2013 Grand Melee League round 5

The fifth round of the 2013 grand melee league needed two tables to accommodate the fourteen players. On table 1 Garth claimed victory over Jeremy with just one turn to spare as it turned out! That victory moves Garth to the top of the standings, though on the same points as Anthony.

On table 2 Andrew B claimed his first melee victory after Adrian realised he couldn’t win against the last player on the table. Both Andrew and Adrian now move into the top 8, so will most likely play on Table 1 next month. Good luck!

This being the fifth round, those players who have played in every round this year gained the Contender achievement – Anthony H, David K, Jeremy N, Leanne J. On table 2, Adrian R picked up the Impact achievement.

Here are the standings after round 5. A few non-renewed members have been removed from the standings, but will be added in again when/if they renew their membership.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Planeswalkers in Grand Melee, part 36: Ral Zarek

Ral Zarek is the most recent planeswalker to hit the magic tables, and also one of the oddest. More than any other planeswalker Ral Zarek encourages you to gamble. Very fitting for a blue/red character.

Ral Zarek costs four mana to cast, of which one must be blue and one red. He enters the battlefield with four loyalty counters and has three abilities. The first two are useful, the third is more of a gamble. Literally. We’ll get to that.

The first ability lets you tap target permanent, then untap another target permanent, for the cost of adding a loyalty counter. Very nice. You be be untapping one of your creatures or lands, while tapping down something one of your opponents needs.

The second ability costs two loyalty counters, and with this one Ral Zarek deals three damage to target creature or player. Lightning Bolt is a popular spell even with multiple players at the table, and this ability will be useful at all times.

The final ability is the one that catches the eye, and makes this planeswalker unique. You need to remove seven loyalty counter to pay for this one, and you flip a coin five times. For each flip you win, you get to take an extra turn after this one. This could be fantastic (five additional turns) or useless (no extra turns), but will more likely be generally very good, as two or three additional turns is going to set you up nicely.

Verdict: Good. The abilities look unconnected, but Ral Zarek is actually an excellent representation of his colours. The first ability gives you the controlling finesse of blue, the second gives you the straight blasting ability of red. The final ability gives you the chaos that the red/blue colour pairing is known for. All in all a perfect card, and a great addition to the game. This is not the most powerful planeswalker, but this is certainly a character that feels right, and will no doubt be a joy to use.

Connections: Like Ral Zarek? You may also like [Ajani Vengeant] [Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker] [Domri Rade]

Don’t like Ral Zarek? You may prefer [Liliana of the Veil] [Jace, Architect of Thought] [Vraska the Unseen]

 

Melee Library Decks: Ch- Ch- Changelings

The melee library decks series is an LXG initiative. We take cards from the club library, make decks from them. These decks are available to LXG members and come with a Magic booster for $6. Each deck is legal to play at the grand melee that runs each month. These decks make good starting points, and are a way of adding cards to your collection in a focused way.

Keep your opponents off balance with this creature based deck. They won’t know what to expect next! This deck is creature-based but comes with enough utility cards to keep the game interesting and varied. The deck works best when you can get some early changelings into play, and then follow them up with the likes of Tribal Golem and Gutwrencher Oni. Watch out for your opponents taking out your changelings to remove your advantage though!

Deck Name: Ch- Ch- Changelings

Colours: Blue, Black, Green

Cards: 60

Designed by: David K

Deck list: Cards are ordered by converted mana cost (cmc) with the cheapest cards first, then land.

cmc1: 1 Cloudfin Raptor, 1 Rapid Hybridization

cmc2:  4 Woodland Changeling, 2 Nature’s Spiral, 2 Naturalize, 4 Frilled Oculus

cmc3: 2 Seal of Doom, 3 Woodland Chnageling, 2 Mistform Warchief, 1 Verdant Haven, 1 Dimir Cluestone

cmc4: 1 Blunt the Assault, 2 Deep Analysis

cmc5: 4 Gutwrencher Oni, 2 Adaptive Snapjaw

cmc6: 2 Tribal Golem, 2 Skaab Goliath

Land: 3 Terramorphic Expanse, 10 Forest, 6 Island, 5 Swamp

See other melee library decks

Dragon’s Maze Multiplayer Set Review

Dragon’s Maze is the third and final set in the Return to Ravnica block, which has been wildly successful so far. Return to Ravnica is the highest-selling set in Magic’s history. If the 30% rise in sales in Q1 2012 is anything to go by, Gatecrash is either second or outsold even return to Ravnica. See our multiplayer review of the first two sets here and here.

