Beyond the Cards

Hello hello! In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been posting much, and there's a pretty straitforward reason for it: I haven't been playing much magic recently. So how have I been connected to Magic at all for the past few weeks? Well, we just need to look a little beyond the cards.

One thing that is so great about magic, that in turn makes it hard to play when all your Magic friends are everywhere else in the world is how there's a communtiy. All the guys I would normally play with are off to college, and I wouldn't say anyone at TnT Gaming would be a close friend of mine. So where else to turn to but facebook?! I don't know how I play magic on facebook, but it's the best way I could segway into this next part... For fun, I decided to friend a bunch of Magic Pros on Facebook, and to my suprise, I actually have been accepted from time to time.

Pros who friended me:
Conley Woods
Patrick Chapin
LSV
David Ochoa
TSG

I have actually found these guy's profiles awesome. Yeah, I'm a bit of a facebook stalker, but I wouldn't be surprised if these guys had 2 facebooks: one for personal use (hidden from searches) and one for fans, like the ones I found. Often, their walls are filled with Magic commentary and random things like "Just had a sick SOM draft and won the 8-4". Other times you see this:

Isn't the internet wonderful? I couldn't stop laughing when I read this thread, which is why whenever I read an article anywhere, I always take the time to peruse what people have commented, there's always something really interesting there (except on Conley Wood's first deck doctor. 95% of the comments read "Dude, Eye of Ugin fetches for Wurmcoil Engine").

Another thing I like to think about is the flavor of Magic as a whole. While I have minimal knowledge of Magic flavor, it's enough to suit my demand. I was texting Mark the other day while pumping gas, and we were talking about how Garruk and Lilliana are the only 2 of the Lorwyn planeswalkers to not get reprinted. Based on the webcomics, and the Duel Decks, Garruk and Lilliana should be together, with Lilliana being printed in the first set and Garruk in the second. The Planeswalker Duel Decks are Jace vs Chandra, Garruk vs Lilliana, and Elspeth vs Tezzeret in that order. Jace and Chandra appeared in Zendikar block together with Chandra getting worse and Jace becoming insanely good. This year, we have Elspeth printed in Scars of Mirroden worse than her original version, and I suspect Tezzeret will be in Mirroden Beseiged (and Karn will be in the 3rd set). This makes me think that Garruk and Lilliana will get some new abilities come next block.

As of right now, there have been 19 Planeswalker cards printed. However, there are only 14 Actual Planeswalkers. Ajani, Chandra, Elspeth, Jace, and Sarkhan all have been brought back in later sets. Technically Venser is a new card, but he did appear on a card before, it was just before Planeswalkers were printed. So what of the other 8? Garruk should be coming back with Lilliana, so that leaves us 6 Planeswalkers. But wait, Nicol Bolas has been a character since he was first printed. In Shards block, he caused the Conflux that reunited Alara and caused war, then on Zendikar, he made Sarkhan go Mad by making him defend the Eye of Ugin. And now, he is using Tezzeret as a pawn for some reason on Mirroden. Also, I am going to remove Koth right now from this chain of thought, because his story is just emerging and developing.

So after all that, we have 3 Planeswalkers to think about: Gideon, Nissa, Sorin. These 3 haven't been reprinted yet, and I have no idea where they could go from here. Interestingly, they're all from Zendikar, and they all fought against the Eldrazi. Is that it? Case closed? I don't think so. Planeswalkers are like Magic's superheros. They don't just appear once, never to be thought of again. I am willing to bet that all 3 of these guys will come back in the next 2 years for more planeswalker and bad guy pwning.

But there's more to flavor than just Planeswalkers. I like to think from time to time about the flavor of decks as a whole from any format. Obviously Tribal decks have a straitforward flavor: you pissed us off, now face our wrath! Mess with that little fish, and get smacked by a legion of Merfolk. Or get overrun by Goblins. Or get assaulted by Elves. Or get your mind messed up by Faeries. Or get pimp slapped by Treefolk? I just refer to Lord of the Rings when it comes to Doran decks. Basically tribal decks all spawn from Llorwyn (hey, it worked!). Let's take a look at the current standard Meta:

Vampires: Tribal deck, just a lot creepier

Ramp: Talk about flavor! I can imagine Primeval Titan exploding up from underground flipping stuff over. If it's Valakut, then fire starts raining and everything dies. If it's Eldrazi, then Primeval Titan is soon followed by Ulamog and Emrakul and they go on a rampage together everywhere.

