I'm starting down a path here that I hope will be helpful to people interested in Modern but unfamiliar with the format. I plan to do a write-up of each of the popular decks explaining card interactions, combos and different lists from time to time. If there's a particular deck that you'd like some info on just let me know!
Splinter Twin is a pretty easy deck to grasp overall but I figure it's better to go for a layup as I'm getting started rather than run straight for the end zone. You see that? I made 2 non-connected sports references in one sentence!
Splinter Twin gets it's name from, surprise surprise, the card Splinter Twin! Here's a good time to remind you about the auto-card anywhere add-on for your web browser. Splinter Twin combo's instantly with several cards in the modern format including, but not limited to, Deceiver Exarch, Pestermite and Village Bell Ringer to make an arbitrary number of hasty attackers. This is effectively an infinite damage, instant win, 2-card combo.
The way this works is your creature enchanted with Splinter Twin makes a token copy of itself which then is able to untap the original creature with it's "enters the battlefield" effect.
There are 2 types of decks that play this combo. First is an "all in" combo deck that can essentially only win by combo. It will usually contain combo pieces and cards that help to dig for the combo pieces with a minor amount of disruption and protection for the combo.
Example List - All-in Combo
4 Pestermite
4 Deceiver Exarch
3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Splinter Twin
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Remand
4 Boomerang
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Slash
1 Dispel
1 Mizzium Skin
2 Cryptic Command
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Cascade Bluffs
1 Desolate Lighthouse
3 Island
2 Mountain
You'll notice Kiki-Jiki as Splinter Twins #5-7 here. He combo's in the same way as Splinter Twin with our blue 3-drops and helps give the deck more "I Win" cards. He's quite a bit harder to cast and a little bit more vulnerable, but you have to take what you can get. It's worth knowing that because Kiki-Jiki has haste you can actually cast him on the same turn as the creature you plan to copy and still get the kill, something that Splinter Twin itself can't do.
Cards worth mentioning here:
Boomerang - buys you time by bouncing a creature or an opponent's land. Contributes to the evil nut draw of Boomerang your land, tap your land in your upkeep, combo.
Lightning Bolt - probably the least explanation needed card but Bolt is actually pretty weak in this deck because it is almost useless when pointed at the face.
Flame Slash - kills Spellskite, a card that shuts down your combo on it's own.
Dispel & Mizzium Skin - these are cheap cards that can protect your combo from removal, you'll see all kinds of different combinations and number of these cards.
Cascade Bluffs - it's tempting to try and cut these expensive lands from the deck but they make casting Kiki Jiki and Cryptic Command much more likely. On the other hand you don't want too many of them because it can't actually cast anything at all by itself.
The strength of this style of deck is the free wins you get in Game 1's a rather large percentage of the time. You are actually favored vs. everything except for BG Midrange decks sporting Abrupt Decay and multiple discard effects quite heavily. The problem comes in Games 2 and 3 where people will almost always have extremely powerful and varied hate cards in their sideboards.
This style of Twin deck fell out of favor because Jund and decks like it were a large percentage of the field but it's possible that with the banning of Deathrite Shaman it's time to bring them back.
The second style of Splinter Twin deck is one that contains the parts to win via combo but is generally just as happy winning through attacking with it's creatures. Lately these decks have been the most successful because it's much harder to pick up on what they're doing. These decks are a bit harder to classify because they can come in several different combinations of colors and contain a variety of support cards.
Example List - Tarmo-Twin
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Deceiver Exarch
3 Pestermite
4 Serum Visions
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Slash
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Splinter Twin
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
3 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Hinterland Harbor
2 Sulfur Falls
This deck takes advantage of the super fantastic mana fixing available in Modern to essentially splash green for Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze. Goyf is arguably the best creature in the format and Scooze gets large rather easily and has the benefit of randomly hosing any deck relying on the graveyard.
The biggest strength of this deck is that it can cast a Goyf early and apply pressure, all the while threatening to win out of nowhere if the opponent expends too many resources on dealing with the Goyf. Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Bolt give the deck a large amount of closing power should the opponent take too much damage from the Goyf.
There aren't any huge, glaring weaknesses to this list which explains why it's becoming more and more popular. You're spreading yourself across 2 paths to victory and your manabase is a little worse but this is a very strong strategy.
Example List - UR Tempo Twin
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Pestermite
2 Deceiver Exarch
1 Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vedillion Clique
4 Splinter Twin
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Serum Visions
3 Remand
1 Peek
2 Cryptic Command
2 Electrolyze
1 Izzet Charm
1 Dispel
1 Desolate Lighthouse
5 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Tectonic Edge
This version plays out similarly to the Tarmo Twin version but gets to use more basic lands and more powerful Blue and Red spells as support. Aside from the mana base and the easier access to Blood Moon I'm not sure there's a good reason to run this list over Tarmo Twin...that is unless you don't feel the strong urge to spend $800 on 4 green creatures.
Example List - UWR Twin
4 Deceiver Exarch
1 Pestermite
3 Restoration Angel
3 Wall of Omens
1 Kiki Jiki Mirror Breaker
1 Vendillion Clique
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Splinter Twin
4 Cryptic Command
4 Remand
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
2 Lightning Helix
4 Celestial Colonade
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Desolate Lighthouse
UWR Twin is sort of the bastard child of UWR Control and Twin. You get to kill off your opponent's things, draw cards and maybe even eventually win the game. You get even less free wins because you're playing less total of the combo cards and a lot of your lands come into play tapped. In return you get more powerful creatures and Celestial Colonade as well as MUCH better removal spells.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of Splinter Twin strategies because the Modern format is constantly evolving. If Twin sounds interesting to you it's a good idea to grab the core cards shared by the majority of lists, then it will be a simple matter of swapping around all the extras to try out the different versions. If you've got any questions feel free to post here and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability. If something I wrote is horribly wrong then let me know, I'm always happy to learn something new!
Monday, August 11, 2014
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
I used to cast Mahamotti Djinn
I started playing Magic right around the time that Fallen Empires was released.
I remember this very clearly because the local comic shops were pimping these booster packs hard and I, not knowing much of anything about card quality, strategy or deck building, bought as many of those packs as I could afford.
Deep Spawn was the first rare I got. Or I THOUGHT he was my first rare, I don't actually know what else I got in that pack, 7th grade me was so excited by this 6/6 Lobster that I just KNEW it was the hard to get one.
The same store that sold me a pile of Fallen Empires also had boosters of The Dark, Revised, Legends and something called Beta. I knew the Legends and Beta packs were really good because they were a lot more expensive than the packs I was buying. I didn't yet know anything about the "Power 9" much less what a Mana Drain or a Karakas was but those old-looking packs had a mystique to them that stuck with me.
Eventually I convinced my Dad that we should go to a different card store and get a pair of Starter Decks. You know, 1 for me and 1 for him, so we could both play Magic. I thought I was so smart at the time, duping my Pops into buying twice the cards when I knew he wouldn't want to play with me more than a couple of times. Obviously Dad knew what was up but played along, he even managed to look interested as I clumsily tried to explain how to play when I barely grasped the difference between an Instant and an Interrupt.
I don't remember ALL of the 6 rares from those 2 Revised starter decks but I do remember 2 of them. Roc of Kher Ridges was one of them and I remember wondering why he was a rare when I could get a perfectly good Phantom Monster at Uncommon. The other memorable rare was Mahamotti Djinn. This guy was HUGE and he could FLY! From the minute I saw Mahamotti Djinn I was set on playing Blue and luckily my buddy was not a fan of the color and traded me another Djinn for a bunch of things I don't remember. I didn't care what it took, I was getting another Djinn!
I know my early Magic days were pretty similar to other folks. I crammed all of my Blue card into a pile with all of Islands I could find and called it good. I didn't win a lot of games but I sure did love playing. It helped that all of my friends that also played were just as terrible at every aspect of the game as I was, we were blissfully ignorant of things like a Mana Curve or Combos. Magic was simply sitting in a circle during Gym class and watching out for the teacher like hunted meercats on the savannah.
Then one day things changed dramatically.
There was this kid that I didn't know very well. I don't know if he was new to school or if he just happened to notice my friends and I playing cards but he came over, asked to play and promptly killed us all with a deck full of Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings. None of us had ever even even CONSIDERED playing nothing but burn spells. This was a absolutely crazy, I mean where did this guy get so many of the same card, was he just buying a ton of packs? I'd never ever SEEN a Legends card before, much less this crazy one with a million words.
We all died in a flurry of 3 damage spells. Multiple times. It was awesome. It was MIND BLOWING. I spent a bus ride to the zoo late that week talking to this kid (I can't remember his name, I am horrible) about Magic and how to do what he did. How to BUILD a DECK. Up to that point I hadn't given much thought to what my cards did with each other, how they interacted with each other or other people's cards. I was just piling my big guys into a deck and shuffling in all the Islands I had. Season with a couple of Phantasmal Terrains (gotta let those Sea Serpents attack!) to taste. Magic Kid changed all of that.
The first thing he did was trim my deck down to 40 cards. This was the recognized lower limit at the time according to him and you always wanted your deck to be as small as possible. It's kind of insane to me that an kid in 7th grade was able to unshakably convince me that the smallest deck is the best but it has stayed with me all these years. Magic Kid fiddled with my deck for a while and eventually handed me my new deck. I'm pretty sure it was something like this:
6 Ornithopter
7 Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
1 Lord of Atlantis
7 Unstable Mutation
1 Psionic Blast
2 Power Sink
15 Island
First of all I was blown away that this dude was just GIVING me cards. Didn't he know Ornithopter was a FREE TO PLAY creature? Why would he just hand these over to me?
