Entries Tagged 'Reviews' ↓

Zendikar rare Scute Mob is not quite Tarmogoyf… Does it matter?

Scute Mob is looking to be one of the most signficant cards in Zendikar… and that’s saying something!

No, you didn’t read that wrong… Scute Mob is probably a terrible one drop, as far as one drops go. That is, don’t look for it to be much more effective than, say, a Mon’s Goblin Raiders, at least not on or around turn one.

The value of Scute Mob is that as the game progresses–past turn five or so depending on the acceleration involved–it is an extremely powerful card.

Imagine Scute Mob in a control deck of some sort. It is probably needlessly narrow to say a U/G control deck given the mana options, but suffice it to imagine a control deck capable of producing G and countering target spell.

Scute Mob is a perfect card to play with five lands in play. The contol deck in question will have four lands left to fight permission wars, either over Scute Mob (that is, resolving it) or keeping the opponent from doing some kind of funny business.

The next turn, Scute Mob will be a 5/5… That is, a 5/5 for one mana.

Okay, there is already a cadillac control creature, a pair of them in fact, Broodmate Dragon and Baneslayer Angel. The first turn around, Scute Mob will not be able to tangle with Baneslayer Angel, but remember it is already far faster than Broodmate Dragon, and a fight–specifically the double block–may be significantly less profitable than it may look from afar.

The greater problem is that Scute Mob is going to be 9/9 the next turn, and 13/13 the turn after that (and so on) provided its daddy has five or more lands in play. It will jump past Baneslayer Angel in the course of one turn, and be completely out of control before too long.

Now our previous hypothetical outlined playing Scute Mob in the middle of the middle turns, and potentially fighting over it (or stuff going on around it). There is no reason the control player couldn’t just play Scute Mob at some point (even turn one) and wait for it to eventually grow up. That is a possibility, and might even be the right play against either another counterspell deck or a combo deck that needs to be put on a clock.

The even more interesting interaction may be Scute Mob piggybacking Ranger of Eos. Think about that tag team! Ranger of Eos already “implies” having four lands… five lands is just one more than that. It is entirely possible to see Antoine Ruel digging up a pair of Scute Mobs and playing them both immediately, presenting 13 or so power the following turn.

Un

Real

I see Scute Mob as being a clear Staple. It is just too cost effective. Go get your playset immediately; it is the second coming of Tarmogoyf, everything Figure of Destiny wanted to be and more.

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Nikolai Dante: Beast of Rudinshtein (Rebellion 2000ad)

My Favorite New Card is Emeria, the Sky Ruin!

Well, I am not 100% sure that my favorite new card from Zendikar will be Emeria, the Sky Ruin… but I’m pretty sure it will be.

Emeria, the Sky Ruin is functionally quite similar to old favorite Debtors’ Knell. It does not gobble up creatures from the opponent’s graveyard, but it has a tremendous upside: You Don’t Have to Resolve It. That was the “problem” with Debtors’ Knell (if you can really say there was a problem with a Standard and Block staple)… It coexisted with cards like Remand and Mana Leak so it could be challenging to get into play against Blue opponents. Emeria, the Sky Ruin, on balance is “just” a land, so you just lay it out there to, you know, run (“Sky Ruin”) the opponent’s day.

So of course as cool as Emeria seems, it has some limitations.

The most obvious is that you have to have seven Plains in play before it does anything. You know, when we first started chatting about new Zendikar cards, BDM (aka @Top8Games) said he just knew I would love me an Emeria. I mean, how could I not?

This card touches not on the “Greenest Mage of All” aspect of michaelj (aka @fivewithflores), but the part of me that ran a B/W cycling Eternal Dragon deck in an Extended Pro Tour, the side that produced the first ever Windbrisk Heights / three token “combo” deck (grafted onto a, you know, Eternal Dragon-based Extended deck), or the part of me that went full-on Martyr of Sands for last year’s Exteded PTQ season (you know, with Eternal Dragons and Decree of Justice and all that). The sad irony is that this card would be bananas in one of the Eternal Dragon decks that I always seem to make in Extended (down to returning Martyr of Sands for free, and / or Eternal Dragon itself) without any kind of an unintended interaction with Akroma’s Vengeance.