In Dragon’s Maze all ten guilds of Ravnica return, with the guild Abilities seen in either Gatecrash or Return to Ravnica. If that weren’t enough there is an eleventh mechanic, this one new to the set. Split cards make their return in Dragon’s Maze, but with a twist. Usually a split card allows you to choose which half of the card you want to cast. The Dragon’s Maze split cards all have the ‘Fuse’ ability which allow you to choose to cast both halves of the card if you wish. This “have your cake and eat it” change is bound to be popular.

While the other ten mechanics are all known, the additional cards plug some gaps and add powerful new options for every guild. Each guild gets and equal share of the pie, so no one is being favoured over everyone else. There are a few reprints in this set, including Putrefy from the original Ravnica.

Each guild has a “champion’ in Dragon’s Maze, a legendary creature in that guild’s colours. Each of the champions appear at rare and they all add something interesting to the mix.

Another way this set has mixed things up is in the distribution of cards within a pack. Usually, Magic boosters contain one basic land, regardless of what set they are from. With Dragon’s Maze the basic land is replaced by a random guildgate, giving the set mana fixing in every pack, great for a multicolour set. In some packs the guildgates will be replaced by one of the “shock lands” from Return to Ravnica or Gatecrash. There is even the possibility of receiving the new Mythic Land, Maze’s End in place of a guildgate! This doesn’t affect the normal distribution of rares and mythic in packs, making it possible to open a pack with two Mythic rares, Maze’s End and one of the set’s regular Mythic cards.

This set has taken multiplayer into account, something that makes the cards of all rarities interesting to the grand melee player. There are plenty of “each opponent” type effects, from the life-sucking Extort cards to the punishing Ruric Thar, guild champion of the Gruul.

Ten interesting cards

1. Ruric Thar, the Unbowed – a multiplayer beast who punishes all your opponents
2. Tithe Drinker  – a cheap vampire that presents an early threat
3. Zhur-Taa Druid – a creature that damages each opponent when it taps for mana
4. Ready//Willing – a great combination of creature-boosting
5. Unflinching Courage - best creature enchantment since armadillo cloak
6. Maze’s End - the land to end the game, in your favour
7. Blood Baron of Vizkopa – another creature to fear
8. Gaze of Granite – mass removal a la carte
9. Warleader’s Helix - Lightning Helix has a big brother
10. Ral Zarek a very interesting planeswalker design

 

See also: [Return to Ravnica] [Gatecrash]

Melee Library Decks: Life Swing

April 2013 update: this deck has been sold
The melee library decks series is an LXG initiative. We take cards from the club library, make decks from them. These decks are available to LXG members and come with a Magic booster for $6. Each deck is legal to play at the grand melee that runs each month. These decks make good starting points, and are a way of adding cards to your collection in a focused way.

Keep everyone occupied with this black and white deck while you gain life and make everyone else lose life at the same time! Tap down opposing creatures and have opponents lose life from your creatures, without ever needing to attack! A couple of larger flying creatures help you deal with anything too annoying, and use your cheaper creatures to tap everything else.

Deck name: Life Swing
Colours: Black and White
Cards: 60
Designed by: David K

Decklist. Cards are organised by converted mana cost (cmc) and then land. Click on a card to see what it does.

cmc 1: 4 Goldmeadow Harrier; 2 Plague Rusalka; 2 Quag Vampires; 1 Smolder Initiate
cmc 2: 2 Tablet of the Guilds; 1 Basilica Screecher; 1 Suture Priest; 3 Executioner’s Swing; 1 Orzhov Guildmage; 2 Vizkopa Guildmage
cmc 3: 2 Last Kiss; 1 Blistergrub; 2 Solemn Offering
cmc 4: 1 Falkenrath Noble; 2 Windborne Charge; 2 Syndicate Enforcer; 2 Zarichi Tiger
cmc 5: 2 Shriekmaw; 1 Serra Angel
cmc 7: Lord of the Pit
cmc x: Shining Shoal

land: 1 Nomad Stadium; 3 Evolving Wilds; 2 Barren Moor; 9 Swamp; 9 Plains

See other melee library decks

Celebrating Early Magic: The Gathering Art and Artists

There are quite a few long-term magic players at LXG, and players who played in the early years but rarely duel these days. Eaither way there’s a few people who will be interested by this project on Kickstarter.

