Magic the Gathering’s Banned Card Update: Implications for EDH and Beyond

On June 18th, Wizards of the Coast posted their biannual announcement outlining the changes to the banned and restricted list. These announcements typically have a severe but limited impact on the formats for which certain powerful cards are either banned or restricted. Occasionally and most recently, we have watched as a number of potent cards have experienced their release from the prison of banned or restricted cards. Notable cards that have had their sentence in exile commuted include Dream Halls, Entomb, and the newly emancipated Grim Monolith.

As a fan of Magic’s older formats, I typically stay up like a kid on Christmas Eve awaiting the presents that might be revealed. The last couple of banning announcements have had significant metagame and thus financial implications. The legacy format shifted with each unbanning in 2009. At Grand Prix Tampa, I was chatting with Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin about the implications of the newly unbanned Entomb on the legacy format. He noted that there was a pretty sick reanimator deck in the works that abused the process of dumping large, game-winning creatures into the grave and bringing those creatures back in the very early turns of the game via the Entomb, Mystical Tutor, and Reanimate. The deck had served a tenure in the gaming days of past and was ripe for rebirth.

Following the sage advice of Patrick, I set out on a journey to secure as many copies of the newly unbanned Entomb as possible. Earlier in the year, I had dropped $12 dollars on a playset of unbanned Dream Halls. The cards made an eventual appearance in the top 16 of a Starcitygames Legacy 5K, and my investment grew 5 fold. When there are whispers on the wind of an exciting new deck in an environment, you should: 1. Consider the source of the rumor 2. Do some evaluative thinking for yourself, and 3. Research prices on your speculative investment. If these three factors align to your liking, jump on the chance to own the cards, pilot the deck, and to make a solid investment. I purchased my two copies of Entomb at $7, my next two copies at $14, and the next four copies at $20 dollars each. The cards currently have an estimated value between $30-45.

This trend inspired me to await each possible opportunity to scoop up unbanned cards early and often. On June 17th, I stayed up late. I had to be at work the next day by 7am, but still felt it would be an awesome opportunity to await the announcement and make some quick decisions based on the outcomes. I have both good and bad news. I purchased a couple of copies of Grim Monolith for a low number, but the other announcements would have a far, far greater effect on the playability and financial value of my Magic collection. The announcement outlined the following terms:

The following card sets are permitted in Extended tournaments:
• Time Spiral (until October 1, 2010)
• Planar Chaos (until October 1, 2010)
• Future Sight (until October 1, 2010)
• Tenth Edition (until October 1, 2010)
• Lorwyn
• Morningtide
• Shadowmoor
• Eventide
• Shards of Alara
• Conflux
• Alara Reborn
• Magic 2010
• Zendikar
• Worldwake
• Rise of the Eldrazi
• Magic 2011 (effective July 16, 2010)
• Scars of Mirrodin (effective October 1, 2010)

The following cards are banned in Extended tournaments:
• Hypergenesis
• Sword of the Meek

My wife and I had only recently made our venture into playing competitive Extended tournaments. Over the last 8 months we picked up an additional play set of Tarmogoyf, play sets of each of the shock lands, and any number of tournament viable staples including Dark Confidant, Umezawa’s Jitte, and the recently popular Dark Depths. By the conclusion of the 2009-2010 extended season, Tarmogoyf was slated to reach $90 while Dark Depths were selling for $160 a foursome. We had been a huge fan of Extended Zoo decks that packed Tarmogoyf, used fetch lands to grab shock lands to even out the complicated casting cost of the deck’s many creatures and spells, and our particular version which sported Tribal Flames. This card rewarded particularly complex mana bases. For 2-casting cost, you could burn your opponent for each land type you controlled.

On the back of the most recent bannings, this deck and those sorts of rewards will be nearly extinct. I feel that the biggest loss to the format will be felt in the interaction between fetch lands and the shock lands. Building decks with the shock lands allowed for a different kind of magic. There was a distinct deck style available in Legacy and Extended than could be found or created in the Standard format. You were able to play a number of cards that “cared” if your dual-color producing lands (duals) were stamped with a basic land type. Underground Sea is both a Swamp and an Island. Watery Grave is both a Swamp and an Island. Underground River, Secluded Glen, and Drowned Catacombs are neither. The importance and convenience of fetching the former cards with a Polluted Delta (or other relevant fetch land) made the cards vastly more playable and superior to the latter for a wide array of decks. Those days appear to be gone in Extended along with that deck building freedom and “color-screw” liberation. Splashing extra colors is not as viable, playing a vast mix of cards will be result in slower and possibly less efficient decks. Consider the difference between the speed of the aforementioned Tribal Zoo and 2008’s 5-color control. The sheer number of come-into-play-tapped lands can really slow down a deck that relies on a complicated mana base.

Additional implications beyond the general loss of the fluid, complicated mana bases are the pure execution of some other deck types. Zoo was the rush deck type that worked to keep combo decks in check. Decks like Thopter Foundry, Dark Depths Combo, and Hyper Genesis were generally offset by the possibility of a speedy death at the hands of a skilled or lucky zoo player. With Zoo decks being eradicated, it appears that Wizards simply axed or put a tight time limit on the viability of popular control decks. Play your Dark Depths one last time in October, and then ship them off to legacy land. Sword of the Meek will R.I.P. along with the explosive starts and finishes provided by Hypergenesis.

What will be left when the dust settles? I imagine that players will find themselves immediately drawn to Faeries or one of the Tier II combo decks like Pyromancer’s Ascension.dec looming in the background. Aside from the obvious, it is likely that the format will morph and shift into something satisfactory, but at the expense of some great cards and good times.

Bannings In EDH: The Good, the Bad, and the Low Cost of Newly Banned Cards

Following the trend set by Wizards of the Coast, the Elder Dragon Highlander Rules Committee drops banning updates parallel to the mother ship. There were several shocking and non-shocking editions to the updated banned list. After generating a great amount of forum buzz and internet publicity around the Channel-Eldrazi deck, it seems that our best efforts to employ awesome, powerful, Eldrazi spells using mana ramp will be thwarted by the RC.

At least we got a couple of thousand hits on the YouTube channel and finished a three part series on the deck before it was banned to the stone age. I cannot say that it was unexpected. The synergy between the Spawnshire of Ulamog and Channel prompted a near-instant rules update to clarify what “outside of the game” entailed in EDH. If you were every privy to blowing out an opponent using the very lucky draw (or fortunate ability to search up Channel using any of a dozen cards) using Channel and unnamed giant Eldrazi, then you surely realized that the days of the easy, early Eldrazi were numbered. I am just glad that they did not ban the Eldrazi. That would have been a hard ban to accept. In any case, these are the updated bannings for EDH as of today:

There is a lot about this list that sits well with the player base. However, I think we should consider revisiting the Tolarian Academy banning. Tolarian Academy was always very, very strong. It was a sort of win condition among blue purists. The Azami deck will still be able to win games, but they will not be able to combo off quite as easily without the academy. Some players are complaining that Arcum Dagsson is dead and players will not be able to finish so effectively with Zur. I guess I am comfortable with these changes. Sharuum decks have always been a sort of sore spot and now they will have a tougher road to hoe. In general, many, many blue decks have just had their power dimmed. However, it seems likely that the next level of mono-blue decks will rise to take their annoying place atop the local metagames. Niv-Mizzet and Vendillion Clique are largely unaffected by the Tolarian Academy banning and will be new, most-hated generals.

On the topic of most-hated and feared generals, we must play a swan song for the little elf that staged a year long triumphant comeback from his previous banning. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary will be sorely missed. I felt like the banning of the abused, obscure artifact was simply enough. The deck should have survived without the Staff of Domination. It was a good compliment next to blue decks and offered green-lovers everywhere a pure option. Now I fear that mono-green decks might dwindle to the power level of other non-blue mono colored decks. In the long run, I feel like the fear of early Eldrazi hitting the board will scare the RC into banning too many cards.

Future Implications

The next line of relatively awesome cards is set to fill the void left by the latest bannings. The front line has been shot down, but the battle wages on as the cards march like revolutionary war soldiers into the metagame. If players still want to pursue the dream of having an untimely, annihilating Eldrazi god break dancing across the gym floor. There are plenty of cards that will having you shouting, “You just got served” at your weeping opponent. Gaea’s Cradle comes to mind. The interaction between the increasingly expensive Grim Monolith and Power Artifact also springs to mind. You are not going to be able to ban enough mana ramp and acceleration to keep people off of the Eldrazi forever. Hopefully, the RC will realize this and will take Tolarian Academy off of the list. My wish is for a return of Rofellos and the Academy, but until then I am sure players will find new and awesome ways of doing tricky and conniving plays.

Check out our upcoming videos on YouTube where we carry on more of the discussion around the EDH bannings, the “improved” values of the recently banned Extended cards the implication on your EDH decks, and more hated generals. We will also explore some decks using alternative ways to power out your Eldrazi spells! Keep checking us out right here on www.thegameacademyonline.com and on YouTube at Elderdragonhighlandr.

Building a New EDH Archetype with Eldrazi and Annihilation (Part 3)

The e-mails have piled up.  The IM requests, facebook comments, and private messages on YouTube all converged on a single request:  WE WANT THE LIST!  In this article we are picking up with the final bits of commentary on card inclusions, the awesome new synergies, and tech that make the Eldrazi Tribal deck so powerful.  Players have watched the YouTube video and have begun making their own lists.  Today, we will satisfy the requests and will publish the entire deck list.  If you have just joined us, make sure to check Parts 1 and 2 which lay the foundation for the genesis of the deck, the engines and card that make it run, and some of the debates we have started while searching to be the among the first to map out the newest EDH archetype:  Eldrazi Tribal.

Haste/Eldrazi

There are several great options in red that allow us to give our fatties haste.  The ability to hit the board running and kick on the early Annihilator cannot be underestimated.  We include haste promoting cards including Anger, In the Web of War, Sarkhan Vol and Madrush Cyclops.  We are looking at various ways to keep our guys attacking on the turn that they hit the board.  The best way to stop Eldrazi spells  will be counters and nontargeted removal.  Ulamog is indestructible.  Therefore cards like Hallowed Burial will be better than cards like Wrath of God.  However, players are going to need to pack as much as possible to deal with this deck.

If your opponents are coming up with solid removal, then you can punish their efforts with annihilator on the next recruit to your board.  There are not too many instant speed removal cards that put a hasty attacker on the bottom of the deck or remove them from play.  Path to Exile and Swords have always been popular, but they will not stand up to the continual threat of your Eldrazi if you keep them coming.  If you like to pimp out your haste, try the inclusion of the FNM Lightning Greaves.

Mana Ramp/Expensive Spells

Most of our deck is Green.  Green provides some traditional advantages of some of the other colors in the fact that it gives us mana acceleration.  With new mana ramp spells like Growth Spasm to match with classics like Explosive Vegetation, Yavimaya Elder, Sakura Tribe Elder, and Seedguide Ashe, you have a really solid way to both fix and juggernaut your mana row.  We have selected lots of cards that search for basic land along with cards that throw forests directly into play.  I like cards like the lesser know Seedguide Ashe because he gives you a substantial body along with 3 forests when he “leafs” play.  The cool thing about cards that throw forests into play (versus a basic land) is that you can shop for and place dual lands right out of your deck.  Bayou, Overgrown Tomb, Taiga, and Stomping Ground all allow you access to forests while fixing your mana.  These cards are awesome and give you a great advantage as well as pairing with the fetch lands in the deck.  If you do not have the original duals, we found that the deck play tested well with the tap lands, vivid lands, and new man land duals as well.  You might just want to adjust what type of ramp sources that you choose.

It is also possible to take the deck build in a slightly different direction.  We are packing Sol Ring, but there are certainly more artifact based mana accelerants.  Further, we already mentioned Cabal Coffers and could also pack Gaea’s Cradle.  I have not noticed if these cards would be amazing, but you have search for lands in uncharted Territories making them an option.  I have become a little shy with my more expensive artifact mana ramping due to the high number of artifact sweepers that are played locally.  I traditionally have shown love to Coalition Relic and Gilded Lotus.  Those cards might still be acceptable.  However, I have not been such a fan of little dudes like Llanowar Elves or Birds of Paradise.  They are small-timing it in a big environment with lots of card value and too much board sweeping.

Cheating the Fatties into Play!

We have the mana ramped up, we have ways to give the Eldrazi haste, but we also want to see these guys early and often.  After receiving some feedback on the forums, we have made some adjustments to our strategies.  We are now packing a few ways to get the big guys on the board.  These strategies trade off the benefits of casting the Eldrazi (which in some cases you simply want to do i.e., Kozilek) for early beatings and early game annihilation.  Annihilator is a really tough mechanic in EDH.  However, its potency diminishes as the game progresses.  Players are flopping lands, making tokens, and building their board.  A turn 16 annihilation for 4 is likely to be met with a shrug from an opponent that simply sacs off a couple of tokens and some lackluster lands.  However, if you can toss a couple of annihilators into play on turn 6, 7, or 8, then you have a different story.  Some opponents will sacrifice half of their lands, their entire army, or the engines that attempt to make their own decks work.  That is where cheating guys into play can really pay off.

