You ever notice that there are distinct sets of people? Movies are filled with them, but so is your life. There are people that I have met that I can point to as being cast from the same mold as people I knew years ago. Same idiosyncrasies. Same prejudices and fears. Same body shape and hair style. A slight tweaking of the facial features and voila. A new Magic card. I mean, person. It’s like God had adopted Wizards’s card design scheme centuries before they came up with it.
Like me. Today I’m fixing a computer in a class and the teacher references me. “Look at Jamie. He went to college, learned about computers and see how it’s benefited him?”
I chuckled. Who was I to correct her in front of her whole class and tell her I went to college for writing. Invalidating her whole example of why these kids should also go to college. In front of her whole class. I’d explain it to her later.
“Jamie regularly plays the hero around here. Keeping us up and running so we can continue to function. Although, he usually depicts this with a Superman shirt. No Superman shirt today?”
“Nope. Today is Ninja Shirt day.”
And I turn around so she can see the immense Higure, the Still Wind that covers my back.
“Oooh Ninja Day!” she says.
Yeah. I wonder what mold I came out of. Tech guy. Geeky Shirt. Pasty skin. Plays Magic and computer games and is slowly picking up more and more poker. Not like I’m stereotypical or anything.
I remember at every Pro Tour I’ve been to swapping stories at the tables about what people do for a living while we wait for the round to start. Everyone at my table and nearly everyone surrounding us is always involved in IT in some way.
Speaking of Magic, I’ve been playing a lot of it lately. I’ve been trying to get back into WoW, but it’s just not taking. Magic every night. Experimenting with different decks and different formats I never thought I would enjoy.
Oddly enough, I’m in love with Affinity. It’s not very popular anymore so it’s okay for me to play it. And I wasn’t playing when it was popular and a Standard deck type. So it’s all new to me. Hell, I’m a rogue for playing Affinity so few people play it any more.
Of course, I’m playing a bad Green version of it with Predator’s Strike so if they block, they still die! I love that. The deck feels very Green even if you don’t play any Green spells. Its fantastic to play out your whole hand and have an 11/2 Ornithopter on the board by turn 3.
And then you turn him sideways.
Yeah. I’ll say I love it.
I love it!
You know what single card won me more games play-testing Affinity last night?
Jitte.
Busted in every format.
Have been playing a lot of Vanguard and did a lot of testing Friday night and Saturday morning because there was a 4x Vanguard tournament at noon on Saturday.
Before your eyes roll back in your head, and you start skipping ahead, please listen to what I have to say about Vanguard. If you play Magic Online, there isn’t a whole lot that smells fresh going on for the next six weeks until Ravnica is released. Vanguard is a fascinating and fun format to explore while your waiting for something exciting to be programmed for late October. And the tournaments are always at least 2x prizes.
The big decks in Vanguard right now are the weenie dragon reanimator decks utilizing the new Hell’s Caretaker Avatar which lets you spend three to sac a creature and return one from your graveyard to play. They have about a hundred different ways to get the nut high draw. Lots of mana acceleration including Elves and Moxen. Tons of discard effects and even draw a card, discard a card wizards. So they get either Platinum Angel, Kokusho, or Yosei in the graveyard and a weenie on the board, and every turn for three mana can recurse them. You either get a ten-point life swing or you never get another turn.
The other big deck is Blue Tron utilizing Prodigal Sorcerer Avatar. He allows you to look at the top card of your library during your upkeep. And put it in your graveyard if you so choose. So, its card selection every turn is enhanced even more. Assembling the Tron is simple when you have two cards to choose from every turn.
In my testing with “Comes into Play Tapped” Vanguard Edition, I found that one way of beating the Hell’s Caretaker decks was just to kill everything they put on the board. They can put all the weenies on the board they want. But as long as they can’t keep them alive, they can’t sac them to get a huge fattie into play.
Comes into play Tapped also did great against Blue Tron. Reducing them to low life and then just saving up burn to finish them off.
But it failed miserably against other creature decks. Raksha Cub, the favorite of White Weenies everywhere, gives all equipped creatures first strike, and all creatures +0 +1, which makes it damn near impossible to kill with low toughness attackers.
Akroma also starts the player at 28 life, and then randomly grants Pro Red. Again, almost impossible for a speed Red burn deck to defeat.
My tests over two days conclusively proved that Joshie Green with Akroma was my best deck and I entered that in a special 4x Vanguard tournament. With a few changes, once I understood the format better. Modified because some cards become worse with the ability to gain 2 random abilities, and some cards become better. Like, you don’t really need Matsu-Tribe Snipers in the board when a number of your Beacon tokens will have flying. Don’t need any big guys to block Red since some of your guys will inevitably have Pro Red. Don’t need anything in the board to gain life vs Burn since you start with 28 life. Don’t need to worry about land quite so much since you start with 8 cards in hand.
