Budget Magic? NOT ON MY WATCH

Actual picture of my playmat.

Hey scrublords and scrubladies, it's Dan. So, as you guys may have noticed, budget decks are all the rage. If I had to speculate as to why this is the case, it's probably because no one wants to drop $1000 on a deck they're gonna play lose with thirty times, half the good shit is gonna rotate, and then you're left with the financial equivalent of 60 pokemon cards in Dragonsleeve matte blues.

This was a great investment.

And I can sympathize with that. I'm an Accountant/amateur writer with a drinking problem. Not exactly loaded. I can't just buy standard staples all willynillly like an Oil Tycoon.

But these budget articles aren't fair. Rich ass Movie Stars want to play Magic too. Probably in between travelling to exotic locations and bangin' supermodels, but I'm sure there's some downtime for card games. So this article is a deck tech for a deck that I've been wanting to try in standard, but I simply can't afford it. I'm hoping the CEO of some company sees this, builds the deck, and plays Magic way better than me, so he wins the pro tour with my shitty deck. And then maybe he'll take pity on this pleb, and hire me. Or something. I dunno, maybe you guys just have these cards lying around, and want to take a whack with it? Either way, let's check it out.

Click these letters to check out the Tantalizing Temur Walkers deck.

Coming in at a paltry $500 - wait, actually? Only like $500? First off, it's ridiculous that I'm saying only $500. That's a shitload. But that just goes to show how stupidly expensive last standard was.

I was running a fairly budgety Jeskai list before Khans rotated, and it was easily $600+, and now my self-proclaimed expensive deck actually costs less than my budget deck last season. Yikes. Luckily over 50% of that value was in Fetches, Ojutai, and the aforementioned dragon's command, so I didn't lose everything. Except my dignity, but I honestly lost most of that back in college.

Anyways, now that I've sort of convinced myself that this isn't as outrageously expensive as I thought, let's talk about the deck some.


The goal:

Shouldn't be too tough.

Ideally, get the opponent's life total to 0 before your own. That's not super easy, but this deck isn't too shabby at it. We use our strong walker suite - all of which can create their own creatures - to gum up the board and generally be insanely annoying with their incremental advantage. Eventually we crush them with our ceaseless bulk of dudes, and if they boardwipe, we just make more until they're sad.


The critters:

The creature list in this deck is simple, and quite short. But of course, god damn expensive. We have Jace, Vryn's Prodigy because looting is helpful when your curve goes this big, and because his flipside dumbs down their threats. We don't have a ton to flashback with his walker face, which is why we aren't running more, but occasionally you need a second shot at that Roast or Fall of the Titans to melt something.

Nissa, Sage Animist is first and foremost a neat little land tutor. Hooray, Forests! But once she flips, she fits along perfectly with our pile of walkers. Her plus draws us a card, which helps a lot when we go into long grindy games, and she can even make a dude with her minus 2. Walkers that make dudes to protect themselves end up sticking on board longer than they deserve, and when Nissa, Sage Animist sticks, you end up with a ton of cards.

ALL ABOARD THE THOPTER-SPIDER

Now I ain't no Hangarback gurrrl, but I love this card. And I am kind of a Hangarback girl. He's a spoopy token machine in this deck, and helps fill out our early game curve. Ideally we get to plop him on turn two, crank him maybe once or twice, and then explode him for some thopties. The more tokens, the better, which is why we also have some Dragonmaster Outcasts for later game ownage.

Sylvan Advocate is in there cause it's stupid. Early game, it puts on pressure and is a good blocker. Late, it puts on a lot of pressure and is a better blocker. We also have a singleton Dragonlord Atarka, because we want to go late, and she's a hell of a late threat, especially when coupled with the buffs our Arlinns toss out.


The enchanting side of Temur:

This deck has a few enchantments, and each plays an important role. Oath of Jace is wonderful filtering, which this deck desperately needs. At some point you don't need any more Arlinn Kords in hand, and Oath of Jace lets you trade them in for something else. The scry is insanely relevant too, as you should, ideally, have at least one planeswalker on board at all times. If you don't for a long period of time, something has gone horribly awry, and I don't mean that stupid counterspell.

Oath of Nissa is the best card in this deck. Looking at the top three lets you grab whatever you need next. That's assuming it's not a Fall of the Titans that you need, which it knowing my luck it will be. And, most importantly, the second bit of text on the card is super relevant!

"For the life of every plane, I will remember to read the entirety of my cards."

We have a lot of walkers, a lot of colors, and only so much land. Being able to cast Sarkhan Unbroken off of four forests and a mountain is insane, and helps us drop these powerhouses on curve.


