While we did just have a Pro Tour in a pair of interesting formats, Shards Block Constructed and Shards Block Draft with the full Shards of Alara block revealed to us, that’s not the most pressing matter to players that has caught my attention to cover and discuss. While it’s all well and good to see how Shards Block Constructed played out, and to see the battle between Bloodbraid Elf and every other card in the format, frankly there is no Pro Tour Qualifier season that uses the format and I think at this point we can be very glad for that fact. But it was announced on Wednesday that there will in fact be some significant rules changes with the coming of Magic 2010, and I felt it would be best to spend this week’s column having a look at some of the changes, both from the point of view of a Magic tournament player and the point of view of a Magic aesthetic.
As seen here, in the Magic 2010 Rules Change announcement, we can see distinct functional changes to a few things:
1. Mulligan order;
2. Zone (and other) terminology;
3. Mana Burn;
4. Token definitions;
5. “Damage on the stack?”;
6. The Deathtouch ability;
7. The Lifelink ability
Because the rules are changing, Magic won’t be Magic anymore, or so I have been told by a few players who weren’t around for the last big rules shake-up. Instead we’ll be playing some drastically dumbed-down version of Magic, Pokemon: the Gathering or Magic: the Yu-gi-oh!. The simple truth however is that what is being changed is largely book-keeping changes, and only one significant change is going to be around to trip up mages who have grown up under the Sixth Edition rules change. Me, I still remember when tapped blockers didn’t deal combat damage and a Lightning Bolt couldn’t prevent Giant Growth from resolving, so I’m not too worried… but then that is aided by the fact that I have played enough different games that I can draw a few comparisons and see how it all feels.
Aesthetically speaking, the new Magic is that extra bit more flavorful, as once again we are casting spells and activating abilities. We aren’t summoning creatures again, or even casting summon spells, but the wording change to help differentiate the difference between playing a creature and a creature coming into play has a solid, intuitive feel to it… and it is this intuitive feel that the rules are changing to reflect, as every change that is being made is to make Magic less counter-intuitive, to work more like we think it should work when we settle in to learn how to play the game. As far as I am concerned, that is awesome: the people who make the game are realizing that the game has emergent properties and are streamlining the rules to take advantage of that fact, because the system suggests by itself that it should work in a certain way and who are the designers of the system to tell it otherwise?
But gloom and doom has a bad habit of reigning supreme, and every change that has been announced is a blow against the complexity of the game. Personally, I think the game can give a teaspoon of complexity away and still have a full pool of complexity left to it, and if the complexity that is leaving is the complexity that made the game harder to grasp as you learned to play it, I can’t help but find myself in favor of the game. For us tournament Spikes, then, let’s step through the changes.
First down the line we see mulligans move from being resolved individually to resolved simultaneously. No longer can you open up with a moderate-to-weak hand on the draw and resolve that you are mulliganing it unless the opponent mulligans to five; the player going first has to declare whether they are mulliganing, then you have to declare if you are mulliganing, and both of you shuffle simultaneously and then look at your six-card hands then repeat the process. The second person to choose whether they are mulliganing, then, will not get to know if the opponent is mulliganing to fewer than six cards before deciding if they are keeping their hand… and this is the only functional change save perhaps a time-saving change, as both players now mulligan and shuffle simultaneously rather than have one player sit there and watch while the other shuffles their deck, then repeat this process for the other player.
How many times have you actually had a hand that you felt you could keep if your opponent mulliganed to five, and then your opponent actually did it? I’d bet it’s far, far fewer times than you thought “Well, I guess I could keep this hand if my opponent mulligans to five.” First of all, we have to realize that this largely affects Limited play rather than Constructed: in Constructed, decks are tighter and thus mulligan decisions are more clear-cut, you know from your opening seven cards (regardless of what your opponent is playing) whether you have to mulligan or not. In Limited, you may have a hand with four lands, all three of your colors, but your two weakest spells and your worst creature, and keeping it would be speculative… you could justify doing it if the opponent was hamstrung, but not of its own merits otherwise.
