Category: mtg
-
House GOP Moves to Repeal Ban/Restricted List
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As many insiders expected, U.S. House Republicans formally introduced a new bill today, entitled “The Repealing the Job-Killing Ban/Restricted List Act.”“The American people are sick and tired of job-killing regulations. That was their message to us in November,” said new Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH). “They don’t want any sort of government, including metaphorical ‘governments’ like the DCI, stepping in and telling folks what they can and can’t put in their decks.”
Several states, starting with South Carolina as always, have already taken legal steps to repeal the DCI’s ban/restricted list, calling it “social engineering.” The Federal bill is considered an attempt at generalizing that response nationwide.
The act also removes the “4 card” restriction from the Magic rules.Television and radio personality Glenn Beck took the nation completely by surprise by being in lock-step with the Republicans. “If somebody wants to play 20 Black Lotuses in their Type 2 deck, are we going to say, ‘No, you should be punished for the lifetime of hard work that earned you those Black Lotuses’?” Beck asked.
“We’ve seen this before. It’s called class warfare, socialism, communism, Nazism, Soviet Russia, the French Revolution, the fall of Rome, George Soros, and the execution of Christ,” Beck continued, excitedly drawing lines of chalk from one item to the next.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have introduced a bill to broaden the scope of the Ban/Restricted list, called the “The Strengthen the Job-Creating Ban/Restricted List Act.”“First, we’ll mandate that the DCI’s ban/restricted list be updated every day,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “We’re assuming that updating text on a web page is a tough job, so we’ll pay someone a generously healthy salary and benefits package to do it. BOOM, one job created, right there.”
“Then we’ll say that the DCI must hire 100 of the best Magic players and look at all their best decks, and then ban the most-played cards,” Reid continued. “The easiest and most efficient way for these Magic players to convey the content of their decks would be to pay for them all to fly first class to Renton, Washington from wherever they live in the world and bring their decks along with them. We’ll need to hire professional deck inspectors, professional player evaluators, engineers to build the private jets, crews to fly them…”
“Jobs, jobs, jobs!” Reid added.The Democrats in the House, however, are responding to the House GOP’s proposal from another angle.
“Calling everything [Congressional Democrats] do ‘job killing’ is false, misleading, and frankly not very nice,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said. “So that is why we’re introducing a bill to make it so they can’t use that term in their official legislation anymore. It’s called ‘The Job-Creating “No More Calling Anything ‘Job-Killing’” Act.’”
But how would such a bill create jobs? “We’ll find a way,” Pelosi said while raising her eyebrows up and down repeatedly.
-
Cambridge PTQ Report
Saturday morning rolls around and I’m up bright and early to catch a train to Cambridge to play in a PTQ. With that delightful introduction out of the way, let’s take a look at my decklist:
[deck title=Mythic Naya]
[Creatures]4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Vengevine
1 Briarhorn
1 Baneslayer Angel
3 Sovereigns of Lost Alara[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Eldrazi Conscription
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Forest
1 Island
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Plains
2 Arid Mesa
1 Mountain
1 Raging Ravine
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Sejiri Steppe
3 Copperline Gorge
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Path to Exile
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Great Sable Stag
2 Deglamer
1 Wall of Reverence[/Sideboard]
[/deck]I got this list from Charlie Grover, and it is apparently a list that he and some other English players were running in standard at Nats. The deck is a pretty simple hybridisation of the Sovereigns/Conscription package out of Mythic with the [card]Fauna Shaman[/card]/[card]Vengevine[/card]/[card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] interaction from Naya. They go together quite well, because all the acceleration in the mythic deck comes in the form of creatures ([card=Noble Hierarch]Hierarchs[/card], [card=Birds of Paradise]Birds[/card], [card=Lotus Cobra]Cobras[/card], [card=Knight of the Reliquary]Knights[/card]) which don’t get in the way of using [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] to guarantee [card]Vengevine [/card]triggers – while at the same time, the [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] functions as extra copies of the [card=Sovereigns of Lost Alara]Sovereigns[/card] whenever that plan would be appropriate.
The manabase is quite strong, because although it is a four-colour deck, we only have 3 blue spells and 4 red spells, and the vast majority of our lands tap for the green that is most important, while access to white is pretty easy too – although it might be correct to go to a 3 Hierarch/3 Birds split as the extra red source was needed a couple of times, probably more than the extra damage from the Hierarch would be relevant.
