Side track from the normal conversation today, because I recently finished Dragon Age: 2. As a fan of Dragon Age 1, the spiritual successor of some of my other more favorite games (original Baldur's Gate, etc), I feel compelled to comment on this "sequel". When comparing Dragon Age 2, to Dragon Age, Dragon Age Origins:
Dragon Age 2 has a:
Very linear storyline. You are given many false options, and the hostile actions of NPCs often/always force a similar outcome despite your approach.
Almost insane map duplication. I must have run through the same 3-4 dungeon maps 5-8 times each.
Lack of choice for map exploration. Normally, you might have a map with many side passages, or several ways to get to the same place, and you could choose to clear them both out, or just one, or engage enemies, and exploration into the side branches would often yield bonus loot. In Dragon Age 2, you are forced to do this exploration via unopenable doors, or semi-keys. I often went what I presumed to be the side way (treasure sense activated), only to later find out on retracing my steps that the side way was the only way, because there was no door the main way.
I would presume that two charachters who went through a particular map/quest/dungeon would have 95% or higher duplication in experience and loot acquired/map explored.
Some graphical glitches. One of the early quests had me talking to a floating head, because the rest of his body didn't render. Some of the cut scenes seem to be missing a piece of furnature, and so on.
Low replay value. On one run through of the game, I earned something like 80-90% of the achievements. Dragon Age 1 had some serious replayability for the achievement-junkie, Dragon Age 1 has almost none. This is reinforced by the linear storyline, there are so few choices to make, that you are not able to get an achievement for taking a different story branch, unlike the many instances of this in DA1.
In DA1, there were something like 6 unique independant storylines to start with, that had a good 10 or so hours of playtime in them, and gave you insights into what happens before the quests you run into in the main storyline. Seeing Arl Howe come over for dinner in the Human Noble storyline (my second playthrough) after what happened in my original playthrough was spooky. The biggest (only) difference in DA2 is whether your melee dpser or mage suicides themselves before one of the harder fights in the game (first ogre). That first ogre fight comes pretty darn quick too, perhaps 30 minutes into the game, vs 5-15 hours in DA1?.
Webbed talent trees. This is not a problem in general. DA1 had 4 rows of 4 linear talents per talent block, most often restricted by a stat prereq. (and taking the previous talents in the row) DA2 has a web instead of 4 lines
What makes this bad is that virtually every talent has a prereq of taking some number of other talents in that web, along with level (and potentially stat) requirements. This puts you in a position of being forced into spending your points in a certain way just to unlock a talent/upgrade that only has one apparent prereq. A majority of the talent points are also "upgrades" to existing talents. So your heal does 80% instead of 40%, as an upgrade (with high level and/or points-in-tree prereqs). In one case, an upgrade to a talent I took spending two points in the tree required me to spend 6(!) points in that tree. I didn't do that.
Minions have restricted gearing options. In DA1, your NPC companions had full armor capabilities, so if you found your juggernaut plate armor, you slapped it on your tank (once they met the stat reqs), and you were good to go. In DA2, the main charachter is the only one that can equip hats, boots, chests, and gloves. The minions can wear the standard jewelry (2x ring, amulet, belt), and weapons (though, in the case of Varric, you cannot upgrade his weapon). This means that roughly 50% of the gear you recieve is 100% unusable. Minions do recieve stock minion-only armor upgrades, that you find doing their quests, but you often have no idea that you have recieved such an item, or where to get it.
Items do not have descriptive names. In Diablo 2, for example, all the gear was "Prefix Item of the Suffix". If you knew, or payed attention to what those suffixes were, you had a reasonable idea of whether the item was going to be worth using just from the name. In WoW, you have a color on the items, which indicates the rough usefulness of the item. In DA2, everything is a "Belt" or "Ornate Belt", which only reveals its stats to you once you hover over it. When you have 15 "Belt"s in your inventory list, which you cannot even necessarily see at the same time, it is quite difficult to determine whether any of them are worth equipping.
To their credit, they do have a "Star" system, that roughly compares items to the charachter you happen to be looking at at the time (but not any other charachter). Unfortunately, the rating system of the stars seems to be mostly based on a random number generator. I had the item system rate a belt I was not wearing at 5 stars, when it had less of every stat than the belt I was wearing at the time. (+2 mana regen, +10 health, vs just +2 mana regen -> lose 10 health to get 5 stars?). It was a sliding scale, which was good design, but it rated the items in a undeterminable manner, which is not good design.
Items in general feel pretty bad.
Heals are on a (very) long cooldown. I don't generally object to design restrictions, but I'd prefer to be mana limited than time-limited, since mana is a resource I can control, whereas time is controlled almost solely by the difficulty of the encounter. I also don't mind having some powerful abilities on longer cooldowns, with less powerful abilities being "chain castable", but there are none of those less powerful abilities, only the powerful ones on long cooldowns. (as if a 40% heal on a 40 second cooldown is powerful...)
To amplify this problem, not all mage NPCs can even cast a heal. You also lose your mage companion (if you are a mage) before what is potentially the most difficult fight in the game for a long time (first ogre). (oops, spoilers?).
A consequence of this time-limitation is that mana is worth almost nothing. As is mana regeneration, since you can't physically spend your mana fast enough to run out. In the final fight (spoilers!) my sole healer was 100% mana drained every 60 seconds or so in a 10-15 minute slogfest, and I only noticed that I was being mana drained about 8 minutes in. (and took no action to prevent future mana drains - which appear unavoidable anyway)
Staff DPS is laughable. In DA1, I was quite successful using a 2 healer + dps + tank strategy, because the mobs hit very hard, and being able to cross-mana-regen (could not cast mana regen on self) was quite good on the long fights, where you had to be chain-healing a tank. My main healer+ccer did something like 20% of the party damage from just wanding. In DA2, they don't provide this statistic, but I would imagine my DPSer (when I was doing 2h-1d-1t) was doing something like 50-70% of the party damage. In DA2, do not try to use two healers, it is a recipe for being overwhelmed.
CC is not nearly as useful/varried. I took sleep, and it was near-100% useless. It doesn't last very long, and is almost instantly broken with all the aoe going off. I suppose I could have edited the tactics to prevent my allies from using AOEs, but then I would have been overwhelmed by the opposition. DA1 had some powerful CC (AOE stun, large AOE sleep, Fear, etc). DA1 has horror as pretty much the only viable CC. OTOH, mobs have a pretty trivial time CCing your party members, though the various AOE knockdowns, or just knockback on attacking you, putting you in a semi-stunlock where you cannot act with that charachter. Normally, this is a time where having two healers (with cc?) is ideal, but it's not effective/possible in DA2.
Hover text is largely missing where it's most useful(Tactics Screen). This was also a problem in DA1 if i recall, but it was not fixed in DA2.
Holding off leveling up is quite difficult. Sometimes I would leave a charachter with stat points floating, because they weren't terribly relevant except for increasing health and meeting requirements on armor/weapons, but in DA2, it seems to want to lauch you into the level up menu for 90% of clicks on a charachter portrait.
