It’s around three or four in the PM and I’m cruising down highway 187 with my buddy, and exit before making a left into an average parking lot. We pass Hooters on our right and pull around a bend to drive by the movie theater on my left. Then we pass a Jack In The Box before making another left into another seemingly average parking lot. Theres a bar on my left and I see my niece, who is 23, walking out waving at me. I turn the car around and she gives me a hug through the window, makes small talk, then leaves. So we continue cruising, and I’m like:
“Man, she has a nice rack.”
Now I realize I’m related to her and all, and obviously nothing would ever happen, but is there really any foul for complimenting her? Is it no different than staring at people when they kiss in public? To me, the foul comes with intent, and while I may have “checked her out,” my intent was nothing of the sort, promise. Glad I got that off my chest*.
Cue the Jurassic Park theme song… ’cause sugar, we’re going down swinging:
Between Cellar Doors & Pomegranate Epiphanies
If I ever managed to get around to the weekly bit, I would want my column to be named the above. It has the kind of zing and wit that really stands out and leaves a lasting impression. It also comes off as really artistic, since odds are you really have no clue what it means, which is all artistic means now-a-days; it might be a tad long, though.
Speaking of column titles, Grand Prix: Columbus** hit the History Books recently, and it’s quite possibly the most pastey GP Top 8 ever. I mean, just look at these Top 8 profiles! Thankfully we had Gadiel there to provide a little bit of red paint to the blank canvas, but alas it both began and ended there. It was also the first American GP ever to not have a Japanese player in the finals, let alone the Top 8.
Despite rigorous testing with fellow countrymen in preparation for GP: Columbus, I was unable to attend due to time mis-management.
BEGIN ASIDE ON TIME MANAGMENT
When planing your time for a future Grand Prix, be sure not to get chronic diarrhea. I’ve got the Angry Colon Blues.
END ASIDE ON TIME MANAGEMENT
For what its worth. I’ll put my decklist that I was going to play:
4 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Extract
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Serum Powder
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
3 Headstone
1 Rapid Decay
4 Cremate
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Counterbalance
2 Hoverguard Sweepers
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
Sideboard
14 Relentless Rats
1 Hoverguard Sweepers
This article was supposed to be a tournament report from Columbus. I didn’t get to go though, and I still have the article slot. I’ll be honest, I really got nothing to give other than some stupid phrases like:
Ashley Ashfield; as aspiring as an autumn afternoon.
I’m really starting to think I’m useless.
So, let’s look at Standard. Regionals are just around the corner, after all.
Standard is a unique beast… in the fact that it sucks harder than Sadin! at the disco. If you’ve seen my boy Steve on the dance floor, you’ll know what I’m talking about. See, there I go again. Every time I start to write something meaningful my imagination goes crazy, almost like a defense mechanism to stop me from saying something constructive. I’ve never seen Stevie at the disco, let alone a dance floor, or even seen him make any dance-like movements for that matter. So where did I get the above comments from? I don’t even know if he is a bad dancer… one can only assume. And everyone knows what happens when you assume.
Back to Standard… yeah, I just can’t do this, sorry Craig, I’ll try again after a few more paragraphs of rambling. And why am I talking to Craig? And why do I keep starting sentences with “and?” And why did the Heroes season finale suck harder than Sadin! at the disco?
Heroes
Everyone’s favorite TV show came to a season’s end recently, and man was I disappointed. They were building up this huge fight between Peter and Sylar the entire season, and I feel like I was watching an episode of Punk’d. I thought Ashton was going to jump out of the manhole and say “Punk’d! Okay, here’s the real final scene of the season…”
It never happened. There were just so many things wrong with the final scene. Everything up until then was decent, albeit a bit rushed, but that’s to be expected since everything is happening at once. Let’s analyze this by storyline:
Peter, Nathan, and Mom
The Mom is just a stupid character. She gives off the “omnipotent puppet master pulling the strings” vibe, but she really falls short. Her plan didn’t come to fruition, and we probably won’t hear from here again now that he precious Nathan is dead. Speaking of Nathan, he did a complete 180 out of nowhere. I mean sure, it’s nice that he comes back to his brother so he can fly him up high enough to get the city out of the range of the bomb, but… can’t Peter do that already? Sure, sure you can give the excuse: “He is too busy blowing up to concentrate.” Which is fine… I just wish they hadn’t made it so lame.
