Card Corner: Scourge of the Throne

Heya Zoners!

I'm back on this glorious Thor's Day to bring you a card from Conspiracy I feel is worthy of the Mjolnir-wielder himself- the beat-me-over-the-head mythic dragon, Scourge of the Throne, or as I like to call it, "Scourge of Dethrone."

While it's probably no surprise that this card represents a colossal amount of damage, I find there's sometimes a huge discrepancy between the card's rules text and in-game practical application.

This was something I thought could very well be the case with Magic's latest Dragon. It's a strange phenomenon, but with so many variables, including design and playgroup, and perception of threat, you never know how something is going to perceived. In my head I refer to this as the "Odric Glasses," a strange set of lenses that seem to force us to want to spend removal on cards that feel more than dangerous.

Surely, this is something to spend removal on, no holds barred, especially if your opponent is winning on the bottom line, in terms of life total. The combination of Dethrone, evasion, and an extra attack phase is the proverbial "Spicy Meatball" symbol of quality, and in the two games in which I've played it, Scourge of Dethrone has been the MVP of these matches, keeping me in games when I'm 10-20 life points behind, and in this small not-even sample size, even turning games around.

Now, I haven't had a chance to put him out in multiplayer, where the removal will be plenty, but 1v1 matchups have really given him the extra turn necessary to attempt an attack. Still, with protection, haste, or a combination of the two, Scourge of Dethrone could make a case for being one of the better aggressive Dragons in the format.

I know I'm still not telling you guys what you don't know, but if there was any doubt, or apprehension about its $4 price tag, consider this the endorsement you need to get yourself a copy and Aggro your opponents into submission.

I know my opinion isn't the only one, so share your thoughts if you've gotten a chance to see Scourge in action.

Pass.
-UL

In General: Conspiracy - Disillusion

Hello and welcome back to In General, the column where we apparently discuss just about anything as long as it is tangentially related to Magic: the Gathering. Today I will conclude my ongoing rant about Conspiracy, by finally discussing The Disillusion Problem.

This idea is so named for a fake Magic card that I first saw years ago. Take a look:

The name is a double entendre, referring both to this card specifically, but also to the idea that you don't necessarily have to only take the cards that R&D gives you. With sufficient knowledge, design skill, and inspiration, you can create new cards to address specific issues in your casual play environments. In this example I am exclusively considering Powered Cube, where the format is defined by fast artifact mana. Without a way to interact with those cards, Black is severely limited in the 'fair' decks it can build.

This idea of 'peeking behind the curtain' of R&D can be liberating and scary. The strange, new draft-altering cards presented in Conspiracy broke many of the fundamental rules of the game. This creates a slippery slope: what is sacred? If you break one rule, what is to say you can't break a different one?

The Disillusion Problem stated simply is this: "If they can break the rules. Why can't I?"

There is a debate inside R&D between Mark Rosewater, who believes the color pie by should be defined by what each color is 'good at', and Aaron Forsythe, who believes the color pie should be defined by what each color has access to.

We can see Rosewater's idea with a card like Hornet Sting. Green isn't 'good at' direct damage, so this card is weak compared to Shock (the standard for this type of effect).

We see the other side of the coin with Disenchant and Black. Black...just doesn't have one. Zero total ways to answer a Doubling Season or Tangle Wire. Well technically, Black has Gate to Phyrexia and Phyrexian Tribute, but I am going to take up the stance that these cards are not good enough to see play in any format.

What is missing from this picture?

Is it Thoughsteize? Is it really? The point is that SOMETHING is missing and in the interest of a more balanced play experience for my own Cube, SOMETHING should occupy this space. I don't think that Disillusion is a printable card. However, there is an established theme within the design of Black cards that has been used hundreds of times of the years: Pay life to get what you want. These are more mechanically sound examples:




This isn't an article about how to design balanced cards. It is just meant to inspire you to take some initiative in creating your own fun. R&D breaks a few rules every once in a while, why can't you?