The argument I have heard so far is that this ‘dumbs down’ Magic, removes one of the edges that a good player can use to defeat a poor one. Worth noting, though, is that the mulligan decision is identical for the player who goes first up until the point where he has to decide if he is going to mulligan a second time (he has more information, knowing whether his opponent will be starting with a full hand or with fewer than seven cards), and identical for the player who goes second up until the point where the player who goes second mulligans below six cards. How often do games include mulligans to five? Often enough that this is an ‘edge’ that we really need to keep? Instead of getting this ‘edge’ for a better player to beat a worse player, you are being given up to three or five more minutes per match as shuffle time is reduced during mulligans, since both players now shuffle at the same time.
The second rules change, going down the list, is the change in terminology. The “removed from the game” zone is now known as “exile”; Path to Exile now exiles a creature instead of removes it from the game… it’s just a label change, not a functional change in how the game is played. “In play” is now known as the “Battlefield”, and while I for one would prefer to keep the Yu-gi-oh! out of my Magic, I can live with what is again just a label change with no game-mechanics difference to it. It’s aesthetically descriptive and when we’re trying to murder each other with cardboard in a fantastical duel between two spell-wielding planeswalkers, frankly we are on a goddamn battlefield and we know it, so why quibble over changing the name of the zone? The rule-word “play” is now divided into three more descriptive words, Cast, Play and Activate; we Play lands, Cast spells and Activate the abilities on cards. We can all tell the difference between these three things intuitively, but all had previously been ‘Play’ in the previous rules-set, and now the language of the game is moving to catch up with the fact that these three things which we all used to “Play” work in different ways and have their own distinct feel to them.
Back in the good old bad old days of the Sixth Edition rules-change, a timing rules exploit existed and frankly very few of us knew about it at first. This exploit had to do with the fact that things that triggered ‘at end of turn’ wouldn’t trigger until the next ‘end of turn’ if you played them during the End of Turn step, so when played cleverly, Waylay would allow you to attack for six damage by spending three mana. We will still be living in those good old bad old days, as the rules change is not going to close this wacky timing window… it’s just going to change the verbiage of cards to help explain why this works, because all “at end of turn” triggers go on the stack at the beginning of the end-of-turn step and adding a fresh “at end of turn” effect will not actually stick it onto the queue. A wording change is being put into place to rename this step as the ‘end step’ instead of the longer ‘end-of-turn step’ since we already grasped what was meant by this anyway but “End of Turn” sounds like it should be weightier than it is and thus harder to cheat than it is, and by generally adding the clarification that an effect terminates during the next End Step (or End-of-Turn Step) makes it easier to grasp why it is that an effect you generate now during an End Step will wait until the next End Step to disappear.
Words change all the time, and here the linguistic usage of the game terminology improves clarity without actually changing how anything works. It’s a good change. Better flavor and a more intuitive feel at the price of a few name changes is about the best way you can change Magic, making it easier to understand the rules without actually changing any of the rules.
After these two changes, however, we start to actually begin playing a different game of Magic, and one with less complexity and room for trickiness than we had before. For next in line we change how mana pools work and the risks that come with floating mana. Mana pools at present empty at the end of a phase, but things that feel like they should be phases are instead considered to be steps… the Untap Step, Upkeep Step and Draw Step all constitute the Beginning Phase, and right now you can float mana from your upkeep to your draw step and play anything that can be played as an Instant if you, say, get targeted by the Champion ability of a Mistbind Clique. Likewise, Declare Attackers, Declare Blockers, and all these things are considered Steps within the Combat Phase, and thus you can float mana from one step to the next right now and play instants with that mana in later steps.
With this functional change to how and when mana pools empty, you’ll lose some elements of tricksiness that were available to the advanced player. I for one have certainly benefited from the fact that mana floated into the draw step will let you play a spell you draw that turn, and I can definitely think of times where it has won me the game to enter my attack phase, float mana through to later parts of the combat phase and play a spell at a decisive moment but I had to be able to float the mana to do this. But to be honest, every single one of those times I can think of involved a Masques Block card, Chimeric Idol, and thus haven’t really been seen in almost a decade… and the number of times I have actually floated mana to my draw step, been able to play the drawn card, and had it decisively matter have been few indeed.
