Entries from May 2009 ↓

Is Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund playable in competitive Constructed formats? Mark Rosewater doesn’t seem to think so… But there might just be precedent to playing a seven mana Legendary Dragon who is only good against Dragons. Really!

I pay attention to a lot of the stuff Mark says.

I even follow him on Twitter at @maro254 even though the bastard doesn’t follow me back at @fivewithflores (hint: follow @fivewithflores and an angel will get her wings).

Anyway I found this to be a strange statement:

“I know the kind of responses a card like this can get from some people: a seven-mana Dragon that steals every other Dragon and gives them all haste? When is this situation going to come up exactly, where you’re still alive yet your opponent has Dragons just lying around waiting to be stolen? My response to these people is this: this card isn’t for you.

“While players understand that there exist other types of players, for some reason they forget this when they run across a card that doesn’t make sense to them. Why did Wizards print such a card? The answer is because we believed someone else would value it. Karrthus might not win any tournaments (even then, he is a 7/7 flier with haste for seven mana—hey, aesthetics popping up its head again), but I do know he’s going to go into a bunch of Dragon decks. I know that there will be players who rip him open and gape because in the circles they play, this is going to be an awesome card.

“Karrthus is fun. Maybe not for everyone, but definitely for the people the card was designed for.”

From “An Outside View”

It’s interesting because I and a couple of friends all had the same idea when we saw Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund: Wow! That seems pretty savage against Broodmate Dragon!

Here’s the thing: You probably wouldn’t play Karrthus in your main deck; you might not even think to sideboard him. But I asked Will Price this question last week:

You walk up to the first round pairings at Regionals. You haven’t turned in your deck list yet. You see that you are paired up against me first round… True or false, you swap one sideboard card for a single copy of Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund?

The answer was definitely, obviously, true.

Will and I will be live testing, podcasting and updating the universe “live” on Twitter tonight (check Top 8 Magic and Twitter* for details). Both of us like Jund Mana Ramp as one of our deck options right now. If you followed the awful-sounding BBQ podcasts from last week, you know why we find Mana Ramp to be so exciting. Here on Five With Flores I posted a Cascade-based ramp deck. One of the other decks I am considering is Reflecting Pool Control. What do all of these decks have in common?

They all play three or more Broodmate Dragons.

So especially in a deck that can muster seven mana, that can dig to a singleton copy of a particular game-breaking creature with Gift of the Gargantuan or Primal Command, why not play such an inexorable threat / threat-breaker?

Like I said, there is precedent.

Hydroblast is precedent.

Do you really think most Blue decks cared about blowing up individual Red cards? The Hydroblasts, in large part, were there to Counterspell the Pyroblasts to ensure that the Blue deck’s finale actually succeeded in closing the curtain; that is to keep the bad guy Stage Three non-interacting in Stage Three.

Ring of Gix is precedent (kind of**).

Back in the Napster v. Replenish days, Replenish really couldn’t beat a Stromgald Cabal. But Ring of Gix could tap it, allowing the bad guys (funny how the U/W deck is the bad guys in this example) to play their un-fun four mana White spells. Ring of Gix was notoriously difficult for Napster to deal with… Powder Keg did it, but along the way the good guys (funny how the Negator Black deck is the good guys in this example) would end up blowing up their Cabal, Skittering Horror, whatever gassy threes.

Or, Replenish could decelerate Napster into a point in Stage Two where Replenish could profitably interact and could work from to springboard into its true Stage Three.

Divert is precedent.

This is the best example I can think of because it is relatively recent… Extended PTQ season last year… Pre-season actually. The deck I was testing at the time was one of those U/W decks that Shaheen Soorani loves so much in Extended. The matchup against Red Deck Wins / Zoo was pretty good due to Spell Snares and Condemns. The trouble was in sideboarded games — especially when the Red Deck was on the play — and they could land a Molten Rain. The matchup was like 65/35 U/W if the Red Deck didn’t have Molten Rain and 20/80 if they did. The problem was that on the draw, there were no great cards to sideboard. You could play Remand but then they would just play it again. I found most of the permission spells in the format quite obnoxious and I really only liked Spell Snare and Cryptic Command, largely relying on Counterbalance to do my dirty work.

