pelican
04-13-2010, 07:30 PM
Hi I’d like to introduce myself officially on this forum, both as a relatively experienced Magic player as well as now, another article writer for the site. I myself have been playing since legions came out, but was solely focused on vintage since that time and as such have learned a great deal about sets from the past(long since being in standard or even extended).
Overall my hope is to familiarize newer and less experienced players with some insight on cards from those set long ago (as far as alpha back in the ancient days). What my articles will seek to cover is an IN DEPTH analysis of every card I personally thought was notable, had potential, is a playable card all the way up to cards which are still competitive nowadays. This means that the list is going to be long (often including upwards of a third of the cards in a set), and many of the cards included are NOT going to be competitive at all. What I’m really trying to do is enhance deck building tools for all formats, from casual to competitive.
Generally what I’m going to do is cover one set at a time starting from the beginning and moving forward in time. This however carries one exception and that’s the obvious lack of core set analysis (aside from Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised). This is for one simple reason, that from 4th edition until magic 2010 ALL cards in core set were repeats of cards in previous sets.
For the first article (this one) I’ll be doing a large list comprising Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised (bear in mind that 90% of these sets were repeats of each other) so most articles won’t be quite as long as this one.
Along the way I’ll be giving some tips for how to use each card effectively or what situations/decks can make good use of them. I’m also always looking for advice and insight because I’m certainly NOT an expert on ALL these cards, so please respond with comments of all forms, and criticize/add to what I have to say.
DUE TO POST LENGTH I HAVE TO BREAK THIS UP INTO PARTS
Here we go:
Alpha-Beta-Unlimited-Revised
Aladdin's Lamp
-First thing to note with this card is the high mana cost, 10 mana is rarely going to be easily accessible and even when it is its pushing the limits of being playable.
-However considering the powerful nature of the card’s ability, using other means to put it in play are certainly acceptable, such ways might include use of Goblin Welder, or Tinker, but always keep in mind that...aren’t there a hell of a lot of other cards you might want to grab instead?
-all in all, in theory the effect looks good, why wouldn’t you want to be able to choose what you draw(sorta), but the struggle to actually do so is pretty big
Ancestral Recall
-what can i really say here, one of the best cards in magic EVER, this card beats out all other draw spells, being more efficient, while generally drawing you more cards than any other for a single card
-card advantage in magic is VERY important, when you get to see and play more cards than the opponent, all your decisions are easier(or by drawing you give yourself options that you never WOULD have had at all due to top-decking)
-this card is restricted, and is VERY expensive($) but if you have one or if you play proxies you SHOULD be using one assuming you run blue at all in your deck
-restricted in vintage
Animate Dead
-2 mana to return a creature from the graveyard? Sounds good to me. Return it to play? Even better! A -1/-0 counter on it? Meh whatever i could care less. This has been used by re-animator decks, as an example, simply forever. Combine this with fatty creatures(Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Phantom Nishoba, Iona, Shield of Emeria etc.) and you have an amazing “combo”
-add in creatures that can discard cards(Putrid Imp) and cards that put your cards to the graveyard(Entomb) and you have yourself a strategy
Ankh of Mishra
-For two mana, and an artifact it is certainly quite easy to drop giving you an edge against any and all decks which require large amounts of mana, need many colours of mana, use landfall as a strategy, or even run fetch-lands at all(remember that both the fetch-land and the land you fetch both activate the Ankh being 4 damage total)
-Essentially this card can be run in any aggro deck who can run off 3-4 mana easily(SLIGH ANYONE?) because it does two things. First it creates an efficient damage ability(if you drop it 2nd turn your opponent is still gonna need at least 3-4 lands making 6-8 damage through the game VERY easy). And secondly it provides a means of slowing down your opponents mana access due to their fear of damage, especially if they know you can pump out 20 damage in a matter of a 4-5 turns
-I’ve considered running this in land destruction as the opponent NEEDS to keep laying lands, and as such keeps taking damage, however if they are short of lands, chances are you can lay other spells which might have a more dramatic or controlling nature to them
Armageddon
-Simply pretty much the best card to deal with lands in the entire game, this card allows you a great deal of uses, from land destruction to general control, or even simply to stop a comeback when you have control over the battlefield
-consider this, you're playing an agrro deck which runs mainly of 3-4 lands or less, you’re dropping 1-2 spells every turn and soon you have no cards in hand...what do you do? Drop an Armageddon and stop your opponent from coming back against you, while he’s tied up, continue to beat away with the small creatures you’ve laid and you might just have the game
-add in Land Tax(save 3-4 lands in your hand) then drop the Armageddon and you have a easy way to recover, especially considering you only need 3-4 land to get back to full functionality
-the final point id like to make is CARD ADVANTAGE, if your opponent has accelerated through more lands than you, drop Armageddon and you have taken away more than you lost but as well he’ll have a hard time getting back into shape, because he has less lands left in his deck
Atog
-at first glance we have a 1 / 2 creature for 2 mana, certainly not good, a little on the weak side, add in a pump-able ability? Now were talking. This card makes GREAT use of unneeded artifacts or ones with a downfall(Smokestack, Tangle Wire, Sphere of Resistance) or any artifacts lands, mox, etc.
