"Kaya, Ghost Assassin: Blinking for Fun and Profit"

"Kaya, Ghost Assassin: Blinking for Fun and Profit"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

Kaya , Ghost Assassin steps into the light and takes her place as the newest planeswalker. So what do you do with a planeswalker who deals with the ethereal? Kills Ghosts for a living(In this case King Brago who is now not so Eternal?).Well you get her under contract and you pay her. You Pay her well.

She initially costs 4 mana (2 colorless , White and Black mana) making some players happy that she is in Orzhoz colors because like the Orzhov there is always a price to pay when dealing with her.

She comes in with 5 loyalty counters when you summon her and these will come in handy. Her build reminds me a lot of Sarkhan the Mad where you have no abilities that actually give her any + loyalty counters. So that after you have successfully utilized her abilities she just fades away. 

So let us check on her first ability. It costs nothing but you can exile Kaya herself or up to one target creature.Return the exiled card to the battlefield under its owners control at the beginning of your next upkeep. And the price for this? You lose 2 life.

Now there are several uses for this ability and I am focusing mainly on the EDH possibilities here because I have not played any other format for awhile.

1) If you are about to be clobbered by a really really big creature and you need to to have enough time to figure something out then you could just exile it temporarily. You could target your opponents creatures as well as yours and speaking of that. 

2) If one of your creatures have been kidnapped  , possessed or taken over by one of your opponents which happens a lot in the course of an EDH game then you could just exile that creature and on your next upkeep you get to have it back. And hopefully it has an Enters the battlefield effect like a Sepulchral Primordial so that your opponents will have second thoughts about stealing your creatures again. 

3) And as I mentioned if you have a creature that you would like to blink again and again then Kaya is your planeswalker. For example if you have a Noosegraf Mob in play and it is going to die when a player plays another spell then you could just blink it and on your next upkeep you could have it "Fresh" with 5 +1/+1 counters on it and you could wait for your opponents to play spells to get more 2/2 zombies. 

My favorite cycles of creatures are the Titans and Primordials so any EDH deck with them would love to have Kaya on board.

4) And of course Kaya would love to interact with the recently  released Oaths from Shadows Over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon. So the obvious colors would be for Oath of Liliana and Oath of Gideon but you could also splash with the other multicolored EDH decks that feature Orzhov colors(W/B). So what would be the interaction(Let's say that you already have the 2 oaths out before you play Kaya). You get a 2/2 Zombie from Liliana and an additional Planeswalker Loyalty counter from Gideon. And that is for a price of 0. The extra loyalty counters would come in real handy if you want to use Kaya's other abilities

Her second skill , (-1) allows you to siphon off 2 life points from each opponent and you gain 2 life. Sure, 2 life points seems like such a little thing and does not seem to have an impact at all but then again if one or more of your opponents are ganging up on one particular player sometimes those 2 points would be be the difference between a player losing or all of you suffering magnificent Overloaded Cyclonic Rift when that player has enough mana. 

And finally her last skill which is a (-2) which makes each opponent discard a card and you to draw one. So everyone's hand is poorer and Kaya makes you a little richer. Not bad to have right. You could maximize using this ability for 2 turns and then using her first ability to blink herself on the 3rd turn so that she comes back fresh from the aether to help you draw , gain life or blink a creature out of existence.

Kaya , Ghost Assassin is a fun card to play with and she will surely find her place among existing EDH decks. So who else excited for her? I know I am. Keep on playing. Keep on brewing.

"Sik-K - Rendezvous MV reaction - Staring all you want"

"Sik-K - Rendezvous MV reaction - Staring all you want"

by:

The Vole

Have you ever seen a couple on a date? Chances are if you have been out and about for the last couple of years you might see a sweet couple just having a fun date and if you are a guy you might notice the hot girlfriend and begin to stare and then forget that you have been staring a little bit too intently.

And the girl gets uncomfortable and tells the boyfriend who promptly talks to you about your non-stop staring at his sexy girlfriend and you ignore him because you don't really know how to interact with people and then you get punched in the face on the strong suspicion that you are a perv.

No this is not a real life experience of mine but the point of this whole intro is to ask the question how long can you stare at another dude's girlfriend and not get punched in the face? Apparently if you watched Sik-K's latest video Rendezvous you could stare all you want and not meet the rappers ire at all. 

The video features rumored real life couple Rapper Sik-K and latest Bagel girl( Baby face with Glamour body , that's what it means I kid you not) Kim Hee Jung , a former child actress who has reemerged as a model/actress of hot proportions for YG.  

The chorus goes:

"I'm the one that needs your love

Just me and you

Let's have a rendezvous.

There are a lot of intimate moments here that follows the title , Rendezvous. And this is just that  , two people having fun , spending time in a pool/jacuzzi , going clubbing , playing in an arcade. The song is very very catchy and Sik-K's rapping will hook you. There are very sweet moments here if you are into that and then there is Kim Hee Jung  which I am sure you are into as well. So go ahead and stare. Sik-K won't mind. You could just die of envy for all he cares.

