STOP THE PRESSES!

I always wanted to say that...

Now, why do I wanted to stop the presses...?

Oh yeah, right! THIS:

After Jace, the Mind Sculptor, the first planeswalker with a 0 ability and a total of 4 abilities, we now have Sarkhan the Mad, a planeswalker that doesn't have a plus ability. The third turning point in the planeswalkers history (the first was elspeth, the first planeswalker with two plus abilities). So let's look at the crazyhead Sarkhan. He enters with 7 loyalty (and he can use his ultimate right away, wich is also new.) and he uses his Dark Confidant like ability for 0, although he takes the damage, not you. Then, he also works as a removal spell, although for a cost... He can force the sacrifice of a creature in exchange for a dragon. Well, that ugly indestructible 10/10 can transform into a neat 5/5 flying dragon... But i like to imagine your 0/1 plant from Khalni Garden  transforming into a 5/5 flying dragon. Neat... His ultimate, wich he can use as it enters, is to blast away at your oponents life with the power of all his dragons. This seems nice, in two turns he can give 5 damage and stay at 1 loyalty. Well, the card itself isn't THAT amazing, but it's another improvement in the planeswalkers area. Kudos for the people at WotC!

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!

New Eldrazi Spoilers

There's lots of spoiling going 'round in mtgsalvation. Let's take a look.

Wait! Wha? Level Up? So magic has become an RPG? Ok, let's look at the card from other angle. It's a 1/3 for 2 mana. Meh. It's a 2/4 for 6. Meeeeeeeh. It's a 3/5 for 9 that gives you an extra turn after your oponents turn. Fun. Although the level up idea seems wierd, a card jumps right into my mind...

Well this is KIND of a level up. it's a 2/2 for 2, a 4/4 for 5 and an 8/8 fly first strike for 11. Well, it's better, cuz level up may only be activated as a sorcery. But let's look at the other level up cards.

Ok this seems a bit nicer. A field controler. Might see some limited play.

For a common, it's not bad at all. It keeps on growing, takes to the skies a turn after it comes into play (With improved thoughness). I think that, for a common, it's not a bad card.

Lord of Shatterskull Pass (Rare)
Creature - Minotaur Shaman
Level up (Play only as sorcery)
3/3 Level 1-5: 6/6
Level 6+: 6/6, Whenever Lord of Shatterskull Pass attacks, it deals 6 damage to each creature defending player controls.

This one has no artwork, but let's see. It's a 6/6 for 6. Not bad. And his ultimate is kinda interesting.

Another Rebounder. +2/+0 for 1 is nice and deathtouch might be a decent trick.

OMG a colored eldrazi! Now here's something new. And interesting. A 3/3 for 5 that gives you 3 0/1 minidrazis. Also, they give you mana. It's pays for itself.

Speaking of eldrazis, we have a common eldrazi here. 8/8 for 8 it's nice as a common, and with annihilator 2 it's even better. It attacks every turn. So? I don't see it has a drawback at all.

A new mythic eldrazi. Emrakul is an uncounterable 15/15 for 15. It gives you a free turn, has protection from colored spells (dum dum dududum! dum dum! dum dum! Can't path to exile this!), it flies and annihilates 6 permanents per turn. Also, as with Kozilek, it shuffles your graveyard when if it dies.

A new totem armor. +1/+1 and first strike is nice, and it prevents your prized creature from dying. Once. For 1 mana, i think it's kinda nice.

Upgraded Vine Trellis anyone?

Eldrazi Temple
Land
: Add to your mana pool.
: Add to your mana pool. Spend this mana only on Eldrazi spells or to activate Eldrazi permanents.

Also, our last spoiler has no image, but i think it's a nice card. At least for limited i think it's awesome.

That's all for today.

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!

Recent RIse of the Eldrazi Spoils

MTGSalvation just released 6 new spoils from the RoE set. Lets see what we has here.

When I first looked at the card my first though was "Meh". But then I looked over to the rarity. Uncommon. Well, that changes everything! We have a 9/9 triple annihilator that can be blocked by only 3 or more creatures for 11 mana that one can easily pick two in a draft. Seems like a decent draft/sealed finisher. And it fits in every deck, since it's colorless. It seems we'll have lots of eldrazis then, not just a couple of mythics.

