I had to miss the M12 prerelease because of an annual family reunion/camping trip near Rochester, NY. Following that, I had a work obligation in North Conway, NH. So, I drove starting on Friday afternoon. Based on what I thought I could do each day, I figured the best stopping point for Friday night was Amsterdam, NY. Luckily for me, the WotC site let me know that a new shop called Prof. Bond’s Emporium was having a release party on Friday evening. So, I packed some sleeves, dice, a deckbox, and playmat and headed over for the party. The store itself is beautiful, just a really nice gaming space. Players were all incredibly friendly and welcoming to this out of town stranger. Overall, I think the level of competition is not what I’m used to at my local game shop, but I think having a store available to the audience will improve everyone’s game. Turnout was pretty good, but I don’t think the five rounds of swiss was quite necessary for the size of crowd. Overall, though, it was a terrific time and I was very happy to be able to play with M12 cards for the first time.

Here’s what I opened:

Yes, it’s a bomb-tastic card pool. The three obvious bombs are, of course, Gideon, Chandra, and Mind Control. Turns out that I’d classify Druidic Satchel a bomb in any deck not trying to race, so that was four. Given that my creature base was not exactly awe-inspiring in any color, I decided that the best route to victory was… stall. Play the long game, get the bombs out, and grind out the wins.

This of course meant three colors, which I generally dislike in any format like this when I can’t play some kind of green ramp/fixing, but I figured I had a Manalith and not very many double-color cards until the casting costs got a little higher, so it’d be worth a shot. I will admit that I flirted with the idea of a heavier Red build, as I do like Fling, particularly with Lightning Elemental, but that was just too aggro for what the rest of the deck felt like it wanted to do.

Here’s the list I played:

Creatures (12) 2 Gideons Lawkeeper Goblin Arsonist Goblin Fireslinger Alabaster Mage Stormfront Pegasus Merfolk Looter Griffin Sentinel Skywinder Drake Stonehorn Dignitary Master Thief Thran Golem Planeswalkers (2) Chandra, the Firebrand Gideon Jura Spells (10) Unsummon Swiftfoot Boots Divine Favor Pacifism 2 Mana Leak Incinerate Manalith Druidic Satchel Mind Control Land (16) 6 Island 4 Mountain 6 Plains

My most often sided in cards were Negate, Celestial Purge, Manic Vandal, Turn to Frog, and Circle of Flame. I may have sided Act of Treason once as well.

I know some of the decisions are pretty weird, and now post-event, even I can’t quite remember exactly what I was thinking. For example, I’m not sure about 2 red 1-drops with only 4 Mountains. The Thran Golem is the biggest beater, and yet I ran only one enchantment when I had two Divine Favors available. The thing about the Thran Golem is that he represents such a potential threat that he garnered an awful lot of attention when he hit the table. Still probably should have run the Aven Fleetwing or even the Phantasmal Dragon in its place, maindecked the Negate, and cut the one Divine Favor completely. Alternatively, I should have cut the Master Thief from the main and run both Divine Favors.

I didn’t take notes, so everyone will have to excuse my many memory flaws here.

R1: Dave, playing RW
This one is now kind of lost in my mind. Mainly, what I remember was grinding out a very long victory in game 1 largely through the magic of the Satchel. I do recall that I got Chandra and then he immediately top-decked an O Ring, which was unfun. However, the Satchel did everything in this game: built up my life total, kept me drawing gas, made tokens to chump and then later attack with. I remember when that card was spoiled and my first thought was “wow, that seems like it’ll be really good in Limited.” I didn’t know the half of it. Game 2 we were in danger of timing out and I punted by tapping wrong when I drew what was actually an answer to his 12/12 Furyborn Hellkite. We didn’t get to a game 3. Not a good start.
0-0-1 matches, 1-1 games

R2: Nick, playing WB
Nick had a good build with a Royal Assassin in it, but just had no answer to my bombs (I know in one game I had both Planeswalkers out, and Game 2 chumped almost every attack of his with Saproling tokens thanks to the Satchel) and I pretty much plowed through these two games.
1-0-1 matches, 3-1 games

R3: Cody, playing RW
Game 1 I kept a two-lander (on the draw) with both a Mountain and an Island in it, never drew a Plains the whole game, and died with five white cards in my hand, including Gideon… and he pummeled me with his Gideon. Game 2 he killed me very quickly with the amazing combo of Goblin Tunneler and Firebreathing on a 1/1, and I was again color-screwed. Pretty much an all-around spanking.
1-1-1 matches, 3-3 games, a ludicrous record given the conditions.

R4: Jeff?, playing GU
His deck had green fatties and a couple nice blue cards, but basically no removal and no way to get through Gideon’s Lawkeepers and Gideon himself. I think I ultimated Chandra once in this match as well, and I know in game 2 that I won by Mind Controlling a Giant Spider that had Trollhide on it. Seemed good.
2-1-1 matches, 5-3 games

R5: Brett, playing BR
Game 1 he took by getting a Gorehorn Minotaurs out after pinging me, then giving it hexproof with Boots, then pumping it with a Goblin War Cry. Basically, all I could do was chump it, and when the 7/7 started to get through, it was ugly. When he got out a Grim Lavamancer to boot, that was it. Game 2 I got a first-turn Goblin Fireslinger that went most of the way by himself. I Mana Leaked a couple of his early plays, stole his Swiftfoot Boots with my Master Thief, and then Mind Controlled his one creature and finished him with the trio. Game 3 I don’t remember as well, though I do know that the key plays were early Mana Leaks and when I Mind Controlled a creature of his that had Dark Favor on it.
3-1-1 matches, 7-4 games

Quarters: Nick, playing WB
Rematch from round 2. Game 1 he had to mull down to 4 and there was just no way he could beat me with that. Game 2 was a little more back and forth, but only a little. Unfortunately I don’t remember it all that well, other than once again getting huge advantage out of the Satchel, but it was pretty one-sided.
4-1-1 matches, 9-4 games

Semis: Matt, playing WG
Game 1 he kept a 1-lander on a mull to 6 and didn’t draw a second land until it was way, way too late. He discarded a lot of cards, including his three bombs: Garruk, a Sun Titan, and an Archon of Justice. Game 2 was more interesting, including a really horrific punt, but I still won it. The punt: He got out both the Archon and a Sun Titan, and I drew into Mind Control… and took the Titan. Hunh? So, of course I had to kill the Archon at some point, and so he killed the Mind Control. Duh. However, the good news is that he killed that instead of the Gideon that I had out, and I got a Lawkeeper, and that allowed me to keep the Titan off me long enough to grind out enough card advantage through the Satchel and swing enough life through my Alabaster Mage that I was able to take it in a long game.
5-1-1 matches, 11-4 games

Finals: Mike, playing BW
Game 1 was a medium-length affair decided primarily by my inability to draw things other than land; I think I died with 12 of my 16 lands on the table having drawn little gas. Game 2 I don’t really remember all that well, but I won it without too much difficulty. He did Doom Blade Gideon when I attacked with him, but I also had Chandra and was able to ultimate her while still keeping her on the board (also killing his only creature), and took it home with her and a Fireslinger. Game 3 I played an early Goblin Fireslinger followed by Boots, he had turn 2 and 3 Stormfront Pegasus and a turn 4 Cemetary Reaper. Here’s where I punted in this game: On my turn 3 I didn’t equip the Boots on the Fireslinger. On turn 4, I dropped Chandra and killed a Pegasus, figuring that my Fireslinger could chump the Reaper and then kill the other Pegasus the next turn. Of course he had a Sorin’s Thirst to kill the Slinger and then killed Chandra by attacking into her. Bleah. He got two Zombie tokens out of the Reaper but I was able to Mind Control it to make his tokens smaller, and forced him to use a Celestial Purge to kill his own Reaper. I got Gideon and then a Dignitary and a Divine Favor on the Dignitary, and then a Lawkeeper, which I protected from his spot removal with Boots. He made a Zombie token indestructible with an Aegis Angel, but I killed the Angel with Gideon after tapping with the Lawkeeper. He did get me down to 6, but after that, he couldn’t attack through the 2/6 Dignitary meaning I was free to use Gideon alternatively as an assassin and a fog. He had been holding the same one card since I cast Gideon, which I read as the Doom Blade, so I never attacked with Gideon and just waited for creatures to come and won with Skywinder Drake and Alabaster Mage and a couple Saproling tokens created by the Satchel.
6-1-1 matches, 13-5 games

So, for eight rounds of work, I got… 5 packs of M12. Seems a little light if we had enough people to justify 5 rounds of Swiss, but I had a good time, and that’s what was key.

Some comments on cards: Chandra is very good, but not nearly as good as Gideon, at least in a deck like this. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still very good, but she’s a bit slow to get to ultimate, and I didn’t use her -2 at all. Gideon, on the other hand, was absolutely fantastic. Druidic Satchel is terrific; in particular, it’s a real beating to throw lands directly into play to be able to continuously draw gas in the mid to late game. Think about that for a second—how many Limited games end up in board stalemates, with the winning player being the one able to draw out of it? Now, think about building up your available mana while never drawing land in the mid to late game. It’s pretty insane.

Alabaster Mage is another card I thought would be good but is, in fact, much better than just “good.” The fact that the ability can be used the turn he comes into play and can be used multiple times in a turn is outstanding; I won several games on the back of life gained this way. Master Thief was a little disappointing and I’d relegate him to sideboard duty in the future. Unsummon is really good in a format where Bloodthirst means creatures often have counters on them, and there are a fair number of token generators and creature enchantments as well. Manalith is also even better than expected; the fact that it comes in ready to use means you can cast it on turn 4 and then still have two mana open for a counter, which I did several times. Absolutely a must-run, if you’re in a three-color deck, and worth thinking about even if you’re in two.

In general the format seems sort of medium speed, not blazing fast like Zendikar but not glacial like Rise of the Eldrazi. I think in draft it’ll work out to be a little faster than M11 because some of the Bloodthirst guys seems pretty aggressive, but II don’t yet have as good a feel for it as M11 as I haven’t drafted it yet, but it seems like a pretty well-balanced format in terms of both speed and color parity. Looking forward to drafting it next FNM!

That’s right, I’m reporting on FNM for two players… plus there will be a bonus decklist at the end!

The two players are me and my 10-year-old son, Simon. This was his second outing to Montag’s for FNM. We’ve been playing at home for a while and I figured he was ready for some real tournament Magic as long as he played something simple. So I built a Tempered Steel deck for him that he played to a 1-2-1 record with his one win being a bye. However, all his matches went to three games. He made a lot of play and sideboarding mistakes, even though we had talked about it beforehand, but for his first time out I thought he did pretty well. So I took him again, and I’ll cover it from his end after going over my tournament.

So, my deck. I’m a big fan of Planeswalker-centered decks running Day of Judgment; probably more fond of it than I should be. Anyway, back when Shards block was still legal, I enjoyed the SuperFriends deck of that time. It’s not the same, of course, without cards like Ajani Vengeant, Oblivion Ring, and Martial Coup. However, there are some new cards like Koth, Venser, Tezzeret’s Gambit, and Preordain that seem good, so I put this together. I originally suggested this via Twitter and put it up in my last report. I didn’t like Elspeth at all in a few test games so I cut her for a Sun Titan and a Wurmcoil Engine. Here was the list:

SuperFriends

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Creatures (6) 4 Wall of Omens 1 Sun Titan 1 Wurmcoil Engine Planeswalkers (7) 3 Koth of the Hammer 2 Gideon Jura 2 Venser, the Sojourner Spells (21) 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Preordain 4 Spreading Seas 3 Dismember 3 Day of Judgment 3 Tezzerets Gambit Land (26) 4 Arid Mesa 4 Celestial Colonnade 3 Island 7 Mountain 4 Plains 4 Scalding Tarn Sideboard (15) 3 Pyroclasm 2 Combust 3 Tectonic Edge 2 Divine Offering 2 Celestial Purge 3 Luminarch Ascension

Frankly, in testing this list a little bit, I came to not like it very much. It’s inconsistent and the mana base is shaky. I wanted to switch to a different deck but I didn’t really have time to put one together. Well, I might have been able to, but nothing really excited me other than the Sin City deck (list further down), but I couldn’t make that since I only have one set of Marsh Flats, and my son’s deck already had them, and I really didn’t have time to deal with two decks, so I just went with it.

