Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 + Ravnica expansion

Quite some time passed since I won the DotP expansion. I was incapable of downloading it in order to play it. But I was looking forward to it, because when Innistrad was out and new cards were added to DotP 2012 the game became really awesome. The games started to be good and fun and sometimes it even felt like playing constructed (still too far away).

Core sets are usually pretty dull and there's not much of interaction. What I liked in DotP is the little info about synergy, speed etc of your deck. That at least let me avoid decks I don't like at all. I finished the game with monowhite lifegain but that's not my kind of deck. I beat Bolas with a mill deck otherwise I wouldn't stand a chance, or at least playing aggro seemed pretty useless against Bolas's Cruel Control. Mill on the other even without any unlocked cards was a perfect choice!

Now with Return To Ravnica we get new decks for the game and there are new - multicolored - decks. There are cards from five guilds in Return To Ravnica - Azorius (UW), Selesnya (GW), Izzet (UR), Rakdos (BR) and Golgari (BG). One guild represents two colors...Each new deck in this expansion represents one of the guilds.

Azorius deck - Aura Servants - is build around Enchantments. The most interesting card in this deck is Sigil of the Empty Throne that let's you put a 4/4 angel token in play after you play an enchantment.

Golgari deck (Sepulchral Strength) - is build around sacrificing creatures and using them to your advantage (usually meaning ruining your opponent's plans via Grave Pact or Blood Artist). The deck's most annoying creatures are Mortivore which can get really big and can regenerate and Spiritmonger that can also be pretty big and it is also pretty difficult to get rid of it. There's some ramp in the deck so you cast big creatures earlier and a lot of good removal. The deck has Pernicious Deed main deck and Maelstrom Pulse that can just hit anything (ok, not a land...).

Players that choose Izzet have the chance to play with Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. This card is so good - it deals damage to the opponent and it draws cards - everything a control deck needs. This deck has some really wierd creatures and quite a lot of burn effects. To be honest I don't like this deck much. I would expect more counterspells and more cards like Electrolyze or Prophetic Bolt (that do something and draw cards).

Rakdos (Grinning Malice) on the other hand has some nice cards. There are discard effects and cards that destroy creatures. This deck's aim is to kill what stands in its way, to discard threats and to deal additional damage via other cards like Lyzolda

Selesnya (Collective Might) just tries to overrun you with a lot of tokens and creatures and it can gain some life as well. There are cards that create tokens and cards that can make them bigger. It can either kill in one attack via Overrun or simply by shear number of the creatures.

As with any other deck you can unlock other cards and tune your deck. Promotional unlocks are much better and there are really strong cards and good old time's staples and even nowadays ones from Magic: The Gathering. This expansion brings life to the relatively dull game (compared to DotP 2012 which was way better in my opinion.) The expansion comes with 10 add-ons for single player campaign (5 for each) and new challenges. There are other small things you might enjoy like new personnas and new set of achievements but well, that's not something I'd pay for.

Overall this expansion makes the game better but still it lacks compared to the previous one + its expansion. I'd still say that it is worth the money though. I had lots of fun with this game while playing multiplayer mainly.

Brainstom no.2 Alter

After some serious meddling with scanner and this my mother's computer (rather its operating system) I managed to scan majority of my Brainstorm alter. It could use some work and I wonder what to do with the text box. I thought about adding something there, but nothing came to my mind and it was like 4 am so I decided to go to sleep. Anyway after this alter I think I'm going to try some other ones...

Harmonize Alter

I haven't done any alter in a long while so I needed to start with something easy so my hand would get used to holding a brush. As I slowly work on my EDH deck cards I chose one of those cards - Harmonize.

(I'm not entirely content with this alter...or rather I'm not content with how it felt when I was trying to do this alter. It seemed that my skill flew away or something.)

Standard? Bant Control

I've been playing Legacy for the past few weeks and haven't played anything else much. This Saturday though is Return to Ravnica Game Day and that is one reason to build a type 2 deck.

