This week on TCGPlayer I presented Seven Traits of The Best Deck. If you haven’t read it, you should. I know I have a tendency to toot my own horn at times, but I quite liked this one: Seven Traits of The Best Deck
Per usual (for me lately… apparently I am getting old), I have more and more to say about even the topics that spawn 3,000+ word full-length articles.
Luckily I have a highly trafficked and much-beloved blog with which I can expand and expound (as opposed to my not-yet-highly-trafficked, if even more beloved blog http://FloresRewards.com).
Today I am going to talk a bit [more] about point 3, “They Get the Most Out of Their Mana”.
One thing to remember when working on a mana base is that lands are a double-edged sword. Yes, you ultimately want consistent lands that come into play untapped and produce the colors you need to, you know, help you present that unbeatable opening hand. But in addition, lands can be a very low-cost source of additional value, particularly in one-color decks.
Back at the end of the 1990s, at the World Championships, seemingly all the successful decks were one color. Why? They let us play Wasteland. And the next year, they let us play Rishadan Port! All these lands are good examples of:
How one-color decks could be successful by playing such “colorless” lands (you could add a tool to manascrew your opponent without overly disrupting your own mana base), and
Why one-color decks did so much better than multicolor decks (the multicolored decks were getting their splashes, off-colors, and even first big plays pre-empted and screwed by the damn Wastelands and Rishadan Ports!)
I am a big believer in maximizing the consistency of the mana base in terms of performing what I want, when I want… With “when I want” defined as “immediately.” To with, when Kamigawa Block was legal, like all my decks that were two or more colors played four copies of Tendo Ice Bridge. If you needed a color — any color — and you needed it now, there was no better land than Tendo Ice Bridge (especially since so many of my teams were built with four copies of Meloku the Clouded Mirror).
Here are some then-and-now examples of how some of the best decks (though in these cases, the second best decks, both times) made subtle changes to existing mana bases to gain value:
That sideboard of course had elements of one of the best sideboards of all time, but was not the true work of poetry that Josh used to eventually battle to the Top 8 of US Nationals.
I am just going to pause for a second to think about how great Josh’s sideboard was. It was clearly one of the best sidebaords I ever built, but more than that, was probably one of the best sideboards of all time.
I mean we were able to fit both a full transformation and a solid repositioning in those fifteen cards!
For purposes of this blog post, the etra value came from just running Tendo Ice Bridge. In a de facto one color deck, Tendo Ice Bridge was free. It came into play untapped, it tapped for Red if you needed it to… But along with the one Swamp (and eight artifact searchers), Tendo Ice Bridge allowed Kuroda-style Red to flatten Tooth and Nail with Cranial Extraction.
For those of you who want me to use more recent deck lists, here is one from just last weekend.
The one thing I was really impressed with talking to Tim at the $5K was his use of two Mystifying Mazes. Some mono-Green players didn’t use it at all!
Tim talked about how it was good quite often and they added a second copy because it was so low cost (there is that “one color deck” bonus again)… He recounted that even with his Eye of Ugin stripped, he was able to win a race with a single Primeval Titan purely because he played two copies of the mighty Eye.
Tim’s mana in general was extremely impressive, though. One thing that struck me was his play of Growth Spasm, cutting darling Cultivate (he said he might cut them all if he had it over again). Growth Spasm gets you to a faster Primeval Titan than Cultivate, and he focused getting the most out of his mana on getting the most powerful card, most quickly.
Like I said, impressive.
You’ve probably already seen this, but here is a video that I (with BDM) did with Tim a couple of days ago. If you haven’t already seen it, it was at least nominally done for Top Decks, but I have to have all these ducks lined up ahead of time in order to submit them to the mother ship. Enjoy!
Joraga Treespeaker :: Scars of Mirrodin :: Not Testing
Really, Not Testing :: Not Testing at All With, You Know, Scars of Mirrodin :: … and Joraga Treespeaker
I came up with a pretty spectacular strategy for Scars of Mirrodin Standard.
And by “I” I mean Brian David-Marshall came up with it. Well, he came up with a card idea and I ran with it. “The Champ” Andre Coimbra started brainstorming with us, but elements all conspired to my deciding to abandon it for this weekend’s TCGPlayer 5K in New York.
First of all, none of the lists I came up with had the right number of “4” … Lots of “2” … Which means garbage. With no metagame to test and no very good frame of reference with, you know, no metagame so far… I… Did I mention “garbage” yet?
Second of all, Andre pointed out to me that the reason Naya Lightsaber was the best was that all the cards were awesome and even though they worked well together, none of them were over-reliant on any others. He pointed out that even if I (and by “I” I mean BDM) were right about the new format, we were highly reliant on a card that was at this point completely unproven.
So I decided to counter-brew.
And by counter-brew I don’t mean Counterspell but rather turning back the clock. I basically cribbed two or three different Zvi Mowshowitz lists and came up with this:
The shell is a 16-accelerator mold in the vein of Zvi’s Amsterdam deck.
There are lots of different cards you can use for the last four accelerators… In Amsterdam the Team Mythic-2 crew played Nest Invader. However that version played Windbrisk Heights, so the extra weenie was worth it to help set off the powerful Hideaway land. In Standard Joraga Treespeaker just helps hook up the fastest ramp deck in the room. You probably know from Conrad Kolos’s US Nationals tournament reports that Joraga Treespeaker was his way of breaking serve in the mirror… The accelerators in this deck are twice as fast as those in a mono-Green Eldrazi Ramp deck, so you can go off slightly faster, even if the deck in total is less powerful than the Eldrazi Ramp end game.
Tom Martell asked me why I would rather play a Baneslayer Angel than Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre… In addition to being slightly faster than a more common Ramp deck, I think this deck has a better chance against RDW. As you can see, half my sideboard is devoted to the devotees of Goblin Guide.
I was inspired by how good I found Joshua Utter-Leyton’s no-Fauna Shaman deck, the best of the pre-Scars of Mirrodin Standard decks. The notion of playing full-on Bant without Knight of the Reliquary was frightening. So it was U/G or G/W.
G/W tested a lot better.
