Core-poral Punishment: My Take on the Bad Guys

So, here's this deck, see...:

Magi:

Evil Evu

Agram

Morag

Creatures:

1 Chaos Plith

3 Corathan

1 Dark Furok

1 Darkbreed’s Minion

2 Gorath

3 Gragling

3 Gumph

1 Rabid Wasperine

1 Shryque

3 Wudge

3 Zungg

(22)

Relics:

3 Agram’s Plaything

1 Chaos Sphere

2 Grim Goblet

1 Rayje’s Belt

1 Robes of the Ages

1 Shroud of the Master

(9)

Spells:

1 Beam of Light

2 Corrupt

1 Crushing Darkness

1 Dream Rift

1 Entomb

1 Morag’s ‘Gift’

1 Spirit of the Core

1 Vaporize

(9)

Total = 40

This deck is not my idea. The, ahem, core of the deck (Agram, 3 Plaything, 3 Wudge) comes from an old opponent of mine on the gEngine who used to crush me with it. After learning about lackey, I decided to dust off that shell and try to reverse engineer a sweet Core deck from it, and I think I succeeded. This deck is very in-your-face aggro, draws lots of cards quickly, and pretty much doesn’t mess around. Despite a serious slant towards aggro, however, the deck can play an attrition game by repeatedly possessing opposing Creatures with Corathan’s ability or using some dirty tricks (and busted cards) to gain lots of free energy, as well as a control game by utilizing some of its sub-themes to punish enemy players for doing what players normally want to do: playing Creatures (Wudge, Corrupt, Morag’s ‘Gift’, etc.); attacking you (Gumph, Rabid Wasperine); having good or costly Relics in play (Vaporize, Morag); leaning too heavily on one particular Spell or Power/Effect (Entomb, Rayje’s Belt); or drawing lots of cards (the singleton Darkbreed’s Minion).

Of course, the many of the specific card choices for a deck are peculiar to the individual who designed it. Deck builders have their own preferences, pet cards or cards they think are terrible. I’d like to mention a few of the more idiosyncratic options included here.

Darkbreed’s Minion. I haven’t ever seen anyone run this guy, and IRL I totally understand why. It practically doesn’t exist. Online though, imagine playing this thing early against a Bograth set-up Magi like Baa or Eryss. How good does casting Tradewinds look with one of these on the opposing team? Yeah, that’s what I thought. A lot of games you won’t see him early enough to be useful, but in those situations where you do, this card has the potential to generate free wins. And I love me some free wins.

·      Gragling. Again, IRL this little guy doesn’t actually exist. Fine. But seriously, look at this thing. Not only is this a weenie (see a future post for why I love 0-3 energy-cost Creatures so much) that gets bigger for no extra investment (just like Wudge, the most useful Core card ever), but it also makes your deck much more resilient against Cald, d’Resh, Thunderquake, and anyone with Crushing Spells (so everyone). At the very least they have to kill this guy before they kill the thing they actually want to kill, and if you have multiples out, it’s hard not to generate incidental value from the opponent casting Spells to kill your guys.

·      Gumph. This card does approximately one metric ton of damage. It’s pretty self-evident, and sometimes he bites you in the britches instead of doing anything useful, but still many opponents tend to be surprised by how much energy they lose to just one of these boogers. It helps that this deck has a lot of ways to trigger him on your own turn (Agram’s Possess, offensive Spells, you know … attacking). This card is one of the reasons I get to play super offensively without using up three full card slots on Warrior’s Boots.

·     Shryque. Not much to say here except these five words: Energy Cost: Two. Starting: Morag. Many people like Shryque in many Core decks. This is not one of those decks. This is a 2 Energy guy with no text, and that’s honestly enough sometimes.

·   Agram’s Plaything. The secret sauce. The whole enchilada. The thing that makes this deck’s world go ‘round. A full playset of this card is what allows Agram to pressure opponents even when his Energize rate is the pits for the first several turns he sees play (Note that I almost NEVER have Agram survive to come back again and still end up using him for the majority of my game time). This is a free 3 Energy guy, sometimes for multiple turns in a row. It can attack, it can possess, basically do everything you want other than trigger Wudge.

