Power 9 Pro – Magic The Gathering Accessories – Tournament Discussion – Deck Analysis

Work has held me hostage the past few months but I could no longer resist the pull of Magic.  I needed to find something that would get my non-work self pumped again.  I decided to dig through my Legendary binder (I collected Legends before I ever heard of EDH, yay for me) to see what would jump out at me.  I was almost to the end of the binder when I saw my old pal, Vhati il-Dal.  Vhati is a political General that can really shine in multi-player.

I was excited to run green/black and started pulling out cards that interested me.  I dug deep into my card collection trying to come up with combos and never seen before interactions.  What I ended up with was a giant stack of cards and only 99 (!) open slots.  *sigh* 

 It seemed like an impossible task; how do I choose between Strip Mine and Wasteland?  How can I fit all of the most broken cards ever printed in Black/Green in to one little 100 card deck?  I can debate card choices with myself all day long.  I feel it is much easier just to stuff the cards in and replace what doesn’t work later (for EDH). 

Since I had access to green I felt that 36 land slots would be perfect due to land search effects.

Lands (36)

Verdant Catacombs Gilt-Leaf Palace Jund Panorama Golgari Rot Farm Twilight Mire Tainted Wood Llanowar Wastes Overgrown Tomb Temple of the False God Barren Moor Volraths Stronghold Tranquil Thicket Bojuka Bog Svogthos, the Restless Tomb Wasteland Mosswort Bridge Strip Mine Cabal Pit 8 Swamp 10 Forest

The next step was thinning down the creatures I had marked for the deck.  With so many options in both black and green, not to mention multi-colored, the choices were tough.  After some quick assessing, I ended up with this:

Creatures (27)

Bala Ged Scorpion Birds of Paradise Cuombajj Witches Desecrator Hag Genesis Gleancrawler Hag Hedge-Mage Heartwood Storyteller Krosan Tusker Krovikan Horror Loaming Shaman Lord of Extinction Masked Admirers Mycoloth Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Nezumi Graverobber Ohran Viper Oracle of Mul Daya Plagued Rusalka Primordial Sage Scute Mob Silklash Spider Skullmulcher Solemn Simulacrum Spiritmonger Viridian Zealot Woodfall Primus

Some strange choices and some no-brainers.   For me, part of the fun with EDH is using cards that rarely see play.  My favorite choice here is Cuombajj Witches, not only for the “what?” factor, but also because of the synergy with Vhati.  Krovikan Horror serves the same purpose, reusable creature kill.  I like the devour creatures in the deck, since I have put many recursion effects in; Mycoloth is way too good combined with Skullclamp.  Gleancrawler, Solemn Simulacrum and Woodfall Primus all combo nicely with devour as well.  Maybe I should up the count of devour creatures, Marrow Chomper perhaps?  Maybe not.  The critters that don’t seem to fit too well are Heartwood Storyteller, Birds of Paradise and Ohran Viper.

It was time for some back up.  Green/black has a great selection of enchantments for EDH.  I feel that every deck running green should run Sylvan Library.  Being able to stack your draws is really important in a Highlander format.

Enchantments/Planeswalkers (10)

Abundance Concordant Crossroads Garruk Wildspeaker Necrogenesis Oversold Cemetery Pernicious Deed Phyrexian Arena Sorin Markov Sylvan Library Wild Pair

Wild Pair is one of my all time favorite enchantments.  Some thought needs to go into your deck construction to thoroughly abuse its power.  Let’s check the synergy with Wild Pair so far; seven creatures have a combined power/toughness of four, four have a combined eight, and three have a combined twelve.  I like the idea of playing Monger and bringing Primus along for the ride. 

Now I needed the utility spells; removal, tutors, card drawing, etc.

Card Drawing/Tutors (11)

Crystal Ball Demonic Tutor Expedition Map Harmonize Insidious Dreams Journeyers Kite Primal Command Senseis Divining Top Skullclamp Souls Majesty Tooth and Nail

EDH is all about tutor effects.  The easier it is to find your answer/threat the better.  It is important to have some degree of deck manipulation.  Crystal Ball is perfect for EDH.  The format tends to be slower (now that Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary has been banned again) allowing incremental development a chance to pay off.  I play the Journeyer’s Kite in my other EDH deck and really like it.

In EDH you need to be able to answer multiple and various things.  Having a broad removal package is very important.

Removal (10)

Dead Reckoning Death Mutation Drain the Well Maelstrom Pulse Morbid Bloom Profane Command Putrefy Nevinyrrals Disk Rancid Earth Sickening Shoal

Rancid Earth has great synergy with our General once we have threshold.  Morbid Bloom is definitely the odd man out, I added it to give myself more devour targets.  I know Maelstrom Pulse seems like a poor choice in EDH, but it is almost a Vindicate and it wrecks tokens.

Extra Bits(5)

Berserk Imps Mischief Restock Sword of Vengeance Worm Harvest

The extra stuff can all be dumped, except for Restock.  The Sword is in because its new. Imp’s Mischief, as the name suggests, can create plenty of ways to mess with the other players, fitting nicely with the political nature of Vhati il-Dal.  Berserk can be a great finisher.

As I look over this list I can see a bunch of holes and cross purpose selections.  Why don’t I have Crucible of Worlds in here?  Why Worm Harvest without Life from the Loam?  Keep in mind this is a casual, multi-player deck.  That being said, I would love any Feedback the readers could give.  Until next time.

Hello everyone, and let me start by apologizing for my lack of articles over the past few months. I’ve been grinding through both International Baccalaureate (IB) exams and my high school diploma exams, leaving precious little time to devote to Magic. However, I’m officially done high school and intend to play a ton of Magic over the summer, which hopefully means more articles here.

In case you haven’t heard, Wizards has implemented some radical changes to extended, giving us only 4 years worth of cards to work with instead of 7. I’m a huge fan of this change, although Extended was one of my favourite formats for the last few years. This change makes Extended a much more accessible format, as well as giving us a whole new format to dissect and discover.

For those who don’t know, my Extended season this year culminated with a 5-2 record at a PTQ with Merfolk. This deck has a special place near my heart and I’ve played it in standard, extended, and legacy over the last few years. It’s my pleasure today to outline an adaptation of Merfolk for the new extended, which uses cards from Time Spiral, Lorwyn, Alara, and Zendikar blocks, with Core Sets from 10th Edition to Magic 2011 inclusive.

To use as some sort of base, let’s take a look back at my Merfolk list from the last extended PTQ.

Here Fishy Fishy

4 Merrow Reejerey 4 Lord of Atlantis 2 Merfolk Sovereign 2 Cursecatcher 4 Silvergill Adept 3 Sejiri Merfolk 4 Path to Exile 4 Cryptic Command 3 Mana Leak 4 Wake Thrasher 3 Umezawas Jitte 3 Hallowed Fountain 3 Wanderwine Hub 4 Mutavault 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Arid Mesa 1 Misty Rainforest 8 Island 2 Plains

The first thing we must decide is what colours we want to play. Without the aid of the Ravnica shocklands such as Hallowed Fountain, we can’t easily play white for Sejiri Merfolk. However, due to the nonexistance of Dark Depths in this format, the need for 4 maindeck Path to Exile is mitigated. Therefore I think we can make a first draft using only blue spells.

The only other loss from the above list is the always-awesome equipment Umezawas Jitte. This card was part of what made merfolk so great was that you would be able to have the edge on your opponents both in terms of creature power but as well as having a stream of removal for their chump-blockers.

So let’s go through the shell of the deck we want to use:

Lords
A part of every merfolk deck is its lords: creatures that give a global pump to all your other merfolk. There are 4 merfolk lords we can consider for this deck: Lord of Atlantis, Merrow Reejerey, Merfolk Sovereign and Coralhelm Commander. Lord of Atlantis is good because it’s cheap, and Merrow Reejerey is good because of the degenerate tapping/untapping shenanigans you can pull off with it. There’s an amazing synergy between the Sovereign and Wake Thrasher, but sovereign can be less than stellar if you have them in multiples. I tend to dislike the commander because each mana you spend on leveling him up is another mana you could leave up for a counterspell or some other merfolk that will have a more immediate effect of the game state. The 10 lord configuration has always worked well for me, so I think it’s fine for this deck as well.

Countermagic
Countermagic is essential in maintaining the aggro-control mixture that is the merfolk deck, and having a good suite of counterspells is critical to ensure that your army of fish can take out the enemy. This last week saw the spoiling of Mana Leak for Magic 2011. Prior to that, I was distraught as to what might take it’s place, contemplating Negate or Spell Pierce. However, with one of the most solid counters in recent memory in the new Core Set, playing a playset should be no question.

Of course, no mono-blue deck would be complete without the addition of Cryptic Command-The counterspell that does it all. I tend to play this card very aggressively, using the tapping ability to get in for some serious amounts of damage. However, the ideal play can be to counter an opponent’s spell and tap their guys on their turn, so always be questioning how you can most effectively play the command, not just considering your opponents turn, but how you’ll follow up on your net turn.

To give our deck a solid one-drop, we can add Cursecatcher. How many get played is very much a metagame-dependent decision, and with no tournament results for this new format, the number of instants and sorceries which get played cannot be determined. Even if more aggressive decks become the norm, I would not have a problem with playing some number in the mainboard because they’ll gain the bonuses from lords. We’ll try playing 4, but this is one of the most variable slots.

Support Merfolk
I don’t have words to describe cards like Silvergill Adept and Wake Thrasher except for “Awesome”. Drawing cards and making huge guys is always good, and they’re the grease that makes the giant merfolk machine run smoothly.

Support Spells
What’s a good blue deck these days without the aid of planeswalker Jace, the Mind Sculptor? Not only will Jace be able to bounce opposing blockers, but he will be able to net us more merfolk to keep up the pressure. He’s an awesome card that finds a welcome home in this deck.

