Kamigawa Block And The Death Of Green

I feel the need to clarify a problem. This problem.

“I’m now 3-1 with the deck and I call up Joshie. ‘I’m going to bed. If you want to take over for me, there are thirty minutes left in the round.’

“Joshie loses the next two rounds to mistakes and inebriation and various other external universal forces we can scarcely control.”

Apparently, it is against the rules to do this; you can’t have a friend play out the rest of your tournament. And apparently, according to some other sites’ forums, I knew this, didn’t care, and cheat all the time. According to some whack-a-doodle’s logic, if I posted it in my column, it must mean I know and do it all the time, for gain, and do it so often that like all pros, that I think it’s perfectly okay. Apparently, this is like playing Tennis on steroids… And when you get tired, letting Andre Agassi take over your match for you.

These same whack jobs refuse to take me at my word when I said “I didn’t know” and a few have done their damndest to answer every post on the matter with their own negative interpretation in some bid to make other posters think the worst of me.

Let me tell you how this all came about.

Josh is not only a friend; at one time, he was the closest thing to a son Marilyn and I will ever have. And by son, I mean he cost us a lot of money in care and feeding. I’ll try to stick to the relevant parts.

Like online gaming.

College kids are notorious for being short on money. So whatever game we moved to, we bought an extra CD and extra account for Joshie, and we paid the subscription fee. We even have a computer set up in our house that is his. If you go to my old web page, you can see pictures of three computers lined up in a row on our gaming table; the middle one is Joshie’s.

We would play and pay for his account for whatever game we moved to. Sometimes we would log that account on for nefarious evil purposes from our house. While he was at college. Which is clearly against the rules?

Sometimes, he would play my character in Asheron’s Call or World of Warcraft or Dark Age of Camelot. Sometimes we would be in the middle of a dungeon, everyone relying on my character to heal or to blast or some damn thing…. And I would have to go grill us steaks. So Josh would sit in my seat, and play the guy I had built up from level one.

Then we would laugh about how we had just flagrantly broken the rules and shoot steroids into each other’s ass and go beat up people smaller than us.

Good times. Good times.

When I called up and asked Joshie if he wanted to finish out the tournament, I had no idea it was against the rules. Period. As I stated the first time.

Josh and I have played each other’s accounts for each other in different situations for years.

And as Ben so succinctly put it –

“The rule is in place so that Wizards does not have to deal with the headache of people having their accounts stolen by friends to who they had willing given their passwords. This rule is in effect for virtually every online role-playing game (World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, Everquest) for similar reasons – so that the parent company is not culpable for a certain type of account theft. It gives Wizards (or Blizzard or Sony) the caveat to tell people who have had their accounts stolen by people they know (which happens more than you’d think) ‘Hey, it’s in our rules that you can’t share your account – if you don’t want your account stolen, don’t break the rules!’ If Wizards was truly concerned about account sharing from a play perspective, they’d run an IP sweep and ban thousands of accounts/contact thousands of people who are sharing accounts.”

This mirrors my opinion and is said so perfectly, I reposted it here.

Opinions differ on how to look at Magic: Online. Is it just like Real Life Magic? Or is it just another video game?

For me, Magic: Online is not like Magic: Real Life. Your opinion might be different. We’ll have to agree to disagree. Just accept that I don’t see it the way you do, and accept that we have different opinions.

For me, Magic Online accounts have more in common with Asheron’s Call than they do with Magic: Real Life. You can’t read your opponent. You can’t bluff. You can’t borrow cards by showing up to the tournament five minutes before it starts and asking in the common room if someone will lend you four Kokushos. Your opponent cannot palm cards. Or steal your backpack. Or draw extra cards when you take a bite of your sandwich. You can’t go to your local card shop at 3:30 in the morning because you can’t sleep and get in a sanctioned tournament. You can’t attempt to spend the entire Saturday at eight-man tournaments and try to win more than you spent on tickets, like a Magic casino. And most importantly, people will say things to you online they would never dare to say in real life. And building up your account with cards is very similar to leveling a character, unless you are filthy rich, or all you enjoy doing is drafts.