I started with Jund colors. I took all dual lands I could, added Kessig Wolf Run twice and some basic lands. The cards that seemed obvious were Olivia Voldaren and Thragtusk so I put those in. I added Rakdos's Return because I really like the card, Rakdos Keyrune because I just find it good (and especially control), Farseek because that card seems pretty important if I want to play such cards and then I was a bit stuck. What other creatures to put there? There is Huntmaster of the Fells for sure but what else? Removal? Dreadbore (Annoying walkers+creatures), Mizzium Mortars (Entreat the Angels), Pillar of Flame(Zombies) .... and Bonfire (not entirely sure about this one)? I just put all those cards together and tried playing with it. It seemed strong and relatively working.

But still what bugged me was that Thragtusk and Restoration Angel is WAY better than any combination of creatures in Jund and I really missed something like Think Twice. So I switched to Bant. There is one more possibility and that is Grixis as that keeps the cards from Jund I like and eliminates green which I don't like (decklist can be found here -> Grixis Control).

What I did not like in Jund was the fact that it was quite slow and was unable to draw some cards. (I could have added Disciple of Bolas or Underworld Connections) So I tried to avoid these 'issues' in Bant. That's where Azorius Charm and Think Twice come in. There's also Jace, Architect of Thought and Tamiyo even though her role is many times different and I'm not really fond of the new Jace.

My Jund deck also had problem with late game. It did not have something AWESOME just something good. Bant has access to Angel of Serenity and to Entreat the Angels for example. Angel of Serenity is a really strong card. Not only it can work as removal so you can attack for lethal but you can also get your creatures from the graveyard and get them back when Angel of Serenity dies.

The deck starts slow, either draws cards during the first few rounds or tries to ramp a bit. Sometimes Centaur Healer shows up which can either be an attacking body or just something helping you to survive. But getting to 5-6 mana is quite fast and then you can really play some powerful spells which can usually kill aggressive decks. There's a lot of removal against aggro decks and a lot of life gain. None of these though help against true control. There the battle is a bit different - it has to be you to be the aggressive player even though that you still have to control the board. That requires some heavy sideboarding even though it seems my SB is not enough.

No matter what here's my decklist from yesterday's Return To Ravnica Game Day. Building this deck was fun and I'm glad that I started with that. Now I want to build more decks and see what works and what not. In the end it was useful for one more thing - I won the RTR Game Day, I have another play mat for my collection. I really like this one.

Bant Aggro/Control

Main Deck:
2 Angel of Serenity
1 Armada Wurm
3 Centaur Healer
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Restoration Angel
2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
3 Thragtusk

2 Azorius Charm
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Detention Sphere
2 Entreat the Angels
4 Farseek
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Supreme Verdict
4 Terminus
3 Think Twice

1 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Hinterland Harbor
2 Island
2 Plains
3 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard:
3 ? (I played with basic lands there...)
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Detention Sphere
2 Negate
3 Pithing Needle
2 Purify the Grave
2 Syncopate

Return To Ravnica Prerelease

Return To Ravnica prerelease tournaments bring something new. This time a player has to choose a guild he would represent. Today at the game store Mephit there were 14 players. Each of them chose a guild. The reasons why certain player chose this or that guild differed. Golgari was played by majority, Izzet followed. Two players chose Rakdos and other two chose Selesnya. Only one player played Azorious.

Before the tournament I wasn't really sure what guild to play. If I would choose without looking at the cards I'd go for Golgari. I'm registered as Azorious member though at Planeswalker Points. After seeing the complete spoiler I decided to play Junk or Bant. Bant were the colors I prefered. It was to be either Selesnya or Azorious. After seeing the guild promo card though I decided against Azorious and picked Selesnya. Grove of the Guardian seemed to OP to me.

I grabbed all the guild packs and distributed them to the players. While doing that I asked what the battle cry of the guild is. Some guilds cooperated some did not. After greeting all the players and explaining game mechanics we were ready to go. Most players already opened their packs anyway. I opened my first pack and the first card I saw was 2/2 Azorious Flyer. The card that followed (not counting token and land) was Supreme Verdict. In the next booster pack I opened Azor's Elocutors and New Prahv Guildmage. The other rare cards don't need mentioning. They weren't worth playing nor worth money (except one, but I still did not play it). Last I opened the guild booster pack and was quite dissatisfied with it. Except the promo there was no card I'd like to play. I threw the cards back in the box and finally build my deck. Here's the decklist:

