The Combat Phase – Disaster Week

It’s Shark Week on the Discovery Channel! And it’s Disaster Week on the Wakefield Channel! Tune in to see gruesome footage of bad food, pulled muscles, and sea foam beatings around the head and neck!

My last blog entry ended like this –

“Tonight Wendy is making us salmon in a blackberry merlot sauce with grilled mushrooms, onions and asparagus. I help out by cutting things and stirring. Tomorrow I’m cooking Cigala (Norway Lobster).”

We eat a lot of salmon. I ate a lot at home. Just grilled. Then smothered in tartar or cocktail sauce. Wendy ate a lot of salmon before I got here. Together, we eat a lot of salmon. So far, every time she’s made it, it’s been better than the last time. Never too done. Never fishy. Always juicy. Always covered in something new that tantalizes.

This time, not so much.

The Blackberry Merlot sauce was nice, but didn’t really go with salmon. We agreed that it would be better on a white fish, like Hake or Pollock. Not that we didn’t eat the whole thing. It was good, just not great. The stand out item on the menu was the big pile of grilled asparagus, mushrooms, and onions she made. We needed a lot more of that.

The Cigala was a disaster.

Cigala was one of the things I saw on my first visit. It looked like a strange hybrid of two of my favorite foods: shrimp and lobster. The long thin body of a shrimp, a big tail, but also slender lobster claws. I don’t know why they tickled my fancy the way they did, but I’ve wanted to try them ever since I first saw them months ago. After the salmon I told Wendy I would be making dinner the following night.

I spend the morning and afternoon testing a G/W Timbermare deck that focuses on Ghostway. I get in probably ten matches with the deck and the initial results are mildly optimistic. Sometimes Ghostway is such card advantage, such life swing, and such an unexpected response to Wrath that the opponent cannot recover. All of this is too much for any deck I face that doesn’t have Blue. Blue just has too many cheap counters and too many tutors to keep me from doing anything meaningful with the deck. With my plans Leaked and Canceled so many times, the deck is just a bad beatdown deck with Walls. You really can’t beat Blue with walls in your deck. And I find that 75% of my matches, someone is playing Islands. Over half my test games seem to be useless because I don’t even get to play my cards to see how they interact; they just go straight from my hand to my bin.

You’ll have to excuse me. Magic has been a little frustrating this week. I can’t help the tone of this article. I get annoyed playing in multiple formats and always having my cards returned to my hand or going straight to the bin. A great deal of my games in any format aren’t about playing Magic, they’re about me not being able to play Magic.

Look! Blue is too powerful! Just STOP, okay?

Okay… deep breaths. Where was I? Oh yeah, dinner that night. I have some mildly encouraging results with the deck, the plan being that I would play out some guys, play out a Timbermare, Ghostway at the end of my opponent’s main phase, and when Timbermare came back into play, all his guys would tap, I would untap and smash him.

This is a fine strategy to utilize if you ever have a creature stand off. In today’s Standard, you don’t have creature stand offs that much.

I take a break from testing and Wendy and I go out shopping. I’m finally going to make Cigala! We head down to the local grocery store because they have a nice fish market and we need a bunch of other things as well. When we get there, I suffer a bit of sticker shock.

58.95 a kilo.

That’s in Euros. Considering a Euro is worth 1.33 dollars, that’s $78 a kilo.

A kilo is 2.2 pounds.

I’m used to paying $9.95 a pound for lobster. Cigala is $35 a pound.

Ouch.

Wendy suggests we head to another market to check the prices there. We pick up the other things we need at the store and head across town to the other market. A collection of little stands all independently owned. They have meat stands, vegetable stands, fish stands, olive stands, and all manner of things. Mostly fish and meat and veggies though. We find a very nice vendor who has Cigala for 48.95 a kilo. On the walk over I made peace with the price of Cigala. I remind myself that at home I regularly spent a hundred bucks on lobster dinners for family and friends. I get us a kilo (eight of the little buggers), and we head home.

I’m very excited.

Long story shorter – The Cigala is delicious, but it suffers from the same problem as crab. Not enough meat for too much work. (I’m not talking King Crab here, just normal crab.) The tails have a fair amount of meat in them, but after six claws and almost enough meat to fill a tablespoon, we both give up on the claws and just eat the tails.

While delicious, there is a large empty hole in the place where our dinner is supposed to be.

I cook up a frozen pizza, Wendy defrosts some shrimp. We watch the Departed. It is insane. Insanely funny. Insanely clever. Insanely involving. Very entertaining. The ending is borderline lame. Nah. That’s too kind. The ending was lame.

