Snap Judgments #5 - "Mark Rosewater Hates Creatures"

The quotation in the title of this article is from a post or several posts made on Twitter during the MBS previews season.  Unfortunately I can't remember exactly who said this and in fact it may have been two or even three seperate people.  To whomever origionally coined this catchy phrase: thanks kindly and I hope you don't mind me borrowing it for this article.

Hello everyone and welcome to another special supplementary edition of The Cardboard Witch.  By now most players will have seen the full Mirrodin Besieged spoiler and already be focusing either on their pre-release event this weekend or the post MBS Standard environment that comes into being on February 4th.  While personally I'm still a little wary of making mass judgments on brand new cards before I've tested them, seeing the entire set in context makes it much easier to identify the cards that really matter in both Standard and limited formats.  Naturally of course having a full spoiler to work with also makes it much easier to identify and discuss environmental trends across these formats.  With this in mind I'd like to examine one of the base concepts I noticed running through the entire set while reviewing the MBS spoiler:

 Design hates creatures as of Mirrodin Besieged.

Now before you get upset at me for making such a bold blanket statement lets examine the current state of creature removal in Standard.  When Shards of Alara rotated out of the format and took with it Path to Exile, Oblivion Ring, Terminate, Malestrom Pulse and Volcanic Fallout we were left with a fairly simple and creature friendly Standard environment.  As far as "mass-removal" went Day of Judgment and Pyroclasm were the most popular choices while Doom Blade and Lightning Bolt made up the "gold standard" in terms of spot kill.  Naturally of course there remained other options (Journey to Nowhere, Arc Trail, etc) but for reasons of versatility, synergy or simple "deckslot" economy those cards appeared more often in competitive decks.  Now while this removal suite hardly left control/mid-range decks helpless in the face of creature swarms and Grave Titans, good aggro players could exploit the gaps in these "kill" packages to create game play advantages.  Good examples include running an all black creature base (B/R Vampires), running Leyline of Vitality/Eldrazi Momument to play around Pyroclasm/Day of Judgement (mono G Elves) or even just comboing out for lethal damage faster than your opponent can contain your swarm (RDW and it's 19 variants).  While hardly perfect this at least made it possible for creature based aggro decks to compete effectively in the current format; think Elves, Boros, B/R Vampires, RDW/Kuldotha Goblins or G/W Equipment. 

Unfortunately after carefully studying the MBS spoiler the past couple days I've come the conclusion that weenie aggro swarm is slowly being "hated" out of Standard as a deck-type.  In particular I think there are at least 4 very important cards in Mirrodin Besieged that make winning with creatures considerably harder than it is in the current Standard format.  While these cards are primarily useful for stopping aggro swarm decks even current control finishers like Grave Titan/Abyssal Persecutor suddenly have a reason to look over their collective shoulders.  Lets take a look at each of these 3 cards and talk a little bit about their overall impact on the post MBS Standard environment:

Go for the Throat:

Pros: While this isn't exactly a functional reprint of Terminate it's considerably better than Doom Blade in the current Standard format.  Simply put there are a lot more Black creatures currently being played in Standard than artifact creatures and even with a new "artifact" based set I'm not sure that's going to change anytime soon.  In particular this card allows decks to effectively counter Grave Titans, active Creeping Tar Pits, Abyssal Persecutors and of course about 20 different Vampires that see play off and on in Standard.  You can probably throw Massacre Wurm and Phyrexian Vatmother onto that list as well; I expect both cards to be fairly popular as the Mirrodin Besieged environment plays out more fully.  Naturally of course the fact that this can kill Black creatures does nothing to prevent it from killing all the OTHER annoying creatures in Standard you'd typically want to Doom Blade anyways; I personally find the image of a skanky vampire chick trying to to reach a Primeval Titan's neck amusing.      

Of Limited Interest #19 - Out with a Bang

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to another edition of The Cardboard Witch. With Mirrodin Besieged finally upon us it has recently dawned on me that we are now reaching the end of the triple Scars of Mirrodin draft era.  While like most of you I'm eager to introduce Mirrodin Besieged cards into my draft pools the truth is that I'm going to miss drafting triple SoM; after all the format has been *very* good to me in terms of tournament results.  Additionally because so many people are typically looking forward to the new set it gets harder and harder to get 8 players together for a good solid draft as you approach the release date; these next few drafts may well be my absolute last triple Scars runs!  With this realization fresh in my mind I found myself sitting down at our weekly Thursday night draft with a heavy heart and a general sense of "impending nostalgia".  

For the draft portion of the event I was seated between someone I'd only drafted with a couple of times on my right and a player I draft against almost weekly on my left.  I was also only 2 seats away from Leon and on his left so I really had no idea what to expect from this draft and I went into it without pre-set expectations.  Naturally of course this "no-mind state" would put me into R/W for what seemed like the hundredth time since Scars came out.  Oddly enough however this time it didn't really bother me; if this was going to be a true goodbye party it seemed only fitting that I dance with the partner that brought me this far.

I went into pack 1 thinking "I just hope I finally open a good rare so I can stay out of Poison"; I've recently had a run of 2-1 nights with good but not great Infect decks created primarily because the rares I'd opened were awful.  Thankfully the pack complied and I took a Spikeshot Elder over a Volition Reins, a Painsmith, an Instill Infection, a mana Myr and some bad Metalcraft creatures. This put me on the lookout for some form of power-boosting equipment; while the Elder is just fine as a 1CC "Myr assassin" in the mid-game where he truly shines is when you can permanently increase his power somehow.  Naturally my opponent proceeded to pass me a Strata Scythe and after casually glancing the pack over and noting several good pieces of removal I decided to "live the dream" and scoop up the potentially game winning artifact.  When my next 3 picks were Golem Artisan, Gold Myr and Myr Galvanizer I started to feel like I was back in the groove.  Unfortunately the rest of the pack was pretty mediocre; I managed to grab an Origin Spellbomb and a Vulshock Replica that I would ultimately play.  I also got the Kemba's Skyguard and the Sylvok Lifestaff from the SB out of this pack.