“Peter! I changed my mind! I’m going to sacrifice myself to save the city!”
“I knew you would Nathan! I love you!”
“I love you too, Pete!”
Seriously, wtf?
Nikki, DL, Micah
First let me just say that the smile exchanged between Micah and Molly was probably the most redeeming clip of the entire episode. I hope they hook up, have kids, and I hope their kids have badass abilities, like being able to melt toasters into a metallic liquid. Oh shoot, never mind, that one’s taken already.
I really didn’t have any problems with Micah or DL, except that he didn’t die… I wish I could take a bullet to the chest and be able to walk it off and phase through walls. Must be.
The only problem I have with Nikki is that she had to jump in on the fight scene at the end. She walks up, punches Sylar, then walks away. In that time Peter managed to copy her ability, giving him super strength! Then he proceeded to punch Sylar, over and over and over again, into a bloody pulp. That’s pretty high on the anti-climatic meter. They have all these awesome abilities, and he ends up taking Sylar down by punching him?! This really doesn’t belong under the Nikki/Jessica section, but I’ve never been a good organizer.
HRG, Claire
That was awesome when she jumped out of the window to get away from Daddy and G-Ma.
Matt
At first I was going to group him in the HRG and Claire section, but this guy deserves to have an entire section to himself. Matt has been on a bit of a rollercoaster for me. At first I didn’t like him: he was a stupid cop who has an ability that pales in comparison to all of the others. Then once his character got a bit more developed, he started to go up week after week. Now that he is dead I realize I just don’t like his character at all, especially in this last episode. He has been the timid cop who doesn’t want to make big moves. Now, on the night of his death, he decides to get ballsy and try to take Sylar on alone. At least he had one of the coolest deaths ever, he basically shot himself. Please don’t come back next season.
Hiro
If there is one constant in Heroes, it is that Hiro is liked by everyone. It’s impossible to hate this guy. His character has been the most thought out and well developed of the group, and as such this episode reflected well on him. He saves Ando, ditches Ando, stabs Sylar, then takes a visit to the 1600s in Japan. The only real detractor in that series of events came when he stabbed Sylar. He warps in front of him then does this really slow dramatic stab. My Grannie could stab someone quicker than that, and I’m actually wondering if Sylar allowed that to happen.
Sylar
Obv.
Volume II Predictions
I think a neat perspective would be to feature all new “heroes.” Say, for instance, Hiro goes to the past… he’s obviously going to be Kensei, and he comes back to a different time where there are other heroes following a completely different plot line. It could take place in Europe, and they would re-do the whole discovering their powers to take down a new evil. The reason I suggest such a radical idea is because I just can’t see how they are going to continue developing the DL, Nikki, Micah story. Linderman is dead. Sylar has vanished, and they really have no reason to be around anymore. It’s not like they would stay and try to fight Sylar since they would be risking Micah. Same is true for the Claire and HRG storyline. I think its going to be a Happily Ever After situation.
The universal characters like Mohinder, Sylar, Hiro, and Peter would probably come back, but other than that I really can’t see them continuing any of the other characters, so we need some new ones. Personally I would like to start seeing some deformed “heroes.” Kind of like in X-Men, except living in the sewers of NY is so cliche. I guess if I had to make up a hero on the spot, I would make one that has the head of a hammerhead shark, and she’d be able to swim in the water really fast, talk to fish, and her costume would naturally be fish net stockings. I might be embracing the fish theme a bit too much.
There are a lot of exciting cards to come out of Future Sight, however, it doesn’t seem like there is very much writing going on to try and abuse the new cards. Instead, people are tacking the new cards to existing lists to make them better. Adding Bridge from Below to dredge, and Glittering Wish and Summoners Pact to Project X. These are all pretty simple additions, but there are many more options since this is the biggest card pool Standard has ever had. When Future Sight was released, I made a little list of cards that I was excited about and wanted to build around.
