Adios Tokens, Hello Bonfire

This last weekend didn’t go according to plan at all.

All-Stars Collectables has a Star City Games Super Invitational Qualifier on the schedule, and I was most likely scheduled to judge it. Unfortunately, due to attendance concerns, I was asked to play instead of judge, and so I took my same old tokens list to task, and finished with a disappointing 2-2 drop. During this, I won a close match with Delver and crushed a janky GR Artifact Aggro deck. I lost to Naya Aggro and the new Elfball deck that got some hype on the GP Coverage.

And so that was that. Tokens goes down with another lackluster performance. I dropped from the tournament and watched a movie with my girlfriend, thinking half the time about what deck I’d rather play. I’ve become disillusioned with Tokens as of late. It just doesn’t have the power it used to in a world where every topdeck could be a Flame Wave. Bonfire of the Damned has – along with Restoration Angel (already hard enough to deal with) put enough roadblocks in place that I’ve got to throw in the towel on that one and move to plan B.

In fairness to plan B, I love this deck and everything about it. My weapon of choice from here on out is Naya Aggro. The deck is slick and powerful, full of every great card in Standard. You love the Restoration Angels from Delver? We’ve got em. Bonfire to wipe their board? We’ve got the full package. Uncounterable because of Cavern? Been there. Thalia? Yep. Huntmaster? Blade Splicer? We’ve got your token action in spades. You want Mana Dorks? Try eight.

Mikaeus? Isn’t he unplayable? Maybe not.

Hero of Bladehold? Pinch me.

Gavony Township? I’m sold.

Let me just make this very clear. Almost every card in this deck feels like it could be the best card in the format. We get to throw them all into one big pot, stir them up, add Borderland Rangers so we don’t kill ourselves with our land base, and go to town(ship).

It’s hard to not get excited about a deck with so many raw powerful cards. It’s hard to not be giddy at the thought of so many different lines of play. The only thing missing is a toolbox element, and I don’t think I want to add in the Birthing Pods, simply because it would dilute the all-gas nature of the deck.

Every single non-land is capable of advancing your board presence or dismantling theirs. None of the cards in this deck are ‘dead air’. Even the lands do good work, fighting against Counterspells and board stalls respectively.

Here’s the list that I started working from:

This list is awesome. I’m a little leery about some of the sideboard cards, and we’re certainly going to mess with some numbers, but the core is solid.

Here’s another list, from the Dragonmaster himself – Brian Kibler, who'd been advocating for a Naya build since we were all screaming about Bans.

Kibler is obviously going with more of a toolbox feeling for his deck. He’s got plenty of one-offs and the ability to find them with Birthing Pods. This allows him to have a more eclectic sideboard, full of one-of creatures with huge board impact. With that said, I think that we can tighten up his core a bit and make this deck equally consistent without the use of Birthing Pod. He’s also dropped the Bonfires from the maindeck – which is a choice I just cannot get behind. I feel like without bonfire, you’re bound to lose the mirror match in game one, and that’s certainly a matchup I’m going to want to be prepared for.

One creature that I’m very interested in is Geist-Honored Monk. I’ve watched it in some test games, and I bounced the idea off Marshall, who likes it quite a bit as well. It serves the dual role of being a major beater in a board stall situation while also putting bodies in the air to be pumped by Mikaeus and Township. It also makes Vapor Snag look like a joke, so that’s not horrible either. Kibler seems to think that we can get away with less colored Mana sources, and with the inherent power of the deck, I’m inclined to agree with him.

Thragtusk is one of those cards that has a huge inherent power, but might just get hated out by the metagame of the moment. 5/3 is a fairly fragile body with a billion first striking golem tokens running around, as well as Delvers and Flashed in Restoration Angels. I suspect we’ll see a ton more of him after Blade Splicer rotates out. (Personally, I suspect a very grindy metagame with monumental blowouts due to Bonfire as the future of Standard, post Scars Rotation.) I think I’m going to pass on Thragtusk for now, though one might find a place in the board for extremely grindy or tempo-driven games. He’s a great roadblock, with a lot more potential.

Zealous Conscripts is a very powerful card as well, but it’s use is situational, and without Birthing Pod for some Pod + Angel nonsense, I think that I’d be better off with other options, at least mainboard. It probably has a place in the side though.

Daybreak Ranger - I’m hedge-y on her. She’s spectacular in the mirror, which is almost a reason to include her off the bat, but she’s also fragile against Delver, and takes a lot of work to make it worth it. Mana dorks give her a ton of extra action by playing her on Turn 2, but I’d still be concerned about every removal spell in the format hitting her hard. Again, passing for now. Maybe in a post-Vapor Snag world.

Sublime Archangel is a powerful creature, and obviously competes with Hero of Bladehold in Nelson’s list. I don’t have any Archangels at the moment, but I think that this is one place where the Archangel might shine over the Hero. I’m a giant fan of Hero, but with the number of creatures we have (and the ability to get into deep board stalls), having a giant flyer might be just what we need to end games. I'm going to be aggressively picking them up if I can before this weekend. Turning my ground stalled out ground offence into half a dozen exalted triggers seems like a good way to take over a game.

Wolvir Silverheart seems great in any game where the other guy isn’t playing blue. Can we start hashtagging #PostVaporSnag yet? I want to play with this card, but I can’t justify skewing away from Delver. Marshall comments that it has the ability to punch through any board stalls with unparalleled power, but he worries about it's GG mana cost and it's vulnerability to Blue 'removal'.

Absent from both lists is Thundermaw Hellkite, which I’m also very interested in, but don’t quite have access to at the moment. I haven’t opened much M13 yet, and if neither of these guys thought he was worth a nod, maybe I’ll hold off on him for a little bit.

Ultimately, I came up with the following:

I’m keeping the Kibler mana base, more or less, because I think that having Gavony Township is the most important thing you can be doing with this deck once you have some board presence. I skewed more towards the Nelson style of build – aiming for consistency without Pod. I’m not a huge fan of Birthing Pod. It’s a powerful engine when built around, but I don’t like the trend of 1-ofs that it enables. I like my decks to function regardless of what I draw. Admittedly, this makes our sideboard cards less impactful, but I think the greater chance of winning Game 1’s is worth it.

I’m keeping Bonfire because seriously that card wins games.

This list is absolutely very much still in progress. I haven't played Naya since before Avacyn Restored came out, and my biggest issue was it's lack of ability to punch through in the late game. Now, with Bonfire as a late game Plague Wind, plus the addition of Restoration Angel to literally go 'over the top', I think we might finally have the deck I've been looking for to replace Tokens in my heart.

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This weekend, I'll be attending the Star City event in DC. I'll most likely be taking this deck with me, after some intense play testing for the next two nights. I'd encourage you to bring it to your game day, and see how it plays. If you're interested in meeting up, let me know. Maybe we could grab some food or something, keep each other's spirts high, and avoid all that ugly tilt.

This Thursday,we'll have the next installment of our Deckbuilding 101 series, this time looking at making your land spots count - and as a bonus, the results from my playtesting with Naya.

Got any questions about the deck? Anything you'd like me to talk about in future articles? Want to tell me what I'm doing right? Wrong? Drop me a message or a comment - here, on reddit, or tweet me (@ajrula)

Until Thursday, may all your draws be miracles.

Metagame Analysis For This Weekend's Events

This weekend, All-Stars Collectables in the Oxford Valley Mall (in Eastern Pennsylvania) is hosting a Star City Games Super Invitational Qualifier. Their prize payout is extremely solid, their premesis are conductive to gaming, their dealers have good deals, and the tournament is going to be a complete blast. At the moment, I am tentatively scheduled to judge the event, but things may change and I could very well end up playing. With that in mind, I’d like to talk about my current view of the format, and why certain decks are a good or bad idea. I’ll be trying to hit most of the strongest archetypes of the last month, and I’ll include my own decklists at the end of the article.

Overview:

Things have been in flux recently, and M13 is already making its presence felt. The lack of Bans in standard seemed to light a fire in the community, spurring innovation in a number of non-Delver decks. While Delver is still putting up strong numbers, it is no longer the menace that it was. Who is currently vying for the new title of “Villain of the Format?” Is the Naya Humans deck finally ready for the limelight? Is the Zombie menace finally growing horde-like enough to merit serious consideration? Has the sudden shift away from 3/2 Flying One-Drops put Wolf Run Back onto the map?

