Infiltrate!

Benthic Infiltator by Mathias Kollros

Blue-black was no doubt the color of ingest in BFZ (if we exclude exiling noncreature spells).Black has more powerful ingest creature, but blue has evasion ingest creature. Personally, I prefer blue's ingester because your processing will be guaranteed, while you can splash black's ingester in any black deck.

If you followed some articles about BFZ, you might encounter questions regarding ingest / processor ratio. Most processors are fine card without their processing ability, that's their plus, but unless you can trigger them, I think there are better alternative. Unfortunately, I also don't have a lot of clue about what the right ratio is, but I've seen people ingesting so many of my cards without doing anything about it (honestly, that still puts pressure, and having your bomb ingested is not fun). I myself feel that its easier for you to be overloaded with processors, but very few ingesters, that's why I consider blue's ingester, which have better chance to ingest multiple cards over few turns to be more valuable.

Well, good luck trying those "alternative" eldrazi theme in the set!

BFZ's Best of Brawls

This post come from a simple curiosity: is Tajuru Beastmaster a good card?

Some of you might already know do you like it or not, I got couple of it during prerelease but I was hesitant to put it into my library. I've seen people appreciate it, I've also seen people giving it bad rating. So, I tried to peek a little into the Gatherer, and sorts BFZ's cards by their power. I don't take note of rares because you won't see them often in limited.

1st: Breaker of Armies
2nd: Eldrazi Devastator 
3rd: Bane of Bala Ged, Ruin Processor, Plated Crusher
4th: Deathless Behemoth
5th: Tajuru Beastmaster, Ulamog's Despoiler
6th: ton of 4-power creatures

Breaker, Bane, Crusher, Behemoth, and Despoilers are uncommons, while Devastator and Ruin Processor costs 8 mana and 7 mana respectively, so the chances are, if you can put Tajuru Beastmaster early enough, it will dominate the battlefield as the biggest creature for a some turns (and, more importantly, as a defender, a role Territorial Balloth have in-tendency to fill), and he even have an upside of Ally synergy.

So yeah, I think he's good enough to fill that 6-drop slot in your next green draft deck. Of course there are nonrare alternative for that spot (with arguably different or better role), but for size, Beastmaster's the beast.

Waking Up with Scions

When I first thought of Awaken cards I thought "great, an effect and a body on the same turn!" Then I realized that if you cast Awaken with its exact Awaken cost, your elemental will "come to play" tapped, which kinda defeat the purpose of Awaken itself. You do get the creature, but you miss the tempo potential you could get, and it's kind of silly to miss a functional 4/4 creature for a turn.

So how to get around this? The obvious choice is that you cast Awaken when you have one extra land compared to the awaken cost. But having 6 land available in play is far cry from having 7 land available in play. It would be just too slow. This is where Eldrazi Scions become really useful, as they can substitute a land, allowing you to cast awaken with one less land, and your last land can immediately attack or block. BFZ seemed to be filled with various possibilities of playing with mana and lands, and that makes the plays very interesting.

BFZ Prerelease Rants: The Event

The first day of BFZ's prerelease already swooped in yesterday, and it's amazing! My local game store hosts the sealed tournament twice in one night, so most of us got two BFZ prerelease packs, and of course a lot of loot! My biggest loot was the Promo Ob Nixilis, and three other mythic. I managed to win four out of six matches so last night was a blast for me.

When I learn of BFZ's full spoiler, I know that Battle for Zendikar will reward you for playing synergetic strategies, and I love it. Magic Origins limited was simple and it was sweet, but I feel that BFZ's limited will be more than "choosing an available color", rather, you will be challenged to connect the dots and build a strategy that will completely blow your opponents.  BFZ's sealed was very fun, but I am eager to know how the draft will shape. For now, my mindset for doing a BFZ's limited is "choose an open strategy" rather than "choose an open color" and I hope I can pull that well.

Although I managed to win four out of six match, my two losses was the result of my inability to play magic in a higher complexity level, especially since that was when I was paired with another player who also does well in their first two matches. BFZ reveals a lot of areas of my gameplay that I can improve and I am excited to do more limited!

Lastly, I am starting to consider (just considering) playing standard, seeing how exciting it was to play BFZ's strategy-centric limited environment. Another reason was that BFZ's event deck seemed really cool as it was packed with powerful rares. I might try those when I got some profit from selling cards. 

Oh, another thing that I love is that I never felt that I really get mana flooded, like some writer said, between landfalls and eldrazis there are a lot of things that your lands can do. And battle between Eldrazi *is* a thing. I punched an opposing Bane of Bala Ged with my own Ruin Processor, and that, after all my experience playing monsters printed on top of cardboard paper, felt awesome as hell.

Well, see you next time!

Looking at BFZ's Commons

Common Processors

Mind Raker's ability is neither interesting or powerful, but it's still free advantage! Hill Giant body is very acceptable as well. Every creature that bounces another when it comes to the field is good, as you are gaining tempo and reducing your opponent's at the same time, especially if played on the curve. Compared to its Origins counterpart - Separatist Voidmage - Strider have 3 power, allowing it to make better trade, which is a huge plus.

Verdict:
Mind Raker: Good Common
Murk Strider: Great Common

 Common Drones

Black and blue seemed to be the color of ingest and process! black got creatures with powerful stats and it seemed that blue can ingest like crazy! Blue is a must if you are going to draft a processor deck. Lastly, Incubator Drone doesn't ingest, but he might be the most common way to get a scion out. The drone makes sure you can play a sweet 5-drop next turn.

