Squirrels and 2HG
As a longtime follower of the power of Green, I should know better than to underestimate the power of Mother Nature. Let me tell you a bit about my battle with squirrels. I’ve got two small kids – Anna Marie who’s 6, and Aaron who’s 4½ (can’t forget the ½, don’tcha know). We live in a neighborhood that’s surrounded on two sides by pretty extensive woods, and as such we get a fair amount of birds, squirrels, and other critters and varmints, some of which are annoying, but most being relatively benign. Watching squirrels and birds frolic about in the back yard is fun to do, and is particularly fascinating to kids. Being the good dad I try to be, I’ve tried to encourage the wildlife to frolic where we can see them from the sliding glass door that leads from our family room to the patio. The kids (and our cats) dig it.
We had a bird feeder that stayed out there most of the summer and part way through the winter. It was a cheap, black plastic thing that hung from the tree branch on a string that finally broke a month back. I assumed it broke due to being cheap string eventually wearing out due to the weather, cold rain, wind and such, so I went out and got a new cheap plastic bird feeder (this time a pleasant shade of light blue). It took me around a week to get around to replacing it, and as an apology to the birds, I bought the more expensive “Seed and Fruit” birdseed mix. I filled the new feeder up with the good stuff and went back to the routine.
The next day, the feeder was lying on the ground, completely empty of the Seed and Fruit mix. Initially I thought the wind must have blown it from the branch, but examining the carnage, I noticed the string that held the feeder had been conspicuously gnawed through.
Those tree rats!
The thing that drives me nuts is that I actually feed them too! I’ve this little gizmo that hangs off another tree and holds a dried ear of corn for them to nibble on, convenient to human and cat eyes on the other side of the glass. Apparently the grass was greener on the other feeder.
If the bird feeder hadn’t only cost $4 I probably would have been a little angrier, but instead I decide to go out and actually invest in a decent bird feeder. I truck down to Lowe’s Hardware and head in, resisting the intoxicating smell of grilled sausages wafting from the Dominic’s kiosk out front. Really, how evil is that place? There’s nothing like going to the local home improvement warehouse to get the testosterone flowing, feeling all manly and handy, and BAM! Your olfactory senses get flooded with grilled meat. $7 frickin’ cholesterol and sodium-soaked grilled meat that jacks directly into the Neanderthal in all us males. Do they do this sort of thing all over the country or is it a special torment for my region?
Anyway, shaking my head to clear the primal instincts and wiping the drool away, I make my way to the bird feeders. I briefly eye the Anti-Squirrel bird feeder, but between its $45 price tag and the fact that the small tree that holds our bird feeder won’t likely be able to hold its girth, I look a little down the price range. I end up settling on a $12 brass and glass number that’s attractive, sturdy, and hangs by a metal hook instead of string. I set the thing up in the back yard with much of the remaining Seed and Fruit goodness, shake my fist at wherever the squirrels are lurking, and march off into the house.
The next morning after showering I glance out the window at the back yard and notice two squirrels chowing down on Seed and Fruit goodness from the new bird feeder. It’s still hanging there, and one squirrel is dangling upside down from the branch above, and the other is hanging on the lip with his paws and doing chin-ups to grab mouthfuls of chow. I notice a half dozen birds on branches nearby, all of them looking at the feeder and obviously waiting for the tree rats to finish their business.
Since much of the bird feeder is glass, I also notice that most of the Seed and Fruit very expensive birdseed is nearly gone.
With my sweats on, and my feet bare across the frozen grass, I thunder outside, bellowing at the squirrels who only glance at me until I’m nearly within an arm’s distance before they scramble away and leap to the trees in another neighbor’s yard. I go to the shed and retrieve the bag of bird seed, and fill up the feeder with the remainder in the hopes that the birds (some of whom are still waiting patiently despite the ruckus) will get at least some of it before the pillaging rodents return. By the time I return home from work, the bird feeder is empty, and birds are pecking away at the ground looking for scraps.
