Islandhome #51

==ISLANDHOME #51==

February 18th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Islandhome Online: Website next week! Eeee
Conflux Legends: A review of Conflux's EDH general material.
Epic Prerelease: A new game to check out this Sunday.

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft at Brothers Grim ($11 entry) @ 7 PM
Saturday: PTQ Honolulu in New Jersey
Saturday: Standard Constructed at FNC ($5 entry) @ 1 PM

==ISLANDHOME ONLINE==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Next week, for Islandhome's one-year anniversary, I'll be launching Islandhome's website! It'll be a great change from this email newsletter, and will include things like user-submitted articles, a message board for organizing events and talking about the Long Island metagame, and more! I'll send out a notice when it's up!

==CONFLUX LEGENDS==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Another set, another batch of cards to look through for your EDH decks! Now there's five legendary creatures in this small set, but do any of them make the cut as potential EDH generals? Let's see:

Child of Alara - If your general would be put into a graveyard from play, you may remove it from the game instead. It's one of the most commonly used rules in EDH, so common in fact that no one ever opts to put their general into their graveyard on purpose... unless it has a good enough effect like Child of Alara. The Kid can be RFG'd and plopped into your library, but if your opponents don't have that option, they'll have to kill him and have all their stuff wiped out as well. He's five colors, so a five-color reanimator deck would be a good home for him.

Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer - There are certain card names that catch my eye when I see them, and when Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer showed up on the list of card names accidentally leaked a few months ago, I knew he'd be blue-white, and I knew he'd be involved with drawing cards... I just didn't think he'd give them to your opponent. As a 2/2, he's just going to die turn after turn, and if his bribes worked even after he left play, he'd be better.

Malfegor - Bolas's kid is pretty good, if you can build around him. There's a lot of card drawing, madness effects, and graveyard recursion in black, so maybe you won't mind discarding all those cards to decimate everyone else's creatures. Plus he's a 6/6 dragon, and the son of an Elder Dragon.

Progenitus - Protection from everything, including being a good EDH general. Even in EDH, he's almost entirely uncastable, and that protection from everything doesn't stop mass removal, which will probably be online by the time you get the mana to play him.

Rakka Mar - Ms. Mar's a limited bomb, true, but she's got too many strikes against her for EDH general purposes: she's mono-red, she's a 2/2, and her ability isn't the stuff generals are made of. Putting a 3/1 into play isn't good enough on a weak 2/2 to justify limiting yourself to one color. If you're looking for good mono-red generals, there's Heartless Hidetsugu and Kiki-Jiki, the latter of which is worth the fragile 2/2 body.

==EPIC PRERELEASE==

Author: Brian Paskoff

This Sunday at Brothers Grim, there's a prerelease for a new card game called Epic. It's made by some former high-level Magic players, and plays a lot like Type 4 Magic. Every spell is, well "epic"ally powerful, and everything costs either 1 or 0. I'll be there helping out and teaching people how to play, so come down if you want to try out a new game! Their website is epictcg.com, check it out!

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA
April 4th - Iselin, NJ

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgrim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #50

==ISLANDHOME #50==

February 11th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Valentine's Day Massacre (on prices): Brothers Grim lowers their prices!
Confluxing Standard: Reviewing some of the hottest new cards from Conflux.

Wow, issue number 50!

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft at Brothers Grim ($11 entry) @ 7 PM
Saturday: <3>Standard Constructed at FNC ($5 entry) @ 1 PM

==VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE (on prices)==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Brothers Grim is slashing their prices on draft sets of Shards of Alara and Conflux! Draft sets (three packs) are $9, while entry fees for FNM have been lowered from $13 to $11! That's the lowest I've seen for any sanctioned booster draft (most places in the US charge upwards of $15), so it's a great time to come down to Grim and draft with us on Friday nights!

Speaking of FNM, the promo for this month is Myr Enforcer. Come win one this Friday, they make great Valentine's Day gifts for that special girl or guy in your life!

==CONFLUXING STANDARD==
Author: Brian Paskoff

With the whole schedule of set design at Wizards of the Coast, it takes a good long while for answers to the most popular decks to show up. Faeries has been dominating Standard since Morningtide, and it took four whole sets for the "answer cards" to show up. Wizards can't just print one answer and hope it sticks, because if it doesn't work it'll be three or four more sets before they can try again, and Faeries will be out of Standard at that point.

The first one up is Volcanic Fallout. As the spoiler evolved, this card changed from a sorcery to an instant and was immediately deemed a Fae-killer. Jund Charm was used in Ramp decks alongside Cloudthresher to combat both Kithkin decks and Faeries. While Volcanic Fallout is good, it just adds to the number of minor board sweepers in standard: Jund Charm, Firespout, Infest, and even Pyroclasm are all heavily played, and it's hard to say where Volcanic Fallout fits in. Obviously, if your metagame is dominated by Fae, Volcanic Fallout is a great sideboard card. Each of the minor board sweepers in Standard has their own strengths and weaknesses:

• Jund Charm is versatile, hurts reanimator decks, and can keep Kitchen Finks around for another go at persisting... but can't kill Stillmoon Cavalier, X/3s, or Burrenton Forge-Tenders.
• Firespout deals one extra damage so it can kill a Cloudgoat Ranger or doubly-pumped up Kithkin, but is sorcery speed and can be stopped with a Forge-Tender.
• Infest kills anything, including the problem creatures black and red can't usually deal with... but is sorcery speed.
• Pyroclasm can wipe out the turn one Figure of Destiny, turn two Wizened Cenn play before it becomes a problem, but it's sorcery speed and only deals two damage.
• Volcanic Fallout kills Fae and acts as a final Sudden Shock against control decks that have stabilized at low life because it's uncounterable... but not unpreventable.

The popularity of a new card will have everyone trying it out, and make life hard for Faerie players for weeks to come. Just don't get so sucked in by the shiny fresh-pack smell of Volcanic Fallout that you ignore your metagame!

