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Welcome, one and all, to ShufflingDead’s Magic Card of the Week! This week’s card is Burning Vengeance.

Burning Vengeance is a red enchantment from the Innistrad set that really plays into the Flashback or Unearth abilities.

With Burning Vengeance in play, anytime you cast a spell from your graveyard, it will deal an additional two damage to target creature or player.

This will give you that extra edge and card advantage as your cards are coming back for a second bout of usefulness, while this recurring two damage from Burning Vengeance might be ending the life of one of your opponent’s creatures.

Also useful for burning your opponent’s face for some direct damage.

Image: Wizards of the Coast.

We’re back again with another Magic Card of the Week! This week’s selection is Rooftop Storm.

Six mana puts this enchantment into play for you, but after that the doors are pretty much wide open. Unleash the hordes of zombies you’ve got stashed in your hand for the low low cost of free.

I like this card because it can really change the mechanics of most zombie decks as I’ve know them. The enchantment being blue means you have to find some way of creating blue mana in an otherwise likely all-black deck. This creates a lot of opportunity to expand the blue-black control side of the game by combining it with a creature-type theme.

It could be just the excuse you’re looking for to go for broke on the blue control until your zombie horde hits the deck, or it could be the keystone of a card-drawing Zombie deck.

Tons of possibilities for this one. Enjoy!

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Coming to you straight from the not-biased-at-all opinions of ShufflingDead.com is another Magic Card of the Week! This week’s MCotW is Essence of the Wild from the Innistrad set.

So you’re heavily engaged in a duel with another player, trading little spells back and forth at each other all game but not really getting very far. Finally you have six mana. Shit’s about to go down.

Throw down the Essence of the Wild and watch him throw down. He’s a powerhouse 6/6 for 6, but that’s not all. Each creature that you play after him becomes a copy of Essence of the Wild, making those also 6/6s, but for whatever cost the card originally had to bring it into play. Play a Treetop Scout, a normal 1/1 for 1 mana. It becomes a 6/6…for 1 mana.

And don’t worry if your opponent nukes your first one. Each creature is a COPY, meaning that the ability is still active! So as long as you keep one Essence of the Wild out, you can pretty much just take a quick stomp down easy street to victory.

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Welcome back to ShufflingDead’s Magic Card of the Week!

This week, it’s overkill time. Our pick for this week is Blasphemous Act.

Sometimes, Magic can be all about momentum. A critical part of the game is controlling the flow of the spellcasting, and it can be tough to turn the game around if you’re the one stuck responding. Well, respond with this.

Blasphemous Act’s mana cost is fairly prohibitive, but it’s got that handy ability that lowers the cast cost the more creatures that are in play, and if you need it, chances are it’s because your opponent has a load of creatures.

Drop this thing from your hand to nuke the entire battlefield, essentially resetting the board and giving yourself a chance to get your act together again.

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This week’s Magic Card of the Week is everyone’s favorite nightmare scenario, the Evil Twin.

Hailing from the newly released Innistrad set, this blue-black Shapeshifter will fit right into any army.

Put him into play for four mana as a copy of any creature on the battlefield, but with the activated ability to assassinate the original.

Summon Evil Twin, nail your opponent’s creature and you’re left with some decent battlefield advantage. Pretty goddamn powerful.

Evil Twin can alternatively be used on one of your own creatures to further boost your battlefield presence and advance your goals of wizardly pwnage.

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The New Phyrexia set gave life to possibly the most Lightning Bolt-frustrating card I’ve ever seen. For that, Spellskite has come forth as this week’s Magic Card of the Week.

Dropping two colorless mana lets you pull Spellskite onto the battlefield, and with it’s variable activated ability cost it could fit nicely into any deck.

If you like your life total where it is, keep this guy in a blue deck.

A natural 0/4, this Artifact Creature can cause any spell to target itself for the low cost of just one blue mana (or two life in a pinch).

