I am going to go back and write about the buried treasure (aka thirteen copies of Force of Will) I found on my summer vacation (Day 1), but I decided it would be more fun to do this one, first.
So my sister was reading this (presumably) worthwhile book by Bill Bryson called At Home. I have no opinion on this book (having not read it yet) other than to give a big thumbs up around a list of causes of death in London in 1758.
“Most deaths, as might be expected, were from smallpox, fever, consumption or old age, but among the more miscellaneous causes listed (with original spellings) were:
choaked with fat – 1
itch – 2
froze to death – 2
St Anthony’s fire – 4
lethargy – 4
sore throat – 5
worms – 6
killed themselves – 30
French pox – 46
lunatick – 72
drowned – 109
mortification – 154
teeth – 644″
I was planning on sharing this list regardless because I thought it was hilarious. However the hundreds of death by “teeth” really struck home yesterday, when I went to the dentist.
I have had some inflammation / sensitivity around my bottom wisdom teeth… forever. Since my wisdom teeth came in a dozen years ago or whatever they never felt particularly comfy; but a few weeks ago I sliced open my bottom gums flossing, and they kind of never got better. At least three weeks went by and my gums just weren’t healing.
That’s weird, I thought. Well, at least I have a dentist appointment coming up when I am home for summer vacation.
At first my dentist said that “I definitely had a canker sore back there,” but I was like, “If it is a canker sore, it is the most invincible canker sore of all time because it hasn’t gotten better in weeks; also there are two of them.”
Wasn’t a canker sore.
Turns out I had little bits of sharp bone / bony structures / bone spurs jutting out from under each of my bottom wisdom teeth!
The only thing he could imagine is that they were vestiges of my baby teeth that had never come up (I have never had any kind of dental issues as an adult… No cavities, no teeth-pulling, nothing beyond a little nighttime grinding and bonding once).
Then I imagined all those X-Men, X-Files, and / or House episodes where they find teeth in a kid’s brain or something.
“Actually we found incisors in your brain.”
“How did teeth get in my brain?”
“They were your twin brother’s.”
“I don’t have a twin brother.”
“No, now you don’t… It’s because you ate him in utero.”
Ew.
Professor X, you cad.
Anyway the left-hand side he just broke off with that scraper-looking thing, but the right hand side wouldn’t break, so he had to slice open the gum and sand off the point.
I didn’t feel a thing!
Not until the Novocaine wore off anyway
Today, we are off to the roller coaster capitol of the world!
So a bunch of people were asking about how I played a second turn Iona, Shield of Emeria last weekend. The answer was pretty simple, and many of you have probably already figured it out!
Day One of the TCGPlayer $5,000 was disappointing, though arguably less disappointing than Day Two, where I started off 4-0, finished 6-2, and ended the tournament with EXACTLY THE SAME NUMBER OF POINTS AND INCREMENTAL DOLLARS THAT I DID AT THE END OF DAY ONE.
I lost first round to an eventual Top 8 player (G/R Valakut); Josh Ravitz and I were paired in the second round and I offered a draw (which Josh accepted)… and then I hit a U/W deck.
In the first game I played a grinding game and eventually killed him with Tectonic Edges and Stirring Wildwoods. The second game I played a second turn Lotus Cobra.
“Mana Leak?” I asked.
“No.”
I moved to pass the turn, but he showed me Flashfreeze.
I showed him Summoning Trap and the result was a certain 7/7 Mythic Angel.
This was the first time in a long time that my opponent refused to shake my hand. He had Jace, the Mind Sculptor but his fourth land came into play tapped. I had double Tectonic Edges and showed him that even if we pretended that we lived in a universe where he had five lands, that I would have demolished him with Primeval Titans. But still, no shakes.
Before you ask, I no longer recommend this deck for Standard. I was going to play it at States despite not doing well in the $5K… But testing versus Pedro Quintero’s version of U/W was enough. Prior to Scars of Mirrodin, G/W absolutely demolished U/W… But the Ratchet Bombs in the new build really punish the accelerator creatures in this one. You have Have HAVE to commit guys in order to cast the bigger guys, and therefore the G/W deck has lost a lot of its attraction. Additionally, G/W is the worst of the Titan Ramp decks. And anyway, I made up Pyromancer Ascension
The G/W is not “the worst” in the sense of being “bad” (for instance, the G/W has strong positive expectation in against a Goblin Guide deck whereas a Mono-Green Eldrazi Ramp deck doesn’t) but it has the least expectation when facing off against other Titan decks. In my experience:
G/R Valakut > Mono-Green Eldrazi Ramp > G/W Trap
The issue is that Mono-Green Eldrazi Ramp can “catch up” with All Is Dust. G/W Trap can get ahead, but if All Is Dust goes off, the only gas left will be on the Mono-Green side. Part of that is the dynamic that the G/W deck has all creatures for acceleration whereas Eldrazi Ramp has predominantly extra lands. When a sweeper occurs, one side still has permanents. Et cetera.
