Artist: Quinton Hoover

Last week, Magic lost one of its great artists. Quinton Hoover lost his battle with a series of long-time health problems and died at the age of 49. It would be amiss of me not to look at some of his art.

Quinton definitely had a very "old-school" style to his work. There's a certain sharpness to everything but it's not so sharp that it clashes with everything else. In Firebrand Ranger, you can see how Quinton made the colours of the cards (red and green) very vibrant and it adds to the crispness of the card.

This is probably Quinton's second most famous piece of Magic artwork. Unlike the 7th Edition version by David Martin, the Meekstone isn't the centre focus of the art. The art tells a story and paints a picture (pardon the pun) of the Meekstone's power and what is can reduce a man to.

Finally, we have what is arguably Quinton's most famous piece of Magic art: Wrath of God.  While Kev Walker's version is nice, this art, like Meekstone's, tells a story. It shows the omni-directional destruction of a vengeful god, striking down both the good and the bad. It's just a beautiful piece.

In the words of Tragic Poet:"I would weep, but my tears have been stolen; I would shout, but my voice has been taken. Thus, I write."

We'll miss you Quinton.

EDH Help: Mono-coloured Cards I Missed

Now, I obviously can't list every card you should have in your EDH deck and there are some that I find are more obvious inclusions than others because of their obvious greatness (also, I'm under self-imposed time constraints meaning I can't cover too many cards since I won't be able to at least attempt to keep up with my schedule). My posts would also end up being really really long if I covered everything (like this one will be).

HOWEVER, some people have pointed out that I "missed" some cards in my earlier articles, so I will go over them in one sentence or less right now. Also, it has become clear to me that the word "essential" may have been a poor choice of words on my part. I just think that the cards I mentioned are really good in EDH and are worth considering.

Blasphemous Act

Cheap boardwipe

Sylvan Primordial

Squishy elephant with a benefit

Mind Over Matter

Broken combo card

Malignus

Beatstick

Awakening Zone

Gribblies and mana

Academy Rector

Amazing tutor

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Free damage

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

Mana ramp and lockdown

Living Death

Amazing boardwipe

Tooth and Nail

So good it should be banned

Urabrask the Hidden

Locks down opponents

Cyclonic Rift

Mono-blue boardwipe

Cabal Coffers

Black mana ramp

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

Super mana ramp

Gamble

Red's tutor

Command Tower

Do I need to explain this?

Doomed Necromancer

Instant-speed res

Concordant Crossroads

Mono-green's only mass haste

Goblin Welder

Gets rid of artifacts

I'll do multicolour and colourless cards soon, but I think I need to take a break from EDHing for a while.

P.S. I know that I didn't put every single "great" or "amazing" card on here but I have neither the time nor the space to cover every single relevant EDH card in one article. I'll get to them eventually, but I just wnated to give some newbies help in building EDH decks.

EDH Help: Essential Green Cards

Here are some green cards to really consider for your EDH:

Regrowth

Brings that really important thing from your graveyard back into your hand. Its uses are limitless.

Sylvan Library

Mono-green deck manipulation. Seriously, what's not to love about that? This sort of helps you dig (although you're only going to be digging a small hole) and it can trade your life for extra cards which is always nice.

Eternal Witness

See my comments for Regrowth.

Terastodon

Squishy elephant! This can solve a lot of problems late in the game. Giving an opponent an Elephant is usually a very small price to pay to get rid of a big problem.

Defense of the Heart

This card is so good, I'd be supportive of a ban if one were to arise. Someone will control 3+ creatures in EDH and you will either draw out a destroy card or have some sad opponents.

Krosan Grip

No blue deck likes to see this card come out. The Split Second on it is what makes it a great card since no one can respond to it.

Green Sun's Zenith

Step 1: Search for a problem and put it into play.

Step 2: Repeat until countered.

Pattern of Rebirth

Finally, a card no one remembers. See that Eldrazi Spawn? Yeah, he's actually Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger in a mask. He seems to think it's Hallowe'en...

1 Year Anniversary Special

Holy crap! I've been doing this for over a year?! Damn, it sure doesn't feel like it. A year ago, I started this blog both as a way to keep myself from being bored as I was about to leave for a tiny town in BC for a summer job and because Rishadan Port sucks. I honestly thought that I'd forget about this after around a month or so and I'd get bored with it, but I didn't. So, in honour of this landmark, I'll give you a very special review: the worst card in Magic: Razor Boomerang.