He’s tough enough to handle the light removal spells so he can selectively draw in spells multiple times. You can even use this creature to deny any buffs your opponent wants to put on his own creatures, simply redirect them to Spellskite.

A versatile tool for any control deck.

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Ever found yourself thinking: “Wow, this would be so much easier with more creatures?” Well, wish no more! This week’s Magic Card of the Week is Conqueror’s Pledge!

Toss this in your soldier deck to virtually end the game with one card.

If your deck is working even half decently, the 6 1/1s that come into play for the affordable cost of 5 mana should be at least 3/3s, if not better.

This card might as well be an Overrun for all the rage it delivers into your opponent’s face.

The kicker cost on this card is, unfortunately, prohibitively expensive. If the game is really drawn out, this will end it. For the most part, if you get to 11 mana, you should have already won the game.

Throw these things into your soldier deck and drop the hammer on your poor bastard of an opponent.

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Welcome one and all to ShufflingDead’s Magic Card of the Week! This week’s card of power is Leyline of Anticipation, from the M11 core set.

Leyline of Anticipation allows you to play all your cards as though they had the Flash ability. For those unfamiliar with that one, a spell with Flash is able to be played at any time you could play an instant, regardless of it’s other spell types.

With this enchantment out you can freely rain creatures, artifacts, sorceries, and whatever else you like down on your opponent’s unsuspecting forces. Being able to surprise your enemies can pay off in a big way.

Also worth noting is the card’s first ability. Drawing this card in your opening hand lets you drop it for free at the start of the game.

Booya.

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Welcome one and all to ShufflingDead’s Magic Card of the Week! This week we are featuring the Mirrodin artifact, Mindslaver.

The ultimate in control. There is no better way to perfectly sabotage an opponent than to know and control his every move.

Though a card like Mindslaver might seem expensive, keep in mind the pace of the game. If you have a deck with mana acceleration and you are at 6 mana early, great. If not, by the 6 mana time of the game, things are probably starting to get decisive.

That is the perfect time to unleash Mindslaver and take control of one of your opponents’ extremely critical turns.

Make him attack with his puny supporting creatures he’s been protecting all game. Cast his damage spells on his own army. Throw everything in your enemy’s arsenal in his face, embarrass him. You know you want to.

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Welcome back to ShufflingDead’s Magic Card of the Week, where this week we will be honoring goblin miscreant, Tuktuk the Explorer.

Tuktuk costs three mana to bring into play exploring for your side.

It’s also worth mentioning that he possesses the Haste ability, allowing a quick surprise attack should your opponent tap out his forces. Unfortunately, this surprise attack will only put you on the board for 1 damage.

While not being much to look at himself, Tuktuk Explorer comes equipped with another ability. When he is put into the graveyard from play, you get yourself a shiny new 5/5 artifact creature token.

Pretty neat, huh?

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This week’s MCotW is Dragonmaster Outcast, from the Worldwake set.

This shaman may not look like much, being a 1/1 creature for 1 red mana, but he has potential to be a serious problem for your opponents.

During each of your upkeeps, if you have six lands, Dragonmaster Outcast will gift you a 5/5 flying dragon for free, just for letting him hang out.

Nice guy.

My first thought when I saw this little bastard was “wow, this needs to be in my dragon deck,” but really, there are so places where he can be applied.

He only costs one red and his ability is triggered by lands, not just mountains so there is no need to restrict him to a mono-red deck.

Toss him into any deck where you’ve splashed red, and you’ll definitely see some results, dragon-beatdown-style.

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Recently appearing in the Mirrodin: Besieged set, Go For The Throat is our Magic Card of the Week.

In this new expansion, it is no surprise that one of the most terrifying cards in your arsenal is an improvement on Terror itself.

Go For The Throat shows itself an expert in quick creature removal, doing away with the old “non-black, non-artifact” qualification to its targets, and simply making it “non-artifact.”

