Feel the Power!! ~ The Impact of Vintage Master

This past week has been extremely exciting with all the new spoilers for Vintage Master (VMA). Based on the cards that have been revealed, VMA is packed with interesting and powerful cards that overshadows  Modern Master's content. Today's article will be discussing the impact of Vintage Master on Magic Online.

Lowering the Barrier of Entry

Although it is not paper Magic, the staples for Eternal format on Magic Online aren't that cheap either! Other than the infamous Power 9, dual lands and Force of Will may be the biggest barrier of entries for participating in Vintage. WotC has generously given away both dual lands and Force of Wills as MOCs promo while also printing these cards in VMA. 

With so many Vintage must-haves plus the Power 9s in the set, buying a few packs of VMA will give you a good chance to get your money back and more. As the staples become more easily accessible to the players both through VMA and MOC Promos the barrier of entry for Vintage will be lowered for all players.

Vintage Master is fun for Limited Events:

VMA is not just a set loaded with powerful singles, it is also a set specifically tuned to allow players to have fun when using VMA packs for draft or sealed events. From an article released from WotC (http://goo.gl/JatN3u) we can see that there are many interesting types of decks that can be built with the VMA limited card pool. It is important to note that making VMA a desirable format for drafting is essential for the revitalization of Vintage on Magic Online.

The card price in the secondary market is largely affected by the amount of cards in circulation. Making VMA a fun set for drafting means that many packs will be opened during the period of release. More packs opened will lead to more cards added to the secondary market, thus lowering the price on many Vintage staples. With the lowered price on many Vintage staples new players can buy into the format much easier than before.

Wizards of the Coast is Not Punishing Veteran Eternal Players

Many veteran Classic and Legacy Players are complaining that WotC is overly generous with the reprints of high dollar value cards in VMA making their collection depreciate. In my opinion people need to realize that the only reason WotC is introducing older MtG sets on Magic Online is that they intend to revive both Vintage and Legacy in digital format. Without the restrictions of the Reserve List, more players are able to play Vintage and truly appreciate how amazing this format is. Paper Vintage is practically dead due to the Reserve List; if weren't for the continued support of players such as Stephen Menendian and others Vintage would cease to exist as a format for Magic.

WotC has good judgement when comes to reprinting cards. From the reprints of Modern Master, we can clearly see that WotC cares about the secondary market and reprints expensive staples with great caution. WotC may seem to be overly generous with the reprints of Vintage staples in VMA, however it is the step that has to be taken in order to revive a nearly dead format on Magic Online.

What is the use of owning all the Powers and dual lands and yet having no one to play with? Although it is unpleasant to see our investments lose their value; what we gain is the chance to rebuild the Vintage community and bring this amazing format back to life.

All in all, WotC is not trying to punish the veteran Eternal players online; on the contrary, WotC is giving us a chance to restore the glory of Vintage.

The Excitement Continues

In the upcoming weeks we are likely to have the entire VMA spoiled!!  Knowing what is in the set is just the beginning of the excitement. I for one cannot wait to see how Vintage as a format evolves on Magic Online.

Until next time, save your lunch money and get ready to buy some VMA packs!!

Misconceptions of the Hive: Common Mistakes of Building Sliver Decks

As a creature type with many special traits, Slivers can be easily used to forge many different types of decks. However due to the fact that there are so many different Slivers in existence, new players may become disoriented when starting to construct a deck. A Sliver deck can be made very inefficient if the wrong Slivers are grouped together. In Today's discussion I am going to talk about some common mistakes that players often make when constructing a Sliver deck.

You Don't Always Need the Queen

It may be the biggest misconception that a successful Sliver deck must contain at least one copy of Sliver Queen. Although Sliver Queen is an iconic creature amongst the Slivers, she requires a deck to be specifically built around her and not the other way around. After all the Queen needs proper accommodations.

In general you'd be expecting the newly played Sliver to immediately buff your army with special attributes. Sliver Queen's ability does not directly benefit your Sliver army as she comes into play. With her high mana cost, you may have issues activating her "Sliver birth" ability even once. As a result Sliver Queen very often decreases the aggressiveness of a Sliver deck and may even cause you to  lose the game.

In order to properly make use of Sliver Queen,  we need to build a deck around her special abilities. Cards like Mana Echoes or Intruder Alarm along with mana producing Slivers allow you to gain a significant advantage or even win you the game as the Queen hits the Battlefield. Overall, Sliver Queen is more suited in a well designed combo deck and should not be included in just any Sliver deck.

