The Planeswalk Tribune

It's been a while since I first started my blog huh? Yeah I guess I've really changed since then. All my posts have always been about magic but they have still changed a lot.

image courtesy of galleryhip

When I first started my blog, I was blogging about the 5 different khans of Khans of Tarkir. That was back around in late September. In general, those post were really boring and not enjoyable. I mean reviews aren't meant to be super fun to read. I was also reviewing one card at a time, and to be honest you can't go on and on about one card because at that point your just saying useless information. So I had a bit of a slow start, but things got better.

I started to review multiple cards at once, which gave me a lot more to talk about on each post. I also started to do a lot more reviews on spoilers of new sets. Since I was doing spoilers, I stopped doing reviews on different cycles in sets which is kind of a shame because I thought doing reviews on a cycle and then picking the best card from the cycle was cool. Well, maybe that's just me. It's probably just me. So I only did reviews on spoilers, so I couldn't post consistently because spoiler seasons are so short and far away from each other.

I obviously needed to do some more posts on different things. I decided to make a "Review the Pulls" series where I open a pack and then see how good the uncommons and rares are in limited. I also decided to do some deck techs on standard and limited decks and even made a "Current Deck" tab where I would post my most recent deck. After all this I really started to expand what I was doing on my blog. I didn't have to just do posts on reviewing cards, I could talk about other things like actually playing magic.

Throughout my blog I think that I have been better about making the reviews my own by adding my own voice and differentiating it from other reviews. I have voice right? I'm entertaining right? I'm totally hilarious right? No? Yeah guess not (see right there, that was voice, that takes skill). But in all seriousness I think I have developed a lot throughout my blogging career. Sure I may not have the most voice in the world, but I have definitely gotten better since my first couple of posts. I think I've even developed better rapport with my readers. Again not the best rapport, but I've gotten better since the beginning.

So that's all the different ways I have developed since the beginning. I'm definitely not a great blogger but I think I did pretty well. Unfortunately I'm going to end my blog here and not do anymore posts. Make sure to check out Mythic Spoiler for all the cards in Magic: The Gathering (this is where I got most of my pictures for cards). I really hope you all enjoyed my blog and thank you so much for reading!

Dragons of Tarkir Draft!

So it's official, black blue is the best color pair in Dragons draft. Seriously it destroys people. If you get the right cards is by far the best deck.

image courtesy of Mythic Spoiler

I decided to go down to FNM (Friday Night Magic) with my friends and draft. I watched some videos and I knew that black blue, mainly black, were the best colors. For my first pack, my rare was Haven of the Spirit Dragon, which is a horrible card for draft. The pack in general was not that good, so I took the best card which was an Aven Surveyor. From there I just went straight blue black picking up some sweet cards like Cloudform, Ukud Cobra, Silumgar Sorcerer, Youthfoul sScholar, Gurmaag Angler, and a Ruthless Deathfang. I even got passed a Silumgar, the Drifting Death and a Sage-Eye Avengers in the last pack! The deck was super solid and had a really good curve. The only problem is that I didn't have any removal, but who needs that when you have a Silumgar?

All of my matches were pretty easy. My first match up was against a green white deck and it was really close. He had an Ojutai Exemplars which was super scary. That card is really hard to beat because if they have any non-creature spells, it isn't going no where and it is going to run you over. I eventually got him by flying over him with all of my flyers. Oh and let me tell you about value. I had a youthful scholar out (a 2/2 creature that draws you two cards when it dies) and then exploited it with my Aven Surveyor (a 2/3 flying creature that draws you two cards if you exploit a creature). Lets just say drawing four cards just wins you the game. I beat my opponent 2-1

In my second match, I was against a green red deck that had a bunch of removal and big guys. I pulled silumgar every single game against him so you know, silumgar. It was actully really funny when I played Cloudform and manifested my silumgar, so when I flipped it up, it had hexproof, flying, hexproof, and flying. That's a thing right? Double Hexproof? But I just ran him over with my flyers because he has absolutely no protection against it. I endend up beating him 2-0

In my last match, I was paired up against one of my friends and I destroyed him (his blog here). He was playing a blue white tempo deck. The first game I was able to kill him in the skies before he could stabilize, and in the second game he got mana screwed so I beat him again. It always sucks if your opponent is mana screwed. You might win the match but it's just not a fun game.