Second I was kind of pissed that he wanted me to play Unstable Mutation on my own guys. Didn't he know it would eventually kill my guys? The last thing that dawned on me what that my Mahamotti's were relegated to the extras pile. How could this be right?
It didn't take long though to realize how quickly this deck could kill an opponent. I got to play some games with Magic Kid and I even managed to win some of them. It seems attacking for 4 or more on turn 2 is a pretty good bit better than maybe attacking for 5 on turn 6.
He suggested getting more Psionic Blasts if I could and that Counterspell would be better than Power Sink if I could get some of those. I was kind of puzzled, how did Magic Kid know all about these cards if I hadn't seen them? It would be a while still before the internet was common and I didn't know anyone outside of school that played Magic at all.
Apparently Magic Kid's brother played with some of his friends a lot and they were kind enough to share their information.
It's crazy to me to think about how my perspective on magic cards has changed over the years. I can still remember writing an actual letter to my best friend because I opened a pack of Ice Age and pulled a Scaled Wurm. It was exciting enough to me to lick a stamp and seal an envelope. We're talking about a 7/6 for 8 mana here. My rare in that pack? Necropotence. TLDR, sweet art though!
These days the vast majority of my interest in Magical Cards is based on whether or not it will see tournament play. Sometimes the little kid in me can take over for a while but before long he's shouted down by the sensible person who would rather win than do something super cool. I'm not sure if that's for the best.
I remember this very clearly because the local comic shops were pimping these booster packs hard and I, not knowing much of anything about card quality, strategy or deck building, bought as many of those packs as I could afford.
Deep Spawn was the first rare I got. Or I THOUGHT he was my first rare, I don't actually know what else I got in that pack, 7th grade me was so excited by this 6/6 Lobster that I just KNEW it was the hard to get one.
The same store that sold me a pile of Fallen Empires also had boosters of The Dark, Revised, Legends and something called Beta. I knew the Legends and Beta packs were really good because they were a lot more expensive than the packs I was buying. I didn't yet know anything about the "Power 9" much less what a Mana Drain or a Karakas was but those old-looking packs had a mystique to them that stuck with me.
Eventually I convinced my Dad that we should go to a different card store and get a pair of Starter Decks. You know, 1 for me and 1 for him, so we could both play Magic. I thought I was so smart at the time, duping my Pops into buying twice the cards when I knew he wouldn't want to play with me more than a couple of times. Obviously Dad knew what was up but played along, he even managed to look interested as I clumsily tried to explain how to play when I barely grasped the difference between an Instant and an Interrupt.
I don't remember ALL of the 6 rares from those 2 Revised starter decks but I do remember 2 of them. Roc of Kher Ridges was one of them and I remember wondering why he was a rare when I could get a perfectly good Phantom Monster at Uncommon. The other memorable rare was Mahamotti Djinn. This guy was HUGE and he could FLY! From the minute I saw Mahamotti Djinn I was set on playing Blue and luckily my buddy was not a fan of the color and traded me another Djinn for a bunch of things I don't remember. I didn't care what it took, I was getting another Djinn!
I know my early Magic days were pretty similar to other folks. I crammed all of my Blue card into a pile with all of Islands I could find and called it good. I didn't win a lot of games but I sure did love playing. It helped that all of my friends that also played were just as terrible at every aspect of the game as I was, we were blissfully ignorant of things like a Mana Curve or Combos. Magic was simply sitting in a circle during Gym class and watching out for the teacher like hunted meercats on the savannah.
Then one day things changed dramatically.
There was this kid that I didn't know very well. I don't know if he was new to school or if he just happened to notice my friends and I playing cards but he came over, asked to play and promptly killed us all with a deck full of Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings. None of us had ever even even CONSIDERED playing nothing but burn spells. This was a absolutely crazy, I mean where did this guy get so many of the same card, was he just buying a ton of packs? I'd never ever SEEN a Legends card before, much less this crazy one with a million words.
We all died in a flurry of 3 damage spells. Multiple times. It was awesome. It was MIND BLOWING. I spent a bus ride to the zoo late that week talking to this kid (I can't remember his name, I am horrible) about Magic and how to do what he did. How to BUILD a DECK. Up to that point I hadn't given much thought to what my cards did with each other, how they interacted with each other or other people's cards. I was just piling my big guys into a deck and shuffling in all the Islands I had. Season with a couple of Phantasmal Terrains (gotta let those Sea Serpents attack!) to taste. Magic Kid changed all of that.
The first thing he did was trim my deck down to 40 cards. This was the recognized lower limit at the time according to him and you always wanted your deck to be as small as possible. It's kind of insane to me that an kid in 7th grade was able to unshakably convince me that the smallest deck is the best but it has stayed with me all these years. Magic Kid fiddled with my deck for a while and eventually handed me my new deck. I'm pretty sure it was something like this:
6 Ornithopter
7 Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
1 Lord of Atlantis
7 Unstable Mutation
1 Psionic Blast
2 Power Sink
15 Island
First of all I was blown away that this dude was just GIVING me cards. Didn't he know Ornithopter was a FREE TO PLAY creature? Why would he just hand these over to me?
Second I was kind of pissed that he wanted me to play Unstable Mutation on my own guys. Didn't he know it would eventually kill my guys? The last thing that dawned on me what that my Mahamotti's were relegated to the extras pile. How could this be right?
It didn't take long though to realize how quickly this deck could kill an opponent. I got to play some games with Magic Kid and I even managed to win some of them. It seems attacking for 4 or more on turn 2 is a pretty good bit better than maybe attacking for 5 on turn 6.
He suggested getting more Psionic Blasts if I could and that Counterspell would be better than Power Sink if I could get some of those. I was kind of puzzled, how did Magic Kid know all about these cards if I hadn't seen them? It would be a while still before the internet was common and I didn't know anyone outside of school that played Magic at all.
Apparently Magic Kid's brother played with some of his friends a lot and they were kind enough to share their information.
It's crazy to me to think about how my perspective on magic cards has changed over the years. I can still remember writing an actual letter to my best friend because I opened a pack of Ice Age and pulled a Scaled Wurm. It was exciting enough to me to lick a stamp and seal an envelope. We're talking about a 7/6 for 8 mana here. My rare in that pack? Necropotence. TLDR, sweet art though!
These days the vast majority of my interest in Magical Cards is based on whether or not it will see tournament play. Sometimes the little kid in me can take over for a while but before long he's shouted down by the sensible person who would rather win than do something super cool. I'm not sure if that's for the best.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Brewing and then Copying
Magic 2015 is mostly here!
As is usually the case when a new set comes out, I have spent the last few weeks brewing all kinds of different ways to try and attack the upcoming Standard format.
Realistically, I know I won't have the time to put into figuring out a broken deck much less actually test it sufficiently. This has not ever stopped me from evaporating free time before and it will not stop me from doing it again when Khans is released in September.
Some perspective: Every time a new set comes out a local shop holds a Standard tournament where the winner gets a playset of the new set. This is insane value and I have been lucky enough to split the finals of this tournament two times.
You would think that this is what motivates my brewing, but no. Both times I have been successful at these events it has been with a very stock version of a deck the internet provided me with. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy to net deck, but my goodness would it feel good to succeed with something I could call my own!
That is what pushes me to draw up lists on paper for weeks before a new set comes out, that is why I have endless files in my deck builder app with old cards as placeholders for the new ones.
So here are a few brews for you to sink your teeth into. This is probably the only place they'll see the light of day so me kind.
Brew 1: Junk Standard that wishes it was Modern
4 Pack Rat
4 Voice of Resurgence
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Reclamation Sage
3 Scion of Vitu-Ghazi
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
3 Advent of the Wurm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Selesnya Charm
1 Golgari Charm
1 Putrefy
4 Thoughtseize
2 Mutavault
4 Godless Shrine
4 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple of Malady
2 Temple of Plenty
3 Llanowar Wastes
3 Caves of Koilos
This list is evidence of one of my biggest brewing problems. I spend a lot of time brewing for Modern and I tend to try to shift decks from that format to Standard. Typically this isn't the best plan because the formats are VASTLY different but I'm eternally hopeful that it will work.
In this case we have a lot of cheap threats along with a lot of cheap answers. Voice of Resurgence is underplayed and pretty decent against the Black decks, plus you have Scion and Wurm to give you some late game punch. Pack Rat + Thoughtseize gives you some free wins and the removal package feels like it can answer most things.
Some things to think about are: whether or not Scion is better than Blood Baron here, can this deck actually afford to play Mutavault, and can this deck ever beat an Elspeth?
I'm actually going to build this thing at some point to see what happens.
Brew # B: SLIVERS! (Obviously.)
1 Striking
4 Galerider
4 DIffusion
1 Venom
3 Leeching
4 Manaweft
4 Predatory
1 Belligerent
1 Blur
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Syphon
1 Bonescythe
4 Sliver Hivelord
1 Thorncaster
1 Constricting
1 Megantic
4 Chord of Calling
4 Sliver Hive
4 Mana Confluence
3 Breeding Pool
3 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mutavault
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
3 Yavimaya Coast
This is a fairly obvious deck that I think a lot of people will or have already built. I think it's actually worth looking at Slivers because a lot of people will try to make it happen and it makes sense to know what the deck is capable of.
We're playing 4 of the most important ones and 1 of the rest. 3 Leeching because I don't think you actually want to DRAW 2 of him but you'd like to be able to find a second or third one with Chord.