-what really makes it special is that it can be a 1 attack win in many circumstances, easily pumping out 10 damage at once(or more). As well its ability may often create some card advantage as damage spells or creatures wont be effective against it as you’ll always have that choice of making it bigger to survive
-main consideration...affinity decks, how could you not play it
Bad Moon
-2 mana to make all black creatures stronger, permanently? Sounds pretty good, assuming you’re playing black and your opponent isn’t (it becomes useless). Certainly a possible add in for decks utilizing mana efficient or “suicide” type creatures, but not effective when using higher casting cost creatures
-be careful over using this as it might be a dead draw when you get it, because either the opponent has ways to stop all your creatures(Wrath of God, Moat etc.), or you’re already on your way to victory, or simply because theres a threat from an opponent that you can’t find an answer for.
Badlands
-This basically speaks for itself, combining both a mountain and a swamp in one land in all ways is pretty useful. Multicoloured decks need these “dual-lands” as it makes your mana access so much more streamlined. These non-basic lands can also be grabbed by fetch-lands as well making them even more useful
-price($) can be an issue with these as they were only printed in the first 4 sets of magic and tend to run at least 20$ apiece
Balance
-a white staple for a very long time, this card bring card advantage to the forefront as good as any other. Your opponent dropping lots of creatures? Artifacts? Lands? Hold back your balance a turn or two and wipe the board, then come back at him with everything you’ve kept handy.
-great with Land Tax, hold back a few land, drop the balance and then start laying while your opponents wait for lands to top-deck
-also great with creatures with sacrifice abilities, sac your creatures for their uses, then balance to wipe all your opponents as well (similarly with artifacts)
-being 2 mana makes this card fantastically easy to cast
-this card is restricted in vintage
Bayou
-see Badlands above for description, both a swamp and a forest
Benalish Hero
-1 mana for a 1/1? On par with anything for sure, nothing special. Add in a little known ability called “banding” and you have a very useful card. See banding at bottom of page.
Berserk
-1 mana to double your creatures power and give it trample? Sounds absolutely fantastic. And it is. Aside from the destroy at end of turn drawback this is a perfect aggro card, intended to be the finishing move on an opponent or at least put them within killing range
-the drawback of course is often negligible as you often use berserk to finish the game
Birds of Paradise
-1 mana for 0/1 is certainly nothing good but add in a mana producing ability and flying to “chump block” and you have yourself a very powerful and very versatile utility creature
-the fact that birds of paradise can add any colour mana at any time makes it on par or above most other mana acceleration creatures. While similar to a Llanowar Elves dont let the 0 power change your decision on playing this guy unless of course you’re playing mono-green
Black Knight
-2 mana for a 2/2 first strike with protection? Thats a fairly efficient creature, considering no drawbacks for black creature. Although black generally isn’t a stereotypical “weenie” deck choice, black knight would certainly fit the bill for filling a spot in such a deck
-overall nothing amazing about this creature, certainly not a game changer by any means but still an efficient playable card
Black Lotus
-most likely if you’ve been playing magic for any amount of time you might have heard about this card, but being the most expensive card ever printed as well as being over 16 years old you’ve quite likely never seen one
-all in all we have a 0 cost card which gives you accelerated mana access early, being 3 mana of any colour also significantly increases the value of this card
-restricted in vintage so you can only play one, but basically EVERY deck should use one if you play proxies or actually happen to have one(but if you had one you probably know all this)
Black Vise
-here’s an interesting card for sure, at first glance you might not think this is a very powerful card but in fact it is very much so, being able to effectively counteract control decks in general(as they tend not to play spells as early or quickly) and also tend to draw more cards, means that they very likely might be taking 2-3 damage every turn OR are forced to reduce the amount they draw, or play spells quicker than they “should”
-this being 1 mana also easily lets you drop this card and when you go play first, you can drop it first turn for basically the equivalent of a lightning bolt at the very least, chances are they’ll take at least 1-2 other damage from it even if they are playing aggro/combo
-can be used effectively in a land destruction deck as you opponent wont be able to choose to play very mana spells and will likely take 2-3 damage until they find an answer
-this card USED to be restricted in vintage so its clear that at one point it was a little too powerful
Blue Elemental Blast
