Concerning:

1. Jamie Wakefield
2. Student of Warfare
3. The Spanish Inquisition

Before we get in to Magic: The Gathering blogging, I just wanted to throw something out there:

Jamie Wakefied has just come out with a new book. As far as I can tell, this book is not about Magic: The Gathering. I am going to order it… any longtime fans of Jamie (and I’m sure that many of you hold yourselves in that group) should probably do the same.

For the love.

Okay, now for the Magic: The Gathering part.

Student of Warfare:

Multiple people, including Jeroen Remie via Twitter and Slov01 in the comments of the last post pointed out that Student of Warfare is much the 3/3 for three mana as Transcendent Master.

I was actually planning to write about Student of Warfare anyway… But I hadn’t thought of it in that way.

The reason is that, even if it can be thought of as a 3/3 for three mana, it isn’t. It is much, much, better.

The first reason why Student of Warfare is better than a “regular” Gnarled Mass is that it costs one, not three, as a base. This lets you put a down payment on the card on turn one, then spend the next two on turn two for three damage on the second turn (you know, a turn before you could even playTranscendent Master.

Its one-ness is very powerful with one of my three favorite [Standard] creatures, Ranger of Eos.

Student of Warfare is like the white side of Figure of Destiny in the same way that Kargan Dragonlord represents a Red analogue. In my opinion, Student of Warfare seems like the stronger card because its one mana-ness lets it lace up with Antoine Ruel like Figure of Destiny did in Boat Brew.

The second reason why Student of Warfare is much better than a Gnarled Mass — not that being better than a Watchwolf on the second turn without going into a second color isn’t good enough — is that it isn’t just a 3/3; it’s a 3/3 first strike… Kind of like a White Knight grafted onto a Hand of Honor (you know, whiteout the racism).

Getting to Level Seven is quite realistic. It will be awesome when it is awesome. We probably don’t have to spend a whole lot of time on the “ultimate” to this leveler.

Snap Judgment Rating – Staple

More Spanish Inquisition

I know “current” Standard is medium-irrelevant just now, but I have been having a lot of fun playing. This is what I have been playing most; I am very happy with it actually:

4 Armillary Sphere
4 Everflowing Chalice
1 Obelisk of Alara

4 Ajani Vengeant

4 Burst Lightning
4 Chandra Nalaar
4 Lightning Bolt

4 Day of Judgment
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Path to Exile

12 Mountain
4 Naya Panorama
2 Plains
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

sb:
1 Obelisk of Alara
4 Goblin Assault
4 Celestial Purge
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile

The distinguishing thing about this version is still the Goblin Assault set after sideboarding. I really like those: They have been great against control, in particular the relatively popular Jace, the Mind Sculptor decks.

Main deck the main difference between this and the pre-Worldwake version is the addition of Motherlovin Cup aka Everlasting Chalice. The Chalice lets this deck play third turn Ajani Vengeant, Day of Judgment, or sometimes Elspeth, Knight-Errant.

If there is one card (or kind of card) I would like to play (or rather add), it is something like Earthquake or Martial Coup. Martial Coup would be great in particular with Motherlovin Cup… Not sure what to cut right now. I have sided every card in the ‘board in the last 24 hours, with Oblivion Ring a necessary evil due to the many, many Planeswalkers that are now played even in Standard aggressive decks.

Anyway, that’s it for today. Pretty exciting news for fans of me, Billy Moreno, and Paul Jordan that we will unveil relatively soon 🙂

/anticipation

LOVE
MIKE

So Benjamin Goodman had me on a high with Valaku, the Molten Pinnacle when I started to peruse decks from Zendikar Game Day. You may have read in Top Decks about my early affinity for the R/W Spanish Inquisition-type decks. I liked what I saw and decided to make my own.

The first Spanish Inquisition deck was a metagame neutron bomb coming out of the US Opens and catapulting Mark Hendrickson into the Top 8. His R/W deck posted absolutely absurd numbers over multiple tournaments, stunning opponents with an offensive array including Call the Skybreaker, Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and of course, Goblin Assault.

Mark’s deck ran Ajani Vengeant as a four-of, and–though it is rare for me–I decided to play all four main as well; in addition, I upgraded Mark’s Elspeth count to three (from two) and replaced all his Hallowed Burials with the Maximum Number of Day of Judgment. These White cards might seem obvious until you look at the mana base of my deck…

Remember up top when I talked about being hooked on Valakut thanks to @RidiculousHat? I meant it! There are only two total Plains in the deck, so in order to play Elspeth or Day of Judgment, you’ve got to have them both.

Because of that I am thinking about replacing all four copies of Elspeth with Goblin Assault… Not sure about it yet. Elspeth is objectively the stronger card when already in play, but she costs functionally twice the mana of a Goblin Assault… and only rarely uses either of her non-Goblin Assault analogous abilities.

