Strange Woods

The Lands That Should Have Been Today we're going to have some fun messing with card types. Specifically, we're taking cards that seem like they should be lands, and actually turning them into lands. The House of Straw Gets Blown Away Elven Fortress is a card that's thematic enough, but feels pretty weak. When compared to something like Castle, the Fortress ends up costing you way more mana for, more often than not, a weaker effect. The House of Bricks Stands Tall This new take on Elven Fortress gives you a much better exchange ratio. For the cost of 1 mana and tapping the Fortress (virtually 2 mana), you get 3 times the benefit of the old fortress. Not only that, but this effect can be applied to any untapped creature, in the same way as Castle. Now you can use the fortress either while blocking, or to save yo...

It's That Spooky Season Hey there folks! The trees are beginning to change here in the Strange Woods. The mornings are brisk, the nights gusty, and all manner of strange orange faces dot along my street. All Hallows Eve is upon us, and what better way to celebrate than to redesign some of Magic's most ghastly and gruesome. Let's get to it! When the TP Runs Out, Who You Gonna Call? This card is so interesting. I think Cyclopean Mummy is supposed to be a reference to Cyclopean Tomb! According to the dictionary, "Cyclopean" can either refer to a sort of ancient masonry that used large irregular stone blocks (thinking of Peru), or the word can refer to the state of resembling a Cyclops, the one-eyed race of giants from mythology. Just looking at the art on Cyclopean Mummy, we can see that it's a giant. Maybe these ancient giants built their Cyclopean T...

Moving On Up In Reverse Bio-Engineering (Part 1) , we looked at creatures with a mana cost from 1 to 3. Today we're going to look at creatures with a mana cost of 4-6, which encompasses what is commony referred to as "midrange". Here Comes the Muscle League Let's get some report cards under way. Here's a quick refresher on our scoring system from the last article. With that in mind, on to the reports! Four Drops The four drop spot is a strange one because the most played four drops all have downsides. Both Su-Chi and Erhnam have downsides that are easy to play around, but also are potentially ignorable. Erhnam's drawback is irrelevant if your opponent doesn't have any creatures in ...