NOLAG Lans

I was looking through my copious amounts of cards yesterday and I recalled a conversation I had with a kid that I was teaching to play. This is the summary of that conversation.

Kid: this card looks really cool! I bet it’s awesome

Me: well it’s a 4/4 that costs 6 to lay down and it’s got no abilities

Kid: Oh, well what about this one? It looks ok

Me: That’s a lightning bolt. That is a great card

Kid: This one looks stupid

Me: That’s a basic land. You need those to play other cards

Kid: Nah, I’m not going to use any when I play

Me: KA-TISH! (KA-TISH! being the approximate sound of my hand leaving a bruise on my forehead)

What makes a good card? Obviously it has nothing to do with its name, its flavor-text, or its illustrations. So we must be basing these conclusions on its mana cost, color, spell type and effects. But that’s still a lot. I mean there are 1315 instants, 1467 enchantments, and over 5000 creatures! We need some rules to determine what makes a good card.

Lets start with some pretty obvious ones.

· Sorcery and instant cards total effects have a higher ratio to mana cost

o For those true math geeks, this is X:Y. X is benefit, Y is cost. X is bigger than Y

· Creatures have their Power + Toughness equal or greater to mana cost plus 2-3 (within reason)

o The reason means if I play 6 mana for a creature I sure as hell don’t want it to be a 5/1.

· Enchantments benefits have to be much greater than any negative effects that might occur as well as mana cost.

· Non-basic land must have useful abilities. Mana cost for them isn’t a big deal as long as it still produces mana on its own.

You may notice a theme here. As long as your bang (effects/results) doesn’t cost more than your buck (Land cost), then they are ok. So can we use these as standards for cards? Well unfortunately for us, this set of rules and any set we could revise this to will, like the English language, be completely screwed.

Here’s one example for each that breaks all of those rules.

Rule 1: Fireball. You don’t mess with this. XR for X damage. Pay 1 to get another target and you can now divide the original damage.

Rule 2: you may have noticed but enchantments have next to none drawbacks. The few that I can think of are the core of a deck which compensates for the drawback to the point of a win method. Mana costs are 3-5 on average. Good deals all around.

Rule 3: The unreleased land, Golden Lotus. It may come into play tapped, and you may have to sacrifice three lands, it may have shroud, it may sacrifice itself when it taps, but that 9 mana in any combo makes this a very nice land. It’s legendary though, so you can see some funny plays with it.

Now you may have noticed I did not put down any exception for creatures. The reason why is Creature Abilities. Just using the Core rules this list is as follows, Defender, Double Strike, Fear, First Strike, Flash, Flying, Haste, Landwalk, Protection, Regeneration, Trample, and Vigilance. These plus the ridiculous number of key words that have appeared over blocks has rendered creatures so freaking overly large, there pappies must have shat a brick when they were born. Creatures break their own rule just by existing. But then again, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Hey they did make Terror for a reason.

So back to the original question, what defines a good card? Well, it honestly seems to me that the days of a straight up good solid card are over. The days of 2 mana for a 2/2 no questions asked are over. We still have good cards, but now most are picked for their hidden value (the value that makes any good deck tick). This hidden value is what is known as the Combo value (or C value). The C value is basically how well this card works with other cards. This drives most of the needs of a card. Yes, card X may be good while card Y is slightly worse, but if Y works so much better with other cards, than it will be taken over X. So if that kid had known this, then he would have realized that really any card is good. Some just take longer to realized how good they made it (loxodon warhammer anyone?). Understand that (and I know I am going to get hate mail for this one) all cards have a purpose and to say a card sucks is harsh. While that card might not be great, it does serve a purpose of some sort.

Oh and just a nice going away present.

They’re re-printing lightning bolt….wow I can hear the nerdy cheers from here…..

Until next time,

Ryan

Magic is all about building a deck that suits your play style. A deck says a lot about its player, with everything from its color to its critters defining it. Building a good deck is hard. Some have a gift for it. Some are hopelessly challenged. I fall somewhere in between. I create some pretty solid decks, but you should see the random deck ideas I throw around.

Case 1: “Mousetrap”, a deck my brother named in which I nuke the field and laugh as everything, including me, dies.

Case 2: my wizard deck. A.K.A “put it away Ryan”. It’s the only mono-blue deck that I have seen that has an infinite creature kill combo. Yeah. Don’t ask.

Case 3: the deck I’m currently working on. I’ve dubbed it my “Call of duty deck” but only because it focuses on a card called Last Stand. I spam land and you feel the pain due to it…a lot of pain.

