BW Midrange for SCG Worcester

Hey guys, this weekend is SCG Worcester, featuring a Saturday Team Sealed Open and a Sunday Standard Open. I'll be playing in the latter, so I'm going to be building a deck. What follows is the process by which I came to my deck, which I think is pretty sweet and well positioned for the weekend. I started writing this on Wednesday morning, and spent the majority of the morning building, testing, and discussing it with friends. Here's the result - hope that it's interesting.

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It's Wednesday morning, just before noon. This weekend, I'll be working SCG Worcester. I'll be judging the Team Sealed on Saturday, but I was unable to get on staff for Sunday's standard. As a result, I'll be jamming a few games of Standard in the new format, and that means I need a deck. Last week, I promised that I'd run you guys through the process of building my deck, and deciding some of the more important choices.

I've been keeping up with some of the articles that have been spoiled, and there's a ton of decks that people have been tossing around. I think that, when building a deck, it's important to first define what we're expecting to see. That will let us tailor what we're doing to try and combat it as effectively as possible.

Burning Earth and Red Deck Wins

This is the definition of 'Format Warping'

We're coming off of a multicolored block, and multicolored cards are going to make up a significant portion
of the field. As a result, I definitely think that Red Deck Wins (or some red-based aggressive deck) running Burning Earth is one of the more solid choices. Burning Earth has been shaping the metagame. A ton of people are going to try and jam three colored decks, but ultimately, I feel like too many of them are going to auto-lose to Burning Earth for me to be comfortable running them. Some would argue that you could devote sideboard slots to combating the card, but I'm not a fan of that method against aggressive decks in particular. There's too many ways that you're dead anyway. If you draw yours and they don't, then you have a dead card against the creature threats. If they get Burning Earth and you don't, then you're just dead. If either you both draw, or neither draws, you're fine, but that gives us a lot of situations where our sideboard card isn't terribly useful. When we could also combat this by just building our deck in such a way that it doesn't fold to a commonly played enchantment, getting greedy with our lands feels like a losing proposition. Given all this, I'm leaning towards a two color list.

Drawing Cards for Fun and Profit

Also worth noting is that Control decks have lost significant ground, but not the core of what made their decks work. They still have a powerful suite of removal spells backed up by Sphinx's Revelation. They have a powerful cadre of planeswalkers – Both Jaces, Chandra, new Elspeth – that are sure to give anyone fits. Most of all, they have the most resilient finisher since Jace, The Mind Sculptor: Aetherling. I've seen countless people posting UW Control, UWR Control, and Esper Control lists, trying everything from recreating Flash to a new Ashiok-centric list.

A Look at What We've Lost

The hole that Innistrad left in the format is gigantic. Without Huntmaster, Geist of St. Traft, Olivia Voldaren, Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites Checklands, Kessig Wolf Run, two different Garruks, Snapcaster and most importantly Thragtusk, nearly every card in the format needs to be re-evaluated. Like it or not, Thragtusk was the heart of every midrange deck in the previous format, and without it, we're going to need to find another way to stabilize against aggro decks while still putting threats on the table to pressure Control.

Not Going to Miss This Guy

I'm a midrange player at heart. I don't have the wherewithal to battle to time every round with a control deck. I hate the lack of options that an aggressive deck gives me. While I'll prefer my lists to have a strong pro-active plan, I don't want them to be easily trumped by what the control decks are doing. If you'd like, you could describe it as 'Big Aggro' or something along those lines.

As the general archetype that has lost the most, I think that Midrange is also the area where the most effective brewing could come right now. Control and Aggro both have their paths laid out for them, but Midrange was set adrift on the currents and left to fend for itself.

For those that follow me, you also know that I adore Orzhov colors. I play it in Legacy, and I've been trying to make a grindy BW Midrange deck work in Modern. (No successes yet – more on that in a later article). While I may be insanely biased in this, I do think that there currently exist the tools in Standard to build an incredibly powerful BW deck, with a powerful pro-active plan that is difficult to deal with. Between the powerful cards we have access to from RTR Block, plus a couple of choice weapons from Theros, I think there's something here. I'm initially attracted to Elspeth, Obzedat, Blood Baron of Vizkopa, and the wide array of very versatile removal spells that are available to the colors.

First Tries

So, keeping in mind that I want to avoid losing directly to Burning Earth, while still being able to fight a three-color control deck and put up a healthy toe-to-toe fight with anything else that comes my way, I came up with this initial list:

Those of you who are paying attention will notice that there's only 56 cards in this list. I could think of a couple things to fit into those slots, but at this point, there's enough of a shell to start sending to people to figure out what they like and don't like about the list.

I can not state enough how valuable a testing team is when trying to come up with a list to take to a tournament. I also can't stress enough how important it is to have multiple groups like this – because they won't have the biases of the others. The groups that I spoke to had the following to say:

Group A:

Another Elspeth, and then 3 early removal spells. Probably another Doom Blade, another Devour Flesh, and maybe a 1-of Merciless Eviction.

Group B:

Add an Elspeth, a land, and probably more removal spells. Also, this deck seems like it needs more Desecration Demon.

Group C:

Your curve doesn't even start till turn 3. Try something earlier – like Tithe Drinker or Baleful Eidolon

Group D:

I tested this deck already. Alms Beast doesn't do what you want. Desecration Demon is also pretty bad in the list. Trying Archangel of Thune, and early results are good.

Group E:

I think you're just cold to RDW. They'll just run you over. 4 Cheap Removal spells, possibly cut Thoughtseizes for more, or play my UW Deck. Seriously. I'm not using it Sunday.

Of the five, we had an enormously divergent set of responses. I'd like to note that two of these people are regular SCG grinders, and the other three have been playing Magic since the Weatherlight Crew were regulars on the cards. Judges are prevalent among the list, but don't make up the majority of it. Suffice to say it's a decent cross section of people you'd talk to at an SCG Event.