So let’s think about this jobber in Standard…

We are going to lose Windbrisk Heights — probably the single strongest nonbasic land in current Standard — as Lorwyn Block makes way for Zendikar. That means that straight White decks aren’t going to have a lot of conflict for non-Plains in terms of making space. You can probably run 20-22 Plains and four copies of Emeria, the Sky Ruin in your White deck and have a solid expectation of having seven Plains alongside your Emeria, the Sky Ruin come turn eight (or whenever you actually have eight lands in play).

The interesting thing is…

We don’t know what kinds of creatures are going to fit best with Emeria, the Sky Ruin… at least not in Standard.

We are going to lose our Evoke Elementals (Mulldrifter and so on); there is no clear path for a Fulminator Mage-style lockdown; and even in Extended, Eternal Dragon and such cycling creatures will have rotated. The best thing I can come up with off the top of my head is Glassdusk Hulk… But surely we can come up with something better than this…

Surely we can come up with something better than this…

Regardless of the specifics of how to break (or at least “best exploit”) Emeria, the Sky Ruin in a long game, the basic principles seem to be clear…

1. It’s about as good as a Debtors’ Knell once you have it going.
2. Counterspell-based defenses will be insufficient.
3. Removal-based defenses will eventually be exhausted.
4. … And it ain’t exactly fast.

The question is whether it will be good.

I, for one, have always enjoyed creating and trying to properly position these esoteric corner-case decks that generate unexpected Stage Three situations… and Emeria, the Sky Ruin seems like the Flores long-game cream dream all bundled up in a single card that you don’t actually have to resolve.

So yeah, Emeria, the Sky Ruin is, at least at present, my favorite new Zendikar card. I look forward to cultivating a long and card-profitable relationship with it.

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Invincible, Book 11: Happy Days

A White Nekrataal? Meet Zendikar Rare, Devout Lightcaster!

Earlier we talked about Gatekeeper of Malakir, which for BBB is like a Scathe Zombies grafted onto a Cruel Edict (and for BB is versatile enough to be just a Scathe Zombies). This is the White version:

This card is kind of like an Eager Cadet stapled to a Celestial Purge (kind of).

Now obviously for WWW we have a very powerful and highly playable card that generates self-contained card advantage. It is the kind of effect that we simply don’t expect from White. I mean maybe we expect it now that a deck that can consistently produce WWW has everything from Unmake to Path to Exile to the aforementioned Celetial Purge… But we don’t necessarily expect it on a body… Certainly not at a reasonable mana cost; not in White.

But what might be even more unexpected is that this card might just manascrew you.

Manascrew you?

In White?

Yeppers!

Manascrew.

I have a theory that with all these Gatekeepers and other little—and clearly Constructed playable—Vampires, that our old buddy Vampire Nocturnus will be superb. Vampire Nocturnus rewards players for running a lot of Black cards, and I think that that might translate even to lands. The solution? I am guessing that we will see increased play for both Veinfire and Mistvein Borderpost. Why? With Black Borderposts taking up “land” slots, the Vampire Nocturnus has a slightly higher chance of setting up its global Vampire Unholy Strength. I could see a Black Vampire weenie mana base looking something like…

4 B/W sac dual
4 B/G sac dual
4 Veinfire Borderpost
4 Mistvein Borderpost
8-12 Swamp (12 would probably be a bit high, even in a Tendrils of Corruption deck).

The duals (whatever they are called) will allow the Vampire Nocturnus player to shuffle his deck, mid-combat if need be, to get a Black permanent on top of it. The deck would probably have problems hard-casting a Borderpost, but with essentially all basic lands (functionally so, anyway), running them out there one mana soft style should be a complete non-issue.

So… manascrew?

Devout Lightcaster dropping on top of one of those Borderposts on the third turn could be quite the pisser… Stone Rain, but with a Rakeclaw Bears attached.

Oh I guess it can kill some gigantic Black fatty and/or a one mana Quest enchantment that is right about to go off, too. Whatever those!

