Linvala, Keeper of Silence ∙ Mythic ∙ Mythic Conscription
Adding Vengevine to Perfectly Good Decks ∙ A Little Jace, the Mind Sculptor ∙ … and Linvala, Keeper of Silence
So with all the hubbub about Vengevine last weekend (and did anyone notice a deck that was a few cards off of what we posted made Top 8? I mean sure, maybe we needed Maelstrom Pulse to compete with Basilisk Collar, but it was in large part our Sarkhan the Mad Jund deck!), I decided to, you know, stick good old Vengevine into Mythic Conscription.
I mean it’s not a stretch at all.
Vengevine is a creature that thrives on being played in a context of lots of other creatures.
Lo and behold, Mythic Conscription is like mono-creatures – A perfect marriage!
sb:
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Negate
4 Rhox War Monk
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Gideon Jura
3 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Ranger of Eos
The fundamental delta of this deck was to just remove the relatively low powered Dauntless Escort (good against Wrath of God) for high powered Vengevine (also good against Wrath of God). I took out all the Planeswalkers, et al for a nine card Ranger of Eos package.
That is, originally I was much more mono-Vengevine in my card selection. Playing all my Planeswalkers in the sideboard, I started one more Sovereigns of Lost Alara, Ranger of Eos, and Baneslayer Angel. However, it turns out that playing Jace, the Mind Sculptor main deck really is better in Mythic decks. Basically I played against so many control decks (including some kind of goofball mono-White control decks) that it was simply foolish to not play Jace, the Mind Sculptor starting. Decks with core of mana acceleration are actually much better at playing Jace than the control decks where we are more used to seeing that Planeswalker. Even on the draw you can plop a Jace down and totally dominate some poor Fieldmist Borderpost ham and egger.
I probably don’t have to tell you what all the cards in this deck do… Mythic Conscription is by this point one of the main pillars on which our metagame rests. The one thing I will mention is that I added the second Sejiri Steppe to the mana base (from Brett Blackman’s GP Top 8 list); I really like the ability to give the opponent a false sense of security… This measure has been instrumental in many a Reliquary mirror.
The one card that I really like in this deck is Ranger of Eos. Sure, Birds of Paradise is a downgrade relative to the Wild Nacatls that Andre used to win the World Championships, but the presence of Vengevine makes Ranger of Eos so much more attractive (and I already had Ranger as a Top 10 Standard card as you know). One thing that I found even in my pre-Jace, the Mind Sculptor builds — especially in the mirror — was how dominating Ranger of Eos was. Just loading and overloading on Noble Hierarchs was insane! No matter what threat you were attacking with, it would be much bigger than the opponent would likely be able to profitably block, even in a mirror.
The weirdo tech — though at this point it probably isn’t that weird — is Linvala, Keeper of Silence.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence – aka “weirdo tech”
Basically, Linvala is insurance against Cunning Sparkmage or… um… Royal Assassin I guess.
Linvala has been pretty good for me. I’ve tried her against everything from Putrid Leech to Knight of the Reliquary in the mirror. Of course I am a giant dumb bum and didn’t initially realize that Linvala is asymmetrical. So I like sided out my own Knights for… the… You get it. You don’t like that you get it, but you do. Yeah, that’s me.
The cool thing I’ve found about this particular gal is that as bad as I initially was playing my own Linvala, Keeper of Silence… Opponents play worse. A typical scenario is you play Linvala to lock down one or more copies of Knight of the Reliquary; even when Linvala rumbles and dies in combat, your opponent may just forget that their Knights are back online and randomly attack with them in 2/2 form.
No lies.
The sideboard is kind of a random mish-mash of cards I wanted to play. It is not particularly well measured. We can utilize the same technique I wrote about in last Friday’s TCGPlayer article to improve it.
What are the big baddies in Standard?
Let’s start with these eight or nine decks:
Jund
Mythic Conscription (the mirror), and regular Mythic
U/r/W Planeswalkers
U/W Control
Naya Vengevine
Devastating Red
Polymorph
Vampires
Remember, this technique just identifies what is less acceptable and helps you to identify areas where you need (or can afford) coverage; you can make efficiency swaps to your heart’s content (i.e. all things considered a Celestial Purge is probably better than a Smother against Vampires).
