Hello again everyone! Miss me?
(I could use the “with every bullet so far” joke here, but I’ve been reading back over old,
old
columns of mine, and… I’ve already done it. Sure, it was nine years ago, and even though it’s published on this here site here still, it’s a little tough to dig up, but I repeat myself often enough, don’t you think?)
I’ve been unpublished for a few weeks — long enough that I had people ask me at States if I had been a victim of Teddy CardGame’s housecleaning measures — so there’s a little bit of “catch-up” to play here… but first:
Where Was Dave Hiding?
About two years ago, I switched jobs, going back into the private sector after ten years working on military contracts. When I switched, I already had a vacation planned
right
as I was starting the new job, so I was operating at a negative vacation balance from the get-go. This is the first time I’ve been able to carve out a significant chunk of vacation time, so the wife and I took two weeks and headed back to Europe — specifically, Paris. Had a great time, saw the tourist sights, avoided the bomb threats against the Eiffel Tower… a typical Parisian holiday, I imagine.
(I think travelling to Europe gets a bad rap, in terms of vacation choices. I remember as a kid that going to Disney World was a Big Deal, especially when you consider buying overpriced food for seven people. As I grew up, I kinda stuck with the “vacation in Disney” game plan, and I love it, but in reality? It’s no more expensive to go to Europe for a week than it is to go to Disney World. So now I always tell my friends to roll up their saved pennies and take their kids to the
real
history, and not the audio-animatronic version of it.)
The missus was kind enough to offer to let me find a Scars of Mirrodin Prerelease while we were there, but I passed. We took in modern art instead. Maybe that will help with my comprehension of the Phyrexians.
Skurred of Scars
My plane touched down back in the US on the Thursday before the release of Scars, and immediately I was surfing whatever internet I could find, trying to scarf up the hidden details of the new set. Enduring Wizards’ crackdown on spoilers over the last few years has been tough; this one was tougher
and
self-imposed!
I still don’t think I understood everything by the time I rolled into my local Launch Party to try my hand at Magic in this new machine world. And it showed — I died to poison a couple of times, mostly because I wasn’t aware that there was a creature that could give you poison counters without attacking (Ichor Rats) — I figured that, as long as I was able to set up my defenses at nine poison counters, I’d be okay!
Yeah, I wasn’t.
Since I had no real feel for the set going into the Launch Party, my goal was just to open up some bombs that would lead me to what else to play. Open Kemba, Kha Regent? Play whatever crummy equipment you have. Open three Shatters? Play W/R and just stack in the removal! That was pretty much what I did. My first impression of building Scars Sealed pools: Take all your good artifacts and start there. The original Mirrodin was sooooo long ago, but I seem to recall something similar in that block as well.
(You’ll also note that I have no big PTQ wins or Magical achievements from that time period, so don’t expect any deep wisdom on New Mirrodin either.)
I did open a Mindslaver, and I did play it. I even got to activate it once. I believe my opponent’s play on that turn was “attack with two mana Myr, tap all your lands, go.” What happened to you, Mindslaver? You used to be so cool.
Top Ten Uncommons
Seeing as I have nothing particularly inspiring to say about Scars Limited, let’s go ahead and start looking forward to what Scars brings from a Constructed standpoint.
10
— Liquimetal Coating
I’m not sure what Liquimetal Coating is going to do. I know it’s going to do something
amazing
at some point in time, probably in one of my EDH decks; maybe I’ll play Future Sight and get Karn, Silver Golem to animate it — who knows. Liquimetal Coating is one of those cards that just oozes the promise of the “cool play” that will involve turning something into an artifact. Right now, this is probably Johnny fodder, but I like the feel of it. Not to mention that it makes me think I’m dipping something in gold, like that girl in
Goldfinger.
9
— Palladium Myr
Bigger in both size and mana production, Palladium Myr is like a mana
Myr on steroids, wearing some sort of Sol Ring backpack, hiking around
the Razorverge Thickets or… whatever passes for a great camping
spot on Mirrodin. Palladium Myr single-handedly makes all the mana
you need for the magical “two Myr Galvanizers plus mana Myr” combo
(although, as you’ll see later in this article, that’s not the only
magical Myr combo) and actually could be a beater if you don’t have an
X-spell in hand. I…
A Sol Ring backpack. Hrm. I would buy that.
