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Busting My Box With Scrubland

This week Bennie tells the tale of what he did with his box of Modern Masters. Get excited for GP Las Vegas by reading about his adventures in MM Limited!

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It came out of nowhere—a body blow to my Magic morale, crushing my mood and dashing my hopes and dreams. You see, I haven’t been able to attend a StarCityGames.com Open Series in quite a while, and it’s been bumming me out.

My schedule is insane. I work a part-time job in addition to my full-time job, and I also make time to visit with my kids every other weekend. Sadly for my Magic-playing itch, all of the Open Series that are within travel distance keep falling on the weekends I have with my kids, which is part of the reason why I’ve been trying to get my kids into playing Magic: two birds, one stone. Even on the weekends that aren’t mine with the kids, sometimes during the fall and spring there are sports games or other activities that as a good parent I should attend—and I want to attend them. Nothing beats watching your kids play team sports!

Anyway, I have to work out my schedule at least two months out. First, I make note of my weekends with the kids. Then, I look to see if there are any Magic events I want to go to. After that, I figure out the hours I can work for my part-time job because they like to schedule us part-timers six-to-eight weeks in advance and I need to make sure I’m working enough hours to cover my bills.

So the StarCityGames.com Open Series in Richmond July 20-21 was perfect for me! It fell on a weekend I didn’t have the kids, and it was in the summer, so there are no sporting events the kids are in that I’d need to go to. Sadly, though, the Sunday for this weekend bumped Legacy off the map for Sealed Deck, which is probably my least favorite Magic format of all-time. Of course, Saturday was going to be Standard, and I just love playing in big Standard events—it has been a really long time since I’ve had the opportunity to do so, and I just couldn’t wait!

I debated on what to do that Sunday—I could maybe just go hang out, play in side events—but since I was having to shave some of my part-time hours over the summer due to vacation, I figured I’d just go ahead and schedule to work Sunday. Standard all day Saturday, make some money on Sunday: the perfect multipurpose compromise weekend!

Having locked in my weekend, all I needed to do was think about what sort of Standard deck I wanted to play. Maybe the Bant "Capture the Wurm" deck I wrote about a few weeks back?

Fast forward to June 12, 2013 and the following announcement:

Team Sealed in Richmond for M14!

With the popularity of our Team Sealed Open at SCG Open Series: Somerset and the increased interest in team events after the release of new sets, StarCityGames.com is proud to announce that we are changing the July 20-21th Open Series in Richmond, VA to include Team Sealed on Saturday and Standard on Sunday!

Devastating… My big Standard tournament gets moved to Sunday when I’m working and can’t play, and on Saturday I get to play my least favorite format. This is my Magical Armageddon!

Now, just a quick clarification, while this move was horrible for me personally, I know the good folks at StarCityGames.com are doing this move to please the fans. Somerset was a huge success, and Team Sealed is a format a lot of people really enjoy. I have no doubt that Richmond will be a smashing success, and I know there are tons and tons of Magic players thrilled at this announcement.

Me…it just really bummed me out.

Luckily for me, I had a sealed box of Modern Masters and some friends ready to help me open up the packs in fun ways!

My original plan was to rustle up eight guys to come over to my house, drink adult beverages, and draft the box Friday night. But it turns out trying to round up seven other Magic players to commit to being at a certain place and time that’s not a store event is worse than trying to herd cats. So late in the week, I decided to shift gears.

My friend Josh is going to Grand Prix Las Vegas, and there were four Sealed pools in my Modern Masters box, so instead we decided to open each Sealed pool, discuss various builds and cards to try to figure out the best options, and then run the Sealed decks against each other. This would hopefully serve Josh and whoever else going to Vegas as good practice for trying to wade through day 1. This plan had the advantage of being workable whether it was just me and Josh who showed up or if we had six or eight people show up.

Josh ended up bailing on us at the last minute due to some sort of stomach virus he apparently couldn’t shake off (thanks for not bringing that into my house!), but I did manage to get a fair amount of people to come by. There was my roommate Chuck, local mainstay and Sealed/Draft enthusiast Bear, judge extraordinaire and Vintage enthusiast Nicholas Turk, and Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author] Podcast hosts Daniel Sale and Chris Casby! Everyone brought beer or whiskey, and Bear brought his own box of Modern Masters—he’d already cracked the packs because he just couldn’t resist temptation, but he’d kept the Sealed pools intact, so we went ahead and examined each one and discussed what we thought were the best ways to build them.

