My first deck, and everything is an otter!

I've recently started playing Magic the Gathering: Area more than any other game I have in my library. A former colleague (miss you, Toshi!) was a huge fan and at home, Dean plays a lot too and finally got me to try it with the temptation of all the adorable fuzzy creatures in the Bloomburrow expansion.

The expansion added a bunch of cool new mice, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, bats - and most of all - otters to the game. Otters are the best animal. The artwork in Magic is amazing - and you'll see some great examples of it on this post.

MtG is really good fun to play. It's scratched an itch for strategy, silly fun, counting, cuteness that I didn't know I had. I enjoy planning moves ahead, and getting used to all the different gameplay mechanics.

Before I go into the fun part of the post, I'll generalize the rules of MtG in the list below, so the post makes sense. A short list can't cover everything but here is the gist of how you play.

• You start with 7 cards from a deck of 60. You have 20 health points, and you win by getting your opponent to zero or less health. You take turns.
• Lands limit how many other cards you can play, as each card has a cost of lands to play it.
• Creatures are monster cards, and have a health and attack value. Attack power is shown first, then health. So 1 / 2 will mean the Creature can attack and do 1 damage, and its health is 2.
• Enchantments are a kind of spell card that stays around and has an affect on your whole game
• Other Spells are cards that can be cast at different times. They have various effects, like making a Creature more tough, or removing another player's Enchantments.

While I was practicing and getting used to the game, a new expansion dropped (earlier this week). It's has this whole mash up vibe that's very 80s trashy action movie, slasher movie, horror movie, but also video games. It's pretty ace. It's called Duskmourn.

It added a lot of new stuff to the game, one of them is this new Enchantment:

If it's in your hand at the start of the game, you can play it straight away. It lets you say "all of my Creatures cards are Otters."

Why would I want to do that? Well, otters work well together - but there is a very special otter Creature called Valley Floodcaller:

When you play Enchantment or Other Spell during a turn, it makes every otter Creature you have tougher by 1 health and 1 attack point for the duration of the turn.

If this happens while you are attacking in your own turn, you will also be allowed to block attacks with your otters during your opponent's turn.

Normally when you attack with a Creature, you can't then later use it to block.

But there is one more special thing about otters. A lot of them have something called Prowess. Prowess also allows Creatures to give themselves 1 extra health and 1 extra attack point when you play an Enchantment or Other Spell.

One such example of this is the awesome (and adorable) Stormcatch Mentor.

These synergies between the cards are at the core of how you play MtG. They enable lots of play styles.

To illustrate this, if you have a Stormcatch Mentor and a Valley Floodcaller in play at the same time, then this happens:

If you cast a spell like Slight of Hand - thanks to Prowess and the Valley Floodcaller, your Stormcatch Mentor is now 3 / 3 for the rest of the turn, just for being an otter with Prowess!

The effect is multiplied a little if you have more Valley Floodcallers. If you have 3 in play, then that same otter would be 5 / 5 before the effects of the spell are added.

But anything can be an otter, right?

Yes! So here is the premise:

• I start with the otter and prowess deck that Dean helped me find and I had been playing with for a while
• I add Leyline of Transformation to make everything an otter
• I add some Creatures and spells
• I make sure there are plenty of Lands to cover the costs

Let's look at the deck

It's probably not the most balanced or useful. This is meant to be kind of silly. The idea here is that I have lots of small Creatures that can become otters. I also have some real otters too. Stormcatch Mentor has the added benefit of reducing the cost of casting spells.

If you want to try the deck yourself, it's linked at the bottom of this page.

If it all goes to plan, and I end up with a good starting hand, we can be on the way to some fun otter-based, and "otter"-based shenanigans.

If I get lucky, then I can declare otters from the start and work on the fun.

Does it really make everything an otter?

Yes! See - look at my Goblins, Humans, and Zombies - They are all Also Otters!

How does it work out in the end?

Well, you can see from the screenshot above that it can be very effective in game. Thanks to Leyline of Transformation, every Creature I have on the board is an otter. Even the birds and humans.

With Valley Floodcaller being played, even though it is not attacking, it still works its magic on the otters. I was able to chain a bunch of spells together to do the 12 damage in one attack which I needed to win.

It can get sillier

I had a much longer game which resulted in this horde:

In addition to the 2 otters; I had 6 zombies, 1 human, and 1 goblin in play who were also otters.

In this case, the opponent conceded the game before I could attack. I was about to play the 2nd Leyline of Transformation in order to trigger Valley Floodcaller.

In that turn, the total damage I would have dealt would have been 32, which the opponent couldn't block.

Do you want to try it?

I've shared the latest version here:

https://mtgazone.com/user-decks/fyyyxmuqmcie4zdzecwx/

Wrapping up

I would never have been exposed to MtG if it wasn't for Toshi and Dean. Thank you both so much!

I think anyone who enjoys strategy games (and cure fuzzy creatures) could really have a great time playing Magic. This post barely scratches the surface of what is possible.

I'm still learning as I go an asking Dean and friends tons of questions to improve my strategy and develop my own style of playing.

For me, this is a great way to relax. I hope everyone reading this gives the game a try too.