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Cacturne from Sun & Moon Crimson Invasion - Pokemon TCG Card Review

11/30/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

I don’t always do Pokemon TCG Finance. I’m not really sure anyone does. But when I do, I choose… Cacturne?

This Cacturne from Sun & Moon Crimson Invasion is the #2 best selling Pokemon card on TCGPlayer. Considering that it has a market price of $0.10 as of November 30, 2017, I probably shouldn’t be that excited about it.

However, this is a GOOD card. As someone who played the Pokemon Trading Card Game for quite some time, I can tell you this guy is worth playing.

He has two attacks, both of which are pretty nasty. Yes, you have to evolve him from a Cacnea, but waiting a turn to do so is worth the payoff! The first attack requires only a single Grass Energy. It deals a base 30 damage, which isn’t that interesting. BUT if the defending Pokemon has any damage counters already, this attack deals 60 more damage. 90 damage for a single Energy is awesome!

The second attack is pretty brutal, too. It costs two Energy, but only one has to be Grass. It drags out one of your opponent’s Benched Pokemon and deals 40 damage to it, That’s pretty mean.

In a game dominated by EX and GX and whatever-X Pokemon, it’s always nice to see a classic Stage 1 Pokemon that can be competitive. If I had a few extra cents that I needed to complete an order, this would be a guy I’d snatch up for some pennies. Cacturne is a good Pokemon after all.

Yu-Gi-Oh Old School Duelist Reviews - Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan

11/30/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

Six Samurai have always been one of my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! Decks. When I returned to the game for a short time awhile back, Six Samurai was the deck I played. It was good, and it was cheap.

The release of the Spirit Warriors booster pack brought brand new Six Samurai monsters to give the deck some newfound power! They’re called the Secret Six Samurai. The Level 1 Tuner, Secret Six Samurai - Fuma, seems to be the best of the lot by far.

But the best selling Six Samurai from the set (and the best selling Yu-Gi-Oh card on TCGPlayer in November 2017) is Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan.

Kizan is very straightforward. If you control another Six Samurai monster other than Kizan, you can special summon Kizan from your hand. If you control two other Six Samurai monsters, he gains 300 ATK and DEF. He’s been a staple in Six Samurai decks since his release in Storm of Ragnarok.

With Spirit Warriors releasing new Secret Six Samurai monsters, I’m excited to see a classic Yu-Gi-Oh deck get some new blood!

Training Grounds - A Magic the Gathering (MTG) Card Review

11/30/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

Training Grounds is a fascinating little enchantment that makes a creature’s activated abilities considerably cheaper. It actually saw some competitive play back when Extended was a viable format, combo-ing with Izzet Guildmage to make its 3 converted mana cost abilities only cost one red and one blue. The combo also involved Manamorphose, which allows for essentially infinite card draw and mana. This could still be a viable combo in Modern, so it will be interesting to see if we ever see that sort of Storm deck again.

Training Grounds has other applications, as well, including reducing Level Up costs – which makes sense because of its inclusion in Rise of Eldrazi, the last set of a block that had plenty of Level Up creatures. It’s a nice little card to build around, and has been a mainstay in a variety of decks, especially in Commander, that rely on the activated abilities of creatures.

The most popular use of Training Grounds in Commander is in Sliver Overlord decks. This is because the Overlord has two 3 mana abilities - one which adds a Sliver from your deck to your hand and the other which lets you gain control of target Sliver! Training Grounds makes each of these abilities cost only a single mana. It also makes Sliver Queen's 2-mana Sliver token creation ability only 1 mana, as well.

Tasigur, the Golden Fang and most recently The Scarab God also take advantage of Training Grounds, seeing their own activated abilities cost half as much. This is an Enchantment that gets better with every good creature with activated abilities that gets printed. It became nearly $20 a copy for a reason. It's likely that it should see a reprint in a Commander-related product one day.

MTGO 1 Event Ticket Collection Challenge #12 - Arbitrage Aid!

11/29/2017

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

We begin part #12 of our MTGO 1 Event Ticket Collection Challenge on a sad note… I finally bit the bullet on my Deadeye Tracker spec. I initially invested 0.76 tix, or 0.19 tix a piece. I decided to finally cash in at 0.08 tix. It was the best I was going to do in the near future. This is a whopping 0.45 tix loss, but the 0.3 tix we recouped went to good use already!

That’s right, folks, we made some PROFIT!

Here’s 3 arbitrage wins today!

Our 4x Attune with Aether we bought for 0.004 tix total we got to cash in for 0.136 tix. That’s a 0.132 profit! I also picked up 4 more copies at the same rate as before. It’s the #1 card played in Standard at the moment, so I’ll get another chance I’m sure.

But that’s not all! We got to flip 4x Larger Than Life, also from Kaladesh, for a 0.098 profit. That was unexpected.

Even MORE unexpected was our flip of 4x Burning Inquiry from Magic 2010. I spent 0.032 tix and ended up with a 0.088 profit. After buying the 4 Attune with Aethers that’s a total arbitrage profit of 0.314 tix! No, it doesn’t cover the Deadeye Tracker loss. But it puts us back on track!

I also decided to make another Standard spec. This one only set me back a total of 0.08, 4x Tocatli Honor Guard from Ixalan. I’ve been watching this card awhile. It’s been at 0.02 tix for a bit, but it passed 0.1 tix for a bit early in November ‘17. Also, people are buying a lot of them. This makes sense. The effect is good enough that the Guard should see more Standard play in the future. Also, the buyin is low enough that striking out here is not going to hurt us.

As far as Deadeye Tracker is concerned, I see him falling back to 0.03-0.05 tix or lower and staying there for awhile. I just needed to reinvest those funds. That being said, there just isn’t a good home for him at the moment. I likely will buy back in if he hits 0.01-0.03 tix. This guy is too good to be a penny or two.

Now that we’ve freed ourselves from that, I also wanted to talk about a Modern spec in Terminate from Alara Reborn. It bottomed out at 0.06 tix and I bit. Only 0.24 tix for a playset of a Modern and Pauper staple is a steal. This guy has a lot of printings, but the others haven’t fallen this low. Honestly, I’ll flip these at 0.15-0.20 tix each. This has been in that range recently and has been as high as 0.6 tix each. It’s a very low risk spec that I could cash in at 0.07 tix today if I felt compelled.

We actually still have nearly 1.5 tix to spend, too! I’ll go into what our portfolio looks like in part #13.

Any MTGO penny stocks on your radar? Let us know in the comments!

Can a Gladiator Beast Deck Still Be Competitive in 2019? - Yu-Gi-Oh Old School Duelist Stories

11/29/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

Can Gladiator Beast Bestiari & Friends Still Impact Competitive Yu-Gi-Oh?

For a good part of my Yu-Gi-Oh duelist career, Gladiator Beast decks were the bane of my existence. In particular, Gladiator Beast Bestiari made me miserable. In fact, the absolute domination of Gladiator Beast decks at my locals is why I started playing Magic the Gathering! So it wasn’t all bad.

Fortunately, Konami eventually limited Bestiari to one copy per deck and Gladiator Beasts became a fairer deck. In fact, as much as I hated the deck for being too overpowered initially, I actually went on to build my own Gladiator Beast deck later!

But nowadays, Bestiari is unlimited. So why has no one seemed to notice that there’s a chance for Gladiator Beast decks to be competitive again in 2019 and beyond?

What made Bestiari so good? Gladiator Beasts have this crazy ability that allows them to swap out with other Gladiator Beasts from the deck at the end of the damage step of a combat that monster has been involved in. While there are bigger Beasts and other very useful Beasts, Bestiari was the primary engine of the deck. Not only can he destroy a Spell or Trap card on the field (face-down or face-up) when he’s tagged in from the deck, but he’s the necessary piece for a Contact Fusion into Gladiator Beast Gyzarus. Not only does he have 2400 ATK, but he destroys 2 cards on the field when he enters! Then, he can tag back out after combat and get you two other Gladiator Beasts!

Gladiator Beasts really were a cool archetype because there is actually a lot of important decision-making and strategy to playing the deck properly. But as new and quicker decks hit the scene (Blackwings FTK for example), Gladiator Beast decks sort of took a back seat. So, in the world of Xyz overlays and Pendulum monster insanity, could they still be competitive?

The last time a Gladiator Beast deck won a major tournament was 2014. Check out this list that won the Bulgaria National Championship in June 2014.

Main Deck (40 Cards)

Monsters

2x Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Bear
1x Coach Soldier Wolfbark
1x Gladiator Beast Bestiari
2x Gladiator Beast Darius
2x Gladiator Beast Equeste
2x Gladiator Beast Laquari
1x Thunder King Rai-Oh

Spells

1x Book of Moon
1x Dark Hole
3x Fire Formation - Tenki
3x Forbidden Lance
3x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Shrink

Traps

2x Black Horn of Heaven
1x Bottomless Trap Hole
1x Compulsory Evacuation Device
2x Dimensional Prison
3x Gladiator Beast War Chariot
2x Mirror Force
1x Needle Ceiling
1x Solemn Warning
1x Torrential Tribute
2x Vanity's Emptiness
1x Wiretap

Extra Deck (15 Cards)

Fusion

1x Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
1x Gladiator Beast Essedarii
2x Gladiator Beast Gyzarus
1x Gladiator Beast Heraklinos

Xyz

1x Abyss Dweller
2x Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Tiger King
1x Daigusto Emeral
1x Diamond Dire Wolf
1x Evilswarm Exciton Knight
1x Gagaga Cowboy
1x Gem-Knight Pearl
1x Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
1x Number 101: Silent Honor ARK

This deck isn’t even playable as constructed anymore, as the banned & restricted list has changed a bunch, I didn’t recall Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Bear joining the deck along with Fire Formation - Tenki. But I was pretty much gone from Duel Monsters at that point.

Using input from another top 8 list from a Lisbon, Portugal Regional tournament earlier that year, I’ve come up with this revised list

Main Deck (40 Cards)

Monsters

1x Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Bear
3x Gladiator Beast Bestiari
2x Gladiator Beast Darius
2x Gladiator Beast Equeste
3x Gladiator Beast Laquari
1x Gladiator Beast Retiari
2x Thunder King Rai-Oh

Spells

1x Book of Moon
2x Fire Formation - Tenki
3x Forbidden Lance
3x Gladiator Proving Ground
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
2x Pot of Duality
1x Raigeki / Dark Hole

Traps

1x Black Horn of Heaven
1x Bottomless Trap Hole
1x Compulsory Evacuation Device
2x Dimensional Prison
2x Fiendish Chain
3x Gladiator Beast War Chariot
1x Mirror Force
1x Solemn Warning
1x Torrential Tribute

Extra Deck (15 Cards)

Fusion Monsters

2x Gladiator Beast Essedarii
3x Gladiator Beast Gyzarus
1x Gladiator Beast Heraklinos

XYZ Monsters

1x Abyss Dweller
1x Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Tiger King
1x Bujintei Kagutsuchi
1x Diamond Dire Wolf
1x Gagaga Cowboy
1x Gem-Knight Pearl
1x Lightning Chidori
1x Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
1x Steelswarm Roach

Or really whatever XYZ Monsters you want really.

This revised deck-list is just a starting point, but right away, you can see it is considerably different than the last world-beating list that Gladiator Beasts enjoyed.

Let’s go through what makes this deck tick.

The Fire Fist package is cute but is actually a nice little addition to the deck. Gladiator Beast Darius and Gladiator Beast Laquari are Beast-Warriors, so Fire Formation - Tenki is a really nice card to have. The extra 100 ATK is something, but adding one of your Darius or Laquari to your hand is even better. The Tiger King is a useful Xyz monster to have around, too.

Having 3 copies of Bestiari means that we can run the three copies of Gyzarus in the Extra Deck. Really, what made this deck so blasted good is something you can do again.

Darius is really cool because he can Special Summon a Gladiator Beast from your graveyard when he enters the field from the deck! While the effect is negated, you can easily grab a dead Bestiari for a quick Gyzarus summon. Really it’s just a great way to recycle Gladiator Beasts that were destroyed back into the deck. With 3 Bestiari, Darius becomes more important than he has been in years.

Equeste is similar to Darius, except that the Beast goes to your hand, not the field. In some cases, this is even better.

Laquari is the big beater of the deck, as he becomes a 2100 ATK beater when he’s summoned from the deck. He’s also the primary piece of contact fusion summoning Heraklinos.

One Retiari has been a staple in Gladiator Beasts decks for a long time. His ability when summoned from the Deck is to remove 1 card from your opponent’s Graveyard. While this isn’t always relevant, it can mess up a lot of strategies. It’s the most expendable of the Gladiator Beasts, but having one is necessary so that you can have enough different Gladiator Beasts with different names in the deck.

Thunder King Rai-Oh was limited to a single copy for a time, but now he’s back to two copies allowed per deck. What makes him so good in Gladiator Beasts is that he shuts down players being able to add cards from their deck to their hand. While this seems really bad with Gladiator Proving Ground in the deck, Gladiator Beasts decks have been playing Rai-Oh for years due to his other ability: you can sacrifice him to negate a Special Summoning. So while you may have a dead Gladiator Proving Ground or Fire Formation - Tenki in hand sometimes with Rai-Oh on board, that ability to stop a special summon is too big not to play!

Onto the spells, Book of Moon is a staple. In Gladiator Beasts though, it’s even better as it can allow you to flip a monster into face-down defense position so you can survive a combat with a bigger guy. Gladiator Beasts are one of those unusual decks with which it’s sometimes advantageous to deal damage to yourself during combat. Being able to tag out is how this deck functions, after all.

We’ve already gone into Tenki, so let’s discuss another staple in Forbidden Lance. Having had the chance to play with Lance years ago, I’ll say it’s probably the most important combat trick in the deck. Having a monster lose 800 ATK is huge. But it can also save your creature from a Spell or Trap card, too. It’s one of the most versatile quick-play spells in Yu-Gi-Oh. Awesome card!

Gladiator Proving Ground is really bad with a face-up Rai-Oh on board, but the rest of the time, it gets any of your Gladiator Beasts to your hand.

Usually, Gladiator Beasts decks play 3 copies of Mystical Space Typhoon. But since we have 3 Bestiari and so many other important spells and traps, we had to cut down to 1. Two more copies could be put in the side deck for certain match-ups.

While Pot of Duality is no longer limited, two copies in Gladiator Beasts are enough. It’s such a Special Summon happy deck that Duality can cost you a turn. But the card selection Duality provides is worth running it. After all, you don’t have to tag out every turn. However, in today’s game, I could see replacing these with the two MST we cut. I’d have to playtest this build a ton in order to answer that question.

The trap cards are pretty much all classic Yu-Gi-Oh staples. Gladiator Beast War Chariot is the only one that needs special explanation. This card has always been powerful, but negating the activation of an Effect Monster’s effect is activated AND destroying that monster is very powerful. The only drawback? You have to have a face-up Gladiator Beast on the field. Seems fine and better than ever.

What About the Other Gladiator Beasts?

There are other Gladiator Beasts that used to see a lot of play, but aren’t in this deck. Let’s see if they still might belong, at least out of the Side Deck.

