Abzan Ascendancy is Very Sexy!

Welcome back. Look i have a post up on a Monday, it is about to get cold people! Hell freezing over cold.

Joking aside, i have been working on different versions of more or less the same list for a few hours now. Trying to find the right balance of this card and/or that card for the deck i hope to use to win Gameday this weekend. Deck choice is still in the air. I could swap to red/black agro or my warrior deck on a whim. But i really like the idea of a combo like creature deck at the moment. Something that punishes the control lists in the meta and that i hope can get around the different agro decks with good blocks and a trip to value town.

Here are the lists as they stand at the moment.

abzan_leap

abzan_rites

abzan_grim

abzan_abomination

Like i said they are just a few cards off. Grim Haruspex or Smothering Abimination for extra card draw? How many leaps vs Vamp Rites? Bone splinters or Collected Company and sacrifice dudes like merciless executioner?

I just don’t know for sure. I do know i want to explore this list this week big time.

You know that agro list is looking better and better.

You know i love to read your thoughts.

<3s

Temur Molten Vortex

Sunday night while i was buying catnip to make a spirit catman my bestie in Dungeons and A-holes, i also was having a Facebook conversation with Travis. For those that don’t know Travis he is a Magic player that tends to think on the edges of what most people thing of as good deck design. Also he is a huge troll, that is just his thing. If he can get you to think about something by poking you with his words he will do so at almost all costs. Ie, Troll. One last thing about Travis, he will be my podcast partner for a new show coming soon. Locking down a recording time is our main hangup but i hope to have that ironed out real soon.

Anyway, Travis and i were bouncing around a deck list he has been rocking for a few weeks now and doing fairly well with at his local store. This is what he sent me over a couple of messages.

4 molten vortex

4 magmatic insight
3 anger of the gods
4 monastery siege
2 days undoing
3 treasure cruise
1 volcanic vision

1 alhammarret’s archive

2 keranos god of storms

36 lands

In another window i jump over to Tapout.com and fill this mess in and try a few practice hands. If he is winning like he says he is based off out out my practice hands went he is sacrificing kittens to a forgotten god in a cave somewhere.

So between roleplaying moments of amazing stuff, i hit him back with a few cards.

Alchemist’s Vials
Pyromancer’s Goggles
Radiant Flames – with a message to add a third color
Sarkhan Unbroken

After a moment the following comes in, make a list set it up how you think it would be best and i will take a look in depth.

These are my thoughts for a list.

4 Molten Vortex

4 Magmatic insight
2 Atarka’s Command
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Radiant Flames
3 Treasure Cruise
2 Ravaging Blaze
2 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
3 Sarkhan Unbroken

4 Alchemist’s Vials
2 Pyromancer’s Goggles

34 not lands meaning 26 lands, i think that 26 should be more then enough. but if not i can see adding in a few more by cutting the commands but i like idea of using them to jump to 4 lands as well as sneaking in some damage.

So why temur? Well Radiant Flames really needs 3 colors of mana on hand to do max damage to wipe the board and Sarkhan Unbroken is a non creature way to draw cards while fixing mana and or make big flyers to get in damage or block as needed. Ie he is the stall this deck wants. Jace allows us to rebuy our much needed spells since we want such a large land count. And well green sideboard cards are sweet right now.

The real question is can we go Mardu? Yes, yes we can the mana is about the same as Temur. With the loss of our planeswalkers, cruise and Atarka’s Command we gain, a slew of wraths, two of the best removal spells post rotation Murderous Cut and Crackling Doom as well as two cards i feel will really shake up standard post rotation Deflecting Palm and Mardu Charm. Getting in for a few points as your opponent ramps to a big fattie then palm them back with their own man or Cdoom it down is a thing i fully expect in the coming months.

It is a good time to be into Magic. It is a good time to buy boxes if you don’t play and sit on them. This next set of cards will be like printing money unlike any set we have seen before and i hope we wont see again for a long while.

Okay, i need to get to bed soon and i want to finish the MTG Potpourri cast, don’t think i am going to make it but i want to try.

Comments are welcome

<3s

Last Hurrahs of the Best Standard I Can Remember.

