Bad Beets

Not to spoil things, but I think the ultimate moral of this story might be…

Be careful what sleeves you buy!

I’m a bit of a sucker for sleeves that make me chuckle. Some of my favorites:

I will fully admit it took me a moment to register the joke on these new sleeves. “Bad… vegetables?” I wondered to myself. My first thought was of unhappy patrons pelting thespians and performers with rotten vegetables and eggs during the Elizabethan Age. That is kind of amusing and not uncalled for regarding many of my brews. But the art didn’t show vegetables… it showed one particular kind of vegetable. Radishes? Turnips? Beets?

Oh. Beets… bad beets… bad beats! Hee hee… there’s the chuckle. I’ll buy two packs of 50 please!

BAD BEATS #1: BAD DECK CHOICE

So last weekend there was a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier at one of my local game stores and the format was Modern. Strangely enough, it fell on a weekend where I didn’t have the kids and I hadn’t volunteered to work at my part-time job. This almost never happens, so I was kinda stoked to get to play something other than my usual Standard and Commander formats. Now, the Modern format has a lot of cool and interesting top-tier decks, and a wise player would pick one, practice with it, and tune it to fit their own strengths, biases and read on the metagame. I have two problems with this plan: first, I rarely get to play Modern, so chances are pretty good that whoever I play against will have more experience than me. They will know how my deck works, what to expect from my deck, and they will have a plan to beat it. The converse will not be nearly as true — sure, I read up on Modern and try my best to keep on top of it, but since I rarely play it I don’t have the reps nor the depth of knowledge for what’s going on. I think my best option is a rogue brew of my own creation, where I know why each card is in the deck and what my game-plan is but my opponents won’t know what to expect or the best way to attack me. If the brew also happens to be good, then those edges might carry me much further than my inexperience in the format gives me a right to.

The second problem, of course… it’s not nearly as much fun to play a netdeck as it is one of your own creation!

So as the PPTQ approached I started sketching out decklists and doing a little preliminary playtesting and settled on four choices of decks I was considering playing.

Doran/Zur

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 11-30--0001

Modern

Creatures (24)

Lands (23)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

I’ve long been a fan of blending Doran, the Siege Tower and Zur the Enchanter in one deck, and the enchantment creatures from Theros block and a few key enchantments from the Tarkir block have given us some sweet new tools to work with. The huge upgrade of course is Assault Formation, which gives us an effective fifth copy of Doran that can be fetched up by an attacking Zur. This is a big step up for redundancy. Mardu Ascendency provides a nice combo finish thanks to its potential to be sacrificed for three additional points of damage for each attacker.

Drobliterator

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 11-30--0001

Modern

Creatures (16)

Planeswalkers (4)

4 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (24)

Spells (16)

Sideboard

Ever since I heard about Adrian Sullivan sideboarding Setessan Tactics into his Obliterator Rock deck I’ve been a fan of the concept, and once Dromoka’s Command was printed I knew we now had a maindeckable way to force an opposing creature to fight our Phyrexian Obliterator. The trick of course was figuring out how to splash a green/white card into a deck that wants to also cast a creature that costs four black mana. Of course, this is Modern – it’s like Summertime and the mana’s easy, and Bradley’s on the microphone with Ras MG. I’m not entirely sure I got the mana right here, but it seemed to work out pretty good in the little bit of playtesting I had. I really liked how low to the ground this deck was in terms of mana costs, keeping Dark Confidant from hurting too much and also providing for lots of cheap interaction. I liked that Dark Confidant, Pack Rat, and Scavenging Ooze were all cheap threats that needed to be dealt with, draining removal options from my opponent’s hands that may have already been strained by Inquisition of Kozilek or Liliana of the Veil. By the time I cast Phyrexian Obliterator, it should present a really big problem.

Green/White Dragons

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 11-30--0001

Modern

Creatures (24)

Lands (24)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

A very recent idea I had was that Dragonlord Ojutai is certainly of sufficient power level for Modern – and that Knight of the Reliquary can fetch up Minamo, School at Water’s Edge to untap Dragonlord Ojutai after she attacks or fetch up a Haven of the Spirit Dragon to get her back if she’s been countered or destroyed. These two powerhouse creatures seem made for each other, so what sort of cool Bant deck could I build around them? Playing Haven made me wonder if there were any older playable Dragons we could put in here, and when I ran across Yosei, the Morning Star again of course I immediately thought of Greater Good. For newer players not familiar with the ‘combo,’ there used to be an old Standard deck that would play Yosei, the Morning Star and sacrifice it to Greater Good to lock down your opponent and had various ways to keep it going a few turns assuming you didn’t just draw into more copies of Yosei off of Greater Good. With this deck I’ve got Ojutai to dig, and Knight of the Reliquary to find Haven so we can get Yosei back from the graveyard.