I don’t want to Jinx myself but I tested tonight and won five straight matchups. All my opponent’s decks were jazzed with Bloodbraid Elf or full-on Howling Mine + Temple Bell + Font of Mythos combo kills… I even beat the Red Deck 2-0! Just, you know, didn’t die 🙂
So this is basically terrible testing; and probably all the testing I am going to do for this tournament. I am super busy writing this week (I don’t even know how I pulled back the time to write this blog post to be honest), and as you know, except in rare events when I am hanging out / preparing with my IRL friends, the days off all-Sunday playtesting-while-babysitting for the Apprentice Program largely evaporated with the coming of Clark. So 99% of my playtesting these days comes on Magic Online… And as awful as the testing for this one was, I feel like the entire Alara Block + M10 has to be more powerful than just Scars of Mirrodin.
I think the deck must be pretty self-explanatory, but I will talk about one other card you may not have anticipated: Rampaging Baloths.
I feel like this guy is a monster, and I chose to play it over Sun Titan. Sun Titan is okay, but nothing spectacular in this deck, unless you are looping Tectonic Edges. That just isn’t consistent enough in my estimation.
That’s it!
If anyone has any comments on the mana base in particular, you know where the comments go.
Firestarter: What should I cut, if anything, for Bojuka Bog?
Ratchet Bomb :: Powder Keg :: Tweets & Other Correspondence RE: Ratchet Bomb
“Decisions” :: Louis CK :: … and did I mention “Ratchet Bomb”?
The Girl in Question*:
Ratchet Bomb
I wanted to blog about Ratchet Bomb about a week ago, right after I wrote my then-preview article for the mother ship. As usual there were things I wanted to talk about, but particularly given the unprecedented tons of redundant communications I received from forum posts, personal emails, and Tweets around this card.
Most people were like “Wow, is that even better than Powder Keg,” but that’s not the group I wanted to talk about. Before I get 100% into them, I am reminded of a bit by popular comedian Louis CK. You can watch a clip of him and Conan O’Brien here:
The part I wanted to talk about starts almost precisely at 2:00.
“I was on an airplane and there was Internet — high speed Internet — on the airplane. That’s the newest thing that I know exists. And I’m sitting on the plane and they say open up your laptops and you can go on the Internet.
“And it’s fast, and I”m watching YouTube… but I’m on an airplane.
“And then it breaks down and they apologize the Internet’s not working… and the guy next to me goes ‘This is bullshit!’
“Like how quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago!
It’s far more hilarious listening to Louis tell the story than if you read it… But that’s how I feel about many players’ reactions to Ratchet Bomb.
I am not going to call any particular respondent out; just point out a common sentiment, which is basically:
You failed to mention that Ratchet Bomb really isn’t better than Powder Keg because you have to tap it. For example if my opponent has both one- and two- casting cost threats and I already have a counter on it and I want to put a second counter on it but he has a Disenchant; frowny-face.
Really?
Are you serious with this collective Internets?
How about if the opponent has both one- and two- casting cost threats and you have already figured out that it is possible that the card may be vulnerable to cards like Nature’s Claim or whatever you think about that before putting a second counter on it?
How about, in the words of my colleagues over at Yo MTG Taps you “Stop bitchin’ and start brewin'”?
Let me tell you a little something about decisions.
Decisions shape destiny.
Once upon a time you made a decision, and that decision put you in the position you are today. For example, I decided that it would be more fun to stick around in New York after my summer internship was over instead of going back to the scholarship I had waiting for me at law school, and that decision snowballed over the course of the next eleven years into my becoming a domain expert in arbitrage advertising, marrying the woman of my — and let’s face it, “everyone’s” — dreams, and producing two particular children that could only have been produced by the quirky combination of my DNA and hers. I think I have a pretty great life, and it was the result of that decision more than ten years ago.
Which doesn’t mean that I couldn’t have had a different pretty great life if I had made the opposite one; just that I wouldn’t have remotely the relationships and career that I have now, if I had made the other.
Another example could be a decision I made fourteen years ago.
I was playtesting with DJ Chagnon and the now-famous Charles “Tuna” Hwa, and found myself in a position where I had thrown together a deck — purely for playtesting — that not only thrashed the deck DJ and Charles were planning to play, but the deck I was planning to play.
At the time I had zero pro Magic experience and was one of those players who might say something like “Well, I’m a control player” or “I like Blue decks” or some other such garbage that you hear over at the 0-3 table at every FNM in every city in the world.
I made a decision based on data and statistics — even if I couldn’t express them, or it at that point — that changed the course of my life forever. I threw in with the opposite camp and played a Necropotence deck; fine, it was a unique-ishNecropotence deck of my own devising, but it was a deck with all kinds of two- and three-mana threats instead of slow-ass Helm of Obedience ** offense and Circle of Protection: Green (or whatever awful color) defense… and that decision changed my life, too. I cut myself off from the misguided, limiting bullspit that I had been feeding myself for the past two or three years, and — wonder of wonders — found myself on the Pro Tour for the first time, 24 hours later.
I made a decision, and it changed my life in a truly magical way.
Who knows how the course of my life — or the lives of literally hundreds of thousands of Magic players — would have changed if I had not cut myself off from the limiting tethers of Force of Will and Arcane Denial rather than the mighty two-card combination of Dark Ritual and Thawing Glaciers? If I had never won that first PTQ, who is to say I would have ever so much as had the interest to win the second one I won that year, or kept playing competitive Magic? What if I never wrote Who’s the Beatdown because, like so many of my mid-1990s playtest partners, I simply quit?
altran and I were the only ones in the group — though all of us played 50 hours a week back then — who actually made it to the Pro Tour in that decade… and altran eventually gave up spell slinging. Who is to say I would have been able to Cultivate The Fire had I not had the tremendous positive reinforcement that came with winning my third-ever PTQ, and followed that up with multiple Top 8s and another PTQ win in the next six months?
I am not saying the lives of some six million Magic players would have been worlds different if I had never written Who’s the Beatdown, but I am awfully sure that my life would have been cut a completely different direction.
So what is all this talk of “cutting off”?
The word “decide” comes  from the Latin for “to cut off”. When you decide, you settle your mind and cut away all other possibilities.
A lot of you guys remember the story of how Steve O’Mahoney-Schwartz beat Dave Humpherys in the last round of US Nationals 2000. I was so amazed at how well Steve played the first three turns of the game… A sequence that was so similar — yet so much better — than the way that most players would have approached a game that they too would have won (just not as efficiently).
