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Ok, so this is a bit late, but you’ll live. Below is an account of my games. I took pretty good notes so I was able to recall most of the action. So instead of a lengthy introduction I’m just going to jump right in. If you want to see my pool and my deck you can find them HERE and HERE. Round 1 VS BJ The thing I remember about BJ is that his deck had some very interesting card choices. He had a main deck Embergale which is not that terrible of a card, but he also had a main deck Fossil Find which I thought was a tad bit odd. When I asked him about the it after the match he said he had had some success with the card, but I’m still a bit skeptical. Game 1 I played a turn 3 Thistledown Duo and turn 4 Safehold Duo and then proceded to play green, white, and blue spells that pumped the them and the game was over in short order. BJ attempted to put up a fight with an early Safehold elite, but put it on top of his library with Aether Tow and instead of playing it again he tried a Scuzzback Marauders which I chump blocked a few times. He didn’t really see much action this game, but my draw was really good even if he had. I brought in Barrenton Cragtreads and Tattermunge Duo because he was playing forests and red dudes. I took out my other hybrid hill giant and duo. Game 2 BJ mulliganed once and didn’t play anything until turn 3 when he played a Giantbaiting. I played a Devoted Druid into a turn 3 Safehold Duo on turn 3. On turn 4 BJ played Fossil find getting back the Giantbaiting, and then attack me with another 4/4, which I took. Over the next few turns I kept adding attackers and he couldn’t keep deal with them all. When I played a Silkbind Faerie he scooped them up. 1-0, 2-0 At this point most of my group was doing well with only two of us losing in the first round. So I was feeling good when I sat down to play the next round. Round 2 VS Andy From what I gathered from conversation Andy had a Round 1 bye which didn’t bother me as much as you might think. I generally prefer to play against better players, and I think a lot better than my rating reflects, that might just be my ego, but I think I’m a 1750-1800 limited player I just do most of my playing in unsanctioned events. Game 1 This was the single longest game I played all day long. My life total changed 19 times so the game was at least 20 turns long. Andy was playing the most annoying deck I had ever played against. He played a turn 2 Trip Noose, into turn 3 Augury Adept, into turn 4 Silkbind Faerie, and had to spend several turn doing nothing, but making sure that he didn’t get too far ahead with the Adept. I finally go a Silkbind Faerie of my own and then put some pressure on with a Scuzzback Maruader. The Marauder traded with a few dudes and got in some damage on its way out. Then I played a huge Howl of the Night Pack, and followed it up with a Godhead of Awe and thought for sure I was going to pull it out. I had a major creature advantage and all of our dooders were on the same footing. So I began swinging in with enough guys to be threatening, but still keeping enough back to keep him from cracking back and killing me at my very low life total. Then he ripped and slammed a Valley Maker on the table. I wasn’t too worried at first because he didn’t seem to have any mountains, but it turns out that the add GGG to you mana pool is a targeted ability. A few turns of me not being able to find a way to deal with the extra mana and I was dead. I brought in the same cards as before, for the same reasons. Game 2 This game was just an old fashioned race. I started with a Mistmeadow Skulk, and added Tattermunge Duo, and was getting in damage off of the protection ability and the forestwalk. I was pretty far ahead on life when I played a decently sized Howl and cracked in to bring him down to 4. I was at 18 and figured that I’d locked up the game when, and this is something I should’ve learned from, he laid a Runes of the Deus on a R/G dooder and I was suddenly at 5 life. He also had an active Barrenton Medic with no -1/-1 counters on it to keep me from killing him. It was a little disappointing to be so close both games and still not be able to get there. However, the games were a lot of fun and if every game I played was like that it was sure to be an enjoyable day. 1-1, 2-2 Round 3 VS Steve My notes for this round are terrible, but I do remember some things. Like Steve mentioning that he had misbuilt his pool. Which was a little comforting, but sometimes people are talking about maybe one card when they say stuff like that so I didn’t get too excited. Game 1 Started with him attacking me with some R/G dooders and me chump blocking as I built up my lands and then made seven 2/2s with Howl. I have his life total recorded as 10, 6, 4. It was a pretty boring game, but I’ll take it. Game 2 More of the same, though I had expected more because he did side in like 9 cards, he got me all the way down to 2 life then I Howled and followed it with a Godhead. He spent a few turns trying to draw a burn spell to finish me, but didn’t get there. 2-1, 4-2 Round 4 VS a different Steve I really don’t remember anything about these games at all. From what little I have written down he played a few small dudes and turned them sideways game one and I just had bigger and better threats, including Howl and Godhead. In game from what I can tell all I did was play a big Howl and it was good enough. I appologize from not having better notes. 