Some of them I'm not sure you actually need in the main deck. Striking is largely redundant when we have Bonescythe but him costing 1 could matter. Belligerent is in a similar spot since Galerider will usually be better at getting your dudes through. I have kind of a soft spot for Thorncaster but Bonesplitter may just do that job better.
I built the manabase with all base-green lands leaning harder on Blue after Green. I like Mutavault in the deck but it feels real awkward with Hivelord.
Speaking of Hivelord, this guy is super sweet but I can't decide how many I'm supposed to play. Seems smart to start with 4 and go from there.
Brew 3: Bant Flash
4 Hushwing Gryff
3 Horizon Chimaera
3 Quicken
3 Syncopate
4 Void Snare
4 Azorius Charm
2 Selesnya Charm
4 Dissolve
2 Divination
2 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Advent of the Wurm
4 Breeding Pool
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Temple of Mystery
2 Tempe of Plenty
4 Yavimaya Coast
This one is real rough and real bad. Sometimes a new card hits me at the right angle and I just can't get out of my mind that it's going to be good. This is the case with Hushwing Gryff.
Trying to cast Advent of the Wurm in some kind of control deck has always been kind of the dream. We got to live it for a little while with Snapcaster Mage but even then it wasn't really good enough. Why I'm pushing myself to think it will be better now I honestly don't know.
Void Snare gives us another card that we're happy to Quicken and maybe makes that card worth the slots?
I'm wrapping it up for today. I hope that gave you a somewhat interesting peek into my brain and how many less-than-good decks I go through before I land on anything reasonable.
As is usually the case when a new set comes out, I have spent the last few weeks brewing all kinds of different ways to try and attack the upcoming Standard format.
Realistically, I know I won't have the time to put into figuring out a broken deck much less actually test it sufficiently. This has not ever stopped me from evaporating free time before and it will not stop me from doing it again when Khans is released in September.
Some perspective: Every time a new set comes out a local shop holds a Standard tournament where the winner gets a playset of the new set. This is insane value and I have been lucky enough to split the finals of this tournament two times.
You would think that this is what motivates my brewing, but no. Both times I have been successful at these events it has been with a very stock version of a deck the internet provided me with. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy to net deck, but my goodness would it feel good to succeed with something I could call my own!
That is what pushes me to draw up lists on paper for weeks before a new set comes out, that is why I have endless files in my deck builder app with old cards as placeholders for the new ones.
So here are a few brews for you to sink your teeth into. This is probably the only place they'll see the light of day so me kind.
Brew 1: Junk Standard that wishes it was Modern
4 Pack Rat
4 Voice of Resurgence
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Reclamation Sage
3 Scion of Vitu-Ghazi
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
3 Advent of the Wurm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Selesnya Charm
1 Golgari Charm
1 Putrefy
4 Thoughtseize
2 Mutavault
4 Godless Shrine
4 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple of Malady
2 Temple of Plenty
3 Llanowar Wastes
3 Caves of Koilos
This list is evidence of one of my biggest brewing problems. I spend a lot of time brewing for Modern and I tend to try to shift decks from that format to Standard. Typically this isn't the best plan because the formats are VASTLY different but I'm eternally hopeful that it will work.
In this case we have a lot of cheap threats along with a lot of cheap answers. Voice of Resurgence is underplayed and pretty decent against the Black decks, plus you have Scion and Wurm to give you some late game punch. Pack Rat + Thoughtseize gives you some free wins and the removal package feels like it can answer most things.
Some things to think about are: whether or not Scion is better than Blood Baron here, can this deck actually afford to play Mutavault, and can this deck ever beat an Elspeth?
I'm actually going to build this thing at some point to see what happens.
Brew # B: SLIVERS! (Obviously.)
1 Striking
4 Galerider
4 DIffusion
1 Venom
3 Leeching
4 Manaweft
4 Predatory
1 Belligerent
1 Blur
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Syphon
1 Bonescythe
4 Sliver Hivelord
1 Thorncaster
1 Constricting
1 Megantic
4 Chord of Calling
4 Sliver Hive
4 Mana Confluence
3 Breeding Pool
3 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mutavault
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
3 Yavimaya Coast
This is a fairly obvious deck that I think a lot of people will or have already built. I think it's actually worth looking at Slivers because a lot of people will try to make it happen and it makes sense to know what the deck is capable of.
We're playing 4 of the most important ones and 1 of the rest. 3 Leeching because I don't think you actually want to DRAW 2 of him but you'd like to be able to find a second or third one with Chord.
Some of them I'm not sure you actually need in the main deck. Striking is largely redundant when we have Bonescythe but him costing 1 could matter. Belligerent is in a similar spot since Galerider will usually be better at getting your dudes through. I have kind of a soft spot for Thorncaster but Bonesplitter may just do that job better.
I built the manabase with all base-green lands leaning harder on Blue after Green. I like Mutavault in the deck but it feels real awkward with Hivelord.
Speaking of Hivelord, this guy is super sweet but I can't decide how many I'm supposed to play. Seems smart to start with 4 and go from there.
Brew 3: Bant Flash
4 Hushwing Gryff
3 Horizon Chimaera
3 Quicken
3 Syncopate
4 Void Snare
4 Azorius Charm
2 Selesnya Charm
4 Dissolve
2 Divination
2 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Advent of the Wurm
4 Breeding Pool
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Temple of Mystery
2 Tempe of Plenty
4 Yavimaya Coast
This one is real rough and real bad. Sometimes a new card hits me at the right angle and I just can't get out of my mind that it's going to be good. This is the case with Hushwing Gryff.
Trying to cast Advent of the Wurm in some kind of control deck has always been kind of the dream. We got to live it for a little while with Snapcaster Mage but even then it wasn't really good enough. Why I'm pushing myself to think it will be better now I honestly don't know.
Void Snare gives us another card that we're happy to Quicken and maybe makes that card worth the slots?
I'm wrapping it up for today. I hope that gave you a somewhat interesting peek into my brain and how many less-than-good decks I go through before I land on anything reasonable.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Killing People and Sometimes Making Them Mad
I am not dead, I've just been lazy.
In an attempt to find my writing groove again I'm here to talk about Magic, playing Magic and also possibly winning at Magic.
You see, it's been a rough couple of months for me Magic-wise. After co-winning a big tournament just after Journey Into Nyx released my competitive results have been middling at best. Unfortunately, I can't blame my lack of success on anything but my own inability to stick with a deck that wins and ride it out.
You see, I'm decidedly a Spike (competitive, winning matters the most) with a hard to ignore Johnny (likes to do cool things) streak. This combination is pretty tough to live with since the Johnny leads me to try new decks all the time in search of elusive cool new experiences but the Spike still despises losing almost more than anything.
If I were more of a Spike it would be easy to simply play the best deck, learn it well and benefit from the experience.
If I were more of a Johnny I would be content with the fun of playing new decks and seeing interesting interactions. Winning would be a secondary goal entirely, a nice bonus if it happened.
Instead I've been sort of torturing myself with all of these brews and ending up on the low end of the tournament results, if I even managed to finish the events to begin with.
This all sounds very grandiose and overblown, especially since the majority of the tournaments I've been to have been local Wednesday or Friday nights, but I get to play so little Magic that these events are important to me. It can be extremely frustrating to spend several days building up a deck in my mind only to lose the first 2 rounds of Wednesday Night Magic in frustrating, helpless fashion.
Now I know the actual solution to this is to spend time play testing these brews before, during and after W/FNM. Get the bad ones out of my system when there's actually nothing on the line rather than mostly nothing. Find the promising decks, tweak them and know what the hell I'm doing before battling Tier 1 decks for store credit.
As I said before though, I am lazy. But I'm working on it!
So I've rambled on quite a bit here and complained about my own problems. Here's where the actual story begins.
2 weeks ago, after a frustrating Modern Wednesday in which my last-minute deck choice led me to the usual 2-2 tournament results, I got home and in a fit of MCDonald's-fueled inspiration dismantled every deck in my office. No more Black White Auras. No more Pyro Loam. No more Mono-Green Devotion.
I assembled 2 decks and decided they would be my focus for at least a week. I wouldn't take them apart, build a new deck or even look at tournament results until I'd played at least a couple of tournaments.
Now obviously I didn't stick to all of that. Work is long and there are certainly stretches of time where I'm going to look at deck lists.
BUT! I did stick to the same Standard deck for 3 tournaments in a row.
Here's the list I started with 2 weeks ago on Friday:
Boss Sligh
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Ash Zealot
3 Rubblebelt Maaka
4 Dragon Mantle
4 Madcap Skills
4 Titan's Strength
2 Shock
2 Lightning Strike
17 Mountain
Sideboard
4 Skullcrack
1 Blinding Flare
1 Peak Eruption
2 Magma Spray
1 Lightning Strike
2 Eidolon of the Great Revel
1 Searing Blood
1 Harness by Force
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Mutavault
Now this deck is pretty far from my usual comfort zone. I tend to gravitate towards decks that kill my opponent's creatures, stop them doing whatever it is that they'd like to be up to and eventually get around to winning the game.
This has been generally Sphinx's Revelation decks but has also bled over into some Black Devotion decks that I likely misplayed horribly.
So back to the deck, this is Tom Ross's's's (esses) SCG Invitational-winning Standard deck and I think it's actually a pretty difficult deck to play correctly. I mean, there will be games where your opponent has a slow draw and you just triple 1-drop them into the ground. But there will also be games where they kill your first 2 creatures and you have to make every card matter.