That [card]Briarhorn[/card] probably looks really weird, too. Originally that slot was [card]Cloudthresher[/card], but we found that surprising faeries with a thresher was really difficult when it required an extra green mana ([card]Fauna Shaman[/card] activation), and there was an interesting interaction that came up in testing that made us determined to include a flash creature: basically, decks with [card=Cryptic Command]cryptic [/card](mostly wargate) would be tapping our team to stay alive for an extra turn, but if we had cast a cheap creature in our mainphase we could respond to the cryptic by activating a [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] and finding the [card]Briarhorn[/card] – Then we could let the [card=Cryptic Command]cryptic[/card] resolve, and flash the Briarhorn to return any Vengevines in the bin so that we’d actually get an attack that turn. [card]Briarhorn[/card] just happened to be the best cheap flash option; we couldn’t support [card]Vendilion Clique[/card] because getting double blue was quite difficult. In hindsight, the [card]Briarhorn[/card] was too cute and situational, and should have been something else.
The sideboard, as is so common when I play constructed, is almost all based on theory and doesn’t have much testing to back it up. The [card=Qasali Pridemage]Pridemages[/card] and [card]Deglamer[/card]s are obviously for enchantments and artifacts – the Deglamer in particular is for [card=Wurmcoil Engine]Wurmcoil[/card], the [card=Kitchen Finks]Finks[/card] are for Jund, Red, possibly Naya, the Paths are also for Jund and maybe Faeries, the Stags for Faeries, and the Wall mostly for Jund.
Anyway, with the decklist behind us, let’s take a look at the PTQ: we get 78 players, including quite a few of the better English players, and after your typical tournament delay we get started.
Round 1 – Guy Southcott w/ Faeries
The first game quickly becomes a race as he has Scion, [card=Vendilion Clique]Vendilion[/card] and then [card=Mistbind Clique]Mistbind[/card] while I’ve got [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card] and various beaters – the key turn comes when he has to [card]Cryptic Command[/card] to stay alive and kill me next turn, tapping my team and bouncing my [card]Raging Ravine[/card], but I’m able to activate the Ravine then find [card]Sejiri Steppe[/card] with the Knight to give it protection from blue and fizzle the [card=Cryptic Command]Command[/card].
I board out the Sovereigns and the Conscriptions as I feel it is hard too hard to land them against faeries, as well as the [card=Baneslayer Angel]Baneslayer[/card], the [card=Gaddock Teeg]Teeg[/card] and the Briarhorn, and possibly a Lotus Cobra as well – when I’m taking out the entire Conscription package, I don’t feel like I have as much to accelerate into. I put in some combination of [card=Qasali Pridemage]Pridemages[/card], [card=Great Sable Stag]Stags[/card], [card]Deglamer[/card]s and exactly one [card=Path to Exile]Path[/card].
Game two he doesn’t have a very good start at all and isn’t doing much, and when he goes for the turn five [card]Mutavault[/card]-[card=Mistbind Clique]Mistbind[/card], I’ve obviously drawn the singelton [card=Path to Exile]Path[/card] I’ve brought in. Various creatures clean up.
Round 2 – Will Dunn w/ Merfolk
Game one I’ve got the nutty Hierarch, Cobra, Knight opening, which means I end turn three with a massive army on the board. I start using Fauna Shaman to turn Vengevines into Bloodbraid Elfs, and although I miss that I can Shaman for Sovereigns and protect it from Path with a Sejiri Steppe thus giving him two extra turns, I’ve still got enough to easily overwhelm him./
I don’t exactly remember how I sideboarded against him, but I know that I brought in the Stags, and I’m guessing I cut the Qasali Pridemage and the Briarhorn.
The second game he has [card]Coralhelm Commander[/card], [card]Merrow Reejerey[/card] and [card]Merfolk Sovereign[/card]. I try to set up a lethal [card=Eldrazi Conscription]conscription[/card] for the next turn, but he is able to level up the Commander, animate a [card]Mutavault[/card], and use the [card]Merfolk Sovereign[/card]’s ability get me for lethal.