-this has been a staple sideboard card for blue for quite a long time, when used against the proper opponent(one who plays red, especially mono-red) it can be a pretty devastating card
-consider this, one of the best counters in magic is Counterspell, being 2 mana to counter a spell, blue elemental blast however does the same thing except for less mana and gives you another choice, a significant one at that too, the ability to destroy a red permanent
-lets look at that a little more closely, can you think of any other cards which can destroy your opponents cards more efficiently?? 1 mana lets you get rid of any creature, enchantment, red artifact, plainswalker...sounds good to me, essentially i can stop any one card from my opponent as long as it isn’t an artifact or land(remember we only want to play it in our deck against opponents who use a significant amount of red
Braingeyser
-we all are beginning to understand that drawing cards is a very powerful deck tool, due to card advantage, so it should be clear that being able to draw however many you have mana for should be quite good, and it is
-this has been a staple of many blue control decks since magic came around(seeing as we are discussing the first 4 sets), the reason for this is that late game, say once you’ve gotten access to 6-7 lands you can see that being able to draw 4-5 cards for a single card is quite a good deal
-this card was once restricted but later unrestricted due to the changing nature and speed of the game, while still a powerful card, it doesn’t see as much use as it once did, although it is unrestricted I still wouldn’t recommend playing 4 in a deck because as we’ve read and learned in other articles here your mana curve is an important consideration, even though braingeyser might be powerful once you use it, its clear that it isn’t as easy to use effectively as lower cost spells, so you want to draw it less than such other cards
Brass Man
-1 mana for a 1/3 creature? Thats a pretty efficient creature, however it comes with a drawback, you must pay 1 mana to untap any time you’ve attacked, or it otherwise becomes tapped
-however consider using brass man as a more so a blocker, now it has no drawback as it wont become tapped for blocking
-being an artifact he both has weaknesses and strengths and should be treated accordingly, overall nothing special about brass man, but I'm sure you could find some interesting uses
Camouflage
-this is an interesting card to say the least, and i can’t even really say how you could best put it to use, basically what it does though is that when you attack, the defending player groups his blockers in groups and then groups are each randomly assigned to block an attacker, what this can accomplish for the attacker is let a powerful attacked be unblocked whereas the blocker would have chosen to block such attacker if they had a choice
-this could be used in decks with creatures such as poison counters(seen here http://www.moxdiamond.com/Magic-The-Gathering/Deck-By-Card/Camouflage.html) or with a card like Phage, the untouchable.
-if anyone knows any powerful uses of this card please share them with us
Channel
-2 mana to get, usually, anywhere upwards of 19 mana? That gives you some pretty amazing options, and although its certainly very risky to put that much life into the card its quite useful for fuelling 1 turn win combo decks or even to pump out some very large colourless creatures at worst(darksteel colossus, eldrazi ala http://mtgsalvation.com/rise-of-the-eldrazi-spoiler.html )
-the main thing about channel is it has the potential to screw you over but with the right use can be VERY effective
-channel is restricted in vintage
Circle of Protection – Colours
-these have always been a sideboard option for players playing white, generally CoP-Blue has been pretty useless as blue tends not to really rely on creatures a whole lot. CoP-Red has been somewhat useful with many aggro decks like burn/sligh/goblins it pretty much shuts them down. The other colours probably have seen less use overall than red but could still be useful.
-in my opinion although these can be powerful when used as sideboard colour hate, generally there are better ways to slow down/lock your opponent(like conversion etc.) so overall i don’t recommend using them too much, and definitely NOT main-deck unless you have some weird combo/damage prevention deck
Clone
-this is an interesting card as well, giving you the ability to copy any creature which is on the battlefield, this could either make clone incredibly useful(when you or your opponent has a powerful creature out) or a complete dead draw(when no creatures are in play)
-for 4 mana its not too difficult to play, but makes it only useful for copying equally costly or higher cost creatures
-generally i would consider using this in decks which you get big creatures out in alternate ways(such as sneak attack, oath of druids, defence of the heart etc.)
Control Magic
-for 4 mana the ability to steal one of your opponents creatures may seem an enticing one but its also very likely to be a dead draw when your opponent doesn’t play any significant creatures and instead plays none, or plays a lot of “weenies” etc.