Round 1: Joey, playing Beastmaster Ascension
The deck was ramp, lots of little guys, and of course 4 copies of Beastmaster Ascension. Game 1 I drew removal when I needed it, and the right Walkers at the right time, and he was a little land-flooded, and I took this one pretty easily. I sided in three Pyroclasms and that was it. Game 2 I got behind a little and he managed to get an Ascension active. I had 8 land out and was able to dig with a Wall of Omens into a Spreading Seas into a Day of Judgment to stabilize, but after that I could not draw out of it other than a Gideon that was turned into a token via Beast Within. Game 3 I had some early mana color issues, but managed a Koth, and managed to wipe his board, but he came back with Fresh Meat. He eventually got two Ascensions active, and managed to Beast Within Gideon again, and I just could not draw a Day to get back into it.
0-1 matches, 1-2 games

Round 2: Simon, playing Tezzered Steel (see below)
Yep, the pairings computer hates us. We had actually practiced this matchup before heading over to the store, and it’s pretty close. SuperFriends can’t always handle the early swarm, but if the game goes long, it has the edge; the combination of Day and Gideon is pretty difficult. Game 1 was long; I got two early Spreading Seas to cut off his access to double white so he couldn’t cast Tempered Steel, but he got enough creatures to make it difficult. I cleared with Day but then he got Tezz and got to draw a blocker, but I bolted it, dropped Koth, and hit Tezz with a Mountain. He followed with his second Tezz, made his Mox Opal into a 5/5, and smashed my Koth. I had to use Day to kill the 5/5 Mox and eventually killed Tezz with Gideon, and then got another Koth, and was able to get him all the way with help from a Sun Titan, though Gideon did eat a Go for the Throat shortly thereafter. Simon had used Tezz’s +1 a couple times and one time he was pretty agitated about it, and he told me afterward that yes, he got an artifact, but he had to put all four Tempered Steels on the bottom. Ouch. I sided in the two Divine Offerings and two Pyroclasms. Game 2 he got off to a bit of a slower start, I was able to 3-for-1 with Day and get Gideon and Venser up, and was able to draw many extra cards off blinking a Wall with Venser. Venser went ultimate and I finished him with two turns of Gideon plus Colonnade. A shame we had to face each other and I felt kind of bad beating him, but he took it well.
1-1 matches, 3-2 games

Round 3: Weylin, playing mono-Black
Game 1 he got off to a slow start and I got out a couple Spreading Seas and a Wall and then Venser. He came back with a Grave Titan and then I dropped a Wumcoil. He swung with the Titan which of course killed them both, but I got two tokens out of it. He had multiple Zombies, of course, and I gained still more life blocking his zombies with my tokens, and I also generated another Wall. He did get Venser down to 1 at one point, but I was able to build Venser back up and ultimate him, and he scooped. I drew a zillion cards in this game by using Venser to bounce Walls and Spreading Seas; the ludicrous card advantage really was the difference in this game. I boarded in the two Purges and maybe a Pyroclasm. Game 2 I was a little land-light and never saw a Wall. I did eventually get Koth and got in a couple swings with Mountains, but Koth doesn’t actually protect himself or the player very much and he only made a token effort to keep Koth off ultimate and mostly just swung at me for the win. Game 3 I again had colored mana problems (no white for a long time) and while I once again got Koth going and had a couple Walls for protection this time, he got down not one, but two, Phyrexian Obliterators. Man, O Ring or Path would be great… I cast every draw spell I had digging for a Purge or a Day, but saw neither, and died… with a Day as the top card in my library. Argh.
1-2 matches, 4-4 games

Round 4: Chris, playing UB Tezzeret
While I was clearly going to miss the top 8, hey, playing Magic is fun! I rarely drop unless I’m really not having fun, which happens pretty rarely. Anyway, game 1 was pretty interesting. We both did a lot of nothing the first couple of turns, then both came out with planeswalkers, him with Tezz and me with Koth. My Koth was protected by a Wall, but only for a turn as Tezz turned a Tumble Magnet into a 5/5 and swung. He had a Go for the Throat for the first Mountain that I sent at Tezz and then he held the Magnet back since I had another Wall. He got a Batterskull and I came back with a Wurmcoil. He misplayed by equipping the Batterskull onto the Magnet and swinging into the Wurmcoil. Yes, we both gained all kinds of life, but he didn’t initially realize that his 9/9 still died because of the deathtouch. Oops. He drew very little action after that, and I managed to get in with some token hits before he bounced the Batterskull, re-cast it, had it die to attacking into a deathtouch token at Gideon’s command. Somewhere around here I went ultimate with Koth after taking out Tezz with an animated Mountain. He bounced Batterskull again and re-played it, saw I had three cards in hand, and he Inquisitioned me. In response, I Dismembered the token and Bolted him twice down to 9, pinged him with a Mountain, then next turn untapped, hit him with Gideon and another Mountain ping for the game. I boarded in the two Divine Offerings and the three Luminarch Ascensions. Game 2 I took a two-lander since it also had a Bolt, an Ascension, a Divine Offering, a Day and a Koth. He started with an Inkmoth Nexus and a Tectonic Edge and just started hitting me for poison counters, which I pointed out to him did not cause loss of life after I put down the Ascension on turn 2. I drew not lands for a few turns and when he hit me with an Inquisition it was a whiff since I had drawn into both a Venser and a Gideon as well as the Koth, Day, and Wurmcoil all stuck in my hand. I bolted a Hex Parasite immediately after he cast it and he knocked two counters off the Ascension, but I finally got it active, which was important since he had a Clasp and was proliferating poison counters on me. I finally drew some land and made Koth, then was able to make Angels enough to win. We had a few spectators for this last game since the top 2 decided to bird as did some of the people who dropped, and the Luminarch Ascension got more than a few comments. “Wow, bringing it back! Killer vs. UB control.” Yep, I’m bringing it back exactly because it is so good against other control decks…
2-2 matches, 6-4 games

It would have been nice to have made the top 8, but I guess when you know your deck isn’t all that great and you still win more games than you lose, that’s OK. Mana issues were indeed a factor in more than one of my losses. Frankly, I think a straight UW build would be better (though I admit I’d miss the Bolts). Actually, the M12 version of Chandra would be pretty good here, as it’d then be possible to build it with a less Mountain-heavy mana base. Tezzeret’s Gambit is already very, very good in this deck and with Chandra in play, yikes.

However, I certainly wouldn’t bring this deck to a PTQ or even an FNM unless you just really, really like to play with Planeswalkers.

Now, on to Part II. Simon played a very straightforward Tempered Steel deck last week, and in watching him play, four things stood out: [1] Dispatch, while really nice when you have Metalcraft, is beyond awful when you don’t, [2] The deck tends to just barf up its hand and then kind of fizzle. There’s no card draw/advantage of any kind, [3] The deck has very little in the way of disrupting combo decks, other than just winning first, and [4] Simon made a lot of sideboarding mistakes. That’s pretty understandable, but I thought it would be good to help him with all of these things beforehand.

So, the deck. Essentially, it’s Esper colors to beTempered Steel and then still run Tezz and a few other black cards, most importantly Go for the Throat in the main and Memoricide in the sideboard.

Tezzered Steel

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Creatures (26) 4 Memnite 3 Glint Hawk 4 Signal Pest 2 Phyrexian Revoker 4 Steel Overseer 4 Vault Skirge 2 Etched Champion 3 Porcelain Legionnaire Planeswalkers (2) 2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas Spells (13) 2 Mox Opal 4 Glint Hawk Idol 3 Go for the Throat 4 Tempered Steel Land (19) 2 Darkslick Shores 2 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Marsh Flats 7 Plains 3 Seachrome Coast 1 Swamp Sideboard (15) 1 Ajani Goldmane 2 Divine Offering 2 Etched Champion 3 Celestial Purge 2 Refraction Trap 2 Phyrexian Revoker 3 Memoricide

Here’s the sideboarding/play guide I gave to Simon before he went in:

Red Deck Wins
+2 Refraction Trap, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +2 Celestial Purge
-3 Porcelain Legionnaire, -2 Phyrexian Revoker

Vampires
+3 Celestial Purge, +2 Etched Champion
-2 Phyrexian Revoker, -1 Memnite, -1 Glint Hawk, -1 Signal Pest

Exarch Twin
+3 Memoricide, +3 Celestial Purge
-3 Legionnaire, -3 Glint Hawk
Revoker names Deceiver Exarch
Memoricide names Splinter Twin

Valakut
+3 Memoricide, +2 Etched Champion
-3 Legionnaire, -1 Overseer, -1 Memnite
Memoricide names Primeval Titan

Blue-Black Control
+2 Phyrexian Revoker, +2 Etched Champion
-3 Legionnaire, -1 Memnite
Revoker names Jace Beleran or Liliana Vess

Blue-White Control
+2 Phyrexian Revoker
-2 Legionnaire
Revoker names Jace Beleran, Gideon Jura, or Venser, the Sojourner

Tempered Steel
+2 Divine Offering, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +2 Phyrexian Revoker
-3 Go for the Throat, -2 Etched Champion
Revoker names Steel Overseer

We played some test games and he liked it a lot better, especially the Go for the Throat.

Round 1: Joe, playing UW control
Joe’s got a rating in the high 1800s, multiple PTQ top 8s, day 2 of GP Fort Worth, top 16 Star City Open Dallas, etc. Basically, the store’s best player and the worst possible matchup for Simon. Game 1 Simon managed to kill Joe’s Sun Titan with a Go for the Throat but Joe just saw too many Days for Simon to hang in there. Game 2 Simon Revoked both Gideon and Jace and Joe didn’t see enough Days and Simon just ran him over. Game 3 I didn’t really see, but Simon told me Joe managed three Days and that was just too much. I was glad that Simon at least took a game off Joe, that was something.
0-1 matches, 1-2 games

Round 2: Mike, playing SuperFriends (see above)
0-2 matches, 1-4 games

Round 3: Chris, playing UB Tezzeret
I didn’t see very much of this match, either, but Simon apparently played it quite well. I looked over at one point and saw Simon was swinging with four artifact creatures, one of them being Signal Pest, and a Tempered Steel out, which seems good. Hooray! Simon won his first sanctioned tournament match, 2-0!
1-2 matches, 3-4 games

Round 4: Joey, playing Beastmaster Ascension
Simon got a really good draw in game 1, coming out with two Memnites and a Mox Opal into turn 2 Tempered Steel—pretty good. Game 2 I know Joey got an Ascension active and I think that let him outrace Simon. Game 3 Joey also got an Ascension active, but pretty late, and Simon had Tempered Steel and a timely Go for the Throat. Apparently Signal Pest was key in this game since Joey could never block it. Hey, Simon won another one!
2-2 matches, 5-5 games

By virtue of tiebreakers, Simon actually finished one ahead of me in the standings. Way to go, Simon!

I was really pleased that he managed to win two matches. He played a lot better, apparently, and that’s really good to see. He’s really coming along as a player and might be ready for something more complicated, but it’ll be a while since he will have to miss the next FNM and we’ll both miss the pre-release due to travel. After that it’ll be draft for a while, and I’m not sure he’s really ready to draft just yet. I might just buy a dozen packs of M12 just for us to play sealed against each other to give him some practice with that first.

I personally probably wouldn’t bring this to a PTQ or even FNM myself, but it’s good for a novice deck, I think, and I think the Tezz addition, while making the mana base a little worse, allows some stronger other cards. Simon mostly didn’t have mana problems except when he played me and I hit him with Spreading Seas multiple times in the same game.