The Gathering: Reuniting Pioneering Artists of Magic is a book featuring many of Magic’s early artists. The book is being compiled by Jeff A Menges, himself an early Magic artist. The artist list is not finalised yet as they are still confirming the involvement of some of Magic’s early artists. Chances are some of your favourites are already involved.

The book is an independent publication, not one put out by Wizards of the Coast. The Kickstarter projects has already reached its initial goal, so it’s all stretch targets from here on.

Magic Grows and Grows

There was a recent Hasbro investor conference, if you like that sort of thing. Hasbro are the owners of Wizards of the Coast, the makers of Magic: The Gathering.

They included a very interesting slide on Magic’s growth over the past few years. After coasting sideways for a number of years the game has taken off in a big way.

(Click on the image below to enlarge it)

If you like large files you can view the full PDF presentation here. It’s over 8MB in size.

Reports are rife (though difficult to confirm globally) that hobby game sales have been consistently rising over the past few years. It looks like Magic is leading the way, as more players are spending more money than ever before on this game. Remember that Hasbro only measure initial sales, and those valuable second-hand cards that change hands for $20 and more aren’t included, so real spending on the game is higher than Hasbro’s revenues suggest.

Our Grand Melee league has been going for many years, but over the past year or so we have had a number of new players join in, and many of these players are new to the game.

2013 Grand Melee League, round 2 standings

One table of 10 players took part in the Grand Melee League today. Anthony H ran out the winner, after decking everyone else to death. Well done Anthony! I think we can expect to see some anti-decking cards and some anti-lifelink cards too after Garth P went down to 2 life and then came back to over 50 before running out of cards.

Here are the standings (click to enlarge). Tim H is still top after his grand win in round 1, with today’s winner Anthony H close behind. Garth P is in third place, a testament to the killing power of his decks so far. Once again, non-members aren’t in the standings proper, you must be a member to participate in league games more than once.

On the subject of achievements, please remember to call either David K or Adrian R over when you get an achievement so we can verify it and award you the pack on the spot. It’s unfortunately too late to come to us after the round is over. Once or both of us are usually at the table.

Planeswalkers in Grand Melee, part 35: Domri Rade

Domri Rade is a young rebel of a planeswalkers, in the green and red colours. He makes his debut in the Gatecrash set.

Domri Rade costs three mana to cast, of which one must be red and one green. He enters the battlefield with three loyalty counters and has three abilities. These abilities all work well together, but demand that you use them in a particular kind of deck.

The first ability adds a loyalty counter and lets you reveal the top card of your library. If it’s a creature card, you may put that card into your hand. Nice for the extra card draw, but it does lean you towards building a deck with Domri Rade, creatures and lands only.

The second ability costs two loyalty counters and a creature your control fights another target creature. When two creatures fight, each deals damage equal to its power to the other. Abilities such as Deathtouch or Lifelink still work, but other abilities such as reach, flying or first strike don’t do anything in a fight.

The final ability costs seven loyalty counters, so you must have used Domri’s first ability at least four times. This ones gives you an emblem, with creatures you control have double strike, trample, hexproof, and haste. It may well be worth taking the time to get there, drawing extra creature cards along the way. Remember an Emblem is an effect that lasts for the remainder of the games regardless of what happens to Domri Rade after that. There is no card or effect that can remove and emblem, though if the game is restarted (through Karn Liberated for example), the emblems won’t be there at the start of the new game.

Verdict: Marginal. Domri’s abilities are all strong, but demand that you turn up with a deck made up of little more than Domri Rade, creatures, and land. You may not survive long enough to see the full potential unfold.

Connections: Like Domri Rade? You may also like [Garruk Wildspeaker] [Sarkhan Vol] [Vraska the Unseen]
Don’t like Domri Rade? You may prefer [Karn Liberated] [Jace, Architect of Thought] [Gideon, Champion of Justice]

Melee Library Decks: Goblins!