So if you want to play magic and create a custom deck, first you should start with the basics. What are you looking for? Do you want a tournament style deck or a casual deck to play friends with? Maybe even the Chuck Norris of all decks? Since this is a gaming website, I’ll try to keep the allusions to Chuck Norris to a minimum.

Next, you want to decide on a tactic for your deck. I find this easier if you compare Magic to your favorite Real Time Strategy game. What’s your tactic? Rush? Late game steam roll? Abuse them with game shifters? Use odd tactics? Use goblin zeppelins to drop a worker in the back of their base so you can build a farm and Mass Teleport your Arch Mage and 24 goblin sappers into the back of their base? Take your pick. I’ve always felt that blue decks are a very tournament friendly color, as negation and slowing your opponents are always great tactics. Here’s a little chart to help show colors strong points of what they like using.

	Blue	Red	Green	White	Black
Creatures		X	X	X	X
Artifacts	X
Enchantments	X		X	X	X
Sorcery	X	X		X	X
Instant	X	X	X	X	X
Alternate win condition*	x				x

*Alternate win conditions mean winning through non lethal damage. E.g. reducing opponents deck to 0 or having card that says “I win”

Now, you can see that blue does just about everything well, HOWEVER, this is due to a few things. Over the last blocks, Mirroden on, blue’s range of versatility has grown rapidly. Also some may argue that blue’s creatures are nothing to be sniffed at. I agree in principle but they are nothing more than walking spells. When was the last time you played an aggro blue deck? Blue’s critters are small and quick but they can rarely hold up late game due to this. Leviathan, your days are over…sorry. Blue is also known for its milling. Probably one of the most annoying decks to play is either a milling deck or a counter spell deck. This is for those that like messing with your opponents head as much as their field. Oh and blue enchantments usually steal what your opponent plays. Would you pay 3 total mana for what they just played and paid 13 for? Yeah, thought so.

Red is the flaming power house. Taking the idea “if something’s worth doing, its worth over doing” and feed HGH till its eyes pop. Red has monstrous burn spells that can level the game. Its critters come in many sizes, for late game and early rushing. Red’s enchantments are wicked, but most of them have the tendency to hurt the caster as well. A well timed Tranquility or Leave No Trace can screw them over hard. Red spell do either one of three things. Boost, Burn or KA-FRIGGEN-BURN!!! That sums it up well I find.

Green is for those that love steam rolling. A deck with green is a deck with critters. Big ones, small ones, fast ones, slow ones, annoying ones, beating ones, they got ‘em all! Elf decks, beast decks, token deck, Mana-cceleration. Green needs a roll however. Most decks need a start then build steam from that. The 1/1 that hit you last turn is now a 4/4, next turn it’s a 8/8 with a 6/6 friend. By the way its turn 4. Your at one life and have had to chump-block your guys to prolong the inevitable. It can happen. Spell wise green is all about the combat tricks. Giant growth is a classic. Letting that 1/1 through? Its now a 4/4. Ouch indeed. Enchantments either boost mana production or boost creatures. Creature types make a big difference for green. A critter themed deck is mean!

White players (not intended as a racist comment) enjoy putting up a wall and laughing as your opponents flounder. White’s creature can do damage but they are an odd mix. Blue creatures are for their abilities, Green for their stompy-ness, but White critters seem to, the whole, have good defense but low attack as well as special abilities to back them up. Clerics and Soldiers make up most of their creature types, but Angels make their presence known as well. White enchantments usually boost the toughness of your creatures or make it harder for your opponent. An untouchable field anyone? White also has a few “ass savers” as I call them; cards that essentially allow you to be dropped to the lowest possible point without dying. Good to have few but don’t base a deck on them. White is not known for its spells, but they are effective at what they do. Preventing you from doing that…yes that. I don’t care what you said but yes.

Black. I’ll try and not give a biased opinion here. Black is not a favorite. It deals with completes. You are dead or not. I find there is not many in between spots. Decks vary as there are multiple ways of winning with black. Can you say hi to a turn one 8/8? Possible with a revive deck. Think it’s fun to spread plague, then Rat decks are your thing. Like just plain outright kill everything your opponents got, well that is also possible. Black spells specialize in loss of life from opponents and giving it to you. Black does everything well, though its creatures aren’t as fast as red or green, but usually have abilities to back them up.

