Kurisu's Nerd Corner

It’s 4:19 in the AM and I have work in 5 hours, some might say I’m not really into Diablo otherwise I’d have the day off but for some that is not an option. Before I catch some bare amount of sleep I wanted to talk about Diablo 3. My friends decided that I should play a Monk as I was not really sure which class to do first but really I’m glad they talked me into it. Maybe it’s because I feel as though I am the Avatar or maybe because I like the martial arts background of the class. Either way the class rocks, it has a lot of nice status effect abilities that allows me to combo rares into oblivion. I’m sure other classes can do similar but either way as Metzen would say “I dig it”. I’m into this monk thing 100% and am ready to have the time of my life.

I’m currently uploading some gameplay videos from Act 1 (which I completed) to my YouTube channel if you want to see some Monk action. They are mainly boss fights so be warned. Oh and I left out as much Lore spoilers in the video as possible, for those who care about Lore (as I do), the story is amazing. Act 1 has some REALLY high lore moments to look out for. Enjoy giving hell to hell.

So right now I’m watching a Miracles deck play into the finals of Pro Tour Barcelona (Innistrad Block Constructed), the deck has definitely done some work over the weekend. I’m  glad to be somewhat wrong about Miracles and seen it work out ok in the way they curve out manawise the further we got into reveals. The cards are amazing in limited since the format is capable of hitting those costs pretty easily and as standard starts to bend toward later game play we should see these coming up more often. Even with that being saying miracle costs can still play a vital role in the current meta of magic as decks like Delver can gain humongous amounts of momentum with Temporal Mastery since Delver is all about getting to what you want. If anything I’m sure it will create a lot of interesting brews in the coming month and who knows how M13 will help make it happen.

All I know is that I might end up playing a good number of Miracle decks at Grand Prix Anaheim and that is something I don’t think my nerves are ready for given it’s my first major tournament.

In Avacyn Restored Wizards of the Coast is introducing two new mechanics, one of the two mechanics is Miracles. Miracles lets you play a card for a significantly reduced mana cost should it be the first card you drew that turn. This was the first Miracle card previewed:

This mechanic attempts to simulate the feeling that “top decking” creates; “top decking” is a scenario where you draw the card you need to respond to a threat on the board or to help gain you favor in a match. While this sounds like a fun mechanic it is very different from most in how it affects the game than previous mechanics. Generally when you have a new mechanic you want to build a deck to takes advantage of it but only one color (if not just one card: Ponder) can truly do that. It is also something you cannot use as a way of guiding your deck to help with winrates versus archtypes, matter of fact, you are penalized for flooding your deck with Miracle due to their unreasonably high hard cast (the playing of a spell using it’s intended mana cost without assistance) mana cost.

Miracle at face value is a cool mechanic but it is one I hope to not see flooded into the set as it will create another set like Dark Ascension where it produces some cool cards but the majority of the set is trying to accommodate the full range of Magic and not just support Standard. On a competitive level, Miracle has a good chance of being frustrating due to the constant power shifts that can change more than normal. Not only that but it causes a higher chance of forced mulligans if your deck can’t ramp, accelerate, or draw/discard enough to get rid of ill wanted drawn hands. The spell costs of the spells released thus far is 6 converted mana cost or higher which means these can destroy your mana curve. I would believe that the most you would see is maybe one to two of one or two Miracle cards per deck to try and still take advantage of the mechanic but not going too deep.

Lastly, Avacyn Restored is a set created by a new designer. Miracle feels like an overambitious idea to meta the meta, it comes across as though he wanted to create a mechanic that you have to be perfectly careful how much you use it and account for it. Miracle is not part of player strategy and game mechanics should be a part of the deck strategy. You can play with and around you (or your opponent) playing a bomb card like Primeval or even Delver, you cannot play around them randomly gaining a chance to play two mana for another turn or five damage for one mana.

So I can’t speak for all but for my local game shop world of Magic the Gathering there has been so much change and evolution in the meta game of Standard. Decks have been changed or fine tuned weekly to meet the new net deck of the week with most of the decks having an aggressive behavior. Most of us awaited for Avacyn Restored with baited breath, myself especially since this is prime tournament time for me with Grand Prix trials for Grand Prix Anaheim coming up the next two weekends. Naturally Grand Prix Anaheim is shortly after and Pro Tour Qualifiers for Seattle, both events I will be participating in as my tournament debuts.

And so we have the first previewed card of Avacyn Restored, the third set in the Innistrad Block.

This is very much a Magic: The Gathering Angel. She causes pause when she hits the board, has strong Power/Toughness, is Flying and Vigilance, and lastly has a board altering effect. When I saw her I must admit I’m surprised she didn’t have a built-in Captain effect (+1/+1) for all your creatures given the amount of captains introduced in Dark Ascension. The oddest thing about her is that her mana base is so high we will rarely see her in the current meta in Standard aside from Frites Reanimator and MAYBE in the lower teir GW Ramp. Though if you are playing GW ramp and Titans/Elesh Norn aren’t winning you the game something is very wrong.

The other issue is that the current field is very much counter-intuitive to her. She is vulnerable to a lot of cards that are played common day.

Artifact

• Karn Liberated - x

White

• Oblivion Ring
• Fiend Hunter

Black

• Black Sun’s Zenith - x
• Liliana of the Veil
• Sever the Bloodline (SB mainly though I prefer Memoricide)
• Tragic Slip (easy to proc morbid in Zombies)
• Geth’s Verdict - x

Red

• If you aren’t FRites you might already be dead

Green

• Welp? Ramp faster.

Shaman Haste is supposed to be labelled Enhancement. I updated the original.