I don’t really care that much about iPods since I own an iPhone 4 already. Bummer to see the Classic go, though, as it’s nice to actually have enough storage space for all your music. I keep one in the car for this reason.

New versions of iOS look good. HDR photos are interesting, we’ll see how that actually plays out.

Bad
• Streaming only. WTF? One of the things I dislike about my current AppleTV is that my computer has to be on and awake for people in the house to watch movies that we already own. Solved with aTV Flash and an external hard disk, but I suspect it’ll be a while before the new Apple TV is hacked to match that, if at all.
• Same stupid-simple remote.
• No apps? Apple just released a device that cannot connect to the App Store revenue stream? Really? Weird.

Good
• Netflix
• Support for 30fps 720p. You know, like what a Flip or even an iPhone 4 produce, that a current Apple TV cannot play.
• 99 cent TV show rentals. Top Gear in HD, right? Right?
• Unit price. Even with the obvious flaws, for $100 I might get one anyway.

And then there’s the unknowns created by this. For instance, the status of the Apple TV I currently own is now in question. Will Apple continue to support it? Do I get Netflix on it now? 99-cent shows? Some information on this would be nice, and while this is not the thing you expect to hear in a keynote, I would like to know this stuff.

Next unknown: what’s actually running on the new Apple TV? Is it iOS or MacOS? I’m pretty sure my existing AppleTV run MacOS underneath. If the new one runs iOS, where are the apps? If not, will it still be as dog-slow as the current one?

Creatures (11)
4 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Primeval Titan
3 Avenger of Zendikar
        
Other spells (21)
2 Burst Lightning
4 Explore
2 Rampant Growth
3 Khalni Heart Expedition
3 Harrow
4 Cultivate
2 Summoning Trap
1 Comet Storm
        
Land (28)
3 Evolving Wilds
6 Forest
12 Mountain
3 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
        
Sideboard
3 Acidic Slime
2 Earthquake
1 Summoning Trap
3 Lavaball Trap
2 Forked Bolt
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Spellbreaker Behemoth

It’s a fantastically fun deck to play and has a decent matchup against UW.

Round 1: Marvin, playing UW
Game 1 I had a good draw and his was just OK. I ramped a lot, he blew up a bunch of my stuff but I was able to stick an Avenger and then activate an Expedition, so the plants were huge, and he didn’t have a Day, so we were done. Sideboard was +1 Summoning Trap, +2 Spellbreaker Behemoth, +3 Acidic Slime, -2 Rampant Growth, -2 Burst Lightning, -2 Siege-Gang. Game 2 he opened with a Leyline. Not the best for me, but not impossible. I dropped a Spellbreaker on turn 4 and he had no idea what it was, read it, and looked distressed. He blew a Day just to kill it. I followed up with an Slime to kill his Leyline, and he clearly wasn’t expecting that, either. (He had sided in Negates expecting me to side in Back to Nature.) I again managed an Avenger, but he had a Path so the tokens were all just 0/1. He countered a Primeval and then had the counter for the followup Trap, and killed my Valakuts with Sun Titan recursion of a Tectonic Edge. I tried to Comet Storm the Titan and Marvin for 6, but he had the counter and that was it. Game 3 I had another early Spellbreaker followed up by Titan and had 3 Valakut in play, but he had a Day to clear the board. I tried an Avenger, he countered it, I Trapped and got a Titan for 2 mountains (18 damage) and won off that.
1-0 matches, 2-1 games

Round 2: Eric, playing Vampires
He actually had a decent draw and dropped Blooghasts on turns 1, 2, and 3. But he had no way to disrupt me and I just ramped up, threw down a Titan, then a second one for game. I hadn’t thought about this matchup at all, so all I boarded was +2 Earthquake, -2 Summoning Trap. Game 2 he got a Nocturnus on turn 4 that managed to hit me once along with another Vamp and I was within range, but I had a Siege-Gang out and so two Goblin tokens died to kill the Nocturnus. Titan, Valakuts, much damage, game. This was pretty straightforward.
2-0 matches, 4-1 games

Round 3: Alan, playing UW
Game 1 he was a little light on land and I wasn’t, ramping quickly into threats that he couldn’t keep up with. I boarded the same way I did in round 1. Game 2 I missed my turn 3 land drop and just failed to have any early ramping, and that gave him too much time to take control of the board. Game 3 he had to Day a Spellbreaker and later, Path another. I had at least one Valakut out, and I cast Acidic Slime to try to kill one of his Colonnades, and he countered, so I was able to Trap into a Titan, and he could not handle that.
3-0 matches, 6-3 games

Round 4: Joe, playing UW
We ID’d so Joe could get something to eat.
3-0-1 matches, 6-3 games.

The top 8 was four UW control decks, me, another Valakut, the Vampires I played in round 2, and Soul Sisters. i was paired with the mono-white deck this time around.

Quarterfinals: Matt, playing Soul Sisters
I have to say, I absolutely love this deck; however, on paper the matchup certainly seems to favor Valakut. If Sisters gets a really good draw and the Valakut deck doesn’t ramp enough early, it’s winnable for Sisters, but that’s a tall order. Matt’s build also didn’t include Elspeth, which I think hurts in this matchup. Anyway, game 1 he beat me down a bit early, but I was ramping and got a Titan early enough to just go off for enough damage to kill him. I hadn’t thought of this deck for boarding, so I decided +2 Earthquake, +2 Forked Bolt, +2 Acidic Slime for -2 Rampant Growth, -2 Summoning Trap, and -2 Siege-Gang. He got a very good start but I got a Siege-Gang and used Goblin tokens to kill some of his guys (but not his Firewalker), he swung back to beat me down to 1, but I came back with a Titan and killed his Firewalker with Valakut damage. He O Ringed my Titan, but I had another and had 2 Valakuts out and the swing with my Titan plus a Harrow meant I had enough damage for it to be lethal.
4-0-1 matches, 8-3 games

Semis: Travs, playing Valakut
They couldn’t have put the two Valakuts on opposite sides of the bracket, could they? Of course not. This matchup is mostly about who gets a Titan first, so ramping is key. I had seen Travis playing and I thiink his main is a little better—he runs an Inferno Titan main—but my sideboard is much better since he wasn’t running either Lavaball Trap or Acidic Slime in his board. He won the die roll, we both ramped, he dropped his Titan the turn before I could drop mine, and I didn’t have enough when I dropped mine to be firing off Valakut, but of course with his first actual swing with his Titan killed mine, and he beat me. I boarded +3 Acidic Slime, +3 Lavaball Trap, -2 Summoning Trap, -2 Burst Lightning, -2 Siege-Gang. Game 2 was tough. I opened with a non-keepable hand, since it had no green source or way to find one. That’s not huge for this deck, but the second mulligan was, as in my six-card hand also had no green sources or ways to find one, and I had to mull to five. I had a turn 2 Explore but no other early ramp, which he did. When I had five land out, I had no play, and did manage to Lavaball Trap off his one Valakut. He came back with a Siege-Gang, which left the Titan in my hand as dead. He swung through once and ramped, and so when I was up to seven land I cast the Avenger to get him to sac his goblins, which worked. I had a bunch of plants, but they were all 0/1 and my Avenger was dead. The way was clear for my Titan, but he came back with a Titan and brought out 2 Valakut. I had an Acidic Slime in my hand and another Titan, so I could kill his Titan on my turn, then Slime one of his Valakuts the following turn, so I had a shot, but I was at only 11. I dropped my Titan and killed his along with his Siege-Gang. Unfortunately, he topdecked a ramp spell and did 12 damage to me with a pair of Mountains. Grr.
4-1-1 matches, 8-5 games

The deck is very good overall. I’m not sure what I’ll change the next time I play it—which won’t be next week since I always rotate—but I don’t see it as having any particularly bad matchups in the field right now; maybe RDW isn’t very favorable before the Baloths come in. It’s both competitive and fun to play, so what more could you want?

