Lolzor here!

Hey guys....its been awhile. My bad <_<

I've been very busy with work and school and generally life but its high (tide) time for me to get back into this. Im sure you all have questions about the site and Bangchuckers and a whole bunch of stuff...well lets get to it.

The Site:

As Baal mentioned before we are moving away from strictly MtG. We are a scattered bunch over here with me playing every game under the sun and Bit lost to WoW and Baal playing league like he is a pro...we are not exactly magic experts unless its our current game of the month. that being said its not disappearing either.

As of right now we have no set schedule on posts but one of us will be trying to post at least once a week about something. I know we have some things in store like game reviews and some classic things like MUCmonday and Interesting plays.

Bangchuckers!

Ok so the comic is hard since we are all over the place...major discussion is happening about the future of it but for now we are on hiatus...ill try to get something out for a giggle or two though.

Streaming:

Did you guys know we stream now?

Baal much more often than I but I usually show up and play with.

http://www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem
http://www.twitch.tv/lolzorinator

Check us out...maybe we will start a regular thing



Anyway sorry about the inconsistency we are back guys =)

Season 3 Masteries

The best and worst of Season 3 Masteries:

The Worst:

Offense - Destruction: In season 2 masteries there was a +10 damage to turrets. This was useful in early game dominating team compositions. The 10 damage was added after armor reduction, effectively being true damage to turrets, albeit little. The new mastery you need 200 damage for the crossover point for that a turret with 160 armor BEFORE armor calcuations. It does so little damage early game and is not even close to worth it later.

Defense - Safeguard: The other tower mastery. 5% damage reduction to turrets is not going to be the reason you won. Another trap mastery just like the trap item Ohmwrecker that can easily be fixed through good tower juggling and team comp.

Defense - Defender: +1 armor/MR for each nearby enemy champion. While not bad, it almost doesn't make the cut for "good" masteries. Absolutely amazing in ARAM and level 1 teamfights, specifically for 1 mastery point. It's worth atleast the same value of T2 masteries, and you can't really go wrong with one point in it.

Defense - Legendary Armor: This mastery is pretty bad. It only scales off bonus armor/MR. So it may be good on those champions with tank steroids such as Leona, Galio, Rammus, Jax, but it is really not worth the three mastery points that could be put into Tenacity and %hp.

Defense - Good Hands: While not a bad mastery, it is saying that you intend to die. Which is perfectly acceptable in this game. In ARAM it is particularly powerful, but in a real game it may only apply to close games. 4-6 seconds off respawn is when it is at an "optimal" power level. Way better than it's previous 3-point incarnation of Season 2.

Defense - Reinforced Armor: -10% Critical Strike damage. For one point I suppose it's okay, but the people who take this would be selective to the enemy team if they have 2 ADCs like Kayle in top lane, any ADC bot lane--or maybe even the rare support Ashe. It reduces crits to 180% damage, but after Infinity Edge you are still taking 225% damage from crits. Probably more considering the Lethality mastery. Once again, good but not worth the point you could be putting into other masteries making it subpar.

Defense - Honor Guard: to be honest this mastery is meh. But since you are already this deep, it's okay when compared to it's 3-point Season 2 version.
Utility - Improved Recall: I can't believe they kept this mastery. It's a waste of a mastery point and will totally not be the reason you won the game. Odds are you are probably spending 800% more time in the shop than this mastery will save you if you take it.

Utility - Scout: I'm glad they did something to try and fix it from last season but it is still not worth the point.

Utility - Expanded Mind: It no longer gives +energy for energy champions and is no longer a prerequisite for Meditation. Not worth the points.

Utility - Strength of Spirit: It's back, but still too deep in the tree to consider taking over any other decent mastery. Maybe if you were expecting a siege game in ARAM it would be good.



The Best: (in short, everything else--but the BEST of the best:)

Offense - Penetration: Obviously better with the %pen coming before flat now.

Offense - Spellsword: helps in last hitting when combined with Brute Force. Mid game when you have 300-400+ AP, putting 3 auto attacks in a teamfight will raise your damage output by 45-60+, possibly more. That could be the difference in teamfights.

Offense - Havoc: Still pretty meh. Will not matter on ADCs as much but on APs it will matter a lot considering how high base damages are.

Offense - Archmage vs Mental Force - Switching points between these two if you want. The crossover point-by-point is 200 AP.

Defense - Unyielding + Block: Particularly annoying how much damage this thing will prevent. It prevents it after armor/MR making it even stronger and then it stops spellsword making it EVEN STRONGER. This combined with Doran's Shield will be amazing in top lane tanks.

Defense - Vertan's Scars: No need to say anything about this. It has been the #1 contender for best mastery since preseason 1. It's extremely cost efficient and you don't have to delve deep to get it.

Defense - Tenacious + Juggernaut: Easily one of the better masteries. Consider maxing both of these out. Even tenacious against cc-light teams.

Utility - Mastermind: Absolutely absurd that this came back from season 1+2 and so early in the tree. It's three points, though but it's still worth it.

Utility - Biscuiteer + Explorer: Could make and break level 1 teamfights. Super potion + 60 second ward when it matters.

Utility - Pickpocket: Considering that the average good mastery point is worth about 40g in in-game stats, YES THIS IS TOTALLY WORTH TAKING. AP Mids should already considering going deep into the utility tree for 21 points, sustain, ward, biscuit and this mastery.

Utility - Nimbleness: With all the movespeed getting removed and base movespeed increases, this got a lot stronger. AP Mids benefit the most from this.



Well that's all I have for this article. I may write another article talking about which of the new items are must-haves. (Hint: Sightstone is OP)

The Tweaks Ziggs Needs

Copypasta from a thread I made:

I've been playing a lot of Ziggs recently. Nothing too much but learning his mechanics.

I am concerned about the similarities between other champions and how they function differently when they shouldn't.