3-1, 6-2 Round 5 VS Ryan These games I remember vividly, because they were close and I got very loose near the end of them. Ryan was also one of the nicest people I played against all day so the match was very fun to play. Game 1 I open with Devoted Druid, into turn 3 Wicker Warcrawler, and have a way to deal with everything he puts in front of it for a long time. I think he probably kept a sub par hand, but this was the only game we played that was easy for either of us. Game 2 I opened on an Elvish Hexhunter and Ryan didn’t play anything until turn 3 when he played a Gloomwidow. This is where my play starts to get loose, on my turn 3 I play a Warcrawler, thanks to a Devoted Druid, but don’t attack with my Hexhunter because I forgot that Gloomwidiows can’t block on the ground. It was only a point, but stuff like that can add up. On his turn he killed my Warcrawler and bashed me. My hand was running out of action because I couldn’t come up with more white sources. I manage to trade with his spider, but he just has more pressure manages to get me. Game 3 This game was very tight and I just punted it away. We both started pretty slow with me making only an Elsewhere Flask and Farhaven Elf in the first 3 turn. All Ryan mustered was a Pili-Pala. On turn 4 I played a Scuzzback Marauder and was able to turn it into some damage and take out some dudes. The board stalled for a while until he played a big dooder of his own, a Scuzzback, but I followed it up with 7 Howl tokens and a Safehold Duo. Over he next couple of turns I attacked him down to 8 with my tokens and he made more dooders while drawing cards with Illuminated Folio. On my last turn I untapped with a Farhaven Elf, Safehold Duo, and 5 tokens with him on 8 life and 3 blockers. I do the math and I can’t kill him with what’s on the table, but I’m sitting on 16 life and feel pretty good about my chances of winning. In my hand I have a Manamorphose and a Presence of Gond, and I know my attack will kill one of his dooders. So I simply send everyone, but the elf and take him down to two. In my second main phase I play Manamorphose and draw . . . Somnomancer . . . Wow what a bone headed play. I play it out and put the presence on my elf. He untaps, puts Runes of the Deus on a Morselholder and Swings in for 21. There was no reason for me to lose that game at all. Any reasonable player would’ve just played the Manamorphose before they attack just to see the top card. And afterwards I counted how many cards in my deck would just have won me the game. I had 5 cards that just won me the game right then and there, and 1 that would’ve kept him from killing me. I felt so terrible, but I was still in the running to make day two. 3-2, 7-4 Round 6 VS Matt I was never really in either of these games. I also have no notes except Kithkin Sheild-Dare FTW scarwled over the top of game one life totals. Matt had seen me beat someone up with Howl of the Night Pack a few rounds earlier and cringed when I played Elsewhere Flask, but other than that I don’t remember much. I was still pretty upset about the last round. 3-3, 7-6 After that I dropped and went to get dinner with my buddies and look for block decks. Which brings me to my favorite story of the whole trip which I’ll cover sometime tomorrow or maybe the day after. Until next time. Bob
Tags: Magic Sealed Limited
Yesterday I posted up my card pool and today I’ll go over my deck, a few other possibilities, and my matches. For those of you who didn’t see the pool yet you can find it HERE, for the rest of you here is the deck I played. 1 Elvish Heexhunter 2 Devoted Druid 1 Somnomancer 1 Mistmeadow Skulk 1 Silkbind Faerie 1 Thistledown Duo 1 Plumeveil 1 Farhaven Elf 1 Scuttlemutt 1 Raven’s Run Dragoon 1 Safehold Duo 1 Scrapbasket 1 Godhead of Awe 1 Scuzzback Marauders 1 Wicker Warcrawler 1 Aether Tow 1 Curse of Chains 1 Manamorphose 1 Tower Above 1 Presence of Gond 1 Howl of the Night Pack 1 Elsewhere Flask 9 Plains 7 Forest 1 Sapseep Forest I chose this build for a few reasons. First off it let me play only 17 lands. The general rule of thumb in sealed is to play 18 lands because the games are slower and you want to be able to cast your big spells. With three mana producing dooders, and another that fetches them I was able to cut it down to 17. For awhile I considered to play only 16, but in the end I didn’t have the courage. Secondly it let me only play two kinds of lands. When you have to win 7-8 rounds on day one making yourself immune to mana screw is good. While I didn’t go the whole day without mana issues I certainly did a lot better than average. I heard a mana screw story almost every round. The only mana problems I ever run into was getting to the fifth white source for a Godhead of Awe, and that only happened a few times. Lastly I really wanted to play Howl of the Night Pack. That card is just bonkers and because of it I think I may have mis-built and played Green when I didn’t really need to. With an Elsewhere Flask I think I can safely play it without having any Forests in my deck. I know that makes the card dead without the Flask, but I only lost one game all day in which I cast this spell and I was too far behind at that point for it to matter. Which leads me into the deck I think is correct for this pool, though I still could be off a little. 1 Oona’s Gatewarden 1 Somnomancer 1 Wasp Lancer 1 Plumeveil 1 Silkbind Faerie 1 Scuttlemutte 1 Corrosive Mentor 1 Faerie Macabre 1 Scrapbasket 1 Wanderbrine Rootcutters 1 Loch Korrigan 1 Godhead of Awe 1 Cultbrand Cinder 1 Isleback Spawn 1 Midnight Banshee 1 Elsewhere Flask 1 Howl of the Night Pack 1 Corrupt 1 Aethertow 1 Torrent of Souls 1 Curse of Chains 1 Consign to Dreams 10 Islands 8 Swamps This deck is very slow, but chock full of bomb cards. Godhead, Banshe, Howl, and can threaten huge life swings with big Corrupts. It also packs a pile of super annoying creatures and some removal to hopefully get you to the late game where your bombs will take over. This deck is a bit more greedy than the other one, but also a good deal more powerful I think. Let me know what you guys think. I was going to write about my games, but I ran out of time tonight so I’ll try and get it to tomorrow. I have the day off work so chances are good that I will have all the time I need. For now I’m just beat and I have to a lot of work to do. Until next time. Bob
Tags: Magic Sealed Limited
