Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Just Killing Some Time

Hello everyone! I am writing this from my workbench, because for some reason they want me to work a full day even though they told me from the start I don't actually have any work to do all day. So what a better way to pass the time than to think/read/write/text Mark about Magic? So what is on my mind... Hmmm.... Well, I never posted that MW Knight list. I can write about that!

4x Mirran Crusader
3x Hero of Bladehorn
4x Dude whose name I can't remember who is a 3/1 Knight with Battlecry for 1W
4x Knight Exemplar
4x Student of Warfare
4x Steppe Lynx
1x White Knight

4x Honor of the Pure
3x Brave the Elements
3x Journey to Nowhere
2x Adventuring Gear

4x Arid Mesa
4x Marsh Flats
14x Plains
2x Emeria, the Sky Ruin

In the sideboard you can have a couple Devout Lightcasters as a great way to pwn the UB player who curves out into a Grave Titan or Abyssal Persecutor. The problem that WW has always had is that it loses the long games and it auto-loses to Wrath of God Day of Judgement. Even if this deck only rocks the casual tables, the efficient creature rush is awesome. The way I see UW vs UB control right now is that UW is better against creature based decks and UB is better against everything else. That is why UB is so much better than UW right now because it can attack your hand and library with Inquisition/Duress and Memoricide respectively. In the MaRo interview I linked to yesterday, he mentioned how WotC will push the power levels of different archetypes and rotate which ones are good and which aren't. Obviously Aggro is the weakest right now of the archetypes, so that is why I think Beseiged will be all about entering the combat phase. As a result of Aggro getting better, so does UW control. Gideon will go up from his current $20, so invest in him.

I think the best way to beat Day of Judgement is to not overextend and get the most damage from the fewest creatures you can. Go T1 Student of Warfare, attack for 3 on T2 (17). T3 play Honor of the Pure and Adventuring Gear (or level once more) (13). If they Wrath, it's a 1-for-1, which you are more than pleased with. If they dont, you can Level up to 7 and bash for 10, or you can equip the Gear, crack a fetch land, bash for 8 (unfortunately you are short 1 mana to equip and level up to 7, or else you could bash for 18). This is all with 1 creature! Also, if you have it, Knight Exemplar is fantastic here because it makes you Wrath-proof (and it makes you bash for more damage!). Basically, this is what I'm sleeving up at the first FNM I get all the pieces.

Ok, that was fun! But I don't take my lunch break for another half hour.... and theres still nothing to be done for work.... A truck did show up, but it was for the Janitors, so any hope of getting busy I had are all gone.... Let's go down the format checklist:

Standard: Just talked about it
Limited: Boring
Extended: I don't play it
Legacy: Sure, why not?

So as my dedicated followers should know very well by now, I play Reanimator in Legacy. The deck can provide some unbeatable draws and by splashing green for some artifact/Leyline of the Void hate. I am currently play Krosan Grip, but I may switch back to Nature's Claim, but more on that later. This deck is awesome because it's a combo deck with the combo cards costing 1-2 mana, the support spells costs 1-2 mana, and the counterspells cost 0. Also, the hoser cards all cost next to nothing, except for 1 thing: Creature removal. Right now I am running Damnation as my creature removal, but when your entire deck costs 0-2 (ok, 0-3 for my singleton Show + Tell) mana and your creature removal costs 4, you are in an awkaward place. I only play 18 lands because there is no need for them... until I am facing down an army of 4/4 Merfolk.

So maybe we don't run Damnation, what else will work? Today on CFB there was article about great legacy cards that aren't seeing play. There was actually a good amount fo removal options listed:

Sickening Dreams
Contagion
Sudden Spoiling
Ghastly Demise
Innocent Blood

Sickening Dreams - I don't like to discard a bunch of cards if I don't absolutely have to. Also, this card doesn't beat Goyf as it is often a 4/5 or 5/6 very quickly.
Contagion - This doesn't actually kill anything as most beatdown creature are tribal, which means they have many lords, and if they aren't tribal they're Zoo which has 3 toughness or more for their 1-drops. Basically this is a fog which doesn't take care of the Merrow Reejery problem unless I give it both counters, at which point I just 2-for-1ed myself.
Sudden Spoiling - nothing but a fog
Ghastly Demise - I often don't have more than 3 cards in my graveyard before going off, so while this can be powerful, it is also not too consistant
Innocent Blood - epic until I play reanimate

Ok, I am going to go to lunch right now, but I will be back to this in an hour.

