I figured I’d do something a little different today and maybe run it regular-like.
It has one Summoning Trap.
1. What is this, some kind of a Q & A?
Yes. That’s exactly what it is.
2. Okay smart guy… How come you don’t make YouTube videos any more? I really liked those.
Thanks! I appreciate it. I will probably go back to actively making the fivewithflores videos on YouTube but not in the immediate future. I used to have a really nice MacBook Pro that I did the videos on and I don’t have that computer any more. Any fivewithflores fans make videos on the PC?
But let me make it up to you. Just pretend that Scarlett Jo is michaelj (or you might not want to):
3. Sounds weak… Why don’t you make PodCasts any more then?
That is a little different. I still think of myself as making PodCasts (and regularly)… Albeit a little less frequently. We are all just really busy (at least relative to when I was kicking out PodCasts every week with BDM). Longer hours and more responsibility at the day job, plus more kids! I guess I can’t blame everything on Clark, but it is still a different life than during the Charleston PTQ season, for instance. Don’t worry–we are all still active PodCast making machines!
4. What was the answer to that You Make the Play?
Look very closely at the game state:
Tim Gillam asked what I had sideboarded in. Fair question, but I don’t know how much it matters based on this game state.
We are gearing up to smash with a Blightning here. He has two cards in hand. We have no clear next play because we can’t cast anything in our hand with the mana we have access to; if we were going to play Esper Charm, we’d have to pull an Island probably.
Given that we have to topdeck, I think we should topdeck ourselves into the best possible situation.
Originally I was playing Savage Lands (you can even see Savage Lands “highlighted” as the top-left); but I thought better of it.
The right answer here is Exotic Orchard.
Exotic Orchard taps for white. Playing it puts us in a position to pull Plains, Arid Mesa, or another Exotic Orchard to go straight to the big girl next turn. Even if we don’t hit our untapped White, we can Savage Lands into Forest the following turn to hit the Enlisted Ultimatum.
5. Did you figure out how to play Rupture Spire?
The short answer is yes, but I’m not getting into it right now. Instead, check out this deck:
As-Yet-Unnamed Three-color Bombs
1 Behemoth Sledge
4 Grim Discovery
2 Mind Shatter
4 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
2 Sorin Markov
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Lotus Cobra
1 Thornling
4 Baneslayer Angel
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Path to Exile
It has been testing pretty well so far. Lotus Cobra has been absolutely explosive. The ability to actually make plays on turns two and three was like a memory before this deck. And your turn four is often a Sorin plus a Pulse (take that Pyromancer’s Ascension deck!).
Verdant Catacombs headlines a new take on Jund Mana Ramp. Just how linear is Landfall?
Without going into too much detail, this is basically the third major build of the Landfall Mana Ramp deck. It started as really, really Landfall-based all the way down to Bloodghasts.
As of this evening I cut all the Khalni Heart Expeditions; there was just too much mana ramping in the deck and not enough gas. I moved two copies of Sorin Markov to the main deck, and upped the land count to 25. The land had to go up not just because of cutting the Khalni Heart Expeditions, but because I at the same time cut four basics to play four Savage Lands.
Previously the deck was “all basics” … That is, eight Zendikar dual lands and fifteen basic lands. With all the mana ramping that was fine… However the other night I finally lost to that awful Pyromancer’s Ascension deck.
If there is one deck that I always beat with every deck it is the Pyromancer’s Ascension deck. The Black Baneslayer deck can beat Pyromancer’s Ascension consistently with three trips to Paris under its belt (trust me, I’ve had to), and this deck can at least compete with aggressive Scepter of Fugue sideboard games (though I have also won with Maelstrom Pulse and Ob Nixilis of course). However this one game my opponent had Ajani Vengeant and kept my lone Mountain tapped… With only a single true source of Red in my deck (regardless of how much virtual Red access there is), I could lose to Ajani, spot removal, and so on.
That said, I think the deck has a lot of potential. If not for Black Baneslayer, I would probably like this deck best (I like them both):
This deck is structurally fairly similar to my 2009 Regionals era Jund Mana Ramp deck; it is the same colors, at least. The difference here is that instead of a pure two-for-one theme, we have more of a mix of cards, including some flexible removal (Maelstrom Pulse) that I usually try to avoid playing, and Sorin Markov on the top end (quite good, seemingly everywhere).
This deck is a pretty consistent performer, though you can get some awkward hands with two or three pieces of mana and multiple six mana plays. You usually have to keep.
