Entries from April 2009 ↓

Our snap judgment of Alara Reborn Mythic Rare Jenara, Asura of War.

Aesthetics:
To be honest I have been trying to find reasons not to like this card.

The reason is that I always like cards like this one (note the Green mana), and that usually costs me.

However I just keep coming back to the fact that I busted a format open by adding some Trained Armodons*, and have literally made the finals of a Constructed PTQ with four Silt Crawlers in my stack.

Given those parameters, the whole “not liking” loses essentially all of its footing. 3/3 flying for three? Awfully solid, if below the high water mark for a format with Incinerate, Agony Warp, and Nameless Inversion (still, I always hate making the investment — I think this is where it comes from).

The White mana is central to the Green and Blue, making it the natural color for Jenara’s rather formidable ability. I don’t think it will be uncommon to see a 5/5 Asura of War crashing on turn four if not turn three.

Where can I see this fitting in?
While it’s possible for control to play Jenara in much the same way that we forced Serra Avengers into control, I think that the most attractive option begins with a first turn Noble Hierarch. Hi-yah!

Snap Judgment Rating: Role Player (high); arguably Staple in decks like Bant Aggro Control, though fists will fly with Kitchen Finks and Rhox War Monk for space.

LOVE
MIKE

* Ignore The Fine Line Between Tech and Jank

All Alara Reborn

At the risk of stating the obvious, Alara Reborn mythic rare Sphinx of the Steel Wind is the Esper answer to Akroma, Angel of Wrath.

Aesthetics:

• Same converted mana cost.
• Same size.
• Slightly changed — but appropriately flavorful — double “protection from” at the end (Red and Green being the enemies of Esper, natch).

The big differences are lifelink over haste and trample (kind of a big one), and the fact that this is a colored artifact rather than a triple white Legendary Angel.

As for the cost in total… There is basically no difference beyond flavor; when Akroma was new, White was the dominating color of its Block, and had Eternal Dragon and so on to incentivize and ultimately find the necessary WWW. Present day in-set Magic is about the Shards; Sphinx of the Steel Wind commensurately an Esper billboard.

6/6 for eight mana served Akroma well enough size-wize, to the point that she was the preferred kill card for reanimation strategies for some time (and still holds a reasonable amount of one-of and sideboard space). Akroma uses Sphinx of the Steel Wind as a toilet heads up, of course (one having protection from the other and all).

Protection from Black is generally more useful than protection from Green but you can at least make a Cloudthresher argument in 2009.

The big difference between this card and its thematic acestor is the lack of haste and trample (racing being one of the main reasons Akroma was so popular in tournament decks), replaced with lifelink.

Now for a U/W-ish deck lifelink is probably more exciting, but Akroma was (out of Block Constructed anyway) not generally played by control decks but combo decks. Even if Sphinx of the Steel Wind is pretty good (and it looks to be pretty god), she is not going to hold up in that pure racing department.

Where can I see this fitting in?
I mean tossing Sphinx of the Steel Wind to Spellbound Dragon and immediately popping her back into play with Makeshift Mannequin is the dream… But that will probably never happen outside the kitchen table.

To be honest, I don’t really know. For the mana I would sooner explore Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, and I’m not exactly getting in line on that one.

But what do I know? Sphinx of the Steel Wind may be the great liberator or something.

Snap Judgment Rating: Role Player

LOVE
MIKE

All Alara Reborn

Will Alara Reborn rare Sages of the Anima spice up many decks?

Aesthetics:
Aesthetically, the card was drawn by Kev Walker. This should clue us in that it is going to be better than it looks. Need a little backup on that? How about…

• Arashi, the Sky Asunder
• Chandra Nalaar
• Damnation
• Hand of Cruelty
• Hand of Honor
• Jace Beleren
• Kitchen Finks
• Llanowar Elves
• Roar of the Wurm
• Wrath of God

So basically if it’s simply flavorful and awesome, like Llanowar Elves or Hand of Cruelty, they give it to Kev; and if it’s one of the absolute best cards like Kitchen Finks, Wrath of God and other equivalently awesome Wrath of God… they give it to Kev.