-GG

In General: Conspiracy - Mechanics

Hello and welcome to In General. Here on the Sunday segment of The General Zone we discuss just about everything relating to the game of Magic and sometimes even more than that. This is part two of my discussion and analysis of Conspiracy.

For my thoughts on some individual cards from the set look: Here! 
For Uncle Landdrops article about the Legendary Creatures in the set look: Here! 

In today's article I will share my thoughts on Conspiracy as a whole: the mechanics, the design, and the idea of exploring 'untouchable' design space.

Mechanics:

Conspiracy - The eponymous mechanic of the set is embodied by this new card type. Conspiracies cost you a draft pick, but don't take up a slot in your deck. How do I feel about that? Bad actually. This creates a problem for me because previously you just drafted the CARDS that went in your deck. Now you are drafting something that ISN'T a card...strictly speaking they are closer to planeswalker emblems than real Magic cards. But how far are we willing to let this go? This may sound dramatic, but what if I said:

"My cube contains Snack cards. You can draft these cards, but they don't go in your deck. They simply entitle you to a snack."

Ham sandwich may not disrupt the draft much. Probably a 4-8th pick. Snickers Bar on the other hand is probably a windmill slam and would drastically alter the environment.

Do you think I have gone too far? There is a Conspiracy that says you just get to go first. Period (almost). That card exists in Pokemon, not Magic. There is a Conspiracy that makes all your lands tap for any color. Now the resource system is more like Hearthstone than MtG. It is not that much of a stretch to think there could have been a Conspiracy that reverses the turn order. At that point we are really just playing Uno.

Hidden Agenda - The Hidden Agenda ability is already on my nerves. I am in love with the idea of competing information. What can you discover? What can you hide? What can you assume safely? This is a fantastic interplay that already exists in many games.

Hidden Agenda is inelegant. It essentially forces you to wear a sign that says: "I HAVE A SECRET!" Why is your Conspiracy face down? Pretty obvious.

Although there are some ambiguities in the rules, I am a firm believer that the sideboard and the command zone are distinct game areas and MUST BE physically separated for clarity - just the same way you separate your graveyard, library, hand, and battlefield. Worse still, once you flip your Hidden Agenda up and reveal what you have named, EVERYONE else in the draft will know what you are trying to do, simply by virtue of being in the same room.

Parley - Nowadays, it seems as though every product that gets released features some mechanic that is a boring rehash of an older mechanic. I dare anyone to explain to me why Strive is not just multikicker. I don't think a convincing argument exists. Parley feels very similar to Clash, which was already not a favorite of mine.

The only real difference seems to be that everyone draws the card instead of having the option to Scry it away. And 'winning' the Parley happens by seeing a higher number of nonland cards instead of a higher converted mana cost. Time to catch the bus to Yawnsville. This is as tired and contrived as it gets.

Will of the Council - I say this at the risk of getting a bit too political for a game blog, but heck, here goes nothing. Democracy is an atrocious way to decide ANYTHING within groups of people. If you could trust humans to act in the best interest of the group YOU WOULDN'T NEED A GOVERNMENT.

Will of the Council is quickly going to devolve into 'punish the guy who played it'. This is the exact reason I advocated against playing punisher cards. Your opponent(s) have absolutely no incentive to agree to anything that lets you profit. You are always going to be better of playing something that doesn't give the opposition the option to improve their position.

Dethrone - This isn't exactly an uninspired reimagining of something old. It is new...in a way. My issue here is that this is so bland and so shallow though. This is something that I would have rather seen on a single card. Perhaps an Artifact or Enchantment that gives this to your Creatures. No need to create a new keyword for something so simple and automatic.

Draft - The draft-altering cards, for lack of a better name, are hit or miss for me. There are certainly times where I have looked at a pack and thought: "I wish I could just take 2-3 of these cards and pass on the rest." On balance though, this is a gimmick. I do not suffer gimmicks lightly. Some of the cards are also dependent on multiplayer games to some degree and I am not the biggest fan of multiplayer gameplay.

