You make the card 4 - Enchantment? Hmm...

Truthfully, as long as the card becomes something viable in my decks, I wouldn't mind the subtype of the card.

Originally, I hoped for a land so that somehow a rainbow shockland came be created, description as below:

(Rainbow Shockland)
Land - Plains Island Swamp Mountain Forest
As (Rainbow Shockland) enters the battlefield, you may pay 3 (4?) life.
If you don't, (Rainbow Shockland) comes into play tapped.

Basically it's a card that I see myself playing in any format (all actually) because it can support my current 4c deck requirements. The card probably wouldn't be played too heavily given the current mana bases can support existing deck archetypes and the life difference is very significant.

So what about enchantments?

I have nothing against enchantments actually. In fact, I am very comfortable with them.
The problem is that getting a good enchantment out of the hands of all the people who want to make fair cards is not easy, coming mainly from the side of the casting costs.

In eternal formats, a converted mana cost of 2 is probably the most anyone would pay for a generally useful enchantment because 3 mana is a very dangerous spot to do "nothing". Counterbalance costs 2, Pernicious Deed costs 3. Leylines cost 4 but I don't think people would want to cast them at all.

The most recent "good" enchantments are Rest in Peace followed by Blind Obedience (not popular yet), both of which are very much playable for their effects that can be classified as "sideboard material".

Enchantments are good because not many people have cards that interact with them apart from Abrupt Decay or maybe Maelstrom Pulse. Sylvan Library is another strong enchantment that I use every now and then. In legacy, Carpet of Flowers (adds mana = islands opp controls) is also another notable enchantment as with Engineered Plague (to beat spirit tokens).

Coming down to it, what can I hope for in an enchantment?
I want this:
(Disrupting Enchantment) U
Enchantment
Reveal a card from your hand, sacrifice (Disrupting Enchantment): Counter target spell that has converted mana cost equal to the revealed card.

or

(Brainstorm Enchantment) U
Enchantment
Sacrifice (Brainstorm Enchantment): Draw 3 cards and put 2 cards from your hand on top of your library in any order.

(which essentially is a sorcery speed to cast, instant speed to use brainstorm that cannot flip delver not gain flashback via Snapcaster Mage)

Bitterblossom already exists to win games on its own...

Classic?

This week I get paired against delver in the CQ league.
(I'm known in Classic for the deck's build)
Anyway, my opponent scoops game 1 after I develop the board a little (vs his hand filled with lands).
I win game 2 on the back of Time Vault (from Tezzeret)+ Voltaic Key which I play out slowly to keep 2x counter backup which lets me win.

So I'm 2-1 in the league as of now.
I suppose this season's plan of "use some classic kills in my deck" is working.

Then, I notice a guy in the 2 man Classic queue so I load up my "designed to beat classic decks" 4c deck and I end up giving my 2 tix to some weak elves deck (not even the legacy combo kind) because I couldn't really handle 1 bunch of 1/1s.
*pukeblood*

Lesson of the day: I should use Classic kills more often.

Behold my updated Flash list:

Deathrite Shaman is so good in a land-lite deck. It acts as a kill-condition too.
Still, I don't like how Flash-hulk combo rolls over to Grafdigger's cage or Leyline of the Void. Can't seem to think of how to solve that problem.

Classic - Almost hardcasted a Blightsteel Colossus

While playing my round 2 of the CQ league (lost rnd 1), I came across a situation where I could almost hardcast a Blightsteel Colossus if not only for the fact that Dark Confidant flipped Tezzeret the Seeker and put me in a really dangerous spot at 3 life and me having to win 2 flips to Mana Crypt and not flip anything 3cc and greater in order to win.

 

So I used Tezzeret the seeker to untap the Time Vault, passed the turn, survived both Bob and Mana Crypt before using Tezz's ultimate and beating my opponent. I was thinking of how I should try to survive but nothing between Sensei's Divining Top (to not die to Bob) or Engineered Explosives (to pop the Mana Crypt) would have been able to stop the potential Triskelion (2x in the opp's deck) if I passed the turn so I went for the safest option which was to hope to not die to Mana Crypt.

 

Game 2, I was in a very odd game state where I searched up a Voltaic Key with Time Vault in hand but my opponent plays a Tangle Wire...

