So there I was.

Eagerly looking over the Invasion spoiler a few months ago, looking for those multiplayer gems. In case you don't remember the article, you can link to it here. For those of you who are too lazy to click the link, here is what I thought the Top 10 Multiplayer cards in Invasion were:

Harsh Judgment
Reya
Rout
Empress Galina
Mana Maze
Devouring Strossus
Spreading Plague
Bend or Break
Dueling Grounds
Aether Rift

Ah, how I failed.

I wish more writers would look back at what they wrote to gain a sense of humility. You remember all of those comments when Invasion was coming out.

"Uzra's block rulez, Invasion sux, I am quitting Magic!"
"All of these gold cards are unplayable, especially the Dragons! Six mana in constructed? I don't think so."

Of course now these same people are talking about their secret Rith "tech" and how good Undermine is. Urza's block is almost forgotten now; most people don't even miss Morphling anymore. We have moved on.

So I am looking back at how I failed (in some cases) to accurately guess the "power" cards for multiplayer. I am still amazed Harsh Judgment is not being played in our group. Direct damage is not a huge factor any more, since Ferrett put away his Rector-Cussion deck with tons of Flame Rifts. Perhaps if it makes a resurgence, people will remember this card? (I have stockpiled three -- The Ferrett) So this was a good card, resting in the wrong metagame.

Reya pops her head up every now and again, though mostly in Joseph's all-Legend deck. Since Barclay used her in Full English Breakfast, perhaps a few more people will use her now. There is also some local "tech" running around town, using Reya in a pain-in-the-butt U/W recursion deck. It is hard to believe that a 6WWW creature is seeing more play in Constructed than casual. I guess if you are going to the trouble of casting a nine-mana creature in casual, there are better choices for your mana (like Verdant Force!).*

Everyone's Routs must be busy in their dueling decks, because they have not made much of an appearance during casual games. I traded all mine away already, or I would surely toss them in my Wall/Plague Wind deck. My only guess is that this card is considered "too good" for casual because there are several control decks running around that could easily use them in our group.

Empress Galina. She is great card in most cases because of the high level of legendary dudes running around in our group. I have my own penchant for Legends, and again Joseph's all-Legend deck is a constant threat (once he gets up six or so mana!). So why has she not seen too much play? I would have to guess again that it was a bad metagame call. No one ever plays blue in our group. It is tough to run a multiplayer blue deck (Tradewind Rider/Awakening aside). Perhaps if one of us dares to run a blue creature deck, she will eventually find her rightful place.

Mana Maze and Bend or Break. Okay, okay. These just suck. My bad. They seemed like good cards at the time, but really are not at all. I should have known better. I apologize.

Dueling Grounds is a good card. I don't think I have enough of them to make a deck out of (yet), but I think I will just to prove a point. I assure you this is a good multi-player card. It screws rush strategies like White Weenie and "Billions of Saproling Tokens" (I'm looking at you, Sheldon!), and allows you to attack with things like Avatar of Might and defend with things like Cockatrice. Add in Regeneration for fun, and commence beating down.

Aether Rift makes an appearance every now and again. Generally it gets Disenchanted quickly, though, and so never gets to really prove itself. Dropping one of these is akin to posting a sign saying, "Big Monsters Ahead, Approach With Caution." It is my general opinion that people don't like having to deal with giant monsters too often, and find that when you go away, your monsters go with you.

Then there was Spreading Plague. I had great visions of this card smacking everything around and generally causing havoc. No one has realized my dream. I am sad about this one. I have already taken on the task of trying to get four of these to design some kind of deck out of them. Perhaps with Tidal Visionary? That way I can control who dies and who doesn't once it goes on the stack. So maybe it is not the best strategy, but I think it would work well if your deck is weak against creatures. Drop one of these and then force your opponents to band together to kill you. On the down side, they might just do that - and then where does that leave you? Screwed for sure. If nothing else, though, it will wreak some major havoc on those creature decks for a few turns allowing you time to set your defense up (Ensnaring Bridge?).

So with my failures behind me, I now look at the Invasion cards that actually did have an impact on our multiplayer group:

Plague Spitter

Plague Spitter is the bane of quick mana everywhere. Elves and Birds around the table retreat to the safety of the graveyard as soon as the Spitter hits the table. This pain in the butt card does a great job at controlling those utility weenies that we all love so much.


Aura Shards

We had one game where three of the six people at the table were playing with these at one time or another. Nothing lasted more than a turn around the table as each player Aura Sharded (is that a verb?) each others Shards, then all the other useful artifacts and enchantments on the table. As I remember there was an active Disk on the table also, which led to a nice bit of destruction all in one turn when the Disk player was forced to pop it in response. With all of the kool artifacts and enchantments people use, and all of the creatures people play with, I feel bad for missing this one. Try it and you'll like it.


Crusading and Marauding Knight

The Knights make occasional appearances. They are a little situational, but they always end up being nice and big. The most common form of removal in our group is Swords to Plowshares and, of course, the Marauding Knight punishes the White Mage (as it should be). The Crusading Knight is seen a little less, but out of six people several are going to be playing Swamps and several Plains, so the Knights work out great in most games.

I look forward to being just as inaccurate about Planeshift** when it arrives, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading,
David P.

P.S. - Thanks for all the great "Land is for the Weak" submissions. It will take me a little time to sort through them and then load up Apprentice for the top couple of decks before I announce a winner.

P.P.S. - Indeed, Ferrett's extra compression of my photos hurt their quality a great deal last week. I submitted pictures with crystal clear quality and witty comments and they were posted as fuzzy blobs. Bad Ferrett! Bad compression! Lydia is far more fabulous than the picture shows. (Alas, when you send me articles in Word format, David, it's Word that decides the resolution of the picture, not me... -- The Ferrett)

* - Yes, of course I know Verdant Force is an eight-mana card, but you get the idea.

** - In case you don't remember, I am still holding to my pledge to not read any spoilers about Planeshift. I am only going to check out what Wizards feeds me through The Sideboard like Fleetfoot Panther (+ Blastoderm = Good). I can't wait to go to the Pre-Release and see all of the kool new cards.