Magic the Gathering needs to gather more sharks

Sharks are awesome; I think we can all agree on that. But in Magic, they are few and far between. There's only two! So shark tribal is pretty hard to pull off. Still, lets have a look:

Ah, The Dark. This set actually had some really awesome cards, like Preacher and Witch Hunter and Elves of Deep Shadow and the ever-amazing Leviathan. Giant Shark is NOT very awesome, even to a Timmy like me. The +2/+0 would be pretty cool, and ALMOST make up for the fact its a sic cost islandhome (Sea Monster wasn't available yet), but the restriction of the opposing creature already needing to take damage kills it. Pingers were still in blue's colour pie at the time, but its still very hurtful.

I like this card from Stronghold better. It still needs islands to attack, but can at the very least block without them. Its a 2/3 wall that can situationally attack, and with lots of cards that create islands the drawback can be managed, if you were so inclined to do so.

And those are all the sharks the games got. It has at least one other card with sharks on it (below - and if you know more lemme know!), but thats it. There are a greater variety of 2/2 bears then there are of sharks at all! I like bears, but thats not cool. 

The next Goyf

This is Tarmogoyf.

This is Tarmogoyf's price history. 

Goyf was released in Future Sight, the third set of the Time Spiral block. Fairly quickly it rose in price, and by the time Lorywn came out - featuring tribal and planeswalkers - it was already an expensive card for standard. It was the first card in the standard era to reach $50, and even at $25 was considered to be a very expensive card (Pre-mythics $30 was insane to pay). Goyf was a good card and was used in every format, and since its creation players have been on the look out for the next one. This isn't an official list, but each of these cards have been called 'the next goyf' on various forums and webpages around the internet. 

The first next Goyf, since it grew without a player needing to add extra resources. Not a failure but never widely played, sits around $1-2 now at most card shops. The fact that it uses counters is also a drawback; if you play it turn 3, this is a 2/2. If you play it turn 10, its a 2/2. Mauler needs to be in play to get the bonus, but Goyf doesn't. As long as there are cards in the graveyard, it will come down with a p/t boost every time.  

Red's second next Goyf. Held back by the need to play multicolour, and again a reliance on counters. 

The only non-rare on the list, and the least likely to ever skyrocket in price. However, its also arguably the most successful. A potential 4/4 on turn 2 and for the rest of the game, with only life as a condition that needs to be met. Popular in hard-hitting Jund decks this leech has probably seen more standard play then the rest of this list combined, but its casting requirements mean its nowhere near as splashable or playable as Goyf on a wider scale. 

My least favourite, from the standpoint of comparison. While I really love everything about the card, its tournament use has been sparse (but successful) showing up in Extended Zoo decks and Standard Next Level Bant, but never as an auto four-of that goyf was. You don't splash green to run Scute Mob, and  its always hovered under a dollar because of it. While it gets more and more powerful late game, its useless early. Tarmogoyf was easily a 2/3 on turn two in many decks, and conceivably a 3/4 in older formats. 

I don't know what the next Goyf is going to be. But I do know that many people will pick a bust and load up on it, praying for the day they can sell them away.

Mono R Kamahl

Kamahl was one of the first legends I was exposed too. He came in the Tenth Edition precon for red, and thats when I learned to play the game. Recently I wanted to forge a deck around him, but I didn't want to go traditional burn-to-the-face. I opted to use burn as creature removal, and put  a sub-theme of elemental tokens into play. Another sub-theme is high-power low-toughness, which I just think is cute to use. It's a lot of fun to play, and at its worst is just REALLY good at removing blockers!

x4 Kamahl, Pit Fighter
x2 Rakka Mar
x4 Spitebellows
==
x4 Elemental Appeal
x2 Flame Slash
x2 Rough//Tumble
x4 Pyroclasm
x4 Rift Bolt
x4 Seal of Fire
x4 Fire Diamond
==
x2 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
x20 Mountain

Cliffrunning on Behemoths

More Magic in Avatar

I'm seeing this game everywhere in the show!

Fire Kingdom folk aren't a Nameless Race

k nm maybe they are. 

Plowbeast, Yoked No More

Yoked Plowbeast was a creature from Naya in the Shard of Alara expansion. For whatever reason, the Magic forums latched onto it, and made it a bit of a running joke. There was talk about it being over-powered of course, and I myself made a pretty fun standard deck called Yoked Pimpbeast, which was the Plowbeast and the cards with the hottest girls in green and white. I also made the below, a mock planeswalker card. I just stumbled onto it in my folder a few minutes ago and thought I'd share.