Jonny later told me that if I kept hanging out with him and Steve, I would no longer be able to see any other play.
What does this have to do with the guys wrinkling their noses at the fact that their poor Ratchet Bombs might fall victim to a Shatter in-between tapping and proposed, you know, different tapping?
Let’s spin this back to the years ago discussion of Cabal Therapy v. Duress in Extended. Most Reanimator decks played four copies of Cabal Therapy and three copies of Duress. Weak players would play the reverse, in theory because they weren’t good enough to hit with Cabal Therapy as consistently.
Let’s put aside for a moment that you can’t first-turn Duress a Rorix Bladewing out of your own hand so that you can follow up with a Chrome Mox + Reanimate. The fact that you can’t necessarily “hit” [the opponent] with Cabal Therapy versus Duress ***. The tension Cabal Therapy was better than Duress wasn’t between hit or not (or at least not primarily between hit or not), it was between being able to hit the card that is going to beat you… Whether or not that is actually the card in the other guy’s hand.
This is the same tension that the guys complaining about getting their shiny new Powder Kegs blown up in between days just aren’t getting. Who cares if you can hit some irrelevant Serra Attendant if the problem is the 12/12 Ajani’s Pridemate? I mean it’s nice to be able to kill some extra card if the opponent is already going to point a card at your card… But who gives a flying fudge if that’s not the card that is going to kill you?
Yes – It is a non-zero consideration to notice that Ratchet Bomb has a slightly different vulnerability than Powder Keg.
No – That has absolutely no bearing on how good Ratchet Bomb is.
If you decide that jumping your counters is what you have to do, strategically, the fact that you are “subject” to a different one-for-one might have some effect on an individual game (and then again, might not), but has almost no bearing on how good the card is.
* First person to correctly identify the reference made by this four word sequence can topdeck five #FloresRewards.
** True story: In the summer of 1996 I attempted to corner the Ohio market on Helm of Obedience under the theory that if I owned all of them, no one could use them to beat my stupid Blue-based creatureless decks.
*** True or false – I have won a PTQ game where I missed both Duress and Cabal Therapy in the same turn.
Venser, the Soujourner :: Being Wrong :: Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
“Permanents” ::Â Getting Corrected :: … and Venser, the Soujourner
Prequel:
I don’t know how long you have been reading / listening to / watching my stuff.
But the first time I ever did a Podcast for Top 8 Magic was around the time of New York States 2005, the one Julian Levin won, where we put three copies of Jushi Blue and one Critical Mass into the Top 8. In a complete Flores-coup of the metagame, we only lost to each other.
That said, I can still hear Brian David-Marshall’s whispering voice on the very first Podcast, describing my trials in the semifinals against Eric Marro. Eric was playing Gifts Ungiven, and my Jushi Blue deck dispatched him 2-1 in the Swiss, losing the first. I drew a ton of Threads of Disloyalty in the first game, but was much more efficient with all threats and Counterspells in the sideboarded ones.
But Eric was well and truly grinding me out in the Top 8 match. Again our match took forever, with him winning the first one. I was coming off a win over Mark Schmit, a 74-card mirror match that took over two hours (and I again lost the first). I beat Eric, but it took forever. Turns out that I would have won both matches much more easily if I had just read my damn cards.
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
You see, Minamo, School at Water’s Edge untaps legendary permanents. Mostly because I had only ever untapped legendary creatures in testing (due to my blatant ignorance, obviously) I didn’t realize that I could have blown out both of my opponents by untapping particular lands. Obviously I couldn’t ask for better overall results, but I could have won in less time, with much less grating mental trauma… and of course without reinforcing the old Jon Finkel claim that I make, on average, a mistake per turn.
So it might not surprise you to hear that I made the same mistake when initially looking at new Planeswalker, Venser, the Sojourner:
Venser, the Soujourner is a card that — if you are at all interested in card previews — you have probably already seen. Because you are probably brighter than I am, you probably weren’t scratching your head at what all the fuss was about.
You see — just like my Misstep with Minamo, School at Water’s Edge all those years ago — I didn’t realize that Venser is synergistic with any permanents, not just creatures. It is kind of funny to think back on what was going through my head…
What a creature-centric Planeswalker! Sure, the [-1] ability doesn’t do anything without creatures in play, but you can’t even power him up at all without creatures in play!
(That seemed terrifyingly limiting to me, of course… A Planeswalker that couldn’t always power up? What was this, the anti-Elspeth, Knight-Errant?)
But of course that limitation is not the case. While Venser’s [-1] ability is not so anything without creatures in play, at least you can get him up to 5 loyalty without having creatures in play 🙂
So what are some cool non-creatures you can Momentary Blink with Venser?
Kabira Crossroads (or Sejiri Refuge if that is how you roll) – Power up Venser, make some life points. They aren’t #FloresRewards or anything, but they are still valuable sometimes.
Oblivion Ring – Upgrade your Oblivion Ring by taking out a more pertinent permanent. Or, if your opponent plays a replacement Legend / Planeswalker, you can Momentary Blink the Oblivion Ring and get a 3-for-1 or whatever.
Some kind of 187 – Venser + Manic Vandal might be an absolute disaster given the number of artifacts we anticipate given the return to a plane made entirely of metal. For that matter, an extra Contagion Clasp every turn might not be the worst.
Your guy, under their Mind Control. Venser’s [+2] lets you target permanents you own. So if someone steals something of yours, you can get it back for free!
A lot of Planeswalkers these days are giving us opportunities to take out other Planeswalkers. The [-1] ability lets you attack other Planeswalkers; additionally, it can help you set up poison counters, proliferate, &c.
And finally, there is the Ultimte:
[-8]: You get an emblem with “Whenever you cast a spell, exile target permanent.”
Hella-wow.
This isn’t some kind of panty waisted  Admonition Angel. If Venser Snags your permanent (there’s that word again), it ain’t coming back.
Aesthetics:
The biggest issue I see is that Venser is a five mana Planeswalker. Everything I have written about Koth of the Hammer emphasizes that part of the shift that new Planeswalker represents is the step from five mana (Chandra Nalaar… not heavily played) to four mana (where all the awesome Planeswalkers are costed). For the rest of what I think about this section, jump up some paragraphs.
Where Can I See This Fitting In?
