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The Eh Team Ep72 – Sneep, Keep, or Ditch?

The Eh Team — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:04:25 +0000

It’s Episode 72, and Jay Boosh is back from Hawaii! The Eh Team gets down to serious business right away, as Boosh introduces a new playtesting game to keep their minds sharp, “Sneep, Keep, or Ditch?” Scotty & Medina talk about SCG Cincinnati, while KYT and Scotty go over their deck choices for an upcoming Modern PTQ in Toronto.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:50:43 — 50.7MB)

CMT Toronto coverage page on ManaDeprived.com
Scotty’s SCG Cincinnati Feature match (iTunes link)

**WARNING – this podcast may contain rude, crude, and lewd content. Listener discretion is advised.**

You can find us on Twitter at:

@mtgEhTeam

@manadeprived - Kar Yung Tom
@JayBoosh - Jay Tuharsky
@MrScottyMac - Scott MacCallum
@mtgmedina - Jonathan Medina

Check out ManaDeprived.com and 60cards.com daily for current decklists, and articles, videos, and a whole lot more.

You can also find us on MTGCast.com.

For people who want the latest episode in their iTunes as quickly as possible, you can subscribe using this link:
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/mana-deprived/id489782347
Or via RSS:
http://manadeprived.com/category/the-eh-team/feed

Music

Eh Team Intro - @mtgcolorpie
Throwing Fire - Ronald Jenkees

BUI – Standard Deck

Smi77y — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:19:18 +0000

My quest to “crack” the meta-game hasn’t stopped. Just a couple of days ago I was reading Conley Woods article over on tcgplayer.com and was really taking a close look at Undying Evil. I originally started with a shell of Snapcaster Mage and a couple Undying Evil, however in a roundabout way I ended up with no Snapcaster and Undying Evil in the sideboard. I found that my guys were never actually getting blocked or even blocking. And a lot of standard removal isn’t even destroying the creatures so it wasn’t doing too much main deck.

I went back and looked at what my old UG infect aggro did well, but I wanted more staying power and I also wanted to use guys that could attack with evasion as well as having better control elements. Plus the UB mana base is far better.

The deck I’d classify under “combo” for a couple of reasons, a lot of the time (if you are playing this correctly) you aren’t just throwing out 1/1′s to die. The trick is to stick a dude when you are confident you can keep it alive via protecting it with pump, leaks etc. Or stick it when you know your opponent needs to tap out next turn. The idea is to sculpt a hand and surprise attack with Livewire Lash, equip, Artful Dodge + Mutagenic Growth and basically just win on the spot. Phyrexian Crusader helps by staying alive much easier than other creatures, so you are ok to tap out turn 3 for a guy. It really depends though. In certain matchups I do go turn two creature, and start to get in some infect. A lot of the time this will scare the opponent into tapping out to try and race, and sometimes they just have to. And it’s because of this that I believe players may struggle with this build and may not have success. It’s a deck you really need to test against the field because it plays out so differently vs all of them. This is also the reason I include Gitaxian Probe. Information is incredibly valuable for the deck. Use a pad and paper!

Another tip is to be patient with everything, don’t just growth to get your opponent to 5 infect. That growth may save your guy later, or you may find that Livewire Lash and Growth will be worth 4 infect for 0 mana! If you can sculpt the right hand you can outrace in a single turn, so really play out your next turn or two in your head. This all ties into my SCG article I wrote this week to a tee, and this is the exact deck that you’d end up throwing to the side based on losing because you are playing it wrong. All that said, this deck is amazingly powerful and incredibly fun to play as it’s a thinking mans deck from time to time.

If you are rocking FNM or SCG this weekend and have time to test or feel brave, this is an awesome deck for the current weekend. There are far fewer Gut Shots around (but you have plenty more Growth’s than they have Gut Shot). I know I’ll be battling with this over the weekend!

One final note – I generally side out Livewire Lash against artifact removal unfortunately (sometimes waiting until game 3), and bring in Dark Favor to brick some of their cards. This is 100% of the time vs Ancient Grudge as you’ll never stick a Lash.

Creatures (12)

Spells (26)

Land (22)

Sideboard (15)

For those playing this evening or this weekend here is a general sideboard guide. Remember this isn’t necessarily right because every circumstance is different. But it’s a guide and hopefully some insight on how I see certain matchups (whether right or wrong).

