My Epic Storm

See it as Norin intended.

So yeah haven't really done standard in a little bit but Young Pyromancer is just too damn awesome to not build a deck with him (though he needs to put on a damn shirt...kids these days). So I thought to myself while grocery shopping...how can I make him in the most fair deck I can? Then I suddenly collapsed as a dark vision came to me. Blood rained down from the sky, dark clouds in the sky, thunderbolts flashed illuminating the sky...and it came to me. Storm. The most fairest deck of them all. After all, even the great Lord Maro has a mighty Storm scale which he judges the most fairest of mechanics. So obviously storm is the fairest. Shut up. Logic.

Anyways, an elderly lady with her grandchild poked me on the head as I came too asking if I was okay. I jolted up, pushing the lady aside, as I stormed out of there knocking her groceries all over the floor. I had work to do as I heard her grandchild crying out for help as the lady struggled to get back on her wheelchair.

But...with that totally fair and not completely stupid mechanic not being in standard I had to be creative to appease the vision. So looking through the standard cards we basically have two rituals.

Infernal Plunge

Battle Hymn

Both of which (in)conveniently need creatures. But how can I dun make creatures I asked the dark god in the sky. And then not Maro gave me Young Pyromancer. It appears my goat sacrificing had appeased the wizard gods as they have given me this great power. Oh and also goblins.

Alright so now that I have these guys I needed a way to win. What was a totally not obscure way I could win...well I recalled this...oddly when I was thinking about Emmara Tandris for some reason. Also when thinking about fire I decided eh why not.

Well now that I had my deck idea ready I ran over to my buddy and start ravingabout all of my ideas. He said my deck was the shit! Or maybe just shit. I really don't remember. Whatever. I just am going to raid his cards later anyway. Oh and more goblins.

Finally at long last...I had all the cards I needed. Only one step left. I got my bubbling cauldron from my attic ready, threw my friends cards in, and took the cards up on the roof. Magically the Gods struck my cauldron with lightning and gave birth to...my epic experiment.

TLDNR: 

Deck List

Win Con (besides just beats)

1 Burn at the Stake

Pretty Much a Win Con

2 Epic Experiment

2 Past in Flames

Creature Poopers

4 Young Pyromancer

4Krenko's Command

Rituals/Close Enough to a Ritual

4 Battle Hymn

2 Infernal Plunge

4 Goblin Electromancer

Shovels

4 Faithless Looting

4 Think Twice

4 Desperate Ravings

4 Thought Scour

Lands...yawn

6x Island

7x Mountain

4x Steam Vents

4x Sulfur Falls

Sideboard

3x Guttersnipe

2x Izzet Charm

1x Massive Raid

4x Pillar of Flame

2x Ral Zarek

3x Syncopate

How to play the deck

Alright real talk. You want to have in your opening hand either a Young Pyromancer or a Goblin Electromancer (preferably both) and some dig. If you don't have that in your first hand mull unless if you are sure you have enough dig you can get it by T3. Besides that as far as cantrip priority I made a little guide.

Goblin Electromancer? 

Yes!

1. Think Twice

2. Desperate Ravings (depending on hand may move up to one) 

3. Thought Scour

4. Faithless Looting

No :(

1. Thought Scour

2. Faithless Looting

3. Think Twice

4. Desperate Ravings

Now this order does change depending on if you are comboing off or not. Typically if you have a ritual you want to save desperate ravings and faithless looting since they are red mana dependant.

On that note be very wise about how you spend your Blue mana. It is a limiting factor in the deck. Besides that the goal is to get a lot of tokens via young pyromancer and krenko's command and using that mana for combo rituals into an eventual Burn at the Stake...or you know...just flat out murdering your opponents with the army you have.

Finally some notes about the sideboard. It's really experimental at the moment. Guttersnipe and Massive Raid are in for an alt win con should you need it. Pillar of Flame is for Voice of Lameness and other pesky jerks. Ral, Syncopate, and Izzet Charm are in for long grindier games/control.

Enjoy,

Jude

TLDNR 2:

Just cast shit and smack the dudes with the tokens and the things.

