Cascade Swans… Cascade Assault… Whatever you want to call it, it may be the hot new It Deck of the Standard format. We took a spin with it to give our first impressions of the team of Bloodbraid Elf, Seismic Assault, and Swans of Bryn Argoll!
Numerous people including Josh Ravitz and my man Iñigo Romero Martialay told me I should take a look at some new Cascade Swans deck. I had no idea that there was any other kind of Swans deck than the familiar control-esque Extended port as I had not looked at all the Regionals Top 8 deck lists yet. Little did I know that this deck was / is the realization of this little snippit you may have seen on Facebook…
Well Kowal, it was actually forty-two lands.
I looked up the deck lists on ye olde Mother Ship and battled out with this bit of innovation by Parth Modi:
For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, this deck is chock full of lands (many of them functional). So it doesn’t draw much other than lands; there are four major spell slots, which stick together two-plus-two like LEGOs:
Bituminous Blast and Bloodbraid Elf
Swans of Bryn Argoll and Seismic Assault
The Cascade twins are there to flip the functional cards. Bloodbraid Elf can literally only flip over Seismic Assault; Bituminous Blast can flip any of the other three cards (the cream dream of course being Bituminous Blast into Bloodbraid Elf into Seismic Assault).
With such a dense percentage of lands, the Swans + Assault combination is generally lethal. That is, every land pointing at a Swans of Bryn Argoll is 70% likely to flip another land; a minimum of one land per cycle will at least “keep you going” more or less “forever” until such point that you have 10 lands to throw at the opponent’s noggin.
Ad Nauseum has generally less risk in this deck than most because there are lots of lands. You can pick up lots of lands to kill the opponent with a Seismic Assault, or pick up essentially any of the other cards to set up or complete the combo.
I took the deck for a spin in the Tournament Practice room last night. Here’s how it went…
ONE – Howling Mine / Fog deck
This matchup is basically un-losable. You don’t even really need “the other half” of the combo because if you set up the Assault they are giving you plenty of fodder to kill them to death.
1-0/2-0
TWO – G/R Beatdown “Red Deck”
I actually took some footage of this matchup, which time willing, will end up on the long-lost Five With Flores YouTube page this weekend.
Game One I had him dead (he was all tapped out and such) and I played Ad Nauseum. I was quite beaten up and went to five on Ad Nauseum and decided to keep rolling (I don’t know what I was thinking). Actually I do know… I was thinking my deck has Swans and Elves and I can go to one because he is tapped out. Forget about the fact that I had just played a five. So of course I killed myself.
Game Two I won easily on turn four, playing the Assault then playing the Swans; his interaction was minimal.
Game Three one of the weaknesses of this fledgling strategy was revealed. It is fast in the sense that it can win on turn five, but the Cascade Swans deck isn’t fast-fast, and can’t really defend itself very well. Plus a big chunk of the cards are these clumsy fives that you can’t even play in a lot of games. So he had a Tattermunge / Jund Hackblade draw and just raced me.
1-1/3-2 (Should have been 2-0/4-0 though, due to Game One killing myself on unfamiliarity).
THREE – Five-color Zoo
This matchup is a mess. It’s basically like it would be against Jund Mana Ramp. I don’t think that Cascade Swans has a very good chance, ever. He just went good guys, then kolded my Swans with a Cryptic Command and killed me with an Anathemancer (Jund can do the same thing with a Shriekmaw / Makeshift Mannequin). Finks, Finks, Treetop, etc.
Game Two I actually drew a lot of spells! It was kind of funny. I couldn’t cast my dumb Bituminous Blasts, of which I had four in grip. He Runed Halo’d me, which revealed that you basically have to side in the anti-permanents package every single game. I did not. I was defeated soundly; his Identity Crisis was gravy.
1-2/3-4
FOUR – Turbo Mill
Game One I beat him very tricky-like. I played an attrition / exhaustion game, and killed him in response to Jace ultimate + Hideaway lands on a tap-out. It was very late and I had already forgotten the lesson of the previous match, and neglected to side in any of my artifact kill. Embarassingly, I was kolded by lots of Pithing Needles in the second, and just got my relevant jones countered in the third (not that hard when you have almost no spells).
1-3/4-6
FIVE – Finest Hour
Game One I got the super dream:
Turn two Spinerock Knoll, imprinting Swans of Bryn Argoll.
Turn three Seismic Assault.
Turn four point eight at the opponent, activate Knoll, complete the combo. He actually had a Bant Charm for my Swans, but I had enough lands in hand at that point to win in response.
I stone fell asleep during the second game and conceded match. It was quite late and I was literally only up on account of being super pissed off at the Cavs’ losing to the dumb Orlando Magic last night, giving up a sixteen point lead, yadda yadda yadda. I’m sure I would have won the match, though 🙂
1-4/5-something
Preliminary Analysis:
The deck is actually insane in Game One situations. I won almost every Game One despite having no familiarity with the deck and actually being so unfamiliar that I killed myself with my opponent literally dead to the cards I already had set up.
However it is incredibly easy to hate out in its present configuration. Like I said already you kind of have to side in anti-Pithing Needle and anti-Runed Halo cards Every. Single. Time. Because of that I think that Maelstrom Pulse should be a sideboard four-of, specifically due to the kinds of cards you will likely see set up against you (permanents in play, often in multiples).