I played about four matches with the Version 3.0 of this deck tonight; here’s how they went:
1. Vampires
Game One we were racing, me with some kind of wonderful, him with multiple Vampire Nighthawks; in this game I was introduced to the “Deathtouch” feature on the aforementioned Nighthawk (who knew). He peeled Vampire Nocturnus and I lost on the last turn, my own kill in hand.
Game Two was a blowout. My stuff was just bigger; he didn’t draw (or maybe didn’t play) Mind Sludge.
Game Three was a super fast acceleration game. Turn two Rampant Growth (two to three); turn three Harrow (three to four), play land, Rampant Growth… Turn four Rampaging Baloths plus a land (that is, plus a 4/4 Beast). I drew three removal spells and he only drew four guys.
1-0
2. Jund with Sedraxis Specter
We went to three… In the third he drew all his Lightning Bolts but failed to ever peel a Forest. His first two Bolts had to shut off my Planeswalker and the others half-traded for Borderland Rangers. I was able to overcome him with two Rampaging Baloths; two Maelstrom Pulses sat back in reserve.
2-0
3. Ranger of Eos Naya
This deck featured newcomer Scute Mob and was pretty exciting.
In the first game I just traded with him “one for one” … My first Ob Nixilis bought it to a Lightning Bolt (I planned for this to give up due to having Grim Discovery in hand). He grew his second Scute Mob and I played a Broodmate Dragon. He came in with his now-large Mob and I chose to double block it with Dragons; one went down and I took three from the Ranger of Eos to go pretty low, but I knew one of his remaining cards was another Scute Mob and the other was a topdeck. My remaining Dragon came in, then I played DI Re-buy on Misty Rainforest and my lost Ob Nixilis, finished with that flurry and a Rampant Growth. Ob Nixilis is so crazy.
3-0
4. Vampires
Game One I thought I would win despite drawing only two Harrows and two copes of Ob Nixilis. It turns out he was able to race usuing multiple platforms.
Game Two I was ahead but didn’t really know how to translate that into a win.
Then I drew a Planeswalker.
All of a sudden he was pretty locke ut of doing anything.
I was already getting kind of annoyed at MTGO at this point; but there wa a lot of lag and my session with the Landfall Ramp had to end on a sour fiish.
Game One I thought I had it despite drawing only two Harrows and two copies of Ob Nixilis for spells. He raced with Nighthawks but I just couldn’t beat a pair of Malakir Bootwitches.
Game Two was kind of a narrow win, but it was a win. I didn’t really know what to do (I knew his cards and so I knew my creatures were probably not going to make it long)… But then I drew my Planeswalker and controlled his board until I could profitably tap him out with the Mindslaver function.
Game Three was super close (like Game One and its three spells… I probably could have won if I played my lands in different order… He was at 2 the turn before he won). It came down to my playing Ob Nixilis instead of Broodmate Dragon with two Dragons and Sorin Markov back. His Vampire Nocturnus showed a Tendrils of Corruption, and it just didn’t register that he could have Gatekeeper of Malakir for my Black Ob Nixilis, the Fallen.
If I had played the Dragon, my worst case scenario would have been five or six in. I would have had the next Broodmate Dragon for more attrition, and could have won with the big swing on Sorin Markov plus Ob Nixilis. Instead, I lost to exactly lethal: 11 points.
At long last, the post-Zendikar mana base for the Mono-Cascade deck… Will Seaside Citadel be the answer to our post-Reflecting Pool / post-Vivd Crag mana base woes?
[Also a bonus You Make the Play!]
Okay, let’s start at the end. This is the current version of the Mono-Cascade deck (at least how I have been tuning it):
sideboard:
2 Obelisk of Alara
2 Duress
3 Ajani Vengeant
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Lightning Bolt
So that’s the new mana base.
Without boring you with too many details I have found the deck to win essentially every matchup as long as its mana comes out.
That is not idle smack talk… It’s just a fact, and a dual-edged vulnerability. I have been trying to figure out what is “wrong” with this deck. In the best terms, the strategy has one of the deepest Stage Ones of any competitive deck, ever. The deck almost can’t make a play before turn four, and I have lost games where I hit my first six land drops and never played a spell!
This is very clearly a Stage One problem.
It has only gotten worse with the transition from Vivid lands and Reflecting Pool to the current mana base.
Because I recognized the Stage One issue, I pulled Enigma Sphinx in favor of more Seaside Citadels (previously the aforementioned Sphinx and one Sunpetal Grove). I am still not 100% happy with the mana base. Not at all, but it has certainly gotten better (that said, Rootbound Crag should probably be packing up his desk if you know what I mean).
I played many matches last night in the Tournament Practice Room (not playing tournaments until I can get my own side of the street relatively garbage-free), and lost matches that I found inexplicable.
