Responding to Rosewater Making Magic #2

Well this week Maro took a turn down memory lane and told some stories about how he met his wife as well as mixing in some stories about magic design from all the sets he worked on. I will spare you stories about my personal life except to say that I also met my wife at a Halloween party. Looking back at the article I now realize that it may not have been a party but that the whole company dresses up for the day like elementary school. Anyways: onto the magic. My playing time in magic has basically been divided into two periods. The first was about one year when I was in elementary school.

yes, "visit the shores of imagination", tell me more!

Yeah! That's the stuff. Kiddos, that's what a magic booster looked like back when I started. But guess what! The first magic thing I bought wasn't a booster. Nope! I bought a starter deck.

 

Just awesome. The cards came in their own box. And I thought I wouldn't have to buy another box. For a month I was just trading cards from this box for cards from my friends. It was the best. If you look closely you can even see that they designed the packaging to look like a book. To this day I still remember the smell of freshly opened magic cards. It makes a direct connection back to my childhood. Every time I crack a pack I sneak a whiff, and it still brings me back, every time.

And then everything came tumbling down. In the fall of 1994 Fallen Empires came out.

I tried to love it so hard it's not even funny. I saved up my Christmas money and purchased a booster box, that's how determined I was to love these cards. As it turned out they printed about 350 million FE cards which flooded the market and you could pick them up super cheap. And they all sucked. Sooooooooo hard. I tried to make some truly awful cards work, I won't force more than one on you, but check this guy out:

Yeah! That's what I call a magic card. "But Brian, I can counter as many black spells as I want assuming he doesn't have up B. And it's an interrupt!". The set wasn't all bad though. I still have my playset of Hymn to Tourach

That's right. They used to confuse the players as much as possible. Why not put four different pieces of art on the same card? Does the art even have a unifying theme? I'll go with no. God Fallen Empires was the best!

Well that began my 11 year hiatus from magic cards. I picked up the cards once in a while at a sleep over and had my deck laying around for the occasional match when we couldn't think of something to do. But that was about it.

Join us next time to find out just how I got back into the game and why I'm now hooked for ever.

Responding to Rosewater Making Magic

I've been looking for a recurring theme to inspire a weekly post.I think I have finally stumbled across something that may work. I would like to introduce a new series I call

"Responding to Rosewater Making Magic". 

My plan is simple, every week we get a new article from Mark Rosewater over on the mothership. I read it regularly and usually the article is pretty interesting. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree, sometimes I learn something, sometimes I gain a new perspective. So without further ado, let's go!

Theros Draft - Match Report

This is part two about my Theros draft from last weekend. I posted the draft and deckbuilding here. As a brief review for those too lazy or too forgetful: This deck features 4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel, but isn't quite mono black. There are about 5 green cards all of them premium. Let's go!

Theros Draft and Deckbuilding

Last Saturday I sat down at Card Kingdom for another Theros draft. This is now my third draft and I am starting to gain some comfort with the format.

My first pack was pretty empty for a Temple of Deceit, so I snapped that up and hoped for something in pack 2. I was passed a mostly empty pack, the rare was missing but it did have a

I've heard people love this guy and he went from underrated to awesome to slightly overrated. I decided to pick it and keep an eye out for a black deck to come together. At this point I was not willing to go all in and take a mediocre black card over something of value. My next pack was again pretty sparse but did have a Nessian Asp which I took. At this point I hadn't seen any clear signals. The next pack had an Insatiable Harpy

 

I quite like this guy especially as he pushes towards the devotion angle. The next pick was a Lash of the Whip and I decided that black was pretty open. Which is good for what I'm trying to do. However the next few picks didn't have any black, but they did have some green. I picked up a Nessian Courser and a Leafcrown Dryad.

  

At this point it felt to me like black and green were open so I decided to go that route. I can't remember what rounded out pack one but there was some dorky stuff like Scourgemark.

Pack two I opened a Gray Merchant! Sweet, now we have a plan. I also snapped up pretty quickly a Rescue from the Underword

 

Gray Merchant for Gray Merchant anyone?

Next I picked a Nylea's Emissary. This is pretty sweet, I would prefer to play mono black but I very well may have to bring in some green dudes, and so far they are all only single green and pretty beefy. The rest of pack two was unremarkable.