"Thalia's Lancers:Point us to the Way."

"Thalia's Lancers:Point us to the Way."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

The game of EDH normally has very expensive tutors , cards that allow you to pluck a particular card from your deck and depending on the card , put it into your hand , unto the battlefield , to your graveyard or even on top of your library.

These cards have become expensive over time and have been the object of many players must have lists driving the tutor prices even higher even with the release of the highly anticipated Eternal Masters  , tutors still seem to hover in the high prices.

The printing of Thalia's Lancers comes at an excellent time since this is the kind of card that has great interactions with various cards but I am mainly excited about how this card responds to blinking effects and Brago , King Eternal.

So let us first examine this card which has a 3 colorless mana and 2 white mana cost ,  is a First striking 4/4 Human Knight that also manages to pull Legendary cards from your deck. 

Imagine being able to pull off your combos by getting the Legendary pieces that you need may it be a Land , Enchantment , Creature , Artifact all except for planeswalkers since there are specific cards that were printed to tutor this specific card type like Call the Gatewatch.

Since Planewalkers are not legendary you would not be able to search for them using the Lancer but there is an exception and these are the 5 Origins planeswalkers like Liliana , Heretical healer that start off as legendary creatures and need a condition to be met so that they could "ignite their spark" and become Planewalkers. Imagine having access to Origins Planeswalkers when the lancer enters the battlefield.

Many have commented that the Lancer is slow for EDH games then again no one is in a hurry in EDH games and the long drawn out games allows you to take advantage of the lancers ETB effect. Unlike Instants or Sorceries that only allow you to tutor once you could blink the Lancers again and again using cards like Restoration Angel or Brago , Elemental King. Every time you blink it and it returns that is one more legendary card that is put in your hand. Deadeye Navigator and this card can be best friends as well.As In Soulbound friends. You can blink it at a cost 2 mana and there is no need to attack like with Brago.

"Let's Volt in!"

So what do you have access to? How about any of the Theros gods or the Oaths.Any of the Kamigawa Hondens? Artifacts like Mindslaver and even the Kaldra artifacts that allows you to summon and then  volt them all in and summon Kaldra ( who died so easily under Memnarchs hands that I could just cry).

In standard I expect the lancers to tutor out Any of the two Brisela , The Voice of Nightmares pieces. Or if you really need her you can summon Thalia herself and a whole host of Legendary creatures that could help you win.

Many will point to the casting cost of this card as a major deterrent as to why some players would not want to use it. In conclusion the possibility of renewable tutoring and even thinning out your deck in the process is a great draw(pardon the pun).Plus you might not know what to do with all of the legendary cards that would be in your hand. 

As for being a creature a 4/4 first striker would always come in handy in the long run.It takes care of anything that doesn't have a toughness of 5.

I already have one but I am still deciding into which EDH deck it would go.Thanks for reading and keep on brewing. 

"Westvale Abbey: Not the Place to be"

"Westvale Abbey: Not the Place to be"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

When I look at old supposedly religious places it sometimes gives me a creepy vibe. My mind goes to all the unspeakable things that must have happened there and if some of those things would ever be brought to light.

And if I were able to visit Innistrad just looking at Westvale Abbey will instantly give me that creepy vibe. Like something wasn't right and you just can't place your finger on it. That is after it transforms into the Demon Ornedahl , Profane Prince and you start saying to yourself. "So that's what it was." 

So why would you want to play with this Flip Land...Er...Transform Land.Well , at the early turns it can give you colorless mana. Sounds blah right? but wait there is more. This land has the built in ability to spew out white and black Human Cleric creature tokens for the price of 5 colorless mana. Something that you could do at any time. So you could have a creature as a blocker when you need it. You could create a creature to sacrifice to other creatures like Dark Supplicant to possibly get a Scion of Darkness , or maybe use it to ping someone with a Starlit Sanctum. But by far the best reason is that you could use this creature to sacrifice to the land itself.

So one moment it's a harmless looking Abbey and after spilling the blood of 5 creatures it goes "poof" and out comes a 9/7 demon that doesn't look like as friendly. I mean flying , Lifelink , Indestructible and Haste. As if having a 7 toughness is not enough it has to have haste and flying so you could punch through with a killing blow to your opponent. Believe me. Even in EDH if your opponents could not respond to a bomb such as this they are dead in at least 5 turns with Ornedahl attacking all by his lonesome.

The lifelink is no joke either as it swings the odds in your favor if your EDH opponents have been ganging up on you and your deck all night long/all day long.

Ornedahl , Profane Prince. Let that name sink in for a moment. This guy is perfect in a Shadowborne Apostle's deck that has Shirei , Shizo's caretaker as commander.I mean after sacrificing 5 Shadowborn Apostle's you get those guys back at the end of your turn and if you have a 6th Shadowborn Apostle and one available black mana you could tutor out another demon from your deck.