My preliminary testing shows that Bituminous Blast is godawful. The so-called cream dream doesn’t even set up the full combo, and five mana is a lot to ask, even from a deck that will hit five lands on turn five almost every game. This may sound stupid, but I couldn’t play the Black for Bituminous Blast more than once. Don’t get me started on playing Bituminous Blast in order to flip over Qasali Pridemage. Just embarassing.
The man lands were kind of irrelevant. I know what they are supposed to be there for, but my Encampments just got eaten by Plumeveils and Jund Charms more than once.
It has been said elsewhere and I think that I agree on switching out Bituminous Blast for Deny Reality. Deny Reality gives you a functional card in terms of being able to deal with a combo-hating permanent that can potentially set up the win.
Despite my reservations with the deck — and absolutely dismal batting average in ye olde Tournament Practice Room — I would say that this is simply the most compelling strategy in Standard other than Jund Mana Ramp. My intuition is that the deck is a dog to some of the actual decks I like, but it is also the kind of deck that many Pros automatically gravitate toward when selecting a deck. It is powerful, and you get what you get (other than the iffy swings on Bituminous Blast). The Game One capabilities alone make it a good candidate for closer review, regardless of one man’s initial W/L.
I went to the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle tonight. My nominal task was to get some apple juice for Clark. However while I was there I also got Katherine a Kombucha and some sage sausages for me and Clark (honestly I was just hungry for din din).
After gathering these scant groceries I assessed my options. I could 1) stand in a line that stretched all the way through the cheese section, past the cookies, and into the prepared foods, 2) get in the sushi line (which would give me an excuse to buy some sushi for Katherine, which might make her happy), or 3) get in the coffee line. I opted for the coffee line because it was already after 8pm and Katherine would have probably already had dinner; anyway I always stay up until 2am or so writing on Monday nights, so I figured an 8.30 caffeine infusion would be the best of the three options (also cheaper than random sushi). You see at Whole Foods if you want to avoid the unending lines you can check out at one of the other sections by buying sushi, coffee, clothes, whatever is appropriate.
Anyway I guess most people don’t know you can pay a $2 coffee tax and circumvent a 20 minute line so there was only one person ahead of me in the coffee line. However this “line” of only one person Did. Not. Move. Why? The guy ahead of me was rummaging around in his man-purse, rummaging, rummaging. He did not find whatever he was looking for. “Sorry,” he said, shrugging. He had not found his wallet.
“Not a problem!” said the guys at the counter.
Swipe.
Amazingly, the barista at the coffee counter bought his groceries for him.
I was stunned.
The guy ahead of me in line was maybe more stunned, understandably grateful.
“You don’t have to do that!”
“It’s a little too late for that!” laughed the barista. “You have a nice night now.”
The guy ahead of me in line, teary-eyed, took a moment to creep his head forward and check out the names of the men behind the counter, committing them to memory, saving up for future gratitude.
“I’m in here every day,” he stammered. “I’ll… I’ll…” You can probably finish the sentence he was trying to get out with your own imagination.
I know this post is a grand departure for this blog. But I was just so moved I had to write about it while it was still fresh in my memory. We fixate on every negative emotion in the world, dwell on every tiny mistake, and talk about nothing in our national news but our swiftly crumbling economy. But even in the midst of these collapsing financial times, it looks like there is opportunity for tiny expressions of generosity to our fellow human beings, even in the heart of that busy zoo called New York City.
I had two sheets of folded up paper in my man-purse. I threw one of them away. I pulled the other out just now to write this (terrible) tournament report and realized I had thrown away my notes from the actual tournament I played in and kept one probably from like a PTQ last summer or perhaps an old grocery list.
So basically I am going to get ~80% of the details wrong, not remember anyone’s name, etc.
Deck:
You know the deck.
Car ride:
I rode in with Josh, Chris Lachmann, and two of Josh’s good friends, Eugene and Sharbel. The last time we had more-or-less this configuration was a Philadelphia PTQ (the one I played Slide), which was minus Sharbel. Chris won, Josh and I finished in the packs (aka first loser). Josh played G/W Tokens, Eugene played U/R Swans, Sharbel played Blightning Beatdown, and I played my Jund Mana Ramp deck obviously.
Last-minute cards:
I tried to buy Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund on-site and it was like $8. No way. So I am running around trying to mise Karrthus to no avail. I go back to the dealers. Five dealers. No Karrthus. Karrthus is sold out! Part of me grins; the other part is like “Man, I hope I don’t hit any mirrors.”
I am writing down my deck list with two Terrors and Phil Napoli (aka PNaps) flips a Karrthus at me. “I thought you didn’t have any,” I say. Phil grins and says he didn’t have any in his bag. His car was another story. Due to the generosity of people like Good Man Dan (also playing same 75 due to following the two blogs and listening to the ‘casts) Will and I had Tyrants to spare.
Most of my deck including signed fancy basic lands was courtesy of Josh Ravitz; Luis Neiman (aka Luis not Vargas, Stan Bush heartbreaker) generously provided my final Kitchen Finks and a set of deadly Anathemancers.
Again, I don’t have my notes and have therefore successfully lost most everyone’s name.
