The Danger Zone

[ColonelSanders]

Is ______ updated?
NOPE
Card list pdf: 3/27/2016
Sample sealed pools: 3/27/2016 - list and pools similar but not identical. Sorry fam.

When design by committee, rapid iteration, and questionable amounts of testing collide...

What is this?

Spoiler

A 408 card, mostly custom cube built around sealed game play. We consistently have 4 players and use 102 card sealed pools (for the same reasons people run the 41 card express; making cuts is hard).

Backstory

Spoiler

I've played magic since Onslaught and decided to teach my college roommates to play. Since they didn't have any cards, I made a cube piled together of junk rares and a big pile of commons/uncommons. After a year of playing and iterating the cube, we reached the point where there was a lot of discussion about what strategies might be fun to add and how difficult it is to find cards that help connect different archetypes. Things started pretty slowly with sharpies and occasional cmc changes. When my roommates graduated and moved out, the entire cube got moved online. With excel to make pools and cockatrice to play with, the logistics of making custom cards became easier since printing physical cards from magic set editor wasn't necessary. About a year ago, we agreed to build a new cube from the ground up, using what we had figured out from the previous one. (What I'm assuming is) Several thousand pages of skype chat later, this is where we're at. The list has been *mostly* stable for a few months with changes being small rebalances. That being said, time zone differences and job hours have made it a bit harder to test regularly.

Sample Pools/Card Images/Magic Set Editor file

Spoiler

Let me know if any of this isn't working:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y8jie1a1oa39tlz/AAByiiGUHKnn4FyyDlfPkPYLa?dl=0

The zip has a pdf of the card images, the mse file for the entire cube, and some sample pools.

If you want to do some digging, the macros that generate/sort the pools are saved in the workbooks. To make it easier to read through, there's a macro that makes the most recently clicked image come to the top of the stack. (when first opened, you have to click on the "enable macros" prompt, then view > macros > C_bring_to_top_on_click)

I looked at the cards and....

Spoiler

----This card is obviously broken in half, what were you thinking?
It probably is and I'm open to suggestions, however, keep in mind that power level is relative. This cube has definitely experienced some power creep over time (and biases from different people making cards for it). There are cards that wizards could never print which are relatively weak given support/context. If you see something that sticks out in particular, let me know and I can probably explain how the card ended up the way it did. And it might still be broken.

----Some cards feel overtuned/cluttered/unnecessarily complex
Anecdotally, this has reduced the amount of salt from "I lost because you drew well" and increased the amount of "I lost because I made that poor decision/mistake" and "damn, I wouldn't have thought to do that." Also, the player pool is relatively fixed and everyone sees the cards before adding them, so there's no learning curve.

----You took my favorite card name/art and completely changed the card
finding card art is hard, man...

----Does morph really belong in this cube?
No. But it has a vocal supporter so a lot of green creatures have been subjected to it.

In general:

WU: tap out control/prowess deck
WB: Lifegain midrange, sacrifice subtheme, color combination that has had the most problems
WR: Classic aggro. Aggressive dudes and some burn. Can occasionally do prowess
WG: Landfall aggro or blink shenanigans. But mostly just value.
UB: Control. Often becomes midrange with green for ramp/big dudes
UR: Prowess deck, sometimes traditional control
UG: the "5 color" color. Hella planeswalker durdle.
RB: Sacrifice aggro, aka "I wish I could start the game pre sideboarded"
RG: "monsters" style deck. some mana acceleration, hasty creatures, explosive turns
BG: Removal spells and big dumb creatures, classic good stuff, occasional reanimator.


Coming eventually: More detailed archetype descriptions -- whenever I'm not worried about failing classes

Are people interested in write ups of some of the general design decisions we made? I don't know how applicable they are since most people here are running a few customs at most.

 

[psly4mne]

This looks fun to draft!

A few card notes:

Having the manlands not be lands when they're animated sounds like it could be confusing, and it randomly protects them from land destruction. Any reason you dropped the "still a land" clause?

Awaken doesn't do anything on a permanent. The part of Awaken that has the effect is a spell ability, and spell abilities are only performed when resolving an instant or sorcery. You could reword it as Kicker, or note that you're rewriting the rules somehow.

Angelic Renewal doesn't make sense as written. The return to hand should either say "at the beginning of the end step" or just be a delayed trigger. The delayed trigger wording would be simpler, and equivalent unless you have a Humble effect.