April 2013 update: this deck has been sold
The melee library decks series is an LXG initiative. We take cards from the club library, make decks from them. These decks are available to LXG members and come with a Magic booster for $6. Each deck is legal to play at the grand melee that runs each month. These decks make good starting points, and are a way of adding cards to your collection in a focused way.

This decks of goblins is a mono-red deck that focuses on getting lots of goblins into play as quickly as possible. Once that is done, you can attack in strength. Keep your hand filled up with Sensation Gorger, and use Spikeshot Elder to deal direct damage where needed. Hope you like goblins!

Deck name: Goblins!
Colour: red
Cards: 60
Designer: David K

Decklist – cards are listed in order of converted mana cost (cmc), then lands.

cmc 1: 3 Foundry Street Denizen; 2 Spikeshot Elder; 4 Warbreak Trumpeter;
cmc 2: 2 Skinbrand Goblin; 2 Akki Raider; 3 Bloodmark Mentor; 1 Ogre’s Cleaver; 1 Hammer of Ruin; 1 Stingscourger; 1 Mogg War Marshal; 2 Thunderbolt;
cmc 3: 1 Sensation Gorger; 1 Goblin Chariot; 1 Mudbutton Torchrunner; 2 Fire Juggler; 1 Undying Rage
cmc 4: 1 Tar Pitcher
cmc 5: 3 Survey the Wreckage; 3 Outrage Shaman

lands: 24 mountain

See other melee library decks

Planeswalkers in Grand Melee, part 34: Gideon, Champion of Justice

Yes, the name is stupid. Luckily, everything else about this white Planeswalker is awesome. He will have a huge impact on multiplayer tables and is the best multiplayer Planeswalker yet printed.

Gideon, Champion of Justice costs four mana to cast, two of which must be white. He enters the battlefield with four loyalty counters and has three abilities. Each ability is awesome in its own way, and when combined together they become close to unbeatable.

Gideon’s first ability adds one loyalty counter, for this “cost” you add a loyalty counter to Gideon for each creature target opponent controls. You should gain a clutch of counters each time you use this ability.

Gideon’s second ability has a cost of zero; it neither adds nor removes counters to use. For this Gideon becomes and indestructible human soldier creature util the end of turn. His power and toughness are each equal to the number of loyalty counters he has. When you consider how many loyalty counters Gideon would have after using the first ability even once, you can see how great this creature would be. But wait, there’s more!

The third and final ability has a huge cost and a huge effect. The cost is to remove 15 loyalty counters from Gideon. Remember you have to have that many loyalty counters to use this ability, and you’ll want more. What does this ability do? Four simple words; Exile all other permanents.

After using this ability, there will be nothing other than Gideon, Champion of Justice remaining, assuming you waited util there were more than 15 counters of Gideon before using this ability. Players are building again from scratch, except that what they once had is now out of their reach in the exile zone. You have a planeswalker with an ability that turns himself into a creature. Using this ability with enough counters on Gideon (say 20-30) should see you kill your opponents one by one before they can recover.

Verdict: Awesome. This is a planeswalker you will love to have and hate to see.

Connections
Like Gideon, Champion of Justice? You may also like [Elspeth, Knight Errant] [Ajani Vengeant] [Karn Liberated]
Don’t like Gideon, Champion of Justice? You may prefer [Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker] [Tamiyo, the Moon Sage] [Vraska the Unseen]

Gatecrash Multiplayer Set Review

Gatecrash, the latest expansion for magic: The Gathering, was released on the first of February. It follows on from the successful Return to Ravnica set released in October last year (see our multiplayer set review here).

Gatecrash focuses on five colour pairs -two-colour combinations- each represented by a guild. These are:
Ozrzhov – Black and White
Boros – White and Red
Gruul – Red and Green
Simic – Green and Blue
Dimir – Blue and Black

New Mechanics: Each guild has its own mechanic to help give it an identity separate form the others. These appear both on multicoloured and mono-coloured cards. For example the Gruul ability will appear of red/green cards, mono-red cards, and mono-green cards. Each ability has its use on the multiplayer table. The abilities all involve creatures in some way, making them vulnerable to spells that affect or destroy creatures.