As I’ve said previously Blightning/RDW and Fae were the two decks I was most frightened of. The reason is that I think I have a good matchup against Blightning/RDW but my deck can stumble inside of turn four, and the Red Deck might put me in a no-win position before I cast anything meaningful. Fae I have a great matchup there, but Fae is Fae and I have lost to enough Mistbind Cliques over the past two years to have any moronic ideas about Fae’s demise (Josh actually theorizes it might be the best deck again as soon as next week in the PTQs).
Anyway this Blightning matchup was super easy. No real details. He didn’t kill me. I won the flip. I ran out my accelerators and speed-bumps and dropped at least two Broodmate Dragons per game. He tied up his cards going in the hole trying to contain the Dragons, but you know how that goes.
1-0/2-0
Round Two – U/R Swans
I actually got paired against Eugene super early. Eugene has a great fear of Treetop Villages, which ended up being warranted in this matchup. I did like nine with Villages in game one. Eugene hit all his land drops but they were like Ghitu Encampment and multiple Mutavaults, so even though he hit like seven in a row he couldn’t play his UUU cards such as Plumeveil and Cryptic Command, ergo, couldn’t defend himself until it was too late.
Game Two I drew multiple Anathemancers; there is a reason I have that card as #1 overall from Alara Reborn. It’s just the best threat that has been printed in some years. It’s a Lightning Bolt when it comes down and hits for another four like every time, so seven damage for three mana, and then if the opponent doesn’t have a specific answer to it such as Runed Halo or Pithing Needle, he is just going to lose 100% of the time to the blowback.
2-0/4-0
Round Three: U/W Reveillark
He had beaten Good Man Dan the previous round, so maybe he had a good matchup v. our deck.
Game One I got some damage in with Treetop Villages and Civic Wayfinders. He got a Sower of Temptation and started to attack me for four while I just kept picking up lands. Then he super sized a Figure of Destiny, which was pretty awful. I managed to play a Broodmate Dragon but declined to block when he attacked me just with his super duper Figure of Destiny (had he attacked with both 2/2s, he could have also activated Windbrisk Heights). I took. I think I would have been dead if he had attacked more vigorously for the two previous turns; however he later said he feared of Volcanic Fallout. Turns out I got just enough time to pick up Banefire. Ha ha!
Game Two I got land and spells, including big super spells, but he successfully played Gather Specimens on both my Cloudthresher and a Broodmate Dragon. I had a Banefire but was forced to point it at my Cloudthresher instead of playing for a win because I had no life gain in my deck (if I had so much as a Kitchen Finks I would have played like Craig Jones); I looked at the game over the next three turns and there was just no way I could stay alive long enough to win by topdecking a second Banefire unless I could buffer my life total by at least two points. Anyway, I figured I could try to get in with the Broodmate… but another Gather Specimens. Guess I got what I deserved.
Game Three I kept smashing his board with Caldera Hellion and once he had UUU3 up I didn’t play a creature until I had Shriekmaw backup (it was a Cloudthresher at end of turn to set him up, obviously, which was worth a Fireball and more. This deck was pretty easy to beat once I knew not to get blown out by Gather Specimens.
3-0/6-1
Round Four – RDW
I played against friend and Broodmate Dragon + Makeshift Mannequin godfather, Spencer Reiss. He was going to play the Jund but was allocated RDW in the deck distribution shuffle. I feel like this matchup is about a 70/30 in favor of Spencer’s version in Game One, provided he wins the flip (which he did). Spencer generously offered the lay down if I was planning to go to Nationals anyway, but I assured him I was only going to go if I had a reason to, so he took up the opportunity to blow out the Old Man.
Game One I didn’t actually play a spell. I shipped into a low action hand that was at least going to make its drops and gambled on a sub-optimal draw on Spencer’s part to try to mise into dropping the Broodmate Dragon, knowing that I was probably going to lose whether I shipped or not; at least this hand had a plan. What actually ended up happening is that I activated my Treetop Village to block and Spencer Incinerated it; then I packed.
Between games I declared that Spencers’ first land was going to be Ghitu Encampment, I was going to hit my mana gathering spells, Primal Command his Ghitu Encampment and gain seven life on turn four or five, then he was going to concede to my Broodmate Dragon on turn six.
It turns out this is exactly what happened!
Game Three I had a slow draw to his pretty solid one, but Spencer was stuck on three for about two turns. His fourth land, coming maybe turn five or six, was a Ghitu Encampment; I put it on top of his deck three turns in a row, gaining seven while hitting my land drops. Then I played the first of three Broodmate Dragons. I couldn’t start dropping Dragons earlier because I was low enough that if Spencer had two burn spells he might kill me on the spot, but if I made the repeated Primal Command play, I could keep his mana tapped (ensuring he couldn’t fizzle my next Command), guarantee he couldn’t play Demigod of Revenge even if he topdecked another land, and net 1-2 life per cycle while hitting enough land drops to play Broodmate Dragon with enough mana to activate Treetop Village as a chump blocker if need be. It ended up working out.