The Eldrazi drones and spawn naturally work to make the tribe hit the board early.  However, Magic offers some other options.  You might not have thought of some of these cards but you will quickly see how strong and synergistic they can be.

We are going to include Sneak Attack.  Sneak attack is an enchantment.  I have stated before that few EDH players pack enough enchantment hate.  This makes good enchantments better, and great enchantments backbreaking.  Sneak attack cost 1 red and 3 colorless.  Once you make that investment, a single red mana can toss an Eldrazi into play with Haste.  Sure you have to sacrifice it at the end of turn, but throwing down a copy of It that Betrays can sure pay off.  You might snatch some lands from an opponent or capture some of their other sacrificed goodies.  The biggest threats from your deck will just shuffle them back in allowing you to redraw them or search them out later.  However, the annihilation damage will be done.

Other super options for this type of early game Eldrazi satisfaction include Cryptic Gateway and Belbe’s Portal.  Cryptic Gateway works well with your Eldrazi spawn.  The spawn share a creature type with their gods and you can play a Dread Drone, tap the two spawn tokens and summon a fattie.  This seems pretty silly and wildly fun.  Belbe’s Portal (2/3 of the great EDH cards specific to Belbe) also lets you put Eldrazi into play for the low cost of 8 mana.  Emrakul offers you a Time Walk for 7 more mana, but you might want to simply have access to a sort of Progenitus with annihilator 6 on turn 8.  Maybe I am just greedy, but these cards fit the theme and capitalize on the Eldrazi size and strength in the early game.  Late game they become less impressive, but I imagine you can appreciate the inclusion.  I love packing unused and “junk” rares that fit with the themes of my decks.

Searching for Eldrazi

There are tons of great search effects that we can use in our deck.  We, after all, are playing black.  More search effects make a deck strong.  There is no doubt.  However, there is a balance that I seek in deck construction in this format.  The reason that we are playing EDH, in many cases, is the love of the highlander nature.  One hundred varied cards often implicate a high degree of variance.  If I want super consistency and a deck that does the same thing each game, then I would stick to my 4-ofs in standard constructed.  However, in EDH I like to have a deck that offers a different play experience each time that I sit down.  Therefore, I am going to play a little light on Tutors.

You make the shell work for your style of play.  We have access to Demonic Tutur, Vampiric Tutor, Grim Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, Liliana Vess, Worldly Tutor, and others.  Beseech the Queen and other cards can work well in these spots as well.  I have chosen to make tutors 4-6% of my deck.  You can go less or more, but this will help you hit the right card for the right situation when you get into a tight spot.

The Deck List

General:  Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund

Colorless Eldrazi  (11)

All Is Dust

Artisan of Kozilek

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Hand of Emrakul

It That Betrays

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Pathrazer of Ulamog

Skittering Invasion

Spawnsire of Ulamog

Ulamog the Infinite Gyre

Ulamog’s Crusher

Other Eldrazi Spells (8)

Awakening Zone

Brood Birthing

Corpse Hatch

Dread Drone

Emrakul’s Hatcher

Growth Spasm

Kozilek’s Predator

Rapacious One

Mana Ramp (10)

Sol Ring

Yavimaya Elder

Sakura Tribe Elder

Life from the Loam

Hunting Wilds

Wooded Elves

Seedguide Ashe

Explosive Vegetation

Solemn Simulacrum

Garruk Wildspeaker

Haste-makers (5)

Sarkhan Vol

Anger

In the Web of War

Madrush Cyclops

Lightning Greaves

Search Cards (6)

Buried Alive

Demonic Tutor

Liliana Vess

Realms Uncharted

Vampiric Tutor

Worldly Tutor

Card that Cheat Fatties into Play (4)

Sneak Attack

Cryptic Gateway

Belbe’s Portal

Channel

Creature-Based Engines (Search, Fog, Recursion) (8)

Survival of the Fittest

Squee, Goblin Nabob

Genesis

Eternal Witness

Spike Weaver

Acidic Slime

Restock

Yawgmoth’s Will

Removal/Board Wipe (6)

Decree of Pain

Damnation

Pernicious Deed

Terminate

Duplicant

Woodfall Primus

Other Card Advantage/Utility Spells (7)

Bloodbraid Elf

Harmonize

Sylvan Library

Baneful Omen

Sensei’s Divining Top

Skullclamp

Overrun

Mana Base (50% Green, 20% Red, 20% Black, 10% Colorless) (34)

Eye of Ugin

Temple of Eldrazi

Temple of the False God

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Phyrexian Tower

Strip Mine

Taiga

Badlands

Bayou

Stomping Ground

Blood Crypt

Overgrown Tomb

Fire-lit Thicket

Graven Cairns

Twilight Mire

Auntie’s Hovel

Gilt-Leaf Palace

Karplusan Forest

Sulfurous Springs

Llanowar Wastes

Rootbound Crag

Dragonskull Summit

Raging Ravine

Lavaclaw Reaches

Wooded Foothills

Bloodstained Mire

Verdant Catacombs

Evolving Wilds

Savage Land

Reflecting Pool

2 Forests

1 Mountain

1 Swamp

The archetype is bran new and we have only been testing this build for a couple of weeks.  I am sure that this is a really outstanding shell for the deck.  We built the deck with multiplayer in mind, but 1 vs. 1 testing had proven that it is about a 50/50 match-up against Rofellos!  If it can hang with that kind of ramp and huge dudes, then it should hold its own against other archetypes.  I had originally wondered if we should just play the Eldrazi out of the Rofellos shell, but I am convinced for both fun and the diversity in tricks you get with the additional colors that the Jund style build is just fine.

There are some card inclusions and tweaks in this list that vary slightly from the video that we posted.  User comments and some play testing led us to cut some cards and add others.  Most folks might not initially like some of the lesser, colored Eldrazi themed cards like Kozilek’s Predator, Dread Drone, and Corpse Hatch, etc.  However, we are keeping them for two reasons:  we like the Eldrazi theme over an Eldrazi splash, and the cards actually play into our ramp/cheat big dudes into play strategy.

This is one of my favorite projects in a long, long while and I am sure that you can use this shell as a basis for your Eldrazi deck.  I imagine these decks are going to be popular, so you might also find ways to preserve your permanents and fight of the Eldrazi hordes.  If you are not going to join them and plan to beat them consider the inclusion of Gilded Drake, Hallowed Burial, and even the likes of Jester’s Cap.  See you next week and thanks for leaving your comments and suggestions.

Building a New EDH Archetype with Eldrazi and Annihilation (Part 2)

Last week we started a really exciting project.  The new set released and we wanted to jump on the opportunity to build and play with the Eldrazi Tribe.  We have continually been play testing the build and tweaking the card inclusions.  We have an outstanding shell and ended up making a casual deck that grew in competitiveness.  It turned out that the Annihilator mechanic was very, very powerful and the engines that we used in the deck made it very effective.  After some play sessions, we wanted to highlight some of the sick synergies that we planted in the build and how we came to label the deck….Channel Eldrazi Tribal.

Check out our video on You Tube for a complete visual spoiler of the list, commentary, and game play right here at the Game Academy.  We have a channel featuring other EDH videos and interviews with some of the game’s most interesting and entertaining personalities.  Our YouTube channel is Elderdragonhighlandr.  Oh yeah!  Also check the conclusion of this article next week for the complete published deck list in part 3.

Synergies that Allow the Deck to Compete

Spawnsire & Channel (Colorless Spells/Channel)

This is where the debate begins!  The EDH rules that apply to cards that grab other cards from “outside of the game” are, at the time of this article, ambiguous.  Some folks believe that cards cannot be brought in from outside the game.  When EDH was first developed in Alaska, the original play group banned the “wishes” cycle of cards.  Subsequently, those cards have been removed from the banned list that most folks follow.

This is where the confusion might start.  Last October, the EDH rules were placed, by Wizards of the Coast, into the official comprehensive rules for Magic.  This is an amazing recognition of the alternative format, but introduced some interesting concerns.  When a card in traditional constructed Magic refers to “outside the game” it is generally limited to the sideboard.  Legacy players use Burning Wish and fetch Empty the Warrens from their sideboard while playing Charbelcher, for example.  However, most players don’t play a sideboard in EHD.  The rules allow for play groups to make a 10-card sideboard (which I support), but many playgroups either don’t know this or just don’t use it.

It would seem like you could retrieve exiled cards, but the exiled zone is now part of the game.  Therefore, it does not really exist “outside of the game.”  However, EDH is a casual environment and the developers of Magic keep making cards that grab tools from outside the game.  The intent or “spirit of design” of these cards might just be to whip out your binder, search the collection, and drop in anything that you want!  I think that is pretty awesome.

However, there are several concerns.  While searching the collection is amazing and would allow ridiculously fun game states, highlander formats are confronted with a violation of the core rule of the highlander game:  More than one copy of a card might enter the game.  The single card rule applies to deck building, but is not specific enough to apply, at this time, to cards that might enter the game post construction (during gameplay).

If cards can come into play from the binder and if you can play multiple copies, the Channel-Spawnsire is pretty wackey.  You could have a scenario in which you might draw Spawnsire and Channel (or cascade into channel, or tutor for channel, or tutor for Spawnsire, etc.).  If you have at least 31 life, then you would be able to pay 30 life for 30 colorless mana via Channel.  Ten mana could pay for Spawnsire and 20 for his effect.  Once you trigger the effect, you could go grab a pile of Eldrazi (including shapeshifters) from your binder.  I could imagine a more Spike player sitting with a pile of Emrakul promos outside of the game.  If you cast any odd number of Emrakul copies (accounting for the Legendary destruction if you play out even numbers), then you could take a ton of extra turns and would have some giant bodies that could not be stopped.  Just think of the madness.  Because you “cast” the Eldrazi with Spawnsire’s effect, you are able to capitalize on all of the powerful effects!  This is mindboggling.  Some will think it is cool while others will hate it.  I think it is not that broken and just seems like a solid win condition.  It can be interrupted and puts the Channel player at risk by paying 75% of the starting life total.

In a rules scenario where this interaction is illegal. I think you still play both cards in your deck.  Channeling out an Emrakul seems pretty sweet.  You pay 15 life, take an extra turn and drop in a huge creature who untargetable and mostly unblockable with that nasty dose of annihilator ready to cripple the player playing white.  It is strong.  I like it.  I think players will need to adjust their deck builds to account for it.  There have not been too many cards that actually forced a shift in the EDH metagame.  The Eldrazi might be a good exception to this rule.  These guys are so big and scary that they might cause a disturbance in a mostly unalterable metagame!

Awakening Zone & Token Generators/Skull Clamp

This will offer your deck the option to either draw a lot of extra cards or simply ramp up the mana.  Drawing a couple of cards a turn is sure to keep your deck fighting and will give players a chance to keep the big Eldrazi coming in the face of counters.  Not much to say here.  Skull Clamp is great with faerie, goblin, solider, and now spawn tokens.  If you can generate them, you might as well play it.

Buried Alive Tool Box

Recursion can be a very powerful trick.  I think most decks should run graveyard disruption.  In fact, many of the Eldrazi have some anti-synergy with setting up a graveyard toolbox or recursion engine, but they are so effective that you can just play it anyways!  If you get an early Buried Alive, then you can sink the Genesis/Squee/Eternal Witness/other dude into your graveyard.  This can help both recursion engines that we mentioned before and can also help you ditch cards to think your deck if needed.

Baneful Omen/Sensei’s Divining Top

The Eldrazi cards just keep making an impact in this deck.  We are going to pack some cards that have great synergy with the high converted mana cost cards in the deck.  The average Eldrazi spell runs at about 9.  Big Eldrazi creatures make up about 10% of our deck.  We are also playing Decree of Pain and quite a few more cards that cost 5 or 6.  The interaction might be obvious, but I will explain for players that are not as familiar with Baneful Omen.  The Omen is an enchantment. I think enchantments are one of the least hated on cards in the EDH format  (next to planeswalkers).  Therefore, you are likely going to get this interaction to stick.

Baneful Omen allows you to reveal a card from the top of your deck.  We will use the Divining Top to keep our most expensive cards on top while drawing the cards beneath those cards and resetting the fatty for the painful reveal.  If you have Divining Top placing an Emrakul in the hurt position, then you can deal your opponents 15 a turn until someone can make you shuffle or otherwise disrupt our combo.  Again, it deals 15 to every opponent at the end of each turn.  Not too shabby.  Triple black mana is a little stretch for our deck, so we made sure to include Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.  This deck might also be able to play Cabal Coffers with a few tweaks.  More testing might be needed.

