“I’ll have a water please,” I said cheerily.
The young lady behind the counter turned to the refrigerator behind her and pulled a frosty bottle of spring water from it. She smiled as her fingers danced over the register.
“That’ll be $1.89, sir.”
I dug through my wallet for some cash and handed her a few bills. She politely handed me the water.
“There’s your water, sir,” she stated, “and please don’t forget your pulled pork.”
“Of course,” as I snapped to attention. From under the counter she palmed a giant helping of pulled pork and placed it firmly in the center of my hand. It was warm, soft, and dripping with juices.
“Would you like any napkins with that, sir?” she asked.
“Oh no, I’ll be fine!” I told her as I gripped the pork so I wouldn’t drop it. “I still have napkins in the car from just buying a toothbrush. Their pulled pork didn’t smell as good as yours, though.”
I pulled away from the gas station and began my journey to Puckett’s, where I would dine on Smoked Gouda Pulled Pork Mac n’ Cheese. Everything in Franklin, Tennessee was pulled pork. It flowed from the rivers and fell from the skies. My pastries had pulled pork in them. I opened up a pack of Modern Masters 2 and I got a Bitterblossom and a pulled pork slider as my foil.
Tennessee was good for a lot of things. I took time away from Magic and life in general to recharge my batteries and reassess my life and where it’s going. I’m content, but I’m not happy. Upping the ante from a few classes to being a full-time student again is doing a nice job of softening my sharp edges, but damnit if I wasn’t still feeling the intense internal pressure of achieving some level of peace.
I dragged myself to an FNM devoid of pulled pork and sleeved up G/R Devotion. Chris Fennell, one of my Pro Tour teammates, won a rather large tournament with it the week prior so I figured it would be fine.
“I’ll play Polukranos… Monstrous him for 8 and kill your Ojutai and Stormbreath Dragon.”
My opponent slumped in his chair, knowing the game was over.
Oh. Alright. So that’s what happiness feels like.
I won a bunch, but the good feelings didn’t come from winning, they came from playing Magic.
Ding!
There’s a five thousand dollar event popping up a couple of hours from my home this weekend, and for the first time in months I am psyched. Not only is it the first real tournament I’ll have played in since Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir, but my best friend John Dean is busting himself out of jail for a couple of days. Debauchery, crappy early 2000s nu-metal, reliving our childhood road trips… all of these things will be dusted off in celebration of one of the few tournaments we get to play in together in anymore.
Cue up some “Rollin” by Limp Bizkit. [CEDitor’s Note: No.]
You know what time it is. [CEDitor’s Note: No. We don’t.]
To me the format boils down to G/R Devotion as the de facto best deck. Everything revolves around it, and it has game against pretty much everything.
Esper Dragons can fall behind the numerous planeswalkers.
Abzan Aggro can get overwhelmed by multiple large threats.
Atarka Red can get stonewalled by huge creatures and Nylea’s Disciples.
All of this is obviously an above-average expectation, but I found that the deck has a ridiculously high density of above-average draws. Each threat requires several levels of answers, and coincidentally all of the things you play have to be answered immediately or the deck begins to snowball out of control. Several mulligans resulted in turn-four Atarkas or turn-three Whisperwood Elementals on the play. With this deck, parity can be broken by Xenagos and his ultimate. Nissa out of the sideboard decimates so many strategies if you cast her successfully. Genesis Hydra is just ridiculous.
Creatures (32)
- 1 Hornet Queen
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 3 Polukranos, World Eater
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 3 Genesis Hydra
- 4 Rattleclaw Mystic
- 4 Whisperwood Elemental
- 3 Dragonlord Atarka
- 2 Deathmist Raptor
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
The list is pretty close to what Brad Nelson talked about last week, and I believe he is on the right track. Whenever Brad posts a list, the entire format listens because he is, without a doubt, the best Standard player in the world.
One card I’ve been wanting to test out in the maindeck is Nissa, Worldwaker. If the format continues heading in the direction it is pointing, I want to have this heavy-hitting planeswalker in game one – her presence against Esper Dragons and emerging U/B Control decks makes her invaluable.