Let’s take a look at the mtgpulse chart for the metagame over the two months or so. This chart represents both Paper and MTGO (so it will not effectively consider the effect of Magic 2013 quite yet, though it will give us a snapshot to work from.

UW Delver

As we can see, Delver is still the top of the heap, at least in popularity.  In a six or seven round tournament, you can safely expect that you will see it once, if not twice or more. Despite rumors of its death, Delver still has the numbers to put up finishes, and keep in mind that it hasn’t lost anything – the metagame has just shifted around it. Ignore it at your own peril.

The core of Delver’s game plan is Tempo. Their goal is to use the powerful synergy of Vapor Snag +

Mana Leak + Snapcaster Mage to keep you off the board for long enough that it can attack and mount healthy pressure. Failing that, they play for the late game – involving Restoration Angel or Runechanter’s Pike in an attempt to grind out a win with repeated value. After sideboard, they have the option to shift to a more controlling role if appropriate, utilizing Consecrated Sphinx and Day of Judgment to ensure a strong late game.

Zombies

Gaining in popularity over the last week or two, the resilient Zombie deck comes in a number of flavors. UB with Diregraf Captain, BR with Falkenrath Noble, and even some Mono-Black lists employing the new Liliana and Consume Spirit for an explosive finish. Personally, of the multiple types, I’m much more worried about the BR Version. The addition of an extra sacrifice outlet for Blood Artist without having to demolish their own board simultaneously with Killing Wave. The large hasty flyer gives them a strong opening and their recurring creatures mean that powerful sweepers – traditionally the salve against swarm strategies such as this – have limited use against them.

The core of the Zombies plan is an aggressive swarm, focused on the two one drops Diregraf Ghoul and Gravecrawler. With Geralf’s Messenger at the three spot, the deck can put out a ton of pressure very quickly that is remarkably hard to get rid of. Some removal spells can keep the field clear for long enough to put the opponent into lethal range with a Blood Artist. Do not underestimate.

Naya Humans

The Naya Humans deck plays all the best threats. With a pleathora of powerful disruptive early creatures and a startling late game through Gavony Township, this deck is, in my opinion, the one to look out for. It has a threat for every situation – often tailor made to take advantage of specific weaknesses in other matchups. The deck also has the ever important ability to occasionally just win a game: Bonfire of the Damned turns every draw into a random chance to sweep the opposing field and swing for lethal.

Their game plan relies on establishing board presence, and then letting their cards naturally gain advantages. Thalia is entirely one-sided here, since the deck contains next to no spells. Huntmaster gains you value by existing, and Restoration Angel plus Thragtusk is exactly as absurd as it sounds. The addition of Bonfire only makes the plan more frightening. Some versions run Swords as added insurance against something going wrong. (The second place list at SCG: St. Louis two weekends ago featured this – though I’m not sure if I necessarily agree with it.) Once this deck gets ahead of you, it has the tools to grind you into paste and leave your broken corpse beneath half a dozen Golem Tokens.

G/R Aggro

While it hasn’t seemed to be the most prominent deck as of late, any deck that is capable of a Turn 2 Sword of War and Peace, swinging on turn 3, is worthy of note. G/R Aggro does everything that Naya does, while trying to work less for the same result. Wolvir Silverheart and Rancors replace Thalia and Restoration Angel, and the slow grindy advantage from Gavony Township becomes the wrecking ball of Kessig Wolf Run. The deck thrives off needing multiple types of removal to stop it – quick efficient spot removal for mana dorks and sword carriers, but large sweepers for others like Strangleroot Geist.

Personally, I like G/R much less than the Naya versions, mostly due to the ability to grind out a long game. Naya also seems like it has a better disruption package, but that’s more a nod towards my personal playstyle than any objective valuation. G/R aggro is certainly never a deck I’m thrilled to see across the table from me.

Wolf Run Ramp

Another strategy that’s only grown stronger – albeit as their numbers dwindle – is Wolf Run. Kessig is still a powerful card, and though the titans were not reprinted in M2013, they’re absolutely still legal until Return to Ravnica rolls around. With Primeval Titan resolving often being the end of a game, having an efficient answer to the Giant is still important. It’s grip on the midrange decks seems to have dwindled, but with the addition of Cavern from AVR and Thragtusk to help fight against the tide of aggro decks, the deck is still a strong contender.

Its game plan revolves around casting two ramp spells, and then Primeval Titan (often protected by a Cavern of Souls). Backed up by red sweepers, it then uses literally any threat in the deck to deal the finishing blow, backed by a massive power boost from Kessig Wolf Run, or more life from Glimmerposts.

Mono-Green Aggro

Dungrove Elder is a scary card. Rancor is a scary card. Putting them in the same 60 card deck, supported by mana ramp and some of the best Green Creatures ever printed, and it looks like we’re rapidly moving towards a full on deck. Revenge of the Hunted gives the deck an explosive potential to wipe the opposing side of the field for minimal mana cost. Couple that with the consistency of Green Sun’s Zenith (banned in Modern for this very reason) and Mono-Green looks like a very real threat on the horizon.

Mono Green functions like the vast majority of Mono-Green decks throughout the year. It plays creatures, turns them sideways, and watches your health plummet. This version features an all-star cast of creatures that do exactly that. It’s a deck that simply asks “Can you stop me?” and often times, the answer is no.

Esper Control

I would be remiss to not consider the one true control deck in the format. Esper control is an amorphous beast, with many versions floating around that have had varying levels of success. Elesh Norn still remains a trump to the entire format, stopping everything including a bonded Silverheart dead in its tracks, but seven mana has never looked so difficult. The lists that I think look best are heavy on planeswalkers, using Sorin, Tamiyo, Liliana 2.0, and Gideon as a team from hell, holding back the tide while Lingering Souls tokens block and help to screen the way for a board wipe in the form of Terminus or Day of Judgment.  Once the field has multiple walkers on it, with no appreciable pressure, the game is all but over.

These planeswalker lists do have weaknesses – they often don’t run countermagic, and are vulnerable to a quick game if they don’t have a timely board wipe. In addition, the deck takes ages to actually win a game, and so running up against time is a serious concern. I wouldn’t play it, but I do know people who swear by the archetype, and claim a number of good matchups against the field.

Concluding Words:

Obviously this isn’t an expansive look at the entire format. There are variations on all of these, and rogue decks like Tokens and Infect have a more than insignificant presence, but these are the decks that I would include in my testing gauntlet for this weekend. Your deck needs to be able to cope with the best that these can offer, or it doesn’t have the chops to make the Top 8 seats.

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I hope to see you guys at the event. I'll be the blond one, wearing the Judge Blacks. Stop by and say hi if you're in the area. We'd love to have you.

Link to the event if you're interested: All-Stars Collectables Star City Games Super IQ

Deckbuilding 101: Play The Deck You Love

When playing Magic, there is often one choice that overrides all the others. This one singular choice colors every other one that you’ll make in the course of the game, and informs every decision that you’ll have. A poor choice at this juncture could lead to a series of disappointing 0-2 drops, while a good decision can do everything from giving you an advantage to handing you a Pro Tour on a platter.

I’m talking about Deck Choice, and it’s the most important thing that you can learn in Magic. We all hear about breakout decks. Sam Black recently pioneered a Zombie deck at GP Atlanta to significant success. A few years back, Dragonstorm took the Pro Tour by…well…Storm. Not a year ago, in a field of Solar Flare and Illusions, a deck called Wolf Run Ramp arrived from the shadows in a blaze of glory. Choosing the right deck is the kind of choice that sticks with you.

Hard Choices

Something to take into account here is the difficulty of actually assembling the deck in question. For the most part, building a deck requires an expense of time and money, and both of those are scarce quantities in the lives of many players. Many strategy websites have made their living off using their time to work out a decklist and deliver it to players who don’t have the time to analyze metagames and sift through available card pools. For the brewers among us, the provide a critical jumping off point.

Thing is, we can’t just build every deck. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m strained on time as-is, and adding a ton more decks to upkeep would start cutting into valuable sleep time. That might work alright if you’re a college student who doesn’t need to wake up till Noon because you have a Class Schedule handed down from the Divines, but for us working stiffs who need to be at work by 9, and need to actually cook our food when we arrive home, it’s less viable.

So, here’s the critical question – how do we decide what decks are worth building?