… But no way Counterblance could be accurately on-line at this stage of the game, especially on tne draw.

Enter Divert.

Divert was a card that was present purely to deal with Molten Rain. But deal it did. In addition to being pretty good against the mana tight Zoo decks at making them brain their own Tarmogoyfs with huge Tribal Flames, Divert could not only save one of my lands (and net me two life) but cripple the Red Deck at the same time.

In this case Red / Zoo was Stone Molten Raining U/W into a Stage One from which it could never recover. Using Divert, U/W could keep itself in a Stage Two where it could keep up its dukes and in fact turn the tables on the Stages.

I see Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund as kind of the same card, but with less pressure attached. Divert was pretty good, but you kind of had to have it the turn they had the Molten Rain. With Karrthus, though, you should be able to set up and dig for a few turns before you can start crushing with the opponent’s own gear.

Most of the time this will “merely” be an incredibly powerful Stage Two play that puts the opponent on a one turn clock, but sometimes… Stage Three here we come!

Tonight: Testing

LOVE
MIKE

If you want to follow along, ask us matchup questions, and so on, follow the Top 8 Magic team on Twitter!

michaelj
BDM
Will Price
Matt Wang

** It’s only “kind of” precedent because Napster typically started Stromgald Cabal, even though it smelled like a sideboard card.

That’s right FiveWithFlores fans… a possible payoff! Here comes a legitimately exciting Standard Tezzerator sketch featuring Tezzeret the Seeker plus new Alara Reborn weapons Fieldmist Borderpost and Mistvein Borderpost.

  

To begin with, here’s the deck:

Borderpost Tezzerator

4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Mind Stone
4 Mistvein Borderpost
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Rings of Brighthearth

4 Cryptic Command
4 Jace Beleren
4 Mulldrifter
3 Tezzeret the Seeker

4 Esper Charm

1 Ajani Goldmane
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Path to Exile
4 Wrath of God

4 Arcane Sanctum
9 Island
2 Mystic Gate
2 Plains
1 Swamp

sideboard:
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Scepter of Dominance
2 Negate
1 Plumeveil
2 Austere Command
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile
2 Wall of Reverence

The main deck still needs to be tuned (obviously… it’s 61 cards). I am a little skeptical of the Black component because there isn’t enough Black to support Scepter of Fugue, which is the best kind of card in this strategy for fighting decks like Jund Ramp or Reflecting Pool Control.

Right now the only Black is Esper Charm, which is admittedly a superb spell (though it could be replaced with some combination of Courier’s Capsules and Armillary Spheres. I am guessing that the Black will remain, though, because Mistvein Borderpost is an essential part of this deck and it would be a shame to waste that Black splash (though the mana would be improved going down to two colors and replacing some Arcane Sanctums with the last two Mystic Gates).

The idea of this deck came to me due to the Borderpost cycle. The Borderposts just give us more cheap, high utility, artifacts that can help add loyalty to Tezzeret the Seeker; previously the format really only had only Mind Stone. The Borderposts give us not acceleration but “power” mana once Tezzeret is already in play, plus “bodies” for Tezzeret’s ultimate ability. Hi-ya!

No one has produced a proven deck using the Borderposts yet so there is no great model on how to build a mana base. Remember the Borderposts aren’t lands. They function like Coastal Towers and Salt Marshes… but only when you have already got a basic land. So I loaded this deck with basic lands! The lucky side is that this deck seems relatively resilient against Anathemancer, which looks to be next to unique in the current format.

So how does this deck work?