These last slots had me scouring gatherer for all the blue cards that will be legal in the new extended. Hot off it’s success in standard, Spreading Seas not only has the potential to slow an opponent’s mana base, but it will help our islandwalking merfolk get in unhindered. Again, these slots are very much a meta call depending on the colours and mana bases of the most popular decks. If decks like 5 colour control and Reveillark proliferate, this choice will be much better than if faeries and other decks just play islands anyway. As well, the addition of Spreading Seas gives us another 2-drop which draws us a card, giving us a high pro

Lands
The land base for this deck is pretty simple. Mutavault is a great attacker who only gets better as we play lords. A plethora of fetchlands will allow us to not only thin the deck (which is usually insignificant) but also shuffle away our dregs from Jace’s Brainstorm ability. Because we have 8 spells which gost 4 mana, I think that adding an extra land from the original list is warranted.

Without further ado, let me present the final list:

Here Fishy Fishy

4 Merrow Reejerey 4 Lord of Atlantis 2 Merfolk Sovereign 4 Mana Leak 4 Cryptic Command 4 Cursecatcher 4 Silvergill Adept 4 Wake Thrasher 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Spreading Seas 4 Mutavault 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Misty Rainforest 12 Island

I hope to test this deck out sometime soon, and will probably purchase it on Magic Online so I can put up some videos. As always, feel free to sound off in the comments, or contact me at zak -AT- power9pro.com, or contact me via twitter at www.twitter.com/zturchan.

Cheers,

Zak

After I finished 2nd at the TCGPlayer.com 5k at the beginning of May, I must’ve thought I was “the man” to break a promise I made to myself that this standard season I would figure out one deck I wanted to play and stick with it. I ran UW Control at the PTQ the next day and went something like 2-3 drop, losing to a bunch of Jund decks after mostly steamrolling Jund the day before. Annoyed, and wanting to jump on the bandwagon of the Big Deck of the Week, I ran Mythic Conscription the next weekend and gave up abotu 130 points on my total rating just in time for me to lose some byes for Grand Prix DC.

At said Grand Prix, I got back to what I wanted to be doing and sleeved up UW and my list was only a few cards off of the winning list. I started out 2-0 and lost my next three, bowing me out of competition. Remembering the aforementioned promise that I made to myself at the end of Extended Season, I stuck to my guns, changed my sideboard a bit and tossed Sphinx of Jwar Isle back in the Main Deck, gearing up to take on all sorts of creature decks (presumably Jund). What transpired was me starting 5-0, losing to the sole control deck I would play all day, beating another creature deck in Round 7 and drawing into the top 8 as the #3 seed. Not Bad.

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to gear my deck towards creatures. Naya, Jund, Mythic and to some degree Next Level Bant were all predominantly creature decks even if NLB had a distinct control aspect to it with hard-to-kill Planeswalkers. Still, I wanted to be ready for creatures, so I wanted at least three Path to Exile and at least three Day of Judgment as the foundation of creature kill. I am in the camp of loving Baneslayer Angel. I know that she is a lightning rod for removal and that people will hold removal in order to kill her, but I’m no pro. Sometimes I need my cards to do some of the work for me and this bitch is a workhorse. She is like Kerri Walsh to Linvala’s Misty May.

Anyway, Let me just show you this list. It’s not super different than what I or anyone else has been running, but if you’re going to browse this TR you might as well have the frame of reference.

4 Baneslayer Angel 4 Wall of Omens 2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2 Elspeth, Knight Errant 1 Gideon Jura 4 Spreading Seas 3 Oblivion Ring 3 Path to Exile 3 Day of Judgment 2 Martial Coup 2 Mind Spring 1 Everflowing Chalice 4 Glacial Fortress 4 Celestial Colonnade 6 Island 6 Plains 2 Arid Mesa 1 Scalding Tarn 3 Tectonic Edge

Here’s the sideboard I ran:

3 Kor Firewalker 4 Celestial Purge 4 Negate 2 Kor Sanctifiers 1 Cancel 1 Into the Roil

I stuck the into the roil in there because I love it against control decks, it can be such a blowout. Whether it bouncing a baneslayer blocker, or bouncing your own Oblivion Ring with the trigger on the stack, or bouncing your own Oblivion Ring to legend rule their planeswalker, to bouncing a conscripted creature, I like what the card does. I ran it in the MD in Washington DC because I wanted it as the fourth path/fourth Oblivion ring combo card. Here I kept it in the board but I might just cut it alltogether next time out.

I put in 4 Celestial Purge because Firewalkers just don’t do enough against Jund right now, and while sometimes when playing Jund and facing them down they can be very annoying, but when Sarkhan the Mad flies over them all, it can be pretty useless. 4 Celestial Purge was aweseome for me in 4 rounds against Jund and 1 round against Mono Red. I think it was the smartest call I made all weekend and one of the reasons I top 8′d this PTQ.

Round 1 vs. Joe Canadas playing JUND

I figured this kid had a really loose keep in game 1 because he wasn’t really playing anything the first few turns. I slapped down an Elspeth on turn 4 and then started activating my Collonade and swinging for 7 on Turn 6. A few turns of that ended the game pretty quick.

I was pretty sure this kid was new, but when he announced “sideboarding eight!” in between our match while I was shuffling it was clearly confirmed. I told him not to announce that anymore and then kind of took it too easy on him. I cast Path to Exile on one of his creatures and he passed the turn and I reminded him he can search for a land, allowing him to get a second red mana on the board and almost letting him back into a game I had heavily under control. I still ended up winning but I learned an important lesson in playing down to the level of my competition and it was a mistake to not just give him the tip at the end of the game. Giving beginner players a way to beat you is not the way to grind into the pro tour.

Round 2 vs. Joe Pease – RG Land Destruction

This guy just completely blew me out in game 1 by hitting bloodbraid elf on this turn 4 and 5 and hitting resounding wave every time, bouncing my land and keeping me out of the game. I never got to cast a decent spell though on the final turn if I ripped a land I could’ve cast Day of Judgment and possibly gotten back into the game.

I saw him cascade past several Rolling Terrain so I boarded in my negates and my cancel.

Game 2 on the play he really couldn’t do much. He might’ve gotten some lands killed or spreading seased but I was able to stick Elspeth and Baneslayer and he didn’t have much for that.

Game 3 was the crazy one. He kept me off double white forever and my hand was 3 Baneslayer Angel and 2 Day of Judgment. Finally I was able to start dropping baneslayers and he mind controlled the first, and then the second one. I ripped oblivion ring to take one of them back rather than killing everything with Day of Judgment because time was about to be called. I used elspeth to start bashing in with a 7/7 baneslayer and he let the damage go through. I then pathed his (my) baneslayer and swung in for 12 with baneslayer and colonnade + elspeth ftw on turn 2 of extra time.

Round 3 vs. Luke Bardsley playing JUND

It was Jund with Vengevine and Cunning Sparkmage in the maindeck. I started with 2 wall of omens and he dropped a sparkmage. I went to oblivion ring it and he suicided his sparkmage in response making me lose one of my walls, which sucked. He wasn’t doing much when he’s leading with sparkmages though. He ended up cascading into Putrid Leech in consecutive turns with runner-runner Bloodbraid Elf which I Held off with ELspeth and then cast Day of Judgment to blow him out and get there with a baneslayer angel.

Game 2 he mulled to 4 and cast a turn 4 sarkhan the mad with his lotus cobra that I had no kill spell for. He stabilized quite a bit, mainly because I allowed him to keep his second red source on the table far too long when I had tectonic edge up. This allowed him to cast at least 2 extra spells he wouldn’t have been able to cast. He got me down to 6 but elspeth protecting me enough to cast a mind spring for 5 made it impossible for him to finish me off.

Round 4 vs. Devon O’Donnell playing Mono Red.

I’m buddy’s with Devon through my little bro and I knew he was running mono red, which I was happy about given my sideboard. He started game 1 with double goblin guide which I ripped 5 lands off of, so I could to discard a bunch of stuff I know wouldn’t matter. I had double spreading seas to keep him off early ball lightning and bought myself some time to drop a baneslayer. This is where I think I made a mistake. He had two Kiln Fiend out but clearly had no spells b/c he had been attacking in for 1 each with them. I had a baneslayer out with another in hand. I was at decently low life and while he was at 6 mana, two spreading seas meant he could not go double ball lightning or ball lightning + Hells Thunder. I decided to attack with my Baneslayer angel and drop the second. He dropped smoldering spires, Ball LIghtning and tried to play a Hell’s thunder until I reminded him that he didn’t have the correct mana to, and extended the hand. but I should’ve held up the baneslayer b/c I knew smoldering spires could be coming down and ruining my day.

Im game 2 Devon mulled to 5 and my opener was Wall of omens, celestial purge x2 and 4 land. I let him back into the game somehow by tapping out on turn 3 and he dropped a turn 3 hell’s thunder and again I was tapped out when he ripped the land to bring hells Thunder back. As a result he bolted and then burst lightning w/ kicker’d me and got me to 5, meaning he had an out with unstable footing, but alas it was not to be and he was dead to my double baneslayer beyond that. But still, I should’ve just played slow and allowed myself to pick off his threats with my purges and not ended the game with one still in my hand.

Round 5 vs. Justin Desai playing Lotus Cobra Jund

So Justin Desai is one of my closest friends and we’ve been CCG Partners for almost a full decade now. We’re considered one of the best Decipher SWCCG tandems of all time and are two time world champions in that game. We’ve only faced each other in sanctioned magic games a few times and never in a ptq.

Justin and I both stall out on lands early and are just playing draw go. Eventually he hits a couple of Leeches and Bloodbraid elfs and I get a really huge swing off of a Day of Judgment with Elspeth out. After that Elspeth and Colonnade go the rest of the way.

Game 2 I keep a hand with some spreading seas and 2x Celestial Purge. He plays lotus cobra on turn 2 and ramps into a turn 3 bloodbraid where he hits another cobra. I’m tapped out on account of the spreading seas so I can’t purge his bloodbraid, so I take 5. His next turn he drops a Terramorphic Expanse and casts a Sarkhan the Mad but doesn’t activate it, opting to swing for 7 into my empty board. I respond by Purging his Sarkhan, effectively timewalking him. After that I stabilize with Elspeth and Baneslayer angel and he can’t get much going after the mistake.