Going into pack 2 I had two major issues; first I wasn't sure if I was in Blue or White and secondly I had almost no removal whatsoever.  I'd unfortunately passed too many good Blue cards to my left so I suspected I was in White but there had been a shortage of good cards in that color as pack 1 ran dry.  I'd snatched a Stoic Rebuttal, a Sky Eel School and a Disperse as insurance and was prepared to move into whichever colored seemed open in pack 2.  That was until I opened an Elspeth Tirel and decided on the spot that I was playing Red/White from that point forward.  Unfortunately the pack also had an Arrest, a Dispense Justice and several good artifact creatures but there was absolutely no way I was going to pass one of the best cards in the entire draft format to take those cards.  Besides, I had also entered the pack looking for removal and it doesn't get much better than "destroy all non-token, non-land, non-Elspeth permanents".  The rueful glare my opponent to the left shot me as he passed the 2nd pack my way told me that I was going to get something awesome in my colors and the Oxxida Scrapmelter I found staring back at me certainly didn't disappoint.  Things got a little trickier pick 3 when I was passed a Sylvok Replica and a Tumble Magnet but I decided to stay the course and pick the Magnet.  It was around this time that I realized that the opponent to my left was probably in Infect; which was interesting since the picks in pack 1 had convinced me that my opponent to the right was probably playing Infect and was at a minimum running a B/G deck with Poison elements.  Pick 4 produced a Perilous Myr while Picks 5 and 6 were Shatter and Turn to Slag respectively.  Rounding out pack 2 I managed to snag an Iron Myr and a pick 8 Glint Hawk Idol before my original pack came back to me and I was astounded to find the Arrest still available amongst a pile of "junk".  At some point in this pack I managed to grab a Saberclaw Golem I wouldn't end up maindecking but otherwise there was simply nothing left to take after pick 9.

Heading into pack 3 I was pretty sure my deck was already bordering on ridiculous; at this point I had excellent removal and multiple game winning bombs.  The middle of the lineup was a little thin of course; being mostly staffed by Myrs who were poor combat bodies unless I drew the Galvanizer.  Of course when you're running hot sometimes you rip open the pack 3 Contagion Engine and skip right by ridiculous and into "ludacris speed".  While I did manage to keep a straight face picking the Engine when my opponent passed me a 2nd copy of Scrapmelter I have to admit that I pretty much lost it; if this were a Pro Tour event I probably would have been DQ'd for declaring to my fellow drafters that "you are all dead" in my best Jet Li voice.  I may have cackled when the next pack produced the 2nd copy of Arrest and I managed to nab a Palladium Myr and a Revoke Existence with picks 4 and 5.  I closed out the 3rd pack with a 2nd Glint Hawk Idol, another Gold Myr and another Origin Spellbomb before things finally dried up and left me hate drafting random G/U/B cards.

Snap Judgments #4 - Mirrodin Besieged: Thrun, the Last Troll

Hello everyone and welcome back to a special supplementary edition of The Cardboard Witch.  As many of you are aware it's currently Mirrodin Besieged preview time and like the rest of you I've been glued to my computer watching all the pretty new cards emerge from the fog.  Naturally of course I've developed some opinions on the cards as they've been previewed and selected a few I'd like to write about on the blog.  In honor of MBS preview season let's continue along with our Snap Judgements series and take a look at another very exciting card previewed in the past couple days; Thrun, the Last Troll:

Pros:  Well lets start with the fact that Thrun is almost impossible to kill in the current Standard environment; somewhat befitting of "the Last Troll".  Your opponents can't target him so that pretty much wipes out most of the obvious answers; Doom Blade, Flame Slash, Journey to Nowhere, Condemn, Burst Lighnting w/ Kicker, etc.  He regenerates through a Day of Judgement; although that requires waiting until you have 6 mana available to cast him.  Amusingly enough at 4CC he's also immune to Consume the Meek; making him a serious nemesis for either of the 2 current popular control builds.  Did I mention that he can't be countered?  I suppose you could always Mindbreak Trap him; although the answer would be expensive, clunky and fairly narrow.  Quite literally getting rid of a Thrun is going to be an incredibly difficult task for most control decks unless the card base changes significantly with Mirrodin Besieged.  Of course even outside of the control match Thrun is also a 4/4 regenerating beatstick; casting him on turn 3 or 4 will definitely put pressure on your opponent whether he's aggro, control or combo.  In terms of beatdowns I've always felt that 4/4 is a sort of dividing line between good mid range beater and legitimate game winning threat; a 4 power creature puts your opponent on a 5 turn clock by itself while 4 toughness tends to take it past the mystical "Bolt" range.  While Lightning Bolt is not an issue here because of Thrun's "Troll Shroud" it's still hard to find a blocker who can effectively trade with him even without regeneration mana available.  Perhaps more importantly 4 power means that Thrun can wear down opponents hiding behind 0/4 walls; a common strategy for U/W Control and G based Mana Ramp decks in the current format.  As far as Limited play goes I'm pretty sure that against non-Infect decks Thrun is game winning monstrosity; regenerate and shroud are actually WAY more powerful abilities in Limited formats than they are in constructed.