Two mana is all it takes to put one of these in the chamber, and then it’s just point and cast from there.

You can never have quite enough easy creature kills. Having cards like these around keeps your opponent off balance, never quite knowing when their carefully laid battle plans could come apart in a split second.

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This week’s Magic Card is none other than the dragon-badass Ancient Hellkite.

Despite the high mana cost that this giant bastard demands before he’ll rouse himself to your cause, he can be a tremendous asset on the battlefield. Seven mana is not often an easy cost to choke down, but it will likely be an investment in victory in Ancient Hellkite’s case.

This 6/6 flying fire-breather doesn’t have the typical dragon ability of just adding to his power for a mana cost, ineffectually overkilling the balloon brigades of goblins assigned to block them.

No, he uses the mana and just starts nuking defending creatures before they’ve even been assigned to block.

Use this ability to have Ancient Hellkite burn holes in your opponent’s defenses so that he or more of your vassals can get through to tear up your enemy’s face.

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This week’s Magic Card is the Elemental Incarceration, Guile. Welcome to the show, Guile!

This giant blue jackass rocks his way out of your hand for the standard “big bastard” cost of 6 mana, and you get a 6/6 out of it. Pretty good deal, right? But being a blue jackass, Guile brings a bunch of bullshit with him to the battlefield.

First, he has to be blocked by 3 or more creatures. So if you’re attacking with him, chances are he will either go unblocked or get an opportunity to knock off a couple of your opponent’s creatures.

Second, you’re playing a blue deck, so he’ll help you out with that too. If one of your already-awesome Counterspells counters an incoming spell, Guile will let you play that spell for free yourself. So now your blue deck is dropping terrors, lightning bolts, anything else your enemy is foolish enough to try and cast. Including creatures.

And third, if, by some miracle, someone manages to gang-block or nuke Guile, he just gets shuffled back into your library to return at some other random time to tear up the game all over again. Just a terrible bastard to try to deal with.

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Nerd Olympics 2011 has come to a close, and the last nerds standing are spending today nursing their wounded pride, easing themselves back into real life with some low-key gaming, and showering off the sweat and tears of competition.

In honor of this legendary event, this week’s Magic Card is Thrun, the Last Troll. Thrun can be found in the Mirrodin Besieged set, which we used for our Sealed Tournament at Nerd Olympics.

Thrun, the Last Troll is a 4/4 green creature, and comes with the typical Troll ability of Regeneration. 2 mana will let you save him from certain death should he be ambushed by someone bigger than he is. This bulky bastard also cannot be the target of hostile abilities or spells including counterspells, making him impressively difficult to single out for destruction.

And really, the icing on the cake with this guy is the cost. He is available for the mega-low price of 4 mana, letting you bring him to the field earlier than most players will be able to deal with, before their own heavy-hitters come online. This guy is truly a fucking menace.

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With the legendary competition of Nerd Olympics just days away, players are frantically scouring lands far and wide searching for that one missing card to their otherwise perfect deck. Keeping that in mind, this week’s Magic Card is a useful creature for rounding out any deck bent on continuing the yearly tradition of my disappointment in this tournament.

Vampire Nighthawk comes into play for a mere three mana, a price more than worth it. For a 2/3 flying creature, the cost is pretty standard. But WotC pulled out all the stops for this prick, and awarded him the Deathtouch and Lifelink abilities as well, making him a force to be reckoned with.

He can fly over your opponent’s defenses to bleed him dry, and use the lifelink to recharge your own health in the process. Or if need be, he can use Deathtouch to personally drop almost any creature threatening your magical self.

Either way, throw a couple of Vampire Nighthawks into your bullshit black or sparkly vampire deck and experience the overpoweredness for yourself. Hell, splash black into your all-white soldier deck, this guy is worth it.

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Hailing from the Worldwake set, Mordant Dragon is this week’s Magic Card.

