Come Hide With me, Let's Hide, Let's Hideaway

“You may play the removed card without paying its mana cost if you attacked with three or more creatures this turn.” Windbrisk Heights is MASSIVE in Standard these days; usually it means GG when activated. But what about the other Hideaway lands? They aren't so easily activated; Windbrisk Heights can be activated with a simple Spectral Procession.

After your opponent attacks with the Spirit tokens, you don't know what to do: do you take the three, do you block some of them, or do you block them all? Almost every option has dire consequences, as you can lose either creatures or life to any number of spells; Overrun, Glorious Anthem and Zealous Persecution are just a few examples. The other lands are a lot more difficult to activate, and can therefore only be used in certain decks.

Shelldock Isle is near-impossible to activate without either a draw deck or a milling deck. If you are playing this land in Standard, build a milling deck around it; Sanity Grinding, Jace Beleron and Isleback Spawn are all key milling cards, and are all legal in Standard. Combined with a bit of Black for creature removal and access to cards like Mind Funeral and Nemesis of Reason, and you've got a very workable deck. Just watch out for White Weenies; that is a very bad match-up for a deck like this, but not an unwinnable one.

Howltooth Hollow hearkens back to the days of Dissension, when the Red-Black Rakdos Guild showcased the Hellbent ability, which activated if you had know cards in hand. Of course, while this may have been the key to your deck, other players would consider it to be a drawback, especially in the early game. The Rakdos Guild capitalises on this by emptying both your opponents and your hand simultaneously; therefore, the Hollow will be able to be activated in the early game when used in a deck like this. Flip a Hollowborn Bargherst with it, and your opponent will be easily tempted to clear his cards of the table right there and then. Perhaps this will be your next Extended deck? Just watch out for a mirror match-up.

Spinerock Knoll is perhaps the easiest to activate after the Heights; it works in Burn and Zoo decks, that can rack up the damage quite easily. In a mono-red deck, however, it can be quite hard, as red's large array of 1-toughness creatures aren't expected to last very long! It works well in Block format, as part of a combo: rack up the 8 lands, play Soulbright Flamekin, Ceaseless Searblades and Flamekin Brawler, then next turn, activate SF three times. You could reveal any number of cards: Incandescent Soulstoke comes to the front of my mind. The best bit? You can dish out another dose of Trample-y goodness to your opponent next turn, and even activate another Knoll if necessary.

Last, but certainly not least, the third-hardest to activate: Mosswort Bridge. This won't be one that will get activated early on in the game; include this in a mono-green deck for a late-game one-turn kill with something like Overrun. The thing that puzzles me is that the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block doesn't really have a place for this card: there aren't any decks, or cards, that come out of those sets that focus on building up an army of massive creatures. Only in Shard's of Alara block's Naya decks will this card really be useful. But do you really want to win that easily? No, because it's boring, and we don't play to be bored, now do we children? Ahem. The only way you're going to activate the bridge in a Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block deck is by building up an army of green Elf tokens, and we all know that Elves, even when they are more complex, are still very, very simple, don't we?

So yes, the point. Windbrisk Heights is definitely the best Hideaway land (ok, the best land period) in Standard right now, but the others are (mostly) very workable. It is not hard to activate a Knoll or a Bridge in Standard, and the Hollow really shines in Extended. Shelldock Isle is made for a specific deck type, one which was not explored very much in its block, but cards from the Alara block make a deck built around it very worthwhile. I'll leave you with something to ponder: since Windbrisk Heights is so easy to activate, and its at the top of Standard at the moment, does that mean that the Magic game is been dumbed down as of late, to accommodate for the younger generation? Hey, it happened to PC gaming.

On the hunt for free Podcast music

If you know a good place to get music under a Creative Commons licence, please leave a comment or e-mail me at douglastilden at ymail dot com. I'm searching for music to play throughout the Podcast, either as a break or during the opening sequence.

Topic for Episode 3

Episode 3 will cover the most recent MTG events, the Alara Reborn Prerelease, Release and the Regionals, and guests will also be invited to share their opinions of Alara Reborn. If you would like to appear on the Podcast to discuss one or more of these topics, just kollow the directions on the left-hand side of this page.