No Thoughtseize for you!

Sorry folks. No Thoughtseize in M14. Blame the number crunch.

M14 As A Whole

So we are 201/249 cards spoiled. Pretty sweet. So what are my thoughts so far? So far I have been pretty impressed as far as the snore fest M13 was. (seriously exalted was soooooooooooo boring). But I'll break it down in little sections.

Planeswalkers

Alright lets start by looking at the big splashies. So we got two new ones as well as Memory Adept, Caller of Pride, and Lilly of the Dark Realms. As far as reprints goes I miss old Ajani but each of them aren't terrible. Just not the best walkers of their groups (and not talking about Mind Sculptor...that would be so stupid...I miss Baby Jace). But we got two new kids on the block...

Well I really really like the art on this babe first. But in all honesty this isn't much better than Firebrand if at all. Her 0 essentially pseudo draws you a card which isn't terrible but isn't great compared to red decks current 4 drops. Her + is pretty nifty but when can we let a red walker just shock things. That would make them soooo much more playable. Finally her ultimate is indeed an ultimate. Not too much more to say about that. If she sees play it will be for her 0 but she is no Koth.

This guy. He is really really cool for EDH. Standard playability really depends on the meta but he will either see play or see fringe play. Either way I am really hyped about this guy.

Other Mythics

For the most part the other mythics have been pretty cool. My personal favorites are Rise of the Dark Realms, Archangel of Thune, and Kalion Hydra. But so far I haven't been disappointed with too many...besides Devout Invocation and Scourge of Valakas...but those haven't been Emmara bad.

Cool Rares

Well I now need to get a foily Bogbrew Witch. Thanks Wizards. And a foily Dark Prophecy...cause that is so good.

I mean look at it! LOOK AT IT! Sure it sucks that you are forced to and it costs 3 black...but my Shirei deck is going to make sweet sweet love to it. 

Also I missed you Door of Destinies. Casual players rejoice. And if you wanna see my view on slivers look back a bit. (spoiler alert: not too thrilled with the new "slivers"). Oh and of course fucking Scavenging Ooze.

Shirei be eating peeps

So I just got done playing with my Shirei deck. It is pretty f'n fun. Expect a deck list/primer up within the weekend :D

Scratch that Phew

...just reread it. It's Xbox Live account bound. Rerage time.

My thoughts on the M14 Rule Change.

I personally from a gameplay perspective love love love the new rulings. Speaking as a person that plays mostly Commander this just makes me so excited!

Why?

Because no longer will I have to worry about sharing a general with others! This opens up a whole new world! A new fantastic point of view! It's just awesome.

Now to the negatives...flavorwise it makes like no sense. I know about flavor explanation from Doug Beyer. But still. However, I think in the long scheme of things this will make the game a bit more fun.

Next up I think most people that are upset, are upset because of the increased difficulty of killing shrouded/hexproofed Avacyns and other creatures like her with the removal of Clone murder. If I am being totally honest...don't let her get shrouded/indestructible. There a crapton of tuck/exile effects that work. Play spot removal. Adapt. It will be different at first but change isn't always necessarily bad and I think this one is being blown way out of proportion.

And on a similar final note. Fuck Geist of Saint Ass.

Phew...

Okay so Xbox One isn't as bad as it appeared at first.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/05/phil-harrison-xbox-one/

The used game bit is the issue that concerned me the most and that is confirmed false (?) maybe. It's kinda vague if it is tied to the disc or the Xbox Live account.

Gearing up for WoW again.

My roomies and I reactivated our WoW accounts. Pandaria...prepare yourself for our awesomeness.

Best Gif Ever (Xbox One)

http://i.minus.com/iBzvb2JSpQNRM.gif

This is amazing.

Xbox One...WTF?!!

Hey there Mr. Brendan!

Oh hey there Jim. What be the haps?

Did you see this super awesome new system?!!! The Xbox One!

Oh...I saw it Jim. I...saw it. The system that broke my heart...and killed a little bit of me.

Wait what?