Look at it. Soak it in. Feel the terribleness coming off of this card. 5 mana for 1 damage. Five mana for one damage. Hell, even Ember Shot has a better damage-to-cost ratio! Nothing about this card works, not even the art. Franz Vohwinkel has done a lot of great art (my favourites include Darigaaz's Caldera, Etherium-Horn Sorcerer, and Time Sieve) but this art just looks terrible. The boomerang itself looks like it's been pasted from another picture and the minotaur (it could be a cow, I'm not sure) looks more sleepy than surprised. There are no uses for this card. Even if there were, Viridian Longbow exists so you have no reason to run it. Cards like Sorrow's Path have at least one combo they can work with (Stuffy Doll + Pariah in Sorrow's Path's case) but this has none. I doubt WotC could make a worse card without actively trying to do so.

Pros: None. There is nothing nice I can say about this card.

Cons: Its very existence

Rating: 0/5 (although putting this on the same level as Wirecat is insulting to Wirecat)

Thanks to everyone for sticking around for an entire year. So far, I've reviewed around 1.5% of all Magic card (although, that figure doesn't count the review of vanillas that I did, so I estimate I'm closer to 5%). Guess that means the job's not done yet and I have to stick around for at least another year....

EDH Help: Essential Red Cards

Here are some red cards to really consider for your EDH:

Blood Moon

With the prevalence of nonbasic lands throughout EDH, this card can easily make people very sad very quickly.

Apocalypse

HYPER-BOOM! That is all.

Shattering Spree

Similar to my comments on Blood Moon above, this card make use to the increased prevalence of artifacts in EDH to make people sad. Since it can be pumped depending on the need, it can either be a mass wave of sadness or a targeted jet of sad aimed at one particular person.

Kaervek's Torch

If you're going to run a Blaze-like effect in EDH (not the greatest idea), run either this or Banefire. Banefire can't be countered, but it can be Redirected. This isn't uncounterable, but it is harder to redirect or counter. Most counter decks will leave only enough mana to counter a spell, not enough to pay extra in order to do that.

Jokulhaups

Again, BOOM!

Thieves' Auction

This is red's chaos perfectly represented. Someone's going to be sad at the end of this and that's what makes it great. I love this card in EDH because there's a lot of stuff to go around and the end result is an oddly balanced board.

EDH Help: Essential Black Cards

Here are some black cards to really consider for your EDH:

Necropotence

Keeping your hand full in EDH is always advantageous, and being able to funnel your life into cards is amazing (it's the reason Yawgmoth's Bargain is banned).

Vampiric Tutor

This goes for any type of mono-black tutor (Imperial Seal, Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Tutor...). Vampiric Tutor is probably the best since it's instant-speed and really cheap.

Grave Pact

This card makes your opponents really reconsider killing your creatures since they'll be losing one too. It also makes any sacrifice combo you have extra-effective.

Damnation

BOOM! That is all.

Phyrexian Arena

See the remarks I made for Necropotence as they apply here.

Animate Dead

Stealing for anyone's graveyard makes this card really versatile since there may be a point where you don't have anything nice in your own yard but someone else does.

Guardian Beast

Finally, a card no one remembers. Here's the oracle text:
"As long as Guardian Beast is untapped, noncreature artifacts you control can't be enchanted, they're indestructible, and other players can't gain control of them. This effect doesn't remove Auras already attached to those artifacts."
In short, it's mono-black artifact protection, and given how many artifacts are run in EDH, it's pretty great!

EDH Help: Essential Blue Cards

Here are some blue cards to really consider for your EDH:

Brainstorm

This card is instant-speed card draw and deck manipulation. It may only net you one card, but it can swap out 2 cards that you don't need at just the right time.

Counterspell

It's a counterspell. 'Nuff said.

Back to Basics

This one's only a necessary inclusion in mono-blue deck since there aren't that many nonbasic lands that mono-coloured decks will run. This card shuts down many decks really fast (usually the more colours it has, the sadder it'll be) and works great if you're trying to go for the control-type of deck.

Rhystic Study

Not many people are willing to pay that extra 1 mana in the early game and that will net you a lot of cards. Even if the first thing someone does is destroy this, they probably won't spend the extra mana and you'll get a card out of it.

Capsize

6 mana for a repeatable omni-bounce? Yes please! It's a like a baby Spine of Ish Sah. It doesn't destroy the permanent, but at least it gets rid of it for a little bit. And it's repeatable.

Long-Term Plans

Instant-speed omni-tutor? Yes please! Combine this with a Brainstorm and it becomes and instant-speed blue Diabolic Tutor.

Soothsaying

Finally, a card that not a lot of people know about. Sure, early game it doesn't do much since you don't have the mana to pump into it, but it can be really useful later on. If at the end of an opponent's turn, you can pump a little bit of mana into it and rearrange part of your library. Think of it like a scalable Sensei's Divining Top, except it can't draw you cards. And, if you don't like the cards you see, you can shuffle those cards away. On a last note, if your general gets tucked, you can shuffle your deck then dig for it.