Also, there are many ways to play limited other than booster draft, and this product does not give them any service. Sealed Deck, Stack, Winston draft, Rotisserie Draft, Rochester Draft - these are all fun in their own ways. They add spice and replay value to your limited sets. Why make a CASUAL draft product that doesn't even address the idea of playing the casual-only draft formats?

I have a second issue with these cards that I will remark on briefly, as I will be saving the bulk of this topic for next week.

If you design something that breaks the rules of the game in some way, you are inherently entering new design space that had previously been restricted. It can be easy to overlook that this design space may have been closed off for a reason. Most people don't care, they like the game the way it is. There is a subset of the player base however who has ALWAYS considered this restricted design space to be open. These people are creative and savvy. They see a niche, a gap in the design and they fill it. It could be creating a new format. It might mean creating a new card or card type. It almost always means breaking a few rules.

Take Commander as an example. Why do we have to abide by the rule of four? What if we instead had a rule of one? And who says we need 60 card decklists? Let's make it an even hundred.

I am in this category of player. You can't give me something 'new' and ask me to buy it. I already have it. I imagined it. I experienced it already. I refer to this issue lovingly as: "The Disillusion problem." And I will be discussing how it relates to Conspiracy in the next In General. After that: Vintage Masters, baby!

As always, thanks for reading. Shout it out in the comments.

-GG

In General: Conspiracy - Withholding the Beef

Welcome to a special edition of In General where we will be discussing the new casual product: Conspiracy. The set is somewhat small already, and contains only a handful of new cards. The set is also designed exclusively to be drafted, meaning that stereotypically under-powered Commons and Uncommons are littered throughout the set. For these reasons I will not be doing a full review of the set. Rather I will talk about a few key cards that I believe are playable in Commander. Next week I will discuss a few logistics issues that arose with the design and release of the set and give you my impressions of the mechanics. But first, a question:

New Cards

Starting at the top, we have a whole string of cards with the new mechanic - Will of the Wisp Council. Naturally, it is almost exclusively for use in multiplayer. However, based on the way some of these cards are worded, the possibility of a tie in the voting makes for interesting results in two-player games. Take this card for example. The result with always be that you choose a card....and you just get that card, regardless of what your opponent wants. That just to happens to make this one of the most efficient and versatile recursion effects available at common. And it is attached to a 3/3 Flier? Deal.


So I can't imagine anyone who is going to give you an extra turn for four mana. In a multiplayer game, if your board is empty as well as your hand you just aren't winning that game and no amount of pleas made to your opponents are going to help. You are almost certainly going to get the cards, but that is cool. It is a more splashable Concentrate. I can work with that.



Same story again here. You can almost always expect a single opponent to pick what is worse for you, but in a multiplayer game the same is going to be true in a different way. If your opponent casts a spell and then you Split Decision it, the other players are incentivized to just vote denial. Then you and the controller of the original spell are down a card, but no one else is. In effect, they profit from you trying to get cheaky. Either way, it is an easier to cast Counterspell OR Twincast. Same deal.

What is going on in this art though? It this guy going to get his hands chopped off? Sometimes creative gets a little carried away




This Demon token is going to be enormous. I am predicting that this will wipe away a few Creatures and then you get a 5/5 or bigger. The piece that this is missing is the word Instant somewhere in the middle of the card. Sorceries are so bad in Commander. They really have to be doing something incredible in order to be worth while.





Legacy playability will definitely help this card. Four point burn spells are pretty much always playable. Fetching Badlands instead of basic Mountains isn't free, figuratively speaking, but it will give access to a whole 'nother set of Flame Rifts. The deck isn't great, but this certainly isn't making it any worse.