GriselDredge

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 11-30--0001

Modern

Creatures (31)

Lands (24)

Spells (5)

3 Darkblast
2 Life from the Loam

Sideboard

When Golgari Grave-Troll got unbanned, my first question was whether we could really leverage Dredge to fuel Necrotic Ooze shenanigans. After all, Golgari Grave-Troll can fill the graveyard in a hurry! Of course getting a Griselbrand in the graveyard for Necrotic Ooze to copy is the dream, but I also ran across Doomed Necromancer as cool tech card — if things go well, you can actually sacrifice Doomed Necromancer to reanimate Griselbrand, but if your opponent kills Doomed Necromancer (as he very likely will) then now your Necrotic Ooze can copy Doomed Necromancer’s ability to give you another chance to reanimate Griselbrand. There’s also some fun twists like copying Pack Rat’s ability to make copies of Necrotic Ooze, and this is particularly fun when Fulminator Mage is in the mix.

I liked all of these options quite a bit and wasn’t sure which one I wanted to actually play, so I put it to a vote with some of my Magic friends and the result that came back was Drobliterator. Sweet! So I pulled the deck together… and then a few days before the tournament, one of my friends changed his mind and told me he thought I should play the Green/White Dragons deck. It wasn’t hard convincing me — it was the newest of my ideas and I was really itching to play Dragons in Modern. Also, I felt like the metagame seemed to be shifting towards Jund as a key player in the format, and if games were going to be grindy and eking out value, I felt that the Dragons deck could probably play that game well and come out on top often enough. So the night before the tournament I cannibalized Drobliterator for cards to put together the Dragons deck and went to bed looking forward to grinding out some sweet Modern games the next day.

Turns out I didn’t play any Jund decks, or really any grindy value decks at all. My first round opponent was Zoo (crushed me 0-2), Naya Burn (squeaked out two games to win 2-0), Jeskai Control (crushed me 0-2), Monored Burn (some epic games, but I lost 1-2), and then a Soul Sisters-like brew (I won 1-0 when we ran out of time). So many Lightning Bolts got thrown around and each time I ached thinking about the Phyrexian Obliterators left behind at home. There was aggro, control, and combo all over the place, and the finals were played between Infect and Goryo’s Vengeance combo.

Green/White Dragons was a bad, bad choice. Especially with these sleeves!

BAD BEETS #2: I KINDA FORGOT ABOUT ZOO

My first round opponent came out blazing with Zoo, burning away my early mana creatures while smacking me around with Wild Nacatls and Tarmogoyfs. Meanwhile I was drawing Ojutais and Yoseis hand over fist without getting a fifth actual land to cast anything. For the second game I realized I didn’t really have any good sideboarding options — I thought I was being clever with Kor Firewalker but I really wished those had been Kitchen Finks instead. I did board in the Worship, and as I got the familiar Zoo early treatment (burn away my mana creatures, beat down with Wild Nacatls and Tarmogoyfs while I choke on my more expensive spells) it began to be obvious my one hope was to get some large creatures to stick to the board and cast the Worship I’d drawn. Getting a large creature to stick would also turn on the two Dromoka’s Commands I’d drawn too.

I drew Courser of Kruphix and figured my luck might have changed, but then my opponent played Qasali Pridemage, which made my Worship plan look really stupid. Not to mention how stupid the Courser of Kruphix + Dromoka’s Command plan now looked. Luckily for me he ended up tapping out to cast more creatures, so I went ahead and used the Command to fight Qasali Pridemage with Courser and make it bigger — whew, crisis averted! I then played Worship, which my opponent had to read, and then asked if it was actually Modern legal. I pulled it up on my phone and showed him that reprinting in Ninth Edition and thus it was indeed Modern legal. With an Ojutai in hand I thought I just might pull this game out, but then he cast another Qasali Pridemage and destroyed the Worship. I found out after the game that he wasn’t sure what I was playing (he hadn’t seen any Greater Good in the first game) so he boarded in the only two Qasali Pridemages in his 75.

And drew them both.

Beets.