Jund Still the most popular deck, I have found Jund to be a very favorable matchup, in particular when you can overwhelm them with Ranger of Eos and Vengevine card advantage. Blightning is not particularly good against this deck (you can discard Vengevine and ruin them), but Maelstrom Pulse is excellent, in particular when they can get two-for-one (or better) especially against your Noble Hierarchs or other mana creatures.
What’s bad? All of your cards are fine. The worst is probably Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
(3)
Mythic Conscription As I said before, a big chunk of your edge comes from Ranger of Eos advantage feeding Noble Hierarchs. Most Mythic decks have no Rangers. Huzzah!
What’s bad? Again, nothing is bad, really. I can see siding next to nothing (you certainly want the fourth Ranger)… Everything is acceptable.
(0)
U/r/W Planeswalkers I heard this was supposed to be a bad matchup, but I have had nothing but luck against it recently; I guess that comes from playing a faster Jace than they have, forcing them to waste a turn tapping out [all their White, hopefully] then clocking the nug with Eldrazi Conscription.
What’s bad? I guess Mythic is just so focused that nothing is bad, ever. Because here is yet another matchup where nothing is bad! If anything is less desirable in this matchup, it is probably beloved Baneslayer Angel. She is a superb creature, objectively, but you don’t really want slow fives against U/r/W. She gobbles up lots of mana and is awkwardly costed for Vengevine re-buys.
(3)
U/W Control This is a very similar deck to U/r/W Planeswalkers… But a matchup where you can’t afford to side out Baneslayer Angel. They have Baneslayer Angel (unlike U/r/W, typically), meaning you might need yours to keep pace.
What’s bad? I have had a fair amount of luck siding out one Eldrazi Conscription; remember, you can shuffle it away with Jace, the Mind Sculptor if need be. You can move a high variance card like Scute Mob if you like… Not a huge amount of space here.
(2)
Naya Vengevine This is a matchup where you vastly out-class them… Unless they have Cunning Sparkmage. Cunning Sparkmage, in particular next to a Basilisk Collar, are going to spell doom for you.
What’s bad? They are the beatdown deck, so you might want to cut Jace; provided you aren’t getting ruined by Sparkmage, they are just littler.
(3)
Devastating Red As with most of the other “fair” decks, you out-class Devastating Red by a fair amount. The main issue is that they can burn all your mana creatures and kill you before you get done showing them how bright your features are.
What’s bad? I would for sure cut every slow card: all five cards that make up the Eldrazi Conscription package, and probably all the Planeswalkers. Under other circumstances, I could be persuaded to cut Baneslayer Angel, but she is a huge lifelink after all.
(8)
Polymorph
This seems like a matchup where you’re kind of up the creek without a paddle. Game one you kind of have to stick Eldrazi Conscription and kill them to death… or you’re just going to get combo killed. Your main weapon is going to be the looming threat of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, or perhaps the long term “Unsummon” potential. Unless you kill Polymorph outright, most of the rest of your shiny bells and whistles are going to be irrelevant.
What’s bad? I would cut the solo Scute Mob immediately. It’s unlikely you are ever going to get to the point in the game where Ranger of Eos manipulation into a an efficient fatty is going to be the deciding factor. For that matter, I would cut all the Baneslayer Angels. Life matters very little in this matchup, but being a slow five mana threat matters a lot.
(4)
Vampires
I’ve never played this matchup. Osyp seemed really comfortable with Vampires v. Bant variants at the NYC PTQ he played in, but they didn’t have Vengevine, or I presume, Ranger of Eos.
What’s bad? The weakest card is Scute Mob, due to the presence of Vampire Hexmage. You can cut Jace, the Mind Sculptor for the same reason, but Jace is a really good Mind Sludge recovery play (and potential Malakir Bloodwitch defense), so I wouldn’t.
(1)
So where does this leave us?
