Magic The Gathering – Approaches To Deckbuilding – Theros Fat Pack

Building a 40-card deck from the Theros Fat Pack pool.

Magic The Gathering: Approaches To Deck Building – 2014 Core Set Fat Pack

 

Using my card pulls from the 2014 Core Set Fat Pack unboxing I look at how to approach building your first deck.

There Be Dragons!!!

One of the things I love about The Gatherer is the ability to create deep links to searches by using the URL produced after you have done your search.

This morning I was wondering how many Legendary Dragons have there been in the history of MTG. As of today, the number is 29 – Click here to see this list arranged in ascending CMC. However, the great thing about linking to a search string is that as new sets come out and The Gatherer is updated, the search link returns any additions without having to be altered.

My Favourite MTG Related YouTube Channels

Here are some playlists for a few of my favourite Magic The Gathering related ‘channels’ on YouTube.

Inside The Deck
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA75902435784EA71

Channel Fireball’s Magic TV
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL597D0AF8EA17C464

AjemanCinnajob’s Daily Pack Openings
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL290771C055324B45

AjemanCinnajob’s Deck Techs
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL93912A3FA2AF1402

Land That Does Not Add Mana To Your Mana Pool

I was thinking about mana base today, and the building of a good solid mana base through the selection of appropriate lands. Obviously there are other cards that can be used to generate mana but, in MTG, our lands are our starting point.

As I thought more about land selection, it became obvious that a number of lands don’t actually tap for mana, and that does not just include ‘fetch lands’. So, with some, it’s not about mana at all, but some other land related ability. Here is a search I came up with on  The Gatherer to find lands that don’t add mana to your mana pool at all, this includes fetch lands which also don’t directly add mana to your mana pool. Click here to see the search.

I also constructed a search that excludes fetch lands. Click here to see the search without the fetch lands.

Whenever you do anything like this you always turn up interesting cards, Vesuva. This card may, or may not, tap for mana depending on what it is a copy of. As the card says: “You may have Vesuva enter the battlefield tapped as a copy of any land on the battlefield.” Cool.

 

The Creature Curve

I’ve recently seen several online articles about putting together a paper version of the Magic The Gathering Online (MTGO) format, Momir Basic, particularly through the creation of a cube – click here for an example by Matt “Kranny” Kranstuber.

For those not familiar with Momir Basic, its origins date back to the Magic format Vanguard, more specifically it started when Vanguard was ‘ported’ to MTGO, and a subsequent variance of the Vanguard game that emerged. For more information on the basics check out The Momir Basic Primer by Jeff Till

Part of  the process  of building a Momir Basic cube involves the analysis of Converted Mana Cost (CMC) for creatures, this can be easily done by using The Gatherer. This got me interested in the CMC curve for all the creature cards that have ever appeared in Magic, so, I thought it would be useful to create a series of links to do searches in The Gatherer for CMCs from zero to >10. Here are the links

Zero CMC

One CMC

Two CMC

Three CMC

Four CMC

Five CMC

Six CMC

Seven CMC

Eight CMC

Nine CMC

Ten CMC

Eleven and greater CMC

Legendary Creatures – Colour Combinations – Revisited

About a year or so ago I created a post on my MTGHunter blog which allowed easy colour searches in The Gatherer for legendary creatures. Over the course of a year that post has proved my most popular. Because of its popularity I thought I would re-post it on my new Scrying For Magic WordPress Blog, as I hope to create other useful Gatherer ‘quick links’ for useful reusable searches.

The original idea came one lunch while thinking about the popularisation of the EDH format and pondering over how many legendary creatures would be ‘available’ under all the various color combinations, stretching from mono-colour through multi-colour to five-colour. So here is the list of colour combinations that I ended up with, and the various results these give from The Gatherer database. By clicking on the various combinations listed you can get the relevant searches.

1-Colour

• White
• Blue
• Black
• Red
• Green
• Colourless

2-Colour

• White/Blue
• Blue/Black
• Black/Red
• Red/Green
• Green/White
• White/Black
• Blue/Red
• Black/Green
• White/Red
• Blue/Green

3-Colour

• White/Blue/Black
• Blue/Black/Red
• Black/Red/Green
• Red/Green/White
• Green/White/Blue
• White/Black/Red
• Blue/Red/Green
• Black/Green/White
• Red/White/Blue
• Green/Blue/Black

4-Colour

• White/Blue/Black/Red – None
• Blue/Black/Red/Green – None
• Black/Red/Green/White – None
• Red/Green/White/Blue – None
• Green/White/Blue/Black – None

5-Colour

• White/Blue/Black/Red/Green