The planeswalker, one of the few chase cards in the set at all, is a hit for fans of the lore. For constructed however, it isn't likely to make much of an impact. I can't think of any Commander deck I own that would want this. Perhaps Niv-Mizzet combo? It is cool to see Dack get his own card, but this is a little bit of a dud for me. The abilities just aren't relevant enough to the typical game. Stealing a Sol Ring could be a big game, but if they have had a Sol Ring for three turns and haven't done anything broken with it, they should have mulliganed.


Dack may be a lame card, but members of his posse have definitely got the juice. A Clone that gives Haste? This is something I have been waiting on for a long time and it is going to be crazy. This is the first and only card with Dethrone that I am going to be discussing. The ability is just very simple, very bland, and not powerful enough to change the landscape of a game. The possibility of cloning a Titan, Primordial, or Chancellor will have to be enough for now.



Drawing an extra card every turn is sweet. Getting to draw one on your opponent's turn is an excellent bonus to boot. Triggering Morbid is very easy, as we saw in Innistrad block limited. Commander is just absolutely FULL of removal and stuff to point it at, and Black/Green is the perfect color combination to get the maximum value out of this enchantment. Solid card, if a bit unexciting. Definitely worth slamming into decks like Savra or Glissa.



A Reanimate effect that doesn't restrict the targeting to your graveyard is awesome. A Reanimate effect that doesn't target at all is a card in very good company. This has none of the symmetry problems that plague things like Exhume, and you get the immediate bonus of being able to mill extra cards from both player's libraries before you decide what to return. Insane. Groundbreaking may seem like a strong word to use, but this truly is. Expect to see this card. It will come to define the standard for U/B reanimation effects.



The final new card I will be discussing is, in my opinion, the LEAST interesting of all the Will of the Council cards. I can say with certainty: I AM NEVER voting to return all the nonsense in my opponents' graveyards to the battlefield. No matter what the perceived benefit is, or the expected value, or how quickly you think you can win, I wouldn't do it. I won't even be playing this card. It is straight up worse than Immortal Servitude and Sunblast Angel. I don't even think any deck has room for another copy of either of those cards, particularly when this substitution has such high variance attached. Silly hats? No thank you.

I'll leave you now with a word about the reprints and my final thoughts on the set. There are a number of high profile reprints included in this set. Cards like Mirari's Wake and Pernicious Deed are highly sought after by the Commander community and making reprints of them available is a welcome gesture. However, the majority of these important reprints are at the Uncommon rarity or lower and don't command a particularly high price. Mortify is awesome and oft-played, but it wasn't pricing anyone out of Commander. At the same time Misdirection will drive up the price of Conspiracy packs as players clamor to open Legacy playables.

The decision not to release this product online makes sense. Programming the new multiplayer draft format into Modo would be a logistical challenge, but this product doesn't look like it is going to have enough appeal to the average player to actually make people want to play it on a consistent basis. The gimmicky draft-altering cards are not going to be making widespread appearance in Cubes, and with good reason. They are largely absurd, and as I will discuss next week, if you wanted this kind of thing you already had access to it: in your imagination.

I was disappointed by the Conspiracy product. There was a distinct lack of powerful new cards. The mechanics didn't to anything to stretch the bounds of design space or give me anything that I wanted more of. These, combined with the under-promotion of the product, has left me with a bad taste.

That is all for this week, Zoners. Until next time.

-GG

Conspiracy: The Legends

Heya Zoners!

There's a new non-Standard set ready to release this Friday. While it may be more for the Cubers, there's a few new Legendary Creatures on the landscape, which means Wizards didn't totally forget us, which means we have tech to talk about.

THE OLD

We'll begin by recapping unheard opinions on nonsense that already exists.

I have to say, I'm glad they went with the invasion artwork. This card is kind of a running joke in my metagame, because most of the players who play this have the promo with the world's most horrible foiling.

Perhaps there's now a good way to find a cheap copy of her so we don't have to avert our eyes.

