I have been checking for Magic: the Gathering online shops that has placed an account on the Shopee platform and there were a few that are selling not only on MTG but also other trading card game products. These are basically collectible online sellers.

I have found one recently that sells Ravnica Allegiance booster packs for only P160 each, P20 less than the retail price of P180. My goal was to open at least one shockland as their prices recently has gone up maybe because of the demand in the Pioneer format.

I waited for my vouchers to refresh as new ones are added monthly so that I could get a discount on the shipping fee which usually rates at P100 to P150 each transaction. I decided to buy 4 booster packs to increase my chances. The total amount was P640 plus the discounted shipping cost of P40. I arrived almost a week later because maybe of high quantity of purchases for the Christmas rush.

I decided to do a booster cracking video that night but I got impatient so I just opened one pack and was lucky to open a Breeding Pool shockland. It is probably the highest value in all the five shockland cycle in the set. That is basically main goal achieved.

The remaining three Ravnica Allegiance booster packs were opened on a later date and here below is the video.

It was a good I opened that shockland before these three Rares showed up as they were way below their booster pack worth. Anyhow, overall value is still above the cost so it was pretty much a positive result. I just needed to dispose of this card while at the high price (20 usd as of this posting).

That is a wrap for this post. Until next time.

I am rarely using the Magic Workstation lately due to its lack of support from the online community and with the trend of new MTG gaming platform. The program was used solely for building deck brews offline though I still try to update the card database from time to time.

Recently as I have noticed in the forums, it got rarely used and visited as most of the new players preferred newer and more interactive platforms for deck building. However as for my personal preference, I do try to update and share if I ever found some patch files.

After Googling some file sources, I have found this .txt file which you can add through the Add Set under the Tools panel. You can download it here.

As of this posting, there is still no text file available yet for download so we might need to wait for someone to post it in the forums. I will update this blog post once I have found one.

The recent prerelease on Ravnica Allegiance went very basic because of the major reason that the Prerelease products got delayed in its releasing from the Bureau of Customs. Instead, the distributor Neutral Grounds has sent the local gamestores regular RNA Booster boxes to compensate to the scheduled Prerelease weekend last January 19^th and 20^th. We had no choice but to push through as most had already reserved that day expecting to play first-hand the new set with the proper products. Anywho, Rei got to start his event at around 3:30pm and informed that there were lesser participants than the intended. I had to do some important stuff that time so I just inquired later on that evening of the outcome.

Come Sunday, I went to Critical Hit at Festive Mall to join the scheduled Prerelease that afternoon. I arrived 5 minutes last past 1:00pm and the players were already starting to build their decks. There were about 14 participants in total. I then immediately paid the reg. fee, grabbed my six booster packs and went to a vacant table to build my deck. After twenty minutes of pondering and sorting through my card pile, I decided to go Gruul with a Splash of Blue for some combat trick spells. Unfortunately, I ended up with just a 2-2 record, losing to two Rakdos aggro decks in Round 3 and 4. Anyhow, I was able to value my Prerelease registration as I was able to open a Domri, Blood Crypt and Kaya’s Wrath. I remembered the finals for the 4-0 record was a mirror match between Mardu decks, one of which defeated me in Round 3.

Lastly, I took some pics during my vacant period during the rounds and here they are below. They were posted at the Critical Hit: Comics and Games page.

I have mentioned before to create a Black Red or Rakdos deck build once the complete Ravnica Allegiance Spoiler is up. It was released Friday last week but unfortunately I was on travel that time until the weekend so I was able to just sort it out today. Upon checking the spoiler lineup for Rakdos, we have found some notables that can be included in the deck. Here are a few: Gutterbones, Judith, the Scourge Diva, Spawn of Mayhem, Bedevil, Fireblade Artist, Rix Maadi Reveler, Skewer the Critics.

Out of the long list, we have to sort which one would fit in the creature mana curve so as to maintain the aggressiveness as much as possible. Good thing is that we have our reference from the Reddit thread wherein they have discussed the different approaches of the build. From the discussion, I have decided to bring out one build and update it a bit with some personal card choices.

Here is the decklist below for version 1 of Rakdos Aggro.