4-0/8-2
Round Five – Reflecting Pool Control
The entire tournament I probably made lots of errors that are not going to make it into this terrible tournament report, but really the only one that mattered was in Game One of this match. I had a hot hand with three Banefires, and I started pointing them as soon as I had enough mana for them to go Hellbent. My opponent Ben made me pick up one of my two Treetop Villages after my second Banefire, and I picked up a Savage Land the next turn, which also comes into play tapped. In kind of like one smooth, lazy, motion I dropped the Savage Land instead of the Treetop Village and fired again. Ben asked how many cards I had in hand; he was now Ultimatum-online. The five life he gained that turn kept him out of dead that turn whereas I had to drop Broodmate Dragon, Cloudthresher, and Treetop Village, keeping the Banefire. I shot him to two. He hid behind a Plumeveil for about three turns until he had a Broodmate Dragon of his own to kill me. Had I played the right land, he was just dead; instead he sat on two until he drew a Wall of Reverence to go up four. I died with Fallout as my top card.
Game Two I got him with Anathemancer, Banefire, and Primal Command. The sideboarded matchup is like 75% in favor of Jund Mana Ramp, maybe more. They have like two cards that are more powerful than any of seventeen cards in your deck, and they basically pack if you ever resolve a Primal Command (in fact I was dead on board when I picked up a Primal Command, which I used to go not dead on board thanks to +7, and I got an Anathemancer, which stuck). Of course if it hadn’t stuck, I would have still won on the blowback.
Game Three Ben got me in the complete lockdown – Three Runed Halos and two Pithing Needles (one on Treetop Village, one on Anathemancer). This one could have gone either way for a long time, even after his Cruel Ultimaturm, and I had lots of pulls to win on the spot even with all those permanents down. As late as the last turn I could have drawn a Primal Command (he didn’t have a counter) and won the same way I won Game Two (except putting Runed Halo on top instead of gaining seven). However I blabbed about this and he figured out to just put another Runed Halo down on Anathemancer 🙂 Live and learn.
I also made a “judgment call” in Game Three; I don’t know how much it mattered. Ben tapped down for something (a Mulldrifter maybe?) and I had an Anathemancer in hand. At this point I had a Makeshift Mannequin and he had his Needles already. I could have played the second Anathemancer and hit him for four or five, plus an attack. Instead I played Broodmate Dragon, which merely drew Wrath of God. He had enough mana the subsequent turn to play both Wrath of God and Runed Halo on Anathemancer so I never got that damage in. As the Dragons never hit him, either, I have been wondering about the relative efficacies of both plays. Like I said, I didn’t feel like this was a clear error, and Ben won by enough margin that I can’t point at it like the Game One Treetop flub as a clear match loser.
Ultimately, the thing I am bitter about is not the Treetop Village screwup (okay, lies), but that the crowd really was looking for me to topdeck Karrthus when he tapped out for Broodmate Dragon, and I felt like Ben’s win really robbed the crowd of what they were looking for — nay — deserved. Ben won the next round and made Top 8, though I don’t know if he won or not.
4-1/9-4
Round Six: Fae
I played against Morgan, who I had successfully not bought Karrthus from for $8.
I felt like I made maybe 1.5 relevant errors in my previous match, but in the games against Morgan, I feel like I made about 20 errors in each of the two games I lost (sorry for ruining the suspense). You tell me.
Game One Morgan played Bitterblossom on the play, turn two. My first play was Treetop Village, and my second Fire-Lit Thicket. I looked at the Volcanic Fallout in my hand and said to myself “I need RR for this,” and — not thinking — Thawed up a Mountain! No! Morgan then showed me Scion of Oona on turn three to play his land untapped, and passed. So I have a Volcanic Fallout but I assume he is going to autopilot the Scion down at the end of my turn, so I do nothing when I should have played Gift of the Gargantuan. Not playing Gift of the Gargantuan this turn probably cost me the game. Why?
Morgan didn’t in fact play the Scion so I wasted my turn. He played it the next turn, and at this point I had a fourth land and ran out Cloudthresher for four as I had a bonus Thresher, Mannequin, and Fallout all in hand, as well as a dead Shriekmaw (Shriekmaw isn’t dead-dead, just not very good against Fae). So on my next turn I play the Gift I hadn’t played. Probably fearing another Cloudthresher, Morgan throws a Broken Ambitions at it. He wins the Clash.
Flipping over my only Swamp, which was the second card.
Okay. I don’t have a Swamp anymore. Meaning I can’t play Shriekmaw, or Mannequin, or the next Shriekmaw I pulled, or any of the Broodmate Dragons I might draw, unless I get my hands on a Savage Land.
Blah blah blah. Morgan’s draw isn’t even that good. He eventually kills me with a Mistbind Clique. This is horrendous because my highly card-advantageous deck was able to bleed him for his hand, and I actually lost with both Cloudthresher and Volcanic Fallout in hand! How badly did I have to play to be able to say that? But the real pisser is that I could have avoided all the drama by getting Swamp on turn two, which would have given me three shots to Mistbind Clique before I lost.
Game Two Morgan is manascrewed and I get him with a pair of Finks even though I am also manascrewed (degrees, etc.). Game Three I literally said “Just don’t topdeck a Cryptic Command,” when I passed with a double Dragons, Kitchen Finks, and Treetop Village all on board, Fallout and Banefire in hand… He chuckled and showed me the Cryptic Command on top; his alpha strike put me to -2.
And that’s game boys!
4-2/10-6
Round Seven: Bant
Okay, playing for pride (and packs) at this point 🙁
Game One I shipped to five, and got a playable if not-very-good hand of acceleration and a Broodmate Dragon. He went Rhox War Monk, Rafiq, Noble Hierarch, and that new-fangled Armadillo Cloak-Hammer thing. I gloriously double-blocked the War Monk, which of course just resulted in two dead Dragons. I conceded with him on 36 life and me on no cards.
