At age seven, my daughter Bella (“future girl Iron-Man”) is already a strategic genius. I know most parents generally overrate their children, but I came to this conclusion today after being lectured as to why she whooped me in chess (as a seven-year-old she pronounced her opening “The Italy-an Game” and criticized my early game bishop v. pawn sequencing. I was the president of my high school chess club.
As you can see she already has a fair bluff, and if she ever decides to play competitive Magic, would be the kind of awful person who always chooses Affinity / CawBlade / Delver / etc. You know the type.
Following is a transcript of one-and-a-half superhero drafts I did with her recently.
“Legend” sections borrow liberally from each characters’ Wikipedia entries, with some obvious cropping and commentary by YT.
Daddy: Okay let’s draft great fighters. Do you want to go first or second?
Bella: You can go first.
Daddy: You sure?
Bella: Sure.
Daddy: I take Bruce Wayne.
Bella: Lady Shiva and Captain America.
Daddy: Wow, great picks! I guess I’ll take Iron Fist and… Karate Kid.
Bella: Okay. Super Boy Prime and Anti-Monitor!
Daddy: We’re done.
Bella: What do you mean?
Daddy: I mean we’re done. There is no indication either or those characters is even good at fighting!
Bella: You don’t really have to be that good at “fighting” if you can burn a planet down just by looking at it.
Legend:
Superboy-Prime
Superboy-Prime has all the basic abilities of a Kryptonian except at a much higher level, exposed to yellow sunlight: superhuman strength, speed, senses, agility, healing, endurance, superbreath, flight, x-ray vision, heat vision, and invulnerability. His power is close to that of the Silver Age “Earth-One” Superman’s, which makes him one of the most powerful characters in the universe. Superboy-Prime’s future self has complete control over time itself.
At the end of Infinite Crisis, it took the Supermans of two universes flying Superboy-Prime through a red sun to stop him. This defeat cost the life of the elder Superman as well as 32 Green Lanterns, where one copy of the Green Lantern ring is “the most powerful weapon in the universe”.
Anti-Monitor
Anti-Monitor was one of the most formidable foes ever faced by the heroes of the DC Universe (or “Multiverse”, as it was then and now). He is directly responsible for more deaths than any other known DC supervillain, having destroyed nearly all of an infinite number of universes.
… May not be as tough as Superboy-Prime.
(different draft)
Daddy: Okay we’re going to draft super scientists (which is something I think you will be more respectful of).
Bella: Okay.
Daddy: Ground rules — and even if someone can say grow or stretch (no hints here) no giants. No celestial beings.
Bella: So they at least started off at regular size?
Daddy: Sure. Okay do you want first pick or second pick?
Bella: Not sure.
Daddy: You’re trying to game me. I know you want Azmuth first but last time you took first pick Azmuth I took Valeria.
Bella: I want Valeria.
Daddy: I am not taking Valeria first pick.
Bella: I’ll take first pick.
Daddy: Do you want Valeria?
Bella: Yes.
Daddy: Okay, you can have Valeria. Go ahead.
Bella: Promise?
Daddy: I said so, didn’t I?
Bella: Okay… Azmuth.
Daddy: What!?! Well played.
Bella: For a seven-year-old. I assume because I am seven and you don’t want to set me up for a lifetime of not trusting men, you won’t go back on your word and take Valeria just because I tricked you and took Azmuth anyway *.
Daddy: Well, Valeria is only three, so you’re not that smart. I guess I’ll take Reed Richards and Brainiac Five.
Bella: Valeria Richards — or should I say VALERIA VON DOOM — and Victor Von Doom.
Daddy: I will wheel Lex Luthor and the SCIENTIST SUPREME Hank Pym.
Bella: Five man teams?
Daddy: Yeah. This is your last pick.
Bella: Iron Man and Nathaniel Richards.
Daddy: Remember the time you had all the Richards?
Bella: Make your last pick.
Daddy: I take Amadeus Cho.
Who do you think won the draft of the super scientists? Answer in the comments below!
Team MichaelJ:
Reed Richards
Brainiac Five
Lex Luthor
Henry Pym
Amadeus Cho
Team Bella:
Azmuth of Galvan
Valeria Richards
Victor Von Doom
Anthony Stark
Nathaniel Richards
Legend:
Azmuth
(Ben 10 Universe) Creator of the three greatest scientific achievements of the Ben 10 universe, including both the greatest weapon and the greatest instrument of peace. Called the smartest being in [his] universe, Azmuth disagrees, saying he is merely the smartest being in three, arguably five, galaxies.
Reed Richards
(Marvel Universe) Generally depicted as the most intelligent being in the Marvel universe.
Brainiac 5
(DC Universe, 31st Century) Brainiac 5 possesses a Twelfth Level Intellect, which grants him superhuman calculation skills, amazing memory and exceptional technical knowledge. By comparison, 20th century Earth as a whole constitutes a Sixth Level Intellect, and most of his fellow Coluans have an Eighth Level Intellect. 31st century Earth as a whole is a Ninth Level Intellect. His incredible memory allows him to retain knowledge of events that all other characters forget[.]
Valeria Richards
(Marvel Universe) Daughter to Reed and Sue Richards. At age three, Valeria claims to be her father’s intellectual superior. [whether or not this is true you can probably see why a seven-year-old girl would want to draft her high]
Victor Von Doom
(Marvel Universe) Doctor Doom is a polymath scientific genius. Throughout most of his publication history, he has been depicted as one of the most intelligent humans in the Marvel Universe — comparable to arch rival Reed Richards.