Game three and I develop my board with mana accelerants and a Fauna Shaman; when he uses his Rejeerey to tap a blocker and doesn’t leave any mana open during my turn I’m able to use the Shaman to find Sovereigns, which puts me easily far enough ahead – I was quite fortunate in that none of my cascades in the first two games had revealed either [card=Sovereigns of Lost Alara]Sovereigns[/card] or [card]Eldrazi Conscription[/card], so Will couldn’t have known that I had the mythic package in my 75.
Round 3 – Stephen Murray w/ Naya
Game one I end quickly with an early Sovereigns, and I don’t have much of a sideboard for him – I take out the Teeg and the Pridemage and bring in a pair of Paths, before quickly losing game two after his mulligan has some [card=Figure of Destiny]Figures of Destiny[/card] and a [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] while my double-mulligan kind of has nothing.
Game three I once again assembled a lethal Sovereigns before I was in much danger from his team.
Round 4 – John-Joseph Wilks w/ Tempered Steel
Game one he has a [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and a [card]Tidehollow Sculler[/card] to slow me down, but he is failing to find a third land to cast his various anthem effects, and I have enough time to assemble a team and bash him in while he can’t attack with much except a [card]Court Homunculus[/card].
I take out the [card=Gaddock Teeg]Teeg[/card], [card=Baneslayer Angel]Baneslayer[/card], [card]Briarhorn[/card], and one copy each of [card=Sovereigns of Lost Alara]Sovereigns[/card] and [card=Eldrazi Conscription]Conscription[/card] to bring in the [card=Qasali Pridemage]Pridemages[/card] and the [card]Deglamer[/card]s.
Game two has him again with some slight mana problems and plinking away with some dorks, before a [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] finds a Sovereigns and takes the game away.
Round 5 – Joseph Jackson w/ Jund
Game one I’ve got a reasonably sized team, but he gets a Fauna Shaman active and I make a crucial mistake – I use the Shaman to find a Sovereigns and put him on 2, but then he untaps, plays a forest, activates the Shaman again discarding [card=Demigod of Revenge]Demigod[/card] to find a third Demigod, and lethal me. If I’d just used the Fauna Shaman to find Baneslayer, I wouldn’t have died that turn and finding the Sovereigns next turn would have been good enough for lethal.
Against Jund, my main concern is the Demigods; aside from those we found it quite hard for Jund to beat us, so I take out the entire Conscription package as well as Teeg, Briarhorn and Pridemage, and bring in 3 [card=Path to Exile]Paths[/card], 1 [card=wall of reverence]Wall[/card], and 4 [card]Kitchen Finks[/card].
Game two he has a [card]Thoughtseize[/card] for my [card]Fauna Shaman[/card], but I rattle a string of hits off the top of my deck and he has to have a removal spell for all of them: Shaman, Shaman, Baneslayer, and despite being able to kill them all, a [card]Stirring Wildwood[/card] combines with a pair of [card=Noble Hierarch]Hierarchs[/card] to bring his life total down low, before a raw drawn [card]Sejiri Steppe[/card] squeaks through the last 3 points.
Game three I don’t remember particularly well, but I’ve got a pair of [card]Path to Exile[/card]s so I’m not going to lose to the [card=Demigod of Revenge]Demigods[/card], and various attacking creatures are hard for him to block profitably since I’ve got the exalted triggers again. [card]Sejiri Steppe[/card] is again played from hand for the final points, although I had this one anyway.
Round 6, Round 7
Two intentional draws.
Top Eight
Top 8 contains me, two Jund, a Faeries, a Tempered Steel, a Naya, a Mythic and a UW Control. The only deck I’m explicitly scared of is the UW Control, which is both a really bad match-up for me and piloted by Dan Gardner, who if you haven’t heard is pretty good at this Magic game we play. Luckily, he is top of swiss and I’m second, so we’re in opposite halves and I get to play:
Quarterfinals – Carrie Oliver w/ Tempered Steel
Game one I lead with Hierarch and I get a [card=Fill with Fright]fright[/card] when she leads with [card]Windbrisk Heights[/card]; I briefly think I’m playing against GW-trap which is a probably a poor match-up for me – I say probably, because I certainly didn’t bother testing against it. Luckily a turn two [card]Steel Overseer[/card] means she is just playing Tempered Steel, and I get a turn four Sovereigns, on the play, which is easily fast enough against her slow draw.