Next, there's Scattershot Archer. 1/2s for G are rare, and the Archer was probably made to avoid getting picked off by a sideboarded-in Peppersmoke. Of course the real power of Scattershot Archer is its ability. With one tap, every Bitterblossom Token, Spellstutter Sprite, and Spirit token falls out of the sky. The Archer comes down on turn one, long before Faeries is ready with a Remove Soul. And if they tap out to Agony Warp it the turn after you play it, it's just another way Scattershot Archer saved you from a turn two Bitterblossom. However, being that it's only good against one tier one deck and one tier two deck (WB Tokens), I don't see it seeing serious play.

The last Fae-killer is the big one, Banefire. Being that I re-started playing Magic after a many-year hiatus around the tail-end of Ravnica block, I have many fond memories of Demonfire beating out the control decks of the time. While Demonfire was good, it required you to have no cards in hand to be truly devastating. And, it was used by one of the most dominate control decks of the time, Urzatron, which could ramp up its mana way faster than decks with lands that didn't tap for 3.

Banefire isn't so much of an anti-Faerie card as it is an anti-Cryptic Command card. When the best counterspell in years can't touch it, it's clearly an anti-control card. In fact, there are only three cards in the format that can deal with Banefire, and they're all red! Wild Ricochet, Shunt, and Swerve, to be precise. It's difficult to say for sure right now, but if Banefire becomes a problem, then one of these spells (most likely Swerve) will start to see some serious sideboard play.

Let's step away from the anti-control cards for a bit and get to the rest of the set. Every set's got those chase uncommons, and Conflux has a few goodies that will have you looking past the rares when you rip open a pack.

I'd feel like I'm neglecting something if I didn't talk about Path to Exile first, which is another one of those $3-4 uncommons (hello, Kitchen Finks). At one mana, Path is an amazing card, especially against decks that run zero or few basics, like Toast in Standard, Affinity in Extended, and... well, almost everything in Legacy and Vintage. There's really no discussion about the card's merits needed: you pay one white mana to make them trade their best creatures for a basic land, and that's that. One word of warning however: it'll take some players quite some time to get used to the idea that accelerating your opponent early on isn't a great idea. Already I've had players tell me that in their playtesting online, opponents have Path to Exiled their early drops on turn one or two. Without Tarmogoyf in Standard, there's really no reason you should ever want to do that.

Aggressive red-based decks get three attractive uncommons: Hellspark Elemental and Shambling Remains. Mono-red decks, what little there are left, have changed from mono-red to Rb, splashing black for things like Blightning, Thoughtseize out of the board, and sometimes Bitterblossom. Those decks will have little qualms about replacing Ashenmoor Gouger with Shambling Remains... although the possibility of a pumped-up Knight of Meadowgrain blocking it might. And that's basically the problem with Hellspark Elemental as well: It's a 3/1, and all sorts of bad things happen to 3/1's. The third card is the often-overlooked Goblin Outlander. Mono-red decks have had trouble with Kithkin ever since Blood Knight left Standard. Goblin Outlander doesn't have first strike, but against mono-white decks, it hardly matters.

Back onto more uncommons, Celestial Purge has to be one of the best sideboard cards in recent memory. It was just back in Shadowmoor that we got a spell that destroyed a black or red creature in combat, and now Wizards is printing cards that remove ANY black or red permanent from the game for the same two mana. It's just downright mean against Bitterblossom, Ajani Vengeant, Demigod of Revenge, and even Nicol Bolas.

And speaking of Nicol Bolas, it's a bit sad to see it being forced into decks where it doesn't fit. Obviously, it appears to be on the surface the perfect card for Five Color Control, but is it? Sure it feels great to take all those counters off Nicol Bolas and destroy your opponent's will to live, but compare it to Bolas's own Cruel Ultimatum: Cruel costs one less, "resolves" the same turn you play it, and can't be attacked, Oblivion Ringed, or burnt away. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is vulnerable to everything Cruel Ultimatum is... plus more. Of course, Cruel Ultimatum can't pick off or steal permanents, but since Nicol Bolas's first ability often is just an eight mana Stone Rain and his second isn't amazing against most creature-based decks in the format that rely on a lot of little creatures rather than big ones (and it delays his ultimate ability by many turns)... anyway, my point is that Nicol Bolas costs eight.

Five-color decks do get a bomb in Maelstrom Angel though; if it hits, playing a free Cruel Ultimatum is like... well, like taking nine counters off a Nicol Bolas. Playing ANYTHING for free in 5C is a good deal, from the lowliest Mulldrifter to a beefy Broodmate Dragon.

As for other rares, we finally have this block's Wrath of God: Martial Coup. Martial Coup, however, costs seven mana to be useful, while Wrath costs four mana. Among the cheap three-or-less mana board sweepers I mentioned above, the four mana Wrath of God is considered almost too expensive. Back in my day, we paid four or MORE mana to destroy all creatures... no, BURY all creatures! And we liked it! (Sorry, I just had a birthday and was reminded how old I was getting.) But anyway, if there was a block PTQ season, Martial Coup would see more play than a Pasgoyf, but since the only big block tournament is a Pro Tour, it will sadly only see play in niche decks.

There's a lot of buzz over Noble Heirarch, the new Birds of Paradise. It's nice to see a "Birds" that doesn't die to a Cloudthresher coming into play, but only time will tell if there's room for a one-mana mana-producing creature in Standard: Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elf didn't really see play before.

I love Thornling. Don't get me wrong, big splashy green creatures are a favorite of mine (I named myself after the best one, don't forget), but Thornling came in at just the wrong time. With Oblivion Ring, Unmake, and now Path to Exile all heavily played, indestructibility just isn't a big deal. It could see play, but it's not as earth-shattering as it could be without so much RFGing in the format.

Well that about wraps it up for this week's Conflux Standard review. I wish I had space to review the entire set, but I don't want to load up your computer with megabytes or whatever. Stay tuned for more reviews in later articles!