Well so much for writing about Standard. I had planed to write more articles like the one I did for Faeries, but I got stupid busy and just sort of ran out of time to do anything. Now that I’m back home and on a more reliable schedule I’ll try to get back to writing a little more often and for starters I have a GP Indy report for you guys. Below is the pool I opened and then proceeded to punt myself to a 3-3 record. Before I go into the games or my deck I figure I’d give you guys a day or so to see what you would build for yourself. I can tell you that after spending more time with my pool I think I may have mis-built it. Tomorrow evening I’ll post up my deck, along with the deck I think I should have built, and go over my matches as well. Until next time. Bob Lands Sapseep Forest Artifacts Chainbreaker Elsewhere Flask Lockjaw Snapper Pili-Pala Rattleblaze Scarecrow Scrapbasket Scuttlemutt Wicker Warcrawler White Apothecary Initiate Goldenglow Moth Last Breath Mistmeadow Skulk Strip Bare White/Blue AEthertow Barrenton Cragtreads Curse of Chains Godhead of Awe Plumeveil Silkbind Faerie Thistledown Duo Turn to Mist Somnomancer Zealous Guardian Blue Cerulean Wisps Consign to Dreams Drowner Initiate Isleback Spawn Kinscaer Harpoonist Blue/Black Fate Transfer Inkfathom Infiltrator Oona’s Gatewarden Scarscale Ritual x2 Wanderbrine Rootcutters Wasp Lancer Black Cinderbones Corrosive Mentor x2 Corrupt Disturbing Plot Faerie Macabre Loch Korrigan Midnight Banshee Polluted Bonds Smolder Initiate Black/Red Cultbrand Cinder Fists of the Demigod Spiteful Visions Torrent of Souls Traitor’s Roar Red Bloodshed Fever Crimson Wisps Ember Gale Mudbrawler Cohort Red/Green Gutteral Response x2 Manamorphose Runes of the Deus Scuzzback Marauders Scuzzback Scrapper Tattermunge Duo Green Devoted Druid x2 Farhaven Elf Foxfire Oak Howl of the Night Pack Tower Above Nurturer Initiate Presence of Gond Roughshod Mentor Toil to Renown Green/ White Elvish Hexhunter Safehold Duo Raven’s Run Dragoon
Tags: Magic Sealed Limited
When deciding on where I would start my more in depth break down standard deck Faeries seemed like the obvious choice. Just about every where you go you’ll find someone rambling on and on about how it’s the best deck hands down and it’s getting hard to argue. Alex Bertoncini just won both the 5k and 2k standard opens with the deck with the Faerie mirror being the final match of both tournaments. So just what makes Faeries such a house? To try and find out I’ve complied several different Faeries lists to try and see what they all have in common. ave the main deck from four fairly different lists. Mine from the blog I wrote a few days ago, the top 2 lists from the 5k open and the list provided by Gerry T. on SCG.com. First the easy part, what do all the decks have in common? 4 Mistbind Clique 4 Scion of Oona 4 Spellstutter Sprite 4 Ancestral Visions 4 Bitterblossom 3 Cryptic Command 4 Rune Snag We’ll leave the mana for later, but right now we have a deck with 27 cards, plus the 25 lands in each deck. That gives us 8 cards to work with. Since only one of the 4 isn’t running 4 Cryptic Commands, I’m going have that be the first of our 8 cards. Next in line I want to include some number of Terrors. Since only my list is excluding the card I’m going to assume that I’m wrong on this one and include it our list, but how many? My gut tells me 4, so I’ll start there and see where it takes us. The final 3 cards are different in all of the remaining lists. Our choices seem to be Pestermite, Sower of Temptation, or Nameless Inversion. All three of the cards do different thing for the deck, but in some ways Sower of Temptation and Nameless Inversion step on each others toes. Sower can act as a pseudo removal spell and can handle more threats, but is obviously vulnerable. Against any deck that is light on removal Sower is probably much better than Nameless Inversion, but since the format is full of removal, especially the board sweeping kind like Firespout it feels like a Sower wouldn’t be very effective against anything that Nameless Inversion wouldn’t be. So that leaves us with Pestermite or Nameless Inversion. At a glance the deck seems to be lacking threats and Pestermite would help on that front. The card is also effectively a Time Walk against the various Big Mana or any kind of real control decks that are running around. On the flip side Firespout is already extremely popular and Pestermite is pretty terrible against a Firespout, and those match-ups are already some of better ones that Faeries has seen. Nameless Inversion also seems very strong against any of the many aggro decks in the format, RDW, Merfolk, B/G, and the like. It also makes the deck more controlling and gives you more chances to try and out play your opponent, which may or may not be a good thing. One final argument for Nameless Inversion is that Brett Blackman put 3 copies of the card into his sideboard, which we’ll get to in a bit, so the card must have some merit. This one is a close call, but for now I think we should go with the Nameless Inversions. With the popularity of Revilark waning and the absence of any other real control decks in the format I don’t think that 7 removal spells will be too many, especially considering how aggro heavy the format is. I could see someone making a case for Pestermite as the card is still really strong, but until a real control deck rears its head I think we should stick with Nameless Inversion. The mana isn’t quite as interesting, but here is what the decks have in common. 2 Faerie Conclave 4 Island 4 Mutavault 1 Pendelhaven 4 River of Tears 4 Secluded Glen 4 Underground River That gives us 23 out of 25 cards. The real questions here are, “How many Pendelhavens do we play?” and “How many Faerie Conclaves do we play?” The answer to our first question is fairly simple in my mind. Pendelhaven is so strong that you really want to play one almost every game. So a second one seems like a must. The next question is a tad more difficult. The real dilemma here is being able to play suspend an Ancestral Visions on turn one. If we only play 2 Faerie Conclave that will give us 13/60 cards capable of playing a turn one Visions. If we play 3 Faerie Conclave we’ll have only 12/60 cards that give us turn one Visions. That’s a difference of less that two percent, which doesn’t seem like a lot. So the real question is “How much more important is a turn one Visions verses a Faerie Conclave?” Since playing a turn one Visions might just be the best play this deck can make I think we can safely assume that making that happen even two percent more often is good. Taking all this into consideration it leaves us with this. 4 Mistbind Clique 4 Scion of Oona 4 Spellstutter Sprite 4 Ancestral Visions 4 Bitterblossom 4 Cryptic Command 3 Nameless Inversion 4 Rune Snag 4 Terror 2 Faerie Conclave 5 Island 4 Mutavault 2 Pendelhaven 4 River of Tears 4 Secluded Glen 4 Underground River As I mentioned before I don’t think there is anything with playing the Pestermites over the Nameless Inversions, but keeping the current meta-game in mind I think Nameless Inversion is probably better right now, but if the control decks make a comeback Pestermite would certainly be the card of choice. Now for the sideboards, since I didn’t post a sideboard with my deck I’ll just leave it out.