I have decided for this last hurrah of the current standard environment to only draft in FNMs if the standard constructed event fails to fire. Also i plan to take a new deck each week. This includes some revamped old favorites as well as some builds that are completely new that i feel can only happen in this window. And the last few weeks of living this plan has been a lot of fun. That being said not all of these decks have been good. Winning at least 1 FNM while crashing and burning in others. But that is why the family is drafting, they can carry team Gurobo even if i am not around to do so.

Also i want to add that i was able to take down my shops Gameday tournament with my Red/Black Impact Tremors deck. Totally unchanged for the expected meta. I just played to even out the field of players so we wouldn’t have to deal with bye rounds. My only loss on the day was due to a Mardu dragon deck with a turn 2 Soulfire grand master each game followed up with a Draconic Roar WITH A revealed Dragon for a huge tempo/live swing. Game 2 i was able to push threw this until my opponent was able to Anger of the Gods wiping both board (mostly mine) while gaining 21 life. I held back just in case and started to recover. But a second Anger off the top for my opponent knocked me out of the game and it was just me drawing hoping for a removal spell for his 4/4 dragon… But i was able to make the top 8 and win out. Thankfully my son took down the Mardu player with his blue devotion/artifact deck.

So lets look at the next build i have in process.

I really want to rock a crazy enchantment list while i can. Herald of the Pantheon, Sigil of the Empty Throne and Starfield of Nyx just seem insane mix in a few cards from left field like the Font of XXXs from Journey into Nyx as to control when my enchantments are men and when they are not as well as sweet value cards like Courser and Eidolon of Blossoms.

Here is what i have so far.

Font of Fertility
Font of Vigor
Suspension Field/Silkwrap some combo of these with the others in the sideboard for games 2-3
4 Herald of the Pantheon
Banishing Light
Bow of Nylea
Courser of Kruphix
Eidolon of Blossoms
Sigil of the Empty Throne
Starfield of Nyx

This leaves me with a few slots, 5ish… Unless we do some trimming. If we want to start adding things like Commune with the Gods, Kruphix’s Insight or End Hostilities we start needing to make those cuts. Let alone making room for some way to return our Starfield in the event they get hit other then the Bow of course….

So how do flesh this mess out? We start by looking at our meta. My meta is a hand full of agro decks. Slikwraps and FoVs should handle the early game well enough. If we make it to the mid/late game we should be golden vs them. An Abzan midrange list. As long as we have a Banishing Light for Elisabeth and can recover/stop an Ugin from destroying us we should be okay. Ugin makes me want to splash blue for Disdainful Strokes.. Blue and/or Red is an fairly easy splash thanks to fetches and the FoFs…. Wonder if we want to take advantage of that? I also have a few Artifact decks floating around for the most part i just need to keep my life total high and use the removal enchantments to take things out. There is a few control decks about but they shouldn’t be too much of a problem unless they manage to wipe when i can’t unman my maned up enchantments. Yeah that was a crazy line, but i like it.

I know i want 2 End Hostilities, 3 Kruphix’s Insights. I would like 3 Reclaim and some number of the Green Siege… Sigh. Big mana spells need fast mana if you want them to hit the board quickly.

So lets crunch some numbers.

Is 8 targeted removal spells and 2 sweepers enough/Too much or just right? it feels right to me. You want those 8 early. Most of the time you will be happy to draw 2 or more a game. Hell you might HAVE to draw 3+ to win some games.

Are the 4 FoVs right? I am not sure. I want at least 1 a game. But i also want at least one Starfield and with 3 Kruphix’s Insights and potential drawing from Eidolon of Blossoms it seems safe to trim here.

Could we go below 24 lands? Don’t think so. We want land. In most match ups the more the better. Hell we might want to trim to go up to 25 or 26…

Think i will try it out as

Font of Fertility
Font of Vigor
Suspension Field/Silkwrap Think you go 3/1 Silkwrap/Field
4 Herald of the Pantheon
Banishing Light
Bow of Nylea
Courser of Kruphix
3 Kruphix’s Insights
Eidolon of Blossoms
2 Frontier Siege
2 End Hostilities
Sigil of the Empty Throne
Starfield of Nyx

4 Green/White fetch
3 White/blue Fetch
3 Green/Red Fetch
2 Green/White Temple
4 Plains
6 Forest
2 Island

4 Disdainful Strokes
2 Stubborn Denial
4 The other of the Suspension Field/Silkwrap
Reclaim
1 Mountain
1 Font of Ire

There will be some games where we wont be able to win fast enough with the Sigil’s 4/4 fliers. If we can get a little FoI engine running we might be able gain the needed reach that surprises our opponents. I mean 6 mana for 5 damage to the face is just bad. 10 for 10 is better but still bad. 15 for 14 also bad but if you are making 4/4 fliers each turn and it is uncountable it might be better.  If it is bad these last two slots are FoVs for the rush match ups where we are just buying time.

