Shards of Alara

[Elf_Lvr]

Alright guys. Let's discuss Shards. You know you want to.

What do you think about transitioning from the two-color/tribal theme of Lorwyn block to the three-color Shards?

What crazy things from Lorwyn do you think you could pack into a trip-color Shards deck?

What's your favorite Shard? Which one do you think will be best?

NEW PLANESWALKERZ ZOMG!1! Thoughts?

[SomeRandomDude]

BANT FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. I'm personally a fan of that crazy insane Rafiq of the Many w00t! Zat is teh pwnzer espe w/ Manaplasm. Dude, Manaplasm + Warhammer with a bunch of exalted, can you say drop down a Rafiq and win?

Naya is sweetness also. Jund and Esper are plain broken. And Grixis is wimpy.

But yeah. I'm working on a combo deck for Manaplasm that revolves around dropping it, Cerulean Wisps to drop Double Cleave and smack.

Manaplasm, teh new Storm Deck!

And Torrent of Souls is so going into Alara, definitely. Can you say, JUND? I'm seeing Jund slaughtering Standard and Esper pwning Expanded, Bant and Naya being decent and people hating Grixis. They were right about the shard with no life. Like, none at all.

Okay, card that is totally being played...Stillmoon Cavalier. ZOMG every shard has either White or Black, so can u say pro-white/black? Yes plz.

[FM]

What can I say? We'll end up having 5-color-good-stuff decks all over the place. Forget tribes, that's... not happening. Not in the immediate future, anyway. I'm SOOO looking forward to adding Wholly Thoctar and Wild Nacatl to my Extended beatdown deck, though!

[SomeRandomDude]

That joke lore on MtG salvation for woolly thoctar was hilarious.

"You know the only difference between a Woolly Thoctar and a hockey mom? Lipstick."

LOL

[Elf_Lvr]

I really like the looks of Esper, myself. Always preferred U/W/B to R and G anyways.

I'm kind of afraid of rampant artifact hate shutting it down. You know everyone's gonna sideboard (at least) 4-ofs of mass artifact hate.

I guess I'll just pack a bunch of counters.

EDIT: Just saw Crucible of Fire. I SO hope D-storm gets  a reprint in eleventh.

[SomeRandomDude]

Not gonna happen. D-storm was a TSP reprint.

Play it with Mirror Entity.

Reprint Shattering Spree.

[FM]

Why? There's already the Artifact Wrath (Shatterstorm?) anyway.

[SomeRandomDude]

B/c it drops all your nifty accelerators and such stuff.

[FM]

I don't see Replicate coming back, there's not a SINGLE replicate spell on the set yet. I, for one, would like to see them bring back Tarmogoyf.

[Elf_Lvr]

Went to the Shards Pre-Re. Spent about 10 hours there doing 2 drafts. Unfortunately, I didn't place in either of them.

Exalted is broken. Broken and amazing. People who didn't run Exalted got beat. Hard.

Naya is also a really great shard. Naya Charms won me quite a few games.

Esper seemed fairly good, if slow.

Jund didn't seem to get played much, although some guy got TWO of the Dragon-Walkers.

Grixis... might be better than you give it credit for. Damnation (or some similar mass-kill spell) with a bunch of Unearth guys can spell a pretty massive win.

Bant.... well, see previous comment about exalted.

That's just my impression from what I saw being played. I'm definately enjoying the two pre-re Ajani Vengeant I managed to get ahold of.

[SomeRandomDude]

Went to the Shards Pre-Re. Spent about 10 hours there doing 2 drafts. Unfortunately, I didn't place in either of them.

Exalted is broken. Broken and amazing. People who didn't run Exalted got beat. Hard.

I found that out went I built a Bant deck. Not quite so powerful in Constructed, though.

Naya is also a really great shard. Naya Charms won me quite a few games.

Naya pwns in limited.

Esper seemed fairly good, if slow.

Eh...better in constructed.

Jund didn't seem to get played much, although some guy got TWO of the Dragon-Walkers.

Okay, I play limited Jund, and it ROCKS! Seriously, massive awesomeness.[/b

Grixis... might be better than you give it credit for. Damnation (or some similar mass-kill spell) with a bunch of Unearth guys can spell a pretty massive win.

Unearth is cool, I guess a Jund/Grixis deck with the Jund Charm board wiper you can unearth a horde, but I still thin its the weakest of the shards.

Bant.... well, see previous comment about exalted.

That's just my impression from what I saw being played. I'm definately enjoying the two pre-re Ajani Vengeant I managed to get ahold of.

TWO Ajani Vengeant? The Mythic Rare? DUDE!

[FM]

Well, and to think we don't even HAVE Pre-Releases here anywmore... Stupid monopoly (there's a single company that translates Magic here, and since tournaments like that have to be played in national language, you see where it leads...)

[Elf_Lvr]

Well, you got a FOIL Ajani just for coming to the Pre-Re.

[SomeRandomDude]

I want your FOIL Ajani...bad.

[Thranduil]

I went to both the pre-release and the release of Shards so I now have 2 foil Ajanis (hehehe!)...

I'm trying to get into the game a little bit and built a tentative Naya deck and also a Jund deck because I pulled the Godsire at the pre-release and the Jund legendary creature (can't remember his name at the moment) at the release. I also got 2 Goblin Assault and had several awesome games where I had it in my starting hand, played it on turn 3 and won from the free goblins! Ah that's a funny card. Sarkhan Vol, though, is just insane! And Crucible of Fire is just complete overkill, especially with Sarkhan - let's have 5 7/7 flyers!

I haven't got any good Bant cards as yet apart from a whole load of charms and mana-fixing and the Rhox War Monk who is awesome. The best Grixis card I got was the Specter - the one which makes players discard cards when dealing damage to them. Oh and also the Leviathan which returns everything else to hand. :hey:

All in all, it's a fun set and I like the background.

Thranduil