-when you do find a good use for it though it does prove advantageous, as you are gaining card advantage(getting a creature AND “killing” one of your opponents)
-the other thing to keep in mind is that your opponent can very easily steal this card advantage back by destroying the enchantment(therefore taking back his creature)
Conversion
-heres a REALLY frustrating card for mono-red decks, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been beaten by players who have shitty decks but happen to pull out one of these by 4th turn against my, at-the-time competitive sligh deck, it got to be so prevalent in the meta-game(local tendencies of what other people play) that i began to run disenchant in my sideboard so that when my mountains got converted to plains i had the ability to cast it and destroy conversion
-doesn’t serve much other purpose than shutting down red, but its pretty powerful against a mono coloured deck
Copy Artifact
-2 mana to copy any artifact on the board, this card is actually pretty powerful in the sense that if you run a good amount of artifacts in your deck, it becomes a very versatile tool, letting you copy mana accelerating cards like mana vault, big powerful creatures like darksteel colossus, control artifacts like tangle wire, or utility artifacts such as memory jar
-i haven’t seen much use of this card myself personally but it has great potential
Counterspell
-arguably the best counter in magic, its simply, its 2 mana to stop pretty much any threat that your opponent can throw at you, as long as it could be countered or targeted on the stack
-counterspell is what all other counters are modelled after, some other are cheaper but less versatile(dispel), or have some drawback, others are more expensive but are more versatile, or have added bonuses(rewind). Others again have the ability to be cast for free or at reduced cost, but need some other payment to be made(force of will)
Crusade
-2 mana for a permanent boost to presumingly ALL your creatures with the possibility of boosting theirs is pretty reasonable, as has been used effectively in white weenie decks in the past. I mention white weenie decks because a +1+1 boost is more of a positive bonus when all your 1/1’s become 2/2’s rather than when your white 4/4 angel becomes 5/5, if you can see where I'm going here
-when using this in a deck you want to play pretty much mono-white, because otherwise you’re losing some of the potential of the card, and you want to focus on creatures with strengths that will increase crusade effectiveness. A perfect example of this is creatures with double strike, because it hits twice, your +1+1 boost now makes it essentially a +2+2 bonus or +2+1 bonus(whatever way you want to think about it)
Dark Ritual
-what can i really say about this, to the newcomer it might seem like a waste of space in your deck, so what? You get an extra 2 mana at the cost of a slot in your deck, but this can significantly speed up your deck and help in many ways to give you card advantage(considering discard etc. in black)
-consider an opening hand of swamp, dark ritual, mox jet, hymn to tourach, hymn to tourach, sinkhole, and hypnotic specter -----you open with the swamp, jet and ritual for 4 mana, drop 2 hymns for 4 cards at random from your opponent, chances are if your opponent had 2-3 land he’s now lost 1-2 of them as well as perhaps his other opening cards for the game, follow that up next turn with sinkhole to take another land away, and then next turn follow with a specter, you’ve pretty much in one fell swoop taken all flow and threat from your opponent and now you can beat away with the specter while he HOPES for more land/cards to lay, best case scenario for you, he has no more lands and now might be waiting 2-3 turns before he even lays his first land, but of course by this point he has no cards to lay either because of the specter
Deathgrip
-2 mana for a re-usable, cheap counter? This card is very powerful, assuming of course your opponent relies on green to take the game, i would consider running this card in many sideboards, and i wouldn’t even have to run more than 1-2 because black inherently is good at searching for cards(demonic tutor, vampiric tutor etc.) basically unless your opponent has an immediate answer to this or is playing multiple colours, you’re almost guaranteed a win when this hits the board
Demonic Hordes
-6 mana for a 5/5 who has a very powerful ability, although it does comes with the drawback of a upkeep to pay
-if you can get this guy out 4th turn with a dark ritual, id say its going to be pretty difficult for your opponent to come back, especially considering you should be using things like hymn to tourach and duress and other discard to hopefully take away from him the cards which would enable him to kill the demonic hordes, if this is the case you can basically just kill off his lands or swing for 5 damage a turn and end the game swiftly(he’s also likely not to have any decent creatures on the board)
Demonic Tutor
-in my opinion, if not the best, certainly not far off being the best search card in the game, 2 mana to get ANY card from your library is a powerful tool and should be included in pretty much every deck running black
-this is so powerful because it essentially acts as a pseudo wildcard for your deck, kinda like a joker in playing cards, only thing being that it costs that extra 2 mana to get the other card
-this card is restricted in vintage
Disenchant
-2 mana for a artifact and enchantment removal is pretty standard, I'm pretty sure this still seem its fair share of play, or at least has the potential to do so. No fancy tricks or effects just plain and simply removal
Disintegrate
-this falls under the category of “X” damage spells for red, there are several, the most simple being blaze
-this card has two advantages over blaze, the first being that creatures destroyed after being damaged by disintegrate cannot be regenerated, and second that when a creature gets killed by blaze it gets exiled rather than put in the graveyard. These differences may be significant when considering creatures easily regenerated, and/or those who have abilities that are active in the graveyard, such as nether shadow
Drain Life
-similar to red’s “X” damage spells, however drain life has one main advantage in that when the damage is dealt you also gain that much life in the process(though this is limited to the toughness of the creature). For 1 extra mana, this is certainly reasonable
Overall my hope is to familiarize newer and less experienced players with some insight on cards from those set long ago (as far as alpha back in the ancient days). What my articles will seek to cover is an IN DEPTH analysis of every card I personally thought was notable, had potential, is a playable card all the way up to cards which are still competitive nowadays. This means that the list is going to be long (often including upwards of a third of the cards in a set), and many of the cards included are NOT going to be competitive at all. What I’m really trying to do is enhance deck building tools for all formats, from casual to competitive.