Gladiator Beast Hoplomus. A base DEF of 2100 is nothing to sneeze at, and when he’s summoned from the deck, it’s 2400 DEF. He’s basically just a wall, but there are still plenty of monsters that can’t beat 2400 DEF. Still, he’s not as good now as he was in the Gladiator Assault days.

Gladiator Beast Murmillo. This little fish has a powerful effect: destroy 1 face-up monster. With only 800 DEF and 400 ATK, and being Level 3, he’s just not the best main deck option anymore. Still, he blows a guy up, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Gladiator Beast Samnite. Being Level 3 is what hurts Samnite these days. He also brings a Gladiator Beast from your Deck to your hand, which while good, is just another bad combination with Rai-Oh. He requires the deck to be built differently than what we have right now.

Gladiator Beast Secutor. This little guy can actually summon TWO Gladiator Beast monsters. It’s a shame that he hasn’t seen play in years. But, with only 400 ATK and 300 DEF, he's really weak. The payoff can be worth it, though. Still, he may be worth a shot in place of Retiari in some match-ups.

The primary issue with these 4 guys is that none of them are Beast-Warriors. If we were to eliminate the Fire Formation Package and a Proving Ground, they may all fit. But would the deck be as good without the added card advantage? Maybe, maybe not. Only playtesting can tell us.

Can Gladiator Beasts Compete in 2018 and Beyond?

Since 2014, I have seen Gladiator Beasts decks occasionally win an odd tournament here and there. Nothing major, though. I really feel as bigger and more explosive archetypes have been released, Gladiator Beasts just sort of got left behind. But there’s still a lot of power in this deck.

Also, it’s possible that the Fire Formation package isn’t even necessary. Perhaps our old Gladiator Beast friends that we haven’t included - Hoplomus, Murmillo, Samnite, and Secutor, in particular - actually belong instead. My feeling is to include them in the side deck, along with other meta-busting cards and see what the best build shapes up to be.

While I won’t be building this deck anytime soon for myself, I feel like there are plenty of duelists out there who’d love to give the old Gladiator Beast toolbox a spin again. The deck is extremely inexpensive to build nowadays. Why not?

Did you ever play Gladiator Beasts at any point? Is this a deck you would ever build again, just to play it for fun? Let us know in the comments!

Here are some other Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game articles you may enjoy:

- Yu-Gi-Oh Blackwings Deck 2018 Profile
- Is a Toon Deck Now Competitive with Toon Kingdom?
- GOAT FORMAT! - Intro to the Format and Original Aggro Control Deck
- Fire Princess Burn - Old School Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Profile!
- The Legendary Fisherman - Old School Yu-Gi-Oh Deck Profile

Magic the Gathering (MTG) Duelist Diaries - A Figure of Destiny

11/29/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

Shadowmoor and Eventide will always hold a special place in my heart. They are the sets that were new when I made my first real foray into the world of Magic: the Gathering. My first ever draft in Magic netted me Augury Adept and Godhead of Awe. My next draft was right after Eventide released. In that draft I happened to pick two pretty darn good rares: Necroskitter and Figure of Destiny.

As someone who played a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh, Figure of Destiny was a monster… er, creature… that immediately got my attention. It only cost a single mana to play, and you could use either red or white mana.

Already new to the world of paying mana to cast spells, hybrid mana was this really amazing thing to me. I didn’t know this wasn’t a regular thing. But, right away, I could tell this card could be played in a variety of decks.

Kithkins were a really good tribe in Magic back then. So, Figure of Destiny was a big deal. You’d pump mana into him and he’d get bigger. I actually got him leveled up a couple of times during the draft. I ended up not even playing my Necroskitter, although I thought he was cool, too.

In my early days of Magic, aggro was my thing. Elves and Goblins were among my favorite decks to play. I didn’t really get into competitive play at that point, and actually went back to Yu-Gi-Oh until the Magic 2010 Core Set was released. I ended up selling my Figure of Destiny to the game store for a few dollars.

Had I kept playing, this Red/Green Aggro deck or something like it would have been my jam in Standard in ‘08:

LANDS

4x Fire-Lit Thicket
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
4x Karplusan Forest
8x Mountain
3x Mutavault

CREATURES

4x Figure of Destiny
4x Kavu Predator
4x Keldon Marauders
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Tarmogoyf

INSTANTS/SORCERIES

3x Flame Javelin
4x Incinerate
4x Rift Bolt
3x Shard Volley
4x Tarfire

SIDEBOARD

3x Dragon's Claw
3x Firespout
3x Krosan Grip
4x Magus of the Moon
2x Unwilling Recruit

Yes, Goyf was still in Standard. Had I known then this deck had in it cards that would be worth a total of about $600 now… Hindsight is 20/20.

But, yeah, Figure of Destiny was really, really good. It was still seeing play in Extended 3 to 4 years later in top decks. It could have been a sign that Magic was the game I should’ve spent thousands of bucks on instead of Yu-Gi-Oh!

Again, hindsight is 20/20. But I was right that Figure of Destiny was an awesome card.

And he still sees play in 1V1 Commander decks in 2017…

Have any great Magic card stories you’d like to share? Tell us about them in the comments!

Animate Dead - A Magic the Gathering (MTG) Card Review

11/29/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

Animate Dead is one of the oldest cards in Magic the Gathering, hearkening back to the days of Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited. It’s been reprinted a number of times: Revised, Fourth Edition, Fifth Edition, as a premium foil in the Graveborn Premium Foil Deck, and most recently in Eternal Masters.

To this day, Animate Dead is still one of the best reanimation spells in the entire game. While a card like Reanimate may only be 1 single black mana, it also has the drawback of losing life. With Animate Dead, you don’t have that drawback.

Only costing two mana to cast, Animate Dead is an Enchantment that allows you to choose a creature card from any graveyard and put that creature onto the battlefield with this card attached to it. The only downsides are that said creature loses 1 power, and also is destroyed if Animate Dead is destroyed.

It’s a powerful little card that finds its way into many Commander decks. In 2017, Animate Dead sees play in 13 percent of the potential Commander decks that run Black on EDHREC. This puts it among the Top 20 Black cards in the format and sees about as much play as Blood Artist and Grave Titan! So, it's in high demand.

In Legacy and Vintage, Animate Dead is outclassed by the single mana Reanimate. But in Commander, it’s still very solid and extremely popular.

Archfiend of Depravity - A Magic the Gathering (MTG) Card Review

11/28/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Archfiend of Depravity is an interesting creature card from Fate Reforged. He would later have a promotional printing as well as a reprint in Archenemy: Nicol Bolas. Besides being a decent sideboard card during his time in Standard, the Demon has become a favorite of casual and Commander players. He has decent stats as a 5/4 flyer for 3BB. But it's his ability that makes him so good.

During each of your opponent's end steps, that player has to choose two creatures he or she controls, then sacrifice the rest. Against aggressive strategies, this is absolutely devastating. While not every deck focuses on having lots of creatures out at one time, the Archfiend can turn up whenever an opponent is trying to win by just turning a bunch of creatures sideways.

There are quite a few decks that rely on creating lots of tokens or casting tons small creatures in order to simply overwhelm opponents. The Archfiend can absolutely punish these strategies. With Fate Reforged introducing the Manifest mechanic and Elves becoming more of a force due to cards like Collected Company and Shaman of the Pack, the Archfiend would drop in from time to time out of the sideboard to say hello.

Why didn't he see more play in Standard, though? Having a 5/4 body is cool, but that means it died to things like Stoke the Flames and Languish in the Standard of the day. In Modern, there's Path to Exile, Dismember, and Fatal Push. Still, the Archfiend only has to survive one turn with your opponent having to sacrifice a bunch of creatures to it for it to be worth casting. Best of all, the Archfiend never hurts you at all.

In Commander, the Archfiend of Depravity is a killer. Not only are Demons a popular tribe, but Black decks love things to die. The Archfiend makes even more things die, as his effect is extremely powerful in a multi-player setting. It's not surprising that the Archfiend is at home in many Commander decks.

Archfiend of Depravity may never be a main deck play outside of casual "kitchen table" Magic and Commander. But, if you're in a metagame where aggressive creature-based strategies are taking over, you may see him drop in. Decks that depend on their board states being filled by armies are sad if the Archfiend of Depravity says hello.

Trove of Temptation - A Magic the Gathering (MTG) Card Review

11/27/2017

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

I'm always on the lookout for Magic cards flying under the radar. Sometimes those cards are even common or uncommon. Here we have Trove of Temptation, an uncommon Enchantment from Ixalan that immediately got attention from deck builders.

The primary home for Trove of Temptation has been in Commander. It's pretty much an auto-include in Admiral Beckett Brass Pirate Tribal decks, due to the Treasure token synergy. It's also popped up in some O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami EDH lists, as well, as a sweet piece of tech. But people tried to build Standard decks with it, too. Let's see what this card does.

Trove of Temptation is one of my favorite kinds of cards. They sit there and give you incremental value. It's also very flavorful, so it's a win-win for me. The first effect is very straightforward.

Each opponent must attack you or a planeswalker you control with at least one creature each combat if able.

The whole Temptation aspect of this card is admittedly rather cute. But it's also effective. This effect can lead to some very unfavorable combat steps for your opponents, especially in multiplayer situations. Given a fairly developed board-state and substantial creature on your corner of the battlefield, you're forcing opponents to potentially choose which of their creatures will walk the plank each combat. This is a pretty useful to slowly grind out value through forced attrition.

This is also a very good effect to have in O-Kagachi decks because the Legendary Spirit has a relevant ability:

Whenever O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami deals combat damage to a player, if that player attacked you during his or her last turn, exile target nonland permanent that player controls.

Hurray for synergy!

But wait... THERE'S MORE!

At the beginning of your end step, create a colorless Treasure artifact token with "T, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."

This is the Trove aspect of the card. After 4 turns, the Trove of Temptation essentially pays for itself through Treasure tokens. Not only is this a nice way to grind out Treasures to satisfy the alternate win condition of Revel in Riches, it also provides some mana fixing and additional resources at a fair investment.

This is such a grindy card. It seems best suited for the multiplayer Commander world or the kitchen table. But this doesn't stop players from stuffing 2 or more copies into brews. While the first ability doesn't stack, the Treasure token creation does. So, in decks that play lots of grindy value-generating stuff like Aid From the Cowl and other Enchantments with Revolt, it's a nice way to generate some extra mana to be able to stay competitive on the mana curve. (In other words, the Treasures keep you in the game.)

Trove of Temptation is a mere nickel or so, and it's hardly a target for speculation. Still, it's a nice little under-the-radar uncommon that you shouldn't be giving away for free. It might buylist for a nickel or so eventually. But more importantly, it's just another little nugget of value from Ixalan that deserves to not be overlooked.

MTG Stock Watch - Bontu the Glorified from Amonkhet

11/26/2017

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Ever since he was released, I've been a big fan of Bontu the Glorified. Oketra the True is probably my favorite, but clearly Hazoret the Fervent and Rhonas the Indomitable are the true powerhouses. Rhonas sees tons of play in Standard and has crept into Modern. Hazoret is in not only Standard and some Modern decks, he even pops up in Legacy Dragon Stompy decks! Even Kefnet the Mindful has made some cameos in Control decks in Standard.

But Bontu seems to be vastly underappreciated at the moment, and it's because of how you have to build around him. He can only attack or block if a creature under YOUR control has died in a turn. The best way to do this is to use his ability, which costs 1B - you sacrifice a creature, get to scry 1, then you gain 1 life and each opponent loses one life.

As a 4/6, he can be quite a powerhouse for only 3 mana. But what deck can consistently sacrifice creatures like this? The best example is a Mono-Black Aggro deck like this one at Pro Tour Ixalan. As a one-of, it's not bad in an aggro deck. Since you can use the sacrifice ability at instant speed, you can sacrifice creatures that would have otherwise died to removal or in combat, anyway. Bontu also has great synergies with creatures like Bone Picker, Dread Wanderer, Scrapheap Scrounger and Yahenni, Undying Partisan.

I was able to pick up a copy of Bontu the Glorified on CardSphere for $1.36, which is roughly $0.35 less than his TCGPlayer market price at the time. This sounds cheap, but Bontu's stock is relatively low at the moment. But with his price bottoming out at $2, as a useful mythic rare from a good set, this is a reasonable floor. It's possible for him to hit $4 again during his time in Standard. But, $6 or even $8 is possible if Bontu lands in a top 8 Standard list.

There's so little risk with Bontu, especially as he sees a fair amount of play in EDH; the popular Meren of Clan Nel Toth likes to have him. If he even hits $3, I'm more than happy. You can be happy to be a buyer at $2 and below, as his price is trending in the right direction.

Story of a Price Spike - Nimbus Maze from Future Sight (MTG)

11/25/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Nimbus Maze is one of those cards that people expected to hit a $20 price for a long time. Why is that? It’s a decent dual land that can give you White mana if you control an Island, and Blue mana if you control a Plains. That sounds kind of backwards, but it is what it is.

The Maze is actually rather similar to the dual lands from Battle for Zendikar in that it cares about what basic land types you already control. But it’s a unique land in that it was one of those one-of oddities from Future Sight. Another land from that set, Grove of the Burnwillows, became widely successful and very expensive. So why not Nimbus Maze?

Why not, indeed? It’s a valuable land in EDH, where people play Hallowed Fountain, Prairie Stream, and other lands with the basic land types Plains and/or Island. But as far as competitive play is concerned, especially Modern, you just never really see it. So why did this once $5 land slowly creep up to $8 over the course of 2016, and suddenly spike to nearly $40 (before settling around $25 for a bit) in late June of 2016?

Copies of Nimbus Maze were slowly trickling off of the internet for some time. Usually it’s one at a time, which is why the price increase has been so slow, but steady. A few speculators have bought multiple copies over the past few years, which has eaten up some of the supply. But these sales are rare enough that it’s made the card widely unavailable. It’s not a card that’s in high demand. Still, there is enough of a desire to have it available for Commander decks that people have been hoarding their copies.

What is a fair price for Nimbus Maze? Clearly, $25 is most certainly not. This simply isn’t a sustainable price for this card. The race to the bottom on TCGPlayer would be fairly quick. By “race to the bottom,” I mean sellers continuously undercutting each other until a price equilibrium is found.

At best, Nimbus Maze is probably a $10 card long-term. We saw the market price of this card fall to around $8-12 by June 2017, depending on condition. What made this a fair price is based mostly on the card’s overall scarcity. It was doubtful that this land would be reprinted as there is really no expansion set that it makes sense to include within. There was once speculation that it would be included as part of a new land cycle in Theros. But nothing ever came of that.

However, it would be reprinted in Iconic Masters, a set that sort of came out of nowhere... and that spelled the end of this card's steady rise...

Still, if Wizards of the Coast decides to create a cycle of lands similar to it, which is totally possible, Nimbus Maze would definitely become a lot more valuable. Vendor buylists weren’t willing to pay much more than $4 to $5 after the spike, with the outlier being high as $7. In mid-2017, the buylist price was closer to $8, which was a good sign for the future of this card.