First, something that multiples of them had to say – I do like the second Elspeth. It shores up our late game and makes us have a good amount more inevitability. I decided to go with the more removal spells option here. A couple of people talked about that, and I'm inclined to agree with them. I added in an extra Doom Blade and Devour Flesh. For the last card, I was torn on another removal spell, but since we're still testing, I opted for the one-off Merciless Eviction. If it ended up not playing dividends, we could always cut it for removal.

That gave us the following list to test with:

At this point, I've got a list, with no sideboard, and that's what I'm going to test with. This is the kind of deck that wants to at least have reasonable game 1's against the field. It's not like a control deck where Game 1 is your weakest, and it only gets better from there. Since the field is pretty wide open – with a number of styles of control, aggro, and midrange all being tested extensively – I feel like we're going to have a generalized sideboard to handle broad archetypes, rather than a focused one aimed at specific cards and game plans.

I test on Magic Workstation – partially because I don't have cards on Magic Online, partially because Theros isn't available on Magic Online, and partially because it's quick and easy. If given the chance, I'd be testing in real life with friends, but unfortunately, my friends have jobs and such – and I'm a little time crunched for this deck. Future iterations will go through a gauntlet of whatever does well at Worcester – in person.

Testing – Round 1

My first match is against a GW aggro deck that comes out the gate quickly. I'm shocked by how much life my deck goes through, between Read the Bones, Shocklands, and Thoughtseize, I do almost as much damage to myself as my opponent does in the first game, and he takes me down. Second game I play a lot more conservatively, and despite a mulligan to six cards, I win. Third game is a nail biter, where my Obzedat and Blood Baron come online just in time to take over the game. I take control at one life, and swing back up to 15 before he leaves the room. Not a clean win, but I noted some misplays and am confident that the sideboard will help the aggro match up a lot.

Second match is against a BWR list very similar to the one that GerryT has been peddling around. While his red cards are extremely powerful in game 1, in games two and three, his mana base fails him. Once drawing him a Come Into Play Tapped land when he needed one extra mana, and the other time just locking him off red. Another flaw in playing three color decks at the moment is that sometimes, your deck just kills you, and they don't even need a Burning Earth.

Final match with this version was against a UW Control deck. I played it pretty conservatively, but after a Thoughtseize took his only Sphinx's Revelation, and he couldn't find an instant-speed answer to Obzedat, he crumpled.

C-C-C-Changes

I was very happy with the first run of the deck, however, I did notice a few clunky bits. I disliked how Alms Beast didn't actually seem to do much. While the synergy with Erebos was pretty awesome, I'm only playing two of the God, and it seemed like my friend was correct – Alms Beast is never really the Abyss that I wanted. Most often, it ate a removal spell and we moved on.

I also wasn't very happy with how the deck preformed against the aggro match ups. While we won the matches against GW, I felt like a good draw could provide us issues if we're only relying on removal. (Voice of Resurgence, in particular, was fairly annoying to deal with.) I decided to make a couple of changes for the second iteration of testing, trying out some tech that a friend of mine has been working with.

Finally, I was hemorrhaging life the entire time, and I wanted to do something about that before making any huge changes. Removing one Read the Bones for more removal seemed like the best option.

Changes:

+3 Tithe Drinker

-3 Alms Beast

+1 Devour Flesh

-1 Read the Bones

Testing – Round 2

We're still working without a sideboard here, because I don't really have a good enough feel for what people are testing and working with. After those changes, I went back into the trenches for a couple more matches.

Boros:

Soldier of the Pantheon is extremely strong in this deck, and with the help of an Anthem, he takes Game 1. I was heartened by the fact that I was about a turn away from balancing out, but just couldn't get there quite quickly enough. In game two, I draw a ton of removal into a Blood Baron, and he can't handle it. Game three is much the same, except with an Obzedat instead. Didn't need to cast the Elspeth that I almost certainly would have sided out. Hammer of Purphoros strikes me as a very strong card here. It nearly won him the game after I'd firmly established control.

GW:

This went a lot like my first round did, except that he had a Scavenging Ooze and I played around it VERY poorly. He won in three, but I think I could have played significantly better and not time walked myself multiple times over the course of the match by playing into his responses.

Esper:

His lands ended up crushing him in the first game, and he never really got rolling the second after a mull to six. A turn five Obzedat ends up going the distance after he can't respond to it.

Esper:

The first two matches, we trade games – him narrowly losing the second, and me the first after a mulligan to five. The third match was one of the best games of Magic I've ever played and went all the way to turn 35. In an epic match dominated by a number of different cards, I feel like I really got a feel for the match up. He was leaning hard on Jace, Aetherling, Blood Baron, and Sphinx's Revelation, while I had Read the Bones, Obzedat, my own Blood Baron, and Elspeth.

Fittingly, the changes I made to the deck all came into play, with a Devour Flesh killing off his early blocker to allow a lot of early damage through via Tithe Drinker (responsible for over 20 points of life swing over the third game). Merciless Eviction ended the life of one of his Jace's, and the second Elspeth (after the first was Thoughtseized away) killed off two of his Blood Barons and made the three tokens that finished the job.

I couldn't be happier with the deck's performance in this game. The scry effects felt very relevant (both Read the Bones and Temple of Silence), the manabase never gave me significant trouble, and the late game felt powerful.

Given the strong showing, I'm going to work on a sideboard now. While I was playing these games, I noticed that I constantly wanted some more early blockers against the aggressive lists, though the removal seemed about right. On the other side of the coin, a little more card draw would have been very useful against control. Sin Collector was a card that I was considering for the main deck, if control was very prevalent, but I think we can make room for it in the side.

I've got a bunch of cards with varying use against varying decks here. I'm not specifically targeting any archetypes, but I made sure that I've got cards useful against a couple different types of aggro, as well as other midrange match ups (attrition based) and control match ups (resiliency based). This is honestly the part of the deck that is gonna undergo the greatest amount of change from week to week, especially this week, when we're in a Day 0 format with no established decks. Obviously, in the future, we're going to want to metagame a little bit more against some of the decks you're likely to see.