·   Grim Goblet. Unless they have Relic removal that turn, this is better than Tradewinds. If they have Relic removal that turn, this is gg. As Corey Matthews once stated, “Risk, Risk, Risk? Reward, Reward, Reward!” Seriously though, my local metagame is reasonably light on Relic destruction, and if you play in an environment where that kind of card runs rampant, it’s probably best to switch these out for something a little less dangerous. Secrets of the Book is decent. Doubling up on some of the other one-ofs, or just running all 3 Shryque, because without this thing, you might actually trigger him.

·     Shroud of the Master. Yeah, this card is broken. I know that’s why it costs 3 to play, which I grant you is a lot. But when this thing is in play, I’m gaining on average something like 8-12 total energy a turn before anything else. The card discard is essentially a cost of 0, since you draw more than you can possibly play in one turn anyway. This is another reason Agram can put such huge pressure on opponents with much higher numbers.

·       Morag’s ‘Gift’. I like this card. I like this card a lot when combined with Corrupt. I feel dirty when I cast this card by bouncing my Agram’s Plaything and then immediately re-play my Agram’s Plaything and do whatever I was going to do with it anyway.

·     Chaos Sphere. Listen, this card is probably not really worth it. It takes an average of five turns to do anything. An AVERAGE of five turns. Sometimes a lot more. It’s bad. But sometimes it takes three turns and you just auto-win. All it costs is the slot it takes up, and did I mention pet cards and free wins? Yus!

Anyway, I think this deck is just about the best thing a mono-Core deck can be doing in Magi-Nation, and I would challenge any of those loose Dark Twins deck that I’ve seen posted out there any day of the week (but not on Sunday, because the bad guys don’t get to gloat on Sunday). Haters, I encourage you to play with the deck first before you hate. Anyone else, whether the deck concept is new to you, or whether you’ve seen it all before, please comment with thoughts/suggestions/criticism/praise/debate. That’s what I’m doing this for.

A Fresh Start

As you may have noticed, there've been some changes to the blog recently. Aside from the color scheme and the MND card back-ground, there are two major ones:

The name - Since calling the blog, "Magi-Nation Duel Strategy" is well ... lame, I created a new moniker. Krood: "I, Magi-Nation" is a nod to my gEngine (and now BlueFurok) user name, Kroodhaxthekrood, which is in turn a nod to an obscure Hero from Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and 3 (fifty points for anyone who guessed the Barbarian named Craghack and 1,000,000 points for anyone who didn't need the hint). Of course, it goes without saying that I will now incorporate as many puns as possible into my articles.

The second change is more substantive. Since really no one (including myself) seemed to react well to the exhaustive card-by-card idea vomit that was previously this blog's structure, I will now just write about whatever Magi-Nation related topic I feel like writing about, when I feel like writing. I hope my thoughts are interesting, and that they spark some debate, since that's really my goal - to get people talking and thinking and playing this great CCG. Thanks.

Coming Soon: 

A Deck Tech featuring my take on the best (Play)thing the Core has to offer. And it doesn't even involve the Dark Twins!

Sprout

Sprout

Energy Cost: 2

Choose an opposing Magi. Add one energy to your Magi for each of the chosen Magi’s Creatures in play.

The Card by Itself:

This may be a good time to talk about the concept of adding energy to your Magi. It might seem self-evident, but until you’ve really felt it, many players simply aren’t aware of just how good getting free energy on their Magi every turn is. Let me tell you a story.

Back in 2002 at GenCon, Magi-Nation Duel World Championships took place (yeah, I know, back when the game was popular…ish). This story is about the second-place deck at that tournament, called Pure Energy and piloted by one Stephen Strand. Here’s an article about the deck written by its designer, Jamie Kelly, if you’d like to read it. Here’s the deck:

Pure Energy

Magi:

Aula

Obgren

Shaper’s Apprentice

Creatures (10):

1 J’lith

3 Quido Swarm

1 Sea Barl

3 Bubble Xyx

1 Greater Gargagnor

1 Ormagon

Relics (12):

3 Warrior’s Boots

3 Climbing Staff

1 Abraxin’s Crown

1 Rayje’s Belt

1 Bog Stone

1 Cloud Sceptre

1 Abwyn’s Quill

1 Mantle of Shadows

Spells (18):

