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Deconstructing Constructed – The End

Read Josh Silvestri every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Friday, March 20th – After writing here for so long, I think the only topic that I wanted to cover, but never got around to, was etiquette in Magic. At least my take on it. This never came to fruition because after getting about a page in the subject would basically put me on tilt and I could never finish without lambasting a bunch of people in the community…

It took a while to figure out what I wanted my last article to be about and in the end I just couldn’t figure out what really to say. Apologies for the bits and pieces this article has turned into as result.

After writing here for so long, I think the only topic that I wanted to cover, but never got around to, was etiquette in Magic. At least my take on it. This never came to fruition because after getting about a page in the subject would basically put me on tilt and I could never finish without lambasting a bunch of people in the community, including some locals, for being what I deemed to be d*cks. Needless to say, that isn’t really being objective on the matter, nor is it really fair and I fall under the d*ckish category myself when I do something like that.

So my solution is simple, talking about the one statement I hear a lot and I think is vastly overused and annoying to hear. A lot of people I’ve talked too feel the same way, although they won’t say anything out of politeness. I do this as well, if only to avoid an even more awkward moment than the one being proposed at that point.

Can’t figure out what I’m alluding too? The term my friends, is “GG.”

Good freaking Game.

Stupid, right? Who the hell gets annoyed over a phrase that’s commonly uttered in Magic at least three or more times to you at a tournament in a non-ironic or mocking sense? I do apparently. I get so tired of hearing the good game get run out after a match where I’ve either gotten mana screwed, mulligan to five or just punted like I was trying out for the Oakland Raiders.

Universally loved by every random I’ve ever talked with, the phrase “good game” now just annoys me by making me think less of my opponents. Many games are not good; they are in fact quite ordinary and/or miserable of the highest order to one player or the other. Over the years I’ve grown to accept this and have no issue with it anymore, is it disappointing when you can play an entire tournament without one actual good game involved? Sure. But it’s fine. I’ve even gotten over the fact that many people will offer the GG regardless of the factors at work and as I haven’t flipped any tables or bricked anyone yet, I think I’m doing alright.

Knowing that I’ve used this term in response to other people giving it out, but I basically refuse to ever say good game now unless the opponent throws it out there first. In fact I usually try to say very little to the opponent at the end, except to wish them luck with the next round if I haven’t just knocked them out of the tournament. I think that’s fair. However don’t expect me to sit there and respect that when immediately after you start whining about how many ways you had left to win and start taking your deck apart to show me.

I don’t care.

Honestly, I really don’t care, especially at Friday Night Magic. Yes, people actually pull this at FNM, which just boggles my mind. I would be a pretty big jerk to run that at a real tournament, but at an FNM, do you really think the opponent gives a damn how many random outers you had or how sick a beat you just got dealt? Seriously, ever since I’ve started attending FNM on random occasions, I’ve met more rude / self-absorbed people at FNM than I have at all the PTQ’s I’ve ever been too combined. That isn’t to say there are no d*cks at them, because there are and I have the unfortunate standing to play one pretty much every two tournaments which is stone-miserable and at some point I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw his deck across the hall, but that’s a story for another day.

Oh, and I hate good luck too. I try never to say it, despite the long-standing habit I had of doing so. As Tim Aten once not-so-famously wrote, “I’ll elaborate. Suppose you’re playing against Josh Ravitz, and you say “good luck” to him as you begin, as it’s customary for you to do so. Suppose, then, that he doesn’t say it back! You’re of the “meaningless pleasantry” school; he’s of the “don’t say it if you don’t mean it” school. What he’s likely to say in response is a simple “thanks.” But now you think he’s a jerk for not extending you the same “courtesy” you displayed to him, while he’s just trying not to be dishonest by returning the sentiment!”

I’ll joke during matches, I’ll chat, I’ll do anything randomly social with no issue during a match unless I’m deeming it necessary to focus in silence (something I’m pretty miserable at). I just am tired of people saying things they either don’t mean or someone I’m awkward because I won’t return the sentiment for something I don’t believe is true. The one thing I’ll always do is return a handshake; because that just is universal good sportsmanship in every sport / competitive game I’ve ever played. Unless I think you happen to be cheating scum or completely unclean and I would like to run away from you as fast as I possibly can, I will gladly shake with anyone.

Oh, and this is purely for real life; for online play, if you say anything at all that isn’t rude, that’s a big plus. Basically online I expect everyone to be one of two things:

1. Mute
2. A complete *sshole

If you’re neither, then you’ve already surpassed all my expectations for the match and maybe some good luck will ensue anyway. Oh, except you have many many many more people run the GG out there and then have a follow-up comment of, ‘lol, mai deck must b trash to lose to ur pile.’ which typically doesn’t happen in the real world for obvious reasons.