Jund: 0-3
Mythic whatever: 0
U/r/W Planeswalkers: 3-5
U/W Control: 2
Naya Vengevine: 3
Devastating Red: 8
Polymorph: 4
Vampires: 1
What about:
1 Jace, the Mind Scuptor
4 Negate
2 Telemin Performance
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Celestial Purge
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Ranger of Eos
13 of the 15 cards fit nicely into the “what’s bad” schema; I added Qasali Pridemage as an additional catch-all. Admonition Angel is nice and all… But you never know when you are going to want to hunt down a Howling Mine.
Rundown:
Jund
-3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+2 Celestial Purge
Mythic
-1 Eldrazi Conscription
+1 Ranger of Eos
U/r/W Planeswalkers
-1 Eldrazi Conscription
-1 Scute Mob
-3 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+4 Negate
U/W Control
-1 Eldrazi Conscription
-1 Scute Mob
-1 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+2 Telemin Performance
Negate is probably still good here; not as good as against U/r/W becuase you actually care about stopping Planeswalkers, but good; I figured you could shave a Baneslayer Angel because Telemin Performance is going to net a Baneslayer Angel about half the time; this is pure speculation of course… Maybe you should just play some Negates and use the space for anti-RDW cards.
Naya Vengevine
-3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
+1 Ranger of Eos
Devastating Red
-2 Eldrazi Conscription
-3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-3 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
+1 Negate
+2 Qasali Pridemage
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+2 Celestial Purge
+2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
A lof of these cuts are just efficiency swaps… cut a six drop for a four drop, etc.
Polymorph
-1 Eldrazi Conscription
-1 Scute Mob
-2 Ranger of Eos
-3 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+4 Negate
+2 Telemin Performance
This seems like a miserable matchup; lots of Negates and Performances should help.
Vampires
-1 Scute Mob
+1 Celestial Purge
It really feels weird to have another Celestial Purge… And not bring it in against Vampires. Eldrazi Conscription number two, maybe?
That might not be a perfect set of sideboarding strategies, but at least there is some logic behind it.
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).
Vengevine ∙ Joining the Dark Side ∙ Good Old Bloodbraid Elf
A decided lack of Blightning ∙ Countersquall ∙ … and Vengevine!
Vengevine
Yeah, yeah yeah… The old man qualified!
Grixis Hits! Countersquall! Just like we promised.
My basic metagame diagnosis is that if Grixis is good, it is the best deck in Standard (play my 75… Though you may want to switch out Duress for Thought Hemorrhage * in place of Duress, for Vengevine). However it is possible that the success of control in general (including Grixis Hits, which is at the top of the control deck pyramid) will incentivize players to run more beatdown… Red Decks, Vengevine decks, etc.
This deck obviously borrows, strategically from GerryT’s Naya deck… All guys. All guys leads to all Vengevine triggers. Your Bloodbraid Elf always flips over a creature, setting up big Vengevine attacks, &c.
Weird things: No Blightning. No copies of my favorite card. Not a creature. Who is avoiding the random Bloodbraid Elf flip!?! Is this bizarro world?
Yet we have Sarkhan the Mad. He is your spell. This card is very strong. Stronger than I originally thought. Yes, it gives you a Countersquall target in a deck that can’t otherwise Blightning away Countersqualls. It is also not a creature; it is possible that Broodmate Dragon would be a better choice… But I think not enough people are playing Countersquall right now (certainly very few on MTGO). I have been doing quite well with this Jund, and I think it might be a deck.
Card rundown:
Bloodbraid Elf
Yep, still the strongest creature in Standard. Absolutely perfect in this deck, in particular for its ability to flip up Cunning Sparkmage.
Borderland Ranger
Awesome v. other Jund (trades with their Bloodbraid Elf without a loss of card advantage); you hit your land drops… Very good with Lotus Cobra, of course; nice blocker.
Cunning Sparkmage
Awesome against Mythic (albeit less awesome than a deck with Basilisk Collar); a fabulous main deck card against Polymorph.
Lotus Cobra
Just the right accelerator in this style of deck. Good with Vengevine and Bloodbraid Elf for the two-to-four jump; respectable front side for a two drop; good with the sideboard.
Malakir Bloodwitch
Because people play decks that can’t deal with it.
