Hatorade Episode 22(Both Formats) Episode 21 (both formats) Episode20(both formats) Episode 17 (Both formats) of the proffessors 01-09-08 Class is in Session9:Tribal Bible: Little people big worlds 01-02-08Class is in Session8:Tribal Bible:House of Mirrors 12-26-07:Tribal Bible:Class is in Session8:Swimmin with the fishes 12-19-07:Class is in Session7:Elves and Delves (no delves included) 12-12-07 Class is in Session 6:Tribal Bible:Scary Faeries 12-05-07 Class is in Session5: Introducing The Tribal Bible, Unincarnating Incarnations 11-28-07 Class is in Session4: Building on a budget, incinerating to death 11-21-07Class is in session3: Walking new Planes, exploring new archetypes9/12/07-Magic Strategy Week1 9-19-07 Chandra Nalaar Week2 9-26-07 Tribal Gone Wild Week3 10-3-07 Lorwyn Expectations Week4 10/10/07 The Beginning of the an Arcanic Universe Week5 Lorwyn Decks Which to Choose, what cards to play 10/17 7-Hoarder's Greed Story-A picture tells a thousand words 10/24 10/31/07-Uber Burning Mono-Red Aggro 11/07/07 Change It Up 10-14-07

The script of the new Hatorade commercial

Hey do you hate the cardproffessor as much as I do?!

You do, well then you better our new product Hatorade!

You ask, what is hatorade well for the low low price of only 79.99 you can get your very own bottle of Hatorade. So what does it do, well we turn to silentduelistx to find out!

1]Hatorade has made me spite the cardproffessor, before I had no problems with the guy, but now I hate him, cuz he makes horrible videos about cardgames I don’t like

But mr.silentduelistx isn’t it true that mr.cardproffessor has a right to his opinion

1]Normally yes, but with this new Hatorade I can loathe him and set aside any decency that would normally tell me otherwise

Well there you have it folks order Hatorade now so you too can hate the cardproffessor!

Side effects may include drowsiness, dizziness, sore throat, head congestion, stomach problems, including upset stomach, and diarrhea, side effects may also include vomiting, a complete seemingness to have a lack of decency towards the cardproffessor, and people commenting on you being a nasty person

Order Hatorade today and you can become one of the many people who hate the cardproffessor and love Yugioh…even though it isn’t as good as magic

Order Today!

Pictured:

Deck the halls with bounds of cardgames

1Hello everybody and happy holidays!

2Christmas may be a couple of days away but that doesn’t mean we still can’t celebrate!

3Even if you’re watching us in July why not get into a festive mood for a little while and celebrate that one holiday everybody loves.

Christmas Time

4Christmas has slipped away, but its always Christmas here,

5and since Christmas gives the power of montages, why not just do a Christmas montage?

CHRISTMAS MONTAGE

(20 slides, 2-3 minutes)

Christmas Cards

26Everybody loves to get Christmas cards, so Wizards decided in 2006 that they’d take it to the next level,

27and give Christmas trading cards.

28Last year we had Fruitcake Elemental, and although nothing beats a 7/7 for three mana,

29this year we’ve got a funny play on gifts ungiven.

30After all why refuse a gift when you can take it anyway,

31this year we’ve got Gifts Given, take a look.

32     Wizards does a great job gettin the fun across with the Invitational,

33the Christmas cards, and the Un-sets.

34Speaking of the un-sets, where are they anyway?

35It’s been four years since the last un-set, and I think they’ve kept the suspense for long enough.

36Me and friends loved playing them, drafting them, making constructed decks,

37and the lands you just couldn’t beat.

38And although they’re not exactly the most competitive sets they were a great deal of fun to play, so Wizards, don’t let us down,

39do another un-set!

40     But as well as Wizards making cards, I have some holiday themed cards of my own that I’ll show. They’re not the greatest, but some fun to play cards.

CARD MONTAGE

(40 seconds)

51     Finally I’ve got a song created by the tacticalproffessor,

52the Lorwyn draft table song set to the tune of Ding fries are done,

53so until next year when we start things all over again

54with new equipment, new microphone, new effects. See ya next time

551]I play Mtg down at the card shop

I use Lorwyn block

2]Would you like a Dread with that?

3]Tap Nath is gone

4]I got Wren’s Run

5]Don’t run Flamekin Spit-fire it really sucks bad and so does Bog Hood-lums

6]Where is a land, can’t find a land, I need a land, where is a land

7]Can’t play Nath yet.

1,2,2,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,5,2,2,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,1,2,2,6,7,7,7,7

561]Shriek-a-maw Shriek-a-maw Shriek-a-maw rocks. Shriek-a-maw things with Shriek-a-maw wings killin and spillin bushels of blood now the Shriek-a-maw rock has begun.

2] Shriek-a-maw Shriek-a-maw Shriek-a-maw rocks. Shriek-a-maw kills and Shriek-a-maw bills. Snaking and Braking things like S.N.O.T. in the slimy air.

3]Such a bright time and the right time to screw that Tarmogoyf.

4] Shriek-a-maw time is the right time to swing for victory

5]Hurry up Shriek-a-maw go to the top

And make sure you never stop

6]Black and a colorless an amazing feat.

That’s why Shriek-a-maw

That’s why Shriek-a-maw

That’s why Shriek-a-maw rocks!

571]Mosswort Bridges, Mosswort Bridges

Riftswept by Planeswalking trials

In the air

There’s a whiff

Of Slivers

Poultice cracking

Slivers tapping

Meeting Sliv after Sliv

And in every rift you’ll hear

2]Sliver Bells Sliver Bells

It’s Sliver time in TSPblock

Swing a ling, Hear them Ping
Soon it will be Sliver Day

Chains of Armor

Kill the farmer

Blink a bright light with Necrotic

As the slivers storm

Slivers storming towards your lifepoints

3]Hear your face smash

See the clot munch

This is Venser’s big scene

And above all this tussle

You’ll hear

4] Sliver Bells Sliver Bells

It’s Sliver time in TSPblock

Swing a ling, Hear them Ping
Soon it will be Sliver Day

58And finally the five worst jokes of 2007 that are MTG related:

Read:

The [Morning]tides Rolling in

1Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Proffessors.

2Morningtide is growing ever closer

3and the prerelease is a bit more than a month away.

4But because all of our precious magic magazines have died out, with the exception of one

5lacking SCRYE, you magic fans must now scour the internet searching for magic related news.

6However, since The Magic Dojo, that has no longer been a problem, thanks to them and their spawn of magic podcasts,

7both video and audio you may now know as me, Erwin, and MTGcast now deliver to you the information so you don’t have to go through all the different channels you normally need to go through.

8The question is, who does it best?

Background

9I can’t wait for Morningtide and seeing this

10new information doesn’t help to relieve my suspenseful feeling, so why not give some background on Morningtide.

11     Note: This is an edited version of the Morningtide background story.

12We are what we repeatedly do. -Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.)

(Adobe-established)Every being that sets foot on Lorwyn hears a voice calling to him or her, a whispering passion that won’t be ignored. Whether its source is the dream-amplifying magic of the plane or simply the quickened pace of one’s own heart in the sublimity of nature, is no matter. What matters is the calling.

The calling is transformation. It changes a youth into a journeyman, an apprentice to a master. It changes a raw talent into proven genius. It changes a hired hand into a workforce, and a craftsman into culture.

The calling is devotion. When a blacksmith reaches into the forge’s fire to retrieve his axe, a druid submerges her soul into the ineffable spirit of the land, or an assassin risks his life to lace a dagger with deadly venom, it is the calling that propels them on.

The calling is community. The powers of one rogue are amplified by his guild of stealthy brethren. The ambitious spellcraft of one mage can become the magnum opus of a unified cabal. Warriors brought together become a war, and knights a crusade.

The races of Lorwyn are tight-knit communities, to be sure, but as the Aurora approaches, the peoples of the plane have begun to see interconnections beyond the simple boundaries of race and lineage. A sense of kinship arises between members of professions, a kinship that cuts across bloodlines and provides the foundation for a new phase of Lorwyn’s history.

Blood may be thicker than water, but the bonds between like-minded individuals will prove to be thicker still. When it comes time for Lorwyn’s destiny to be revealed, just as every race has a role to play on the plane, so will every individual—as long as they heed the voice that calls to them in their dreams.

Mechanics and Products

13Now, we supposedly don’t know all that much about Morningtide according to Wizard’s stand point. I know this because, well there’s still an entire month between us and the prerelease.

14However, thanks to our friends at MTGsalvation we now know a bit more.

15For example we now know that the 5 classes in Morningtide are:

 16Soldiers, which are expected to be Mono-white, because of the structure deck,

17The Rogues, which are suspected to be blue and black because of its Structure deck,

18Warriors which are Green White and Black, also suspected because of its structure deck.

19Finally are Wizards, which I suspect to be blue white or mono-blue.

20Now, I’ve had my suspicions as to what to expect as far as dual lands,

21but I expect that because they do not seem to all be covered in Morningtide, Wizards will wait until

22Shadowmoor to release any of the remaining five.

23As for the mechanics in Morningtide

24they are Prowl, Kinship, and Reinforce

25Prowl is suspected to be a cost reducer.

26The question now is if Wizards can manage to pull off

27something between Affinity and Ninjustsu, I guess we’ll see.

28As for reinforce it has been said that it is either another way of saying a creature will get +1/+1or it will have

30X ability when you have X number creatures with the same class or race.

31Finally Kinship is suspected to have to do with combat,

32when you combine abilities from other creatures with the same creature type on the field

33which would affect the need for control,

34or what is in the graveyard, like an Imprint of sorts, or Cairn Wanderer, which would affect graveyard strategies,

35the only way Wizards could have a lack of creativity here would be giving creatures blunt abilities that correspond with creature classes,

36however I expect Wizards to pull off what they’ve pulled off before yet again.

Spoiled Cards

37     Now there are six cards that have been fully revealed to us so far.

38Five were brought to us by R&D Members playing them in tournaments in Worlds.

39My friend had the honor of playing against one.

40He said “I wanted to take it and run” I can’t imagine what that would’ve been like.

41     I personally see Wizards revealing the cards in this way as a great method, what better way to see cards, then to see them in action?!

46     So what about those revealed cards? Well one I’ve been looking at closely is Primal Beyond.

Primal Beyond

    This card could often be compared to a card such as Smokebraider which could be compared to Vedalken Engineer.

47As you probably know, when designing Wizards always has a method for making cards never guaranteed to be better than any other card

48for example Birds of Paradise is a rare, and arguatively better than Llanowar Elves, a common, however the elves can be great

49when comboed  with an Imperious Perfect, and is overall better in a Mono-Green deck.

50The Birds can also be killed by flying killer spells like Wing Snare.

51The Birds also is a 0/1 and a non-blue, non-white Bird, and not an Elf, so you tell me, which is better?

52Teramorphic Expanse in comparison to Rampant Growth is our base comparison here though.

53The Growth is 2 mana, where the Expanse is, while free to play, taking up your land slot for the turn,

54which could affect you, further down the road.

55Now here we’ll compare Smokebraider and our new friend Primal Beyond.

56Now, the Braider taps for two mana, this is equivalent to the Primal Beyond’s tap abilities.

57Also the Beyond comes into play tapped and rarity may seem a bit of a rip off,

58however when comparing that Smokebraider is a simple, easy to remove creature, and so as you can see

59Wizards thinks all this through.

Chameleon Colossus and Taurean Mauler

60The changelings are here to stay. I’m extremely happy to see this, as well as these two cards.

61Both are quote: “This card is awesome” at first glance, but when examined you question it a bit.

62However, where there is question for playability, you get a question of format.

63Chameleon is great to play against a black control of sorts;

64it can’t be Terrored, Shriekmawed, Slaughterpacted, or Damnationed so it’s easily a sideboard card already.

65As for its regular playability. It is an undoubtedly playable card, it’s already better than Imperiousaur at first play,

66but its 2 colorless green, green is the epitome of agro.

67     As for the Taurean Mauler at first glance I’m sure you think

“Wow after a couple of turns this guy gets huge!”

68But the problem with that thought is, the in the few turns part. You just can’t wait that long for it.

69However, in the case of a Team match, or Two Headed Giant format, it’s should be picked highly

Preeminent Captain

70     You mean I get this guy in the structure deck, whoopee!

71A 2/2 first strike is already worth between 2 and 3 mana, and to summon a monstrous force against your opponent is pretty dang awesome.

72And although this guy is a bit questionable because of his precipitous stature affecting only soldiers, in a tribe deck,

73that you’ll have to start building fall 2008 when Time Spiral leaves standard, you can get one heck of a force.

Tokens

     Finally there have been a couple of tokens that have come to MTGsalvation, take a look.

78Well that’s another episode everybody, catchya next time for the Christmas special!

The [Morning]tides Rolling in

     Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Proffessors. Morningtide is growing ever closer and the prerelease is a bit more than a month away. But because all of our precious magic magazines have died out, with the exception of one, SCRYE, you magic fans must now scour the internet searching for magic related news.