Game Two he played Gaddock Teeg and Meddling Mage on Volcanic Eruption, which was not really good for my hand or plan. I just kept playing two-for-ones (Civic Wayfinder, Civic Wayfinder, Gift of the Gargantuan) and putting him in a spot where he couldn’t really attack me. Then I got to the expensive guys and won with a series of Alpha Strikes from the high ground.
Game Three it was his turn to go to five. He was screwed on Ancient Ziggaraut, which prevented him from being able to dig out of my massive advantage on the board with a Wrath of God. Basically he played a guy, I played a two-for-one, he played a bigger guy, I killed it with a two-for-one. I think I drew all three Hellions this game.
5-2/12-7
Round Eight Jund Cascade Ramp
Game One he was “winning” the whole game with his little Cascades with Bloodbraid Elf and getting damage in; I ramped a bit and played two Dragons; he played two Dragons. He attacked with both his Dragons and two Treetop Villages, tapping him to one. I dealt myself two during combat and blocked to one life thanks to Cloudthresher. The counterattack was for 15; Banefire took care of the remainder.
Game Two I thought it was kind of interesting we were playing a faux mirror and his main deck Anathemancer did a total of one damage in Game One whereas any Anathemancer I would draw would dop like super infinity. Anyway he played a Spellbreaker Behemoth, which I was pretty sure was going to kill me. I had to cut Shriekmaws because I didn’t think they would be very good, whereas I had to keep Kitchen Finks in my deck because he played Chameleon Colossus.
Lachmann later asked me how bad the hand was that I kept in order for me to have lost to a Spellbreaker Behemoth, but I kept a very mana-y hand with a Broodmate Dragon. Our mirror model is based on the game being decided in Game Three by complete domination of metrics (cards, board, bombs, possibly just Karrthus), so we usually dump all the Finks and just play the two-for-ones and things that cost six or more. So I had no answer to his simple Blastoderm. I ran out a couple of Dragons, but he just kept playing Bituminous Blast + evoke Shriekmaw or Bituminous Blast + Maelstrom Pulse. So Game Three.
Game Three… I don’t actually recall how I won this one. I think I got some Shriekmaw two-for-one on his Gruul-colored threats, I Banefired his Colossus, and had enough six mana threats to out-last his Bituminous Blasts &c. Unlike Game One this one wasn’t particularly close… I just don’t remember the details other than burning out a Chameleon. Sorry, long day 🙂
6-2/14-8
Honestly I feel like this version of Jund Mana Ramp might just be the best deck in Standard. I can track my first loss to a very clear error, and my second loss was just circus magic. “Circus” as in it was like I was driving a clown car I made so many mistakes. Story of my life, right? Just gotta play a little bit better and I’m Top 8; oh well, I didn’t. You have literally no blowout matchups, and you can beat any deck; in fact you are a clear favorite against numerous top tier decks such as Reflecting Pool Control and G/W Tokens, and basically any “creature” deck that is smaller than you are.
I know some readers don’t like Gift of the Gargantuan, but I feel like you need it to make plays relatively early and to lace the deck together; there are only 23 lands and you are very mana hungry.
One thing that I have been kind of bothered by is that if I had played Maelstrom Pulse instead of Gift of the Gargantuan I probably would have just gone 5-0 to start, eliminating any and all Runed Halos, which would have allowed me to easily win Game Three against Reflecting Pool Control. Also if the “Fog” deck picks up in popularity, Maelstrom Pulse is a great tool there, especially any turn they tap out. Given the nature of the threats in this deck (seven uncounterable burn spells, access to four Primal Commands in sideboarded games), I think that adding Maelstrom Pulse can put that matchup on borderline unwinnable for Fog. Just a thought.
Tee Shirt:
I have played three tournaments with the You’ve Got the Touch tee shirt now. I didn’t win any of them, but I haven’t so much as made an individual PTQ-level Top 8 in two years. However, I have finished in the prizes in every single tournament, despite playing Green each time, whereas before starting to wear this shirt, I had not finished in the packs since Regionals 2007. So… touch or no?
Courtesy of our friend Luis Neiman (aka Luis not Vargas aka @l_neiman)… Basically the worst thing that has ever happened to music, Optimus Prime, or… well… music.
At long last, another edition of You Make the Play!
This time it’s an easy one… Do you keep this hand or not? Why or why not?
This is a seven card hand. You lost the flip so there are 53 cards in your deck and you are playing second. The deck list is the one we have been bandying about the past week or two — Jund Mana Ramp.Â
PS Did you cats see that the great Luis Scott-Vargas (LSV) and long-lost RidiculousHat posted on Mis-assignment of Strategy = Options Amputation? Might want to check out the forums from the previous post!
I have gotten a flurry of questions about my opinion on Luis Scott-Vargas’s most recent article on ChannelFireball.com about mid-range decks and Jund Mana Ramp in particular. Luis is a player who for a long time came out of the tradition of The Rock. Even when he was not actually B/G on his colors, Luis played with Loxodon Hierarchs, hand destruction, incremental advantage in general.