I played the list above on the first Friday night and ended up going 3-1, losing to a Jund Monsters opponent who had actual 5 removal spells in game 1 and who played Mystic > Courser > Disciple in game 2. I don't think the Jund Monsters matchup is particularly good or bad, but I certainly wasn't winning that one.
I fought the urge to give up on the deck right away and played it again on this Wednesday to a 3-0-1 record, drawing with Hexproof in the last round. Small sample size not withstanding, I could feel myself getting more comfortable with the deck. I was making plays that I wouldn't have been comfortable with from the get-go and managed to defeat some quality opponents on my way.
I was particularly proud of myself for putting an opponent on Bile Blight and not walking a pair of Rakdos Cacklers into the spell, instead casting a post-combat Ask Zealot. Not exactly intuitive play there but I'm fairly confident it was correct.
This past Friday I stuck with deck again, making a minor change to the sideboard after seeing a couple of other people running Red, and again managed to not lose a match. Friday's tournament was very small with only 12 people, but I went 3-0 after getting paired down in the final round while the other undefeated players intentionally drew.
My sideboard change ended up paying off when my first round opponent was also Mono Red and I got to use the Electrickery that would have been a Peak Eruption.
I won't get to play Magic this Wednesday, instead I'll be watching The Dear Hunter perform after eating some Rosemary Cornbread at the House of Blues.
I'll certainly be playing Sligh again on Friday though, hopefully killing people but hopefully not making them mad. At least not too mad.
In an attempt to find my writing groove again I'm here to talk about Magic, playing Magic and also possibly winning at Magic.
You see, it's been a rough couple of months for me Magic-wise. After co-winning a big tournament just after Journey Into Nyx released my competitive results have been middling at best. Unfortunately, I can't blame my lack of success on anything but my own inability to stick with a deck that wins and ride it out.
You see, I'm decidedly a Spike (competitive, winning matters the most) with a hard to ignore Johnny (likes to do cool things) streak. This combination is pretty tough to live with since the Johnny leads me to try new decks all the time in search of elusive cool new experiences but the Spike still despises losing almost more than anything.
If I were more of a Spike it would be easy to simply play the best deck, learn it well and benefit from the experience.
If I were more of a Johnny I would be content with the fun of playing new decks and seeing interesting interactions. Winning would be a secondary goal entirely, a nice bonus if it happened.
Instead I've been sort of torturing myself with all of these brews and ending up on the low end of the tournament results, if I even managed to finish the events to begin with.
This all sounds very grandiose and overblown, especially since the majority of the tournaments I've been to have been local Wednesday or Friday nights, but I get to play so little Magic that these events are important to me. It can be extremely frustrating to spend several days building up a deck in my mind only to lose the first 2 rounds of Wednesday Night Magic in frustrating, helpless fashion.
Now I know the actual solution to this is to spend time play testing these brews before, during and after W/FNM. Get the bad ones out of my system when there's actually nothing on the line rather than mostly nothing. Find the promising decks, tweak them and know what the hell I'm doing before battling Tier 1 decks for store credit.
As I said before though, I am lazy. But I'm working on it!
So I've rambled on quite a bit here and complained about my own problems. Here's where the actual story begins.
2 weeks ago, after a frustrating Modern Wednesday in which my last-minute deck choice led me to the usual 2-2 tournament results, I got home and in a fit of MCDonald's-fueled inspiration dismantled every deck in my office. No more Black White Auras. No more Pyro Loam. No more Mono-Green Devotion.
I assembled 2 decks and decided they would be my focus for at least a week. I wouldn't take them apart, build a new deck or even look at tournament results until I'd played at least a couple of tournaments.
Now obviously I didn't stick to all of that. Work is long and there are certainly stretches of time where I'm going to look at deck lists.
BUT! I did stick to the same Standard deck for 3 tournaments in a row.
Here's the list I started with 2 weeks ago on Friday:
Boss Sligh
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Ash Zealot
3 Rubblebelt Maaka
4 Dragon Mantle
4 Madcap Skills
4 Titan's Strength
2 Shock
2 Lightning Strike
17 Mountain
Sideboard
4 Skullcrack
1 Blinding Flare
1 Peak Eruption
2 Magma Spray
1 Lightning Strike
2 Eidolon of the Great Revel
1 Searing Blood
1 Harness by Force
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Mutavault
Now this deck is pretty far from my usual comfort zone. I tend to gravitate towards decks that kill my opponent's creatures, stop them doing whatever it is that they'd like to be up to and eventually get around to winning the game.
This has been generally Sphinx's Revelation decks but has also bled over into some Black Devotion decks that I likely misplayed horribly.
So back to the deck, this is Tom Ross's's's (esses) SCG Invitational-winning Standard deck and I think it's actually a pretty difficult deck to play correctly. I mean, there will be games where your opponent has a slow draw and you just triple 1-drop them into the ground. But there will also be games where they kill your first 2 creatures and you have to make every card matter.
I played the list above on the first Friday night and ended up going 3-1, losing to a Jund Monsters opponent who had actual 5 removal spells in game 1 and who played Mystic > Courser > Disciple in game 2. I don't think the Jund Monsters matchup is particularly good or bad, but I certainly wasn't winning that one.
I fought the urge to give up on the deck right away and played it again on this Wednesday to a 3-0-1 record, drawing with Hexproof in the last round. Small sample size not withstanding, I could feel myself getting more comfortable with the deck. I was making plays that I wouldn't have been comfortable with from the get-go and managed to defeat some quality opponents on my way.
I was particularly proud of myself for putting an opponent on Bile Blight and not walking a pair of Rakdos Cacklers into the spell, instead casting a post-combat Ask Zealot. Not exactly intuitive play there but I'm fairly confident it was correct.
This past Friday I stuck with deck again, making a minor change to the sideboard after seeing a couple of other people running Red, and again managed to not lose a match. Friday's tournament was very small with only 12 people, but I went 3-0 after getting paired down in the final round while the other undefeated players intentionally drew.
My sideboard change ended up paying off when my first round opponent was also Mono Red and I got to use the Electrickery that would have been a Peak Eruption.
I won't get to play Magic this Wednesday, instead I'll be watching The Dear Hunter perform after eating some Rosemary Cornbread at the House of Blues.
I'll certainly be playing Sligh again on Friday though, hopefully killing people but hopefully not making them mad. At least not too mad.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Standard Ramblings and Basic Lands
I still don't have a tournament to tell you about specifically but I have been enjoying Standard a lot more than usual so I'm going to yammer about that.
Nothing too terribly crazy has happened to the format but people seem to be spreading their wings a bit and trying out more decks. GR Monsters had a couple of weeks of dominance there but most recently Mono Black has been on top. All the while we've seen UWx control decks, Mono Blue and various other devotion strategies doing well enough.
The deck I want to tell you about is one that I haven't been brave enough to bring to a tournament yet.
This list sprang from what I'm fairly certain was a large FNM in Japan. It was a 7 round, 90+ person event, in which a Chromanticore deck finished 5th with a 6-1 record.
Here's the original list to blow your mind a little:
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft Sliver
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Sin Collector
3 Polukranos
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Chromanticore
2 Xenagos the Reveler
2 Lay of the Land
2 Peregrination
2 Rakdos's Return
3 Dreadbore
3 Far // Away
1 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Island
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
3 Temple of Abandon
2 Temple of Triumph
I may be off a card or two but I think this is right. This looks like a horrible pile from the outset, I mean it's playing Chromanticores right, but after goldfishing a few hands the mana felt very, very good. Lay of the Land, despite looking just awful, worked very well to make things castable and the low land count kept flooding to a minimum.
You're working off of a Jund shell which means you're playing powerful cards like Dreadbore, Rakdos's Return, Poly-K and Stormbreath Dragon. You're stretching your mana for Chromanticore, Sin Collector and Far//Away. Far Away is 100% a powerful card. Chromanticore is really the rub and I guess it's really the entire discussion here. Is it worth stretching our mana?
The things I wasn't blown away by were the Sin Collectors and the Peregrinations. Sin Collector is one of my favorite cards in Standard right now but he is decidedly a sideboard card in our current Devotion-fueled format. Peregrination was definitely powerful but entirely too slow at fixing the mana.
I knew 100% I wanted a 4th Courser of Kruphix in the deck and I also knew I wanted Lay of the Land #3 & 4. I also knew I wanted to try out some other 5-drops since Stormbreath, while obviously great, is not at his best here. Blood Baron was my first thought, and he's probably actually the right one, but Archangel of Thune kept popping into my head as something powerful. She pairs up nicely with Courser and, once we adjust the manabase to allow double white to be found through Lay of the Land, plays right into another card I want in the deck: Elspeth!
Here's where I ended up before playing some actual, honest to goodness, games.
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft Sliver
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Polukranos
3 Archangel of Thune
4 Chromanticore
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Lay of the Land
3 Dreadbore
3 Far // Away
2 Rakdos's Return
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Forest
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
1 Temple of Abandon
2 Temple of Plenty
2 Temple of Triumph
I added a Mizzium Mortars kind of at random in one of the spots vacated by the 4th Archangel. Truthfully the reason is that I don't own 4 Archangels at the moment but I think the change is reasonable since I added 2 6 drops to the deck. Mortars is a nice answer to a lot of the strongest cards in the format and conveniently gives us a sweeper effect going long.
I also adjusted the manabase a little to make it easier to cast our new double-white spells. A second plains was obvious but I also swapped 2 of the RG Temples to WG ones. I am far from confident this is enough.