While the market did regain some sanity in regards to Nimbus Maze, and there was a fairly substantial reprint, there may yet be another spike in its future. For quite some time, there weren't a bunch of near-mint copies left on the open market. The reprinting led to quite a sell-off, though. Still, with this spike in its price history, we can take away a few things from this event which can tell us a lot about what people think about this card.

Clearly, lands that are unique in some way are going to be worth something. White & Blue is a popular color combination, especially in Control-type decks. It’s actually a bit surprising that we don’t see Nimbus Maze more often in Modern. This may be due to the fact that the filter land, Mystic Gate, is much more playable in Modern. Being able to fix your mana by filtering the color you don’t need is very, very valuable when you need to cast cards that require 3 White or 3 Blue or some other tricky combination of colors.

Another factor that's still holding back this card is Mystic Gate. That’s about a $20 card as of November 2017, about the same price as Nimbus Maze was post-spike. So if you want to put your $20 into a good dual land, I’d put it on the "strictly better" Mystic Gate. It’s already been reprinted as a foil Expedition in Oath of the Gatewatch, and it’s unlikely we’ll see these filter lands reprinted again soon. Filter lands in general seem to be a pretty solid investment. Nimbus Maze is a cool land, but the reprint really cratered it as an investment.

Clearly, Nimbus Maze’s price spike was due to a buyout. Yes, it was due to hit $10 eventually. But as the market sometimes does, there’s an opportunity seen by a few people who have the cash to buy out a ton of copies at once. Oddly enough, this usually benefits those who are holding onto single copies more than it does those that actually initiate the buyout. It also benefits those who had the foresight to stash away copies in anticipation of a price jump. There are a lot of happy people right now, and you have to give them credit for their foresight.

This is a card that simply wasn’t widely available any more. Anytime that happens, silly price spikes can occur. While the story of this Nimbus Maze price spike has come to an end, it may not be the last for this unique land. However, having been reprinted in Iconic Masters has really put a damper on this card's price ceiling.

But for all those that have called this card a great investment over the past few years, it wasn't a bad idea. Congratulations on your crazy gains if you sold out at the right time and bought back in when it came back to earth. If you wait to let the Iconic Masters versions bottom out, you may have a chance to make a bunch of money again eventually.

Even if this card never enjoys a second spike, Nimbus Maze was definitely worth a $10 price tag before it was reprinted. Maybe it will get there again one day.

MTGO 1 Tix Collection Challenge #11: A Fair Modern Flip

11/24/2017

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Despite my failings with Standard specs so far, we’re definitely ahead in the MTGO 1 Event Ticket Collection Challenge. We cashed out an Event Ticket fairly early and only had to reinvest it for my latest spec, which was successful. I’ll get to it in a moment.

Captain Lannery Storm was a risky spec that I was able to break even on. Deadeye Tracker, which I though much safer, has been a total bust. The best chance I’ve had to cash out was still a loss of about 0.4 tix so I’m banking on this one-drop blowing up with Rivals of Ixalan.

Arbitrage has been a black hole lately, so I had to make a good spec to keep this challenge from stalling out indefinitely. I found it with Chromatic Star, specifically the Time Spiral version.

Chromatic Star sees play in Tron decks in both Modern and Pauper. It’s a fairly staple card. But when it dipped to 0.04 tix recently I jumped all over it. That’s the lowest it’s been in a long time. Almost immediately I saw copies being bought up. I was in at only 0.14. A few days later, the price came back up to around 0.15 tix or so. I was able to cash the Stars in at 0.1125 tix per copy on a hotlist. That’s a 0.31 tix profit! I couldn’t turn that down.

It’s really worth checking the top played cards in each format. MTG Goldfoish has a great list. Typically, Standard staples tend to be the most volatile so the risk/reward is much more variable. Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and Pauper tend to be more stable. As players buy in and out of decks sometimes staple prices will crash. My favorites to buy into are those that only have a couple of printings, like Chromatic Star. Like with any spec, though, you need to be sure you’re buying in at a floor.

Also, with uncommon and common specs, you often need to sell to a hotlist since most buylists will only pay you a fraction of what the card actually sells for. One perfect example is Chromatic Star, which I would have had to sell at 0.02 per copy to a regular bot. Not taking a 0.06 tix for no reason. So while I could have waited for a potentially high spike, I’m more than happy with my decision-making process here.

With these new funds I made a couple of investments in staples. While they’re not on hotlists right now, cards like Opt and Spell Pierce see play in multiple formats and can be found for fractions of pennies right now. I also bought bits and pieces of some budget Modern decks. I’ll go into more detail in a future article.

As ffor the rest of our portfolio, I had a chance yesterday to cash in my Herald of Secret Streams for 0.12 tix. Considering I sent only 0.04 tix on them, that’s a 200 percent profit. However, I feel that the Merfolk from Rivals of Ixalan could make this into a very playable card. Players are already interested in it, and there’s been a spike to around 0.13 tix each already, but it wasn’t a spike I was able to capitalize on (buylists didn’t really reflect the spike). Only getting 0.08 tix on a potentially explosive spec would feel bad and considering that I’m stuck with Deadeye Tracker for a bit, I really want this one to do well.

With this success and a few other arbitrage fails that I was able to break even on or make a fractional profit, this leaves us with about 0.84 tix to spend. This is great, because we have about 1.275 tix tied up in our other specs and staple holds. I’ll break this down in another article, but this essentially means that from 1 event ticket, we’ve created a little over 2 tix in value, which is fantastic! Our Deadeye Tracker spec is killing us, but even then, in terms of retail value of our holdings, we’ve tripled our investment!

This challenge is going OK, and we’ve “won” already. But it’s definitely not going as well as it could have since I made a couple of poor spec decisions and arbitrage has been doing nothing for me recently. Considering I’ve made 10-15 tix over a period of 2 weeks doing nothing but arbitrage before, we may see some opportunities coming up to get this train rolling again!

Stay tuned for #12!

Warped Landscape - A Magic the Gathering (MTG) Card Review

11/24/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Warped Landscape MTG

Warped Landscape could prove to be a very useful colorless utility land. While it’s seemingly a worse version of a popular Commander 2014 card called Myriad Landscape, there are both advantages and disadvantages to it.

Firstly, Myriad Landscape is only legal in Commander, Legacy, and Vintage. It comes into play tapped, but can then sacrifice itself to seek out two basic lands of the same type and put them into play for only 2 mana.

The major advantage of Warped Landscape is that it comes into play untapped, meaning you can tap it for mana as soon as it comes into play. It also lets you sacrifice it for 2 mana to get a basic land into play tapped. That’s the same mana investment as Rampant Growth, but it requires that you play a land in addition. Still, at the very least, this land can go into literally any draft deck. While it’s not as good as Myriad Landscape, it easily sees play in Commander.

Did Warped Landscape see play in Standard?

With the Khans of Tarkir fetchlands no longer in Standard when Shadows over Innistrad arrived, some speculated that Warped Landscape would be good for Battle for Zendikar-block Landfall triggers. It's good that you can play it and use its ability in the same turn for two triggers. So, it was possibly that it could see a smattering of play. While the basic land coming into play tapped puts it on par with a land like Evolving Wilds - although Wilds doesn’t tap for mana.

Still, you can’t ask a lot from a non-basic land printed at common. It definitely was a high pick in Shadows Over Innistrad drafts and sealed deck tournaments, especially in top competitive play. Shortening your deck and fixing your mana is always going to be important, especially when mana fixing is at a premium. But Warped Landscape didn't make the cut in competitive Standard deck.

Does Warped Landscape see play in other formats?

Somewhat predictably, Warped Landscape has seen a fair amount of Commander play, especially in the Landfall-happy Omnath, Locus of Rage decks. Getting two 5/5 Elemental tokens is pretty good, after all! It sees play in a lot of lists, and while it's not an optimal play in the competitive Commander environment, it's still a card that people jam into EDH decks well into 2017.

According to deckbox.org, Warped Landscape is still added to decklists all of the time, even if they are casual, "kitchen table" type decks. Mana fixing is always good to have, especially when you're working with a limited pool of cards. This is always going to be a great common land to have around and being colorless, it can fit into pretty much any deck if need be.

Magic the Gathering (MTG) Content Creator Spotlight - The Planeswalker Project

11/23/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

The Planeswalker Project is a Magic the Gathering based YouTube channel dedicated to helping new and experienced players enjoy the game on a greater level. You can find the Planeswalker Project on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yPjg3sbsvUX-hjFynstNw.

You can also find the Planeswalker Project on Twitter @PlanesProject.

Q1: How did you get into Magic the Gathering and what do you like most about the game?

Planeswalker Project: Back in around 2003 I think, I was at summer camp and at the time, I mostly played Yugioh. That was my card game of choice back then. I also collected Pokemon cards, but that was about it in terms of card games. A few kids were playing Magic, and watching them play intrigued me. They let me use one of their decks to play, it was a green deck with stuff from Onslaught block. I remember it had cards like Titanic Bulvox, Avatar of Might, Hundroog. I just sorta used that for some time, and maybe a year later, I actually bought my own deck. It was the 8th Edition Heavy Hitters deck with Rhox. That was my first deck I owned, and since then I've phased in and out of the game, until around 2013, while at college I got into a playgroup who liked to play regularly, and since my interest in Yugioh had long been waning for various reasons, I started indulging a great deal more into Magic.

I think the thing I like most about the game is just the personality of the game. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and to me, one of the things that drew me into Magic was the similarities I found to the world of Middle Earth. I love the character that each color represents, and how you can find qualities of yourself in the colors of Magic. I think the reason I dove so into Commander was that each Commander deck can very much represent a game I want to play, a character I'd like to portray, in ways I don't think you can really achieve in Modern or Standard. The choices of each card to include really make me feel my deck is representative of my playstyle, and I really like that creative outlet.

ElspethFTW: Never thought about the similarities between Magic and Lord of the Rings, but I guess there are some. Now that you mention it, hobbits would be a real cool addition to Magic. :-P

Q2: You focus a lot of your content on EDH / Commander. What’s your history with the format?

Planeswalker Project: As I said earlier, I got into a playgroup around 2012-2013, I was in my first few years of college, and a friend of mine played the format just as it was getting big. He had gotten the initial set of Commander precons, and showed me the format, as the only real deck I used often was my casual Elf deck, which has now become my Pauper Elves deck. So after the game we played where I borrowed his other Commander deck, that night I went home and tried putting together my first Commander deck. It morphed between a few Commanders, I had Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Rhys the Redeemed, Grand Arbiter Augustin, and eventually it became my main format. I had brief stints in Standard and I do have a Modern deck or two, but I grew to prefer Commander for the freedom of the format and the more fun multiplayer aspect of it. When I began doing YouTube, I sorta was all over the place with what I was putting out in terms of content, but after I did a few Commander videos, I found I absolutely adored brewing new decks and just building Commander decks in general.

ElspethFTW: Being a singleton format, Commander offers so many more deck-building possibilities and really it has the largest potential card pool of any format, since cards that aren’t good in 60-card Magic are suddenly powerhouses in Commander. :D That’s my favorite part of it.

Q3: As a format, do you believe that Commander is a great way to introduce players to MtG?

Planeswalker Project: So I do feel Commander is a great format to get new players into. Once you can get down the basic rules of the game, and those are solid and grasped, I feel Commander is one of the best formats in the game. I don't really like Standard for the rotations and the cost, especially if that $400 deck I put together is rendered obsolete by the time the next block rotates out. Modern is okay, but I'm not one for super quick cutthroat games. With Commander, I feel it has a board-game quality to it in that games can last longer, you have more crazy interactions with cards, and you can invest into a deck and not have to worry about it rotating out or losing cards to banlists. I know we've had a few bans and unbans over the years, but even then, your playgroup can give the okay to use these cards even if they're banned.

As for someone getting into the format, I feel Commander offers the most level playing field for new players. I think it's the only format that you can go buy a precon Commander deck, sit down with friends, and be able to play right away with some degree of success. You can't buy a Planeswalker deck, go to FNM and hope to stand a chance with the kid who's running a properly built Standard deck. Most newer players can't buy into a draft and be able to pick out the cards from each rotation that will fit their pool properly. I cannot imagine any person buying into a $800 Modern deck they have no idea they'll like to play. With Commander, you can spend $35 and get a deck that, should you find you dislike, you can dismantle it for parts and build another deck using some of the key staples you get in them. I feel the Commander precons are the only product Wizards produces in terms of preconstructed decks worth getting for immediate play.

I also feel that as a format, the gameplay can be a lot more fun. You can make bargains with your playmates, you can do sneaky deals, and you can build your deck to reflect your playstyle. I feel the format offers a great deal of personalization, so much moreso than any other format. You see Modern Merfolk and 90% of decklists are similar, whereas I can be facing off against someone running a Commander in a completely different direction from myself.

ElspethFTW: Commander is so wide-open as far as deckbuilding is concerned. You can go in so many directions and really put your mark on a deck. I’ve noticed even in 1v1 Commander decks on Magic Online, no two decks are the same, and that’s a highly competitive format!

Modern, Pauper, and Commander are the only formats I play anymore. Usually in Modern it’s janky stuff that I build, since I don’t have $800 to build a “proper” deck. Pauper has been stuck in there being a few really dominant decks although it’s still possible to win with a rogue deck as there is with any eternal format. But with Commander, you really can go to town with anything you want to do and be reasonably competitive in Commander, if you build your curve correctly and your synergies are strong enough.

Q4: What have you found most rewarding about running your Youtube channel?

Planeswalker Project: I think that I've found the most rewarding part of being a Magic Youtube creator is the sense of satisfaction when I can help players in their deckbuilding skill. Building Commander decks is an art. There is no such thing as a perfect deck in Commander. There will always be a bad matchup for your deck, and there is always the chance of a new card coming out that will be a great inclusion for your deck. I look at some of the decks I use that have remained relatively consistent over the years, and find that I want to improve them in some way. And if I can manage to help a player wanting to better themselves at playing the Commander format, then I've done what I want to do.

ElspethFTW: Teaching is really one of the best things YouTube videos can do, and while blogs are informative, watching someone actually do it can be really helpful :)

Q5: Is there something about MtG that you feel requires immediate attention?

Planeswalker Project: Rant incoming so apologies in advance. I know alot of folks have been upset over the recent print quality of cards; cardboard being shoddy quality and bending and warping something fierce. That's definitely a big problem. The foils are a big issue too.

ElspethFTW: Absolutely, I’ve started actually tagging Wizards of the Coast whenever I see printing/cardstock issues mentioned on social media.

Planeswalker Project: But these are all things that have been talked to death among the collective cacophony of our community and I feel Wizards is well within the ability to fix these problems. I feel the real issue with the MtG community that poses perhaps a greater threat to our solidarity and even the future of the game, something we as a community don't quite have at this time, is what I look at as our public relations as a community.

We don't really have any established code of ethics or standards on how we ought to be treating each other, since common sense doesn't seem to apply here for some. I know I personally am a very welcoming and sympathetic person. When we sit down to play Magic, you are my equal. Period. I don't understand why the golden rule doesn't seem to penetrate the realms of the multiverse but that has caused us to lose alot of potential players.

