So first, the decks from last week:
Deck 1:
Somberwald Vigilante
Kruin Striker
Thraben Valiant
Moorland Inquisitor
Scalding Devil
Lightning Mauler
Fervent Cathar
2 Riot Ringleader
Hanweir Lancer
Farbog Explorer
Kessig Malcontents
2 Mad Prophet
Heirs of Stromkirk
Bladed Bracers
2 Guise of Fire
Pillar of Flame
Righteous Blow
Call to Serve
2 Banishing Stroke
I would play all 24 of these cards and 16 lands.
Reasoning: This one comes down to curve. If you look at the average converted mana cost of this deck, it’s incredibly low. You have five two-drops, six three-drops, only four four-drops, and no five-or six-drops. Over in spellville, five of your spells cost one mana and one costs two. Granted, you also have two spells that cost six, but even those get played for one mana a decent percentage of the time.
Basically any time you draw six or more lands with this deck, you’re going to feel flooded. With 17 lands, you’re expecting to get to seven mana fairly regularly—even eight and beyond some of the time. Given you have not much to do with lands past the fourth and a lot going on if you miss a couple land drops, it makes sense to run this one a land light.
Some people argued that the Mad Prophets and Banishing Strokes were reason enough to want the 17th land in here, but I disagree. Your curve is so low that even with the Prophets in there, 16 makes the most sense. If those Prophets were, for example, Kruin Strikers, I might even consider 15 (that would be a highly unusual draft, but it goes to show that it can happen occasionally.) As for Banishing Stroke, it gets cast for one mana plenty. And even if it’s in your opener and you miss a land drop or two, oh well. The difference between turn 8 Banishing Stroke and turn 6 Banishing Stroke is much less significant than the difference between turn 8 and turn 6 Pathbreaker Wurm.
Deck 2:
Cathedral Sanctifier
2 Angelic Wall
Alchemist’s Apprentice
Fettergeist
2 Tandem Lookout
Scrapskin Drake
Farbog Explorer
Stern Mentor
Restoration Angel
Seraph of Dawn
Geist Snatch
2 Gryff Vanguard
Voice of the Provinces
Goldnight Redeemer
Archangel
3 Amass the Components
Into the Void
Terminus
Homicidal Seclusion
I would play 18 lands in this deck and cut Homicidal Seclusion and Scrapskin Drake.
Reasoning: It should be pretty clear that this deck wants 18 lands. You have multiple six-drops, you have a seven-drop, and you have three (!) Amass the Components. You want to be hitting all your land drops all the time. Getting flooded, even severely, doesn’t really faze you, what with the sheer power you have up the top end.
As for what to cut, I think Seclusion, Drake, Stern Mentor, Cathedral Sanctifier, and Geist Snatch are all options. Tandem Lookout is definitely worse in this deck than others, but its power level is still high enough to run. Despite Homicidal Seclusion being one of the best non-rares in the set, it’s a little bit awkward here. For one thing, you have to splash it, and it’s off just Swamps; you don’t have any fixers to make your life easier. For another, you have double Angelic Wall, decidedly a nonbo. For a third, you have plenty of high-end between your five Angels and double Gryff Vanguard. By the time you’re casting five-drops and six-drops, you’re already in good shape.
Scrapskin Drake is a perfectly reasonable card that doesn’t fit this deck at all. It’s a solid aggressive creature that you would never consider cutting from a U/R deck. But here, we want our early creatures to be able to block and keep us kicking until Amass + Angels can come online.
The importance of a sideboard in Limited matches particularly relates to choices like this. In a vacuum, you want Cathedral Sanctifier over Scrapskin Drake under the assumption that most decks will be more aggressive than you and an otherwise weak card will fill an important role in keeping you alive. But Cathedral Sanctifier is outright terrible against a reasonable portion of decks—anyone without small attacking ground creatures, really—and Scrapskin Drake could be just what the doctor ordered against the guy with three Moonlit Geists. Homicidal Seclusion could come in against the guy with double Entreat the Angels, where it’s suddenly not clear whose endgame is better.
Deck 3:
2 Stonewright
2 Alchemist’s Apprentice
2 Kruin Striker
Lightning Mauler
Tandem Lookout
2 Riot Ringleader
Hanweir Lancer
2 Fervent Cathar
Scrapskin Drake
2 Heirs of Stromkirk
Mist Raven
Archwing Dragon
Gryff Vanguard
2 Guise of Fire
Lightning Prowess
Geist Snatch
Into the Void
Vanishment
I would again play all 24 of these cards and 16 lands.
Reasoning: This time your curve is not as outrageously low as it was in the previous aggressive R/W deck. You have more four-drops, even a couple five-drops, and two Stonewrights as a lategame mana sink.
That said, you’re still not going to be happy drawing seven lands with this deck. Most of your spells cost two and three, a couple cost four, and only two cost five. Even six lands is one too many. And you have two Alchemist’s Apprentices, for me the factor that pushes 16 over the edge. The card does very little by itself, and if you draw a land with it, it might as well have been one to start with.
The only real argument in favor of the 17th land is double Stonewright, and in my opinion that’s not enough of a draw. Yes, it makes mana flood more palatable, but you can still cast Stonewright and get value out of it in games when you’ve missed your fifth land drop.
Deck 4:
Gloom Surgeon
Timberland Guide
Wandering Wolf
Nightshade Peddler
Borderland Ranger
Dark Impostor
Trusted Forcemage
Searchlight Geist
Champion of Lambholt
Undead Executioner
Nettle Swine
Corpse Traders
Evernight Shade
Renegade Demon
Yew Spirit
Marrow Bats
2 Pathbreaker Wurm
3 Death Wind
2 Ghoulflesh
Angelic Armaments
I would play 17 lands in this deck, cutting Yew Spirit. (Renegade Demon or one Ghoulflesh are also reasonable.)
