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.

Playing at Competitive REL – A Beginner's Guide

You've been playing at FNM's for a couple of months now, and you're starting to notice that you're winning more often than not. The same at your local shop's Tuesday standard.

You like your deck – no, actually, you love your deck. You built it yourself, and maybe it's not exactly a netdeck, but it has a solid game plan and you know how to pilot it against all the major decks in the format.

You're wondering if you should maybe take your game to the next level. You hear some guys at your shop talking about travel plans. You saunter over to them and ask them what they're talking about.

“Oh, dude, you didn't know? This weekend is the Grand Prix.”

“The Grand Prix?” you ask. You've heard some of the guys talk about how they went to Boston a few months ago, but you've never been to one. “What's that?”

“It's a huge tournament – usually more than a thousand people – over two days. There's one this weekend in Atlantic City! A bunch of us from the shop are going down there.”

“Wow, awesome.”

“One more thing – it's a competitive tournament, a little bit different from an FNM.”

“Oh?”

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It can be a little intimidating stepping into your first Competitive REL tournament. In fact, it can be downright terrifying. My first was a side event at Pro Tour Philadelphia (back when they were open to the public.) It was a big tournament for an iPad, and I got a game loss in my first game. Unfortunately, at the time, I had no idea that there was any difference between my local FNM and a tournament for $15,000. I assumed we were just playing Magic, and that was that.

The reality is a little different, and as a player who hates seeing people get screwed because they weren't aware of the difference, I'm going to be going into some detail about some of the things that you can expect at a Competitive event.

First off, what is Competitive REL? Because of the high prizes associated with them, some tournaments are run at a stricter level of rules enforcement than others. Notable events are the first day of a Grand Prix, TCGPlayer Max Events, Grand Prix Trials, Pro Tour Qualifiers, and Star City Games Opens, Invitational Qualifiers, and Invitationals

At these tournaments, there is some measure of high prizes at stake. It could be playmats, invites to other tournaments, byes, or large cash prizes. Regardless, because of the prizes being offered, the tournament is to be held in as skill-testing an environment as possible. That's where we hit the first major difference between Regular REL and Competitive REL.

During Regular REL tournaments, like FNM, the emphasis is on educating players. At Competitive REL, the emphasis is on an individual's play skill.

That might seem like a minor thing, but it really has a whole lot of implications. The most obvious way that you can see it is that at a Competitive REL tournament, there will be a judge who can hand out the penalties found in the Infraction Procedure Guide (or IPG, for short.) That's the document that all judges (and players, if they so choose) have access to, which tells about all the things that you can be penalized for at a Competitive tournament.

Some of these things are fairly simple. The IPG has a whole boatload of ways of saying simple things like “Don't Cheat”. Luckily, you're a good person, and you're not going to cheat. We don't have to worry about the vast majority of that section because it doesn't apply to you as long as you are being open and honest while playing.

That brings us to the first major rule that I'm going to give you if you've never played at Competitive REL. It's the first rule because I honestly believe that it is the most important.

Do not lie to the judge.

The judge does not exist to punish you. He exists to make sure that the game is being played by the rules, and to ensure an even playing field, and to make sure that everyone at the tournament is comfortable.

Sometimes, the judge will punish someone. That could very well mean anything from a verbal Caution (which means literally nothing as far as you playing the game goes) to a Disqualification (which is very bad.) For the record, receiving multiple instances of the same penalty does eventually lead to an upgrade in penalty to a more severe one. That said, lying to a tournament official is a one-way street to a disqualification. Period. End of Story. Just don't do it.

The IPG lists out a full treatment of everything you can get punished for. This is a good thing, because it means that judges can't just capriciously punish for anything, only things covered by the existing document. They can't 'go rogue' and just make things up. Please keep in mind that at larger events, you ALWAYS have the right to appeal a decision to the Head Judge of the tournament if you believe that your ruling was incorrect. For the majority of players in the majority of situations, none of that is important. In all my time playing competitively, I believe that I've received only a handful of warnings (and one game loss, as you'll see below).

How do you avoid such penalties? It's actually pretty simple. Play according to the rules, and be clear, open, and obvious about what you're doing. Below, I'm going to list what I consider to be the 5 most commonly given out errors and penalties, and how to avoid them:

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1) Tournament Error: Deck/Decklist Error

This one is the top of the list, and it isn't even close. In Round 2 of GP Boston-Worcester last year, over 100 of these were given out at the start of Round 4. This penalty refers to something fairly broad – there's a problem with your deck, or your decklist.

