Safety First

We often talk about games here, and it's important in any recreational activity to observe a proper degree of safety. For cycling, that means wearing a helmet. For rock climbing, having a partner and a well-maintained harness. For boating, a lifejacket and maybe a signal flare. Now I know what you're all thinking: what safety equipment is required for massacres...?

Er... also a helmet!

Sometimes I can't figure out my fellow man. Who was this guy who happened to have a sticker of a bicycle helmet? Did he go through the bins looking for a picture it would fit on? Or did he make up his mind to stick it to a copy of Massacre, regardless of whether it would be a good match, and found the results pleasing? Or - just maybe - did he custom-make the sticker expressly for this purpose?

And at the end of it all, why play catch and release? Wouldn't you be proud for your efforts after so painstakingly looking for the card that would accommodate your sticker? Only Crovax's hairdresser knows for sure.

Card in Review - Haakon, Stromgald Scourge

While throwing creatures at your opponent's face is a good time, nothing's more frustrating than having them killed off. Between blockers, kill spells and you occasionally being forced to chump-block, it's not often a critter can stick to the board for long. So rather than try to fight the inevitable, why not embrace it? If they die, so be it - bring them back as many times as you need!

Sounds a little lofty, doesn't it? We can't all be Nether Spirit. Well, so long as you don't mind cavalry charges, you can play all of your creatures from your graveyard just as easily as from your hand - while your crucial card is in play, that is. If you're picturing some mana-hungry behemoth like Debtors' Knell or Sheoldred, worry not. All you need is 3 paltry mana and a little creative deckbuilding, and the Dead Men of Dunharrow will be yours to command!

Doomed to Repeat It Repeat It

Ahh, Ixalan! A fresh new set on a brand new plane. New frontier, new horizons, all new experience to be had and a new world to be conquered.

Pirates in red! Merfolk in green! Vampires in white! Dinosaurs in something other than the junk bin! Yessir, it's a whole new take on everything you once knew. New abilities, new mechanics...

...and the same old mistakes.

Ability Salad

Deep down inside, we're all a little bit of a Timmy.

Protest all you want, but we all shared in that special joy when Akroma, Angel of Wrath was first printed. It was really a precedent set by Spirit of the Night, and other creatures such as Sphinx of the Steel Wind followed in their footsteps - simpletons that we are, we love creatures that are a big stack of abilities.

Of course, having a creature that fearsome in combat and that hard to kill necessitates something of an exorbitant mana cost, and it's unlikely to see play outside of reanimation effects - in which case you might be better off with something truly oppressive, like Iona. So how do we accomplish something similar?

Well, there are a number of "Akroma lite" creatures, with a decent handful of abilities on a smaller body for a commensurately smaller cost. Kjeldoran Skyknight, Vampire Nighthawk, and the more recent Aerial Responder all have three helpful combat abilities but won't set you back more than three mana for your trouble. Pumping one of said creatures up will leave you with a fearsome combatant, but is three abilities really enough? That's only a starting point, if you ask me!

Thankfully, throughout Magic's history there have been a number of cards that allow you to pile abilities from multiple sources onto a single creature, letting several Akroma lite-types Voltron together into a truly fearsome foe - or better yet, all share in the glory of each other's tasty keywords. With the reveal of the most recent member of this exclusive club, the Majestic Myriarch, here then is a chart detailing the various cards that let you combine abilities as well as which ones they have access to.

Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Game

Phasing's back??

It's back!

Not having exactly had a stellar record as far as being a drawback, this newest offering instead focuses on one of phasing's better aspects: as a defensive maneuver! Teferi's Protection phases out all of your permanents, keeping them safe and sound from any removal imaginable, while likewise enchanting you with Progenitus's Embrace so nobody can lay a finger on you while your stuff isn't there to protect you. In essence, YOU phase out as well.

Now, being able to skip out on things for a turn is nice, but it's a shame how all good things must come to an end. You really want to play it safe? Just opt out of the game!

Enter the rather unique Lethal Vapors, which allows you to skip as many turns as you please. Remember the infuriating Chronatog and Stasis lock from way back when? Same idea, but it's arguably an even harder lock to break. Simply activate Lethal Vapors's ability right after you play it, then without passing priority, activate it again in response to the last activation an arbitrarily large number of times. The destroying of Lethal Vapors is part of the effect, not the cost, so you can stack as many time skips as you could possibly want this way. Having skipped your next 500-odd turns, play Teferi's Protection. You have Protection from everything until your next turn, which remember, is not going to be for a very long time. You can now sit back and watch.

At this point your opponent will play out the rest of the game with an opponent whom he can't damage, target, or generally affect in any way. Probably most players will concede at this point rather than face a slow death by decking. Especially interesting, however, is if you pull this in a multiplayer game - it's functionally the same as being the guy kicked out first, except after everyone else is done slugging it out, you're still declared the winner no matter what. This could be a cruel bit of fun if you're in the mood to play on your 3DS but still win a big Magic game while you're at it. Heck, you could go play another Magic game while silently winning that first one!

