Welcome back! Or welcome for the first time.
This weekend was the prerelease for Magic's 2013 core set, so I am going to talk about my thoughts on it after playing with the cards for the first time.
Magic has been kicking around since 1993 and it is a study in ingenious game design. An instant success on publishing, it has captivated the gaming public while continually churning out content on a regular basis for almost twenty years.
Being a huge fan of limited, opening a few sealed pools is a very satisfying way for me to explore the new set. The first deck I played out was black-green, which usually means big smashy creatures and quality removal. What it meant for me was big smashy creatures and piles of ramping. My removal turned out to also be my rare bombs in Liliana and Nefarox, which was cool but also inefficient.
There are a few things I learned with this deck. First of all, Elderscale Wurm can completely stall out the game by just not letting you die. Second, Liliana's is nice in any black deck but works much nicer if you have something to sink a lot of mana into (I did not). Third, exalted is fantastic with Tormented Soul. Send in just the unblockable guy? Yes please!
My second pool was a more typical of what I expect in this format in a black-white build. It removed things, it stacked Exalted triggers and it produced a lot of little guys. The deck has a few interesting angles to it. First, recycling removal and token producers with Elixir of Immortality can be a powerful move. After a few turns of drawing and playing lands you want to start playing spell after spell. Once a few lands are on the field and a few instants and sorceries have been cast, the Elixir will skew the land/spell ratio in favor of spells.
Another interesting card to play with is Veilborn Ghoul. It provides an interesting tension with how you play your land, encouraging the player to hold back some Swamps. I find it best to start keeping them back once your hit enough mana to cast your most expensive spell if you have one in your deck. The ability to cast multiple spells in a turn is usually outweighed by the advantage gained by rebuying the Ghoul but I would not want to miss the opportunity to drop my bombs for it. Note the non-swamps are fine to play as normal.
Perhaps the most interesting thing I found out from this deck was the surprising synergy between Exalted and token producers. Instead of having to chose between all out offense or leaving them back to stall out combat against superior creatures, you can send one as you big Exalted fatty and still have chumps back/replacements for next turn.
The last thing I would like to comment on is Mindclaw Shaman. At some point this weekend I was asked what I thought of the card. While I find it very exciting, it has been difficult to evaluate. I think it can be good in three situations (limited in mind, of course). The first is where the opponent is holding back removal or combat tricks and intending to blow you out on your attack. In this case the Shaman will play the role of lightning rod, hopefully pulling out the trick before it can wreak maximum havoc. Situation two is where the opponent is holding a bomb instant or sorcery and just has not hit the mana yet. In this case the Shaman can function as an additional bomb. This depends on the how useful the card can be to your deck of course but at least he can deny it if not leverage significant advantage. Lastly, we have the situations where you opponent could have cast his or her spell but chose a different sequence of plays. They could been developing their board, for example, instead of playing a Divination or Mind Rot. It is in these moments that I expect Mindclaw Shaman to shine. In essence, the is more fit to combat decks rather than compliment them. Has your opponent been blowing you out with tricks or the removal special? In he goes. Are the just playing creature after creature (not token sorceries, mind you)? Probably not.
So I guess that is this week down. Hopefully you liked this as I figure I will probably be doing this for every prerelease. If you have not tried Magic yet I highly recommend it. It is a great game with a long history and ,while it is complex, I find it has a great community willing to help a beginner find his or her feet.
Until next time, good luck and have fun.
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