Vs Ramp

-4 Livewire Lash (Ancient Grudge is too good, you want to blank them)
-2 Virulent Wound (it’s still decent vs opposing Birds or Inkmoth Nexus)
+1 Undying Evil
+3 Dark Favor
+2 Dissipate

Vs Spirits

-3 Gitaxian Probe (taking 2 life hurts and they can Ponder so your information isn’t as valuable)
-2 Mana Leak
-1 Virulent Wound (doesn’t hit as much as it used to)
+3 Corrosive Gale
+3 Mental Misstep (Still stops Gut Shot, Snag, Delver, etc)

Vs Reanimator

-4 Virulent Wound
+2 dissipate
+2 Surgical Extraction

Vs Mono Green Aggro

Probably no changes to be honest. They hit enchantments so sideing out Livewire won’t do much good.

Vs Humans

-4 Virulent Wound
+3 Mental Misstep
+1 Dark Favor

Vs Pod
-1 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Dissipate (you wan to keep creatures off the board)

Vs UB Control

-1 Gitaxian Probe (this is sort of a variable cut slot)
-4 Virulent Wound
+2 Dissipate
+2 Undying Evil
+1 Surgical Extraction

Vs Random decks

The extra Undying Evil comes in vs Red decks mostly. But you should be able to figure this out based on prior SB strats.

The Eh Team Ep71 – The Pact

The Eh Team — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:13:24 +0000

It’s a double-header for Episode 71, with Franky Richard sitting in for Jay Boosh AND special guest Shaheen Soorani also back for his second visit. The Eh Team learns about Shaheen’s deckbuilding for SCG Richmond, discuss the Standard metagame for the Pro Tour, hear more scumbag stories, pick up some Dark Ascension draft tips, and… Shaheen helps the Eh Team update a combo deck for their Modern PTQs, but only after they make a pact to play it!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:32:28 — 42.3MB)

Shaheen’s Protean Hulk Modern decklist from PT Philadelphia

**WARNING – this podcast may contain rude, crude, and lewd content. Listener discretion is advised.**

You can find us on Twitter at:

@mtgEhTeam
@livewithfrank - François Richard
@shaheenmtg - Shaheen Soorani

@manadeprived - Kar Yung Tom
@JayBoosh - Jay Tuharsky
@MrScottyMac - Scott MacCallum
@mtgmedina - Jonathan Medina

Check out ManaDeprived.com and 60cards.com daily for current decklists, and articles, videos, and a whole lot more.

You can also find us on MTGCast.com.

For people who want the latest episode in their iTunes as quickly as possible, you can subscribe using this link:
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/mana-deprived/id489782347
Or via RSS:
http://manadeprived.com/category/the-eh-team/feed

Music

Eh Team Intro - @mtgcolorpie
Throwing Fire - Ronald Jenkees

Neo’s BW Control

Neo — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:06:14 +0000

It has been a while since I have taken a deck to the brewing table. Today I bring you a deck I have been messing around with to a surprising amount of success, and it should come to no surprise that is it a deck with strong elements of control to it.

After playing UB Control, Solar Flare and some Esper Control, I moved to UW Delver commonly called Mage-Blade. The switch was provoked by the sense that control was lacking a serious element which hindered its consistency and strength in the meta. With the release of Dark Ascension, I have been looking into a new approach to control in the meta game.

Before I share the list, I feel it is important to take a look at some of the key cards in the format which are pushing some of the top decks at the moment.

Now, these are not all the threats in the format, but they are some of the key cards that power decks with raw efficiency. It is important to keep these cards in mind when trying to provide cards in your list that intersect with the current decks of the format. Before we take a look at each of these pillars, let us review the decklist:

Planeswalkers (10)

Spells (25)

Land (25)

Sideboard (15)

At first glance, you might be wondering what happened to the Islands and Mana Leaks. To be blunt, they suck. It is hard to wrap your head around it, but once you do, it makes things a little easier. The reason I say they suck is that in a world of Delver of Secrets, Geist of Saint Traft and Moorland Haunt, cards like Mana Leak and Dissipate start becoming a burden. The format is quick right now, and can push through even after slight overextension. Control does not need to be reactive; it cannot afford to be reactive. Being proactive is your best approach to setting yourself up for the win and it can be achieved by intersecting these key cards rather than trying to flat out prevent the inevitable. This deck aims to take the bull by the horns and to control the way the game plays out by trading in the early game, which pays off by landing permanents that are historically challenging to deal with.