3 Kybar’s Echo

3 Sorreah’s Dream

3 Cleansing

1 Beam of Light

1 Spell Pulse

1 Resonate

1 Sandswirl

1 Thunderquake

1 Stone Storm

1 Maelstrom

1 Orwin’s Gaze

1 Bloom

Total: 40

What looks like a pile of junk actually ends up being able to generate an infinite amount of energy on Shaper’s Apprentice when he flips, and from there, it almost doesn’t matter what you do. It’s pretty hard to lose at that point. Now, this combo has been errata’ed out of existence, but this combo and others like it dominated the game at serious tournaments while they were still legal, all because they were able to add an obscenely large amount of energy to your Magi.

I’m not suggesting that Sprout adds anywhere close to an unfair amount of energy. In most cases, casting Sprout should net you between two and three energy (I find that on average, players in decent board positions will have roughly four Creatures in play). That’s good enough, and that simple boost can mean the difference between being able to make the big play and losing because you can’t. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve counted up the energy a winning play would require, only to fall short by one or two, but it’s always dispiriting. Sprout can prevent that from happening, and that makes it a pretty decent, if not terribly exciting, card.

The Card in Context:

Two things to note. First, this card is the pits against many Kybar’s Teeth decks. They often don’t have more than two giant Creatures in play, and in situations like that, Sprout isn’t worth the card stock it’s printed on (and of course it gets even worse against Creatureless Cald).

Second, this card is the stone nuts against Bograth. Slam it forcefully from your hand as often as possible.

Other Stuff:

Players to read about on DeckTech:

Matt Loomis

Mike Welling

Jamie Kelly

The Hunt

The Hunt

Energy Cost: 1

All of your Weave Creatures that can attack may attack twice this turn.

The Card Itself:

As with Weave Seed, this card is very, very good. It’s actually better than Weave Seed simply because it only costs one energy for a very big effect.

As with Weave Seed, the list of attackers you want to capitalize on are:

Junjertrug

Vuryip

Seaweed Lascinth

Blade Hyren has a “may” trigger on Great Weave, and while it might not be the best to drain two energy from all your other Creatures with The Hunt, that sure is a big Blade Hyren, even after chomping two opposing Creatures.

The point with this card is that again, you’re controlling the tempo of the game. You can find ways to get an energy advantage through your combat step by making the right attacks, but the point is that your opponent will almost assuredly not be ready to face that many attacks that quickly.  

The Card in Context:

Kolte will maximize the damage you can get from casting The Hunt. Your Creature’s first attack will probably leave it a lot smaller, and then it can just run into something bigger, die, and trigger Kolte’s Parting Shot to deal two extra damage out of nowhere.

Alternatively, Ushi (who I mentioned in conjunction with Weave Seed) is even better with this Spell. Casting The Hunt and using Motivate only costs three energy, for approximately 97,000 damage and free energy in returns.

Other Stuff:

This just in: Aggro Weave is really quite good. Play The Hunt. Play Weave Seed. Play Warrior’s Boots. “Play like you’ve got a pair.”

Weave Mind

Weave Mind

Energy Cost: 1

Defeat your current Magi. You may keep your current Relics and Creatures in play. Reveal your next Magi with his or her starting energy. You may get the new Magi’s starting cards as normal.

Non-Weave Magi may not play this Spell.

  

The Card by Itself:

I’m not going to lie, Weave Mind is an awkward Spell. Any time your own card has the text, “Defeat your current Magi,” things get weird. It seems extraordinarily counterproductive to kill one of your own, but there are some situations where you’d actually want to do this.

If you are in a losing position and the enemy is a savvy player, sometimes he will delay defeating your Magi until he has a truly commanding lead so you can’t kill him with all the resources you’ll have at your disposal when your Magi flips. In a situation like this, Weave Mind allows you to keep precious Relics in play (and maybe a Creature or two) and quickly end the bleeding, denying your opponent time to consolidate his lead. This is the defensive version of Weave Mind.

