[articles] a fine vintage of cok

[jpmeyer]

Both me and your arch-nemesis, Ben Bleiweiss have Vintage set reviews out today.

Also, man oh man did a lot of my CoK jokes get censored out.  Sorry Carl.

[Tychoides]

That was hilarious JP. :lol:

Can you post the unedited one with even more CoK jokes? Also, I love all the references to Japanese that I didn't need the notes at the bottom to get.

Anyway, to get on topic, I think that's a pretty accurate view of the set from a Type 1 perspective. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can use Gifts Ungiven effectively, though I almost want to play a prison-style deck because of Uba Mask.

[rozetta]

Nice review. I missed a couple of (semi) decent cards like Nezumi Graverobber from the spoiler when skimming it.

A few random thoughts...

Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Legendary Land                              (Land Rare)
Boseiju, Who Shelters All comes into play tapped. Pay 2 life, [Tap]: Add [1] to your mana pool.  If that mana is spent on an instant or sorcery spell, that spell can't be countered by spells or abilities.

I actually opened one of these and thought "what a load of shite". I looked at it again after reading the buzz on the card (for all formats) and it didn't seem as bad. It's kinda like the Maze of Ith slot that some decks have used - it fills a very niche role. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a way of defeating it's ability aside from Time Stop. Of course, it's very Wasteland-susceptible and with all the Crucible nonsense right now, that makes it even less likely to do anything. I'm just wondering what decks could use it and whether it's going to be anything more than a 1-of, probably in the sideboard.


Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Legendary Land                              (Land Rare)
Add  to your mana pool. , [Tap]: Untap target Legendary permanent.

I could only think of Tolarian Academy as a target for this. Still, it makes U and doesn't come into play tapped. However, Candelabra is perhaps better and that's not being used.



1G   Budoka Gardener    
Creature - Human Monk                  2/1 (Green Rare)
[Tap]: You may put a land card from your hand into play. If you control ten or more lands, flip Budoka Gardener.
<->
Dokai, Weaver of Life
Legendary creature - Human Monk   3/3
[4], [Tap], Put a X/X green elemental creature token into play, where X is the number of lands you control.

- and -

G    Orochi Leafcaller  
Creature - Snake Shaman              1/1 (Green Common)
: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

(maybe for mana filtering)

- and -

G    Glimpse of Nature  
Sorcery                                    (Green Rare)
Whenever you play a creature spell this turn, draw a card.

Combined with Fastbond, Explorations, Azusa, Yavimaya Elder, Horn of Greed, Crucible, Skullclamp, yadda yadda - some sort of aggro/combo Turboland? There's at least plenty of synergy there.

[jpmeyer]

That was hilarious JP. :lol:

Can you post the unedited one with even more CoK jokes? Also, I love all the references to Japanese that I didn't need the notes at the bottom to get.

Anyway, to get on topic, I think that's a pretty accurate view of the set from a Type 1 perspective. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can use Gifts Ungiven effectively, though I almost want to play a prison-style deck because of Uba Mask.

Off the top of my head, I can only remember like "At least with CoK Wotc isn't stuffing anything down our throats."

[Nameless]

Both me and your arch-nemesis, Ben Bleiweiss have Vintage set reviews out today.

Also, man oh man did a lot of my CoK jokes get censored out.  Sorry Carl.

I loved the CoK jokes, too, but I can't help but wonder...  Are the people naming these sets stuck in jars?  Did nobody think there would be a near endless landslide of cock jokes going right along with a set bearing the name?  I mean seriously...

EDIT:

Actually, Boseiju, Who Shelters All HAD to come into play tapped.  At least it gives your opponent a chance to find a Wasteland or something, and get ready.  If it didn't then it would seriously be broken, since counterspells and control decks are what keep many other retardedness in line.

Even still, and even with a 1-turn warning, this is a great Sideboard card for Vintage player because it does so much anyway...  Alright, it does a lot for 4cC if you side it in during a Control mirror match, but it does a lot for...  Oh, wait, nobody else but combo plays Instants or Sorceries, and it's too slow for Combo.  OK, well erm, nevermind then.