I went 5-2 in the seven rounds making Top 16 and got 9 packs. Games I lost were to Mono Blue Tron with Prodigal Sorcerer.
Top 16 out of 140+ isn’t too bad.
Then Rogue Designer wins a 24-person tourney with it the next week.
And tonight, I’m playing in a twenty-four person Vanguard tourney and am 2-0. More on that in a minute.
My Type Two Green deck fluctuates, but in an opposing matchup, my opponent reminded me why Blanchwood Armor and Predator’s Strike were good.
The trouble is that Green has Shite all for one-drops. Against Blue there’s no way to put pressure on them and they can start countering spells on their second turn, even first with the sodders that run Mox. My sideboard for Blue is 4 Disenchant and even with 12 anti-artifact, Isao and Troll, I still lose 80% of the time vs any Blue deck.
I went up to 4 Viridian Shaman and never have to target my own Jitte. Everyone is running massive amounts of artifacts. Even WW is running Dampening Matrix in the main.
I’m also working on Black/Green Kamigawa and Type Two with the full [censored] complement of Top, Sakura, Reach, and then add in a dash of Eradicate, Dragons and Isao. And I’m addicted to Hondens like a junkie addicted to smack. I know they suck. I know I lose 50% more when I add the Black and Green Hondens to my deck, but I keep returning to it! I keep trying to make it work.
My mind refuses to fathom why getting two guys a turn and making my opponent discard every turn is bad. Especially when supported by Dragons, Isao, Eradicate, and Top.
I just don’t get it.
I’ll just keep banging my head against the wall until I either fall over bleeding or make it work I guess.
When I started writing this, Joshie Green was in a slump. I started experimenting with ways to make it better, and experimenting with some of the returning cards in Ninth. One of them in particular caught my eye.
You know what “Pay GGGG during your upkeep” says to me?
It says “Protection from Shackles.” Force of Nature refuses to be Shackled. Nothing can restrain him!
Remember how I said earlier that an opponent reminded me why Blanchwood and Predator’s Strike were good? Well, it’s really the trample on a huge fattie that’s good. And what’s huger than a Force of Nature? And didn’t I have great success with Iwamori over the past six months? And why is it I’m not using Kodama of the North Tree again? (Oh yeah, because Jitte + Kodama <> a combo.)
With those three creatures in mind, Tramplampler was born. A deck that is struggling to reach maturity. But probably won’t be able to move out of the house and pay its own upkeep until Mirroden rotates out. Once its more mature, I’ll be happy to share a decklist.
From that testing came the realization of how good Force of Nature was in the current format. A format consumed by islands and seas. And opposing mountains to try and fight them off. Also from that testing came other cards that needed to be added to Joshie Green. Once again, metagame cards that stood on their own, but were powerful against the most prevalent deck in the format.
With literally hundreds of hours of playing, I finally was able to usher in a new Green deck that has taken me to multiple Top 8s, and one second place. (And I took second only because I timed out saying good night to Hilary and Michelle.)
For your approval and online play in the month ahead before Ravnica becomes legal.
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Genju of the Cedars
4 Viridian Zealot
3 Viridian Shaman
3 Isao, Enlightened Bushi
4 Troll Ascetic
2 Arashi, The Sky Asunder
3 Force of Nature
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Blanchwood Armor
23 Forest
Sideboard
4 Zodiac Monkey
3 Naturalize
3 Nourish
3 Might of Oaks
2 Splinter
Now lets move back to Vanguard for a quick online tourney report.
We have an interesting variety of decks here tonight, with two that I had never seen before. One being a Blue White Millstone deck using the Serra Angel Avatar which grants you two life every time you cast a spell. And he has main deck Sun Droplets as well.
After 3 rounds he’s 3-0.
His most interesting matchup I watched was another deck I hadn’t seen using the Erhnam Djinn Avatar. Every time you cast a creature spell, put a 1/1 Saproling token into play. And the player has a horde of Red weenies, including Glitterfang, and Viashino Sandstalker.
The duel I’m watching right now – The Serra player has two Sun droplets on the board with so many red counters its causing the game to freak out.
9:40 !bug! GCar attempting to perform unknown action 269438464 on triggered ability from Sun Droplet570476447,596: pa[]=0.
And the Erhnam player is attacking with twenty creatures.
Some fun I think.
Round one for me.