The other time casting Weave Mind would be good is when you use all your Magi’s energy but one to dump guys onto the board or cast big Spells that wreck your opponent and then immediately flip, get your starting cards and either play more big Spells or sit pretty with a huge pile of energy and a highly defendable board position. This is probably the best way I can think of to transition from a set-up (read: card draw) Magi in slot 1 to a Magi in slot 2 who has a big impact on the game. I consider this play the offensive version of Weave Mind. In both situations, you’re seeking to control the tempo of the game. Any time you do that, you’re winning the psychological game, and in most cases that your opponent feels like he’s losing … he ends up losing.

The Card in Context:

Having Ritual Spear in your Weave deck will allow you to re-buy the Magi you intentionally defeat casting Weave Mind. You know, in case you need your set-up Magi again to draw more cards, or for whatever reason need a specific Magi ability to pull out of a situation. Even though the main reason I can see to use a Magi twice like this is to draw more cards, there’s something to be said for putting a powerhouse Magi first and using them again. Weave can act a little bit like Agram if you play that way.

The other Magi I’d really want to use more than once is Ninx, especially since you have a large amount of control over the energy on your Magi by playing this Communist shell-game. Using Stare Down at unexpected moments can lead to some Magi kills out of nowhere, which is always good.

Other Stuff:

Since you only have three Magi, and if your third is defeated you lose, clearly we don’t want to play three copies of this Spell, just like the Spirit Spells which only activate when your Magi is defeated.

Speaking of the Spirit Spells, unfortunately, Weave Mind cannot unlock Spirit of the Weave, since for the Spirit Spells to activate, your Magi must be defeated on your opponent’s turn (and for those nit-pickers out there, using Bloom to accomplish this feat via a Weave/Paradwyn Magi is just bad. It wants to be cool, but it’s just really bad. You’d be spending four cards and defeating your Magi on an opponent’s turn to activate a relatively small effect.)

Weave Seed

Weave Seed

Energy Cost: 5

Play Weave Seed only before your Attack step. Choose a Weave Creature. Add seven energy to the chosen Creature. That Creature can attack an additional time this turn and must attack if able.

The Card by Itself:

This time, there’s really not too much to say. Yes, this effect is good. Yes, if you plan on attacking at any point (you know, to win the game) you should probably at least strongly consider playing one or two or three of this card. It’s pretty dominating. The only issue with it is that it’s a bit on the expensive side, but the effect is worth spending for. 

Side note, this Spell doesn't really work Creatures that can't attack normally, like Uwamar. You can still add the energy to them, but they don't suddenly get to smash face. Unfortunately. =(

The Card in Context:

A few Creatures and Magi make Weave Seed even spicier. Blade Hyren has an attack trigger, but it’s Blade Hyren. He’s probably big enough already since he’s gobbling up all your other Creatures’ energy. We’ll come back to him when I do The Hunt.

The typical Weave smash-face plan of attacking with Junjertrugs gets better when you use Weave Seed. Junjertrug attacks twice and gains 11 energy all for the cost of five (plus the Junjertrug). That’s six free energy and probably two opposing cards.

Attacking twice with a Vuryip is pretty good too. Random Change will net you two extra cards on your turn, which you then have a Play Creatures and a Powers/Spells/Relics step to play and use. The Vuryip will probably survive, might be at low energy, and then will net you another card if they attack him back.

I think the coolest interaction with Weave Seed is to cast it on a Seaweed Lascinth. You get to keep a whole bunch of energy in play and kill two enemy guys dead.

As far as Magi go, Kesia plays Weave Seed for a measly three energy, giving you four free energy when you cast the Spell instead of just two. The recurring theme there is that Kesia is you know, pretty good. More interesting is Ushi, who can use Motivate to turn all her Creatures with Weave into Junjertrugs, which we already know to be good with Weave Seed. Sure, that combo costs seven energy which is more than her energize, but it’s pretty fun nonetheless.   

Also, if you’re using Rayje in a Weave deck for some reason, his Effect – Charge will help the fatty-boom-boom stay chunky even after battling twice.

Other Stuff:

Flavor Text: “That’s-a one-a spicy weave-a seed!” – Poad, Innkeeper

Really, the biggest strategic decision you need to make when casting Weave Seed is which thing to reference; the 1994 Jim Carey flick “The Mask” or this Alka Seltzer commercial I found on youtube from some time ago.

