Walk Into The Random!!!

Into My Mind!!

Welcome one and all! Today’s article is a bit different. Today I will be talking about a few random things on my mind about Magic. This is a little more of a casual thing so I figured I should let you know now. First, there will be no decks here but maybe a few ideas will pop up. Also, I will talk about a few other things like game play and news. Maybe a few things about me will show up and a quick piece of thanks to all those that have helped me get to this point. So, if this all sounds boring to you, then I will see you later this week when I talk about another deck I’ve been playing around with.  To all of you who are still here, let us take a walk into the random.

Last Time at the Edge of Reality

This past Friday, I got to play a few games of Commander at my local brick and mortar store. The first game was with the Political Puppets Deck from the recent Commander set release. I got to tell you, I like this deck. While it’s not as powerful as the other 4 in the set, it has got my juices flowing with ideas for another deck I want to try. But first a few notes. First, the two new Legends that come with it are the bomb. Ruhan of the Fomori is great but I feel he needs to be set aside for his own deck. He can bring some serious hurt down on the table but this deck doesn’t use him to his full potential. He’s the kind of guy that likes to have a deck that can give him evasion and helps him thin the hordes of the groups. This deck is more about giving your stuff away then controlling what’s out. I also noticed that the deck has a strong defense thing going with walls, big blockers, dudes with fog like abilities, and bounce spells. This deck is really made for Zedruu the Greathearted to lead, so if you’re playing it right out the box let Ruhan chill in it and not in the Command Zone.

 

The second game I got to run my Balthor Deck from last week. I was off to an early start with a Buried Alive and the new Sewer Nemesis in play targeting myself. I got to tell you the Nemesis is a great dredger; sure it’s one card at a time but with him out you can play your spells without feeling like you missed out on a chance to toss a few cards from you deck to the grave for your end game. I got about half my deck in and needed 1 more swamp to go off….. Then it happened.

Identity Crisis!!!

 Let’s just say it was a long uphill battle from there. Later the guy that hit me with the Crisis said he was sorry for taking me out the game like that. I told him it’s cool, when you play a deck like this you have to expect it to happen sooner or later. With all the graveyard hate in this game, it will happen. Out all of the games I’ve played with this deck in the last few months, this was the first and only time I’ve lost my graveyard so I can’t complain. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. He asked me then why didn’t I drop from the game then? I told him that I still had other dredgers and mill cards in my deck. If I hit a few of them it would be like he did nothing. Sadly, all I could get was Necroplasm so I played it to kill off all the tokens, attacked people at random to get it in the grave, dredged 2, and start over again. I kept hitting lands but one reanimate spell could have got my Nemesis back and the shop would have been open for business again. But, all in all a fun night that ended early cause half the shop left to go chill at the bar. I didn’t go because I’m not much of a drinker. Not to say I don’t drink, just not that often.

Where’s the Magic???

In case you didn’t know, I am a nerd. I watch The Big Bang Theory and I have to explain the jokes to my wife. I love Voltron and giant robot anime. I have the original Transformers on DVD collectors pack with all the seasons. I had He-Man action figures and all the X-Men toys I could find. Even now I have a room in my apartment meant for Magic cards, a pet lizard, and a shelf with my favorite toys from the 80’s.With this bit of info, can you guess what new remake TV show has me excited?

…

…

…

Ready? It’s the new Thundercats show!! Now, this month on the 29 there will be a 1 hour series premiere on Cartoon Network and I’ve got to tell ya I am soooo ready. I told my wife I may even use a vacation day for this one! That show rocked! The Cats are on the loose and this time they have pants!!! If only He-Man would take a clue maybe he wouldn’t appear to have such a… “Alternative Lifestyle”, but who am I to judge royalty. So if you have no idea what the Thundercats are here a quick rundown. Its Superman meets Star Trek meets Plant of the Apes. A group of alien cat people crashes on an unknown planet. They all have special abilities and weapons that make them a kind of warrior race. They find out the planet is ruled by an evil immortal undead king. They try to rebuild their ship but find out their home planet is gone so they stay to try and turn this weird planet into their new home. It may sound weird but hey that’s 80 TV for you. This show was awesome and I can’t wait to get to see it again! Oh, and did I say that Cheetara is hot? You know in that weird cartoon kinda way…… DON’T JUDGE ME!!!!

