Adventures in writing…
Before we get to the meat and bones of the piece, how do you determine whether or not your article has been successful or not? Well before you do that, I think you need to define what ‘successful’ actually means in terms of the articles we read and write. As far as I can see it, a successful article will be read by a lot of people and will, in turn, inspire thought and debate. So how do we figure out if a piece of writing has filled the aforementioned criteria? On a site such as Twincast, there’s really only one way to take measure of this – the forums. This isn’t a cut-and-dry thing but I reckon, the better articles will inspire people to post their opinions on what they have read. There are exceptions to the rule (if you haven’t already, go and read Ollie’s article ‘Shifting into High Gear’ – fantastic stuff) but what it boils down to, in the most simplistic of explanations is ‘good writing’ = ‘more forum posts’.
Now my last article, ‘Magic The Ramblings’, was posted on Saturday. Since then, as I write this on the Wednesday, it has received exactly zero posts. Zero. Nil. Nada. Nowt. Hmmm. Do I take this personally? Absolutely. Do I blame you guys? Nope. ‘Ramblings’ was an attempt at something a wee bit different. I was trying to write something along the lines of William Spaniel’s ‘MM’ columns on brainburst.com. Hell, I had even considered that it might be part 1 of an ongoing thing. All my writing before that had been on one-off topics and the idea of writing a weekly column appeals to me. And, at the end of the day, God forbid I actually win the writing competition, I’ll need to be firing some kind of prose at Tony every week for three months.
Why did the article fail to inspire you guys then? Maybe it was aimed at the wrong audience? It was a wee bit more off-beat and less specific than anything I’d written before. Maybe it would have appealed to a more casual reader base? We’ve determined over the last few weeks that the average Twincast reader is fairly Spike-ish.
I could go on but here’s what it comes down to – it was a bad article. The article was disjointed and the writing wasn’t up to the standard of previous pieces I had written. From reading it back I think it failed to grab the reader in any discernable way. It tried to cover too much ground a lot of which was either irrelevant or not covered in enough detail as to warrant any healthy discussion. I don’t blame you, the reader, in any way. And I don’t look at it necessarily as a completely negative experience. I am, like many other writers on the site, at the very beginning of my writing career and I don’t believe you learn anything without making a few mistakes on the way.
So, in short, I hope it wasn’t too painful an experience for you, and either way I apologise. I can’t promise I’m not going to make any slip ups in the future but I can tell you that this has been quite cathartic and I am learning with each piece I write.
Of course, you have to wonder how clever it is to start an article with five hundred words saying not very much…
Dave’s Planar Chaos Top 10
And now for some actual content! Here’s my pick for the best 10 cards in Planar Chaos. Some things to keep in mind… It’s in reverse order. Don’t go rushing to the end to see what I have in top place first. This is totally based on my opinion and my definition of ‘best’ is loose at best. If you want to know about card application in Limited, read Chris’ excellent series of articles. Ollie has had a good stab at how the new set of white cards will affect Standard. My list is an overall thing. I’m encompassing Limited, Standard, cool-ness, the ‘feel’ of the card, my gut, how it might play in multiplayer… I could go on but needless to say this rundown isn’t coming from an authoritative perspective and therefore shouldn’t be treated as a definitive list. The set isn’t even out yet so a lot of this will come down to instinct. Everyone’s list will be different because we are all different players. I will, however, give you a summary of why the card is in the list and why it appears where it does.
10 – Big Game Hunter
What’s not to like? If the rumours are true, this card was printed as a tribute to Steve Irwin. He’s a pretty fitting tribute imo. As a three drop, he kills your opponent’s bomb. If you have a rebel chain going on, he does the same job at instant speed. And there’s the very important ‘can’t be regenerated’ clause on the end there. We haven’t even started considering the possibilities when you combine him with the likes of Lightning Axe or Urborg Syphon Mage. Will he see play in Limited? Definitely. In the right deck, this guy is a house. Constructed? I’d like to think so. However, being realistic, he probably isn’t quite good enough. Either way, this card drips with flavour, the artwork is great and he’s an all-round hit with me.
