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Have Magic News? Send it to news@pojo.com Road
to States Featured
Writers MTG Fan Articles Community
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Odyssey: A Retailer's Take ...
Well here I've been
researching the new type 2 environment. Not a
whole lot of things are out of the ordinary from what I
can tell, but with States less than a month away, some
of you are looking for some greater insight.
I will say this... I'm proud
of my deck that I have and it is creature oriented.
I like turning my cards 90 degrees to reduce my
opponents life total :) However, I figured for
something different I would give you all a run down of
what I could see as high sellers and fast movers and
what they might potentially be used for:
TRAUMATIZE
I'm not sure of this cards
effectiveness. It's obvious that it can be used
with Haunting Echoes. Also, anyone that tells you
this combo is crap...just be aware that it WILL be out
there (at least for a few weeks, depending on it's
results). A secondary use that I've seen people
using it with is Millstone decks. They use the
traumatize to speed up the decking process.
The jury is still out on how
effective this strategy is. Something to consider
is that playing Traumatize does have it's drawbacks.
Your opponent will have threshold once it resolves.
You also have to consider the fact that some cards with
cheap flashback (i.s. Roar of the Wurm) will see some
play. Let's also mention here that there are a few
decks that are utilizing traumatize along with
Twilight's Call. Basically this creates a
situation similar to the Living Death decks of old.
HAUNTING ECHOES
We already touhed on how
this card combos with Traumatize. No need to
explain any further. I have seen a few decks just
playing this card alone.
The main use is to just keep
your opponent below threshold level. My only
problem with that, is that I would prefer to sideboard
it, instead of maindeck it. It's much better to
have a cards used solely to stop threshold run part time
until we find out how important threshold is going to be
in the environment. This card also works
interestingly well with Gravestorm.
MIRARI
I figured that some of you
would want to see what I had to say that's interesting
and useful about this card. Well, I hate to
deliver the sad news, but I have no idea what to do with
this card. I've seen a few decks with it, but it
was not an integral part of them. I am still of
the assumption that Mirari goes well in a combo deck of
some sort that I haven't figured out yet. Serious
tournament players aren't too hyped up about this card.
On the other hand casual players love this card, so
packing some in your trade binder on the way to States
definitely won't suck for you.
KIRTAR'S WRATH
I have had a few debates
with people on the effectiveness of this card. The
main part of the discussions have come down to it's
effectiveness in an environment with cheaper, better
forms of Wrath of God. Also though, in slow
controls decks, one or two of these could be huge, as
you would be able to destroy everything and acquire a
couple of blockers (possibly attackers) and could seal
the game for you. It's also bee suggested to use
this in a creature oriented deck where it is more likely
that you would reach threshold fast.
PIANNA, NOMAD CAPTAIN
Pianna is pretty straight
forward. This card helps push the beatdown on your
opponent. The drawback of being a legend doesn't
help in beatdown decks, so I wouldn't expect most decks
to carry more than two to three of them. Having
four seems like a huge drawback. White weenie is
still a viable option, but what version is the best?
Regardless of which is, I would expect there to be a few
Pianna's in the room somewhere.
IRIDESCENT ANGEL
The card is good. You
have to wait a while to get it out. Having
protection from everything is really good though.
Definitely not a strong creature in control heavy
environments. It's a great creature in creature
heavy environments.
UPHEAVAL
This card hasn't been
touched on much be many people. There is a combo
with this card that has been working interestingly well.
The combo is Upheaval/Zombie Infestation. You can
pick up all permanents. Float two mana. Cast
Zombie Infestation. Drop all your cards to make a
lot of zombies and give you a creature advantage.
Also Upheaval can be used in fear of Overrun. The
problem is hibernation is more efficient in that
situation.
MOLTEN INFLUENCE
This card has recently
started to move in a lot of places. I think it is
going to be key for aggressive decsk with red to have
this. It can be so huge against control style
decks. It can also put the control players in a
bad spot when casting Wrath of God and such. It's
neat because it adds another element to the game.
Many players are just now starting to give this card a
try. don't be surprised if more of these start
popping up in your areas.
CALL OF THE HERD
Sales on this card are still
high everywhere. The funny thing about it all is
that I haven't seen a ton of people playing with it yet.
There's no real tricks here, the card is simply a 3/3
for 3. It's very cost effective and aggressive and
has a relatively cheap Flashback cost.
SHADOWMAGE INFILTRATOR
This is another card that
has been leaving the shelves at blistering speed.
The card obviously has uses.
I might also go as far as to say that this card might be
see the most play at States (at least as far as Odyssey
cards are considered). The success of this card
will depend on the success of the other decks at the
event it is being used in. Terminate, Vindicate,
and Urza's Rage are all relatively cheap and fast
answers to this creature and are highly playable.
The card may be good, but seems fairly balanced. I
think the card will have more success in aggressive
decks than it will in control/passive decks.
FILTER LANDS
These only seem marginally
good. I see them as more useful in three color
decks than they are in two color decks. Also, I
think they are only good in ones and twos. Any
more than that might slow down some potentially good
opening hands.
Well, like I've promised, I
have been spending lots of time looking over the Odyssey
cards, tracking players reactions on this set and even
experimenting with decks. I've taken a little time
off from tournament play, at least Standard, because I'm
preparing for post November 1 Standard environment.
I have been having some success with quite a few things,
but we'll touch on that later.
I want to tell all of you to
keep an eye out for new things around the site. We
are going to quickly start becoming one of the best
stops online. The decks to beat section will be
back up and updated regularly. We we'll have more
sections for more formats. The revisions are
endless. We might even be considered your
"one stop Magic site" :) Also, I'll be
linking my store site to here soon. Hopefully we
can have it up and running by the end of the week, but
no promises as of yet.
Also, I have to give some
credit to Fletcher for helping bring this site along
being the new editor and all. Even though I guess
in all seriousness, I'm senior staff ;) I wouldn't
have time anyway. I do hope that Fletcher enjoys
his job and everything goes well for us under his
leadership.
Well, next time I hope I
will have more more good Odyssey tidbits to help your
deck construction.
Until next time,
DeQuan
a.k.a. PowrDragn
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Biography Name: DeQuan Watson Many
readers have gathered a lot of information about me
through my
writings. For those of you that haven't though, this
should tell you a
little more. |
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