The other thing I like is that it won’t lose much to the Scars rotation. Rampant Growth is undoubtedly the worst ramp spell in the deck, so that’s not much of a loss. Siege-Gang can be replaced, probably by Rampaging Baloths, The Spellbreakers in the board can probably be replaced with something else nearly as good, though the loss of Earthquake might make the deck a little soft to decks like Naya and Bant, though with Bant losing Conscription, I’m not sure how popular that will be post-rotation. Overall, though, a good deck with at least some chance of having some version of it around post-rotation.

Still tons of UW at the shop, though, so next week I might play the Esper anti-UW deck… of course, then I’ll probably get paired against multiple rounds of RDW…

First, you need to go read that piece. I’ll wait…. OK, done? Great, then let’s move on.

To start off, I think the math needs some comment. As was noted, the probability of drawing at least one copy of a card is a lot better if you have 8 of them than if you have 4. We all sort of know that but it can certainly be eye-opening to However, those numbers are really optimistic. For example, the 39% probability of drawing at least one in your opening hand (I actually get 40% when I calculate it, but close enough) includes horrific opening hands that you wouldn’t likely want, like six lands plus your combo card, or no lands plus four copies of your combo card. So those numbers, even for the 8-card case, are really the upper bound—the situation really isn’t even as good as those numbers indicate. (Note those numbers don’t include mulligans, which both improves the situation in terms of odds but makes it worse in terms of card parity, which is rarely good. Mulligans also complicate the math.)

What I really want to get into, though, is the even messier (both conceptually and mathematically) issue of what a “combo” deck really is, at least in many cases. For the very essence of many combo decks is that most of them don’t rely on a single card, whether 4-of or 8-of, but the deck’s ability to generate multiple cards at the same time; hence, “combo.” This actually creates more difficulty, since you need not just one card to be an 4-of, but two. For the sake of argument, I’ll consider a simple two-card combo with no tutors running 4 of each combo piece. So, what’s the probability that you draw at least one of each card (assuming you’re on the draw)?

I won’t bore you with the probability formulae for this, but here are the results:

Opening hand: 15%
Turn 1: 18%
Turn 2: 22%
Turn 3: 27%

Those are not what you’d call really strong odds, and this again is somewhat optimistic in that it includes all hands that have at least one of each card, meaning it includes degenerate hands with no lands, or hands with 1 land and three of each combo card, etc. Even if you make one of the two combo cards an 8-of via some efficient tutor your probability of having at least one of each is only 40% by the time you’ve seen ten cards. I believe this is the reason a lot of combo decks have been historically unstable and many decks are really mixtures of combo and control, because they need to assure that they can live long enough to get both pieces. The 50-50 point for at least one of both pieces with a 4-of and an 8-of is when you’ve seen 12 cards, which is still a lot. Even non-tutor searching cards like Brainstorm (or my favorite from the old days, Impulse) improve your odds enough to be highly worthwhile.

There are perfectly viable approaches to solving this kind of probability problem. Consider Thopter Depths from last extended season. The deck didn’t become dominant until both the Dark Depths-Vampire Hexmage combo and the Thopter–Sword combo were run in the same deck. (Certainly, it was good before, but even better after.) Muddle the Mixture also really helped, because transmuting for 2 got you a Hexmage, a Sword of the Meek, or a Thopter Foundry—and it could also protect combo pieces if you already had them out there by being a counter. Muddle rocked in that deck.

Now, this analysis doesn’t apply to all combo decks, since in many cases casting one part of the combo generates the other, e.g., Polymorph gets you your big fat creature without you needing any other specific card. However, you have to meet another condition, a game state condition: you have to have a creature in play. That one isn’t too hard to achieve, though, so the combo makes sense as being viable. Pyromaster’s Ascension doesn’t require a specific second card to “go off” but also does require that you achieve a specific game state, and again one that’s not too hard to reach (multiple instances of the same card in your graveyard), but probably harder than “have at least one creature in play.” These one-card “combos” have the same probability analysis that Neale showed (that is, really bad without a tutor), but they do require a little more than just the combo card. So there I think Neale’s analysis is definitely something to consider when building a combo deck of this type. Note that Hypergenesis is this kind of combo deck, but cascade gave it an avenue to having many cards that would trigger the combo, and thus a reasonable probability of “going off.”

However, there are still other ways to go besides one- and two-card combos. Consider the most recently-popular “combo” deck in Standard, one that many wouldn’t classify as a combo deck at all: Mythic Conscription. Sovereigns of Lost Alara combos with Eldrazi Conscription, but the Sovereigns tutors for the Conscription (much like Polymorph). In addition, this generally also depends on game state, as the modus operandi of the deck was not to attack with Sovereigns, but to use Sovereigns with another creature to do damage the turn Sovereigns come into play. So in that sense, it’s a little like the Ascension deck, since when it started there were no good, efficient tutors for Sovereigns.

But Mythic Conscription doesn’t actually require Sovereigns to win. Technically, Polymorph can win by hard-casting Emrakul (lots of luck with that game plan) and Pyromaster’s Ascension can win without the Ascension (barely), but these are horribly difficult ways to win. Mythic Conscription, on the other hand, is as much an aggro/ramp deck as it is a combo deck—you can easily win without the Sovereigns or the Conscription seeing play at all, usually on the back of other very strong cards like Knight of the Reliquary or Baneslayer Angel, which could ramp out very early. Because of this, lots of people wouldn’t classify it as a combo deck at all.

Now, I’ve played Mythic Conscription a fair amount, and I’d say a majority of my losses were games that I would have won had I drawn Sovereigns at any point in the game. As a pure aggro/ramp deck, it was a good deck, but it was Sovereigns that made it into a top-tier deck. On that basis, I’d claim that it’s reasonable to label it, at least in part, a combo deck—just one where the combo is not actually required.

Anyway, I want to finish by considering the end of Neale’s post which was essentially “don’t build combo decks around Pyromaster’s Ascension and Fauna Shaman because there aren’t good tutors for them.” I agree that those aren’t the best centerpiece combo cards. I’ve never had any interest in the Ascension combo decks, and I think Neale has hit the underlying reason why.

However, I don’t see Fauna Shaman as a card to build around in a combo deck—Shaman is the tutor for some other combo piece, as in the recent Italian national champion Soverign Conscription deck. Or maybe Shaman is not a combo piece, but just a really good card because it allows you to viably run a bunch of utility 1-ofs that you can tutor for, like in the Spanish national champion Naya deck. I think those aptly demonstrate that the Shaman is the real deal, even if the Naya deck isn’t really a combo deck at all, and the Bant deck is only kind of a combo deck.

Postscript: I love both of those builds, though I think I’d run the Lotus Cobras in the main in the Bant deck and put the Walls in the sideboard.

CMU Blue (1998)

Artifacts
4 Nevinyrral’s Disk

Creatures
1 Rainbow Efreet

Other Spells
4 Force Spike
4 Counterspell
1 Memory Lapse
3 Mana Leak
3 Forbid
2 Dissipate
4 Dismiss
4 Impulse
4 Whispers of the Muse

Land
4 Stalking Stones
4 Quicksand
18 Island

Sideboard
4 Hyrdoblast
4 Sea Sprite
2 Capsize
4 Wasteland
1 Grindstone

Obviously, it’s almost creature-less. Basically, when you played it, you countered everything, blew up anything you didn’t counter with Nevy’s Disk, drew a lot of cards with Impulse and Whispers of the Muse and Dismiss, and your win condition was either the lone Rainbow Efreet (which survived Disk and was very hard to kill, in general) or with the Stalking Stones, which was the man-land of choice at the time.

We obviously don’t have most of these cards anymore. There’s no 1-drop counter like Force Spike, the only board-clearer for 4 is Day of Judgment, and there’s no recurrent instant-speed card draw like Whispers or kickass instant speed searchers like Impulse. However, I don’t think the archetype has to be completely dead.

I’d also like to point out that one of the fathers of this deck, Erik Lauer, was lead developer for Magic 2011 and fellow Team CMUer Aaron Forsythe was lead designer for Magic 2011. I actually played this deck against Aaron in a sanctioned tournament once, but he beat me with Finkel’s Sligh (mono-red) deck.

