Top 4 at SCG Invitational Qualifier with Junk Tokens

Thus far, in my quest for Magic related fame and glory, I’ve gone to quite a few tournaments. Most have been in comic shops, or community rooms. I’ve played in convention centers and even a Wendy’s. (Delaware States '11 had overflowed its store’s fire limit, and so the top tables were played in a nearby Wendy’s with a separate judge, who was luckily nearby.) As I walked into the real estate brokerage, however, I had to admit, this was a first.

And not an unpleasant one either! Cyborg One, from Doylestown PA, puts on a great show. Knowing that they had a major Warhammer Event at the shop, they made sure that everyone was rerouted to an office park, where the father of a shop’s regular allowed them use of the space. Aside from being able to stretch out and have sufficient room to play, they also provided some exceedingly comfortable chairs and a well-heated and lit space.

I paid the entry fee and meandered around for a while. It was my first Invitational Qualifier – and the next invitational was only a two hour drive away – in Baltimore.  I didn’t feel confident in my ability to win, but I had promised myself something the night prior when testing – I would manage to get Top 8.

The room filled up.  I spent some time trading for Modern cards, still trying to build Maverick before the PTQ season is over. While I’m unsure if it’ll be done in time, it is a deck that I’m interested in having built for later seasons. I get to have a nice conversation with a guy who’s also playing Tokens, while I look at his binder – but we’ll come back to him later. With a few minutes left before the round, I wrote out my deck list.

Here’s what I played:

Round 1: Andrew– Mono Green Aggro

First round was called and I went to sit down. My opponent was a pink-cheeked blonde haired kid who looked fairly confident. I made a little small talk with him and asked if he’d done any bigger tournaments like this before. He admitted that he hadn’t, and I tried to put him at ease by telling him it was my first IQ as well. I wished him luck and we started.

I start off pretty quickly by landing a bunch of Human tokens, powered up by intangible virtue. That ground to a halt when Thrun hit the field, and we moved into a stall as he played a pair of Dungrove Elders. He couldn’t tap out, but I couldn’t swing in without dying. I make a misplay involving Thrun. He taps out to equip a Sword of War and Peace, and I use Beast Within before combat, not taking the Troll out with a double-block from my tokens.  It ended up not mattering though, as I land both of my Hero of Bladehold and swing for exact after some complicated math.

Game two was another mathematical nightmare, involving a series of chump blocks to keep an 8/8 Sworded Dungrove Elder at bay while I attacked in the air. Clutch play of the game was using a Beast Within on my own land to make a blocker on the final turn, before I swung for 8 damage in the skies.

1-0 (2-0 on games)

Round 2: Kevin– R/B Aggro

My second round opponent struck me as a pretty awesome guy, chatting freely and generally seeming happy to be in the 1-0 bracket. We talk about Standard for a bit before beginning. He’s on RB Aggro.  Blade Splicer on turn 2 stops his Stromkirk Noble, and I start to make a few creatures in the air when he taps out for Olivia.

I look down at my hand, and the closest thing I have to an answer is a Gavony Township. I hold my breath and start doing math on his increasingly dangerous Shrine against my unhappily small army of tokens. Luckily, Olivia needs two mana per ping, and Gavony Township increases my whole team by one per turn. I eventually (with the help of an intangible virtue) outpace her and swing in for lethal, forcing Olivia to chump to keep him alive.

The second game, I’ll admit, was sloppy on my part. I kept a one land hand against a red deck, relying on my pair of mana dorks to bail me out. Unfortunately, they’re both bolted, and I stumble on lands. Luckily, I draw what I need in the right order while he durdles around without much pressure and close out a game that was way too close for comfort. I really need to stop being cocky about my mulliganing. It’s the weakest part of my play by far.