Lex Luthor
(DC Universe) The most intelligent human in the DC Universe, and as one of the most intelligent beings of any planet or species. He has mastered seemingly every known form of science, and considers Brainiac his only intellectual rival.
Henry Pym
(Marvel Universe) Scientist Supreme of the Marvel Universe (basically the opposite number to deus ex machina Dr. Strange).
Anthony Stark
(Marvel Universe) Inventive genius whose expertise in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computer science almost rivals that of Reed Richards, Hank Pym, and Bruce Banner, and his expertise in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering surpasses even theirs. He is regarded as one of the most intelligent characters in the Marvel Universe. Also Bella’s hero and the reason she (too) wants to attend MIT.
Nathaniel Richards
(Marvel Universe) Time traveler, scientific genius; father to Reed Richards and grandfather to Valeria Richards (also in this list).
Amadeus Cho
(Marvel Universe) Rated 7th smartest person in the world by Reed Richards, eighth by Hank Pym, and 10th by Bruce Banner. Likely smarter than Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom. Regardless, a brilliant teenager.
So…
Who won?
LOVE
MIKE
* Okay, the (emphasized) second part of that only took place in my head. But you can see where either of us was going on this
Apparently Draw Some is the new Words With Friends.
I was going to write a version of this story anyway, as the spoken-word version had Josh Ravitz about peeing in his pants on the way home from Baltimore *
The very first round of Draw Some I played was with Shark (an important character in the story), and this was the picture I guessed:
/ end interlude
So this is a story from my first year of marriage, about 10 Block Constructed PTQ seasons ago. Shark and I were (supposedly) both Q’d for the PT on rating (something that would never happen today) with me having beaten him in the finals of a big cash tournament at Neutral Ground.
No idea WTF we were doing in the car. Maybe Shark was going to trade; I guess I was just going to deny my newlywed 10 wife the company of my pleasure ** for the day.
BDM had just discovered his love of U/G Werebears (rather than Arrogant Wurms), and our chauffer for the day, Justin, was coming off back-to-back losses in PTQ finals (with BDM’s U/G deck if I recall).
Fast forward a million hours.
BDM loses the win-and-in round to a Circular Logic, apparently forgetting (and apparently like his opponent) that Werebears tap for mana.
Justin loses in the finals, again.
I lose literally all my [ADJECTIVE REDACTED] drafts, prompting then-GP superstar (and YMG scum) Danny “MonkeyPants” Mandell to puzzle over the swingy-ness of my brilliant-or-brainfart in-game play.
So basically we are all of us tired and tilted, except maybe Shark… Still no idea what he was doing there.
It’s getting late and we are some hours still from NYC.
Justin decides he is too tired to go on.
BDM and I call our wives; one is cooler than the other about it (not naming any names).
In a stark reversal, Shark is now the one who starts going on tilt. Shark, in those years, lived in Connecticut rather than Manhattan, and we were like one highway stop from his apartment.
“No…” stutters Justin. “… too tired to go on… ”
We take an immediate exit that has a hotel icon and venture into what can only be described as “the setting of every low budget horror movie, ever.”
The woods, the smell, the seemingly innumerable miles between the exit and the supposed hotel in the middle of the Connecticut night… All of us have the exact same reaction:
Werewolves.
THERE ARE DEFINITELY WEREWOLVES HERE DON’T STOP THE CAR, JUSTIN.
(-all of us)
We eventually make it to some “hotel”, which is basically a series of barns. I spit you not, light-blue barns. At this point I am weighing the certainty of a regular-old Michael Myers-esque machete maniac [bumpkin] killing me versus my heretofore reasonable skepticism around the existence of men turning into slavering canine murderers under the light of the full moon. Justin is a member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, and I am pretty sure Shark and BDM are atheists, but not one of us isn’t terrified of a spontaneous werewolf attack. WEREWOLVES, I tell you. You can shake your head all you want but if you were there you would definitely have been clamoring for silver I am not really interested in dissenting opinions.
So we park. In a barn. Again, literally “a barn” … As in “there is straw on the ground”.
Our hotel room is a converted barn also. I mean obviously it is a barn. It smells funny (I can only assume this is the scent of ammonia being used to cover up the entrails-ridden stench of previous werewolf massacres), and the air conditioning is weird we all agree… Stuffy even as it is supposed to be freshening us.
So we were all dying of exhaustion fifteen seconds earlier but you know how it goes: sharp enough to Drafto as soon as we found carpet to lay cardboard to (I am sure Shark was overjoyed at this) . We gamble on Beds v. Floor (and possibly more? … it’s been ten years). I assume I was on Shark’s team on account of I remember winning.
So BDM grabbed a biology class-stained comforter and burrowed himself a little rat’s nest in the corner. Justin, having gimped had no warmth to look forward to except maybe cozying into the blood-soaked fur of his yellow-eyed soon-to-be killer.
Yawn.
If only for a moment in this victorious draft I can forget my troubles and the impending doom by lycanthrope lips.
Zzzzz…
I wake up first to find Justin (expectedly) lying on the floor by the door.
And unexpectedly…
… WITH HIS HEAD OUTSIDE THE DOOR!
Or what should be his head!
Justin is such a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy fathead that his big nogs was enough to sate any murderous werewolf attackers… with brains enough to sate the inevitable wandering Zombie Apocalypse.