A Question of Style

There are a lot of people who would tell you that you should just find the ‘best’ deck in the format and play that. While that will certainly give you a reasonable chance to do well, it makes me leery because the nature of the ‘best deck’ is that people will be gunning for it, and they’ll likely have more experience playing against it than you do playing with it.

No, the best option for someone who wants to go to a tournament is a deck that they will love. Find a deck that suits their personal style and work on it. Iterate it until it’s the best it can be. If you know your deck well, you will win games that you otherwise would not be able to. This isn’t to say, of course, that you should play horrible decks with the justification that you know them, but you need only look at recent legacy tournament results to see the benefits. Goblins and Elves surging upwards where they hadn’t before, Patrick Sullivan wins the Legacy Open with Burn of all things, Junk takes one of them down. These aren’t the ‘best decks’ of the format, but they certainly are decks that their owners have played with for a while and see significant advantage from that.

Case Study: Marshall

I’m going to mention my friend Marshall here, because his deck building style is fairly pronounced. In general, if given a choice, Marshall prefers two things overwhelmingly in his decks. First, he loves Blue. He enjoys the cerebral aspect of it, and how much choice it gives him over the way that the game plays out. When he plays a non-blue color, the decks just feel inconsistent and constrained. He doesn’t enjoy it as much. The other thing that Marshall loves is a good build around card. He wants to build a deck around a central core that makes the deck borderline unfair.

Some decks that he’s worked on in the recent past include Spirits, UR Delver, Heartless Architect, and Zedruu the Greathearted EDH. Each of these decks incorporate aspects that Marshall loves, and all include Blue. For Spirits, the deck has a strong tribal component that calls to him. Delver asks for a high percentage of Instants and Sorceries that provide the backbone of this counter-burn deck. Heartless Architect, as I noted in a previous article here, takes a number of shells and melds them together into an incredible ramp deck that is capable of really explosive starts. Building Zedruu is an exercise in counterintuitive cards – turning otherwise unplayable cards into deck staples via donation effects.

Case Study: Me

A wise man once looked at a deck that I had sent him and sagely nodded before responding. “This deck suits you.” When I asked what he meant, he pointed at it and explained. “Well, it’s an aggro deck…sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“It can be an aggro deck, but you it has a twist.”

“I do that a lot?”

I hadn’t even realized the common strain holding my decks together until someone else pointed it out to me. I hated Combo – I knew that much. The playstyle doesn’t appeal to me, and playing both with and against Splinter Twin was miserable for me when it was in Standard. Control decks hold some allure, but I can never bring myself to pull the trigger and build one to actually bring to a tournament.

Then I look at an Aggro Deck, with its sleek lines of play and I fall in love. For those of you who don’t know me in real life, back during Zendikar-Scars, during the height of Caw-Blade, back when I was a much worse player than I am now, I built UW Stoneforge Knights. I saw Hero of Bladehold and Knight Exemplar and knew there was a deck there. Stoneforge Mystic came along for a ride, just on the merits of sheer power, but the knights were the core of the deck. Unfortunately crippled by a terrible Splinter Twin matchup, the deck had some moderate success for a rogue strategy, but was ultimately hamstrung by my own skills, which were still developing from their young idealistic state. (I mourn that I wasn’t playing the full 4 preordain in that deck, even now, and I devoted no sideboard cards to Splinter Twin because I just didn’t understand the matchup.)

When Knights rotated out (RIP Knight Exemplar and Student of Warfare), I turned towards Puresteel Paladin. Here was a build-around card that I could sink my teeth into. I got to cast awesome spells, and my deck had five swords in it. What other deck could say that? I built my own Progenitus using an Etched Champion and six different equipment at one point. I ran Valakut out of threats – his deck had no mountains left, and all his Primeval Titans were dead. I stood victorious, and it felt great. The problem with that deck was that it was too fragile. Without a Puresteel Paladin in play, I felt like I could get run over at any time. I didn’t devote anything to protecting him, and without the advantages offered by the Paladin, I couldn’t keep up.

The loss of Puresteel left me in a lurch for a bit, I played Red Deck Wins, and then Mono-Black infect. I wanted to attack with creatures for the win, but balls-out aggro wasn’t for me. I liked counting Shrine Triggers, and manipulating the board to win with a single 12 damage shot. I loved being able to carve someone’s hand and use a 1/1 or 2/2 to get there for the win.

Then I built Zombies, to some success, and then finally, I found what I was looking for – BW Tokens.

I love the idea of Tokens. I love the spells that make multiple creatures. I love the anthems that make it practically feel like I’m cheating. I love that white gives me versatile answers, and black gives me effective ones. I love that I can act at Instant speed, that Lingering Souls lets me play around counterspells. I love that I can have explosive starts involving putting them into single digits on Turn 3.

I like making them have the answer, not looking for it myself.

So, what have I learned about myself? I like decks that turn guys sideways, but I’m not happy with a single dimension. I want some extra angle that lets me interact with the format.

Marshall often said that playing with a deck that you know is the best play you can make in Legacy. The format is wide enough that there’s no way to prepare for the entire field unless you’ve just played your deck enough that you have experience there. When we set about building a deck for me for GP Atlanta, Marshall took this into account and built a deck that was deliberately similar to what he knew I loved – a deck that attacked with smaller creatures, backed up by disruption. Yards Pale Ale was very much designed with my play style in mind, and because of that – even with my relative inexperience with the deck, I was able to pilot it to a 6-2-1 record, and narrowly miss Day 2 due to tilting (which, again, the result of my inexperience). Someone should write an article on recognizing and managing tilt. (And when he does, I’ll be sure to link over to him – hint hint Wingman.)

Take It Away

So, what should you get out of this article? Simple. You will play better and see stronger lines of play when you are playing a deck that you enjoy and are comfortable with. If you’ve been building and rebuilding decks every week, I strongly encourage you to build one deck that you’re happy with, and play it for a while – perhaps a full three month rotation. Make small changes, keep it current, but stay with the same deck.

I did with Tokens, and I can proudly say that it’s done me well. I’ve had the best Magic finishes of my life with this deck, and not once did I wish I was playing Delver, or Wolf Run Ramp instead. They don’t fit me – and so I’ll always be stronger with one of my decks.

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Do you have a specific style of deck that you prefer? Why do you like it? What advantages do you see in that style? Let us know in the comments – here or on Reddit.

This Thursday, I’ll talk about the changes I’m making to BW Tokens in anticipation of this weekend’s Star City Super IQ at All-Star Collectables. I’m still not certain if I’ll be playing or judging, but either way, I will be there. If you’re in the general Pennsylvania/New Jersey Area, it’s going to be a great time and we’d love to have you there. More information can be found HERE.  As a bonus, Thursday will see the first draft of the Naya Deck that I’m working on, though it’s far from complete.

Forging A Format: Shard Wars

Usually, on Thursdays, I write an article about the deck that I’m currently playing. I generally show off a decklist, and chat a bit about why I think it’s the best deck to be shuffling up right now. I do this primarily to prepare for a tournament that weekend. However, I won’t be attending any tournaments this weekend, and while I’ve been very happy with the way that Tokens has preformed over the weeks, I’m beginning to think that switching to some version of Naya may be beneficial. While I hammer out the particulars of my list, I figured that I would use today to discuss one of the projects that I’ve been working on recently.

Once a month, give or take, my friend Marshall invites a number of people over to play Magic. For the most part, these are people who met during our stint playing World of Warcraft, and a good time is had by all. When we started, one of the most common formats for us to play was “Color War”. The rules were fairly simple. Using preconstructed decks that Marshall provided – all monocolored – you would sit in color order around the table: WUBRG. Your goal was to kill the two people across from you, and you won when both of them were eliminated.

There were a number of other rules, clarifying who was an opponent, and who were your allies (allied colors), but the important thing was really how Marshall balanced the five decks against each other. The Color War decks are lovingly updated each time a new set comes out, but always careful not to increase their power level too much. When it was discovered that blue could go infinite on mana and Capsize-lock the board (by casting and buying back Capsize an arbitrarily large number of times) the deck was altered to weaken it. Now, the end result is that the five decks are each paragons of their color, featuring all-stars like Morphling.

A while ago, I had an idea – well, a set of ideas – all rotating around the central core of a ‘new’ color war. It wasn’t that I disliked Marshall’s decks – far from it. I think they’re spectacular. I just wanted to try my own hand at a similar, but mostly non-rotating endeavor. The conclusion I came to?

