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Revising Standard the Influence of Innistrad: RUG

Oct 102011

Moving on in our discussion about how Innistrad effects the standard environment we come to RUG. I know I said we would go somewhere else first. but we made a wrong turn. What is RUG anyway? For those of you that don’t know it is an acronym for Red/Blue?Green. Most of the RUG decks are control driven, but they are not your traditional type of control. At least I don’t believe so.

RUG doesn’t have the named history like some of the other archetypes do. Take Fish for example it was an archetype before it was named. That doesn’t mean the roots of Rug do not run deep. I remember building Blue/Green decks when Prodigal Sorcerer still thrived, and Gaea’s Liege deprived your opponent of everything except Islands. It wasn’t long before you saw Channel, Fireball, and Mana Drain enter the deck. Yeah, that was a while ago. Somewhere around the time of Conflux (I believe) RUG got its official name. Why, I don’t know. But the name has lasted ever since.

Revising Standard the Influence of Innistrad in Standard Part 2

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Oct 042011

Two days ago, I wrote about White and how it received some really great new creatures giving White Weenie a fighting chance again. Today, I am going to focus on Liliana of the Veil. She is pretty amazing. Being the other 3 drop planeswalker in the game I expect to see some great things from her. I was hoping that her +1 ability that forces each player to discard a card would be able to take advantage of Flashback. It seems that the best card to do that with is Unburial Rites. Which is not the best idea. It could work, but it would be difficult to make a good combo with the two in T2. Here ability to target player sacrifice a creature does have some promise though. The combination of hand control and and board control is an excellent representation of black and a better combination. Her last ability “-6: Separate all permanents target player controls into two piles. That player sacrifices all permanents in the pile of his or her choice.” is going to be used. It kind of reminds me of Fact or Fiction, but only because the player has to chose his pain.

Liliana is pretty wicked good. There is already a really good BUW control deck built around her and there will be more. here is a link to that deck list WUB. Since that is a really great deck I will focus on a simpler deck for a thirteen year old player.

3 Liliana of the Veil

4 Doomblade

4 Surgical Extraction

4 Distress

4 Despise

3 Black Sun’s Zenith

24 Swamps

My sideboard is yet to be determined

Now that I have built this deck I am thinking it might have too much hand disruption. What about you? Do you think it has too much? Here is what I like about this experiment. It has good creatures for a themed deck. It has a descent amount of control. Right from the start. There are just enough mechanics like , discarding, planeswalkers and Grave titan triggers to make this deck a good teaching deck. Wouldn’t be great if on the first turn you cast despise and surgical extraction? While it won’t win a PTQ it is a great deck for my son to have fun with at FNM.

Black has a lot more cards to offer from Innistraad. We will look at them tomorrow, along with some red cards. I am hoping to design a new version of Red Deck wins this week. Any ideas as to what I should play?

Innistrad Set review Red Picks

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Sep 222011

It is day four of my set review. For those of you who have not read these daily reports yet, here is what I am doing. I am reviewing each color and sharing with you my top picks. I am not a pro player by any means, I am just a judge who enjoys writing and playing Magic the Gathering along with many other games.

On to the cards
Bloodcrazed Neonate 1r
Creature – Vampire Common
Bloodcrazed Neonate attacks each turn if able.

Whenever Bloodcrazed Neonate deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
While elder vampires select their meals with care, the newly sired frenzy at the first whiff.
Illus. Cynthia Sheppard 2/1

This guy is not super, but he gets an honorable mention because he grows and he is common.

Curse of Stalked Prey
1r
Enchantment – Aura Curse Rare
Enchant player
Whenever a creature deals combat damage to enchanted player, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature.
“Innocent thorns can fill the air with your bloodscent. Don’t stray from the path.”
–Elmut, crossway watcher
Illus. Christopher Moeller #136/264

Will this card make it into constructed – yes. It will Goblins or red deck wins a boost in their speed. Oh and combine this with Bloodcrazed Neonate and you have a Vampiric nightmare.

Brimstone Volley 2r
Instant Common
Brimstone Volley deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Morbid – Brimstone Volley deals 5 damage to that creature or player instead if a creature died this turn.
Illus. Eytan Zana #132/264

I like Brimstone volley because it will be fairly easy to deal 5 damage. Why because creatures die in Magic the Gathering.

Pitchburn Devil   4r
Creature – Devil    Common
When Pitchburn Devils dies, it deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Illus. Johann Bodin #156/264   3/3

Our friend here is nothing special for a 3/3. But when he dies he becomes a lightning bolt. So he has potential. He might see play in constructed. I believe you will most certainly see him in limited. I expect him to be picked as early a the third pick in a draft. Really tough to say when a card will be pick but this guy brings some serious card quality to the limited format.

That is all for now. tomorrow we move on to White and everything it has in store for us.

Innistrad Picks Part 3

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Sep 212011

While looking at green I have concluded that green is just kind of blah. Now, I don’t mean that in a negative way. Green in Innistrad is just so similar from card to card that only a few cards stand out. We will get to those in a moment. Green has a couple of recurring themes that happen too frequently. They are +X/+X where X is number of creatures in your graveyard and werewolves. They both happen so much that it waters them down. I do not really like the fact that Green is full of transforming cards, and I even dislike the trigger for them more.

On to the cards.