Creatures
4 Gutterbones
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Judith, the Scourge Diva
4 Spawn of Mayhem
4 Viashino Pyromancer
3 Hackrobat
3 Legion Warboss

Spells
3 Bedevil
2 Shock
4 Lightning Strike
3 Skewer the Critics

Lands
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull summit
7 Swamp
7 Mountain

It is going to be a fun-filled weekend for the Magic: the Gathering communities around the globe as it will be the Prerelease of the Ravnica Allegiance set. For the MTG Iloilo community, we are proud to share that we will be having three prerelease events at the three local game stores in the city. The store event schedules are the following:

Nth Dimension: Comics and Games – Saturday, January 19, 8:00am.

Pro Reis Place – Saturday, January 19, 1:00pm.

Critical Hit: Comics and Games – Sunday, January 20, 1:00pm.

Each store has its own registration fee amount and prize structure. Guild packs may be chosen beforehand or can be done first come, first serve. You can find the details at their respective Facebook pages. Rei has posted the reserve list on the MTG Iloilo groups which was based on the rankings of the recent Standard Showdown tournament.

I would suggest for the beginners to be part of this event as this will surely introduce to you the ambiance of the tournament as well as enjoy and improve your skills on Sealed deck building.

See y’all at the tournaments.

Red players are now celebrating, including me, on the revealing last night of the latest Red burn spell named Skewer the Critics. The card is the latest addition to the direct damage spells in Standard and today we will discuss on how it will look in the Rakdos Burn deck that has been seeing in the metagame as a Tier 2 archetype. But first, here below is the card.

At most, it is a Sorcery-speed Lightning Bolt but it won’t really be a hindrance. Spectacle can be easily triggered as mostly you have your ways to have the opponent lose life in the nature of Red being cheaply costed and aggressive. The current Standard Mono Red aggro deck will surely be glad to have this in their burn lineup. For the Rakdos Burn version, we have a sample decklist below.

16 Creatures
4 Electrostatic Field
4 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Ghitu Lavarunner
4 Viashino Pyromancer

24 Spells
4 Lightning Strike
4 Risk Factor
4 Shock
4 Sovereign’s Bite
4 Sword-Point Diplomacy
4 Wizard’s Lightning

20 Lands
4 Cinder Barrens
1 Detection Tower
4 Dragonskull Summit
8 Mountain
3 Swamp

Skewer the Critics is an easy addition to the deck as we will just replace one set of creatures. I am thinking on replacing the Lavarunners and sacrificing partially our one-drops. I won’t think of it as a disadvantage since basing from my piloting experience of Mono-Red, the Lavarunner is easily answered by other decks and ineffective in the late game. This is very noticeable in this build since we aren’t relying much on creatures to do our damage.

On the positive side, we can maintain our low-cost aggro plan by retaining the Lavarunners and cutting a few of the expensive spells to fit the Skewer the Critics. Our current options are Sword-Point Diplomacy, Wizard’s Lightning and Risk Factor. The diplomacy is probably the top choice here as conditional cards can be inconsistent, or we can just cut two copies and one copy of Wizard’s Lightning and one Sovereign’s Bite. The bite doesn’t interact with creatures so having three copies is fine.

The updated decklist would look like this one.

16 Creatures
4 Electrostatic Field
4 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Ghitu Lavarunner
4 Viashino Pyromancer

24 Spells
4 Lightning Strike
4 Risk Factor
4 Shock
4 Skewer the Critics
3 Sovereign’s Bite
2 Sword-Point Diplomacy
3 Wizard’s Lightning

20 Lands
4 Blood Crypt
4 Cinder Barrens
4 Dragonskull Summit
6 Mountain
2 Swamp

In addition, the deck gains access to Blood Crypt which helps refine the mana color curve. We also have other Rakdos card options to include in the sideboard but that will just be discussed in a separate blog post.

To conclude, Skewer the Critics is very relevant in the current metagame and will surely define the Red decks’ aggressiveness in the format.

That is a wrap. Until the next blog post.