So, what would I play at a PTQ, or at least the next FNM? Actually, this is what I would have played at this FNM if I could have scared up another playset of Marsh Flats. Back at the end of January, before Mirrodin Besieged came out and CawBlade became all the rage, I took down an FNM with a White-Black-Red control deck that I dubbed “Sin City.” I really liked that deck a lot and I came up with an updated build that I am now just dying to play at FNM. Here’s the list:

Return to Sin City

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Creatures (12) 4 Wall of Omens 3 Hero of Bladehold 1 Sun Titan 2 Sunblast Angel 2 Wurmcoil Engine Planeswalkers (4) 3 Gideon Jura 1 Liliana Vess Spells (19) 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Go for the Throat 2 Luminarch Ascension 3 Sphere of the Suns 2 Mimic Vat 2 Day of Judgment Land (25) 4 Arid Mesa 1 Blackcleave Cliffs 3 Lavaclaw Reaches 4 Marsh Flats 2 Mountain 6 Plains 3 Swamp 2 Tectonic Edge Sideboard (15) 2 Baneslayer Angel 4 Duress 2 Luminarch Ascension 3 Memoricide 2 Pyroclasm 2 Go for the Throat

I know, I know, it looks like the SuperFriends deck, just with Black instead of Blue. But that makes a huge difference, as you never need any double color except for white, and while you lose Preordain, you get hand kill and better instant-speed removal. The big changes from the original version are that I got rid of the Emeria Angels, replacing one in the main deck with Lilliana and the other three with Hero of Bladehold. I think Lilliana is better against other control decks, and I think Hero with Gideon allows a faster transition from defense to offense and is much better under the Vat than the Angels. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Emeria Angel—it’s one of my favorite cards—but I think Hero is probably just a better 4-drop, in no small part because it doesn’t just die to Bolt. The three Memoricides in the board are also new additions, as that’s good against both Exarch Twin and Valakut.

Against control you side in the other two Luminarch Ascensions and the 4 Duresses and possibly the two Go for the Throats depending on exactly what they’re playing. Nine hand kill plus 4 Luminarch Ascension should be pretty good against most control decks; UB generally has no way to get rid of an Asecnsion and UW often doesn’t, either, since Revoke Existence isn’t that common. This is one of those places where the lack of Oblivion Ring (my favorite FNM promo card) is actually to your advantage.

Against aggro, you side in the Baneslayers and the Pyroclasms and again, possibly the Go for the Throats. Actually for Vampires the Baneslayers are iffy, but definitely against RDW or Elves.

Against Exarch Twin, you side in the 4 Duress, the 2 Go for the Throat, and the 3 Memoricide. I considered Combust for that slot since it’s uncounterable, but there are too many other matchups where you’d just rather have the Go for the Throat that I thought it’d be worth the risk.

Your worst matchup is, unfortunately, Valakut. You side in the 3 Memoricide, the 2 Go for the Throat, the 2 Baneslayers for sure and then it kind of depends on how they’re ramping. If they’re using Cobras, you side in the Pyros, otherwise you side in the Duresses. I know Baneslayer doesn’t really stop the combo, but life gain is relevant as sometimes they don’t draw enough in the way of Mountains to get there. If you hit once you gain five and they have to spend two triggers to kill it, which overall means that’s 4 triggers more you get to live through. Note that you keep in Day of Judgment in this matchup; Mimic Vat makes any way of removing a Primeval Titan good, because not only is a Titan under the Vat good in general, it is awesome against Valakut because it lets you tutor up your Tectonic Edges. I know it only runs two… three might actually be a possibility now that the deck can run Sphere of the Suns rather than Everflowing Chalice; I’ll have to test that out.

If anyone has thoughts or comments, you can leave ‘em here or hit me up on Twitter (@SunByrne).

Reaction to the Ban
First, let me be clear that I was not an advocate of the ban. My thoughts on it ran pretty similar, not surprisingly, to Alexander Shearer’s as outlined in his blog post. (I disagree with Dr. Shearer on the degree to which Jund and CawBlade are skill-intensive, though, as I do think there really is a meaningful difference between the two on that score that goes beyond the dollar value of the cards.) However, I definitely agree on other stuff, in particular I don’t think Jace was the main problem and they could have gone a long way toward solving the CawBlade problem simply by banning Batterskull. Vampires and RDW have been getting better against CawBlade and with no Batterskull I think it’d be a tough match for CB, especially game 1.

I’d also point out that while the top tables at SCG Opens and Grand Prix may have been dominated by CawBlade, I didn’t see that at FNM. Since that’s almost entirely what I play—and I suspect a lot more players play FNM than either the Opens or GPs—I don’t think Standard was really as “broken” a format as many people said. I don’t play MTGO, but people tell me that it also was not dominated by CawBlade, either, for whatever reasons.

That said, I understand WotC’s reasons for the ban and I’m not up in arms about it.

What I am a lot more interested in than complaining (some other people need to get off that bus) is what the environment will be once the ban kicks in. I don’t think it’s at all clear what the “best deck” is. Maybe Valakut, but maybe not. Remember, we’ve had a few new cards come out since Valakut was king, and I think those will change things. RDW and Vampires are still viable, Exarch Twin decks seem very good and I think there are good decks out there yet to be found because they just lose to CawBlade, based on Tezzeret, Birthing Pod, and maybe even Tempered Steel that have a shot. It’s also an environment that will be extremely short-lived, since M12 will become legal just weeks after the ban takes effect. I think we’re in for pretty much chaos in Standard for a while starting July 1—chaos can be fun, too!

In fact, it’s got me brewing again…

Decklists
These are just deck ideas I’ve kind of thrown together in response to the ban. Got some help from @AuranAlchemist on the first one, which is my favorite of the two. I liked SuperFriends as a deck the last time around, and while I don’t think it’s quite the same without big Jace or Ajani Vengeant, it still has potential:

SuperFriends

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Creatures (4) 4 Wall of Omens Planeswalkers (9) 3 Koth of the Hammer 2 Elspeth Tirel 2 Gideon Jura 2 Venser, the Sojourner Spells (21) 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Preordain 4 Spreading Seas 3 Dismember 3 Day of Judgment 3 Tezzerets Gambit Land (26) 4 Arid Mesa 4 Celestial Colonnade 3 Island 7 Mountain 4 Plains 4 Scalding Tarn Sideboard (15) 3 Pyroclasm 3 Combust 2 Tectonic Edge 3 Flashfreeze 1 Day of Judgment 3 Divine Offering

The sideboard is kind of thrown together—maybe too much Valakut hate—but I think the deck could be fun and might have some game. One of the things that Jace TMS taught us is that the current environment doesn’t have enough good answers to Planeswalkers, and with CawBlade going, I suspect there won’t be as much flying, so Walkers protected by Wall of Omens and Day of Judgment seems like a viable plan.

The other deck is a RUG Twin deck, but of course one without Jace.

Shaman Twin

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Creatures (28) 3 Birds of Paradise 4 Fauna Shaman 4 Lotus Cobra 3 Cunning Sparkmage 3 Deceiver Exarch 1 Manic Vandal 2 Trinket Mage 2 Phyrexian Metamorph 4 Vengevine 1 Frost Titan 1 Inferno Titan Spells (7) 1 Basilisk Collar 1 Brittle Effigy 2 Mimic Vat 3 Splinter Twin Land (25) 3 Copperline Gorge 4 Forest 3 Island 4 Misty Rainforest 3 Mountain 4 Raging Ravine 4 Scalding Tarn

Comments so far are that Mimic Vat seems kind of random and that might be right, but with Sparkmage/Collar, there are going to be a lot of dead things, and it makes your opponent’s removal so much worse. If your opponent kills your Exarch, if you have a Vat out, they haven’t solved the problem in quite the same way…

Anyway, it needs some testing and a sideboard, but seems like it might also be fun. The Vengevines give you a way to win without the combo, and the Sparkmage/Collar interaction should allow you to go the long game against any creature-based deck.

If anyone has any thoughts on either of these, I’d love to hear them! I’m likely to sleeve up some form of SuperFriends for the July 1 FNM.

Tournament Report
Hey, look, another Tuesday at Montag’s! I don’t let myself play the same deck twice in a row at Montag’s and last time around was CawBlade. Now, with the ban hammer coming down soon, I decided that “different” could be awfully similar in that it’s also a deck with Jace and Stoneforge Mystic, but there aren’t any Squadron Hawks and there’s a fun alternate (and immediate) win condition. Here’s the list I played:

TwinBlade

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Creatures (12) 2 Spellskite 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Deceiver Exarch 2 Inferno Titan Spells (22) 2 Gitaxian Probe 4 Preordain 2 Spell Pierce 2 Mana Leak 2 Dismember 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Sword of War and Peace 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Splinter Twin 1 Batterskull Land (26) 4 Arid Mesa 1 Celestial Colonnade 1 Evolving Wilds 4 Glacial Fortress 3 Island 3 Mountain 2 Plains 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Seachrome Coast Sideboard (15) 3 Divine Offering 3 Pyroclasm 2 Celestial Purge 2 Combust 3 Mental Misstep 2 Lightning Bolt

I threw this together without playing it a single game first… I figured, as usual, that I’d learn it as I went. (And I wonder why I don’t win more, right?). I’ll talk more generally about the deck after the blow-by-blow.

Turnout was decent for a Tuesday (13 or so), so four rounds of Swiss and cut to top 4.

Round 1: Rolaund playing RDW
I’ve played against RDW a lot lately, but of course not with this deck. I kind of have a thing about RDW as being the one archetype that I never play (though we’ll see after M12 comes out. Grim Lavamancer? Really?) Game 1 I got turn 2 Stoneforge into Sword of War and Peace, and he didn’t have removal for the Mystic, so I flashed in the Batterskull that was in my opening hand. He clearly wasn’t expecting that, looked at it for a turn, and just scooped to it. Game 2 was sick. Turn 1 he played a Spikeshot Elder, I played land and passed, he hit me and played an Ember Hauler, my turn 2 I came back with a Spellskite. He attacked and I blocked the Elder. He added another Elder and passed. My turn 3 I played land (now had one of each color up) and passed. We went to combat and I flashed in a Deceiver Exarch, tapping down his Hauler, and he passed the turn. I untapped, topdecked a Scalding Tarn, cracked it for a Mountain, and got the combo on turn 4. Whee, magical Christmasland! We were done in like 10 minutes, most of which was me pulling my sideboard out of my deck after game 1 because I accidentally shuffled the whole thing in. Best RDW match ever.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Danesh playing Grixis Twin
I’d never played Danesh before but I hope I get to do so again, as he was a really fun opponent. I wasn’t sure how this matchup would go and it’s pretty intense. Game 1 was a lot of back-and-forth trying to establish some kind of control and build up mana on both sides to try to be able to combo off… I did get a Stoneforge, but she ate a Go for the Throat and the Sword I got was blown up eventually as well. He finally got ahead enough to combo off. Game 2 was another long, drawn-out affair. I Probe’d him early (ouch!) to see two Exarchs and two Twins in his hand, yikes. I managed to get Jace on the board for a couple turns before losing Jace to the legend rule, but that was enough to put some removal in my hand. I bluffed counters and kept him from going off, and got out a pair of Exarchs and got one Sworded up (Feast and Famine) and he eventually got there, but it took considerable time since he had an active Tumble Magnet and a Spellskite that I took a long time to get rid of. Whew! We started game 3 with only a few minutes left and tried to play quickly to get a resolution, but neither of us were able to combo off, though he did get me down to 7 with a Creeping Tar Pit, it wasn’t enough.
1-0-1 matches, 3-1-1 games

Round 3: Joe, playing CawBlade
Ah, Joe, one (if not the) store’s strongest player, and one against whom I have a terrible record, was 2-0 and got rounded down. We did some early draw-go and I got to Probe Joe to see that he had no Mystic or Hawks in hand so I knew I had time. He Jaced and I Pierced, and he Pierced back, giving him Jace but tapped out. I came back with Inferno Titan to kill Jace, which surprised Joe—I don’t think he was expecting the Titan. He Dismembered an Exarch at some point, bounced the Titan with Into the Roil the next time he came out, and they killed it with Day the time after that, but the 3s were adding up and I had a Sword out which I equipped to a Colonnade and that got me there. Game 2 he did the full CawBlade thing and had Jace and Hawks and was Brainstorming fresh cards each turn and I could not get through to Jace or get much going. I did hit a Sword with Divine Offering, but I was too far behind. I did get an Exarch out and had mana to pay for a Leak and tried to go off, but rather than Leak he had Into the Roil and two mana to pay for the Pierce I had in my hand, so that failed. When he dropped Sun Titan to get back his Sword, I was done. Game 3 he got little Jace out and I had to tap out to activate a Colonnade to kill it, and he followed that up with Big Jace, and again I had to tap out (nearly) to bring the Colonnade to kill it. However, I had Probe’d him (ouch!) and I knew he didn’t have anything major after that, just a Hawk and a Leak. He did brainstorm into another Jace and had two Hawks out, but I was up to 8 land with the combo pieces in hand, flashed in an Exarch with Pierce backup, untapped and Twin’d him up for the match. Whew, very intense match.
2-0-1 matches, 5-2-1 games

Round 4: Tony, playing JunkPod
Tony and I were 1-2, but there were 5 people with 6 points, one who got rounded down and was playing someone with 4, so I was not guaranteed to be in if we drew, so we played it out.

