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?

Card in Review - Liquimetal Coating

Colour pie got you down? Sure, we all have our favourite colours in Magic, but they all have their shortcomings. Green can't flat-out destroy creatures, black can't remove artifacts, red is helpless against enchantments... or perhaps not. There is now a way for red to get at any enchantment that displeases it, as well as any other type of permanent, including creatures and planeswalkers, without needing to fling so much as a single point of damage. Sounds ridiculous? You would do well to remember that it's not only red cards that can be played in a mono-red deck: artifacts can always come along for the ride as well.

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.

Copper-plated Frogmite

A few years ago, while Mirrodin block was still in vogue, I was going through a 10-cent bin. Along the way I found... a Frogmite.

A very special Frogmite.



A goddamn copper-plated Frogmite.

So what's the story? Maybe some guy was sitting around at a Mirrodin draft, bored out of his skull as he waited, and decided to pimp out his Froggie. A copper gel pen, a solid common and too much time ended up as this. So yes, after decking out his mechanical frog with what should be at least a visual +0/+1 bonus, he stuffed it back into the bins. Now, it serves as the general of the 4 Frogmites in my Affinity deck - Hell, if I get a gold and a silver gel pen, I could have an entire heirachy of them.

I think we're on to something.