Mono-Red: Most are heaviest of Goblins, but they feel like a single beserk Fiend or Dude-on-Dragon running around with the occasional shot of thunder and lightning. With Koth on board though, it looks a lot more chaotic with rocks flying around and many more explosions

Quest: This is a tricky one to envision, maybe because I just spend the last 60 or so words talking about burning and blowing everything up. Kor Duelist is flavorful, and I can see Fauna Shaman, Vengivine, and Squadran Hawks, but having the Gods lay upon you this epic suit of Armor just doesn't make sense when you get there by playing 0/2 dudes. It just doesn't feel like an Ornithopter should be able to find a Holy Relic.

Control: This is probably the hardest to envision, until you have a planeswalker in play, especially Jace TMS. Then I can imagine them literally sculpting your mind and messing with everything you have. What does a counterspell look like? In most arts its a planeswalker with a spell melting at their fingertips, but that just doesn't work in my mind.

Pyromancer Ascension: This one looks col in my head. Maybe just because I like thinking of red Magic with all the explosions and craziness. Pyromancer's Ascension only makes everything nuttier!

RUG: This makes so sense at all. Seriously. What the heck does this deck do? Yay, it works mechanically, but it's boring to think about.

That's all the big decks I can think of for now in Standard. I think I hit all of them... Regardless, it's getting late and I do still work full time. One last thing before I go, I read this article on SCG today that reminded me of this website alot. I think you enjoy it as well.

One Legacy note before I go. I just ordered a playset of Personal Tutors online. Almost no websites have it, because it's from Portal, which was a minimally printed set, so I wound up getting 2 each from AdventuresOn.com and Hot Sauce Games cleaning out 1 and dropping the other to just 1. They were only $15 a piece, which is amazing. This time last month they were $30 a piece, but then Survival became nuts. I'm guessing Survival will get some bannings tomorrow, so Personal Tutor should go back up in price. It's from Portal, where even bad rares can sell for $5 - $10 a piece. Also, this is exactly what my Reanimator deck needs! Before, you could use Mystical Tutor to grab Entomb, but we can get Buried Alive. Sure it costs more, but it can be tutored for. Also, Personal Tutor can grab Reanimate or Exhume, so we can still effectively get our creatures back from death. The only thing that's really bad that we lose is fetching up a counterspell, but regardless, it's good.

Anyways, that's all for now, until next time let the art come to life! And stay classy

0 Mana Lightning Bolt

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted anything (i think this is how I have started for the past 3 posts), but fear not for I have been messing around with some landfall shenanegry that is actually incredibly fun! I have talked from time to time about my Valakut Ramp deck, and how it eventually became the Eldrazi Green deck. However, Eldrazi green doesn't take much to get wrecked and so is therefore lame. Valakut, on the other hand, is not only fun, but it packs a punch! Control can't beat it, and if they do, they have to feel bad because all they do is counter Cultivates and Explores, which are easily replaced. Landfalls and triggers can't be responded to either, so often the Control deck just stits there and cries =D. 3 Times over the course of Mark's and my 10 hour playing extravaganza (8pm - 6am if you really wanted to know) I won off of a single Khalni Heart Expedition trigger while having 3 Valakuts in play. 3 Valakuts X 2 Mountains X 3 damage per trigger = 18 damage strait to the face (the last 2 damage was typically from fetchlands). Talk about having a good time ;)

We wound up not testing a whole lot of Valakut, but the deck simply owns. A month or so ago, I read a sweet article on ChannelFireball called "Riding the Wave" which talked about making a GB deck that combo-ed out with a huge Genesis Wave hopefully hitting an Ob Nixilis the Fallen and all lands. then your opponent would take an insane amount of damage and you would be left with a 12/12 or 15/15 behemoth than laughs at Kozelik and Ulamog. I thought the deck was sick, so I immediatly acquired a set of Genesis Wave, 3 Ob Nixilis, 20 Joraga Treespeakers (I really wanted a ton of them! I'm down to 9 not being used), 3 Lotus Cobras, and a pair of Gaea's Revenge. Then I put all the cards in a pile... and didn't look at them for 3-4 weeks. Last night though, I decided this was going to happen, so I built the deck with a splash of blue for Dispels to protect my Wave. I figured because I was in blue I could also add Jace TMS and Preordain, so that's what I did. I realized the deck was very fragile in the same way MG Eldrazi Ramp was: if the cards didn't come exactly like I wanted them to, I flopped. I didn't make any changes that night, because we only played half a dozen games, but here's some things I'm thinking of:

-Cut a Genesis Wave for an Ob Nixilis (was 4 Gen Wave, now 3. Was 3 Ob Nix, now 4)
This will make Genesis Wave better by being more likely to hit Ob Nixilis. Also, getting Genesis Wave in your opening hand is awkward (or 2 like what happened to me), while hard casting Ob Nixilis is still pretty sweet because I can play normal lands (or even fetches for twice the fiesta!)
-Have Avenger of Zendikar and Gaea's Revenge in the deck with another of each in the board
This deck struggles against control. If they know how your deck works, they can hold back a Negate or Flashfreeze and stop the Wave before everyone next to you is watching the Ortiz at bat instead of you screaming and jumping. Gaea's Revenge is a complete Champ against control, and against UB, Avenger is solid to because they probably won't have brought in the Consume the Meek (it only hits Cobra + Treespeaker)
-Cut Dispel for 2 Doom Blade and a Summoning Trap
This one I am less confident about, but it makes sense theoretically. If I have Dispel to protect Wave vs control, and board out Wave vs control, then I just wasted space. Besides, the mana is good enough to get more in black besides Ob Nixilis. Summoning Trap can be sick! Imagine getting T2 Cobra countered, then hitting Ob Nixilis or even (drum roll please...) GAEA'S REVENGE!!! "Attack you for eight!" "Play my third land... concede"
-Obstinate Baloth and Overgrown Battlement for the Board
Mono Red matchup? Miserable... Vampires? Even worse... GW Quest? Yeah, that's bad too, but there is a small glimmer of hope... (we did playtest that last one) These 2 cards will help stop those aggressors and help me get ahead, especially when I'm not worried about counterspells (which is always really nice)

So what is this deck good against? I said it's bad against control and aggro, so I really don't know what it is good against.... Ramp? You know what? WHO CARES!?!?!?! This deck is SO MUCH FUN to play i'm getting giddy thinking about it as I type. What? You want to see the decklist? Ok... fine...

4x Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
3x Joraga Treespeaker
3x Lotus Cobra
3x Oracle of Mul Daya
4x Primeval Titan
1x Gaea's Revenge
1x Avenger of Zendikar

3x Genesis Wave
2x Doom Blade
1x Summoning Trap
3x Preordain
3x Explore

3x Jace TMS

8x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Island

1x Terramorphic Expanse
3x Verdant Catacombs
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Drowned Catacomb

Board:
1x Gaea's Revenge
1x Avenger of Zendikar
4x Obstinate Baloth
4x Overgrown Battlement

5x Other stuff

Until next time, never let someone know up front you're trying to skrew them over (especially in a trade)

Infecting Standard

This past FNM, I ran a deck I call "Oops! I Win!" which was a mono-green poison deck running 10 pump spells. Ideally this would lead to: single unblocked attacker + 2 or 3 pump spells = death as quick as turn 3. I ran a fairly raw list, and after I learned a ton about the deck. For starters, here was my list:

4x Necropede
4x Blight Mamba
4x Ichorclaw Myr
4x Corpse Cur
4x Putrefax
4x Joraga Treespeaker

3x Livewire Lash
3x Primal Bellow
4x Vines of the Vastwood
3x Giant Growth
2x Throne of Geth

4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
13x Forest

Sideboard:
4x Nature's Claim
4x Summoning Trap
3x Autmn's Veil
2x Tangle Angler
2x Withstand Death

 I started out by beating a White Weenies deck, then I lost to GW Vengivine, Naya, and Elves. What did all those decks have in common? Creatures that come down early. The major thing my deck was missing was evasion. So how can I solve this. There's 2 things I have though of: Canopy Cover, and Distortion Strike.

Distortion Strike is good because your creature is completely unblockable, gets +1/+0, and it you have a Livewire Lash, you get to shock something twice. However, straining your mana base might not be worth it. What else is there is blue... Preordain?

Canopy Cover, on the other hand, seems pretty sweet. It provides good evasion, except for against Squadran Hawk in the GW Vengivine deck. Also, it protects your creature against Lightning Bolt while allowing it to still get pumps. Also, Tangle Angler is only in the deck for other creature decks to help clear the path for my other dudes, so I would get 2 sideboard slots opened up for Withstand Death or something.

Another thing to think about is whether or not the mana ramp is necessary or not. I personally don't think it is after playing a couple rounds. Or, Joraga Treespeaker isn't worth ramping mana. What do I mean? Joraga Treespeaker is amazing, and it can really cause a tempo change.. either way. If you try to level it up on turn 2, one of 2 things will happen: either you succeed in leveling it up or you don't. The main reanson why you wouldn't is if they kill it or bounce it. That's known as getting time walked. You lose a turn and a ton of tempo, and your opponent can take control. However, I think Llanowar Elves is more consistant mana ramp because after playing it, theres no more costs, only benefits.

