Monthly Archives September 2012

• Guild-themed Myr plushies
• Richard Garfield will make you a custom card… for King of Tokyo
• Pumpkin Chai Ice Cream
• MTGNoob gives a solid primer on RtR for the prerelease
• Fried chicken with a bacon crust
• Honest trailer: The Avengers
• OH GOD THERE MAY BE A BACON SHORTAGE I NEED TO GO TO THE STORE IMMEDIATELY
• Return to Ravnica obsolescence chart
• 5 Unseen costs that threaten your local gaming store

The Izzet League is the guild everyone seems to love. The band of mad scientists working for an insane dragon certainly has some appeal, but the lack of focus makes me think Izzet has no idea what they are doing. Every now and then, they’ll do something awesome though. Probably accidentally.

Return to Ravnica Casual & Commander Reviews
Azorious Senate  | Izzet League | Cult of Rakdos | Golgari Swarm | Selesnya Conclave
White | Blue | Red | Black | Green | Gold, Artifact & Lands

Epic Experiment

This card is hilariously stupid and equally awesome. Generate enough mana and this can end games in a mess of spells waiting to resolve. In Commander, I see this being the destroyer of worlds like Genesis Wave. I can’t wait to see one go off.

Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius

Curse you Wizards, you had to make a second Niv-Mizzet that doesn’t automatically cause infinite damage when combined with the first. An inverse of his old-self, Niv-Mizzet is still a good card and a great legendary but he’s so much harder to abuse now. That said, turning UR into a card whenever you want is amazing. For combo commander players, he will easily find a home but his original version is better.

I don’t know why I’m listening to people on Twitter, but the readers spoke and said I should review Return to Ravnica by guild, not color. That’s a great idea except a good chunk of the monocolored cards in this set aren’t tied to a guild. But that won’t stop me from trying. Like always, I review every. Single. Card. in this set – including the awful limited pieces of fodder.

Return to Ravnica is a great set. I barely played Magic when the original Ravnica block came out (but returned with a violent vengeance thanks to Time Spiral), so this is giving me a chance to experience Magic with a unique twist because Ravnica is essentially Magic with 10 colors, not 5. To start off these reviews is Azorius! Also, I’m not going alphabetically this time because that often results in me slamming my head into my desk repeatedly thanks to most sets starting off horribly.

Return to Ravnica Casual & Commander Reviews
Azorious Senate  | Izzet League | Cult of Rakdos | Golgari Swarm | Selesnya Conclave
White | Blue | Red | Black | Green | Gold, Artifact & Lands

Isperia, Supreme Judge

Legendaries are always fun in Commander because each one is a new chance to make a deck! Maybe it’s because I’ve been on a Craw Wurm kick, but I love that he’s a 6/4 for 6! But what I love even more is him being a twisted reverse Edric. Drawing cards whenever you or one of your planeswalkers gets attack is amazing. It deters a lot of attacks, but thanks to new cards like Courtly Provocateur, Azorius has plenty of ways to force unfavorable attacks.

The big downsides though to Isperia are the cost and the fact that this card doesn’t do anything when it resolves. The double-blue, double-white makes this a hard cast (though great reanimating bait). Just make sure you have a pair of boots waiting upon resolution.

Sphinx’s Revelation

As a mythic, this doesn’t completely wow me. The fact that it is instant though makes me excited since so much card draw lately has been sorcery speed. I love that this card just combined Alabaster Potion and Stroke of Genius into one delicious package. This card is good, especially late game, but it doesn’t do anything mythical.

• Guild t-shirts! So awesome (and my birthday is only in a month)
• Top 10 Apple Cider recipes
• Ninja patrolled movie theaters are now a thing
• Games & Grub is feeling exactly the same way were are: burned out
• DALEK REPLICA! I want this.
• Returning to Ravnica – actual Ravnica, no Return to Ravnica

The last two cards came through at MTGSalvation (where else?).

Rakdos Ringleader 4BR
Creature – Skeleton Warrior (U)
First Strike
Whenever Rakdos Ringleader deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card at random.
B: Regenerate Rakdos Ringleader
3/1

Conjured Currency 5U
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exchange control of Conjured Currency and target permanent you neither own or control.

Now I get to spend tonight organizing the visual spoiler…

So while I was at work, MTGSalvation had a field day with spoilers. More specifically, it looks like someone got a box or two early and photographed the whole thing. The end result is only 10 cards remain unknown.

I hope everyone had a good weekend, I didn’t (food poisoning is exactly awesome). But this weekend has had a whole mess of spoilers that I missed out on. So now I will play catch up.

From the Mothership:

First up is nerimon, who ate a Magic card with tea. Also, he has a Troy & Abed in the Morning mug so I’m surprisingly okay with it. From MTV comes the newest Rakdos Charm.

• Go First Dice: Dice with no doubles so you’ll never have to have a roll off again
• What produce is ripe when
• Playing at the World: A D&D History
• Hungry Hungry Hippos becomes Hungry Hungry Koopas
• A TARDIS trashcan & TARDIS Dice Tower
• Revisiting Magic: the Gathering as a grown-up nerd
• Revisiting one of Fantasy Flight’s original games: Golfmania

Sources! The first three are from the Mothership. The kickass kill spell is ChannelFireball and the weird mill is CranialInsertion.

While not truly a capella, this piece is absolutely amazing – even if you aren’t into Game of Thrones (if you aren’t, you’re banished from Castles and Cooks). Lindsey returns again by being the most amazing violinist ever (and she must have like a +10 to cosplaying). Peter is new to me, but I am loving his work and I strongly advise you subscribe to his channel.