Life from the Loam/Uncharted Territories

So you want to fix your mana, you want to play cards for value, you want to reuse fetch lands, or just search up a tool box land, then you are in luck.  Uncharted Territories marks another great card from the Rise of the Eldrazi expansion.  The synergy with Life from the Loam is pretty slick.  It seemed like the perfect compliment to the ramp that we are trying to accomplish to power out our huge Eldrazi spells.

I think that there are a group of players that might abuse this with land destruction.  I don’t mind land destruction (per se), but think that abusive land destruction engines are pretty annoying.  Crucible of Worlds should not really be pulling back strip mine and the ilk.  However, I think there are times when it is appropriate to use a strip mine or tectonic edge to deal with a man land or Maze of Ith.  The best use for our Uncharted Loam combo will be to grab Urborg, Phyrexian Tower, Eye of Ugin, and Eldrazi Temple.  These cards push your deck’s priorities and have pretty solid synergy with ramping and the utility engines that aid your deck function.

Prelude to the Final Deck List

Next week we will conclude our deck construction.  We have crammed several cool new cards into the list.  We are finding synergy and balance and have a few final tweaks before we finish.  We want to find lots of ways of cheating our big guys into play and have some really interesting tech including Sneak Attack.  Further, we are going to lean on our green spells in a big way to provide us with tons of mana ramp.  About 15% of our deck will consist of mana ramping dudes, sorceries, and enchantments so we can “get there.”

The deck is about 2 weeks into play testing and I am sure that this will become a new staple archetype in the environment.  It has applications in 1 vs. 1 play and multiplayer.  A couple of months ago, Magic designer (a big fan of fatties) posed a question on Twitter.  He mused what Sheldon Menery might think about the way that the Eldrazi would change the way that EDH is played.  At first I thought this simply referred to colorless spells, All is Dust working for every color, and throwing down big dudes.  Now I am beginning to understand the full implications of this new tribe.  We are looking at giant dudes, that are “easily” cast in EDH packing come-into-play effects, giant bodies with the brutal annihilator mechanic.  The are metagame warping!

Check us out next week for the most up-to-date list for the deck.  Also, note the fact that you can buy all the singles that you need from The Game Academy.  As of today, there are still some copies of Survival of the Fittest, Sneak Attack, and Ulamog.  Grab yours before the prices go up or the supplies run out!  Check out the game academy’s online store on this site and their listings on eBay for some really juicy EDH foils and rarities.

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy hosts an EDH league every Sunday; tournament signups begin @ 2 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Jeremy is always in attendance to play EDH in our league, offer deck advice, and record matches for his popular YouTube channel. If you don’t have an EDH deck, don’t worry, we normally have a few extras if you want to play. See you here!

Building a New EDH Archetype with Eldrazi and Annihilation (Part 1)

Release weekend marked a couple of Magic milestones.  The Rise of the Eldrazi set released and was immediately ready for some constructed play.  There were several players that were hanging out on Thursday evening waiting for that proverbial stroke of midnight to land their first boxes of the new product.  I know the release events were very successful and The Game Academy had players crawling out of the woodwork to snatch up product at the lowest prices in town.  You can check the main site, but The Game Academy is doling out boxes of Rise of the Eldrazi for $89.99.

I like hanging out at the shop on release weekends.  You get a chance to meet up with all your Magic-playing pals.  Everyone loves a new set release.  As you know, there are all kinds of players out there. You have your casual crowd.  These players might show up for some of the prerelease events or occasional two-headed giant tournament, but can most often be found gaming at the kitchen table.  You can see players that frequent FNM and there are always tons of drafters.  I know a lot of folks stop in to pick up boxes of the new sets and scurry off to draft away the nights.

Other players sit and crack packs, chasing the big money payouts and then trade in the goods to open more packs.

I had several goals on release weekend.  I landed some of the foil cards that I hoped to obtain.  We racked up a foil Vengevine and foil version of Gideon Jura.  My wife is a champ when it comes to opening packs and landed one of every mythic in the set!  Needless to say, it was a great weekend.  After playing in some release events and digging through a giant stack of newly printed foils, I turned my attention to the development of a brand-spanking new archetype in Elder Dragon Highlander.

Eldrazi:  The Tribe Better than Expected, Annihilator is Sick!

I will caution the readership with a disclaimer:  This deck-type is way more powerful than you would expect and you probably should not build this list. It is bonkers!  I am sure that it could easily fit into one of our “Most Hated…” films on YouTube.  Our Elderdragonhighlandr YouTube channel is currently featuring this list and you can check out both the deck and some game play on our site.  I think that building an Eldrazi themed deck is pretty sweet.  After play testing and fidgeting around with a couple of builds, the Eldrazi spawn tokens and actual Eldrazi tyrants offer very powerful cards.

Initially, I felt the Eldrazi might be a sort of bust.  They look a little like Darksteel Colossus or Progenitus.  My misread was that the Eldrazi would play like these fatties.  Traditionally, EDH folks have built decks that have packed a couple of giant, fat dudes as finishers.  I have a 5-color build that finishes with Progenitus.  He is complicated to cast, hard to stop, and basically bats clean-up.  Darksteel Colossus has served the same role.  I like a big indestructible dude with trample.  You can push through damage and keep him around in the face of many forms of removal.

However, you only need one or two of these big guys in your deck.  You do not need an entire tribe of Progenitus-esque creatures populating your deck.  I imagined that the Eldrazi would fill a similar roll and therefore be relegated to the “token fatty” spot in many EDH decks.  This alone is pretty cool, but not as interesting as what I discovered.  I had imagined that folks would only want a single copy of Emrakul or might only want to splash Kozilek.  After building and testing, I am now sure that I was wrong.

It turns out that the Eldrazi are not exactly like token fatties.  They are much, much more.  Many of the tribe members have effects that trigger as you cast the Eldrazi.  This goes a long way in shifting the way the cards are played.  It adds further value to the card beyond the amazing payoff of dropping a giant dude and swinging or blocking.  Further, they have a little keyword:  Annihilator! This effect is so sick.  It is nearly broken.  When you drop an Eldrazi early in the game and get off an attack, you end up crippling your opponent with an undeniable and devastating threat.  These guys are simply busted!

I thought playing the deck with ramp and haste would capitalize on the strengths of the Eldrazi.  There were multiple games when a giant dude hit the table on turn 6 and marched into the battle forcing mass sacrifice.  If you are swinging with multiple guys each sporting large annihilator stats, then you will cripple opposing defenses and limit the opponent’s ability to recover from the onslaught.  Let’s walk through a scenario presented during the game play on Sunday.

Player 1 is Eldrazi Tribe (RGB).  Player 2 is Slivers (5-color) and Player 3 is packing an Enchantress/Enchantment Lockdown deck (5-color).  The Eldrazi player drops Awakening Zone and plays out some quick ramp cards resulting in the premature appearance of Ulamog.  Player 2 has a small brood of slivers and Sliver Overlord while Player 3 has ramped mana and Luminarch Ascension with 3 counters awaiting its final counter to enable an army of white angels.  The Eldrazi player gets off a single attack on the Sliver player forcing the sacrifice of 4 permanents.  Player 2 drops down 2 lands and 2 creatures.  A final sliver blocks leaving only the Overlord and 5 lands.  The Eldrazi player builds the board with one of the less impressive Eldrazi only sporting annihilator 2.  Player 2 cracks back for some general damage and adds a land, but is clearly at a disadvantage after the attack.  Player 3 digs for some sort of removal.  Wrath and Damnation won’t kill this particular indestructible Eldrazi.  He survives for another turn along with his tribesman.

At this point, the Eldrazi player swings into Player 3 resulting in the loss of 6 permanents and epic life loss.  Now that player is significantly behind in board position and joins in the efforts to usurp the Eldrazi player.  Both Players 2 and 3 team up to survive.  Player 3 comes up with a Hallowed Burial and provides a collective sigh of relief.  However, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth hits the board with the aid of haste provided by a binned Anger.  The Eldrazi player draws 4 cards and punishes Player 3 with another round of annihilator 4.  The game state favors the Eldrazi player in available mana, total permanents, capacity to deal damage, draw cards, and overall tempo.  No amount of combined defensive efforts is enough to contain the slaughter.  Annihilator achieves its namesake.

I imagine that soon players will find out just how incredible the destruction and impairment can be to opposing players.  I was shocked, excited, and ended up feeling a little dirty.  These guys are big.  They can be stopped.  However, when they pile up and “get in there,” it is hard to hang.  For better or worse, I think that playing them all (even the lesser ones) just might be a great call.

Building the Deck:  Channel/Eldrazi

I will begin this section with some credits.  The idea to make the deck came from my wife and I.  We had been planning to build a tribal deck and became more excited with each preview and unveiling of the Eldrazi cards and themes.  I game sometimes with some new buddies in Spring Hill, Florida and noticed that most of them were very excited to build standard, multiplayer versions of the Eldrazi deck.  They were ramping and rolling out huge creatures.  One of my friends, Alex, spawned a ton of tokens and went for the Overrun kill condition, while another, Chris, just aimed to pump out giant guys using the Awakening Zone.  Both strategies were a bit slow and interesting and seemed perfectly fitted to EDH play.  You can’t drop two copies of your Awakening Zone (which is pretty awesome) but you can sport all the goodies!

The next steps were clutch.  “Faddy” Josh Harrison and I sat down with the aid of the Gatherer and mapped out many of our Eldrazi-themed options.  It can be noted that aside from the colorless Eldrazi spells and creatures, that the Eldrazi spells tended to align with the Jund colors (red, black, and green).  We searched for the best generals.  It would be cool if there were an Eldrazi specific or related general that fit with the Jund colors, but this does not exist for both thematic and practical reasons.  However, you can play Karthas, Tyrant of Jund.  This guy is both a house in EDH and does some nasty things with dragons.  He is also a 7/7 which is very large compared to most EDH generals.  I like him as a narrow and interesting sort of back-up plan.

Once we settled on a general, we moved through all of the various Eldrazi spells and thematic inclusions that we could find.  When possible, we gave an card from Rise of the Eldrazi the benefit-of-the-doubt and included the card for play testing.  We played each creature that made spawn tokens and most spells that generated spawn tokens.  Some of these guys may get cut, but we initially set out to develop a build that followed theme rather than aiming for the most honed and cut-throat list.  It ended up a little busted anyway, but we will get to that later.

The thematic spells were organized into Red, Black, and Green.  Green provided the best ramp options, red allowed our creatures to have haste, and black provided tutors and great removal spells.  To make your EDH decks function, it can often be beneficial to include some “engines” that make the deck competitive.

Engines that Make a Deck Competitive

Some of the best engines for EDH decks were born out of standard deck lists.  The card interactions and win conditions provided by these engines can give your build an edge.  These are some of the engines that we selected:

Survival of the Fittest/Squee, Goblin Nabob

The Survial of the Fittest engine is really solid in a 100 card deck.  Once you have it online, you can search out some sweet cards and build card advantage in decks playing green and red.  I like to make my first target for the Survival engine, Squee.  He comes back from the graveyard every turn and allows you to always have a creature to pitch for your searches.  Second up is Genesis.  When you pitch Genesis, a little green mana keeps your best creatures coming back to your hand.  Additional Survival targets include Eternal Witness and tool box cards like Acidic Slime, Duplicant, or Solemn Simulacrum.  If you can play this sort of engine, you can also fish out your Eldrazi creatures as you need them or might be able to retrieve your general if it gets shuffled into your deck.

Genesis/Eternal Witness Engine

We already talked about fishing this engine out with the aforementioned engine, but there are other ways to set up this interaction.  Buried Alive allows a player to search the deck for 4 creature cards and put them into the graveyard.  In this deck you are able to drop in Genesis, Squee, Eternal Witness, and any other creature that will meet your needs.  This is pretty sick and something that Josh Harrison turned me onto.  This allows your deck to be very interactive and also provides a player choosing not to play blue with some resilience to lots of counters.

To Be Continued…

The decklist is already available to view on YouTube.  There is some play test footage where you can get a chance to see Josh Martinez and Molly Blair defend against the annihilating deck.  Check out our channel: Elderdragonhighlandr on www.youtube.com.  You can find more of our videos on EDH if you search EDH or Elder Dragon Highlander.  Further, you can find the game footage and interesting videos for other games on The Game Academy’s You Tube channel.  Check out thegameacademyonlie and keep checking back on www.thegameacademyonline.com for singles and the second part of this article.  We will publish the refined decklist next week!!! See you guys around the shop, in Atlanta, and right here every week.