Now he has also illustrated less than the best cards, such as Void, Visara the Dreadful, and Watchwolf (as well as others that are not in the last twenty or so cards alphabetically that I can see out of the corner of my eye while I type in real time)… But I still tip the hat to Walker for awesome points ahead of time.

So how about that ability?

It is kind of reminiscent of a Countryside Crusher… You will not be pulling a lot of lands once Sages of the Anima is in play. The upshot is very high (provided you have a greater than 33% count of creatures), but only over time; that is, it takes a while to enjoy the additional flavor afforded by your Sages. Will Price suggested I make a deck based on Congregation at Dawn, but I don’t really see myself doing that (but for that discussion, see Twitter and/or Sages of the Anima at Top8Magic).

So where do I see this fitting in?
The ability is powerful, but tacked on kind of an expensive card. Five is not the most expensive of all cards you would be willing to play by any stretch, but it is still pricier than most cards that are supposed to be able to win the game all by themselves. That means that you have to be playing Sages of the Anima in a deck that can get to five… and also wants to play a long enough game to enjoy the rewards well after the five.

The tricky part is that when you are picking up lots of extra cards (as this card might help you to do), you actually want lands to play! Minor drawback as well as a cool special ability.

So when?

I think there are two cases where you might want to play Sages of the Anima, both out of the sideboard in all likelihood. The better is in a heads up creature fight. You plan for fighting and an eventual attrition victory… a 3/4 isn’t the worst size in these kinds of fights; an endless army is basically the opposive of the worst thing. A similar principle can be applied to fighting decks with some of those other Kev Walker cards; Wrath of God doesn’t stink so bad when you can afford to spread the table and have gas in reserve post-Damnation.

I don’t know a deck at present that would want to play this main deck.

Snap Judgment Rating: Role Player

LOVE
MIKE

What do you guys think of the Amazon widget I put in? You can listen to some good tunes while reading Five With Flores now… I wanted to try something different out on the advertising front. Check it out over to the right!

Speaking of the advertising, YouTube seems to know what Mike Flores loves better than ever 🙂

All Alara Reborn

Is this card for real? Here comes Alara Reborn rare, Thought Hemorrhage!

Aesthetics:
I had to read this one about twenty times.

Then I went back and looked up Cranial Extraction to make sure I was reading it right. In fact for a Resident Genius I can be a little slow on the uptake; that is, this is what my computer screen looked like at one point:

So yes, this is basically a Cranial Extraction that can potentially ka-blammo the opponent, a kind of a not-great Blood Oath grafted onto essentially the classic Cranial Extraction.

Longtime readers know that when Cranial Extraction was legal in Standard I played it very heavily; to be fair, I played it so commonly in both Standard and Extended that Two-Headed Giant teammate Steve Sadin used to express concern whenever I didn’t have three Cranial Extractions in a presented deck list. Some of my best decks including Kuroda-style Red and Jushi Blue packed three Cranial Extractions in the sideboard each.

Thought Hemorrhage, when it hits, is at least potentially more powerful than Cranial Extraction. It is essentially Cranial Extraction plus. So why will Thought Hemorrhage have such a less dramatic effect on the Standard metagame when it hits?

Let’s go back to those two decks we mentioned a moment ago…

Kuroda-style Red, played by Josh Ravitz; Top 8 2005 US National Championship

4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Wayfarer’s Bauble

4 Arc-Slogger
3 Beacon of Destruction
4 Magma Jet
4 Molten Rain
4 Pulse of the Forge
4 Shrapnel Blast
1 Sowing Salt

4 Blinkmoth Nexus
15 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Tendo Ice Bridge

sideboard:
4 Culling Scales
3 Cranial Extraction
4 Fireball
1 Sowing Salt
3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Jushi Blue, played by Julian Levin; 2005 New York State Champion

4 Boomerang
3 Disrupting Shoal
4 Hinder
4 Jushi Apprentice
3 Keiga, the Tide Star
4 Mana Leak
3 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
4 Remand
2 Rewind
4 Threads of Disloyalty

2 Dimir Aqueduct
10 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
4 Quicksand
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
4 Watery Grave

sideboard:
3 Cranial Extraction
2 Dimir Aqueduct
4 Drift of Phantasms
4 Execute
2 Rewind

In both cases Cranial Extraction was a Black splash in an otherwise monochromatic deck. Cranial Extraction — especially when it first hit the scene — had a very dramatic effect on the metagame, prompting Psychatog players to touch Morphling for instance, due to not just its ability to wipe out all of a control deck’s win conditions, but the ease of splashing the card.