Now that I no longer think that Venser is stuck in a mono-creatures strategy, I can see it played in a variety of decks. U/W Control (or some multicolored variation), or an update to U/R/W Planeswalkers or thereabouts. The issue is that Venser is a five. Last year’s Planeswalker deck was very fours-heavy (Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth, Knight-Errant), and just peppered with two or so copies of Gideon Jura.
Elspeth Tirel is the much stronger Planeswalker at five, and as we saw in the previous preview, she is probably going to demand four slots (also, it’s not like Elspeth “plays well” with other Planeswalkers). So there are potential curve issues around playing both Venser and Elspeth. They aren’t catastrophic (like “this will never happen”), but I am already raising an eyebrow at the idea.
But regardless of where you won’t be playing Venser, it is probably more interesting to talk about what you will be playing next to it. I think I would certainly run lots of Preordain, maybe some other cantrips (though I don’t know if Spreading Seas is still going to be the strongest Blue card in Standard with the impending disappearance of Savage Lands)… Once you are in Ultimate mode, it will be very exciting to play lots and lots of cheap card drawing to take complete control of the battlefield.
Koth of the Hammer :: Jace, the Mind Sculptor :: Mana Acceleration
Banned Cards :: Speculation :: … and Koth of the Hammer
Koth of the Hammer
This morning I considered speculating on Koth of the Hammer.
I figured maybe buy all of the copies I could around $20. I figured Koth of the Hammer would more than double in value, in much the same vein as Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
You see, it is my current belief that Koth of the Hammer is the most powerful Planeswalker we have seen.
It is kind of a shame. I was not thinking big enough when I wrote the Koth of the Hammer preview for the mother ship. The biggest thing I could think of at the time was jumping an Inferno Titan into play with Koth’s [-2] ability. Have you got any idea how powerful this card is?
If you play a fifth land on the fifth turn, with Koth in play on the fourth, you have literally 10 mana available! How about this one?
You blow up the world, including basically all of the opponent’s mana and any stray animals, you still have arguably the most powerful Planeswalker in play… and then you play a land.
Koth is so crazy powerful it blows my mind. I liked Jace, the Mind Sculptor from the get-go but Koth seems a few millimeters from too good. You see a card like Jace might go in many different decks, but that doesn’t make it the most powerful Planeswalker. Going in lots of different decks has nothing to do with who is the most powerful. Look at the average banned list entry…
… Which one goes in lots of different decks, again? Cards are banned because they are too good. Being too good usually means providing too much mana in value relative to how much it actually costs. You know, like giving a return of 10+ mana for an investment of only four (not to mention getting additional value out of a card).
Here is something BDM pointed out to me while we were podcasting tonight…
What happens when Jace and Koth fight? All other things held equal, doesn’t Koth just kill Jace? … And then make a bajillion mana and crush you with some super awesome jimmy jazz? Mountain to the jaw? Hi-yah?
yes, Yes, and YES again.
Okay then… What’s the damage? Why am I afraid of Koth of the Hammer? At the beginning of this article, wasn’t I talking about wanting to speculate on him?
Sure, speculation might be a bit dicey with Koth already at a pre-order price of $50 at many stores. That’s not the only problem (he could easily see Primeval Titan or Jace, the Mind Sculptor prices).
… I’m afraid he might get banned.
I own a binder full of Time Spirals, no lies. Well maybe not a whole binder, but you get the picture.
Carapace Forger :: Putrid Leech :: Nest Invader
Metalcraft :: Random Artifacts :: … and Carapace Forger
Here is a Scars of Mirrodin common, Carapace Forger:
Carapace Forger
Aesthetics:
I saw this card in a Metalcraft preview over on the mother ship. I actually thought that it was more interesting than it might superficially look. I mean compare it to a card like Nest Invader. They are both just some Balduvian Bears with some extra text. Neither one is a Wild Mongrel, right? Nest Invader makes a kind of pseudo-irrelevant 0/1 tagalong and Carapace Forger has a potential bonus.
… Point is that the potential bonus on Carapace Forger seems kinds of jeepers creepers to me… maybe.
I mean compare Carapace Forger to Putrid Leech. Putrid Leech is a monster. Everyone who has tried to play a control deck in the last 12 months knows that Putrid Leech is the single most important card to consider when testing Standard. Putrid Leech is the limiting factor. If you don’t have the Terminate, they do like 12 before you can deal with even one Putrid Leech; I wouldn’t be surprised if the little Golgari two-drop has decided more duels Jund v. Control than either Blightning or Bloodbraid Elf.
Putrid Leech just came out on turn two and started hammering for four starting turn three. It was not easy to deal with and it out-classed everything in its weight class. It is kind of silly thinking about Knight of the White Orchid as a battlefield presence when it is stuck battling Putrid Leech. Just the threat of being able to go 4/4 made Putrid Leech dangerous, even when it wasn’t necessarily jumping the curve on turn three.
So the question is, will Carapace Forger ever be in the Putrid Leech class?
The fact is, if we can get Carapace Forger a couple of buddies (I dunno, whatever makes Phylactery Lich playable), then it is possible that it can be Tarmogoyf-class. Really!
Where can I see this fitting in?
There are three kinds of decks where you can play Carapace Forger (as far as I can tell at this point, having relatively little more information RE: Scars of Mirrodin than you do):
Any old deck
Any deck with random  potential value
A true Metalcraft strategy
In theory you can play Carapace Forger in “any old deck” … It would be potentially better than a Runeclaw Bear but probably not a lot better. That said, one of my old playtest partners once made is out of the Swiss rounds at a Northeast Regional Championships (or perhaps it was Mid-Atlantic?) with five vanilla two-drop Bears in his deck. This would be the kind of deck that I can imagine — and therefore assign a minimum of “Role Player” to a card — but later make fun of on the Top 8 Magic podcast when someone actually plays it.
We start to get more value out of Carapace Forger in a deck with random artifacts. In a deck that has a certain amount of equipment (there is probably playable equipment in Scars of Mirrodin; we haven’t suddenly stopped seeing potential value out of Basilisk Collar), Relic of Progenitus, or artifact mana… Carapace forger starts to approach the Putrid Leech level. In general Carapace Forger is not going to be as good as Putrid Leech here because Putrid Leech can basically always jump to 4/4 whereas Carapace Forger only gets to 4/4 with a good amount of help. It is probably worth pointing out that cards like Dragon Claw out of the sideboard will be highly valuable in this potential strategy.