Extort: This is the Orzhov ability and it appears on creatures. Each creature with extort allows you to pay an additional black or white mana for a spell you cast. Each time you do this, an opponent loses one life and you gain one life. Over the course of a long game this adds up to quite an advantage.

Battalion: Appearing only on creatures, the Boros ability rewards you for attacking with three or more creatures. Battalion abilities trigger when you do this, giving a bonus either to the individual creature or to every attacking creature. Battalion takes a while to build into but can be potent if you time it right.

Bloodrush: This Gruul ability allows you to get extra value from creature cards in your hand. You can pay the Bloodrush cost and discard the creature card with Bloodrush from your hand to give a bonus to an attacking creature. As with Battalion, this is an ability that rewards aggressive play. Bloodrush is an activated ability, not a spell, and so there are few ways to counter it.

Evolve: The Simic ability exists only on creatures (there’s a pattern here), and it lets them react in a positive way to the next creature you cast. If a creature with Evolve s on the battlefield and a creature with higher power OR toughness enters the battlefield under your control, you can put a +1/+1 counter on that creature. This allows your early smaller creatures to keep growing as you play larger ones later on.

Cipher: The Dimir ability is a little different from the others. This ability exists only on instants and sorceries, but requires that you have at least one creature in play to function. When you cast a spell with Cipher, as part of the resolution of that spell, you may Encode the Cipher spell onto a creature you control. A creature may have any number of spells Encoded on it in this way. Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, you may cast all spells Encoded on that creature for free. This works a bit like a creature enchantment with the added bonus that the encoded spell cannot be targeted (the creature can though, so be careful where you Encode those Cipher spells!). Cipher spells are priced higher than you would generally expect for their effect so you need to cast them two or more times to get the real value from them.

Every set adds cards to the multiplayer pool, and Gatecrash is now excpetion. Several cards have clearly been designed with multiplayer in mind, so there are plenty of interesting cards to check out.

Gatecrash – 10 useful cards for multiplayer
1. Assemble the Legion – this Enchantment gives you an increasing number of 1/1 soldier tokens each turn, getting out of control quickly
2. Gideon, Champion of Justice – quite possible the best multiplayer Planeswalker yet printed, this will be the subject of its own article when our series on Planeswalkers in Grand Melee resumes.
3. Cloudfin Raptor – starting off an an inoffensive 0/1 flyer, this creature can grow into a real threat thanks to its Evolve ability
4. Sepulchral Primordial – a 5/4 with Intimidate for seven mana is okay, but this creature also lets you take a creature card from each opponent’s graveyard and put it onto the battlefield under your control. Nice.
5. Legion Loyalist – a swift creature with Battalion that can give all your creatures a powerful bonus
6. Wasteland Viper – for a single green mana, the Bloodrush ability grant a small stat bonus and more importantly Deathtouch to one of your attacking creatures.
7. Consuming Aberration – in conjunction with Cipher spells this creature can get out of hand fast.
8. Borborygmos Enraged – this legendary creature turns you spare lands into Lightning Bolts
9. Vizkopa Guildmage – this card will doubtless become the kaystone of many passive decks that drain the table of life.
10. Biovisionary – an alternative win condition that some way wish to try out

See also: [Return to Ravnica] [Dragon's Maze]

Melee Library Decks: Go Go Golgari

March 2013 update: this deck has been sold.
The melee library decks series is an LXG initiative. We take cards from the club library, make decks from them. These decks are available to LXG members and come with a Magic booster for $6. Each deck is legal to play at the grand melee that runs each month. These decks make good starting points, and are a way of adding cards to your collection in a focused way.

This Golgari deck uses green and black cards from both Ravnica blocks and other sets to create something that feels essentially Golgari. This deck is all about recycling cards back into play, and using cards in your graveyard as yet another resource.