Forget about Extended for a moment (where we have essentially a Negate / Countersquall situation); where in the modern Standard do we have a deck like a Kuroda-style Red or a Jushi Blue that can slide the Extraction into place? Surely Reflecting Pool Control can make use of this as one of many different available “powerful spells” in a deck that can play all the powerful spells in every color… But that is not the same thing as Cranial Extraction version one point oh, where the addition of a Swamp and some Tendo Ice Bridges could lopside a deck’s iffy (and most popular) pairing, or where some Watery Graves could justify tapping out one turn earlier in the mirror.

Still a card that prompted several double-takes and one trip to Gatherer… Just not the kind of card that will give every deck designer in the room pause, as did the original.

Where can I see this fitting in?
The most obvious home for Thought Hemorrhage is a multicolored control deck such as Standard Quick’N’Toast / Reflecting Pool Control, or what we typically see in Alara Block one-on-ones. Consider…

Scepter of Fugue / Resounding Wave that; untap, Thought Hemorrahage your Scepters. You might be down a card or two, but you’ve changed the tenor of a game where Scepter of Fugue is probably one of the defining threats (or pre-emptive counter-threats to be somewhat more accurate and / or chatty).

Snap Judgment Rating: Role-player (high)

LOVE
MIKE

P.S. For everyone who wants to step back in time to read about the development of great decks with three Cranial Extractions such as Playing Fair, Kuroda-style Red, Jushi Blue and others… Those and numerous other triumphs of the pre-Clark Flores Apprentice Program can be found in Deckade, triumphantly back in print over at Top8Magic!

All Alara Reborn

A reaction to Alara Reborn uncommon, Bituminous Blast.

Hey ho friends, frolickers, and followers*!

As you’ve probably noticed both Brian David-Marshall and I have been hammering out one-of card reactions and reviews on some of the gas being leaked on the Alara Reborn Visual Spoiler, Brian on Top8Magic and me here… and on Top8Magic (if you don’t check out both blogs, here is a link to my take on Soulquake).

So this one, like Jund Hackblade earlier in the week, is going to be a double-up.

Brian mentioned in his review of Bituminous Blast that “[i]n Limited it will usually result in a free creature…” but I don’t see that as being necessarily limited to — pardon the French — Limited. I am notoriously not greedy when it comes to two-for-ones (maybe to my detriment… I just like any two-for-one). I don’t see any problem with hammering out a Bituminous Blast and turning over a creature.

For example, mid-combat you might get the holy grail of a full-on three-for-one! He is crashing with two bad guys, one big, one little. You Blast the big one Bituminous-style and flip over a medium-sized monster. I rarely block, but as a fan of two-for-ones, I will gladly take the free card and eat his little with my medium.

Et.

Cetera.

Aesthetics:
One thing I would point out is that they slapped the Cascade keyword onto this card, which implies that there are going to be more Cascade cards like Bituminous Blast (otherwise why not just explain the cool ability on the card sans keyword explanation?).

Why might this matter?

Well Bituminous Blast is probably going to be Constructed quality in the — to borrow an analogy from Brian — vein of a Prophetic Bolt, the possibility of going linear with Cascade cards is really quite amazing! Flip FLIP FLIP!

That is where I want my Blast to take me.

As Brian mentioned Liliana Vess makes for an interesting companion to Bituminous Blast (or any Cascade spell), but per usual I would think twice about playing too many fives.

Where can I see this fitting in?
Two places, and I already touched on both: 1) Any old deck that is willing to invest another two or three mana to get back another two or three mana plus a card in Cascade value; that is, many decks. 2) A Cascade linear deck (imagining of course)… But we’ll have to see about card availability. This will not sheck the foundations of Dominaria as a Tarmogoyf, but it is certaining interesting and should make for some cascades of incremental fun in fun formats.

