Good Gamery

Tag: llarack

  • PT Paris Report

    After reading Alex Majlaton’s tournament report on thefacebook, I decided I wanted to write a report summarizing my experience at my first PT.

    The previous few weeks or so, I had spent a large amount of time playtesting Standard vs Reid Duke on Magic Workstation (since Mirrodin Besieged wasn’t arriving onto Magic Online). Reid was pretty sold on UB but also said Valakut was a pretty good choice in his opinion. I couldn’t get any of my non-Valakut brews to beat Valakut often enough for my taste, so I just decided to run with it. In the decision making process, I did work with some Maryland people (Tommy Ashton, John Moore and Alex Majlaton), as well as the proficient gamer Stephen King. Stephen King (a VS and Magic guru who has lost the fire) really liked Caw-Go. Tommy was ok playing anything but was convinced to play Caw-Go at the last minute when he found out about the Stoneforge Mystic package. John Moore was sold on U/B (he had Abyssal Persecutor in his deck right until up to the PT, I believe). Alex was convinced by Stephen to play Caw-Go as well.

    As an aside: Another unfortunate thing predating this PT was the release of faction packs as prize packs at the Prerelease. As a result, we were not able to get in many drafts before the PT, but I had theories. My first theory was that red was one of the strongest colors to be still, since in Scars it was really good, and Besieged had Burn the Impure and a 4 mana 4/3 at common (which is pretty big in this format). Second, aggressive infect decks would be a lot weaker due to having one less pack of two-drops to pick up as well as white and green having great infect defensive blockers (Blightwidow and Priests of Norn).

    I only managed to do 2 drafts in Maryland, 1 fake draft in Maryland (since we ran out of faction packs of the appropriate types), and 2 team drafts the day before the PT.

    I got in (around 6:45am) after taking a flight from Dulles around 5:25pm. Falco had missed the flight because the plane in Buffalo had mechanical problems, so I had no one to talk to (although Shaheen Soorani was on my flight and was apparently sold on UW Mass Polymorph). I managed to watch two movies (Megamind and Unstoppable) and slept for 3 hours besides that. I went solo from the airport to the hotel at which Sti (Stuart Wright) said we were booked. There was a slight problem when I tried to leave my luggage there (and this turned out to be a huge problem later (ask Falco about it)) in that Sti’s name wasn’t actually on the reservation, and instead it was some French guy from the UK who had booked it for him in the French guy’s name. So I decided to take the Paris metro over to Alex/Tommy’s room. There I also discovered that Kenny Mayer was staying with them, and he was on Valakut as well. We ran into Reid Duke while going to a grocery store, and he decided to join our motley crew to chill for a bit. We ended up killing time in the hotel room as well as finding Reid’s hotel (for which he could not check in until about 3pm anyway). Then we went to the site around 5pm to see what was going on. It was disappointing that they had cut the Player party (no free food :pmosad: ), so I registered for the PT and got my free draftset and T-shirt (with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas on it).

    Eventually I found a teamdraft, with one caveat: There were no basic lands to be found anywhere. As a result, I had to proxy on my sideboard cards for basic lands, which gave me a huge headache when I was trying to figure out if something was a land or spell. I was also reasonably jetlagged by this point. Eventually Stuart Wright and Bill Nielsen (Falco) show up, and we head back to the hotel at a reasonable time since they had managed to check in before arriving at the site.

    Thursday

    I woke up feeling relatively ok since I had decided not to take a nap at all yesterday to adjust for jetlag. We entered the lobby of the hotel to get some breakfast, where some French lady bothers Sti about why we have three people (only supposed to have two) for breakfast. Sti makes up some excuse (I don’t even remember what), and we decide every day afterwards, we’ll just sneak food up to our third in the room.

    We arrive at Espace Champerret at the Hall of Expositions, and I sit down for my round 1 match. My apologies to anyone if I misremember a match, my memory for these things leaves something to be desired.

    The list I end up registering is:

    Round 1: Jonas Köstler (from Germany) (RUG Control)

    This dude seemed to know was what going on judging from his mannerisms.

    Game 1: He wins the dieroll, plays turn 1 Preordain, turn 2 Lotus Cobra, turn 3 Explore + Jace while keeping Mana Leak mana up.

    Meanwhile, I had kept a sort of slow hand with only Explore and KHE as ramp spells, so Jace draws him into a bunch of Titans and permission before I can do anything.

    Sideboard: +3 Thrun, the Last Troll, +2 Slagstorm (kills Jace postboard, and their deck has a bunch of small dudes), -4 Harrow, -1 Khalni Heart Expedition

    Game 2: I keep a reasonable but slow hand again, and he starts missing land drops. Here, I deviate from the plan of waiting out Mana Leak and start throwing out things into it (which is completely wrong, since if he is stuck on lands, it is very likely his hand is permission). Eventually he starts draw lands and plays 2 Frost Titans to do me in. If I had waited on the last 2 threats (Primeval and Zenith) to play around Leaks, I think I would have a much better chance.

    Round 2: Thomas Ma (of PT Amsterdam t8) (Valakut)

    Game 1: He wins the dieroll, has a reasonable draw that plays a t4 Titan if he doesn’t brick off a land from Explore. He bricks, then I play a titan and kill him. (Not very exciting, but that’s how dumb the mirror match is).

    Sideboard: -2 Oracle of Mul Daya, -1 Avenger of Zendikar, +3 Acidic Slime (oracle is just a really slow ramp spell, and Avenger is not really the card you want to draw in the mirror)

    Game 2: He has a reasonable hand with a turn 2 Overgrown Battlement, but my draw of turn 2 Lotus Cobra, t3 Harrow, Harrow, play Expedition, the following turn play Titan has him almost dead, then he packs.

    Round 3: Daniel Steinsdörfer (Valakut)

    Game 1: He wins the dieroll, plays a few ramp spells, while I keep a hand with ramp but no gas. I start attacking him with Raging Ravine, and he takes enough hits to go to 4 life. I can then peel a Valakut or a Harrow to lethal him with vs his Primeval Titan that he has just drawn. I peel a Valakut, play Titan to go get 2 mountains, and he dies on like turn 8 in a very confusing game.

    Sideboard: -2 Oracle, -1 Avenger, +3 Acidic Slime.

    Game 2: He mulligans to 5, does nothing and dies to my Primeval Titan that arrives on turn 4.

    Round 4: Gerard Fabiano (Caw-Go with mystics (he had equipment, but I never saw a mystic, but I would assume he had them))

    Game 1: I just ramp past his Mana Leaks and play some duders that resolve and kill him with Titan/Valakut triggers.

    Sideboard: -4 Harrow, -2 Avenger, -3 Explore, +3 Thrun, the Last Troll, +3 Acidic Slime, +2 Gaea’s Revenge, +1 Koth of the Hammer

    Game 2: I play a turn 3 Thrun, the Last Troll which is quickly trumped by his turn 5 Baneslayer Angel, turn 6, attack for 9, turn 7, attack for 9, and I am dead.

    Sideboard: (on the play I still want explore, I think) +1 Explore, -1 Koth of the Hammer (Koth doesn’t match up very well vs Baneslayers).

    Game 3: I get another turn 3 Troll, which in conjunction with Raging Ravine bashes him for 8 once before he plays Squadron Hawk to find 3 more buddies. Eventually we get to a board state where he has to probably tap out to stop my men even though he has Hawk + Sword of Feast and Famine online. I manage to stick a Titan. Then he plays and equips Sword of Body and Mind to try to mill enough Mountains so he is not dead. This doesn’t happen, and I win.

    Round 5: Shintaro Ishimura (Caw-Go with Mirran Crusader, and I find out later Student of Warfare as well).

    Game 1: He wins the dieroll and leads with t2 Leak for explore, t3 Crusader, attack me with it 5 times with countermagic backup until I was dead :/

    Sideboard: +3 Acidic Slime, +2 Slagstorm (not great here, but kills Mirran Crusader which is a huge problem otherwise), -4 Harrow, -1 Avenger

    Game 2: He has t2 Stoneforge Mystic, t3 Mirran Crusader, t4 equip BG sword onto Crusader, t5 equip UG sword onto Crusader, and I am instantly dead.

    At this point, I realize going 3-2 in the standard portion with Valakut is not horrible, but I was wishing that I had played the UW Mystic deck instead.

    Draft Portion

    I open Consecrated Sphinx and take it over Burn the Impure (so I probably won’t see any red pack two). I pick up 2 Leonin Relic-Warders, and a bunch of reasonable men but nothing special (Hexplate Golem 14th, and this card is actually reasonable when you need a finisher). Pack 2, I take a bunch of mana myr, two Volition Reins but decline to take a 9th pick Scrapdiver Serpent (which my deck sorely needed). Pack 3, I take Arc Trail and Scrapmelter on the splash deciding my deck needs more power to even have a shot of winning.

    I immediately go 0-2 (r1 vs Olle Rade, he plays 2 flamefiends in games 1 and 3, I draw 10 extra cards or so in game 2 with Consecrated Sphinx). (r2 vs Matthew Griffin, both games go long, but in g1, I die to his Argent Sphinx, and in g2, my last 3 cards (in my library) are Volition Reins, Island, Consecrated Sphinx. If I had drawn Sphinx midgame in game 2, I would have easily won on the stable board state (or if Hexplate Golem had been a Scrapdiver Serpent that I should have taken. I decide to drop after this, not thinking about top 200 getting an extra pro point.

    I find out that Sti has gotten a bye into day 2 (the other person in his pod who was 0-2 dropped, so Sti just got a bye into it). I decide that I want to play Goblins in the Legacy Challenge tomorrow (lol, when will I ever learn?).

    Friday

    I enter the Legacy Challenge, beat some dude in the mirror r1, lose to some dude playing infect r2 (g1, he goes t1 land Lotus petal, plague stinger. My t1 is land vial, go. His t2 is, rancor, invigorate, invigorate, BAM YU DEAD.) r3, I lose to some guy in the Goblins mirror because he has 2 sharpshooters postboard (easily the most important card in the mirror), even though he left in Warren Weirding (easily the worst card in the mirror, and had Lightning Bolt (an awful card in this deck). R4, I just get steamrolled by elf combo (g1 he had me dead on t3, g2 I kill 4 of his guys with pyrokinesis, then he plays Caller of the Claw and attacks me). At this point I drop, and decide to go railbird and teamdraft some. I team with BJB and Harry C and we fight 3 guys from France/Canada (not sure) and defeat them. Psychosis Crawler beats me in 1 match, but I 2-0 the other guys fairly easily. I also sign up for the GP!