… Or that’s what I would have seen… You know, if there was such a thing as justice in the world. But because there is no justice, Justin was still alive, just with his head halfway out the door, out into barn-land. The dumb motherfucker literally spent the night half-in and half-out of our room!
I go from being restfully sedate to (I think, understandably) monkey tilted in one nanosecond.
“Justin WTF!?! We are in the middle of werewolf country!”
Everyone wakes.
I mean forget about the safety concern of LEAVING YOUR RURAL HOTEL ROOM DOOR OPEN ALL NIGHT… Justin did so, dangling himself out deliciously… IN THR MIDDLE OF AN IMPENDING WEREWOLF ATTACK.
“Sorry Michaelj,” said my sometimes writing partner. “The air conditioning was kind of weird and I had trouble breathing.”
LOVE
MIKE
Aftermath:
I guess on the bright side, we were not torn to shreds by werewolves (or even just robbed or whatever).
But…
Because this is The End of Justice, the cash tournament Shark and I split was downgraded from 36K to 24K based on attendance after the fact, and I lost my ratings Q with just one PTQ weekend and one PT (which I was thankfully qualified for) left.
I didn’t get there.
* In case you missed it, Josh and I podcasted on that trip. You can check that at MTGCast and the follow-up with BDM here
** Katherine and I both caught the reversal in diction; we decided to let it stand
Tom Champheng is the original Magical lemonade stand salesman.
In the 1996 World Championships, Champheng, playing a White Weenie deck, misregistered his deck, forgetting to add Adarkar Wastes to the list.
… stranded
That stranded the card Sleight of Mind — Tom had one copy in his main deck and one copy in his sideboard — as being un-cast-able.
So life gave him lemons… Tom Champheng decided to make lemonade!
He played with his Sleight of Mind face-up on his sideboard, so that any and all possible Necropotence players could see it. He couldn’t avoid sometimes drawing the one in his main deck, but he could always side it out.
Why was this a useful ploy?
Let me segue into a very different story before wheeling back to Champheng…
[TIMEFRAME REDACTED], at the [TOURNAMENT NAME REDACTED] [SOMEONE YOU MIGHT KNOW] was privy to a great conversation between two PT greats (one would eventually become a PT champion… and get banned and stuff; the other was also a PT Top 8 competitor, who had previously run afoul of a top WotC executive).
They agreed that Magic was just about who could cheat better.
They were playing each other in the quarterfinals of [TOURNAMENT NAME REDACTED].
The two friends — filthy cheaters both — spat into their palms and agreed that the best cheater should win. Their Top 8 match would be a battle not of superior deck design, technology, technique, or knowledge of the force.
Their battle of white-against-black would instead be one of black-against-black (as it were).
The banned-PT-Champion-to-be gave himself an aggro nut draw. All his fast drops were waiting to spring on his opponent.
His opponent?
… Just gave himself a first-turn Gloom.
Try beating this piece on the first turn.
So, essentially, the white mage maybe got a Savannah Lions out of his draw… and then never cast anything ever again.
Do you see what Tom Champheng did to gain an advantage here? His opponents, if they were black mages, might be scared of putting in Gloom (for fear of having their hateful sideboard cards turned against them with Sleight of Mind). And everyone else? It’s not like Tom could actually play Sleight of Mind… The drop of information was no information at all.
…
Okay, now we are in 2012.
If you are following anything (Twitter, podcasts, Star City Games Premium, the Invitational coverage) you know that my live / physical play… could use some rust knocked off. However once upon a time I was a deft practitioner of the mental game.
How can we intersect a little bit of that with some actual good deck technology?
Consider this card:
Sword of War and Peace
I did reasonably well in Standard (lost playing for Top 8 of the Standard Open), playing a straightforward U/W Delver of Secrets deck.
I can tell you that the least impressive aspect of my deck (actually basically Matt Costa’s deck) was the Invisible Stalker + equipment aspect.
However the card Sword of War and Peace is very strong, in particular against beatdown strategies.
Here’s the problem: Beatdown strategies can often pack an Ancient Grudge.
I was able to beat back-to-back-to-back G/R decks, in part, by stranding their Ancient Grudges. I had enough sideboard cards to side in a respectable fashion, and upon winning each of these matchups, my opponents showed me Ancient Grudge in their hands (when I had no Invisible Stalkers or equipment).
Just a thought… What about playing with Sword of War and Peace as your bottom card, but “accidentally” revealing it when you pull out your deck?
What kind of information are you giving away with a Sword of War and Peace?
You could literally be anything!
Delver plays it, sure… But so does G/R Aggro. So does Mono-Green Aggro, and some Humans, and some Zombies… Lots of folks play Sword of War and Peace. So your sloppy reveal of the card (as with Tom Champheng’s Sleight of Mind back in 1996) reveals very little.
… But if the opponent is a G/R deck?
You better believe those Ancient Grudges are going to be in!
Like I said before, I liked the Invisible Stalker part of my deck least. You can cut like three of those guys, and the other three equipment, in order to make room for awesome stuff that you actually want / like.
If your opponent is not G/R? If you want to leave your one Sword in… That’s up to you.
As promised, three ways to bluff:
Revealing a Sword of War and Peace implies you are playing more equipment (where there is none). I mean, who plays just one piece of equipment?