Valakut covers Mono-Green in than its Primeval Titans are somewhat more powerful. That is the G/R deck’s Primeval Titan can kill the Mono-Green deck’s Primeval Titan with Valakut activations. With the right setup, the G/R deck can therefore win when playing the second Primeval Titan (though the Mono-Green version will usually win playing the first Primeval Titan).
Regardless, even with the potential holes that the G/W version might have, it still has the ability to present multiple essentially unbeatable hands (especially in-matchup). For example, the deck will present hands that a typical U/W deck can’t beat, but might be beatable by a Red Deck.
Right now this is one of the most important things to me in terms of picking a deck list.
When I qualified for US Nationals with Grixis Hits, I won all great matchups leading into the win-and-in round. In that round, I was paired against Jund, and I knew that I could present an unbeatable opening hand. I imagined having a ton of Spreading Seas in my opening hand… and I had them. Between Nationals Qualifiers and US Nationals, I would walk from my office on 42d & Madison to Columbus Circle all summer, imagining hands with tons and tons of Spreading Seas.
Is it any surprise that I chose a deck that not only played four Spreading Seas but Ponders and Preordains for more and more of the above?
Here is my main reason for so emphasizing decks that can present an unbeatable opening hand: Even when your unconditional “I win” hand comes relatively infrequently (for example Pyromancer Ascension can win on turn two in the single digits), that still changes the number of games that the opponent has share to win. So instead of having X% of 100%, they get to jockey for X% of some smaller sum.
It’s almost like the game is rigged.
Pretty profound when you think about it like that, right?
This blog post has basically nothing to do with Magic: The Gathering. To find out why you can skip way ahead to the “Irony” section (ctrl+f “irony”). But it should still be a super cool blog post simply because — let’s be honest — your old pal michaelj penned (and by “penned” I mean “typed”) it.
Part I: Laying the Blame
Blame Brian David-Marshall.
One of my best friends.
My podcast teammate over at Top 8 Magic (buy Deckade at Top 8 Magic!)
This is a man with 13-17 favorite movies in his top 3 favorite movies. So as embarrassing as it may be to have started plotting out this blog having forgotten completely about The Wire ain’t gonna stop me. Yes, The Wire is probably better than most of the television shows outlined below, but like I said, blame Brian David-Marshall.
Part II: My Top 10 Television Shows of All Time… In This Top 10 List
People are always asking me “what to watch next” so I put together this blog post. This Top 10 list is going to focus more on shows that aren’t on the air any more. For the most part you can get them all on DVD or in some cases you can watch all the eps online via Hulu, YouTube, or the WB (or in the middle of the night on the Disney Channel).
Number Ten – Robotech
Robotech was the first cartoon I ever saw that, despite being a cartoon, dealt with adult themes and more complicated storylines. Characters — even majort characters — died, people’s houses got thrashed when there was a battle, women got pregnant. I watched Robotech largely around age 9, but when I moved to the Cleveland area from western Pennsylvania it played at a terrible time slot relative to when I could, you know, watch tv / cartoons / etc.
Adult themes, and the trials and consequences of war were not the initial hook, of course.
Robotech was about transforming robots blowing up aliens. The main character of the first 1/3 — Rick Hunter — was the quintessential candidate for the Level Up. He went from stunt plane pilot to admiral over the course of a couple of years, and not only got the girl but had every looker from the naive pop star to the jaded older woman fawning all over him.
I was completely obsessed with Robotech for years. Keep in mind this was during a time period when there was no public adoption of the Internet, but involved really cool foreign transforming robots and interesting characters. I bought tons of art books as a kid and consumed every possible Robotech-related tech I possibly could until my sister bought me the complete saga on DVD around 2001 or 2002.
Luckily for you (if you haven’t watched it), all three arcs of the initial Robotech saga are available on Hulu!
I am including a relatively accessible ep; the saga as a whole is an involved, multi-generational, one with plots rebuilt from multiple different Japanese sources. The first part has a brief space battle and some story advancement, but the reason I chose the ep is the last part. The beautiful (and green haired) alien infiltrator Mirya is sent to the good guy space ship to learn more about us earthlings, and mistakes a video arcade for a training ground.
Young hero Max Sterling battles Mirya in a video game (Mirya is the best pilot the bad guys have) and… You’ll have to watch the ep to see what happens next. Rest assured that if all gamers had Max’s skills, we’d all be a lot happier. The internal monologues are priceless.
Number Nine – The Tomorrow People
The Tomorrow People is basically the opposite of Robotech. Rather than a cartoon that dealt with more serious themes, The Tomorrow People was basically the first show I was ever interested in that had actual humans / actors / etc. rather than cartoon characters. The tragedy of The Tomorrow People was that it came on on Nickelodeon about 6pm, i.e. when my Dad was trying to watch the news. So I basically never got to watch my favorite show circa 1984.