There was one pool in particular that I found particularly interesting because there seemed to be so many different ways to build a deck and heated disagreement as to which was the best approach. Casby claimed either an Esper Control or Grixis Control build was best, while Turk wanted Bant Control. DSale advocated for Green/White Thallids + Rebels (Amrou Seekers + Incremental Growth caught his eye in particular), and I thought that was a better direction—but I also wanted to include a Dredge package that no one else agreed would be worth running. Here’s the pool in question:

Land

1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Vivid Marsh
2 Vivid Grove
2 Dakmor Salvage

Artifact

2 Arcbound Wanderer
1 Skyreach Manta
1 Myr Enforcer
1 Paradise Mantle
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Runed Stalactite
1 Bonesplitter

Multicolor

1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Trygon Predator
1 Worm Harvest

Green

2 Penumbra Spider
1 Masked Admirers
2 Sporoloth Ancient
1 Thallid Germinator
1 Walker of the Grove
1 Durkwood Baloth
1 Nantuko Shaman
1 Imperiosaur
2 Greater Mossdog
1 Hana Kami
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thallid Shell-Dweller
1 Life from the Loam
1 Incremental Growth
1 Echoing Courage

White

2 Saltfield Recluse
1 Path to Exile
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Bound in Silence
2 Amrou Seekers
1 Kithkin Greatheart
1 Hillcomber Giant
1 Court Homunculus
1 Blinding Beam
1 Terashi’s Grasp
1 Amrou Scout
2 Pallid Mycoderm
1 Kithkin Greatheart

Black

1 Street Wraith
1 Phthisis
1 Peppersmoke
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Warren Weirding
1 Rathi Trapper
1 Blightspeaker
1 Raven’s Crime
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Earwig Squad
1 Thieving Sprite

Red

2 Fiery Fall
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Blind-Spot Giant
1 Glacial Ray
1 Pyromancer’s Swath
1 Hammerheim Deadeye
1 Pardic Dragon
1 Grinning Ignus
1 Brute Force
1 Blood Moon

Blue

1 Echoing Truth
1 Petals of Insight
1 Peer Through Depths
1 Reach Through Mists
1 Logic Knot
1 Esperzoa
2 Traumatic Visions
1 Mulldrifter
3 Latchkey Faerie (1 foil)
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Errant Ephemeron
1 Vedalken Dismisser

What would you do?

The Dredge package was a Stinkweed Imp away from being near perfect, but I still thought it would be deceptively strong. There’s a reason why they put Relic of Progenitus in the Modern Masters mix: Dredge is potent! Here’s what I would have built:

1 Bonesplitter
1 Path to Exile
1 Raven’s Crime
1 Paradise Mantle
1 Thallid Shell-Dweller
1 Rathi Trapper
1 Life from the Loam
1 Echoing Courage
1 Thallid Germinator
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Eternal Witness
1 Bound in Silence
1 Blinding Beam
2 Greater Mossdog
1 Masked Admirers
2 Penumbra Spider
2 Pallid Mycoderm
2 Sporoloth Ancient
1 Worm Harvest
1 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Vivid Grove
1 Vivid Marsh
2 Dakmor Salvage
2 Swamp
4 Plains
5 Forest

Life from the Loam + Worm Harvest would just be an incredible finisher if we could get them working together. I wanted to run some games with one of their builds and then switch up to my Dredge build and prove to them it would seriously kick ass!

Unfortunately, by this time everyone had gotten deeper into their whiskey and beer, and since we had six people the consensus was to go ahead and draft my box. So I leave it up to you, dear readers—how would you have built this pool? Would you have included the awesome Dredge package, or was I being silly? Let me know in the comments below.

After everyone topped off their adult beverage of choice, we each sat down with our three packs and cracked open the first one. I saw Stinkweed Imp and Worm Harvest and instantly decided to make everyone pay for dismissing my Dredge argument. Stinkweed Imp is too good to not pick, I assumed that I’d easily be able to wheel the Worm Harvest, and since I was on the Dredge plan from P1P1, I figured I could build something pretty sick with some tenacity and a little luck (fingers crossed for Life from the Loam).

Unfortunately, Worm Harvest did not make it back around (turns out Bear snagged it), but since it’s an uncommon I felt reasonably assured that I might see another. Turns out I did not see another, and no Life from the Loam darkened my draft either. It was so frustrating because I drafted such a sweet Worm Harvest deck that would have been bonkers with up to three basic land cyclers and even Meloku the Clouded Mirror. Turns out I got a second Stinkweed Imp—so should I have nabbed Worm Harvest P1P1?