Obviously the card with the word “Metalcraft” printed in italics in the top-left of the text box is probably going to see its best days with lots of other Metalcraft cards. If the idea is to play lots of artifacts in order to build up the value of having lots of artifacts in play, we are going to see the highest incidence of the 4/4 Carapace Forger, and at maximum speed.
It probably goes without saying that if there is a Legacy Affinity deck, Metalcraft cards may be very effective alongside Seat of the Synod and other essentially no-cost opportunities to get artifacts in play.
Superficial “duh” comment – This is a five mana Planeswalker rather than a four mana one (or three, as in the case of Jace Beleren). Obviously Jace is Jace, but for the most part, the most popular Planeswalkers have been the four mana ones (Ajani Goldmane; Ajani Vengeant; Elspeth, Knight-Errant; and Jace, the Mind Sculptor). That is because in the context of competitive Magic: The Gathering, a jump to five mana is basically a jump from four-to-eight, rather than the superficial / obvious / untrained four-to-five. That is the thing holding back Planeswalkers like Liliana Vess or Gideon Jura. Remember when we reviewed Gideon Jura when he was new? We said Baneslayer Angel was the better 3WW… And really, even with the success of the U/R/W Planeswalker deck during the first part of the summer, Baneslayer Angel has had the more impressive continued performance.
The next interesting thing to talk about RE: Elspeth Tirel is the ordering of her abilities. Elspeth starts on four, jumps on a life gain ability that is only really useful when you have creatures on the battlefield, and drops two loyalty by building creatures. In theory you can profitably jump her to six on turn five if you already have creatures in play. Creatures — as in “multiple” — … though you can presumably put her to six loyalty at no value (or very little value and an outlook of chump blocking the following turn).I think the more common strategy (at least depending on matchup… It will be less attractive against decks with Lightning Bolt, for instance) will be to take her down to two loyalty, then build her back up to four mana with an increase in life commensurate with how many animals you’ve got in play (and presumably boosted by her Scatter the Seeds-esque [-2] ability).
What is actually super cool about Elspeth Tirel is her “ultimate” ability. It is not only awesome, but mono-awesome. You can jump Elspeth to six loyalty on turn five (with or without profit) then use her as an improved Nevinyrral’s Disk on turn six. Elspeth will drop down to one loyalty, but unlike the other Planeswalkers that may have been in play — yes, Elspeth Tirel is a Planeswalker-slayer among other gas), she will stick around. In addition, in a protracted game where you are using her tokens production ability, those cats (and by “cats” I mean “Soldiers”) stick around when even mighty monsters all hop into the graveyard.
… Which brings us to her super synergy in multiples! This is kind of the coolest thing, but it takes a second before you can get there.Josh Ravitz used to tell me that people didn’t know how to play Cloudgoat Ranger, and would give all kinds of examples of how they were under-impressive with Cloudgoat Ranger when they could have been slamming for additional damage had they been a little more precise in their play, given multiple copies. Elspeth Tirel has a similar, subtle, clause.Imagine you have a turn five Elspeth Tirel. You immediately go from four loyalty to two loyalty to deploy three Soldier tokens.
You block, whatever (or maybe you don’t have to, I don’t know what the battlefield looks like). You use Elspeth Tirel‘s [-2] a second time and now you have six or however many Soldiers up in that.
Now you run out your second copy of Elspeth Tirel! The first one went bye-bye because you took her from four to two to nil with two activations. Your second Elspeth Tirel, piggybacking the token production of the first one makes six life, jumps to six loyalty, and is surrounded by barns.
Now on turn seven, you can blow up the world leaving not only Elspeth Tirel as the only significant miser on the battlefield, but however many Soldier tokens as well! Talk about teamwork!
What should seem obvious is that if Elspeth Tirel is good enough, she might be good enough as a four-of at the five — something very unusual for five mana Planeswalkers to date — simply because she actually rocks in multiples.
Where can I see this fitting in?
Elspeth Tirel can act as a solo Swiss Army Knife-style threat, similar to Elspeth, Knight-Errant. She does everything… Protects herself (or other Planeswalkers) not unlike Gideon Jura, produces ways to win while generating value, and manages the battlefield a la Akroma’s Vengeance.
In effect, Elspeth Tirel can be the only threat in your deck if you so wish (her [-5] ability actually Annihilates the bejeezus out of defensive permanents like Circle of Protection: White (or whatever theoretically problematic proxy you will lay there).
Or, she can team up with cards like Conqueror’s Pledge for more immediate value on her [+2]. In effect, she can be good in any kind of deck that can afford to cast her. I would not expect Elspeth Tirel to find mass adoption in White Weenie type decks (as Elspeth, Knight-Errant did), but I also wouldn’t be too surprised to see her in creature decks. After all, the previous Elspeth was an “obviously offensive” type Planeswalker, but was successful in every strategy from Mythic (mono-creatures) to U/W Control (mono-defensive). Even combo decks used Elspeth, Knight-Errant; for example Polymorph variants that used her as a non-creature card source of Polymorph fodder.
For once, answering this actually requires more than two words. Elspeth Tirel is kind of like a Wild Mongrel. In some decks she will act as a centerpiece, a four-of finisher; in other decks she will be a high level role player, acting as a sweeper that has other potential applications (sort of both the Icy Manipulator and Wrath of God in Mike Donais’s Swords to Plowshares-less Canadian National Championship deck). It is probably not difficult to imagine decks that can’t beat Elspeth (kind of like decks that can’t beat Gideon Jura, but worse). You can milk and milk with the tokens and life gain; fire off the Nevinyrral’s Disk if and only if you are actually falling behind, but otherwise make the other guy’s life miserable.
And of course, her [-5] craps all over other Planeswalkers, making Elspeth potentially invaluable in the post-Bloodbraid Elf world.
You might not know this about me, but I keep fastidious records on my MTGO tournament play statistics.
That is how I know what decks are good!
So after coming back from US Nationals last week, I was very excited to try out some of the breakout decks from that tournament.
Specifically, I looked at three decks:
Mono-G Ramp, a la new TCGPlayer columnist Conrad Kolos
Soul Sisters – in particular because teen heartthrob Gavin Verhey clued me in on the mirror match sideboarding tech
Mythic Conscription because Utter-Leyton’s deck looked so sick I had to take a personal day at the mere prospect of playing it.
