While it’s really only been three weeks or so, it feels like I’ve been facing Troll Ascetic all my life playing Planeswalker. While the tools that handle Trolls are fairly restricted, we can instead look to be better about the beat-down game in general. Enter a boulder:

"Rock It"

• Creatures (19)
• 4 Troll Ascetic
• 4 Civic Wayfinder
• 1 Nekrataal
• 2 Gravedigger
• 2 Moonglove Winnower
• 1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
• 1 Royal Assassin
• 1 Nightmare
• 1 Vigor
• 1 Sengir Vampire
• 1 Hollowborn Barghest

• Spells (16)
• 4 Rampant Growth
• 3 Terror
• 2 Consume Spirit
• 1 Plague Wind
• 2 Raise Dead
• 1 Mind Shatter
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer
• 2 Naturalize

• Lands (25)
• 12 Forest
• 13 Swamp

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I don’t know how this will work. Aside from playing straight-up Green beat-down, this is the last archetype I will try to overcome the mean Green machines. Mirror matches just aren’t my style.

After “resolving” the missing decks issue (recreate and resave each deck, including the one I need here), I took this call to Obi-Wan and hit up the New Player room again:

• A White equipment deck that seemed to drag on forever thanks to the opponent’s connection issues. The game finally just ended, as the opponent never reconnected.
• A mono-Green Elf deck. This time, Mind Shatter, Vigor, Sengir Vampire, and Nekrataal gave me the edge at every step.
• A ninety-card deck that dropped Loyal Retainers turn one, blocked a Troll Ascetic that I regenerated, then conceded. Not sure what was going on there.
• A Black-Green Elf deck where my Troll Ascetic went the distance, a Consume Spirit dealing the last damage.
• A mono-White deck that sat on two Plains (and dropped a Pacifism on my Sengir Vampire when I played it) until he conceded at 14 life to my 12. Again, confusing.
• A mono-Black deck where my Mind Shatter, Vigor, Troll Ascetic, and Nightmare went the distance. (A pattern developing, perhaps?)
• A Blue-White deck that watched me drop Troll Ascetic then Loxodon Warhammer. The concession isn’t something I hold against them here.
• A mono-Green deck with Razormane Masticore and Loxodon Warhammer. I put it like that because that’s what killed me. I played to draw the last card; if it had been a land, a Plague Wind would have saved me, leaving me with Troll Ascetic to their empty hand. I would have liked those odds.
• A mono-White deck where Troll Ascetic, Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, and Hollowborn Barghest (of all creatures) got there. I sandbagged Naturalize right up until I could nuke a Pacifism on Nath and swing through a Purity and Voice of All (set to Black) for the win by 1 damage.
• A mono-Red deck where my graveyard recursion and Consume Spirit kept me to no less than 8 life. The speed and reach of those burn decks can be very surprising; I’ve learned to block and play removal more aggressively, the payoff being they run out of gas as I reload and ramp up. Plague Wind sealed the deal for me here.

So clearly the Black-Green “Rock” deck is better, right?

Survey Says: (Buzzer Sound)

Look, let’s be real here. We have a very small data set, with many variable details missing (that is the play-by-play from the games), and a highly variable set of decks we encountered. But there are a few grains of truth that are implied here:

• Troll Ascetic is the best creature in the format, bar none.

The number of games I won by ramming my Troll into opposing forces, or using it as a very sturdy wall, all sitting under the pseudo-shroud that keeps tricks from working against it, grew every time I played it. It’s absurdly good and, at worst, it negates an opposing Troll. The fact that it can do that is unreal gravy, as there’s very little that does negate Trolls.

• Consume Spirit is extraordinarily good.

I didn’t realize it until many games into playing the deck: Digging up a Swamp was almost always the correct decision. Not only did it power up Nightmare (if she appeared for us), but by draining for such huge amounts, we could kill almost anything in any color and stay ahead in the race. And draining an opponent to death works just as good as a Fireball to the face ever did.

• Some players are just sketchy.

