Last week I joined a League. Since I suck at Sealed, I cheated a bit and asked my wonderful readers to build my deck correctly. And so, taking their excellent advice from the forums, I rebuild my Sealed deck into what was suggested. Hence —
1 Uktabi Drake
1 Wormwood Dryad
1 Ashcoat Bear
1 Basal Sliver
1 Blightspeaker
1 Citanul Woodreaders
1 Corpulent Corpse
1 Deadwood Treefolk
1 Gemhide Sliver
1 Havenwood Wurm
1 Might Sliver
1 Rathi Trapper
1 Sengir Nosferatu
1 Strangling Soot
1 Wurmcalling
1 Disintegrate
1 Cradle to Grave
1 Dark Withering
1 Phthisis
1 Premature Burial
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Phyrexian Totem
1 Prismatic Lens
8 Forest
1 Mountain
7 Swamp
1 Molten Slagheap
My first opponent is playing Blue/Black and has garbage for cards. He is also under the mistaken impression that the attack phase means he must attack, and leaves himself wide open turn after turn. I take this one in an easy two. Nice guy though, and the deck shines.
Next opponent – Xanti81 — 1710 Limited rating.
MLGreen’s Limited rating is 1637 — Wow, that’s much higher than I would have thought. My online ratings are embarrassing. If you want to know who I am, just troll the Constructed formats and find the guy playing mono-Green every tournament with a sub 1500-rating. Wave to me as I go down in flames, then either point and laugh or throw a blanket over me quickly.
Xanti81 is with Blue/Red.
He has all sorts of tricksy crap that I hate, including Mystical Teachings and Teferi. That’s pretty good card selection. Luckily, the power of the forums is behind me and I wreck him in the first game thanks to mad removal, Wurmcalling, and Sengir, which gives him fits.
The second game is more of the same, and the fact he gets stuck on four lands doesn’t hurt either.
Last week, I went 1-4. This week, 2-0 so far thanks to all your help. You guys rock. I love you, you know that right? I’ll call you. Honest.
My next opponent is playing Blue/Black. Blue seems to be a pretty popular color. I can’t escape the damn thing no matter what format I play!
I curve out perfectly in the first game.
Turn 1 — Search for Tomorrow.
Turn 2 — Phthisis
Turn 3 — Phyrexian Totem and Ashcoat Bear.
Turn 4 — Attack for seven. Draw Disintegrate.
Turn 5 — Play Corpulent Corpse.
My opponent says “GG.”
He concedes from the match when I played the Corpulent Corpse…
Huh.
Next opponent is Blue/White/Green, and he stomps me twice like I was a fine Grenache. He has Castle Raptors, Jasmine Boreal, Flickering Spirit, Wipe Away, Temporal Isolation, Sunlance, Deadwood Treefolk, Looter il-Kor, CHRONOZOA.
His deck is insane.
3-1 so far, and my deck is clearly much stronger than the build I made last week. I take a break and do some work for Wendy. Have I mentioned I’m working for her company now? She’s in the middle of a huge project and the deadline fast approaching, so I offered to keep her out of the insane asylum by pitching in. Why not? They pay well and it extends my savings until I finish “The Novel.” Or my newest idea “A Fantasy Buff’s Guide to Europe.” which details all the best places to buy Wild Boar, see fantasy statues of mythological figures like Poseidon, Heracles, Finkle. See pools of water below a long waterfall with beautiful maidens below them. Arcs with Giants on them. Things like that. See the pictures to see what I mean. And if you have any suggestions for places fantasy buffs like me need to visit, all suggestions are more than welcome. Anyway, let’s move on.
The next morning is deep cleaning day.
In my quest to become the ultimate metrosexual I have not only replaced a gaping hole in the right side of my mouth with a bridge, bought new clothes including a suit, and lost 38 pounds, but I have also asked Wendy what she thinks of teeth whitening. She tells me about her dentist, and last week we had an appointment together. It was a bit cramped in the chair, but… never mind. Bad joke. She got a cleaning in one room, while I got examined for the first time by her English Dentist.