As much as I’ve thought about fleshing the topic out, I eventually figured out it wasn’t worth the hassle.

One last thing before I go. The vast majority of you, and I do mean majority, cannot tell time in any accurate fashion. All of you need to try this exercise the next time you seriously test or are playing in a local tournament or whenever.

Step 1: Take out your Cell Phone
Step 2: Start the stopwatch feature on the phone at the beginning of your turn around turn 5/6
Step 3: Time yourself until you pass the turn and they untap.

This doesn’t take into account the priority changes, so at this point you’ll have to take away a few seconds from the overall time depending on what the opponent was doing. Regardless, doing this a few times should give you a good idea of the average time you take for a turn in a given match. Many of you I think would be shocked by the amount of time you take when measured against the total number of turns most games last and how much actual time that takes up.

I do not play incredibly fast, but I can count on both hands the number of times I’ve actually gone to time over the past 6 years of tournament play. I have never gotten a slow play warning. There are two local players who I would call a judge on as soon as the round started if I was paired against them. If you take more than 30 seconds for most turns, you are taking too long. If you go into the tank more than twice a game, you take too long and your opponent should be screaming for a judge. If you go to time twice at a given tournament, let alone more, you take too long.

I’ve finally got that awkwardness over with. It’s been fun doing this column, and I thank everyone who took the time to write feedback out for me over the years. Take it easy.

Josh Silvestri

Bonus Strategy Section: Alara Block Overview

I’ve played a lot of Alara Block online over the past 2 months and I have to say it’s a whole lot of fun without a ton of investment. The most important cards in the format are the Planeswalkers, since without them; your ways to get card advantage are almost non-existent. Somebody compared Planeswalkers to Epic spells, except you could still cast other stuff from your hand and that isn’t far off from the truth here. Tezzeret is really the only borderline playable PW and the other three have all seen notable usage pre-Conflux and that doesn’t look likely to change now. Unfortunately Tezzeret simply doesn’t have a high enough starting loyalty to really make an impact via the search ability and his untap ability is nearly useless in the format unless you make your deck terrible. The only time untapping is really useful is with a resolved Scepter of Fugue or Dominance in play.

Elspeth, Knight Errant is quite possibly the most important card in the format. Not only is she easy to cast, she fits into the most Shards right off the bat, plus she can defend herself the second-best while still being very good if your in an aggressive pose. She can essentially attack, defend and is difficult to beat using any sort of direct damage or smaller evasion creature. Ajani Vengeant has its own special uses and is easily the second most played and relevant PW, but much easier to deal with due to the lower starting loyalty and being able to hit it with Celestial Purge.

Sarkhan Vol is the least talked about planeswalker, but is very relevant in this format. In Standard he simply can’t do enough due to less emphasis on large creatures and board stalemates, plus there’s increased defense via blocking creatures in block. Being able to Threaten, multiple times no less, is game breaking in many of the common matches Jund or Naya play. Often playing Vol and stealing a Thoctar or similar creature, and attacking in with that plus the forces already in play, creates a situation where the opponent has to give up his board to avoid losing nearly all of his life. The number of tokens a Jund deck can produce off a decent draw along with Vol’s first ability is obvious, but what might not be is the near instant-kill of Vol and Martial Coup. If you seven it and have Vol out, you obviously just won the prize, but even throwing it out for 3-4 tokens can be game in a close race. People sleep on Vol because he was terrible in Standard, but in block he’s probably the 2nd best planeswalker if properly utilized; and at the very least playable.

Planeswalkers are good, this much is obvious, but just how good is something a lot of people miss when they first play the format and might not want to spend the tix on getting a set? You can play the format, but you’ll be at a huge disadvantage and there’s really no good way to get around that, yet.

The other big card advantage engine in the format stems from Ranger of Eos fetching Wild Nacatl or Feral Hydra from the deck. This is pretty absurd considering the next best way to actually draw more cards from your deck is to spend UBW or 1U +1U to draw two. Combine this with the fact that all the good PW’s are in Naya colors to begin with and you end up with a large creature mana-efficient aggro deck having the best card advantage options in the format from the get-go. Oh, plus it gets Battlegrace Angel which is like a top-three creature in the format. Seems fair; plus it explains why Naya tends to rule the roost for many of the block PE’s online.