Thoughts?

<3s

Why is no one on Blood-Chin Fanatic???

Late last night instead of going to bed at a normal time for an adult i stayed up too late and brewed with my pal, Travis. Brewing for those that don’t know, is when you try and build a “Magic” deck from pet cards you might want to play with in a deck. I have to explain this as my wife who plays Magic and knows that people think of and call me a brewer asked me what i was doing last night and when i said “Brewing with Travis” she was confused. I can only assume she thought it was some weird gay/sex/internet thing, to which i would say… It could be???? But we were working on magic deck lists.

We started off with the core idea of what to play in standard ques on Magic Online. We are both tired of just drafting all the time and not having anything to just to have fun with. We are also broke as fuck and so the idea of budget builds happened and we went from one amazing build around me card to the next until i remembered that i had bought some Blood-Chin Fanatics awhile back and that they are super cheep online. Oh also add in the requirement of the deck being alive post rotation….

And the rest was almost a flood of a list.

Creature (28)
4x Bloodsoaked Champion

2x Battle Brawler
4x Blood-Chin Fanatic
4x Blood-Chin Rager
4x Chief of the Edge
1x Chief of the Scale

3x Mardu Strike Leader
3x Grim Haruspex
3x Brutal Hordechief

Instant (4)
2x Harsh Sustenance
2x Secure the Wastes

Sorcery (2)
2x Swift Reckoning

Artifact (3)
3x Sigil of Valor
Land (23)
4x Caves of Koilos
3x Evolving Wilds
6x Plains
2x Scoured Barrens
8x Swamp

This thing might be a monster. It uses some of my personal favorite cards from the last block. Everyone is a Warrior except the  Grim Haruspex. But he adds some much needed card draw to the list. I wanted something that didn’t involve taking turns off like a Read the Bones would and would also play into they whole sac a guy thing. Seems like a natural fit.

What i really like about this list is how the deck goes both wide and tall using cards like Blood-Chin Fanatic, Brutal Hordechief and Sigil of Valor. Just picture how you might “go off” you have a few guys out put on some early pressure but now your opponent is hiding behind a few men of her own but you have to push through for the last few points. But if you alpha she can crack back for the game…. Then you topdeck lets say the Fanatic. All your guys become drain lives. Just think about what happens if you also have a Sigil of Valor… Equip attack with 1 guy, becomes a 6/6+ eat a blocker sack for a 12 point swing. Tasty.

You all know how i feel about the Brutal Hordechief and the Mardu Strike Leader, love them!!!

The best thing? The whole deck costs less then 10 tixs online. 8.something according to tappout.net. Is it a winner? Idk. Does it look like it can hold its own and steal games from people playing everything from mono red burn to the control decks? Yep. Seems to have solid game against most decks i can think of… Even has a little game vs turn 2 5/5 flying artifacts.

Will it be a thing post rotation? Shrug… But agro with synergy tend to eat new decks for awhile at least and by then i hope to have enough “thingies” to move up in deck. It also happens to be something i can play in paper fairly easily and get a ton of reps in with in a small amount of time.

As always love your feed back.

<3s

Soulfire Grand Master is a Myth Realized

Last week i wrote about a jeskai list i have been theorizing about here is a link to that write up. My actual list however is a few cards different, mostly to my access to the cards issues. Here is the latest version of the list.

