Picture Mt. Ranier in your mind’s eye. It is a really big freaking mountain, and even if you have never seen it, just imagine a big freaking mountain. Now, picture U.S. National Champion Michael Jacob (with his shirt on, as this story doesn’t involve his grizzly manly man chest hair). MJ is getting off the bus in Washington a few days before the Grand Prix. I happen to have just gotten off, and have a unique vantage point for what is to come, as well as an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful mountain backdrop.
MJ and I had cracked the code, opting for the two-dollar bus as opposed to the sixty-dollar cab that Manuel Bucher and Martin Juza settled on. The only downside was that the bus stop at which we disembarked was a couple of miles from our hotel. No biggie, we could drop dollar bills every couple hundred feet and we would surely be able to make up the $56 we needed to blow to catch up with the Euros. We settle on a direction to walk, and start walking away from the bus stop, a bus stop filled with an almost absurd collection of caricatures, amounting to four “rough” women and an apparently 19-year-old boy with a skateboard and a knife.
The boy – we’ll call him Curtis – is smoking a cigarette and yelling at a forty-something woman that is probably either his mother or a prostitute that he is pimping. As such, he did not appear to be trouble. On the other hand, a woman of questionable hygiene, looking to be in her late twenties, though could pass for forty, is approaching us with sweat pants and a haircut from the 80’s.
Debra, we’ll call her, is walking towards us and probably has not been rocking out to Crystal Method as recently as she would have liked. She is gaining on us, and I turn back to gauge the intentions of the woman approaching. MJ is talking to me about Boggart Ram-Gang and the Chrono Trigger storyline, so needless to say, he is quite occupied.
Still, it seems rude for him to run the stone cold ignore when Debra walks up and asks if he is looking for a party. I am not entirely sure why she thought he was more likely to be looking for a party than me, but I can only assume that I am not her type, or that she just had some sort of read on MJ. Nevertheless, MJ runs the nosir on acknowledging her existence, even to the point that when we were half a mile a way and I teased him about “his girl,” he claimed that, despite there being no people within a 100 feet of us at the time, she was probably talking to “someone else.”
Cedric, you gotta put your boy MJ up on game!
Speaking of Cedric, let’s talk M10 decks and let’s start with Kithkin.
Kithkin
4 Goldmeadow Stalwart
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Wizened Cenn
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Path to Exile
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Spectral Procession
3 Ajani Goldmane
2 Mutavault
2 Rustic Clachan
4 Windbrisk Heights
17 Plains
This is a total port of Cedric Phillips tuned Kithkin deck, merely swapping Glorious Anthem for the vastly superior (and legal) Honor of the Pure. Honor of the Pure, the Crusade that costs 1W and only pumps your creatures, is not just a better version of a good card. It is now located at a far superior place on the curve, serving to speed the deck up even more.
This is not the build that one is necessarily going to want to play in the months to come, but it is probably the exact list you should be testing against. This build is both logical and wholly derivative of the best build of Kithkin as advocated by the best Kithkin player, who happens to also be a well-read influence on the Magic community, especially American Magic. As such, this is the model that many, many people will be taking into battle in the initial weeks of M10 Standard.
Kithkin is a strategy that has a loyal following, but is also easily audibled into and takes full advantage of one of the best cards in the new set, without losing much in the transition. In addition, it is a strategy that actually beats Faeries.
Personally, I think that this is a fine choice for players looking for an aggro deck, as it is fast, consistent, and offers opportunities to “play” a lot of people, though the mirror is as miserable as they say. I also would not want to be caught dead running this deck if I thought I needed to be able to beat more traditional Five-Color Control. Five-Color Control has fallen out of favor as of late, but perhaps M10 will offer opportunities for a renaissance of sorts.
There are some people advocating G/W Tokens, focusing on how B/W Tokens suffers the crushing loss of Caves of Koilos, when it already had sketchy mana. The thing is, just because B/W lost a vital card, doesn’t mean that G/W is automatically going to be the “token deck.” First of all, Kithkin gets a straight up upgrade in the way of Honor of the Pure, but what does G/W get?
G/W, by Patrick Chapin
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Overrun
2 Path to Exile
4 Spectral Procession
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
2 Martial Coup
2 Dauntless Escort
2 Qasali Pridmage
4 Stewart of Valeron
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Wilt-Leaf Liege
4 Wooded Bastion
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Windbrisk Heights
2 Plains
9 Forest
Okay, so there are a few changes that are worth discussing here. First of all, on the surface, it is easy to see that your manabase is worse, as Treetop Village was very strong against sweepers and helped offset the flooding caused by so many mana creatures. The unfortunate part is that you actually have to straight up replace the Treetops with Forests to make up for the transformation from Brushlands into Sunpetal Groves, the M10 Savannah that comes into play tapped unless you control a Forest or a Plains.