Walkin' their way to victory:

As you can see, this deck runs a shit ton of planeswalkers. Surprising, how a planeswalker deck does that, isn't it? I assume you all knew that when I said "walker" I meant "planeswalker," and not the other walkers in standard. Although, we do have Hangarback Walker. Maybe we should force in the other walkers from this set?

Nah.

Nah.

So we start our swanky walker curve at Hangarback, as stated above, and then immediately roll into Nissa, Voice of Zendikar.

"Notice me, Ashaya!" - Nissa

Nissa is baller. Making a dude to defend herself as she slowly ticks up makes our later walkers that much more explosive. If you play her later in the game you also get the option to immediately pump your board, which you ideally have from Hangarbacks and all of your other walkers. Sometimes you ult her, and that feels as good as a gentle kiss on the lips from your highschool crush.

"Grandma came to bake cookies and kickass, and all the other Magic nerds ate all the cookies." - Arlinn

Arlinn, who probably isn't old enough to be a grandma, is a great card in this deck. If you follow Nissa up with an Arlinn, you get to flip Arlinn, make a wolf, and use Nissa to pump the wolf and plant from the previous turn. In fact, it's totally possible to have on board on turn four an Oath of Nissa, a 2/2 Hangarback, a 1/2 plant, a 3/3 wolf, and two planeswalkers. That's a boardstate that a lot of decks can just never recover from. Arlinn, Embraced by Orbital Bodies can then pop a defender the next turn, or threaten a wicked crackback with her +1 ability if they dare tap their goobers.

Also, Arlinn's front side is just comical with Dragonlord Atarka. Play Atarka, kill everything they have, +1 on Arlinn, swing with your 10/10 flying vigilance haste trample. Extract delicious salt.

"Does anyone remember me?" - Sarkhan

Sarkhan is actually the reason I built this deck. Card is dope as hell, and no one is using him at all. His rough mana requirements make him inaccessible to a lot of decks, but Oath of Nissa don't give a fuck. His +1 ability gives us some more steam, as at the point in the game when you can cast him, we start to run out of cards in hand. If you're doing alright and want to close out the game fast, he can make a huge flier, which Nissa can make even huge-er. His ult is largely irrelevant, but I guess sometimes you could use it to tutor up Atarka to finish the game.

"I like my men how I like my coffee - literally on fire" - Chandra

Chandra is a game ender when you need one, card advantage when you need it, or a boardwipe when you need it. Girl does it all, and is a wicked powerful walker. By this point in the game you'll likely have two mountains, or at least an Oath of Nissa, so she shouldn't be too hard to cast. Don't forget that sometimes to close out a game you'll need to +1 Chandra to make some flamers, and then -2 Nissa to make them 4/2s. I've had this come up every once in a while, and it can make a difference.


Other stuff:

Roast and Fall are for things that are trying to murder our walkers. Reality Smasher is a real beating against our deck, and sadly in these colors Roast is just about our best option to deal with him if we don't have a big enough butt to stop him. Fall is a nice follow-up to an Oath of Nissa, and useful for blowing up planeswalkers from anyone who thinks their deck also deserves to have some.


Sideboard shenanigans:

I didn't put together a sideboard for this, cause I was busy losing at Thursday night Standard. Sorry. But I know what things I would probably use. I'm gonna run it down by matchups against current meta decks.

Humans: You want boardwipes and removal. A 4th Roast, some Radiant Flames, and Rending Volley would all be great options to have.

Bant CoCo: Actually, a super sweet matchup for this deck. Dispel is a good card to have a copy or two of, as without CoCo they are just playing crappy creatures. They have Avacyn late, but you have dragons, so... whatever.

G/B Sac: This is not a great matchup, since they go fast, and our board takes a few turns to establish. Radiant Flames is still helpful here, but most importantly, you need to have Clip Wings to deal with Ormandude. That card just beats our deck.

Control Stuff: A Negate or two is nice against opposing planeswalkers decks. If it's a non-blue based deck you're playing against, Seasons Past is actually a reasonable sideboard. We can actually hit a shitload of cards with it (Evolving Wilds, Oath of Nissa, Hangarback, Nissa, Arlinn, Sarkhan, Chandra, Atarka), and if they're B/W removal tribal, then your graveyard is bound to be fairly full. Kalitas is an issue, so you either need to Roast him right away, or just keep chumping until you get enough dragons to outrace him.

G/W Tokens: Not a bad matchup at all. We basically durdle along with them the first few turns playing Hangarbacks and Nissa. Once we hit the five and six drop range though, our deck starts to take off. Dragonmaster, Chandra, and Sarkhan all make threats that can swing over top for too much for them to handle. They'll side in Linvala and Sigarda most likely, so I'd have some Tears of Valakut and Clip Wings ready to go.