    Saturday

    I open a reasonable pool, but nothing exciting. Also turned out I only had 1 bye (1943, damn you PR) :/ Won my r2 match easily vs a dude who had also played in the PT, and his sealed deck appeared to be monowhite (????). r3, lost to a friendly guy who was R/b. I misplayed in g2 by not clasping his iron myr to keep him off 6 mana (to return his shrunk Phoenix with metalcraft and equip bonehoard). R4, I gave some guy an unreal beating by playing a bunch of removal and idiots. R5, I lost to a guy who played ok, since I got stuck on 2 lands for 5 turns in g3. After this I decide to drop and railbird / draft with friends.

    I make friends with Thomas Ma and Jason Ford this day, since I’m doing stone-nothing and watch Ma go 8-2, BJB go 9-1 (his deck was average, but he should have started by splashing red), and Falco go 8-2 with his awesome Tezzeret deck. I also run around the hall looking for a Faeries deck for the PTQ tomorrow, since I am pretty sure the PTQ will be a lot smaller than other GP PTQs because of a cash sealed tournament starting around the same time. I end up getting back to the hotel room very late after finishing a team draft with people.

    Sunday

    I still manage to wake up around 7am (to go with Falco to the site). Sti staggers in around then (he said the metro restarted at 6am!)

    I register the following deck (Faeries YU):

    Wednesday

    A few quick notes: I spent a bit of time discussing what the sideboard would be with Reid (who was also entering the PTQ with his homebrew Bant deck). Basically I wanted to make sure to have enough cards to board in/out for the matchups I expected (Jund/Naya/RG and UG/UGW scapeshift, as well as Faeries mirror).

    I really don’t remember many of the games well, so I’ll just go over a few interesting board states/decisions I had to make, as well as a quick rundown of the matches I played.

    R2g2 vs Faeries (Masayasu Tanahashi) in the mirror (I had lost game 1).

    My opening hand is Secluded Glen, Sunken Ruins, Tectonic Edge, Bitterblossom, Thoughtseize, Jace Beleren, Cryptic Command.

    I Thoughtseize him on t1, revealing Blossom, and see his hand of: Secluded Glen, Island, Tectonic Edge, Bitterblossom, Inquisition of Kozilek, Vampire Nighthawk, Mana Leak.

    I tank on a while on taking Inquisition vs Blossom, and eventually to decide to take Blossom. Postboard, he should only have 4 Sprite, 3 Blossom left in his deck as reveals to Glen, as well as 2 Swamp and 4 Darkslick Shores. Blossom is still the most important card anyway in the mirror based on our hands, so I take it. His turn 1, he bricks on a Faerie or untapped black land, so he just plays t1 Glen, pass. Turn 2, I play Mutavault and Blossom, his t2, he inquisitions me, takes a nighthawk I have drawn (note, I can’t even cast Nighthawk as it is), and plays island and ships. On my t3, I decide to gun out Beleren, and he shows me Spell Pierce. I wasn’t sure if I should attack with Mutavault or play Beleren. I end up losing this game to his Nighthawk + Sword of Feast and Famine as well as double Cryptic Command (since Nighthawk + Sword let him untap all of his lands).

    R1 vs Jund (Pierre Compan) win 2-1.

    R2 vs Faeries (Masayasu Tanahashi) Lose 0-2.

    R3 vs Naya Allies (hadrien Peudecoeur) Win 2-0.

    R4 vs Jund (Hugo Tranchant) Win 2-0.

    R5 vs RG Scapeshift (Johnny J. Niemeyer) Win 2-0

    R6 vs Soul Warden + Ajani’s Pridemate deck (Ray Doyle) Win 2-0 (He presented 59 cards in g2).

    R7 vs RG Scapeshift (Jonathan Rotstejn) Win 2-1 (He played Fallout at the incorrect time in g3 (he was supposed to wait for Spellstutter’s trigger to be on the stack before Fallouting).

    R8 vs UGW Scapeshift (Marien Couvertier) Win 2-1 (His hand in g3 was 2 Autumn’s Veil + Scalding Tarn at one point. I asked for an Oracle wording since his Veils were in French, and I wanted to make sure that Spellstutter Sprite was unaffected by them.)

    Top Eight

    R9 (r1 of t8) vs Combo Elves with Zenith (Bernhard Lehner) Win 2-1. G1, I get SMASHED since he is on the play and he just dumps his hand and casts Primal Command, knowing not to go after my manlands when I have mana up. G2, He makes a risky attack that hinges on his Warcaller living. I show him go for the throat after declaring blockers, and we move to g3. Also of note this game, I played 2 early Bitterblossoms, since basically they can’t burn you out ever and having infinite men is an easy way to win. The only card that could possibly worry you is Windstorm (which Reid had in his board, but I don’t think anyone else played) or Cloudthresher (more likely). G3, he mulls into a risky hand, and I trade Mutavault for a dude early and start mowing down his guys with removal, as well as taking his only gas card with Inquisition.

    R10 (r2 of t8) vs GW Trap (Chikara Nakajima) Win 2-1. G1, I win barely without bitterblossom due to Vendilion + Mistbind Clique as well as killing his mana idiots. G2, he plays a t3 primeval titan on the play, and that is game. G3, he plays an edge precombat on t4, so I edge him inside his combat step, then he tries to go to edge me, and realizes I now only have 3 lands in play. Eventually I just kill his guys with 2 cryptics in my hand while taking damage from Noble Hierarchs. Very unexciting.

    R11 (finals of PTQ) vs Faeries (Masayasu Tanahashi) Win 2-0. He just mulligans to 5 twice, and sort of makes a game of game 1 and 2, but in the end can’t pull it out.

    It was a huge relief to already requalify (just after my first PT, basically!). I am determined to do much better in Nagoya!

    As an aside, if you would like to play Faeries in the remaining PTQs, I would suggest adding 2 Sword of Feast and Famine, cutting 1 removal spell, and 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor from the maindeck. In the sideboard, Negate should become Countersquall.

    Again, any comments or suggestions about how I could improve my writing are greatly appreciated.

    Shoutouts

    Tom Ma, Maryland dudes (Alex Majlaton, Tommy Ashton, John Moore, Stephen King), Reid Duke, Jason Ford, Bill Nielsen, Stuart Wright, Levi Hinz, Chifley Cole, Stephen Murray, as well as other GoodGamery people.

    I appreciate the support that you guys gave me during all of the tournaments as well as during preparation for the PT.

    –llarack

  • Momir Basic: A Metagame to Remember


    With the newfound popularity of the Momir Basic format, it’s worth taking a closer look at the metagame on MTGO. There are a couple of popular decklists out there, and we’ll be taking a closer look at some of them that we saw played in recent Momir DE’s.

    Where did Momir and his species come from? It’s a little known fact that his species isn’t called “The Momirs”, though that is the name of a popular sitcom made by his people.

    What we do know is that they are related to the elves, and as such they are generally tall and like to wear dresses. Like most elves, they have large, misshapen ears, but they also have large, misshapen heads, which leads some to believe that they are part of a crossbreeding experiment involving goblins, ogres, or beebles.

    Other researches believe the Momir species to be descendants of a race of super-scientists that sneezed, really hard, all over each other.

    The Decklists

    These decks are from the Momir Basic Daily #1807358 which was fought on 11/24/2010.

    The Man In Black. (4-0)

    Forests (4)
    Islands (4)
    Mountains (24)
    Plains (4)
    Swamps (24)

    This is the basic “Mountains and Swamps” deck that is really tearing up the Momir tournaments. Note the light splash for Forest, Island, and Plains to ensure that you can eventually pay the upkeep for any Elder Dragon Legends that show up.

    The key strategy for this deck is to slow-roll an island until the second-to-very-last moment, when it will be almost too late to play another land, but it isn’t actually too late.

    masterofhandpuppets (4-0)

    Forests (10)
    Islands (20)
    Mountains (10)
    Plains (10)
    Swamps (10)

    This deck by masterofhandpuppets is actually quite unusual in this format, since Islands are considered to be a major liability. However, there are ways to deal with that downside – such as the infamous Gosta Dirk.

    DaKriket (4-0)

    Forests (13)
    Islands (8)
    Mountains (18)
    Plains (8)
    Swamps (13)

    This aggro build plays off of the ability of certain creatures to count the number of forests you have in the battlefield. If you play this deck, watch out for all of the bombs you’re going to be dropping on your opponent!

    Other decks you are likely to see in the queues are the even 12, 12, 12, 12, 12 split, and OopsAllForests.dec.

    More Important Considerations

    Other than the composition of basic land types, a major component in most Momir decks is the particular sub-configurations within each land type. For example, a professional Momir grinder might agonize for days about which mountains they want to put in their 15th -18th slots. You may find this article about the top 40 mountains to be invaluable while making your land-brew.

    If you’re going for a more cohesive look, I suggest picking up a Momir-Playset of Guru lands, seen above. Other fine sets include these beautiful APC lands.

    Of equal importance is to choose the correct version of the Momir Vig avatar. Early on, people only had access to the version of Momir that I know only as “Flatface Nomouthofsignificance“:

    If you are still paying X with this guy, I feel sorry for you. Next up is the famous Momir Head Beauty Shot:

    He’s a good choice in most metagames, though the mirror can be tough to play unless you have been practicing daily. Finally, there is this alternate art version that I think we can agree isn’t very good:

    Players have been clamoring for additional Momirs, and we at Good Gamery fully expect there to be more available in the future.

    Which Creatures Should I Make? Help Me… or Else!

    by llarack

    There are several schools of thought on how to play Momir optimally. There is the aggressive line (first popularized by samdsherman back on MiseTings) of making creatures at 123456 and hoping to aggro people out. This was much better in the format’s infancy, when you would have a chance to out-pace your opponent in the early game.

    The other line is to go 345678 on the play, and 2345678 on the draw, trying to maximize your chances of hitting bombs, since 1 and 2 drops are mostly terrible. I personally still like making a 2 on the play, and as a result usually choose to skip my 4 or 5.

    I also lay Mountains and Swamps first, and usually an Island by turn 6. Other people like playing a land of each type to pay for Elder Dragon Legends (the ED in EDH!), but I think it’s usually not worth it.

    Remember, Momir is a serious format that is not to be taken lightly. We are personally proud of Wizards of the Coast for stepping up and giving it the professional attention it is so deserving of.

