I was looking for altered cards on ebay when I stumbled onto the digitally altered cards that are attached. Most of them seem to be coming from alteredprints.com. These are obviously not done with the simple paint and paintbrush, and I believe they have something to do with printing on lithographs. Apparently, since they are done on the actual card and do not modify the weight/thickness, they are tournament legal. Of course, everything comes down to whether the head judge allows it, but I thought that these look pretty cool. I'm interested in whether or not anybody knows how these are made. Feel free to share your thoughts about this style of altering. Thanks!
Just to comment on a few of the ideas floating around:
Terminus - I don't like this card. Most people argue that the miracle cost is just insane, but really it will never hit when you need it to (outside of noxious revival or a lucky ponder). One of the huge advantages of day of judgment is that you can milk it for extra value, but with terminus, you are either forced to play it when you draw it (if they even have a threatening board state and you have the right colored land) or hold it back for much longer. The aspect of this card that interests me is whether or not six mana is too much for a sweeper. Right now, I'd say yes, just because most of the cards you want to hit (strangleroot geist, geralf's messenger, etc) might have you dead by then. But it's cost is not out of the realm of possibility.
Curse of Death's Hold - I never expected this card to really help much, but it's actually filled it's role quite nicely. The two biggest jobs it has are locking down inkmoths and moorland haunts, two lands that I have had serious problems controlling. While it is awkward tapping out on turn five for a relatively small initial impact, if you are able to untap with one of these, then you are in a pretty good position. You can make an argument for going down to one or zero in the mainboard, but I would have at least two in your 75.
So right now, mana leak is losing its value. Most of the time, I have to pass up casting a lingering souls or something else in order to hold up mana. With the introduction of cavern of souls, the matchups that it usually shines in (wolf-run...etc) won't be as good. I'm thinking about going more the route of adding a few solar-flare like changes, which has been discussed a bit above. Basically, adding a sun titan package. So the mb would look something like:
-2 consecrated sphinx
-1 curse of death's hold
-4 mana leak
-3 think twice
This is just kind of a rough sketch right now, but the idea is appealing to me. Of course, taking out mana leaks means that snapcaster mage loses a lot of its value, and Tamiyo will probably find her way into here. What are your thoughts?
I'm not a huge fan of entreat the angels, but I can understand it's allure. Once we get to that point where we have 10 lands and both players have stalled out, it becomes a game winner. But so is consecrated sphinx or whatever finisher you choose. I think that this guy would be a little too slow to use as blockers (but I might be wrong) and I see the inconsistency of miracle as really harmful to a control deck. Basically, if it is in your first 10 (9 if you are on the play) you get no value out of the miracle. You could probably discard it to liliana (if you are playing her), but that's all. It also forces us to change card draw to something like ponder. It is better than most miracles, because I don't think there would be a time when you wouldn't want to play it. I feel like I'm always playing with my back against the wall, and this card is pure offense (it simply isn't going to come at the perfect time when you need the blockers... same problem I have with terminus). Also, I know other people think differently, but playing it for the normal casting cost is not an option! Not only will we probably not have WWW, but we could be paying 5 mana for gideon or tamiyo instead of a 4/4 angel that will get vapor snagged. I'm open to it, definitely as a one of though. Maybe I'm missing something, so if someone could just outline a bunch of the advantages of it I'd be very thankful.
Liliana is a house, I'm not denying that, but in testing she's pretty underwhelming. Here's my reasoning:
1. Her casting cost, if you're playing the more permission based control, such as this, over traditional solar flare builds, you're gonna want to tapout on turn three to have them sac a dude.
2. Her plus 1 ability forces both players to discard, in a deck that runs both permission and big planeswalking permanents, you don't want to discard, it puts you behind. There's simply not enough flash back in this deck, also the fact that many builds drop snapcasters alltogether, make it a liability to have to discard a card.
3. This format consists of far too many token based strategies to maker her -2 effective, and if you're playing against wolf run, a matchup you think would be a perfect fit for her, they simply activate an inkmoth nexus and sac that over the face-bashing 6/6 on the field.
Overall, she works so much better in solar flare, she comes back from the dead with a sun titan trigger and her +1 plays into your secondary strategy of unburial rites/Elesh Norn/Sun titan go hand and hand. Play with her and you'll find in most matches she ends up being a glorified tribute to hunger without any benefit of lifegain. By playing the planeswalker build, you wanna go over the top, your first four turns are either spent keeping mana leak, doom blade or go for the throat mana available or wrathing the board with a DoJ then playing a tamiyo, Grave titan, etc. on turn 5-6.
