NFL Week 2

Look, it doesn’t matter how my picks went or how my fantasy team did, because (a) the Texans won, (b) the Colts lost, and (c) the Cowboys lost. That’s a good week! The Texans game was terrific fun; I’ve never heard Reliant stadium that loud. It was also great to see Manning get knocked around. Yes, he only got officially sacked a couple times, but they got to him a lot more than that. Of course, what was most amazing was the holes that Foster had to run through; the Colts D-line was awful and was completely manhandled. Foster seemed to always get to the second or even third level before anyone made contact. It was quite a thing.

Now, if only the Lions hadn’t gotten jobbed…

Anyway, on to this week’s picks.

Sunday 1:00
Ravens @ Cincinnati(+2.5)
Wow, not even a whole field goal? I’ll give the points.

Dolphins @ Minnesota(-5.5)
Seems like too many points for what could easily be a field goal game.

Bears @ Dallas(-7)
I think Dallas is better than they showed last Sunday and the Bears… aren’t. I’ll give the TD.

Eagles @ Detroit(+6.5)
With Vick starting and Stafford out, I will again give the points. Poor Lions.

Cardinals @ Atlanta(-6.5)
Not sure what to do with this one. I don’t think the Cardinals are very good, but the Falcons sure turned in a stinker last week. I think Atlanta will win this, but that seems like too many points to me.

Chefs @ Cleveland(-2.5)
Dunno, KC played some pretty inspired ball last week. Granted, they did it with smoke and mirrors, but I like getting points here, as I don’t think the Browns should be favored over… well, over anybody other than maybe the Bills.

Bills @ Green Bay(-13)
I’d say that seems like too many, especially with Grant out, but this is the Bills we’re talking about—on the road, no less—but that just seems like too many this early in the season. I think the Bills can actually play a little defense, even if they have no offense at all, so I’m going to take the points. Just too many not to.

Steelers @ Tennessee(-5.5)
Again, this seems like a lot of points in what is usually a close game. However, I still don’t like Dixon, and on the road, I think I have to give these points.

Buccaneers @ Carolina(-3)
Methinks this is a bad, bad game. I have low expectations for both of these teams, and clearly Vegas doesn’t know what to do either with that generic spread. I think Carolina’s defense is a little better, so I’ll give the points? No idea.

Sunday ~4:10
Rams @ Oakland(-3.5)
The Rams are really awful. You simply cannot have a rookie QB throwing that much and expect to win. Outdoors on the road? Yes, I’ll give the points.

Seahawks @ Denver(-3.5)
WTF happened last week in Seattle? I’m baffled. Also didn’t see highlights from Broncos-Jags. Err, were there highlights? Anyway, I don’t see how Denver is favored, so obviously someone knows something I don’t, so I’ll go the other way from what I was thinking and take the Broncos.

Texans @ Washington(+3)
Letdown game for Houston? Man, I hope not. I have to think that the Texans will prevail here, though, because I was really underwhelmed with the Redskins offense. Maybe the Redskins D is indeed pretty good, but I think the good guys will remember to run the ball, and probably won’t try a lateral in the waning seconds of the first half.

Jaguars @ San Diego(-7)
The Chargers looked really out of sync on Monday, didn’t they? They couldn’t run the ball at all and have nobody to throw to except Gates. Yes, Antonio is terrific, but I think they need more weapons than that. I don’t really like the Jags, either, but I’m taking the points and hoping they can keep it close.

Patriots @ New Jersey Jest(+3)
The Jest are going to have to show me some offense before I start picking them. And Rex Ryan better shut his yap until his team actually shows up on both sides of the ball, too.

SNF
Giants @ Indianapolis(-5)
There is no way that I’m going to watch this game. Well, maybe with the audio off or something, but I’m sure the network will make this an insufferable slurping of the Mannings. Ugh. I’ll be rooting for little brother here. But am I picking him? Seems like the Giants are a team that should know how to run the ball, and with Sanders still out, I don’t see how the Colts stop them. The Colts DEnds can rush the passer, but they suck against the run. If I’m the Giants’ coordinator, I run, then run, then run some more. What I worry is that the Colts will get ahead and then New Jersey will stop running. I also have a hard time seeing the Colts starting 0-2. Dammit, I have to pick the Colts again.