2-0 (4-0 on games)

Round 3:  Tim - U/B Zombies

Tim seems like a giant teddy bear. He’s the most friendly guy in the world, despite his huge and muscular stature. I find out that he’s actually moved to Philly very recently, and was looking for a store. I recommended Redcap’s Corner, and he seemed to like what I had to say. Maybe I’ll see him there in future weeks.

The first game was much closer than it seemed, despite ending on turn 5. He beats me down to 10 while I hit him for a few points in the air. I land a Hero of Bladehold just before he drops an Obliterator of his own. Luckily, Sorin bails me out, providing the anthem that I need to swing for exactly lethal, despite the Obliterator.

Second game, I land an accelerated Blade Splicer into Sorin. A couple of blocks later, Sorin goes ultimate, stealing a Geralf’s messenger, a captain, and a Phantasmal Image. He scooped immediately after that.

3-0 (6-0 on games)

Round 4 & 5: Draw into Top 8.

At this point, I realize that I’m probably in pretty good shape in the five round tournament, and look for someone else in the 3-0 bracket. I find the other tokens guy, and he informs me that he’s pretty sure that 3-0 is a lock if we double-draw. We check out the math, and he’s right. There are four of us at 9 points, and two draws locks us in. We all shake hands, and go out for Burger King before the top 8.

While there, one of the other guys laughed and said “This must be what it feels like to be a Pro at a GP. Get three byes, win four matches, draw the next two rounds. Congrats on day two.”  I had to admit, that sounded like a pretty good deal.

When we get back, the top 8 meet and agree to split the prize pool – 9 packs each, or $36 in credit, plus our pins. That left the $250 travel stipend and the Invite for first place. I was pretty happy with having made it this far, especially with the double-draw in, but I didn’t feel like I was through yet. We sat down to play it out.

3-0-2 (6-0 on games)

Top 8: Matt with Burning Vengeance Reanimator

Matt was one of the other 3-0 players who drew in, so I was a little leery going into the match. I don’t have a lot of experience at the top of a tournament bracket.  Luckily, he was playing a relatively strange archetype, which managed to be the talk of the shop, so I knew going in that he was playing some Burning Vengeance deck with Unburial Rites. Not something I’d tested against, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately for Matt, he never gets to build up any pressure. In game one, Sorin sits on the board and made two emblems to go with an intangible virtue as my Gathered Townsfolk went the distance. Game two wasn’t closer, with a turn 3 Hero of Bladehold that he couldn’t answer. I felt bad, since his deck hadn’t really done anything in either game except play a bunch of filtering and not a lot of answers.

Despite the easy Top 8 round, I started having some doubts here. I know it sounds cliché, but I didn’t like my odds against any of the others. There was the other tokens player – with a WB list that probably stomped me in the mirror. He had Vault, which trumps my Gavony Township in a race, and twice as many anthem effects. In addition, there was a RG player, and a Delver player.

4-0-2 (8-0 on games!)

Top 4: Joe with RG Aggro

Unfortunately, I played like crap the entire set here. Not only did I peg him on the wrong deck, but I kept an even more marginal hand. After the turn 1 Copperline Gorge, I figured him for Wolf’s Run, and I never revised that even after having seen a Strangleroot Geist. I hadn’t tested the Wolf’s Run matchup before, and it was something that worried me, despite the fact that I had a strong sideboard plan against them. I kept a marginal hand in game one, involving three anthems, two lands (Plains and Swamp), and a pair of Blade Splicers. No green sources and no playable creatures means the hand is not keepable, but I choked and kept it.  I never saw the third land until he already had a Huntmaster flipped.

Game two went better despite my mulligan to 6, with me keeping up for a while until he played a sword that I didn’t have an answer for. A 2/3 Bird of Paradise beat me by itself, supported by a healthy allotment of wolves and geists on the ground. Had I been able to answer the Sword, I think I could have won this one pretty handily, but alas.

