Welcome back to Super Secret Sunday youngins'! The time that we set aside each week to talk about underplayed cards, under the radar strategies, and under-thought thoughts!
I had an opportunity to hang out an play some games with Uncle Landrops while he stayed at my place over the weekend. We have been friends for a while, but haven't gotten to play each other recently because we live in different places now. Well, he came to town with some tech. It was not new, but it was hot.
I have been playing magic for a pretty long time now. Rare are the days that some plays a card I'm not familiar with. The most rare, and most choice days, though, come when someone plays a card I have never heard of and ABSOLUTELY CRUSHES me with it.
Welcome back to the game haters. While you were asleep, Landdrops has been going deep...and he pretty much found the bottom. Feast your eyes on this:
Energy Vortex is a powerful way to press your mana advantage in long games or to punish slower opponents who need that mana to cast large threats. It also helps cut into the amount of lands your opponent can leave up to cast counterspells or disruption on your turn. 3 damage a turn isn't much, but combined with a cheap threat and some counterspells vortex can really punish a player who falls behind.
It just so happens that Uncle Landdrops is running this card in his
Chisei, Heart of Oceans deck. A deck that I previously thought to be nonsense. It is good; much better than expected and a it is a blast to play. Cumulative Upkeep never looked so good!
Until last night, I had never seen this card. This card is extremely powerful. Having an
Exploration-style effect in a format where fast mana and big spells are the standard fare is pretty sick. This card helps you jump pretty much every spot on the curve, bringing in 6 or 7 drops on turn three is a sufficiently sized game. This is an auto-include in mono green. Better yet, it works with snowlands, so you can combine it with a
Scrying Sheets or
Rowen for filthy mid-game advantages. Just one more good reason to play mono Green. Also, a sick piece of old school Mark Poole art.
I am most excited about this because it was printed as a common in The Dark, which means I am slamming it directly into my pauper cube, where I believe it will be a 1-3 pick quality card.
It is no secret that I like me an
Icy Manipulator. It is one of my favorite cards and although the power level of the game has someone left it behind, I still look for places where Icy can shine. Amber Prison is a cool take on the old standby. The down payment is the same, but it costs for to activate instead of 1, but you can just leave it tapped instead of paying 1 every turn. This has some interesting implications for control decks who want to use
Wrath effects to generate card advantage.
Not allowing the target permanent to untap also helps this card deny value of of utility creatures with tap abilities, like looters, who normally make pretty bad targets for Icy.
Well, that's all for today folks. Take it easy over the holidays! Make sure you get your fill of food, fun, and Special Edition Holiday Cube Drafts on MTGO! The General Zone will be back soon with new content on an expanded posting schedule.
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