It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything about Magic. That’s mostly because it’s been a long time since I’ve played Magic worth writing about. Before this past summer, I hadn’t played in an event larger than FNM in about 3 years, and I hadn’t been to more than a couple of those. I hadn’t even played Magic Online since Ravnica. I still kept up with new sets and tournament coverage somewhat, and read Mark Rosewater design articles every week, but I just never really got the urge to play.
That changed last summer, when the Pro Tour came to Los Angeles. I made the drive up with Pat Sullivan and Ben Seck, mostly just intending to visit with old friends, but Pat convinced me to play in the Last Chance Qualifier on the ride. I borrowed his Mono Red deck list card for card and played it to a 4-2 finish in the LCQ, reading cards as I went. I watched the first PTQs the next day and became so excited about the possibilities of Reflecting Pool and Vivid lands that I brewed up a Five Color Doran/Reveillark deck that I played to a 4-2 finish in the PTQ on Sunday.
And with that I was hooked. I went to GP: Denver and four PTQs over the summer, but despite three top 8 finishes, I didn’t quite manage to get there. I was only able to play in one qualifier for Kyoto due to conflicting obligations, but found myself firing up Magic Online to get my fix. When Grand Prix LA rolled around, I was foaming at the mouth to play, but unfortunately didn’t have much of an opportunity to prepare beforehand. I borrowed cards to play Death Cloud, making Day 2 but failing to win a single match once I got there.
After the Grand Prix, I became quite interested in Michael Jacob B/G Aggro Loam deck. His build seemed to solve many of the issues that the slower, more controlling Loam decks had. With Affinity and Desire making strong showing at the GP, I played a San Diego PTQ with essentially Jacob’s list splashing red for Ancient Grudge and playing Cranial Extraction in the sideboard, the former of which was a great addition and the latter of which was total garbage. I went 5-2 in that PTQ, losing to Naya Burn and one of the three Desire decks I played. I felt confident in almost every matchup I played except Desire and decks with Sulfuric Vortex, so I went looking for solutions.
Around that time, Conflux came out. I was excited by the prospect of playing with Knight of the Reliquary, so I spent some time searching through Extended legal cards on Gatherer. For those of you who have never used Gatherer in this way, I recommend you give it a try — it’s really a tremendous resource that can get the deckbuilding juices flowing and turn up cards you never would have thought of otherwise. Anyway, my Gatherer search got me really excited about two cards in particular.
The first was Cabal Interrogator. The Interrogator was precisely the Desire solution I was looking for. He was the cornerstone of my anti-Wake sideboard for B/W Decree back at Worlds 2003 and served Matt Linde well in his runner up performance at GP Atlanta with the same deck and gives you exactly what you need against Desire – pressure. While you can steal some games with Tarmogoyf and Thoughtseize, your real threat is Raven’s Crime. Raw card count is essential for storm combo decks to go off, and Cabal Interrogator puts them on a clock the moment he comes down. He is far more powerful than something like a Scepter of Fugue, as well, because as turns go by he becomes closer to a Coercion every turn, keeping even something like Ad Nauseam from being able to get them back in the game. He is also very good against Faeries, and made for an easy replacement for Choke given that so many Faeries decks are building their mana bases to beat it, and you don’t need Choke to beat them anyway.
The second card was Arena. Arena was something that came up while I was searching for Extended legal lands to abuse with Knight of the Reliquary. So many people seemed so excited about Knight almost only as a Terravore in Loam decks, and while the prospect of a big creature for three mana is cool, a big cheap creature is hardly what a deck that already has Tarmogoyf is looking for. A big creature that can search up a land that can absolutely dominate the game immediately seems more exciting to me, though. It doesn’t produce mana, so you have to play it over a spell, but the fact that you can search it up and just beat a lot of decks with it makes that sacrifice more than worthwhile. Faerie decks that rely on Sower as creature control are just dead in the water to an active Knight with Arena in your deck, and it puts any other creature strategy on a very fast clock to kill it before they’re locked out of the game or just dead. Keep in mind that Arena doesn’t require you to tap your creature as a cost — it’s part of the effect, so you can use it the turn you search it up, or attack with your Knight and use Arena to kill a blocker.