I got to play a set of 5 or 6 games against Mono Black Devotion piloted by a very good player. The deck did VERY well pre-board but I attribute a lot of that to his list running 4 Bile Blight, a card that kills very little in the Chromanticore deck. Far//Away was impressive vs. Pack Rat and bestowing Chromanticore was almost always a win.
After we sideboarded I couldn't manage a win, though most games were pretty close. It's hard to believe that simply removing Bile Blights made that much of a difference but it seems to be the case. Only 1 sideboard card in particular made much of an impact, but oh buddy was it a big one. Erebos won every single game he showed up to simply by shutting down Archangel of Thune, of course I didn't bother to include anything like Revoke Existence or Unravel the Aether so that problem is solvable.
I'm actually pretty optimistic about this shell being a workable one. The way I see it we have the following "essentials" in the deck.
4 Sylvan Caryatid
x Manaweft Sliver
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Chromanticore
4 Lay of the Land
22 - 23 Land
This is sort of the engine that allows the deck to function and cast spells as well as the trump card that we are bending our mana all over the place to use. Because we are including Chromanticore we have access to basically any support spell in the format as long as it doesn't cost more than 1 of any color.
It makes sense to play Rakdos's Return because it's one of the best spells in the format without a home.
It makes sense to play Dreadbore because it's a very efficient removal spell that will never be dead. It's also easier for us to cast than Hero's Downfall and the sorcery speed will rarely be a problem.
Far // Away I am less sure about. When cast for 5 it's great but I think this deck has enough powerful things to do at 4+ mana that we probably want something cheaper and more reliable. I'm inclined to try some combination of Abrupt Decay and/or Golgari Charm.
Polukranos is another card I'm not sure about from the original list. He's obviously a good card but this deck doesn't really make a ton of mana like the Devotion decks. Against most of the good decks in the format he's not even particularly scary! I don't know what else I would want to play though.
I think the next thing I'd like to try is a build focused more on Junk colors.
Something like:
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft
4 Courser of Kruphix
2 Polukranos
2 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Archangel of Thune
4 Chromanticore
3 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Lay of the Land
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Ultimate Price
3 Hero's Downfall
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Island
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple Garden
2 Godless Shrine
3 Temple of Plenty
2 Temple of Silence
Here we're essentially Junk Splash Chromanticore which is....odd to say the least.
I think a list like this would really show us whether or not Chromanticore is worth the effort since we're jumping through all of the hoops possible just to cast it.
I do like the rest of this deck though, it's doing very powerful things and should always be able to cast it's spells.
So now that I've taken you down the Rabbit Hole into Magical Chromanticore'smas Land I want to make a sharp left turn.
I recently got my hands on some sweet Foreign Black Bordered Basic Lands. I've had my eye on these for quite a long time but never pulled the trigger because I couldn't find enough of them that matched and that didn't cost a fortune. Luckily, a kind gentleman on Facebook was able to hook me up with a pile of them for a great price!
I bring these lands up because choice of basic land is very important to me. It's one way to personalize your deck in a sea of people all running similar lists of cards. Is there a type of land that you prefer to use? Am I silly to care?
Let's talk about these pressing issues!
Thanks for reading my blog friends, if you liked it please share it with your friends and enemies. If you hated it please tell me why so I canfind you and silence you fix the problems! I'll be back soon with more things.
Nothing too terribly crazy has happened to the format but people seem to be spreading their wings a bit and trying out more decks. GR Monsters had a couple of weeks of dominance there but most recently Mono Black has been on top. All the while we've seen UWx control decks, Mono Blue and various other devotion strategies doing well enough.
The deck I want to tell you about is one that I haven't been brave enough to bring to a tournament yet.
This list sprang from what I'm fairly certain was a large FNM in Japan. It was a 7 round, 90+ person event, in which a Chromanticore deck finished 5th with a 6-1 record.
Here's the original list to blow your mind a little:
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft Sliver
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Sin Collector
3 Polukranos
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Chromanticore
2 Xenagos the Reveler
2 Lay of the Land
2 Peregrination
2 Rakdos's Return
3 Dreadbore
3 Far // Away
1 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Island
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
3 Temple of Abandon
2 Temple of Triumph
I may be off a card or two but I think this is right. This looks like a horrible pile from the outset, I mean it's playing Chromanticores right, but after goldfishing a few hands the mana felt very, very good. Lay of the Land, despite looking just awful, worked very well to make things castable and the low land count kept flooding to a minimum.
You're working off of a Jund shell which means you're playing powerful cards like Dreadbore, Rakdos's Return, Poly-K and Stormbreath Dragon. You're stretching your mana for Chromanticore, Sin Collector and Far//Away. Far Away is 100% a powerful card. Chromanticore is really the rub and I guess it's really the entire discussion here. Is it worth stretching our mana?
The things I wasn't blown away by were the Sin Collectors and the Peregrinations. Sin Collector is one of my favorite cards in Standard right now but he is decidedly a sideboard card in our current Devotion-fueled format. Peregrination was definitely powerful but entirely too slow at fixing the mana.
I knew 100% I wanted a 4th Courser of Kruphix in the deck and I also knew I wanted Lay of the Land #3 & 4. I also knew I wanted to try out some other 5-drops since Stormbreath, while obviously great, is not at his best here. Blood Baron was my first thought, and he's probably actually the right one, but Archangel of Thune kept popping into my head as something powerful. She pairs up nicely with Courser and, once we adjust the manabase to allow double white to be found through Lay of the Land, plays right into another card I want in the deck: Elspeth!
Here's where I ended up before playing some actual, honest to goodness, games.
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft Sliver
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Polukranos
3 Archangel of Thune
4 Chromanticore
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Lay of the Land
3 Dreadbore
3 Far // Away
2 Rakdos's Return
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Forest
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
1 Temple of Abandon
2 Temple of Plenty
2 Temple of Triumph
I added a Mizzium Mortars kind of at random in one of the spots vacated by the 4th Archangel. Truthfully the reason is that I don't own 4 Archangels at the moment but I think the change is reasonable since I added 2 6 drops to the deck. Mortars is a nice answer to a lot of the strongest cards in the format and conveniently gives us a sweeper effect going long.
I also adjusted the manabase a little to make it easier to cast our new double-white spells. A second plains was obvious but I also swapped 2 of the RG Temples to WG ones. I am far from confident this is enough.
I got to play a set of 5 or 6 games against Mono Black Devotion piloted by a very good player. The deck did VERY well pre-board but I attribute a lot of that to his list running 4 Bile Blight, a card that kills very little in the Chromanticore deck. Far//Away was impressive vs. Pack Rat and bestowing Chromanticore was almost always a win.
After we sideboarded I couldn't manage a win, though most games were pretty close. It's hard to believe that simply removing Bile Blights made that much of a difference but it seems to be the case. Only 1 sideboard card in particular made much of an impact, but oh buddy was it a big one. Erebos won every single game he showed up to simply by shutting down Archangel of Thune, of course I didn't bother to include anything like Revoke Existence or Unravel the Aether so that problem is solvable.
I'm actually pretty optimistic about this shell being a workable one. The way I see it we have the following "essentials" in the deck.
4 Sylvan Caryatid
x Manaweft Sliver
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Chromanticore
4 Lay of the Land
22 - 23 Land
This is sort of the engine that allows the deck to function and cast spells as well as the trump card that we are bending our mana all over the place to use. Because we are including Chromanticore we have access to basically any support spell in the format as long as it doesn't cost more than 1 of any color.
It makes sense to play Rakdos's Return because it's one of the best spells in the format without a home.
It makes sense to play Dreadbore because it's a very efficient removal spell that will never be dead. It's also easier for us to cast than Hero's Downfall and the sorcery speed will rarely be a problem.
Far // Away I am less sure about. When cast for 5 it's great but I think this deck has enough powerful things to do at 4+ mana that we probably want something cheaper and more reliable. I'm inclined to try some combination of Abrupt Decay and/or Golgari Charm.
Polukranos is another card I'm not sure about from the original list. He's obviously a good card but this deck doesn't really make a ton of mana like the Devotion decks. Against most of the good decks in the format he's not even particularly scary! I don't know what else I would want to play though.
I think the next thing I'd like to try is a build focused more on Junk colors.
Something like:
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Manaweft
4 Courser of Kruphix
2 Polukranos
2 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Archangel of Thune
4 Chromanticore
3 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Lay of the Land
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Ultimate Price
3 Hero's Downfall
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Island
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple Garden
2 Godless Shrine
3 Temple of Plenty
2 Temple of Silence
Here we're essentially Junk Splash Chromanticore which is....odd to say the least.
I think a list like this would really show us whether or not Chromanticore is worth the effort since we're jumping through all of the hoops possible just to cast it.
I do like the rest of this deck though, it's doing very powerful things and should always be able to cast it's spells.
So now that I've taken you down the Rabbit Hole into Magical Chromanticore'smas Land I want to make a sharp left turn.
I recently got my hands on some sweet Foreign Black Bordered Basic Lands. I've had my eye on these for quite a long time but never pulled the trigger because I couldn't find enough of them that matched and that didn't cost a fortune. Luckily, a kind gentleman on Facebook was able to hook me up with a pile of them for a great price!
I bring these lands up because choice of basic land is very important to me. It's one way to personalize your deck in a sea of people all running similar lists of cards. Is there a type of land that you prefer to use? Am I silly to care?
Let's talk about these pressing issues!