Cons: While in my personal opinion it's difficult to find something legitimately "wrong" with a card as strong as Thrun there *are* a few minor issues that are likely to keep him from running away with the post MBS format.  For example as a Legendary creature Thrun is going to be an awkward include in most aggro decks; you won't be able to run 4 copies but he's good enough that you won't even consider running only 1 either.  I expect that most G decks will find a happy comfort zone at 2-3 copies; sort of like how G players incorporate Garruk Wildspeaker into their decks now.  This of course brings up the additional problem of the mirror match; if both players are running Thrun than the easiest way to contain an enemy Thrun is going to be casting your copy.  Remember folks the so-called "Legends" rule places both copies in their respective graveyards, they aren't being destroyed and therefore you cannot regenerate them.  On a completely different note while I'm personally very fond of 4/4 for 4 beaters the simple truth is that we are currently playing in a Titan dominated environment; while Troll Shroud and regenerate are crazy powerful abilities they do little to help Thrun answer 6/6 Titans and Wurmcoil Engines.  This is truely an all time zenith for big fat monsters and in a world of Giants sometimes a nigh-unkillable Troll simply won't be a good enough answer.  From a Limited perspective it should be mentioned that Thrun isn't very good against an Infect opponent; while it's true you can't kill him with damage or target him with removal spells nothing is going to save Thrun from dying to -1/-1 counters.  I suppose if one were looking for a final quibble it should be mentioned that Thrun has 2 Green mana symbols in his casting cost; meaning both that he requires a heavy comittment to Green and that he's competing for deck space against monsters with the best power to mana cost ratios in the game.  While I'm sure most players will find the slots somehow Thrun will have to work his way into a lineup that includes Leatherback Baloth, Garruk Wildspeaker, Vengevine, Wolfbriar Elemental, Primeval Titan and Avenger of Zendikar; certainly no easy feat. 

Final Destination?:  While those of you building on a budget aren't going to want to hear this I think it's fair to say that Thrun is going to work his way into most of the Green decks in the format; either in the main deck or as a Sideboard option.  Simply put there are too many decks in Standard that as of right now have no legitmate answer to this guy.  Ask yourself this question: "If you're playing RDW, Boros, U/W Control, U/B Control, Valakut, B/R Vampires or pretty much anything that doesn't run All is Dust how do you effectively answer an enemy Thrun with open regeneration mana?"  Shockingly enough there are VERY few answers to this question that don't involve playing your own copy of Thrun and that alone is going to mean he'll be in a lot of post MBS Standard decks.  Plus lets be honest; buddy is a crazy whacked out Troll Shaman who kinda looks like a mutant frog.  The art alone is worth the price of admission.

Snap Judgments #3 - Mirrodin Besieged: Phyrexian Crusader

Hello ladies and gentlemen; welcome back to a special supplementary edition of The Cardboard Witch.  Unless you've been living under a rock you're probably aware that Mirrodin Besieged preview season is fully upon us now.  Hopefully everyone out there is enjoying the previews as much as I am; there's something almost magical about the first time you lay eyes on a new card that makes preview season very special.  In a few weeks the cards will actually be out and people will start actively play-testing with them but for right now it's all fresh and each new card represents a world of possibilities.  With that in mind I'd like to take an opportunity now to look at one of the recently previewed Mirrodin Besieged cards and offer up a quick "snap judgment" on it.  Please keep in mind that these observations are only my opinion after having done zero play-testing because the cards aren't even out yet.  I can and will be wrong; one of my favorite cards in M11 was Cyclops Gladiator and that card has never even come close to seeing play in constructed.  Let's start with a card that was previewed a couple weeks ago, Phyrexian Crusader:

Pros:  As anyone who's ever played the Limited Shadowmoor format can attest; the combination of "wither" damage and first strike is pretty ridiculous in creature combat.  This is because the -1/-1 counters go on as soon as damage is dealt; meaning that by the time your non first striking opponent can deal damage back he's already -2/-2 smaller!  While winning creature combat is hardly the focus of Standard play having a creature that mucks up the early game like this IS very valuable to your typical control deck.  Additionally of course it's almost impossible to actually kill the Crusader outside of creature combat; protection from red, protection from white and protection from Doom Blade is a pretty sweet resistance combination.  These two advantages are of course augmented by the fact that the Crusader is pretty cheap; the double black isn't really a huge disadvantage so long as you're playing friendly colors in this format.  Finally I suppose on some level the fact that he's both a Zombie and a Knight could be relevant.  While I tend to play mostly tournament decks myself I know a number of people who play casual Magic where the "Knights" deck has been pretty popular since they released a Lord for it in M11.  Sorry, I guess I should have added that he'll obviously be a rock solid beater in Limited Formats.  The toughness ratings on creatures in SoM tend to be pretty small and this guy is going to be very very hard to kill in a G/B Infect deck.  I sorta just assumed people knew first strike is busted in Limited but being fair I still should have said something.  My bad :)

Cons:  Well for starters, Phyrexian Crusader has Infect.  While this is excellent when dealing damage to other creatures at this exact moment dealing damage to a Player in the form of poison counters is a pretty good way to lose games.  While it's certainly impossible to predict what else Mirrodin Besieged will offer us the fact that the Crusader can't "join in the beatdowns" with your other regular creatures is going to be a problem as of this moment.  Additionally while First Strike and double protection are impressive abilities this guy is still just a Gray Ogre at heart; the game has almost moved by the 2/2 for 3 slot at this point and it's hard to say if the Crusader has enough extra juice to overcome that.  He's certainly no Knight of the Reliquary.  Finally while it's true that the Crusader has protection from White that's still not going to stop him from going down to a Day of Judgement; a card which is becoming more and more popular as the environment shifts from Valakut vs Control to Speed Aggro vs Control.