Overall, the most impressive deck of the three was Mythic Conscription. I will detail the other two (less exciting) decks [or my experiences with them, anyway] in blog posts later in the week (probably), but for now I wanted to talk about Utter-Leyton’s Conscription deck.
I wrote a lot of my ideas about this deck in last week’s edition of Top Decks. Those didn’t really change based on my playing the deck. In fact my respect for the version just increased.
Overall I was enchanted my the success of such a no-frills deck. I had been mesmerized by all these Fauna Shamans and Squadron Hawk engines and only one copy of Eldrazi Conscription, loading up on Primeval Titans, and so on. But Utter-Leyton’s deck bucked recent trends, uncompromising in its refusal to, you know, compromise. Great deck, and worthy of the very deserving champion.
The card a lot of people have pointed out in this deck is Explore.
I didn’t really know what to make of it. Yes, there were times when I had a Lotus Cobra followed by a third turn Explore and things went absolutely bananas… But when I was reaching for sideboard slots, this was also always the first card I considered cutting (and to be honest, I won an awful lot of matches with one Explore in my deck!) Sorry, ffej 🙁
Match rundown:
Soul Sisters – Won flip, lost match; -9 points
R/G Valakut – Won flip, won match; +10 points
White Weene (regular, not Soul Sisters) – Won flip, won match +7 points
B/G Ramp – Lost flip, won match; +9 points
B/G Ramp (same deck) – Lost flip, won match; +8 points
Mono-Green Valakut Ramp – Won match; +6 points
Mythic Conscription – Won match; +7 points
Overall, 6-1; +38 points
I try to keep track of whether or not I win the flip but I only remember about 2/3 of the time; I don’t know if it is useful to keep track of this if you don’t remember 100% of the time. As you can see over the first seven matches I played with Utter-Leyton’s Mythic Conscription deck I only remembered to record this 5/7 times.
Regardless, the performance was pretty wicked — 6-1 — and the points more than made up for my performance with Soul Sisters, Mono-Green Ramp, et and cetera.
At this point Utter-Leyton’s Mythic Conscription is my best win percentage of any deck over the 166 lines of my spreadsheet for the current Standard format! Huzzah!
A few months ago I wrote about the so-called Danger of Eldazi Conscription. Some paps on Twitter pointed out that the approach I suggested in this blog post might not be optimal for fighting Mythic Conscription decks. For example, given all the Lotus Cobra mana-making gas in a Mythic Conscription deck, it is possible that the opponent might just play an Eldrazi Conscription that he draws.
But when you do get the Conscription combo… it is, as they said back in the 1990s, some good.
I don’t remember how I lost the Soul Sisters matchup… As a Soul Sisters player in different points in the post-Nationals testing process, I did a fair amount of losing to decks with Forest / Noble Hierarch.
Most of the other matchups I won with a combination of card quality, tactically devastating Mana Leaks, Planeswalkers, Sovereigns of Lost Alara, and math.
To wit:
Card quality – Have youseen the awesome sauce of cards in this deck? The moron threat is Jace, the Mind Sculptor. A lot of games your opponent is playing clunky style and you are doing three or four different insane things. For example you play out a turn one Birds of Paradise or Noble Hierarch, a second turn Lotus Cobra, and like 100 things on turn three thanks to Explore and two copies of Misty Rainforest or Verdant Catacombs.
Tactically devastati Mana Leaks – I am the kind of magician who runs out a Mana Leak basically whenever I have two mana, but some Mana Leaks are made differently from others. For example you Crash with a small animal after powering out Sovereigns of Lost Alara, but seem otherwise tapped out. Your opponent goes for his Big Play (â„¢) in response and you pop off your Knight of the Reliquary with the best two drop ever printed in play. Oh no, you hear the opponent mouth. That’s right, buddy; you’ve been swindled. Mana Leak.
Planeswalkers – I initially found it weird that so many of the threats in this deck are Planeswalkers (I originally considered Jace a non-strategic card that wes mostly good at suppressing opposing copies of Jace, the Mind Sculptor), but they were okay. Soldier production on the part of Elspeth, Knight-Errant is a little odd against Soul Sisters, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. That said, it was pretty fun to make my Soul Sisters opponent pick up Ajani’s Pridemate on six consecutive turns, especially as it was always bigger than a 3/3 🙂
Sovereigns of Lost Alara – Playing this version of this deck I often felt like Diamond Dallas Page in the late 1990s… Biding my time, looking for my spot, trying to stick my Diamond Cutter. In this deck, your Diamond Cutter is actually connecting with Eldrazi Conscriptiontwice. Like sometimes one big hit will not be enough because you don’t get the Annihilator benefit and they will attack you to death on the bounce back. Or you might think you have an open but you can smell the Path to Exile a mile away. That is when you have to be clever.
Math – I found Mythic Conscription to be surprisingly cerebral to play. Yes, there are games when it is reminiscent of Critical Mass. Namely you play the “U/W Control” game of Jace, the Mind Sculptor + Counterspells even better than U/W does because you can get your mainline plan online a turn faster with Birds of Paradise, Lotus Cobra, or Noble Hierarch; that’s kind of fun. But the really rewarding games are the multi-turn offenses, I think. Turbo out Elspeth, Knight-Errant, go to the air for about 4-5 points, set up Sovereigns of Lost Alara + Exalted + Elspeth evasion for a lethal strike the next turn. You know, math.
Approach:
Mythic Conscription exemplifies the decks of the Tier One metagame. Basically this is all really good cards laced together by some mana acceleration (and some of those cards are themselves really good cards) and Mana Leaks. Therefore who’s the beatdown equations occur a little bit differently than they do in traditional Magic. Whether you are the beatdown or the control is less a matter of what deck you are playing against than the circumstances surrounding the cards you draw. So if you draw Birds of Paradise, Knight of the Reliquary, Lotus Cobra, and Sovereigns of Lost Alara… All things held equal you are probably going to try to cram Sovereigns of Lost Alara down the opponent’s throat, possibly defending with the Knight. If you draw Birds of Paradise, Jace the Mind Sculptor, and Mana Leak, you are probably going to play a “U/W Control” type game… and it doesn’t matter than you were paired against what should nominally be the “control” deck in both cases.