  • Extending Tier .999 Decks

    I’ve decided to switch gears, since for most people, the next relevant Constructed format will be Extended. For those of you who do not remember, Extended used to be a very different beast. When I first started playing, Extended was Tempest -> Mirrodin, with a significant banlist to keep Urza Block in check. Now Extended is Lorwyn -> Scars of Mirrodin with M10 and M11 as legal core sets.

    As a result, a lot of reasonable Extended decks will be the old Standard decks of these past three years, with a chance for innovation by looking for cross-block synergy.

    I’ll start by considering what I think are reasonable lists for major archetypes, and discuss what other cards could be considered.



    An old boogeyman of Standard:





    This Faeries list is probably a bit different from ones you have seen in the past. For one, I do not believe Scion of Oona or Vendilion Clique are particularly well-positioned, so I move to a more controlling Faeries build with 5 spot removal spells, and really only 4 Mistbind Clique, 4 Bitterblossom and 8 manlands to win with.

    You are also able to board into pure UB control if necessary (vs aggressive decks). 4 Molten-Tail Masticore, 2 Wurmcoil Engine, and 4 Disfigure usually come in for this plan.

    I am not 100% sold on Tectonic Edge, since it is another colorless land, and might be replaced by the best land in Magic: Island. Also of note, I am not sure maindeck Thoughtseize is necessary, but turn 1 Thoughtseize followed by turn 2 Bitterblossom is one of the best openings Faeries can have.





    There’s not much to say about the gameplan of this deck. It is worth noting there’s a lot of room for variation in card choices (Demigod of Revenge or not), since that forces you to play more lands. Goblin Guide and Figure of Destiny are invaluable one drops. I was even considering Spikeshot Elder, but realized it was probably too weak. You could also play Burst Lightning as a potential burn spell, but I believe Flame Javelin and Staggershock are both superior here. Smoldering Spires and Teetering Peaks are both pseudo-spells that you can justify playing more lands for to help with Demigod as well. Boggart Ram-gang is also worth consideration, but probably will not make the cut.

    Stigma Lasher is a fine guy on turn 2 to disable Kitchen Finks, Wurmcoil Engine and possibly even Baneslayer Angel if he connects. Ratchet Bomb lets you answer Kor Firewalker and Burrenton Forge-tender with relative ease. Koth of the Hammer is an annoying card for Control decks to answer. Searing Blaze is a great card to have in any sort of aggressive mirror. Notice that in this deck, you have to cast it as a sorcery to get value, since there are 0 fetchlands to be seen.





    I played in quite a few PTQs with this deck while it was legal in Standard. Not much has changed since then. You play the best spells at the top end, stapled together with a reasonably good manabase and removal spells. There’s quite a few ways to build this deck as well. You could build it as a very planeswalker heavy build with Ajani Vengeant and Jace Beleren, though he is often overshadowed by his big brother (Twin? Future self?) now. There’s any number of removal spells you could play, including Path to Exile, Condemn, and more Plumeveils.



    In short, I am hesitant to really give you an exact build of this deck that I would be comfortable playing 100% until we see what happens at Worlds next weekend. This build should give you a good starting point for your own 5CC ideas, though.


    Another boogeyman:





    This is probably a much more aggressive build of Jund than most of you are used to. It was called Jund Blood at GP Seattle (in 2008) and there was a 5 color build of it that splashed Cryptic Command and Cruel Ultimatum. You are able to aggressively curve out as well as back up that curve with efficient removal, and also burn your opponent to draw cards off Sygg, River Cutthroat during their turn. This deck is not quite as good at grinding people out as builds with Bituminous Blast, but it still has Blightning and Sygg, River Cutthroat as sources of card advantage.



    You could also consider: Bitterblossom as an additional 2 drop (somewhat slow), maindecking Great Sable Stag as an addition or to replace a three drop. The sideboard could also probably use some work after we see what occurs next weekend.


    Not quite as big of a boogeyman, but still seeing some play:





    I personally have not done a lot of work on this archetype – this list is merely a tweaked list from a recent magic-league first place showing. Merfolk has always nipped at Faeries’ heels, but has generally been regarded to be worse overall. However, it does have the advantage of having tons of creatures that pump the Merfolk, making it generally better in creature on creature matchups, as well as having access to Cryptic Command for fogs/falters.

    Other cards to consider: Molten-Tail Masticore is a great card that gives you ways to kill them out of the combat zone, and also lets you be slightly more resilient to Day of Judgment. Reveillark is a card that gives you resilience to removal heavy decks. I have also seen Sage’s Dousing over Mana Leak, but I think that it doesn’t have enough of an upside for being on the wrong spot in the curve – especially after cutting the weak Stonybrook Banneret.





    This deck is an evolution of Zvi’s Mythic deck for PT Amsterdam. Its plan A is to Hideaway an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and get it out with a Primeval Titan or by activating Knight of the Reliquary in the case of Mosswort Bridge, or simply attacking with your small guys for Windbrisk Heights. It’s worth noting that Mutavault can help activate the bridge when you have Primeval Titan plus another 2-power creature. Plan B is to cast Baneslayer Angel / Primeval Titan and just swing with them, or hardcast Emrakul later in the game. I would believe that this deck is pretty favored vs everything that does not have a lot of burn or sweepers.

    I am hesitant to mess with this deck too much, since there’s not a lot of room to sideboard cards in or out, and the deck seems very focused as it is.

    And finally, a deck after kingcobweb’s own heart:





    This deck still seems relatively powerful and resilient to whatever hate people throw its way, especially with the introduction of Vengevine as a viable board card. For those of you may not know, you can loop Primal Command if you get your library small enough (courtesy of Regal Force) by casting Primal Command to shuffle your graveyard in (including the Primal Command that was already in your yard) and search for another Regal Force. At this point you can shuffle and put their lands on top of their deck if necessary or just get an Ezuri, Renegade Leader or Joraga Warcaller to kill them with.



    Other cards to consider: Arbor Elf is another Llanowar Elves, although you would have to put more Forests in the deck. Eldrazi Monument can serve as another win condition as well as giving you protection vs sweepers. I am not sure about Acidic Slime in the sideboard, but I think it is worth having access to in case if someone shows up with a crazy Platinum Angel or Platinum Emperion that you otherwise cannot beat.


    As a bonus, I will share the current standard deck I’ve been grinding with:




    The deck is not very innovative, but it is very strong at doing its own thing – which is to spit out huge threats early and finish people with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers or Plant Tokens. You could probably justify cutting the Wurmcoil Engine for a 3rd Avenger of Zendikar, as well as putting the 4th Lightning Bolt back in for it. Otherwise, I am really happy with this list so far and feel good about its matchups except for the mirror (which is a direct coinflip).


    I hope this article has been enlightening, and as usual, feel free to leave comments in the forums or to PM me.



    –llarack

  • Tier .999… Standard Decks, Part 1

    Tier 0.999… Standard Decks (or not quite so 0.999…)!

    For those of you who do not know, recently deckcheck.net has gone down. In its place, I hope to provide a reasonable summary of Standard decks (and perhaps other formats) for GoodGamery by presenting five decks per week, and possible variations of them.



    From 10/24 MTGO Standard Daily Event 1690040, we spot this interesting deck:

    Those of you who remember Naya before the rotation can see the resemblance to the old Naya list. New cards that have been added: Squadron Hawk (yeah, it’s in M11, but it wasn’t widely adopted), Molten-Tail Masticore (which is fantastic at giving any aggro deck reach), Sword of Body and Mind (an excellent card to have vs Elves and Eldrazi Ramp).



    Things to dislike about this list: 24 lands only in a deck that is fairly manahungry, only 5 fetchlands for Lotus Cobra. Only 2 manlands to have access to vs control decks.

    I would suggest adding at least 2 fetchlands and 2 more manlands in place of some of the basics if you were to try this out, and go up to a total of 25 lands, probably shaving 1 Llanowar Elves. His sideboard is typical, and seems reasonably tuned (1-ofs abound because of Fauna Shaman).

    Another interesting deck:

    This list should be a heavy favorite in the mirror since you can ramp to your big guys faster, and you have an “oops I win” spell. You are much weaker vs decks with heavy countermagic, however.



    If you expect the field to be heavy ramp, I would suggest playing this list. Postboard you are ok vs ‘small’ aggro decks with Pyroclasm buying enough time to combo them out with Valakuts. You can also splash black for removal and Memoricide easily off 4 Verdant Catacombs and 2 Terramorphic Expanse as well as 4 Growth Spasm if you really wanted to.

    Tulio_Jaudy (3-1) in a Daily Event

    This is an interesting looking decklist. Clearly the goal is to setup fast Masticores/Wurmcoils off Grand Architect (consider turn 1 Hatchling, turn 2 Owl, turn 3 Architect, Engine).

    I am not sold on Sleep, nor am I sold on the fact that it has to be mono-blue. 3 Mana Leak seems like an odd number which says to me, he’d like to draw it early, but he’d only like to draw one, which seems somewhat confusing.

    Monored, Boros, or Elves don’t seem like very good matchups for this deck, but I do believe that Ramp and other blue decks are slightly behind here, especially after board when he gains access to the amazing Lodestone Golem.

    The nut draw for this deck is something like, turn 1 Quest for the Holy Relic, Ornithopter, turn 2, Memnite, Ornithoper, Glint Hawk, Ornithopter, use Relic to find Argentum Armor and attach it to your original Ornithopter, swing, vindicate a land, have them take 6.



    This happens often enough that you better have a plan to deal with it in postboard games.



    It is worth noting they do not have to decide what to attach it to until you let them resolve the ability entirely, meaning you have no good time to respond with a Lightning Bolt or Burst Lightning. This is part of the reason why I think this deck is very well-positioned vs Ramp and Monored alike.



    Postboard games vs decks with Pyroclasm seem a bit rougher but still winnable. Your plan of going for an Armor is still #1, but you also gain access to Kor Firewalker, Leonin Arbiter and Luminarch Ascensions vs ramp (Ascension is a fast clock).



    I am not 100% sold on Tectonic Edge, and I think Brave the Elements is worth considering (possibly over Journey to Nowhere and Basilisk Collar).





    Here’s a very different take on UB-Control. There’s actually quite a few variants around, and if you pay careful attention to what spells they play in game 1, it’ll give you more information as to what they could have in their sideboard.



    This list eschews any sort of creature that is vulnerable to removal for Calcite Snappers and Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Snapper is a reasonably good blocker, and can go on offense quite easily in control mirrors. Sphinx is hard to deal since the primary win conditions nowadays tend to be ground-based.