Final Destination?:  While some people have been quick to assume this Zombie Knight is headed for the junk rares binder I myself have slightly higher hopes.  While I haven't actually tried to build the deck I can envision a U/B based control deck that wins by Poison.  Skythiryx the Blight Dragon has all kinds of potential as a finishing creature for example; it's just that he doesn't have any quality Poison friends to help him finish the job.  I can see the Crusader serving a similar function to Sea Gate Oracle/Vampire Nighthawk in this version of the deck; locking up the early game as a "wall" with teeth and then joining in on the attack once I have board control/Skittles in play.  This also goes a long way towards covering up his vulnerability to Day of Judgement too since it's highly unlikely this type of deck is going to run a swarm of creatures.  Not entirely sure this works of course it's all pretty theoretical but as I said this is a "snap judgement".


PS: Feel free to tell me how wrong I am in the comments; last time I tried to say that Steel Hellkite was a Pernicious Deed on legs and despite getting 5-6 emails about how dumb I was nobody posted them in the comments.  That woulda been way more fun guys :)

Of Limited Interest #18 - Stag Party

Hello everyone out there in Internetland; welcome back to another edition of The Cardboard Witch.  Before we get started I'd like to take a moment to thank the guys at ManaNation and in particular "This Week in Magic" writer Eric Linden.  For the past two weeks Eric has included articles from this blog in his weekly must read Magic links.  For a smaller independent blog like this one making "This Week in Magic" is pretty exciting news; making the list 2 weeks in a row almost made me pee myself.  For those of you who've never checked out either ManaNation or the This Week in Magic feature please feel free to stop by the link posted above and take a poke around.  ManaNation is not only one of the most entertaining and informative MtG Websites on the net; it's also completely free.

Okay with that taken care of let's dive right in and look at a recent 8 man Swiss event I participated in while playing Magic Online for only the 2nd time since Shadowmoor.  As regular readers of this blog may be aware I've decided to begin my reacquaintance with MtGO by playing in casual Swiss events; while I may be a decent Magic player I am by no means I very good video game player and could probably use all the practice I can get out of my 3 Packs/2 Ticket entry fee.  I figure that once I can get through an entire 3 round tournament without misclicking/skipping an attack phase or randomly skipping past my own turn it will be safe to move on to the more competitive 8-4 queues.  First lets talk a little about the drafting portion of the tournament and then we can look at how the deck played out round by round:

The drafting portion of this event actually started out a little weird; my first pack was borderline awful with the only consolation prize being a Tumble Magnet.  While I personally think Tumble Magnet is a very strong card and highly under-rated in the format it's not exactly what I'd call an ideal 1st overall selection.  Making matters worse I was promptly shipped a pack that was both missing it's rare and contained absolutely no removal whatsoever; not even an Instill Infection.  While the pack had a number of decent creatures in it the only card that stood out to me as potentially capable of winning the game on it's own was a Bellowing Tangleworm which I reluctantly added to my pile.  My mood improved considerably when my 3rd pick turned out to be a Contagion Clasp; not only was the Clasp itself excellent removal but it also threatened to combine with the Tumble Magnet for infinite tap out effects.  More importantly while none of my first 3 picks would force me to go into Infect they still left me *wide* open to do so if I saw a strong Poison signal in the next couple of picks.  Unfortunately there were no good creatures with Infect in the next pack and after careful deliberation I decided to take a Glint Hawk Idol  over a Glint Hawk and some random R/U cards.  While obviously the actual Glint Hawk itself would combo pretty well with my Tumble Magnet or Contagion Clasp I felt that the Idol was simply the better card for the deck I was likely building at this point; G/W Metalcraft Aggro.   Of course as if to spite me the next pack had no relevant W or G cards but did contain a Corpse Cur and a Plague Stinger.  I decided to take the Corpse Cur and leave my options open; if the rest of the pack was rich in Posion I'd simply discard the Idol and move on.  Naturally the next pack had no Infect cards whatsoever, forcing me to take a Molder Beast and shift back into the G/W Aggro plan.  The rest of pack 1 however simply refused to agree; suddenly I couldn't buy a relevant beatdown card in W or G and simultaneously the packs were stripped completely clean of Infect monsters as well.  I managed to grab a Fumespitter, an Accorder's Shield and a 9th pick Flesh Allergy before the pack dried up completely.

Going into pack 2 I was obviously a little nervous; at this point I was looking at a fairly mediocre B/G aggro deck built around some -1-1 counters and a couple of 5CC beaters.  Thankfully I ripped open a draft saving Skinrender and after breathing a deep sigh of relief quickly added it to my pile.  Pick 2 in this pack would end up defining the rest of my draft; my opponent to the left passed me a Razor Hippogriff, a Molder Beast and a Wall of Tanglecord.  Making matters worse he'd also left all 3 uncommons and his terrible rare (Shape Anew) in the pack.  At this point it became a simple question; were 2 Molder Beasts and a Bellowing Tanglewurm better than a Razor Hippogriff and a Glint Hawk Idol in the context of the cards I'd already drafted.  While I might have said yes if my pile had a Slice in Twain or a Sylvok Replica to help fuel the Molder Beasts, I simply couldn't pass up a card as powerful as Razor Hippogriff  on the off chance I would be passed artifact destruction effects later in the draft.  I'd also developed the suspicion that while W had simply been scarce my inability to draft G cards was the result of fierce competition from multiple players in the draft.  In particular I had noticed that not 1 of the 3 early Carapace Forgers I'd seen had tabled the entire pack .  My suspicions were confirmed when my screen revealed a Glimmerpoint Stag and suddenly my deck started to come together.  My next 3 picks were Origin Spellbomb, Leaden Myr and Origin Spellbomb; firmly cementing me in W/B and relegating my Wurms to the sidelines.  The rest of the pack wasn't bad either, netting me a Snapsail Glider, a 2nd Glint Hawk Idol (8th pick!) and a very late Ghalma's Warden.  When you count the 13th pick Vector Asp pack 2 ultimately produced 10 of the 23 non-land cards I ended up playing in my main deck.