Round 6 vs. Bryan Lynch playing UWR Planeswalkers

At this point there were like 4 or 5 X-0’s so I was hoping to avoid Lynch who was pretty much the only UWR at the top of the standings. Of course I have awful luck and did not avoid him. Knowing my deck was more geared for creature decks, I didn’t have a lot of high hopes.

Nor should I have as this match was a massacre. Game 1 he kept me off double white mana all game with Spreading Seas and Ajani Vengeant. Game 2 I boarded out my wall of omens, kept a 2 lander with some spreading seas and some early plays. Lynch comes down with calcite snapper and four turns later I’m dead without having drawn another land.

Round 7 vs. Kyle Machado Playing R/G Weekend Warriors

I again kept a 2 lander against Kyle, never drew a third and got beatdown pretty hard by what seemed to be just a straight RG beatdown deck. I decided to board in 3 of my celestial purge but not all four because of Vengevine and other green based cards I figured I would see. Game 2 was a battle as he hit Goblin ruinblaster after goblin ruinblaster. Luckily I was on the play and slapped an elspeth down first so I was making tokens like it was going out of style. I also had a few wall of omens down. Eventually I drew out of my mana lock, got some baneslayers down and climbed out of range.

Boarding for game 3 I realized that as long as I stuck a baneslayer he really had no answer for it, save Threaten. I kept a pretty slow hand but one with day of judgment and baneslayer angel and 3 basic lands. My first couple of draws were also basic lands so I was able to lay basics on the first 5 turns and stay away from an onslaught of ruinblasters. Luckily for me he stalled on mana for a couple turns and wasn’t able to do much damage while I got to baneslayer mana. This is big time becasue he played the new threaten that makes the guy he steals power +2 and was able to swing be down to 4 life before I was able to get my baneslayer back, swing in and drop another one, keeping myself out of range, but had he not stumbled I would not have been sitting in third and able to draw into the top 8.

Round 8 vs. James P Syed playing Naya

We intentionally drew. I was in third, justin in fourth, so me and justin both make our first IRL PTQ top 8s.

TOP 8 Quarterfinal with Cameron Preston playing Jund.

To make a long story short, I got blightninged 7 times in 2 games and lost 0-2. It was pretty lame considering I had been 6-0 against Jund on the day going into this game. There was a chance I could’ve pulled game 1 out when I had some baneslayers on the way, but I did some math wrong and went to 3 when I thought I’d be at 4 and he had his blightning #3 of the game for me.

In game 2 it was just a total beatdown as he blightninged me all 4 times and never got to play anything that could’ve gotten me back into the game.

So all in all a pretty big bummer. Especially now since this next level bant deck is doing so well that UW control might not be an option anymore. I have another PTQ this weekend in Rhode Island but I’m unsure what I’m going to run.

Justin has been doing really well with Lotus Cobra Jund online and obviously had some success at the PTQ above. He used a similar if not the same list in the online ptq sunday and started 5-1 before losing his next two. I would say you could look for his decklist at the following link, but for some reason his decklist is ommitted, which sucks b/c it’s his first top 8. But you can check out the rest of the top 8 decklists here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/events.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/amsterdam10ptq/0605boston

Until next time,

Mike Gemme
Mike@power9pro.com
bobbysapphire on MTGO

After my top 2 finish at the Boston 5k a few weeks ago, I was looking good going into the GP with at least one bye and if I played well in any of the PTQs on the following two weekends I could be looking at 2 byes. That didn’t happen.

The day after the 5k I was pretty beat, sleeved up mostly the same 75 from the day before and went 2-2 drop at a PTQ. The following weekend was another PTQ in connecticut and I decided to switch to mythic. Mythic was a bit more complicated than I estimated and while it was capable of those blowout, turn 3 Eldrazi Conscription wins- playing a deck that just turns sideways was not what I was used to in standard and I coughed up a couple wins by simply not attacking in with my lotus cobra, forgoing one exalted trigger and losing with my opponent at 1.

Those kind of things drive me crazy and I am in no mood to play the Conscription deck again after going 0-2 in a PTQ and 2-2 drop in a WPN qualifier (losing to grixis 3 times, which is just a brutal matchup post board when you have to face down 4 lightning bolt, 4 terminate and the rest of the b/r goods and jace, the mind sculptor).

To be quite honest I’m a little torn what to do right now. Jund is certainly back on the rise and a couple of my teammates here in Mass really like it (and I’ve always considered them blue mages). It’s certainly very good as the results don’t lie, and going into the 5k weekend earlier in the month, Jund kind of punched me in the teeth a little, as I thought it was a very favorable matchup for UW Tapout; but really, nothing is favorable enough vs. cascade.

For the first time maybe ever, we’re bringing all 7 members of our squad to the same tournament, so decks are pretty sparse. We can put together two Junds or a Jund and a Naya, but I likely won’t be sleeving up anything green. There is plenty of time to play Jund for me at the online PTQs next month.

So unless I want to sleeve up some devastating summons, and I don’t think I do without having a card to kill baneslayer; I don’t really want to rely on mark of mutiny and a swing FTW to beat any deck with baneslayer angel in it, I’m going to be playing UW TAPOUT.

I’ve made some tweaks, and made some pretty brutal decisions (and I still have a couple more to make I fear), but I’ll talk about the deck a bit and what changes I’ve made and why.

I really liked UW control the weekend that I played it. I always felt like there was something I could do, or that I could draw (plus ways to draw it) that would bail me out of whatever situation I found myself in. I don’t feel like that has really changed. I like cantripping on turn 2 as much as I can. I love oblivion ring and mind spring, and while people can tell me all day that Baneslayer Angel sucks, she doesn’t and she’s a baller, and I love her.

I think that UW is fine vs. most matchups, I don’t think Dauntless Escort is very hard to play around in mythic with the right answers. I think UW can still beat Jund just fine if you gear it to the aggro matchup (and I don’t think wrath effects are nearly as bad as many people think they are vs. the deck). Furthermore, creature decks are all the rage right now with jund, naya and conscription running rampant at regionals and on MTGO.

The biggest issue I’ve stuggled with is how to deal with the creatures. I know a lot of people say to just run Sphinx of Jwar Isle and not baneslayer b/c it just gives opponent’s dead cards, but most jund players are already cutting terminates and just running maelstrom pulse x4. I think that a deck that maindecks a bunch of terminates is rough, don’t get me wrong; but the meta seems to be going the other way. People are now expecting UW tapout to not run baneslayers and the UWR Planeswalker deck doesn’t (Even though they should run them out of the board), and this could be the weekend to re-capitalize on running a full squad of Baneslayers.

4 Wall of Omens 4 Baneslayer Angel 2 Elspeth, Knight Errant 2 Gideon Jura 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Spreading Seas 3 Oblivion Ring 2 Path to Exile 1 Into the Roil 2 Negate 2 Wrath of God 2 Martial Coup 2 Mind Spring 1 Chalice of the Void 4 Glacial Fortress 4 Celestial Colonnade 2 Arid Mesa 2 Scalding Tarn 6 Plains 5 Islands 3 Terramorphic Expanse

So I’ve decided to neglect Sphinx of Jwar Isle despite how “good” (read: unkillable) it is against Jund. If you don’t hit several sphinx of Jwar Isle it’s really hard to actaully beat in against Jund with your 5/5. Which is why I like Baneslayer, even if they have a couple answers to it, you can turn it sideways and not fear that you’re going to die on the swing back.

I’ve upped the Planeswalker count to be a little strong against the aggro decks and put them on difficult decisions. Gideon works best with baneslayer on the table to kill one of their attackers. Elspeth is just a difficult planeswalker to kill. This also presents far more Pulse targets, making my baneslayers a bit better.

I cut an oblivion ring, conceding that creature decks are far more popular than the control decks right now, and a lot better. Instead of just upping a Path to exile however, I decided to toss in an Into the Roil. I like into the roil for a number of reasons. It’s as good as removal vs. Mythic and it’s just a lot better than path against the control matchups. Being able to bounce my own obring to legend rule a planeswalker and reload my removal seems really strong. It’s one more maindecked blue answer to a polymorphed Iona naming white and in plenty of situations itll draw me a card.

I’ve cut a mind spring, because games where I draw 2 in my opening hand were driving me a little nuts and while I know it’s practically a win condition, the cantripping in the rest of the deck will hopefully get me there.

I really loved the 2 negates maindeck when I played it and I don’t want to cut them, they’re only really bad against Conscription and Naya, but they’re great in the mirror and against jund, so I like them in the front 60.

I’ve decided to cut a Day of judgment to add in a martial coup which is a little worse against jund and mythic and to be honest, the one maindeck change I’m likely to make is to go back to three DOJ, one martial coup, I just don’t like making myself worse in the control mirrors, especially since right now I haven’t been able to fit one of the Eldrazi gods into my sideboard.

Speaking of Sideboard:

2 Negate 1 Into the Roil 3 Celestial Purge 2 Kor Sanctifiers 3 Kor Firewalker 1 Mind Control 3 Luminarch Ascension

The only matchup I really don’t like is the Vengevine Naya matchup. I’m not really sure what I want to be doing vs. that post board but I’m going to get some testing in tonight and friday before the GP.

This is geared pretty heavily towards the control matchups, in which I like more negates, another into the roil, the sanctifiers and the Luminarchs. A few weeks ago I thought luminarchs were trash but looking at lists, people are cutting an oblivion ring or two from their 75 and enchantment destruction is almost non-existant. Some people are adopting into the roil, which could be an issue, but with 4 negates I should be able to back it up. I like keeping the sanctifiers for the mirror to deal with luminarchs and obrings still. I think that the firewalkers and the purges will be enough for the jund matchup, combined with leaving DOJ in and bringing in the Mind Control.

Maybe some more testing this weekend will tell me I’m wrong, but I’m hoping the white planeswalkers and arsenal of celestial purge in the board will help swing the Jund matchup a little bit, it’s possible that it’s not enough.

