Today will be a bit of a mixed bag. I’ll be going over some rants on Regionals, the so-called announcement of new restricted list in Vintage, and then Lorwyn Block Constructed control decks. Let’s get started!
A brief rant on Vintage and the B/R explanation
Let’s start with the latter, because this section of my article on it will undoubtedly be longer than the 123 words Mr. Turian gave the new restrictions. It only depresses me to think that many of the e-mails that Turian will be receiving will be five to ten times as long as the blurb the Vintage community received. You remember the big kvetching-fest a few months ago about the lack of communication between Wizards and its players? This feels like that. To most Vintage players, this is how they saw the piece in Devin Low’s article:
Dear Vintage players,
The DCI is continually looking to do what is best for the health of the Vintage format. We regret to inform you the sky is blue, and that Blue draws and tutors for cards. As one-ofs, we hope this causes less issues in the future.
P.S. We’ll try not to restrict Sensei’s Divining Top without at least an arbitrary reason six months from now.
Here’s my main issue with this. A decent number of Vintage players have no idea why you decided to restrict Brainstorm after it being in the format for so long. Especially if you were going to hit Gush, Merchant Scroll, and Flash, which completely changes the dynamics of the current Vintage metagame and the power of Brainstorm and Ponder. With that said, there was valid reasoning that could be used to restrict four of the five cards that did get hit. However, this blurb simply chose to give kindergarten level reasoning. Gee, Merchant Scroll finds restricted cards? Really? And Brainstorm filters!?
I actually liked many of the restrictions after the initial shock went away, but Ponder still boggles me, and simply waving it off in the same sentence as Brainstorm does a disservice to anyone playing the format. Let me put it like this… had the DCI decided to ban some cards from Dredge and Sensei’s Divining Top last Extended season, had you thrown out a 123-word piece of text on the reasoning behind it, you would have been crucified. These are format-warping implications that are basically being written off. In fact, the only valid reason I can see for writing the blurb like that in the first place is because Wizards figured they would be blown out by people raving and ranting regardless of how much detail or logic they used. Regardless, it is their job to at least make an effort for those who have rational thought capabilities.
Regionals
I wasn’t going to be able to go to Nationals even if I had qualified via Regionals, so I decided not to play. Playing in Regionals has always been a rather miserable experience for me, even at the ones in which I did well. They’ve always just felt too long and match-up intensive to really enjoy playing, along with some rather unremarkable prize support even for the so-called winners. I much rather be in an area where I could play in cash tournaments, such as those run by StarCityGames every few months. That’s half the reason, anyway… the other half was because I wouldn’t be able to play the sickest deck ever, which broke my heart. Here it is, in the off-chance someone has a relevant Standard tournament in the next forever: Doran featuring Cryptic Command.
Creatures (20)
Lands (25)
Spells (15)
I did, however, show up around 6pm to Cube Draft and go see some of my friends at the event. The event was almost over… it finished at roughly 6:30pm. This boggled me until I found out only 108 people showed up to Regionals in the bay area! Meanwhile, up north in Sacramento, over 300 players (they’ve never had more than the low end of 200) showed up. This leads me to assume a lot of people figured that all the weak players were up-state, and took the 1-3 hour trip up there for an easier time… and shot themselves in the foot.
My response is obvious. Hahahahahahahahaha, nice work guys!
Block Stuff
This week we’ll be discussing the other extreme of the Block Constructed spectrum with various control decks.
Creatures (15)
Lands (26)
Spells (19)
Sideboard
Manuel Bucher success with the return of Five-Color Control apparently crossed formats a few weekends ago. The deck itself is one of the most interesting in the format, utilizing more card drawing and utility than the Ten Commandment version of multi-colored control we’ve seen at the earlier PTQs. This version of the Quick n’ Toast deck not only features oddities like Plumeveil for a different kind of defense, but also some awesomeness in Mind Spring, which is just back-breaking in this format after a certain mana threshold is crossed. The deck is well situated to take advantage of slower decks in the format, with its combination of counters, Mind Spring, and Mannequin, while having options against many aggro decks.