Snap Judgment: Staple (but sideboard)

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Invincible, Book 11: Happy Days

I’m just going to have to satisfy (dissatisfy?) the Brian Kowal / Tim Aten crowd and come out and say it: Great Sable Stag is just better than Gnarled Mass, and you all know how YT feels about his Gnarled Mass.

I really want to play Great Sable Stag main. Its size profile makes this a possibility even if White Weenie / Kithkin is one of the default decks (3/3 is bigger than 2/2 First Strike). It’s a different story if we are staring down Honor of the Pure across the table (often absolutely horrid, but not uncommonly not that big a deal, at least in the sense that we can still trade sometimes). But of course the reason that we would play this card is that it should be so effective against Fae.

Great Sable Stag is just an utter beating against Fae. Can’t counter it, can’t kill it, can’t block it; if you want to tap it and keep it from attacking you, you can only do so at great [opportunity] cost. Play Great Sable Stag off a first turn Noble Hierarch or whatever and you’ve basically just won (especially on the play).

This is also a solid card against Reflecting Pool Control. Not the best card, maybe, but it gets past Plumeveil and demands a real response; the question is whether Reflecting Pool Control goes back to Volcanic Fallout or farther back to Firespout; because Fallout is a feather in Great Sable Stag’s hat whereas Firespout could spell disaster. Like The Man Tsuyoshi Fujita used to tell me while rubbing his imaginary beard: “De-PENDS on the me-ta-GAME” (say that in like four syllables).

Worst case scenario, Great Sable Stag is what Brian Kowal would call a Grollub. You would not believe the arguments old BK used to make about the humble Grollub. “No one is willing to play these cards against Red…” (and with good reason, we’d chide) “… but they win.” He was right a lot of the time (just like today when he makes a Boat Brew). Just laying out some garbage 3/3 can be really annoying for a fast Red Deck. They have to not ignore it. If all you do is keep a Boggart Ram-Gang off your back for a turn you’re doing something significant, buying yourself time, turn(s) with three, six, nine more life, and setting up for your next, better, play. Grollubs (or Great Sable Stags) are never really terrible. You lay them out there and sometimes you get to deal three, six, nine of your own (sometimes), and it can matter.

Great Sable Stag, Kitchen Finks, or Great Sable Stag and Kitchen Finks?

I always declare cards my new favorite card… Feudkiller’s Verdict, Martial Coup, and so on, but don’t always play them (played / play the eff out of Banefire, though). What about Great Sable Stag? Objectively the card is worse than a Kitchen Finks for most decks (and against most decks). That doesn’t necessarily mean you would play Kitchen Finks over Great Sable Stag. This is an advanced deck design concept: Sometimes you will play the “worse” card (not even sideboarding the better one). That said, the third point of toughness on Great Sable Stag is like a special ability in and of itself, and is something to be considered. Kitchen Finks is very good (on turn three at least) against Fae; Great Sable Stag is clearly better… You can lace it up with Behemoth Sledge, you don’t have to worry about looking foolish running it into a Mistbind Clique, et cetera. In the same way Great Sable Stag is probably better against most controlling decks. I typically side out Kitchen Finks against decks like Reflecting Pool Control, Reveillark, etc.

Kitchen Finks is usually better against beatdown, but there are certainly situations you would rather have Great Sable Stag. For example I’ve played against a lot of Magma Sprays in my day. Magma Spray is pretty janky Great Sable Stag. Would you play both?

BDM and I have been working on All-in Green for the upcoming PTQs. We have been trying to capture the bomb feel of the Urza’s Block-era Rofellos and Trinity Green decks. Primal Command is our Plow Under and there are no shortage of good creatures (just no Masticore). Work in progress, sure, but I could see playing with both cards (certainly after sideboarding… the options get thin after Guttural Response).

Just some initial thoughts.

I like a Great Sable Stag and could see it as Staple.