Shard Wars

For those of you who are unaware, Alara was the central location of the Shards of Alara block. In ancient times, a battle between Asha and Malfegor sundered the plane into five parts, each devoid of two types of Mana. Bant lacked Black and Red, Esper was without Green and Red, Grixis devoid of White and Green, Jund eschewed White and Blue, and Naya forsook Black and Blue. The result was five fully fleshed out worlds, each highlighting a completely different style of play. With abundant mana fixing, playing three colors wasn’t difficult at all, and the mechanical ties that bound each shard together rewarded strong synergistic play.

Exalted - get more of it.

I want to capture that feel in a constructed format, building a set of five decks that are based around the Shards. These decks would be designed to be played against each other with the idea of ‘imperfect symmetry’ at the forefront.

For those who don’t know about imperfect symmetry, you should watch Penny Arcade’s recent discussion on the topic (Here). The basic concept is that in order to have a balanced game, one does not need to create it like chess – with everyone having equal resources. You can instead make multiple completely different forces that happen to pair well against each other. Diplomacy is a good example of this, if you’ve ever played that (exceptionally good) board game. The Starcraft series is another spectacular example, and even World of Warcraft could invoke the concept – with 8 classes of varying skills and talents, the end goal is still to have each able to complete their goals in a manner individual to that class.

No one wants their format to feel like Grixis

I spoke to Marshall, and he thought that it was a great idea as long as we differentiated it from Color War significantly enough that one did not necessarily obsolete the other. Neither of us wanted to put significant work into this format only to have it be ignored for one that already exists, and neither of us wanted all of Marshall’s hard work on the Color War decks to be squandered.

This isn’t a topic that I can fully treat in a single article, so I’m just going to go over some of my initial ideas to try and show how I approach creating a format.

The Format

Kresh wouldn't mind bashing in some Grixis and Naya Skulls.

When we’re first starting off, a lot of questions existed about how the decks were to be constructed. Highlander (Where there can be only one of each card), Standard 4-of-per deck? Some mixture of these? Should they be sixty cards or 100? Should ‘allied’ shards be able to attack one another, or no?

All of that is very important, and I haven’t worked any of it out at all because I’ve been focused instead on something that I personally think is much more important to the overall endeavor.

Each deck needs a flavor.

It would be easy for me to throw all the cards affiliated with each shard into a deck and call it a day. It wouldn’t be balanced, but we could work on that and get it roughly to a balanced state. That, however, is not what I’m planning on doing. Instead, the core of the deck should be a key interaction – one thing that each deck really wants to do above all else.

In the original block, each Shard had a mechanic associated with it.

Bant: Exalted

Esper: Colored Artifacts

Grixis: Unearth

Jund: Devour

Naya: ‘Gargantuan’ (Power > 5)

Now, three of those seem like a reasonable thing to set a deck around. Exalted is a great mechanic, and pushes a player towards a very specific style of play that fits thematically with the Shard itself. We’re definitely keeping it as Bant’s Flagship mechanic. Grixis’ Unearth functions similarly. With a bunch of sacrificial and board wiping effects to keep things down, Grixis keeps coming back. Jund’s Devour mechanic seems harder to work around, but with a token generation subtheme (and some help from the new commander decks) we can probably make it work.

We get it. You're overpowered. Relax.

The two that I have an issue with are Naya and Esper. Just having colored artifacts is very flavorful and does a lot to explain the Shard of Esper from a story standpoint, but without a ton of insane artifacts, I’m balking a little bit on making their key mechanic into something that is so passive in so many cases. Instead, I’m tilting a little more towards a Grand-Architect style deck or a deck  where the goal is an ‘assemble the machine!’ style of play. Perhaps using the stations from Fifth Dawn, or something along those lines. I think that it would require a decent amount of work, but we could probably make it into a ‘mad science with artifacts’ deck that would appeal to some of my players.

Look at me! I'm pretty and have no mechanical identity!

As for Naya, I think that the key here is going to be tricky. The Power greater than five mechanic is interesting, but I feel like we need something that’s going to make it a little deeper than just “Play big things”. Part of me wants to have Progenitus in their deck plus some of the 5-color activation creatures from Conflux, and make it a ramp deck (using ramp effects like Abundant Growth to allow it access to all 5 colors). This admittedly breaks the color symmetry of the game, but also allows Naya its own identity that fits with the jungle nature of the plane. What do you guys think of that?

The core concepts that belong to each deck are critical, but cycles will also play a major role in establishing the flavor of the decks. Luckily, Alara has no want for cycles. (MTGSalvation Wiki) With 19 direct cycles in the first set alone, we shouldn’t have any problem finding flavorful options there.

The whole set need a lot of work, but once we get the overarching themes down, Marshall and I will be discussing what the actual format we’ll be playing is, and how we can make it a special and unique experience for all.

Do you have any suggestions for the Shard War decks? Ideas that could be incorporated? Have you seen something that I haven’t seen? There’s a good chance that you have, and I’d love to hear about it via Twitter (@ajrula), email (andrewrula AT gmail.com) or just through reddit comments!

This weekend, I’ll be in DC, visiting with some friends, so no magic. But on Tuesday, Deckbuilding 101 returns with a look at building a deck you’ll love - and why that's the best option at your next tournament.

Connecticon Convention Report - Top 8 in a StarCity Elite IQ

It was a long, mostly successful weekend.

I left work at noon on Friday, thinking to beat rush hour traffic. Unfortunately, that worked about as well as the George Washington Bridge’s Toll Plaza, and we arrived just after 10pm. Admittedly, we did get a late start due to some unavoidable circumstances regarding members of our party who weren’t necessarily ready to travel at the correct time, but traffic and dinner played a big part of it. We played Apples to Apples for the evening and Pop and I strategized for the next day.

Connecticon is a massive, multi-genre convention. If you’ve never gone, I strongly encourage you to give it a try. There’s literally something for everyone there. In previous years, I’ve spent the weekend roleplaying, attending panels on webcomics, buying magnificent art at bargain-basement prices, and playing Magic. This year, I will admit, my attention was a little bit more focused.

There were Star City Invitational Qualifiers firing off, two per day – all of Super Level or higher. Over the weekend, fourteen invitations would be given out – six for legacy, four for sealed, and four for standard. Nevertheless, Pop and I were leery about entering the Sealed Elite Qualifier. With a $40 price tag, it was certainly the most expensive event of the weekend, and neither of us wanted to get stuck with a subpar pool. I suggested that we swing by early in the day and make the decision to enter the tournament or not based on the number of people entering.

We arrived at 9:45, with only fifteen minutes left to enter. At that point, there were 35 people on the list. Cash prizes went down to the Top 16, and that seemed very reasonable, so we both entered. Unfortunately for our math, the numbers ballooned up to 65 in the last ten minutes, and so we were left with a (barely) seven round slog to the Top 8.

I opened a fairly lackluster pool, and was glad to pass it away, but unfortunately, Pop opened what some would conservatively call the Best Pool Ever. Featuring both a Liliana and an Ajani, the pool also had such all-stars as a pair of Serra Angels, double Murder and Pacifism, and enough exalted triggers to make Elves laugh at Titans.

Needless to say, he passed that away and got a pile of cardboard that could have been competitive if we were playing Homelands. Sadly, we weren’t. He went 0-1 drop on the spot.

I, on the other hand, received a pretty solid pool. It was a bit light on playables, but some creative choices ended up with a BW Exalted deck that splashed an Evolving Wilds and a single Island for Harbor Bandit. This choice ended up being the difference between winning a match and losing it in roughly half my matches.

Let me be clear about this – if you are using a member of the Kird Ape cycle, and you have any fixing in your deck, add one of the extra color. I promise you that you will not regret it.

I’m sitting there, building my pool, when I notice one judge stalking me. I look over at his nametag, and realize it seems familiar. I fish out my phone and start looking up a name on Reddit. It took me a good 45 seconds, but I eventually look up.

“Hello there Wingman.”
“Was wondering when you’d figure it out.”

Wingman2011, as many of you redditors know him, served as a judge for the weekend, and did a spectacular job. I have to give him some credit for being the primary announcer for the Fill-And-Fire events all day on Saturday, and managing to keep them amusing even the thirtieth time we all heard “Random So-And-So, your Draft is ready to fire. They would all LOVE to start playing, and we would LOVE to take your money. Please report to the desk immediately.” Also, ladies, he has an awesome radio voice, which had been described as both stand-up comedian and radio host.