His passive needs to be function identically with Twisted Fate. In case you didn't know Twisted Fate's blue card, E proc, and sheen/lichbane. Are on a set priority.

If you would kill a minion with Blue Card, you keep your sheen and E proc.
If you would kill a minion with the damage from Blue Card and Sheen, but E would be overkill, you keep your E for the next attack.
If it takes Blue Card damage, sheen, and your E to kill a minion, all three will go off whether it kills it or not.

Similarly, Ziggs passive needs to work like this.

If killing a minion with sheen would kill it, you keep your passive.
If killing a minion with sheen and passive would kill it, both will go off whether it kills it or not.

Applicable to towers too.

Because the current way it works is you lose your passive's extra damage if it would kill the minion. Even TF gets mana back if the minion dies before it reaches it hitting air, why should Ziggs lose his passive for 12 seconds if the same happens to him?

Q - Well done, no need for tweaking and not buggy.

W - It needs the Gragas barrel/Lux treatment/Riven Q/etc.

The way it currently works is the CD is counted when it goes off, not when it is planted.

Gragas Q is on a 7 second cooldown, a 4.2 second cooldown with 40% CDR. He can choose to leave the barrel for zoning purposes for 3 seconds. Once the barrel explodes, the CD is 1.2 seconds because it is counted down in the background when he throws it, not when it explodes. This same thing applies to Lux and even rivens Q. Abilities like this need to be function identically across the board--Ziggs is not the only one.

E is fine, the potential damage from it is a little absurd but is a closet case scenario and they are likely to never hit more than 4.

R is great. Nothing buggy about it.

I hope you take my input/feedback seriously as the last time I made one of these for Lux, they actually took what I said and digested it. Thank you for reading.

IPL5 update and Regional Distribution

League of Legends IPL5:

As a follow-up to my previous update, the brackets have been updated as we are now out of the group stages. The losers bracket continues to be enormous and lengthy despite most of the games finishing 2-0 in a best of three.

But this article will instead focus on the Regional distribution between teams.

For the purposes of simplicity, all North American teams will simply be "American" even though many players are from Canada.

American teams:
TSM, CLG Prime, FeaR, Meat Playground, Curse, Team Dynamic

European teams:
Moscow 5, CLG EU, Curse EU, Fnatic, IceLanD

Asian teams:
World Elite, Taipei Assassins, Azubu Blaze, Black Bean, Singapore Sentinels

Originally, Let's look at the qualifications: 6/5/5 for 16 total teams. (TSM was IPL4 defenders and did not need to qualify, hence the weighted distribution.)
Now let us divide this into upper bracket directly after the group stages:
Upper Bracket: 2 American, 4 European, 2 Asian
Lower Bracket: 4 American, 1 European, 3 Asian

Clearly there is a skill desparity between regions. What is interesting though, was the "panic" that happened after the Season 2 championships, where American/European/Asian distribution went through the Quarter-, Semi-, and Grand-Finals as follows:
3/3/6
1/2/5
0/2/2
0/0/2

Many players began to worry that League of Legends was becoming an "asian" game of competition, such as StarCraft 2.

Let's get back to IPL5 though. As we advance into round 2, the distribution begins to shift a little, as Meat Playground pulls an upset to knock FeaR out of the tournament, and a second upset of Fnatic--a team that would not be in IPL5 if it weren't for Team Alternate dropping out--beating Taipei Assassins. After the first round of losers the following teams were knocked out: FeaR (upset), Team Dynamic, IceLanD, Black Bean. Most of which were expected. So with twelve team remaining it changes to:

Upper Bracket: 2 American, 4 European, 2 Asian
Lower Bracket: 2 American, 0 European, 2 Asian

However, as the day progressed, so did the winners bracket:

Upper Bracket: 1 American, 2 European, 1 Asian
Lower Bracket: 3 American, 2 European, 3 Asian

Maybe the regional disparity is evening out now, but it is still showing that Europeans are the top runners in tournament still.

Just throwin out my two cents about the regional distribution so far in this tournament, please continue watching the tournament at the official site!:

http://www.ign.com/ipl/league-of-legends

LoL IPL5

League of Legends IPL5:

So I figured if SCS was going to start doing other nerdculture stuff, I've been following IPL5 for the most part. (I've been distracted by doing a few LoL games.) So a couple of thoughts about this tournament: I absolutely love it. The layout is fantastic, and it allows you to root for many of your favorite teams since even after the group stages there is still potential for you to make it to the Grand Finals.

There are 20 group stage matches, 14 losers bracket matches, 7 winners bracket matches--where bracket matches are a best of three--and a Grand Final match which is a best of seven (the champion of the winner bracket comes into the Grand Finals with a 2 game advantage). The layout surely make it so the best team will prevail, even if you drop a couple of matches.

I made a prediction prior to the event, at least for the group stages, that were as follows:

Group A: Blaze 3-0, WE 2-1, fnatic 1-2, Dynamic 0-3
Group B: CLG EU 3-0, CLG NA 2-1, FeaR 1-2, iceland 0-3
Group C: TSM 2-1, Singapore Sentinels 2-1, Meat playground for an upset 2-1, Curse 0-3
Group D: Moscow 5 3-0, TPA 2-1, Curse 1-2, Black Bean 0-3
in order, obv--group C is the group stage to watch for a 3-way tie

So first, I didn't know that first and last place were going to only play two matches--which makes perfect sense in the sense that they would not bother with them playing eachother if it wouldn't effect the seeding whatsoever. So all 3-0's and 0-3's are respectively 2-0's and 0-2's.

My predictions were somewhat off--in Group A my predictions pretty off. I had placed Azubu Blaze too high. Instead of going 2-0 they actually had gone 1-2, dropping two seeds from my original prediction. Part of this is probably due to them not playing as much--at least it has been a while since they have shown up in a tournament. I had my hopes up for them.

