Lelouch32
01-04-2011, 01:49 PM
Looking Back: The Magic of 2010
By: Corlando
Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of Cards n’Flux your semi-regular dosage of adirmation and adoration for the Magic the Gathering card game. I’m Corlando, your guide through this wonderfully inventive and constantly changing game. Well believe it or not I’ve been writing these little articles for over a year now. In honor of reaching this length of time, this article will be dedicated to sort of a look back at all of the cards that came into existence in 2010. I will also point out my pick for the number one card of 2010. Well without too much more delay lets take a look.
Before we truly begin I just want to point out we will be looking at the cards that were printed in 2010. This means Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, Magic 2011 Core Set, and Scars of Mirrodin. Also we will only be looking at new cards, no reprints. With that said let us start off with something really big, my “Favorite Forgotten Card of 2010.” Khalni Hydra is an trampling 8/8 for :manag::manag::manag::manag::manag::manag::manag:: manag:. Now this guy does not exactly have the best of mana costs. Costly, hard to use outside of a mono Green deck, but there is a bright side to this guy. For every Green creature you control, Khalni Hydra loses one :manag: symbol from its mana cost. This is a great card to have if you have a Green token deck, imagine the possibility of being able to play an 8/8 for something as low as :manag::manag: or perhaps even free? That would be truly great and I’m honestly surprised that I do not see him in more decks, even casually. He would be a little hard to use with Fauna Shaman, because you would rather be summoning creatures instead of discarding them, but I think the possibility exists. Imagine using Fauna Shaman to discard a Vengevine, look through your deck and find a Llanowar Elf. Play the Elf and another creature from your hand to get three creatures and then your Vengevine back before paying :manag::manag::manag::manag: or less to play Khalni Hydra. I know most of my ideas are very idealistic, almost straight from Magical Christmas land, but the possibility is still there. Oh well, I guess Khalni Hydra will just be one of those big creatures that is lost to the Aether.
While on the subject of big creatures, I’ve got to say that my “Favorite Cycle of 2010” was the Titans cycle. Each and everyone of them had their own unique abilities, their own juicy chunk of flavor, and an intense desire to wreak you opponent’s day. From the sought after Primeval Titan, to the creature stopping Frost Titan, the reviving Sun Titan, the friend making Grave Titan, or the walking volcano that is the Inferno Titan, each of these guys was both useful and playable in nearly every deck that wanted to play them. One thing that I found interesting was that Inferno Titan, the guy who struck with a Lightning Bolt when he came into play and when he attacked, was really given the shaft. First it was the Frost Titan who was seen as the worst, but now Inferno Titan is on the bottom of the heap with Frost Titan happily fitting in any Blue/White Control deck. Oh well, changing times. Anyway, the thing is I love every single Titan and I can’t wait to buy a box of M11 and hopefully crack open a few of them.
Since we’re on the subject of cards from M11, anyone want to tell me your thoughts on Hoarding Dragon? I mean, Hoarding Dragon is a flying 4/4 for :mana3::manar::manar: that gets you an artifact from your library and when it dies you can put it into your hand. It’s definitely a nice idea, but I just do not get the point of it. What artifacts do we have right now that are good in Red? Red is about fast damage and chaos, not playing the waiting game. Plus you only get it into your hand once Hoarding Dragon is sent to the graveyard. At best the ability acts as really slow card advantage and even still the opponent can still counter the spell. Clone Shell, on the other hand, would be better than Hoarding Dragon in many cases because when Clone Shell dies, the creature goes right onto the field. Granted, Clone Shell is pretty limited but I still think Hoarding Dragon is a pretty pointless card. I mean I could understand it if the card was in blue, but in Red… not so much. Now if you are wondering if this card actually fits into a category… no. I essentially just wasted a small amount of your life and you will never get it back. Insert evil laugh here.
Before I spend too much time in M11 how about we hop to the recent past and take a look at Scars of Mirrodin which is the set that contains my favorite “Game Mechanic of the Year.” Was it metalcraft? Was it infect? Nope it was proliferation or the ability to add more counters onto something that already had at least one counter on it. This new ability just has so much it can do especially in Drafts. The Trigons alone are often enough of an incentive to grab at proliferation cards. Of course you add in poison, Planeswalkers, and +1/+1 counters and you get a mechanic that is downright awesome in so many ways. I’ve seen some rather effective constructed decks using proliferation as there main source of victory. In fact my best friend runs a deck that combines the power of Steel Overseer, Proliferation, and a bunch of cheap artifacts so he can just continue to gain an army that cannot be stopped. My friend’s deck has the capacity to Proliferate at least twice a turn meaning if you want any chance of winning you better swing hard and fast or fall to a 20/20 Silver Myr. I’ll go ahead and say that I liked the Levelers of Rise and it was good to see scry in M11, but Proliferate beats them all with a stick to take the dominate place as my favorite mechanic of 2010.