Which is the best colour, I wonder?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? I certainly have. So, when I acquired 800 Lorwyn commons (between 2-12 of each one), I decided to find out. I built five forty-card, single-colour decks using only coloured Lorwyn commons and basic lands, then pitted them against each other in a Star game. Here are the decklists:

White

Lands – 14 cards
14 Plains

Creatures – 16 cards
4 Cenn's Heir
2 Goldmeadow Dodger
2 Goldmeadow Harrier
2 Kinsbaile Ballonist
4 Plover Knights
2 Springjack Knight

Other Spells – 10 cards
2 Neck Snap
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Surge of Thoughtweft
2 Triclopean Sight

Blue

Lands – 14 cards
14 Island

Creatures – 16 cards
4 Aethersnipe
4 Inkfathom Divers
2 Mulldrifter
4 Pestermite
2 Sentinels of Glen Endra

Other Spells – 10 cards
2 Aquitect's Will
4 Faerie Trickery
2 Glimmerdust Nap
2 Ponder

Black

Lands – 14 cards
14 Swamp

Creatures – 16 cards
2 Bog Hoodlums
4 Moonglove Winnower
4 Mournwhelk
4 Nightshade Stinger
2 Spiderwig Boggart

Other Spells – 10 cards
2 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Foodbottom Feast
2 Nameless Inversion
4 Weed Strangle

Red

Lands – 14 cards
14 Mountain

Creatures – 14 cards
4 Flamekin Brawler
4 Inner-Flame Acolyte
4 Mudbutton Torchrunner
2 Soulbright Flamekin

Other Spells – 12 cards
4 Lash Out
4 Needle Drop
4 Tarfire

Green

Land – 14 cards
14 Forest

Creatures – 22 cards
4 Battlewand Oak
4 Cloudcrown Oak
4 Kithkin Daggerdare
4 Leaf Glider
4 Oakgnarl Warrior
2 Woodland Changeling

Other Spells – 4 cards
2 Fertile Ground
2 Fistful of Force

As you can see, they're all fairly standard decks. Green has creature advantage, with a few more mana sources and boosters. Red capitalises on burn spells, while playing fast, cheap creatures. Black kills creatures, while playing a near-endless amount of creatures. Both blue and white control the board, but white focuses more on creature power; Kithkin is the only creature type in the deck. They all have an equal chance of winning, or do they? There was only one way to find out: play.

As I was writing down every move, there was only time for a single game. Here are the life totals throughout the game:

White: 20, 19, 18, 16, 15, 13, 12, 11, 5, 4, 2 |
Blue: 20, 16, 14, 12, 9, 6 |
Black: 20, 13, 12, 17, 15, 5
Red: 20, 19, 17, 16, 14, 11, 3
Green: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14

So, red won. Hooray for all red players! It is interesting to note that, while black was on 5 and green was on 14, red was only on 3. But how did red win, you may ask. Well, let's have a look:

Opening hands:
White: Springjack Knight, Triclopean Sight, Springjack Knight, Cenn's Heir, Plains, Neck Snap, Plains.

Blue: Island, Faerie Trickery, Island, Island, Island, Island, Island. After Mulligan: Island, Island, Mulldrifter, Inkfathom Divers, Inkfathom Divers, Pestermite, Mulldrifter.

Black: Nightshade Stinger, Swamp, Eyeblight's Ending, Weed Strangle, Eyeblight's Ending, Weed Strangle, Foodbottom Feast. After Mulligan: Swamp, Swamp, Nameless Inversion, Mournwhelk, Spiderwig Boggart, Weed Strangle, Nightshade Stinger.

Red: Mountain, Needle Drop, Soulbright Flamekin, Tarfire, Mudbutton Torchrunner, Lash Out, Mountain.

Green: Cloudcrown Oak, Battlewand Oak, Kithkin Daggerdare, Battlewand Oak, Leaf Glider, Forest, Forest.

Notice how each hand has two lands in it? This might have been a problem for green, if it didn't have the Leaf Glider. Mulliganing the hand full of land was probably a mistake for blue, who had land problems for about half the game. Red had the best opening hand, with plenty of one- and two-drops.

Turn 1:
White: Draws a Surge of Thoughtweft, then plays a Plains and passes.

Blue: Draws an Aethersnipe, then plays an Island and passes.

Black: Draws a Swamp, then plays it, followed by a Nightshade Stinger, then passes.

Red: Draws a Mudbutton Torchrunner, then plays a Mountain and passes.

Green: Draws a Cloudcrown Oak, then plays a Forest and passes.

Turn 2:
White: Draws a Plains, plays it, then plays a Cenn's heir and passes.

Blue: Draws a Ponder, then plays it after playing an Island. Orders his cards Island, Faerie Trickery, Glimmerdust Nap, then draws the Island and passes.