Front/Back menu navigation is not handled particularly well. Each charachter has 6-8 talent webs, to see the details on any of them, you have to "zoom in" to one of them. this makes comparing across webs quite frustrating (have to click on "back" in one area of the screen).
The menu system hides your achievements quite well, and the "flag" for marking an item as new goes away on the slightest mouseover. This means that it becomes hard to identify which belt is the new belt, if you want to compare it to 4 different charachters.
Every encounter is a wave encounter. You engage the 4-10 guys they start with, then at some undetermined time later (either time or progress on 4-10 guys based?) you get another 4-10 guys, who often show up in the middle of where your extremely fragile ranged guys are standing. Then you get another 4-10 guys, and often another 4-10 guys after that. I can't think of a single fight in the game where this was not the pattern. I mean, sometimes it was 25 guys instead of 10, or sometimes they were all "elite" or half-"elite" (it would take perhaps 40 seconds for my healer mage to staff-down a single normal mob)
Why not just aoe them you say? AOE seemed to be just strong enough to get your AOEr killed, without easily dealing with the waves. A standard aoe on a long cooldown would potentially do 10% damage to a normal mob. If I played again, I might experiment more with this strategy in mind.
For reference, one charachter has a optional static aoe power of 7-14 damage every 4 seconds. My staff swing (which takes 10 seconds to kill a 1/4 health (weak) mob, or 40 seconds to kill a normal mob) does something like 60 DPS. Good luck not getting killed!
For some fights, the only way to beat the wave encounter mechanic on high difficulties was to kite the starting monsters far away from the starting location, and the reinforcements would stand around looking stupid at their spawn-in location. To give you an idea of how necessary this was for 1-3 fights in the game, I kited away the starting boss + 4 ranged nukers/vanishing/ambushing rogues, and STILL died to just the reinforcements when I ran back to deal with them.
The fighter/tanks seem to get a auto-counterattack power, which probably accounted for 20% of the damage done by the party.
Mobs were trivially kited.
Without any movement enhansing or debilitating effects, I often kited melee mobs just by running their target away.
In the solo fight against the Arishok (spoilers, but you've seen the trailer...), it was 20-50 minute kite for my healer mage against a overpowering melee monster with infinite health and near-infinite health potions.
The quest system feels detached, you don't feel connected to the story. I often went into a quest "?" having no idea which quest I was actually working on. I'd have to figure out from what they said what the heck was going on. You'd often have 4-8 quests in a zone, and have no idea which one you were wandering into.
Acts randomly end, leaving you stranded without the ability to find certain items (which are only available in certain acts). This varies from act to act, but I went into act 3 without being able to get one of my party members back, which caused me to be short a guy (gal) for the rest of the game.
Item sets feel pathetic. The Juggernaut plate armor from DA1 was epic to get, and felt epic once you got it. The act 2 armor can't even be completed in act 2, and has stats indistinguishable from other items. The set bonus for the act 1 armor? +1 to a stat, and +10-20 mana? The set bonus for the act 3 armor? +2 to a stat, and +15-30 mana? Meh. Meh I say.
Party friendly AOE is prevalent. Often, you would be told to blow something up, and because you did the blowing up, your melee guy standing next to the explosion would be unharmed. I liked the limitation of power of the DA1 party non-friendly aoes for some effects. (notably Fireball - but in DA2 fireball seems pretty bad) I do recall one (1) fight in the deep roads where the aoe actually did hit the party, and did trivial mob damage. (we were told to blow them up to kill the mobs, gee thanks)
Linking of notifications is only weakly tied to the ability to find out more about that notification. For example, when you recieve an item, if you click on that notification on the main screen, it takes you to whatever inventory tab you last visited, which often (75%) does not contain the item you recieved. When the item you recieve is "Belt", it's even better. Codecs and quest linking is similarly vague. I often had little to no idea what quest I had just finished, or what item I recieved.
Many dialog options do not indicate the consequences of that option. The most aggredious offender for this is the option to give money to people. One time, I gave 30 silver (0.3 gold), another I gave 5 gold (out of the 30 gold I had at the time). In DA1 you chose how much to give, from 3-5 options, so you could know what you were getting yourself into.
Necessity of saving frequently. Because rogue mobs can one-shot a non-tank from a repeatable ambush ability they use every 20 seconds or so, and there are some fights with 4 "normal" (aka not weak) rogue mobs, and some blood mages have an ability that near-instantly kills all non-tanks in your party, and some tank mobs knockback your healer into a corner (with no response possible) and continue to knockback them to death, saving frequently is a must. I had over 800 saves near the end of the game.
This is compounded by everything being a wave encounter. You get near the end of what you think the fight is, and go in passive mode, looting, autoshotting or whatever, and a blood mage you didn't see because they spawned in behind you has been casting a spell that kills 3/4 of the party, or 2 rogue mobs and 3 archers show up, and 2-3 people die.
Getting three of your party members perma-knockbacked by a blood mage's aoe until they die is pretty non-fun. All you could do was throw a stun (Horror) at them and hope you burned them down before they got to act, or the omnipresent waves of guys overwhelmed your dpsers/healers.
Nothing felt very epic.
The fade sub-quest in the circle tower in DA1 felt absolutely amazing. Nothing got remotely close to that in DA2. It was just another run through the same map, with new ways being blocked off to force you into a slightly different 100% linear path.
The false choices or everpresent must-attack-me's of the NPCs also didn't help this.
Loot seemed to appear and dissapear (on the map) over time.
Since you spend so much of your time going through the same zones, you notice that things appear or go away in the same act, in the same time of day. You have to be pretty vigilent or you'll miss the loot you might be walking by, and then it is gone forever.
Loot was relatively hard to loot. There was no auto-loot, you had to click on "Loot All". I didn't determine how to loot anything without clicking "Loot All" over the course of playing through the game once. The loot display screen also only showed three items (One of which was always gold). I presumed this meant that you only ever got two items, but instead, you had to mousewheel the menu to see the other items you got, if you got any more than that. Otherwise, you are reliant on the flag system in your inventory to determine what the heck you should look at.
Locked chests were prevalent, and to open them, you had to take control of your rogue charachter. Why couldn't the rogue auto-open it, who knows.
==============================
Props:
Presumably, they give you some tie-in to your experience in DA1, and you can move charachters over.
You did get to see some callbacks to DA1 charachters, and actions your previous charachter took.
Varric is awesome. (but at the end, appears to be leaning on a table that isn't there) Varric is probably the best part of the entire game, to be honest. The cut scene going into Bartrand's Estate is hilarious.
"Hard" difficulty was hard. It was too hard for 1-4 fights in the game for me. (Initial Ogre, nothing from the deep roads on, may be a early charachter problem). I did not try nightmare difficulty. (replayability = 0?)
You did get "letters" at your home base, from the people you saved, but often you had no idea who they were, or what they were talking about. Perhaps if I paid more attention, or took notes, it would have been less confusing. It was a nice feature.
DA2 is a different tactical challenge, and I do enjoy different tactical challenges, since this type of wave encounter was less seen in DA1, and heals are certainly less chain-able, which forces you to react differently. Unfortunately, you are reacting in a near-identical manner across all combats in the game, which counteracts what would otherwise be a strong point.
