.99.  

Edit (1/25/2015) - SCG sold out of Tasigur @ $9.99

Banned and Restricted List - January 19th 2015

Other than full spoilers my favorite time(s) of year are when Wizards updates the banned and restricted list (I guess I should get our more...).

The announcement:

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/banned-and-restricted-announcement-2015-01-19

The full B/R list:

http://magic.wizards.com/en/gameinfo/gameplay/formats/bannedrestricted

Aside - Wizard's website has actually gotten less navigable...what on earth are they doing over there? I sometimes feel that outside of R&D nobody has any idea what they are doing...

Modern:

Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Birthing Pod are banned.
Golgari Grave-Troll is no longer banned.

I think all of the banning's are good and will make the format more "diverse" which seems to be Wizards plan.

Golgari Grave-Troll is unlikely to do anything but having the option there is nice as well as perhaps fueling some delve shenanigans?

Oh yeah and this should spice up modern for the pro-tour coming up. My money would be on Splinter Twin being back to one of the top decks (especially if Patrick Dickman is present).

Legacy:

Treasure Cruise is banned.
Worldgorger Dragon is no longer banned.

Well I have to say both of these were quite surprising to me...I thought they would let us keep on cruising for a little while longer even if Treasure Cruise ended up being banned in the end.

The Worldgorger unbanning is a pretty interesting one. I don't think many people were expecting it and there was a huge rush to buy up all the ~$1 Worldgorger's after the announcement.

Vintage:

Treasure Cruise is restricted.
Gifts Ungiven is no longer restricted.

The treasure cruise ban in vintage is less surprising to me that the legacy ban. Vintage is already flooded with so many good cards that having more excellent card draw spells is very dangerous.

Gifts Ungiven being unbanned is an interesting one since it opens up the old Gifts ungiven recoup decks of old as well as whatever else has been reprinted that is good.

Next B&R Announcement: March 23, 2015

:)
Cheers,
Simon

Comments Heard During GP Omaha (Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering, Ben Stark)

See below for Wizards of the Coast response:

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/addressing-comments-heard-during-grand-prix-omaha-video-coverage-2015-01-12

Since Wizards post does little in telling us what happened -  Ben Stark was chatting with BDM and was talking about how French and Portuguese Magic players are prone to cheating.

The fall out from this could go either way - 1. It is swept under the rug and forgotten and Ben Stark is back doing coverage or 2. We never see Ben doing coverage again. Honestly, I don't care either way but I wish that the involved party was Marshall Sutcliffe, seriously does anyone like that guys commentary?

The best commentary by far is still Patrick Sullivan + (Cedric Phillips, Osyp Lebedowicz or G. Fabs).

Cheers,
Simon

Burn, Burn and Burn

Shahar Shenhar just narrowly missed out on a top 8 at GP Omaha with his spicy Burn deck which I have been playing on MODO since the World Championships.

 

Creatures [8]

4 Goblin Guide

4 Monastery Swiftspear

Instant [17]

2 Skullcrack

3 Mutagenic Growth

4 Boros Charm

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Searing Blaze

Sorcery [11]

3 Treasure Cruise

4 Lava Spike

4 Rift Bolt

Enchantment [4]

4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Land [20]

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Stomping Ground

2 Mountain

2 Sacred Foundry

2 Steam Vents

4 Arid Mesa

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard

2 Skullcrack

2 Searing Blood

3 Destructive Revelry

4 Lightning Helix

3 Geist of Saint Traft

1 Flames of the Blood Hand 

 

No major changes from his previous lists though he did add the destructive revelry's which I have also been playing in my list. He also trimmed down on Treasure Cruise and Mutagenic Growth which both seem like good changes.

 

In my play testing the deck has a good matchup versus UR delver so it may continue to be a well positioned going forward. Sometimes not making top 8 is a secret blessing for a deck since it will not be on everyone's radar.

 

-Cheers-

My Favourite MTG Articles from 2014

In no particular order here are my favourite articles from 2014.  For 2015 I am going to start keeping a log, as well as a little blurb on each article but for 2014 I wanted to get used to collecting my favourite ones.

 

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29273_The-Ultimate-Guide-To-Infect.html

 

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-tips-and-tricks-for-modern/

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/five-myths-about-drafting/

 

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29502_Ghost-Report-From-Pro-Tour-Magic-2015.html

 

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/force-of-wilson-how-to-beat-delver/

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29712_18-Rules-Situations-You-Must-Know-For-Grand-Prix-New-Jersey.html

 

 

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29713_The-Ultimate-Guide-To-Elves.html

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29847_The-False-Tempo-Archetype.html

If I missed any particularly good articles then please let me know!

-Cheers-

Fate Reforged Legacy and Modern Review

It's that time again for my Legacy and Modern Review of the newest set (Fate Reforged)!

White

Lightform - A way to cheat Phyrexian Dreadnought into play? Yeah, it may be but is it better than casting Show and Tell or casting True Name Nemesis and not needing any setup? I am not convinced but Lighform (and Cloudform) are where that deck will look to if it is a real deck. The deck can also run Top + Counterbalance to help setup and protect.

Monastery Mentor - This guy is high up there in power level but for 3 mana+ in legacy I generally want to be casting a planeswalker or a show and tell. He could see some sideboard play though. I can imagine this seeing some more play in modern though almost definitely along with Young Pyromancer. It will not take long for this guy to take over a board (and young pyro already did that quite well).

Sage's Reverie - Could this fit into Bogles? I doubt it because of the 4 mana to cast it.

Soulfire Grand Master - Another modern only card is my guess, unless someone can figure out a good deck to sideboard this guy in. Playing this guy against UR delver and then casting Electrikery is probably pretty fun.

Blue

Cloudform - See Lightform.