Bonus Engine

Thursday evening I had the great pleasure to play cards with some buddies that I had not seen in a while.  My pals Omar, David, CV-Dubs, and I worked on Omar’s new blue deck for a while.  These guys were picking up classic blue-related staples and debating card slots in a solid Teferi list, and Omar turned me onto something pretty cool.  As one of the win conditions for the deck, Omar would put Mystical Tutor on a stick.  He would imprint the tutor on Isochron Scepter.  After casting Beacon of Tomorrows, he could shuffle the sorcery card into his library, take another turn, set the Beacon on top of the deck and draw the card.  This little win-condition in the Tutor/Beacon engine seemed pretty ingenious.

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy hosts an EDH league every Sunday; tournament signups begin @ 2 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Jeremy is always in attendance to play EDH in our league, offer deck advice, and record matches for his popular YouTube channel. If you don’t have an EDH deck, don’t worry, we normally have a few extras if you want to play. See you here!

Rise of the Eldrazi:  EDH Diamonds in the Rough (Part 2)

In our last article, we surveyed the Rise of the Eldrazi expansion for hidden gems for our Elder Dragon Highlander decks.  When I first began reading the spoilers for the set, I initially felt that the set might not impact the current environment beyond adding the Eldrazi tribal cards.  The mythic Eldrazi creatures will certainly splash into all types of EDH decks for fun and glorious beatings.  However, after playing with the set during the prerelease weekend, I found even more cards that tout the “fun-factor” and possible power levels to earn a place among the select 100 cards players pack in their EDH decks.

I speculated in the prior article about possible interesting cards in the colors white and blue.  This article will, for better or worse, attempt to speculate on the possible finds in red, black, and green.  Let’s jump back into the speculation and debate.

Red Hot EDH Prospects

The prerelease taught me a couple of important lessons.  I was initially sour on the “level-up” mechanic.  In many cases, the cards do not appear to have the goods to make it in a constructed metagame.  However, they are nearly limited bombs and, if played well, impact games in a huge way.  These guys are like a new, slanted Figure of Destiny.  But they are the “lay-away” version in many cases.  Have you ever tried to save enough money to buy a car in cash?  Saving up a little over time and putting it into a bank can be a more manageable way to pay then dropping a lump sum all at once.  I think the metaphor might just hold water as we see these cards gain steam in the standard metagame.

Players should note that “reading your opponent” becomes somewhat easier due to the sorcery speed leveling.  If you have a creature that could be leveled for 3 colorless mana and you leave that mana open, your opponent might put you on the instant card that you intend to play.  I suggest jumping into this mind game by taking liberal levels when needed and occasionally using the leveling inconsistently to bluff if possible.  If you always play the level-up mechanic in a straight forward manner, you are giving away a ton of information.

This brings us to the red mythic that should find a place in both dragon-based (Does a dragon rider count?) and mono red decks.  Kargan Dragonlord’s level-up only costs one red; therefore, you are able to pump him up fairly fast in the mid and later game.  Low cost spot removal that deals 1-3 damage is not as popular in the slower, epic EDH metagame.  In standard, a quick lightning bolt can dispatch this guy, but you will be beckoning larger forms of removal as you move this dragon into his 8/8 ass-kicking range.

World at War provides two additional attack phases for 5 mana.  If you have a hasty or ready-to-swing general with a clear path to your opponent’s face, then you can really pile on some general damage with each additional combat step.  Generals like Thraximundar will capitalize on these multiple attacks making them impressive.  Godo, Bandit Warlord will land a total of 6 attack phases with this card.  This could be the basis of a Samurai deck or some sort, or might just be splashable fun.  That kind of action aided by the right equipment, evasion, or other interesting effects can really change the pacing of the game.  While this card is powerful, its rebound may result in the double-attacking player earning a large target from the rest of the table.  Play this fun and powerful card at your own risk!

Conquering Manticore provides the savvy EDH player with a way to steal away impressive opposing creatures, while the Lord of Shatterskull Pass will wreck havoc on decks that plan on generating a great deal of smaller tokens.  He would be able to wipe out a token army in one fell swoop.  I could see this guy fitting into an EDH deck as anti-token and rush tech.

The Treasure Hunter’s Guide to Rise of the Eldrazi

1. Foil Kargan Dragonlord
2. Foil World at War
3. Foil Lord of Shatterskull Pass

Black Cards from RoE for EDH

The Best Black Card in the Set!  (I guess it is also red)

Early speculation hints that black received a huge boost from the Rise of the Eldrazi.  The standard environment Black decks will land some impressive removal in the form of Consume the Meek and add to the hand disruption provided by duress and extended’s Thoughsieze in Kozelik’s Inquisition.  Some writers have also hyped Consuming Vapors.  I could see this card as a great way to get around shroud or indestructibility.  Keep it in mind for certain titan creatures with protection form a given color or a certain undying nature.  These cards seem perfectly fit for 60-card constructed decks but might not have that big of an impact on 6/6 Dragons, epic Angels and the card drawing machines that are blue EDH decks.  However, there are certainly some black toys available for the avid EDH player.

We see the introduction of two new demonic fatties in Pestilence Demon and Hellcarver Demon.  These guys might join the ranks of Myojin of Night’s Reach, Avatar of Woe, and other black fatties.  I can not think of any great uses for Hellcarver Demon unless you are about to end the game and have fixed the top of your deck.  Maybe Pestilence Demon will fit a narrow metagame?

I have received e-mail from more than a few players that have embarked on building Vampire themed EDH decks.  There are over 60 vampires available for EDH players including great Legendary general options in mono Black (Anowan or Shauku), Black/Red (Vampiric Dragon), Blue/Black (Szandek, Lord of Secrets) and Black/Blue/Red (Garza Zol, Plague Queen).  I like our newest option in Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief.  She seems like you could give her some huge pumps later in the game both taking down formidable opposing creatures and piling on the general damage potential.

Guul Draz Assassin is also an interesting Vampire addition.  He can work as spot removal for some small bodies and will eventually grow up to diminish the size of even the biggest bodies.  This guy is good as a combat trick when he is fully leveled and can make dealing 21 general-damage with 5/5 bodies a real pain.  He is a sort of antithesis to pesky generals like Rofellos and Vendillion Clique.

Some of the most playable options in the current EDH metagame might be Mortician Beetle.  If you play cards with the Abyss clause or explore generals that make opposing players sacrifice creatures then this guy could be a nice compliment.  He is narrow but could get out of hand.  I n turn, you might find yourself wanting to sacrifice some of your own tokens or creatures.  Nirkana is both a vampire and a shade.  Therefore you can splash into your tribal decks while also having combat tricks with chump creatures.

The Treasure Hunter’s Guide to Rise of the Eldrazi

1. Foil Sarkhan the Mad
2. Foil Guul Draz Assassin
3. Foil Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief

Going Green:  EDH Prospects in Nature’s Most Beloved Color

There are a lot of cards that an EDH player could grow to love out of the new expansion.  Vengevine seems pretty awesome in terms of card advantage and represents one of the few pure green creatures with haste.  His 4/3 body is not huge for EDH but seems to offer some impressive possibilities.  I really like this type of card as it adds some diversity to your creature options.  I imagine this is going to end up being the money mythic for the set, so buy soon and foil it out early!  Pelakka Wurm packs a solid stat package, provides some life gain, and even draws a card when it dies.  You just about can’t beat that.  He is bigger than the average general and comes with all sorts of fringe benefits.  This guy definitely deserves a glance.

Tajuru Preserver will protect green players from having to sacrifice creatures.  This is a very narrow mechanic, but may come in handy as the mythic Eldrazi start sporting Annihilator in the newly shifting EDH metagame.  If you are the opponent with a ban on sacrificing permanents, it might make you less likely to be the target of attacks when a Kozilek is looking to swing on the field.  The stat package is lacking, but it might help if forced sacrifices are a concern.

The Boar Umbra and other green totem armor cards might see some play.  They work as both a boost and a shield for valuable creatures.  If you play a deck that likes to spawn fatties, then these cards serve both functions well.  Aside from the auras, I think everyone should grab a copy of Uncharted Territories.  Foils of this card are already approaching 10 bucks.  I think it is another winner as noted in prior articles.  Just consider interactions with Life of the Loam, exploration effects, and Crucible of Worlds.  You can search out copies of your judge promo Maze of Ith, Temple of the False God, or any other specific cards that you might like to play.    If nothing else, you grab two lands for 4 mana.  I like those numbers.

Other notable green cards include Ancient Stirrings and Momentous Fall.  Green card draw can be at a premium and these cards might let you search around.  The jury is still out on these cards though.  Mul Daya Channelers are getting some hype and might be a cool, diverse option for folks looking to spice up elves.  You may also want to use some deck manipulation to make these chicks obey your every command.  Kazandu Tuskcaller, when left unchecked, might prove to be a “small threat” that can quickly get out of control.  If she is fully pumped up, she will be bringing a circus to the battlefield every turn.  Finally, we have Awakening Zone.  This card might just be the next Bitter Blossom, or it might just be a knock off.  I know cards that traditionally throw a creature onto the field ala hasty goblins or black faeries tend to be pretty sweet in EDH.  You have Skull Clamp shenanigans along with a general way to ramp up some mana.  I t hink it might be a little more silver than true gold.  However, silver is still valuable.

The Treasure Hunter’s Guide to Rise of the Eldrazi

1. Foil Realms Uncharted (favorite card in the set)
2. Foil Vengevine (best card in the set)
3. Foil Momentous Fall

And the Winner is…..

I think that time will actually prove the levelers to be playable in most formats.  Ours will be one of the toughest sells, but often times games run a little defensive in the beginning while multiple players are ramping and holding of attacks for political reasons.  Why not play a level-up creature in the early game?  I don’t think these will initially be perceived as a crazy threat, but can offer some subtle advantage.  Eventually, they are able to compete with the big dogs.  You might want to foil out your favorite level-up creatures before the concepts takes off!

Green is a clear champion when it comes to EDH benefit!  I like Vengevine tricks and imagine that most folks are now able to appreciate the additional card draw and advantage offered in cards like Realms Uncharted, Momentous Fall, and even Ancient Stirrings or “Eldrazi Blossom.”  You even get a 7/7 wurm that does a ton of fancy tricks.

I hope you guys enjoy the impact of the colorless spells including the Eldrazi and an Akroma’s Vengence (All is Dust) for everyone.  They are some serious EDH gifts!  Foil out the goodies and leave comments about cards that you think I missed or that might be overrated.  At this point, we are mostly talking philosophy and speculation.  However, some of the speculation seems strong.

Sunday, April 4th – Michael Brady reports on his recent Top 4 finish at the Legacy 5K in Orlando, FL.

For those of you who don’t already know me, a brief introduction is in order: I’m the long-haired dude perpetually clad in heavy metal t-shirts who you’ll find playing Magic in and around Tampa.

Hey, I said it’d be brief.

Anyway, at the beginning of 2010, I fully intended to take a bit of a break from competitive Magic after spending years on and off the PTQ circuit, but I was tempted away from this plan by a single event on the horizon: the SCG 5K weekend. “Not a big deal,” I figured, “I’ll return for one tournament, and then I’ll drop the game again to focus entirely on school and music.”

A likely story.

/sarcasm

So I began preparing for the weekend with a few of the locals (including fellow TGA writer Keith McLaughlin). I felt like I knew Standard fairly well, and was set on playing some sort of UW control list, as the idea of running into Jund mirrors all day sounded about as enjoyable as attempting to surgically remove my own tonsils. Legacy was a different animal entirely, as I had never played the format and knew nothing about it. Luckily, it just so happens to be Keith’s format du jour, so I was able to get caught-up fairly quickly. Of the decks he had available, nobody seemed interested in playing Merfolk, and I was more than happy with the idea of playing a deck that let me attack with dudes without rolling over to combo.

I was pretty busy with classes in the weeks prior to the event, so testing time was limited, but I managed to play in one Legacy tournament at The Game Academy (which they hold every Thursday night; hint, hint), and I ended up winning it, which left me fairly confident about my deck choice. I knew the deck had bad matchups against Zoo and Goblins, but I felt that next to no one would be running the gobbos, so I just focused the sideboard largely on giving me some chance against Zoo. I figured I wouldn’t run into either deck more than once, since the format is pretty diverse. There was no way that decision could ever come back to haunt me…right? (FORESHADOWING!!!)

The big day finally came, and we arrived at the tournament site, the Orange County Convention Center, after paying 11 dollars for parking (with no re-entry allowed). Ridiculous! C’mon guys, at least have the decency to put a gun in our faces if you’re going to mug us! Anyway, upon getting inside, I bought a couple of Martial Coups, borrowed a couple of Elspeths from John Cuvelier (a true gentleman if there ever was one), and registered this for the Standard portion:

4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Knight of the White Orchid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Divination
4 Mind Spring
4 Martial Coup
3 Day of Judgment
4 Path to Exile
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Tectonic Edge
8 Plains
5 Island

Sideboard:
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Flashfreeze
3 Celestial Purge
4 Negate
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

At the player meeting, they announced that a whopping 439 people were competing, which meant 10(!!!) rounds of competition. Unreal…it was gonna be a looooooong day.

