This article is made possible by the Complete Shadowmoor Spoiler. There are many cards here that you may not be familiar with, as well as their corresponding mechanics. I have referred to at least over 30 new cards, and will slowly be linking them to their relevant gatherer page when I find time, or find a monkey to do it for me. For now, all cards referenced can be found on the complete spoiler site. Thanks for reading!QFTD – Reaper King – Oh come on dream-livers out there, lurking in a Sealed Pool somewhere was Prismatic Omen and this guy, and they got played together. Tell me you played the King for just 5 mana, because that’s the Holy Grail this time around. If there’s a little boy inside you, don’t tell me this doesn’t appeal. (And if there’s a little boy inside you, and you’re a girl, seek professional help.) ~Rich Hagon, ShadowFUN – Removed From Game, An Article Brought to you by Star City Games.
After three solid days of playing Shadowmoor, breaking open new cards, experimenting with excellent new tech and going into a mental adrenalin rush over your new rares, the last thing you really want to do is to get home and find out that you lost the keys to your room. They are probably somewhere between Leeds and Manchester, either in the coach, a bus or the store I practically lived in for a weekend, but it does say a little something about the set that I was quite happy despite having no sleep for over 60 odd hours. Shadowmoor is awesome, and when the darkness comes to Leeds, you yourself may never want to sleep again.
Myself and Matthew Lunt caught an early coach to Manchester, arriving in time to miss out on Fanboy3’s(absolutely wonderful store, great people, five stars to Dave Salisbery for organizing the events) Constructed FNM, which was alright, since Matt didn’t have a deck and the janky elf monstrosity I made probably wouldn’t have lasted very long, so we bought a Ravnica pre-con and waged the war between Dimir and Boros for a little while before the midnight bell tolled and we began our first Sealed Event of Shadowmoor.
Matt described a distinct rush of emotion of seeing a brand new set for the first time, and I couldn’t really disagree with him there. For me, this was another personal test of skill, to see how well my judgment of cards and card mechanics have grown to, compared to when I first started playing Magic. Shadowmoor was an experience. The vast amount of Hybrid cards means that its quite easy to dodge three or four color nightmares, and most of each individual card seem to have so much punch its actually quite difficult to decide what NOT to play. It wasn’t too difficult in the end, as three copies of Aethertow, Wiltleaf Liege and Silkbind Faerie sent me right into a solid white/blue, with a complement of blue combat tricks.
Aethertow was particularly solid. Being able to stall your opponent’s next draw is quite game-breaking at certain points, and at one particular point I was able to make one of my opponents draw the same creature about three times.
The cycle of dual color Auras are also particularly backbreaking. Sticking Steel of the Godhead on my silkbind faerie made it go all the way against what would have been a long board stall, even making it able to take a direct hit from Raking Canopy and over the entire weekend I felt there was a general consensus that Runes of the Deus is both the most hated and loved card in the store. Whether it was on a 3/3 or a 7/6, giving something +2/+2 and doublestrike is nasty. Giving it trample ontop of that is just outright silly.
Between Silkbind Faerie, Aethertow shenannigans and various other tricks, I was able to reach the top table once, before getting knocked down by someone who opened up a double Glen Elendra Liege, and Inkfanthom Infiltrator. Having a 5/4 you can’t block is not nice. He went on to win the whole thing. My last round ended in a draw after a long, drawn out battle that put my tricks against the pure power of a Woodfall Primus and Loamdragger Giants. At that point I was ready to put my head on the table and deactivate for a couple of hours when I was notified there was going to be a draft.
There goes sleep.
I was going to be judging Day 2 while Matt gleefully begin constructing his second sealed pool, and as things go with the new set, there were plenty of judge questions to be answered, which I am somewhat glad for as they kept me awake. Near the last round I went to take about half an hour of shuteye in the basement, glad that Wei and Jules were keeping a vigilant eyes on the players, as my eyes lost any sense of vigilance three turn cycles ago. Some interesting tidbits.
Flourishing Defenses count -1/-1 counters that come into play on creatures, so things like Grief Tyrant automatically causes it to give the controller four elf tokens. This is because of the nature of a ‘counter’ and the wording on Flourishing Defenses.
200.10. A counter is a marker placed on an object or player, either modifying its characteristics or interacting with an ability. A counter is not a token, and a token is not a counter. Counters with the same name or description are interchangeable.
From the comprehensive rules itself, so any counters found on creatures are by definition, have been placed by something from somewhere, and will trigger Flourishing Defenses the next time a player has priority.
If Tatterkite was suddenly enchanted by Sinking Feeling, its controller may never untap it because he cannot in fact, pay the cost for untapping it.
