Magic: Individual Card Discussion

[Pogiforce-14]

You know, I'm not a magic, player, but I notice the card of the week hasn't been updated in exactly 2 weeks. I think someone needs to take care of that. :\

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Yeah. I know. I was waiting for Unhinged to come out so I can post something from there.

Mother of Goons 2B
Creature - Human Cleric
Whenever a creature an opponent controls goes to the graveyard, sacrifice mother of goons unless you insult the card.
3/2
Common - Unhinged

w00t! YO MOTHER (of Runes) RETURNS! w00t! See sig at this moment in time, we have mother of goons. So cool. and a 3/2 for 3 with no drawback is good. :P

 

[KLS]

darn they didn't do any more cheese
so in honor of unhinged
"Unhinged" the Cheese,slapinator of doom
2
artifact
whenever, your opponent plays an unhinged card, you may make them eat cheese or slap he/she across the face.

 

[digi-kun]

Triskelion 6
Artifact Creature
Triskelion comes into play with three +1/+1 counterson it.
Remove a +1/+1 counter from Triskelion: Triskelion deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
1/1
Rare - Mirrodin

I saw this card used in scythe/blasting combo
however i dont know no metagame status on this someone else rate this XD

 

[KLS]

lol, it's suppose to be used in t/n w/ mephidross vampire,
so that's infinite creature kill
XD

 

[Kenny_C.002]

T&N's got like Kiki with Colossus now, crazy stuff (attack for 11, then attack for 22 next turn).

Gifts Ungiven 3U
Instant
Search your library for 4 cards with different names and reveal them. Target opponent chooses 2 of these cards. Put the chosen cards into your graveyard and the rest into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Rare - CHK

Pretty sweet stuff there. First it's an imperfect tutor AND an additional card (i.e. 1 CA). I like how the gifts are ungiven to me when it's like this. One thing I can see is that you can combo this puppy up with Mindslaver so you choose the cards yourself, but essentially the card's good enough to warrant some distinctive games. Heck the gifts can be used for MANA ACCELERATION, unheard of in blue. What is it that it can't do? Well whatever timestop can do. lol

Personally this card nears tourney-calibur but falls just short (like crystal shard...).
9/10

 

[KLS]

yes Gifts Ungiven lacks a certain quality
8/10

Goblin Charbelcher
this card isn't a tourney worthy card, however....
i'm sure it's possible that someone could build a deck around him, but casual players will win in about turn 3 to turn 4 if built a strong deck based around it.

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Charbelcher:

Dont' you wish it was the days of tinker/mana severence? I mean, severence out ALL of your lands out of your deck, tinker for the belcher, activate for the win (this has been confirmed by a level 4 judge that you do NOT need the last land in there! YAY!). That was tourney worhty and made it to many top 8's in extended....

Too late! 8/10

 

[KLS]

March Of The Machines
many people argue that MotM is a better match for affinity than mono-green,
for once gossip was right.
I decided to try this deck online and i've only lost once to an affinity, but so far i've won all my matches thanks to this card.
10/10, no question about this.

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Titania's song is better than march in terms of sheer power against artifacts (they loseall abilities! WHEEE!), but march is good nonetheless. For affinity March's only threat is the disciple of the vault. Not too bad, and your indestructable ingots can swing for 3! lol

8/10

It's time for...HAMMER TIME!

Goblin Welder R
Creature - Goblin
Tap: Choose target artifact a player controls and target artifact card in that player's graveyard. If both targets are still legal as this ability resolves, that player sacrifices the artifact in play, then puts the other artifact from his or her graveyard into play. 1/1
RARE

Before the newbies come up to me and slap me for previewing a card like this, I'd like to say that...wait....you all suck if you don't like the welder. :P

Stats:
1/1 for 1 with an ability is good. 1/1 for 1 with a ridiculously powerful ability is...I don't know?

Combos:
Mindslaver

Card Potential:
Goblin Welder has been notorious for hanging with crowds like the godly tinker and mindslaver. If you haven't noticed yet, yes we dotinnker for a slaver and then continuously activate the slaver every turn providing that the welder can switch them about. Not tough when you're playing with cards like the power 9 tho. VINTAGE POWER!

Tho situational this card is, it provides landmark power unlike any other, similar to how trinisphere is so crap in standard yet so ridiculously ridiculous in vintage (or crucible of worlds being only "okay" in standard) or the Chalice of the Void being so ridiculously useless in standard while being so crazy in vintage. It's like that with the welder, it had no future with the standard environment when it came out, but it was made for vintage (partly because the slaver came).