World Elite has always been a solid team, and the returning Season 1 champion: fnatic have been performing really well lately, winning DreamHack. Dynamic I predicted to be in last place because they have always been the "Rugrats" of Professional play. All of their team members are in High School and was originally made by a bunch of top Solo Queue players getting together.

Actualy results: World Elite 2-1, fnatic 2-1, Azubu Blaze 1-2, Dynamic 0-2.

In Group B, I had my prediction become perfect. I found it somewhat humorous that both CLG teams had to face eachother, but the competition in group B was somewhat weak. Their competition was FeaR (aka Aphromoo's team) and iCeland, a team that no one has really heard of that managed to qualify. A real underdog team really put up some good matches, gave CLG a run for their money, but ended up losing to more experienced teams.

The strongest group is group A, group B seemed like a blowout, but group C I predicted to be the group to watch as the teams there are the closest in skill level to each other. I predicted a 3-way tie and a tie breaker to be made, but once again, the way that the tournament was organized this was not possible.

While I had predicted there be an upset in my prediction of the bracket (due to the closeness in skill level) I had put my money on Meat Playground to be able to show that underdogs could make it. I was really wrong. The team I had predicted to be in last place in the group stages, Curse EU, had actually made it to the first place in group C, giving the popular Team Solo Mid a loss early in the day. And Meat Playground had lost all of their matches in the group stage, after barely qualifying.

Team Solo Mid, a venerable and experienced team still managed to make it in the top 2 of the group to advance to the winners bracket.

Actualy results: Curse EU 2-0, TSM 2-1, Singapore Sentinels 1-2, Meat Playground 0-2

Group D for the most part was correct. I had the top 2 advancing to the winners and bottom two dropping to the losers bracket correct, but I had expected Moscow 5 to beat out Taipei Assassins in a revenge rematch from the Season 2 World Championship Finals. Black Bean, the third team that came into IPL5 that nobody heard of places in last place of the group stage, just like the others. Curse NA is just not up to par with how skilled the top 2 of group D was.

Actual results: TPA 2-0, M5 2-1, Curse 1-2, Black Bean 0-2

Oddball picks:

I'm sure I could spend an hour and a half explaining the "meta" and the top 30 champions that are re-used since they are tried and true good picks. But for the purposes of time conservation I will assume that my audience knows at least a little bit about it.

Rengar (toplane) - Despite that many people considered him "trash" now--he has made many, many appearances in picks. He is a very good initiator though his damage is lacking. While in my personal Solo Queue adventures I had built him as a tank with some penetrate due to his high damage abilities and have had success with it, I was correct but wrong in the items being built. Popular items being built were Brutalizer, Warmog's Armor, and Spirit Visage. Essentially HP stacking to make best use of his Armor/MR steroid on his W in addition to his 15% HP heal when at full ferocity.
Lux (mid) - A common uncommon pick if that makes any sense. Everyone "knew" she was good but it was definitely refreshing to see a professional team pick her up, play her, and win.
Draven (adc)- Aphromoo and his "legendary" Draven. Although he had made a debut with him in other tournaments, this time it did not prevail. Maybe in the losers bracket it may prove to be different. Evelynn (mid) - Despite recent nerfs especially to Deathfire Grasp--an item considered core on her--Moscow 5 still used her and managed to do exceptionally well. Proving that she is still indeed a decent champion that should not be considered "nerfed into the ground"
Zilean (mid) - Tried again by Moscow 5 but unfortunately lost.
Master Yi (mid) - Played by Moscow 5 proving their very unorthodox, yet effective picks are still effective if even in closer cases or specific match ups. Riven (mid) - A very peculiar pick that throws the team composition for a loop. Tried out by underdog Meat Playground and proved unsuccessful. Unique and uneffective.


Note worthy: In group stages, Blue side won 14/20 matches for a 70% win rate. In the few winners brackets stages that were played, it was 50%. Well that's all I'm going to spoil for today. Please continue watching throughout the rest of the weekend at http://www.ign.com/ipl/league-of-legends
Thanks for reading!

November Update

November Update:

Well it's about that time of the year again. Luckily for us, this website is somewhat self-sustaining. We have been affiliated with Google ads for a while now. You viewers are probably the reason this website is self-sustaining. That is to say nothing has come out of pocket, yet.

So as for Snow-Covered Swamp, I realize that when I made this website, I was largely into Magic: the Gathering. Slowly after the release of Dark Ascension-M13 I've slowly began losing interest in this game. It's actually quite an amazing game, but sometimes you just drift away from it. I mean I'm an official Rules Advisor and would still play this game casually but as for running drafts, FNM's, and memorizing buy/sell list prices... well I will undoubtedly be back again--the game and it's overall changing meta is just too good to not play.

Which is why in discussing the future of Snow Covered Swamp, Lolzor and I have decided to try and take a new direction with this website. Since normally we can only hold onto one game at a time--that is to say completely obsess over in the sense we know the game inside and out--the website might see a change or crossover into a couple of games. I have been playing League of Legends for a while now, but just recently decided to go all tryhard over it.

As for Lolzor, I've actually been impressed with his recent game-hopping and still managing to keep active in all games. Variations are World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Dungeon Defenders, The Ship, Amnesia, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, etc. So we might see several more posts about that.

Bangchuckers #14

This week delve deep into the minds of the BC! crew. This is basically how me and Bit do every week's comic. Feel no sorrow for us though we slave tirelessly to bring you joy we don't praise or accolades...just your money. Oh and I think Azyzl does some work too.


Related Cards:
Azyzl's Food

10k views + RCotD #209

Random Card of the Day #209:

Samite Alchemist - 3W
Creature - Human Cleric
{W}{W}, {T}: Prevent the next 4 damage that would be dealt this turn to target creature you control. Tap that creature. It doesn't untap during your next untap step.
0/2

Initial Thoughts:


I figure I had to make a post for something signifying we made 10,000 views here on SCS. Somewhat of an achievement for us--and I'm sorry we didn't have cards this week for MUCMonday.