Now that we have no ramp, Corpse Cur becomes a little weaker. I have found that I often didn't even need the revived creature as much as I just wanted A creature to attack with. For that reason, I am switching to Cystbear.

So with all this new info, here's the new list:


4x Blight Mamba

4x Ichorclaw Myr
4x Cystbear
3x Putrefax

4x Llanowar Elves

2x Livewire Lash
3x Primal Bellow
4x Vines of the Vastwood
3x Giant Growth
2x Throne of Geth
4x Canopy Cover

4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
14x Forest

Sideboard:
4x Nature's Claim
4x Summoning Trap
3x Autmn's Veil
4x Withstand Death

I know I haven't been posting much recently, so maybe I will try to do as many short posts as possible whenever I can. Until then, rock it like Conley and go against the Hivemind

Flying High and Burning Out: FNM and SCG Open Report

At the end of this article I posted up just over a week ago, I mentioned how I was going back and forth between UW and UB Control. Ultimately, I found myself playing UB Control at the FNM and the SCG Boston Open. Let's start with the FNM.

At the FNM, I went 4-1 to finish in 4th place and gladly accept a double-size payout then normal (normally X-1 gets $12, but this time I got $25). My notes aren't very detailed at all this time. Here's a picture of my notes for the day:

The only two cards I even wrote down are Garruk from Andrew's RUG deck (a deck I still can't beat) and Trailblazer Boots from Josh's casual White Weenie deck. Basically, I was on fire all day at the FNM, winning 8 times and only losing 3. By the end of the night, I was really confident about my deck and I couldn't wait for the Open. Fast forwarding to the next day, I arrived at 9am and submitted this deck:

Creatures:
2x Frost Titan
2x Grave Titan
2x Vampire Hexmage
1x Trinket Mage

Planeswalkers:
4x Jace Beleran
1x Jace the Mind Sculptor

Instant/Sorceries:
4x Mana Leak
4x Preordain
3x Deprive
4x Doom Blade
1x Jace's Ingenuity
1x Negate
1x Volition Reins
1x Consuming Vapors
1x Disfigure

Artifacts:
1x Mimic Vat
1x Brittle Effigy
1x Elixer of Immortality

Lands:
4x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Drowned Catacombs
3x Darkslick Shores
4x Swamp
5x Island
1x Misty Rainforest
3x Tectonic Edge
1x Mystifying Maze

Sideboard:
1x Memoricide
2x Disfigure
1x Chimeric Mass
1x Negate
2x Flashfreeze
1x Into the Roil
1x Royal Assassin
2x Disfigure
2x Consume the Meek
2x Brittle Effigy

A couple things to notice right off the bat from this deck: I run 10, yes 10 1-ofs in this deck! I really felt like it worked fine, as they were mainly spells that I only would ever need once, but could also get away with never casting. Also, it makes sideboarding a lot easier when you can tug at those to bring in other cards from your board. And is that a Jace, the Mind Sculptor?!?!?! Yes, I recently acquired big Jace, and there will hopefully soon be 3 others to join him. I am buying these under a narrow condition: I can only get one if I do 5 hours of overtime on a Saturday. I did it once before, and talk about dreadful. Waking up at 5:30am just to work in a fairly secluded environment for 5 hours does not constitute as fun in any regards for me, but now I have an incentive for myself to go. So if you see me talking about Jace the Mind Sculptor more, just know I worked 5 hours overtime on Saturday mornings for each. But don't worry, I will talk about planty of ways to NOT use big Jace. After all, I did start this blog under the title Casual MTG Creations.

Because I will soon have duties elsewhere around the house, I will not do the game-by-game talk of the SCG Open (9 rounds), but I will make that post either tonight or tomorrow.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived was how huge this event was! 434 players were signed up for the Standard event, and there were tons of other people there just to watch or play side events.

I took this picture right when I arrived around 9, but within half an hour of the event starting, at least 150 more people came in, so you can imagine how packed it was!