At Competitive REL, you will be responsible for filling out (either before the tournament begins for Constructed, or during deck constuction for a Limited Event) a deck list. Be very careful with this list, because as far as the tournament officials are concerned, that's what you're playing. In order to curb cheating and provide some measure of security for the integrity of the tournament, judges will be checking decks throughout the tournament. As long as what's in your deck matches what's on the sheet, there's likely to be no problem whatsoever. However, there's always a few things that can go wrong. Here's some of the common ways to earn yourself a Deck/Decklist Error:

-You made a last minute change to your deck, and forgot to update your decklist.

-You forgot to de-sideboard your deck after your last round

-You had a bunch of cards that aren't in your deck or sideboard in the same box as your deck and sideboard.

-You don't have at least 60 cards (or 40 for limited) in your main deck, and in Constructed tournaments, you have a number other than 0 or 15 in your sideboard.

-You are playing cards that aren't legal in the format that you are playing.

There are other ways to earn them, but those are what I'd consider the most common. The penalty for Deck/Decklist Error is usually a Game Loss – a steep penalty because the potential for abuse is so high. Be careful with this one, and when the judge tells everyone to take one last look over their decklists, I implore you to actually do it. Judges hate giving this one out, because it's usually so easily avoided.

My first infraction ever was a Deck/Decklist Problem. I didn't fill one out because I didn't know it was required. Whoops. By the time I was informed of this, round 1 was already well underway, and my opponent was happy to be cruising onto game 2.

2) Game Rule Violation

A Game Rule Violation is a general catchall category for an issue that takes place during the game, but doesn't fall into any of the other categories. Generally, it means that you did something that you shouldn't have done. At the moment, the most common one of these that comes to mind is putting a creature into the graveyard after it's been killed by a Pillar of Flame. There isn't much to say about this one except that you should make sure that you are doing your best to adhere to the text on cards.

3) Missed Trigger

Everyone take a deep breath, because I know that you've heard tons about this one. You've heard things about lapsing and nonlapsing triggers. You've heard tons about people getting disqualified for ignoring triggers, and abilities that don't happen when they should.

Relax. Take a deep breath. This one isn't that tricky.

First off, some info, and the largest change between Regular and Competitive REL. At Competitive REL, you are required to demonstrate awareness of each one of your triggers. If you (or your opponent) do not, then the trigger is considered missed, and a judge should be called.

Full stop.

When a judge is called, a couple of things will happen. First, the judge will establish if the trigger was actually missed. A trigger is considered missed if the player who's trigger it was has taken an action after the trigger would have resolved without indicating that they were aware of the trigger. Second, the judge will ask the opponent of the player if they would like to place the ability on the stack. (The answer will generally be no. Do I want my opponent to gain 2 life and a 2/2 wolf token – no, no I do not.) As far as the game goes, that's the end of it.

Then, based on if the ability is detrimental to the player, they may get a warning, but that's not generally something that players will need to worry about.

The penalty for a missed trigger is usually nothing, but is occasionally a Warning, however, you likely won't get your trigger unless it hurts you in some way. Failing to activate a trigger deliberately and pretending you missed it, by the way, is cheating, so don't do that.

If you have any more questions about missed triggers, I strongly suggest you read Level 5 Judge Toby Elliot's Blog on the Topic. It can be found HERE. There is additional commentary HERE as well.

4) Looking At Extra Cards

This one is actually remarkably common. Have you ever been shuffling your opponent's deck and accidentally spilled it all over the table? You looked at some extra cards. Ever try to draw a card and the top one flipped over onto the table? Looking at extra cards.

It generally takes place whenever someone looks at (but doesn't draw!) extra cards.

To avoid this one, just simply be deliberate with your actions. Be sure you've only picked up one card. Shuffle gently (but thoroughly!) with your opponent's deck. Doing this is a Warning.

5) Drawing Extra Cards

On the other hand, if instead of just looking at extra cards, you actually draw extra cards into your hand (indicated by the cards making contact with the rest of your hand) we've entered into a different penalty altogether. Drawing Extra Cards is one of the most extreme infractions that can be committed, because of how much potential for abuse there is, and how little an opponent could potentially do to stop it. Worse, because there's no easy fix, drawing extra cards is almost always a Game Loss.