    I am not sold on Inquisition of Kozilek here but the deck is sort of lacking things to do on turn 1.



    One non-Standard deck!:

    I like where this decklist is positioned at the moment for the metagame. Your matchups in most game 1s are about 60% except vs Dredge and Goblins. Tight play is essential to this deck, since you don’t want to go around wasting your fetchlands and Brainstorms since they are a lot better once you have a Counterbalance in play.


    Postboard especially vs Goblins, you get to answer their guys with a total of 6 sweepers as well as having access to Shackles if the game goes really long. Vs Dredge, you get essentially 6 graveyard hate spells, as well as the ability to sweep their board if they don’t have Flame-Kin Zealot on that turn.


    I hope you find that this was a good start to this series of articles. Enjoy the decks!




    Any commentary/suggestions are greatly appreciated, either in the forums or via PMing me.

  • Running Up with Red at MD States

    The week before States, there was a large tournament in New York City which would pretty much dictate the decks to beat for States. After looking at the top 16 decks, 1st and 2nd were both Ramp decks (1st was Valakut and 2nd was Eldrazi). 3rd and 4th were Elves and UR Control (Destructive Force variety), 5th-8th were Eldrazi Ramp, Valakut Ramp, UW Control, and Eldrazi Ramp. 9th-16th had 2 UW Control, 2 Valakut Ramp, 1 UGr Shaman, 1 Bant Shaman, 1 WW-Relic, and 1 Eldrazi Ramp.

    All of this led me to believe that MonoRed would be a very good choice for States, since it had a pretty good matchup vs Ramp-based decks (especially boarding Mark of Mutiny/Threaten effects) and it had a reasonable matchup vs other aggro decks (which are always popular). UW control, depending on the build, could be a 50/50 matchup or nigh-unwinnable.



    Don’t dragons like eating goblins?

    So the list I decided to run (after basing it on Cedric Phillip’s list) was:

    You’re probably scratching your head by this point, and for good reason. It should be 4 Mark of Mutiny in the board for sure, and Tunnel Ignus turned out to be terrible for a lot of reasons. (I will discuss what changes I would make for future lists at the end of this, however.)

    A few interesting things to note though: 25 lands might seem like a lot until you consider that Spikeshot Elder, Plated Geopede, Molten-Tail Masticore, Koth of the Hammer and Kargan Dragonlord are all fine cards with more lands in play. It wasn’t uncommon for me to hit 6 mana and just have Elder be a significant threat by itself (this is important especially vs Day of Judgment). Teetering Peaks is also essentially a Shock to the face (or forces them to trade with something they didn’t really want to). Flame Slash (which also probably should have been a 4-of) is very good at killing Wall of Omens, Overgrown Battlement, Joraga Treespeaker, etc.

    I almost didn’t run this deck because I couldn’t find 4 Koth of the Hammer until the very last second, and I would probably have run 4 Molten-Tail Masticore if my buddy had come through on the other 2 Masticores I needed :/

    Onto the tournament itself, they announced 126 players, which was right below the cutoff for another round. This implied that not all 5-1-1s would make it, but 6-1 and 5-0-2 were definite locks.



    Koth is secretly a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog.

    Round 1, paired vs UW Allies, John Gatza

    Game 1, I mulligan to 6 on the play, and he has Kabira Evangel into Talus Paladin, and I don’t have Flame Slash for either. He also had Mana Leak and Spell Pierce for Lightning Bolt and Searing Blaze on Evangel, so I lose in pretty short order.

    Sideboarding: -4 Koth of the Hammer, -3 Plated Geopede, +4 Cunning Sparkmage, +3 Basilisk Collar (The reasoning behind this is that Koth is a relatively slow card which isn’t great in a race, and Geopede is not a great blocker, but I would rather leave in 1 Geopede than 1 Koth.)

    Game 2, I have a relatively strong 7 containing Spikeshot Elder and Cunning Sparkmage. I lead with Elder into Sparkmage (he leaks it), then shows me he is stuck on 2 lands. So I just start bashing him with Elder and playing around more Mana Leaks, and eventually play a Dragonlord that goes 8/8 while I burn the small guys he manages to play.

    Game 3, he mulligans to 6, and I have Elder, Sparkmage, Sparkmage to mow down all of his guys, as well as having a few burn spells to clean up the ones that slip through.

    Round 2, paired vs Eldrazi Ramp (splashing Black), James Peyton

    I knew what this guy was playing since we had been talking before the tournament started.

    Game 1: I won the dieroll (always helpful, even more so vs ramp), and I have Goblin Guide into Spikeshot Elder + Flame Slash on his battlement, into Dragonlord which basically kills him on about turn 5 or 6.

    Sideboarding: -4 Koth of the Hammer (this card is unreal slow, and doesn’t do that much vs them), -4 Searing Blaze, +2 Act of Treason, +2 Mark of Mutiny, +4 Tunnel Ignus

    I also knew he was boarding black removal spells such as Smother and Doom Blade, since I saw Verdant Catacombs in game 1. It’s very important to notice small things like this so you have more information (to avoid leveling Dragonlord into a removal spell, etc).

    Game 2: He does not have an accelerant on turn 1 or turn 2, which leads me to believe he has Smother/Doom Blade in hand, so I do not level my dragonlord after playing t1 Spikeshot, t2 Dragonlord and attacking him on turn 3. He shows me the smother, then untaps and plays spasm on turn 4. I attack him again, play another guy (I think it was a Geopede), and he plays Wurmcoil Engine on his t5. I only have him at 13 or so, but I have a Mark of Mutiny in my hand. So I Mark his Engine, play a non-fetchland, non-peaks land, and bash him pretty low. He attacks with the Engine to go back to a relatively safe life total of 10, and passes with 6 up. I have another Mark in hand, and decide that if he traps into another guy here (which I’m pretty sure he has), I’m ok as long as it’s not another Engine, but it is, and he manages to stabilize with the help of 13 lifelink damage every turn :/

    Game 3: I run him over since he keeps a hand with no removal but has Battlement (gets Flame Slashed), Growth Spasm (I ate the token with Spikeshot Elder to slow him down by 1 turn) and I have other early guys to boot.

    Round 3, paired vs something, Jeff Warwick (I want to say it’s UW, but I can’t actually remember)

    I honestly do not remember this match at all. Sorry.

    Round 4, paired vs Valakut Ramp (with Genesis Wave), Darryl Donaldson

    Game 1, I keep a somewhat slow hand and get run over by Primeval Titan on turn 4 into Genesis Wave for lethal on turn 5 (flipped Expeditions, etc).

    Sideboarding: +2 Act of Treason, +2 Mark of Mutiny, +4 Tunnel Ignus, -4 Koth of the Hammer, -2 Molten-Tail Masticore, -2 Burst Lightning

    Game 2, I keep a 2 lander with Guide, Geopede and Mark, so if I draw land #3 on t3 or 4, he is probably dead from Titan grabbing 2 Peaks out of my deck. Instead I brick on land for all 4 turns, and Titans do me in.

    Round 5, paired vs UW Control, Kola Olagunju

    Game 1, I keep a slow hand, play turn 4 Geopede, he does nothing until a turn 6 Baneslayer with no mana up. Luckily I have saved up 4 Fetchlands, so I crack all 4, triple searing blaze his Baneslayer, then Bolt him for 21 points of damage.

    Sideboarding: +4 Cunning Sparkmage, -4 Searing Blaze (You want to board out Slash if they have no Walls, but this guy did)

    Game 2, he mulligans to 4 (!!!), but still makes a game of it with Preordain into Wall of Omens, into him missing land drop #5 for Baneslayer, but still Days away 2 of my guys. Luckily the 3 card disadvantage does prove to be too much for him and I take it by playing enough lands to play around Leaks from him.

    Round 6, paired vs UW Control, Tom Fulks

    Game 1, I think I have a hand with a lot of Goblin Guides and like 3 Mountains and proceed to draw into burn for his face when he’s at like 8 or so.
    Sideboarding: +4 Cunning Sparkmage, -4 Searing Blaze (Saw Wall of Omens again)

    Game 2, I have a hand with 3 lands and a ton of gas, so I run 3 guys out into a Day (while getting him to about 10 or so), then he plays a Firewalker. This is awkward, because I need to somehow draw enough burn and guys to get around his Firewalker. This doesn’t happen before he draws a Baneslayer and I lose pretty quickly.

    Game 3, I have another very good hand with 3 lands and a bunch of guys. My first draw is Koth, and his first play of the game is Firewalker on turn 2. Hmm, this is awkward. Luckily he starts missing land drops after playing the Firewalker, so I manage to start playing spells around his Mana Leaks, and eventually a Koth forces his Firewalker to get aggressive, so I can swing back and kill him.

    Before this round, I looked at my breakers, and they weren’t good enough to try drawing in. Plus there was a metric ton of people at 5-1, so I had to fight anyway.

    Round 7, paired vs UW Control, Zachary Molloie

    Game 1, I get around his Wall of Omens by Flame Slashing it on turn 2, after playing turn 1 Spikeshot and turn 2 Guide (as well). I get in enough early damage that the 2nd Spikeshot manages to kill him almost by itself.

    Sideboard: +4 Cunning Sparkmage, -4 Searing Blaze

    Game 2, I have early guys again (Spikeshot into Geopede into Dragonlord), and he just has a bunch of Condemns/Purges/Flashfreezes into a Baneslayer. I don’t really have that much going besides that, so Baneslayer goes the distance for him.

    Game 3, I keep an opening hand of Mountain, Guide, Guide, Guide, Koth, Slash, Bolt. You might think this is not a very good hand, but Goblin Guide is one of your best weapons vs any sort of control deck. So I come up swinging pretty fast (after missing 2 land drops), and slashing 1 of his 2 wall of omens, I manage to get him to 2 before he stabilizes the board. Now the board state is his 6 lands (including 2 colonnades) vs my 6 lands with Koth in hand. I decide to sit there a to draw burn since he can’t really tap out for a guy very soon without risking losing. This plan goes very well, since I proceed to draw 4 burn spells in a row, then he eventually taps down to 4 mana (which means he can only have 2 counters since I was pretty sure he wasn’t boarding Pierces), so I show him all 4 burn spells and he concedes.

    This puts me to 6-1 which definitely makes the cut for top 8.



    This is an entirely new species of goblin.

