I wish I could be pissed about something so I could write a twenty-page rant. You know, like I used to do — spitting and cursing and calling people out. Remember when you’d click my article and know I’d be going off on someone or something… but lately it seems I’m so effing giddy!
I guess I don’t really hate anything anymore. I haven’t the angry passion to fire myself up, let alone you. I mean, the only thing I really can’t stand for the life of me would be politicians. Wait, I hate politicians, I mean really hate them, and not just the normal, rational hate. I’m talking old school militia vendetta hate. Maybe there is hope for this article after all. Still, I smile all innocent-like.
In case you were unaware, Longbow Archer remains pretty good, especially wearing a Jitte with four counters, and a Crusade and active Mother of Runes sitting precariously close by. I played White Weenie at the last Saturday Legacy, since I was sick of Mono Black In Legacy, and because too many people were now playing Hymns and Hyppies and Duress, I went with the tried-but-no-longer-necessarily-true.
I only bring up Archer because, in the finals against Affinity (which had slaughtered everyone so far), my opponent sacced about ten artifacts to Ravager and modulared them to Frogmite and still couldn’t kill him. It’s also unfair to open up this hand in game 2: Swords to Plowshares, Seal of Cleansing, Enlightened Tutor, Wasteland, Plains, Plains… and draw Kataki. So gimme my packs and let’s talk some Lorwyn.
Kataki reminds me of former NY governor Pataki, which reminds me of how much I wish all the politicians in the world would end up in one of Jigsaw’s challenges. No, wait, they should end up in Amanda’s traps, since she’s a crooked b*tch and there is no chance for escape. Did I ever mention how much I hate Barack Obama? He’d invade Pakistan if he were president, but would sit down with Iran’s Little Hitler with tea and crumpets.
Before I forget, thanks to Siyko for the Apprentice Lorwyn patch. Some of us have very little inclination to spend twice for real life and Magic Online, and Apprentice, while certainly not the flashiest Magic tool, is nothing short of outstanding, at least for deckbuilding purposes. Props to Wizards for not only not shutting them down, but throwing them an official license. I heart Wizards (and free sh**!)
From some quasi-important site:
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Washington, D.C. — President Bush today withdrew the nomination of John Rizzo to serve as the General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Let me go on record as saying this is bulls***, I wuz robbed, and here’s one more reason (if you need one) to hate Bush! Man, even as a conservative, I hate the f***in’ guy. I began to dislike Bush when I accidentally watched the speech where he ended with “Let’s roll,” the famous last words of the guy who led the passengers to revolt against the terrorists on flight 93. I wanted to punch his teeth loose.
Q. What’s the best way to save a politicians life?
A. Who cares?
I wish someone would have spent some time convincing me that Skyshroud Ranger is not a good replacement for Birds of Paradise, even when you’re running Gilt-Leaf Palace. Since I’d never actually used Ranger, I wasted about five minutes of my life before it dawned on me that you need three lands in your hand by turn 2 to make him a Birds once. Perhaps I should be reading the “New To Magic” section of the site, if we still have one.
How come when Patrick Chapin writes about a deck he can make it feel like he’s lying in bed beside you and whispering his sweet version of Internet pillow talk? Every deck he offers looks like a metagame-warping sumb*tch (though I wish he would use more rare cards!), and it probably would win blue envelopes everywhere if he wouldn’t write about the f***in’ thing. I think it’s because he loves us. And we love him. Win/win!
Right, Lorwyn part that I alluded to: tech I invented that isn’t very good yet I hereby stake my claim: Magus of the Abyss plus Nath of the Guild Leaf. Of course, having your board control be a 4/3 creature is an iffy proposal at best.
Nevertheless, here was a preliminary version:
Not Recommended As A Deck For States
4 Birds
4 Thoughtseize (assuming I’ll open 4 at the Release)
4 Oona’s Prowler
4 Augur of Skulls
3 Terror
4 Troll
4 Stupor
4 Hyppie
2 Warhammer
2 Magus of the Abyss
3 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
6 Swamp
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Forest
2 Treetop Village
I putzed around with the deck a little, and while it did bring me back to the days of Mono Black In Standard ‘06, it was, I dunno, tired or something. Or maybe everyone will play TarmoRack and I’ll feel like a cheap-can’t afford-‘Gofys-net-decker.