I started the day on fire, going 3-0 beating UW Control and a Half (UW with a splash of Black for Grave Titan, Doom Blades, and Memoricide) 2-0. I finished game 1 at 29 life, and game 2 at 22 life. After that game, I made my first trade of the day. I traded my Gaea's Revenge and Tajaru Perserver for a Lim-Dul's Vault, a trade not in my favor, but check out Lim-Dul's Vault and try to catch your jaw before it smashes on the floor. Yes, it's legal in Legacy, and yes I already put it in my Reanimator deck. Round 2, I was against a weird GR Beatdown deck. To start game 1, I rolled an 11. He almost didn't even roll and let me be on the play, but he rolled anyways and nailed a 12! The game was relatively straitforward, until he had a cool play when I had his Wurmcoil Engine locked down with my Frost Titan. He played Manic Vandal to blow up his own Engine and make tokens! Despite that cool play, I just kept the Deathtouch half tapped down and proceded to win from there.

Round 3, I was against a UW control list. Game 1 ultimately ended when I used Volition Reins on his Gideon Jura. I was at 32 life when I won. Game 2, he got a turn 2 Leonin Arbitor out, and I couldn't draw any removal for it forever, so I lost. However, I came back in game 3 to win without losing a single life point.

From here on out, it was all downhill. I lost 1-2 to a Boros deck who was able to hit me for 12 in one turn with Masticore. Had I lived, I would have taken over the game because I had a rebounding Consuming Vapors and a ton of control magic waiting to happen. Next, I was against another Boros deck, but this time I went 2-1 and liked my chances for goinf X-1 on the day. I played against Darkvine next, and thanks to slow play by him, I somehow squeezed out a draw on time and turns.

Now I'm 4-1-1 and still in contention for top 16/top32. However, I was against Valakut Ramp next. Talk about an impossible matchup! You can't respond to land drops or Valakut Triggers, so you just have to grin and bear it. I had a very fast 0-2. However, the game being played to our right certainly wasn't a quicky. Here's 2 quotes from that game:

Judge: "Why are you playing with the top card of your library revealed?"
Player: "That's my graveyard"

Head Judge: "Attention magic players, there are 5 minutes left in the round"
Player: "Okay I scoop, let's go to game 2"

Yeah, talk about a long day. it was a UW Control Mirror, and they had nothing but answers for eachother, so neither had any way to win and they were grinding out to no avail.

Back to my slide, I was against RUG next, a deck I still can't beat. The only game I won I had 2 Frost Titans and a Grave Titan in play together. We wound up going to overtime and extra turns before I simply scooped to him so he could get into the top 32 to get his last SCG player point to lock in as a level 2 player for the 2011 season. I intended to drop at this point as I knew I couldn't win anything at 4-3-1, but I forgot to mark it on the match slip, and when I got to the Head Judge 30 seconds later, he said it was too late as pairings were already printed and were about to be posted. So I played my 9th round anyways. I was so tired that I completely punted. I got -12ed by my own Jace TMS and I had the chance to rip a Frost Titan out of his hand, but I didn't. I had cast Duress on his when he had 2 cards in hand. I saw Island, Frost Titan. I decided to cast my Jace TMS to blow his up instead of casting Memoricide to eliminate his win condition. PUNT!

Despite that, over the course of the day, I had tons of trading, and wound up collecting a ton of cards I needed to boost my legacy deck and for a Machine Control deck I am about to make (but more on that later). As I was going person to person trading, I came across this guy who is about as serious as they go. I wound up going through 5 binders when I saw this:

Yeah, I'm not kidding. And he also had 5 more on the previous page. He couldn't find a single card that he needed, but when you have 5 binders and over 20 Jace TMS, there isn't much you're missing. Another guy I talked to asked me right off the bat if I needed any Power. Yeah, he didn't find anything he needed either. However, despite all that, I was able to trade for a ton of awesome cards that I wanted. Here's what I acquired over the course of the day:

Standard stuff (on left): Inferno Titan, Stoneforge Mystic, 2 Silence, 3 Ratchet Bombs, Voltaic Key, 3 Grand Architect
Legacy Stuff (on right): textless Cryptic Command, Watery Grave, 2 Thoughtseize, FNM Tormod's Crypt, Reanimate, Lim-Dul's Vault

I was really pleased with all of my trades. I have an immediate use for every card between Reanimator, Machine Control, Boros, and Valakut Ramp (a deck I will be re-making). Just as I left, I decided to indulge in the epic card store and got myself 3 Dazes.

I would have gotten a third, but I intend to get the Japanese Jace vs Chandra that's coming out December 3rd, and in the Jace deck, there is a Daze.

Overall I had an awesome time, and I can't wait to go to the next one. And guess what! There will be a next one fairly soon! SCG recently announced their schedule for the 2011 season, and they're coming back to Boston April 15 - 17! So hopefully I can pass the time and tune up my skills by then and maybe a can get some prize!