     However, since The Magic Dojo, that has no longer been a problem, thanks to them and their spawn of magic podcasts, both video and audio you may now know as me, Erwin, and MTGcast now deliver to you the information so you don’t have to go through all the different channels you normally need to go through. The question is, who does it best?

Background

     I can’t wait for Morningtide and seeing this new information doesn’t help to relieve my suspenseful feeling, so why not give some background on Morningtide.

     Note: This is an edited version of the Morningtide background story.

We are what we repeatedly do. -Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.)

Every being that sets foot on Lorwyn hears a voice calling to him or her, a whispering passion that won’t be ignored. Whether its source is the dream-amplifying magic of the plane or simply the quickened pace of one’s own heart in the sublimity of nature, is no matter. What matters is the calling.

The calling is transformation. It changes a youth into a journeyman, an apprentice to a master. It changes a raw talent into proven genius. It changes a hired hand into a workforce, and a craftsman into culture.

The calling is devotion. When a blacksmith reaches into the forge’s fire to retrieve his axe, a druid submerges her soul into the ineffable spirit of the land, or an assassin risks his life to lace a dagger with deadly venom, it is the calling that propels them on.

The calling is community. The powers of one rogue are amplified by his guild of stealthy brethren. The ambitious spellcraft of one mage can become the magnum opus of a unified cabal. Warriors brought together become a war, and knights a crusade.

The races of Lorwyn are tight-knit communities, to be sure, but as the Aurora approaches, the peoples of the plane have begun to see interconnections beyond the simple boundaries of race and lineage. A sense of kinship arises between members of professions, a kinship that cuts across bloodlines and provides the foundation for a new phase of Lorwyn’s history.

Blood may be thicker than water, but the bonds between like-minded individuals will prove to be thicker still. When it comes time for Lorwyn’s destiny to be revealed, just as every race has a role to play on the plane, so will every individual—as long as they heed the voice that calls to them in their dreams.

Mechanics and Products

     Now, we supposedly don’t know all that much about Morningtide according to Wizard’s stand point. I know this because, well there’s still an entire month between us and the prerelease. However, thanks to our friends at MTGsalvation we now know a bit more. For example we now know that the 5 classes in Morningtide are:

 Soldiers, which are expected to be Mono-white, because of the structure deck, The Rogues, which are suspected to be blue and black because of its Structure deck, Warriors which are Green White and Black, also suspected because of its structure deck. Finally are Wizards, which I suspect to be blue white or mono-blue.

     Now, I’ve had my suspicions as to what to expect as far as dual lands, but I expect that because they do not seem to be all covered in Morningtide, Wizards will wait until Shadowmoor to release the remaining five.

     As for the mechanics in Morningtide they are Prowl, Kinship, and Reinforce, Prowl is suspected to be a cost reducer. The question now is if Wizards can manage to pull off something between Affinity and Ninjustsu, I guess we’ll see.

     As for reinforce it has been said that it is either another way of saying a creature will get +1/+1 or it will have X ability when you have X number creatures with the same class or race.

     Finally Kinship is suspected to have to do with combat, when you combine abilities from other creatures with the same creature type on the field, which would affect the need for control, or what is in the graveyard, like an Imprint of sorts, or Cairn Wanderer, which would affect graveyard strategies, the only way Wizards could have a lack of creativity here would be giving creatures blunt abilities that correspond with creature classes, however I expect Wizards to pull off what they’ve pulled off before yet again.

Spoiled Cards

     Now there are six cards that have been fully revealed to us so far. Five were brought to us by R&D Members playing them in tournaments in Worlds. My friend had the honor of playing against one. He said “I wanted to take it and run” I can’t imagine what that would’ve been like.

     I personally see Wizards revealing the cards in this way as a great method, what better way to see cards, then to see them in action?!

     So what about those revealed cards? Well one I’ve been looking at closely is Primal Beyond.

Primal Beyond

This card could often be compared to a card such as Smokebraider which could be compared to Vedalken Engineer. As you probably know, when designing Wizards always has a method for making cards never guaranteed to be better than any other card, for example Birds of Paradise is a rare, and arguatively better than Llanowar Elves, a common, however the elves can be great  when comboed  with an Imperious Perfect, and is overall better in a Mono-Green deck. The Birds can also be killed by flying killer spells like Wing Snare. The Birds also is a 0/1 and a non-blue, non-white Bird, and not an Elf, so you tell me, which is better?

     Teramorphic Expanse in comparison to Rampant Growth is our base comparison here though. The Growth is 2 mana, where the Expanse is, while free to play, taking up your land slot for the turn, which could affect you, further down the road.

     Now here we’ll compare Smokebraider and our new friend Primal Beyond. Now, the Braider taps for two mana, this is equivalent to the Primal Beyond’s tap abilities. Also the Beyond comes into play tapped and rarity may seem a bit of a rip off, however when comparing that Smokebraider is a simple, easy to remove creature, and so as you can see Wizards thinks all this through.

Chameleon Colossus and Taurean Mauler

     The changelings are here to stay. I’m extremely happy to see this, as well as these two cards. Both are quote: “This card is awesome” at first glance, but when examined you question it a bit. However, where there is question for playability, you get a question of format. Chameleon is great to play against a black control of sorts; it can’t be Terrored, Shriekmawed, Slaughterpacted, or Damnationed so it’s easily a sideboard card already.

     As for its regular playability. It is an undoubtedly playable card, it’s already better than Imperiousaur at first play, but its 2 colorless green, green is the epitome of agro.

     As for the Taurean Mauler at first glance I’m sure you think

“Wow after a couple of turns this guy gets huge!” But the problem with that thought is, the in the few turns part. You just can’t wait that long for it. However, in the case of a Team match, or Two Headed Giant format, it’s should be picked highly

Preeminent Captain

     You mean I get this guy in the structure deck, whoopee! A 2/2 first strike is already worth between 2 and 3 mana, and to summon a monstrous force against your opponent is pretty dang awesome. And although this guy is a bit questionable because of his precipitous stature affecting only soldiers, in a tribe deck, that you’ll have to start building fall 2008 when Time Spiral leaves standard, you can get one heck of a force.

Well that’s another episode everybody, catchya next time for the Christmas special!

Tokens

     Finally there have been a couple of tokens that have come to MTGsalvation, take a look.

1Hello everybody I’m back from Worlds

2and I’ve gotten my footage out.

3Not quite the amount of views I had hoped for

4but I’m no Evan Erwin, so, oh well.

5I got some pretty dang good interviews with people

6but less than 20 minutes of footage for an entire day of filming, sounds a bit odd to me

7so what else did I get; well I guess you’ll have to watch to find out.

The Legends of Magic

8Now, firstly Mark Rosewater. That guy is awesome, just awesome.

9And although he’s not quite god

10he is god of the magic world

11and is up there with Garfield himself.

12And as second god of the magic world he happens to know Chuck Norris

13who happens to know god.

14And although he’s not god he definitely got the Jesus bein god, but not god

15and rosewater sayin that Shadowmoor is part of Lorwyn, while at the same time not part of Lorwyn.

16Anyway, what about Elian Chase?

17While she doesn’t seem to be as important as anyone thinks she is, the senior brand manager is a pretty dang important job

18and I never would’ve guessed magic could be fun,, and beneficial!

19As for Tom, from MTGcast it was an honor conversing with him as well as him getting an interview with me, that should be on MTGcast in a couple of days, and me getting an interview with him

20and the even cooler thing is, we got a picture on the Wizards site, how awesome is that!

21Craig Jones was great to interview as I have always been a big fan of his writing, and field work, as well as his magic playing, a world champion for a year, how cool is that?!

22And as for the lightning Helix moment, just classic.

23My interviews with the two artists were great as well

24yet still very different.

25When interviewing Paolo Parente I did find that his answers were more thought out

26“for a writer” as my friend said.

27As for Jim Murray, there was a lost connection, as the hall was so loud it distracted the interview

28and I was also unable to hear him because of my stupid, lack of external microphone, but hey, we can fix that.

Improvements

29As you can hear for yourself I’ve gotten a good deal of music,

30but I’ve also received something else from a fan ten times more useful than music.

31     Thanks to a friend at Wizards of the Coast

32I and friends will now be able to attend the upcoming extended PTQ for Kuala-Lumpur

33as well as the Morningtide Release and Prerelease events in our areas.

34But what about that stupid mic problem?

35Well thanks to a great donator from Wizards of the Coast we, or at least a person I had the impression is from Wizards of the Coast,

36the proffessors now have a new nice little $500 camera

37as well as external mic

38two extra battery packs

39a tripod,

40and Zeis Camera Lens

41that the proffessors now have in their arsenal to use at these

42upcoming events.

Missing Links

43Now, as you’ve already realized the footage is a bit blah, and there’s somethin missing.

44Well you’re right, they’re in the backroom

45I still have an interview with Guillame Wafo-Topia

46Gabriel Nassif,

47Uri Peleg, before and after his victory,

48and Aaron Forsythe the head of Research and Development at Wizards.

49However, those are for another day I plan to unleash those all before the year is up

50and I know those of you who loved the other ones will love these too.

Ending

51     And that’s it for now, look out for my articles coming up on MTGsalvation, and freewebs.com/yugiohandmtg, my videos coming up on MTGCast, and the next of the twelve days of card games all coming soon.

(Non-pictures) format of episode20

Title: Little People Big World

     Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the proffessors. I wasn’t planning to make this video but finished all of my other recent tasks rather quickly, and so I had a bit of extra time, I used that time to keep myself busy, playing magic, contacting Evan Erwin, and getting my decks ready for worlds as well as doing some Lorwyn draft in practice for Worlds.

Title: Little People Big World

     So, I realize that many people have wanted me to do an eight man draft for a while now, so I finally said, what the heck I’ll throw in the cash to do it, well actually it had more to do with the fact that I can only go on MODO at my cousin’s house, but,, you get the point. So, I figured what better archetype to draft then those little guys that don’t quite make for standard powerhouses, but can still pass as draftables.

     Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what to pick, but the question is what to pick first, comparatively? Well, the way I figure is that the below cards rank as follows:

 Top 10 Lorwyn Green and White Drafters:

1.    Garruk Wildspeaker

2.    Austere Command

3.    Gaddock Teeg

4.    Oblivion Ring

5.    Neck Snap

6.    Thoughtweft Trio

7.    Cloudgoat Ranger

8.    Vigor

9.    Purity

10.                       Imperious Perfect

     So Garruk is, a bit obvious that should never leave your first pick clutches, as well as Austere Command, and almost at all times Gaddock Teeg as it says:

“No mass removal spells”

As for the others, they need a bit more of explanation. Oblivion Ring does not necessarily deserve to be picked first over the others but it and Neck Snap deserve picks for their much needed removal in the archetype. As for Thoughtweft and Cloudgoat, they deserve to be up their for their necessary late game hits for the archetype. Vigor and Purity are late game saviors, as well as the pumper of Perfect. Finally I present you with my actual draft picks during one of my many drafts for this archetype:

     So here are my picks in my most recent draft:

1- Pack1: Lys Alana Huntmaster

Pack2: Neck Snap*

Pack3: Kinsbaile Skirmisher

Pack4: Goldmeadow Harrier

Pack5: Woodland Changeling

Pack6: Lace with Moonglove

Pack7: Lairwatch Giant

Pack8: Kinsbaile Skirmisher

Pack9:  Cenn’s Heir

Pack10: Heal the Scars

Pack11: Elvish Handservant

Pack12: Cenn’s Heir

Pack13: Ringskipper ()

Pack14: Elvish Eulogist

Pack15: Heal the Scars

2- Pack16: Battle Mastery

Pack17: Goldmeadow Harrier

Pack18: Lys Alana Huntmaster

Pack19: Woodland Changeling

Pack20: Fertile Ground

Pack21: Wanderer’s Twig

Pack22: Ancient Amphitheater ()

Pack23: Cenn’s Heir

Pack24: Lignify

Pack25: Wellgaber Apothecary

Pack26: Elvish Handservant

Pack27: Heal the Scars

Pack28: Faultgrinder ()

Pack29: Exiled Boggart ()

Pack30: Hunt Down

3- Pack31: Veteran of the Depths

Pack32: Crib Swap

Pack33: Kithkin Healer

Pack34: Lairwatch Giant

Pack35: Gilt Leaf Seer

Pack36: Goldmeadow Dodger

Pack37: Stinkdrinker Daredevil ()

Pack38: Wispmare

Pack39: Wispmare

Pack40: Springleaf Drum

Pack41: Deeptread Merrow ()

Pack42: Judge of Currents

Pack43: Herbal Poultice

Pack44: Faultgrinder ()

Pack45: Boggart Forager ()

And for the final build:

Green

White

Elves

Kithkin

Lorwyn

Draft Legal

Deck: 40 cards

(24 Spells, 16 lands)

1 Battle Mastery	1 Judge of Currents
1 Cenn’s Heir	1 Kithkin Healer
1 Crib Swap	1 Lace with Moonglove
1 Elvish Eulogist	2 Lairwatch Giant
1 Fertile Ground	2 Lys Alana Huntmaster
2 Goldmeadow Harrier	1 Neck Snap
2 Heal the Scars	1 Veteran of the Depths
2 Kinsbaile Skirmisher	1 Wanderer’s Twig
1 Woodland Changeling	1 Wispmare
1 Gilt Leaf Seer	8 Forest
8 Plains

     This draft was just horrible for me, I went through all this, then said:

“Man…this stinks no Planeswalkers, no good rares, no top tens, except a mere neck snap, *sigh* and I just wasted a bunch of tickets for nothing, and just picked up about 3 bucks worth of crap, why? Why God?”