================================
Dragon Age 1 was one of the funner games I've played. It extended the grand tradition of the Baldur's Gate series, and took it to a new level. It had alot of versitility, was fairly easy to understand, and multiple viable strategies. And multiple storylines! What you did had an impact on the flow of the game, in more than just the end credits.
Dragon Age 2 is a pale shadow in comparison. It presents what feels like false options throughout the game. Many of the fights feel the same, you keep wandering through the same zones, etc.
Reviews for DA2 have not fallen off strongly from DA1, so perhaps my views here are not the mainstream. And obviously, if you enjoy the things I list as "negatives" for DA2, your conclusions will be the opposite of mine. Some people like linear gameplay, or being faux evil. Either way, you'll have information from reading this that should be relevant to your decision to purchase this game.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Grand Prix Atlanta
In the top 8 of this event, the top 5 cards by volume were:
35 Island
32 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (+5 Jace Beleren)
32 Preordain
28 Mana Leak
25 (All Sideboard) Flashfreeze
There were only 35 islands in the top 8, but there were 37(!) Jaces! (that both cost UU)
There was something like one deck in the top 16, and 3 in the top 32 that didn't play JtMS/Preordain to the max.
Just like the Titan cycle nullifies virtually every other creature that costs 5-8 mana in their respective colors (or colorless for that matter), Jace nullifies entire strategies by himself. Play some creature without a CIP effect? Jace is something like three Time Walks against that deck.
I guess the lesson from this is play JTMS, Mana Leak, and Preordain, or have a solid matchup against decks packing them. (Mostly CawBlade and RUG in the top 8, some others filling out the top 32)
35 Island
32 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (+5 Jace Beleren)
32 Preordain
28 Mana Leak
25 (All Sideboard) Flashfreeze
There were only 35 islands in the top 8, but there were 37(!) Jaces! (that both cost UU)
There was something like one deck in the top 16, and 3 in the top 32 that didn't play JtMS/Preordain to the max.
Just like the Titan cycle nullifies virtually every other creature that costs 5-8 mana in their respective colors (or colorless for that matter), Jace nullifies entire strategies by himself. Play some creature without a CIP effect? Jace is something like three Time Walks against that deck.
I guess the lesson from this is play JTMS, Mana Leak, and Preordain, or have a solid matchup against decks packing them. (Mostly CawBlade and RUG in the top 8, some others filling out the top 32)
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Conley Woods crazy legacy brew....
Conley Woods is known for coming up with some crazy decks, so you never know what you're going to get from him. Legacy is a format where almost anything goes. You can die on turn two, or get your winning spell countered when your opponent has no land untapped (or even in play potentially). Turn 4-6 wins are prevalent, and all (successful) decks are a mix of the most powerful spells in magic.
Round one of a legacy tournament on GGSLive, which shows live tournaments pretty much every weekend (Saturday = Constructed, Sunday = Legacy)
http://www.ggslive.com/
He's playing against a "Junk" (Green-White-Black, discard + removal + big creatures deck)
His opponent goes first in game one, and goes Land -> Dark Ritual (BBB) -> Hypnotic Specter.
This is one of the most feared plays from the good old days of black aggro. The discard is random, if you don't answer it right away, you're probably dead.
So Conley goes some land that taps for colorless, and eventually loses to cards like Vindicate (BW1 -> destroy target permanent), Wasteland (Land, T, Sac, destroy target nonbasic land), Hymn to Tourach (BB Sorcery -> Target player discards two cards at random), and so on.
Game two, he is on the play, and mulligans to 6.
He plays an Inkmoth Nexus (wtf?), a Chrome Mox (0, artifact, taps for any color if you discard a land when you play it, which he does), taps both for a Arcbound Ravager.
Now, Arcbound Ravager is a pretty good card, but he hasn't played any of the artifact land from original mirrodin, or really any other card that you'd expect to see out of a "affinity" deck.
His opponent plays a land (some dual land that taps for two of Green, Black, and White, for no penalty) and passes.
Conley Plays an Ancient Tomb (Land, Taps for (2), but does 2 damage to you when you tap it), plays another ravager. He animates his Inkmoth nexus, and attacks for 1 poison, and 1 normal damage. (rut roh?).
His opponent does something terrible (for Conley, and passes the turn back.
Conley animates the Inkmoth Nexus and attacks with it, and his two Arcbound Ravagers. His opponent casts Swords to Plowshares (W, Instant, Remove target creature from the game, its owner gains some irrelevant life). Conley sacrifices the targetted ravager to the other ravager, and puts the counter on the Inkmoth. His opponent takes two poison, and two damage. (17, 3 poison) Conley plays a Blinkmoth Nexus (one of each now!) and passes the turn.
His opponent plays a Wasteland (Land, T, Sac, destroy a nonbasic land) and casts Pernicious Deed.
Now, this is really bad. Deed kills basically anything that isn't a pure land (it kills artifact lands and creature lands, unlike most anything that would be printed lately, like Into the Roil, or Ratchet Bomb)
The Wasteland also threatens his only other threat, the Inkmoth, even if he doesn't animate it.
Conley plays a City of Traitors (another land with a drawback that taps for (2))
He does not animate his Inkmoth (Deed can be sacced for 0 to kill lands that are animated/artifacts), and swings in for 2 damage with the ravager.
His opponent plays a land, and passes the turn.
When Conley goes to attack with the Ravager, his opponent casts Swords to Plowshares on it. Conley could have activated his Inkmoth, to take the counters, but he didn't playing around the deed getting that as well "for free". But things are looking pretty bad.
Conley passes the turn, and his opponent plays a land, and casts a Hymn to Tourach, getting rid of the last card(s) in Conleys hand, and uses the Wasteland to kill Conley's Ancient Tomb, leaving him only with a land that is destroyed if he plays another land. He passes the turn.
Conley activates the Inkmoth and attacks. His opponent pops the Deed, killing the Inkmoth and Conleys Chrome Mox.
Conley plays a Chalice of the Void for 1 (Preventing Swords, Dark Ritual, Thoughtseize?). His opponent Vindicates it on his turn.
Conley draws, and plays... Plague Myr. What the heck?
Even more disturbing, his opponent casts a Krosan Grip on it. The commentators remark that this may be the first time a Plague Myr has ever been Krosan Gripped in this history of magic.
----------????---------->
Conley draws, and plays a Ichorclaw Myr. What the heck is going on here?
His opponent plays a land and passes. He appears to have two land in hand.
Conley drops a Necropede, and attacks for a point of poison, Take that! (4 total poison for his opponent, and he's at like 12 life from fetchlands, and Ravager attacks)
His opponent plays a land and passes.
Conley plays a Cranial Plating, Equips it to the Ichorclaw myr and attacks for something like 5 poison. His opponent has no answer, and dies on the next turn.
==================================
On to game 3, with the "Junk" deck on the play.
The Junk deck keeps their 7, and Conley looks sad, and mulligans to 6 again. (as in game 2)
He keeps his 6, and we're off to the races.
The Junk deck leads with Fetch -> Swamp -> Ritual -> Hypnotic Spectre. Conley has no spell in his deck that can kill it outside combat. (His opponent may not know that though) That's really bad.