Stap Judgment Rating: Role Player

LOVE
MIKE

* If you don’t know what I mean by “followers” check out http://www.twitter.com/FiveWithFlores and get in on the party!

All Alara Reborn

A king in Jund, a serf in Esper, a review of Alara Reborn Rare Spellbound Dragon.

Aesthetics:
First of all let’s look at that flavor text…

“A king in Jund, a serf in Esper.”

I love that flavor text!

Most of you don’t know this about me but I actively avoided drafting Black and to a lesser degree Red in Planeshift simply because I didn’t like the art (Bob Maher used to ask me if I had actually read what the Black and Red cards did); my favorite card flavor-wise is Form of the Dragon. I have always thought they did a fantabulous job of making you feel like you had transformed yourself into a dragon* (plus a good card).

Looping back to this card’s flavor text, you can see how a flyer like this one (which is obviously native to Grixis) might rule the sky in Jund… But is kind of a mope holding the bag in Esper where everyone is drawing cards, returing cards, and, you know, keeping ’em.

Okay. Game play. So how is this supposed to work?

Red for Dragon, Blue for Looter.

From the Dragon side, it isn’t much of a stretch for this to be 5/5 or better. After all you are playing cards like Spellbound Dragon, so 8/5 or so on offense is not much of a stretch.

The potentially counterproductive side is that typically “Looter” effects are meant to improve your hand… When you are chucking spells for damage, you are probably doing the opposite (you have already demonstrated five or more mana so what you are looking for is probably more action, not hoarding extra lands which is what is inevitably going to happen when you start chucking your Cryptic Commands to get in for seven). Then again, how long is the game going to last when you’re clocking with such a Dragon? The notion of relative hand improvement might therefore intersect with our as-yet unfinished explorations of How Card Advantage Works due to the opponent being up against a clock.

Interesting thing is that you of course have options. No reason (other than flash, flair, and probably clock) that you can’t call the Spellbound Dragon your lead and use the Looter half to hold said lead… Just that most of the time that is going to be at odds with the desire for damage.

All in all I really like this card…

But I’m not sure what deck I would play it in.

Where can I see this fitting in?
Well I kind of just said… I don’t know who wants a Spellbound Dragon. There is no present Standard deck that can cast it that would really want it. Interestingly this card defends pretty well against the Standard-standard Broodmate Dragon, but on balance can’t really attack into one unless you are willing to pitch a five (or you have say a Cryptic Command you plan to resolve).

Aesthetically I think the card is built for sky racing (think tap out Blue)… I think it could be reasonable in that kind of a deck but for the fact that that kind of deck is so clearly out-classed at this stage by Quick’N’Toast style Reflecting Pool Control.

One thing I didn’t mention that is quite obvious is that if you can toss cards like Reckless Wurm and Fiery Temper you look like a rock star and bonk like a porn star… But I doubt that is any kind of a real deck.

Hell of a first pick though… But that should be obvious from the intersection of card type and rarity.

Snap Judgment Rating: It’s not Constructed Unplayable, won’t be a Staple or any kind of a format defining card, so I guess that leaves Role Player. I would be very interested to see Spellbound Dragon producing maybe a year from now when the Quick’N’Toast / Reflecting Pool Control competition dies down. Seems like it would be good friends with Volcanic Fallout (provided control decks still want to play that in a post-Faeries format).

LOVE
MIKE

 
* This is basically 100% random but the idea of turning yourself into a dragon reminded me of this Troy Denning book I read back in high school. When I was in high school — close to 20 years ago — I was a big time dice-thrower (you know, before Magic: The Gathering I played me some Advanced Dungeons & Dragons). So I was all into the novels for some of their product releases.

The book I remembered involved some sorcerer-transforming-himself-into-a-dragon action and I recall it being pretty compelling (especially for the genre).

It is by Troy Denning who is actually an excellent writer, one of the best who puts out Star Wars and other licensed properties paperbacks. I did some digging and if you are in the market for some paperback Dungeons & Dragons-style SiFi / Fantasy, I remember enjoying The Verdant Passage.