Right now we don't really have any member of the community with a voice loud enough or firm enough to resonate widely with people giving any kind of help to fix the social problems our community faces. There are aspects of the conduct of many members of the community that could use a courteous nudge towards the right direction, such as the hygiene that I myself have experienced in some instances.

There are also some aspects that need a firm foot being put down, like the sexism, and I don't really think we have someone really fighting for that in a way that is making progress. It seems even Mark Rosewater, the guy at the helm of the ship, even has trouble getting it across to people "there are women Magic players and it’s not your business to decide their place in the game. In fact, there are Magic players across the spectrums of sexualities and genders and lifestyles, and it's not your business to decide their place in the game or how you think they deserve to be treated. Don't be a dick. It's nice that opinions may vary from person to person, and everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but when a person's opinion is uneducated and biased towards old-fashioned thinking to the point it causes conflicts, it really is in part the root of the problem.

I got alot of backlash from folks for coming forward about this problem, many not wanting to "get political in Magic," but I feel that for members of the community who might find themselves in situations where they feel uncomfortable, they have voiced their concerns time and again, and there is a great deal of people who just want to overlook the problem, and others, who don't really have a solution. I hear incidents where women Magic players deal with sexist remarks, sexual harassment, I hear of LGBTQ Magic players who are harassed for being part of the LGBTQ community, and while these echo loudly in the community, we have a division of response. You have the part of the community who are advocating and wanting for a shift in attitude towards the people in our community subjected to harassment, and then you have the other side who doesn't want to hear it. They think the problem isn't as bad as it's made out to be. I've even seen some defend the game as a sort of "boys-only" kind of community, and that they want no women or LGBTQ players, which I find ridiculous. It is a card game, it's for every person who wants to play the game.

And I get that alot of folks playing Magic use it as an escape from the harshness of reality; I know I use the game as a form of escapism. They don't want the problems they hear and deal with in the real world to translate to the game they enjoy. But for the women who play Magic, for the Magic fans who are LGBTQ, who want to play Magic and enjoy the game as well, who are subject to the same sexist crap they want to play the game to get away from, still faced with the same crap, it can be a real turnoff to the game.

And I get that not all playgroups have the same unwelcoming attitude, I know many to be a very welcoming and open group who just want to play Magic. But for every person who chooses to leave the game of Magic because they're tired of being mistreated by the community, even if it's just a small trollish minority of the community, that's one more person who has had a negative experience with the game, one more person who will never recommend the game to a friend, and one more person who misses out on the fun that can be had.

And when you're a gaming company making a hugely popular product on the rise such as Magic, having dissatisfied customers is the last thing you want. And I've heard the rebuttal time and again, "they shouldn't let these words get to them, they write their own tragedy, social justice warriors are ruining the game defending these people" but my question is: why are they being treated this way from the getgo? Why is there this attitude towards people that they should just grin and bear being treated like this?

I saw a comment from Gaby Spartz's draft video that had LSV in it pretty recently, on her channel, saying if she wasn't present in the video that was on her channel, it would be a perfect draft video. The comment was extremely sexist and condescending to her. Why is our community, which is largely made up of let's admit it, nerds and social outcasts, even remotely okay with this sort of alienating language?

And for those who find this sort of attitude unacceptable as I do, why are we not speaking out against it? Remaining silent is pretty much condoning the remarks. When I was growing up, the hurtful bullying I endured was all from my interests being deemed "nerdy." I played video games. I played card games. I played an instrument. Because of this, I got picked on mercilessly. Now that I'm an adult, which I think the vast majority of these people making these kinds of remarks are as well, I find it entirely unreasonable to be rude like this to someone. I don't get what makes it so difficult to just be pleasant to your peers. Just play the damn game, get over yourself, and stop making a big deal your opponent happens to be a woman.

And I'm sure people grab for the torches and pitchforks because "oh no the Planeswalker Project guy is a social justice warrior!" Please. Since when is being kind and compassionate to my fellow community such a bad thing? When did society change and being an asshole become acceptable? If we are at a game store, and I hear you throwing around remarks like some of the sexist garbage I've heard tossed around, or any kind of improper language meant to pull someone down, you better know I will call you out on it.

Planeswalker Project: Now onto how we can work on this. I've degrees in communications, I know communication law inside and out. I've experience as a public relations person, I've had to look at how to foster positive attitudes and charisma in communities before. It's incredibly hard to get a collective multimillion-person community to agree, "hey, let's maybe not be such a jerk to so-and-so," when we have only scattered folks being vocal about it.

And I know that there is little chance of changing the minds of folks so deeply ingrained with their beliefs and mindsets. My only advice to those who refuse to listen, keep spouting the nonsense under your banner of "free speech", but we don't have to give you the time of day. We can put you in time out like a child. Sit in the corner with your inappropriate behavior and when you learn to act like a mature adult, then you can come play again.

ElspethFTW: I commend you on speaking out. There are others in the community, namely a few writers at Hipsters of the Coast, that are, too. I try to signal boost these “social justice warrior” types of messages as much as I can, but I know what you mean. A “PR warrior” for the Magic community may be a really important thing that needs to happen.

Yes, MtG is a form of escapism for many, as it has been for me in the past. But some people think that Magic is their way of forcing their politics on others. It does work both ways, though, unfortunately. However, we know who the real instigators of trouble are: those that want MtG to be a boys-only, mostly white-only (Europeans and Asians are usually OK with them) club. And despite what some people think, this is NOT what MtG ever was as a whole. Maybe the competitive scene, but certainly not locally. And the reason why? Because in a lot of places where the game is played at a high-level, it usually is a boys-only club. Not everywhere, certainly, but the game does have that sort of stigma against it and Wizards really wants to change that. That's very threatening to some and the push-back has been quite vocal. And so that's why there's been such a ruckus.

Quite a few unsettling things are said and done at both minor and major events by some players. But it's not being called out enough, and that's the problem. By the rules, this type of behavior actually is not tolerated at sanctioned events. It’s within the realm of a judge’s or tournament organizer's power to disqualify someone for being sexist or using hateful language I’m pretty sure. I don’t know the exact rules on this, but I’ve seen people that inform players that if they see this type of behavior to report it. The organizers WILL do something about it.

Unfortunately, a lot of people, a lot of good people, turn the other way. I really think this is as you said people don’t want to get political playing Magic. I get that. But they also shouldn’t be making people that have as much right to be playing the game as anyone feel unwelcome.

The real issues go way beyond the game. There are some people that I thought were reasonably good people being very outspoken AGAINST the push towards diversity in the Magic community. Wizards is doing everything they can to include everybody, not as a money grab, but because it’s the right thing to do.

There are going to always be sexist, racist, ignorant people out there. As long as people keep their opinions to themselves while playing the game, I don’t think there should be a problem. I see a lot of youtube videos and blogs, though, being pretty rude and angry to Wizards of the Coast for “forcing them” to share their community with LBGTQ folks and women. If they don’t want to see this happen, then just don’t be a part of it! That’s the way I see it. They can say all they want to say online and to each other but when it comes down to the local game store or tournament setting, it simply shouldn’t be tolerated.

There is always the possibility that some venues get hyper-sensitive to all this, someone reports somebody for an off-color remark and they get kicked out unfairly. I think this does actually happen, and it is possible to punish someone for just saying something dumb without knowing the whole story. What really needs to be done is to just make it clear to just play the damn game and leave your personal issues to yourself.

Those that are really a problem make it really obvious and they need to be shown the door if they are causing a big issue. I don’t think that means banning anyone or anything,, but make it clear that you’re not going to be playing in events if you’re going to be blatantly disrespectful.

But is that really possible? Maybe, maybe not. Really, people just need to be civil, and it seems that’s a problem in a lot of places right now, not just Magic.

Any other questions, comments, concerns?

Planeswalker Project: I truly, truly love the Magic community. I got so heavily involved with it at a time in my life that was very hard on me, and the people of the community are beautiful people. So to all you ladies, gentlemen, and nonbinary friends, thank you for letting me be a part of the Magic the Gathering community!

ElspethFTW: The MtG community is a great place and we’re happy to have you. :) Take care.

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** Disclaimer: I was compensated in absolutely no form for this interview. It was done purely for the good of the Magic the Gathering community and the goodness of my own heart ;)

Magic the Gathering (MTG) Content Creator Spotlight - Haus of Magic

11/23/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Haus of Magic is a YouTube channel created by a married Magic: the Gathering couple just living their life and fighting with cards. We’re really happy to have Erik and Cassie join us for an interview!

Find them on YouTube here: https://t.co/uX78hrzgVn. You can also find them on Twitter @Haus_of_Magic.

ElspethFTW: Hi Erik and Cassie! There have been some MtG couples on YouTube, but you guys always do videos together, which is really cool. That isn’t always the case. As someone who knows quite a few couples that have bonded over Magic, it’s really cool to see you guys actually doing videos together all the time.

Q1: How did Haus of Magic come to be?

Cassie: I had wanted to start a YouTube Channel for a while, since I was always get a lot of interesting comments for being a female Magic player. I also had been bugging Erik for a while about keeping a camera on us more often for Instagram Videos, because we have a lot of funny moments that just happen. We spend a lot of time together just laughing at stupid things we say and do.

Erik: She forced me into it. [laughs]. We had talked about it for a while and then she finally said “We’re doing it” and I said “OK”

Cassie: Well.. sorta. We went to a SCG Open together after having started getting back into Magic during Ixalan Prerelease (We had to take a year and a half break because weddings are expensive). We decided to draft and noticed a lot of people commented on how cool it was I played with my husband and that they wished their S.O. did the same. For us, Magic had ALWAYS been a part of our relationship, it’s probably the main reason Erik wanted to date me, so it was normal. We had a discussion on the way home about why couples don’t play Magic together and I remember ERIK suggesting we record that night. I remember because it was a huge shock to me, but I wasn’t going to say no.

ElspethFTW: So it's definitely a relationship that came out of Magic. It's always awesome to see mtg bring people together! Seems like the videos are working out well!

Q2: What’s your favorite part of doing these videos?

Cassie: I think these videos have really helped us both in a lot of ways. For one, I feel our marriage has been strengthened from them because it’s something we do together and we really focus on betting ourselves as a team. I also found myself without a lack of purpose at times after getting married, being done with school, and finding a job that really suits my needs. You spend your whole time planning for the future and then when you get there, you can feel a little lost. These videos have definitely given me something to focus on as a hobby that I enjoy, and they’ve also forced me into the Magic Community on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram so I feel I’m making friends from them! I also REALLY love researching, and I’m always trying to keep up on the latest MtG news to use on our channel. Basically, I think starting this channel has made me a better person overall.

Erik: Huh… I guess, I mean, We’re still pretty young and stuff, but just expressing our ideas and thoughts and getting feedback from different people in different walks of life and stuff. And, it’s just fun! Even if we get no likes or a million likes, I still think we’re going to do it no matter what.

ElspethFTW: I think community is the best part about content creation. I mean, at the end of the day, content is all about connecting with people. The research is probably my favorite part, too. And yeah, you gotta do it because you love it, because a lot of days you’ll get no likes and feel like the world is coming to an end. And hey, you at least have each other :) And the Magic community.

Q3: What do you enjoy most about Magic? Is there any way that Wizards could improve that aspect of the game?

Erik: So I love Tribals and I think they’re fun and great and I wish they would print more sets that are focused on some of the old and new Tribals, like they’ve done in Ixalan with the Pirates and Dinos. For me, it adds a little bit more thrill to the game. I also like what they’re doing with Slivers and Merfolk. I’m not a big fan of the decks that are no creatures and all spells. I like seeing creatures and battling, not a bunch of mana and spells. I don’t like counters, counters, counters and then play this card twice and I win (i.e. Approach of the Second Sun). To me, that’s not Magic, that’s playing a spell.

ElspethFTW: Tribal decks are awesome and Wizards is consistently making sure that popular tribes get more support. I know what you mean about creatures - I’m partial to creature-heavy decks myself. But there are times I enjoy some good ole spellslinging, too. In the early days of Magic, combos and slinging instants and sorceries at each other was really commonplace. Wizards has definitely shifted the game’s focus towards creatures, and I think it’s a good way to go. There’s still a little something for everyone, though.

Cassie: I think Erik and I both agree that Magic is a game, and we play it because it’s fun for us. I really enjoy limited formats and creating my own deck. I know that Wizards will never get rid of Net Decking, but I definitely wish it was less advertised. I feel that, for me, a big part of playing the game is making your own deck and learning the aspects of those cards. When you just take a deck that a pro made and then use that in games, to me it’s like taking out half of the game. It’s not just about battling, it’s about creating the army you’re battling with. Like I said, I know Net Decking will never go away, but maybe could we quit making articles about specific decks over and over and over again?

ElspethFTW: Deck building your way is really what Magic was always about. There’s both good and bad to net decking. The information is very useful, but it’s definitely true that people home-brew less than they used to. This leads to a lot of really cool cards not really getting their due in Standard. That’s why Magic calls the deck the “library” because it really is meant to be a collection of spells that you chose to do battle with, so I agree that the over-dependence on net decking has definitely taken away that part of the game for a lot of people. But Wizards still allows for plenty of deck-building options in each set. Still, formats get “figured out” pretty quickly, which is sort of annoying when you just want to build with the cards you have and be able to compete at a relatively decent level.

Q4: You guys stream on Twitch.tv, too. How has your experience been there and how does it compare to YouTube?

Cassie: Haha, I'll take this one. I basically forced Erik into trying twitch and the one Livestream we tried failed HORRIBLY because of our internet. We did try to do it on YouTube Live, but our speed wasn't fast enough, so we switched to Twitch. It was a massive failure, but we are hoping to buy an Ethernet Cable and try again before Christmas, so keep an eye out.

Because neither of us plays MTGOnline, it will always be us playing our decks with our webcam. Maybe we'll pop on the PS4 and kill some zombies together, but we aren't quite high-tech enough to have our faces in the bottom corner or whatever, but we're really good at dieing... So there's that.

ElspethFTW: Nothing wrong with playing paper decks on webcam, in my opinion. Streaming does take a ton of computer and bandwidth resources. I've never been able to do it effectively even with decent internet, myself. It's something I always wanted to do, though, and people love the live stuff. So it's always worth trying again.

Q5: If there’s one thing you could change about Magic, what would it be?

Erik: When they do the modern masters and specialty sets, I feel they should have cards that have not been reprinted a million times and cards that players actually want. I understand that they are trying to maintain the investment value of the original cards, but I feel in doing this they are doing a disservice to new players who never got to play with those original sets.

Cassie:I wish Magic Online was a better format. I don't like the idea of paying an identical price for an online set of cards. If I could convert my physical cards to Magic Online, or if I could get a physical copy of the cards that I buy there, I would be much happier. Like how Pokemon TCG has the ability to buy a pack, put in a code, and get those cards on their online version.

ElspethFTW: Great answers!

I do feel like they should reprint some different cards and not print some into dust. I completely agree with that, Erik.

MTGO is generally a lot cheaper than paper Magic, especially if you use one of the really good botchains like GoatBots (my personal favorite). But I do like how Pokemon TCG uses code cards. I think a lot of people have suggested that Wizards do something similar with Arena that allows people buying packs extra value, which I think is a great idea.