Revealing the Sword actually reveals very little, as so many different decks can play it. That said, even though its 1/75 presence is intended as a bluff, it is still a pretty good card, especially when teaming up with Geist of Saint Traft.
The goal of the reveal is to, of course, get potential G/R opponents to side in Ancient Grudge (which will suck against you). Typically that means you should be siding out your one Sword of War and Peace!
fin.
LOVE
MIKE
P.S. Oh, and lemonade salesman Tom Champheng? The reason we remember him is that he became the 1996 World Champion! Those two Sleights didn’t stop Tom and his White Weenie deck from running roughshod over the swarm of Black Summer Necropotence decks… Even if he couldn’t actually burn them on Gloom
So on the way back from the Star City Games Invitational in Baltimore, MD last week, I had an interesting conversation* with Top 8 competitor Joshua Ravitz.
Josh asked… Is Inquisition of Kozilek broken?
Well, maybe he didn’t say “broken” but “too good” or some similar (you get it).
After all, Josh had just smashed many a Legacy face with his update to Tom Martell’s Esper StoneBlade / Lingering Souls deck… Which included Inquisition of Kozilek.
Once upon a time, Duress — then Cabal Therapy — was the front line of Black disruption. Once Thoughtseize was printed, it saw mass adoption across the many formats (and up until quite recently, was a favorite in Extended for Faeries and most decks of that stripe).
… But today?
Inquisition of Kozilek.
Legacy has Inquisition of Kozilek in its leading U/W deck.
Modern Jund has Inquisition of Kozilek.
The mighty Raven’s Crime engine of the darling Seismic Assault deck? Inquisition of Kozilek.
Now obviously long ago I was a big fan of Duress, and at one point, was a fine mechanic with a Cabal Therapy** (“you name what beats you”). That said, I never at any point liked a Thoughtseize; you can read a little bit of a window why in my treatise on equivalencies at SCG.
Here’s the cool thing about Inquisition of Kozilek:
Imagine everyone only plays cheap cards… Inquisition of Kozilek is like a Duress / Cabal Therapy that never misses. It is like a Thoughtseize that never costs you two points.
That certainly seems like a good deal!
… Now all you have to do is get everyone to play exclusively cheap cards.
Here is my take:
Inquisition of Kozilek was always pretty good, but it has recently gained value because of the popularity of Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage. Tournament Magic has always been about cheap instants and sorceries, but these two cards, in recent months (and across multiple formats up to and including Legacy) encourage players to do so at unprecedented levels. Ergo, a good card is more good than it ever has been before; in fact, Inquisition of Kozilek is actually a fine teammate to either Delver or Snapcaster (and, of course, they are so often played in concert together). Ergo, Inquisition of Kozilek (already good) looks better than ever.
Wrinkle:
While it rarely misses, Inquisition of Kozilek certainly isn’t a perfect Magical spell. Unlike with the typically less accurate Cabal Therapy, you can never take a breaker like Bloodbraid Elf or Jace, the Mind Sculptor. It might hit, but it doesn’t necessarily take the card that beats you…
… Unless, of course, your opponent plays all cheapies (like he is supposed to).
LOVE
MIKE
* A bit more than an hour of which will soon be up in podcast form for Top 8 Magic.
** I once won a game with my B/G Quirion Dryad deck missing with both Duress and Cabal Therapy in the same turn.
So the 2011 World Championships — the last “real” World Championships — is going to be upon us in just a few hours.
As is typical behavior, a bunch of us misers got together on Twitter for #WorldsDraft2011
The Drafters:
Paul Rietzl – Pro Tour Champion, writer of the bestest tournament report in 10 years
Tom Martell – TrollSlayer
Osyp Lebedowicz – Pro Tour Champion emeritus, Latin Dance Champion, and creator of the television show Seinfeld; noted liar
Phil Napoli – finalist in last weekend’s PTQ; basically the only adult I know who can spike a PTQ regularly, actually. All around good man.
Yours Truly – Champion of many a PT Draft (no other credentials)
Being in fifth position is kind of horrible in this draft. Paul has a huge leg up as we were not playing the “LSV is banned” rule; so of course he was going to take first pick LSV.
Tom took the predictable second-pick PVDDR pick; I took Juza over PVDDR in a similar position in last year’s Worlds Draft, and despite PV making Top 4 (and Juza not making Top 8 ) I was able to win that one. In the same spot I would have probably taken Jon Finkel way out of position [more on that later].
Osyp took PoY leader Owen Turtenwald, Phil took the aforementioned Juza, and left me with the wheel.
In wheel position I was planning to take Jon Finkel and Martin Juza, but of course Phil had just taken Juza.
Round One:
Luis Scott-Vargas
PVDDR
Owen Turtenwald
Martin Juza
Jon Finkel
I went with Shouta Yasooka for my wheel pick. In hindsight this was only an okay pick; I could see taking Neeman, Watanabe, or Wrapter in that spot easily (I took Wrapter second pick in last year’s draft and he was a pivotal Top 16).
Phil took Shuuhei Nakamura, Osyp took a mighty Jeremy Neeman, Tom got Watanabe, and Paul finished out the second round with CawBlade PT Champion Ben Stark (a fine choice).
Round Two:
Shouta Yasooka
Shuuhei Nakamura
Jeremy Neeman
Yuya Watanabe
Ben Stark
Paul wheeled Brian Kibler, Tom went with the first fellow drafter by taking Paul, Osyp took Wrapter (probably the second- or third-best pick of the draft), Phil took Patrick Chapin (completing the New Jersey one-two punch of taking my next two intended picks), and I finished off with Anton Jonsson.
