Post #22: Casually Dark Ascension; Part 2

Hey guys. Another Casually 'insert new set' article? Well, by popular inquiry, I'll be talking about a few more cards from Dark Ascension. I know a lot of my articles have holes and sometimes might be missing information but my limiting factor is always time. I do my best to produce quality content geared towards a more casual/beginner audience, so I appologize to more advanced players if the articles feel monotonous or repeating. We were all beginners once and we all know that repitition and practice are the best ways to improve on deck building and actual strategy. I'm starting to write articles that are a little more advanced, starting with COMMANDER! Review: Part 7, featuring Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I plan on writing more of these types of articles that break down gameplay and exemplify a card's practicality, so I hope these articles will be up to par with expectations. Let's get started!

Yes yes, I know. I forgot about this card. Vault of the Archangel. It's even worse considering I picked up a foil copy for my Teneb EDH deck. I really like this card. Well, I actually love this card. It's an incredibly powerful effect.. on a land! When I first saw this spoiler, I compared it most to Miren, the Moaning Well and thought about them side by side. Miren requires to you to sacrifice a creature, while Vault of the Archangel requires you to attack with 1 (or preferably more) creatures. Miren's ability is difficult to prevent (since your opponent cannot simply kill the creature you're sacrificing) and also triggers 'when this creature dies' abilities like Persist and Undying (Wurmcoil Engine's best friend). On the flip side, Vault allows you to keep your creature and gives lifelink to your whole team instead of just gaining equal to the toughness of one creature. Unfortunately, your opponent can respond to a Vault by killing your team off, so it's a little tricky to decide exactly when to use it and when to simply go to Mainphase 2 and cast some spells. For Commander, it's a really sick addition to B/W/x decks that spam tokens or lose a lot of life to Phyrexian Arena, Necropotence, Ambition's Cost, and other black pain spells. Personally, I tend to lose a lot of life in Teneb to Birthing Pod, Fetch/Shock Lands, Bloodgift Demon/Graveborn Muse, and just the normal 'people hate me' damage. So the ability to get some of that life back with High Market/Miren, the Moaning Well is pretty vital to my survival and Vault of the Archangel will be joining that arsenal. Taking a tangent off of sheer survival, the Vault can also fuel lifegain strategies that tend to need as many cards as they can get their hands on. Swinging your team in, then gaining a bunch of life to fuel Well of Lost Dreams, a Felidar Soveriegn/Test of Endurance win, or just trying to breach 9000+ life, the Vault will help you get there. Although Lifelink doesn't stack, adding Deathtouch to your presumably small guys helps them get through a crowded board and increases their survival rate. Even the 'threat' of activating the Vault is good enough to deter some advantageous blocks and would allow you to cast whatever your heart desires in mainphase 2.

In addition to hyping up the Vault so much, we can't let go of some of the downfalls slip through the cracks. The worst part about this card (other than generating colorless mana, am I asking too much?) is that the creatures swinging need to punch through. A timely Starstorm or Evacuation could seriously damper all the fun the Vault ensues. Furthermore, activating the Vault can set you up for some poor board states against certain archetypes. Decks that have a heavy amount of point removal or blink strategies will clean off your dudes with ease and that 5 mana investment will have been wasted. Although this is more of a midgame worry, it's still crucial considering the midgame in EDH/Commander is probably the most sensitive time.

The obvious counterexample to the downsides of the Vault is clearly 'I can now threaten to give all my creatures Lifelink and Deathtouch'. Even if your opponent is removing all your dudes, they have to remove all of them to avoid losing tempo and well, losing a ton of life by letting guys hit unblocked. I give this card my stamp of approval and am really anxious to play and dreading to play against it. I expect to see it in Ghave, Ghuru of Spores, Teysa, Orzhov Scion, Kaalia of the Vast, and other decks that can play it without hurting their mana base.

There was a bit of talk about this card in the land of Casual Net when everyone was giving their reviews on Nick's Glissa, the Traitor EDH deck. Unfortunately, Grim Backwoods experienced the animosity of being ignored and I had to make a small comment.