"Goblin Grenade doesn't work with non-goblins, and you have no goblins"

Heads up to everyone offering deck-building advice; its tech to know what cards in a decklist do before claiming they don't work. If only my deck had SOME way of making goblins...

White-Matters Knights

This deck was originally x4 Northern/Southern/Pentarch/Paladin en-Vec, but it wasn't too  good. The flavour was wonderful, as they were excellent colour hosers, but if I didn't get them out early i was easily over-whelmed. Expanding on the them to include more knights I broke down and let in the non-paladins, but excellent red and black hatred in White/Silver Knight. All of the spells also have a very pro-white slant, and while the deck is hurt some by it in certain match-ups the trade off for how it feels is more then worth it.

x4 White Knight
x4 Silver Knight
x4 Paladin en-Vec
x2 Northern Paladin
x2 Southern Paladin
x3 Pentarch Paladin
x1 Lightwielder Paladin
==
x3 Light from Within
x4 Sunlance
x1 Armored Ascension
x2 Mass Calcify
x3 Marble Diamond
x3 Inheritance
==
x23 Plains
x1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin

"nice RACKdos"

A lovely friend of mine was recently getting her hair done, and was adding red streaks to her black hair. Naturally, the first thing a man's mind does is think of Magic the Gathering combinations, so I asked her if i could snap a few shots and make some lame jokes. Hope you like Magic or they're EXTRA lame, lol

Thanks doll! 

"Hellbenting you over to have at it"

"Your gonna make my new favourite card be Rakdos the Defileher"

"I know with Hellbent I''m supposed to empty my hand, but it keeps getting refilled by my penis" 

Magic Monkey Sex

The 'joke' set Unhinged brought some much needed closure to this card printed in Visions. 

Just assumed Irini Sengir was a Rare.

Back in the days of Homelands, rarity wasn't something advertised on cards. Because of this, for a long time I thought Irini Sengir was a rare; legends don't come in at uncommon anymore (haven't since Kamigawa as far as I know - and that was years before I played), and she's a hoser of sorts, so she just feels rare. Eh, just one of things I wanted to share.

Arc Runner is in every way superior to Cryptic Command!!

Arc Runner costs 3! Cryptic isn't out fast enough to counter it!!

Arc Runner has is sacrificed at the end of the turn! Cryptic won't be able to tap/bounce it!!

Arc Runner doesn't care about card draw! Cryptic will probably draw another useless Cryptic!!

Load up on Arc Runner's now people; Cryptic Command was selling for over $25, and I think I've made it PER-ITTY clear how much better Arc Runner is. Calling it now, next Goyf!!

I AM SUPERMAN

Sometimes, a Magic card gets a nickname thats known over the entire player community. Like Tim, or Dr. Teeth. One of the best known of these names, certainly for an older generation of players, is Morphling, aka Superman:

The nigh-unkillable Morphling was for a long time considered to be the best blue-creature ever printed, or at least the best finisher a control deck could ask for. Flying, shroud, and vigilance were all great, but since during his heyday combat damage used the stack, you could pump him to a 5/1 as he did damage, then protect him as a 1/5. Morphling was a tasty little dish. Five years after the cards debut, a new aura was printed that gave the enchanted creatures the same abilities of Morphling.

Pemmin's Aura, which when rearranged gives you "I am Superman". Nice little easter egg I think.

11 cards I want from M11

Let me start by saying that these are not the best cards, or the ones I think will make the most impact. Just cards I would like because I can plug them into pre-existing decks I've already got and they would make them better. Casual FTW. 

Its a 2/2 for 2 in red with a good ability! I don't know if I'd play it over Blood Knight in my sligh build, but the chance for extra damage is very tempting. Being a goblin gives it all sorts of tribal uses too.

I need this to replace my Sage Owl's in my Djinn of Wishes Deck. Sage is good for fixing, but it won't remove any bad draws I have.  Nice, nice common!

I never got a Baneslayer with my M10 box, and it was already selling for $20 the day it was out. I don't need it to dominate any one-on-one games, and I play a lot of multiplayer so its hardly going to get out of control. She's just pretty and an angel and I like playing those.

 This guy just looks like a Ray Harryhausen creature, and that alone makes it kick ass.

I just want this since I have no Ravenous Baloth's. Its a solid 4/4 for 4 that has lifegain and anti-discard, and I have a r/g Beast deck it would fit in just perfectly.

Look how pretty! For some reason, I love these less dark swamp images. Dan Frazier's was my choice from M10.

I LOVE tribal, and always wanted to make a second tribal knight deck. The one I have now is based around the enemy paladins, but this would give me a chance to do a more standard ww build. I may never get to it though, since I have a soldier deck AND a kithkin that fill the same role.