Not sure if you care, but Ashiok is unprintable as is because its -2 works really weirdly in multiplayer games.

Benevolent Ancestor seems super OP. If you stack the triggers right, you can evoke it and have it return itself, and still get another ETB trigger too. You would never not evoke it. Also, it should say "creature card".

Black Lagoon looks like it would be confusing. I'd make it a flip card and have the ability be "Return ~ from your graveyard to the battlefield flipped." Could also do it as a DFC however you're handling JVP.

Blood and Bone just seems like it would lead to really one-sided games.

I mentioned in the other thread, Church of Deceit can target itself. The best fix would be to hit nonland permanents.

Typo on Continuity Stone, "active".

Decree of Phenax is a kind of design that I would avoid: it has a built-in Time Warp if your opponent happens to not be playing blue. Maybe it's okay if all the blue in your cube is reactive, so it's about equally good against a blue deck, but I would still not print that. I would make the effect "Until your next turn, if a land is tapped for mana, it produces colorless mana instead of any other type."

On Edgewalker, I've mentioned before that I think extort plus unholy tribute 1 makes for uninteresting gameplay, and unholy tribute 1 in general is a non-decision. I would up it to 2 at least.

Erayo seems too easy to flip. The power level is probably fine, but requiring at least four spells (and maybe a lower mana cost) would make it more of a fun mini-game.

Any reason Festering Zombie isn't named Festering Goblin? The name "Festering Zombie" doesn't suggest a goblin at all.

Is the animation on Hallowed Garden supposed to not wear off at end of turn?

Herald of Righteousness needs a clause saying what X is.

Typo at the end of Holy Veil, should be "does not remove ~."

Has the vanishing on Ice Age ever been relevant? 8 is a big number.

I didn't intend to spend this much time on this, but don't get me wrong, it looks like a fun format! I'll probably glance through the rest later.

 

[sigh]

Awaken doesn't do anything on a permanent. The part of Awaken that has the effect is a spell ability, and spell abilities are only performed when resolving an instant or sorcery. You could reword it as Kicker, or note that you're rewriting the rules somehow.

This is interesting! In the comprehensive rules, it might not work with other spell types, but the way Awaken is worded there is literally no reason it couldn't work on any type of spell. it just says "you may cast this spell for awaken". Sounds like some fun design space

Rule 601.2 doesn't specify inst/sorc in paying for alternate costs as far as I can tell, so I assume this is fully valid, just not implemented.

 

[psly4mne]

If a permanent had awaken, under the current rules, you could still cast it for its awaken cost, it just wouldn't do anything. The relevant rules are in section 608, specifically 608.2-3. You only follow the instructions on a spell in 608.2c, which is part of resolving an instant or sorcery spell (608.2).

 

[sigh]

It'd be an easy rules change, and I doubt many people even know it couldn't work. They already have provisions for auras/bestowing, which already have more than one step while being non-inst/sorc spells. This would simply be 608.3c, which would be the two steps of awakening -> permanent on battlefield.

EDIT: it's also, imo, very intuitive. I just get my creature and also make a land creature as an additional thing? easy peasy. kicker + etb awaken could definitely be a solution that works in the rules, though.

 

[ColonelSanders]

Oh no! I was worried this would happen. Morph was removed from the cube after this posting but before I updated the post. That being said, removing morph didn't make as big of a splash as expected. White and green got more cards for existing archetypes, so in practice, the cube plays the same. As for your input, lets see.

This looks fun to draft!
---Sadly, I have never drafted it. My playgroup is small so it hasn't been an option. I'm afraid that aggro might be too good because of the density of aggro cards required to make it frequently appear in sealed. I have been considering making a macro that sets up packs for grid drafting though. Maybe when I have more free time.

A few card notes:

Having the manlands not be lands when they're animated sounds like it could be confusing, and it randomly protects them from land destruction. Any reason you dropped the "still a land" clause?

---So everyone gets 1 free wasteland per pool + a chance at the other 2 from the main cube body. I was afraid this would make the manlands too weak, but that hasn't proven to be the case. If anything, in testing, people don't even bother playing wasteland, despite the prevalence of 3 color decks. I think this is caused by players preferring to play 3 colors (and not being able to slot in a land like wasteland) rather than play 2 colors and using the wasteland to punish other decks. At this point, I had forgotten the manlands stopped being lands because it just wasn't coming back up. I will probably add that in the next patch to encourage more wastelanding.