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That's it for me this week everyone. Tune in next Wednesday to see how the deck did (assuming that you don't see me on Coverage this week). How did you like the deck? Let me know in the comments - either here or on Reddit, Twitter, etc. Also, let me know what you thought about the article. It's quite a bit longer than my typical article, and I'm interested in hearing what you guys thought about it.

The only things certain in life...

I have not been a huge proponent of Modern. Since it came out, I've looked for just about every reason under the sun to not play it. I was invested into Standard. I was investing into Legacy. I didn't have time to play the decks that I had. I didn't know anyone else who played, or anywhere to play it.

Most importantly, the critical problem was the same one that I've had with dozens of other formats (especially certain eras of Standard). I just didn't like any of the decks.

Modern has always struck me as a format with a misguided principle. Wizards wanted it to be a haven for the best hits of Standard, but somehow managed to ban all of the decks that people would be most excited to duke it out with. There's plenty of argument to be had about the current ban list, what should be added to it, what should be removed, and I certainly have opinions on the topic (perhaps even opinions that I'll mention before Gatecrash's Ban and Restricted announcement is sent out) but that's a conversation for another day.

Today, the important thing is that I've found a deck in Modern, or at least an archetype. For those who have followed this blog for a while, I play a White/Black Aggro-Disruption deck in Legacy that's commonly known as Yards Pale Ale (a variation of Dead Guy Ale). It's a primarily spell-based deck backed up by a White-Weenie core. I love the deck. I think it is a magnificent creation. I couldn't be happier with it.

For those who have been reading for even longer, you may remember my Knights deck. The time was Caw-Blade era Standard, just when people were figuring out how good Stoneforge Mystic was in a deck with Swords, and adding Jace to it only made it stronger. This was before Dismember and Batterskull. The deck wasn't completely over the top yet – it was just strong – like Valakut.

Back in the day, I played a (in hindsight) awful brew built around Knight Exemplar. It utilized Student of Warfare, Hero of Bladehold, Mirran Crusader, and a couple of less pristine examples of awesomeness. See, I was remarkably bad at combat math – so I wanted all my creatures to either be First Strike, Indestructible, or better. Knights gave me a way to do all of them.

I added blue because it seemed like the only thing that would beat me was board wipes before I was established. Counterspells would fix that. Blue also gave me access to a number of clone effects for my exemplar, and preordain (a card I did not appreciate at the time, but now sorely miss.)

For being so rough, I loved that deck, and so when I saw that a White-Weenie strategy was doing well at a couple of events, with the nominal archetype name “Death and Taxes”, I was obviously interested.

Here is an example of a version of the deck that won two Daily Events on Magic Online on subsequent days. It gets to play a ton of cards that I'm excited to work with, and has a ton of lines of play that intrigue me.

Now, one of the major things that this list relies on is it's ability to land-lock an opponent. Between Mindcensor and Arbiter, they can seriously restrict the amount of searching that an opponent can do – turning off fetch lands and other search effects right as the game starts.

I'm not sure if I like this tactic, but it's certainly something to fool around with. Admittedly, it's a strong line of play, but I tend to like my games of magic to be interactive – and that normally means some level of letting them have the ability to cast spells. I'm sure that my more Spike minded friends will disagree, but there's a reason that the designers have scaled back on Land Destruction effects in recent years – it's not very fun to play against, and I like everyone at the table to have fun.

There's plenty else we can do with a deck like this though. While Stoneforge Mystic's ban removes the ability to tutor up a Batterskull (or Jitte, were it unbanned), there are plenty of other options for a Death and Taxes shell to take advantage of. You could skew towards a trickier deck, featuring Flickerwisp and Stonecloaker to rebuy some of your effects, providing grinding value. Alternatively, adding a second color is definitely possible.

The current list, running a plethora of plains, provides players with a preciously pristine land base, not prone to removal. Adding a second color would make it more unstable, at the benefit of some flexibility.

I've seen some people discuss the addition of Green for some powerful options out of the GW Hate Bears list that Kibler has been using – Smiters, Leiges, Gaddock Teeg, etc. I've also seen Blue discussed, favoring a counterspell package to strengthen the deck against Combo and add in some draw and selection spells.

Something that I haven't seen is Black, taking a page out of my Legacy deck's book and running powerful creatures like Dark Confidant and Tidehollow Sculler, backed up with black removal spells. This is likely the direction that I'm going to end up taking the deck, because the playstyle flows so nicely with the kind of gameplan that I enjoy.

As for those of you who are still skeptical on the Modern format, I'd implore you to at least look at the format, see past the field of Jund and into the deep seas of innovation behind it. Who knows, maybe we'll see a ban out of Jund – or an unban to break the format open again. Regardless, there's something for everyone in Modern, if you'll just look to find it.

I'd like to give one last quick word to THIS thread on Reddit – it provided the initial list that sparked my interest in Death and Taxes in Modern.

Until Thursday, may all your spells resolve.

Back In The Saddle - Esper Tokens for GP Atlantic City

It's been a while since I've addressed Standard in one of my blogs, and this upcoming weekend seems to provide me with the perfect time to talk about it. Since becoming a judge, my opportunities to play competitive magic have declined pretty significantly. It's not that I enjoy it less, it's just that opportunities to judge seem to keep cropping up, and I have only so many weekends that I can fill with Magic. Couple that with the holidays, and I haven't been at a Competitive REL tournament since November – and that wasn't even Standard. (It was a Legacy Tournament – which I am happy to report I Top 8'd, with much the same BW list that I've been running for some time now.)

Since the last time I'd checked in, Standard has changed a bunch. The last couple of FNM's that I'd gone to had been decidedly during the era of Jund. It was everywhere, and I was of the opinion that my former tokens list couldn't compete on the same level as it. Something needed to be done.