Thanks for reading my blog friends, if you liked it please share it with your friends and enemies. If you hated it please tell me why so I can
Monday, March 3, 2014
Modern on the Cheap(er Than Normal)
Hey there faithful reader.
I'm glad to see you didn't give up on me entirely!
I know it's been a while, but if I've learned anything from making these blog things it's that you have to let them flow naturally if you want to maintain good quality.
Tournament Reports got old and I got tired of writing them for a bit so I'm trying something different. I want to try and help people get into Modern.
Unfortunately, Modern is full of $300+ mana-bases and $200 green creatures and that can make it a bit of a tough sell to people without massive bankrolls to peel off of whenever a sweet new deck pops up.
What I aim to do with this article(or series of articles) is present you, my faithful readers, with viable tier 1 or 2 decks that you can build without fetch lands, Tarmogoyfs or any of the other difficult to find staples.
I want any deck I feature to be fully functional and powerful. You're not going to see any Zoo lists with Flinthoof Boar over Goyf. No substituting Pain Seer for Dark Confidant. My hope is to bring you decks that can use slightly worse mana bases without hurting the consistency and power very much or at all.
Now before I go into the list and start typing a bunch of cards I want to suggest you get the add-on for your browser called "Auto-Card Anywhere". I know for sure it's available for Google Chrome and I assume Firefox. It'll make looking at these articles a lot easier for you by automatically pulling up a pop-up of any card I type.
Today's list is going to be Scapeshift a la Prismatic Omen.
First up, the list we're starting from.
Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Primeval Titan $20 each
Enchantments
3 Prismatic Omen $10 each
4 Khalni-Heart Expedition
Instants
2 Izzet Charm
Sorceries
4 Scapeshift $15 each
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Explore
3 Anger of the Gods $3 each
Lands
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest $80.00 each
7 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn $80 each
1 Steam Vents $12
4 Stomping Ground $12 each
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle $2 each
1 Verdant Catacombs $50.00
I'm not going to list the sideboard because it will be very different depending on where you play regularly.
I'm marked the retail prices for each card you're likely to have to buy and as you can see it's heavily loaded in the lands. The core cards of the deck (Scapeshift, Prime Time, Omen and shock lands) are going to cost you around $200, maybe a little less if you shop around. The good news is that a lot of you will already have a lot of these cards, either from Standard or from other endeavors.
My plan to reduce the cost of this deck is to cut blue entirely. In doing this we lose 2 Izzet Charm from the main deck and 4 Swan Song from the sideboard. That's all! Now, these are very strong cards in certain matchups for sure. Being able to protect your spells from countermagic is extremely powerful but it's only relevant against a couple of the major decks.
In cutting the third color we can remove almost $700 in fetch lands from the cost of our deck. We also cut the Steam Vents and the basic Island. This leaves us looking at this:
2 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
We vacated 11 land spots but replacing them is going to be at least a little tricky.
You see, the reason the fetch lands are so good is that they individually represent access to essentially any color or combination of colors our deck has to offer. They also can all find a mountain which is extremely relevant in our Valakut deck.
One thing is for sure: we need a lot more green sources. We also need them to be able to come into play untapped early on when we're doing our early ramping. Copperline Gorge fits this criteria perfectly and is readily available around $5 each.
4 Copperline Gorge
An odd thing about the manabase in this deck is that it largely just wants green mana. 1 Green gets things going, allowing you to cast all of your ramp spells and even fetching your Red mana. In fact the only thing in the deck that actually wants Red mana is Anger of the Gods! We could theoretically just fill the other 7 land spots with Basic Forest and be done with it. Instead, we're going to fill 5 of those slots with Basic Forest and leave the other 2 up for discussion.
In my eyes we have the following to choose from:
Cavern of Souls
Inkmoth Nexus + Kessig Wolf Run
Boseiju
Glimmerpost
I don't think Wolf Run does enough on it's own considering our low creature count so I'm pairing it up with Inkmoth to relive their glory from Standard. Despite their strength in that era I'm pretty sure just getting Valakut and Mountains does more if we're grabbing lands from our deck.
Boseiju is a small hedge that lets us resolve Scapeshift through counterspells and can make up some of the ground we lost dropping Blue. It's not going to be very reliable and we can't afford to play a bunch of copies but I still think including 1 is worth it.
Cavern of Souls fits into the same niche as Boseiju. It can even force in a Titan who then finds Boseiju, good stuff. I'm positive I want some number of these in the main and possibly even more in the sideboard.
Glimmerpost is a nice hedge against aggro but I'm not sure the relatively small amount of life is worth the card slots in modern. We would definitely want to play 4 of these to get the full effect.
So for now I'm setting our lands as such:
7 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle
2 Cavern of Souls
Lets talk about the rest of the deck and see what's up.
After taking out the 2 Izzet Charm we have 2 empty spots to fill. The obvious candidate is Lightning Bolt and I'm positive that's the right move. While they're not nearly as versatile as the Charms they replaced they are a more powerful card by far.
While nothing else has to change it's worth talking about the loss of the fetchlands and how they reduce the power level of Khalni Heart Expedition. I still think the synergy between Explore, Prime Time and everything else is enough to keep the card in the deck but it's possible that Farseek is better now.
Here is our modified list
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Primeval Titan
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Explore
4 Scapeshift
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
3 Prismatic Omen
7 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
I feel that our changed deck will function in most games almost exactly the same as the previous Scapeshift list.
My concerns about our changes are as follows:
- Do we have enough Green sources to reliably get the ramping started?
- Do we have enough Mountains in the deck to combo off without Prismatic Omen?
- Is Cavern of Souls worth a main-deck spot despite being neither a Mountain nor a Green source?
Perhaps most importantly, let's take a look at what it would cost us to outright buy the cards for this list.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder $1.49 each / $5.96
4 Primeval Titan $19.99 each / $79.96
2 Lightning Bolt $1.99 each / $3.98
3 Anger of the Gods $2.99 each / $8.97
4 Explore $0.99 each / $3.96
4 Scapeshift $9.99 each / $39.96
4 Search for Tomorrow $0.49 each / $1.96
4 Khalni Heart Expedition $$0.49 each / $1.96
3 Prismatic Omen $14.99 each / $44.97
7 Forest free
7 Mountain free
4 Copperline Gorge $4.99 each / $19.96
2 Cavern of Souls $19.99 each / $39.98
4 Stomping Ground $11.99 each / $47.96
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle $1.99 each / $7.96
Our Grand Total = $307.54
That's pretty good considering our original list was over a grand!
Also, keep in mind that these are retail prices from Starcitygames.com.
If you're patient you can catch most of the big cards for a LOT less on ebay, from local players or on some of the facebook groups where people sell cards. Most of the commons and uncommons should be easily obtainable for much less than what SCG is asking. When you buy from SCG you're paying for the convenience of going to 1 place and getting everything, you can save money if you're willing to work a little!
I know I didn't include a sideboard and that's definitely a cost to factor in. I'm positive I would want Lightning Bolts #3 and 4 as well as Anger of the Gods #4 in there. Beyond that it would defend on what you're expecting to battle.
Let me know what you thought about this exercise and if you have any ideas about other decks to look at let me know. I love talking about Magic so lets talk!
I'm glad to see you didn't give up on me entirely!
I know it's been a while, but if I've learned anything from making these blog things it's that you have to let them flow naturally if you want to maintain good quality.
Tournament Reports got old and I got tired of writing them for a bit so I'm trying something different. I want to try and help people get into Modern.
Unfortunately, Modern is full of $300+ mana-bases and $200 green creatures and that can make it a bit of a tough sell to people without massive bankrolls to peel off of whenever a sweet new deck pops up.
What I aim to do with this article(or series of articles) is present you, my faithful readers, with viable tier 1 or 2 decks that you can build without fetch lands, Tarmogoyfs or any of the other difficult to find staples.
I want any deck I feature to be fully functional and powerful. You're not going to see any Zoo lists with Flinthoof Boar over Goyf. No substituting Pain Seer for Dark Confidant. My hope is to bring you decks that can use slightly worse mana bases without hurting the consistency and power very much or at all.
Now before I go into the list and start typing a bunch of cards I want to suggest you get the add-on for your browser called "Auto-Card Anywhere". I know for sure it's available for Google Chrome and I assume Firefox. It'll make looking at these articles a lot easier for you by automatically pulling up a pop-up of any card I type.
Today's list is going to be Scapeshift a la Prismatic Omen.
First up, the list we're starting from.
Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Primeval Titan $20 each
Enchantments
3 Prismatic Omen $10 each
4 Khalni-Heart Expedition
Instants
2 Izzet Charm
Sorceries
4 Scapeshift $15 each
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Explore
3 Anger of the Gods $3 each
Lands
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest $80.00 each
7 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn $80 each
1 Steam Vents $12
4 Stomping Ground $12 each
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle $2 each
1 Verdant Catacombs $50.00
I'm not going to list the sideboard because it will be very different depending on where you play regularly.
I'm marked the retail prices for each card you're likely to have to buy and as you can see it's heavily loaded in the lands. The core cards of the deck (Scapeshift, Prime Time, Omen and shock lands) are going to cost you around $200, maybe a little less if you shop around. The good news is that a lot of you will already have a lot of these cards, either from Standard or from other endeavors.
My plan to reduce the cost of this deck is to cut blue entirely. In doing this we lose 2 Izzet Charm from the main deck and 4 Swan Song from the sideboard. That's all! Now, these are very strong cards in certain matchups for sure. Being able to protect your spells from countermagic is extremely powerful but it's only relevant against a couple of the major decks.