I played against a mess of decks with Primeval Titans. My approach there was largely borrowed from Zvi Mowshowitz. Basically he has a six and I have a six. I can disrupt his ability to accelerate to six… It is a lot harder for him to do the same. If his six hits, I might be annoyed. If my six hits, he gets crushed for 11+ damage in a single turn. If that damage is coming from a Birds of Paradise, it might be tantamount to dying on the spot. Good matchup, as far as I can tell.
The one thing I never got was when to play Jace’s Ingenuity.
As you can see from the tournament statistics, I played against ramp decks a couple of times; I often found myself siding Jace’s Ingenuity in against those, especially when I was going to drop a copy or two of my Planeswalkers. I often felt I’d rather have a 3/2/2 split of Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Jace’s Ingenuity; and Elspeth, Knight-Errant against decks that couldn’t deuce my Planeswalkers with their own copies, but no idea if that plan would be co-signed by the man who took all the names with this deck.
I held back on writing this blog post (my Mythic Conscription matches all took place around 8/26) because of my article on TCGPlayer today. I wrote about how Pyromancer Ascension was the best deck — and gave a lot of really good reasons that I certainly believed in at the time — and didn’t want to conflict with that article before it came out. I still think my Pyromancer Ascension choice was fine (and would probably play my same 75 again), but the solid results from even seven matches with Utter-Leyton’s Mythic Conscription certainly impressed me.
LOVE
MIKE
PS – In the unlikely case that you haven’t seen or heard about Flores Rewards, check out this video. I think you will like it 🙂
You can also check out the new Flores Rewards blog at — you guessed it — http://FloresRewards.com!
So I got my 2010 Magic Pro Tour Selection Committee Hall of Fame ballot today.
In case you guys haven’t been reading for that long, the first ever post on this blog was my 2008 Hall of Fame ballot; way back on October 6, 2008. You can check that action out here (and by “here” I mean, like, this awesome blog).
Anyway there are a bunch of people eligible for Hall of Fame this year; I am not going to list them all. Instead I am just going to run out my gut-pulls:
Marco Blume
William Jensen
Scott Johns
Anton Jonsson
Brian Kibler
Katsuhiro Mori
Gabriel Nassif
Daniel O’Mahoney-Schwartz
Steve O’Mahoney-Schwartz
Chris Pikula
Carlos Romao
Tomoharu Saito
I have voted for more than one of these players in the past.
They are all deserving misers but a man gets only five Hall of Fame ballot votes. Briefly…
Marco Blume
I always chuckle when I read Marco’s name. I wrote an article on Ponza ~11 years ago which was viciously plagiarized by The Pojo. You can still read “their” article, which has “Maro” Blume credited with a German Ponza deck, a misspelling I made all those many years ago, surviving still on “theirs”.
[LOL! I hadn’t read the 2008 ballot before writing this, and didn’t realize that I had just re-bought my own line from two years ago.]
William Jensen
Billy “Baby Huey” Jensen has a better resume than a fair number of the people already in the Hall of Fame. It’s basically silly he hasn’t been inducted yet. I’ve learned a lot from him.
Scott Johns
Ditto on William Jensen. Scott is a Pro Tour winner with five Top 8s and years of service to the community.
Anton Jonsson
To be honest I didn’t have the Limited master on my original short list but when i sorted the 2010 candidate pool and saw how many Top 8s he had, it seemed negligent not to consider him. Unfortunately I have little frame of reference on Anton’s game, but he comes very highly recommended by friends like Brian David-Marshall and Teddy Card Game.
Brian Kibler
I had already decided to vote for my old Underground and Team Red Bull teammate the Dragonmaster last year. Then he went and won a Pro Tour and Grand Prix and so on. Kibs is going to be a landslide this year and I plan to jump on.
Katsuhiro Mori
A few weeks ago I had this conversation with Zvi Mowshowitz:
Me: What are the chances someone other than Katsuhiro Mori has the MTGO nickname “Katsuhiro Mori”?
Zvi: Pretty low, why?
Me: Because I just bashed him in a queue, but I kind of don’t believe it was really him.
Zvi: No?
Me: He was playing Mono-Red.
Zvi: What were you playing?
Me: Eldrazi of course. Can’t lose; I mulled to five Game One and 2-0’d him anyway.
Zvi: Nah couldn’t have been him, but weird MTGO name.
Katsu is super fun to play against, for fun at least (I have never played him in a tournament). He once beat me in same-deck of Pierre Canali’s U/R Wafo-Tapa deck. He was super tricky, which is about par for the course for him.
Gabriel Nassif
Hat is basically everyone’s hero (mine included). Neither Jon nor Kai (nor Bob, nor Dirk) got unanimous inductions, so I greatly doubt Nassif will. But he’s certainly got This Girl’s vote.
Daniel O’Mahoney-Schwartz
It was just Danny OMS’s birthday! Happy birthday Danny OMS! Katherine and the kids and I are going to Shake Shack with him this weekend. Dan is a good friend and I hang out with him pretty much every week. However My annual OMS brother vote is going to…
Steve O’Mahoney-Schwartz
Should have voted him in first class. My bad.
Chris Pikula
Ditto on Chris.
Carlos Romao
There are few Constructed players I admire as much as Carlos. The Psychatog master just added a notch to his already much-perforated belt with a Planeswalker Top 8 that helped cement little Jace as a pre-emptive Staple in Standard.
Tomoharu Saito
Not only did his just win another big tournament, but he’s basically the best deck designer in the world.
This year I decided to do something different moving from the short list to the shorter list. I am just going to run all the automatic votes and see how many slots I have left over.
As I am not a buffoon I am obviously voting for Nassif, Saito, and Kibler; master, master, and DragonMaster. I think Nassif is as worthy a unanimous ballot-gatherer as ever drew breath. Saito has been around the best player in the world for some years if not the clear best. I wouldn’t have half so much glory as a deck designer if he hadn’t helped Andre Coimbra in the Extended portion of Worlds; so mise! Like I said, I was going to vote for Kibler even before he won that Pro Tour and Grand Prix because in order for the American block to start getting our O’Mahoney-Schwartz brothers and Pikulas into the Hall of Fame we have to stop fracturing our votes. That means getting our deserving boys off the ballot and into the Hall of Fame so that we can make more room for our, you know, additional deserving boys. That starts with Kibler. Congratulations old friend. The enemy’s gate is down!