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So there's a deck. I've been testing it online and it's a ton of fun to play, and pairs well with Killian's. All of your cards just have so much gross value; you rarely topdeck something and think "WELL THIS CARD IS USELESS." Except when you topdeck like... 8 lands in a row. Which I am known to do.


Got any suggestions for the deck? Do you, too, love Sarkhan? Would you make out with a large bearded guy for $50? If yes to any of the preceding questions, drop a comment or send us a message!

Bringing Super Friends to the Fight

Hello addicts, it's Gaige with your weekly unsolicited article for Wizard's Tower Wednesday! Hope you're not too excited because today's article is going to be a bit different. If you missed last week we talked about some silly cards that will probably make the game go longer but will definitely have fun effects. If you are real confused by anything I've said so far and don't know what Wizard's Tower is then good luck I guess. You could take a minute to check out our introduction article on Wizards Tower so you can be more in the loop on everything we're about to talk about, but you better do it fast because we've got things to discuss and we're not going to wait for you just because you didn't do your homework.

Today's topic of discussion is going to be about some of the most sought after cards in Magic: Planeswalkers. You might be thinking "Wow, planeswalkers in a Wizard's Tower? That can't end well." You'd be right. It can't end well.

According to her hands, Liliana is actually a red mage.

"Yeah no shit one of the best planeswalkers is going to be a bad idea in Wizard's Tower." Well let me play devil's advocate. Someone plays this card. No one has no way to deal with it because it's only turn 3. Everyone just starts discarding cards. Someone finally gets some steam to combat Liliana and WHAM she -6 and destroys half their permanents. "Gaige do you know what devil's advocate means?" If I'm not allowed to use words that I don't know what they mean then this is going to be a short article. As you can see, putting in one of the best planewalkers in Wizard's Tower is a bad idea. Also, why would you put this $100+ card in your Wizard's Tower rather than a real deck. If your response was "Well I have just a couple extra Lili's lying around," then my response to that is that I hate you.

Let's look at a lesser planeswalker to see how it would fair in Wizard's Tower.

According to his hands, he has never touched a woman.

Ok, so he doesn't look too bad. He can be silly maybe. Everyone draws a card or have one person in particular draw a card. How is this too good? Well look at that -10. That's just not fun for anybody. How does just milling everyone's deck make Wizard's Tower better? "But I would never use his ult. I would only make people draw cards for the sillies!" Sure, even if you don't one day you'll play a game with some new person and they'll think it will be hilarious to just -10 after he has 30+ loyalty counters on him since everyone has been ignoring him all game for the extra card draw. All it takes is one dick to ruin this card.

A better depiction of Vraska.

Her +1 may seem to do nothing but when she gets big enough and it takes a couple creatures to kill her, she can take out several of your creatures or several creatures across multiple opponents. That -3 is also super good if you can get her to anything above 6. That is just two kills spells that can get rid of anything on the board. When you have a super fun enchantment on the board like Dictate of Kruphix but Vraska's controller has decided that drawing cards is over he can get rid of it. What about this fun scenario? Vraska is at 8 and they have Hammer of Purphoros on the field. Boardwipe. -7. Vraska's controller has just eliminate 3 people. Maybe you're ok with this, but it seems like a really dumb way to end the game.

She is a mystical double mermaid where the bottom half is a fish and the top half is a fish.

"Obviously she has to be ok. She enters on turn four at 2." Yeah dum dum but what about that ult? If they can defend it for 3 turns they probably just win. No matter how many boardwipes and kill spells your tower has, when they get a 9.9 every turn, it's going to be hard to deal with. Whoever has Kiora will just be Kraken skulls left and right and then the games over. Plus if they aren't going for the ult that extra land and card draw for a couple turns can be a bigger advantage in Wizard's Tower than any one person should have.

Goat Simulator: Theros

The mana can be a big advantage, and haste satyrs can also be annoying but once again the big no no is in the ult. We've talked before about how cards in Wizard's Tower need to be perfectly clear and his ult will not be. What is considered a land? Is nothing a land or is everything a land? This may seem straight forward to some, but having to explain this to every new person who tries to play this card is going to get old fast. 

Now I'm not your mom so I can't tell you what to do. If you think it'll be silly to put any of these cards in your tower then go for it. It may seem fun until you realize you have no way to deal with it and they have a huge board advantage. I will say that note we will leave you with

HEAVY SALAMI'S MEAT SEAL OF APPROVED PLANESWALKERS

There are only two planeswalker that I would say are acceptable in a Wizard's Tower.

Sarkhan used reveal the top card, he hurt himself in confusion.