Before getting into it, a few words about Tony’s deck: it’s outstanding! Almost every card in the deck (other than the Birthing Pods, a little removal, and the equipment) is a creature with an ETB or leaves play effect, and it has a full curve up to 7 mana: Birds of Paradise, Stoneforge Mystic, Squadron Hawk, Mirran Crusader (ok, no ETB there), Viridian Corrupter, Cadaver Imp, Phyrexian Metamorph, Kozilek’s Predator, Entomber Exarch, Acidic Slime, Massacre Wurm, Wurmcoil Engine, Elesh Norn. I know some of those seem subpar, but trust me, it’s quite effective. I’m probably missing something, and of course many of these are 1-ofs. If you cannot keep Pod off the table it’s a massive beating, very flexible.

Anyway, the games. Game 1 was pretty crazy. I got an early Stoneforge and then more of them later, and got to the point where I had a germ token wearing a Batterskull and both Swords. That’s when he fetched up a Predator, making two Spawn tokens, which are colorless and can be sacrificed before damage, meaning they can block something on the ground with whatever swords and vanish before damage to prevent the life gain. Now, I had gotten through with the just the Batterskull once and with the Sword of Feast and Famine on the Batterskull once and I was at 26 life, but Tony got the Corrupter to kill one Sword, got it back with the Imp to kill the second, and despite going down to 1 life, managed to keep himself alive and gradually grind me out. It was ugly. Game 2 I kept a hand with 4 lands, a Jace, and 2 Preordains. Both Preordains yielded… more land. I drew into another Preordain, which yielded… land. The game was over quickly, ending with me having seen 9 lands and six non-lands, three of which were Preordains. Not going to win many games like that.
2-1-1 matches, 5-4-1 games

Now, in a strange twist, the 2-1 who got rounded down lost, so I made the top 4 in 4th, behind Tony and the two 3-1s. Unfortunately, that meant my semifinal match was… Tony. Ugh.

Semis, Tony… again
Game 1 I got early Mystic and Batterskull pressure, and then a Jace to fateseal, but he got out a Pod and Hawk into Corrupter killed the Sword and eventually the Batterskull, but I managed two Exarchs on the table, Jace at 9, and two Splinter Twins in hand along with an Inferno Titan… and only one Mountain in play. I had to start brainstorming with Jace, and not only could I not find a fetch or a Mounain in several turns of that before Jace died to a Crusader, I never found a shuffler to get me another shot at it. Dying with the combo and a great answer to half his deck in hand because you’re color-screwed is… frustrating. Game 2 I finally drew a sideboard card, but not the right one: Pyroclasm. I had a Stoneforge on the table and a Batterskull in hand, which I bounced to avoid a Corrupter the previous turn, and he had a Bird, a Pod, and the Corrupter out, so I Pyroclasm’d and activated the Mystic in response to put the Batterskull back in play to his creatureless board. I also had the combo in hand, but again, only one red source on the table (four lands), so I figured even if he dealt with the Batterskull I had him in two turns. Here was his play: Corrupter cast from his hand to kill Batterskull, sacrifice Corrupter to Pod up Entomber Exarch to kill the Splinter Twin in my hand. I of course next drew a second Mountain but had no Twin, and Tony killed it anyway, saccing Exarch for Acidic Slime, then Slime into Wurmcoil into Elesh Norn. Well, that was fun… not. I was pretty aggravated with my deck since I definitely had the first game if I could have drawn just one out of 10 red sources still in my deck, with several turns to hit it and even a deeper dig with a brainstorm. Would have been nice if somewhere in the two post-board games I had ever drawn an Offering, too, but not meant to be.
2-2-1 matches, 5-6-1 games

I got like $10 for coming in the 3-4 slot, so at least I got double my entry fee back. Got some Puresteel Paladins for post-rotation; we’ll see how that goes.

Comments on TwinBlade
This kind of hybrid deck is weird, it’s like a bad CawBlade deck fused with a bad Exarch Twin deck, so it’s not really as good at the main plan as either one in purer form, but of course it has a different way to win than either of the pure forms. All of my opponents save the RDW player in round 1 commented on how difficult it was to sideboard against this deck, because most decks just cannot afford both the full anti-Caw and anti-Twin package. It’s a little weird to play, too, since a lot of the decisions involve which game plan you want to pursue. That decision isn’t always hard—sometimes the opening hand makes that very clear—but sometimes it isn’t clear. The deck also sacrifices some permission (only two Leaks and two Pierces) and you cannot play the control game like with the purer forms of either deck, but you can still bluff it credibly. The lack of Hawks is also weird, since you have absolutely no defense against anything in the air other than tapping with a flashed-in Exarch.

Were I playing it again at FNM or in a PTQ before the ban kicks in, I would definitely change a few things. First, the mana base. I played only one Colonnade, figuring that wasn’t the way you wanted to win with this deck anyway. Wrong, wrong, wrong; Colonnade is still a great answer to an opposing Jace or your own board that is empty save for a lone piece of equipment. I’d go up to two or maybe three, and I’d cut one of the Islands for a 4th Mountain, too.

The other thing I would change is the sideboard. Mental Misstep is awful; I’m not sure what I was thinking there. Well, I know, it’s there to stop Spell Pierce, Duress/Inquisition, and Goblin Guide. This just isn’t good enough. What I really want in that slot, maybe even main deck in place of all the other permission, is Dispel. The main answer in most decks to your big hitters—both the equipment and the combo—are instants, e.g. Divine Offering, Into the Roil, Dismember, Go for the Throat, permission, etc. (Combust still hoses you, but neither Spell Pierce or Mana Leak help there, either.) Now, Dispel would not have helped against the Birthing Pod deck, but neither does Mental Misstep. The only solution there is to counter the Pod or Divine Offering it, or of course just have two red sources so you can actually combo off.

I would probably keep the Inferno Titans. They have good surprise value, are amazing vs. a lot of the field, and give you another reasonable target for Splinter Twin that does not die to Dismember or Combust.

The good news: I haven’t been able to make it to Tuesday night Magic at Montag’s since December, so I was pumped to be able to go back to it. The bad news: no time to really brew, so I just picked up CawBlade. Boring, yes, but so good… Here’s the list I played:

CawBlade

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Creatures (10) 2 Spellskite 4 Squadron Hawk 4 Stoneforge Mystic Planeswalkers (5) 1 Jace Beleren 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Spells (19) 4 Preordain 3 Spell Pierce 2 Into the Roil 4 Mana Leak 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Sword of War and Peace 2 Day of Judgment 2 Batterskull Land (26) 4 Celestial Colonnade 4 Glacial Fortress 2 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Island 1 Marsh Flats 1 Misty Rainforest 2 Plains 4 Seachrome Coast 4 Tectonic Edge Sideboard (15) 3 Flashfreeze 2 Divine Offering 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 2 Emeria Angel 2 Celestial Purge 1 Consecrated Sphinx 2 Dismember 1 Gideon Jura 1 Day of Judgment

I still run Day of Judgment main because I expect a majority aggro in my local meta and relatively few mirrors. If I were to take it to a PTQ or something I’d probably swap the Days and Divine Offerings.

8 players, so four rounds of Swiss cutting to top 4.

Round 1: Parker, playing Puresteel Paladin
Parker’s a regular I’ve played many times, though he doesn’t often play Standard. I had no idea what to expect when we started but I won the roll and took a hand with 2 Mana Leaks and drew into a third pretty early, so I was able to mostly keep the pressure off, though he did get one whack in with a Paladin equipped with a Sword of Body and Mind, which I had some trouble with since I couldn’t bounce it with Jace. I finally killed it and a germ token on a Batterskull with Day, and was able to recover faster and bash back for the win. I boarded in the additional Day and of course the two Divine Offerings. I know I boarded out Jace Beleren but I don’t remember what else. Game 2 I got both Jace and Gideon out (felt like pre-NPH Caw there for a bit) and got help from him being land flooded and carried that one pretty easily.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Paul, playing mono-Black
I was 0-2 the last two tournaments against this particular deck, first with CawBlade and then with BantBlade, so I really wanted this one, but my expectations were low. I ran out a turn 2 Spellskite, then on turn 3 I Preordained. I saw two Colonnades, and I know how badly Caw wants land, but I decided to send them both to the bottom and I topdecked a Mystic. I cast it (fetching Sword of Feast and Famine) and he tried to Disfigure, but I redirected to the Spellskite and he was still stuck on one 1 land, so he just scooped. I boarded in the Divine Offerings (for his Swords and Lashwrithes), the Dismembers (for his Phyrexian Obliterators), Gideon, and of course the two Purges. Game 2 I took a two-lander that had a Preordain and mostly blue spells, but I got stuck on those two land, missing both turn 3 and 4 land drops, and was just too far behind to get back in it. I got beat down by a Bloodghast that I couldn’t keep dead or even slowed since I was under 10 life. Game 3 I was able to get a Sworded Hawk going, and he was a little light on land, and the Hawk carried the day.
2-0 matches, 4-1 games

Round 3: Chris, playing RDW
Chris has been around a lot lately, but I haven’t played him before, though I knew he was playing RDW. Game 1 was a disaster, turn 1 Guide, burned my turn 2 Mystic, Elder, then second Guide, and I just could not keep up and died holding a handful of too-slow blue spells. Game 2 was much better, I opened with two Day of Judgment, and got 3-for-1 both times, then followed with Linvala, which I was able to equip with Sword of War and Peace, and that ended it with me at 11 life at the lowest point—a comfortable win. Game 3 was a more drawn out, and I did get down to 5, but I managed to stop the bleeding with Gideon, then Jace, then a Batterskull. I was just lucky that he didn’t topdeck a couple more burn spells before I could get the beastly skull fired up, but it only took a couple turns of Gideon+Batterskull both swinging.
3-0 matches, 6-2 games

Round 4: ID
I was the only undefeated, so I drew in. My opponent was taking a chance by doing so, but the other 4 2-1s all played, so he was seeded #4, and me #1, so we still got in our match.
3-0-1 matches, 6-2 games

Semis: Joey, playing UB Tezz
Joey also doesn’t play that much Standard, but his deck was really, really interesting. Tezz, lots of artifacts, 4 Phyrexian Metamorphs, and… Phylactery Lich. The coolest play I’ve seen in a while was Joey in an earlier round with a Metamorph on the board, having copied a Lich in play and putting the counter on itself. Very tech! (Though I just read Oracle on the card and it turns out that’s not a legal play. Hmm.) All three of these were very long games. I got a turn 2 Mystic into SoFF, but he copied the Mystic to get a Darksteel Axe. I got a Batterskull, and he copied it… twice. He got a Tumble Magnet, which kept my own Sword off him. When he got Tezzeret and made the Axe a 5/5—nice play—I was in trouble, and he got more counters on Tezz and was able to ultimate him for 16, and I couldn’t get back in it from there. I really didn’t know what to sideboard, and decided to board in a lot: the Offerings, the Emeria Angels, the Purges, the Sphinx, and Gideon. I struggled with what to take out of after the two Days and decided that Batterskull was just dangerous, so I took it out. That meant I could take out a Mystic, too, and then I was stumped. I finally took out two Preordains, which is dangerous, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. Game 2 went pretty smoothly as I got Jace out on my turn 5 and had one blue open for the Pierce, which caught his Tezz, and that was enough of a lead that I carried it. At one point I had an Emeria Angel out that he copied with a Metamorph, but I had an Offering for it. He managed to make a bird token, but I bounced that with Jace, but he was able to go for the Angel’s throat before I could make any tokens, though. I still pulled it out anyway. Game 3 was another epic. He came out with turn 1 Inquisition and saw that I had two Pierces in my opener. He played around them really well, and got two Spellskites on his side and then used Tezz to make one of them a 5/5, but I was able to kill Tezz with a Hawk and an activated Inkmoth. I had Jace, but couldn’t bounce the big Skite because of the second, and then he got a Lich, ugh. I had a handful of Hawks, though, and was able to chump and get a Gideon. I had Gideon send everyone over, blocked one of the 5/5s with a Hawk and Gideon took 5. I bounced Lich with Jace, which of course got redirected to the 0/4 Spellskite, and then I used Gideon to slay the 5/5 Skite. I swung back with a Colonnade and Gideon next turn, then just chumped the Lich until I could fly over for two more hits with the manland. I was at 4, so it was pretty tight. It was a great match that could easily have gone either way, and I have to say I really really liked the deck a lot. It would get blown out by Creeping Corrosion, I’d think, but who plays that?
4-0-1, 8-3 games

Joe, who was also playing UW CawBlade (but was the only other one playing it), also made the finals but wanted to leave so we agree to a split before we finished the semis.

