Well, let's see here. That big hulking thing with the large, blunt, beating object you see is Cal's avatar. Ladies, try to control yourselves...at least until you see my avatar (wink, wink).
Ok, ok...enough kidding around, time to get down to business. What you most likely don't understand from this strip are the cards that are mentioned (Blastoderm, Skizzik, and Saproling Burst) and this "Fires" thing that Cal mentions. Let me start off with the cards.
During the reign of the Masques Cycle (Mercadian Masques, Nemesis, and Prophecy expansion sets), Blastoderm pretty much ruled the land as being the best creature in the format. For a measly four mana, you got a 5/5, untargetable beast (untargetable means that spells and creature abilities that affect one or more specific cards - instead of all cards or all of a certain card type - cannot even think about touching the untargetable creature). The only drawback to the mighty Blastoderm was that he had something called Fading, which was caused a creature to come into play with a certain number of Fading counters (Good ol' Blasty has 3). During the beginning of each turn, you were required to take one of these counters off of the Fading creature. When you could no longer take a counter away, the creature died. Even though he had a built-in death sentence, Blastoderm could deal a significant amount of damage before going away. Oh yeah, some moron also decided that this card was obviously not good enough as it was, so it was made a common! Yes, that's right, just about anyone could go and buy a couple of packs of Nemesis, and expect to see one of these guys.
Skizzik is a re-worked and balanced version of the older card Ball Lightning, which I will not waste space explaining. Skizzik, however, I will explain. For five mana, Skizzik is a 5/3 with Haste and Trample. Haste is the ability for the creature to attack and tap (tapping activates special abilities, and is also required for attacking. in general, cards can only tap once per turn) the turn it comes into play, which it normally cannot do. Trample is a more complicated ability, which essentially lets no damage be wasted as a result of creature combat. The best way to understand Trample is through an example: Say you have a 3/3 creature without Trample, and you attack. Your opponent decides to block with his 1/1. Your creature deals sufficient damage to kill your opponent's creature; but essentially, it only took 1 point of your creature's power to kill your opponent's. If your creature did have Trample, however, it would deal the one point of damage necessary to kill your opponent's creature, and then still have the capability to deal two more points of damage to something; so that damage "spills over" to your opponent. I know that definition may be somewhat confusing, so if you are still confused, e-mail me and I'll try to help you. Anyway, back to Skizzik. The downside to Skizzik is that it dies at the end of the turn it comes into play. But wait - the plot thickens. Skizzik is one of those wonderful Kicker creatures that I explained before. Skizzik's Kicker requires one red mana, and if it is paid, Skizzik remains in play, and doesn't have to go away at the end of the first turn he comes into play.
Saproling Burst is a Fading enchantment that comes into play with seven Fading counters. You may opt to remove any number of those counters at any time you wish to put into play an equal number of token creatures. Token creatures are creatures that come into play by some other means, such as the result of a spell, and are not represented by an actual card in play but by a counter, in this case the ones you removed from Saproling Burst. Saproling Burst gives you a number of token creatures equal to the number of counters you removed, and with power/toughness each equal to the number of counters still remaining on Saproling Burst. This allows you to get more creatures into play by simply expending one card. This is part of the concept referred to as "card advantage" which will be explained at a later time.
The last thing to explain is what Cal was referring to when he mentioned "Fires". Fires is the name of the VERY popular deck which exploited Green's ability to produce a great deal of mana very quickly. It did so with the card Fires of Yavimaya, which is an enchantment which allows all of your creatures to attack on the turn they come into play. This extra turn of attacking was often just enough to cripple any deck very early, and it was very possible for Fires to win by turn four or five. Look at it this way: with Fading and all, Blastoderm (which was a Fires player's best friend) could do a maximum of 15 damage to an opponent. But with Fires of Yavimaya out, the Blastoderm gains an extra turn of attacking, and thus can deal 20 damage by turn four, enough to kill your opponent all by himself. This deck was so good that most people either played it, or something designed solely to beat it.
Well, that's it for today. If you're still confused about something, or if you have any questions/comments/concerns, or just wanna talk, feel free to e-mail me.