As for this card, it reminds me of one of my older favorite cards: Hallowed Healer. Particularly expensive with it's activation cost, though less effective than a consistent 2 with potential 4 without any costs and it comes with the fact you can't prevent damage to players.

It's an interesting card but I don't really see it used outside of Limited, at all. It just weighs down your mana.

Constructed: 1/5
Limited: 2/5

Bangchuckers #13

YAAAARRRRR HAAARRRRRRR....ahh fuck it I'm too tired and my voice hurts. Sorry for the late comic, we had just a short delay and I worked and such but I think I made it just before the midnight mark.

But...Its the conclusion of the wellwisher comic! YAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYYAY! the first one was called wish granted....but fuck you I didnt notice...YOU LIKE ON TIME COMICS RIGHT??? Thats what I thought...ok time to end this article I'm getting belligerent. (ps it was talk like a pirate day...hence the intro. I love you all).



Relevant cards!
Lightning bolt
Consume the Meek
and everything from last comic


Damn I love these alt universe comics....we always look so badass.

See you next time!

MUCMonday #31

Making Up Cards Monday #31:

Welcome back to another segment of MUCMonday. Getting right back into the swing of things, here are this week's cards:

But as a note before you read the cards

We were really lazy in making names.

Really, really lazy.









Blueski Duski Ultimatum - UUURRGG
Instant
You may choose new targets for target spell.
Copy target spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
Put a token that’s a copy of a nonlegendary creature onto the battlefield.














Golgari Blue Ultimatum - GGGUUBB
Instant
Exile any number of target nontoken, nonland permanents you control.
Exile the top X cards of your library, where X is the number of permanents you exiled this way. Put any number of them onto the battlefield. For each card not put onto the battlefield this way, destroy target nonland permanent.














Japan Ultimatum - WWWBBRR
Instant
Each player sacrifices three lands. Then each player loses life equal to number of land cards in their graveyard.
Exile up to three target creatures.















Libray Ultimatum - BBBGGWW
Instant
Destroy all creatures. Then for each creature destroyed this turn, each player puts a 1/1 green saproling onto the battlefield.
You gain life equal to number of creatures put into the graveyard this turn.














USA Ultimatum - RRRWWUU
Instant
If you would take damage this turn, you may instead prevent that damage. If you do, choose an opponent. That player takes twice as much damage as you prevented this turn.
Exchange life totals with target player.

WWTTRTIP

What we think RtR is pushing:

At this point I'm just doing acronym thing to piss Lolzor off. So this week we are going to talk about what meta's exist, and what meta's they are trying to be pushing for.

So let's see what kind of a list we can make.
G/W tokens
R/U Counterburn
G/B Golgari
Suicide black
Monored
Monogreen
Monoblue
Monowhite

Obviously there are one of every color and probably an artifact shift for each of these, but in general. I missed a whole bunch but let's take a look at all of these.

Ravnica is known for the two-color guilds. Each one obviously has their own flavor.

Ever since Innistrad, Wizards has been pushing for an aggro meta--as evident by the removal (non-reprinting) of Mana Leak and Day of Judgement. Monored Burn is always thrown a bone every set so it's never particularly amazing in standard. The closest that they had last time was with Lightning Bolt in Standard. It's not a particular one that is fun to play again, since your success with the deck largely determined by your opening hand.

Monoblue is largely the opposite. (Go figure, red and blue are enemies.) It encourages stalemates and dragging out to the long game. Low cost defensive spells and high cost win spells. Obviously best supported with Black or White, the two allied colors of blue. Once again, wizards doesn't encourage this style of play, but blue is always thrown a bone every set. They'd like to prevent another Mind Sculptor.

Monogreen and monowhite are the most "encouraged" by wizards. Any Timmy loves this too. Big dudes or lot's of moderate soldier dudes swinging at you. Somewhat looked down upon by more experienced players as it's strategy is very straightforward. Draw swing cast. Oldest strategy and still surprisingly effective.

Although since Innistrad, G/W Tokens has made some shows. Maybe not as much as Delver of Secrets but still seen. With the new mechanic Populate, we might see more of these played. At least until one particular deck begins to dominate.

Red-blue counterburn. A personal favorite of mine. This is not really a deck, but it somehow gets revived every once in a while--creating it's own Archetype. Way back when there was Kiln Fiend. It wasn't called RU Counterburn. It was called Kiln Fiend, because that card was insane. Since Delver and Snapcaster came out, it also has seen a lot of play. It's not a particular archetype as mentioned earlier but it combines highly efficient cards with direct-to-the-dome damage. I don't know the cards in particular, but I know Lolzor mentioned some spoilers of very efficient "counterburn" cards. Also with the return of the Izzet guild, we are definitely going to see this be more prevalent.

Golgari. Lolzor's personal favorite. Once again, not really a deck and more of something that makes its own archetype. Returning with Golgari guild in Ravnica. We might see more, but I know not as much information on this as Lolzor.

Me and Lolzor didn't really talk a lot last night but this was the basic gyst of we wanted to say. It's a bit rushed and not as thought as we liked, but we hope you enjoy it.

So I'm excited...

New planeswalker. G/B. And she looks fucking awesome.
In my opinion she is the first true pw of those colors (Garruk was cool and all but more the flavor of the set than the colors).
For those who don't know I'm a heavy jund player, and I started play in green black. So obviously I was super excited to hear about a planeswalker...excited but hesitant. Usually golgari things end up being over costed or under powered in my opinion. She seems for sure playable and strong in a few formats.

Let's review her shall we?