Magus of the Vineyard
This guy is off the hook against Dralnu. You will get to play a four-drop on turn 2, or a two-drop, which makes their Remand much less effective. If they don’t have a Dreadship Reef then they will probably start taking mana burn at some point. A land destruction strategy would probably work best with this guy.
Bridge From Below
This was pretty obvious. I’ve always been a fan of cards that do something when they aren’t in play, like the Forecast ability. As of right now I really can’t see this card going into any deck other than Dredge, which is an archetype that might be a bit overhyped right now. It still loses to Dragonstorm, and the Flame-Kin Zealot plan makes the deck much too fragile to disruption.
Delay
Everyone knows to replace Rune Snag with Delay in Dralnu, but no one has talked about the aggressive purposes of Delay. In an Aggro deck that is just trying to buy time, Delay might be better than Remand since it can hold off a Wrath for two more turns, and even if they have another Wrath they basically had to use two to get rid of the same group of creatures. If they don’t have another Wrath they will probably be dead assuming you built the deck right. The problem is finding a color combination to put it in. Perhaps a Sea Stompy variant, since turn 1 Kird Ape is as good as it gets for an aggro deck.
Tombstalker
I’m not sure where this guy goes, if anywhere at all, but I really like the Delve mechanic and this guy could be quite troublesome against any of the aggro decks. Cheap/big/flies. That has been the combination for success since Serra Angel in Alpha, and this guy is about as cheap and big as you can get for BB.
Venser, Shaper Savant (a.k.a. Timberlake)
I’ve had this guy in draft a few times already, and whatever deck I play at Nationals I really want to have this guy in there. So much so that I’m going to build every color combination that could possibly support him. That’s a bit ambitious, and odds are I’ll never get around to it, but seriously, this guy is brining sexy back in a way that Justin Timberlake could never have imagined.
Molten Disaster
This card is a big one. If this card can find a deck, it will probably be the strongest Earthquake variant since Earthquake itself. It’s so perfect for the current metagame. Kills Teferi, and it’s a five-mana Wrath of God against Gruul that deals them three damage in the process!
I’ve actually been testing fairly regularly for Regionals despite being unable to play. There’s a pretty determined group from San Antonio that has been playtesting every night, so hopefully we can get some more “peeps” from “SA-town” “Q’d” for “Nat’s.” The metagame we have mostly been focusing on is Dralnu, Gruul, and Dragonstorm. They form a quaint little triangle, with Dragonstorm being by far the most dominant deck. The problem with a dominant deck is that it usually gets hated out. Take GP: Flash for instance… yeah, there were three Flash decks in the Top 8, but think about how many there would have been if the hype wasn’t as, well, hyped.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 2 Elves of Deep Shadow
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 4 Dark Confidant
- 1 Loxodon Hierarch
- 1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
- 3 Crypt Champion
- 3 Ohran Viper
- 1 Saffi Eriksdotter
- 3 Essence Warden
Lands (20)
Spells (14)
Sideboard
It’s the updated version of Project X. One of the main issues I had with the old version was Loxodon Hierarch. He just felt so out of place in the deck. He’s good against aggro, but you beat aggro already, and he is almost useless against control. This version cut him for the more applicable Ohran Viper, since it is much better against the problem matchups. Glittering Wish brings a lot to the table, since you can fetch your Saffi if it gets removed with Extripate or Tormod’s Crypt.
I’ve seen a lot of versions that go crazy over Glittering Wish by dedicating all fifteen slots to multicolored cards in the sideboard with almost all of them being one-ofs. That’s just stupid. The problem with that theory is that you lose so much consistency. Sure, you will have an answer for whatever situation that could possibly come up, like if you need a Clutch of the Undercity to bounce their Fortune Theif so you can kill them and take out the Theif in the same process – but what’s the point?
Project X is probably one of the best decks in the format right now. The reason it doesn’t get played heavily on MTGO is because it takes an absurd amount of time to go through all the motions to gain 108928 life. Everyone has to remember that this deck has been performing well in IRL tournaments since Worlds last year, and you need to be ready for this deck by the time Regionals rolls around.