While Phage has seen significant printing in both borders, this is something I'm not crazy about, but in more of an understanding mood.

Phage seems fun in a cube format, and I enjoy the artwork and things that go along with her.

This artwork feels a little like a "digitally remastered" version, for some reason. Maybe it is. Everything looks smoother and sleeker. Phage in Blu-Ray. In Stores June 6th.

My love for HH is well-documented here, and it remains one of my favorite decks.

Still, I don't see the cube value of this card. After spending serious time drafting and picking out cards, HH is put into this Cube pool to make the game go faster?

In my experience with Cube and FNM Draft formats, I understand how it relates to the latter. In cube though, there are a lot of players with 20 life. In Commander, HH's first ability trigger is a big chunk, but it keeps people in the game. The second hit is brutal.

I'm not saying it's wrong to put this card in cube, or that it's unwelcome- I just don't get why you would versus other choices. Especially when the set's mechanics seem to be giving off a more political vibe. From my experience playing HH, he is the equivalent of the Honey Badger (The Meme, not Tyrann Mathieu). He just doesn't give a shit. Everyone takes pain equally, and through all the hurting, you've got to figure out how to stay alive.

On a Stack episode some time ago, I tore this card apart. I like Terese Nielsen, but I don't like this art. It looks like the kind of artwork people have on rugs that they hang on their walls. Not that there is anything wrong with this, if it looks good. Beauty is never in the eyes of this beholder. I have a completely different perspective on this altogether.

However, my assessment of what Basandra does hasn't changed. She's a legend that came out before we started blogging here, so I'll give you a couple pennies worth of knowledge you probably already know.

This card is poorly designed. I continue to die a little inside every time I have to attempt to understand why Wizards prints a card in these colors that with the most counter-intuitive rules text of all time. Were this Time Spiral, I might get it. That was the point in time which Wizards could wear the proverbial "Do-Whatever-I-Want-And-Get-Away-With-It" Badge, and that time has long expired. Were they to have announced another Spiral-esque block in the Fall, I might've even given them a pass too.

But I really can't stand this card. It's just so bad, it's hard for me to look at. I encourage you all to do the same. Just look away, kids.

Last of the old business, we have Edric.

Case you don't know, this deck is good. This card is good. The deck is aggressive. It's enough to confuse most players, even good ones, into thinking that they shouldn't attack someone with an army of Elves or 1-drops on the board by Turn 5.

What you have to understand about Edric is that when you play against this deck, everything you know is wrong. Welcome to Crazy World, the place where you don't want to draw cards, and there's someone attacking you with a bunch of little guys for lethal before turn 10 with counterspell backup.

There's a reason it's banned in 1v1. Edric's pure value there, and that's apparently too unfair for most people.

THE NEW

 Let's start with Brago, the King of Blink.

While he may be one color short of Roon of the Hidden Realm, the dedication to blink colors and no-nonsense artwork courtesy of Karla Ortiz means those seeking ETB value not have to have a goofy kid's show character at the helm.

Not that there's anything wrong with this- I play silly decks all the time. Still, sometimes being a better player means respecting yourself, so that others respect you. If you're a believer in stuff like this, then the King Eternal is the Blink Deck Commander for you.

Next up is Selvala, sporting some goofy conquistador garb and and equally strange mechanic. A little too "Pirates of the Caribbean" and Group Hug for me.

What interests me about this card is the way the rules work here. What happens if Omen Machine is in play? What about activating this on an opponent's turn with Spirit of the Labyrinth in play? Where does the card go?

Though I'm not into this card, being a 2/4 for three is pretty appealing. We're seeing this a lot more, and it's clearly a home run in Standard right now. I guess if you love Courser of Kruphix, this is the Commander for you.

If this card was a little more selfish, and by selfish, I mean, wasn't part of the silly Parley mechanic where everyone draws a card, I could really get behind it. The life gain and mana in multiplayer matchups seems like a huge boost. I wouldn't recommend bringing this strangely gender-ambiguous character to the table in 1v1 though.

