Magic: The Gathering - Aether Revolt and Amonkhet review!

I’m not expecting this one to run away on the trending page and make the kind of rewards to buy a new box of Amonkhet boosters […available here at Amazon for the low, low price of $95 with free two day Prime shipping]. I have no idea what active or past playing Magic: The Gathering demographic exists on Steemit, but we’re about to find out! Ultimately, MTG is a significant part of my life, and that’s what Steemit is for. Sharing the things you’re excited about, so that’s what I’m going to do.

In the late 90’s, one of my first paid art accomplishments was selling pencil sketches to Wizards of the Coast. Magic: The Gathering had only been out for three years and I played with my kindred nerd friend, Neal, during lunch our freshman year. After I graduated, I met a comic book inker at a comic book convention in Metcalf, MO […comic conventions in the 90’s did not resemble WizardCon or ComicCon’s today. It was usually small venues that held less than 1,000 people. It was nerd culture in it’s purest form]. Email was just becoming a thing, and I stayed in touch with this guy, Keith. He suggested I send some of my work to a friend of his who was one of many art directors for WOTC. I did, and was asked to send a stack of my original pencils […all creature art, as I was an obsessed D&D fan]. If I shipped this guy a manilla folder of my drawings, they’d buy anything they thought they could use and send the rest back. My first package fetched me $200 for two drawings! Still to this day, a huge personal achievement. Selling art to a company as prestigious as Wizards of the Coast!

I fell out of MTG shortly after high school. My friend Neal and I moved on to different facets of our lives and I distinctly remember not having the money to buy new cards. Fast forwarding almost 15 years, I moved to Minneapolis and became a dad. In 2012, I became a single dad whilst navigating the rapid momentum of a freelance photography career that was finally taking off. Between raising my son and my work, there was zero time for anything else. Zero! For years, I’d only been sleeping four hours a night between finishing my last edits around 3:00a.m., and him waking up at 7:00a.m. I’d been telling myself “…you just have to make it until he starts kindergarten.”, daydreaming about a time when I could carve out a few hours for myself.

August of 2016, Mills started kindergarten and my life did change, entirely. As I write this now, I’m sitting at my favorite little nook coffee shop in uptown, Minneapolis. I can make it to the gym a few times a week […exercise was one of the many things that became impossible to manage while being a 24/7 dad]. I decided I was overdue for some kind of recreation in my life. Also a Caffetto regular, @tarotbyfergus was always playing MTG wth a couple friends, and every time I’d see him, it’d remind me of the fun I’d have with my friend Neal in high school. I might be too old for a septum ring, or a SnapChat account […which doesn’t stop me for either, TBH], but I’m not too old for Magic! I approached @tarotbyfergus and asked if I bought a deck, if I could join him.

The struggle to digest all the changes that have happened in the MTG space over 20 years was very real. @tarotbyfergus, our friend Tracy and a couple other friends were very patient in bringing me up to code. The small group of friends at Caffetto play Standard format, and that’s how I’ve been reacquainted with the game. When I was playing back in the day, planeswalkers didn’t even exist, so there was a steep learning curve. Eventually, though, I started winning a game here and there. @vermillionfox even built a deck and our games grew. It was exactly the missing recreation I’ve been looking for.

So, here we are. Since I started playing last summer, the most recent MTG expansions released are Kaladesh, Aether Revolt, and most recently, Amonkhet. The other formats still in Standard currently are Battle for Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch, Shadows over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon, but those are going to be rotated out of Standard Fall of 2017.

Here are my thoughts on the two most recent Standard sets, Aether Revolt and Amonkhet, and the particulars on how they affect and are affected by the previous expansion releases. Kaladesh is when I dove back in to the pool, and Kaladesh is all about artifacts and energy. Vehicles became a big thing […a vehicle is an artifact, that can become an artifact creature if it’s crew cost has been paid. Without being crew, for example, if you don’t have any creatures or creatures that can fulfill it’s crew cost, it just sits there on the battlefield as an artifact; lifeless. Sad.]. Energy is also an integral part of the Kaladesh world. The ability to harness, store and use energy to “do something”. One of my absolute favorite uses of energy in Kaladesh is the Dynavolt Tower. I have an entire deck built around four of them. Every time you cast an Instant or Sorcery spell, you gain 2 energy counters. Once you have 5, you can pay them, tap the Dynavolt Tower and blast 3 damage to a creature, player or planeswalker! 

“I thought this was about Aether Revolt and Amonkhet?”. I’m getting there. Relax. The critique from “pro’s” is that much of the vehicles in Kaladesh are just dumb, clunky vehicles with low mana costs, but rarely win a game. They’re big and scary, but hard to pull off. Well, Aether Revolt changed a lot of that. Cards like Heart Of Kiran can be paid by removing a loyalty counter from a planes walker, giving you a 4/4 flyer without observing a crew cost. That’s some serious versatility. Another card I love is Aerial Modification. An enchantment that turns any vehicle in to an artifact creature. Oh! And it also gains the enchanted a +2/+2 and flying.

The big focus here, though, is Amonkhet; the newest set released just two weeks ago. Amonkhet. This new expansion brings us to an ancient Egyptian realm that our familiar planeswalkers, Gideon, Liliana and Nissa pass through. It’s full of zombies, embalmed mummies and gods. Amonkhet has also introduced new mechanics, like embalm, exert and cycling […more or less a card draw for discarding a card, but many creatures in Amonkhet have abilities that are triggered by cycling]. Aftermath is also new. Some cards in Amonkhet share two spells, such as Destined/Lead or Never/Return. You cast the first spell, and the Aftermath effect is to recast the card’s second spell from the graveyard! I play a Torrential Gearhulk deck […that @tarotbyfergus hates], that allows me to cast Instants from my graveyard when Torrential Gearhulk enters the battlefield, so having this additional mechanic in the same deck is killer.

I’m currently working on a new Amonkhet zombies deck that utilizes cards like Anointed Procession, that creates twice as many effects that would normally be triggered. If you combine a card like that with Rise from the Tides, which creates a 2/2 zombie for every Instant and Sorcery in your graveyard, that’s now doubled! Imagine creating 20 zombies instead of 10! Take that a step further, and imagine the devastation of Liliana, The Last Hope’s emblem! She creates an army of zombies at your end step as is, but those would all be entering the battlefield X2 with the Anointed Procession enchantment. Still not evil enough? Let’s play In Oketra’s Name, an Instant, and give all zombies a +2/+1 for only two mana! I’ll be posting some of my favorite Standard deck lists here on Steemit.

My favorite cards in Amonkhet so far are the planeswalkers. Liliana, Death’s Majesty has beautiful art, and her -1 is returning a create card from the graveyard to the battlefield! With my Torrential Gearhulk deck, that is SO hard to deal with! The Gearhulk enters the battlefield and recasts an instant like Grip of Desloation FOR FREE! I’ve done it many, many times to @tarotbyfergus. It’s so brutal, I almost feel bad…almost. 

Gideon of the Trials is the most revered card in Amonkhet and rightfully so. For a mana cost of three, you are basically getting a 4/4 indestructible creature with haste. That’s not including his emblem, which means you can’t lose the game and your opponent can’t win the game until Gideon is dead. It creates a sense of urgency for your opponent to deal with Gideon, and buys you time to mount an offense. It’s an incredible card, and guess who has two thumbs and drew a foil Gideon of the Trails just before this blog post? THIS GUY!

More MTG posts coming whether you want them or not! If you like the art, illustration and photography more than this, you should still follow me @kommienezuspadt!