Cost- 3GB
ok so 5 cost, kinda mana intensive...a bit more than your average planeswalker but over all not a deterrent. (no like Nicol Bolas price)

First ability  +1
Ok so I really like this ability its a plus 1 so its a standard growth and its insane self protection you an just ping away at her, you cant full swing at her, and if you send ur bigger guy he is gone. You basically profit no matter what.

Second ability -3
Simple and effective. higher than a normal cost but its an intense ability to have on repeat. good utility something that truly appeals to me

Final -7
Annnnndddddd a solid final move. 3 1/1's that instant win...pretty insane. Yea they are squish and vunerable but high risk high reward could be killer (HAHA GET IT?) in edh. Very in color and not too expensive for a 3rd ability.

Final thoughts

She isnt broken, she isnt terrible. She is a good pw.

Coming in at 5 counters is nice, repeatable spot removal is good, her plus one is nice if not only a little meh because it only saves her. her final is definatly worth its cost but does have to be set up a bit.
Nothing ground breaking but i think very good and may be seeing some play depending on the rest of the set.


Im sure Sefah will come in and tell me how wrong I am but too bad!


(this may be a little awkwardly formatted and typoy cuz im writing this on my phone...at work...at 8 in the morning...but I hope little shit like this can make up a bit for the lack of content as of late)

Bangchuckers! #12

Bangchuckers bro?
This week we have me and bit's 3 year addiction League of Legends! The comic derives from a superstitious I have about one of the skins you can purchase for a character in the game. I lose every game against it...


Lolbro?


Related Cards:
...too lazy to think

also I've started hosting the comic over at http://bangchuckers.thecomicseries.com/ in addition to here...should improve the quality of the pics over here at SCS. Yay!

MUCMonday #30

Making Up Cards Monday #30:

Welcome back to another segment of MUCMonday. Getting right back into the swing of things, here are this week's cards:















Counterspite - UUB
Instant
Until end of turn, if a card would be put into a graveyard, exile it instead.
Counter target spell.

An interesting card. Kind of like Dissipate only it lasts the whole turn.













Obelisk of Thought - 2UU
Enchantment
When Obelisk of Thought enters the battlefield put a thought counter on two target lands.
1U: Put a thought counter on target land.
Lands with thought counters have “T: Add U to your mana pool.” and “At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. You may put it at the bottom of your library.”
When Obelisk of Thought is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, look at the top X cards of target player’s library, where X is the number of thought counters on the battlefield. Exile one of those cards face down, then put the rest on the top or bottom of the library in any order. You may look at and play that card for as long as it remains exiled.

So many words, you just have to read it.







Ripster - 2WU
Creature - Shark
Battle cry
Devour 2
All other sharks and fish have "{U}{U}: Turn this card face down. It’s a 2/2 creature."
Face down creatures you control get +2/+0 and are unblockable.
3/4

A silly card the Bitlo was supposed to make entire cycle out of. But he's off doing other things and this is the only one he did. Enjoy.











Well that's all the cards we're showing this week, come back next week for more cards.

Fancy as fuck

I got this fancy new smart phone with a blogger app...imma try and post more random mtg stuff from the road to fill some of this void

MUCMonday #29

Making Up Cards Monday #29:

Welcome back to another segment of MUCMonday. We didn't get one last week because I was kind of lazy and somewhat busy.

This week won't be much better, because we only have two cards.













Raging Devil - 1RR
Creature - Devil
Whenever Raging Devil attacks, it gains +1/-1 until end of turn.
3/3

Just some common fodder that would be interesting. It's kind of like Bramble Creeper but not as useless.













Soldiers of Life - 4WWWW
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, you gain 1 life for each creature you control.
At the beginning of your end step, put X 1/1 white soldier tokens onto the battlefield where X is your life total.

I'm not sure what Lolzor was on when he thought of this card. He actually wanted this to cost 6 mana. Even at eight mana it flat out wins games. Which, an 8-cost card probably should, but man--the power if this card. Even if this was a sorcery it would be crazy. But for it to be recurring? Geez.











Well that's all we have this week. Somewhat disappointing, yes but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

Bonus time!

Sorry guys I'm a day late on this but for this friday I bring you...EXTRA BANGCHUCKERS!!!!!!
The last panel of this weeks comic leaves Bit...looking a bit preoccupied. This is because me and Bit wrote this with a second ending that didnt quite flow but we thought was funny.

Without further text i present you with Cj's post avacyn day dream

Related cards:
Werewolves! (yes I know I already did this joke....fuck you)


Now dont you people get greedy you here...this wont be regular...

Bangchuckers #11

FFFHHWWWWOOOOSSSSHHHHHH. On the wings of angels this comic arrives!

This comic came out of a silly joke that I kept bringing up about post Avacyn, you know after all the vampires as such were defeated.  I hope you guys enjoy this slightly more lore inspired comic.

P.S. Remember that Odin guy we mentioned in a MUC Monday? Enjoy his cameo as the main character here.

Related...ANGELS! :

OMFGBBQ ANGELS!!!!!

See you soon guys! (I know we are still wonky with our schedule but we will get back promise.)