So first we’ll take care of the easy stuff. 3 Damnation 4 Thoughtseize That gives use 8 cards to work with and a lot of options. I think we can safely eliminate all the spot removal cards as our main deck is already sporting seven of them, so out goes, Nameless Inversion, Peppersmoke, and Slaughter Pact, leaving us with some combination of Bottle Gnomes, Fledgling Mawcor, and Flashfreeze. Fledgling Mawcor is extremely strong in the mirror, and if the top 8 of the SCG 2k open is any indication the of this decks popularity then we’ll want as many as we can post board. Now we just have to decide between Bottle Gnomes and Flashfreeze. I really like Bottle Gnomes in such an aggro heavy environment. It can soak up a pretty hefty amount of damage and helps you stay alive when you have a Bitterblossom on the table. Flashfreeze may not be able to block and won’t keep you dieing from Bitterblossom, but it can deal with a lot of cards that Bottle Gnomes cannot. Cloudthresher and Firespout come to mind, and we already have Damnation to deal with other creature based strategies. As much as I love casting me some Bottle Gnomes I think we will probably be better off with Flash Freeze. Which brings us to the following. 3 Damnation 4 Flashfreeze 4 Fledgling Mawcor 4 Thoughtseize I’m actually surprised at the level of flexibility that was offered to us in card selection. When I started I pretty much figured I’d be copying and pasting something and while we ended up with a list nearly identical to GerryT’s I think you could easily fit Pestermite into the deck without hurting it at all. This deck is clearly extremely powerful and should be a part of any testing you do. As far as testing goes I’m not going to do that part of the process for you, stop being so lazy. Up next on my list are the B/G decks that have been pretty popular as of late, but if any of you have an archetype that you would like me to explore let me know. Until next time. Bob
Tags: Magic Standard
So I had a little free time on Friday and I decided to go up and play some standard at a new store with a few of my buddies. I had wanted to play Faeries, but I was missing two Ancestral Visions so I decided not to play the deck with out them. So I started digging through my cards to come up with something to play and this little concoction is what resulted. 4 Avalanche Riders 3 Grinning Ingus 4 Murderous Redcap 4 Primal Forcemage 2 Siege-Gang Commander 4 Wall of Roots 4 Harmonize 4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss 4 Search for Tomorrow 3 Wild Pair 10 Forests 3 Karplusan Forest 7 Mountains 4 Treetop Village Some of you might remember this back from Timespiral Block, but the deck is surprisingly good. Primal Forcemage is a house, and curving out into either a Redcap or an Avalanche Rider is so absolutely back breaking. The can also randomly play turn 3 Siege-Gang Commanders which is pretty good. Then there’s the combo. Even without a Grinning Ingus to do seriously broken things just playing a Forcemage into a Redcap, or even better if you have a Forcemage already in play and play a Redcap into a Redcap the game can swing in your favor really quickly. The mana base is a bit sketchy, but like I said I came up with this deck in the course of like a day and a half and didn’t have time to find anything else, but if anything the only non-basic land this deck probably needs is Treetop Village. You could probably just cut the Karp Forests for Mountains and the deck would be fine, and pretty much blank Fulminator Mages in the process. I don’t really think that adding any non-basic lands to this deck will help it, but if you want to go right ahead. The sideboard I played at the FNM was pretty terrible, but here’s what I think a good sideboard would probably look like. 4 Firespout 4 Riftsweeper 4 Krosan Grip 3 Magus of the Moon/Fulminator Mage/Vexing Susher This sideboard is exclusively to combat Swans combo and Faeries as the deck is rediculously good against other “Big Mana” decks. I’m not really sure about Magus of the Moon or Fulminator mage, but I feel like both cards are good against both Faeries and Swans, but resolving a Vexing Susher against Faeries probably makes the game a lot easier. I like Firespout better than Raking Canopy because it’s more flexible and can be very good against all the various Elf decks. Krosan Grip is better than Ancient Grudge because it will always get Bitterblossom. Playing the deck right means knowing how to use the stack correctly, if you can’t properly manipulate the stack you can make some pretty bonehead plays. If a Forcemage is in play you always want to resolve the Wild Pair trigger first otherwise you won’t be able to fetch anything in you deck. Don’t forget that you can start the combo off with a Wall of Roots by producing a green mana in response to the Wild Pair trigger. Overall the deck is pretty easy to play. Build up your mana, slow down your opponent with the odd land destruction spell or Redcap. Then you win, by doing unfair things. The decks worst match-up is probably Faeries and I haven’t done nearly enough testing to know if this can be changed at all, but if you can come up with some kind of way to make the match up even close to 50/50 I really like this deck against the rest of the meta-game. Like I said the deck is really good against any of the big mana decks and if you draw the hate pretty good against Swans. I guess they can always just have the nuts and you don’t draw one of your 8 spells that stops them, but that’s just how the Swans match up works. I went 2-2 at the FNM with it losing to Swans and in an attempt to spilt the 3rd place prize with my opponent conceding because his tie breakers were a little bit better than mine. I’m pretty sure I would’ve won the match had we had time to play out the last game, but time was called and we negotiated the split instead of drawing and ruining both of our chances at prizes. Not to mentioned his chances of winning the first game was pretty much nothing, but I literally drew all but 4 of the land in my deck, after playing 3 Harmonize, and 6 land fetching spells, and spent about 7 turns looking for any of one of about 6 or 7 spells that would’ve just won me the game. Talk about bad beats. In the end he got 4th and I walked away with nothing. Oh well. This deck is really fun to play and surprisingly good, so I feel like the night was overall a success. Until next time. Bob
