• Great Designer Search II—WotC is offering a second shot at this dream job.
• Magic Weekend Announcement—Wizard’s announcement of these mega-events was tempered by a conflict with Magic Cruise 3.
• States Announcement—While there are major tournaments every weekend, there’s still only one annual opportunity for a player to be crowned a state champion.
• New  Play or Draw  Rule—Swiss results will now determine which player decides to play or draw in the top eight of Pro Tour events.

Tournament Coverage

• Grand Prix Gothenburg—Kenny Olberg was the last man standing in this Swedish showdown thanks to his RG deck and two acidic slimes.
• SCG Minneapolis Open –Jund and Bomber Man took down the titles this weekend in the land of 10,000 lakes.

Standard

• A Winner’s Memento—Josh Utter-Leyton begins with the end in mind in this tournament report recounting his route to the National title.
• Dredgevine in Minneapolis—Gerry Thompson rode this renegade strategy to a 2^nd place finish in this weekend’s SCG open.  David Ochoa discusses his nationals experience with the deck here.
• Getting the Soul Read—Conley Woods discusses the rogue life-gain deck that continues to put up impressive results.
• Getting Nassty at Nationals—Matt Nass wrote a prescription for Conscription at nationals and discusses his draft successes as well.
• Life after Shards—Adam Koska peers into the not-so-distant future of Standard.

Limited

• No Sleep ‘til 7^th Place—Sam Black reports out on his Gothenburg experience.
• Gothenburg Report and M11 Draft—Bas Melis reflects on his sealed pool and recommends forcing mono-black in M11 draft.
• Mastering M11 Sealed—Darwin Kastle dives into the deep end of these sealed pools.
• The Rares and Mythics of M11 Limited—Gerard Fabiano rates the cards at the back of the pack.

Extended

• Extended Faeries—Justin Richardson reminds us just how tough it can be to beat a turn-two Bitterblossom.

Legacy

• Legacy Format Ripples—Noah Swartz sorts through the fallout of GP Columbus.
• Legacy on the Cheap—Christopher Walton examines relatively inexpensive deck options and their possible evolutions.

Casual and Variant Formats

• EDH is for Fun?—Ben McDole takes a spikier slant on EDH with Arcanis, the Omnipotent.
• Rocking Kresh in EDH League—Sheldon Menery shares his current list, scans of altered cards, and a report from a league match.
• The Cube: Redundancy—Adam Styborski considers the role of functional reprints, randomness, and risk in Cube design.

On-Going Series

• So You Want to Qualify for the Pro Tour—Sam Stoddard focuses on tournament structure and tie-breakers.

Miscellany

• How to Win When You Draw Terribly—Travis Woo talks about tells, bluffing, and putting your opponent on tilt.
• Building your Character Sheet—Alexander Shearer takes an espansive look at self-assessment that covers everything from D&D style character
• The Female Advantage—Lauren Lee begins her new column by discussing her experiences networking as a female player.

At GP Columbus I got the chance to sit down and interview Adrian Sullivan, deck builder and theorist. We discuss his deck, a modernized build of his Baron Sengir deck.

Concentrating on the constant sound lifts the fog of sleep slightly, but your eyelids remain too heavy to lift.  Unsure of where you have awakened, you remain still for fear of some animal.  The ground beneath you is firm but soft.

The droning slowly grows louder as your consciousness rises.  You finally open your eyes to the sight of stacks of books topped by candles.  With a final leap your mind is reminded of how you had fallen asleep in Issar Roon’s study while listening to his tale.

…moon composed of blue mana was called the Eye of Doom.  The black one, Ingle thanks to…

The voice continues without pause.  You are unsure of how long you had slept, but it seems to have gone unnoticed by the old man.  Attempting to remain quiet, you push yourself off the colored rug and sit in what you hope is an attentive position.

…green moon was the last ejected, and named Lyese by Glissa Sunseeker after her sister.

Not only were the moons defined by the color of mana that imbued each, but so were the environments of Mirrodin.  The plane was separated into five distinct locales, each home to their respective Lacuna.  They were the Razor Fields, the Quicksilver Sea, Mephidross, the Oxidda Chain, and the Tangle.  The Lacuna were passages by which the moons escaped Mirrodin’s core and all led to that sixth and final region of Mirrodin, home to Memnarch’s Panopticon and Karn’s Palace.

Your mind fully awake at last, you listen closely to hear more about the strange plane.  The old man pauses in his tale to turn pages rapidly until he finds what he is looking for.  He turns towards you with the book held forward.  Half of a page is taken over by a beautiful sketch which can only be part of Mirrodin.

This is the Razor Fields, the location of white mana upon Mirrodin.  Its name comes from the Razor Grass that grew across much of the land.  This grass would chime in the wind, but was stronger and sturdier than any glass or metal you might find in a wind chime.  Its edges were as sharp as a blade, cutting anything that would brush against it.  It could even grow fast enough to impale an unwary traveler before they knew to move.

Though a dangerous place, the Razor Fields were the home to a scattering of races.  Nomadic humans called Aurioks lived among the Razor Grass.  They survived through trade, and were fierce warriors when threatened.  Their allies, the Leonin, preferred a permanent home, and built a city of gold called Taj-Nar.  A third race, the Loxodons, seemed to avoid contact with other races, but lived peacefully within the Razor Fields.

The old man turns the page a few more times.  Each page holds another beautiful sketch or painting of the Razor Fields.

The locale of blue mana on Mirrodin was the Quicksilver Sea.  A sea of an unknown liquid, this was the home of the Vedalken and Neuroks.  The Vedalken populated spires of quicksilver while the Neuroks lived in tin settlements along the shores of the Quicksilver Sea.  The Vedalken spires that rose high into the air were believed to have been created by solidifying the liquid in the sea.

You look closely at the sketch in the old man’s book and easily identify what appear as giant thorns stabbing the sky.

Of course, a highly intelligent race like the Vedalken needed a center for their government, and so they built Lumengrid, a huge interconnected city that rose atop a giant pedestal.  Lumengrid was the core of Vedalken society, as well as the center of commerce.  It was there that they lived, traded, and trained their Neurok slaves.

The old man turns more pages.

If the Quicksilver Sea and Razor Fields were lands of beauty on Mirrodin, then Mephidross was the dark pit.  Bordering the Quicksilver Sea, it too had liquid and spires, but these were corrupted reflections infused with black mana.  The knee-deep water was covered with scum and noxious gas called necrogen.  The ominous chimneys in Mephidross were as black as obsidian, and emitted a constant thrum that spoke of a hidden and dark energy.

Almost entirely inhospitable, Mephidross held two races, the Nim and Moriok.  The Nim were zombie-like creatures, twisted remnants of life that had strayed too deeply into the dark recesses of the swamp.  The Moriok were humans, those ever-adaptable beings, who found a way to live within the swamp.  Unable to fully resist the necrogen, the Moriok had metal plates over their eyes, and were often missing pieces of flesh and bone.  The Moriok were ruled over by a warlord named Geth.

Again, the pages and pictures flash by.

The Oxidda Chain was home to red mana on Mirrodin.  Giant mounds of rusted iron, these mountains were scrap heaps and piles of ductwork.  Some mountain tops had even separated, floating hundreds of feet in the air thanks to the strong magnetic fields within the Oxidda Chain.  Deep within the mountain range laid the Great Furnace, Kuldotha, a place of molten metal.

Humans and goblins inhabited the Oxidda Chain, living off of the metal and furnaces located throughout.  The humans, called the Vulshok, were great smiths, the creators of Mirrodin’s best weapons and armor.  Though they held strained relations with outsiders, they were amiable towards the goblins near their home and often traded with them.  Many of the goblins on Mirrodin lived around Kuldotha, scavenging and becoming artificers.  All but a small cult believed in a creator of their world called the Steel Mother, and often sent her offerings through Kuldotha.

More pages turn, and you begin to feel sleep clawing at you once again.  You resist, hoping the old man will soon finish his story.

The final locale on Mirrodin’s surface was the Tangle, the domain of green mana.  The Tangle was a conglomeration of copper, much of it in the forms of trees and living plants.  One might imagine it alive, thanks to the verdigris that covered almost all surfaces.  Deep within the Tangle laid a tree called Tel-Jilad, or Tree of Tales.  Inscribed on the trunk was the entire history of Mirrodin.  Though, the beginning had been mysteriously erased.

Though the Tangle itself was not living, life was able to flourish.  Many animals made it their home, along with some plants and intelligent species.  As with all other areas of Mirrodin there was a human tribe, the Sylvok.  The Sylvok were a hunter-gatherer culture, and kept mostly to themselves.  There were also Viridian elves who lived alongside the Tel-Jilad trolls, keepers of Tel-Jilad.  Glissa, an important figure in Mirrodin`s history came from among the Viridian Elves.

The old man’s story comes to an abrupt end, and he closes the book with a soft thump.

That is all for today.  You seem tired.  Take care of those feet, and get some sleep.  I will tell you a new tale when you are more awake.