Conley drops a BLINKmoth Nexus, and passes the turn. The announcers comment that he should have played the INKmoth Nexus, in the face of the random discard from the Hippie.
His opponent attacks, conley discards a land at random. His opponent plays a land, and casts Hymn to Tourach, hitting an artifact and a creature.
So, Mull to 6, discard 3 random cards, and your opponent still has a Hypnotic Spectre in play.
Conley plays an Ancient Tomb, taps it for 2 (goes to 16) and slaps down a Crucible of Worlds.
His opponent notably doesn't play a land this time, and attacks with the Hypnotic Specter. (The junk deck has a ton of ways to kill any perminant at 3 mana) Conley discards one of his two last cards., which was a wasteland.
Conley plays the Wasteland from his graveyard using the Crucible, and uses it to destroy his opponent's dual land. He passes the turn back.
His opponent swings in with the Hippie. Conley taps the Ancient Tomb (going to 12 or something), and animates the BLINKmoth Nexus. He blocks the Hippie, and taps the Nexus to pump itself, trading with the Specter!
<<<
His opponent bins the Hippie, and passes the turn back. If Conley had played the INK turn one, he would have not been able to kill the Hippie turn 3, and would have been just as dead to a 1/1 Specter (with a -1/-1 counter on it) as a 2/2.
Conley recurs the Wasteland with the Crucible, taps the Tomb (going to 10?), and drops a Necropede.
His opponent finds a second land, and drops a Dark Confidant, an incredibly powerful card drawing tool/threat. Conley uses the Wasteland end of turn, to kill the new land.
Conley uses the crucible to play a City of Traitors from his graveyard, taps for 4 mana, to play and equip Umezawa's Jitte. This may very well be the first time a Necropede has held this legendary equipment.
He swings in with the Necropede, and when his opponent doesn't block, he uses one of the counters generated from that combat to put a -1/-1 counter on the Human Wizard.
On the Junk players next turn, he finds another land, and plays another Dark Confidant, but he Jitte-equipped Necropede kills it, swings in, and picks up a twin on Conley's next turn. (Along with Wasteland Recursion?)
Turn 1 Hypnotic, Turn 2 Hymn, off a mull to 6, with no removal for it in your deck? No problem. Just play your Scars of Mirrodin block limited deck, with some fancy lands, and you're fine!
Round one of a legacy tournament on GGSLive, which shows live tournaments pretty much every weekend (Saturday = Constructed, Sunday = Legacy)
http://www.ggslive.com/
He's playing against a "Junk" (Green-White-Black, discard + removal + big creatures deck)
His opponent goes first in game one, and goes Land -> Dark Ritual (BBB) -> Hypnotic Specter.
So Conley goes some land that taps for colorless, and eventually loses to cards like Vindicate (BW1 -> destroy target permanent), Wasteland (Land, T, Sac, destroy target nonbasic land), Hymn to Tourach (BB Sorcery -> Target player discards two cards at random), and so on.
Game two, he is on the play, and mulligans to 6.
He plays an Inkmoth Nexus (wtf?), a Chrome Mox (0, artifact, taps for any color if you discard a land when you play it, which he does), taps both for a Arcbound Ravager.
Now, Arcbound Ravager is a pretty good card, but he hasn't played any of the artifact land from original mirrodin, or really any other card that you'd expect to see out of a "affinity" deck.His opponent plays a land (some dual land that taps for two of Green, Black, and White, for no penalty) and passes.
Conley Plays an Ancient Tomb (Land, Taps for (2), but does 2 damage to you when you tap it), plays another ravager. He animates his Inkmoth nexus, and attacks for 1 poison, and 1 normal damage. (rut roh?).
His opponent does something terrible (for Conley, and passes the turn back.
Conley animates the Inkmoth Nexus and attacks with it, and his two Arcbound Ravagers. His opponent casts Swords to Plowshares (W, Instant, Remove target creature from the game, its owner gains some irrelevant life). Conley sacrifices the targetted ravager to the other ravager, and puts the counter on the Inkmoth. His opponent takes two poison, and two damage. (17, 3 poison) Conley plays a Blinkmoth Nexus (one of each now!) and passes the turn.
Now, this is really bad. Deed kills basically anything that isn't a pure land (it kills artifact lands and creature lands, unlike most anything that would be printed lately, like Into the Roil, or Ratchet Bomb)
The Wasteland also threatens his only other threat, the Inkmoth, even if he doesn't animate it.
Conley plays a City of Traitors (another land with a drawback that taps for (2))
He does not animate his Inkmoth (Deed can be sacced for 0 to kill lands that are animated/artifacts), and swings in for 2 damage with the ravager.
His opponent plays a land, and passes the turn.
When Conley goes to attack with the Ravager, his opponent casts Swords to Plowshares on it. Conley could have activated his Inkmoth, to take the counters, but he didn't playing around the deed getting that as well "for free". But things are looking pretty bad.
Conley passes the turn, and his opponent plays a land, and casts a Hymn to Tourach, getting rid of the last card(s) in Conleys hand, and uses the Wasteland to kill Conley's Ancient Tomb, leaving him only with a land that is destroyed if he plays another land. He passes the turn.
Conley activates the Inkmoth and attacks. His opponent pops the Deed, killing the Inkmoth and Conleys Chrome Mox.
Conley plays a Chalice of the Void for 1 (Preventing Swords, Dark Ritual, Thoughtseize?). His opponent Vindicates it on his turn.
Conley draws, and plays... Plague Myr. What the heck?
Even more disturbing, his opponent casts a Krosan Grip on it. The commentators remark that this may be the first time a Plague Myr has ever been Krosan Gripped in this history of magic.
----------????---------->
Conley draws, and plays a Ichorclaw Myr. What the heck is going on here?
His opponent plays a land and passes. He appears to have two land in hand.
Conley drops a Necropede, and attacks for a point of poison, Take that! (4 total poison for his opponent, and he's at like 12 life from fetchlands, and Ravager attacks)
His opponent plays a land and passes.
Conley plays a Cranial Plating, Equips it to the Ichorclaw myr and attacks for something like 5 poison. His opponent has no answer, and dies on the next turn.
==================================
On to game 3, with the "Junk" deck on the play.
The Junk deck keeps their 7, and Conley looks sad, and mulligans to 6 again. (as in game 2)
He keeps his 6, and we're off to the races.
The Junk deck leads with Fetch -> Swamp -> Ritual -> Hypnotic Spectre. Conley has no spell in his deck that can kill it outside combat. (His opponent may not know that though) That's really bad.
Conley drops a BLINKmoth Nexus, and passes the turn. The announcers comment that he should have played the INKmoth Nexus, in the face of the random discard from the Hippie.
His opponent attacks, conley discards a land at random. His opponent plays a land, and casts Hymn to Tourach, hitting an artifact and a creature.
So, Mull to 6, discard 3 random cards, and your opponent still has a Hypnotic Spectre in play.
Conley plays an Ancient Tomb, taps it for 2 (goes to 16) and slaps down a Crucible of Worlds.