Excited to lock people out with the oldest of old school Contested Cliffs, I started messing around with G/B/w Loam, and my initial builds were very similar to those that made Top 8 at GP Hanover a few weeks ago (although including Arena!) Unfortunately I found that the addition of white made the deck feel much less smooth. One of the big draws of the straight G/B (or G/B splashing Ancient Grudge) loam deck is the fact that it takes very little damage from its mana base. Most of the time you can use your fetch lands for basics so you don’t take pain from both the fetch and shocklands coming into play untapped. Playing with an additional color that you consistently need in the early game, however, means that you need more shocklands and need to proactively search up the third color early on to ensure that you have access to it even if you don’t have a card of that color yet. The deck really wants access to lots of black mana for Darkblast and Raven’s Crime, and needs double green (or green/white) early for Kitchen Finks. Twilight Mire is great at facilitating this, but it is among the first lands you need to cut to make room for white sources. With so many Dredge cards in the deck, I didn’t feel safe playing just one of each white Ravnica dual land — the first time you Dredge a Darkblast and mill your only Godless Shrine into your graveyard with only a Bloodstained Mire to fetch with, the second of each go in.
Another problem I found with G/B/w was the loss of Ancient Grudge. While Ancient Grudge is obviously at its best against Affinity, it’s a great card to sideboard in against any deck with some number of problematic artifacts. I found myself bringing them in against Faeries decks to combat Jitte and Shackles and blow up the occasional Chrome Mox or force a Relic activation, against Desire to kill Lotus Blooms, and even against Bant just to pick off equipment. White gives you access to Kataki, which is obviously extremely powerful against Affinity, but far less versatile. Similarly, the prospect of playing Circle of Protection: Red against Zoo/Burn decks seems attractive, but Ravenous Baloth is a better card all around, coming in against more decks to replace marginal cards and give you a bit more beatdown on top of the life gain. I felt like the more powerful sideboard options against particular strategies cost me too many minor edges in other matchups compared to the more versatile alternatives.
The final nails in the coffin for my G/B/w testing were simple mana curve and expected hate. My proxied up test deck had both versions written on the cards so I could evaluate opening hands from the perspective of both variations, and many games the G/B/w deck simply wouldn’t have an early play. It’s hard to compete in Extended when you don’t do anything before turn three, and Bitterblossom (which naturally competes with Knight given the deck’s moving pieces) is a powerful something, even if it’s not optimal against many decks. The fact that Bitterblossom is largely ignored in sideboarding is also nice, while Knight of the Reliquary takes a big hit from Relic of Progenitus. Making sideboard cards my opponent will already be playing better against me seems like a bad idea.
That said, this is the deck list I played at the Vegas PTQ:
Creatures (8)
Lands (26)
Spells (26)
- 2 Umezawa's Jitte
- 4 Darkblast
- 4 Life from the Loam
- 3 Putrefy
- 2 Slaughter Pact
- 4 Thoughtseize
- 3 Bitterblossom
- 3 Raven's Crime
- 1 Worm Harvest
Sideboard
The only deck I didn’t want to play against was Naya Burn with Sulfuric Vortex. With Conflux in the mix, I’d seen a lot more Tribal Flames/Might of Alara Zoo decks popping up in Top 8 results posted online, and I was hopefully that would encourage anyone leaning toward playing Zoo toward playing one of those builds. The non-Vortex Zoo decks are easy enough to handle with Jitte, Finks, and sideboarded Baloths, but with zero ways to kill an enchantment between deck and sideboard, Vortex can just steal games on its own.