The primary threats in Borderpost Tezzerator are the three of the four Planeswalkers. I have never ended a game with Jace’s ultimate ability, but there is no reason why you wouldn’t be able to (especially as this is a Rings of Brighthearth deck). Of course you can hassle with Elspeth’s microscopic army. The sexiest kill — especially when you’ve capitalized on Rings of Brighthearth — is an Avatar or double-Avatar strike set up by Ajani Goldmane.

But the most common kill is of course having four artifacts in play and killing the opponent with Tezzeret the Seeker. It’s pretty easy to have four artifacts out, and it’s not very difficult to get your guys through. Here are some kills you may not have seen at first glance:

• Any big kill – Cryptic Command the opponent’s creatures at the end of the opponent’s turn, untap and swing for the kill (easiest with Tezzeret kill, but fine with Ajani kill).
• Avatar kill – Pre-combat use Elspeth’s ultimate ability to make the Avatar(s) immortal. Wrath of God pre-combat… Your guy lives, the opponent dies.
• Avatar kill – Elspeth sends the Avatar “to the air” to circumvent blockers! Obvious?
• Tezzeret kill – Wrath of God pre-combat. This is kind of hideous… All of their guys die, your guys aren’t even guys yet when the Wrath goes off.. They probably die.

Card rundown…

Fieldmist Borderpost
Obviously a defining card of this deck; its existence is fundamental to the viability of the Tezzeret deck in Standard… In this deck it’s a decent land, but because it’s an artifact, it plays nicely with the most powerful Planeswalker.

Mind Stone
Basically the only sort of mana acceleration available in a deck like this in Standard. I ran it in some Grixis and Reflecting Pool Control decks pre-Conflux, but they were never good enough… This deck has a fair number of important four mana spells — Ajani Goldmane, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Wrath of God — and Mind Stone can help put those cards out more quickly. Subtly, the card is also useful for playing cards like Jace Beleren because there are so many “lands” in Borderpost Tezzerator that come into play tapped (you know, like the Borderposts themselves). Mind Stone works pretty well with Tezzeret the Seeker and Rings of Brighthearth in long Stage Two games. You can use Tezzeret and Rings to search up two Mind Stones for “free” (you pay two mana but the Mind Stones in play); the Mind Stones provide not only a long term mana advantage, but with sufficient mana the above play is basically an Opportunity (with Rings of Brighthearth, each of the Mind Stones represents two cards).

Mistvein Borderpost
See Fieldmist Borderpost, above, except Mistvein Borderpost is less important to this deck in particular because Borderpost Tezzerator is a White deck and not really a Black deck.

Relic of Progenitus
Card number sixty-one. I always under-prepare for Reveillark decks. There also used to be a Pithing Needle.

Rings of Brighthearth
The deck doesn’t need the Rings in play to win; in a sense this is “win more” … but really it’s win way more. It seems pretty difficult to beat this deck if you let it play a few turns with Rings and any one of the Planeswalkers. Remember Mind Stone works well with Rings as well… I was thinking of adding Esper Panorama and maybe Mistveil Plains (which both have nice synergy with the Rings), but like I said before we have no real data on the Borderposts and I don’t just want to manascrew myself.

Cryptic Command
LOL.

Jace Beleren
This is the only four-of Planeswalker in the deck. Strictly a curve issue. You want to hit three, play Jace, draw some cards, get out and get going.

Mulldrifter
This deck actually started out as a B/U Mannequin hybrid deck! Shriekmaw, Soul Manipulation… Sexy, right? Mulldrifter is the only card that made the cuts; I felt like Planeswalkers was a more powerful theme than Mannequin. I don’t see ever cutting this card… It’s not a lot worse than Compulsive Research on three, and the five mana version can attack and block.

Tezzeret the Seeker
The crown jewel – The Borderposts make Tezzeret frankly playable in Standard; going even a little bit long, Tezzeret doesn’t offer the lockdown of the Extended version, but it is still a heck of a lot stronger than Garruk Wildspeaker!