Yes, an English Dentist, I know. Isn’t that sort of like a cheerful French Waiter? Oh, that reminds me of a joke! Crap. My editor is English… Oh what the hell, I’m sure he won’t mind.
So this English Dentist walks into…
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…
[Sorry, that’s not going in. — Cletus Craig.]
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…
Isn’t that hilarious?
I meet my new dentist for the first time. A nice-looking man with perfect straight white teeth, and an easy manner about him. He’s very kind, explains everything that he’s doing, takes a few pictures with a wand he sticks inside my mouth, and shows me the inside of my head on a computer monitor.
Okay, what the hell?
In the middle of Spain I find the most advanced dentistry ever. He takes digital pictures of my teeth with a wand. Then he shows me high-res photos of them, and explains what needs work and why. Then he takes me into another room and has me stand in the middle of a big machine. I grasp some handles and stand perfectly straight. He takes a three-dimensional x-ray of my head, and shows me the results. For the first time in my life I can see how far into my gums my teeth go. How crowded they are. How off center my jaw is.
“On this side, we see the top of your jaw is compressed. There’s not enough space where the join meets your skull. And on this side, we see a more normal-looking quarter-inch space between the jaw and the skull. Do you know why that is?”
“Sure. Because before I had my bridge I did all my chewing with the left side of my mouth. So, for about 5 years one side of my mouth did all the work.”
We go through X-rays and digital pictures, and he informs me of the few problems that I have, and how to make my teeth look better, and how to go about the whitening. And then – get this – he offers me a 50% discount on the whitening if I let him use me as a “Before and After” picture for marketing.
While it’s very nice to be saving three hundred dollars on my whitening, it’s a little bit frightening to think that my teeth are so bad that I’m a “Before and After” picture. I mean, you have to be awful to get that distinction. Unless of course you’re English, and then…
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[I’m not telling you again, Jamie. — Craig.]
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I’m so funny. Si, no?
This is the oddest Spanish expression I’ve learned. It’s all the rage. Literally translated, it means “Yes. No.” But in usage, it’s more akin to “You agree, right?” or “Yeah, right?”
So, the first thing he says I need is a deep gum cleaning. Despite the fact that I see the dentist every six months for a cleaning and possible fillings in the colonies, my gums are in bad shape. A deep cleaning will help restore them.
A deep gum cleaning. Doesn’t that sound pleasant? Doesn’t that sound Blue? Actually, I guess that sounds more Black. There’s a card “Evil English Dentist: 3BB : Tap : Perform five points of deep gum cleaning damage to target American.”
The horror.
So rather than play more games of Magic with my cool new forum-built deck, I have to go get tortured. I get up, shower, get dressed, and hop on the subway.
On the subway, sitting across from me in a light blue suit, is a Spanish gentleman of about 65. Today is also his day for a deep cleaning.
Of his nostrils.
I couldn’t believe it. On a packed subway, this guy is obliviously digging his finger into what looks like the deeper recesses of his brain. I stare in horror for about five minutes while he searches for what must be the lost Holy Grail, and then I look away for fear of being too obvious. And to hold on to my breakfast.
The following is the God’s Honest Truth. Whatever that means. I look back after a few seconds of looking away, and the man is rubbing his lips with the same finger. As if applying lip balm.
Horrible!
Then he goes back to deep cleaning.
Of course, the whole time I’m thinking “This is so going into the column.”
I get off the metro and walk to my office, and the young and cute hygienist is waiting for me in the lobby when I come in.
“Hi, ready to get started?”
“Oh yes. You know how much I love a good deep gum cleaning.”
She laughs.
I sit down in my little torture seat, and she straps my arms down with a vicious little smile.
Okay, I made that part up.
“My name is Sara, and I’ll be your hygienist today.”
“My name is Jamie and I’ll be the patient screaming in pain today.”