Update!
I did some digging on ye ole Amazon.com and found Verdant Passage for a penny plus shipping

The Verdant Passage, new & used

So if you can afford, um, a penny, I think you’d enjoy the book (provided you like, you know, dragons).

Have fun everyone gaming on tomorrow! (Unfortunately I have to miss… again 🙁 )

All Alara Reborn

Just a quickie on Alara Reborn common, Jund Hackblade.

Aesthetics:
Jund Hackblade is a hard working little fellow, and one of the more interesting cards that has been spoiled so far.

On its lonesome, Jund Hackblade is relatively uninteresting, a 2/1 for either BR or GR (and speaking of aesthetics, did anyone else notice the relative size difference of the Golgari v. Red mana symbols?)… But if you play a multicolored permanent on the first turn and follow up with this guy, you have a nice 3/2 haste for either BR or GR. Saucy.

The question is, what are you going to use to set him up?

My personal opionion is that Tattermunge Maniac is probably the best option; you can play it for either G or R on turn one, and you actually need G on the second turn even in a primarily Red deck (assuming you are the G side of course), so that makes things smoother.

Brian David-Marshall told me he really likes Figure of Destiny but I think that might be a little bit awkward due to the (I assume) forced Black mana on turn two… But that is probably resolvable by dual land in Blightning Beatdown. Figure of Destiny being a card you might actually want to play, of course.

There is also the possibility of just playing Jund Hackblade on the bonus… That is you don’t optimize to play him out of the gates on turn two… You just run him over (or alongside, actually) Goblin Deathraiders and he becomes a much better mid-game topdeck in a Blightning build with Boggart Ram-Gang and Ashenmoor Gouger.

Where Can I See This Fitting In?
This is a really cool card. It is obviously at its maximum when you can follow up a first turn Figure of Destiny or some such, rocking a Ram-Gang essentially, but I think that was the trap I fell into when initially evaluating it: Thinking only in terms of how good it can be on turn two. Remember that it can be regular on turn two and then you can just play a Ram-Gang the next turn and come in for six anyway; or you can play a Deathraiders on turn two and this plus Tarfire to get in the following turn for six anyway.

Basically you are going to want to play this in a beatdown deck that can support multicolored spells; you don’t just through it into a straight Red version and cross your fingers on the mana; that requires some amount of deck customization, but I don’t think it will be overly difficult. Green with Maniacs, but more likely some evolved take on Blightning. 

Snap Judgment Rating: If there were such a thing as a “defining” Role-Player, this would be it. Not a staple, but also not played “interchangeably” as many and most Role Players.

For a much more extensive discussion of Jund Hackblade and the cards you might want to play alongside it to set up, you might want to check out Brian David-Marshall’s take on Top8Magic.com.

While you’re over there, mise well be a pal and pick up a copy of Deckade, amiright?

Deckade – For those of you who have always dreamed of waking up next to my smiling (or in this case grumpy) face… You can buy one and plop it down onto the nightstand (Jon Finkel does this).

LOVE
MIKE

All Alara Reborn

In the spirit of Taunting Jon Becker, we bring you Alara Reborn common, Pale Recluse.

Aesthetics:
To really understand Pale Recluse, I have to reference a similar (and I use the word “similar” loosely) card, Traumatic Visions. Traumatic Visions is a Conflux common. For five mana it can Counter target spell, and has Basic landcycling for 1U.

Jon Finkel has said that this card lets him do basically “everything he could ever want to do” … Counter spells, draw cards, and ultimately play lands. Brian David-Marshall actually argued that this is a poential in Legacy (on top of your deck it can counter Force of Will with Counterbalance).

Let’s dial it back to Alara Reborn.

You see Pale Recluse can do everything Jon Becker wants to do.

Here is a card that can block flying creatures without itself having flying OR dig up for a Forest or Plains. Five mana would be too much for a 4/5 Reach, but we think Becker would certainly play with it on six in forties if not sixties (sixty-ones).

Where can I see this fitting in?
Limited only.