So if your reading (or read seeing this is the end) this hopefully you’ll like what you see. And hey, leave a comment with deck ideas. I’ll see what I can do to give you a hand. For those of you that are observant, you will notice there are overlaps between colors and these can be abused.

Until next time, keep in mind that one wizard is a suspect, two is a conspiracy. This is why Harry potter shall be purged by the Imperial Inquisition.

Ryan

The year is 2009 and if you say “do you want to play a game?” people will answer with “360 or PS3?” The olden day games of tiddley-winks, chess, and checkers is nearly obsolete. I however, refuse to submit to this pressure for more and more electronic stuff. I am proud of my geekdom and would like to draw your attention to a pastime as old as I am; Collectible Card Games. Now if any of you out there say “Oh, you mean like Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon?”, I will bring my righteous wrath down upon thy head. I am referring to THE TRUE collectible card game, Magic the Gathering. Yes, I play a collectible card game. Yes, I know all the rules and all the funny little symbols and words printed on the cards. And finally, yes, I can remember over 100 different cards off the top of my head. Now, I can hear some of you from here yelling “Geek!”. While this is uncalled for, it is undeniably true. In my defense however, I would ask how much stuff do you remember about your hobbies? Yeah…I think we’re even; now onto business.

So what is Magic The Gathering? How do you play? How much is it? Where can I play? There is a great deal of questions that need addressing before we can begin discussing the intricacies of the game. Thankfully though, these questions can be answered in a pretty straightforward fashion. What is it: Magic The Gathering, or MTG, is a strategy card game where you use monsters, spells, artifacts, and other devices to turn your opponents into whimpering heaps of pwnage.

How do you Play: Hard to explain in haste, but look at the rules online at http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Multiverse/, which is the official site. Good for looking at news, information, and strategies too.

How much: Ok, here is the part that usually turns people off. You can get a pack of 15 random cards (known as a Booster Pack) for about $4-5, a Semi-made deck for around $12, and for the truly devoted, huge pack of boosters for about $60-80. So yeah, this game isn’t for the faint of wallet. The good thing is that once you get to know the cards, you can make a tidy profit off them. I have a card sitting in my binder worth around $25-30. If you’re looking through my binder, don’t bother asking, I won’t tell you which one it is.

Where can I play: MTG is really an underground cult. You won’t find a lot of people playing it out in the open mainly because people, * cough-JOCKS-cough * come by and generally disrupt your game. You can play in sanctioned tournaments or games at local hobby stores, as well as the occasional dark corner or dimly lit room though, so look around.

Now, some of you may be thinking “hey, I remember seeing a video game called Magic Battle Grounds that’s like this”. I warn you now that any magic player worth his mana will slap you silly if you try to get us to play that. As a Magic purist (yes, there is such a thing), I will say right now I condemn that game. If you called it something else, I’d let it slide but the fact that your limited to a top creature count at five and the fact that you can steal mana ’shards’ (come on developers, at least pretend that you glanced over the rulebook) from your opponent makes this a god’s mutant bastard off spring that was dropped as a child. If you’re interested in playing Magic, DO NOT PLAY THAT GAME EXPECTING ANY SIMILARITIES!

Okay, so if you already knew what magic was and have been patiently waiting for the good stuff, here it is; my opinions on Magic. This is for those who understand the concepts, mechanics, and terminology of the game, as I won’t be explaining them. I will try not to use to much MTG slang, but it sometimes unavoidable. Read through the rules if you’re new (see the aforementioned website) as it is a vast and deep well of insight (Not always, but I like to think it is).

Now, I play a lot of MTG and through my experiences, have come up with my own way of categorizing decks based on color and typical play styles. This is my general thoughts on mono-colored decks.

Red:
-Not bad
Aggro’s well early game
-Burn output is unbelievable

White:
-Probably some sort of creature themed deck
-Angels or soldiers most likely
-Could also be a lockdown deck

Green:
-Here come the stompa’s!
-Has the least variants
-It’s either quick and stompy or slow and really stompy

Black:
-Complete A$$
-Mono black decks are no fun to fight
-Prepare for everything to be screwed with

Blue:
-Only A$$hats need apply
-Straight up, if you play a mono-blue deck I will probably never play it
-It’s either chalk full of counterspells and not letting me do anything or you’re moving all possible movements

Finally, to finish off, I would like to mention that on March 25 wizards released the name of the new block, Zendikar. I’m smelling some sort of old desert/eastern themed cards, but time will tell whether I called it.

-Ryan Stewart