Now, Mike Flores has been advocating a UW control deck that tries to ramp into some big Eldrazi, and that’s an interesting concept, but it seems to me that you could do it almost entirely without the white now. So, let me present for your consideration, a deck idea:

DrawGo 2011

Creatures
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Artifacts
3 Everflowing Chalice
2 Crystal Ball
1 Brittle Effigy

Planeswalkers
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
        
Other spells
4 Mana Leak
2 Negate
2 Essence Scatter
4 Deprive
4 Spreading Seas
2 Jace’s Ingenuity
2 Mind Spring
2 Into the Roil
3 All Is Dust
        
Land
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Eye of Ugin
4 Dread Statuary
15 Island

It’s the same general idea as the 1998 deck. All Is Dust is the new Disk, and your one beater survives it. Dread Statuary replaces Stalking Stones, your draw comes from Mind Spring and Jace’s Ingenuity, and you smooth your draws with Crystal Ball, which fortunately survives All Is Dust. The Leyline and Jace obviously don’t survive an All Is Dust but sometimes you have to give something up.

I’m sure it needs some tuning. It may well need 4 All Is Dust. I’m not actually sure how good the Into the Roil really is, and I’d consider taking them out in favor of more cheap card draw like Ponder or Preordain. I’d consider Mystifying Maze but the deck already seems pretty heavy on colorless land. Speaking of land, it might be worth replacing some of the Islands with fetchlands to thin the deck, but I’m not yet sure if that’s actually desirable. One or two Halimar Depths would also be worth considering.

The token Brittle Effigy is in case something slips through the wall of counters and you really need to get rid of it, like an opponent’s Eldrazi or an un-counterable like Great Sable Stag or Gaea’s Revenge. Probably something to consider in the sideboard, and I don’t have a sideboard sorted out in my head just yet.

It’s almost certainly soft to RDW, just as the original CMU Blue was a little soft to Sligh (which is what RDW was called back then), such that it devoted 8 sideboard slots to that matchup. I’d assume you’d board out the Deprives for Flashfreeze, but I’m not sure that’d be enough, so perhaps some Dragon’s Claws should end up in the sideboard as well. I’d even consider something really janky like Wall of Frost. Come on, CMU Blue ran Sea Sprite.

Vengevine could perhaps be a problem, but just counter them and make sure that they never cast a second creature on the same turn. That might be tough sometimes if they have a lot of small guys to cast all on the same turn, and of course there are cascades, but I don’t think it’s too unmanagable. If you can stay alive up to the first All Is Dust you should be good, since that’ll kill all the green mana dorks they have to try to cast multiple things on a turn. Maybe run a second Brittle Effigy in the sideboard for Vengevines.

Turn two Putrid Leech when you’re on the draw may also be a problem, but half the Jund players aren’t running the Leech anymore anyway, so you just counter whatever they do on turn 3 and go on your merry way. Otherwise you’ll probably have to Roil it, which doesn’t seem that strong a play, but it’s probably better than taking 4 every turn.

The UW control matchup may be kind of annoying, but this deck runs a lot more permission, so rely on that. Be selective about what you allow to resolve. Their man-lands are a little bit better because they fly, but they are slightly more expensive to activate. Try not to let a Baneslayer resolve, unless they have to tap out to do it and you have an All Is Dust ready to go. They will try to hit your man-lands and probably your Temples with their Spreading Seas, so bounce them clean with Deprive. You, of course, want to save your Seas for their Colonnades.

Finally, note there are only two cards that rotate out in the fall: Essence Scatter and Mind Spring. Losing Essence Scatter is pretty bad as Cancel seems a poor substitute. Losing Mind Spring is probably not quite as bad; running 4 Jace’s Ingenuity rather than 2 and 2 is not quite as good, but still likely acceptable. We’ll just have to see what Scars brings in. (I put my money down on some useful artifacts.)

Comments, questions, sideboard suggestions most welcome!

This was actually my first time playing Limited with a core set. Back in the good old days when I first played, all Limited events were based on expansion sets and I don’t actually remember any kind of pre-release or drafts for 6th Edition, which was the only core set to be released during that time.

So, when we got our six packs this was my pool:

White
1 Pacifism
1 Infantry Veteran
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Holy Strength
1 Blinding Mage
1 Wild Griffin
1 Solemn Offering
1 Knight Exemplar
1 Cloud Crusader
2 Inspired Charge (1 foil, whee)
1 Siege Mastodon

Blue
1 Diminish
1 Merfolk Spy
1 Tome Scour
1 Mana Leak
1 Ice Cage
2 Negate
2 Flashfreeze
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Cancel
1 Sleep
1 Mass Polymorph
1 Harbor Serpent

Black
1 Unholy Strength
1 Stabbing Pain
1 Disentomb
1 Viscera Seer
1 Deathmark
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Bloodthrone Vampire
1 Child of Night
1 Black Knight
1 Sign in Blood
1 Mind Rot
1 Quag Sickness
2 Liliana’s Specter
1 Phylactery Lich
1 Gravedigger
1 Howling Banshee
2 Nightwing Shade

Red
2 Bloodcrazed Goblin
1 Goblin Tunneler
1 Ember Hauler
1 Maniac Vandal
2 Act of Treason
1 Demolish
1 Chandra’s Outrage
2 Lava Axe
1 Earth Servant

Green
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Hornet Sting
1 Autumn’s Veil
2 Primal Cocoon
2 Fog
1 Dryad’s Favor
1 Back to Nature
1 Brindle Boar
1 Awakener Druid
1 Cultivate
1 Giant Spider
1 Prized Unicorn
2 Spined Wurm
1 Greater Basilisk
1 Overwhelming Stampede, a.k.a. “Superrun”
2 Yavimaya Wurm (1 foil)

Artifacts and Land
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Wurm’s Tooth
1 Dragon’s Claw
1 Steel Overseer
1 Whispersilk Cloak
2 Juggernaut

The only real “bomb” in this pool, in my opinion, is the Overwhelming Stampede. I could never remember the name of the card all day and just started calling it “Superrun” because I always cast it for a ton, usually +5/+5 or better. Frankly, overall, I don’t think it’s a particularly strong sealed pool. It’s not awful, but it’s not especially impressive, either, like, say, this one. No mythics, no big fliers, just some guys and very little removal.

I ruled white out as a main color immediately. A couple fliers and Pacifism, but not deep. The red is similarly shallow. Ember Hauler is fine, of course, but even 2 Lava Axe doesn’t seem good enough. I liked all the counters in blue, but there’s no win condition there; Sleep is really good, but there’s nothing to swing with once everyone is asleep. Maybe I could have run it as a support color, but otherwise no. I figured I had to run green because my only real bomb is there, and some good beaters, plus a Cultivate, which I think is awesome. That left black, which had some decent stuff but nothing game-breaking. I was happy with the artifacts and land, though. Juggernaut is pretty strong in Sealed, the Overseer and the Cloak are no slouches, either. The pool is pretty light on removal, though, but the Terramorphic plus the Cultivate allowed me to splash two Plains for the lone Pacifism. Here’s what was in sleeves at the beginning of my last match:

1 Pacifism
1 Stabbing Pain
1 Child of Night
1 Black Knight
1 Sign in Blood
1 Mind Rot
1 Quag Sickness
2 Liliana’s Specter
1 Phylactery Lich
1 Gravedigger
1 Howling Banshee
1 Awakener Druid
1 Cultivate
1 Giant Spider
1 Greater Basilisk
1 Overwhelming Stampede
2 Yavimaya Wurm
1 Steel Overseer
1 Whispersilk Cloak
2 Juggernaut

1 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Plains
6 Forest
8 Swamp

Everybody who looked at it was pretty underwhelmed. Not that it’s bad—the artifacts have nice synergy (foreshadowing Scars of Mirrodin?)—but not exactly a fear-inducing final product. Not especially heavy on evasion, not a lot of removal, not many sneaky combat tricks. “Seems really vanilla” said one of my friends. Yep, pretty much, but hey, those are the cards I got. Anyway, I didn’t go with the Spined Wurms because I think the Yavimaya Wurms are just better for only 1 colorless more; trample is really good, especially when so light on fliers. I didn’t run the Reassembling Skeleton main because it’s not aggressive enough, but I did side it in against people with any big non-trampling beaters. The Nightwing Shades are OK but a little expensive; they did come in once or twice against slower decks that were heavy on fliers, or one in place of the Howling Banshee if my opponent had a Giant Spider. I did side in the Hornet Sting a couple times against opponents that had a lot of x/1s, especially fliers.