You have to have a certain amount of Green sources turn 1 to have a reliable turn 1 mana creature, and nine sources is hardly a lot. In fact, I think this list’s mana is actually “too bad,” and something needs to change. Without Brushlands, you can’t curve into a turn 2 Spectral Procession without Wooded Bastion, and that really takes away a lot of the incentive to play so many Birds.
There are other hidden problems, though. One of the big selling points of G/W was the Dauntless Escort aspect of the deck. Perhaps I am underrating how important that aspect is to creature versus creature combat, but with Wrath of God out of the picture, there are going to be more and more situations where you just straight up can’t beat a Hallowed Burial.
I was a little higher on G/W last week, but I have since come around and think Kithkin may be tier 1, but G/W will probably be stuck tier 2, maybe 1.5. I think that if this deck is going to survive, it is going to have to change form. Perhaps there is some future in hybridizing G/W and B/W, as well as a bit of Doran?
If the mana is so bad with G/W, then maybe it is hasty to give up on B/W…
B/W Tokens, by Patrick Chapin
4 Knight of the White Orchid
2 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
3 Captain of the Watch
4 Path to Exile
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Spectral Procession
3 Ajani Goldmane
4 Zealous Persecution
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Arcane Sanctum
4 Fetid Heath
2 Mutavault
1 Swamp
10 Plains
Admittedly, this is not much of a B/W Token deck, but the fact is, once you adopt Honor of the Pure, you start to place less value on Marsh Flitter and Bitterblossom. Tidehollow Sculler would be fine, but since I have so little Black mana, I opted for alternative two-drops. Why splash Black at all? I really think Zealous Persecution is a sweet card right now. In fact, it is better than before because not everyone has it and not everyone is built to beat it. The fact that so many people think you can’t play it makes it particularly appealing, since it is a blowout card when they are not expecting it.
Let’s step away from White decks for a minute. Just remember that even if you are not planning on playing a White deck yourself, if your gauntlet has only three decks, one should be a White deck. If your gauntlet has five decks, you should probably have both Kithkin and G/W Tokens (whichever you think is best/will be most popular). Cloudgoat/Spectral/Heights decks are going to be a foundation of the meta for these last three months, no question.
Before we do, though, we should probably talk a bit more about Bus Stop Encounters.
During the same GP: Seattle weekend that I mentioned earlier, I happen to find myself on medium life-tilt after being eliminated from the tournament. It was frustrating to have worked so hard preparing for an event, only to find myself matched up against Reveillark (nearly unwinnable) and unable to sell myself the lie that there was nothing I could have done, as I kept six land and Boggart Ram-Gang on the play against Faeries, one round. This hand is horrible by even my (at times) loose standards, and to have lost a key game in a key match, and being eliminated by one match, well it was hard.
On top of that, Bucher’s two girlfriends both showed up at our hotel room at the same time and took their anger out on me. What was I to do? I decided the best thing to do was go for a walk.
I started walking, eventually deciding that I would go where the action was. I found myself in a district that seemed to be happening, with nightlight, music, dancing, and revelry. I wasn’t really in a talkative mood, but I went inside one dance club anyway, and moved straight to the dance floor.
The vibe was positive and everyone seemed to be having a blast, though I suspect there were not really 16 birthdays being celebrated as the people that kept coming up to the DJ asking for their birthday to be “shouted out” claimed.
I started doing my thing on the dance floor, which is a bit difficult to describe to people who are not familiar with the sort of pop’n’lock/breaking/interpretive dance/miming that I am into. Suffice it to say, it was a lot of fun, but eventually drew the attention of a young lady that started walking past me, bumping into me (on purpose) every time she did.
After the third time she aggressively “bumped into me,” I decided to sit down a moment. She looked at me, then looked away, playing with her hair. She was cute, sure, but honestly, I just wanted to dance. Besides, it was kind of eerie the way this girl reminded me of a girl that I once knew.
All of the sudden, another young lady walked up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and told me that I should push that other girl back. I looked at her quizzically. She reaffirmed that when a girl pushes you, you are supposed to push her back.
“If, but that she had pigtails for me to pull…”
This elicited a squeal of delight from girl number 2, who went back to girl number 1 and reported the conversation. A few moments later, girl number 1 walked up to me and said “I heard you want to pull my pigtails?” (Though picture that particular quote a bit more slurred, and with an indecent look in the eye.)