I lost to one of those new-fangled [almost?] permission-free four- or five-color control decks, which I think Cascade should be a heavy favorite. I hit turn three Blightning and turn four Captured Sunlight into Blightning… and then stalled on four for the next four turns while he went from crippled to dominating position by topdecking Esper Charm and Jace. Any land drop would have been game, I think (I had three copies of Deny Reality in hand, and he had already discarded one of his Cruel Ultimatums). After I recoverd somewhat and put myself once again in a decent position he pulled Cruel Ultimatum; I held back Enlisted Wurm over Deny Reality… and flipped into Bituminous Blast with no targets on board.
One thing I will give him… His strategic game was admirable. I stalled on three in the last game, and he drew three copies of Thought Hemorrhage. He immediately went for Esper Charm… and unfortunately I had two copies in hand. He saw I had two Obelisks of Alara in hand, too, and made his second Thought Hemorrhage a six-point Blightning, and when I started to recover, he just named Blightning itself.
The Obelisk of Alara naming made YT a victim of opportunity, but the other two plays were superb because they cut off the bottom of my Cascade chain. So once I got finished being manascrewed, I had the privilege of playing with a buffoonish Talruum Minotaur and about 1/3 the value of a Loxodon Hierarch for the same mana cost. Even in-matchup breakers like Deny Reality get really unexciting with the threes cut (though you can flip Ajani Vengeant and that is pretty awesome). Anyway, didn’t win.
I had some frustrating losses like the above early in the evening, but after adding another Seaside Citadel and cutting the Enigma Sphinx, results improved over the course of many, many matches.
One of the excuses I have for not updating this blog as much in the past couple of weeks is that I have been playing almost nothing but Black Baneslayer / Mono-Cascade. In more than 15 years of Magic I have never had this experience before… As you probably know I have deck ADD. Even during the term when I was designing decks like Critical Mass and Jushi Blue I could not stay loyal and focused. I was always branching to Wild Gifts, then URzaTron, and even G/W and R/W creature decks. I just love to design decks and I just can’t help myself… Or at least that’s how it was.
There is a true joy that comes with playing this deck that I have never experienced before… Not even with a Napster or a Masques Block White deck.
It’s really rewarding to be able to plot out how the next X turns are going to go; as long as you have a spell to cast, some amount of the next turn is predictable. Yeah, he starts to beat on you with his Putrid Leech and Sprouting Thrinax, but you can confidently empty his hand before moving to the Baneslayer Angel phase of the game, or you just keep chaining him with Cascade spells, generating incremental advantages that lace and loop together until the opponent falls further and further behind that victory becomes unimaginable.
One deck that Black Baneslayer absolutely, positively, always beats is Pyromancer’s Ascension. I played against that deck half a dozen matches last night, including mulligans to five and I think even four, faced off against multiple Mind Springs for six or thereabouts, and failed to drop a match. I wasn’t keeping great attention but I don’t think I dropped a game. Basically their deck doesn’t do anything disruptive, nor does it ever pose a remote chance of killing you before Pyromancer’s Ascension comes online, so you have all the time in the world to get your mana straight. Blightning is great, per usual, and even though I don’t recommend actually pointing Esper Charm at Pyromancer’s Ascension, you can if you have to, and it’s fine. Usually through the middle turns you Deny Reality their only X, and / or Pyromancer’s Ascension (which will force counters resets) and eventually you can kill them with Enlisted Wurm or Bloodbraid Elf or whatever.
So there is the new mana base.
Plus there is some griping about not hitting land drops.
And here is a minor You Make the Play…
So this was an epic battle, at least so far as preliminary mana testing in the Tournament Practice Room goes.
Game One he played a turn two Lotus Cobra and utterly demolished me with it. Bloodbraid Elf, Baneslayer Angel… I kind of lost track but it was brutal.
I sided in Lightning Bolts for Game Two but his opener was Knight of the Reliquary, and it was immediately in 4/4-ville. I could see where the game was going but I hit my lands and played super tight.
… And by super tight I mean I played the cards I was given.
The only play that mattered whatsoever was when I had some “exact mana” multiple spell turn laid out, but I forgoed (forwent?) it in favor of a potentially loose life gain move.
Then I realized he could topdeck Bloodbraid Elf and I could very well be dead. So I played Captured Sunlight (the only one I had in my deck that game) instead (which pained me), because I accomplished half of what I intended to do.
Of course he flipped Bloodbraid Elf and I realized what I genius I am 🙂
It was a nailbiter but I managed to win Game Two on one life.
So here’s the shot for Game Three:
He openend on Knight of the Reliquary again.