There is cheating, and then there is cheating. If you want to discuss cheating, let’s discuss programs that read packets. Programs that give you any card in your deck that you want. Programs that allow you to see your opponent’s hand while you’re playing. Let’s discuss hackers who steal accounts and cards off of the unwary.

That’s cheating.

Me calling up Joshie and asking him to finish out the tournament is also cheating…. But unlike steroids or palming cards, or packet sniffing, it was unintentional cheating, and it had no effect on the outcome of the game. Joshie is not secretly Jon Finkel. There was no malicious intent, no secret agenda, and no idea even that it was even cheating at all. It wasn’t done for gain; it was done because I was going to bed. As I stated when this initially surfaced.

I really don’t mind when people discuss it, and throw in their opinion. But when people try to tear down my reputation for seven pages over something that is so minor compared to what cheating really is, it has to be addressed.

In closing –

It’s against the rules.

I didn’t know it was against the rules.

Now that I know, I won’t do it again.

That said, let’s get onto other things.

Regionals are over. And with it, my love and concentration on Standard.

Standard is dead to me now. Long live Kamigawa Block!

Let’s look at the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of the now completed Block.

The Good

When I first started playing Magic, one of the things that bugged me the most, were the cards that allowed colors to ignore there supposed weaknesses. Nevinyrral’s Disk allowed Black and Blue to deal with Enchantments. Or Protection creatures. Or an early rush of weenies. Disk gave Blue a Wrath of God – something it should never have access to.

Another gripe I had was the disparity in the power of the colors. Blue has been shown to have had the most cards in the most finals in high-level Constructed events. “Counter Target Spell” is the most powerful mechanic available to all the colors. And every set, Blue continued to gain one- and two-mana counters. Every set, Red continued to gain ways to do a boatload of damage for low mana. With cards like Fireblast, Lightning Bolt, Shock, Magma Jet, and Shrapnel Blast, Red would consistently reduce people to cinders by the fourth or fifth turn.

And all of that has changed, for the first time I am aware of, with Kamigawa Block.

Green finally has the most cost-effective creatures in the format. While Green has long had a 3/3 for three mana, for once that means something. It’s the only 3/3 with no significant drawback. It has multiple 4/4s for four mana. It has a 5/5 for four mana that in non-block formats may just be the best 5/5 since Juzam Djinn. It has a 6/4 trampler for five mana that is arguably the best creature in the set.

Blue’s Counterspells have been neutered to be more in line with cost for power. They have conditions. Drawbacks. Situational usefulness that require skill and planning. Blue’s “steal your best creature” seems more balanced in this set than ever before. You have Threads of Disloyalty, which is purely situational… And you have Keiga, which makes you lose a 5/5 flyer to take control of your opponent’s best creature on the board.

Usually, you’d rather just have your 5/5 flier back.

Red is lacking burn like I have never seen it. For once, Burn is almost a non-option. Red has a lot of options, but making a red weenie rush “Bolt you, Bolt you, Bolt you” is not the simple process it once was. It requires work and playtesting…. And even then it might not be much good. You can no longer just hand a bunch of burn spells and weenies to a ten-year-old and expect to see him in the top eight.

Black has nice early fatties with a host of drawbacks – well-balanced drawbacks that can’t be ignored. Huge “win big, lose big” drawbacks. Elimination that seems fairer than Diabolic Edict and Contagion. Discard that is hurtful, but no Hymn to Tourach or even Stupor. All the discard is your choice, or can your opponent only pick a certain type of card.

White is the undisputed King of Protection, massive creature removal, and the best weenies in the format.

“All is as it should be”

– Buddha.

