Combo?

You may hear word ‘combo’ from many other sources: shopping websites, snacks, games etc., but it is not exactly the same meaning in mtg EDH. In mtg games, a combo means a combination of some cards (usually 2 to 4 cards) that when you have all of these cards, you will gain huge advantage from, which always lead to victory. It is hard to say what a good combo is, but in my opinion, a good combo means that this combo can make you win immediately or control your opponent infinitely.

I divide all the good combos into three types, where the last one is quite discussing whether it belongs to good combos or not: the first one is the combo that when you have every part of this combo, you win the game immediately. You will see the combo in next blog is in this type; the second kind is the combo can control your opponent infinitely, for example a combo can bring you infinite turns so that your opponent’s turn will never come; as I said, the third type is pretty discussing, these are the combos can give you infinite mana or give you infinite life. The reason why I can’t say these combos is in the meaning good combo is that they can’t let you win, but can give tremendous advantage on board. For instance, if you have infinite life, it is really hard for you to lose, but there still are some ways to kill you. These three types of good combos is summarized by myself, you will never find it from anywhere else.

Combo is an important part of EDH, or you can say EDH is consisted of combos. EDH can’t  live without combos, combos has become the main idea for designing an EDH deck.

It may still quite confusing what a good combo is, but don’t worry, you will catch the idea as you see the combo in next blog.

What is EDH?

EDH is a special format of Magic the Gathering. In fact, the history of EDH is no more than two years, but it spread so quickly that almost become the most popular format in mtg. The born of EDH should be owed to two mtg judges who are tired of the usual formats in mtg. So they try to create a new format. Unlike the 4 custom formats, EDH uses a legendary creature (a kind of creature in mtg)to be general who lead the whole deck. The first general used by that two judges is an elder legendary dragon called “Nicol Bolas“, that’s why this format is called EDH – Elder Dragon Highlands.

                                                                                                               The first general in EDH

EDH doesn’t have many differences from normal formats. There are only several rules that distinguish EDH from other formats. First is there is only one card of each type of non-basic-land card in each EDH deck (in other formats, there are at most four of each kind). Because of this, EDH become a very slow format – the uncertainty of this format is so large that no one can ever predict what will happen to the board (battlefield). This characteristic makes EDH to be a very interesting format and the cards can use in this format become pretty width. The second difference is the general, as I said before, general is a legendary creature that leads the deck. Unlike the usual creatures, we can cast general from a special zone called command area. When general is go to graveyard or is exiled from game, we can choose our general to go back to command area, not simply go to the graveyard or go to exile zone. The most important thing is, after we put our general back to command area, we can cast general again from command area with additional mana cost 2 (colorless). The more times your go back to command area, the more additional mana cost you need to pay. Since you can always cast your general from command area (this is not always true), the general become the most important part of your deck. In fact, every good EDH deck is designed for the specific general, for example, “Zur the Enchanter” one of the most famouse general in EDH.

There are some other rules for EDH and there is also a banlist for EDH which contain the card we can’t use in EDH. I will not talk more about what is EDH here. Instead, I post the link to EDH official web here, http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php, where you can find the full information for the format EDH.

Introduction to Magic the Gathering(3)

In this last introduction, I will describe the win condition for mtg games.

Usually every player in game has total 20 lifes(In EDH games, every player has total 40 lifes). If any player’s life total become 0 or lower, that player lose the game(this is not always true because there are some cards can prevent you lose the game). To make your opponent lose life, you need to deal damage the them. One of the way, also the most simple way, to deal damage is to use a creature to attack. Creature has power and toughness, which I mentioned in the last blog, and you can use your creatures to attack your opponent once a turn. Next, your opponent(defending player) can use his creatures to block your attacking creatures. If an attacking creature is blocked, each creature deals damage to each other using its power which will cause the decrease of toughness of that creature. If a creature’s toughness is 0 or lower, that creature dies and go to that player’s(its owner’s) graveyard. The damage to a creature will be cleared at each end of turn, which means every creature’s toughness will be full every turn. If an attacking creature is not blocked by any creature, on the other hand, that creature will damage to the defending player counted by its power. For example, the creature in the right has power 1(written in the right bottom corner), so if it attacks without blocked by your opponent, it will deal 1 damage to your opponent. If your opponent have 20 lifes in total before the creature attacks, then his life total will 19 since this creature deals one damage to him.

