Intet has turned out to be dreamier than I expected. I seem to have put together a rather saucy hundred cards — and it was only after playing it for the second week in a row in the Armada Games EDH League that I realized
how
saucy it was. Twice in one game, Bribery got pointed my way, both times it got Emrakul, and I survived. That’s habaneros.
Before we get to all that, however, I’d like to mention a new project that has nothing to do with Magic. Most of you who are regular readers know that my wife Gretchyn and I are cat people. We have four of our own: Dasher, Cupid, Comet, and Vito. All of them are rescue cats. Such is Gretchyn’s commitment to cat rescue that she’s recently started a non-profit one of her own, called Cat Crusaders. Those of you who are interested can donate via PayPal at
www.tampacatcrusaders.org
. You local Tampa folks who are of a mind can even volunteer, if you like. Cat Crusaders runs adoptions out of the New Tampa Petsmart. In the “world is small” department, Erica, the fiancée of Sam Riley — one of the better regular players at Armada’s Constructed tournaments — works at that very store. Funny how our worlds converge. Additionally, there’s a major animal adoption event coming up at USF’s Sun Dome on 25 September, although I assume most of you are going to be at the prerelease.
I only made one modification from
last week
: I caved to the (internal) pressure and included Greater Good. It’s one of the most ridiculous cards in the format, and it seems just wrong to not play it, especially in a deck that’s turning out to be “good” (in the “can I be competitive without going overboard” sense). It paid crazy dividends, as I (and everyone else in the world) expected it would. In fact, when I mentioned to some of the League regulars that I had just put it in, they all looked at me like I was off my rocker for not including it in the first place.
I’m struggling to not include Goblin Bombardment. Strategically, it’s great to have another sacrifice outlet — both for keeping people from stealing my stuff, for Wrathing away theirs after Reins of Power, or just for some final points of damage, especially with Vicious Shadows. Part of my concern in doing that is I don’t want Intet to just become Kresh with blue instead of black. There were times when I’ve played it that tutoring up an Acidic Slime or Indrik Stomphowler would have been much better than a big, fat Eldrazi. Trygon Predator is certainly a cheap way of keeping artifacts and enchantments under control.
During the intervening week, I played the deck casually several times in order to get a better feel for it. It was actually during those games that I became aware of its goodness. For example, I was twice able to Reins of Power off of Intet,
with
Mass Polymorph in hand. Having the dual effect of getting rid of the biggest creature threat on the board and becoming it at the same time is all kinds of good. Sure, it’s nine mana — but that’s small potatoes in many EDH games.
Recross the Paths continued to be very, very good. In addition to getting the land — untapped, if you didn’t notice — you get the Clash, which means further control of the top of the library. Hunting Wilds, on the other hand, has disappointed a little. It’s never been the spell in my hand that I wanted to cast, even in the early game. Perhaps my statistical sampling of games is still a little small, but it’s already on the bubble.
One of my early worries was land ramp spells, which are great in the first few turns of the game, being dead draws later, when I need something with a little more gas. Turns out, they’re what you pitch to Greater Good. I was hoping to find something good landfall-wise that’s
not
Rampaging Baloths — once again, I’m hoping to not have so much overlap with my other decks. Perhaps Roil Elemental has some possibilities.
Obligatory Scars of Mirrodin Mention: The currently-officially-spoiled card that’s caused the most uproar amongst the EDH players is Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. With poison counters being even easier to get to than General damage, I can understand. Personally, I’m looking forward to some crazy Contagion Engine/Kulrath Knight shenanigans.
On to the games!
Game 1
I sit down with Aaron (Teneb), Taylor (Balthor’s Relentless Rats), and Lee (Linvala). I think a little about how badly Lee’s General hurts me, but thankfully it’s far less of a pain to me than it would be when I’m playing either Kresh or Karrthus. Here, it only shuts down Ant Queen (who I’m not over-the-moon about anyway), Djinn of Wishes (okay, that’s a beating), Mul Daya Channelers (but only half the time), Volrath’s Shapeshifter (janky anyway), and Yavimaya Elder (but the less important “draw a card” part, not the vital “get land” part).
I’ve played against all of these decks before, both casually and in League. I know Aaron’s deck was really tight, if a little top-heavy. He’s pushing the envelope a bit by cutting back a few lands and adding a few six-mana things. Seems to me like flirting with a little disaster, but he says he hasn’t had much problem since he’s kind of blank in the first few turns anyway.
Taylor’s Rat deck does exactly what you’d expect it to: vomit out Rats very quickly and swarm you. If you kill them, Balthor brings them back. Lee’s is, by nature, a little more gentle, but still has a trick or two to hurt you when you’re not paying attention.
Once again, I’ve chosen the narrative style, which might be a necessity for playing Intet. I’ll likely try it out again next week. My guess is that I can probably keep up relatively well playing Kresh and Karrthus — but Intet requires a fair amount more thought and action instead of raw aggression, making the play-by-play tougher to record. I’ve offered to pay someone $20 just to record the games for me, but no one’s taken me up on it.