Compared to the first 2 packs, pack 3 was relatively straightforward.  I opened a Kemba, Kha Regent in a pack with no W/B or artifact removal effects.   While my only equipment card at the time was an Accorder's Shield I really couldn't pass up the 2/4 body for 3 and I felt confident I could find more equipment later in pack 3 if I put a high enough priority on it.  This turned out to be partially true as my very next pick was a Sylvok Lifestaff; again from a pack with no removal effects I could play.  Unfortunately this would be the absolute last piece of equipment I would see all draft; one of my opponent's was forcing a U/W Equipment deck someplace else at the table and was clearly prioritizing these cards VERY highly.  Pack 3 would reveal a bunch of great R cards and not much else; I decided to reach for the Kemba's Skyguard to fill out the deck with an extra flyer and some more life-gain but I certainly wasn't happy about doing so.  Of course pick 4 more than made up for it when someone passed me my 2nd copy of Glimmerpoint Stag and helped tip my deck over from "decent" to "very strong" in the blink of an eye.  The rest of the pack was predictably less exciting; I ended up being cut out of W pretty quickly and there just wasn't a whole lot of B in pack 3 whatsoever.  I ended up drafting back to back Auriok Replicas and a very late Fumespitter but otherwise nothing else I chose in this pack would make the final deck.    

Actually building the deck was relatively easy; I had 19 cards I definitely wanted to play and only one was a mana Myr.  Even with a deck that curved out at 5 that pretty much forced me to run 17 land, leaving only 4 unfilled slots.  While not my favorite card the Ghalma's Warden was clearly the "best remaining creature" in the pile which in turn made both of the Auriok Replicas more attractive than they would have otherwise been.  It certainly didn't hurt that they worked well with other artifact dependent cards in the deck like Glint Hawk Idol, Snapsail Glider and Razor Hippogriff.  I ultimately settled on Vector Asp for the 23rd slot because of its overall utility; it's a cheap artifact creature, in a pinch it can turn into a -1-1 token to proliferate with Clasp, and it's the easiest creature in the entire deck to sacrifice to the Flesh Allergy.  This is the deck I eventually settled on:

"Swiss Army Stags" - W/B Aggro:

Creatures - 14 (18)

2x Fume Spitter
2x Origin Spellbomb *(turns into a creature)
1x Vector Asp
2x Glint Hawk Idol *(turns into a creature)
1x Leaden Myr
1x Snapsail Glider
2x Auriok Replica
1x Kemba, Kha Regent
1x Kemba's Skyguard
1x Ghalma's Warden
2x Glimmerpoint Stag
1x Skinrender
1x Razor Hippogriff

Spells - 9 (5):

1x Accorder's Shield
1x Sylvok Lifestaff
1x Contagion Clasp
1x Tumble Magnet
1x Flesh Allergy





Lands - 17:

9x Plains
8x Swamp

Functional Sideboard - 7:

1x Golden Urn
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Soul Parry
2x Fulgent Distraction
1x Loxodon Wayfarer
1x Corpse Cur

Of Limited Interest #17 - Season of the Digital Witch

Hello ladies and gentlemen, hopefully you've all been well the past couple of days and welcome back to another edition of The Cardboard Witch.  As regular readers of this blog may be aware I hold a deep almost over-riding mistrust for two major forces of evil in this universe; Canadian winters and Magic Online.  My distain for winter is fairly self explanatory; when it gets cold and wet I generally get sick and miserable, sometimes for months at a time.  My dislike of Magic online however is a little more complicated and would take long enough to explain that it probably deserves it's own article.  To sum things up quickly:

• I don't like paying full retail for packs.  Booster packs haven't been MSRP in Toronto for years the market simply won't bear it.  This puts me in a position of paying *more* for cards I can only use online.
• When I last played (in Shadowmoor/Eventide) the interface with the game was completely terrible and caused me to constantly go to time even in games I was winning easily.  I will admit to being a little bit "bad" at computers but I was still having problems my 8th or 9th draft in.
• Apparently as a player it's important for me to actually see my opponent's face; I find that I walk into far more traps/bad plays online than I ever have in a real game of Magic.
• I'm just not that great a video games.  While I'm pretty good at keeping track of what's going on and various triggers in real life Magic I have a disturbing habit of misclicking, hitting "okay" at the wrong time or most embarrassingly forgetting who's turn it is and hitting F6 (pass turn basically) on my own upkeep when playing online.