Conley plays the Wasteland from his graveyard using the Crucible, and uses it to destroy his opponent's dual land. He passes the turn back.
His opponent swings in with the Hippie. Conley taps the Ancient Tomb (going to 12 or something), and animates the BLINKmoth Nexus. He blocks the Hippie, and taps the Nexus to pump itself, trading with the Specter!
<<<
His opponent bins the Hippie, and passes the turn back. If Conley had played the INK turn one, he would have not been able to kill the Hippie turn 3, and would have been just as dead to a 1/1 Specter (with a -1/-1 counter on it) as a 2/2.
Conley recurs the Wasteland with the Crucible, taps the Tomb (going to 10?), and drops a Necropede.
Conley uses the crucible to play a City of Traitors from his graveyard, taps for 4 mana, to play and equip Umezawa's Jitte. This may very well be the first time a Necropede has held this legendary equipment.
He swings in with the Necropede, and when his opponent doesn't block, he uses one of the counters generated from that combat to put a -1/-1 counter on the Human Wizard.
On the Junk players next turn, he finds another land, and plays another Dark Confidant, but he Jitte-equipped Necropede kills it, swings in, and picks up a twin on Conley's next turn. (Along with Wasteland Recursion?)
Turn 1 Hypnotic, Turn 2 Hymn, off a mull to 6, with no removal for it in your deck? No problem. Just play your Scars of Mirrodin block limited deck, with some fancy lands, and you're fine!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Why people are misevaluating Lead the Stampede
People say that when it gets two creatures (when you have 20-30 creatures in your deck), that is "Divination at best".
The reason I think this is flawed logic, is the same reason I think Foresee is better than Jace's Ingenuity.
Foresee says "draw two". Jace's Ingenuity says "Draw 3", and is an instant. How can Foresee be better?
Well, Foresee actually lets you see 6 cards, for one less mana, and you DON'T HAVE TO DRAW the bad ones. If you ship two cards with Foresee, which is common lategame, shipping two lands, you effectively drew FOUR cards.
Call to Mind is NOT "draw two", it is "draw two CREATURES". (at it's worst)
Lets say you didn't have any creatures in the top 5 cards of your deck. Would you rather put all 5 of those cards on the bottom of your deck, or draw two lands? In the first case, you effectively drew 3 MORE cards, just by not drawing the cards at all.
Think about Fact or Fiction.
If the best cards in your deck are creatures (often true in a green deck?), Lead the Stampede seems like a poor card to underestimate.
Morbid Plunder is a card that is often considered good (in limited), but it does roughly the same thing as Lead the Stampede, except you have to have already drawn, cast, and had killed, your good creatures. Lead the Stampede does a very similar thing, but it uses the top of your deck, instead of your graveyard.
See Beyond vs Treasure Hunt is a similar debate.
Now, Lead the Stampede can't draw you land. It can't draw you removal (unless it is creature based, like Acidic Slime, Gatekeeper, War Priest of Thune, or the like). It can't draw you alternative creatures, like Living Weapons, Planeswalkers, or Manlands. It can't draw into more of itself (which I presume is some of the better FoF options). It doesn't do everything.
But it does draw you "the business".
Like Foresee, like Fact or Fiction, make sure you don't get caught up in the pure card advantage ("I drew two cards off this"). Make sure you consider the fact that you don't need to draw those other cards, and that the cards you drew were not terrible.
Play utility creatures. Play good creatures. Play a moderate amount of creatures (20-30?), and Lead the Stampede isn't just "the Green Divination". It is the Green Fact or Fiction, where YOU get to split the cards.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Side Track: Juzam 2.0
I keep thinking about this, stupid brain...
Juzám Djinn was good, right?
Well, Phyrexian Vatmother is kindof like Juzam, with a few differences:
1) It has 8 power instead of 5.
2) It doesn't deal damage to you.
3) It is $5 instead of $150
4) It is legal in standard.
Juggernaut is a 10/5 for 6 now, but that's probably too slow when you have a 8/4 flying regenerator (with maybe haste)for 5.
There is also a new ultra-grey-ogre that is immune to all sorts of removal (StP-2.0, 3.0, Bolt 1.0-n.0, Terror-2.0, etc), blocks and attacks very well, (have to have a 4+/3+, non-red, non-white, creature to trade with it...), and is hard to block to begin with. (~35% unblockable)
Mishras Factory 2.0 is a 2/1 flyer instead of a 2/2 ground-y now. It's not as good of a blocker, but it is a similar attacker.
Black still has good discard and creature removal to draw off. Pumping these guys up with new fangled equipment is the trend now, and these have ~double effectiveness with this strategy. (2-mana
+4/+2, or +8/+4 (fetchland), OR 5-mana +4/+2 with double-protection + 2 abilities)
The new Paralyze-variant works on all their creatures (but only for one of yours), twice, and does 4
damage over those two turns. It requires going into a new color, but there are a few lands
to support that..
Juzám Djinn was good, right?
Well, Phyrexian Vatmother is kindof like Juzam, with a few differences:
1) It has 8 power instead of 5.
2) It doesn't deal damage to you.
3) It is $5 instead of $150
4) It is legal in standard.
Juggernaut is a 10/5 for 6 now, but that's probably too slow when you have a 8/4 flying regenerator (with maybe haste)for 5.
There is also a new ultra-grey-ogre that is immune to all sorts of removal (StP-2.0, 3.0, Bolt 1.0-n.0, Terror-2.0, etc), blocks and attacks very well, (have to have a 4+/3+, non-red, non-white, creature to trade with it...), and is hard to block to begin with. (~35% unblockable)
Mishras Factory 2.0 is a 2/1 flyer instead of a 2/2 ground-y now. It's not as good of a blocker, but it is a similar attacker.
Black still has good discard and creature removal to draw off. Pumping these guys up with new fangled equipment is the trend now, and these have ~double effectiveness with this strategy. (2-mana
+4/+2, or +8/+4 (fetchland), OR 5-mana +4/+2 with double-protection + 2 abilities)
The new Paralyze-variant works on all their creatures (but only for one of yours), twice, and does 4
damage over those two turns. It requires going into a new color, but there are a few lands
to support that..
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Sideboard into mill against control/ramp?
Burn is not an amazing strategy against ramp and control. They don't have (credible) small creatures to get 2:1 card advantage. They don't have medium sized creatures, to 1:1 with cards like bolt or kicked burst. They do have large creatures, that would require multiple spells to take down, or planeswalkers which often require multiple burn spells to answer. All you can do is throw some burn at them, and hope it's enough before you are burned out yourself from their nonbasic lands or 6/6s.
Currently, I'm siding out Lightning Bolts and Arc Trails, to bring in countermagic. I leave in Staggershock, because:
1) It's an instant
2) It does the most damage per card
3) It does the best job charging up an Ascension. (1 card charge)
One strategy certain other people advocated just playing a milling strategy main-deck, over the burn strategy.