To be honest The Tomorrow People — being British — just reminded me of my favorite tv show circa 1980, Dr Who. The fact is that it was just a more terrible version of Dr Who, with worse special effects.
The Tomorrow People was about the next step in human evolution… back in 1974
Number Eight – Disney’s Gargoyles
Gargoyles is basically the best cartoon of all time.
It blends everything from Shakespeare to Iron Man-type concepts with power sources as disparate as magic and science to plain old money. There has really never been anything else like Gargoyles on television, ever, as far as I can recall.
And then it got cancelled.
What happened?
Gargoyles was re-launched as The Goliath Chronicles for a third season of sorts, but it wasn’t the same at all (Saturday morning cartoon rather than daily cartoon with incredible long term plot development and more twists and turns than the letter S). What was the problem?
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Sadly around 1995 or so I was part of the problem, tuning in for Tommy Oliver and his Drgonzord rather than Disney’s Gargoyles. Unfortunately, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was more or less the most popular television program of all time, so it wasn’t just me… But it was enough.
Gargoyles has had new life breathed into it in graphic novel form, under the direction of the original creator, so that’s something. You can watch it at 4am on Disney XD every night. In fact, tonight’s ep is the first ep ever. I mean if you’re going to be up anyway…
Number Seven – Battlestar Galactica
Yes, the re-imagined mid-2000s series!
I watched the one from 30 or however many years ago as a kid, but who are we kidding?
Battlestar Galactica starts off at the worst possible position — essentially the genocide of the human race — and just gets worse from there. The heroes are outnumbered, out-gunned, and actually infiltrated by the villains from day one. Heck, the heroes are the villains half the time. Battlestar is thought to be a commentary on the War on Terror, and you can see the themes quite clearly if you are looking. The writing is unbelievable. The good guys are in so deep in the first couple of eps of season three, even as an educated Western-raised lad from the U S of A, you may find suicide bombing a completely defensible activity when used against superior forces.
Number Six – Angel
I love Angel.
I like it better than Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
When I want to get pumped up, I watch the last two episodes of Angel, in particular “Not Fade Away” (the last one).
I actually watched those live when the show was first going off the air, right before the birth of my daughter and didn’t like them at the time. When I watched them with director’s commentary, I appreciated what Whedon was trying to do much more. Like I said, I watch these eps to get pumped up… I am pretty sure Sadin and I watched them the night before a PTQ we made the finals of (sorry for punting Steve and Paul).
Number Five – Malcolm in the Middle
Before Arrested Development, there was Malcolm.
Malcolm in the Middle is the story of a boy genius born to a lower middle-class family, and constantly dropped into difficult situations because of the brash natures of his troublemaking older brothers, or sometimes the soul crushing love of his well-meaning but overbearing mother.
Malcolm in the Middle is like The Wonder Years, but without any of the sentimentality. At one point I think it was probably the best comedy on television, but suffered with the emergence of Arrested Development, at which point it got shuffled around a bit in terms of time slot and even night of the week.
The first two seasons are works of inspiration, and the season two ep “Bowling” is probably the best half hour of television you will ever see. I remember watching it with John Shuler at Grand Prix Detroit back in 2001 before we went to dinner… and we just stared at each other after staring at the television screen. What did we just watch? “Bowling” is a work of staggering on-screen choreography, hilarious, and incredibly accessible.
I don’t normally talk things up this much, but I know how good “Bowling” is. It’s not too hard to find online, but I couldn’t find a link from a real / official / well-known site so I elected not to embed it this time around.
Number Four – Rome
Rome transports you to another world.
Actually it is our world, but 2,000 years ago.
All our understanding of the universe as seen through a Judeo-Christian lens is blanked. Our notions of the body, propriety, and so on go out the window.
You want to have an affair? Your body slave is there fanning you.
You step out of line? Your commanding officer threatens to crucify you… and means it.
I think there are only 24 episodes; I heartily recommend tracking them down on DVD or HBO On Demand.
Number Three – Babylon 5
Babylon 5 was my [at least nominal] favorite show until I fell in love with this list’s #1 show. It is without exaggeration the most complicated and layered drama in the history of television.
Babylon 5 was kind of like Lost before there was Lost. The setting — a space station — was one of the main characters. None of the players was 100% what he or she seemed. There were several interplanetary wars, several opportunities to get pumped up or recoil in horror.
Amazingly, the entire saga is available on TheWB.com!
So if you want to explore more, you can do so there.
Just a warning: The entire first season is kind of terrible. The exception would be Signs and Portents (embedded below). The problem is that you can’t not watch the first season because, again, this might be the most complicated and layered show in the history of television; you can’t just skip the entire first season just because it is nowhere near as good as, say, the third or fourth seasons, or the latter part of the fifth.
Just be forewarned: “Signs and Portents” was an awards magnet and hands-down the best episode of the first season, but it is far from the best ep in the series.
Number Two – The Simpsons
Apparently my favorite show on television circa 1997 is still on television!
You go Bart!
Number One – Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is my all-time favorite television show.