I had the hot draw with the ability to actually play my spells, heavy on the threes.
I hit turn three Blightning and already have turn four Blightning mana queued up.
The only question is, given my hand of:
Blightning (about to be put on the stack)
Esper Charm
Baneslayer Angel
Exotic Orchard
Forest
Savage Lands
Which land should I play?
Look at the game state; how many cards does he have in hand? How big is his Knight? How big is it likely to become soon?
Bloodbraid Elf
Bloodbraid Elf
Enlisted Wurm
Mountain
Plains
Reflecting Pool
Who knows what your next card is going to be?
But there is an interesting mental exercise…
What land do you play?
… So, why is this interesting again?
As you could probably tell from the screen shot, this actually came up for me last week, playing with my Mono-Cascade deck*. I was going to just run out Mountain…
Why would I run out Mountain?
When you play this kind of a deck enough–even now that we’ve layered it with four main deck Baneslayer Angels–you try to play around Anathemancer. I know it’s only turn two… But really, you start to train yourself to play Mountain in these kinds of spots as a default.
Anyway, I thought to myself, if I pull Blightning, I can play it on turn three anyway.
It was at that point that I realized my error.
There is only one right play: Reflecting Pool.
Why?
Because you have an equal chance of drawing Blightning or Esper Charm!
Your path is clear starting on turn four. If you only want to consider four mana spells, you have no issue. Any order of your next three lands will allow you to play a pair of Bloodbraid Elves. In this deck, that two-turn sequence is automatically devastating. The opponent will be under pressure and will be down four cards… That’s just how the deck is designed.
But if you draw an actual three mana spell, you can put yourself so far ahead come turn four or five that the opponent will be in topdeck mode whereas you will be playing Ultimatum Magic (that is actually part of the reason I like the Mono-Cascade deck the best… It is just ferociously more powerful than basically everything else that people seem to be playing… but more on that later).
So in this case, you can see that playing Reflecting Pool is the best turn two play. The next best play is Plains.
If you play Plains and then draw Blightning, you can play Reflecting Pool or Mountain and cast the Blightning; it is inferior to Reflecting Pool on turn two because in this case you will have to take a counter off of your Vivid Creek in order to play the Blightning. This may or may not be relevant in the particular game at hand, but this kind of haphazard play can and will have a negative effect on your long term victory prospects if you are not aware of it.
Why?
… For the exact same reason that playing Reflecting Pool is better than playing Mountain on turn two.
We sometimes talk about the general rules in Magic.
Zvi calls this one “Finkel’s Law” (it was made popular by myself and Justin Polin during our short term at Brainburst Premium): Focus Only On What Matters.
Some people who listen to the Top 8 Magic Podcast know that Finkel actually has more than one law. This is a second one: Magic is a game of options. Generally the better play is the one that preserves the most options.
So in this case, playing a Reflecting Pool on the second turn is better than a Mountain because it helps leave open your options… You will be able to play Esper Charm or Blightning on turn three, regardless of which (if either) you draw.
By the same token, playing Plains is better than playing Mountain on turn two, but worse than playing Reflecting Pool because it shines a similar light (or lack thereof) on your options. You will theoretically be able to play either three mana spell, but if you draw Blightning, you will have to spend a counter on your Vivid Creek that you would not have to spend if you instead played Reflecting Pool first. That Vivid counter might end up mattering.
So what really happened?
I actually just pulled another land (either Plains or Exotic Orchard, I don’t remember). He was playing a U/W deck of some sort and got annihilated by discard into more discard into sixth turn Enlisted Ultimatum… Just like they all do! 🙂
* Yes, yes, yes dear readers, I know this whole hypothetical is based on an imaginary, now-outdated mana base. And yes, I made a new one. Check back tomorrow-ish 🙂
The first land drop was simple. The second one, less so.
Opening grip was nothing to write home about, but solid enough. I actually have this hand as better than 60% against the field:
Bloodbraid Elf
Bloodbraid Elf
Enlisted Wurm
Mountain
Plains
Reflecting Pool
Vivid Creek
The first land drop is simple… Of course you run out the Vivid Creek.
The opponent makes life somewhat easy (that is, he doesn’t play some kind of Isamaru, Hound of Konda) by playing a Terramorphic Expanse into an Island.
So you haven’t drawn card number eight yet (that is part of the surprise).
The play should be simple… But it might not be as easy as it seems.
What land do you play next?