One comment on the Lich: I was really on the fence about running it at all. It’s pretty black-heavy, of course, and removal on an artifact is bad, but I wasn’t sure how many people would main deck artifact hate. Also, I wouldn’t be trying to cast it on turn 3, but more like mid-game. 5/5 indestructible is really pretty good, so I thought it was worth a shot. However, I sided it out for game 2 in favor of a Deathmark every single round. Basically, everybody played either green or white (or both) and I didn’t want any 2-for-1s off a Naturalize or a Serene Offering, so I just went with Deathmark. I should have run Deathmark main and skipped the Lich. I only drew it once anyway, and had neither three Swamps or an artifact in play, so it didn’t matter a lot in the end.

Anyway, because it was not the greatest deck, I was determined to play tight and minimize mistakes. For a change, I think I was actually pretty successful in doing that. My strategy was to try to think, “what would Aaron Forsythe and/or Erik Lauer do?” since this set is their baby and they were my teachers. That seemed to work pretty well, in fact. (Aaron/Erik, if you read this, I would love to know what you would actually have built from this card pool!)

Round 1: Bruce, playing WGu
Game 1 Bruce Cultivated on turn 3 and dropped a Serra Angel on turn 4. Yowza. I never even got close to blocking it or killing it, but I still won. How? My 2-drop was the Overseer, my 3-drop was also a Cultivate, my 4-drop was a Juggernaut, pumped by the Overseer, then I cast a Yavimaya Wurm and blew out a huge Superrun for the win. Game 2 I got a turn 3 Cloak and a turn 4 Juggernaut and that steamrolled me into a win 4 turns later.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Joe, playing GUr
Joe is a Montag’s regular, and one of the best players there; I rarely beat him, and he’s routinely in the top 8 no matter the format. Game 1 I didn’t draw much that could handle Joe’s blue flyers, and game 2 I just drew lots of land, and he beat the tar out of me with the 8/8 islandwalker that I couldn’t answer. Whee, thanks for playing.
1-1 matches, 2-2 games

Round 3: Travis, playing WR
Travis pounded me into the earth with Turboland at FNM on Friday so I owed him one. I won game 1 on the back of a 20-point Superrun. Game 2 he bashed my head in with a Sun Titan. Actually, that’s not quite right, as I could actually block the Sun Titan with my Black Knight, but the kept recurring other guys and I just couldn’t keep up. Game 3 I ran out to an early lead with something cloaked… and then started drawing land. Lots of land. I ultimately drew 15 of the 17 land in my deck—but I still won. I had three removal spells in my hand and only a Cloak on the board, and he was at 6. He dropped a little dude, which I didn’t bother with, then I finally drew a guy, and he hit it with Day. He drew a Roc Egg, I drew land. He drew something else small, I drew land for several turns while he hit me. I finally drew a guy and Cloaked him up, and he blew up a Destructive Force, which activated his Roc Egg. I drew land. He beat me down with the 3/3 Bird and something else, I drew land. Finally, I managed to draw a Shade and cloak it, then pump it next turn for the 6 I needed for the win.
2-1 matches, 4-3 games

Round 4: Carlos, playing GBw
This was the toughest match of the day, frankly. These games went long and were close. Game 1 I outraced his Primeval Titan with my own green fatness backed up by a Cloak. Game 2 I had him on the ropes a little and he was short of land. I cast a Liliana’s Specter when he had only five land, and he discarded the Primeval Titan and then got it by casting Rise from the Grave. Good play. I could not handle the trample this time around, and died a horrible death. Game 3 was also long and drawn out. I got an early lead with a Juggernaut on turn 4, which he Doom Bladed after it hit him once. I then got a Child of Night equipped with the Cloak. He Naturalized the Cloak, but I came back with a second Juggernaut. We traded blows a bit—he managed to miss the flip on a Sorcerer’s Strongbox like five times along the way, which was nice. We both had 4/5 Treefolk and then both with Wurms, but me also with a Specter. I ran my Wurm into his Wurm for 2 trample damage plus 2 in the air, then got back my Wurm with a Gravedigger. He put a Warlord’s Axe on his Treefolk, but I tapped the Treefolk on my turn with Stabbing Pain and that gave me a path to swing for lethal. Great match.
3-1 matches, 6-4 games

Round 5: LaTisha playing WGb
Game 1 I got a Child of Night on turn 2 which got me up to 26 life and her down to 14, but she dealt with it and then got a Squadron Hawk into a second one. She followed that with a Wild Griffin and I then literally drew 7 land in a row. I finally started to come back but it was too late, I got her down to 1 but she still had one of each flier on the board with me at 3 life so she had me. Game 2 I got the early Child and then a Juggernaut, but was again being beaten up by various small white fliers. However, I got a couple guys out and then Superrun for +20 when she was at like 10. Game 3 I got a great draw: Overseer, Cloak, Juggernaut, a removal spell, and 3 land. She did manage to Doom Blade the Overseer but by then the Jugger was 7/5 and Cloaked, and she never had an answer to that. I actually drew the Superrun, but I never used it. She did get a Sun Titan out, though, but I had the Pacifism for it.
4-1 matches, 8-5 games

Round 6: Zach
It was freakin’ hot because the AC was just not keeping up with the packed store and I was getting hungry. Zach and I did the math and because we both had good tiebreaks, we decided to ID as we both had spots in the top 8. I decided to go get some food, a loaded baked potato at the local barbecue place—good times.

Quarterfinals: Marvin, playing RW
Marvin’s deck was freaking sick. He had 3 Bolts and a Chandra. I got an early Child of Night, he got something else small and Bolted the Child so he could get through with his dude, which was pumped with Honor of the Pure. I dropped a Juggernaut that he couldn’t handle (he should have saved the Bolt), and then I hit him with Mind Rot and got the Chandra. He didn’t draw an answer to the Juggernaut in his next two turns, so that was it. Game 2 he drew all three Bolts and the Chandra, and I still won… without casting Superrun. He Bolted a Juggernaut, used Chandra to kill a Specter, used Chandra and a Bolt to kill a Yamivaya Wurm. I killed Chandra with my Giant Spider, then cast Gravedigger to get back the Wurm, then re-cast it and plowed through his little dudes.
5-1-1 matches, 10-5 games

Top 4 decided to split because it was damn uncomfortable in the store, so I got 12 packs of M11 and $50 in store credit. The store credit I spent mostly on the M11 planeswalkers because other than Jace and Chandra, I’m light on them, and they’ll be with us for a while yet so I thought I should have some.

I think the best part of the day is that I played what I think was pretty close to mistake-free. Rounds 3, 4, and 5 were all grinding 2-1 matches with lots of opportunities for misplays on both sides and I managed to not punt any of them, so that was good.

My impression of M11 as a set is that it’s pretty well-balanced. Slower than Zendikar/Worldwake, faster than Rise, no color seems to completely dominate. Artifacts seem very good, which as I mentioned is probably set up for Scars. I sat across from a lot of Crystal Balls today, though I won all of those matches, it seems like a good card for the set and I love the flavor.

Anyway, if anyone has any comments or questions about card choices—or if any of my opponents remembers things differently, which is likely since I didn’t take very good notes—please give me a holler.

Creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Lotus Cobra
2 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Cunning Sparkmage
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Woolly Thoctar
4 Vengevine
2 Baneslayer Angel
        
Other spells
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Behemoth Sledge
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Ajani Vengeant
        
Land
4 Arid Mesa
2 Terramorphic Expanse
5 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
2 Plains
2 Raging Ravine
1 Sejiri Steppe
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Sunpetal Grove
        
Sideboard
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Quasli Pridemage
1 Behemoth Sledge
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Pithing Needle
2 Manabarbs
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Path to Exile

We had a good turnout, so five rounds of Swiss cutting to top 8.