At first glance, Mordant Dragon is just like many of the other flying lizard behemoths. He’s a 5/5 flying at 6 mana cost. He’s got a firebreathing-type ability, letting you spend additional mana to temporarily boost his power.

But then this sneaky scaly jerk reveals his other ability. After he damages a player, he does a bombing run on your opponent’s forces on his way home.

He deals an equal amount of damage to any creature as he just did to your opponent’s face, assassinating any unlucky enough to have been singled out for special attention.

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One of the most devastating mill cards I’ve ever encountered, Traumatize is this week’s Magic Card of the Week.

Traumatize takes five mana to cast, but is well worth the cost. The best way to make sure your opponent can’t cast his spells against you is to make sure he never has the opportunity to draw them in the first place.

Dropping a traumatize will hand out a serious beatdown to your rival’s spell cache, severely limiting his ability to bring the fight back your way.

It’s also a must-have for anyone trying to ‘deck’ their enemies. Waving goodbye to half their spells will aid you greatly in embarrassing your opponent by defeating him without even having to dirty your hands by dealing a single damage.

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The Nerd Olympics is just weeks away, and that means it’s time for obsessive Legacy deck tweaking. That can get pricy, but money is no object when honour is on the line.

If you’ve been around the game long enough and not been an an embarrassingly cheap player for that entire time, you probably already have a play-set of Wraths.

If you’re me, then you still don’t have a single copy of the card, despite really really needing it to win the most important Magic tournament in the history of price-inflated pieces of cardboard.

Wrath of God is a 4-mana board clearer that has been around since the first edition of Richard Garfield’s game. It is widely regarded as the definitive sweeper and has defined meta-games since the beginning.

Time to pony up.

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This week’s Magic Card is Preeminent Captain. This bastard can be key to battlefield supremacy, and in handing out an overwhelming beatdown.

Toss this diminutive dick into your all-Soldier deck and he’ll help you wreck some bitches in short order.

Three mana gets you a 2/2 First Strike creature, strong enough in its own right. But this hobbit brings friends. Like Samwise Gamgee. Yeah, he’ll bring Sam along for the ride, and they’ll tear up giant spiders and shit.

Or he’ll bring along the entire Minas Tirith army. Yeah, that one. Each time freaking Pippin here attacks, he drags another Soldier out of your hand, puts him into play charging the gates of Mordor right alongside him.

Pretty heroic, hey?

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A worthy member of any white deck, the Kitsune Blademaster can be a powerful addition to your arsenal.

For just three mana, you find yourself with a 2/2 creature who possesses the First Strike ability, which by itself can be a game changer. But he also uses the Bushido ability to give himself a temporary buff when being blocked or blocking, often awarding him a powerful advantage in combat.

Combining First Strike and a natural combat boost can be deadly, but consider throwing the poor furry a bone and put him on the donor list for a couple of your own spells to increase his abilities.

Throw a few of these into your white support deck and watch them quickly turn the battle in your favor.

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This wrinkly old elf is ShufflingDead’s Magic Card of the Week this week, as well as the first Elf to be named Magic Card of the Week. The reason: Newbs hates Elves. That’s right, Newbs is a racist.

Elvish Archdruid rings in at the moderate cost of three mana, but makes a welcome addition to any Elf-themed deck. +1/+1 to all other Elves is fantastic, and pair that with a couple of the Elvish Champions that I’m sure you already have in your Elf deck, and he’s a 4/4 in his own right.

This guy can really kick your casting into overdrive. Using his ability gives you an instant influx of mana, letting you lay down foresty fierceness all over the fucking place.

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Nothing better to stop your opponent’s hordes than a good ol’ fashioned wall. This week’s Magic Card of the Week, and the last one of 2010, is Wall of Omens from the Rise of the Eldrazi set.

If you look around for some other walls, you’ll notice they’re usually just a damage dumpster, high toughness, but low returning damage. And they typically come at a cost of 3+ mana.

