Last week I wrote a bit about mana curves, within the context of M11 limited. Mana curves are very powerful because they allow you to utilize all your mana every single turn. Because Magic is a game fundamentally about resource utilization (normally the person who utilizes their total resources better is the winner), using all your mana (one of your most important resources) every turn is clearly desirable.

Players also quickly learned that “cheating” spells into play earlier than normal is great too. More expensive spells tended to have larger impacts on games, and thus casting them earlier put you in a better position, frequently good enough to recoup the lost card economy. This was most evident in one of Necro’s most famous plays: T1, Swamp, Dark Ritual, Hypnotic Specter.

The basic principle of this play is to use Hypnotic Specter and the accompanied discard ability to recoup the card disadvantage due to the use of Dark Ritual. Spending the Dark Ritual allows you a tempo gain, and the idea is to use that tempo gain to generate a different kind of advantage. Hypnotic Specter could not only recover the lost card, it could also turn into card advantage itself if it hit a second time. Random discard also had the effect of disrupting an opponent’s strategy or line of play by hitting a critical card or land. Many games, your opponent would never recover from T1 Hypnotic Specter. You got lucky and hit a land or an important spell, and from there the Specter held them down.

Of course, mana acceleration also comes in creature form. Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves have been accelerating out bigger guys since Magic was first created, and now Noble Hierarch has joined their ranks. Obviously mana acceleration affects your curve, but how?

It’s important to remember two things about mana acceleration – where you are coming from (mana cost) and where you are going (what you are accelerating into). This is where curve becomes important.

Consider, as an illustration, vanilla creatures at each CMC:
1: Mons’s Goblin Raiders
2: Grizzly Bears
3: Trained Armodon
4: Hill Giant/Order of the Sacred Bell
5: Fomori Nomad

The difference between successive mana costs gets smaller and smaller. In other words, if you can cast a two mana spell with the same ease you can cast a one mana spell you have a bigger advantage than someone who can cast a three mana spell with the same ease they can cast a two mana spell. The end result of this is that mana acceleration becomes less valuable as you go up the curve*. Because of this fact, it is important for you to take advantage of mana acceleration while you have it.

This means that you have to have spells you are accelerating into. You have to know where your mana acceleration comes on the curve, but also where it accelerates you to. Let’s take a look at the most commonly used mana acceleration in Standard.

1: Noble Hierarch, Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves
2: Lotus Cobra, Explore, Rampant Growth, Nest Invader
3: Cultivate, Harrow
4: Garruk Wildspeaker, Kozilek’s Predator

The one mana spells all accelerate you from 1 to 3. The two mana spells accelerate you from 2 to 4, and Lotus Cobra can often accelerate you from 2 to 5. Cultivate and Harrow accelerate you from 3 to 5, and the four mana spells accelerate you to 6 or 7, depending on if you are able to naturally make your next land drop.

What does this mean? It means that you have to play spells at the appropriate mana cost to take advantage of your mana acceleration. If you are playing Cultivate alongside a bunch of four drops, Cultivate isn’t really doing anything for you, because your four drops are still coming down on turn 4, and not on turn 3.

The deck designer who probably understands mana acceleration the best is Zvi Mowshowitz. Let’s take a look at one of his recent creations: Mythic.

Creatures (30) 4 Baneslayer Angel 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Lotus Cobra 4 Noble Hierarch 2 Rampaging Baloths 4 Rhox War Monk 1 Thornling 3 Rafiq of the Many Spells (3) 3 Finest Hour Lands (27) 6 Forest 2 Island 1 Plains 4 Celestial Colonnade 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Sejiri Steppe 3 Stirring Wildwood 2 Sunpetal Grove 4 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard (15) 2 Admonition Angel 4 Mind Control 3 Bant Charm 3 Negate 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Day of Judgment

The mana acceleration is, of course, Birds, Hierarch, and Cobra. In order to give purpose to the use of these cards, Zvi runs a high concentration of threats in the slots that take advantage of them. He runs 8 3-drops (Knight and War Monk), and takes advantage of the Lotus Cobra acceleration by running a bunch of 4’s and 5’s (Baneslayer, Finest Hour, Rafiq, and the singleton Thornling). Thus he has 8 one-drops that accelerate into 8 three-drops, and four two-drops that accelerate into 11 4’s and 5’s. Indeed, Zvi makes very good use of his mana acceleration, and uses Celestial Colonnade and Stirring Wildwood to make sure that his mana does not go to waste later in the game.

The modern evolution of Mythic is based much on the same principle. If you note the deck essentially skips the two drop slot entirely, relying on Knight of the Reliquary, Dauntless Escort, and Rhox War Monk to fill the three slot. Where it really shines though is when you get to 4 and up. Cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Baneslayer Angel, and Sovereigns of Lost Alara come down MUCH faster than normal because of the quantity of mana acceleration the deck runs. In essence, Mythic is a deck that showcases the full power of Lotus Cobra.

Let’s consider a counterexample. This list is by Kamiya Shogo from the recent PTQ in Kanazawa, Japan.

Creatures (4) 2 Frost Titan 2 Primeval Titan Spells (31) 2 Into the Roil 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Mana Leak 3 Garruk Wildspeaker 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Cultivate 3 Destructive Force 3 Explore 2 Mind Spring 3 Rampant Growth Lands (25) 4 Forest 4 Island 3 Mountain 2 Halimar Depths 2 Khalni Garden 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Raging Ravine 2 Scalding Tarn Sideboard (15) 1 Mold Shambler 3 Obstinate Baloth 2 Pelakka Wurm 2 Mind Control 4 Negate 1 Destructive Force 2 Earthquake

This deck REALLY wants to hit four mana on turn three. It has Garruk, Jace, and kicked Into the Roil in the 4 slot, not to mention Obstinate Baloth out of the sideboard. Thus, the Cultivates in this list make little sense without seeing the 4th Rampant Growth and Explore. The Cultivate has no real purpose other than ensuring the deck can play a tap land on turn 3 after playing Rampant Growth on turn 2, or hold up Lightning Bolt mana after a turn 2 Growth/Explore. Cultivate does almost nothing for the deck if Growth/Explore has not played before it.

Rampant Growth and Explore serve this deck much better than Cultivate, especially in conjunction with Garruk. Garruk allows the deck to ramp directly to 6 (titans) or 7 (Destructive Force). Cultivate is, in and of itself, an excellent card, but it is out of place in this deck, as it has nothing really at 5 to take advantage of the acceleration Cultivate provides.

It is important to remember when constructing decks that each card you pick must have a purpose. It must justify its place. The most common number to select for a card in deck construction is not one, two, three, or four, but zero. In all formats, you omit more cards than you include, and thus each copy of a card, even the first, must justify itself at the expense of all other potential inclusions. Mana acceleration is one of the aspects where it is critical to think about this, because it affects what is good in your deck and what is not. By understanding where your mana acceleration lies on the curve and where it jumps your curve to, you are able to build the rest of your deck to accommodate that effect.

Let’s take a look at a different approach to a card combination Ben Hayes presented last week – Knight of the Reliquary and Destructive Force. Knight of the Reliquary is clearly strongest in more aggressive strategies (Vengevine Naya and Mythic being examples). The problem is that Destructive Force is, at first glance, not very good in aggressive strategies. It is a 7-caster after all.

But, Destructive Force has an interesting effect on the game at 7 mana. By forcing an opponent to sacrifice 5 lands, it can absolutely cripple their ability to respond defensively to any pressure you have been able to keep on the board. Of course, keeping pressure on the board post-force is an issue, as it does 5 damage to everything, but that is something that perhaps can be worked around.

Thus there are two core components to this strategy:

1. We want a midrange, aggressive deck to take advantage of Knight of the Reliquary.
2. We want that deck to contain enough threats that survive Destructive Force so that when we cast Force, it will make our opponent unable to stop what pressure remains on the board.

Let’s take a look at number 2 first, since that is going to be crucial to how we build our deck. How can we get threats to survive Force?

1. Sejiri Steppe
2. Dauntless Escort
3. Planeswalkers
4. 6+ toughness
5. 5+ toughness + exalted trigger

It is also worthwhile to mention that Vengevine sort of survives Force since he can come back after any two creature drops.

Thus we have a core threat set. We need creatures that have 5 and 6 toughness in addition to Knight of the Reliquary. That leaves us with basically titans and Baneslayer Angel (alongside planeswalkers of course). So, let’s compile a list of threats in Naya colors – Primeval Titan, Sun Titan, Inferno Titan, Baneslayer Angel, Garruk Wildspeaker, Ajani Vengeant, Gideon Jura, Elspeth, Knight-Errant. These are the threats that will have permanence in our deck.

Garruk, Primeval Titan, Sun Titan, Ajani, and Elspeth seem particularly interesting. The first give us additional consistency in casting Destructive Force (Sun Titan returns fetchlands). Ajani disrupts our opponent’s mana while Elspeth creates creatures and makes our own guys bigger. Sun Titan also returns Escort, allowing us to protect our guys better from opposing Wraths and our own Forces. Thus we want to be playing threats at basically 4 and 6.

So, what do we have now? We have Dauntless Escort and Knight of the Reliquary at three, and we have Planeswalkers at 4, Baneslayer at 5, Titans at 6, and Force at 7. This is the curve of the cards we want to play. Seeing this curve means we need some mana acceleration. Going from 1 to 3 as well as 2 to 4 is going to be strong, which means we want a Mythic-like suite of mana acceleration. For starters, let’s try the following:

4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Cobra

This gives us 10 accelerators, as well as the exalted triggers to help our Baneslayers survive.

Now we add our three mana spells:

4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dauntless Escort

This leaves us at 18 spells, which means we have 16 slots left, assuming we want to run 26 lands, which seems fair. Considering we have yet to put Destructive Force in the deck, we have realistically 13 slots, assuming we run 3 Force, which seems like a good place to start.

With 13 slots, I think a good place to start is to divide them as follows:

3 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Ajani Vengeant
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Baneslayer Angel
2 Primeval Titan
1 Sun Titan

This uses all thirteen of our slots. Ideally we would like some room for some utility cards (Path and O-Ring spring to mind), so let’s look for potential cuts. The fourth Escort seems like it could be cut, and Elspeth seems like the least important of the threats, so let’s cut one of each for a pair of Oblivion Rings. After adding lands, we arrive at the following list.

Creatures (23) 4 Noble Hierarch 2 Birds of Paradise 4 Lotus Cobra 4 Knight of the Reliquary 3 Dauntless Escort 3 Baneslayer Angel 2 Primeval Titan 1 Sun Titan Spells (11) 3 Garruk Wildspeaker 2 Ajani Vengeant 1 Elspeth, Knight Errant 3 Destructive Force 2 Oblivion Ring Lands (26) 6 Forest 2 Plains 2 Mountain 2 Jungle Shrine 2 Stirring Wildwood 2 Raging Ravine 2 Arid Mesa 3 Misty Rainforest 3 Verdant Catacomb 2 Sejiri Steppe Sideboard (15) 1 Dauntless Escort 1 Ajani Vengeant 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 3 Path to Exile 1 Oblivion Ring 3 Cunning Sparkmage 2 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Basilisk Collar 1 Behemoth Sledge

This list is basically untested. I’ve only played a few games with it but it’s definitely powerful. The manabase seems like the primary weakness thus far. It is a little bit unstable. I’d love to be able to include one or two Tectonic Edge to supplement Ajani and Force, but that is too greedy at the moment. Perhaps there is a good way to stabilize the manabase, but I can’t find it right now. Comments are welcome.

The sideboard is also just a starting point, the idea being that the planeswalkers, Escort, and O-Ring probably come in against control while you can board in the Sparkmage/Equip package against aggro. It’s possible that there should be more board space dedicated to control and ramp, I’m not sure. For those of you who are qualified for nationals and interested in testing a Destructive Force list, you should give this a shot. Regardless, the list above is an example of what you can do with mana acceleration and how it affects your card choices and curve.

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

* = Of course, this is only a general trend, and if there are particularly powerful cards in certain mana slots, it can well be worth accelerating into them, even if they are more expensive or off curve.

In 2009 I made Top 4 of Regionals and played in my first Nation Championship. I also made Top 8 of a PTQ for the first time in an Extended PTQ at Pro Tour Austin, and then made Top 8 again the next weekend in a Sealed PTQ in New York. I lost in the first round of the Top 8 both times, but definitely felt like the matches were winnable if I had been able to keep my nerves a bit more in check. In January of 2010 I won a Magic Online PTQ for San Juan with the Tezzeret Gifts deck that broke out at Worlds.

Unfortunately, my ability to test Block Constructed for San Juan was impaired because the people local to me who were qualified all ended up on an exclusive team. I played a lot of Magic Online to prepare. I kept telling myself that as long as I knew how all the decks in the format worked, I would be comfortable piloting whatever I determined to be the best choice, with whatever information I could gather.

Fortunately, I was able to gather a good amount of information the day before the event (not recommended). Gavin Verhey hooked me up with a sweet Aggro-Control deck, and everything worked out as planned. All ten opponents that I faced in Block Constructed were playing decks that I was familiar with from my practice on Magic Online, and I was able to effectively pilot a deck that I only first saw a day earlier to a perfect constructed record.

So now I’m qualified for Pro Tour Amsterdam and US Nationals. I’ll be going to both events, as well as a handful of GP’s over the course of the rest of the year.

Alright, enough about me. You’re here for competitive strategy, not my biography.

This week I’m going to be writing about M11 cards. Although Standard is less important to me right now than Extended and Legacy, it is more than likely the most important format to you. This weekend there will be PTQs with M11, and then there are Nationals the Nationals Grinders for the main event.

M11 is a very playable set, there’s no arguing with that. Looking at the list of Mythic Rares, I would say that the worst Mythic in the set, Demon of Death’s Gate, is still potentially constructed playable. Every other Mythic is either already being played, has been played, or is very likely to end up in a deck. Moving over to the Rares, I think you’ve got a long list of borderline playable cards that will fall on one side or the other after Shards block rotates. There are certainly Rares that I think will not be played, but it seems to me that a very decent number have possible constructed applications.