Just a point of interest. Sometimes when you eat Spanish food, you get a nice crunch in the inside of your mouth, and then a feeling like a tooth has just broken. In Spain, it’s quite all right for the chef to mix in items that need to be dissected before you eat them, into food that should all go into your mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

Today’s pizza is ham, mushrooms, and black olives.

I take a bite of pizza and get that lovely Spanish crunch and wince.

The black olives aren’t pitted.

See, that just baffles me. And it is so typical. They expect you to be eating pizza, stop, set the pizza down, peel the olive, and then go back to eating. It’s the same with a few things I’ve found. Paella is like that. Paella is a bit like Chinese pork fried rice, but with saffron and a host of flavors in it. Like muscles. Chicken. Cigala. But see, the chicken isn’t chicken pieces, its chicken wings. So in the middle of a nice soft forkful of rice, you suddenly find a chicken wing, pull it out of your mouth, set your fork aside and eat the chicken off it, and put the bone on the side. The muscles still have the shell with them. The Cigala isn’t Cigala meat, it’s the whole thing. Shell and all, mixed right into the rice.

I find this baffling.

The next morning, I work on Ghostway Timbermare some more and eventually just ditch the Timbermare. Not once in all my testing have I been able to win a game by casting Ghostway or Momentary Blink at the end of the turn and having it have a significant effect on my opponent blocking my creatures.

There is an IPA Qualifier at 3:00 Madrid time that gets a hundred people.

This is what I played.

Boreal Druids and Llanowar Elves. I might have to remove these guys from all my decks and replace them with Search for Tomorrow and Wall of Roots or something. It’s very rare they speed me up enough to get past counters and they swing for very little. They also can’t get by a Desert on their own and lose to everything in combat. And if you commit with them, you’re just a prime target for Wrath and Damnation and Pyroclasm. And if you don’t commit with them, then why run them? Signets just seem better. All my opponents seem to be playing Signets, I might move to them too. Much less vulnerable. Of course, then I have to remove all my Slivers and Stomphowler but that rant comes later.

Saffi Eriksdotter was fantastic all day. Loved her.

Wood Elves – Loved them. Thinned a lot of land out of my deck, helped with color consistency, worked wonders with Ghostway.

Carven Caryatid – While good against aggro decks, the amount of aggro decks out there is infinitesimal, making these less than ideal. They might as well be Urza’s Bauble in today’s Standard. You play them, they draw you a card.

Harmonic Sliver – Fantastic. Wish I had ten of them in the deck.

Loxodon Hierarch – Everyone loves the elephant and it’s easy to see why.

Calciderm – These were good, but not great. Yes, big and scary, and with a well-timed Ghostway they can ignore the fading effect. Not a combo you want to rely on though. While it was nice to have them as proof against Repeal and Sudden Death and a host of other things, they took the place of Indrik Stomphowlers at the last minute. They seemed beefier. They could stop Dunerider Outlaw. They came out a turn earlier. They were scary when I faced them on the other side of the table. I wondered how badly I would miss having more artifact and enchantment destruction though. Honestly, I love smashing all the crutches all the colors rely on. Another reason I am drawn to Green. I like being able to ignore Worship and smash Signets.

Leyline of Lifeforce – Look, I just want to play my game. Let my sh** hit the board, okay?

Scragnoth – C’mon. We know what the most powerful color, most powerful creature and the most powerful deck in Standard is right now. Sure he doesn’t do anything against Skeletal Vampire, but he does a lot versus counters and Teferi.

Venerable Monks should be more Aven Riftwatchers, but none of the bots I checked had any.

Chameleon Blur…

Him – “Dragonstorm!”
Me – Chameleon Blur!
Him – Pouty Face.
Me – Wrath!
Him – Concede.

Yeah, I’m sure I’ll have both Chameleon Blur and Wrath in my hand to make this work. But I have no other ideas versus Dragonstorm.

Lets get to it shall we?

Match 1 – Blink Riders

Game 1 – Remember that I don’t know what he is playing. I open to a one-land two-elf hand. Which isn’t bad unless he has, oh, Darkblast, or Shock or Funeral Charm or Javelineers or… or… or… I mulligan into a nice four-land hand. I have no early pressure, but I keep.

My opponent starts off with Double Ancestral Vision, and I think maybe I should add in some Durkwood Baloth. Because, you know, a vanilla 5/5 is just as good as drawing three cards right? Not. I look at those Ancestral Visions and think, “man, do I hate Blue.” They’re like the rich jocks in bad teen movies that drive Porsches, date the cheerleaders, and spit on the Durkwood Baloths of the world.

Anyway, I have no early pressure and he plays Stone Rain, Avalanche Riders, Blink, Blink, Flashback Blink, etc. I die with five lands in the graveyard, two Vitu-Ghazi on the board, and a hand full of fat. Meanwhile he’s discarding from ten cards thanks to his Ancestrals.