The final solution was again gotten at Lowe’s (and this time I could not resist Dominic’s and had to scarf some Italian sausage… mmm, meat! Money no concern…). I find a shepherd’s hooked pole that stands about 6½ feet tall and plant it in the yard away from the trees. It’s metal and relatively narrow, and my hope is that even climbers as skilled as squirrels won’t be able to scale a metal pole.
As of this morning, the bird feeder (now sporting a half and half mix of regular bird seed and the good stuff) is only ¼ down, and neither I, my wife, nor Anna Marie or Aaron has seen a squirrel successfully climb the pole. I watched one squirrel try it for about 5 minutes, and laughed and laughed as he kept sliding down, and then would stand on his hind legs looking longingly up at the bird feeder. I’d won!
This morning, I watched a squirrel dashing away into another yard, an ear of dried corn in his mouth, to go eat in private somewhere away from the prying eyes of the Smith house. He’d somehow figured out how to get the corn out of the “squirrel feeder” that now hung empty and lonely against the tree. I couldn’t help but shake my head at the futility.
So what did my squirrel story have to do with Magic? Nothing really, other than it evoked a bit of the same feeling – you plan and plan for something, and fate, nature, or other forces just knock you off course. Last week I talked about my Two-Headed Giant debacle, and that all my preparation for the new Draft portion was all for naught. However, I did gain a little satisfaction in knowing that I had passed on some wisdom to one team that made it: First and most importantly, you have wiggle room for hate drafting! Second, draft mana fixers high. Zack was rushing to get to the draft table, so I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that the most important nugget of wisdom didn’t stick, as evident in the email I got below. Still, Daniel and Zack did well again this year (we faced off in the semi finals last year), and they deserve mad props for taking it nearly all the way. I wanted to share their email below as a post-script for any of those still looking to read up on Two-Headed Giant stuff:
Daniel: “Hey Bennie! This is Daniel Sale, Zack Jesse’s partner for the 2HG tournament this last weekend. Our team was "The Awesomes" and we went 5-1-1 to make Top 4. I just caught your article on StarCityGames.com and thought you might be interested to hear how the finals went.
“We drew raffle tickets for pairings, we were hoping to pull anyone but Shaheen’s team "Totally Awesome." As luck would have it, we dodged them and ended up passing to them in pack 1. Just after seating, Zack leans over and says to me "Bennie says mana fixers are great for our draft… other than that, let’s stick to the plan." The plan, of course, being to take the most powerful (two!) cards from the pack and worry about deck construction when we get there.
“I don’t recall our draft picks verbatim, but there were definitely a few standouts. Out of the first pack we opened Wurmcalling and Tromp the Domains, and in the last pack of Time Spiral, Shaheen’s team passed us a pack with some ridiculous bombs. Vesuvan Shapeshifter, Brine Elemental, and Verdeloth the Ancient. We were honestly a little confused about the logic in passing a Shapeshifter, but were happy to receive the gift and reviewed our picks going into Planar Chaos.
“It was pretty clear we had a Blue base for one of the decks, and a Green base with double Tromp for the other. PC showed us some love right off the bat with a Torchling, Shaper Parasite, and Pouncing Wurm. We really wanted the Pouncing Wurm, but with the Vesuvan Shapeshifter in tow, it was an obvious choice. A passed Ana Battlemage in the first PC pack was a very welcome sight for the Tromp deck.
“Then something unexpected came around… We fan out the next 11, and Oros the Avenger is staring back up at us. Heartbreaking. We don’t have a deck to fit him in. Looking back on it, we really should have hate-drafted this card out right then and there (Gah!!! – Bennie). I don’t recall exactly what we took instead; I remember something about “Citanul Woodreaders for card advantage” blah blah blah. This was an obvious mistake in our draft, one that obviously comes from our inexperience with the draft format.”
Bennie: See, prior to the tournament, we spent an entire afternoon cracking product and considering options with deck construction. Some local playtesting, and we were set to go. Do I wish we’d done some more homework on the draft format? Sure I do, but it’s certainly not the end of the world. How about those deck lists?