Round 1: Travis, playing Turboland
This was the first appearance of Turboland at Montag’s that I was aware of, and I hadn’t really thought about boarding for it. Game 1 was just stupid. I mulled to six and kept a 1-lander because it had two Cobras and a mystic, so if I drew into a second land I’d be fine. I didn’t, and he got the god draw: Cobra into Oracle into more land into a turn 4 Avenger. I still had a single land on the table and nothing else, and just scooped to it. Game 2 he boarded in two Roil Elementals and drew them both early, and I just didn’t have answers. This was a bad, bad way to start the night.
0-1 matches, 0-2 games

Round 2: Kris, playing Naya
I seem to end up playing Kris a lot. I have a really good record against him overall, though he was my only loss in the Rise prerelease, which was enough to keep me out of the top 8 on tiebreaks. Anyway, these games were pretty uneventful, unfortunately. Both games he got land flooded to my very fast starts both times, and I just ran him over.
1-1 matches, 2-2 games

Round 3: Jeff, playing UG Landfall
This was the most fun match of the night, even though I ended up punting it. Jeff is a really fun guy to play against, very good-natured. I had played against this deck before some months ago. It’s mostly a mill deck with lots of ramp, Archive Traps and Hedron Crabs. His alternate win condition is Rampaging Baloths and a pair of Platinum Angels. Game 1 I got a ripping start, with a turn 3 Thoctar and a turn 4 Vengevine, so I swung for 9 on turn 4. He got Garruk and untapped lands, but on turn 5 I got another Vengevine. I decided to ignore Garruk and swing for lethal, but he stopped the Thoctar with an Into the Roil, so I only hit for 8, putting him at 3. He had ramped some and put out a Baloth and made a token, but I put down a Baneslayer since he had no flyers. He made more tokens and I swung with the Angel, but he had another Roil and on his turn made some more tokens and dropped a Platinum Angel. Here’s where I blew it. I put down a Sparkmage with a Collar, and instead of killing the Baloth, I killed the Angel. Dumb. He Harrowed at the end of my turn, and had five 4/4 beast tokens, a 3/3 beast token, and Garruk at 5 counters. Lethal overrun, of course—I should have killed the Baloths first, then dealt with the Angel later. Ugh. Game 2 I got another good start, turn 3 Knight and turn 4 Vengevine, swinging for 7 on turn 4. I next tried a Manabarbs but he had a Negate. I beat him down to 1 and he dropped a Platinum Angel. Ugh. I tried to Path it, but he countered it. I got a Sparkmage out, but no Collar, and shot him to 0. He drew a Crab and started milling me while I was hoping to draw some way to kill the Angel. It took a while. I drew a Mystic and tutored for a Collar, but he Negated that, as well. Grr. Mill, mill. I finally drew another Path and this time he didn’t have the counter, so I won. Game 3 I don’t remember the details quite as well; we had time called on us early in the game. I had much better board position and had beaten him down to 8 but could not swing for lethal on my last turn, so we ended as a draw. I had lethal the next turn, ugh.
1-1-1 matches, 3-3-1 games

Round 4: Bob, playing Wrb
His deck had some random white dudes including Baneslayers and he ran a full set of Paths and Terminates as well as some Bolts. He was also running Ethersworn Canonist, which was actually a real annoyance. Game 1 took forever. I got a Vengevine Pathed, he had the Terminate for my Baneslayer. I got a Collar but the Sparkmage got Bolted. I got the Collar on a Thoctar and started gaining obscene amounts of life but he had chump blockers. I got up to 36 life but it took me a while to finally get through as he eventually Terminated the Thoctar and was getting through with some of his stuff. Bob was not a fast player and I could see the writing on the wall here, and tried to play faster myself in Game 2, which turned out to be all about his 2 Baneslayers and my inability to kill both of them. On to Game 3. I managed to stick an early Baneslayer and she got through twice before eating a Terminate. Time was called, and when our fifth turn ran out he was at 5 and I was at 31 and had lethal on the board—I needed exactly one more turn to kill him. Argh!! I was pretty annoyed since he was so slow and I had it, plus I couldn’t afford another draw so this knocked me out of Top 8 contention.
1-1-2 matches, 4-4-2 games

Round 5: Andrew, playing Junk
His build was not the same as the one I had been testing. His had Emeria Angels and no Vengevines. Game 1 was a quick beating. He got an Emeria Angel turn 4, I never drew any fliers or enough pressure, he got another Emeria, and I died to a swarm of flying tokens. Game 2 was another long, drawn-out attrition war. He always had the answers early: Path for Vengevine, Pulse for Elspeth, etc. I finally managed to actually stick a Baneslayer, but he got down a Thornling with a Collar on it. I had a Collared Sparkmage of my own, but of course that couldn’t kill Thornling, but I slowly picked off his Hierarchs so his Thornling wouldn’t get the Exalted triggers. I eventually got a Sledge on the the table and chumped the Thornling, meaning I was gaining more life per turn than him, and eventually was able to add to the Baneslayer and swing for lethal with it along with a Ravine and something else. This took a long time, though, and I knew we were again in danger of a draw. We did indeed get time called on us a few turns into Game 3, but I Bloodbraided into a Sparkmage and managed to swing for 1 less than lethal with a Sledged Ravine and finish with the ping.
2-1-2 matches, 6-5-2 games

Of course, I missed the top 8 with that record. I was a little annoyed because I really should have won rather than drawn in rounds 3 and 4. Round 3 it was my own fault for punting game 1, round 4 I felt was my opponent’s fault for slow play, particularly in game 1.

I stayed to watch some of the top 8, though. Amazingly, a guy playing Vampires made it to the final match, beating RDW in both the quarters and the semis. Hunh? The other semi was an Esper deck featuring Jace, Baneslayer, and Persecutor vs. Brilliant Ultimatum, which was a pretty interesting match. I didn’t stay for the final match, though. I still want to know how Vampires made it that far… that just seems wrong.

M11 pre-release on Sunday afternoon. Should be something!

Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Lotus Cobra
2 Dauntless Escort
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Baneslayer Angel
4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara

Planeswalkers        
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Gideon Jura

Other spells
1 Finest Hour
2 Eldrazi Conscription
        
Land
3 Celestial Colonnade
4 Forest
1 Glacial Fortress
2 Island
1 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
2 Sejiri Steppe
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Sunpetal Grove
2 Verdant Catacombs
        
Sideboard
3 Negate
2 Bant Charm
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Emerge Unscathed
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Qasali Pridemage

Round 1: Marcus, playing Esper Artifacts
Marcus was a new face at Montag’s which is always good to see. I have to be honest, I felt bad about how this one went. Both games I used ramp and Jace to get out an early Sovereign and beat him down with it; in the second game it was turn 3 off a pair of Lotus Cobras. It was pretty bad.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Daniel, playing Jund
I’ve played Daniel at least once before. Actually, we ID’d in the fifth round about a month ago. I knew he was playing Jund, which is generally a pretty good matchup for Mythic. Game 1 I got out a couple Knights of the Reliquary. He tried to Pulse one but I had it without summoning sickness and was able to sac a Plains for a Steppe. Next turn I got down a Baneslayer, and that was it. Game 2 I kept a hand I should not have kept: six lands and a Dauntless Escort. I got beat down, of course Game 3 was pretty funny. I had a Bird and a two Cobras early, and Bant Charmed a Thrinax to swing for 4. He generated another Thrinax and the only card in hand was a Conscription. I drew a sixth land, dropped it, and hard-cast the Conscription on one of the Cobras (he was tapped out). The best part about hard-casting a Conscription is you get the annihilator trigger. He sac’d the Thrinax and a land. He dropped another land and Terminated the Conscripted Cobra, and I was able to kill him with a activated Colonnade.
2-0 matches, 4-1 games

Round 3: Trevor, playing Jund
Trevor is a Montag’s regular, or semi-regular at least. Game 1 he got an early Geopede and I had a pair of Hierarchs and a Cobra. I managed a Knight and then a Gideon and that got me the rest of the way. I don’t really remember the details of Game 2 all that well, but it was a Kor Firewalker and a Knight that carried it.
3-0 matches, 6-1 games