Game 2 is a “Temple Garden, Vitu-Ghazi, two Elf” draw.

His draw is Ruins of Trokair, Boom it killing your Temple.

On turn 4 he’s killed three of my land and I pack it in.

With eight mana elves plus Wood Elves plus Ghostway, I’m not sure how tough this match up should be for me, but I never had a chance. I’d like to think his draws were exceptional.

Match 2 – MGA.

Wrath is pretty good against MGA. Take it from me, I know. Carven Caryatid’s aren’t bad either. Loxodon Hierarch? Also good.

You know what’s good against my deck? Silhana Ledgewalker with a Moldervine Cloak and two Stonewood Invocations. Here’s why.

In game 1 he gets out a Ledgewalker with a Cloak. I have a Hierarch, a Carven Caryatid, and two Elves. He swings, I swing, we all swing for ice swing. I’m at ten, I swing and think that I will Ghostway at the end of his combat step and get another four life from my Loxodon. But see, Ghostway is not Momentary Blink. When he swings, he has another Stonewood Invocation dropping me to one. Now, the problem comes in when I realize that I only have pain lands on the board. I can’t tap them for White. And when I draw a Wood Elf, that doesn’t help either. Can’t untap my Temple Garden. So he takes the first one.

I side out my Saffi Eriksdotter and side in some Venerable Monks.

I get the god draw of Forest, Forest, Plains, Elf, Elf, Carven, and Loxodon. Then I rip Ghostway and Wrath of God.

Did you know that if you Ghostway at the very end of your opponent’s turn, your creatures don’t come back into play until the end of your turn? Well, it’s true. See, this is why I play test a deck so much. I never would have known that if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

Watch this wet dream of a sequence.

MLGreen plays Loxodon Hierarch.

Now I’m at 21.

Turn 3: randompal.
randompal plays Blanchwood Armor targeting Silhana Ledgewalker.
Turn 4: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays Brushland.
MLGreen plays Llanowar Elves.

Three mana open for my trickiness at the end of turn.

Turn 4: randompal.
randompal plays Forest.
randompal plays Llanowar Elves.

Thank You.

randompal plays Llanowar Elves.

Thank You.

MLGreen plays Ghostway.
Turn 5: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays Wrath of God.

All your stuff goes away. Remember that whole thing I said earlier about removing the elves? Yeah. Picture perfect right there.

MLGreen plays triggered ability from Ghostway.

I get back 2 Elves and –

MLGreen plays triggered ability from Carven Caryatid.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Loxodon Hierarch.
Turn 5: randompal.
randompal has conceded from the game.
Playback finished… Exiting

I decide it might be a good idea to add in a couple more cards from my sideboard. I don’t think I’ll need them, but maybe.

He starts out with a turn 2 Silhana Ledgewalker, turn 4 Moldervine Cloak. My Harmonic Sliver kills it. He sacrifices a draw to get it back and this was a wise dredge. Two forests go into his bin and he has plenty. A couple turns of beatings then I play a Venerable Monk times two on one turn and go up to 14. He puts me down to six, plays another Ledgewalker, and end of his combat I Ghostway.

Watch this.

MLGreen plays triggered ability from Ghostway.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Carven Caryatid.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Wood Elves.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Harmonic Sliver targeting Moldervine Cloak.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Carven Caryatid.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Venerable Monk.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Venerable Monk.

When my spells are allowed to resolve, this deck is a beating.

I attack reducing him low.

He attacks with everything.

MLGreen plays Chameleon Blur.
randompal has conceded from the game.
Playback finished… Exiting

I giggle a lot.

Match 3 – Dralnu.

So annoying.

Game 1 – You know the deal. Counter this. Counter that. Counter everything. When you have no cards in hand, tutor for more counters! Can’t have enough counters, you know! Play a Desert for your weenies. Play Teferi and win.

Game 2 – I get opening draw Leyline and play it. But, since he’s playing Blue he just tutors for Teferi, then tutors for Skeletal Vampire and creates an army of bats to block everything I throw at him. Since Teferi is in play, I can’t even play cool Ghostway combat tricks.

Yes, it does annoy me that you can add Teferi to an infinitely long list of Blue creatures that break a format. You know, because Blue is supposed to get great creatures. I suppose that’s fair because they need them to back up their awful selection of support mechanics. And already Vesuvan Shapeshifter is proving to be the best creature in TSP block and will be around to annoy us for years.

It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s Running Day. I decide to drop from the tournament and come back and get some more games to report on in an eight-man, or the practice room. I’m out of it anyway.

Madrid is experiencing its own mini ice age at the moment and its 40 degrees out when we start. With a 20 mile an hour wind blowing in our faces.