LOVE
MIKE
PS Obviously the deck in question is Black Baneslayer Cascade Control. Part of the reason I haven’t posted much recently is that I just play this deck over and over and I can’t stop. I really think it may be my favorite deck of all time (at least to play). If you need the deck list to make your decision, here is a re-paste from last post:
As should be medium obvious I have become a super devotee of the mono-Cascade Cascade strategy over the last few weeks. It is literally all I am interested in playing. This version literally has 21 Cascade cards, 4 Baneslayer Angels, and 8 discard spells to finish Cascade chains. In case you haven’t been paying attention, every Cascade chain ends either with a Baneslayer Angle (Enlisted Wurm or Enigma Sphinx), or your discarding two cards.
This kind of deck requires a greater amount of discipline to play than most decks of any stripe. As Thomas Dodd pointed out in his guest blog post last week, this style of deck requires a lot more racing and resource management than decks with more conventional removal suites. Your “defense” a lot of the time is just putting down one or two guys, or going nutso with Bloodbraid Elf in the Red Zone, or hoping to win the Cascade lottery. That’s okay… The deck was literally designed to win the Cascade lottery.
The main difference from the last version is the inclusion of Deny Reality, per Benjamin’s take on the deck list. Instead of cutting a Cascade spell, I decided to approximate Primal Command and cut the one Obelisk of Alara that Thomas didn’t like anyway. I cut a land in recognition of the additional Cascade spell (Cascade spells tend to facilitate mana flood in long games), and the fact that I had just lowered the curve. Vivid lands had to be shuffled a mite bit as well.
So far the deck has been very nice, including in tournament play. Tonight I won a couple of nail biter queues, including over Mono-Black Rogues (!) and Fae… Both LWW wins. In the case of the Fae deck, I didn’t even sideboard (I was planning to lose)… But when you design your deck to get lucky and always flip over Cascade spells (especially when they are Bloodbraid Elf into Blighting), miracles can happen.
I am planning to play a variation on this deck in the upcoming Star City tournament in Philadelphia (we’re going, right Josh?) … I figure there is no way I am going to have four Lotus Cobras in time, so might as well get lucky with Cascade instead of with Landfall 🙂
The challenge for the ’09-10 version is going to be the mana base. We can’t count on Vivids any more, and filters are going the way of The Dojo as well. So that leaves us with tri-lands and sac duals. I am leaning back towards 28 just because sac duals, you know, eat up all your lands along the way. Does 12 tri-lands, 7 sac duals, and 9 basics sound about right?
I met Ben Botts (aka @Bottsthoughts) on Twitter. He reached out to me and said that he had a nice finish with the Cascade Control deck, so I extended him an invitation to write a report. After you’re done reading this, tell Ben what a great job he did 🙂 –m
Hey guys my name is, Ben Botts. I’ve been into Magic since 2002. I was first introduced to the game by a close friend of mine, Ernest. He showed me the game. And another of his friends, Little Jon, showed me combo/control decks. Ever since then I have had a healthy addiction to those archetypes. And I do not plan on attending therapy.
Moving on to the present — I recently played in a standard tournament at my local card shop. I’ve followed the top deck builders/writers/theory crafters for quite some time, and I always enjoy taking an idea of theirs and putting it to physical application. With that said I caught up on Flores and his current projects in deck building. Contacted him via Twitter, and told him that I had recently top 4’ed with his deck. He then replied (Which was an AWESOME honor) asking me if I’d like to post a tournament report. Of course I naturally had to standstill, ponder my demands, mulldrifter over my stipulations …
Are you kidding me? I replied quicker than a virgin during his first time… with a girl.
Without further banter here is the deck I played along with a tournament report.
* Deny Reality was the only maindeck change. Bituminous Blast was taken out in favor of non-specific permanent bounce. Since a majority of the players were running Kithkin I didn’t want to risk throwing a BBlast at a creature only to have a Forgetender give up it’s place on the board to prevent removal, or have a Harms Way litter my dome for 2 while saving their creature.
** The mana base was shifted slightly only because Deny Reality is a U/B spell whereas Bit Blast is a R/B spell. (I know that was mundane, but some people may see that and be like “Wow … good call”)
And also I could only find 3 of my Tempest Reflecting Pools … 🙁
Date: September 12, 2009
Place: Cardz-N-Things of Fayetteville, NC
Owner: Al Archibeque
Type 2 Tournament
19 People present
Round 1: I think his name was Josh, he had a Mono-U Control deck
Game 1: I win the roll. I start off with a Vivid. He plays an Island. This is the pattern for the first 5 turns. He had not played any threats – so I assumed he was gripping a variety of Essence Scatter/Negate or Cryptic/Unsummon. I was not about to barrel out the gates against him since I wanted to force him to discard, or make a play mistake. The unfortunate design flaw of running Mono-U in this format is there are not any efficient beaters to couple w/ counters. Anyways this game was pretty much over when I cast Bloodbraid which flipped an Esper charm (at him). Next turn Deny Reality targeting my own Bloodbraid ~ flipped a Captured Sunlight ~ into a Blightning. He was rather disgruntled, and shrugged for a few more turns. He never played a single creature. And I never saw a Cryptic. 4 blightnings later and 2 red zone dances with my Bloodbraid & Enlisted Wurm turned sideways and it was off to game 2.