Of the new Rares and Mythics, there are a few that I’ve been trying to build around.

Fauna Shaman

The obvious place to go with Fauna Shaman is a toolbox of utility creatures, but I think that is not the most effective way to use Fauna Shaman in Standard.

A toolbox is at it’s best when a format has an abundance of decks with very linear strategies. What you have to ask yourself is “how often is tutoring up my Qasali Pridemage going to be better than just getting a Bloodbraid Elf, Vengevine, or Baneslayer?” I think the answer to that one is “only against Mythic, as Sovereigns insurance.” Then you have to figure out how many situations you’re likely to be in where tutoring up that Pridemage “on time” would be better than getting something like a Cunning Sparkmage, which is less effective against Sovereigns, but probably more Devastating overall. Finally, if your plan is to sacrifice your Pridemage to save yourself from a hit from their Eldrazi Conscription, what do you do when they attack again next turn?

I know that was a lot to say about something minor, but it illustrates a bigger point. Don’t just do something. If a card is in your deck, you should know exactly why it’s in the deck, and you should be able to defend it’s inclusion over other powerful cards.

This applies to how you play as well. Before you make a play, you should always know why you are making it. You should have a plan in mind at all times that extends beyond that turn and the cards in your hand. You should be aware of cards that you can be fairly certain your opponent does or doesn’t have in their hand, and you should plan with that information in mind. You should know, roughly, what the chances are that you will draw a card that will assist any plan you are attempting to execute. Always make the play that you think has the highest chance of winning you the game, and be extremely careful of going on autopilot.

But I was talking about Fauna Shaman, wasn’t I? Toolboxes for toolbox sake, not a fan. If that Qasali Pridemage was going to blow up an Aluren, or a Counterbalance, or a Hive Mind (ok, maybe not that last one), then I’d be on board. As is, I think the best plan is to just keep playing the powerful creatures you were going to play otherwise, with a very short list of exceptions. All of this is said under the assumption that we’re building a Naya deck with Fauna Shaman, as I think that is the best color combination to put her in.

Obstinate Baloth. This guy is worth it, he just does so much. He fulfills the role of a life gain creature to Shaman for, and his presence also allows Fauna Shaman to double as Blightning protection. I think it will be very rare that your opponent chooses to Blightning you while you are able to activate Fauna Shaman, but for the times that you get called, I think it’s worth it to be ready. The best part about this guy? He’s a great man to just draw. Naya tends to not have a tough time against RDW, and he certainly helps out there. Gaining 4 life against Jund and being a body that stops most of their guys is solid as well. As far as I can tell, the Baloth is all positives. The only reason I would only play 1 in the main deck is that the other 4-drops in the format are even better.

Realm Razer. If you’re playing Fauna Shaman, you’re playing lots of creatures, and you’re probably also playing a good number of Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch, because not only are those cards very good, Fauna Shaman allows you to turn them into threats if it becomes active. Lots of creatures and mana producing creatures both go well with Realm Razer. I’m looking mostly at Naya colors for Fauna Shaman decks, and Naya has access to the best in must-kill creatures, ranging from Knight of the Reliquary to Baneslayer Angel, and now Fauna Shaman. Realm Razer is another must kill creature, the catch is that they have to kill him on your turn, and they usually only get one chance. He has an effect that no other creature can match, and finally, he’s a creature that actually fights Turboland, which is likely to be very important for this last PTQ.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence. I think she’ll be good for this last PTQ, but I’m unsure about her for Nationals. What I like about her is that she’s very good in the mirror and against Mythic. Naya vs Mythic has mostly been a coin flip in the past, and that’s not a good place for Naya to be, given the popularity of Mythic. I think dedicating one slot to fighting Mythic is definitely worth it. Linvala is another creature that is just fine to draw. Flying is surprisingly important in this format, and her ability has applications against Jund as well, shutting off Putrid Leech, Siege-Gang Commander, and Lavaclaw Reaches +X/+0 (am I stretching here?)

Stoneforge Mystic. This is a card that I’ve seen a lot of people including in their Fauna Shaman decks, and I think it deserves the slot. Being able to tutor up a Basilisk Collar to go with your Cunning Sparkmage for a mini-Visara, your Knight of the Reliquary for huge life swings, or even your Fauna Shaman, to allow her to trade up once you’ve spent all your creatures. I don’t like including equipment other than Basilisk Collar, as I think the other options are too expensive to play and equip without risking massive tempo loss.

My Naya Shaman list has the following staples:

2 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Fauna Shaman 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Vengevine 4 Bloodbraid Elf 1 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Cunning Sparkmage 1 Obstinate Baloth 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 1 Baneslayer Angel 1 Realm Razer 1 Basilisk Collar

I want to be running 25 land, which leaves me with 6 slots to work with. I think that Cunning Sparkmage is good enough right now to warrant the full set of four. He’s a beating against any other creature deck, and he’s actually surprisingly effective against Control as well, whether he’s dealing the last point to a Wall of Omens or ticking down Planeswalkers or your opponents life total, he is far from ineffective. With our 3 more slots I’d add another Birds of Paradise and 2 more Baneslayer Angels. Baneslayer is really at her best in a deck like this, because she is surrounded by other serious threats, some of which can even protect her. Naya is looking to play more game ending threats than their opponent has answers for and Baneslayer ends games, especially again, conveniently, your worst matchup.

The final list comes out to:

Creatures (34) 3 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Fauna Shaman 1 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Cunning Sparkmage 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Vengevine 4 Bloodbraid Elf 1 Obstinate Baloth 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 3 Baneslayer Angel 1 Realm Razer Equipment (1) 1 Basilisk Collar Lands (25) 6 Forest 2 Mountain 2 Plains 4 Arid Mesa 3 Verdant Catacombs 2 Misty Rainforest 1 Terramorphic Expanse 2 Jungle Shrine 2 Raging Ravine 1 Sejiri Steppe Sideboard (15) 3 Obstinate Baloth 4 Path to Exile 1 Baneslayer Angel 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 3 Dauntless Escort 3 Manabarbs

The Baloths come in against RDW and Jund. The Path to Exiles come in against other GW Creature decks and RDW. The Baneslayer comes in against other GW Creature decks, Jund, and RDW. Linvala comes in against other GW Creature decks. The Dauntless Escorts come in against UW Control decks. Manabarbs come in against UW Control decks and Turboland.

Destructive Force

Wildfire has always been a favorite of mine, and it also happens to have been very strong in certain formats that it’s been legal in. I’m not going to say that Destructive Force is better than Wildfire in a vacuum, but it’s certainly much better suited for the current Standard format. As it stands, Destructive Force kills almost everything, with the notable exception of the Titans and Knight of the Reliquary. Destructive Force also doesn’t touch Planeswalkers, but it usually leaves nothing left to harass them, and we can use that to our advantage.

With that in mind, we can start to build. At least for now I’ve been starting every Destructive Force deck with 4 Knight of the Reliquary. The card is great on it’s own, it ramps into Destructive Force, and it protects itself if your opponent tries to get tricky and kill it in response to you blowing everything up. To me, it’s the main reason to be Forcing right now.

Next up are Planeswalkers. I think Garruk and Gideon are the best for thiis deck. Garruk ramps you into Destructive Force and starts making tokens as soon as the path is clear. He also allows you to rebuild quickly, turning 2 leftover or post-Force lands into 4 mana. Gideon does everything else. He buys you time, stealing attack phases from your opponent. He can force an opposing Knight of the Reliquary to tap or attack and then potentially -2 to assassinate it. Probably most important of all, he can use his 0 ability to take out opposing Planeswalkers after a Destructive Force. Opposing Planeswalkers and Knight of the Reliquary are the big concerns for this deck, since it’s really just looking for Force with something good leftover. Gideon solves all those problems and helps keep you alive until you can find and cast Force.

Ajani Vengeant and Elspeth are the next best, and I think Ajani works slightly better with what this deck is trying to do, and his +1 ability can also be especially devastating on turn 3, which this deck is going to be very capable of.

Finally we’ve got the Titans. I don’t want to play Sun Titan because I don’t think I’d have good stuff to return most of the time. Obviously returning a Knight of the Reliquary is absurd, but Sun Titan seems mediocre at best if Knight isn’t involved. Inferno Titan is nice for his ability to finish off large creatures post-Force, but other than that I think he’s lacking compared to our next contestant. Primeval Titan… now we’re talking. This guy seems great. He can help you get the last few lands you need for Destructive Force, he can fetch out utility lands like Sejiri Steppe, Tectonic Edge, and Mystifying Maze to set up an alpha strike or just to get value. Additionally, if he manages to attack even once, then you’re almost completely immune to the damage a Destructive Force would do to your land base.

Here is the list I’m starting from:

Creatures (11) 4 Wall of Omens 4 Knight of the Reliquary 3 Primeval Titan Spells (14) 4 Explore 4 Cultivate 3 Oblivion Ring 3 Destructive Force Planeswalkers (8) 2 Garruk Wildspeaker 3 Ajani Vengeant 3 Gideon Jira Lands (27) 2 Sunpetal Grove 2 Raing Ravine 1 Stirring Wildwood 4 Forest 3 Mountain 2 Plains 4 Arid Mesa 1 Misty Rainforest 2 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Sejiri Steppe 2 Evolving Wilds 2 Tectonic Edge 1 Mystifying Maze Sideboard (15) 4 Obstinate Baloth 3 Condemn 1 Oblivion Ring 2 Realm Razer 3 Earthquake 2 Elspeth

The Earthquakes and Condemns are against GW Creature decks. The Baloths are against RDW and Jund. The Oblivion Ring, Elspeth, and Realm Razer are against control decks, where you plan becomes to overload them with Planeswalkers while threatening to blow everything up. This specific list is untested but I think the concept is solid. I’m looking forward to tuning this deck towards beating whatever comes out of this weekend of PTQs. Hopefully by Nationals I can have a Destructive Force based list that I’m happy with.

I hope you enjoyed my first article here. Check back next week for some results from the testing of the two decks listed today, as well as an analysis of the results from this weekends PTQs.

-Benjamin Hayes

Vampires

In an exciting twist on this, though, a few decks from the current standard format made their way to day 2 at Oakland. Curiously enough a mono-black Vampires deck made the cut, dropping the expensive finishers of the standard version for powerful and cheap card advantage tools like Dark Confidant and Bitterblossom as well as a maindeck disruption suite including Smallpox, Ghost Quarter and the ubiquitous Umezawa’s Jitte. The deck was designed by Mathias Hunt, and you can check it out below:

2 Ghost Quarter 3 Marsh Flats 4 Mutavault 9 Swamp 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 2 Verdant Catacombs 3 Bloodghast 4 Dark Confidant 4 Gatekeeper of Malakir 3 Vampire Nighthawk 3 Bitterblossom 2 Chrome Mox 2 Duress 4 Smallpox 4 Smother 4 Thoughtseize 4 Umezawa's Jitte Sideboard 2 Damnation 2 Darkblast 4 Deathmark 4 Extirpate 3 Leyline of the Void

Red

Even more intriguing is the evolution of one of my favourite standard decks by one of my favourite deck designers, Red maestro Petr Brodzek. He’s taken the Boros-landfall deck that has fallen out of favor in standard and turned it into a monster aggro machine, winning on turn 3 through Steppe Lynx, Zektar Shrine Expedition and a torrent of lands entering play. Here’s a short list of the ways Brozek can get more than one landfall triggers on a single turn-

• Crack Arid Mesa or Scalding Tarn fetching a land
• Playing a second Flagstones of Trokair, meaning both will be buried by the legend rule
• Sacrificing Flagstones to Shard Volley
• Path to Exile on his own creature
• An opponent Pathing one of Petr’s creatures
• Ghost Quartering his own land to fetch up a basic land
• Ghost Quartering his Flagstones, letting him fetch up two more lands

None of these are exclusive either, so its quite possible to have 6/7 Steppe Lynxes and Zektar Shrines being charged up immediately. The burn selection, in addition, is marvelous, with 17 direct damage spells backing up the furiously aggressive creatures. Petr took this relatively simple aggro deck all the way to the Top 8 and judging by the hype that has developed around it you should expect to see more than a few players powering up Zektar Shrines and Ghost Quartering themselves at your next extended tournament, myself included!

4 Arid Mesa 4 Flagstones of Trokair 4 Ghost Quarter 3 Mountain 1 Plains 3 Sacred Foundry 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Goblin Guide 1 Jotun Grunt 4 Plated Geopede 4 Steppe Lynx 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Lightning Helix 2 Magma Jet 3 Path to Exile 4 Searing Blaze 3 Shard Volley 4 Zektar Shrine Expedition Sideboard 3 Damping Matrix 2 J Tun Grunt 1 Oblivion Ring 3 Refraction Trap 3 Smash to Smithereens 3 Volcanic Fallout

Now, the success of these two explorers got me to thinking – what other decks from Zendikar or from Lorywn standard might make the grade at a higher level? Lorwyn in particular developed a reputation as a very powerful block, and current standard has been dominated for months by Jund. Let’s take a look at a couple of the more powerful archetypes to grace standard in the past couple of years.
Kithkin

Kithkin

One of the strongest tribal strategies to emerge from the full Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block was Kithkin, the latest variation on tribal white weenie. Utilizing a non-legendary Isamaru, a Lord of Atlantis style 2 mana lord, the incredible Figure of Destiny and one of the strongest two card synergies available in the format – Spectral Procession plus Windbrisk Heights; Kithkin had a lot of powerful cards available to back up its aggro rush and it was well equipped to recover from board sweepers through its token generators and Ajani Goldmane.

