Pranked!!
Last week Dan teased this lovable little fish. I’m sure many of you felt bad for poor little Sharkbait (that’s me). If you read you know that Dan made me think I was getting a roommate of the opposite gender and we all know what that means but alas he was only referring to the card Wild Pair. I feel so abused. To top it all off Dan was in the dumps most of the week and so he didn’t get around to feeding me as much as normal.
Don’t worry about me though. Nobody needs to call PETA or anything like that. I survived and am here again to give you all another one of Dan’s crazy concoctions.
For those of you who are new to my blogs here is the background. My name is Sharkbait and I’m a fish. You read it right a fish. My owner is a Magic The Gathering player who unfortunately rarely gets to play live games against live people (we live about 3 hours drive away from the nearest game that hosts a Friday Night Magic). He does however practice a lot. He does this mostly at work on Apprentice but sometimes against me. Basically, he shuffles up and deals out his seven and then works to build some combo.
My owner is kinda weird. He is always fascinated with some crazy combo. Even though he knows it isn’t close to a competitive deck he still plays around with it always believing that there is some sick degenerate combo that no one has played or posted on the net. He dreams of posting his creation and living vicariously through the players that chose to run with it.
In last week Pro Tour at Valencia Dan really felt he had posted a strong deck with the Cephalid Breakfast. His sideboard allowed him to transpose to a full out Life deck that was unphased by Leylines or Crypts. He scoured the info coming out of Valencia and found that one deck similar to his even made the Video Tech highlights. Thomas Refsdal piloted a very similar list and started out 8-0 but must have floundered after that because Dan can’t find any mention of him in later rounds. If any one out there (even Thomas himself) knows how he fared drop Dan a line at daneckstein@hotmail.com.
If you watch the video tech you see that Dan did have one piece of tech that Thomas and his team did not use. I have to agree with Dan, Phantasmagorian is a very good and necessary card in this deck. First of all it gives the Sutured Ghoul +6/ +6 which is as good or better than the overpriced Tarmogoyf gives. Secondly, it allows you to avoid the auto mulligan or auto loss you are faced with if you draw into your one Sutured Ghoul or any other singleton in you win condition. Just discard the card you need in the yard with two others and return the Phantasmagorian in your hand. If you watch the deck tech video Thomas even mentions this problem but doesn’t realize the solution.
As for the numbers Dan was really pleased with the Day 2 percentage of decks similar to his. TcgPlayers own Bill Stark reported that out of 11 Decks that would fall into this category 27.3 % made day two. This was the third highest from decks with at least 10 plus representatives. Behind only Gifts Rock and Counterbalance Goyf. I am a little confused on how a deck doesn’t make Day 1 though????
If you read last week you’ll know that Dan’s wife will be heading out of town for States weekend so he’ll be Mr. Mom for his two daughters instead of attending his local (3 hours away) tourney. That hasn’t stopped him from playing with the Standard environment.
If you read Dan blogs the week before the Pre-release you know that he really liked Glen Elendra Pranksters. No one else seemed really high on it but that’s Dan for ya.
The concept he is going for is to get a Glen Elendra Pranksters in play and then use two Mystic Snakes and / or a Mystic Snake and a Venser, Shaper Savant to have a repeatable hard counter every turn. Mix in some other counters and some creatures with flash so in later turns you can double hard counter. Eventually you can cast a Venser at the end of the opponents turn as a bouncer instead of a counter. Using this and Cryptic Command eventually your opponent has a empty field and you can swing with your Snakes and Vensers at their unprotected life points.
His deck looks like this. The title is a tribute to Spaniels quote “Note: Of Glen Elendra Pranksters ever did produce an album, it would probably be titled “Straight Up Jank” to match the quality of the card.”
Straight Up Jank
4 Glen Elendra Pranksters
3 Vedalken Aethermage
4 Mystic Snake
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Cryptic Command
3 Cancel
4 Mystical Teachings
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Roots
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Fertile Ground
4 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Vivid Thicket
3 Vivid Creek
7 Island
6 Forest
When I first saw this list I had to scratch my Dorsal on a couple of entries. I don’t like the Fertile Ground. I would prefer to use a Gemhide Sliver to the enchantment but it does serve a purpose that creature accelerants can’t do. Give mana the turn it is played. If you can pay 2 and still have a land untapped you can put the Fertile on the open land and then tap it for two. Essentially only costing 1 mana to play.
I had to give a second look to Vedalken Aethermage as well. Until I realized that the Pranksters and others are all Wizards. It also flashes for some Prankster tricks later in the game.
So here are some hands that Dan played last night.