Game 2: He literally never made it past 3 lands. He swore up and down he had 24 in his deck. I saw 3 this game, and it was a no-brainer goldfishing affair. Bloodbraid~Esper. Deny Reality~Bloodbraid~Blightning. Enlisted~Baneslayer. He scooped.
1-0 Match (2-0 games)
Round 2: Piper was his last name, and Bant was his tune.
First off – this kid – awesome personality. He and I spent the first 7 minutes of the round shuffling, ribbing each other, and make jokes about horrible cards like Bloodbraid, Rafiq, and Broodmate Dragons and what not. Apparently his good nature won him the die roll.
Game 1: He comes out way faster than I could manage. A Timely Essence Scatter backed with a Negate on my Cascade shennanigans ended this game before I could spell WURBG with my trade binder.
Game 2: Different story. -4 Blightnings, +4 Grixis Charms. I was on the play. So on his turn 3 he successfully tapped out for an Eslpeth. EOT – Grixis Charmed that pretty lady back to his hand. On my turn 4 I played a BBE ~ Esper Charm, discard 2. Turn 5 was a beast turn for me. Deny Reality on his Eslpeth, once again ~ BBE ~ Grixis his tri-land back to his hand. He was playing catch-up after that for the rest of the game. I never over-extended beyond my enlisted worm and my 2 BBE that ended up carving his life total to a nice zero.
Game 3: Let me say that this game was my favorite. Piper was on the play. It was Land, Noble Hierarch, go. Mine consisted of the redundant power play of a Vivid, go. For time and constrant of a broken record my next 3 turns were as my first. And Piper’s were a crazy mess of turn 2: land, Jace, draw, go. Turn 3: Land, Jace Draw, Rafiq, swing with Hierarch (18 to his 20). On my turn 4 I dropped a BBE ~ Grixis … killed his Rafiq. Didn’t matter for him. He proceeded to drop a second Noble Hierarch along with another Rafiq. Turn 5: Instead of playing a Deny Reality (Which I thought would be a mistake) I cast a Captured Sunlight instead (putting me back to 22), and opted to draw off my Esper Charm. On his Turn 6: He had access to 8 mana … I was contemplating the worst … and he played Ajani. Rolled him down to 3 Making Rafiq and company pretty thick skinned. He played his Elspeth, pumped Rafiq an additional +3/+3 … making him a 7/7 before Exalted triggers. Exalted Triggers and he is now a 10/10 with a cute ability … Piper drops me to 2 – satisfied that I will be scooping upon my draw phase. I rip my Hallowed Burial. Do a silent fist pump. Chandler dancing ensues, and I drop the baby on to the field. He shrugs – says a few unpleasent things about my H.B. And I bought myself 1 turn. That was all I needed. Next turn for me resulted in a Baneslayer, or as I’ve come to call her Barn’slayer, from my trusty Enlisted Wurm. And I began the long climb back from 2. Piper extended his hand after another turn, and commented on the deck I was playing. I told him to thank Mike Flores for the deck build. And to thank WotC for the concept, and cards.
2-0 Match (4-1 games)
Round 3: Kithkin # eleventy billion … seriously … name need not be smeared.
I know by now you would be expecting another amazing round summary to follow this previous one. But sadly I went up against an empty chair across from me. Sat there for 5 minutes, and thought surely this guy was going to be showing up soon. It’s a casual tournament, and I’m not a rules shark. So I won’t be slamming down game losses unless an act of grievous misconduct took place. I won the die roll (Now this is not very often for me to win the die roll – I tend to favor the luck of Ravnica draft die rolls – where going 2nd meant game for me. No jokes)
Game 1: Typical Kithkin horde. “ME KITHKIN, ME SMASH FACE, ME READY TO LOSE TO SIDEBOARD GAMES 2 AND 3!”
game 2: -4 Blightning, -1 Enigma Sphinx, -1 Obelisk of Alara, +3 Firespout, +3 Ignite Disorder.
Now let me just state: Yes. Ignite Disorder. Come on – I played grixis Charm. Under-rated, and they smash face.