I became acquainted with it via old Top 8 Magic listener Pselus, who recommended it to me just as I am recommending all these ten to you.
Veronica Mars is the kind of show writers love. Obviously the writing is there (including dialogue), but more than that, the story is layered and engaging — and constantly re-engaging — as it explores themes of class, resources, violence, and high school
For those of you who are not familiar with it, Veronica Mars details the adventures of a Nancy Drew-type girl detective (Veronica, obviously)… But imagine this Nancy Drew as a ruthless anti-hero with absolutely no qualms about using her detective skills to destroy her enemies, whether in terms of reputation (it is high school), resources, or literally. Veronica — lovable as she might be — has no qualms about setting her pet biker gang against rivals… and that darker tone is part of what makes her such an amazing character.
I would have just run the first episode ever as an embed, but it wasn’t available on Hulu or the WB. Instead I chose this one “The Rapes of Graff” which is about a rape investigation while Veronica tours a potential college. I ultimately picked it because it is a self-contained episode that guest stars George Michael and Maeby from Arrested Development.
Part II: Oh, the Irony
I actually played a bunch of relevant MTGO since coming back from US Nationals.
I am not going to report on any of that until my most recent article goes up on TCGPlayer (probably Monday), as I don’t want to report any conflicting deck choice data. Suffice it to say that I tried a bunch of the breakout archetypes and there is definitely another deck besides Pyromancer worth sleeving up.
I am probably not going to play much MTGO the next couple of days… Too busy working on this:
sideboard:
3 Basilisk Collar
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
4 Sedraxis Specter
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
1 Island
Thanks to everyone — in particular Brightbo and GerryT — for advice on the deck. Basilisk Collar was exactly what the sideaboard needed… Even gassier than Vampire Nighthawk (in fact makes everyone into a Vampire Nighthawk).
The Danger of Cool Things ∙ Chad Ellis ∙ Eldrazi Conscription
Sovereigns of Lost Alara ∙ “the stack” ∙ … and Eldrazi Conscription
Eldrazi Conscription
A new version of the Mythic deck centers around Sovereigns of Lost Alara setting up Eldrazi Conscription. You attack, the Sovereigns of Lost Alara goes and finds that normally cost prohibitive enchantment, sticks it on your guy, and all of a sudden you have a gigantic monster that should kill the opponent in just 1-2 blows. The second time you attack with such an Eldrazi-proxy, you probably get to set up Annihilator 2 as well, which is just cool (on top of being wicked deadly).
Recently my new protege Kar Yung Tom stated that the only way that King Hulk / Raka XXX can possibly lose to Mythic is to be smashed by this Eldrazi Conscription combination… So plan for it, anticipate, prevent, etc. For King Hulk — a deck with precious few ways to interact with the Sovereigns of Lost Alara combination itself — must use mass removal or Planeswalkers on its own turn to prevent getting smashed. But what about decks with actual instant speed removal, viz. Doom Blade or Path to Exile? How should they play against Eldrazi Conscription?
This is how the combination works.
The opponent attacks.
Any of the “attacks alone” text abilities go on the stack; these include both Exalted and the Eldrazi Conscription-finding ability on Sovereigns of Lost Alara. Let’s table Exalted for the moment. How do you deal with the second ability?
I think most players — acting “automatically” — will be tempted to let the ability resolve, let the opponent attach Eldrazi Conscription to the attacking creature, and then point the Doom Blade at the attacking bugger. After all this is “cool”. This is “card advantage”.
Or is it?
True, if you point a removal spell at an Aura’d-up Eldrazi wannabe, you are technically destroying two cards — both the creature and the creature enchantment. Is this card advantage? At that instant, the answer is yes. You are using one resource to remove two resources. But for practical purposes it isn’t. The Eldrazi Conscription in this case is “extra” … The opponent went and got it for free. Your “card advantage” play — your “cool” card advantage play — is really just a break even, despite the fact that at that instant, the exchange itself is card advantageous.
Let me propose a counter-automatic play:
What if we respond to all that jazz, and kill the creature before the Eldrazi Conscription hits the battlefield? Or even in response to all of it, before in many cases the Exalted triggers hit (when our removal spell is Lightning Bolt and the Eldrazi-to-be is a Noble Hierarch, this may actually be a necessity)?
I would argue that leaving the Eldrazi Conscription in the opponent’s deck is actually desirable.
First of all, if we prevent the ability from resolving, we are preventing the opponent from getting an extra card; we don’t have to make up the card on the two-for-one… because the opponent never got the Eldrazi Conscription for us to two-for-one. Grok? Good.
The reason this might be subtly better is that now the opponent can accidentally draw Eldrazi Conscription. Awesome, right? That is a card he never wants to draw. Not only is it essentially dead in hand, drawing both basically turns off Sovereigns of Lost Alara.