9 – Dreamscape Artist
Harrow? On a stick? In blue? I’ve played with this guy a few times now and I can’t get over just how good he is. I was fortunate enough to have two of these in my pre-release pool and they allowed me to run a very nice BWr deck with only 16 lands. Yes, he dies quite easily. The thing about this card though is your opponent has to deal with him. In Limited, if your opponent lets you activate this guy twice, I think 8 or 9 times out of 10, they go on to lose the game. Sure, he isn’t hard to kill but they do need to kill him. If I can activate this guy once before he sucks up some form of removal then I’m happy. The fact that he’s in blue, a colour which isn’t exactly bursting with mana-fixing options is the cherry on top of a very large and tasty cake. Constructed playable? What makes him so great in Limited – his colour – will be his weakness in the 60 card format. If a tier 1 madness deck does come around it will almost certainly be RB making this guy a bit redundant.
8 – Mana Tithe
White countermagic? Well if counters were ever to move from blue, I think white would be the most logical choice. There’s something about cards like Dash Hopes and Avoid Fate which just doesn’t feel right to me. Tithe is a wee bit different to the last two cards in that I don’t see her having too much impact on Limited. I think it’s probably a really good board card but on turn 15 in a really tight game, this ain’t the card you’re going to want to rip off the top. For that reason, she won’t be in good players’ main decks. In Standard however, this guy is da bomb. The average curve is that much tighter and you should be looking to spend every mana, every turn. In something like Boros, staving off that turn 4 Wrath will often make the difference between a win and a defeat. I still keep thinking there might be a very good MWC decklist out there somewhere….
7 – Calciderm
Ok, before I start, no, he’s not as good as his red brethren. I’m not going to suggest he is and his inclusion in the list at a relatively lowly 7th, backs this up. This does not change the fact that Calciderm will be making waves in a lot of different formats. In Limited he’s potentially game-breaking. Sure, Damnation kills him but then Damnation kills the world without too many problems anyway. In Standard he finds a slot in pretty much any white aggro deck. It’s so good that there are versions of BDW who have revised the top end of there curve to 4 to squeeze this guy in. And remember, even though he is untargetable, he can still be ‘rescued’ by the likes of Whitemane Lions (the ‘rescue’ ability does not target the creature returning to hand).
6 - Wild Pair
Yes, you did read correctly, Wild Pair. This card is broken. I’ve yet to figure out just how broken she is but this card is definitely busted. imo, once she finds the right deck (and this card will find a home), this card may prove to be the new Tooth and Nail. Watchwolf into Jolrael or Serra Avenger? Kird Ape into Giant Solifuge? In Extended… Kamagawa Dragon into Kamagawa Dragon? These are all off the top of my head. There’s a deck out there somewhere. And look at the artwork! Krosan Tusker and Verdeloth kicking bootay! Maybe she won’t be as good as I foresee but in a worst case scenario she’s still going to be a fun card to throw down. And if this was a multiplayer top 10, I think this might find its way to the top of my list. Until she finds her home, she’s going to be sat in the £1 rare bin. Grab a playset now while she’s cheap.
5 – Timbermare
A one turn Glare on a rather big beatstick. when you are swinging. Or completely nullify your opponent’s alpha strike in his turn and leave him wide open for the swing back. This guy is so good in so many ways. He’s well costed, he turns a dire position into a stunning victory, and he fits straight into any green agro deck. I fully expect Timbermare to be slotted straight into MGA once it becomes legal at the end of the week. This card may be the one that lifts MGA from tier 2 to tier 1. And with likes of Groundbreaker and Harmonize, the toughest choice a green mage has to make these days is what to cut to get that deck down to 60 cards. And in triple TS, I don’t think there was any argument that Green was the weakest colour but PC has given the colour the boost the colour needed and deserved.