Snap Judgment Rating: Constructed Unplayable… probably.

LOVE
MIKE

All Alara Reborn

I was recently inspired by Brian Kibler’s Pro Tour Honolulu qualification with his “Cabal Interrogator” deck.

When Brian told me he qualified, that is what he told me he qualified with. I think it took me a few days to discover that he had actually just played a templated Loam deck, and that the Cabal Interrogators were in his sideboard. Details.

The reason is that as deck designers, we are very interested in whatever clever thing we can point at to show how, you know, clever and / or different we are. Really! I know it is difficult to believe. Some of us play with four Umezawa’s Jittes instead of three and call ourselves geniuses (and / or are voted geniuses into the Magic Invitational), for example.

The problem with these cards is that for every unique and shining gem, you usually have four or five stinkers, ergo the fine line between tech and jank.

In this spirit Five with Flores brings you five cards that have made me feel clever:

1. Card: Meddle
   Deck: Flying Beatdown
   Story: Meddle was a medium-inflexible if obviously trish-advantageous two-for-one, and I have always been a sucker for a two-for-one. Ergo, Meddle, sticking out like a sore thumb. In the first appearance of the wildly popular Penn Flying Beatdown, altran defeated Jon Finkel at a Gray Matter $1,000 tournament in probably no part due to pointing a Meddle at a “bolt” (Incinerate?) Jon had intended for Albert’s Man-o’-War at Finkel’s Jackal Pup. In a commensurate display of maturity, I danced around the tournament area yelling “Finkel lost to the Flores card!”

   In a wild turn of events (for any of you who followed that deck list link)… There isn’t even a Meddle in the Decks to Beat published version of Flying Beatdown! I guess by then I had mentally relegated it to Jank, in favor of Honorable Passage.

2. Card: Unforge
   Deck: Kuroda-Style Red
   Story: You probably know from the more famous version of Kuroda-style Red that we eventually cut Unforge; however Regionals-era I was stuck with them. And by “stuck” I mean I played them. Like four. You see I got spooked into thinking due to the renaissance of Jamie Wakefield (“Joshie Green”) at the time that any and all would be packing Troll Ascetics and equipment at Regionals, and Jamie kept telling me that my deck couldn’t beat his deck. Well I’ll show him, I thought, and figured out how to win. And by “figured out” I mean I was dealt Unforge tech by Brian David-Marshall and / or Seth Burn. In actuality the real gold of this deck was the Culling Scales technology that proved unbeatable at Nationals for especially the then-popular White Weenie deck. However I soldiered into Regionals with Unforges; they came up once. Yes I killed a Troll Ascetic (the big selling point was that the opponent would typically tap out to equip an Ascetic). Lost anyway, game and match.
3. Card: Gnarled Mass
   Deck: Critical Mass
   Story: It’s been like four years so now I am comfortable coming out with the truth. We’re all friends here. The Masses weren’t that Critical. Certainly the idea of Gnarled Mass was groundbreaking. Sadin especially latched onto them like they were Blake Lively’s boobies. They were good and helped out in the Black and White matchups but Steve for some reason kept siding them in and siding Keiga out in like every matchup “for tempo” (you got me — kid won a Grand Prix). But right before the PTQ I cut the one I had main deck for the Enlightened Bushi when Josh pointed out that one kills North Tree and the other one doesn’t; by the Grand Prix Gerard was up to two Isaos main deck! But we still had four “critical” Gnarled Masses in the sideboard up to the morning of the PTQ… half of which were culled before opening bell for Consuming Vortex. I maintained at the time that the cards were indistinguishable because they were both “good against beatdown” when in fact I won my match against Tim Gillam for the slot purely by top decking Consuming Vortex when I would have just died to his 5/5 flying the next turn had it been a 3/3 Spirit.
4. Card: Annex
   Deck: URzaTron
   Story: Let’s dial it back to the last Pro Tour Honolulu. Osyp’s URzaTron deck… I get a lot of credit for this deck (most of it self-propelled) but the real process was me making a bunch of bad decks and Osyp and Josh testing everything… Turns out the ‘Tron was actually pretty good. The most defining card in the sideboard (which was arguably the best part of the deck, and mostly Osyp’s) was Giant Solifuge, which was borrowed from a Red Deck I was high on at the end of testing, to superb effect. However the one card I insisted would be great was Annex. You see I had this theory that we could steal other people’s ‘Tron parts. It would be bonzer! The Annexes mostly worked out for Osyp. He looked great all tournament of course. Josh missed Day Two by taking a Mountain (right play I believe) when his opponent’s kill card was Maga (could have ended it right there by swiping Swamp, which was also on board). Eugene Harvey, who also played the deck but not to Osyp’s success, told me he thought that the Annexes were flat out bad, unplayable on the draw, and that he never wanted more than two in his deck.

