It’s a terrible habit, but I’m partial to having small chocolate treats next to my computer. You know, for nibbling on while gaming, and writing, and checking my email, and generally being in the same room as them, and sometimes actually coming down stairs in the middle of the night to snack on them. The chocolate treats in question this week are Jaffas, as they often are with me, which are small chocolate balls coated in orange flavored candy. I have no idea if these things are available outside of New Zealand, or if any of you not from around these parts have heard of them, but they are ridiculously tasty. They are fueling any ranting I do here today!
But what to rant about? We’ll get to that in a second. First, the Magic Online Standard Premier Events Top 8 Recap. Ordinarily, you might consider this to be largely useless outside of Magic Online itself, Friday Night Magic, and general Metagame Theory discussion-slash-argumentary. However, in around five weeks there will be a Standard Grand Prix held in Kyoto, Japan, and no doubt those heavily Tech-Laden Japanese Superstars will be looking to derive and improve from whatever is going on here.
There aren’t a great deal of large Standard Events held out there in the real world, outside of the Regionals to Nationals to Worlds tournament chain, so it will be interesting to see what effect these Magic Online Top 8s have on the Grand Prix. And in turn, what effect the Grand Prix has on any subsequent Magic Online Top 8s.
Standard Premier Events Top 8 Recap
14 (17) Dimir Control (Blue/Black Control, also known as Dralnu du Louvre!)
11 (6) Trisketron (White/Blue Urzatron Control)
8 (10) Dragonstorm Combo (Blue/Red/Black Combo)
6 (13) MGA (Mono Green Aggro, now sometimes splashing Blood Moon out of the side)
5 (11) Simic Aggro Control (Blue/Green)
5 (5) Angel Control (Blue/Red/White Control)
3 (3) Mono Blue Morph Control (Fed by Fathom Seer and Vesuvan Shapeshifter)
3 (0) Selesnya Aggro Control (Green/White Aggro Control. Yes, sometimes with Glare)
2 (3) Solar Flare (Blue/Black/White Control)
2 (2) Boros Deck Wins (Red/White Aggro)
2 (2) Rakdos Aggro (Red/Black Aggro, woo Shadow Guildmage)
2 (1) Goblin Combo (Seething Song and Rite of Flame and Empty the Warrens)
2 (0) Azorius Green Control (White/Blue/Green Control)
1 (3) Control Zoo (Green/White/Red Aggro Control. Like, Hierarchs and stuff)
1 (1) Unknown (Two men enter, one doesn’t do anything and disconnects and the other wins)
1 (1) Panda Connection (Black/White Aggro with hand disruption)
1 (1) Selesnya Blink (Green/White/Blue Aggro Control with Momentary Blink)
1 (0) Red/White/Blue Blink (Momentary Blink Aggro Control)
1 (0) White Weenie (Mono White Aggro. No, I’m not sure why either)
1 (0) Zoo (White/Red/Green Aggro)
0 (9) Golgari Dredge (Green/Black Aggro Control Dredge Reanimator type thing)
0 (3) Mono Black Aggro (Small Black men and Bad Moon!)
0 (2) Izzetron (Blue/Red Urzatron Control)
0 (2) Gruul Aggro (Red/Green Aggro)
0 (1) Hierarch Control (Green/White/Black Control)
0 (1) Azorius Aggro (White/Blue Aggro, trading Burn for Counterspell)
That has to be one of the funniest results swings I have seen in a while. Last week the Golgari Dredge Reanimator deck leapt from zero Top 8s up to a resounding nine, and this week it has plummeted back down to zero again. It was probably a case of “lol look, Akroma to the face lolol!” which lead to people altering their sideboards slightly and replying with “lol they reprinted Tormod’s Crypt deadpanned lolol.”
Now on to My Rant for the week. It’s not really a rant, because I would have to be ranting at someone or something for that to be truly accurate, and I am the target of this week’s Rant… and who rants at themselves?
(Yes, yes, I guess that is something I could conceivably end up doing from time to time.)
You see, last week I prattled on a little about some of the new rares from Planar Chaos that caught my eye. My first mistake was using the spoiler over at mtgsalvation.com to browse the rares when I should have been using the official Gatherer search engine instead. Somehow the version of Dichotomancy spoilered on mtgsalvation.com was missing a very key word, which made me think that it played in a drastically different manner to that of the card you might open from a pack.