There are some exceptions that you could look up, but those are extreme corner cases, and it's best to just simply be extra careful any time that you're drawing cards – this goes for drawing for turn, drawing dozens of cards in a single turn off a Glimpse of Nature, or casting a Sphinx's Revelation for a whole bunch. Count the cards before putting them into your hand, and we won't have an issue.

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There are a number of other infractions that can be given out for a variety of things, the vast majority won't actually apply in almost any situation. If you want to take a look at the entire list, the entire IPG is available for your perusal HERE.

I'd also like to point to a pair of articles that Jackie Lee, a notable professional player, has written on the topic of Competitive REL and Judges – Here and Here. They are both well-written, well-informed articles that I recommend to anyone looking to break into the competitive scene.

I want to take a couple of paragraphs at the end of this article to ease some concerns as well. If you're looking into starting at a Competitive tournament, you should consider the judge an ally. We exist to help you at all times, and make sure that the tournament is a fun experience for all. If someone at the venue, even another player or tournament official, is giving you a problem, please, speak to a judge about it. Likewise, if you are unsure of an interaction, or you think something has gone wrong in your game, call a judge. They will be more than happy to help you sort it out.

If, at any point, in any tournament, you ever need the assistance of a Judge, just raise your hand high (some of us have trouble seeing through all the spell-slinging, so clearer is better), and yell loudly “Judge!” One of us black-shirted folks will be by shortly to sort things out.

With that, may all your spells resolve, and good luck at any future events you take part in.

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.

Gatecrash Mechanics Primer

Gatecrash Previews are in full swing, and I am hopelessly addicted to refreshing the internet just after midnight to get a look at the new goodies that await us with each passing day. Those of you who know me should be aware that my loyalties lay with the Orzhov Church, and their blessings are mighty and sustain me even as they sap the strength of my foes. That aside, however, I am under the impression that some of these other Ravnican guilds have come up with a few more tricks, and I think that we should all take a close look at them, deciphering their varius strengths and weaknesses

A word of warning: I am posting this article three days into spoiler season. These opinions are based on the cards that I feel are likely going to be printed, and the strength of the mechanics themselves. These opinions are prone to changes, depending on cards that are going to be previewed between now and the prerelease.

Boros – Batallion

The first of the mechanics we'll be analyzing today belongs to the Boros Legion. Their newest trick is Batallion, a mechanic that gives you benefits for attacking with three or more creatures.

As Mark Rosewater has said on his blog regarding the entire block, it was very important to them to capture the feel of the guild, and Boros certainly fits the bill on that count. The guild revolves around the city-guard, military feeling, and a communal combat blessing feels both red and white. This mechanic is a flavor home run, and I know a couple Boros players who are very pleased with it.

From a Constructed viability standpoint, this mechanic has many of the same issues that Metalcraft had. That is, it requires a pretty significant commitment to the board. For many decks, attacking with three creatures isn't a common occurrence. Perhaps some kind of Tokens shell could enable it, or a critical-mass stlye aggro deck that presents a strong front that enables Batallion to go over the top, but as a general part of a deck, I'm less than impressed with it.

In Limited, on the other hand, Batallion gives Boros a lot of strength in the midgame, when they're hoping to push through the last few points of damage. When you're not worried about Supreme Verdict and other board wipes, it seems much less likely that you'll be punished for casting all your creatures.

When constructing a Boros deck, try to keep the relative costs down, so you can get your troops to the field of battle early and often, enabling Batallion as quickly as possible in an attempt to overwhelm your foes.

Dimir – Cipher

The Dimir mechanic is the only non-permanant mechanic of the bunch, and certainly the most mechanically complex. A close relative of auras and imprint, Cipher allows you to reuse some of your expended spells – as long as you can keep connecting with a creature. It does require some concessions in deck building to make it work, but it's definitely something that we can work with.

By playing with Cipher, you're making a commitment to at least some matter of evasive creatures, with a special bonus to creatures that are hard to deal with. A cheap, hexproof, unblockable creature comes to mind as a recent example of where the mechanic could go in Standard, and depending on the effects that we see attached to the mechanic, this could be a standard powerhouse.