Wither will still deal damage in -1/-1 counters even if the creature with Wither is removed from play. The game checks the last known information for this, so if you want to avoid getting withered away, you best kill the creature before damage goes on the stack. First strike helps, though First Strike and Wither is possibly one of the best reasons to enchant something with Fist of the Demigod.
If you Mirrorweave Lurebound Scarecrow, all your creatures and all your opponent’s creatures would turn into their copies, which would copy everything except for a choice being made. As such, it is an undefined abilities and the rules tell us to ignore undefined abilities, so their sacrifice triggers won’t be relevant. Except maybe, the original Lurebound Scarecrow, who will desperately look for its /defined/ colored permanent or self-implode.
There was a Judge draft after a while, which I manage to get knocked out of. Grim Poppet and Puppetter Clique did seem strong, but I never got to see either of them. Bombs aren’t enough sometimes, and perhaps I should have a harder look for support creatures. I am extremely grateful to Ross and his flatmates to let me and Matt stay overnight in their place before we headed into the Sunday Pre-release, where Rick was judging alongside Russ. We played a bit of Cube, and I drafted the Zoo package alongside abit of Reanimation Shennangans with tutors and both Akromas while Matt went giddy over the fact he can get a turn one Hypnotic Specter.
With armed improved knowledge of Shadowmoor, I went into the third day of playing magic. The mental thrill of opening a sealed pool and disseminating its playables still excites me, confirming the fact that I love Magic and all its tingly little quirks. This time, I was presented with a choice of a decent red-black agro pool, and blue/white once more, with 2 silkbind faeries and Aethertow being their main highlights, though Painter’s Servant + Faerie Swarm is somewhat equal in absolute silliness. Having gone the latter on Friday, I went to experiment with red-black, and lost the first two matches horribly, being outclassed by a Silkbind Faerie in the first round and getting belted in the head with Rite of Consumption and Ashenmoor Gouger in the second. I took the liberty of sideboarding the entire deck in my next two matches, and dropped from the tournament after winning back-to-back in order to draft and get more cards.
Here, Lady luck gave me a bit of fortune, allowing me to win two pods with pretty solid decks. One of them involved the aforementioned Runes of the Deus on a big guy, mercilessly slaughtering my opponent. The other made use of the fact that I two Plumeveils and two Lurebound Scarecrows and yet another painter’s servant to make colorwalkers incredibly nasty. It also helped that Ross got manaflooded and Rick had to mulligan down to three, though its up for debate. Would you keep two reflecting pools after a mull down to five?
Some draft tech I picked up.
If you see yourself on the receiving end of Memory Sluices, you can very well pick them up and receive late pick drowner initiates. You can, for 3 mana, destroy at least a third of your opponent’s library in limited when you use this in conjunction with drowners, and not many people will realize its power yet, simply because there are a whole host of powerful options in Shadowmoor. I foresee this being something you can only draft if you recognize it being open. Its no drowner of secrets or judge of currents, but its one of those things that can hurt you (As Matt found out) if you aren’t prepared for it. Mono-blue is a requirement.
Every single Demigod-Enchantment is on various levels, powerful. You have plenty of options, but one that can find a room in the maindeck is Elvish Hexhunter. Being able to deal with the doublestriker or the indestructible fellow is often important and will come up more often then a lot of people would like. At worse, it can chumpblock and at best, it takes out a more relevant enchantment, like Raking Canopy. The same goes for Smash to Smithereens, especially in a Scarecrow-centric environment, or to get rid of a pesky Blightsickle that can waste a Madcap trigger.
It is quite possible to go mono-color. The first draft I only used mainly mountains and a forest or two so I could use the abilities of Valleymaker (which powered out Din of the Fireherd, winning me the last match) and more relevantly, (Firespout) , whilst the second draft had only plains making my deck. Not getting color-screwed I felt, was often quite relevant. Being able to cast something like Raven’s Run Dragoon without compromising my ability to drop a turn-three Plumeveil is very nice, so running a third color splash is often not-necessary (and may well ruin you.) Elsewhere Flask has been mentioned in Steve Sadin’s article to power out Jaws of Stone or Corrupt, but the fact that it lets you drop one of your Demigods while being utterly color-screwed should be mentioned as well. (Ross at one draft had Godhead of Awe out with nothing but forests on his field.)
Perhaps more on this thought later. So after three nights, (longer, since I ditched the option of the coach to go back with Rick in order to get more drafting in) , I arrived back at about 2 in the morning and found I was locked out. Matt gave me company for an hour or two, playing with our last draft decks, (which convinced me it was a good deck instead of just lucking out)
Lowryn’s Sunny days are clearly over, with the release events just around the corner and /In/ Leeds itself, so there’s not very far to travel at all!