Awaken doesn't do anything on a permanent. The part of Awaken that has the effect is a spell ability, and spell abilities are only performed when resolving an instant or sorcery. You could reword it as Kicker, or note that you're rewriting the rules somehow.

---I wondered why wizards never put awaken on permanents, but I guess now I know. I think I'll probably keep fudging the rules on this one. No one has pointed this out before, so hopefully it won't come up to much. I figure having a permanent with an awaken cost is enough to make players assume that's how I want it to work.

Angelic Renewal doesn't make sense as written. The return to hand should either say "at the beginning of the end step" or just be a delayed trigger. The delayed trigger wording would be simpler, and equivalent unless you have a Humble effect.
--- I'm not totally sure what the effective difference between "at the beginning of the next end step" vs "at the beginning of the end step" is. Would this work?


Not sure if you care, but Ashiok is unprintable as is because its -2 works really weirdly in multiplayer games.
---Yeah, that ability was a nightmare to template. We never do multiplayer, so it wouldn't come up. However, I have since cut ashiok for an enchantment that basically reads "enjoy your zombie" (also, it was blatantly stolen from r/custommtg). Honestly, I can never decide what I want from blue black.


Benevolent Ancestor seems super OP. If you stack the triggers right, you can evoke it and have it return itself, and still get another ETB trigger too. You would never not evoke it. Also, it should say "creature card".
---Yeah, this is another one of those intended vs wording things. I don't think anyone has ever pointed out the fact it can return itself because they just assume that wasn't the goal. It also got downgraded to a 2/2 in the last update.

Black Lagoon looks like it would be confusing. I'd make it a flip card and have the ability be "Return ~ from your graveyard to the battlefield flipped." Could also do it as a DFC however you're handling JVP.
---Unfortunately, with how I have everything set up, its a pain to add new DFC cards (either a seperate cockatrice set for the backsides, or manually removing them from MSE's export to the randomizer). I do agree that lagoon is less than ideal in the way it returns, but right now we just treat it as a corner case to be remembered.

Blood and Bone just seems like it would lead to really one-sided games.
---I have it on my watch list, but as of now, it hasn't done anything too degenerative. Losing 6 life, 1 land from hand, and two installments of 1B to kill 2 creatures has proven to be a high enough cost to prevent casual use. Basically, it will be the first card to go whenever I can come up with another recursive removal spell that feels better.

I mentioned in the other thread, Church of Deceit can target itself. The best fix would be to hit nonland permanents.
---This is one of those cases where I fudged things by replacing it with "destroy another target permanent you control." I'm not totally sure about the rules there, but its enough to let my playgroup know what the intention is.

Typo on Continuity Stone, "active".
--- The war on typos continues. Thanks.

Decree of Phenax is a kind of design that I would avoid: it has a built-in Time Warp if your opponent happens to not be playing blue. Maybe it's okay if all the blue in your cube is reactive, so it's about equally good against a blue deck, but I would still not print that. I would make the effect "Until your next turn, if a land is tapped for mana, it produces colorless mana instead of any other type."
--- Yeah, this card. Add it to the list of blue black cards which I am lukewarm to. However, the flavor text one of my friends made for it has made me reluctant to cut it.

On Edgewalker, I've mentioned before that I think extort plus unholy tribute 1 makes for uninteresting gameplay, and unholy tribute 1 in general is a non-decision. I would up it to 2 at least.
---So I decided I wouldn't go out of my way to defend this card during the contest and instead let the people judge it as they saw it. I think part of the problem is that everyone focuses on the life loss number as the cost. It is the cost. But the real cost is playing off curve to activate extort when the body + recursion is intended for a very aggressive deck. I have found this card to play pretty dynamically, because it forces the aggro player to decide if they want to disrupt their curve in order to return this to hand at end of turn. Cards like bloodghast and bloodsoaked champion require much less planning because they can be returned at any point for doing something that every deck wants to do. And or slower, grindier decks, edgewalker's body is almost useless, so it becomes just another small dude with extort that sits in play and hopes to get there one day.

Erayo seems too easy to flip. The power level is probably fine, but requiring at least four spells (and maybe a lower mana cost) would make it more of a fun mini-game.
---I tend to agree. However, this is what got decided on through committee. Which means I just need to build around it once to help it earn the nerf bat. I'll be honest, my playgroup does not respect blue decks enough.