Oh There It Is

Back to Magic, my group has been playing around with the Planechase cards. We’ve been playing a little format I call Planes Draft. It’s real simple; you just take the Planes cards, shuffle, deal them out, and draft them. You end up with a Planes deck that is somewhat built for your deck but not so custom made that it wrecks shop. It also help you from getting to a plane everyone likes and no one wants to leave, because you know what there are other planes in your deck that helps you more than them (or hurt you less in some cases). 

It’s still a work in progress and I want to try something similar with the Archenemy cards. Hey just because these cards were made to be played the way Wizards made them, doesn’t mean we can’t make up our own stuff. That is the beauty of this game. You can customize just about everything!  After a few more games I’ll let you know how it goes.

You Like Me!!  You Really Like Me!?!

This is the point where I send out a huge thank you to all the people that have read my stuff. This took a lot of work to put together and it feels good to get all the comments, suggestions, and flat out help you guy have given. A big Thank You to Andy from COMMANDERCAST.BLOGSPOT.COM.  Thanks for all the help fixing things up and if you haven’t seen it yet go check out this page. To my play group Dennis, Matt, and Dan for spending your Friday nights out with me. And to all the readers who have checked out my page. If it wasn’t for you, I would have probably stopped after my first article.

Thanks again to all and don’t forget to come back later this week when I’ll take a look into another deck!!!

Oh Captain, My Captain

Who Died and Made You F##king King of the Zombies!!!

What up world! This is your boy Captain Red Zone coming at you with my first deck for 3TF. This week I’m going to bring to you my first themed Commander deck.  If you know anything about me, you know that I have a strange love/hate/fearful relationship with the undead hordes that walk the earth. Most zombies movies never really tell you how the dead gained the ablitiy to rise and walk once more, but in the game of Magic we have Necromancers. People who spend years of their life learning how to bring be corpses of their loved one, enemies, and sometime just random dead people back “to life”. There are a lot of different Legends out there to choose from, but today I’m going to talk about Balthor the Defiled.

Balthor is a 2/2 Zombie Dwarf for 2BB. His abilities are “All Minions get +1/+1.” and “BBB, Remove Balthor the Defiled: Each player returns all black and red creatures cards from his or her graveyard to play.“….. HEY WHERE YOU GOING!!! I know he may not be the best zombie legend in the game, but if you’re looking for a Legend who is on theme for a zombie deck he’s your guy! I mean come on!! He’s a guy that dies and brings all the black creatures from your grave to the battlefield. So let’s get started.

They Just Won’t Die!!!

First we’ll start with our lords. They’re the ones who will help us keep our legion alive(?) and strong.

Lord of the Undead, Undead Warchief, Death Baron, Cemetery Reaper:  All of these guys bring with them an attack and defense bonus. But they also each bring with them their own little added bonuses. Undead Warchief helps us cast our guys by bringing their cost down by 1, Death Baron gives our guys Deathtouch, Lord of the Undead helps bring back dead dudes, and Cemetery Reaper gives us a 2/2 zombie token while removing a creature from an enemy/our grave.

Boneknitter, Zombie Master, Zombie Trailblazer:  Like they say, sometimes “Size doesn’t matter”. Big numbers won’t save you from a Day of Judgment. Sometimes you need to be able to get there. Zombie Master  and Boneknitter gives us the chance to save some or all of our dudes with Regenerate and the master does it for a single B for each dude. This won’t stop the Wrath of God’s out there but hey no one’s perfect. He also gives us Swampwalk which isn’t too bad when you got Zombie Trailblazer who can turn any enemy land into a Swamp for our horde to get to the tasty brains waiting on the other side of the table.

Gravespawn Sovereign: This guy will keep the dead coming if you can keep four other zombies around him. He’ll even save your non-zombie guys from time to time.

But lords can’t keep our guys going all by themselves. We need to be good Necromancers and keep the death flowing.