I started off well, going 3-0 against three consecutive Jund decks, before the wheels fell off and I took two straight losses. That put me out of contention, but I decided to play it out for rating. I finished a decidedly mediocre 6-4, but some of the information I gleaned just from playing was interesting. First of all, I played against Jund SEVEN FREAKIN’ TIMES! This format is dominated by that deck, and don’t you forget it. If you can’t beat Jund, don’t even bother showing up. I went 5-2 against it in spite of losing almost every game 1, which tells me that my maindeck had to be wrong, but my sideboard worked pretty well. My other win came against Vampires, and my other two losses were to Naya and a strange RG homebrew land destruction deck that pummeled me with mana acceleration into Goblin Ruinblaster, Acidic Slime, Mold Shambler, and Roiling Terrain. I should have won my match against Naya, but I punted bigtime in game 2. He stalled on 4 lands for a couple turns with Stirring Wildwood as his only green source; I could have Tectonic Edged it, but since I’m an idiot, I tapped out instead. He then proceeded to play Knight of the Reliquary and Dauntless Escort on successive turns, and I was just stone dead. He then deservedly ran me over in game 3.

If I could run it back, I would probably alter the maindeck to have 4 Spreading Seas and try running a split of Elspeth and Jace instead of the Divinations. The sideboard is fine overall, but I never boarded in the Negates all day; I would cut one for another Flashfreeze.

After underperforming in that strenuously long tourney, I was exhausted and a little upset. I didn’t tell anyone, but I was actually considering not playing in the Legacy event the next day. Luckily, after waking up, throwing on my Skeletonwitch t-shirt, and eating some breakfast, that silly notion was pushed completely out of my mind, and I was ready to game once again. The Tampa crew left the hotel and got robbed by the convention center again, and when we arrived, I registered this watery beast:

4 Cursecatcher

4 Silvergill Adept

4 Lord of Atlantis

4 Merrow Reejerey

3 Merfolk Sovereign

3 Spellstutter Sprite

4 Aether Vial

4 Daze

4 Force of Will

4 Standstill

2 Umezawa’s Jitte

12 Island

4 Mutavault

4 Wasteland

Sideboard:

4 Submerge

2 Threads of Disloyalty

2 Tormod’s Crypt

2 Relic of Progenitus

2 Back to Basics

2 Thada Adel, Acquisitor

1 Umezawa’s Jitte

A few days before the tournament, I had 3 open slots left in the maindeck and didn’t know what to do with them. Somebody brought up Spellstutter Sprite, and we all had a good laugh. Then I started thinking about it…and the more I thought, the better it seemed. Countering spells like Sensei’s Divining Top, Aether Vial, and Swords to Plowshares plus getting a flying guy that can pick up a Jitte or chump block a Tarmogoyf actually seemed pretty spicy…and that’s not even looking at the fact that it can counter 2 mana spells with a Mutavault activation! I only tested it a little, but I was certain it was sick, and the results over the course of the day would prove me right.

This time around, the event was a much more reasonable 7 rounds. I was (somewhat) well-rested, focused, and determined to do better than the prior day. What has two thumbs and refuses to leave the 5K empty-handed? THIS GUY!

Round 1 – Lee Steht (ANT)

I obviously recognized Lee from his GP win in the not-so-distant past, so I knew I was in for a good match. We both took a while to shuffle, and he joked about how it didn’t matter, since I was probably just playing ANT and would win in 60 seconds. When he led out with Ponder, I knew I’d been deceived; HE was the one running ANT! I played out some beaters and a Standstill, and he was forced into a position where he had no choice but to go for it. After playing a couple Lotus Petals and a Lion’s Eye Diamond, he cast an Infernal Tutor with one card in hand and looked at me questioningly. I knew what he was up to, but I wasn’t falling for it. I figured he had another Infernal Tutor in hand and was hoping that I was a bad player that would Force of Will the first copy so he could play the second one. Instead, I asked “Are you passing priority?” at which point he frowned and activated Lion’s Eye Diamond pitching the Infernal Tutor in his hand (I was right!). I then Forced the Tutor, following up a good play with an awful one. If I had let him search for Ad Nauseum and then Forced that, he would have had no outs at all. Instead, I gave him the opportunity to draw his Ad Nauseum, which is just terrible. Regardless, his next draw step didn’t yield the AN part of the ANT deck, and he packed it in.

SB:

Nothing; the maindeck is already pretty solid in this matchup.

Game 2 was far less eventful. He Duressed me a couple of times, grabbing a Standstill and a Daze, as I played creatures and another Standstill off the top. He cracked my Standstill with a Brainstorm, and I drew 3 and Spellstuttered it (so good!). After that, he sat around doing nothing relevant while I slapped him with fish.

1-0

Round 2 – Andrew Calderon (4-color Countertop)

I played a turn 1 Vial, and he dropped a Counterbalance. At that point, I pumped the fist; good matchup! Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have much offense going due to a lack of lords, and when he started drawing cards with Dark Confidant and plopped a couple of Tarmogoyfs into play, I couldn’t outrace him.

SB:

+4 Submerge, +2 Threads

-2 Jitte, -1 Daze, -1 Standstill, -1 Spellstutter, -1 Merfolk Sovereign (obviously wasn’t sure what to take out, so I just shaved numbers)

Game 2, I just ran him over. Turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Silvergill Adept, Vial out Cursecatcher, turn 3 Wasteland you, Vial out Lord of Atlantis, play Standstill. Thanks for playing!

Game 3, however, was a bit of a shock. He Spell Pierced my turn 1 Vial, then Spell Snared my Silvergill Adept. At that point, he smiled at me and said “I think I got the exact hand I needed to beat you.” He was right. He once again played two Goyfs amid the countermagic, and that was the match. I guess that’s what I get for assuming I’d smash him, right?

1-1

Round 3 – Jonathon Rodriguez (Zoo)

My opponent this round won the die roll, but looked like hell warmed-over. He told me that he was pretty sick and didn’t really want to be there, which made me wonder why he bothered paying 30 bucks to enter in the first place…but hey, far be it for me to tell someone how to spend their money. Regardless, he opened on turn 1 Wild Nacatl, and I sighed; first a loss to a good matchup, and now a bad one to follow it. It was gonna take a lot of effort to not be out of top 8 contention after the 3^rd round! I thought for a little while on my turn, and realized that my best shot of winning would be to try and manascrew him, so I just Wastelanded his Taiga and crossed my fingers. He followed up with a Plateau and bashed for 3, and I dropped a Cursecatcher. He attacked for 3 more, played another Plateau, and…passed!

YES! I might get there after all!

He didn’t have a green source for 2 more turns as I played out guys, and that was the tempo I needed to get back in this game. But when he found it and played 2 Tarmogoyfs and a Qasali Pridemage, things started looking grim again. He swung with everything into my team, and I set up some double-blocks. He pointed a Lightning Bolt at my Lord of Atlantis to ruin my day, but I dropped a Spellstutter Sprite to stop those shenanigans (still good!). After a lot of careful blocking, I managed to get ahead on board, and just barely took game 1.

SB:

+4 Submerge, +2 Threads, +1 Jitte, +1 Relic of Progenitus

-4 Standstill, -4 Daze (countering Goyfs is good, but not as good as not setting yourself back on tempo)

Game 2, he looked at his hand, laughed, and kept. I mulliganed into a hand with 2 Wastelands as the only lands and went into the tank. Again, I came to the conclusion that the mana-denial plan was the best one I could hope for, nodded firmly, and kept. He played a land and passed, and I Wastelanded it. Second verse, same as the first. Then on turn 3, he played another land, laughed, and said “This is the wrong hand to do that to, man! I kept a 7-lander!”

…

…what?!

I couldn’t believe it. He actually didn’t care at all about winning, and as a result kept a generally unkeepable hand that wrecked my entire gameplan! So sick…and when he played another land on turn 4 and a Grim Lavamancer, I sank in my chair.

Then he attacked his Lavamancer into my Silvergill Adept.

*fist pump*

A quick block later, and things were looking up! I kept playing out guys, Submerged a couple of Tarmogoyfs, and managed to 2-0 a terrible match thanks to careful play and my opponent’s indifference!

2-1

Round 4 – David Thomas (Reanimator)

I kept a counterless hand with a bunch of creatures and a Standstill, and he played a turn 1 Entomb on my endstep to get Iona. At that point, I knew I had to rip to have a shot, but I didn’t quite get there. After cracking a Standstill, I found a Force, but he Forced back, and Iona got Exhumed naming blue. I made a desperate attempt to race, but I couldn’t stop the legendary angel from swinging in 3 times to end me.

SB:

+2 Crypt, +2 Relic

-2 Jitte, -1 Standstill, -1 Merfolk Sovereign

Game 2, my opponent mulliganed his opening 7, then drew 7 cards.

Judge!

A forced mulligan to 5 later, things were suddenly looking heavily in my favor. He stalled on 1 land for multiple turns while I turned guys sideways, and after casting a grand total of one spell (a Brainstorm, I think), he decided to move on to game 3.

The last one was a nail-biter. I drew a hand of Island, Wasteland, Mutavault, Mutavault, Crypt, Relic, and Vial. I hate keeping hands with a bunch of disruption and no creatures against combo, but this seemed solid. I had Mutavault to get a little damage in, and the Vial would ensure that I could play any business I drew without having to stop attacking with my lands. I led off with Vial and Crypt, then played Relic next turn, and he Mystical Tutored for Show and Tell. Well, there goes most of my disruption. I sacrificed Relic just to draw a card, and ended up drawing into some attackers and a FoW. He Mystical Tutored again for a FoW of his own, and I started worrying. If he drew into a blue card or a monster with the other in his hand, then I was screwed, but he would have to rip. After he drew his Force and passed with 3 cards in hand, I attacked to leave him dead on board the next turn. He slowly drew his card and cast Show and Tell, and when I Forced it, he revealed a hand of FoW, Blazing Archon, and land. Whew!

3-1

Round 5 – Tyler Wilkerson (Dredge)

I came to the table this round to find a guy wearing a Metallica shirt as my opponent. He smiled at my Skeletonwitch shirt, and we had a fun little discussion about the current state of thrash metal while shuffling up. He won the die roll, opted to play first, kept his opening hand, and passed the turn without doing anything.

Uh…what?

His play made more sense when he discarded Golgari Grave Troll on his next end step, but it made me wonder why he didn’t choose to draw first if that was his plan (and it seemed like a pretty poor plan regardless). Anyway, I played a turn 1 Vial and a turn 2 Jitte with a hand that was rather devoid of threats, and when he had 3 Bridge From Belows and 2 Ichorids in his graveyard after his first couple of dredges, his plan didn’t look quite as bad. I started swinging with a Jitte’d up Mutavault to get some counters going, and on the next turn, he dredged a Narcomoeba and a Cabal Therapy after bringing an Ichorid into play. He sacced the moeba to flashback Therapy, and he named Force of Will. I revealed my FoWless hand, and then felt very stupid, as I had forgotten that I had Standstill in play. I went back and drew 3 cards, but I had let the Therapy resolve and allowed him to get 3 zombies, so I couldn’t Vial out the Spellstutter Sprite I drew off the Standstill to counter the Therapy, preventing him from seeing my hand, and then using Jitte to kill my Sprite to remove his Bridges. Soooooo bad…

Luckily, having active Jitte against Dredge is pretty good. I killed the Sprite before his Ichorid left play to smoke his Bridges and proceeded to play more dudes and use Jitte counters to kill the Ichorids he attacked with every turn. When he dredged his last Bridge and I used Jitte to kill another 1-toughness creature on my side of the board, he had nothing left.

SB:

+2 Crypt, +2 Relic, +1 Jitte

-4 Standstill, -1 Daze

For game 2, he chose to draw first, letting me know that he was on the same plan as game 1. It worked out very similarly for him, only this time I had graveyard removal as well. He flashbacked an Ancient Grudge targeting my Tormod’s Crypt, and I removed his yard in response, then played another Crypt the next turn as I plopped fish down alongside it. It didn’t take long to put the match away after that.

4-1

Round 6 – Christopher Velasquez (Aggro Loam)

This was announced as a feature match, but though we were at the feature match tables, we were neither videotaped, nor had any written coverage. Strange…

Game 1, I just had the blowout draw again. I played turn 1 Vial, and he played land, Mox Diamond, Dark Confidant, which I Force of Willed. Turn 2 Adept revealing Cursecatcher, Vial in Cursecatcher. Turn 3 Vial in a Lord, Wasteland your Bayou, and play Standstill. He had no real chance of catching back up after that.

SB:

+4 Submerge, +2 Threads, +2 Relic

-3 Spellstutter, -2 Jitte, -2 Daze, -1 Standstill

Game 2 was slower, but he had very little action. He sat there cycling lands for the first couple of turns, and when he played a Tarmogoyf, I stole it with Threads. He got it back with Nature’s Claim, then played a Knight of the Reliquary, and I Submerged the Goyf and swung with a bunch of creatures. He didn’t draw a Firespout or Seismic Assault to deal with my board of fishies on the next turn, and that was that.

