Ten packs of Dark Ascension online

I love $1 packs for small sets, and especially so in the case of DKA because I have played with many of the cards and need a few of them, as, for example the Grafdigger's Cage I pulled here (my second one these days, I redeemed three of them).

[Modern] Aggressive Mining deck

I lost against it, and it gave me ideas for building my own Aggressive Mining deck. The key cards, besides Aggressive Mining, are: Lorescale Coatl-gains counters when you draw a card, Walking Atlas-lets you play lands around Aggressive Mining, and Worm Harvest-lets you drop tokens for the lands in your graveyard.

Here are Aggressive Mining and Lorescale Coatl doing their thing.

Enter Walking Atlas.

Look at all those counters!

Here are the tokens from Worm Harvest.

Here is the final state of my opponent's critters end of game.

[Standard] White Black Erebos

This build started as a showcase of FRF cards (Hero's Blade), but I just don't have enough legendaries to make it work.

 

Here is a game in which I had a flyer and my opponent didn't. With two early Despises I can rip out anything with Reach.

Here is a really long game in which Erebos's clause that your opponents cannot gain life came in handy: my opponent's Soulflayer could not gain life.

[Standard] Blue on Blue in 18 turns

I lost by a hair.... but it was a fun game, a true Johnny game. The game really starts to get interesting by turn 8.

Turn 9 I control a critter large enough to do a full counter with Stubborn Denial.

Turn 10 I win a counterspell war.

Turn 13 my opponent refills their hand with Interpret the Signs with a Scourge of Fleets, a 7 drop.

Turn 14 I lose a counterspell war.

Turn 16 my big critter is turned into a 4/4 token with Flying.

Turn 17 Scourge of Fleets sends my critters back to my hand.

Turn 18 Scourge of Fleets via Fated Infatuation sends my critters back to my hand.

 

Turn 18 gg, very well played by my opponent.

[Standard] Got milled by a Phenax Silumgar deck

This deck packs a solid blue black counterspell (Dissipate), draw (Jace's Ingenuity), hand disruption (Thoughtseize), milling enabler (Phenax), target removal (Hero's Downfall, Bile Blight), and milling critters (Silumgar, which is hexproof, and Mindscour Dragon). Its capped off by Ashiok.

Silumgar by itself is at least a hexproof flyer.

With Phenax I start getting milled.

I at least was able to remove one of the milling critters.

But the milling worked... Ashiok helped mill the last few cards.

Money Card Forecast for Modern Masters 2015

I used the total format price list from mtgGoldfish and looked at the cards that were $10 plus online. I have no forecast for the lands because the enemy color fetchlands can be included in Dragons of Tarkir and Modern Masters had no money lands. The cards I consider to have low probability are cards that are in decks with other cards that are out of range for this product, such as Fulminator Mage. The medium probability cards (50/50) are cards that are found in a few competitive decks or that are used mostly in Legacy, such as Hurkyl's Recall. The medium probability cards can get included to add money to the packs for each color-e.g. Elesh Norn for white and Damnation for black. I will be very surprised if the the high probability cards are not in this product, but this is only a forecast!

I am working under the assumption that cards reprinted in Modern Masters will not be reprinted in Modern Masters 2015. If this is a wrong assumption, then the packs will get a lot more value if Tarmogoyf, Vendilion Clique, and Cryptic Command are reprinted again.

 

March 6, 2015 PAX update: Goyf is in, and that will sell $10 packs. Karn is in, and that is not a surprise.

[Standard] Monastery Siege and Stubborn Denial Blue Green

This deck is a ton of fun, and even very good on account of how the two showcased cards work. Monastery Siege is good with Khans to get started, and awesome with a second one choosing Dragons. Against red and black Dragons is best. Once you control a big critter,Stubborn Denial becomes a Counterspell for one blue, and this is just awesome. I have countered some powerful cards this way.

It is not common to pull off two Monastery Sieges. Here I had one with Khans first, and then the second one with Dragons.

Here is a strong board state. I can counter anything with Stubborn Denial.

[Standard] Mono-blue Skulker

This deck is up there with Milling and Land Destruction (LD) in how annoying it can be for many opponents. Still, it is legal, and it can lead to some very interesting games. It is very weak against Red Deck Wins (RDW) in single games, but in matches with the proper sideboard I am sure it can do well. After all, it is packing a ton of counterspells.

If your opponent cannot remove a Skulker, you can draw enough to make it really big.

And you can use a counterspell to avoid removal.

You can also send a critter back to your opponent's deck and then counter it on the next turn.

[Legacy] Six packs of Urza's Saga Online

Pulled a Pariah!