Reasoning: This is a very ordinary, normal, boring Limited curve, which I had to put in to contrast the unusually high and low ones from the previous examples. You have a good number of two-, three-, and four-drops; you have a couple five-drops, a couple six-drops, a few mana sinks (Evernight Shade, Dark Impostor, and Angelic Armaments) and one Borderland Ranger.
Most Limited decks look roughly like this, and most Limited decks do want 17 land. There’s a reason it has become the rule of thumb.
Ok, moving on. This week, I am proud to present:
How to Play Around Air Elemental
When you hear the words "playing around something," what’s the first thing that comes into your head?
Holding back on casting a Hero of Bladehold in case they have Mana Leak?
Not running that fourth creature out there in case they Blasphemous Act?
Maybe considering Doom Blade before you try for that Giant Growth?
There are a set few cards we generally try and "play around." Mostly these are instants: counterspells, removal, tricks. Or cards with massive effects on the board: Day of Judgment, Elesh Norn, Bonfire of the Damned. Rarely do we consider what might happen if they have… average cards. A 4/4 flier. A Feeling of Dread. A well-timed Dungeon Geists.
But those are the things they have more often than not.
If I had to pick one thing that "separates the men from the boys"—the top class of the top pros from the occasional PTQ winners—it would be this. The best of the best don’t just play the board as if their opponent is a goldfish. They think about what the opponent is likely to do on their turn, how they should respond to it, and even further: what about two turns down the track?
Paulo Vitor had a really excellent example from Barcelona, where his hand on the draw against a RUG opponent contained Thalia and another two-drop. He played Thalia first, on the unthinking grounds that it was "better" and so it should be on the board first; after all, he might draw a good three-drop and want to play that. His opponent killed it with a Pillar of Flame on his turn 3, and then played Garruk Relentless on turn 4 killing his other two-drop. If Paulo had switched the way he played his spells, he would have prevented that Garruk coming down when it did, and the game might have gone completely differently. It’s a case of playing around Garruk AND a removal spell, something not many people would think to do.
Lesson: Even the very best make mistakes at this level. It’s easier said than done.
I lost a game because I failed to play around Call to Serve in the Draft portion of Barcelona.
You read that right. Call to Serve. True story.
My opponent, Ricky Sidher, was R/W beatdown. In game 1, he killed me on turn 5 with two Call to Serves on his two creatures while I missed on black sources for my Death Wind.
Game 2 started a lot better for me, with a Crypt Creeper into a Nettle Swine. Unfortunately, on his turn 4 Ricky had the board-dominating Hound of Griselbrand to face off my 4/3.
At this point, I could attack and trade both creatures for his Hound if he blocked (sacrificing Crypt Creeper with the undying trigger on the stack.) That didn’t seem like a good trade, though, especially with Angelic Armaments in hand. I’d rather have suited up my Swine in a couple turns and sent it over the top for six.
That leaves the question: what if he attacked? Was I willing to take four, or would I just have had to trade my board for his creature then anyway? I figured I could get around this by playing a Corpse Traders. Then if he attacked, I traded a 3/3 and my Crypt Creeper for his dude, keeping the better creature (my Nettle Swine.) Eventually Angelic Armaments would get suited up and life would be good from there.
Flawless reasoning, no doubt, except that he played Call to Serve on his creature and sent for six, something I clearly should’ve seen coming. If I’d attacked with Nettle Swine, in any circumstance where he was holding Call to Serve he wouldn’t block, so swinging had a reasonable chance of getting in four free damage. Something I totally missed.
Lesson: Anyone can play around Zealous Strike. It takes cojonesto also consider borderline unplayable auras.
As for Air Elemental itself, there’s a classic scenario in Limited where you have a versatile removal spell that you could use to take out their small flier/annoying utility creature/good blocker. In general, using it straightaway means having a better immediate board position—you’ll kill them a turn faster, you don’t risk dying to a particular sequence off the top, whatever.
The question is if you need to do it. Are you still winning the game if you hold that removal spell in hand? If yes, would you still be winning if you used it and then they played Balefire Dragon? What about a simple Air Elemental? Would that suffice?
I’ve noticed that good players tend to be far more conservative with their removal. A good removal spell, in Limited, is a get-out-of-jail free card and shouldn’t be treated lightly. If your opponent puts a Lightning Prowess on their Nightshade Peddler or slams down an Archangel, you’re really going to hope you didn’t merrily blast away a Death Wind on some innocuous Hanweir Lancer that was slowing you down.
One of the top Japanese players (I think it was Saito, although I could be mistaken) once had their opponent attack a 2/2 into his 3/3 flier. The opponent was green, so they could have pumped, but not red, so burn was out of the question. Now, Saito was sitting there with an instant removal spell in hand. Most players would make the automatic play there and block, responding to the represented trick by killing the 2/2 and racking up the easy 2-for-1.
Not Saito, though. He elected to take the damage. Very unusual.
On the face of it, this makes very little sense. Not only are you passing up on free card advantage; you’re passing up on free tempo. You get their guy off the board, and they’ve wasted mana and lost a card from their hand. Why not make the easy play?
Well, it depends on the precise circumstances, and in many cases the easy play would probably be correct. But if Saito can take the damage and still be able to race past the pump spell, his play is actually brilliant. Now, if his opponent plays a bigger flier later or a tapper that fundamentally alters the race, he can kill it and keep going straight over the top. It’s a case of giving up a little now to remain ahead if the worst should happen—because you can afford to.
Until next time,
Jeremy
@JeremyNeeman on Twitter