That's all for now, until next time just keep trading

TnT Legacy Event *2nd place 2-1*

Well, I think this story will forever stay in my living legacy. On Tuesday, I called Toys n Things at about 7pm to see if there was anyone playing so I could test my UB Control deck more. Evan said there weren't Standard players, but a Legacy event would be starting as soon as they could. It didn't take much more to get me running up to my room to grab the reanimator deck and rush out to the store. We were allowed 15 proxies for the tournament across your 75. I would provide a decklist, but I had moved some cards that I can't remember between Reanimator and UB Control, so my deck is only actually 54 cards tall right now. However, my 15 proxies were:

Main deck:
4x Force of Will
3x Entomb
4x Underground Sea

Sideboard:
2x Damnation (Zoo)
2x Pithing Needle (stop Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitis)

Round 1: vs Peter (Dredge)

Round 1 I was against Peter, who had a full non-proxy dredge deck (he unsuprisingly won the whole thing). I honestly had no idea how the dredge deck worked, but have only heard how powerful it is. Let me put it this way, game 1 I conceded before playing a second land while on the play. Dredge is a combo deck, not a beatdown deck like I thought it was. Basically it works by playing cards for no or minimal mana from your graveyard. Here's how he combo'd out on his first turn:

Cephalid Coliseum
Lion's Eye Diamond, sac discarding hand to ad UUU to mana pool.
Use UU and pay 3 life to flashback Deep Analysis
First draw, Dredge 6 for Golgari Grave-Troll
Second draw, Dredge 5 for Stinkweed Imp
Use last floating U to activate Cephalid Coliseum, "drawing" 3 cards to dredge even more, discarding Grave-Trolls and Imps.
---Over the course of this dredging (by now most of the deck) some key cards that have hit the graveyard are 3 Narcomeba, 3 Bridge From Below, Dread Return, and an Iona, Shield of Emeria
Flashback Dread Return by sacrificing the 3 Narcomebas (creating 9 2/2 Zombie Tokens) to bring Iona back targeting Blue

He then passed the turn back to me. At this point, the board position is: Him: 9 2/2 Zombies, Iona. Me: Underground Sea. I had no choice but to concede.

To say the least, not drawing my boarded in Tormod's Crypt didn't help my chances too much for game 2.

0-2
0-1

Round 2: vs Benzo (UG Fun Stuff)

Benzo's deck was all about having fun and taking control of everything. He used green for mana ramp, then used the blue to take control of as many permanents he could get his hands on. Some cards that hurt me were Propaganda (I had to Force of Will his second one because of this next card...) and Back to Basics. When it was said and done though, you can't Mind Control a creature with shroud like Inkwell Leviathan.

2-0
1-1

Round 3: vs Dan (UB Mill)

I sat down, drew my hand, and was about to sit down for this last round when my opponent said, "Keep your hand? Okay, Leyline of the Void is in my opening hand." I don't think he realized I was playing a graveyard deck, but I realized immediatly I was pretty skrewed. However, I wasn't necesarily dead yet, maybe I could figure something out... I topdecked Into the Roil, and I realized I did have a little hope. A couple turns later, after getting a quarter of my deck milled, I cast Into the Roil kicked at the end of his turn, then during my turn I played Buried Alive finding Terastadon, Iona, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind. During his turn, he replayed his Leyline, and now I just had to hope to find one of my 6 reanimate spells. Low and behold two turns later Buried Alive made its way into my hand. I cast it, and got those creatures back. Thankfully I had Terastodon, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to deal with the Ensnaring Bridge he had with no cards in hand. With no mill card fast enough to get me in one hit, he conceded.

Game 2 was quick. We drew our opening hands, he played 2 Leyline of the Void that were in his opening hand, and I immediatly conceded.

Game 3 was a lot better for me. He mulled to 6 with no Leyline, and on Turn 4 Terastadon hit play for me knocking out one of his lands (so he couldn't cast spells) and 2 of mine to completely overwhelm him and end the game in a flash.

2-1
2-1

After tie breakers were done, I was declared the second place finisher and won $10 store credit for my troubles (although I did pay $32 for last moment pieces and entry). Some things for next time about this deck:

-I ran 22 lands, but I often got mana flooded. This deck doesn't need lands. I will probably cut 2 next time. Also, I only ran 4 fetch lands at the event, but I will up that to 8 next time. They help thin your lands, but more importantly, they make Brainstorm better. If you Brainstorm 2 lands to the top of your deck, you don't want to draw them, so you can shuffle your library with a fetch land and increase the chance of a good draw.
-You can reanimate on Turn 1 with a Dark Ritual (Emtomb, Reanimate), so go up to 4 Entombs and 4 Reanimates as opposed to my 3-each last time
-Be smarter against dredge. I played a casual game against Peter after, and I did get my Crypt except I used it too early and he was able to come back to win. Pop it in response to a Narcomeba Trigger or something to get more value.
-Have fun, the TnT legacy meta is all casual. Don't worry about having a plan for countertop (I don't even know what I would do...) and zoo and whatnot, just make sure you have fun. The decks there that I didn't mention included a Tooth n Nail deck and a GR deck running 4x Ball Lightning and 4x Groundbreaker.