[jpmeyer]

Knut told me that even though  the official abbreviation for CoK is "CHK," R&D still refers to it as CoK amongst themselves.

[Wollblad]

Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Legendary Land                              (Land Rare)
Add  to your mana pool. , [Tap]: Untap target Legendary permanent.

I could only think of Tolarian Academy as a target for this. Still, it makes U and doesn't come into play tapped. However, Candelabra is perhaps better and that's not being used.

Problem with this is that it's a land in itselfe and will therefor slow you down. Candelabra is just plain better since you're able to untap several lands. It's also bad that it costs blue to use. I don't think it will ever be played in type 1.

Boseiju, Who Shelters All on the other hand probably will at least in a beginning while people are testing it's potential. 2 Life could be a bit much though. It's also impossible to spell  

[arj]

Glimpse of Nature is a really great card from this series. I think it could work well in a deck with something like survival, skullclamp, wild mongrell, rootwalla, ESG, giant growth and berserk. The green tog deck

[Jacob Orlove]

jp's article was hilarious. BB's was not.

Good jorb.

[oyzar]

Boseiju, Who Shelters All actually works quite nice with Cranial Exctraction. We have this one realy inventive t1 player at our place and i saw him playing a deck with those cards and a couple of other new ones the day after the first prerelease. It totaly owns everything with few winconditions and if all else fail you can just say Yawgmoths will.... Taking out the Morphlings/Angels of control just make the deck not able to kill. Of course it is Cranial Extraction that is broken (I cant understand why noone else have mentioned it) but Boseiju, Who Shelters All can do some nasty things too. Uncountrable Yawgmoths Will is some good...

[Nameless]

Boseiju, Who Shelters All actually works quite nice with Cranial Exctraction. We have this one realy inventive t1 player at our place and i saw him playing a deck with those cards and a couple of other new ones the day after the first prerelease. It totaly owns everything with few winconditions and if all else fail you can just say Yawgmoths will.... Taking out the Morphlings/Angels of control just make the deck not able to kill. Of course it is Cranial Extraction that is broken (I cant understand why noone else have mentioned it) but Boseiju, Who Shelters All can do some nasty things too. Uncountrable Yawgmoths Will is some good...

Like I said, that's why it HAD to come into play tapped.  If it didn't then there would be no reaction time at all to scurry for a Strip of some sort to deal with it.  There are plenty of Sorceries and Instants that should never be 'uncounterable' in the first place.  At least they have to play the land and you get a turn to react, even if it does seem futile...  On the other hand, the drawback is pretty much pointless if they just resolved a Time Walk, then drop it.  Thank god that's not something that will be happening every other turn.

On the other hand, when you're watching an opponent that seems to be sporting a good measure of Instants and Sorceries, like many Control decks anyway, then I really think this will affect the manner in which you play out your Strips.

I think this is very safe to have sitting in the Control Sideboard as a 2x, unless of course you're playing and Back to Basics or Blood Moon, in which case it doesn't matter.  On the other side of things though...  Without Misdirection that Blood Moon or Back to Basics will either never make it into play, or never stay in play, unless a Boseiju is dealt with beforehand.  Interesting situation this card creates...

On the flip side, the biggest drawback in the past with a recurring counterspell has been loosing too many cards to a Forbid that was countered.  Now the tacked onto it's casting cost becomes a benefit.  Who cares about throwing away a couple of spare cards to a Forbid to use the Buyback when the only way they can counter it now is with a Misdirection.

I think we can all agree that if Forbid reads as it does now, but included the text 'cannot be countered' we'd have been stocking it in spades for quite a while in our Control decks.  So, while I don't plan on running a load of them, I think Forbid as a 1x in Control could prove very useful now.

Along these same lines, Teferi's Response isn't too shabby either.  Crucible sucks with this Legendary land because of it's 'comes into play tapped' drawback, but if you can keep the little bastard in play it's very nasty in a lot of situations.

The land in question, and the Extraction, are the two cards I most looking forward to breaking, but that might just be me.  I'm sure there are a lot of ways I haven't thought of yet to abuse these gems, but I know they are certainly very abusable.