~~ONE HOUR LATER~~

That was a good lunch. I had a grilled chicken & cheddar cheese quesedilla, a slice of pepperoni pizza, a bad of Cheddar Harvest Sunchips (see this whole "I like cheese" trend going on?), and a sprite. For a grand total of $9.44, I think it was a great price for the amount of food I got. Considering there is absolutely no one here, I was all by myself in a giant cafe. I took the time to notice that 2 people had forgotten their personal sized bottle of hot sauce and another guy forgot his safety glasses on various tables (how do you forget those things?). Oh yeah, I was talking about legacy...

I don't remember where I was going with all that. I guess I was going to theorize how important it is to actually remove the creatures as opposed to just fogging so I can get my boom-booms through. Still, this whole Merrow Reejery thing just keeps coming back....

Money is on my mind... I guess i could talk about that...

If you were trading with me 2 days ago, you probably say something like "This binder is pretty dry and it sucks." Trade with me now, and it's a whole different story. Last night DJ decided to once again become a muggle, so he sold his collection to me which included a set of Vengevine and a set of Fauna Shaman (2 foil), both of which I had 0 of previously. Also included were about 20 lands, 2 Gaea's Revenge, 1 foil, and something like 26 $1 rares. Basically I added about 60 or 70 cards to my binder, and now the thing is huge!

Random financial tip: I think Primeval Titan can only go down. Right now he is sitting at $40. What is Prime Time used in? Valakut & UG G-Wave. Every deck has an answer for Valakut, whether it is Memoricide, or just Spreading Seas + Tec Edge, or even killing the ramp player before they can go off. Valakut to me is an incredibly powerful non-interactive combo, which always needs a topdeck. UG G-Wave have potential, but let's talk finances. Because of the success of those 2 decks, Prime Time is holding his value. what's going to happen when it rotates out of standard? Valakut seems way too slow for legacy (I would love to play against it with reanimator. T2 Iona, no more green, GG) and the 2 cards that put it over the top in extended (Prismatic Omen + Scapeshift) will rotate out. I plan on moving my Prime Times to my binder ASAP to try and get all my money back and more on them (I spent about $30 for the set, the rest coming from back drafts and trades).

Oh yeah,. one card I wanted to mention for a sideboard against Zoo and Merfolk splash Goyf is Submerge. This card is basically a 0 mana unsummon + timewalk. Yeah, that was a random thing to say, but I just remembered it.

Ok, so my boss just told me I am getting out of work at 4:30, not 5:30. It's 3:00 right now, so I need to type about something for the next 90 minutes... One of the guys brought his laptop today, and he has the movie Meatball in, so maybe we will all take a break and watch that... I texted Mark an hour ago inquiring what I should write about, but he still hasn't responded...

I want to thank you for taking the time to read this blog in general, not just this ranting dumb post, but I really do appreciate having an audience for what I write.

~~Long waiting interlude while I think of something else to write. approx. 15 min~~

So I remember a couple months ago making an MTG parody of "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha. I think I will go back to finishing it up. As a bit of a taste for what is to come, I did get the chorus down before putting it on haitus:

Don't stop, let's planeswalk
Got you in a Jace lock
Tonight, I'mma fight
Til I see green sunlight [5th dawn reference... it's a bit of a stretch]
Tik Tok
Ges game clock
Hey buddy, please don't play slow
woah woah woah woah.....

I think I have the entire first verse done, a single line or 2 in the second verse, the concept for the bridge, and of course the line that inspired the whole song:

THE PARTY DON'T START TIL I ENTER THE BATTLEFIELD

Maybe that's what I should do for the next hour and a half, fine tune that tune... Although one random strategy regarding Vengevine and Reanimator just came to my head:

When you are on the draw, if you have a land, Reanimation target, Reanimate, you can just draw and pass with 8 cards in hand. Then discard your reanimation target. T2: land, reanimate. Same is true with Vengivine, although you need Memnite + 1 drop to get that combo off on turn 2.

