Highlight - Fog

Today I thought I'd highlight a card that most of you already know and either love or hate. It's one of the few cheap cards in the green arsenal, but it might be one of the most powerful.
Fog prevents all combat damage done during the turn it's played. With the measly cost of one green mana, you have your ultimate shield right there. Legal with all rules, this is the perfect showstopper in any green deck. It can be used either in you opponents turn when he attacks or in your own attack phase, in case the opponent somehow pumps his blockers so your favourite creature would die.

The 5 schools of dealing death

There are five colors and one non-color in MTG, each of them have their own signature tactic to deal damage to the other players. This week I thought I'll tell you a bit about these.

White is what I call an educational deck, and with that I mean that they have a lot of cards that teaches other cards abilities, such as Captain of the Watch that gives all soldier creatures +1/+1 and Vigilance as long as it is in play. White is also the most protective of all decks, using enchantments and abilities to keep their creatures alive as long as possible.

Blue is a controlling color, trying to control the game with things like Counterspell or to control the other player with Telepathy and can even control the other players creatures with Mind Control. A popular tactic to win as blue is through "milling", where you force the other player to discard cards from his/her library until they have no cards left. It has a lot of cards like Archive Trap.

Red is a direct damage type of deck, trying to deal damage directly to the player with the use of sorceries, instants and abilities. Even the creatures often have ways of doing direct damage on the opponent, as with Anaba Shaman. Popular cards in red are Banefire, Chandra's Outrage and Comet Storm.

Green is the brute force kind of deck, using massive creatures boosted by nature to deal raw damage, using abilities like Trample and doesn't care if someone stands in the way. Baloth Woodtrasher is a common "footsoldier" (the kind of creatures you have a lot of in the deck), and it isn't uncommon to see green creatures with a lot of power, often well over 10. To pay for these expensive creatures, green also have the easiest way of finding mana, with cards like Llanowar Elves being the norm in most green decks. Enhanced by cards like Overwhelming Stampede the opponent is soon reduced to a distant memory.

Black has a deevious style, enhanced by death itself. Zombies that doesn't really die, Vampires that leaches life from the opponent and nasty sorceries and instants that kills on sight. Common are the cards that lets you play creatures from your graveyard, such as Aphetto Vulture and cards that leaches life from your opponent or his/her creatures, such as Drain Life. It is not rare to see the player sacrifice from his own life to make his forces stronger, but this is made up for by the power his forces gets from this. A prime example is Carrion Howler that can be boosted several times, if its toughness is increased by another card, but for each boost, you lose 1 life yourself.

Uncolored have been popular lately and are almost always artifacts. These can be a mix of the tactics of all colors, none of them or everything in between, but the thing that makes them unique is that you don't pay any specifik color of mana to play them.

Stuffy Doll - strength and weakness

Yesterday we talked a bit about an eternity loop with Stuffy Doll. Today I thought I'd share some more combos and discuss the cards strength and weaknesses given the rule changes that has come out since the card was released.

This is what the card say:

"As Stuffy Doll enters the battlefield, choose a player.

Stuffy Doll is indestructible.

Whenever Stuffy Doll is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to the chosen player.

: Stuffy Doll deals 1 damage to itself."

 

This means that when you play the card from anywhere (not only your hand), you  get to chose a player (preferably your strongest opponent) and all damage taken by stuffy doll will be removed (in most cases), then Stuffy Doll does that much damage to the chosen player.

However, if the damage was done by a creature with Infect, Stuffy Doll gets -1/-1 counters. It will still deal its damage, but it will die at the end of that combat.

How can we use this to our advantage? Let's say you're playing a black and white deck with Pariah's Shield and Phyresis. You can equip Pariah's Sheild on Stuffy Doll and enchant it with Phyresis and all damage the other player would do to you will be tossed back to him in the form of poison counters instead.

Another powerful combo is Stuffy Doll, Pariah's Shield and Armadillo Cloak to not only throw back the damage, but also gain the damage the opponent would do in life.

Stuffy Doll is weak against infect thou, and with the Pariah or Pariah's Shield combos it will die due to the -1/-1 counters. That's where its tap ability comes in handy.

Skip Pariah and instead enchant it with Guilty Conscience to make a damage loop. Unless your opponent can destroy Guilty Conscience, divert the damage (wich isn't Combat Damage) or in some way get rid of, or tap Stuffy Doll, he will take infinity damage and die if you use Stuffy Dolls tap ability.

 

However, don't rely too much on this, as it will take time to get these combos going. First, you need the mana for all cards, then you need to have the cards in your hand.  In games with more than 2 players it's also an inferior tactic, because Stuffy Doll would be virtually useless once its targeted opponent is dead. There are ways around this, like the blue card Boomerang that lets you pick cards back up, however to rely on it is futile. You would need enough boomerangs to pick all cards in the combo up and you need them in your hand when your primary target is dead.

Another drawback to this tactic is that you would use so much of your deck dedicated to Stuffy Doll that you won't have any defense or offense to speak of.

Four ways to die

Our first look at the game will be from a complete newcomers eye, and I will try to explain how to win or lose the game.
When people ask me "How do you win?", I usualy reply "There's one way to win, but 4 ways to lose".
What do I mean by this? It's simple, really, you win by staying alive the longest. That's the one and only way to win!
But what do you mean with four ways to lose?
I'll try to explain each way as good as I can here.

The first, and most common, way to die is by your life reaching zero.
There are ways around this, such as Platinum Angel that say that you can't lose the game. This would apply to three of the four ways of losing.

The second most common way to die is by getting 10 poison counters.
Since the introduction of Infect, an ability that makes creatures do damage in the form of poison counters on players and -1/-1 counters on creatures, this has been a thing worth waching out for. Again, there are ways around it, but once you get a poison counter, you can't get rid of it, so be careful around these players.

The third way is by being forced to draw a card when your library is empty.
Your library is a ticking timebomb waiting to explode. You can only go so long before you have to draw your last card, after that it is all over and you're instantly killed. The easiest way to stay out of this one is by having cards that lets you shuffle things into your library, such as Feldon's Cane, that lets you shuffle your whole graveyard into your library.

The fourth way is something not many think of, it is extremely rare, but it is possible to end up in a draw.
To have a draw, both players must lose at the exact same time. Priority and the Stack (will be explained in a later post) prevents this from being done most of the time, but you can end up in an Eternity Loop wich prevents anyone from doing anything at all, thus halting the game with no other choice than to end the game right there and then, with no winner declared.
This is something you almost have to do diliberatly and it's hard to do.
An example of an eternity loop is a Stuffy Doll with a Guilty Conscience where Stuffy Doll targets a player that plays Platinum Angel. If Stuffy Doll uses it's tap ability it does 1 damage on itself, witch makes it make 1 damage on the player and Guilty Conscience does 1 damage on Stuffy Doll, that does 1 damage on the player and so on in a loop, until the players life reaches zero, but Platinum Angel prevents the player from dying, thus creating a loop that can only be broken if one of these three cards can be destroyed. If they can't, it's a draw!

Stay tuned, next time we'll talk about another powerful combo with Stuffy Doll!

Welcome to School Of Magic

Welcome to School Of Magic, where we will explain Magic the gathering techniques, tricks and tips to make sure YOU go from newb to pro.

The main aim of SOM is to give you the tools you need to get ready for those tournaments, or to beat your friends, if you're a casual player.

We will explain everything from general rules to specific card tactics, so stay tuned as we dive into the world of Magic the Gathering.