Esper Charm
The only Black card in the deck at this point… See the above discussions.

Ajani Goldmane
I added this in about the third version in place of the third Elspeth. The games with this deck can sometimes go quite long even if you’re not getting killed… I was just drawing a lot of Elspeths when I was already working the board with Elspeth; I wanted something different that could also gain life as this deck has no main deck Wall of Reverence or Kitchen Finks.

Elspeth, Knight-Errant
One of the best cards in Standard. It’s basically Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker for half the mana 🙂

Path to Exile
Do I really have to explain this one?

Wrath of God
See “Path to Exile” above.

Sideboard cards…

I sketched out the initial version of the sideboard very loosely because of Meddling Mage.

2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Scepter of Dominance
2 Negate
1 Plumeveil
2 Austere Command
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile
2 Wall of Reverence

I really like Scepter of Dominance. If I cut Esper Charm I think I would play two Scepters. Remember Scepter of Dominance forces a creature deck to over-commit so that you can get extra value with Wrath of God. Against control decks it can also help you resolve your spells. Plus, you can screw up the opponent’s mana so it is harder for him to play a Broodmate Dragon, Cruel Ultimatum, you know.

Well, that’s the first look. I like this one.

LOVE
MIKE

By popular demand… The long awaited review of Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, Volume 3)!

A lot of people have been asking me about “that Buffy the Vampire Slayer graphic novel [I] talked about on the Top 8 Magic Podcast.” Most of them were pretty nice about it (even if I didn’t answer them in anything resembling a timely fashion). Some of them, though, like Tim Gillam…

 

Let’s be honest. I had it coming from Tim after that Consuming Vortex slow roll (though to be honest it never registered to me that I was slow rolling him… I just didn’t want to screw up). Well here it is!

… The name of the aforementioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer graphic novel is Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3).

Wolves at the Gate is actually the third “Season Eight” tale (the show concluded after seven seasons, but the story continues!); the first arc was written by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, number two focused on Faith and was written by my old pal Brian K. Vaughan, and Wolves at the Gate comes to us from Lost / Alias / Cloverfield / Angel / and of course Buffy writer Drew Goddard.

As I said in the podcast, Wolves at the Gate is one of the ten best graphic novels I have ever read. No, you don’t need to know very much about Buffy’s universe to enjoy this story. All you really need to know is that there is a super powered girl named Buffy who, you know, slays vampires and that she is currently training a stack of other super powered girls to fight the good fight.

The other major character in this story is Dracula, the vampire of legend, who opposed Buffy at one point on her television program but fights on the side of the slayers in Wolves at the Gate thanks to his friendship with Buffy’s lieutenant Xander.

Dracula is scary and capable… and hilariously racist in this volume.

I think that one of the things that I really liked about Wolves at the Gate is how successfully Drew Goddard maintained the witty banter of the television Buffy in his storytelling. Here is an example of racist Dracula meeting up with his “manservant” Xander before the good guys go to war:

<Dracula> You’ve lost weight.

<Xander> Can you tell? I’ve been trying to exercise more.

<Dracula> Yes. It suits you.

<Xander> Thanks you look good too

<Dracula> Oh, you’re just saying that because I complimented you.

<Xander> No — I’m not! I promise.

<Dracula> I can’t see myself in mirrors. I fear my best days are behind me.

<Xander> No — you’re more handsome than ever.

I can’t see myself in mirrors. Are you kidding me? The writing is great.

One of the principles that I have adopted into my literature analysis algorithm over about the last two or three years (since reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) is whether or not a writer breaks your heart at any point. So books like Anathem, Zodiac, and countless others that successfully break your heart (which, remember, requires you to fall in love with one of the characters) all get points under the new system.

Drew crushes your poor heart like an ant underneat a toddler’s filthy sneaker about 4/5 of the way into the story. The moment is perfectly perfect, appropriate, all of it. Just great.