I really like this land. Aside from it's sweet flavor text, it's another sacrifice outlet on a land. Although not as powerful as Phyrexian Tower at getting rid of your dudes, trading your creatures for cards during late game stalemates is a pretty powerful thing. Picture this; a board devastated by Oblivion Stone, All is Dust, Planar Cleansing, and Nevinyrral's Disk and all everyone has left are lands, very few cards in hand, and some creatures scattered here and there. What generally happens here is someone plays their general and another player kills it. This aggravating cycle continues until someone can break the stalemate. I view this land like a 'clean up' card. Similar to Momentary Blink, it turns what would normally be a creature on its way to dying into a card. Although reserving 5 mana to 'save' a card is a pretty hefty price, it becomes almost negligible in the late game when you have excess mana leftover. When I was thinking how to review this land, I stumbled across an interesting idea. How the early, mid, and late games are very different in EDH/Casual than they are in Standard. The early game in Commander is generally setting up for the long haul. Most decks play cards to rush a strong mid-game board presence with mana rocks or little guys stuffed with card advantage. The real meat of Commander is in the mid-game. Although the mid-game for Standard is generally between turns 4-8, the Commander mid-game can last anywhere from turn 8-15. I'd like to categorize these turns as the hot zones, where many spells are being cast, creatures are swinging and dying, and players are either being killed or are trying their best to take out opponents. Most of the mid-game is dominated by players having 4-a full 7 cards in hand and are doing their best to maximize tempo and minimize card usage. The late game that follows afterwards can go in several different directions but are generally the same; one player emerges as the top predator of the mid-game and picks everyone off, no one has lands and are relying on top decks to re-establish board presence, or everyone is sitting on lands and everything is dying. The latter occurs most frequently and breaking that stalemate between several players is rather difficult. Going back to Grim Backwoods, this land has the ability to generate card advantage when you need it. I would put this land in the same category of Genesis, Volrath's Stronghold, and Academy Ruins with respect to how powerful they all are when no one has anything out and very few cards in hand. Although Grim Backwoods is definitely not an early game or mid-game engine, I think it's usefulness in late-game gives it a slot in the G/B/x decks that have space in their mana base.

The last card I'll talk about for this review (hopefully I'm not ignoring some really awesome card) is Havengul Lich. When I first saw this guy, I was blown away by how unique and cool it is. Although I really wish it were Legendary, so I could make a sweet EDH deck around him, I understand why he isn't. He would be too powerful as a commander and his ability doesn't stack with multiples, like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, so it makes sense. For Standard, Brendan did mention this sweet combo with Lich, Heartless Summoning and Perilous Myr. Cute. This card is very similar to Necrotic Ooze in the 'activated ability theft' way. I'm not entirely sure how many sweet creatures have activated abilities in B/U, Dralnu, Lich Lord, Geth, Lord of the Vault, Oona, Queen of the Fae to name a handful. I wonder if there's anything infinite/semi-infinite with Triskelion and the Lich. I always funny to see infinite combos with Triskelion (a funny $0.10 rare). Quick tangent, Triskelion with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed work really well together to end games quickly. Back to Havengul Lich; I think he'll be really good for the combo players that want more ways of getting their combo pieces back after losing them. Sharuum the Hegemon will play this to return Phyrexian Metamorph or Disciple of the Vault back on the field. I'm not really thrilled that this helps combo players, but I'm excited for the Lich's other applications. He revives dudes from your graveyard and 'casts' them like Karador, the Ghost Chieftan, so the Lich is a recurring effect in U, which is rather uncommon. The casting clause also helps with Artisan of Kozilek players that want to go overboard with recurring shenanigans. Unfortunately, I haven't really explored Havengul Lich in full yet since I don't have a B/U/x deck that I want to work him in, so I'll have to leave him alone for now, but this is definitely a card I want to build around and potentially break when I have the time and funds.

Hope you enjoyed this brief pt 2 of the Casually series. The 2 cards I wanted to talk about but just didn't have the time were Increasing Devotion and Moonveil Dragon. I really like these two cards as well and they do a lot more work than they appear to do on paper. Until Avacyn Restored!

Interested in more Magic content? Check out every series on the MTG Casual Network Archive! 

-David J.

