Invasion: Heavy Duty Review (Part 2 of 2)
As we’ve seen, Heavy Duty is a focused Green/White combat deck with beats for days. Of course, no deck is without its weaknesses, as Jimi is eager to prove with the disruption-heavy Dismissal. While my deck pounds away at the body, Jimi’s stabs at the mind. In such a pairing, who prevails?
Invasion: Heavy Duty Review (Part 1 of 2)
When you think of colours in Magic that seem to have a natural synergy together, White and Green tend to make the shortlist. In Ravnica, this colour pairing would be given the name ‘Selesnya,’ and a guild tailored to build upon both their strengths. Even as recently as Innistrad, we’d find Repel the Dark, a tribal deck representing the beleagured Humans circling the wagons against the creatures of the night.
Invasion: Dismissal Review (Part 2 of 2)
It’s the opening match of Invasion, and Sam’s tucked in behind the Green/White combat deck Heavy Duty to test against Dismissal. Little did we know we were about to set an Ertai’s Lament record- and had we, we might have packed a lunch.
Invasion: Dismissal Review (Part 1 of 2)
In the Winter of 1993, I went on a storied skiing expedition with fellow members of my university’s student council. I was one of those most uncommon of creatures- a person who had grown up in the Northeast but had never gone downhill skiing, though on a few occasions I’d had a blast doing the cross-country variety. Saddled with the same lack of balance and coordination that had sidelined me from such adventures such as skateboarding, rollerblading, and ice skating, I was reluctant but curious at the same time.
Tempest: The Swarm Review (Part 2 of 2)
In our final visit to the plane of Rath (for now), we take The Swarm up against the searing heat of Flames of Rath. Can it overpower its high-priced competition, or will it be reduced to a heap of ash?
Tempest: The Swarm Review (Part 1 of 2)
There’s a scene in the movie Storytelling where John Goodman is sitting down for dinner with his wife and sons. After the middle son says something inappropriate, Goodman boots him from the table. As he gets up to leave, he drops and expletive and storms off. After a silent moment, the youngest son remarks, “it’s not fair if Brady can say the f-word and I can’t.”
“Yeah well Mikey,” replies Goodman, “listen up, because here’s a lesson: life’s not fair.“
Tempest: The Slivers Review (Part 2 of 2)
It’s now time for the $75 question- how well-constructed is The Slivers? With new copies of the deck often commanding that high a price, we’d at least want to know whether or not the deck actually works. To find out, Jimi picked up Deep Freeze to try and shut down the hive mind.
Tempest: The Slivers Review (Part 1 of 2)
If you’re like most any Magic player, you’ve probably thought a time or two of a cool card idea that hasn’t been printed yet. If you’re like many, you might even have fleshed the idea out in your mind a little- maybe determined what colour the card is, or how much it might cost. Perhaps you’re like a few who have gone a step further and dreamed up mechanics to play around with, or a handful of custom cards. And if you’re like a very few, you might even have designed your own expansion.
Tempest: Flames of Rath Review (Part 2 of 2)
Our first playtest of the lot and I’m up against Sam with The Slivers. I know from reviewing that there are only sixteen Slivers in her deck- can I draw enough burn to show them the door?
Tempest: Flames of Rath Review (Part 1 of 2)
When we began Ertai’s Lament in June of 2010, we knew what we wanted to do- review Magic’s varied and storied preconstructed decks- but little direct sense of how we wanted to go about doing it.We knew we wanted to give a full accounting for each deck, which meant both a card-by-card analysis as well as a playtest in the field against another deck to see how it did in practice, and we had our starting point as the recently-released set of five Duels of the Planeswalker paper decks, but beyond that it was all glorious trial and error.
Ertai's Lament 