Wall of Omens is a hero wall, delivering some moderate battlefield control with 4 toughness for only 2 mana, great for putting the brakes on an early rush. Aside from keeping the enemy’s filthy claws off of your magical person, Wall of Omens allows you to draw a card when it comes into play to keep up the offensive. Launch attacks from behind Wall of Omens and your rivals will despair in the face of your ivory wall of frustration.

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Look at this big fucker. Just a giant, dragon-faced, forest-eating bastard, this guy.

The Craw Wurm emanates an aura of awesome so powerful, he’s been reprinted 12 times. A true classic of green battlefield supremacy, a Craw Wurm is always looked upon with fear, and just so that you remember that you are afraid, in all of his various printings, his flavor text never changes, explaining why you are afraid.

“The most terrifying thing about the Craw Wurm is probably the horrible crashing sound it makes as it speeds through the forest. This noise is so loud it echoes through the trees and seems to come from all directions at once.”

Call upon the Craw Wurm when you want to deal 6 damage to something and not much else.

You know what card hasn’t been Magic Card of the Week yet, mother-fucking, mountain-climbing, trail-blazing Mountain Goat.

The noble Mountain Goat packs a walloping attack power of one, and wields the ever-furious Mountainwalk ability, all for the sleek casting cost of one red mana. That means a turn-one Mountain Goat can be slamming your red-playing opponent’s face turn two with no need to fear being blocked.

Things can get really juicy if you toss a sweet buff at your furry friend. Enchant him with Giant Strength to give him +2/+2 and get ready to hear the lamentation of your opponent’s women.

Originally printed in Ice Age, Mountain Goat went on to be reprinted in 5th Edition, 6th Edition, and Portal. Copies of the card can be found in junk-common bins, taking up space in collectors’ binders, and just chilling in general.

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This week’s Magic Card of the week is Vengevine, a powerful elemental from the Rise of the Eldrazi set.

Four mana gets you a 4/3 hasted creature. Never mind how rare it is to find a green card with Haste, this one has a mad-on for delivering some hate. Cast two creature spells in a single turn, and you can bring this beat-machine back from the dead for the low low cost of “free,” returning to continue his relentless assault on the puny bitches your pussy opponent is probably using.

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Hailing from the Conflux edition, Thornling is this week’s Magic Card of the Week.

Thorny here is pretty decent in a scrap, and he’s got the toughness to take a solid beating. But he really sets himself apart when you start giving him access to your mana account. Invest a little in this shapeshifter and he quickly becomes the top member of Club Beat-Your-Face.

It can get expensive to power up all his abilities every turn, but if you’ve got big beasts and powerful elementals in your deck, you’re using some land acceleration anyway. Just giving him the one mana lets him be an indestructible wrecking crew this turn. Giving him more lets him trample the crap out of your opponent’s army, and if you’ve got more spare mana kicking around, giving him +1/-1 can’t hurt since he’s already indestructible. A powerful addition to any mono-green stomp deck.

Further confirming my opinion of leveling creatures being WotC-sanctioned cheating, here we have Echo Mage.

This dickhat here has true potential to royally fuck up any game. After being leveled, all you need is the usual control deck double blue to fire any spell for a second time. After a little more leveling, you get to copy the original spell twice. This includes any of your own bitchy blue control spells as well as your opponent’s. And to top it all off, for a wizard, he is pretty damn tough with a toughness of 3-5 and requires serious effort for removal. But then he just copies your removal spells anyway.

That’s right folks, the days of honorable beasts, zombies, and elephants duking it out is forever over,  Magic has fallen into a hate-spiral of trickery. If you meet anyone playing with Echo Mage in their deck, tell them, from me, that they are a penis.

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Now here’s a badass equipment from the new Scars of Mirrodin set. Strata Scythe is an angry piece of weaponry that imbues the dude holding it with the power of your lands. It won me a few games at a recent casual draft I attended.

