Short post tonight – just indicating some recent changes to my favorite Standard decks.

I got back from movie night at Jonny Magic’s and started playing in one-on-one queues for the first time tonight. Movie night was awesome, as usual. Super packed house for a viewing of The Triplets of Belleville. I found out that Tom Martell has a blog! The best part about Tom’s blog is that it has almost no content, but a link to my blog

Anyway, I played three matches, one one-on-one queue with Rhox Meditant deck and two Tournament Practice Room matches with Steward of Valeron deck. All successful.

Rhox Meditant Deck (now with 100% less Rhox Meditant)

4 Ajani Vengeant
4 Bituminous Blast
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Enlisted Wurm
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Maelstrom Pulse

4 Civic Wayfinder
2 Primal Command

4 Exotic Orchard
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
1 Mountain
2 Plains
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Savage Lands
1 Swamp
1 Wooded Bastion

sb:
1 Anathemancer
4 Naya Charm
4 Cloudthresher
2 Primal Command
4 Hallowed Burial

I somehow got an Anathemancer in my main deck and played 61 cards (Jon Becker alert).

My opponent was G/W combo Elves, which should be a miserable pairing. Game one I might have been able to win — it’s possible — but I flipped Anathemancer on a Cascade spell when he had only Forests. Sub-comical.

His play was superb, by the way. He did all the little things that some players get sloppy and miss. For example I flipped Maelstrom Pulse with Bloodbraid Elf and targeted Devoted Druid when he had two on board; he correctly killed his own Druid with -1/-1 counters rather than lose them both; right play, obvious when you say it out loud, and still something many miss. I conceded when he had three Regal Forces in play, thirteen Green creatures, and had played his second or third Primal Command on me.

Sideboarding was:
+1 Naya Charm
+4 Hallowed Burial
-1 Anathemancer (imaginary)
-4 Captured Sunlight

Game Two I got on tempo. Just Kitchen Finks into Bloodbraid Elf this time. His draw wasn’t bad, just slow and on the draw. I had more Bloodbraid Elf action and Maelstrom Pulse and other removal to handle any little Elves. I had Hallowed Burial from my opener but never had to play it.

I sided again for Game Three to be faster.
+3 Naya Charm
-3 Ajani Vengeant

This game took forever and he had superb action but he was never really in it. It was a little scary when he got me with a third turn Primal Command but I recovered for Maelstrom Pulse on half his Elves engine, which slowed him enough to bite it to my first Hallowed Burial. I played three or four total in Game Three, off of Naya Charms and Enlisted Wurms.

I trished him out long, Long, LONG until it was Enlisted Wurm against [lonely] Regal Force. At this point he had like one card left and I had six, including Naya Charms and Hallowed Burials hand and graveyard. Hallowed Burial is great in this matchup.

Naya Charm might just be better than Ajani, but Ajani is a key source of headaches for control decks. It’s all balancing.

Steward of Valeron dot dec

2 Behemoth Sledge

4 Kitchen Finks
4 Steward of Valeron

4 Chameleon Colossus
4 Cloudthresher
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Thornling

3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Path to Exile
3 Ranger of Eos

4 Brushland
10 Forest
4 Mosswort Bridge
2 Plains
4 Wooded Bastion

sb:
1 Behemoth Sledge
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
4 Celestial Purge
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Rhox Meditant

Main changes are minus one main deck Ranger of Eos, swapping for a Path to Exile.

Sideboard includes Ethersworn Canonist now, which is a concession to the Bloodbraid decks and also can help slow down combo decks. I haven’t sided it in yet.

Matches were straightforward; nothing fancy. The best was when I used Celestial Purge against his first turn Borderpost

That’s it for tonight!

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reding: Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 1)

I have a PTQ coming up. I am probably going to play my two-for-one Cascade deck as detailed in Rhox Meditant Again (ironically with no Rhox Meditants… replaced them with Ajani Vengeant), but I wanted to work on a fallback deck that would require less processing power and allow me to play more quickly through a long tournament. Inspired by the standout G/W decks of Pro Tour Honolulu, I decided to explore, um, a different Rhox Mediatant deck.

Steward of Valeron dot dec

2 Behemoth Sledge

4 Kitchen Finks
4 Steward of Valeron

4 Chameleon Colossus
4 Cloudthresher
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Thornling

3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Path to Exile
4 Ranger of Eos

4 Brushland
10 Forest
4 Mosswort Bridge
2 Plains
4 Wooded Bastion

sb:
1 Behemoth Sledge
3 Primal Command
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
4 Celestial Purge
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Path to Exile
4 Rhox Meditant

I am not sure that this deck isn’t just worse than G/W Tokens. However there are certain synergies that are just irresistable, for example Chameleon Colossus + Elspeth, Knight-Errant. You get these crazy mana acceleration draws sometimes that go like Noble Hierarch, Steward of Valeron, multiple Hierarchs, in… then you have Exalted for tons of damage the next turn, plus Cloudthresher mana. It’s really quite strange.