Now of course if the opponent has an army of little guys, and the ability to reload next turn and the turn after, you might want to pull out his Sovereigns’ teeth (especially if you have, say, two copies of Terminate). But if he isn’t long on threats on the battlefield already — as will often be the case — I think giving him the opportunity to get unlucky can be desirable.
Neither play is right all the time… But I figured presenting the opposite as a viable option might be a useful suggestion to many of you with automatic — but not necessarily automatically better — MO’s lined up.
LOVE
MIKE
P.S. For those of you who haven’t read it yet, I heartily recommend The Danger of Cool Things by my friend Chad Ellis. Chad was a former columnist at Star City and the mother ship, a Pro Tour Top 8 competitor, and a hell of a strategy writer. The Danger of Cool Things is his best work, and kind of a companion to Who’s the Beatdown if that makes any sense.
Beloved Lightning ∙ Bolt Beloved Spreading ∙ Seas Beloved Countersquall
Beloved Blightning ∙ The Ever-Dangerous Malakir Bloodwitch ∙ … and Cruel Ultimatum
Countersquall
So sparked somewhat by the win by Tom Ma (@TomMaMTG on Twitter), but mostly via chats with my boys @amistod and @sloppystack I have decided to come back to the full on hits of this metagame, the guys we call Grixis.
At some point I am going to do a full format evaluation of playable cards by mana cost, but suffice it to say, Grixis is stacked with card quality.
One mana is actually quite competitive in Standard with Path to Exile, Noble Hierarch, and Birds of Paradise, but I think Lightning Bolt holds its own; certainly a Top 10 card.
At two, though… I think Grixis might be the king of the format with Spreading Seas (best two mana spell) and Countersquall (best Counterspell). Similar to what Tom Ma did, I decided to go for more creatures and play with Gatekeeper of Malakir on two. However rather than playing Siege-Gang Commander, I opted for Malakir Bloodwitch, which is sometimes just game over for decks like U/W Control, White Weenie, and Mythic.
Tom told me via Twitter that he also started on Malakir Bloodwitch, but switched to Siege-Gang Commander because of its increased efficacy against Jund + “just dumb” synergies with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Cruel Ultimatum.
My first version had 4 Countersqualls main, with one Gatekeeper of Malakir and one Terminate switching places with the now 2 + 2 permission package. I lost a Game One to Jund with three Countersqualls in my hand (believe it or not the first Countersquall stopped his third turn Blightning). I lost a super close one after resolving two Cruel Ultimatums. Basically everything had to go wrong for me; he had to hit Bloodbraid Elf on turn four and he had to play Blightning off of it (which cost me two lands that stalled my Cruel Ultimatum for three turns off-curve); after I killed his guys, he had to topdeck Broodmate Dragon. Basically everything had to go wrong for me to lose, but if I had had a 2 + 2 split with one more fast creature removal spell, I would have won fairly easily; unfortunately we didn’t finish the match.
I won I think every other match I played tonight, toggling between the 4 Countersquall and 2 + 2 versions; I think I like this one best, though it is possible that a 3 + 1 version with the Terminate in the main (for Putrid Leech) is the right way to go.
The mana in this deck is not as good as the mana in Grixis Burn. Grixis Burn had the Brian David-Marshall seal of approval for most beautiful mana base… With Worldwake duals we have to change a lot around, including playing many more lands that hit the battlefield tapped. While Gatekeeper of Malakir is quite playable, the mana in this version works very hard, especially when you are trying to hit your BBB on turn three for a Putrid Leech… That is why I think a 3 + 1 Gatekeeper / Terminate split might be the way to go.
Obviously there are no Rise of the Eldrazi spells in this deck yet; who knows if we will even play any?
Some notes from the testing:
Bring creatures in against the U/W or U/r/W Planeswalker decks. I played against Telemin Performance. If I didn’t’ have 6-8 creatures in my deck, I would have been forced to Duress Telemin Performance instead of Jace, the Mind Sculptor. As it was, I just let him play the performance against me, met Bloodwitch with Bloodwitch, and easily burned him out.
Provided there are no huge hiccups in the metagame, I think this sort of a deck might be perfectly positioned to take Nationals Qualifiers. U/W decks — permission poor as they are right now — are basically meat to a Cruel Ultimatum (sorry beloved Raka XXX… it’s true); the choice for me is between this and Vampires (right now, that is)… but thanks to Spreading Seas, I think Grixis has a better match against Jund.
That’s all I got.
LOVE
MIKE
PS: I lied. Just want to shout out to Blair Simpson. A month or so ago I was making fun of Blair (@Rakalite on Twitter) because he sideboarded Trace of Abundance in his four-color Bloodbraid Elf deck. I said Trace of Abundance was not strong enough for a sideboard card… and then yesterday I went and did a whole post on how strong I think it is [as a sideboard card, too]; so much to the point that I would consider — perish the thought — of playing Jund myself.
So this is a shout out to @Rakalite
In my own defense, there was no Raging Ravine to make unbeatable with Trace of Abundance back when Blair made Top 8 of Alabama States.
