Magic: The Slaughtering

If you play Magic: The Gathering, you may have noticed that the new rules provided in the intro decks allow for things like creature healing which confuse older Magic players but nonetheless intrigue them. Most notably in my newest three decks, one based on the Kor Armory Intro Deck and two from the Phyrexia Vs. The Coalition Duel Decks - I've noticed a drastic change in my gameplay. The most important part being, the new rules allow me to actually win.

Beforehand I would get my creatures wiped out and not healed - which put me at a disadvantage when playing against older decks like Saviours of Kamigawa in casual play. Now my Kor deck has two Serra Angels (one taken from an older deck but it's pretty much the exact same card, legal in casual play and probably in extended too) - I've got two big creatures other than Caravan Hurda at my disposal. The artifacts are the cruelest part of the deck - because some of my decks don't have many "discard target permanent" sorcery or whatever cards - those artifacts stay in play after the creature has been killed so another can grab hold of it. What results is no mere battle - it's a massacre - especially when your opponent has mana screw.

Some people think the Kor Armory Intro Deck isn't all that - but make no mistake it contains some hardcore cards which with the right pulls from boosters makes a hell of a White Mono deck. Because I play casual and buy lots of decks every few months to boost up the selection of decks my friends can be lent to battle with me - I tend to buy about eight boosters every three months. I don't throw away or sell leftover cards - what I do is, I look up what another Intro Deck contains that might work well with the leftover cards - and often I get lucky - no Mythic Rares or Planeswalkers yet, but I get a lot of normal rares which really impact gameplay. I haven't got the Rise of the Vampires Zendikar Intro Deck yet, but I plan to - because the leftover black cards from my boosters could really help it out.

But aside from the current block of Magic cards which I enjoy - playing the Duel Decks can be fun too - mostly because the Duel Decks if you get the right ones come with some Legendary Creatures that are both powerful and add a feel of epicity (epicness, in short) to a game. One of the most recent ones is the Phyrexia Vs. The Coalition Duel Deck, which comes with so many powerful cards that you'd think you'd only be able to play them against each other - but you'd be wrong. Here's why.

Both decks, if subjected to mana screw or a tide of small creatures with low mana costs - will suffer an attack at their weak point for massive damage. Both Phyrexia and The Coalition have strengths and weaknesses - and because of these strengths and weaknesses it's equally likely that both decks could defeat the other - and with the right cards even a current Standard deck could beat both. I found myself equally losing as much as I was playing The Coalition as I was playing as Phyrexia because Phyrexia sometimes has abilities which cost life points, whereas the Coalition equally suffers because if Phyrexia discards or kills with special abilities all your Legendary Dragons - unless they get mana screw soon you're just as screwed as they would be.

Phyrexia Vs. The Coalition seems unbalanced at first but both require distinct strategy and knowledge of what both decks contain for assured victory. I'd never played with either of these decks before today, and as a result even though I won the Zendikar Allies Vs. Kor game with sneaky tactics of equipment and Mono Deck Mana maneuvers = Phyrexia Vs. The Coalition is a much tougher epic battle to win. Maybe it wouldn't have been in the days of the Urza block when the rules were different, but now Magic: The Gathering as a game is more focused on straightforward but tactical strategy that is adaptable to what are now rules that are much easier to understand. This makes it much more friendly towards strategy rather than "My dragon is bigger than yours". Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Don't count your mana till the turn is done. That's the way Magic works now, and as a result of the rules changes I think I'm starting to like it even more than I did.