Since Westvale Abbey is a land it could also be included in a Tiny Leaders deck that features a lot of tokens. The cool thing is that it doesn't care what kind of creature it gobbles up for as long as you have 5 of them and 5 mana. Ornedahl isn't such a picky eater. It would eat your Saprolings or Goblins or Elves if you feed them to it.

That's it for today. Enjoy transforming Westvale Abbey. And if you are ever in Innistrad make sure you are not there for when they feed Ornedahl cultist snacks because chances are that might include you,

"In the same place"

"In the same place"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

I

If I stood admiring the same stars

would you see them too?

Or am I staring into the darkness?

hoping that you would.

II

If I whisper your name 

would you hear it across the sea?

Or would I be a mere low note

Dying in the cacophony of your noise?

III

If I stood still,

would you eventually come to me?

Hoping in the probability

that the world also turns for me.

IV

Sometimes just sometimes

Existing doesn't mean existing

Especially most especially

If the attraction is only in your mind.

06/10/2016

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Editor's Notes: "In the same place" is  6 of  6 in my Change Series where I take a song title and write a poem that is totally different from the songs narrative or meaning. This series revolves around the discography of the Kpop Group Oh my Girl and a song written by one of their seniors in B1A4. 

I do not own the picture shown in this blog.

"1 step , 2 step"

"1 step , 2 step"
by:
Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

I

It is a dance you see

I come closer

I dare you to walk

If you can walk away from me

II

1 step forward

2 steps black

I whirl my dagger

plant it in your back

III

So I see the white's of your eyes

and you step back to see mine

I can't allow you to leave.

You know you are mine.

IV

And so 1 step forward

No 2 steps back

I retrieve my dagger

And life is what you lack.

06/10/2016

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Editor's Notes: "1 step , 2 step" is 4 of  6 in my Change Series where I take a song title and write a poem that is totally different from the songs narrative or meaning. This series revolves around the discography of the Kpop Group Oh my Girl and a song written by one of their seniors in B1A4. 

I do not own the picture shown in this blog.

"Closer"

"Closer"
by:
Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

I

The moth saw the light

And so much nearer it came

Burned by it's flames

falling unwinged into shame

II

The deer stood unmoving

The headlights took it's gaze

It splattered on the hood

Metal taking all it's grace

III

Brighter and Brighter

The metal train roared

The man in the hood raised his arms

Embraced it as he stood.

06/10/2016

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Editor's Notes: "Closer" is 4 of  6 in my Change Series where I take a song title and write a poem that is totally different from the songs narrative or meaning. This series revolves around the discography of the Kpop Group Oh my Girl and a song written by one of their seniors in B1A4. 

I do not own the picture shown in this blog.

"Windy Day"

"Windy Day"
by:
Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

I

Blowing along the forest

Lifting up some leaves

Cooling down some lovers

under some secret lovers keep

II

Blowing down the street

Slamming tons of debris

Unto the oncoming traffic

Making sure no one could see

III

Blowing for all too see

The wind no longer cares

It will carry us all way

Along with those stupid judging stares.

06/10/2016

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Editor's Notes: "Windy Day" is 3 of  6 in my Change Series where I take a song title and write a poem that is totally different from the songs narrative or meaning. This series revolves around the discography of the Kpop Group Oh my Girl and a song written by one of their seniors in B1A4. 

I do not own the picture shown in this blog.

"Cupid"

"Cupid"
by:
Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

I 

Heart strings. Collections on a chain.

A little god gone so astray

Using his powers on mortals

Swaying him to his ways

II

Maidens lust and think of love

Princes take and end all that

Cupid is the culprit

Of Misrepresenting what is what

III

So be wary of the arrows

especially those that hit your heart

Cupid has gone rogue

And the feelings might turn you inside out

06/10/2016

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Editor's Notes: "Cupid" is 2 of  6 in my Change Series where I take a song title and write a poem that is totally different from the songs narrative or meaning. This series revolves around the discography of the Kpop Group Oh my Girl and a song written by one of their seniors in B1A4. 

I do not own the picture shown in this blog.

"Liar , Liar"

"Liar , Liar"
by:
Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

I

She sat in her room

Silent as can be

Inside though , Inside though

Thoughts as noisy as can be

II

Is this what he meant?

Gathering thoughts about his face

Smiling , Smiling , Smiling

Charming her from within

III

Does he have a secret to tell

A confession perhaps as well?

Yet they call his glib

and merely pass away unheard

IV

Is it worth waiting?

The confession of a liar?

Is it better not knowing?

Is the silence so much better?

06/10/2016

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Editor's Notes: "Liar , Liar" is 1 of  6 in my Change Series where I take a song title and write a poem that is totally different from the songs narrative or meaning. This series revolves around the discography of the Kpop Group Oh my Girl and a song written by one of their seniors in B1A4. 

I do not own the picture shown in this blog.

"Calling Cupid"

"Calling Cupid" 

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

Candle light illuminates

her lips capable of sin

And like a cat she saunters

Nearer , Nearer , Nearer

And reaching out

So no one can resist

She sings things with so much appeal

A little closer

So the Liar Liar could hear

Winding down on a windy day

So that Cupid could appear

06/10/2016