Another way to beat your opponent is to put all cards in his deck into his graveyard(mill his deck). According to the rule of mtg, if a player would draw a card from his deck(library) and there is no card in his library, he loses the game(Note there are totally 60 cards in a deck, if you draw a card from it, the number of your library will decrease by 1). So you can also mill your opponent‘s library or remove it from game(exile it) to make your opponent have no card to draw.

There are some other ways to get the win, for instance, a card can let you win under some specific condition(the card in the right). These ways are not an accustomed ways to win the game, so I will not talk more about it. 

This is the end of my introduction. Some readers may notice that I have not shown the game process(the process of a turn) yet. In fact, I will not show them because the process of a turn has nothing associated with EDH combos, new player can also understand a combo without knowing the game procedure. That’s why I don’t present it here.

Next blog I will tell what an EDH is and how it works.

Introduction to Magic the Gathering(2)

You already know the seven type of cards in mtg(land, creature, artifact, enchantment, planeswalker, instant, sorcery). Now I will introduce function of each type.

Land: as you see in the last blog, land can produce mana. Most land can only produce 1 mana each turn(there are some lands can produce 2 or more) and you can only play one land in one turn(usually in your turn). Some of the lands have other functions(abilities), their functions are variance from land to land.

Creature: Maybe creature is the most important type in mtg because in almost every format, you need to use creatures to get the win. Creatures have power and toughness, they are written in the right bottom corner of the card as numbers. I will show how power and toughness works in next blog. The image in the right is a usual creature card.

Enchantment: enchantment is kind of cards that has durative influence to the board(battlefield). There is another kind of enchantment called aura that will only influence creatures on board(battlefield).

Artifact: artifact has various functions, some of them can produce mana, some of them can influence board(battlefield) duratively, some of them can even be creature. It is hard to say what artifacts can do, in fact they can do everything.

Planeswalker: the rule for planeswalkers is pretty complicated for beginners, so I will not introduce it here. You can go to mtg official website to see what a planeswalker is it you want.

We call five types of card above(land, creature, artifact, enchantment, planeswalker) permanent because they can stay on battlefield permanently after you use(cast) it. The next two types of card will not stay on battlefield. They go to your graveyard(a place that collects your used cards) immediately once you cast it.

Instant: instants always have some instantaneous effects on battlefield. You can use instant cards anytime you want(just remember it although it is not always true).

Sorcery: the only difference between sorcery and instant is that you can only use sorcery during your turn. It is the same for sorcery that sorcery also have some momentary influences on battefield.

In the next blog I will show the win condition for mtg which include how power and toughness of a creature works etc.

Introduction to Magic the Gathering(1)

    In fact, In Magic the Gathering, what I care most is EDH, but consider it may be the first time people hear about Magic the Gathering(mtg), I will give a brief introduction to Magic the Gathering. “In the Magic game, you play the role of a planeswalker—a powerful wizard who fights other planeswalkers for glory, knowledge, and conquest. Your deck of cards represents all the weapons in your arsenal. It contains the spells you know and the creatures you can summon to fight for you.” In the quote is the first sentence for beginner from mtg official website. I like this summary because it sounds great. The official website is http://www.wizards.com/Magic, you can go and see what you want to know about mtg if necessary.

   OK, come back to my introduction. Mtg is a boarding game that we use real cards to play againt your opponent. Usually we play one on one game, but two on two or mutiplayer game is also available in mtg. In the game, you have your own deck which usually consist of 60 cards in it(in EDH, the number of cards in your deck always be 99). There are totally seven type for card you can use: land, creature, artifact, enchantment, planeswalker, instant, sorcery. These seven type of cards have different function for different use, you will see it later. During

                                                                                                                     Front side of a mtg card

games, we play turn by turn. In your turn, you draw a card from your library(your deck) and can play any of seven type above. Notice that you can only play(cast) land, creature, artifact, enchantment, planeswalker and sorcery cards(spells) during your turn and you can play instant cards(spells) at any time you want(just remember it although it is not always true). Every cards except lands is a spell that we need to pay the cost(mana) for the card. The mana cost is produced by land you control, usually one land can produce one mana each turn and the mana cost is written on right top corner of card. OK, just know how to cast the spell, I will introduce function of each type of cards in next blog.                                                                                                               Back side of a mtg card

The beginning of start

    Here is the beginning of my blog. I’m not sure what I will talk about in this blog, may be my daily life, or something about study etc.  In fact, what I want to post most here in this blog is mtg edh, which is a kind of format in magic the gathering. It is hard to underestand for people who don’t know magic cards(mtg), so here I’ll try my best to explain some useful combos in simple ways that even new player can easily understand.