     I’ve played this archetype and it went o.k. but why did this one have to be so bad, I got nothing. Well…it was true I did get nothing…but apparently everyone else had a bad draft too, cuz for the first time, I won the eight man draft!?

     I don’t know how this happened but to summarize, How I think it worked, it went like this.

Round1, Game2

I was leading 1-0

Early Game

I played some cruddy Kithkin, and managed to swing for, well a bit with my weenies, but not enough to win the game while my opponent brought out some scary stuff with a couple of Springleaf Drums, and a Wanderer’s Twig, then they brought out their scary Giant Harbinger, as well as a Stinkdrinker Daredevil, and I began to quiver.

Mid Game

He brought out his Thundercloud Shaman, while I had no creatures, he killed his daredevil, I then went about panicking, but soon managed to draw…a harrier? Wow! Then he played, what else than, another Stinkdrinker, I knew he had a Hearthcage, and he would kill me with it, he was at 20 and I was, after that turn, at 13, very unlucky. I then played waddayaknow?! Another Harrier! I then continued to tap his Shaman, for a couple of turns and we continued to both draw crap for three more turns, but then…

Late Game

He played a Hearthcage as I had predicted, but, maybe those last couple of turns I hadn’t drawn crap after all, hey look! A crib swap was awaitin! Then after another turn or two the game went to 18 (him) 3 (me) I thought I was dead but what?! I drew Lys Alana Huntmaster, a solid creature, from there it was a gore fest, a battle of his elementals, goblins, and giants against my wee Kithkin and elves, but in about 3 turns it was down to a Lys Alana Huntmaster on my side, and nothing on his and a life score of 12-1, I began my turn, played a Lairwatch Giant, and an Elvish Eulogist, then ended my turn. He began his turn then said Lash Out!

     Killing my Lairwatch we clashed, he got, a Thundercloud Shaman, and, what did I get, oh my god it’s another Lairwatch Giant! He then went to lose the game. That one move could have one him the game, as I had not a single elf from which I could have gained life with the Eulogist.

(Part4) I won?!     Well, I have absolutely no idea how it was done, but after that game I just kept on winning, and winning until I entered the last match against a goblin deck that had at least 3 Fodder Launch, a harbinger, a crazy mad Facevaulter, a knucklebone, and a hole bunch of other stuff I shouldn’t have been able to handle, but could… somehow.

Kithkin-an ultimate archetype, with the right cards in makes a decent archetype, but not really.

Title: Worlds Warriors

     So, as for my updates and specifics on Worlds I have tons of news. I contacted Evan Erwin to see if he knew about getting special permission for interviews, and he sent back saying that I just needed the gusto to ask. He also mentioned the ability to get a press pass for backstage access, so I called WOTC, and after only 20 minutes of waiting music and a random operating lady talking, the call got through, and who was it? Well I don’t know, nobody famous, that I know, but what did they say when I asked?! I didn’t believe my ears;

“The Proffessors…….. Oh now I know, hey do you guys spell your name wrong on purpose?” He asked.

“Yes I said, so you’ve heard of us then?” I questioned enthusiastically.

“Ya, I’ve seen some of your recent shows, I must give you and your friends props, they’ve gotten a lot better, I didn’t like it at first, but now its almost as good as Erwin, although you do stray off topic a little bit.”

A moment of silence…

“Wow, you think so, well I was wandering if I could get a press pass at worlds.” I questioned

“I think so but I’ll have to check, just give me your email address and I’ll be able to tell you later.”

     A couple of days later, what did I find, but a letter from WOTC granting the cardproffessor, and up to 3 friends backstage access, and the ability to interview several pros including the new hall of famers, several players, of course the artists, and several other persona, perhaps even the one who started this all, Mr. Erwin himself.

I plan to go to Worlds only on Sunday, however because I have a cheap camera that can only hold 30 minutes of film, I would need to keep everything short and sweet anyway. I also plan to play in a Typ2 constructed tournament, a Lorwyn Draft, and a 2 Headed Giant tournament with my good friend, the tactical proffessor.

So that’s another show everyone, see ya next time with my worlds coverage!

and....

Title: Little People Big World

1     Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the proffessors.

2 I wasn’t planning to make this video but finished all of my other recent tasks rather quickly, and so I had a bit of extra time

3 I used that time to keep myself busy, playing magic, contacting Evan Erwin, and getting my decks ready for worlds as well as doing some Lorwyn draft in practice for Worlds.

Title: Little People Big World

4So, I realize that many people have wanted me to do an eight man draft for a while now

5so I finally said, what the heck I’ll throw in the cash to do it

6well actually it had more to do with the fact that I can only go on MODO at my cousin’s house

7 but,, you get the point. So, I figured what better archetype to draft then those little guys that don’t quite make for standard powerhouses, but can still pass as draftables.

8     Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what to pick, but the question is what to pick first, comparatively? Well, the way I figure is that the below cards rank as follows:

 Top 10 Lorwyn Green and White Drafters:

1.    10Garruk Wildspeaker

2.    11Austere Command

3.    12Gaddock Teeg

4.    13Oblivion Ring

5.    14Neck Snap

6.    15Thoughtweft Trio

7.    16Cloudgoat Ranger

8.    17Vigor

9.    Purity

10.                       18Imperious Perfect

19     So Garruk is, a bit obvious that should never leave your first pick clutches, as well as Austere Command

20and almost at all times Gaddock Teeg as it says:

“No mass removal spells”

21As for the others, they need a bit more of explanation.

22Oblivion Ring does not necessarily deserve to be picked first over the others but it

23and Neck Snap deserve picks for their much needed removal in the archetype.

24As for Thoughtweft and Cloudgoat, they deserve to be up their for their necessary late game hits for the archetype.

25Vigor and Purity are late game saviors, as well as the pumper that is Perfect.

26Finally I present you with my actual draft picks during one of my many drafts for this archetype:

     27

1- Pack1: Lys Alana Huntmaster

Pack2: Neck Snap*

Pack3: Kinsbaile Skirmisher

Pack4: Goldmeadow Harrier

Pack5: Woodland Changeling

Pack6: Lace with Moonglove

Pack7: Lairwatch Giant

Pack8: Kinsbaile Skirmisher

Pack9:  Cenn’s Heir

Pack10: Heal the Scars

Pack11: Elvish Handservant

Pack12: Cenn’s Heir

Pack13: Ringskipper ()

Pack14: Elvish Eulogist

Pack15: Heal the Scars

28-2- Pack16: Battle Mastery

Pack17: Goldmeadow Harrier

Pack18: Lys Alana Huntmaster

Pack19: Woodland Changeling

Pack20: Fertile Ground

Pack21: Wanderer’s Twig

Pack22: Ancient Amphitheater ()

Pack23: Cenn’s Heir

Pack24: Lignify

Pack25: Wellgaber Apothecary

Pack26: Elvish Handservant

Pack27: Heal the Scars

Pack28: Faultgrinder ()

Pack29: Exiled Boggart ()

Pack30: Hunt Down

29-3- Pack31: Veteran of the Depths

Pack32: Crib Swap

Pack33: Kithkin Healer

Pack34: Lairwatch Giant

Pack35: Gilt Leaf Seer

Pack36: Goldmeadow Dodger

Pack37: Stinkdrinker Daredevil ()

Pack38: Wispmare

Pack39: Wispmare

Pack40: Springleaf Drum

Pack41: Deeptread Merrow ()

Pack42: Judge of Currents

Pack43: Herbal Poultice

Pack44: Faultgrinder ()

Pack45: Boggart Forager ()

30And for the final build:

Green

White

Elves

Kithkin

Lorwyn

Draft Legal

Deck: 40 cards

(24 Spells, 16 lands)

1 Battle Mastery	1 Judge of Currents
1 Cenn’s Heir	1 Kithkin Healer
1 Crib Swap	1 Lace with Moonglove
1 Elvish Eulogist	2 Lairwatch Giant
1 Fertile Ground	2 Lys Alana Huntmaster
2 Goldmeadow Harrier	1 Neck Snap
2 Heal the Scars	1 Veteran of the Depths
2 Kinsbaile Skirmisher	1 Wanderer’s Twig
1 Woodland Changeling	1 Wispmare
1 Gilt Leaf Seer	8 Forest
8 Plains

31     This draft was just horrible for me, I went through all this, then said:

“Man…this stinks no Planeswalkers, no good rares, no top tens, except a mere neck snap, *sigh* and I just wasted a bunch of tickets for nothing, and just picked up about 3 bucks worth of crap, why? Why God?”

     I’ve played this archetype and it went o.k. but why did this one have to be so bad, I got nothing.

32Well…it was true I did get nothing…but apparently everyone else had a bad draft too, cuz for the first time, I won the eight man draft!?

33     I don’t know how this happened but to summarize, How I think it worked, it went like this.

34Round1, Game2

I was leading 1-0

35Early Game

I played some cruddy Kithkin, and managed to swing for, well a bit with my weenies, but not enough to win the game while my opponent brought out some scary stuff with a couple of Springleaf Drums, and a Wanderer’s Twig, then they brought out their scary Giant Harbinger, as well as a Stinkdrinker Daredevil, and I began to quiver.

Mid Game

He brought out his Thundercloud Shaman, while I had no creatures, he killed his daredevil, I then went about panicking, but soon managed to draw…a harrier? Wow! Then he played, what else than, another Stinkdrinker, I knew he had a Hearthcage, and he would kill me with it, he was at 20 and I was, after that turn, at 13, very unlucky. I then played waddayaknow?! Another Harrier! I then continued to tap his Shaman, for a couple of turns and we continued to both draw crap for three more turns, but then…

Late Game

He played a Hearthcage as I had predicted, but, maybe those last couple of turns I hadn’t drawn crap after all, hey look! A crib swap was awaitin! Then after another turn or two the game went to 18 (him) 3 (me) I thought I was dead but what?! I drew Lys Alana Huntmaster, a solid creature, from there it was a gore fest, a battle of his elementals, goblins, and giants against my wee Kithkin and elves, but in about 3 turns it was down to a Lys Alana Huntmaster on my side, and nothing on his and a life score of 12-1, I began my turn, played a Lairwatch Giant, and an Elvish Eulogist, then ended my turn. He began his turn then said Lash Out!

     Killing my Lairwatch we clashed, he got, a Thundercloud Shaman, and, what did I get, oh my god it’s another Lairwatch Giant! He then went to lose the game. That one move could have one him the game, as I had not a single elf from which I could have gained life with the Eulogist.

     Well, I have absolutely no idea how it was done, but after that game I just kept on winning, and winning until I entered the last match against a goblin deck that had at least 3 Fodder Launch, a harbinger, a crazy mad Facevaulter, a knucklebone, and a hole bunch of other stuff I shouldn’t have been able to handle, but could… somehow.

36Kithkin-an ultimate archetype, with the right cards in makes a decent archetype, but not really.

Title: Worlds Warriors

37     So, as for my updates and specifics on Worlds I have tons of news.

38I contacted Evan Erwin to see if he knew about getting special permission for interviews

39and he sent back saying that I just needed the gusto to ask.

40He also mentioned the ability to get a press pass for backstage access

41so I called WOTC, and after only 20 minutes of waiting music and a random operating lady talking, the call got through, and who was it?

42Well I don’t know,, nobody famous that I know, but what did they say when I asked?! I didn’t believe my ears;

43“The Proffessors…….. Oh now I know, hey do you guys spell your name wrong on purpose?” He asked.

44“Yes” I said, “so you’ve heard of us then?” I questioned enthusiastically.

45“Ya, I’ve seen some of your recent shows, I must give you and your friends props, they’ve gotten a lot better, I didn’t like it at first, but now its almost as good as Erwin, although you do stray off topic a little bit.”

46A moment of silence…

“Wow, you think so, well I was wandering if I could get a press pass at worlds.” I questioned

47“I think so but I’ll have to check, just give me your email address and I’ll be able to tell you later.”

48A couple of days later

47what did I find, but a letter from WOTC granting the cardproffessor, and up to 3 friends backstage access, and the ability to interview several pros including the new hall of famers, several players, of course the artists, and several other persona, perhaps even the one who started this all, Mr. Erwin himself.

49I plan to go to Worlds only on Sunday, however because I have a cheap camera that can only hold 30 minutes of film, I would need to keep everything short and sweet anyway. I also plan to play in a Typ2 constructed tournament, a Lorwyn Draft, and a 2 Headed Giant tournament with my good friend, the tactical proffessor.