Mana pools emptying at some times but not others does in fact have a counter-intuitive feel to it, and thus using the “float mana” trick felt more like exploiting the “float mana” hack and doing something you technically can do but intuitively shouldn’t be able to do. Instead of having to note the difference between one step and the next and see if a phase had passed between the two, the rules now just don’t differentiate and clear mana at the end of each step, no matter how short or how long that step may be, the span of one decision in the middle of a combat phase or the span of a complex upkeep with multiple triggered abilities.
And with this loss of complexity goes the mana burn rule. The very last time I played a match of Vintage, my opponent mana-burned to death off of Mana Drain mana with a Morphling in play because he incorrectly said the words “Attack phase”, and I played a PTQ two months ago in which my opponent said those two fateful words with a bunch of Red mana floating and an Akroma, Angel of Fury in play, more mana than he had life. I can certainly say that mana burn happens, but does it happen enough to warrant keeping an obscure rule that again seems counter-intuitive? After all, if tapping mana in to your pool can potentially lose you life, why would you ever tap more lands to play something than you needed to? That there are corner-cases where you would do so, or lands and spells you might play that add peculiar increments of mana into your mana pool, doesn’t even occur to most people who are just beginning to learn the game, and the number of times that this rule has been decisive rather than an exploit to use with cards like Mirror Universe or Pulse of the Fields just does not warrant keeping it in the game.
Does Magic lose some of the strategic complexity it has with mana pools clearing at some times and not others, and mana burn causing loss of life disappearing from the game? Certainly. But was this complexity useful complexity? Hardly. I won’t miss mana burn or even really notice, and it’s even given me a free match win at a PTQ within recent memory…
Fourth on the list we see a small corner-case change once again, this being that a token coming into play is defined as belonging to the person who controls it, rather than the person who controls the card that created the token. Funny stuff with Warp World and Brand aside, most people probably didn’t even know that a token coming under their control wasn’t a token they owned unless their own card made it… that Hunted Dragon and Hunted Phantasm and their ilk had a weird interaction. While this significantly cleans up some oddities that are going on, and thus is very aesthetically pleasing (as many of the tokens in question being generated are supposed to do so flavorfully as a downside to a card), this is of literally zero consequence to the tournament Spike, because the tournament Spike does not play Warp World or any of the other cards that might accidentally capitalize on this weird rules interaction either before or after the rules change.
Change number five is where we hit the doozy. Flavorfully and aesthetically, this makes perfect sense… have you ever tried to teach someone how to play Magic, and then been able to explain why it is that creatures can hit each other, then go do die for some sacrificial purpose or disappear back to your hand, and then still kill the other creature? It’s hard as hell to explain, and if you worry that without “damage on the stack” it’s just not Magic, I would like to reassure you that from Alpha through Fifth Edition this was Magic just fine.
But we can’t pretend Magic hasn’t changed, here. This isn’t just a word usage change, or a minor corner case being cleaned up. “The way combat works” is going to be altered significantly, and most everyone who plays the game learned how this worked using the 6E rules-set. Let us look at how the old system works, and how the new system works:
1. Creatures attack. (Same in both cases.)
2. Creatures are declared as blockers. (Same in both cases.)
3. Spells can be played before damage, to modify who lives and who dies. (Same in both cases.)
4. Which creatures are receiving damage, in the case of multiple blockers, is determined before damage would resolve. (Different mechanisms, but a mechanism exists in both cases.)
5. Abilities may be played with damage on the stack. (Kiss this rule goodbye!)
6. Damage resolves, and we prepare to leave combat.
So, we have two real changes: how we deal with multiple creatures interacting with each other, and the fact that you no longer get to choose between your creature dealing combat damage and your creature disappearing before damage resolves. You cannot, that is, have your cake and eat it too. “But Mogg Fanatic just got so much worse,” you might say… except that Mogg Fanatic was printed with this original functionality, and still was a high-quality card. Being able to deal two damage to a creature in the same combat, well, that’s just a bonus the rules allowed for a time.
When creatures gang up on each other, they have to declare an order. This isn’t too hard to grasp, I promise… the combat system of Shadowfist uses this basic method when dealing with multiple creatures blocking the same attacker, and it makes good sense. (It’s not exactly the same, but you don’t need to know about Shadowfist combat complexities, now do you?) When multiple creatures battle, the difference you will note is this: no longer can you split up nonlethal damage among multiple blockers, then follow up with a spell to get the most for your Pyroclasm or what-have-you. So really the difference here is a corner-case as well… it sounds drastically different, but really… you get to find out how much damage is going to be dealt to each creature before it happens, and you get to modify how that works with your tricks before it actually gets locked in. There are fewer decisions you get to make, but the number of times you made a different decision than the ones allowed by these rules were actually pretty few to begin with.