Speaking of top creatures, the short list looks something like this:

1. Broodmate Dragon (two 4/4’s with evasion and Executioner’s Capsule-proof)
2. Battlegrace Angel (better Exalted Angel in this format)
3. Ranger of Eos (Only card advantage engine in town)
4. Woolly Thoctar (Efficient and 4 tougheness means it wins a lot of creature fights)
5. Goblin Outlander (Protection from while nullifies like 2/3rds of the removal in the format and a bunch of annoying ground creatures)

There’s no end to the number of good creatures in Shards constructed, so you can be very picky about what you will and won’t play as long as you play tri-color. As a result you don’t have to play stuff like Goblin Deathraiders, Steward of Valeron, Knight of the White Orchard, etc. if you don’t feel it really helps the deck at whatever curve slot it fills. Just play a slightly slower and better creature, because other than WW, no deck can really punish you for doing so.

Right now the block metagame on Magic Online consists of seven decks and a few notable variants:

Exalted WW — Mono White… basically, the only edge this has over Bant is the super consistent manabase and the ability to main four Scepter of Dominance with no drawback. Not only does that let them get through the burly three-drop or Wall of Reverence at no loss, it can stunt a lot of hands by tapping down a tri-land on upkeep. This is mainly considered a budget choice, since the only remotely expensive card is Elspeth, but it’s fast enough (and with enough resilience) that you can’t just brush it off by playing Volcanic Fallout or Infest. Some of these also go the route of W/R Kithkin and run a few tri-lands and Mountains to gain access to Ajani Vengeant and Banefire, both giving the deck additional reach and options against slower controlling builds.

B/R Blightning — Sort of like a slower descendant of the Blightning deck in Standard, this deck seeks to abuse early beatdown while the Unearth mechanic gives it reach. Cards like Rotting Rats, Hellspark Elemental and Shambling Remains may not seem very impressive, but they can get in for early damage or trade effectively and come back later. This gets a lot more impressive when combined with Bone Splinters and decent burn in Resounding Thunder, Blightning and Banefire. Again though, this is more of a budget choice / being less likely to stumble on mana than being played due to power. One special note is that it’s currently the only deck that runs Goblin Outlander, which is in fact insane in the format.

Naya — King of the castle. There are two main versions, the first is basically just the version that was good pre-Conflux with Path to Exile added in. This one revolved around resolving a few big beaters and simply overwhelming people with creatures, while using 8-12 PW as support cards. The latter which has been gaining traction, revolves more around mana acceleration, additional removal and Martial Coup. Instead of relying on a number of large beaters, this deck typically eschews them for just a few men like Druid of the Anima and Battlegrace Angel to stay alive until Martial Coup clears the board and the PW’s mop up the opponent. Both have very high power levels, a large number of PW and an assortment of amazing removal and sideboard options.

Bant — Not much to say here; this is the same deck that’s been in every other format. It shares more similarities with the Extended version in the sense that it plays a more controlling board position than the straight no-nonsense beatdown plan of Dark Bant. Noble Hierarch and Path to Exile gave this deck a big push into legitimacy, increased the mana consistency while also giving it a cheap removal spell to go along with Bant Charm and Oblivion Ring.

Jund — This deck is actually pretty miserable right now. The deck gained very little from Conflux, save possibly Outlander and Banefire, which are both seeing very little play in the archetype. Right now all the lists are essentially holdovers from Shards only constructed and it really shows as it no longer has the top class removal and red decks have gained a cheap sweeper to invalidate token armies. This archetype still sees play, but needs a retooling to become competitive again.

Esper — Another deck that isn’t necessarily bad, but probably isn’t very good. Most of them have turned into board controlling strategies rather than anything aggro-control, despite Master of Etherium and the more aggressive men in Conflux. For the most part, the deck just sits around and attempts to keep the board clear via white removal and Ex Caps, while drawing cards off Esper Charm and recurring cards with Sanctum Gargoyle and Sharuum the Hegemon. Not only is this deck brutally beaten by the use of Relic, Naturalize is a common board card and acts like an all-purpose Celestial Purge most of the time.

Five-Color Control — I have yet to see a version of this deck consistently do well for multiple PE’s. Usually one taking either a Bant or Esper shell comes, adds some cards (usually Charms) from the other colors and then tries to play control against every single deck in the format. This is usually a losing proposition, between the weak mana base and inability to do much more than 1 for 1 everything until the 6+ mana range. Still, sometimes this deck succeeds, so it bears mentioning. The key thing to remember when trying to build this deck is you absolutely need to be able to destroy Planeswalkers on sight. Even if this means running full sets of mirror copies along with Celestial Purge in the main.

Hopefully this gives people a good idea about the format if they want to play something different on Magic Online or even get some early testing in for the PT, despite being one set short. As long as everything revolves around getting maximum use out of the PW’s, I honestly don’t expect much to change.