I didn’t take any notes besides those I have on my life sheet from Thoughtseizes, so details may be a bit fuzzy, but the tournament went as follows.
Round 1: Faeries
I feel bad for not remembering my first round opponent’s name, as I’ve seen him around at a number of tournaments, but for some reason it completely escapes me right now. Regardless, he was playing Faeries, and our match was not particularly close. I won the die roll, and in the first game I Thoughtseized him early and saw a hand of Thirst for Knowledge, Clique, Mana Leak, Spell Snare, and Triskelion. I take Clique to protect my Life from the Loam, and before long get Loam/Crime going. He gets some damage in with Spellstutter Sprites that he draws while I’m stripping his hand, but eventually I draw into a Darkblast and he can’t keep anything in play.
SB: +3 Cabal Interrogator, +2 Ancient Grudge, -3 Putrefy, -2 Slaughter Pact
The second game I resolve an early Bitterblossom and Cabal Interrogator, which he and some onlookers have to read. He resolves a Gifts Ungiven and gets Life from the Loam, Engineered Explosives, Academy Ruins, and Ghost Quarter. He’s able to get back his Explosives and kill my Interrogator and Bitterblossom, and finishes off my tokens the next turn, but my Loam is getting me cycle lands and Raven’s Crime and eventually I’m able to Ghost Quarter his Academy Ruins away while it’s tapped and Worm Harvest for a lethal number of tokens. In retrospect I probably should have expected Gifts once I saw Triskelion in Game 1 and sideboarded in some number of Extirpates, but my standard Faeries plan proved to be enough.
1-0 Matches, 2-0 Games
2-0
Round 2: Affinity
I won the die roll and took a peek at his mulligan hand of Enforcer, Thoughtcast, Ravager, Master of Etherium, Seat of the Synod, and Chromatic Star. I thought about taking Chromatic Star and trying to pin him on one mana, but decided to play it safe and take his Ravager. He didn’t draw a second land right away anyway, and he couldn’t get back in the game after his slow start.
+3 Ancient Grudge, +3 Damnation, +3 Ravenous Baloth, -3 Raven’s Crime, -4 Darkblast, -1 Bitterblossom, -1 Thoughtseize
The second game I had all kinds of answers, but he had even more questions. When he complained about my third Putrefy of the game, I pointed out that he’d played four Master of Etherium. Despite killing all of them, eventually something picked up a Cranial Plating and killed me.
The third game was all me. I took some damage early, but completely decimated him with Ancient Grudge and Damnation. I eventually locked him with Life from the Loam and Ghost Quarter. My life pad shows him conceding at 20.
3-0 Matches, 4-1 Games
4-0
Round 3: Roberto Gonzales playing Bant
I’d just gotten lunch with Roberto before the round and I knew he was playing Bant. I won the die roll and kept a hand with no removal but Thoughtseize and double Tarmogoyf. I Thoughtseize him and see triple Troll Ascetic, War Monk, Loxodon Warhammer, and lands. I take the Warhammer and drop a Tarmogoyf the next turn, and another the next. He starts sticking creatures, but none of them are big enough to fight with my Tarmogoyfs, and he can’t afford to hold back regeneration mana for his trolls because then he just can’t develop his board. I draw yet another Tarmogoyf and the situation goes from bad to worse for him.
+3 Damnation, +3 Ravenous Baloth, -2 Bitterblossom, -2 Kitchen Finks, -2 Darkblast
I didn’t really know how to sideboard this matchup, and frankly I’m still not sure. Damnation and Ravenous Baloth are pretty obvious inclusions, since Wrath effects and big creatures are really good against midrange creature decks, but what comes out was less clear. My sideboarding plan against Bant sort of evolved through the tournament, especially given that so many of the decks I played were so different. Darkblast seemed really powerful against versions with both Birds and Hierarch, but pretty bad against others. In hindsight, though, Darkblast is a good answer to Gaddock Teeg, who can shut down your Damnations, as well as letting your Tarmogoyfs trade up and handling Vendilion Cliques that some versions play.