One of the things I blogged about a week or two back is how control decks will adopt Lightning Bolt. It seems that the existence of cards like this one would help to justify that prediction 🙂

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Nikolai Dante: Sword of the Tsar (2000 Ad)

The rare M10 two-in-one: Here comes a preview / review of M10 Mythic Rare Vampire Nocturnus… as intersects with inevitable chase rare Drowned Catacomb! That is, BBB meets (b/u)!

Aesthetics:
The reason I decided to go over these two cards together is that when I originally started to review Vampire Nocturnus, I was immediately struck with a dramatically different design angle to this card, versus many recent sets, viz. Eventide and Alara Reborn. Vampire Nocturnus is a Black card with a capital b and greatly — make that gravely — incentivizes us to play heavy Black. Some obvious or not-so-obvious elements:

The mana cost – Vampire Nocturnus has BBB in its cost, heavy Black (and what we, in the old days, would have considered a Ritual’s worth of mana). This is not easy mana to produce. Compare to Boggart Ram-Gang, which also has a triple-colored cost, but is flexible in Red or Green, allowing it to be played in a variety of decks from straight Red Deck Wins to Five-color Blood.

Secondly, how good would Vampire Nocturnus have been as just a 3/3 creature for four mana that just allowed you to play with the top card of your library revealed? I don’t think it would have been very good at all… Kind of like the short bus version of a Wandering Eye.

What about the up-side? I think supeficial analysis will assume that Vampire Nocturnus — in a dedicated Black deck — will be 5/4 flying for four something like sixty percent of the time. Is this accurate? I’d actually rather not speculate as to the accuracy of that estimation, but instead ask if that is the proper up-side.

For example, what about playing multiple Vampires? Before you start to comment that that would be super lame, certainly you can imagine having two Vampire Nocturus in play, right?

This brings me to the second card in tonight’s preview / review: Drowned Catacomb.

Drowned Catacomb, like sister M10 dual land Glacial Fortress seems to be part of a cycle that incentivizes very different multi-land use than some previous cycles. For example Stomping Ground is only superficially a G/R land. Sure it was a G/R land in Standard, but in Extended it played every role from both sides of an Ancient Grudge in B/U decks thanks to four Bloodstained Mires, to a singleton Holy Strength for four Kird Apes via Windswept Heath and Wooded Foothills. The tri-land cycle from Shards of Alara (Arcane Sanctum et al) shattered the notion of mana discipline, and we found ourselves in a Block Pro Tour where every color was roughly as available as three colors, and a G/W attack deck might have been best just because it wasn’t the only deck in the room stumbling on all it’s comes-into-play-tapped lands.

Drowned Catacomb (and presumably its cycle) carry a similar, though not identical, incentive towards mana discipline. Drowned Catacomb is obviously more effective in a deck full of Swamps and Islands (and in most formats that means basic Swamps and Islands; to get significant value (that is, value beyond a Salt Marsh — which is the current level of “not good enough” dual land based on cards like Drowned Catacomb and the aformentioned Arcane Sanctum), you need to play significant Swamps and Islands.

Both M10 rares — both Mythic Rare Vampire Nocturnus and inevitable chase rare Drowned Catacomb — therefore seem to be pointing us in the same direction design-wise. It is just a question of whether or not the eventual metagame / format / players listen.

Where Do I See These Cards Fitting In?
I don’t think Vampire Nocturnus is the kind of card you can really splash or slide in as a catch-all role player. It’s Nocturnus or no, I think. That is, if you play this card, you will probably be playing four, and you will probably be playing four in a deck of one (or functionally one) color (even if that is like Ashenmoor Gougers and so on). That said, Vampire Nocturnus might be considered Flagship if it incentivizes players strongly enough to build in such a myopic way, maybe even to the point of including other non-Nocturnus Vampires. I can see this happening, but maybe not at Tier One.

As for Drowned Catacomb, it will be no less than heavily-adopted Role Player in some format. I don’t see Drowned Catacomb (or its buddies) as Staple to begin with in Standard, but it might gobble up spots currently occupied by Arcane Sanctum in, say, Faeries… but that is not at all clear because those decks often splash cards like Esper Charm. Drowned Catacomb can pair potentially with Watery Grave in Extended; it works with a Watery Grave in play much better than a Watery Grave works with it, of course. Obviously Drowned Catacomb has the potential for Staple (along with the rest of the cycle).