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA
April 4th - Iselin, NJ

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgrim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #49

==ISLANDHOME #49==

February 4th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Conflux Limited Review

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft (Alara-Alara-Conflux) at Brothers Grim @ 7 PM
Saturday: Conflux Launch Party at FNC @ 1 PM ($26 entry)

Immediately following the Launch Party on Saturday is the 26th Annual Paskoff's Birthday Paskoff Cube Draft event and possibly dinner, so stick around after the event for some fun times! My birthday's on Sunday, but we're celebrating Saturday night.

Also, there is no event Sunday at Brothers Grim due to a Yu Gi Oh state tournament or something of the like.

The official Islandhome website will be launching in the next 2-3 weeks, just in time for Islandhome's one year anniversary!

==CONFLUX LIMITED REVIEW==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

The prerelease is over, and it was intenser than usual. Intenser's a word, right? Anyway, we had exactly 94 players at the prerelease, filling every seat we had. A grand total of twenty-seven teams also participated in Long Island's first Two-Headed Giant prerelease event in many years. People were very confused about the strange format, but everyone had fun. If you have any opinion on whether or not future Long Island prereleases stick with the traditional three-man teams or switch to Two-Headed Giant permanently, contact Gray Matter Conventions and let us know!

But the fun times with Conflux aren't over - there's a whole new weekend of Conflux fun, and with the set being legal for FNMs both Standard and draft on Friday, and Conflux release events this weekend (mine will be at Friendly Neighborhood Comics at 1 PM, see everyone there!), everyone's talking about what the new cards mean for constructed and limited.

For limited, nearly every card in the set is extremely powerful. When a set contributes only one pack to a booster draft and contains about a hundred cards less than the base set, it needs to have more bombs and less duds. Reviewing every card in the set would be quite tedious both for me and you, and while last week I talked about the various mechanics in the set, this week is all about the bombs - particularly the commons and uncommons, which is where the meat of your deck will lie. It's easy to tell that a rare or mythic is good for your deck, and it's easy to tell the ones you should ship to the next drafter. The other thirteen cards in the pack are the harder ones to choose from.

WHITE:

White's got a few playables in the lower rarities. Path to Exile isn't as much of a universal answer to everything as Oblivion Ring, but it's still amazing... just don't use it on an early drop, or you'll have your opponent accelerating into bigger threats than the one you removed. With the amount of multicolored creatures walking around, Celestial Purge might even be a high pick - and definitely sideboard material. White also has the best card in a cycle, a rare occasion; Gleam of Resistance is an excellent combat trick. +1/+2 is a big bonus, an giving your creatures vigilance - even a turn after you attacked - is well worth the five mana.

Stay away from Lapse of Certainty, it's certainly not as good as it looks on paper. It won't permanently deal with a threat. As a rule, I don't like to put cards into my limited decks when I can't guarantee they'll be useful 90% of the time I draw them. Asha's Favor is another one that looks better than it is; all the removal in the format makes playing Aura spells card disadvantage.

There's some strong creatures in white too. Aven Trailblazer is a very aggressive flier, being at least a 2/3 in every deck. Rhox Meditant is great if you're playing green, and passable if you're not. If you have the mana, Darklit Gargoyle can be good... though there are a lot better choices for fliers. After that there's not too much to write about: a too-expensive flier with a shroud ability that'll never be relevant, a Wall of Roots that can attack, another exalted dude, etc.

BLUE:

Card drawing, bounce, and counterspells are what you'd expect from blue spells, and you'd be right! Blue's basic landcycler isn't terrible, and for once makes a counterspell playable in limited. Worldly Counsel can be absurdly powerful in five-color decks, and what's bad about an almost-Impulse in a shard-based deck? And then there's Unsummon, which is... Unsummon. What can you say about a card as old as Magic itself?

For creatures, Esperzoa has some cute tricks to pull with Faerie Mechanist, which is another strong creature in an Esper-based deck. Speaking of artifact creatures, Scornful Aether-Lich is strong, even if fear isn't as relevant as it would be in other sets, and Parasitic Strix is yet another in a long line of playable three-mana two-power fliers. Brackwater Elemental might be worth the risk if your deck is aggressive enough, and that about wraps it up for blue's dudes.

BLACK:

Black has one good spell at common/uncommon, and that's Drag Down. Every other spell in the lower rarities is beyond awful, and if you have a common or uncommon instant, sorcery, or enchantment in your deck and it's not Drag Down you've done something horribly wrong.

Creatures though, black's got it good. Sedraxis Alchemist is nearly always just as good as Man-o-war, and if you've got the mana, Fleshformer is incredible. But where black really shines (ha) is Grixis Slavedriver, my favorite creature in the set for limited. It's at least two, and usually three and a half creatures in one. Unless it's removed from the game, it swings for four from the yard and leaves a zombie behind after it makes that final swing.

RED:

Red's got burn. It's also got a straight-up "destroy target creature" spell, and you don't see that printed on a red card too often. Sure Dark Temper requires you to have a black permanent, but that's easy enough to do. Fiery Fall's expensive, but it's got landcycling, so definitely playable. And then there's Ignite Disorder, a very powerful sideboard card that's almost maindeck material. Volcanic Fallout also joins Infest as a first pickable uncommon mass removal spell.

Red's creatures however are on the weak side. Wandering Goblins requires a heavy mana commitment, Dragonsoul Knight does as well (though it's certainly not terrible without the mana to pump it), Canyon Minotaur is good but oh-so-vanilla, and Toxic Iguanar is too killable to rely on. Viashino Slaughtermaster is very playable, and red gets so few Bears without drawbacks. Kranioceros is very good if you can reliably pump it, but expect to need to do so the turn you play it.

GREEN:

I want to skip over the spells and get right to the good stuff, but Might of Alara is actually good, and Spore Burst miiiiight be playable in a five-color deck. Nothing else is terribly worth mentioning; Filigree Fracture is a good sideboard card, of course.