Any reason Festering Zombie isn't named Festering Goblin? The name "Festering Zombie" doesn't suggest a goblin at all.
---I think this is one of those cards that got made and then its art got picked later. I'll change it and my guess is no one will notice when we play

Is the animation on Hallowed Garden supposed to not wear off at end of turn?
---Not totally sure how that one slipped though the cracks.

Herald of Righteousness needs a clause saying what X is.
---"where X is the number of times herald of righteousness has been nerfed since the creation of this post"
But seriously, the card was dumb. With the fetches and prevalence of aggro, lifelink is probably one of the strongest keywords in my cube. It just took us a while to realize that.

Typo at the end of Holy Veil, should be "does not remove ~."
---White got a few more prowess creatures in the morph removal update and holy veil was cut in fear that it would make it too easy to get there with prowess.

Has the vanishing on Ice Age ever been relevant? 8 is a big number.
---90% of the time, no. However, it does encourage control players to get off their asses and actually finish the game. There have been quite a few close calls with it and a couple hilarious losses.
Of course, all of this is in retrospect. I think 8 was originally selected because "shouldn't an ice age last for a while?" was asked during the cards creation.

I didn't intend to spend this much time on this, but don't get me wrong, it looks like a fun format! I'll probably glance through the rest later.
---I will put a note at the top of the post to say when it was last updated (and try to get catch the post up by tonight). Going forward, I'll post decklists from our sealed pools and an update log.

 

[ColonelSanders]

Sealed Decks

And here is a deck that went to 2-0 in our last sealed (we only had 3 of the 4 people)

http://imgur.com/P9gc0cX

So I'll be honest. If low powered, wombo combo synergies are your thing, this deck probably caused you to puke a little in your mouth. Recurring nightmare with upside? Double regrowth (well, not quite) on a 5/5 trampler? Force of "infinite land drops"? Well yeah. The value was definitely there. I actually think the thing this deck most proved was that restoration angel is a degenerative piece of shit that takes good ole fashioned value one step too far. Salt aside, it's been just long enough since we played that I can't give a detailed play by play. I can say that the two decks it played against were jund ramp and mardu aggro. Before you're quick to judge, the mardu match up isn't as easy as you might expect. This deck took the best of three, but lost when more games were played (and the mardu player managed to draw more than 2 lands). The biggest weak point being that this deck was light on both removal and ramp, causing it to fall behind a little too much before it could get out its 5-6 drops. The anti aggro sideboard plan involved bringing in more speedbump creatures. However, most of the aggro decks that exist in the cube have ways to circumvent mindless chump blockers if the opponent has no other interaction. The jund match up was significantly better because the jund deck was an aggressive midrange deck with more removal. It couldn't slide under the junk deck and ended up being crushed by the value train that Reivillark-ing back a Benevolent Ancestor represents.

Anyhow, I was glad to see a midrange green deck make it to the finals. Before the update that removed morph, green was pretty consistently the weakest color because midrange decks were feeling too much pressure from both control and aggro (mostly aggro) without being able to respond to adequately to both.


Also! I had no idea how to best format the decklist. I know the image is huge, so if anyone has other suggestions, let me know. I don't want to just have a text list because that would require people to look up the cards one by one.

 

[psly4mne]

Angelic Renewal: "At the beginning of the next end step" doesn't mean anything on a permanent. Also "at end of turn" isn't a wording that has a meaning anymore. The correct wording would be "Return it to your hand at the beginning of the next end step" like on Cauldron Dance. (You don't actually need to say "its owner" because it came from your graveyard.)

Succumb would have to be "an opponent chooses one" because modes are chosen before targets. See Fatal Lore.

To fix Benevolent Ancestor, just have the ETB ability target. Then it can't target itself because it's not in the graveyard yet.

On Black Lagoon, I meant an actual flip card like your custom Erayo. I tried mocking it up in MSE and the text is a little small but it works.

Seeing Lavinia of the Tenth reminded me that the only reason I'm not running real Lavinia is my war on protection. I should custom that.

Typo: Ophidian should be an Aura.

Why the name change from Olivia, Mobilized for War to Olivia Voldaren (also spelled wrong)? Seems weird to not just use the name of the real card with that text.

Consume seems out of place on a card like Recurring Nightmare that will rarely be in a graveyard. It works with dredge or against counters, but still feels weird.

Serra's Avenger (apostrophe missing in name) needs to say "permanent card" and it should really target.