As for why play pristine over endless rest, it truly is meta dependent, if you expect to see more sun titan/fites, then play endless rest, the life gain is really important in a lot of matchups. Against delver, if often causes your opponent to overcommit to the board with moorland haunt activations, which is perfect, since we're looking to wrath for value anyway. If they don't over commit, over the course of a game, pristine is going to put you far out of reach of damage from 1/1 spirit tokens. You don't really play the talisman for ramp, it does ramp, but its more to keep you in the game longer.
I've been playing esper planeswalkers for about a month an I can honestly say that liliana is the most powerful card in the deck. I've literally won games casting her turn 3 against wolf run and just demolishing their hand. She turns on tragic slip, and must be answered.
For three mana, she is a HUGE value with great versatility. Need to get rid of a creature? Has your opponent been holding back a bomb? But one of the best advantages is that people have a sort of insane reaction to any planeswalker. As soon as one hits the board, they freak out and send all their creatures at it. She buys us a lot of time to get to day of judgment or consecrated or whatever you want to end the game with.
If you look at most lists, they are incredibly light on black. There's generally a pair of tragic slips, doom blade, maybe a go for the throat, and possibly a sorin or curse. She's the reason we are in the color. If liliana was banned tomorrow, I can tell you that I'd move into UW or possibly even Bant for garruk. She's that good.
There`s one hate card for humans now, and you start crying already? Try playing zombies and then come back.
How do you think I feel as a control player!?!
Anyway blue/white haunted humans did get better, but unfortunately a shift towards wolf run could be problematic. Slagstorm and whipflare can cause some serious damage.
If you only have permanents in your library, reveal a laboratory maniac, then go on until you have no cards left in your library, you don't win the game, right?
You would have to pull off something really crazy, like having urabrask, maniac, and civilized scholar out...
Don't worry, I don't think it would actually ever work, but I just thought it would be funny.
I have to agree. As someone who's been a dedicated permission-base control player for the past couple years, this card is very disconcerting.
I'm not sure what led Wizards to create it. Permission-based control decks are nowhere near a dominant force in the metagame, and the main blue deck (Delver) is going to counter non-creature spells more often.
As for the Ghost Quarter being an answer argument, that puts any control deck very far behind, especially if early. Either your counters are dead or you set yourself behind a land drop or two, allowing the opponent to trade in a land; not to mention the possibility of seeing more than 1.
Control will still have removal, but with how efficient and powerful the creatures are currently, counters are the only real answer a control deck has. Hexproof, Undying, Pro-color, and ETB-trigger creatures generate their value just by hitting the field.
I'm sure control will find a way, but I feel a niche segment of players will feel quite alienated. Tap-out control could still operate, but to some control players, that has no appeal.
That's just in Standard, as well. I'm sure the card will have many, many implications in other formats.
Hopefully, a cheaper, weaker Mindbreak Trap will be printed to offset this. Otherwise, permission based decks will need to do a lot of tweaking to be even slighty viable.
I have no clue what wizards is trying to do. Unless they have an extremely powerful counterspell in AVR or m13, they basically just rendered an entire archetype unplayable. If the card was printed without the ability to make things uncounterable, it would still be a playable card.
I'm not playing ghost quarters, and I want everyone who suggested that control decks play this card actually think for a moment. We need to hit land drops in order to secure a threat early enough to end the game. We need card advantage, without it, we are simply at a stalemate with our opponent. Ghost quarters is everything we don't want in a card: A setback of our resources in order to gain card disadvantage. The only real reason to play it would be in the sideboard for lands that can single-handedly destroy us, like nephalia drownyard.
This is ridiculous. Next thing you know, mana leak and day of judgment will be gone in m13. Playing control allows players to interact with their opponents board state directly, which not only takes skill, but is also able to be relatively consistent with the use of card draw/filtering. By favoring aggro with the steady power increase of creatures, they are creating an environment where people drop whatever creature they can play and turn them sideways. It's simpleminded and not as fun, but it is the variety of strategies available to magic that make it fun to build decks and play. The printing of a card that has no drawback whatsoever but hoses an archetype is not fun for either side, and will create a one-dimensional metagame.