Snap Judgment Rating(s):
Per above.

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Nikolai Dante: The Great Game – Volume 2

Lightning Bolt is reprinted in M10! I was the last one to know… despite being the guy to “preview” the card.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that I was reluctant to believe that Lightning Bolt would be coming back with M10. I don’t typically talk about non-officially previewed cards at all, and in this case I thought it would be just silly to reprint the card. I mean Lightning Bolt? Really? The Japanese find every excuse in the book to play Shock. I personally made room for Tarfire in Extended (and played a full set in my Blightning Beatdown deck). Did no one remember how good Rift Bolt was? Do you think that people just liked paying three mana for their sorceries?

But no, Lightning Bolt is back, in all it’s glory:

My initial reluctance to believing Lightning Bolt was coming back came from the fact that the so-called spoiled art was just that — the art — without being attached to the rest of a card. I assumed it was a mis-translated Russian Lightning Blast or some such. But nope. Lightning Bolt. Yes! Lightning Bolt!

I can’t even remember the last time I played Lightning Bolt. Okay, I can… It was Grand Prix Philadelphia – a Legacy deck (not one of my best efforts). But I am still excited anyway. I mean Lightning Bolt is going to be so good in control decks!

Nope, you didn’t read wrong: control decks.

Think about it.

Wren’s Run Vanquisher… Boggart Ram-Gang… To a degree even Putrid Leech and a half a dozen other cards that are better on their turn than they are on your turn. Lightning Bolt is an absurd friend to decks that can draw extra cards cheaply, especially in small bursts or at instant speed (I’m talking to you, Esper Charm).

So while we will definitely see Lightning Bolt next to Ball Lightning (maybe I can pull Dave Price out of the mothballs), I think that we will also see this card as the official banner bearer of Tier One in decks that tap Islands (okay Vivid Creek) and not just Mountains.

LOVE
MIKE

Bonus Section: The True History of Lightning Bolt

ring, Ring, RING

Hi Scott.

Got a minute, Mike?

For you, sure.

I need you to add something to your column this week.

For you, sure.

Lightning Bolt is coming back. I want you to preview it… or like tag it onto the end of your column.

ALDKKNALKFJALKDFJALKSFJASDKL;FJASDKLFJASDL;FKJASDKL;FJASDFKL;SDJAFKL

I’m sorry, I didn’t get that?

No, I’m sorry… That was me spilling my coffee all over myself. I’m going to have to get a new shirt!

Oh, do you think we can capture that?

I was thinking of writing maybe a twelve steps on Lightning Bolt coming back. You know, denial… acceptance…

Actually no. I really liked that “spilling coffee over yourself” bit. Let’s go with that reaction. That’s exactly what we want, actually. Type ALDKKNALKFJALKDFJALKSFJASDKL;FJASDKLFJASDL;FKJASDKL;FJASDFKL;SDJAFKL. Kelly! Can we get a proper spelling on ALDKKNALKFJALKDFJALKSFJASDKL;FJASDKLFJASDL;FKJASDKL;FJASDFKL;SDJAFKL?

Darn editors! They can’t get a right spelling on ALDKKNALKFJALKDFJALKSFJASDKL;FJASDKLFJASDL;FKJASDKL;FJASDFKL;SDJAFKL and you end up with…

However you feel, whatever you are thinking right now (or what you thought yesterday, if you were sharp enough to spot the card in the Visual Spoiler) … Yeah, that’s pretty much how I felt when they told me they’re reprinting MOTHER-LOVING LIGHTNING BOLT. Discuss (I know you will); official Magic 2010 previews start next week. And yes, they’re awesome.

But in your heart of hearts, you know it was ALDKKNALKFJALKDFJALKSFJASDKL;FJASDKLFJASDL;FKJASDKL;FJASDFKL;SDJAFKL

Currently Reading: Nikolai Dante: The Great Game – Volume 2

In case you hadn’t yet seen it, I did a review on Top 8 Magic about Glacial Fortress, the U/W M10 dual land that was recently spoiled on the mother ship.