Not All Sliver Decks have to be Five Color

Slivers are ubiquitous creatures that exist in all five colors of Magic. It is very tempting to jam the best Slivers from all colors into one deck. In reality a five color deck is extremely hard to play efficiently, especially if you have a budget on the land base.

Based on the Sliver decks that I have encountered and constructed, the most powerful decks only consist of 2-3 colors. Making your deck more mana efficient is a much better game plan than having all the Slivers in the world yet not being able to cast them properly.

Do Not Play Colors that Your Lands Cannot Support

Mana producing Slivers enable you to play Slivers of all colors even when you do not have the right land fix in your deck. However, Slivers as creatures are highly susceptible to removal spells when compared to lands. If your deck consists of cards that can only be played with the presence of Manaweft or Gemhide Slivers a well placed removal spell can definitely ruin your game. 

It is important to remember that a good Sliver deck never plays the color which its land base is not able to support. Land is after all  the most reliable mana source of all card types, that was what lands were designed to do in this game in the first place. The mana producing Slivers are good mana accelerators but they should never be treated as your main source of mana to play your spells.

Think Outside the Box, Have Fun Brewing

There are many ways to utilize the power of the Hive. There is no need to run the "Big Threes" (Sliver Queen, Overlord and Legion) or all-five colors in a Sliver deck. The Hive offers many gifts, it is up to us to utilize them efficiently.

Until Next Time

Enjoy the new cards from Journey Into Nyx!   

Corrupted Vesuva ~ The Counterfeit Magic Cards

Many of you must be aware of the recent influx of counterfeit Magic cards from China. These counterfeit cards appear to have extremely good quality and some of them have an even better printing resolution than a legitimate Magic card. 

Magic the Gathering's popularity has increased dramatically in the past 4-5 years especially in Asia. Due to high demand and collectible value of the cards, Magic has became a target for the counterfeiters. In fact, these cards have already been in circulation in North America's gaming communities. 

The counterfeit cards that I have seen locally are almost indistinguishable from real cards when they are inside sleeves. Fortunately, the card surface of the counterfeits feels dramatically different from the real ones. However this does not mean that the counterfeiters would stop making improvements to their fakes. It may only be a matter of time for the counterfeiters to get it right and finally produce the perfect fake card.

This situation is alarming as these high quality fakes will potentially cause the collapse of Magic's community and could even devastate Magic the Gathering as a game in a long run.

Magic cards have a dual purpose, they are collectible and are also used to power a great game. Flooding the market with counterfeits will dramatically impact the collectible value of Magic cards.

This means your hard-earned collection will eventually become worthless.

Almost all the local game stores (LGS) that support Magic directly benefit and even depend on the secondary market. With the collapse of the Magic secondary market, these LGS will either go out of business or will no longer be able to provide as much support for Magic related events. The lack of support and promotion of Magic from LGS will gradually cause Magic to lose its player base. As the player base of Magic gets smaller Wizards of the Coast (WotC) will have issues selling sealed products to the LGS or to various events. The collapse of the secondary market by the counterfeits will indirectly affect WotC and eventually lead to the destruction of  Magic the Gathering, arguably the most amazing TCG that was ever made.

WotC has issued warnings and harsh penalties for counterfeiting Magic cards. However we all know that no matter how harsh the law is criminals will always exist. WotC finally decided to update the card frame by giving the rares and mythics a foil stamp for authentic identification. Although the new card frame will protect newly released Magic Cards it does nothing for the popular staples that have already been printed long ago.

It is extremely important to educate ourselves so that we do not get tricked by these fake cards in the market. While these fake Magic cards are uncannily similar to the legit cards there are some minor differences that allow us to tell the fakes apart from the real cards. There is no doubt that the counterfeiters will find ways to further improve the quality of the fake cards; however if we pay close attention to the texture, font and coloration of the print we should still be able to make correct identifications. Don't feel awkward bringing a magnifying lens or even a jeweler's loupe with you when making some expensive purchases, after all only you can protect yourself from the potential counterfeiters out there. Most importantly trust your instinct, if a card doesn't feel right to you the chances are it may be a fake.

For online purchases, Ebay may be the most dangerous place for buying Magic cards based on the current situation. The sellers may show you a real card image and send you the quality counterfeits instead; without careful examination your hard-earned money may be scammed by these unethical sellers. If you have to purchase online only buy from reputable vendors, that way you will have a greater assurance that the cards that you are getting are real.