From the mono-white base people tried many splashes, using the loose mana of the format to full advantage – Black for Zealous Persecution and Bitterblossom, or Green for Dauntless Escort and Overrun were both popular. I think the best place to start will be the mono-coloured version, however, as if we are going to take a lot of damage off our lands we should probably just play Zoo. Here’s a mono-white deck that performed respectably in a magic online extended PTQ, piloted by gunmaster7:

4 Mutavault 12 Plains 4 Rustic Clachan 4 Windbrisk Heights 4 Honor of the Pure 4 Path to Exile 4 Spectral Procession 2 Umezawa's Jitte 4 Cloudgoat Ranger 4 Figure of Destiny 4 Goldmeadow Stalwart 4 Knight of Meadowgrain 2 Ranger of Eos 4 Wizened Cenn Sideboard 2 Baneslayer Angel 3 Burrenton Forge-Tender 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Pithing Needle 4 Ravenous Trap 2 Runed Halo

This is in fact a LOR-M10-ALA standard deck, plus 2 Jittes, and 4 sideboard Ravenous Traps. That’s all. One of the perils of porting tribal decks to larger formats is that they generally want to maximise the number of creatures with the appropriate type, which for Kithkin – who are virtually exclusive to Lorwyn – means there are slim pickings in terms of creatures outside of that block. There are a couple of cards we might like to try out from other sets, though.

Conqueror’s Pledge – A straight swap for Cloudgoat Ranger, this produces an extra power across 6 creatures rather than 4 which seems like a definite upgrade. The tokens aren’t Kithkin, but that’s only relevant with Wizened Cenn on the battlefield as you can’t reveal Cloudgoat Ranger for Stalwart or Rustic Clachan. Cloudgoat Ranger has certain advantages – it makes a 3/3 that survives Volcanic Fallout type sweepers, tapping tokens can give you a flier – so this swap will require testing but I certainly feel it is reasonable.

Stoneforge Mystic – Something of a sleeper from Worldwake, this has already hit the big time in Conley Woods’ top 8 Oakland deck searching up the ubiquitous Jitte and could perform the same duty here. There are tons of powerful equipment floating around and if you come across some you really want to fit in to any white weenie strategy please consider the Mystic. Here he faces some very stiff opposition at the 2 mana slot, and those little Kithkin stick together – cutting any weakens your overall strategy so you’d better make sure what you’re making room for is worthwhile.

Kor Firewalker – Depending on the expected level of Red opposition this could be an excellent sideboard option, despite not being a Kithkin. It is debatable whether this is superior to Burrenton Forge-Tender but this new bear is worth keeping in mind.

Damping Matrix – One of the most powerful (and previously underused) hosers in the format, this artifact just says ‘no’ to Thopter Foundry, Knight of the Reliquary, and critically to Engineered Explosives, one of the most popular board wipers. This should definitely be considered for extended Kithkin sideboards as a versatile and powerful answer to many difficult questions.

Kithkin is a powerful, resilient aggro strategy with a great deal of synergy. It doesn’t have the raw speed or reach of Zoo or the new Boros landfall deck, but it has the ability to build a serious army of creatures and a surprising amount of late game power. When tuning, be sure to keep your Kithkin count high and don’t lose sight of the advantages of this archetype – if you just jam in the best creatures available or go for pure speed, you might as well play a different, existing deck.

Merfolk

The fish were always there or thereabouts in Lorwyn standard, but near the end of the format they really began to dominate. Let’s take a look at a standard Merfolk deck from 2009, which Sebastian Thaler used to win German Nationals:

4 Glacial Fortress 8 Island 4 Mutavault 2 Mystic Gate 2 Plains 4 Wanderwine Hub 4 Cryptic Command 4 Path to Exile 2 Sage's Dousing 2 Merfolk Sovereign 4 Merrow Reejerey 4 Reveillark 4 Silvergill Adept 4 Stonybrook Banneret 4 Sygg, River Guide 4 Wake Thrasher Sideboard 4 Burrenton Forge-Tender 2 Glen Elendra Archmage 4 Meddling Mage 3 Sower of Temptation 2 Sleep

The deck has an extremely high degree of synergy between its creatures and it already plays some extended stalwarts – Cryptic Command, Path to Exile and sideboarded Meddling Mage. Reveillark is still one of the strongest creatures ever printed, and it can return every other creature in the deck from the graveyard to play. That said, there are several edits I would make to turn this into an extended-ready deck:

Lord of Atlantis – This one seems like a no-brainer, as this old lord is just much better than Sovereign. I would go up to four, trimming a couple of Wake Thrashers as well. With the number of Islands (and blue dual-lands) in extended having an Islandwalking team is generally better than one big Merfolk, and Wake Thrasher also loses some marginal value without Sovereign to make a single creature unblockable.

Hallowed Fountain – Again an obvious one. This is an easy upgrade to the already solid mana that will make it easier to hit UU for Lord of Atlantis and W for Path to Exile as early as possible.

Sejiri Merfolk – The newest Merfolk on the block has really impressed for me in drafts and that is without any tribal support! This guy is essentially Knight of Meadowgrain for blue, as first strike makes his lower toughness fairly irrelevant and you should always be able to get a Plains – it’s possible some Misty Rainforests should be added to ensure this. The difficulty is finding something to cut but I suspect Stonybrook Banneret might not be up to the task in extended, so that is where I’d start. It could be that Sejiri Merfolk just isn’t good enough either, but I’m keen to find out.

Spell Snare – Without Banneret, Sage’s Dousing become significantly worse and I’d trade it in for one of the format’s most specific yet powerful counterspells.

Umezawa’s Jitte – Why not?

Bant Charm – Zoo decks are straining their 3 colour mana bases just to play this versatile answer, which has been described as one of the best spells in the format. Of course, adding a green splash suggests the question of Tarmogoyf’s potential inclusion, but this article is long enough without a ‘Goyffolk’ tangent.

Merfolk is another powerful, synergistic aggro strategy that has the natural advantage of being situated in blue giving it access to some excellent disruptive tools. In tuning Merfolk for extended make sure you play up this angle to the deck, as to justify playing an aggro deck that’s slower than the fastest one you need a good reason – countering spells like Living End and Scapeshift is one such reason.

Just like that old time Rock & Roll

I hope this trip down memory lane has given you some ideas for extended outside the mainstream. While the format is anything but stale following the diverse top 8 at Oakland it never hurts to re-evaluate past strategies and with the insane creature power increase over the last few blocks there’s no reason our standard decks can’t run with the big dogs of extended. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above archetypes and what chances you think they have, plus any other old decks you’d like to revisit like GB Elves or 5 Colour Control. Sound off in the comments!

I even joined the Twitter world in hopes of garnering more info about the tournament itself. I was not disappointed. I realize that for many of you ‘Tweeting’ is second nature but I was amazed at how many little bits of info players would put out there between rounds. If you missed it the hot rumor is that the Japanese were buying up Jwari Shapeshifter for next week’s Pro Tour. Anyway I’m @MtgXman on Twitter if you want to follow me. I’ll probably follow you back. That reminds me of summer camp one year when my counselor would always say “Do not follow me, I may not lead. Do not lead me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” Cheesy Huh? Anyway feel free to follow me.

The real reason that I was so riveted is because of the entire deck tech that was there. I, like many players and writers felt that the field would be dominated by Zoo and Thopter Depths. I personally like to play Zoo-ish decks and was testing a list myself. I built mine to go quick and efficient to beat the Thopter side of the combo while having answers to the Marit Lage Token. I was truly getting there and felt that there had to be someone playing nearly my list so I could see how it played out live. I really figured on a quick Zoo package winning it. Sure I figured there would be some Rogue concoctions here and there but the top 8 would be basically Quick Enough Zoo (QuEZ) and Thopter Depths (though I prefer calling it Dark Foundry or Tepths).

Wow was I and everyone else so WRONG! Sure two Zoos and a Thopther Depths made top 8 but all 5 other decks were unique and very different. That’s about as healthy and diverse as Extended can get. Aggro, Combo, and Control were all represented. I was all around fun to be seen. There was even some drama mixed in when Saito barely edging into the top 8 by hundredths on a tie break. He was on screen live in the moment for all to see. That was cool and I hope you all saw it. It probably isn’t recorded.

What I want to do today is look at the 5 decks that Top 8′d without having multitude of players run them and try to analyze which would be best for us to pick up for the remaining PTQ season. We’ll look at them in order of getting knocked out of the top saving the best for last.

The Quarterfinal losses.

1 Calciform Pools 3 Forbidden Orchard 1 Forest 3 Fungal Reaches 1 Gemstone Caverns 4 Gemstone Mine 4 Reflecting Pool 4 Tendo Ice Bridge 4 Angel of Despair 4 Bogardan Hellkite 4 Progenitus 1 Sakashima the Impostor 4 Simian Spirit Guide 4 Terastodon 4 Ardent Plea 1 Demonic Dread 3 Hypergenesis 3 Oblivion Ring 3 Thirst for Knowledge 4 Violent Outburst Sideboard 2 Firespout 2 Ingot Chewer 4 Leyline of the Void 3 Ricochet Trap 2 Sakashima the Impostor 2 Shriekmaw

Saito’s list is nearly the Hypergenesis deck that everyone raved on last summer when Cascade was revealed. The cool additions since then are the Storage Lands that allow Saito to hard cast his crew if facing a Chalice of the Void set for zero. Add the real beef of Terastodon as the new tech. That card is takes the Champions Belt in the MWF (Magic Wresting Federation). Notice the absence of the foolish Magister Sphinx/Wound Reflection combo. Hyper doesn’t need it. In a meta absent of Wrath of God just having bigger and better fatties will do. I would have liked to see a mirror match with this deck. The resolution of ETB’s after Hyper is cast must be comparable to Warp World (or even more cool).

I do have a question for you rules dudes. I can remember back in the day playing a deck that used Faceless Butcher and a rules issue to permanently exile a creature (this was before Path). What they did was play the Butcher and use some instant speed destruction to destroy him while his ETB was still on the stack. He leaves the Battlefield triggered upon his death and since it was a triggered effect went on top of the stack. Now the return clause returned nothing since nothing had been exiled yet and then his Enter the Battlefield trigger that exiled a target creature forever since the Butcher couldn’t leave the Battlefield twice. Have they fixed this? Because the same chain of events would happen with an Oblivion Ring that was removed before its ETB could occur. Saito did this live in the quarters by Targeting his Ring to remove his own Terastodon and using the Big Elephant to convert the Ring to a 3/3. If the rules are tweaked now to make this work it was a masterful play. If they aren’t then… Yurchick won out anyway.

4 Arid Mesa 4 Flagstones of Trokair 4 Ghost Quarter 3 Mountain 1 Plains 3 Sacred Foundry 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Goblin Guide 1 Jotun Grunt 4 Plated Geopede 4 Steppe Lynx 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Lightning Helix 2 Magma Jet 3 Path to Exile 4 Searing Blaze 3 Shard Volley 4 Zektar Shrine Expedition Sideboard 3 Damping Matrix 2 J Tun Grunt 1 Oblivion Ring 3 Refraction Trap 3 Smash to Smithereens 3 Volcanic Fallout

The “Brozek Deck Wins” was probably the deck that caused the most Buzz out of Oakland. At its most fundamental level it’s a Boros Deck from standard with the addition of Sacred Foundry to its mana base. At least that what people were saying early. That was before you really saw the subtle and devastating mix of Flagstones of Trokair/Ghost Quarter/Landfall. Being able to fit Ghost Quarter main is already devastating to the Dark Depths monster but to be able to sac it targeting your own Flagstone fetching a Plains and a tapped basic of your choice add and easy two to your landfall triggers making Zektar Tokens in just one turn. With that masterful stroke Petr Brozek became a true deck artist in my opinion.

Unfortunately I see the future of this deck as pretty bleak. Too many cards exist the can just hate it out and most of those serve well against ELVES as well. At Oakland the world wasn’t prepared but now the hate will be in full swing. If you plan on playing this deck make sure bring your rabbits foot because if you don’t win quick in games 2 or 3 you won’t win. I do feel you’ll have some winning numbers on game one though.

On to the Semi’s

1 Arid Mesa 2 Breeding Pool 2 Flooded Grove 2 Forest 2 Hallowed Fountain 2 Island 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Plains 1 Temple Garden 1 Tolaria West 2 Treetop Village 3 Verdant Catacombs 4 Aven Mindcensor 4 Noble Hierarch 1 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Vendilion Clique 4 Bant Charm 2 Cryptic Command 2 Engineered Explosives 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Mana Leak 4 Path to Exile 1 Umezawa's Jitte Sideboard 1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero 1 Engineered Explosives 4 Rhox War Monk 4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain 4 Tormod's Crypt 1 Umezawa's Jitte

Oh Conley, where to begin. Let me first state that I really love the way Conley thinks. He shows that there are a few of us out there that aren’t sheep. I found it moderately amusing to hear Gerry Thompson bash on Conley’s list and watch as less that 5% of the players running Thopter Depths made the top 8 while 100% of the Bant Wagon players made the Final Four. It was even cooler when between the final two rounds of Swiss to see them both side by side and hear Conley just say “scoreboard.”

This deck is probably the best tuned a Control Deck could be for the anticipated Meta. The unanticipated Elves took it down and the surprise Brozek deck was a squeaker. Many people laughed at the inclusion of Stoneforge Mystic (my favorite art in Zendikar BTW). I know many people who said Mystic had potential to be Jitte number 5 and 6 for a deck to use but Jitte number 2 didn’t seem right. In most lists this is true but the subtle interactions with Jace and the potential extra shuffle with a Brainstorm is that extra spice that makes the recipe work for the refined Deck Palette. My favorite addition is the Aven Mindcensor. That card alone stopped many potential threats and was very frustrating to many a search engine. Cards that range all the way from fetchlands to Scapeshift are hosed by this little gem. I would go so far as to say that it’s the MVP of this list.

Should you pick this deck up? I would probably vote no. The meta at your PTQ will not match Oakland and therefore some tweaking is needed. Can a deck very similar to this win a PTQ? In the right hands, yes, but be prepared for an exhausting day. It is probably the only current deck with Potential for Wrath effects that I feel are needed in the current meta.

2 Arid Mesa 1 Blood Crypt 2 Forest 3 Mountain 1 Overgrown Tomb 2 Scalding Tarn 1 Stomping Ground 3 Swamp 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Deadshot Minotaur 4 Fulminator Mage 4 Ingot Chewer 4 Jungle Weaver 4 Monstrous Carabid 4 Street Wraith 4 Valley Rannet 4 Demonic Dread 1 Living End 3 Living End 2 Night of Souls' Betrayal 4 Violent Outburst Sideboard 3 Kitchen Finks 3 Maelstrom Pulse 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal 4 Shriekmaw 3 Thought Hemorrhage 1 Yixlid Jailer

Much like the earlier mentioned Hypergenesis deck Living End looks to cascade into its name sake. Only instead of having some huge game winning dudes in hand it looks to have some moderately cool creatures in its graveyard. The reason they are only moderately cool is because of the fact they need to get there by themselves. Cycling creatures and Evokers make the list easy. The only real issue is which ones to use? The real edge is in the cyclers. Giving the Living End deck a lot more consistency and resiliency to cards like Thoughtsieze than Hypergenesis decks have. In exchange you play with weaker critters but 20 is 20 no matter how big the hits are.

I would recommend this deck for a PTQ. It has a strong game against all forms of zoo and moderate play against the rest of the field. If they don’t pull a turn 3 win like elves, Brozek, and Thepths can do then you’re looking good. I might suggest a peak at Aethersnipe as extra Chalice/Leyline hate and maybe Mulldrifter for Lauren Lee to enjoy.

The Finals

4 Forest 3 Horizon Canopy 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Pendelhaven 1 Temple Garden 4 Verdant Catacombs 2 Arbor Elf 4 Boreal Druid 4 Elvish Archdruid 4 Elvish Visionary 1 Essence Warden 1 Eternal Witness 4 Heritage Druid 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Nettle Sentinel 1 Ranger of Eos 1 Regal Force 4 Cloudstone Curio 4 Glimpse of Nature 1 Primal Command 4 Summoner's Pact Sideboard 1 Burrenton Forge-Tender 1 Gaddock Teeg 4 Ghost Quarter 1 Loaming Shaman 3 Ranger of Eos 4 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Viridian Shaman

The final unique deck I’m going to feature is the winner of the whole thing. Elves are apparently back again. Perhaps this deck shouldn’t have been the surprise that it was. Many players wrote off the combo deck as being too fragile and Mulligan happy. I feel that what made the deck work is the absence of Grapeshot/Manamorphose. With those cars being used as the win condition the deck is just a little lacking because they take away from the critical 1 drop elves count and therefore lower the expected value from cards like Glimpse and Curio. Like I mentioned early in the lesson the absence of true Wrath Deck makes waiting a turn and attacking with a swarm just fine for the win. And that is what Matt did. Bypassing the need for Grapeshot and increasing his turn one accelerants and making Glimpse and Curio mathematically stronger. Kudos!

If you want to run this then you need to do two things. First get your cards early before everyone makes you pay. Second Goldfish, Goldfish, Goldfish, Goldfish. And the Goldfish some more! The math can be complex at times and it needs to be second nature so you’ll pull it off right. The only way to assure yourself of having flawless play is to have flawless practice. This is especially true when it’s crunch time.

Well anyway there’s my take on Oakland. Class dismissed.

Remember I’m @MtgXman on Twitter.

1. “Protection” is a keyword that is all too familiar to us playing Standard today. Great Sable Stag, Brave the Elements, Kor Firewalker, Malakir Bloodwitch. All are very powerful cards that are frequently played in sideboards as well as mainboards. When playing solely one color, it is always a looming question as to how to deal with these cards when they oppose you.
2. Manlands. Unlike the manlands of old, these new ones from Worldwake have activation costs requiring two colors. In order to use these powerful lands in your deck, you need to run at least two colors. When your opponents suddenly awaken new threats from seemingly out of nowhere, you might feel behind if all you have are basic lands on your side.
3. Having a greater variety of sideboard options is always a good thing, too. The answers you may want may not be in the color your deck provides. In addition, a lot of colors exhibit enemy-color hate; so black has efficient answers to white and green; while white has efficient answers to red and black. But this means that when facing allied colors, getting an edge in those matchups is not as easy. Or they may require more subtle strategies.

On the other hand, there is currently a lot of support for mono-black, mono-green, and mono-white decks. And they can best utilize cards that multicolor decks cannot, such as Tectonic Edge as well as nonbasic lands like Sejiri Steppe and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood.

There are advantages to both kinds of decks, but overall I like the idea of playing 3-color decks. They give me, as a deckbuilder, more options, while also allowing me to utilize rather powerful spells. Particularly the ones from Shards block. I do sacrifice speed in these decks since setting up mana takes a while. But the format is full of efficient answers to faster decks. We have Lightning Bolt, Smother, Agony Warp, Terminate, Into the Roil, and Earthquake, Day of Judgment, among others. We can also accelerate ourselves out of our early dead game into the mid game with pick-me-ups like Everflowing Chalice, Explore, Knight of the White Orchid, Rampant Growth, mana dorks like Birds of Paradise, and Lotus Cobra.

In particular, Everflowing Chalice is a card that excites me because it let’s non-green decks do what green decks do. One of the decks I’m going to talk about completely revolves around Everflowing Chalice. Unsurprisingly, it’s a blue deck.

Let’s start with everybody’s favorite, though. Jund. (Hah! Got you there.) Don’t worry; I’m building up to the more interesting ones.

My playtesting with this deck has generally resulted in positive win percentages; except against certain midrange/token builds, LSV’s RWU Control, and the mirror, which is still a tossup. The only deck I haven’t played against much at all is Grixis, which will need testing soon since it’s getting a lot of press. (As far as I can tell, game one is almost as bad as fighting LSV’s RWU Control, but after sideboard, it gets much better. This is generally true of the control matchups.)

I constantly change my build because I feel it is important to keep evolving your decklist and trying new things. Here is my current incarnation – that may change tomorrow. But this is what I went 4-0 with last week at FNM.

CARD CHOICES

Explore. This card has generated a lot of interesting discussion. I like it, but I don’t know if I ought to like it. It certainly doesn’t always get me to 4-mana on turn 4. However, when it misses, I don’t always mind. This is how I use Explore – I play it on turn 2 because that is simply the best time to use it; but I do not use it as a way of jumping from 2 mana to 4 mana. I do not always want to play Bloodbraid Elf on turn 3. Sometimes I want to play Sprouting Thrinax or Blightning. (I set my curve up that way for a reason.) I use it more to ensure that I reach 5 mana (and eventually 6 mana) in a timely manner. It’s a long-term investment that I simply make on turn 2 because I don’t have any other time to cast the spell. And when I Cascade into it or topdeck it, I can cycle it for something a little more exciting. (Unlike Rampant Growth, which simply doesn’t do the same thing in the late game.)

4 Terminate. I strongly question the decision to run less than 4 Terminate in Jund. But this might be because of the matchups I regularly face. These are the decks against which I want 4 Terminate: Bant, Knightfall, Naya, Boros, Mono-Red, Vampires, White-based Aggro. Decks against which I don’t want Terminates at all: RWU Control, Jacerator, Grixis. Decks against which Terminates are mediocre but not totally dead: Jund. So in an aggro-dominated meta, 4 Terminates is a must. In a Control/Jund dominated meta, I would consider reducing the number.

2 Bituminous Blast. I oscillated between 2 and 3 for a while, but I am currently fine with running 2 in order to make room for more Siege-Gang Commanders. Bit Blast is really great against red-based aggro decks, but these are going out of style. It’s also really strong in the mirror, but it’s also really, really dead against certain decks. Decks that are rising in popularity: namely control decks and decks with Baneslayer Angels. I’m happier with having 4 Siege-Gang Commanders instead. They’re just good against just about everything.

2 Master of the Wild Hunt. It’s either this or Garruk for most people. I used Garruks for the longest time, but I am finally trying out the Masters to see how they taste. I haven’t really reached a verdict yet. I may just cut them for an additional manland and an additional Broodmate Dragon.

4 Siege-Gang Commander. I kept losing to this card in the mirror until I decided to just give up on Leech. Putrid Leech just got worse and worse until I just threw it out entirely. And I’m glad I did because Commander wins games by itself. And with 4, I just keep drawing more of them. I untap with this guy surprisingly often – maybe that has simply spoiled me. But even when it is killed, I get 3 annoying Goblins to stick around. Against ground-based aggro decks, this guy just turns around games, even when you’re at 1 life. It also makes life easier against Great Sable Stag and White Knight; however against Kor Firewalker, I suspect it will not satisfy.

My Sideboard is interesting. I don’t recommend copying it. The only factors I’m certain of are the single Pulse and 3 Bloodwitch. These are very important. I might also find room for Duress, which is the most effective against control decks like RWU and Grixis.

Pulse for persistent but slow and steady aggro decks (midrange, mono-white) as well as control/combo decks that rely on permanents. Against Jacerator it’s a must.

Bloodwitch goes in against almost any white deck because white currently doesn’t have good answers to it.

In a similar vein, I love my Stags right now because people are starting to use counterspells again – slowly. As crappy as this sounds, I often have to replace my Thrinaxes with them against white decks because of a super-barrage of hate cards. A 3/3 for 3 sounds pretty bad until you realize it makes THEIR pro-bears just 2/2s for 2 (or 2/2 for 3 in the case of Devout Lightcaster). It’s still not ideal, but sometimes it is the best replacement to make. Stags are still fine in the mirror, too.

Both Thought Hemorrhage and Anathemancer probably have to leave for Duress. Thought Hemorrhage is a leftover for when I had to face combo decks, particularly Jacerator – it’s not bad against Sphinx of Jwar Isle either. But it’s a little clunky and useless elsewhere.

Anathemancer was an experiment – I figured with manlands and exciting nonbasics like Halimar Depths, Anathemancer could be really awesome. But in the mirror it’s actually a little underwhelming. It might still be really good against control decks, but I didn’t see that many. I’ll keep my eye on it, though, and include it when the time is ripe. People run a lot more basics than they used to because of fetchlands, also.

I really hate Goblin Ruinblaster – facing it and having it in my sideboard. Sometimes it is a complete blowout, but sometimes, it comes too late or it doesn’t matter or it’s totally underwhelming. I went for many weeks without it, surprising my opponents when I didn’t play it. The fact is, it only works when your opponent misses a land drop at some point. Or you get them on turn 3 after accelerating. Or you play two of them in a row. If none of these conditions are fulfilled, Ruinblaster is pretty idle and can easily be countered by things like Rampant Growth, Explore, and running 26 lands. Or magically hitting all basic lands. Still, it might have too much potential to be left out, and it’s good in control matchups. It just doesn’t seem as unfair as it once did.

The next deck I’ll talk about is one I only recently managed to build, mostly because of its cost. This deck is just a rehash of a Worlds deck that focused primarily on creating white tokens. It’s designed to try to be as annoying to a Jund opponent as possible. However it has a really terrible matchup against Control. So the sideboard primarily focuses on trying to beat the Control matchup. However I have yet to actually test and tweak the sideboard, so this is just a prelimary list – say, if you wanted to test this matchup; I would start out with this.

CARD CHOICES

Steward of Valeron vs Lotus Cobra. Well, I initially had Steward of Valeron in this slot, but the more I thought about it, the more that didn’t seem like a good idea. The initial reason for using Steward was a synergy with Brave the Elements. The extra toughness and Vigilance are not entirely irrelevant, either, but Cobra allows for faster starts, making Blightning worse, punishing Jund’s slower starts, and giving you a better shot at keeping up with Boros. (And of course, if it dies, your curve simply proceeds at a normal pace, which is okay.)

Rhox War Monk. The only blue card maindeck. It’s not super-amazing, but having 4 toughness is quite a boon in this format. Against other midrange decks, this card will win you a lot of games. It is absolutely irrelevant against Control decks. Side out all 4 for Stags post board.

Emeria Angel. I still think this is the best card in the deck hands down. Perhaps it’s not quite Spectral Procession, but it’s kind of a close analog. When I play Jund against this card, I lose to it a lot. It’s also perfect against Control, post board wipe. Or, if they’re playing some sort Wall Control, it tends to get around that as well. On top of that it’s immune to Earthquake, which is a very popular Day of Judgment substitute. There’s seemingly nothing it can’t do. (Except chump Malakir Bloodwitch.)

Conqueror’s Pledge vs Baneslayer Angel. This choice I have no misgivings about. But then again, this IS a tokens build. Still, in general, against Jund, Pledge will win you more games than the Angel. There’s only one good answer to Pledge in their deck. And more often, Jund will have less copies of Pulse than Terminate. Post-board, Pledge is probably still better; you just have to tread around Jund Charms.

Eldrazi Monument. I lose to this card all the time, so I wonder why people don’t run it more. I have considered Overrun as an alternative, but this card is better than Overrun. I think it is because Eldrazi Monument can be played incredibly early – much earlier than when you have lethal with Overrun. It can act defensively as well as offensively, as having indestructible blockers generally does wonderfully when stalling out. Sometimes their roles are similar, but the Monument can be much more. Control decks also have a pretty tough time dealing with permanents like this, also. Once they resolve that is.

My Sideboard. Is completely made up, to be honest. The concept is similar to how Jund transforms post-sideboard against most decks. As I keep saying, creatures with Protection are just too important in this format. They invoke chance a lot – they can have the Bolt or they might not. They might have the Pulse; they might not. Once you overload your deck with cards that can only be answered by very specific things, the more you keep invoking the statistic improbability of your opponent having the right answers. At least, that is my shaky reasoning. Great Sable Stag is the king of this plan, as it also can’t be countered by cards like Flashfreeze, Essence Scatter, or whatever the control decks are using for counters these days. Also, I really like Negate. Negate is powerful against all kinds of decks; it’s your answer to random combo decks, and it can deal with powerful spells like Cruel Ultimatum and Day of Judgment. While your creatures should outclass other deck’s creatures without much problem; it is really the spells you have to worry about. Negate would even go in the mainboard if we didn’t have a much better option in Brave the Elements.

The last deck is more experimental and tries to act as a “proactive” control deck. Instead of leaving up mana to counter spells, it just taps out and plays strong spells of its own.

CARD CHOICES

It’s not completely optimal, but you see where it is going. It works very well when it has a second-turn Chalice due to a number of amazing 4-drops. You have a lot of options on turn 3 and depending on the situation you can handle just about anything the opponent has done with his or her first three turns. But without Chalice, it is a little slow, so there a lot of cheap removal spells to hold off any real damaging threats or Earthquakes for too much too fast.

That build is most effective against mono white or midrange aggro decks. However to beat Jund, I realized it was not doing enough to prevent blowouts. Not to mention maindecking Baneslayer Angel is probably not a good idea.

I thought of another idea to make white the splash color and emphasize the red spells in the deck. It would then look more like a Counter-Burn control deck. Here’s an initial build:

The manabase got a little awkward, but having a lot of mountains seems kind of important if you want Siege Gang to do its magic. Siege Gang seems a little better against Jund than Baneslayer since any removal spell they use will always leave you with something. (Most likely, three chump blockers.) Against other decks, Siege-Gang is just more exciting than Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Having an unkillable flier is nice, but Siege-Gang gives you a lot of power if you untap. And it’s more likely to burn out an opposing control deck. The tokens also protect planeswalkers well.

These are my current ideas for Standard. I hope these inspire you to fiddle around with the powerful spells in the format, particularly in three-color decks. I can promise the Jund deck is still very well-positioned in the format and that the Bant Tokens build plays well against Jund in particular. Although it’s not exactly a guaranteed winning matchup. However it ALSO has a decent matchup against many other aggro builds in the format, like Vampires and Elves, which I assume will grow in popularity. The Control decks above are more in the experimental stage, and I will see whether they perform well or not as I test more matchups.

So two weeks ago we discussed Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in Extended, and I made a mention of how standard is not the pseudo-legendary land’s “comfort zone.” Au contraire! You may not have access to Scapeshift so you can deal 18 or so damage in one fell swoop, but you do have plenty of ramp and creature control tools to make it a winner. After seeing some lists from last October’s Game Days, I put together this:

You had a good run, Time Sieve, but I may have found my new favorite deck in Standard. It has all the factors I look for in a Standard deck – a blast to play, under the radar, and the ability to hang with the Junds and Bushwhackers of the world. Yeah, there’s the expense factor, but as long as I don’t have a job outside of this column, you gotta work with what you have.

I took this list to the tournament practice room of Magic Online to see what it could do. (P.S. – You can find me on MODO as ‘DJ Samurai’.)

Match 1 vs dumpyfatkid (R/W/U control)

On the play, I kept two Terramorphic Expanse, Valakut, Mountain, Forest, and two Harrow, while my opponent mulliganed to five. I held off my first Harrow until he tapped out for Ajani Vengeant, which kept a second Valakut tapped down. The next turn, I topdecked Bloodbraid Elf into Expedition Map and attacked Ajani down to one counter. He held my Bloodbraid down while drawing cards with Jace Beleren, but playing Jace rendered him unable to counter a Khalni Heart Expedition, followed by my third Valakut. An Expedition Map for Terramorphic Expanse and a second Khalni Heart Expedition ended game one in my favor.

In game 2 on the draw I kept two Mountains, Terramorphic Expanse, Oracle of Mul Daya, two Banefire, and Expedition Map. He made it interesting off the bat with a turn two Luminarch Ascension. I tried throwing burn spells and hasty guys at him to keep the Ascension down, but he had answers ranging from Flashfreeze on Goblin Ruinblaster to Double Negative on Bloodbraid Elf and Harrow, sacrificing my only forest. After Spreading Seas turned my lone Valakut into an Island, he got his fourth Ascension counter, and the Angels finished the job from there.

In game 3 on the play I kept two Mountain, Forest, Naya Panorama, Oracle of Mul Daya, Khalni Heart Expedition, and Goblin Ruinblaster. He got the turn two Ascension again and put another Spreading Seas on a Valakut, but I played a second one and Bloodbraid Elf cascaded into Naturalize for the Spreading Seas. He rebounded with another Spreading Seas on a Valakut. Khalni Heart Expedition induced a Flashfreeze so I could put through Goblin Ruinblaster to destroy his lone nonbasic, a Sejiri Refuge. He tried to buy himself a turn with a Wall of Denial, but a topdecked Rampant Growth with only one land up spelled the end for him.

2-1 win

Match 2 vs pvtdanser (Vampires)

I won the die roll and I kept my opening hand of Khalni Heart Expedition, Terramorphic Expanse, Forest, Mountain, Naya Panorama, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Bloodbraid Elf. I ended up with eight lands in play on turn four and got an active Valakut going very early despite facing Vampire Nocturnus and two Bloodghasts. Thank goodness there was no Nighthawk involved.

On the draw game 2 I kept Terramorphic Expanse, Naya Panorama, two Mountain, Grazing Gladehart, Lightning Bolt, and Oracle of Mul Daya. Once again I was looking down the barrel of Nocturnus and double Bloodghast, but this time he got through with a Disfigure on my Gladehart and a Nighthawk to keep himself out of Valakut range.

Game three was marked by a play where I had set up to kill him the next turn with Valakut and a kicked Burst Lightning. I had Oracle of Mul Daya in play, and went down to four life after an attack from Bloodghast. With my opponent at nine life, he attempted to play Tendrils of Corruption for seven on my Oracle, but I denied him the life gain by killing it off myself with Burst Lightning. The win thus came two turns later, but a win is a win.

2-1 win

Match 3 vs shahi (Jund Ramp)

I won the die roll and kept four Mountain, Naya Panorama, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Banefire – a sketchy keep to say the least. I thought this was a mirror when he led with Forest, Mountain, Rampant Growth, but when he put a Swamp into play tapped, I knew I was up against something very different. I resolved an Oracle of Mul Daya, but it ate a Lightning Bolt at the end of the turn. He then played Garruk Wildspeaker and made a beast token, made a second beast token the following turn, and played Siege-Gang Commander the turn after that. I spent my Banefires on a beast and Garruk, but he followed up with another Commander and swung in for the win.

On the play in game 2 I mulliganed into two Mountain, Valakut, Bloodbraid Elf, and Harrow. He had no plays until a turn four Garruk, but I responded with Oracle of Mul Daya and Grazing Gladehart to hold off the rush, gaining 14 life in one turn at one point with Valakut, Terramorphic Expanse, turning the Expanse into a Mountain, Rampant Growth, and Khalni Heart Expedition. He conceded before I could drop a Bogardan Hellkite.

Game 3 was no contest. He couldn’t get much offense going after my triple-Valakut opening hand, along with Bloodbraid Elf, Oracle, and Lightning Bolts on anything relevant.

2-1 win

These results confirm my suspicion – this deck has staying power. The one thing that put me off was, what good is all this mana if you have nothing to do with it? That’s why Derek Huang put these unused resources to very good use on his way to a Top 8 berth at the TCGPlayer 5K in Atlanta last weekend:

I like the inclusion of Lavaball Trap. It may seem a little costly, but consider all it does: blow up two lands and sweep the board at instant speed. Does that warrant eight (or hopefully five) mana now? Especially in the mirror match, which is becoming popular online due to its fairly inexpensive cost. The most expensive card in the deck I’ve had to pick up thus far has been Bloodbraid Elf at about three tickets each. Even Hellkites go for 2.5.

When making revisions to this deck for Worldwake’s release, I took into account these factors, both from playing my version and looking at Derek’s performance in Atlanta:

• X spells are a Bloodbraid Elf’s worst nightmare.
• Too many ramp spells can be bad in the late game when you’ve weeded out most of your lands.
• Pyroclasm will not get the job as a sweeper against most aggro decks.
• Spot removal (Lightning Bolt and Magma Spray) should stay in the sideboard unless the format is dominated by aggro. Sure, the field might be 1-in-3 Jund right now, but two things invalidate that argument: Things like Broodmate Dragon and Putrid Leech can outlive a Lightning Bolt, and you have slightly better odds of facing a control deck of some variation (most likely Grixis or Red-White-Blue).
• With all that in mind, here’s the new list, post-Worldwake.

So there you have it. Valakut Ramp, like Time Sieve, is a relatively inexpensive choice and a blast to play. It’s a slight blip on the Standard radar right now, but as it grows in popularity it may set off some alarms. Have fun at your prerelease – assuming it hasn’t been snowed out.

Until next time, there’s no easy way to say goodbye.

-Sam

My initial search through the mono-blue cards available showed cards with wildly divergent purpose – categories in my ‘notable blue cards’ file ranged from mill to fatties, defensive creatures to mana denial. There were the old blue standbys of counters, card draw and bounce but largely not of the same quality of years past. Each category was fairly shallow also, as I had to leave out the many multicoloured cards from the Alara block. I’m impressed that the other colours have focused-enough themes to produce mono-coloured decks even while Alara block is contributing the most cards in the format! I did not have a lot of confidence in being able to build a winning deck on any of the themes I’d isolated, so I decided to build three instead on the theory that if you throw enough mud at a wall, some of it will stick. The three archetypes chosen were Mill, Aggro and Draw-go Control.

Mill

4 Hedron Crab 4 Wall of Frost 4 Archive Trap 4 Memory Erosion 4 Howling Mine 4 Font of Mythos 4 Traumatize 2 Jace Beleren 4 Call to Heel 4 Flashfreeze 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Scalding Tarn 16 Island Sideboard 4 Telemin Performance 4 Roil Elemental 4 Whiplash Trap 3 Negate

It is mere coincidence that I write this during Milling Week over on the mothership. Blue’s most powerful cards – that aren’t vulnerable to the common tools of other metagame decks appeared to be concentrated in milling. I started out with the Traps, the artifacts and the Hedron Crabs and filled out the list with a few less impressive mill cards, Wall of Frost and Call to Heel to hold off the bad guys, with Flashfreeze to stop Cruel Ultimatums and Broodmate Dragons. The sideboard is essentially other cards I wanted to try out – Telemin against low-creature count decks, Roil Elemental and Whiplash Trap against creatures and Negate to replace Flashfreeze in matches where it’s a dead card.

Match 1: vs Diamond Dog, Grixis
In game one I am on the play and keep 2 Islands, a fetch, Hedron Crab, Traumatize, Flashfreeze and Call to Heel. In the early game I play Crabs and land but don’t draw a fourth until turn seven, after two turns of Jace double-drawing and one turn of Howling Mine. The Crabs and Memory Erosion have taken their toll and with the opponent drawing a ton of cards himself through Divination and Courier’s Capsule, I counter his turn 8 Cruel Ultimatum and then Archive Trap his last 13 cards on turn 9.

I sideboard in Telemin Performance and Negate for game 2 and mulligan to 3 Island, Howling Mine, Telemin Performance and Negate. He leads with lands and I drop my Mine on turn 2, and on turn 3 he plays Divination which greatly surprises me. After Terminating my Hedron Crab on turn 4 he plays nothing until turn 8, in which time I’ve resolved 2 more Mines, Memory Erosion and Jace. Turn 8 I force Telemin Performance through his Double Negative and get a Sphinx of Lost Truths. The next turn he drops Sorin Markov and I shrug, casting Telemin Performance again for the other big Sphinx in his deck and attack his planeswalker. When his turn 9 Cruel Ultimatum is countered he scoops it up, and this match goes 2-0 to mono-blue!

1-0

Match 2: vs Pazku, Vampires
Feeling good about the last match I keep Island, 2 fetches, Wall of Frost, Memory Erosion, Flashfreeze and Call to Heel. I play first and we both drop lands until turn 3, where my Memory Erosion is joined by his Vampire Nighthawk. This play mills a Bloodghast into his graveyard and I groan. He pounds me with his black weenies and Duresses away my Archive Trap, and I concede facing a board of 4 ugly vampires.

Game 2, and I side out the useless Flashfreeze for Whiplash Trap. I’m on the play again and keep Island, fetch, 2 Crabs, Mine, Archive Trap and Memory Erosion. I lead with Island, Crab, turn 2 Crab fetch milling 12. He Disfigures one and takes my Archive Trap with Duress, then stalls on two land while I drop Howling Mines and think things are going well – until I draw 5 lands in my next 6 draws while he stabilizes and charges up a Bloodchief Ascension with Gatekeeper and Bloodghast attacks. I die on turn 7.

1-1

Match 3: vs Bon816, RG Valakut
Onto the deciding game – I keep 2 Island, Call to Heel, Crab, Mine, Wall and Traumatize on the play once again. I lead with Island, Crab, and it gets Bolted on the opponent’s turn. My turn 2 Howling Mine draws me out of my manascrew – and with the turn 4 Font of Mythos draws my opponent into a ton of ramp and his turn 4 involves a Khalni Heart Expedition sacrifice and two Harrows, with a charged Expedition on the board and Valakut in play. On turn 5 I Traumatize him, milling 19 cards, then on his turn I follow up his Khalni Heart search with an Archive Trap. With not enough mountains left in his deck to win the game, he scoops it up.

Game 2 I side out the anti-creature cards for the anti-control/combo pairing of Telemin Performance and Negate. I am on the draw and do nothing but play lands on my first 4 turns, aside from the backbreaking Negate on his Harrow. I Telemin Performance him for a ton getting a Goblin Ruinblaster – why do people keep these cards in? Perhaps he sided it in against me, expecting Telemin. My follow up is Traumatize, and between being manascrewed and milled of over half his deck he concedes – another 2-0 to the blue team!

2-1

Post-testing Thoughts
This deck was surprisingly strong in the few test matches I played. Roil Elemental was a mistake – the decks I would want to bring it in against kept their Bolts and Disfigures in to take out Hedron Crabs and they make Roil Elemental look stupid. There is way too much targeted removal in the format for such an expensive, vulnerable creature to be viable. I was intrigued to find that mill is naturally powerful against Valakut decks, as they rely on searching mountains out of their deck to deal you 20 damage and if you mill away enough mountains they have to hope that Goblin Ruinblaster beatdown can get there. I think this Mill deck will have a lot of trouble against aggro strategies as evidenced by the Vampire match – which is why Jacerator went for the fogs, Day of Judgments, Walls and lifegain available in white. Still, for a mono-blue deck I was very impressed by this performance and I would not be embarrassed to sleeve this up at FNM. I think it has a lot of inherent strength against the slow, grinding control decks that are gaining popularity and especially against Valakut combo.

Mono U Aggro

4 Cosi's Trickster 4 Welkin Tern 4 Brackwater Elemental 4 Kathari Screecher 1 Living Tsunami 4 Windrider Eel 4 Illusionary Servant 4 Sleep 3 Into the Roil 4 Spreading Seas 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Scalding Tarn 12 Island 4 Soaring Seacliff Sideboard 4 Ice Cage 4 Flashfreeze 4 Spell Pierce 3 Kederekt Leviathan

Featuring a bunch of limited all-stars, I had very low expectations for this deck. I noted the minor unearth theme which I hoped would help against discard and give the deck some sorely-needed reach. Sleep is a spell I think could be very powerful against the current control decks, as they rely heavily on Sphinx of Jwar Isle and Wall of Denial to protect themselves and Sleep takes them out of the equation for two turns. Unfortunately the creatures you are attacking with are far inferior to those any other competitive deck puts on the field, so my hopes were not high.

Without going into detail on the two matches I played with this deck – in which I won just 1 game – I would like to discuss how it performed. Essentially the control decks in the format are primed to destroy opponents that play one creature a turn and attack, and the aggro decks just play far superior (ie. Actually good) creatures and are prepared to deal with the very minor disruption this deck presents. Sleep is still a spell I think has potential but this definitely is not the deck that will fulfil it.

Draw-Go

3 Cancel 4 Flashfreeze 3 Negate 3 Essence Scatter 4 Spell Pierce 2 Gather Specimens 4 Divination 3 Mind Spring 4 Into the Roil 4 Spreading Seas 1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle 1 Eternity Vessel 16 Islands 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Scalding Tarn Sideboard 4 Dragon's Claw 4 Wall of Frost 3 Telemin Performance 1 Negate 1 Essence Scatter 2 Platinum Angel

Tom’s article singled out Randy Buehler’s Draw-Go deck as an example of what made strong blue unfun. As a fan of this style of deck I decided to have a go with the current crop of blue, and see if I could find “26 land, 21 counters, 8 card drawers, 4 disks, and a Rainbow.” I picked a mixture of 17 counters plus two Gather Specimens, which is a really fun card. There are 7 pure card drawers – sorcery speed, unfortunately – plus 8 cantripping disruptive spells, Eternity Vessel as a pseudo disk reset effect, and the closest thing to a Rainbow Efreet – Sphinx of Jwar Isle. The sideboard is a variety of targeted hate cards plus a couple more counters if I want to adjust the mixture, and Platinum Angel which some decks have a lot of trouble beating, especially through counters.

In the first match I played I got wiped out by mono-red in unspectacular fashion – counters are not so helpful against Hellspark Elementals, and Divination can’t match Ball Lightning. Match two is deserving of some description though, as I did plenty of drawing and passing the turn in an overly long game one.

I kept 4 Islands, Scalding Tarn, Spreading Seas and Spell Pierce on the draw against my opponent, HornyToad69. He lead with a pair of Oran-Rief, the Vastwood and I turned one into an Island. While I was tapped out he plopped down a plains and Behemoth Sledge but could not find a creature to equip it to, so I kept dropping lands and passing the turn. I Spell Pierced his turn 5 Garruk, then Spreading Seas-ed his second Oran-Rief. Turn 7 he still had no threats and I dropped an Eternity Vessel on 18 life, but like a trooper HornyToad69 soldiered on. I kicked Into the Roil and bounced his Sledge then Negated it the second time around, then let him resolve Woolly Thoctar before repeating the exercise with Flashfreeze.

He tried Ant Queen the next turn which I tried to gather as a specimen, and he used his otherwise useless Path to Exile on it. Next turn his Thoctar met a Flashfreeze, then another Ant Queen got gathered and pathed. On turn 14 now and I had resolved enough cantrips and Divinations to have a hand full of ounterspells, which I exploited by Spell Piercing his Garruk 3 times. This elicits the comment “Wow ur deck is really boring,” which is presumably the sort of talk that prompted Wizards to hose this kind of strategy. I respond with Mind Spring for 4 and a Sphinx of Jwar Isle, and despite resolving a Mycoid Shepherd he can’t make a dent on my Eternity Vessel-secured life total and when I Flashfreeze his third Garruk he suddenly loses connection from the game.

I can see the complaint against this style of deck though I myself enjoy playing with and against counterspell strategies. I definitely don’t think with the cards available it is a viable strategy for standard, and I think you’re much better off playing the efficient answer cards of Grixis control or the proactive pressure of UWR control. Why Terminate is ‘more fun’ than Counterspell to some people I have difficulty understanding – at least the counterspell player might tap out and let you sneak through, your creatures are never safe from Terminate.

Et tu, blue-te?

I’ve tried to avoid the larger debate and focus on experimenting with blue in standard. While I think there are obvious better aggro strategies in other colours and there is very little reason for a control deck to eschew the efficient answers offered by red, white or black, I think the mill deck is worth experimenting with further – it certainly has potential, though Jacerator might just be better. Further testing will show whether this mono-blue deck can stand up and be counted alongside the other colours, but even if it can it will likely be swallowed in the hype surrounding Worldwake spoilers, beginning next week!

Hope you didn’t get too blasted that you forgot that the Extended PTQ season is upon us. Ah yes, Extended season, the glorious three months of the year where we dust off our Tarmogoyfs and Ravnica dual lands in the name of a free plane ticket (baggage fees sold separately). I am one of many players who has a love-hate relationship with this wonderful time of year. We love the huge cardpool and the wide range of decks, combos, and creativity the format gives us, but we hate the mass quantities of money cards that restrict us in our feasible options. Do I have to fork over $200+ for a set of Baneslayer Angels or Tarmogoyfs? Do I have to play a dozen fetchlands or Ravnica duals? Do I have to resort to playing a strictly inferior deck because I have to pay off my student loans?

The answer to all of these questions, thankfully, is no. Baneslayers, Goyfs, fetches, and duals are expensive not because they guarantee you the blue envelope, but because they are quality cards with reach in multiple formats and archetypes. Your success does not depend on the extent of your bank account, but rather your play skill and ability to find a deck that can trump the players who think it’s all about the Benjamins.

Knowing that I don’t have all the money in the world to work with (Thanks, horrible job market!), I set off to find a deck that could play with the big boys but wouldn’t break the bank. I perused the decklists from Pro Tour-Austin and Worlds for the glass slipper and rediscovered Ivan Lopez Garcia’s Tooth and Nail list from Austin. I retooled the sideboard and came up with this for my first batch of testing.

In goldfishing, the deck could churn out a turn five Iona + Painter’s Servant with great regularity. But when it came time to play against humans, as I tested against every deck imaginable from All In Red to Zoo, I found that while the deck is a blast to play, it lacks five crucial things that would otherwise make it viable.

Speed

This deck does not race at all. A turn five win seems impressive until you look at all the other decks that can lock it down turn turn five or earlier:

• All In Red – A turn one Deus or Demigod does not bode well for a deck that wins with a nine-mana sorcery. God forbid they bring Blood Moon into the picture as well.
• Zoo – Domain, Naya, or Rubin? Pick your poison. It’s still not going to end well for you with that onslaught of creatures and burn spells, or in the case of Rubin Zoo, Baneslayer Angels.
• Burn – The following is a list of cards that do not hurt you in any way, shape, or form in Burn decks: Mountain. Yeah, you heard me. Just the basic land. Everything else either hits you directly or facilitates something even more painful.
• Scapeshift – The win may come turn five on average, just like Tooth, but Scapeshift has a good amount of control to back it up.
• Dark Depths – Turn two 20/20? Kitchen Finks is not going to be much help.
• Dredge – I really underestimated the speed of this deck. Turn 3 swing with a bunch of 3/3 hasty guys? Yeah… can’t deal with that.

Card Draw

Harmonize? That’s it? Sure, you can thin the deck with Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sylvan Scrying, but that doesn’t do nearly enough. You’ll see over the course of the game at most fifteen or so cards, and you need to ensure that one of them is Tooth and Nail.

Protection

Thoughtseize Tooth, Iona, or Painter’s Servant; Meddling Mage naming Tooth and Nail; Venser your Tooth and Nail cast with Boseiju mana; Mistbind Clique you on the upkeep you were supposed to go off; Ghost Quarter your Boseiju… yawn. As Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes fame would say, you can present the control deck the material but you can’t make it care.

Resiliency

Sorry, but you’re going to have to wait until game 2 for that Krosan Grip with that Blood Moon that just shut off your tron. Sorry, but you’re going to have to wait until game 2 for that Relic of Progenitus to deal with that Thopter Foundry-Sword of the Meek combo that put the game out of reach. Sorry, but… I think you get the picture.

Removal

Oblivion Stone seems like a good fix-all to your creature, Blood Moon, and Thopter Foundry issues, until you realize you need eight mana to pop it right away. You could play it one turn and pop it the next, but that gives just the window they need to Pithing Needle it or otherwise make it irrelevant.

I talked with some friends about how I could overcome these issues. The most common suggestions were to splash white for Day of Judgment/Wrath of God and Path to Exile, or blue for Peer Through Depths, Condescend, Remand and the like. And while those could work in theory, the blue version dies more quickly, and the white version slows down your Tooth even more. Another workaround was to cut every creature except for the ones that Tooth and Nail was to fetch, but that rendered the deck even more vulnerable to aggro.

Instead of trying to force anything more into something that clearly wasn’t working, I hung up the Tooth and Nail hat and decided to look for a deck that had everything Tooth didn’t. Something that was a blast to play. Something that people may be expecting or not expecting. All these signs pointed me to…

Scapeshift

More on that next week.

Until next time, look before you leap.
-Sam

Mono-Red Burn is an archetype that gets a lot of stick. Some players turn their nose up at such a brainless deck: Isn’t it a newbie mistake to Lightning Bolt your opponent on turn 1? Burn is offensive to the palate of such players, who are more used to dining on tasty morsels of card advantage and the card-based joy that is a good Counterspell war. Burn is the McDonalds’ happy meal to Control’s filet mignon fire grilled steak – it’s quick, it’s not pretty, but it’s cheap and it gets the job done. That low price-tag is what makes it of interest to me, so before we get into a discussion of building or playing the deck let’s see just how cheap some recently successful builds are.

For a competitive deck taking no budget constraints into consideration, $100 is impressively inexpensive. I had better outline my theory on “budget” deckbuilding in a competitive sense briefly – if you are trying to win a pro tour qualifier, there is no point going in with a hamstrung build of your deck. Though you might be able to get by with Arcane Sanctum instead of Glacial Fortress in your UW deck doing so is one more obstacle in your path, and winning 7 or 8 rounds of swiss in a row followed by a top 8 is hard enough without extra obstacles. You are paying $25 or so, depending on location, to enter this event – if you are going in with an inferior version of your deck due to cost you should consider whether that $25 would be better spent on the cards needed to perfect your 75.

That is not to say you have to play the most expensive cards to succeed, just the best ones for your deck. This article is an attempt to show that you can play the best cards for a particular deck type without breaking the bank. Deck selection is the key here rather than ‘budgetizing’ a more expensive deck; a $100 burn deck will perform better than a $200 budget Zoo deck with an unreliable manabase and no ‘Goyfs.

Card Choices

These two decks are very similar – despite being spaced over 2 months apart, there is not much in the way of innovation in either the lands or the creatures. They were both successful though, so we can assume they are doing something right. The game plan of such a deck is very simple – deal as much damage as possible as directly as possible to the opponent until they fall over. This is not difficult to do with red spells, especially when your opponent is helping you out by taking damage from their own fetch lands and shock lands and lowering your target from 20 to perhaps 15. Let’s take a quick look at the cards selected.

Creatures

Goblin Guide – The latest fruit of Wizards efforts to push creatures to the forefront of the game, the drawback on this card becomes more and more irrelevant the earlier your deck can kill the opponent. There is no real danger of drawing your opponent out of manascrew if you plan to kill them on the third turn. That makes this little goblin essentially Ball Lightning for R, in that he deals 6 damage by turn 3. Definitely worth the investment.

Spark Elemental – Essentially a Lava Spike that requires an attack phase, I can see the argument for dropping this old standby especially considering his modern competition.

Mogg Fanatic – There aren’t many 1 toughness creatures going around extended tables these days and this little goblin is largely chosen as an anti-dredge card that isn’t dead elsewhere – sacrificing him will remove all your Dredge opponent’s Bridge From Belows from his graveyard, slowing him down considerably.

Keldon Marauders – Has the potential to do 5 damage, and is guaranteed to do 2 even if removed. If you’ve ever played with this guy you’ll know just how strong he is in aggressive decks.

Hellspark Elemental – A reusable Spark Elemental, this new version is a pretty big upgrade and gives you some crucial reach when you run out of spells in hand. My initial analysis of the deck tells me I don’t want to drop this card.

Spells

Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike, Rift Bolt – These are essentially the same spell and form the core of the deck, which has lead to it being nicknamed the Lava Spike deck or the Lightning Bolt deck in the past. I’d need a compelling reason to touch any of these.

Incinerate – When you really, really want to play more than 12 Lava Spikes. I would like to find a better burn spell than this, given the company.

Shrapnel Blast – The only reason to play the artifact lands in the deck but this spell is very desirable – 5 damage is a huge chunk of your opponent’s life. I think this package is what pushes the deck up to competitive status which makes it unfortunate that it requires the expensive Blinkmoth Nexus.