It will feel different. It has to… it’s a different combat system, right off the bat. But with a little practice it will start to feel like Magic again, and while it cuts out a few options, they were not options that came up very often anyway if you really think about it. Just like I can remember games that were decided in my favor by mana-burn, and name cards that are affected by the change of the mana-burn rules, I can remember games where I pulled off an awesome maneuver, dealing first-strike damage split evenly between two blockers and then playing a trick to kill them both before either one gets to hit me, letting me keep my creature by maximizing how I used my instant-speed trick that affected multiple creatures’ toughness or dealt damage to multiple creatures. I can also remember games recently where I sent in a fattie to see it blocked by a pair of 3/3’s, and splitting the damage to kill neither allowed me to kill both with an Infest in a draft once. But the games where this comes up are one out of every thousand, maybe?
The decision was made that once out of a thousand times for your cool trick that uses corner cases of the rules is not actually enough of a reason to keep complexity that is counter-intuitive to players learning the game, and frankly I can see this viewpoint, appreciate it, and move on. I lose a point of cleverness to the rules, but it is a point I am willing to spend for the game to overall be streamlined and good.
But that last change, well, that’s a real change and there’s no hiding it. Losing the ability to put damage on the stack is a key point, because now you can’t respond to anything between assigning damage and resolving damage. But is it the “end of Magic”…? By no means. Remember if you will that us old-heads actually used to play Magic like this, and all of the stuff we have been getting away with by putting damage on the stack felt un-Magic-y and kind of like cheating when suddenly our Mogg Fanatics went from great to ridiculous. From an aesthetic standpoint, damage going on the stack didn’t make sense… you either hit somebody or you walked away, you don’t get to do both, right? It was a mechanical decision that was put into place to allow the rest of the system to work, and now, with some more experience down the line, they feel they have found an even better-streamlined version. We lose a much bigger point of cleverness, and will have to re-evaluate a lot of cards.
The last two changes, well, are just clarifications to make two existing abilities work within the new rules-set as they might have worked in the last. Lifelink got a little bit better, and Deathtouch makes a little more sense. Really, we see one huge change coming out of the combat system, and everything else is a superficial change that we will get used to almost immediately, because the corner cases that are being cut out of existence really didn’t come up that often. Magic is getting a bit more streamlined and will make a fair bit more sense when you try to learn the game or teach it to someone else, and this does drop a barrier between casual play and tournament play, because there are fewer “tricks” that the “Spikes” will know to use but the more casual crowd might not have studied up on, and since we all play Magic and playing Magic with each other is presumably a Good Thing (TM), I’m all for the changes. I’ve played through one rules change that was as big an upheaval if not worse, and it was still Magic. It’ll take a little bit of getting used to, but it will still be mostly the same game.
Sean McKeown
s_mckeown @ hotmail.com
Magical Hack Bonus Track: Kithkin at the Boston PTQ, by Eric Meng
I made the Top 8 of the Standard Boston PTQ last Saturday, playing B/W Kithkin. My record in the swiss was 7-0-2, but I lost in the quarterfinals. I will give a tournament report as well as some thoughts on the deck’s role in the PTQ metagame, but want to first talk about some other lessons learned along the way.
The story really begins some time late last fall when, thinking about the stretch of time I had before the beginning of law school this August, the first and last period of truly free time in my life, I vowed to Top 8 a PTQ.
It wasn’t easy. At the time I was probably a step up from total donk due to some limited success on MTGO, but the only physical tournaments I had attended to date, 2 PTQs and States, had all been busts.
Over the next year while working in New Jersey, I slowly tried to get better. I continued to play MTGO, but also played FNM and other local drafts, where I got to play with and learn from some good local players. I learned that you can almost tell who is going to win a match by looking at the mannerisms of the players – at least if the skill levels are asymmetrical. Good players have crisp motions and are in control of the situation, while bad players physically and mentally wander, and let the situation guide them. I played the tail end of the Extended PTQ season, doing poorly, but again learning much with every experience. I started to become aware of more and more factors of why good players were able to beat me. I learned not to play budget decks, how to borrow cards, and not to fear mulliganing so much.
