Looking Forward: Preparing for the Rotation

I don’t know if you feel the same way that I do, but with no big Standard tournaments on the horizon and spoils from Ravnica, From the Vault: Realms, Commander’s Arsenal, and the newly announced Holiday Box popping up everywhere, I’m having some trouble focusing on Standard. I’ll still play in FNM’s and such, but my weekends are looking insanely busy for the next few weeks, so even my opportunities to play noncompetitively are curtailed a bit.

With that in mind, I’ve begun looking at the future. As of the time of this writing, we have three spoils. The first, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, has been spoiled in Duel Decks: Izzet vs Golgari. (A product that plans to release with six (!) preview cards.) He provides a number of interesting synergies with the existing Zombie strategies, and the probable reprint of shock-lands would make the mana base not terrible. Also on the Golgari front, we have a large undercosted beater called Deadbridge Goliath which showcases their mechanic – scavenge.

Scavenge 4{G}{G} – (4{G}{G}, Exile this card from your graveyard: Put X +1/+1 counters on target creature, where X is this card's power. Scavenge only as a Sorcery.)

There’s some interesting design space here involving */* creatures, or something like that, but overall, the mechanic doesn’t excite me all too much.

Populate eh? I could dig it.

 In addition, we have a preview of the Silesnya mechanic – Populate – which would appear to dovetail very nicely with token strategies. I know people who have already been discussing new-era Tokens, assuming we can get another in-color anthem to replace Honor of the Pure.  Populate reads as follows:

(To Populate, put a token on the battlefield that’s a copy of a creature token you control.)

My immediate thoughts are that this definitely synergizes with tokens, for obvious reasons, and could possibly break when added to blue (a color that already has access to tokens-of-anything through cackling counterpart.) I don’t know if it’s strong enough, especially with 99% of the set remaining to spoil, but it’s certainly something that I’ll be keeping my eye on as we move forward.

Which brings me to the point of our article today – moving forward. All of us have our pet decks, crafted lovingly over the last few years of standard since Jace and Valakut left the format. I know I’ve personally struck out in a number of directions before finally settling on Tokens as my weapon of choice. Unfortunately for us, all of those strategies are going to need to be reevaluated come rotation.  This brings us to an exciting time, if you enjoy deckbuilding. The format breaks wide open, everything gets tossed up into the air, and we have a few glorious months to decide what’s going to happen.

Possibly even more important – States are coming up! They traditionally happen shortly after the release of the Fall set. (Last year was October 15^th) Because it’s so soon after the release, it tends to feature some of the best deckbuilding opportunities in the year. Prizes include plaques, free entry to tournaments, and perhaps most importantly, a play mat to the top 8.

I am such a sucker for playmats.

Traditionally, at the start of a new format, the decks that have done well at first were highly tuned lists that were adapted from previous highly tuned lists. Wolf Run Ramp was one of the biggest winners at last year’s States because of the work that had previously gone into making Valakut a contender. Not only did people have the majority of the deck already, making it easy to construct, but they were familiar with it’s playstyle.

Other decks fared less well. Neo-Caw, a deck that broadly tried to play  Caw-Blade’s style without Squadron Hawks and Jace, was utterly crushed without it’s critical cards. It didn’t have the permission to play a true control game, and lacked the power to play as beatdown. It fell by the wayside for a time before eventually returning (in spirit at least) as UW Midrange, a delver variant.

Why talk about these things? Simple – look at the past to determine the future. Decks with strong options nowadays will continue to be strong in a few weeks, if they don’t lose too much. Let’s take a look at some of the better decks in the format and highlight what they’ll be losing:

Makes you want to punch him in the face, right?

UW Delver:

While UW Delver is hardly a single deck, it does tend to have a couple of recurring trends. We can safely say that the creature core will remain intact – Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage, Restoration Angel, and Geist of St. Traft. (they lose Blade Splicer and Hero of Bladehold but many lists didn’t opt for those to begin with.) Invisible Stalker, while not a recent favorite, has seen play before, and could again. Likewise, while they lose the Sword of X and Y cycle, but Runechanter’s Pike is still a very serviceable option. The loss of Phantasmal Image also hurts.