5-1

I checked the standings, and quickly realized that none of the 5-1s would be able to draw in. Time to duke it out!

Round 7 – Zach Efland (43 Land)

This one was an actual feature match that got covered on the SCG site. Bill Stark did a pretty good job with the match coverage, so I’m just going to go over a couple of things.

First of all, having Force of Will in both of my opening hands was crucial. I actually mulliganed an otherwise solid hand in game 2 because it didn’t have a Force. If Lands resolves a turn 1 Exploration or Manabond against you, you’re probably done unless they’re short on Maze of Iths or Tabernacle, and even then, you have to get pretty lucky.

Secondly, Spellstutter again proved its worth in game 1. After Zach Intuitioned for 3 Manabonds and played the one that I gave him, he seemed pretty confident that he had the game in the bag. When I dropped the Sprite in response, the look on his face was priceless. He just sat there staring at the board in stunned silence for about 10-15 seconds.

Finally, the judge call: for those who can’t be bothered to look it up, in game 2, Zach had The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale in play, and passed the turn to me. I had 2 lands, 3 creatures in play, and an Aether Vial. I untapped, added a counter to the Vial, and then went to tap mana for Tabernacle, at which point Zach stopped me and told me that I had to sacrifice all my creatures. I was obviously as flabbergasted by this as he was by the Spellstutter Sprite play in game 1 (if not moreso) as he explained that since the active player’s abilities (in this case, mine) stack first, they also resolve last. So since I was allowing the Vial’s ability to resolve first, I was forgoing payment on my creatures, and was thus forced to sacrifice them all. Obviously, I wasn’t just going to take his word for it, so I called a judge. The judge upheld Zach’s interpretation of the rules, but considering the gravity of the situation (if Zach is correct, I pretty much just lose), I appealed. The head judge, Peter Jahn, then began to explain that Zach was correct, but got pulled aside by judge Ben McDole. I found out later that some of my friends were working to make sure that I didn’t get screwed by an improper ruling; my buddy Yocaliz was watching the match, and was well aware of the proper wording on Tabernacle (Zach’s was in Italian), which he brought to Ben’s attention. As it turns out, Tabernacle gives the ability to each individual creature, so since I control the creatures, I control the triggers, and can stack them however I want. The head judge subsequently overturned the ruling, I got to keep 2 of my 3 creatures, and I ended up taking the game and the match. Many thanks go out to both Ben and Yocaliz, as without them, there’s a very real possibility that I wouldn’t have finished in the money.

I’d also like to quickly address what happened in that game from an ethical standpoint. Several of my friends who were watching the game felt that what Zach did was a scummy move, and that he got what he had coming to him. I’m simply going to say this: Zach was completely in his right to do what he did, as he was enforcing the rules of the game (as he thought they worked, anyway). Would I have done the same thing if I was in his position? No, as I think it’s excessively nitpicky and borders on rules lawyering. In short, I don’t agree with what he did, but he had the right to do it.

SB:

+ 2 Crypt, +2 Relic, +2 Back To Basics

-2 Jitte, -4 Daze

From there, it was on to top 8, where I ran into a very familiar face…

Quarterfinals – John Cuvelier (Reanimator)

It was unfortunate that I had to face John in the first round of the top 8, but such is Magic. We were talking prior to our match, and he seemed to feel that while our respective odds in postboard games depended greatly on how much graveyard hate I was bringing in, game 1 was about 80-20 in his favor. While I think game 1 is pretty favorable for him, those numbers seemed heavily exaggerated, and I was looking forward to trying to prove him wrong.

Game 1 ended up going very strangely. John won the die roll, and started by playing Polluted Delta and passing. I untapped, played a land and passed, and on my end step, he popped the fetch for an Underground Sea and cast Entomb. I quickly picked up my Island to Daze, and felt like a huge donkey when he Dazed back. Clearly, I should have floated a mana before Dazing, but instead I punted badly and felt like I had probably just thrown the game. He searched out an Iona, untapped, and passed without playing anything. At this point, I went deep into the tank. After drawing for the turn, my hand was Wasteland, 3 Islands, Jitte, Merrow Reejerey, and Force of Will. He obviously didn’t have Reanimate or a second land, so I figured my only way to win was to keep him off of Exhume mana and hope to draw into some action. I Wastelanded his Sea, and he cast Mystical Tutor to search up Dark Ritual in response. He took his turn and obviously did nothing, so I had to try to mount an offense before he drew into land. Cursecatcher came off the top, and that was pretty much the best draw I could hope for. From there, he just kept missing on land as I Jitted up the little guy and started dropping lords. On his last possible turn, he found a land and played the Ritual, but he didn’t have a counter when I Force of Willed it, and he scooped.

SB:

+2 Crypt, +2 Relic

-2 Jitte, -1 Standstill, -1 Merfolk Sovereign

Game 2 was also pretty awkward for him. After casting Careful Study on turn 1, he sat there thinking for quite a while, which led me to comment “So, hand full of monsters, or hand with no monsters?” It turned out to be the latter, as he pitched a land and a Reanimate, and I instantly knew that I was in great shape this game. I played out a Vial and a Tormod’s Crypt as he continued to try and dig for action, but found none. It became obvious fairly quickly that his only possible out was Show And Tell, so I started Wasteing his lands in an effort to make my Cursecatchers and Dazes more damaging, but it didn’t actually matter, as he just had nothing all game.

We finished pretty quickly, so I watched the match next to me between David Sharfman’s Goblins and Lewis Laskin’s Bant. I was hoping that Sharfman wouldn’t win, as Goblins is a horrific matchup for me, but the goblin horde took it down. As I moved onto the semis, I was starting to regret my earlier decision to not make any room in the board for that deck…

Semifinals – David Sharfman (Goblins)

I was slightly nervous going into this (for good reason), so I reacted the way I always do when I’m a little ill at ease: by making a bunch of really terrible jokes. Sharfman inquired as to what my Skeletonwitch shirt meant, to which I replied “It’s a skeleton and a witch; what’s not to get?” I think my sense of humor was completely lost on him, which was definitely to his benefit.

Game 1 was a true nail-biter, with slow starts from each of us. He went first, and neither of us had a play until his turn 2 Piledriver, which I Dazed. On his following turn, he cycled a Gempalm Incinerator in his mainphase just to dig for a 3^rd land, which he hit. When I untapped and dropped Standstill onto an empty board with a Mutavault on my side and no relevant lands on his, I started to think I actually had a pretty decent chance of winning this one. It wasn’t to be, though. I started to get a Jitte active, but he eventually got all 3 of his remaining Piledrivers into play and had Wastelands for every Mutavault I played. The Piledrivers’ protection from blue prevented me from accumulating any Jitte counters, as I was never able to find a Merfolk Sovereign or Spellstutter Sprite to evade them. After he stabilized at 2 life, I went from 14 to dead in a single hit when he turned his pro-blue gobbos sideways.

SB:

+1 Jitte, +2 Thada Adel

-3 Standstill (this was almost definitely wrong; I was trying to bring in more creatures for Standstills that I thought were generally bad against such an aggressive matchup, but after talking with people, we agreed that with my configuration, I had to just hope to get lucky, and thus should have left in the Standstills)

Game 2 was the complete opposite of game 1. I played turn 1 Vial, he played turn 1 Lackey, and I dropped a Lord of Atlantis instead of a Silvergill Adept to block. He played another Lackey and passed back, and I untapped, played Merrow Reejerey, and bashed with Vial on 2. When he attacked with both Lackeys, I Vialed out the Adept and hoped he didn’t have any burn. I had no such luck; he had Pyrokinesis to fry my blockers, and I had to hope that the last card in his hand wasn’t anything too explosive.

Siege-Gang Commander? Yeah, that sounds like the definition of explosive.

He killed my Lord, and I tried to mount a feeble defense with a Spellstutter Sprite and a Mutavault, but it just wasn’t happening. He untapped and ripped ANOTHER Siege-Gang off the top, and I didn’t have a prayer after that.

All-in-all, I definitely can’t complain. 3^rd place in the Legacy event, 400 bucks, and qualifying for the 50K in Richmond at the end of the year is pretty good for a guy playing a format he didn’t know at all 3 weeks prior, right?

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I feel that Merfolk is an excellent deck with a lot of game against most of the field, and would run it again tomorrow if given the chance. I wouldn’t change a thing about the main; the Spellstutters in particular were, as I mentioned earlier, a great last-minute addition. The sideboard could have been better thought-out, though. Personally, I would change the configuration thusly:

4 Submerge

2 Threads of Disloyalty

2 Tormod’s Crypt

2 Relic of Progenitus

3 Propaganda

2 Winter Orb

The Thada Adels were originally in the board for the mirror and random Stoneforge Mystic decks to take their equipment. This was alright in testing, but I never boarded them in (except for the semifinal, which was a mistake). I feel that the Legacy metagame is too wide-open to gun for individual decks, for the most part, so it feels like better value to cut narrow cards for ones that have applications in a wider variety of matches. So in the current list, I’m cutting the Thada Adels, the Jitte, and the Back To Basics for Propagandas and Winter Orbs. Propaganda is excellent in the mirror and against Goblins, and I definitely wish I had it against Sharfman. It’s also decent against Zoo, though they’re still generally going to be happy to pay 2 to hit you with their Goyfs, so it’s not nearly as effective as it is in other matches. And while Winter Orb isn’t as backbreaking against 43 Land as Back To Basics is, it too is a lot more versatile. Legacy is still a breeding ground for rogue strategies, and some of them have done very well, such as the Mono-Blue control deck that made top 16 in Orlando or the Mono-black deck that made top 8 in Indianapolis. Winter Orb seems quite good against both decks, as well as being solid against Landstill (also top 8ed Indianapolis) and Countertop. It’ll obviously require more testing, but I feel that it’s excellent in theory.

At this point, it seems unlikely that I’ll play in any more SCG Open events until the invitational in December. The Atlanta event is the weekend before finals, and the rest are a bit too far away for me to realistically consider right now, but I’m sure I’ll see all you Floridians around the PTQ circuit in the coming months! So much for quitting…

Finally, from what I understand, you kids are big on the whole “props and slops” deal at the end of tourney reports, so I guess I’ll keep with tradition.

Props

Keith McLaughlin: For lending me most of two decks for the weekend, and for generally being a master (in more ways than one).

Paul Hyden: For lending me cash so I didn’t have to get wrecked by the convention center’s ridiculous ATM fees.

John Cuvelier: For lending me the Elspeths and being an all-around good man. You’ll get there soon enough, Endboss!

Lian Martin: For getting food for all of us both days, and for putting up with a bunch of guys with the foul mouths and dirty minds of a bunch of 14 year olds.

Yocaliz Germosen and Ben McDole: For bringing the correct wording on Tabernacle to the head judge’s attention and saving me from almost-certain defeat.

Gindy and Sharfman: For keeping both 1^st place trophies in Florida.

Skeletonwitch: For playing totally sweet thrash metal and making awesome shirts.

Slops

The Orange County Convention Center: For taking every opportunity possible to relieve everyone who attended the event of their hard-earned money via 11 dollar parking and 6 dollar hot dogs. They probably would have charged for oxygen if they could have gotten away with it.

Jund: For making me hate Standard. This is gonna be a fuuuuuuun PTQ season…

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy will host Legacy tournaments every Thursday; signups begin @ 6 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Keith will always be in attendance, so if you have any questions or need deck advice don’t hesitate to ask! =)

Since the last time you’ve all heard from me, I made some significant changes to the Life deck, now incorporating Black in the main deck, replacing Meddling Mage and Pithing Needle with Thoughtseize and Tidehollow Sculler. I’m a big fan of the new changes, as being able to know exactly what your opponent can do to stop you from going-off is extremely valuable information. That’s not to mention some of the cute tricks you can do with a Tidehollow Sculler with Vial [1] or Diamond Valley [2]. Additionally, Doran becomes much easier to cast, and we can now easily support multiple copies in the main deck, greatly strengthening the deck against strategies that can win without having to deal damage, i.e. Grindstone, Academy Ruins [3] and Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

[1] Using Vial to make a Tidehollow on an opponent’s draw step allows you to deny the opponent their top deck for a turn.
[2] Put Tidehollow’s ability on the stack, then sacrifice him to Valley to permanently exile a card from your opponent’s hand.
[3] The presence of Academy Ruins in 38-Land allows them to easily deck the Life player.

As many of the true innovators out there know, making drastic changes to a deck requires much time and effort; it’s not unusual for the theory behind certain card choices and strategies to prove itself invalid. Nevertheless, it’s important to learn as much as possible for such experiments. In the case with Life, we did not immediately think that Black was a stronger choice than Blue, rather it was the product of a failed experiment.