With a few exceptions, the colors feel like I have always felt like they should feel. Their weaknesses and drawbacks are more highlighted than at any time than I can remember.

No deck can shore up its weaknesses just by playing Disks or Oblivion Stone. Its weaknesses are there and they are real and have to planned for and accepted. They can’t just be ignored like they have in the past.

The Bad

1) The balancing act that was done to make the colors have to work around their weaknesses is completely FUBARed when they make cards like Kodama’s Reach and Sakura-Tribe Elder. There’s no weakness to the colors when it’s so easy to play five colors.

2) The plethora of broken cards that never should have seen print…. Like Kodama’s Reach. Sakura-Tribe Elder. Sensei’s Divining Top. Umezawa’s Jitte. Meloku the Clouded Mirror. And a few I’m forgetting, I’m sure. Cards that you have to play with or lose. Cards that break too many rules and are way undercosted.

3) Creatures and spells that are out of theme. Since when did Blue become the token-generating color? Meloku has no business being Blue and making Blue into the “Best Token Generator Ever” because they fly and can turn a control deck into an aggro deck in one turn.

Since when did Red get to take control of someone else’s creature, a la Ray of Command, and then just sacrifice it? Since when can Red just kill any size creature it wants using this technique?

Why are Promise of Bunrei and Spiritual Visit white cards?

Why is Blazing Shoal Red, not Green or Black?

Why is Shining Shoal White, not Red?

(Welcome to the new color pie, Jamie! – The Ferrett)

4) How come Soulshift was put into a Block that is full of “remove from game” effects? And how come the Soulshift creatures suck so much? I’ve tried making a Soulshift deck; it has to be all Soulshift, or you never get anything back, but there aren’t enough viable Soulshift cards to make this work. And if you splash in good cards that support Soulshift, your opponent just works around it, removing your Soulshifted creatures from the game with Final Judgment or Kumano or Yamabushi’s Flame or Eradicate or Nezumi Graverobber or Nine-Ringed Bo or Reciprocate or Samurai of the Pale Curtain (good thing that never sees play, huh?).

The thing is, Soulshift is an ability that Green needs more than any other color. Just like Beacon of Creation allows you to continue to try and win with creatures, the same goes for Soulshift. Unless you’re playing Kamigawa Block…

The Ugly

I fear for the future of Green.

People will think I am crazy, because they are drunk on the current power of Green in Regionals. But if you look at what is rotating out, and what replaces it, the future is not bright for Green.

Let’s look at the power cards of Regionals. The things that made Green Viable.

Beacon of Creation

Its closest replacement in Kamigawa Block Constructed is a white card.

Troll Ascetic

Its closest replacement is five mana, its controller can’t target it, and it doesn’t regenerate.

Eternal Witness

No replacement.

Plow Under

No replacement.

What we are left with, is cards that helped the deck work, but weren’t the important cards. We will have Llanowar Elves to replace Birds of Paradise. Blanchwood Armor stays. Sakura-Tribe Elder Stays. Jukai Messenger stays. Viridian Zealot Stays.

All good cards. But not great cards in Green aggro.

Without Beacon of Creation, Green has no token generation except for Sosuke’s Summons…. And that fits in one Tier Two deck type. It’s no Beacon.

Without Witness, Green loses a lot of power.

Without Troll… What could replace Troll?

Without Plow Under, it has no disruption. Again.

Almost universally, the competitive themes of Green are being passed off to other colors, or left out entirely. And Green is consistently left with its crappy themes. A song I’ve sung a lot in the past and feel I need to sing again.

Ask yourself this: What color has the worst Kirin, the worst Myojin, the worst Dragon, the worst Shoal, the worst Epic Spell, and the worst Patron?

Don’t bother to point out all the good cards they got; that’s not the point. The point is those are Theme Cards. All of the cards listed above reflect a color’s themes. And all of those cards that are Green are the ones that will never see tournament play. Those cards are one-dollar junk rares.