To wit:

Glacial Fortress
Glacial Fortress enters the battlefield tapped unless you control a Plains or an Island.
T: Add W or U to your mana pool.

We can safely assume (even without using spoiler sites, which I don’t typically reference, ever) that Glacial Fortress is the first in a new line of M10 dual lands… though whether we have five dual lands or the full ten dual lands (including enemy colors on the order of Sacred Foundry, Breeding Pool, or Godless Shrine) is a mystery at present.

What interests me is the potential Constructed — specifically Standard — impact of this cycle. I actually wish I could write about a B/R or G/R version, but I don’t know the names (at least not officially) at this point 🙂

Regular readers of this blog know that I have been fooling around with ye olde Cascade decks recently, pushing Bloodbraid Elf and Bituminous Blast into more (and less) interesting molds, going for more consistency or — surprisingly — less speed as the case may be with the Rhox Meditant deck. One of the things that I have found to be less satisfying with the decks is their mana consistency. The attack-oriented build, for example, often has strange — if recoverable — draws due to the conflicting tension of being a three- and four-mana haste aggro deck… that has a Reflecting Pool Control-reminiscent mana base with a ton of comes into play tapped Vivid lands.

One idea for a new build would be to try to take advantage of Ball Lightning (which has also been confirmed) as Bloodbraid Elf’s new best friend. I won’t speculate a full listing at this point (because I don’t really want to talk about Lightning Bolt), but there is ample design space to go with a much more concentrated Mountains mana base, touching the Black and/or Green equivalents of Glacial Fortress, reaping considerable speed, if spending a bit of flexibility.

You would of course have to give up Steward of Valeron, but might end up with a much more consistent package. For example shifting to a B/R build you could bias for Sygg, River Cutthroat* as the two drop over Steward of Valeron, run Blightning, Boggart Ram-Gang, and Ball Lightning in a jazzed three spot, still pack Bituminous Blast, with just the mildest Bloodbraid Elf splash out of Green. That is, if you were willing to invest the same twenty-six slots on lands that we did in the Primal Command deck, you would easily have space for ten or even twelve basic Mountains, along with the B/R or G/R equivalents of Glacial Fortress, with Savage Lands as the lonesome land that is guaranteed to come into play tapped. If you don’t get lucky on Mountains pulls in your opening hand, you are really not that much worse off than with a double-digit Vivid count… Because you have structured your spell selection differently, it’s not like you are shut out of a color you actually have to have under pressure (probably).

This is all intensely speculative, of course.

With the mana really and truly awesome there is just no incentive to playing mana-consistently whatsoever. You just end up with a worse, weaker, deck if the baseline is multicolored Bloodbraid Elf any- and everywhere, presuming passable mana (as opposed to stumbling mana, as in Block, where G/W was able to prevail on greater consistency and brutal speed).

Which actually brings us to a different point… If that is the case (and it just might be), the Glacial Fortress cycle of dual lands might be next to unplayable in Standard!

That’s right! If we continue to play decks with 1-5 basic lands (and even then only because we think someone might be playing Path to Exile) — especially when we don’t even play a second copy of any given basic land — Glacial Fortress and its buddies really aren’t much better than Coastal Tower… In fact, in-format, they are just worse than Arcane Sanctum. Surprising, no? Again, very speculative 🙂

Two interesting points arise from this line of thinking:

1) There is actually an interesting [deck] design space here. Do you ignore Glacial Fortress and continue to play with crazy Arcane Sanctum / Vivid land-based mana instead of going for “more consistency” which might mean less power?
2) It’s rare that cards are kind of crappy in Standard but are quite good in Extended. Glacial Fortress seems like an awesome brother to Hallowed Fountain (or any of several Plains- or Island-based dual lands from Ravnica Block).

… Just my next few semi-spontaneous thoughts on Glacial Fortress 🙂

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Fables Covers: The Art of James Jean Vol. 1 (actually not reading at all… but looking at the awfully pretty pictures)

* No, I didn’t miss the potential of Lightning Bolt (still don’t believe it) and Sygg as a kind of punishing Impulse.