In any case, the second game of this match contributed a great deal to the shift in my sideboarding strategy. I managed to contain Robert’s early beatdown and even mount some pressure of my own, but eventually he got both Jitte and Sword of Fire of Ice in play and every creature became a huge threat and I couldn’t keep up.
The second game had taken a long time, and we started the third with barely any time on the clock. Despite both of us playing quickly, we didn’t come close to finishing. I only picked up one match point, but I felt like I learned a lot about how to play and sideboard the matchup moving forward.
2-0-1 Matches 5-2-1 Games
Round 4: Eternal Witness Zoo
The first game is pretty much a slaughter. I win the die roll, but mulligan and keep a relatively slow hand, and my opponent comes out of the gates with Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape. I have nothing to slow him down and get run over. The turn before I’m going to die, he plays out a Duergar Hedge-Mage just to kill my lonely creatureless Jitte. This gave me far more information than he should’ve revealed, since it told me he was playing the more controlling Witness Zoo deck that had recently won a PTQ.
+3 Damnation +3 Ravenous Baloth -3 Raven’s Crime -3 Bitterblossom
I make an enormous blunder in the second game on the very first turn. I Thoughtseize him and see Helix, Wild Nacatl, Relic, Jitte, Witness, and lands. I take the Nacatl, thinking momentarily that it’s important that I slow him down, then immediately realize my mistake. His deck isn’t a fast burn deck, and taking some damage from a Wild Nacatl isn’t going to put me in nearly as bad shape as a first turn Relic will. Sure enough, he slowly starts grinding away at my graveyard. I bait him into blowing the Relic to stop a Life from the Loam, but he’s able to get it back with his Witness and go to work again. He gets me low with random creatures and I eventually bait him into using his second Relic when I’m able to protect my Loam with a cycle land. With no Relics in sight I dredge through my deck until I finally get to Worm Harvest and I’m able to win despite myself.
The third game he has a fairly aggressive draw and is able to get me down to 6 quickly, but I’m able to clear the board with Damnation and stick some fat creatures. His deck’s lack of burn hurts him here, as he can’t find a way past my fatties and I’m able to take the match in a few big swings.
3-0-1 Matches 7-3-1 Games
Round 5: Kevin Parker playing Bant
Kevin was actually the person whose Bant deck I tested against to prepare for the tournament, so I knew exactly what to expect. I also now knew how to sideboard, thanks to my match against Roberto earlier. His deck has the full 8 one drop mana creatures, and I just work him over with Darkblast in both games.
+3 Ravenous Baloth +3 Damnation +2 Ancient Grudge -3 Bitterblossom -4 Kitchen Finks -1 Raven’s Crime
4-0-1 Matches 9-3-1 Games
Round 6: Bant
Once again I’m up against Bant, though this time things are quite a bit closer. My opponent is playing a version with Trygon Predator, which is actually quite annoying just as a 3 toughness flier. He plays far too conservatively in both games, however, and lets me get back into the game by trying to play around too many cards. Lots of players fall into this trap — they play scared. I was sitting behind a single Tarmogoyf for much of the game, and my opponent just didn’t play out his hand of two Tarmogoyfs of his own because he didn’t want to lose to Damnation. I ended the game at 5 life, which would have been a single hit from a Tarmogoyf. In the next game the situation was entirely opposite, where he made a near-alpha strike keeping one creature back, and I was able to block enough creatures to survive and keep my pair of Tarmogoyfs, then find a removal spell with Loam/cycle lands the next turn to axe his blocker and kill him. To be perfectly fair, though, the only reason he was in the game at all is because I managed to overlook the fact that I had Ravenous Baloth/Mutavault/Life from the Loam for a bunch of turns, and then threw away my Baloth for nothing because I forgot the equipped creature had to be in play when the damage resolved for my Jitte to get counters. Oops. I promise once upon a time I was actually good at this game.