Hand One –Fertile Ground, Mystical Teachings, Forest (2), Mystic Snake, Llanowar Elves, Island
Turn 1 – Play Forest
Play Llanowar Elves
Turn 2 – Draw Cryptic Command
Play Island
Play Fertile Ground enchanting Island
Turn 3 – Draw Glen Elendra Pranksters
Play Forest
Play Glen Elendra Pranksters
Turn 4 – Draw Mystical Teachings
On opponents turn Play Mystic Snake
Turn 5 – Draw Wall of Roots
Play Wall of Roots
On opponents turn Play Cryptic Command returning Snake and Drawing Vedalken Aethermage
Turn 6 – Draw Vivid Creek
Play Vivid Creek
On opponents turn play Snake
Turn 7 – Draw Fertile Ground
Wizard Cycle Vedalken Aethermage for Venser, Shaper Savant
On opponents turn Play Venser returning Snake
Counter Cycle achieved.
Hand 2 – Terramorphic Expanse, Glen Elendra Pranksters (2), Cryptic Command, Forest, Vedalken Aethermage, Vivid Creek
Turn 1 – Play Terramorphic Expanse sac to fetch Island
Turn 2 – Draw Fertile Ground
Play Forest
Play Fertile Ground enchanting Island
Turn 3 – Draw Mystic Snake
Play Vivid Creek
Wizard Cycle Vedalken Aethermage to get Venser, Shaper Savant
Turn 4 – Draw Terramorphic Expanse sac to fetch Forest
Play Glen Elendra Pranksters
Turn 5 – Draw Llanowar Elves
Play Llanowar Elves
On Opponents Turn play Mystic Snake
Turn 6 – Draw Mystic Snake
On opponents Turn play Venser return Snake
Counter Cycle Achieved.
Hand 3 – Island, Cryptic Command (2), Vedalken Aethermage, Vivid Thicket (2), Glen Elendra Pranksters
Turn 1 – Play Vivid Thicket
Turn 2 – Draw Forest
Play Vivid Thicket
Turn 3 – Draw Wall of Roots
Play Island
Play Wall of Roots
Turn 4 – Draw Vivid Creek
Play Vivid Creek
Play Glen Elendra Pranksters
Turn 5 – Draw Island
On opponents turn play Cryptic Command Draw Birds of Paradise
Turn 6 – Draw Vivid Thicket
Play Forest
Wizard Cycle Vedalken Aethermage for Venser, Shaper Savant
On opponents turn play Venser
Turn 7 – Draw Birds of Paradise
Play Vivid Thicket
Play Birds of Paradise
On opponents turn play Cryptic Command returning Venser and Drawing Cryptic Command
Turn 8 – Draw Fertile Ground
Play Fertile Ground enchanting Island
On opponent turn play Venser
Turn 9 – Draw Island
Play Island
On opponents turn play Cryptic Command returning Venser and drawing Cancel
Turn 10 – Draw Mystic Snake
Counter Cycle Achieved. Making sure to play Snake first the Venser for the bounce.
Hand 4 – Mystical Teachings (2), Mystic Snake, Forest, Glen Elendra Pranksters, Llanowar Elves
Turn 1 – Play Forest
Play Llanowar Elves
Turn 2 – Draw Cryptic Command
Play Vivid Thicket
Turn 3 – Draw Island
Play Island
Play Glen Elendra Pranksters
Turn 4 – Draw Forest
Play Forest
On opponents turn play Mystic Snake
Turn 5 – Draw Island
Play Island
On opponents turn play Cryptic Command returning Snake and drawing Mystic Snake
Turn 6 – Draw Island
Counter Cycle Achieved
Hand 5 – Vedalken Aethermage, Fertile Ground, Venser Shaper Savant, Cryptic Command, Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Mystical Teachings
Mulligan
New hand 5 – Wall of Roots, Vivid Thicket, Birds of Paradise, Terramorphic Expanse, Mystic Snake, Mystical Teachings
Turn 1 – Play Vivid Thicket
Turn 2 – Draw Fertile Ground
Play Terramorphic Expanse sac to fetch Island
Play Birds of Paradise
Turn 3 – Draw Forest
Play Forest
Play Fertile Ground enchanting Island
Play Wall of Roots
Turn 4 – Draw Island
Play Island
Play Mystical Teachings to get Vedalken Aethermage
Wizard Cycle Vedalken Aethermage for Glen Elendra Pranksters
Turn 5 – Draw Birds of Paradise
Play Birds of Paradise
Play Glen Elendra Pranksters
Turn 6 – Draw Cryptic Command
On opponents turn play Mystic Snake
Turn 7 – Draw Vivid Thicket
Play Vivid Thicket
On opponents turn play Cryptic Command returning Snake and drawing Glen Elendra Pranksters
Turn 8 – Draw Mystical Teachings
Play Mystical Teaching to get Venser, Shaper Savant
On opponents turn play either Venser or Snake
Counter Cycle Achieved.
That is all Dan played tonight. I personally don’t know if this deck can play out at all. You’re more than welcome to try it out. I think that Guile would be a real fun win condition in this deck even though Dan built for the annoy pick pick method.
I remember seeing a recent poll asking what deck people hated playing against the most. Two of the choices where counter based decks and combo decks. In this case we have both.