Creatures (24)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Avalanche Riders
- 4 Loxodon Hierarch
- 4 Ohran Viper
- 4 Spectral Force
- 4 Magus of the Vineyard
Lands (22)
Spells (14)
Sideboard
This was my best attempt at making a Magus of the Vineyard deck. At first I tried to do some tricky stuff with Rites of Flourishing in combination with Magus and Early Harvest to have turn 2 Autochron Wurm, but it only happened .07% of the time so I decided to scrap it.
The sideboard has been the most difficult part of designing this deck. It sucks. I really wanted Seht’s Tiger so you have atleast a slim chance to beat Dragonstorm, but even then you have to have at least two of them or some combination of Temporal Isolations to effectively stop them. I also don’t like Wall of Roots that much, but since Magus is gawd awful against aggro decks you have more than fifteen dead cards against them. You can still win on the back of some Hierarchs and Spectral Force though, you just need a little road bump to slow them down.
I still like the concept of the deck. There has to be something said for the power of turn 2 Avalanche Riders, turn 3 Spectral Force which can be done fairly consistently. It kind of reminds me of the big mana R/G deck from Block, except more focused on the control matchups. Actually, most of these cards are in Block so I’m pretty sure Magus will be played in the updated version. The only issue is if they have a Dreadship Reef out, in which case you should be able to point the LD at it to make sure Magus of the Vineyard starts dealing them mana burn damage.
Creatures (13)
Lands (23)
Spells (24)
I talked about this deck in my last article, and since then it has produced nothing but solid results. It has game against all of the decks in the format and is versitile enough to deal with whatever randomness that might show up at Regionals. The real reason it is so good is because it has a such a good matchup against the control decks, and can sideboard into the Tendrils/Korlash package to blow whatever aggro deck your facing out of the water.
One of the problem matchups that looks very good on paper is all of the Tron variants. Usually you would get their hand very low early on in the game and they would draw into a Court Hussar, Compulsive Research, Tidings, or Mystical Teachings to regain whatever cards they’ve lost. This deck’s clock also isn’t very fast, so they have a few turns to draw out of it.
I’ve been debating on whether or not The Rack is good enough. There are some games where it is huge, providing a good chunk of damage, but others where it just does stone nothing. I’m not sure if the games it wins is worth the cost of having it in the games that don’t win. I ended up taking them out in favor of another Jotun Grunt and Persecute. Jotun Grunt in particular is a card I’ve been liking more and more. He’s a big body that sticks around for a couple turns against aggro decks, and cuts off any graveyard-centric plans at the same time.
The sideboard is pretty self explanatory. Extripate is actually there for Compulsive Research or Mystical Teachings. In playtesting the only way you would lose those games is when they cast those cards off of a topdeck. Another Persecute for Dragonstom, and lots of spot removal to replace the inefficient discard spells in the aggro matches.
These next two decks I haven’t tested at all, just some ideas that I had to incorporate Delay into aggro decks.
Creatures (18)
Lands (21)
Spells (21)
Sea Stompy was a powerhouse in the previous Standard format, then just fell off the map as quick as it came. Same is sort-of true for Mono Green, which had a little bit of a run of Magic Online recently. Both decks are aggro decks at their core, which have trouble with Damnation and Wrath, so Delay seems like the natural next step in to deal with the powerful board sweepers.
The sideboard of the Gruul deck should include some combination of Sudden Shock and Seal of Fire to combat to destroy the dredge decks discard outlet. A lot of Gruul-type decks have Tormod’s Crypt in the sideboard for the dredge deck, but I believe it is much better to just kill their discard outlets with burn spells that double down as ways to finish the opponent off. Beyond that I’m really not sure. More Calls and Spectral Force for the other aggro matchups would be quite handy, along with some Tin Street Hooligan or Krosan Grip to round it out.