Here is the secret of PT Draft. Well, the second part of the secret, anyway. The first part is to never take a player you are not willing to cheer for (same as in real life). The other one is to take the players you want to take, even if you are seemingly out of position. Like last time I took second-pick Wrapter and some people were like WTF was that pick… If I hadn’t taken him there, I would certainly have lost him to Chapin. While I wanted Wrapter, Chapin, and Juza, the only two players I absolutely unconditionally wanted for my draft were Finkel and Anton (I intended to take Anton last). So I just took him third there, whatever.
Round Three:
Brian Kibler
Paul Rietzl
Josh Utter-Leyton
Patrick Chapin
Anton Jonsson
For the second half of my wheel pick, I went with David Ochoa. Ocho is the US National Finalist, giving him a little extra skin in the game; plus he is on the right team, etc.
Phil followed up with Gau (superb pick… a force auto-pick I made for the Nagoya draft, helping me lock that one up); Osyp went with PT Philadelphia poisoner Sam Black, Tom picked himself, and Paul stole a late-pick Gabriel Nassif. I think you can see the superb value that many of my competitors bogarted on this round. Tom picking Tom ensured he would lead all #WorldsDraft2011 participants in number of drafters drafted… and Tom is a great pick regardless!
Round Four:
David Ochoa
Gudenis Vidugiris
Sam Black
Tom Martell
Gabriel Nassif
Paul thought he had the wheel, and took Lukas Jaklovsky; I tried to stop the draft at this point, but Tom said “did you really want Kenny Oberg” and left to go pick up Gabriel Nassif at the train station. Osyp said to just continue the draft and took Lucas Blohon. Phil took last year’s overall first pick Brad Nelson, and I got who I wanted for last pick, anyway: MTGO superstud Reid Duke. I playtested a little with Reid for this one and he beat me like a drum. He was also one of the most impressive players I have sat across the table from this year. I was very happy to nab Reid with my last pick.
Round Five:
Lukas Jaklovsky
Kenny Oberg
Lucas Blohon
Brad Nelson
Reid Duke
Final Teams:
Paul Rietzl: Luis Scott-Vargas, Ben Stark, Brian Kibler, Gabriel Nassif, Lukas Jaklovsky
Tom Martell: PVDDR, Yuya Watanabe, Paul Rietzl, Tom Martell, Kenny Oberg
Osyp Lebedowicz: Owen Turtenwald, Jeremy Neeman, Josh Utter-Leyton, Sam Black, Lucas Blohon
Phil Napoli: Martin Juza, Shuuhei Nakamura, Patrick Chapin, Gaudenis Vidugiris, Brad Nelson
Michael J Flores: Jon Finkel, Shouta Yasooka, Anton Jonsson, David Ochoa, Reid Duke
Paul made great use of his first pick, and has an overall superb team of LSV headlining a squad of 80% past and future HoF’ers.
Tom’s team is just gross. He could easily blow this one out of the water; probably has three guys in the Top 16 or better.
Osyp’s team is pretty good; originally I thought he had the worst team, but now I think Phil does. Sorry bros!
I am obv going to win (as usual). [actually, I think tonight's draft went rough for YT]
A few weeks ago in Nashville, my old buddy Brian Kibler and I were discussing Brian Sondag’s now format-making Wolf Run Ramp deck. One of the things I wanted to discuss was Sondag’s 3/3 split on Primeval Titan and Wurmcoil Engine. Overall I said that I wanted to play (at the very least) the fourth Primeval Titan [probably at the cost of a Wurmcoil Engine] — I mean if I played Green and stuff, which I don’t.
I don’t really like Wurmcoil Engine that much in Standard, and if you have looked at some of the deck lists I have put out in recent weeks, they all have things like one Batterskull in the main deck, maybe one or more in the sideboard and no Wurmcoil Engines anywhere. I made a suggestion to Kibs in the booth that I would consider Batterskull in the Wolf Run main but he stood in Solidarity with the other Brian on that one.
Sondag later stepped into the booth and talked about initially playing with four Primeval Titans but rolling it back to three, especially given how effective a four-pack of Green Sun’s Zeniths were / are in his deck list.
Now if you look at the most recent Open winner by Ben Friedman you will see many of the changes that I suggested put into reality (Batterskull‘s inclusion, fourth Primeval Titan, blah blah blah):
Of course, the enemy has shifted. When Sondag won, Red Decks were still making Open Top 8s. Today, the enemy is… Wolf Run (and Primeval Titan is one of the best men in the mirror).
Maybe you think you know where I am going with this blog post. Maybe you read the title and actually do know. Regardless of being in Wolf Run or control or wherever I just want to talk about some of the reasons why I favor Batterskull (in general) over Wurmcoil Engine in Standard.
As it costs five mana rather than six mana, I would generally want a Batterskull more than a Wurmcoil Engine in most matchup situations (saving one, which we will get to at the end).