Unfortunately for Delver players, the spell base of the deck has been absolutely gutted. With the loss of all their Phyrexian Mana spells, plus the majority of their card filtering, it goes without saying that the deck is going to need a complete overhaul. They can no longer lean on their incredible ability to use every point of mana every turn for drawing, assuming it didn’t go anywhere else. Speaking of other instant speed ways to spend mana, the loss of Mana Leak is very significant, representing a gap in their arsenal that the replacements (Negate and Essence Scatter) cannot deal with. With the loss of their most efficient options, Delver is probably going to take a pretty extreme hit from this rotation.

Zombies

Plus, Zombies seem like this guy's best friend.

While the core of Delver is it’s spells, Zombies has the opposite situation. While it loses some nominal strength from having no two-drop removal in the format, Tragic Slip is still a powerful option. None of the creatures in the deck (save Phyrexian Obliterator) are rotating. On the other hand, zombies receives one major boon that many have overlooked. Celestial Purge was not reprinted.  While the card had seen significant sideboard play, now Zombies have no direct hate – beating a Geralf’s Messenger never seemed harder.

The blue version of the deck seems weak, with the loss of Phantasmal Image as a primary draw to the color, but the BR Version loses almost nothing in the rotation, and also gets the opportunity to play Bonfire.

I’d be on the lookout for this one, folks.

Nope, No Ramp Targets Here.

Wolf Run Ramp

There are two major problems with this archetype as a whole at the moment. The first is that they’ve lose their surest kill condition in Primeval Titan. Whle that’s bad, it only highlights the bigger issue – there’s nothing to ramp to. Return to Ravnica may provide an answer here, but outside of Griselbrand (at a hefty 8 mana), there’s no Elesh Norn, no Titans, no huge swingy creature to put the game out of reach. The guild leaders and champions may give us some help here, but there’s pretty slim pickings overall.

Also notable is the issue of ramping itself. Without Solemn, Sphere of the Suns, and even Birds of Paradise, the ability to go 2-4-6-Titan has been compromised. We do have Farseek, but there isn’t a whole lot else that feels strong enough to justify ramping as a strategy. We may finally be entering an age where ramping to a haymaker isn’t a viable strategy, for the first time since the Worldwake prerelease.

I can’t say I’m going to miss it.

Reanimator/Solar Flare

Much like above – what exactly are you trying to reanimate? A thragtusk? We can talk more if there’s some decent reanimation targets, but until then, I wouldn’t bother. It is notable that this deck does remain intact except for the ACTUAL WAYS TO WIN.

RG Aggro/GW Aggro

While RG aggro is a great deck with a lot of power behind it, one of the reasons that it’s as strong as it is lays entirely with the Swords. Without them, RG will suffer. I don’t want to say unviable, because the creature and spell base are both potent weapons, but coupled with the probably loss of Birds of Paradise, and I think that the deck could be outclassed by anyone trying to go bigger. The loss of Green Sun’s Zenith also hits their consistency hard, still, the deck’s core is there. I just don’t know if it’s enough. Then again, the lack of Day of Judgment is going to push the format closer to creatures, and having Bonfire as an auto-win in the creature-mirror is always reasonable, and the GW version gets Gavony as a late-game pressure play.

Birthing Pod (Naya, Bant, RG, Zombie, etc)

Birthing Pod is rotating. All these decks die. It’s pretty simple here.

Infect

Sorry Phyrexia. You cannot defeat the ravages of time. No more action here.

Trading Post / Mono Black Durdle

While I poke a ton of fun at this deck, it is going to be the deck with the most consistent board wipes in the format. Without Day of Judgment as an option, this deck has a ton of powerful options. Unfortunately, it loses a lot as well – all of its kill conditions lay in the Scars block, and it loses a ton of consistency with the loss of the Wellsprings. I’d expect this deck to shift – becoming BW at the least, which would weaken its Mutilates, (though, with shock lands, perhaps not too much) but ultimately give it better options.

BW Tokens

These guys look like they could get down with some Spirit tokens.

The loss of Honor of the Pure is actually just crippling here. We could make due without Hero of Bladehold, but we *need* eight anthems to make the deck a real thing. There are options – UW Tokens with Talrand, using Favorable Winds, or Junk Tokens with acceleration and Gavony Township, but regardless, things are going to change.

Or hey, maybe Orzhov and Silesnya both give us some goodies and we reign supreme across the format.

Naya Aggro/Naya Humans

It always seems to come back here, doesn’t it?

Naya does lose a lot – the loss of Birds of Paradise damages their already fragile mana base, but the addition of Shocklands should more than make up for that in time. Blade Splicer will be a hit, and might make the white portion of the deck not worth it, however, my guess would be that they’d add in some lower-end ramp spells and just try to go bigger, assuming they can’t find a good three-drop to fit the bill.

Plus, Bonfire is still good, right?

Swoon

UW Humans/Boros Humans/Balls-Out-Aggro

The balls-out aggro deck is always a popular one right after a rotation – and with good reason. If someone isn’t properly respecting it, it often just gets a walkover. However, this deck usually folds to the careful application of any-kind-of-board-wipe. I’d be careful about this deck, but any kind of sweeper is probably enough to keep you safe, and I suspect that there’s no way this can compete with the Zombie deck out of the gates.

Esper Planeswalkers

Now we’re talking! While the deck does lose some things – Gideon and whichever Titans it chose for that week – it does still have a couple of powerhouses. Sorin and Tamiyo are both strong options, and with a new Jace on the horizon, and new Liliana being able to find shocklands to fix your mana, we could have a real deck here. Lingering souls is still just as good as it ever was, and access to Terminus and (albeit weaker) Mutilates could be the key to surviving an aggro heavy world. Keep an eye on this one too, assuming they can plug the holes – but I think this is probably the most reasonable of the control decks in the future.

Mono-Green Fight Club

People have been giving this deck some credit around the internet, but honestly, I don’t think staying Mono-green is worth it in a world without Dungrove Elder. Try to go with a two-color shell, likely GR or GW. In that case, just look above.

Tempered Steel

Lost the namesake spell. No Inkmoth Nexuses. Not worth chatting about anymore.

Elves

Loses everything. Literally 60% of the deck is gone, including Ezuri, Genesis Wave, and Copperhorn Scout. Llanowar Elves are gone, and we’re stuck with a lackluster tribal shell that doesn’t go anywhere.

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Did someone say awesome legendary dragon?

So, where does that lead us? That’s a topic for another day – when we have more spoils from the upcoming set. There’s a lot to work with in the Innistrad Block, but Return To Ravnica will bring plenty of innovations in tow – not to mention much stronger manabases. Shocklands are going to have more ramifications than most realize. Not only will 3 colors be easier, but when you reasonably start with 2-6 less life, aggro decks get much more dangerous.

We’ve also got some other considerations to take into account – each guild will have a keyword, which means we’re dealing with minimum 5 new keywords in the coming set, and five additional in a couple months after that. It only takes one to spawn the next Dredge Archetype, and a bunch of strong legendary creatures are bound to shake things up (Hi Niv-Mizzet! Don’t eat me!)

It’s an exciting time to play magic. Which guild are you most excited for? Are you going to adapt an old deck, or aim for a new one? What’s your strategy and tactics going towards the next set?

Choose your weapon.

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As always, feel free to leave questions or comments here, or on the reddit thread. I’m helping a friend move this weekend, so I won’t be playing any Magic, but there will still be an article here on Tuesday – likely about my preparations for the Judge Conference and GP Boston-Worcester next weekend, which I will be attending.

Until next time,

Andrew

Bye Bye Bye - Why Planeswalker Points Are Important

Hey man! I haven't seen you around here in ages.

Yea, I've been pretty busy traveling.

So, you coming to Sunday drafts now?

Absolutely. I’m grinding for points. Didn’t you hear? There’s a GP in Philadelphia in October. Got to be ready.

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As some of you may know, this coming Sunday represents the end of the second Planeswalker Points season. For some of us, that makes this week a flurry of furious playing and grinding, with the hopes of gathering those last few points. For others, the entire idea of planeswalker points seems alien and obtuse.

Why are we seeking planeswalker points like they’re some finite resource? Why do some of us keep track of the number with post-its and bookmark the page in our browser to make sure that everything is up to date?

There’s a couple reasons for it, honestly, and to start, I’d like to tell you my story.

A few months ago, I decided that I was interested in joining the Magic Competitive Scene. Previously, this meant going to GP’s and PTQ’s, hoping to qualify and make it to the Pro Tour. Unfortunately, my level of skill at that point was nowhere near where it would need to be to have a chance at either of those events. I wasn’t thinking clearly about what I’d need to do to succeed. I was flush with success with a Top 8 at a 75 person GPT, and I thought I was one of the best players ever. Seriously. I actually thought that.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really have anything to work towards. There weren’t any GP’s in the area, so I just shrugged it  off and kept playing in GPT’s and SCG:IQ’s. The story could have ended here.

Then there was an announcement. A special tournament – held three places across America. The World Magic Cup Qualifier. All jokes about qualifying for a qualifier aside, I knew that this was an event I wanted to participate in – and it was fairly local: just past Baltimore, maybe a two hour drive. I checked the requirements and found that I needed 300 Planeswalker Points to get an invitation.

I fired up the handy website and took a look. The system is pretty simple – three points for a win, one for a draw, none for a loss, and then multiplied by the kind of event it was.

FNM – 7 points

FNM – 4 points

FNM – 7 points

This looked like it was going to take a while.

GPT Baltimore – 66 points.

Wait, what? Sixty six? Well, I suppose that the event was seven rounds of Swiss, where I went 6-1, and you get some points for participation…

 If you’re looking to grind points, events with a multiplier are where it’s at. There’s just no competition. You could win 9 rounds of FNM, and it’s likely worth less than winning three at a GPT – or just a little bit more than two at a PTQ. A single win at a GP is worth more than two flawless Friday victories at your local game shop.

But why do we want these points? Even ignoring the primal urge – present in every nerd – to make numbers go upwards. (Seriously, take a look at every RPG ever. That’s all we’re doing) Surely there are rewards for earning all these points! Well, luckily for us, there are – and the rewards are significant. Let’s take a look at some of the numbers to know for the current system.

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Byes:

By gaining planeswalker points in the current system, you can earn Byes at Grand Prix events. A bye is a free win in one of the early rounds, and any player can have up to three. Having them is an enormous advantage, and for many, these are the primary benefit of Planeswalker Points. These points accrue over the course of a season. The most recent season ran from April 2, 2012 – August 19, 2012. The next season, which begins on Monday, runs from August 20, 2012 – December 16, 2012. If you earn byes during a season, they will apply for the duration of that season and for the next one as well.

                -One Bye: 400 points

                -Two Byes: 750 points

                -Three Byes: 1500 points

Invitation to the World Magic Cup Qualifier:

 Where Grand Prix Byes count based on a single season, the World Magic Cup Qualifier tracks points over an entire year. The most recent World Magic Cup Qualifier season began on April 2, 2012, and will end on March 17, 2013. To be invited, you need to reach a threshold based on your country. These range from the USA – where you’d need 500 points within the year, to small countries like Peru, where the cutoff is a mere 100 points. You can find the list of thresholds HERE.

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For those of you wondering if a Bye is even worth anything to you, it’s a fairly simple question. If you are going to a GP, the bye is absolutely worth it. Compared to the FNM’s and other events that you’ve gone to, GP’s can be more likened to a marathon. With two days of play and thousands of dollars of prize on the line, you need to be at your best to have a chance, and that means giving yourself advantages before you walk in the door.

A normal GP plays 9 rounds on Day 1. To advance, you need to be 7-2 or better. Going 7-2 in a tournament is no mean feat, and even a single bad mulligan could spell the end of your tournament aspirations. With three byes under your belt, you mitigate that to a paltry 4-2 to make the second day of play (and put yourself in contention for a reasonable cash payout!) In addition, the three byes have the related side effect of making your tiebreakers markedly higher than those without byes. Because people playing since round one will have their tie breaks calculated off all their opponents, they account for the person who started off 0-1, 1-1, and 2-1. Your worst tiebreaker player is the person you hit in the fourth match, who (assuming you win) will be 3-1 at that point. This could buy you the crucial percentage points that elevate you into the “I won something!” arena.

This coming season, for example, I’m planning on attending two GP’s – one in Boston, and one in Philadelphia. Each Bye I earn puts me that much closer to Day 2. Because I played in GP Atlanta, as well as a number of other events, I’ve earned over 900 points, easily enough for my second bye, but still a far cry away from my third. With the addition of a second GP to my personal schedule in this coming season, it would be a reasonable thing for me to expect getting a third bye in the coming season. As my play gets more precise, I expect to earn more points for any given tournament. GP Atlanta earned me a cool 200 points, and I didn’t even make Day 2. If I had, it easily could have been a 350-400 point weekend.  I certainly wouldn’t have been as close as I was if not for the three byes I had.

This is more or less how GP Atlanta felt with three free wins..

This coming season, I’d encourage you to set yourself a goal – be it your first bye, in case you attend a GP early next year (the schedule should be announced soon!) or qualification for the World Magic Cup Qualifiers, or whatever you decide. Set yourself a goal, and then set out to attain it!

[Editor's Note: The Planeswalker Point website can be found HERE.]

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I hope that you guys enjoyed this look at the planeswalker point system, and what we can get out of it as a competitive player. Next post comes in Thursday, where I’ll talk a little bit about what I see in the format going forward.

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.

No Post 8/7/2012

With some regret, I will not be posting a full length article today. My work trip has been unexpectedly busy, and despite a reasonable finish at SCG:DC, I haven't had time for a proper write up. I will be posting the write up on Thursday.

Thank you,
Andrew

Beat em or Join Em?: The Problem With Bonfire

Format Warping

There, I said it. I’ve played in quite a few tournaments since the release of Avacyn Restored, and one thing has started to become more and more clear over the last few days. Bonfire of the Damned is – and is going to - warp the format.

When Miracles first came out, many Magic writers took their fingers to keyboard and decided to write a bit about the issues with Miracle. What were they trying to do? What does the mechanic accomplish? Is the mechanic any good in reality?

Well, we have our answer. With the price of Bonfires reaching $35 at most online vendors and rising steadily, it looks like we’re going to be living in a world where Bonfire is the shadow looming large over the whole format. Whenever a player has Red in their deck, I cringe every time that their hand touches their deck for the draw. The primer for the Hallelujah deck that won the Pro Tour said it best – you need to play up your draws, make the opponent tilt every single time you touch your deck.

When I’ve got six 2/2 tokens in play, there are no safe top decks anymore if you have a mountain.

The word 'Boom' comes to mind.

 

I wasn’t sure how good it was myself. I kept playing BW Tokens, and I was shocked when my matchup against GR, which had previously been fairly close (if they didn’t blow me out with a Sword) was all of a sudden turned around by a crippling Bonfire at any stage of the game. I feel like you’d need to be playing 12 anthems to have a chance of ‘outrunning’ it. Naya, running Restoration Angel and Thalia, doesn’t even feel close. They just stone-wall me at every turn, keep me from casting anything of consequence, and crush me with a vastly superior creature base.

 I still didn’t believe it though. I kept playing events with BW Tokens, and every time someone cast Bonfire, I lost. It seemed normal though – it seemed fair. Lights didn’t go on in my head until my girlfriend and I were sorting through some Alara Block commons and uncommon (I’m working on the Shard Wars, and while she doesn’t play the game, she seems to really enjoy the art.) I was flipping through the Conflux section and I pulled out a card, instantly knowing the story behind it.

I'd be Bitterblossem if this was printed too.

 

“Oh hun, check this card out.”

“I like the movement in the picture. And the quote is pretty awesome too.”

“This card changed tournament magic. Remember that Faerie deck that I was telling you about?”

“Yea?”

“This card single handedly turned the tide on it. Once this card was printed, Faeries wasn’t the bad guy of the format anymore. It was to tailor built to kill Faeries that they just couldn’t compete.”

“That’s evolution for you.”

And then I stopped. I remembered every time I saw Bonfire get a four for one, or a six for one. I remembered seeing a field of creatures – twice lethal damage – during testing on Tuesday. I peeled the Bonfire, set X = 5, and killed him that turn from 20. The game wasn’t close – and then he lost it.

Let's be honest though. Cards warp formats all the time. Snapcaster has turned Unsummon from an unplayable card into a format staple. Jace caused Hero of Bladehold to be an actively terrible creature. The Eldrazi have made mill nonviable in EDH without bending over backwards to do it. That doesn't mean that we should call for bans, or complain. That means that it's time to innovate and figure out a solution to the problem. We have two choices here - we can either join the Bonfire crew (as I have at the moment with Naya) or fight against it (as I'm trying to do.) 

When that can happen, and you need to account for a one sided wrath of god for 3-4 mana, it’s going to change a format pretty significantly. You need to be on one of two sides in this format – for it or against it.

For Bonfire:

There’s a whole slew of decks that you can use to battle with Bonfire. There’s Naya in all its variations, R/G Aggro, we’ve got UR Delver, and even some zombie variants have the capability of running it. In the end, any deck with a reasonable board presence can and should run the card.

Reasonable board presence? Yes. Because if you’re not a deck that can capitalize on the “All your creatures are dead, but mine aren’t!” angle, you’d be better off with Slagstorm or Pyroclasm. Bonfire works very specifically when the effect is also a Falter for your whole team. This means that it’s best as the primary removal spell in an otherwise aggressive deck. Simple enough.

You should play Bonfire in any deck like this, because it’s frankly the highest impact card available for use. It does so much for it’s cost – even at standard cost, it’s just a slightly weaker, but more Flexible Flame Wave. That sounds like a reasonable card to me, and Bonfire is actually just better than that.

All hope is not lost for the rest of us though! There are options to be had if you don’t have the money to invest in cards that are more expensive than some fat packs.

Against Bonfire:

It seems like only yesterday that we were all trying to figure out a deck that could defeat Delver consistently, and rid us of the menace that was Delver, Mana Leak, Vapor Snag, and Snapcaster Mage. Fortunately, they appear to be on the decline, but it’s still a very reasonable deck. There are two main things that the deck does very well that allow it to combat Bonfire – a pro-active way and a reactive way.

Pro actively, Delver is able to deal a lot of damage with few cards. When your 1-drop is capable of being a lightning bolt every turn, you don’t generally need to overextend into the board to find your victory. Delver is very capable of killing you using only 2-3 cards, and using the rest as support. This minimizes the ability of the deck to expose itself to a Bonfire.

On the other hand, Delver has reactive answers to Bonfire. Restoration Angel, allows you to keep the offence going if a Bonfire does happen – letting you sneak a creature in ‘with haste’. Alternatively, you could use a mana leak/dissipate to remove the offending spell from contention. Bonfire is a fairly mana intensive spell, and with positive benefit for each added mana you use, so there’s a pretty decent chance that he’ll run it into your leak pretty hard.

The other option is a Ramp deck. Creatures scale upwards in toughness with mana cost – generally. You’re more likely to get a substantial body on a 6-7 mana creature than on a 2 mana guy. It seems obvious, but if you jump the curve with mana dorks or actual Ramp spells, then you’ll often be able to ‘outrun’ the Bonfire’s kill range. A turn 4 titan is way too fast for a bonfire player to deal with – by the time that he’s got 7 mana available, and can even potentially draw a Bonfire to kill it, the game is likely over. Elesh Norn fits into a similar area here, where her toughness makes her mostly-bonfire-proof. You also get the benefit of playing individual creatures that can win the game on their own.

In conclusion, the best ways to fight bonfire are the ways we’ve traditionally fought good sweepers – be bigger than them, be faster than them, or be able to stop them from casting it. Regardless, don’t you dare walk into a tournament right now without a plan, or you’ll end up on the receiving end of “Miracle Bonfire, X = 4, swing for lethal?”

It happens more than you’d think. This wekeend is Magic Game Day, and there will almost certainly be Bonfires in the room. Don't go in unprepared. Know your formats, sling some spells, come out on top.

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This weekend, I'll be at SCG: Washington DC on Saturday, spellslinging in the Standard Open. I don't have terribly high hopes for this tournament, but I'll be in the area, and it seems a waste to be in the city without participating. I've yet to decide what I'll actually be playing. It'll depend a lot on how I feel about the Naya mana base tomorrow, or if I'd rather just innovate BW Tokens to fight it. I'm hedging at the moment.