This angry dude is a pretty alright fit in a Tower. He is a planeswalker but he leaves the board faster than you can his first ability aloud. Since there is no way for Sarkhan to give himself more loyalty he isn't any sort of perpetual threat that makes you quit the game early because of how "lucky" your friend always gets in magic. His -4 will almost do nothing unless they happen to have some dragon's and his -2 and 0 will help you for a minute before he murders himself on the sharp edge of cardboard.

The planeswalker that was developed by a drunk R&D team.

As you might have guessed (or might not have because you are bad at guessing) Tibalt, the King of Planeswalkers, has found his home in the Wizard's Tower. Discarding a card at random is perfect for the tower. His -4 is severely underwhelming for a -4 and you need to randomly discard 2 cards to even get that online. His ult can be good if he manages to take a board full of creatures, but the likeliness of that happening is pretty slim. You can pretty much ignore Tibalt unless you really want him dead. He might help your opponent but he might not. He's in my tower and anytime someone gets to play him it's fun but not overbearing. He's a goddam wild card and he knows it.

Think other planeswalkers I didn't mention could work in a tower? Found another format for Tibalt? Want to show us your sweet Wizard's Tower you've built or started? Send us a message or leave a comment!

Mediocre Decks for Mediocre People

Pictured: A gigantic, unstoppable feat of modern engineering. Also, a train.

Choo choo! This is your captain speaking, here to let you know I'm riding Dan's caboose on the "neglected standard" train. "But Gaige if you're riding the caboose how are you the captain? Plus don't trains have conductors?" These are excellent questions. Obviously Dan is the conductor in this analogy and I'm just some guy who's sitting on top of the train with a boat paddle and a captains hat. What does this mean for you? It means I'm here to sing you a siren's song and lull you into building some new decks for standard.

If you've been regularly going 0-5 or 1-4 in FNM then these decks will get you to a solid 2-3. If you've been going 4-1 or 5-0 consistently then I think you're on the wrong website. Or maybe you are tired of winning all the time and you just want to humiliate your opponents. These decks will do that if you manage to win. And even if your opponent wins they won't be happy about it because they had to deal with your bullshit for 45 minutes.

Now I'm not going to call any of these budget decks because I don't feel like looking up prices of cards. According to the recommended age group of Magic you're 13+ so you can google them yourselves. I will say that most of these cards aren't seeing play in top 8 decks so they should be affordable. If you really need money, just stop buying deodorant to fund your gross addiction. You still won't be the cheesiest person at your LGS.

We will start with by far the worst deck idea. When I said these decks will get you to 2-3, this one will not. If we stick with transportation analogies, this deck is like if you were driving a car without a gas pedal or brakes. Well honestly it's more like if you just held a steering wheel and ran while making car noises. You probably won't even finish the race unless every other car somehow manages to crash. I present to you:

(W)inne(R) Winner Lifegain Dinner

I'm sure anyone who's made it this far into the article read that first deck title and either just scrolled on down or exited this site all together. But for you lucky few I have a delicious treat. In life gain you have two win conditions. Win condition one: 

I CAN HAZ LIVEZ? (I'm not proud of this but it was just there)

This Felidankness is here to not only win you some Magics but also crush your opponent's will to play. Look at this glorious horn cat standing atop that rock, pretending he doesn't want your attention when he really does. If you show him some love, he'll show you some wins.

We'll get to win condition two later, first lets talk how to pilot this deck. 

SLAM, JAM, ALAHAM!

Now I'm no math scientist but twice seems to be better than once. It's like those witches say "Double, double toil and trouble. Lifegain, card draw, pit stains, and stubble" Or something like that. I am also not a literature scientist. Anyways, use this card to get you double life to hit that feli-target of 40 life.

Jimmy the Overly Touchy Orderly

Pair this card with Alhamm's Archive and you have Healing Hands Gum by Wrigley....because double the lifegain double the card draw...like double mint gum, but for Magic. This useless card now becomes a gain 8, draw 2 for 3, and that is pretty neato.

Shh bby is ok

Here we have another card that would never see play in any format ever but all of a sudden becomes gain 10 for 1. With minimal life loss and 2 or 3 of these you can win pretty easy.

At least you can feel like a mad scientist when you play this since everyone will think you're crazy.

Use this card to fulfill your decks wet dream: you have Archive on the field with this, you cast chaplain's blessing for 1 and gain 10. You cast a second chaplain's blessing and gain another 10 triggering harness the storm and re-casting your first one for an additional 10. For 3 mana (and some mana in previous turns to set this up) you just gained thirty life. Do this with combinations of the blessing and the hands and you'll have that 40 life in no time. Just fill the rest of your deck with chump blockers, removal, and maybe some ETB life gain creatures and you can take this straight to the top...or like to 1-4. "But what about the other win condition?" I thought you'd never ask. "I've been asking this whole time." Well then you're the dumb one who's been talking to a computer. The second win condition is that your opponent will eventually just concede since they can't beat you and you'll win the war of attrition. Get ready to report 5 draws the night you play this.