WWWEIM13

Interesting Play of the Week #23: What we were expecting in M13:

Cards we are glad to see reprinted:

Silklash Spider - Exactly what green needed for the perpetual spirit decks that seem to be dominating. A bit overcosted, but it would've been nice to see a Hurricane as well.
Vampire Nocturness - The already strong Vampire tribe that is slightly outshined by spirits. Vampires are interesting because they deal more damage, but are significantly easier to stopping. Spirits keep coming back with Moorland Haunt. It just needs
Vampire Nighthawk - this card.
Rancor - Another bomb green card. (Lolzor entire childhood in MtG)
Oblivion Ring - Universal white removal that is moderately costed at sorcery-speed. Exactly what is needed.
Acidic Slime - Easily one of the top 100 green cards of all time. Too much value and perfect in green...always want to see this card
Sleep - I'm glad to see this card again. It's a really powerful card that might be somewhat into blue but works really well with aggro decks.
Relinquary Tower - $15 reprint that everyone wanted from Shards. For EDH.
Stuffy Doll - Kind of cool. Maybe Guilty Conscience will get reprinted too. Should be fun with Blasphemous Act.
Rise from the Grave - Classic card for me. Very glad it was reprinted.
Sign in Blood - Suicide black for draw power. I was pretty sad when it rotated out for the first time.
Volcanic Geyser - Instant speed Fireball for an extra R. Well more like Blaze. I am pretty sad Fireball didn't make the cut.
Nicol Bolas - C'mon. Everyone loves this guy. Another chance at getting him.
Elixir of Immortality - Classic general-use for defense. One of the few ways to stop mill decks (how ever far and few they may be between)
Tormod's Crypt - Still no Relic of Progentius, but still useful.
Cycle of Dual Lands - Solid cycle. Very strong in any type of deck. Now quite like the beta dual lands, they got it right this time. And it doesn't require buying any more cards since I have them already.

Special mentions:

Smelt - Why was this card made. It makes Shatter looks like shit. When I first saw Shatter I knew it was overcosted and would never see play. Now atleast they make it costed correctly, but still won't be used.
Giant Scorpion - One of Lolzor's favorite draft cards.
Unsummon - With Vapor Snag rotating out, maybe we can see some interesting decks with this, or maybe it will just stop that stupid blue-white fliers.
Deadly Recluse - Deathtouch spider. Very efficent green card (The green doom blade) also another Lolzor fav.
Prey Upon - Reprinted even though they will cycle out together...but none the less wishful thinking that fight will be come a more common mechanic
Evolving Wilds - Really dumb to have this rotate out at the same time next year as the Innistrad Evolving Wilds. I don't know why Wizards does that--just for Limited?
Battle of Wits - Funny card, barely playable...I'd like to see some interesting decks
Door to Nothingness - Similar to Battle of wits....just silliness

Cards we are upset about being reprinted:

Planar Cleansing - Sefah raging about taking out Day of Judgement. Yeah, it was probably needed, but I like my 8-12 board clear standard deck.
Angel's Mercy and every other Limited fodder that keeps getting reprinted in core sets.
Serra Avatar
Harbor Serpent - another useless Limited fodder. This one in particular gets it's another mention.
Erase - I hate these functional reprint stuff. It's not like it was powerful enough to run two in EDH anyways.




This article was actually a sloppy dual article written by Lolzor and Sefah scrambling typing tidbits at a time. Bonus points if you can pick out who wrote what.

MUCMonday #28

Making Up Cards Monday #28:

Welcome back to another segment of MUCMonday. Getting right back into the swing of things, here are this week's cards:















Clash of the Titans - XGG
Sorcery
Clash with an opponent.
Put an X/X green treefolk token onto the battlefield. If you won the clash, put two X/X’s instead.

When I heard that "clash" was a failed mechanic, I went on a bit of a spree of actually using Clash the way it was intended to be. I think that it is a really good mechanic, there just aren't enough cards that the reward the clash mechanic outweighs the normal cost. For example: Pulling Teeth











Goblin Brigade - (G/R)(G/R)(G/R)(G/R)(G/R)(G/R)
Creature - Goblin
Trample, double strike, haste
3/3

A card that Sean wanted to make. I originally thought that this card was undercosted, but after a while I kind of began to accept that it might even be overcosted.

So here it is.










Super Mitotic Slime - GGGG
Creature - Ooze
Undying
When Super Mitotic Slime dies put two 2/2 ooze tokens with “When this creature dies, put two 1/1 ooze tokens onto the battlefield.”
4/4

I used to Super Mitotic Slime. I thought it was an interesting concept, but never really liked the card. I sold my two copies to Lolzor for a dime each. He has fun with them.

Then the undying mechanic came out, and Lolzor joked about giving Mitotic Slime undying. And so here we are. I fixed it's original "mana cost" problem it had, but added a huge dilemma of it being basically unsplashable. Perfect for green.

It's a shame Undying doesn't work on tokens.




Treason Bounce - URR
Sorcery
Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature, it gains haste until end of turn. At the end of turn, return that creature to its owner’s hand.

Act of Treason + Unsummon. Pretty simple. I liked it.














No crazy cards this week like Altar of Wishes, but nonetheless I hope you enjoyed it. Come back next week for more cards

Bangchuckers! #10

Welcome back! We ave some good ones all ready and saved up for you guys...but this week lets start will a particularly silly comic. This one came heavily from a conversation with Sefah and in like 20 min I wrote a script. No magic related here just weird humor that comes from our group.

Related Cards:

Fruitcake Elemental

Eh eh? Even here I can find something stupid for a related card!

More to come...See you in 2 weeks!

THE FUTURE.....AGAIN....THIS TIME FOR REAL!

Ok guys so we are back and it was amazing the traffic we got yesterday after just one post! Thank you all soooooo much and we are glad to be back. I apologize again for us leaving but for the sake of quality it was the best idea.

A few months ago I posted an article with a bunch of stuff like contact information and ideas for the future, you can find that here. I still really encourage community participation with the site and all the info is there like our email Bangchuckers@snowcoveredswamp.com. Right now though id like to readdress the last part of that article which is the future part so lets get into this.

Bangchuckers!

Alright everyone's favorite webcomic will be continuing with a normal every other week schedule. The reason being that its pretty hard to keep pace with work schedules and such and there havent been any particular complaints about the current working. If you want more voice it. We can be persuaded but there would have to be a strong showing to get us to move to weekly. We love doing BC! but unfortunately its not quite profitable enough for us to really stretch ourselves without our a fan base demanding it. So for now enjoy our webcomic the first one comes back tommorow and will have its home on Wednesday every other week.