In today’s post, we start with my attempt to create a deck based on the card from the Ravnica Allegiance named Awaken the Erstwhile. This is a five-mana Sorcery that discards players’ hands and turns them into 2/2 Black Zombies. This card is sort of very interesting in terms of flavor and would take some Magical Christmasland scenarios to pull it off. Here below is its card image:

Upon checking on the Reddit discussions, there were a lot of suggestions posted. Deck archetype such as a discarder deck with Raiders’ Wake or ramping mana into Awaken plus Crafty Cutpurse and even the one with a Divine Visitation. One strategy that I have seen to be viable is the Experimental Frenzy/Treasure Map route wherein you still have your top cards on the deck as your pseudo-hand while building your unusable actual hand into a huge Awakening later on. I just have to find the right cards to include to be able to consistently pull off the main card strategy. The colors I have considered are Grixis or Black Blue and Red and here below is the initial decklist.

Grixis Awakening version 1.0

Creatures
4 Riverwise Augur

Instants and Sorceries
3 Anticipate
4 Awaken the Erstwhile
3 Cast Down
3 Golden Demise
2 Ritual of Soot
3 Thought Erasure

Artifacts and Enchantments
4 Treasure Map
4 Experimental Frenzy
4 Raiders’ Wake
2 Search for Azcanta

Total non-land: 36, Lands: 24

Let us discuss the card choices.

Awaken the Erstwhile, Treasure Map, Experimental Frenzy, Raiders’ Wake – These are the main combo components which the deck revolves around. The map fixes your draws while also ramping you to an early casting of Awaken the Erstwhile. Experimental Frenzy is your post-awakening card advantage while Raiders’ Wake is basically the one that will deal most of the damage on opponents. The only issue here is the opponent might be playing all of the top-decked cards after the hand was discarded.

Cast Down, Golden Demise, Ritual of Soot, Thought Erasure – These are the board and hand control. The demise works well on one-side removal once it ascended which can easily be achieved with the Zombies created from the Awakening and the Treasure Tokens.

Riverwise Augur, Anticipate, Search for Azcanta – This filters the draws to pull off the turn 4 Raiders’ Wake into turn 5 Awaken the Erstwhile as much as possible. Riverwise Augur’s Brainstorm ability gets the cards needed and you won’t discard back into the top of the deck, that which you can arrange to use later on or with the Experimental Frenzy in play.

Overall, the deck looks clunky with the four and five mana costs and chaining spells with the frenzy is near to impossible. Nevertheless, the important thing is to pull off the main cards combo while being consistent as a regular midrange deck.

This is again open for comments and suggestions so you just please post them in the comment box below. I’d like to hear your line of play on this card.

That is a wrap. Until the next blog post.

The current spoiler season is on its full swing and soon we will be completing the whole Ravnica Allegiance set. We still continue on the card discussions and rating its potential for Standard play. MTG Salvation website is our current source for the card spoilers and I chose three cards from the list of the recently revealed cards from the set. We start with United Stand.

It looks to be an upgraded version of Make a Stand and this one will surely make a slot in the White-based Aggro decks.  There are a few destroy effects in Standard that can be neutered by this card and the Addendum effect can be a one-sided sweep against stalled boards. I’d suggest two to three copies of this card in the current White or Boros aggro decks.

Next up is Pteramander, a Salamander Drake from the Simic guild.

One thing that instantly came into my mind seeing this card is Izzet Phoenix. That deck archetype specializes in dumping cards in the graveyard and so it also benefits to lessen the Adapt cost.  At most, it is a two Blue mana cost 1/1 Flying creature with 4 +1/+1 counters. We will see an updated list of the deck soon with this drake in its line-up.

Lastly, we have the Gruul Rare Split card, Thrash//Threat.           

This card completes the Instants and Sorceries slot of the Gruul Aggro deck that I initially posted for Ravnica Allegiance Standard. I was thinking of a cheap removal spell that ‘fights’ opponent’s creatures and this one fits it well. As a bonus, this can also damage planeswalkers and would not be a bad top deck against control as the other half gets you a 4/4 trampling Beast.

That is a wrap for the three Ravnica Allegiance cards. Check out your nearest Game store for the Prerelease events on the 19^th to 20^th to experience first hand the gameplay of the five remaining guilds of Ravnica.