4 - Whitemane Lion
As you will see from the rest of my list, my shout for the best common in Planar Chaos. I could wax lyrical about this guy all the day long. People have had to completely revise the way they think about combat in TS block Limited due to this one bear. This guy turns one for ones into essentially three for ones. He combos with the world (Mangara, Groundbreaker, Calciderm, anything with a comes-into-play ability…) and yet he still comes packaged as a Grizzly. All the rescue creatures are superb but this one is by far the most flexible and will see the most play. Even the artwork blows me away. Whitemane Lion is the Sac Elder of TS block and he will have as much impact on Standard.
3 – Harmonize
This card in blue would see muchos play in today’s Standard. In green, it takes the slot of best uncommon in Planar Chaos, and indeed, 3rd slot overall. Green seems to have got a lot of good stuff in PC and this is the top of the tree. It fits into any kind of aggro strategy – Boros deck runs out of cards quickly but packs enough burn that it can topdeck its way to victory. Green doesn’t have that option to the same degree and most of it’s ‘burn’ comes in the form of creatures such as Uktabi Drake, Groundbreaker and Giant Solifuge. Harmonize gets some cards back in the grip to get you nearer to that winning post. Control deck need cards in the fist and there will be a lot of GX control decks coming to the fore when PC rotates in. Except this time you don’t have to go with blue as a partner. I think UB will find itself as the most powerful colour combination in the next few weeks in Standard but GW variations, both control and aggro builds, will be close on it’s heels. And Harmonize will be an automatic four-of in the 75 cards that make up either variant.
2 – Damnation
dum-dum-DUM! Damnation only takes second slot? Well, let’s look at her in more detail. There is no denying the power of this card – if you’ve followed my writing and my posts on the forums you will know my reservations. Not because it’s not good enough (lol) but because she is too damned good to the potential detriment of white. What pushes her down to second is that my fears that eight WoGs would be running all over Standard are unfounded. The best players have not needed eight Wraths during the history of the game up until now and nothing from the current block looks set to change that. Sure, a black WoG will always be better than a white one due to being in a technically better colour but, so far, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be as painful experience as I was worried about. And since Flare and the Ghost Dad / Husk variants have died away BW decklists seem to be in decline. Is it just me or does BW seem a lot less synergistic that it did in Ravnica? This may be deliberate to try and keep people playing all eight, as I’ve already stated, I don’t think the best players would consider eight slots necessary anyway. Amazing card but the number one slot goes to…
1 – Extirpate
Extirpate takes my number one slot as the best card to be printed in Planar Chaos. If this card had been printed at BBB without Split Second, I reckon it would still find a slot in most people’s top 10 list. I keep reading it and I keep thinking there must be some kind of mistake. The fact that it sites in the same colour as Blackmail, Brain Pry, Hypnotic Spectre, Stupor and Persecute to name just a few terrifies me. And we haven’t even considered the Extended card pool yet. But why have I slotted this card over the ubiquitous Damnation? It’s fairly simple. imo, Extirpate will have a much bigger impact on the game we all know and love, over all formats, than Damnation. Every colour has a good patch once in a while. Who’s to say that Lorwyn won’t have super powerful white making Wrath of God functionally more powerful than Damnation? Extirpate will always be a massively powerful card no matter what comes after it and what happens to the colour pie and what is considered in vogue at the time.
Phew. Now there are many cards I haven’t mentioned in the list which deserve honourable mentions – guys like Mire Boa, Shaper Parasite and Akroma. My list isn’t necessarily meant to be the top 10 best cards in terms of absolute power (although even if it were, positions 1, 2 and 3 wouldn’t change). My list is personal to me and therefore takes into account all the intangibles which are very hard to communicate to you, the reader, in written word. As always, if you enjoyed the read and / or have any opinions on what I’ve written (I hope you do this time J) let me know what you think in the forums. Hopefully I’ll see you there.
-Flame on-
Dave
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