+2/+2 for 1. Meh. The card itself isn't that awesome, but the new ability is. Rebound. I saw some people in the salvation forums say "it's just a lame flashback". I don't think it's that lame. You re-play it WITHOUT paying it's mana cost. So if you have a lightning bolt with rebound you have 6 damage for 1 mana. I think THAT is a kickass ability.

This seems like a decent card. A bit expensive, but you gain to baby eldrazi to play with. And they make up for some of the mana spent. If there's an 8 mana eldrazi, you can destroy a creature with 5 then on next turn put up another land and sac the baby eldrazis for 8 mana. It's not an OMG card, but it's kinda decent.

I'd definitly play this in limited! A 0/4 is somewhat sturdy, although the cost is steep, but it gives me back another card from my graveyard. Another removal spell, perhaps, or a draw spell.

When I saw this card my direct thought was "Two-for-one", as with all the auras. But then, totem armor. This makes auras a lot more playable. So I have this creature that I don't want to lose easily. A 2/2 for instance. Now it's a 5/5 with vigilance with a one-shot regeneration. I'd play it without second thought!

It seems like a decent attacker IF there are no creatures on the other side of the table. It's also a decent blocker that doesn't kill even one thing. I'd make it common, not uncommon.

This is all for today.

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!

Cube Draftting

Me and my friends, we're thinking of doing a cube draft one of this days and, while that doesn't really happen, i decided to make a blog post about...cube drafting!

So, what is cube drafting?

Cube drafting is a type of draft without oficial boosters. Quoting this website, in cube drafting you get to play designer and developer. You get to choose your metagame. You get to choose all of the cards in it. Putting it in other words, in cube drafting, the cube builder (or builders) choose a number of cards that are enough to build 24 boosters, roughly around 360, randomize them into said boosters and then takes the cube with him to draft for fun with friends. I personally think it's a fun concept. 

Full power or crappy cards?

Which cards should one include in a cube? Well that really depends on what you really want. Do you wanna draft baneslayer angels with umezawa jittes? Then just get all of your most kickass cards and stuff them in the cube! You wanna see cards like bazaar trader and  cosi's trickster seeing some actual play? Grapple up all of your crappy cards and build a crappy cube. Have any other ideas for what kind of cards you should have in your cube? Then build the cube around them!

And if each participant in the draft takes his own cards?

Quoting a friend of mine that has sent me an email about this, this is how one should do it:

Each player takes to the draft:

- a total of 70 cards without limit of copies nor rarity rules (all rares, all commons, whatever). These 70 cards have to be broken down into:

-- 10 of each color (white, blue, black, red and green)

-- 20 among artifacts, non-basic lands, multicolored cards and hybrid cards.

- A list of all the cards so each one knows what he puts in the cube.

- Enough sleeves for the 70 cards each brings AND for the land cards (so there's no sleeve swamping during the deck building) of predetermined brand and color (ultra pro red, dragonshield blue, etc) and mint or near mint.

Booster Building

- Each player grabs another players pile and divides them into 6 groups (one of each color and a sixth for miscellaneous)

- Shuffle of each colored and miscellaneous pile (without shuffling colors)

- Each player produces 3 piles of cards from two cards from each of the main piles (without looking!!!), meaning 6 cards from each main pile.

-Shuffle of the remaining main piles into one big pile and then each player adds 3 random cards from the big pile to each of the booster piles.

This is how one builds a cube then. For more on cube drafting, check out this website. Soon, i'll post decklists of my own cube drafts so you guys see what we made.

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!

Finnaly!

At last, your's trully has won a non-draft MtG tournament!

Last sunday, at Gargula, my regular gamestore, a Standard tournament happened and the Mind Flayer happened to won that tournament. Here's the decklist that has amazed and beaten some of the strongest decks in the envyronment, including Jund, Vampires and Open the Vaults.