There’s an immediate tone to the game when we sit down, and it’s “Keep Taylor in check.” I don’t consider Taylor’s deck mean or combo-ish — but its power deserves to be respected, because it can suddenly hurt you very badly. Three or four rats in play doesn’t seem bad until Thrumming Stone hits the table and then there are fifty of them.
The first Chaos Enchantment is Lashknife Barrier, and more than one person asks if we all get to draw a card. It doesn’t have any impact on this game — but I can see it having a relatively large one if it’s the second or third, when there are more creature battles going on.
My hand is good only because it contains a Survival of the Fittest and a creature. I debate on the tricky plays I can make early, but when I don’t draw a second creature for a few turns, I pitch the Artisan of Kozilek and just go get Primeval Titan. Taylor runs rats out a few turns in a row, which I keep off of my back by casting Avenger of Zendikar with eight lands. The next turn, my token and Taylor’s rat armies are gone when Lee casts Austere Command. He chooses small creatures, of course — but then makes the odd choice of artifacts. Even if he wanted to leave me with my two fatties, taking out Survival of the Fittest would have been the right choice as far as I’m concerned. I won’t complain, but I don’t completely understand.
It looks like I’m going to really get something going when I cast Intet and Sensei’s Divining Top on the same turn — but at end of turn, Aaron Mortifies my Titan. It seems an odd time to do it… until on his own turn, he casts Puppeteer Clique. He gets the Titan, helping his own land cause, and attacks Taylor with it. I let the damage go through and then at end of combat, Mystifying Maze it. At end of turn, I get it back instead of it being exiled, and I get more lands. Taylor is getting beaten on by everyone’s creatures, and he’s relatively low on life already.
Aaron then ups the ante by casting Dual Nature and Wrath of God. When Puppeteer Clique Persists back, he gets my Titan again (plus one of Taylor’s Rats with the copy). Of course, when he again attacks, I Mystifying Maze the Titan so it doesn’t go away. In the middle of the attack, the Enchantment changes to Words of Wilding. When Titan comes back, I get four more lands since I get a copy.
Taylor casts Necropotence on his own turn, but he’s already down to fourteen. That stirs a discussion — should he kill himself with his own Necro, auto-scooping to screw someone else? He agrees not to — but seems to imply if the person attacking him was a complete ass, he might consider it, regardless of the other social implications. He does draw down to ten life.
By this time, I have more lands in play than I can count between Aaron’s Dual Nature and Puppeteer Clique shenanigans and a few attacks. We count, and discover that my Primeval Titan has gotten thirty-six lands onto the board between us. I figure running out Stormtide Leviathan will give me a little protection, so I do it. The rest of my hand is full of quality merchandise, since I’m not really drawing lands.
On Aaron’s turn, he casts Necrotic Sliver. I really have to think about this for a minute, because of Dual Nature and his graveyard recursion, I know that he can likely blow up most of my important pieces. I’d rather save it for something larger — but I Overwhelming Intellect the Sliver. He then tries to force through Acidic Slime, for which I have Mana Drain.
Lee’s turn follows, and he’s put Armored Ascension on one of his Luminarch Angels. He attacks Taylor to kill him, and then Aaron and I have a Maze battle over which of us gets to save him — which I win when he keeps one of his Mazes back, presumably to either deal with some great threat from me, or to try to save Taylor on my turn, since I have two Titans and he’s still at ten. At Taylor’s end of turn, I take care of that by Wastelanding Aaron’s remaining untapped Maze.
I don’t actually do much on my turn besides kill Taylor and attack Aaron for a little (and get more lands from those Titans—I think my personal count is 30 by now). Aaron casts Lurking Predators, for which I have Desertion. It’s another one of Kristy’s beautiful mods — check this out!
It’s the only counter I have (I only run three, and I’ve used the other two already). Again, I’d rather save it to take something game-changing (since I know Aaron plays Angel of Despair) — but allowing the Predators to get out there just seems like negative EV. After that, Lee casts Mark of Asylum, and we talk about how good that card is in Standard but no one plays it, and shrug because it’s leaving soon anyway.
After untapping with thirty lands and drawing Greater Good, I go insane. Emrakul makes an appearance and I kind of overrun Aaron, after abusing his Dual Nature. The Dual Nature trick with a Legendary creature is to put the trigger on the stack, and then sacrifice the original before the copy comes into play. That way, the original is never around for the “leaves the battlefield” trigger that would wipe out the copy — and, of course, you don’t run afoul of the Legendary Rule.
Discussing this trick leads us to an interesting EDH-specific rules question: If Mirror Gallery and Dual Nature are both on the battlefield when you cast your General, can you kill someone via General damage with the token? Look for my answer next week.
Sacrificing Emrakul to Greater Good means there’s a chance to get him back. The Eldrazi are the only real graveyard recursion I’m running; hopefully, they can get me by some of the graveyard hate that’s rightly developed in the League.
Sidebar shout-out: Speaking of graveyard hate, I’m going to make a tip of the hat to John “Peaches” Howell, an Armada FNM regular — who, while a little overly fond of U/W control, is currently running Relic of Progenitus main deck in his build. Seems like an excellent choice in the current environment full of Vengevines and Knights of the Reliquary.