So now that we have a list, we are able to look at some of the cards and how they interact with the pillars of the format proposed earlier.

Of course, there are additional answers in the side to help boost these numbers, and I am sure you could pick them up at a glance. Even the last one might be more of a general list of answers to the cards surrounding it, not to mention the arsenal of walkers can also answer some of these situations, such as Liliana vs Geist of Saint Traft or Gideon Jura vs Delver of Secrets.

This deck offers a multitude of ways to meet the demands that these pillars bring to the format, and they can be more aggressive and consistent than counterspells a player might be too eager to use or too tight to use it when it needs to be used. Rather than waiting to answer specifics, you are looking to answer the up and coming problem taking a more proactive stance to controlling the flow of the game.

So now that we have answers, let us take a look at the more interesting part of this list; the Planeswalkers.

Each Planeswalker brings power to your board in way that can often be challenging for a player to answer. Combined with a multitude of ways to protect them, advantage with them is all but certain. Not only do most of them have a way to control the board, they each offer a devastating ability that can take over a game quickly and with a curve that can piece them together, they are great for protecting each other.

Moving on to the idea of the deck, you want to be matching and removing in the early game, setting you up to land powerful midgame cards that can protect you, themselves and ultimately provide a means of winning the game. This deck is great at forcing opponents to overextend, using Lingering Souls to produce blocker after blocker turns 3, 4 and sometimes 5, allowing you to get the most out of your sweepers. From here out it can be gravy, dealing with 1 or two creatures is easy with Gideon, Sorin, backup spot removal and tokens for days. Your goal is to hold back a sweeper and focus on lowering the card count in your opponent’s hand before firing off with it and it works well.

In closing, the short time I have been playing the list has provided me with enough insight to start taking the deck into developing as it has shown some strong potential. What will the final list look like?

Stay tuned as I cover development!

Neo

UPDATE
Here is an updated list

Planeswalkers (10)

Creatures (1)

1 Grave Titan

Spells (24)

Land (25)

Sideboard (15)

Scrubbing Post DKA

D. Mantel — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:11:13 +0000

Welcome back

There is a “new” metagame to attack and this scrub is itching to get started. Well, at least I was itching to get started. Then I saw the so-called “new” metagame.

SCG Richmond Top 8:
Tempered Steel
3 Delver decks
Solar Flare
UB Heartless Summoning
Mono Green
Wolf Run White

Not that new. Sure there is some spiciness there. One of the Delver decks took on some new tech (not the one that placed higher) and Heartless Summoning and Mono Green are both pretty interesting, but I don’t want to attack such a small part of a metagame. I especially don’t want to attack them when they were not in the finals!

Where does that leave me?

I still want to be attacking creature decks. Every deck today will be a rough start with no tuning, but here is where I started:

*Note-I came up with this before I saw Fabiano’s list. I leaned in some other directions than he did, but I like his list a lot too. His list looks more tuned than mine and I would go back and compare and take some of his suggestions to heart. I’m not going to lie, he is better than me.

Spells (32)

Land (25)

I felt like something was off though. Then it struck me. If this deck was off in the slightest against the metagame then it would falter terribly. Other thoughts invaded my brain. Undying, Lingering Souls, and Moorland Haunt all make Day of Judgment not as effective. All of which is being utilized in those Top 8 decks.

An image of Daybreak Ranger immediately popped in my head. I have never been that big of a fan of the card. In a world filled with Delver of Secrets and Tempered Steel it seems appealing. It also acts as repeated removal for Moorland Haunt and Lingering Souls tokens.
Being in green actually seems pretty strong right now as it can kill artifacts and enchantments as well as having some play versus control with Thrun, the Last Troll and some of the best Undying creatures. Maybe it is the scrub in me talking, but I just don’t want to be Mono-green. I want a little more interaction than just bashing face with creatures.

Where to turn for more help?
My first thought was Blue. I love to draw some cards and counters are always welcome. UG is also one of my favorite color combinations. Just as I put pen to paper another card leaped to mind. I’ve opened several of the now and it causes an itch in the back of my mind. Grim Backwoods

I shook my head of the notion but just couldn’t make myself brew UG decks. Then I saw GerryTV and he mentioned the Backwoods. Maybe it isn’t so crazy.

Here is a rough sketch of a deck where I started:

Creatures (24)

Spells (12)

Land (24)

Sideboard (15)

This list just strikes me as very very rough right now. I am not sure it applies the pressure I want it to apply, but it has the resilience that I was going for when I started building it. I need to sleeve it up and do some test games to see if the power level can withstand what the format is doing.