Thanks so much for the interview guys! Anything you'd like to say before we wrap up?

Erik & Cassie: We are just so grateful for the interview and hope we can help bring magic to new players. We love playing together and think it's a great bonding time for couples and even families. We're not a perfect couple... But we're entertaining.

ElspethFTW: Is anyone perfect? XD

Thanks so much guys. And good luck with your channel!

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** Disclaimer: I was compensated in absolutely no form for this interview. It was done purely for the good of the Magic the Gathering community and the goodness of my own heart ;)

MTG Content Creator Spotlight - T1 Glistener Elf

11/21/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Jay Stephens is Host of T1GlistenerElf on YouTube (youtube.com/c/t1glistenerelf), infect aficionado, avid deck brewer, SSBM Jigglypuff main, and proud parent of a wonderful toddler. He’s also a children’s book author and is currently working on releasing “It’s Time to Sleep: Evangeline’s Lullaby” which is inspired by his daughter. You can find my interview with Jay about his book here.

For now, let’s talk some Magical Gatherings!

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, Jay!

Q1: First, off, how did you get into Magic the Gathering?

Jay: I started out playing another popular trading card game first, and competitively at that. Longtime viewers of the channel probably already know which one it is, but I'll give a hint for everyone else: it had a TV show that, at one point, inexplicably featured card games on motorcycles…

Anyway, my friends and I would play at our cafeteria tables back in high school. Slowly, some of them brought these new cards for a very different game entirely. Mana? What was that? How did that work? Because we didn't have an LGS at the time, we had to teach ourselves, which was precisely an example of "the blind leading the blind." For instance, at one point, we thought that Leaf Gilder got a Forest out of your deck (as so many did), but we extended that to mean that Manaforge Cinder was the most broken card that we could imagine!

Even once we FINALLY knew the basics of how to play, we didn't know what formats were, so while everyone else was basically playing Lorwyn-block, I bought Cabal Coffers, Dark Ritual, Blood Pet, and X mana spells like Profane Command and Drain Life. Oh, and Hypnotic Specter, aka "Hyppy", was there. Basically, I was playing silly Legacy, which made sense since my previous game only had something like Legacy, no Standard. I thought that I was the best player in school until I was beaten by a guy who borrowed his dad's Scalpelexis mill deck that had multiple Ancestral Recall.

So to answer your question, by having an arms race with my friends without realizing it…

I know EXACTLY which card game you mean and I played it for a long time, too. And I know what you mean about having no clue what formats are and stuff, especially after playing THAT game - which I still have a soft spot for by the way…

It’s funny how when you just play with friends how these trading card games become crazy arms races. But hey, a lot of those cards you bought are great freaking cards. Hope you still have those Coffers!

Manaforge Cinder is still a pretty cool little card too. And Leaf Gilder, despite not getting you a Forest out of your deck, actually did see competitive play.

Jay: Sadly, I had to sell basically my entire collection. Without getting into personal details, custody cases can be expensive, though I think I'm finally seeing the end of that tunnel. It is one of the events that has shaped the channel, moving me away from being a competitive player and into brewing and theory crafting.

Honestly, brewing and theory crafting are two of my favorite MtG subjects. I find that life leads us in the direction of what we’re ultimately best at doing :)

Q2: It seems your MtG focus is on EDH and Eternal Formats such as Legacy and Vintage. What are your favorite MtG formats and why?

Jay: My favorite format is Legacy. The way that I see it, if we draw a Punnett Square, with skill-intensive or not on one axis and metagame diversity or not on the other, Legacy has both. Vintage is highly skill-intensive, but lacks a wide variety of decks and card selections. Modern has a rich metagame, but lacks the skill of the Brainstorm/Force of Will/etc formats. As for what is neither, well, I don't want to diss players of that format, so I'd rather not say. It also has the "best" iteration of Infect, in my opinion. The Legacy version of that deck is insanely powerful while not even remotely being "dumb" like straight aggro lists in some other formats.

I have been getting into proxy Vintage lately, though. It's amazing how much uncharted land there is to explore, on account of people not having the means (money and fellow players) and/or overstating how many "auto-includes" the format seems to prescribe. I've brewed Blazing Infect, Vedalken Storm, High Tide, and even Taking Turns.

Modern is, I firmly believe to this day, a brewer's paradise. The card pool is such that almost anything is possible, and the existence of the "turn four rule" means that a lot of strategies are given the time that they need to set up if they have even the slightest bit of interaction. It's also the first format in which I became competitive, and with Infect, no less.

EDH itself has the potential to be great, but it's so volatile that I can't say that I'm able to be too much of a fan. For one, the kind of deck that you play changes DRASTICALLY between 1v1 and pods. For example, targeted discard and counterspells tend to be bad in pods even though they are great against a single opponent, and it's easy to see why. For another, many playgroups have house rules that you might not know before you come in and, even if you do, may disagree with vehemently. For example, a guy once told me that all of the EDH games in his store, The Missing Piece, used the old "tuck rule", from friendlies to sanctioned games. Another was Dragon Star Hobbies' official league, except that the guy who ran it hated Infect and made defeats take twenty poison counters, as well as tried to ban Sol Ring before realizing that that made it where people who opened the pre-cons at the time couldn't play.

My favorite fan format, aside from the one that I made (you all should stay tuned to hear more about that one), is Tiny Leaders. I still have my Animar list ready to be rebuilt if I can ever find anyone else who still plays. I appreciate how similarly skill-intensive it is, too.

ElspethFTW: Legacy is awesome but way too expensive for me to get into competitively (at least in paper). I agree that Modern is an amazing place for brewers (as Saffron Olive continuously proves in his Against the Odds and Budget Magic series). I do know what you mean about EDH and the vast difference between 1v1 and multiplayer. They are entirely different formats. And the house rules thing is annoying for a lot of people, although I’ve never run into that problem myself. My main issue is that Wizards keeps printing all these uber-powerful cards specifically for the format. I think that’s a problem, although I get why they do it.

Tiny Leaders is a cool format and people still play it here and there but it’s not as big as it was.

Can’t wait to hear about your own new format!

Q3: How did you get into making MtG videos?

Jay: As a student at the University of Georgia (the one in Athens, not Tbilisi), I had the privilege of being able to check out a camcorder, and I used the opportunity to record some matches of mine. The primary motivation at the time was that others would watch my play and critique me, which certainly happened. Over time, it expanded to include all kinds of content, like deck techs, theory vids, vlogs, challenges like eating peppers while playing, and even other games like Super Smash Bros Melee and the (somewhat) aforementioned TCG. After a certain point, I took on the "identity" of being a "YouTuber", that ever-so-vaunted class of internet celebrity…

More importantly, I played Infect as my first deck in both Modern and Legacy, and I took a sentimental interest in Glistener Elf akin to Steve Menendian's outlook on Gush. In fact, I'm working on literally writing the book on my favorite card, an act inspired by the Vintage mage himself.

ElspethFTW: That's awesome! After all glistener elf is a staple of infect. Looking forward to that book!

I like that you have such a variety of video topics, too. Including more unique stuff because that content is more evergreen.

Q4: As someone who’s writing a childrens’ book, do you think you’ll ever write one that’s inspired by MtG?

Jay: Oh, I hadn't thought about an MtG-inspired children's book. To be honest, I think that the topic and audience might be a bit too niche, though I certainly wouldn't mind writing some if the opportunity arises. While the game is marketed as being for those of ages 13+, my two-year-old proves that the aesthetics and flavor can appeal well below that point. Perhaps a planeswalker-centric story would play well, in the same vein as many other popular stories that become adapted for children.

That notwithstanding, my focus as an author is on children's works. Since the Kickstarter campaign looks to not be meeting its goal, I'll likely have to save up slowly to finish the illustrations for this first one, then use what I earn from that to make the next and so forth. Fun fact: I used to write science-fiction, but I'm not nearly as inspired by that story as by my terrific toddler.

ElspethFTW: That was my thinking, that the flavor and art of MtG can go way beyond its original intended audience. There is copyright stuff that you’d have to consider, but I feel like Wizards would be open to some sort of licensing deal on MtG related content for a much younger audience. That is something that I don’t think has ever been explored, which is why I brought it up :)

I’ve always been a sci-fi/fantasy sort of author myself, although I have considered dabbling in children’s books, too. Kids are definitely amazing inspirations and one of these days I hope to come up with something great as you have with “It’s Time to Sleep” - but we’ll get to that book in a separate interview.

Q5: If you could change one thing about MtG, what would it be?

Jay: Oh wow! Where to even start?

Please don't get the wrong impression; I like this game an awful lot, and I wouldn't want it to become another card game altogether. Magic: the Gathering is a skill-intensive resource management game with just enough RNG to keep it from getting stale, and that's what keeps me coming back after this many years. That said, it's obviously not perfect, and even if I had an audience like the front page of Reddit, there are some things about which complaining would likely not do any good at all. *cough* Reserve List *cough*

Given all of this, the change that I would make that is the most "realistic" possibility to realize would likely be a philosophical shift to not be as strict on enforcing the "Color Pie". MtG would not be MtG if it were not for this fundamental concept, so I wouldn't want it to be thrown away. That said, more bends, and even a few breaks here and there, can make deckbuilding, especially in Standard, more creative in a way that it hasn't been in quite some time. For example, Mark Rosewater has come out in saying that Beast Within is now considered a break, even though it has its destroy effect in a very green way. Non-blue counterspells have to be done well, but Mana Tithe, Guttural Response, and even Lapse of Certainty were great examples, with the latter being so heavily costed to account for Isochron Scepter+Memory Lapse. Phyrexian Mana as a whole was a great compromise, even if the individual spells were not always appropriately costed. Time Spiral block, for the amount of complication and headaches that we had, was extremely creative for players in part because of this unique nature of the colors in Planar Chaos and its adjacent sets. Older cards are often seen in a sentimental light by players like me in part for how they were unique with being as "boxed in." (See Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast as two of my favorite examples.) I think that you all get my point by now.

ElspethFTW: I'm a huge fan of the color-shifted cards, especially when they are designed correctly. While the color pie is fundamental to Magic, it is OK to bend the rules sometimes. Your argument is that it probably could be done more often, and I agree. Otherwise you end up with a ton of functional reprints and rehashes of old effects, which has been happening a lot in recent sets, I think.

ElspethFTW: By the way, what’s RNG?

Jay: RNG means "Random Number Generation." It's the creation of a sequence of numbers or symbols that cannot be reasonably predicted better than by a random chance. While a common term in computer science, I mean that philosophically as well; I don't believe in luck, just something too complicated for us to predict.

And yes, the the reusage of old effects is part of the complaints against Standard, and its inverse is what draws people into eternal formats.

Another complaint of mine, though even less tangible, is how creature-centric Standard has become, and by extension how this phenomenon bleeds into other formats. We all know why pushed creatures are so popular; their win-condition happens to be the same, i.e. dealing enough damage, and they are easier to understand. For a long time, Standard has been evolving into Jund, where the cards that reign supreme are big creatures, cards that buff/nerf said creatures *cough* Fatal Push *cough*, or planeswalkers who create/turn into and/or buff/nerf creatures. *cough* Gideon *cough* Elspeth *cough* Chandra *cough*

That said, I cannot sing the praises of alternate win-cons enough. There's perhaps nothing quite like seeing Feline Longmore win with High Tide, or watching Reid Duke cast his third Paradoxical Outcome before finding Tendrils of Agony, or rewatching old clips of Stanislav Cifka combo off with Eggs to win a Pro Tour, or seeing Stax slowly lock the game away before whichever win-con they picked out of a hat closing the game, or watching 8-Rack or Pox tear its opponent's hand apart. The game hasn't always been about big, dumb creatures beating face over and over again; it used to have more variety. This, I believe, is another appeal to formats like Legacy and Vintage.

ElspethFTW: Honestly, I think creatures are fine, but they shouldn’t be 100 percent of a game like Magic that really was built around casting spells strategically. The creatures were always meant to just be part of your spellbook. While I love aggro decks and am very partial to creature-centered decks (as are many players) I really appreciate the spell-slinging and the intricacies of how Magic was played 10-plus years ago. For example, I really like Paradoxical Outcome and I’m just waiting for people to realize just how truly amazing a card it is… as if Reid Duke’s mastery of it isn’t enough!

And I love Elspeth and her planeswalkers have always been involved with creating creature tokens. But I know what you mean about creatures absolutely taking over the game and I realize there are still a lot of Magic players that hate that. And I agree that’s why Vintage and Legacy still have their appeal. However, it is still possible to build spell-centered decks (like the Blue/White Cycling deck I found today that’s actually pretty cool) and have them be competitive.

What bothers me personally is how you end up with cards like Fatal Push which are so horribly pushed for competitive play that they pop up everywhere. While staples are going to pop up since some cards are just clearly good, Lightning Bolt for example, Fatal Push is just absurdly pushed. It’s like, oh crap, we made creatures too good so here’s an answer.

I actually always really liked Dismember because there is skill built into the card (do I pay 2 life or 4 life in order to deal with this threat?) But again, we need all this removal because creatures really do a lot in today’s game. I think that it’s an understandable shift, but even for me, someone who loves creatures, I do wish that decks with more complexity and require more skill to piilot got more spotlight.

Before we wrap up, anything you’d like to add?

Jay: I do have three quick postscripts to add. Firstly, thank you for doing this interview with me. I greatly appreciate it, and I'm all to happy to yap for you, too.

Secondly, shoutouts to Tom Ross, patron saint of Infect, for his new job in Play Design at WotC. I've said this before, but I can think of no more qualified candidate today.

Lastly, in case she ever reads this one day… Evangeline, darling, I love you more than you know.

Thank YOU for your insights! Conversations like this are why I do these interviews. And it's awesome that Tom is part of the Design Team. I can't wait to see what he can bring to the game behind the scenes!

And I really hope that you can get your childrens books out there, especially the one that was inspired by Evangeline directly: "It's Time to Sleep: Evangeline's Lullaby." I'm always happy to help authors, as it's part of what I do in the "real world." :)

You and Evangeline take care!

P.S. You really should check out Jay’s children’s book that he’s working on! “It's Time to Sleep: Evangeline’s Lullaby” is an original lullaby and children's book about the joy of sleeping and the fun to be had each day. Written by Jay Stephens, it was inspired by his own daughter. He hopes to share this awesome lullaby with children around the world. You can find my interview with Jay about his book here.

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** Disclaimer: I was compensated in absolutely no form for this interview. It was done purely for the good of the Magic the Gathering community and the goodness of my own heart ;)

MTG Content Creator Spotlight: Interview with LifeBeginsAt20

11/21/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

Life Begins at 20 is a Magic the Gathering Youtuber that talks MTG Cube, Limited, and Sealed. His channel also features Product Openings and more! (YouTube.com/LifeBeginsAt20). Also, check out his website at LifeBeginsAt20.co.uk.

Q1. How did the Life Begins at 20 channel begin?