[Sagath]

The codenames for the 2 Kamagawa sets still to be released are BOK and SOK. Your trying to tell me the first one was CHK? Gimmy  a break. Its an obvious coverup by wotc for their cock loving.

[Siral]

UBA mask in my opinion it's the last card that a Prison deck need to be the perfect deck. For about a year Mishra's Workshop was really near to be limited...i think that in next banning announcement Workshop come back to be limited or we are going to see a rapid decay of the t1 since any strategy based on card advantage will be impossibile to play.

[Necrologia]

i think that in next banning announcement Workshop come back to be limited or we are going to see a rapid decay of the t1 since any strategy based on card advantage will be impossibile to play.

Why on earth would you say that? It's a 4cc artifact that's as easy to drain, force, or disenchant as any other. As previously mentioned, it can actually make Brainstorms better, giving control the edge when it hits play.

Mishra's Workshop is not restriction worthy. Please leave the B/R list out of this discussion, it's been beaten to death in the past. Nearly 16 different decks at the Waterbury top 16 = no restrictions needed, and this card isn't going to be the one that puts shop over the top.

[rozetta]

Hmmm. Interesting thought, but Uba Mask actually works alright with the old Grafted Skullcap tech. It's not worth playing the Skullcap right now due to the presence of Hurkyl's Recall and Rebuild, but theoretically...

[Jebus]

JP, countering the Cycling Activated ability of DoJ does not stop the Soldier creation ability.  By the time you could counter it, the Trigger is already on the stack.

[dromar]

I was gonna post my opinion of Gifts Ungiven in the Gifts Ungiven card review thread, but it was locked.

So here's what I think of it. I seem to remember people talking about pulling Yawg's Will with it, and I think that's a terrible idea. It's like saying to your opponent "Please throw the most broken card in the game into my grave so I can't draw it." Some people realized that pretty quickly and suggested having E Wit and Regrowth along with Yawg's Will and Ancestral or something. The problem with that is then you practically have to build your deck around Gifts Ungiven. Not too many U based control decks that want to use Gifts are gonna splash for 1GG that'll probably get countered.

I was thinking of something like this for Gifts: Mystical, Demonic, Ancestral, Time Walk. This way, there are two cards that are potentially Yawg's Will, and two broken quality cards that are really nice to have with will. So, you either get two broken cards (Ancestral Walk) or you get one broken card and a card that becomes Will (which a smart opponent really won't do) or you get both search cards, which becomes a Will and something else good (like lotus). So, your worst possible outcome is Ancestral Walk, and that's not too bad. AND, the Will is still in your library.


On another note, yeah, the CoK jokes were funny.

"So there I was at the prerelease, CoK in my hands, ready to go at it."

lol
There. I said it.

[jpmeyer]

JP, countering the Cycling Activated ability of DoJ does not stop the Soldier creation ability.  By the time you could counter it, the Trigger is already on the stack.

Damnit!

[MaxxMatt]

@JP. good and funny read.

I was sure that you would have easily recognized the ONLY card that could be broken in the entire set ( speaking of Vintage of course.. )


@Gift Ungiven.

IMO, it is too much resources consuming. It let the opponent to made the right rasoning about the cards' choice and would always consume your best weapons. If the opponent could choose the cards for you when splitting a FoF, would anyone have played it?


@Necrologia.
I'm testing a MUD-build with multiples 3Spheres, Smokestacks, CoWs, CotVs, Wires AND some UbaMasks.

In the past, I felt sure about a possible recover after a bad start of a common control deck when he face MUD and only with a good combination of basic lands to stop the denial and some fows against the crucial spells.
 
After my initial testing of UbaMask, I realized that it had the potential of avoiding ANY recover if you are in a unpleasant game situation.

Your istants are sorceries
Your counters are dead draws
Your control's strategies, mainly based on a good combination of cards advantage and "jedy-mindtricks" are completely changed ( or at worst NULLIFIED ) by this card, especially if you are in a bad position.
It doesn't let you to capitalize at its best your "few" answers to opponent's "many" bombs.
You are forced to play a "bad.sorcery.speed.dec" against an  "extremely.good.sorcery.speed. dec".