Some of the odd things-
I said I don’t want to be casting sweepers but I put in Black Sun’s Zenith. The interaction with my own Undying creatures seems very good and I can see getting swarmed by tokens unless I can find a Ranger early.

Ambush Viper in the SB. This card needs to be thrown around some and seen if it is worth the slot. I want to test it mainly against the mono-green deck as Dungrove Elder seems brutal. It is green so it doesn’t care about Bellowing Tanglewurm granting Intimidate. Might be too cute.

The zombies and the Chant. I wanted to put up pressure and make the opponent answer me this time. Gravecrawler seems like a pain to deal with as long as it keeps coming back. The Diregraf Ghoul is just another cheap zombie. I thought about Geralf’s Messenger but the triple B is a bit too brutal. These should possibly change to discard spells.

I find myself wanting to find room for Garruk Relentless and/or Grave Titan. Garruk is just a good card overall and can help me find a Ranger or just spit out dudes to help pressure the board. Grave Titan is of course a great finisher and would be awesome to search up via Garruk. It also just spits out dudes, dudes that help bring back Gravecrawler.

In fact both of these sound so good I’m going to fix the deck right now.

Creatures (22)

Spells (14)

Land (24)

Sideboard (15)

I dropped the Young Wolf as it seemed like the card that was the least impressive. I lose some of my synergy with Altar’s Reap, Grim Backwoods, and Garruk but the power level of Garruk and Grave Titan should more than make up for it.

I am a little disappointed in my Sideboard this time around. It feels like I just put hate cards in. I don’t want to do that. My brain keeps seizing when I try to do something different. I put Batterskull in at the last moment instead of Thrun, the Last Troll because I felt exposed to faster decks and wanted to gain some life back. This may be a mistake as well.

My other concern is that I might just be a bad version of the Mono-Green deck that Todd Anderson played.

Let me know which deck you like better and how you would take the scrub out of one or both of them.
Leave a comment here or find me on twitter @writer1007

BONUS:

When a new set comes out I usually go a little brew crazy. I latch onto a card and just have to brew around it. This time around it was Chalice of Life/Chalice of Death. The scrub in me loves LOVES lifegain. I played Soul Sisters a ton. Here is this little gem that I should never sleeve up.

Creatures (12)

Spells (24)

Land (24)

24 Plains

@MrScottyMac Was Right

Smi77y — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:51:55 +0000

I lost a bet on The Eh Team that no more than 7 Ratchet Bombs would be in top 8 of Starcitygames Richmond. @MrScottyMac took the over – I lost, this is what I wagered

The Eh Team Ep70 – +1 in the Back

The Eh Team — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:39:12 +0000

Smitty makes his triumphant return to the Eh Team! He’s back, if only for an episode, to discuss what he’s been playing–and brewing–these days. Jesse and Jonathan go over their Prerelease experiences, which couldn’t have been more different. And with Scotty looking forward to SCG Cinncinati, the Eh Team talks about the metagame they’ve been seeing for Dark Ascension Standard.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:38:25 — 45.0MB)

Smi77y’s Faithless Deck

**WARNING – this podcast may contain rude, crude, and lewd content. Listener discretion is advised.**

You can find us on Twitter at:

@mtgEhTeam
@smi77y - Jesse Smith

@manadeprived - Kar Yung Tom
@JayBoosh - Jay Tuharsky
@MrScottyMac - Scott MacCallum
@mtgmedina - Jonathan Medina

Check out ManaDeprived.com and 60cards.com daily for current decklists, and articles, videos, and a whole lot more.

You can also find us on MTGCast.com.

For people who want the latest episode in their iTunes as quickly as possible, you can subscribe using this link:
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/mana-deprived/id489782347
Or via RSS:
http://manadeprived.com/category/the-eh-team/feed

Music

Eh Team Intro - @mtgcolorpie
Throwing Fire - Ronald Jenkees

Faithless

Smi77y — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:12:01 +0000

This is the kind of deck where half of anyone interested in it will be ultra confused about card selection, or just completely disagree for one reason or another. I don’t blame you. This deck took a ton of effort to come up with the right numbers. It’s something I struggled with quite a bit, and there’s still a good chance these numbers will change depending on this weekends events. However this is what I’d run for the weekend at your FNM or SCG event.