Generally what I’m going to do is cover one set at a time starting from the beginning and moving forward in time. This however carries one exception and that’s the obvious lack of core set analysis (aside from Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised). This is for one simple reason, that from 4th edition until magic 2010 ALL cards in core set were repeats of cards in previous sets.
For the first article (this one) I’ll be doing a large list comprising Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised (bear in mind that 90% of these sets were repeats of each other) so most articles won’t be quite as long as this one.
Along the way I’ll be giving some tips for how to use each card effectively or what situations/decks can make good use of them. I’m also always looking for advice and insight because I’m certainly NOT an expert on ALL these cards, so please respond with comments of all forms, and criticize/add to what I have to say.
DUE TO POST LENGTH I HAVE TO BREAK THIS UP INTO PARTS
Here we go:
Alpha-Beta-Unlimited-Revised
Aladdin's Lamp
-First thing to note with this card is the high mana cost, 10 mana is rarely going to be easily accessible and even when it is its pushing the limits of being playable.
-However considering the powerful nature of the card’s ability, using other means to put it in play are certainly acceptable, such ways might include use of Goblin Welder, or Tinker, but always keep in mind that...aren’t there a hell of a lot of other cards you might want to grab instead?
-all in all, in theory the effect looks good, why wouldn’t you want to be able to choose what you draw(sorta), but the struggle to actually do so is pretty big
Ancestral Recall
-what can i really say here, one of the best cards in magic EVER, this card beats out all other draw spells, being more efficient, while generally drawing you more cards than any other for a single card
-card advantage in magic is VERY important, when you get to see and play more cards than the opponent, all your decisions are easier(or by drawing you give yourself options that you never WOULD have had at all due to top-decking)
-this card is restricted, and is VERY expensive($) but if you have one or if you play proxies you SHOULD be using one assuming you run blue at all in your deck
-restricted in vintage
Animate Dead
-2 mana to return a creature from the graveyard? Sounds good to me. Return it to play? Even better! A -1/-0 counter on it? Meh whatever i could care less. This has been used by re-animator decks, as an example, simply forever. Combine this with fatty creatures(Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Phantom Nishoba, Iona, Shield of Emeria etc.) and you have an amazing “combo”
-add in creatures that can discard cards(Putrid Imp) and cards that put your cards to the graveyard(Entomb) and you have yourself a strategy
Ankh of Mishra
-For two mana, and an artifact it is certainly quite easy to drop giving you an edge against any and all decks which require large amounts of mana, need many colours of mana, use landfall as a strategy, or even run fetch-lands at all(remember that both the fetch-land and the land you fetch both activate the Ankh being 4 damage total)
-Essentially this card can be run in any aggro deck who can run off 3-4 mana easily(SLIGH ANYONE?) because it does two things. First it creates an efficient damage ability(if you drop it 2nd turn your opponent is still gonna need at least 3-4 lands making 6-8 damage through the game VERY easy). And secondly it provides a means of slowing down your opponents mana access due to their fear of damage, especially if they know you can pump out 20 damage in a matter of a 4-5 turns
-I’ve considered running this in land destruction as the opponent NEEDS to keep laying lands, and as such keeps taking damage, however if they are short of lands, chances are you can lay other spells which might have a more dramatic or controlling nature to them
Armageddon
-Simply pretty much the best card to deal with lands in the entire game, this card allows you a great deal of uses, from land destruction to general control, or even simply to stop a comeback when you have control over the battlefield
-consider this, you're playing an agrro deck which runs mainly of 3-4 lands or less, you’re dropping 1-2 spells every turn and soon you have no cards in hand...what do you do? Drop an Armageddon and stop your opponent from coming back against you, while he’s tied up, continue to beat away with the small creatures you’ve laid and you might just have the game
-add in Land Tax(save 3-4 lands in your hand) then drop the Armageddon and you have a easy way to recover, especially considering you only need 3-4 land to get back to full functionality
-the final point id like to make is CARD ADVANTAGE, if your opponent has accelerated through more lands than you, drop Armageddon and you have taken away more than you lost but as well he’ll have a hard time getting back into shape, because he has less lands left in his deck
Atog
-at first glance we have a 1 / 2 creature for 2 mana, certainly not good, a little on the weak side, add in a pump-able ability? Now were talking. This card makes GREAT use of unneeded artifacts or ones with a downfall(Smokestack, Tangle Wire, Sphere of Resistance) or any artifacts lands, mox, etc.