You had forgotten about your feet, but after the old man speaks you begin to feel the pain return.  You make your way to the door as gingerly as possible, and hope that the pain remains at bay until you are able to lie down again.  As you make your leave, you catch a glimpse of the old man’s gentle smile before he turns back to his books.

This is a work of fiction based on the stories and entries provided by Wizards about some of the early characters. The author takes some liberty with the story for dramatic purposes. So the story portrayed here may not be the exact story according to Magic Canon. The author has found references and art to use in the following locations: Encyclopedia Phyrexianna and the MTG Salvation Wiki. Written by Brendan Weiskotten.

Steve Port of Legion Events posted on the company blog concerning the conflict:

In the jumbling of things apparently a date got missed (or possibly ignored, who can stop the turning gears?) and despite being told that I *should* be safe for MC3 (I had hoped for no domestic GPs and no PTs that weekend, and no one at HQ guaranteed my safety on those dates, just thought that it SHOULD be OK) it turned out not to be. I know there were some scheduling hassles, you guys cant imagine how hard it is to coordinate a show of that size all around the world! Unfortunately I have to plan these cruises a year out to get the good rates. And I know that the next year schedule rarely hits before august. so it’s a bit scary waiting and hoping. Last year I got munched by GP Oakland, this year we’re getting munched by the Magic Weekend in France. C’est la vie. :)

In a brief discussion with us, Steve conveyed that while he is disappointed for any conflict, he still expects the event to go off without problem and still be successful. There are currently four confirmed R&D members for the cruise, and while the Paris event largely guarantees the lack of current Pros on the cruise, that will not affect the trip overall.

Magic Cruise 3 is not yet sold out, so if you are interested in going on the cruise you can head over to the Legion Events website and book your spot!

We capitalized Elder Dragon Highlander before it made the rules, didn’t we?

While I’m not here to declare how much of an expert I am at cube draft, I do feel confident talking about what I’ve learned from my cube. Last time it was the lessons I could apply in general; this time I’m looking directly into the heart of the beast itself.

Dogged and Dragged

I don’t believe I’ve ever really explained my cube. In fact, my initial statements at the outset more than a year ago (more power to you if you know what I’m talking out) are grossly off the mark now. Originally, my goal was to apply two overriding principles:

• Cards printed at common rarity only (true pauper)
• Support and provide multicolor play

Sounds pretty simple and, in my infinite naivety, it was pretty simple. However I was wrong about many things and it took dozens of iterations and trials to discover:

• No one likes being forced into something (in this case it was three color decks)
• Cube is more often associated with powerful rares than commons (Time Walk vs. Rampant Growth)
• Commons facilitate traditional Limited play better than constructed archetypes

Plowing through versions, testing cards and attempting to find archetypes, sleeving and resleeving everything, creating a comprehensive spreadsheet documenting various datum – it’s clear that I’m passionate about what I’m doing. Funneling this passion into my cube only resulted in more and more information being gathered. Three things quickly became apparent:

• Aggressive three-color (or more) decks were not effective
• Four and five color control decks had the long game locked up
• Functional copies of cards were highly desirable

Does that sound familiar? Applying the standard cube caveat – every card is, generally, a very high pick and consistently desirable – reveals nothing more interesting than what you can gain from a few rounds of drafting:

• Monocolor and color pairs provide focus, and therefore consistency
• Splashing for cards that can take control of a game is acceptable
• Achieving consistency through redundancy of cards is a powerful strategy

But here lies and interesting divide in the cube community: to include functional reprints or to not include functional reprints. For my cube, some of the highlights are:

• Civic Wayfinder – Borderland Ranger
• Kodama’s Reach – Cultivate
• Cloud Spirit – Rishidan Airship

And there are some pairs that are virtually functional reprints:

• Terror – Doom Blade
• Sakura Tribe Elder – Sylvan Ranger (worth a discussion elsewhere)
• Mire Boa – River Boa
• Carnophage – Vampire Lacerator
• Rampant Growth – Farseek

I could go on but my point is that I clearly believe in having multiple copies of similar, powerful effects in a constrained draft space.

Some Terminology

When I say “constrained draft space” I mean exactly what I say: a draft environment where variability is limited and reduced. Have you ever drafted triple “small expansion” in the recent year or so? Multiples begin to pile up quickly and archetypes are limited.

The most powerful strategies are parasitic perversions that can’t exist elsewhere. What a lovely way to transition back to my cube.

Consistency in Limited decks can be achieved in a number of ways, primarily:

• Following a Mana Curve to ensure threats are distributed across converted mana costs
• Restricting colors to a synergistic pair, splashing only for great effect (Fireball, Clone, etc.)
• Pulling multiple copies of strong cards (multiples of Doom Blade, Stormfront Pegasus, etc.)

While following a mana curve and focuses draft picking are things still controlled by the players of a cube, it is only the cube owner that can permit or deny redundancy of effects.

It’s an odd discussion I’ve seen moving around that hasn’t settled much beyond the old standby of “since cube is anything you want just do what you want” solution. Is Kodama’s Reach sufficient alone or is adding Cultivate better? What about Terror and Doom Blade? Or Control Magic and Binding Grasp?

There are a lot more cubes with multiple Control Magic effects than Rampant Growth effects. The reason for this is the not-so-subtle ramping effect the Signets from Ravnica block provide in conjunction with the mana smoothing impact of the bounce lands, also from Ravnica block. A nice set of sets if I must say so.

In a different vein, Monday brought some Twitter discussion regarding Squadron Hawk and cube: is it possible to get the “best of both worlds” with the Hawk – include one Hawk and, by picking it, get the three more that make it worth running? The consensus from Kelly Digges (@kellydigges), Sam Stoddard (@samstod), Alexis Jansen (@alexisjansen), Trick Jarrett (@mananation), and Evan Erwin (@misterorange) was that it sounded like a good solution. Similarly, if the Nissa’s Chosen from Nissa Revane came from nowhere – just “Poof! Here’s a 2/3 dude!” – then Nissa could be an excellent cube addition.

Redundancy is a powerful, attractive thing.

But part of what makes Squadron Hawk interesting is that you have to actually spend picks on supporting the Hawk, otherwise you end up with an underpowered 1/1 flying Bird.

Redundancy is a powerful, attractive thing that rewards those who know how to find it.

I don’t like the “pick one, get four” solution for Hawks. Part of working with a cube is adhering to the boundaries you set and working within the window of “one copy per card” makes functional reprints (and near reprints) exciting. Suddenly, seeing Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach feels more natural.

Imagine if Squadron Hawk instead let you pay to put a copy into play up to three times. Ignoring very awkward templating issues (“Use this ability no more than three times in the game.” Wait, what?), would this card still be a common? Of course not – it’s clearly something much more. By having to pay multiple picks for the effect of filling your hand with a creature the redundancy comes with an opportunity cost of other things that may, individually, be stronger.

Splitting Hairs

It’s this narrow division that drives the of redundancy for me: the tension between raw power, and potential power, and having multiple copies of moderately effective cards. The core of virtually every blue-based control deck in cubes are Control Magic effects. They serve as a combination of removal and bodies, giving a power tool to taking control of a board.

There is little trade-off here: stealing creatures is generally the best thing a deck can do at any point in the game. Mana ramping, for comparison, is best early in the game. Taking multiple ramp effects is a risk that, if executed properly, rewards playing creatures a turn or two ahead of where your opponent is. Turn three Blastoderm or Calciderm is pretty rough beats.

Redundancy is powerful mitigation against randomness. Redundancy without risk is boring.

Running a very tight cube – about 365 cards or just enough for a full eight man draft – virtually guarantees that all of the copies of cards will be seen. Providing opportunities for players to make decisions is part of the skill testing element that makes cube draft so engaging. Of course, with a larger cube running functional reprints gets the desirable effects to show up more consistently, providing opportunities for players to recognize their potential during drafts.

So why would you ever make the decision easier than it needs to be? (Don’t answer that – it’s a trick question.)

I include a lot of ramping effects in green for three reasons:

1. It feels natural as part of it’s color identity
2. It provides intuitive support for multicolored decks
3. Green has the best creatures to ramp into

However, green also has strong creatures along a mana curve as well – it’s not all land fetching and mana bugs. The decision to grab the correct amount, not too much or too little, of the right mana ramping will yield a more optimal deck than one that either ignored or overvalues the same pieces.

Redundancy in the form I present it is meant to achieve the ultimate goal of providing a sufficient number of pieces for multiple drafters to grab the correct number and types of pieces. Everyone else ends up punished for greed or ignorance.

Skill testing indeed.

So how do you feel about redundancy? Where do you see it falling within the spectrum of draft and what are you looking for it to achieve – or for you to achieve with it? Join me next week when I show you some pretty graphs and delicious, crunchy numbers.