Oh yeah. There is one more thing that makes this book really Really REALLY worth buying, but I am not going to tell you unless you scroll way down.

Trust me you probably want to buy Wolves at the Gate without my telling you this crowd pleasing crowd pleaser. Here let me interrupt you with a cleverly disguised affiliate link so that you don’t spoil it for yourself.

I wasn’t kidding.

…

 

…

Okay!

Buffy joins the friends of Sappho and hooks up with a fine young Japanese slayer!

I warned you!

Now are you convinced?

Wolves at the Gate really is one of the ten best graphic stories I’ve ever read. I don’t think you need to be a fan of Miss Vampire Slayer to love this story, just great dialogue, wonderful storytelling, Slayer-on-Slayer shenanigans, and, you know, racist Dracula.

LOVE
MIKE

Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)

In Part Two, we continue our thoughts on Captured Sunlight with more detailed discussions on longtime favorite Loxodon Hierarch!

First of all, great discussion from everyone. My favorite comment has to be from hudnall56:

Captured Sunlight into Kitchen Finks is the most mid-rangey thing I’ve heard of for a long, long time.

Which battles that of KZipple in a seething firestorm of violent controversy:

That isn’t nearly as midrangy as Foolkillers.

(If by “seething firestorm” we mean “soothing balm” given the subject matter).

So before we get into the specifics of what the most ridiculous thing that we can do with a Captured Sunlight is, I would just like to address the most mid-rangey thing hudnall56 could imagine:

So… four mana, six (really eight) life, and a 3/2 body… followed by a 2/1 body.

How does this compare to four mana for four life and a single 4/4 body?

This, my friends, sounds notoriously like a question of How Card Advantage Works.

Loxodon Hierarch and Card Advantage

On its face Loxodon Hierarch doesn’t generate any card advantage. Now if we move from on-its-face traditional counting to the more accurate world of interactive Magic, Loxodon sometimes generates card advantage. For example against a Black deck it isn’t going to generate any card advantage drawing a Terror, but against a Red Deck it can pickpocket an extra card when someone has to spend, say, a Tarfire and a Seal of Fire.

… Or is it just one more card?

The reason Red Decks hate Hierarchs is that they are fundamentally card advantage against Red Decks. Life gain is not advantageous in general, but against a Red Deck that has scads of different cards that do nothing but nug the brains for two… Life gain atually looks like card advantage; on top of any actual exchanges that take place on the board, a Loxodon Hierarch will undo a Red Deck’s next two Shocks.

Loxodon Hierarch… The Best Card or Constructed Unplayable?

At the time of the last Pro Tour Honolulu, chatter around the top of the game was that Loxodon Hierarch was the best card in Standard. A quick glance at the actual Top 8 decks from that tournament reveals… not a single Hierarch!

For the next Constructed Pro Tour that year, Charleston (the often discussed team Pro Tour), we approached the format with the notion that Loxodon Hierarch was the best card in the format. It was a warping card from our deck design perspective, more influential than any other single card in our crafting of our three individual decks. Interestingly, while almost every team played four Hierarchs… the winning team didn’t. Just sayin’.

Now recently Luis Scott-Vargas — a player who has recently transformed himself from a The Rock / Solar Flare kind of guy into a Pro Tour winner with Elves, then followed up with standout performances on the backs of decks like Swans and Storm, recently posted something I found quite controversial and thought provoking on his new site ChannelFireball.com:

I used to be a fan of Loxodon Hierarch type decks myself, and guess what? I didn’t win at the Pro Tour level. Midrange decks designed to pummel aggro may work during the Swiss at a PTQ, but you will usually meet your demise during the Top 8 to someone playing a real control deck. I learned my lesson the hard way, playing these sorts of midrange decks as recently as PT Hollywood in 2008. My Loxodon Warhammer plus Chameleon Colossus deck did well enough until I played against a bunch of Reveillark decks, which completely annihilated me. Turns out that a control deck with Cryptic Command and Reveillark is better than a control deck with Cloudthresher and Primal Command. I understand why people are drawn to decks like this, but all I can offer is my advice to put down the Finks and pick up Vendilion Cliques while there is still time.