Back to the sealed, most of the games eventually came down to one of my creatures being unblockable – either via flying, Harbor Bandit, or Tormented Soul. Add in a few exalted triggers, and it represents a very real clock that cleaved through opponents. Others were won because Vampire Nighthawk is incredible at racing. Others fell because Mark of the Vampire is an underrated card. +2/+2 and lifelink is a playable aura in Limited if you watch carefully and play it around instant removal. Often, a single swing would be more than enough to turn the tide.

Since again, I find limited summaries boring (and they often boil down to ‘and then I had it and he didn’t’) I’ll spare the details. I won my first four, lost the fifth, and then won round six to be able to draw into the Top 8 draft.

The Top 8 draft was one of the most harrowing Magic experiences that I’ve gone through so far. I’ve never done a competitive REL draft before, and I’m a little ashamed to know that I earned a warning for Improper Draft Procedure for looking at a pack of cards early. Then again, half the table got warnings for similar things, so I suppose that we were all fairly new to Top 8 drafts. I built what I thought was an awesome UW Skies deck – always a popular archetype in limited. Unfortunately for me, Big Green Stompy is also a good limited archetype, and Spiders beat birds in this set. Sentinel Spider, specifically, deserves some credit for being a huge road block for everything and their cousin. It’s a non-flying Serra Angel, but in Green, and at common. Seems pretty solid.

 I lose in the Top 8, collecting another SCG Top 8 pin (That makes three!), my first SCG IQ Playmat, and $100. I opted to receive the money in convention prize tickets, which allowed me to buy a pair of Scrublands for my legacy deck. While I was doing that, Pop had been doing some Fill-And-Fire Sealed events, and won one for a Convention-exclusive playmat – and enough tickets over the course of the day to buy a Karakas at an absurdly low price. Good for him.

We durdled around for the evening, playing one last Fill-And-Fire Sealed. (I lost in the finals in game 3 to Switcheroo on my 10/10 Slumbering Dragon. Mind control effects suck, but still good for some tickets.) Bed followed shortly thereafter, and on the morning, we were back at it.

The Standard Super IQ on Sunday went less well for me. I played my normal Tokens build with some minor sideboard tweaks for the Wolf Run matchup. I met Naya Aggro in game one, packing the newly released Thragtusk. I don’t want to say that I told you so, but that card is absurd. It throttled me in game one with a pair of Restoration Angels attached that I was never able to dig out from under. Game two came down to him miracling a Bonfire for 2 and killing more tokens than I’d like to admit. Neither match was close.

I won round two against RW Humans, which seems like a bad matchup unless you draw multiple Champions of the Parish like I did.  Sometimes you’re lucky, I suppose. Unfortunately, I was not, and I lost the third round to Delver after he blind flipped a lot of things and ran me over without much protest. He at least complimented that I blanked his Vapor Snags all game by playing around them.

Pop continued to play in the event and went on to Top 8 before losing his match. Still won a playmat and $50 cash.

While he did that, I entered the final Standard Fill-And-Fire  event of the weekend. Not wanting to go out on a 1-2 drop, I 3-0 the event and take home the prize of 32 tickets and a playmat. Two of the matches were pretty lackluster affairs – against Mill and a subpar version of Tokens that never got off the ground. The third match was against an extremely competent UW Delver player who put me down a game early, and took an advantage in the second. A well-timed Midnight Haunting put me back in the game, and I managed to crawl back before taking the game – and then the third in decisive fashion.

I cash in my tickets for my last Marsh Flats, my last Ethersworn Canonist, and three packs of AVR – one of which contained a Cavern of Souls. My luck was strong with this one. I’ve only got about 20 cards to go for my Legacy deck, and we’re making slow but steady progress on that front. I’ve resolved to not spend too much money on the deck from here on our, which means all the card acquisitions will have to be via prize support or trades. This is going to make it a little difficult, but I imagine that we can probably get there over time.

I caught up with Wingman once more before I left, and we made sure to get a picture for you guys. I’m the handsome one in green. He’s the handsome one in Judge Black.

Wingman2011 and Myself, Rocking the Con

Overall, the weekend went extremely well for me. I received prizes from 3 of the 4 events I entered, though admittedly not the events that I would have expected if you had asked me at the start of the weekend. We ended things up with a trip to Texas Roadhouse and then singing Linkin Park all the way back to Philadelphia.

This coming weekend will be spent in DC, so I won't likely get to play much Magic. There's an outside chance I might finally set up my Magic Online account though - and try out the new Beta Client (which I hear is sweet). The Magic Judge Open is coming up, and I'd like to have at least some familiarity with the system by that time. This Thursday, we'll talk about what I'm unhappy with in Tokens, and what deck I'll be testing out in Standard next week!

Have any suggestions for an article for me to write? I'm always accepting suggestions. Feel free to leave comments, message me on Twitter (@ajrula) or reddit (andrewrula). I also accept email suggestions - andrewrula at gmail.com.

Until Thursday, Happy Spellslinging!
-Andrew

Three Decks and a Challenge

For those of us who enjoy brewing decks and building carefully crafted stacks of cards, designed to cleave through the metagame, this weekend is one of the most exciting of the year. A new set, Magic 2013, becomes legal in all formats, and the metagame crashes wide open again.

In the last three months since Avacyn Restored, we’ve seen the metagame evolve. GR Aggro adopted Wolvir Avenger, and then Bonfire of the Damned. Wolf Run decks increasingly leaned towards Naya – seeking to utilize the power of Elesh Norn. Gerry Thompson ‘broke the format’ with Angel Delver, incorporating Restoration Angel and making your own turn seem much less safe. Infect with Wild Defiance and Venser Control lists cropped up again, and somehow, Esper Control began to win again. The lack of bannings in Standard pushed forward a surge of innovation as chinks began to appear in Delver’s armor. Blood Artists came to aid the Zombie apocalypse, and Naya Pseudo-pod, championed by Brian Kibler, left dead insects strewn about for weeks, while others continued to innovate on Delver itself, trying to recapture Faeries and Caw-Blade’s dominance.

Things have been interesting, to say the least.

Now, Magic 2013 has added 249 cards to our available pool, and we have three months before Return to Ravnica lights the heavens (and our minds) aflame. We’ll lose Titans, Swords, Phyrexian Mana, and a slew of other powerful cards. That’s where we’re headed.

Here’s where we are now:

Metagame Analysis Provided by MTGPulse

Delver is still clearly the deck to beat in the format, but Kibler’s Naya Humans is coming in strong in the last few weeks. Zombies remains powerful, as does Wolf Run and RG. Looking at M13, we can see that there’s quite a few cards that are looking to find a home in decks. I wrote about a few of them HERE, last week.

Today, we’re going to take a look at three decks that my friends and I have been playing with. We’ll see what makes them powerful, what choices we have, and where they’re weak.

MONO-GREEN-BEATDOWN

As soon as I saw Rancor in the spoiler, I knew that this was going to be the deck gaining the most. Dungrove Aggro had long been a deck hovering around Tier 2. For a week or so, it broke into the metagame, boasting a good matchup against Delver. Unfortunately, Dungrove could be 10/10+, but without Trample, it could never really break through for those last points of damage, and splashing for Kessig Wolf Run damaged Dungrove Elder’s P/T too much.

Now, we have arguably the best aura ever printed to work with, and Dungrove Elder…well, he’s not happy.

(editor's note: The above list should include 2 Yeva, Nature's Herald, 2 Mwonvuli Beast Tracker, and 1 Thragtusk. Mtgpulse has not updated for M13 as of the writing of this piece.)

Marshall sent me this list, and I made only a few tweaks to it. This deck incorporates an aggressive early game plan that resists removal more effectively than any other deck on the market. It forces early spells out to try to slow us, only to have the big guns come online and crush them beneath.

Thragtusk can act as a Green Sun’s Zenith target for 5 life and extra bodies, while Yeva allows us to fight through opposing countermagic (Cast one spell on End step, and another during your main phase, overloading their available mana). Strangleroot Geist and Dungrove act as a duo that, with Rancor, can punch through anything. T1 mana dork, T2 Geist and Rancor, Swing for 4 seems like a powerful Turn 2 option.

Revenge of the Hunted is an extremely powerful card, often amounting to Plague Wind for G, but I’m not sure that we want two of them in the deck. Likewise, I’m not sure that Primeval Titan is where we want to be in a deck that isn’t running any utility lands. Perhaps splashing a single Kessig Wolf Run and Mountain as targets could be an option – or else removing the Titan in favor of a tutor target – like Silklash Spider. (Look it up, it isn’t terrible!)