It’s perfect for those of us (me) who are mono-colour, basic-land playing “noobs,” uninterested in fancy-pants non-basics. You get this thing out a few turns in and throw it on something (anything) with evasion, and you’ve got yourself one lethal scythe-wielder.

Now one mild disappointment is that this thing cares about the names of lands, not the types of lands. That means no tricks with adding additional types to your opponent’s lands and getting your Strata Scythe holding dude even juicier. It’s especially odd considering Wizards’ recent obsession with card types, but I’ll live with it.

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A worthy edition to any arsenal, the Sword of Vengeance cuts a bloody swath through any and all that might stand against it.

Wielded by one of your chosen champions this impressive blade will enable you to quickly deal death upon your opponent, making your creature an almost unstoppable force able to defend your valued person and attack your cowering enemies at the same time. If carried by one of your weaker fiends, there is no quicker way to go from zero to hero.

But of course, one of the best attributes of this card is that should the bearer of the Sword be bested in combat after being swarmed under by a horde of masturbating goblins, your other minions will be lining up to raise the sword in their own hands, anxious to continue raining hasted, vigilant, first striking and trampling damage all over the damn place.

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This week’s entry into the hallowed halls of the Magic Card of the Week is this total bastard, Abyssal Persecutor.

Worst case, the Persecution begins on the fourth turn, with this massive behemoth dropping its gigantic mass in front of your early game creatures, then proceeding to mercilessly pummel you into oblivion. This mythical asshat can be the key to total battlefield control, an unstoppable force of bat-winged dickery. When your life total is no longer an issue and your morale is in ruins, your opponent further embarass you by destroying his own creature, lifting the curse of your undeath, and delivering a malicious shit-eating grin.

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The mind boggles with the number of uses for this card. Whether you’re using it to load up some free damage onto your opponent’s ugly face or slamming him or her with an embarrassing deck or poison kill, Distortion Strike is maddeningly ferocious.

One land gets you a rebounding sorcery giving a creature a free pass on delivering some hate to someone who deserves it. Twice.

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This week’s Magic Card is Hymn to Tourach. As far as I can tell, this is about the greatest second-turn card in the history of Magic the Gathering. Beyond that, it represents that most feared and devious of Legacy decks, Mono Black Control.

Hymn to Tourach is an utterly hilarious and a devastating bomb of cataclysmic proportions when you manage to foist it upon your opponent in the early game. It’s especially potent when you start attacking with a third (or even first) turn Hypnotic Specter.

Imagine the following scenario: in just two weeks, you will be participating in the Magic tournament of your life, where the entirety of your honour rests on whether or not you win that tournament. Lose, and you will be forever shamed. Win, and receive a piece of plastic that reminds you of how awesome you are for an entire year. Do you play with your Hymn to Tourach equipped Mono Black Control deck, or do you bring your White-Blue control deck instead?

The Black deck seems a little more powerful, but the White-Blue deck seems a little more consistent. What do you choose? Then again, maybe neither answer is right. Maybe you should surprise everyone with a mono Blue Counter deck, or a White weenie deck. The truth is, the options are endless, and so is the glory to be won.

This week’s Magic card is Leatherback Baloth, another new awesome green creature from the Worldwake expansion set.

Although they fall slightly behind Elephants in the continuum of creature type honourability, my favourite Magic the Gathering tribe is Beasts. They tend to look like crazed dinosaurs that eat forests for breakfast, and when they team up, they have immense crushing power.

Worldwake’s offering of Beasts is pretty minimal, there are just two of them, and one of them is so poor it doesn’t even warrant entry into my Beast collection. The other though, is this mean mother to the left, Leatherback Baloth.

Imagine having this dude out on turn three (or two with mana acceleration) as an effective attacker and blocker in the early game, allowing you to build up to more Beasts, the kind that turn this guy into an indestructible, trampling juggernaut.

This week’s Magic card is Terastodon, a new creature from the Worldwake expansion set.