The themes of Green need work.

We need more Beacon-type cards. More Autumn Willow and Troll-like cards. We need more cards like Scragnoth and Isao. We need more cards like Viridian Zealot and Creeping Mold. More cards like Plow Under and Stunted Growth. We need more cards like Natural Order. (I was waiting for that one to show up – The Ferrett, who appreciates the classics)

We don’t need more 4/4 fliers for seven. We don’t need more ways to put Lure on a creature. We don’t need more ways to put things into play from our hand. We don’t need more ways to put counters on creatures that will just get removed from the game.

If you insist on staying with the themes of Green that suck, at least beef them up. The Myojin should have been 4/4 indestructible for six and put only green creatures into play so the combo mages can’t abuse it. If you want to stick with Lure, put it on a creature as ability, and have that creature have haste. If you want to give creatures +X/+X, have it give trample and a big bonus – like Overrun or Might of Oaks or Unchecked Growth.

Today’s tournament is an NAC qualifier.

We get eight people.

That’s just not that good.

Today’s participants –

• Jamie “Jank” Wakefield


• Joshie “I’m a goddamn metagame genius” Trudeau.


• Alan “I hate Canada and Mark Rosewater” Webter


• Jeremy “She smelled so bad I could barely do her twice” Murray


• Jeremy “I used to be a green mage but I quit that and now I go to Pro Tours” Muir.


• Matt “Really nice guy” Woods.


• Mike “No nickname” Lavalet.


• Travis “I play WW in every format” Bingham.

Today’s report is going to be a little short on details. I was consistently the last one playing, and did not get a time to take notes after my matches were done.

First round, I’m facing off against Alan Webter. As usual, Alan has a deck of his own design that has inspired me to make one based on the same principles if not the same cards. It’s a control Red deck with Kumano, Ryusei, and Jiwari.

I don’t really think I can lose this one. I have both massive creature elimination and Jittes – and in my testing, mono red is the second weakest deck in the format. And while I have no doubt that Alan can make it work, he’s just started working on it, and all the bugs aren’t worked out yet. Much like me.

We have been working on Kamigawa Block since the day after Regionals.

Like much of Magic these days, the rules I grew up with don’t apply to the control decks. It’s all about the engine. It’s all about five-color green, and it’s all about getting off some huge effect so that utility cards really don’t matter.



I knew I would eventually have to adapt to this new environment and new style of play – especially since I started to notice that those people who return to the Pro Tour time and time again are not Aggro players, but Control players.



But I had no desire to adopt the Top and the Sled and start Thawing all the lands out of my deck and then throwing down a Mana Flare to cast my three different Myojins, and wait for my opponent to concede. It’s just not my style.



When I first started playing again, one of the decks that appealed to me was Joshie’s 5-color Gifts deck…. Not because I liked Gifts and a deck full of one-offs, but instead, I was attracted to the Sunburst mechanic.



I can cast a 4/4 Golem for four that draws three cards when it dies? Sweet!



I can gain five life a turn if I cast this goblet with five colors of mana? Sweet!



I can cast a 5/5 trampler that draws me extra cards, or Tutors for me, or puts a 3/3 guy into play every upkeep? Sweet!



So even though there isn’t any Sunburst mechanic in Kamigawa Block, there are cards that benefit greatly from the more colors you play in your deck. And there are cards that do that, as well as provide you with an engine of sorts for playing five colors, and one card that is insanely powerful for playing its five-color casting cost – Genju of the Realm.



At the very beginning of the exploration of Kamigawa Block, I played around with Hondens and loved them.



I love getting an effect for free every upkeep, and never having to do anything else. And against some decks, they just can’t deal. And you get to play five colors, and put in some cool cards that have caught my eye.



Since I was going to be playing a Honden deck, and playing five colors, I immediately wanted to see what else could benefit from having five colors. And the first thing that caught my eye was Zubera. The more Zubera you have in play, the more you hope your opponent will play Hideous Laughter. The more colors of Zubera you have in play, the more of a benefit you get, and the more sheer numbers of Zubera you can play.