I decided to play more streamlined than some of the lists online… I cut all the Lavaball Traps, leaving my land destruction in the sideboard only. That said, for big spells I have all four copies of Chandra Nalaar in the main, as well as a single copy of Obelisk of Alara (Mark originally played zero and two of that expensive pair).

Spanish Inquisition Update

4 Armillary Sphere
1 Expedition Map
1 Obelisk of Alara

4 Ajani Vengeant

4 Burst Lightning
4 Chandra Nalaar
1 Goblin Assault
4 Lightning Bolt

4 Day of Judgment
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Path to Exile

4 Arid Mesa
12 Mountain
4 Naya Panorama
2 Plains
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

sb:
4 Celestial Purge
3 Goblin Assault
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Pyroclasm

So far, this deck has been playing super well.

I have beaten a wide variety of decks (msostly creatures, but also Jund or whatever) and these are my conclusions…

I lost to a PT Junk colors deck, where he drew three Duress very early (maybe even his opener) and I dropped the third to double Duress (obviously got the first one in dramatic fashion); that might not seem so insurmountable but this deck is not very threat dense and the only card drawing gets you lands. I didn’t get blown out, but both were games where I needed a Pyroclasm that he took, for instance, and lost, not to a bunch of little guys, but more to the fact that they hit me once. I am fine with that kind of matchup, though; long run anyway. The only other deck I’ve lost to is the Hedron Crab “Dredge” deck. Without devoting signficant slots to Relic of Progenitus and Ravenoous Trap, I don’t see how you can beat that deck easily. Maybe it’s not a real deck? Very poor matchup.

First of all, every single card in the main and side has been producing. If anything my least favorite cards are Path to Exile and Elspeth, Knight-Errant… but you know the caliber of those cards. That said, my favorite cards to play so far have been Goblin Assault and Obelisk of Alara. No one has conceded to a Goblin Assault, but many players have sent Duress or Celestial Purge before the first Goblin came online. Also no one has conceded to Obelisk of Alara, but many have commented that they can’t beat it… three or four turns before actually losing.

I won a mirror last night (yay). We had very divergent strategies. I sided in Celestial Purge and he sided out all of his Ajanis and Chandras and so on 🙂 I won in three.

The second game I lost from a fair amount of life when I tapped down 6/7 mana for Obelisk of Alara and got hit by a kicked Elementa Appeal (WHAT?). The problems with his strategy were: 1) Ajani and Chandra were still really good for me, as was Goblin Assault, so the fact that he had Celestial Purge didn’t change the fact that he used 1.5-2 cards per Red permanent to stay even, and 2) he still had Red permanents for my Purges to hit.

I think this is the deck I am going to play for a while on MTGO, despite the fact that it has neither Baneslayer Angel nor Bloodbraid Elf 🙂

Comments are available, below. Use them! (Make them?)

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: The Book of Lies

Unbelievably, a deck without Baneslayer Angel.

Ben Goodman (aka @RidiculousHat) pinch hits with quite a hit of a deck, actually… Starring (you guessed it) Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle!

Ben Tweeted a greeting along the lines of…

Have you played with [V]alakut yet? Killing people with lands is awesome.

I actually really like the G/R Valakut decks for Extended [albeit packing Sakura-Tribe Elder, probably my favorite creature ever] (what is it with these Extended strategies largely playable in Standard? You know, like yesterday’s?) … So I tried out Ben’s deck for a few matches.

I won them all relatively easily.

They weren’t super duper easy as with Naya Lightsaber, but keep in mind I had never played his deck before. As he has been saying on Twitter, this Valakut attempt is very solid:

Ridiculous Red *

4 Expedition Map

4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Harrow
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Rampant Growth

4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Lavaball Trap
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Siege-Gang Commander

2 Forest
12 Mountain
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

sideboard:
3 Sylvan Bounty
4 Demolish
4 Pyroclasm
4 Volcanic Submersion

I only had the chance to play in three matches with the deck so far… Here are my experiences:

“Dredge”
You know this deck… It is a combo deck featuring Hedron Crab, Crypt of Agadeem, and Extractor Demon. Their goal is to put a bunch of creatures into the graveyard, either with Hedron Crab or using Cycling + Unearth for eventual value.

The annoying part of the deck comes from their Rotting Rats (with double discard value), the big kill from Extractor Demon. There are a million Unearths in the deck, but Extractor Demon is a big one that can come out with a big swing for a single-turn kill from down low (presuming their graveyard is jazzed enough). Also Extractor Demon can serve as an alternate win condition, decking the opponent thanks to all their guys disappearing from the battlefield at the end of an Unearth turn.