Last week, I gave up the dream of a set of ‘Goyfs and sold my single copy I ripped from a little kid to Brenden for $28 in store credit. Damn, now I wish I had a set — that’d be $112 and I could almost afford a set of Thoughtseize! Perhaps the government can force Wizards to make all cards the same rarity, i.e. common, since it’s not fair that some people can afford to spend hundreds on the newest set and I can’t. Isn’t it time for Booster Vouchers? I bet it would work, I mean, as long as it wouldn’t involve school choice. If Hilary wins, I want her to take on the juggernaut that is Wizards of the Coast.
Anyway, though B/G was no longer on the agenda, I went and fell in love with Oona’s Prowler. So much so that I proxied up four copies and just wrote “OONA!” in big block letters which is why I just typed “OONA!” in big block letters to show you what those proxies look like without actually including photos.
Here was the Mono Black version:
OONA! Black In Standard (Also Not Recommended)
4 Thoughtseize (still assuming)
2 Extirpate
4 Augur of Skulls
4 Oona’s Prowler
3 Cruel Edict or Terror
4 Stupor
4 Hyppie
4 Phyrexian Rager
4 Korlash
3 Tendrils
2 Tombstalker
21 Swamp
2 Urborg
For the love for OONA! I kinda like this deck, though I’m very hard pressed and awfully disappointed to play Hyppie when it can’t be accelerated out on turn 1 or 2. After tooling around a little, I began to appreciate that this is probably the deck I should take to States. To go 4-3 if I had tremendous fortune.
Then it hit me: I can use the activated ability of OONA! to greater effect than my opponent if I really tried and I’ll show you cruel world. I’m calling OONA! Black In Standard my Fallback Deck, which means if the following turns out to suck a little too much, I’ll Fall Back, yo, cause ain’t nobody beat the discard, ‘cept for better discard. Like Thoughtseize backed up with Tarmogoyf.
Here was the first take on breaking the symmetry of OONA!:
The Exploitation Of OONA! (still not recommended)
4 Dark Withering
4 Fiery Temper
4 Gorgon Recluse
4 Reckless Wurm
3 Tombstalker
1 Conflagrate
4 Lightning Axe
4 Oona’s Prowler
2 Goblin Lore
4 Trespasser il-Vec
2 Gathan Raiders
1 Razormane Masticore
6 Swamp
5 Mountain
4 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Gemstone Mine
I was mildly pleased with this build, but I’m sure you aren’t, you filthy net deckers whose parents bought you a set of ‘Goyfs when they were only $30 each. While it’s mostly a collection of decent-to-average-to-bad cards, the deck has its moments. Unfortunately, those moments are like Taster’s Choice, man-to-man, Slow-n-Low a.k.a. The Beastie Boys before they were raving libs, which means there aren’t enough quick outlets – Goblin Lore doesn’t count until about turn 4, and Raiders is a single-use enabler who omg doesn’t even have shadow! Still, I’m a fan of decks that are filled with 10th picks.
Why is John Edwards running for president? Does he seriously think he can possibly, in any alternate-even-bizarro-world, win the Democratic nomination? Oh, I see, he’s running for vice-president. Clever one, that guy. Pretty much like I did for the Invitational — I knew I wouldn’t win, but was simply trying to get Wizards to throw me a bone in the form of booster packs for life. Since they didn’t award me said bone, I want Hilary to win so I can lobby her to get me my due packs for reparations.
Booster drafts are inherently evil, since one card will invariably end up being picked 15th. It’s not fair that a card, through no fault of its own, should be relegated to the last pick. This means that the cards are being picked based on the biases of the players, also known as… anyone…? Yes, that’s right: prejudice. Nick Eisel is prejudiced. So is Tiago, and Richie H., gawd, he’s the least tolerant drafter on the planet. This is why I don’t like to draft — it’s so wrong on so many levels, and for me to be associated with such shady characters as those listed above would do irreparable harm to my impeccable f***ing reputation.