So throughout my infinite turns, I had to figure out how to tap my cards and not die to Mana Crypt. Mana Vault was surprisingly useful since I could tap mana then tap my cards to Tangle Wire then untap it because it triggered on the upkeep as well.
Eventually I got to a point whereby I did not have to really worry about Mana Crypt (because I could pop my Engineered Explosives) but I left it in play to help advance my board position (annoying Tangle Wire). The great Tinker came a few turns later to allow me to crash with BS Colossus for the kill.

Turbotezz is so good vs Workshops when it works. (Died horribly to workshops in round 1)

Duel Decks: Sorin vs Tibalt Review

For those of you who know me, I always get a copy of the duel decks online.

(IRL sometimes but more frequently so with the alternate language printings done midway)

 

This review is not for me but you.

 

To start off, my main motivation for getting duel decks would be the alternate art or "new cards" available in them (in the context of MTGO).

Below is the full visual list of the cards that fall under this category:

 

I used to play the 100 card Singleton format avidly so I wanted to get the most badass Singleton collection (ie 1 of each card). Alternate art cards belong to the category of being badass in my opinion. I suppose EDH players may understand this.

Here are my thoughts on the set:
#1 No Sorin Cameo?
The first thing I looked out for was for Sorin (a cool planeswalker in his own rights) getting a special cameo on one of his cards. Let me showcase such cards, most of which were from the previous duel decks:

#2 Promos

Of the 8 special cards, 3 of them directly compete with promos (although Mortify isn't available on MTGO yet, it is hard to justify wanting to play the DD: Sorin vs Tibalt version over the textless one).

 

#3 Foil Alternate Art Sorin!

Well, it isn't all bad. We do get Sorin (the more popular one) in a foil alternate art version and he's somewhat playable. (He's in standard too. But not that I care.)

#4 Tibalt on Browbeat!

I shall assume that that devil head in the art belongs to Tibalt. That's ok other than the fact that I hardly run Browbeat other than in my 100c Singleton burn deck (I actually did play it!).

#5 Other Cards
I see Vampire Nighthawk, Hellrider (!), Sulfuric Vortex, Lingering Souls (FNM art), Faithless Looting, Wall of Omens. Also, Ancient Craving makes its first MTGO appearance.
(Perhaps for those EDH people who cannot get enough of Ambition's Cost or want to have 1 of each card like someone.)

Summary
Value-wise, it's pretty decent. (I'm picking up a Japanese DD irl for Foil Japanese Sorin!)

Execution-wise, I wouldn't say that it was done particularly well.
(How hard is it to put Sorin on a Doom Blade/Go for the Throat or anything playable???)

Playability-wise, I'd say you would get some interesting game states but I feel that they might be quite lopsided at times. The decks don't seem to suggest that one can play much better than the other. (The worst DD combination was probably Divine vs Demonic. I would guess that Divine thrashed Demonic once Akroma came down.)

(Post Dengue) Updates~

Some time ago, there was a blog (official I think) by Square Enix with a guy posting that he could hunt 17 guardians in the plains map. See my record:

 

 

I also managed to get 2x Alm Fortona from the dungeon to get my reborn going but I got sick after that so I stopped playing for awhile so it's still far from being leveled up.

 

 

With Alm Fortona, I can almost complete my Field team of unique cards (unique in the sense that none of them are actually available from a hunt).
If they release another unique card, I can finally complete the team!

I think the spot where the Alm Serenade Banshee is should be for the 10k friend point guardian (I'm still at 3k pts) but the lack of the gold border might be a little off.

 

Check out Lilith from the Sea map:

 

The virgin type would be a direct conflict with the description of giving birth to 100 demons in a day. (Lol) Anyway, the art is wicked!

 

 Also, there is a new Sonic game on the iphone, Sonic Dash, which is another of the classic iphone games, the infinite running kind. It looks like Temple Run to most but it really reminds me of Sonic Generations in the modern Sonic stages where the experience is really similar.

 

I like the game quite a bit. Only problem is that I kinda suck at it for some reason.

Classic - Welder

Quite some time ago, I found a Vintage deck that made use of the power of Mishra's Workshop to power out Master Transmuter. It was a very strange deck that had some glaring weaknesses in that the colored spells it contained could not be cast with Mishra's Workshop.

I would think that the printing of Chromatic Lantern has solved this major weakness of the deck.

The deck is now more than capable of casting its colored spells with this new addition.

 

I've had a comfortable amount of success with the deck with this semi welder build.

 

Below is the current iteration:

 

I'm now brainstorming on whether or not Metalworker would be more than enough to serve as the main engine of the deck.