Tuesday Lore: Light and Flame

The innocents screamed, and Gisela answered. A single sword stroke – unwavering and true – bisected the demon from head to thigh. Black mana coursed out of the husk as it dissolved into the night.

“Goldnight!” she shouted from the town square, her voice echoing out to the fields. “To me!” They had been fighting for hours, and the fighting only just begun. Her troops – Cathars and priests, archmages and angels – began to filter into the square. Within minutes, they were building the perimeter. Refugees helped fight the fires that had engulfed half the village. The shadows that had besieged the hamlet swarmed, but none dared cross the defenders.

This fight was different. For months, they had been waging a losing battle. Avacyn’s imprisonment within the Helvault had driven the Flights into hiding. Human magics had weakened, and even Avacyn’s own holy wards faltered. Hundreds of villages across Gavony, Nephalia, and Kessig had been lost to the darkness.

No more.

Avacyn’s restoration had brought with it more than mere power. It brought renewed resolve. They fought with the  With a quick glance across the assembled warriors stirred something in Gisela that she hadn’t felt since…

We’re winning.

The thought scarcely crossed her mind before she dismissed it. People were dead – and the demon attack was still potent, if broken – no doubt orchestrated by one of the greater demons.  It needed to be handled if the horde was to be defeated. Gisela’s hand rested upon the runic longblade at her side.  One of the Cathars looked up to her.

“Lady Gisela,” he bowed. “Will you take the field?”

“I believe that I shall.” She said, her lips curving into a smile.

---

Her blade whirled, intercepting claws and spines. She rolled her wrist and stepped into the attack, cleaving through flesh and bone. No sooner than she felt the attack connect, she was moving into a second strike. She cleaves through the horde as if she was wading through a creek – barely slowed by their attacks.

She was Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, Chosen of Avacyn. The Archangel had chosen her to be the sworn sword of the Angels. Let the Herons and Alabasters issue their wards and pray for spirits. Goldnight would do as Goldnight had always done. Fight, and win.

Magic: Making Miracles Matter

“I’ve got one out,” he announces suddenly on his opponents turn. Game three with lethal damage coming in the following turn. There’s a dozen people crowding around, waiting for the last match to decide the PTQ. To one, a blue envelope and a trip to Spain. To the other, a handshake and a pat on the back.

“What?” his opponent asks, confused.

“One out in the deck. One card that beats you.” He looks down at the stack of cards. “One Blight Dragon.”

His opponent looks at the board. No flyers to speak of, and only a Doom Blade in hand. With most of a dozen swamps in play, and a Lashwrithe, the Dragon would attack for the full ten infect – a veritable one-shot.

He’s got maybe forty cards left in his library. Two percent odds. Two and a half, maybe.

“So draw the card.”

He'd worked so hard to get here. Nine grueling rounds of play. Dozens of hours of practice and tuning his deck. He knew every card, picked and tested each one. He was up half the night agonizing about a last-minute switch. He sleeved it up even though everyone told him he was wrong. He trusted his deck then.

He places his hand on top of the deck, takes a deep breath, and whispers, practically praying.

“Just one time, deck. Just one time.”

He flips the card.

-----

Over the last few days, there’s been a lot of talk about a new mechanic that’s coming out with Avacyn Restored. That mechanic is Miracle.

 

If you’ll excuse the lore nut in me for a moment, I adore this mechanic. Magic lore is full of moments like this. The sudden turn and twist that overturns everything we know. The moment when we realize that, maybe, despite the odds, we can do this. It distills everything in the game to one critical point where everything hangs in the balance.

“What is Urza doing with that Sylex?”

“Is the Legacy powerful enough to defeat Yawgmoth, manifest upon Dominaria?”

“What’s happening to the Eye of Ugin?”

“Does Thalia sacrifice her men, or the Helvault?”

Miracle tells us everything that we need to know. When you’re on your last topdeck, knowing that nothing in the world could save you, and suddenly, Time Walk appears. Not a five mana time walk imitation. Not a variant with buyback. Honest to god, two mana, take another turn. You get a breath of fresh air, an extra untap, cast one extra spell, and dig yourself back from the precipice.

It’s hard to call that anything but a miracle.

The detractors from this mechanic have a point. Magic is designed to be a skill-intensive game. Giving more power to random elements like the draw stew doesn’t increase the skill required to be good at it. Any chump could top deck four Thunderous Wrath and beat the best player in the world. There are issues with the mechanic being extraordinarily swingy. When draws such a huge role in a game, it’s easy to get frustrated by the ‘run bads’ or to lose a game because of sheer luck.

But you've been there - that situation when you're drawing dead. You hate that feeling. Everyone hates that feeling. How much better is it to play a game when you're behind, but you've got outs. If we didn't want any randomness, we'd play chess. Every top deck is a thrill. Did I find it? Did I get there? You know that you probably won't find it, but every so often...

There is a quote on my desk. I feel like it distills this down to a single line.

“When something isn’t supposed to happen, but it does, that’s magic.”

So, is this much variance good for the game? Certainly, it’s going to lead to blowouts. It’s going to lead to a sudden reversal at a critical moment. It’s going to make everyone peel their eyes on the top of the deck when that last draw happens – hoping, praying.

It’s going to cause upsets. It’s going to make people talk about it. And, sure, while someone might be a little sour about losing the PTQ to the lucky topdeck, someone else is going to be on a cloud because they pulled the card, won, and ended up at a Pro Tour.

“I’m going to Hawaii!”

“I’m going to Spain!”

 “I’m going!”

So, is that good for the game? Let’s go back to a different story, from not so long ago:

-----

He looks down at his hand, no help there. A single whipflare stares back at him, just not powerful enough. Across the board: a fleet of 4/4 hexproof spirits threatening lethal damage. He has one chance – one out. There were two whipflares left in the deck, and either of them would dig him out, wipe the board, and let him set up for a favorable endgame.

Any other card meant death.

He puts his hand on the deck, his hand gripping on the top card. He pulls it, flipping it over because he knows it’s the only thing that matters anymore in this game.

Whipflare

The crowd goes wild.

Brian Kibler taps the mana and wipes the board, so overcome with relief and emotion that he even forgets to attack with his creature before wiping the board. A few short hours later, he’s clutching a trophy in his hands as they name him Pro Tour Champion.

“Just one time, deck. Just one time.”

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.