Due to the popularity of those troublesome strategies mentioned above, myself and some non-local players [4] decided it may be worthwhile to combine Life with Cephalid Breakfast [5], adding to the deck’s flexibility, while also adding a possible turn 2 nut-draw kill. This is exactly the same sort of reasoning used recently by Yurchick’s GP Oakland 2nd-place Thopter-Depths, and as far back as Kai Budde’s Oath of Trix, which combined the aggro-stomping Oath of Druids engine with the popular Illusions-Donate kill. As it turned out, two problems plagued our hybrid deck. First, the presence of Dread Return, Sutured Ghoul, 3x Narcomoeba, Dragon’s Breath and Lord of Extinction made the deck mulligan at least 80% more often. In many testing sessions, I’d be ecstatic to only mulligan to six, but even then, those hands would commonly include a Narcomoeba or the like, effectively making them five-card hands. Second, many games you’d be forced to choose whether to go for the cephalid kill or infinite life. The two are completely mutually-exclusive since the using the cephalid reduces your library to only a few cards at most. If the opponent had a Sensei’s Divining Top in play, there was some probability that there is a Swords to Plowshares just waiting on top of the library for the Ghoul to hit play, complicating the decision to some degree.

[4] Doug Azzano, in particular.
[5] The combo involves targetting Cephalid Illusionist a large number of times with Shuko, or Nomads en-Kor to deck oneself. Several Narcomoebas come into play, which are sacrificed to Dread Return targetting a very large Sutured Ghoul (removing Lord of Extinction or Terravore). Dragon’s Breath gives the Sutured Ghoul haste.
[6] Turn 1 Shuko or Nomads en-Kor, turn 2 Cephalid Illusionist.

Though we had a lot of problems with consistency, we found that a few of the matchups had vastly improved (at the expense of others). We were nearly beating Merfolk every game as we could determine the exact number of Stifles and FoW’s we needed to fight though before committing thanks to Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize.

After giving up on Cephalid-Life, it became clear that we could strengthen some matchups by making the blue-for-black swap, while also slightly shoring up our weak manabase [7]. Here is the list:

Dark Life
4 Aether Vial
4 Shuko
3 Nomads en-Kor
3 Daru Spiritualist
3 Task Force
4 Thoughtseize
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Doran the Siege Tower
4 Eladamri’s Call
4 Living Wish

3 Diamond Valley
2 Starlit Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath
4 Marsh Flats
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
2 Scrubland
3 Plains
1 Forest

Sideboard
1 Diamond Valley
1 Nomads en-Kor
1 Daru Spiritualist
1 Doran the Siege Tower
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Progenitus [8]
3 Nature’s Claim
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Gaea’s Blessing

[7] We were already playing a couple sources of black mana in the main deck for Doran and sideboarded cards.
[8] To prevent being decked. Build up to a full hand, then discard Progenitus whenever you draw it.

I was prepped and ready to run a very similar list in a local tournament, but I figured it’d be more exciting if I wrote about something new. I convinced Nolan Blackwelder to switch decks with me prior to the tournament so I could talk, instead, about his interesting concoction, Bomberman [9].

[9] Nolan lost in the top 8 with the Life list, though he was winning both games prior to receiving a game-loss, and the unfortunate mistake of forgetting to board in the Progenitus against Stax.

Here is the list I piloted.

UWr Bomberman
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Fire/Ice
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
2 Intuition
1 Painter’s Servant
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Grindstone
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pithing Needle

1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Dust Bowl
4 Flooded Strand
3 Arid Mesa
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den

Sideboard
2 Shattering Spree
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Meddling Mage
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Painter’s Servant

I don’t agree with all the card choices, but I decided to play the deck as-is. With around twenty players, the tournament structure was annouced to be four rounds, with a cut to the top-eight. Here we go:

Round 1, Robert Cone (U/G Natural Order)
Robert started on the play, and after a mulligan, ran out a Llanowar Elf on an Elvish Spirit Guide (no land). I untapped and played a Swords to Plowshares, practically ending the game on the spot. Robert found a City of Brass on the next turn and played a Concordant Crossroads, and on the following turn played a Birds of Paradise before passing. I ran out a Trinket Mage fetching Lion’s Eye Diamond and beat in for two. Robert didn’t do much on his following turn before passing back, where I resolved an Auriok Salvagers and generated infinite mana with Lion’s Eye Diamond [10], before drawing my deck with an Aether Spellbomb and going for the kill with Pyrite.

[10] Sacrifice the Lion’s Eye Diamond for three mana, then return it to your hand with Salvagers for two. Replay, rinse, repeat.

I sideboarded in the extra Painter’s Servants, Engineered Explosives and 2x Meddling Mage for the Tormod’s Crypt, Pithing Needle and 4x Accumulated Knowledge. This time Robert led off with a turn one Verdant Catacombs and City of Brass before playing a Vexing Shusher, while I played a Painter’s Servant. Robert resolved a main phase Mystical Tutor fetching Natural Order, and passed back before I ran out a Trinket Mage, fetching Grindstone. Robert, untapped and went for his Progenitus, I played out my 4th land drop along with the Grindstone. Robert scooped immediately, though I actually tried to stop him to ask if he had a second Progenitus in his deck. He hadn’t realized at the time, but Grinding into a Progenitus with Painter’s Servant ends the game in a draw, as the Progenitus keeps replacing itself only to be hit by the Grindstone again, creating an infinite loop [11].

[11] This is only the case because Progenitus’s ability is a replacement effect. If it were a triggered ability, the game would continue leaving the player with only Progenitus in his library.

Round 2, Todd Palmer (Merfolk)
I played first, but Todd started with an Aether Vial before getting first blood by beating in with a Mutavault. I played a Trinket Mage fetching Engineered Explosives. Todd attacked again with the Mutavault, but I opted against blocking, and Todd Vial’d a Lord of Atlantis into play to add a point of damage, before adding a second Mutavault. I untapped and used Engineered Explosives to dispatch the Lord, before attacking with Trinket Mage. Todd stayed aggressive by sending both his Mutavaults, sending me to 11 life. A turn later, Todd came in again with both Vaults, and I decided to throw the Mage in front of one, but Todd Vial’d a Merrow Reejerey to pump his Vault. I attempted a Swords to Plowshares, but he has Force of Will, sending me to 8 life. On my following turn, I cycled an Aether Spellbomb, but didn’t have much action, with only a Swords to Plowshares, a Lion’s Eye Diamond and a bunch of lands, and had to send the turn back. Todd ran out a Jitte, and hooked up his Reejerey, but I send it to the farm, and dropped to 3 from the Vaults. He passed the turn back, and I was all dead-on-board, until… I peeked at the top card of my library… Auriok Salvagers. I ran him out, into Todd’s two card hand, but he had no Force of Will. The Lion’s Eye Diamond hit the board next, and Todd scooped it up.

I sideboarded out all the copies of AK, the Tormod’s Crypt and the Intuitions for 2 Red Elemental Blast, 2 Engineered Explosives, a Pyroblast and 2 Painter’s Servant.

In game two, Todd started out with a Silvergill Adept, followed by a Lord of Atlantis and got in for a few points before an Stp dispatched the Lord. An Engineered Explosives on two was met by Force of Will, and a Mutavault joined Todd’s team. A Red Blast took out the Adept and a Trinket Mage hit play, but a Jitte came online for Todd, and the game ended soon after.

In game three, Todd led off with Wasteland and Pithing Needle on Grindstone. I had a Pithing Needle of my own, but opted to hit up his Wastelands. A Standstill came down, which was met by my Force of Will. Todd ran out an Aether Vial and a second Standstill along with a Force for my Counterspell. We passed the turn back and forth several times, with Vial moving up to three counters, but without ever putting a guy into play. Finally, a Rejeerey hit play along with a Mutavault, and I was forced to break the Standstill with a Swords to Plowshares. I tried a Painter’s Servant but Todd had another Force of Will. A Dust Bowl hit play, and I was started taking out the Mutavaults, while using various removal on Todd’s remaining creatures. This went on for several turns before time was called, with the board being my Pithing Needle and Academy Ruins against Todd’s Aether Vial, Pithing Needle and three turned-off Wastelands. On turn one of the final five, Todd peeled a Tormod’s Crypt but I put the Servant on top with Ruins in response, and followed with a turn two Trinket Mage fetching Grindstone and played an Explosives on one (to deal with the Pithing Needle on Stone). Todd could only add a Reejerey to his army on turn three, while I had enough mana up to Grind him out of cards on the fourth, forcing him to deck on the final turn. Phew!

With only four rounds before the cut, I was safe to draw into the top eight.

Quarterfinals
Natalie Scott (Dredge)
With Natalie on the play, the first spell she attempted was a turn two Putrid Imp. I went for the Force of Will, hoping to lock her out of discard outlets, but she had a Careful Study, discarding a few dredgers. On the following turn, I was able to counter a Breakthrough, but the damage had been done, and within three turns I was facing down six Bridge from Below tokens and a Bloodghast. I managed to peel an Engineered Explosives (which I called ahead of time, as it was my only out), and put an end to the tokens, but was already down to three life. The Bloodghasts cleaned things up fairly quickly.

I cut a Fire/Ice, three Swords to Plowshares, the AK’s, Intuitions and the Pithing Needle for 4 Red Blasts, 2 Tormod’s Crypt, 1 Relic of Progenitus, 2 Meddling Mage and 2 Painter’s Servants.

I elected to play, but my opening seven was just a bunch of Counterspells, Salvagers and lands. Without a winning gameplan here [12] I sent it back and received a similar six. The five wasn’t much better, and finally I wound up keeping the following four: Tormod’s Crypt, Red Blast, Painter’s Servant and Counterspell. Notice the lack of lands. Natalie came out the gates with a Pithing Needle on Crypt, followed by a turn two Tireless Tribe pitching Golgari-Grave Troll. She managed to dredge for three turns, without card drawing, her draw wasn’t very explosive. Not to mention, she didn’t hit a single Narcomoeba and only a single Bridge from Below. A Therapy came down, and missed on Trinket Mage. Finally, I peeled a second land, and ran out my Painter’s Servant naming blue. Natalie, still not hitting much action on her Dredges, continued to dig before passing back the turn, not realizing that her Pithing Needle was about to succumb to my Red Blast. And with that, the Red Blast knocked off the Needle and the Crypt took out her bin. A pair of Fire/Ices locked the land-light dredge deck out of blue mana for a couple turns before a Meddling Mage shut off Dread Return entirely. Natalie finally was able to hit a few Narcomoebas a few turns later, but it was too late. A Trinket Mage found Grindstone, and Natalie entered her scoop phase.

[12] I need to be able to lock her out of discard outlets, or have access to an early Tormod’s Crypt.

Being on the draw makes Counterspell much worse, so I cut two copies for a pair of Intuitions.

After such an epic game two, game three was quite anti-climactic. Natalie started with a Putrid Imp, to which I answered with a Tormod’s Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Natalie was in no position to try to dredge and was forced to just hardcast a bunch of crappy guys. Between a pair of Trinket Mages and seven self-inflicted damage points from a Coliseum and City of Brass, the game ended in a hurry.

Semifinals
Carrena (Stax)
I kept my opening hand, with a Painter’s Servant, Trinket Mage, Force of Will, Intuition and three lands, and was pretty sure this game would be easy. That was, until Carrena resolved a Trinisphere on turn two. I figured that since I was going for the Grindstone kill, I should save my FoW for something more important, like Armageddon. That was until I realized that I couldn’t cast Force without paying three mana! On the following turn, I burned the FoW on morphed Exalted Angel, as I simply didn’t have anything better to do. When I tapped down for a Trinket Mage on the following turn, Armageddon hit the stack, my lands hit the bin, and I packed it up.

I boarded out the narrow removal spells (StP and Fire/Ice) along with two Intuition and a Tormod’s Crypt for Relic of Progenitus, 2 Shattering Spree, the pair of Painter’s Servants, 2 Meddling Mages and 2 Engineered Explosives.

We played land-go for a few turns before Carrena attempted a Crucible of Worlds, which was met by Force of Will (as she had Wasteland). A turn later, she tried a Trinisphere, which resolved, but was met by my Shattering Spree. Unfortunately, this left me tapped out, giving Carrena an opening to resolve Choke. Within a few turns, Carrena added a Smokestack, and fairly soon I was completely out of land. I started to build back, and was able to resolve a Painter’s Servant, and could Trinket Mage for a Grindstone as soon as I drew a mountain to Red Blast the Choke. Unfortunately, Carrena found an Armageddon before I could pull that off, ending my presence in the top eight.

3-1

After playing in the short tournament, I feel like I got a pretty good feel of what the deck wants to do, and how to play it fairly well. I noticed that it typically felt it was easier to go for the Painter’s Grindstone kill than Salvagers combo, particular post-board, although on paper it seems that the latter should be easier to set up.