But green has the best creatures, like Matca Rioters, a 3/3 for 2G... or a 5/5 for 2G. As I mentioned last week, Gluttonous Slime is a great combat trick, letting you sacrifice doomed creatures mid-combat. Ember Weaver would have been good as a 2/3 with reach for 2G, but with the potential to also have +1/+0 and first strike, it's astounding. Sacellum Archers can make combat tricky for your opponent as well as having a good body. And Beacon Behemoth and Wild Leotau are yet more cheap 5-power creatures.

MULTICOLOR:

The stars of the set are the multicolored cards. After feeling somewhat shoehorned into a shard for the first two packs of Shards of Alara, all the mana fixing in Conflux makes nearly anything splashable. There's only four multicolored non-creature spells at common and uncommon: first off, Countersquall. It's a counterspell, and doesn't hit creatures, the most important spells in limited, so save it for the sideboard against opponents with lots of removal. Exploding Borders is fantastic acceleration, and one of the few spells in the format that lets you accelerate lands into play. Of course the Tribal Flames effect to your opponent's face doesn't hurt either. Elder Mastery almost literally turns any creature into Nicol Bolas (the old school one, not the planeswalker), but like most Auras, the risk of card disadvantage isn't always worth the gamble... but Elder Mastery could pay off. Hmm. Lastly, there's Suicidal Charge. It's expensive, and the effect is very situational. I haven't seen anyone really attempt to play it yet, mostly for its expensive cost, but the effect is an interesting one.

The "protection bears" in Conflux are definitely nice. With everyone playing at least three colors, chances are your 2/2 will be safe from at least a third of your opponent's creatures. Fusion Elemental can be powerful in the right deck. It's not worth stretching your manabase to accomodate it, but if you're already in five colors, you can't say no to a cheap 8/8 with no drawback.

If you're heavy on the artifacts (and what Esper deck isn't?) you've got Sludge Strider. The life drain really adds up, especially during a stalemate. Esper Cormorants is another powerful Esper creature, sort of a lesser Tower Gargoyle. Shambling Remains is Ashenmoor Gouger's cousin, and unearth makes it even better. Then there's Knotvine Mystic, a powerful accelerator - drop it turn three, and with a land drop you have six mana on turn four. Naya's new best friend is Vagrant Plowbeasts, nearly just as good as Spearbreaker Behemoth and waaaay easier to pick up in draft. Hellkite Hatchling's a bomby flier as well, even though it requires at least one sacrifice to make it good.

LANDS:

Ancient Ziggurat: It's sort of hindered by the fact that it won't help you cast the 5-7 non-creature spells in your deck, so it's not terribly useful.

Reliquary Tower: Absolutely useless in limited, especially when your manabase needs to be consistent.

Rupture Spire: So glad this is common! It's one of the best mana fixers in the set.

Unstable Frontier: Functionally, this is just as good as Shimmering Grotto from a few sets ago, with one key difference: It helps out your domain spells too!

ARTIFACTS:

There's two solid mana fixers and one average one; Armillary Sphere and Mana Cylix fit into nearly every deck, while Kaleidostone doesn't really do much for you if you're not going five-color. It does replace itself however. The other two artifacts at these rarities are equipment. Manaforce Mace is perhaps too expensive for its own good, but the at-least +3/+3 bonus makes it playable. Can't say that much for Bone Saw, which is absolutely 14th pick material.

And that wraps up the commons and uncommons. As I said before, it's relatively easy to tell when a rare's good in limited, but I've compiled a short list anyway, sorted into three sections: the "bombs" are first-picks if you're in those colors or can splash for them, "playables" are good, but are often third or fourth picks, and "jank" are the cards that should stay in the pack. I didn't place any worth on card value in dollar amounts; if you want a Progenitus for your protection from things deck, by all means, take it!

BOMBS: Obelisk of Alara, Extractor Demon, Cliffrunner Behemoth, Paleoloth, Meglonoth, Malfegor, Charnelhoard Wurm, Giltspire Avenger, Child of Alara, Magister Sphinx, Maelstrom Angel, Worldheart Phoenix, Voracious Dragon, Rakka Mar, Goblin Razerunners, Banefire, Ethersworn Adjucator, Scepter of Dominance, Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, Martial Coup, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Blood Tyrant, Thornling, Apocalypse Hydra, Sphinx Summoner, Obelisk of Alara.

PLAYABLES: Nyxathid, Cylian Sunsinger, Soul's Majesty, Noble Heirarch, Knight of the Reliquary, Exotic Orchard, Bloodhall Ooze, Inkwell Leviathan, Master Transmuter, Scepter of Insight, Telemin Performance, Wall of Reverence.

JANK: Conflux, Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer, Progenitus (uncastable), Sigil of the Empty Throne, Mark of Asylum.

======

Now I'm not the best drafter in the world by far, so if you have any comments on this article, let me know! Share your opinions on the bombs and duds in Alara-Conflux limited and I'll include them in next week's Islandhome!

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgrim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #48

==ISLANDHOME #48==

January 28th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Peppersmoke

Conflux Prerelease

Conflux Prerelease Tips

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Saturday: Conflux Prerelease (See below for details.)

I won't be at Grim or FNC this weekend, but chances are some kind of event will take place at both locations.

==PEPPERSMOKE==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

So I had a minor health scare last week at FNC, but don't worry! It was a mere -1/-1 effect, so I'm okay. Thanks for everyone who lent their sympathy when I got back, and thanks to John Madonia and Ed Palm for helping to keep the event running in my absence. It was comforting knowing I wouldn't come back to the event and see the tournament had descended into anarchy and cannibalism.

==CONFLUX PRERELEASE==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

A prerelease is once again upon us! In only three days, you'll be ripping open fresh new packs of Conflux! The prerelease program has changed a lot since you last remember it, the most important being that there is only one, big flight instead of the usual multiple flights throughout the day. The "one big flight" thing is something I always felt should have been tried, as it lets you play against a wider variety of players than just the thirty-two or so that signed up for your flight. I do wish there were more than four rounds for such a large event, but that's what side events are for!