Against beatdown, I just want to tap for it as soon as possible. I am going to have to take a stand at some point and I would rather do that one turn earlier. Everything the opponent can do to me the turn I tap out for Batterskull, he can do the turn I tap out for Wurmcoil Engine (Koth of the Hammer or whatnot). Against [another] control deck (or six deck), most of what the opponent can do to me (especially if I am on the play) is less significant. For instance, six against six, I can just tap out for Batterskull on turn five and what is he going to do to me? If I tap for Wurmcoil Engine he can do something terrible, like play a real Titan and trump me (Frost Titan and Primeval Titan are especially atrocious, though there are many Sun Titan situations that are also going to make me want to quit for tapping out for a stupid Wurmcoil Engine, e.g. a Phantasmal Image to deuce or double).
At seven mana I can tap with the ability to Mana Leak back; with a Wurmcoil Engine I would have to wait until eight (and this all gets so much more nebulous as the mana climbs).
Mostly, you want this kind of card against a Red beatdown deck and I really just want my Batterskull more often there, because of its speed.
Now even though “eight” is nebulous, think about how much better Batterskull is when you and your opponent are basically spent, and you hit eight. You go “Ho hum, I guess I am going to play this stupid Batterskull” and your opponent is like “Mana… Oh never mind. Resolves.”
You can just Attrition him forever with a Batterskull here. Even if he has something big, you can block, gain four, and re-play over and over until he has a legitimate answer.
I was actually inspired to start playing Batterskull over Wurmcoil Engine watching Medina v. Bertoncini in Nashville. Bertoncini’s Wurmcoil Engine came down on that narrow fifth turn and seemed to take over the game… Until Alex just up and decided to quit for whatever reason :/
It’s way better against bad Solar Flare decks.
As above.
It looks like a robot, but is actually a Black man.
Doesn’t matter though: Most people play a Doom Blade now, and there are almost no Dismembers to be seen.
It is not “wrong” to play a Doom Blade, especially when people are killing each other with an Inkmoth Nexus every other table. However if they aren’t going to play Go for the Throat and / or Dismember (i.e. cards that can hit a Batterskull), you might as well take advantage of that.
The reality is that none of Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, or Dismember are great long term against either of these cards, but sometimes you are going to be on the wrong end of the opponent’s tempo play, and some of the time that is going to kill you. So you might as well pick the kind of card that is going to be on the wrong end much less often… and that is the one that can’t be hit by the more commonly played one (i.e. doesn’t die to Doom Blade).
That means you have all kinds of mise-tacular plays available that Wurmcoil Engine just doesn’t have.
Like, even if your opponent answers the Living Weapon, you can just move it onto your Inkmoth Nexus and make your opponent take 100 poison while you gain DI life (or your Snapcaster Mage or whatever).
Another cool thing is when your Red Deck opponent thinks he is all clever against six decks / Titans and has some kind of Threaten. Congratulations on not dealing me any damage… You might have stolen my Germ Token, but I still control the equipment.
On the other hand, he is just going to kill you to death with your own Wurmcoil Engine.
Now there is one card that I can think of where Batterskull might be much worse, and that is against Keldon Vandals. Your opponent doesn’t really want to 187 the big 6/6 only to yield two 3/3 Yo! MTG Taps tokens. I mean he will do that sometimes, but he doesn’t want to, ever. On the other hand he is going to be rocking in his seat all foaming at the mouth to do the same to your poor Batterskull the turn you tap out for it. Yes, that is kind of ooh sucky sucky, but no one said one card was strictly better than the other in all situations or anything.
On the other hand, look at how much better Batterskull is in most other cases against point removal, especially Revoke Existence.
Just think about that one!
LOVE
MIKE
A while back BDM suggested I start drawing action figures. You can pose them and do cool stuff and get better at drawing figures via, you know, action figures. Here is my first attempt:
Before we continue, Easy Game may be Easy, but michaelj… err… um…
What I wanted people to see — and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t necessarily see it immediate-like — was that you could spend two of your eight mana to play a Phantasmal Image on the Batterskull, have that piece go to the graveyard, set up ye olde Morbid mechanic, and then have at it with Brimstone Volley.
Now it turns out that based on the way I set up the hypothetical that is maybe the third most efficient thing you can do. For example — and many of you beloved readers pointed this out — you can just attack with the Batterskull. If the opponent doesn’t block, he is dead to double Brimstone Volley regardless. If he does, you set up Morbid (and without actually having to spend your Phantasmal Image).
I was very fixated on the notion of using the Living Weapon on the Batterskull to set up a sexy Phantasmal Image play that I didn’t notice that I gave you all an incredibly straightforward (and probably “just better”) way of solving the problem.
Now here comes the interesting part (isn’t it interesting how interesting stuff can come up even when michaelj screws up?)…
Note:
For the sake of this “solution” I am going to ignore all the (presumably good-natured) solutions involving Dismember, Gut Shot, and other cards that we don’t actually play in the U/R deck. To be fair, I never put a list on this site, and not every reader has StarCityGames.com Premium
Resource Management 101
Line 3 (intended line)
Use 2/8 to play Phantasmal Image, copying Living Weapon on Batterskull; Phantasmal Image goes to the graveyard (setting up Morbid).
Use 3/6 to play Brimstone Volley targeting the opponent; opponent on 5.
Use 3/3 to play Brimstone Volley targeting the opponent; opponent on 0
Use 3/8 to play Brimstone Volley targeting the opponent; opponent on 5.
Use 3/5 to play Brimstone Volley targeting the opponent; opponent on 0.
Total resources used: six mana and two cards.
If the opponent DOESN’T block, opponent falls to 6.
Use 3/8 to play Brimstone Volley targeting the opponent; opponent on 3.