IMO, This cards isn't "too good to be played" and it is perfectly balanced.
On the other hand THAT deck can be so easily played at his best by anything and it can produce so many broken effects in the first two rounds, that I feel really worried about his possible impact on the entire metagame. Play that deck more than 3 times and you would realize HOW stupidly have been transmuted the mental approach at a MtG's game.

1) I won the dice roll --> I'm going to play too many broken spells that would completely avoid the use of your broken spells --> I won the game

2) You won the dice roll --> Are you going to play a lot of mana accelerations or a lot of basic lands in your first and second turn? no? o.. I'm sorry.. I'm really really sorry...  read point 1)

3) You won the dice roll --> you have an hand with a lot of accelerations and you are going first. You can go around Trinisphere. You are able to fecth your basic lands and you can go around (CoW+Waste)'s lock. You have the right timing on countering or drawing or removing his artifacts. You can go around a lot of his effects ( Wires, MAsks, Spheres, Fats... ) .

Which of the 3 points would recurr itself more frequently?




@Brainstorm and UbaMask.

I can optimize Brainstorm, transmuting it in an AncestralRecall ONLY if I have zero cards in hand...
Have you ever had zero cards in hand against MW.dec?
I usually have an hand FULL of useless and unplayable cards because of his lock...




If the link would not function, this is the MUD-test-deck.
Not discuss the list here. Simply read and play it, it is a blast.

(22) Lock ( I cut LittleSpheres and Orbs rising the number of CoWs and Masks, because they have a better sinergies with the entire deck and let you think to win games even in the mid-game. )
4 Trinisphere
4 CotV
4 Smokestack
4 Wire
3 CoW
3 UBA MASK

(11) Winners ( with the rised number of high cc artifacts and the new legend's rules, I upped to 4 the Karns. )
4 Karn
4 Metalworker
3 Razorman Masticore / Triskelion
1 Jar

(27) Mana ( That mana base let you have a mean of 3 mana on your first turn with a rate higher than 60% )
4 MW
4 Ancient tomb
4 City of traitors  
9 SoLoCryVaultMoxen
5 Strip
1 Academy

Side.
Work in progress.

[rozetta]

@Cranial Extraction, I think it might suffer a similar fate to Jester's Cap. For one, it's not consistently fast enough to remove key cards (for instance, against fast combo, where if you have time to cast this they might have anyway already lost). It has no effect on the board. And a lot of problem cards, like Null Rod or Welder might already be in play (and possibly protected) by the time you could cast this. If you could get the problem card into the graveyard to cap it, you're likely already on top of things. Admittedly it's more flexible than other cap effects, since it checks library, grave and hand (cap's problem being that if the card was already drawn, you can't do anything about it). This is not really maindeck material and most vulnerable decks (like Dragon and DeathLong) can vary their win conditions post-board, making this less effective as a sideboard solution. In essence, I believe the card to be too slow and narrow to see a lot of use outside of the odd hate.dec.

[SpencerForHire]

Excellent article JP.  The CoK in my opinion gives most of it's card to combo based decks, whether new ones that may sprout or the old ones that just need that little push to be that much better.  I could definately see Glimpse of Nature in FCG, and I would love to run Boseiju, Who Shelters All in some version of storm deck.  One consideration is that it is indeed legendary which is another feature that keeps it in check, otherwise there would be utter uncontrollability in storm because they could just keep dropping them if you attempted to waste them.  
My question is.  Would you give up a "maybe" turn-one win, for a surefire turn two win?  Perhaps the next change in combo will be giving up a turn for reliability.  Not likely but only time will tell.
Also, wtf is Bleiweiss smoking, does he even know vintage.  He speaks of playable cards "if" ww or sligh still existed, but they don't so they are irrelevent.  Obviously he couldn't get any more content.  Also why would FCG need extra mana mid combo, if you combo, you win.  I won't argue that akki Rockspeaker might be good in FCG but serious, you have the mana to win if you combo, why do you need more to "dick around with."
Well sorry bout my ranting, gjob to JP.

[Mykeatog]

You guys all smoke too much crack.

The land that taps to add (1 Broken) to your mana pool is insane. You can down play it now-- but I garuntee you will all lose games to uncounterable awesome shit.

That card is good.