Registration for the sealed deck event will open at 9, and hopefully start at 9:30. The entry fee is $30, and with that, you get three packs of Shards of Alara and three packs of Conflux. Wait, isn't that a lot of packs? Well yes! Wizards has done away with tournament packs, so now you get three packs of Shards of Alara instead of a tournament pack of it. It's the same number of cards as were in a tournament pack, just with one less uncommon and one more common. Of course you also don't get the basic lands, so we'll be providing them for you free of charge.

There'll be four rounds in the main flight, and prizes will be given out based on your record. 3-1 gets six packs, 3-0-1 gets nine packs, and 4-0 gets twelve packs. Waaaay better than the piss-poor prize support Wizards forced on us for the Shards of Alara prerelease.

Three-player team events are gone as well, replaced with the ever-popular Two-Headed Giant format. Registration for this event starts at 1 PM, and costs $22 per player. Each team will get four packs of Shards and four packs of Conflux with which to build two 40-card minimum decks. Then they'll play three rounds of 2HG, with 2-1 getting six packs, 2-0-1 getting ten packs, and 3-0 getting fourteen packs.

Side events will be held based on product availability and player interest, starting at 11 AM. These will be sort of mini-flights, three round eight-man sealed deck tournaments for $30, where the prize payout is 7-5-3 instead of the main flight's 12-9-6.

The Long Island prerelease will be held at the Four Points Sheraton in Plainview, NY, 333 South Service Road off the LIE. I'll be head judging it once again, so come down and get your first taste of Conflux!

==CONFLUX PRERELEASE TIPS==

Author: Brian J. Paskoff

The full spoiler for Conflux is out on MTGSalvation , and now that we more or less know what every card does, it's time to get metagaming! (I say "more or less" because it's a well-established fact that as complete as a spoiler seems, there are always some key differences in cards between the rumored versions and the printed versions.) Your first order of business, of course, is limited, as it'll be the very first thing you do with the set. Like most second (and third) sets in a block, Conflux is very strong for limited play. With less variety of cards in a pack, Wizards has to make sure not to print too many "useless" cards, or the set will be no fun to draft. Also, while the big set contains the "staple" cards - things like your basic counterspells, spot removal, etc., smaller sets tend to have cards that are more specialized, and Conflux is no exception.

You may find yourself straying from the comfort of a shard's three colors more often in Conflux. There's still a lot of support for Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, and Naya, but the mana fixing and five-color effects present in Conflux will make you want to find ways to produce all five colors of mana. Strangely, there isn't much acceleration in Conflux; most of the mana fixers either filter mana (such as the reprinted Mana Cylix) or get lands from your library into your hand. Each color has access to a spell that has "basic landcycling", an ability that lets you pay a cost, discard the card from your hand, and search your library for a basic land card. While the spells themselves aren't very powerful, you may want to include them in your limited decks. Early game, they might give you a land you need. Late game, they'll either grab you a splash color or let you play them if you don't need a land anymore. The white one pumps and untaps your creatures, the blue one is a five-mana counterspell, the black one absorbs four life from your opponent, the red one deals five damage to a creature for six mana, and the green one gives you eight life - none of them are terribly useless, but nothing you'd want to include in your deck if they didn't also Sylvan Scrying for two mana.

A while ago on the official site, Wizards promised to explore things more thoroughly rather than leave behind old abilities and bring tons of new ones in with every set, and that's definitely true here. Only basic landcycling, domain, and five-color spells and abilities are new here, while the abilities and mechanics from Shards of Alara are more fleshed out. In Bant, there's more creatures with exalted, but none that give an extra push to lone attackers like Rafiq or Battlegrace Angel. It seems Wizards is being cautious about making exalted too powerful. Esper has lots more artifact creatures, including its own Goldmeadow Stalwart, and Esper Aggro looks to be an amazingly fast strategy in ALA-CON limited. Grixis of course gets more unearth creatures, this time with more abusable comes into/leaves play effects. There's more devouring in Jund, my favorites being a new Nantuko Husk-like creature that can "devour" creatures while it's in play, and a creature with both flash and devour that will make for some devastating "damage on the stack" tricks. And Naya has more "5+ matters" effects, only this time they're on spells as well as creatures.

I'll have more Conflux limited strategies after the prerelease, because it's hard to know too much about it without seeing it in action! In the meantime, here's some general advice to help you succeed at the prerelease:

• Read your cards! Especially the new ones. You're playing with new cards for the first time, and while you might know everything a Shards of Alara card does from the picture alone, you won't have the same instinct with Conflux cards yet. Many times a player will mistake a sorcery for an instant, or vice-versa. "Invisible" triggers like exalted might screw up your combat if you don't realize one of your opponent's creatures has it, and you could potentially leave yourself tapped out while not realizing your opponent has a game-winning unearth creature in their yard.
  
• 40 card decks are the bare minimum, and you should stay at 40 whenever possible. The only time I recommend going as high as 41 cards is when your mana curve is high and you need the extra land; don't try to squeeze in an extra spell. The tried-and-true spell-to-land ratio is 23 spells, 17 lands. Of those 23 spells, between 15 and 18 should be creatures, since nearly every game will be won in combat.
  
• Use your mana fixers. Mana fixing in Shards/Conflux is really good, with Obelisks, Panoramas, tri-lands, Mana Cylix, and others. Staying within a shard and splashing a bit for the other two colors is probably a good idea.
• Sideboard between games AND rounds. Since prereleases are limited tournaments that don't use decklists, you're allowed to change your deck between rounds. Use your experiences with the new cards each round to fix your deck for the next one using your sideboard (any cards in your sealed pool that aren't in your deck).

Good luck to everyone attending the prerelease this Saturday!

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #47

==ISLANDHOME #47==

January 21st 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Mike Palm
Extended Comes to FNC!
Conflux Prerelease

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft at Brothers Grim ($13 entry) @ 7 PM
Saturday: Standard Constructed at FNC ($5 entry) @ 1:30 PM

This Saturday is a special event at FNC: Dress for Success! The best dressed person will receive free entry into the tournament, so dust off your best outfit and bring it!