Unfortunately a recent cold/wet snap here in Toronto has conspired to keep me indoors and away from the draft tables.  Desperate to feed my growing Magic addiction I found myself with no recourse but to ask Leon to let me draft with his MtGO account.  He agreed and helped me enter my first ever triple SoM MtGO Swiss Draft this past Friday night.  I chose the Swiss format pretty much entirely because I'd had previous bad experiences with the MtGO interface.  I figured that I might as well guarantee myself 3 matches to get as much practice in with the game as possible in the hopes of making fewer mistakes.  I won't lie, when I finally sat down to draft there was a certain sense of self loathing to the experience; after all I was doing something I hated (playing MtGO) simply because I couldn't go out and play "real" Magic at my FNM.  To my complete surprise however I actually enjoyed myself; the interface had clearly improved since Shadowmoor and after watching Leon play hundreds of games online I found that my own "error" rate had gone down significantly.  Of course I still made several boneheaded misclicks but for the first time ever I was able to focus more on playing Magic than trying not to "screw up the video game".   Let's take a closer look at the actual tournament itself; first I'll talk a little bit about the deck I drafted and how I ended up with the cards that I did.  Then I'll take briefly about my rounds with a focus on the differences between the online and "real" Magic experience as I see it.

Unfortunately I don't remember the draft itself with absolute clarity; the sheer "newness" and unfamiliarity with the MtGO interface made it difficult for me to focus on my picks as much as normal.  I do remember that my very first pick was a Revoke Existence and that the 2nd pack was so terrible that my only real options were to either take a Sunspear Shikari or jump into Infect by taking a Plague Stinger.  Most of my removal came in pack 2, including a 1st pick and a 4th pick Grasp of Darkness.  Finally pack 3 yielded my 2nd Cystbearer and Plague Stingers #2 and #3.  As usual my first 8 picks in each pack tended to be decent but by halfway around there were no good "Poison" cards to take.  The lone exception to this was my 2nd Carrion Call which came incredibly late in pack 2, something like pick 13ish.      

"Dead Woman's Hand" - B/G Infect Aggro:

Creatures - 14 (16):

1x Vector Asp
1x Blight Mamba
1x Leaden Myr
1x Necropede
3x Plague Stinger
2x Wall of Tanglecord
2x Cystbearer
1x Ichor Rats
1x Moriok Replica
1x Blackcleave Goblin
2x Carrion Call * (Spell that makes creatures)

Spells -10 (8):

2x Grasp of Darkness
1x Throne of Geth
1x Tumble Magnet
2x Instill Infection
2x Untamed Might

Lands - 17:

8x Forest
9x Swamp

Relevant Sideboard - 4:

1x Wing Puncture
1x Withstand Death
2x Moriok Reaver

In many ways this deck is similar to the deck I finished 2nd with during last Thursday's "real" draft at the Hairy Tarantula (see Of Limited Interest #16).  In particular the sheer number of "doubles" and the excellent selection of cheap infect monsters.  Unfortunately this deck is probably a little worse at grinding out long games than the previous version and while my best cards are certainly very good this deck also runs more "marginal" cards than the other one had to.  One other disturbing way in which they are similar is the complete lack of enchantment/artifact destruction.  Sadly I only ever saw one Sylvok Replica; I opened it in my second pack and decided that I couldn't take it over a Grasp of Darkness.  In a vacuum I still believe the Grasp is the better card but in this case the fact that I never saw another Replica or Slice in Twain after that point combined with the fact that I would 4th pick another Grasp in pack 2 make the decision questionable in hindsight.  The other major issue I have with this build is the complete lack of power boosting equipment; while 2x Untamed Might worked out well as a finisher I really would have liked a Darksteel Axe or a Sylvok Lifestaff to maximize the value of my 3x Plague Stingers.    

Of Limited Interest #16 - Doubled Down and Bombed Out

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of The Cardboard Witch.  Based on some of the emails I've been getting a few of you have noticed that it's been a little while since I've written about an SoM Booster Draft.  Mostly this has been caused by a lack of opportunity; I've been sick most of the winter and during the holiday season our drafts go all wonky.  Additionally because I manage the store where I draft it's generally not a great idea for me to be "the odd woman out" on draft night.  One of the best reasons to draft at the Hairy Tarantula is that we try to guarantee our customers 3 rounds of Swiss regardless of their win loss record.  Of course some things are beyond our control; if an unhappy/busy/distracted customer wants to drop from the event nobody is going to force him to keep playing Magic.  One thing I can control however is my own entry into the tournament; typically I will choose not to play if my inclusion in the event would cause an odd number or a round 1 bye.  I generally assume that our customers came to *play* Magic not watch other people play Magic while accumulating perfect tiebreakers.  Thankfully last night we finally ended up with an even number of drafters and I joined in as the 6th player with Leon agreeing to sit out so I'd have something to "write about on the blog" later. 

Sitting down for the draft portion of the event I pretty much had only one thing on my mind; trying desperately to avoid playing R/W Metalcraft... again.  For those of you who don't regularly read this blog it's become something of a running joke that I just can't seem to avoid playing the same deck over and over in SoM drafts; even when I'm actively trying to avoid it!  I've probably played R/W Metalcraft about 50 times and frankly I'm getting tired of building decks out of the same 60 or so cards.  By random luck I'd been seated to the right of my good friend and co-worker Kelly Ackerman.  This was bad on one hand because Kelly is a very good drafter and was unlikely to give me a lot of "free" picks in pack 2 but it was also good because I knew that Kelly favored R/W Metalcraft decks in SoM.  It would be much easier to avoid being "trapped" in the same old archetype when I knew there would likely be fierce competition for all the best cards between the two of us.