To continue with the always good habit of connecting similar paragraphs, lets talk about my “Most easily Abused Card” of 2010. This year the card is Precursor Golem from Scars of Mirrodin. Now, :mana5: mana seems like a lot to spend for a 3/3, but when you get two other 3/3 golems along with him, I think that :mana5: mana is perfectly acceptable. The interesting thing about this card is how Wizards decided to balance the card. If an instant or sorcery targets a 3/3 golem then it gets copied for each of the 3/3 golems in play. This is both a curse and a blessing. This ability means your entire golem army can be taken care of by one Unsummon. However, this ability can also be amazingly abused. What would happen if you played an all green deck filled with forests and cast a Primal Bellow on Precursor Golem? Anyone order 3 8/8’s ready to bash face? However, that’s not the only way to abuse this card. Bounce Precusor Golem using a creature’s ability and you have essentially created an almost perfect token producing machine. Using Master Transmuter is probably the best way to abuse this so that you can transmute at the end of every turn so that the several 3/3 golems can attack as if they had haste. It’s just a really fun card and one that I look forward to finding more ways to abuse.
Finally we come to the last card and last category, my favorite card of 2010. Now before I actually say what the card is, I’ll tell you that it is a Planeswalker. However it is not Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Lets face it, Jace the Mind Sculptor, in many eyes, is the best Planeswalker/Card of all time so anything that I would try to put in this slot would essentially be sitting in second place. I fully acknowledge that fact, but I’m also going to ignore it and still plead my case for my favorite card. So, my “Favorite Card of 2010” has got to be, Gideon Jura. I mean this guy is pretty darn awesome in so many ways. Whether its his ability to essentially make all your opponent’s creatures attack as they try to kill Gideon, sniping a tapped creature, or swinging in for 6 damage all on his own, Gideon Jura is a real power house. However, the thing I love most about Gideon are the nuances behind him. First off, Gideon was the first real step Wizards took towards a better planeswalker. With Gideon, and his set counterpart Sarkhan the Mad, Wizards really decided to test the boundaries of Planeswalkers and it could not have been done better. As I said, Jace, the Mind Sculptor was pretty awesome, but mostly, if not only, because he is :mana2::manau::manau: for four awesome abilities. Gideon is limited to three, but still awesome.
However, the second little facet that I absolutely love Gideon for is the fact that you can see the other colors in him. Think about Gideon and his abilities. His first ability is the ability to force his opponent’s creatures to attack him. This ability seems much like a Mind Control or Alluring Siren taking to a bigger level. You could also easily make the case that it is a throwback to Sorin Markov's ultimate. Gideon’s second ability flat out kills a creature. Now White is no stranger to removal, but that is mostly done through exiling or incapacitating. Gideon goes beyond just sending the creature to some other dimension. Gideon says that you die and he will be the one to execute you. This seems rather Black don’t you think? As for his final ability… Green… Red… White you pick the color that ability best reflects because there is a touch of everything in it. That is a fact that some players forget about Magic. The Five Colors of Magic are not necessarily pure. White is mostly used for healing, but you also see removal, big creatures, and sometimes removal. Black is not only the color of death and resurrection. There is also a slant of controlling Blue or destructive Red in some of the cards; plus the life mending that is very common with White. Gideon Jura shows this idea off beautifully. He might be dominantly White, but it does not mean he is unaffected by the other colors. That is why Gideon Jura is my number one card of 2010.
And now, back by popular demand, time for the closing questions section:
1. What is your favorite card of 2010 and explain?
2. What are your candidates for “Favorite Forgotten Card, Favorite Cycle, Most Easily Abused, and Favorite Game Mechanic of 2010?”
3. What was your overall opinion of 2010 for Magic the Gathering? A good year? Bad year? Indifferent?
Stay tuned for next week’s article as I finally start to dig into the first few spoilers for Mirrodin Besieged. Let’s look forward to this shall we? Well my name is Corlando and I hope you had a Happy New Year. And always remember, “Etherium is Limited. Innovation is not.” This is Corlando signing out.