This involves playing a kill package of:
4x Archive Trap (3UU, instant, mill 13. Trap cost: 0. Trap condition: they searched their library)
4x Trapmaker's Snare. (1U, instant, tutor for a trap)
1-2x Ravenous Trap (2BB, instant, remove a graveyard from the game. Trap cost: 0. Trap condition: they had 3 cards go to their graveyard from anywhere)
This can kill through anything, including reshuffle effects(Eldrazi). They are milled before the trigger goes onto the stack, so you do all your milling, then Ravenous Trap them in response (with the reshuffles on the stack). Then they reshuffle their empty graveyard into their (empty?) library.
One advantage of this plan is that a single Trapmaker's Snare is lethal with a charged PA. You search for two Archive Traps, then cast the two archive traps, which are doubled, giving you a mill for 52, which is plenty to kill anyone.
Valakut gets alot less dangerous when there are suddenly 2-3 valakuts, and 6-8 mountains in your deck.
Mindbreak Trap, which I'm already sideboarding, and bringing in for these matchups, is a trap, which gives some minor utililty with Trapmaker's Snare.
Currently, I have to resolve 5 burn spells to kill my opponent. (4 damage each). With Archive Trap, I'd have to resolve perhaps 3, depending on the game state.
Archive Trap does cost 5 to hardcast, instead of 3 for Staggershock, but the trap cost for Archive Trap is not that hard to trigger.
UW Control: Trinket Mage, Squadron Hawk, typically 1-4 fetchlands.
UB Control: Trinket Mage, typically 1-4 fetchlands.
RG Valakut: Every spell in their deck other than Explore? 8-12 fetchlands, Cultivate, Growth Spasm, Khalni Heart Expedition, Primeval Titan, Green Sun's Zenith.
There is some probability of having a turn 2-3 kill with this orientation. You can just have 4 Archive Traps, or 3 Archive Traps and one Trapmaker's Snare. Or probably even 2 Traps and 2 Snares. This is pretty unlikely, but it does just win the game. There is probably some interesting math here... To complicated for me to do in any reasonable time frame. Basically what we'd want to know is how many cards we have to see to see 4 of our 8 Archive + Snare, since that would give us how many cards we need in order to kill our opponent, without any Ascension help. A charged Ascension needs only 2 Traps, or 1 Snare, and you'll be saving these until that time.
The downside of these cards is that they have no effect on the board state. Burn can try to kill planeswalkers (and fail), but they do take up less space as a kill condition.
4x Archive Trap
4x Trapmakers Snare
3x Mindbreak Trap
1x Ravenous Trap
3x something (Pyroclasm, Flashfreeze, Mana Leak)
This lets me bring in 12 mill + counter for my 12 burn spells. having a sideboard against aggro could be good, and pyroclasm is pretty good at that. I don't have much else to take out against control/ramp, so i don't think I could use the 3-4 more counters I could want to bring in. (Bounce is not great against Ramp, but necessary against Control)
One advantage this plan has is that it is very blue. I swap out red for blue, and that is a plan that follows my current mana base quite well. Swapping out blue for red does not work terribly well with the mana base, which some other sideboard strategies employ.
I have quite a few potential sideboard strategies. I'm not sure which way to go.
Echo Mage in for PA(Blue vs. Red, Creature vs. Enchantment, can target their spells, can block KFW)
Kiln Fiend for PA (Ultra-aggro, creature vs enchantment, can kill quickly with burn support)
Sphynx for burn (creature vs non, blue vs red, non-targetable)
Counters for burn (current plan - losing the long game)
Mill for burn (blue vs red, instant vs enchantment, 1-3 spells to victory)
Land disruption (one of: spreading seas, demolish, tech edge) for burn.
What do you think?
Currently, I'm siding out Lightning Bolts and Arc Trails, to bring in countermagic. I leave in Staggershock, because:
1) It's an instant
2) It does the most damage per card
3) It does the best job charging up an Ascension. (1 card charge)
One strategy certain other people advocated just playing a milling strategy main-deck, over the burn strategy.
This involves playing a kill package of:
4x Archive Trap (3UU, instant, mill 13. Trap cost: 0. Trap condition: they searched their library)
4x Trapmaker's Snare. (1U, instant, tutor for a trap)
1-2x Ravenous Trap (2BB, instant, remove a graveyard from the game. Trap cost: 0. Trap condition: they had 3 cards go to their graveyard from anywhere)
This can kill through anything, including reshuffle effects(Eldrazi). They are milled before the trigger goes onto the stack, so you do all your milling, then Ravenous Trap them in response (with the reshuffles on the stack). Then they reshuffle their empty graveyard into their (empty?) library.
One advantage of this plan is that a single Trapmaker's Snare is lethal with a charged PA. You search for two Archive Traps, then cast the two archive traps, which are doubled, giving you a mill for 52, which is plenty to kill anyone.
Valakut gets alot less dangerous when there are suddenly 2-3 valakuts, and 6-8 mountains in your deck.
Mindbreak Trap, which I'm already sideboarding, and bringing in for these matchups, is a trap, which gives some minor utililty with Trapmaker's Snare.
Currently, I have to resolve 5 burn spells to kill my opponent. (4 damage each). With Archive Trap, I'd have to resolve perhaps 3, depending on the game state.
Archive Trap does cost 5 to hardcast, instead of 3 for Staggershock, but the trap cost for Archive Trap is not that hard to trigger.
UW Control: Trinket Mage, Squadron Hawk, typically 1-4 fetchlands.
UB Control: Trinket Mage, typically 1-4 fetchlands.
RG Valakut: Every spell in their deck other than Explore? 8-12 fetchlands, Cultivate, Growth Spasm, Khalni Heart Expedition, Primeval Titan, Green Sun's Zenith.
There is some probability of having a turn 2-3 kill with this orientation. You can just have 4 Archive Traps, or 3 Archive Traps and one Trapmaker's Snare. Or probably even 2 Traps and 2 Snares. This is pretty unlikely, but it does just win the game. There is probably some interesting math here... To complicated for me to do in any reasonable time frame. Basically what we'd want to know is how many cards we have to see to see 4 of our 8 Archive + Snare, since that would give us how many cards we need in order to kill our opponent, without any Ascension help. A charged Ascension needs only 2 Traps, or 1 Snare, and you'll be saving these until that time.
The downside of these cards is that they have no effect on the board state. Burn can try to kill planeswalkers (and fail), but they do take up less space as a kill condition.
4x Archive Trap
4x Trapmakers Snare
3x Mindbreak Trap
1x Ravenous Trap
3x something (Pyroclasm, Flashfreeze, Mana Leak)
This lets me bring in 12 mill + counter for my 12 burn spells. having a sideboard against aggro could be good, and pyroclasm is pretty good at that. I don't have much else to take out against control/ramp, so i don't think I could use the 3-4 more counters I could want to bring in. (Bounce is not great against Ramp, but necessary against Control)
One advantage this plan has is that it is very blue. I swap out red for blue, and that is a plan that follows my current mana base quite well. Swapping out blue for red does not work terribly well with the mana base, which some other sideboard strategies employ.
I have quite a few potential sideboard strategies. I'm not sure which way to go.