For Reference:
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Borderland Ranger
2 Master of the Wild Hunt
I had an open from Mrs. MichaelJ, but I opted out of playing Magic on consecutive weekends (speaking of which, I will probably update on the New York State Championships… not that there was much of a story there). I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to spend a lot of time with my daughter the past couple of months. She is up and out the door to school (you know… showing no mercy at chess and all that) before I am even up, and I am typically home after she goes to sleep. So it felt kind of going in different directions to bitch about not being able to see my daughter and then opt out of one of the two days per week I can actually see her.
As correct as I feel like that decision was, I still would have liked to have played in the Philly 5K. I put a decent amount of work into Standard even after States, and I think that I had the right deck to play.
For anyone who has any kind of Standard action going on, I heartily recommend this Shaheen Redux:
sb:
4 Cancel
3 Sphinx of Lost Truths
2 Quest for Ancient Secrets
4 Celestial Purge
2 Kabira Crossroads
My man GRat (friend who I ironically met at the Philly 5K last year) pointed out that the last post was missing three cards… He wasn’t sure if they were Jace Beleren or Oblivion Ring! Obviously they were — and remain — Jace.
This deck is quite good even against other control decks.
At first I was having problems with Grixis-style control decks. However those get easier if you play according to the old Carlos Romao rules. If you concentrate on fighting their Sphinxes with your Essence Scatters and their Cruel Ultimatums with your Flashfreezes, you will be ahead of the game; there is some issue about a four color version presenting also Ajani Vengeants… Probably you have to fight those with Flashfreeze early, and then hope to draw into more Flashfreezes… Otherwise you’ll probably get pinned by the Cruel Ultimatum anyway (but see below about trying to overload back).
However your early game card advantage is just so much better than theirs… Knight of the White Orchid hitting is just so spectacular! For sure you have too much creature kill, but you can get value against a Sphinx with a Martial Coup, say… and you can run the bonus on Path to Exile on ye olde Baneslayer Angel if that is going to come up.
The tough version of Grixis control to beat is the one with main deck Sedraxis Specter; dunno what to say about that noise… I certainly haven’t figured out how to beat it! Chalk it up to a bad matchup.
Jacerator is basically impossible in game one. I think you should concede on the spot in order to preserve time to win the sideboarded games; speaking of which, I was able to win handily with just three Cancels and one Quest for Ancient Secrets (took the four spots held by Luminarch Ascension in the previous version). However you still have a super awkward deck against them. Basically I was siding in Wall of Reverence to potentially block Baneslayer Angel… not that that ever came up.
With three Cancels and a Quest, I was pretty capable of fighting potentially lethal Archive Traps, protecting my Jace from his Jace, and sometimes even getting the lockdown with Iona (typically name White to prevent Fog effects and Wrath). Again, not a hard matchup after sideboarded (at least not relative to Game One, which is nigh-unwinnable). The present version of the sideboard reflects the fact that there are just so many dead cards… I tried to build with an eye to flexibility across other matchups.
Which brings us to the bonus Kabira Crossroads.
This land card is positively spell-like.
When I was playing Barely Boros and thereabouts, I absolutely hated seeing that card come up. My rationale with it now is that it is a smasher against beatdown decks, but also useful against other control. Really against another control deck you just want to hit land drops, and this is — hey — two more lands.
As to fighting other control decks, this is what I’ve found:
You don’t have a Cruel Ultimatum. That is pretty obvious by looking at the deck list. However between Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Mind Spring, you play like you have a relatively effective threat tandem. I have even found that Flashfreeze can be pretty good as a Force of Will. It’s generally most useful for fighting Ajani Vengeant and / or Cruel Ultimatum depending on which control version they are. However since many of these decks rely on Double Negative as a defensive card, you can sometimes Counterspell their Counterspell with Flashfreeze… Double Negative is Red!
I still don’t like the other version of the Sphinx.
I may be a bit too greedy with Sphinx of Lost Truths, but I just can’t cotton to playing the six mana Keiga wannabe in this deck. I have just faced off against too many six mana Sphinxes with my five mana Baneslayer Angel and come out on top. I understand that it is relatively monolithic against Jund, but drawing three extra cards while containing their treats can be pretty goood, too! Jund is obviously the soft matchup… Not bad, but not spectacular like Red Deck Wins or the G/W-based decks (which in my experience, are not difficult), nor extremely challenging like Jacerator. Jund can go either way, but Shaheen thought enough of the matchup to remove Spreading Seas. I think that success is probably best ensured by staying out of the way of Blightning as best you can (go figure).
The other thing is, this Shaheen deck is super fun to play!
I have played Shaheen-esque U/W decks across the different formats that he has been able to successfully brew (even Extended), and even with cumbersome cards like Mind Spring, this one is my favorite of the lot. Its ragged curve makes for interesting games with a lot of interactivity. I have really enjoyed setting up games to resolve multiple copies of Knight of the White Orchid [with value]. This is also basically the only deck I have played where I am perfectly comfortable playing Jace as a base -1 Planeswalker rather than a +2 to start (even against Red Decks). The ability to refill with Mind Spring, especially after getting value with Jace gives you enough card advantage redundancy that you have the rare liberty to expose your Planeswalker to more direct interaction.