Luckily for me, the format shifted, then shifted again. Despite not playing, I still followed the scene, checking in with some of my favorite authors and noting the results from Star City Opens and GP's. I have to say, from the look of things, it seems dynamic and interesting, but I still can't quite muster the same level of enthusiasm that I had during the Scars-Innistrad Standard. Perhaps having a 'bad guy' in the format spurs me on to more deck building than normal. Maybe the relatively small subset of cards that sees play in every deck is irking me. I hadn't been able to really pinpoint what it was until recently.

When I sat down to write my New Years Resolutions, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to have a couple dedicated to Magic. I'd slacked off on quite a few projects – my Shard War decks, Illyria, and I'd been sitting on my hands regarding advancing as a judge. Most of all, I didn't have any decks (except my Legacy deck) that I really wanted to play all that much. I vowed to change that before the end of the year.

For those who have been reading this blog for the last few months, you know that I fell in love with BW Tokens, lovingly updating it week by week, and having a reasonable amount of success with it. I felt like I understood the deck on a fundamental level, and all it's match-ups. Unfortunately, the rotation was not kind to my poor spirit tokens.

People had been telling me for months before the rotation that the deck was strong, but would be much better once Ratchet Bomb and Elesh Norn were gone. Interestingly, none of those people kept saying it after Detention Sphere was printed, and that was only the start of the issue. Olivia becoming highly played provided a roadblock. Still, I could fight through those things. After all, the titans were gone, and the caliber of board wipe that remained in standard was a far cry from Ratchet Bomb and Sun Titan.

That said, Tokens was not without casualties. Specifically, two of our hardest hitting cards went by the wayside. Hero of Bladehold and Honor of the Pure both provided huge offensive boosts to my squad that were proving difficult to replace without serious reworks to the deck.

 

The inspiration for the update actually came from my friend (and deck building prodigy) Marshall. He'd been working on a Spirits tribal list for a while (and was actually working on a list extremely similar to John Finkel's Pro Tour Honolulu list as Finkel was winning with it). After the success of the deck, it was poorly positioned for a while, with the whole format devolving into creature mirrors between R/G, Naya, Pod decks, and Angel Delver. It also had some issues with an unstable mana base if you tried to add the black splash for Lingering Souls. With the rotation, Marshall felt it was time to give it another shot.

The addition of Hallowed Fountain did wonders for the land base, allowing him to cut into a third color for more than just a narrow splash. After seeing his list, utilizing Drogskol Captain, I realized that it had a remarkable resemblance to my tokens list, and decided to modify it:

As usual, I began with an existing deck. A lot of my card choices seem to mirror the briefly seen Esper Flash lists that were thrown around for a week or two. I'd played the Esper lists (as well as the UWr version) casually for a couple of test games before dismissing them. I didn't like how many turns I was spending just cycling through cards, and I didn't like how low my threat density was. With a the core of the tokens deck still intact (Midnight Haunting + Lingering Souls + Intangible Virtue), I felt that there was definitely a deck still there, and I searched for a way to intensify that.

In the meantime, on the back burner, I had a playset of Restoration Angels that I love fiercely. I wanted them to see more play, I just needed a deck to slot them into.

Once I decided to add blue to the deck in earnest, the question became “What can I gain?” Snapcaster seemed an obvious choice, but in testing, I found that the deck was already mana-hungry enough, and didn't often produce too many good targets for the Wizard. I cut down to two copies from four. Augur of Bolas, despite the occasional flub, served as a much better two drop for my Flash Tokens. Plus, it provided a great body to flicker with Restoration Angel. The breakthrough came later, with Favorable winds providing the redundant anthems that I'd always wanted.

Once I had favorable winds, all the formerly aggressive draws were out. I didn't want to lead Champion of the Parish into Gather the Townsfolk. There was too much spot removal in the format, and I couldn't follow it up as strongly without Honor of the Pure to provide consistency. On the other hand, I did have a powerful engine that allowed my flyers – token or not – to trump similar plays by other decks. My Restoration Angels could block (and kill!) opposing ones, and with spot removal on the rise, my swarms had never been more effective. Once I'd decided on the flyer emphasis, it naturally brought my curve a little higher – towards the 4 and 5 mana range. Geist Honored Monk started seeming like a great creature to play – with Restoration Angel being able to hit it for added value. A few counters, and a smattering of removal spells (or at least, what I could find given the color constraints) rounded out the list.

The final card was a single copy of Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. He was too slow for my previous list, but here, he seems just right. All of his abilities are relevant, and he comes at a point in the game when each could be the correct thing to do. I'm considering adding a second if I can get a hand on one.

The end result (sans sideboard) is this:

The deck has one main issue, right now: the insanely aggressive decks. Not the midrange-y zombies lists, which tries to kill you with 4 and 5 drops. Those we can deploy a wall of Spirits to block effectively. I'm talking more in the terms of Naya Humans, Mono-red, and things in that vein. Thalia still provides a major roadblock for the deck – serving to give a one sided cost bump to almost literally every card in the deck. I'm still working on a solution to some of those, but I'm confident in my ability to work it out in time for this weekend. While I don't love it the way I loved BW Tokens, it's at least a deck that I can feel comfortable playing for a long day. I've already got a room at Atlantic City with two of my good friends, as well as my girlfriend, and I'm planning on seeing if I can grind my way through 9 rounds to a 7-2 record, and a berth in Day 2.

What do you think about my list? Do you see any glaring omissions in it? Anything that you think could be improved, or significantly changed for the better? Feel free to leave a comment. Going to be at Grand Prix Atlantic City? Drop me a line if you want to catch up. I'm more than happy to chat with anyone.

May all your (and my) spells resolve.

Color War: A Multiplayer Magic Format

 Hello Everyone!  This is ‘Marshall’ guest writing for Andrew today.  No, this isn’t a hostile take over.  Yes, he’s fine...well mostly.  As many of you postulated by this point Andrew and I work together on several fronts, I help design different decks and we bounce ideas off each other.  Unlike Andrew, I don’t really participate in competitive Magic, I’m more of a ‘Kitchen Table’ kind of player.  I like tournament decks as much as any Spike, but that’s for their linear and powerful synergies.  For me deck building comes grew to a new height when I developed “Color War”, I specifically choose the word ‘develop’ because I am not the origin of the format, but instead have invested significant amount of time and resources into it.  Andrew asked me a few weeks ago to do a guest article pertaining to my favorite format: Color War.