Round 4: Tony, playing Next Level Bant
I was rounded down, but guaranteed to make it to the top 8, and Tony decided his tiebreakers were good enough for us to ID. Joe and John were also 3-0 and they also drew, and so Joe and John taught Tony and me how to play Dominion. Good times.
3-0-1 matches, 6-1 games

Quarterfinals: Nolan, playing 4-color Warp World
I knew it was a wild homebrew with Avenger of Zendikar in it, but not much else. Game 1 was pretty silly. I managed a Cobra on turn 2 off a Hierarch, then a fetch into a Baneslayer on turn 3, then a fetch into a Sovereign on turn 4. I didn’t really see anything from him other than a Birds and a Trace of Abundance. Just in case, I sided in the Pridemages for the Escorts. Game 2 was a bit more drawn out. I got a Knight and a Jace out, and then managed one whack with a Baneslayer before it died to a combination of a Path (to draw out a Steppe) and Siege-Gang tokens. I was fatesealing with Jace and got down Elspeth and a second Knight, and they carried the day.
4-0-1 matches, 8-1 games

Semifinals: John, playing RDW
These games went really poorly. Game 1 I opened with no source of green and multiple green cards, then mulled to 6: four land, a Conscription, and a Sovereign. I went to 5, and it was four land and a Conscription. Ugh. I didn’t think I could win with 4 so I kept. He of course got a turn 1 Guide and I kept drawing nothing but mana dorks, which he burned each time I cast one. I finally got a Knight, but he burned me down to 3. I dropped a Sovereign and swung with the Knight, putting him at 5 and dead next turn, but he finally managed his third land and killed me with a Hell’s Thunder. Game 2 I took an OK hand: a forest and a plains, two mana creatures, a Firewalker, an Escort, and something expensive (Gideon?). Unfortunately, I didn’t draw a third land and he burned off both the mana dorks, so I never got a second source of white. I eventually got the Dauntless out, but that was it… burned to death.

So, I finished 4-1-1 in matches, 8-3 in games; not too bad, really. For finishing in the top 4 I got like $15 in store credit, so not bad at all.

I stayed to watch the final, which was John’s RDW against Tony’s Next Level Bant. Tony pulled it out in three games; John got a little mana-flooded in the third game. This was the first time I’d seen Next Level Bant at Montag’s other than the time I played it

So, one more week of Standard before we switch to drafting M11, and then M11 will be in play, so one more week of the current environment. I’m not sure what I’ll play. The Junk deck that should, in theory, be good hasn’t tested very well in the limited time I’ve given it, so I’m not sure what route to take. I saw almost no UW or Super Friends this week, so maybe something along that line. We’ll see.

So, last week (6/19), I played Mythic Conscription again. I won round 1 vs. Alan playing Eldrazi Elves 1-0-1. We timed out in the second game because I couldn’t draw a Sovereigns and he couldn’t ramp because I had Linvala out. I had a Baneslayer so I had much life but he had a Monument so nobody was getting anywhere. Round 2 was against Doug playing Jund, which I won 2-1. I actually lost game 1, which should not happen often, but managed to pull out the second game because he kept a bad hand and I got an early Baneslayer. Game 3 was a more drawn-out game that I won on the back of a timely Emerge Unscathed. I lost round 3 to Matt, playing his usual Vengevine Naya because I could not draw a Sovereign to save my life and then punted the last game because I did the math wrong. I probably could have drawn in because all of my opponents ended up making the top 8 but John and I played for it in round 4, him playing RDW. I won the first game, in part because he was a little land-flooded. I lost the second as the only thing he had on the board was a Kargan Dragonlord, but it was leveled up some. I only had one blue-producing land and couldn’t cast Jace to bounce it, so I played a Noble Hierarch. Unfortunately he had burn for the Hierarch, so no double-blue for me, and death by Dragonlord. I lost the third game to a Manabarbs and another leveled-up Dragonlord. 2-2 for matches, all my opponents made the top 8. Ugh.

So, in my grand tradition of not playing the same deck two weeks in a row, I had to find something different. I wasn’t going to go back to Next Level Bant because that had been a disaster. I did have a little time on Thursday to test out the Junk deck I proposed, but that deck isn’t quite there. It can indeed generate some really explosive starts, but when it doesn’t, it wasn’t very good, at least against Super Friends. (Testing showed clearly that Student of Warfare/Scute Mob is better in the long run than Steppe Lynx, though). So, with that not being a viable option, it occurred to me that I had never played an actual control deck at FNM, so I decided to go with Super Friends. Here’s my build:

Creatures
4 Wall of Omens
        
Other spells
2 Everflowing Chalice
3 Path to Exile
4 Spreading Seas
1 Deprive
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Mind Spring
3 Day of Judgment
2 Martial Coup

Planeswalkers
3 Ajani Vengeant
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Gideon Jura        

Land
4 Island
2 Mountain
4 Plains
2 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Tectonic Edge
60        
        
Sideboard
2 Pyroclasm
3 Negate
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Baneslayer Angel
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
2 Wall of Denial

The metagame at Montag’s lately has been some Mythic, a fair amount of Naya, a little Super Friends or UW control, a bunch of Jund, and John playing RDW. I’m the only person I’ve seen attempting Next Level Bant, and I don’t think my outing convinced anyone else to play it.

Round 1: Andrew playing Grixis
Andrew is not a regular but I think I might have played him once before. Game 1 I kept an opener with a bunch of land and a Day of Judgment, a Wall of Omens, and a Path, which is usually pretty good. However, he opened with an Island and then a Drowned Catacombs and that immediately told me I had kept the wrong hand. He ran out a Bloodwitch and Negate’d my Day. I managed an Elspeth but the Bloodwitch made short work of her and a Mind Shatter for four killed my hand, and then a few turns later he got off a Cruel Ultimatum; I never really recovered. Game 2 was all me; I had an answer to everything he threw out there and had multiple ‘walkers early and it was done. Game 3 was really drawn out, back-and-forth kind of affair. He managed a Cruel again when I had exactly three cards in hand, but I managed to recover and got out a Gideon and something else. He conceded when he was at eight and I had Gideon active along with something else. He actually had me, as I was at 8 and he had a Bloodwitch I couldn’t block or Path on the board and was holding two Bolts. Apparently, he was thinking about the Bolts as a way to control Gideon, but Gideon was at 8 so that wouldn’t work. Either way, I got the win in our 5 turns after time was called phase, whew.
1-0 matches, 2-1 games

Round 2: Carols playing Boss Naya
Carlos was playing “old school” Boss Naya with no Vengevines or main deck Baneslayers; something very close to LSV’s PT San Diego list, though oddly with no Bolts. Game 1 was all me: Day on turn 4, Elspeth on 5, Gideon on 6; quick beatings. Game 2 I don’t really remember other than him getting a Sledge active and me not drawing enough Day/removal. Game 3 was decided mostly by him dropping a Pithing Needle and correctly naming the Gideon in my hand, which would have been a huge problem for him. Turns out he saw it when I cracked a fetch or something like that. Ugh, gotta remember to take better care of my hand. The real lock was the Manabarbs from his sideboard that I didn’t have a Negate for and didn’t draw an O Ring for until it was far too late.
1-1 matches, 3-3 games

Round 3: Nick playing RDW
This was an odd RDW deck in that he ran Howling Mine in the main and things like Brood Birthing. However, he also had the amazing turn 1 Goblin Guide start. That Guide gave me multiple lands so when I finally neutralized it (with a Wall of Omens) I never missed a land drop. I eventually won by going ultimate with Jace… with two Howling Mines in play. Game 2 he got another turn 1 Guide but I again produced a Wall of Omens in short order and an Elspeth. He did eventually burn out the Elspeth and the Wall, but I ran Day to clear the board and finished him off with a Gideon.
2-1 matches, 5-3 games