 The sideboard is obviously fairly dependent on the metagame that develops, so I’ll leave that up to you. I think the addition of Rancor gives this deck the kind of legs that it needs to trample over the competition.

NAYA FLICKER, or “How I Learned To Love Summoning Sickness.”

(editor's note: Please assume there are 2 Thragtusk and 2 Thundermaw Hellkite on the above list. MTGPulse hasn't updated for M13 yet.)

This Marshall deck is in a similar vein, taking a riff off of Kibler’s Naya list. We’ve removed the Pod plan in favor of a more removal-resistant Cloudshift suite, and we’ve added in a number of new creatures to take advantage of it. Zealous Conscripts combos with Cloudshift to be a full-on endless theft (that works on Gideon, if you use his ultimate after stealing him). Thragtusk might as well be called the Value Cow, because I can’t think of any profitable way to deal with him. Casting him is guaranteed to get you ahead, and blinking him only makes it worse.

Let’s look for a second at a situation where your opponent casts a removal spell on Thragtusk, and you flash in a Restoration Angel to save it. On this exchange, you get the following:

You lose a card; your opponent loses a card. Then, for 4 mana, you gain a 3/4 flying, a 3/3, and 5 life.

You thought Blade Splicer was good because it was 4 power for 3 mana? Get real. Casting Restoration Angel on anything in this deck feels like cheating. The biggest weakness is the mana base, and four cavern of souls will go a long way to fixing that. If colors are becoming an issue, I could be convinced to cut a single Gavony Township for more colored sources.

Your goal is to grind them out and end the day with superior board presence, which only gets better as you activate Gavony Township and let your huntmasters flip back and forth.

I asked Marshall why he chose to go this route, maximizing flicker rather than getting more value with a Pod plan, such as Kiblers. He responded, simply, that he wanted to see how powerful the mechanic is. Many of his decks operate on this principle – he’ll test a mechanic or an interaction, and after playing for a while, he’ll see the things that worked, the things that didn’t, and be able to use those components modularly in future decks. It takes time and a devoted test-team, but it gives you an idea of the power between specific interactions.

Finally, we’ve got something a little spicier for today. I’ll preface this with the statement that I have no idea how viable it would be. This list was (lovingly) borrowed and edited slightly from a SCG Top 8 competitor – Jake Moldowsky.

NON-MIRACLE GRO

For those of you who don’t know, Quirion Dryad was Tarmagoyf before we had Tarmagoyf. Given the high level of cantrips in Standard, we have a situation where a single Dryad could become huge and start crushing in very early for a ton of damage. Such a deck would ideally have a large number of instants and sorceries, which tends to point towards some other cards that also benefit from that style of deck construction. Luckily, Standard has no lack of powerful effects that care about spells.

(editor's note: The maindeck should also include 2 Augur of Bolas, and the sideboard should include 3 Talrand, Sky Summoner, and 1 Augur of Bolas. MTGPulse has not updated for M13 at the time of this article.)

While this deck could effectively be called UG Delver, it really plays subtly differently. It churns through its deck, firing off spells to sculpt the perfect hand and get enough protection for Dryad to go off. With the possibility of every cantrip drawing you into an Apostle’s Blessing, Delver is forced to cast preemptively or deal with a 10/10+ Dryad. Snapcaster lets you re-use your spells, Augur gets you more, Dryad grows, and Delver is Delver. Runechanter’s Pike ties it all together, and makes every card into a game-ending threat.

This deck was played at a very competitive shop’s testing session, and made the finals (where they drew). This isn’t the style of deck that I’d personally choose for my playstyle, but it’s certainly something that I’ll be accounting for in my mental testing. It looks like it has some significant power behind it, and if you’re not ready for it, you might just get destroyed.

Plus, you get to run Talrand and play 18 lands in the same deck. How often do you get to play with a legacy-style manabase in Standard?

THE CHALLENGE

Finally, today, I’m going to issue each of you a challenge. That means you, /r/MagicTCG and /r/Magicdeckbuilding! I want you to come up with a new archetype based on a card (or cards) in M13. Don’t build a deck around it, but try to find some of the core cards that would interact with each other. Think of it like a thought exercise. We’re trying to reduce the echo chamber effect here and come up with some innovation that leads to a varied and awesome metagame.

This Friday, I’ll be traveling to Hartford, Connecticut for Connecticon. There’s going to be a ton of Magic related events there, and I fully plan on entering at least the Star City Elite Qualifier there on Saturday. For anyone else who’s going to be attending, drop me a line and I’ll swing by and say hey.

Happy Brewing,

Andrew

M13 Prerelease, or "How I Became A Level 1 Judge"

Last weekend, like the vast majority of you, I attended the M13 prerelease. My shop of choice this go-around was All-Stars Collectables, which always manages to put on a good show.

This weekend was a little different from previous ones however, since I’d be donning the mantle of judge for Sunday’s tournament. I’ve been working with our local Level 2 judge – Mike Noss – to get me up to snuff, and while he is a cruel, evil man who deliberately tries to slip you up at every opportunity, he’s also one of the most knowledgeable judges that I have met in my life, and prepared me well. I asked him about working towards becoming a Judge during the Dark Ascension prerelease, and since then, we've been working on and off with practice exams and other quizzes. Playing in high-level events has also helped a bit. Finally, I felt like I was ready (and Mike agreed, thankfully.)

We arranged for me to play in the Saturday Sealed event, and judge on Sunday under a Level 1 named Dave. I’d planned on giving a tournament report here, but frankly, limited match reports are boring as all hell, and my pool was terrible in both of the events that I played. I was only half joking when I told people that Sunpetal Grove was the best of the 12 rares. I battled to a 2-3 record in the first event, and a 2-2 in the second, which was an extremely disappointing finish, but was about where I’d expect given the shallow nature of my sealed pool. Heebs managed to win a side event, which was good for a stack of packs.

It may have been that I should have been more ambitious with my mana, and gone into a third color for better card quality, but two just seems so much more stable. I suppose that’s an argument for another day though.

I woke up bright and early Sunday morning, making it to the venue by 8am since the event was scheduled to start at 10. George, our TO, wanted help setting up the community room that we were playing in. Dealer Booths needed to be set up, as well as the store’s own table. Table numbers needed to be placed, and ice fetched from the local store. Many players don’t realize how much organization goes into having a well run tournament, but George made the whole thing seem like old hat. The one hiccup being that the Mall didn’t open until 10am – and neither would the air conditioning, leaving the tournament venue sweltering.

One of the dealers joked that we should buy a crate of deodorant and give it out as Door Prizes. I thought that was pretty amusing.

The event started a couple of minutes after ten. There was some question about starting a few minutes late, since some players who had pre-paid weren’t there yet, but they all got phone calls or showed up. With all our ducks in a row, we started things off for the 31 player, 5 round event.

Mike was playing in the event, and ended up winning the whole thing with the most insane BW Sealed pool that I’ve seen in a long time. He spent his free time between matches drilling me with rules questions.

Dave gave me a few decks to practice deck-check, and while my speed is a little slow, Mike assures me that will come with more practice. The deck in question being Vintage Oath of Druids probably didn’t help at all. It has even more 1-off copies than most vintage decks. Still, it is something to work on in the future.

Since it was a prerelease, the majority of the judge calls were simple, ordinary things. “Is Prey Upon combat damage?”, “Does Fight take Deathtouch and Lifelink into account?”, “Does Exalted stack if a creature has it more than once?”, “If I kill the source of an ability after it’s already triggered, does it still happen?”, “What if I kill one of the creatures being exchanged with a Switcheroo?”

Pretty benign stuff for the most part. The most complex call of the day involved a misplaced card. A player raised his hand and called for a judge. I meandered over and asked what was wrong – since neither player appeared to have drawn any cards or anything yet.

“So, there’s a pacifism here, and I’m pretty sure it belongs to my friend over there. We played here last round, and it’s in one of his sleeves.”

He gestured to a player a few tables away, so I walked over and asked him to count out his deck. When he came up with 39 cards, I told him to be more careful in the future, asked if any cards in the deck were known, and when they told me no, I shuffled the card in.

His opponent asked me if it should be a Game Loss for improper deck, and I informed him that it would be at Competitive REL, but Prereleases are run at Regular, where there is no Game Loss penalty.