When you think of an honourable creature type in Magic, you will almost certainly think of a green-centric race. The list includes Beast, Bear, Wurm, and Treefolk, but none compare to the awesome honour of the noble Elephant. When I started playing Magic, Elephants were over-costed 3/3s that maybe had trample if you were lucky. We played with them because, goddamn it, they had some class.

Wizards has decided to honour that proud tradition by printing Terastodon, a 9/9 quadruple-tusked, multi-horned, behemoth of an Elephant. Here’s the best part: he costs 8, so when he comes into play, you can destroy three of your own forests to get yourself three 3/3 Elephant tokens, you still have enough lands next turn to play an Overrun and thus actually win with Elephants.

Imagine the following scenario: you’re playing the magical cards with one of your jerk friends who thinks he’s so great just because he’s slamming together a bunch of artifacts and blue cards into some kind of whimsical mystical mega-combo. As the game progresses, you find yourself falling further and further behind as he piles up his labia-esque merfolk into a grand army and all you’ve got is a rag-tag bunch of Grizzly Bears. Suddenly, you windmill down a Muraganda Petroglyphs and your fortunes reverse!

Now your previously questionable 2/2s are an unstoppable wrecking crew of 4/4s that can easily tear through his sad little fish people! You, with the help of your friends, the highly honourable Grizzly Bears, ultimately win the game.

Lightning Bolt was Magic Card of the Week once before, but the image to the left has inspired me to cover the card again, this time with greater detail.

Let’s say you’re playing some Magic against a friend who is piloting some kind of pussy deck with Wizards or Merfolk or some shit, and you’re just railing him with firey red ass-kick. You’re raining Fireballs and Goblin Grenades all over his sorry blue bastards, and you’ve knocked him all the way down to three life. Then, suddenly, you’re struck with the problem which all red mages must eventually face: you have no cards in your hand and your only permanents are a stack of Mountains and one Raging Goblin.

His blue vaginas are piling up, soon they will breach your horde of Mountains and come crashing down upon your lonely goblin. You do the only thing you can do, keep drawing and hope to hit the one card that will win you the game: Lightning Bolt. With nary a life point to spare, you draw the fabled card, stand up, wave your arms around, and feel the red mana flow through you as you get way too involved in the game, and deal lethal damage to your friend, the loser.

Oh come on, you can afford three more Stupors to round out your set, they’re only going to be a dollar each!

Incinerate isn’t that much any more, under a dollar a piece. That’s not that infuriating.

Yeah, that’s getting close. Daru Warchief will cost you a couple dollars a card.

Now that’s a semi-pricey card that’s really not worth it, but goddamn it, you need Armageddon.

Well, Doubling Season is expensive, but you’ve been refusing to buy it for years now. Isn’t there anything more torturous?

Damn, that’s a good card. I bet it really hurts to be too cheap to get it.

Fuck, that card would be fun. It’s just too much for you though, isn’t it? Is there one card that you want even more?

Dude, that would go so well in your blue-white control deck. You should really get four copies of Meddling Magic, but it’s too expensive!

Well, Mind Spring does look like a good card, considering the tendency for blue decks to have about two-dozen Islands in play by mid game and nothing to play them on.

Runeclaw Bear is another tempting card. Just imagine that all “Grizzly Bears” deck you’ve always wanted to make.

Soldiers are pretty honourable, and Veteran Swordsmith looks to make them even more honourable. Could anything possibly top this?

Yes! Lightning Bolt, of course! Finally, I, err… I mean you, will have Lightning Bolts! That is, as soon as you can afford them.

Raging Bull sounds pretty raging, and his art looks pretty raging, but he lacks any abilities that would really make him raging.

Now, Raging Cougar, that’s more of the ability we’re looking for, but its name is a little questionable. When I think of a raging cougar, I think of a sex-starved menopausal.