I’m going to miss FNM at Montag’s this week because I’ll be in Minneapolis, but I plan to play at a store there. I’ll either hit up Monster Den, Dreamer’s, or Universe Games since they’re all about the same distance from my parents’ place (bringing my kids up to visit their grandparents). If anyone has any thoughts on this, please share! (I’m @SunByrne on twitter.)

My rule is that I never bring the same deck to two events in a row at my local game store, Montag’s Games. I played CawBlade last week and wanted something without counters, and so I decided on a Bant deck. It’s certainly Caw-like in that it still runs Jace and the Stoneforge package, but otherwise not so much. This was what I considered to be the “missing deck” from Alexander Shearer’s (@parakkum, and my favorite MTG columnist) recent excellent column.

Here’s the list:

BantBlade

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Creatures (30) 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Fauna Shaman 4 Lotus Cobra 2 Spellskite 4 Stoneforge Mystic 2 Mirran Crusader 1 Viridian Corrupter 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 4 Vengevine 2 Acidic Slime 1 Consecrated Sphinx 1 Frost Titan Planeswalkers (4) 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Spells (3) 1 Sword of War and Peace 2 Batterskull Land (23) 4 Forest 3 Island 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Razorverge Thicket 4 Seachrome Coast 2 Stirring Wildwood 2 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard (15) 3 Obstinate Baloth 1 Frost Titan 1 Spellskite 3 Dismember 1 Acidic Slime 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 3 Nature’s Claim 1 Celestial Purge 1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Always slightly scary to play a deck with exactly zero maindeck removal, but I loved the idea of discarding a Vengevine to tutor up a Stoneforge, so why not? You’ll notice that I also went Hawk-less.

16 players showed up, 4 rounds with top 8. I feel the need to put in a note here about the store metagame given the amount of bitching going on in the Twitterverse about the CawBlade hegemony. Exactly 1 out of the 16 of us played standard UW CawBlade. Now, there were a total of 4 decks running the Stoneforge package: me, the UW Caw, a Junk (WBG) deck, and a Darkblade, but without the blue (that is, straight White-Black). Yes, the recent GPs and SCG Opens have been dominated by CawBlade, but FNM really isn’t.

Round 1: Weylin, playing BUG
Weylin used to be a regular, then didn’t show up for about a year, and has started showing up again recently. He only has a limited pool of standard cards as he’s getting back in, so this wasn’t the strongest build possible, but Weylin is a strong player so you never know. I honestly don’t remember these games very well. I know I got early Stoneforges both games, the first game for a Batterskull, though I think he handled the Batterskull at the expense of losing to a Vengevine, and game 2 it was a Sword of Feast and Famine that did the trick.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Tony, playing Stoneforge Junk
Tony’s a regular, we’ve played many times. Game 1 I got a Sword of War and Peace early, but he killed it, then he got a Sword of War and Peace of his own onto a Mirran Crusader, and ended it quickly. Man, that thing is a beating. Game 2 I opened with two Stoneforge Mystics, Jace, and four land, two of which were Scars duals. I got Sword of War and Peace on the same germ token carrying the Batterskull and it was over pretty quickly. Game 3 I opened with a Stoneforge and two Mirran Crusaders and no white source, and didn’t draw into any white until it was far, far too late. My fault for being too greedy with my opening hand.
1-1 matches, 3-2 games

Round 3: Elijah, playing Grixis
Elijah seems to be turning into a regular, as he’s been there a bunch lately. Game 1 After a bad turn 4 where I cast Jace into one open blue and had it Spell Pierced (yes, I’m a moron), I lived the dream: I had an active Fauna Shaman, pitched a Vengevine to get a Mystic, tutoring up Batterskull, then played the Mystic (with 3 mana open for a leak, which did not come) and then a Spellskite (which he responded to by Doom Blading the Mystic), triggering Vengevine. Whee. Player at the next table: “that is a sick, sick play.” I won that game, natch. Game 2 was a long, drawn-out game where I had trouble getting much going until I could hard-cast a Batterskull, which I got onto a Mirran Crusader. Unfortunately, he had a Grave Titan out, so I only got a little ahead… until he got Splinter Twin on the Titan. Ouch. Still, Batterskull was gaining me all kinds of life, all the way up to 65, but eventually he started to swarm with tokens, got a Manic Vandal (forcing me to bounce the Batterskull), and then a couple turns later, after I got a second Batterskull, he got a Splinter Twin on the Vandal as well. We actually had time called on us, but he won in extra turns.
1-1-1 matches, 4-3 games

Overall, not going as well as I’d have expected. Had to win the next round to have a chance.

Round 4: Kelly, playing RDW
I played Kelly last week and won 2-1. RDW certainly seems like it could be potentially difficult in game 1, but sideboarding seems good. That pretty much was how it went, as game 1 she just ran me over with Guides and burn. Game 2 I got a turn 2 Stoneforge into Sword of War and Peace, though she burned the Mystic right away. I got to four land and had two Birds out, but she smartly Arc Trailed the two Birds. However, I managed to keep myself alive until I got to six land, then dropped a Frost Titan and she hit me down to 5. Next turn I equipped it with the Sword and cast a Phyrexian Metamorph copying the Frost Titan, and there was no way she could come back from that. Game 3 I again had an early Bird roasted, meaning I couldn’t drop an Obstinate Baloth until turn 4, but Baloth was huge, bringing me from 10 to 14. She had two Guides out and I was pretty successful at drawing land off of it. She, on the other hand, had only two land, and turn 5 I cast an Acidic Slime (rather than the Batterskull) to kill her second land. That slowed her down even more, and I got out Linvala and then a Batterskull that I hard cast. That was it, and so I got to move on.I should note that in game 2 she got me down to 5 and game 3 she got me down to 6 before I could come back and take it, so these were pretty close.
2-1-1 matches, 6-4 games

Quarterfinals: Joe, playing UW CawBlade
Joe is the strongest player in the store and my lifetime record against him was 3-10-2 going in. (I don’t really keep track, but I looked it up online.) I was pretty sure he didn’t maindeck Day of Judgment, which I think gives the Bant version a small advantage in the matchup. I took a one-land draw because it had a Bird, a Cobra, and a Stoneforge in it. I won the roll, produced a turn 1 Bird, turn 2 did not draw a land and played my Stoneforge for a Sword of War and Peace. He noticed that I missed my land drop and passed. Turn 3 I drew a Seachrome Coast and equipped the Stoneforge, which he bounced with Into the Roil (unkicked). Turn 4 I drew another Coast, decided to press the advantage since we both had full grips of cards and equipped the Bird and swung for a total of 9. He never got back in it. Game 2 was a little more drawn out. He got Squadron Hawks early and a Stoneforge, but I had the Nature’s Claim in hand when he went to equip the Sword. I was still taking a couple points per turn from the Hawks and didn’t want to run out too many creatures since I knew he boarded in Day. I drew into a Batterskull, and the germ token ate a Dismember. Next I sent out a Jace into open mana to draw out a Mana Leak (he had only two cards in hand) and followed that next turn with a Frost Titan. He had multiple Hawks out with a Sword of Feast and Famine and had me at 4, but Frosty got a Batterskull and that turned it for me. Hey, I beat Joe!
3-1-1 matches, 8-4 games

Semis: Paul, playing mono-Black
Same Paul with the same deck that I lost to in the Swiss last week. Game 1 he got off to an OK start with a pair of Bloodghasts but stalled a little after that. I had a Sword of War and Peace on turn 3 and I got turn 4 Jace. He spent a lot of damage trying to deal with the Mind Sculptor, and I was able to pull off what I pulled off against Kelly, which is Frost Titan followed by a Metamorph and an equip on Titan #1, and he could not handle that. Game 2 he came out very fast and had removal when he needed it, and I wasn’t really in it. Game 3 I kept a two-lander with no white land because I had a Bird and two Cobras as well as a Stoneforge. I got the Bird turn 1 and the Stoneforge turn 2 into Sword of Feast and Famine. He killed the Mystic immediately and my turn 3 I put down a Lotus Cobra and then a fetch, tapped to equip the Cobra and he Verdicted me. I sacrificed the Bird so that I had a Sworded Cobra… and never drew another land. Even with the Sword I could not race him, particularly when he got a Lashwrithe on a Vault Skirge. Ouch.
3-2-1 matches, 9-6 games

Always nice to earn for top 4, even it it was only $10, but hey, that was twice my entry fee, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Frankly, the deck underperformed, or more appropriately, I did. What I didn’t like about the deck was the mana. Despite the 8 mana creatures, I frequently had trouble getting white, especially the double white needed for the Crusader. This is my fault, I didn’t think hard enough about the mana base here and should have played a couple of Plains or made some other change. I certainly should have mulliganed more aggressively.

I was also a little underwhelmed by Vengevine, to be honest, and often boarded out one or two of them. Fauna Shaman was pretty good in that when I got one, it almost always ate a removal spell, but every once in a while I managed to get a Stoneforge off of it. Crusader was great when I could cast it, but that wasn’t quite often enough.

The interesting thing about this deck is that I think it’d be better in an environment more full of CawBlade. With so little spot removal and generally no main deck Day, it feels like it should be pretty solidly favored against the current UW builds, but if they have a lot of spot removal you end up with a lot of expensive spells in hand. In a more diverse environment, straight UW CawBlade is probably slightly better.

I wasn’t able to play at Game Day on Saturday, but I heard Joe won it all with his UW Caw and Tony took second with his JunkBlade. I hear that Stoneforge Mystic is a pretty good card, or rather, there’s some pretty amazing equipment out there these days.

Not sure what to sleeve up for Tuesday night… I’d actually like to give Exarch Twin a try, but I only have two Splinter Twins and the store didn’t have any more for me to pick up on Friday. I might just go back to UW CawBlade, though that’s kind of boring. Maybe Vampires or RDW, though neither of those is really my style.

This post is a response to Neale’s (@wrongwaygoback) blog post Against the Dying of the Light. I realized it got too long to really be a comment so I’m making it a full post, but if you haven’t read Neale’s piece, go do that first, I’ll wait. Oh, and read the comments, too, they’re interesting. I’ll wait again…

OK, now, my take.

Frankly, I hate turn-two kills, much less turn one or zero kills. If I want to play a game of solitaire that lasts three minutes, there are about a thousand Flash games on the web that will serve that function.

Now, I don’t know if you were playing in early 1999, but the PTQ season then was Extended… and it was owned by High Tide, a combo deck that could go off as early as turn 3, and almost completely ignored the opponent unless that opponent was slinging counterspells. Oh, and the deck had no creatures. And it sucked. I stopped playing Magic for about a decade, not entirely because of that, but it was a factor. The game environment Neale described would be awful and I’d stop again if the game was dominated by completely non-interactive combo decks that could go off reliably in the first few turns.