By: Corlando
Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of Cards n’Flux your semi-regular dosage of adirmation and adoration for the Magic the Gathering card game. I’m Corlando, your guide through this wonderfully inventive and constantly changing game. Well believe it or not I’ve been writing these little articles for over a year now. In honor of reaching this length of time, this article will be dedicated to sort of a look back at all of the cards that came into existence in 2010. I will also point out my pick for the number one card of 2010. Well without too much more delay lets take a look.
Before we truly begin I just want to point out we will be looking at the cards that were printed in 2010. This means Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, Magic 2011 Core Set, and Scars of Mirrodin. Also we will only be looking at new cards, no reprints. With that said let us start off with something really big, my “Favorite Forgotten Card of 2010.” Khalni Hydra is an trampling 8/8 for :manag::manag::manag::manag::manag::manag::manag:: manag:. Now this guy does not exactly have the best of mana costs. Costly, hard to use outside of a mono Green deck, but there is a bright side to this guy. For every Green creature you control, Khalni Hydra loses one :manag: symbol from its mana cost. This is a great card to have if you have a Green token deck, imagine the possibility of being able to play an 8/8 for something as low as :manag::manag: or perhaps even free? That would be truly great and I’m honestly surprised that I do not see him in more decks, even casually. He would be a little hard to use with Fauna Shaman, because you would rather be summoning creatures instead of discarding them, but I think the possibility exists. Imagine using Fauna Shaman to discard a Vengevine, look through your deck and find a Llanowar Elf. Play the Elf and another creature from your hand to get three creatures and then your Vengevine back before paying :manag::manag::manag::manag: or less to play Khalni Hydra. I know most of my ideas are very idealistic, almost straight from Magical Christmas land, but the possibility is still there. Oh well, I guess Khalni Hydra will just be one of those big creatures that is lost to the Aether.
While on the subject of big creatures, I’ve got to say that my “Favorite Cycle of 2010” was the Titans cycle. Each and everyone of them had their own unique abilities, their own juicy chunk of flavor, and an intense desire to wreak you opponent’s day. From the sought after Primeval Titan, to the creature stopping Frost Titan, the reviving Sun Titan, the friend making Grave Titan, or the walking volcano that is the Inferno Titan, each of these guys was both useful and playable in nearly every deck that wanted to play them. One thing that I found interesting was that Inferno Titan, the guy who struck with a Lightning Bolt when he came into play and when he attacked, was really given the shaft. First it was the Frost Titan who was seen as the worst, but now Inferno Titan is on the bottom of the heap with Frost Titan happily fitting in any Blue/White Control deck. Oh well, changing times. Anyway, the thing is I love every single Titan and I can’t wait to buy a box of M11 and hopefully crack open a few of them.
Since we’re on the subject of cards from M11, anyone want to tell me your thoughts on Hoarding Dragon? I mean, Hoarding Dragon is a flying 4/4 for :mana3::manar::manar: that gets you an artifact from your library and when it dies you can put it into your hand. It’s definitely a nice idea, but I just do not get the point of it. What artifacts do we have right now that are good in Red? Red is about fast damage and chaos, not playing the waiting game. Plus you only get it into your hand once Hoarding Dragon is sent to the graveyard. At best the ability acts as really slow card advantage and even still the opponent can still counter the spell. Clone Shell, on the other hand, would be better than Hoarding Dragon in many cases because when Clone Shell dies, the creature goes right onto the field. Granted, Clone Shell is pretty limited but I still think Hoarding Dragon is a pretty pointless card. I mean I could understand it if the card was in blue, but in Red… not so much. Now if you are wondering if this card actually fits into a category… no. I essentially just wasted a small amount of your life and you will never get it back. Insert evil laugh here.
Before I spend too much time in M11 how about we hop to the recent past and take a look at Scars of Mirrodin which is the set that contains my favorite “Game Mechanic of the Year.” Was it metalcraft? Was it infect? Nope it was proliferation or the ability to add more counters onto something that already had at least one counter on it. This new ability just has so much it can do especially in Drafts. The Trigons alone are often enough of an incentive to grab at proliferation cards. Of course you add in poison, Planeswalkers, and +1/+1 counters and you get a mechanic that is downright awesome in so many ways. I’ve seen some rather effective constructed decks using proliferation as there main source of victory. In fact my best friend runs a deck that combines the power of Steel Overseer, Proliferation, and a bunch of cheap artifacts so he can just continue to gain an army that cannot be stopped. My friend’s deck has the capacity to Proliferate at least twice a turn meaning if you want any chance of winning you better swing hard and fast or fall to a 20/20 Silver Myr. I’ll go ahead and say that I liked the Levelers of Rise and it was good to see scry in M11, but Proliferate beats them all with a stick to take the dominate place as my favorite mechanic of 2010.