Hondens + Zubera + Genju of the Realm = pretty interesting, but might not be very strong. Requires a lot more testing.

What else could we use?

One of the things I noticed right off the bat was that I am very interested in the “going infinite” mechanic. I call it the “going infinite” mechanic just because if you can do something over and over and over again, then you can basically do something an infinite number of times.



You can cast Sosuke’s Summons every single time you play a Snake. If you had infinite snakes, you also have infinite Sosuke’s Summons.



As we all know, if you want to play five colors, two of the things you have to play are:



1. Sakura Tribe Elder

2. Kodama’s Reach.



And if you want to play five colors, one of the ways to smooth the mana curve is:



3. Orochi Leafcaller, which for G gives you any color of mana.



Well, that gives us eight snakes. If we included Sosuke’s Summons, then we have eight ways to bring the sorcery back from the graveyard.



Is that enough? Probably not. But are there other Snakes that would work well in a five-color Hondens Genju of the Realms Deck?



Well, Hondens can be slow, so it would be nice if we had a way to put even more land into play, so how about the new –



4. Sakura-Tribe Scout. Tap, put a land into play. And now we have twelve Snakes to power up our Sosuke’s Summons. And eight one-drops.



So now we have



12 Snakes

4 Sosuke’s Summons

4 Kodama’s Reach

12 Hondens…. Probably.

Testing on both of these ideas has taken up a good chunk of time. And to be honest, I haven’t come to any conclusions yet.

The Zubera Hondens deck actually has won more games than the Snake Hondens, but I can’t explain why…. Because I don’t understand it.

One of the things I became aware of in the testing was that in the Zubera Hondens Deck, Long-Forgotten Gohei is a must. A horde of 1/2s is much better the second they become 2/3s. And if they become 3/4s, you usually win. An added side effect of this is that the Honden of Life’s Web makes Spirits as well. And Kodama’s Reach only costs two or even one.

A variety of Snake Legends were put into the Snake Hondens deck for, testing and I rapidly found out the only one worth running is Seshiro. But the sad part is, the deck doesn’t feel very synergistic that way. It annoys me that the snakes are, well, snakes, and the Hondens produces Spirits. This would get to be a nightmare to keep track of in an actual tournament. And it annoys me that Seshiro would only affect one set of weenies and not the other.

The same goes for Long-Forgotten Gohei. All the weenies need to be pumped or it seems dumb.

But then I played the Ogre and Demon deck a few times online…. And man, is that thing fast. A horde of 1/1 weenies on turn 10 doesn’t match up to first-turn O-naginata, second-turn Raving Oni-Slave, third turn serve for six trampling damage, putting you on a very short clock.

Yes, you cast your little Sosuke’s Summons. Isn’t that cute? Pow!

This sparked my interest in Black again…. Reminding me that there is a ton of discard and fatties in this block. And oh, do we love Discard and Fatties.

And Rats. We love Rats, too.

And we hates White. We hates it. And it seems to be the best deck in the format, from what I can see of the finals online. Tons of White Weenie in the top eight.

I abandon the Hondens deck for a bit and Josh and I start to work on a Black deck. We discuss it for a bit and look over cards and do some play testing. After a week or so, it’s clear he prefers the Ogres and Demons smash you quickly approach, and I prefer a more metagame approach.

This is what I am running today.

Oh yeah; back to the tournament.

Alan has twenty-five lands in his deck, and I have twenty-two. By the seventh turn, we both have four lands on the board. But since my deck runs a lot better on four lands than his does, I’ve been beating him down with Rats and Ogres and he’s too low on life by the time he gets to the six land he needs to make his deck work.

Sideboarding with Black is the easiest thing in the world. If they are Aggro, you side in more creature hate. If they are Control, you side in hand hate.