4-1-2 (8-2 on games)

Aftermath

While a Top 4 finish is hardly bad my first time out, I couldn’t help but have a bad taste in my mouth. I felt like I had thrown the game away. This feeling subsided somewhat when I took my credit and managed to pick up a pair of Vengevines, a Fauna Shaman, as well as a Hero of Bladehold (so I can return one of those to Marshall, at least.)

I watched my friend playing Tokens win the finals handily, though the matches were much closer than they should have been. In game two, he had the option to trade his Elsepth for the opposing Batterskull, and decided to gain life instead, losing Elspeth the following turn to a trampling Batterskull. In the end, though, an increasingly large contingent of anthems bore the tokens deck out and scored the victory and the blue envelope.

We helped the store owners close the place down, complementing them on a well run event. They’re hoping to run two qualifiers per set release from now on, and I can safely say that I’ll be attending the majority of those. Once they move into their larger store in the next few months, they promised to look into a Super IQ – which gives out awesome playmats as prizes in addition to the rest.

I can't say enough good things about the Cyborg One crew, except to say that I'll be attending all their future events without question. Stand up guys all around, and a great experience.

The winning tokens player and I got to talking, and he mentioned that he needed to walk nearly three miles to the train station, take a train back to his place, then take another hour and a half worth of busses to his girlfriend’s place. I offered him a ride, since it was more or less on the way, and I didn’t really know how to get back to Philly from where we were. Seemed dumb to have to travel for 3-4 hours just to get 40 minutes away. He accepted.

You always hear that the best part of Magic is the people, but I’d never really believed it till now. Everyone I’d ever hung out with at a tournament had been people that I went to the site with. It took about an hour and a half to get back to Philly, and Vishra rode with me the majority of the way. We discussed the deck, and I got a nice ego boost when he mentioned that he’d read my blog from the link on MTGSalvation.

Shoutout to you Vishra, and best of luck in Baltimore! I’ll be watching for you on stream!

Until next time everyone,
Andrew

1st at Magic Game Day: Dark Ascension

As you may have heard in my last post, Magic Game Day was this past weekend, and I was out to win the top prize – the Thraban Heretic playmat. I had a deck that I was confident with, and had enough play with it that I knew I could do well. After passing up the last minute idea of driving to GP Baltimore (waking up at 5am to drive there seemed like a bad idea after I laid down to go to bed at 2am), I figured I wanted a full day of Magic nonetheless, and set out to find Game Day events.

This was the deck I planned on playing. I’d made some minor changes since the GPT, figuring that extra removal in the board would be more useful than Stony Silence, and deciding to shift more towards midnight haunting over Gather the Townsfolk, which had been unimpressive thusfar.

I checked Redcap’s Corner first, my current primary store, which always has killer events with remarkably good prize payout. Unlike a lot of places, they pay out the entire entry fee in store credit. A $5  eight man standard pays out 40 dollars in credit, usually concentrated to the top 2 (25 and 15, usually). I wanted to play there because it’s my normal shop, and I’m trying to become more and more of a regular there. The competition is stiff – everyone, for the most part, having a firm grasp of the rules, and tier 1 decks are the rule, rather than the exception. Unfortunately, their game day started at 5pm. I’d woken up around 10, and didn’t want to wait 7 hours to play magic.

My search continued, and I found a quaint little shop in NJ, where I traveled about 20 minutes (it would have been less, had I not gotten lost in the bowels of NJ, where there are two Haddon Avenues, which intersect, in Collingswood Township – next to Haddon Township. Who designed this place?!) I played three rounds out there before deciding to drop and head on over to Redcap’s. The rounds went as follows.

Top Deck Games

Round 1: RG Aggro (2-0)

This deck was actually pretty interesting. He was playing a 1-drop aggro deck focusing on Torch Fiend and Young Wolf. He came out the gate pretty quickly, but I figured I could stabilize around 10 life and then crush him back with vigilant tokens. Then he cast Instigator Gang off of an Infernal Plunge, and without a spell to cast on my own turn, I was facing down a dangerous squad of wolves that were threatening lethal in short order.

As always, my deck bailed me out, with a gather the townsfolk off the top to pair with the one I had in my hand. Four mana later, I had an army of 2/2 vigilant creatures, and a gavony township on the field, threatening a pump the following turn. I stabilize on 4 life and manage to claw my way back in to take down game one.

Game two, I keep a hand with a dork and two blade splicers, backed up with intangible virtue. He was never in it, and I put the game away.

Round 2: Frites (1-2)

I’d seen this guy laying out his deck before the match, so I knew he was on some multicolored ranimator plan. After the turn 1 faithless looting, he mentioned that he’d seen the list from the Pro Tour and just copied it. Great. Like I mentioned last time, I knew that Reanimator plans were going to be a weak point for me. Elesh Norn stops the deck cold – and when he tosses her into the yard on t5, I know I’m in trouble. My draw wasn’t quite aggressive enough, and he stabilizes on 6 life to kill me.

Game two goes my way though. An aggressive dork into intangible virtue, then hero and gavony, provided the t5 kill that I needed to race him out.

Unfortunately, game three saw him pitch Elesh Norn and Unburial Rites on t1 to a faithless looting. By turn 4, the Grand Cenobite was sitting on the field and ended any game plan I’d hoped to have.

Round 3: Wannabe Wolf-Run (2-0)

My opponent for this round was newer at the game than most, and had won his second round mostly by having the nut draw. He was on a Wolf Run Variant – and I use the term variant to be kind. No Slagstorms, only two Green Sun’s Zeniths, and a pair of Primeval Titans just made his deck completely inconsistent and unable to mount any defense. I took him down without issue in two games that were never close.

After the third round, it was after 4pm, and I realized I wouldn’t be able to stay if I wanted to catch the Redcap tournament. I dropped, wishing everyone luck, and got to Redcap just in time for pairings.

Redcap's Corner

Round 1: UW Control? (2-0)

I’m going to be honest – I don’t know what this guy was playing. All I know is that he cast 4 ponders over two games, shuffling all of them, and a pair of spellskites that died to Blade Splicers without any real issue. Round was over before match slips were out, and I got to watch a pretty awesome match between Mono Red and UW Humans that was going on next to me. Both players seemed to have a really great handle on their decks. Humans ended up edging out the victory through an unanswered Sword in game 3

Round 2: Anthem Spirits (2-1)

Creature mirrors usually go to the deck with more anthems, and this guy had twelve of them. Four captains, four phantasmal image, plus a playset of honor of the pure made him have some absurd draws possible. He blows me out of the water by resolving T2 Honor, T3, 4, and 5 Captains, and I just couldn’t keep up with the Hexproof Flyers.

I board in all my Naturalizes and cross my fingers. Luckily, I get there. My flyers are able to overcome his after I blow him out by Naturalizing his Honor of the Pure after blockers and killing two Captains off. After the game, he admitted to only having been playing for three or four months, so he was still having trouble playing around things. Honestly though, he played extraordinarily well for someone who had only started with Innistrad.

Game three was tough, with me throwing chump blockers in the air to hold the line against his increasingly powerful air force. All the while, Blade Splicers, keeping pace with his Lords, got in for devastating hit after devastating hit, eventually forcing him to chump with a Lord, which died and put him behind in the race. He never recovered, and I took a narrow victory the turn before he would have killed me. After the game, he pointed out that he’d been locked off of Black mana, and couldn’t have flashbacked either of the lingering souls in his yard. Had he seen a single black source in any of the last four turns, I’d have died on the spot. Talk about close matches.

Round 3: UW Haunted Humans (2-1)

This matchup is a mental nightmare. All three of our games went to complicated board stalls that involved phantasmal imaged Hero of Bladeholds and Gavony Triggers, Equipped Geists of St. Traft, Vigilant Golems pounding through, Ratchet Bombs, and Planeswalkers going ultimate. All three rounds were nightmares of board state, and I actually stopped taking notes so that I wouldn’t inadvertently miss anything. The last game came down to me on two life, and swinging to kill him from 6 to end the match in my favor.

Round 4: Tempered Steel (0-2)

I’m going to be honest, I didn’t expect to see this deck around anymore. I’ve always hated it, and I’ve never been able to play well against it. I don’t know if it’s just been bad luck, but it seems like every time I go against it, since the Caw-Blade days, it’s ended on turn 4 with multiple Tempered Steel in play.

Without going too much into detail, he lands a t2 Tempered Steel in game 1, to go with his 3 creatures, and crushes me. Game two goes even less well. All said and done, he landed 5 of the eponymous enchantment in two games, and I never saw any removal. Match lasted all of ten minutes.

At this point, we cut to top 4, which consisted of me, the Mono-Red player I’d watched in round 1, Tempered Steel Guy, and the UW Humans deck (which rallied to 3-1 as well). I’m matched against Mono-Red.

Top 4: Red Deck Wins (2-1)

Game one ends up being a lot closer than I wanted it to be. Starting the last turn, he has a Shrine on 6, with me at 11. He galvanic blasts me on upkeep, taking me to 9 and the Shrine to 8 after the upkeep trigger. He looks at the card he draws, then at the five mana he has in play. He tanks for a little while, and then extends the hand. Phew.

Game two goes better for him. I can’t find flyers and he beats me over the head with a Phoenix carrying a Sword. You know the game went poorly when he ended on 29 health.

Round three, on the other hand, goes even worse for him. I curve out perfectly, and find the O-ring for his Phoenix. He gets locked down without his recurring threat and I kill him while still on 10. He’s pretty happy, having been part of the Spirit player’s group, who only started at the Innistrad prerelease. Top four after less than half a year’s play is awesome. Good for him.

Finals vs UW Humans. (2-0)

I’d like to tell a story of an epic rematch here, but to be honest, he was never in it. He mulliganed both games, and I drew pretty well, putting him down in less than fifteen minutes of play, most of which was spent shuffling his deck.  It was a pretty lackluster finals after all the fighting that I had to do to get there, but I suppose that happens sometimes.

For my troubles, I was awarded 30 bucks in store credit, which went to round out my playset of Knights of the Reliquary. (Building GW Aggro for Modern – it’s going to be pretty awesome!) In addition, I got the playmat, which I’ve been staring at dreamily since I got it.

Sometimes, things just work out the way you want them to.

Next weekend, I’ll be skipping FNM to do some extreme testing at Marshall’s house. We’re going to see if we can’t work out a Havengul Lich deck, either combo or control, or whatnot – we haven’t decided yet. I’ll be sure to report results back when I have them. He’s planning on playing in his shop’s belated game day, while I’ll most likely be headed to the Star City Games Qualifier in Doylestown. I’ll be sure to post a new deck list when I’ve got the results from there. Preliminary plan includes finding a way to stop graveyard based strategies from reanimating Elesh Norn in my face, and finding an actual workable sideboard plan against Wolf Run Ramp.

Feel free to ask any questions you've got about the deck, comments, or things you'd like to see in the future.

Till Next Time-

Junk Tokens for Dark Ascension Standard

With every new set, we get new weapons, new tools to work with. With each set, the same patterns – we build up our collections, crack our packs, and trade for what we think is the next best thing. We all know – some of us more accurately than others – that we’re on to something powerful. Many of us will cobble together those decks, keeping a careful eye on the professional scene all the while.

Delver is strong.
Spirits are rising.
Huntmaster of the Fells is on the upswing.
Dungrove Elder is back, with friends.
Sword of War and Peace is where you want to be right now.

One by one, we find our decks. We choose the weapons we’ll do battle with. Some test, others work on pure theory, still more iterate on the decks that came before. The professionals go to war – Grand Prix, Star City Open, Pro Tour. Results pour in.

And then, the event for the rest of us. Game Day.

That would be this weekend, for those of you who don’t know. Magic Game Day: Dark Ascension is this weekend, 25 February 2012, and the prizes are greater than normal. Of course, there’s the usual full-art promos (and a nice one at that!). Foil promos and packs for those who rank highly. This time around, a new prize for the champion: a Playmat.

Now, I’m not a pro. I mean, I wouldn’t mind playing at a higher level than the one that I am currently playing at, but I’ve never played in a main event of a Grand Prix. I’ve never done a Star City Open. I’ve never done anything but side events at the Pro Tour. That said, for once, I think I’ve got a deck that can compete on the highest levels and win. I think that with good play, I could win that playmat.

And I want to do it.

Maybe it’s my inner Spike coming out, but I’ve got the bug. A month ago, when I was just hashing out details and slowly collecting cards, watching the metagame shift in tournament reports, I would never have imagined feeling confident about winning a tournament. Now, a month later, I feel like the only limiting factor on my deck is my ability to play it perfectly. Things have happened in the meantime. A third place finish at a Grand Prix Trial with over 80 players has encouraged me. They way my deck is playing has bolstered that confidence. I look at the other decks in the format and can safely say that there isn’t another deck that I’d rather be playing.

What deck is it that’s got me aiming for the top prize?

  

This deck has some legs. If you’ve been following things since Dark Ascension was spoiled, you’ll have no doubt seen the tokens lists popping up. Sorin and Lingering Souls have electrified players with their easy-to-build archetype that combines raw power with evasive flyers and enough gas to weather the worst that a control deck can bring against them. Nevertheless, despite the initial hype, token decks have notoriously underperformed. It could have been the existence of Ratchet Bomb in multiple sideboards that caused the trouble. Maybe it was people’s reluctance to buy Sorin at his initial price. Perhaps the problem was just that people were looking to the wrong places. Tokens was a turn too slow, and not quite powerful to make the splash that some people hoped for.

This deck is not the Black/White tokens that has lost again and again to Delver and Spirits.

The Core:

The core of the deck is simple, use your powerful token generators, in concert with multiple anthem effects and light permission, to attack with multiple mid-sized creatures around turn 4-6. To this end, we have a large number of token generators (Lingering Souls, Midnight Haunting, Blade Splicer, Gather the Townsfolk) that each put multiple bodies onto the field immediately. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Intangible Virtue (as well as Honor of the Pure in the sideboard) provide those creatures with massive bonuses, making their evasive attacks even harder to stop. Vigilance is key here – the ability to attack without fear of a counter-swing wins games outright. This deck maintains all the power that the normal B/W lists provide and more. Gavony Township makes every creature in the deck into a game ending threat.

The deck has an amazing resilience that allows it to fight through even multiple sweepers, flashing back Lingering Souls with multiple anthems on the field allows the deck to repopulate it’s threats almost immediately while managing to avoid overextending into the next one.

The Twist:

The addition of green provides the BW tokens deck with a number of additional options, all of which are strong enough to warrant it’s addition to the deck. Adding six mana dorks allows us to accelerate on the play into a 3 drop like Blade Splicer that will immediately put more controlling decks on the back foot. They’ll have to use reactive answers, rather than proactive counterspells, and as a result, will be tapped down on your turn more often. Landing a larger threat immediately also provides trouble for the aggro decks of the format, who can find their Zombie or Delver based assault stymied by a 3/3 first strike on the second turn.

While the additional speed is useful, it also provides a number of other benefits. Adding green allows us the use of Gavony Township, which is one of the most influential lands in standard. When battles are being won by granular differences in power and toughness, a repeatable pump effect is invaluable, especially as early as turn four. Even more dangerous, the effect allows your mana dorks to take to the Red Zone and actually make a difference in combat. It is not uncommon to transform a Bird of Paradise, via Gavony Township, Sorin’s Emblem, and a Battle Cry into a credible threat once it’s outlived its use as a mana source.

With the addition of green, we also get access to an easily splash-able Garruk Relentless. With his token generation and spot removal capabilities, alongside his ability to create Deathtouch creatures (buffed by the rest of your effects) and even tutor for your answers in rare circumstances, he is a fearsome threat that can land as early as the third turn.

Weaknesses:

For all its strengths, this deck does still have a few glaring weaknesses. First, the lack of a strong removal package leaves it very vulnerable to a well constructed reanimator deck. A fast Elesh Norn leaves us with only two ‘outs’ in the whole deck, both sorcery speed and vulnerable to removal themselves. I would be unhappy to see my foe with Unburial Rites most of the time. The solution here is to apply pressure early and hard, forcing them to use their mana on answering your threats, rather than letting them go about their business and getting their finisher on the field as fast as possible.

Furthermore, while I haven’t tested the matchup extensively, I suspect that Wolf Run with Huntmaster and Slagstorm is a terrible matchup all around. Post board, their ability to bring in up to 6 sweepers, as well as value creatures that cause persistent problems for any kind of slowly gathering offence makes it a nightmare. As noted before, we have only a few answers to a Titan once resolved – and no permission to stop it from resolving at that. This matchup broadly comes down to a race, usually with tokens trying to throw evasive damage past a resolved titan for the last few points before a Kessig Wolf Run depleted your life faster than a resolved Splinter Twin.

Sideboard:

The sideboard for this deck is very much tailored for the current metagame, and as a result, is extremely prone to shifting suddenly and without notice. The board listed above was primarily prepared for the weekend of the 18th, when I attended a GPT. I expected the metagame to broadly mirror those of the professional circuit, and admittedly, was mostly correct. I plan on making some changes for the upcoming weekend at my local shop, since I expect the metagame there to be slightly lower caliber (sorry guys!) so that a strong, centralized strategy with answers to broad archetypes would have the best chance of doing well, rather than specific bullets for individual decks.

With that said, here's some of the justifications for the pieces that I played last weekend.

The pair of Hero of Bladehold shouldn't surprise anyone. The card is a beast, and only gets stronger with the support offered in this shell. I would have four main deck, except for Vapor Snag's place as the best removal spell in standard.

The solitary Thrun is my nod to the control match up, but it's also useful against Delver style decks where a 4/4 that can't be fooled or tricked is worth it's weight in gold. I'd play a second if I could, and I might make that change in the coming weeks.

Three naturalizes are useful in a number of match ups, from Tempered Steel to Sword Decks, to Pike decks, to Heartless Summoning decks. I wouldn't consider going below three.

Three Stony Silences were put in entirely to respect the power of Ratchet Bomb, however, it also comes in useful against a number of decks that rely on powerful artifacts. Infect, Sword, and Pike decks come directly to mind, but if you have a Wolf Run deck pinned on Ratchet Bombs, it will also turn off their Sphere of the Suns. Best off, it's a proactive answer to it, stopping them before the spell is even cast.

Elsepth Tirel was a relatively late addition to the list, and one I was very unsure of going into the GPT. I found myself not boarding her in for most of my match ups, but come the final round of Swiss, as soon as my opponent landed his turn 1 Diregraf Ghoul, I knew Elsepth would have her chance. I'll spare you the details and tell you that she single-handedly won every game I cast her in. She's absurd. Play her. Learn to love her.

The last four spots go to a quartet of Honor of the Pure. This was originally a plan to help deal with Wolf's Run decks of all flavors, but I found them extremely useful in the Spirits match ups. As those battles tend to favor whomever happens to have more anthem/lord effects, loading up on more seemed a good way to gain an edge in that match up. As of this writing, I haven't gotten to test it against Wolf's Run, but I suspect that match up is probably still pretty bad. Will consider more options against it - possibly bringing Nevermore in, but we'll see.

Conclusion:
I think that Junk Tokens is, at the moment, attacking the metagame in a unique and powerful manner. I'd strongly suggest suiting it up and taking it for a spin, see if you like it. It's certainly the type of deck that I'm loving, and I plan on iterating on it for a good long time.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments below. I'll be answering questions about the deck for the foreseeable future. Expect to see some tournament reports in the coming weeks as I report on the deck's progress.

NaNoWriMo 2012: Itches

I’m starting to get itchy.

I’m sure you know the feeling – when you get that spectacular idea and you know exactly where it’s going to go in the story, but you aren’t there yet, so you feel bad writing it. Specifically with NaNoWriMo, it happens a lot right around now, in the week leading up to NaNo.

So, I’m on the bus this morning. Listening to my iPod and congratulating myself for actually getting a seat on a bus at quarter after eight. This is rare, on the route I come from, so it’s a special treat. It takes a few minutes to find the right song – most of what is on my iPod’s shuffle is alternative rock and other genres that don’t lend themselves especially well to the story that I’m planning on writing.

Ashley Simpson, skip. Rise Against, skip. Taylor Swift, skip. God, who organized this iPod? A schizophrenic? Soundtrack from Bastion (great video game – look it up!). Fits, but I’m not feeling it. Skip.

The Catalyst – Linkin Park.

Now, I’ll wholeheartedly agree that I generally find Linkin Park’s older stuff much more conductive to writing than their newer stuff, but I actually like this song a lot. I leave it on, close my eyes and think for a minute.

It didn’t take half that long.

Yesterday, I made the reluctant decision to include some of the other ancients in my story this month. I’m not sold on the idea at all, but it was worth exploring, and I felt like the story that I was telling wouldn’t be able to go the distance to full-length novel. It needed a little more beef. Luthene’s plot was shaping up nicely, but it could have used a little more heft to it. Sadrach’s backstory could have been a novel, but his present was surprisingly lackluster. Hell, I didn’t even know how he felt about being the direct cause of the end-of-the-world-as-he-knew-it. He needed work, and so characters he could relate to were added into the story.

Today, I figured out the first scene with another ancient, and man, I can’t wait to write it. I’m writing furiously – not the scene itself, but notes for the scene. It’s not going to happen for at least two or three weeks yet. It might not even fit into the first 50k words for this one, so I need to make an outline so that I don’t forget it.

I’m starting to get a better feel for this world, and how everything fits together in it. What I originally gathered as independent concepts – geists, demons, ancients – it’s seeming more and more that they’re central to the story in a very VERY connected way. It’s a hint of mystery in a story that I didn’t expect, and that makes me feel like the genre that I’m writing is a real thing. Last week at this point, I wasn’t sure which story I was going to be telling this month. Now, I can’t wait for it to be November already so that I can just WRITE already!

A Quick Update

Short post today everyone. Last night was a whirlwind of testing and figuring things out. We made a primarily draw-go deck that features a heavy-anti aggro mainboard including three Gideon Jura and three Day of Judgment. The deck is a monstrosity. Beat puresteel consistantly and well, as long as it could stick Gideon. Otherwise, Puresteel was able to put enough pressure on to win the day.

The deck can draw an absolutely absurd number of cards, and translates that card advantage into pure resource denial in the late game. I'm not happy with him not running at least one Moorland Haunt, but that's a minor quibble and doesn't hold a candle to the fact that the deck feels very consistent, albeit a little slow. As long as he can reach turn 4-5 with a reasonable life total, he should be in good position to take over the game.

We're headed out in a few minutes, first to go to this, then for some other fun nonsense at Marshall's house (maybe?). Tomorrow, we're all headed out to the Pennsylvania Ren Faire. If you're going to be there yourself, maybe I'll see you.

Obviously won't be writing another post until I get back Sunday night, which will likely be a tournament report for both decks (and actual decklists/sideboards for what both of us ended up playing at the end of the day.)

Till Next Time,

Andrew