Round 4: Dustin playing Vampires
Dustin is a Montag’s regular and a really nice guy, always an enjoyable match. Unfortunately, the first two games were both decided by mana issues. In Game 1, he mulligan’d once into a 1-lander, but kept it because he had a lot of two-drops. Unfortunately, my turn 2 play was a Spreading Seas and he didn’t draw a Swamp for a couple turns and was just too far behind to keep up. Game 2 I missed my turn 4 land drop (even after a Wall of Omens), though I did have a Chalice in play, I didn’t have two white sources so I couldn’t Day and he got a Nocturnus. I drew… a Colonnade. Yes, sure, a source of white, but not soon enough and I died to the flying vamp army. I joked that the third game we’d finally have a real game where both of us got to do stuff, and he replied that no, we’d probably both just draw tons of land. I said I liked my odds in a game that involved mostly land. We did, in fact, draw mostly land for a while. I thought I had him when I had both an Ajani and a Jace in play, but he hit me with All Is Dust. Yikes. He dropped a few dudes and I drew into a Martial Coup, which I cast for 9 tokens. He cleared with another All Is Dust. I put out a Chalice for 4, he dropped a couple dudes. I did a Mind Spring for 4 or 5 and had enough mana open to cast the Day I drew off of it. He put out something and then I drew the second Martial Coup and cast it for 12 tokens. They swung once, he dropped a Bloodwitch, my tokens came in again and I ran out Elspeth, and that was it.
3-1 matches, 7-4 games

Round 5: ID
Someone told me he was playing Turbofog, and that sounded to me like a draw on time anyway. I did the math and realized we could draw in anyway, so we did. Turns out he wasn’t playing Turbofog, it was Vampires (really? Two people playing Vamps? WTF?).
3-1-1 matches

Quarterfinals: Carlos playing Boss Naya
Generally speaking, I don’t like playing the same guy in the top 8 as I do in the Swiss because, hey, there are other people around! But the pairings gave me Carlos again, and so we shuffled up. Game 1 was a lot like our Game 1 in the Swiss: Day on Turn 4, then ‘walkers took command. I got Ajani out and managed to keep him off double white for the Baneslayer he had in hand and managed to Helix a couple times to offset some of the small pokes I had taken, then I got Gideon and Elspeth together and made short work of it. Game 2 was a horrible game, I drew a Day which I ran on turn 4, and an Ajani which I drew on like turn 7 or 8, and then literally nothing but land.
Game 3 he again got a pretty fast start but I got a three- or four-for-one with a Day on turn 5, but of course he had a Ranger to recover. He got Manabarbs down, but this time I had an O Ring in hand. He Needle’d for Gideon again but this time I had no Gideon. He kept throwing out dudes and beating me down, but again I managed a Day. Unfortunately, he still had a Sledge on the table. He drew a Hierarch and another Needle, naming Colonnade (of which I had two or three on the table) I got out a Sphinx, but the Hierarch was Sledged so I couldn’t really make any progress. I did a Mind Spring for 4 or 5 but he got another Manabarbs, unfortunately, and dropped another dude so I had to swing with the Sphinx to drop him to 25 (damn Sledge) and then cast Martial Coup making six tokens. This unfortunately put me at 5 life, but the board was clear and he had no cards in hand. I went to 3 to Negate something (I can’t remember what) and swung with all the tokens, putting him at 6, meaning I had him dead next turn. I had mana open for a Negate and the life to use it, but I was dead to exactly one card: Bloodbraid. I knew he had only two left, so I figured my odds were good, and I did not go to 1 life to cast the Wall of Omens in my hand because I knew that was the only way he had me and I knew the odds were not good; he had about 35 cards left in his library and that’s about a 6% chance of drawing a Bloodbraid. He, of course, topdecked a Bloodbraid and hit me for exactly 3… ugh. Of all the rotten luck. I guess I should have risked it and cast the Wall, but being at 1 life didn’t seem like a good plan, though in retrospect I’m not sure why not, since I knew he wasn’t running Bolts.
3-2-1 matches, 8-6 games

Not a great day, but I got a couple packs for my trouble, though they didn’t have anything worthwhile in them. I stayed to watch the top 4. Joe, also playing Super Friends, got Carlos in the next round and of course managed to not get topdecked into the earth, though it did go three games. The finals was John and his RDW against Joe, which Joe won fairly handily; game 2 he managed two early Wall of Omens along with two Firewalkers, and John just couldn’t overcome that. Joe got $60 in store credit but didn’t really want it, so he sold me his credit for $30 and I picked up some singles and some deck boxes (red and a black mana symbol boxes to complete my set). So, overall, not that a bad night, really.

I’ll be traveling again the coming week and so will have zero time—actually, less, since I’ll be traveling with the kids—time to brew and/or test, so I’m almost certainly going back to Mythic next week. Only two more weeks of Standard before we go to M11 draft. Looks like M11 will have something serious to say about the format even before Shards and M10 rotate out!

Is it just me, or does standard just rock right now? So many viable decks. I want to play everything this week at FNM!

Maybe it is just me, but I got a bunch of re-tweets, so maybe I’m not alone.

I’ve only been back in the game since Zendikar, and up until Rise the metagame has been dominated by Jund. Now, Jund is still both popular and good, but it doesn’t rule the roost in nearly the same way. One could argue, as has one of my favorite MTG bloggers, Mulldrifting (Lauren Lee), that the dominant decks right now are UWr and Bant variants (Mythic, Next Level). What’s exciting about standard right now is that there are so many good decks, all of which are viable. Maybe not all fantastic, but when you plan for FNM, (or I guess a PTQ), you can expect really any of these, and they are all legit threats:

UWr “Superfriends”
Mythic Conscription
Next Level Bant
UW control (usually tap-out, but sometimes with main deck counters)
Naya Vengevine
RDW
Jund
Turboland

There are also interesting hybrids out there, like the UW Sovereigns deck as well as other cool tech like Brilliant Ultimatum—plus other random stuff like Eldrazi Elves, Time Sieve, and Turbofog are still around.

It’s also important to realize that “Jund” is a horrible label because there are so many variants of Jund floating around right now. Jund varies a lot in terms of amount of removal/burn, amount of ramp/mana fixing (Rampant Growth? Trace of Abundance? Lotus Cobra?), and the exact creature base (Vengevine or no? Putrid Leech? Master of the Wild Hunt? Siege-Gang? Bloodwitch? Still running Broodmate?), and even planeswalkers (Sarkhan, Garruk, both, neither). Trying to prepare or sideboard against “Jund” is not always clear, because Jund itself is pretty amorphous. You have the Jund colors, of course, and everybody still runs Bloodbraid Elf, but after that, it’s all over the place.

This is a pretty drastic change from pre-Rise, and what’s interesting about it how few Rise cards are actually involved. Mythic Conscription obviously relies on Eldrazi Conscription, the UW decks use few Rise cards other than Wall of Omens and Gideon Jura. Turboland, at least LSV’s version, uses exactly zero main-deck cards from Rise (there are a whole 2 Narcolepsy in the sideboard, though). On the other hand, NL Bant is based heavily on Vengevine abuse, and of course Naya puts the nasty plant to good use as well. RDW got the most from Rise with Devastating Summons, Kargan Dragonlord, Flame Slash, Staggershock, Forked Bolt, and Kiln Fiend. Not all builds run all of those, of course, but most run most of them.

Frankly, I think it’s awesome. Sideboarding is difficult because of the diversity, playtesting requires a significant gauntlet, and many of the matchups play out very differently. (For example, NLB is the beatdown vs. the UW decks, but not vs. Mythic.) There is no one boogeyman. I personally think Mythic is the strongest deck, but even Mythic is uneven and legit arguments can be made for other decks. To me, that’s a great environment. The major complaint that people appear to have—and I cannot disagree—is that it’s expensive because of the preponderance of planeswalkers and other mythics. Otherwise, though, I have to say I can’t wait for FNM each week.

So, the question I wanted to consider is “how did we get here?” That is, why is the environment kind of a “let a thousand flowers bloom” kind of situation. To look at this question, I take inspiration from Flores, and look at the answer to this question: what’s are the best cards at each casting cost? I believe it looks something like this, though of course people will disagree with specific choices here, I think this gets to the heart of the matter:

Oblivion Ring is a nice card at 3, too, but seriously, wouldn’t you really rather have a Pulse? Of course you would. This is why Jund was still generally better than Boss Naya right before Rise came out. Jund would cascade into Pulse and Blightning and Terminate, and Naya would cascade into O Ring and Birds of Paradise. Good cards, but not a level playing field. (Vengevine makes cascading into Birds a lot more attractive, of course.)