Deck Name: Go Go Golgari
Colours: Black and Green
Cards: 60
Designed by: David K

Deck list – cards are listed by converted mana cost (cmc) from the cheapest to the most expensive, followed by land.

cmc 1: 1 Slitherhead; 2 Elves of Deep Shadow; 3 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
cmc 2: 2 Putrid Leech; 1 Grasp of Darkness; 1 Butcher Ghoul; 1 Strangleroot Geist; 2 Drudge Beetle; 1 Treasured Find
cmc 3: 2 Stonefare Crocodile; 1 Dismember; 1 Putrefy; 2 Shambling Shell; 1 Golgari Germination; 2 Corpse Blockade
cmc 4: 2 Korozda Monitor; 1 Lhurgoyf; 1 Skinrender; 2 Vigor Mortis; 1 Unliving Psychopath
cmc 5: 2 Golgari Rotwurm
cmc 6: 1 Vengeful Vampire; 2 Rites of Reaping
cmc 7: 1 Duskdale Wurm

Land: 12 Forest; 12 Swamp

See other melee library decks

Melee Library Decks: Redhaters

January 2013 Update: This Deck has been sold.

The melee library decks series is an LXG initiative. We take cards from the club library, make decks from them. These decks are available to LXG members and come with a Magic booster for $6. Each deck is legal to play at the grand melee that runs each month. These decks make good starting points, and are a way of adding cards to your collection in a focused way.

Redhaters is a green/white decks that red mages at the able aren’t going to want to see. Cards such as Kor Firewalker will give them headaches while making you smile. Other cards in the deck accelerate your mana so you can play your most expensive creature as soon as possible. With Chorus of the Conclave on the table any smaller creatures you drawn later on can enter the battlefield as larger threats.

Deck name: Redhaters
Colours: White and Green
Cards: 60
Designed by: David K

Deck list: Cards are sorted by converted mana cost (cmc), you can click any card to see what it does).

cmc 1: 2 Ethereal Armor; 2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
cmc 2: 1 Kor Firewalker; 1 Inquisitor’s Snare; 1 Cliff Threader; 1 Viridian Emissary; 2 Fertile Ground; 1 Elvish Visionary; 1 Dawntreader Elk; 1 Albino Troll; 1 Mask of Avacyn
cmc 3: 1 Fiend Hunter; 1 Asha’s Favor; 3 Pilgrim of Justice; 1 Luminous Wake; 1 Rebuke; 1 Zealous Inquisitor; 1 Boar Umbra; 2 Centaur Healer; 1 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
cmc 4: 1 Angelic Protector; 1 Hollowhenge Spirit; 1 Prized Unicorn; 1 Roaring Primadox; 2 Slice in Twain; 1 Skinwing
cmc 5: 1 Lightwielder Paladin; 1 Acidic Slime; 1 Rubbleback Rhino
cmc 8: Chorus of the Conclave

Lands
1 Ghost Quarter; 1 Evolving Wilds; 1 Rupture Spire; 2 Tranquil Thicket; 9 Forest; 9 Plains

See other melee library decks!

Melee Library Decks: Izzet Enough

February 2013 Update: This deck has been sold.

The melee library decks series is an LXG initiative. We take cards from the club library, make decks from them. These decks are available to LXG members and come with a Magic booster for $6. Each deck is legal to play at the grand melee that runs each month. These decks make good starting points, and are a way of adding cards to your collection in a focused way.

Izzet Enough is a blue/red deck that is focused around casting as many instants and sorceries in a turn as possible. There are creatures in the deck that benefit by getting bigger the more spells you cast. This deck can freely target all four players in range, and is one to watch out for.

Deck name: Izzet Enough
Colours: Blue and Red
Cards: 60
Designed by: David K

Cards are sorted by converted mana cost (CMC), you can click each card to see what it does.

CMC 1: 1 Artful Dodge; 2 Magma Spray; 1 Kindled Fury
CMC 2: 2 Goblin Electromancer; 2 Izzet Guildmage; 2 Izzet Signet; 4 Kiln Fiend; 1 Train of Thought; 1 Fire//Ice; 1 Call to Heel; 2 Pyromatics; 2 Jilt
CMC 3: 2 Quicksilver Dagger; 4 Wee Dragonauts; 1 Guttersnipe; 1 Gelectrode
CMC 4: 1 Empty the Warrens; 2 Steamcore Weird
CMC 5: 2 Ogre Savant
CMC 6: 1 Sphinx of the Chimes
CMC x: 1 Invoke the Firemind

Lands: 2 Forgotten Cave; 4 Izzet Boilerworks; 2 Lonely Sandbar; 1 Transguild Promenade; 8 Mountain, 7 Island