On the other hand, in Limited, how good Cipher is going to be will be dictated entirely by your creature base, and what you think you can connect with. Repeating spells in Limited is an extremely powerful option for any deck, so the raw power available isn't in question. However, Cipher has many of the same issues that Auras do. The cards are budgeted with their cipher ability in mind – so if you're unable to utilize that portion of the card because your spell-carriers keep getting killed, then you're likely to feel like you're playing with subpar spells.

For the Dimir, though, getting to connect seems less of an issue than with most guilds. Blue and Black have a plethora of effects that allow you to get through to your opponent so that you can get the most out of your spells. Try to always have one creature making it through the front lines, so that your repeatable spells take control of the game.

Gruul – Bloodrush

“Does he have the trick?”

How many times have you thought that in a game of Magic? Regardless if you're slinging spells at a prerelease, or sitting in Top 8 of a Grand Prix, being able to play around combat tricks is a critical skill that we all need to learn. This mechanic – a variation on Kamigawa's Channel – provides a simple answer.

“I always have the trick.”

This mechanic is simple and effective, much like the Gruul themselves. It allows you to discard any creature with the ability for a commensurate increase to power, toughness, and even keywords. This puts combat strictly in the hands of the Gruul, allowing them to dictate the pace of the game based on their untapped mana. I expect a few cards to see Constructed play, given that they're looking fairly aggressively costed for their relative power/toughness ratios, and the addition of Domri Rade to the Red/Green arsenal is certainly going to make creatures with spell-like-effects a premium. The Gruul mechanics seem to marry this idea well, and I'd be shocked if we didn't see a breakout from this guild.

On the other hand, Bloodrush comes with it a cost, and an extreme one at that. While you can use the leverage that your ability gives you to force through an attacker, be wary of opposing combat tricks – or removal. A quick removal spell in response to your bloodrush provides a two for one in the opposite direction, and blowouts like that hurt aggressive decks far more, without the card advantage to make up for it.

Because of this, I expect that Gruul will either be one of the best or worst preforming guilds at the prerelease, based entirely on the playskill of the pilot. The ability to minimize the risk and maximize the benefit of every bloodrush creature is going to be key to doing well with the guild. Make sure that you take into account your opponent's possible actions whenever you plan to lean on a Bloodrush. The Gruul may be portrayed as stupid and simple, but that doesn't mean that you have to be!

Orzhov – Extort

The next mechanic that we'll be looking at belongs to the Glorious, Ineffable, Wonderous Church Of Deals. While everyone paying attention realizes that the Orzhov, in their benevolent (yet fair) rule, are truly the best of the ten guilds, some may need further convincing. To those, the Orzhov offer merely this:

The Orzhov mechanic is the distilled essence of nickel and diming someone to death. With each spell, you drain a bit of their life, granting it to yourself (for an incidental cost). While this ability didn't initially excite me much, despite my loyalties, abilities like it in the past have been powerful.

There is some evidence that effectively spending your mana is the key to winning a vast number of Magic games, and Extort provides an easy mana sink for you to get the most out of every turn. In Constructed, it could (if placed on the right cards) provide a late-game win condition for a control deck. I would expect that it will see play as long as it's not valued too high in the budget – allowing competitive cards to be printed with the ability almost as an afterthought.

My main concern with the ability comes in Limited play. Gatecrash has a number of guilds and draft strategies that reward linear, aggressive play. The Boros and Gruul both seem very aggressive, while the Simic have a powerful lategame with their growing creatures. This array of early game rushes, and late game powerhouses, could overwhelm the Orzhov defenses before they're able to extract enough life to survive or threaten a kill. We'll have to see the quality of aggressive cards at common in the other guilds – or else the measure of the defenses that the Orzhov colors could muster. Either way, the mechanic is a powerful one, and certainly not one to be ignored.

You're going to want to have extra mana laying around to pay for Extort with. I'd recommend adding one land more than you might otherwise choose, to maximize the tax for each card you play.

Simic – Evolve

The final guild mechanic in my writeup is Evolve. Designed as part of the Great Designer Search (along with Batallion), it provides Green and Blue with a method to constantly grow their creatures, and provides fodder for other abilities that key off these +1/+1 counters.