Tags: Magic Standard
US Regionals are coming up soon, and it’s got me thinking about Standard. Also the May FNM card is the most badass looking Pendelhaven I’ve ever seen and I wants me one something fierce. So the first thing I like to do before jumping into a new format is wander around the web and compile some information so that I can get an idea of what kind of important information I need to keep in mind while preparing for whatever event I happen to want to play in. This is just such a compilation. Faeries I guess I’ll start with the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I’ve heard this described as the perfect example of an aggro-control deck. Only 3 cards in the deck can’t be used at instant speed, Ancestral Vision, Bitterblossom, and activating a Mutavault. That is out of control. Combine that with a basically perfect mana base and 12 counter spells and it’s pretty easy to see why everyone seems to be winning with this. I had some one tell me it was like Timespiral block teachings, but without the requisite skill needed to play it. Here’s the list I would probably play. 4 Mistbind Clique
4 Pestermite
4 Scion of Oona
3 Sower of Temptation
4 Spellstutter Sprite 4 Ancestral Vision
4 Bitterblossom
4 Cryptic Command
4 Rune Snag 3 Faerie Conclave
4 Island
4 Mutavault
2 Pendelhaven
4 River of Tears
4 Secluded Glen
4 Underground River I think this list is pretty standard of what people are running, but I’ll talk about it a bit anyways. The first thing that might look out of place is the 2nd Pendelhaven, but I have it on pretty high authority that it’s probably the best card in the mirror and that getting yours first is probably the best thing that can happen to you. That said it doesn’t let you play Visions on turn one, which is the very same reason this deck doesn’t Sunken Ruins, and might be better off in the board just for the mirror, but if you do take it just make sure you don’t replace it with something that can’t make you a blue mana on turn one. In fact I’m just going to say it should either be a Pendelhaven or an Island and that’s probably it. As for the sideboard I’m not sure about it right now because well I don’t know what the metagame will look like, but there is one card that I’d like to mention as something I think could possibly be really strong, Faerie Macabre. This card is really exciting to me as it can do its job in any deck, but will always be useful in this particular one. Sadly this deck is probably also the one deck that doesn’t need any help shoring up its combo matches, but the idea of wreaking the other combo decks in the format at instant speed for zero mana is still pretty enticing and something I’m going to look into testing in the near future. Red Deck that may or may not Wins I keep hearing about how Shadowmoor made out of control awesome, but I just don’t see it. I’m not saying that it didn’t get some goodies, by all means I think it did improve a lot, but it’s not all of sudden the bees knees. In fact I can’t seem to track down a definitive list of what should or should not be in the deck. But if I had to guess it would probably look something like this. 4 Tattermunge Maniac 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Tarmogoyf
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Bogart Ram-Gang
4 Flame Javelin
4 Lash-Out
4 Tarfire
4 Fire-Lit Thicket 4 Karplusan Forest
12 Mountain 4 Treetop Village Now this list is probably far from perfect, but it has everything I would want in a R/g deck. I posted my feeling in other blogs about Fulminator Mage and he might be really good in the sideboard, but I just don’t think he’s aggressive enough and not nearly good enough against decks like Faeries to be in the main deck. This build is capable of throwing the most damage at someone with access to 2 power on turn one, and 3 power on turn two and 3 hasty power on turn three. It also has pretty decent mid-game finishing power, in Tarmogoyfs, Treetops, and Flame Javelins, which we can easily play because of the awesome Fire-Lit Thicket, and I just felt that if I ever had to play a Fulminator Mage on turn three I’d be wishing he was just a big dude so I went with the Crusherator instead. Lash Out might also seem odd here, but I was talking with some friends recently about how often we just use Incinerate to clear the way for dudes and a few days after that I read GerryT’s article on Star City and he brought up that same point. So I switched to Lash Out and I haven’t looked back. If you burn your opponent’s face then play a Flame Javelin. The board is still a little wishy-washy, but it defiantly starts with 4 Vexing Sushers, and 4 Firespout. After that I really have no idea. Revilark Now I’m going to be 100% honest and say I have little no experience with this deck and every where you look people are saying different things about it, but I think the general consensus is that it’s not very good any more. I think the major reason was that it has a terrible time against Faeries, who doesn’t, and that U/W Fish decks were also beating up on it. As a result it seems to have fallen out of favor for some. I’m going to put a list up here, just a straight up Copy/Paste job of Kenji’s deck from the GP. 3 Aven Riftwatcher
2 Body Double
1 Mirror Entity
4 Mulldrifter
4 Reveillark
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
2 Sower Of Temptation 1 Venser, Shaper Savant 2 Careful Consideration 4 Mind Stone
2 Momentary Blink
4 Rune Snag 3 Wrath Of God 4 Adarkar Wastes
8 Island 2 Mutavault
4 Nimbus Maze
6 Plains Obviously this deck is a little behind the times, but it’s a good starting point. The first obvious upgrade is the uw hybrid land. After that I have no idea what this deck gets, or really any desire to find out to be honest. UW Fish For awhile this deck seemed to be the deck to beat. It could just beat up on Faeries and Revilark without any problem and Dragon Claw made the Red Decks basically a joke. I understand that this had also changed. GerryT himself, master mind behind this list, said so himself. Dragon Claw just isn’t good anymore because Red decks are doing their damage with creatures now and you’re not really making all that much progress. Teferi’s Moat helps, but really you don’t want the red deck match up coming down to one card. Combine that with the recent decline in popularity of Revilark and you can see why this deck has lost a lot of its umpf. That said if the things change at all it could become very strong again so here’s a list for you to keep in mind if the meta-game should take a twist in its favor. 4 Lord Of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Sower Of Temptation
