5CC is becoming too easy

At the release of Alara reborn (early May 2009) I was thinking that maybe non-basic lands are getting too powerful, and mana-fixing too efficient. Alara Reborn gave us the trilands...See, the point is that when you use more than one colours, you're taking a chance. You have to sacrifice constistency for power Using more colours gives you more possibilities - see, instead of having to use the enchantment destruction of, white you can use the slightly better one of green.

With all these dual doublelands - it's becoming even easier to play 5CC, as it's called, the decks with all five colors. Now, take a look at the new double lands for the M10 core set

Given you already control one of lands of a friendly color-pair, this kind of dual land will produce both types of mana. It is not a first turn-land, meaning it is kind of balanced. It simply gives you better choice for the next turn.

But I wonder, why are these new duals rare? Is it because they're so good, so strong? So by putting them in the rare slot, their power will be limited? If they are so strong, they should never have been printed. Moneyspending and serious players will get four of these even though they are rare. If they were common - they would deplete basic lands.

On the other hand, there won't be more than four of any of these in a deck. Maybe it is just good for the game, making it easier to taste the colour cake.

A two-headed dragon mini-tournament

I attended such one only yesterday. It was a constructed event. We were eleven people, so one guy decided to take up the task of playing two decks, making us 12 people, and three games every round. We only played one round, with three matches, though. I was teamed up with a guy with a pretty decent deck, saving me loads of times, still, half the games I was the one sending them down. In fact, we won the tournament, I would never have guessed from my usually bad singleton decks.We won because he had a-

Sometimes I hate constructed. I mean, if we would play single-player, I wouldn't stand a chance against people with decks filled with several 4-ofs bombs in their deck. I wouldn't stand a chance against people who have spent much more on the game than I do - both time and money. You have to be at the same level, to fully enjoy the game.

That's why I prefer multiplayer magic, as in 2HG. We two really cooperated and looked at eachother hands to make the best out of it. Limited is great too, except that it gets costly and that I don't really need all those cards. No one where I live wants to do build drafts or build sealed. I'm like - I want to play with ALL OF THE cARDS I ALREADY OWN.

Hmm...more about that in CARD WASTE post later, I guess. :)

Buying all those new cards

I know some magic players. Some of them have collections of over two thousands cards, one of them just started "playing", etc. buying, less than half a year ago.

What sickens me, almost, is the fact that most of all those cards are never put into play. They are not good enough, they bad. When you spend so much money, you will always end up with a lot of grizzly bear that will never see play. Even cards I myself would find good wouldn't be used, because there are more effective alternatives. And they go on to buy new cards when new sets are released and old sets rotate out, even if they have lots of cards already to play with. Change is good.

One of them is playing this Shards of alara block esper tribal artifact creatures deck. Hmhm, netdecking, anyone? Of course he's doing it thoroughly with multiple rares, with Master Transmuter, entering high-costed artifacts for nothing, and the other staple cards; such as Sphinx summoner, Tidehollow sculler blah blah. Firstly, it is boring to play with; I have tried myeself; everything is already set up and makes the game pretty similar every time. Secondly, it's tribal. That's what it really is: Wizards simply put colours on a lot of artifacts and gave them abilities that would work with them, cause, er, after all, they are artifacts too.

Back drafting - a shards of alara card

Viashino is one of the best cards I have seen for back draft.

That is because: as you might reckon, Viashino skeleton is a card that will mostly never see play, outside of limited. Or not even in limited, really. And back drafting is simply drafting the worst cards for your opponent to make a deck out of.

See, how did they come to this costing? I know that red creatures never are costed 2/2 for 1R, unlike green Grizzly Elves, but they might be 2/1, like Viashino, preferably with a drawback. In addition, Viashino has this regenerate ability, that is usually seen as a positive thing, making the cost 2R or more like 1RR. But with an activation cost that requires you to discard a card, in addition to the mana, it ends up with a CMC of four?
Yes, it is a discard outlet for unearth/flashback creatures in alara-block, but at 4cmc this was intended to be a bad card. In fact, I think the guys at Wizards made this as a joke - its card types is the same as its name!

Even the flavor text backs this up - "creatures long extinct" - the Viashino Skeleton has the power level akin to really old creature cards from way back.

Planeswalkers

One of these days, I discovered the Planeswalkers. I was like -  a new card type, what is this?! (yes, I know it was introduced in Lorwyn, still...).
It is no creature, nor an enchantment, but another kind of permanent that acts like another player. It's a card that plays sorceries - every turn, for adding or removing a certain amount of loyalty counters. Each planeswalker enters game with a fixed amount of loyalty counters.

Planeswalkers are the manifestation of us, players, in a way. Cause in the magic flavourlogy, players are wizards (or from now on: planeswalkers) summoning monsters and Lightning bolts to kill the other wizards. Despite random mana screw and mana flood. Just the fact they are such a new thing makes a large segment of old players opposed to it. By Nature. And nonetheless, they are mythic. Rarity power creep money scheme. So for the people who care for constructed, they will have to get hold of these expensive cards that win you the game.

Maybe I'm just scared for no reason. They can be dealt with, and whenever a planeswalker shows up in a multiplayer game, the others team up against that player. Therefore planeswalkers are justified, or balanced, I feel, in multiplayer games, because you have to make that choice whether it's worth to play it, and if you play it, everyone will be on your watch.