Of the five mechanics, Evolve seems like the one that has the most potential for Spikes. It provides constant choice making, and complex decision trees that allow a good player to maximize the benefit that they get from their cards. Just based on the few previews that we've seen so far, the Simic will have no lack of choices for their games.

In Constructed matches, Evolve will provide you with an ever-growing force, assuming you construct your deck carefully and manage to maintain a reasonable curve of creatures. The potential issue that I see involves the cards being generally slow to work up to their full potential, and often requiring mana expenditure for their abilities. This could mean that the deck will struggle to do all that it wants to be able to, which could cost it some board presence in the early game, potentially putting it too far behind the metaphorical 8-ball by the time that it stabilizes.

In Limited, however, especially sealed, when games can be expected to go a little longer, and decks to be a little less refined, Evolve seems like a powerful tool to make your early creatures relevant through the late game, and your late game unparalleled among the guilds. I know that despite my diehard loyalty towards Orzhov colors in every format that I can play them, some of the early Simic previews have sorely tempted me towards these mad scientists.

One recommendation that my early observations would lead me to is this: Simic will never want for things to do with their mana. Your job is to make sure that you can slake that thirst. Play one land more than you otherwise might in your Simic decks.

Conclusion

While each guild has it's strengths and weaknesses, one of them is surely right for you. If you favor aggressive decks, I'd lean towards Boros or Gruul. For those of you who like controlling options, Orzhov, and Dimir have your back. For simplicity, look to Boros. While Simic seem to rule the complexity spectrum.

Each guild will give you opportunities to out maneuver, out-think, and outplay your fellow planeswalkers. Choose carefully at the end of the month, and prizes will flow to you.

And, as always, may all your 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.



-----

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

Defending Against Cheating

This past weekend featured the first World Magic Cup, and the presentation was great. If you missed the coverage, I’d wholeheartedly encourage you to head over to the Wizards twitch.tv page (www.twitch.tv/magicprotour) and check out a couple of the matches. It’s a great tournament, with strong coverage segments, and the usual great casting team from Wizards.

That said, since the tournament ended, there have been some allegations thrown around. Some people, analyzing the video, think that a member of the Puerto Rican team cheated in the finals (and who knows how many other matches off-camera).  The video in question can be found here: Was Jorge Iraman Trying To Stack His Deck at the World Magic Cup?

Now, I’m positive that the DCI is investigating this at the moment – that is, after all, their job. So I’m not here to pass judgment or blame or even say if I think he actually did cheat or not. But one thing that this event does highlight is that players need to be careful. At competitive events with cash (or plane flights, or trophies) on the line, people will cheat, and we need to be prepared for it.

Today, we’re going to go into a couple of different ways that someone can try to cheat you, and some easy remedies for it. Note that I’m specifically talking about ‘things that will get him disqualified if a judge is watching.” This is not meant to address someone trying to Jedi-Mind-Trick you into using Esper Charm on yourself. Slimy play is an entirely different thing from cheating.

The methods that a cheater will use vary greatly. Go watch a few magicians (the ‘real’ kind, not the ones playing MtG – the guys who make stuff disappear, or manage to pull a royal flush out of a falling deck of cards [Source: Reddit, thanks /u/SlimGrim]) and you’ll see that their acts are likely very different. Same goes with MtG cheaters – the ways that they can cheat are as numerous as the stars, and there’s absolutely no way that you can be trained to identify and stop all of them.

A quick aside here on what you should do if you notice someone cheating. Immediately raise your hand and call for a judge. Ask to speak to him away from your opponent. The judge is trained in being able to investigate these situations. He will make inquiries into the situation and, if unsure, discuss things with the head judge (if the event is large enough to merit multiple judges). They will come to a conclusion and everyone can abide by it – one way or another. It is not your job to execute a punishment. It is not your job to determine guilt. Your job, as a player, is merely to bring the matter to the attention of a judge if you believe that something suspicious is going on.

Good, now that we’ve covered that, the first major ways that people are going to cheat happen before the game even starts. Our cheater sits down at the end of the last round and carefully stacks his deck to be perfectly spell-spell-land-spell-spell-land all the way through. This devious player is now guaranteed two or three lands in his opening hand, with a third land on the way quickly if he doesn’t have it. Of course, we all know that he has to shuffle before he actually presents, so he makes a great show of cutting the deck a few times in front of you before passing it over. You cut the deck and begin play. He doesn’t mulligan, because his deck is still stacked.