If you’re planning on exploring any of the Myr-iad (ha) of Myr combos
that are sure to be coming down the pipe, Palladium Myr seems like an
excellent place to start.
8
— Skinrender
Skinrender seems, on the surface, to be the sort of four-drop that fundamentally alters what’s considered a “good” creature in terms of Constructed Magic. I remember how Flametongue Kavu made Blinding Angel essentially unplayable, simply because the Angel couldn’t survive the Flametongue’s assault. Skinrender
looks
to be of the same caliber — similar casting cost, only doing “permanent” damage with its “enters the battlefield” trigger. So why is it so far down the list? Because of two things.
First, it doesn’t have a home — black is the current red-headed stepchild of Magic, and any deck that can support it is perfectly happy running the other good spot removal instead of a clunky four-mana 3/3. Second, it doesn’t really
do
anything against the creatures that are in today’s Standard. Sure, it kills Fauna Shaman, but only after she’s done her thing a couple of times. It kills Vengevine, but he’s already attacked once and he’ll just be back in a mo’. And he’s not really that much help against the Titans, although he does technically trade with them, I guess. Good guy — just the wrong place right now, I think.
7
— Memnite
The first deck that pretty much everyone built after seeing the entire spoiler list was the Mono-Green Metalcraft deck. I built a version of it with deck-storming partner Rick Ashby well before the whole set was completely revealed, and then when Bennie Smith, and I hooked up with a number of other great Johnny deckbuilders to work together as The Johnny Fever Project, it was also one of the first decks put up for debate. Our original version started something like this:
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Darksteel Axe
4 Carapace Forger
4 Ezuri’s Brigade
And it took us a while before we figured out that, while the metalcraft guys were tremendous when they were “turned on,” that up until you had that 8/8 trampler, you were doing a lot of sub-par things.
Memnite was the shining star from that build, though, and has obviously gone on to see fame as “that zero-drop in the White Weenie Quest deck,” and there’s a wide margin between Memnite and Ornithopter, I think. Being able to actually attack for one, for a zero-cost creature, is pretty good, and I’m sure that the hyper-aggressive White Weenie deck will stick with us for at least a little while.
6
— Myr Galvanizer
Being back in time for the Scars Launch Party also meant I made it back in time to play in States, a tournament that I dearly love. I missed last year’s when it was shifted to December and fell on my wife’s birthday; despite having no playtesting time and only a week to scrounge up Scars cards I wanted to play, I still made a brave go at becoming the Colorado State Champeen.
But this is not the story of the deck I played, but rather of the deck that knocked me out of the tournament, sending me home with my tail between my legs in my most disastrous Constructed outing in… well, in actually quite a while.
It’s round 5. I’m 2-2, out of the running for Top 8, but still playing to make it into the prize packs if I can win out. I’m playing Mono-Black Control (article to come at a future date); my opponent is playing the Myr-Ball deck. Or so I think.
I Duress blindly in game 1 and hit the only thing I can hit: Splinter Twin. I chuckle because… well, because I don’t understand how his combo works, and I don’t read the card enough (or at all) to try and figure out why it’s in the deck in the first place. I lose the first game to (of all things) Myr beatdown, side in a ton of creature removal, and get ready to churn through games 2 and 3.
I don’t Duress out the Splinter Twin in game 2. I don’t Duress anything, since I’ve sided them out — and I did so
specifically
because the only thing I saw that I could Duress away was Splinter Twin. I still don’t understand how this is supposed to work — I side
in
Sadistic Sacrament thinking I can cast it T3 and snag the Fireball or whatever his actual win condition is. I kill the first Galvanizer, but he’s able to protect his second one, and then he enchants it with Splinter Twin:
Me: “Okay, what happens next?”
Him: “And now I kill you.”
I’m still not sure I have this right:
1. Tap the Galvanizer to make a copy of the Galvanizer.
2. Tap a mana Myr and use the copy to untap all other Myr, including the original Galvanizer.
3. Repeat as necessary.
At the end you have an arbitrarily large number of Galvanizer copies (the last one is tapped), and you attack with them all since they’re all arbitrarily large themselves. The. End.