“Oh no, none of that, ha ha. If you feel any pain or discomfort, just raise your hand and I’ll stop.”
“How about if I bite you instead?”
She giggles. “Promises, promises…”
Ah, we metrosexuals get all the girls.
“You have a bit of an accent.”
“Well, I’m Scottish and Spanish.”
“Really, how do you stay sober?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, I’m part Scottish and we aren’t well known for being particularly sober. And Spanish culture amazes me. I’ll go for a walk during Spanish lunch hour and see rows of businessmen with gigantic beers in front of them in the middle of the day. I went to the butcher the other day, and he was drinking a beer between customers asking for slices of meat. This was at eleven in the morning. We went to a bar last night and it was slow. The cook, the waiter, and the bartender were all chatting at the bar, each of them nursing a drink.”
“Well, somehow I manage.”
Sure thing. I’m still expecting to see her sip a beer between cleanings.
“Let’s put these glasses on you.”
“Oh good, construction goggles. I love to see those when I go to the dentist. Nothing I fear more than bits of teeth and tongue going in my eyes.
“Ha ha! No no, it’s just for the spray. We use some high-pressure water and fluoride that we spray on your teeth.”
Whatever. I know it’s for bits of teeth and tongue. She’s not fooling anyone.
The cleaning goes without incident, and then she makes me bite down on two trays full of concentrated fluoride for a full minute. While my teeth are soaking in this stuff and I’m unable to speak, she takes some fake teeth out and shows me the correct way to brush and floss them.
Halfway through I take the teeth out of her hand and bite her on the shoulder with them.
She giggles.
Wait, Wendy reads this…
Totally kidding. That never happened.
We finish up and I remark “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Actually, that was just a standard cleaning. We had to do that before we do the deep gum cleaning next week.”
Groan…
She smiles and tips back a glass of whisky.
I knew it!
After that experience, I need some Magic.
For the last match that counts, I decided to try ome of “tiornys” suggestions from the forums, and made this.
1 Blightspeaker
1 Citanul Woodreaders
1 Corpulent Corpse
1 Deadwood Treefolk
1 Errant Ephemeron
1 Fledgling Mawcor
1 Gemhide Sliver
1 Havenwood Wurm
1 Viscerid Deepwalker
1 Sengir Nosferatu
1 Rathi Trapper
1 Sage of Epityr
1 Cradle to Grave
1 Dark Withering
1 Erratic Mutation
1 Disintegrate
1 Mindstab
1 Strangling Soot
1 Premature Burial
1 Wurmcalling
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Prismatic Lens
1 Phyrexian Totem
1 Molten Slagheap
6 Forest
5 Island
1 Mountain
4 Swamp
I love the flier’s ability to suspend in the early game. Errant Ephemeron is just a house. So is Mindstab.
Sadly, the deck is a little cost prohibitive. While I expect there are times when it will have a ton of suspended things that beat face, sometimes you draw those cards in the late game. In both of the matches that I played with this deck, my hand was choked with high-mana cards. Errant Ephemeron is fantastic the turn after you’ve suspended a Mindstab. Not so awesome when you draw him on the sixth turn and your hand is choked with Wurmcalling, Deadwood Treefolk, Dark Withering, Havenwood Wurm, and a Citanul Woodreaders you’ve been waiting to play.
While I loved the build, and agreed with his logic, the G/B/r version seemed a little stronger.
Okay, the new Intern is here. I need to stop playing Magic and train her on what we do. The job falls on me because I’m the doing grunt work. My incredibly brilliant girlfriend has to do the actual combing through of data, and the writing up of facts that she determines are relevant, and then do a report and present it to the client. Since the report is due next week, Wendy will be focusing on that. I’ll be training the new intern on how we gather data and what we specifically need.
She came yesterday. Very cute Albanian. A shy 21 years old. After she left, Wendy asked me what I thought. First I should explain that I am a firm believer in two things.