Luckily, my match didn’t really go to those ends.

Game One I just tempo’d him out. Lightning Bolt for Hedron Crab, then some attacking with Bloodbraid Elf and Goblin Ruinblaster. The Goblin was particularly helpful, chomping a Crypt before it got out of hand.

I lost the second game to a series of Corpse Connoisseurs setting one another up (while I was mana shy).

The third game ended in dramatic fashion; I kept being forced to discard, and he attacked me relentlessly with Cycling creatures from the graveyard. However I had three copies of ye olde Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in play, and two Khlani Heart Expeditions on the map. I finally hit a land drop which allowed me to put counters on the Expeditions, play the Harrow I had been sandbagging to get the next two counters on each, and explode for roughly one trillion damage. Hi-yah!

Esper Control
I almost conceded Game One on turn three. I kept a one lander with Expedition Map and some Rampant Growths. I stalled on one but eventually hit the second land to go digging… Which put me in the path of Archive Trap + Twincast. Unbelievably, he hit nine of my Mountains. I didn’t really know how I could win… But I just played my cards, and one of them was Siege-Gang Commander. That Goblin circumvented his Wall of Denial, and I won a long one.

The second was another bunch of Valakuts on the board; he had to Counterspell every Harrow, everything. Which he didn’t.

Nissa Revane “Gruul”
This was an insane game! He had first turn Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. So everyone who came out came out with +1/+1 (no fun). He battered me but somehow I drew just enough lands (having kept I think a two lander) to chump with Siege-Gang Commander and set up Lavaball Trap! RAH!

The first trap took out Mountain, Rootbound Crag, and three 1/1s with +1/+1 counters on top.

The second one got his remaining Forests and a Llanowar Elves.

(He only had four).

I might have been stuck on one life, but I had plenty of time to win; I didn’t need it because he conceded to unopposed Bloodbraid Elf the next turn.

Finally, I got a tempo game with just some Pyroclasm action. It was a combination of tempo from Bloodbraid Elf and assorted beatdown, followed by Valakut control.

All in all, a fine trio of matches, and a nice introduction to this “Ridiculous” Red Deck 🙂

A card breakdown…

Expedition Map
Usually I got Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle with this pap; once I got Forest to set up Bloodbraid Elf. You really need to play this card in this kind of deck to reinforce the number of Valakuts.

Bloodbraid Elf
This is a really odd card in this deck. Half the time you are flipping over Rampant Growth. Sometimes you flip over Lightning Bolt like some kind of a miser; other times you flip Bolt and it didn’t do very much. This is like Blastoderm in Angry No-Hermit from back 2000 days (was Napster era really almost 10 years ago?). Just like Blastoderm in that deck, I wouldn’t consider cutting this strange, seemingly misplaced, four drop.

Harrow
Khalni Heart Expedition
These cards are somewhat modular in this deck. You can play them early but you will often not explode them until you have Valakut online; they are a Ball Lightning each, remember, beyond being regular old mana acceleration.

Rampant Growth
This one you will not usually want to wait on; sets up turn three Bloodbraid Elf and all that.

Goblin Ruinblaster
This was a surprisingly valuable main deck card, despite the fact that I sideboarded it out against the deck with Oran-Rief (for Pyroclasm). Nice tempo; nice action on Crypt of Agadeem. I’m sure it would be fine against beloved Black Baneslayer and so on 🙂 (Or is it “:(“?)

Lavaball Trap
I was pretty shocked when this saved me. The deck has a queer semi-Ponza vibe with the Ruinblasters and this main, and the somewhat transformational sideboard.

Lightning Bolt
Not really strategic in this deck; I can see siding it out.

Siege-Gang Commander
Another one that was somewhat hard to contextualize before I actually played… But I guess you need a way to win.

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
The ace.

I played 12 of the 15 cards in Ben’s sideboard fairly happily (no Sylvan Bounties… at least not yet). Due to its cost I probably would have overlooked Volcanic Submersion, but it was useful against the Dredge deck.

Before I sign off for the night, a couple of notes…

1. In case you haven’t seen it yet, two Two TWO copies of Black Baneslayer made the Top 8 of the recent Star City Games $5,000 in Nashville; if you know them, give Chase Lamm and Derek Mong a punch in the arm (or the affectionate bum pat or whatever of your choice).
2. I recently read one of my favorite articles of all time as a multi-part ‘cast over at Top 8 Magic. Give a listen to “How to Win a PTQ” (inspired by Adam Levitt). (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5)
3. Apparently I had a glitch on the site so that no new people could register to make blog comments. Sorry about that one kids! It should be fixed now. So comment away. Please!

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: The Book of Lies

* My name, not Ben’s 🙂