[Flash!]: 3 Reasons why Expedition Envoy is underrated

Okay, I admit. When this card first came out, I was really disappointed. This is no Hada Freeblade... This is just... an Elite Vanguard.. The was the problem as a player who wants to break Ally into the Modern Format. Ally tribe, though versatile, is deemed to be its best when implementing an aggro strategy. (I'll discuss more of this in the coming articles.) Hence, having another set of 1-drop that is actually playable, makes a lot of difference in the first 3 turns of damage calculation.

Complicated Love Triangle. Expedition Envoy was Elite Vanguard, retired, and slapping an Ally subtype to fight the Eldrazis. By no means Hada Freeblade, but hey, they may meet each other somehow I guess?

So being disappointed as I was, I overlooked this card for several months. It was only during a deck editing session, and seeing this decklist taking down top 8, that I rediscovered this card. Though I was skeptical and hesitant, I went ahead and tried a playset in the deck. The results were shocking. Here's what I discovered, summarised to 3 reasons, regarding the power of Expedition Envoy.

1. The only Ally that can trump Hada Freeblade in terms of damage out-put in the first 2 turns. Look, I get you. She is no Hada Freeblade, and she will always dies to EVERYTHING. That lousy excuse aside, having her down in turn 1 and getting ready to attack in turn 2 onwards, it just shows her power level as an aggressive cards. I had an old article talking about the difference of a 1/3, 2/2 and 3/1 body in limited and that they all have their uses depending on the deck. Here in an aggressive strategy, having a 2/1 body would be better than a 1/2 body. Likewise, a 2/1 will always trump a 1/1 body.
   
   
   Make sense?
   
   
   Now to shorten all the possible maths involved, we just have to compare the damage output on the next turn both Expedition Envoy and Hada Freeblade; Expedition Envoy leads by a single point of damage if Hada Freeblade missed an ETB trigger that turn (Hada ETBs as a 1/2). It is only two turns that Hada Freeblade takes the lead in both damage and survivability. Sure I will agree that in later games, Hada Freeblade will take the cake as the stronger one-drop.
   
   
2. Elite Vanguard has seen his share of competitive play in white weenie decks, which are essentially aggro decks. This is a relative comparison to the power level in competitive scene. An essential 2/1 vanilla creature at one drop is deemed powerful enough to see play in aggro decks. My point here is that having an exact duplicate of Elite Vanguard, with an "Ally" subtype sticked to it, it is really a no-brainer and no excuse for aggro strategy Ally decks not use it.
   
   
3. Ally is all about ETB triggers. It's all about the trigger. Ticking up the Aether Vial, or saving the mana to cast more Allys to Rally the tribe is really crucial to trigger off the tribe's synergy and combat tricks. Having her at one mana really makes a difference in spending and conserving mana. Especially in the midgames where it does make a difference in having one or two triggers in that turn to finish the game. 

2016. The attack plan

• I purposely skipped BFZ set as it is underwhelming and Overhyped. IMO.
• I am on hiatus on MTG as long as I have last posted. 

So what's next?

My new plan for 2016: Build back up my collection and get more involved in PROPER trading. When I used the term "proper", I meant that the trading I will involve myself is having an end goal of expanding my collection of EDH and Modern staples, and at the same time, it's time to cash out from this. So, here is my plan of attack for MTG this year:

1. I have decided (finally) on two extra 3 D-Ring Binders to hold my Modern and EDH staples, which those, are not for trade unless for really specific reasons like staple-to-staple trading or up-value trading. 
2. My current binder is left for the same purpose, as a trade binder. I'll be using that for most of my trades and will primarily be carrying that around for trades.
3. I'm opening up a land binder, which caters to EDH and Modern primarily, but actual fact, it will be open for any formats. This is a move I learnt from my friend after thinking through the uses of a land binder
4. The current 4x4 binder will be used to store my holding value cards, which I intend to sell them of after X amount of years or when the price spike. So, basically it's a store-and-forget kind of binder.
5. So what about bulk rares? I am still contemplating on that, but likely I'll put a closure to that aspect of trading as it is too time consuming and too much work to update the list every other week. In most cases, the work just breaks down. I have to be more efficient. I'll KIV on this, but at the moment, I won't be continuing bulk rare trading.
6. I'm still on PucaTrade and Deckbox and will continue to trade there. But, I'm only looking to trade into EDH and Modern Staples as targets.
7. I'm rebooting my excel spreadsheet by logging every trade I'll be doing this year! Time to get organised and stick to it! Also, time to log in an inventory of the cards I have. A major time sink, but it had to be done to get organised.
8. Great regret but, I'll probably only be posting and updating the blog as and when I can. I cannot maintain this blog without any passive income and this year is a busy year for me. I'll leave the blog open as a mark of whatever I have accomplished as a journey milestone. Maybe when I am able to get a passive income, I'll come back to blog. Maybe switch over to YouTube to do videos? I'm thinking of doing something that analyse cards in decks or something on the line that does critical analysis? I still have yet to find a niche spot to focus on, so at the moment now, I'll just stick to trading and play for the bulk of my time.

3 Reasons to why the revised banned list on 18 Jan 2016 is a stupid move

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-18-2016-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2016-01-18

1. Splinter Twin is a definitive deck in modern that kept a lot of decks in check from going rampant, and at the same time allowed a fair amount of decks to rise above it if they are good enough. Personally, I feel that it is decks like Burn and AFFINITY actually hinders the format more. Actually, it is more of the mindset of the people that hinders the format. Not just the card.
2. The loss of 2 meta decks at one go is a kill buzz for modern fans. It's a rejoice for most people who hated the deck. But, on the fair side, killing off 2 decks in a single banning really makes me think that if I should even play top tier decks when the risk of banning my key cards for "diversity and consistency" reasons.
3. Meta shift. The recent uprising of the Eldrazi decks and the loss of Twin and Amulet bloom decks is a very drastic change to the meta shift. No, it's not a fresh breath of air actually. It's just another deck, once proven, is going to dominate the meta like Jund, Affinity, etc. It's not really giving the diversity Wizards hoped for and with TRON and Eldrazi decks running in the same idea of unfair mana acceleration, I'm betting on one of these two decks getting banned soon and again, we go back to point 2.