Use 3/5 to play Brimstone Volley targeting the opponent; opponent on 0.
Total resources used: six mana and two cards.
Line 1 (the line nobody mentioned)
You can do the exact same thing as in Line 2 (with the decision on the opponent as to whether or not he should block)… But instead of “double Brimstone Volley” you can do this:
Use 3/8 to play Brimstone Volley targeting the opponent (for 3 or 5).
Use 2/5 to play Snapcaster Mage, giving Brimstone Volley flashback.
Use 3/3 to play Brimstone Volley targeting the opponent (for lethal).
Total resources used: eight mana and one card.
Obviously any of the three lines will — at least based on the presumed reality of this hypothetical — kill the opponent to death. Sorry about that. I will try to do better next time..
As any of the three lines will end the poor other guy, it is difficult to say which is better between the last two (though I think either of them is better than the one I intended, because we don’t throw away a Phantasmal Image, so we don’t give up that piece of information if we are going into another game, and we don’t use a third card). You really have to ask yourself whether it is better long-run to use two Brimstone Volleys or only one, but giving up the potential flexibility of a later Snapcaster Mage. I would tend to think Line 1 is the best, but, again, all three get us to the same “B” in this case.
Thanks for reading. You guys all warm my heart.
LOVE
MIKE
PS Speaking of warmed hearts, check out Gavin Verhey’s final article at Star City today. Gavin alludes to a dinner at US Nationals last year that was incredibly memorable for a bunch of us. So memorable that I included it as the last chapter of my upcoming book, The Official Miser’s Guide; up to, and including the question Gavin credits to me. I am 80% sure this dinner also produced the birth of Flores Rewards (which will come back at some point).
OF COURSE I figured out Phantasmal Image by myself.
But I hadn’t figured it out at the point that I sent in my article, which went up on Tuesday on Star City. I in fact figured out Phantasmal Image before New York States, but ultimately decided against it because “I wasn’t a Sun Titan deck” … I was thinking more on the amount of value you get from having a Phantasmal Image in your deck, rather than the fact that you can Hero’s Demise someone with it (TM Brian Kibler)… Phantasmal Image kills Thrun, the Last Troll and Geist of St. Traft dead as doorknobs.
Obviously I would have loved to have a Phantasmal Image while losing to a U/W Humans deck to miss Top 8, in a matchup where almost everything but Geist of St. Traft was dead to my innumerable Shocks!
Anyway — You Make the Play!
… something fun with Phantasmal Image.
Phantasmal Image kills Legendary Creatures, dead.
Opponent’s Life Total: 10
Opponent’s Board: Two Honor the Pure, two 1/1 Spirits from Moorland Haunt (now 3/3)… six untapped mana including two Moorland Haunts and the ability to activate them.
Opponent’s Hand: Nil
Opponent’s Graveyard: Enough.
Your Life Total: 26
Your Board: Eight lands that can produce whatever you want, Druidic Satchel, Batterskull (with Living Weapon).
Your Hand: Brimstone Volley, Brimstone Volley, Snapcaster Mage, Phantasmal Image.
Your Graveyard: All of it; you can go crazy with that Snapcaster Mage for what you wish. Funny thing about this game, you have milled, Satchel’d, and drawn your way to your last card. You have this card Phantasmal Image to kill his Geists but one never showed up.
Do you remember a few weeks ago when Evan Erwin said to get your Kessig Wolf Runs?
Your old buddy michaelj is going to do you twice that solid right now: Buy Druidic Satchel while it is less than a dollar. I myself bought 20 last night for about $.44 each!
You can get a Druidic Satchel on Amazon.com for as low as $.29!
This card is going to be one of THE top cards in the format for the next year or so, mark my words.
I got Druidic Satchel tech from Sean McKeown literally five minutes before New York States started, and I was super glad that I swapped my three main deck Frost Titans out for them (full deck list, report, and so on will be up on Star City tomorrow). Remember what Drew Levin asked about Frost Titan, and how much removal a Solar Flare opponent might have when we play our Titan?
When you swap for Druidic Satchel it is a non-issue.
Also, you can tap for Druidic Satchel on turn three in a lot of matchups and there is little-to-no risk. In fact, I played around in between rounds and most opponents — at least before they saw me play — just let it resolve even if they had a Mana Leak.
(not correct, BTW)
Druidic Satchel does so many things; and it does them well.
Sometimes it is a little bit Elspeth, Kight-Errant, and other times it is a little Ajani Goldmane. Much of the time it is kind of a cross between Jace Beleren and Garruk Wildspeaker… But most importantly, it is a “Planeswalker” that the opponent can’t actually attack.
The way the Thawing out land ability works, Druidic Satchel starts to pay for its own activations fairly quickly (which is awesome). It helps you against Control, and it helps you even more against Beatdown.
I tried to optimize for Druidic Satchel in my imagination over the past day or two… But I think I already had it right going U/R. Obviously you want to be playing Snapcaster Mage and Druidic Satchel (that much is obvious)… But Red not only has Brimstone Volley (another Top 10 if not Top 5 card in Standard), but is the only Control color that can legitimately / consistently mise an Ancient Grudge (you know, to win the Satchel fights).
Trust me, this is going to be important.
Some Druidic Satchel basics:
Hitting a spell is great… Not only do you get two life (good in some matchups), but you know not only that you are drawing a spell (great mid-game!), but which spell it is.