Renowned Weaponsmith - We keep getting these blue accelerate your artifact creatures and none of them have been playable yet but it isn't too crazy to think that someone might want to accelerate into Wurmcoil Engine in Modern (without Tron).

Temporal Tresspass - I am honestly not sure how good this is but Treasure Cruise was much better than most people thought ,so it is likely worth keeping an eye on.

Torrent Elemental - This card is not on many peoples radar but it is another creature for food chain similar to Misthollow Griffin. I am not sure that food chain is in the market for another card similar to that effect, though it might have been if its casting cost was a bit cheaper (5 is still a lot). I wouldn't be surprised to see this as Misthollow Griffin no. 5 in a decklist though. So yeah this doesn't work because Food Chain only lets you cast creatures and not activate abilities...Oops.

Black

Tasigur, the Golden Fang - I am actually quite high on this guy. His main downside is that he is a legend and he competes with Treasure Cruise, so in Legacy I am probably only willing to play 1 copy of him. He is comparable to goyf in size with the added upside of drawing you a card on an empty board. He may also see some modern play for similar reasons and I am sure he is going to be quite good in BUG in standard. He likely slots into my 4 colour delver deck as a 1 of. I am quite excited to try him out to see if he is as good as I think that he might be.

Green

None.

Red

Collateral Damage - Shard Volley sometimes makes it into mono-red burn as a 1-2 of in modern/legacy and I can see Collateral Damage making a similar but not super exciting foray into the format. For standard however with Hordeling Outburst Collateral Damage seems quite good.

Humble Defector - Perhaps Wizards is gifting us another piece of the puzzle for Standard/Modern Jeskai Ascendancy combo?

Temur Battle Rage - Why cant this be green?...oh yeah because Infect would be way better in modern.

Wild Slash - Nobody was playing Shock anyway (in modern or legacy) but now you really will never play Shock again. I still like Forked Bolt a lot for eternal formats but the prevent damage clause could be relevant against True Name Nemesis if you are running Goyf.

Land

None.

Artifact

None.

Gold

None.

Not too many cards to pick up unless Monastery Mentor is completely broken in modern/legacy, which is a possibility. Oh yeah thank you for another potentially busted Mythic rare that doesn't do anything particularly mythic... Tasigur is my favorite card from the set. His price is likely to be kept in check by being a rare, a legend and Treasure Cruise being run first (though Treasure Cruise could go at any time).

Cheers,
Simon

Happy Delayed Xmas and New Year!

I took off for the whole of Xmas and New Year which is a first since I graduated from Law School. It was nice spending time with the family for a couple of weeks and getting to lounge around on the sofa and play some Hearthstone. The original plan was actually to play mostly MODO and some Hearthstone but Blizzards timing of getting me to sign in to Hearthstone for a few free packs of Goblins vs. Gnomes (GVG) was shockingly well times. (Aside - Why doesn't Magic online have more free things for its players. I feel like MODO is one step away from charging you to log in. Which is already an ordeal since it seems like MODO has to update something every time I want to log in.)

So Hearthstone it is! I did cave in and buy 40 packs of GVG, since I would need some of the cards and I wasn't interested in wasting dust or grinding Arena day in and day out. I got most of what I wanted and disenchanted some unusable legends to create everyone's favorite Dr. Boom!

When the new season reset for January the Battle.net servers were either not ready for the number of people that were logging on, or were crapping out for some other reason. This is the first time I have had a major issues with Hearthstone compared to MODO...When I finally did log on I managed to expand my built decks to Zoo, Hunter, Mage and Handlock. It feels good to have a couple more options to play. The season restart was brutal with "everyone" being off work. The quality of play felt very high at the season restart and watching streamers struggle was quite interesting. I am not sure how much the skill level matters when you just need to grind 25 games (or whatever it is up to level 5 before skill really matters in order to make legend).
 
With a lack of high level tournaments in MTG or even people playing on twitch it was pretty amazing that there was basically no MTG to watch over the holidays. I did manage to play legacy a couple of times but I really wanted to watch some high level MTG.
 

Creatures

4 Young Pyromancer

4 Deathrite Shaman

4 Delver of Secrets

Instant

1 Spell Pierce

4 Brainstorm

3 Daze

4 Force of Will

4 Lightning Bolt

3 Stifle

 

Sorcery

1 Forked Bolt

3 Gitaxian Probe

4 Ponder

3 Treasure Cruise

Land

4 Scalding Tarn

1 Badlands

1 Tropical Island

2 Underground Sea

2 Volcanic Island

4 Polluted Delta

4 Wasteland

 
The above list is what I have been playing and it feels pretty great. There are very few people currently playing Stifle/Wasteland to punish your manabase
and even though there are a ton of Young Pyromancer's out there there are nowhere near enough - Golgari Charms, Electrickery's, etc.

The sideboard is still in flux but currently looks like this:

Sideboard

2 Grafdigger's Cage

1 Ancient Grudge

1 Abrupt Decay

1 Submerge

1 Hydroblast

2 Pyroblast

1 Envelop

1 Forsaken Wastes

1 Sudden Demise

1 Forked Bolt

3 Cabal Therapy

 

The Forsaken wastes is one that many of you may not have seen before. It is slightly weaker than sulfuric vortex in pure damage but it does have a couple up sides:

 

1. Only B to case vs. RR

2. Cannot be hydroblasted

3. Wear/Tear & Disenchant on Forsaken Wastes is pretty painful

 

The rest of the sideboard is pretty stock thugh I do want to mention that Sudden Demise could easily be Electrikery (which would be much better vs. UR). The sudden demise is much better though vs. Death and Taxes which can be a tough matchup.

 

All I know is that it feels good to be stifling people again.

-Cheers-