I have a confession: I like to dance. Not like “dance in a nightclub,” or ballroom dancing, or even normal dancing, rather I like to dance like a complete and utter retard. The wave, cabbage patch, the world’s worst running man, throw in a moonwalk, a little breakdancing, the swim, the twist, the q-tip, and all kinds of pimp my ride ghetto mackin’ style. You should see me go. It’s something else. Seriously, I should make a video. I like to confess things to my readers, so they can get to know “the real me.” Psst, there isn’t a real me. Suckers!
So yeah, the deck: speeding up the enablers leaves going Green for Greenseeker and Fa’adiyah Seer, which isn’t faster at all, or whoring myself out to Blue. Result:
OONA!
4 Lightning Axe
4 Dark Withering
4 Fiery Temper
4 Oona’s Prowler
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Gorgon Recluse
4 Reckless Wurm
1 Vexing Sphinx
1 Razormane Masticore
3 Tombstalker
4 Underground River
4 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Swamp
3 Shivan Reef
1 Mountain
I want to throw up every time I look at that list. Then I look at the manabase and actually do throw up. But man, Axing and Withering two guys for two mana is about stupid in so many ways. Of course, dropping in Reckless Wurm or Gorgon Recluse or both before blockers is about stupid in all the ways that Axe/Wither forgot to take care of.
Yes, but your madness enablers are fragile one-toughness critters.
Yes, but Darkblast is all gone.
Yes, but Mogg Fanatic isn’t.
Yes, but you wouldn’t say that if Chapin, Feldman or Flores brought it up.
Yes, you’re right, I wouldn’t.
I’m sorry, let’s be friends! And Gorgon Recluse is hard to kill!
So are politicians! What with their bodyguards and FBI security teams and giant private jets that can melt a glacier in an hour.
I want Zombie Infestation to be legal (but only for me), which would make all the very iffy madness cards not so iffy when they’re coming with a zombie token attached at the teat. However, the Blue guys are repeatable enablers who require no mana, and no-cost, repeatable discard is a scarce commodity these days, with or without a zombie token wait Bridge From Below makes zombie tokens. Food for thought maybe not really?
You may have noticed that the deck does nothing to interfere with the opponent’s plan, other than killing creatures. This is something I’d like to address, but the main alternate plan involves Psychotic Episode and perhaps a Delay or four. Likewise, plan three may consist of Thoughtseize (still assuming!), Hyppie, Rats, Stupor and Augur currently auditioning for roles in the transformational sideboard that I won’t have the guts to build.
Dosan offer a particularly nasty problem — the guys they can’t block are going to be hitting for one instead of three, which takes a moderate clock and dips it in syrup. With only Axe (and D on the S combat tricks) to kill Dosan, should I feel insecure? But Gorgon Recluse is hard to kill and hits for four now!
The option of Dread Return plus fatties has also crossed my mind, and I confess that, on the way through my mind, it stopped, had a cup of coffee and we chatted a bit. Two plans of attack (upstairs and downstairs) seems like it could be formidable, especially considering that many of the upstairs creatures are none too fearsome, i.e. they don’t bash, instead offer a mere poke and prod here and there.
Lemme tell you a secret: I like this deck against discard-heavy Black decks because I can side out the completely useless Dark Withering for Dodecapod or Guerilla Tactics because no one ever thought of that.
Speaking of things no one ever thought of, I’m feeling right now, regarding madness, how I felt in the early stages of Friggorid. Well, except that nothing about this deck is nearly so ridiculous, there are no creatures that even remotely resemble Ichorid, and all the cards are about two turns slower and cost mana and aren’t about to take on the metagame by storm. Still, something feels breakable here.
And it’s all about feelings, at least that’s what politicians tell me. See, if you paddled a kid at school, you might hurt his (or her) feelings, and that would be tragic. The other day, a 6th grader called a teacher a “f***ing b*tch” in the middle of the cafeteria during lunch. The teacher didn’t grab the kid and slap the living sh** out of him like would have happened in my day, but rather instructed the student to go to the office, where I imagine the punishment would involve losing nine seconds of recess.
I asked my kids to consider what the result would be if the teacher grabbed the kid, bent him over and slapped a piece of wood across his ass, like all medieval-like. They seemed to agree that the kid would likely not do that again, and everyone who was watching would also be loathe to get that mouthy anytime in the near future, read: ever.