Though Luis had a great deal of success with those strategies (US National Champion and all that), he did not enjoy the kind of colossal Pro Tour success that he is riding today until he changed from playing The Rock to combo decks. You will remember his Extended win was with a combo Elves deck; he has since played all manner of Swans, Storm, and so on with peerless results.
This is great for Luis! We have always liked him and wish him every fortune in the world.
The emails and Tweets, though, come from another angle. Luis says that mid-range is an intrinsically flawed strategy, and argues quite strenuously against the strategy that Will Price and I like the best today: Jund Mana Ramp.
To wit:
This is a classic example of the midrange non-blue control deck. It can’t compete with the Cryptic Commands and Cruel Ultimatums of 5-Color Control, and has to settle for running much worse stuff like Primal Command and Garruk Wildspeaker. You may consider this as a 5-CC deck that doesn’t lose to aggro Red, but in return for a better (and not necessarily even good) Red matchup you are so much worse against Faeries or Reveillark. I’m not even convinced that Jund Ramp (or any non-blue Ramp) even beats Token decks.
Well my reaction to this part — which is really the genesis as that is what readers have been asking about specifically — is that it must not apply to us. Let’s look again at our version of Jund Mana Ramp:
Jund Mana Ramp
3 Makeshift Mannequin
3 Shriekmaw
4 Broodmate Dragon
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Cloudthresher
4 Gift of the Gargantuan
4 Rampant Growth
4 Banefire
3 Volcanic Fallout
4 Fire-Lit Thicket
8 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Savage Land
1 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
I have for some time been a vocal opponent of the Garruk Wildspeaker version of Jund Mana Ramp as slow and clunky and overly vulnerable to Faeries. Heads up I am not convinced that Garruk does anything … Though it is obvious that the potential for a Violent Ultimatum fueled by the Fertile Ground + Garruk + seven drop draw that only occurs on daytime soap operas is quite the boogeyman. Before I get into details (and what today’s title means), I will address Luis’s paragraph on Jund Mana Ramp…
I would agree that this deck probably doesn’t want to get in a Cruel Ultimatum fight with Reflecting Pool Control. However that has not historically been a problem, and I anticipate it to be less of a problem this coming weekend. At New York States last year, I handily dispatched every Reflecting Pool + Cryptic Command deck I played in that tournament, albeit with the help of Mind Shatter + Gutteral Response (which was like the simpler, faster, Cruel Ultimatum). Point being, I respect the Ultimatum, but don’t anticipate the matchup as being a huge issue. In fact I would have been very happy to play Reflecting Pool Control all day at States; it was in fact the deck I tested against the most and I felt like I had a superb understanding of how to dominate.
For Regionals I am not sure how to consider the comparison. For one, I think that Reflecting Pool Control is a disaster. Not a disaster for Jund Mana Ramp… like it’s an unplayable time bomb waiting to blow up in the face of whoever has decided to play it. I don’t have Mind Shatter + Gutteral Response any more because I don’t plan to have to have those cards. If I did, I would commit the sideboard space. Instead I have a much improved main deck that can torch the opponent out at will and a sideboard that features the card that I believe should extinct the Reflecting Pool Control strategy: Anathemancer.
I already said I don’t like Garruk Wildspeaker… but I grandly disagree that Cryptic Command is in any way better than Primal Command. Remember I have included Primal Command as a four-of… but a sideboard four-of that only comes in when it is an appropriate tool. I have steadily increased the number of Primal Commands in my sideboard because I really want to draw them in these matchups where I want to draw them (beatdown decks, Sanity Grinding, and the mirror). When I played Blightning Beatdown, there was nothing I wanted to play against more than a deck with Cryptic Command, whether it was Reflecting Pool Control or Fae. In both cases I felt like I was a heavy favorite, and I got to play with Gutteral Response to force mana commitments while I still resolved my threats.
Perhaps in agreement with Luis, I actually don’t think Red Decks are that easy for at least my version of Jund Mana Ramp. I feel like I have a good chance, but I would much rather play Fae or Reflecting Pool Control or certainly G/W Tokens than a Red Deck. That is why I have Primal Command. I want to grind the Red Deck into the floor, and gaining seven life while loading up on Kitchen Finks and Broodmate Dragons is the most appropriate way to do that in this format. Against Sanity Grinding, a Primal Command is actual card advantage, trading for multiple spells the opponent has played, and hwen it resolves, demoralizing the Millstone strategy. And of course in the mirror Primal Command is arguably the single strongest card, setting the opponent back on a comes into play tapped land and putting Karrthus into my hand.
I don’t look forward to playing Reveillark, but I actually think Fae is a very easy matchup for this version of Jund Mana Ramp. I lost to Fae to miss Top 8 of States, but I think that that deck — and even more this deck — were and are heavy favorites against Faeries. In fact, I think that my version of Jund Mana Ramp is a nightmare for most Faeries players. I side into eight copies of Volcanic Fallout and Cloudthresher (seven starting) and I have very little dead weight (only Shriekmaw) and no obvious targets. The paths to losing are being manascrewed or the opponent drawing multiple uncontesed Mistbind Cliques. I respect the latter, though, and am considering playing a second Terror in the sideboard specifically to help deal with this draw.