First off I’d like to thank a ton of people for their efforts in testing this and providing input. @chosler88 @tmaltez @bradhayzeus and many others.

This deck needs to be looked at like a combo deck with control elements. However the control elements differ in that we generally need to control the board, not what hits the board. This is because our end game (creatures) all double up as removal spells that trump anything our opponent is doing. We are literally using the best creatures in standard – and using them in masses. So the omission of Mana Leak took some time to figure out, but the meta is creature heavy and Whipflare as well as Ratchet Bomb did a lot more work. Leaving out Mana Leak also helped the mana base out quite a bit because we only need red mana the first 2 turns. Oblivion Ring is a catch all removal that is necessary to answer planeswalkers. And it works very well because we are actually wanting to dump it in our graveyard from time to time. Ratchet Bomb also answers problem permanents and interacts extremely well late game with Sun Titan.

Originally I had another combo card in Shattered Perception, however after constantly asking myself if Forbidden Alchemy was better during games when I saw it, I determined Alchemy was better about 90% of the time. A 2 of Sphere of the Suns may seem odd too, but it’s really considered additional land in here, so I look at it like that as opposed to spells. The mana fixing really helps the mana smooth out as well. On top of that Faithless Looting is a card that is VERY good at finding specific cards we need. 1 of’s work very well in this deck.

The sideboard is fairly solid now. Sideboarding cards out is the number one toughest aspect to this deck. Geist’s inclusion is for putting pressure on control decks, and Secrets of the Dead is another must answer for control. Additional board sweepers help improve an already good matchup vs Delver and Humans. And Nihil Spellbomb interacts positively with Sun Titan and is still the best graveyard hate, especially because replacing itself is important since Looting puts us down a card.

The finishers are the last item I’d like to touch on. I’ve been all over the place with the finishers, from Sheoldred to Drogskol Reaver and back. The finishers have to either end the game or be hard to kill or force your opponents to answer immediately. We have so many of them that you can often chain fatty turn after turn. Frost Titan seems awkward in a meta expected to have token decks. But, we have plenty of token answers and Frost Titan is still a very good card! I promise. It answers flyers, it’s hard to kill, it’s very aggressive and is another random permanent answer to couple with Oblivion Ring. Elesh Norn speaks for itself and Sun Titan does too (the best finisher in fact). The Wurmcoil helps and vs. red/black decks and as I mentioned earlier the deck is good at finding various 1 of cards; you often have plenty of choices on what to cast or what to try to dig for.

Myself and others have put in a ton of work on this deck and it’s ready for primetime, so let me know how you do with it!! Good luck!

Faithless

Creatures (11)
3 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Frost Titan
3 Sun Titan
2 Phantasmal Image

Spells (24)
4 Faithless Looting
4 Unburial Rites
3 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Galvanic Blast
3 Slagstorm
4 Desperate ravings
2 Oblivion Ring

Land (25)
4 Evolving Wilds
8 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Plains
2 Island
4 Clifftop Retreat

Sideboard (15)
4 Mental Misstep
1 Revoke Existence
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Secrets of the Dead

Scrubbing the Metagame

D. Mantel — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:23:29 +0000

I’m a scrub.

No, don’t argue…

Oh you aren’t

I’m trying to change. Really, I am. I’ve been that guy that runs something different just to be different. I’ve also tried to brew just because I like a card, not because it was good. Now, I’m trying to change. I want to win.

I don’t want to win at the expense of something I consider to be more important. Here is my rule: I want to have fun.
What does this mean? It doesn’t mean that I won’t play a popular deck; it just means that I have to enjoy playing the deck. Of course, winning is FUN.

This is what I say, but what will likely happen is that I will be brewing to defeat a metagame. Why? Because I have fun doing it and I’m just not that good. I have to get an edge somewhere and I think my best shot is to have superior technology (this should sound familiar to anyone who reads Mike Flores).
Sometimes a deck catches my eye and I just have to pick it up. Don’t worry. I’ll still be tuning things for what I expect to see.

That is enough introduction. Onwards!

The last “real” tournament I played in was SCG: Atlanta.
Here is what I played:

Planeswalkers (4)

2 Elspeth Tirel
2 Gideon Jura

Spells (32)

Land (24)

Sideboard (15)

Here was my thought process when I brewed this up:

I looked at the metagame and just saw a bunch of creatures everywhere. I wanted to hate them out and I wanted to commit to it…hard.

