(Thought I'd rather
bump this thread than start a new one...)
My Quest Journal, July 2016...
This summer, I started two new quests, using the
Invasion block plus some basic (core) sets. The whole Invasion block as well as years that followed belong to my personal
'black hole' period of MtG, i.e. the time I was not actively following Magic. Or more specifically, was not following it
at all. Forge is actually a great
time machine for reliving eras that you originally missed.
For my quest opponents, I picked my personal
Encyclopedia world. It is based on the regular Shandalar world but with some particularly nasty-ish extra opponents that take advantage of all pre-Mirage sets. Lots of rampant resource depletion (LD, HD, etc.) and lockout decks there...
My first quest was with Black as my main color. Since the Invasion block was apparently built to accomodate multicolor decks, I experimented with two different paths: BU and BR. Didn't actually even include
Apocalypse in this first quest, so the neighboring 'friendly' colors were the obvious choices. The BU deck was impressive in many ways (ETB effect + reusable bounce = fun) but ultimately too slow. The much more straightforward BR deck turned out to be faster and generally more powerful.
Terminate was very good against many opponents, and it didn't take a genius to figure out the synergy between a
Flametongue Kavu and a
Lava Zombie. Against mono-black opponents, I was able to build a nice and effective theme deck,
The Night of the Living Deck (you can guess the theme). Visited Shandalar and bought enough
Legends booster boxes to get two
Mirror Universes, and I was set to take out Arzakon. Enhanced with the Mirrors,
The Night of the Living Deck made short work of him, at which stage I considered my quest complete.
One of the most memorable duels in this quest was against the big bad Blue Wizardess, the Astral Visionary. I would have had, in
theory, board control, with enough sturdy creatures to take her in down in a turn -
if I could have attacked. The problem was, she had me on the ropes otherwise, with her multiple Howling Mines and
Stasis - she played a new land every turn to sustain the
Stasis, and my 40-card deck was rapidly running out of cards. And all my creatures were tapped.
Then...she finally lost the
Stasis. She did play a new
Island but of course could not recast
Stasis. None too soon! After my normal draw and 3
Howling Mine draws, I have whopping
two cards left in my library. But now my creatures untap. Finally,
finally! I declare an alpha strike, with more than enough damage potential to take her down to -20 or so.
My soldiers clench their teeth, clutch their weapons, and march forward towards imminent, inevitable victory.
Closing in for the kill!
What does she do?
She taps her single untapped
Island she played last turn.
She cast a Blue one-drop.
It is...
Ancestral Recall.
She casts it...on
me!
Fatally
decking me just before my army of angry creatures could turn her into so much mincemeat! I could not believe my eyes. A monumental victory shattered in seconds into dregs of bitter defeat!
I did win the whole match 2-1, though.
For my second quest, which I have just started, I picked Red,
Encyclopedia opponents (again), the whole
Invasion block (including
Apocalypse) plus the 5th-7th Editions for some core cards. I wanted to build a strong RG aggro deck this time but alas, that was not to be. The Green cards I got in my starting pool simply weren't worthy of admission, even in a monogreen deck, let alone in a deck that wants to splash Green to get some nifty cards! So my initial build was simply monored. But this time, I was looking to try Green, at least GR. Confession time: I have
never been a Green player. My favorite colors are its enemy colors (U, B), especially in a control build, and I can also make Red and White work; Red traditionally in monored aggro builds and RB aggro-control builds, White most notably in UW control builds (I do WW sometimes but am strictly a below-the-average-but-better-than-goldfish player in that department). Green? Never even wanted to try, really. The main problem is that it encourages a style of play that does not meet my idea of
fun. Boring no-evasion stompy creatures? No thank you, sir! But I was looking for an excuse to try it
now. However, it soon turns out, fates seem to have dictated otherwise...
I won the first couple of matches, albeit undeservedly I would say (due to the AI playing badly, or some other random happenstance, when I was already heavily on the ropes). I noticed that many of my cards were just sitting in my hand - either their CC cost was too high for an aggro build (the game would be over before I had the mana to cast my
Trained Orgg) or simply too situational (such as
Insolence - while amusing on Green
Instill Energy mana elves and birds, totally useless against walls and untapping attackers), which would make them dead cards in many duels. I tried to buy some simple cheap trash creatures when I could find them, like
Raging Goblins. Then...after 2 or 3 wins, I opened a
Flametongue Kavu and knew I was in business. My current record in this quest is 7-0, and I have now also opened 2
Terminates and 1
Lava Zombie, so it seems I'm heading down the BR path again (although with a more Red emphasis this time), so boring...but admittedly highly effective.
As a final note, I find that I like the
Invasion block. The cards are fun to play, and it does give you some power but in a balanced sort of way (esp. when you have no access to the fast super mana of the early sets, such as the
Moxes,
Black Lotus,
Sol Ring, and dual lands). Also, it seems to me like the first set where the gold cards are actually quite usable and attractive - unlike some early sets, where multicolor meant
handicap more than anything else (like
Legends - but that set was very unbalanced in
both ways, in addition to unusable rubbish, it also gave you
Mana Drain,
Moat,
The Abyss, and lots of other crazy cards).