So I now have 1 hour left, and I really have nothing left to talk about. So I am going to hit random on Gatherer and comment here on all the cool cards that come up.

Monkey Cage - I really want to do something awesome with this card. Maybe follow it up with Show & Tell? Maybe put a huge creature on suspend before costing this? The only thing that could really make this a really bad card is if your opponent plays a 0 or 1 mana cost creature during their turn. If they play a 2 drop, you get 2 2/2s for 5 which isn't great by any means but it is at least decent. I think if I come across this card I will trade for it and put it in my commander deck. Why not? It's just a 50 cent card!

Reduce to Dreams - First I thought, "hey this is a great way to beat affinity!" I then slapped myself because it is just Time Warp against them. They just replay their entire hand and keep on going. Also, this is assuming you live to T5 agains them

Steam Vines - It's like a Stone Rain enchantment!

Volcanic Eruption - This being a UUU card makes no sense to me. The entire card, art and all, is all screaming "Make me a red card!" That's alpha for you!

Plaxcaster Frogling - This made me wonder how many frogs there are in Magic. As it turns out there are 16. They are all Black and Green except one is GW. Also, one does sacrifice to add UR to your mana pool

Temporal Extortion - This card just seems really fun and REALLY evil! *stereotypical evil laugh*

Abolish - I think this card should see play in Legacy as an anti-affinity card, or should have seen play as an anti-survival card. If they know you don't run counterspells, they would go T2 Survival and you would just blow it up.

Shahrazad - YEAH

Goblin Trenches - I didn't know Goblins ever went white. This is a cool find

Vernal Equinox - This card feels like it should be blue.... Yeah color pie mess-ups

Ichorid - Remember this guy can help close out games for Dredge, he is good

Epochrasite - I really like the cards with suspend that just keep coming back. I remember buying a random Time Spiral pack once (no I didn't get the Goyf) and I had the white once, whose name escapes me, and who I really don't care enough about to search for, but it prevented you from getting attacked. It was awesome with Luminarch Ascension (Luminarch Ascension is the silver bullet against poison)

Hidden Spider - A 3/5 reach for G!? That's awesome! I think there a dozen or so of these in Urza block

Alright, it's 4:00! I'm almost done for the day!

Knight of Stromgald - It's a mix of Nantuko Shade + Black Knight! I think this guy is better than Black Knight because it has the pump ability should you need to close out games faster

Interdict - This feels like a cycling version of Stifle

Deadly Grub - GAH! This is such a cool card! I really wish I played during Time Spiral block, and this kind of card only re-enforces that!

Temporal Adept - This is such a powerful card! It can now bounce planeswalkers too! While it is fragile, this is still amazing!

Sheltering Ancient - Just Pacify their guy and this card is golden. I am pretty sure this card makes Pacism better than Journey, but this is the only case I can think of

Barishi - 4/3 creature costing 2GG with a graveyard ability? No, I'm sorry, Vengevine you are not

Kismet - This card is cool and powerful and will make your opponents hate you. Trust me, I have been that opponent

Crawlspace - Hey! This card beats Battle Cry! (which Battle Cry is definitely the anti-Exalted)

Folk of An-Havva - Hey a creature that gets pumps when it blocks! Wait a green creature that wants to block? A power boost when blocking instead of a toughness boost? Oh yeah... this is Homelands we're dealing with

Dwarven Shrine - My liking of this card card was progressively reduced each time I read a little more of what this card does (which is actually nothing)

Juggernaut - I'm pretty sure this card was banned for a time because there was a quirky enchantment that said enchanted creature can only be blocked by walls. So on a Juggernaut it made it unblockable.

Nightshade Stinger - Gaddok Teeg (flavor text) definitely hasn't seen Extended Faeries, has he?

Phyrexian Rager - I saw an image somewhere that showed this guy would be in Beseiged!

Ok, well that was a great way to pass the hour. If you are still reading this, you are a champ! Until next time, stay classy!

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