I vividly remember my first go at the MKII Arcade cabinet. It was in a local bowling alley, and I recall plunking a few quarters in just testing out the various characters and how they handled. I’d check the instructional cheat sheet, bang out a few combos or special moves, then die to choose a new player (of course we all know Mileena is the best <3, with room for your personal favorites coming after that acknowledgment).
That’s not dissimilar to how we’ll be approaching this either; the idea is to cycle or evoke a plethora of creatures to load up our graveyard.
We’ll detail the cards comprising those main categories below, but these deserve special attention:
•Stitcher's Supplier makes the cut because he’s an extremely efficient way to flip stuff into the graveyard. There is very little risk of sending something there that we really would rather have in hand immediately; anything important can be recalled to hand later with other spells/abilities, and if 3 copies of the same card are milled then…learn to shuffle? I don’t know what else to tell you.
•Vampire Hexmage is one of the rarities we want in hand or in play, and not in the dustbin. If she finds her way there, wait to ‘rechurn’ her to hand later once we’re ready to close out the game.
•Moon-Blessed Cleric is a backup plan of sorts to secure our wincon if we haven’t yet drawn it and Lost Auramancers was extracted or otherwise a non-option. Think of it like the lone emergency quarter you’d wedge between the arcade cabinet and the marquee placard in case that fat lard behind you at the pinball machine accidentally hip checks you into an untimely defeat—plunk it quickly before that Continue…? countdown reaches 0!
The Cyclers Show
•
Street Wraith cycles with life instead of mana, but don’t get greedy. Be sure that
Gnaw to the Bone is in hand or waiting to be
Flashbacked before accidentally putting your own health bar into the critically low
red.
•Lurching Rotbeast and Horror of the Broken Lands can technically be played in case of emergency, but 99% of the time you’ll be looking to cycle them. One is cheap and a non issue as far as costs are concerned.