And that’s all for the interesting judge calls. I tested during the first round of Top 8, after Mike and George wrestled with the printer for a while. I managed to get every question but one of them (which I waffled on for ages before ultimately picking the not-correct one.) The test wasn’t especially difficult – certainly about on par with the easy practice exams. I'd discuss some of the more interesting questions on there, but we're not allowed to talk about the content of the tests. I'd encourage anyone to go and practice some of them on the DCI Judge Center.

And just like that, I’m a Level 1 judge – or more accurately, a Level 0 who has passed his evaluation and is currently waiting to be accepted in the system. Still, in the last 48 hours, I feel like a giant vault of information has come flooding out of the woodwork. I’ve been added to facebook groups and mailing lists. I have phone numbers for local shops and arrangements to judge an event already. I’m reading the MTGJudge twitter account, and I find it very interesting to read the articles that they’re posting. I find myself flipping through the Comprehensive Rules on my iPhone (There’s an app called MTGJudge that ALL Magic players should download immediately. It’s incredible, and also includes Oracle Text for every card, plus all the rules documentation.)

For those of you who are just starting out in Magic, or perhaps think that you need a more firm grasp of the rules, I’d encourage you to run over to the DCI Judge Center – http://judge.wizards.com – and take a few of the practice exams. They’ll expose you to rules and interactions that you hadn’t thought about before, and it will improve both your mechanical play and ability to leverage the rules to your advantage in-game. If you legitimately think that you have a great grasp of the rules, check out the hard practice exam.

This weekend, it felt like I took a big step towards the future. I don’t know where I’ll be in five years, but I can certainly tell you that I’ll still be playing Magic and judging tournaments on a regular basis.

On Thursday, we’re going to brew something using M13 cards, and update a few decks that I have built at the moment, to account for the new additions to Standard. This coming weekend, I will be at Connecticon, and will happily be playing Magic a healthy (unhealthy?) amount of the time there. If you’d like to meet up, grab a bite to eat, or even just sling a few spells, let me know.

Always topdeck like a champion.

-Andrew

Highest Impact Cards in M13

Happy Thursday everyone. I hope, for those Americans of you, that you aren’t too hung over today. For the rest of you, I hope you’re anxiously awaiting Friday and that your workloads aren’t too bad. Let’s get into the meat of things though.

M13 is coming out. It has implications for Standard. We’re going to talk about them for a minute. If you haven’t already seen the spoiler, I’d like to gently encourage you to take a look at my personal choice for Magic Spoilers, MTGSalvation! [Link Here]

M13 rotating in brings us to a point in the year when the cardpool is the largest it can possibly be. For that matter, this one is even larger than usual because of the addition of Avacyn Restores, which is larger than most third sets ought to be. (We had this same situation last year, because of Rise of the Eldrazi).  Larger Cardpools lead to stronger decks, which often lead to certain things being degenerate at this point in the year. There are two things we should be taking into account when we look at cards from any new set like this one.

A)     Applications to existing decks. These are the cards that are going to have immediate impact on the format. They are often high powered and will be seen consistently throughout the coming year because they’re just great and powerful cards. Dismember from New Phyrexia was a good example of this. It was strong enough to slot itself into decks across the board.

B)      Promise in future decks. These are cards that can’t quite hack it for one reason or another in the environment when they were first printed. They’re powerful, but either something is edging them out, or they aren’t strong enough at the moment. While this is speculation, Wolvir Silverheart is a good example of this. The card is an all-star in block, but has been making relatively few waves in Standard due to the prevalence of Vapor Snag+Snapcaster, and a wealth of quality removal. If those things go away, Wolvir Silverheart is one of the most efficient creatures ever printed, and will likely become an all-star in its own right.

With those qualifications in mind, let’s move into what I think are the 5 highest-impact cards (in no particular order) in each color, for M13.

 

WHITE

Ajani, Caller of the Pride: Ajani is a three mana planeswalker, which means he already merits serious consideration. His high starting loyalty means that regardless of the board situation, he won’t likely die the turn that he’s put into play, and will divert significant danger away from you. His effects are potent, increasing your team’s size while becoming stronger and his negative ability has the potential to break a game open like only Elspeth, Knight Errant could.  However, I think that he could flop. The three spot has a ton of competition at the moment from the likes of Lingering Souls, Silverblade Paladin, and Mirran Crusader (not to mention the Swords until October.) Ajani can compete with the best of them, but that might not be enough to earn him a slot in decks immediately. I’ll be waiting on picking mine up, personally.

Odric, Master Tactician: Odric is the white legend for this set, and he showcases an interesting ability that we haven’t seen in Standard recently. He has a significant body – 3/4 for 4 mana, and when attacking with allies, provides unmitigated advantage over the flow  of combat. With a Grand Abolisher in play as well, your opponent might as well just grin and bear it. However, the qualification on his ability could provide something of an issue. Attacking with four creatures is no mean feat, and Odric himself can’t swing until turn 5, when an aggro deck is already hoping to be dealing the final blow. He provides no inherent protection to himself, and his ability will most often read ‘If you don’t get blown out by a sweeper, your creatures are unblockable’. He’s high-risk, high-reward, and definitely merits testing, but I’m not sure if he’s worth including in decks quite yet.

Serra Avenger: I played Serra Avenger in Legacy last weekend. Notably, I was able to accelerate her out with AEther Vial, but even without, she was a potent threat. As a 3/3 flying body, she’s one of the most aggressively costed creatures we have access to in white, and vigilance makes her difficult to race. (Watch out for decks with her and Vault of the Archangel!) Giving her a sword represents a terrifying clock. Her drawback means you don’t want her in a solely aggressive deck, but any strategy looking for strong midgame pressure could do much worse. This one has my eye.

Sublime Archangel: Her stats alone merit consideration, as a 4-power flyer for 4. However, those numbers are deceptive. With any reasonable number of creatures, she could potentially be attacking two turns early for titan-level damage. Multiple instances of Exalted on the same creature can stack, meaning that a single attack could bring her to double digits in the right situation. She suffers the same problems as Odric – being an expensive creature with no inherent protection, but her impact could be even higher. Still not convinced? Think of her as a free Kessig Wolf Run every turn, without trample, in white, with flying.

Oblivion Ring: While this isn’t the shiniest new card in the set, Oblivion Ring remains the most versatile removal spell in the format for the cheapest cost. Paying only three mana to remove any troublesome non-land gives us an important safety valve for most troublesome cards in the format. Frankly, this is here to highlight that while white still has a good toolkit, it’s lacking in some other departments. The removal of Day of Judgment (Planar Cleansing being a powerful, but expensive variation) means that 4 mana is no longer the terrifying number it once was. Control players will need to get to 6, or else miracle a Terminus, and by then, they’ll likely be in deep waters against the aggressive decks.

Overall, I feel that white is still strong, but may have been knocked off the pedestal that it’s been on the last few sets. I know I’m considering other colors for the first time in a while.

BLUE

Speaking of the mighty having fallen, Blue has gained some new tools, but nothing that feels like another Snapcaster Mage.

Augur of Bolas: This card feels like Sea Gate Oracle. It draws you a card, with a 1/3 body attached, for 2 mana. That seems incredible. It may miss some of the time, but really, for a 2 mana spell with a solid blocker along for the ride, you could do much worse. For the next few weeks, it provides a way to clear away bad Ponders, and with Vapor Snag, it lets you ‘cycle’ a bounce spell into another instant or sorcery.  There are tricks to be had with this card, and I’m sure that we’ll be seeing him in decklists all over the internet soon enough.

Fog Bank: For those of you who have played against this card with a non-red aggro deck, I can feel your pain. Stonewalling your best creature each turn is backbreaking in the war against time. This will be a powerful weapon in control decks, finally allowing them a near-permanent answer to troublesome creatures like Strangleroot Geist and Geralf’s Messenger.

Master of the Pearl Trident: I’d just like to highlight this one for a second because it’s going to see some Legacy and Modern play, not because it’s going anywhere in Standard. Blue’s shy on really impressive cards, so this one gets the spotlight for a second.

Talrand, Sky Summoner: Now here’s what I’m talking about. A 4 mana 2/2! That’s on curve for blue. None of this 3/2 for U nonsense from last year. He churns out evasive threats when you cast instants – hey, that feels blue as well! I can’t help but feel like 4 mana might be a little too much for him, but I suppose it was necessary since he’ll be coexisting with phyrexian mana for a couple of months. I expect to see him played in some numbers. I know a few pros that were talking about using him as a pseudo-Emeria Angel in the Delver mirror. We’ll see if that’s true.