Echo Mage in for PA(Blue vs. Red, Creature vs. Enchantment, can target their spells, can block KFW)
Kiln Fiend for PA (Ultra-aggro, creature vs enchantment, can kill quickly with burn support)
Sphynx for burn (creature vs non, blue vs red, non-targetable)
Counters for burn (current plan - losing the long game)
Mill for burn (blue vs red, instant vs enchantment, 1-3 spells to victory)
Land disruption (one of: spreading seas, demolish, tech edge) for burn.
What do you think?
Monday, February 7, 2011
Mirrodin Beseiged - Whiff for the PA deck.
There are 91 cards that I could concievably play with R/U.
There are 16 instants or sorceries that I can play with my mana base.
Blue Sun's Zenith (UUUX, target player draws X cards, instant) is okay as a 1-of in the deck. It will only give PA counters if a previous one was countered, so it is pretty terrible at charging up PA. It's also not amazing post-ascending, but it is potentially better than Foresee as a topdeck on an open board, or as a way of punishing an opponent for tapping out. I was cautiously optimistic about this card for a while, but it is pretty hard to be better than Foresee, and I am not playing Foresee. I am already not playing Jace's Ingenuity, because Foresee is better, and less expensive, but BSZ could be draw-6 late-game against anyone, at instant speed.
I might play one. I won't play more than one. I'm may play 0.
Burn the Impure seems like a bad Searing Blaze. I do like me some Searing Blaze (incidental damage to them is great), but I'm not playing that, and if I'm not playing that, this is a non-starter.
Concussive Bolt is for a different deck. (Worse than Lava Axe, that's saying something?) I have considered playing Lava Axe, but I am not.
Crush is a bad Shatter.
Distant Memories is a card draw spell, sortof. Apparently you do have to reveal the card you are exiling (I wouldn't have thought that). A good way of thinking about this, is that it is Foresee, or a 4-mana draw one, whichever is worse for you. I can draw the best 2 cards out of the top 4-6 with Foresee, which is better than "draw 3" to me. Modal cards that give your opponent the choices are not good, period.
Fuel for the Cause seems inferior to Mindbreak Trap, and Steady Progress. Mindbreak Trap is a counter that does great things. Steady Progress is a cantrip one-card PA-charger, which this deck loves. Fuel for the Cause is a one-card (+1 in the graveyard) charger for PA, which is great, but it costs 4, and requires your opponent to do something in order for you to get a "charge" out of it. (and you need to cast another 4-mana counterspell beforehand). It is 4cc, so it dodges Inquisition, and it is a hard counter. So this may bear watching.
Into the Core may be a bad shatter/demolish. You have to have two targets to cast this, and the PA deck is not playing any artifacts to allow you to cast it in a worst-case scenario. Exiling is very good against Wurmcoil Engine, but that's about it. (ITR is very good against that "colorless titan")
Metallic Mastery is for a different deck. It is a 3-mana, Sorcery-speed, shatter against ratchet bomb. Seems strictly inferior to Mark of Mutiny in all cases. (Getting any creature(titan) > Getting any artifact)
Mitotic Manipulation is strange. It is the "Blue Rampant Growth", which seems like about all it'd do in this deck. The only perminant other than land we're playing is PA, and we don't need another out if we have one.
Quicksilver Geyser is higher-volume than ITR, in that it returns two perminants, but it costs 4U instead of 2UU, and doesn't draw a card (important for PA). It also doesn't have the option to be cast for 1U in an emergency. Combine that with the PA deck doing a pretty good job at perminant-control as-is, and this card is a downgrade to current cards in the deck.
Rally the forces: Aggro deck. Not great even for the KF sideboard (3 mana -> 4 damage is about as terrible as ratios get for KF)
Red Sun's Zenith is actually interesting. I am playing Mindbreak Trap, and bringing it in to deal with recursion creatures (Vengevine + Bloodghast). MBT also has secondary uses against things like Titans, non-counterable spells (Gaea's Revenge, Emrakul, Thrun), whereas this has a secondary use of "just killing them". It is a competitor for Mindbreak Trap in some roles, and like the Blue Sun's Zenith, charges PA poorly. (I will have 0 copies in the graveyard). If this could deal with Kor Firewalker, it might make slots just as a counter-hate-creature sideboard card. As is, it likely doesn't make it.
Slagstorm is the card most likely to make the deck. It is a 3 damage pyroclasm, for 3 mana, or it is a 3-damage-to-them spell in a control/ramp matchup. (against those decks, doing 3 to yourself is irrelevant). Unfortunately, Staggershock and Arc Trail already occupy slots as mass creature sweeping in the deck, and both are quite good. Less mana intensive (matters for the killing turn, and call to mind), less red mana intensive (end game I'll have 3-4 total red mana in play, with 10 blue), and sorcery speed are knocks agaisnt this card. However, it does do 3 damage, which is good against the green leyline, Kor Skyfisher, and doubled it kills everything (which pyroclasm can't claim). Probably not making the deck, but it's a card that warrants investigation.
Steel Sabotage. I do love me some ITR, but I don't need more ITRs that target less things than ITR (ITR is already somewhat problematic for not being able to target (man) lands - or valakut, that'd be sweet...). Countering less things than any other spell is also not a great mode. (Deprive, Cancel, Mana Leak, Mindbreak Trap, etc, are all pretty good, and/or better than Steel Sabotage). Getting the choice of which bad effect I want (and any time one effect is dead, the other is also dead) doesn't make this card any better. Meh, I say.
Turn the Tide. -2/-0 is kind of like a fog, but I'd rather Into the Roil to prevent creature damage. ITR prevents all the damage, and Pyroclasm kills all the creatures. I'm not sure which of these you're supposed to not play, in order to make this card make any kind of sense.
Vivisection: If i did have creatures, and didn't mind saccing them, I'd still rather cast Foresee, than Vivisection. Foresee draws something like 3.5 cards, for the same mana cost, and no drawback. I'd have to be saccing something for benefit on the sac in order to play this even in a creature deck, much less in mine.
So, overall, it seems like we got almost 100% inferior to currently played (or "better" yet unplayable) cards in this new set, as far as fueling the combo.
===============
Blue Sun's Zenith might be worth it as a 1-of, instant-cast, draw x.
Slagstorm might be worth it (over pyroclasm), as a versitile hate-card. It would be a fine main-deck card, but I already have Arc Trail main, which seems like a equally general-purpose card, that is easier to cast, gets in splash damage while killing their team, and kills their guys on turn 2, instead of turn 3 (turn dead). As a 3 damage sweeper, it starts to run into Chain Reaction, which is another slow creature-sweeper that could be great or terrible.
================
As far as creatures, Consecrated Sphynx competes in the Sphynx of Jwar Isle slot. 4/6 vs 5/5 is about the same. Both give some card advantage. (Saccing Fetchlands to shuffle, or Treasure Hunt hits) Combos well with little Jace on your side, and a brainstorming Jace on the other (draw 6? Okay...). I guess it is not terrible against big Jace, since they can only bounce after they draw their card for the turn, so you're still drawing 3 for every one they draw, and they're using jace's -1.
Neurok Commando is a better (?) Scroll Thief. But we're not playing Scroll Thief, and NC blocks poorly, and attacks just as bad into things that stop Scroll Thief.