5-0-1 Matches 11-3-1 Games
Round 7: Reliquary Loam
ID
5-0-2 Matches 11-3-1 Games
The Top 8 had 3 Zoo decks, a Elf deck, a DoranBant deck, Reliquary Loam, Desire, and Me.
Quarterfinals: Zachary Reyburn playing Mind’s Desire
Well, I guess it’s time to find out if the Interrogators are enough! I lose the die roll for the first time all tournament and wonder if I’m going to find my way to the exit in my fourth straight PTQ Top 8 match. Zach and I are friends and the match is pretty lighthearted, with me asking him “Am I dead?” pretty much every time he draws a card or taps his mana. Game 1 the answer is “yes”, as Kitchen Finks beatdown just isn’t going to cut it, even if I do draw a Thoughtseize.
+3 Cabal Interrogator +3 Ancient Grudge +3 Ravenous Baloth +3 Extirpate -4 Darkblast -3 Putrefy -2 Slaughter Pact -3 Kitchen Finks
Game 2 I Raven’s Crime him turn 1 with Life from the Loam in hand, but draw Cabal Interrogator off the top. I start working on his hand the next turn and then on turn 4 draw a second Interrogator. I get overexcited and play it to speed up the discard lockdown, but neglect to notice that he discards Mind’s Desire to my first Interrogator activation. I had Extirpate in hand, and my over-eagerness to play my pet card kept me from locking him out of the game on the spot. He fires off a Desire for three on the following turn, and at this point I feel like I deserve to lose, but he doesn’t get there concedes.
Game 3 isn’t really much of a game at all, as he mulligans and I once again play a turn 2 Interrogator. I Ancient Grudge his Lotus Bloom when it comes into play and soon he’s playing off the top of his deck. He manages a Mind’s Desire for one, but the math gods don’t hate me that much, and soon I’m off to the semifinals.
Matches 6-0-2 Games 13-4-1
Semifinals : DoranBant
This matchup was perhaps the most agonizing of the entire tournament. In the first game I Thoughtseize away a Tarmogoyf, leaving him with Spell Snare, Gaddock Teeg, and lands. I play out a pair of Kitchen Finks that get to work on his life total. He manages to stabilize at 1 life with just Gaddock Teeg and lands in play to my 17 health. I have Raven’s Crime going to strip his hand with my excess lands, but no Life from the Loam. He draws Jitte. I keep drawing land and Crime’ing away his hand, but his Jitte quickly gets enough counters to completely dominate the board. I draw no removal and die.
+3 Ravenous Baloth +3 Damnation +2 Ancient Grudge -3 Bitterblossom -4 Kitchen Finks -1 Raven’s Crime
Game 2 I Thoughtseize into a hand with 2x Doran, Polluted Delta, Breeding Pool, Clique, and Tarmogoyf. I take the Tarmogoyf and play one of my own on the next turn. My opponent doesn’t crack his Delta and draws and stops to think. I tell him he has the look of a man who drew Path to Exile, and he nods and plays it on my Tarmogoyf. He plays out a tapped Godless Shrine, and I look at him again and tell him he has the look of someone who doesn’t play a Swamp in his Doran deck and Ghost Quarter his Godless Shine. He sighs and fetches an Island. I have Darkblast for his Clique and then start Dredging for Loam. He never gets the mana for Doran and dies.
Game 3 looks terrible for me initially, as I mulligan into a hand with only two forests for mana. I have two Tarmogoyfs, though, and Darkblast and Loam, so I keep. My opponent gets a super aggressive draw with Bird into Doran, taking a bunch of damage from his painlands to do so. I fail to draw a black source and end up sending my 1 /2 Tarmogoyfs in for two damage apiece, courtesy of Doran. I finally draw Twilight Mire. He swings with Doran the next turn, and during my upkeep I Darkblast his Elf, dredge it, putting another card type in my graveyard, then Darkblast his Bird and swing for exactly 10 damage. Phew.