MNF
Saints @ San Francisco(+6)
Not sure about this one, either. The Saints are the obvious choice but let’s not forget that they didn’t exactly light it up against the Vikings. Still, with a couple extra days to rest and prepare, I think the Saints should handle this one. I’m sure it’s been a really bad week for the Niners, as the coaching staff cannot be pleased with them. I think they’ll be better this week, but not enough better to hang with the Saints.

NFL Week 1

I have to atone for the utter beating I took last year. Thursday was not a good start; stupid half-point.

Sunday 1:00
Broncos @ Jacksonville(-2.5)
Two teams that were very average last year, neither of whom I have any reason to think will be any different this year. I think Denver maybe has the better defense, and generally the defenses have the advantage early in the season, so I’ll go with the Broncos and the points.

Raiders @ Tennessee(-6)
I have the sense that Oakland will be better than they were last year, and I don’t see any reason to think that the Titans will be any better. On the other hand, they have Chris Johnson and the Raiders have… uhh… well, they have Raiders players. Oh, wait, no they have a merely average new quarterback, which is several levels better than what they had last year. Sure, again, I’ll take the points

Bengals @ New England(-4.5)
Something just seemed utterly wrong with the Bengals’ doing so well last season. I just can’t believe in them to look so good this year, and the T.O. thing never seems good to me. I’ll take the Pats at home.

Browns @ Tampa Bay(-3)
This has to be the worst game on the schedule for opening weekend. Ugh. For no particular reason, I’ll give the points.

Colts @ Houston((+2)
Looking forward to this one since I’ll be in the stands for it. I think the Texans will be about as good as they were last year, and because they play in a really tough division, it won’t be enough… again. All-time the Texans are 1-7 against the Colts—they just cannot seem to win these games, so I’m giving the two points.

Lions @ Chicago(-6.5)
I think the Bears will be awful again this season. Cutler is a head case, the defense is yet another year older, and I think the Lions will actually be better. Not good or anything, but maybe just kind of below average, like 6-10 or 7-9. I don’t see the Bears as being any better than that, so I like getting almost a full TD here.

Falcons @ Pittsburgh(+1.5)
Not taking a team starting Dixon for the first time ever. I think it’s going to be a long year for the Steelers.

Dolphins @ Buffalo(+3)
Nice of the league to make the “at Buffalo” game for Miami now rather than in, say, November or December. Anyway, it is my belief that C.J. Spiller is the real deal. However, Lee Evans isn’t getting any younger and Trent Edwards is still… Trent Edwards. The Dolphins might actually be pretty good this year with Henne having a year under his belt and with someone decent to throw to. Also, they’ll start the season with both Brown and Williams healthy, right? I’ll happily give these points.

Panthers @ New Jersey Giants(-6.5)
The battle of the Steve Smiths? Actually, I expect this to be an ugly slugfest. The ball might not cross midfield more than a handful of times. However, the Giants have a QB, and the Panthers don’t really. I’ll give the TD, I guess, but I don’t feel good about it.

Sunday 4:15
Packers @ Philadelphia(+3)
Pfffft. The Packers might be the class of the NFC this year, and Kolb has like what, three starts, none of which were particularly impressive. Packers cover by a ton. I’m surprised the spread is this small.

Cardinals @ St. Louis(+3.5)
A terrible game, competing with the Browns-Bucs for worst game of the day. This one at least has the intrigue of two questionable starting QB decisions both taking the field. With Wells hurt for Arizona, I don’t like them as a road favorite, even against the lowly Rams. I’ll take the points.

Niners @ Seattle(+3)
Ahh, the Pete Carroll era begins in the Emerald City. He was a train wreck his last time through the NFL, and now we see the reason he did so well at USC: he was cheating the whole time. (Given the consistently ridiculous level of talent that USC had, I can’t say I’m surprised—I never got the sense that Carroll was actually outcoaching anyone.) The Seabags, however, do not have any kind of edge in talent; they still have Hasselbeck at QB and nobody worth throwing to, so I’ll give the points.

SNF
Cowboys @ Washington(+3.5)
Uhh, anybody watch this matchup the last couple years? The Cowboys own the Redskins right now. Plus, it’s early in the season which is when Dallas has been at their best lately. Give the points.

MNF
Ravens @ New Jersey Jets(-2.5)
Well, with Revis in, the Jets just seem a lot better than they would have otherwise. On the other hand, the Ravens seem like a team on the rise, particularly with Flacco coming along and now finally actually having someone to throw to—though that might not matter much if none of those guys are ever open. I like the Jets in this game, but just to riverside Al, I’m taking the points and hoping it’s really close.