I did some more research, because not all aggro decks are the same. I looked at the MTGO results and saw humans everywhere. Delver was still around, but was not around in numbers in the online meta. I focused down on the human matchup.

Day of Judgment
Slagstorm
Gideon Jura
Elspeth Tirel
Timely Reinforcements

I did say that I wanted to beat aggro right? These cards just make an aggro player grit their teeth.

Desperate Ravings
Tezzeret’s Gambit

Just some Card Advantage. Need a way to dig for a hate card or just get some gas. The Shimmering Grotto help the Ravings reach its full potential, even if it is very loose.

Shrine of Burning Rage
Brimstone Volley+Mortarpod

I have got to win somehow! The Pod and Volley combo is delicious. I love it. I was afraid that it might be too cute, but both cards by themselves are good enough that I don’t think I hurt myself by including this pet combo. Volley is easy to see, I’m killing things and trading tokens. Morbid happens…and often. Doming someone for a quarter of their starting life is a beautiful thing. Mortarpod has been getting respect lately too, as it stops Inkmoth Nexus shenanigans and can pull some game against Delver of Secrets and Illusions. I also make quite a bit of tokens and putting the Mortarpod on them is just an extra angle.

Sideboard

Now we get into some spiciness. What the hell was I thinking?
I thought I would see more Grixis, Ramp, and possibly some other controlling decks. My plan was to take out the sweepers and some of the CA, put in Manabarbs, and fast creatures. Everything else either gains life or puts enough pressure out to be worth the damage I take from Manabarbs.

What happened?

I absolutely destroyed Humans and Mono-Red.

You didn’t see my name. Here is why:

Three big things-
1. I made several play mistakes.

Some plays that were obvious-jumping the gun on shooting with a Mortarpod and Brimstone Volley while my opponent has a Kessig Wolf Run and an Inkmoth Nexus in play.

Some plays that were not so obvious at the time (to me at least)-Holding extra land in hand to increase chances of keeping better cards off of Desperate Ravings

2. I misjudged a match-up.

The Delver matchup was not as good as I thought. The sweepers were a tad slow and even going long I couldn’t overload their counters (+Snapcaster Mage). While I was setting up to drop a nuke, I was taken apart with pinpoint accuracy.

I also had a glaring blind spot in the form of Pike. Runechanter’s Pike took me out of the tourney. This also leads to the third item on the list.

3. I misjudged the meta.

Delver was around in much larger force than I thought. Pike was also out in force and, while I don’t think the Pike was that big of a problem for the deck as it stands, it changes how to sideboard for certain matches.

I saw next to no control decks while I was there. That means I wasted, at a minimum, over half my sideboard slots. My sideboard plan sounded good in my head. The problem was that it hinged on a single card and hoped to get there. If I didn’t draw the Manabarbs then I would struggle with the strategies I was trying to defeat! Eight creatures, fast or not, cannot be relied on to beat every control deck.

What I did right!

Humans and Mono-Red were absolutely laughable. If I had been correct about the meta, I would’ve had an easy day. While my sideboard was built incorrectly, I like the fact that I didn’t just jam hate cards. I set up a plan and went for it. It just turns out that the plan was flawed. I count this as a plus since more often I see sideboards go the other direction and just throw in cards that don’t really fit what is going on in their deck.

I did take this to my local meta where my own play mistakes kept me from taking it down (hint: Don’t leave your Shrines vulnerable…especially when they hit upwards of 10 counters).

I am keeping this in the forefront of my mind to continue to tweak. With a new set on the rise, this will likely fall to the wayside as the meta shifts. It is sad to see, but I’m trying to be a better player and clinging to decks targeted at specific metagame is not the path I want to walk.

Moving into the future. I will be attempting to share thoughts and brews as they are in process or before I play them in actual events (shouldn’t be hard as I don’t get out too much) and then everyone can help me from making horrid mistakes…or encourage me and laugh at my idiocy. Either way, we will have fun with it. I will likely focus on Standard, but will dip into Block Constructed (I’m trying to break into MTGO, which should help me get to play more) and maybe some Modern as it is the current PTQ format.