-what really makes it special is that it can be a 1 attack win in many circumstances, easily pumping out 10 damage at once(or more). As well its ability may often create some card advantage as damage spells or creatures wont be effective against it as you’ll always have that choice of making it bigger to survive
-main consideration...affinity decks, how could you not play it
Bad Moon
-2 mana to make all black creatures stronger, permanently? Sounds pretty good, assuming you’re playing black and your opponent isn’t (it becomes useless). Certainly a possible add in for decks utilizing mana efficient or “suicide” type creatures, but not effective when using higher casting cost creatures
-be careful over using this as it might be a dead draw when you get it, because either the opponent has ways to stop all your creatures(Wrath of God, Moat etc.), or you’re already on your way to victory, or simply because theres a threat from an opponent that you can’t find an answer for.
Badlands
-This basically speaks for itself, combining both a mountain and a swamp in one land in all ways is pretty useful. Multicoloured decks need these “dual-lands” as it makes your mana access so much more streamlined. These non-basic lands can also be grabbed by fetch-lands as well making them even more useful
-price($) can be an issue with these as they were only printed in the first 4 sets of magic and tend to run at least 20$ apiece
Balance
-a white staple for a very long time, this card bring card advantage to the forefront as good as any other. Your opponent dropping lots of creatures? Artifacts? Lands? Hold back your balance a turn or two and wipe the board, then come back at him with everything you’ve kept handy.
-great with Land Tax, hold back a few land, drop the balance and then start laying while your opponents wait for lands to top-deck
-also great with creatures with sacrifice abilities, sac your creatures for their uses, then balance to wipe all your opponents as well (similarly with artifacts)
-being 2 mana makes this card fantastically easy to cast
-this card is restricted in vintage
Bayou
-see Badlands above for description, both a swamp and a forest
Benalish Hero
-1 mana for a 1/1? On par with anything for sure, nothing special. Add in a little known ability called “banding” and you have a very useful card. See banding at bottom of page.
Berserk
-1 mana to double your creatures power and give it trample? Sounds absolutely fantastic. And it is. Aside from the destroy at end of turn drawback this is a perfect aggro card, intended to be the finishing move on an opponent or at least put them within killing range
-the drawback of course is often negligible as you often use berserk to finish the game
Birds of Paradise
-1 mana for 0/1 is certainly nothing good but add in a mana producing ability and flying to “chump block” and you have yourself a very powerful and very versatile utility creature
-the fact that birds of paradise can add any colour mana at any time makes it on par or above most other mana acceleration creatures. While similar to a Llanowar Elves dont let the 0 power change your decision on playing this guy unless of course you’re playing mono-green
Black Knight
-2 mana for a 2/2 first strike with protection? Thats a fairly efficient creature, considering no drawbacks for black creature. Although black generally isn’t a stereotypical “weenie” deck choice, black knight would certainly fit the bill for filling a spot in such a deck
-overall nothing amazing about this creature, certainly not a game changer by any means but still an efficient playable card
Black Lotus
-most likely if you’ve been playing magic for any amount of time you might have heard about this card, but being the most expensive card ever printed as well as being over 16 years old you’ve quite likely never seen one
-all in all we have a 0 cost card which gives you accelerated mana access early, being 3 mana of any colour also significantly increases the value of this card
-restricted in vintage so you can only play one, but basically EVERY deck should use one if you play proxies or actually happen to have one(but if you had one you probably know all this)
Black Vise
-here’s an interesting card for sure, at first glance you might not think this is a very powerful card but in fact it is very much so, being able to effectively counteract control decks in general(as they tend not to play spells as early or quickly) and also tend to draw more cards, means that they very likely might be taking 2-3 damage every turn OR are forced to reduce the amount they draw, or play spells quicker than they “should”
-this being 1 mana also easily lets you drop this card and when you go play first, you can drop it first turn for basically the equivalent of a lightning bolt at the very least, chances are they’ll take at least 1-2 other damage from it even if they are playing aggro/combo
-can be used effectively in a land destruction deck as you opponent wont be able to choose to play very mana spells and will likely take 2-3 damage until they find an answer
-this card USED to be restricted in vintage so its clear that at one point it was a little too powerful
Blue Elemental Blast