It's going to impact standard. Ramp is going to be unchecked, as its worst matchup has always been anything with counterspells. If you've ever had to doom blade a primeval titan as a control player, you know that you are losing the game. It's simply too hard to outvalue their ETB triggers, and counterspells used to be the only way. Without having to worry about their control matchup, they will just have a bunch of slagstorms and whipflares to slow everybody down.
Legacy will be hurt by this card, because the fact that it taps for colorless in some situations is irrelevant. Legacy manabases are so incredibly stable that decks can afford to mainboard these without any guilt. The only saving grace is that wasteland exists.
I would compare her to frost titan, which is a very playable card. She ETBs and taps down a permanent, then potentially continues to do so once each turn. Of course, frost titan is a 6/6 creature, so people won't be as eager to attack through it, but then again, the planswalker presence is a serious effect. I've noticed that people will mindlessly attack 'walkers because they feel like they can't win otherwise. So she will save you some damage, and at 5 loyalty counter and the ability to take a creature out of combat is pretty pivotal. Frost titan can also win you the game, but so can she. If you are able to draw 3 or so cards in a control deck, you most likely have the resources to win the game. You will most likely either draw a DOJ or a win condition, and you will have the mana open cast. If she survives for a couple of turns, like any other planeswalker, she will win you the game. I see her fitting in to the esper superfriends deck, which is what I'm playing right now. I'm not sure yet, but she might get the edge on batterskull. They are both 5 mana, but one is a lifegaining creature and another is an efficient planeswalker. I'll have to think about that one though.
If I get suspicious that somebody is going to bring in the graveyard hate, I like to board into a beatdown deck. I've got 3 thruns, 4 strangleroot geists, and 3 phyrexian metamorphs that just laugh at graveyard hate. I mainly bring it in against ub control, because most decks have some form of surgical extraction, nihil spellbomb, etc.
Hey everyone! I've been playing Levy's exact list for a couple of weeks now, but just got a chance yesterday to play it competitively. I went 5-0 at a gameday, playing the following decks:
WB Tokens - pretty much a breeze as I hit turn 3 elesh norn, grand cenobite and turn 4 elesh. He didn't really stand much of a chance. (2-0)
Mono-Blue Control - I dropped the first game because he had a countewall up and then equipped an invisible stalker with a sword of war and peace. I tried to unburial rites 4 times and just couldn't get it through. Game two he got mana screwed so I just jammed an inferno titan through. Game three I was able to unburial an elesh with mana leak mana up. (2-1)
UB Zombies - This was kind of a rough matchup, but luckily game one I got a wurmcoil engine out on turn four and manage to hold back his 4 (yes all 4) gravecrawlers backed by diregraf captain until I board wiped with elesh. Game two was almost the same thing, but I stalled his early one drops with lingering souls. (2-0)
Junk Ramp (Archangel Ramp) - This deck has an insane end game because it can block our titans/eleshes with their spirit tokens with deathtouch and lifelink. It can also give titans lifelink, which is very scary. I scraped out a win game one with a wurmcoil engine that kept dying to his titans, but luckily I could keep unburying it. Eventually found elesh and won from there. Game two he mulled to 5 and I had a solid hand, but somehow it just didn't pan out. He hit a quick titan and I stalled on lands. Last game almost ended in a draw as I had six spirits out and two birds of paradise with a wurmcoil as well on turn 4 of turns. He was at 18 and I drew into the elesh. Good feeling and a hard fought match. (2-1)
WB Human Tokens - Managed to hit a wurmcoil on the turn I needed it game one and the life was huge. I was at two when I wiped with elesh. Game two I blew him out with a ray of revelations on both his honor/virtues and proceeded to play titan after titan.
It's a really strong deck but it does take some getting used to. If you make the wrong decision on playing a mana dork or draw effect you could cost yourself the game early. Keeping the right lands is huge as well.
The main problem we need to address is the sideboard. Four ancient grudge is probably overkill, and we can survive with two ray of revelations. I also don't like the idea of memory's journey and purify the grave for protecting our guys against surgical extraction/other graveyard hate. If you've ever read Richard Feldman's Art of Dredge Fu then you would probably agree that cards meant only to hate out other hate cards rarely work in practice. I understand you can use them against your opponent, but we are the only graveyard deck right now, and even against us, the hate is very effective. We can just hard cast with our dorks. I would add at least one more thrun, but I don't know what to do with the other four spots.
I've always been interested in the set future sight, partially because I think the pacts are really cool and also because of the strange borders, but the box prices have always been waaaaaaay too high. A sealed booster box will run you like $280. It makes sense given all the crazy money rares in there, namely tarmogoyf. But then I went on ebay and found something odd.