I sideboard in some Eradicates and a Horobi’s Whisper, because you can never have too much elimination.

In the next game, it’s quite the opposite. Alan plays a land every turn. On turn 8, he is still playing land. Meanwhile, I have a Kagemaro up to 6/6, which means an almost full grip. But he gets a Frostling, Glacial Ray, and Yamabushi’s Flame to get rid of it. But hey, who cares? I have six cards in hand and he just used three to get rid of one guy. It’s looking to both of us like I’m going to stomp him into the dirt…. But then he draws into the control aspects of his deck and has all the land in the world to play Kumano and Jiwari.

Man, those are some good against me.

Game three starts off with Alan mulliganing to three cards, but then topping land one right after another to almost make a game of it. But my draw is too good, and he’s lost too many cards to come back, and my Kokusho ends his life when I send it to the grave with my own elimination.

We are the last to finish. An occurrence that happens almost every round for me. Keeping me from my beloved caffeine and even food. This is bad because so far today, I’ve had three eggs. Red Bull. And Coffee. And it’s the middle of the afternoon.

Round two is against Jeremy Muir.

Jeremy was the number-one ranked player in the state for a number of months. He’s finally been knocked from that perch by Justin and Paul doing well in Regionals. He qualified for Pro Tour: Philly. Today, he is playing the deck he played in that Pro Tour: A deck of his own design that he developed on Magic Apprentice and in the StarCityGames.com Forums, getting feedback. It was one of ten decks he was working on before the Tour. He tells me he tried hardest to get a Mono Green Beats deck to work, but eventually had to abandon it.

So today, he’s packing Green/White control. Lots of land search, white Myojin, Patron of the Kitsune, Time of Need. Some other really good legends. No Heartbeat of Spring; everything’s hard-cast.

I have no idea what happened. I sided in Eradicate for his Yosei and Myojin and Psychic Spear for his Kodama’s Reach.

We got to three, but he gets me.

Round Three is Murray.

Murray is playing the Ogres and Demons deck…. And I have Rend Spirit, Rend Flesh, Shoal, and Hero’s Demise. And more of them in the side.

We have some close games, mostly due to him using Mark of Oni on my guys, but my Rend Spirits and Rend Flesh make sure he pays all the penalties that he so richly deserves for playing creatures with drawbacks. Demons are all Spirits. Ogres are all Flesh. Yukora is a Legend. And you can never have too much creature hate. And I see mine.

Since we only have eight people – sob! – it’s only three rounds, with a cut to a top four.

Top four is me, Alan, Jeremy Muir, and Matt Woods.

Matt and I take our seats, and he’s playing a Red-White Legend deck. But I don’t see any Red legends. Just a horde of white weenies that overrun me. I side in some Hideous Laughter and Rend Flesh.

Hideous Laughter should be a good card, but it has never done a damn thing for me.

My opponent will play a Hand of Honor; I’ll draw a Laughter right after he equips it with a Jitte and swings. My opponent plays out five green weenies in game one; I side in Laughter, and all he sees is Sakura-Tribe Elder, Yosei, and Kodama of the North Tree.

Online, I’ve lost to WW every time I make the top eight, and always with Hideous Laughter in my grip. It’s laughing at me.

I get Hideous Laughter on the draw.

Matt plays out a Isamaru, Hound of Konda, and two legendary weenies, and on his fourth turn, he plays out Day of Destiny.

I am stuck at three lands.

I tell him, “I hate you.” And then I curse the heavens, with rage filling my throat like bile. I sigh very deeply and tell him, “I can’t believe you just played that.”

“I could play something else.”

“Could you?”

“Sure.”

But I’m just kidding and so is he.

I die like a dog.

I should have played Zubera Hondens.

Maybe next week.

(Matt Woods won the tournament, beating Jeremy Muir in the finals. Congrats, Matt!)

Jamie C. Wakefield