My first pick in pack 1 was a Grasp of Darkness.  I'd opened the highly under-rated Quicksilver Gargantuan and some decent white creatures but there was no way I was passing a Grasp of Darkness for any of those cards. I followed that up with a Tangle Angler from a fairly disappointing pack and found myself trying to choose between a Tumble Magnet and an Arrest for my 3rd pick.  While the Arrest was strictly the better card taking it would mean abandoning one of my first two picks and it was hardly lost on me that shifting into "infect" was still a reasonable option.  Tumble Magnet is very good in almost any SoM draft deck but it's completely over the top if you're trying to win by poison, so I snatched it up 3rd.  My 4th pick was a Rust Tick; the pack also had a Contagious Nim and a Glint Hawk Idol but I figured the Tick was not only the best card in the pack but it also kept my options open if infect ended up being cut off by another drafter.  Contagious Nim isn't exactly a *bad* card but it's not good enough to make me jump into poison on pack 1 pick 4.  Then something amazing happened; I grabbed the 5th pack and found myself staring at a lonely unwanted Contagion Clasp.  I suspect this might have been the fastest 5th pick I've ever made in a Magic booster draft.  I quickly scanned the pack for a copy of Skithiryx, Geth or Carnifex Demon and when I didn't find one I slammed the Clasp.  While I wasn't exactly committed to playing infect at this point I was certainly hoping that I could still jump into it.  When my next 3 picks were Cystbearer, Heavy Arbalest and Contagious Nim I felt pretty confident that G/B infect was indeed open as an archetype.  Weirdly enough the rest of the pack was pretty unexciting; I drafted a very late Fume Spitter that ultimately made the deck but a 2nd Arbalest and a Trigon of Infestation that didn't.  I think the Painsmith might have also come from this pack but I'm not 100% sure; it's always harder to remember draft details for the cards I end up cutting.

Going into pack 2 I was painfully aware that I hadn't drafted enough creatures in pack one.  In particular it was pretty obvious that I would be playing infect in this draft and yet I came out of pack 1 with only 3 poison creatures total.  With that in mind I really didn't spend a lot of time looking over the 2nd pack I opened.  I certainly *noticed* that it was full of broken red and white cards but I really didn't bother to catalog all of them because the pack also contained a Plague Stinger and a Blight Mamba.  I took the Stinger and noted that with any luck the Blight Mamba would table simply because there were so many strong R/W cards in the pack.  The next pack was also chock full of broken red cards including an Oxxida Scrapmelter and a Galvanic Blast but I only had eyes for the Cystbearer at that point.  Of course my very next pick would be another Cystbearer (putting me at 3 total) followed by a Trigon of Corruption and a Corpse Cur.  I started to worry when it seemed like the rest of the packs had been picked clean of poison creatures but I still managed to table the Blight Mamba and pick up a 10th pick or so Ichorclaw Myr that I'd somehow missed the first time around.           

With 9 poison creatures after pack 2 I felt a lot more comfortable going into the 3rd pack.  I had passed an absolutely huge number of amazing removal card in pack 2 just to ensure I had enough infect monsters to build a deck.  Now that I had a good base I figured I would be free to "cherry pick" the best control/removal effects that came by while adding maybe 3 or so more creatures with infect along the way.  Unfortunately the pack I opened only had removal spells in colors I wasn't playing; an Arrest, a Turn to Slag and some sundry blue cards that didn't suck.  It did however have a Cystbearer and it was pretty hard to argue with adding a 4th copy of what may well be the *best* infect creature in the format, so I took it.  This would start a disturbing trend for the entire 3rd pack however; every time I'd be passed a new set of cards I'd find an awesome infect creature and 3-4 amazing R/W removal spells or finishing creatures.  Worse still because this was pack 3 I was forced to pass these cards to Kelly on my left and I knew full well that he would be playing R/W at this point.  While I managed to finish pack 3 with additional copies of Plague Stinger, Contagious Nim, Tumble Magnet and Corpse Cur, I had also managed to pass a Scrapmelter, an Arc Trail, a Revoke Existence and probably the latest Razor Hippogriff ever handed to a white player in SoM draft history.  Towards the end of the draft I managed to fill out my ranks with a Tel-Jilad Fallen, an Untamed Might and a Strider Harness; all excellent cards in this deck type.

After spending about 5 minutes lamenting the general absence of Slice in Twain or Sylvok Replica (never saw either all draft) in my card pile I quickly threw together the following deck:

"Doublemint Twins" - G/B Infect Aggro:

Creatures - 16:

1x Fumespitter
1x Blight Mamba
1x Ichorclaw Myr
2x Plague Stinger
2x Contagious Nim
4x Cystbearer
1x Rust Tick
2x Corpse Cur
1x Tangle Angler
1x Tel-Jilad Fallen

Spells - 8:

1x Contagion Clasp
1x Grasp of Darkness
1x Heavy Arbalest
1x Strider Harness
2x Tumble Magnet
1x Trigon of Corruption
1x Untamed Might



Lands - 17:

9x Forest
8x Swamp

Relevant Sideboard:

1x Instill Infection
1x Wing Puncture
1x Heavy Arbalest
1x Painsmith
1x Trigon of Infestation

As far as infect decks go, this one was fairly broken.  While it's missing one (or more) of the "Big 3" infect rares, having 4 copies of Cystbearer was downright criminal.  Having doubles of Corpse Cur, Plague Stinger and Tumble Magnet also promised to be filthy and although I didn't have as much hard removal as I would have liked I did have a Contagion Clasp.  Repeatable proliferate effects are borderline broken in a good poison deck and the fact that the Clasp usually kills something BEFORE you start proliferating is amazing in this format.  While I was mildly afraid of Kelly due to the sheer amount of removal I had passed him I honestly felt I had a better than 50/50 chance of running the table and winning the draft at 6-0.