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Draft Table #4: Sealed Primer with Dark Ascension

Since there really hasn't been any formal discussion about sealed deck construction or play, I decided to take careful notes on the 2-day Dark Ascension pre-release at Mega Gaming and Comics in Gainesville, Fl. This entry is a bit long, but worth the read if you enjoy the finer details of limited play. Now, let's talk about my second day at the pre-release.

Day 1 was a little disappointing, because I had an amazing B/R removal deck with huge bomb creatures (big creatures with even bigger abilities like Charmbreaker Devils). There were 60 people that attended and I had to play against 2 FNM regulars that basically won the whole tournament. I lost to both of them and those losses dropped my Top 16 potential by 3 spots. Day 2 had about 40 entrants, most of which were skilled players from the previous day. If that wasn't enough to lower my spirits, my 6 packs would. I opened a Grafdigger's Cage, which is running people about $10, but is useless in limited. The rest of my packs looked terrible.

Since I had such an amazing deck the previous day in B/R, I started looking at those colors first. I had only 6 black creatures, one was a normal print of the promo Ravenous Demon, also unplayable without 10 humans while 2 of the other creatures were Brain Weevils. I had 5 creatures in red, 2 of them terrible. I did have 4 creatures in blue, all of them FANTASTIC, but not enough to play the color. Needless to say, those three colors were completely scrapped. The only removal I got in R/B were not splashable, either. I wasn't feeling too enthusiastic after looking through those colors.

I checked out green and white stacks of cards, not feeling too excited. But HERE is what I came up with. I had a couple bomb creatures with Moldgraf Monstrosity and Festerhide Boar, and plenty of mana fixing with an Avacyn's Pilgrim, Evolving Wilds, and Scorned Villager. Looking at the deck, I had mana fixing and acceleration (great), I had almost no evasion (bad), and only situation removal spells (terrible). I was not very excited about this deck, but I sleeved up, grabbed lunch, and prepared for Round 1 of 5.

Round 1 was against a guy named Bradley. I hadn't seen him around before, so I felt good going into Game 1. He was playing an unusual combination of blue and green. game 1, I played my Avacyn's Pilgrim and a couple other humans and equipped a Butcher's Cleaver to gain life and keep him on the defensive. He then dropped Shriekgeist that applied some pressure. I had very few fliers, but I wasn't intimidated and already had a big lead. Next turn, he played Increasing Savagery on his 1/1 flier and I looked at my life total of 16 and realized I was on a 3 turn clock (which didn't feel good). I didn't remember the card existed and it almost blew me out of the game. I took the 6 damage to the faced and he passed the turn. I had a Reuke in hand and swung through putting him at 12. I rebuked his flyer and won Game 1. Game 2 played out the same, but I managed to get both Rebuke and Crushing Vines to kill his 8/7 Moon Heron and 11/11 flyer to seal the Round 1 win. I was very lucky to move on. 1-0.

Round 2 was against a guy named Nick and he was playing R/U. I managed to drop a Elgaud Inquisitor and attach a Butcher's Cleaver on him to blow out my opponent in Game 1. Game 2 was a lot closer; however I dropped down my Moldgraf Monstrosity to seal a Round 2 win. Now at 2-0, I was feeling good and I was sure 3-1-1 would secure a spot in Top 8.

Round 3 began against a regular FNM player named Mathew. He was playing W/R/B wedge with Bloodgift Demon, Avacynian Priest, Mikaeus the Unhallowed, and THREE Tragic Slip. This removal card has to be my favorite card from Dark Ascension, followed closely by Evolving Wilds. Game 1 was a wild game where each of us played our bombs, but I quickly ran out of tempo because my opponent secured 4 unanswered turns of Bloodgift Demon triggers. In Game 2, I played a bunch of creatures and he killed them with burn spells and his 3 'bannana peels'. Luckily, I dropped the Moldgraf Monster and he went to work, taking down Game 2 easily. Game 3 was very close, trading removal for creatures left and right. He killed my Festerhide Boar and then killed off my Monstrosity, which triggered the return of my boar and Elgaud Inquisitor. I managed to swing through for enough damage before he could kill me. I ended the game at 6 life and almost died to spirits. I did it! 3-0 was enough to make Top 8.