As the Modern format gets increasingly more popular you should be expecting to see more counterfeit cards that are made based on the Modern staple list. The Modern staples circulate fast in the secondary market and a majority of them are much cheaper compared to the Legacy staples. It should not be a surprise to see that in the future we will find more fake Modern staples compared to Legacy// Vintage Staples. Just like printing counterfeit money, the currency that is circulated in the market the most gets printed.

The need to get quality "proxies" is not an excuse to purchase these fake cards. If the quality of the fakes are so high, you can guarantee that some of these "proxies" will leak to the secondary market. If you would like to obtain quality proxies there are plenty of local artists that can give you a hand. It may be more expensive but at least you will be getting some great looking proxies while at the same time discouraging the counterfeiters from printing fake cards. By choosing not to purchase counterfeit cards, you protect yourself, the Magic community and Magic the Gathering.

Until next time, stay alert and be vigilant!

The Casual Staple Boxing Day Shopping List

Hello folks!!
Boxing Day is just around the corner! Many online Magic stores or LGS will have some sort of sale going during this time. This is a great opportunity to pick up some great cards at a discounted price.

I have composed a list of Casual Staples from the expansion sets that were released this year. All cards that are on the list have multiple applications in different decks.

Here is the list! Enjoy!

GATECRASH

Aurelia's Fury ~ A utility burn spell that does more than just damage.

Blind Obedience ~ An enchantment that is suitable in both Aggro and Control deck.

Boros Charm ~ Hands down the best Charm ever printed!

Boros Elite ~ A cheap creature that comes with nice Battalion ability

Burning-Tree Emissary ~ A "free" mana fixing creature with a 2/2 body, pretty powerful stuff.

Experiment One ~ Cheap one drop creature that has the potential to be big.

Frontline Medic ~ Nice Battalion ability that protects your attacking army.

Gift of Orzhova ~ An easy to cast enchantment that provides your creature marvelous combat tricks!

Pit Fight ~ A removal spell for the green based creature deck.

Skyknight Legionnaire ~ An aggressive creature that hits hard and fast!

Advent of the Wurm ~ Four mana for a 5/5 creature at Instant speed. A powerful spell indeed!

DRAGON's MAZE

Far // Away ~ A spell that can remove two of your opponent's creature at a reasonable cost.

Nivix Cyclops ~ The new BFF of Wee Dragonauts and Kiln Fiend.

Skylasher - A great creature that can be used to against Blue based decks

MAGIC 2014

Bonescythe Sliver ~ Top tier Sliver that grants Double Strike ability.

Brave the Elements ~ An extremely powerful protection spell in a White based Aggro deck

Doom Blade ~ An efficient spot removal spell for Black.

Duress ~ One of the most powerful discard spell ever printed in Magic the Gathering history!

Elvish Mystic ~ Llanowar Elves Mk. 3.

Galerider Sliver ~ Top tier Sliver that grants Flying ability.

Imposing Sovereign ~ An aggressive creature that can hinder your opponent's ability to block

Manaweft Sliver ~ Rainbow Sliver that everyone loves.

Predatory Sliver ~ More Muscle Slivers? Oh Yes!

Ratchet Bomb ~ Gives you the ability to strategically wipe the board.

Silence ~ Nice control spell that allows you to be a step ahead of the game.

Striking Sliver ~ Top tier Sliver that grants First Strike ability.

Young Pyromancer ~ One of the new "Storm" combo favorite!

THEROS

Fleecemane Lion ~ A 3/3 Creature for two mana that comes with a nice bonus.

Magma Jet ~ One of the staple burn spells used in Mono Red burn decks.

Titan's Strength ~ Buffing your creature and allows you to Scry, a priceless addition to an Aggro deck.

Finally if you still have not yet picked up a playset of "Buddy Lands" or "Pain Lands", take the advantage of Boxing Day sale around you and grab some!! These lands are very important mana fixing tools for budget deck constructions.

Until next time, Merry Christmas and happy New Year!!