Thankfully, even if the Dredge / Worm Harvest plan didn’t come together, I had still assembled a decent G/B Thallid deck with some removal and a bomb in Meloku, the Clouded Mirror. I even had a Reach of Branches that could (and did) get silly with Meloku. Here’s what I built:

1 Epochrasite
1 Rathi Trapper
1 Blightspeaker
1 Riftsweeper
1 Thallid Shell-Dweller
1 Echoing Courage
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Stinkweed Imp
2 Thallid Germinator
1 Horobi’s Whisper
1 Syphon Life
1 Moldervine Cloak
1 Kodama’s Reach
2 Sporesower Thallid
2 Sporoloth Ancient
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Reach of Branches
1 Absorb Vis
1 Death Denied
1 Vivid Grove
6 Forest
3 Island
7 Swamp

These are the cards I didn’t play with:

Artifact: Runed Stalactite, Aether Spellbomb, Relic of Progenitus

Black: Peppersmoke, Raven’s Crime x2, Warren Weirding, Street Wraith, Phthisis

Green: Summoner’s Pact, Thallid, Greater Mossdog, Sylvan Bounty x3, Tooth and Nail

Blue: Petals of Insight, Vedalken Dismisser

Red: Brute Force, Stinkdrinker Daredevil

White: Dispeller’s Capsule

Several of these were decent sideboard cards: Phthisis for bombs, Sylvan Bounty for aggressive decks, and Peppersmoke for weenies. I thought about Runed Stalactite to turn one of my creatures into a Thallid—say, Stinkweed Imp—so I could give it spore counters with Sporesower Thallid and make Saprolings from it with Sporoloth Ancient, but I thought that might be too cute. Any feedback on my Draft deck in comments would also be welcome!

For the first match, I played against DSale, who drafted a strange creatureless Storm/Splice onto Arcane deck as an experiment. He got me pretty low on life both games but I’d eventually beat him before he could deal the last few points of damage, and he concluded he probably needed some creatures to hold the ground.

For the second match, I played against Chuck, who had drafted a sick B/R Goblin deck that hit me with turn 3 Earwig Squad cast with prowl each game. I managed to claw out a win when I had Meloku in my hand already, but the other two games he stripped out Meloku and a few good cards and I was unable to keep up with the onslaught.

At this point, it was pretty late, and everybody headed for home. As the Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author] guys made to leave, we talked about the StarCityGames.com Open Series in Richmond. They were hoping to do coverage that weekend, but if they couldn’t make arrangements to do so, they asked if I’d be willing to be their third for Team Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]. I think playing with Chris Casby and Daniel Sale all day will probably make the format enjoyable even for a Sealed Deck curmudgeon like me, so I said sure. If not, worst-case scenario I’ll try and scare up some casual pick-up games of Commander and play in a few side events.

I know the question on everyone’s mind—any super-sweet cards in my box? Sadly, there were no cries of excitement for Tarmogoyf or Dark Confidant, but I did get some decent stuff.

Before I go, a few random notes:

  • We finally got some potential art descriptions for our new black enchantment for You Make The Card 4. If you by chance haven’t voted yet and the polling is still up, for God’s sake go and vote for [Liliana’s Wake]. I mean, seriously—the world just cannot be denied the chance to have Steve Argyle do a painting of Liliana wading through water!
  • For all my peeps heading to Vegas this weekend for the largest Grand Prix in the history of Magic, good luck, have fun, and make memories to last a lifetime! Barring that, make sure your digital camera is charged so you can go back and piece together what happened once you wake up missing a tooth with a tiger in the bathroom and a really bad Giant/Dredge/Splice onto Arcane Sealed deck scattered all over the hotel floor. I still have hopes someone might slip me Rohypnol sometime Friday and I’ll wake up Saturday in Vegas already preregistered. There’s still time!
  • Oh, my birthday’s next Tuesday, June 25th, so pop over to my Facebook page and wish me a happy birthday! I’m not sure what I’m doing yet, but I will not be working…

Take care,

Bennie

Facebook = Bennie Smith, Writer
Twitter = @blairwitchgreen
Email = [email protected]
Twitch = http://www.twitch.tv/blairwitchgreen
Blog = My fantasy and horror fiction writing

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:

My current Commander decks (and links to decklists):

Previous Commander decks currently on hiatus: