Master deck designer. Thought-provoking narrator of MTGO videos. Pro Tour Top 8 competitor. Star City Games Premium Columnist. National Champion.
And killjoy.
Before we integrated the Facebook comments on the blog itself, old MJ smothered our collective enthusiasm RE: Falkenrath Marauders with his stoic, Value RUG-Pod driven pragmatism on FB proper…
One might say that the man has a point.
Now on the subject of MJ — and even the echo of Demigod of Revenge dredged up during the Falkenrath Marauders discussion — I got to thinking about a bit of an older(er) school situation. Consider this deck, which Jacob used to make Top 8 of Grand Prix Seattle/Tacoma a couple of years back:
Now everyone knows that Michael won the 2008 US National Championships with a Demigod of Revenge deck, but today’s backwards-winking You Make the Play posits playing his Five-color Blood deck against the hellacious Spirit Avatars.
The Situation: Your opponent is playing a B/R Blightning Beatdown deck. The action has been brutal, but you stabilized by blowing up all his guys with Jund Charm, up until he got in there with a Demigod of Revenge.
Lucky ducky, you had your Cruel Ultimatum to take care of it, and are now sitting pretty pretty.
You – Eight assorted lands (you can cast whatever you want), and a lone Bloodbraid Elf
Him – Ghitu Encampment and four assorted Black- and Red-producing lands.
Graveyards:
You – Cruel Ultimatum, Jund Charm, Jund Charm; some guys you used to trade earlier.
Him – Demigod of Revenge and some assorted other lands and spells
Your opponent draws his card for the turn, smiles, and plays it:
Demigod of Revenge!
So… How do you approach this turn?
You Make the Play!
LOVE
MIKE
P.S. Got some kind of weird results with the Facebook Social Plugin yesterday. Please excuse our clutter while we continue to upgrade Five (and by “we” I mean YT).
Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
3 Damnation
3 Extirpate
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Choke
2 Ravenous Baloth
2 Seal of Primordium
This deck more or less exchanges the usually defining Death Cloud set from the Life from the Loam versions of The Rock for Tarmogoyf, Bitterblossom, and Umezawa’s Jitte, repositioning the deck from board control to beatdown… while maintaining the card advantage capabilities of the [previously] more common deck.
The biggest take away I have from trying Jacob’s deck is how much better it is against Burn than the Death Cloud version I was on early in this season’s testing. Beating Burn was simply not difficult nor in any way stressful wheresas with Death Cloud, even when you won, you were on the edge of your seat the whole time.
An inability to win by Death Cloud is counterbalanced a little bit by the fact that this deck can still potentially lock the opponent down with Raven’s Crime. Even against Burn this can be useful because even if they are still clocking you for two or more damage you can end up shaving off their options and preventing them from planning — and playing — optimally.
All in all a very solid deck, well worth the try if you are considering B/G.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the new B/W Tokens decks in Standard, Michael Jacob used a version to help knock down the 2008 Worlds team title in favor of the good old USA.
Michael Jacob’s B/W Tokens
4 Bitterblossom
3 Marsh Flitter
4 Terror
2 Thoughtseize
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Ajani Goldmane
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Glorious Anthem
2 Knight of Meadowgrain
1 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Spectral Procession
sb:
2 Head Games
2 Thoughtseize
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Wispmare
3 Wrath of God
This deck has some unusual choices…
[Only?] Two copies of Thoughtseize on one… but these compliment the full set of Tidehollow Scullers on two.
Black two mana spells include tons of Terrors, but also possibly the most powerful spell in the deck, a quartet of Bitterblossoms. This is the kind of deck — along with Blightning Beatdown — where I can really appreciate Bitterblossom. It’s obviously a strong card… I just hate the fact that it is Faerie-stamped.
The only “true” three mana spell in Michael’s deck is Glorious Anthem. I saw a similar innovation in a deck that Andre Coimbra showed me before Worlds. Andre was testing my Blightning Beatdown pretty heavily and was losing badly to B/W tokens. So he decided to brew up some mirror innovations for the B/W deck, and Glorious Anthem “to win the tokens fights” was one of the things he came up with. It looks like Jacob had the same idea.
Regardless, Glorious Anthem has killer synergy with token creatures in general… It can help to make 1/1 throwaways into [more] legitimate threats.
One thing that struck me as a little odd in this deck was the White Planeswalker in the main, that is, the “other” Ajani [Goldmane]. Yes, you can increase all tokens with Ajani, simiar to Glorious Anthem, but Elspeth Knight-Errant actually makes tokens. Her “to the air” attack is about as devastating as you can get with a Knight of Meadowgrain early. Do you realize that a ten-point life swing on a stick actually increases Elspeth’s loyalty?
Offense is rounded out by multiple “make three or more guys” guys… Marsh Flitter, Cloudgoat Ranger, and Spectral Procession. In the following video, I get my Spectral Procession stolen on turn two, but the other two token generators make quick work of Game One.