I love running in the cold. Makes me feel alive. Makes me feel like a Norseman. I’m wearing sweats and a Superman T-Shirt. Sure it’s a bit cold walking to the starting point, but after a hundred yards of running I’m warm as toast and smiling. Just the thing I need after a 1-2 drop in a 101-person tournament.

Disaster Week continues when, on the way home, a nagging injury resurfaces and Wendy pulls a muscle in her calf, and we have to limp home for thirty minutes. It’s weird going from being cold, to warming up, then being cold again for thirty minutes, then climbing five flights of stairs.

I sit at the computer and can’t even type, my hands are so numb. And my arms feel like someone slept on them for eight hours. I recover in about half an hour.

We make some spaghetti for dinner and watch “The Professional.” No not that crappy Sylvester Stallone film, that was “The Specialist” and it was awful. No, this was one of the first movies Natalie Portman did, and you could tell she was going to be a big star even at this young age. The first time I saw this the one overriding thought through the movie was “that girl is going places.”

Ranked 63 on the IMDB top 250 movies of all time, it is something you should check out. The fascinating interplay between a hit man divorced from society and the girl he is forced to adopt when her entire family is wiped out by a drug deal gone bad. Not your average film, but masterfully done. Wendy had never seen it and I brought it from home to show her. She thought it was beautiful. [That’s “Leon” for the UK readers out there, and it’s currently #39 in the IMDB Top 250. – Craig.]

We retire early for some reason. I get up at 9am (also very early for us) and go check out what won the IPA Qualifier.

Why is it I hate Blue so much?

I don’t know; let’s take a look at the first turn plays of each player in the Top 8.

O_Schmidt plays Island.
Fabian plays Steam Vents.
topdeck_cn plays Island.
The Electric Factory plays Island.
Scabs plays Watery Grave.
Dentinho plays Island.
limitedacco plays Island.
jurda plays Watery Grave.

I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. A one-time occurrence. I’m sure the next time there’s a hundred person tournament, the Top 8 will all have first turn Forest plays. Or first turn Plains. All eight of them.

Sure.

I stubbornly enter an eight-man and lose in the first round to Blue/Red Wildfire. Repeal your guy, draw a card. Remand your guy, draw a card. Electrolyze two Elves, draw a card.

And people wonder why I drink in the morning.

(Just a joke, people.)

Enough with the Elves. I make some changes and make the deck into this.

Which reminds me of a common problem Green has. It likes to destroy artifacts and enchantments, but it needs those very things to combat its enemies. There’s a lot of synergy with Teferi plus counterspells plus search plus all creatures can now be searched for since they all have flash. There’s not so much synergy with Gaea’s Anthem and Harmonic Sliver or Indrik Stomphowler. Not so much synergy with Viridian Shaman and Umezawa’s Jitte. And looking at the list, you can see that if I’m going to side in Leyline of Lifeforce, probably the Slivers or the Stomphowlers need to come out. And, with 3 Vitu Ghazi and no Anthem to pump up the tokens, they’re just more Desert fodder.

Hence, the Veteran Armorer.

Notice this version has more two-drops, no Elves, and should be more aggressive versus the Blue/x control decks.

Match 1 with the new deck – Mono-Black Discard Rack.

Did you know that when a second Harmonic Sliver comes into play you get to destroy two artifacts or enchantments? And if you Ghostway them, you get to destroy four? His Bad Moons and Racks go away.

Game 2 he gets out a third turn Hypnotic specter. I just keep playing 3/3s and 4/4s, and he starts blocking with the three hypnotics he has on the board. An easy 2-0. Hell, I’m starting to think this might be a good deck if Blue didn’t exist.

Match 2 – Mono-Blue Control.

Repeal your Watchwolf.
Repeal your Watchwolf.
Remand your Loxodon.
Rune Snag your Loxodon.
Mana Leak your Watchwolf, Remand your Saffi.

I’ve done nothing to him and he has 7 cards in hand. He plays two morph guys and I’m locked down.

I side in 4 Scragnoth 4 Leyline. (This means I side out my Harmonic and Stomphowler.) I see neither of them in my opening hand.

He plays a third turn Phyrexian Ironfoot.

*sigh*

He plays a morph guy and I Wrath. He plays another one and I realize that even when Scragnoth hits the board I won’t be able to untap him. I start to play some guys and he starts to counter and Repeal and Remand and Think Twice. After he Repeals a Watchwolf twice and then Cancels it, I concede. I’ve had enough. I’m sick of getting Time Walked while my opponent draws cards for it.

I need some burn. Next time someone Thinks Twice at the end of my turn, I’m going to Char them. Let them Think Twice about that.

Next week, Green/Red Timbermare.

Jamie