Phyrexian Revoker doesn't stop PA, so that's a card that may take up sideboard slots to no benefit against PA. It also does almost nothing against valakut (shuts down KHE? ha?) Activated abilities require a : for the most part, so look for that when you consider how good this is. (It does stop planeswalkers, which can be a problem)
There are 16 instants or sorceries that I can play with my mana base.
Blue Sun's Zenith (UUUX, target player draws X cards, instant) is okay as a 1-of in the deck. It will only give PA counters if a previous one was countered, so it is pretty terrible at charging up PA. It's also not amazing post-ascending, but it is potentially better than Foresee as a topdeck on an open board, or as a way of punishing an opponent for tapping out. I was cautiously optimistic about this card for a while, but it is pretty hard to be better than Foresee, and I am not playing Foresee. I am already not playing Jace's Ingenuity, because Foresee is better, and less expensive, but BSZ could be draw-6 late-game against anyone, at instant speed.
I might play one. I won't play more than one. I'm may play 0.
Burn the Impure seems like a bad Searing Blaze. I do like me some Searing Blaze (incidental damage to them is great), but I'm not playing that, and if I'm not playing that, this is a non-starter.
Concussive Bolt is for a different deck. (Worse than Lava Axe, that's saying something?) I have considered playing Lava Axe, but I am not.
Crush is a bad Shatter.
Distant Memories is a card draw spell, sortof. Apparently you do have to reveal the card you are exiling (I wouldn't have thought that). A good way of thinking about this, is that it is Foresee, or a 4-mana draw one, whichever is worse for you. I can draw the best 2 cards out of the top 4-6 with Foresee, which is better than "draw 3" to me. Modal cards that give your opponent the choices are not good, period.
Fuel for the Cause seems inferior to Mindbreak Trap, and Steady Progress. Mindbreak Trap is a counter that does great things. Steady Progress is a cantrip one-card PA-charger, which this deck loves. Fuel for the Cause is a one-card (+1 in the graveyard) charger for PA, which is great, but it costs 4, and requires your opponent to do something in order for you to get a "charge" out of it. (and you need to cast another 4-mana counterspell beforehand). It is 4cc, so it dodges Inquisition, and it is a hard counter. So this may bear watching.
Into the Core may be a bad shatter/demolish. You have to have two targets to cast this, and the PA deck is not playing any artifacts to allow you to cast it in a worst-case scenario. Exiling is very good against Wurmcoil Engine, but that's about it. (ITR is very good against that "colorless titan")
Metallic Mastery is for a different deck. It is a 3-mana, Sorcery-speed, shatter against ratchet bomb. Seems strictly inferior to Mark of Mutiny in all cases. (Getting any creature(titan) > Getting any artifact)
Mitotic Manipulation is strange. It is the "Blue Rampant Growth", which seems like about all it'd do in this deck. The only perminant other than land we're playing is PA, and we don't need another out if we have one.
Quicksilver Geyser is higher-volume than ITR, in that it returns two perminants, but it costs 4U instead of 2UU, and doesn't draw a card (important for PA). It also doesn't have the option to be cast for 1U in an emergency. Combine that with the PA deck doing a pretty good job at perminant-control as-is, and this card is a downgrade to current cards in the deck.
Rally the forces: Aggro deck. Not great even for the KF sideboard (3 mana -> 4 damage is about as terrible as ratios get for KF)
Red Sun's Zenith is actually interesting. I am playing Mindbreak Trap, and bringing it in to deal with recursion creatures (Vengevine + Bloodghast). MBT also has secondary uses against things like Titans, non-counterable spells (Gaea's Revenge, Emrakul, Thrun), whereas this has a secondary use of "just killing them". It is a competitor for Mindbreak Trap in some roles, and like the Blue Sun's Zenith, charges PA poorly. (I will have 0 copies in the graveyard). If this could deal with Kor Firewalker, it might make slots just as a counter-hate-creature sideboard card. As is, it likely doesn't make it.
Slagstorm is the card most likely to make the deck. It is a 3 damage pyroclasm, for 3 mana, or it is a 3-damage-to-them spell in a control/ramp matchup. (against those decks, doing 3 to yourself is irrelevant). Unfortunately, Staggershock and Arc Trail already occupy slots as mass creature sweeping in the deck, and both are quite good. Less mana intensive (matters for the killing turn, and call to mind), less red mana intensive (end game I'll have 3-4 total red mana in play, with 10 blue), and sorcery speed are knocks agaisnt this card. However, it does do 3 damage, which is good against the green leyline, Kor Skyfisher, and doubled it kills everything (which pyroclasm can't claim). Probably not making the deck, but it's a card that warrants investigation.
Steel Sabotage. I do love me some ITR, but I don't need more ITRs that target less things than ITR (ITR is already somewhat problematic for not being able to target (man) lands - or valakut, that'd be sweet...). Countering less things than any other spell is also not a great mode. (Deprive, Cancel, Mana Leak, Mindbreak Trap, etc, are all pretty good, and/or better than Steel Sabotage). Getting the choice of which bad effect I want (and any time one effect is dead, the other is also dead) doesn't make this card any better. Meh, I say.
Turn the Tide. -2/-0 is kind of like a fog, but I'd rather Into the Roil to prevent creature damage. ITR prevents all the damage, and Pyroclasm kills all the creatures. I'm not sure which of these you're supposed to not play, in order to make this card make any kind of sense.
Vivisection: If i did have creatures, and didn't mind saccing them, I'd still rather cast Foresee, than Vivisection. Foresee draws something like 3.5 cards, for the same mana cost, and no drawback. I'd have to be saccing something for benefit on the sac in order to play this even in a creature deck, much less in mine.
So, overall, it seems like we got almost 100% inferior to currently played (or "better" yet unplayable) cards in this new set, as far as fueling the combo.
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Blue Sun's Zenith might be worth it as a 1-of, instant-cast, draw x.
Slagstorm might be worth it (over pyroclasm), as a versitile hate-card. It would be a fine main-deck card, but I already have Arc Trail main, which seems like a equally general-purpose card, that is easier to cast, gets in splash damage while killing their team, and kills their guys on turn 2, instead of turn 3 (turn dead). As a 3 damage sweeper, it starts to run into Chain Reaction, which is another slow creature-sweeper that could be great or terrible.
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As far as creatures, Consecrated Sphynx competes in the Sphynx of Jwar Isle slot. 4/6 vs 5/5 is about the same. Both give some card advantage. (Saccing Fetchlands to shuffle, or Treasure Hunt hits) Combos well with little Jace on your side, and a brainstorming Jace on the other (draw 6? Okay...). I guess it is not terrible against big Jace, since they can only bounce after they draw their card for the turn, so you're still drawing 3 for every one they draw, and they're using jace's -1.
Neurok Commando is a better (?) Scroll Thief. But we're not playing Scroll Thief, and NC blocks poorly, and attacks just as bad into things that stop Scroll Thief.
Phyrexian Revoker doesn't stop PA, so that's a card that may take up sideboard slots to no benefit against PA. It also does almost nothing against valakut (shuts down KHE? ha?) Activated abilities require a : for the most part, so look for that when you consider how good this is. (It does stop planeswalkers, which can be a problem)
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