First off Jim...the name is fucking stupid. Xbox One? What do you mean the first Xbox or the Xbox One? Fucking confusing.

Yeah...but at least it is not as bad as the Wii U.

Yeah...that's true but still what the hell?

Well...it has the super cool kinect!

Yeah that's great Jim...except for this time it is required. I don't want to have to deal with making sure the Kinect can see me and do all of its BS everytime I want to play a game. It just feels like a stupid gimmick that's being forced down our throats this time.

But you can play online with your friends! They have a lot of servers now.

Yeah that is all well and good. Except for you have to be connected to the internet at least once a day to play solo. When I want to play games a lot of the time I don't connect to Xbox Live because a lot of the time when I am playing single player games...I don't want to.

Wait what?

Exactly. Another thing that pisses me off about the Xbox One is their "used" game policy. I live with 2 other roommates and we each have our own Xbox. When we go out and get a new game we often go halfsies or thirdsies. Now we have to pay to install each of our new games on each of our Xbox Ones. What the hell.

At least the installing is a cool thing...

Yeah...it's not. It is a major pain in the ass to do when you want to play a new game. Also the Xbox One has 500 GB of memory. The average game is about 25 GB for Blueray based games. 9 GB otherwise. So have fun with all that space. Oh and guess what...no spots for external hard drives.

...

Yeah...it's pretty fucking terrible.

M14 - Scourge of Valkas

Very meh to me. I would have preferred it if he gave Dragons Warstorm Surge's ability. That would have been fucking amazing. As it is though it's a cool card for dragon based EDH decks.

M14 - Windreader Sphinx

Source - http://www.gatheringmagic.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=35547

Awesome EDH card. I can totally see it in Isperia lists.

M14 - Ratchet Bomb

Source - http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=511974

It appears like Ratchet Bomb is the buy a box promo. So basically...eat a dick tokens :D. Seeing this though makes me realize how much I miss Sun Titan. Oh well...at least we still have Trading Post. 

M14 - Goblin Diplomats (Game Day Promos)

Source - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=mtgcom/events/gameday-facts

This art is awesome. As for the card itself, it is an interesting effect. I'm not so sure how much play it will see to be honest.

The common is Hive Stirrings

M14 - Colossal Whale

Okay so this probably won't see constructed player. It will be a limited bomb and that's probably the best it will do. BUT...this is the most awesome art I have seen in a while. Just...whoa!!! Also it's a whale. I haven't seen a whale in forever. Magic needs more whales. And unicorns...so I can ride the shit out of them.

Virused

Hey guys sorry for the lack of updates in the past two days. My comp got a lovely virus. But it's getting all better now and more spoiler analyses should be up soonish.

M14 - Other Promos (Bonescythe Sliver + Ogre Battledriver)

Yeah...because that's what Slivers need to make them even more terrifying. Also seriously? Are they even trying to not make Slivers look like predators?

Oh hey Into the Web of War! How have you been? What's that you cost one less and have a 3/3 body? Awesome! Welcome to Norin!

M14 - Ring of Three Wishes

Okay first I love the flavor of this card. Awesome. However, realistically this is a worse Planar Portal. Now you might be like Brendan are you on crack?!! This costs 1 less and usually you don't get more than one tutor with Planar Portal. This is true. However, you can't tutor for this effectively with Treasure Mage. Most of the time if you are using a card like this the one mana isn't going to matter too too much, and I'd rather have the consistency of PP. However this is still an awesomely flavorful card. Plus it gives more causal players a chance to grab a near PP so it isn't all bad.

M14 - Rise of the Dark Realms

Holy shit! Man is this card cool for black EDH. Thanks Wizards. You made my Lazav deck in development a very happy theoretical person.

M14 - Devout Invocation

This one is just okay for me. Seems like it could be cool in a Rhys EDH deck, but to me it costs too much and requires you to have a lot of creatures for it to be worth the risk. Plus tapping a token army to generate a bunch of Angels, without haste doesn't seem too great. Overall I'd rather have Entreat the Angels, but I'm sure some casual players will find joy in this card.