Dollar Menu Dynamite, Part 2

For as long as there have been Magic cards worth more than a buck each, people have had to pick and choose what they spend their hard-earned dosh on. Seeing as it is a collectible card game, however, some cards are more desirable than others, and as a result, those cards are generally going to be worth more than others. As the old adage goes, "you get what you pay for." Now, normally that's true when you're picking between the $25 pair of shoes and the $300 pair of shoes. The game of Magic has so many pieces, however, and all of them inevitably subject to format rotation, that it can be harder for this to remain entirely true. Often powerful cards from the past that have been forgotten writ large can end up being quite cheap, giving you a card that punches above its pay grade!

A couple weeks ago I started a new series called "Dollar Menu Dynamite," introducing you to these kinds of cards that you and your play group might be unfamiliar with, but come with tons of play potential. Powerful though they may be, however, any cards suggested in the article can be purchased for one dollar or less (at the time of writing.) Today I have another ten cards nominated - many of them not even Modern-legal, but all of them sure to make a splash in the casual playgroup.

Layers & Licids

Dominating Licid doesn't work. 

No big surprise, you may say - this kind of esoteric behaviour is basically par for the course for such an obtuse creature type. But really, think about that: you may read the card's oracle text and think you know what it does, but it doesn't actually work.

The reason why is sort of weird, but it boils down to this: the "you control enchanted creature" effect tries to take place before the "this is an enchantment" effect, and the rules say that "enchanted creature" on a card isn't an enchantment doesn't refer to anything. So it winds up being a creature enchantment that does... nothing. All the other licids work, since they provide abilities that are added after the type-changing effect of a licid. That said, everybody is going to play Dominating Licid with the intended effect anyway, whether they know this piece of minutiae or not, and let's be real - the rules manager doesn't feel like figuring out how to reword it since it would be clunky as hell.

Dollar Menu Dynamite

It can be easy to convince yourself nowadays that Magic has become a pay-to-win game. If two players sit down for the average game, victory will inevitably go towards whomever's deck is crammed with the most (purposefully) overpowered mythic rares, right? Well, if the dreaded sligh can upset the tournament scene with its bargain-bin bad boys, there's no reason you can't do the same in your playgroup. While everyone's knocking themselves out trying to get their hands on Hero of Bladehold and Karn Liberated, cards that have long since rotated out of Standard of course drop in price since their demand has plummeted. They may not have any place in organized events, but you can save your hard-earned pennies if you show up to your casual games with some of these underrated gems.

In keeping with a catchy name, all of the cards suggested here can be had for $1 or less (at the time of writing! Maybe my wisdom will pass down and some of these will become hot commodities, who knows.) They may not be the flashiest cards around, but it's hard to get more bang for your buck at a kitchen table game of Magic. I'd buy that for a dollar!

Monogreen Megapermission

You sit behind an unbreakable wall of countermagic. Your opponent eyes his handful of spells, knowing none of them will make it out of the stack. Finally he draws a Combust: well, fat lot of good that will do... all of your cards are green.

Wait, what?

Sound ridiculous? You might think only blue can do megapermission, but thanks to an obscure old sideboard piece and a more recent combo piece, you can counter every single spell your opponent ever plays with nothing but forests.

The trick is comboing the long-forgotten Lifeforce with Painter's Servant. So long as the Servant is out, all spells are black, and Lifeforce lets you counter any black spell for a paltry two mana, even multiple times in one turn. Assemble these two and your opponent will likely never resolve another card for the rest of the (soon-to-be-over) game. I guarantee nobody expects a megapermission lock once they see you play a Forest!


Creatures
4 Arbor Elf
4 Chameleon Colossus
4 Overgrown Battlement
4 Painter's Servant
4 Vine Trellis

Spells
4 Avoid Fate
3 Compost
4 Creeping Mold
2 Desert Twister
4 Lifeforce
1 Vernal Bloom
2 Worldly Tutor

Lands
22 Forest


Vine Trellis and Overgrown Battlement help hold the fort until your combo is assembled, then help feed mana into Lifeforce once you do. Creeping Mold and Desert Twister let you wipe out anything troublesome that was played before you got your lock down, and Chameleon Colossus makes for an easy win once it has Protection from everything.

Avoid Fate is another surprise against decks that seek to blow up one of your combo pieces (it admittedly got much more useful when it was errata'd to counter instants) and Compost can earn you card advantage that will make any blue mage green with envy - note that it counts any card put into a graveyard, even ones not from play, so that includes anything you counter. Worldly Tutor fetches your Servant if you need to set up, or a Colossus if you're primed for the kill.