-this has been a staple sideboard card for blue for quite a long time, when used against the proper opponent(one who plays red, especially mono-red) it can be a pretty devastating card
-consider this, one of the best counters in magic is Counterspell, being 2 mana to counter a spell, blue elemental blast however does the same thing except for less mana and gives you another choice, a significant one at that too, the ability to destroy a red permanent
-lets look at that a little more closely, can you think of any other cards which can destroy your opponents cards more efficiently?? 1 mana lets you get rid of any creature, enchantment, red artifact, plainswalker...sounds good to me, essentially i can stop any one card from my opponent as long as it isn’t an artifact or land(remember we only want to play it in our deck against opponents who use a significant amount of red
Braingeyser
-we all are beginning to understand that drawing cards is a very powerful deck tool, due to card advantage, so it should be clear that being able to draw however many you have mana for should be quite good, and it is
-this has been a staple of many blue control decks since magic came around(seeing as we are discussing the first 4 sets), the reason for this is that late game, say once you’ve gotten access to 6-7 lands you can see that being able to draw 4-5 cards for a single card is quite a good deal
-this card was once restricted but later unrestricted due to the changing nature and speed of the game, while still a powerful card, it doesn’t see as much use as it once did, although it is unrestricted I still wouldn’t recommend playing 4 in a deck because as we’ve read and learned in other articles here your mana curve is an important consideration, even though braingeyser might be powerful once you use it, its clear that it isn’t as easy to use effectively as lower cost spells, so you want to draw it less than such other cards
Brass Man
-1 mana for a 1/3 creature? Thats a pretty efficient creature, however it comes with a drawback, you must pay 1 mana to untap any time you’ve attacked, or it otherwise becomes tapped
-however consider using brass man as a more so a blocker, now it has no drawback as it wont become tapped for blocking
-being an artifact he both has weaknesses and strengths and should be treated accordingly, overall nothing special about brass man, but I'm sure you could find some interesting uses
Camouflage
-this is an interesting card to say the least, and i can’t even really say how you could best put it to use, basically what it does though is that when you attack, the defending player groups his blockers in groups and then groups are each randomly assigned to block an attacker, what this can accomplish for the attacker is let a powerful attacked be unblocked whereas the blocker would have chosen to block such attacker if they had a choice
-this could be used in decks with creatures such as poison counters(seen here http://www.moxdiamond.com/Magic-The-Gathering/Deck-By-Card/Camouflage.html) or with a card like Phage, the untouchable.
-if anyone knows any powerful uses of this card please share them with us
Channel
-2 mana to get, usually, anywhere upwards of 19 mana? That gives you some pretty amazing options, and although its certainly very risky to put that much life into the card its quite useful for fuelling 1 turn win combo decks or even to pump out some very large colourless creatures at worst(darksteel colossus, eldrazi ala http://mtgsalvation.com/rise-of-the-eldrazi-spoiler.html )
-the main thing about channel is it has the potential to screw you over but with the right use can be VERY effective
-channel is restricted in vintage
Circle of Protection – Colours
-these have always been a sideboard option for players playing white, generally CoP-Blue has been pretty useless as blue tends not to really rely on creatures a whole lot. CoP-Red has been somewhat useful with many aggro decks like burn/sligh/goblins it pretty much shuts them down. The other colours probably have seen less use overall than red but could still be useful.
-in my opinion although these can be powerful when used as sideboard colour hate, generally there are better ways to slow down/lock your opponent(like conversion etc.) so overall i don’t recommend using them too much, and definitely NOT main-deck unless you have some weird combo/damage prevention deck
Clone
-this is an interesting card as well, giving you the ability to copy any creature which is on the battlefield, this could either make clone incredibly useful(when you or your opponent has a powerful creature out) or a complete dead draw(when no creatures are in play)
-for 4 mana its not too difficult to play, but makes it only useful for copying equally costly or higher cost creatures
-generally i would consider using this in decks which you get big creatures out in alternate ways(such as sneak attack, oath of druids, defence of the heart etc.)
Control Magic
-for 4 mana the ability to steal one of your opponents creatures may seem an enticing one but its also very likely to be a dead draw when your opponent doesn’t play any significant creatures and instead plays none, or plays a lot of “weenies” etc.