I’m pretty excited about the GP, GP Trials and even a fallback ptq on sunday, and I’m happy to be sleeving up this deck on the real battlefield. I’ll likely switch to Jund talk next week as ONline PTQs start back up and I’ve already traded for my Sarkhan the Mads and Consuming Vapors.

Til next time,

Mike Gemme
Mike@Power9Pro.com
Bobbysapphire on MTGO

Last week I discussed my preparation for the big TCGPlayer.com 5k / PTQ weekend in Boston, MA. All week I was pretty certain that I would be sleeving up UW tapout for Saturday but was contemplating some Mythic for Sunday. I also talked about my helping friend and former pro tour-er Blaine Hatab get Kiln Fiend into a winning deck. Well, Blaine and my testing (or lack thereof) worked out as he finished 9th and I came in second losing in the finals to JUND when I couldn’t rip one of 14 outs to take home my first Magic Trophy.

First I’ll start with the list I brought to the tournament Saturday and some discussion of it.

4 Baneslayer Angel 1 Elspeth Knight-Errant 3 Jace the Mind Sculptor 2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle 4 Wall of Omens 3 Day of Judgment 1 Everflowing Chalice 1 Martial Coup 3 Mind Spring 2 Negate 4 Oblivion Ring 2 Path to Exile 4 Spreading Seas 2 Arid Mesa 4 Celestial Colonnade 4 Glacial Fortress 4 Island 1 Misty Rainforest 7 Plains 1 Scalding Tarn 3 Tectonic Edge

you can see me discuss the list here.

My big insistance in the deck was to run 4 Oblivion rings. I really like the Obring vs. just about every deck out there right now. Even against mono red or R/x, being able to oblivion ring a Kiln fiend is invaluable. I wouldn’t leave all four in postboard vs. red decks, and I’d only cut them all if I didn’t see kiln fiend in games 1 and 2. But Planeswalkers are everywhere right now, and so aren’t baneslayers; Obring is just a good catch all, I even Obring’d a 1/1 Goblin Token vs. polymorph once last weekend.

I also liked 2 path and considered 3 just because of how good mythic is, and how an unchecked baneslayer angel can simply rule the mirror.

Probably the strangest thing about my list is the inclusion of 4 total fetchlands, 2 white and 2 blue. This is for a number of reasons. 1 they make both Jace and Sphinx of Jwar Isle better. Sometimes the sphinx just isnt enough late game and that’s when you have most of your card advantage. Numerous times on the weekend I would end up with a sphinx and some fetches and they would give me the chance to see more cards. Same goes with Jace, I once Jace: brainstormed 3 times in a row and got all lands each time, luckily the third time yielded a fetch so I could mix things up and ended up taking the game down despite not havnig a single threat for a few turns.

My Board was as follows:

1 Cancel 1 Celestial Purge 1 Day of Judgment 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 2 Jace Beleren 4 Kor Firewalker 2 Kor Sanctifiers 1 Mind control 2 Negate

Nothing really crazy in here except the 2 Jace Beleren. Those are in there for the control match to vindicate their jace and net me some cards when I can slap em down and get it done. I also ended up bringing them in vs. UR polymorph b/c in game 1 my opponent seemed really reliant on Jace to find his stuff.

This tournament really started off on the wrong foot for me. Out of 228 players I got paired up aganist my best friend Steve Baroni in round 1 and he was playing Open the Vaults / Time Sieve, the one deck that UW has almost no chance of beating.

Steve started with a mull to 4 or 5 and dropped game 1, then proceeded to take game 2 easily. As we began to shuffle up for game 3 Steve wanted to reboard some cards and when he reached for his deckbox it was gone. Someone had taken his box with his postboarded deck and he was missing some important hard to find commons and unless he replaced them would’ve had to scoop from the tournament. As we played game 3 Blaine tried to track some cards down, after coming up with nothing Steve decided to scoop to me and drop from the tournament to do some free drafting.

Then I proceded to drop my second game to the UW mirror after I couldn’t handle my opponent’s baneslayer angels in either of the second or third game.

I was not feeling great at this point, clearly I should’ve been 0-2 drop but with one win I *simply* had to win out…

I ended up beating, in no particular order, UW Tapout x2, Mythic, Jund, Naya SHallies, and White weenie to finish up 7-1 and able to draw with eventual champ Josh Herr into the top 8.

I was pretty nervous for the top 8 simply because I had played so horribly in the 8th round. I faced a good local player I knew and had beaten the last two times we faced (Dustin Taylor – 1859). I played really poorly against Dustin who was in it to win it. He gave me a real run for my money in game 1 after he mulled to 3 and I had a fairly slow start. In game 2 he rolled me on the play and in game 3 I ripped running baneslayer angels to give him no hope of top eighting. Most of my good fortune on Satudray was due to my supreme rips and not having to mull once.

In the top 8 meeting we were discussing splits and Gerard Fabiano was undecided on a split himself. I proposed we each take 500 and put the final 200 in the pot and play a winner-take-all top 8 event. Everyone eventually agreed to this and we were off.

Quarter Finals vs. Jund

I was pretty confident about Jund going into this event and was glad to see it in the first round of the top 8. Now that I had $500 in my pocket the pressure was off and I was able to just do work. If you watch my opponent’s interview he said he felt like he got outjunded this match and mabye that’s true because there weren’t any difficult decisions to be made during these games. It was all about surviving blightnings and casting as many spreading seas as I could to get to my Baneslayer Angels and Sphinx of Jwar Isle.

Semifinals vs. UW Tapout.

This is the only match other than mythic that I 2-0′d all day. In game 1 I stuck a Baneslayer Angel on 5 and then he played one on his turn 5. I laid down a jace the mind sculptor and bounced his angel then swang. At this point the lock was on as he could either try and take out my jace or keep dropping his Baneslayer. He dropped the baneslayer again and I didn’t have to play another card the rest of the match because of Negate in my hand and no reason to tap.

In game 2 it was more of the same, I answered his baneslayers but he couldn’t answer my 5/5 fliers. On the game winning turn I had a Sphinx and a Slayer vs. his Slayer. With plenty of Mana I cast mind spring for 4 leaving 3 mana open in hopes of ripping a path or an oblivion ring, the fourth card I drew was an Obring and that was that.

Finals vs. Jund

He takes down game 1 after casting Blightning once from his hand and another off of a cascade. In game 2 I have 7 mana on the turn after he drops Malakir Bloodwitch to a pretty full board facing down my baneslayer angel. I drop a Wall of Omens drawing Mind Control taking his bloodwitch and he scoops us into game 3.

Game 3 was a little nuts as he has the triple Putrid Leech Start after my Spreading Seas suck on the draw. Between all his Putride Leech activations and a swing from my Baneslayer Angel we’re both sitting under 10 life. I have a Colonnade on the board but my only other lands are plains and tectonic edges. I can draw any one of 3 islands, 2 blue fetches, 4 Glacial Fortresses or 3 Wrath of Gods to even this game up. I draw a blank and he’s able to burn me with Siege Gang Comander and have more than enough to swing in for the win and the trophy (though he and I split the final $200).

All in all I was pretty happy with UW tapout. I sleeved it up again on Sunday but it did not perform as well, I had to mulligan a lot and my draws weren’t very optimal and I was out by the sixth round. If I had to sleeve it up again I would definitely include a Gideon Jura in my Maindeck and likely a second martial coup. Martial Coup is really important in the mirror and my opponents having multiples took me down plenty of times over the two day weekend. I think I would cut down to 2 mind spring and try to throw in a Divination. Some potential cuts are 1x Baneslayer Angel, 1x Day of Judgment or an Oblivion Ring. I really like the maindeck negates so I wouldn’t personally cut those but I can see why people would not want them in the big 60.

This weekend I’ve got another PTQ in Hartford Connectictu, I’ll be wearing my bright orange Power9pro tshirt but I’ll likely be sleeving up Mythic Bant. I haven’t decided about which version I’m going to run, I’m leaning towards the Eldrazi Conscription version but with at least 1 Rafiq of the Many to give it more of a threat level if I can’t find my Sovereigns of Lost ALara during a game.

Thanks for reading

Mike Gemme
mike@power9pro.com
bobbysapphire on MTGO.

Here we go again.

It’s another season here on the PTQC and the grinding begins this weekend at the TCGPlayer 5k in Boston followed by a Sunday Funday PTQ.

Right now, public enemy #1 is UW Tapout; a deck that you can barely damage in the early game and is nigh untouchable in the mid-late game due to the hand sculpting card advantage given to the deck by cantrippers Wall of Omens and Spreading Seas, as well as Divination and Mind Spring, and of course Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Those, along with three-time all-star Oblivion Ring, and hall of famer Wrath of God there just isn’t a whole lot you can do to this deck before they resolve Baneslayer Angel or Sphinx of Jwar Isle.

Since I took this gig, I’ve been pushing Jund hard. Play the best deck I always say, and that deck is Jund. Well, unfortunately, it’s not anymore and I’ve been contemplating dumping my Maelstrom Pulses online for a cool 66 tickets though I’m not abandoning the bandwagon just yet. I am however, probably going to sleeve up UW Tapout this weekend at the 5k, so if you’re at the event and you see a better looking guy than you sitting across the table in a bright orange power9pro tshirt, mulligan appropriately.

That isn’t to say that I haven’t been trying like hell to brew up something spicy for one of these two events, because I have. I wish I had a better head start on things but life sometimes gets in the way and I was left with just a couple weeks to prepare for “The New Standard” as you see it called around the internets.

When Prophetic Prism was spoiled, old-school Open the Vaults / Time Sieve popped into my head because of its ability to replace elsewhere flask. I got the team involved because my brother had top 8′d an Australian PTQ with the deck last year and got to seeing if we could make it work in Standard where UW is what everyone is trying to do. We put a list together, tried some different things, and like I suspected it ran shop against UW Tapout. I was struggling against Jund a bit, but I wasn’t really comfortable with what hands I should’ve been keeping and what hands I should’ve been shipping. I passed it across the table to my buddy Steve and he immediately was feeling the deck. One of his big hangups has been that he really didn’t like any deck and he wanted to hit the 5k with something spicy and off the radar. And while Open the Vaults with Filligree Angel is certainly a deck right now, it’s possible to lose despite climbing to absurd amounts of life. The Tezzerator concoction simply never passes the turn back because of Time Sieve.