Lands

4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Lavaclaw Reaches
15 Swamps
2 Mountains

Creatures

4 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Nyxathid
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Bloodhusk Ritualist

Spells

4 Blightning
4 Terminate
4 Sign in Blood
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Earthquake

Sideboard

2 Earthquake
4 Deathmark
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Duress
2 Thought Hemorrhage

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

No, that name didn't come from my own imagination. Kozilek is one of the first Eldrazi creatures spoiled by Wizards of the coast

First of all, what jumps to the eye, is the semi-transparent frame, similar to Ghostfire. This is because Kozilek, as all of the eldrazi as far as is known, is colorless. Not an artifact (most of them are colorless), but simply colorless.
Next comes the mana cost. 10. Simply 10. This seems a bit hard to hard cast, but summoning trap and dramatic entrance jump to my mind.
Next, the power/thoughness. 12/12 is something to be respected. Damaging this "little" guy is a really hard task.
Now, abilities.
Starting from the middle, Annihilator. This new ability seems to be something like:
Annihilator X (Whenever this creature attacks, defending player sacrifices X permanents)
This seems like a great ability. Attacking with this can rid your opponent of needed lands, blocking creatures, pesky enchantments, whatever. I think the "butcher" part comes from this ability.
The Truth part seems to come from his first ability. When this comes into play you draw 4 cards. Besides getting a big beast in the table, this also freshens your hand up with new solutions.
Also, when this baby dies, it goes right up to your library, taking with him all your used up spells. A blast against mill.

I realy REALY want to draft this one and i really want to see more eldrazis.

For reference, here's the official spoiler link

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!

One for the MtG players

So, the recent Standard tournament @ Gargula was a big fiasco.

My monowhite allys wasn't successfull, in part due to playing only against control decks (Open the Vaults, Cruel Control, Ally Mill, UW Control), but also because the deck simply wasn't working (although i won against my girlfriend's Ally Mill and Pedro's UW control). So after some thought, one of my plans is to abandon the ally theme. One plan: GR elfs. The plan is not far from the Monogreen elf's plan, but I though of red to include some burn spells and bloodbraid elf. That's plan one.

Plan two involves something that I don't think will work, but i want to give it a try. For those who know me, you know that I suck really badly with control decks, but I want a diferent kind of control. So I thought of building up a UR control deck. Whip up some counters, find some nice UR card for a finisher and sweep the table with simple and pure damage. Something in the grounds of Earthquake, Chain Reaction and such spells.

For plan three, back to the allys, I was think of Boros Allys, with the bushwacker ally and some burn spells, lightning bolt and such. Also, I want to check out that four color creature only ally deck.

I'll post some decklists here while I'm refining my ideas.

Tips are appreciated!

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!

The funnyest characters I played with or DMed

So, this is the first topic related to D&D.

I wanted to share with you some of the most funny characters that I DMed or played along with.
Strangely, most of them come from one person alone, I wonder why...

So first we have:

Paxaxan, the Barbarian!

Paxaxan is an halfling barbarian that uses a spear as his weapon. He normaly abandons the fight to take some sips of ale. The name, Paxaxan, comes from the word Paxaxa, wich is another word to say Cona, wich means pussy. So, instead of being Conan, he was Paxaxan.


Also from the user of Paxaxan, we have Boi Jorge, the Minotaur Bard!

Boi (meaning bull) is a huge minotaur that usualy hangs back in battle, playing his lute and telling the others what to do, although he once impaled a skeleton in his horns and walked around with the skeleton hanging from his head.


The last one from this awesome rolepayer is Rã Kyao, the Bullywug Invoker of Mephistoteles.

Rã Kyao (parody to the musician Rao Kyao, using the word rã, meaning frog) usualy walks around on the back of the strongest member of the party. If he sees that the battle is being to simple, he ignores his foes and turns his atention to another place. On the other hand, if the battle is being to hard, he would simply turn his back on his fellow adventurers and run like only a toad can.


The last character I wanna talk about was a Human Fighter, one of the crown jewels of that beautifull 2nd Edition. He had 18 STR, 17 DEX, 16 CON, but had 6 INT. This was one of the best roleplayed characters I ever saw. I played alongside this guy and it was a blast. Once, while in front of a door, a simple wooden door, the thief started to search for traps, the mage was casting detect magic, the cleric and the other fighter (me) were ready to spring at anything that could come out of the door and the dumb fighter walks up to the door, knocks, listens for a while and says "Nobody's home. Let's go." and heads away from the door. Beautifully reoleplayed charatecer!

If you want to share some interesting stories, please do in the commentary section.

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!

Welcome

Welcome to The Dumb Mind Flayer.

Here I will discuss themes mainly related to Dungeons and Dragons, but I'll also talk about Magic, the Gathering, music and...whatever comes to my mind.

So sit back, relax, and let me flay your mind.

ITADAKIMASU!!!!