Ranger of Eos is a really high quality card in this deck despite there being only four total targets main. You don’t usually play a long enough game to “run out” of one mana creatures, even if you are stuck drawing some. There is usually something else you can play on four or five mana.

For those of you who haven’t played Thornling yet… Start. I can’t believe I am saying this, but Thornling is better than Chameleon Colossus most of the time. Indestructable is a powerful ability, as is trample. When combined with Indestructable and multiple Noble Hierarchs, +1/-1 is really quite dizzying.

All that said, this deck might not be as strong as the now Rhox Meditant-free Rhox Meditant Again deck, or some of the others. It is, however, straightforward to run and fun to play, which are compelling features when approaching a long day that promises to be an arduous struggle of rounds.

I really like a Thornling

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So for those of you who didn’t know yet, we just started taking preorders on My Files by my good friend Zvi Mowshowitz. This volume of My Files is like Zvi’s Deckade, only Zvi is a Pro Tour Champion instead of just a master of, you know, life like YT.

I know you guys are all going crazy to sign up to pick up your copy of My Files, so I’ll just run out the link to Top 8 Magic now, and let you go about your business: My Files at Top 8 Magic

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, No. 1)

It’s a bit late to do a Shards of Alara Constructed review, but it’s never too late to speculate about cards that, you know, might get played. This is just a short list of musings on some Shards of Alara cards that would probably rank as low Role Players. But hey… Not many would have thought that Gnarled Mass or Tallowisp would be key centerpieces to competitive decks

Deathgreeter
Deathgreeter is an interesting card that I have seen in some Constructed decks recently (usually tokens decks, next to Nantuko Husk, &c.). Yeah, Deathgreeter certainly raises an eyebrow, but… The text on this card is pretty similar to another 1/1 for B: Disciple of the Vault.

So why was Disciple of the Vault ban-able in multiple formats whereas Deathgreeter is a corner case? Well, Deathgreeter is probably just less powerful in general than a card on the order of Soul Warden or Essence Warden… It’s a sequence thing, but the Warden sisters probably have more singular upside.

Additionally, there is a clear terminus to what Disciple of the Vault ever has to do: 20. Deathgreeter can be “effective” and at the same time have no appreciable effect on the game.

Still… something worth thinking about, especially in this color, at this cost.

Call to Heel
Call to Heel is very versatile. It seems like a card that you generally want to play on your own Mulldrifter, but that you can live with playing against your opponent’s oncoming threat (hopefully not a Nucklavee).

There is a lot of upside to this card when you play it on your own creature… kind of like a Momentary Blink, but you need to pay mana to re-play your creatures, which may or may not be relevant as a specific game develops. The beauty of the card is that you can play it against anybody, unlike a Momentary Blink (even if that seems like an ugly option most of the time).

Compare with Turn to Mist, a card that was a decent two-of sideboard card in some decks but never a four-of main deck card. Like Turn to Mist, Call to Heel has a lot of play to it, a lot of “maybe this will go right” even if it does not go in everywhere.

Call to Heel seems like it would be more effective when you are playing a matchup where the opponent can’t really disrupt your ability to generate incremental advantages, especially when the opponent is likely to tap out on his own turn.

Necrogenesis
Paul Jordan tried to get me to play this right before States. It is actually pretty good. Necrogenesis is absolutely insane against Makeshift Mannequin (obviously). One of these can take at least a little starch out of a Cruel Ultimatum, and it is no fun for Unearth-based strategies or any kind of reanimation. Best yet, Necrogenesis is pretty cheap to get into play.

Definitely something worth trying in the sideboard, depending on the metagame.

Steward of Valeron
How awkward is this?

Turn three, attack with my Steward. Post combat, Wilt-Leaf Liege.

Awk, am I right?

I’d play it for sure.

Corpse Connoisseur
Here is another card that Paul Jordan suggested to me recently. I dismissed Corpse Connoisseur initially, but I think I was overly harsh. This card is kind of Entomb-ish.

Think about sending Squee, Goblin Nabob into the graveyard with Corpse Connoisseur… It’s like free card advantage, sort of. Or, you can keep getting more and more Corpse Connoisseurs and Unearth cards. A couple of Sedraxis Specters main might actually be a party!

Just some ideas.

LOVE
MIKE