My first opponent is Draccon136 playing with Prodigal Sorcerer. This usually indicates a Tron deck of the Green or Blue variety, but has been used with every color under the sun.
I keep a hand of Isao, Arashi, and Tel-Jilad Chosen. Those all seem pretty good against Blue Tron. Too bad he’s not playing Blue. Or Tron. In fact, he’s playing Blanchwood Armor Green with Dampening Matrix.
He plays out a couple Llanowar Elves in quick succession, and then a Slith Predator and a Troll Ascetic. Then the Troll Ascetic gets Armored up.
I play out an Isao, who not only can’t be countered, has Bushido two, regenerates, but also gains flying and trample to boot. And then I Armor him up. And he goes all the way because his Troll Ascetic doesn’t trample.
Game two he starts out very strong, again with an Elf, then Shinen of Life’s Roar. Which slows me down considerably. I play out a Jitte, then an Elf and attach it, but he has the Wear Away for the Jitte and the Elf dies to the Roar. I play a Beacon and get four guys with various abilities. He Armors up the Shinen and slaughters them all. The whole time his Shinen is slaughtering my guys, a Troll and an Elf are coming in as well, hitting me for four a turn. I can’t stop the Shinen and he finishes me with a Giant Growth on the Elf.
Game three starts off with me playing a First Striking Protection from Red Chosen. And he plays a Slith, and then Armors it up. I respond with a Troll that gains Vigilance and Pro Red. Very handy.
I’m holding the Wear Away, but he’s too smart for me and won’t attack. So I just use it at the end of his turn to make the Slith a mere 2/2. Which decides to just hang back for a while. On his turn he plays a Shinen and attaches a Jitte to it. I counter with a trampling, hasted Troll Ascetic and Naturalize the Jitte for good measure. I play a Jitte of my own, his turn to Naturalize. I play a Beacon and get an army of guys, all with cool abilities.
Round two I face off against Mungler, with the Goblin Warchief Avatar. He is running White Weenie beatings, but gets one land and concedes on turn 5 to my massive army. An army that includes a flying, first striking Chosen. A vigilant Troll and a first striking Isao.
Game two he gets a much better draw and plays out four fliers who reduce me to tears. I mean, eleven life. Then I channel the Arashi I had been holding since my opening hand and win. The trampling Isao with Armor and Flying Troll don’t hurt either.
Round three is against Pr0ton who is playing the Etched Oracle Avatar. No doubting what colors he’ll be playing. All of them.
The secret to this matchup is usually destroying his mana producing artifacts that give him multiple colors of mana. He plays out a Pentad Prism on turn 3 and I destroy it with a Shaman. But it’s not much good as he lays down the other two colored lands he needs on the next turn and plays Form of the Dragon. I get lucky and immediately top deck a Zealot to destroy it. But very shortly after that he gets out Iname as One using her to fetch a Myojin of Life’s Web. Then he plays Enduring Ideal and Night of Soul’s Betrayal and wrecks a good portion of my gang. Ideal gets him get the things he needs and I eventually concede.
Game two is picture perfect for me. Turn 1 Elf. Turn 2Chosen. Turn 3 Armor. Turn 4 Might of Oaks. Good game.
Game Three is bizarre. He gets out a very fast start putting Iname into play and fetching Myojin of Life’s Web to help block. But he doesn’t attack when he could press the advantage and kill me in a couple turns. It takes me a few turns to realize that he fears the Might of Oaks. The Avatar he’s playing starts him low on life, and a few attacks from me have reduced his life to eleven.
I keep his artifact mana heading to the graveyard every time he plays some, and keep him on Blue, Black, and White mana. And he needs Green.
A couple turns later I draw Beacon, and some of my guys gain flying. Then I Armor up one of them and win.
I draw the next two rounds to make Top 8.
And, as usual, time has run out for me. No, I really mean it this time. There is zero time to finish this up, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to write for a couple of weeks. Maybe a month.
The reason why is in a web link at the end of this article.
I ended up facing Pr0ton in the finals of the tournament, and this time, luck swung his way instead of mine. He took the prize. I took home eighteen packs and immediately sold them to drafters for 50 tickets, which will fund my next couple weeks of Constructed. Well, since I won’t be playing much, my next month of Constructed.
The things to take away from this article are two-fold.
1. Vanguard is massive fun.
2. Joshie Green has changed and is winning again. Please see the decklist above.
Oh yeah, and the explanation of why I won’t be writing for at least a couple of weeks, as well as massive personal stuff you don’t want to read unless you care about well, personal stuff is here:
http://www.jamiewakefield.com/Ovarian.html
Good luck and have fun.
Jamie C. Wakefield