Here are a few comments on the deck:
1. The Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine felt especially bad, as one doesn’t typically have that kind of time to invest, and drawing three cards is not necessarily better than using the Intuition as a tutor. Honestly though, if I was able, I almost always pitched AK or Intuition to Force of Will when given the opportunity. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong, but I don’t really think so.
2. I was very unhappy with the Tolaria West. I think it makes more sense if the deck had Pact of Negation. As is, I never found myself in a situation when I would rather transmute for a spell, than just play a land. That could also just mean that the deck is too land light.
3. The lack of Plateau put me in several situations where I had to choose between having access to red or white mana. The presence of Wasteland in the format, makes this come up more often than one might think.
4. Thirst for Knowledge seems very good in a deck with this many artifacts, particularly since most of those artifacts don’t mind being deposited directly into the graveyard.
5. Though Meddling Mage is a nice trick out of the sideboard, I think Counterbalance would be even stronger, and has the obvious synergy with the fetchable Sensei’s Divining Top.
6. There isn’t enough red mana in the deck to support Shattering Spree and I’m not sure if there is enough board space to worry about blowing up artifacts in a metagame that isn’t heavily shifted towards Stax.

And an updated list,

UWr Bomberman
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Fire/Ice
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
2 Intuition
1 Painter’s Servant
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Grindstone
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pithing Needle

2 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
3 Arid Mesa
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
2 Plateau
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den

Sideboard
3 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Counterbalance
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Painter’s Servant

That’s all for now. Don’t forget to leave me some nice comments!

Keith McLaughlin

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy will host Legacy tournaments every Thursday; signups begin @ 6 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Keith will always be in attendance, so if you have any questions or need deck advice don’t hesitate to ask! =)

I’ve been testing a little bit of Legacy lately, but as usual, I’ve decided to stick with my trusty Life deck for the time being. For those who aren’t in the know, the Life combo is a deck based which requires three pieces. The first is a Kor, such as Nomads en-Kor, Shaman en-Kor, Outrider en-Kor or whatever. You use the Kor to target Daru Spiritualist, Task Force or Angelic Protector an arbitrarily large number of times before sacrificing the Spiritualist/Force/Protector to a Worthy Cause, Starlit Sanctum (Spiritualist only), Condemn or Diamond Valley (Alternatively, Doran allows you to deal infinite damage with an unblocked Spiritualist/Force/Protector). Though three card combos that don’t outright win the game aren’t so hot, what makes this deck very strong is the redundancy. You have on the order of eight of each combo piece, along with Eladamri’s Call (which can fetch a Kor or Spiritualist) and Living Wish (which can get any piece).

The deck was played a billion years ago, but is mostly known during it’s time in Extended prior to the latest rotation, when the metagame shifted towards aggro decks, such as Red Deck Wins and Goblins. I wasn’t a big fan of the deck because of the popularity of the Mind’s Desire deck which won with Brain Freeze. A year or two later, everyone had forgotten about the Life deck. Doug Azzano, Jack Hutchings and myself were preparing for Grand Prix Philadelphia (I believe, 2005), which was Legacy. The most popular deck, by a large margin was Goblins. Other competitors were the Vault/Fusillade combo deck, Threshold and Solidarity (Reset/Brain Freeze). Life came to mind as being potentially being quite broken, just based on the volume of Goblin players at every event. This was before Doran was printed, so the best way to win after gaining infinite life, was by decking. Gaea’s Blessing was already going to be immensely helpful for the Solidarity matchup. After throwing together a list, we found that the only really weak matchup was against Time Vault/Flame Fusillade. I figured that deck wouldn’t be as popular as Time Vault was over $100 at the time.

(For a tournament report from that Grand Prix, search for my article on StarCityGames.com or check my website kmclaugh.myweb.usf.edu.)

Our gambit paid off, as I faced a total of seven Goblin players (going 7-0 matches), while never playing against a Time Vault the entire GP, while finishing 15th and earning an invite to Pro Tour Honolulu.

Since then, I’ve stuck with the deck for two more events, finishing in the top 8 of an 80-man Legacy event at Pro Tour Atlanta (in 2005, I believe) and then more recently splitting in the top 8 of a Grand Prix Tampa side event for a total of five dual lands and four fetch lands.

I’m not sure that Life is as strong as it was several years ago, as the other decks have become much more powerful, so I decided to give it a whirl in a local Legacy event in preparation for the Orlando 5K coming up in March. Here’s the list:

4 Aether Vial

3 Pithing Needle

3 Nomads en-Kor

4 Shaman en-Kor

3 Daru Spiritualist

2 Task Force

1 Doran, the Siege Tower

4 Meddling Mage

3 Condemn

4 Living Wish

3 Eladamri’s Call

3 Diamond Valley

2 Stalit Sanctum

1 Scrubland

1 Tropical Island

1 Tundra

3 Savannah

3 Horizon Canopy

3 Windswept Heath

1 Arid Mesa (I was short a Heath)

2 Marsh Flats

2 Flooded Strand

1 Forest

3 Plains

Sideboard:

3 Krosan Grip

1 Diamond Valley

1 Gaea’s Blessing

1 Doran, the Siege Tower

1 Task Force

1 Daru Spiritualist

1 Nomads en-Kor

3 Tormod’s Crypt

1 Pithing Needle

1 Tidehollow Sculler

1 Yixlid Jailer

Round 1 Dredge

Lost the die roll, and my opponent mulled to 5, which had me pumping the fist. He kicked off with a Gemstone Mine into a Cabal Therapy blindly naming Force of Will. He followed with a Careful Study on turn 2, but had no dredge outlet, and finally with a Breakthrough on turn 3. Meanwhile, I kicked off with a turn one Aether Vial, Meddling Mage’d Cabal Therapy on turn 2, and on turn 3 played Living Wish for Yixlid Jailer and Vialed him out. All but sending my opponent packing for game 2. As a sidenote, I avoided playing any Kors as I finished my opponent off with the Mage and Jailer, as I’m not typically fond of giving my opponents free information.

-3 Pithing Needle, -1 Task Force

+3 Tormod’s Crypt, +1 Yixlid Jailer

I brought in a Jailer, as Living Wish is the most common Therapy target, and it gives me some small probability of getting the nuts turn 2 Jailer. My opponent again mulled to five, while I kept six. He started off with land-go for a few turns, while I ran a Tormod’s Crypt on turn 1, followed by Daru Spiritualist and a Kor soon after. On turn four or five, my opponent still hadn’t significantly advanced his board position, and I was able to Condemn my Spiritualist for infinite life, sending him packing.

1-0

Round 2 – Jared Serrano – Reanimator

Game one, Jared had the nuts. He won the roll, and Entombed an Iona at the end of the my first turn (I played a Vial). A turn 2 exhumed Iona (naming white) blanked my two Condemn’s in hand. I wasn’t out of this game yet, as I had the Kor and Spiritualist that I could Vial out, but didn’t manage to get a Diamond Valley or Living Wish in time.

-3 Pithing Needle

+3 Tormod’s Crypt

Game two, I kicked off with a turn 1 Tormod’s Crypt and Aether Vial. Jared tried to set up for Reanimation with a Careful Study and Mystical Tutor for Intuition. Meanwhile, I Vial’d out a Nomad and Spiritualist. When Jared passed his third turn, I played an end-step Eladamri’s Call to fetch up Doran, and Vial’d him out for the next attack step.

Prior to game 3 Jared took forever to sideboard which drew a bit of suspicion from me. He kicked off the game with a Leyline of the Void, which was, at first, quite confusing. After realizing he was going to Helm of Obediance me out, I became pretty disappointed that the Pithing Needles were sitting in my sideboard. At the end of my first turn, Jared Mystical Tutor’d for Dark Ritual, and down came a turn 2 Helm. With no way of stopping his turn 3 kill, I scooped it up.

1-1

Round 3 – URB Combo/Control

My round three opponent had an interesting budget deck. It had no dual lands or other flashy cards, but ran both, the Painter Servant + Grindstone combo as well Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek, along with Remands, Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt (which we agreed should’ve been Red Elemental Blast), Trinket Mage and Duress.

Game one I ran out an Aether Vial, and made a Kor and Spiritualist, before it got Pithing Needle’d. Stuck on one land for several turns, I played my own Pithing Needle on Grindstone and ultimately drew a Condemn and was able to go infinite. My opponent had cluttered the board with a Vendilion Clique a Trinket Mage and Sower of Temptation, so I couldn’t get much damage in, but soon found an Eladamri’s Call for Doran. Unfortunately, I was still stuck on two lands, and my opponent eventually drew an Engineered Explosives to crack my Needles. On the following turn, he played out both, his Painter Servant and Grindstone and decked me.

-1 Condemn, -2 Meddling Mage

+2 Krosan Grip, +1 Gaea’s Blessing

In game two, I mulled to six keeping a hand with three lands and three Living Wish. My opponent started with a Cabal Therapy naming Daru Spiritualist and missing. I untapped and drew …… Another Living Wish! This was very scary, as my opponent is a single Trinket Mage away from Mind Twist’ing me. I played the first Wish for a Spiritualist. He had no Trinket Mage and I was able to attempt a second Living Wish, but he had Remand. On turn four, he still had no creature, and I was able to untap and play two of the remaining Living Wishes, for a Doran and a Nomads en-Kor. Two turns later we were shuffling up for game three.

In game three, both me and my opponent got slow draws. He kicked off with two Brainstorms (augmented by fetchlands) while I ran out a Meddling Mage on Trinket Mage, followed by a Shaman en-Kor and finally a Spiritualist. I attacked for several turns, then on turn six, my opponent tapped out to transmute a Muddle the Mixture for a Thopter Foundry, played a Sword of the Meek and Pithing Needle’d my Shaman en-Kor. With a Diamond Valley in play, I had the option to sacrifice the Spiritualist for infinite life prior to the Needle, but decided against it. Instead, I untapped and ripped a land off the top, to Living Wish for a Nomads en-Kor, and played a Doran with the help of my opponent’s Urborg (letting Diamond Valley tap for black), and went in for the kill.

2-1

Round 4 – Green Aggro

My round four opponent was playing a mono-green stompy deck with Berserk, Rancor, and a bunch of weenies along with Kavu Predator and Invigorate. This seems like an auto-win, as even an Kavu Predator isn’t very good against me, provided I am able to get two copies of Spiritualist/Task Force, the first to block, and the second to gain infinite life. After winning the roll, I opened up with the nut draw. Turn 1 Aether Vial, turn 2 Daru Spiritualist while using Vial to make a Nomads en-Kor, and a turn 3 Diamond Valley. My opponent opted to continue attacking (for no particular reason, but he likely had no outs, so who cares?), which gave me an opening to make a Task Force on the end step (with Vial), and attack with the team. When he declared no blocks on the Task Force, I used Eladamri’s Call to find Doran and used Vial for the win.

Game two was much of the same. My opponent mulled to six, and kept a sub-par hand, which only got worse. By turn four, I had infinite life, while he had two creatures in play, neither of which were Kavu Predator. From there Doran cleaned up.

3-1

This record was good enough to finish in second place. This would’ve been a first place finish, but Ross Chancey (playing my Merfolk deck minus a set of Aether Vials) decided to concede to Jared Serrano, to guarantee me a money-finish ($18 store credit). Turns out, had he not done that, we would’ve finished 1st and 2nd. Oops. Jared was a good sport about it and hooked Ross up with some dinner, so everyone was pretty satisfied.

—–

Before wrapping up, I just thought I’d talk a little more about Jared’s deck. Obviously reanimator has a really tough time winning through cards like Tormod’s Crypt, but Jared also plays Show and Tell. Now that card is admittedly very bad if your opponent is holding a Progenitus, but otherwise it’s pretty baller, even if your opponent puts a Dream Halls into play, since you’ll be getting Iona on blue. What that essentially does, is give your deck access to nut draws (Turn 1 Ritual, Entomb, Exhume/Reanimate, etc.), while also having a very strong backup plan. The following list is not Jared’s actual build, but is what I would run as a starting point for the deck.

4 Show and Tell

4 Exhume

4 Reanimate

4 Mystical Tutor

4 Dark Ritual

4 Iona, Shield of Emeria

1 Blazing Archon

4 Ponder

4 Careful Study

4 Force of Will

4 Thoughtseize

1 Intuition

1 Wipe Away

2 Verdant Catacombs

1 Bloodstained Mire

2 Marsh Flats

4 Polluted Delta

4 Underground Sea

3 Swamp

1 Island

I would imagine the matchup against Counter-Top-Balance is sketchy, and Merfolk appears to also be somewhat unfavorable, but this deck seems like it would have some serious game against pretty much anything else.

That’s all for this time. Feel free to hit me up with questions and comments.

Keith McLaughlin

kmclau@gmail.com