With two votes left, that makes for a wonderfully convenient number of openings for SteveO and Chris.
Final ballot:
Brian Kibler
Gabriel Nassif
Steve O’Mahoney-Schwartz
Chris Pikula
Tomoharu Saito
Inferno Titan ∙ Sun Titan ∙ Frost Titan
Grave Titan ∙ Primeval Titan ∙ … and why Inferno Titan really the best card in Standard!
Well, at least that’s what my Twitter bud @Triphos asked me to say 🙂
But who can say no to someone with a Patsy Walker crafted by Colleen Coover as his Twitter icon?
Anyway, even though seemingly every article on the Magic Internet two weeks ago was about Titans (and then every article this week was about actual Titanic Titan performances) there has been relatively little practical comparison of how the Titans really roll. And by “roll” I mean… How much effective mana do these Titans tally?
Inferno Titan
Let’s break down the Titans. Basically they mirror the Kamigawa Dragon cycle… They all cost six and have the same frame; rather than being 5/5 flying creatures, these are all six mana 6/6 creatures. In addition each Titan has some kind of superpower that 187s the battlefield not just when the Titan comes into play, but every time it attacks!
Yes, you heard it here first.
Sun Titan We talked about Sun Titan back when it was “merely†the It Girl-to-be come M11 Prerelease time. Now… Actually a contender for the best Titan performer. When we originally wrote about Sun Titan, we didn’t yet know about the competition in the cycle… What about Sun Titan’s 187?
Whenever Sun Titan enters the battlefield or attacks, you may return target permanent card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
This ability has a variable mana effect. It can be as little as one (getting back some kind of one mana doodad that is actually worth one mana) and as much as a free Jace Beleren (probably an immediate mana value of, again, one… But with the promise of more one mana packets of “drawing one card†value). In case you were wondering, buying an untapped land directly into play is worth slightly more than two mana; for reference: Rampant Growth.
It may be worth noting that among all the Titans, Sun Titan’s ability may be the least reliable. That is, if you haven’t got a saucy target in the bin, no dice.
Frost Titan Originally I was a seller of Frost Titan, but the Big Blue of the Titan Team has grown on me. You may recall that in my first speculative article on TCGPlayer.com I suggested a U/G/R Titan / Destructive Force strategy including Garruk, Jace, some obvious cards like Cultivate and a less obvious duo of Frost Titans.
Well lo and behold!
I mean some of the details are off (Lightning Bolt and Mana Leak over beloved Spreading Seas for instance), but the old girl still has some gas in her.
Okay! What about Frost Titan’s 187 ability?
Whenever Frost Titan enters the battlefield or attacks, tap target permanent. It doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.
Despite the ability to trump another Titan going long, or lock down lands after a Destructive Force, I put Frost Titan’s ability at a value of one mana (about a Twiddle).
It may be worth noting that between the regular keyword abilities like Vigilance and Trample, Deathtouch and “Firebreathing†… Frost Titan probably has the best of the bunch; it is the most durable besides…
Grave Titan Wow!
How are you supposed to kill a 6/6 Black creature? Yes, yes… Martial Coup or the equivalent still works just fine… But Grave Titan is yet quite the durable army in a one-man package.
And its 187?
Whenever Grave Titan enters the battlefield or attacks, put two 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens onto the battlefield.
This one’s mana is a bit difficult to evaluate on a single-ability basis. Sun Titan is not exactly comparable to known effects, but the value of what you are actually getting back is a fine clue. Frost Titan is like a Twiddle or an activation on an Icy Manipulator… But what makes two 2/2 creatures?
I would shudder at calling it a Grizzly Fate because I don’ t know if anyone would pay five mana just for the two 2/2s (though they are Black, which is a durability upgrade generally). I think that a more reasonable approximation would be WW, though I would be willing to take some input on this.
Inferno Titan And we return to the best card in Standard!
[not really]
Inferno Titan’s 187 is very familiar to many of us, and hearkens back to one of the most skill-intensive periods in Magic’s history. The aforementioned ability basically attaches an Arc Lightning to a firebreathing 6/6:
Whenever Inferno Titan enters the battlefield or attacks, it deals 3 damage divided as you choose among one, two, or three target creatures and/or players.
So what is this worth?
The easy answer is 2R — exactly the cost of an Arc Lightning. That might be defensible on the basis of Arc Lightning’s rampant popularity back in 1999 and the fact that we would probably pay 2R for the effect now in 2010. [Firestarter: How does Arc Lightning, in your estimation, compare to Staggershock?]
However I think that a more reasonable estimation of its value is R + .5 mana. I feel like two damage is worth about one mana, and this makes three, or one-and-a-half mana worth of value. That you can split it across multiple bodies is gravy.
Primeval Titan Primeval Titan is probably as good as the hype. Not only does it have Trample (Josh Ravitz’s favorite keyword slapped onto an animal), but this impressive 187:
Whenever Primeval Titan enters the battlefield or attacks, you may search your library for up to two land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.
How much is that one worth?
More than four.
More than “I win†mana according to the Zvi Mowshowitz scale!
Not equal to “I win†mana… More!
Why is it worth more? Is it because we earlier referenced Rampant Growth saying that was worth (unsurprisingly) about two mana? Nothing so fuzzy around the edges my dear students.
Don’t forget that in previous formats we had Block-dominating effects for G3 that weren’t as good as a Primeval Titan’s repeating 187.
Don’t forget that Explosive Vegetation was an absolute monster and that the venerated team in Renton, WA changed the Legend Rule partly because Billy Jensen failed to win the Pro Tour due to Osyp Lebedowicz’s playing Akroma first when Billy otherwise had a highly likelihood of winning. Primeval Titan can do everything we would be willing to pay four mana to do with Explosive Vegetation… But can do even more! Can Primeval Titan get a ho-hum Forest and Mountain like Explosive Vegetation did? Sure? But it is more interesting when it is getting cards like Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, isn’t it? Or perhaps when Valakut is already online a pair of Mountains? Isn’t that kind of like twice as good as Inferno Titan (which we have already decreed the best card in Standard)? Dealing two different packets of three damage instead of splitting up one (as good as that can be)?
Well at least we know why Primeval Titan has the price tag it does.