Before we go on to this next deck I need to take a shower because even just talking about that last deck makes me feel disgusting.

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WB Misty

Looks like I've....got you by the balls...

I don't want to say this deck is better than the WR life gain, but it's a little more flexible and a little more "actually has a win condition."

The sequel to the hit Stephen King movie

This card is pretty easy to understand. Pay 1, transform, swing in for 0, after blockers, pay 3 and transform back and deal 4. But...what if....what if you didn't flip it back? What if you just let it be that gassy monstrosity forever? "Yeah I definitely want to just keep this as an 0/1 so I can do no damage." Well listen up stupid because I need to introduce you to equipment.

I'm not sure how mist is going to wear armor but I guess that's why they call it Magic.

If you manage to equip a couple of these or some Chitinous Cloaks, you can just start swinging in with Mr. Mist...er. All you need this deck to do is get Insidious Mist's above 4 toughness and have gobs of removal. Since it's both indestructible and hexproof there are only three major threats: Languish, Tragic Arrogance, and Descend Upon the Fisherman. If you get it's toughness above 4 Languish no longer becomes a threat, and if this is your only creature then Tragic Arrogance is also no longer a threat. This means that your opponents 6 drop removal spell will more than likely only take out your one creature while killing their whole board. If they do manage to kill your creature just drop another one and re-equip everything.

"But what about me? I hate removal and just want to turn things sideways!"

The Sean Connery of Innistrad.

Thish ish by no meansh now an aggro deck, but you can lean more towardsh creaturesh and lessh towardsh control and pair Mishter Connery with your misht to make all of your creaturesh Hekshproof and Indeshtructible at each combat, plush whatever other keywordsh you have jusht lying around. 

I need to stop using this card in articles because I'm out of funny things to say about it.

If you have money or were lucky enough to pull a couple of these then you can pair this with Odric and the Mist for a nice "this is really hard to deal with" after taste. Also, feel free to use "Odric and the Mist" as the name for your sweet metal band. You don't even have to give me credit.

The final deck for today has a bit of a budget range. You can build it with minimal budget, but like all things Magic, if you have a bigger budget you can get this deck to give you a little more. It won't give you good things, just more.

G. R. R. Token

This is the college drop out equivalent of GW tokens. It's less successful, worth much less, and no matter how hard it tries, it will never make it's parents happy. "Gaige you're really bad at analogies." Yes I am, but if you get a kick out of them check out my blog: terribleanalogies.blogspot.com. 

See card below for joke.

See card above for joke.

At this deck's barest boner you'll be running these two devil's spawns. I'm sure there is some political joke in here about calling some candidate satan but I don't want to hear your stupid political opinions anyways. On the other hand, if you have stupid Magic opinions I'm all ears.

Both cards are fairly affordable and probably not hard to come by. As the deck title suggests, you want to flood the board with tokens/devils. You can then use them to chump block everything on the ground and when they die blow up and throw up the devils at their face. 

If plain old poke and prod devil's aren't enough for you, use From Beyond to summon spaghetti devils. . What more is there to say about this card? It makes tokens every turn. Use the tokens for ramp and chump blockers or however you see fit. If you aren't catching on to how this deck works yet maybe you should stick to just playing Crazy 8's.

Are they harvesting people or does everyone just have a twin to split the work with?

Once the board is filled with so many token cards that you can't find your lands, play this. The cornsfolk will duplicate everything you have on the board. Any board space that was remaining has now disappeared. You don't even remember what your play mat looks like because your new play mat is just more tokens. If you're anything like me you didn't actually read this card. Or also like me you read this card hundreds of times but still forgot that it's instant speed. Just play it whenever it's gonna make you feel the best.

After you have all of those key pieces together, just start jamming in red kill spells and green Eldrizzles that make ETB tokens, like the one pictured above. There are plenty of Eldurggles to choose from so I'll leave that part up to you. The more scions you can get from ETB effects the more scions you can get with Second Harvest.

"Hey look at me! I have more money than the current budget of this deck!"

If you have more money to spend on cards and for some reason are investing money in this deck these are some additional higher value cards you can add to make your deck balling-er.

Also useful for protecting your eyes while viewing the eclipse.