Putrid Leech
Still the scariest offensive two drop in Standard. One of the things I like about this deck is that it plays kind of like the West Coast Plated Geopede deck… Two different offensive two drops; better mana utilization than most versions of Jund, therefore.
Sprouting Thrinax
I would play Vampire Nighthawk starting in this spot… But its synergy with “your spell” is just out of control.
Vengevine
The whole point of the deck. Hi-yah!
I don’t know if this deck is better than either GerryT’s deck or a regular Jund deck… But it seems to be winning plenty for me online. Sideboard is kind of loose right now, but I think there are some good ideas.
Recurring Insight is the biggest beating of them all; its presence is kind of predicated on the idea that the opponent is going to semi-manascrew you with Spreading Seas. You can cast it fine with Lotus Cobra, and, say, a Scalding Tarn for Island (thank you Lotus Cobra).
Nicol Bolas is your Cruel Ultimatum. Basically I really wanted to cast Cruel Ultimatum but this deck obviously can’t muster such a profligate mana cost… Nicol Bolas seems like the next best thing. We’ll see how it bears out.
LOVE
MIKE
* Separately suggested by Osyp over the phone and Verno on Magic Online
I am just going to c/p the description I put on YouTube (’cause mise):
Mind Sludge – It has been called the only reason to play Counterspells in the current Standard environment (there are actually two reasons… the other one is in our deck).
I am playing basic Swamp this weekend because of the “I have must-counter sorceries in my deck” factor. This is a pretty surprising couple of games with my current favorite Standard deck, Grixis Hits:
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
2 Divination
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Spreading Seas
Hello e’re body. I have yet again been honored with a guest blog on this here interwebs, courtesy of Mike Flores.
Per request I have made some time to scribble down my adventures of last weekend’s Type 2 Saturday at the local card shop here in Humid Fayetteville, North Carolina:
(smell the plug)
Cardz-N-Things
(inserting Garth Brooke’s, Shameless, while i’m at it)
Moving along …
I had been enjoying his more recent [sic] Mid-“Borderland”-Ranger Naya list recently, yet when Flores had mentioned he had “teh tech” (early that Friday via Twitter) for this past weekend I was refreshing his blog every few minutes (Come on … don’t lie to yourself; I know a few other folks who were just as feverish as I).
His list became the cards I sleeved up and shuffled towards a successful 4-1-1 record on the day.
Raka XXX, tBVotBD (King Hulk, in my book)
4 Ajani Vengeant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
4 Wall of Omens
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Spreading Seas
2 Oblivion Ring
The only changes to my 60 and that of Mike Flores were:
-1 Island, +1 Mountain
-1 Cancel, +1 Ajani Vengeant
Having gone up one more copy of an amazing Planeswalker I then needed to make sure I could validate this inclusion (i.e. eight Red spells in an essentially U/W Control build). I know, I know most of you are now scratching your heads, or simply clicking your way to another website, but hear me out! Or at least continue reading.
I am no Menendian when it comes to percentiles, nor am I able to simply conjure a perfect pie chart to display my reasoning. Yet to go from 7 Red spells that only ask for 1 red source to 8 Red spells that; yes continue the aforementioned trend; isn’t as simple as it seems. To me anyway.
I figured I needed to make sure that my 6 Fetch Lands were capable of meeting said requirements. This having been said it should then lead you to see why I added my third Mountain. I did not want to find myself in a situation where I needed to hit a red source for my Lightning Bolt(s), and/or Ajani(s) yet couldn’t. I wanted to increase my chances of hitting said color requirements without straining the already dedicated mana base.
Three Mountains for eight Red Spells. With six fetches available to delivery the goods I never once had a color screw on the entire day. That is the only Maindeck exception from what is entirely Mike’s creation.
OH! Sideboard … right, right:
4 Flashfreeze
2 Negate
2 Scepter of Dominance
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Telemin Performance
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Note the lack of Baneslayer Angels… if you have extra lying around I would gladly help you find an adoption agency willing to help relocate them to my 75.
Telemin’s Performance was brilliant on the day; just give it a chance.