Important note: if your opponent is wise to what you're about to do, he can unfortunately answer every turn-skip you activate with one of his own. That's where our friend Grand Abolisher comes in, preventing anyone but you from activating the Vapors the turn you play it! Another alternative is Claws of Gix - since you always gain priority right after adding something to the stack, you can immediately follow up your 500 turn-skips by sacrificing the Vapors. Seeing as the sacrifice is the activation cost on Claws of Gix, nobody can respond to that either! Who knew not playing Magic could be so much fun?

Card in Review - Spy Kit

Sometimes you see an open-ended card designed to be played with... but with no set goal in mind. As we saw previously, Enchanted Evening has a million potential little synergies with anything that even remotely looks at enchantments. Sun Titan's list of demands are pretty modest at "must be a permanent and 3 or less mana." Other times, however, there's a card that will only work with very... particular synergies in mind.

The Punchline is Odd Flavour Moments

A jellyfish, a skyship and a shard of broken glass walk into a bar.

The bartender, being a planeswalker on the side, requests that the jellyfish pilot the skyship for his amusement. The jellyfish replies "Hey, don't look at me. I'm just a jellyfish. I have no idea how to drive that thing."
The bartender nods, seeming disappointed. Then, after a moment's deliberation, he hands the jellyfish the shard of broken glass.
"Thanks," replies the jellyfish, wielding it expertly. "In fact, you know what, I think that I can pilot that ship... so long as I have this, anyway." Immediately, it climbs into the flagship and starts its engine. Reaching in after it, the bartender takes the shard of broken glass back.
"Keep it," replies the jellyfish. "Now that this baby's started I'm sure I can still pilot this thing."
The bartender then gives the shard of broken glass to the ship itself, which also wields it expertly. Taping the shard of glass to the hull of the titanic, flying, magic-shooting skyship improves its firepower by over 15%. The bartender is so amused by the absurdity of the situation that he doubles over in laughter, but in doing so he accidentally releases an errant bolt of lightning, killing the jellyfish pilot immediately.
"Worry not," says the ghost of the jellyfish's now-cooling corpse. "When I set my mind to something I'm gonna do it, and not even death will stop me. I'll pilot this here ship one final time from beyond the grave if I have to." The flagship then takes off, to the bartender's immense satisfaction.

Having watched the entire exchange from across the room, a mindless null shambles up to the bar. "Hey," says the mindless null, being completely mindless and having zero capacity for thought, speech or purposeful action. "That was quite the sight. Listen, I'm an aspiring pilot myself, but I see you're fresh out of shards of broken glass. Is there any way you can help me pilot that giant skyship once the dead jellyfish brings it back?"

Without a word, the bartender takes out a chariot.

Does Not Compute

Mark Rosewater has done some positive things for the game of Magic, but I have trouble believing he's done many of them. Why, you ask? Because he keeps pointing to the same tiny handful of decisions time and time again!

Card in Review - Necrotic Ooze

Since at least the days of Weatherlight, seeing an opponent dumping creatures into his graveyard en masse is reasonable cause for alarm. Most likely, you have to worry about some or all of those creatures being brought into play, often circumventing their mana costs along the way. But what happens if reanimation isn't the plan? What if the graveyard is exactly where they're intended to stay, and you in fact have to worry about something more fearsome than any or all of the creatures there... because it's in fact all of them at once?

Gundam: the Gathering

As stated in this article, the giant mechs from Invasion were Mark's second-most hated inclusion in Magic.

Those are some pretty harsh words. Hated them on a conceptual level more than everything else except guns! You can be sure to never see giant robots in any set Mark's at the helm of.

MVG (Most Vertical Goblin)

The recent printing of Goblin Freerunner made me realize something: ever notice that goblins have the extreme sports aspect of Magic on lockdown? Skiing, bobsledding, snowboarding, even parasailing... the rest of Dominaria's gotta step it up!

When is a goblin not a goblin?
When you tie it to a rock sled and push it
down a mountain, apparently.

Thus, we have collected the most foolhardy and adventurous little green guys from Skirk Ridge to Kuldotha, Akki and Mogg alike. The First Goblin Olympics covers all sorts of dangerous events, and even has a Torchrunner on loan from the Frogtosser Games. Let the mayhem commence!

Creatures
4 Fire Juggler
4 Goblin Bowling Team
4 Goblin Freerunner
4 Goblin Glider
4 Goblin Rimerunner
4 Goblin Rock Sled
4 Goblin Ski Patrol
4 Goblin Sledder
2 Mudbutton Torchrunner
4 Oxidda Daredevil

Lands
1 Arena
21 Snow-Covered Mountain

Card in Review - Enchanted Evening

Did you know Urza's block was supposed to be "the enchantment block"? It's true. Between Tolarian Academy, Metal Worker, Copper Gnomes and the like, everyone had artifice on the mind. But think about Replenish, Opalescence, the various "song" enchantments, the veiled creatures... they had certainly put in the work, we just all missed it. Apparently to get the enchantment theme across, you really have to hit a Magic player over the head with it. So what better way to make sure it's completely clear than by making everything an enchantment?