4 Stonybrook Banneret 4 Ancestral Vision 4 Cryptic Command
4 Ponder
2 Remove Soul
3 Sage's Dousing 4 Adarkar Wastes 11 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Wanderwine Hub Not much else to say about this one really. I will say that I like this version better than the one with Sygg in it. Also for those of you who are wondering this deck has white cards in its sideboard. Swan Song Combo I haven’t played this deck before, but people say it’s pretty good. People like Pat Chapin. So it’s probably pretty good then. At the very least everyone should proxy it up and put it into their gaunlet. Here’s Pats most recent list.
2 Dread
4 Swans Of Bryn Argoll
1 Vexing Shusher
4 Beseech The Queen
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Manamorphose
1 Mishra's Bauble
4 Ponder
4 Seismic Assault
4 Telling Time 4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Graven Cairns
2 Reflecting Pool
4 River Of Tears
4 Shivan Reef
2 Sulfurous Springs
2 Sunken Ruins
2 Tolaria West
4 Underground River For those of you who don’t know how the combo works you play Seismic Assualt, toss damage at Swans until you get 2 Dakmor Salvages and then kill your opponent. I’m told you can do this as early as turn four, but again I’ve never played with it so I haven’t a clue. I think that covers what most people are considering the top tier of decks right now. If I get some free time soon I’ll go over some of the more under the radar decks out there and if I get a lot of free time I might even do some testing with something and write something really useful. Until next time. Bob
Tags: Magic Standard Looks That Are Quick
So I tried to buy some cheap beat up Wrath of Gods and some Coldsnap cards to felsh out my collection and prepare for standard from MTGChicago.com. I ordered these cards back in 2/25. Today is 4/12. Now I'm aware that people make mistakes from time to time, but I've done more than my fair share to try and resolve this. I've sent probably over a dozen e-mails, and left just as many voice mails on every phone number I can find on the MTGChicago website. I even talked to the man face to face in Chicago at a PTQ near the beginning of March. He told me he had been sick and that he would take care of it and send out my cards in day or two. Now it's half way through April I still have no cards and my money is gone. The worst part is that because his buisness is in Illinois and I live in Wisconsin the cost of taking any kind of legal action makes it pretty much a waste of my time. Realistically a part from filing a complaint with Illinois Consumer Protection Agency, which is free, I don't have much recourse and since I don't live in Illinois my claim doesn't stand much of a chance against those of people who vote in Illinios. I just wanted to get the word out that I'd been ripped off by MTGChicago.com. Maybe some of you have had better luck, but if you were to ask me I'd say spend a few more dollars and buy stuff from a more respectable dealer, like StarCityGames.com or DACardWorld.com. The price might seem a little higher, but at least you know you'll actualy get your cards. Until next time. Bob
Tags: Magic Scammers
Last Saturday my buddy Ryan and I hit up the 2HG Challenge at Misty Mountain in Madison WI. We were a bit surprised by how small it was, but all in all we had loads of fun. I’m going to write up a report for you guys, but I though I’d post up the pool first so you could take a stab a building it. I’ll have our deck lists and a run down of all the games up in a day or two. For now just let me know what you guys think of the pool and how you would build it, keep in mind this is 2HG so you have to build two decks. Until next time. -Bob Artifacts/Lands Colfenor’s Urn Mutavault Shelldock Isle Obsidian Battle-Axe White Burrenton Bombardier x2 Daily Regimen Graceful Reprieve Indomitable Ancients Kithkin Greatheart Kithkin Healer Kithkin Skirmisher Kithkin Zephyrnaut Lairwatch Giant Mosquito Guard Oaken Brawler Pollen Lullaby Shinewend Stonehewer Giant Swell of Courage x2 Veteran of the Depths Weight of Conscience x2 Wispmare Blue Aquitect’s Will Benthicore Deeptread Merrow Dewdrop Spy Disperse Familiar’s Ruse Flood Chaser Ink Dissolver Inspired Sprite Merrow Witsniper Mouthdust Changeling x2 Mulldrifter Pestermite Protective Bubble Sower of Temptation Spellstutter Sprite Stonybrook Angler Stream of Unconsciousness x2 Thieves’ Fortune Tideshaper Mystic Black Final-Sting Faerie x2 Footbottom Feast Frogtosser Banneret Hunter of Eyeblights Marsh Flitter Moonglove Changeling Morsel Theft x2 Noggin Whack Oona’s Blackguard Peppersmoke Pulling Teeth Skeletal Changeling Spiderwig Boggart Squeaking Pie Grubfellows x2 Weed Strangle Weed-Pruner Poplar Red Blind-Spot Giant Boggart Shenanigans Brighthearth Banneret Consuming Bonfire Fire-Belly Changling Fire Juggler x3 Flamekin Brawler Giant’s Ire Hurly-Burly Lash Out Lowland Oaf Roar of the Crowd x2 Singmoggie Thundercloud Shaman War-Spike Changeling Green Bramblewood Paragon Battlewand Oak Changeling Titan Cream of the Crop Earthbrawn Elvish Warrior Fertilid Game-Trail Changeling x2 Heritage Druid Lignify Luminescent Rain x2 Lys Alana Huntmaster Orchard Warden x2 Rootgrapple Spring Cleaning Woodland Guidance
Tags: Magic 2HG Sealed
