GP Minneapolis was on my calendar since it was announced. It had been years since Wizards of the Coast had decided to come to the frozen tundra, my home turf: Minneapolis, Minnesota! My crew and I were eager to defend our territory. On top of that, a new Standard format had arrived, and Minneapolis played host to one of its first major events. Steady testing and love for this new Standard format made preparing for this tournament easy and fun.
My love for new and fresh formats is due to my love of innovation, new decks, and a wide-open environment. It’s difficult to achieve this type of environment normally. It requires a huge array of new cards that create new, interesting interactions and possibilities. Avacyn Restored is one of the sets that creates the opportunity to open new doors for deckbuilders.
Naturally, everything was aligned: a new set, a new Constructed format, and a testing crew of individuals eager to try new things and that had the desire to do well. My wife even had a day planned for herself, so I was ready to go. I watched Rounders the week of the tournament, and taking time off from work wasn’t a problem. I went to FNM the night before. My Naya deck performed exceptionally well, like it had for the past few weeks. I came home from the FNM, wrote my decklists, and built a Legacy deck for some side event action just in case. Then it was time for bed!
After that, the biggest surprise of my life happened! Early in the morning…
My wife woke up and gave me a surprised look. I looked back at her kind of confused, not knowing what to think. The only thing that was going through my head at the time was if my deck really needed three Cloudshift or should be cut to two. I was also contemplating how soon I need to show up to the tournament to pick up my online order from StarCityGames.com. Did I need to buy new sleeves? All these thoughts that were going through my head left as soon as my wife said five simple words:
"I think my water broke?"
I was standing in the hallway in my StarCityGames.com shirt looking back at her. "What?" She told me again, "I think my water broke!"
As Magic players, we all know we approach new experiences through playtesting. We playtest new strategies or old strategies to be prepared for a tournament. We do what we can to simulate a competitive atmosphere to prepare for the big show, the main event.Â
With this being my first child, I had been doing my fair share of testing and preparing for that moment. I’d been to the baby classes and talked to parents and doctors. I knew what to do!
All the testing in the world couldn’t have prepared me for that moment. I was in frenzy, thinking, "What do we do? What do we do?" I told my wife, "Um, okay! Let me pack my bag," (which was currently packed with decks and trade binders). Looking back, it’s quit comical. I was running around telling my wife to breathe as my scatterbrain kicked in trying to find everything we needed to pack.
To be honest, my wife had it together a lot better than I did. She was the one telling me to relax. The excitement just took me over completely. Kind of like when you win your first Feature Match.
We rushed out the door, and my wife made me go back to shut the door leading into the house and the garage door. I wasn’t exactly calm and forgot to shut both of them and turn the lights off, too. We made it to the hospital and embarked on our quest. I can tell you that having a baby is a lot of work, and I have a great deal of respect for all the moms out there! I hope those of you who haven’t been through the experience of having a baby firsthand will join me in giving respect to moms. Fourteen hours later, my wife went through an all-natural birth, and Ava Brea Richtsmeier was born!
Having a baby is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s exhausting, but the end result is priceless. I couldn’t believe I was part of something so special.
A note about the pictures: I don’t know if I have nerd stamped on my forehead or the StarCityGames.com T-Shirt gives +5 to nerd charisma, but one of the first things my doctor said to me as soon as the baby was born was, "Growing up I watched a lot of Star Trek and in Star Trek you always over-calculate, and I have always taken that approach in my profession." Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell that meant… I think it was in response to my comment that the birth happened sooner than expected. Nonetheless, the doc did a great job, and I am glad he felt comfortable confiding his inner Trekkie to me.
As I was holding my future Pro Tour champion, all I was thinking about was how great she is going to be and how she is going to be able to accomplish so much more than I ever will. You look into their little eyes and nothing else truly matters. Being a parent is a life changing experience, and it’s all for the better. I didn’t make it to GP Minneapolis, but that’s okay because that day was probably the greatest day of my life.
You learn a lot about yourself going through an experience of this magnitude. There is a lot of fear and worry, especially when you have such little control over the health of your loved ones. I remember sitting there and praying for the health my wife and baby. It really puts you to the test. Thankfully all the tests came out very positive, and my wife and daughter are healthy. We all made it safely home, and I am now able to share this experience with all of you.
This community has been great to me and my family, and I look forward to incorporating Magic into my daughter’s life. My wife says she’s going to be a little gymnast like her, but we all know how daughters love their fathers! She will be memorizing Magic phases and have a better understanding of the stack than most adults do by the age of six. She already sits in my lap and watches me punt games on Magic Online.
Speaking of Magic…
In Standard I have been playing a lot of Naya Flicker. Thanks to my buddy Alex Krenik, I have been hooked on the deck.
Here is the list I have been playing and have had a lot of local success with:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 3 Acidic Slime
- 4 Blade Splicer
- 3 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 4 Restoration Angel
- 2 Zealous Conscripts
Lands (23)
Spells (9)
This deck is built around the interaction of Restoration Angel / Cloudshift and all the creatures that have enters the battlefield triggers. Not only do the majority of your creatures benefit greatly from reentering the battlefield, whether it’s making more Golem tokens or controlling the battlefield by flipping Huntmaster back and forth; there are also some strong interactions that happen every time one of those two spells is cast.
What really impresses me is how fast you can mount up huge army of dudes. In the perfect world where you go turn 1: mana dork, turn 2: Blade Splicer, followed by another Blade Splicer + Cloudshift or a Huntmaster, most decks are just dead. On top of that, you have the ability to protect your team from spot removal with Cloudshift or Restoration Angel.
Fiend Hunter is a 1/3 body that permanently deals with tokens. I do understand it can get awkward casting a Fiend Hunter on creatures that will punish you when it comes back into play, but at the same time there are plenty of creatures like Delver and Champion of Perish where Fiend Hunter gives you the time you need to set up your game plan. Let’s not forget the fact your can easily switch targets with the help of Cloudshift and Restoration Angel. This guy fits right in with the deck’s overall game plan.
Zealous Conscripts is probably my favorite card in the deck. It’s a complete blowout and taking over people’s creatures multiple times in one turn is just absurd. I have experimented with playing more in the main, but I feel two is the sweet spot at the moment. Who knows? If we start playing battlecruiser Magic again I might consider playing more. It all depends which direction the wind blows.
I am a huge proponent of cards like Oblivion Ring and Arc Trail being played in the maindeck. Those cards are just a beating, especially when players aren’t expecting them game 1. When people are not playing around these cards and make the assumption you don’t have them, that’s when you have the opportunity to get max value out of them. I have machine-gunned my share of turn 1 and turn 2 Delvers.
At the same time the biggest threat out of a lot of these decks are permanents like equipment and planeswalkers. Oblivion Ring is the catchall answer that isn’t seeing enough play. Game 2 and 3 players are expecting these cards to come in against them, so let them load up on the enchantment hate and you can simply side out your Oblivion Rings for other options if you feel they’re needed.
I like the miser’s Kessig Wolf Run and Gavony Township, but that’s just me. I love to live the dream. I have had too many experiences where they have bailed me out of trouble and also made it so I didn’t have to worry about overextending. It’s also made my Golems extremely awkward for my opponents.
There is plenty of room to innovate and lots of crazy possibilities in this current Standard environment. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to share. I know there have been plenty of Flicker lists out there, and people have been experimenting with other things.
Overall it’s been a roller coaster week for me, and I appreciate all the love shown to my family this past weekend. I won’t be traveling to the SCG Invitational in Indy since my wife and I will still be adjusting, but I think I think July 14th will be the perfect time to take a family trip down to St. Louis!
Thanks for reading!