I was wrong.., standings proved that even if the Top 4 (all undefeated) drew into Top 8, there was some voodoo magic to make them miss the Top 8. So my Round 4 opponent, Donald, decided it was best not to draw. I couldn't draw any lands in Game 1 and he played an Undead Alchemist to finish me off. In Game 2, I played morbid creatures that killed him off. In Game 3, he played the Alchemist again and killed me. I finally sat at a 3-1 record and getting a little nervous while looking at the standings. Round 5's pairings and standings were setup and there were 8 players with a 3-1 record. All 8 would play against each other for 4 slots in the Top 8 (since 4 slots were taken by the 4 players undefeated).

Round 5 was against another FNM regular, Christopher. He had all evasive U/W creatures. Game 1, he played a few creatures but couldn't handle my turn 5 Moldgraf. Game 2, he played Soul Seizer, and a few other flyers and the board became cluttered til he broke the stalemate with a Dearly Departed. I watched the clock tick down under 10 minutes and went to Game 3. I was pretty sure with a draw, I was in, but with a loss, I was out. We started Game 3 with 6 miniutes left and I saw this glorious hand of Forest, Forest, Plains, young Wolf, Avacyn's Pilgrim, Festerhide Boar, and Village Bell-Ringer. I eventually swung in with Young Wolf, then its Undying trigger brought it back and I cast a morbid Festerhide Boar on turn 3. Turn 4, he took 5 going to 10 and I played Avacynian Priest. Time ran out and turns started with him at turn 0. He played a third creature to wall me out, but I used my Priest and Pilgrim to tap down one of his creatures, then used Bell-Ringer to untap them, tapped down another one of my opponent's blockers and killed off my opponent. 4-1, I made it!

Top 8 was almost all FNM regulars, and I was paired up with Daniel, a pauper player. He had another W/R/B wedge deck with 14 removal spells. the remaining ten cards were fliers and other synergistic creatures. In Game 1, he killed off every creature I played and continued to ping me with 2 Spirit tokens each turn for 10 turns! For Game 2, I sided in Urgent Exorcisim and Bramblecrush. I hit one of his only red sources with Brambelcrush on turn 4 and it slowed him down considerably. Without the red source, I was able to overwhelm him for an easy victory. Game 3 was another nail biter. I cast Moldgraf Monstrosity and he killed it and I was unale to kill him with the morbid creatures that returned after the Monstrosity's untimely death. Overall, 4-1 in the swiss and 0-1 in the Top 8.

I received 5 packs for my efforts and opened nothing but bad cards. There aren't many money rares in Dark Ascension, but I still felt awesome for making Top 8 with a subpar deck, and even gave a top tier deck a run for its money.

My final thoughts; Moldgraf Monstrosity is a powerhouse. I didn't expect to win while forced in two colors. Banana peel is the coolest card from DKA, even for standard play.

Interested in more Magic content? Check out the Draft Table series on the MTG Casual Network Archive! 

-Stephen Poindexter

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Post #21: Casually Dark Ascension

The latest set, Dark Ascension, was just released this past Friday and it has been really exciting to see people open the new product. I'm really excited to see what new standard strategies will come out and what decks are gonna get sweet new toys that push them into tier 1. However, the real gold I'm looking for during spoiler season and the release of the new set are the hidden casual and Commander gems scattered throughout. Here, I'm gonna cover a couple of my favorites.

Faithless Looting. It's difficult to talk about this card considering so many others have brought up how great it is. An interesting aside, I went to my local card shop and bought 14 copies of this card for $0.10/each. I think it's a solid deal considering I think it's an absolutely incredible common. Obviously this card is very similar to Careful Study, Faithless Looting is red and has flashback. The ability to flash it back gives you some card advantage if you're looking for a turn 3 play or to loot (draw x, discard x) ability in the late game to help dig up answers. Also finding card advantage in red is pretty rare, so this card gets the nod of approval. I really like this card because it works very well with Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and an amazing followup to Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, and Wordly Tutor. Grixis reanimator decks like Sedris, the Traitor King, Garza Zol, Plague Queen or Thraximundar will love this card. For Standard, it does a few cool things. It gives control decks that have splashed red for Gut Shot and Olivia Voldaren another draw spell. I'm not sure if Faithless Looting is strictly better than Desperate Ravings, but I really do like the idea of having it in the deck. Also, Faithless Looting helps give the Mono Red decks a bit of consistency they've been desperately needing for the past few months. It also works really well with Chandra's Phoenix and Grim Lavamancer. For Modern, I can see this card being very good at thinning the deck for R/U storm combo Empty the Warrens or Grapeshot alongside Manamorphose and Past in Flames. I'm really excited to see where this card goes and I'm gonna keep a close eye on it.