LB20: Originally, I was getting invested in MTG and like many people I don't do things with half effort. I watched as much content as I could about magic and found cube with Milo's channel. The downside was he was leaving the hobby at the time and with not much other cube content out there I thought, well I edit for a living and I know how to make content, this wouldn't be so hard to create videos. I couldn't have been any more misinformed! There is so much to learn behind the scenes with YouTube alongside the video creation so after time I got to a point where I felt I knew a little bit, but the overall goal was to help newer players, like myself, get into the amazing format that is cube!

GS: Milo was one of my favorite YouTubers for a long time. I’m glad he came back!

LB20: For sure! He's amazing.

Q2. What attracted you to the cube format? what do you like the most about it?

LB20: I think it was Milo's infectious personality that really sold to the format and seeing his holiday cube game videos with the exciting gameplay and amazing cards, I thought that this was for me. I'm not the biggest constructed player but I loved limited and this was the perfect way to create the limited environment I wanted to give other players. Being able to play with the best and most iconic cards throughout Magic wasn't a tough sell!

GS: Cube is an awesome format, and I’ve always wanted to build one myself. It allows you to build a collection in a really fun way.

Q3. Do you think cube is a format that Wizards should recognize and support?

LB20: I think there needs to be more, possibly in terms of just MTGO, where having more cube events would be great. I'm not asking for the same Vintage cube or Modern cube all the time, but possibly different community player's cubes available or pauper and so on. This way it becomes a little more visible and easier to access to players all over the world, rather than hoping you know someone at your LGS that has one. This I think would be the best way to introduce more people to the format. I'd also love to see a cube event held by wizards or scg with commentary and so on which would give the format the much needed publicity as there are so many people that don't know anything about it at all. It is, at least in my biased opinion, the best way to play magic.

GS: If you could build your own cubes on MTGO, I’d be playing them all the time.

LB20: I think community cubes would be cool. They did way back with the cube where no colour acted the way it should.

Q4. With all the demonetizing of YouTube videos going on, where do you see the future of Magic on YouTube?

LB20: The demonetization is frustrating, but having looked further into it, it doesn't mean that no advertisers are going to appear on your videos but potentially (being the key word here) advertisers that suit your content will still. It's not a great atmosphere at the moment and is causing problems, but I can't see it affecting MTG on youtube much, purely because Patreon can and does far more than Ad-Revenue can ever do for MTG creators. The money the big creators brings in through ad revenue, while still noticeable, won't ever be as much as the big gaming or vlogging channels, but the Patreons keep everything going. I don't think we will ever see a 1 million plus subscriber channel with this niche, but as long as we all help one another in terms of promoting content and channels and creating high quality videos it can only benefit the community.

GS: Patreon is pretty amazing in what it can do for content creators.

Q5. If there is one thing you could change about magic, what would it be?

LB20: Hmmm, this is a tough one, for a lot of people I'd imagine it would be reprinting a lot of the reserved list cards, but for me I'd probably say I'd want to improve the print quality of sets. Too many times now since I'd say kaladesh have sets come out with worse and worse card stock or printing defects. Conspiracy 2 was awful for print quality and the most recent standard sets have been bending far too quickly. I get that inflation kicks in for a business with the card and ink and so on, but I'd like my cards to look like they're worth something or have the price is reduced for the packs. I can't believe it's that difficult a fix in all honesty and it's certainly putting me off purchasing cards at this moment in time.

GS: As someone who hasn’t purchased many recent cards, I didn’t realize this was a growing problem. But it comes up all the time now. They just need to fix it. Magic cards have always been such high quality and they need to get back to maintaining that status.

LB20: Indeed, it shouldn't be like this. The double sided cards from ixalan in the light are translucent. At least the early print runs, they may have fixed that now.

Double faced cards are expensive to print compared to regular ones, but yeah, that's unacceptable. I sure hope they fix these issues soon!

I'm sure they will but for Now, bar the couple packs of iconic masters I've pre ordered, I'm sticking to pauper as I don't mind cheap cards being lesser

GS: What do you think of Iconic Masters? The sheer number of important reprints is blowing my mind!

For cube players this is probably the best set of reprints I've seen, plus my upcoming pauper cube have certainly had some great downshifts too

GS: The new cards for pauper are amazing. I think Mind Stone is one of them. Wight of Precinct Six, Virulent Strike, Thrill-Kill Assassin, lots of cube worthy cards! There’s a whole list of Iconic Masters rarity shifts on Epicstream.

LB20: Yup and others I've purchased were Seeker of the Way, Thrill-Kill Assassin and more.

GS: Seeker is amazing for pauper.

LB20: I think pauper is a format I might get more into, cheap and still exciting. But the pauper cube will be my first focus. Ordered so many cards for it!

GS: Yeah I saw your status about it. Looking forward to that!

Anything you'd like to share before we wrap up?

LB20: The only thing I'd add is to the end of question 4. And that's mainly a message to anyone viewing content, whether it's mine or anyone else. Subscribing and commenting is free and makes a huge difference to the creators that make the content for you. Just simply click and hit the bell notification icon, it honestly means a lot to any small or big creator. Definitely don't be afraid to say hi, we don't bite!

GS: That's a great point. As content creators, we like to be reminded that people care :-P

Yup, it does help motivate us all :)

Good luck with your pauper cube and the channel! Cheers!

---

** Disclaimer: I was compensated in absolutely no form for this interview. It was done purely for the good of the Magic the Gathering community and the goodness of my own heart ;)

MTG Content Creator Spotlight - Cody Cockerham of Nerd Knowledge Pool on Twitch.tv

11/21/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

A twitch.tv gaming extraordinaire, Cody Cockerham runs the Nerd Knowledge Pool stream! (https://www.twitch.tv/NerdKnowledgePool). While Magic the Gathering Online isn’t the only thing he streams, it’s a big part of what he does. According to Cody himself, he’s an aspiring author and connoisseur of all things Geek. He may just be the “total package.”

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, Cody!

Q1: How did you get into Twitch.TV streaming?

A good friend of mine and I started a YouTube channel where we tried to capitalize on the "Let's Play" trend. Sadly, our schedules conflicted a lot, things rarely got done on time, and YouTube had just started making it difficult for smaller channels to gain traction. I looked at Twitch as an opportunity to express myself creatively, and it had the fortunate side effect of a greater degree of interactivity with my audience. Nowadays, if you're a viewer on my channel, you're a friend in my book, because twitch fosters that kind of relationship for growing affiliates.

I really like Twitch and prefer it to YouTube, especially for streaming. I'm glad you've enjoyed so much success on there!

That being said, I always support Magic and other gaming Youtubers because that's their platform of choice and there are pros and cons to it.

Yeah, absolutely. I try to do my part to support MTG content creators on YouTube as well. Those folks are putting in a crazy amount of effort, and it shows on most of the channels. I have nothing but love for my YouTube brethren.

MTG on YouTube has become something of a microcosm of the platform itself. There are the colossal juggernauts, Your Markipliers or TCC's, but then there are smaller channels making high quality content that deserve a larger audience. I like to call attention to channels like La'ronn Readus, and Jake & Joel Are Magic.

Also, sorry if I'm coming off as wordy. My, admittedly limited, experience has left me passionate in my opinions.

Q2: I know that Magic isn’t the only game that you stream. What else do you like to stream? Which do you enjoy streaming the most?

I'm a huge fan of the rogue-like genre. My most played games that aren't MTG are probably The Binding of Isaac, FTL, and the like. I also love to dip into the Twitch "flavor of the week" every now and then, and as a result I've been addicted to PUBG and Fortnite BR lately. Still, Magic will always be home.

I'm personally a big fan of playing a variety of games. I haven't gotten to recently, but it's good to experience a bunch of different games, no matter how awesome MTG is.

I love watching people play rogue type games but I suck at them lol.

Q3: As someone who streams a lot of MTGO, I’m sure you’re excited about MTG Arena. Of course, both will still exist. Do you see yourself playing more Arena in the future?

I'm looking forward to Arena, I think everyone I talk to with even half an ear to the ground is, but I imagine I'll be enduring MODO's interface for a while longer. I'm a Modern/Commander man from way back, and from what I've heard Arena won't support those formats, at least not out of the gate. Moreover, like many Magic players, I've invested a great deal in my collection online. To my knowledge, the Mothership has yet to suggest support for my favorite formats in Arena, let alone a tool to move my collection over.

Of course, this is entirely predicated on the assumption that I haven't missed any huge news drops.

Yeah, fortunately, it seems like they are starting with this Standard format and looking forward. But who knows what the future will hold and how many Standard players will abandon MTGO entirely. It’s a wait and see thing.

Q4: Besides the obvious need for an upgraded client, what else would you like to see changed about MTGO?

Honestly, I've embraced the meme that Wizards needs to fix the client, but I love MTGO. I'm first to crack wise about the bad interface, but the opportunity to play Magic with people from all over the world isn't something I take for granted. If pushed, maybe we could use an easier means of filing bug reports, but beyond that? I'm happy.

There really is no better way to test decks any time of day, or play limited whenever you want.

Q5: What’s some advice you could give to aspiring gaming streamers, Twitch.TV or otherwise?

Above all else? Have a schedule. People will show up, even if you're as bland and boring as I am, but you have to be regular if you want any chance of retaining that audience.

ElspethFTW: Exactly, consistency is everything. People have so many content outlets these days that they can just forget you, often unintentionally.

Anything else you think I should ask?

Cody: I think you've killed it, amigo. You're a great interviewer. That's a rare talent.

ElspethFTW: Thanks so much, Cody. I really enjoy these interviews, and you’ve been a great guest! Good luck with your stream!

---

** Disclaimer: I was compensated in absolutely no form for this interview. It was done purely for the good of the Magic the Gathering community and the goodness of my own heart ;)

MTG Content Creator Spotlight - The Whole Box and Dice

11/21/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

The Whole Box and Dice is an Australian based Magic The Gathering (MTG), Dragon Ball Super (DBS) & Hearthstone player. The channel is a lot about what Coops loves about TCGs whether that be cracking packs, building decks and assessing meta and finance. On his channel you will likely find set previews/reviews, “Can we flip it” booster pack series - booster pack, bundles and booster box openings, plus budget, janky and competitive deck builds and deck techs.

Find The Whole Box and Dice on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNSu735Hp0RYxsLCTK29ntA/featured

The channel also has a Patreon @ https://www.patreon.com/TheWholeBoxAndDice

You can also find Coops of The Whole Box and Dice on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WholeBoxandDice

So, let’s get down to our interview with Coops from Whole Box and Dice

Q1: How did the Whole Box and Dice YouTube Channel come to be?

Coops: Great question. The channel came to be after some encouragement from friends and fellow TCG players who thought the world would like to see my janky brews and openings. My partner was completing a PHD at the time so I had plenty of spare hours to learn how to shoot, edit and produce content.

Awesome! Looks like it worked out well for you!

Q2: Magic the Gathering isn’t the only game your channel is about. You also have lots of videos about Dragon Ball Super and other TCGs. How do you feel those videos are received by your MTG audience and vice versa?

Coops: It was a very real fear I had when I uploaded my first non MTG video. Whilst I play other games I started the channel exclusively covering MTG content and honestly wasn't sure what the reaction would be. I guess just as everyone gets introduced to MTG (or other TCGS) through their friends, advertising and or YouTube, I hope that my channel can facilitate that introduction to a new game.

My belief is that if you can create strong content around it, even if it's not what your primary audience usually is looking for, you should just make it. Because it's YouTube, people don't have to watch it if they don't want to! Even though my focus is primarily MTG, I've written about Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon and some other not TCGs, too.

Q3: As someone who plays a variety of TCGs, what do you think Magic could do better that other TCGs do. In other words, what could Wizards learn from games like Dragon Ball Super and other TCGs?

Coops: Glad to chat to someone else who isn't afraid of a little diversity. That is a very good question and one I think about a lot as I play and review other TCGS. I think with the launching of MTG Arena, a code card like in a Pokemon booster would be great, maybe even a special code in a PR kit. In DBS for example they have god packs which I know use to feature in MTG, that is definitely something that makes opening sealed product more enjoyable, I love the thrill of the chase

ElspethFTW: As someone that has played a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon TCG, I think it’s actually good to play more than one game. Things you learn from one game can actually apply to other games. My aggressive strategies in Yu-Gi-Oh have tended to carry over to Magic, for example.

I like the booster pack code card idea as they work great in Pokemon, althoguh I HATE the online Pokemon TCG. The god packs are freaking awesome and I loved when they did those during Theros block - they should’ve done them for Amonkhet, too, honestly. The Amonkhet Gods are really, really good, too.

I used to love opening sealed product, too, but I don’t have the funds to fuel that part of the hobby now. I just collect singles now. But hey, somebody has to open the product first, right? :-P

Q4: The YouTube MTG community is very strong with a lot of different (many of them colorful) personalities. Who are among your favorites and why?

Coops: Very colourful indeed, haha. I am a massive fan of Dev from SBMTG, he was a huge inspiration of mine, being someone who wasn't afraid to put out weird and wacky deck ideas that were still competitive. Recently I have been watching a lot of Jake and Joel as they dive into the world of MTG finance, a topic I find really interesting. I am going to cheat and throw in Matt (Total MTG) & Sam (SamBall49) who mainly stream Magic but are just all round legends who put out great product.

ElspethFTW: MTG Finance is my thing actually. Unfortunately I haven't gotten to see Jake and Joel's quiet speculation work since you need to be an insider for that.

Coops: Yeah, I subbed for a month to check it out. it seems really good, just very $$$ IMO. I think if you take the time to learn about the market you can kind of circumnavigate the need for paid services like that.

Like I bought a whole bunch of Gideon at 8.99 USD and Chandra at sub $20. Yeah, it helps to get those tips but if you follow MTG it isn't too difficult to make some money.

ElspethFTW: Yeah I learned a lot of that stuff on my own but paying for the tips can be worth it when you profit.

Q5: Do you like where Magic the Gathering is going currently? Why or why not?

Coops: That is a very tricky one. Recently I was feeling a bit burned by the mass standard rotation that we experienced. Losing so many cards definitely made it harder for me to get my energy up for the new sets, but the silver lining of longer standard blocks did help. I am definitely more a standard/limited player so the focus on these master sets (which seem to be coming out more and more frequently) is a little bit of a concern for me but as long as standard is looked after I am ok with it. I am very excited for the launch of MTG Arena and I think they have hit a home run with Ixalan so fingers crossed.

ElspethFTW: I’m sure standard will be fine, especially if they want to have arena do well. And Ixalan maybe one of the best magic sets I've ever seen.

Before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Coops: It has been fun. I will say one thing, a huge thank you to anyone who has ever liked or commented on my content and an even bigger thank you to those who have subscribed. It may seem trivial to a lot of people out there but clicking those buttons for your favourite YTers or Twitch streamers can mean the world.

It really can. Just one like goes a long way.

Thanks so much for your time Coops!

Coops: Too easy, mate. I had a lot of fun doing it.

---

** Disclaimer: I was compensated in absolutely no form for this interview. It was done purely for the good of the Magic the Gathering community and the goodness of my own heart ;)

MTG Content Creator Spotlight - Jake and Joel are Magic

11/21/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Jake and Joel are Magic is a Comedy MtG YouTube channel. Their tagline is: Real. Funny. Magic. Subscribe to them on YouTube for silliness here: https://www.youtube.com/jakeandjoelaremagic. You can also find Jake and Joel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jakejoelmtg

Q1: How did you two start out on YouTube?