Anyway, now let’s look at the top decks and how they do with these cards:

Myhic: Noble Hierarch, Lotus Cobra, Knight of the Reliquary, Jace, Baneslayer, sometimes Elspeth and/or Gideon. One (or more) at each casting cost.

UWr: Path to Exile, Spreading Seas, Wall of Omens, Jace, Elspeth, Ajani Vengeant, Gideon. Nothing at 3, but double at 2 and those are both cantrips, and multiple at 4.

NL Bant: Hierarch, Lotus Cobra, Wall of Omens, Jace, Vengevine, Elspeth, Gideon. Again, nothing at 3, but one at each other casting cost and many 4s.

Jund: Lightning Bolt, Terminate, sometimes Lotus Cobra, Blighting, Pulse, Bloodbraid, Siege-Gang. Again, at least one at each casting cost. One of the things that makes Jund so good is that it has so much play at 3, and it gets 3-drops for free much of the time. Thrinax and Leech are also very strong cards at their costs, too, just barely missing this list.

It’s no surprise that these are some of the best decks; they play the best cards at their casting cost!

What’s also interesting is what is not here. There’s nothing here for Vampires, most notably at 1. The best two-drops in Vampires are Bloodghast and Vampire Hexmage. Good, solid cards—but not the best. Vampire Nighthawk is a limited bomb but not one of the best cards around at 3. Vampires is not a Tier 1 deck for a reason.

RDW breaks this analysis, of course, as it has virtually nothing on the list but is good anyway. I’d note that before Wall of Omens, one of the best RDW variants was Barely Boros, which splashed white for Path and Ajani, breaking onto this list. Maybe Devastating Summons belongs with Path on the 1-drop contenders list.

Interestingly, Grixis ought to be good, right? Bolt, Spreading Seas, Terminate, Blightning, Jace… Got 1-4 drops covered, and Grixis also gets another really solid 3-drop in Sedraxis Specter. I think the real problem is that there’s no great threat for Grixis at 5. Grixis’s big-time threat, Cruel Ultimatum, doesn’t hit until 7, and there’s just not much in way of high-quality ramp in Grixis colors. The Bant decks will ramp into their Jace first, the UW or UWr decks have strong 5 and multiple strong options at 4, which gives them something to do on turn 5 where Grixis does what, exactly? It can’t play another Jace… I think if Sorin Markov cost 5, he’d be played here and Grixis would be much better. That a guy made top 8 at GP Manila and that Flores qualified for Nationals with Grixis tells you those guys were either lucky, good, or both—the deck should be one notch below the top, I think.

So, how will M11 affect Standard? I think that will strongly depend on what it can put onto this list, and what is lost. Baneslayer is back for another round, so that’s safe. The rotation of the Shards block will also have a big impact, as there are several cards on this list that will be going away.

Interestingly, the list also suggests that Junk should have a shot: Noble, Path, Wall of Omens, Cobra, Pulse, KotR, Vengevine, Elspeth, Baneslayer, Gideon. Kind of a weird mix of cards, and Noble doesn’t make black mana, but maybe this is worth a shot. Seems like you’d need to run Ranger of Eos to make sure you trigger Vengevines, and there aren’t really great 1 drops for these colors past Noble. Guess a Scute Mob, but that doesn’t seem like quite enough. Student of Warfare seems soft. Anyone tried Alex Shearer’s recent Junk list? He doesn’t like Baneslayer or Gideon in his build, but this analysis suggests those should be at least tried. Not sure I like the Stoneforge Mystic package without Cunning Sparkmage, and he’s not running Cobras, either. Hmm. My thoughts would be something like this:

Creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Vengevine
3 Ranger of Eos
3 Baneslayer Angel
        
Other spells
3 Path to Exile
3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Gideon Jura
        
Land
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Sunpetal Grove
2 Sejiri Steppe
1 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Plains
4 Forest
2 Swamp

I couldn’t get Wall of Omens to fit in sensibly with the Ranger of Eos package, nor could I get in Emeria Angel, which also seems like it’d be great here—if producing bird tokens counted for Vengevine activation, I’d do it in a heartbeat over the Ranger package and tuck in a third Elspeth and a fourth Pulse. Also not sure about the mana base. I’d maybe consider 3 Student of Warfare and 1 Scute Mob over the Lynxes, too, but I kind of miss playing Steppe Lynx. Turn 1 Lynx, turn 2 Cobra swing for 2, turn 3 fetch into Gideon or Baneslayer and swing for six seems pretty good.

Yeah, there would have to be a sideboard, too, which would feature Doom Blade for Mythic, Kor Firewalker for RDW, O Rings for UWr, Celestial Purge for Jund, Bojuka Bog for other Vengevine decks.

I’m open for suggestions, thoughts, criticisms…

Now, for some people that’s not saying anything, but many people who know me are more than a little surprised by this. I like tech toys, I like Apple toys in particular, and they aren’t prohibitively expensive. Also, I travel a fair amount, and travel seems like one of the better applications for an iPad. So why, I’ve been asked numerous times, don’t I have one?

The primary reason is that I don’t need one… OK, I can’t type that with a straight face. “Needing one” has never been a criterion for me. I’ll wipe the smirk off my face and try again.

The primary reason is that it’s a first-generation Apple product. I didn’t buy a first-generation iPod; I waited for the 3rd generation when the software got better and it supported AAC encoding (which was, at the time, much better at 128 kbps than MP3 encoders). I didn’t get a first-generation iPhone; I waited until the iPhone 3G, precisely for the 3G and third-party applications. (Note that I also skipped the 3GS, though I am, of course, getting an iPhone 4, as previously mentioned.)

So, by extension, what am I waiting for on the iPad? What feature is it lacking that prevents me from buying it?

There are a few things that I expect the 2nd generation iPad to have that I’d really like to see. For one, iOS 4 for the iPad would be really nice. But that’s just software. If I bought an iPad now, I’d have that when it shipped.

It’s not applications, as there are already some cool apps. However, what I would like to see before I commit is better integration between desktop and iPad applications. I’d like syncing a Pages or Keynote document between my iPad and my Mac to be a little more seamless. Note that Dropbox would be perfectly acceptable for this. (Incidentally, I’m with John Gruber on this—why hasn’t Apple bought this yet? Dropbox rocks!) But again, that’s just software, presumably. I could get an iPad now and it would just get better when this happened.

So it must be hardware. What in the hardware do I think will be there in future iPads that isn’t there yet?

Two words: Screen resolution.

The iPad is not huge, but it’s good-sized; the screen is 9.7” on the diagonal. However, the screen is a mere 1024 x 768 pixels, which is just over 130 pixels per inch. Frankly, when Steve announced this number up on the keynote stage, I was flabbergasted. I was really surprised that Apple would go with this.

Now, for lots of applications, that’s plenty. A typical ripped DVD (done with anamorphic scaling) produces a video file that’s something on the order of 850 x 360 pixels, so it’s plenty dense for movies. So, what’s the stumbling point?

Reading. As Apple’s own ads for the iPhone 4 note, the human eye can discriminate right around 300 pixels per inch. More than that makes very little difference, but up to that, your eye can still see the pixels. This is not a big deal for watching movies and standard applications, but for really serious reading, this matters—rather a lot, too, in terms of things like reading rate and eye strain.

So, what I’m hoping is that the second-generation iPad has a display that’s inspired by the iPhone 4. I realize that it might be prohibitively expensive to produce a 300+ ppi display at 9.7” size (the iPhone’s is only 3.5”). That’s fine—I’d settle for a split of the difference, around 230 ppi. I think that’d be high-res enough to make it actually tolerable as an e-reader.

I guess a camera would be nice, but mostly videoconferencing sucks anyway, so I don’t really care that much. Lack of one certainly wouldn’t prevent me from buying a future iPad, but I think enough people want this that it’s highly likely in the next revision anyway. (See also the front-facing camera in the iPhone 4.)

So, when Apple releases an iPad with 230+ ppi, then I’ll buy one. Hopefully by then the software will have caught up, too.