Casually Hirarious #1: Pilot

Hey guys. So some of you may know me as the sex guy because I talk about sex all the time and colonnaday and massacray wurm. But I’m not here to talk about these great cards. Or how great sex is. I’m here to talk about Grappler Spider. What is Grappler Spider you ask? Is it a joke by MTG to get people to laugh? Is it comedic relief? Is it a tool that discourages parents from buying their children Magic cards so that they won’t come up to them and ask, “Hey, Dad. Why is there a penis on this spider?” OR is it a completely relevant card that stops notorious flying creatures such as Mulldrifter and Squadron Hawk DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS?!

When you’re building a singleton deck, there is no room for poopy vanilla creatures that don’t do crap like Wooly thoctar and Wooly Thoctar, not to mention Wooly Thoctar and the always bland and poorly designed Wooly Thoctar. You have to think utility and SYNERGY!! Let’s go through a few of these great creatures
So Singleton is supposed to be a deck that has an answer for almost anything that comes your way, but at the same time all the pieces work together in an efficient fashion. At first glance, Trygon Predator may seem like a situational card, but think about how much more relevant artifacts and enchantments are in the kitchen table meta i.e. swords, auras, O-ring, and swords. At that point, one will realize how much of a house Trygon is. For example, say you’re playing against an artifact deck and you’re playing an Intet-colored singleton. They drop an artifact land and pass. You drop a land and pass. They drop another land and Sol Ring and then you say holy crap I’m dying. Then he passes. Then you draw and see predator, but you also see that you have a Lightning Greaves in hand. Funtime in you’re pants at that point. You drop the greaves after playing a land (because playing land is SUPPOSEDLY a good play) and then pass. The other guy is like lol this guy is so boned because I have a Darksteel Forge. Whatever. He plays a land then some shitty artifact creature that says you can search a basic land when he enters the battlefield and then when he dies you draw a card (UMM POOR DESIGN MUCH?!). then you drop predator, the guy goes “HA! A bird…what does it—s@#$. You just won the game on turn three. 

Efficiency guys. 2 for 1’s are good supposedly. Titans are God’s gift to casual play. Sun Titan in recursion decks is a house. Primeval Titan gets you two utility lands, Inferno kills tokens. If you’re playing green and white shocks, throw in Wood Elves and KOR CARTOGRAPHER (WHITE RAMP?! WHITE RAMP!!!). Now let me tell you why Ondu Giant is better than these cards (cartographer and elves). You drop him and search a basic because you don’t want to run shocks. Cool. What’s the big deal. Um, you can kill cartographer and elves…and still have a creature. HELLO, BOARD!!!

So a lot of these creatures have ETB (enter the battlefield) or triggered effects. What about activated abilities? Some of you might be tempted to say “Oh yeah he’s going to talk about Llanowar elv—WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you really want a turn 59205879847 1/1 that taps for green? Yeah didn’t think so. One of the kings of activated abilities is Mr. Geth himself. Look at him. He’s big. He’s black. He Intimidates especially if you’re playing white. He’s super Terry Crews that died and came back from the grave and can recur the crap out of everybody. He should be called Geth of the I win, go home. 

Think 2 for 1. Card advantage and board are what win games. Whats better than 4 dudes for 5 mana a la Siege-gang Commander? Mulldrifter? Hello!? IT’S MULLDRIFTER!! A 2/2 flier and 2 cards for 5? YES PLEASE!!!! Indrik, Harmonic Sliver, and Acidic Slime take care of gross artifacts and enchantments and they do it well because there’s a lot of noncreature counters out there. Also, persist is a great mechanic that can really help with getting board. One of the greatest examples of this is Woodfall Primus which essentially takes care of two noncreature permanents (Planeswalkers…I heard those were kind of good, too). Efficiency is key, think of all card types and be sure you can take care of them. At the same time, make sure you’re not stuffing your deck with indrik-like cards. You need variety. Have a little ramp, a little naturalize, MAYBE a little recursion, a little exile, and even counters on a stick (i.e. Draining Whelk and Mystic Snake). ETB, triggered and activated abilities and static effects make creatures infinitely better and more threatening. Think about it!!!

-Carlos Cabrera