That's all for today, just thought I would mention this event before I get behind with the FNM report and the 5K report this Saturday. Until next time, have fun out there

November 2010 Secondary Market Update

One mover in particular that I want to mention is the dramatic rise in price of Frost Titan in the past couple weeks. In October, we had him as a 7/8 dollar card, but now on CFB, it goes for $19, and it's still selling! But before I get too deep in the tank on that one (thankfully I had 2 before it doubled and a half), let's get an overview of our current prices, see how they moved since last month, and when we're all done, I will introduce what I feel like could be a very healthy new constructed format, so let's go!

For each set, I will sort the cards by price instead of alphebetically, and then will label how much it moved since last month, and in various cases I will note where I think they will go from here.

Scars of Mirroden
Koth of the Hammer                35.84    -10.16
Venser, the Sojounor               21.47    -22.53
Elspeth Tirel                             20.44    -15.56
Mox Opal                               19.78     -15.22
Molten Tail Masticore              19.46    -7.54
Wurmcoil Engine                     14.99     +.99
Skithryx, the Blight Dragon       11.97     -4.03
Sword of Body and Mind         9.98      +1.48
Lux Cannon                             5.99       +.99
Indominable Archangel             3.92       -2.08
Mindslaver                               2.48       -.52
Platinum Emporion                   1.97        -.28
Geth, Lord of the Vault             1.67      -1.33
Liege of the Tangle                    1.46       -1.04
Quicksilver Gargantuan             .64         -.36

I think Venser and Elspeth are going to drop another 5 before settling, Koth may as well, although he is still 15 more than the other 2. I think Mox Opal will continue to drop, simply because there no decks that can use it effectively right now. Keep in mind Metalcraft will get easier and more powerful when Besieged comes out, so it's not a bad idea to think ahead on that.

Magic 2011
Primeval Titan                 44.99    +7.99
Frost Titan                      18.93    +11.93
Baneslayer Angel            16.97    -2.03
Grave Titan                    12.73    -1.77
Garruk Wildspeaker        6.98    +.98
Inferno Titan                    6.94     -0-
Sun Titan                         6.84     -0-
Jace Beleran                    6.46     +.46
Ajani Goldmane               3.99      -0-
Gaea's Revenge               3.96    +.96
Lilliana Vess                    3.94     +.69
Platinum Angel                 1.94     +.69
Chandra Nalaar                1.90   -.60
Time Reversal                  1.28    -.72
Demon of Death's Gate    1.07    -.18

Blue and Green titans are both up and are both at a premium price, clearly reflecting the dominance of green and blue in the meta. Almost no decks aren't running either, and a handful have both. It's interesting to see Chandra go down, even though she is recursive removal as a 1-of in RUG/UR Control. With the exception of those 2 cards, M11 is incredibly stable.

Rise of the Eldrazi
Vengivine                                  36.98    -3.02
Gideon Jura                              20.99    -9.01
Kargan Dragonlord                   15.96    +.96
All Is Dust                                13.98    -3.02
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre            9.98    +1.98
Kozelik, the Butcher of Truth      9.44    +.44
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn           8.94     -1.06
Linvala, Keeper of Silence          7.96    +.96
Sarkhan the Mad                       6.49     -.76
Transcendant Master                 3.98     -0-
Nirkana Revenant                       3.90    -0-
Lighthouse Chronologist             3.49    -.51
Khalni Hydra                              3.48   -.52
Hellcarver Demon                       .67    -.33
Cast Through Time                     .58     -.42

Obviously there is less and less movement the further back we go, but the big movers is the drop in Vengivine and Gideon Jura. For how broken Vengivine is, I am suprised no one has made a deck with it recently. I have heard of this Darkvine deck going around but have not actually seen it played. Same too with Bant Vengivine. Also, I am interested to see if Zvi's Beastmaster deck pops up some time. It used Vengivine, and it was very fast. Back to money stuff though, the drop in All Is Dust makes sense because I have no clue why it ever went up to begin with. I think this set is fairly settled and only Kargan Dragonlord will drop if Mono-Red becomes nullified.