I’ve been thinking of something recently: Years ago when Legacy was first taking off, people were always asking me how to get into Legacy without spending too much money. Dual lands topped out at $30 in those days and almost nothing in the format cost more than an Underground Sea. I suggested decks to them that I knew were sub-par but were able to steal games now and then, and they were happy because they could be built for around $40. Before Tarmogoyf, Zoo and Sligh were both budget decks and until Path to Exile both were mostly choices for if you just wanted to have fun at the tournament. Looking back to the days of Mental Note, those were good times and very inexpensive to get started in the format.

Now that Legacy has really picked up, all of the cards with any real scarcity have shot up. At least it shouldn’t be too surprising the increase in value of dual lands is linked with the increase of popularity with Legacy. However, recently I had been thinking about a few things. The first is that no one who plays Merfolk wants to be playing Merfolk (The exception here would likely be Saito at the Grand Prix, but Merfolk is still a budget choice) and I think that most people who are piloting it would rather be playing a deck that touches a bit more on the bases of what Legacy is supposed to be about – skill intensive, decision based plays, not just attacking with fish-people and hoping not to play against Mountains. Even if Merfolk is a budget choice, it has been doing exceptionally well. The same is true of Burn, another deck that used to be heralded with White Weenie and Pox as totally non-viable decks. Elves was another deck from that same vein that has has been putting up respectable numbers. Even an Affinity deck made day two at the Grand Prix. Apparently, you don’t need to invest a lot of cash into Legacy to enjoy some success with it.

For a long time, Legacy players argued with Standard players about the costs of each format and how even after a single rotation, Legacy was often a much cheaper alternative. At that point in time I knew I was lying, but I also knew that over time not only would it would be the safer bet, but that the more stable cards for Legacy would appreciate in value. This was during a time where Legacy staples far out valued the price of any standard card. It is now the case where staples for Standard have huge price tags that exceed even most dual lands, and the quality of the cards is simply not high enough to cause them to maintain value over time, especially with the advent of duel decks that seem to imply that every Planeswalker is going to be reprinted in a preconstructed deck at some point (except maybe Big Jace). Some years later, Legacy cards have tripled in value where as Shadowmage Infiltrator and Tooth and Nail haven’t found much of a home in quite some time, what will become of Primeval Titan and Gideon Jura relative to the value of Tropical Island and Phyrexian Dreadnought?

Foremost, I want to stress this article isn’t designed to discuss the long-term viability of the format, this has been a hotly debated topic recently and it is all a moot point to discuss because if people want to play the format, then they will develop viable strategies to work around or in spite of card restraints. Merfolk has been the perfect example of this. What I want to do in this article is show some of the decks that have been successful in Legacy that lack the price tag that is commonly associated with the format. Furthermore this is not an article claiming that one format is superior to another on any grounds, even for fiscal purposes, but to demonstrate that it is possible to enjoy Legacy on a longer-term basis for a comparable investment to a standard rotation.

Decks on the Top End

Before listing any decks, I feel as though I need to extend my definition of budget. For the context of this article, budget is defined as a relatively inexpensive deck that has a solid shot at competing and winning in a Legacy tournament. The first decks I’d like to cover are decks that push the upper limits on what can be considered budget. None of the decks presented should run over $500 retail. Each example given is of a deck that has enjoyed some degree of success recently in Legacy.

Merfolk and Goblins

Merfolk is the cheapest competitive deck to optimize that uses Force of Will. Essentially, the cost of the Merfolk deck is sixteen cards: Force of Will, Wasteland, Mutavault, AEther Vial. The rest of the deck consists of low-end rares and mid-range uncommons. The good news is three of the four highest end cards in the deck are staples of the format that can be reused in literally dozens of decks so this isn’t going to be skewed like buying cards for say Aluren, where most of the cards are only going to be playable in that single deck. The excellent news is that Merfolk has been doing incredibly well recently.

Goblins has pretty much been the same deck for the last six years and the value is in four high ticket items as well: Wasteland, AEther Vial, Goblin Lackey and Goblin Piledriver. Goblins has also been doing quite well recently and has a strong track record of performing, so we can likely expect it to stay that course. The issue is that a lot of players feel vulnerable without the safety net that counters or other more direct forms of disruption provided by black. However, Goblins stumbles in many fewer places than these other decks do so the lack of maindeck disruption isn’t often the oversight that it seems it would be in theory.

I won’t really provide a list for each of these decks as I talk about them quite frequently, but they are the two decks that can be built fairly cheaply that have enjoyed perhaps the most success per dollar. What I will touch upon is the idea of cutting costs in these decks. For Merfolk, not playing Force of Will is simply not an option, it is essential to holding any advantage that the deck is able to generate. AEther Vial is essential to both decks as well. The flexible card that can be dropped from both lists is Wasteland. While the mana denial will win some games and allow you to apply a lot of pressure early on, the card isn’t vital to the play the deck. Mutavault and Goblin Piledriver could both possibly be cut from either list, but that is looking a lot more skeptical. You have to start somewhere, so it is best to look at the cards are not entirely vital to the functionality of the decks.

The Casual Suspects

Burn

I talked a bit about this deck last week, and since I wrapped up that article another Burn deck has had a respectable finish:

"Burn by Kyle Miller"

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Creatures (12) 4 Goblin Guide 4 Grim Lavamancer 4 Keldon Marauders Spells (28) 4 Sulfuric Vortex 4 Fireblast 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Price of Progress 4 Chain Lightning 4 Lava Spike 4 Rift Bolt Lands (20) 8 Mountain 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Wooded Foothills Sideboard (15) 4 Vexing Shusher 4 Pyrostatic Pillar 4 Searing Blaze 3 Volcanic Fallout

Until fairly recently Burn was considered a terrible deck. Taking Burn into a tournament was literally doing the deck’s namesake with your entry fee. Zoo has always been seen as a superior strategy, and until recently Zoo had not been taken seriously as a competitive deck. Though Burn has put up some numbers in this format, while it may not be an ideal deck, but it has proven that it is a metagame player.

The Good – Burn is ultra consistent, as all the cards do exactly the same thing – kill the opponent. Despite losing in the finals to a Merfolk deck, Burn has proven that it is able to race most current aggro strategies. Burn decks are also able to really punish combo decks and speaking as a control player, a knowledgeable red player is one of the most aggravating things to play against. There are a fair number of decks that realistically have bad matches against this deck.

The Bad – The archetype tends to be an easy archetype to hate out as years of cards have been printed to effectively foil a deck that just recently recieved enough cards to truly become playable. The curve on playing this deck is also deceptively high. While on the surface the idea is just to send everything at the opponent, learning how to sequence spells for the most effective endgame and resource management for when a Lightning Bolt needs to act as a removal spell makes some experience required. Also, because Burn is so straight forward, you are seldom able to have a trick that the opponent is not going to see coming, meaning that there are very limited opportunities to out play anyone on the other side of the table.

The Price Points – The only cards in the deck over $11 are the fetchlands and Chain Lightning. The rares that are in the deck are plentiful and generally unplayed so they are easy to accumulate. Most of the deck is common and many of these cards exist in excess in most collections. To cut costs on the deck the Fetchlands are the first thing that can be cut as they are only useful to power up a Grim Lavamancer who himself can be a candidate to be removed. Chain Lightning‘s price tag has grown quite a bit over the last few months and for budget concerns it can certainly be cut. The only piece of advice is to be sure that the card that replaces it deals as much damage and is not Shard Volley. I’m a big fan of Hellspark Elemental finding a slot in this deck and some people have had success using Reckless Abandon or Reckless Charge to push in a lot of early damage. The sacred cow of the deck that probably should not be removed is likely Goblin Guide as he is able to apply so much pressure that it drastically reduces the work the rest of your cards need to do to get the job done.

The Long-Term – Cards such as Sulfuric Vortex, Stigma Lasher, Everlasting Tormet and Leyline of Punishment are all fairly inexpensive means to combat a lot of the cards that people are going to attempt to use to win games against you. The decline of Counterbalance has really helped to push this deck into the playable realm, but if you see much of it in your metagame, moving toward high cost cards that are a bit slower may be the best call, Hell’s Thunder is an attractive option and I had liked the possibility of Flame Javelin for a long time, but that probably isn’t an excellent choice. To further combat tribal plans, Flamebreak is really good. Don’t try to load up on cards to beat Combo with, generally the burn is just punishment enough for a burn player.

Elves

About a year ago the world was abuzz with the idea there there was an Elf combo deck that was winning all kinds of games. Grand Prix Chicago had a lot of Elfball players but the metagame was actually ready to handle them. The archetype really dropped off after that point, but is essentially a very powerful and cheap deck to build. The idea behind the Elfball deck is to play Glimpse of Natures and pair it with Heritage Druid and some number of Nettle Sentinel. Eventually the process will net a large amount of mana and you can use Banefire or Mirror Entity to enable a win.