Black: Draws a Swamp and plays it. Attacks green with the Nightshade Stinger. Green goes to 19. Black passes.

Red: Draws a Needle Drop, then plays a Mountain and passes.

Green: Draws an Oakgnarl Warrior, then plays a Forest, followed by a Leaf Glider, and passes.

Turn 3:
White: Draws a Plains and plays it. Attacks Red with the Cenn's Heir – Red goes to 19. White plays a Springjack Knight during his second main phase, then passes.

Blue: Draws a Faerie Trickery, then plays an Island and passes.

Black: Draws a Bog Hoodlums, then plays a Swamp. Attacks White with Nightshade Stingers. White goes to 19. Black passes.

Red: Draws a Needle Drop, then plays a Soulbright Flamekin and passes.

Green: Draws a Woodland Changeling, then plays a Battlewand Oak and passes.

Turn 4:
White: Draws and plays a Plains, then attacks Black with Cenn's Heir and Springjack Knight, clashing with Red. White reveals a Goldmeadow Dodger, red a Tarfire. Both keep them on the top of their libraries. After clashing, White plays a Surge of Thoughtweft, drawing the Dodger, then plays Triclopean Sight on the Knight. Black takes 7, going to 13. At the end of turn, Blue plays a Pestermite, tapping green's Battlewand Oak. White passes.

Blue: Draws a Glimmerdust Nap, then plays it on green's Battlewand Oak. Attacks red with Pestermite, putting him down to 17, then passes.

Black: Draws a Foodbottom Feast, then plays a Swamp and attacks White with the Stinger. White goes to 18. Black passes.

Red: Draws a Tarfire, then plays it on white's Springjack Knight, then plays another one on blue's Pestermite. Attacks white with the Soulbright Flamekin. White goes to 16. Red passes.

Green: Draws a Forest and plays it, followed by another Battlewand Oak. Attacks blue with Leaf Glider. Blue goes to 18. Black plays a Nameless Inversion, sending Battlewand Oak to the graveyard. Green passes.

Turn 5:
White: Draws and plays a Plains, then plays the Goldmeadow Dodger. Attacks red with the Cenn's Heir – red takes it and goes to 16. White passes.

Blue: Draws a Sentinels of Glen Endra and passes.

Black: Draws a Mournwhelk, attacks white with Nightshade Stinger, putting him to 15, then passes.

Red: Draws a Flamekin Brawler, then attacks white with Soulbright Flamekin. White goes to 13. Red plays, not one, but two Needle drops, dropping white to 11 and drawing a Lash Out and an Inner-Flame Acolyte. Red passes.

Green: Draws and plays a Forest, then plays a Cloudcrown Oak. Blue counters the Oak with a Faerie Trickery, removing it from the game. Green attacks blue with the Leaf Glider, dropping him to 16. Green passes.

Turn 6:
White: Draws and plays a Plains, followed by a Springjack Knight. Attacks black with the Goldmeadow Dodger, and red with Cenn's Heir, dropping black to 12 and red to 14. White passes.

Blue: Draws an Aethersnipe and passes.

Black: Draws and plays a Swamp, followed by a Weed Strangle, killing white's Springjack Knight. Black clashes with red and wins, bringing himself up to 13. Black keeps the Weed Strangle; red keeps the Mountain. Black attacks green with the Stinger, putting him down to 18. Black passes.

Red: Draws and plays a Mountain, then plays an Inner-Flame Acolyte. He has the Acolyte target itself, then attacks white with Soulbright Flamekin and the Acolyte. White goes down to 5. Red passes.

Green: Draws a Woodland Changeling, then plays another Cloudcrown Oak. Attacks blue with Leaf Glider, dropping him to 14. Green passes.

Turn 7
White: Draws and plays another Plains, then attacks red with the Dodger and the Heir. Red goes to 11. White passes.

Blue: Draws and plays a Ponder, ordering his cards as Island, Aquitect's Will, Aquitect's Will, then draws and plays the Island and passes.

Black: Draws and plays a Weed Strangle, targeting green's Cloudcrown Oak. Winning the clash with white, he brings himself back up to 17. Black puts the revealed Foodbottom Feast on the bottom of his library; white keeps his Cenn's heir. Black attacks white with Nightshade Stinger, dropping him to 4. Black passes.