Standard Issue

 

Standardize? As in make things... Standard? Hey, what other formats could there be a card for?

The Typeless Permanent

Neurok Transmuter seems like a fairly standard idea for cards-that-play-around-with-artifacts that one would expect in the Mirrodin setting. He can turn creatures into artifact creatures, or artifact creatures into nonartifact creatures... that's bound to have some strategic applications here and there. The thing is, that second ability is pretty unique. How often do you see a card that can remove a type from a permanent? Now, again, he can only target creatures - you can't remove the artifact type from your Sky Diamond or whatever - so you'll always be left with a nonartifact creature.

Or will you?

There are a number of artifacts that can temporarily turn into artifact creatures, making themselves valid targets for the Transmuter, but these effects generally end at the end of the turn, the same time the Transmuter's effect stops. There is one weird and classic exception, however:

The humble, pioneering Jade Statue can be turned into a creature only until end of combat, after which it reverts back to being a plain ol' artifact for your postcombat main phase. See where I'm going with this? During the combat phase, you can animate Jade Statue, then target it with Neurok Transmuter, turning it into a blue creature. Then, after combat ends, it stops being a creature... but wait, it also stopped being an artifact! So what is it? For the rest of the turn, you are the proud owner of a (blue) permanent that has no types. It's not an artifact, it's not a creature, it's... just there. Amusingly, being typeless makes it surprisingly resilient to removal - basically nothing short of Vindicate or Apocalypse can take out a typeless permanent.

Since we've already noted the abusiveness March of the Machines allows for twice in recent memory, I might as well point it out here as well: this headache-inducing enchantment likewise pairs with the Neurok Transmuter to produce typeless permanents. In order for March of the Machines to turn something into a creature, it must be an artifact in the first place. So if it turns an artifact into a creature, then the Transmuter makes it no longer an artifact for the turn, then the March will no longer make it a creature. You see? Typeless permanents on demand! Throw in Moonlace and they can be colorless as well as typeless. What you can actually do with these no-type wonders is up to you to figure out.

You Can't Handle The Truth

Liar's Pendulum looks like a gimmicky draw engine that trades a cheap cost (both to play and activate) for an unreliable return on your investment. I mean, it's not the most reliable way to double your resources, earning what should be a 50/50 chance of drawing another card each turn, but sometimes that's not what it's all about. This is a very interactive; very fun card.

Let's say you're holding a counterspell in hand and name it. If your opponent guesses no, you can either take the extra card OR just refuse to show your hand and skip the extra draw. At this point your opponent should probably assume you aren't holding a counterspell and play accordingly, allowing you to stop whatever key card he's been sitting on for fear of countermagic. If he guesses yes, however, you can show him your hand and force him to try and play around it (and remember, you might draw a second counterspell before he makes his move) or simply refuse to show it and see if he calls your bluff. Either way is a plus for you, and either way you're playing another game within the game.

Liar's Pendulum isn't a rock steady card engine like Jayemdae Tome, but it's instead designed to let you bluff your opponent into playing based on what he thinks is in your hand - a key component of many control decks, but in this case you can actively influence it. If you score extra cards, that is great, but even if you don't, you still come out okay. Just remember that the Pendulum says you MAY reveal your hand - if you think you're better off keeping information to yourself, you don't have to.

Changelings up in this

Mistform Ultimus is all of the following:

A Giant Dwarf

A Pirate Ninja

A Turtle Rabbit

An Angel Devil

An Insect Anteater

A Deserter Coward

An Elephant Rat

A Crocodile Eye

A Horror Reflection

A Weird Licid

A Berserker Slug

A Serf Citizen

A Dryad Pincher

An Egg Orb

A Carrier Survivor

A Troll Goat

A Treefolk Splinter

A Human Bat

An Elk Caribou

A Satyr Centaur

A Whale Assassin

A Demon Squirrel

An Efreet Djinn

An Elf Orc

A Kirin Lammasu

A Manticore Masticore

A Tetravite Pentavite Triskelavite

An Ox Aurochs

A Hippo Griffin Hippogriff

A Gremlin Imp

A Pegasus Unicorn

A Hag Fish

A Spirit Dragon

An Egg Bringer

A Wall Spawn

A Rhino Oyster

A Juggernaut Advisor

A Basilisk Cockatrice Gorgon

A Mutant Wolverine Beast Rogue Cyclops Phoenix Angel

A Wizard Cleric Rogue Warrior Monk Barbarian Druid

A Prism Reflection Illusion

A Cat Bat Rat Wombat Bureaucrat

A Lurker Berserker Assembly Worker

A Minor Mutant Ninja Turtle

A Bat Bear Boar Beast Bird