Myth Realized
Soulfire Grand Master
Monastery Mentor
Ojutai Exemplars
Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Dragonlord Ojutai
Magma Jet
Roast
Valorous Stance – Devouring Light
Stoke the Flames
Ojutai’s Command
End Hostilities
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time
1 Secure the Wastes
Crater’s Claws
Narset Transcendent

So far this is what i know. Devouring Light is amazing in this list and i am main decking them at the moment. If you ever buy back or rebound a Treasure Cruise or a Dig you feel unbeatable. But i am not even sure if i want blue spells in the deck now.

You could go deeper into red/white with Elspeth, Sun’s Champions and token makers to make the exemplars and the over all theme of the deck even stronger.

But i was looking through my binder and i noticed that Naya mana is very sweet right now with all the fetches and temples. A 8 fetch land 8 basic 8 temple mana base would be quite good and having access to Atarka’s Command and Dromoka’s Command might be just stronger then the blue cards.

I am not sure.

Think i will get a few more games in with this list as it is then try it with out the blue and see if i even need the card draw. I might not.

I do want to make Narset good though. And i can’t foresee something doing a better job of abusing her then the Cruise/Dig combo…

The Death of June, Return of Updates

Morning everyone,

Some of you might have noticed that i took a little bit of a break from blogging for about the last month or so. I just needed to recharge, i felt like i was just pumping out the same decks or talking about the same things over and over.  That is MY problem being a brewer, some times a card just gets stuck in your head and you can’t find a deck at clears the cache as it where.

I am not going to make any promises on formats but i hope to write at least a little something each day again through July. I have enough going on in in my daily gaming world/life i hope to have enough to talk about.

Lets look at a few cards that have been rattling around in my head for a while and see if i can make some “Magic” happen.

Soulfire Grand Master
Monastery Mentor
Ojutai Exemplars

If you don’t know what a card does/is i linked you to their gatherer page. WoTC must not like letting people use their images for some reason.

So that is a pile of mythics, am i right or what?

Personally, i have loved Soulfire Grand Master since the moment i read the card. I just want play this on 2 and then lightingbolts forever! So lets do it!

I spent a little time looking for other decks that use the Soulmaster of Funk online and most of those lists are dull. And none of them are using Monastery Mentor or the Exemplars and both of these cards are insanely good.

4 Soulfire
4 Mentor
4 Exemplars
12

Magma Jet
Roast
Valorous Stance
1 Jeskai Charm
Stoke the Flames
Ojutai’s Command
End Hostilities
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time
Icy Blast
1 Secure the Wastes
Crater’s Claws

22
Narset Transcendent
2

The mana base for this deck should be simple.

4 Flooded Strand
3 Mystic Monastery
3 Evolving Wilds
3 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Temple of Triumph
2 Battlefield Forge
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Mountain

My thinking is just look at all the sweet cards no one is expecting. I wanted to over tax my opponent’s brain with “what can he have” and take advantage of that over thinking. Your removal is solid enough to handle everything, that loan Icy Blast is mostly for my son who is constantly using it to finish games in his artifact/blue rush deck he is loving in standard.

I kinda want more Narset also… SO many cuts. Can you guess that i had Mindswipe in the main? If you are crazy like me you could cut the charm, a dig and that icy for 3 in the main and then take them out during side boarding. My plan for side boarding at the moment is Anger of the Gods, Magma Spray, Glare of Heresy, Stubborn Denial, and more plainswalkers would be good.

Is it good? I am not sure. But i do know that those 3 dudes pack a ton of power that is not seeing a ton of standard play and i think it is because everyone has latched onto decks of old like Abzan (or however you spell is) and a deck like this would shake it up and i think whoop up on a lot of the current meta.

<3s

Magical Monday 5.11.2015

Greetings and Salutations, Hope you all are well and that you are finding inspiration in the current meta that is Standard. Wow, so many options….

If you have been watching this site you know that i have become obsessed with the card Assault Formation, more so now that i filled out my play-set. Pumping out list after list building around this card has become one of my mental exercises to help wake up in the morning. Now if i can just get my brain to shut up at night so i can get some sleep.

Long time readers might remember that not too long ago i was infatuated with constellation themed decks. Namely those using two key cards.

And i think i have at least the beginnings of a list combining the two key ideas.