Red: Draws and plays a Mountain. Red attacks white with Soulbright Flamekin and Inner-Flame Acolyte. White plays Neck Snap, targeting the Acolyte. White takes 2, going to 2. Red plays Lash Out during his second main phase, targeting Cenn's Heir. Clashing with white, he doesn't keep his Flamekin Brawler, with white also saying no to his card, Cenn's Heir. Red plays a second Lash Out, this time targeting Goldmeadow Dodger. White gets another Cenn's Heir and puts it on the bottom, while red keeps a Tarfire. With that, red passes.

Green: Draws and plays a Kithkin Daggerdare, closely followed by a Woodland Changeling. Attacks black with Leaf Glider, putting him down to 15, then passes.

Turn 8:
White: Draws a Plover Knights, playing it after a Plains, then passes.

Blue: Draws an Aquitect's Will, then plays a Sentinels of Glen Endra and passes.

Black: Draws an Eyeblight's Ending, takes green down to 17 with Nightshade Stinger, and passes.

Red: Draws and plays a Tarfire, targeting white and knocking him out of the game. He then plays a Mudbutton Torchrunner and passes.

Green: Draws and plays a Forest, then a Kithkin Daggerdare and a Woodland Changeling. Attacks blue with Woodland Changeling and Leaf Glider. Blue blocks the Leaf Glider with Sentinels of Glen Endra, and green gives the Glider +2/+2 by activating Kithkin Daggerdare. Blue takes 2, going down to 12. Green passes.

Turn 9:
Blue: Draws Aquitect's Will, then evokes Aethersnipe, returning Mudbutton Torchrunner to red's hand. Blue passes.

Black: Draws and plays Moonglove Winnower, then takes another 1 life off of green with the Stinger, then passes.

Red: Draws and plays a Mountain, followed by a Mudbutton Torchrunner and a Flamekin Brawler. Attacks blue with Soulbright Flamekin, dropping him down to 10. During the second main phase, red plays a Needle Drop, putting blue onto 9 and drawing an Inner-Flame Acolyte. Red passes.

Green: Draws a Fistful of Force. Attacks black with Leaf Glider and the two Woodland Changelings. Black blocks Leaf Glider with his Moonglove Winnower, to which green responds by activating the two Kithkin Daggerdares, targeting a Changeling and the Glider. He then plays Fistful of Force, targeting the same Woodland Changeling, and clashing with red. Green wins the clash, keeping Fertile Ground, while red doesn't keep his Needle Drop. Black is devastated, taking 10 damage and going to 5. Green passes.

Turn 10:
Blue: Draws an Aethersnipe. Evokes a Mulldrifter, drawing two Islands. After playing on of them, he plays an Aquitect's Will, targeting a Mountain, and another Aquitect's Will, targeting a Forest, then passes.

Black: Draws a Mournwhelk, then attacks green with Nightshade Stinger, putting him down to 15. Black passes.

Red: Draws and plays a Mountain, then activates Soulbright Flamekin three times, targeting each of his creatures and adding the mana to his mana pool. He uses the mana to activate Flamekin Brawler, to which black replied with an Eyeblight's Ending, targeting the Flamekin Brawler (waiting, of course, until all of the mana was used up). Red then attacks blue with the Torchrunner and Soulbright Flamekin, dropping him to six. Red passes.

Green: Draws and plays a Fertile Growth onto one of his Forests. He then sees the opportunity to devastate red, attacking him with two Woodland Changelings, powered up by the two Kithkin Daggerdares. Red goes to three, and green passes.

Turn 11:
Blue: Draws and plays an Island. Plays an Inkfathom Divers, and orders his cards Pestermite, Island, Island, Island. Blue passes.

Black: Draws and plays another Nightshade Stinger, then attacks green with Nightshade Stinger, dropping him to 14. Black passes.

Red: Draws a Lash Out, then plays it, targeting blue's Divers. Losing the clash to black, he decides not to keep a Mountain, while black keeps a Weed Strangle. Red plays Inner-Flame Acolyte, targeting itself, and attacks blue with Mudbutton Torchrunners, Soulbright Flamekin and Inner-Flame Acolyte, knocking blue out of the game. Red, therefore, wins.

Well, can you imagine watching that? Because every move had to be written down, that game took around an hour and a half! Blue might have been more successful with more land, been able to bring out Aethersnipe sooner. If green had decided to direct his last attack at black, the game may have gone on for a lot longer, where red and green would have been trying to take out each other, not wanting to have a tie. Or red might have taken out blue anyway, seeing that green had too big of a lead, and forced a tie rather than losing. Black should have been evoking the Mournwhelks, then returned them to his deck with Foodbottom Feast and evoked them again, which would have created discarding madness and possibly changed the outcome dramatically. Perhaps the decks will have been changed by this time next week, when the players get together to play another game, and possibly even take red's crown! 