The other card I've been looking at with a curious eye is Tower Geist. I really like cards that dig for more cards and provide a nice body attached like Coiling Oracle, Mulldrifter, and Sea Gate Oracle. Although he's a 4 mana 2/2, which is strictly worse than the aforementioned cards, the Tower Geist has Flying and loots one of the cards instead of returns it to the bottom of your library like Sea Gate Oracle. This could be really strong with a deck that has a lot of Flashback effects or Snapcaster Mage and has some reanimation. I feel like this card also has a lot of potential with W/U/x fish/blink decks (with Momentary Blink, Parallax Wave, etc) that want to throw a bunch of low mana cost permanents in the graveyard and bring them back with Sun Titan or if you're playing black, bring back your creatures with a plethora of Rise from the Grave effects. Tower Geist also works really nicely with the Unearth mechanic. Finally, Tower Geist has Flying, which allows him to hold a protection sword and use it effectively. I like cards that do a lot of work for their mana cost and Tower Geist goes into the list of very efficient creatures that I expect to see play in the more casual formats.

This next card is one I have on my radar but I'm not entirely sure how good it'll be. I'm referring to Increasing Ambition. It's a 5 mana tutor that has a Flashback cost for 8 to tutor up 2 cards. With my experience with Diabolic Tutor, it's always a bargain to pay 4 mana to find an answer to the current board state and to have it in hand immediately (it feels like cheating with Demonic Tutor, but that's another story). I don't think 5 mana is much more to pay but does make it slightly more difficult if you're trying to find a Wrath of God ability and that pushes you back a turn in order to cast it. I think this particular tutor shines most with its flashback cost. Although 8 mana is a good chunk of a turn, I don't think it's unplayable. Coupled with Leyline of Anticipation or Vedalken Orrery, this card becomes a complete powerhouse. Being able to tutor up 2 cards at the end of turn is extremely powerful because you have the information of what your opponents cast on their mainphases and have the opportunity to respond to each of their threats. I love cards that have extra value attached to them if you end up discarding them to some effect like Greater Good or they end up getting milled away. Just makes your opponent angry when they try to mill you out with Sazdek, Lord of Secrets. =p I expect to see this card see a lot of play in EDH/Commander but doubt we'll see it played anywhere else.

And finally, let's take a look at the man of the hour, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad.

Undoubtedly, this B/W planeswalker is very good and doesn't fail to impress. Most reminiscent of Elspeth, Knight Errant, Sorin produces blockers, can be very aggressive, and has a pretty sick ultimate ability. In Standard, there may be a B/W deck out there coupled with Lingering Souls and Intangible Virtue and I see a lot of people giving it a shot, making the price of Isolated Chapel jump a bit. Thanks guys =] Sorin's lifelink Vampire token is actually a nice upgrade. The lifelink does give Sorin a little bit of reach against opponent's aggro decks and slightly increases the amount of turns you have to stabilize. For Casual, I think Sorin could be a lot of fun for the already dedicated token decks of the B/W Lorwyn era and decks similar to them coming out of Innistrad with Geist-Honored Monk and Midnight Haunting. I don't know if Sorin will show up in control decks, unless your casual environment is plagued by Premium Foil Fire and Lightning decks. The only deterrent to Sorin is his pricetag, which ranges from $50-60. I think the pricetag is a bit high and hopefully drops soon so those who are have been itching to get a few copies to begin brewing have the opportunity. As for Commander, I don't think he'll see that much play other than in random Esper decks or in Ghave, Ghuru of Spores decks. Playing Sorin with a Doubling Season on the board, then using the ultimate to destroy and gain control of some of your opponents' coveted creatures and planeswalkers sounds pretty exciting. 

Thanks for joining me on my brief set reviews. What card are you most excited to play with from Dark Ascension? Let me know in the comments section! Until next time, Magic players!

Interested in more Magic content? Check out every series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

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