After trying the deck out, there’s one major flaw with it. The Kithkin match is just miserable. It’s complete battery game 1, and not much better post-board. You’ll win on merits if they take mulligans or you get a very removal heavy hand, but if the Kithkin player has a keepable seven you’ll probably be beaten, and especially if they won the die roll. The problem here is twofold: you have very few ways to kill off the relevant swarms they play, and the sweeper that is going to keep you alive until Austere Command, Cloudthresher, and Mind Spring come online is trumped by Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender. You essentially need an early Shriekmaw and Finks / Plumeveil to keep you from absorbing a ton of damage early. A resolved turn 3 Firespout is pretty good too, but you’ll likely only hit two or three actual cards with it.
Another key issue is the fact that the Kithkin deck doesn’t need to worry about taking advantage of its drops every turn. Just beating with two guys or a Knight of Meadowgrain and Mutavault is sufficient many times, because they can just explode off the line and play four guys in a single turn later in the game. Militia’s Pride, a card that most feel isn’t too strong in the deck, is actually insane in this match-up. You can basically keep one or two creatures out for most of the game and just keep making more men, and if they go to block you can activate Windbrisk Heights and most likely blow them out. I’ll get to this later, but one of the major problems the deck had was being unable to trump Windbrisk Heights, which could play Mirrorweave or something equally damaging at the most inopportune times. Oh, and Plumeveil gets significantly less impressive when the opponent can attack and then Weave the Veil for what’ll likely be lethal damage.
There are some options here, the most obvious being Festercreep to help deal with hordes and take out Forge-Tender, so the second swarm and can be beaten via Firespout. Incremental Blight is another option that was in some Faeries sideboards which may be worth a look here, simply because it comes online sooner than Austere Command, which can be a major issue when trying to draw that last land and coming up with a Vivid. It may ‘only’ kill the two biggest guys they have and a token, but that still is pretty good, and it ducks Tender. I’d at least start with the 4th Shriekmaw main and 2/3 Festercreep. The other issue the deck fails to address is dealing with Reveillark in the control mirror. Countering it is obviously the best option if possible, but having access to multiple Lark via Mannequin and Flamekin Harbinger makes this unlikely after the first one. I understand that Primal Command can help deal with that, but the card is five mana and sorcery speed, so it’s hardly the easiest card to throw down on a moment’s notice. Something like Faerie Macabre may be worthwhile just to permanently deal with Larks.
Next up we have the Elemental control list Raphael Levy played to a Top 8 finish.
Creatures (29)
- 4 Cloudthresher
- 4 Flamekin Harbinger
- 1 Horde of Notions
- 4 Incandescent Soulstoke
- 4 Mulldrifter
- 2 Shriekmaw
- 4 Smokebraider
- 2 Wispmare
- 4 Reveillark
Lands (24)
Spells (7)
Sideboard
The main engine in the deck is Flamekin Harbinger – Incandescent Soulstoke, with support via acceleration in Smokebraider and recursion via Reveillark and Horde of Notions. This deck fully takes advantage of the Red Vampiric Tutor, with nearly every card in the deck being tutorable. Meanwhile Soulstoke’s ability can power out almost every creature that you’d normally evoke at a third to two thirds the normal cost, in an uncounterable instant speed fashion with haste. This kind of play can completely brutalize a deck like Bucher’s or Fortier’s by disabling the main way they have of dealing with larger threats and still taking advantage of the comes-into-play or leave-play abilities. The deck actually is pretty familiar to those who played Elementals pre-Shadowmoor, due to practically the entire spell base consisting of Lorwyn Block cards. However, the manabase is just so much better with filters and Reflecting Pool that it feels like a new deck entirely.