For some reason, the Italian booster boxes go for a lot less. I snagged a sealed booster box (in Italian) for $120 plus 20 for shipping and handling. My question is, why are these boxes so much cheaper? They are both just 36 packs of future sight...
In terms of the issue of a reprint, I would say that it isn't very likely in the near future. Don't forget that there are also the allied fetch lands for onslaught, so it sounds odd to me that they would reprint the zendikar ones but not the onslaught ones.
Terminus - I don't like this card. Most people argue that the miracle cost is just insane, but really it will never hit when you need it to (outside of noxious revival or a lucky ponder). One of the huge advantages of day of judgment is that you can milk it for extra value, but with terminus, you are either forced to play it when you draw it (if they even have a threatening board state and you have the right colored land) or hold it back for much longer. The aspect of this card that interests me is whether or not six mana is too much for a sweeper. Right now, I'd say yes, just because most of the cards you want to hit (strangleroot geist, geralf's messenger, etc) might have you dead by then. But it's cost is not out of the realm of possibility.
Curse of Death's Hold - I never expected this card to really help much, but it's actually filled it's role quite nicely. The two biggest jobs it has are locking down inkmoths and moorland haunts, two lands that I have had serious problems controlling. While it is awkward tapping out on turn five for a relatively small initial impact, if you are able to untap with one of these, then you are in a pretty good position. You can make an argument for going down to one or zero in the mainboard, but I would have at least two in your 75.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1003215
2 Consecrated Sphinx
2 Snapcaster Mage
Planeswalkers
2 Gideon Jura
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Artifacts
1 Batterskull
Enchantments
2 Curse of Death's Hold
Instants/Sorceries
3 Day of Judgment
1 Doom Blade
2 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Go for the Throat
3 Lingering Souls
4 Mana Leak
3 Think Twice
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Tragic Slip
2 Darkslick Shores
3 Evolving Wilds
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Island
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Plains
3 Seachrome Coast
5 Swamp
2 Celestial Purge
3 Despise
1 Flashfreeze
1 Karn Liberated
1 Negate
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Revoke Existence
2 Timely Reinforcements
So right now, mana leak is losing its value. Most of the time, I have to pass up casting a lingering souls or something else in order to hold up mana. With the introduction of cavern of souls, the matchups that it usually shines in (wolf-run...etc) won't be as good. I'm thinking about going more the route of adding a few solar-flare like changes, which has been discussed a bit above. Basically, adding a sun titan package. So the mb would look something like:
-2 consecrated sphinx
-1 curse of death's hold
-4 mana leak
-3 think twice
+3 sun titan
+2 ratchet bomb
+2 forbidden alchemy
+3 phantasmal image
This is just kind of a rough sketch right now, but the idea is appealing to me. Of course, taking out mana leaks means that snapcaster mage loses a lot of its value, and Tamiyo will probably find her way into here. What are your thoughts?
I've been playing esper planeswalkers for about a month an I can honestly say that liliana is the most powerful card in the deck. I've literally won games casting her turn 3 against wolf run and just demolishing their hand. She turns on tragic slip, and must be answered.
For three mana, she is a HUGE value with great versatility. Need to get rid of a creature? Has your opponent been holding back a bomb? But one of the best advantages is that people have a sort of insane reaction to any planeswalker. As soon as one hits the board, they freak out and send all their creatures at it. She buys us a lot of time to get to day of judgment or consecrated or whatever you want to end the game with.
If you look at most lists, they are incredibly light on black. There's generally a pair of tragic slips, doom blade, maybe a go for the throat, and possibly a sorin or curse. She's the reason we are in the color. If liliana was banned tomorrow, I can tell you that I'd move into UW or possibly even Bant for garruk. She's that good.
How do you think I feel as a control player!?!
Anyway blue/white haunted humans did get better, but unfortunately a shift towards wolf run could be problematic. Slagstorm and whipflare can cause some serious damage.
If you only have permanents in your library, reveal a laboratory maniac, then go on until you have no cards left in your library, you don't win the game, right?
You would have to pull off something really crazy, like having urabrask, maniac, and civilized scholar out...
Don't worry, I don't think it would actually ever work, but I just thought it would be funny.
I have no clue what wizards is trying to do. Unless they have an extremely powerful counterspell in AVR or m13, they basically just rendered an entire archetype unplayable. If the card was printed without the ability to make things uncounterable, it would still be a playable card.