"Elfball"

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Lands (15) 15 Forest Spells (9) 1 Grapeshot 4 Summoner's Pact 4 Glimpse of Nature Creatures (36) 1 Vexing Shusher 1 Caller of the Claw 3 Llanowar Elves 4 Birchlore Rangers 1 Eternal Witness 4 Wirewood Symbiote 4 Elvish Visionary 1 Viridian Shaman 4 Quirion Ranger 1 Regal Force 4 Heritage Druid 4 Nettle Sentinel 4 Fyndhorn Elves Sideboard (15) 2 Tormod's Crypt 1 Vexing Shusher 3 Relic of Progenitus 3 Krosan Grip 2 Reverent Silence 4 Thorn of Amethyst

The Good – The deck is fairly resilient because it isn’t suscepitble to much of the same combo hate that storm decks are and has a solid backup plan of attacking with swarms of creatures. Even if the combo fizzles out you are left with a lot of power on the table for the next turn and often a handful of guys. A big selling point is that a lot of people won’t see this coming and have a very difficult time playing against the deck properly. Even if the deck becomes a force in your metagame, it’s possible to modify an elf deck to use Natural Order and/or Survival of the Fittest which gives you a lot more versatility than either Goblins or Merfolk can offer.

The Bad – Because green isn’t the strongest color there is little in the way of protection for the combo or any of the creatures. The intricacies of the deck are many and if you’re going to outplay the opponent, you’re going to at least need to have the experience to know that Wirewood Symbiote can save any creature from a removal spell or deny counters to a Jitte. The biggest problem is the splash hate that this deck is going to suffer from people combating Zoo and Merfolk; Firespout, Volcanic Fallout and Perish are all around. It almost doesn’t matter what the sweeper is, Elves are going to die to it.

The Price Points – Many casual and otherwise budget players have a high tendency to have a lot of elves cards in their collections already, which can really cut into the cost of this deck. Like Burn, most of the rest of the cards are common and not too much substitution should really need to happen considering that Glimpse of Nature is the only card likely to have a high price tag attached to it aside from Gaea’s Cradle. Glimpse of Nature is a lynchpin of the deck where as Gaea’s Cradle can easily be worked around or simply omitted. Considering that the next highest card may well be Priest of Titania, which many builds do not use – the entire deck is on the low end of competitive decks and allows for a lot of wiggle room.

The Long-Term – As previously stated, Elves builds have a lot of flexibility and as a result really do have long term potential. Seeing as how Green, the color that other people splash for access to Krosan Grip, the best Disenchant effect is already easy at hand and some of the strongest hate for control decks can be found in the form of Choke and Xantid Swarm. The available tutors in the form of Chord of Calling and Summoner’s Pact make the choice versatile and any of the cards that you’re going to be dreading should be able to be answered through Caller of the Claw, for surprise wins. Elves have been a minor player in the format as far as aggro decks go and now modern builds of Elfball and Elf-Survival mean that there is likely a lot more potential for the archetypes and for mono-green decks in the future.

Dredge

Another deck that was a big player in Chicago was Dredge. I’m personally not a fan of this deck, but it is a good choice for some people. Anwar Ahmad has written a lot about a Dredge that would feature both Lion’s Eye Diamond and Entomb. While I’m convinced that the best Dredge decks are going to be using Lion’s Eye Diamond, I’m not sold on the power of Enomb. In fact, the best performing Dredge decks have a relatively low cost, and are not using either, which is exactly why I’m discussing it right now.

"Dredge"

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Lands (15) 4 City of Brass 4 Gemstone Mine 4 Cephalid Coliseum 3 Tarnished Citadel Creatures (27) 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Golgari Thug 4 Putrid Imp 4 Tireless Tribe 4 Narcomoeba 3 Ichorid Spells (18) 4 Careful Study 4 Breakthrough 4 Bridge from Below 4 Cabal Therapy 2 Dread Return Sideboard (15) 4 Ancient Grudge 1 Flame-Kin Zealot 4 Firestorm 3 Nature's Claim 1 Terastodon 1 Ancestor's Chosen 1 Ray of Revelation

The Good – There is likely no deck in Legacy that has a higher percentage of game one wins and you only need to win one more game after that to seal up a match. Dredge has such a strong surprise factor and is so dependent on just one zone that it is difficult for other decks to even interact with it, even when Dredge has a poor start. For most intents and purposes the deck is immune to Counterbalance, Chalice of the Void and any other counterspells. Dredge is strong against most aggro plans and goldfishes most real games anyway and Dredge goldfishes a bit faster than other decks.

The Bad – There is likely no deck in Legacy that has a higher percentage of game two or three losses. Literally every deck has access to hate for Dredge and most people tend to over-sideboard against graveyard strategies. Dredge, especially with an inexpeirenced pilot, also loses a lot harder to hate than other graveyard based decks such as Reanimator or Loam based decks. Dredge does goldfish a bit faster than most other decks, but essentially it is a luck-based deck, so the deck is a lot more open to variance in not only draws but in dredges as well. One final concern is that Dredge isn’t going to present the greatest way to learn the format as most of the games are going to be incredibly skewed one way or the other.

The Price Points – Dredge’s cards are all around and under $5 each, so there shouldn’t really be a need to cut costs anywhere. The lands and Lotus Petals can be used for other combo decks and Cabal Therapies can both be used in future creature decks, but after that there are not many real uses for any of the Dredge cards except to play Dredge.

The Long-Term – Dredge was formerly one of the decks of choice of pro players coming into the format, so they did a lot of work on it about a year ago. There are still some very dedicated players with excellent credentials putting work in on the deck. While it is unlikely that Dredge will get any new new maindeck cards anytime soon, Leyline of Sanctity and other new options keep appearing for the sideboard.

Belcher

A few months ago I had worked on a joke deck that I had called, “Budget Belcher”. The idea behind this deck was that Belcher was so cheap as it was that making a budget build of it was a joke. I was using painfully sub-optimal cards, and even with really poor choices that slowed the deck down numerous turns, I was still beating competitive decks:

"Budget Belcher"

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Lands (3) 1 Mountain 1 Murmuring Bosk 1 Dryad Arbor Creatures (12) 4 Simian Spirit Guide 4 Wild Cantor 4 Tinder Wall Spells (45) 4 Manamorphose 4 Safewright Quest 4 Lotus Petal 4 Seething Song 4 Goblin Charbelcher 4 Empty the Warrens 4 Spoils of the Vault 4 Desperate Ritual 4 Dark Ritual 4 Rite of Flame 2 Blood Pet 1 Lay of the Land 1 Songs of the Damned 1 Culling the Weak Sideboard (15) 3 Ignite Memories 4 Duress 2 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Elves of Deep Shadow 4 Ingot Chewer

The above list is seriously a joke, do not try that one at home. However, if I can win matches with this deck, then it stands to reason that a deck that isn’t using awful cards in the place of good ones can and many of the good cards aren’t even costly. A real build of the deck is slightly faster but it doesn’t need to be much more expensive to build and the optimized lists are not that much better than a list that is not optimized.

"Belcher"

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Lands (1) 1 Taiga Creatures (12) 4 Simian Spirit Guide 4 Elvish Spirit Guide 4 Tinder Wall Spells (47) 4 Lion's Eye Diamond 4 Lotus Petal 4 Goblin Charbelcher 4 Seething Song 4 Pyretic Ritual 4 Desperate Ritual 4 Rite of Flame 4 Burning Wish 4 Land Grant 4 Street Wraith 4 Chrome Mox 3 Empty The Warrens Sideboard (15) 4 Ingot Chewer 4 Xantid Swarm 3 Pyroblast 1 Tendrils of Agony 1 Empty the Warrens 1 Reverent Silence 1 Pyroclasm

The Good – Belcher has enjoyed a good deal of success recently and it seems as though the deck is on the verge of being able to overcome some of the “just lose to Force of Will” scenarios that the deck is known for. Belcher also has a very strong game against decks that are not packing a heavy control suite.

The Bad – Being another luck based deck, Belcher is going t fall victim to the variance in draws that Dredge is open to, where your ability to fix draws stops at your deck choice.. Unlike Dredge, Belcher is going to mulligan a lot harder as it generally needs all seven cards in hand to really take be able to generate a win. Being a very linear deck, there are very few opportunities to outplay an opponent and they all involve how you sequence your rituals The elephant in the room of course is how weak the deck is to counter magic and there isn’t an excellent answer for it just yet. Sometimes when you play a deck that goes for broke, you end up dead to some cards.

The Price Points – Belcher has been the only suggested deck that featured a dual land, and in this case it can easily be replaced with a Stomping Ground at almost no less of efficiency. The issue with the cost on Lion’s Eye Diamond can probably be overlooked as the card is not essential to the functionality of the deck. Chrome mox is the next highest card in the deck and is a lot more difficult to drop, but it can be done if you need to do it, as I’ve had success with a deck that didn’t play it. Even Burning Wish can be replaced with something like one Empty the Warrens and three Spoils of the Vault. After all the substitutions the deck’s price of mandatory cards starts on the high end with Elvish Spirit Guide and works its way down to something like Desperate Ritual.

The Long-Term – It had looked for some time that Belcher’s best days were over, but lading up to the Star City events and in those events themselves. Belcher recently took second at Legacy Worlds and has enjoyed moderate success in other tournaments even putting a few copies into day two at the Grand Prix, something I feel that few people would have thought possible. There is most likely a future for the deck and it will likely get stronger before it gets weaker.