The real trick to this metagame will be to find the tools to dismantle Dragonstorm and Dralnu, but also have enough ways to deal with the early creature rush of Gruul. Of all the decks I believe Saturn Unleashed does it the best, but I think the Project X is probably the best of the bunch right now since it doesn’t play with nearly as janky cards.
Creatures (13)
- 4 Lightning Angel
- 4 Court Hussar
- 1 Bogardan Hellkite
- 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
- 1 Aeon Chronicler
- 2 Numot, the Devastator
Lands (24)
Spells (23)
Sideboard
This is the deck I usually play for FNM whenever I feel like playing Magic on Friday night. The real power of the deck comes from the Compulsive Reasearch/Court Hussar engine. By having the full count of both, whenever you cast one you should have a backup within the next couple of draws so you can literally just chain through your entire Library.
One of the unique things about this version is the inclusion of all the one-ofs. Like I said above, with Research and Hussar you get to see a large portion of your library each game, and I found myself wanting an array of cards for each matchup. The Hellkite is pretty standard, which is there primarily as a card to just blow your opponent out at end of turn, then follow it up with a Bust to lock the game in your favor. The same holds true for Teferi, except he will either draw a counter out or he’ll make you a big favorite to win the game. The Molten Disaster used to be a Demonfire, and for all intents and purposes it is just better. Aeon Chronicler looks a little weird, but it’s just such a good card. The one-ofs also have the bonus of making Extripate much less effective at taking away your win conditions, as well as making the deck a lot more fun to play, which is a much bigger factor than people think. When your battling in a nine-round tournament like Regionals, where you may play upwards of 30 games in the day the one-ofs will make the games far more entertaining. Say, conservatively, you will see 25-30 cards of you deck in any given game. That means you have a near 50% chance of seeing any individual card, and you will see it atleast once per match if the games go long.
Another good thing about this deck is that all of the cards are good against all of the decks in the format. One of your primary plans at beating Dragonstorm is resolving a Helix before they go off, or using a Remand to put you out of range of the dragons. Once that’s done you can just Wrath them away and win the game from there. Same holds true for Dralnu. One of the most common plays I make against newer players is using Helix to kill Vampire with the “comes into play” on the stack.
The sideboard is also pretty good. You have a bunch of very good versitile cards. Riptide Pilferer is very good against the new Dralnu decks that are taking Desert out of their decks due to the absence of Boros, and is a key tool in disrupting Dragonstorm. Detritivore is an obvious include, and Pull From Eternity is there to take care of opposing suspenders. I tried play Seal of Fire in the sideboard to take away the discard outlets of the dredge deck, but I couldn’t get turn 1 Seal realiably enough to feel comfortable with it, so instead I opted for the traditional Crypt to combat them.
Fin
Sand Cheese
Top 5 Picks
1) Teasing To Please by Cute Is What We Aim For
2) Beware the Jubjub Bird And Shun The Frumious Bandersnatch by Forgive Durden
3) High Times by Elliott Smith
4) Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You by Muse
5) Never Gonna Give You Up by Brian Griffin
…
* Speaking of chests, I have this niece, and man oh man…
** I swear if I read one more person call it GP: Flash I’m gonna shoot someone, probably Sadin since he won the whole thang, but I sort-of like Sadin since he’s the one who held my hand through the whole Diana incident, so its probably going to be someone neutral like BDM or Craig Jones, but I like BDM too, so its probably going to be Mr. Jones. Thinking about it more I don’t really want to shoot Craig, he’s just an innocent Englishman who booked the wrong flight to Strasbourg and found himself conveniently placed in Columbus. It has to be someone prominent to the GP, that way it makes an impression. So I’ll just shoot the first person on the standings after the swiss. Gadiel? Bleh, that won’t work, he’s a master, and everyone knows you can’t kill a master. Bill Stark! Well, I kinda like Bill also ever since I destroyed him at GP: St.Louis with dubs Garza’s Assassin. Sadin? Well I sort-of like him… err, already covered that. Owen Turthelhauobcwad looks to be the best candidate, since I’ve never met him and already don’t like him just by the way he looks in the coverage. In conclusion, Owen Tutrlercheon187wad will be shot sometime in the near future.