Sleep:

Sleep is one of those cards that people tend to gloss over because it doesn’t kill any of their creatures and costs more than 2 mana. This should not happen. Sleep and Snapcaster Mage are dangerous together. (I feel like that is the theme of Standard, fairly often. “XXX broken card has synergy with YYY. Where X is a good card and Y is almost anything with a mana cost.) Seriously though, a mass tapdown for a tempo deck is big game. 4 mana (6 when snapcast) might be too pricey for Delver to hack, but it’s on my radar, and I expect someone will be blown out by it sooner rather than later.

BLACK

Duress: Discard is a strategy that waxes and wanes in popularity. I don’t know if Duress is as good as it used to be, with creatures getting better and spells seeming to wane in popularity, but you’d be a fool to dismiss a card with a proven constructed track record.

Mutilate: On that same topic, giving black awesome board wipes like Mutilate is making me want to scream the oft-repeated “MONO BLACK CONTROL RETURNS!” Except this time, instead of being really sarcastic, I think it might actually be true. There’s a lot of good things in black at the moment, and if we get Shocklands, we can play “Mono-black and two splash control” for bolas and have tons of fun. Could be interesting.

Vampire Nighthawk: Seriously, black is just getting all the awesome reprints, aren’t they? Can’t they leave some of the fun for the other colors? If you’ve played with Vampire Nighthawk, you know how powerful the card is. If you haven’t, you’re probably underestimating it. The card in insane, and the only thing that could make it better is…

Vampire Nocturnus: Wait, wait, what? Seriously? He’s back? Christ. At least we don’t have Gatekeeper…

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Andrew was extremely afraid to open the next envelope because he was afraid that Vampires was going to be a THING again.]

Vile Rebirth: Oh, see, now this is a cool card. It fights Zombies, it beats up on undying creatures, it’s playable in an existing archetype. I love this card, plus it’s cheap and does everything that zombies wants to do. This card will see play the day of its release in countless zombie decks around the world. Brains! Brains! Brains!

I’d like to make an honorable mention of the new Liliana here. Liliana of the Dark Realms is a bad card. She doesn’t control the game with any regularity. She doesn’t win the game on her own. She’s a source of persistant card advantage, but those cards are all lands – basic lands, at the moment. She may see play in some Black-centric multicolor thing if Shocklands are reprinted, but barring that, I cannot see her making a splash in Standard.

RED:

Firewing Phoenix: Recurring threats are always interesting in red. Flying recurring threats get that double. When they cost 4 mana and are sort of splashable, all the better. A friend of mine is fiddling with a Red/Black control deck at the moment, and this seems like the kind of thing you could get behind as a finisher in that style of deck. Sadly, it’s probably too high-curve/slow to fit into Red Deck Wins, so for all of you hoping to go that route, look elsewhere.

Krenko, Mob Boss: Doubling things is powerful. Goblins can be dangerous. Doubling Goblins are dangerous. This is only in standard for 3 months with Goblin Chieftan, but I’m scared in the meantime. I’ll be packing more than the usual number of Celestial Purges, between this and Zombies getting some new toys. Plus, he’s a 4 mana 3/3 in red with a relevant tribe, which isn’t terrible on its own!

Magmaquake: If a big planeswalker deck starts to pop up, or Naya really takes off, expect this card to be doing some heavy lifting. Plus, there’s an awesome full art version from Game Day. I’m a sucker for Game Day promos.

Flames of the Firebrand: Arc Trail was good. This costs one more, but has a little bit of an advantage when it comes to mowing down tiny things or slightly bigger things. I’d play this, especially since burn spells aren’t the best in the world right now.

Thundermaw Hellkite: While the rest of red looks reasonable, this monster is going to see play – period. He’s a 5/5 for 5, with Haste Flying, and a pretty awesome ETB trigger. He’s everything that red is going to want going forward, and every deck that plays red is going to need to at least consider playing him. From some initial testing that I saw over on Star City Games, he’s exactly as good as people say he is. Beware this card.

I’d also like to give an honorable mention to Mark of Mutiny, which acts as a pretty awesome threaten effect while also subtly attacking undying creatures. It probably won't see a huge amount of play as long as it's competing with Zealous Conscripts, but it's still a notable interaction that I'd like to shout out. Good call on the reprint here, Wizards!

GREEN:

Alright guys, now to the meat of the show. I’m going to be blunt here – Green is busted in this set. It’s just insanely good. I’m more excited about the green than all the other colors combined. I can’t get over it. Here’s my top 5.

Elderscale Wurm: Can a red deck even beat this card? It’s Worship on a 7/7 Trample. Unless they’re going to somehow burn it out, I think they’re just stuck. This might as well be a harder to kill Platinum Angel. Seven mana is steep, but it’s hard to argue against the mythic flavor here. Expect him to see play in control decks that are worried about stabilizing against some of the powerful aggro decks that we’re seeing. Being in green makes the mana cost more accessible via ramp spells, and he’s probably going to be the biggest kid on the block if he resolves.

Mwonvuli Beast Tracker: Tutors lead to repetitive gameplay often making sure that games go exactly according to plan more often than they should, and so Wizards has been cutting back on the number of tutors available to players. This tutor is a 2/1 body that finds a TON of cards. Admittedly, he puts the card on the top of your deck – arguably the weakest of the three tutor locations – but there’s still a ton of potential to find a silver bullet and kill the offending anything.

Quirion Dryad: Now, for those of you who didn’t exist in the pre-Tarmagoyf era, this thing was Tarmagoyf. It started small, but with careful application of a bunch of cheap instants and sorceries, she was beating in for a ton of damage very quickly. While she may not quite be legacy-power level anymore, she’s certainly still a contender for standard. Vapor Snag might keep her down in the short term, but I’d expect to see her showing her face before she leaves Standard.

Yeva, Nature’s Herald: A 4/4 flash for 4 is good. Giving flash to Green is mind-blowing. Forget her as an awesome mono-green commander in EDH, let’s talk about standard. All of a sudden, they can NEVER attack safely. There could be an acidic slime behind every green mana symbol. Three mana untapped? Those forests could be an 8/8 Dungrove Elder. Wouldn’t want to walk into that, would you? Yeva gives Green the ability to play games with the other colors, just like blue does now. The difference is that Green’s creatures are bigger and scarier, and now basically have haste. Late in the game, they could even Flash in Yeva, AND something else. A board of untapped forests never looked scarier.

Thragtusk: Whichever designer made this card deserves a prize. I’ve never seen a better use for the leaves-the-battlefield trigger instead of dies. If there is a deck that is going to slay Delver, it’s going to be a green one involving this and Dungrove Elder. He’s a 5/3, he gains life, he makes guys, he laughs in the face of Vapor Snags all over the world. He’s THRAGTUSK, the game-changer. Thought you were racing? Not anymore! Thought you had plenty of removal? Not today!

I want four of these. I want four of these now. They will be sold eventually as heavily played. There is just too much value tied up in this card for it to not be good. Best of all, a single green mana means that it's splashable into a deck like Naya. I'm giddy just thinking about blinking him with Restoration Angel.

And that’s it folks. I think green is the clear winner in this go-around, but who knows! Maybe I’m wrong. What do you all think? Are there any incredible cards that I missed? Anything that I…oh…wait…what? They reprinted…really? Are they serious?

Rancor: There are no words. Stop trying to play control. It just won’t…just give up now. You’re going to get punched for 5 on turn 2. You cannot keep up with that, and it’s going to happen again, and again, and again. I can not overstate how powerful this card is. It's incredible in any deck that's planning on attacking. Giving trample is powerful, giving +2/0 is powerful. This card would be borderline playable without the graveyard clause, but with it, it becomes a recurring effect that is very hard to answer with any reasonable efficiency.

Let me know what you think about the set, which you think are going to be the highest impact cards, and why? Did I forget any? Hyping up something that doesn’t deserve it? Let me know in the comments! I'll be attending the prerelease this weekend, and likely judging an event to boot! Tuesday you'll get my tournament report, and Next Thursday, we'll build something with M13.

 

Planning on tapping Forests for a while,

Andrew

[Editor's Note: There's a couple of noteworthy artifacts, and Bolas, that probably should have gotten a section, but frankly, I don't see any of them making a huge-splash in Standard.]