Game 3:
The game was never close. I managed to keep the “I hate Kithkin” hand in my opening grip. Turn 3 Firespout (He missed his Forge Tender drop). followed by a turn 4 BBE ~ Ignite Disorder. This proceeded to be the game plan. Primal’s kept me above the curve on Life to dmg per turn. After a few Enlisted Wurms brought in another BBE and a BSlayer … He said Game 3 should be better.
And it wasn’t. I simply rinsed and repeated game 2 amidst his complaints and frustrations with, “Who plays Ignite Disorder?! Who?!?” goodbye Sprectral Procession tokens.
3-0 Match (6-2 games)
Round 4: Good friend John (Kitchen # zzzz ….)
We ID since we both were 3-0. And neither of us wanted to spend 50 minutes of see-saw when we could be relaxing for the top 8. I myself enjoyed a great EDH game with another friend of mine, but that is another topic entirely.
Top 8:
I am paired up against another friend, Charles, who is playing … you guessed it: Kithkin.
I won the die roll (I took each of these as a sign that this coming weekend will not show me the same courtesy. As is my luck w/ die rolls mentioned beforehand)
As with the previous match-up against Kithkin the same story is told without typing it out. But I will note that he started both games 1&2 with slow openings; slow enough for me to take board position. After I resolve 2 BBE’s ~ Esper/Grixis it really wasn’t difficult to stay ahead of the curve both games.
He scooped Game 2 when; 4 straight turns; I threw Esper Charms at his hand repeatedly.
The Top 4 was less then stellar … All of us (Friends) chose to split (Preferring strong drink over cardboard. Would you disconcur?). A total of 60 packs amongst the four of us. I would say for being able to play for free I banked a nice dividend.
Oh … right … the deck list in question; well it is a Flores Original. The only thing I did that was eschewed from the original build were the Bitumanous Blasts – replaced w/ Deny Reality’s in the maindeck. As well as the Ignite Disorders and the Grixis Charms in the side.
The reasoning behind the Deny Reality, Ignite Disorder, and the Grixis Charm was simple. We have a huge Aggro market here at my shop. So to counteract the efficiency and dominance of said archetype I bring in Ignite Disorder simply because for 2 – or Cascaded it is capable of roasting a few weenies. Where as the Grixis Charm gives me a number of choices that don’t have to worry about a Burrenton Forge-Tender. Return Target permanent was amazing for me. As was the Target Creatures gets -4/-4. Only once, and only because it ended the game did I pick the third module on Grix Charm. I pumped both my BBE’s to 5/2’s.
Grixis Charm to me?
UBR – Instant … choose either Boomerang, Death Pulse, or Path of Anger’s Flame.
I would’ve said Sudden Death in place of Death Pulse, but unfortunately Charms don’t have split second. And I didn’t want to hear about this typo later on because I am sure this post is rife with them as is. 🙂
Verdict?
The deck is simple, effective, and played straight through rough patches. Hopefully Zendikar will give us a few new things.
Remember when you cascade past a Baneslayer, and your opponent sighs with relief … just remind them that you have 3 more in the deck that are closer now. And watch them panic every time you cascade with an Enlisted Wurm.
This was what all the hype [on Twitter] was about:
I already wrote the full Preview over on the mother ship so go read what I have to say about Lotus Cobra over there: The Dave Price Rule and the Upper Limit.
I really think this is one of the most insane cards in years… Seems so much faster and different in flavor and function when compared with other Zendikar cards. What do you think?
Best two-drop of all time or what? (Obviously better than Dark Confidant! Come on!)
Zendikar rare Scute Mob is not quite Tarmogoyf… Does it matter?
Scute Mob is looking to be one of the most signficant cards in Zendikar… and that’s saying something!
No, you didn’t read that wrong… Scute Mob is probably a terrible one drop, as far as one drops go. That is, don’t look for it to be much more effective than, say, a Mon’s Goblin Raiders, at least not on or around turn one.
The value of Scute Mob is that as the game progresses–past turn five or so depending on the acceleration involved–it is an extremely powerful card.
Imagine Scute Mob in a control deck of some sort. It is probably needlessly narrow to say a U/G control deck given the mana options, but suffice it to imagine a control deck capable of producing G and countering target spell.
Scute Mob is a perfect card to play with five lands in play. The contol deck in question will have four lands left to fight permission wars, either over Scute Mob (that is, resolving it) or keeping the opponent from doing some kind of funny business.
The next turn, Scute Mob will be a 5/5… That is, a 5/5 for one mana.
Okay, there is already a cadillac control creature, a pair of them in fact, Broodmate Dragon and Baneslayer Angel. The first turn around, Scute Mob will not be able to tangle with Baneslayer Angel, but remember it is already far faster than Broodmate Dragon, and a fight–specifically the double block–may be significantly less profitable than it may look from afar.