Haunted Crossroads: The World if full of Haters and Haters going to Hate. There is going to be one guy that likes the idea of removing graveyards for fun and profit in your play group. Haunted Crossroads gives us a chance to save a few of our dudes from an eternal life in exile.

Ghastly Remains, Phyrexian Delver, Woebearer, Gravedigger, Bone Dancer,  Animate Dead, Beacon of Unrest, Living Death, Nim Deathmantle, Rise from the Grave, Stir the Grave, Restless Dreams, Soul Strings, Grim Discovery: And there’s going to be a guy that wipes the broad every other turn. Each of these cards will allow us to bring back fallen guys in one way or another. Guest they didn’t get the memo. There is no more room in Hell.

The Dead Shall Walk the Earth

Now that we have our lords out of the way we need someone for them to rule over (other than our foes).

Grave Defiler, Corpse Harvester, Graveborn Muse, Undead Gladiator: These guys will help us dig into our deck to find the guys we need.  Either we’ll search with our Harvester and Defiler or we’ll draw into our cards with our Muse and Gladiator. But be careful, the Muse will kill you if you let her (your life points taste soooo good).

Zombie Brute, Souless One, Frankenstein’s Monster: Here are our beatsticks. In a (mostly) zombie deck Souless One can get huge quick and Zombie Brute may get out of control with a fist full of cards. Frankie can be a little hard to control when he comes out with all the different kinds of counters he can make. But 3 different color dice (red for +2/0, white for +1/+1, and blue for 0/+2 for example) should help keep him straight.

Vengeful Dead, Gempalm Polluter: These two could easily take out a weakened player in one turn if you know how to use them.

Nantuko Husk, Stromgald Crusader: These two can be added as our utility guys. Pro-White on Crusader means we have something for the Mono W player plus his abilities add a nice way to get around ground stalls and get in extra damage. The Husk can get big with enough creatures but he also plays a role in helping kill things we want to dig out the yard again or we just want off the field (Here’s looking at you Muse)

 I Think I’LL Hold The Gun For Awhile…

No deck would be complete without a removal package right???

Plaguebearer, Fleshbag Marauder, Innocent Blood, Cruel Revival, Syphon Flesh: These cards help us take out problem cards. Sure most of them allow our opponents to pick and choose what dies but if all things go as planned they shouldn’t have that many options.

Damnation, Mutilate, Nefashu, Noxious Ghoul: These are our board wipers. Nefashu should take out a couple of dudes or at least bring them down enough to deal with. Noxious Ghoul can clean a board when it comes back with Balthor’s Rise effect, somewhat negating the returned ALL black and red creature clause. Damnation and Mutilate is our last resort reset buttons.

Helldozer, Withered Wretch: Sometimes lands just need to go and you may not be the only grave based deck. These two help with these issues.

I’m Not Quite Dead Yet…

Here is where we put our kinda on theme but off a little cards.

Grave Titan: Look him up. Look as hard as you want. He’s not a zombie. He will die when you bring back the whole grave with Balthor and Noxious Ghoul is in it. At least he helps Gravespawn Sovereign with the four other guy thing.

Sewer Nemesis, Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Thug, Necroplasm, Millikin, Extractor Demon, Nightmare Void, Buried Alive, Shared Trauma: This deck has a sub-Dredge theme. With Balthor at the helm, we get to dump cards with our Dredgers and fill our grave. Then when we hit 7 mana (2BBBBB) we get to drop a field full of horror.

Sensei’s Divining Top, Sol Ring, Lightning Greaves, Beseech the Queen, Liliana Vess, Crystal Ball, Extraplanar Lens, Dolmen Gate, Greed, Bad Moon: What??..... Like you don’t have a set of staples in yours.

We Have To Make It To Somewhere Safe

From here we add 26 Swamps and 7 of your favorite B mana lands like Cabal Coffers and the like and we have a deck. Are these all the cards you could use? No There are cards I would like to add but all decks are never set in stone. Feel free to change it up. Add a side broad. Take out all the zombies and replace them with vampires. Go nuts.

Well, that’s it for this one. Leave comments, suggestions, and/or ideas.  

Until next time, this is your Captain speaking…. We’re Headed into the Red Zone!!!