As to prevent further boredom (hopefully you are still awake this far along) I am going to give my 6 rounds of play a somewhat paltry breakdown.
Round 1: Jeff, playing U/B Control
Game 1: I win the dice roll (lucky mise)
The game is boring from the get-go. He is playing an entirely obscure deck that I was neither worried about, nor hesitant to play into. For the first 9 turns(!) it was the typical: draw, land, go. Game 1 consisted of my Jace killing his Jace, me sticking an Ajani that went Bruce Willis on his manabase after a few redundant turns of “Simon Says” on his CitP tapped lands. I did fumble a turn 4 Jace off of a chalice, however. Instead of opting to roll Jace up w/ his first ability I simply brainstormed without much thought. Then when my opponent untapped I sadly frowned at his Creeping Tar Pit that suddenly went sideways into my Jace. I promptly made sure the next Spreading Seas made sweet nautical love to said offender ASAP.
me 1 – him 0
Game 2: After having not seen a single creature game one on his side of the table I took quick action
-3 Day of Judgment
-2 Martial Coup
-1 Wall of Omens
+2 Negate
+2 Scepter of Dominance
+2 Telemin’s Performance
Please do the math and figure out what happened … turn 6 he scooped on an unanswered Telemin’s. I flipped 1 of his 3 Sphinx of Jwar Isle. He had taken out his spot removal, and had also sided out his Gatekeeper’s. It didn’t hurt my feelings when I flipped 2 foil Sorin’s along with 1 foil Jace after the Telemin’s resolved.
Round 2: John, sporting White Weenie
I do not master the art of winning the dice roll, and John leads off the match w/ a Student of Warfare (How cute).
I land a turn 2 Chalice which allows me to plant 2 Wall of Omens on my third turn; which had me feeling pretty safe. Until his 4th turn procured an Elspeth (The angry virgin). On my turn I rip 1 of the 2 O Rings MD and promptly lay it down on her. Only to watch as John gleefully lays down a Gideon on the following turn. Now I have to race a Gideon and a Student of Warfare. He paths one of my Walls on his turn, and I happily get one of my 3 Mountains. After I stick an Ajani his Gideon never untaps the rest of the match (Seriously … Ajani is teh nuts). The usual song and dance involved a Celestial Colonnade and a few swing with a 7 deep Martial Coup then we were off to the SB for game 2.
me 1, him 0
– 1 Elspeth
– 1 Jace
+ 2 Oblivion Ring
Nothing much to change in my Maindeck for the 2nd game … I figured more O Rings would be helpful to stunt an early onslaught – long enough to land a DoJ and/or a healthy Martial Coup. And Mike’s list essentially favors the aggro match-up (especially WW, or any non-RDW list for that matter).
Game 2 was over pretty easily. Nothing to elaborate on except that Mike’s list rolls aggro … hard. Sad to say nothing exciting to discuss on this match-up.
2-0 (4-0) so far
Round 3: Bobby, running Jund (ala Stock Car)
Bobby is a friend of mine, and sad to say he was playing Jund. Yet unlike Affinity – you can’t just punt every misplay and still come out ahead. With that as my precursor it is safe to say I won this round … because … honestly WHO WANTS ANOTHER JUND MATCH-UP ANALYSIS? Maybe I am being trite, and rather unforgiving but I will not sit here and delegate on the behalf of “Well, Johnny, this is how you play against Jund”.
All I will say is that we went all 3 games. I ended up squeezing out the 3rd game with some extremely tight play;that and he never saw a Blightning (the entire 3rd game … who was the lucky duck? Me)
3-0 (6-1) On the day so far
Round 4: Adam (3-0) w/ Jund
We ID into the Top 8 so neither of us have to spend the next 50 minutes figuring out what will be cascaded and how much my Martial Coup will be for. I seriously loathe playing Jund. It isn’t a contempt for said deck … it’s the bandwagon it generated (eg, Faeries, Affinity, etc, etc). Almost no innovation has taken place since the original list surfaced some time last year.
Sure we’ve seen a few Borderland Rangers, Elvish Visionaries, and the sporadic Master of the Wild Hunts being featured in some builds. Yet nothing truly innovative has come from playing Michael_Jordan.dec (greatest all time; hands down) That said I don’t see Lebron James hoping to be “Like Mike”. He is creating his own future in the NBA. Did that help drive my point home?