Creatures (12)
- 1 Verdeloth the Ancient
- 1 Greenseeker
- 1 Scryb Ranger
- 1 Sporesower Thallid
- 1 Thallid Shell-Dweller
- 2 Viscid Lemures
- 1 Ana Battlemage
- 1 Citanul Woodreaders
- 1 Giant Dustwasp
- 1 Pallid Mycoderm
- 1 Pouncing Wurm
Lands (17)
Spells (10)
Creatures (17)
- 1 Aetherflame Wall
- 1 Crookclaw Transmuter
- 1 Dream Stalker
- 1 Goblin Skycutter
- 1 Sage of Epityr
- 1 Slipstream Serpent
- 1 Tolarian Sentinel
- 1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
- 3 Viscerid Deepwalker
- 1 Prodigal Pyromancer
- 2 Shaper Parasite
- 1 Stingscourger
- 1 Torchling
- 1 Veiling Oddity
Lands (17)
Spells (6)
Daniel: “Not the most sleek combat machine, but with a Shapeshifter / Parasite creature lock and the Thallid / Tromp from the other side, it seemed like we were in for an amazing run at the title.
“Round 1 we played some guys I hadn’t seen at the big tournaments before; still, they made it this far, so I had confidence in their ability to deal the big 30. They were seated behind us during deck construction, and it sounded like they were having a tough time deciding exactly where some of their cards would go. We ended up besting them with a meager 3 life points left, and walked over to check out the remainder of our opponents match. We did glean a bit of information from the match, knowing which deck has the fatties and the removal spells were coming from was quite an advantage to say the least.”
Bennie: Let’s just say that ‘no time limit’ on the finals can be a blessing in disguise. While the turns weren’t particularly drawn out, their match took a full 25 minutes longer than ours.
Daniel: “Finally, at 9:35, a full 12 hours after we arrived to register, we shuffled up for the final match of the day. Our opponents would be none other than "Totally Awesome."
Bennie: The Awesomes versus Totally Awesome. You can’t make this stuff up my friend.
Daniel: “They started off on the aggro plan with a Gossamer Phantasm and Spinneret Sliver. Turns out a flashed Scryb Ranger is the Phantasm’s natural predator, and things were starting to look up. An Ana Battlemage with Blue kicker was able to sweep 3 of 4 cards from a mana-screwed opponent. End of turn Snapback and we were able to kick him again to target their 2nd head. This saw them discard Oros, the Avenger and we figured we dodged the bullet, until they top decked Teneb, the Harvester to steal their second legend from the graveyard. Like a bad NES game, their Double Dragons were out to ruin our day. Our only hope: Verdeloth the Ancient, enchanted with Undying Rage. We topdeck Erratic Mutation and Dawn Charm. What to do? Go for the Alpha Strike! When the blockers are done being declared, Verdeloth the Ancient (6/9) is the only guy left unblocked. Perfect. Erratic Mutation hits Verdeloth, what do we flip? Slipstream Serpent. Verdeloth is now a stunning 14/1, and certainly big enough to deal them the final 10. Sounds too good to be true? It was. Our opponents flip up their Fortune Thief and it seems our fate is sealed. They fall to 1 and we are forced to pass the turn. They strike with enough damage to be lethal, but Dawn Charm saves the day. We hit the draw phase, hoping to get Feebleness from my top and burn from Zack’s side. The draw? Forest, Island. Time to shake hands.
“You see, those big top deck moments aren’t just reserved for the Craig Jones of the world. They can happen to you too. But you have to leave yourself open to the possibility that it will come. Were we lucky to flip the Slipstream Serpent to gain lethal damage? Sure. Is it possible that the next draw was burn and removal? Sure. That’s why I love this game. You just don’t know what your deck is going to provide you with.”
Thanks for the mini-report, Daniel!
Harvest Green
I mentioned this deck two weeks back, and ended up skipping talking about it last week because things drug on a little long. Now, if you’ve been reading my columns, you know how much I’ve been grooving on Saffi Eriksdotter, and I’ve had a lot of fun with the G/W deck I’ve talked about here before. Since Planar Chaos came out, I’ve added black to the deck for Teneb, the Harvester. I thought Saffi and Loxodon Hierarch was a match made in heaven? Make way for polyamory, Magic-style: Saffi, Hierarch, and the big H are a threesome love-fest. It’s been through a few incarnations as it’s evolved from the original G/W version, but here’s how it looks currently:
Creatures (31)
- 3 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Loxodon Hierarch
- 4 Ohran Viper
- 4 Saffi Eriksdotter
- 3 Scryb Ranger
- 3 Spectral Force
- 3 Necrotic Sliver
- 3 Teneb, the Harvester
Lands (22)
Spells (7)
The mana is a work in progress, especially with Sudden Death in the mix (thank God for Ravnica mana!), but I got a page in a notebook full of ratios and equations from last night that suggest this mana mix works okay, and ten test hands seem to prove it out.
Saffi plays a crucial role in this deck. She jumps out there early, and then plays the fall guy for the larger creatures you play afterwards. She teams up with Hierarch to regenerate your team and then pop back into play for another 4-point life boost. She makes sure your Spectral Force doesn’t fall prey to silly removal spells like Mortify or Wrath of God. She does the same thing for Teneb… but the Big H doesn’t just take the love, he gives it back, bringing Saffi from the grave for some more tag-team action.
Glare of Subdual was recently added to the deck, since you want to connect with your opponent’s life totals directly with Ohran Viper and Teneb… and we are running Scryb Rangers too.
I nearly took this deck to Friday Night Magic recently, but ended up running the new Dredge deck and winning the thing (which I talked about last week). My buddy Jay Delazier didn’t register in time to play in the tournament, but he played a bunch of side games with the deck, and then played it some more between rounds at the 2HG Champs, so I thought I’d let him chime in with his thoughts on the deck. Jay has long been a skeptic to my love of Saffi, so I was pleased to find he’d changed his mind after running her.
Jay: “Well, the first thing that people are going to think is that Teneb is a "win more" card. That’s what I first thought when I looked at him. I mean, he’s a 6/6 gigantical monster with evasion. Those guys win games. But people are playing decks that can race that kid. His reanimation ability is clutch on stupid elephants for racing aggro and it’s awesome for reanimating Saffi against wrath decks. Does the addition of glare make him less relevant in the aggro match up? Most likely. Is there a better anti-Wrath option? Possibly. Is he the right middle of the road option? Might be.
“I’m still not sure that I’m playing Saffi right. I mean, you don’t want her out there by herself because she can’t do her tricks, but you don’t want to play your large monster first because then he’s not protected. I can say that it feels very dominating to have Saffi plus Hierarch with W/G open. It’s an invincible feeling. Not quite an "I just drank 4 pints of 20 year old Scottish whisky" invincible, but it might be close. She’s going to be very strong in the coming months with Damnation being the big dog on the porch.
“The Sudden Deaths felt very forced when I played the deck. They’re really only there to kill Teferi, and they’re the best available card for the job, and you can feel that when you draw them. It’s like "Hey, I can kill Teferi. Oh… they’re playing MGA… guess I’ll crush a Groundbreaker?" It’s probably a necessary evil, but it feels wrong. This doesn’t even have anything to do with the prohibitive BB1 cost. Perhaps the new manabase will make it more castable, but I don’t think it will help shake the greasy "hold me for Teferi" feeling. The card needs to be there, but doesn’t feel right.
“BTW, Spectral Force is just good in any deck. I’m not sure if you knew that or not. Like real good. Like "Why aren’t there four in this deck?" good.”
Thanks, Jay! Yeah, I concur that the Sudden Deaths feel awkward, but it seems the best maindeck tool available for a deck with black in it to fight against Teferi and Dralnu that is also helpful against other decks. I also agree the Spectral Forces are just nuts, and I could see reversing the cut I made to squeeze and extra Necrotic Sliver into the mix. Anyway, the deck has some powerful synergies and demonstrates the power of Saffi Eriksdotter even to skeptics, so give it a whirl and let me know what you think. I hope to take this beast to a Friday Night Magic soon, and I’ll let you all know how it goes.
Until next week!
Bennie