I’m always open to feedback on writing and brewing.
Comment here or you can find me on twitter @writer1007

Smi77y’s Angels – Dark Ascension

Smi77y — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:24:39 +0000

It’s that time of the year again where I gather my angels (underrated/quality cards) and make my bold predictions as to what will be a constructed player in the coming months or even years. There have already been quite a few set reviews posted by various well-respected community members and pro tour members, however I assure you this is solely based off of my own growing card evaluation skills. These choices reflect not only playability and hidden power I see in a card, it also is heavily influenced by how excited I am by the card. One of my predictions in the past was Spellskite, which to most seems like an obvious choice, although at the time I was very much partial to the card as you can tell from the many Eh Team episodes I screamed “skeet skeet.”

These choices often ignore the most obvious of inclusions. For instance – we all know Sorin is amazing and powerful, but he doesn’t belong on this list for a couple of reasons. The first being, I try to avoid obvious playability for the sake of relevance. Second, he’s just a good card, nothing that really excites me at all. Not even his gimp eyed art.
Enough of the history lesson, especially one that relates to nerdy old me. Here are my angels for Dark Ascension in no particular order – and some runner ups near the end.

Perhaps the most powerful card in the set, and yes I remember Sorin is in the set when I say this! Vault of the Archangel is incredibly powerful to say the least. As long as Primeval Titan is around this card will be that much better. I’ve already began my brewing around Primeval Titan and Vault of the Archangel – you can find that list over on this page. What’s amazing is I’ve only seen this card in straight BW tokens and it will be in so many more decks than that, I’m very confident about this.

Vault of the Archangel is not only a powerhouse rare, it’s also just a sexy card in general. From the art to the flavor this is a must have from Dark Ascension. I could even see it making its way to the modern format before too long. I know I’ll be trying!
Up next I’m very partial to Increasing Devotion

Some of you may know how much I loved Conqueror’s Pledge and this card is so much better than Conqueror’s Pledge. It’s better mostly because of having a flashback option. It’s not only built in card advantage its additional card advantage by using flashback. This makes the card much better than Pledge ever was vs counter spells. This is by far the best “Increasing” rare cycle. It’s no coincidence this is also in my Titan Tokens deck list. It interacts very well with Mulch, Gavony Township, and Vault of the Archangel!

Increasing Devotion isn’t a card that will see as much play as Vault of the Archangel as it is much more specialized in terms of the decks it can be used in. In a simple tokens list 5cc is the very top of the curve if you even make it that far. So its flashback ability won’t often become useful. I see this being abused in ramp strategies or control strategies where games either involve fast mana or a strategy involving late game shenanigans. In fact I could see control decks really opting for something like this similar to what White Sun’s Zenith has been doing lately.

My last pick is extremely difficult. Originally I’m sure I would have put Strangleroot Geist here as the card is simply awesome (despite the awful art), but the double green casting cost really limits where it will end up. And currently there isn’t much room for this relentless fellow. My last pick is actually going to be quite bold, but bear with me.

For three mana, and at sorcery speed this card seems very underwhelming to say the least. Sometimes you simply can’t or don’t want to cast this. I see this card falling into some sort of combo deck, most likely one that involves graveyard explosions (maybe some Zombie Apocalypse?). But we are in a graveyard themed set, and this card is highly splashable which ups its playability. Don’t even get me started on the art either! The art is one of the cooler pieces in the set.

Red is already a color of artifact hate, which helps with Grafdigger’s Cage in the set. So setting up some combo with this card despite the hate inside the block is doable. Let’s not forget this card even has flashback on its own.

I’m sure you aren’t quite convinced, and that’s fine, but take a look at this scenario. Let’s say your back is against the ropes and your hand consists of two lands and Shattered Perception, that’s not going to do you any good. Much like Desperate Ravings you are completely “ok” with dumping what you have to possibly find an answer to a grim situation. I think Shattered Perception will find its way into Modern before it does Standard at this point. I haven’t found the right deck yet, but I bet one is out there to explore! This card has a unique effect that you can use twice, you will see this at some point and it will be a very fun deck to play.

It’s always the worst that I restrict myself to three choices. I have so many more cards I love to death from this set. Will it shake up Standard all that much? Maybe, maybe not. But I know I already enjoy trying. Here are some of my picks for the better cards of the set.

Dawntreader Elk
Lingering Souls
Tragic Slip
Undying Evil (for reals!)
Gravecrawler
Geralf’s Messenger
Gather the Townsfolk
Loyal Cathar
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Faithless Looting
Hellrider
Strangleroot Geist
Vorapede
All the new lords
Grafdigger’s Cage
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Huntmaster of the Fells
Falkenrath Aristocrat

And I’m sure I’m missing some! But until next time, I’m out!

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