Raging Gorilla, incredible. That guy looks raging, he has a raging ability, and this guy is a contender, but I wonder if we can do any better.

Raging Goblin, now that guy is raging. If I were to attack with him, I don’t think I could resist saying “I fucking attack you.”

Then again, Deep-Sea Serpent has to be even tougher, it lives even deeper.

There are even more terrifying creatures of the deep though. What about Marjhan?

Marjhan is hard to say. What about something that represents a truly unstoppable force, that happens to be stoppable by a lack of Islands? What about Pirate Ship?

Then you shift over and see a damn Shivan Dragon.

Below that, something even more incredible catches your eye, it’s Chaos Orb.

Your eyes continue to wander, and you’re struck by the card you came to see, Hypnotic Specter. Damn it, you need four of them, but you’re completely broke!

Then you remember how terrible that card is, so you look at Priest of Titania.

Unfortunately, playing Elves is cheating, so you consider Wall of Wood.

Then you remember that you’re not playing green, and that you happen to have gotten a Sky Spirit in your first ever starter deck of cards.

But felt that just wasn’t iconic enough to truly bring about utter shame, so they tried Orcish Artillery.

It still wasn’t recognizable enough, so they tried the most iconic Magic creature to ever live, Grizzly Bears.

Even humiliating the mighty Grizzly Bears wasn’t enough, and so the developers ultimately decided to slay the most noble Magic creature of all time, Glory Seeker.

Okay, well, that’s a solid quote, but it’s white, and you’re building a black deck.

That’s an even better quote. Shakespeare’s a cool guy and all, but this still isn’t a black card.

Well, some crazy unclean boars do sound dangerous, but these are green.

Now that’s pimp! Black card, rats, and a Bram Stoker quote! Can anything possibly top this?

Whoa… whoa. This. This is the card you need. A quote from the greatest long poem of all time? On some zombies? Amazing.

That guy’s pretty freaky looking, but Gangrenous Zombies is way more gruesome. The guy in front has his gangrenous guts hanging out!

Let’s see just how grotesque we can get.

Okay, that might be a bit absurd. I was thinking something more than ugly, something so traumatizing that you actually feel the pain of what’s being depicted.

Yeah, that’s about right.

Over time, the people behind Magic grew fearful of making such “broken” cards, they overcompensated, and what would have seemed to be bad cards became relatively good.

Occasionally, mistakes were still made, and broken cards slipped through, wreaking havoc with the game.

Then the people making Magic began to discover that making a few really good cards caused retailers to be happy, and so they intentionally made a few really good, very rare cards.

That proud tradition continues.

Centaurs are a little better, but they’re half human/half animal. Bestiality is a constant in their lives, not unlike the people who play them, either.

Wurms are a hell of a lot better than Elves and Centaurs. Still, I’m thinking there’s something better out there.

Beasts. There it is, nothing more green, nothing more furious, nothing greater than beasts.

Especially this one, Krosan Colossus, the greatest beast. That’s the sort of beast-iality I can get behind.

Probably something that counters a spell, that’s a pretty harsh cock-slap, but Counterspell is a bit clichéd.

Maybe a counter with a twist, how about Mana Drain?

That’s pretty pricey. If you’re willing to spend that kind of money, I say go all the way, forget countering anything, and just play Time Walk.

First, you’ll need to get some of this “wild stuff” into your graveyard. I recommend playing Hymn to Tourach on yourself. Just hope that those random card are the right ones!

What should this “wild stuff” be? My answer is simple, eloquent, and full of terror for your opponents (so long as they’re not full of Terror).

My answer is Polar Kraken.

Well, you could go with Balduvian Bears, but those are pretty much the same thing as Grizzly Bears.

You want something that will terrify your opponents, so Bear Cub is out.

You want something that doesn’t look terrible, so Forest Bear is out.

There’s really only one option, you need to play Barbary Apes.

Look at these things! They look like fury embodied! And that flavour text! Just look at that flavour text!