"Necromancers Bane"

            "Necromancers Bane"

By:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

It is nearing a decade now since my Uncle Dick Forlales went to our house and showed something a beginner in Magic: The gathering that will get them totally hooked. He showed us (my brother AJ and me) the potential power that can be had when you turned black and controlled awesome necromancy. I was purely a red mage during that time, destroying and burning things at will with my goblins and burn spells while my brother’s aggressive tendencies pushed him to liking the dominant elves. Our Uncle showed us that concept that night and I knew from there that I was a Necromancer by heart. I love casting things from my graveyard and Innistrad was such a happy place for me as well as when Graveborn came out (I eagerly bought it and had my first chance to use entomb!). In tournaments I still buy necromancy staples though I already have 5 decks that have them in sets. My thinking is that you never know when you are going to need a copy, it might be you were inspired in the middle of the night and you would just get frustrated. So I buy and just keep future frustration at bay hehehe.

Now it seems that with all the Undying and Returning from the graveyard effects in standard Wizards of the coast has decided to throw a wet blanket in my fun. A Nihil Spell bomb is devastating but it has to be well timed, this card however just ruins any necromancer’s fun. It is Grafdigger’s cage. An Artifact at the cost of one generic mana! This artifact stops all of standards efforts for the Undying and all the zombie combos to dominate. Of course this will be a sideboard in all of the tournament level decks when undead and undying alike are threatening to dominate it. It is a check against flashback decks. I am intrigued by one thing it also prevents. Casting cards from the Library. It is a hint, probably of a new mechanic that will appear in Avacyn restored or in the next Block. Hmmmm. The possibilities. Hehehehe. Grafdigger’s cage is the modern Leyline of the void, although the leyline makes sure nothing from the graveyard comes back, this artifact in standard makes sure that everything in the graveyard stays there. No Skaab Ruinator to ruin your day, you can’t think twice with think twice and forbidden alchemy remains a one shot thing. Still there is only black that is several affected by this one drop because most has efficient artifact removal , if they even need it at all. Kessig wolf run decks will scoff at it, Mono black infect won’t mind. It does put Solar flare at a great disadvantage since it likes returning Sun Titans and Phantasmal Images for the big finish. I believe casual players are more affected by this than standard players.