Back to the game, Lee asks if it’s unreasonable for him to scoop at this point. While there might be an argument to “no,” since points are awarded for doing things other than killing opponents (I could have seriously point-farmed with the control of the table I had), I think it’s ungentlemanly at that point to continue. If it’s only you and one other player, his concession can’t negatively impact them, so it’s perfectly reasonable. Point-farming seems reasonable enough if you really,
really
want to win the league, but I’d much prefer winning the friendship game.
Game 2
It’s Anthony (Kazuul), Taliah (Scion), and Jon (Cromat). I’ve been on the receiving end of Taliah’s Scion beats previously, so I know to watch out. Jon’s Cromat deck is all Knights — and he wants to get Hakkon, Stromgald Scourge into the yard along with Knight Exemplar. It’s a modestly amusing deck. I know nothing about Anthony’s deck, but it’s Mono-Red, so you can pretty much guess what’s coming.
The first Chaos Enchantment is Reckless Assault.
I get Survival on turn 2 again, but this time I literally have nothing to pitch to it. Anthony’s Turn 4 Gauntlet of Might ramps things up a little for both me and Taliah, in addition to doubling mana production for Anthony.
Things get dicey when Taliah Briberies me Turn 5. She knows she’s getting Emrakul, and asks about the Chasm penalty. Michael tells her it’s for every time she wipes out someone’s mana base, so she says that at least he’ll keep the quickly-ramping Anthony off her back. I keep my mana open on the following turn so that I can Survival into Clone to get rid of the Emrakul threat. After Anthony casts Hateflayer and Fervor (he’s really not holding back anything!), Jon Sweet (that’s his full name, and no one at the shop simply calls him “Jon,” it’s always “Jon Sweet”) does the work for me by casting Wrath of God. First Emrakul crisis averted.
The play now, of course, is to get the Primeval Titan instead, which I do. Anthony casts Obsidian Fireheart and Kazuul; Jon Sweet doesn’t do anything; Taliah casts Dragon Broodmother. Things steady for a turn or so, with Taliah building her Dragon token army and casting Maelstrom Nexus. I would love to see her do that, then drop Sarkhan the Mad. Even if I were the one taking it in the face, it’d be awesome.
I don’t do anything besides attacking Jon Sweet to get more lands off the Titan. Anthony floats fifteen and casts Akroma’s Memorial and Gratuitous Violence. Ouch. He still only has the two dudes, so it’s not awful. Yet.
Taliah casts Teneb, which cascades into Recollect, with which she recurs Bribery. I sit still, aside from casting Awakening Zone and a hopefully-ignored Vicious Shadows. I want to attract very little attention from the two of them (who have one and two cards in hand, respectively), since they’re amassing armies far superior to mine.
Anthony attacks Taliah with some flying dudes and cuts her life in half. On her turn, she Briberies me again, looking for some answers. I don’t have anything but the Emrakul, which she takes. She also casts Fires of Yavimaya, which makes Emrakul a little better.
She makes noise about attacking me (which would be fair, with my Emrakul), but I suggest that attacking him would be better, since he’s in the stronger position, and has the Memorial and whatnot. She changes her mind, and swings at him with the entire team.
Anthony isn’t shy about his “gotcha!” moment (actually, he
is
a little rub-it-in-your-facey), and puts ten Kazuul tokens into play. He sacrifices six of them to the Annihilator trigger. He still has enough to kill Emrakul (remember, Akroma’s Memorial), so I Mystifying Maze it before damage (which means I’ll be getting it back). He takes some damage from Vicious Shadows, and at end of turn, I Mystical Tutor.
I’ll confess to doing my best to engineer this situation. I had expected Anthony to keep the tokens and sacrifice a few lands, since he had enough, but I’ll make it work anyway. I knew that I was pretty much dead if I don’t point Taliah in his direction… but having him get the tokens was part of a larger plan to kill him. My Mystical Tutor card is Reins of Power—which is damn good if you have no creatures.
I Reins of Power on my turn, killing Anthony with his own army, and doing some pretty good damage to Taliah, who can block Emrakul with a token and has plenty of things to sacrifice. She casts Scion, which I Mana Drain. She attacks me back with some tokens and Broodmother, the latter of which I Maze. I’m pretty sure I’m in control of this game. I cast Frost Titan, tapping down the Broodmother, and attack her down to four. I cast Stormtide Leviathan for a little protection (although most of her guys fly).
Then, at end of turn, she sacrifices her Armillary Sphere, taking her hand from one card to three. I tell her I want to do something during her draw step. She draws her card — and I sacrifice the Eldrazi token for mana to kill her with Vicious Shadows. I don’t think it much mattered unless she was going to cast Obliterate, which I’m pretty sure she’s not playing.
Finally, for all those who asked, Intet doesn’t allow you to cast things when you normally couldn’t. It’s not like Djinn of Wishes, where you cast the spell during resolution of the activated ability. Intet simply allows you to play the card without paying its mana cost. That’s still Embracing enough Chaos for me!
While a few tweaks might be in order, it seems like this may have already become my “best” deck… although I confess to missing Kresh and Karrthus, so you’ll probably see one of the two next week.