10/10

Oh right, turn 2 tentrils kill:
Turn One:

Gemstone Mine, Brainstorm.

Turn Two:

Play a City of Brass.
Tap the City of Brass for black to play Dark Ritual. Play Duress. Storm Count 2.
Play Lion's Eye Diamond. Storm Count 3 and BB floating.
Play Mox (of any color, let's say Emerald). Storm Count 4.
Tap the Gemstone Mine and the Mox and play Burning Wish. In response, sacrifice the Lion's Eye Diamond for BBB discarding your hand, including Tendrils of Agony. BBBBB floating and storm count 5.
Retrieve Yawgmoth's Will from the Sideboard and play it leaving BB floating. Storm Count 6 and BB floating.
Replay Dark Ritual. Replay Lion's Eye Diamond and sacrifice it for Blue. BBBBUUU floating and Storm Count 8.
Replay Duress, leaving BBBUUU floating.
Replay Brainstorm, leaving BBBUU floating. Storm Count 10.
Now play that Tendrils from your graveyard for 22 points of damage.
Long.dec (as posted on StarCity)

Revised List: 8/28/03
By Stephen Menendian

The Mana, a.k.a. 5 Lotuses, 8 Moxes, and 5 Rituals, and some land.
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
5 Moxen
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea

Setting up and protecting the Combo
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm

Cards that Fetch cards that win:
4 Burning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation

Cards that Win:
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Mind's Desire
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Memory Jar

Finisher:
1 Tendrils of Agony

Engines:
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Diminishing Returns

Control Hoser:
4 Xantid Swarm

All Purpose Hoser:
1 Balance
1 Primitive Justice
1 Simplify
1 Hull Breach
1 Regrowth
1 Vindicate
2 Seal of Cleansing

And that is how Burning wish, LED, and Chrome Mox got restricted.

 

[Kenny_C.002]

This week, one of my personal favs for white:

Swords to Plowshares W
Instant
Remove target creature from the game. Its controller gains life equal to its power.
Uncommon - Ice Age/4th/some other reprint (wait, don't alpha/beta/unlim/revised have them too?)

Stats:
this puppy is literally the most efficient removal for white...for like any colour. lol You can effectively take out anything big that's a threat with 1 shot and never have to worry about it ever again. Sexy. Life gain is of little importance when you remove a large threat (what would you like to see, some guy with 11 more life or some guy who's gonna kill you with a colossus?).

Look, I'm low on life! okay, I'll remove my own creature from the game and gain some life to survive. Better yet, block, let the damage stack, then remove it. :P

Combos:
Isohrons (what CAN'T they do?)

Overall:
The drawback is hardly a drawback at this point in time, meaning that this card is grossly overpowered for white...and practically any colour. I recommend getting your hands on 4 (don't be a loser like me, stuck with 3 only) if you're ever playing casual white. btw, to put things into perspective, its power level is below that of dark ritual but above that of many others (arguably same power level as wrath).

9.75/10

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Okay I think I found a decent card to rate...+ I'll be using the gatherer hopefully. XD

accumulated knowledge

So this puppy here is hot, hot as it's got the bang for the buck. :)

Stats:
so it's 2 to draw 1 (bad deal), then 2 (good deal), then 3 (you're kidding?), then 4 (wow). Obviously most decks get to 2 or 3 at most almost 90% of the time, but this is one of the best (10/4 = 2.5 average) card drawing instants around, with powers similar to impulse or the old brainstorm (need it reprinted!)

Combos:
Isochron scepter, psychatog, most of the blue decks, combo piece drawing machine, eternal witness, scrievenir (or however you spell that) etc.

Overall:
Hot card from nemesis and is probably the best common from the set. it's time to accumulate! :)

9/10

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Today's card is not Mistform Ultimus, who happens to be a (teenage) mutant ninja turtle. XD

Today's card is an old card from Masques (mine's shiny XD), Intimidation

Stats:

The first thing this card gets is the look of it being FREAKING black-heavy AND expensive, costing 3 black to do it. You can compare this to cover of darkness to see the gaping difference. So why play this card? First of all, cover of darkness, although ridiculously cheap, has a limitation of just a single creature type, and if your opponent just happens to have that creature type, they also get the bonus. This way it's just you, you and all your creatures. The resulting 3 extra mana may be seen as worth it or not, but chances are if you have cover of darkness, you have black creatures anyway.

Combos:
Any creature that does things when it deals combat damage, the best choices right now are the ninjas.

