Return to Ravinca Commentary - or what do I play in the pre-release?

This weekend marks the pre release of one of the most anticipated Magic the Gathering sets in some years, Return to Ravinca.  I made my casual return to Magic near the end of the original Ravinca block, about the time it was rotating out, the cards I had acquired at that time were awesome and Return promises to be a multicolored dream.  What do we play and with only half the guilds being present, which will come out on top?  Only time will tell when rotation hits.  Some say our current format is stale, but for the most part those words come from control players who can’t handle agro decks.  Return to Ravinca will certainly do one thing – reinvigorate Standard. 

Currently, the only viable mono colored decks are green and black.  RDW has gone by the wayside for almost a year now, but is making resurgence with the Goblins, Bonfire of the Damned and Thundermaw Hellkite.  Mono blue only works in pauper format.  Mono white, currently played but inconsistent, is losing its powerhouse card, the Hero of Bladehold.  Wizards seems to have smartly printed mono colored cards in Return to Ravinca to give each a shot during rotation. The new Jace, Architect of Thought, the Desecration Demon and Mizzium Mortars are good examples of powerful mono colored cards in Return that will help bolster those deck builds.

 

My personal favorite is the “shock” lands.  They have returned to make Modern and Legacy more accessible to newer players, according to Wizards.  The current Standard builds that are going through re-envisioning will certainly utilize them.  I feel they are what Standard needs right now, especially for developing multi colored decks, a direction Standard has been moving towards for some time now.  Add to this “Gate” land cards, essentially common dual lands that come into play tapped, and you have the perfect mana base for a multi colored format.

 

Key Runes – Mana pumping artifacts that turn into creatures.  We’ve gotten away from the last Man Land in the format – Inkmoth nexus – and have made our way into a new era where we see lands being sacrificed to make token creatures (i.e. Hellion Crucible and Grove of the Guardian).

 

Rakdos’s Return is a game changer.  A BR multicolored spell that acts as a fireball AND a Mind Twist?  WINNING!  This card could be a late game usurper.  In contrast, Supreme Verdict tells us why they dropped Day of Judgment from the Core Set.  An uncounterable Day?  UW builds are going to have a picnic.  One can see why Bant will be so powerful come rotation.  Let's add Abrupt Decay to the mix, an uncounterable 2 drop Vindicate for those troublesome low cost high powered cards like Vampire Nighthawk and Ajani, Caller of the Pride.  Maelstrom Pulse light, for sure, but it kills an Oblivion Ring.  Even so, the venerable Oblivion Ring gets to up the ante with big brother Detention Sphere.  An O-Ring that acts as a Pulse?  Sweet!  Give me more of that one and add to Bant build’s power cards.

 

Charms have always been an efficient tool in any deck.  The Charms of Return to Ravinca are no different.  With each card giving you 3 instant speed choices, you are sure to find an answer in a Charm. 

New game mechanics and keywords always bring a fresh breath to the game.  Return to Ravinca is no different.  Scavange, Unleash, Detain, Populate and Overload are all making their debuts in this mighty set.  Each is dedicated to a Guild:  Golgari gaining Scavange (which allows you to exile that card in your graveyard to put +1/+1 counters on a creature), Rakdos taking Unleash (Make it unable to block but make it HUGE, TOM!), Selesnya grows with Populate (Got a token?  Make ANOTHER token.  BOGO!), Azorious controls with Detain (tap it – it can’t untap on the next turn and it can’t use activated abilities) and Izzet goes OTT with Overload (change the word TARGET to ALL for a slightly higher cost?  Sure!).   

Return to Ravinca is the shot of juice all of the current Magic formats needed.  The pre-releases this weekend will be exciting to play in and going forward one can only dream of the possibilities.  This is possibly the expansion I’ve looked forward to the most since Zendikar rotated out.  Pick your Guild and have at it, my friends.  Until the next time I return to Rakdos . . .

 

PEACE!

A call for the return of manaburn or STOP THE DUMBING DOWN!

M10 saw some significant rules changes for Magic.  First, they eliminated stacking damage.  That was great, as damage NEVER should have been stackable.  Ever.  A change made in 6^th edition, I believe.  For every great thing WotC does, they always mungle something up.  In this case they removed manaburn from the equation.  I still shake my head at this awful decision. 