Pack 3 is where I genuinely started to get excited. Pick 2 and Pick 3 Gray Merchant

 

Hell's Yeah. Let's 4-0 this b. The rest of the time I spent trying to take every black card I could. Oh yeah and a pick 4 Keepsake Gorgon followed by a pick five Disciple of Phenax

 

~~~

Ok time to build the deck. I laid out everything and had a few random late White and Red cards. They weren't interesting so I set them aside. What remained was a huge pile of black cards and some decent green cards.

I decided that the Battlemaster would be out because it was double green and I didn't have a ton of heroic enablers. I felt I didn't need the combat trick so savage surge was out. That left 7 green cards and I decided to use Artisan's Sorry and Shredding Winds out of the board as necessary. That leaves us with a bunch of black cards. I pretty much played them all except for Viper's Kiss and Cavern Lampad. This list is below.

I felt like it was critical for this deck to get to 5 (with BB) and start banging out Gray Merchants. Therefore I decided to go 18 lands. I played the Temple because I had two Returned Phalanx but decided to only get their activation if I was lucky.

I figured they would be a good road block and I wouldn't really need their attacks to win so why destabilize the mana base. That left 17 slots and I elected to go 10/7 in favor of swamps. I really need to hit my double black on time and if I have to wait a little bit on the green then so be it.

Decklist:

1 drop: Tormented Hero, Ashphodel Wanderer
2 drop: Leafcrown Dryad (or 4), Baleful Eidolo (or 5), 2x Returned Phalanx
3 drop: Nessian Courser
4 drop: Returned Centaur, Insatiable Harpy, Disciple of Phenax, Nylea's Emissary
5 drop: 4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Keepsake Gorgon, Nessian Asp

Removal: 2x Lash of the Whip
Enchantments: Feral Invocation, Scourgemark
Combo Time: Rescue from the Underworld

Lands: Temple of Deceit, 10 swamp, 7 forest

Board: Viper's Kiss, Shredding Winds, Savage Surge, Time to Feed, Cavern Lampad, Centaur Battle Master, Loathsome Catoblepas, Artisan's Sorrow



see you next time with the match reports.

Standard Deck Tech: Updating White Green

The day after my GW deck had a poor showing at Card Kingdom Alex Gerlock rocked a top 8 with a similar list at a SCG standard open:

Here's a link: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=60381

There are only a few differences. First: In the one drop slot he forgoes the Mystics to start the beats right away with Soldier of the Pantheon. Second: He cleaned up the two drop slot. Just 4x Voice and 4x Fleecemane. While I am underwhelmed by the Fleecemane I do think it is the best option after Voice in that slot. Finally he dropped the Ajani count to make room for GodsWilling. 

 

I honestly don't know how I feel about that. I like Ajani because he is a beast of a finisher and hoses control which is the majority of the meta. Gods Willing is good against black because it can effectively counter their removal. Perhaps having both in the deck is where you want to be to be more diverse.

As far as the sideboard go it is very similar to what I used. The only differences beside +/- one copy of a card is Polukranos and Celestial Flare.

 

I love the idea of playing Flare. Against decks with Stormbreath Dragon it is a pretty solid answer. I'm not sure about Polukranos because I usually don't have enough mana to make the Monstrous trigger more than X=2 but who knows.

As far as the mana base goes I will assume he is way more tuned than I am and I'm just going to play what did and see if I like it.

Draft Tech: How many copies should I play

I was listening to LR episode 205 and they were discussing how many copies of Sip of Hemlock to run.

Thinking more broadly I would like to discuss playing multiples of a card in limited. Often we draft a bunch of the same card but it's not right to run them all. Certainly curve considerations can be a deciding factor. In the case of black removal spells. I would speculate that I would need quite a few doom blades before I would consider cutting one but the Theros staple, Sip of Hemlock, not so much.

 

        i don't know 5 of them                  probably not more than 2

How about something where your curve can easily handle as many as you could reasonable draft. Say

I feel like a deck could handle 8 of these no problem. I don't really know where I'm going with this post. This is just a question I've been rolling around in my mind for a few years. Drop me some thoughts in the comments. And a question for the audience.