J&J: Joel has always been a watcher of YouTube, but not a creator until this year. He wanted to start a YouTube channel just to learn what it's like from the inside out. It seemed like a good fit with our love of MtG to start a channel relevant to that!

Q2: In creating this YouTube channel, what would you say your greatest challenges have been? How could others learn from them?

J&J: Greatest challenge is essentially the greatest challenge for starting anything: knowing nothing beforehand and possibly getting bogged down in too much planning. My advice to anyone starting anything, a creative pursuit or business or hobby or whatever, is just START DOING IT. Read enough from blogs, books, or watch a YouTube video to give you a basic understanding and then GO. Learning through experience is 1000 times more valuable than "getting ready" or "waiting for your great idea."

Start a channel for ANYTHING if you want to start a channel. You'll learn SO much and when you get your great idea, you'll be ready to execute. You won't have to worry about losing time to learning how to cut, add transitions, optimize audio, or any basic foundation stuff (in the case of a YouTube channel).

There's a business quote I like to keep in mind, "if you launched without errors, you waited too long."

Just do it. Like Shia says. “Just do it! Don’t let your dreams be dreams!”

Best advice a somewhat unhinged celebrity has ever given. ;)

Honestly, I'll tell you and your viewers to go back and watch our very first video and then our most recent video. I leave it online for this exact conversation.

I go back and watch it periodically, when I can handle the cringe. Haha

ElspethFTW: Exactly, you just have to start doing. Everyone is going to screw up along the way, but if you overplan, then it may never get started!

Q3: How did the partnership with Quiet Speculation come about?

J&J: Chaz from their team reached out and let us know they were expanding their content offerings and asked if we wanted to create a weekly show with a finance focus ala Last Week Tonight or the Daily Show

It came from Twitter networking, most practically. For people looking for actionable tips :) we had done a few financial episodes (Jake is really interested in that side of the game) so it seemed like a good fit! Especially since they wanted a more comedic tone that differs from their podcast, which they were already doing

ElspethFTW: That's cool! Unfortunately I don't have a Quiet Speculation subscription so I haven't been able to see anything from that. But I'm glad it's working out for you guys! And Twitter networking definitely works.

Q4: You guys do a little bit of everything on your channel, which is great. How do you keep it fresh, especially when you’re doing comedy with MtG?

J&J: No, we just try to come from an honest place. YouTube is where disingenuous creators go to die. Our biggest aim is to make each other laugh and we assume past that, we'll make other people laugh.

ElspethFTW: Keepin’ it real! :)

Q5: And my favorite question to ask, if you could change one (or more, really) things about Magic, what would it/they be?

Jake: I would have learned to play in ‘93, when I was a wee lad, and got hooked early, that way I would be sitting on a bunch of power.

ElspethFTW: I had a chance to get into the game back in 1995 or so. If I had, I’d probably have a pile of Reserved List cards myself! But I had another chance when dual lands were still like $25 each. Hindsight is 20/20 :D

Joel: I would change up the story. I understand having a common core group of characters but I really think we could skip sets of them and catch back up. Maybe a villains storyline.

ElspethFTW: I love the idea of following villains. Those tend to be really compelling stories for me. My solution would be to have a cast but focus on one or two characters per block. I like that Ixalan came back to Vraska - she’s a lot more popular than I think some people realized. It’s good to have familiar characters, but it doesn’t have to be the same five all the time and I think that’s where Wizards has been taking it too far.

Also, Elspeth WILL RETURN from the Underworld and get her revenge on Heliod as a white/black Planeswalker that will be the next Jace, the Mind Sculptor and get banned in Standard :D

Before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd guys like me to ask, or something else to say before we crack a few beers and call it a day? (Rhyming not intentional)

J&J: Yeah, the "Jace is in everything" meme notwithstanding, I've enjoyed Ixalan so far. And I really thought Amonkhet/Hour of Devastation was a homerun. To me that one was strangely less focused on the Gatewatch and more focused on the betrayal of the plane by Bolas. Seeing the citizens and gods slowly realize they had been tricked and the fallout from that was great. Dramatic irony! Always good storytelling.

ElspethFTW: They did a great job with Amonkhet. It was an excellent piece of worldbuilding.

J&J: Really appreciate everything you do for the community and wish you the best. MtG has really found itself community-wise over the last two years and we both hope it just keeps growing. Really looking forward to what next year holds with it being the 25th anniversary and a return to dominaria. Then we have arena on the horizon that will finally push the game into the 20th century!

Yes, I said 20th.

ElspethFTW: Hopefully, we can push it into the 21st at some point soon :D Take care you guys and keep up the great work!

---

** Disclaimer: I was compensated in absolutely no form for this interview. It was done purely for the good of the Magic the Gathering community and the goodness of my own heart ;)

MTG Content Creator Spotlight - MPNumbers

11/20/2017

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

MPNumbers is a casual Aussie Affiliated TCG streamer on Twitch (twitch.tv/mpnumbers). He can also be found on YouTube: http://youtube.com/MPNumbers . You can also follow him on Twitter @Numbers_MTG.

He’s also Creator/Host of the @creaYTors YouTube series, which is a new MTG series challenging up and coming Youtubers to create specific videos. The series can be found here on YouTube. The CreaYTors series is actually the focus of our Content Creator Spotlight Interview today!

Thanks for joining us today, MPNumbers!

Q1: First off, how did you start out on Twitch and YouTube?

MP: Honestly streaming is something I'd been wanting to do for a long time. I've always had a passion for learning, teaching and sharing my knowledge. In regards to MTG, I'm not a 'good' player but I love to learn from my mistakes and let others learn with me.

I had planned to start streaming many years ago, but living in outback Australia with terrible internet and a really old PC it just wasn't an option. In 2016 when my daughter was born, I had some time off and had recently moved to an area with better internet and had an upgraded PC.
I knew what I wanted to do as I had watched so many streamers, so I ended up finding a tutorial by Gaby Spartz on how to set up and what programs you need to use, fired it up and went live.

YouTube was more of a back up plan because I wanted to make sure people who wanted to watch my games still had access if they couldn't catch me live.

ElspethFTW: Awesome!

Q2: What inspired you to create the CreaYTors series?

MP: CreaYTors came around from my lifelong love of reality/competition style TV series. (Survivor/Inkmaster/Taskmaster/cooking competitions of all varieties). I realised there isn't much out there to challenge content creators, especially smaller ones, and decided to put something together and being MTG creator myself, it seemed like the best way to focus.

The goal is to help small youtubers get to know each other, maybe think about creation in a way they didn't previously and learn a few new skills they didn't have before through feedback.

It's been lots of fun so far!

ElspethFTW: It’s an extraordinary idea!

Q3: Where do you see the future of Magic YouTubing and Twitch streaming, especially with MTG Arena on the horizon?

MP: MTG Arena has such potential, especially for those of us who create gameplay videos/streams. Everything I've read and heard make it look like Arena is going to be designed really for us - the creators - to make better quality products and really push digital magic into the future.

Unfortunately because so much is unknown, it could be so bad for MTG if arena is a flop. People have been sick of MTGO since before I started playing it and it’s only a matter of time till people give up completely.

ElspethFTW: As I’ve discussed with many others already, Arena could be an amazing boon for the game, if done correctly. It’s especially what MTG needs to compete with Hearthstone in eGaming. Wizards knows the value of streaming now, which is awesome.

Right now, Arena’s focusing on the future. But if it really takes off, Wizards will be forced to allow people to play other formats and eventually even perhaps port collections. I’d be fine with that.

But as you said, there is the danger it could flop. I’m optimistic that it won’t. It looks awesome!

Q4: I think we all agree Wizards can do better on the digital front, but do you think they’re headed in the right direction now?

MP: Not being lucky enough to get early access to Arena, I can't say definitively if it's in the right direction. The fact that they are actively and openly attacking the issue of their digital offerings now is positive. If the content that we've seen from Wizards is true to the program, I definitely think we're going the right way.

ElspethFTW: I’m sure it’s all genuine. Wizards is banking a ton on this program.

Q5: Besides the obvious digital shortcomings that Magic has had, is there anything else you think needs to be changed or improved about Magic?

MP: There's always going to be things about the game that people aren't going to like. Every issue I've really had has been looked into and is being worked on from within the company.

My main issue is the international recognition from Wizards. They tend to live in their own backyard and forget that we exist across the ocean. For example if you live in Australia and manage to qualify for an online PTQ, you need to be ready to be up 2am Monday morning and probably take the day off work to play in it.

Also when’s the last time you saw a non-American streamer in a Wizards sanctioned streamer showdown?

ElspethFTW: You bring up an excellent point! In my chats with UK content creators, I get the feeling that they don’t get nearly enough attention compared to US-based creators. I imagine it’s even more difficult for Aussies! They definitely need to take international players into consideration for scheduling major events, creating separate online events if they have to!

While Magic Europe is doing better for helping bring attention to UK and European content creators, I think they should have one for Australia too! The game has been there a long time, too!

MtG is definitely an international game. While there are logistical issues to work out, international gaming events work out all the time and Wizards should follow that example.

Thanks so much for your time!

---

** Disclaimer: I was compensated in absolutely no form for this interview. It was done purely for the good of the Magic the Gathering community and the goodness of my own heart ;)

If you're a Magic the Gathering blogger, vlogger, podcaster, or other content creator, we'd love to interview you on Gaming Successfully! We’ll also interview the owners and/or team members from Magic-related websites and businesses, as well.

Any other Gaming bloggers and vloggers are welcome too! We are always working to get exposure for both up-and-comers and established content creators.

Interested? Tweet me at @wintargetgame on Twitter (replies only, I don't really check DM's).

Alternatively, you can email me at wintargetgame@gmail.com. I'm fine with doing interviews on Twitter or by email.

At this time, I'm not doing instant message, podcast, or video interviews. (However, if you are a podcaster or video producer, I will interview you on either Twitter or by email. Due to little kids and other commitments, I can't be live on camera or on a podcast right now.)

Magic the Gathering: Ixalan - Vraska, Relic Seeker is a Six-Mana Powerhouse Planeswalker!

11/19/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

Magic the Gathering players were pretty happy to see Vraska return as a planeswalker in the Ixalan set. Were they expecting a six-mana casting cost? Perhaps not. But considering the very real power of Vraska, Relic Seeker’s three abilities, this Ixalan planeswalker card is worth the investment.

Entering the battlefield with six loyalty counters, Vraska, Relic Seeker can make an immediate impact on the board. Her first ability adds two loyalty counters and creates a 2/2 Pirate token that has menace. This means that Pirate must be blocked by two or more creatures.

Vraska's second ability costs three loyalty counters, but allows you to destroy an artifact, a creature, or an enchantment. Not only that, but you get a Treasure artifact token. That token can be tapped and sacrificed to give you one mana of any color to your mana pool. Removal that also nets you a free mana for later is pretty powerful. Since you can likely get two shots at using this ability, this makes Vraska’s casting cost already quite worth it.

Vraska, Relic Seeker’s ultimate ability costs ten loyalty counters, but is very worth using if you get the chance. This ultimate ability causes a target player’s life total to become 1. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this can be good. This might as well read, kill your opponent this turn.

The only trouble is, six mana is a lot for a planeswalker in Standard. Granted, Elspeth, Sun’s Champion was a six-mana powerhouse Planeswalker at one time - and she still sees occasional play in Modern. But the major difference with her is that she had a more immediate effect on gameplay. She could bring three tokens into play right away and had the ability to take out multiple creatures at a time. That’s why Sun’s Champion is still an EDH staple.

Plenty of Commander players are happy to add Vraska, Relic Seeker to their decks. She passes the Doubling Season test; she gets twelve loyalty counters upon entering with that Enchantment in play. The targeted removal is very useful, especially as it hits more than just creatures. The token creation is somewhat less important in EDH, but card advantage in any form is good. The ultimate is good in any format, too.

For Vraska, Relic Seeker to stand out in Standard, it seemed she’d have to carve out a niche in some type of mid-range deck. The power level of this Vraska planeswalker from Ixalan is obvious, though. Right away, she found more than a few mid-range homes. Early on in the Ixalan Standard format, Reid Duke tried out the Ixalan Vraska planeswalker in G/B Energy and G/B Midrange decklists.

More recently, Vraska, Relic Seeker became a mainstay in 4-Color Energy, usually with one copy in the main deck, but occasionally two. As Duke initially discovered, the sort of mana ramp that Energy decks can offer make casting a 6-mana walker a lot easier to do.

Unfortunately, with the banning of Attune with Aether and Rogue Refiner in Standard, Energy decks have taken a major hit. However, because Ixalan Vraska's abilities really work within any sort of deck. Many Green/Black (Golgari) Constrictor decks have been main decking one copy of Vraska, Relic Seeker. Even a 5-color Approach of the Second Sun deck can manage to run a couple of copies!

How do you feel about Vraska, Relic Seeker? Did you foresee her strong competitive impact? Do you think her competitive pedigree will one day extend to Modern, as well?

Magic the Gathering - Mono-Green Infect - Budget Modern Deck Profile (November 2017)

11/19/2017

by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

The Modern format can be very expensive for Magic players, especially with so many decks that need the increasingly expensive fetch-lands. So when building Modern decks that are reasonably budget friendly, we are looking to keep the deck's total cost less than $200 USD and really no higher than $250. This one is actually under $75, and it’s Mono-Green Infect.

Mono-Red Burn is is often the least expensive deck to play in Modern that has a definite chance if being competitive. But Mono-Green Infect can definitely hold its own. There are other budget variants, such as Mono-Black Infect, which is more of a control-oriented build. Then there's a deck on opposite side of the financial spectrum with BUG Infect, which is more consistent, but requires quite an investment in the mana base. (Also, the banning of Gitaxian Probe in Modern really hurt the deck.)

For today’s list, we’ll base it off of a list run by Wigi in a MTGO Modern Premier. He piloted the deck to a 4-1 finish, but that was back in 2014. To update this list to include newer cards, there are some major adjustments made to the list. Let’s take a look.

CREATURES

4 Glistener Elf
4 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Necropede

NON-CREATURES

4 Apostle’s Blessing
4 Rancor
4 Groundswell
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Blossoming Defense
2 Become Immense

LAND

16 Forest
4 Cathedral of War
2 Pendelhaven

The deck plays only 12 creatures, all of which have infect. Let’s break them down.

The most basic of the Infect creatures, Glistener Elf is just a 1/1 Elf Warrior for a single green mana. For those that have never played Infect, essentially, Infect creatures deal damage in the form of -1/-1 counters instead of regular damage and in the form of poison counters to players. Once a player reaches 10 poison counters, that player automatically loses the game. It sounds like a cheap win condition, but it’s easier said than done.

Ichorclaw Myr is a very strong Infect creature from Scars of Mirrodin. It’s actually only a common, as well. It’s a 1/1 Infect creature for 2 colorless mana, but whenever it becomes blocked, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn. With all of the “pump” spells in this deck, this means that the Ichorclaw will win a lot of combats that you wouldn’t expect it to win.