Conclusion

I feel that these are some good options to get into the format with. I didn’t have time this week to test a budget build of Counter-Top Thopters that I had seen, although it looked interesting. This is likely a topic that I will revisit in the coming weeks, so I’m not too upset that there were a few decks that I missed.

I wanted to comment on something else that has been on my mind. Everyone I know, myself included was convinced that interest in Legacy was going to drop off the map after the Grand Prix. I think the basis for this arguement is how no one cares about Extended after the PTQ season for it ends. As school has been picking up and people have started settling a lot more, I’ve noticed that attendance in local tournaments has actually been steadily increasing. Part of this is recovering from the drop off we had as school ended, but there are definitely a lot of new faces playing the format, which of course is great.
Here is a look at the updated compilation of top performing decks

Bold entries are new
x = Denotes 2nd-8th in a 64+ event or 2nd-4th in a 32+ player event.
1 = A first place finish.
Total tournaments accounted for: 7

• Zoo
  • Traditional Zoo: xxxxxxx
  • Big Zoo: 1xx
  • BRG Aggro: x
  • Cat Sligh: 1
  • Survival: x
• Merfolk
  • Mono Blue: xxxxxxx
  • U/b: xxx
  • U/w: x
• Goblins
  • R/b: xxx
  • R/g: x
  • R/b/g: x
• Combo
  • Belcher: x
  • TES: 1xxx
  • DDFT: x
  • Reanimator: xx
  • U/R Painter 1xx
• Counter Top
  • NO Counter-Top: 1xx
  • UGr: x
  • Supreme Blue: x
  • Ugwb: 1
• Survival
  • GWb: xx
  • U/G Madness: 1xxxxx
  • G/W: x
  • Elves: 1
• UG/x aggro
  • UGR Tempo Thresh: x
  • Team America: x
  • New Horizions: 1xxxxx
  • Aggro Bant +NO: x
• Emrakul Decks
  • Sneak Attack: xx
  • Eureka: x
  • Aeon Bridge: x
• Control
  • Landstill U/W: xxx
  • Landstill U/b/g: x
  • U/W Control: x
  • U/g/r Control: x
  • Dreadstill: x
  • Faeries: x
• Loam Decks
  • Aggro Loam: x
  • 43Lands.dec: x
• Midrange
  • B/w Deadguy: 1
• Chalice Decks
  • White Stax: 1xx
• Other
  • Burn: xx

Wizards has announced the 2011 Pro tour schedule, calling them ‘Magic Weekends.’ This appears to be the next iteration of the ‘Magic Festival’ concept which they began with the 2010 Pro tour. Since it’s inception the Pro tour has been considered, by many, to be an advertising cost for Wizards. A big tournament that has driven sales for Magic, however as the game has matured and grown there is a need to turn it into more than just a 300-400 person invite-only event. Thus enters the ‘Magic Weekends.’ Of especial interest is Paris which will feature a Grand Prix alongside the main event. This might be a test to see if it is a feasible model to move towards in the future.

The schedule, as announced, is as follows:

Paris, France: February 10–13, 2011

• Location: Espace Champerret
• Pro Tour format: Standard and Booster Draft with a Standard Top 8
• Grand Prix format: TBA
• Qualifier Season: October 2 through December 31, Sealed Deck format

Nagoya, Japan: June 10-12, 2011

• Location: Nagoya Congress Center
• Pro Tour format: Block Constructed and Booster Draft with a Booster Draft Top 8
• Qualifier Season: January 1 through April 10, Extended format

Philadelphia, PA USA: September 2-4, 2011

• Location: Philadelphia Convention Center
• Pro Tour format: Extended and Booster Draft with an Extended Top 8
• Qualifier Season: April 16 through July 31, Standard format

San Francisco, CA USA: November 17-20, 2011

• Location: Fort Mason Center
• 2011 World Championships formats: TBA

Wurmcoil Engine
Artifact Creature – Wurm
Deathtouch, Lifelink
When Wurmcoil Engine goes to graveyard from play, put a 3/3 Artifact Wurm token with deathtouch, and a 3/3 artifact wurm token with lifelink into play.
6/6

Update: CopySix, of mtg-realm.blogspot.com has posted a higher res image on MTG Salvation. The forum users have now confirmed that it says “And,” originally it was in question as to whether the last ability was an ‘and’ or ‘or’ for the token creation.

One of the most popular independent tournament events of the year has been announced, it will take place on Saturday, October 9th, 2010. Every State and Canadian province have a tournament organizer setup to run an event.

Winners of the 61 tournaments receive free entry to events run by participating tournament organizers, this goes for Pro Tour Qualifiers, Grand Prixes and Regionals. All Top 8 competitors will receive a special commemorative playmat.

For more information visit their website, the2009s.com or see their Facebook page.

Frameworks are the cards that are crucial to a deck’s ability to function whereas core cards are more like “cards I would not leave home without.” The latter includes cards like Path to Exile or Mana Leak that there is very little practical reason to cut from decks due to their superb efficiency at filling important roles. This is the primary purpose of thinking about frameworks. I feel that thinking about decks in terms of frameworks allows for easier differentiation of role-players. People frequently become attached to cards and put them in decks because they were good a couple weeks ago, without fully thinking through each step.

A recent example of how I think this phenomenon affected deck construction is UW Control, specifically the card Spreading Seas. I never felt this card was necessary in UW Control, so I never played it. However, I recognized that it served a useful purpose in the early part of the year, during a Jund-infested metagame. While I disagreed with the selection, I felt it was a legitimate choice that many made, since it did in fact have a strong impact on the game, both shutting down Jund’s manlands and interfering with their ability to cast spells.

However, after GP: DC, I felt like Spreading Seas became a card whose place no longer existed. The rise of Next Level Bant and Mythic made it so that there was a much larger swath of the field that Spreading Seas was mediocre against. Sure, it shut down Mythic’s manlands but in my experience if Mythic was attacking with manlands, they normally had three or so, so shutting one off didn’t do anything. I felt like Essence Scatter, Path to Exile, and Oblivion Ring all got better at this time. The fact that most UW mages were automatically putting 4 Spreading Seas into their lists at this time bothered me, mostly because I felt like the card had outlived its usefulness. Manlands can be handled by Tectonic Edge as well as Path to Exile, and I had no problems running more spot removal maindeck and editing my manabase to include Tectonic Edges. Removing Spreading Seas I felt gave UW control much more flexibility, and my own results sans Spreading Seas were very strong during that time period.

My main point is that I feel like it is important to think critically about card selection at every juncture and to frequently rebuild decks, even established ones, from the ground up. Metgames shift quickly, and your card choices need to shift just as quickly to adapt. You may not agree with my (or someone else’s) assessment of individual cards, but that is all the more reason to think critically about your own card selection. Why are you playing that card? Is it really the best card for the job you are asking it to do? Can your deck operate without it? If so, is it worth operating without it?

Sometimes these questions are trivial; most of the time they are not. I feel like players need to question card choices more frequently, and this is the most basic first step along improving your own decks. Question every card choice, make every card justify itself. Remember, the most common number selected for a card during deck construction is ZERO.

This week I wanted to talk about the value of open mana, and by corollary, why instants are so strong. It’s something that most players realize intuitively, but have most likely never thought critically about. Your mana is always either tapped or untapped. If it is tapped, you have used it, if it is untapped, you have not. Mana curves deal with how to maximize your ability to use all your mana every turn, but that is not the only way to get use out of mana. Sometimes you get good value just by leaving lands untapped. Let’s look at a very basic example:

I’m sure many of you have seen this sequence play out time and time again. Player A is playing around Lightning Bolt. Player B has gained value by simply representing the card. If he has the bolt, he can use it later, if he does not, simply having an untapped red source has saved him two damage.

So why hasn’t Player A gained value if Player B holds the Lightning Bolt? Hasn’t Player B stopped Player A from killing his Leech by not pumping? Isn’t this a value gain? In reality, the answer is no. Putrid Leech is as vulnerable to Lightning Bolt as a normal 4/4. It requires two Lightning Bolts to kill the creature. Player B should not expect to be able to kill Putrid Leech with Lightning Bolt, and should aim to use the spell for some other purpose (like killing a planeswalker or breaking a Thrinax). Of course, if Player A presents Player B with the opportunity to kill Leech with Lightning Bolt Player B should take that opportunity, but that scenario should not be expected.

In summary, Player B has gained two life simply by leaving a red source untapped. This is a relatively small gain, but it is far from unimportant. Over the course of many games, or even turns, the advantage can turn out to be a significant one. Applying this play to a more specific context, consider playing Jund against UWr control running Lightning Bolt. Assume this play repeats itself on turns 3, 4, and 5 for the Jund player (since the UWr player is on the draw). The UWr player has effectively gained a grand total of six life simply by representing Lightning Bolt; six life which most likely will prove crucial in the mid to end game. The difference between being at say 6 and 12 is rather large.

This was a very concrete example of value gained by utilizing open mana, but there are other ways of utilizing open mana. One of the biggest has been sorely lacking in the modern Standard metagame until recently – counterspells.

Counterspells represent one of the greatest ways to get “value” out of simply leaving mana untapped. By threatening to counter your opponent’s spell you can often convince them not to play it. This delays your opponent’s spells, and thereby retards their development. This is one of the primary strengths of counterspells that good blue mages have learned to utilize over the years.

When instants are concerned, the critical thing to remember is as follows: Frequently the THREAT is all that is needed, and in a nontrivial number of situations the threat will be as good as actually having the card.

This principle applies to other types of instants (burn in particular) to a lesser extent, but it is by far the most visible in counterspells.

Cryptic Command is an excellent example of a card that alters play situations simply by being represented. For those of you that played a lot of standard a couple years ago, you are surely familiar with how the mere threat of Cryptic Command changes play situations. The biggest example of this is how people would play cards like Wizened Cenn, Boggart Ram-Gang and Bloodbraid Elf post-combat to avoid the dreaded counter + tap blowout on Cryptic. No doubt many of you who played during that time period made or saw those decisions on a non-trivial basis. Whether or not the blue player actually had the card didn’t matter, people played around it anyway.

Faeries was such a force because of the number of “instants” it could threaten. In particular, Cryptic Command, Mistbind Clique, and Scion of Oona, and Spellstutter Sprite all presented their own unique challenges and had to be dealt with in different ways. Often playing around one spell would let you walk right into another, and this is why Faeries was so good.

So why is this important to deck construction? Because it is an area rife with potential advantages to gain, if only you seek to exploit them. You can accomplish that by simply putting appropriate situational instants into your deck. This far more important in limited than in constructed, but it is applicable to both formats.

This is why drafting tricks is so important. Because a wider variety of cards are playable in limited you gain the ability to represent more spells. In ZZW draft two untapped swamps could represent either Disfigure or Urge to Feed. Does that mean your 4/4 should attack into your opponent’s 2/2? If he has Disfigure you are likely okay, since it’s still a two for one, but what if he has Urge to Feed? Then your 4/4 just dies. What if his 2/2 is a vampire and your creature is a 5/5? Does that change the situation?

Forcing your opponent to answer questions like these is a critical part of gaining small, marginal advantages over the course of the game. These advantages can easily add up to swing a match one way or another. A player that plays too cautiously is liable to lose a match he could have otherwise won through more aggressive play. Likewise, a player that plays too aggressively is liable to lose a match he could have won by playing more cautiously. Instants are the fundamental wheel on which these advantages turn.

Within the game of Magic it is absolutely crucial to find the proper balance between aggression and caution, and the player who balances these two opposing forces better will often come out on top. But it is important to remember that at some point, your opponent will call your bluffs. That is why it is important to actually have “it.”

Sometimes your opponent will run his Jace out on turn 4, even in the face of 1U up. Then, it is important to actually have the Mana Leak or Negate to punish your opponent, so that he will think twice about doing it in the future. If you never actually have “it” your opponent will quickly learn to not play around it, and your advantage that you gain by leaving mana up is nullified. Proper placement of instants can make a hand of cards look much more threatening than it actually is, but it must still be supported by an appropriate decklist which gives the player the opportunity to make those plays.

Thus it is important to remember during deck construction what kind of tricks your opponent is likely to play around and include them in your deck, but not to overload on them. You want enough that you can gain a good advantage whenever you play the card, but also few enough so that they don’t clog your hand. It’s a delicate balance to strike.

As an example, let’s look at a Legacy card – Daze. In this case, “open mana” simply represents having an Island in play. Daze is one of the defining cards in Legacy, but should it even be in your deck? There are three main things to think about when you decide whether or not to include Daze (sideboarding is often when this decision is made).

1. Am I on the play or on the draw?
2. How effective is Daze in this match-up?
3. Is my opponent playing around Daze?

Daze is far more effective on the play than on the draw, if only because the card is easy enough to play around and the tempo loss significant enough on the draw that using it is frequently not desirable in those situations. Thus having Daze in your 60 on the draw is a decision not to be made lightly. But there are situations where it is correct.

The next thing to consider is the effectiveness of Daze. Daze’s effectiveness is directly proportional to how mana-tight a deck is. Green decks typically have less trouble with the card, if only because they run far more mana and sometimes mana acceleration like Birds or Noble Hierarch. Obviously an ineffective card should be cut.

Both of these are normal sideboarding thought processes that deal with the effectiveness of the card. The third line of thought is how you gain value by simply representing Daze.

If your opponent consistently plays around Daze, it is potentially correct to board it out, even if you would leave it in otherwise (on the play, in a match-up where Daze is effective). Why? Because you can get the effect of Daze simply by having an Island in play. You don’t even need to have the card in your hand. Your opponent is doing the job for you by consistently playing around the card. On the other end of the spectrum if your opponent never plays around Daze you should probably leave it in, even if it is not very effective or you are on the draw, because you are likely to get better value out of it based on the way your opponent is playing.

In the end, the critical thing to remember about the value of open mana is that it is extremely fluid and situation specific. However, it is important to keep that in mind when building decks (or sideboarding), if only because there are many small advantages that can be gained by threatening spells. It is often viable to play a deck that does not interact on this front, but be aware that there is a legitimate sacrifice there, and thus it is important to keep this kind of situation in mind when designing decks.

Chingsung Chang
Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO
Khan32k5@gmail.com

In my opinion the best way to make sure your opponents do not win is to simply deny them the opportunity to do so. There are a few ways to accomplish this. One is mana denial. The problem with mana denial is that your deck generally needs to be built around it. Even worse you need a dominant board position to actually seal the deal before you cast the LD spell. Mana denial of course has its place, but only in moderation with other more aggressive or controlling strategies. This means our deck will have some version of LD, just not as much as initially expected.

The next method to ensure an opponent does not win is to simply counter everything they do. This is by far the most obnoxious method to deny the opponent their chances. Nothing is more frustrating than watching everything you do go down the drain in a one for one manner. Worse, control decks usually back these spells up with card drawing to counteract their one for one barrage with card advantage. Counterspells will be our primary tool to win, or at least set up enough time for victory, with this deck.

The final method is to simply not let the opponent take another turn. There are ample extra turn effects in EDH, and I’ve seen them used to great success. It can be particularly effective to take the rest of the turns in a match. This past weekend I was the head judge for the TCGplayer.com Open Qualifier in Orlando. Several rounds in a row I witnessed a player use Pyromancer’s Ascension to take all five of the extra turns in the extended time. Each time this happened that player won the game. Unfair? Yes. Effective? Undoubtedly.

For this deck we will be using mono-blue. Blue offers us the most number of counterspells, and of course the most card drawing. Mono colored also lets us optimize the number of non-color producing lands we can use. Blue also offers us a solid number of generals to choose from. While there is much to be said for Vendilion Clique, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, and of course Azami, Lady of Scrolls, I have selected Arcanis the Omnipotent to lead the troops. Arcanis lets us draw cards and will ultimately let us combo out, killing an entire table in one fell swoop!

Let’s look at the various breakdowns, starting with mana denial effects. Strip Mine and Wasteland are almost uncounterable ways to destroy lands and just get better when we are able to recur them. Enter Crucible of Worlds! Crucible lets us reuse those amazing effects until we get tired of crushing dreams. We also have a nice kill condition and crushing land destruction effect in Sundering Titan. The titan single handedly wipes out many lands and cripples board positions, typically to the point of no return.

Up next we have our extra turn effects. They are fairly straight forward, as are the card drawing effects, so instead I would like to highlight some of the tutor options available. Personal Tutor and Mystical Tutor are both great ways to find extra turn effects, and in some cases the more powerful card drawers. We also use a great tutor effect in Planar Portal. The portal lets us go infinite with Beacon of Tomorrows and also lets us set up some of the true infinite combos the deck has to offer.

Finally, we have the counterspell package. I’ve packed fifteen counterspells into this list, and each has an added benefit. Each spell steals creatures, counters game breaking effects, and of course draws cards. There have been games that have been won by commandeering a key combo piece, and of course simply winning from an unwinnable position. Just remember, we only need to go to the mid to late game, use your counterspells sparingly! This is especially true if you are going to be battling with more than one opponent. Ultimately we have multiple ways to combo infinitely and simply need the time to have that happen.

Without further ado, I give you the final list. This list is based off of a very competitive deck piloted by two of my friends, Shawn French in Atlanta (DFMT!) and Chris Boyle in Cape Coral, Florida.