To continue with the always good habit of connecting similar paragraphs, lets talk about my “Most easily Abused Card” of 2010. This year the card is Precursor Golem from Scars of Mirrodin. Now, :mana5: mana seems like a lot to spend for a 3/3, but when you get two other 3/3 golems along with him, I think that :mana5: mana is perfectly acceptable. The interesting thing about this card is how Wizards decided to balance the card. If an instant or sorcery targets a 3/3 golem then it gets copied for each of the 3/3 golems in play. This is both a curse and a blessing. This ability means your entire golem army can be taken care of by one Unsummon. However, this ability can also be amazingly abused. What would happen if you played an all green deck filled with forests and cast a Primal Bellow on Precursor Golem? Anyone order 3 8/8’s ready to bash face? However, that’s not the only way to abuse this card. Bounce Precusor Golem using a creature’s ability and you have essentially created an almost perfect token producing machine. Using Master Transmuter is probably the best way to abuse this so that you can transmute at the end of every turn so that the several 3/3 golems can attack as if they had haste. It’s just a really fun card and one that I look forward to finding more ways to abuse.
Finally we come to the last card and last category, my favorite card of 2010. Now before I actually say what the card is, I’ll tell you that it is a Planeswalker. However it is not Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Lets face it, Jace the Mind Sculptor, in many eyes, is the best Planeswalker/Card of all time so anything that I would try to put in this slot would essentially be sitting in second place. I fully acknowledge that fact, but I’m also going to ignore it and still plead my case for my favorite card. So, my “Favorite Card of 2010” has got to be, Gideon Jura. I mean this guy is pretty darn awesome in so many ways. Whether its his ability to essentially make all your opponent’s creatures attack as they try to kill Gideon, sniping a tapped creature, or swinging in for 6 damage all on his own, Gideon Jura is a real power house. However, the thing I love most about Gideon are the nuances behind him. First off, Gideon was the first real step Wizards took towards a better planeswalker. With Gideon, and his set counterpart Sarkhan the Mad, Wizards really decided to test the boundaries of Planeswalkers and it could not have been done better. As I said, Jace, the Mind Sculptor was pretty awesome, but mostly, if not only, because he is :mana2::manau::manau: for four awesome abilities. Gideon is limited to three, but still awesome.
However, the second little facet that I absolutely love Gideon for is the fact that you can see the other colors in him. Think about Gideon and his abilities. His first ability is the ability to force his opponent’s creatures to attack him. This ability seems much like a Mind Control or Alluring Siren taking to a bigger level. You could also easily make the case that it is a throwback to Sorin Markov's ultimate. Gideon’s second ability flat out kills a creature. Now White is no stranger to removal, but that is mostly done through exiling or incapacitating. Gideon goes beyond just sending the creature to some other dimension. Gideon says that you die and he will be the one to execute you. This seems rather Black don’t you think? As for his final ability… Green… Red… White you pick the color that ability best reflects because there is a touch of everything in it. That is a fact that some players forget about Magic. The Five Colors of Magic are not necessarily pure. White is mostly used for healing, but you also see removal, big creatures, and sometimes removal. Black is not only the color of death and resurrection. There is also a slant of controlling Blue or destructive Red in some of the cards; plus the life mending that is very common with White. Gideon Jura shows this idea off beautifully. He might be dominantly White, but it does not mean he is unaffected by the other colors. That is why Gideon Jura is my number one card of 2010.
And now, back by popular demand, time for the closing questions section:
1. What is your favorite card of 2010 and explain?
2. What are your candidates for “Favorite Forgotten Card, Favorite Cycle, Most Easily Abused, and Favorite Game Mechanic of 2010?”
3. What was your overall opinion of 2010 for Magic the Gathering? A good year? Bad year? Indifferent?
Stay tuned for next week’s article as I finally start to dig into the first few spoilers for Mirrodin Besieged. Let’s look forward to this shall we? Well my name is Corlando and I hope you had a Happy New Year. And always remember, “Etherium is Limited. Innovation is not.” This is Corlando signing out.