3 Glassdust Hulk 2 Jace Beleren 2 Tezzeret the Seeker 4 Mistvein Borderpost 4 Fieldmist Borderpost 4 Howling Mine 4 Kaleidostone 4 Prophetic Prism 4 Open the Vaults 4 Time Warp 4 Angelsong 2 Silence 7 Island 4 Plains 1 Swamp 4 Marsh Flats

Mike Siever is not very spicy, and this is pretty much just a drummed up old list with some prophetic prisms and a couple extra glassdust hulk, but it gets the job done. We found that the Hulk is pretty much the key to beating jund. They have so much disruption that it’s not exactly feasable to get the Time Sieve loop going, but if you can beat in for a couple turns with the Hulk while ramping and possibly rocking out an Open the Vaults, you simply catch the Jund Player unawares and tapped out and eventually at 0 life. Depending on how Steve does with this bear I might run it on Sunday.

Another buddy of mine fell in love with a new ROE card: Kiln Fiend. We pretty much spent an entire 24 hours discussing and testing decks with this guy trying to make him work. Sometimes he was just broken. If Jund tapped out for a sprouting thrinax on turn 3, he could straight up end the game with Distortion Strike[card], [card]Lightning Bolt, Burst Lightning; attack take 15, you’re pretty damn dead. Distortion strike makes him very good but in games you don’t draw the card, or in games that your opponent has like, a lightning bolt, things get ugly quick. We sleeved up just about every 1cc spell for red and blue (what’s up Burst of Speed ) and it was just too flimsy against Jund. There’s a possibility that this guy could be really good in Boros because you have a lot of other creatres to use who are strong and Emerge Unscathed takes the place of Distortion Strike, but outside of lightning bolt, burn spells are so underwhelming in standard that Boros doesn’t seem very well placed.

I’ve given MBC some serious thought this week but haven’t had any time to test it, once ROE comes out online I’ll probably sleeve this up virtually at some point and see how it does b/c I have most every card for it and somehow Abyssal Persecutor is like $10 less than it is IRL

4 Gatekeeper of malakir 4 Abyssal persecutor 4 Malakir bloodwitch 2 Ob Nixlis 2 Sorin Markov 3 Tendrils of Corruption 3 Doom Blade 2 Consuming Vapors 4 Sign in Blood 3 Mind Sludge 4 Contaminated Ground 17 Swamp 4 Marsh Flats 4 Verdant Catacomb

I really like Contaminated Ground, this deck is trying to nickel and dime the opponent, and maybe bash in with an abyssal once or twice. Contaminated Ground goes a long way and works as a removal spell for a turn 1 Celestial Colonnade. I love Ob Nixlis and Sorin Markov and this deck is just filled with good stuff. I think if you’re running Mind Sludge (which you should) then just don’t bother with tactonic edge, but this is definitely an archtype that could embrace the edge with a different approach.

My other option this weekend? Mythic Bant. The deck is pretty narrow, but it can sure as shit steamroll people. I haven’t played any games with it, which is against my motto for this season, but it is tournament one with a new set and I have to start somewhere. It does look like a pretty fun deck. If you haven’t seen the version with Sovereigns of Lost Alara and Edlrazi Conscription, I suggest you check it out because that looks like even more of a blast; “does my Sovereigns of Lost Alara Trigger Resolve? +10/+10 trample, Annihilate 2, thanks for playing” sounds like a fun mantra to repeat on the weekend. I think if anything I’d go with the Thronling version because it owns Jund, but I have to come up with a couple Rafiq of the Many if so because nobody ever seems to have that card.

I’ll let y’all know how things go next week, thanks for letting me air out my thoughts on the format and as always feel free to slam me or give me some better ideas.

Mike Gemme
Mike@power9pro.com
Bobbysapphire on MTGO

Tilt n (tlt): a state of mental confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy, usually resulting in the player becoming over-aggressive.

I hate it when poker terms bleed out into real life situations. I cringe anytime someone (including myself) says that they were “all-in” on something that isn’t a no-limit pot. I have to actively restrain myself from whipping out my pimp-hand when someone says something is “the nut,” but there’s just no better way to describe being tilted other than to say you’re on tilt, and having to admit that I’m on tilt when I am only makes me tilt harder.

I haven’t picked up a magic card in nearly two weeks because I’m on tilt. Hard.

That statement isn’t entirely true, because some friends and I team drafted at a hip bar in Boston a couple of weeks ago; I wasn’t happy about it, but I thought having some fun with magic might help my issue.

This all started after I had been killing it on Magic Online last month. After my online PTQ top 8 things had been steady, I was winning a bit but drafting a bit and not winning so everything kind of offset. Then I won a limited premiere event and my account was actually pretty respectable. I already had JUND built online so I really didn’t need to invest in anything, I could just pay entry fees to try and build the account to what I envisioned as a most ludcrious state by “going infinite” in daily events.

It had also been my goal since I got into MTGO to participate in a Magic Online Championship Series Event, something you have to qualify for by winning events online and earning points. In march after just a few days I had 11 out of the needed 15 points to participate; three weeks later I was holding steady at 11, the season over and my account nearly zeroed out of packs and tix.

This alone is enough to piss someone right off, but this is just the end to justify the means. The path that I took is what drove me into a downward spiral of Anger, Fear and Aggression: The Dark Path.

Anger. Don’t think you’re better than the game:

Magic is a quick game, often times over within 8 turns for each player. With so many fast decks out there the game can end even earlier. A lot of times when we lose there was something we could’ve done to win, but sometimes you just lose. If, after a loss, you open your mind to the idea that losses are inevitable you can avoid tilting.

But if you’re really angry about a loss, instead of jumping in another 8-man queue, go watch your games and see if there was any other play you could’ve made.

Fear. Don’t make stupid decisions because you are afraid to lose, these will only make you madder:

I have bad decisions tattooed on my arm; no joke. A lot of these were life decisions, but damned if I wasn’t sitting in that chair thinking about how it applies to my card career too. When you know you’re playing against vampires and you keep a hand with NO removal even though it’s a “good matchup” and you lose, it’s easy for someone to say “you can’t be mad, you decided to keep a bad hand.” SCREW that. You just did a stupid thing, and it’s infuriating. Most of my losses to vampires and allies are because I kept a hand without removal despite knowing my matchup and knowing I boarded in extra creature kill. And when I do this it only serves to piss me off, even if my mana was tight.

Aggression. Don’t reload:

I used to play a bunch of poker and when I was running bad I knew to just do something else. I have plenty of hobbies I can do something else with my time. I find it a lot harder to walk away from Magic because it’s such a proving ground for me. It’s the first card game I’ve played that I haven’t been able to excel at. So when I start losing it’s harder for me to not jump in an 8-man queue with 6 people in it or a Daily event that’s firing in 10 minutes.

I’ll harken back to the definition of Tilt I posted above and how it mentions aggressiveness. I most identify this with being too aggressive with your actual iterations of playing. If you’re angry and you are losing, just stop reloading beacuse even if you win a game or two, is it really going to pull you out of tilt, or is it going to make you reload again? It’s like false positive reinforcement, yeah that didn’t go so bad but when you find yourself still in your swoon you’re going to be up ranting and raving on facebook chat to your friends about how bullshit you are at yourself for keeping 6 lands and a bloodbraid elf.

That ranting and raving thing is a true story, only it happened on Gmail chat. I went through about 80 tickets in three days trying to qualify for the MOCS, and when I clicked open the Magic Online store to bust into my paypal account I had to draw the line and unplug my laptop. I like to pride myself on being a pretty cool customer, almost completely unflappable, but we all have weaknesses and as much of a gracious loser I think I am, I HATE losing; it bends me out of shape.

So I’m Magic Free for two weeks, even though I am a bit regretful that I cannot attend any Rise of Eldrazi pre-releases. I really enjoyed posting my pools from the Worldwake prereleases and writing about them for power9pro but I have an engagement with another card game that I must attend, and to be honest I don’t think I’m ready to strap back into a magic seat yet. I’m still pretty frustrated with myself for allowing my account to go nuclear instead of playing some xbox or reading, but I need to open myself up to the fact that playing for the sake of playing isn’t going to make me a better magic player. I’m going to sit back down when I really want to give it a stab… or on Sunday when the first standard PTQ online fires.

Mike Gemme

mike@power9pro.com

Bobbysapphire on MTGO

The goal of the game of Magic is obviously to win, right? But there are many ways to accomplish this goal. First and foremost is to make the opponent lose the game, because if you are the last one standing, you win. If there is only one player remaining, that player wins the game. This is important because most games end by causing your opponent to lose the game by reducing their life total to zero. The rules of the game tell us that unless an effect in play would prevent you from losing, if your life total is zero (or less) when state-based effects are checked, that is right before any player would receive priority, you are eliminated from the game.  Of course, this isn’t the only way a player can be eliminated from the game. The rules also tell us that if a player would be required to draw but cannot do so due to having zero cards in their library, they are eliminated. So what can we learn from this?

In both instances the game looks for the status of a vital resource in the game. When one of these resources, your life or your library, are exhausted you are out. Life total is your vitality and you must protect it from dipping under one. You can use and abuse it up till that point, and with the right application of effects, possibly beyond that point, but once the state in the rules is achieved, you lack the vitality to respond to the game. You can see it as being dead, being knocked unconscious, or whatever you like, but you are no longer a factor in the game. The case for being milled out seems a little more clear on this point. If you cannot draw any further spells to respond to the opponent’s actions and advance your own agenda, you are no longer a reasonable factor in the game, and the game removes you.

So, when you can’t respond anymore, and cannot advance your own agenda, you lose. This makes sense, but of course there are many ways of creating this situation for your opponent making it so that they’ve lost the game before the game actually kicks them out and declares you the winner. Let’s look at some strategies that do this as an overview of a type of ‘alternate’ win conditions that often crop up.