I want to interact with my opponent (well, not all of them, but at least their decks). I want to have to figure out which of multiple plays is better given a board state of moderate complexity, and that decision should be more than “can I go off now or do I have to wait another turn for counterspell mana, too?” Creatures bashing into each other can be a part of the plan, that’s fine. I’m perfectly OK with creature-less decks, too, but not if they are the only really viable option.

Yes, big combos can be fun in Commander, but that’s a different animal. People tolerate non-interactive combos in Commander because generally speaking, most of them don’t happen on turn 2 or 3. And if someone at the table is known to have a deck that is likely to combo off really early in the game, that person is almost always singled out and bashed by everyone else, which often disrupts the combo (or just kills them before they can go off anyway).

Also, I have to take issue with the “best deck” chronology Neale laid out, because the “best deck” mantle didn’t hand off straight from Jund to Valakut. There was a window, admittedly small, in between the release of Rise of the Eldrazi and M11 where Jund was really just one of a handful of Tier 1/1.5 decks, and almost certainly not the best one:

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

I blogged about that while it was going on. That was the best Standard has been since I started playing again right after Zendikar came out. Man, that was fun. Maybe Neale didn’t approve since all of those except for Superfriends are essentially creature-based decks, and even Superfriends ran a playset of Wall of Omens. However, I think most other players would agree that the environment then was varied, interesting, and a hell of a lot of fun to play—though putting together a sideboard was a challenge, because you couldn’t possibly sideboard for all of those.

[Sidebar: Note that right now we have a card pool of almost exactly the same size in Standard (two full blocks plus one core set) but nothing like the variety of that environment. I’m a big a fan as anyone of WotC R&D, but I will say that I don’t like Scars block nearly as much as Shards block, at least in terms of Standard. I think Zendikar block is really good and I’m a little worried about what happens when Zen rotates out and Scars block makes up the bulk of the Standard environment. We’ll see how it goes.]

Now, to agree with Neale, Jace is not the problem here. That awesome post-Rise, pre-M11 environment had Jace, and yes, many of the decks on that list played him, but not all of them did. However, that environment also had Stoneforge Mystic, which only one of those decks (Naya) ever played at all, and not all builds of that ran everyone’s favorite Kor Artificier. This suggests to me that it is not, in fact, Stoneforge Mystic that is broken; I’d take that a step further and say it’s not creatures that are the problem right now.

It’s the equipment; it’s just too good. When Stoneforge Mystic’s best target was Basilisk Collar, she wasn’t a problem. Even with Sword of Body and Mind, SFM wasn’t a card that saw a lot of play. Sword of Feast and Famine, however, is just a little too good, and Batterskull, well, that bad boy is, to quote the original article, “ass-fuckingly” amazing.

Yes, the current environment is a little boring because of the Caw hegemony, but at least Caw is an interactive and skill-testing deck. “A little boring” is not particularly ban-worthy, though if they ban anything, I say it should be Batterskull, not Stoneforge Mystic or Jace.

Also, the whole “ban this card” conversation is getting a little tiring. I’d go on about this, but it’s already been said pretty well.

Now, I do also agree with Neale that the game is becoming more creature-centric, and that seems to be pretty clearly by design. But I’m not all that troubled by it, since there aren’t that many ways to make creatures really good relative to spells, which by their nature have immediate impact on the board, which most creatures don’t unless they have flash or haste. So, you can make creatures really mana-efficient and load them with abilities (e.g., Baneslayer Angel, Thrun… neither of which see much play in Standard), or you can make them essentially hybrids between creatures and spells (e.g., the Titans, Stoneforge). Come on, the 1/2 body on the Mystic isn’t a problem, nor is the flying 1/1 of Squadron Hawk. It’s the spell-like abilities. Just realize that most of your spells are just “spells with legs” and you realize that most of the best creatures right now are the best because of the “spell” part, and you realize that spells really are still in control.

I have yet to see a decent-length review of these speakers yet so I thought I should get one up before the Web is flooded with them, though perhaps this is enough of a boutique item that won’t actually happen anyway. We’ll see.

What is the Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1 NrT?

It’s a speaker you cannot actually buy right now, but will be able to perhaps sometime soon. Essentially, it is an upgraded version of the highly-regarded Sierra-1. Ascend has allowed owners of the Sierra-1 to upgrade before the Sierra-1 NrT is made available. I am one such owner so I did the upgrade.

The original Sierra-1 is a very, very good speaker for the money. I posted some initial reactions to the speakers not too long after I got them. Since that post I’d done some shopping around while I was still in my 30-day return window. Local dealers aren’t abundant anymore and those that are around are scattered to the four winds here. I went with a friend of mine and we listened to some other speakers, then came back to my house and ran the same music through the Sierra-1s. We listened to the Focal Chorus 706V and the Paradigm Studio 20. On my own, I also listened to the B&W 685 and the B&W CM1. Frankly, the Sierra-1 is a markedly better speaker than all of these. The Focals were, IMO, absolutely awful with no midrange whatsoever. The B&W 685s have a very congested midrange. After I had heard them I found a review that said it much better than I could: they are like listening to music with a heavy beige quilt draped between you and the music. I couldn’t agree more. I liked the CM1s better than the 685s, but they just have no bass at all, which didn’t cut it for me. The only thing that came close was the Paradigm Studio 20s, which only somewhat close. Bass on the 20s is very good, but still not quite as tight and controlled as the Sierra-1s. The Sierras image better and have a cleaner midrange. The only thing I liked better on the Paradigms was the very top end. The metal domes give the tweeters more sizzle, though in the case of the Studio 20s it might be too much of a good thing and I found them a little harsh with violins. And, of course, the Paradigms are more expensive.

The friend I took with me to listen to the Focals and Paradigms, when he heard the Sierra-1s, almost immediately said “do not send these back—nothing we heard today was even close.” Well, I thought the Paradigms were vaguely close, at least at the high end.

My father, who currently has a lovely Sonus Faber setup, also concurred that he’d never heard anything like the Sierra-1s in their price range. He still likes his Fabers better, of course, but it’s not like that’s the same price class.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to convey here is that the “vanilla” Sierra-1 is an excellent speaker for the price. I really, really liked them, with only a minor quibble about high-frequency performance.

How Is the NrT Different?

There are two differences between the original Sierra-1 and the NrT version. First, the NrT uses a different tweeter. The original tweeter was made by SEAS of Norway, and so is the new one. The new one uses a much lighter but more powerful neodymium magnet in a “ring” configuration. (“NrT” stands for “neodymium ring tweeter.”) The tweeter housing is the same size so the new tweeter simply drops into place.

However, it would be pure foolishness to put a new tweeter, with different performance characteristics, into a speaker and just be done with it. The crossover also had to change—and change it certainly did. Check out the picture of the two crossovers (old one on the left, click to embiggen):

The new crossovers are supporting some serious caps and loops.

So, what is the new tech supposed to do? The primary thing I was looking for is more sparkle at the top end. The soft dome tweeters on the original Sierra-a are just a smidge too smooth for me, even in cases where I wanted them to be more edgy. Note that was I was looking for was not simply a more forward presentation. I tend to dislike overly forward sound; for example, I don’t care for Grado headphones because of this. I just wanted, and was promised, more overall crispness on the high end. The manufacturer described the difference like this:

This new tweeter is fast, delicate and with loads of top-end air. It is the perfect solution for those that like the advantages of a soft dome but yet miss some of the positive aspects of a metal dome.

and this:

The upgraded tweeter is sharper and quicker, there is a noticeable improvement in attack and decay, such that instruments have more *snap* to them, a more concise impact. For example, with cymbals, the impact is clearly more defined with more delicacy and shimmer.

and this:

I should mention that there is a lot more to this new tweeter than frequency response improvements. Improved damping, better transient accuracy, higher power handling, better cooling and lower distortion — but I feel the most obvious way to visualize the improvement is to simply compare the response measurements.

And those are exactly the kind of things that I wanted, so I took the plunge and plunked down for the upgrade.

Ascend gave two options for the upgrade: ship the speakers back to them and have them do it, or have the parts shipped to you and do it yourself. I chose the latter option. The upgrade was easy to to do, requiring pretty much just a screwdriver and a small wrench, and the nice folks at Ascend provided both paper and video instructions on doing the upgrade. I was a little paranoid doing the first one and it took me probably 25 minutes. With better familiarity and working with less paranoia, I did the second in between 10 and 15 minutes. These times do not count the time to wipe down the speakers afterward, as I have the high-gloss finish and I managed to cover them in fingerprints, which I just couldn’t leave.

Did the NrT Deliver?

In a word, yes. The NrT setup not only provides the desired sparkle at the high end, rendering cymbals with appropriate sizzle, but it has opened up the speakers even further. The soundstage is wider and imaging overall even better, which I’m not sure I would have thought possible for speakers that already excelled in these areas. There is additional clarity starting in the upper midrange, making female vocals even more airy and compelling.

Some specific thoughts based on my Audio Test Mix:

* Cymbals, cymbals, cymbals. This is what I was really looking for, and it came through in spades. Marked improvements in “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” “Oasis,” and “Root Beer.” This was the only thing I thought the metal-domed Paradigms did better than the Sierra-1, and now the crown here goes back to Ascend. Absolutely nailed it here, though I wasn’t terribly surprised because this is what was promised.

* The place where the NrT most surprised me was the acoustic guitar, particularly the Rodrigo y Gabriela piece “Hanuman.” The additional crispness and detail was probably most felt, and most impressive, here. The NrT upgrade improved not only the high end, but the midrange as well, quite significantly. Anecdote time: my younger brother is not much of an audiophile. Not in the sense that he can’t discriminate better from worse, but in the sense that he almost never feels that the level of improvement justifies the expense. (He’s got more of our mother’s skinflinty leanings than I ever did.) Anyway, he knows RyG’s work very well (he was the one who got me into them) and when I played “Hanuman” for him on these he was just blown away. This was the first time I have ever seen my brother visibly impressed by audio equipment. He’s a tough audience, and he was really floored, and this was the track that really did it.

* As noted, female vocals are improved as well. This was very clear on “Il Pleure” though it didn’t seem to make quite as much of a difference with Tori Amos on “Precious Things.”

* Electric guitar on “Stinkfist” was also much improved, much more aggressive-sounding, more in-your-face, which I’m pretty sure is Tool’s goal there. The improvement was less noticeable with the Cult’s “Wild Flower” probably because it’s not as good a recording, so YMMV here.

* The violin-oriented classical (“Summer” and “Concerto for 2 Violins”) didn’t improve as much as some of the other material. The wider soundstage is nice and it feels like there’s more “air” with these speakers, and the imaging is improved, and all of these things are most definitely better—it simply made somewhat less difference here than elsewhere. I think the slightly more forward presentation offset the other gains just a little bit, though overall I would still say these tracks sounded better, just not as much better as some of the others.

Overall, I’d have to say I’m definitely very happy with the upgrade.

To be fair, I should note that the speakers are now somewhat more forward overall. For example, they do not contain the screech of a violin’s highest notes quite as well. However, this effect is not pronounced. The frequency response graph for these speakers is still remarkably flat, but where there was a small (maybe ~2.5 dB) dip in high-end response (around 3kHz), it’s now flatter in that region and actually shows a spike at very high frequencies (25kHz, but I’m sure I’m deaf at that frequency anyway). The additional detail and resolution can punish bad recordings, though it doesn’t always. The place where I’ve most noticed this is mediocre 1980s recordings that use drum machines in place of real cymbals. While real cymbals sound much better, bad fake cymbals actually sound slightly worse by virtue of it being more obvious that they’re fake. This doesn’t seem to be a problem with more recent drum machines; for example, Underworld sounds just fine.

This is, on balance, a small price to pay for the overall upgrade in sound quality. My friend who had been speaker shopping with me before came down to listen to the upgraded speakers, and he agreed that they were both slightly more forward but overall even more amazing. As far as I’m concerned, the NrT has upgraded the speaker from “excellent” to “superlative,” as it rectified my only previous quibble with the sound. Now, this does make the speakers overall somewhat more expensive, but for me it was definitely worth it. If you own Sierra-1s and you’re already perfectly happy with the top end and absolutely do not want to mess with the overall balance of the speaker, the NrT upgrade may not be for you. If, however, you want more sizzle, an even wider soundstage and even better imaging (and don’t mind an ever-so-slightly more forward speaker), then the NrT is definitely the way to go.