4 Nyx-Fleece Ram
2 Underworld Coinsmith

4 Grim Guardian
3 Nyx Weaver
2 Pharika, God of Affliction
4 Courser of Kruphix

1 Erebos, God of the Dead

2 Doomwake Giant
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
2 Dragonlord Dromoka

4 Assault Formation
2 Kruphix’s Insight
2 Whip of Erebos

24 lands including 12 temples and 4 tri-lands….
Is this list good? I don’t really know. But it should be a lot of fun. I could even see pulling out the white all together for a Green/Black list.

4 Grim Guardian
2 Nyx Weaver
2 Pharika, God of Affliction
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Master of the Feast

1 Fate Unraveler
1 Erebos, God of the Dead

2 Doomwake Giant
2 Sidisi, Undead Vizier

2 Strength of the Fallen
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Assault Formation
2 Collected Company
2 Whip of Erebos

I like this list a lot also even if we don’t have the super cheep beaters but sometimes it is nice to have a good plan B and C.

There are a lot of ways to build an Assault Formation deck. A friend of my just loves his G/W/B list, and that is the point. It is a card that empowers diversity. Not like that big nasty Rhino that happens to also be good with Assault Formation…

<3s

Magical Tuesday (Because i was sick) 2.17.2015

Welcome to this edition of Magical Monday Tuesday, i was under the weather yesterday and my head was screaming. But lets talk about magic.

This weekend was solid one for the Gurobo family. The wife took down the FNM draft with a sweet mono black deck. The shop was drafting M15 btw, a format that i really think is a fun draft format with a lot of different decks available to good drafters. Remmie, the son, drafted a sweet deck as dropping a match to blue fliers a theme that will run through weekend.

Saturday, was Fate Reforged Gameday. I had planed to use the artifact agro deck but Remmie decided that he wanted to use it so i moved over to the red/white burn list i have been playing/writing about for a while now. And the wife took the temur deck i have been working on for her.

Thankfully there were enough people that we didn’t have to face off right away, in fact the wife and boy didn’t have to play each other until the simi-finials, where the wife took the boy down and proceeded to take down the tournament.

Sunday was our Store Vs Store match with Midnight Games in Hutchinson, an event that had slipped my mind until Saturday. Groan…. I was already starting to notice that bug that took me down Monday. But we pushed on. Wish the wife would have came along, her hot streak might have carried over for one more event as it was we got rolled instead.

I ended up drafting a 2-2-0 deck, either taking a fast 2 games or a punishing game 3. But i think my deck was build wrong until the third match were i cut a land for a 6 mana spell. I had the mardu agro deck and i thought i would win with my curve just being super low and attacking as often as possible, but 17 lands and 3 4 casting costing spells was just not enough power for when the game went long. And drawing the 5th land plus was a death-nail. But cutting a land and adding in the red uncommon dragon gave me some possible end game. But really all it did was get countered one game but it did clear the counter out for my red siege which i decided is amazing.

So other then getting sick and some family drama it was a really fun weekend of family magic fun.

So lets look at something new, this is a list i have taken right off TCGplayer.com and i think it is fairly good. I don’t love the sideboard but other then that i really think i would enjoy this thing.

4 Chromanticore
2 Pharika, God of Affliction
4 Satyr Wayfinder
3 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
4 Soulflayer
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Torrent Elemental
Creatures [26]
4 Commune with the Gods
3 Hero’s Downfall
2 Murderous Cut
1 Sultai Charm
Spells [10]
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
1 Island
2 Mana Confluence
1 Mountain
4 Opulent Palace
1 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
4 Temple of Malady
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Windswept Heath
1 Yavimaya Coast
Lands [24]
Deck Total [60]

3 Bile Blight
2 Crux of Fate
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Sultai Charm
3 Thoughtseize
1 Torrent Elemental
2 Treasure Cruise
Sideboard [15]

Thoughts?

<3s

Magical Monday 1.26.2015

Welcome once again to my Magical Monday. For those in the know this last weekend was my LGS’s first Modern TCGplayer tournament, which was both my brain child and my first real opportunity to show off my deck design skills by winning a large event.