Shall we get started?

I’ve been playing this wonderful little game for the better part of 20 years.   Through these years I’ve seen ups and downs of this game, from Fallen Empires, Homelands, and Champions of Kamigawa, to Invasion, Mirrodin, and Tempest (my personal vote for best all time set).  Through this time I’ve played in many different formats but one hit home more than others, because it answered this one question every magic player has thought of at least once (if not you’re about to):

“Why do the colors have specific allies and enemies?”

I’m not talking about why design has set it up that way, or the theory of why great Richard Garfield deemed it so on the 5th day of creation.  I’m talking about the simple truth we’ve all learned about this game:

Blue mages hate Red and Green mages.

In fairness, everyone hates Blue mages

This is something I learned early on, and I learned why through Color War.  An uncle of mine introduced the 5-way multiplayer format to me and it explained to me these color allegiances much like my body learned it needed oxygen to survive.  This my friends (and Andrew’s readers) is what I’m here to give you!  I’ll be explaining this in two parts: First, I’m going to discuss the basics and rules of the format, and then the decks that I've developed.

1. Color War is a 5 player format, wherein each deck is a single color.  (This is similar to Star, for those familiar with that format, this was just introduced to me prior to Star and I’m stubbornly keeping the name as Color War) [Editor's Note: Marshall is more stubborn than the Goat Tokens he loves so much.]  All 5 players sit in the order of the colors on the back of the Magic card (Go look! we’ll wait).  From here things begin to get complicated.
2. Turn order:  Now that everyone is seated in the correct order.  You should be seated next to your two allies and across from your two enemies.  Watch for dirty looks – they are EVIL. [Editor's Note: For example, Black is allied with Red and Blue, but enemies with Green and White. Think Alara shards, or the Core-Set-Dual-Lands to keep track of allies.] Unlike normal multiplayer matches, the actual turn order does not go in a circle, it follows a star pattern in clockwise order.  This is designed  to prevent two allies from having back to back turns (at least at the start of the game).  My suggestion is to call out the next color when you’re done your turn. Try “Black, you're up!” instead of “Pass” when you first start playing this format.  Turn order remains the same when a player dies, just skip over the eliminated position.
3. You only win when your two enemy colors are dead.  This may explain some of the targeting restrictions above.  Because not only can you win when your two enemy colors are dead, the same applies to your two allies.  Yes destroying their planeswalker or fogging when they go in for a kill, is something you can do as it will slow them down to allow YOU to win.  To answer your inevitable next question, Yes you can tie.  In fact it’s almost as common as normal  solo wins.
4. Targeting:  I encourage some additional targeting restrictions to help balance the format and encourage the format to play as intended. Your mileage may vary on these, but I think they're a good baseline.
• a. You can only attack your enemies
• b. You can only do direct damage to enemy players (EXCEPTION: you can target allies to kill allied planeswalkers).
• c. You can target allied permanents.

Multiplayer Magic...right? Call a Judge?

That’s it, the rest is normal fun multiplayer!

Right?

Andrew, I think I’m missing something here, because something tells me that left to their own devices people would make independent decks packed with color specific hate.

[Editor's Note: Muffled cries]

What’s that? You think so too? Hold on, let me take off the duct tape, I can’t understand what you’re telling me…..

The hard truth is in ever group of magic players there is at least one that takes the time and energy to find a card or two that gives them a significant edge over their friends. I'm sure you all know that guy – you may even BE that guy. Hey, this could be a good thing if it pushes everyone to continuously improve their decks and can provide a natural way to keep the group fresh with ideas.  Unfortunately, this idealism doesn’t really hold true though when it comes to formats with distinct limitations like Color War (and one could argue it doesn’t hold true in normal free for all either, but that’s an argument for a latter day).  The balance of Color War breaks down when cards like Mirran Crusader, Karma, Magnetic Mountain, Conversion, and even something as innocuous as Blue Elemental Blast (props to those that didn’t have to look up those cards.)  It becomes harder to balance when you load up a Black deck with so much removal that it wipes Green and White off the map.  So what is a multiplayer group to do?

The Color War was originally introduced to me with 5 premade 40-card decks, none were incredibly powerful, but they all contained some surprisingly strong iconic cards: Chain lighting and Vesuvan Doppleganger come to mind.  They were built with the idea that any of the 5 could win on any given day.  This was primarily controlled by the fact they were all built by the same person (my uncle.)  After I moved away, and I found a new group of fellow Magic junkies, I decided I wanted to introduce the format to them.  This was around the time of Invasion, and so I knew that I needed to build 5 decks of approximately the same strength.  Since then I’ve been continually tweaking and adding new cards to the lists., keeping them recognizable but still fresh. This is a deceivingly hard thing to do, you want to maintain several things:



1) Each deck should keep the flavor of the color.  When you play as the Green deck you should feel like a big old tree loving hippy with a really REALLY big stick to hit people with.  This also means that even though removal exists in White and Red Black should still be king of the hill with creature removal – it's needed to help balance out White and Green.

2) Each deck should have cards that hearken back to the history of the color, Shivan Dragon isn’t the best dragon in the deck (that probably goes to Thundermaw Hellkite – a recent addition) but every Red mage sees Shivan Dragon and smiles. Feel free to adjust this based on your group. If all of you started within the last two years, 'the History of Magic' probably means very different for you than it does for my group, who still remember a time when the Stack didn't exist.

3) In the same vein I choose to update decks with new cards too, it keeps the circle of friends interested and enjoying the format long past when it would otherwise have started to get stale.

4) I maintain that each deck needs to have cards that surprise the player “You have Rofellos in here??”  Due to the nature of the format resolving these cards or untapping with them isn’t necessarily guaranteed, but I feel that it’s important for players to look at their opening hands and be excited. It's hard to look at some of the best cards ever printed and not be thrilled to play a game with them  - in this way, I try to maintain a feel much like Cube Drafting has.