After 38 years, I finally know what I want to be when I grow up: god. No, not the God, but god enough. I’d sit on a throne in a position to fix things. I’d like to hold court when that woman who spilled hot coffee on herself at the McDonald’s drive-thru filed a lawsuit. I think I would have first called her a goddamned moron, and then made her wear a dunce cap for one year. Perhaps I would have allowed McDonald’s to sue her. Also, I would have liked to be god enough when the O.J. verdict came in, when the people started to burn down their own neighborhood after the Rodney King fiasco, and twenty years ago I could have beaten some sense into the corruption that is New Orleans and fixed the freakin’ levies. Maybe I could take a trip to the Middle East and straighten sh** out, I mean, they’ve only been fighting since, oh, before recorded time, but gimme the authority and I’ll rip it up. When I was finished cleaning up the world, and bored of all the hot chyx that come with the territory, I might let it all go to sh** again, so I’d have something to do.
Since I won’t ever get to be god enough, I guess I’ll have to settle for being bitter and broken down, crying “I coulda been a contender!” in my beer at the local bar on a Saturday night. And I don’t even like beer, that’s the real tragedy. This is no place for a political rant! You’re right, but this wasn’t a political rant… it was, um, a sociological dissertation. Yeah, that’s what it was. Someone should tase me, ‘cause that always makes things better. And come on, like 10,000 volts really hurts.
Okay, maybe I’ll get back to the deck now, since this is a Magic site, ferchrissakes.
Let’s break it down — the deck would like to discard stuff and have it be useful on the way out or in the bin. Flashback lists Call, Dread Return, Conflagrate, Teachings, Soot, and Think Twice as its playables, and none of those really set the world on fire.
Madness, on the other hand, offers up a number of spotty comes-into-play creatures, such as Big Game Hunter, Brain Gorgers, Grave Scrabbler, Muck Drubb, and Nightshade Assassin. Any of these can be good, since when you’re discarding for some other effect and leave behind a body, you’re ahead of the game. If that body provides something, that’s even better. The thing is — the bodies provide advantages of often very narrow scope.
Big Game Hunter seems like the best of the bunch, and a kick-ass way to punch Korlash in the face, not to mention a tremendous answer to ‘Goyf and every other targetable fatty. In fact, as the probable States decklists are slowly revealed, I would expect that BGH might be a strong contender for at least a few sideboard slots.
You can probably picture the one or two times ever that Muck Drubb will pay for his three mana cost, though granting him a free Griffin Guide for no other reason than the opponent had the audacity to target one of his or her creatures seems tight.
You can forget about Dre, but never, under any circumstances, forget about Squee, who strongly desires a place in the deck. There seems to be only one insane graveyard mechanism, and that is Bridge. However, the cards to make it truly obscene have been relegated to Extended, which is where the utter brokenness belongs, like Squee, who’s too good for any deck I would build because you can’t remove him to Ichorid.
I wouldn’t say I’m hell-bent on making madness work for States, but hells yes, I actually am. If you have ideas that you think I’ve overlooked, bring them up in the forums, for collectively, you’re smarter than I. Or smarter than me, whichever is more grammatically correct. So help me. Help me… help you, as Jerry Maguire said. Or don’t help me, you selfish bastards, and watch me embark on a voyage of self-destruction the likes of which have never been seen except when Davis beat Maher 5-0 and still lost the Pro Tour.
And we’re going with this as the default value:
Untitled Deck
4 Lightning Axe
4 Dark Withering
4 Fiery Temper
4 Oona’s Prowler
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Gorgon Recluse
4 Reckless Wurm
1 Vexing Sphinx or something else
1 Razormane Masticore or something else
3 Tombstalker
4 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Underground River
3 Swamp
3 Shivan Reef
1 River of Tears
1 Mountain
Did I ever tell you how much I hate Tom Cruise? Maybe I’ll get to it next time.
Until then,
John Friggin’ Rizzo
Make the world a better place, punch me in the face.
But please don’t, under any circumstances, tase me bro!
Oh, and help me with my deck, k/pls/thx.