Matches 7-0-2 Games 15-5-1
Finals: Markus Torrez playing Zoo
I heard the same story from both players who lost to Markus on the way to the finals. “I died to a lot of Tribal Flames.” I was pretty confident, because I feel my deck’s setup is good against Domain Zoo. I was even more confident when Markus failed to play a second land in Game 1 for several turns while I was able to play out a Jitte and a Kitchen Finks. I had a fairly land heavy hand with multiple sac lands, along with Worm Harvest, so I played out the game with the intention of just casting Worm Harvest every turn from 5 onward instead of giving him an opportunity to slow me down my killing my Finks with burn if I used mana to equip it. Given Markus’s slow start, that plan seemed like it would work perfectly — that is, until he Mana Tithed my Worm Harvest and played out a Tarmogoyf the next turn with a grip full of cards. No one said anything about that! Suddenly my Kitchen Finks couldn’t profitably attack with Jitte and I wasn’t going to have nearly enough worms to actually trade because my initial Harvest got countered. I start Harvesting and chump blocking as he’s playing out more creatures, and I draw into a second Finks so I’m able to get my life total high, but I’m never able to get my Jitte active. Finally I draw into Life from the Loam and start generating a real advantage, and manage to win what looked to be a blowout at a precarious six life.
+3 Ravenous Baloth +3 Damnation -3 Raven’s Crime -3 Bitterblossom
The second game looks much worse than the first, as Markus comes out very quickly with Kird Ape and Wild Nacatl. I have no Finks to keep me alive and he burns away my first Tarmogoyf with Lightning Helix. I Life from the Loam and Thoughtseize him on turn three and he Mana Tithes it. I’m happy to get rid of his Mana Tithe without having to pay two life, but I’m afraid that means he has another. I close my eyes and try to Damnation the next turn with no mana leftover and somehow it resolves. I’m at six now, and he fires off a Lightning Helix to bring me to three. I play Ravenous Baloth — now with one up to pay for mana tithe —and it sticks. He quickly hits it with Path to Exile, and when I sacrifice it I fully expect to die to Lightning Helix in response. He doesn’t have it, and I’m out of single burn spell range at 7. I draw a Kitchen Finks and go up to 11, which seems stable except he’s at 21, so I have a lot of work to do. Eventually I dredge into Worm Harvest and get it going, trying to use Worms to stabilize my life total by holding them back to block potential Hellspark Elementals, though I miss that it has Trample so I lose the chance to trade two Worms for two life. My Worm army starts to grow to critical mass, and Markus gets me down to six, then four, then one with burn, but he’s not able to get the last point in before my Worms take the game.
Matches 8-0-2 Games 17-5-1
So I won the tournament, and I’m once again qualified for the Pro Tour after nearly four years! While I certainly can’t devote the same kind of time to preparation that I did back when, when playing and writing about Magic was my full time job, I plan on going into Hawaii ready to succeed. I’m already on Magic Online drafting several nights a week, and it’s not even the Pro Tour format yet! I have the fever. It never truly goes away. Oh, and I have a heck of a suit to wear for the Pro Tour. You’ll see!
As for the Extended format, I believe this deck is still a very strong contender. Saito’s win with Naya Zoo with Thoctars over Vortex seems like it should mean less of the nasty enchantments around. The resurgence of Elves certainly makes playing a deck with 4 Darkblast main attractive, and while many Faeries lists have started packing Cryptic Command main and Future Sight in the sideboard, I still like the matchup, especially if you can surprise them with Cabal Interrogators when many of them cut much of their removal against you. It’s entirely possible I’m wrong about the G/B/w version being inferior to G/B/r, given its success in Hanover, but if you do make that switch, be sure to try out Arena. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Until next time… It sure feels good to be back!