Use this to go all Devil May Cry on your opponent. Getting four pokey devils is pretty scary but using this to get eight is slightly more startling. This means you now have eight blockers that will each do 1 damage when they die. If you have nothing to block or aren't afraid for your life total start swinging in with everything. Anything that gets through does damage and anything that gets blocked and dies still does damage. 

She may be embraced by the moon but she just wants to be embraced by your arms.

I get it. You have more money you need to spend and have planeswalkers dripping out of every part of your body. That works out because Arlinn has found a home in this deck. Use Arlinn to diversify your investments by making wolves. After she flips make all tokens slightly more annoying with +1/+1 and trample. The trample part is kind of like that condom you carry in your wallet: you'll almost certainly never use it but if you manage to, it'll be the best day you've had in a long time.

More like Chandra Lame caller.

If you can throw a Chandra in and she can live past the turn she hits the board, you can +1 her and before combat play Second Harvest. This now gives you a total of 4 3/1 elementals with haste plus whatever other tokens you have just lying around. If you decided not to +1 her, instead swing in with all your little devil's and -X Chandra to kill whatever is left and deal damage to whatever you are the angriest at.

Yes you can throw Nissa in here for plants too if you have one. She is green after all. And green is a color in this deck.

Well that's all the decks I have so far. Next week I may have a couple other decks you can try out. If I don't have more decks ready just do what everyone else does and build something in the top 8 list. Then when you ultimately lose just tell your opponent that they got super lucky. That'll really let them know that although you lost you are still the alpha dog.

Want more deck ideas? Did you decide to try run of these? Were you, through some miracle, successful? Send us a decklist and a story in a comment or message. We'd love to hear from you!

I Wanted This Game to Last Five Hours Anyways

Just waiting for my turn.

Hello again cardboard ninjas, Gaige here with our least popular article of the week. I do know that at least one person reads it so here we are. It is Wizard's Tower Wednesday! If you missed last weeks installation we looked at cards from SOI that both would and wouldn't be a good fit in a Wizard's Tower. For those of you that meant to click on an article about standard but are still somewhat intrigued and have no idea what Wizard's Tower is check out our introduction.

So it's 8pm and you want to play magic but you're thinking "I really only want to play one game, but I also don't want to go to sleep for another 4 or so hours. I also want the game to start out fun and then become significantly less fun, but then come back around FULL FORCE and be fun again." These cards will do that. You'll start a game of Wizard's Tower and end up playing a game of Gilligan's Island where that one asshole keeps breaking your coconut radio and you just can't leave. Don't let that scare you off though, these will still be pretty fun to add to your tower.

The party don't start till I walk in.

This card is just too ridiculous for people to get mad about. I don't care if you could kill everybody this turn and win the game, if you play this face down as a land you don't deserve to play Wizard's Tower. Or have friends. Or have any sort of happiness in your life. This is the most bonkers card I have ever seen and I'm a little surprised that this is in a real set and not an Un-set. Either way, this card was practically printed for Wizard's Tower and will change everyone's position in the game. Keep in mind that this card is 100% more effective if when you play it you slam it down and yell "WILD CARD!"

If you look closely at this card you can see the despair on your opponents faces.

This card is also fun, game changing, and lets the luck of a die roll determine whether Kyle throws a tantrum and quits early. This is another great card that can level the playing field and just keep the game going. Some people will go balls to the wall and put everything in one pile and hope that the odds are ever in their favor (like Hunger Games. Do you get it?). Some will distribute their permanents into three piles so that no matter what they lose there are minimal casualties. Some will be so overwhelmed by this card that they will retreat inside themselves and be caught in an internal struggle, facing their inner demons. This internal struggle will cause them to enter the game as a red mage and finish as what every magic player eventually becomes: single, salty (both literally and figuratively), and never having enough cards to fill that void. Or they might just end up a blue mage which is debatably worse.

Dan: This card makes me rock hard, and I played it in my first standard deck I ever made after I started playing again. It was not a good deck.

The stairs are crumbling just like your opponents hopes of ever playing a different game.

For those of you that hate red and blue cards here is a nice change of scenery. With this everyone gets to hold hands and bond over the fact that they are losing everything that once meant something to them, but they are doing this together. That's what this card is really about. Togetherness. And if you are any sort of true friend, you will exile a couple lands before finally exiling this card to make sure everyone gets to enjoy this wild ride. Like the other cards mentioned above this just turns the tides of the game and can potentially restart the game from square one. Which as mentioned before, you started at 8 pm and wanted a nice four hour game of Magic anyways. This at least is a silly way to set back the clock and when you give people the silly way, they at least smile through the tears.



Now for the cards you probably don't want to add...

There's still time for someone to break this in standard. That person could be you.