You can’t play the cards if you don’t get a turn. This may be the most obvious lockout, but if you are chaining together as many extra turns as you like, your opponent is dead in the water, unable to manipulate the gamestate beyond what few instant speed cards or abilities he has and what mana he has open. He simply waits for you to achieve one of the game ending states.

You can’t play the cards if you don’t have any mana. This is the goal of land disruption and destruction decks. If you need BRG to cast Sprouting Thrinax, and all you have is URG, thanks to Spreading Seas on your only source of B, you are locked out of that card. If you have none of the mana to cast the cards in your deck, either because they are the wrong colors thanks to your opponent or they keep getting sent to the graveyard or removed from game, you just sit with a full hand as your opponent kills you. You lose.

You can’t play the cards that leave your hand before you can play them. If you took your favorite deck and pulled out all the cards other than a handful of cheap instants, could you win a game by playing those cards one at a time? Most likely not, and that is why instant speed discard is a rare and powerful thing. With enough powerful discard, you can keep someone in topdeck mode. If you have instant speed discard, you can force them to play the card immediately after drawing it or lose it. Last I checked, unless you have great things on board already, you are not likely to win a game where nothing can ever come out of your hand.

You can’t play the cards if you can’t untap or are kept from casting. There has been and continues to be a plague that creeps through our beloved game on occasion. The ‘Lock’ type decks aim to ensure that you either never get to untap permanents, keeping you from having mana or other tap abilities to use, or they ensure that you are constantly under constraints that prevent you from casting. Of course, as we can see from above, if you can no longer interact with the gamestate, you’ve loss the game and are simply waiting for the game to declare your opponent the winner.

Due to the defacto state of win that the above deck archetypes can create, it is important to always look for ways to achieve one of these states when evaluating new cards and working to innovate a new strategy when deck building, Each strategy has a different weak point to exploit and a critical period in which to exploit it. Land destruction, for instance, must come online reliably on your turn three, because after that, too much is done buy three and four casting cost spells and too many lands are in play to stop most opponents plans. Discard should also come online as soon as possible, but is much more tolerant to creating a late game lock if there is instant speed discard in the format. In all of these cases, if your opponent can no longer effect the game, they’ve already loss and all you have to do is pluck away at their life or library until the game kicks them out.

Now, one quick note. There is another way of winning the game, and that’s with a rules modifying clause that creates a new winning condition other than being the last man standing. Mayael’s Aria, Helix Pinnacle, and Rise of the Eldrazi’s Near Death Experience are all ways of creating a change to the rules to declare yourself a winner. However, there is no inherent removal of your opponent in this strategy, so you opponent can actively attempt to keep you from succeeding up until the final moment. This separates these strategies from those above.

So, next time you are looking for a strategy outside of just attacking with many big guys, you can consider some of these winning game states and see if you can lock your opponent out of the game. Also, if you sit down across from one of these strategies, understand that they are trying to stop you from interacting with the game, and while annoying that is one of the most powerful ways to win as it is implied right in the rules: make your opponent irrelevant.

Getting started in EDH can be a daunting task for newer players.  Fortunately for those newer players, Wizards of the Coast releases special products, such as the Duel Decks series that showcase many older cards.  The newest line in the Duel Decks series is Phyrexia vs. The Coalition.  This product is a great jumping off point for newer players who want to try their hand at EDH packed with all sorts of EDH goodies.

Let’s take a look at what the mechanized armies of Phyrexia give us.  One of the coolest reprints in a long time, Phyrexian Negator has prompted some serious debate about Wizard’s Reserved List.  The Negator is an amazing option for an aggro deck but EDH is more about longevity and combos than about quick beatdown.  Remember life totals in EDH are 40 not 20.  Still, this guy can be decent for you if you are lean on options.  Sacrifice outlets allow for some interesting tricks and Phyrexian Plaguelord fits the bill nicely.  For card draw, Phyrexian Arena is really good, abusing that big life total.  Another nice addition is Phyrexian Processor.  Pumping out a threat every turn for a minimal resource commitment is awesome.

One of my favorite reprints is Voltaic Key.  This card was amazing back in the days of Urza’s Saga and offers great potential with good artifacts floating around (like the Processor above).  Worn Powerstone and of course Phyrexian Colossus also play nice with the Key.  Another card I was excited to get was Lightning Greaves.  I cannot think of a card that is more useful in General-centric strategies than the Greaves.  Whispersilk Cloak, Hornet Cannon, Phyrexian Vault, and Phyrexian Totem are all playable cards that can help a beginner with EDH.  Living Death and Slay are pretty good as well.

Taking a look at the good guys we find that the Coalition has a bunch to offer.  One, two, three, four…four Generals come in this deck!  Darigaaz, the Igniter, Gerrard Capashen, Rith, the Awakener, and Treva, the Renewer.  That’s a lot of Legendary goodness.

The Coalition give us some great utility creatures as well.  Thornscape Battlemage, Sunscape Battlemage, and Thunderscape Battlemage all offer some usefull abilities.  Yavimaya Elder  = card advantage (cool new art too).  Armadillo Cloak, Coalition Relic, and Power Armor are decent goodies as well.  The Coalition also gives us a great finisher in Urzas Rage.  This big spell laughs in the face of counter-magic and the foil treatment it got is superb.

If you are new to EDH, or if you know someone who wants to get into it, then the Phyrexia vs. The Coalition Duel Deck is a great place to pick up some awesome older cards.  Use this as a springboard to take the plunge into the EDH waters.

Hello everyone, and I hope the students among you are enjoying Spring break as much as I am. Friday and Saturday were a whirlwind of Magic-related challenges, and now that I’m caught up on some sleep, I’m ready to recount the story.

We start off in Edmonton (my hometown) at 10:30 pm. One of my buddies swings around my place so that we can meet our other two friends on the other side of town for supper. However, Dave, the guy who is driving only came to the city about a year ago, and progresses further out of town in the opposite direction we need to go. Thus, we end up taking a roundabout trip to the restaurant that takes us almost an hour. When we get to the restaurant, I don’t recognize my friends at their table because they are sitting with 10 others whom I don’t know, and are dressed up like Japanese school girls. Long story short, after a few cell phone calls and facepalms, we sit down and enjoy general merriment until about midnight. When we finally go over to my friend’s place where we’re spending the night, we test for about an hour before attempting to go to bed. Of course our host’s roommate has also invited some other friends to spend the night, so Dave, Matt, and myself end up sleeping on the floor.

4 hours later, we get up and fill ourselves with coffee and hit the road for the 3-0hour drive to Calgary. While Dave drives and Matt sleeps in the shotgun, Brian and I test extended for a good hour and a half on top of spare binders on our laps. This is of course until the truck sputters to a stop in the middle of the highway. The three more academically inclined of us (Matt, Brian, and I) resign ourselves to the fact that we will miss the PTQ, while Dave points out that there is an abnormally strong smell of gas on the side of the highway. Looking down, we see an enormous pool of gas dripping from the bottom of the truck, and Dave is able to reconnect the dislodged gas line and set us back on our way, with enough time to spare.

On arrival at the tournament site, we find that WotC has donated a ton of product to the event, and that everyone will get six free boosters just for showing up. Seems awesome.

The time for handing in decklists comes, and this is what I submit.

Here Fishy Fishy

4 Merrow Reejerey 4 Lord of Atlantis 2 Merfolk Sovereign 2 Cursecatcher 4 Silvergill Adept 3 Sejiri Merfolk 4 Path to Exile 4 Cryptic Command 3 Mana Leak 4 Wake Thrasher 3 Umezawas Jitte 3 Hallowed Fountain 3 Wanderwine Hub 4 Mutavault 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Arid Mesa 1 Misty Rainforest 8 Island 2 Plains

And here is the sideboard:

2 Wrath of God 2 Threads of Disloyalty 2 Damping Matrix 3 Temporal Isolation 3 Ethersworn Canonist 3 Leyline of Singularity

So as I said in my previous article, I didn’t think that Faerie Depths was a good decision for a metagame filled with Zoo. I came across Marshall Arthurs’ winning list about a week prior to the tournament, and I knew immediately that I would be playing merfolk. They’re a deck that I played in standard, and I’m very familiar with the archetype. Unlike Faerie Depths, I’m almost always playing ahead of my opponent, whereas Faeries needs to play catch up for most of the game.

I only made a few changes to Marshall’s list. The first, and most notable, is the removal of 2 Cursecatcher and a Mana Leak for 3 Sejiri Merfolk. I think that this was absolutely the right call, as I boarded out Cursecatchers a fair bit, and the Sejiri was able to totally turn games around. Seriously, this card is extremely good.

The other change is the inclusion of more basic lands. I knew there would be a fair few players piloting Kyle Bogemmes’ Blood Moon Zoo, as well as Gavin Verhey’s Ultimecia. I believe that the 10 basics and 3 fetches render that plan of attack effectively useless, except for that it shuts off Mutavault. Again we see that this deck is superior to Faerie Depths in its ability to deal with moon effects, whereas faeries would many times just scoop to the 3 mana enchantment or its magus.

The board is almost completely different from Marshall’s. I added Threads of Disloyalty to assist me in the Zoo matchup, and Damping Matrix to hurt Thopter Depths. Wrath of God is a way for me to deal with Elves, fast Zoo, and maybe a resolved Hypergenesis or Living End. Finally, Leyline of Singularity was my ace in the hole against Thopter Foundry decks, as well as Elves and Dredge.
Round 1: vs Arvin (Uw Merfolk)

Arvin is last year’s regional champion from Calgary, and I greet him as such when we sit down. He seems a little flattered that someone who he doesn’t know knows his name, and we make small talk while shuffling our decks. Imagine my surprise when he plays a turn one Island followed by Cursecatcher. My mindset immediately changes into how I can beat the mirror, and I identify Lord of Atlantis as a game changer immediately. I realize that I must use it as an Overrun style finisher, rather than as a source of continual damage. He casts Silvergill Adept on turn 2, and than I respond with Sejiri Merfolk. This is where he becomes aware of the situation as I have known it for 2 turns, and we both have a little chuckle at the unexpected mirror match.