In cutting the third color we can remove almost $700 in fetch lands from the cost of our deck. We also cut the Steam Vents and the basic Island. This leaves us looking at this:
2 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
We vacated 11 land spots but replacing them is going to be at least a little tricky.
You see, the reason the fetch lands are so good is that they individually represent access to essentially any color or combination of colors our deck has to offer. They also can all find a mountain which is extremely relevant in our Valakut deck.
One thing is for sure: we need a lot more green sources. We also need them to be able to come into play untapped early on when we're doing our early ramping. Copperline Gorge fits this criteria perfectly and is readily available around $5 each.
4 Copperline Gorge
An odd thing about the manabase in this deck is that it largely just wants green mana. 1 Green gets things going, allowing you to cast all of your ramp spells and even fetching your Red mana. In fact the only thing in the deck that actually wants Red mana is Anger of the Gods! We could theoretically just fill the other 7 land spots with Basic Forest and be done with it. Instead, we're going to fill 5 of those slots with Basic Forest and leave the other 2 up for discussion.
In my eyes we have the following to choose from:
Cavern of Souls
Inkmoth Nexus + Kessig Wolf Run
Boseiju
Glimmerpost
I don't think Wolf Run does enough on it's own considering our low creature count so I'm pairing it up with Inkmoth to relive their glory from Standard. Despite their strength in that era I'm pretty sure just getting Valakut and Mountains does more if we're grabbing lands from our deck.
Boseiju is a small hedge that lets us resolve Scapeshift through counterspells and can make up some of the ground we lost dropping Blue. It's not going to be very reliable and we can't afford to play a bunch of copies but I still think including 1 is worth it.
Cavern of Souls fits into the same niche as Boseiju. It can even force in a Titan who then finds Boseiju, good stuff. I'm positive I want some number of these in the main and possibly even more in the sideboard.
Glimmerpost is a nice hedge against aggro but I'm not sure the relatively small amount of life is worth the card slots in modern. We would definitely want to play 4 of these to get the full effect.
So for now I'm setting our lands as such:
7 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle
2 Cavern of Souls
Lets talk about the rest of the deck and see what's up.
After taking out the 2 Izzet Charm we have 2 empty spots to fill. The obvious candidate is Lightning Bolt and I'm positive that's the right move. While they're not nearly as versatile as the Charms they replaced they are a more powerful card by far.
While nothing else has to change it's worth talking about the loss of the fetchlands and how they reduce the power level of Khalni Heart Expedition. I still think the synergy between Explore, Prime Time and everything else is enough to keep the card in the deck but it's possible that Farseek is better now.
Here is our modified list
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Primeval Titan
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Explore
4 Scapeshift
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
3 Prismatic Omen
7 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
I feel that our changed deck will function in most games almost exactly the same as the previous Scapeshift list.
My concerns about our changes are as follows:
- Do we have enough Green sources to reliably get the ramping started?
- Do we have enough Mountains in the deck to combo off without Prismatic Omen?
- Is Cavern of Souls worth a main-deck spot despite being neither a Mountain nor a Green source?
Perhaps most importantly, let's take a look at what it would cost us to outright buy the cards for this list.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder $1.49 each / $5.96
4 Primeval Titan $19.99 each / $79.96
2 Lightning Bolt $1.99 each / $3.98
3 Anger of the Gods $2.99 each / $8.97
4 Explore $0.99 each / $3.96
4 Scapeshift $9.99 each / $39.96
4 Search for Tomorrow $0.49 each / $1.96
4 Khalni Heart Expedition $$0.49 each / $1.96
3 Prismatic Omen $14.99 each / $44.97
7 Forest free
7 Mountain free
4 Copperline Gorge $4.99 each / $19.96
2 Cavern of Souls $19.99 each / $39.98
4 Stomping Ground $11.99 each / $47.96
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle $1.99 each / $7.96
Our Grand Total = $307.54
That's pretty good considering our original list was over a grand!
Also, keep in mind that these are retail prices from Starcitygames.com.
If you're patient you can catch most of the big cards for a LOT less on ebay, from local players or on some of the facebook groups where people sell cards. Most of the commons and uncommons should be easily obtainable for much less than what SCG is asking. When you buy from SCG you're paying for the convenience of going to 1 place and getting everything, you can save money if you're willing to work a little!
I know I didn't include a sideboard and that's definitely a cost to factor in. I'm positive I would want Lightning Bolts #3 and 4 as well as Anger of the Gods #4 in there. Beyond that it would defend on what you're expecting to battle.
Let me know what you thought about this exercise and if you have any ideas about other decks to look at let me know. I love talking about Magic so lets talk!
Thursday, January 16, 2014
WNM @ MCH - Insert Junk Joke Here
Iiiiiiit's Standard!
I don't know about you, but it's getting pretty hard for me to want to play Standard any more. Most people have settled on a deck they can stomach and they're not playing anything different unless they absolutely have to.
I've gotten to that point and have been locked into Red White Devotion for the last month. Now that's not to say it's completely a bad thing, RW Devotion has done very well for me! I'm just very ready for a change of pace and, until Born of the Gods hits the shelves, I plan to draft whenever that's an option.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for you guys, there's no draft on Wednesdays so I decided to play a wacky deck instead of sticking with Ol' Faithful. Ali Antrazi just started writing articles for Channel Fireball and he talked briefly about a Junk Reanimator deck that I thought looked sweet. Here's the list as I played it, I wiggled a couple of cards around based on personal preference but the overall vision is Mr. Antrazi's.
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Pack Rat
2 Obzedat
1 Pharika's Mender
2 Shadowborn Demon
2 Angel of Serenity
3 Sylvan Primordial
2 Ashen Rider
3 Commune with the Gods
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Obzedat's Aid
2 Deadbridge Chant
2 Whip of Erebos
6 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Godless Shrine
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Silence
Sideboard
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Doom Blade
2 Golgari Charm
2 Sin Collector
1 Trading Post
3 Blood Baron
1 Angel of Serenity
The changes I made were to juggle the 3rd Angel of Serenity to the board in place of the 3rd Primordial which I moved main.
I also took out some cards I think Ali plays out of habit like Ratchet Bomb and Pithing Needle.
I was particularly excited to play with Pharika's Mender as well as Deadbridge Chant.
While assembling the deck I was a bit surprised to find I only owned 1 Ashen Rider! I remember pretty clearly trading them off right after Theros was released but I also remember trying to trade for them at some point....
Luckily my buddy Brian had roughly 100 of them for trade and I was able to scoop up the rest of a playset.
And here's how it went!
Round 1 - Travis B. with BWR Midrange
Travis travels down with his brother Grant and they are both really cool fellas. For a while there it seemed like I was destined to play Travis in every single tournament for the rest of eternity but lately we've managed to avoid each other. He was running a fairly typical list with Reckoners, Demons and Obzedat paired up with a pile of removal.
Game 1 - I was on the back foot to a pair of Reckoners pretty quickly and spent a lot of turns casting dig spells without any way to capitalize on them. Just before I got too low on life I drew into an Obzedat's Aid and Ashen Rider was good enough.
Game 2 - I got on the back foot fairly quickly again to an early Reckoner followed by an Obzedat. I spent a few turns casting Salvages and Communes and was already fairly low on life by the time I was able to resolve a Blood Baron. The board bogged down with both of our Obzedat's draining and re-draining but eventually Travis drew an Erebos to shut down my Blood Barons and Obzedat life gain and that was that.
Game 3 - I lost a couple of mana creatures to an early Anger of the Gods, a card I thought for sure would have been sided out, and the loss of a Caryatid stranded an Angel of Serenity in my hand for the entire game. I was able to get one Angel out early thanks to an Obzedat's Aid but I never drew the third white source, instead finding Overgrown Tombs and Forests galore. Travis had a Whip in play to go with his 2 Rakdos Keyrunes and so I couldn't go on the offensive effectively and my deck refused to cough up action. Eventually time was called and we drew. It looked like I was going to be able to pull back into the game there at the end but I was certainly only a Rakdos's Return away from death.
I was a bit frustrated with the match there, somewhat with myself for forgetting to phase out Obzedat at least twice but also a little with Travis. He spent a lot of time thinking over his plays every single turn and I'm positive he used over double the time that I did. This is something I struggle with sometimes and I'm not sure there's a good way to deal with it. I'm not upset with Travis about the draw and I only bring it up because I'm hopeful that someone out there can share their solution to slow opponents.
Round 2 - Don S. with Rw Devotion
Don has been playing Bg Devotion for quite a while and it absolutely shocked me to get attacked by an Ash Zealot on turn 2. I found out after the match that Don had swapped decks with Nick for the night for a change of pace.
Game 1 - I kept a hand that I thought was reasonable against Black, it was slow but powerful. I immediately regretted it when Ash Zealot came down on turn 2. Don curved out with Zealot, Zealot, Hammer, Reckoner, Fanatic and I died with nothing to do.
Game 2 - I kept what felt like a better hand this time with Pack Rat and some accelerators. Don had a Chained to the Rocks for my Rat and I stopped drawing lands and started drawing large monsters. Fanatic x 2 burned my face and I was dead.
I laughed with Don about losing to the good deck that I decided to leave at home and we played a 3rd game for laughs. I ended up winning it but not by reanimating sexy creatures, I won with Pack Rat. It was a perfect way to sum up the outing with Junk Reanimator, don't make big creatures when you can just make Rats!
I ended up wimping out at that point and dropping from the tournament.