“Ah, but alas, you have none for me to pull, so it would appear we must suffer as passersby in the night, left wondering what could have been.”
“I am not picky. I just want someone to pull my pigtails, if you know what I mean.”
Now, as appealing as a line like that may be, I thought it more likely that I could find the peace that I was looking for elsewhere.
This is where we come to the next Bus Stop Encounter. As I began walking back to the hotel, I walked past a Bus Stop with a man sitting, waiting, with the biggest grin I have ever seen.
I did not think too much of the fact that it was nearly 2am and there wasn’t a bus for many hours, but as I walked past, I couldn’t help but notice that the man was adorned in standard issue prison clothing. We are talking khaki pants and shirt, nothing orange or jumpsuit-ish going on, but to the trained eye it was obvious.
I decided to turn back and go sit with the fifty-something year old man a moment. I smiled and asked him how he was doing, to which he replied that he has never been better. I asked him if I could join him a moment, drawing a positive response and we just started talking about life, the universe, and everything.
The man had apparently just gotten finished serving a long prison sentence and was now, essentially, a homeless bum. That said, I have never seen such optimism, such hope. He was just supremely thankful to be alive and to have another chance at a real life.
We discussed old cars, card tournaments, women (namely his ex-wife), and places in the world we had seen. He offered me one of his two bottles of water, as well as some of his cold fried chicken. This was much appreciated, as I had not eaten in hours and fried chicken is pretty awesome. In addition, it was obviously touching that this man was literally sharing with me all he owned, never asking me for a thing, just enjoying the conversation.
An hour into our talks, a crowd of drunk partiers approached, and the man commented on the kids and how he hopes they realize how good they have it.
“Just look, some of them are smoking real cigarettes. I have had two real cigarettes in the last 8 years.”
As they approached, they began running up to me, asking me about whether I had made Day 2. Yeah, they were Magic players, small world. I talked with them a moment and then bummed a smoke off of one of them, passing it on to the man I was sitting with. Normally, I am not one to help enable people to smoke, but there is a time and a place for everything. Needless to say, this side of the encounter threw the man for a loop.
After we parted ways, I found myself rejuvenated, invigorated, and with the clarity of perspective I had been seeking. What is the moral of this story? I guess I would just say that the next time you realize you are tilting in a tournament, take a break, go for a walk, do something to change your mentality, and do it before it is too late to make a difference.
Zac Hill lost, I believe, three straight matches in Honolulu, beginning what appeared to be a classic Day 2 super choke. The truth is, Zac has been in similar situations before and knew that he was prone to Day 2 failures. However, Zac has come a long way as a player and as a man, having the presence of mind to go for a walk, clear his head, and do what he needed to do to change his perspective.
How long do you walk for? Well, if you have to be back for the next round of the tournament, make sure you are back in time, but the key is to walk and look for what it is you are supposed to be finding. Often, when you are tilting, you are just playing the same thoughts over and over in your head, causing there to be noise, but not much useful thought going on.
When you are walking away from the situation and clearing your head, turn your focus outward and look for what clues life may be giving you. You will find that by focusing your perspective outward, you will invariably soon come across whatever it is that life is showing you, which will invariably help restore balance in your perspective and break the loop of internal confusion that was occupying your mind earlier.
When you are walking, look with an eye towards what life could be trying to show you. You may find that two strangers are having a conversation about something that is not directly related to you, but may some how remind you of the exact issue that has secretly been bothering you, but showing it to you in a way that makes you realize the truth about your perspective on it.
Perhaps you will see a child help another child climb on to something, and you will realize the joy of innocently helping another, which somehow reminds you that someone that recently offended you is at their core innocently trying to help the best way they know how. Whatever it is that comes to your mind, you can be sure that life has a way of showing you whatever it is you need to see, you have but to be aware enough to realize what it is you are experiencing.
How about Bloodbraid Elf? Well, you know me, I am definitely spending some time working on various five-color decks that use Bloodbraid, but I am not sure where I want to go with it yet, as I am inclined to make my five-color decks more controlling, so it remains to be seen if Bloodbraid Elf is going to be the engine I use. Perhaps a Jund deck, then? Here is a possible build:
Jund, by Patrick Chapin
4 Putrid Leech
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Great Sable Stag
4 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Broodmate Dragon
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
3 Sign in Blood
4 Volcanic Fallout
3 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Bituminous Blast
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Savage Lands
4 Twilight Mire
2 Graven Cairns
1 Rootbound Crag
2 Vivid Grove
2 Vivid Marsh
2 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
The recipe this deck follows is pretty standard, although it should be obvious that there is an anti-Fae theme at the heart of it. Great Sable Stag main is pretty awful versus White, but it is actually kind of reasonable if you expect a lot of Terminate, Doom Blade, Agony Warp, Plumeveil, Volcanic Fallout, Jund Charm, Bituminous Blast, Maelstrom Pulse, and so on. He is not exactly a superstar versus anyone but Fae, but he has his moments and I was finding myself keeping Ram-Gang home against enough people, that I don’t mind the swap. Still, you know I am a sucker for Cryptic Command, and will experimenting with full-on Vivid mana quite a bit.
There is not going to be much here in the way of technology, but for reference, here is a Faeries list I have been testing with.
The Enemy, by Patrick Chapin
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Scion of Oona
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Mistbind Clique
4 Broken Ambitions
2 Jace Beleren
4 Cryptic Command
2 Thoughtseize
1 Peppersmoke
4 Bitterblossom
4 Mutavault
4 Sunken Ruins
4 Secluded Glen
4 Drowned Catacombs
6 Island
3 Swamp
As I said, nothing too groundbreaking here, though I would stress that if you are not using Vendilion Clique, you may want to consider it. Maybe I have just been playtesting with too many Great Sable Stags, but he really is one of the better answers, and not just because of the ability to sneak a shot at the Stag on the play. Vendilion Clique is extraordinarily aggressive and helps offer real racing chances to a Faerie player that is stuck facing an in-battlefield Stag.
Obviously, Fae is still good versus almost all of the bad decks, but the truth is, the very definition of a good deck tends to be one that is above 50% against Fae. White decks can be hard for Fae, and Five-Color decks can beat them if they try. As such, I am probably not moving in on Fae this summer, but there is no question I still respect them. I just don’t want to play a deck that is 80-20 versus the bad decks and 40-60 versus the good decks. Obviously those numbers don’t mean anything; they are just a way of showing that while Fae are “strong across the board,” they are (somewhat) dogs versus everyone who “does what it takes” (or plays Kithkin…) and, as they are SO incredibly obvious, it is hard to imagine that this is one of those moments where everyone sleeps on them again.
Here is a crazy deck concept that I was testing the other day. It has far too many “blanks” to be a top level deck at this point, but it is pretty fast and perhaps some one can pick up the torch and figure out a way to improve it.
Cascade-Grinding, by Patrick Chapin
4 Sanity Grinding
2 Advice from the Fae
4 Kathari Remnant
4 Stormcaller’s Boon
4 Cryptic Command
4 Traumatic Visions
1Deny Reality
4 Overbeing of Myth
4 Ghastlord of Fugue
4 Godhead of Awe
4 Dominus of Fealty
4 Shelldock Isle
4 Arcane Sanctum
1 Vivid Creek
4 Mystic Gate
4 Sunken Ruins
4 Island
Obviously the idea here is that every Cascade hits a Grinding, and two Grindings will generally be enough to kill someone, even as early as turn 4. The reality is that while this deck tested well against White decks, it is unsurprisingly nearly impossible to win a game against Faeries.
I am not sure how much you can really do with the deck, as the “engine” requires you play with a lot of Blue mana symbols, to ensure that your Grindings are actually going to be big enough to kill, most of the time. Still, I am interested to see if anyone else can pick up the torch and carry on where I have left off. There is a void in the metagame caused by the removal of Seismic Assault. What will be the Cascade combo to fill this void?
I am still brewing possible new decks made possible by M10 cards, like Open the Vault, Baneslayer Angel, Harm’s Way, Polymorph (tokens into Progentitus!).
4 Ponder
4 Broken Ambitions
4 Polymorph
4 Cryptic Command
4 Path to Exile
4 Spectral Procession
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Hallowed Burial
2 Martial Coup
2 Repel Intruders
2 Progenitus
1 Mutavault
1 Gargoyle Castle
1 Arcane Sanctum
2 Vivid Creek
1 Reflecting Pool
2 Windbrisk Heights
4 Mystic Gate
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Plains
6 Island
Bear in mind that this is a pretty rough build, but the general idea is the important part. Obviously you can abuse Polymorph if you can make it so that you always hit Progenitus, since a lot of decks can’t really beat that. That said, maybe it is too slow, maybe you won’t draw Polymorph enough, maybe you can’t beat Fae. Either way, there are some exciting things going on with this deck, and it is worth experimenting with a little.
I am out for the week, I gotta go meet this girl at a bus stop. I hope you had a happy holiday weekend. If you happen to be at StarCityGames.com Virginia M10 prerelease this weekend, make sure to holla at me, as it will be my birthday (finally 21!). See ya next week.
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”