For these last 2 sets, I didn't collect data last month, so I can't tell you how they moved.

Worldwake
Jace, the Mind Sculptor        89.98
Abyssal Persecutor              14.99
Avenger of Zendikar            10.99
Eye of Ugin                          7.99
Dragonmaster Outcast          3.98
Omnath, Locus of Mana       3.34
Comet Storm                        2.98
Admonition Angel                 2.14
Wrexial, the Risen Deep       .98
Novablast Wurm                  .96

4 things:
1. Jace is too expensive
2. 2 of the 4 expensive ones go in the same deck
3. I have no idea why Persecutor holds value, no one plays it (should go back down)
4. Please note Basilisk Collar is 6 and Stoneforge is 10

Zendikar
Eldrazi Monument                       17.96
Lotus Cobra                               16.94
Nissa Revane                              9.78
Sorin Markov                              9.44
Iona, Shield of Emeria                 5.94 (costs 20 foil!)
Felidar Sovereign                        3.46
Chandra Ablaze                           3.28
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen                   2.98
Warren Instigator                         2.92
Rampaging Baloths                      1.96
Mindbreak Trap                          1.94
Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet          1.68
Lorothos, the Tidemaker              .96
Obsidian Fireheart                        .78
Eternity Vessel                             .69

Zendikar doesn't have great Mythics beyond the first 5, but don't forget about all those fetch lands which go for 10-11 each. I'm particularily interested to see Eldrazi Monument so high in value, but that's probably because of elves being a good aggro deck currently. I imagine this will stay stable, and if anything changes, it will be Eldrazi Monument coming back down to earth.

Hopefully this was helpful, I think with the current format it will be easier for you to read and actually gain something, and it's easier for me because I can just copy n paste, and only a couple details will have to change here and there. But now it's time for me to unvail my new plan for a new constructed format. I would ask for a drum roll, but it's actually not that dramatic. Basically I think it would be awesome if there was a no-mythic standard constructed format. While Wizards will probably never officially support this as it will give anti-mythic rare folk something to feed off of, this would be great as an unofficial format. Try to think of a big-time deck that doesn't run any mythics. I will give you a mental shortcut: almost every deck runs TITANS. Not just mythics as a whole, but titans in particular. What decks don't run titans? Mono Red comes to mind, but it has Koth and Kargan Dragonlord raising the bar. Elves? Eldrazi Monument. The only deck I can think of right now is Quest for Argentum Armor, but that deck is more of a gimmic and is incredibly unreliable.

Due to the prevelance of Mythics and their cost, more booster packs are opened, which increases the supply of cards out there. For each set of Mythics printed, there are 2 sets of rares printed. So for very Jace the Mindsculptor printed, theres 2 Celestial Connelaides printed. If you were to pick a specific Mythic and a specific Rare, you are twice as likely to get that rare (although one time I did call opening Maelstrom Archangel from a Conflux pack from WalMart). Basically, the presence/power/cost of mythics pushes the cost of rares down. Here's the top 4 most expensive rares from each set:

Zendikar
Fetch Land Cycle     8.78 - 12.98
Goblin Guide            6.98
Bloodghast               5.67
Summoning Trap      3.49

Worldwake
Stoneforge Mystic      9.98
Basilisk Collar            5.94
Creeping Tar Pit         4.49
Celestial Connelaide   3.96

Rise of the Eldrazi
Consuming Vapors         4.48
Eldrazi Temple                4.39
Student of Warfare         3.48
Coralhelm Commander   3.40

Magic 2011
Fauna Shaman            7.32
Steel Overseer            3.73
Glacial Fortress          3.48
Drowned Catacomb   3.48
Birds of Paradise         2.98
Brittle Effigy               2.98
Elvish Archdruid         2.98

Scars of Mirroden
Ratchet Bomb            8.98
Mimic Vat                  5.48
Hand of Praetors        3.87
Darkslick Shores        3.20


Long string of prices short, having a no mythic format can reduce the costs of the decks you sleeve up by hundreds of dollars, which I am sure no one is going to complain about. Many decks can stay, but will have to be varied. UW control could still exist thanks to Day of Judgement and Sphinx of Jwar Isle, and ramp could still exist by going Summoning Trap into Terastadon, but the power levels and power spread between those who have and those who have not will all drop.

Nothing is quite like a good long article, but gone are the days of staying up til 2 or 3 every day writing, I have to wake up for work tomorrow, so until then, never feel that you must pay more to play more. Stay classy