Double strike is one of those mechanics that, when you see it, you try to figure out how to take advantage of it. Auriok Edgewright is cheap enough that, while he doesn’t do anything but a Grizzly Bear impersonation on his own, when you take the time to get him situated into a metalcraft (or equipment) (or both!) framework, he pays dividends in spades. There’s certainly enough good equipment out there (Basilisk Collar, Trusty Machete) and enough artifact guys that I’m surprised he hasn’t made it into the Quest deck. I know that I’m scared of
anything
wearing Argentum Armor — the fact that this guy hits for
sixteen
with it is a little insane.
4
— Trinket Mage
Trinket Mage is exactly as good as the objects he can fetch out. Right now, that consists of a bunch of equipment and utility cards, and not a lot of awe-inspiring universally loved cards. Can you imagine how popular he’d be if Pithing Needle were still in Standard? As it is, he has to fetch up Brittle Effigies or Mox Opals. Trinket Mage ranks highly on my list for the sheer potential — we know what he can fetch right now, but what other great,
cheap
artifacts are coming in the next two sets?
Even if you just use him as a redundant way to find a Basilisk Collar, I imagine that works on some level.
3
— Arc Trail
I have worked nearly ceaselessly over the last year to build a Chandra Ablaze deck. Those abilities seem
so
powerful that I… I don’t know, I just keep thinking there must be a way to get her into a
good
Standard deck.
The most recent addition to that deck was Forked Bolt. Forked Bolt was great because of the flexibility — if you needed to off a Birds of Paradise and a Lotus Cobra, you could do that; if you needed to stop a Fauna Shaman before she could get active, it could do that too. And it went to the face if absolutely necessary (or if you had an extra damage to throw around).
So how much is an extra damage point worth? Is it worth 1R to kill (say) a Cobra
and
a Fauna Shaman? A Goblin Guide
and
a Tunnel Ignus? I think it is, and I saw a fair few of these in sideboards at States for just this reason. Despite the inability to point all three damage at the same location, Arc Trail does a lot right when looking at the creatures in today’s Standard that make an impact.
2
— Contagion Clasp
Contagion Clasp is a card that needs to shine in the right deck. Paying two mana for a -1/-1 counter may seem fine on the surface, but you don’t just want it around to shape up your metalcraft counts after that — you want it to be adding counters! The obvious choices make for some powerful plays: planeswalkers, Everflowing Chalice, poison counters. But what about putting an additional +1/+1 counter on your Joraga Warcaller? What about ramping up a Beastmaster Ascension (or any Ascension, for that matter)?
There are so many mechanics that rely on counters in Standard. Ascensions. Allies. Level Up. Poison. Charge counters on artifacts like Grindclock. Contagion Clasp goes in any deck that relies on counters, and starts ramping them up past their reasonable originally intended levels.
1
— Volition Reins
Yeah, it’s six mana. Yeah, it gets hit by splash Naturalizes that might show up in sideboards. But the ability to take
any
permanent —
any
— costs six mana; look at Confiscate. Confiscate would’ve been pretty powerful if it had been around when planeswalkers were first introduced, and the ability to steal one is a big part of why Volition Reins is so powerful. Volition Reins, essentially, gets top spot not because it can steal things, but because of what it
can
steal.
Closing Thoughts
Part of next week will be spent looking at top commons from Scars, and depending on what my inbox looks like mid-week, I may also talk about the Great Designer Search 2 a little bit. Good luck to everyone out there who will have already taken the test by the time this sees print! And, if not, then I’ll at least have more States stories (including talking about the deck I played) and more thoughts on Standard as we head into the last stretch for StarCityGames.com Invitational points. There are two more StarCityGames.com Opens this month, Nashville and Charlotte, so despite the fact that the PTQ formats coming up are Sealed Deck and then Extended during winter, we still have a lot of Standard going on. If you live in the South, it would behoove you to head to one of the StarCityGames.com Opens — if the lure of five grand doesn’t do it, there are all sorts of side events and other activities to keep you occupied.
Until next week,
— dave
dave dot massive at gmail and davemassive on Facebook and
Twitter