"Arcanis, the Spikiest of EDH"

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General (1) Arcanis the Omnipotent Extra turn Effects (7) 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 1 Time Warp 1 Capture of Jingzhou 1 Temporal Manipulation 1 Time Stretch 1 Walk the Aeons 1 Beacon of Tomorrows Counterspells/Card Drawing (26) 1 Force of Will 1 Misdirection 1 Commandeer 1 Pact of Negation 1 Thwart 1 Rewind 1 Remand 1 Hinder 1 Counterspell 1 Desertion 1 Mana Drain 1 Cryptic Command 1 Dismiss 1 Deprive 1 Negate 1 Memory Jar 1 Time Spiral 1 Time Reversal 1 Twincast 1 Opportunity 1 Compulsion 1 Frantic Search 1 Fact or Fiction 1 Ancestral Vision 1 Jace's Ingenuity 1 Stroke of Genius Tutors (4) 1 Planar Portal 1 Personal Tutor 1 Mystical Tutor 1 Sensei's Divining Top Mana Acceleration (9) 1 Extraplanar Lens 1 Sol Ring 1 Sapphire Medallion 1 Gauntlet of Power 1 Mana Crypt 1 Grim Monolith 1 Mana Vault 1 Gilded Lotus 1 Solemn Simulacrum Utility Cards (17) 1 Mind Over Matter 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Treachery 1 Control Magic 1 Bribery 1 Vedalken Shackles 1 Capsize 1 Evacuation 1 Spin into Myth 1 Vensir, Shaper Savant 1 Forcefield 1 Wipe Away 1 Sundering Titan 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Leyline of Anticipation 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir 1 Tezzeret the Seeker Lands (36) 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea 1 Strip Mine 1 Wasteland 1 Tolaria West 1 Magosi, the Water's Veil 1 Ancient Tomb 1 Maze of Ith 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge 28 Island

There are multiple infinite combos packed into this list and while I would love to take the time to run through them this week, that will have to wait for another time. Next week I will be in Amsterdam testing for my level three Judge certification (yay!), so join me in two weeks when we go through the ins and outs of being a jerk in EDH!

Until then, this is Benjamin McDole giving you a hundred reasons to play magic!

“Welcome, welcome! We are glad to have so many students returning to the Academy this year as we finally reopen the doors! As some of you may know, we did have a bit of a temporal mishap, and while we have cleaned up and incorporated fascinating new facilities in our rebuilding, students are cautioned to be vigilant and not to wander into any restricted areas.

Now, I know it’s been a long day just traveling to the island but step lively and hurry to your quarters, your classes begin in just five minutes! Don’t fret though! After calculating the amount of time wasted with rest, we have built the dormitories in fast-time rifts! Sleep well students, I expect brilliant things from you all this year.”

It’s time for all students to be heading back to school, and I decided to craft a casual multiplayer deck based around Magic’s most famous school, Tolarian Academy, to celebrate. I loved college and this is a great time of the year for students. The university is filled with interesting events in the evenings as the weather is still warm and inviting. You reconnect with friends and social groups after the long summer. You get to eyeball all of the projects and topics that you’ll be exploring for the next three months, and begin plotting your strategy to ace your classes while still having time to get your Magic game on. It’s wonderful.

So, here we are, watching the first class of the freshly rebuilt Tolarian Academy be greeted back to school. They seem to have a monster of a year before them, complete with temporal features both dangerous and advantageous, depending on the cunning of the students and faculty.

Now when I originally began designing this list, I had it in mind to craft an EDH list, but I quickly scrapped that idea when I noticed that the most important card, Tolarian Academy, was on the EDH banned list. How depressing! But I understand the reasoning behind it. Being that my whole theme was based around this card, I would have to alter the format in mind.

The monstrous deck that resulted is a vintage legal, casual multiplayer deck. I’ll be first to admit that it is not the most competitive deck, but it sure is fun, even if you get a slow start. First of all, one of the planned ways to win is Battle of Wits. This is the main reason to have a 260 card deck. Yes, 260 cards. That may seem like a silly thing, but if your opponents don’t take you seriously, you are going to win right out from under their noses.

"Tolarian Back to School Special"

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Creature (60) 3 Academy Rector 2 Academy Researchers 3 AEther Adept 2 Archivist 3 Auramancer 1 Barrin, Master Wizard 3 Blinding Mage 2 Bottle Gnomes 1 Braids, Conjurer Adept 4 Chronozoa 4 Disruptive Student 1 Ertai, Wizard Adept 1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator 2 Hapless Researcher 1 Karn, Silver Golem 2 Lost Auramancers 1 Magus of the Moat 3 Mnemonic Wall 2 Patron Wizard 1 Rayne, Academy Chancellor 3 Scrivener 2 Stern Proctor 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir 2 Temporal Adept 2 Tolarian Emissary 2 Tolarian Entrancer 2 Tolarian Sentinel 2 Treasure Hunter 2 Wizard Mentor Instants (24) 4 Counterspell 1 Enlightened Tutor 1 Ertai's Meddling 4 Impulse 1 Mystical Tutor 2 Opportunity 3 Ovinize 4 Rewind 2 Snap 1 Time Stop 1 Words of Wisdom Artifacts (19) 2 Barrin's Codex 1 Book of Rass 3 Cloud Key 1 Crystal Chimes 4 Elixir of Immortality 1 Jayemdae Tome 2 Urza's Incubator 1 Voltaic Key 4 Worn Powerstone Enchantments (42) 1 Arcane Laboratory 1 Aura of Silence 3 Battle of Wits 1 Cast Through Time 2 Confiscate 2 Control Magic 2 Copy Artifact 1 Hanna's Custody 2 Hermetic Study 1 Levitation 1 March of the Machines 2 Mind Control 1 Moat 4 Oblivion Ring 1 Opposition 2 Persuasion 2 Private Research 1 Pursuit of Knowledge 1 Rhystic Study 1 Second Chance 2 Slow Motion 2 Take Possession 2 Teferi's Moat 3 Temporal Isolation 1 Treachery Sorceries (24) 3 Chronomantic Escape 1 Idyllic Tutor 2 Open the Vaults 1 Personal Tutor 3 Relearn 3 Replenish 2 Temporal Fissure 3 Tidings 1 Time Stretch 2 Time Warp 2 Wash Out 1 Windfall Lands (91) 2 Academy Ruins 4 Calciform Pools 4 Coastal Tower 4 Faerie Conclave 4 Forbidding Watchtower 39 Island 4 Lotus Vale 25 Plains 4 Tolaria West 1 Tolarian Academy

Forty-two enchantments in this deck allow you a number of options as you work the table to set-up your win. With cards like Academy Rector, Lost Auramancers, Enlightened Tutor and Idyllic Tutor, you have a very high likeliehood of being able to tutor up a copy of Battle of Wits without much difficulty. Should you be countered when playing Battle of Wits or should it be destroyed before you’re glorious upkeep, you can try again thanks to Replenish, Open the Vaults, Auramancer, or reload it into your library with Elixir of Immortality.

If there should be a reason you can’t search up the Battle of Wits, you can play the long game with creatures like Chonozoa, an assortment of legendary creatures related to the school, and time manipulating effects to allow you extra turns. Using Mnemonic devices and Relearning vital lessons, you can cast advantage gaining spells over and over again to help you lock in your win.

There are also a few cards that will help you protect your win-condition and edge out certain annoying or devestating cards that often crop up in a multiplayer game, thanks to Disruptive Student, Counterspell, Rewind, and Ertai, Wizard Adept.

Those who wander into the basements will find one of Urza’s strange artifacts, Urza’s Incubator, where he is hard at work attempting to raise a new race. Lucky for you, there are only a few creatures who are not Human. Should you stumble across the Incubator, you’ll only have to pay full price for Karn, Silver Golem, Mnemonic Wall, Bottle Gnomes, and Chornozoa.

This year’s focus on enchantments, while allowing us the Battle of Wits win condition, also allows us to have a toolbox of other effects that synergy nicely with the abilities of many of the academy’s inhabitants. Being able to reuse enchantments after they’ve been destroyed, fetching them up and sneaking them into play allow the academy’s defenders to gain control of the intruders forces and turn them back on each other.

Another mode of defense employed is simply denying access by locking up the school behind defensive moats and methods of returning creatures back into the aether they came from. Then, when the opportunity arises, Levitation allows the students to overcome their own defenses and strike down their harassers.

Take a look at the list of cards and take in the flavor of the Tolarian Academy. With so many talented students, talented faculty and powerful enchantments and artifacts at their disposal, I think you will enjoy marshaling their forces and utilizing the quirky fractures in time as the Academy fights back against any intruders who may be trying to take a stroll through Tolaria’s prized garden, the Lotus Vale.

Bonus feature: No doubt you noticed certain cards from Tolaria’s future included in the list, but there is also a strange new student, who traveled all the way from Otaria (and through a temporal rift between universes), to become a researcher at the Academy. Enjoy!

After signing up for Nats we went to Fogo de Chao for dinner; if you ever want the best service and meat in your life; I suggest you go there. The food is so scrumptious and it’s all you can eat. So after having dinner served to us on swords we all went back to the hotel to register our decks and head to bed.