Today I want to talk about something that has been nagging at the back of my mind for some time. It something that takes place at a lot of PTQs, GPs, and probably even on the Pro Tour itself. Something you’ve probably taken part in and didn’t even realize it. In any event I think it will do us all some good to talk about it so here goes. As you may or may not know I played Heartbeat over this extended season and did pretty poorly, going something like 4-8 in 3 events. I would guess that out of all of the matches I played I won game 1 about 60% of the time. Normally by meeting some request of my opponent, “Show a Brain Freeze in you board/hand and I’ll scoop” for example, and of course I do so we can move on to the next game. This is where I run into what’s so troubling. Is refusing to meet this request cheating or more importantly what if I took the maximum time allotted me to win? Strictly speaking from the time I untap on the combo turn until the time I actually win can take a lot of time, depending on how the cards come down, and in between there is a lot of shuffling, searching, and decision making. A lot of players have good answers in their sideboard for combo decks, and sometimes the nature of playing a combo deck lets you steal games you are not otherwise entitled to. By eating up as much of the clock as I can game 1 I put myself in better position to earn points on my round. I’m not talking about stalling; I’m talking about playing at a reasonable pace until the game state has me as the victor or until my opponent concedes. Doing things like shuffling before each Mind’s Desire flip and making your opponent cut each time, all of which are perfectly legal, but the whole thing still feels like cheating to me. To help put things in perspective a little more let me give you a real life example. In Chicago, round one I find myself paired against Gerry Thompson, not exactly a scrub if you know what I mean, but to make matters worse Gerry was playing the Rock, by far one of Heartbeat’s worst match-ups. I make a few misplays here and there but still manage to set myself up to win. On the last turn I pause and ask Gerry for a library count and a few seconds to work out some math. At this point he says if you show me a Brain Freeze in the board I’ll scoop. Knowing that you are unlikely to win this round if it goes game 3 would you just show him the Freeze and go to game 2? The first thing I wanted to do was look at the issue from the other side. Let’s say it is game two and I’m down a game. Once I go off a lot of people would not only make me play it out, but make me shuffle on every Desire flip to eat up the clock, which I don’t get upset about and they have the right to ask. I’ve even had a judge called on me for not shuffling. If it is not cheating for them to ask me to play it out, and no one puts a special stigma on them for asking me. Shouldn’t it be ok for me to do the reverse and play the game out? My next step was to look up what a judge considers cheating. So I booted up the DCI Floor Rules and this is what I found. Cheating Cheating will not be tolerated. The Head Judge reviews all cheating allegations, and if he or she determines that a player has cheated, he or she will issue the appropriate penalty based on the DCI Penalty Guidelines. All disqualifications are subject to DCI review and further penalties may be assessed. Cheating includes, but is not limited to, the following intentional activities: § Receiving or giving outside assistance § Looking at opponents’ card faces while shuffling or cutting their decks § Collusion to alter the results of a game or match (see section 25) § Misrepresenting cards or rules § Using marked cards/sleeves (see section 44) § Drawing extra cards § Illegally manipulating which cards are drawn from a player’s deck or his or her opponent’s deck § Stalling the length of a turn to take advantage of a time limit § Misrepresenting public information (point totals, statistics of cards in play, number of cards in a deck, and so on). § Giving false or misleading information to a Judge or tournament official Now I said before that I wasn’t doing any actual stalling. Meaning I was making all my decisions in a reasonable amount of time, but once my opponent asks me to show him a card or cards and he’ll scoop aren’t I doing just that and isn’t the reverse also true? Where do you draw the line? Let’s take this outside the realm of Heartbeat and myself for a bit. A while back I remember a lot of teachings decks that would 6-0-2 a lot of swiss rounds that would only have 6-0-6 game records and 2 IDs. After seeing this some Madison area players constructed a deck with the goal of playing only one game each round in the swiss. They did this by using Gaea’s Blessing to drag out games that he could clearly win long enough to make sure the aggro decks couldn’t come back. Lucas Duchow took 3rd place at PTQ with the deck. Now just in case he reads this I’m not calling Lucas a cheater, but that doesn’t change the fact that what this deck did could be considered cheating. At this point I decided that maybe getting a few more voices into the fray might be the best thing to do. So I asked some pros what they thought about the matter and I found that I’m not the only one who has problem picking a side. Mike Turian had this to say about it, “A good rule of thumb is that if you think it might be cheating don't do it. I don't think it is cheating for you to piece together the combo in the situation you described, I do think that it would be both foolish and unsporting. A reputation takes years to build and moments to destroy.” Brian Kowal took a completely different approach to the issue, “That’s not cheating. I never show my opponent the card when they say show me and I’ll scoop. They don't actually have to scoop to you if you show it to them. The only time to show them would be the rare time where you aren't so sure the card in question actually wins you the game but they think it will. Making a game play out is never cheating. Stalling while playing it out is cheating. It’s not your fault if the game goes long as you are going off. They have the option to concede at any time.” As you can see Mike and Brian have two very different opinions on the matter, but I think the best response I got came from Zac Hill and Adrian Sullivan. After posing what I felt was going to be a pretty simple question the two had a lot to say about the issue and even debated back a forth a bit. I’ve copied their thoughts down below for everyone. -- Zac: I don't think players are ever obligated to concede. Intentionally taking any game actions for the sole purpose of spending time, though, is cheating. It's a slippery slope but I'd definitely leave it up to the judge. I know, for example, that when playing Turboland I can't just cycle through my deck infinitely for forty five minutes and then kill my opponent because it's game 1. Adrian: Wow. I completely disagree with that, Zac.