Setup Notes
This is not HT, this is strictly two-channel music. This is my study, which is the home of my primary computer setup. Music is mostly lossless (ALAC) fed from the optical out on my Mac Pro into the outboard DAC built into a HeadRoom Desktop headphone amplifier, which routes the RCA outs to a NAD C740 receiver. This is obviously not super high-end or anything, but it’s definitely a cut above standard Best Buy-grade fare. I do have some tracks at 256 kbps VBR AAC/MP3 (stuff bought through the iTunes store or Amazon MP3), but I avoid those for critical listening.

I know, I know, CawBlade isn’t exactly original, but I hadn’t been thinking much about constructed and I had it still together from GP DFW, so I broke that out and made some changes to deal with New Phyrexia. Frankly, I’m not surprised that Caw is still the dominant deck, since Batterskull is the stone cold nuts, and is at its best in none other than Caw. Stoneforge Mystic wasn’t a broken card when it was first printed because there wasn’t any really insane equipment in the environment. I think the power of the Mystic would have been more apparent had a card like Jitte been present. Now with three Swords and Batterskull, the Mystic is simply way too good not to play it.

I have to say that normally I’m not a fan of playing whatever is the “best deck” at any given time—I never played Jund, for instance—but I actually kind of like CawBlade. While Caw is the big boogeyman of the format, it’s actually not very popular at my local FNM. I think this is in part due to expense, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. The other thing about Caw is that it’s skill-intensive and really rewards good play in ways that other “top” decks didn’t. While skill was certainly a factor with Jund, I don’t think it was nearly as much of a factor as it is with Caw. Also, I just find CawBlade so elegant in the way it all works together. As Lauren Lee (@mulldrifting) put in an awesome tweet: “In my experience, aggro-control is about tempo; midrange is about board presence; control is about cards/endgame. Caw does all of it.”

So, after that homage, here was the list I played. I expected a lot of aggro in the local meta and not very much in the way of mirror matches, so I went with a build with two main deck Day of Judgment and no main deck Divine Offering, which seems to becoming more common in the PTQ scene.

CawBlade

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Creatures (10) 4 Squadron Hawk 4 Stoneforge Mystic 2 Emeria Angel Planeswalkers (5) 1 Jace Beleren 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Spells (19) 4 Preordain 3 Spell Pierce 3 Into the Roil 4 Mana Leak 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 2 Day of Judgment 1 Batterskull Land (26) 4 Celestial Colonnade 4 Glacial Fortress 2 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Island 1 Marsh Flats 1 Misty Rainforest 2 Plains 4 Seachrome Coast 4 Tectonic Edge Sideboard (15) 1 Condemn 1 Celestial Purge 2 Divine Offering 3 Flashfreeze 1 Into the Roil 2 Spellskite 1 Day of Judgment 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 2 Emeria Angel 1 Batterskull

16 players at Montag’s Games, so four rounds of Swiss cutting to top 8 with only top 4 earning.

Round 1: Kelly, playing RDW
I’d never seen Kelly at Montag’s before. She seemed both capable and was fun to play against, so I hope she comes around again. Game 1 was a disaster. She went first, leading off with a Spikeshot Elder on both turn 1 and turn 2. My turn 2 I got a Mystic into a Batterskull, but she had a Burst Lightning to kill the Kor so I couldn’t flash in the equipment. Her turn 3 was a Goblin Chieftain, and her turn 4 was a kicked Bushwhacker—too much, too fast, and not enough in the way of answers for me. I sided in 10 cards: Condemn, Purge, Flashfreezes, Spellskites, third Day, Linvala, second Batterskull. Game 2 went much better. I dropped Linvala early against her board of two Spikeshot Elders and an Ember Hauler and even had a Purge in hand when she cast Koth. Thus, I was able to hang on long enough to actually hard cast a Batterskull, even though she had killed the Mystic I had used to tutor it up. Batterskull is amazing, especially against RDW. Game 3 I also got Linvala and a Batterskull out, and then a Sword of War and Peace. She Shattered the Sword after one hit, but it was too late by then for her to come back.
1-0 matches, 2-1 games

Round 2: Paul, playing mono-Black
Paul is a regular who I’ve played many times, and is always a fun opponent. His deck was pretty interesting, and set up specifically set up to beat CawBlade. It’s hand kill, spot removal, and a few very efficient creatures: Vault Skirge, Bloodghast, Nantuko Shade, and Phyrexian Obliterator. Game 1 was ridiculous. I kept a hand of Jace, four land, and two Preordains. I won the roll and Preordained on the first turn, which netted me… a Preordain. His turn 1: Duress, and of course he took Jace. Then he blew me away by casting Surgical Extraction, naming Preordain, meaning I was down three cards and had only land in hand. I never quite made it back from that, and his Shade applied some serious beats. I think I sided in the Condemn, the Purge, the second Batterskull, and the two Spellskites. It didn’t matter, though. I got turn 2 Stoneforge to get the Sword of Feast and Famine. He killed the Mystic right away and I never drew another creature. I mostly just drew land and died pretty quickly. Not very interesting, unfortunately. We had a lot of time to kill, and I switched decks and played with Tempered Steel and mostly rolled him with it. Ah well.
1-1 matches, 2-3 games

Round 3: Daniel, playing Esper Tezzeret
Daniel is an irregular who I’ve played maybe once or twice before. He won the roll and went first. Game 1 I got turn 2 Mystic into Batterskull, he didn’t kill the Mystic, and I blocked his turn 4 Hero of Bladehold with a Germ token wearing a Batterskull that I flashed in. He did get out a Grave Titan, which I bounced with Jace, and then I got a Sword of Feast and Famine, and went to town. He never recovered and I won at 40 life. I sided in Spellskites, Condemn, and the Purge. Game 2 was pretty similar, but without the Grave Titan on his side. I felt like I kind of cruised in this one.
2-1 matches, 4-3 games

Round 4: Andrew, playing Br Vampires
Andrew is a semi-regular, and I’ve played him several times before. He won the roll and started Game 1 with a Pulse Tracker on turn 1. I got a Mystic into Batterskull on my turn 2, but he came back with Arc Trail to kill her. He beat me down for a while with the Tracker and another small Vamp, which I slowed down a little bit with an Emeria Angel and two tokens off a fetch, then Jace, and eventually I was able to hard cast the Batterskull and stabilize at 9 life. He managed to generate enough removal and chump blockers to stall for a while, but eventually I got the ‘Skull on a Hawk and he couldn’t block that at all and I carried the game. This took a while so we knew we didn’t have a lot of time for the remaining game(s). In came the Purge, the Condemn, the Spellskites, the third Day, and the second Batterskull. Game 2 I once again got out a Batterskull early on and he was never able to handle it, and I won at 41 life.
3-1 matches, 6-3 games

That was good enough to give me a good seed in the top 8, so I got to continue on.

Quarterfinals: Dillon, playing Grixis Twin
Dillon is a semi-regular at Montag’s and a strong player, so I was really looking forward to this because I wanted to see the combo in action. I also knew this was going to be a slow grinding match with a lot of “draw-go” turns, which it was. Game 1 was an epic 40-minute battle. I kept a questionable hand: two Day of Judgment, which I knew were bad against him, but the hand had three land and two Jaces. Unfortunately, he got an early Jace TMS and started fatesealing right away. I actually had three Jaces in my hand (one Beleran and two TMS), but only one source of blue mana so there was little I could do about his Jace. He was fatesealing me every turn, and my only recourse, stuck on 4 land, was to hit him with an Inkmoth Nexus equipped with the Sword of Feast and Famine I had cast on turn 3. I had to swing at Jace, though, to keep him off his ultimate, and he started hitting me with manlands. I finally drew another source of blue and tried for baby Jace, but he had a Negate (main deck, wow). My next Jace got through, though, which was big because his Jace was at like 10 counters. I managed to draw a couple more land and stick a Jace of my own, killed his manlands with Tectonic Edges, and eventually grind out a victory with a Sworded Hawk. I brought in the 4th Into the Roil, the Spellskites, the Celestial Purge, and Linvala. Game 2 he again got an early Jace and I had a Hawk with Sword of Feast and Famine on it. I actually made a horrible mistake and gave him a window to go off, tapping out to animate a Celestial Colonnade to attack Jace while attacking him with the Hawk, and he flashed in an Exarch to tap my Hawk so my land didn’t untap. If he had a Splinter Twin in hand I was dead, but fortunately he didn’t. I managed to kill his Jace next turn with my Hawk, but he Duressed me for my only answer to the combo (Into the Roil), so he had another open window to win, but again could not go off. The Sworded Hawk had him down to only two cards and I got out another Hawk with the other Sword on it and him at 8. I had two Spell Pierces in hand in case he tried to go off, he didn’t have it, and the two sworded Hawks swung for lethal. I got a little lucky in the second game, but I’ll take it.
4-1 matches. 8-3 games

My opponent in the semis was to be my round 1 opponent Kelly, but she and the other two people in the semis wanted to just split and go home. After the marathon match I just had, and the fact that I had skipped dinner and was really hungry, I agreed to it even though the RDW matchup seems pretty reasonable with Batterskull.

Thoughts on the deck: obviously, as I mentioned in the intro, CawBlade is spectacular, particularly with Batterskull, which just seems too good to be true. After losing three games in the first two rounds, I didn’t lose another game all night, which is pretty impressive (for me, anyway). There was only 1 other CawBlade there, and he didn’t make the top 8: 2-2 with bad tiebreakers. Both losses were to RDW, too, which seems a little unlucky.

What I didn’t expect was to be siding in Spellskite in literally every match. Maybe main decking them would be OK—I’d probably take out the Emeria Angels, even though that’s one of my favorite cards. I wouldn’t have brought the Spellskites in for the mirror, Elves, Valakut, or Knights (Knights have been oddly popular at Montag’s of late, but of course I didn’t face it tonight). I was really happy with the sideboard, though. Almost every time I drew a sideboard card it was perfect, and I always felt like I knew what to side in and what to take out.

Now I just have to figure out what to play next week since I don’t allow myself to play the same deck two weeks in a row…

I realized that I haven’t done a report on a prerelease lately, and since classes are over I actually have time for this one. It’s actually a pretty busy weekend, but I had time to squeeze in a trip to the last(?) Houston regional prerelease. I only had time for one flight of sealed, no drafting, but hey, that’s better than nothing.

We got 5 packs of New Phyrexia and 1 Pack of Scars of Mirrodin, which I thought was a little weird. Here was my pool (I’m putting colored artifacts in with their color):

In sealed, removal is often pretty hard to come by, and so I went with Black because it was thick with it. Geth’s Verdict might not be the best possible removal, but I couldn’t pass on having four of them. I decided against going Infect since I really wanted the Moltensteel Dragon, of course, and the Slash Panther. I seriously considered running blue for all the fliers, but I decided there were too many with UU casting costs and I thought it would be better to stay away from that, plus the red was pretty good on its own. The green didn’t impress me at all. I certainly wanted to be able to do something with the Birthing Pod but I really didn’t have the curve for it.

I tinkered with the build a lot over the course of the day, so it’s hard to provide a decklist since I don’t think I started any two rounds with the same deck. I think the modal answer would be something close to this:

Creatures (10) Furnace Scamp Fume Spitter Hovermyr Immolating Souleater Mortis Dogs Skinrender Fallen Ferromancer Pith Driller Slash Panther Moltensteel Dragon Spells (14) Despise Darksteel Axe Gremlin Mine Contagion Clasp Shrine of Burning Rage 4 Geths Verdict Strider Harness Pristine Talisman 2 Artillerize Enslave Land (16) 11 Swamp 5 Mountain

Yes, it’s light on creatures, but I found it pretty good at keeping the opponent’s guys off the table. I did sleeve up the blue guys and six Islands in case I wanted to switch colors, but I never really had the urge to try it. Oh, and I never actually ran 41 cards, this is just a sketch of what I played.

I forgot to write down names, so I’m sure I’ll botch this. Sorry, opponents.

