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. 

Reboot

Good morning everyone. My name is Andrew Rula. I am an avid Magic player and Level 1 Judge. I write this here blog, and I've been more than a little bit negligent in my duties. After a couple of months of consistent two per week posts, I slacked off and missed a couple of months straight. Frankly, I got out of the habit, and I haven't been playing in a ton of events.

Fortunately, with the new year, I'm re-dedicated to exploring the world of Magic. Since last I wrote, there's been some changes in how I play and interact with the game. As such, the tone of this blog is going to be subtly changed. I am still a player, with Spike and Good Guy tendencies – and no, those are not mutually exclusive. I am a Judge, now over six months out from my Level 1 exam, and moving towards Level 2 as quickly as I can reasonably do so.

I've also had another major shift in how I play Magic – that is, my girlfriend has begun playing. Introducing her to the game has been a major time sink, and she's still learning remarkably quickly. I'll be going much more into this topic in the future, but the whole process really deserves proper treatment in it's own article.

This coming month is going to be a busy one – between GP Atlantic City, judging a SCG IQ, and the Gatecrash Prerelease. I should have more than enough to write about in the meantime. I'm also still working on Illyria, my custom set.

Fortunately, Magic has been exciting in the meantime. At the moment, we've got the most dynamic standard metagame in years. There are a number of viable decks, in various archetypes, that give players a variety of options – and the format shows no sign of stopping. It would appear that this standard never reached an unhealthy stagnation point. At the same time, Legacy's been the subject of one of the biggest shakeup's of it's history, thanks to Deathrite Shaman and the new BUG lists that have blossomed out of nowhere, striking a decisive blow against Maverick's share of the metagame. Even modern has been developing nicely, with the announcement of Modern Masters and a PTQ season underway, it'll be interesting to see if anything can break Jund's hold on the format.

Perhaps most importantly, at least for most players, is that Gatecrash Spoilers have begun. At the time of this writing, we have 40 confirmed spoils, and the set is already looking to have a major impact on Standard.

I'm going to make a promise to you guys, right here, right now. I will write two articles per week, to be posted on Tuesday and Thursday (with an attempt to have them submitted to the web at 9am). Despite being a little light on content, this will serve as the first article, with the next being submitted next on Thursday morning. At the moment, I plan for that article to be an overview of the keyword mechanics for Gatecrash, with an eye towards their playability from a design standpoint.

Until then, have a happy new year, and may all your spells resolve.

First Look: An Initial Analysis of Return To Ravnica

Good morning everyone. Apologies for missing Tuesday's post - there were some life interventions that caused me to temporarily have very little time and even less awareness of that time. I should be back on schedule now - and none too soon, because Return to Ravnica's spoiler season has started with a bang!

And by a bang, I mean that it's absolutely insane. Literally off the wall bonkers. We don't have a majority of the mythics spoiled yet, and I'm already thrilled for the amount of product that I'll be getting. Without further ado, let's jump right into things:

The Mechanics

Izzet - Overload

The Izzet get their traditional mad-scientist on and get an interesting mechanic in Overload. While I'm a little disappointed by design's choice to make the overloads all-upside and always more expensive, there's still a solid amount of value in the cards we have seen. I think it fits the theme very well, even without the potential to have your spell blow up in your own face. This mechanic has a ton of room to grow, and I could see it evolving nicely for 'Sinker' into a real powerhouse in standard.

It's interesting to see how the whole ideal of one-sided board wipes has started to come into it's fullest in the last few years. They've been getting pushed a lot harder since Lavalanche and Contagion Engine were the best options for us. Now, we've got a pretty-well locked down cost-to-effect ratio for the radiate effect. It'll be interesting to see how the existence of spells like bonfire and this effect the way people play - and build their decks.

Selesnya - Populate

Go ahead, cast bonfire. I dare you.

Obviously, as a tokens player, I'm thrilled that this card exists. With the opportunity to advance my board state while casting non-token spells, Tokens is going to seriously be a major force to be reckoned with in the upcoming metagame. I'm currently favoring Junk (BWG) colors due to Selesnyan influence, but I'm also crossing my fingers for an awesome enabler in Teysa, come Gatecrash.

As for Populate itself, it doesn't appear to have a whole lot of depth to it. This is a case of 'exactly what you get on the tin', which isn't bad - it means they don't need to work especially hard to mine the mechanic for all it's worth, while simultaneously keeping the complexity down. This is a good thing, especially in a block like Return to Ravnica, where we'll be getting a minimum of 10 new mechanics in just the first two sets. Locking down the complexity of the common cards is a great thing.

Azorius - Detain

Now here's a mechanic that I love. First off, it hearkens back to an older card that I love - Arrest, so they've already got awesome nostalgia points from me. Second off, the word itself fits perfectly with the flavor of the guild. Azorious permits everything - eventually. Detain captures that flavor perfectly and encourages blue-white to extend creatures to cause the detaining. This should lead to a more interactive style of gameplay that Blue/White is at it's most balanced in.

Also, props to Wizards for not going full-hog on this one and making the effect indefinite. Here's hoping that it doesn't accidentally spawn a major tempo deck again. I think that the majority of players in Standard are quite sick of a one-drop threat, and then nothing but removal and denial for the rest of the game. This mechanic is worrying in what it could do, but design-wise, it does exactly what you'd want to.

Rakdos - Unleash

On first glimpse, Unleash would seem to be a pretty lackluster mechanic. Your creatures can be extra-powerful if they give up their ability to block. Seems fairly straightforward, except that we've had word from Mark Rosewater that this was the mechanic that was the most problematic from a balance-standpoint. This certainly has a reasonable amount that you can do with it - "This gains XX if it has a counter on it" comes to mind immediately, and I'm sure there's plenty else you could do. (Counters as a cost for a powerful, one shot ability perhaps?)

While this seems simple on the surface, and not exactly the most Rakdos thing in the world, I'm willing to hold my breath on it and see where it goes. This set has been awesome enough thusfar that I'm willing to see where Wizards goes with this and trust them until I see the full spoiler. I encourage you guys to do the same.


Golgari - Scavenge

Hasty 3/3 for three with upside? I'll take it!

Back on the topic of abilities that tie into the guild flavorfully, we've got another one out of the park here. Scavenge does everything that the Golgari have been about since the dawn of time - using the graveyard to eke out every advantage in the book. As opposed to Dredge, this seems to be less likely to spawn a Legacy archetype, but that doesn't mean that we can't see hyper-efficient creatures from it. Overall, it seems like a solid ability that should see a fair amount of play in Standard - if only because Dreg Mangler is an extraordinarily efficient creature with a relevant creature type.

I can't see a whole lot of extra design room with this, unfortunately. Unless Wizards is willing to go the "if this card is exiled from a graveyard..." route, it looks pretty one dimensional - either a way to give an aggro deck a little bit of extra staying power, or else a way for midrange decks to keep up the powerful card advantage machine that they run off of.

Some Other Notables
It wouldn't do to write this article without mentioning some of the other all-stars that have been spoiled in the last few weeks. Notably, we have both planeswalkers, and a slew of removal spells that could shake up even legacy.

Glad to see you're over the Emo phase.

On the Blue front, we have a new Jace - complete with Fact or Fiction (ish). Personally, I think that he's a lot better than people are giving him credit for, and I'm actually pretty excited to see him in decks. He's a huge stopgap measure, capable of holding off an awful lot of attackers and still survive the process. For a four mana walker, he starts big and only gets bigger if you need him to, and with a minus ability that is just as good as drawing a card, it's hard to go wrong. His ultimate leaves something to be desired, but in the control mirror, it might just be the answer that you need to win the game.

Oh look, she makes Phage Triplets!

The Golgari have a walker as well in Vraska the Unseen. With only a day since she was spoiled, she's already pre-selling at $40. Some of my friends have bought sets already, speculating that Jund and BUG are going to be the new-era of control. Personally, I'm not so sure that she's THAT good, but she's certainly going to see quite a bit of play.

Her -3 is awesome, being a pseudo-vindicate. Already, we're doing alright on our rate. For one more mana, we get a walker attached to it that has a defensive ability and an easy win condition if we can get her to ultimate. Now, admittedly, the bar for a five mana walker is pretty steep. Elspeth Triel doesn't quite make the bar, but Gideon clearly does. Taimyo is good, but Jace 3.0 is pretty niche. Vraska is certainly on the positive side of that line, but she does have one glaring weakness:

She has the potential to sit there and do nothing for a while.

IF you're behind on the board (say you didn't manage to cast that T4 mutilate against an aggressive deck.) and you cast Vraska. You either -3, destroy their biggest guy, and then lose Vraska in a 5-mana 1 for 1, or you plus her, they attack you, and you're one step closer to death. Your five mana walker has done nothing that you couldn't do better with Hysterical Blindness. I've drafted basic lands over Hysterical Blindness, for comparison. Her plus ability has the potential to do less than a fourteenth pick. That makes me a little leery.

As far as support spells go, there's a couple of very awesome removal spells that deserve a mention. One is easily worth play in Legacy, while the other gets an award for being the first removal spell that specifically targets planeswalkers. Say hello to some new toys, everyone!

Take that counterbalance!

Sorcery Speed, but unconditional. Fair deal.

 So, these spells appear to be fairly notable for their effects, but their position as set-rares is an interesting departure from recent trends. When was the last time we had a staple removal spell at rare? I could be wrong with this, but my initial research wants to say Maelstrom Pulse. That seems like an exceptionally good precedent. I'd expect these cards to be heavily played throughout their time in Standard, with Abrupt Decay making a nice splash in the legacy scene due to being un-Force of Will-able.

At the moment, we're less than a third spoiled with the set, and Return to Ravnica already seems like one of the highest-power (and highest-value) sets to hit shelves in ages. Wizards has pulled out all the stops on this one because they know that fans have been clamoring to get back to Ravnica for years. They know how important it is that they deliver on this set - and they're coming through.

Here's hoping that the next two thirds of the set are just as impressive.

Until Next Time,

-Andrew

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