Though I believe this to be a better control deck than the current Quick n’ Toast or Ten Commandment builds, the issue still remains that Kithkin isn’t that great a match-up. Game 1 features no sweeper effects and only five spot removal cards, as well as no counters. It isn’t difficult for Kithkin to get out of the gates too early to stop even with Smokebraider powered Elementals clogging up the board. That isn’t to say it has as miserable a match as Bucher’s deck, because it doesn’t, but I wouldn’t want to play it all day unless some Festercreep were maindeck. Also a singleton Fulminator Mage really couldn’t hurt as there are times where you have to make decisions on blocks based purely on how badly a Windbrisk activation can crush you. Meanwhile it keeps another valid tutor option against control since you have 3 Mannequin and 4 Reveillark to recur with.
One could make the argument that the deck gets better against Kithkin the more you play with it, but there are diminishing returns here. Yes, the first ten games or so feel a lot worse than the next thirty or so end up feeling. However, the big draw of Kithkin is how all of the good draws it has basically make many Mudkips, and this Elemental control deck really brings nothing that hasn’t been tried in an attempt to deal with them to the table. It can be modified to do a number to them, but one would have to wedge in more effects that clean the board and take advantage of the recursion engine. Speaking of which, one could make the case that Akira Asahara’s Elementals list had the right idea with four Fulminator Mage maindeck, giving him an edge in a mirror and a way to disable Cloudgoat Ranger, Mutavault, and Windbrisk Heights.
Also, yes, the mirror is ridiculously dumb. Usually it comes down to hitting five mana first and then resolving Mulldrifter and Reveillark. The only real way to gain a slight advantage is to Fulminator Mage a five-color land or kill off a Smokebraider before it activates. Otherwise it’s just a mana race, and the first one to get by the threshold has a huge advantage because all of his or her big splashy effects will be resolving first.
Of course, if one wanted to try a different kind of control… that’s certainly possible. Stuart Wright had an interesting design for a Grand Prix control deck that centered on abusing the 187 creatures such as Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, Reveillark, and Kitchen Finks, with Mistmeadow Witch to eventually lock up the game. Apparently it also had Primal Command to help pick and choose, along with Austere Command for sweeping purposes.
From descriptions I’ve heard it played like a five color control deck up until the ten mana threshold where it then went into full Mistmeadow Witch — Blink creatures all day mode. Not only is this nearly impossible to stop once that level of mana is reached, it becomes very difficult for an opponent to kill you without an overwhelming advantage* on the board. Not only do large creatures basically get shut down, but removing creatures, gaining life or draw cards every turn with no card or life loss is pretty much unbeatable after a few turns. [More about this deck later in the week… – Craig.]
Otherwise there’s still the possibility of Mana Ramp popping up in one form or another. For example, Draconis in the forums had a bit of luck with his GW Ramp deck that he mentioned, and that, combined with some other chatter, led me to this deck. See Beebles, I actually tried Thundercloud Shaman in something. This is a rough list, which means try not to be too disappointed if you try it and it falls a bit flat.
Creatures (22)
- 1 Arbiter of Knollridge
- 3 Cloudthresher
- 3 Masked Admirers
- 4 Thundercloud Shaman
- 4 Devoted Druid
- 2 Farhaven Elf
- 1 Grim Poppet
- 4 Oversoul of Dusk
Lands (24)
Spells (14)
It needs some refinement, but I figure if I share I can get some usable feedback here. Quick explanation is basically it just wants to clean out all the 1/1 guys in the format using sweep effects and abuse the fact that Oversoul of Dusk is nearly unkillable outside of stuff like Crib Swap. I was rocking Austere Command for a while, but the more I played it the more I rather just use Thundercloud Shaman or a Cloudthresher for that kind of mana investment. Masked Admirers is basically a nice little way to trade against other creatures or get damage in while not losing any cards in the deal. The deck also gets to have fun with Mosswort Bridge, since most of the creatures have substantial power and it isn’t difficult to activate if you have anything in play and evoke Cloudthresher.
Otherwise, that’s it for the basic rundown of control decks in the format. More “normal” Mannequin decks still exist, but I think the main issue now is why is sticking to 2-3 colors a better idea than just being greedy and running the rainbow? Unless you expect quad Fulminator Mage to show up everywhere in the future, in which case you still probably are doing yourself a disservice.
Josh Silvestri
Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom
Team Reflection