Magma Jet – Scrying is great in a deck like this, topdecked lands are almost worthless most of the time and skimming them off the top before you draw them keeps you drawing gas for the fire. This is certainly worth considering though it’s not an automatic choice.

Molten Rain – Great for dealing with troublesome lands while keeping the damage flowing. Can slow down Dark Depths, Zoo and Scapeshift decks amongst others, giving you time to finish them off. The value of this card will depend on your expected metagame.

Flames of the Blood Hand – Similarly, this card could be great or only so-so depending on the metagame. Crazycow was obviously concerned about lifegain between these and the Everlasting Torment in the sideboard. Your mileage may vary.

Blood Moon – This is the only sideboard card I want to mention – Blood Moon does a similar job to Molten Rain against a lot of extended decks, slowing them down long enough for you to run them over with burn. It is expensive compared to the rest of the deck – both in terms of dollars and mana – but the effect is very difficult to answer in a timely fashion for most of your competition.

Lands

Mountain – An exceptionally powerful card across multiple formats, it gives you a red mana every turn which can be used to cast your spells.

Great Furnace – Nearly a strict upgrade in this deck, it’s a mountain you can sacrifice to Shrapnel Blast. Darksteel Citadel is just Furnace number 5 (and possibly 6).

Teetering Peaks – Same as above, but if you have an attacking creature – which you usually do – it gives you a virtually free 2 damage. Coming into play tapped is something of a drawback, but given that you were just going to use an untapped land to spend a card and deal burn your foe for 3 it is not so bad.

Blinkmoth Nexus – A land for the early game, an evasive creature & shrapnel fodder in the late game, this is a very handy card to have in your deck. Definitely earns its comparatively high wage.

Bolt You, Blast You, Game?

My, is it turn 3 already? That’s all we have time for this week, and we haven’t even touched on how to play the deck; nor how to make best use of the long gaps between rounds while those Thopter mirrors grind their way to an indecisive conclusion. I hope you’ve enjoyed this discussion of a popular, powerful and inexpensive deck that is frequently underestimated.

Please leave a comment letting me know your thoughts on the archetype and especially on the article – what you liked, what you didn’t like, what you want to see from me in the coming weeks. You can catch up with me in the meantime on twitter and on my blog and check out some of the other great articles on this very site. Thanks for reading!

If you’re planning to play at States as well as trade cards, there are some very important steps to take before you depart on Saturday morning. If you’re just going to trade and play some side events, you can skip the steps meant for the players.

Finish Your Deck & Register It!

There are deck registration sheets available on the internet, so fill out your deck list the night before. This will give you about an extra half hour of precious barter time. Make sure you have every card you need – main deck and sideboard. You don’t want to be digging for a card at the last minute. The most important thing to remember is that you’ve got limited time before the event starts. You’ll have plenty of time to do these things the day before. Tomorrow’s FNM is the best time to get the cards for your deck, NOT the morning-of!

Sleep Shower and Eat!

If I have to explain why good hygiene is important, you should call your mother and ask her to raise you right. Simply put, no one wants to trade with smelly people. Get cleaned up nicely, and put on some decent clothes. You don’t have to go all Cedric Philips and suit up for States, but no one would fault you for ironing your shirt. It all helps generate the appearance of someone who has his/her act together, which helps you generate better deals.

Sleep is underrated. Get at least 6-8 hours, or whatever your normal functioning amount may be. Everyone says this. No one DOES this. Do not stay up late testing or trading, and heaven forbid you stay out late drinking. Really, don’t. You can have some brews with your friends when you top 8. You want to be sharp and keen-eyed when trading and playing, so no matter your goal, get to bed!

Eating well is really under-rated as well. A steady supply of light snacks throughout the day will ensure you keep your focus razor-sharp. I suggest bringing some granola bars and some fruit, but a few bags of chips will suffice if you’re so inclined. Just don’t subject your body to huge swings of feast and famine – it’ll ruin your concentration.

Know the Format

I don’t mean know it to play it. You should know the format so you know what cards to bring and what cards to showcase. What follows is a list of some of the most important cards to be packing. Don’t forget that people will trade and pay well for commons and uncommons, so be sure to review the popular decks online and bring some playsets of commons. You never know when someone will pay $2 for a set of Blightnings. You want to get a small binder together that people trying to finish decks can flip through quickly. This is NOT the event for your 5″ thick EDH binder!

• Baneslayer Angel – The Queen Bee of standard. It’s possible that the dealers at the site may not have any, so if you’re the only one with Baneslayers in the room, the price is yours to name.
• Bloodbraid Elf – Someone’s going to audible into Jund at the last minute and isn’t going to have copies of the staple commons and uncommons handy. You can turn a set of Bloodbraids into a lot of money or cards if you find the right person.
• Bituminous Blast – See Bloodbraid Elf. In fact, you should just put together as many copies of Jund, minus the rares, as you can.
• Ranger of Eos – A few decks in the format, like Mono White and Boros are running four Rangers. They’re getting harder to find now that Alara isn’t being drafted anymore.
• Crypt of Agadeem, Extractor Demon, Hedron Crab – “That Stupid Graveyard Deck” is actually a legitimate deck. It’s got great matchups against the field and it’s Japanese! Everyone loves Japanese Tech. Crypts are usually easy to find, but Extractor Demons are less-so. Most people probably haven’t pulled them from their Crap Rare boxes yet, but they’re a key card in a legitimate deck. Hedron Crab is an essential uncommon, and should follow the same rule as Bloodbraid Elf.
• Emeria Angel – She’s seeing a lot more tournament play, in assorted decks from Worlds. People may not have their playsets yet, so if you bought in cheap States is a great place to unload.
• Noble Hierarch – This card should be on your radar to acquire as well. They’ve become very hard-to-find of late, and a number of decks are running 4 copies. Most notably, Naya Lightsaber, which took down the World Championship. That deck’s sure to be popular, so Hierarchs will follow suit.
• M10 Duals – No one ever has enough rare dual lands. It’s a sad fact of Magic. Being the guy with extra duals is always profitable. Focus on Dragonskull Summit and Rootbound Crag to help fill out Jund decks, but bear in mind that Sunpetal Grove is in the Naya deck and the Bant deck, Drowned Catacombs is in the Dredge deck, and some versions of UW control are sure to be out there as well.
• Master of the Wild Hunt – Now a pricey Mythic rare, the wolf factory is essential to modern Jund. Have at least a playset on-hand.

Planeswalkers are always popular, but most traders will only care about the tournament-worthy ones. Elspeth is in some Boros builds, Ajani Vengeant is in Naya Lightsaber, Garruk is in Jund, Nissa is in Mono-Green (which seems to have dwindled in popularity a great deal), and Tezzeret is an alternate win condition for the turbofog decks in which Jace Beleren also makes an appearance. The others can probably be traded, but will not be in nearly as much demand.

Once you’ve got all the tournament-level cards separated out, including as many spare playsets of commons and uncommons as you can find, throw them all in a binder and sort them by deck archetype if possible. This will make your trades lightning-fast. In many cases, an offer that would usually be considered a bit high will be accepted quicky. People are more concerned with finishing their decks than they are with saving a few dollars, and that’s your opportunity to profit.

Overall, States is a heck of a lot of fun! I’ll be attending for the first time since the format was Onslaught Block and Mirrodin and trying to beat my previous best of 10th place. If any of my readers are at Indiana States down in Indy, be sure to stop me and say hey! I look just like my picture, except with spikey, mohawk-ish hair. Best of luck, and happy trading!

My first was Biorhythm. That was a fun win. I used the Symbiotic Elf and his cronies. Mixed with Wrath and Oblivion Stone and just a spice of acceleration mixed in and I had a deck. I once beat 14 opponents at once in a multiplayer game. End of Turn blow up Stone destroy all and put tokens from my Symbiotes into play. My Turn cast Biorhythm and win. That was fun.

That obsession didn’t last long though. Biorhythm just was to straightforward for me. As I grew in the game my inner teacher began to latch onto certain cards. Invariably these cards required an explanation or a teaching of some kind. The first State Championship I ever attended was with a deck that looked to abuse Mind’s Desire. I used Affinity based permanents with Chain of Vapor and a bunch of draw spells. On my critical turn I would dump my whole hand on the table. Use Chain to bounce them back again and then play them for free via Affinity. Cast Mind’s Desire with the floating mana and BOOM a very large Tendrils (or at least a load of Frogmites and friends).

Mind’s Desire lasted forever. I went through the Twiddle/Desire, the Cloud of Faeries/ Desire, and finally the Perfect Storm of TEPS. In fact I still have my TEPS list from Extended last year. I just can’t take it out of its sleeves.

Since this summer I’ve had a new pet. Warp World did well for me all summer long, in Standard anyway. Of course I loved the casting of WW itself but also the games where it just went Ramp/Aggro were great as well. But as rotations go the Warp World has just gone flat. I’ve tried to make it work from multiple angles but have not been successful.

And there is good reason to want it to be successful. When evaluating Warp World you have to consider two factors. What do the non Warp cards do pre-warp? How do they fare coming off of the Warp?

Pre-Warp we want to gather permanents and/or card advantage. This is similar to all decks but the real kicker is Post-warp. How do our cards generate advantage off of the Warp itself?

Let’s look at the Warp ratio for some common decks being played today. The Warp Ratio is a number that is devised by taking the number of permanents deployed divided by the number of cards used. Since Warp World count varies every game and every matchup we’ll just look at the whole deck and develop an average. So now it’s the number of Perms deployed by the whole deck divided by 60. (Decklist found on Deckcheck.net)

• Jund- .72
• Naya Lightsaber – .95 ( I gave Ranger of Eos 3 perms even though the two he fetches aren’t played right away)
• Boros Bushwhacker – .88
• Mono White Tokens – 1.03 (For Emeria Angel I added a very conservative 3 Landfall triggers)
• Borderland Bant – 1.15
• Vampires – .79

Today I want to run you through the adjustments I’ve made and see if anyone out there has an angle that I haven’t tried.

Here is my list that I ran to 17th (of 98) at a PTQ this summer.

First notice that this list has a 1.27 Warp ratio. When you look at this list you would think that it would be an easy transition to Zendikar Standard. But I assure you it is not. In the land department we really aren’t that phased. The Reflecting Pool is not that big of a loss and the Thicket can be replaced as well. Kazandu Refuge can even work here because of our lack of early drops.

The heavy hitters of Warp World, Siege-Gang, and Hellkite are still around. The rest of the deck is all role players. Here is a list of our losses

• Fertile Ground – Adds a permanent and gives extra mana. Replacing it has been extremely difficult. The problem is that most good mana accelerants that are in permanent form are creatures. Every one has creature removal while few decks main enchantment removal. This enchantment was also safe because it was too innocent. Why would you waste a spell to get rid of Fertile Ground?
• Farhaven Elf – I personally ran this elf over Birds in my list. Many people ran Birds for the multi-color aspect but I preferred Farhaven Elf because of the bonus permanent. Both are easily removed but the Elf mana fix keeps on giving.
• Wort, the Raidmother – this card is a gimmick. It’s a gimmick I like but a gimmick none the less. It does make your Warp World almost uncounterable since you place two copies (or more) on the stack. With the proper design double Warpage should never lose. The added benefit of extra permanents was actually more handy than the conspire. In the PTQ I actually took a game loss because of the desire to Double Warp instead of just winning and playing Wort later if needed.
• Murderous Redcap – This is role player that is most missed. With the acceleration suite Redcap is playable on turn 3 and serves the role of early removal. The bonus Synergy with Siege Gang is also incredible. At least half of the games that I won off of Warp came from direct damage from Hellkite, Redcap, and Siege throwing tokens.

Warping Landfall

That was the card list that I lost due to rotation and that is where my saga begins. So enter the first spoiled card that I saw Rampaging Baloths. “This Landfall mechanic is going to ROCK!” I thought to myself. Imagine Warping into a Baloth. Every land that hits will be a 4/4 Beast as well! I instantly fell in love with the Landfall Warp. I even went so far as to drop the Bogardan Hellkites. Lotus Cobra slithered his way in easily. I did some Judge questioning and found a disappointment when it came to the Expeditions. Enchantments warp in after lands so the Expeditions would gain no counters from the Warped in lands. If I had a card like Farhaven Elf I would be able to gain a token from that land but not the Warped ones. Khalni Heart Expedition still made the list but Zektar does not. Even when I looked at adding the Hellkites back in I was still short of cards so I looked to the other color. Obnoxious, I mean Ob Nixilis said “put me in coach” and I had to agree.

Final Warp Ratio is 1.33 which is much more potent but it really has harder time getting there. This deck is just to top heavy pre-warp. Admittedly I tested this mostly in a heavy Jund/Vampire environment.

The pre-warp card advantage of Jund was just too much to handle. Basically games came down to can I get a Warp off? Sure I had a couple Snake accelerated Warps that were really cool but not enough to warrant any serious play.

Vampires was a little easier but not a lock. While I was able to Warp more often and his Warp ratio was very low the synergy within the few perms he got to lay was real good. Sometimes good enough to win post warp. Hitting a couple of Bloodwitches off of Warp was just cruel with the number of Vamps also coming into play. One of my students actually started boarding in his own Ob NIxilis as well. By the way, your opponents CIP’s (I mean ETB’s) happen first.

Boros Bushwhacker is also an issue. It’s fast enough to win before Warp and has a decent retaliation attack because the Ranger can grab multiple dudes that come in cheap and become hasty from a kicked Bushwhacker.

There is a very interesting (to me anyway) math dilemma with this deck. You want to use fetches to max the Prewarp potential. But if you use too many in the game then your decrease the lands hit off of a Warp which decreases the power of Landfall thereby decreasing the power of the Warp effect.

Warped Allies

So I started looking for way to make the deck Win directly off of Warp World. That way I wouldn’t have to wait for the win or defend against my opponent’s first swing. Also the occasional DoJ in my opponents hand wouldn’t spell my ruin. Of course raising Hellkite up to 4 was the first move but I still need more. Enter Hagra Diabolist. If we can Warp a Hagra and say 3 other Allies we take 16 life away from our opponent. Add in another Ally or a Hellkite and its game over.

Now we have 8 cards that can do significant damage and potentially win the game off of the ETB’s alone. To make Hagra effective enough we need more Allies. Turntimber Ranger is an easy inclusion since it also generates better Warp and increases our Warp Ration. Others in Green, Red, and Black don’t really stand out but some would be necessary. Oran- Rief Survivalist is playable and Bala Ged Thief affords us some protection.

As many of you could imagine this deck was a step back. While the Warp Ratio is at least 1.2 (that’s assuming no other Allies trigger Turntimber Ranger) it still doesn’t have much game without a Warp and the lack of acceleration just makes it harder to survive long enough. I did enjoy the wins that I pulled out but they were far between.

Warped Now

Realizing that the Warp World will need to be just a casual deck I’ve decided to max our Warp Ratio. That’s were the real fun is anyway. Sure I’ll lose more than I’ll win but when you have that mind set it’s not so bad. It’s almost funny that I say that while the Mothership (Wizards.com) sings the praises of Spike with ‘Spike Week.’

In order to max out the ratio I bring in White. The reason for the inclusion is two cards. Emeria Angel is included for more landfall as well as helping our midgame permanent building. I also brought in Kor Cartographer to serve as a quasi Farhaven Elf. Sure it only gets Plains but it still mana acceleration as well as permanent acceleration.

Let’s do the math. Still going with 3 lands hit off a Warp then my Ratio is 1.67. WOW!! That doubles many of the current decks. Talk about a post-Warp advantage! Sure pre-Warp I’m a little weak but this deck is just for the Warp-age fun that happens. If you play it make sure to pack your tokens. Goblins, Birds, Beasts, and Wolves abound.

Anyway, I can see that class is almost out. Feel free to post any ideas you may have for Warp World. It doesn’t need to be any tech that makes this deck a tournament caliber player. Just looking for fun ideas.

A volleyball team has performed as it should and set up their best hitter for a kill. She hits it past the blockers and down on the back row. One player though does not let the ball just drop. She stretches across the floor ignoring all pain and possible injury to slide here hand under the ball which puts it just 4 feet up in the air. Which is just enough time for another member of the team to scramble over and get the ball into play. And though she expended herself on the previous play the first player gets up and prepares to do it again as the opposing team readies for another try.

The center-fielder see the ball start to move to his left before he even hears it come off the bat. He immediately starts to back pedal and then run to the fence. As he gets close to the fence he looks over his shoulder to see the ball reaching for the penultimate home-run. “Not today,” he says to that little white gremlin as he speeds up and launches himself to make the catch. After his body collides with the rather unforgiving wall he looks into his hand and smiles.

We’ve all seen it. The mystical, logic defying, and awe inspiring moment where all the world seems to stop and just one person seems to owns it all. Most of these moments occur in sports. But they can happen is all parts of society. The rest of us just don’t get replays on ESPN.

The main thing all of these moments have in common is what I call ‘the Sell Out.’ Most people think of this phrase negatively. We assume it to mean someone has “bought” us. But I look at it as a positive. I define ‘the Sell Out’ as when you have holistically devoted yourself to something and all other needs or distractions aren’t allowed to exist in your mind.

In Magic the Gathering we have these moments. Especially the “Johnny” type of players. We sit and wait until we have that certain mix of cards. The elusive “combo.” Then we finally get to play them and pray that the right mix will lead us to the win. This is the reward and downfall of combo type decks. We love to see that moment when we call tap everything and stretch our hand to its max potential and hopefully find the win.

But the metaphorical linebacker that is aggro will find us vulnerable in the middle of the field, or the never forgiving wall that is control will be there to punish us if we don’t come down with the prize, and our opposing volleyball team that works together like an opposing combo deck will just reload and combo out again if we can’t disrupt their play somehow.

This is the problem with selling out in Magic. The risks often outweigh the potential reward. Yet I still play combo more than any other deck type. The “I once cast a fireball THIS BIG” big fish story is too tempting. The Sportscenter for MTG plays is always on in my head.

Yet there is another way to sell out that many younger players do. It’s the selling out to a key word mechanic. Almost every expansion has some keyword or mechanic that makes you want to build around it. Some keywords have no buzz about them until someone gets smart and figures out the possibilities. Others fall in the middle as good but not great. Yet we all try to find some way to abuse them. The success of keywords like Affinity, Dredge, Flashback, and Threshold all draw us into a new keyword hoping to be the great designer who breaks it.

I can’t tell you how many times I have had a student build the latest and coolest “Exalted” deck last year. I personally went down the Persist pathway during the summer of Fae. These endeavors just don’t pan out very often and most of the time it’s our fault. We like to really use a mechanic and we overuse it more and more often. We may find ourselves using some underpowered or over-costed card just because it has some mechanic on it. While the reality is we already have plenty of cards with that mechanic in our deck.

A student of mine came in and asked me to help his mana base with the following deck list.

Looking this list over a few things jumped out at me. First he wanted a full set of Marsh Flats and Verdant Catacombs. Second he could easily run some tri-lands since he is lacking in 1 drops. But even with that I handed the deck back and told him to reconsider this list. “But look at the Synergy!” he responded. “It so cool. If I get this guy on the field it’s like free spells or free pumps all game long.”

“Day of Judgment?” I asked.

He said he wouldn’t over extend. But how could you not? The more Allies the merrier the Victory party. And basically no Ally can win on his/her own. He sold out for Allies. It’s a Catch 22. If you play a lot of allies then you get a lot of cool plays but if you play a lot of allies you really expose yourself to removal and you have little room in your deck for your own removal.

Here’s the thing about Selling Out. The better the team the more likely a player is to make the uber plays I mentioned earlier. The Storm mechanic is a prime example. In order to play TEPS back in the day you really had to sell out for it. But the reward for your extension was a solid list of victories. No athlete is slamming his body against the outfield wall if his team is not winning and looks to be hopeless. Allies themselves are not the championship team to sell out for right now.

So we continued our conversation about the deck for a while and he began to see my point. We decided to drop a color from the deck and add other cards to help facilitate our band of friends. Sure we would still be trying to accumulate the Allies but now we would have plays other than just Ally after Ally.

If we were to drop Green the allies kept would be:

That’s still 21 allies in the deck. Assuming consistent land drops we are able to drop a new friend on the field on every turn from 2 until almost 7 on the average. The previous list would put us much deeper in the game before our hand would be out of Allies but I feel making it to turn 6 or 7 would be sufficient. Meanwhile we clear up a lot of card slots for protection and removal and that will support our army much better. I would look to add the following.

That would leave us with 23 land slots that would leave us with a land drop for each of the first 5 turns in most games. 5cc is the top of our curve so we should be able to consistently play each of our cards when the time is right.

I feel this deck still holds to his Allies theme and does make the commitment level required without doing the all out sell out that dooms many decks. The only real question in my mind is the Kabira Evangel. I really think Wizards should have given this card Flash for it to be playable. Or maybe take away the end of turn part of the text. I honestly find it sub-playable but I wanted to stay with the original list just with those two colors.

If we went with Black and Green as our core colors we would start with the following crew:

This set of 17 makes our commitment to Allies significantly less but still very doable. I would focus my supporting cards into the discard, removal for black and the mana acceleration / fixing for green. If you wanted more allies they could fit in here as well though I think Stonework Puma would be the best choice unless you anticipate a lot of fliers then Tajuru Archers should be slipped in.

Our 21 land would roll with:

The Black Green list would be playable as well but doesn’t sell out quite as hard. Though I feel our early game strength dipped a little with the change from Blademaster to Survivalist. To compensate, the mid-game Turntimber is superior to the mix of life gain and protection that white gave us. We also can add the late game table flipper with Consume Spirit.

These are the tamed downed decks we came up with. Both do commit to the Ally theme but neither is overpopulated with the theme.

What do you think? Would love to hear from you in the comments.

There’s the bell. Time for Lunch.

Now that we’ve got the formalities out of the way, let’s get started by looking at the results from the Star City Games 5K in Philadelphia this past weekend. With the absence of Cryptic Command and Vivid lands, I (among many) figured this new Standard would be a format dominated by aggro, specifically Jund and Vampires. After looking at the top 16 lists, here are the numbers we’re faced with:

Basic Archetype: 13, aggro, 1 midrange, 2 control
Colors: 15 without blue, 1 with blue

Okay, so far it’s looking just as we expected. Blue control had its heyday for long enough, now let’s let the other colors and archetypes shine, eh? Let’s dive in further.

Specific Archetype (according to SCG): 6 Jund Aggro, 3 Vampires, 2 Naya Lotus Angel, 1 Naya Aggro, 1 Luminarch Planeswalker Control, 1 Boros Bushwhacker, 1 Mono-White Control, 1 Red Deck Wins

Ten out of sixteen decks definitely don’t look out of place – Jund, Vampires, and Red Deck. “Boros Bushwhacker”, though silly-sounding, is just a super-fast red-white weenie deck (designed and championed by my fellow ManaNation writer Kelly Reid.) It’s a welcome throwback to a couple of years ago and the days of Boros Deck Wins. Naya Aggro is just what it sounds like. But what the hell are “Naya Lotus Angel” and “Luminarch Planeswalker Control”? And furthermore, shouldn’t Mono-White Control wait its turn until extended season, where it has access to the stupidity that is Martyr of Sands? Let’s have a look at those three.

Until next time, keep drawing the nuts.
- Sam

To start we need to look at a few factors of the current Standard environment. One of the first factors I see is that we have a set rotating out this means that we will want to have a general idea of what the new set will be like before we go and build our deck. So my plan is to look over any spoilers I can find including the ManaNation spoilers on the site and see what we can find out. I will not talk about the specific cards in the spoilers but this will give us a general idea of what we are going to see in the new set and allow us to start looking into the basic design of our deck. Other things that we need are the current decks being used. Most new decks are variations on the current decks in standard so we need to know what is being used and how it is being used, this way we can use old ideas for our new deck and know what weaknesses the other decks will or may currently have.

After looking at the various spoiler cards (67 officially spoiled cards, including land at the time this article was written) we can see some very strong cards coming to the forefront of magic. We know that with the change we lose a lot of competitive decks but the new cards coming out seem rather high in casting cost, so it’s hard to say if there will be a major change to how the game is played. The major things I am seeing that will probably go into a deck are Landfall, Allies, and Quests. We see kicker and traps as well but I don’t think this will change the format much as kicker never seemed to live up to its full potential, and I think traps are costed too high to play as you don’t want to have to wait for a “Magical” moment to play them. So judging by what I see I would say the next big thing for me will be Landfall. And Landfall seems like it would go great in a Red/Green Ramp deck.

Now you may wonder why I say this. Let’s start with the obvious: We have an abundance of land search in the format which is why ramp decks always stick around in one way or another. With Landfall the deck automatically gets a bonus for finding lands. So it’s an auto include to have Landfall in any ramp deck. I chose red for a specific reason, we need creature control and on top of that it has a nice landfall ability that gives us just that. Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is a great landfall card that you can have multiple in play can wipe out a creature board or kill the opponent quickly. To use this it requires a lot of red land but with land search we can accomplish just that. Green was chosen for its ability to search for lands not to mention green has the best blockers to build up defense while you search for your lands. The rest is just filler for a basic red/green deck.

This doesn’t mean that we will use red and green, this just means that the way Zendikar is unfolding we are seeing lots of strong red and green that make me want to move this way. If fairies manage to stick around after the change (miracle needed here) this deck idea would work as landfall is harder to counter and lands are almost impossible to stop from coming into play (Right now I believe it is impossible to stop them but new cards come out all the time). So this means that all counterspell decks will have a tough time dealing with this deck and it should be fast enough to hold back white weenie in whatever form it will take.

Will this idea work? I don’t know. No one will know until we have more information on the new set and we can play test. This means that the ideas we take away will change constantly as new cards come out. Everything evolves and so should our thought pattern. So that being said we need to decide what direction to take our new standard deck. Do we combo (Three to four cards to create a game winning situation), Overrun (amass a huge army and Attack), control (Keep the opponent on the defensive while we slowly win) or clear a path (Burn everything needed to attack straight on)? These are some of the different styles we can choose from, these are all very effective. The chatter online seems to be saying creature heavy is the way to go so I would say ‘clearing a path’ or ‘overrunning’ would be our best bet.

Now I know there are cards some people do not like in this deck but, I decided to build the deck this way so that it was well rounded and it accomplished its goal the best way it could. So after a few more preview cards and searching the current standard cards we should start seeing this deck evolve. So for next time we will quickly review this info and start choosing cards.

So before my next article take on one of the below tasks and post your thoughts in the comments!

The 1st choice – Criticize: Don’t like the deck idea or don’t think it will work? Tell me and why and give ideas as to how to change it or what deck idea you think will work.

The 2nd choice – Homework: Look through the spoiler’s and see potential cards we can use. As well as, go through current card lists and come up with cards that will work well for this deck.

Winning Deck List played by Charles Gindy

• 2 Ajani Vengeant
• 3 Broken Ambitions
• 3 Broodmate Dragon
• 3 Cruel Ultimatum
• 4 Cryptic Command
• 4 Esper Charm
• 1 Essence Scatter
• 2 Hallowed Burial
• 3 Mulldrifter
• 2 Negate
• 3 Plumeveil
• 4 Volcanic Fallout

• 2 Cascade Bluffs
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 3 Island
• 2 Mystic Gate
• 4 Reflecting Pool
• 3 Sunken Ruins
• 2 Vivid Crag
• 4 Vivid Creek
• 3 Vivid Marsh
• 2 Vivid Meadow

Sideboard

• 1 Essence Scatter
• 2 Firespout
• 4 Great Sable Stag
• 1 Hallowed Burial
• 2 Identity Crisis
• 2 Jace Beleren
• 1 Negate
• 2 Runed Halo