Some of you are unfamiliar with the term manaburn.  From the beginning of Magic one had to contend with manaburn.  Essentially, unspent mana at the end of each of your phases is dealt to you in damage.  This does not mean that untapped lands cause you damage, it means that mana in your pool that is not spent on spells or effects is removed from your life total.  

WotC said they removed manaburn because it was a non-factor and an under utilized mechanic.  I disagree.  I think they removed it so they could make neat new cards for the Alara and Zendikar blocks like Omnath and it has led to clowns tapping Pristine Talisman for life and disregarding the mana created with the artifact, just for example. Instead of utilizing it, you went to opposite extreme and made cards that wouldn’t work with it being in effect.

 

 

Why is manaburn important to the game?  I have one argument: I believe it is a fair penalty for going hog wild with big mana-pumpers and ramp.  Only need 2 mana when you tap that artifact that gives you 3?  Well take a point of damage for being greedy.  It makes you do better math, but much like our education system today, WotC has dumbed it down for Middle-America and people who vote on American Idol.  I liken it to rounding your checkbook up instead of figuring the dollars and cents except in our case we don’t suddenly find an extra $20 in our bank accounts.  I’m HORRIBLE with math and can still remember nightmare sessions of going over fractions with my Mom at the dinner table as a teenager.  But Magic taught me how to count cards and how to figure out ratios and odds in my head, a difficult challenge for someone with severe ADHD.  I had to learn it to be successful in the game.  And manaburn was part of that equation.  

Which is why we play games anyhow, is it not?  To learn in a casual environment?  Not to make money, WotC.  Magic is no different than Candyland in this sense.  But eliminating this important mechanic also opened the door for people too dumb to learn the math while playing the game, opening to an influx of netdecking where these people are piloting paint-by-number decks and winning when they shouldn’t be.  Cha-Ching goes the cash register.  It’s weakened the playing field the same as expansion pro ball teams make room for crappier players and the direct result is the good teams get better, ruling the market, and the bad teams lose money and bounce around from city to city.  With Magic, this has snowballed into the creations of overpowered cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and venues where the same 4 people win every week at events.  By doing everything they can to make Magic more accessible and each set’s cards being created with certain Magic formats in mind, they are actually weakening the game.  You can’t learn anything in this kind of environment.  You’re eliminating creativity to some point as well, by creating so much diversity you’ve also created pigeon holes that can’t be escaped from.  Imagine your duress at opening a sealed pool and one of your rares is Battle of Wits.  What am I to do with Battle of Wits in a limited environment?  Give me a break.  But I digress; perhaps I’m bitter because a card that resembles me is now useless?  

My now infamous 1995 Championship deck utilized manaburn as a win condition.  And it did it frequently.  In fact, I won more games by manaburn than I did by making you draw cards against Underworld Dreams or smashing your face with a Juggernaut.  How so you ask? A little card called Powersurge; in combination with the totally awesome Candelabra of Tawnos.   Powersurge says that your opponent takes 1 damage at the beginning of their turn for each untapped land they control.  The Candelabra untaps X lands.  You do the math, pun intended.

I would tap out on my turn, using the Candelabra to untap your lands.  You would then take damage from multiple Powersurges at the beginning of your turn.  A smart opponent would then tap his or her lands again to take the manaburn damage as opposed to the Powersurge damage. Winning! With manaburn.  This would be a viable combination in our current Legacy format, especially now that Candelabra is no longer restricted/banned in the format. 

WotC hadn’t made a card that utilizes manaburn in so long, no wonder they removed the mechanic.  But I think it’s time to bring it back, perhaps in M14 – especially with next year also being Magic’s 20^th Anniversary.   You’ve gone around the block a few times with the game, WotC; now fix the math.  Bring manaburn back.  Make cards to use with it as opposed to working without it.  Don’t ignore it; use it!  Like I did with the cards YOUR R&D team made.  

Until the next time they make a card that looks like me . . .

 

PEACE!

Bye-Bye-Bye, or Rotation is Imminent!

Rotation is coming.  It’s inevitable.  Every October the Standard Universe mutates into something yet to be determined, creating an atmosphere of the unknown where many new deck archetypes appear in competition.  It’s an exciting time for Magic, albeit bittersweet.  Gone are cards we’ve been using for up to two years.  Friends we’ve made, essentially.  They’re out the door.  Sure, we can visit them in a Modern setting, but that format does not get enough attention.  Now we lament the passing of some great cards from the past two years of Standard. 