I recall MANY games where just such play has been done. I don't even think of that as shady.
Two that spring to mind immediately: Jim Hustad playing URw control at GP Phoenix a million years ago. He had complete control of the game, a million land out, a COP: Red, stabilized versus a player playing some kind of Red-based beatdown deck (I forget which). He didn't take a long time with any decision. He played at a reasonable pace. When the judge called time, he cast Urza's Rage with kicker, and then untapped and cast Urza's Rage with kicker.
The other is John Shuler, playing Rec/Sur at the US Open vs. White Weenie. He could pretty much just Recur his opponent into oblivion if he wanted, but he didn't. Instead, he only used Avalanche Rider enough to keep his opponent at 3 mana. He "forgot" to Recur a few times. He gained a few life off of Spike Feeder here and there. He Weaved a few times (and "forgot" to do so a few times). He just kept his opponent hoping that he could win. His opponent finally realized that he couldn't win the game when there were only a few minutes left. FINALLY, the opponent conceded, but couldn't finish game two in time.
I don't see anything different between these two things and a Turbo-land player playing solitaire like that. They DON'T have to take the kill.
Eating time via taking too long making decisions IS wrong. That's why there are rules against slow play. But nothing forces a player to MAKE the kill. If it isn't to a player's advantage, it's not required of them, and similarly, the (losing) opponent who refuses to concede is also not required to concede. It might very well be worth their time, though, and failure to concede at the right time has cost many people a match.
If someone is wasting the clock improperly (taking too long to resolve decisions), this can be a question of sportsmanship, and there are historical examples of when people are given even HARSH penalties because of their failure to play a sporting game.
An example of this is the player who mulligans 7 times, taking their fully allotted time mulliganing each time, eating up a million minutes, and thus, taking the match. This has happened, AND it has also been ruled as drastically unsporting (resulting in appropriate penalties). Zac: See, I don't really see the point of the shuffling/playing distinction. Sure, in practice, your opponent can concede if you're just infinitely cycling your deck, but what if you don't have a win condition left? What if it's game two and he *knows* you don't have a win condition left, but you keep playing cards because you won game 1? Clearly concession is no recourse, but the rules of Magic shouldn't provide players an outlet to victory (the clock) when winning a game given enough time would clearly be impossible. Me: I think Zac's example is more of what I was going for when I asked the question originally. But I don't know if it really changes what anyone has said up to this point. I personally think that most of the time I would pack it in because I'm lazy, but if winning meant the difference between a top 8 and going home I'd probably try to run out the clock. I still don't know if it's cheating though. Adrian: It's definitely NOT cheating.
The reason that the shuffling situation was ruled as poor sportsmanship is that it is using procedure to run out the clock.
Zach's example of continuing to play without a win condition left is an excellent example. Just because you can't win doesn't mean you have LOST. The other person still has to succeed in getting the victory.
Part of the decisions that one makes when SELECTING a deck is keeping in mind its costs and benefits. Zoo CAN win in very few minutes/turns. Tog can do the same. Scepter-Chant generally can not.
So, in the specific example you gave, where you have no win conditions left, but have won the first game, and your opponent knows it, you still haven't LOST. You aren't obliged to concede simply because your opponent is the only one left that CAN win. They still have to do it. At this point, the decision of when to concede is a strategic one, certainly not an issue of cheating.
If you are to start stalling via certain repetitive behaviors (repeatedly activating a Top), slow play or sportsmanship may be an issue. But that is all... Zac: ""So, in the specific example you gave, where you have no win conditions left, but have won the first game, and your opponent knows it, you still haven't LOST. You aren't obliged to concede simply because your opponent is the only one left that CAN win. They still have to do it. At this point, the decision of when to concede is a strategic one, certainly not an issue of cheating""
That is actually a great point. I hadn't thought of it that way before.
I don't really differentiate much between slow play, sportsmanship, and cheating, though, I don't think. -- As you can see there is no easy answer. What I can tell you is that the DCI will not call you for cheating so long as you keep playing at a reasonable pace, but like Mike said, “A reputation takes years to build and moments to destroy.” As of now I’m still not sure which side of the fence I’m standing on, but I think I’m inclined to side with Adrian on this one. Managing the clock is part of the game and learning how to manage it well is something we should all do. Let me know what you guys think. I’m curious to find out where the magic community as a whole stands on this issue. As always any feedback is greatly appreciated. Until next time. Bob
Tags: Magic
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