Standard Deviations #9.5 - Finding Jamie Wakfield Part 2

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of The Cardboard Witch.  For those of you just joining us last article we looked at a brand new Standard deck I had just started testing; Scarlet Force (scroll down for list).  In that article I promised to come back to review the deck once I'd played enough games to know what I'm talking about.  Well folks, since publishing that list I have done almost nothing but eat, sleep and playtest Scarlet Force in Standard.  To be completely honestly I've even spent a couple of hours watching someone ELSE test Scarlet Force online in MTGO practice rooms; if that isn't proof that I'm a deplorable Magic junkie I'm not sure what is!  Now that I've tested the deck a little more (51 games) lets go back and fill in the blanks from our previous article.  First let's take a look at the list as it stands right now, I've made some minor changes and added a sideboard:


"Scarlet Force" - G/R Stampede Aggro

Creatures - 25

4x Birds of Paradise
4x Joraga Treespeaker
4x Lotus Cobra
3x Beastbreaker of Bala Ged
4x Leatherback Baloth
3x Wolfbriar Elemental
3x Inferno Titan

Spells - 11

4x Lightning Bolt
2x Tumble Magnet
2x Garruk Wildspeaker
3x Overwhelming Stampede

Lands - 24

6x Forest
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Misty Rainforest
4x Copperline Gorge
4x Raging Ravine
4x Rootbound Crag

Sideboard:

4x Arc Trail
3x Acidic Slime
1x Tumble Magnet
1x Garruk Wildspeaker
4x River Boa
2x Wurmcoil Engine

Changes:  The only change I've made so far is to switch out 4x Llanowar Elves for 4x Birds of Paradise which may well have have been an obvious design oversight.  Originally when I chose to run the Elves I wanted to poke control opponents for extra damage with my mana creatures when I was cold drawing off the top of my deck.  Additionally I felt that 12 dual lands and 4 Lotus Cobras were more than enough sources of Red to fuel the 11 cards we'd need R for even in the face of 4x Tectonic Edge.  Unfortunately I hadn't properly accounted for the changes in my local metagame that World's would bring on; suddenly I found myself playing against decks running 4 Tec Edges *and* 4 Spreading Seas main deck.  While they couldn't cut me completely out of Red mana I lost a couple of games with an Inferno Titan in hand and decided it was time to get more serious about my mana base.  So far I haven't missed the 1-3 damage your average Elf deals in the control match-up and I'm definitely winning more games against Spreading Seas/Tec Edge decks.  I did test the deck with 3x Tumble Magnets but found that they were clogging my hand a little bit; something that Beastbreaker of Bala Ged will basically never do.  I also found the Beastbreaker to be so strong against Blue based control decks that I didn't want to run less than 3; even if it meant sometimes not having the Tumble Magnet until mid-game. 

Standard Deviations #9 - Finding Jamie Wakefield

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to another edition of The Cardboard Witch.   Due to the recent holiday schedule and the store I manage having it's biggest sale of the year I've unfortunately been unable to draft *at all* this past week.  Well, I probably could have played Magic Online but as those of you who know me in real life are aware, Magic The Videogame and I don't play well together.  I have however managed to find time to keep playing/testing Standard decks despite a myriad of work/holiday obligations; after all you've gotta feed the monkey somehow. I've also managed to build and start testing two new decks for my growing gauntlet; a mono Green "Elves!" list cobbled from MTGO daily results and a R/G aggro deck that doesn't look like anything I've seen in the format before.  For those of you counting at home this puts my gauntlet up to 8 separate decks; U/B Control, G/r Valakut, Boros, RDW, Mono G Elf Vine, B/R Vampires, Big Red Koth and of course this new R/G Aggro build.  Unfortunately I had to take the G/W Quest list apart to build the Elf Vine deck but ultimately I don't feel like this is too big of a loss; the simple truth is that the Quest deck wasn't winning very many games against the rest of the gauntlet in testing. 

Now before we go any further I'd like to offer the following disclaimer:  The deck I'm going to talk about in this article is completely new (as far as I know anyways) and I've played about 18 games total with it so far.  I have not only not finished testing this baby but I haven't even built a proper sideboard for it yet!  I think this is important to mention simply because usually when I write an article about a Standard deck it will be *after* I've play-tested the build thoroughly and tweaked it multiple times.  So why am I showing you a deck I thought of less than a week ago and have only had the time to test minimally?  Well the fact that it's lost a grand total of 1 game so far is certainly a factor but the honest truth is that I think this deck is "soo freaking cool" I couldn't wait to share it.  That's right, I've got a deck designer crush on this new build and now I want to show off my "baby"; let ye who hath never sinned cast the first stone!  First let's take a look at the list itself and then I'll talk a little bit about why I chose the cards I did and what the deck is trying to accomplish:         

"Scarlet Force" - G/R Stampede Aggro

Creatures - 25

4x Llanowar Elves
4x Joraga Treespeaker
4x Lotus Cobra
3x Beastbreaker of Bala Ged
4x Leatherback Baloth
3x Wolfbriar Elemental
3x Inferno Titan

Spells - 11

4x Lightning Bolt
2x Tumble Magnet
2x Garruk Wildspeaker
3x Overwhelming Stampede

Lands - 24

6x Forest
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Misty Rainforest
4x Copperline Gorge
4x Raging Ravine
4x Rootbound Crag

Sideboard:

4x Arc Trail
11x Forest