The greater problem is that Scute Mob is going to be 9/9 the next turn, and 13/13 the turn after that (and so on) provided its daddy has five or more lands in play. It will jump past Baneslayer Angel in the course of one turn, and be completely out of control before too long.
Now our previous hypothetical outlined playing Scute Mob in the middle of the middle turns, and potentially fighting over it (or stuff going on around it). There is no reason the control player couldn’t just play Scute Mob at some point (even turn one) and wait for it to eventually grow up. That is a possibility, and might even be the right play against either another counterspell deck or a combo deck that needs to be put on a clock.
The even more interesting interaction may be Scute Mob piggybacking Ranger of Eos. Think about that tag team! Ranger of Eos already “implies” having four lands… five lands is just one more than that. It is entirely possible to see Antoine Ruel digging up a pair of Scute Mobs and playing them both immediately, presenting 13 or so power the following turn.
Un
Real
I see Scute Mob as being a clear Staple. It is just too cost effective. Go get your playset immediately; it is the second coming of Tarmogoyf, everything Figure of Destiny wanted to be and more.
Well, I am not 100% sure that my favorite new card from Zendikar will be Emeria, the Sky Ruin… but I’m pretty sure it will be.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin is functionally quite similar to old favorite Debtors’ Knell. It does not gobble up creatures from the opponent’s graveyard, but it has a tremendous upside: You Don’t Have to Resolve It. That was the “problem” with Debtors’ Knell (if you can really say there was a problem with a Standard and Block staple)… It coexisted with cards like Remand and Mana Leak so it could be challenging to get into play against Blue opponents. Emeria, the Sky Ruin, on balance is “just” a land, so you just lay it out there to, you know, run (“Sky Ruin”) the opponent’s day.
So of course as cool as Emeria seems, it has some limitations.
The most obvious is that you have to have seven Plains in play before it does anything. You know, when we first started chatting about new Zendikar cards, BDM (aka @Top8Games) said he just knew I would love me an Emeria. I mean, how could I not?
This card touches not on the “Greenest Mage of All” aspect of michaelj (aka @fivewithflores), but the part of me that ran a B/W cycling Eternal Dragon deck in an Extended Pro Tour, the side that produced the first ever Windbrisk Heights / three token “combo” deck (grafted onto a, you know, Eternal Dragon-based Extended deck), or the part of me that went full-on Martyr of Sands for last year’s Exteded PTQ season (you know, with Eternal Dragons and Decree of Justice and all that). The sad irony is that this card would be bananas in one of the Eternal Dragon decks that I always seem to make in Extended (down to returning Martyr of Sands for free, and / or Eternal Dragon itself) without any kind of an unintended interaction with Akroma’s Vengeance.
So let’s think about this jobber in Standard…
We are going to lose Windbrisk Heights — probably the single strongest nonbasic land in current Standard — as Lorwyn Block makes way for Zendikar. That means that straight White decks aren’t going to have a lot of conflict for non-Plains in terms of making space. You can probably run 20-22 Plains and four copies of Emeria, the Sky Ruin in your White deck and have a solid expectation of having seven Plains alongside your Emeria, the Sky Ruin come turn eight (or whenever you actually have eight lands in play).
The interesting thing is…
We don’t know what kinds of creatures are going to fit best with Emeria, the Sky Ruin… at least not in Standard.
We are going to lose our Evoke Elementals (Mulldrifter and so on); there is no clear path for a Fulminator Mage-style lockdown; and even in Extended, Eternal Dragon and such cycling creatures will have rotated. The best thing I can come up with off the top of my head is Glassdusk Hulk… But surely we can come up with something better than this…
Surely we can come up with something better than this…
Regardless of the specifics of how to break (or at least “best exploit”) Emeria, the Sky Ruin in a long game, the basic principles seem to be clear…
It’s about as good as a Debtors’ Knell once you have it going.
Counterspell-based defenses will be insufficient.
Removal-based defenses will eventually be exhausted.
… And it ain’t exactly fast.
The question is whether it will be good.
I, for one, have always enjoyed creating and trying to properly position these esoteric corner-case decks that generate unexpected Stage Three situations… and Emeria, the Sky Ruin seems like the Flores long-game cream dream all bundled up in a single card that you don’t actually have to resolve.
So yeah, Emeria, the Sky Ruin is, at least at present, my favorite new Zendikar card. I look forward to cultivating a long and card-profitable relationship with it.
As-Yet-Unnamed Three-color Bombs