One card I can see myself losing interest in very quickly is Deathmist Raptor. This deck has a fair amount of ways to gain value from it (Whisperwood Elemental and Rattleclaw Mystic), but it has failed to impress me time and time again.
Almost every part of this deck has a place, and Raptor’s place is being able to grind you back in a game by exploiting its recursion. You want this, but you’ll find yourself sideboarding it out frequently.
One card I’m excited to explore is Shamanic Revelation. G/R Devotion has been performing so well lately that I want a card to break the mirror, which often devolves in to throwing as many haymakers as possible and then following that up with better topdecks once you’re both out of gas. Revelation in this matchup will draw you a ton of cards and put you in an excellent position to win the game when your opponent is out of gas and scrambling to not fall behind.
Barring advice from my bae, Brennan DeCandio, G/R Devotion is the deck I’ll be battling with this weekend. Brennan, however, is usually pretty good at changing my mind.
Bonus Section: Why We Can’t Have Nice Things!
Modern Masters 2 sucks. Tarmogoyf sucks. Vendilion Clique sucks. Primeval Titan sucks. Necropotence sucks. New borders on cards sucks. Jace, the Mind Sculptor sucks. Dark Confidant sucks. Everything sucks. Magic sucks.
Right?
Riiiight?
This weekend I kicked back, relaxed, and played Magic. There was a spoiling of the new versions of Jace, Chandra, and Nissa that leaked.
I won’t delve terribly deep into them until they are verified, but social media went off the rails about how awful they were, how disillusioned they were that these iconic cards are extremely unplayable, and how Wizards has absolutely no idea what they are doing anymore.
Every single time something changes, Magic players reaffirm how terrible it is and how it will eventually be the death of the game. Wizards wants to try something new – tell a story, actually with the new planeswalkers. They show the “before” versions of our classic heroes and villains and the aftermath of their sparks igniting. From a flavor standpoint, they are home runs! Flip cards usually help tell a story, like Huntmaster of the Fells for example.
In this case, Jace appears to be a “looter.” For those of you not familiar with the term, a looter is named after Merfolk Looter: a two-mana creature that taps to let you draw a card and then discard a card. This has always been a strong offering in the right deck from reanimation to control, basically letting you sculpt your hand.
But it’s garbage.
The new Nissa looks like a face we’ve seen before: Borderland Ranger. Where Ranger lets you search for any basic land, Nissa only searches for Forests, but in the kinds of decks you’ll play Nissa in that might be immaterial. The ability becomes a source of card advantage, and hitting your land drops in big-mana decks is how you win most of the time. She flips when you hit seven lands, so making sure you have lands to play is a big deal. This even incentivizes cards like Explosive Vegetation to make a return. Maybe.
But it’s garbage.
Not every card printed is going to be the next big thing. Let’s just get that out of the way so that people understand. Each rare can’t be Tarmogoyf because then Tarmogoyf wouldn’t be so special. Competitive players have this belief that every planeswalker should be a hit or exceptionally powerful at first glance. If they aren’t, they’re scoffed at and called terrible. Wizards is bemoaned for making awful cards that waste player’s time.
But why?
Why is judgment passed on everything that passes through spoiler season with the utmost negativity instead of trying to find ways to make it good?
When preparing for the Pro Tour, my entire team sat around and tried to talk about each card and how it could be good in a certain deck or archetype. No one discredited any strategy or said “yeah, that card sucks” without testing it. Negativity has no place in evaluating cards until it has been proven that it isn’t a good fit. Look at Master of Waves – a card that was unbelievable a year ago, but is now mostly unplayable. A card is good when it’s supposed to be, and it won’t be when it isn’t. The playability of these new planeswalkers isn’t contingent on your first impressions of them, instead it either develops or it doesn’t.
These cards don’t suck. These cards are unexplored and untested.
Instead of focusing your energies on tearing down new cards, try spending it building new decks with them.
Unless you’re content letting other people innovate it first.
As for me? I’m anxious to see how good the new Jace might be… at least because of his namesake.
Time to start loading up my crappy nu-metal playlist.
Give me some suggestions for what to listen to if you have a moment. And no, Cedric. Paramore will not be present for this undertaking.