Then the Standard season. Remembering Tom LaPille saga, I was determined to simply go to as many tournaments as I could if I wanted results. I did very poorly at the first tournament of the season, the Philly Open. I wanted to play the best deck, as I thought it would be the best for my improvement. At the time, that deck was B/W Tokens. But at that moment, Alara Reborn was not on MTGO, so I did not have tournament experience. I did a little better at Regionals with the same deck, but not really; 5-3 is easy to get, and does not mean much at all.
The next PTQ, in Maryland, was my best performance to date, and the farthest I had yet traveled for Magic. I played Faeries, which I had quite some experience with online, and also won a small 9-person tournament with in Bluebell, Pennsylvania. For the first time, I was 6-1 going into the last round, but although I could draw into the Top 8, my opponent could not. He beat me.
The most valuable lesson I learned from those months was, counter-intuitively, to keep my eyes off the prize. It was best also not to think of things like food and sleep; better than not, of course, to make sure those needs were met, but if not met, best to not think about them at all, and try to operate in a world purely mental, rather than physical. The less chatter about record and bad beats, the better. The body and brain constantly drift in the direction that you need to guide them away from. Mind Over Matter, Force of Will, whatever you want to call it. No wonder good players like blue.
The Boston PTQ was the farthest still I had traveled for Magic; a one hour train ride to New York, then a bus ride to Boston. Then, after a night at an old friend’s apartment, a not-so-cheap taxi ride to the venue, out in Brighton. I get to the site an hour early at 9 am. I’ve brought my faeries deck, as well as B/W Kithkin, as advocated by Sean McKeown. This week seemed rather more hostile to Faeries than the last, and a return to B/W Tokens seemed logical. But I just hated the B/W Tokens manabase and curve. Kithkin seemed to have some of the upsides, without some of the downsides. The fact that the same Kithkin 60 had gone undefeated day one in Barcelona, and nearly so in Seattle pushed it over the top for me. Over the last week I had built the deck on MTGO and gotten some fair practice for it, but I was not nearly so experienced with it as I was with Faeries.
I spent some time walking around the room to try to sense the metagame. I was met with some stares and comments of disapproval, as well as a lot of Bloodbraid and B/G Elves, for the most part. I spent the next 50 minutes or so tuning my Faeries sideboard – 4 Deathmark, maybe, as well as 4 Flashfreeze, some Puppeteer Clique or Plumeveil, but how many of each? Then, 5 minutes before 10 am, I just had the strongest ever feeling that I should not play Faeries. It was the same feeling I had in the past when I knew this relationship would not work out, or this living arrangement would be a bad one, or I should not make this trip. A very strong feeling. Thoughtweft, maybe?
So I switched to Kithkin. My sideboard was rather haphazard, as I did not have much time, and the dealers accepted cash only, something I was short on at the time. My final 75 (with the same 60 as Sean):
3 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Figure Of Destiny
4 Goldmeadow Stalwart
4 Knight Of Meadowgrain
4 Wizened Cenn
3 Path To Exile
4 Zealous Persecution
7 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Caves Of Koilos
4 Fetid Heath
2 Mutavault
3 Rustic Clachan
4 Windbrisk Heights
Sideboard:
3 Burrenton Forge-tender
4 Reveillark
2 Aura Of Silence
2 Stillmoon Cavalier
1 Paladin en-Vec
1 Path To Exile
2 Elspeth, Knight-errant
The choice to be kind of cold to Swans but still have 2 Aura of Silence was illogical, I think. Since I could not afford the Pithing Needles, I should have gotten 2 more Aura of Silence. The Sillmoon Cavalier were more for Faeries than for B/W. I had learned how good a resolved Stillmoon Cavalier is against Faeries in the last round in Maryland, after I lost to Reveillark packing 3 maindeck Stillmoons, 4 after sideboarding. As I handed in Kithkin, not Faeries, at the players’ meeting, I suddenly felt the same sense of destiny, for lack of a better word, that I had felt at Maryland. Tension drained from my body, and I felt relaxed and happy. 231 players, 9 rounds.