Verdict:
Culling Drone: Good Common
Dominator Drone: Good Common
Mist Intruder: Good Common (amazing in processors)
Benthic Infiltrator: Great Common (amazing in processors)
Incubator Drone: Great Common

Giant Creatures and Giant Spells

Ah, just when finish talking about incubator drone, Kozilek's Channeler can give you a really massive ramp! that means if you only have 4 land card, you can still play up to 6 mana! Both Scour and Devastator might not be interesting, but they definitely paid for their mana costs, and I presume you can rely on drafting them often enough. If you don't play some kind of ramp effect, though, I don't think it is a good idea to play both of them, although Scour might be played more than Devastator.

Verdict:
Kozilek's Channeler: Great Common
Scour from Existence: Good Common
Eldrazi Devastator: Common Common

White Common

 

   

As it goes with origins, looks like white will get some strong, aggresive early game. Felidar Cub is solid early and can lay low to wreck expensive enchantment later, preventing them to be played at all. Gideon's Reproach hurts, and is more flexible than Origins' Celestial Flare, expect it to also hurt your feelings a lot. Tandem Tactics looks sweet as it can save or kill two creatures, while Sheer Drop is strong in mid game or the late game.

Verdict:
Felidar Cub: Good Common
Gideon's Reproach: Amazing Common
Tandem Tactics: Good Common
Sheer Drop: Good Common

Black Common

 

Reave Soul destroying creature with 3 power or less proves to be good enough in Origins, Zendikar have ton of big creature so I don't know how will it played out. Exile is sweet and worth the extra mana, and is sure to give additional value in Processor decks.

Red-green Aggresive Early Landfaller

Played right on turn two, those two will wreck, a lot. You'll play them as 3/2 and 3/3 for a lot of turns after.

Mono-colored Spell Lands

I don't know how lands will be distributed in BFZ packs, as there are so many land types including the full-art basics. Spell lands get a lot of critic as you don't usually want to time your land drop, but they could give you minor momentum that will make your midgame easier. 

That's it for the revealed commons! We're supposed to see the whole set today and see what common madness awaits!

Origins Red Review

Game-breaking Rares

Nice Rares

Rares to Avoid

Avaricious Dragon
Avaricious Dragon is great as long you don't play it if you have any card in your hand. Come to think of it, if you think the rest of your hand is stinking bad, feel free to cast it as soon as possible.

Flameshadow Conjuring
Poor Conjuring often get passed along the table, but IMO this is a good card to have in an aggresive deck, especially those with flier, as it gives extra value from those mana spent to cast your creatures. It can also triggers funny ETB shenanigans.

Rare Summary:
From the Rare categories, only few of red's rare are game breaking (the best being Pia and Kiran Nalaar) while almost all the rest fall into okay zone which is great for their cost but not interesting. Fortunately red only have one real "unplayable" rare, so those passed to you are likely to be playable.

Best Cards in the Curve
As I think mana curve is always an important factor in game like Magic and Hearthstone, let's look at the better and the worse card of red's mana curve. The card in the left have the highest rating while the one in the right is one I consider poorest. I do, however separate creatures and non-creatures in each curve.

Goblin Glory Chaser
Glory Chaser is unpopular but I love Menace. Early enough, 2/2 Menace will put in decent amount of damage to your opponent. To capitalize that though, you should try to give it enchantment like Call of Full Moon or Infectious Bloodlust, or decent equip like throwing knife.

In General
Except Bellow Lizard, all red's one-mana spell are very nice. Fiery Impulse is considered the best common in set, Titan's Strength is a darn efficient combat trick, and Magmatic Insight is playable.

Mage-ring Bully

Funny enough, the Mage-ring Bully pretty much feel like a real bully. At first he looks menacing as it can jump into 3/3 in an instant. But once you know that you just need to let him pass and focus on your attack the Bully became meaningless. This is not counting the time when you just have a 4-toughness creature that will block it the earth turns square.

Call of the Full Moon

This card have a ton of restriction, but if you can get it out fast enough, it will become a real threat especially on early renown as they will always deal damage via trampe and at least sick 5 power. I tend to treat it as one-time-trick instead of a card that absolutely must stay.

In General

You only have two viable two-drop in form of Scout and Fodder. You should try get another color with decent two drops, especially green or white, as Scout will also provide easy way to trigger renown from those two color. Outside of Ravaging Blaze, which is not exactly a two mana spell, there isn't any interesting spell out of those four, either too restrictive or need too many set up. So you should indeed pack the two mana curve line with solid card of another color.

In General

Now things started to heat up! the three drop line is filled by good enough creatures so this is definitely red's stronger point in the start. All of the creatures contributes greatly to offensive style of play. I actually think they possess almost same score. Akroan Sergeant is still decent, but scored lowest because he seemed too slow or needed another help, although first strike is a really decent ability. On the non-creature spell side, Act of Treason is the one more playable but you should need more than one either, so you can focus on creatures on this curve.

In General

Firefiend Elemental and Javelin are the better commons in this lineup. Cobblebrute is also ok, but might need few help to allow it connect hard to your opponent's face, otherwise you can set him on defense to block powerful creatures.

               

 

Red's Top Curve in General

Seismic Elemental and Chandra's Fury are great finishers. Prickleboar is a decent attacker. While rambler acts as a poor finisher. To optimize Red's gameplay, you should focus on 2-3-drop creatures line, with 1-mana spell and 4-mana spell as complementary element and few top curves as finisher. Good luck in drafting red!