Overall:
The main drawback of this card is its intensive mana cost and the fact that cover of darkness doesn't really have that much of a drawback to begin with. Obviously as an ancestor of cover of darkness, this card had to be in the test phase and probably is costed a little higher than it should be. At that, its only advantage against cover of darkness is the fact that you can put this into non-tribal decks to make full use of it...and the fact that it's only an uncommon (but the fact that it's from masques make it difficult to find...).

6/10

 

[Kenny_C.002]

So then they're like "it's discard week!" And I'm like screw that. Then it hit me, I love discarding things (usually discarding them myself, I find i relaxing to drop a couple of my cards into the grave just for the sheer enjoyment of it). Yup. Mind rot? I use that to generate a 3 card disadvantage! XD

So I'm like that's a theme right? And they're like "yes". My head begins to turn to Gleemax as he gives me another minus 20 points. So I might as well put that million mana to good use instead of wasting it on Gleemax (which btw just gave me minus 100). Mind Twist for a million? Naw, too sassy and can't get to like a million discards. Fireball? Too unoriginal. Read the runes? Hmmm...MaGo just did this one. Then it hit me. I needed something ridiculous and stupid. Something crazy, something like nothing else. Something like...

Merfolk Looter

Stats:
Generally speaking, I still don't understand how this is uncommon and its "thought courier" counterpart (which is crappier, since it's not merfolk) is common. Aside from that, why did the merfolk get shafted? They're poor innocent creatures!

A 1/1 for 2 with a "draw, then DISCARD" ability isn't something to be proud of...okay maybe it is, as it's laughing at the pathetic 1/1s for 2 with nothing on them...if they even exist. For mana efficiency, it's pretty bad.

Combos:
Madness
Flashback (the cheap ones)
UG Madness deck
Reanimation
White reanimation (ha, thought that never existed eh? Say hello to REYA...who was animated from a breath of life!)
Lands (the extra worthless ones)

Overall:
It's not here to stay (because the courier will carry on its legacy), but you do get the feeling that this puppy will still be sticking around for a while, helping you get better draws and stuff...or making it worst by adding more good cards into your hand and forcing you to discard one of them. XD

whatever it is, I give it a 7/10 for goodness such as this, but the discarding effect can be a mixed blessing.

Oh crap, that's not really discard week and I didn't spend a million mana (right that would be 999998 mana left)! Oh well. (minus 200 points from Gleemax)

 

[Forgotten_hope]

yeah it can help.i give it a 6.5/10

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Forgotten hope, you have a card that you want rated? I'll do one for ya mate. ;)

 

[digi-kun]

ah do Umezawa's Jiite =D

 

[Kenny_C.002]

This is in case I don't make it next week due to exams.

Umezawa's Jitte

I wonder if Toshi has anything to do with Tetsuo from Legends. No clue. XD

Stats:
The sword he has doesn't have much of an edge, does it? Man, that thing can't cut if its life depended on it. Anyway, this is the new fabled crazy-arse legendary equipment that everyone's flocking to, and rightfully so, for it's pretty cheap.

The major problem of this equipment is the lack of an ability for it to do anything as soon as it hits the table, facing the same problem that banshee. However, that's where they depart from each other. The jitte, with a single slap, is able to do much more than banshee could ever do in the short term. And short term is right, since these equipment are hot targets, you'd better get some stuff quickly before it's gone.

Thus the difference here is the jitte's diversity that makes this also oh so powerful. Seen in this light, the jitte had one major problem: removal. wtf are you going to do with the counters if it's getting blown up like a little trinkle smashed? Well, if you can kill a couple of creatures (I mean...take them down with the jitte), all the better. Can't do that? Well gain some life then.

Not only that, the jitte's most amazing thing is that it can fit into 3 general decks: rush decks, removal decks, and crazy-arse life-gain via creature damage deck.

The first is the rush deck:
Generally speaking, rush decks face the problem of an army growing up as rush cannot handle the defense. No worries! the Jitte comes in with a couple of counters and wipes off some key blockers. You get room to cruise for victory (although the question of WHY you didn't go for some other way of dealing the last points of damage is a mystery to me). The most widely(?) cited example: White Weenies. Although the weenies themselves might not benefit too much from the equipment, you can eliminate the key flyers to cruise a couple more damage in. Best of all, you can intentionally throw off more creatures into the red zone, because any damage dealt to you will have to deal with the counters gained from the jitte. HUZZAH! Life gain! Now the problem is to balance the "2 per turn" thing that's oh so annoying...