==MIKE PALM==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

As anyone who's been to FNC in the past week has noticed, Mike Palm hasn't been around lately. It turns out he fell seriously ill last week, and had to be hospitalized for a short time. Ed will be running FNC for a while, although the hours (except Fridays and Saturdays) will be cut short somewhat. Our best wishes go out to Mike Palm and the Palm family, let's all hope for a speedy recovery!

==EXTENDED COMES TO FNC!==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

In celebration of the current PTQ season, I'm holding an Extended tournament at FNC on Saturday, January 24th. Yes, that's the same day as our usual Standard event, but don't worry if you can't or don't want to play Extended - the Standard tournament will go on at the same time as the Extended one. Unfortunately the laws of temporal physics or something like that will prevent you from playing in both events at the same time, so you'll have to pick which format you want to play. Entry fee will be $5, the same as any other normal constructed event; the only difference will be that you'll be playing with older cards. We need at least eight people for a sanctioned Extended tournament, so if you want to play, start building your decks now!

I've gotten some feedback since this was first announced, with some players hating the fact that both Standard and Extended tournaments are on the same day. I thought it'd be fun to have a choice of what to play, and since there are only so many days in the week to run Magic events on, Saturday was the only day. Later on in the season I might have a Saturday of just Extended, if there's enough interest, but I want to see how much interest I get this Saturday. Everyone should bring a Standard deck too, just in case! I know Mike Evans will be playing a super secret tech deck of my own creation if there's no Extended tournament, so that will definitely be interesting and intense.

==CONFLUX PRERELEASE==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

A prerelease is once again upon us! In only ten days, you'll be ripping open fresh new packs of Conflux! The prerelease program has changed a lot since you last remember it, the most important being that there is only one, big flight instead of the usual multiple flights throughout the day. The "one big flight" thing is something I always felt should have been tried, as it lets you play against a wider variety of players than just the thirty-two or so that signed up for your flight. I do wish there were more than four rounds for such a large event, but that's what side events are for!

Registration for the sealed deck event will open at 9, and hopefully start at 9:30. The entry fee is $30, and with that, you get three packs of Shards of Alara and three packs of Conflux. Wait, isn't that a lot of packs? Well yes! Wizards has done away with tournament packs, so now you get three packs of Shards of Alara instead of a tournament pack of it. It's the same number of cards as were in a tournament pack, just with one less uncommon and one more common. Of course you also don't get the basic lands, so we'll be providing them for you free of charge.

There'll be four rounds in the main flight, and prizes will be given out based on your record. 3-1 gets six packs, 3-0-1 gets nine packs, and 4-0 gets twelve packs. Waaaay better than the piss-poor prize support Wizards forced on us for the Shards of Alara prerelease.

Three-player team events are gone as well, replaced with the ever-popular Two-Headed Giant format. Registration for this event starts at 1 PM, and costs $22 per player. Each team will get four packs of Shards and four packs of Conflux with which to build two 40-card minimum decks. Then they'll play three rounds of 2HG, with 2-1 getting six packs, 2-0-1 getting ten packs, and 3-0 getting fourteen packs.

Side events will be held based on product availability and player interest, starting at 11 AM. These will be sort of mini-flights, three round eight-man sealed deck tournaments for $30, where the prize payout is 7-5-3 instead of the main flight's 12-9-6.

The Long Island prerelease will be held at the Four Points Sheraton in Plainview, NY, 333 South Service Road off the LIE. I'll be head judging it once again, so come down and get your first taste of Conflux!

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #46

==ISLANDHOME #46==

January 14th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Extended Comes to FNC!
Drafting Don'ts: What cards to avoid

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft at Brothers Grim ($13 entry) @ 7 PM
Saturday: Standard Constructed at FNC ($5 entry) @ 1:30 PM

==EXTENDED COMES TO FNC!==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

In celebration of the current PTQ season, I'm holding an Extended tournament at FNC on Saturday, January 24th. Yes, that's the same day as our usual Standard event, but don't worry if you can't or don't want to play Extended - the Standard tournament will go on at the same time as the Extended one. Unfortunately the laws of temporal physics or something like that will prevent you from playing in both events at the same time, so you'll have to pick which format you want to play. Entry fee will be $5, the same as any other normal constructed event; the only difference will be that you'll be playing with older cards. We need at least eight people for a sanctioned Extended tournament, so if you want to play, start building your decks now!

==DRAFTING DON'TS==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

Like any aspect of playing Magic well, almost as much comes from being taught as it comes from playing. And if you want to learn what cards to draft, there are hundreds of articles on the web about that very subject, where strategists will talk about the best cards in Shards of Alara limited. But after three months of Shards, along with the good judgement every one of you has about how the game works, do you really need to be told yet again that Oblivion Ring, Branching Bolt, and Agony Warp are solid picks?

There are very few articles about the bad cards, the ones that should never make your deck unless you're struggling for a twenty-third card in your Naya deck and the store's out of Swamps. It's not uncommon for players to draft the lands out of packs rather than these cards, but sadly, all too often I see them being drafted at our draft tournaments, and can only watch sadly as they make it into players' decks. I can't stop people from drafting or playing with them at tournaments, but I can give you fair warning about them so you don't make the same mistakes!

There are actually two levels of bad - there's the regular ol' "don't take this card unless your only options are another card on this list" and "bad, but with some sideboard potential - but don't put it in your maindeck unless it's maybe your twenty-third card". And then of course there's the few exceptions where a rare card is bad in limited, but you might want to take it just because it's worth a few bucks.

Ad Nauseum - With any sort of stable limited mana curve, Ad Nauseum is too dangerous to risk it. It's a rare that almost pays for the pack it's in, and is played somewhat in Eternal formats, but it's not worth more than even a decent creature if you're trying to win.

Angel's Herald - Even if you have the mythic rare the Herald's heralding, they're very rarely worth playing. Pay no attention to the idea that playing it without the mythic is a good bluff - it never is.

Angelsong - Sideboard bad; it can be useful in the Naya vs Naya mirror. The cycling actually hurts it, because if you're cycling it early you're denying yourself the out later, and giving away that you have it for later games.