Chargers @ Kansas City(+4.5)
San Diego just wins this division by default, don’t they? It’s not like the Chefs have the goods to put up much of a fight. Give the points.

NFL Opener!

OMFG, the NFL is back. Hallelujah!

Vikings @ New Orleans(-5.5)
I don’t think either one of these teams will be as good this year as they were last year. For the Vikings, the receiver situation is still shaky at best. Rice was huge for them last year and now Harvin is questionable, too, and it seems unlikely that Favre can keep it down to 7 picks again. Unless Childress is smart enough to call AP’s name more often (and Favre is humble enough not to audible out of it all the time), I don’t think the Vikings will be the offensive force. Similarly, I can’t see the Saints defense holding up as well as they did last year. Felt like smoke and mirrors some of the time, and while they got it done when it really mattered, I foresee some regression to the mean this time around. I expect the Vikings’ decrement to be slightly larger than the Saints, so I will give the points.

Damn it’ll be good to have the NFL back again…

New AppleTV Quick Thoughts

Because this’ll be too long for a tweet…

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?

FNM Report, 8/27/2010

It’s so nice to be back to Standard, though I have to say drafting M11 was pretty fun, too. I had to miss FNM last week because of a family trip to Sea World. However, the Tuesday before that Friday, I did play in a Standard-for-a-box. I played Fauna Conscription. I beat UW control in round 1, beat Naya in round 2, lost to UW control in round 3, beat Vampires in round 4; we cut to the top 4 rather than the top 8, and I made it. I lost in the semis to the same UW that I lost to in round 3. The important thing to note is that UW was everywhere, including 3 of the top 4. I find the UW mirror tiresome—most mirrors aren’t that much fun, but this one seems particularly bad—and I like to not play the same deck from week to week, so this week I decided to go with Primeval Valakut. Here’s the list:

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…

Eight Might Be Enough, But Not Always

I was going to reply on Twitter to @wrongwaygoback’s recent piece on combo decks, but my thoughts evolved into something actually pretty long, so I decided to hammer out my own blog post.

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.

M11 and Mono-blue Control

GatheringMagic.com recently (you know, like today) did a piece on mono-blue control and how it might actually be back as a result of Mana Leak in M11. It was a though-provoking piece, at least for me. In particular, it reminded me of a deck I used to play “back in the day,” which for me means my first go-round as a Magic player before my ten-year hiatus. One of the decks I used to play back then was a mono-blue control deck, called variously “DrawGo” and “CMU Blue” as a bunch of Team CMU guys played it at Worlds in 1998. For reference, here’s the “official” version of the deck:

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!

M11 Prerelease Report

Houston had a large regional prerelease, but it was on Saturday and I have family obligations on Saturday. Instead, I played the Sunday prerelease at my local store, Montag’s Games. I got there good and early, which was important because they had to turn people away at the Rise prerelease and I didn’t want to risk that.

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.

FNM Report, 7/9/2010

I had a great deal of difficulty deciding what to play in the last pre-M11 standard FNM at Montag’s. My favorite deck in the format is Mythic Conscription, but I try not to play the same deck in back-to-back weeks, and I played it last week. I tried builds of Junk and Grixis that I thought should be OK but neither of them did very well in playtest. The Junk deck was sort of OK in general but very soft to Mythic. The Grixis was very good against UW and UWr, OK against Mythic, but very soft to RDW. The metagame at Montag’s has tended toward aggro the last couple weeks with not much UW or UWr, so those just didn’t seem good. I wavered between SuperFriends and throwing together a Naya Vengevine deck, and decided that since I had played SuperFriends two weeks ago I should go back to Naya, which was my favorite deck pre-Rise. Also, I have a set of the promo Woolly Thoctars that I got signed by the artist at GP Houston and I hadn’t yet actually played them, so this was an excuse to show those off (along with my signed FNM promo Bloodbraid.) Here’s what I played:

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!

FNM Report, 7/2/2010

So, I was on the road Sunday through Thursday and didn’t really have time to test or brew, so I went back to my old buddy, Mythic Conscription. Montag’s didn’t have quite the turnout of the week before, possibly because of either the holiday weekend or the outrageous torrential downpours we’ve been getting off the edges of hurricane Alex. 4 rounds of Swiss, cut to top 8. Here’s the list I played:

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.