Round 1 versus Michael D. Durocher, G/W Aggro
I take this match due to superior speed and tempo. Spectral Procession tokens in the air pumped by Zealous Persecution give me late game reach, where I’m not sure he has it. I forget if he was playing tokens or not.
Round 2 versus Frank M. Giaquinto, R/B Aggro:
I throw away Game 1 by overcommitting into a Volcanic Fallout, but Elspeth and Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender are huge in games 2 and 3.
Round 3 versus Alex Morrill, Bant:
I believe I win Game 3 here because he sideboards incorrectly. He does Pithing Needle on a Figure of Destiny; it sure hurts, since I have two Figures out, but I’m pretty sure he should not try to be the control in this matchup. He does not put pressure on the board, and I do, so I win. This is in contrast to Game 1, where I am unable to recover from Turn 2 Jhessian Infiltrator, Turn 3 Rhox War Monk. Alex’s build cut Finest Hour for Wilt-Leaf Liege. Stillmoon Cavalier was quite solid against him.
Round 4 versus Paul C. Serignese, B/W Tokens:
I win Game 1 after I mulligan to 4 on the draw, as his Turn 2 Bitterblossom, Turn 3 Bitterblossom, Turn 4 Redcap don’t deal enough damage to kill me before I play a Cloudgoat Ranger on Turn 5, then play Ajani on Turn 6 and activate Zealous Persecution from under a Windbrisk Heights to sweep his board. The next game is won with tempo beats culminating with an end-of-turn Zealous Persecution to attempt to kill his Spirit tokens in the way of my Kithkin. I’m still not sure it was correct to cast it at the end of his turn, rather than on mine. He countered it with his own Zealous Persecution, but he had to take 2 pain from his lands to do it, and he tapped out, so I was able to safely attack the next turn. I do not remember if I had another Zealous Persecution that next turn; it would certainly make the narrative more cohesive.
Round 5 versus James Pirkey, B/G Elves:
My relative inexperience with paper Magic threatens me here. When I notice, the turn after a combat, that we recorded damage inaccurately, my opponent correctly calls a judge, and it ends up with us both getting warnings, and the life total being held incorrectly. I need to be more careful when I play. Still, I do not go on tilt because of this, and I am still able to win this match in two games due to the power of Zealous Persecution. It is such a good card in creature matchups; if you have 2 and are able to sweep their board clean while simultaneously pumping your team, it is hard to lose when you can play them out of nowhere. They also give this “White Weenie” deck some more much-needed interaction.
Round 6 versus Chris Gosselin, B/G/W Quillspike:
Chris’s deck is extremely interesting; he runs the Quillspike/Devoted Druid combo, but also has Nantuko Husk and Murderous Redcap. I did not see Sigil Captain, but his mana base could plausibly support that, as well. Nantuko Husk and Murderous Redcap are fine enough without the infinite combo, as well. His white that I saw was for Reveillark and Path to Exile. I throw away Game 1 by not saving a creature with Zealous Persecution. That would have let me activate Windbrisk Heights later, to get a Cloudgoat Ranger to push through the final few damage in the air. Still, I am able to win Games 2 and 3, largely with Spirit tokens in the air pumped by Zealous Persecution sometimes, if I recall correctly. I had a quite sick play in Game 3 when I played two Zealous Persecution to kill his two Devoted Druids and push for 9 damage in the air. Zealous Persecution is actually quite skill-intensive. Sometimes it is correct to just use it as a 1 for 1 combat trick, sometimes it is correct to just use it as a 1 for 1 removal, and sometimes it is correct to save it for one big attack.