Leviathan is one of my all-time favourite creatures. It's big and mean and has cool art and is ridiculously hard to make worth using. Stormtide is much simpler, a lazier leviathan for the player, but its clearly much better. Good abilities on a leviathan? Hard to pass up.

When I went to load this image, even my computer didn't believe me and flashed 'image failed' and made me re-try. Well, he isn't as good as Version 2, but original Jace isn't bad and i have a lot of decks that could use more draw!

I saw people wanting to play this in standard, but I assume it'll flounder like Salvage Titan did. Doesn't matter, super-fun on a table-top, but the mythic rarity sucks and isn't needed. A good card for rare. :/

Awesome reprint! I've wanted to get my hands on a playset for a long time, but they were always too pricey for the level of gameplay I'm at. Going to throw this into a few mono black decks I've got!

DRAKESTORM!!!!!!!!!

For this deck, the title HAS to be said like that - think of how the commercials yelled 'Bonestorm!!!!' on the Simpsons for Christmas of '95 (I'm so damn old). It came to be since I really thought the cycle of counter-drakes was just a cool idea, and using those three creatures as a shell I went about figuring what else to do with the deck. It was originally going to be a straight control with drake beatdown, but the Cloudstone Curio + Kobold's plan to ramp up a storm caught my attention. I wasn't running any storm decks, and with the drakes to counter any removal or counters on my creatures I made a fun, effective casual deck. It would be better mono-U, but splashing R made it a little lighter on the budget.

x2 Spiketail Drake
x4 Spiketail Drakeling
x4 Spiketail Hatchling
x4 Drift of Phantasms
x4 Crookshank Kobolds
==
x4 Muddle the Mixture
x4 Rune Snag
x2 Think Twice
x2 Cloudstone Curio
x2 Sleep
x4 Grapeshot
==
x4 Tolaria West
x4 Mountain
x16 Island

Flavour in Action: Conflux

GRAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I'm just going to leave my wallet here on the table as I turn away to tie my shoe."

GRAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"What the hell man!?"

The above are two of my favourite cards from Conflux, and a conversation my friend Brian and I had concerning how the two cards would interact when meeting. If you didn't know, the cards depicted are Apocalypse Hydra and Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer. The Hydra has magnificent giant monster art, as well as a nice ping ability, and Gwafa simply looks like a dick and has terrific flavour text inspired by the "Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase.

Gwafa's ability, which really should have been allowed to target the controller's creatures too (so people would actually play him) allows you to put a bribery counter on a creature; he's paying them off to not attack or block. But...what is he going to give a hydra? What does a hydra want that Gwafa can give him that no one else can, or that it an get itself? Well, maybe the hydra really just wanted a bribery counter all along. Well played Gwafa. 

R/B Self-Esteem

'Self-Esteem' was originally a Lor-TS-Xth standard deck I developed, focusing pulling out burn spells to outrace your opponent. It was never too successful, but was a lot of fun to play. It was centered around Maralen of the Mornsong, who's ability negated the ability to draw cards and instead at the beginning of each upkeep a player would lose three life and get to search their library for a card. This made it very dangerous to play, as often the opponent would simply pick what they needed to win or give them the edge, most of the time before you could. Still, in red and black, the flavour of this deck was spot-on. Yes, you may gain some advantages, but I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want.

I eventually stopped playing standard, and soon after Mindlock Orb came to be and using that for a potential lock with Maralen was all the rage (in mostly bad decks that didn't win anything of note). Since I was no longer restricted, I added more efficient burn, replacing Shock with Lightning Bolt, and adding spells like Flame Rift. It's not the best thing I run, but it's certainly a pet deck.

As for the name, it comes from The Offspring. Self-Esteem is a song where a man keeps letting a woman walk all over him and hurt him, and I thought it was cute considering how Maralen does the same to me, and just like in the song I refuse to stay away from her. The full current version of the deck is listed below, so I hope you enjoy it and I'm always more then happy to explain card choices or hear new suggestions*!

*Even though I ignore most of them XD

x4 Maralen of the Mornsong

x4 Sleeper Agent

x4 Mogg Fanatic

x4 Keldon Marauders

==

x4 Flame Rift

x4 Lightning Bolt

x4 Incinerate

x4 Blightning

x2 Volcanic Fallout

x1 Colfenor's Plans

x1 Flame Javelin

x1 Terminate

x1 Doom Blade

x1 Soul Spike

==

x9 Swamp

x5 Mountain

x4 Graven Cairns

x3 Sulfurous Springs