Hitting a land is great… Because now you are going to topdeck a spell (probably). Also you get some card advantage this way.
Making a 1/1 sap is the best of all… Because you are going to mise a Snapcaster Mage in all likelihood. When I mise a little 1/1 guy, I will typically use Druidic Satchel again on my upkeep so as to make more and more 1/1 guys. These guys not only give you another way to win, but bodies to hassle or sacrifice in combat (which can help turn on Brimstone Volley).
Anyway… The “secret card” is Druidic Satchel.
On Saturday at New York States, I inquired about some at the end of the day, and they had been long sold out.
The next day at Comicon… The Troll and Toad booth didn’t have any, either.
Mark my words: The Internet may just not have caught up yet. Even if Druidic Satchel “only” goes to $1-2, since you can get them for less than a dollar now, you can make a nice ROI on the investment, if you choose to buy more than four.
[still] Coming Soon: The Now-Famous Supermodel NipSlip Incident of 1995 Coming Sooner: My Sunday at Comicon
LOVE
MIKE
Post Script:
As a kindergartener I recall being put in the thinking chair / corner / whatever and sitting quietly. Some boys were squirmy when put in the corner, made lots of noise, complained even worse than whatever they did to get there in the first place.
Not me — I sat quietly.
A year later, I hid from my mommy and daddy.
We “only” had two television sets, one of which was black and white. The grownups wanted to watch the Sunday afternoon football game, so I could “only” watch my television program on the little black and white set. This caused me to, you know, go apespit, and I hid under a bed, but did so with great discipline.
This is one of the clearest memories of my childhood: I had to summon up tremendous restraint in order to stay hidden, even as my mommy stressed and called the police station. Eventually I fell asleep, but my resolve eventually broke when it was supper time and my mom had made steaks for the company.
What was I thinking about when I was so quiet in the kindergarten thinking chair? My teacher assumed it was “about what I had done” but it wasn’t.
What show was it that had me so incensed that the thought of having to consume it in black and white fashion pushed me to the razor edge of six-year-old asshole-dom?
Wonder Woman.
I am pretty sure Lynda Carter was my first real celebrity crush.
Sigh.
I found some old photos of Lynda in her Wonder Woman getup and swiped them for some daily sketches.
Man, she was hot… for a chick who looks like she’s wearing a diaper.
Today we will answer five-and-a-half burning questions that burn like, you know (um, never mind):
Free Preview:
Can You Send Me That Blog Post You Took Down?
What Are You Playing At States and can I have the list?
What is The Unofficial Michael J. Flores Soundboard and how do I get one?
Strange, is that a Shock or three in your sideboard? I thought that you were ‘Doubtful that the card Shock is good enough to play as a sideboard card in 2011.”
Also, how many removal spells do we think they’re holding when we cast our Frost Titan?
Let’s go!
Can You Send Me That Blog Post You Took Down?
Well… Probably not.
I already let @famouspj and @grousehaus read it; plus there were approximately DI of you who read it before I took it down.
Like I said before, pending approval from @chicgrit I might do an audio-only version and put that up. But we are watching “Horrible Bosses” tonight and I haven’t gotten around to reading the now-disappeared blog post to her.
Updates when I have them (if I have them) of course.
What Are You Playing At States and can I have the list?
I posted the list to my Star City Games column Flores Friday earlier today, you can read all about it here.
Because the column this week was basically just my deck list, I wouldn’t feel right posting it here at this point; however there are some changes I am probably going to put into place for tomorrow. Per some head-scratching (and lots of people in the forums picked up on this separately even though I had decided to do it myself previously), I am going to move around some of the removal spells.
This is what to do:
From the main deck, move all the Arc Trails to the sideboard.
From the sideboard, move one Ancient Grudge to the main deck; in addition, move all the Shocks from the sideboard into the main deck. We are not changing around any numbers… Just where the cards are.
Additionally, add one more, each of the M10 dual lands; remove one each of the basic lands. Thanks @G3rryT!
Wait a minute, did you just say Brimstone Volley is the second-best card in Standard?
I didn’t say that here, but I did sort of imply that in the column… Like so:
I certainly think Brimstone Volley is a Top 10 card in Standard (probably Top 5), but I would sooner see Dismember at Number Two (but maybe that’s just me).
What is The Unofficial Michael J. Flores Soundboard and how do I get one?
Enterprising superfan @hamiltonianurst put together some funny Flores-isms from my various podcast appearances. If you check out The Unofficial Michael J. Flores Soundboard you will be able to hear me say such-and-such is a bad card, my deck was awesome, other people are buffoons, or that I will play Blue.
And yes, this made its way around the office last week…
Strange, is that a Shock or three in your sideboard? I thought that you were ‘Doubtful that the card Shock is good enough to play as a sideboard card in 2011.”
Larry Swasey is bringing into the open something that I shared to him — presumably just between the two of us — in a personal Facebook communique. I am typing out this paragraph as I wipe a tear from my right eye, so wounded and betrayed to I feel by Larry bringing our brewing out into the forums like a common G/W deck idea.
Oh well, as above, I actually don’t have any Shocks in my sideboard any more. Ting!
Also, how many removal spells do we think they’re holding when we cast our Frost Titan?
Drew Levin’s question really is something to think about. I am going to be bringing my extra Burning Vengeances and Desperate Ravings to States; but I really like Frost Titan in the Primeval Titan matchups more than I dislike it, you know, elsewhere.