By popular demand… The long awaited review of Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, Volume 3)!

A lot of people have been asking me about “that Buffy the Vampire Slayer graphic novel [I] talked about on the Top 8 Magic Podcast.” Most of them were pretty nice about it (even if I didn’t answer them in anything resembling a timely fashion). Some of them, though, like Tim Gillam…

 

Let’s be honest. I had it coming from Tim after that Consuming Vortex slow roll (though to be honest it never registered to me that I was slow rolling him… I just didn’t want to screw up). Well here it is!

… The name of the aforementioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer graphic novel is Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3).

Wolves at the Gate is actually the third “Season Eight” tale (the show concluded after seven seasons, but the story continues!); the first arc was written by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, number two focused on Faith and was written by my old pal Brian K. Vaughan, and Wolves at the Gate comes to us from Lost / Alias / Cloverfield / Angel / and of course Buffy writer Drew Goddard.

As I said in the podcast, Wolves at the Gate is one of the ten best graphic novels I have ever read. No, you don’t need to know very much about Buffy’s universe to enjoy this story. All you really need to know is that there is a super powered girl named Buffy who, you know, slays vampires and that she is currently training a stack of other super powered girls to fight the good fight.

The other major character in this story is Dracula, the vampire of legend, who opposed Buffy at one point on her television program but fights on the side of the slayers in Wolves at the Gate thanks to his friendship with Buffy’s lieutenant Xander.

Dracula is scary and capable… and hilariously racist in this volume.

I think that one of the things that I really liked about Wolves at the Gate is how successfully Drew Goddard maintained the witty banter of the television Buffy in his storytelling. Here is an example of racist Dracula meeting up with his “manservant” Xander before the good guys go to war:

<Dracula> You’ve lost weight.

<Xander> Can you tell? I’ve been trying to exercise more.

<Dracula> Yes. It suits you.

<Xander> Thanks you look good too

<Dracula> Oh, you’re just saying that because I complimented you.

<Xander> No — I’m not! I promise.

<Dracula> I can’t see myself in mirrors. I fear my best days are behind me.

<Xander> No — you’re more handsome than ever.

I can’t see myself in mirrors. Are you kidding me? The writing is great.

One of the principles that I have adopted into my literature analysis algorithm over about the last two or three years (since reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) is whether or not a writer breaks your heart at any point. So books like Anathem, Zodiac, and countless others that successfully break your heart (which, remember, requires you to fall in love with one of the characters) all get points under the new system.

Drew crushes your poor heart like an ant underneat a toddler’s filthy sneaker about 4/5 of the way into the story. The moment is perfectly perfect, appropriate, all of it. Just great.

Oh yeah. There is one more thing that makes this book really Really REALLY worth buying, but I am not going to tell you unless you scroll way down.

Trust me you probably want to buy Wolves at the Gate without my telling you this crowd pleasing crowd pleaser. Here let me interrupt you with a cleverly disguised affiliate link so that you don’t spoil it for yourself.

I wasn’t kidding.

…

 

…

Okay!

Buffy joins the friends of Sappho and hooks up with a fine young Japanese slayer!

I warned you!

Now are you convinced?

Wolves at the Gate really is one of the ten best graphic stories I’ve ever read. I don’t think you need to be a fan of Miss Vampire Slayer to love this story, just great dialogue, wonderful storytelling, Slayer-on-Slayer shenanigans, and, you know, racist Dracula.

LOVE
MIKE

Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)

In which MichaelJ reacts to a controversial comment about Alara Reborn common Captured Sunlight.

So this one is from the Twitter files.

Michael Dean Conway (aka @mikeconway13) shipped an interesting couple of Tweets over the last couple of days. Based on some of our recent reviews on Alara Reborn in general, Cascade specifically, I wanted to share this one with you:

This of course got the gears moving.

First off I had to go and look up Captured Sunlight. I didn’t know off hand which one Captured Sunlight was (I just had a vague recollection that I only liked Bituminous Blast and Bloodbraid Elf and not really any of the other Cascade spells in the set). Turns out it is this one:

Now remember, on Twitter you only get 140 characters to express your thought; but in this case Mike is able to squeeze out a pair…

• Everyone is touting Bloodbraid Elf.
• He thinks Captured Sunlight will be the top Cascade spell in Standard.

