Editorial: A Miracle! | Lusipurr.com

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Vexing Devil

Magic: The Gathering has long been a part of my life. I can scarcely recall when my life was not littered with beautifully illustrated cards that appeared in my wallet, in my car, on my desk, shoved into a book as a bookmark. It was one of the few hobbies that my brothers, my sister, and I shared. A very generous Chrstimas gift plunged us back into the habit and now my Friday nights are filled with tournaments, candy, and good company.

Avacyn Restored, the latest and greatest Magic: The Gathering expansion hits shelves this week and brings with it two new mechanics: Miracle and Soulbond. I thought I would take a moment to share my thoughts. These are the thoughts of a casual player who loses more than she wins and has fun as long as some elitist isn’t going on about stacks, priorities, end steps, double steps, quick steps, and so on.

The first of the new mechanics is Miracle. Certain Instants and Soreceries have an alternative (aka CHEAP) cost that can be used to play the card if it was the first drawn that turn. I am no rules junky, but the first thought that popped into my head when my sister showed me this particular spoiler was “what the fuck, more shit I need to keep track of.” I was afraid of cheaters. I was afraid of letting the card hit my hand only to think “FUCK NO WHAT DID I JUST DO!?” And now, a few weeks later, I realize that this may just add an interesting new twist to the game. Sort of like remembering to flip my Delver.

Honestly, I am a little more interested in the new Soulbond ability than I am miracle cards (which makes little sense as the deck I am playing now has very few creatures). When a creature with Soulbond enters the field players can choose to pair it with another creature, granting bonus abilities to each. Interesting, yes?

I guess when it comes down to it a casual player like me does not have a lot to say. I missed the pre-release (though my brother and sister brought back several angels to add to my collection). It will be nice to add some new cards to the mix on Friday nights, because after three months of playing the same cards and the same decks the new set is a bit like a breath of fresh air.

8 Comments

Mel
Posted 2012.05.02 at 12:55 | Permalink

Got back into Magic recently, myself. These abilities are news to me as well. Soulbond sounds fun, but if one of the bonded creatures dies, does the other die? I’ll have to look it up. I’ve been building a few white control decks with my friends, mostly to combat a particularly devastating Blue/Black control/mill deck one of my other friends concocted last week.

Circu, Dimir Lobotomizer and Royal Assassin! How I hate them! But that Vexing Devil card looks fun. It’s like a stronger Lightning Bolt that’s also a creature, but not an instant. If it had flash, I’d call shenanigans.
Ethos
Posted 2012.05.02 at 13:47 | Permalink

We need to patent LusiFun! The logo could be made out of the blood spurting from a child’s eye!
Lusipurr
Posted 2012.05.02 at 16:15 | Permalink

I really love Magic: The Gathering. I think it a well-made, fun, and incredibly deep CCG experience.

But I refuse to play it because of the 3-month development cycle and tournament rotation, plus the constant escalation of card strength over the years.

The online versions, in their static simplicity, however–those I approve of and play whenever the MtG fit takes me, all without having to buy a single card.

Looking forward to DotP 2013 for some of these new mechanics.
Thea
Posted 2012.05.02 at 17:00 | Permalink

@Mel Bonded creatures are still separate creatures. So, if one dies, the other would still remain on the field.

I’m a big fan of control decks. I’ve been playing a variation of this red/black/blue grixis control http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=963635 on Fridays. It’s a slow deck but it’s a lot of fun.
Mel
Posted 2012.05.02 at 21:00 | Permalink

Quite a good amount of special lands in this deck. But its fitting for the multicolor nature of it. It’s a mix of burn and blue/black control. And I feel it might benefit from simply choosing one or the other. That way you don’t run into instances when you have a burn card when you need control and vice versa. That’s my opinion. The control and burn cards here are very cool, though, and it’s all capped off nicely with that vampire.

That vampire, by the way, reminds me a lot of Captivating Vampire…*shudder*. This one works better in your deck since it’s red and you lack many other creatures. I have a profile on mtgdeckbuilder.net, but the site is down for maintenance. If you want to search my stuff (whenever the site goes back online), look up the username “Dr_Mel”. It’s my alias in almost anything.
Thea
Posted 2012.05.03 at 07:31 | Permalink

@Mel You really do need to run all the duel lands as the deck won’t function without it. It runs up the price of the deck a bit but they are a good investment in the end. I haven’t had many problems with the burn & control instances. The burn spells like Whipflare and Slagstorm are great board clearers against tokens and other creature heavy decks… which is pretty essential when you’re only running something like 4-5 creatures.

I’ll defintely check the site out and look you up. :)
Mel
Posted 2012.05.03 at 08:53 | Permalink

The versatility of those lands is very nice, but it comes at the cost of most of your lands coming in tapped after turn 2. My idea of straight burn or control is just my preference. I like a deck that does one thing, and one thing well. And if problems arise from a hard counter to your deck, you can always sideboard 15 cards to fix it. But I’m by no means an “experienced” Magic player. I haven’t gone to tournaments and the 5 or so other people I regularly play with are only slightly more experienced than I.
Ginia
Posted 2012.05.04 at 16:14 | Permalink

Haha, Brandon and I had a similar reaction to the new mechanics … kinda.

I thought Miracle would be the bee’s knees, especially for red deck. Turns out at the pre-release it was a Soulbound OMGWTF 10/10 that won.

I like Miracle because it’s easy. Hopefully you don’t get it in your opening hand, and then you play it. Soulbinding requires strategy and planning and blahity-blah….

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