5) Above ALL ELSE balance trumps card selection.  I have been asked why certain cycles aren’t in the decks - and I'll admit some are due to availability (I’m looking at you, Primeval Titan), but 9 times out of 10 it’s because one member of the cycle is completely unbalancing in the format.  In very few circumstances should one card completely win the game for a color, and at times sacrificing a partial or complete cycle is the cost necessary for the health of the format.



A bit more on balance: Over the years I’ve noticed how difficult it is to keep these decks tuned properly.  When testing a deck individually it can seem the exact level of power you were shooting for, but it’s not until you see various global effects hit the field does the balance start to fall apart.  Probably the occurrence that highlights this so nicely is when Red had Mana Flare (a great ramp spell to help it get to it’s dragons and X spells), and Blue had Palinchron (which by itself is a great fat blue creature that has a way to save itself, very Blue).  Yeah for those that figured out the interaction of  those two cards... whoops?  Since then, I’ve had the benefit of being able to test more frequently with all 5 decks on the field. Below you’ll find the current incarnations of decks – recently updated to include some choice cards from Magic 2013.



When looking at them, keep in mind that these decks are not built to be tournament worthy, but instead to produce fun and exciting games that are difficult to predict.  Even now I keep notes to every game for future edits and balance questions, for example:

1) Gideon might be too good.
2) Switch Cockatrice with another spider
3) Add Vampire Nighthawk
4) Boost Red a little
5) Hapless Researcher

Combined with those is a running list of wins (and allied victories).  The thought is to collect sufficient data to warrant changes.  “Boost Red a little” for instance seems pretty straightforward, except that the process of boosting Red’s strength leads to White performing poorly next time, meriting improvements to white,  perhaps too far, which can cause Black to stumble. Yeah it’s not always that complicated and the occasional gift from a new set helps fill in the hole.



If you decide do go down this rabbit hole, learn from where I am, look at these decks, and use them.  I understand that several of the cards are not easily obtainable, and none are strictly required to build a color war deck. That said,  I hope when looking at them you’ll see the spirit of each and understand why:

Blue mages hate Red and Green mages.



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Hello everyone – Andrew here for an afterword. First, a great debt to Marshall for helping me with this post. Color War is one of the best formats I've ever played, and I think that it's a great way for a group of friends to get together and play multiplayer when their normal decks might not necessarily be on the same part of the power curve.

I'd also like to thank those of you who helped me out with the white commons in my post on Tuesday. While I didn't get quite the volume of specific feedback as I'd hoped, there was still a ton of great advice – so thanks again. I hope some of you are interested in the project, and will be hoping to play at GP Philadelphia in a couple months.

This weekend, I won't likely be playing much Magic, since I'll be moving to a new place with my lovely girlfriend. Nevertheless, this weekend also marks the PAX Magic party, and that's bound to be a blast for all of us F5'ing on our computers, waiting for spoilers. Personally, I can't wait. All three of the spoiled mechanics so far look to be good, innovative takes on the guilds, and I can't wait to see the rest of them. There's a good chance that I'll take a look at the mechanics on Tuesday's post, and talk about what I see each of them doing in the set.

Or hey, maybe I'll get an entirely different idea by morning – who knows! Check back in on Tuesday to see!

As Always, Sling Some Spells,
Andrew

A Respectable 6-3 at Star City Games: Washington DC

It’s interesting how things happen sometimes. You write something, yell up and down about the new thing that’s going to change it all, and then, forty eight hours later, you’re scrambling to put a deck together – your third in two days.

How did this happen?

Last weekend was the Star City Games: Washington DC event. By random luck, I was able to attend, because my job wanted me to go to Washington DC from Sunday till Tuesday. It meant that I wouldn’t be able to play in the Legacy Open on Sunday, but I was mostly alright with that, since my Legacy deck is still broadly ‘under construction’ – missing a Karakas, Urborg, four Wastelands, and three Bobs. (Plus some other assorted cards that have since been filled). That’s not exactly a small list, but still, we’re getting closer.

So, Standard Open was going to be my best bet – with hopes that I would make Top 8 and secure an invitation to one of the two remaining invitational’s of the year. That was the goal. To accomplish that, I’d most likely have to go x-1 or better, with the potential of a draw in the last round.

To this goal, I wrote an article about my Naya Aggro deck, which can be found Here. The decklist I ended up building to play in the event was as follows:

There was a lot of power in this deck, and it has the potential to run away with games that it was clearly losing. Hero of Bladehold and Gavony Township provide a strong top-end, and four Caverns give the deck a lot of game against Delver Style decks. With Restoration Angel to back up any assault, and Bonfire for the occasional blowout, the deck was strong.

And I hated it.

I played some test games with it, but it constantly felt like I was mulliganing into oblivion. I was never able to find the lands that I wanted, a dork, and some reasonable sequence of plays that didn’t depend entirely on “and then I’ll draw all the cards I need.” I found myself playing out my hand quickly against other similar aggro decks and lacking a way to go over the top to win, instead getting into a board stall and knowing that I really didn’t have many (if any) outs.

I called up Marshall on Thursday, after posting my counterpoint about Bonfire. A lot of the points that I’d made were festering in my mind – countermagic WAS strong against that kind of deck. Tokens did have a lot of recurring threats that made it viable against Naya style decks. Delver was still a flying Wild Nacatl for U that needed to be dealt with.

What if I merged the two decks?

I drove to Marshall’s that night and we spent the better part of four hours piecing together the deck that I’d be taking down to DC. Late night audibles rarely work, because you end up with little familiarity with the deck and not enough practice. I ignored this because I figured that it was just tokens with a support package instead of a Humans package. It looked strong. Plus, I got to sideboard Day of Judgment and go to town with that as tech against Naya and the Elf deck that BW is completely incapable of beating.