Banewasp Affliction - Not only do you need to make the enchantment stick, but then you need to find another way to actually kill the creature... which will probably only shave three or four points off your opponent's life total. This is truly one of the worst cards in the set.

Behemoth's Herald - See Angel's Herald.

Bloodthorn Taunter - Not terrible, just not good, or ever really useful.

Brilliant Ultimatum - If you're spending seven mana, and all of it's colored, and it doesn't win you the game, you know you've got a bad card.

Cathartic Adept - Chances are, you're only going to mill one or two cards before you need to use the Adept to block the much better creatures your opponent's playing.

Clarion Ultimatum - Play only if you've somehow drafted a constructed deck.

Crucible of Fire - In Lorwyn/Morningtide, this card would've been insane. In a format where all the dragons are rare and can win the game well enough on their own, well....

Cunning Lethemancer - You're going to have cards you want to hold onto for long periods of time, so forcing yourself to use them or lose them isn't good.

Dawnray Archer - Exalted's nice, pinging is nice, but a 1/1 for 2U isn't.

Demon's Herald - See Angel's Herald.

Dispeller's Capsule - Never play this maindeck ever.

Dragon's Herald - See Angel's Herald.

Etherium Astrolabe - Its only use is that it's the only artifact in the format that serves as a combat trick for Glaze Fiend.

Goblin Deathraiders - It's a goblin, a three-power creature with trample... but it's never worth attacking with it because it'll die to anything. It's not bottom of the barrel, but there's always something better.

Goblin Mountaineer - It's barely good in the sideboard.

Gustrider Exhuberant - Naya's creatures don't really need the help.

Immortal Coil - If the number of cards in your graveyard is higher than your life total, you're in bad shape, and this card's not going to save you.

Invincible Hymn - If you're on the play and play this card as soon as possible, you'll go up to 25 - not a very impressive number unless you're way behind already. And if you draw it late, it's worthless.

Jhessian Lookout - You have to be really struggling for creatures to play this.

Keeper of Progenitus - In a three color format, chances are your opponent will be thanking you for powering out their big spells.

Lich's Mirror - If you're going to lose once, you're going to lose twice... unless your opponent's sole win condition is milling you with Cathartic Adepts.

Lush Growth - It looks great, until you realize that it doesn't actually accelerate you. It's better to make sure your land base is solid than to waste a spell slot on a card that does nothing.

Marble Chalice - Gaining one life a turn isn't going to win you the game any faster, it just gives your opponents time to play better cards than you.

Mindlock Orb - It's so obviously bad in limited that I can only recall one time I've ever seen anyone play it.

Protomatter Powder - Yech. There's no artifact in the set that's worth eight mana to bring back.

Resounding Scream - The only bad Resounding spell.

Sangrite Surge - +3/+3 and double strike would be broken if this was an instant, so why is it priced like it was supposed to be one?

Savage Hunger - Some of the best big creatures in Shards help themselves and other big creatures, so wasting an Aura to give them a relatively minor boost usually isn't worth it.

Shadowfeed - Why are the cards with the best art usually so terrible? Unearth creatures don't come alone, so you'd need more than a single bullet to deal with a good unearth strategy.

Skill Borrower - The only artifact you might want to use this with is Scourglass, another rare. Definitely not worth revealing information to your opponent.

Soul's Grace - Basically amounts to "prevent all combat damage target creature would deal this turn... or a turn to be named later."

Sphinx's Herald - See Angel's Herald.

Thoughtcutter Agent - 1/1s for two are rarely good. Wasting mana every turn on a useless ping when decks are fast is just plain bad.

Tortoise Formation - Since only Violent Ultimatum targets more than one permanent, this basically boils down to a bad, narrow counterspell.

Vectis Silencers - A 1/2 for 3 is mediocre, especially when you need to pay just to make it semi-useful.

Viashino Skeleton - Another overcosted creature with an ability it should have for much cheaper. I think Wizards's intention was to make it a discard outlet for unearth dudes, but that didn't quite pan out.

Volcanic Submersion - If you have five mana and your opponent is in a position where destroying one of their lands would seriously hurt them, you've already won. It's a somewhat good sideboard card against Esper decks, but nearly any other removal spell in the format is just as good in that situation.

Lastly, I'd like to give an honorary mention to Hindering Light. While certainly not bad, its usefulness is extremely narrow. And since there are few spells that target players in the format, it's only good if you know your opponent is packing lots of removal... or a Cruel Ultimatum. The only reason I mention it here is that I often see players using three of them in their decks, which is overkill under any circumstances.

==EURO LANDS PROMOTION==
Author: Brian Paskoff

So the other day when I received my latest FNM promos for Brothers Grim in the mail, I got a little extra surprise with it. Though to be fair it was only a surprise because I forgot I had signed up for it. See, Wizards is doing this promotion exclusively for FNM-hosting locations where they send out packs Euro Lands to those stores. But unlike the other promotional cards Wizards sends out, you don't get these for playing - instead, you get them for buying a full box of any Magic set!

The Euro Lands are special lands with artwork representing different locations throughout Europe. They came in three different versions depending on their wrappers, but the ones I got are the blue pack, seen here. They feature scenes of the forests of Schwarzwald, Germany, the Danish Islands of Scandinavia, the mountains of Vesuvio, Italy, the Scottish Highlands, and the swamps of Ardennes Fagnes, Belgium. This is the first time that these lands are available to players in the US, and they're quite rare. Five come in a pack, one of each land.

Supplies are limited though, so if you were planning to buy a box of Shards for someone as a holiday gift, do it as soon as possible! this promotion will be running at Brothers Grim only for as long as we have packs to give out.

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #45

==ISLANDHOME #45==

January 7th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Conflux Spoilers

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft at Brothers Grim ($13 entry) @ 7 PM
Saturday: Standard Constructed at FNC ($5 entry) @ 1 PM
Sunday: Chaos Draft at Brothers Grim ($13 entry) @ 2 PM

==NEWS BITES==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

PTQs for Pro Tour Honolulu have already begun, with a couple of PTQs last weekend starting the season off with a bang. While there are no decklists available yet, next week I'll have a write-up on the format and a discussion on the winning decks so you can prepare for the PTQs in our area. Speaking of which, I'm still planning on sanctioning an Extended tournament at the end of this month at FNC, so start preparing! Odds are there'll also be a Standard tournament running at the same time, so you can pick which format you'd like to play that day.