3-0-1
Round 5 (Top 8): Matt, playing ??
… … … … My opponent dropped? … … I sat there for 11 minutes (giving them plenty of time to make it since we don’t run a clock for the Top 8 matches) waiting for him to show up. The round was almost over when his (Matt) girlfriend shows up. He had left with his boys to go out for drinks, and apparently forgot to pick her up from work. Her mom dropped her off.
Needless to say his chops were busted.
And I was given a free round … luckily while I had been waiting I was able to squeeze in an Epic Game of EDH so the entire time had not been wasted.
4-0-1
Round 6 (Top 4): Adam (w/ Jund)
So we couldn’t draw this round, thusly we shuffled up.
Please … Please … Please … for the sake of Orphans all around the world … do not begin to hound me for this round’s analysis.
I’ll give you a “Real Life: I’m Recovering” break down in a free form poem.
Putrid Leech < Oblivion Ring
Blightning < Flashfreeze
BBE > Putrid Leech = Flashfreeze + Lightning Bolt
Wall of Omen(s) < Maelstrom Pulsing two'fer
Master of the Wild Hunt < Oblivion Ring
Martial Coup for 8 > his life total.
Game 3:
Duress > my Spreading Seas
Wall of Omens > his Putrid Leech
Blightning < Flashfreeze
Blightning > nets 2 cards
Raging Ravine > my life total
Maelstrom Pulse > Ajani Vengeant
Ajani #2 < Lightning Bolt
Ajani #3 < BBE into Blightning
FML
All in all I enjoyed the day. Hopefully that Jund Poem spoke to your soul as much as it did mine.
Flores's list is legitimate. And in all honesty has an option to transform into "Super Friends" post board if you felt the urge to sport 2 decks in one. Laskin and Flores were spot on with calling the dominate color choices for this past weekend; as well as the months to come.
As is the case I will gladly play this until another case of Deckbuilding ADD strikes. Which shouldn't be too far off in the near future.
Sorry for the sporadic and hasty nature of my post this time around. I was unable to hit up a much larger venue to give this deck a Wayne Brady around the block.
La'Chaim
Benjamin David
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

Trace of Abundance ∙ Rampant Growth ∙ Explore
Jund ∙ mana acceleration in Jund ∙ … and Trace of Abundance
Trace of Abundance
I just wanted to do a quick writeup on a card I hadn’t previously considered in Jund. Last week you probably know I did a Podcast with Morgan Chang, Sean McKeown, and PRO PLAYER “Mulldrifting” Lauren Lee. Lauren was on Jund… featuring Trace of Abundance.
Current Jund lists have shown precedent for running two mana mana acceleration as a two-of. For example in the finals of the most recent Pro Tour, Kyle Boggemes played two Explores while champion Simon Gortzen played two Rampant Growths.
What happens if we split the difference and just slide in two copies of Trace of Abundance?
Why would we want to do that?
Many of the post-Gortzen Jund decks play under the philosophy of “all lands, no removal” … The reason is that the lands are so good! In particular, Raging Ravine.
Not only does a second turn Trace of Abundance help you accelerate to Bloodbraid Elf on the third turn in the same way that Explore or Rampant Growth does, but going deep, Trace of Abundance on a Raging Ravine is a Troll Ascetic-like threat for a U/W Control opponent. Within a couple of attacks, your Raging Ravine will become big enough to rumble past a Baneslayer Angel!
Common U/W answers — Spreading Seas, Tectonic Edge, even Path to Exile — all become irrelevant because they can’t target the damn thing.
So how does a control player win?
When Lauren played Trace of Abundance against me, offensively, I tapped down or applied Spreading Seas to all her other sources of Red. That way she couldn’t activate the Raging Ravine to begin with. Eventually, I drew into an Oblivion Ring to take out the Trace, then battled back fair and square.
Believe it or not, I am a little geeked on Trace of Abundance.
To the point that I would consider playing Jund at Nationals Qualifiers! (Really.)