    Quarterfinals, paired vs UW Control, Thomas Buck (with maindeck Ascensions, Contagion Clasps, and no Walls)

    Game 1, he actually manages to get Ascension online after getting 1 turn of no damage, then clasping it up to 4 while my hand is virtually all burn spells. I die pretty quickly to a swarm of 4/4 Angels.

    Game 2, I don’t remember this game very well, but I do remember Sparkmage and Spikeshot manage to finish him off after he days a bunch of my guys.

    Game 3, he starts off slow, and apparently has no countermagic for my early guys. Guide flips a condemn on like turn 2, so I decide to swing with it intentionally and then play a dragonlord which eventually ends up killing him.

    Semifinals, paired Valakut, Joey Martens

    (this is actually the list I built for him and a friend which emphasized speed in the mirror and cut Bolts and Cultivates from the maindeck in favor of Growth Spasm and Treespeaker)

    Using this knowledge means I can just play all of my guys and never fear a lightning bolt in games.

    Game 1, I barely kill him through a Primeval Titan he casts on turn 4 with the help of guide into geopede into dragonlord.

    Game 2, He casts a baloth then traps into a Wurmcoil Engine which is sad times for me. I don’t think I’m ever really in this one.

    Game 3, I have Spikeshot on t1, guide on t2, slash his battlement on t3, play a geopede, attack him, kill his baloth on t5 with bolt + activate spikeshot and he concedes since he is basically dead.

    Finals, vs UW Control (same list as the one in Quarters), Kurt Spiess

    Kurt and I have a relatively long history of battling matches. The first time I encountered him, he was playing the KarstenBabyKiller vs my B/W control deck. I obviously get smashed, since stone rains tend to be pretty good vs Basilicas, and Cryoclasm made me cry ;__;. He’s gotten a lot better since then and probably has more constructed ptq top 8s than I do by this point, since I don’t get out to that many anymore. He would probably be an even scarier opponent if he actually played limited more once a month.

    Game 1, I grind him out with Spikeshots and Guides very slowly, and manage to eat a Gideon along the way for the win.

    Optimal sideboarding: -2 Flame Slash (no wall of omens in his list, but I think I pull all 4 blaze for game 2 instead of slashes), -2 Searing Blaze, +4 Cunning Sparkmage (game 3, I go back and sideboard like this)

    Game 2, I misplay this game pretty badly on like turn 9, and I also kept a sketchy hand of 5 Mountains, Guide, Spikeshot on the draw. Spikeshot is really good vs control decks, since they basically have to deal with it by itself. Anyway, at some point in this game, he activates Gideon with 3 counters on it. I am supposed to respond by shooting him twice and redirecting to Gideon. Instead I let Gideon’s ability resolve, and realize what I’ve done. When Gideon is a 6/6, the loyalty doesn’t come off him when he is dealt damage. So instead I have to ping him for 2 end of turn, and kill Gideon on my turn, which enables him to play a Baneslayer next turn without fear. Frost Titan arrives after this, then I lose.

    Game 3, I keep another hand of 5 Mountains, Guide, Spikeshot. After swinging on turn 1 with guide, I see purge, then on t2, I see condemn, so I stop swinging with my team of guys. In the mean time, he is not doing much, but eventually draws into a Baneslayer. Koth arrives to ritual me from 6 to 7 mana, so I can activate spikeshot twice targeting Baneslayer and Bolt it as well. Gideon and Frost Titan arrive soon afterwards, and I lose.

    In retrospect, I think I was running pretty hot to beat UW 5 times, since I don’t feel the matchup is that great.

    Changes I Would Make

    Play 4 Flame Slash for sure. Phillips had Devastating Summons in his sideboard, which is basically only for the mirror. If you don’t expect the mirror at all, you don’t really need to board these (and I wouldn’t, at the moment). Searing Blaze is a great card vs cobra/birds/other aggro decks, but there’s honestly not too many of those at the moment. However, it is worth having access to, especially in postboard games.

    New list:

    As a bonus, here’s a list I have been battling with in MTGO standard queues (pretty similar to Peebles’ list, probably only like 5-6 cards apart) and doing pretty well with:

    I would appreciate any comments in the forums, and hope people got something out of this report.

  • Speculative Strategy: ‘The Monday 6’

    This article is part of the Rise of the Eldrazi Alliance. Wizards of the Coast is working with Good Gamery, among other fan web sites, to help drum up excitement for the upcoming set. Take a look at the humorous and/or strategic content generated so far, and stay tuned for more new ROE-related articles and ‘chops!


    They’re here!




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    Corpsehatch, Mammoth Umbra, Mnemonic Wall, Pathrazer of Ulamog, Prey’s Vengeance, and Valakut Fireboar. These are the Monday 6, the six cards given to Good Gamery (among other fan web sites) as part of a spoiler pool.

    What follows are the six cards, each with commentary by four of GG’s top Magic players/evaluators:

    Peebles (Benjamin Peebles-Mundy)


    Peebles is an accomplished Magic player and prolific writer for StarCityGames. He played in five Pro Tours, finishing 15th in LA and 22nd in San Diego, and invented Ghost Dad alongside NicotineJones. He is highly involved in the GG community, and is both a GG forum admin and chat op.
    Llarack (Jarvis Yu)


    Llarack is an awesome Magic Player on Good Gamery. He finished 17th at GP Denver, 27th at GP Philly, day 2 at GP Seattle, 5th place at SCG 5k Richmond, and is currently 8th in the running for MODO Extended Player of the Year. As both a skilled player and a GG chat op, he is universally considered simply… amazing.
    NicotineJones


    NJ is a longtime member of the community whose ability to analyze and speculate about new cards has earned him mad respect. He invented Ghost Dad alongside Peebles, and he’s written several capsule set reviews for Good Gamery, which have been vital in helping our community get a jumpstart on emerging metagames.
    Sti (Stuart Wright)


    Hailing from England, Sti boasts a European Championships ’03 Top-8, three Pro Tour Top-16 finishes, and 2nd Place Great Britain Nationals ’07, and has impressive ratings in both Constructed and Limited formats. He’s also written for StarCityGames. Read his commentary using a British accent.

    Card #1: Corpsehatch





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    Peebles


    I pick Brainspoil and I play Befoul, so I’d be picking and playing Corpsehatch pretty high if it didn’t have the whole token-making thing going on. With that tacked on top, I expect to be picking it very high. Having seen only 7 cards from the new set (and therefore being in a position of extreme authority on the topic), I assume that you won’t be getting so many Eldrazi Spawns that you’ll be able to regularly fire out twelve-drop Eldrazi fatties, so the tokens will probably either chumpblock or immediately sacrifice themselves to effectively reduce the cost of Corpsehatch to 1BB, letting you make another play in the same turn.
    Llarack


    This card seems unplayable in constructed unless standard slows way the hell down (which I doubt it will for at least another two years).


    In limited, it’s probably really good unless if RRR (triple Rise) draft turns out to be really fast, which it isn’t looking like with a bunch of expensive cards spoiled so far.
    NicotineJones


    Corpsehatch won’t make it in constructed play, but it’s a fine limited card that both buys you some time and accelerates you to a huge monster. Like, for instance, an Eldrazi.
    Sti


    This is a solid limited card and, while a bit expensive, it does provide two chump blockers to help with it being a bit slow. The mana generation is more of a constructed effect and this card is a bit too costly unless you really want Eldrazi for some reason.

    Card #2: Mammoth Umbra





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    Peebles


    How good +3/+3 and Vigilance will be is pretty tough to call at this point, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t relatively dominating. The actual fun part of this card to look at is Totem Armor, which is a pretty good attempt at fixing the automatic two-for-one drawback of auras. I don’t think it gets all the way there, as your man is still vulnerable to being removed by something like Journey to Nowhere, or killed while the Umbra is still lurking on the stack, but at least a Corpsehatch off the top won’t completely blow you out.
    Llarack


    This also seems quite unplayable in constructed since 4W enchant creatures are not where you want to be, especially with the existence of Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring and Path to Exile.


    Depending on the amount of removal and bounce in RRR, this card could be really good or really bad. Only time will tell with this one.
    NicotineJones


    [Like Corpsehatch,] Mammoth Umbra won’t make it for constructed play either. The good news is that size plus vigilance tends to dominate a limited board, and double-blocking kill your pantsed-up dude will only kill the enchantment. Like all expensive enchant creatures, you’re vulnerable to getting blown out by removal, but if you want to build a monster this is a pretty good way to go about it.
    Sti


    This is another “limited-only” outside of some sort of combo. It has the traditional problem of auras, where you have to be careful to avoid removal in response to this. I do, however, feel this is worth the risk, as it gives you a very large creature that can both attack and defend even if they kill it once. You do want to take it out against blue decks, as having the creature bounced is a backbreaking tempo swing.

    Card #3: Mnemonic Wall





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    Peebles


    Is there anyone here who didn’t play with Izzet Chronarch? If you managed to miss Ravnica, the general idea is that you’re paying a lot for a body that’s not too impressive, so what really matters is what you have in your deck to buy back. If you can rebuy removal spells or things like Peel from Reality, the effect is pretty sick. If you can only rebuy Twitch, you probably don’t need to spend five mana on a Kraken Hatchling.
    Llarack


    This could conceivably see play in Zendikar / Eldrazi block constructed as a card in a control deck. It makes Day of Judgment a lot better, since you can blow the Day of Judgment early and then return it back with this guy, and force them to commit another guy just to get around this.


    The value of this card is also very dependent on how fast or slow RRR is. You can basically count on there being reasonable removal to get back with this thing, though.
    NicotineJones


    The only way Mnemonic Wall makes it in constructed is if there’s some kind of a slide effect that makes recursion possible. I think its prospects are grim for limited play, too– 0/4 for 5 mana is just not a good deal.
    Sti


    To be played in constructed you really need some sort of blue deck that doesn’t mind tapping out and returning a removal spell, as a deck full of counterspells can’t really afford to tap out for just a 0/4. Zac Hill built a grixis deck of this style but it hasn’t proved very popular so far. In limited the type of deck that wants this effect probably prefers the more defensive body over something like the 2/2 body Scrivener provides.

    Card #4: Pathrazer of Ulamog





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    Peebles


    This is a gigantic creature. If there were no way to ramp him out, then it would be a strange deck indeed that ever ran him what with the whole eleven mana up front. However, Corpsehatch shows that there will at least be some support for Eldrazis, and boy if you can get this guy into the attack step you will be quite the satisfied little child. Plus he’s got like at least 20 fingers.
    Llarack


    This just seems like a worse Phyrexian Colossus that you can’t cheat out at all. Also, why isn’t this thing an artifact? If there are more counterparts to Eye of Ugin in Rise itself, then I guess this thing might be played in constructed at some point.