The Gatekeeper should target too, and the word "another" doesn't mean anything there. (Even if The Gatekeeper goes to your graveyard before the ability resolves, it's not the same object. And targeting makes that moot.)

The Oracle's -1 and -3 should target. Also The Trickster's +2. And Ulven's second [0]. Targeting is a core mechanic of Magic for good reasons.

Thundersong Trumpeter with lifelink seems like a cheesy win. Has that come up yet?

Grammar on Uyo: "their owners' libraries".

You might want to double up on Vengeance just because having two of them and a sac outlet would be an amusing 3 card combo.

Vitriol Warmonger's bloodrush needs a duration on the pump.

Volcanic Visionary combos with a lot of other creatures. Has that not been a problem yet?

Waste is not a land type. And I'm surprised that a basic Wasteland doesn't at least see play in every deck with the basic land searchers.

EDIT: Oh hey, you posted while I was posting. Neat deck. The formatting is fine.

 

[ColonelSanders]

Angelic Renewal: "At the beginning of the next end step" doesn't mean anything on a permanent. Also "at end of turn" isn't a wording that has a meaning anymore. The correct wording would be "Return it to your hand at the beginning of the next end step" like on Cauldron Dance. (You don't actually need to say "its owner" because it came from your graveyard.)
---holy smokes, I forgot that card existed. alright. I think its properly cleaned up now.

Succumb would have to be "an opponent chooses one" because modes are chosen before targets. See Fatal Lore.
--- This was brought up in the r/custommtg discussion and I forgot to make that change when I put the card in.

To fix Benevolent Ancestor, just have the ETB ability target. Then it can't target itself because it's not in the graveyard yet.
---done

On Black Lagoon, I meant an actual flip card like your custom Erayo. I tried mocking it up in MSE and the text is a little small but it works.
---my playgroup hates flip cards. Erayo got a pass because there's already art for it and people were distracted by the flip text.

Seeing Lavinia of the Tenth reminded me that the only reason I'm not running real Lavinia is my war on protection. I should custom that.

Typo: Ophidian should be an Aura.
---Yup

Why the name change from Olivia, Mobilized for War to Olivia Voldaren (also spelled wrong)? Seems weird to not just use the name of the real card with that text.
---when I made the card, I couldn't find unpixelated art for it so I used the original. Also, mobilized for war might be the lamest legendary creature title that I've seen in a long time.

Consume seems out of place on a card like Recurring Nightmare that will rarely be in a graveyard. It works with dredge or against counters, but still feels weird.
---I think that got added because someone was complaining about how it feels bad when your self mill deck tosses one of its engine cards. The cheap consume was meant to be a consolation prize.

Serra's Avenger (apostrophe missing in name) needs to say "permanent card" and it should really target.
---So cockatrice doesn't seem to be able to find custom card images exported from mse when they have commas and apostraphes in their. I don't know if its because the xml index that MSE exports gets messed up or if its cockatrice, but I had to remove all punctuation like that from the cube.

The Gatekeeper should target too, and the word "another" doesn't mean anything there. (Even if The Gatekeeper goes to your graveyard before the ability resolves, it's not the same object. And targeting makes that moot.)
---I fixed that. I didn't make the cycle of lifegain matters cards and when they got put in, I didn't pay too much attention to the rules implementation.

The Oracle's -1 and -3 should target. Also The Trickster's +2. And Ulven's second [0]. Targeting is a core mechanic of Magic for good reasons.
--- The oracle and ulven are updated. For the trickster, there's the problem of not being able to +2 if you don't control a creature. In the past, wizards sometimes does "up to one target creature" but that doesn't work here since bouncing your own creature is a downside that shouldn't be avoidable. I'm not sure how to make the bounce mandatory if you have a creature but let the ability be activated if you don't control a creature (and fit it into a planeswalker's text box)

Thundersong Trumpeter with lifelink seems like a cheesy win. Has that come up yet?
--- There aren't any ways to give it lifelink in the cube. However, lifegain has been relegated to "barely a subtheme" so I will probably remove the clause just so I don't have to keep track of it.

Grammar on Uyo: "their owners' libraries."
---yep

You might want to double up on Vengeance just because having two of them and a sac outlet would be an amusing 3 card combo.
---unfortunately, vengeance hasn't seen much play so I don't think having 2 is justifiable.

Vitriol Warmonger's bloodrush needs a duration on the pump.
---yep

Volcanic Visionary combos with a lot of other creatures. Has that not been a problem yet?
--- It doesn't work with fetches, ramp, or any of the evoke treefolk, so no problems yet. Its very good with the "play an additional land" creatures, but beyond that, it's like a version of kikijiki that can only get value. It has been strong, but I'd say zealous conscripts kills more people.

Waste is not a land type. And I'm surprised that a basic Wasteland doesn't at least see play in every deck with the basic land searchers.
---I made that before wizards actually released their version of "wastes" so I was just winging it on the rules. I suppose nothing cares about basic land types so I'll make it more in line with what wizards does for wastes and drop the land subtype

as for wasteland balance... I think this is mostly a combination of player preferences and the metagame not having adopted it. The only real gameplay thing I can think of is that there are a lot more mana sinks in my cube than an average wizards set, so even aggro decks can comfortably work with 6+ mana per turn. It means wasteland can hurt people, but it can also mean that the traditional wasteland decks want to keep it around to make mana.

EDIT: Oh hey, you posted while I was posting. Neat deck. The formatting is fine.

 

[psly4mne]

I just missed the "from hand" restriction on Volcanic Visionary. Seems entirely reasonable with that.

 

[ColonelSanders]

Sealed Decks

These are a couple days older so I don't remember the specifics of the matches:

http://i.imgur.com/KYjKxdd.jpg
http://imgur.com/CsnqgiO

 

[ColonelSanders]

Sealed Decks

Today was just a single match (5 games) between me and another guy. We both ended up playing grixis.

http://i.imgur.com/tzA7DS3.jpg

This was my deck. I saw I had bolas and griselbrand in the same sealed pool and figured that I was obligated to follow up on it. From my experiences, decks like this are 50/50 against the aggro decks of the cube (if you have a decent sideboard), extremely good against midrange, and just roll over to any other control deck.

http://i.imgur.com/GqQtpIW.jpg

And the other deck. I know that this player will never not play Karn, which I think led to some bad decisions here. He's got the makings of a solid tempo deck or control deck (I looked at his sealed pool afterwards ), but I think he split the deck between the two. In general, the tempo decks seem to have bad matchups against control, and he could have sideboarded into control after the first game, but I think this was a case of "I don't feel like typing all these cards into cockatrice for a quick sealed."

I ended up winning 3-1, but the games were fairly close.

Game 1: He stumbled on land and I curved Goblin Warrens into House of Shadows into Ral Zarek while using 3 fetchlands after Goblin Warrens dropped. He hung on for a while, but eventually succumbed to goblins.

Game 2: Pretty close throughout. At one point, he casts Karn while I have ral zarek at 4 loyalty. He has to remove another threat instead of targeting Ral. I untap and cast volt charge > lone spire sac to get it back > volt charge again, ult Ral, then use my 3 turns to get there with goblin tokens.

Game 3: I get steam rolled by one of the silliest draws I've seen in a while. He's on the play, goes turn 2 chandra into turn 3 attack, fist of flames, ping, flip, ping for 2. Turn 4 he casts beacon of destruction and pings again. In the meantime, I have volt charged chandra once, then snap volt charged again. I have snapcaster in play and a haste flier in hand and plan to kill chandra on my turn 5. For his turn 5, he draws beacon off the shuffle and casts it + pings me for lethal.

Game 4: He manages to ult flip jace with divine guidance in hand. Fortunately, his life total is low from the 2 hasty dragons I sideboarded in. He untaps and mills me for 20 and passes. On my upkeep, I kill him with Shivan meteor before I have to draw a card.

 

[ColonelSanders]

Sealed Decks

3 player round robin today.

http://i.imgur.com/2TE3f8e.jpg
Went 0-2. This was a combination of a couple bad hands and one or two super critical misplays (both involving holding up mana for a card that wasn't actually an instant). King Toad seems to be very strong, judging from his brief appearance.

http://i.imgur.com/mbe3nGs.jpg
Went 1-1. This was my deck. I think I actually had too much removal (silly, right?) and that a few more threats wouldn't have gone amiss.

http://i.imgur.com/yw5Xwrr.jpg
Went 2-0. The deck seems good, but after getting the list, I'm really surprised when I look at the whole thing. In both matches, it felt more aggressive than a deck play a 1/2 mana dork and a borderland ranger variant seems like it should play. It may also be time to nerf maelstrom fireball. It was pretty back breaking and when it was cast against me in all three games. #salt