We've had a lot of fun cube drafting on Saturday nights, so if you want to join in, let me know! I'll be bringing my cube again this week for some hot action after the tournament.

==CONFLUX SPOILERS==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

The prereleases for Conflux are less than a month away, and spoiler season is in full swing, with multiple updates to the list of rumored cards every day on MTGSalvation's forums. As of the time of this writing, there are forty-three cards in the official unofficial spoiler. As usual, players are eagerly awaiting the new set, especially after waiting so long in between the release of Shards of Alara and Conflux. With Faeries dominating a metagame that hasn't changed much at all in months, even after the usually-metagame-warping Worlds, everyone's hopeful that some big changes will come with this small set.

The Orb of Insight is up and running, and if you've never used an Orb of Insight before, typing in any word will show you how many times it appears on cards in the set. I'll let you poke through the Orb yourself, but the biggest find so far is something with a mana cost of WWUUBBRRGG - yes, that's two mana of every color.

White is apparently getting a Memory Lapse for 2W. Although it's one mana too much to compete with the classic "counterspell", it still might see play in some non-blue decks that want to delay their opponents' answers.

White's also getting a new one-mana removal spell in the vein of Swords to Plowshares: Path to Exile. Instead of giving your opponent life in exchange for removing their creature from the game, Path to Exile lets them search their library for a basic land card and put it into play tapped. While this doesn't seem nearly as good as Swords, or even Condemn in some situations, it may just replace Unmake in certain decks. Personally I'm not too thrilled about accelerating my opponent into a Wrath or Cryptic Command if I'm an aggro player facing a control deck.

The question on everyone's mind when preparing for Conflux was what answers the set would give them against Faeries. Speculation was rampant on some kind of Engineered Plague variant, but it was obvious that nearly any black or blue "answer" to Faeries would end up in the tiny hands of the Fae to be used against other decks. But now it seems we know the silver bullet - or one of them, anyway, as "countered" shows up more than once in the Orb - a red instant called Volcanic Fallout. For 1RR, you get an uncounterable instant-speed Pyroclasm that also hits players. Now sure it doesn't permanently deal with some of the bigger threats in Faeries such as Bitterblossom or Mistbind Clique (if it's already in play), but wiping the field of Faerie Rogue tokens, Spellstutter Sprites, Sowers, Scions, and even swinging Mutavaults doesn't make it easy for Faeries. And since it adds two damage to the life loss they've already taken from Bitterblossom and Thoughtseize, you're that much closer to victory. Might Faeries start splashing white for Burrenton Forge-Tender out of the sideboard? Anything's possible, and Arcane Sanctums make it somewhat painless.

Faeries does get another tool though, sure to make their sideboards. It's a miniature Undermine, a Negate-variant for UB that counters a non-creature spell and makes that spell's controller lose two life. It's a no-brainer for Faeries to replace Negate in their sideboards with this spell, and even Toast might switch this in.

Domain is making a comeback in Conflux. While Shards was focused strictly on three-color themes, now that the Shards are coming together, mana fixing is more rampant, and you'll be seeing all five colors together much more often. Domain's even keyworded on cards like Might of Alara, a functional reprint of Gaea's Might. For one green mana, a target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each basic land type among lands you control. The ability to give a creature +5/+5 for one mana at instant speed is quite strong, and it wouldn't shock me to see five-color aggro decks pop up trying to take advantage of this card in Standard and Extended.

Anyone who's seen the spoiled list of card names for the set has theorized what the card named "Conflux" would do, and for a while, it was speculated that the card would be a sixth basic land type, one that tapped for one colorless mana and did nothing else but add +1 to your domain spells. In truth, it's nowhere near that weird - Conflux is a 3WUBRG sorcery that lets you search your library for a card of each color and put them into your hand. It's sure to be used in five-color EDH decks... and not many other places.

For a long time, it was believed that Conflux would contain "enemy" tri-lands, ones that mirrored Shards's tri-lands but tapped for things like WUR and GWB. Now that we know three of the five lands in the set, this isn't a possiblity anymore, but that doesn't mean the lands aren't good: There's a reverse Reflecting Pool that taps for a color of mana your opponent's lands can produce, a Shimmering Grotto-like land that taps for colorless or taps to make a land you control any basic land type until end of turn, and a land that comes into play tapped, and taps for any color... but you need to pay 1 when it comes into play.

Conflux's prerelease is on January 31st, and while I'm not sure where it'll be yet, I'll be head judging Gray Matter's prerelease. Stay tuned to all the spoilers so you know what to expect on opening day!

==EURO LANDS PROMOTION==
Author: Brian Paskoff

So the other day when I received my latest FNM promos for Brothers Grim in the mail, I got a little extra surprise with it. Though to be fair it was only a surprise because I forgot I had signed up for it. See, Wizards is doing this promotion exclusively for FNM-hosting locations where they send out packs Euro Lands to those stores. But unlike the other promotional cards Wizards sends out, you don't get these for playing - instead, you get them for buying a full box of any Magic set!

The Euro Lands are special lands with artwork representing different locations throughout Europe. They came in three different versions depending on their wrappers, but the ones I got are the blue pack, seen here. They feature scenes of the forests of Schwarzwald, Germany, the Danish Islands of Scandinavia, the mountains of Vesuvio, Italy, the Scottish Highlands, and the swamps of Ardennes Fagnes, Belgium. This is the first time that these lands are available to players in the US, and they're quite rare. Five come in a pack, one of each land.

Supplies are limited though, so if you were planning to buy a box of Shards for someone as a holiday gift, do it as soon as possible! this promotion will be running at Brothers Grim only for as long as we have packs to give out.

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY