New Player Perspectives: Session 5

[New Player Perspectives is the ongoing story of my non-gamer girlfriend's introduction to Magic.]

Finally, a game with no mulligans! Freyja decided to take her W/U deck back, leaving me with G/B. Lifelink creatures helped me get ahead in the race early, and she missed her fifth land drop for several turns. After some trades, I threatened to close out the game with Axebane Stag. She fought him off with Griptide, Voidwielder, and eventually chump block + Paralyzing Grasp. We hit a ground stall and played off the top briefly. She pulled a Moon Heron, but I had tons of life and found some Pheres-Band Centaurs, which managed to finish her off. Victory at last.

By this point, she was getting used to untapping before drawing, but it was still unnatural. We realized between this game and the previous one that power and toughness were still a bit mysterious in how they interacted. I clarified that mid-game, after which she understood blocking decisions much better. The sticking point was that the P/T comparisons require a "swap"; that is, you compare creature A's power to creature B's toughness, and vice versa.

CCDD 040814—Pain Song

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/8/2014 - Pain Song is a much-less proactive Sanguimancy. Instead of asking you to build up a small army, this asks you to lose life. My preferred version is the sorcery, which appeals to Johnny because he's got to figure out how to lose life on his own turn, perhaps by playing it after Sanguimancy.

CCDD 040714—Overdose

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/7/2014 - I'm not 100% sure a card like this should exist, but it can tell two different epic stories, as well as a third combination story. I'm not 50% sure the colors are right. I didn't even try to guess the cost.

New Player Perspectives: Interlude

[New Player Perspectives is the ongoing story of my non-gamer girlfriend's introduction to Magic.]

One of Freyja's piano students, upon discovering that his teacher was learning to play Magic, excitedly volunteered to build her a deck. She brought in the box of several hundred miscellaneous commons and uncommons that I've been using as raw materials. During his sibling's half-hour lesson, the happy student came up with this concoction. I post the following decklist as a testament to our woefully inadequate understanding of what Magic players like.

Bant Aggro

3 Forest 2 Golgari Guildgate 1 Haunted Fengraf 2 Island 4 Plains 1 Unknown Shores 1 Agent of Horizons 2 Lagonna-Band Elder 1 Leafcrown Dryad 3 Scorned Villager 1 Seacoast Drake 1 Setessan Griffin 1 Staunch-Hearted Warrior 1 Triton Shorethief 1 Yoked Ox 2 Aqueous Form 1 Battlewise Valor 1 Commune with the Gods 1 Glimpse the Future 1 Ordeal of Nylea 1 Feudkiller's Verdict

CCDD 040314—Murk Stenchling & Emboggen

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/3/2014 - Its important to green's identity that it is the color that gets mana acceleration, and "mana elves," but what if there were a block where it was important for another color to get a little? I claim that it would be in black, and could look something like this. (Assuming we're looking for indefinite mana acceleration, as opposed to red's well-carved claim on one-turn mana acceleration.)

CCDD 040214—Servant of Pharika

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/2/2014 - Based on today's Planeswalker Guide, I wanted to paint a worshiper of Pharika who either uses drugs and poisons to murder others and resurrect herself, or who is rewarded with prolonged life by her god when she poisons someone else.

New Player Perspectives: Session 4

[New Player Perspectives is the ongoing story of my non-gamer girlfriend's introduction to Magic.]

Freyja tends to get drowsy in the evening, and was more or less asleep for both of these games. We traded decks for the first time, giving me W/U tempo and her B/G fatties. I promptly mulliganed to four Plains and a Stealer of Secrets, whereas she kept a one-lander but peeled land after land. I was still able to put up a fight for a few reasons: she didn't know how important it was to block Stealer of Secrets, and used combat tricks and removal inefficiently. (Giant Growth on Giant Spider pre-combat, Pharika's Cure on my Soulmender, etc.) At the end of the game, she realized it was okay to throw away creatures on an attack for lethal.

I mulled to five again in the second game and got soundly trounced.