MUC Monday

Well not much to say here, MUC Monday is Mondays every week and wont be changing anytime soon.

IPotW

Well here we are...Sefah already touched on this but I'm going to as well. Fridays are changing, why is this? Well simply because the play of the week wasnt working. It was getting too difficult to always find a game to talk about even when we were playing like non stop and we didnt have jobs or classes that really stopped us there just wasnt enough information. So instead we are going to strive for just any article on Friday. It could be and interesting play, or an article regarding a new set or maybe it wont be about MtG at all and itll be about gaming...we don't know but I do promise there will be some article or something interesting to read on Fridays every week.

RCotD

Fuck....we dont know...See random card was fun to do but very demanding and also could get stale at times due to repeats or just vanilla cards....we are working on this segment and when we figure it out we will let you know.


Future stuff

Monday: MUC Monday
Tuesday:
Wednesday: Bangchuckers! (Bi-weekly)
Thursday:
Friday: Articles!
Saturday:
Sunday:


Thats a light schedule...we know. We will be adding more in the coming weeks we just need to figure out what is best for the site and the community. There are ideas floating around, I know I'm still on the podcast idea at least a monthly podcast could happen if we get the tech and the time sorted out.

We are searching for more segments and articles to publish and we could always use your help so feel free to let us know what u wanna read tell us what we should put in those empty days.

Finally I'm going to be doing a little more social networking stuff. Im working on a new temporary logo design but we are trying to find someone to make us a permanent one. We are going to have FB pages soon for both SCS and BC!. I'm contemplating a website over haul...basically everything.

Over the next few days im going to get all the archives up to date and keep them that way. We will be writing all the time to fill the void whether just small shit or posts like this or real articles. I just dont want to promise any consistency because we dont know what we want yet.


Ok....I think that's enough. From the whole crew here at SCS...its good to be back and we are here to stay.

To the future!

MUCMonday #27

Making Up Cards Monday #27:

Hello and welcome back to Snow Covered Swamp. It's been a while since any of our updates, so I wanted to apologize for that. There have been several issues that both me (Sefah) and Lolzor had to deal with.

So to start things off, we have a bit of spare time now, which will explain this week's MUCMonday, but we will not be kicking into full gear yet as we will not be posting RCotD until we are absolutely certain we can handle it. It would be a bit of a shame to only have 3 RCotD a week.

And thus, without any further a due, here are the cards.









Altar of Wishes - 2
Legendary Artifact
Altar of Wishes doesn’t untap during your untap step.
At the beginning of your upkeep remove a fate counter from Altar of Wishes.
Pay 4 life, {T}: Add two fate counters to Altar of Wishes.
As long a Altar of Wishes has a fate counter on it, the “legend rule” and “planeswalker rule” don’t apply.

This card was actually designed by one of my friends. For name's sake, his name was OdinShuffle. Originally we had planned to have a "guest MUCMonday" but we didn't get enough submissions to actually make one. So he gets a shoutout here.









Chaotic Growth - 1GG
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep sacrifice an untapped land. If you do, you may search your library for up to two basic land cards and put them onto the battlefield tapped.

Lolzor was the designer behind. The idea was to have so much mana ramp that it actually thins out your deck, and then later comes back and you have no more lands to pull out so you just begin losing lands. Basically a recurring Harrow for basically the same price.

Although I still think this card is insane ramp (leave it on for three or four turns, Naturalize it) and even if you didn't Naturalize it, you still have 8-11 turns left until you will stop seeing returns on it. If you can't do something with 20+ lands that's probably a deck construction issue.

Originally it was "sacrifice a land" but I wanted it to be less abusable so I made it untapped.





Out of the Fire - RR
Instant
Out of the Fire deals 2 damage to target creature or player. If a creature is dealt damage this way dies, Out of the Fire deals 2 damage to that creature’s controller.
As long as Out of the Fire is in your graveyard, if a creature you control attacks a player, you may pay 2, if you do, put Into the Pan on to the battlefield.
//
Into the Pan - 2
Artifact - Equipment
Whenever equipped creature deals damage to a player, return Into the Pan to your hand and add RR to your mana pool.
{T}: Attach Into the Pan to target creature who attacked this turn.
Equip {2}

The first split card I ever made. Obviously based on the idiom "Out of the fire, into the frying pan" but now it's more of a relatively expensive recurring burn. One of the reasons Punishing Fire was banned in Modern.

I also wanted to make a "crazy" card because most split cards were basically the same. Both side were Sorceries or both sides were Instants. Now it's even more confusing, but still pretty simple. If it's on the stack, it's probably an instant, if it's on the battlefield, it's obviously the Equipment.

Premonition Blade - 3
Artifact - Equipment
Equipped creature is unblockable.
Whenever equipped creatures deals combat damage to a player, you may look at the top card of that player’s library. You may put that card at the bottom of his or her library.
Equip {1}

Another card Lolzor designed. I'm guessing it was based off of Trepanation Blade since it's one of his favorite equipments. Though to be honest, most cards Lolzor design's I'm not a fan of, but put fateseal on a card and I will probably like it. (One of the reasons I prefer Portent of Ponder.)








Well I hope you guys like our "return debut" MUCMonday. We will probably switch out IPotW on Friday's to something else, but stay tuned! There will always be an article on Friday, it just may or may not be a replay or even about Magic: the Gathering. Maybe it will be me and Lolzor complaining about the aggressive meta in Standard right now, or embracing it.

But stay tuned and don't forget to share with your friends that we are back.

It's time

So....we are coming back...tommorow

I apologize...

I should have posted sooner. You might have noticed the lack of content recently, well we are on somewhat of a hiatus. Me and Sefah got really busy as of late and Azyzl has been in the process of moving and getting readjusted. So we decided we are going to take a short break and once we all settle back in to a normal schedule we will start posting normally again.


Im sorry again

-The Snow Covered Swamp Staff

MUCMonday #26

Making Up Cards Monday #26:

For anyone who is keeping up with the blog, I feel this is getting old: but due to the increasing demands of both me and Lolzor's life we may have to stop the RCotD. We are doing our best to keep up with the "big 3" of our website: IPotW's, MUCMonday's, and the updating Bangchuckers! webcomic.

I suppose I could ask Bit to do some of the work, but it seems I've lost basically all contact with him since he moved.

What's even worse, is if you have been reading these excerpts in the beginning of MUCMonday's, you would know that I'm leaving the country soon for a couple of weeks. As such, this may or may not be my last MUCMonday for a while. If it's not the last, it's second-to-last.

Well without further ado here are the cards. You can read the cards and judge them for yourselves:





Derp - 1U
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature cannot attack, block, or use activated abilities.

Basically the flatout better version of Ice Cage. Way undercosted compared to Arrest. Doubt it will ever be printed.

And yes, that is a Han Solo figurine trapped in ice.











Obelisk of Fire - 4RR
Enchantment
When Obelisk of Fire enters the battlefield, put a flame counter on two target lands.
1R: Put a flame counter on target land.
Lands with flame counters on them have “T: Add R to your mana pool.” and “T: Deal 1 damage to target player.”
When Obelisk of Fire is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, remove all flame counters from the game and deal X damage to target creature or player where X is equal to number of flame counters removed this way.












Obelisk of the Sun - 3WW
Enchantment
3W: Put a sun counter on target land.
Lands with a sun counters have “T: Add W to your mana pool.” and “Remove a sun counter: Return target creature to it’s owner’s library. That player then shuffles his or her library.”
When Obelisk of the Sun is put into the graveyard from the battlfield, destroy all creatures with converted mana cost X or less, where X is the number of sun counters on the battlefield.












Finished the Obelisk cycle for you guys. Come to think of it, this set is getting filled up really fast.

WE MAY HAVE A GUEST WEEK FOR MUCMONDAY SOON. FORWARD OR EMAIL ALL OF YOUR IDEAS TO LOLZOR.

MUCMonday #25

Making Up Cards Monday #25:

So yes, SCS has been behind on the RCotD. I will start typing this one out and do an IPotW due to increased downtime. I also miss saying this:

Either way, you can read the cards and judge them for yourselves.













Breeding Grounds - 2GGG
Enchantment
All creatures you control have “At the beginning of your end step, if this creature becomes blocked and is not a token, you may put a copy of this creature as a token onto the battlefield.

Lolzor had the idea for this one. He really liked Doubling Chant but wanted something to be pertually "breeding". So we came up with this card, but disagreed on the mana cost.

I insisted on something this powerful should be at least 6 mana, yet if it hit 6 mana, the card would be worthless.

So we upped the mana intensivity (is that a word?) to lower the cost.








Lord of Demons - 4BBB
Legendary Creature - Demon
Flying
During your upkeep, if you control a Demon other than Lord of Demons, you may destroy target non-Demon creature. Otherwise, tap Lord of Demons and it deals 7 damage to you.
7/7

A Lord of the Pit/Reaper from the Abyss

Benefit: you don't have to trigger Morbid. Downside: sacrificing creatures. Possibly Eldrazi Spawn









Sanctity Offering - 1W
Instant
Destroy target enchantment. You gain life equal to its converted mana cost.

Basically an enchantment version of Divine Offering. I wasn't being very creative here.

IPotW #24

Interesting Play of the Week #24:

This week I will be typing up a game that I had in a new format I have discovered: Vanguard - Momir.

If you are unfamiliar with it Vanguard works like baby-EDH. Momir specifically is you only play with the Avatar Momir Vig, Simic Visionary. Go ahead click that link. Read the card and realize how crazy this format is.

You play with a deck of 60 basic lands. No creature-lands. No dual-lands. Though I'm pretty sure snow-lands are allowed. I don't think they will ever come up though.

I suppose it's not very important to tell what the starting hands are, simply because they are all lands.

T1: Mountain
T2: Mountain
T3: Mountain, Ringskipper
T4: Mountain, Stromgald Crusader
T5: Swamp, swing for 1
T6: Mountain, swing for 2, Teferi's Honor Guard
T7: Forest, swing for 1
T8: Mountain, Mind Maggots, swing for 4
T9: Forest, Pestilent Souleater
T10: Swamp, Hyalopterous Lemure, swing for 2
T11: Swamp, The Lady of the Mountain, swing for 3.
T12: Mountain, Angel of Fury, activate Lemure's ability, swing for 3.
T13: Mountain, Supreme Exemplar. I don't have an Elemental to Champion, so it dies.
T14: Mountain, activate Lemure, swing for 6, Duskdale Wurm. (Life 7-19)
T15: Mountain, last ditch effort: Boom. Avacyn, Angel of Hope.
T16: Mountain, Angel of Salvation.
T17: Swamp, Thing from the Deep, swing for 8, he activates Stromgald Crusader and blocks Avacyn for no damage. Main phase 2: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.

Now there wasn't very much he could do now, he was going to win the game through fliers but then I got two lucky draws in a row. I would say about 60% of my games end this way, and most of the time it's because someone drew a Platinum Angel/Platinum Emperion. We play out a couple more turns as I beat him down with my now 10/10 indestructible Avacyn before he concedes.

The Avatar of Momir itself costs about $10, but you can get it off humans for about $9 if you look around and trade. It's a really chaotic format where you lose games you should have won and win games you should have lost. It's lots of fun, and I would estimate it's about 60% skill and 40% luck. Which is pretty significant in a supposedly "all luck format".

Well I hope you enjoyed today's IPotW, maybe I'll do another Momir later, but the same thing happens every good game of Momir.

Cube Hell #2

<_< sorry guys...we dropped the ball.