BAD BEETS #3: SOME PEOPLE DIDN’T GET THE MEMO THAT MANA LEAK IS BAD

In round three I’m paired against my friend who convinced me to switch from Drobliterator to the Dragons deck. He’s playing Jeskai Control and he promptly burns away my early creatures with Lightning Bolt and Electrolyze. I do get a Knight of the Reliquary to stick, I have a copy of Dragonlord Ojutai and Haven of the Spirit Dragon in my hand, and begin to plot a sequence of plays to beat him with Ojutai, starting with fetching out Minamo, School at Water’s Edge. My opponent has four mana open and I fully expect him to have Cryptic Command, but I go ahead and run Ojutai out there, and he of course has the Command. I then play Haven of the Spirit Dragon and can get back Ojutai to try it again. This time it sticks but I smell a rat since my opponent has a fair number of cards in hand and mana open. I end my turn, and he asks “not going to attack with your Knight?” I smile and say “nah, don’t think so.” On his turn he casts Supreme Verdict, and I use my Knight to go fetch my other Haven of the Spirit Dragon. He’s only got two mana left over so I feel pretty confident sacrificing Haven to get back Ojutai and casting it while he’s relatively tapped out. It’s not like anyone plays Mana Leak anymore — all the top strategy writers I’ve been reading have said that Mana Leak is bad.

I’ve got seven mana and cast Dragonlord Ojutai. My opponent casts Mana Leak. I’m one mana short to pay the extra mana.

Beets. To add to the beets, after the match my friend starts talking about how his theory regarding Modern is the best strategy is to play low to the ground, being able to play cheaper spells than your opponent. I look at him. “Seriously? That’s your theory? And you waved me off Drobliterator, which has a ton of low-cost spells, and recommended I play Green/White Dragons which has a ton of higher cost spells?”

BAD BEETS #4: KOR FIREWALKER IS ONLY GOOD WHEN YOU DRAW IT

Against my fourth round opponent playing Burn I was stoked to have four Kor Firewalkers and a Worship to bring in after losing the first game very quickly to red spells pointed at my face. The second game he had to mulligan but was able to start the game with Leyline of Punishment in play. Luckily for me, the rest of his hand wasn’t very good and he didn’t draw a good mix of lands and spells before I’d established a quick board presence and had destroyed the Leyline with Dromoka’s Command.

No Kor Firewalkers though.

Game three he got Eidolon of the Great Revel on turns two and three, and threw all sorts of burn at my head. No Kor Firewalkers showed up in that game either and I died in flames.

Beets.

BAD BEETS #5: THIS DECK ISN’T VERY FUN TO PLAY AGAINST

Going into the last round I was 1-3 and got paired up against someone else who plays Commander at the game shop regularly and jumps into tournaments every once in a while. She’s playing a similar deck to Soul Sisters with lots of lifegain but not much in the way of removal, so while her life totals are skyrocketing and she’s beating me down with flying Spirit tokens I’m assembling Knight of the Reliquary, Greater Good and eventually the sixth mana I need to play Yosei. She’s getting pretty close to fifty life and I’m in the low single digits when I play Yosei, sacrifice it to Greater Good and tap down her board. I’ve got a Dragonlord Ojutai and an 8/8 Knight of the Reliquary that begins going to work on her life total, and I manage to keep her without an untap step for the next four turns by either drawing more copies of Yosei or searching out Havens to get back Yosei.

We shuffle up for the next game but run out of time. I don’t have any way to beat her and she’s got the win on board but I rip a Yosei with a Greater Good out and tap down her team on the first of her two extra turns. I draw another Yosei and tap her down again, and win the match 1-0 since the second game ends in a draw.

I keep apologizing because I know it wasn’t much fun playing under that lockdown, but she tells me no need to apologize, this is tournament Magic after all and it’s mostly about winning and not about making sure your opponent is having fun. Still, I win and I don’t feel very good about it.

Beets.

I know the world will be converging on Charlotte for the Grand Prix this weekend with lots and lots of Modern action, but I’ve got the kids this weekend so for me Modern is done, at least for now. Where do I go from here? I’m not sure… I like the Dragon deck but I think there needs to be considerable work done from here. What about the other decks? I’m curious to hear any thoughts you all might have on any of them, which one do you think has the most promise in the metagame? Any ideas you might have for improving the list, drop it in the forums below!

MTGO HAYMAKER SOCIETY

A few weeks ago I mentioned trying to gather up a list of people who might be interested in playing some friendly games of haymaker Magic on Magic Online. To help facilitate this, I’ve created a Facebook page to try and coordinate times and be a repository for links to helpful information. If you’re interested check it out — MTGO Haymaker Society. It’s still under construction, but I hope it’s up and running full speed ahead soon!

New to Commander?

If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links:

Commander Primer Part 1
(Why play Commander? Rules Overview, Picking your Commander)
Commander Primer Part 2
(Mana Requirements, Randomness, Card Advantage)
Commander Primer Part 3
(Power vs. Synergy, Griefing, Staples, Building a Doran Deck)
Commander Starter Kits 1
(kick start your allied two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 2
(kick start your enemy two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 3
(kick start your shard three-color decks for $25)