The Evolving Vintage

The excitement of Eternal Weekend 2013 along with the Bazaar of Moxen 8 (BoM8) event has come to a conclusion, this allows us to examine the winning decks from both of these events and to learn what kind of evolutionary route Vintage has taken. First, let us take a look at the winning deck from Eternal Weekend 2013:

Merfolk By Joel Lim 

24 Creatures 4 Silvergill Adept 4 Cursecatcher 4 Master of the Pearl Trident 4 Lord of Atlantis 3 Merrow Reejerey 3 Phantasmal Image 1  True-Name Nemesis 1 Waterfront Bouncer 13 Instants and Sorceries 4 Force of Will 3 Mental Misstep 2 Daze 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Steel Sabotage 1 Flusterstorm 1 Time Walk 5 Other Spells 3 Null Rod 1 Black Lotus 1 Mox Sapphire 18 Lands 9 Island 4 Cavern of Souls 4 Wasteland 1 Strip Mine Sideboard 3 Steel Sabotage 3 Dismember 1 Ghost Quarter 4 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Pithing Needle 2 Tormod's Crypt 1 Hurkyl's Recall

Merfolk is one of the most powerful tribal decks in Magic, it has both the speed of an Aggro deck and the versatility of a Control deck.

A few key cards that were printed in the recent sets made Merfolk a strong enough deck to compete in the Vintage tournaments. For instance, Master of the Pearl Trident, is a functional reprint of Lord of Atlantis that provides several benefits. Master of the Pearl Trident boosts the power level of all Merfolk while at the same time granting Island Walk. a very important ability for creatures to have in Vintage match ups. Phantasmal Image further improves the consistency by creating a powerful army that has the ability to make a copy of any creature on the battle field, including the commonly used Blight Steel Colossus.

In addition to new creatures, Cavern of Souls a land card printed in Avacyn Restored plays a key role in this deck. About 90% of the decks in Vintage run some form of counter spells; the ability to allow your creature to be un-counterable is priceless. Although Aether Vial also allows creatures to bypass the counter spells; Pithing Needle, Null Rod, Steel Sabotage and many other spells can severely hinder the performance of Aether Vial. In comparison, Cavern of Souls is a lot more versatile as it cannot be countered and also has fewer weaknesses than Aether Vial.

Overall, we will be seeing more Merfolk decks in future Vintage events due to their aggressiveness and versatility against Control decks.

Now let us take a look at the deck that won the BoM8 Vintage Championship:

BUG Midrange By Michael Bonde16 Creatures 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 3 Snapcaster Mage 2 Vendilion Clique 1 Trygon Predator 1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest 1 Scavenging Ooze    19 Instants and Sorceries    4 Force of Will    4 Abrupt Decay    3 Mental Misstep    3 Spell Pierce    1 Time Walk    1 Vampiric Tutor    1 Demonic Tutor    1 Brainstorm    1 Steel Sabotage 7 Other Spells 3 Null Rod 1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Emerald 1 Black Lotus 1 Mox Sapphire 18 Lands 4 Wasteland 3 Polluted Delta 3 Underground Sea 2 Misty Rainforest 2 Tropical Island 2 Scalding Tarn 1 Bayou 1 Strip Mine 15 Sideboard 1 Mental Misstep 2 Yixlid Jailer 3 Surgical Extraction 1 Grafdigger's Cage 2 Darkblast 2 Energy Flux 2 Dismember 2 Nature's Claim

This BUG Midrange deck consists of many utility spells that can be used to deal with many difficult situations in the match up. Deathrite Shaman is a multipurpose creature that provides mana advantage and strategically removes cards from your opponent's graveyard; this makes cards like  Yawgmoth's Will and Crucible of Worlds much less effective. In a way  Deathrite Shaman is like a mini-Planeswalker for one mana. Another recently printed card, Abrupt Decay, is an un-counterable spell that can destroy many powerful cards in Vintage, especially Chalice of the Void. With all the powerful utility instants and sorceries packed in this deck, Snapcaster Mage allows you to replay them and at the same time serves as a 2/1 body on the field. This BUG Midrange deck has the potential to counter all "Pillar" strategies that are commonly seen in the Vintage metagame, making it a tough deck to play against. In conclusion as we have seen in both of the Vintage events, creature based decks in Vintage are not only on the rise they are actually performing extremely well. This may be a driving force to cause existing Vintage archetypes to evolve further in order to combat these creature based decks. I would not be surprised to see the newly released Toxic Deluge from Commander 2013 sets used in some of the Vintage control decks. Toxic Deluge is cheap spell that is able  to remove both low and high toughness creatures from the battlefield giving control decks a chance to catch a breath against the aggressive new deck types. As I have mentioned before, Vintage is currently an extremely exhilarating format filled with many different varieties of decks. I highly recommend players that have not tried Vintage to proxy up a deck and feel the excitement of a Vintage match. Until next time, enjoy some Vintage Magic

Single Card Discussion: Nighthowler

"Bestow" is a fun and powerful mechanic that provides your deck with a great card advantage. Unfortunately, the majority of the bestow creatures are extremely costly in terms of mana, making them very difficult to include in an efficient deck. Nighthowler is one of the bestow creatures that has a relatively low mana cost. A Mono Black Control (MBC) deck can make use of Nighthowler in its sideboard when against Aggro or Midrange decks.