As for the first, I can’t disagree. In fact, when I first blogged about Bituminous Blast, the first thing that happened was that people started telling me to look at Bloodbraid Elf. Like I said earlier, I only remembered liking the pair of those cards (and to go with the sentiment of Mike’s Tweet)… Bloodbraid Elf, BLOODBRAID ELF, BLOODBRAID ELF.

Now as to the second, Mike actually got me thinking about Captured Sunlight. I immediately disagreed… but that’s not ultimately the point. My perspective changed to…

What would make Captured Sunlight the best Cascade spell in Standard?

To an extent, that one is easy.

Is Bituminous Blast the best spell in Standard? No.
Is Bloodbraid Elf the best spell in Standard? No.

Yet early consensus is that one of these spells — neither of which is the best spell in Standard — is the best Cascade spell in Standard.

Which of them is better than Loxodon Hierarch?

That’s right!

But wait! Why do I ask?

The superficial connections between Captured Sunlight and Loxodon Hierarch should probably be pretty obvious. Both cards share the same mana cost at four; both cards help you gain four life immediately. Unlike Bituminous Blast and Bloodbraid Elf, Loxodon Hierarch was at one point the best card in Standard (more on that tomorrow). If I can make Captured Sunlight as good — or even better than — Loxodon Hierarch, then by default wouldn’t that make Captured Sunlight the best card in Standard?

Not in this Standard, unfortunately *cough* Bitterblossom *cough* … Though we might arguably pass the efficacy of one of the two assumed default-best Cascade spells in the format.

This part is surprisingly easy…

• Four mana – check.
• Four life – check.
• 4/4 body… versus random card on top.

To make a long story short, we can bias a deck to spit out things on the order of Wooly Thoctar. When we do that, we can potentially over-shoot even the bar on Loxodon Hierarch!

Okay, here are the caveats, though…

Ultimately, I don’t think we want to engage in precision deck design just to make Captured Sunlight good. It was an interesting mental exercise, but our deck probably needs things on the order of Rampant Growth or even Firespout that are going to make the card look silly sometimes.

However it’s nice to know that if we wanted to, we could actually pass Loxodon Hierarch in card power.

Why?

Because we might also pass “interesting” to practical (like Mike originally started to argue)… Albeit probably not main deck.

But I think I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

Thanks for the firestarter, Mike.

LOVE
MIKE
(Totally different Mikes, of course).

All Alara Reborn

The following post on Alara Reborn’s Dauntless Escort was inspired by Brian Kowal, Brian David-Marshall, and whoever else was commenting on my Facebook wall.

 

 

First came…

 

 

But more importantly*…

 

 

To Tim,

I suppose that for some people calling Dauntless Escort an Ironclaw Orcs is a bit of a stretch. After all one is a below average 2/2 for two mana and the other is an above average 3/3 for three mana. However what I was trying to get across in my article on the mother ship was that in either case the creature in question — Ironclaw Orcs or Dauntless Escort — might appear to be a problem, but probably isn’t ultimately the problem. It’s what that creature represents, be it hte packages of damage that will eventually fuel the Philosophy of Fire or the fact that the opponent’s plan simply might not work any more (can’t sweep)… In both cases these creatures are the threat equivalent of the opposite of what we in marketing call “be benefit of the benefit”. Grok?

To Brian, Brian, and everyone else…

Of course Dauntless Escort reminds us of a Gnarled Mass! Thanks for being proud of me Burger King (but no BDM, I don’t think it was implied at all). Normally when I go to the well for a Silt Crawler or Gnarled Mass it’s because I feel like I have to establish as a baseline that a 3/3 for three mana can be playable in Constructed and on top of that look at this cool ability… I didn’t think Dauntless Escort had that challenge up front. That’s all.

But if you insist, “Gnarled Mass” everyone!

Staple, etc.

LOVE
MIKE

All Alara Reborn

* See how I did that?