In retrospect I should've stuck it out to have more to write about for you guys but 2 frustrating matches back to back put that far from my mind. I'm sorry, please know that I do not love you any less.
In lieu of more Standard content, I have a little info about a Modern deck that I've been crushing on lately. I stumbled onto it in a Magic Online Daily Event where it had performed somewhat well and it immediately locked eyes with me.
Take a look at this beauty:
1 Ajani Vengeant
3 Tezzeret the Seeker
4 Isochron Scepter
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
2 Path to Exile
4 Remand
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Steam Vents
5 Island
1 Mountain
4 Misty
4 Tarn
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Academy Ruin
I can't remember the sideboard but that's neither here nor there.
Now there is some interesting stuff going on with this deck and Tezzeret is very odd, especially in that he's usually going to find a thing and then die immediately. I guess that's alright most of the time.
It's awkward that you don't get to run any Sacred Foundry and I can definitely see swapping that odd looking Tec Edge for one since we don't want to drop our Island count.
I already want more Shackles, if we're jumping through all these hoops with our manabase and not using Colonade I want to make it count.
So I got to play some games and I had a lot of fun. The deck is by far not insane or anything but it's definitely powerful.
A few things that came up:
2 main deck Needles and Relics feels pretty bad. Drawing 1 of each is never going to kill you vs. anyone but drawing multiples in the wrong matchup can. I want to move at least 1 Needle to the sideboard for something like Engineered Explosives or Ratchet Bomb.
In any matchup where they can't remove them the Scepters are absolutely bonkers. I imagine you have to side them out against decks with 4 Abrupt Decays but oh baby is that card awesome.
The Remands felt pretty weak but I think that's a result of the matchups I was playing (Burn and Merfolk). I only drew Cryptic Command once and it was as good as that card always is.
Jamming Shackles on turn 3 after Bolting / Helixing feels unbeatable some amount of the time. Again Abrupt Decay is a card that exists but man, Shackles!
Tezzeret makes me want mana rocks of some kind, Signets or Talismans so that his +1 is more useful. It's probably not worth it but it was a thought I had.
A Snapcaster Mage wouldn't be the worst thing to have access to.
Overall I'm excited to play some more games with the deck. If you have any sweet ideas let me know!
That about wraps it up for today. FNM is upcoming and then on Saturday the Tournabenefit for Jason Lejeune's family. I'm really excited and nervous about this thing and I hope a million people show up to play. You should come!
I don't know about you, but it's getting pretty hard for me to want to play Standard any more. Most people have settled on a deck they can stomach and they're not playing anything different unless they absolutely have to.
I've gotten to that point and have been locked into Red White Devotion for the last month. Now that's not to say it's completely a bad thing, RW Devotion has done very well for me! I'm just very ready for a change of pace and, until Born of the Gods hits the shelves, I plan to draft whenever that's an option.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for you guys, there's no draft on Wednesdays so I decided to play a wacky deck instead of sticking with Ol' Faithful. Ali Antrazi just started writing articles for Channel Fireball and he talked briefly about a Junk Reanimator deck that I thought looked sweet. Here's the list as I played it, I wiggled a couple of cards around based on personal preference but the overall vision is Mr. Antrazi's.
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Pack Rat
2 Obzedat
1 Pharika's Mender
2 Shadowborn Demon
2 Angel of Serenity
3 Sylvan Primordial
2 Ashen Rider
3 Commune with the Gods
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Obzedat's Aid
2 Deadbridge Chant
2 Whip of Erebos
6 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Godless Shrine
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Silence
Sideboard
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Doom Blade
2 Golgari Charm
2 Sin Collector
1 Trading Post
3 Blood Baron
1 Angel of Serenity
The changes I made were to juggle the 3rd Angel of Serenity to the board in place of the 3rd Primordial which I moved main.
I also took out some cards I think Ali plays out of habit like Ratchet Bomb and Pithing Needle.
I was particularly excited to play with Pharika's Mender as well as Deadbridge Chant.
While assembling the deck I was a bit surprised to find I only owned 1 Ashen Rider! I remember pretty clearly trading them off right after Theros was released but I also remember trying to trade for them at some point....
Luckily my buddy Brian had roughly 100 of them for trade and I was able to scoop up the rest of a playset.
And here's how it went!
Round 1 - Travis B. with BWR Midrange
Travis travels down with his brother Grant and they are both really cool fellas. For a while there it seemed like I was destined to play Travis in every single tournament for the rest of eternity but lately we've managed to avoid each other. He was running a fairly typical list with Reckoners, Demons and Obzedat paired up with a pile of removal.
Game 1 - I was on the back foot to a pair of Reckoners pretty quickly and spent a lot of turns casting dig spells without any way to capitalize on them. Just before I got too low on life I drew into an Obzedat's Aid and Ashen Rider was good enough.
Game 2 - I got on the back foot fairly quickly again to an early Reckoner followed by an Obzedat. I spent a few turns casting Salvages and Communes and was already fairly low on life by the time I was able to resolve a Blood Baron. The board bogged down with both of our Obzedat's draining and re-draining but eventually Travis drew an Erebos to shut down my Blood Barons and Obzedat life gain and that was that.
Game 3 - I lost a couple of mana creatures to an early Anger of the Gods, a card I thought for sure would have been sided out, and the loss of a Caryatid stranded an Angel of Serenity in my hand for the entire game. I was able to get one Angel out early thanks to an Obzedat's Aid but I never drew the third white source, instead finding Overgrown Tombs and Forests galore. Travis had a Whip in play to go with his 2 Rakdos Keyrunes and so I couldn't go on the offensive effectively and my deck refused to cough up action. Eventually time was called and we drew. It looked like I was going to be able to pull back into the game there at the end but I was certainly only a Rakdos's Return away from death.
I was a bit frustrated with the match there, somewhat with myself for forgetting to phase out Obzedat at least twice but also a little with Travis. He spent a lot of time thinking over his plays every single turn and I'm positive he used over double the time that I did. This is something I struggle with sometimes and I'm not sure there's a good way to deal with it. I'm not upset with Travis about the draw and I only bring it up because I'm hopeful that someone out there can share their solution to slow opponents.
Round 2 - Don S. with Rw Devotion
Don has been playing Bg Devotion for quite a while and it absolutely shocked me to get attacked by an Ash Zealot on turn 2. I found out after the match that Don had swapped decks with Nick for the night for a change of pace.
Game 1 - I kept a hand that I thought was reasonable against Black, it was slow but powerful. I immediately regretted it when Ash Zealot came down on turn 2. Don curved out with Zealot, Zealot, Hammer, Reckoner, Fanatic and I died with nothing to do.
Game 2 - I kept what felt like a better hand this time with Pack Rat and some accelerators. Don had a Chained to the Rocks for my Rat and I stopped drawing lands and started drawing large monsters. Fanatic x 2 burned my face and I was dead.
I laughed with Don about losing to the good deck that I decided to leave at home and we played a 3rd game for laughs. I ended up winning it but not by reanimating sexy creatures, I won with Pack Rat. It was a perfect way to sum up the outing with Junk Reanimator, don't make big creatures when you can just make Rats!
I ended up wimping out at that point and dropping from the tournament.
In retrospect I should've stuck it out to have more to write about for you guys but 2 frustrating matches back to back put that far from my mind. I'm sorry, please know that I do not love you any less.
In lieu of more Standard content, I have a little info about a Modern deck that I've been crushing on lately. I stumbled onto it in a Magic Online Daily Event where it had performed somewhat well and it immediately locked eyes with me.
Take a look at this beauty:
1 Ajani Vengeant
3 Tezzeret the Seeker
4 Isochron Scepter
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
2 Path to Exile
4 Remand
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Steam Vents
5 Island
1 Mountain
4 Misty
4 Tarn
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Academy Ruin
I can't remember the sideboard but that's neither here nor there.
Now there is some interesting stuff going on with this deck and Tezzeret is very odd, especially in that he's usually going to find a thing and then die immediately. I guess that's alright most of the time.
It's awkward that you don't get to run any Sacred Foundry and I can definitely see swapping that odd looking Tec Edge for one since we don't want to drop our Island count.
I already want more Shackles, if we're jumping through all these hoops with our manabase and not using Colonade I want to make it count.
So I got to play some games and I had a lot of fun. The deck is by far not insane or anything but it's definitely powerful.
A few things that came up:
2 main deck Needles and Relics feels pretty bad. Drawing 1 of each is never going to kill you vs. anyone but drawing multiples in the wrong matchup can. I want to move at least 1 Needle to the sideboard for something like Engineered Explosives or Ratchet Bomb.
In any matchup where they can't remove them the Scepters are absolutely bonkers. I imagine you have to side them out against decks with 4 Abrupt Decays but oh baby is that card awesome.
The Remands felt pretty weak but I think that's a result of the matchups I was playing (Burn and Merfolk). I only drew Cryptic Command once and it was as good as that card always is.
Jamming Shackles on turn 3 after Bolting / Helixing feels unbeatable some amount of the time. Again Abrupt Decay is a card that exists but man, Shackles!
Tezzeret makes me want mana rocks of some kind, Signets or Talismans so that his +1 is more useful. It's probably not worth it but it was a thought I had.
A Snapcaster Mage wouldn't be the worst thing to have access to.
Overall I'm excited to play some more games with the deck. If you have any sweet ideas let me know!
That about wraps it up for today. FNM is upcoming and then on Saturday the Tournabenefit for Jason Lejeune's family. I'm really excited and nervous about this thing and I hope a million people show up to play. You should come!
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