This deck looked like it had everything. A strong early game with Delver/Snapcaster/Vapor Snag, it had the late game with Anthems and Lingering Souls. We were able to find a mana base that worked (partially by being very careful to avoid double-colored spells), and enough removal to punch through the biggest offenders in the format. We were positive we were on to something here.

Unfortunately, we finished the deck at Dark O’Clock and didn’t have time to test it. I couldn’t go to FNM on Friday to test it because I was busy sleeping – since my train to DC left at 5am. Still, I felt confident that I’d be able to do well with the deck. I slept a healthy amount before the tournament, and we were ready to go.

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It’s 10:05. The tournament was scheduled to start five minutes ago, but there’s still a line out the door. I’m staring across the board at two Rancors on a Blighted Agent.

“This deck is pretty bad,” I admit – referring to mine, not the UG Infect deck that’s been tossing me around like a ragdoll for the last hour.

“It’s probably a bad matchup for you. Don’t worry.” That’s my friend Mark. I’ve seen him at a bunch of events, and he offered to play a few rounds to get each of us used to our decks. It isn’t going well. I’ve managed to squeak out a single win – he’s got more than half a dozen under his belt.

“It’s not that your deck is good,” I explain. “Well, I mean, it is. You’re really explosive, but my deck isn’t flowing the way it should. The mana feels fine, but I just don’t feel like I’m going to have the power to punch through and actually get a kill.”

“So, what’re you thinking?”

“I’ve still got all the cards that I’d need for BW Tokens…” I say, hesitantly. I could also audible to Delver – since I have that almost built as well, but that doesn’t put me in any better shape.

“I don’t think that’s smart.” Mark answers, and we keep playing. “Maybe you’re just getting bad hands.”

Five minutes later, one of Mark’s friends comes by and reports. “I’m seeing a ton of control decks in the field today – and a lot of Delver too. A lot of Pod, but not a lot of Naya Aggro or Humans.”

Mark taps some creature, probably an Ichorclaw Myr. “Four infect at you?” I try to remove it, and he casts apostle’s blessing in response. Two Wild Defiance Triggers go on the stack and I scoop it up.

“Last call for registration!” goes the shout. I take one last look at the deck and make the call.

“Help me unsleeve this.”

It’s 10:25 and I’m frantically writing on a deck registration sheet, putting back together a deck that I’d played in more than a dozen tournaments. If there wasn’t much Naya in the room, and the read was right, Tokens would cut through the control decks and the Delver decks – all I needed to do was dodge the Naya decks.

Round 1 – Chris with Bant Pod

Chanting “Not Naya” while I shuffled, my opponent leads with Razorverge Thicket into Birds of Paradise – because why not. Luckily for me, I’ve got the fast start, and he’s not really playing Naya at all. He’s on Bant Pod – a deck that I know exists, but not much more than that. I remember the older Bant Pod lists – flicker an acidic slime a bunch of times with Venser and lock you out of the game, or get a Stonehorn lock. I imagine that this deck plays out much the same.

Luckily, I have the Champion > Gather > Anthem > Anthem draw, and he goes down on turn five. Before he’s able to set anything up.

I play game two much more conservatively – unsure if he’s running Day of Judgment in his list. He almost gets a stonehorn lock on me, but I’ve got removal for the Venser to keep me on the right side of the matchup. I end up killing him while I’m on 31 life.

1-0   (2-0 in games)

Round 2 – Steve with Mono Black Control

Game one is agonizing. I get my beatdown on, dropping him down to three life over the opening turns of the game with a fairly aggressive start. I’m still on 20, and feeling great. He topdecks a Mutilate to wipe my board, but I’ve got a Gather the Townsfolk in reserve. This unfortunately does nothing when he drops a Wurmcoil Engine, and I quickly drop to two life as he beats me down with it (and removes my human tokens). He goes back up over twenty before I find a Gather the Townsfolk and a Hero of Bladehold to stop him. I’m poised to gain 20+ life the next turn and kill him off a vault of the archangel swing, but he topdecks a second mutilate and kills me with the Wurmcoil Tokens.

Ouch.

Luckily for me, his good luck breaks and he mulligans in the second game. Despite him activating mindslaver twice on me, he can’t quite get a lock on the game and I kill him through two pristine talismans that gained him 16 life over the course of the game.

Our third game is a classic Tokens vs Control matchup, with me always having more gas to stop his attempts to regain control. I slow roll every token maker, buying a board wipe from him every turn until he eventually runs out. Even his pair of pristine talismans can’t keep him up through two anthems and any creatures.

2-0   (4-1 in games)

Round 3 – Robert with GW Elves

Let me just go on record and say that I don’t know why this deck isn’t bigger. In game one, I remove his turn 2 Archdruid, and still die on turn 5 to a swing for 45 damage off a Craterhoof Behemoth that he green sun zenithed for. Shockingly, I almost survived. Almost doesn’t count.

I have no notes for game two. It went more poorly than game one.

2-1 (4-3 in games)

Round 4 – Brad Nelson on BW Zombie Pod

I read the pairings and I’m on fire. Brad Nelson, player of the year for 2010. This is the first game I’ve ever had against a player of his caliber, and I’m nervous as all hell. I sit down, and try to make some small talk – he seems pretty quiet. Understandable, since he’s already picked up a loss. We present our decks and I move to cut his, but my hand slips and flips a card.

Geralf’s Messenger.

Both of our hands shoot into the air and I get a warning for Looking At Extra Cards.

I apologize, and he nods. “It’s alright, just sucks because it’s a pretty big tell.”

That’s pretty fair, I think. I hope that he doesn’t think I did it deliberately, because I can see how it could be interpreted like that. Brad is one of my favorite writers, and I’d hate to think he had a negative opinion of me because of a mistake like that.

I’d like to tell you guys that I drew a hand that was marginal against Zombies and kept it because I was doing the honorable thing. Truthfully though, the hand was just all gas. He gets some quick hits in with a nighthawk before I land two heroes. He answers the first, but the second gets a combat step with Vault of the Archangel and start beating in for 24 point life swings. He goes down and we sideboard.