This card could be absolutely ridiculous but you need some clearly defined rules before hand. Since everything can be considered a land how do you interact with this card? Do you allow everyone to play any number of cards in hand as lands or is everything in the deck considered a land so you can play any number of permanents from hand? The last thing you want to do is confuse people or make it look like you're making up rules. I tried making up rules in Magic once. We ended with one person spinning in a chair while the other threw a 60 cards at them. Whatever they caught while they were spinning is what they were allowed to use in their deck. Sure I was eleven, but no one has let me make up rules since.

Dan: We also made up rules when we all started playing again. Like, we thought everything that blocked a dude with deathtouch died, regardless how much power the deathtoucher had, so if you could get 20 dudes to block your Typhoid Rats, you got a nice 20-for-1.

Wizards, plz nerf.

Like all old Magic art, I have no idea what is happening in this image.

This card won't make the game long because of what it does, but because you'll have to explain phasing to anyone who isn't familiar with it. Phasing sounds simple enough but after you've explained it seven or so times and everyone at the table finally gets how it works you'll have the first person still not interact with it correctly. There are reasons phasing and banding and flanking are no longer printed on cards. Playing cards like these gets you on the "don't play magic with this person" list. If you somehow manage to get everyone to understand phasing and how this card works then go ahead and try this out. I'm sure you'll have a fun time with it, or you'll realize that after explaining it to everyone, you still have no idea what phasing does.

Want to know where I found these cards? Want to know where I get my motivation to write an article that no one reads? Want to know what phasing actually does? Leave a comment or shoot us a message.

The Inexpensive Junior Varsity - The 4 Abandoned Uncommons of SoI Standard

Welcome back, my cardboard cohorts. This is Dan, typing this out totally nude while eating scrambled eggs, and you've made it just in time for the third installment of our SoI Standard Forgotten Cards segment - The Uncommons. If you didn't get a chance to see them, take a look at the Neglected Mythics and Forgotten Rares posts as well, cause they're fun.

Uncommons. They're cheap, they're not super flashy, but sometimes, just sometimes, they're badass. Really though, Dan? Mythics are much more doper, why not just build my deck out of exclusively those cards?

A beginners guide to Magic: The Gathering.

Woah woah, slow down there, John D. Rockefeller. Uncommons are very important. I know you typically use foil Goyfs as toilet paper to demonstrate how elite of a Magic player you are, but uncommons can be amazingly powerful as well. For example, look at the likes of Young Pyromancer and Signal Pest; both are amazing cards that fit into successful decks. But that was old Magic, right? Now-a-days cards are shitty and the power level is dropping faster than the jaw of a highschool boy who accidentally wandered into the ladies locker room.

Nah man. Even as recently as Khans of Tarkir we've gotten bombass uncommons.

Taylor Swift is both a pop sensation, and Modern playable.

Whatever, dude. Khans is old news. Cards suck. I'm going to whine and complain about everything cause I'm a typical Magic player. Well, that's your right, but I hate you, and you're wrong. Even now we have some sweet uncommons making a massive impact on Standard. Duskwatch Recruiter is in most every deck that has green mana sources, Reflector Mage is a house in U/W lists, and White Weenie lists are 50% uncommons. Clearly they are decent.

But there are an uncountable number of uncommons in Standard right now. Ok that isn't true, I just sort of Googled it and there are actually 431 uncommons in Standard right now. That's a few too many to review. Most of 'em? Fuck 'em. They're no good outside of limited, and hell, half of them are no good in limited either.

Only playable in mono-White "Support the wobbly table leg with junk cards"

But there are some that seem special enough to fit in lists. I couldn't decide on how many of the 400 odd cards merit any sort of discussion, so we're just going to pick four of them today. Why four? I dunno, seemed like a good number. Obviously there are more than three that are almost sweet, but I'm not quite sure if there are five. Anyways, four it is, and feel free to argue with me about my choices and point out cards that might belong on this list. I fuckin' love a good internet fight, and there's a 99% chance I'm missing some sultry playables.

These spellz have the potential to slot into some deck, and look like they could be major players if they find a home. Right now though they're just crashing on their parent's couch in the basement though, so let's take a look at them and see if we're willing to rent them a space!


Fourth Place - Not even allowed on the podium:

He only looks mildly inconvenienced.

This one really isn't too great, and is basically black Pacifism. but I needed to mention it for one reason. Avacyn. Avacyn is easily one of the most powerful creatures in standard, and there were more copies of her in the top 8 than there were basic islands and mountains combined. She is literally better than two entire colors. But Visions of Brutality totally hoses Avacyn in the most glorious, terrible, terrible way.