The next morning we arrive at the tournament and get ready for the player meeting. I decided to play R/G Valakut Ramp with summoning Traps main for the standard portion. Even though it felt awkward not playing Jace, the Mind Sculptor – I knew this deck was really good and proved to do well in testing against everything except red deck wins – which I was not expecting much off and Ascension which I had a lot of sideboard hate for. Here’s the deck:

"R/G Valakut"

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Creatures (19) 4 Primeval Titan 4 Siege Gang Commander 4 Inferno Titan 4 Bloodbraid Elf 2 Avenger of Zendikar 1 Terastodon Spells (15) 4 Rampant Growth 3 Explore 3 Cultivate 2 Harrow 3 Summoning Trap Lands (26) 2 Raging Ravine 2 Evolving Wilds 3 Terramorphic Expanse 4 Forest 4 Valakut, the Molteb Pinnacle 11 Mountain Sideboard (15) 4 Obstinate Baloth 4 Nature's Claim 3 Pyroclasm 2 Gaea's Revenge 2 Back to Nature

I originally had 2 Slave of Bolas and 1 Swamp instead of 2 Gaea’s Revenge and 1 Nature’s Claim, but I opted to play Gaea’s Revenge and another claim because I expected a lot of Ascension and U/W.

Round one (James W. Seelhoff playing R/G Valakut)

He wins the die roll and is on the play. He starts things off with a Rampant Growth and I mirror his play. He has Cultivate to ramp even further while I just have a Harrow. He has the Primeval Titan next turn and all I have is a Bloodbraid Elf that hits an Explore. I then die to his Primeval Titan getting Valakut and some lands, what a skill intensive game one!

I’m now wishing I played the Slave of Bolas sideboard.

-4 Bloodbraid Elf

+4 Obstinate Baloth

Game two I am on the play, and end up mulling to four. I ramp a little with Rampant Growth but start missing land drops he has the turn four Primeval Titan and I just scoop’em up!

0-1

Round two (Peter J. Klinstiver playing U/W Control)

I win the die roll and surprisingly chose to play first. I Cultivate on turn three after he plays a Wall of Omens. On my turn four I attempt a Siege-Gang Commander which gets Deprived, the following turn I just double Cultivate and hopes he counters one and if he doesn’t I should be out of Mana Leak range. He doesn’t counter anything and plays a Jace, the Mind Sculptor on his turn and Brainstorms. I cast an Inferno Titan killing his Jace which he doesn’t answer and ships the turn back. The following turn I cast an Avenger of Zendikar knowing that he brainstormed and put 2 cards he didn’t need on top. I assumed since he didn’t have an answer for Inferno Titan that he wouldn’t have one for the Avenger either. He didn’t and scooped when the Avenger hit play.

-3 Explore -2 Harrow

+2 Back to Nature +1 Nature’s Claim +2 Gaea’s Revenge

I don’t want to get blown out by casting Harrow and him countering it so I take them out.

Game two I start things off with Rampant Growth on turn two. On turn three I have no lands in hand, but I do have a Cultivate. I just cast the Cultivate calmly hoping he doesn’t counter it – he tanks for a bit than counters it. I do not have another land and my hand and regretfully ship the turn back. I eventually start drawing some land a couple turns later and luckily rip another Cultivate which he doesn’t counter. He ends up having Gideon Jura, Elspeth, and Jace all on the field and has my Primeval Titan Oblivion Ring‘ed along with my Siege-Gang Commander with Journey to Nowhere. I have Valakut online and at the end one of his turn after he attacks me to 11 (thanks to Elspeth and Gideon) I try to Nature’s Claim his Oblivion Ring which he promptly counters. I then cast Back to Nature which he has no answer to and I am able to kill him with Valakut triggers and Siege-Gang Tokens.

1-1

Round three (Andrew D. Vick playing Mythic)

I’m on the play again this match, but don’t have anything to exciting where as Andrew busts out the gates with turn one Noble Hierarch and turn two Lotus Cobra followed by a tap land which allows him to play a Birds of Paradise. He casts a turn three Jace TMS and Brainstorms. I am able to cast a Bloodbraid Elf which hits a Rampant Growth and attack his Jace. He doesn’t block with his Cobra and Jace dies. The following turn he has a fetch land and drops a Linvala, Keeper of Silence along with a Night of the Reliquary. I cast an Inferno Titan promptly killing his Birds, Noble, and Cobra. He is out of gas at this point and I am able to cast a Primeval Titan to kill his Knight and seal game one.

-3 Summoning Traps – 1 Terrastodon -1 Explore

+3 Pyroclasm +2 Back to Nature

Again Andrew has a lighting fast start with turn one Noble Hierarch followed by turn two double Lotus Cobras, turn three Dauntless Escort and turn four Knight of the Reliquary. I have a turn four Inferno Titan and try to kill his Cobra’s and Hierarch – Andrew will have none of that and sacs his Dauntless Escort and on his turn he hard casts an Eldrazi Conscription and swings. I draw for my turn and don’t have a Back to Nature so I concede.

Game three I have a turn two Explore followed by a turn three Rampant Growth and Pyroclasm to kill his turn two Lotus Cobra. He casts a Fauna Shaman and I just ramp some more. He discards a Sovereigns of Lost Alara to get a Knight of the Reliquary and plays it. I play a Primeval Titan and kill his Knight. Andrew uses the shaman’s ability again discarding a Fauna Shaman to get another Knight and casts it. The next turn I am able to cast Avenger of Zendikar and have three mountains hit the field clearing his board all the while growing my deadly salad tokens.

2-1

Round Four (Brandon M. Nelson playing U/W Control)

I am on a roll and win another die roll. I try and start things off with a Cultivate but Brandon swiftly Mana Leaks it. I later try for a Siege-Gang Commander which he Cancels and then misses his land drop. I attempt an Inferno Titan all the while holding Primeval Titan in my hand trying to drain him of his counter spells and saving the best titan for last – which ends up working because my Inferno Titan gets countered. The next turn Brandon is still missing land drops and I try for an Avenger of Zendikar which gets Essence Scattered. I finally cast the last threat in my hand which is the Primeval Titan and it resolves I quickly tutor up a Raging Ravine and one Valakut. Brandon is able to keep my Primeval Titan in check with Path to Exile, but Raging Ravine is able to end the game while Brandon is stuck on four lands.

-2 Explore -2 Harrow

+2 Gaea’s Revenge +2 Back to Nature

Things start off a little slow this game with me ramping a little and him just playing lands. I cast a turn three Bloodbraid Elf which hits a Rampant Growth, he leaks the Bloodbraid Elf and lets the Rampant Growth resolve. Next turn I play a Siege-Gang Commandeer which he counters I then cast a summoning trap which he also counters. He is stuck on four lands again, but has an Elspeth to get things going on his side. By this time I have Valakut online so I cast an Inferno Titan which resolves and does three to his Elspeth, I follow this up with a mountain to get rid of the pesky planeswalker. On his turn he wipes the board with a Day of Judgment. I have a Bloodbraid Elf which hits a Cultivate putting him at seven after combat. He taps out for another Day of Judgement and on my turn I cast a Gaea’s Revenge that domes him for lethal. Now it’s time to draft!

3-1

I regretfully didn’t take many notes on the drafts but I know I drafted a really bad green/white deck with three Palace Guards, couple of fliers, two Pacifisms, and some 2/2 bears. The best thing I had in my deck was my pack one pick one – Platinium Angel. Everything else was supposed to stall until I could cast her which happened to work a lot of the games. People couldn’t do anything about her when she resolved. I ended up going 2-1 this draft putting me at 6-2 for the day which was a decent day one.

Day two I end up drafting another bad deck, this time it’s U/B fliers with two sign in bloods and no removal spells, because I never opened any Doom Blades and never saw Quag Sickness.

My first opponent was Peter Ingram. We get deck checked so I hand my deck to the judge and then take out my sideboard, which was in a big card sleeve that was also holding some extra sleeves for my deck incase one ripped. After the Judge walks away this hipster reaches over without asking and squeezes the sleeve. He replies with, “Some Judges don’t do their job well enough, you could’ve been cheating. Sometimes I have to do their job.” I’m a nice guy and just refrain from saying anything. The Judge comes back and I end up getting a game loss for misregistering my deck. Apparently I marked as having Serra Angel in my sideboard when I meant to mark Serra’s Ascendant. I then have to play a game without sideboarding and lose; I just sign the slip and quickly walk away.

My next round I play against Alexander West a really awesome guy that totally steam rolls me with his mono white aggro deck. I chat with Alex for a bit after the match then mark the drop box, Alex tries to convince me to keep playing that I shouldn’t drop just yet. I thank him, but didn’t listen and now regret it. Thanks anyway for trying Alex!

Even though I didn’t do so hot in the big event I still had a blast that weekend. I played against Brian Kibler in a two-headed giant event. His team had a Serra Ascendant which is really broken in two-headed giant since your starting life total is thirty. I ended up cubing a ton this weekend, and I highly suggest trying to cube if you’ve never done it. It’s really fun! Now I am off to test for Amsterdam and try and get more drafts in to up my draft skills. Hopefully I will be well prepared for Amsterdam, thanks for reading everyone!