In general, MBC decks are packed with either heavy hand disruption or creature destruction spells. Both styles of play will lead to a quick build up of creatures in the graveyard if your opponent is using a creature based deck. Nighthowler which grows stronger with more creatures in all graveyards is a perfect candidate  for this type of situation.

MBC  decks normally rely on heavy disruptions and win the game with a key creature such as Nantuko Shade or Nyxathid. Often both Aggro and Midrange decks have a few spot removal spells of their own; it will set your progress back greatly if your key creature gets removed from the game. In this situation, if you have a Nighthowler in play as an aura enchantment, it will remain in play as a creature to finish the job. The great card advantage provided by Nighthowler ensures that you  have a deadly back up to foil your opponent's plan.

Try a few copies Nighthowler out in the MBC deck. I'm sure you won't be disappointed!

  

Vintage Masters: The Revival Pill for Vintage

After over 10 years of waiting, WoTC finally decided to bringing Vintage to Magic Online through the release of Vintage Masters next June. This is extremely exciting news as Vintage is one of the most powerful and exhilarating formats of Magic the Gathering. For those of you who are not familiar with this format, Vintage is an Eternal format that allows you to run almost all cards that exist in Magic. Most notably you are able to use the infamous Power Nine in your deck. The power level of Vintage is kept in check by the Restricted List in which certain over-powered spells are restricted to one per deck instead of the normal four per deck. Being able to tap into the most efficient mana accelerators, draw engines and utility spells Vintage maximizes the potential of all existing Magic deck archetypes.

For players that have not tried Vintage there are some misconceptions about the format. First, the game always ends in turn one and there is nothing you can do to prevent that. While many Vintage decks are capable of establishing a win condition quickly (i.e. Tinker with Blightsteel Colossus), a turn one win does not occur often at all. This is because all the opposing decks are packed with various answers to prevent the establishment of these so called "turn one win conditions". If you have ever observed a Vintage tournament match you will realize that very often a Vintage game takes more than 6 turns before a winner is determined.

Second, there are not enough deck varieties to make this format interesting. Vintage as a format has evolved drastically in the past few years. All long term Magic players would have noticed that the qualities of the new creatures have significantly improved in terms of ability and power level (especially post Onslaught block), compared to the creatures that were printed in the old times. Using powerful creatures in combination with the existing powerful instants, sorceries, artifacts and enchantments, Vintage in fact is a format that has the most innovative space.  The variety of competitive deck types that can be built in Vintage is extremely high. The recent Vintage top 8 reports actually have equivalent if not more deck variance compared to Legacy and Standard formats.

Due to the scarcity of some the Vintage staples and the Reserve List of WoTC, Vintage is currently a dying format in real life. Fortunately the Reserve List does not apply to Magic Online, this allows the release of Vintage Masters next year which will contain the highly sought after Power Nine along with the reprint of many Vintage staples. This is a great opportunity to revive Vintage by allowing more players  to play Vintage and allowing Vintage players around the globe to play against each other 24/7 through the Magic Online server. The release of Vintage Masters online does not necessarily mean you are able to buy into this format cheaply, as we have not yet been told the exact rarity distributions of Power 9 in the packs. However, one thing for sure is that Vintage online will be much cheaper and more accessible compared to Vintage in real life. Even with the potential high price of entry, being able to play competitively in one of the most innovative and exhilarating formats of Magic is definitely worth the investment.

For more information on Vintage, I suggest paying attention to the Top 8 Lists of Vintage tournamentw on Morphling.de and listening to the Podcast "So Many Insane Plays" by Kevin Cron and Stephen Menendian, one of the most important pillars in Vintage.

Until next time please enjoy the exciting live coverage match ups for the Vintage Championships of Eternal Weekend 2013 and Bazaar of Moxen event this weekend!!