    11 drops rarely make the cut in limited, unless if there is a common Eldrazi mana cost reducer or if this format is actually as slow as Onslaught block.
    NicotineJones


    Pathrazer of Ulamog is outclassed by the Eldrazi we’ve already seen elsewhere for constructed play. In limited, it’s nasty if you can get it down; we’ll see if the rest of the set provides tools to do that. 11 mana is just a ton of mana, though, so it’ll need plenty of help.
    Sti


    The high costs of these Eldrazi cards makes me wonder if there will be a number of cards that reduce their cost like Eye of Ugin.

    Card #5: Prey’s Vengeance





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    Peebles


    Two doses of +2/+2 is (who would have thought) both better and worse than one dose of +4/+4. I think that the “average” use for Prey’s Vengeance will be to ambush an attacker of theirs and then push through an attacker of yours, which sounds pretty nice to me, but I know that at some point I’ll be alpha-striking and wishing that it would just give me the full effect right now. Rebound, like Totem Armor, is also vulnerable to having the target disappear in response, but I think overall it’s a pretty reasonable ability.


    As an aside, Kodama’s Might was +2/+2 for G with that set’s keyword on it, so I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a card standing in for Glacial Ray (especially since they can avoid the two-for-one if they have a sacrifice outlet).
    Llarack


    This card seems to be the most exciting of the cards to me. You can use it early on in some sort of aggressive deck mirror, then get another +2/+2 the next turn for value. The trouble is, it’s not particularly great in Boss Naya, so its usage seems limited to Eldrazi Monument green and this card is sort of underwhelming there.


    This seems reasonable for limited since you get value out of it as a pump spell and then basically a free bonus +2/+2 next turn.
    NicotineJones


    Prey’s Vengeance is a card that might make it in constructed. Normally, it’s going to be a solid combat trick when you play it initially– +2/+2 is generally enough of a boost to swing creature combat your way. The second turn, the other guy just doesn’t block your pumped man. Like any creature pump, instant-speed removal is sad times for you. In constructed, you are basically paying for 4 damage to the face spread over two turns that you can sometimes use as a combat trick. That probably isn’t good enough, but sometimes very fast green aggro decks exist that want Giant Growth type cards anyway and in that context this may nose over the line. It gets better if the world is full of toughness-based removal, since it can counter some of that.


    The rebound mechanic could be interesting with storm and similar mechanics, though.
    Sti


    People have played cheap Green pump in constructed before and this card will often deal four damage over two turns for a very cheap price. It does have to compete with Vines of Vastwood, but it does have the advantage of being cheaper and spreading the pump effort over two turns can allow you to force through a creature twice in a row. In limited this type of effect can be used to provide a tempo boost, removing a creature for only one mana in a sense and the second casting can help you to finish them off before they can stabilize.

    Card #6: Valakut Fireboar





    (click for the large version)

    UBB code to paste the large version in a forum post:
    [img]http://www.goodgamery.com/articles/drazi/card6_big.jpg[/img]


    Peebles


    Sometimes you really want to attack with your Kami of Old Stone. In that case, wouldn’t it be lovely to hit for seven damage instead of one? While I don’t think that there will be too many cases of Fireboar-related death, he’s a great blocker and he’s in the color that’s most-likely to be able to clear out the tiny guys that would stymie his attacks, so I think that he’ll be pretty threatening to play against. It’s nice that being a 1/7 blocker leads your opponent to attack with more guys just to get damage through, making it more likely that you’ll be able to live the dream and get your Firecat on.
    Llarack


    If people don’t play removal and somehow a five drop is good enough to hit several times, then yeah, you want this card in constructed. Otherwise, I give it a huge thumbs down.


    I have an unhealthy love for cards like this in limited. Suffice it to say, I think it’ll probably make your maindeck more often than not, and gets better with each removal spell you have in your limited deck.
    NicotineJones


    Valakut Fireboar is the kind of man I’m predisposed to like– huge butt, hard to kill, does something useful. There is no way it makes it in constructed, but in limited it’s not a bad way to sit back, block some guys, and bide your time for a burn salvo. They have to keep blockers back against the Boar most of the time, because racing a 7-power creature isn’t an option; if they get aggressive you could remove a blocker or two to punish them for their impatience. I think the Boar will be reasonably good at creating ground stalls in limited, but it still isn’t a high pick.
    Sti


    This is another limited card that fits best in a defensive Red deck. It provides a large body to protect you, with the threat of attacking for a large number. In practise they will normally have a creature held back to deal with a 7/1, but the very threat of this does force them to hold something back.

    Want to weigh in yourself? Hit the forum link below. We’d love to have you join in on the discussion.

  • PTQ San Diego Tournament Report

    10/17/2009 – PTQ for San Diego in Rockville, MD

    First, let’s start off with the sealed pool I received.

    A few lines borrowed from the Chat Dump while you think about how to build this pool:

    13:54    iConn   how does your sweet pearl trident deck beat
                 a pyroclasm
13:54    Seeker_ counterspell
13:55   Seeker_ memory lapse
13:55   Seeker_ ...mana leak?
13:55  Seeker_ force spike!
13:55   iConn   also
13:55   iConn   more importantly
13:55   iConn   how do you cast coral merfolk with a straight face

[19:09] [wcb] or encyclopedia brown
[19:09] [wcb]
[19:09] [RHat] encyclopedia brown was fucken badass
[19:36] [prolep] hey rhat
[19:36] [prolep] and whoever else is around
[19:36] [prolep] [RHat] [19:09]  encyclopedia brown was
                 fucken badass
[19:36] [prolep] I have concrete proof of this fact
[19:37] [theStu]  present it
[19:37] [RHat] i am around
[19:37] [prolep] what is encyclopedia brown's first name
[19:37] [RHat] i forget
[19:37] [prolep] you are allowed to wiki it
[19:37] [RHat] leroy!
[19:37] [prolep] BADDEST MAN IN THE WHOLE DAMN TOWN

[crickets]

[19:38] [prolep] god
[19:38] [prolep] i just realized you guys might too young

[Peebles1] man selling all these pokemon cards is going
           to be ANNOYING

mary: i wrote a song
reuben: what is it
mary: it's called the people you work with
      are stupid douchebags
reuben:
reuben: how does it go?
mary: "the people you work with are stupid douchebags.
       the people you work with are stuuuuuupid douuuuuuuchebags"

    A quick analysis shows that the correct build of this pool is probably blue and black, since they have removal, bombs and evasion.

    The first runthrough gives the following cards for a deck:

    I would prefer to play 18 lands in this type of deck (with Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, double Whiplash Trap, Merfolk Seastalkers and double Windrider Eel, getting flooded isn’t a huge issue).

    I filled out the last three slots with Ior Ruin Expedition, Shoal Serpent and Bog Tatters.

    My reasoning on the Serpent was that I wanted a big fat wall to block while attacking with evasion guys, or building up Ob, Nixilis to lethal them.

    Tatters seemed better than the alternatives (Crypt Ripper and Hagra Diabolist) since it will usually have evasion vs the best sealed decks (which tend to be black).

    Ior Ruin Expedition was extremely sketchy, and probably should have been Cancel in the maindeck.

    As for the swiss rounds:

    I went 6-1-1 (loss in round 4, drew in round 8). I believe it is correct to draw in this sealed format. The games themselves weren’t very interesting, since they all played out in the same sort of way: I would stabilize the board with my removal / bounce and kill them with a evasive guy or Ob Nixilis.

    So I’ll fast forward to the deck I drafted in the top 8.

    Round 1, I played vs the only other UG drafter at the table. Game 1, I set up a board state where Seastalkers locks down his guys and lethal him over the span of 2 turns. For the record, I almost died to quadrupule Scholar targetting me, but the Seastalkers let me kill him before this happened.

    I board out Gomazoa and Gladeheart for Hedron Crab and 1 Mountain (since he had mold shamblered my only red source in game 1).

    Game 2, his deck did nothing, and I took over quite easily.

    Round 2, I played vs RW with bombs (such as Hellkite Charger and Felidar Sovereign). Game 1, he gets manascrewed and double Whiplash Trap + fatties finish him off.

    I board in 1 Lethargy Trap for Frontier Guide, because his deck seemed to be a bunch of small guys + Teteering Peaks.

    Game 2, I get him to 3 life, but his Sovereign arrives to stabilize him completely because I had already spent both Traps trying to kill him. Game 3, he smashes me easily with Hellkite Charger.

    I am only slightly upset, because his deck was pretty good, and my deck didn’t have many ways to beat his.

    However, I am more upset that he conceded to the other guy in the finals after losing game 1.

    I will probably not be PTQing again this season, but here are a few notes:

    I believe the best sealed decks are B/x, and that you should draw.

    18 lands is correct for most of the sealed decks, but I can see a case for 19 if you have a TON of landfall guys.

    This is a much more sane draft format than the previous two, so I recommend sticking to two colors with possibly a splash in draft.

    Good luck in your sealed and drafts in the land of Zendikards! (couldn’t resist it).

    –llarack

  • To Mulligan or Not to Mulligan


    One topic that is not often covered in articles about constructed is how
    to properly mulligan with decks, and what factors to consider while
    mulliganing. However, I feel the best way to approach a discussion of this
    is through examples.

    Example 1: B/W Control, (just after Time Spiral was released for
    States ’06):

    Now, keep in mind, the major decks back then (or the well known ones) were Solar Flare, Solar Pox, Zoo, R/G aggro, Dragonstorm.

    You were favored vs most of those decks with tight play. (In fact, my only loss in States ’06 was to dragonstorm who drew 3 ignorant bliss and 1 remand in game 2, in running turns).

    However, one of the most important things to consider is how your path to victory looked vs those decks. The games vs control basically degenerated into attrition wars, so Wayfarer and Arena are the best cards, with Nightmare Void (a tutorable target) being a softlock with Arena. The only difference between the hands vs aggro and vs control is that Wayfarer is slightly worse vs them, because it tends to die very easily, and you lean much more heavily on your removal spells.

    Let us consider the following hands, that I randomly generated from this link:
    BW Control.

    Hand #1: Swamp, Caves of Koilos, Ghost Quarter, Weathered Wayfarer, Faith’s Fetters, Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Phyrexian Arena.

    This hand is basically the best opening hand you could draw. Since it has 2 sources of card advantage (wayfarer and arena), fetters to help you stabilize, and a lategame finisher that you can probably play on turn 8 or 9. In every matchup, I would keep this hand.