But Tokens? In our testing B/W Tokens can be competitive but Jund is the favorite; I don’t think G/W Tokens has very much of a shot. Testing online (where admittedly G/W Tokens doesn’t have Dauntless Escort yet we have yet to drop a game. Will Dauntless Escort matter? Sure! It will have a non-zero impact but we don’t tend to rely on sweeping the opponent to win, more dominating with tempo plays until we can get the opponent to concede with Broodmate Dragons.
So we’ve already decided that Luis must have not been talking about us when he made his comment. After all, he invoked the name of Garruk Wildspeaker. But would he dislike our deck anyway? I think maybe not.
You see our version of Jund Mana Ramp isn’t a mid-range control deck. I think that that is the source of the misunderstanding. Jund Mana Ramp — ours anyway — is a Tinker deck (in the sense of “Finding the Tinker Deck”). This is a deck that is full of mana and bombs. It doesn’t really seek to interact with the opponent’s cards like most mid-range control decks so much as to dominate them. I don’t want to get a one-for-one on a Thoughtseize; I want you to commit four mana to your Wilt-Leaf Liege so that I can get a two-for-one on you with my Makeshift Mannequin. Once I hit turn five or six I am going to tap out for a card every turn, each copy being more dramatically powerful (not necessarily “better”) than any card in your deck.
That is not a “mid-range” strategy. That is a power strategy.
Is interesting because Luis’s passion in argumentation comes as someone who sees himself as having “recovered” from the plague of mid-range mediocrity. I would reiterate that I very much respect his opinion and recent accomplishments, but would argue that his stiff-backed model may ultimately lead down a path of inflexibility. Mid-range can be sub-optimal in some rooms (especially formats with good Extended options), but be the absolute best deck to play in other rooms. It might tend to be wrong, but removing mid-range from our palettes in its entirety teaches us essentially nothing. Magic is a game of options, and the players who preserve their options tend to be the most successful. Mid-range (even if the deck at hand is not necessarily mid-range) is just another tool to be used or left in the drawer. I see no reason to remove it entirely.
You probably know that Will Price (aka @sloppystack), Brian David-Marshall (aka BDM aka @Top8Games), and I did some playtesting with Jund Mana Ramp earlier this week. This post is going to be relatively detailed information on that testing, but you can get more information on what we have published so far by…
Listening to the most recent batch of Magic Podcasts at Top 8 Magic, or
Checking on the Jund Mana Ramp post I made there yesterday or thereabouts
To make a long story short, I tested out a couple of different decks, including the more Cascade-centric Ramp deck I talked about here last week, Borderpost Tezzerator, and good old Reflecting Pool Control; Will liked the Jund Mana Ramp deck we talked about during the BBQ Podcasts from two weeks ago best and convinced me to spend more time on that deck, particularly as we were having a hard time going Ultimate on Tezzeret due to the cheap damage sources available in Standard.
That deck originally had Bloodbraid Elf… but I cut it the night before live / live Twitter testing after I had flipped one of the two main deck Banefires.
“Never again.”
Banefire was like the best card in the deck!
Ultimately, this was the list I ran in testing:
Jund Mana Ramp
3 Makeshift Mannequin
3 Shriekmaw
4 Broodmate Dragon
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Cloudthresher
4 Gift of the Gargantuan
4 Rampant Growth
4 Banefire
3 Volcanic Fallout
4 Fire-Lit Thicket
8 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Savage Land
1 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
We didn’t test sideboards, but if I were to play Regionals tomorrow, 1) I would definitely play this deck, and 2) this is the sideboard I would play:
I decided to play Primal Command over any Mind Shatters. With eight Cloudthreshers and Volcanic Fallouts, you simply don’t need to max out on Mind Shatter and Gutteral Response to beat Faeries like you had to for the States-era version of Jund Mana Ramp. Anathemancer does the same duty against Reflecting Pool Control. Anathemancer is simply irresistible in a long game, especially in concert with Banefire, another tool we did not have at States. Moreover you kind of need two Swamps to run Mind Shatter (I tested tonight on MTGO with no new cards to confirm this)… and I don’t really want to play another Swamp.
The bigger shift was to remove most of the Terminates in favor of Caldera Hellion. The reasons are twofold. First of all, while it is pretty easy to play Shriekmaw or Banefire, and you usually have the mana for Broodmate Dragon… Terminate under pressure is another matter entirely at BR. I might cut them all and play a Lash Out, Terror, or even Murderous Redcap (RR being pretty easy to play thanks to Fire-Lit Thicket). You can’t play a filter land to get BR because Graven Cairns doesn’t filter Green mana. Caldera Hellion is pretty exciting, and should help give the deck a nice lift against G/W Tokens.
Anyway, back to real-life testing.
The first matchup was me on Jund Mana Ramp, Will on B/W Tokens. I am not 100% sure on the version, but I believe it was either a deck that Luis Scott-Vargas posted or the PTQ winner from the first week of the current Standard season. In either case, the deck was an evolution from “regular old” B/W tokens to incorporate Ajani Goldmane + Persist (Murderous Redcap and Kitchen Finks).