That every human on the planet finds my beautiful Wendy irresistible.
That every woman is two glasses of wine and a friendly backrub away from her first lesbian experience.
“She seems perfect. Young. Eager. Intelligent. And did you see the way she looked at you?”
“Just stop.”
“She was drooling looking at you.”
“Stop. She’s twelve years old.”
I bust out laughing and Wendy rolls her eyes.
“I’m so funny, aren’t I?”
“Whatever you need to believe, sweetie. Did she have any questions?”
“Yeah, she wanted to know if you thought she was cute.”
This is where you picture more eye-rolling.
And picture more of me laughing, because I think I’m so clever.
I go back to some research, and get a PM from our own beloved Ben Bleiweiss. Ben wants me to look at a deck list that he says is doing very well in testing. Considering I need something for Regionals, I’m thrilled to get a list from him. Have I told you I have a secret man-crush on Ben Bleiweiss? One of the nicest, funniest guys you would ever want to meet. Okay, actually, I’ve only met him in World of Warcraft, but really, what’s better than bonding over secret Auctioneer tips and tricks? Nothing, that’s what! If you read his columns over at MagictheGathering.com you know he’s a hell of a deck designer. He can take a deck worth a dollar fifty and go 19-1 with it in the tournament practice room. And whenever I play him, he beats up my five hundred dollar deck with a bunch of commons, kisses me on the mouth, and whispers “Good Game” in my ear before leaving a pile of fifties on the nightstand.
This is the list he showed me.
9 Forest
4 Island
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Mana Leak
4 Vinelasher Kudzu
4 Whirling Dervish
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Aquastrand Spider
4 Cytoplast Root-Kin
4 Fungal Behemoth
4 Harmonize
4 Plaxcaster Frogling
4 Simic Growth Chamber
3 Terramorphic Expanse
Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Remand
4 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Spell Snare
I play a match with it, win it, and then decide that I should ruin his perfect little creation by switching out the Blue for Black. This allows me to play Leyline of the Void, Putrefy, and Sudden Death. I lose Mana Leak and Plaxcaster. Don’t care.
This is the deck I start tuning. Note, that as I write this, Future Sight is not available online. Any suggestions appreciated.
Creatures (28)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Spike Feeder
- 4 Vinelasher Kudzu
- 4 Aquastrand Spider
- 4 Cytoplast Root-Kin
- 4 Fungal Behemoth
Lands (24)
Spells (8)
Sideboard
Match 1: Gruul.
I draw three removal spells, and then my fat starts to come online. He concedes when my Fungal Behemoth comes in as a 7/7. I side in Seize your Junk.
The next game, he mulligans to five and quits the match.
Match 2: Tron Simic Sky Swallower and all the good morphs.
Do you know how good Vinelasher Kudzu is against control? Well, if they can’t find a Repeal, it is just excellent. It comes out on turn 2 and just keeps getting bigger. Teferi? Sure, throw him in the way I’ll be happy to punch him in the face and kill him with a mighty blow.
Game 2 he plays turn 2 Remand, turn 3 Remand, turn 4 Repeal, so, on my turn 5 I have two 1/1s on the board. Not that hot for a beatdown deck. Yes, I surely lost that one.
Game 3 is Birds of Paradise to Vinelasher Kudzu to Cytoplast Root-kin, to hold onto Sudden Death and Putrefy and kill any blockers you get… and swing with a 5/5 and a 4/4. When you play Venser, I’ll Sudden Death him before blockers; you’ll Compulsive Research and then concede.
Smash you.
So far, I like it. A lot.
Beatdown that beats both beatdown and control, with sideboard options that might be able to handle Bridge and Dragonstorm. Or it just kills them before they can get set up.
Also, with Spike Feeder, I can just gain four life and remove Bridge from Below from the game. With any of the graft creatures, I can keep them at one counter when playing Bridge, play a creature, graft it, and voila! Another of my own creatures in my graveyard.
Very hot.
Until next week.
Jamie