Goodbye Phyrexian Obliterator.  Mono Black Mid-Range loved you.  An ode to powerhouse black creature cards of old from Juzam Djinn to Abyssal Persecutor.  A 5/5 with trample for 4 black mana that was essentially unblockable.  As a notable local mono black player says, I hope he gets replaced with something gooder.  Yes.  Gooder.  The Obliterator is so broken he destroys grammar as well as opponents.

Shall we take a moment of silence to think about Ponder?  You’ve come and gone from lives over the past 4 years and will once again be set aside, waiting to be drawn again. 

Birds of Paradise.  You first graced me with your beauty in 1993.  Now you flutter away again.  Seems that the city plane of Ravinca has no place for your colorful droppings any longer, which is a shame.   

 

Vapor Snag.  An Unsummon that tags your opponent for a paper cut.  I for one am happy this one has evaporated, though I can see it returning to a core set in the future. 

Blade Splicer.  A standby in most decks that play white mana and recent target for Restoration Angels.  Getting 2 for 1 from a spell is always a benefit, but when one of them is a 3/3 Golem with first strike, watch out.   

Phantasmal Image is a Clone for 2 mana.  Yeah.  Unfortunately, Wizards targeted it with M13 and it went to the Modern Graveyard. 

Mana Leak.    You’ll be back soon as the Snapcaster Mage takes his leave. 

Wurmcoil Engine.  The first card in Scars block that made me go WTF!?!?!  REALLY?  And people learned to put it out so fast and quickly copy it with a Phantasmal Image.  Certainly a game breaker that will be missed.

An Equipment Artifact that comes into play attached to a token creature?  Give me more Batterskulls, please!  Make that creature a 4/4 and give it vigilance and lifelink.  Another game breaker if I ever saw one.  An honorable mention to the Batterskull’s little brother that could, the Mortar Pod, another staple of many decks in the current format.  We’ll miss Living Artifacts. 

Time to say goodnight to the RUG Pod deck, kids, as its engine, the awesome Birthing Pod goes nighty-night.  But with it also goes all the wonderful Phyrexian Mana cards like Dismember, Gitaxian Probe and Gut Shot or my personal favorite, Tezzeret’s Gambit (a mainstay in my Big Red build!).  Rumbles about a “NEW TYPE OF MANA” or “6^th COLOR OF MANA” had circulated the Magic world since Antiquities hit the cardboard.  Well, New Phyrexia finally gave it to us with Phyrexian Mana.  Another mechanic that is broken to some players takes its bow.   

Sword of  (INSERT GAME CHANGE) are a thing of the past. A miser card in many decks as well as being the cornerstone cards of the premiere tier-1 decks for the past 2 years; including CAW Blade and Delver decks.  Current mono Green decks can spit these suckers out and equip them on turn 3.  All 3 swords from this block had their benefits, but in the end, the Sword of War & Peace had the most lasting impact on the standard metagame. 

TITANS.  Yeah, Gotta be in all caps, deserving of their status as one of the cards that made standard fun again.  Or broken, dependant on the deck builds.  They didn’t call him PRIMETIME for nothing, people.  They’ve been sent to the Tarterus of Modern now, folks, but I’m sure they will return.

Inkmoth Nexus.  The only viable man-land in the format and it has the added benefit of being an infect creature.  I’m glad to see Infect leave Standard.  It’s had its fun poisoning me.  What concerns me is that all the new “man-land” types seem to be sacking the land and putting a token creature out, ala Hellion Crucible.  We’ll see what happens.  Magic always loves its man-lands. 

Gideon Jura.  We’ve hung out for 4 years now, bro, what gives?  You’ve drawn the attention of so many creatures over the years; I don’t blame you for wanting to take a break.  I hear your replacement is coming next year and will retain the “ATTACK ME” ability.  I can’t wait. 

Da da da dum, de dum, de dum, Hammertime!  I saved my favorite card from the Scars Block for last!  Koth of the Hammer, the second best Planeswalker in my opinion (behind Jace, the Mind Sculptor), leaves Standard without being reprinted in M13 as I assumed he would be.  Chandra never works and Koth is the PERFECT example of how a Red planeswalker for a core set should be.  I salute you, Koth, and can’t wait for your return, someday.

 

I'm sure I probably missed your favorite card.  Talk about it on the forum below or on Facebook.  Did I miss any cards that will be missed?  Until next week, when we talk about what’s coming in Return to Ravinca . . .

 

PEACE!