My Intention

So Dez got the ball a rolling and I figured it was high time that I contributed. So on that note (Ahem*)

I AM BENE BOOM BLOGGER. FEAR THE ANTICIPATION OF MY ARTICLES AND THE DREADED WAIT BETWEEN THEIR POSTINGS, MUAH HA HA HAck (ensuing coughing fit).

Ugh, More to the point, my intention of content to bring to Two Scoops are articles detailing the construction, play-testing, tweaking, and ultimately assessing the viability of fringe decks in the Magic the Gathering competitive scene. I am largely experienced in the formats of standard and modern but would like to branch out into legacy as well.

You might say:
"What makes this chump qualified to write magic-articles. I don't listen to anyone who hasn't won at least 5 GP's and been to the Pro-tour."

To which I would reply:
"Wow, listen here douche nozzle I don't need to prove anything to you. I know what I'm about and prolly have more Magic experience in my Di..."

To which my co-blogger Dez would interrupt:
"BENE, This is not the place for crude hypothetical shouting matches. This blog must remain on a higher standard than that."

So after a discussion about whether or not the internet is in fact mostly a collection of crude hypothetical arguments (and cat pictures) I concede the point and come up with a 'better' explanation of what I am offering here.

Which might go something like:
"What a well put and meaningful question from our comments section by poster initials D N. Well to that I would have to say that as someone in much of the same situation as many of our readers are probably in, i.e. not Pro Tour Champions, I just want to become better and have fun doing it. To that end I am putting a lot of effort into testing and analyzing so that others might have something to form their own opinions on. In summation I'm not asking you to take my opinions and hear them as the musings of a semi-benevolent MTG God. I just want to help expand the horizons of the meta and your minds."

So if that sounds interesting I hope that you continue reading Two Scoops for more anecdotes and analysis of both the Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering.

Also I am currently looking for interested MTG players to become part of a testing pool to more accurately gauge a decks strengths and weaknesses. I am fond of using XMage as a client to do this through but have been having issues finding a dependable player base. So please contact me via email: smbene247@gmail.com

Malygos Priest - Miracle Rogue 2: Electric Boogaloo

File this one under impressive bad beat stories. I'm playing a priest with my Spider Ball hunter deck, a mid-range/tempo build which usually does pretty well when allowed time to set itself up properly. It often trades some early game life in for card and board advantage. I find it pretty consistently runs other decks out of gas, but has the reach to race if needed.

They're playing what seems to be a control-ish build, with lots of stall and some quality removal, backed up by solid trades (you hope). By all accounts, I was in the lead. I'd wiped both his Northshire Clerics before they could draw him any cards, and I even managed to play around one of his Dark Cultists, preempting any potential value provided by it's deathrattle. His Emperor Thaurissan was active for only one turn, when it hit the board. I was even doing great on life. I'd been able to keep tempo the whole game, and was ticking him down, only taking 3 damage along the way. His heals and stalls managed to bring us to turn 10.

After I failed to provide an adequate threat to continue pressure, they snatched the opportunity, and taught me a thing or two about his deck. From 10 Mana and The Coin, they dealt me 27 damage in a single turn, none of which could have been stopped by taunt, hunter secrets, or anything I can think of, short of some mage secrets, which I did not have access to.

They dropped Malygos for 9 Mana, followed by the coin, and with his two mana They cast two Mind Blasts and one Holy Smite, each with +5 spell damage, and each -1 mana cost, thanks to the single, non-interactive turn that allowed Thaurissan to discount them. Even being ready for him with a snipe would not be enough to prevent his ability without +X spell damage of my own.

Don't mistake this for griping, per se. I thought this was one of the most impressive clever combo turns I've seen. If I had to guess, I'd say they was setting up the combo from the start, with every stall tactic meant to give him more time to draw all the cards they needed.

For what it's worth, his particular interaction required him to go second, to wait until all 4 combo pieces were in hand, and then to wait until the 5th combo piece arrives to spring the trap. Also, he needs to survive until turn 10. Using some numbers from here and some magic, I got the rough estimation that he had a ~2.8% chance of managing this feat by turn 10. I think our game went more than 10 turns, so the odds increase, and more with every draw. Still, a rare combo, to be sure.

As cool as I think this combo was, if this sort of thing (even reduced by 5-10 damage) can be pulled off with any sort of consistency, I expect that Blizzard's nerfhammer will eventually fall on some part of the combo. They took Leeroy Jenkins down a peg or two for the same miracle-esque tendency to end games unexpectedly, and often without the ability to respond. Leeroy, though was something that could be defended against, via taunters, Snipe, via all number of traps, as well as a number of cards available to other classes. The fact that this was possible in such a way that next to no planning could have prevented it, that is the facet of this combo that I think will get Blizzard to check in.

Some possible options for taming the beast without nerf would be to release some secrets which can stop Thaurissan, or some minions which reduce enemy +spell damage (or just enemy spell damage). That being said, I don't think that increasing Malygos to 10-cost, or reducing his +spell damage to +4 would be terrible fixes either, and likely would not take them completely out of play, They would still have a niche deck here or there, but the Priest Combo decks would just have to deal with Prophet Velen-based combos instead.

Let's be fair though, those get broken sometimes too.