Following the Herd

When it comes to Magic, I’m shiny happy people. Take that with grains and salt your own damn wounds because I’m looking at the game through newb-colored glasses.

From behind the cheaters, everything appears a tinted shade of glorious heh. This means it’s all good: net decks, intentional draws, pro player cards, and even the new split card Law/Order.

Riding the ebbs and flows of an apparent manic depression, not to mention being bad at Magic (no correlation btw), presents one with a pair of options: manic, or no. As much as I try to wallow in utter dread, there is an abundance of mania to be had, so much that it’s nearly depressing. <-- Pair of docks.

Dwelling on the professed shortcomings of the game is one of the most beloved indoor spectator sports, and one in which I often played the supporting role of Joiner Adept. You may offer a laundry list, but I’ll ignore them and get cozy with Snuggle Bear since he’s so damn cute and makes everything clean and soft, like a fresh blanket of snow that lets you skip work or school and play with those silly cards all day. Then mom makes hot cocoa with marshmallows. And you bang a cheerleader somewhere in there too.

Talk about possibility… Go ahead, speak up. Ravnica sold like hotcakes, Guildpact is the side of hash browns and sausage cooked just right, and to paraphrase Frank Karsten: anyone who says they built their sealed deck correctly is either wrong or lying. If you consider a hearty breakfast to be a great way to start the day, and Frank to be, like, good at Magic, then the above can only be seen as symptoms of a robust economy.

Timmy, Johnny, Spike, and all inbred variations thereof, should be pissing themselves at the sheer overwhelming possibility that exists in all forms and formats of the current game. Talkin’ ‘bout guilds yo, and what they bring to the table, kitchen or other.

Perhaps these are the logical highs after the “lows” of Kamigawa block. I acquired a small cache of packs, and upon cracking, was simply astonished to discover that a 2/2 fear guy for six mana could exist in anything other than the recurring nightmare I discussed with Forsythe’s therapist — confidentiality my ass!

To some, Crawling Filth may offer concrete proof that Wizards is not in touch with their innards, child. To me, this indicates an environment where expecting to pay six for a 2/2 fear guy with soulshift is not unreasonable. He may not be playable by any stretch of your imagination, but someone, somewhere disagrees, and will gleefully kick your ass ass with his f33RsHyFt deck.

While most of you are all too familiar with watching an entire cycle of land cards banned in Standard (or Block, who really knows?), the most degenerate thing I can recall is pitching two Basking Rootwalla to satisfy the “drawback” of a turn one Careful Study. Gee, a pair of pumpable-but-only-if-I-delay-the-rest-of-my-game 1/1s coming over on turn 2… Fix me.

After ponying up the herb to assemble a deck whose entire contents were banned from many forms of competitive play, you were rewarded with Umezawa’s Jitte, which, if those in the know are to be believed, is the worst thing to happen to Magic since Rosewater forgot how to slice bread.

One could acknowledge that equipment can only be attached to creatures, which are inherently fragile beings by their nature, with every single color offering ways to deal (yes, even Green), many at instant speed, or that Jitte belongs to the creature sub-type artifacts, which are also delicate, what with not being Blue spells, but that would be overstating the obvious.

Do I sound like a guy who has yet to face round after round of Jitte wars? Yet, that’s how clouded with roses my vision has become: I shrug off the effects of one of the most ridiculous cards in the format because it’s a brown card that needs a creature to subsist, at least initially. Delusional perhaps? Ask me again after I lose four rounds in a row to topdecking lucksacks who drew their Jitte first.

By the same token, the sheer magnitude of possibilities that exist with the release of Ravnica and Guildpact is staggering. Never mind that the color wheel has been blown to smithereens; forget the idea that the Green Nephilim can be reliably cast from the hand on turn 3; and please ignore the fact that the previous “best bears ever” from Invasion block are greeted with a collective “lol” from the current crop of deuce deuce revolvers.

Two bears doing their business in the woods…

Selesnya Guildmage: Do you have a problem with sh** sticking to your fur?
Llanowar Knight: No.

If you don’t know the punchline, someone in the forums does.

The environment is so overflowing with opportunity that Rewind, a spell that untaps up to four lands, a broken mechanic in nearly everyone’s book, yet seemingly the most benign from that cycle of free spells… Wait, we have access to lands that produce more than one mana and Signets that offer two mana for the price of one. Oh, you usually play Rewind on your opponent’s turn. Really?

Stoneshaker Shaman
2R
Creature — Human Shaman
At the end of each player’s turn, that player sacrifices an untapped land.
1/1

Rewind untaps up to four target lands… Yet, this is benign because It’s Not Jitte. Question everything, because Wizards has given us the tools to do just that.

Imagine this initial seven:

Lion’s Eye Diamond
Dark Ritual
Black Lotus
Sins of the Past
Storm Herd
Mox Ruby
Goblin Bombardment

If I understand how to play the Diamond, or Sins for that matter (and I may not), it goes something like this:

Cast Diamond, Lotus, Ruby.
Crack Lotus to play Ritual — bbbbb in the pool.
Use one Black and tap Ruby to cast Bombardment — bbbb in the pool.
Announce Sins, crack Diamond to pay — bbbbbbb in the pool, pitch Herd.
Make twenty guys, dome the guy across the table.

g
g

This is a turn 1 kill with a ten mana sorcery.

True, you need the perfect hand that includes three restricted cards, your opponent must live in an aquarium, and I have to be correct in my understanding of both Diamond and Sins, but whatever, right?

If I’m close enough on the above scenario, then this really is a turn 1 kill with a ten mana sorcery. I may be bad at Magic, but if this is even a remote possibility (again, it may not be, even though every Vintage guy on earth is laughing at me right now), then we are living in strange times indeed…times in which the creative aspect of deck building may be re-rearing its sexy Rector head.

Even if I’m incorrect, and I probably am, consider the above to be food for thought.

So I’m at Crossroads, standing at the counter, casually peering into The Case. I spy wit’ one good eye: Angel of Despair not very far from Ghost Council of Orzhov not very far from Debtor’s Knell. Sure, Vindicate plus Drain for one and nine power to block every turn until you surrender or I smash you to death seems good in theory.

This is so obvious that everyone dismissed it mere moments after they “discovered” this not-so-subtle subterfuge, because we all know that six mana is way too much to pay for anything. You may be tempted, but I caution you to not include Cry of Contrition or Blind Hunter into the slaughter with buyback.

Limb time:

Orzhov is the best guild so far (and not just because they have the hottest legend. Teysa could throw me on The Machine, use me for an undead numbers runner or knee breaker or whatever the Church of Deals wanted. The problem is that chyx like that don’t normally exist in real life, so the artists have to create them.

Quick: name a chyk who’s that hot, powerful, sick, and that freakin’ hot and powerful…

Unfortunately, in real life, women usually have to choose between hot or powerful — except for Hilary! – and really, if a chyk is hot, that in and of itself gives her a ton of power, just not the kind that can impact anything other than her guy’s ability to spend himself into divorce court.

On the other hand, if a chyk is powerful, she becomes sexier by default, thereby granting herself yet even more power, but in this case, enough power to have hot chyx banished to Sweden, which is the location of the fabled “hot chyk tree” from whence all hot chyx originate.

If I was a hot chyk, I’d walk around all day saying to myself “I’m a hot chyk, how cool is that?” If I was a powerful chyk, I’d walk around all day saying to myself “I could have you killed, how hot is that?”

Sigh, I’m not a chyx, hot, powerful or other, thus I must do what I was born, as a man, to do, which is Look At Jackie For Like Three Days.)

Yep, Orzhov is the best guild so far.

Speaking of many of you being virgins and commandeering mom’s Victoria’s Secret catalog to the bathroom for hours at a time (like you don’t), a writer on this site whose name rhymes with “Gabe Largent” said something along the lines of: I’d like to write ten pages of stream of consciousness and slap a title on it that has nothing to do with the article, but someone else has that shtick.

>this has been only five pages so far<

I got the feeling, founded or un, the words were referring to me. This “Sargent Largent” fella is obviously well-studied and appears to be blisteringly intelligent (if not good at Magic like me) so his comments hold a fair share of weight. While I could say that he “doesn’t get it,” I won’t. Because he probably does. Except for that “hot chyk” tree thing.

However, we all try to make our own contributions to this game, and while mine will most likely never result in those overly large Pro Tour checks, subsequently smaller Grand Prix cards in plastic thingies, or smaller still blue envelopes, when someone like Abe “Gabe,” who has a studious mind and apparent deep base of knowledge, not to mention an ability to see the most inane card interactions, offers an implied judgment on something I spend an entire eleven minutes on every week, a series of introspective questions naturally follows. For example:

Q. Are my titles relevant?
A. (obv) but sometimes you have to dig deep.

Q. How come sinister chyx set on world domination turn me on?
A. Because of my messed up childhood, thx.

As a result of asking personal questions and avoiding the answers because I can’t even be honest with myself, I’m starting to understand what it must have been like to read pages upon pages of my judgmental attitudes on net decks and intentional draws. Although my positions on the above certainly don’t represent a majority opinion, they are what I believe. As such, when presented with deciding between standing my ground and taking what I feel to be the easy way out, I must adhere to the Rizzo Schools of Magic.

Contrary to popular belief, being bad at Magic is not a prerequisite for said academy, but it sure looks good on the application.

Still, as silky smooth the game feels to me at this moment, I know there is the potential for razor burn at a moment’s notice. Going 3-4 with Ichorid, drafting the worst pile ever, and going 1-1-drop in a Sealed Pro Tour Qualifier would ordinarily be cause for growing a Billy Moreno beard and an OMC ‘fro that features an edt ponytail.

As depressing as those moments may have been, the large picture resulted in a Grand Prix win for Mike Krumb with something I had a hand in concocting, eventually understanding that it is probably correct to play your bombs in four different colors, and submitting what I feel to be one of the best, or at least the most fun, tournament reports I ever wrote.

Bad times can be followed by good times, Becky notwithstanding right next to Jill and Jackie, and this is why everything seems so possible. In the cards, in the game, in life.

Questioning my writing “style” or flames in the forums are fine; in the past I might have reacted with “your mom,” or the omnipresent “you’re mom,” instead of “I’m going to try to win you over so c’mere fuzzy let’s hug.”

Bombing out of a tourney happens; in the past I would have blamed net decks and their evil pilots because they’re to blame instead of trying to discover my contributions to the woe.

Building my deck wrong is okay; in the past I probably would have claimed my pool was trash, which it was, instead of taking the time to recognize my errors.

But I’m The Self Improvement Of Salvadore Ross up in here, which is just an obscure Twilight Zone way of saying I’m still not very good at Magic, even if I kinda am.

The last few Saturday Casual tourneys at Crossroads saw me playing Secret Friggin’ Sauce…ish, since beating upon hapless children with Ichorid, while building character in the impressionable, is nevertheless not a very nice thing to do to their Wellwisher.dec.

A turn 3 Autochthon Wurm elicits more scoops than Baskin-Robbins. Seriously, he’s a fourteen-toughness lol fourteen-freakin’-toughness heh let me say it again fourteen! you son-of-a-bitch!

Yeah yeah, Swords his ass — I’m not talking to you, Mr. Naysayer who always has the answer in hand, I’m talking to the kindred spirit who likes to put a dizzying array of visually offensive power-to-toughness ratios into play. On turn 3.

Look: 9/14. It’s not right.

This deck can, and has on more than one occasion, cast him from the hand on turn 4 lmao. The rest is obvious: play Survival, fetch what you need to answer questions, and sometime during this elaborate Q&A, feel free to sac a Green creature and put a tremendous fatty into play to win even more and Wave anything that gets in the way if you have to fourteen toughness rofl.

What if I counter Survival? What if I — pow! — what if I — bam! — what if I — booya! — what if I…

STFU!
pls
k
thx

This is a deck that only Timmy, Spike, and even Johnny could love. Large men, combo-type synergy, and whatever the third guy is supposed to like. Yeah, the board is completely random, trite and pedestrian; I appreciate you pointing that out.

I could offer three weeks of tourney reports in which I lost a total of two matches, but what would it matter? I’d still be fantastic at Magic and you’d already dismiss this deck just because it’s in my article and that’s okay with me because I love everything and everyone and someone should slap this silly looking grin off my face.

Speaking of which, I offer two plays that I think are interesting, mostly because they prove that I am good at Magic. Or at least not as bad as you think I am, which is pretty damned bad:

I’m playing against Adam’s mono-black beatdown/discard from hell. The first game involved me opening a god hand on the draw of two Natural Order, Wall of Roots, Birds of Paradise, Elder, and two lands, which equals turn 3 fourteen toughness oof to win the game.

However, Adam thought it funny to Hymn me and snatch both Natural Orders. Yes, I lost that game to a Hyppie that was quickly suited up with Jitte.

I won the second game not only because I’m good at Magic, but because of a turn 3 fourteen toughness say what! individual who shall remain nameless.

The third game is where a series of interesting plays reared their curious heads. I have a great opener of Natural Order, Birds, Wall of Roots, Llanowar Elves, Recurring Nightmare, and two lands. Adam goes Swamp, Ritual, Duress. After a painstaking decision, he takes Recurring Nightmare, then plays Bob with his floaties. Ow.

The next turn, he Hymns me and nabs Survival and the Wall. Ow again. All I can do is play the Elves in a feeble and desperate attempt to “hold off Bob” in quotes and here come the italics because no one ever attacks with Bob into an 1/x blocker.

He serves with Bob.

I immediately throw the Elves in front of Bob, which I think surprised Adam, not to mention Louis who was scouting the match. They just looked at John in a mixture of awe, pity, and a little more pity.

Louis: Bob was killing Adam, John…
Me: Adam’s Bob was, but John wanted Bob dead, Louis.

The thing I learned about Bob is kill him as soon as you can. Every freakin’ time.

Adam shrugged, and may have realized that Protecting Bob Is Rule Number One. Alas, he didn’t guard him jealously, but did manage to Ritual out Hyppie before he shipped it over.

I draw land and hold it for no reason other to make his Hyppie feel like he accomplished something, then Adam draws and plays Jitte.

Of course, I ditch the land and top deck a Monkey to blow it up. Who doesn’t?

Now, without Bob, Adam is playing fair, but with only two lands. We traded two-power-beats for way too many turns… but with him unable to add to his mana base. Shortly thereafter, I peeled Spike Feeder then Natural Order, which brought Hierarch into play when we were both at four.

This match, which looked like a virtual win for Adam, ended up in John’s favor because Adam attacked with Bob and John blocked, earning a cringe from both Louis and Adam but not John in the process. If Adam doesn’t allow John to bury target Bob, Adam buries target John with five or six extra cards and moves on with target spotless record.

Sometimes games are won or lost on turn 2. This may have been one of them.

In the fourth round, I’m playing Josh with Threshold. I played him a few weeks back and barely eeked out a win with a combination of serious concentration and some good fortune. Nevertheless, this is not a match that looks good for me on paper. He has counters, fatties and Swords, while I have Green.

The following situation illustrates why I am good at Magic:

He cast four Serum Visions within the first four or five turns, while I’m struggling with a mixture of mana creatures, lands and more mana creatures. He lets a turn 3 Spike Weaver resolve, which indicates to me that the only counter he has in hand is Daze, since I could use one mana to pay the one mana.

Then I draw Natural Order. His board consists of two Werebears and Nimble Mongoose. Despite a Weaver, this doesn’t look good for me. Still, I sac an Elf and wait…

He thinks for quite a long time, which further cements the idea that he doesn’t have a real counter… But I’ll bet a dollar he has Swords. He lets it resolve and I search my library for a Green creature intending to put it into play, because that’s what Natural Order does.

I briefly considered not finding a Green creature just to put him On Tilt, but heck, I was Committed To The Pot and wanted to either Steal The Antes, Draw The Nuts, Force A Crying Call, or at least Play Back At Him with my own Semi-Bluff to perhaps Take It Down.

Since I believe he has Swords, a fatty would be ill-advised. I settle on Deranged Hermit, reasoning that it’ll meet a Swords, but at least I’ll have four blockers — and since I have a Cradle, this will allow me to generate unfair amounts of mana should I draw anything else to accelerate my unfair amounts of mana even more. Combined with the Weaver, this will buy me five or six turns in which to find a way out of this mess.

Before I pull out Hermit, I say “I can’t get a fatty because you have Swords” and try to gauge his reaction. Yep, he sure the hell does.

Hermit and his army come to play; Josh sighs and settles in for a long game. At the end of my turn, he Swords the Hermit and proves my thought process to be correct. “Good call,” he says. I retort “I am a very good Magic player,” then proceed to lose anyway, due to a combination of not drawing anything that can help, and his double Mystic Enforcer.

Still, since I’m bad at Magic, I must consider this a victory; even it is reeks of pyrrhiccy or however you pluralize “pyrrhic.”

I’ll consider both the “kill Bob” and “fetch Hermit” plays to be good. You know the forums? Discuss in them! That completes the “Interesting plays I made or witnessed” segment of this article, at least for now.