As you can see, Luis writes almost like a religious convert!

The title of the piece?

Decks That Can’t Win Tournaments

Which poses the question… Do we even (ever?) want a Loxodon Hierarch?

My old Two-Headed Giant teammate Steve Sadin likes to talk about the time that he beat me in an Extended PTQ. Any kind of Magic friendships typically ultimately come down to bragging rights, but this was a special case (it’s not like he is still bragging about beating me in the finals of a mock tournament, Loam v. Haterator)… In the future PTQ he beat me Boros v. Haterator, in a matchup where I drew Loxodon Hierarch. The fact is, Steve won the flip, had the tempo, burned the right Birds, and minimized the awfulness of Loxodon Hierarch when it showed up. As a former Boros player myself, I can recall dozens of games where I just got by the Hierarchs with Manriki-Gusari, Boros Garrison, and Eight-And-A-Half-Tails… And that was Standard.

The point of Luis’s piece on ChannelFireball seems to be that we shouldn’t want to want Loxodon Hierarchs… Which is a different question than we are trying to answer when we talk about Captured Sunlight.

Because ultimately I think we can all agree that a Captured Sunlight into a Wooly Thoctar in Standard is probably pretty good (and generally better than a “real” Loxodon Hierarch). So what are some of the other scenarios we can project?

• Kitchen Finks – I have never done this yet. But according to hudnall56, this is quite mid-rangey
• Civic Wayfinder – This offers a fair amount of card advantage; I would not typically want to play an Exploding Borders… This effect is pretty similar (and probably generally better as you get a body out of it, and all things considered, gaining four life with no effect on the board is probably better than dealing four damage with no effect on the board). But like I said, I wouldn’t typically consider playing Exploding Borders.
• Rampant Growth – Kind of miserable, actually. Worse in almost every way than the previous.
• Lash Out – (and substitute any Terminates, Nameless Inversions, and so on that you like)… Could be pretty good depending on the board. If you have the only guy this is kind of miserable.

Most of the time this card seems underwhelming given its flip capability (I wouldn’t make the same statement talking about Bloodbraid Elf, which will often be flipping cards like Hell’s Thunder, Boggart Ram-Gang, and the like in an offensive haste deck. On balance, I have Captured Sunlight in a deck like this:

Four-color Cascade Ramp

4 Bituminous Blast
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Broodmate Dragon
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Enlisted Wurm
4 Kitchen Finks

4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Rampant Growth

4 Lash Out

3 Exotic Orchard
5 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
2 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Savage Lands
1 Swamp

sideboard:
4 Anathemancer
4 Cloudthresher
3 Path to Exile
4 Volcanic Fallout

Testing is super preliminary at this point, but the deck follows many of the same principles as previous Jund Ramp decks. Against Reflecting Pool control you have to rely on the extreme amount of card advantage to keep pace, then side in Anathemancer as a tremendous threat.

Faeries is a deck that seems like it has to be solved with the sideboard; those Volcanic Blowouts are also there for Boat Brew, B/W Tokens, and other decks that employ Spectral Procession.

… Which all together is a big chunk of the metagame.

That said, this deck can play pretty powerfully, the Standard Storm, kind of. I wasn’t initially a fan of Enlisted Wurm, but in this deck it can play like Mind’s Desire. The bonus on this card has been about 2.5 for me so far… You know, Enlisted Wurm flipping Bituminous Blast flipping Civic Wayfinder.

Just a jumping-off point, to be sure, but I think Loxodon Hierarch would be proud.

LOVE
MIKE