For reference:
3 Glorious Anthem
3 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Zealous Persecution
3 Caves of Koilos
3 Path to Exile
4 Fetid Heath
3 Cloudgoat Ranger
2 Marsh Flitter
3 Ajani Goldmane
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Bitterblossom
2 Mutavault
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Arcane Sanctum
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Spectral Procession
4 Reflecting Pool
Sideboard
2 Wrath of God
2 Identity Crisis
3 Mark of Asylum
2 Celestial Purge
3 Thoughtseize
3 Wispmare
Will and I traded the first four games, with the player going first winning each one. I felt like I could have won either of the games that I didn’t win in the first four, and Will felt like he definitely should have won the first game I won (it was a lethal Banefire off the top). I eventually broke serve on a game where Will had both lands and spells but where B/W as a non-Blue, non-Green, yet reasonably mana-intensive deck (WWW, BB, etc.) showed one of its vulnerabilities… Will hit his first four land drops but did not do anything to make me care. Meanwhile I kept a one-land six-card hand on the draw, but with a Rampant Growth and two Civic Wayfinders. These cards vastly improved my board position (especially with Will doing nothing) until I was dropping Dragons. I won the other two games on the play in the first seven, and we called the match at 5-2 in favor of Jund Mana Ramp.
Why did we call it at 5-2? This is something I got from playtesting with Zvi for Worlds last year. This was a matchup where both of us were enamored of one of the decks, and where the opposite deck did nothing to shake our interest. Since we didn’t really care about the performance of B/W as it was not dramatic, it was more efficient to move on.
The B/W matchup is a pure “Trish” matchup. Basically from Jund side you want to survive and get lots of two-for-ones. Your cards are so vastly superior to the B/W cards that they can’t possibly win outside of early Stage Two unless they lock you with Ajani. So the goal is just to trade. Eventually you will crush them with Cloudthreshers and Broodmate Dragons and Banefire for nine. So basically it is a default for Jund to win. The two games Will won were:
Thoughtseize-into-Tidehollow Sculler: He correctly ignored my early game acceleration and just took my bombs. So when I got to six lands, I had nothing to do.
Double Tidehollow Sculler: He slowed me down and got super duper Spectral Processions. My Broodmate Dragons were too small!
My favorite kill was probably when Will took my Cloudthresher with Tidehollow Sculler, I drew and passed against his Cloudgoat Ranger and Spectral Procession tokens. He attacked with all and I revealed that I had drawn another Cloudthresher, cleared the board, and followed up with a big Banefire. This was particularly super awesome as I also neutered Ajani
The next matchup was against B/G Elves, which was a Top 8 finisher in the first PTQ; according to Will and his partner in crime @zielend B/G Elves is also one of the top finishers in big MTGO events.
We tried to analyze why this might be (I mean other than my being super awesome); but I actually won one of the B/G games on a mulligan to four, and I shipped to Paris five times in the three games I played from Jund side! This is actually quite telling as I realized what was going on from playing both sides and consistently shipped not just to land and spells, but any Shriekmaw. Basically if you draw a Shriekmaw it is quite easy to beat B/G Elves from Jund side.
From B/G Elves side I elected to play B/G as a singular big threat deck rather than as a swarming deck. That is, I would attack with one Chameleon Colossus or Lord of Extinction rather than exposing myself to getting blown out by Volcanic Fallout.
At this point BDM sat down with us and helped play Jund from Will’s side. The main contribution he made was to torch any and every mana accelerator I played; with Brian’s help Will won the last three games 2-1. This led to a 5-4 lead for Jund Mana Ramp over nine games, with essentially no pattern based on who went first. However from playing both sides I think that Jund should be the heavy favorite.
Just look at the sideboards. Jund gets the fourth Shriekmaw and as much removal as it likes. It would be a complete blowout if Jund actually got ahold of more Terminates, but you can only do what you can.
Tonight I played several matches with Jund (albeit with no new cards in the sideboard) and finished my session at 4-1 or 5-1 with the only loss being to Faeries. I might have won actually. I kept a one-land six-card hand on the draw in Game One and conceded in frustration when my opponent hit Bitterblossom, Jace Beleren and I still hadn’t played my second land. It turns out I had multiple lands and a Volcanic Fallout on top (I obviously kept a hand full of acceleration and two-for-ones)… I actually think I could have gotten out of it. I took Game Two, and lost Game Three on a judgment call. Basically my opponent passed with three mana up and I had six mana on my turn with Cloudthresher and Broodmate Dragon in hand. I was annoyed at his double Vendilion Clique draw, which had robbed me of a ‘Thresher and Makeshift Mannequin and thought I could resolve my ‘Thresher main. He had not shown me Broken Ambitions in the first two games, so I decided if he had Remove Soul there was nothing I could do about it. Of course my original plan was to test-spell the ‘Thresher at the end of his turn and untap into the Broodmate, but like I said, I hadn’t seen Broken Ambitions.
He had Broken Ambitions.
The game took a bit longer, and I was one turn off of winning with Banefire, but he ended up having me to -2 as I failed to draw either a third Cloudthresher or a Volcanic Fallout to stall. All that said, I feel like Faeries has to be a winnable matchup with the package we plan to present.
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.”
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!
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.
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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
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.
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…
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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!
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>Â Yes. It suits you.
<Xander>Â Thanks you look good too
<Dracula>Â Oh, you’re just saying that because I complimented you.
<Xander> No — I’m not! I promise.
<Dracula>Â I can’t see myself in mirrors. I fear my best days are behind me.
<Xander>Â 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.
…
Â
…
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.
(re-read… Man I love Rucka’s spy stuff)
(obviously a re-read), 
(actually I just lent it to 
  
 
.