My Deck from the Regionals

This is my Deckist for the Regionals:

Main Deck – 64 Cards

Lands – 24 cards
13 Forest
10 Island
1 Moonring Island

Creatures – 18 cards
2 Duskdale Wurm
3 Gilt-Leaf Seer
4 Jhessian Infiltraitor
4 Lorescale Coatl
1 Murkfiend Liege
2 Nulltread Gargantuan
2 Wistful Selkie

Other Spells – 22 cards
4 Aggressive Urge
2 Earthbrawn
2 Fistful of Force
2 Giant Growth
4 Invert the Skies
4 Monstrify
4 Wings of Velis Vel

Sideboard – 15 cards
2 Cold-Eyed Selkie
2 Courier's Capsule
4 Gleeful Sabotage
1 Primal Rage
2 Shorecrasher Mimic
2 Tideshaper Mystic
4 Winged Coatl

The origional idea was that many of the cards would interact with Lorescale Coatl, producing one (or four) hell of a big creature, that I could power up even more and cast a final Invert the Skies. Of course, that idea was shoved backwards a bit to make way for "big creatures that get even bigger", and I eventually put the Jhessian Infirtraitors in because of the unblockable-ness and the massive amount of growth spells this deck has.

Here's how it did on the day:

Match 1: vs Red-Black Burn - 2-0 to him

Match 2: vs Red-White Kithkin - 2-1 to him

Match 3: vs Red-Green Beatdown - 2-0 to him

Match 4: vs White-Green Beatdown - 2-0 to him

Match 5: vs Jund Beatdown - 2-0 to him

Match 6: vs Green-White tokens - 2-0 to him

Match 7: vs Black-White tokens - 2-0 to him

Why such poor results? Two words: creature removal. Everyone else was playing it, I wasn't. Oh well, guess I missed my shot at Worlds. Maybe next year...

“If it weren't for that Meddling Mage...”

“When Meddling Mage comes into play, name a card. The named card cannot be played.” These two sentences make Meddling Mage one of the most awesome control cards ever. Sadly, White-Blue Control is hardly seen in Standard these days, and if it wasn't for this card, it would probably be seen a hell of a lot less.

Just imagine your White-Blue Control deck against a Black-Red-Green Beatdown deck. In game 1, your opponent Terminates your best creatures, and you're left with next to nothing to attack with. Then he goes in with Hellkite Overlord for the win. Game 2; after bringing in your four sideboarded Meddling Mages, you drop one on turn two, naming Terminate. After that, provided your opponent doesn't have any more creature removal ready, it's simple: control the field, and before he gets to eight mana, drop another Mage, this time naming the Overlord. GG. Game three should be much the same.

Unfortunately, Meddling Mage doesn't bring many controlling buddies with it in Alara Reborn. All you've got is Unbender Tine, Offering to Asha and Ethersworn Shieldmage, which is only really good in an artefact-heavy deck. Of the rest, you have evasion creatures and mana-fixing. Apart from that, Control is only really explored on the form of Elementals in the Lorwyn block, and Esper and Bant-themed decks had a handful of control cards. Therefore, Meddling Mage will really shine in Extended, where players have access to the best of Control since Onslaught.

See, in Extended, if you're playing White-Blue Control, you'd want to sideboard a full round of the Mages, unless you've got something better, which you most certainly won't. After game 1, you'll know what exactly is the biggest threat your opponent has, and unless your opponent is playing Burn, which is the worst match-up a Control deck can have, you can make yourself near-invulnerable to that card, or cards, by simply bringing in the Mages. While you're countering your opponent's spells, and bouncing whatever gets through, the 2/2 Mages can be dishing out some pain to your opponent's life total. Even with one Mage out, victory is a mere ten turns away.

I played in the Regionals in Sydney, and while most people were playing tokens or burn, one person did play White-Blue Elemental Control. I don't know how high he got, or if he was playing any Meddling Mage's, but it was refreshing to see nevertheless. He definitely didn't need them in the match I saw him playing. One thing is for sure, though: people want Meddling Mage. It is recognised as an awesome rare almost immediately; every time I was asked if I wanted to trade at the Alara Reborn Prerelease, the words “Meddling Mage” seemed to be said at some point, and were always preceded by “do you have any...”

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and prepare a certain Standard deck for the next constructed tournament. I know it seems early, but for the Regionals I used a Green-Blue giant creatures deck, and failed epically. Back to the drawing board...