So for what it’s worth… That’s what I would have run.
Basically Shaheen Soorani’s deck… But with more Sphinx of Lost Truths
Just another super quick post for now.
Though I will get up a report — such that it is / will be — on States (probably later in the week).
I was working on Top Decks tonight, which features the Shaheen Soorani U/W deck (U/W from Shaheen… go figure). Evan Erwin shipped the deck to me before States but I kind of dismissed it due to hating Islands in this format. However in order to write a halfway intelligible article I played Shaheen’s deck about five matches in the Tournament Practice Room… won them all easily (though for some reason no one gamed with Jund).
Does anyone know the Jund matchup for this deck?
I am considering playing it at the Philly 5K this weekend.
Anyway, here is “my” version… With Sphinx of Lost Truths. I generally dislike Sphinx of Jwar Isle due to its being expensive and crappy. The other Sphinx is more mana efficient and also fits better in the theme of progressive card advantage. I also cut the Cancels from the sideboard due to their, you know, also being crappy.
I just wanted to make sure I got up the deck before tomorrow AM for those who are interested.
Not much commentary on this (need to get my beauty sleep), but I decided after the events of Sixteen Again on ChannelFireball.com that I needed to speed up my defensive speed.
Barely Boros lost [perhaps predictably] to beloved Naya Lightsaber, and the other Boros deck won it all.
That led me to believe that Act of Treason would not be the right tool for this tournament. There is relatively little worth aiming an Act of Treason at in the other Boros deck, and against Lightsaber, it’s probably worth it just to point a Plow rather than a Threaten at the big babe.
Plus, Sean McKeown offered me the use of his Baneslayer Angels for my sideboard.
Selling out much?
Yeah, but I plan to win tomorrow, and all the decks that did best in my testing had Baneslayer Angels.
This is the 75 I plan to sleeve up manana, provided I can find Lightning Bolts:
Act of Treason ∙ Evan Erwin ∙ Petr Brodzek ∙ Baneslayer Angel (and lack thereof) ∙ Beating Jund Decks ∙
… and Act of Treason
I’M SO GREAT.
In fact, “I’m the Best!” [-Toad]
Okay, that’s out of our system.
Let’s move on, shall we?
I was planning to play Naya Lightsaber at next week’s New York State Championship, but now that the cat’s out of the bag… Yadda, yadda, yadda. Naya Lightsaber was for sure the best deck to play at the World Championships (just read the coverage… I told Andre I was “100% sure” this was the case), but I am not likely to be sleeving it up next weekend.
Okay: Full disclosure: Like you, I might have problems picking up four copies of Baneslayer Angel in time. So… Time for an alternate way to win.
I immediately switched, mentally, from Naya to Red Deck Wins when I realized a paucity of Baneslayer Angels was going to be a possibility. Right after setting foot back on American soil, Evan Erwin called me, and when I said I was switching gears to Goblin Guides, he steered me in the direction of Petr Brodzek’s deck, which was a 5-1 perfomer on the first day of Worlds:
sb:
2 Chandra Ablaze
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Quenchable Fire
2 Volcanic Fallout
4 Path to Exile
The first thing that you probably notice about this deck list is its insane mana base. Four Terramorphic Expanses, four Naya Panoramas, not a Teetering Peaks in sight.
Having played this deck about 30-40 matches at this point, I can say that I am quite happy with Petr’s mana base; the deck shell is quite excellent. My main point of customization was / is the inclusion of Act of Treason to the main. You can read why I feel like this is the right thing to do, and a tasty way to do it, here.
sb:
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Act of Treason
2 Earthquake
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Volcanic Fallout
4 Path to Exile
Here are the incentives and so on as I see them.
This deck always beats Jund.
This deck always beats Fog.
This deck has action against most of the reasonable decks in the metagame.
I have been batting pretty well with Barely Boros [BDM came up with the name, in case you hadn't already guessed]. My original theory was that it would be a decent, if not fantastic, choice against Naya Lighsaber (smash them for a ten-point swing when they tap for Baneslayer Angel)… But even when you pull that off you don’t necessarily win. So far, Naya Lightsaber seems like it might be the worst matchup for this deck.
On the other hand, Jund is super easy. If people persist in playing Jund in “one-third of the metagame” numbers, that actually paves quite an easy road for the deck. BDM was kind enough to humor me in some Barely Boros testing earlier this week, which you can check out over at Top 8 Magic here (plus, all the surrounding Podcasts).
Every session I do with the deck has been pretty encouraging; though none have been flawless (one of the defining characteristics of Naya Lightsaber early on was its long streak of “never losing”)… The down side of this deck is that when I have one black mark on a session, it is often the result of Naya Lightsaber, itself.