How many Celestial Archon would you run? How about Spear of Heliod?

 

Theros Draft at Card Kingdom: Match Reports

Ok, you've waited to hear how the Blue White deck fared. Well you have wait a little longer. I got a round one bye.

Round 1: Bye W 2-0 (1-0)

Round 2: This round was pretty interesting. No one had any mana troubles and there were no mulligans. Game one started off well for me. My opponent got down an early Shipwreck Singer and felt invincible. I responded by dropping a dork.

 v 

I thought I was telegraphing that I had a combat trick or something when I didn't use my unicorn the next turn. Buy my opponent went for it and forced the unicorn to attack, blocked it, and gave it -1/-1. So I pumped it with a trick and moved into solid control of the game. I was cruising and dropped some dudes and then on turn 6  he got his revenge.

Fortunately that early blowout put me ahead so I was able to withstand and rebuild. It was close in the end but I had a couple flyers that he couldn't handle.

Game two got off to a racy start as Sam Back said they tend to. This time however I was on the draw and didn't get an early blowout so the turn 6 Sea God's Revenge was back breaking. I couldn't recover from that.

Game three was rough. He got down a two drop, then suited it up with and ordeal and got in two swings. Then I got my Vanquish and removed it before he could sac the ordeal. However my opponent then dropped mama gorgon, what a haymaker now that my Vanquish was gone.

 meet 

I was doing ok but stalled out on 5 lands. I couldn't get to my Thassa's Bounty (which was my plan). My opponent was ahead from that early damage and I eventually fell to the pressure. L 1-2 (1-1)

I checked back later and my opponent was into round 4 with a 3-0 record. I didn't catch him afterward to find out if he 4-0ed it.

Round 3: This opponent was one of my favorites. He was a nice dude named Ed and was here with his son. But I think Ed is pretty into the game. Game one was EPIC. Ed dropped a Foil Polukranos on turn 5. So I responded with a turn 6 Vanquish the Foul.

 meet 

                        you just gotta imagine it's foil

However Ed was prepared and informed my Vanquish that the gods were not willing.

The pressure of polukranos and friends brought me all the way down to 2, but during that time I started clawing my way back and assembled a small army, lead by a Phalanx Leader. The Polukranos had been monstrousized and enchanted by this point so I was facing down a 9/9. But I gang blocked and then dropped a Dauntless Onslaught to bring it down. But I was now in control.

I targeted my phalanx and picked up a host of +1/+1 counters. I had lethal on the board and he couldn't stop me. But I had been under so much pressure I didn't see it. I killed him next turn with my horde but that is no excuse. I really should have seen the kill.

Game two was tight. There was some back and forth early and and was down to 13 while my opponent was at 18 (being on the play was good to him). Then I finally drew my Bident.

Man had I been waiting to see this guy. I was still under some pressure but I was able to sneak in every turn with a flyer and the extra cards were enough to get me there.   W 2-0 (2-1)

Round 4: Allright, here we go. Win this round and I'm feeling good. Game one was sweet. I was on the play and curved out nicely. Two drop, Wingsteed Rider, Triton Fortune hunger, Dauntless Onslaught. That was brutal and my opponent didn't get any removal. It was never close.

At this point I was flying high. I had an easy win and was feeling good. Then I caught a run of the mulligans. I did a total of four damage over the next two games. I had a plan in game 2 when I was at 3 and he was at 20. I had almost stabilized and made a window to resolve my Thassa's Bounty, but he stymied those hopes.

 meet 

I had to scramble but I managed a back up plan, which involved a combat trick on my Triton Fortune Hunter to draw some extra cards. That also got Stymied. Seriously who plays two stymied hopes? Anyways let's move to game three.

Mulligan, Mulligan, keep a 1 lander. Yeah I didn't draw well and really had no chance that game. I did win a game where I mulled to 5 in FNM but for this game I was on the play and just was too far behind. L 1-2 (2-2)


Well that was a kick in the balls. Halfway through the draft I was flying high. But the last pack fell pretty short for me. I was hopeful but my deck just was missing something that I think a couple bestow dudes and a bounce spell would have helped with. Well, I'll just have to get em next time.