Weave Winds

Weave Winds

Energy Cost: 6

Choose a Magi. On the chosen Magi’s next turn, if that Magi has any Creatures in play, they may not play non-Weave Creatures.

(Card text subject to errata. See above.)

The Card by Itself:

This card is can win you the game on the spot, so long as you fulfill a list of big “ifs.” The scenario is as follows: you have just defeated an opposing Magi. You still have six (preferably seven) energy on your Magi after doing so. Play Weave Winds. They can now only play one Creature on their Magi’s flip, leaving them totally exposed to beatings and free energy from you on your follow-up.

In most situations during a two-player game however, Weave Winds is essentially a trap, or a very irritating win-more card. If you have a dominant board position, i.e. your opponent has few Creatures in play, this hoses them to some extent. But you were already winning and you just spent six energy to have no permanent effect on the board. If you the board is even close to equal (or worse, your opponent is winning) though, the card just does nothing. It can never dig you out of a hole. For this reason, putting more than one copy in a two-player deck just seems terrible and I recommend against it.

This card was extremely hateful in multiplayer games, and due to it being a whole lot of no fun, 2i saw fit to errata this card so that it only affects one player. You can still use it in multiplayer games, and it may even be better, since it doesn’t draw quite so much aggro from the whole room. You can use the threat of this card as a highly effective bargaining chip to steer players away from attacking you, as not being able to play more Creatures will leave the unfortunate soul bleeding in shark-infested multiplayer waters where mercy can be pretty scarce.

The Card in Context:

If you are running Kesia as your finisher, this card is an absolute beating. Being able to play it for four energy (less than her energize rate) means that she can spam it and leave your opponent unable to play Creatures for several turns. You should then be able to crush your opponent with whatever guys you have in play, especially with all the energy your gaining. One more reason why she’s absolutely insane.

The other Magi who can make special use of Weave Winds are Marella and Ninx. Since Marella can only draw one card per turn due to Vapid, your opponent can quickly out-pace you unless your plays are pretty big and dangerous. With her eight energize, Weave Winds is not too expensive and is a pretty good follow-up to attacking multiple times with a Junjertrug or other Weave fatty.  

Ninx, on the other hand, is even better at using Weave Winds for its most powerful purpose and can also play it using just one energize. She defeats a Magi, plays the Spell, kills the one Creature the opponent can muster using as much of her energy as possible, and uses Stare Down to kill the opposing Magi from basically full health. Conveniently, Weave Winds uses up exactly all of Ninx’s energize so getting her to zero shouldn’t be too much of a problem when your plan is casting this Spell.

The final Weave Magi that bears mentioning in connection with this Spell is Wence the Wanderer. He’s a useful card draw Magi in general, can play Weave Winds using just his energize, and has a way to play it for even less. His Power, Wence Is Here, can manipulate the very top card of your deck. If you see Weave Winds, you can use a Maelstrom Flask to cast the Spell for three energy. A bargain. With the steady stream of Creatures you are hopefully drawing, you should be able to overwhelm or at least make the situation pretty dire for an opponent given even one turn that they can’t add to their defenses.  

Other Magi who can play this with one turn’s energize:

Marella, Savant

Scyalla

Taisa

Tuku has a pretty annoying turn if he combines Weave Winds with his Power, Restrain. This will leave the opponent unable to play non-Universal Relics or Spells, and non-Weave Creatures … so basically all the cards in his hand. This lock will cost though, coming in at nine energy to pull off, so he can’t do this very often.

Other Stuff:

As with all other Weave Spells, you can get Weave Winds back with Weave-woven Anklet, but you can’t control when or if they blow up that Relic, so you can’t really plan around that happening. And, as a Spell, Weave Winds interacts favorably with Universal cards such as Rayje’s Construct and Robes of the Ages.

It bears mentioning that along with Spells such as Drought, Harmony, and Spirit of the Weave, you can lock down opponents decently well. Further, your Spells such as Brushfire, Crushing Growth, and Sawgrass (and possibly Countless Blades) can help you get them to the magic number of one Creature in play.

If you use Binding on the one Creature they do have, that’s just … spiteful.

Sources:

• Bluefurok for the card image.