He casts an Umezawas Jitte on turn 3, which I kill with a Jitte of my own. The first strike on my Sejiri Merfolk is holding the fort, but I become worried when he resolves another Jitte on the next turn. After equipping it to his 3/2 Silvergill Adept he pauses and asks me: “Does [Sejiri Merfolk] have first strike?” I reply in the affirmative, and then he does something which defies rational explanation. He attacks with his Jitte-wielding adept while he’s tapped out. I block, and I stop him when he tries to put counters on the Jitte, informing him that his guy died before it dealt combat damage. He realizes the extent of his misplay, and then I play a Jitte to kill his, and overwhelm him in the next few turns.

I board out 3 Lord of Atlantis and 2 Cursecatcher In favour of 2 Threads of Disloyalty and 3 Temporal Isolation. In game 2, I make a mistake early on when I cast Threads on his Wake Thrasher. Shortly after, I realize my mistake and explain to the judge the situation. He gives us both a warning, and our game goes on. It turns out that Arvin didn’t board out Lord of Atlantis, and my Wake Thrasher in able to go all the way with islandwalk.

1 – 0

Round 2: vs Mike (Hypergenesis)

We’re chatting while we shuffle and we discuss which, if any, decks would actually want to draw in this format. I say that the Hypergenesis builds which run Gemstone Caverns might want to and he replies that his deck might also draw sometimes. When he plays a turn 1 Gemstone Mines, I’m not surprised, and I drop a Sejiri Merfolk on turn 2. However, this is where all hell breaks loose, as he exiles a Simian Spirit Guide and casts Violent Outburst during my end step. He brings out Bogardan Hellkite and Progenitus, and I bring in 4 Merfolk Lords and a Wake Thrasher. Then my opponent misplays, choosing to kill off one of my lords with the hellkite damage, rather than hit me and swing for game next turn. He doesn’t realize this until I’ve drawn a Path to Exile for his Hellkite and my team swings in for the win.

I board in Ethersworn Canonist and Wrath of God. I have a turn 2 Sejiri Merfolk again, and he combos off on turn two…again. He brings down Angel of Despair, killing a lord I bring down, and a Progenitus. I have the Path to Exile for his angel, and so it’s a battle of merfolk vs Progenitus. I go to 2 after two successive hydra swings thanks to my lifegaining merfolk, and I try and stabilize on the back of a Lord of Atlantis, Mutavault and the aforementioned Sejiri Merfolk. I draw a Cryptic Command to tap his 10/10 and draw a card, giving me one more swing. On my draw step, a draw another Cryptic, which clinches the game for me while a 10/10 hydra was staring me down.

2 – 0

Round 3: vs Jared (Tribal Zoo)

I lose the roll and find him to have a very fast start consisting of Noble Hierarch, Qasali Pridemage, Wild Nacatl and Knight of the Reliquary. I assume he’s playing some GW aggro deck, and I attempt to stabilize with a 3/2 Sejiri merfolk wearing an Umezawas Jitte. However, he eventually beats me down with sheer numbers and I move to game 2.

I mulligan in the second game, after seeing a hand with double Mutavault and little else[/card]. I only saw Naya colours in the first game, so imagine my surprise when he cracks a fetchland for Watery Grave. In addition to his faster start, which I fend off for the most part, he has double Tribal Flames for 5, which just burn me out.

2 – 1

Round 4: vs Lorenzo (Blood Moon Zoo)

Normally, I’d be apprehensive about facing Lorenzo, as he’s one of the best players in the province. However, I know what he’s playing, and I spent a good hour testing this exact matchup on the ride home with Brian, so I know I’m favoured to win. I play 3 lords on turns 3, 4 and 5, and he resolves Bloodbraid Elf into a Blood Moon. This screws him out of green, while the high number of basics in my deck pay off, and double Merrow Reejerey takes him down.

Game 2 is all about the Wake Thrashers. I play 3 over the course of the game, and he can’t remove them all. This forces him to make a ton of chump blocks, and he draws a fair bit of land near the end of the game which seals the match.

3 – 1

Round 5: vs Shaun (Thopter Depths)

Finally, the match which matters the most. Testing has indicated that its 50/50 pre-board, and a slight edge to me post-board, and Shaun is one of the best players around, having been on the pro tour in the past. In game 1 he has a Vampire Hexmage to stop my Cursecatcher and Silvergill Adept, and a turn 3 Dark Depths wins it for him, as I don’t draw a Path to Exile

In game 2, He gets the Thopter Foundry combo online, but it’s too late, as I have the deadly duo of Wake Thrasher and Merfolk Sovereign, which crash in for upwards of 10 damage a turn.

Game 3 I have no chance. He has a turn 1 Thopter Foundry off a Chrome Mox, a turn 2 Sword of the Meek and a turn 3 Marit Lage which dies to path. However, I get overrun by thopters and the lifegain makes it impossible for me to race him.

Round 6: vs Lowell (Red Deck Wins)

This matchup is actually much harder than I had envisioned, but the plethora of lord effects I have become the deciding factor. He can’t afford to leave a Wake Thrasher unburnt, so I have enough firepower (and life) to stay alive and decimate him. My notes have me winning this game at a precarious one life.

In game 2, I resolve an early Sejiri Merfolk, which renders all his Hellspark Elementals useless. I gain 8 life off the one merfolk, and 3 lords end up being the deciding factor in this very one-sided game.

4 – 2

Round 7: vs Colin (Thopter Depths)

Within the first 2 turns, he casts triple Thoughtseize, nabbing a Lord of Atlantis and 2 Wake Thrashers. He attempts to make a Dark Depths token which is me by a Path to Exile. Eventually, my islandwalking army of merfolk overwhelm him, aided by the 6 damage he dealt to himself of the bat.

Game 2 is the perfect draw for me. I play a turn zero Leyline of Singularity, which causes everyone in the top tables around me to look. Colin is dumbfounded by the fact that one of his combos is severely neutered, and when he struggles to get a Marit Lage, I casually cast Path to Exile. I bring in an army consisting of Silvergill Adept, Lord of Atlantis, Merrow Reejerey, and Merfolk Sovereign. His ability to only make a single thopter does him in, and I find myself with a potential spot in top 8.

5 – 2

Unfortunately, I miss the top 8 on breakers and get 10th overall. This is my best finish at a PTQ yet, and come May, I have every intention of winning the ticket to Amsterdam on home soil in Edmonton.

I think that this deck was an excellent meta choice, and not enough people give this deck the respect it deserves. The Sejiri Merfolks were an amazing addition, as was the increased number of basic lands.

The only thing I would change about the above decklist would be to cut a single Temporal Isolation from the sideboard, and add in a Spell Snare, because most of the time I didn’t want to dilute my merfolk count too much, and with 4 path maindeck, it seemed excessive to have 3.

It’s now time to focus on Rise of the Eldrazi, and its impact on standard. Join me and the rest of the Power 9 Pro team with a set review, tales from prerelease and launch parties, and more in the coming weeks.

As always, feel free to sound off in the comments, or contact me via email at zak -AT- power9pro.com, or through my twitter feed at www.twitter.com/zturchan. Until next time,

Cheers,

Zak

Well as we progress into the year there are numerous happenings goings-on in the magic universe. We have spoiled some new Rise of the Eldrazi cards, and even more will be released in the coming weeks, and players are writhing in the wake of the recent tightening of the Reserve List. However, we still have a little bit more time left in the PTQ season for Pro Tour San Juan, and so a few players are still focussing in on the Extended format trying to win a trip to Puerto Rico, including myself. The Alberta PTQ is this weekend, and my local play group are taking the 3 hour drive down to Calgary, the home of teammate Sean, to play.

I will fully admit that I had settled on a deck to play about 3 weeks ago, until last Saturday, when I found and modified a list which I like even more given the local metagame. So while I tweak my PTQ list, I thought I’d share the brew that I came up with beforehand, which is still a solid deck, it’s just more metagame-dependant.

The origin of this deck came from a logical inquiry. Let us look at the holy trinity of cards which have made blue-black decks so popular in Extended.

First up is Dark Depths, the land which rocked Extended in October due to its potential with Vampire Hexmage and the ability to produce a 20/20 token in the early turns of the game. A blue-black control deck was piloted by many players at Pro Tour Austin.

Next, we have Thopter Foundry, whose interaction with Sword of the Meek creates an engine potent enough to win games as soon as the combo is left un-dealt with. This combo was paired with Tezzeret the Seeker in a sort of toolbox deck back in 2009.

Finally, we have a favourite from last standard season, Bitterblossom, the card that became the bane of many players for two years. This card remains popular in extended, as many players continue to sleeve up the blue-black menace in the hopes of reliving the glory days of faeries. While not the mono-blue monstrosity of last year, it remained a popular deck even after the rotation of Riptide Laboratory.

In the year 2010, these separate strategies have converged, and we see decks like Gerry Thompson’s Thopter Depths dominating extended, and Thopter Faeries being the most commonly seen build of faeries for the last few months, using the combo to mitigate the life loss from Bitterblossom. Looking at these, I began to see that something was missing.

In the above triumvirate, the three strategies have all combined except for Dark Depths and Faeries. I thought to myself: “they’re in the right colour combination, so why not?” I reasoned that the potential for an early game kill could be assisted in part by the control skeleton of faeries, which aims to kill the opponent more slowly through the production of Bitterblossom tokens. As well, the always-awesome Spellstutter Sprite would be able to protect a Marit Lage from the ever-present Path to Exile, which ruins so many nice Dark Depths kills.

So I began to develop a skeleton of the deck. What we wanted were the pieces necessary for the two halves of the deck to work in isolation, but for multiple cards to serve roles in both game plans. Lets look at the core of the Dark Depths combo,

4 Dark Depths
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

The first two cards are what is needed for the combo to go off, and the Urborgs are necessary in order to enable the possiblitie of a turn-two Marit Lage and a turn 3 kill.