Unfortunately, i both failed to win which hurts. But the event was not the large event i was hoping it would be, which REALLY hurts. Release events for us are not big turnout events, but i guess they are large for our surrounding game shops as we only had 2-4 out of towners and a lot of our normal people decided that they would rather work then help make us the place to be for magic tournaments. Sigh…

* note, I have received some feedback letting me know that my word choice left something to be desired by those that had to work vs make it to the event. I want to be clear, i totally understand. Obligations are just so for a reason. I did not mean to make anyone feel like they are not supporting the LGS if they had prior obligations to attend work or whatever. I just wanted to say that people had to work and that that took away from the expected turnout.

I was able to draw into the top 4 being one of the two undefeated players. So that was nice.  But i made a deck registration error giving me my first game lost of the day and then in the simi finals to boot. Where i mulled to a solid 6, stumbled on lands for too long and just got beat to death by a 3/4 flyer. Thankfully, the gentleman that defeated me was able to win out so i can’t feel too bad, i did only drop one game it just happened to be a 2 for 1.

Let me be a lesson to you all kids. Someone will loose to mis-registering their deck. Don’t let it be you.

Okay now that the main event i was planing for is over i want to share my list and see if you all have suggestions.

A few quick notes, i felt that the best deck was delver so i wanted to beat that and i feel the best cards in the format are Thoughtsieze, Young Pyro, Lighting Bolt and Lingering Souls. With the best card draw being Bobs.  Yep see how Delever is the best deck… I know i often make no sense even to myself.

Mardu Delver…

4 Thoughtsieze
4 Lighting Bolt
2 Darkblast
4 Lighting Helix
2 Lingering Souls (This was my deck reg error, thought i cut 1 for Liliana but guess i didn’t and had 3 in my deck)
2 Crackling Doom

1 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Dark Confident
4 Young Pyromaster
3 Pack Rat
2 Butcher of the Horde

2 Seismic Assault
4 Liliana of the veil

Lands including 1 Mutavault 8 fetches 3 basics and a lot of shock lands. Other then the one game where i only had a fetch and a Mutavault my lands were not an issue.

Overall the deck ran like a charm. Each card won me a game and were nuts at different time. Sure Seismic Assault was a bit of a hedge for decks running Blood Moon or those games were i want to flood out or vs a deck with as much removal as i had. Crackling Doom was for Boggles and Affinity. Nothing says “F you too” as when they go all in and you Doom them.

If the tournament was tomorrow would i change anything? Well anything other then that registration error?

Not really. The deck just ran well until i was due to lose one, it is not the decks fault that i had to win both games and couldn’t. You can’t win every game.

Personally i feel that this deck gives you the best option to out play any deck. Has game one hedges vs every deck i could thing of other then Jeski combo. To win that you have to get lucky and Thoughtsieze the right card at the right time. Although Darkblast can catch a Jeski player with their pants down as well as Crackling Dooms. But it is a hard match up. If the deck lives though the loss of Cruse.

Well that was it. Next week i hope to have some new Standard lists ready for you all.

<3s

Magical Monday 1.19.2015

Like every other person that writes about Magic on the planet i want to talk up the new set and how they apply to my pet deck. Dictate of the Defecting Palm as a refresher, here is the list.

4 Deflecting Palm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Anger of the Gods
2 Searing Blood
1 Crater’s Claws
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Fated Conflagration
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Dictate of the Twin Gods
2 Circle of Flame
23 lands
4 r/w temples
4 r/w pain lands
2 r/w/u tru lands
rest mountains

My current sideboard is full of things to deal with Whip of Erebos and token makers like Hording Outburst and Goblinside. Guess i am also rocking a few Arc Lightnings.

After more then a few reps with this deck over this many months, i have taken note of its faults. Namely the lack of card filtering ie the tendency for it to flood out. It is a funny balance right, you are totally dependent on this 5 mana enchantment to finish the game so you want enough mana to cast it and then win out on the back of blowing people’s mind. Or blowing our wad to stabilize and then hunting for a win con.

However looking at Fate Reforged we have a great answer to not just one of issues but both!

Filtering and another win con all in one. Just happens to also be immune to sorcery speed removal and if the opponent uses a removal spell on this guy then i guess i will just have to try to not piss myself laughing.

Arcbond, is also another great one. Picture this it is the end of turn 5 and you flash in Dictate on to a board full all that is left in your hand is this guy, a land and some kind of sweet burn spell. Arcbond your Rhino, Anger your team you take 12. Pass.

What do you think?

<3s