I side out Teeg, Briarhorn, Baneslayer, 1 Sovereigns, 1 Conscription and bring in the Pridemages and the Deglamers.
Game two I keep a hand that I should have mulliganed: 3 lands, Birds, and 3 Lotus Cobras. I draw land, land, land, Fauna Shaman, Qasali Pridemage, and I’m very quickly beaten down by a trio of [card]Master of Etherium[/card]s and a [card]Tempered Steel[/card]. That hand is basically me playing off the top of my deck, and if I miss on my removal and Fauna Shamans in the first couple of turns, I’m basically dead.
During game two she had played Meddling Mage naming Sovereigns, so I side out the remaining two and the Conscription for the three Path to Exiles.
Game three and I keep [card]Razorverge Thicket[/card], Island, Hierarch, Knight of the Reliquary, Knight of the Reliquary, Bloodbraid Elf, Vengevine. Again, perhaps I should have taken the mulligan, although I think this keep is a lot more defensible – as it happens, I draw another Bloodbraid Elf and another Vengevine instead of the land or the removal I need, and I die to the quick draw of turn 1 [card]Memnite[/card], Memnite, [card]Ornithopter[/card], turn 2 [card]Tempered Steel[/card].
Ugh. So that’s another PTQ with a disappointing finish, although I do get another shot at Nagoya, next week in London. Whether or not I’ll play this deck again is up in the air: on the one hand, I feel like the deck is quite good, but I also feel like the metagame here is likely to be unfriendly towards it: Jund and Naya were both quite popular in Cambridge, and the cards people play to beat those decks tend to be good against this deck as well. However, if your local metagame is a bit friendly and you want to try something you might not have used before, give this deck a shot. It does have some wonderfully enjoyable moments where you sit back and look at [card]Vengevine[/card]-[card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] explosion and suprise [card=Sovereigns of Lost Alara]Sovereigns[/card], and think to yourself “my deck is unreal dumb.”
-
The Plane of Grimneath
On the plane of Grimneath, [card]Unblinking Bleb[/card] would be an eye. Elsewhere in the Magic universe, he isn’t, despite all apparent evidence to the contrary.
This isn’t surprising, really. In Magic’s history, there has been a long tradition of almost-but-not-quite-actually-eyes. There have been [card=Minds Eye]artifact eyes[/card], [card=Wandering Eye]creature eyes[/card], [card=Eye of Ugin]land eyes[/card], and [card=Eye of Singularity]enchantment eyes[/card]. There have been [card=One Dozen Eyes]spells[/card] that you’d fairly expect to shower you in an explosion of eyes. But there have been few actual eyes.
In fact, there are exactly two creatures with the creature type Eye in all of Magic: the infamous [card]Evil Eye of Orms-By-Gore[/card] and his [card=Evil Eye of Urborg]modern cousin[/card] from Urborg. Despite their modest numbers, these ocular bogeymen represent an archetype, one with an uncanny ability to evoke an emotional response. They’re mysterious and menacing and memorable, because ultimately, well, eyes are creepy. Specifically, disembodied eyes are creepy. Gigantic, man-sized eyes are especially creepy, and gigantic, malevolent disembodied eyes are perhaps creepiest of all.
For this reason, I’ve always found them strangely compelling. So when I set about designing my world for the Great Designer Search 2, I was drawn to the sordid realm of Orms-By-Gore for inspiration. What might a Magic world populated by eyes look like? Well, it would be dark. Oppressive. Based on the meager available precedent, it would seem that eyes don’t play nicely with other creatures. I pictured them as captors, subjugating other races. Perhaps they’d oversee a mining operation. An underground plane seemed like a natural setting.
And thus Grimneath was born. Though I unfortunately didn’t make the latter rounds of the GDS2, I did continue working on the set for my own edification. From the beginning, it felt like a set that I’d be excited to play with, and I’m pretty happy with the results. The entire 200+ card set is linked below—follow the link below for a brief visit to the world of Grimneath. And remember that if you see a bleb there, it probably really is an eye.
Click here to View the complete Grimneath Spoiler! 