Now let’s look at what a faeries deck needs to win:

4 Bitterblossom
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2-3 Umezawas Jitte
X Cryptic Command

These should all be obvious, but I want to make a note about Cryptic Command. This cards is obviously amazing, but what I wanted to do with this deck was slightly different than what a normal faeries deck wants to do. A Cryptic is a heavy investment, because you have to keep 4 mana open, including 3 blue sources. This means that we will often need to decide between leaving mana open when our opponent might not present an opportune time to play Cryptic, which leaves our mana fallow for a turn. It it my contention that it is possible to better use this mana, perhaps in setting up our combo or improving our board position. For example, we can cast something akin to a Vendillion Clique and still have mana open for a removal spell. We will almost always cast the Clique anyway, and it improves our board position and destabilizes the opponent’s plans. If they do not present an opportunity to play removal, we have still changed the board since our last turn. The game’s progress should ideally change every turn, and in this precise build of faeries, I’m not sure how great it will be.

So now that we have the two skeletons, we must decide on our multi-purpose cards, which can help either of the game’s timelines depending on the board. The first such card is Muddle the Mixture. Not only does it stop removal spells and the odd trick or counterspell, but it transmutes at 2. Going the Dark Depths route, we can tutor for the all-important Vampire Hexmage. If we’re playing the more controlling game, we can improve our grasp on the game by nabbing Umezawas Jitte or even a Bitterblossom. This helps us streamline our game plan to hopefully ensure the success of the deck.

Another such utility card is Damnation. It’s inclusion in the maindeck allows us to wait for our opponent overextend, and then pounce with a Bitterblossom or some other beater. Alternatively, it can be used as a way of clearing the path for a Marit Lage against pesky flying blockers, such as those generated by an opponent’s Bitterblossom.

Well, without further ado, the decklist, as I would build it right now.

Blue-Black Faerie Depths (Original, I know).

4 Dark Depths 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 2 Watery Grave 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Scalding Tarn 3 Sunken Ruins 2 Swamp 4 Island 4 Secluded Glen 3 Tolaria West 4 Scion of Oona 4 Vampire Hexmage 2 Vendilion Clique 4 Spellstutter Sprite 4 Bitterblossom 4 Muddle the Mixture 2 Cryptic Command 2 Smother 2 Repeal 2 Damnation 2 Umezawas Jitte Sideboard 2 Damnation 1 Leyline of Singularity 3 Leyline of the Void 2 Extirpate 4 Thoughtseize 1 Darkblast 2 Threads of Disloyalty

One decision I made that is questionable in this deck is the inclusion of Scion of Oona, rather than something like Mistbind Clique. I find that it’s often a counterspell against something that threatens your Bitterblossom or a Spellstutter Sprite while its ability is still on the stack. As well, it gives you a huge advantage against deck where there are lost of 1/1s attacking you (Elves, Faeries I’m looking at you), and it makes you much more favoured against those types of decks.

One of the reasons I say this is a deck that only works in a certain metagame is that the deck is more or less cold to a resolved Night of Souls Betrayal. For this reason, I tested a variety of builds running Sprite Noble in addition to Scion of Oona, and I mulled over the thought of using Bad Moon to amp up Hexmage and my Faerie tokens. However, in the end, I determined that the legendary enchantment was seeing almost no play, and that I could get away with something close to the above list. Unfortunately, due to the recent rise in popularity of Ultimicia aka Grixis Haterator as well as Living End decks, this decks performance ahs dipped slightly. Again, it’s a metagame call on what lords you play.

Everything else in this deck is pretty standard, except for one card in the sideboard. Leyline of Singularity is a card that’s been growing on me as of late, due to its ability to shut down the Thopter Foundry combo from turn 1, as well as the incredible hinderance it is to elf decks who need multiple Nettle Sentinels to combo off. However, this card does hurt our Bitterblossom plan, so if we bring in Leyline we need to either board out the blossoms or be very careful how we play them.

So let’s go over the decks matchups, shall we?

Zoo
This is the reason I decided not to play this deck in the PTQ, as our meta is extremely Zoo-infested. This matchup is extremely bad, although it varies with the type of zoo we’re facing. Kyle Boggeme’s Blood Moon Zoo is almost unwinnable, because our mana base is not as stable as we would like. The blue Zoo variant is not much better, as their Bant Charms make Marit Lage’s life expectancy almost zero. The problem with this matchup is that you’re always playing catchup, so I don’t recommend this deck if you expect a lot of Zoo. However, the Damnations and Threads of Disloyalty will make you more resilient post-board, but Volcanic Fallouts are always going to be a problem.

Thopter Depths
This matchup is fairly good. Game one it is about 50/50, where the best player will usually win, as it can go either way. Post-board, the deck gets much stronger with the addition of Extirpate and Leyline of the Void. Even the blue Leyline can be brought in to wreck the thopter combo, and you’ll find yourself sitting pretty for the second two games.

Elves!
Again, one of our favoured matchups. They often can’t stand up to an early Marit Lage, and our flashy Scion of Oonas allow for big combat reversals. In games 2 and 3, we get Darkblast, Leyline of Singularity, Thoughtseize, Extirpate and Damnation. In addition to our mainboard Umezawas Jittes and Spellstutter Sprites, we should be a heavy favourite to win out.

Well it’s getting late and I have to be up early for the PTQ tomorrow. For those of you who don’t already, follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/zturchan for round by round updates, and feel free to contact me in the comments or via email at zak -AT- power9pro.com.

Until next time, cheers!

Zak

So, everybody wants to be a Figure of Destiny.

I just spent a week down in my favorite city in the world (New Orleans) and on my shaky flights home I took notes on an article I’ve been meaning to write since I landed this gig at p9p. However, when I got home and punched “Daily MTG” into google for the first time in eight days and found the Rise of Eldrazi visual spoiler and some crazy new mechanics, I knew that I’d once again have to shelve that other article and talk about power levelling.

So far we’ve got three Light Warriors who can level up at will (well, sorcery speed will):

It’s pretty tough to analyze these guys after only seeing three of them, but their rarity speaks to me a bit. One mythic, one rare and one common; there will likely be a fair number of these guys in the set, maybe 2-3 per color.

I think the major thing to consider about this mechanic is how exactly to play it (even before we consider how good this mechanic really is or isn’t). For example, take a look at Guul Draz Assasin. When are we playing this guy? Play him on one, level him up maybe on 2, then on 3 you level him up again and make their 2 drop -2/-2. That’s obviously one streamlined option, but does this guy get worse if you can’t play him on turn 1? Maybe not. Turn 3 you can play him and pump him once, then on turn 4 you can pump him again and still have the option to make a guy -2/-2 which can make combat really tricky that turn if they can’t kill him. The main question we need to ask ourselves at this point is how does our board look? Is a casting cost of 2BBB worth it to have a 2/2 that can run shop on the board?

What this mechanic really is, is “slow-kicker.” The fact that the rare ones seem color-intensive could make things really problematic, but the common Knight of Cliffhaven (anybody else thinking of Cliff Claven?) levels for three colorless mana, making him a much better limited card even if his level up cost is pretty expensive. We’ve seen 2/2’s for 2cc go a long way in limited over the years, and we’ve seen 2/3 flyers do pretty well too. But a 2/3 flyer for 5 mana? Eh. If your curve falters it’s fine, and if you’re really struggling to stop a flyer he is obviously very handy, but really I think most times this guy is going to be a good limited staple (since we’re drafting triple ROE) for white but no real practical constructed application.

This mechanic gives us a new template which is cool if not fugly, and I think the power level of the rares will be the deciding factor on whether or not these guys can hang in constructed standard, because I’m sure some will be usable in block.

Dennis Rodman plays magic?!

Rebound is the only new mechanic with the potential to do really unfair things. This is what we have so far:

Right now we only have things that are pumps, which is fine because so far they’re both forms of removal that are really good when you play it on your opponent’s turn and rebound it on your turn.

I don’t think I really have to go too in depth into this, as it’s pretty obvious that if you can block, play Preys Vengeance to go +2/+2 to kill a creature and keep your guy alive, rebound into your guy being +2/+2 again and attack in bigger than anyone on the board you’re going to be looking pretty good. Same with Virulent Swipe, you can play it on defense to force a trade and then swing in the next turn with someone else and make them trade with you again or take some damage. It seems like a good way to make use of a guy who has become outclassed by the other creatures on the board.

It’ll be interesting to see what else they do with this mechanic. The two cards we have are uncommon so I wonder if there will be just one uncommon Rebound card in each color that’s some form of pump. It’s easy to assume that the white card will give us lifelink and the blue card will give us flying, but maybe R/D will be a little more inventive than that.

But it would be really cool if they gave us real board changing cards with rebound. Like a blue card that bounces a creature, a black that kills, a red that burns etc. It is a really cool, strong mechanic that doesn’t seem TOO powerful.

I’ve already said something on totem armor in the power9pro spoiler article two weeks ago, but this new card is exactly what I was looking for to think that this mechanic has potential:

First strike is one of the most powerful of the most used keywords on creatures. It can absolutely rule combat, so casting Hyena Umbra to give a guy +1/+1 and first strike and “Regenerate for free” makes this a nifty little power package at a very, very low cost. Kindled Fury was one of my absolute favorite cards in M10 draft and won me many a pack on MTGO, this card reminds me of that. And, since it’s white I like it as a card that can make Knight of the Reliquary even better. I’m interested to see what the other colors with this mechanic have to offer, especially at such low costs.

The only other new mechanic is Annihilator and I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s one of the most powerful Mechanics magic has ever printed. Obviously it’s main hindrance is that none of the cards it’s printed on cost less than 8, nor do they have haste, so you’re not going to be Annihilating anything without great effort.

There’s also a little something going on with Defender, but that’s not exactly new or exciting, just that they’re getting really into defender for this set, which (with apologies) doesn’t excite me whatsoever. Though this card was spoiled today by WOTC:

That’s it for me, I’m always excited about new cards even if I’m not excited about their constructed applications. I’m hoping we get a lot more out of rebound and some interesting Level Uppers in all the colors, until then I’ll be cascading.

Mike Gemme
BobbySapphire on MTGO
mike@power9pro.com

PS: here’s a link to the WOTC Visiual Spoiler, check it often.