50So that’s another show everyone, see ya next time with my worlds coverage!

Class is in Session9: Tribal Bible: Little People Big World (Of Drafting)

(Part1) The Epic Battle of Kithkin and Treefolk:     I always find it strange at how, every time my work seems to get better, it gets criticized more and more, like when I made this week’s episode, many comments against it, and saying that my website is a block of text, but that’s fury for another day.

     So Kithkin, those little guys that, although they can be Pyroclasmed very easily, make a great and fun draft archetype when you can get it right. Green and White are often underdrafted in Lorwyn, because everyone thinks white is just totally awful, and in limited, green never seems to have the power you need.

     Well, I say Nah! Not only are the Kithkin, an underdrafted tribe in Lorwyn are underdrafted, but those green and white, and by cause black Treefolk. Now, I personally find that when drafting Treefolk in Lorwyn it is much easier when, a larger amount of packs are drafted, for example 5 instead of three, as it allows you to home your skills to more precise levels, and with so many rares, are generally hard to play in a three color deck, so this article will focus around Kithkin instead.

     Now, I could have covered this in block or type2, but I’ve been told several times that it gets boring after a while, and I agree. Also, I’m not sure how playable Kithkin are in a tournament, so let’s draft away!

(Part2) Drafting Kithkin-what to pick:     Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what to pick, but the question is what to pick first, comparatively? Well, the way I figure is that the below cards rank as follows:

 Top 10 Lorwyn Green and White Drafters:

1.    Garruk Wildspeaker

2.    Austere Command

3.    Gaddock Teeg

4.    Oblivion Ring

5.    Neck Snap

6.    Thoughtweft Trio

7.    Cloudgoat Ranger

8.    Vigor

9.    Purity

10.                       Imperious Perfect

     So Garruk is, a bit obvious that should never leave your first pick clutches, as well as Austere Command, and almost at all times Gaddock Teeg as it says:

“No mass removal spells”

As for the others, they need a bit more of explanation. Oblivion Ring does not necessarily deserve to be picked first over the others but it and Neck Snap deserve picks for their much needed removal in the archetype. As for Thoughtweft and Cloudgoat, they deserve to be up their for their necessary late game hits for the archetype. Vigor and Purity are late game saviors, as well as the pumper of Perfect. Finally I present you with my actual draft picks during one of my many drafts for this archetype:

(Part3) The Draft:

1- Pack1: Lys Alana Huntmaster

Pack2: Neck Snap*

Pack3: Kinsbaile Skirmisher

Pack4: Goldmeadow Harrier

Pack5: Woodland Changeling

Pack6: Lace with Moonglove

Pack7: Lairwatch Giant

Pack8: Kinsbaile Skirmisher

Pack9:  Cenn’s Heir

Pack10: Heal the Scars

Pack11: Elvish Handservant

Pack12: Cenn’s Heir

Pack13: Ringskipper ()

Pack14: Elvish Eulogist

Pack15: Heal the Scars

2- Pack16: Battle Mastery

Pack17: Goldmeadow Harrier

Pack18: Lys Alana Huntmaster

Pack19: Woodland Changeling

Pack20: Fertile Ground

Pack21: Wanderer’s Twig

Pack22: Ancient Amphitheater ()

Pack23: Cenn’s Heir

Pack24: Lignify

Pack25: Wellgaber Apothecary

Pack26: Elvish Handservant

Pack27: Heal the Scars

Pack28: Faultgrinder ()

Pack29: Exiled Boggart ()

Pack30: Hunt Down

3- Pack31: Veteran of the Depths

Pack32: Crib Swap

Pack33: Kithkin Healer

Pack34: Lairwatch Giant

Pack35: Gilt Leaf Seer

Pack36: Goldmeadow Dodger

Pack37: Stinkdrinker Daredevil ()

Pack38: Wispmare

Pack39: Wispmare

Pack40: Springleaf Drum

Pack41: Deeptread Merrow ()

Pack42: Judge of Currents

Pack43: Herbal Poultice

Pack44: Faultgrinder ()

Pack45: Boggart Forager ()

And so, now for the final build:

Green-White

Kithkin Elf Archetype

Lorwyn Draft Legal

     This draft was just horrible for me, I went through all this, then said:

“Man…this stinks no Planeswalkers, no good rares, no top tens, except a mere neck snap, *sigh* and I just wasted a bunch of tickets for nothing, and just picked up about 3 bucks worth of crap, why? Why God?”

     I’ve played this archetype and it went o.k. but why did this one have to be so bad, I got nothing. Well…it was true I did get nothing…but apparently everyone else had a bad draft too, cuz for the first time, I won the eight man draft!?

     I don’t know how this happened but to summarize, How I think it worked, it went like this.

Round1, Game2

I was leading 1-0

Early Game

I played some cruddy Kithkin, and managed to swing for, well a bit with my weenies, but not enough to win the game while my opponent brought out some scary stuff with a couple of Springleaf Drums, and a Wanderer’s Twig, then they brought out their scary Giant Harbinger, as well as a Stinkdrinker Daredevil, and I began to quiver.

Mid Game

He brought out his Thundercloud Shaman, while I had no creatures, he killed his daredevil, I then went about panicking, but soon managed to draw…a harrier? Wow! Then he played, what else than, another Stinkdrinker, I knew he had a Hearthcage, and he would kill me with it, he was at 20 and I was, after that turn, at 13, very unlucky. I then played waddayaknow?! Another Harrier! I then continued to tap his Shaman, for a couple of turns and we continued to both draw crap for three more turns, but then…

Late Game

He played a Hearthcage as I had predicted, but, maybe those last couple of turns I hadn’t drawn crap after all, hey look! A crib swap was awaitin! Then after another turn or two the game went to 18 (him) 3 (me) I thought I was dead but what?! I drew Lys Alana Huntmaster, a solid creature, from there it was a gore fest, a battle of his elementals, goblins, and giants against my wee Kithkin and elves, but in about 3 turns it was down to a Lys Alana Huntmaster on my side, and nothing on his and a life score of 12-1, I began my turn, played a Lairwatch Giant, and an Elvish Eulogist, then ended my turn. He began his turn then said Lash Out!

     Killing my Lairwatch we clashed, he got, a Thundercloud Shaman, and, what did I get, oh my god it’s another Lairwatch Giant! He then went to lose the game. That one move could have one him the game, as I had not a single elf from which I could have gained life with the Eulogist.

(Part4) I won?!     Well, I have absolutely no idea how it was done, but after that game I just kept on winning, and winning until I entered the last match against a goblin deck that had at least 3 Fodder Launch, a harbinger, a crazy mad Facevaulter, a knucklebone, and a hole bunch of other stuff I shouldn’t have been able to handle, but could… somehow.

Kithkin-an ultimate archetype, with the right cards in makes a decent archetype, but not really.

Class is in Session 8: Tribal Bible: House of Mirrors

(Part1) An archetype that will outlast Sonic Boom:     As you may already know Guillame Wafo-Topia had his own take on Lorwyn, and I must say what an impressive take on Lorwyn it was. His deck is focused around Guile, you know the 6/6 Elemental Incarnation and it basically says:

1 for 1 target opponent until you have enough mana to play Guile, when you have enough mana to play Guile pwn target opponent by totally ticking them off by removing all their creatures from the game, and getting them on your side with said Guile.

     However, since we have evolved beyond the point of a single archetype ruling a format there will always be something that beats it. As you may already know the classic circle of tere two metagaming goes from agro to control to agro to control, and so this deck will always have its downfalls, but as life goes on the circle of magic must go on!

     One more thing. If you are versing agro with this deck type all you have to do is out agro them, even against a goyf matchup this deck/overall archetype makes for one heck of a combo. So without further adou I present to you a new archetype that I plan to play in several side tournaments at worlds, house of mirrors.

(Part2) The Importance of Mirror Entity:      So, if you’ve read another one of my articles or if you watch The Proffessors on youtube and saw the latest episode that mentions this archetype, then you already know what this article is about, but for those of you who don’t, I’ll keep you in suspense for a few more sentences.

     So, as we know you have your power 9 cards, which, in standard at the moment qualify as Tarmogoyf and Thoughtseize. Then you have the cards that are power 8, and not quite as amazing, such as, in Lorwyn the Planeswalkers, Mirror Entity, Colfernor’s Plans, Colfernor’s Urn, and some other little cards dashed here and there in the set, but among those cards are always cards that have yet to have been fully utilized as they have a hidden power, not seen by the naked cardslinger….o.k. o.k. bad metaphor. What I meant to say is that cards can be good when… or that cards can be no, no that’s not right either. O.K. I’ll get to the point Mirror Entity! Ya, you look at it and say:

“Wow I’m happy to open this; it’s a pretty good card!”

     However after reading this article and opening a Lorwyn pack to find a card like that you will then say;

“Holy crap this card is freakin amazing, and not only that but it completes my deck that I was working on thanks to suggestion by the cardproffessor, and for those of you who don’t know the archetype is called House of Mirrors. It’s a deck that uses crazy amounts of elves and pumps them up with Mirror Entity, to get your 900 elves that are 10/10s and then allows you to swing for over 9000!(That joke never gets old)”

     Oh sure, if you actually screamed that in a card shop everyone in there would stare at you awkwardly until you shut up… but you get the idea of how good, and important Mirror Entity is to the construction of this deck.

     You may be thinking:

Why should I worry about this horrible archetype when I can just whip out my control deck, and continue to 1 for 1 him then get out my uber creatures and pwn him!

     The thing is…that’s just it. When I played this deck on MTGO (as I couldn’t play it in real life because my local card shop, that is still a great shop did not have a single Mirror Entity with 1 exception of a single Mirror Entity that was holo and therefore would have cost me a bazillion dollars) and I faced many control decks in the time of playing this deck, and ya, after a while my opponent would figure out:

Hey I should Canceled his Mirror Entity, because that’s his real plan, not to play any of these crap elves as diversion!

But how well would that have worked?

     See, although Mirror Entity is very important in the destruction of your opponent, it is a minor part in the grand scheme that is the deck.

     As you can already see this deck focuses very much on elves (actually you won’t see this until I actually present the built deck) so the deck doubles as both, a kickass Green-White Elf deck (that’s still pretty dang awesome because of the 8 walking talking glorious anthems) but also as a House of Mirrors agro archetype, that doesn’t entirely rely on Imperious Perfect and/or Elvish Champion. But remember Mirror Entity, along with every creature affected by its ability are changelings, and therefore still get boosts from your Perfects or your Champions, so I know you can’t wait for the decklist so…here it is.

(Part3) House of Mirrors, a New Hope for Agro:     So here is my Lorwyn Block build of the deck, I’ll review and run through that and then we can go to the Type 2 version of the deck, that is much more impressive, and better.

Green-White House of Mirrors (Lorwyn Block, and Type 2 Legal)

3 Leaf Gilder	11 Plains
4 Mirror Entity	11 Forests
4 Imperious Perfect	2 Wizened Cenn
4 Wren’s Run Packmaster	4 Goldmeadow Harrier
3 Wren’s Run Vanquisher	3 Goldmeadow Stalwart
4 Kinsbaile Baloonist	4 Oblivion Ring
3 Changeling Hero

The Tall, the Small, and the Changelings: This deck, when played correctly does offer quite a bit of options, with some great control, and holds with cards like Oblivion Ring and Goldmeadow Harrier, and yet still amazing agro that is sure to make the deck a winner, and did, and so I showed it.

Little People Big World: I heavily apologize to the dwarves out there, but that name was the only thing that fit the KITH kin nature. The Kithkin in this deck, although massively made up of Goldmeadow Stalwart which requires a revealed Kithkin, which you may not always have, it makes for one heck of a starter, and if you don’t have a good hand that the stalwart doesn’t coincide with properly there’s always the mulligan, ahh the mulligan magic’s greatest hand-related maneuver.

     But other than that you always have those good ole’ changelings, that assist very much. Luckily this deck has the Mirror Entity and can therefore pass as either a Kithkin tribe deck with 13 Kithkin + 7 Changelings, but can also be an Elf tribe deck with 14 Elves + 7 Changelings.

     So when you have fear of not being able to play your Kithkin spells, because of color problems or Goldmeadow Stalwart’s reveal requirement, don’t worry as probability is on your side. Then are 20 Kithkin, therefore there is a 1/3 chance of getting a Kithkin, meaning that usually, you’ll have approximately two Kithkin in a starting hand, and so 1, will be Stalwart, and the other can be revealed. Also, the wizened cenn should be able to be easily played despite its white+white cost, as 22 lands means a 22/60=11/33=3.6666/11 chance, so let’s say 3 lands for every 6 cards, but your chance of getting cenn is only 2/60=1/30, so, no worries the Kithkin are here!

Delving Elves: I’ve already covered a couple of elves, and don’t have much else to say about the others, but 1 I need to mention is Vanquisher. This card, because there are so many uber changelings, and also lots of elves it’s basically always a 3/3 death touch for 2 mana!

     Also, if you noticed there weren’t many token cards, so you’re probably wandering;

How do I get my 900 elves?

Well I’ll explain more of that in further detail in the type two version, that will be mono-green (splash White), but the Imperious Perfect, against control decks can just sit there and make tokens, but the elves are still strong against agro, as the wolves, meaning the changelings, from Wren’s Run Packmaster, but also the Wren’s Run Vanquisher can chew up your opponent’s big goyfs. So, I think this deck can handle, just bout everything.

Changin it Up: So, I’ve already covered the uberness of Mirror Entity, but what about this Hero guy, is he actually that good that he may be called a hero? Heck ya! A 4/4 champion is already worth like 3 mana, and changeling, along with lifelink, easily worth another 2 mana, especially in this deck.

     And now for the type two version!

Green-Splash White House of Mirrors

4 Horizon Canopy	4 Brushland
6 Plains	8 Forest
4 Essence Warden	4 Llanowar Elves
4 Imperious Perfect	2 Elvish Champion
4 Mirror Entity	4 Goldmeadow Harrier
4 Oblivion Ring	4 Scion of the Wild
2 Angelic Wall	2 Leaf Gilder
4 Wren’s Run Packmaster

     There are a million different ways this deck could bend, but this particular style, seemed to fit my style rather well, and so I picked this build. I’ve already explained everything except for a couple of obvious things, so I don’t have much else to say about it.

     So in conclusion, this deck ended up being pretty dang amazing, and I summarize it in this:

+1 (Results) Record of 20-3

-1 Bit of a problem with certain control decks

+1 Amazing Agro

+1 Great ability to chew up other agro decks with deathtouch creatures aplenty.

+1 Good synergy

+1 Good Control overall

+.5 Hard work, much effort, and specific things and aspects went into the deck.

Listen to this article at: youtube.com/cardproffessor

These are my two new video formats, one in quote read version and one in full version

Full:

0Title: The Proffessors: Episode 12:Swimming with the fishes/Music

1Neo-Pokémon logo

Hello, today I plan to be the first in a series of many neo podcasts.

2Confused Person

Now, what do I mean by this? Well personally I think that my work, needs well some work. Meaning that to compete with people like Evan Erwin.

3People building pyramid

This means sacrifice, and quite a bit of it. Now for starters I need to only make 1 video a week, as that is all I will have time for using this new video format.

4However! Cheering

However, this means that the videos I do create will be of better editing quality, and will feature less stuttering, as you might of noticed.

5Revolt

6Gun Shot

Now, as for the title…well, now this episode isn’t about tony soprano.

7Math Algebra

See I’ve been doin some algebra in math, and we use something called and or statements, and well I figured why not apply that to magic?

8Merfolk and/or picture

Now, I’m sure you were able to look at this card and see a flaw in the plan already, so did I. And although Second Wind, and Veteran of the Depths or Judge of Currents makes for a decent combo there’s something missing.

9Person Thinking

See in magic, the majority of the time there will be a way to abuse Always or Whenever abilities, and this is no exception. So what is the missing link?

10Spectral Shift

Well here it is, although originally a fifth dawn rare, getting this along with second wind and a judge of currents makes for one heck of a combo

11,15Question Mark

 how? Well lets take a look!

12Timid looking Person

So, let’s see second turn drop a seemingly useless Judge of Currents.

13Warrior

Then, third turn drop your Second Wind, sure this may seem like a pretty useless combo, but just wait.

14Hulk: Hulk Smash!

Then fourth turn drop your Spectral Shift, and change the text of the second wind!

11,15 Question Mark

So, what does all this mean anyway? Well you now have a 1/1 Judge of currents that taps itself instead of the Second Wish,, by cause of the spectral shift, and then untaps in response. However, when it untaps you gain 1 life.

16 Rinsing Hands

17Title/Picture: Deck Tech

18Wanderwine Prophets

So where do we go from now, other than to build on these cards and make a deck out of em!

19Sad face

Sure there were a few problematic situations with the deck, but I like to think I fixed all that I could, so here it is!

20Deck+Music=60 seconds

10 Plains

10 Islands

4 Calciform Pools

1 Wall of Air

1 Angelic Wall

1 Wall of Swords

2 Reviving Dose

4 Oblivion Ring

2 Goldmeadow Harrier

2 Rune Snag

4 Wanderwine Prophets

2 Drowner of Secrets

1 Merrow Commerce

2 Spectral Shift

4 Judge of Currents

4 Veteran of the Depths

4 Second Wind

21 Person with hands slapping face

So the deck is pretty much self explanatory, and pretty cheap too, you could get it for just about what your average Tarmogoyf sells for, maybe less.

22 Cancel, Mana Tithe, Goldmeadow Harrier, Oblivion Ring

I kept the control base for the deck rather simple, it basically goes 1 for 1 them until you are at turn 3 or so, can not do anything more, and you can play your Judge,, if possible play it sooner.

23 Island, Plains, Calciform Pool

The manabase was also extremely simple, in fact I’ve used this exact mana base for several other decks before this.

24Briefcase

Well, this deck is now adjourned, basically it goes like a simple cooking recipe.

25Cooking Recipe

Step 1:Play Mana

Step2:Het out Judge of Currents or stall until necessary

Step3:Cast Draw Spells, or cancel spells or play Second Wind

Step4:Pwn target opponent after you get infinite life.

26Burning Oven

27Title:New Plans+Music

28New Plans

Now that I’ve given you the new Merfolk deck, I highly suggest that you go and read the article on it at freewebs.com/yugiohandmtg. Now as for my new plans for other tribes and articles:

29 Mirror Entity

I had planned to do basically a rerun of an old article for the special on changelings, however today I announce to you my new innovation on changelings. I’ll give you a hint it has something to do with this guy,, 900 elves,, the colors green and white, and getting your elves up to 10/10s and then swinging for,

30 Over 9000!

Over nine thousand!

31 Someone out in the snow

32Title:In Closing/music

33 Magician Sleeve up

And that’s another show, I highly promote your comments, and hope that you can give both constructive criticism on things I did wrong, and great feedback on what you want me to continue.

34Door

One last thing before I go, remember that there are still 4 more tribes and the special on changelings coming up, I also plan to do a couple more things with limited, as I have recently been asked to, so until then catch ya next time.

Read:

Hello, today I plan to be the first in a series of many neo podcasts.

Now, what do I mean by this? Well personally I think that my work, needs well some work. Meaning that to compete with people like Evan Erwin.

This means sacrifice, and quite a bit of it. Now for starters I need to only make 1 video a week, as that is all I will have time for using this new video format.

However, this means that the videos I do create will be of better editing quality, and will feature less stuttering, as you might of noticed.

Now, as for the title…well, now this episode isn’t about tony soprano.

See I’ve been doin some algebra in math, and we use something called and or statements, and well I figured why not apply that to magic?

Now, I’m sure you were able to look at this card and see a flaw in the plan already, so did I. And although Second Wind, and Veteran of the Depths or Judge of Currents makes for a decent combo there’s something missing.

See in magic, the majority of the time there will be a way to abuse Always or Whenever abilities, and this is no exception. So what is the missing link?

Well here it is, although originally a fifth dawn rare, getting this along with second wind and a judge of currents makes for one heck of a combo

 how? Well lets take a look!

So, let’s see second turn drop a seemingly useless Judge of Currents.

Then, third turn drop your Second Wind, sure this may seem like a pretty useless combo, but just wait.

Then fourth turn drop your Spectral Shift, and change the text of the second wind!

So, what does all this mean anyway? Well you now have a 1/1 Judge of currents that taps itself instead of the Second Wish,, by cause of the spectral shift, and then untaps in response. However, when it untaps you gain 1 life.

So where do we go from now, other than to build on these cards and make a deck out of em!

Sure there were a few problematic situations with the deck, but I like to think I fixed all that I could, so here it is!

So the deck is pretty much self explanatory, and pretty cheap too, you could get it for just about what your average Tarmogoyf sells for, maybe less.

I kept the control base for the deck rather simple, it basically goes 1 for 1 them until you are at turn 3 or so, can not do anything more, and you can play your Judge,, if possible play it sooner.

The manabase was also extremely simple, in fact I’ve used this exact mana base for several other decks before this.

Well, this deck is now adjourned, basically it goes like a simple cooking recipe.

Step 1:Play Mana

Step2:Het out Judge of Currents or stall until necessary

Step3:Cast Draw Spells, or cancel spells or play Second Wind

Step4:Pwn target opponent after you get infinite life.

Now that I’ve given you the new Merfolk deck, I highly suggest that you go and read the article on it at freewebs.com/yugiohandmtg. Now as for my new plans for other tribes and articles:

I had planned to do basically a rerun of an old article for the special on changelings, however today I announce to you my new innovation on changelings. I’ll give you a hint it has something to do with this guy,, 900 elves,, the colors green and white, and getting your elves up to 10/10s and then swinging for,

Over nine thousand!

And that’s another show, I highly promote your comments, and hope that you can give both constructive criticism on things I did wrong, and great feedback on what you want me to continue.

One last thing before I go, remember that there are still 4 more tribes and the special on changelings coming up, I also plan to do a couple more things with limited, as I have recently been asked to, so until then catch ya next time.

These are replacing articles this week

Class is in Session7: Tribal Bible: Delves and Elves

(Part1) A litter of Elves:     This subject/tribe is already being covered by my friend, and he’ll be having a 30 to 40 minute podcast, and I also rambled to much about faeries and the tripod of combo and I have still more work on other tribes, and other videos to do today, so I’ll keep this article to a mere 500 words or so.

     On to the Elves. In my opinion, elves have had some huge help in Lorwyn, and they were already pretty dang amazing in Standard, so I can tell you that I love elves, but so did my friend so we decided to both do this tribe. I also love them so much, so I figured why not do both colors! So without any further adou (as I already know you know how uber elves can be) present you with a couple of different elf options for standard and Lorwyn alike.

Mono-Green Elves (Lorwyn Block Legal)

     Wow, I knew elves were good but I can’t believe that I just randomly through a bunch into a pot and got an uber deck, which went on to go 4-2, although it still needs major improvement. This is how I figure the deck rates.

+1=Uber creatures that get upped so quickly

-1=Lack of control

+1=Amazing low cost creatures with a little Vigor thrown in

0=Record of 4-2

+1-Quick Mana, Great Engines overall

+1=Scary large amount of creatures.

3 stars out of 5

Mono-Green Elves (Standard Legal)

     Now this, I’m impressed with. I played this ten times, and man did the games go by fast. The reason the deck is lacking in numbers was because, I liked this deck so much I was playing the other decks online, but I went a step further and made it into a real, in the cardboard deck, and although it is green, and has no goyfs, scion in the deck is better. My deck record is 12-2This is how I figured the math.

+1-Fast Mana

+1-Pumps for Elves, and other cool combos inside the tribe

+1-Uber quick creatures

-1-A bit of mana problems

-1-Lack of removal

+1-Essence Warden Life gain

+1-Playing gold fish it got a turn 4 kill.

Mono-Black Elves (Lorwyn Legal)

     I expected their to be more black elves in this series, but no, oh well, this deck was doomed. Although it had some good control, I give it only 3 stars, the record was only 3-3, so I decided not to go any further with it, as I see not point. So I guess the mono-green was the best, so I’ll stick to that. This is the cardproffessor saying catch ya next time.

Class is in Session6: Tribal Bible (Part2):Faeries

(Part1) Stoopid Spellings:     So, what made WOTC decide to make faeries spelled faeries instead of fairies anyway when they are, in fact an American company. After all faeries, is the English way of spelling it, didn’t we escape under the rule of those guys like 200 years ago or somethin.

     O.K. I know I don’t now how too spal thiangs rite al thea times, but the grammar of that atrocious clause doesn’t apply to my magic deck building skills in the rest of this article. Faeries, next to Elves and elementals are my favorite tribe, even though it could easily be argued that faeries play better than both. And even though that is probably true, I just love my agro, but hey I don’t mind keeping things under control for an article or two, and I have to say blue is just uber, and how uber are faeries for control in Type2, lemme hear ya say it!

(Part2) The Tripod of Combo:     Faeries, probably because they include blue, are pretty dang sweet, and ya I was informed, many times that blue is the best color in magic, what do I say to that?…well it is. Why? Well if you have read Mark Rosewater’s articles before he has hinted at something time and time again about a little something called the tripod of combo. Now, what is the tripod of combo? Well I think I can explain that with this drawing.

     Hey, who drew this crap…oh wait that was me. Anyway this…is the tripod of combo. No it’s not actually this drawing, it’s the idea of fast mana, (green or lotus) fast drawing (blue mostly, but tidbits in other colors) and finally an engine, basically just a scary creature. Now why not take a look at the tripod of combo, before I explain why faeries are so good. (I’ll basically be using this to explain why faeries are so good, but we’ll get to that later.)

The Tripod in each of Magic’s colors: Why do you think everyone always plays green and or blue? Well that’s simple. If you break down all the colors it comes out to this. (The first parts are pretty much assuming that you’re running the color by itself, and the other parts of the summaries explain how they co-exist with the other colors of magic.)

     White-A good color that resembles bonds, community and protection, and basically pissing off the other players with not getting hit by anything until your resources run out and you have nothing left, or you get lucky and get some sort of engine that doesn’t really work well, but will stop you from losing for a bit longer. And this is why white is always played with something else because it does in fact compliment pretty much every other color so well.

     Blue-Great for card drawing of all kinds, and also with a little help from something like lotus bloom or another card that pumps up your mana pool like Calciform pools, or something else that can produce mana quickly like prismatic lens. So blue, with a slight bit of help can be pretty dang insane. However! Combined with something like green, that has powerful engines, and mana advantage, your odds might be just a bit unfair…obviously on your side.

     Black-This color in standard is so flexible that it can be put together with pretty much everything which makes it a great color that coincides great with a color like…oh I don know, blue maybe?! It’s control with cards like Nekrataal and Shriekmaw killing off your opponent’s creatures, and also classics like terror, are great, but that’s not to say black doesn’t have good agro. Hmmm, example: Dross Crocodile, Twisted Abomination, Severed Legion, Avatar of Woe, Shriekmaw, Dread, and Oona’s Prowler aren’t good.

     Red-Red also includes a good amount of diversity, although from my point of view I think that black offers a bit more right now in standard. Where black offers kills to any non-black, non-artifact creature for two mana, red only offers 3 damage to target creature or player, however, both still has its good point.

     Green-This is the power of engines, but also fast mana. I state that green is more greatly a color of engines because it includes things like groundbreaker, (The 6/1 for GGG, Haste, Sac at end of turn) so; this hits the second highest color. Why not the highest? Well because blue has things like artifacts including lotus bloom, which has no penalizing comparison to any other green card that it can be called worse than, so, is pretty dang amazing.

(Part4) The other other secrets of the uber faeries:     Few that was a lot to explain in 1 article, and probably could’ve been its own article, but it was a good background for what I need to explain next. Now, I explained that blue is great because of the fact that it gets you fast cards (part of the tripod combo) and also has a couple of engines. However, the black of faeries also have some control, which combined together makes for an uber combo. So, why not explore the faeries of Lorwyn, and how their synergy is in Lorwyn itself, and how they co-inside with the new Type2.

Blue-Black Faerie-Twisted Control (Only Build, Lorwyn Legal)

4 Secluded Glen	1 Springleaf Drum
8 Swamp	2 Scion of Oona
12 Island	2 Oona’s Prowler
2 Mistbind Clique	4 Pestermite
4 Nightshade Stinger	2 Faerie’s Trickery
1 Dolmen Gate	1 Wydwen The Biting Gale
2 Peppersmoke	2 Thieving Sprite
3 Faerie Tauntings	1 Marsh Flitter
1 Broken Ambitions	3 Faerie Harbinger
2 Wanderer’s Twig	3 Ponder

What do I do, Wado I do?!     “Whaddo I do, waddo I do?!” cried the opponent.

     “Wait, you can’t play that creature it’s my turn!” countered the opponent.

     “Sorry man, but its got Flash… Biotch!” …three seconds later

     And this is the other reason why faeries are so good. I didn’t mention this before, but Flash is a great part of faeries, that just adds to the fun. When you really think about it this deck has many ways to win, about a dozen, including:

Counter and wait: I put three Faerie tauntings in the deck for a couple of reasons. This is not a major one however, it is definitely included in it. In the early game if you do something, such as:

Turn 1: Nightshade Stinger (solid striker)

Turn2: Faerie Tauntings

Turn3: Faerie Trickery (on your opponent’s spell)

Turn 4: Continue to hit your opponent with spells on their turn.

     And although faeries are a rich tribe (but that’s for another article) and yet the tribe is so awesome because of their diversity. I do believe their power hasn’t been fully utilized, but I expect to see that soon, especially with counters, that you blue mages love.

(P.S. This was meant to be all faeries, but Guile works well too!)

Hostile Takeover: This path to victory is simple, simple like you agro players out there, and it’s for those agro players out there. This path to victory is pretty simple, let’s see play everything on your opponent’s turn, pickles them with Mistbind Clique, or just take their uber creatures with Sower of Temptation, this is just too much fun in the deck.

The Wok of Uberness: Why win one way when you can win every way?! You could throw a silvergill douser in this deck to take down their creatures (remember although douser is a Merfolk, it taps to kill creatures for your Merfolk and faeries also.) or you could just smash their face in with a bazillion pesky fliers striking them.

     I admittedly only played this deck twice, it one once, but then lost humiliatingly the second time. It definitely needs some work, but I hope I did that with the more stable, type two form of the deck.

Blue-Black Faerie-Draw-Flash

4 Secluded Glen	7 Swamp
4 River of Tears	7 Island
2 Mistbind Clique	2 Faerie Tauntings
2 Faerie Trickery	2 Nightshade Stinger
2 Cloudseeder	2 Cloud Sprite
2 Peppersmoke	2 Ponder
2 Counsel of Soratami	2 Pestermite
4 Lotus Bloom	2 Guile
2 Venser, Shaper Savant	2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
2 Mulldrifter	2 Shriekmaw
Makeshift Mannequin	2 Dreadship Reef

     Insane! That’s all I can say, this deck is just that ridiculous, I think it’s the most competitive deck I’ve ever constructed, and it’s ridiculous, ridiculous…ridiculous. I’m telling you do whatever you can to get this deck! It’s beyond the point of the mannequin deck; it is synergy is just that insane. I don’t think I can even begin to explain the uberness of it. It is just that good. End of discussion.

As for the record, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. 20-1, *cough* *cough*, and as for the deck I won, I stupidly passed taking a mulligan and I had an all land hand, my connectedness I admit. Faeries, best tribe yet, end of discussion (again).

Class is in Session5: Announcing The Tribal Bible

(Part1) Worshipping eight gods is against my religion:     For the record, no I have not now switched my religion from Christianity to Magic the Gathering. Well I would, but this isn’t possible, and it would be just…well nuts, and everyone would think I was insane…so I won’t. However! I can still support magic in every way possible, one of which is possible by writing these articles, working my fingers to the bones hitting the keys, risking carpel tunnel syndrome, and coming up with new, ingenious (in my opinion) innovations from dual-changeling combos to rings of Brighthearth-Planeswalker ideas (which is under mass debate, but I just go by MTGO to say that it works), so without further adou I present to you my newest, rhyming idea, for this week, the Tribal Bible cycle!

(Part2) What is the Tribal Bible?:     For those of you who have started thinking that this is some kind of cult I say, save that for your Rakdos deck. The Tribal Bible is more like a Tribe archive of sorts in which me and several of my friends, will be hard at work, writing and taping ourselves to get out a miniseries about the eight tribes of Lorwyn, which will eventually end this week with a special on Changelings, yay!

     So throughout the week I’ll be doing short, innovative ideas for each individual tribes, (only about a thousand words or so) and will talk about the tribe’s individual powerhouses, and their reaction in Lorwyn, and the lifeblood of magic, what else? Standard! So without further adou I present to you with the first article, elementals.

(Part3) Unincarnating Incarnations:     Incarnations, as you know are the ubers that make elementals what they are, but can they honestly stand up against archetypes that do things like get creatures that are 6/6s on turn 3 or just control you to death? I say yes, you can! So, how, well that’s easy, see I’ve been doing a lot of playtesting lately, tons of new archetypes, like the incarnations, that handle control and agro alike quite nicely.

     First, we have the white decks, why start with white? Well I’ve been asked that quite a bit since my last article, for some reason, it’s for the simple reason because it is the way the color pentagon goes, why did I need to even answer that? Noob, oops sorry did I type that…anyway without further adou here’s the final build of my Purity based Lorwyn deck.(This deck is not entirely elemental based, I did this for good reason.)

Mono-White Purity Deck (Lorwyn Block Legal)

     Hey, waddayaknow it’s another richer-than-you-deck! O.K. I do realize that 4 Purities may be a bit expensive, but look at the deck closely, did you notice that about 50 out of the 60 cards in the deck come from the Kithkin’s Militia theme deck, waddayaknow? (and yes I realize that there are several copies of the needed cards, but you get the jist of it that you can get the cards in the theme deck for the most part.)

     Now for the actual deck. I do realize that this deck couldn’t pass as an Elemental tribe deck for something like Tribal constructed, but it could pass as a Kithkin tribal constructed deck as it contains, 18 Kithkin cards (+3 Crib Swap) so 21 out of a 60 card deck, meaning that it can pass as a tribal deck for Kithkin. However, it only contains 7 Elementals (+3 Crib Swap) so 10 Elementals, only half of the number of the required number so, it can’t exactly represent the elementals, but in my opinion that isn’t so important, as long as the deck uses Purity to win, and man does it!

=Uber

     Listen, I’ve played this deck on MTGO before and my record, for this specific build was 8-0, and although I personally think they should’ve given Purity Flash instead of Flying, WOTC did a great job designing all the incarnations, Purity included.

     Why give Purity Flash instead of Flying? Well because of its ability to prevent all damage and give you life instead (and one heck of an ability although it is) Flash would have been much more effective, while still not making Purity totally unbeatable… although a 6/6 Flier ain’t bad neither.

     Finally, although the deck has slight problems with getting Purity, and waiting until turn 6, the type two version of this deck takes care of that, definitely.

Mono-White Purity (Type 2 Legal)

     This deck is a rather simple, yet fun little blend, of various cards that I had lying around, it didn’t do so well in standard where as the Lorwyn/Tribe deck went 8-0 this deck, didn’t manage quite as well, although it did face a bit tougher archetypes, it faced mono-green acceleration, mono-red burn, and green-red goyf pump, all of which this deck couldn’t handle very well, and yet with all the walls, it still, somehow, managed to go 7-3, not horrible.

     This deck has many aspects of all other white decks known o man, its just a deck that sits there and pisses off all the other players by having everything get tapped with Harrier, or removed with Oblivion Ring, or just sucker punched to death by a bazillion 10/10 slivers, and although it seemed like Hivestone would only work in Time Spiral Block, I say long live the sliver kids! There formula was ingenious, and although this deck is not poison based, its still amazing with the combination of the sidewinders and sinews, and turned avenger into a 5/5 flanking sliver ain’t bad neither.

     Until next time, when I bring the other tribes (yes I know I only covered white for time restraint reasons) this is the cardproffessor signing out, the next tribe coming up is elves, by the way.

Class is in session4: Building on a budget, incinerated to death

(Part1) The Cardproffessor turns over a new flame:     I believe the normal term is turn over a new leaf, but this deck however deals with mono-red so I guess it qualifies as turning over a new flame. What do I mean by that?

     Well….lately, being that I’ve had access to large amounts of cards. However, not all people are at that position, myself usually included. Although I manage to scrap a lot of knowledge and general know-how together I usually don’t have enough money for cards, and therefore even less for MTGO. (I never understood how people pronounce that Motto?) Anyway without further ado I present to you Building on a budget by Ben Bleiwiss… I mean the cardproffessor!

(Part2) The Brokenest Burns of Standard:     As I’m sure you already know there has been some huge circulation of the brokenest burn spells of all time going around in this format. ESPECIALLY Planar Chaos.

     You know what I’m talking about. The Keldon Marauders! 1R is insane for a 3/3 1 damage in and out even if it is only for 2 turns. Breaking it down 1 damage in and 1 damage out is basically already a shock (worth 1 Red mana) plus you get a 3/3, even if it is only for 1 turn of an attack, in which you can get at least 1 creature kill on turn 3 or 3 damage on turn 3!

     That means that the marauders average 2 damage and 1 creature kill with toughness 3 or less, or 5 damage per game! And that’s per marauder, so just run 4 and you’ll average 20 per game (assuming they’re not blocked and you get all 4 which although will not happen is still cool.)

     This deck is definitely not perfect and needs improvement, but I plan to explore that in this article. The reason I explore this deck is because I was asked by a budget player, who cannot afford my various expensive decks (as I have already said)

(Part3) First Build:     This is my first build, and although not tournament legal will have a large amount of expanses, and ways that it can easily be improved.

Build 1: Mono-Red Burn deck (40 cards-still needs work)

4 Incinerate

3 Shock

4 Keldon Marauders

4 Simian Spirit Guide

2 Wall of Fire

1 Cone of Flame

2 Needlepeak Spider

1 AEther Flamewall

4 Rift Bolt

13 Mountains

2 Keldon Megalithis

Incinerate: This is a solid burn spell that is a huge improvement on Volcanic Hammer, especially with the addition of the fact that it is a solid Instant two drop red spell, and deserved to take up 1/10 of the deck.

Shock: As I’m sure you know Shock is just…classic, although it is an easily wasted one drop it deals 2 damage so it is excellent, for this deck, and deserves to take up three slots.

Keldon Marauders: I’ve already reviewed this card, I’ll do it again! Breaking it down 3/3 for 2 turns, and 2 damage for 1 red mana, even if you only get in 1 good swing, UBER!