Here is how it was printed in my column last week, as copied and pasted from the mtgsalvation.com spoiler.
Dichotomancy – 7UU
Sorcery (R)
For each nonland permanent target opponent controls, search that player’s library for a card with the same name as that permanent and put it into play under your control. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
Suspend 3 – 1UU
And here is what I had to say about it.
It never gets you anything more than your opponent has, but getting exactly (or at least close to) what they have is probably good enough to neutralize whatever it is they have in the first place. If they have three guys, you now get three guys for one card, so that’s pretty good. The price seems a little steep, but seven colorless mana is exactly Urzatron mana, so it’s almost like we’re being pointed in a certain direction. The suspend cost is pretty reasonable too, and should discourage anyone from over-committing to the table too much, which is every Blue mage’s dream scenario.
Here is what the card actually says. Note how I have helpfully bolded the missing word.
Dichotomancy — 7UU
Sorcery (R)
For each tapped nonland permanent target opponent controls, search that player’s library for a card with the same name as that permanent and put into play under your control. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
Suspend 3 – 1UU
Isn’t it surprising how much difference one little word can make? Now I’m not upset at mtgsalvation.com for having incorrect information in their spoiler or anything, it’s not like it would have been done maliciously or whatever, it’s just the nature of what they do. I mean, I’m not upset at all, really. I’m certainly accustomed to looking like an idiot in the limelight. In fact, there are many people out there who will tell you that being an idiot is one of my better party tricks.
(Okay, probably my only party trick.)
Instead it threw me deep into thought about the design implications behind having the word “tapped” on Dichotomancy. It doesn’t change the card a great deal when it’s hard cast, because by the time someone gets to nine mana, their opponent will most likely have emptied out their hand onto the table, meaning that it’s only really likely to miss one nonland permanent. Sure, it’s certainly worse, but only slightly. The word “tapped” could have been placed elsewhere on the card and made it significantly worse, but that didn’t happen.
It also strikes me as being too expensive now for what it does, which makes me think it must have only just met the grade on my scale of one to awesome when I evaluated it last week. What really tips the scale though is how badly that one word hurts the suspend mechanic on Dichotomancy. The suspend cost of three mana and three turns made me think that the card was actually quite good, but now that the opponent can effectively counter it by holding back on one specific turn makes it a whole lot less attractive, turning it into terrible delayed fog effect. It’s as if the word “tapped” is the hefty moustache that appeared on the face of the over-night lady friend the morning after.
(Shudder.)
(Terribly sorry to have pushed that mental image on you there.)
The next question I found myself asking is “why did that one word end up on there?” Was it tested without the word and found to be too powerful? Or did whoever designed the card submit it with the word? It’s entirely possible that a design committee decided that whacking it with a nerf bat before it went anywhere was a good idea, on the grounds that it was Blue, and that any spell with a Blue border is broken out of the box.
While I was on the design train of thought, I came back to a thread I tugged at last week, the mana cost. 7UU is quite expensive. Back in the day, people would have dismissed it has Completely Unfathomable that anyone could ever play such a card. That is of course, until people discovered the wonders of Urza’s Tower, Mine, and Power Plant. These days we know that the designers are well aware of the fact that the Urzatron is a powerful engine, and I would think that whenever they would send a card with the number seven in its mana cost through to development, that they were well aware of the fact that it would be perfectly suited for Tron.
I would think that you could disadvantage the card at that point by making it cost eight colorless mana – or even worse, six colorless mana (lol go figure!). But in this case, it was sent through at seven colorless mana, which I guess fills a bit of a quota in some regards, because a complete lack of “seven mana and change” cards would be conspicuous in itself. This makes my wonder if the word “tapped” was added to hamstring the card while still satisfying the whole seven colorless mana criteria. Very interesting nevertheless, but in my opinion, we won’t be seeing much of Dichotomancy in competitive Constructed play.
Speaking of competitive Constructed play, Extended is well and truly on the boil right now, with a Grand Prix coming up in Dallas in a couple of weeks and another in Singapore the week after. If people are going to be watching those Standard results on Magic Online, they’ll be practically ravenous for the Extended Top 8 information, so without further adieu.
