Interesting day for pulls today. At the local store, the system they have is you open packs for the guy sitting across the table from you, supposedly so you have another person checking against tampering. In the packs I got, I pulled Gideon Jura, Gideon's Avenger, and a Furyborn Hellkite which I didn't end up playing, because the rest of the red I had sucked.
Most of the time I love this country, but right now I freaking hate it. The only store with an M12 prerelease near my place is charging ~$30 for entry with swiss-style prize payout (1 booster per round won) so 4-0 only gets you 4 packs.
But get this... you have to bring your own basic lands or buy them from the store. This actually isn't the store's fault, just that Filipino people are up there among the most hoarding, pack rat, grab-everything-if-it's-free kind of folk out there. So if a store were to put up boxes of basic land out for common use during a tournament, no matter how much land they put out, it'd be 100% GONE at the end of the day, people walking out with boxes under their arms and such. This is unfortunately the truth.
That aside, it's not the worst card in the world and there are times when I'd throw this into a sealed deck. At best, it's a draw seven when you're out of gas.
Loosely defined, it's using your resources, cards and mana to your advantage to get the most value out of them and in some cases, set your opponent back on resources comparatively. The classic example is a card like Man O' War which gives you a reasonable body for 3 mana, while also making an opponent effectively waste a turn and several mana by bouncing his creature. It's much more than that and like I said, can effectively be any use of your resources which is more efficient than your opponent's. Here's an old article on it from the mothership
SMH if you think Spikeshot is better than this. To get more than 1 damage out of spikeshot, you need 6 mana or another card in the same turn. Grim Lavamancer gladly takes spells you've already spent.
"precon" foils do indeed get lower value simply because they're rarer, but I love the new grim lavamancer art (and REALLY love the card) so I don't really care too much in this case, haha.
As a red player, the return of the best red creature of all time has me the happiest I have been in months. I am seriously considering returning to paper magic because of this news.
The ridiculousness was in the packs I cracked open for him: Primeval Titan and two Phantasmal Images, one of them foil. He also had two oblivion rings, two phantasmal dragons, and three Gideon's Lawkeepers. That bant in m12 limited deck 4-0'd it...
But get this... you have to bring your own basic lands or buy them from the store. This actually isn't the store's fault, just that Filipino people are up there among the most hoarding, pack rat, grab-everything-if-it's-free kind of folk out there. So if a store were to put up boxes of basic land out for common use during a tournament, no matter how much land they put out, it'd be 100% GONE at the end of the day, people walking out with boxes under their arms and such. This is unfortunately the truth.
That aside, it's not the worst card in the world and there are times when I'd throw this into a sealed deck. At best, it's a draw seven when you're out of gas.
I was reading that article and thinking "Jesus, this was way before they thought Goblin Guide was a good idea"
I see Jace 3 at $8 long-term. He's not anywhere near the engine the other two are. Jace 2.0 pretty much ruined the blue planeswalker.