I love my zombies sideboard in this deck – it’s one of my favorite parts about playing it. To this day, I’ve only lost to zombies once with Tokens, and that was due almost entirely to a gigantic misplay on my part.

Today kept up that trend, and despite him getting the Restoration Angel/Geralf’s Messenger combo going, I beat him down and win the round.

3-1 (6-3 in games)

Round 5 – Gavin with RG Pod

I don’t have a lot of experience against this deck, and I keep a slower hand. He doesn’t seem interested in playniog that game, and crushes me in a quick game one.

Game two, he mulligans and we both stall out on the ground, unable to make a profitable move. The game comes down to me being able to draw flyers, and him never finding a bonfire to miracle.

Game three, I pull off a miracle’d Entreat the Angels for 1 on turn 4, and the angel went the distance to beat him down for the win.

4-1 (8-4 in games)

Round 6 – Andrew with Esper…well…

The round starts, and I win Game 1 without any real idea what he’s playing except Esper colors. He cast a lingering souls, a ponder, and a mana leak – which effectively means he could be any Esper archetype ever. He boards in a bunch of cards, but I’m hesitant, and end up presenting my original 60.

I think I actually stand by this decision. My sideboard cards for the Esper matchups are pretty weak overall, and I’d rather not dilute my deck with dead cards if I guess wrong. Unfortunately, I have a quick draw and he has the answers for it, stalling me out until his plan becomes obvious – as he copies a bunch of Sun Titans with the least fair clone creature ever printed.

To be honest, I’m positive that I could have won this one. I made a bad removal early on, sacrificing a creature to kill his doomed traveler clone – thinking that it would be sacrificed and not give him the token. This is 100% absurd – the only reason I thought it was because my opponent a few tournaments ago had missed his trigger, not because it doesn’t happen.

I got him to 1, and he killed me with triplicate Sun Titan attacks and Dead Weight and such. It was unpleasant.

Game three, I was forced to mulligan, and I couldn’t put out enough pressure. He stabilized at 8 life, and I never got to touch him again.

4-2 (8-6 in games)

Round 7 – Naya Pod

And here we go, folks. The matchup I feat more than anything – Naya. Cocked and ready to go with a quartet of Bonfires, we squared off. I lose the first game after he gains a ton of life off a Thragtusk to change the math on our race. Both of us sideboard, and we’re off into game two.

Game two was the best match of magic that I have played in a long time. I have a slower start, with a slew of anthems. After losing my board in the late game to a catastrophic Bonfire, he beats me down to 4 life – with him still on 20. Things look grim, but I topdeck a Gather the Townsfolk, putting 20 power and toughness onto the board with a vault – but one mana shy of using it. He had a single flyer – a restoration angel that dropped me to  1 life. I attack, and he first-strikes down one token, eating eight damage, and losing only a little bit of his ground force while we trade off creatures. I gain sixteen, going to seventeen and having more than lethal on the board. He draws, and finds no help, playing another Blade Splicer and hitting me for three in the air, I go to fourteen. I draw for the turn, attack, and pass after destroying a few more of his guys.

He topdecks a bonfire, and hitsme for five with it, wiping my board. The crowd (because we’ve drawn a crowd at this point) goes wild, and he turns his guys sideways for the win.

I drop Midnight Haunting, blocking his angel and a splicer token to go to six, and then counter swing to kill him the following turn.

 Game three was sadly a little anticlimactic, with him mulling to six and stumbling on lands. He still made a fight of it, but I manage to get an Angel of Jubilation out to turn off his Pod, and without the mana advantage, the threat of a bonfire was minimal. I killed him with a Pod rotting in hand, and a Bonfire that could never have killed anything.

5-2 (10-7 in games)

Round 8 – Ian on RG Aggro

In our first game, I manage to get the tempo advantage on him once I’ve got an anthem set up, and I run him over pretty handily. Our second game isn’t close, with him getting a turn 2 sword of war and peace and crushing me.

Our third game goes much the way of the first, with Vault fo the Archangel sealing the game once I get ahead. Ian reveals after the match that he runs four Sword of War and Peace main, as well as four bonfires that he never saw a miracle of. I was probably lucky to get out of this one.

6-2 (12-8 in games)

Round 9 – Russo with RG Aggro

I know Russo – he plays at the shop I used to go to all the time back in NY. He’s on RG Aggro, and while I’d love to say they were both close games, decided by the skill of both players, he crushed me in both with T2 Sword, and T2 Sword. I really don’t know if there’s a good answer to that card in white that doesn’t open you up to an insane blowout if they don’t have it.

6-3 (12-10 in games)

Aftermath

While the tournament was 10 rounds long, a quick look at the standings after the ninth round revealed that there was no way that I could make the top 64. It was unfortunate, and crushing, because up until then, I felt like I was doing fairly well in the tournament.

My losses were against Elves (which is a bad matchup – I’ll need to Sideboard some Day of Judgment in the future. The loss to Esper was avoidable – I think – if I had remembered my Phantasmal Image interaction better and not flubbed the second game.

The games against Russo were probably not winnable – as he had the nut draw in both games, but without Sword in the picture, I can’t imagine that he has a terribly good match against me. Both games were winnable if I had a turn or two to breathe, so maybe Gut Shot would have been all I needed to take the lead there.

Altogether, for the longest tournament I’ve ever played in (10 rounds is monumental, and kudos to the judges for keeping it running so smoothly) it went reasonably. I would have liked to have finished x-2, but then again, so would everyone else in the room. Next time, I will.

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This weekend, I’ll be attending (and judging) the Top Deck Games Summer Open. If you’re interested in going to GP Boston, this represents a great tournament with a robust prize, in addition to some spectacular side events that range from Standard Win-A-Box to Ravnica/Dissention/Guildpact drafts. You should absolutely come on down and check it out.

The facebook event can be found Here. I'll be one of the guys in the Judge Blacks.

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.

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.