Round 1: Allen, playing WRu, maybe WRg
Game 1 he curved out beautifully and I never really got anything going. The big blowout was the turn 6 Sunblast Angel that killed my only dude, a Slash Panther. Game 2 I drew lots of Verdicts, and kept his guys off the table, beating down with a Hovermyr with Axe and a Slash Panther. I believe I ended it with an Artillerize. Game 3 he got a little land screwed, I had more Verdicts and I got turn 5 Invader Parasite to set him back to 2 land, and applied with my Immolating Souleater, using a bunch of life to make him lethal. Some beats.
1-0 matches, 2-1 games

Round 2, Chris? playing wrgu
Yes, four colors—he only played like seven colored cards in total and had a Wellspring for fixing. Game 1 was all about his Shrine of Loyal Legions and my inability to do anything useful about it. Turns out making a bunch of tokens at instant speed makes Geth’s Verdict somewhat less than optimal—bad, even. Also lost my Dragon, that of course I paid 4 life for, to a Gremlin Mine, ouch. Game 2 there was no Shrine and I curved out pretty well, got in a nice Skinrender and Slash Panther for beatings. Game 3 was again about the Shrine and my inability to do anything about it. He also had a Gremlin Mine, pinning the Dragon in my hand. I eventually got out the Slash Panther to take down the Mine, but he was so far ahead by then that it hardly mattered, and I again died to a bunch of Myr tokens. I knew I was in trouble when he got the Shrine and a Perilous Myr back with Remember the Fallen. Grr. OK, gotta win out to earn packs.
1-1 matches, 3-3 games

Round 3, Anthony playing UBw
I got turn 1 Axe, turn 2 Hovermyr, turn 3 equip and serve for 3. He never dealt with that particular threat, as I think his only flyer was a Vault Skirge that ate a Contagion Clasp counter, but that was not enough to win the game on its own. I got pretty far ahead, though, but he got… Batterskull. Ugh. Fortunately, it was late and he was far enough behind that a Fume Spitter cutting down the Batterskull was good enough for me to get him to 9. I equipped the Hovermyr with a Strider Harness, bashed for 4 in the air, then ended it with Artillerize. Game 2 I again came out reasonably fast, but got slowed down with the stupid Batterskull again. I Verdicted and Artillerized him down to 1 guy, a Blinding Souleater, which he then equipped with the Batterskull and hit me for 5, gaining him 5, of course. I handled it, though, by Enslaving the Souleater, which I then equipped with the Axe and swung back for 7. He got Mortis Dogs and then took back the Batterskull back, but I was able to keep the equipped mutt off me with his Souleater—hooray Phyrexian mana activation cost, since I certainly couldn’t pay W. Anyway, I kept the Dogs tapped down, swung in with other stuff, and took it home. Yay Enslave!
2-1 matches, 5-3 games

Round 4, Calvin, playing WU
These games were pretty silly, actually. Game 1 I got Mr. Moltensteel on turn 4 off a turn 3 Talisman and never drew another land. However, the Dragon and the Slash Panther, who came out next turn, got there, though I don’t think I ever used life to pump the Dragon. My opponent had to chump a bunch and I had infect counters on both the Panther and the Dragon, though I compensated the Dragon with the Strider Harness. I also used the Gremlin Mine to kill a Spellskite because otherwise my Shrine would be useless, and ultimately the Dragon got there, assisted by an Artillerize to finish. Game 2 I got turn 1 Furnace Scamp, turn 2 Fume Spitter, turn 3 Verdict his one blocker and sac the Scamp, turn 4 I don’t remember, turn 5 Moltensteel Dragon. He tapped out for a Sky-Eel School, which I promptly Enslaved. I swung with the Moltensteel and the Fume Spitter, and since he was tapped out I spent 12 life to pump the Dragon enough to make him lethal. Very short match. I’d love to say I won this on on play skill, but hey, better lucky than good, right? In some sense it wasn’t that lucky, since the only other match I drew the Dragon he was useless—he earned his keep here, though.
3-1 matches, 7-3 games

I would have loved to stay and draft, or even play in the second flight, but my son had a Little League game, so I got my five packs, opened them (nothing particularly good in them, unfortunately), and headed home.

Moltensteel is obviously spectacular, and Batterskull is clearly amazing, even if I did deal with it. I was really impressed by how good Shrine of Loyal Legions was, though, I’ll have to keep an eye out for that one in draft; has to be the class of the Shrine cycle. Slash Panther was also very good, which was not a surprise. I ended many games, and took out a couple significant threats, with Artillerize. Better than I thought it would be. I know I didn’t start out running both, but by the end of the day that was definitely the thing to do.

Phyrexian mana seems good as a mechanic—it certainly kept the games short, since people tended to run their own life totals down. The Pristine Talisman was really good, maybe should have run more than 1, particularly with Phyrexian mana in play. Of course, in draft, with only 1 pack of NPH, I don’t think it’ll be quite so much of a factor, at least in draft.

Can’t wait to see what it’ll do to Standard. The new Sword seems good because pro RW is awesome, though to be honest I’m not a huge fan of the abilities that it has, since Sword of Light and Shadow has life gain on it and Sword of Fire and Ice has damage on it—I was hoping for something more unique. (Actually, I was hoping the red ability would be Pillage but that’s just because I love Pillage and wish they’d reprint it.) I’m definitely not looking forward to two-card combos (that’d be Splinter Twin with Deceiver Exarch and Bloodchief Ascension with Mindcrank), but I do really like the new Tempered Steel deck. Hopefully, the dominance of CawBlade will at least be mitigated some.

Skipped FNM the last two weeks, as two weeks ago was GP Dallas and last Friday I was a bit Magic’d out and instead had a date night with my wife, saw Hanna, which was decent. Didn’t want to play Caw or RUG again, wavered between BUG and @Smi77y’s Jace, the Mind Hammer. Decided on the build of MindHammer that Top8’d the New York NatsQ, made a couple changes to the board expecting less Valakut and more Caw. Here was the list:

Tezzeret, the Mind Hammer

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Creatures (4) 1 Grave Titan 1 Inferno Titan 2 Wurmcoil Engine Planeswalkers (10) 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Koth of the Hammer 4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas Spells (22) 3 Everflowing Chalice 2 Contagion Clasp 4 Galvanic Blast 4 Sphere of the Suns 2 Go for the Throat 3 Slagstorm 4 Tumble Magnet Land (24) 2 Blackcleave Cliffs 4 Creeping Tar Pit 4 Darkslick Shores 1 Drowned Catacomb 2 Island 7 Mountain 4 Scalding Tarn Sideboard (15) 4 Duress 3 Flashfreeze 2 Go for the Throat 3 Memoricide 1 Pyroclasm 2 Crush

Decent turnout at Montag’s for FNM, 5 rounds cut to top 8.

Round 1: Loke, playing mono-B Vampires
Loke is a really nice guy, always fun to play. I got kind of a slow start game 1, drew tons of land and mana artifacts, and not a lot of action, so he had me down to 9 before I got off a Slagstorm, which I followed up with a Magnet and Koth, then a Wurmcoil. Koth went ultimate and the Wurmcoil only got in one hit before eating a Go for the Throat, but that was more than enough. Game 2 I got a Slagstorm 3-for-1 on turn 5, and he never really recovered from that.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Daniel, playing Knights
Daniel has become pretty regular at the store in the last few months and we’ve played a few times before. The only annoying piece of this deck for me is the Exemplar, but fortunately there’s enough spot removal to take that out before hitting with a sweeper. Game 1 I got a Clasp for an Accorder Paladin, then got both Koth and Tezz out and managed to use the Clasp to pump both into ultimate on the same turn, Tezz’d for I think 10 damage and burned him out with a Mountain. Game 2 I don’t remember all that well. I know he got an early Student of Warfare that hit me twice and I had to Slagstorm to kill just that. I got a 5/5 something with Tezz and a couple whacks in with Tar Pits, but I don’t remember how I finished him off. I know at one point he had a Caravan Escort leveled into a 5/5 first striker, which I bounced with Jace, but other details escape me.
2-0 matches, 4-0 games

Round 3: Mike, also playing Knights
Battle of the Mikes. I usually win these and expected to win this as well, but no, I am a Bad Player™. Here’s what happened: Game 1, today’s punt of the week. I actually had to mull to 5, took a shaky hand, and drew out of it greatly. However, I got Silenced—yes, I mean it—on three consecutive turns. So, in some sense, I should have lost this game… except I shouldn’t. Once the silence was over, I got Jace out and bounced a guy, and he could only hit me down to 1. Then I got an Inferno Titan, and that was really bad news for him, but I was still at one. I got Koth, and was bouncing, burning and pounding for 10 with him at 14. I wanted to end the game and he was at 4, so I played a Scalding Tarn to Galvanic Blast him for 4… but I cracked the fetch to do it. For some reason I thought I was at 2, not 1, but no, instead I am a moron. Game 2 he opened with a Leyline of Sanctity, which seems like a bad sideboard choice from where I sat, but whatever. He got a few whacks in with 3-power Knights pumped by an Exemplar, but I got a Magnet to keep the beating slow, then spot removal for the first Exemplar, then he got the second, which I also killed. I eventually hammered him with a Mountain (get it?). Unfortunately, we were now short on time, and he mulled very slowly, and played kind of slow, and we didn’t finish; the closest I could get him was to 4 at the end of extra time. Not good enough. So, I’m an idiot. I should definitely have won this match, which would have allowed me to draw twice to get in at 3-0-2, or even played once and still lost and drawn in at 3-1-1, but no. In some sense it was karmic since I never should have gotten out of that mull to 5 (I topdecked like a champ to start the game) and three Silences, but still, ugh.
2-0-1 matches, 5-1-1 games

Round 4: Jason, playing RUG
Jason was new to the store, or at least I hadn’t seen him before, and it was immediately obvious that he’s a good player. I had terrible draws in both of these games—mostly land in game 1—and he pretty much rolled me. I did double Slagstorm one turn to kill both a Frost and an Inferno Titan at the same time, pretty funny, but had no real threats and got hosed. Game 2 he got the Cobra explode into stuff draw and I kept a one-lander (with a Sphere and two Flashfreezes) and even topdecked land, but it just wasn’t enough to keep up with the Cobra (which I did eventually kill) into Turn 3 Slime. That was bad.
2-1-1 matches, 5-3-1 games

Round 5: Austin, playing UB Control
Austin was also new to the store, and also clearly a strong player. Austin offered to draw in with me, but he didn’t realize that I had been rounded up and I couldn’t draw in, so we had to play it. We spend a lot of game 1 doing the Draw, Go thing on both sides, but of course he didn’t know that i didn’t have any permission and was simply drawing nothing but land and six-drops, until he Inquisitioned me. Game degenerated from there, I ultimately died to Tar Pits. Game 2 I of course put in all the Duresses and the two extra Go for the Throats and took out the Slagstorms and Clasps, since they’re both pretty useless against him (though I guess the Slagstorms would kill Zombie tokens, that’s not really a good answer). I Duressed him turn 1 and saw no permission, took a Go for the Throat. Turn 3 he dropped little Jace and drew into the missing permission (I had two Wurmcoils and an Inferno Titan), and I never got anywhere against all the extra cards he drew since I was unable to kill Jace. Bleah. I had never really thought about the matchup with UB Control since it isn’t a big part of the larger meta and hadn’t been seen at Montag’s in a long time. It’s a really bad matchup with this deck…
2-2-1 matches, 5-5-1 games

And, of course, I missed the top 8. Bleah. Frankly, there is no way that should have happened, as I absolutely I should not have gotten a draw in round 3. Of course, both the Knights players I faced made top 8. How stupid is that? I’m an idiot, I know…

Now, the deck. To be honest, I haven’t played the deck much—this was the first time, I hadn’t even practiced with it—and while I’m not sure about the Caw matchup, it seems good on paper with all the instant-speed removal and the Slagstorms main. OTOH, the RUG matchup is pretty rough and UB Control seems like an auto-loss if the UB pilot is competent at all. Still, it was fun to play in the other matchups and I do like the deck, but then I’m a sucker for Planeswalkers and decks that are built around them.