It's as clear to me as it is to everyone else that Marchesa is the gem of the Legends in this set.

Dethrone as a mechanic is slightly more political than I'd like it to be, but is totally manageable with access to Black. The key will be to get liberal with Ad Nauseam and Necropotence.

What's silly about this card being printed is that she already has a great dance partner in Black Mike (AKA Mikaeus, the Unhallowed), which gives this deck great value and design space.

My only real criticism of the card is that I think it does "too much." Other than that, I really love it. Matt Stewart's vision of Marchesa is stunning in every sense- colors, form, details. I'm not sure how any of her abilities make her a Wizard (The ability and artwork SCREAM Human Advisor), but this is going to be a hit, and going to be at tables.

With Grenzo, we have another hit. If Wizards places their pegs right, they might actually be sinking my Battleship today.

I'm surprised the bottom-of-library-to-graveyard mechanic hasn't taken off. In Innistrad, we got the ever flavorful Cellar Door, which was sweet, but something the world seems to have forgotten.

What I'm hoping for with Grenzo is that there will be more of these kinds of cards, and they will be good. Grenzo has a very interesting set of abilities that have been put together, and I'm excited to see what comes of it.

With an X cost in his identity, and a non 0/0 P/T, Grenzo's flexibility makes him aggressive like a Goblin while also giving him the potential to be big, like his Rakdos counterparts.

Combined with other seldomly used tricks like Reito Lantern, Grenzo really feels like a fun deck for the table. Definitely the one I'm most likely to play out of the set.

Last but not least, we have the world's most Italian Magic Card of all-time. Muzzio!

I hope more people will be saying his name than Arcum's soon. Although he's definitely underpowered in comparison, the lone mono-colored legend is basically giving us a look that says "Break Me."

Now, I don't think it's supposed to, but this artwork makes me laugh. It's so clear that Muzzio's da Vinci inspired by the eccentricities and inventions in the background it hurts. I'm not sure what he's wearing though. Looks like he bought clothes off the Aladdin mannequin at Disney. I guess he really wants to show us a whole new world.

What are your thoughts on Conspiracy? What cards are you interested in? Let us know in the comments down below.
Pass.
-UL

TGZ News 2/21/14

Hey Zoners! Big news from the Magic world and beyond. I am back in the world of the internet living and much has happened since our last news segment. Let's dig in and see what all the fuss is about.

For the last few years Wizards has been in the habit of releasing new casual products every Summer. This has brought us some awesome products like the Commander pre-constructed decks and Planeschase. This years product is called Conspiracy and is designed for multiplayer drafting. As a big fan of casual drafting, I am very excited by this. The preview cards revealed with the announcement have already got me salivating, but what I am most excited about is this: this is the newest expert level product that also shares a name with a card. You can read the product info here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1430

This year's From the Vault product is also poised to deliver excitement. FtV: Annihilation, as it's called, is a collection of the most 'brutal' cards from Magic's history. As always, they have teased the announcement by showing one of the beautiful new pieces of art and, always, the internet is aflutter with speculation as to what this card might be. If you as me the answer is pretty clear, Sulfur Vortex. It is brutal, powerful, has a storied history within the game, playability in Legacy and Cube, and has never received a reprint.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1426

Magic has always had appeal to collectors, but many of the side merchandise have never really caught on. Wizards plans to change this with a new line of collectible figurines from Funko featuring the ionic planeswalkers from Magic. http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1431

Finally, Pro Tour Born of the Gods begins today. The top players in the World are going to be battling it out with Modern decks featuring the brand new Modern Banned list. So far, the effects have already been felt with Wild Nacatl powering a resurgence of Aggro Zoo decks alongside a small smattering of Faerie decks utilizing Bitterblossom. You can follow the coverage all weekend long on dailymtg.com and you can watch the live web stream here: http://webcastplayer.wizards.com/