Round 7 versus Adam Levitt, 5 Color Bloodbraid:
I am able to take Game 1, but I lose Game 2, and I should not have. When I looked at my hand, which was something like Goldmeadow Stalwart, Knight of Meadowgrain, and Path to Exile, as well as 4 lands, 1 or 2 of them Rustic Clachans, I had a feeling it would not get there against Bloodbraid, but I still kept it. I let my impulses take hold of me, and it almost cost me the match. I am able to win Game 3 on the sideboard plan, which is Reveillarks, Paladin en-Vec, and Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender. Game 3 is pretty much me attacking constantly with a Figure of Destiny, then 3 Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender, which are quite good, since they can sacrifice themselves, even without a red source in play or on the stack, to prevent Maelstrom Pulse from getting its full value. I think I won because I reinforced my first Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender with Rustic Clachan rather early in the game, to get in a few extra damage. The Clachan is another interactive card that adds some room for skill in the deck. I think I am also a little lucky that I do not have to face early Putrid Leech that much in this match; that play is pretty troubling for Kithkin, as well as most decks in the format.
Round 8 versus Chase Kovac, G/W Tokens:
ID.
Round 9 versus Jason Ford, Faeries:
ID.
Watching the last round, it appears there are 2 B/W Kithkin players lurking in 9-16.
Then disaster strikes. The whole time, I almost compulsively check the contents of my bag as well as underneath the table as I am leaving to make sure I don’t lose anything. It is a habit of mine. But as I check my bag right after the top 8 is announced, I find that my Faeries deck, the vast majority of it borrowed, and much of it foil, is missing. I frantically check to see where I may have been, and try to notify the judges as well. But the deck is nowhere to be found. I feel not just tilt, but desperation and despair, wash over myself. It is not just that it is a lot of money, but that I lost something belonging to a friend who trusted me with it and more. Even though I will make it up to him, I still feel so guilty.
Quarterfinals versus Brendan A. O’Donnell, G/B Elves:
I cannot keep my mind on the match, and I throw it away by not mulliganing when I should, after I go down to 6 in both games, if I recall correctly. Brendan seems like a solid player, and he tries to help me find my deck after the match as well, but we can’t find it anywhere.
So I have my first PTQ Top 8 the week after my first PTQ Top 16, but I feel not so much happiness but sadness. Losing the deck reminds of all the nonsense that is required to do well at competitive Magic; the long trips, the waiting, the cost, everything. I feel I should quit Magic. After all, I have made the goal I set out for myself, and also have something that leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
The next day, I was able to detoxify somewhat, and got to explore Boston. It’s a decent city; more homogenous in feel from what I saw than New York, but not bad.
Then I go back to New Jersey and get a really bad cold. As I’m writing this article, I’m just starting to get over the cold, and I’m asking myself where that decision to quit competitive Magic was made from. It could have been from illogical emotion, the way in which you might concede a game way too early. It may have been affected by physical ephemera; in this case, from my cold, much in the same way that you may not mulligan due to being tired. Or it may have been the correct hunch and instinct; the way I chose the deck for the tournament. I’m not sure. But I do know that even decisions which seem accurate when made can be inaccurate in hindsight; after all, I heard today that Jason Ford with Faeries ended up winning the whole PTQ. So I may have done just as well or even better had I not took that hunch.
So I’m still mulling my Magic future. I’m not sure if I’ll go to the Philadelphia PTQ this weekend; probably not. For those of you who are going, I think B/W Kithkin is a solid choice right now, especially if you have a coherent sideboard plan against Bloodbraid, which seems like me as if it will be on the rise, especially among the top tables. I feel that 2-3 Paladin en-Vec in the sideboard, probably not main, as well as some number of Reveillark, is the best way to approach that matchup. The matchup against Elves seems pretty decent as well, although I feel I do not truly understand the mechanics of that matchup, including how to sideboard. I think Kithkin is strong because it has a good curve and exploits the underutilized early turns. I like Faeries for the same reasons; I do not want to play a deck like B/W Tokens that plays a bunch of tapped lands early on. The one change I think may be worth thinking about is adding a 4th Rustic Clachan. That should replace a Plains, not the Swamp, which needs to be in the list, as it is tutorable by Path to Exile, either theirs or your own. I am not sure the amount of Kithkin in the deck can support 4 Rustic Clachans, but I am also not sure 3 is the correct number.
I think a good strategy is to learn how to play reasonably well two decks that overlap as little as possible in good and bad matchups, and choose the deck you wish to play a few minutes before the tournament, upon seeing what the local metagame is like. But make sure to keep close watch over your cards. If someone has seen a mostly foil Faeries deck in pink sleeves somewhere in New England, let me know.
Eric Meng
ericmeng1985 @ gmail.com