I don’t mean dirty tricks here, as Magic Online has scant few to really work, but that larger-than-sixty-card decks, conceding from nowhere, and generally being confusingly awkward (like misuse of abilities on creatures, like Prodigal Pyromancer). Some of this can surely be attributed to the “new-player” nature of the room I’m playing in. I know I had my fair share of misclicks, missteps, and mishaps.

But sometimes it’s the same player who used Prodigal Pyromancer to ensure that my 2/2 will die to his 1/1 Goblin who doesn’t use the ability to ping me when not needed in combat. Or the player who had a graveyard full of Elf creatures but didn’t sacrifice Elvish Eulogist to save himself from lethal damage.

Strange oddities like that—again, ones that I am guilty of myself—made the experience highly volatile. It was tough to read an opponent playing awkwardly, especially without a visual reference or verbal discussion to help provide nonpublic-information indications.

Of course, reading an opponent is a whole different discussion, but my point is that when you’re used to playing in person, the digital interface can leave a lot to be desired. How can I ask my opponent if he or she meant to do something without sounding like an ass? How can I shift from an adversarial role to one of mutual learning and Magic respect?

I like to know what other players think because, quite often, I’m missing out on something different. Of course, calling out players on making what I classify as “suspect decisions” isn’t the best way to present that I’m pretty open-minded to ideas.

Get On With It!

In summary: Planeswalker is actually pretty awesome. Instant awesome cards, some cool interactions, and, despite all the bother about Troll Ascetic, a pretty diverse selection of decks where you could play almost any style to solid effect. It was a fun trip.

Now, the harder stuff.

I’m looking to keep costs low. While everyone’s personal situation will vary, I’d like to really see what can be done on a shoestring budget. Here’s some of the ideas I have:

Buy one of the Commander preconstructed decks.

Commander is an immensely popular format about to receive some additional love this summer thanks to the upcoming preconstructed Commander decks as well as From the Vault: Legends. Getting in before the coming storm may be the best option for long-term variety.

However, Commander is not exactly cheap. It’s $20 straight up for a preconstructed deck, then additional increments of tickets for any singles I want to add (see below). The odds that my Commander fervor would cause a cascade of ticket movement is pretty high; estimating just $20 and spending my two “freebie” tickets is probably a far cry from actual Commander engagement.

Buy the Deck Builder’s Essentials box.

This is not analogous to the Deck Builder’s Toolkit released in paper form; while it brings a diversity of commons and uncommons (from Zendikar through Scars of Mirrodin), the real treat is that it gives us two tickets but no booster packs, which keeps the price to just $5. This would put me up to 4 tickets, enough to grab plenty of solid uncommons or even a rare, yet have a base of staple cards needed for basic Standard decks.

I’m partial to this option because I’m looking to play casually anyway, and getting the basics built up is an essential part of collecting to build. Perhaps that’s why it’s called an “Essentials” box.

Check out the Classifieds section.

This is where players and bots buy and sell cards, booster packs, and other digital objects. A cursory scan of this showed me that the awesomely fun Momir Vig avatars were just 6 tickets. Bulk rares were 0.1 tickets, with uncommons and commons clocking in much cheaper. And even some powerful singles were extremely reasonable to acquire: Fauna Shaman for 1 ticket, Scalding Tarn for 4.5 tickets, and other “deals” over paper retail. Even better, one can convert tickets into booster packs at a better rate than the store: $10 for a trio of Scars of Mirrodin packs is a pretty nifty way to get into booster-pack cracking.

However, I’m not an expert, and a quick visual scan doesn’t actually tell me where the best deals are and how to find them. This is something I’m very curious about since I need to determine if buying the Essentials kit above is better or worse than grabbing 5 more tickets and hitting up an online bulk-selling bot.

Power to the People

Which leads me to, again, reach out to you for help. Where do I go from here? How do I move to playing more Magic, with non-Planeswalker cards, without simply shoveling my wallet into a digital purgatory? I’m not looking to “go infinite” or “grind value from events,” but simply to play more Magic and have even more fun than I’ve already reached.

I hope you have the inside scoop, because if you do, I’m all ears. Sound off below and I’ll follow where the path leads me!