Simian Spirit Guide: This is often a widely underestimated card and although it may seem like a 2/2 for 3 mana, that’s not what it’s meant for. Its rather simple when you look at the card closely. You can also remove the card from your hand from the game to add a red to your mana pool. This is excellent for a first turn marauders, and just an awesome, overall ability, and although it tosses your cards rather quickly, a free red mana, is a free red mana.

Wall of Fire: It’s a great wall. See the biggest problem in this deck is that it gets depleted extremely quickly, and is unable to win. Well what could you ask for, for this situation other than a 0/5, that can be easily pumped and only costs 3 mana.

Cone of Flame: Well it’s only 1 damage…then 2…then 3, that ability is just insane, and is already a 5 star card for a five mana 6 damage spitter. However, considering that the damage all goes to different targets it drops down to 4 stars, but is still just insane to toss in, even if necessary, you can have it deal 1 damage to a creature you control, or you, then 2 to an opponent’s creature to take it out after a shock or two, then hit your opponent for another 3!

Needlepeak Spider and Aether Flamewall: As I’ve already said, and its been shown, and seen throughout the article, this deck, quite literally burns out quickly, so you need a little back up, from some defenders, that can stop a good 3 turns worth of damage, until you can get enough damage to incinerate your opponent to death.

Rift Bolt: To hardcast this card is just plain stupid. But to wait 1 turn for 3 damage that is guaranteed to be headed for your opponent it’s a no brainer that this deserves to have 4 copies in the deck.

Keldon Megalithis: Because the deck needs quick access to mana, and it is pretty rare that you will in fact have absolutely zero cards in your hand this card is a bit iffy. Still… damage is damage even if it costs 1R its still great when you consider that, because this is a burn deck, you will have no hand, and be in late, out of killing your opponent range with anything else so you need to hit them fast with something like this.

(Part4) Reviewing the “Core” Build:     I call this the core build. I made this name because these are the base cards that should be used in pretty much every tournament official deck. I also call this deck a Core deck because a deck that can be bought out of a core set is 40 cards. This deck by itself would be pretty dang good, but is not tournament legal, and is borderline playable. Also, although that this deck does not take so much brain, and neither does the strategy, it is important that you mix it with something else that compliments the deck such as…

(Part5) Angelic Weenies?     Everyone knows that Mono-white, in most cases will be a catastrophic mess, as white is the color of civilization, community, and assistance. In this build take a look at what White can do to assist the building of the red, and how it fills in the gaps, and wholes left behind by the red deck.

Build 2: White-Red  Burn-Draw-Defense

4 Incinerate	2 Needle Drop
4 Keldon Marauders	1 Keldon Megalithis
4 Rift Bolt	11 Mountains
1 Wall of Fire	11 Plains
1 Spark Elemental	1 Cone of Flame
3 Shock	3 Reviving Dose
1 Aether Flamewall	2 Bandage
4 Simian Spirit Guide	2 Angelic Wall
1 Wild Griffin	2 Pacifism
2 Oblivion Ring

A little Angel once told me… The deck focuses a lot around the idea of, first: Draw red stuff, burn your opponent, then block, and continue to burn behind the safety of walls, as it did before. However, now you can speed up the process, by playing out some of your life gaining/drawing spells. Do this so that you may keep your life total high enough to keep you out of the red zone, but have enough mana, and enough cards at the same time to kill your opponent through way of burn. The mana problem is assisted by way of the simian spirit guides. (Remember, the tripod of combo: Mana, draw, engine=win!)

Every time you play this deck a Griffin gets its wings: This new build features a lot of more optimal choices for blocking, like instead of Needlepeak spider, where you would have to wait until turn three or four to get, you have angelic wall which can also block creatures with flying, and only costs 2 mana. Also you have access to The Griffins which act as optimal choices for chump blockers, and swift strikers.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that: Finally, to finish off the deck I included some control, courtesy of Oblivion Ring, and Pacifism.

(Part6) Burn-Draw-Control:      Although this new format of archetype is still a lot a bit iffy, I think I can manage it. And in what better situation, than this one? Look red’s got the burn, but needs that little push, which blue has with its various draw abilities, and things such as that. It also features a good variety of walls, and other blockers, and neat tricks that your sure to pull from your sleeve (I just murdered that Idiom) with this new deck:

Build 3: Blue-Red  Burn-Draw-Defend

4 Keldon Marauders	3 Counsel of Soratami
4 Rift Bolt	1 Tidings
4 Incinerate	2 Telling Time
3 Shock	1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
1 Spark Elemental	1 Kamahl, Pit Fighter
4 Simian Spirit Guide	2 Keldon Megalithis
1 Cone of Flame	1 Faerie Conclave
1 Needle Drop	1 Tolaria West
1 Wall of Air	10 Mountains
1 Air Elemental	10 Island
2 Ponder	2 Peek

Blue expensiveness wins me over:     Although this article is meant to focus a lot on cheap and easy to buy and build decks, but of course, blue just has some cards that are a bit more expensive, yet still go so well in this deck. I honestly needed to add in a couple of rares to make it a bit better, and I just checked, you can buy this deck for still under bout $20 or so, so it is still pretty awesome, and can be played, in my opinion, better than almost every other deck, so here’s the review:

The Draws: This was a surprising new idea for a new archetype that I just thought of… I mean have been studying with the Tibetan monks for years…the Tibetan monks who are professional magic players…ya… ya that’s what happened, I mean why do you think every good magic player is Asian?! Just kidding.

     Anyway the draw spells. Why will this new archetype work, huh? Well that’s pretty simple, blue has always given come awesome draw, so why not mix it with burn?! Heck, with some extra mana sources, such as moxes, and the lotus, this strategy has the potential to survive in vintage. Anyway that’s what the ponders, counsels, tiding, and peek are for, rather simple cards that are just descent to the naked player (wow, I murdered that idiom)…ok o.k. lemme fix that idiom. Anyway that’s what the ponders, counsels, tiding, and peek are for, rather simple cards that are just descent to the naked strategist’s strategy…(ya, ya that sounds better) but the cards combined with some red burn can make for some pretty uber combinations!

(Part7) Bloodstain Control:     Why hide in the corner and defend from your opponent when you can just hide in the corner and chuck knives at them? Although not my favorite build, I’m sure this deck has a bit of potential, and can easily carry you to a pretty sweet victory if the plays are executed well and the deck is piloted right.

     Why Bloodstain Control? Well, that’s easy because the deck does just that. You hide behind your burn spells, and your black control cards. In the other builds the burn was meant to be sent directly to your opponent, while you sit and wait behind a couple of walls, but with this build you can easily launch some burn at your opponent’s creature and crush them later when they run out of creatures, especially in the case of your opponent having a pump-my-creatures-then-kill-my-opponent deck/strategy. So here it is:

Build 4: Red-Black  Bloodstain Control

4 Keldon Marauders	2 Terror
4 Incinerate	1 Shriekmaw
3 Shock	2 Keldon Megalithis
4 Simian Spirit Guide	14 Mountain
4 Rift Bolt	8 Swamp
1 Needlepeak Spider	2 Needle Drop
1 Wall of Fire	2 Assassinate
1 Spark Elemental	3 Looming Shade
1 Cone of Flame	1 Plague Beetle
2 Death Rattle

The idea of Bloodstain: Where do you think I got the idea for this archetype from? Well that’s simple. I just looked at assassinate and Terror, and said to myself, What do I spy with my little eye on both of these cards the most? Well that was simple, although it wasn’t blood so much I thought to myself, of course, GORE! So what did I do? I named the archetype Bloodstain Control

The “Blood Control” Part of the deck: Excluding Shriekmaw these control spells are all staples that are easy to acquire, and/or cheap. Assassinate is thought of much less than Terror, and even though to use it the targeted creature has to be tapped, meaning your opponent will have had to get in a strike or two, its still great in the case of killing a black or artifact creature, and although would be more useful as a sideboard card I still found it worth running 1 copy.

     Terror is just a staple, it’s a great instant, a great control, card and has been around in our mind’s eye for years crushing creatures. Shriekmaw is basically Terror in most cases of the deck, but still offers some amazing flexibility, being that it has an evoke cost. And although being that when Shriekmaw evokes it can’t kill off black or artifact creatures, the creature can be regenerated, and you can only use this ability during your turn, it still cracks the top 5 in the decklist.

     Death rattle is a less known control spell but still a great one to use, especially in this deck where your cards are sent to the graveyard rather quickly, and you need to delve the card. The absolutely only drawback is that it can’t kill green creatures, meaning no Tarmogoyfs…that could be bad.

A Booster Creature: Although there are only 12 black spells in the deck compared to the 24 red spells, the two creatures were easy picks to put into the deck. Plague Beetle is just a decent one drop, and could be replaced with Vampire Bats, but I felt that putting a Plague Beetle in, just for chumping was fine as is.

     However, the creature I am more excited about is Looming Shade. Although only a 1/1 for 3 mana at first glance, this thing can get pumped to scary levels, and so it was pretty easy for me to decide to run three of them in the deck.

(Part 8) Agro-Burn:     This is a rather common archetype that is seen frequently throughout the ages, with Radha, and things like that. I am indeed a fan of Radha, she’s a great mana production card for things like the marauders and also Incinerate, not only that but she taps for green if necessary so even though this card is not quite totally affordable nor budget liking I just needed to include at least two in order to get a good structure to the deck.

Build 5: Red-Green  Agro-Burn

2 Radha, Heir to Keld	1 Cone of Flame
4 Incinerate	3 Aggressive Urge
4 Keldon Marauders	2 Wall of Wood
4 Rift Bolt	1 Rootwalla
4 Simian Spirit Guide	1 Kavu Climber
3 Shock	2 Harmonize
1 Wall of Fire	1 Civic Wayfinder
1 Spark Elemental	2 Spined Wurm
14 Mountain	8 Forest
2 Keldon Megalithis

A dash of splash: This build of the deck, like the black version of the deck, only splashes the second color or the not red color and therefore because it only included 12 spells it only included a proportional amount of lands, and although this can sometimes be a bit of problem, it was appropriate for the deck.

The aggressive creatures: The agro in this deck is provided entirely by the green creatures of the deck. The Rootwalla, which is an easily pumpable creature, the Spined Wurm, which is a great 6/4 striker for 6 mana, the Kavu Climber which is a pretty great 3/3 draw creature for the deck, and was appropriate for the archetype were all good choices, and good budget choices.

     Although not a creature, aggressive urge was a good slight pump card that also allowed you to draw a card, so I decided; hey it is common after all so why not run 3?!

(Part9) Wrapped up in Walls: A lot of walls were always considered to be just cards that sat in packs, but didn’t help in actual games at all. Still, now do you see how good they are? Also this is just 1 perfect example of the case that shows that every card is good, just in its own little situation that you just gotta find, and what better way to find it than with the cardproffessor?! Also, before I leave this subject why not take a good look at the walls that were brought back in Tenth Edition.

Angelic Wall: A great card for white weenie decks that just need a chump blocker or even just for stalling your opponent for a couple of turns, thus giving you some time to get out something stronger, like Galepowder Mage.

Wall of Air: O.K. it’s official. WOTC will make a card out of anything, even giant floating air masses, well I guess its better than some Yugioh cards like: Giant Flame Eating Tortoise who Feasts on Flames, (no seriously that’s a card) and well… I’m glad that they made this card.  A 1/5 defender flyer for 3 mana, pretty uber, I have to say.

Wall of Fire: (Notice how there is no black wall, rather strange) anyway onto the red wall. This is pretty awesome too, the pumpableness of the card is cool, and the idea of playing this card in mono-red burn is pretty awesome.

Wall of Wood: Although it’s no wall of roots, it’s still pretty awesome for 1 mana you get a 0/3 to defend with. This will last as a great chumper or just a plain awesome defender until turn 3 and that’s when you strike with a bigger creature that kills your opponent, pretty awesome.

Class is in Session3: Walking New Planes

(Part1) A secret that not even wizards noticed:     I will give WOTC a lot of credit. They’re a great company that puts such a large amount of work into they’re products, such as magic. However, I know that they don’t see everything. They miss several things, but they should, releasing about a thousand cards per year they can’t. I also realize that the community doesn’t find everything (myself definitely included), but this is one that might be a little cheap (cheap as in cheap like burn spells, not cheap like inexpensive, oooh).

     I realize that in the last few weeks I’ve been doing LOTS OF LORWYN, but I couldn’t help it… I was excited. But now its time to step away from Lorwyn, kind of. This new deck I’ve been working on wouldn’t survive in regular Block play. This deck isn’t all that great, unless piloted EXTREMELY well, but the trick is cool, and although a little cheap, its fun to play too.

(Part2) The cardproffessor, a chase rare hater!     Do I hate Tarmagoyf, and Thoughtseize no, I hate their egos! They’ve got the bigger than life egos, and quite frankly, although they’re good cards, it annoys ,me that people think they could make a deck list like this:

Lands:

12 Swamps

12 Forests

Spells:

18 Tarmogoyf

18 Thoughtseize

And expect to win. O.K. so that was a bit extreme…maybe I should give them some credit and list their sideboard too.