This just in:

You probably knew this way before me, but of the nine Sheldon Takes No Mess bannings at Grand Prix Richmond, two (three actually but whatever) local boys were given the ol’ “thanks for coming cheating, see you at the next GP in one year” speech. Said locals were Mike and Jeff Emmert.

Even that isn’t going to bring a brother down, though it felt like a Bruce Lee one-inch heart punch and nearly made me puke when I heard about it. Feel free to insert lots of synonyms for “are you friggin’ kidding me!” such as “disbelief” right here.

They say smile and the world smiles with you.

This works for Berto, so much so that Chris gave him a chance to “draft for the house…” with 13 other guys. Hello, welcome to “everything you know about Draft no longer applies, or maybe it does but I never was able to figure out the dynamic of more that 8 drafters and wisely chose to sit this one out because I’m an excellent drafter.”

There were five duals in the packs, two of which Berto opened and tried to rare draft even if he didn’t get to keep the cards, and only one of which was a foil Watery Grave.

Berto’s first RRG Draft (with fourteen players!) as far as I remember:

2 Dimir Infiltrator
Orzhov Abortionist
Stinkweed Imp
2 Halycon Glaze
2 Vedalken Entrancer
Dimir House Guard
Steamcore Weird
Torch Drake
Petrahydrox
Stratozeppelid
Sewerdreg
Tattered Drake
Hell-freakin’-Dozer
2 Signets
Disembowel
Repeal
Clutch of the Undercity
Clinging Darkness
Psychic Drain
Schisomynisotivate
16 land, at least 2 bouncies

Doesn’t that seem like a fairly decent deck? To any of you who aren’t pros, the answer is “well, I dunno, go ask a pro, but yeah, it looks okay.” Beatdown Mill: brought to you by you friendly neighborhood fourteen man Draft. It probably would have been better if the guy on his right didn’t dip into Blue during Guildpact.

He went 1-3 because, much like his father, he’s bad at Magic. Unlike his father, however, he hasn’t been playing for, er, a whole buncha years. To be fair, he did go 3-1 in the casual with a Rizzo’d Up Affinity Featuring Bob And His Robots.

Note to y’all: Bob is like, good. Even when he turns up Myr Enforcer.

Directly from the Plays You Probably Should Never Make File:

Berto is playing Matt Hill, who is subbing for someone who had to leave, so this game doesn’t really “count,” and Matt is fairly cool anyway, thus the entire match is pretty much training.

In game 2, Berto’s on the play, mulligans his first hand, then draws into four cheap spells, a Signet and bouncy land, both of which were the right colors. All he needs is one land and he’s in business. He thinks for a moment, so do I, and Matt quickly figures out what we’re thinking about.

So did all of you, but you’ve already screamed “Ship that sumbitch back!”

The three of us debate the merits of keeping versus going to five, and since this match is all about the learning curve, Berto ends up keeping. Obviously, he doesn’t draw a land the next two turns, and then Matt barely stifles a smile when he casts a turn two…

Lurking Informant.

rofl lol heh lmao tee hee snicker even a chortle for good measure my poor child

Berto’s draw phase became almost humorous for a few turns, none of which were lands anyway. Seriously, there wasn’t a land on the top of his deck for something like seven turns in a row. Afterwards, we generally agreed that his hand should have been shipped back, at least based on what actually happened, but when all you need is one land….

Thirty-four cards in the deck, fifteen of which are land. Um, didn’t we already have this discussion? Still, it appears to be a valid question, at least to me, and one in which an auto-ship is probably the best play, but is it always the right play?

The depth of discussion regarding Berto’s hand, killing Bob and playing around Swords can be intense, and while there may be a correct answer, there also may not be. Regardless, it all results in the same thing:

Dayum gurlfriend, it’s a great time to be playing Magic.

Imagine how much more fun it would be if I didn’t suck at this game.

Guilds.
Kewl cards.
Bunches of colors.
Anything is possible.

Rewind untaps up to four target lands.
Jitte is legendary.
Storm Herd costs ten.
Anything is possible.

Teysa would stab me to death.
So would Jackie.
Fourteen freakin’ toughness tofu.
Anything is possible.

Bad guys get caught.
Bounce lands are good, but that good…?
Dimir Infiltrator can kill Streetbreaker Wurm and live to fight another day.
Anything is possible.

If you can believe any of the above, then not only is anything possible, but things may or may not ever be the same. Then again, they may be exactly the same.

Just like, different.
Fruitcake.

John Friggin’ Rizzo
29-15-3 at Magic