   Oh well.

   Did I mention I single-handedly designed this awesome URzaTron deck that was the only undefeated Day One deck of the last Pro Tour Honolulu? It was really great and I made it all by myself. If I had been qualified I probably would have done even better than Osyp, but he did okay I guess.

5. Card: Muse Vessel
   Deck: Charleston AngelFire
   Story: To this day I maintain I was very happy with my Muse Vessels. I won almost every match I sided them in. That said, blame Brian Weissman. Brian told me he really liked them in his update to The Deck (Standard) and I mean COME ON, it’s Brian Weissman! So when we were working on Block (where Muse Vessel was legal) I decided that we should play all four because I had the inside track Weissman tech, and most teams would probably be stupid and not play any Muse Vessels at all, let alone all four (and for a while I insisted we play all four main because they were obviously so good). By the way not even my teammates or intimate playtest partners from that summer knew the true origin of Muse Vessel — but now you do.

   Now going into the last week of testing we had a problem that our U/R/W deck was losing to our B/W deck at about a 7-3 clip in favor of B/W in Game One despite being ahead for most of the games (this carried into the Pro Tour where I — armed with B/W — bashed basically every Angel opponent). I didn’t understand this at all because the U/R/W seemed to be so much better equipped in terms of card advantage in every way. I concluded at the end of about 30 games that I played against myself on Apprentice that U/R/W didn’t have enough “stuff” and that the card advantage and Angel-centric card advantage were going nowhere because the deck was just drawing and drawing into more draw and B/W was winning close corner games with well-placed Mortifies all all that kind of stuff. So I concluded that U/R/w needed more “stuff” … Why not the other guy’s stuff?

   The inclusion of Muse Vessel turned around the matchup to between a 6-4 and a 7-3 in favor of U/R/W, which made me happy.

   It did not however make Steve happy, and he always sided out Muse Vessel.

   Here are two points of potential embarassment: 1) Because we played two Muse Vessels main, we didn’t have room for cards like the fourth Demonfire, which probably would have pushed us from no money to the Top 4, and 2) We fundamentally misunderstood the U/R/W deck’s positioning in the control “mirrors” … It wasn’t until after the Pro Tour that we realized Steve was always winning as the beatdown and that all our Muse Vessel and Train of Thought into Swift Silence and Mimeofacture (jank I accidentally picked up from MTGO one night) was actually a colossal waste of strategy when we were winning against control with Lightning Helix to the face, mostly. The problem was that we assumed Steve would be playing against the fast deck, when he kept playing against the slowest deck. Would that we could have swapped Steve and Paul in that Pro Tour…

   Did I mention “blame Brian Weissman” yet?

I’d say “I hope you enjoyed this” … But I already know you did.

LOVE
MIKE

P.S. Speaking of enjoying reading something awesome that I wrote, there is this pretty historic Magic book name o’ Deckade that is back in print over at Top 8 Magic. If you like what you read here, the Podcasts you listen to over there, or you just want to look back at ten years of my fabulous, Magical, life – signed copies are once again available.

Buy Deckade. You know you want to.