Spells:

7 Tarmogoyf

7 Thoughtseize

And maybe a Shriekmaw, maybe.

     So I don’t exactly hate the people who play ridiculous amounts of Tarmogoyf, and Thoughtseize, and win tournaments. I hate, no despise the fact that they do win! Why do I hate them? Because sadly, in this format, although the Goyf can be easily killed with a Terror, and a player who’s being played against a person with a Thoughtseize and takes out their key card on turn one, before the other person even gets to play it, that player goes, Uhhhh Uhhh uh oh what do I do now?

     In this format there are a lot of 1 card victories, but this should not be happening. So what did I do along with finding a new secret (which will soon be revealed). I composed a deck that laughs at Goyf and Thoughtseize, by well using counters in blue, black, along with goyf, and some mana acceleration in green, to crush your opponent’s chase rares.

(Part3) A burning heart you never guessed:     So, I don’t exactly mean that I’m going to…burn hearts, okay the name was horrible. Anyway the card right, Rings of Brighthearth. I know at least 50% of you are saying, “what the heck is he talking about, I’ve never heard of that”. Well the card isn’t exactly the most memorable rare. But for those of you who don’t know what it does, this is what it is:

Rings of Brighthearth

3 colorless

Artifact

Whenever you play an activated ability you may pay 2 colorless mana. If you do copy that ability if it isn’t a mana ability.

     So normally with a non-mana ability you do something negative, such as tapping, can only be played once per turn, but a plus ability? That’s a new one. For example lets say I play Jace on turn 4, because quite frankly, unless you’re rich and have the money for 4 authentic birds of paradise the deck doesn’t allow you to get 2 blue on turn 3.

     Anyway you get a Jace on turn 4, play the Brighthearth on turn 5, and then play Jace’s ability (the +2 of course) for the second time, duplicating it to make it +4. Not only that but between Jace in this and the last turn you get 3 cards. And +6, so let’s see that brings Jace to 9, then next turn, assuming he gets dealt a damage or so, which won’t happen, because you should have a goyf or two out this point, so Jace is safe. Then raise Jace to 11, or 13, or whatever number necessary, and the same turn play Liliana, because you had 4, then 5 for next turn, then 6 for the next turn, and finally coming into this turn you should have about 7 lands or so, and play Liliana. Then, after Jace is at a double digit, stop your focus on him, and duplicate Liliana’s +1, to bring her to 8 on turn 1. Then next turn Jace -20 cards from opponent’s library, and duplicate that. THEN Liliana, drop her to 0 play every creature in your opponents grave, INSANE! And all this on turn 3-7.

(Part4) Dazed     For all of you, who are still in a daze, whether it be because you didn’t understand what I was writing, your questioning my theory or you are just plain unsure if this will work, why don’t I give you an example of what I played on MTGO, and lemme tell you it worked great! Anyway to the decklist!

Green, Blue, Black Goyf-Control-Copy (Build1) (Type 2 Legal)

Note: This is by far not my only build I had about 10 or so builds, that involved slight tweaks, and it took about $20 or so bucks to get it right, in addition to the other cards I already had.

(Part5) Random cards?     I realize that when you first look at this decklist it looks like a bunch of chase rares thrown into a list like the thing I listed I despise in the beginning of this article, well unlike the decklist that I listed in the beginning, this deck can get you at least a 2-2 record in an FNM constructed type2 tournament. However, like many other decks I’ve been building recently (because I have had access to a large amount of cards/money because of my surprising wins at several tournaments lately including 7^th place at states) it costs a bazillion dollars to build.

     However, don’t worry budget players (myself usually included) I’ll probably have an article about that coming up soon! Anyway on to the deck review!

(Part6) Reviewing the one and only build     Well here you go, here’s the deck review:

The Manabase by the cardproffessor™: The manabase is not really that delicate, unlike many other decks, whose manabase’s have been so fragile that it would be impossible to change a single card. In this particular build I used three river of tears. You don’t really need an exact amount if these. I just really like the card, because, quite frankly I partially don’t like the dual-lands (the ones that started in Alpha) because although they produce colorless mana for free they’re not the greatest, because about 5 turns through you’ll be at 5 because of a combination of your duals taking chunks out of you every turn, and your opponent slowly taking little chunks out of your life. However, with the river, this is easily avoided, in the case of black and blue mana, as long as you have a land in hand. And being that the deck runs 24 lands that shouldn’t be that hard.

     Next the Gilt-Leaf Palaces. 2 may be 1 too many, but this card is worth running, because even if it does come into play tapped, its free black and green mana, and quite frankly on the first turn the deck can probably handle a little slow start with a goyf, lol. I ran this because it doesn’t need to come into play tapped when you have a Llanowar Elves or Leaf Gilder, its easy to come into play untapped.

     Although the chance of you simultaneously having an Elf and the Gilt-Leaf Palace in the same hand, hey free duals are free duals. (As you can tell, for some reason the life game matters very much to me, I, quite frankly don’t know why.)

     Llanowar Wastes, Yavimaya Coast and Underground River, although constantly inflicting you with damage, and expensive, I have to say they’re just staples, they just go great with, well just about everything, and 1 life is hey only 1 life. It is very rare that you will be using the colorless mana unfortunately though, as with Garruk, Jace, and Liliana, not to mention the colored one drops, such as birds, festering goblin, and Llanowar Elves, you’ll need to utilize the correct duals quickly.

     Teramorphic Expanse, and Shimmering Grotto are staples for really any three color or more deck, in an environment without access to every color dual that is lajit and/or signets and/or double color tap lands, (as seen in Ravnica). I personally prefer the expanse, because it does not require the constant colorless mana for a color mana, but I needed to put one, because of the fact that the color problems are so frequent.

     Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth. Because I only run two swamps compared to the other 4 copies of Islands and Forests, I needed to run something else like Urborg, and also I was able to have the slight lack of black mana, as Liliana is 3BB where Jace is 1UU and Garruk is 2GG. Therefore Liliana can wait, where Jace is ready willing and able to do something quick, and Garruk is too.

     Also along with the ridiculous ability to get more black mana producing lands sooner, Urborg also makes Teramorphic Expanse and Shimmering Grotto into black mana production factories, so that gives you this great extra option to tap for black or do whatever else necessary.

The One drops: I’ve said just about everything about them that I can but why not ramble on?! Festering Goblin is good for that 1 last damage you can’t seem to get through and its all around good for a simple 1/1. The Bird of Paradise is self explanatory. You could easily get away with replacing the Elves and putting in more birds. I personally included Llanowar Elves, and Leaf Gilder for a bit of budget reasons, and also a bit of the allotment for some team block.

Uggghhh the chase rares: The chase rares in the deck can be really REALLY annoying. However, most are necessary. From the commands, to the Goyf, and friend you need them to make the deck go round. The goyf is just a scary attacker, the seize is just great along with Liliana’s effects to get rid of some cards. It may seem insane to run Cryptic Command. I know what your thinking three blue?! Well quite frankly, I was playing the deck, and surprisingly enough with the well thought out mana base… I was able to do it; I was casting it on turn four all over the place, surprisingly enough.

Just about everything else: Well everything else in the deck just about holds it together. Including the Brighthearth which makes this new “Copy” archetype a lot of fun, and to think I made it up…wow I’m good. The Shriekmaw and drifter are self explanatory easily, and the terror is basically Shriekmaw, but a bit better, as it is an instant, and stops regeneration, but on the other side maw is a 3/2 fear.

     The removal/return spells worked together very well, surprisingly enough. I had been expecting a lot more troubleshooting with those, but nope…nothing.

(Part 7) Will this work?     Is this a fun deck to play with a whole lot of options and interesting things to do? Ya. Is it worth playing in a tournament…well maybe, not so sure about that though. Is it worth spending all this money for casual play…no. Ya I humbly admit its not. However, as a final review I give it 4 stars.

     By the way if you haven’t noticed I just started doing this, I don’t normally rate the deck with stars because quite frankly I find it to be pretty inaccurate most of the time. So this deck gets 4 Stars because:

+2 It’s a playable deck that can be easily put together, needs few tweaks, and can bring you a 2-2 record at FNM (I think)

-1 The cards are rather expensive and the deck is skill intensive because of the vast options.

+1 It’s a great deal of fun to play.

+1 It can be tweaked to your satisfaction to get a large variety of archetypes that work well in the new standard environment.

+.5 It explores a great new standard that should be tested by all, and is great to try.

+.5 You just read a 2,163 word article that explains the uberness and platocity of it, along with some great new ideas on what you can do with Rings of Brighthearth.

Class is in Session2: Change it up

(Part1) A Tribute toTribal-     I’m sure you’ve all played Lorwyn by now, if you haven’t I dub thee a noob. Aside from playing Lorwyn, whether it be casually or in a tournament, you have realized it’s about tribes… if you haven’t I dub thee Noobicus Maximus! Along with tribal which applies in Limited (currently) and block (currently) you need to pick a tribe and play it well to get some good synergy going.

     However! Why pick one tribe when you can pick all of em’! Heck, why not pick every single creature type? O.K. so at this point I’m sure you’ve figured out that this is about changelings. Yes changelings.

(Part2) A Tale of Duals and Changelings-     Now, I know changelings are all colors, but they’re also all creature types so where am I going with this all creature types, all colors type? Duals. As far as I know NO ONE has ever thought of this before so this isn’t going to be an article that’s a regurgitation of the stuff you’ve heard of other newscasters/writers.

     As you already know duals require you to reveal a said card of a said type. HOWEVER being that the changelings are every creature type at ALL times including in your hand all of your duals will come into play untapped easily and you can easily get the mana you need for the diversity of five colors.

     So now that I’ve unraveled my findings, why not try out my first build?… (WARNING: You will probably need a full play set of the duals and majority of changelings to test this deck, my collection does not reach those requirements so I had to play this deck on MTGO(on workstation because Lorwyn isn’t out yet)…which was something MUCH more affordable(ya free).)

     Before I delve into the first build one last thing. People ask me what the point of running all the colors is? Well I am doing this to get the diversity of all the colors, and being that the duals keep them happy and healthy and their mana costs quenched, it was easy to build something like this. It can also be put into type 2 for a sweet sliver combination, a deck with some coalition victory in it, or some sweet legion combos, being that changelings are all types, therefore each creature you control (assuming you are playing a changeling/sliver deck gets +1/+1 for each other creature on the field! Also getting the mana for legion shouldn’t be that difficult.

     So without further ado let’s get into the first build of change it up!

Change It Up (Only Build)

(Part3) Reviewing the first, satisfying, and only build-     Although not perfect, by no means this came out to be an incredibly to play and interesting deck. Being that all the changelings (meaning 90% of the deck) was able to be used for such a ridiculous amount of things I had a good time figuring out great combos, and what not. So here it is, my review of the Change it Up deck (P.S. If you’re getting bored of reading deck lists and deck techs, and reviews from me don’t worry, you can skip this part and go to the bottom of the article that features me NOT blabbering on about how this card is good and this one isn’t)

The Change it Up manabase™ by the cardproffessor:     This manabase, and in fact this entire deck is very quote “fragile”. Fragile meaning that if it is changed too much it will not work. I found that when testing it for hours upon hours when I knew I could get a good mix, but hadn’t yet. This mana base features a carefully selected mix of lands that produce a total of, in this deck:

     7 white mana sources, 6 blue mana sources, 7 black mana sources, 5 red mana sources, and 7 green mana sources. If you take the time to add all those up it does come out to 32 lands. Now of course I didn’t put 32 lands in a 60 card deck. The way I count it, is that the duals can produce 2 different color manas, therefore count them under both, for example secluded glen would count as a black and blue mana source because it factually does, immediately produce black and blue mana, assuming you have the faerie or changeling in your hand that you can reveal.

     The creatures and other spells in the deck are also carefully focused, so that you can get the right type of mana, at the right time. Therefore more white cards, black cards, and green cards took the place of several red and blue cards in the deck. This is because there are 7 white, black, and green sources and only 6 blue sources and 5 red sources.

     Your probably asking at this point, why didn’t I include a Doran the Siege Tower (A.K.A. Doran the explorer™) Well this is because it did not fit the deck. The only reason I would include it would be for turtleshell changeling (a 1/4 that would basically be a 4/4 with Doran) which I run 0 of.

     I do not run any partially because without Doran the card stinks with in an agro, creature based environment, and also because of my low amount of blue mana sources and such, but I’m getting ahead of myself I’ll save changelings, more specifically the turtleshell for later, in the next part of the review.

     If and when you play this deck in type 2 I’m sure you could easily replace some of the duals with regular lands and still pull a good deck off. For example replacing a dual land with a vivid land would be a wise choice, for budget reasons.

Changelings and their interactions in a creature based set:     Now you already know that this deck is focused around changelings. It’s not entirely changelings (for obvious reasons) but the changelings make up about 60% out of the non-land cards.

     It’s very important to pick the right changeling at the right time, as on turn 3-4 you will be facing a lot of options from which you can choose to pick from different creatures, but for now that’s off topic.

     Would I consider this deck tribal? Probably.