2x Azorious Arrester
1x Gatekeeper Vine
1x Doorkeeper
1x New Prahv Guildmage
1x Call of the Conclave
1x Druid's Deliverance
1x Axebane Guardian
1x Hover Barrier
1x Vassal Soul
2x Rootborn Defenses
1x Skymark Roc
2x Hussar Patrol
1x Towering Indrik
2x Eyes in the Skies
1x Azor's Elocutors
2x Coursers' Accord
1x Trostani's Judgement
1x Grove of the Guardian
2x Azorious Guilgate
1x Selesnya Guildgate
1x Transguild Promenade

I was looking forward to the first round. In the first round I played against Rakdos player, playing Jund. My opponent started with small creatures with unleash and that actually dealt quite some damage to me. My Azorious creatures with Flash were destroyed even before they could block. As the number of opponent's removal had to be finite I waited before I would create 8/8 elemental token. If by a chance my opponent would still have a removal I had Rootborn Defenses ready. Now it was time for the Rakdos player to chumblock my 8/8 with Vigilance. I won a turn later. Second game was rather similar but it was army of centaurs that won me the game.

In the second round nothing much changed^_^. I played against another Jund. This time it was played by a Golgari Guild member. My opponent was using Scavenge as much as he could and it actually worked more or less. At least my Defenders weren't really good for blocking 4+ power creatures. Korozda Guildmage a Golgari promo - Corpsejack Menace did not help it either. I hoped that two copies of Azorious Arrester would give me enough time to draw a sixth land. It happened two turns later, so more of my creatures died and I even had to chumpblock with my defender. I managed to draw the land then and exile the annoying Fungus. After 20 minutes of relative stall I managed to finally get centaur token in play and populate. My opponent was attacking with one big creature each time. The creature encountered some Eyes in the Skies or Rootborn Defenses and died. I was waiting for Azor's Elocutors but they did not want to show up. When I finally drew the card I was already milling my opponent with one of my defenders. 5 turns later I won and I could choose if I would win with the use of Elocutors or wait for my opponent to draw a card (as there were no left).

In the third round it was again Golgari. This deck was faster and I was suddenly at 9 life. My opponent even gained some life and played more creatures. The creatures were small though - one centaur should be able to deal with the situation. But my plan was disrupted - Mind Rot was played and I discarded Eyes in the Skies a Coursers' Accord. The only reason that I was still alive was due to Arresters and Azorious Guildmage. The only card left in my hand was Grove of the Guardian. I played it and created the token. Guildmage was still alive so I detained opponent's creatures and went through with the elemental. In the second game it seemed that I would not survive. Detain mechanic nor 2/4 Patrols did not help me. I was down to 2 life and I thought that nothing would help me. Grove of the Guardian came though and solved everything. Azorious obviously needs to be hidden somewhere and command Selesnya units. But without Azorious guild aid I would be dead for sure.

After all those previous rounds where I played against Jund decks I finally had the chance to play against something different - Izzetu (with white). Izzet was too slow for my deck though. I couldn't kill 1/4 creatures but those creatures could not kill my creatures either. I waited till my opponent finally tapped all his lands and then created my first Centaur token. Later I added some birds and centaurs and was attacking each turn. My opponent did not have enough blockers to deal with it but occasional burn spell or counterspell slowed me down. The second game could bedescribed as Centaur swarm - an easy win for me.

I still had about 30 minutes left so I got up and went to scout some decks. The players that could possible play against me were still playing so I could check their Golgari decks. One of them had Vraska and Lotleth Troll on the table.

Guess against whom I played in the last round^^. Golgari with Vraska and Troll. My opponent played few creatures with the troll that can regenerate. But even that could not save him from my centaurs, birds and elementals. In the next game Vraska came early and she decided to ruin my mana base. Hopefully my mana fixation was good and even decided to come. I decided to destroy Vraska first before killing my opponent. I took me about 4 turns to finally kill her. My opponent though returned the card and played it once again. At this point I decided to ignore her completely and rather kill my opponent. I dealt him 16 damage in the first attack. He tried using Vraska on my elemental but I showed him Rootborn Defenses and then killed him in next attack with the help of Azorious Guildmage.

My result today was 5:0 (all 2:0???!!!). Next I distributed prizes to players and gave some extra booster packs to those who managed to get most achievements done.

Some players started to open their boosterpacks and no one seemed happy about it. So I took mine and well... here's a photo of what I opened.