Extended Premier Events Top 8 Recap
8 (6) Azorius Urzatron (Blue/White Urzatron)
7 (6) Boros Deck Wins (Red/White Aggro, sometimes with splashes)
5 (4) Destructive Flow Aggro (Green/Red/Black Aggro with Destructive Flow)
4 (3) Affinity (The dreaded Artifact deck)
3 (4) Scepter Chant (Blue/White/Red Control)
3 (1) Loam Aggro Control (Green/Red/White or Black Life from the Loam Aggro Control)
3 (0) Destructive Flow Control (Green/Black/Red Control. Still based around Destructive Flow, but nowhere near as aggressive)
3 (0) Friggorid (Black/Blue Ichorid Aggro Combo)
2 (8) CAL (Life from the Loam Control)
2 (5) Simic Aggro Control (Blue/Green Opposition Aggro Control)
2 (3) Tendrils Combo (Extended’s Seething Song, Rite of Flame Combo deck)
2 (2) Psychatog (Blue/Black Control with Dr. Teeth)
2 (1) Five Color Zoo (With Tribal Flames and the like)
2 (1) Unknown (Yes, yes, and informal prize split, we get it already)
2 (0) Dump Truck (Blue/White/Black Aggro Control)
1 (2) Goblin Combo (Rite of Flame Goblin Aggro)
1 (1) Four to Five Color Gifts Rock (Green/Black/White Control with Blue and Red for goodies)
1 (0) Orzhov Control with Blue Splash (Phyrexian Totem beatdown!)
1 (0) Hierarch Aggro Control (Green/Black/White Aggro Control, just like the Standard version but with Wild Mongrel and stuff)
1 (0) Azorius Control (White/Blue Control)
0 (3) Counterbalance Aggro Control (Nassif’s Blue/White/Red Trinket Mage deck)
0 (1) Orzhov Aggro Control (Dark Confidant, Savannah Lions, Exalted Angel and Vindicate)
0 (1) Green/White/Red Astral Slide Control (Eternal Witness targeting Orim’s Chant…)
0 (1) Selesnya Aggro (Green Beats backed up by White Hatery Goodness)
0 (1) Five Color Wake (Five Color Mirari’s Wake Control)
0 (1) Mono Blue Control
0 (1) Mono Black Aggro (Rats and Phyrexian Ragers and Dark Confidant and so on)
Proving the point as usual, the Urza’s lands suited with Blue continue to be a powerful force in Constructed, while everyone else lags behind slightly. I’ll be interested in how things play out in Dallas!
Finally, here is a small chat-log from a game featuring the incomparable JoINrbs, a good pal of mine. Unfortunately, this does make him look a little arrogant, but at least it demonstrates his superb comic timing beautifully. Just a quick history related to the chat: when someone uses some kind of ability to view the other player’s hand, they usually write what’s left in game chat, as done below by Spugnardi.
(I have bolded the lines actually typed by the players)
Spugnardi plays Persecute targeting JoINrbs.
JoINrbs plays Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.
Spugnardi plays Remand targeting Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.
Spugnardi chooses blue.
Spugnardi: seize the soul, vamp, edict, haunting hymn, grave
JoINrbs discards Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.
JoINrbs discards Spell Snare.
Spugnardi plays Dimir Aqueduct.
Spugnardi plays triggered ability from Dimir Aqueduct.
Desert is returned to Spugnardi’s hand.
Turn 10 JoINrbs.
JoINrbs plays Watery Grave.
JoINrbs plays Haunting Hymn targeting Spugnardi.
Spugnardi plays Commandeer targeting Haunting Hymn.
JoINrbs plays Mystical Teachings.
JoINrbs reveals: Cancel.
JoINrbs plays Cancel targeting Commandeer.
Spugnardi discards Sudden Death.
Spugnardi discards Rewind.
Spugnardi discards Skeletal Vampire.
Spugnardi discards Desert.
JoINrbs: nothing
And with that, I’ll take my leave of you all again for another week. It’s time I stopped eating Jaffas and headed off to bed. It seems that I only have eight of those delightful wee treats left, and I could be in for an upset stomach at this rate.
Heh, not really… I can consume chocolate at a rate unparalleled by any other human living or dead. However, for the sake of my teeth, I should probably lay off anyway. See you all next week.
{e}