So you're up against GW tokens, and you're playing... I dunno, mono-black Eldrazi agro (I'm building this deck right now, and it's not great). They play Avacyn. Yeah, whatever, fuck you. Drop Visions of Brutality on Avacyn. Ultimate Price one of their 200 plant tokens, pass turn, and get ready to shuffle to game 2, because Avacyn is going to flip and deal 3 to you, 3 to each of your creatures, and 3 to each of their stupid plant tokens. Since you're in agro, ideally you've hit them a few times already, and now they're taking damage equal to the number of creatures on board x3. And then plus 3. That is several. The only effective way GW tokens has to deal with this is either Stasis Snare, sacrificing Avacyn to Westvale Abbey, or jamming out another Avacyn in response to the trigger.

This isn't the most reliable thing in the world, but I want to do it just once to see the look on my opponents face when his $50 bomb ass mythic rare backfires hilariously thanks to a shitty draft-chaff uncommon.


Third Place - Zappin' Drazi:

Literally just now realized the light show is an Eldrazi.

Immo Glare kills a thing that's trying to kill you. Those usually are the most important things to kill. For only two mana, you'd think it'd be worth siding in against creature based decks like White Wieners, but no one is running it.

Main board this is terrible, because against a deck like GW tokens, you get shit on. Killing a plant isn't great, and Avacyn makes "destroy" effects risky. The current meta just doesn't have a great place for this thanks to those threats, but this is a mediocre budget option if you're playing a white deck and you'd rather like... I dunno, go out to a super nice steak dinner rather than spend $100 on Declaration in Stones.

You can leave a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar as a tip.

Second Place - The card only I care about:

My terrible singing voice has the same effect.

Warping Wail gets played in a few Eldrazi deck sideboards, so at least some people are smart enough to realize how thoroughly balling this card is. I've totally gushed about this card before, as it's a huge player in my current standard deck, but I'm going to explain my hype all over again. Let's look at those sexy modes.

• Exile target creature with power or toughness 1 or less: Yeah Hangarback, get fucked. Getting rid of a thopter-spider the second they drop it is my most common use for this currently. But sometimes you just need to exile a plant or thopter to punch through the last damage, and that's reasonable as well. Against other colors it has more options, such as getting rid of a Jace, Thing in the Ice, or any of the White Weenies before getting pumped. I run 2 mainboard, just because there is typically a target for this or the second mode no matter what I'm matched up against.
• Counter target sorcery spell: Bye bye, Declaration in Stone, I'll keep my dudes, thanks. This also causes mad blowouts the first time you counter a Languish, since you can run this in colors that don't typically have counterspells. Both of those cards are hugely relevant in standard right now, and the game can totally swing in your favor if you manage to counter one at the right time.
• Put a 1/1 Eldrazi Scion token onto the to battlefield: This is sort of the fail case mode. You can drop this for a surprise blocker or an extra attacker if you don't have any targets for the other modes. Occasionally relevant is casting this turn two or three for the extra mana to get an early Thought-Knot Seer or Reality Smasher, which are both spooky threats when they come out a turn early.

Yeah, Certified Baller™. Give it a whirl, it is spectacular in Eldrazi dicks decks.


First Place - Chasing his dreams, and falling woefully short:

The body says "lady", but the face says "uncomfortable man."

Who else remembers how hyped everyone was for this card? Monastery Swiftspear with wings? Fuck yeah man, sign me up. He's an evasive threat that comes down early, and Prowess is crazy relevant in this color pairing. Has no one made a deck to use this guy yet?

Red/Blue agro isn't great right now. Honestly, Red is having a tough time with how stupidly weak burn is right now.

This art depicts how I feel about burn in Standard.

Fiery Impulse and Fall of the Titans are both solid burn cards, but without a cheap burn spell like Lightning Strike/Bolt, a card like Stormchaser loses a lot of his punch. Without burn to the face to close a game early, Stormchaser is going to have to square up against later-game fliers. And I think there's a popular one right now. Can't remember the name, costs five, white, some sort of angel.

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That's it, guys! We've covered Mythics, Rares, and Uncommons. I would talk about commons, but I think we can all agree that the like... three useful ones are already seeing play, so screw it. I hope you guys enjoyed the mini-series, and I really hope that some decks are made that render all of these lists totally invalid as they wreck face.

Also as an aside, shout to Josh for his sick 15-0 run at GP Toronto. Gaige and I play at the shop he goes to (Forbes Hobbies in Cambridge. Sickest game store I have ever been to; amazing staff, great people that play there, and overall a sweet place to play), and it was neat seeing him do so well. Grats!

-Dan

Any other uncommons you're jamming that no-one else is? Still trying to live the Stormchaser U/R agro dream? Wanna go out to Texas Roadhouse with me tonight? Whatever it is you're thinking about bby, let us know!