However did that happen?

This is called mana weaving, and it’s one of the oldest cheats in the book. By mana weaving, you make your spell-land density uniform across your deck. This is not randomized. It is important to know the difference between a completely randomized set and something that it uniformly distributed. In this case, they’ll even look similar to the naked eye. The couple of cuts that have gone into the deck will make minor inconsistencies in the perfect weave, but the vast majority of the deck will still be prearranged.

Similar things can happen with a variety of other cheats. Subtly moving a card to the bottom of the deck, then manipulating your shuffle to bring it to the top is not only possible, but extremely easy. Doing the same so that the card ends up in the middle of the deck, slightly off-kilter to encourage you to cut directly to the card, is also possible. It’s even possible to do this while nominally rifle shuffling the deck. There are dozens of variations on these cheats, but they all boil down to the same thing – deck stacking.

How can we stop things like this? Simple, actually. The number one defense against deck stacking, mana weaving, and any kind of nonsense is twofold, and actually required by the rules of Competitive REL tournaments.

He must present his deck to you to shuffle. You, as a cheating-conscious player, should pick up his deck and shuffle it. I don’t mean cut it. I mean shuffle. You are well within your rights to randomize the deck however you find sufficient as long as you don’t damage the cards. (I’d like to take an aside here and remind you to be gentle with your opponent’s deck. We’d like to think that our cards are important to us, and could even be worth a fair bit of cash. No reason to cause damage here. Just be a little gentle with them.)

Cheaters practice at what they do. There’s a good chance that you won’t notice it if they shuffle in a slightly shady manner. However, but shuffling the deck thoroughly – every time, even after he just searches the bottom five cards for a land off his T1 Evolving Wilds – will prevent any kind of weaving or searching or ordering of his deck.

Realize that – you can completely blunt an angle of cheating by playing fairly! That’s awesome.

Some other methods of cheating are a little more insidious and require us to actually pay attention to things. Periodically keep track of the opponent’s number of cards in hand – ask him if need be, and write the information down on your life pad. If it seems like he has more than he should, look back and make sure. If he has drawn an extra card at some point, call a judge – that’s a game loss for a good reason. For all you know, he could’ve subtly moved a Batterskull back to his hand after you Cliqued it away.

There’s one more kind of cheating that I’ve heard about – but admittedly never experienced myself. It’s most endemic at small store FNM’s, especially involving players that don’t necessarily have the best grasp of the rules, or if there’s no official judge present. It usually involves one player bullying the others into accepting ‘his ruling’. Often this player is just lying because he thinks he can get away with it and win the tournament as a result, but sometimes it’s accidental. As always, your best weapon is simply knowledge – know the game you are playing. I’m not saying that you need to be Judge-level-knowledgeable (though that certainly helps) but if you have a smart phone, there are plenty of apps that let you look up a rule if there’s a dispute. (I’d like to publically call out MTGJudge from the iTunes App Store on this one, because it is a *spectacular* resource that also provides a card lookup.) Don’t be afraid to bring the question to an outside party. Remember – your opponent has a vested interest in you losing! Don’t trust that his ruling is correct.

In conclusion, know your rules, and be willing to look them up if you’re uncertain. Shuffle your opponent’s deck. Make sure that you are clear in your declarations and actions during the game, and you’ll find that a healthy amount of cheating just isn’t possible against you anymore.

Personally, that’s worth the extra thirty seconds of shuffling to me. I bet the Taiwanese national team feels the same way, and are extremely happy that they didn’t just leave that Etched Champion on the top.

Also, congratulations to the Taiwanese team. They played some great magic throughout the weekend and provided quite a bit of quality entertainment for me and my friends. I’m already looking forward to the next segment of the year – complete with 2 GP’s, a couple of Star City Games events, and countless other opportunities for me personally– not to mention judging and some other projects I’m working on.

It’s a good time for Magic, cheaters or not. Let’s make the best of it.

Till Next Time,
Andrew

[Editor's Note: It has been brought to my attention that Mike Flores has written a few articles on this topic as well. Please find links to them if you'd like some additional reading:
The Miser's Guide To Savage Cheats
How To Cheat

Thanks to /u/0rangeSoda on Reddit for the tip! Enjoy!]