-when you do find a good use for it though it does prove advantageous, as you are gaining card advantage(getting a creature AND “killing” one of your opponents)
-the other thing to keep in mind is that your opponent can very easily steal this card advantage back by destroying the enchantment(therefore taking back his creature)
Conversion
-heres a REALLY frustrating card for mono-red decks, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been beaten by players who have shitty decks but happen to pull out one of these by 4th turn against my, at-the-time competitive sligh deck, it got to be so prevalent in the meta-game(local tendencies of what other people play) that i began to run disenchant in my sideboard so that when my mountains got converted to plains i had the ability to cast it and destroy conversion
-doesn’t serve much other purpose than shutting down red, but its pretty powerful against a mono coloured deck
Copy Artifact
-2 mana to copy any artifact on the board, this card is actually pretty powerful in the sense that if you run a good amount of artifacts in your deck, it becomes a very versatile tool, letting you copy mana accelerating cards like mana vault, big powerful creatures like darksteel colossus, control artifacts like tangle wire, or utility artifacts such as memory jar
-i haven’t seen much use of this card myself personally but it has great potential
Counterspell
-arguably the best counter in magic, its simply, its 2 mana to stop pretty much any threat that your opponent can throw at you, as long as it could be countered or targeted on the stack
-counterspell is what all other counters are modelled after, some other are cheaper but less versatile(dispel), or have some drawback, others are more expensive but are more versatile, or have added bonuses(rewind). Others again have the ability to be cast for free or at reduced cost, but need some other payment to be made(force of will)
Crusade
-2 mana for a permanent boost to presumingly ALL your creatures with the possibility of boosting theirs is pretty reasonable, as has been used effectively in white weenie decks in the past. I mention white weenie decks because a +1+1 boost is more of a positive bonus when all your 1/1’s become 2/2’s rather than when your white 4/4 angel becomes 5/5, if you can see where I'm going here
-when using this in a deck you want to play pretty much mono-white, because otherwise you’re losing some of the potential of the card, and you want to focus on creatures with strengths that will increase crusade effectiveness. A perfect example of this is creatures with double strike, because it hits twice, your +1+1 boost now makes it essentially a +2+2 bonus or +2+1 bonus(whatever way you want to think about it)
Dark Ritual
-what can i really say about this, to the newcomer it might seem like a waste of space in your deck, so what? You get an extra 2 mana at the cost of a slot in your deck, but this can significantly speed up your deck and help in many ways to give you card advantage(considering discard etc. in black)
-consider an opening hand of swamp, dark ritual, mox jet, hymn to tourach, hymn to tourach, sinkhole, and hypnotic specter -----you open with the swamp, jet and ritual for 4 mana, drop 2 hymns for 4 cards at random from your opponent, chances are if your opponent had 2-3 land he’s now lost 1-2 of them as well as perhaps his other opening cards for the game, follow that up next turn with sinkhole to take another land away, and then next turn follow with a specter, you’ve pretty much in one fell swoop taken all flow and threat from your opponent and now you can beat away with the specter while he HOPES for more land/cards to lay, best case scenario for you, he has no more lands and now might be waiting 2-3 turns before he even lays his first land, but of course by this point he has no cards to lay either because of the specter
Deathgrip
-2 mana for a re-usable, cheap counter? This card is very powerful, assuming of course your opponent relies on green to take the game, i would consider running this card in many sideboards, and i wouldn’t even have to run more than 1-2 because black inherently is good at searching for cards(demonic tutor, vampiric tutor etc.) basically unless your opponent has an immediate answer to this or is playing multiple colours, you’re almost guaranteed a win when this hits the board
Demonic Hordes
-6 mana for a 5/5 who has a very powerful ability, although it does comes with the drawback of a upkeep to pay
-if you can get this guy out 4th turn with a dark ritual, id say its going to be pretty difficult for your opponent to come back, especially considering you should be using things like hymn to tourach and duress and other discard to hopefully take away from him the cards which would enable him to kill the demonic hordes, if this is the case you can basically just kill off his lands or swing for 5 damage a turn and end the game swiftly(he’s also likely not to have any decent creatures on the board)
Demonic Tutor
-in my opinion, if not the best, certainly not far off being the best search card in the game, 2 mana to get ANY card from your library is a powerful tool and should be included in pretty much every deck running black
-this is so powerful because it essentially acts as a pseudo wildcard for your deck, kinda like a joker in playing cards, only thing being that it costs that extra 2 mana to get the other card
-this card is restricted in vintage
Disenchant
-2 mana for a artifact and enchantment removal is pretty standard, I'm pretty sure this still seem its fair share of play, or at least has the potential to do so. No fancy tricks or effects just plain and simply removal
Disintegrate
-this falls under the category of “X” damage spells for red, there are several, the most simple being blaze
-this card has two advantages over blaze, the first being that creatures destroyed after being damaged by disintegrate cannot be regenerated, and second that when a creature gets killed by blaze it gets exiled rather than put in the graveyard. These differences may be significant when considering creatures easily regenerated, and/or those who have abilities that are active in the graveyard, such as nether shadow
Drain Life
-similar to red’s “X” damage spells, however drain life has one main advantage in that when the damage is dealt you also gain that much life in the process(though this is limited to the toughness of the creature). For 1 extra mana, this is certainly reasonable