Anyway, here are the stats from the last go-round:
Vampires
Game the First:
He opens up on Lacerator; I play Goblin Guide and elect not to attack. My attacking can just be a profitable exchange for him, but if he doesn’t attack and I don’t attack, I am “winning” thanks to the Lacerator’s Carnophage-ness. He figures this out and attacks (obviously I trade with the +1). He follows up with Lacerator; I follow up with Guide. Same dance.
There is a little stumbling on my part, after which I play a Plated Geopede. Annoyingly he has a Gatekeeper of Malakir. I was actually sandbagging him, so this is super annoying. He follows up with a Bloodghast, but I Earthquake the pair before there is any attack.
So… Zektar Shrine Expedition.
I pull the trigger, fully expecting I will have to Lightning Bolt it to avoid some kind of embarassing life swing. But somehow Somehow SOMEHOW… It connects. Really? How the heck does that happen?
You can’t really lose if you connect with one of those.
Game the Second:
I have a burn heavy hand that keeps him off guys and kills him as a kind of dirty combo deck.
It’s all Volcanic Fallouts and Lightning Bolts, you know. Dan Paskins would be proud (plenty of overload). Not a lot of interactions this game.
RDW
El Primero:
I stall on two but have a pair of Goblin Guides (and no Lightning Bolts). All my Guides give him lands. Did I mention I was stuck on two? Dead dead dead.
El Segundo:
Just demolished him on tempo. I chose to go first.
El… Whatever three would be:
He drew three Hell’s Thunders. Hell’s Thunder is like the third best card in the mirror. I have Blightning as #1 because I never beat it Red-on-Red, and Ajani Vengeant has to be the second best (due to the life swing, especially when you can snare a guy and steal an attack). But Hell’s Thunder is probably the third best. Obviously if you can stick a Zektar Shrine or Elemental Appeal, that has a high hand-in-hand with the dubya, but that isn’t really very easy to do with all the Lightning Bolts, Burst Lightnings, and Volcanic Fallouts that the opponent is sandbagging until the end of turn. Hell’s Thunder on the other hand is a somewhat smaller packet of damage that is very hard to stop. Like I said, he had three of them. Man down.
Archive Trap Trap Deck
Game One:
He set off two Archive Traps on a second turn Path to Exile… Which just set up a bunch of Hellspark Elementals (very embarassing); the Path not only gave me the “card advantage” but the mana to realize it. I won with about seven cards in library.
Game Two:
He sided in Deft Duelist, which was super awkward because I didn’t go all out with the Volcanic Fallouts. I actually always forget to do that! Why!?! It is good against Blue, right? Anyway I gunned one of the two Earthquakes I left in so I looked like a genius &c. (which is really what we’re going for here). The game was closer than it probably seemed from his side of the table. Deft Duelist!
G/W Allies
Game One:
I just about packed on turn one when he played a Soul Warden and I had no Lightning Bolt. Then he ran it into my Plated Geopede. I have never done that, but I have certainly run guys into Vampire Hexmage. Gotta read the Firstest Strikesies, paps!
Game Two:
This match didn’t really count because… Well, among other things, he left in Luminarch Ascension. As you may have guessed, it hit the battlefield on turn the second… and failed to ever accrue a counter. I really didn’t know what was up so I waited to kill him in response to Angel’s Mercy.
It would have been mad… um… irony-ic if I had packed to that Soul Warden.
Grixis Control
First:
The first was a kind of a nice fencing match. I juked him with a super fast 7/1; he tapped his Crumbling Necropolis to respond, and I stuck Ajani Vengeant.
We went back and forth for a while, but he peeled back-to-back Blightnings to empty my grip (the second one actually stole a Lightning Bolt and a Burst Lightning when I had 5-6 mana in play), plus the Ajani!
However I had a sufficient life lead to eke out the last two points of damage. Probably from an unchecked topdeck.
Second:
I actually got off ultimate on Ajani this game!
YUS!
I kind of wasn’t paying attention, though. He floated in response and had Magma Spray, which ate my Unearthed Hellspark Elemental. I was watching Notorious out of the corner of my eyes, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have fallen for it.
I couldn’t really lose after blowing up six lands, though…
So anyway, that was the last five. And no Jund this time around (though like I said, Jund couldn’t be easier); okay, the G/W deck probably doesn’t count.
Good deck, though.
And 100% Baneslayer Angel free (if not Baneslayer Angel resistant).
One of the first things I tried to test was Black instead of White in this strategy. I mean if Act of Treason is good, Slave of Bolas has to be super good, right? Blightning, as well, seemed like a huge upgrade to the spell palette. The problem was… White does quite well across the board, whereas Black never wins (ever). I lost multiple fights in a row to the Fog deck (unlikely at best)… But multiple in a row? You can’t necessarily argue with that action. As BDM pointed out in the Podcasts, the Barely Boros deck is quite servicable against Fog, if for no other reason, the ability to consistenly blow up all their lands.