I ended up going 3-0 at the draft and it was super fun. All my other friends went 2-1, so I was the best. Yup, I'm flipping amazing. Best magic player in the world. My pool was really good so that's probably why I did so well. I still had an awesome time and would recommend drafting to any Magic player. Well I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you next time!

Magic: The Noobs

It's unusual to come across someone else who plays magic. It is the most popular trading card game but it isn't known by a lot of people. When you do come across people that play magic it's pretty cool. It's always nice to see someone who plays the same game as you.

There is a group at my school, other than my group of friends, that plays magic. At first I was like, "Whoa, I finally found a group of people that like to play magic!" But then I saw them actually play... It's not like they are super bad or anything, (well they are but besides the point) it is how they play. Like it is not even close to the game Magic: The Gathering. Just think about it like this, Magic: The Gathering is one game, and what they play is totally different.

image courtesy of wired

First off, they start the game with all of their lands in play. You heard me, EVERY SINGLE LAND IN THEIR DECK. So already they just broke the game. Also, they get to choose what cards are in their hands. Alright, the managed to brake it even more. And finally, they can play cards that aren't in their deck. Yup, they seriously just take cards from wherever and play them. Doesn't that make you want to cringe? They should call it, Magic: We don't care about the actual rules so we're going to do whatever we want! I mean I get having your own house rules and stuff but come on! Whenever I watch them it hurts. I seriously just want to puke because their rules are so bad!

So other than them having insane rules, they are really really REALLY bad. I don't care if your bad at the game, we were all bad at the game at some point, but I just want to grab my best deck and destroy them. Imagine how fun it would be to own magic noobs with your best deck. I would just play out a Dragonlord Atarka and BAM, destroying magic noobs.

Oh, and don't even get me started on how they play two-headed giant. They have shared mana so they were able to play out Nicol Bolas turn three. TURN THREE NICOL BOLAS. THE HELL!!!!!!! How do you lose? You don't. Nicol Bolas wins. They have all these different game modes like "haste mode" and it's where everything has haste and they start with all their lands. It's honestly terrifying on how they play magic.

In all seriousness though, its always cool to find people who play magic, even if they are total noobs or magic pros. Not a lot of people Magic so it's special to find a group that does, even if they aren't the best or play the game differently.

Well that's it for my blog about Magic noobs, I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you guys next time!

COMMANDER!

Guys I think I have a problem. Yup, it's official, I'm totally obsessed with commander. IT'S ADDICTING! But really though, commander is super fun.

If you don't know what commander is, it is a format where you play with 100 card decks. Yeah you heard me, 100 cards. You can only have one copy of each card (except for basic lands), so you are playing with 100 different cards from different sets! Also, one of these cards is called your commander. A commander has to be a Legendary Creature in order to be your commander. You can only have cards in your deck that match your commander's color identity (the colors needed to cast it). Your commander is in your command zone from the beginning of the game. You can cast your commander from the command zone whenever you want, so you pretty much have it for the entire game. If your commander dies, it goes back to the commander zone and you can cast it again if you pay an extra two colorless fore every time it has died. (It gets SUPER expensive!)

My  Commander
image courtesy of Mythic Spoiler

There is a huge variety for what type of deck you can build because you can use cards from every set ever printed. When me and my friends heard about commander, we were totally hyped and we all bought one of the pre-built commander decks. Obviously those decks got boring so we all decided to build our own decks.

My deck is white blue and it is super annoying. My commander is Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. He is a 2/3 Legendary Human Advisor that casts for 2 colorless, one white, and one blue. He has, White spells you cast cost 1 less to cast, Blue spells you cast cost 1 less to cast, and spells your opponents control cost one more to cast. Lets just say that everyone in my friend group hates me for using Grand Arbiter. Seriously, I think my friends want me to burn in hell for playing this guy. If you get him out turn four it makes your opponents struggle to play out any of there spells and it makes you able to cast all of your spells super cheep! I stuffed in a bunch of blue and white tempo creatures like Peal Lake Ancient, and a bunch of different sphinxes. I put in some more blue and white rares and BAM, my commander deck destroys everyone. I mean it's not that good but it is pretty good, especially when you put in Venser, the Sojourner. That guys actually destroys everyone.

Commander is a super fun format to play and I would recommend it to anyone who plays Magic. Is is super fun to do a huge game with all of your friends. Commander is by far my favorite format and it should be EVERYONES favorite format, cause it is that good. Well, I'll see you guys next time, hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!