    Hand #2: Plains, Orzhov Basilica, Wrath of God, Condemn, Phyrexian Arena * 2, Mortify.

    This hand is also a keeper, even though it is slightly marginal, seeing as how you need a second black source for your Arenas, and the 2nd Arena is much worse than the first. Condemn, Mortify, and Wrath help you survive vs aggressive decks, and Arena is trump vs control.

    Hand #3: Plains, Swamp, Castigate, Weathered Wayfarer, Mortify*2, Faith’s Fetters.

    I guess the hand generator just likes me today, because this hand is very good as well, containing a source of card advantage, some disruption, and 3 removal spells.

    One point, in games 2 and 3 (where you know what your oppt is playing), you should try to mulligan into a hand with Castigate or Phyrexian Arena vs combo or control, and a hand with removal spells vs Aggro.

    Let me take another example (from Ravnica 2006, States Limited, top 8 Draft)

    U/R/W Ravnica Draft    :

    Several things first: Yes, this deck is misbuilt, if you look at the
    sideboard. However, that does not mean we can’t learn things from looking at sample hands from this deck.

    Hand 1: Island, Island, Island, Barbarian Riftcutter, Hypervolt Grasp, Cackling Flames, Faith’s Fetters.

    Clearly a mulligan, with only 7 red sources, and 6 white sources in the deck (counting Azorius Signet).

    Hand 2: Island, Boros Garrison, Faith’s Fetters, Helium Squirter, Ogre Savant, Barbarian Riftcutter.

    I would probably keep this hand on the draw, and consider mulliganing it on the play.

    Hand 3: Island, Mountain, Mountain, Mountain, Plains, Three Dreams, Helium Squirter.

    If I had any sort of knowledge that my opponent was playing an aggressive deck, I would probably mulligan this hand on the draw. Otherwise, I would keep it.

    To quickly summarize, you have to keep suboptimal hands much more often in limited, simply because of the higher variance in hands because of the lack of focus of limited decks.

    Example 3: B/G Elves from Richmond 5k

    A few key things about this deck. The sideboard was built anticipating a lot of Faeries (like 40-50% of the metagame, which turned out to be nearly correct), a decent amount of Elves (in which case, you want the 4th Profane Command, 2x Primal Command, and 1 Shriekmaw), a smattering of Reveillark, and a bunch of other random decks which you don’t really care about.

    I wrote a round by round report about this deck at the following link Elves. But I did not really discuss how/why I would mulligan certain hands.

    Hand #1: Imperious Perfect * 2, Garruk Wildspeaker, Swamp, Treetop Village, Llanowar Elves, Mutvault.

    This hand is great in every matchup except vs Faeries. I would 100% mulligan vs Faeries on the play or draw, and keep everywhere else. This in particular emphasizes the point that in certain matchups with certain decks, you want to mulligan aggressively.

    Hand #2: Llanowar Wastes, Swamp, Wren’s Run Vanquisher, Imperious Perfect, Profane Command, 2 * Nameless Inversion.

    This hand is pretty good, even if you miss your first land drop (you just play Vanquisher on turn 2, and kill their first 2 guys, hopefully forcing through 9 points of damage.

    Hand #3: Treetop Village, Gilt-leaf Palace, Mutavault, Forest, Terror, Nameless Inversion, Llanowar Elves

    This hand is actually fairly good vs Faeries and Reveillark simply because there are 2 manlands in it, but kind of mediocre vs other decks. However, I probably would never mulligan this hand.

    My last example is probably one of the most degenerate decks ever (last season’s extended dredge), which can be found at the following link:
    Saito Dredge from GP Vienna

    Hand #1: Watery Grave, Careful Study, Tolarian Winds, Golgari Thug, Bridge from Below, Golgari-Grave Troll, Narcomoeba.

    I think you keep this hand, even though you are not happy about it, because bridge and narcomoeba are kind of dead, and your deck only has 14 other mana sources, so it is not that likely you will hit a land off careful study.

    Hand #2: Island, Cephalid Coliseum, Stinkweed Imp, Ichorid, Breakthrough, Breakthrough, Breakthrough.

    This hand is very good, and will most likely win on turn 3.

    Hand #3: Watery Grave, Watery Grave, Polluted Delta, Polluted Delta, Cabal Therapy, Golgari Grave-Troll, Breakthrough

    This hand is a tiny bit slow, and I might consider mulliganing it if you know your oppt is playing Doran (because of thoughtseize/duress) or vs a deck with counters that can stop your first Breakthrough. Otherwise, you just therapy yourself, breakthrough (hopefully hitting another dredge card).

    Hand #4: Careful Study, Flame-kin Zealot, Putrid Imp, Breakthrough, Cephalid Coliseum, Cephalid COliseum, Flooded Strand.

    Looking at this hand, it is relatively good, although slightly risky due to the lack of a dredge card (and there are only 11 in the deck). I would still keep it, simply because you will see about 9 cards over the next few turns from Careful Study into BT for 1, into Coliseum.

    Hand #5: Polluted Delta*2, Watery Grave, Cabal Therapy, Putrid Imp, Breakthrough, Bridge from Below.

    This hand is BARELY keepable, due to a lack of a dredge card, and holding Bridge from Below (which is basically a blank). If you are playing vs storm, or Zoo, I would consider mulliganing this hand, because there are certainly better 6 card hands with Dredge.

    To sum it all up, most limited decks should not mulligan as often as constructed decks, simply because of the lack of focus, and the higher variance inherent in the format. This is not quite as true if you know your opponent’s deck is very very good, because you will need a better hand in order to compete.

    In certain matchups, do not be afraid to aggressively mulligan, especially if it is a bad matchup for you. One example from this last extended season was Goblins vs Storm or Ideal. You could never keep a slow ringleader hand, simply because it did not put enough pressure on them to force them to waste resources and also because it let them draw 1-2 more cards to go off with. Another example was, Domain Zoo vs Storm or Ideal, in which case, you had to mulligan into a 1 drop/2 drop hand, or risk not having enough pressure to beat them.

    I welcome criticisms and/or PMs on this topic.

    –llarack

  • GP Denver Report – Kithkin Yu

    After doing virtually no playtesting the week before, and playing in 2 GPTS with Faeries going 0-1 and 1-1, I decided it was time to switch decks. Looking at the Kobe coverage, the kithkin deck seemed to be a very solid beatdown deck with its only fault being a lack of reach.

    The Japanese kithkin deck’s maindeck seemed fine, but the sideboard seemed to be suspect (with my 0 playtesting, of course).

    So I decided to change the deck to the following list:

    Rounds 1-2: Byes (or rather, me walking around watching Imnion, Falco, and various other people battal)



    Round 3: Clifton H. Hinton, Kithkin, (2-1)



    Game 1: We both clog up the board pretty well, but I eventually bite it to a Mirrorweave on my Cenn when he gets ahead by 2 creatures.



    Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane



    During game 2, I call a judge to watch him for slow play, because game 1 ate a lot of time, and he seemed to be taking 1-2 minutes for turns 1-4, and the judge gives him a slowplay warning. Eventually he gets to a point where he makes an attack that is not lethal even with Mirrorweave, but my crackback is.



    Game 3, he mulligans to 6, but accidentally draws 7. The judge is still sitting nearby watching him for slowplay and so forces him to mulligan to 5. Then he mulligans to 4. He goes Plains, Plains, Plains, Stillmoon, Stillmoon. I go, Plains, Heights, Plains, Spectral, activate Heights for Cloudgoat, Cenn, Cenn. He really doesn’t have a shot after that.


    Round 4: Nathan J. Bertelsen, Kithkin, (2-1)



    Also of note, this guy top 8ed the PTQ the very next day, which Falco top 4ed. He had maindeck Barkshell Blessing, and a much lower curve.



    Game 1: I’m pretty sure I get Spectral/Heights into Cloudgoat, so he’s behind the whole game.



    Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane



    Game 2: He gets Thistledown Liege when I wasn’t expecting it, so I lose most of my team while he’s way ahead on board and eventually succumb.



    Game 3: I have an insane draw with Stalwart into Cenn into Procession into Ajani.



    Round 5: Jeremy W. Manthei, Unknown, (2-0)
    I don’t remember what this guy was playing, I just remember mauling him with insane draws. Sorry.




    Round 6: Josh C. Wludyka, Red Deck, (2-1)



    Game 1: I mulligan to 5 on the play, but lead with Figure, Procession, then Cloudgoat. He still loses because of all of the tokens just swarming him.



    Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier, -1 Goldmeadow Stalwart, +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +1 Reveillark



    Game 2: I throw this game by attacking Forge-tender into Soul Snuffers, and so his 8/8 Figure kills me when I’m at 8, and my top card is Unmake.



    Game 3: I drop turn 1 Stalwart, turn 2 Cenn, then turn 5 and 6 Oversoul of Dusk, which barely manage to outrace Demigod + burn.



    Round 7: Michael Jacob, Red Deck, (2-0)


    Game 1: He’s making snide comments about my topdecks during this whole game, but eventually he dies to my massive amount of token makers when I am at 5 life, and I suspect he was holding a Flame Javelin, but did not have enough time to deploy his burn.



    Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier, -1 Goldmeadow Stalwart, +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +1 Reveillark



    Game 2: We get into a board state where he can’t kill my Reveillark because it will regrow 2 Forge-Tenders, so I just start swinging with Reveillark into his face, and I Unmake his Demigods that he plays as blockers.



    Oh and yeah, this guy won US Nationals the weekend before. So beating him felt good.



    Round 8: Conley L. Woods, Kelpie, (2-0)



    Game 1: He leads with Secluded Glen and a bunch of lands, so I think he is playing Faeries, but by turn 6, he hasn’t done anything except play a Soul Snuffers, I suspect he is playing River Kelpie which I had tested with a lot on MWS. He eventually dies to more token makers, because apparently all he has drawn were a bunch of maindeck Snakeforms.



    Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier (seems very poor vs Soul Snuffers), +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Reveillark



    Game 2: I get stuck on 2 lands, but keep playing guys so I can attack. Eventually we get to a point where if I topdeck a 3rd land for my Unmake, he loses, because he is playing extremely aggressively, and I do finally topdeck the plains.




    Round 9: Mark S. Hendrickson, Kithkin, (2-1)



    Game 1: Don’t recall what happens here, I think I just get ahead with a bunch of token makers and Ajani Goldmane.



    Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane



    Game 2: He gets ahead with token makers and Ajani Goldmane.



    Game 3: We both clog the board up, but eventually I just attack him with Stillmoon Cavalier for 5 damage 4 times in a row.



    Round 10: Walter Shatford, Kithkin, (2-1)


    Honestly, Bill Stark does a pretty good job of writing about it here.



    Round 11: Scott D. Barrentine, Merfolk, (1-2)



    Game 1: He plays a turn 3 Plumeveil after I attack with a stalwart into it, so I play a Stillmoon Cavalier, which eventually gains flying and attacks him a bunch of times.



    Sideboarding: -1 Mirrorweave, -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk



    Game 2: It’s a very close race, but his Sygg + Mutavault hold off my Oversoul of Dusk with a +1/+1 counter long enough so that I die to his other guys.



    Game 3: He has Stonybrook Banneret into Sower of Temptation into Sower of Temptation into Merrow Rejereey.



    This match left a bad taste in my mouth, because I’m pretty sure my deck is a heavy favorite vs him.




    Round 12: Paulo Vitor D. da Rosa, Faeries, (2-0)



    This match was in the Feature Match area, but the games were very uneventful.



    Game 1: He gets stuck on Swamp + Mutavault + Bitterblossom while I curve out with Stalwart, Cenn, Procession and just beat him down.



    Sideboarding: -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, -1 Unmake, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk



    Game 2: He only has 1 blue source for most of the game, so I run my unimportant spells into Spellstutter Sprites and resolve my Cenns and Figures and crush him.



    Round 13: AJ Sacher, Faeries, (0-2)


    Game 1: I remember getting crushed by Bitterblossom, Scion of Oona into Mistbind Clique in game 1. Nothing I can really say about this, except I did attack a 4/4 Knight of Meadowgrain into his 5/5 Mistbind Clique.



    Sideboarding: -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, -1 Unmake, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk



    Game 2: I think he has Scion into Sower this game which is very difficult for me to beat :(



    Round 14: Antonino De Rosa, 5 Color Control, (0-2)



    I’ll go out on an limb and say that this matchup is basically the worst possible for Kithkin, and your oppt needs to mulligan a lot for you to have a shot. The games were uninteresting, since he would just play a sweeper and reload with Mulldrifter :(



    Round 15: Gerry Thompson, 5 Color Control, (0-2)
    http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/gpden08/welcome#16




    I guess it was a decent tournament for me, but it just feels so disappointing to miss Top 8 when all I had to do was go 3-3 on Day 2.



    I am pretty sure that my sideboard was incorrect.



    In the future, if you want to run Kithkin, Falco’s list from the PTQ the next day seems more correct to me.



    However, I would modify the decklist slightly to be:

  • PS Elves Yu, Redux!



    Attending the SCG 5k, I knew that I didn’t want to play Faeries, because the mirror was way too random for my tastes, and I had been doing well with Elves in modo 8mans.

    I came to the conclusion that the following list was probably very good, and is what I ended up registering for the 5k:




    Round 1: Michael A. Oliveros, Doran (2-0).

    Game 1: I win the dieroll and choose to play (obv?). I lead with gilt-leaf palace, revealing Vanquisher to thoughtseize his birds when he kept a 2 lander with 2 dorans and a viper. This turns out to be very good because he doesn’t draw the 3rd land until turn 5, by which point I have a colossus beating him down. I end up profaning him for 5 when he is at 5 for the win.


    Sideboarding: -2 terror (mediocre vs doran/colossus), -1 wayfinder, +2 primal command, +1 profane command.



    Game 2: He mulligans on the play, and leads with turn 1 birds into turn 2 doran. I open with turn 1 llanowar elves into turn 2 vanquisher + elves. Turn 3, he just passes with only 3 mana, and on my turn 3, I primal command his murmuring bosk searching up a Colossus, which ends the game pretty quickly after that, even though he gets a warhammer on doran.


    Round 2: Jay S. Carter, GW manaramp (2-1).

    Game 1: He wins the dieroll, and leads with snow-forest, suspend search. This leads me to believe he’s some sort of manaramp deck, so I hold off on thoughtseizing him for as long as possible. My turn 1 is, forest, elf. His turn 2, he plays a plains, so I then realize he must be the popular GW manaramp, and change my gameplan to try to play around wrath of gods. This plan is derailed when he plays a turn 4 oversoul. I then commit my colossus to the board which trumps his oversoul. However, the game degenerates to a point where he gets enough mana to play wrath into crovax, and then flashes out a cloudthresher with him on 4 life after I profane commanded him a few times to force damage through (with fear), after which I lose.

    Sideboarding: -4 Inversion, +1 Profane Command, +2 Primal Command, +1 Squall Line (I just wanted another fireball if the game became clogged vs his oversoul, and inversion doesn’t really kill anything in his deck).

    Game 2: He mulligans to 6, keeps his hand. I go palace, thoughtseize, and take his wall of roots and notes he has 4 lands and a mouth of ronom in hand. His turn 1 is forest, suspend search, which lets me know that he still has 4 lands in hand. I am a tad flooded, but I have double treetop village which beat him down to 9 before he mouths one. Then I commit a colossus which finishes the job.

    Game 3: I kept a slightly sketchy hand of: palace, forest, vanquisher, profane*2 + garruk on the draw. Luckily, my first three draws are a land, then a perfect and then another land. So the game ends up not being close, despite him getting a turn 3 oversoul (which could not even attack into my vanquisher). He then plays a crovax on turn 5, and I just terror it to make him pay 2 life so I can profane him to neardead. I then rip another profane which ends up killing him.

    Round 3: Justin D. LaRose, Faeries (2-0)

    I recognize this guy’s name from browsing the decks from the last 5k, and also the first Rockville PTQ. He seemed like a fairly good player, so I put him on Faeries.

    Game 1: I win the dieroll, and open the following hand: forest, boreal, vanquisher*2, perfect, wayfinder, thoughtseize. Normally this is a pretty terrible hand, but since I am fairly sure he is playing faeries, and i’m on the play, i will probably get in both vanquishers before he is able to counter them. This is exactly what happens, and he gets stuck on 2 mana after committing a bitterblossom. So the vanquishers take the game when I draw a swamp for inversion.

    Sideboarding: -3 Garruk, -3 Profane, -4 Perfect, -1 Wayfinder, +4 Thresher, +2 Squall, +4 Riftsweeper, +1 Shriekmaw

    Game 2: He leads with island ancestral, then swamp bitterblossom. My first two turns are palace, llanowar, into llanowar, riftsweeper ancestral. The look on his face was PRICELESS, especially when he suspended ancestral the following turn, and i riftsweepered it. The game is not very close after that after I draw a treetop to go along with my bears.

    Round 4: Robert D. Seder, Faeries (2-1)

    Game 1: I mulligan to 5 on the play, and I promptly get mopped up by turn 4 mistbind, turn 5 mistbind. He didn’t have early ancestral or blossom, but it was pretty irrelevant.

    Game 2: I run the same sideboarding plan as earlier. I mop him up when he keeps a 2 lander with ancestral, I riftsweeper it, he suspends another, and I riftsweeper the 2nd one. This guy gives me an incredulous look as he scoops it up to treetop + double bear attacking for 3 turns in a row.

    Game 3: He mulligans to 6 on the play, and has turn 1 ancestral, but I wait until turn 3 to play my riftsweeper (because of turn 1 elves) so I can play around rune snag, which he ended up having. After that, I start swinging with my bear, llanowar elf, and treetop with pendelhaven in play.

    Round 5: Korey Mcduffie, Faeries (2-0)

    I had seen this guy playing a round earlier, so I knew exactly what he was playing.

    Game 1: I win the dieroll ({e}, obv), and open with turn 1 Llanowar, turn 2 perfect, turn 3 colossus when he taps out for blossom. He just looks at my board in disgust and concedes.

    Game 2: Riftsweepers get his early ancestrals, and mutavault and a treetop finish the job.

    After this game, he made a comment about he was sure he had lost infinite ratings points to me. I told him I was 1971 coming into this event, and then he started to backpedal on his comment.

    Round 6: Daniel Samson, Monogreen Elves (1-2)

    Game 1: I win the dieroll, he mulligans to 6. His first 3 turns are just forest go, so I think he is g/w manaramp. Then he lays a g/w liege on turn 4, but I vomit out 2 perfects which actually just beat him.

    Sideboarding: -1 Wayfinder, -2 colossus, -1 tarmogoyf, +1 profane, +1 shriekmaw, +2 primal. (Colossus is kind of mediocre vs his infinite chain of blockers, especially with heartmender out).

    Game 2/3: He gets early persist guys, including finks which let him just sit there long enough to cast overrun both games to attack for 30+.

    My draw in game 3 was kind of mediocre too, but I think if we played this matchup like 70 times, I would lose about 60% of the matches.

    Round 7: Anna Scott, Kithkin (2-1)

    We got put in the feature match area, and I’m not really sure why. All I do know is, over the three games, I counted about 15 play mistakes from her, including main-phasing reinforce on her knight of meadowgrain several times. I lose game 2 due to getting flooded, but game 1 and 3, I win fairly easily, despite getting stuck on 3 for quite a while. She had some odd card choices, including coordinated barrage (wtf?) and walking into my removal spells while trying to barrage something.

    Sideboarding: -1 Wayfinder, -2 Colossus, +1 Profane +1 Shriekmaw, +1 Finks

    Round 8: Marshall A. Ashford, Merfolk (2-1)

    This matchup is even easier for elves than faeries is by a long shot, because they are forced to commit threats at sorcery speed, and they are HEAVILY reliant on their lords, making your removal spells super live.

    The games play out as I expect, with me killing his key lords while laying threats. I lose game 2 to an unexpected Teferi’s Moat, but game 3, I just kill him very quickly with double vanquisher so profane command can finish the job through his moat.

    Round 9: Brian Kelly (ID, but I then find out he was playing R/G land destruction which seems favorable for me).

    Round 10: Scott Jeltema, Fiery Justice (0-2)

    This matchup actually seems abysmal to me, when I find out he has 4 maindeck fiery justice, calciderms (which are a HUGE problem for me if I don’t draw colossus, and he can still kill colossus with justice).

    I get destroyed in 2 games when he had turn 3 calciderm both games as well as stonecloaker to win the goyf fights.

    In conclusion, I still think this is the 2nd best deck (with #1 being Faeries) but it has a very good matchup vs Faeries.

    However, I would modify the decklist slightly to be: