It's Christmastime, and that means that many of my friends are back in town for a few weeks. One of my friends, Greg, plays Magic, and has some friends who play too. So, we decided to set up a Shards draft. It occurred last night.
There were only four of us: me, Greg, Dave, and Eric. Greg and Dave had done Shards sealed once, and Eric had never seen Shards before, so I had a considerable experience advantage going into the draft, for what it's worth. I opened my packs, as usual, based on the art: first the Steward of Valeron pack, then Godsire, then Sedris, the Traitor King.
My first pack's rare was Mycoloth, but the pack also contained Bone Splinters and Oblivion Ring. There was hardly any white in the pack, though, so I decided not to take Oblivion ring, and instead took Bone Splinters. I figured, if I didn't take it, someone else would, and if one of us had Mycoloth and the other had Bone Splinters, I'd rather be the one with the Splinters. A good choice? I don't know. But we'll see.
I gradually edged my way into Grixis, taking lots and lots of removal early on, with hardly any creatures until the end of my second pack. My second pack's rare was Hellkite Overlord, which I obviously had to take, but I didn't want to splash green to play it, so it stayed in my sideboard, safely out of Greg's reach (he was playing Jund, and his first pick was Kresh the Bloodbraided). Greg was seated to my right, Eric playing Bant/Esper to my left, and Dave's Naya across from me. So there wasn't a huge amount of competition for cards.
I got a Cruel Ultimatum passed to me in the third pack. I knew how amazing the Ultimatum was, but they didn't, so they didn't hate-draft it before I could snatch it up in my grimy claws. There were a ton of Grixis uncommons, which was awesome for me. I also got a Covenant of Minds, and…well, here's my decklist:
40 Cards (I counted this time)
17 LANDS
1 Crumbling Necropolis
5 Island
5 Mountain
6 Swamp
15 CREATURES
1 Blood Cultist
2 Fatestitcher
1 Hissing Iguanar
1 Kathari Screecher
1 Kederekt Creeper
1 Rockslide Elemental
1 Scourge Devil
1 Shore Snapper
1 Skeletal Kathari
1 Tidehollow Strix
1 Undead Leotau
1 Viscera Dragger
2 Vithian Stinger
8 OTHER SPELLS
1 Bone Splinters
1 Call to Heel
1 Covenant of Minds
1 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Grixis Charm
1 Infest
1 Obelisk of Grixis
2 SIDEBOARD CARDS I USED
2 Swerve
Awesome. Now on to the games. With only four of us, we just did round robin, with victory going to whoever had the best record. I played Greg first.
Greg had a lot of 1 toughness dudes, which fell swiftly to my Blood Cultist. He didn't draw Kresh, but it would hardly have mattered – a Fatestitcher locked down all his good stuff while I attacked with my fliers and Creeper. Covenant of Minds proved to be awesome, and I used Grixis Charm's red mode (+2/+0 to all my creatures) more than the others. He didn't stand much of a chance.
The second game, I got to play Cruel Ultimatum. The outcome of that game should be obvious. I beat Greg 2-0.
Then I played Dave's aggressive Naya deck. Wild Nacatl beat me down quite a bit before I managed to get rid of it, and he kept playing threats, but eventually I played Cruel Ultimatum and, well, you know the rest.
The second game, I found out who had ended up with the Mycoloth. It was Dave. It was wrecking me until I finally managed to Infest all his Saprolings and then Call to Heel the Mycoloth. But he got more dudes and devoured them again, and I couldn't remove it. I died.
The third game, I drew Cruel Ultimatum again. I beat Dave 2-1.
Then I had to play Eric. Eric isn't a spectacular player, but he's a much better deckbuilder than Greg and Dave. The first game, his big Esper dudes (Cloudheath Drakes and Steelclad Serpents) plus his sneaky Deft Duelists cause me a lot of trouble, especially since he backed them up with a lot of good defense - Hindering Light, Resounding Wave, and Call to Heel. I kept trying to remove his Drakes, only to have him bounce them and play them again. And his Metallurgeon didn't make things any easier. I couldn't stop his swarm of fliers, and I died.
The second game was epic. My removal was a bit more effective, but this time I got some Vithian Stingers and Fatestitchers out. I kept tapping down his big guys and removing whoever I could, and then pinging him for one or two at the end of each of his turns. He couldn't attack into my Kederekt Creeper and Undead Leotau, and I kept removing any flier he'd play, or keeping it tapped with a Fatestitcher. I won that game by pinging him to death. I never attacked with a single creature.
The third game was much the same as the first. I died. Eric defeated me 2-1.
So my record was 5-3. Dave's was also 5-3, Eric's 4-3, and Greg's 1-6 (poor Greg). Dave and I played a tiebreaker game…during which I played Cruel Ultimatum. That card is truly a game-winner.
In retrospect, I should have kept Shore Snapper in my sideboard in favor of Swerve, because I had to keep switching the Snapper out whenever I played an opponent with no Islands (which was 2/3 of them). I never actually got to play Swerve, but it certainly would have been useful if I had had it in some of my game 1's. In the second game against Eric, I actually sideboarded Infest out, because his dudes were all bigger than mine, so it would rarely have been useful. Still, I was pretty happy with how my deck ended up. Fatestitcher is an insanely powerful card in limited, and I had two of them. Those guys and Cruel Ultimatum are probably what won me most of my games.
So anyway, I won (woohoo!), and the prizes at our little draft were to divvy up the rares. We all took the rares out of our decks and placed them on the table to pick which ones we wanted. The rares were:
Brilliant Ultimatum
Covenant of Minds
Cruel Ultimatum
Gather Specimens
Hellkite Overlord
Keeper of Progenitus
Knight-Captain of Eos
Kresh the Bloodbraided
Manaplasm
Minion Reflector
Mycoloth
Sharding Sphinx
I got to pick two first, so I took Cruel Ultimatum and Sharding Sphinx. I don't remember the exact order and picks of everyone, but I ended up with Mycoloth and Knight-Captain of Eos. Not bad. My Esper deck could use a second Sphinx, and I may now have enough cards to build a decent Grixis deck, or at least augment my new Jund deck.
We then played Greg's Battlestar Galactica board game, which was pretty funny. Greg kept throwing people in the Brig. The phrase "throw ___ in the BRIG!" was shouted many, many times. But the Cylons won, because Greg threw me in the Brig, but I wasn't actually a Cylon, so I was powerless to stop treacherous Cylon Dave from depleting all of our fuel. Jerk.
Greg and co. will be around for a while, and they enjoy drafts, so hopefully I'll get to draft some more in the coming weeks. Casual drafts are nice; no one yells at you if you say what card you picked, or if you look at your drafted cards during a round. No one shuffles your deck 2420934 times and counts your deck to see if it has 40 cards. And best of all, no one hate-drafts Cruel Ultimatum! :D
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Shards Draft 3
I haven't had a chance to draft in a while. Zombie Planet's Friday Night Magic drafts are only every other week, and two Fridays ago I was busy, and four Fridays ago was Halloween, so I hadn't had a chance to go for six whole weeks…UNTIL LAST NIGHT. Normally I teach until 5, so I wouldn't be able to make it down there in time to play, but it was Thanksgiving weekend, so there was no teaching. And OFF I WENT!
I got there early and there were only three people there, but eventually we got 15…quite a small number for a tournament, but doable. I was at the 7-player table, and as I opened up my first pack, I discovered…
Utter crap. The rare was Archdemon of Unx or Cradle of Vitality or Gather Specimens or Immortal Coil or Ooze Garden or something that I didn't really want, so I ended up taking an Arcane Sanctum. (Those rares I named are all ones I saw and passed at some point…I just don't remember in which order. I ended up grabbing Gather Specimens on its second time around, though.)
I kept getting passed junk, so I figured I'd start trying to work my way into Esper. I basically grabbed every artifact I could find, or good removal if it was available. My second pack was similarly unimpressive but I kept getting passed Esper dudes so I kept taking them. However, on my second pick, someone passed me a Quietus Spike (he must have seen a card he liked even better), so I snatched that up. I was lucky enough to get two Metallurgeons, the best card ever.
As I mentioned in a previous article, I like to arrange my packs in a certain order. My first pack had an illustration of Steward of Valeron, and lo and behold, there was one of them in the pack. But the token was a Homunculus…an excellent omen. My second pack depicted Broodmate Dragon, but I was not so lucky. I like to keep the pack with the biggest dude for last, and when I opened my Godsire pack I saw…Sharding Sphinx, the best card ever! My silly little superstition seems to pay off…that's at least the second time I've been heavily invested in a shard for the first two packs, only to open a relevant bomb in the third.
The Homunculus omen proved worthy, as I eventually got a Puppet Conjurer, the best card ever. At one point I hate-drafted a Naturalize, but almost all of my cards ended up being relevant and playable.
I ended up with:
39 Cards
15 LAND:
1 Arcane Sanctum
6 Island
4 Plains
4 Swamp
14 CREATURES:
1 Esper Battlemage
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Glaze Fiend
2 Metallurgeon
1 Puppet Conjurer
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Sharding Sphinx
3 Tidehollow Strix
1 Tower Gargoyle
1 Vectis Silencers
1 Windwright Mage
10 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Cancel
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Hindering Light
2 Obelisk of Esper
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Resounding Wave
1 Quietus Spike
"Wait," you are probably saying, "39 cards?" My reply: "WHAT OH SHIT!" When I was doing my land calculations, I knew I wanted 16 lands. I had Arcane Sanctum already, so I mentally started off with 5 Island, 5 Plains, 5 Swamp. Since I had more blue, I shifted it to 6 Island, 4 Plains, 4 Swamp…not realizing that it should have been 7 Island. A ridiculous and embarrassing calculation error.
However, I didn't notice this mistake until the fourth round. So I had been playing with an illegal deck for three rounds with no one noticing…and doing pretty well with it! The shame is unbearable. After writing this article I may be forced to commit seppuku.
But here's what happened. My first opponent was a guy who usually owns at Magic, but he had some mana troubles. He was playing Naya colors, and didn't get green for a long time. My legion of tiny dudes overwhelmed him. Twice. Illegally. :(
My second opponent was another veteran, also running Naya colors. However, he had grabbed THREE Hissing Iguanars and a Goblin Assault, a deadly combo. The first game he dropped one of his Iguanars, and I played Esper Battlemage, which would have destroyed his entire deck had he not burned it out with Naya Charm. So I lost. Then in game two, it was much closer. At one point, I had a ton of dudes, and was about to attack, but he played…Naya Charm to tap all my dudes. HOWEVER, I had been cleverly keeping my mana open, and I Canceled it. I dealt him a sound blow to the facebone. The next turn, I prepared to attack again, and he cast…Naya Charm. He tapped all my dudes, then attacked on his turn to finish me off. Bluh. He went on to win first place.
My third opponent was a dude who everyone seemed to hate, and I soon found out why. He was friendly at first, but whenever I played a spell, he would reel in his chair as though I had just played Black Lotus. It got a little out of hand, though…it made sense for Quietus Spike, but then I'd play some little dude that doesn't even do anything and he'd fall out of his chair and rip his hair out. I was afraid to even play a land for fear of him shooting himself right then and there.
But anyway, his real distastefulness was revealed more gradually. At one point, he had a Rockslide Elemental with one counter, and I had a Puppet Conjurer and Glaze Fiend. He attacked, and I made a Homunculus, pumping my Fiend, then blocked with the now 2/3 Fiend. Then he said something like "but damage is already on stack," and I was like "what," and we had a brief exchange by which it was clear he had not realized I could do that and was trying to weasel out of it. However, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and let him take back his attack. Another time, I attacked with a Tidehollow Strix equipped with Quietus Spike when he was at 15 life, and I'd say "ok that's 2, plus 7 more" and he put his life counter at 7, and I had to say "no it's 6." This happened several times. Either he was pretty dumb or pretty weaselly. I am convinced it is the latter. During the third game, a guy came over and watched, so I at least had someone else to keep him in line. He tried to play Resounding Roar on his Algae Gharial, but the dude watching pointed out that the Gharial has shroud, so I was grateful (since I hadn't noticed and would have let him do it). Anyway, I eventually beat him 2-1, which was satisfying since he was a douche. Too bad my deck was illegal.
During those games, though, I got to use some of the awesome interactions in my deck. Etherium Astrolabe + Puppet Conjurer/Sharding Sphinx = great source of cards. And of course, Metallurgeon worked very well with Tidehollow Strix, the best card ever.
So I was 2-1 so far, and the fourth and final round rolled around. My opponent this time had some sort of compulsive shuffling disorder where he would shuffle his own deck 1000 times in 6 different ways. Then when I presented my deck for him to cut, he shuffled MY deck 1000 times in 6 different ways. He remarked that it felt a bit light, and he counted it, revealing, to my VAST EMBARRASSMENT, that my deck was illegal! The judge ruled it as a game loss for me, and I realized what I had done and stuck in the final Swamp. He won the next game with his Bant dudes (we both had a lot of dudes but his were slightly bigger and more evasive). We played again for kicks, and I won, so I wonder what would have happened if he had not noticed. Or if I had been playing 40 from the start. Ah well.
Anyway, I ended up coming in 7th out of 15, which is not bad for a loathsome cheater. I used to always count my deck before playing to make sure it had the right number of cards, but then I got overconfident in my mathematical abilities and stopped doing that. From now on I will be sure to return to that habit :)
During one of the rounds, after I had finished my matches, I watched some other matches, and I saw one guy with a Puppet Conjurer. So after the tournament, I asked him if he would trade it, and he gave it to me for free. O FRABJOUS DAY! Unspeakable bliss.
When I got home, I used my new Esper fellows to augment my existing Esper deck, focusing on speed and numbers. I took out the clunky Sphinx Sovereign in favor of Sharding Sphinx, and basically packed the deck with awesome creatures. It's weak against mass removal (in testing, an Infest wiped out the entire board), but it is fast, and furious, and sharp as a tack. Metallurgeon + Tidehollow Strix, as I have mentioned previously, is a rock solid defense. Or, etherium solid. Actually etherium isn't very solid. OK WHATEVER.
So although I was embarrassed at my mistake, and at throwing off the results for players who care about stuff like that, I still had fun, and got some neat cards. That's all you can ask for, really. (Well, you can ask for victory, but I won't push my luck.) Two players were randomly selected at the end for a PROMO CARD from the PROMO CARD ENVELOPE, and I was one of them. There were Woolly Thoctars and Isochron Scepters and some other stuff. I was strongly advised to take a Thoctar (the other guy did) so I just went with that. The Scepter is a great card, and worth more, but it's also from Mirrodin, and cards from Mirrodin burn my skin when I touch them. It's like they're coated in some sort of evil artifact acid. So I'm happy with my Thoctar.
Until next time…whenever that may be! (Perhaps the day after Christmas! We'll see.)
I got there early and there were only three people there, but eventually we got 15…quite a small number for a tournament, but doable. I was at the 7-player table, and as I opened up my first pack, I discovered…
Utter crap. The rare was Archdemon of Unx or Cradle of Vitality or Gather Specimens or Immortal Coil or Ooze Garden or something that I didn't really want, so I ended up taking an Arcane Sanctum. (Those rares I named are all ones I saw and passed at some point…I just don't remember in which order. I ended up grabbing Gather Specimens on its second time around, though.)
I kept getting passed junk, so I figured I'd start trying to work my way into Esper. I basically grabbed every artifact I could find, or good removal if it was available. My second pack was similarly unimpressive but I kept getting passed Esper dudes so I kept taking them. However, on my second pick, someone passed me a Quietus Spike (he must have seen a card he liked even better), so I snatched that up. I was lucky enough to get two Metallurgeons, the best card ever.
As I mentioned in a previous article, I like to arrange my packs in a certain order. My first pack had an illustration of Steward of Valeron, and lo and behold, there was one of them in the pack. But the token was a Homunculus…an excellent omen. My second pack depicted Broodmate Dragon, but I was not so lucky. I like to keep the pack with the biggest dude for last, and when I opened my Godsire pack I saw…Sharding Sphinx, the best card ever! My silly little superstition seems to pay off…that's at least the second time I've been heavily invested in a shard for the first two packs, only to open a relevant bomb in the third.
The Homunculus omen proved worthy, as I eventually got a Puppet Conjurer, the best card ever. At one point I hate-drafted a Naturalize, but almost all of my cards ended up being relevant and playable.
I ended up with:
39 Cards
15 LAND:
1 Arcane Sanctum
6 Island
4 Plains
4 Swamp
14 CREATURES:
1 Esper Battlemage
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Glaze Fiend
2 Metallurgeon
1 Puppet Conjurer
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Sharding Sphinx
3 Tidehollow Strix
1 Tower Gargoyle
1 Vectis Silencers
1 Windwright Mage
10 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Cancel
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Hindering Light
2 Obelisk of Esper
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Resounding Wave
1 Quietus Spike
"Wait," you are probably saying, "39 cards?" My reply: "WHAT OH SHIT!" When I was doing my land calculations, I knew I wanted 16 lands. I had Arcane Sanctum already, so I mentally started off with 5 Island, 5 Plains, 5 Swamp. Since I had more blue, I shifted it to 6 Island, 4 Plains, 4 Swamp…not realizing that it should have been 7 Island. A ridiculous and embarrassing calculation error.
However, I didn't notice this mistake until the fourth round. So I had been playing with an illegal deck for three rounds with no one noticing…and doing pretty well with it! The shame is unbearable. After writing this article I may be forced to commit seppuku.
But here's what happened. My first opponent was a guy who usually owns at Magic, but he had some mana troubles. He was playing Naya colors, and didn't get green for a long time. My legion of tiny dudes overwhelmed him. Twice. Illegally. :(
My second opponent was another veteran, also running Naya colors. However, he had grabbed THREE Hissing Iguanars and a Goblin Assault, a deadly combo. The first game he dropped one of his Iguanars, and I played Esper Battlemage, which would have destroyed his entire deck had he not burned it out with Naya Charm. So I lost. Then in game two, it was much closer. At one point, I had a ton of dudes, and was about to attack, but he played…Naya Charm to tap all my dudes. HOWEVER, I had been cleverly keeping my mana open, and I Canceled it. I dealt him a sound blow to the facebone. The next turn, I prepared to attack again, and he cast…Naya Charm. He tapped all my dudes, then attacked on his turn to finish me off. Bluh. He went on to win first place.
My third opponent was a dude who everyone seemed to hate, and I soon found out why. He was friendly at first, but whenever I played a spell, he would reel in his chair as though I had just played Black Lotus. It got a little out of hand, though…it made sense for Quietus Spike, but then I'd play some little dude that doesn't even do anything and he'd fall out of his chair and rip his hair out. I was afraid to even play a land for fear of him shooting himself right then and there.
But anyway, his real distastefulness was revealed more gradually. At one point, he had a Rockslide Elemental with one counter, and I had a Puppet Conjurer and Glaze Fiend. He attacked, and I made a Homunculus, pumping my Fiend, then blocked with the now 2/3 Fiend. Then he said something like "but damage is already on stack," and I was like "what," and we had a brief exchange by which it was clear he had not realized I could do that and was trying to weasel out of it. However, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and let him take back his attack. Another time, I attacked with a Tidehollow Strix equipped with Quietus Spike when he was at 15 life, and I'd say "ok that's 2, plus 7 more" and he put his life counter at 7, and I had to say "no it's 6." This happened several times. Either he was pretty dumb or pretty weaselly. I am convinced it is the latter. During the third game, a guy came over and watched, so I at least had someone else to keep him in line. He tried to play Resounding Roar on his Algae Gharial, but the dude watching pointed out that the Gharial has shroud, so I was grateful (since I hadn't noticed and would have let him do it). Anyway, I eventually beat him 2-1, which was satisfying since he was a douche. Too bad my deck was illegal.
During those games, though, I got to use some of the awesome interactions in my deck. Etherium Astrolabe + Puppet Conjurer/Sharding Sphinx = great source of cards. And of course, Metallurgeon worked very well with Tidehollow Strix, the best card ever.
So I was 2-1 so far, and the fourth and final round rolled around. My opponent this time had some sort of compulsive shuffling disorder where he would shuffle his own deck 1000 times in 6 different ways. Then when I presented my deck for him to cut, he shuffled MY deck 1000 times in 6 different ways. He remarked that it felt a bit light, and he counted it, revealing, to my VAST EMBARRASSMENT, that my deck was illegal! The judge ruled it as a game loss for me, and I realized what I had done and stuck in the final Swamp. He won the next game with his Bant dudes (we both had a lot of dudes but his were slightly bigger and more evasive). We played again for kicks, and I won, so I wonder what would have happened if he had not noticed. Or if I had been playing 40 from the start. Ah well.
Anyway, I ended up coming in 7th out of 15, which is not bad for a loathsome cheater. I used to always count my deck before playing to make sure it had the right number of cards, but then I got overconfident in my mathematical abilities and stopped doing that. From now on I will be sure to return to that habit :)
During one of the rounds, after I had finished my matches, I watched some other matches, and I saw one guy with a Puppet Conjurer. So after the tournament, I asked him if he would trade it, and he gave it to me for free. O FRABJOUS DAY! Unspeakable bliss.
When I got home, I used my new Esper fellows to augment my existing Esper deck, focusing on speed and numbers. I took out the clunky Sphinx Sovereign in favor of Sharding Sphinx, and basically packed the deck with awesome creatures. It's weak against mass removal (in testing, an Infest wiped out the entire board), but it is fast, and furious, and sharp as a tack. Metallurgeon + Tidehollow Strix, as I have mentioned previously, is a rock solid defense. Or, etherium solid. Actually etherium isn't very solid. OK WHATEVER.
So although I was embarrassed at my mistake, and at throwing off the results for players who care about stuff like that, I still had fun, and got some neat cards. That's all you can ask for, really. (Well, you can ask for victory, but I won't push my luck.) Two players were randomly selected at the end for a PROMO CARD from the PROMO CARD ENVELOPE, and I was one of them. There were Woolly Thoctars and Isochron Scepters and some other stuff. I was strongly advised to take a Thoctar (the other guy did) so I just went with that. The Scepter is a great card, and worth more, but it's also from Mirrodin, and cards from Mirrodin burn my skin when I touch them. It's like they're coated in some sort of evil artifact acid. So I'm happy with my Thoctar.
Until next time…whenever that may be! (Perhaps the day after Christmas! We'll see.)
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Another Shards Draft
WELL! I managed to go to another Shards of Alara draft! Hurray for me. Here are my tales.
There were 25 people, and we were going to be drafting at tables of 6/6/6/7, but some people wanted larger tables, so it ended up being 8/8/9, and I was at one of the 8. I'm not superstitious, but I like to pretend that I am, so I decide the order in which to open my packs based on the art. My three boosters had art of Hellkite Overlord, Godsire, and Sphinx Sovereign, which is the order I decided to open them. My decision turned out to be awesome.
My first pack contained nothing of real interest. I think I took Oblivion Ring. The second pack was also lame and I took Bull Cerodon. After a few more unexciting picks, I noticed that I kept getting passed a lot of Esper cards. So I thought, LET'S TRY IT. And I began to draft Esper.
I took pretty elementary staple Esper cards like Glaze Fiend and Sanctum Gargoyle, not getting many bombs. I did take Brilliant Ultimatum – two of them – but decided later not to play them. But in the second pack, I got passed a Battlegrace Angel on my second pick, so I snatched that up faster than a hobo grabs a bread crust off the sidewalk. I continued taking pretty-okay Esper cards until third pack, where I opened the booster with the art of Sphinx Sovereign discover…SPHINX SOVEREIGN. After barely avoiding crapping myself, I took it and continued getting more generic Esper stuff, and a few Bant cards such as Akrasan Squire and Call to Heel. I focused mostly on artifact-related stuff to make my deck as resilient and aggressive as possible.
After a bit of fiddling, I came up with a deck of which I am actually pretty proud.
17 Land:
1 Esper Panorama
5 Island
6 Plains
5 Swamp
16 Creatures:
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Blister Beetle
1 Filigree Sages
3 Glaze Fiend
2 Sanctum Gargoyle (one was foil)
1 Sphinx Sovereign
1 Sphinx's Herald
1 Steelclad Serpent
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Tidehollow Strix
1 Vectis Silencers
1 Windwright Mage
7 Other Spells:
1 Call to Heel
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Hindering Light
1 Obelisk of Esper
1 Oblivion Ring
And now, the games. It was a five-round tournament, so one loss would mean that I would still have a chance at winning a prize, but I'm not the type who does things like winning or anything. Winning, pfft. Anyway. My first opponent had a powerful Jund deck splashing blue that would have totally crushed me if not for him getting horribly mana screwed the first game (he didn't get any black for a long time, and when he finally did, it was in the form of Obelisk of Grixis which I summarily owned with Dispeller's Capsule). I also kept topdecking exactly what I needed in every situation, which proved very irritating to him. The next game he got horribly mana flooded, drawing 14 land out of 20 cards. I've never seen anyone get so frustrated at mana problems, and insist so many times that it wasn't my fault. But he later made up his lost ground.
So I got off to a great start. My second match was against another Jund deck, but this one had no such mana problems. The first game, Vein Drinker killed my entire deck, and the second time, I got overwhelmed by massive number of tokens from Sprouting Thrinax and Jund Battlemage. I was now 1-1, out of the running for good prizes but still in the running for fifth place.
Then I faced a guy playing Bant. He clobbered me first game with a ton of exalted dudes that I couldn't get rid of. But the second game, I edged out a win with judicious use of being awesome, and the third game he got mana screwed. So now I was 2-1, though my wins could both be partly attributed to luck.
Then I faced an Esper deck, leaning heavily into Bant. That is, it was white-blue-black, but focused more on exalted than on artifacts. His mass of Akrasan Squires made me reluctant to waste my removal spells, and Deft Duelist didn't even give me the option. I got destroyed 0-2.
In the final round, I faced a Grixis deck played by a guy who does not embody Grixis at all because he was super nice. He realized I was kind of new, and when I played my Sculler, he gave me some advice as to which cards to remove (advice which was clearly not meant to sucker me). However, I once again got owned by superior removal. So I ended 2-3, with most of my wins being luck-based. A decent record, but not great, since I won 4 games but lost 7.
Whenever I got the Sphinx or the Angel out, I would usually have one turn of being able to use it before it got taken out by a Bone Splinters (in the former case) or Grixis Charm (in the latter). I definitely made some mistakes, a few of which probably lose me some games, but I had difficult choices to make, and of course I kind of suck. It was only my second Shards draft, after all. But I had fun, and it was neat to try a different shard, especially one I had railed against previously. But Esper used for aggro rather than control is plenty fun, and the few control spells I had were mostly defensive and relatively not obnoxious. One guy had FOUR Blightnings in his deck…I am glad I did not have to play him.
Some fun moments: Attacking with a Windwright Mage with Battlegrace Angel in play, giving him DOUBLE LIFELINK. (I have decided that lifelink is my favorite ability ever.) Trying to execute an elaborate method of getting my poorly played Oblivion Ring back by using Dispeller's Capsule and Sanctum Gargoyle, only to realize that I had already played Sanctum Gargoyle, and Oblivion Ring was of course not an artifact anyway. Using Hindering Light and Call to Heel to protect my dudes and draw more cards. Successfully using Sphinx's Herald to summon the Sovereign, only to lose it to a one-mana Bone Splinters. Trying to play a four-person multiplayer game in between rounds, three of us using Standard decks and one using an Elder Dragon Highlander deck because he didn't have anything else with him. (We got three turns in before the next round began.) Playing a Standard game between rounds against the nice Grixis guy who owns like twelve jillion cards and was playing Esper control, only to overpower him with my crappy red-green giant common dudes when he tapped out to play Scourglass, playing Soul's Fire on my Morselhoarder targeting his face as my coup de grace.
So that's the story of my second draft. I got only two real bombs, but I might be able to build an Esper deck now, and the Angel will definitely go into my exalted deck. As usual, I don't know how often I'll get to draft, but when I do, I'll be sure to post about it!
There were 25 people, and we were going to be drafting at tables of 6/6/6/7, but some people wanted larger tables, so it ended up being 8/8/9, and I was at one of the 8. I'm not superstitious, but I like to pretend that I am, so I decide the order in which to open my packs based on the art. My three boosters had art of Hellkite Overlord, Godsire, and Sphinx Sovereign, which is the order I decided to open them. My decision turned out to be awesome.
My first pack contained nothing of real interest. I think I took Oblivion Ring. The second pack was also lame and I took Bull Cerodon. After a few more unexciting picks, I noticed that I kept getting passed a lot of Esper cards. So I thought, LET'S TRY IT. And I began to draft Esper.
I took pretty elementary staple Esper cards like Glaze Fiend and Sanctum Gargoyle, not getting many bombs. I did take Brilliant Ultimatum – two of them – but decided later not to play them. But in the second pack, I got passed a Battlegrace Angel on my second pick, so I snatched that up faster than a hobo grabs a bread crust off the sidewalk. I continued taking pretty-okay Esper cards until third pack, where I opened the booster with the art of Sphinx Sovereign discover…SPHINX SOVEREIGN. After barely avoiding crapping myself, I took it and continued getting more generic Esper stuff, and a few Bant cards such as Akrasan Squire and Call to Heel. I focused mostly on artifact-related stuff to make my deck as resilient and aggressive as possible.
After a bit of fiddling, I came up with a deck of which I am actually pretty proud.
17 Land:
1 Esper Panorama
5 Island
6 Plains
5 Swamp
16 Creatures:
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Blister Beetle
1 Filigree Sages
3 Glaze Fiend
2 Sanctum Gargoyle (one was foil)
1 Sphinx Sovereign
1 Sphinx's Herald
1 Steelclad Serpent
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Tidehollow Strix
1 Vectis Silencers
1 Windwright Mage
7 Other Spells:
1 Call to Heel
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Hindering Light
1 Obelisk of Esper
1 Oblivion Ring
And now, the games. It was a five-round tournament, so one loss would mean that I would still have a chance at winning a prize, but I'm not the type who does things like winning or anything. Winning, pfft. Anyway. My first opponent had a powerful Jund deck splashing blue that would have totally crushed me if not for him getting horribly mana screwed the first game (he didn't get any black for a long time, and when he finally did, it was in the form of Obelisk of Grixis which I summarily owned with Dispeller's Capsule). I also kept topdecking exactly what I needed in every situation, which proved very irritating to him. The next game he got horribly mana flooded, drawing 14 land out of 20 cards. I've never seen anyone get so frustrated at mana problems, and insist so many times that it wasn't my fault. But he later made up his lost ground.
So I got off to a great start. My second match was against another Jund deck, but this one had no such mana problems. The first game, Vein Drinker killed my entire deck, and the second time, I got overwhelmed by massive number of tokens from Sprouting Thrinax and Jund Battlemage. I was now 1-1, out of the running for good prizes but still in the running for fifth place.
Then I faced a guy playing Bant. He clobbered me first game with a ton of exalted dudes that I couldn't get rid of. But the second game, I edged out a win with judicious use of being awesome, and the third game he got mana screwed. So now I was 2-1, though my wins could both be partly attributed to luck.
Then I faced an Esper deck, leaning heavily into Bant. That is, it was white-blue-black, but focused more on exalted than on artifacts. His mass of Akrasan Squires made me reluctant to waste my removal spells, and Deft Duelist didn't even give me the option. I got destroyed 0-2.
In the final round, I faced a Grixis deck played by a guy who does not embody Grixis at all because he was super nice. He realized I was kind of new, and when I played my Sculler, he gave me some advice as to which cards to remove (advice which was clearly not meant to sucker me). However, I once again got owned by superior removal. So I ended 2-3, with most of my wins being luck-based. A decent record, but not great, since I won 4 games but lost 7.
Whenever I got the Sphinx or the Angel out, I would usually have one turn of being able to use it before it got taken out by a Bone Splinters (in the former case) or Grixis Charm (in the latter). I definitely made some mistakes, a few of which probably lose me some games, but I had difficult choices to make, and of course I kind of suck. It was only my second Shards draft, after all. But I had fun, and it was neat to try a different shard, especially one I had railed against previously. But Esper used for aggro rather than control is plenty fun, and the few control spells I had were mostly defensive and relatively not obnoxious. One guy had FOUR Blightnings in his deck…I am glad I did not have to play him.
Some fun moments: Attacking with a Windwright Mage with Battlegrace Angel in play, giving him DOUBLE LIFELINK. (I have decided that lifelink is my favorite ability ever.) Trying to execute an elaborate method of getting my poorly played Oblivion Ring back by using Dispeller's Capsule and Sanctum Gargoyle, only to realize that I had already played Sanctum Gargoyle, and Oblivion Ring was of course not an artifact anyway. Using Hindering Light and Call to Heel to protect my dudes and draw more cards. Successfully using Sphinx's Herald to summon the Sovereign, only to lose it to a one-mana Bone Splinters. Trying to play a four-person multiplayer game in between rounds, three of us using Standard decks and one using an Elder Dragon Highlander deck because he didn't have anything else with him. (We got three turns in before the next round began.) Playing a Standard game between rounds against the nice Grixis guy who owns like twelve jillion cards and was playing Esper control, only to overpower him with my crappy red-green giant common dudes when he tapped out to play Scourglass, playing Soul's Fire on my Morselhoarder targeting his face as my coup de grace.
So that's the story of my second draft. I got only two real bombs, but I might be able to build an Esper deck now, and the Angel will definitely go into my exalted deck. As usual, I don't know how often I'll get to draft, but when I do, I'll be sure to post about it!
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Shards draft!
The shop that I've started going to didn't have a Shards of Alara release party, but instead, they turned last night's Friday Night Magic into a Shards of Alara booster draft, complete with promo Ajani Vengeants. (They actually do a booster draft every other FNM, which is great because I love Limited.) Anyway, I went to that draft last night, and HERE ARE MY TALES.
There were 25 players, seated at tables of 6, 6, 6, and 7. I was at one of the 6-player tables, and I was of course super excited. My excitement was immediately justified when my first pack contained an Emyprial Archangel. Bant is my favorite shard anyway, and I already have a decent amount of Bant cards (though not quite a deck's worth), so I was glad to grab the shiny Angel and immediately commit myself to Bant. Neither of the players next to me were playing Bant, so I kept getting passed a lot of Bant cards, which was awesome.
Another pack had Clarion Ultimatum, which is nigh useless in Limited, but I grabbed it for use in a deck later. I also picked up another Angel's Herald, which, it turned out, was also not especially useful. My second pack contained a foil Spearbreaker Behemoth and a Ranger of Eos. The Behemoth was just too awesome not to take, but the Ranger came back around to me, so I grabbed him too. (He too later proved useless, though.) I picked the Behemoth thinking "OH MAN I CAN MAKE MY EMPYRIAL ARCHANGEL INDESTRUCTIBLE AND PREVENT ALL DAMAGE TO ME EACH TURN FOR A MERE ONE MANA." But then when I went to actually do it in game, I noticed that the Angel had shroud. And I wept bitter tears.
There weren't any other really outstanding picks, but I grabbed a Minion Reflector for later use. Or rather, because it looked cool. I also got a bunch of repeats of cards I had from the Sealed tournament, which allowed me to make a shiny Bant deck afterward. Anyway, I of course mixed all my cards together again before recording any of them, and changed it between games, but here's the closest estimate of what my final deck looked like (and I actually managed to keep it to 40 cards after other players gave me stern looks when I told them my deck was 46):
16 LAND:
1 Bant Panorama
1 Esper Panorama
5 Forest
5 Island
7 Plains
14 CREATURES:
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Algae Gharial
1 Cylian Elf
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Jhessian Infiltrator
1 Qasali Ambusher
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Rockcaster Platoon
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Sunseed Nurturer
2 Waveskimmer Aven
10 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Angelic Benediction
2 Courier's Capsule
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
1 Hindering Light
1 Obelisk of Bant
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Resounding Silence
1 Sigil Blessing
1 Soul's Grace
So that's what I had as of the third round. Now to recount the actual games...
My first opponent was also playing Bant, but he had a Battlegrace Angel as well as a Stoic Angel, which was very painful. Our first game went back and forth with life gain and Exalted, but I finally managed to turn the tides by using a Resounding Silence on his freaking Battlegrace Angel, and somehow I got enough damage through to win the first game. The second game was a different story, as he got the Battlegrace Angel out again but I couldn't stop it. The game dragged on even longer, and we even went into overtime with each of us having only 3 cards left in our decks. He won just in time, since his Knight-Captain of Eos was able to prevent too much of my damage, and so we drew 1-1 in the first round without even getting to game 3.
I then fiddled with my deck a little and faced a Grixis player. I hadn't faced a dedicated Grixis deck before, but he wore me down in small increments with Onyx Goblet and two Kederekt Creepers, spelling my doom. I lost 1-2.
Then I consulted another player, who made some recommendations for my deck, and I got it configured as you see above. My third opponent was playing what seemed like an Esper control deck, but he hardly played anything, so I never really found out what it was supposed to do. I won 2-0.
My final opponent was playing only two colors (white-blue), but had trouble getting his blue out. He had a TON of life gain (two Crystal Goblets as well as an Invincible Hymn), but he didn't have enough defense, and I had even MORE life gain with my Rhox War Monk attacking with Exalted. It took a while, but I won 2-0.
I don't know how I would have done if I had made the deck properly from the outset, but I was pretty happy with how I did. 6 wins and 3 losses is solid, even though I had no chance of winning a prize after the second round, but I definitely enjoyed myself. And now I have an Exalted deck! I may post the full decklist at some point, but it's not really necessary: it's just every Exalted card I have, plus a few others thrown in (Rhox War Monk!). I don't use Empyrial Archangel because, as awesome as it is, it's really not that useful to an Exalted deck, and its extremely high mana cost makes it much less playable in Constructed.
But I DID make a red-green Naya deck using some of the cards I got, plus a bunch of Shadowmoor cards, and even a few from Tenth Edition:
25 LAND:
14 Forest
11 Mountain
26 CREATURES:
1 Algae Gharial
1 Belligerent Hatchling
1 Briarhorn
1 Cragganwick Cremator
2 Devoted Druid
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Exuberant Firestoker
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Foxfire Oak
2 Incurable Ogre
2 Jungle Weaver
2 Loamdragger Giant
2 Morselhoarder
1 Oakgnarl Warrior
2 Roughshod Mentor
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Stampeding Wildebeests
1 Tattermunge Witch
9 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Branching Bolt
1 Double Cleave
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
2 Mighty Emergence
2 Naturalize
1 Soul's Fire
1 Where Ancients Tread
I opted not to use white because I really don't have many good white cards that would fit in here, besides Rakeclaw Gargantuan. I left out Sarkhan Vol because he just doesn't do anything especially useful for Naya. Most of my creatures are going to be more concerned with attacking than blocking, often leaving him undefended, and his abilities just aren't that helpful to the deck. That said, let's look at some of the awesome parts.
Stampeding Wildebeests is really good. I didn't realize how awesome he was, but he has really great interactions with many of the other cards in this deck. He allows me to reuse my Elvish Visionaries and Farhaven Elf, and if I have Where Ancients Tread, I can return the Wildebeest himself and replay him for 5 more damage each turn. Many of the creatures here don't start out with 5 toughness, so they don't trigger the comes-into-play enchantments, but they still quickly get up to 5, which supports Exuberant Firestoker and allows them to be targeted by Spearbreaker Behemoth. It's slow to get going, but if it lasts long enough, it will finish the job quickly. I also like how it uses cards from a variety of sets despite being based on a Shards of Alara theme.
So there you have it. My first Shards of Alara draft, and a few decks that resulted from it. I hope to draft Shards again at some point, but I don't yet know when that might be. Comments and suggestions on my red-green deck are welcome :)
One final story: after one of the rounds where I finished early, I wandered around looking at other people's games. I found two guys locked in the most epic battle of all time. One had a Windwright Mage with 60 +1/+1 counters on it, made possible by a Cradle of Vitality. He also had a Metallurgeon and a Tidehollow Strix, making any attack against him very uninviting. He had 88 life. His opponent had a Feral Hydra with 19 +1/+1 counters on it. He was at 52 life. There were a bunch of other creatures out, but they didn't do much. The guy with the artifacts eventually won, but it was a very amusing battle. Seeing a 62/62 creature with flying and lifelink in Limited is just ridiculous. RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME.
There were 25 players, seated at tables of 6, 6, 6, and 7. I was at one of the 6-player tables, and I was of course super excited. My excitement was immediately justified when my first pack contained an Emyprial Archangel. Bant is my favorite shard anyway, and I already have a decent amount of Bant cards (though not quite a deck's worth), so I was glad to grab the shiny Angel and immediately commit myself to Bant. Neither of the players next to me were playing Bant, so I kept getting passed a lot of Bant cards, which was awesome.
Another pack had Clarion Ultimatum, which is nigh useless in Limited, but I grabbed it for use in a deck later. I also picked up another Angel's Herald, which, it turned out, was also not especially useful. My second pack contained a foil Spearbreaker Behemoth and a Ranger of Eos. The Behemoth was just too awesome not to take, but the Ranger came back around to me, so I grabbed him too. (He too later proved useless, though.) I picked the Behemoth thinking "OH MAN I CAN MAKE MY EMPYRIAL ARCHANGEL INDESTRUCTIBLE AND PREVENT ALL DAMAGE TO ME EACH TURN FOR A MERE ONE MANA." But then when I went to actually do it in game, I noticed that the Angel had shroud. And I wept bitter tears.
There weren't any other really outstanding picks, but I grabbed a Minion Reflector for later use. Or rather, because it looked cool. I also got a bunch of repeats of cards I had from the Sealed tournament, which allowed me to make a shiny Bant deck afterward. Anyway, I of course mixed all my cards together again before recording any of them, and changed it between games, but here's the closest estimate of what my final deck looked like (and I actually managed to keep it to 40 cards after other players gave me stern looks when I told them my deck was 46):
16 LAND:
1 Bant Panorama
1 Esper Panorama
5 Forest
5 Island
7 Plains
14 CREATURES:
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Algae Gharial
1 Cylian Elf
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Jhessian Infiltrator
1 Qasali Ambusher
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Rockcaster Platoon
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Sunseed Nurturer
2 Waveskimmer Aven
10 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Angelic Benediction
2 Courier's Capsule
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
1 Hindering Light
1 Obelisk of Bant
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Resounding Silence
1 Sigil Blessing
1 Soul's Grace
So that's what I had as of the third round. Now to recount the actual games...
My first opponent was also playing Bant, but he had a Battlegrace Angel as well as a Stoic Angel, which was very painful. Our first game went back and forth with life gain and Exalted, but I finally managed to turn the tides by using a Resounding Silence on his freaking Battlegrace Angel, and somehow I got enough damage through to win the first game. The second game was a different story, as he got the Battlegrace Angel out again but I couldn't stop it. The game dragged on even longer, and we even went into overtime with each of us having only 3 cards left in our decks. He won just in time, since his Knight-Captain of Eos was able to prevent too much of my damage, and so we drew 1-1 in the first round without even getting to game 3.
I then fiddled with my deck a little and faced a Grixis player. I hadn't faced a dedicated Grixis deck before, but he wore me down in small increments with Onyx Goblet and two Kederekt Creepers, spelling my doom. I lost 1-2.
Then I consulted another player, who made some recommendations for my deck, and I got it configured as you see above. My third opponent was playing what seemed like an Esper control deck, but he hardly played anything, so I never really found out what it was supposed to do. I won 2-0.
My final opponent was playing only two colors (white-blue), but had trouble getting his blue out. He had a TON of life gain (two Crystal Goblets as well as an Invincible Hymn), but he didn't have enough defense, and I had even MORE life gain with my Rhox War Monk attacking with Exalted. It took a while, but I won 2-0.
I don't know how I would have done if I had made the deck properly from the outset, but I was pretty happy with how I did. 6 wins and 3 losses is solid, even though I had no chance of winning a prize after the second round, but I definitely enjoyed myself. And now I have an Exalted deck! I may post the full decklist at some point, but it's not really necessary: it's just every Exalted card I have, plus a few others thrown in (Rhox War Monk!). I don't use Empyrial Archangel because, as awesome as it is, it's really not that useful to an Exalted deck, and its extremely high mana cost makes it much less playable in Constructed.
But I DID make a red-green Naya deck using some of the cards I got, plus a bunch of Shadowmoor cards, and even a few from Tenth Edition:
25 LAND:
14 Forest
11 Mountain
26 CREATURES:
1 Algae Gharial
1 Belligerent Hatchling
1 Briarhorn
1 Cragganwick Cremator
2 Devoted Druid
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Exuberant Firestoker
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Foxfire Oak
2 Incurable Ogre
2 Jungle Weaver
2 Loamdragger Giant
2 Morselhoarder
1 Oakgnarl Warrior
2 Roughshod Mentor
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Stampeding Wildebeests
1 Tattermunge Witch
9 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Branching Bolt
1 Double Cleave
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
2 Mighty Emergence
2 Naturalize
1 Soul's Fire
1 Where Ancients Tread
I opted not to use white because I really don't have many good white cards that would fit in here, besides Rakeclaw Gargantuan. I left out Sarkhan Vol because he just doesn't do anything especially useful for Naya. Most of my creatures are going to be more concerned with attacking than blocking, often leaving him undefended, and his abilities just aren't that helpful to the deck. That said, let's look at some of the awesome parts.
Stampeding Wildebeests is really good. I didn't realize how awesome he was, but he has really great interactions with many of the other cards in this deck. He allows me to reuse my Elvish Visionaries and Farhaven Elf, and if I have Where Ancients Tread, I can return the Wildebeest himself and replay him for 5 more damage each turn. Many of the creatures here don't start out with 5 toughness, so they don't trigger the comes-into-play enchantments, but they still quickly get up to 5, which supports Exuberant Firestoker and allows them to be targeted by Spearbreaker Behemoth. It's slow to get going, but if it lasts long enough, it will finish the job quickly. I also like how it uses cards from a variety of sets despite being based on a Shards of Alara theme.
So there you have it. My first Shards of Alara draft, and a few decks that resulted from it. I hope to draft Shards again at some point, but I don't yet know when that might be. Comments and suggestions on my red-green deck are welcome :)
One final story: after one of the rounds where I finished early, I wandered around looking at other people's games. I found two guys locked in the most epic battle of all time. One had a Windwright Mage with 60 +1/+1 counters on it, made possible by a Cradle of Vitality. He also had a Metallurgeon and a Tidehollow Strix, making any attack against him very uninviting. He had 88 life. His opponent had a Feral Hydra with 19 +1/+1 counters on it. He was at 52 life. There were a bunch of other creatures out, but they didn't do much. The guy with the artifacts eventually won, but it was a very amusing battle. Seeing a 62/62 creature with flying and lifelink in Limited is just ridiculous. RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Shards of Alara Prerelease: DONE
I went to the Shards of Alara Prerelease on Sunday! It was awesome. To start off, I'll list my sealed pool. Some notes:
- At the end of the night, there were still 10 booster packs left, so the host gave them out randomly as a reward for those who stuck around till the bitter end. (A lot of players left early to preserve their rankings or some crap.) So I ended up with one of those, and when I got home, I mixed them all together. So I don't remember exactly which ones were in that booster and which were in my Sealed deck, but my list should be pretty accurate except for a few commons.
- There are 86 cards: 44 from Sealed (because one was a foil Plains) and 14 from each booster.
- I've organized the cards by shard, but I’m not 100% sure about which cards go in which shard. Most are easy to categorize, but some I just guessed.
Without further ado:
BANT
1x Angel's Herald
1x Angelic Benediction
1x Angelsong
1x Bant Charm
3x Bant Panorama
1x Clarion Ultimatum
1x Dawnray Archer (not sure about this one)
2x Excommunicate
2x Guardians of Akrasa
1x Knight of the White Orchid
1x Resounding Silence
2x Rhox Charger
1x Rhox War Monk
1x Seaside Citadel
1x Topan Ascetic
1x Waveskimmer Aven
2x Welkin Guide (one foil)
ESPER
1x Cloudheath Drake
1x Dispeller's Capsule
1x Etherium Sculptor
1x Filigree Sages
1x Obelisk of Esper
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Onyx Goblet (not sure about this one)
1x Punish Ignorance
1x Spell Snip
1x Steelclad Serpent
1x Thoughtcutter Agent
1x Tidehollow Strix
1x Tower Gargoyle
1x Vectis Silencers
1x Windwright Mage
GRIXIS
2x Banewasp Affliction
1x Blightning
1x Dreg Reaver
1x Fatestitcher
1x Grixis Panorama
2x Incurable Ogre
1x Kathari Screecher
1x Kederekt Creeper
1x Lightning Talson
1x Shadowfeed
3x Skeletal Kathari
1x Skeletonize
1x Undead Leotau
JUND
1x Branching Bolt
1x Carrion Thrash
1x Deathgreeter
1x Dragon Fodder
1x Goblin Deathraiders
1x Goblin Mountaineer
1x Hissing Iguanar
1x Magma Spray
1x Sarkhan Vol!!!
1x Tar Fiend
1x Thorn-Thrash Viashino
1x Thunder-Thrash Elder
NAYA
1x Cylian Elf
1x Exuberant Firestoker
1x Godtoucher (not sure about this one)
2x Gustrider Exuberant
2x Jungle Weaver
1x Lush Growth
1x Naya Charm
1x Obelisk of Naya
1x Qasali Ambusher
1x Rakeclaw Gargantuan
1x Resounding Roar
1x Savage Hunger
1x Soul's Fire
1x Soul's Grace
1x Soul's Might
1x Where Ancients Tread
1x Wild Nacatl
So as you can see, my pool was fairly heavily invested in green and white. Luckily, I love green and white, so my deck ended up being green-white-red splashing blue (for the three excellent tricolor Bant cards). Plus, almost all of my mana fixing was Bant, so I had to do SOMETHING with it. Also, I had to run red because of Sarkhan. With this deck…I got completely destroyed 0-2 against a green-white-red-black deck. Also, my deck was 50 cards because I just didn't have the heart to cut anything. Beginner's folly.
So then I said SCREW IT and completely redid my deck for the second round. I started with blue, and ended up with all 5 colors and another large deck of 46 or 47 cards. I went 1-1-1 with it (against a green-white-blue-black deck with Empyrial Archangel, which was not especially easy to deal with), though I probably would have won the last game but just barely. It was not a good deck since I could rarely play any of my spells until I had all 5 colors of mana out.
So then I said SCREW IT and was going to completely redo my deck but it was already time for the next round, so I lost 1-2 with my crappy 5 color deck again (against a solid Naya deck). But after THAT swift defeat, there was plenty of time to redo my deck over and over until I liked it. So I bit the bullet, chose a shard (Bant), and cut any card that was not ideal in a Bant deck, like Wild Nacatl and, sadly, Sarkhan Vol. The one time I had gotten to play him previously, I made a tactical error and stole a dude, but left my opponent with a flyer on his turn to finish off Sarkhan. However, my focus on Exalted made Sarkhan's abilities not especially useful, so cutting him wasn't really that painful. I managed to get my deck to 40 cards by running just 16 lands, but with no spells costing more than 5 mana. It worked pretty well, as I went 2-0 in the fourth round with it and 1-2 in the final round (though the 2-0 was against a guy who clearly was new). If I had made that deck for the first round, I might even have done respectably well. Oh well, at least I had fun with the new set!
I signed up for a Shards of Alara draft for this Friday. Drafting should be much different from Sealed, and I'm excited. I'm going to get crushed, but it will still be neat. I'm really hoping to get Elspeth, Knight-Errant since she is just SO AWESOME. Even with Jund. Free dragon food each turn! I will relate my drafting adventures next week.
As far as conclusions about the set go, I'm not really cut out for that sort of thing. I saw few dedicated Esper decks, but I suspect that will be a different story in a booster draft. I saw plenty of red and green, as Naya and Jund seemed to be popular in Sealed. As far as my personal tastes go, I am a fan of Bant, since Exalted is quite a powerful mechanic in Limited. With lots of defensive Exalted creatures (like Guardians of Akrasa) and a few evasive creatures, you can build up damage quickly without sacrificing defense. I really like Welkin Guide; at 4W, it's expensive for a 2/2 flier, but its comes-into-play ability can give another powerful creature evasion, and then become your evasive Exalted champion itself on subsequent turns. Sweet.
I also really like the interactions of the mechanics in the set – except for Esper, which is a jerk. Exalted works well with Naya cards that care about having a creature with power 5 or greater during combat or at end of turn, which is a fair number of them. Devour works well with anything involving creatures with power 5 or greater, since Devour creatures are often huge. And Devour also works with Unearth: Unearth a dude, attack with him, and if he's still alive, Devour him, since he's going to leave play anyway. But then there's Esper, which only cares about artifacts, which has nothing to do with anything else. You know what, Esper? BITE ME.
Well, that's all I have for now. Hopefully I'll have more to say next week after the draft. Until then, BANT RULES GRIXIS DROOLS KBYE.
- At the end of the night, there were still 10 booster packs left, so the host gave them out randomly as a reward for those who stuck around till the bitter end. (A lot of players left early to preserve their rankings or some crap.) So I ended up with one of those, and when I got home, I mixed them all together. So I don't remember exactly which ones were in that booster and which were in my Sealed deck, but my list should be pretty accurate except for a few commons.
- There are 86 cards: 44 from Sealed (because one was a foil Plains) and 14 from each booster.
- I've organized the cards by shard, but I’m not 100% sure about which cards go in which shard. Most are easy to categorize, but some I just guessed.
Without further ado:
BANT
1x Angel's Herald
1x Angelic Benediction
1x Angelsong
1x Bant Charm
3x Bant Panorama
1x Clarion Ultimatum
1x Dawnray Archer (not sure about this one)
2x Excommunicate
2x Guardians of Akrasa
1x Knight of the White Orchid
1x Resounding Silence
2x Rhox Charger
1x Rhox War Monk
1x Seaside Citadel
1x Topan Ascetic
1x Waveskimmer Aven
2x Welkin Guide (one foil)
ESPER
1x Cloudheath Drake
1x Dispeller's Capsule
1x Etherium Sculptor
1x Filigree Sages
1x Obelisk of Esper
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Onyx Goblet (not sure about this one)
1x Punish Ignorance
1x Spell Snip
1x Steelclad Serpent
1x Thoughtcutter Agent
1x Tidehollow Strix
1x Tower Gargoyle
1x Vectis Silencers
1x Windwright Mage
GRIXIS
2x Banewasp Affliction
1x Blightning
1x Dreg Reaver
1x Fatestitcher
1x Grixis Panorama
2x Incurable Ogre
1x Kathari Screecher
1x Kederekt Creeper
1x Lightning Talson
1x Shadowfeed
3x Skeletal Kathari
1x Skeletonize
1x Undead Leotau
JUND
1x Branching Bolt
1x Carrion Thrash
1x Deathgreeter
1x Dragon Fodder
1x Goblin Deathraiders
1x Goblin Mountaineer
1x Hissing Iguanar
1x Magma Spray
1x Sarkhan Vol!!!
1x Tar Fiend
1x Thorn-Thrash Viashino
1x Thunder-Thrash Elder
NAYA
1x Cylian Elf
1x Exuberant Firestoker
1x Godtoucher (not sure about this one)
2x Gustrider Exuberant
2x Jungle Weaver
1x Lush Growth
1x Naya Charm
1x Obelisk of Naya
1x Qasali Ambusher
1x Rakeclaw Gargantuan
1x Resounding Roar
1x Savage Hunger
1x Soul's Fire
1x Soul's Grace
1x Soul's Might
1x Where Ancients Tread
1x Wild Nacatl
So as you can see, my pool was fairly heavily invested in green and white. Luckily, I love green and white, so my deck ended up being green-white-red splashing blue (for the three excellent tricolor Bant cards). Plus, almost all of my mana fixing was Bant, so I had to do SOMETHING with it. Also, I had to run red because of Sarkhan. With this deck…I got completely destroyed 0-2 against a green-white-red-black deck. Also, my deck was 50 cards because I just didn't have the heart to cut anything. Beginner's folly.
So then I said SCREW IT and completely redid my deck for the second round. I started with blue, and ended up with all 5 colors and another large deck of 46 or 47 cards. I went 1-1-1 with it (against a green-white-blue-black deck with Empyrial Archangel, which was not especially easy to deal with), though I probably would have won the last game but just barely. It was not a good deck since I could rarely play any of my spells until I had all 5 colors of mana out.
So then I said SCREW IT and was going to completely redo my deck but it was already time for the next round, so I lost 1-2 with my crappy 5 color deck again (against a solid Naya deck). But after THAT swift defeat, there was plenty of time to redo my deck over and over until I liked it. So I bit the bullet, chose a shard (Bant), and cut any card that was not ideal in a Bant deck, like Wild Nacatl and, sadly, Sarkhan Vol. The one time I had gotten to play him previously, I made a tactical error and stole a dude, but left my opponent with a flyer on his turn to finish off Sarkhan. However, my focus on Exalted made Sarkhan's abilities not especially useful, so cutting him wasn't really that painful. I managed to get my deck to 40 cards by running just 16 lands, but with no spells costing more than 5 mana. It worked pretty well, as I went 2-0 in the fourth round with it and 1-2 in the final round (though the 2-0 was against a guy who clearly was new). If I had made that deck for the first round, I might even have done respectably well. Oh well, at least I had fun with the new set!
I signed up for a Shards of Alara draft for this Friday. Drafting should be much different from Sealed, and I'm excited. I'm going to get crushed, but it will still be neat. I'm really hoping to get Elspeth, Knight-Errant since she is just SO AWESOME. Even with Jund. Free dragon food each turn! I will relate my drafting adventures next week.
As far as conclusions about the set go, I'm not really cut out for that sort of thing. I saw few dedicated Esper decks, but I suspect that will be a different story in a booster draft. I saw plenty of red and green, as Naya and Jund seemed to be popular in Sealed. As far as my personal tastes go, I am a fan of Bant, since Exalted is quite a powerful mechanic in Limited. With lots of defensive Exalted creatures (like Guardians of Akrasa) and a few evasive creatures, you can build up damage quickly without sacrificing defense. I really like Welkin Guide; at 4W, it's expensive for a 2/2 flier, but its comes-into-play ability can give another powerful creature evasion, and then become your evasive Exalted champion itself on subsequent turns. Sweet.
I also really like the interactions of the mechanics in the set – except for Esper, which is a jerk. Exalted works well with Naya cards that care about having a creature with power 5 or greater during combat or at end of turn, which is a fair number of them. Devour works well with anything involving creatures with power 5 or greater, since Devour creatures are often huge. And Devour also works with Unearth: Unearth a dude, attack with him, and if he's still alive, Devour him, since he's going to leave play anyway. But then there's Esper, which only cares about artifacts, which has nothing to do with anything else. You know what, Esper? BITE ME.
Well, that's all I have for now. Hopefully I'll have more to say next week after the draft. Until then, BANT RULES GRIXIS DROOLS KBYE.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Shards of Alara Prerelease
OH MAN. I signed up for the Shards of Alara Prerelease! A nearby store (well, somewhat nearby) is having an event on Sunday. I haven't posted in a while, so I thought this would be a good enough reason to do so.
As of this moment, MTGSalvation.com has spoiled 183 out of the 249 cards in the set (which includes basic lands, so it's really 163/229), and BOY ARE THEY AWESOME. I'ma talk about some shards.
BANT. The best shard ever, because it is white-green-blue which is the best color trio ever. Bant is the classic knights-and-castles world, with griffins and stuff. Like Erathia. Their signature mechanic, Exalted, is based on attacking with just one dude each turn, but when you do, that dude is HUGE. This lets you stand back and defend with lots of dudes each turn while still packing a punch in your attack. However, this strategy is weak against chump blocking and removal, since they can just block or pop off the one guy who attacks. And unfortunately, Jund looooves tokens. So although Bant is cool, I don't know how awesome it will actually turn out to be mechanically.
JUND. Jund is the black-red-green shard. As I said, Jund likes tokens. Their mechanic is devour. When a creature with devour comes into play, it devours some of your other creatures to pump itself up. So if you have lots of tokens, you can easily sacrifice them to your devourers to make them huge. And some even give back to the community by making more tokens for future devourers. Jund also likes Dragons, and it likes them A LOT. There's even an enchantment that pumps dragons exclusively. And Sarkhan Vol's ultimate ability makes a game-winning array of dragon tokens. I like red and green, so I wouldn't mind playing Jund. I certainly won't pass up the chance to play Sarkhan himself.
NAYA. Naya is the red-green-white shard. Naya likes big dudes even more than Jund. Their mechanic is stuff-involving-creatures-with-power-5-or-greater, which is a lot of their creatures. Red-green is going to be great for anyone who likes giant dudes, because both Naya and Jund are going to have massive dudes in red and green. There's not that much to say about them other than that they are pretty neat I guess?
ESPER. Esper is the white-blue-black shard, and man do I hate it. But that may be because I hate blue-black. And artifacts. Their theme is artifacts, and all of their creatures are artifact creatures. I don't know exactly why I hate Esper, but I just do. Probably because it will be CONTROL CITY, and as you know, I do not much like control. If my sealed deck contains insane Esper cards, I'll grudgingly play it (because WINNING IS EVERYTHING) but otherwise I will be packing plenty of artifact destruction.
GRIXIS. Grixis is the blue-black-red shard, and is totally uninteresting to me. It's just standard evil demons and stuff. Their mechanic is Unearth, which lets you return a dude from your graveyard to play with haste one more time before removing him from the game. Yawn.
I know I've been a total douche about which shards I like. But that's because this article is about me and what I'm going to do, not an informative article about the block. There are plenty of those here. So anyway, I don't really know what I will be playing since I'm not the type to enter a tournament saying "GONNA PLAY MONO RED TODAY NO MATTER WHAT," but I will try to play whatever is strongest in my packs. I know I talked about how much I hate black and blue, but a tournament is different from casual play, and the chance to win twenty bajillion booster packs is not something one gets every day. Nevertheless, if all things are equal, I am more likely to play something with white or green in it than not. And if I do win prizes, I'll be sure to build some decks ASAP and mention them here! (Even if I don't win anything, I'll still have the tournament pack and 3 boosters worth of cards to work with.) Hurray!
As of this moment, MTGSalvation.com has spoiled 183 out of the 249 cards in the set (which includes basic lands, so it's really 163/229), and BOY ARE THEY AWESOME. I'ma talk about some shards.
BANT. The best shard ever, because it is white-green-blue which is the best color trio ever. Bant is the classic knights-and-castles world, with griffins and stuff. Like Erathia. Their signature mechanic, Exalted, is based on attacking with just one dude each turn, but when you do, that dude is HUGE. This lets you stand back and defend with lots of dudes each turn while still packing a punch in your attack. However, this strategy is weak against chump blocking and removal, since they can just block or pop off the one guy who attacks. And unfortunately, Jund looooves tokens. So although Bant is cool, I don't know how awesome it will actually turn out to be mechanically.
JUND. Jund is the black-red-green shard. As I said, Jund likes tokens. Their mechanic is devour. When a creature with devour comes into play, it devours some of your other creatures to pump itself up. So if you have lots of tokens, you can easily sacrifice them to your devourers to make them huge. And some even give back to the community by making more tokens for future devourers. Jund also likes Dragons, and it likes them A LOT. There's even an enchantment that pumps dragons exclusively. And Sarkhan Vol's ultimate ability makes a game-winning array of dragon tokens. I like red and green, so I wouldn't mind playing Jund. I certainly won't pass up the chance to play Sarkhan himself.
NAYA. Naya is the red-green-white shard. Naya likes big dudes even more than Jund. Their mechanic is stuff-involving-creatures-with-power-5-or-greater, which is a lot of their creatures. Red-green is going to be great for anyone who likes giant dudes, because both Naya and Jund are going to have massive dudes in red and green. There's not that much to say about them other than that they are pretty neat I guess?
ESPER. Esper is the white-blue-black shard, and man do I hate it. But that may be because I hate blue-black. And artifacts. Their theme is artifacts, and all of their creatures are artifact creatures. I don't know exactly why I hate Esper, but I just do. Probably because it will be CONTROL CITY, and as you know, I do not much like control. If my sealed deck contains insane Esper cards, I'll grudgingly play it (because WINNING IS EVERYTHING) but otherwise I will be packing plenty of artifact destruction.
GRIXIS. Grixis is the blue-black-red shard, and is totally uninteresting to me. It's just standard evil demons and stuff. Their mechanic is Unearth, which lets you return a dude from your graveyard to play with haste one more time before removing him from the game. Yawn.
I know I've been a total douche about which shards I like. But that's because this article is about me and what I'm going to do, not an informative article about the block. There are plenty of those here. So anyway, I don't really know what I will be playing since I'm not the type to enter a tournament saying "GONNA PLAY MONO RED TODAY NO MATTER WHAT," but I will try to play whatever is strongest in my packs. I know I talked about how much I hate black and blue, but a tournament is different from casual play, and the chance to win twenty bajillion booster packs is not something one gets every day. Nevertheless, if all things are equal, I am more likely to play something with white or green in it than not. And if I do win prizes, I'll be sure to build some decks ASAP and mention them here! (Even if I don't win anything, I'll still have the tournament pack and 3 boosters worth of cards to work with.) Hurray!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Control
Lots of people like to have control. Obviously, this is true in most aspects of life, not just Magic. But control can be a dangerous tool. Taking control of your own life is greatly empowering, but control of others often leads to corruption. And this relates to Magic.
Control decks can be any color or combination of colors, and can have any number of ways of exerting control. However, what they all have in common is just that: ways of exerting control. It's of course possible to have control over just yourself. This could take various forms: a deck whose mana curve is well-balanced, modal spells, tutors, card draw, etc. They give you flexibility to react, find what you need, and make the best of bad luck. But when people talk about control in Magic, they are usually talking about exerting control over the game, and over the opponent.
Many players love control - if you call the shots, victory is only a matter of time. But there's an inherent problem with control - it's annoying. Now, this is a fairly personal issue, and I am sure there are plenty of players who don't share my sentiments, but I definitely know some who do. As I've mentioned in a previous article, the friend who taught me Magic in the first place refuses to play against heavy control decks at all. And I often find myself agreeing with him. Here are his - and my - reasons.
First off, let's consider a situation. Smith is playing any ol' deck. Jones is playing a permission deck - a deck that has enough counters that it can decide what Smith can or can't play. Jones has buckets of fun - he giggles when Smith tries to play a powerful creature and counters it. But what is Smith feeling? He entered the game assuming he would get to play his spells. Now maybe he shouldn't have made that assumption, but I don't think it's an unfair one. Besides, there's already a restriction on playing spells - it's called mana cost. When Smith finally manages to build up the 11 mana required for his Darksteel Colossus, and Jones is able to tap a mere two mana and play Remove Soul or Mana Leak, I think Smith is right to become angry. If he can't rely on the possibility of playing his own spells, what CAN he rely on?
So counterspells are one way that control is irritating. And it's irritating to any player - Johnnies, Timmies, or Spikes. If Johnny has laboriously set up his nineteen card combo, only to have it ruined by a single Cancel, his heart is broken. If Timmy prepares to summon a massive Baloth, only to have it sputter and die before it's even born, his heart is broken. And if a Rewind stifles Spike's chance at victory, his heart is broken.
Counterspells are by far the most common control method, but there are certainly others that can be quite aggravating. One is lockdown, which is perhaps even worse. What I mean by "lockdown" is a deck that attempts to stifle the opponent's ability to do anything at all, but not by countering each spell individually - rather, by setting up some situation that will not give the opponent a chance to play anything in the first place. This often takes the form of preventing the opponent from generating mana, either by killing his lands, keeping them tapped, stealing them, or some even more wicked and devious scheme. Another way is to take extra turns. Another way is to play spells that have gamebreaking conditions like "creatures can't attack you" or "target player can't play spells this turn." In any case, the same problems apply here as in the case of counterspells: if you're not allowed to play your spells, where's the fun in playing?
Of course, it can be a fun challenge for some to weasel their way out of such situations. But this requires a flexible deck, or a deck specifically designed for such purposes. Not every deck is packed with defensive maneuvers, and I don't think it would be fair to demand it. For many decks, especially casual ones, a lockdown situation will immediately render the deck helpless.
There are other kinds of "control" that are less pernicious, and are usually more specific in their prevention. One example is anti-creature control, such as tapping creatures, destroying creatures, Pacifism effects, etc. But even though these can be devastating to creature-based decks, they only affect creatures, they don't prevent you from playing anything altogether. Even a few cards dedicated to protecting your creatures from such effects can save the day. But lockdown and counterspells are much harder to defend against without employing them yourself, or specifically planning against them with cards like Vexing Shusher.
This may all seem familiar. I made similar complaints when talking about combo decks, about how they reduce fun by reducing options. Does this mean I only like aggro decks? Not at all; just look at some of the decks I've posted in other articles. I have plenty of control and combo decks, and even the occasional lockdown deck. However, as I mentioned in the other article as well, it's often a matter of the environment. If you're playing to win, such as in a high-level tournament, letting your opponents have fun is not even a factor (one reason why I have no desire to get involved in tournament play). But if you're playing with friends, and you insist on using a lockdown deck every time you play, no one is going to play with you. Sure, try it out once to show them how fancy your pants are, but then unless they actively desire tackling it again with a mind to crack it, put it aside as a beautiful but delicate antique. Or just enter a tournament. If you share your winnings with me, I promise not to rant about control anymore...
Control decks can be any color or combination of colors, and can have any number of ways of exerting control. However, what they all have in common is just that: ways of exerting control. It's of course possible to have control over just yourself. This could take various forms: a deck whose mana curve is well-balanced, modal spells, tutors, card draw, etc. They give you flexibility to react, find what you need, and make the best of bad luck. But when people talk about control in Magic, they are usually talking about exerting control over the game, and over the opponent.
Many players love control - if you call the shots, victory is only a matter of time. But there's an inherent problem with control - it's annoying. Now, this is a fairly personal issue, and I am sure there are plenty of players who don't share my sentiments, but I definitely know some who do. As I've mentioned in a previous article, the friend who taught me Magic in the first place refuses to play against heavy control decks at all. And I often find myself agreeing with him. Here are his - and my - reasons.
First off, let's consider a situation. Smith is playing any ol' deck. Jones is playing a permission deck - a deck that has enough counters that it can decide what Smith can or can't play. Jones has buckets of fun - he giggles when Smith tries to play a powerful creature and counters it. But what is Smith feeling? He entered the game assuming he would get to play his spells. Now maybe he shouldn't have made that assumption, but I don't think it's an unfair one. Besides, there's already a restriction on playing spells - it's called mana cost. When Smith finally manages to build up the 11 mana required for his Darksteel Colossus, and Jones is able to tap a mere two mana and play Remove Soul or Mana Leak, I think Smith is right to become angry. If he can't rely on the possibility of playing his own spells, what CAN he rely on?
So counterspells are one way that control is irritating. And it's irritating to any player - Johnnies, Timmies, or Spikes. If Johnny has laboriously set up his nineteen card combo, only to have it ruined by a single Cancel, his heart is broken. If Timmy prepares to summon a massive Baloth, only to have it sputter and die before it's even born, his heart is broken. And if a Rewind stifles Spike's chance at victory, his heart is broken.
Counterspells are by far the most common control method, but there are certainly others that can be quite aggravating. One is lockdown, which is perhaps even worse. What I mean by "lockdown" is a deck that attempts to stifle the opponent's ability to do anything at all, but not by countering each spell individually - rather, by setting up some situation that will not give the opponent a chance to play anything in the first place. This often takes the form of preventing the opponent from generating mana, either by killing his lands, keeping them tapped, stealing them, or some even more wicked and devious scheme. Another way is to take extra turns. Another way is to play spells that have gamebreaking conditions like "creatures can't attack you" or "target player can't play spells this turn." In any case, the same problems apply here as in the case of counterspells: if you're not allowed to play your spells, where's the fun in playing?
Of course, it can be a fun challenge for some to weasel their way out of such situations. But this requires a flexible deck, or a deck specifically designed for such purposes. Not every deck is packed with defensive maneuvers, and I don't think it would be fair to demand it. For many decks, especially casual ones, a lockdown situation will immediately render the deck helpless.
There are other kinds of "control" that are less pernicious, and are usually more specific in their prevention. One example is anti-creature control, such as tapping creatures, destroying creatures, Pacifism effects, etc. But even though these can be devastating to creature-based decks, they only affect creatures, they don't prevent you from playing anything altogether. Even a few cards dedicated to protecting your creatures from such effects can save the day. But lockdown and counterspells are much harder to defend against without employing them yourself, or specifically planning against them with cards like Vexing Shusher.
This may all seem familiar. I made similar complaints when talking about combo decks, about how they reduce fun by reducing options. Does this mean I only like aggro decks? Not at all; just look at some of the decks I've posted in other articles. I have plenty of control and combo decks, and even the occasional lockdown deck. However, as I mentioned in the other article as well, it's often a matter of the environment. If you're playing to win, such as in a high-level tournament, letting your opponents have fun is not even a factor (one reason why I have no desire to get involved in tournament play). But if you're playing with friends, and you insist on using a lockdown deck every time you play, no one is going to play with you. Sure, try it out once to show them how fancy your pants are, but then unless they actively desire tackling it again with a mind to crack it, put it aside as a beautiful but delicate antique. Or just enter a tournament. If you share your winnings with me, I promise not to rant about control anymore...
Monday, August 11, 2008
Decks That Are Cool
I have been a naughty boy. It's been almost two weeks since my last post, because I got tired of putting links to every single card I mentioned. But now I've figured out a way to do it easily, so I'm back – for now. I'm going to California for a week starting tomorrow. Owned.
For now, then, I'm just going to talk about some decks I've made recently. I spent several hours trying to figure out how to post decklists without having to do the whole thing manually, but I failed. So you'll just get the usual – a description of the deck's general function and important cards. The format I'll use for the deck names will be "Color Type Name," where T2 is Standard, T1 is Extended, and T0 is Legacy. (I know 1.5 and 1 are usually used for Extended and Legacy, but I am too cool for decimals.)
BG T2 Deathling
This deck is fairly slow to get going, but the idea is to attach a Thornbite Staff to a dude with Changeling, then give your Changelings deathtouch with Wren's Run Packmaster, since they'll all be wolves. (Moonglove Changeling doesn't even need the Packmaster, though he has to activate his deathtouch.) Then your dude has, essentially, "2: Destroy target creature." And that should be enough for victory. Gilt-Leaf Palace and Murmuring Bosk are nice because you'll very often be able to play them untapped.
BR T0 Goblin Game
This is a completely ridiculous deck based on the combination of Goblin Game and Wound Reflection. If you can play Goblin Game while you have a Wound Reflection in play, you can often pick a number of objects that will guarantee your opponent's doom. As long as you have one more than half your opponent's life, you can pick a number two below your life total and your opponent will die no matter what number he picks. Example: you have 14 life and your opponent has 20. You hide 12 objects. If your opponent hides 12 or fewer objects, he'll lose at least half his life, and Wound Reflection will kill him. If he hides more than 12 objects, he'll lose that much life…which is more than half his life, and Wound Reflection will kill him. You, on the other hand, will only lose at most 13 life, leaving you with 1. Of course, this deck is weak against almost everything, but Goblin Game is hilarious enough that it totally doesn't matter. Most of my "T0" decks sacrifice effectiveness for hilarity, and I regret nothing. In order to get the massive amounts of mana necessary to play both of these spells, the deck is packed with mana spells, as well as the awesome combo of Cathodion + Burnt Offering. The lifelink guys help you keep your life at least half as high as your opponent's so that you can use the main combo. A barrel of lulz.
GU T0 Pool Party
Another ineffective deck, this one is based around the mana pool. Upwelling is the main force behind the deck, allowing you to build up mana over time. Doubling Cube makes a large mana reserve into a nigh inexhaustible one. Pygmy Hippo can steal your enemy's mana, preventing them from abusing your own Upwelling. There are a bunch of buyback spells to give you control of the board, which lets you get your weak creatures through to slowly wear your opponent down to death. I've played this deck a few times, but it has never even come close to working. I love it.
UR T0 Stroke of Mirror Harvest
Another inane combo deck. This one is named for Stroke of Genius, Mirror Sheen, and Early Harvest. Once you have 6 mana (from at least 3 blue and 2 green sources) with Mirror Sheen in play, play Early Harvest. Copy it with Mirror Sheen, then let the copy resolve. Your lands magically untap! Then copy Early Harvest again, and float the rest of your mana. Repeat until you have infinite mana, then play Stroke of Genius on your opponent. Mind Spring and Dimir Guildmage can help you get Stroke of Genius, and various Elves help you get the required 6 mana to start the combo. Not wonderfully interesting, but I thought it was cool.
GU T1 Proteus Staff
OH MAN. I love this one, even if it is rather clunky. The main combo is Proteus Staff + Squirrel Nest. Make a Squirrel, then staff it. Whatever creature you end up getting (the only ones in the deck are various Elemental Incarnations and Darksteel Colossus), it will be totally awesome. Impromptu Raid is great since it lets you get more dudes out, and when all your guys have 6 or more power and trample/fear/flying, haste is great. And when you have to sacrifice a dude, he just gets shuffled back in. Cream of the Crop can help provide fresh targets for Impromptu Raid. You can Polymorph your Darksteel Colossus to get another dude easily. A few draw/discard spells let you get rid of the usually unplayable dudes in your hand and replace them with useful stuff. Although sometimes there is conflict between Cream of the Crop and the shuffling of dudes into your library, it is usually not a problem, especially as you get more pieces.
GW T0 Saffi
Another goofy combo deck. The main combo has three parts: Saffi Eriksdotter, Altar of Dementia or Blasting Station, and Karmic Guide. Get one of each of these on the board. Then, sacrifice Saffi to the artifact targeting the Guide. Then sacrifice the Guide, who comes back into play, bringing Saffi with him. Repeat until pwning has occurred. There's also another combo recommended by Brendan, consisting of one of the aforementioned artifacts plus Eternal Witness and Aluren. With one Witness in play and one in your hand, sacrifice the one in play to the artifact. Play the other for free, return the dead one to your hand, repeat until pwning has occurred.
R T1 Chargehead
The theme is charge counters, not surprisingly. Not much to say about this…it was originally based around Ion Storm as the main win condition, but Darksteel Reactor and Chimeric Egg can also do things. Most of the rest of the stuff is for producing charge counters, moving them around, or using them to get the main kill cards. It's cool, though.
U T0 Cryptic Rape
The title "Cryptic Rape" is perhaps misleading, because it does nothing of the sort. This deck was based on a cool premise, but is extremely clunky. The idea is to get Cryptic Gateway and two Changelings. Then you can play various awesome dudes for free, because they'll all share creature types with your Changelings. Shapesharer is nice because he can double as a Clone of one of your big dudes. If you get Grozoth, you can immediately tutor a ton of awesome dudes (such as Bringers). I took Intruder Alarm out of this deck despite its power to allow you to dump an entire deck's worth of creatures into play in one turn. I don't remember quite why. I think it was a bad choice.
U T1 Erayo
If you thought Cryptic Rape was bad…you were right. But this one is worse. The goal is to get a flipped Erayo, Soratami Ascendant and an Arcane Laboratory in play. Then, the first and only spell your opponent can play each turn will be countered, effectively preventing him from playing spells altogether (albeit with some exceptions, such as Replicate). One problem with this deck is that you have to be able to play four spells in a turn, but there are a bunch of 0-mana spells for that purpose. Still, it can take a while to set up. Another problem is that you can't play the Laboratory before Erayo, or you'll never be able to flip Erayo. Another is that even when you get them both active, your opponent might still have an army of creatures or a dangerous assortment of artifacts and enchantments. Azorius Aethermage is intended to take care of pesky activated abilities, and Boomerang to remove the threat of creatures, but it's tenuous. Also, the Aethermages are themselves the win condition, so if you lose them, you have no way to actually win, unless your opponent happens to be drawing more cards. A massive pile of suck, but maybe it has potential to turn into something almost palatable.
U T2 Islandwalk
Finally, a deck that can almost be considered "good." And what's more, it's Standard-legal. This deck was inspired by Cold-Eyed Selkie, and evolved into an Islandwalk-fest. It's a blue deck, but it splashes the tiniest bit of white for Sygg, River Guide. Most of the creatures have Islandwalk, and there are a few ways to ensure that it is useful. It is quite lucky (or perhaps sneaky on the part of the designers) that Stonybrook Banneret and Merrow Harbinger both have Islandwalk, because they are extremely useful to any Merfolk deck. With mass unblockability and card draw, this deck actually seems to be pretty decent.
UB T1 Underworld Dreams
This was originally an Underworld Dreams deck, but soon became a Megrim deck as well. With a mere one of each of these in play, Wistful Thinking deals TEN damage, as well as its rather powerful regular effect. The rest is basically just stuff to make your opponent draw and discard, but Mind's Eye is a nice addition, since you can trigger it using your own spells that force opponents to draw. It's a bit slow and fragile, but neat.
UR T0 Dream Halls
I absolutely LOVE this one. Dream Halls is of course the main card, but I am very proud of my discovery that the Eidolons could make this deck amazing. Dream Halls is blue, but there aren't any other spells that require another color; I chose red at first because it is awesome, but then I realized that I could do whatever color or colors I wanted, so I made three more variations of this deck with each of the other colors and blue. Anyway, the idea is to get Dream Halls and ideally two Eidolons in hand. Then you can play another spell for free discarding one Eidolon. When you play another spell for free discarding the second Eidolon, the first one returns to your hand, since pretty much all the spells are multicolored (since that's the whole point of using Eidolons in the first place). With two Eidolons, you can play any of your expensive and powerful spells for free. I chose spells that help you draw more cards as well as doing something awesome, and I threw in Kaervek the Merciless because he is just so awesome. And if you don't have two Eidolons, you can often play a spell with your regular mana (which would just go to waste anyway) and get your one Eidolon back, or hopefully draw one. Unfortunately Dream Halls might be very useful to your opponent, which can be dangerous. But hopefully, it will be more useful to you, and tempting enough to your opponent that he will think twice about Disenchanting it.
WB T1 Teysa
And finally, another one I really like. The main combo is Teysa, Orzhov Scion and Painter's Servant, naming black. Then all your white creatures are black, and any of them that die will give you white (and black) spirits. If you have three or more, you can use Teysa's first ability indefinitely, wiping the board for free. Spectral Procession helps to accomplish this. But that's not all. There is also a Sliver theme, using Hivestone and Necrotic Sliver plus Basal Sliver to make you a pwning machine. With those guys plus Teysa, the Servant, and one spirit, you can destroy ANY permanent for free. Sacrifice the spirit-Sliver using Basal Sliver's ability to get two mana...and a new spirit-Sliver. Repeat until you have, say, 6 mana, then sacrifice your spirit-Sliver using Necrotic Sliver's ability to destroy a pair of permanents. Oh, and Blasting Station can also be used to go infinite. Lots of components, but they work together nicely. Ward Sliver is a great help too.
Well, that was certainly a lot of decks (thirteen! holy crap!) but I hope it makes up for my long silence. I welcome comments, criticisms, advice, or any other form of feedback to help me improve my decks. Please?
For now, then, I'm just going to talk about some decks I've made recently. I spent several hours trying to figure out how to post decklists without having to do the whole thing manually, but I failed. So you'll just get the usual – a description of the deck's general function and important cards. The format I'll use for the deck names will be "Color Type Name," where T2 is Standard, T1 is Extended, and T0 is Legacy. (I know 1.5 and 1 are usually used for Extended and Legacy, but I am too cool for decimals.)
BG T2 Deathling
This deck is fairly slow to get going, but the idea is to attach a Thornbite Staff to a dude with Changeling, then give your Changelings deathtouch with Wren's Run Packmaster, since they'll all be wolves. (Moonglove Changeling doesn't even need the Packmaster, though he has to activate his deathtouch.) Then your dude has, essentially, "2: Destroy target creature." And that should be enough for victory. Gilt-Leaf Palace and Murmuring Bosk are nice because you'll very often be able to play them untapped.
BR T0 Goblin Game
This is a completely ridiculous deck based on the combination of Goblin Game and Wound Reflection. If you can play Goblin Game while you have a Wound Reflection in play, you can often pick a number of objects that will guarantee your opponent's doom. As long as you have one more than half your opponent's life, you can pick a number two below your life total and your opponent will die no matter what number he picks. Example: you have 14 life and your opponent has 20. You hide 12 objects. If your opponent hides 12 or fewer objects, he'll lose at least half his life, and Wound Reflection will kill him. If he hides more than 12 objects, he'll lose that much life…which is more than half his life, and Wound Reflection will kill him. You, on the other hand, will only lose at most 13 life, leaving you with 1. Of course, this deck is weak against almost everything, but Goblin Game is hilarious enough that it totally doesn't matter. Most of my "T0" decks sacrifice effectiveness for hilarity, and I regret nothing. In order to get the massive amounts of mana necessary to play both of these spells, the deck is packed with mana spells, as well as the awesome combo of Cathodion + Burnt Offering. The lifelink guys help you keep your life at least half as high as your opponent's so that you can use the main combo. A barrel of lulz.
GU T0 Pool Party
Another ineffective deck, this one is based around the mana pool. Upwelling is the main force behind the deck, allowing you to build up mana over time. Doubling Cube makes a large mana reserve into a nigh inexhaustible one. Pygmy Hippo can steal your enemy's mana, preventing them from abusing your own Upwelling. There are a bunch of buyback spells to give you control of the board, which lets you get your weak creatures through to slowly wear your opponent down to death. I've played this deck a few times, but it has never even come close to working. I love it.
UR T0 Stroke of Mirror Harvest
Another inane combo deck. This one is named for Stroke of Genius, Mirror Sheen, and Early Harvest. Once you have 6 mana (from at least 3 blue and 2 green sources) with Mirror Sheen in play, play Early Harvest. Copy it with Mirror Sheen, then let the copy resolve. Your lands magically untap! Then copy Early Harvest again, and float the rest of your mana. Repeat until you have infinite mana, then play Stroke of Genius on your opponent. Mind Spring and Dimir Guildmage can help you get Stroke of Genius, and various Elves help you get the required 6 mana to start the combo. Not wonderfully interesting, but I thought it was cool.
GU T1 Proteus Staff
OH MAN. I love this one, even if it is rather clunky. The main combo is Proteus Staff + Squirrel Nest. Make a Squirrel, then staff it. Whatever creature you end up getting (the only ones in the deck are various Elemental Incarnations and Darksteel Colossus), it will be totally awesome. Impromptu Raid is great since it lets you get more dudes out, and when all your guys have 6 or more power and trample/fear/flying, haste is great. And when you have to sacrifice a dude, he just gets shuffled back in. Cream of the Crop can help provide fresh targets for Impromptu Raid. You can Polymorph your Darksteel Colossus to get another dude easily. A few draw/discard spells let you get rid of the usually unplayable dudes in your hand and replace them with useful stuff. Although sometimes there is conflict between Cream of the Crop and the shuffling of dudes into your library, it is usually not a problem, especially as you get more pieces.
GW T0 Saffi
Another goofy combo deck. The main combo has three parts: Saffi Eriksdotter, Altar of Dementia or Blasting Station, and Karmic Guide. Get one of each of these on the board. Then, sacrifice Saffi to the artifact targeting the Guide. Then sacrifice the Guide, who comes back into play, bringing Saffi with him. Repeat until pwning has occurred. There's also another combo recommended by Brendan, consisting of one of the aforementioned artifacts plus Eternal Witness and Aluren. With one Witness in play and one in your hand, sacrifice the one in play to the artifact. Play the other for free, return the dead one to your hand, repeat until pwning has occurred.
R T1 Chargehead
The theme is charge counters, not surprisingly. Not much to say about this…it was originally based around Ion Storm as the main win condition, but Darksteel Reactor and Chimeric Egg can also do things. Most of the rest of the stuff is for producing charge counters, moving them around, or using them to get the main kill cards. It's cool, though.
U T0 Cryptic Rape
The title "Cryptic Rape" is perhaps misleading, because it does nothing of the sort. This deck was based on a cool premise, but is extremely clunky. The idea is to get Cryptic Gateway and two Changelings. Then you can play various awesome dudes for free, because they'll all share creature types with your Changelings. Shapesharer is nice because he can double as a Clone of one of your big dudes. If you get Grozoth, you can immediately tutor a ton of awesome dudes (such as Bringers). I took Intruder Alarm out of this deck despite its power to allow you to dump an entire deck's worth of creatures into play in one turn. I don't remember quite why. I think it was a bad choice.
U T1 Erayo
If you thought Cryptic Rape was bad…you were right. But this one is worse. The goal is to get a flipped Erayo, Soratami Ascendant and an Arcane Laboratory in play. Then, the first and only spell your opponent can play each turn will be countered, effectively preventing him from playing spells altogether (albeit with some exceptions, such as Replicate). One problem with this deck is that you have to be able to play four spells in a turn, but there are a bunch of 0-mana spells for that purpose. Still, it can take a while to set up. Another problem is that you can't play the Laboratory before Erayo, or you'll never be able to flip Erayo. Another is that even when you get them both active, your opponent might still have an army of creatures or a dangerous assortment of artifacts and enchantments. Azorius Aethermage is intended to take care of pesky activated abilities, and Boomerang to remove the threat of creatures, but it's tenuous. Also, the Aethermages are themselves the win condition, so if you lose them, you have no way to actually win, unless your opponent happens to be drawing more cards. A massive pile of suck, but maybe it has potential to turn into something almost palatable.
U T2 Islandwalk
Finally, a deck that can almost be considered "good." And what's more, it's Standard-legal. This deck was inspired by Cold-Eyed Selkie, and evolved into an Islandwalk-fest. It's a blue deck, but it splashes the tiniest bit of white for Sygg, River Guide. Most of the creatures have Islandwalk, and there are a few ways to ensure that it is useful. It is quite lucky (or perhaps sneaky on the part of the designers) that Stonybrook Banneret and Merrow Harbinger both have Islandwalk, because they are extremely useful to any Merfolk deck. With mass unblockability and card draw, this deck actually seems to be pretty decent.
UB T1 Underworld Dreams
This was originally an Underworld Dreams deck, but soon became a Megrim deck as well. With a mere one of each of these in play, Wistful Thinking deals TEN damage, as well as its rather powerful regular effect. The rest is basically just stuff to make your opponent draw and discard, but Mind's Eye is a nice addition, since you can trigger it using your own spells that force opponents to draw. It's a bit slow and fragile, but neat.
UR T0 Dream Halls
I absolutely LOVE this one. Dream Halls is of course the main card, but I am very proud of my discovery that the Eidolons could make this deck amazing. Dream Halls is blue, but there aren't any other spells that require another color; I chose red at first because it is awesome, but then I realized that I could do whatever color or colors I wanted, so I made three more variations of this deck with each of the other colors and blue. Anyway, the idea is to get Dream Halls and ideally two Eidolons in hand. Then you can play another spell for free discarding one Eidolon. When you play another spell for free discarding the second Eidolon, the first one returns to your hand, since pretty much all the spells are multicolored (since that's the whole point of using Eidolons in the first place). With two Eidolons, you can play any of your expensive and powerful spells for free. I chose spells that help you draw more cards as well as doing something awesome, and I threw in Kaervek the Merciless because he is just so awesome. And if you don't have two Eidolons, you can often play a spell with your regular mana (which would just go to waste anyway) and get your one Eidolon back, or hopefully draw one. Unfortunately Dream Halls might be very useful to your opponent, which can be dangerous. But hopefully, it will be more useful to you, and tempting enough to your opponent that he will think twice about Disenchanting it.
WB T1 Teysa
And finally, another one I really like. The main combo is Teysa, Orzhov Scion and Painter's Servant, naming black. Then all your white creatures are black, and any of them that die will give you white (and black) spirits. If you have three or more, you can use Teysa's first ability indefinitely, wiping the board for free. Spectral Procession helps to accomplish this. But that's not all. There is also a Sliver theme, using Hivestone and Necrotic Sliver plus Basal Sliver to make you a pwning machine. With those guys plus Teysa, the Servant, and one spirit, you can destroy ANY permanent for free. Sacrifice the spirit-Sliver using Basal Sliver's ability to get two mana...and a new spirit-Sliver. Repeat until you have, say, 6 mana, then sacrifice your spirit-Sliver using Necrotic Sliver's ability to destroy a pair of permanents. Oh, and Blasting Station can also be used to go infinite. Lots of components, but they work together nicely. Ward Sliver is a great help too.
Well, that was certainly a lot of decks (thirteen! holy crap!) but I hope it makes up for my long silence. I welcome comments, criticisms, advice, or any other form of feedback to help me improve my decks. Please?
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Fun vs. Power
Today, a shorter article! Hurray?
When I make decks, I label them by format and color. As someone with no interest in tournament play (a pure casual player), I don't attach any special meaning or importance to this process, but it's a helpful guideline for approximate power level. Maybe. When I first got Magic Workstation and began making decks, the only experience I had was with my own crappy collection of mostly commons. With the entire history of Magic at my fingertips, I was completely overwhelmed. I didn't know enough about any old cards to make an interesting deck. So I started out making only Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block Constructed decks.
This worked okay for a while. I made some cool decks, using the mechanics from those sets. I learned the cards better, and got a feel for making decks. I gradually expanded to Standard, and threw in some Extended and Vintage. (Note: by "Extended" I mean "things that the Gatherer lists under Extended," and by "Vintage" I mean "all black-bordered cards ever.") If I made a combo deck, I'd try to keep the format as small as possible. For instance, if all the important combo pieces were in Mirrodin block, I'd try to keep the deck to Extended, even though there may have been some older cards that might have improved it.
But when I was playing some more games against mAc Chaos last night, I used some Vintage decks that include the Alpha dual lands. Whenever I have a deck that requires Vintage cards, I don't shy away from using these, because hey, they're legal in Vintage, aren't they? But he pointed out that they are unbalanced. And I realized my own hypocrisy.
Flash back to an earlier game I played against Brendan. He doesn't care about formats either, but he doesn't even try to restrict himself. All his decks have Alpha dual lands in them. And this is fine with me. But he uses Lightning Bolt. When he played Lightning Bolt, I got angry. Lightning Bolt and Shock are identical except that Lightning Bolt is better. Lightning bolt is JUST PLAIN OVERPOWERED, which is why Shock exists. If you choose Lightning Bolt over Shock, you're making a conscious decision to sacrifice fairness for power, and this is not a feature of casual play. So that's why I was upset.
As for Alpha dual lands, I justified using them because all they do is even out your mana base. It's no fun for anyone if someone can't get the right color of mana, and being able to play your spells isn't something that you should have to fight for. But when mAc made the comment about them, I recalled the Ravnica dual land cycle that is identical to the Alpha dual lands, except that they come into play tapped unless you pay 2 life. So the dual lands are no different from Lightning Bolt in this respect. And I am going to go through all my Vintage decks and take them out.
But this brings up a larger issue. What is the proper relation between fun and power in casual Magic? Is it fair to use Lightning Bolt in a casual deck? Is it fair to forbid it? There's no obvious answer to this question, but I think deckbuilders should at least be conscious of their opponents. My friend Jovan (who taught me Magic in the first place) won't even play against combo decks or control decks, so I have to be very careful when deciding which deck to play against him so that I don't ruin it for him. If mAc's fun is diminished by my using overpowered Alpha cards, then I'll take them out, because I'd rather be able to play all my Vintage decks without feeling like I'm cheating. And when I get upset at Brendan's lockdown decks or decks that make copious use of banned cards, he knows not to play them against me in the future.
Of course, you don't have to fuss over every deck you build to please every single possible opponent. Building ridiculously overpowered decks is fine - just be careful who you play them against.
When I make decks, I label them by format and color. As someone with no interest in tournament play (a pure casual player), I don't attach any special meaning or importance to this process, but it's a helpful guideline for approximate power level. Maybe. When I first got Magic Workstation and began making decks, the only experience I had was with my own crappy collection of mostly commons. With the entire history of Magic at my fingertips, I was completely overwhelmed. I didn't know enough about any old cards to make an interesting deck. So I started out making only Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block Constructed decks.
This worked okay for a while. I made some cool decks, using the mechanics from those sets. I learned the cards better, and got a feel for making decks. I gradually expanded to Standard, and threw in some Extended and Vintage. (Note: by "Extended" I mean "things that the Gatherer lists under Extended," and by "Vintage" I mean "all black-bordered cards ever.") If I made a combo deck, I'd try to keep the format as small as possible. For instance, if all the important combo pieces were in Mirrodin block, I'd try to keep the deck to Extended, even though there may have been some older cards that might have improved it.
But when I was playing some more games against mAc Chaos last night, I used some Vintage decks that include the Alpha dual lands. Whenever I have a deck that requires Vintage cards, I don't shy away from using these, because hey, they're legal in Vintage, aren't they? But he pointed out that they are unbalanced. And I realized my own hypocrisy.
Flash back to an earlier game I played against Brendan. He doesn't care about formats either, but he doesn't even try to restrict himself. All his decks have Alpha dual lands in them. And this is fine with me. But he uses Lightning Bolt. When he played Lightning Bolt, I got angry. Lightning Bolt and Shock are identical except that Lightning Bolt is better. Lightning bolt is JUST PLAIN OVERPOWERED, which is why Shock exists. If you choose Lightning Bolt over Shock, you're making a conscious decision to sacrifice fairness for power, and this is not a feature of casual play. So that's why I was upset.
As for Alpha dual lands, I justified using them because all they do is even out your mana base. It's no fun for anyone if someone can't get the right color of mana, and being able to play your spells isn't something that you should have to fight for. But when mAc made the comment about them, I recalled the Ravnica dual land cycle that is identical to the Alpha dual lands, except that they come into play tapped unless you pay 2 life. So the dual lands are no different from Lightning Bolt in this respect. And I am going to go through all my Vintage decks and take them out.
But this brings up a larger issue. What is the proper relation between fun and power in casual Magic? Is it fair to use Lightning Bolt in a casual deck? Is it fair to forbid it? There's no obvious answer to this question, but I think deckbuilders should at least be conscious of their opponents. My friend Jovan (who taught me Magic in the first place) won't even play against combo decks or control decks, so I have to be very careful when deciding which deck to play against him so that I don't ruin it for him. If mAc's fun is diminished by my using overpowered Alpha cards, then I'll take them out, because I'd rather be able to play all my Vintage decks without feeling like I'm cheating. And when I get upset at Brendan's lockdown decks or decks that make copious use of banned cards, he knows not to play them against me in the future.
Of course, you don't have to fuss over every deck you build to please every single possible opponent. Building ridiculously overpowered decks is fine - just be careful who you play them against.
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