Oh, and you’re welcome 🙂

So… The back-and-forth on this…

I never intended to play in this past weekend’s New Jersey PTQ… too close to this coming weekend’s Brooklyn PTQ and I didn’t want to incite the ire of Mrs. MichaelJ (aka @craftyK [follow @craftyK on Twitter])… Plus believe it or not I have really been enjoying my weekend time with the family. Basically my favorite thing to do right now is walk along the Hudson River all the way from my home by the GWB down to 14th Street / Union Square area or even way down past West 4th to like Jaques Torres. This can take all day but we usually make pit stops at like Jamba Juice on the UWS or perhaps Columbus Circle. Or about half the time we pit stop at Dinosaur BBQ at 125 and eat charred, you know, dinosaurs.

I absolutely adore doing this and spending time with the fam by the beautiful river; this weekend was actually getting warmer. I enjoy it by the boats in the UWS portion and especially in the teens down in the village because there are invariably bikini-laden butts tanning with their tops undone enjoying the riverside in a lazier way than we do.

Finally my kids are old enough that they can walk as well. Yesterday Bella aka LeBron James / Batman and Clark aka Superman raced down the concrete by the sailboats on the UWS and Clark skinned his knees. Predictable.

Anyway I didn’t realize this coming weekend is Easter and that my parents are traveling up for a grandkids fam-tango which would include Saturday, i.e. PTQ day.

Generously @craftyK gave me leave to play in New Jersey.

I ultimately declined citing being too tired after a long week at work (and you were all wondering where the Five With Flores updates had gone)… But I would have played Bolts aka The Lightning Bolt Deck!

So why the change from beloved Naya Burn now that Naya… um… Zoo has become the bee’s knees in PTQ performance?

Five Reasons for the change (that I didn’t actually ultimately execute on)…

1. PSulli told you — despite doing well himself with Lightning Bolts in LA — not to play it due to always being at a deck disadvantage. So why the change?
   Well the deck I really like/liked is/was/whatever Naya Burn. However with the move towards the Saito version with Wooly Thoctar I felt like I was giving up a lot in the mirror… Especially with those motherlovers packing main deck Jitte. I just kept having visions of one of the Saito-clones winning the flip and playing turn three Wooly Thoctar and then untapping to play, um, turn three Sulfuric Vortex. Take two, sir.
2. Anything else Naya-related?
   Yes, in fact! Bill Stark recently made Top 8 of a PTQ with a Legacy-inspired (or at least I was Legacy-inspired after reading some of the Grand Prix coverage) Ranger of Eos Naya Zoo version. Bill Jedi Mind Tricked his way into the Top 8 with an opponent on one life, top decking Ranger of Eos in the last of extra turns, representing Mogg Fanatic (with none left). That would probably have been an even worse pairing for my brand of Naya! (Especially with my obstinate stance on not playing Path to Exile main deck!)
3. None of this actually tells us why you would play Lightning Bolts… just that you wouldn’t want to play “your” Naya in a slightly changed metagame…
   Two reasons actually… One is that The Lightning Bolt Deck has actually done pretty well in some recent Japanese PTQs.
4. And the other reason?
   If I had enough practice, I was talking about playing some Tezzerator. However remember my recent mantra: I just want to play fast and simple decks to preserve my day-long energy levels, not necessarily “the best deck” as other writers have often recommended, or even “the best deck for the tournament” as others (including myself and onetime Sensei Chris Senhouse) have. Despite my short foray into the land of Slide (which remember was in large part a result of a Tarmogoyf shortage), I have been a proponent of decks with Incinerate and Sulfuric Vortex for this format!
5. So what would have been your deck list?
   I’m glad you asked! Here it is: 

   4 Incinerate
   4 Keldon Marauders
   4 Lava Spike
   4 Magma Jet
   4 Mogg Fanatic
   4 Rift Bolt
   4 Shrapnel Blast
   2 Smash to Smithereens
   4 Spark Elemental
   4 Sulfuric Vortex 

   4 Blinkmoth Nexus
   2 Darksteel Citadel
   4 Great Furnace
   12 Mountain

   sb:
   2 Ensnaring Bridge
   4 Pyrostatic Pillar
   3 Shattering Spree
   2 Smash to Smithereens
   4 Volcanic Fallout

I guess we’ll just have to see if I play this weekend.

Just want to point out that I am 100% Blue Envelope LIFETIME with beatdown decks in Holy Saturday PTQs.

LOVE
MIKE