Until the next blog post.

Today’s card preview takes us to a closer look at another creature that is in line with those that punish players who activate card abilities. We had Harsh Mentor in Amonkhet which only saw play in its early days in Standard, but this version looks to be more useful than just pinging opponents. Check out immolation Shaman.

It has the same cc with the mentor but the 1/3 power and toughness make it less vulnerable to cheap removals like Shock. What makes this dude better is its pump ability which is pretty much useful in the late game. The +3/+3 with Menace can finish up most of the games and that makes it also a good top deck. Limited-wise, this is a good addition to your deck as it checks on Adapt creatures from Simic. It can also stall some early aggro 2/2 and 2/1s.

Standard Red-based decks might have one or two copies in the main deck unless there is a top-tier deck archetype with a lot of activations that this shaman can be benefit of.

That is a wrap. Until the next blog post.

Red Green or Gruul aggro is slowly shaping up with each spoiler cards in the Ravnica Allegiance Set. I have already identified a few that will most likely become part of the deck list. The option here is to go straight weenie with the highest creature cost of four, or have a late gameplan with a few five or more mana costed bulky monsters.

Currently, we have these potential components for the Red Green Aggro Deck: Skarrgan Hellkite, Gruul Spellbreaker and Zhur-Taa Goblin.

The Hellkite is sort of a slower version of Glorybringer but can be relevant in the late game with its ability. The latter two just basically complies with the creature curve that the deck needs in order to be consistently aggressive in its first three turns. We can also grab commonly used cards in the Mono Red Aggro such as the Rekindling Phoenix and Runaway Steam-kin to keep up with the curve.  

I’d personally go with a list that has a late gameplan and it would look like this one below.

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Gruul Spellbreaker
4 Jadelight Ranger
4 Rekindling Phoenix
4 Skarrgan Hellkite
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Verix Bladewing
4 Zhur-Taa Goblin

3 Adventurous Impulse
2 Fight with Fire
4 Lava Coil
1 Vivien Reid

4 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
8 Forest
7 Mountain

This is given to be subject to changes once the complete Ravnica Allegiance spoiler is out, but probably will just have a slight difference.

Let me know what you think of this decklist. Send them in the comment box below.

In preparation for the upcoming release of the set Ravnica Allegiance, Wizards has a couple of activities on the weekends before that. First is the Ravnica Allegiance Open House which will introduce the game to the fresh recruits which will give them the feel of in-store gameplay and of course on joining local tournaments. Here below are the details for the Open House to be held at Pro Reis place.

Ravnica Allegiance Open House

January 12, 2019 at
2:30pm

We offer learn-to-play sessions for the new players wherein each gets a Welcome Deck tutorial and a showcase of both Magic and the social experience of in-store play.

A Standard Tournament will also take place. Full-art Promo Cards to the Standard event participants. The Final ranking after the Swiss rounds will be the basis for the priority picks of Guilds in the Ravnica Allegiance Prerelease on January 19th.

See you there.

It is happening, Rakdos aggro is back. With this card preview, they really have been pushing the Spectacle mechanic to be a huge advantage on its cards. On this blog postcard preview, we will feature a solid three-drop with a Spectacle enabler is just very relevant when you are going into this deck strategy.

Check out Spawn of Mayhem.

Ok so it is basically a 4/4 for four but the bonus Spectacle cost makes it into the three-drop slot. The mana cost is an advantage because it can dodge cards like Ritual of Soot and Vraska, Golgari Queen. The 4/4 body also makes it out of range to Deafening Clarion, a card that mostly destroys aggro decks in the current metagame. Its 10-life-less pump trigger may also help to finish off opponents faster and you can achieve it faster with cards like Arguel’s Blood Fast, losing life while still gaining card advantage.

Seeing the card’s potential in Modern, the Spectacle cost be achieved a lot with the frequent life loss trigger due to the fetch lands and shocklands.

I might be excited to come up with a decklist for Rakdos in Standard but for now, I will just wait until the complete Ravnical Allegiance spoilers are up. We may have more ‘tools’ to work with.