Removal:
I personally played a removal deck that had a couple of them crappy 2/1's going in for the kill (with the occasionaly 5/3 ;)). With the jitte, you can suppliment your removal with more removal, or deal more damage! Heck you can even recover some life from the early instability!

Crazy-deck:
Uhhhh....that'll be for you to decide. I haven't figured this one out yet, nor am I obliged to care.

Recap on the +ives:
-cheap costs (2 and 2)
-diverse abilities (3 abilities in one, each with good use...sorta)
-Faster than the other 2and2 (Banshee), since you can throw +4/+4's quickly instead of having to wait for it to go +1/+1, +2/+2...

-ives:
-No initial impact. No matter how good the end result is, it has no initial impact in the game. you throw the stupid equipment in, it does nothing for you. Heck it relies on a creature! In that sense, it MAY not be a better choice than other equipment out there, like nightmare lash, which just happens to be a turn 4 equipment that gives +4/+4 on turn 4 immediately, with no delay!
- A requirement to hit first before any benefits are accounted for

Combos:
- double strike (4 counters instead of 2, and btw you CAN remove counters to give +4/+4 between first strike and normal damage, if I recall correctly. ;))
- Not much else, since the jitte suffers from "combat damage" syndrome

Overall:
I'm not sure on how one should weight this card, as it's almost in its own league, but not really. Certainly it can't compete with the quickness of bonesplitter, nor the sheer brute force of the lash. It's a BETTER card than the bashee for sure, but how much better? More importantly, where does this really belong? The jitte can do many things, but can't do them well, thus where should something like "jack-of-all-trades" should go? Probably in many decks that might be missing one piece but not the other (as I said, removal in removalless decks, pump in removal decks, etc.). But even at that, why doesn't a person just include something that's already missing, a good card in that category? I'm sure some of you are saying "off colour", but if that's not the case (like nightmare lash in the removal deck), which would you pick? The choice is obvious, you pick the better card, as generally you'll be adding something that's MISSING from the deck after its main part is fine (e.g. you have enough removal, let's move on). Of course, the jitte still falls into the foggy part where you need both at the same time, so you're forced to use it...

Personally speaking I'm not that big of a fan of this card, but it's still a decent card nonetheless, just that a specialist card is much better and is often the better alternative.

7/10

Flavour mode:
It fits well with the intent that Toshi needs diversity in his weapons to survive many situations. This fits well. :)
8/10 for flavour

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Bonesplitter

In the light of the construction of WW lite 2005, I will review one key card in WW lite 2005.

Stats:
If there is a better equipment at dishing out damage early, then you're wrong. XD The splitter is by far the quickest, most damaging card in a while, able to slam through with crazy vigor. :)

And 2 for +2/+0 is nothing to sneeze at, since the +2 STAYS on removal (well you gotta pay 1).

Combos:
Auriok Glaivemaster: this is the single most powerful combo card with the splitter, making a 4/2 first strike with no drawback means heavy damage. :) This is better than the lions if this were to happen. :O
*cards that get better with more power, can also be found in the Mirrodin block (e.g. spark elemental*

Overall:
If the splitter didn't appear, WW would have lost such a valuable weapon in the vast lands. Overall the splitter hits home as one of the best 1st hand solutions to quick damage. :)

8/10

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Umezawa's Jitte *revisited*

With my initial thought of the jitte and actually playing it IRL, I've developed a sense of what the rare can and cannot do.

Stats:
Again, it's a 2/2 equipment, which is sweet. I noticed that the initial drawback of it having no impact was there simply because it would be too powerful without that drawback, and it's already drawing on brokennness in this one.

So why the hype? Mainly because this card is BOTH beatdown AND removal. The card sometimes can decimate your opponent's wall of creatures and then suppliment your attack after, making this card that much better. If left unchecked, this card can probably dominate every little thing your opponent does.

Combos: Nothing I haven't said before

Overall:
I'm satisfied with what it can and is doing right now for my White Weenie deck. It seems to suit the deck very well as one of the 3 only equipments in the deck (the other two are Sword of light/shadow and a ronin warclub). This card can singlehandedly win mirror matches just like that, eliminating blockers with 1 and 2 toughness with disturbing ease. The kicker here was that the -1/-1 CAME FROM THE JITTE, so unless it's got protection from artifacts...it's going to get slammed. ;)

I don't see much harm in this card, and I do partially see why it's the chase rare of Betrayers, because it can remove, enchance attack, or soften a blow. What made this card was versitility, and that's why it's the chase rare.

8/10