I'm not playing ghost quarters, and I want everyone who suggested that control decks play this card actually think for a moment. We need to hit land drops in order to secure a threat early enough to end the game. We need card advantage, without it, we are simply at a stalemate with our opponent. Ghost quarters is everything we don't want in a card: A setback of our resources in order to gain card disadvantage. The only real reason to play it would be in the sideboard for lands that can single-handedly destroy us, like nephalia drownyard.
This is ridiculous. Next thing you know, mana leak and day of judgment will be gone in m13. Playing control allows players to interact with their opponents board state directly, which not only takes skill, but is also able to be relatively consistent with the use of card draw/filtering. By favoring aggro with the steady power increase of creatures, they are creating an environment where people drop whatever creature they can play and turn them sideways. It's simpleminded and not as fun, but it is the variety of strategies available to magic that make it fun to build decks and play. The printing of a card that has no drawback whatsoever but hoses an archetype is not fun for either side, and will create a one-dimensional metagame.
It's going to impact standard. Ramp is going to be unchecked, as its worst matchup has always been anything with counterspells. If you've ever had to doom blade a primeval titan as a control player, you know that you are losing the game. It's simply too hard to outvalue their ETB triggers, and counterspells used to be the only way. Without having to worry about their control matchup, they will just have a bunch of slagstorms and whipflares to slow everybody down.
Legacy will be hurt by this card, because the fact that it taps for colorless in some situations is irrelevant. Legacy manabases are so incredibly stable that decks can afford to mainboard these without any guilt. The only saving grace is that wasteland exists.
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Liliana of the veil
1 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Maze of Ith (EX condition)
Pile B:
2 Force of Will (NM)
2 Arid Mesa
Thanks for you help!
WB Tokens - pretty much a breeze as I hit turn 3 elesh norn, grand cenobite and turn 4 elesh. He didn't really stand much of a chance. (2-0)
Mono-Blue Control - I dropped the first game because he had a countewall up and then equipped an invisible stalker with a sword of war and peace. I tried to unburial rites 4 times and just couldn't get it through. Game two he got mana screwed so I just jammed an inferno titan through. Game three I was able to unburial an elesh with mana leak mana up. (2-1)
UB Zombies - This was kind of a rough matchup, but luckily game one I got a wurmcoil engine out on turn four and manage to hold back his 4 (yes all 4) gravecrawlers backed by diregraf captain until I board wiped with elesh. Game two was almost the same thing, but I stalled his early one drops with lingering souls. (2-0)
Junk Ramp (Archangel Ramp) - This deck has an insane end game because it can block our titans/eleshes with their spirit tokens with deathtouch and lifelink. It can also give titans lifelink, which is very scary. I scraped out a win game one with a wurmcoil engine that kept dying to his titans, but luckily I could keep unburying it. Eventually found elesh and won from there. Game two he mulled to 5 and I had a solid hand, but somehow it just didn't pan out. He hit a quick titan and I stalled on lands. Last game almost ended in a draw as I had six spirits out and two birds of paradise with a wurmcoil as well on turn 4 of turns. He was at 18 and I drew into the elesh. Good feeling and a hard fought match. (2-1)
WB Human Tokens - Managed to hit a wurmcoil on the turn I needed it game one and the life was huge. I was at two when I wiped with elesh. Game two I blew him out with a ray of revelations on both his honor/virtues and proceeded to play titan after titan.
It's a really strong deck but it does take some getting used to. If you make the wrong decision on playing a mana dork or draw effect you could cost yourself the game early. Keeping the right lands is huge as well.
The main problem we need to address is the sideboard. Four ancient grudge is probably overkill, and we can survive with two ray of revelations. I also don't like the idea of memory's journey and purify the grave for protecting our guys against surgical extraction/other graveyard hate. If you've ever read Richard Feldman's Art of Dredge Fu then you would probably agree that cards meant only to hate out other hate cards rarely work in practice. I understand you can use them against your opponent, but we are the only graveyard deck right now, and even against us, the hate is very effective. We can just hard cast with our dorks. I would add at least one more thrun, but I don't know what to do with the other four spots.
For some reason, the Italian booster boxes go for a lot less. I snagged a sealed booster box (in Italian) for $120 plus 20 for shipping and handling. My question is, why are these boxes so much cheaper? They are both just 36 packs of future sight...