Necropede is a very solid artifact creature. It’s a 1/1 for 2 colorless mana, but it has an added effect when it dies: allowing you to put a -1/-1 counter on a target creature. It’s not quite as good as Ichorclaw Myr, but it’s a solid Infect creature nonetheless.

Now onto the non-creature spells. There is actually one non-Green card in the deck.

One of the defining elements of the New Phyrexia set was the Phyrexian mana symbols. These symbols allow you to pay 2 life rather than the colored mana cost of a card. Apostle’s Blessing ordinarily costs 1W to cast, but as this is a mono-green deck, you will pretty much always be paying 1 colorless and 2 life.

What’s so useful about this card is that it gives a creature (or artifact) protection from a color of your choice or artifacts until end of turn. The artifact part is especially useful when facing decks that utilize artifact creatures like Solemn Simulacrum and Wurmcoil Engine, both of which are seen quite often in Modern. That protection can give one of your Infect creatures the chance to strike for lethal, an effect well worth paying 2 life for. That’s why there are 4 copies of it in this deck.

Rancor is a very strong Green Enchantment that was last printed in Magic 2013. It wasn’t in Standard when Infect was, but it was a very popular card whenever it was in Standard. For only a single Green mana, the Enchanted creature gains +2/+0 and trample. Then, when it’s put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you return it to its owner’s hand.

Gaining that extra two power and trample allows you to be far more aggressive in attacking, especially when knowing you’ll get Rancor back if and when that creature dies in combat or is removed from the field. Multiple copies of Rancor on a creature can spell the end of the game for your opponent.

I should note that the effect to return it to your hand only works if it actually makes it onto the battlefield. Were you to try to equip it to a creature and that creature is destroyed before the Enchantment resolves, it will simply go to the graveyard and it won’t come back.

Groundswell looks like an ordinary pump spell, +2/+2 to a target creature until end of turn for a single green mana. But being from the Zendikar block, it has a Landfall ability on it. If you had a land enter the battlefield under your control during the turn that you play this, that creature gets +4/+4 until end of turn instead. That’s quite potent when sticking it on an Infect creature.

Vines of Vastwood from Zendikar does something similar to Groundswell, but in a different way. For one green, a target creature can’t be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control this turn. This is handy for stopping opponent’s removal spells. But if you pay an additional green mana as you play it, that creature gains +4/+4 until end of turn, as well. It’s a very strong kicker spell that can both protect your creature and make it bigger.

Mutagenic Growth serves multiple purposes in this deck. In fact, mono-Green infect isn’t the only Modern deck that this card sees play in. It sees play in Zoo, as well. Giving a target creature +2/+2 until end of turn helps creatures get out of the range of Lightning Bolt, and considering that this card has the alternative Phyrexian mana cost (2 life), you don’t even have to have open mana to play it. In an infect deck, it’s just another couple damage, but keep in mind that it can help you win combats that you may not otherwise win, and your opponent must be aware that you don’t need open mana to play it. It’s a very strong card.

While older lists ran Ranger’s Guile, the Kaladesh set offered something far more powerful in Blossoming Defense. It's similar to Vines of Vastwood in that your opponent’s spells and abilities can’t target the creature you choose. It also gives that creature +2/+2, which isn’t quite as good as the Vines, but no kicker is involved. You play this card more to protect creatures from removal. The +2/+2 boost is just a nice bonus.

There are the full four copies of it in this deck, taking the place of 2 Ranger's Guile and 2 copies of Might of Old Krosa.

Might of Old Krosa was actually $10 a copy for a time, as it’s a staple in many Modern Infect decks. Fortunately, a Modern Masters 2017 reprinting put this card back in budget range.

For a single Green mana, it gives a target creature +2/+2 until end of turn. However, if you play it during your main phase, and not as a combat trick, that creature gets +4/+4 until end of turn instead. Because it’s not as useful as a combat trick, there are only 2 copies of it in the deck. It’s a very solid card nonetheless.

The original version this list is based on ran two copies of Giant Growth, as classic a pump spell as you can get. Giant Growth is still as good as it ever was. In an Infect deck, +3/+3 for one Green mana as a combat trick is extremely potent.

But Khans of Tarkir gave us Become Immense. While on the surface it costs 6 mana to cast, it has Delve, which allows you to remove cards from your graveyard to make it cheaper. The +6/+6 can win you a game out of nowhere. As just another +3/+3 pump spell, Giant Growth is now redundant.

Now we take a look at the lands. We start with 12 basic Forests. Then we have an interesting card called Cathedral of War.

The Magic 2013 Core Set had an interesting sub-theme of Exalted in it. However, there weren’t enough good Exalted cards to make it very useful in Standard. At one time, during the Shards of Alara block, Exalted was a very potent mechanic. It existed on some very popular creatures, including Noble Hierarch, which is still an extremely popular card in Modern and Legacy today. What Exalted does is give a creature that is attacking alone an additional +1/+1 until end of turn.

As there are four copies of Cathedral of War in this deck, that’s a potential additional +4/+4 as long as you have a creature attacking alone, which oftentimes with this deck is not all that unusual. The one downside to this card is that it enters the battlefield tapped, but in a deck like this with such a low mana curve, that’s not a huge drawback.

You may wonder how a card with the old Magic border is in Modern. Because Pendelhaven was printed as a Time-shifted special card in Time Spiral, it is considered part of Modern. (There is also a Modern-bordered Friday Night Magic version, as well.) Pendelhaven is a Legendary Land that allows you to add Green mana to your mana pool, but it also has a tap ability to give a target 1/1 creature +1/+2 until end of turn. This makes any of your 1/1 creatures into 2/3’s before you pump them at all. The fact that it can also double as a Forest is very useful. It’s a very strong card first printed back in the early days of Legends.

For the sideboard, we have 4 Tormod’s Crypt, a zero-drop that can tap to remove all cards from a target player’s graveyard. This can deal with any graveyard strategies, and hurt opposing Tarmogoyfs by depriving them of card types in the graveyard. There are 4 copies of Nature’s Claim, which is a one-drop Green instant that destroys a target artifact or enchantment, but gives that player 4 life. Then again, life totals do not matter when you are playing an Infect deck.

There are 2 copies of Fog in the sideboard, to help protect you from aggressive strategies that simply have more creatures than you can handle. By playing Fog when an opponent is swinging out, you get to prevent all combat damage. There are also two more copies of Might of Old Krosa, and an additional copy of Ranger’s Guile.

The last card in the sideboard is two copies of Pithing Needle. It’s a very useful 1-drop Artifact that can stop the activated abilities of many different sorts of cards, including specific fetch-lands, artifacts, or planeswalkers that might deal you a problem. It was very good against Deathrite Shaman when it was legal in Modern, but that card is now banned. It still deals with a lot and is a good inclusion in most Modern sideboards.

You may wonder what happened to one of the premier infect cards in Magic, Inkmoth Nexus. This land from Mirrodin Besiged is the center of any infect-based deck. In fact, it is such a good card that during the Scars of Mirrodin block days of Standard, a lot of decks played it just to make opponents have to worry about it. It’s a colorless land that can become a 1/1 artifact creature with flying and infect until end of turn for only a single mana. With just a few pump spells, one Nexus can finish a game on its own.

The problem is that the cost of four Nexus doubles the cost of the entire deck. A playset of Nexus can cost about $70 (as of November 2017). It's because Inkmoth Nexus also sees a lot of play in Modern Affinity decks that can equip it with a card like Cranial Plating for a quick finish. If you do want to pick up a playset of Inkmoth Nexus, it is well worth the investment.

If you’re looking to be competitive in the Modern format on the cheap without having to resort to Mono-Red Burn decks, this might be a good option for you. Mono-Black Infect is a bit less expensive, but not quite as consistent in winning. All of the cards in this deck, perhaps with the exception of Cathedral of War, are played in Modern and other formats. So, building this deck is also a great boost to your collection!

If you’re looking for another Modern deck for you that you can build on the cheap, let us know what archetypes you would like to play. Then, we'll build the best deck that we can under $200.

Read more Magic the Gathering Modern articles here.

Magic the Gathering (MTG) - How Good is Nissa, Vital Force from Kaladesh?

11/19/2017

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Nissa, Vital Force is one of two Nissa planeswalkers in Kaladesh. This 5-mana planeswalker is included in the set itself, whereas the other Nissa, Nature’s Artisan, is included in the Planeswalker decks for this set. How good is Nissa, Vital Force when compared to past Nissa planeswalkers? From the looks of it, pretty darn good. Players pointed out early on that her ultimate ability can be used after only a single turn. So, how well do all of her abilities stack up?

Her +1 is similar to that of Nissa, Worldwaker’s, in that she turns a land into an Elemental creature. However, there are some important differences with Vital Force’s +1. First of all, Worldwaker’s ability makes that land permanently a creature. This +1 only makes that land a creature until your next turn. However, you get a 5/5 with haste instead of a 4/4 with trample. She also un-taps the land, which essentially could give you an extra mana if you decided instead to tap that land for mana instead of attacking. Functionally, this is a similar ability, although the permanency and trample that Worldwaker’s +1 offered is better in some cases.

Then again, when Nissa, Vital Force first entered Standard, the man lands Hissing Quagmire, Lumbering Falls, Needle Spires, Shambling Vent, and Wandering Fumarole were still in Standard. Her +1 ability actually worked well with these manlands, as not only would they become 5/5 lands with haste, but gain any abilities that they would have if they were activated. For example, Lumbering Falls would still gain hexproof, meaning opponent’s couldn’t target it with spells. Hissing Quagmire would still have deathtouch, Needle Spires would still have double strike and Shambling Vent would have lifelink. Wandering Fumarole’s ability to switch power and toughness wouldn’t really matter, though. Those man lands wouldn’t stay in Standard long with Nissa, Vital Force, but when they were, she had fun with them.

Vital Force’s -3 lets you get a permanent card back from your graveyard to your hand. This isn’t a bad ability, but going from 5 to 2 loyalty right away seems like a fairly high price to pay. However, this ability can be useful in certain situations. But paying 5 mana for this Regrowth ability right away doesn’t feel awesome. Still, it’s a mode that will probably be used at certain junctures of the game, so it’s a decent second ability. It’s nowhere as good as untapping up to 4 Forests, however, as Worldwaker could do.

The ultimate ability is the one that has most players excited. Essentially, it’s a Horn of Greed that only benefits you. Drawing a card just by having a land enter the battlefield under your control is really solid. Note that you don’t actually have to play it, meaning that cards like Splendid Reclamation that bring lands into play does the trick, too.

Horn of Greed, an artifact most recently featured in Conspiracy: Take the Crown, actually only draws a player a card when he/she actually plays a land. It also helps all players and not just yourself. For only -6, this is a really good ultimate. With how easy it is in Standard to put land cards into your graveyard to use Splendid Reclamation, Nissa, Vital Force looked like the piece that deck needs to be really good. (That never really happened, but it could have.)

Nissa, Vital Force is a really solid planeswalker. The ultimate ability is actually quite good, as is the +1 ability. I’m not sure how I feel about the minus ability, although being able to retrieve any permanent card is handy. With 5 loyalty and a CMC (Converted Mana Cost) of 5, it seemed a sure thing this Nissa would see play, perhaps even in Modern.

But, what really happened?

Indeed, Nissa, Vital Force has seen play, notably as a one-of in some Saheeli Rai / Felidar Guardian Copy Cat Combo decks. But most consistently, she's been a one-of in some Temur Energy decks, often in the sideboard. So, while she hasn't enabled decks to succeed in the way that Nissa, Worldwaker once did, she's become a complementary piece of a very good Standard deck archetype.

However, this is only part of her story! As I predicted, Nissa, Vital Force has sneaked into a few Modern decks as a one-of, mostly in the sideboard. One example is this tournament-winning Titan Breach deck. Other decks that have utilized Nissa, Vital Force include Valakut/Scapeshift combo decks and Elves. In Legacy, she's even made the main boards of some competitive Elves decks!

Beyond her obvious utility in Commander, especially in Atraxa, Praetor's Voice decks which can always use and abuse planeswalkers, Nissa, Vital Force has become a competitive role player in not just Standard, but Modern and Legacy, as well! Outside of some Lands decks in Legacy and the occasional Tooth and Nail deck in Modern, Nissa, Worldwaker hasn't built nearly the same resume of competitive playability in non-rotating formats!

So to answer the question of how good is Nissa, Vital Force? She's been a bit better than Nissa, Worldwaker in the long run, and that's saying something!

Yet, Nissa, Vital Force has been available as low as $2.00 apiece! While her price has slowly recovered since then, there's little doubt she's been pretty undervalued.

Magic: the Gathering (MTG) Community Roundup - November 19, 2017 - Content Creator Interviews and More!

11/18/2017

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Been awhile since I did one of these kind of MtG roundup posts and it’s long overdue! So, welcome to our first MTG Community Roundup! This week, I’d like to share all of the awesome interviews that I’ve had with Magic the Gathering content creators!

The flurry of interviews this past Sunday began with a Magic blogger who I’ve followed for quite some time. Sylvan Studies. He’s built a great team on his website and they cover so many MtG topics.

On Monday, I interviewed the always awesome podcaster Magic with Zuby. We discussed a variety of topics, including some great advice for aspiring podcaster.

On Tuesday, I actually did TWO interviews! One was with the underrated Generic Bad Magic - who is definitely not bad at Magic. We discussed the origin of that screen name, the viability of homebrews in the current Standard environment, among other things.

Our second interview wasn’t a Content Creator Interviewer, but instead a Community Spotlight featuring a major new player in the Magic trading and selling game, CardSphere, a great new way to trade and sell Magic cards! As a major competitor to another major MtG trading website, these guys really have the community in mind with everything they do and are extremely open to feedback! I’m really excited to watch them grow! They’ve already been interviewed by Brainstorm Brewery, so you know they’re legit!

On Wednesday, I interviewed a different sort of content creator in Lily Vess Tweets, who’s strictly a Twitter roleplayer. It turned out to be a great interview and he’s a great guy who loves the game. He is very concerned about the inferior cardstock quality with recent releases, though, a topic that has come up a lot lately.

On Thursday, I interviewed Rhino of MTG Young Mage. He’s a really bright kid and does a lot to help young and new players learn the game. He’s gonna be around a long time!

On Friday, I interviewed Abbie of the UK MtG website Master of Magics. She’s got a great story to tell and MoM is well on the way to being a major player in the UK MtG community.

And, finally, on Saturday, I Interviewed Jordan of Team Orcs Head. We discussed several topics, but the advice he gives for up-and-coming and aspiring Magic the Gathering vloggers and YouTubers particularly makes it worth the read..

And we’re not done! There are more interviews to come! I’m so booked that I won’t be doing anymore until December!

Coming up this next week: MPNumbers, Jake and Joel are Magic, The Whole Box and Dice, Cody Cockerham, and LifeBeginsAt20. Even more interviews to follow!

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Thanks for stopping by for our first MTG Community Roundup! Normally, we’ll feature more content from around the community. If there’s any MtG content from this past week or recently that you think we should share, comment below and we’ll be sure to check it out! If we like it, it will be shared and featured in a future MTG Community Roundup!

Have a great week!