Rich Hoaen got me sick during the worst week possible. I have to move into a new apartment on Saturday, which means that this week should be spent packing the old apartment. Packing, however, involves physical work, which is difficult to do when you are medicated and hacking up lungs. I also need to be working out a bunch this week, to drop weight for an event three weeks hence, but working out is even more remote a possibility than packing, which leaves me just regular work, playing Magic, and writing. Now, time spent writing and playing Magic could theoretically be used to pack at half speed or so, which would appease my wife. However, writing brings in a paycheck, which also appeases the wife. Decisions, decisions…
I think you know which one I chose.
Ninja Stompy Reviewed
When last I left you, it was a dead heat between Ghost Husk and Ninja Stompy in the forum poll. Ninja Stompy had just edged ahead by the time I needed to start testing, so that was the deck I ended up building on ye olde Magic Online. If you are currently scratching your head wondering what the hell Ninja Stompy is, here’s the decklist:
Creatures (21)
- 4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
- 2 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Kird Ape
- 3 Dryad Sophisticate
- 4 Rumbling Slum
Lands (22)
Spells (17)
Let me start by saying something I don’t think I’ve ever said before: this deck is weird. This isn’t really a bad thing (for some of you, just like when it comes to dating, I’m sure it’s a definite bonus), but it leaves me in a strange spot. I’m reviewing the deck. I’ve played it for two weeks in fifty matches or so. Yet I still don’t know what to think about it. One might surmise that after a certain amount of time spent with a deck, we’d get to know each other. Not carnally, necessarily, but by this point in a consensual adult relationship I should definitely have gotten to third base or so. Not with this deck, nossir. Earlier this week I started to get a little worried, wondering if there was some tranny surprise in store for me or something, but the deck looks so sexy on paper that I kept coming back for more, damn the consequences.
Hmm, that paragraph wasn’t quite the direction I wanted to take this in. Perhaps I should lay off the HBO reruns for a while, or just stop reading Rizzo articles entirely. Let me start over…
Ninja Stompy has a ton of angles of attack, none of them particularly efficient. There are a few reasons for this, the first of which is that it’s not a fully formed triad yet in terms of Ravnica block. There are no U/G gold cards for another month, nor is there a Tropical Island, meaning you aren’t playing with all the power cards you could be. Additionally, while this deck has some very synergistic ideas in it, it never really feels like a cohesive sixty cards. Instead, it feels like two different decks were mashed together (say, Critical Mass and Heezy Street), some (bad) mana fixing was added, and that was that.
The Good
I keep winning with the deck. Sometimes I’m not sure exactly how I’m winning, but it’s happening. Then again, many of my wins have come in the Tournament Practice room on Magic Online, and everybody wins there. I now understand Flores’s addiction to testing here. When you can test new decks and always win, you always seem like a genius, right up until you have to play against non-digital opponents and the cold wind of reality hits. Regardless, the deck is good enough to win in that sort of environment and it finished in the Top 32 at a Pro Tour, so it’s clearly not terrible.
Good games go like this: First turn Kird Ape, second turn Ninja of the Deep Hours. Replay the Ape, draw some cards and then sit on counterspells until you feel like casting Thoughts of Ruin for the win. Or, you go first turn Birds of Paradise, second turn Dryad Sophisticate and Kird Ape, third turn equip Jitte on a possibly unblockable attacker and swing. You can also run a third turn 5/5 out there, which is nothing to sneeze at, particularly when backed up with countermagic.
Technically, you would classify this deck as a Jitte deck. Yet it only runs three Jittes in the maindeck and it includes Birds of Paradise, which aren’t really known for grabbing that particular equipment and going to town. It’s designed to get a bunch of little beaters on the board and mash with them as quickly and thoroughly as possible, while stopping your opponent from doing what they want to do with Mana Leak and Remand. Where synergy exists in the deck, it is very strong. The mana acceleration plus ninjas and Thoughts of Ruin is very good, provided you manage to get all your colors. The deck is also just aggressive enough that you can keep most opponents under pressure, thus forcing them to play into your countermagic. Thoughts of Ruin is almost completely unexpected, meaning you will wreck opponents with it until they learn to recognize this deck for what it is and what it does.
The sideboard and colors you are playing also offer you a lot of options to tweak your deck, since the current metagame is actually considerably different than what one might have expected to find in Hawaii.
The Bad
The deck is highly inconsistent. Your threats aren’t particularly resilient, so if you don’t draw countermagic, you are going to have a hard time keeping men in play. And don’t get me started on what happens if you don’t draw one of your colors because… well, you know all those images on the plastic surgery gone wrong websites? This is worse.
The deck really does feel like a mashup that doesn’t quite work, like Jay-Z and Weezer instead of Jay-Z and Linkin Park. Sometimes you rip the mana acceleration plus counterspell draw, which doesn’t get you anywhere except dead. Other times you get mana acceleration and fatties, only to see them wiped out, while you now draw nothing but counterspells for the rest of the game. Still other times things seem to be going pretty well until your opponent draws a Jitte while you have none, and nothing to stop it either. If Bill Paxton were still a Space Marine instead of trying to keep up with three wives at one time, one could hear him shouting, “Game over man, game over!”
The other thing that I found quite frustrating about the deck is that it really dislikes Pyroclasm. Birds, Ninjas, Elves, and Dryads all get shipped to the grumper when this popular removal spell hits the board, and Remand generally isn’t enough to stop it, leaving you in a spot where you either have Mana Leak or you cry as your entire early game waves goodbye.
Another irritating aspect was that you don’t have much long game if things don’t go exactly right. Nobody’s really afraid of a 5/5 guy these days, unless he hits early or unless they don’t have any land left to deal with him. If you don’t get the big man down, you better hope they are playing non-basic lands or that your Jitte has some counters on it, because your men just aren’t that scary compared to everyone else’s. Perhaps more annoying is that you just don’t have any big burn spells designed to finish opponents off (or act as removal to clear the way). Electrolyze is nice and clever, but two damage and a card for three mana rarely seems like it’s enough.
The Sideboard
First things first. Iwamori is generally better than Rumbling Slum (he only costs one color, and he tramples), so he came in every time I felt it safe that my opponent wasn’t going to get a free Keiga or whatever when I cast it. I understand that Cerebral Vortex was probably a good choice at the Pro Tour (it’s a brass-knuckled beating against Owl decks and Tidings alike, and you can always use it as a Night’s Whisper in a pinch), but those decks aren’t likely to see as much play now, so that slot could probably be freed up for something else. More Naturalizes are always welcome (freaking Ghost Dad makes this sentiment rather obvious), and I occasionally wanted Moldervine Cloaks, just to give my guys a chance at getting big quickly, though I didn’t test that concept enough to see if it was really worthwhile. Bathe in Light seems like it might be decent, but you aren’t playing that color, now are you?
Closing Remarks
It’s rare that I run across a deck that I just can’t get the hang of, but Ninja Stompy is it, which is why this section of the article won’t be quite as in-depth as I’d normally take a deck breakdown. While playing the deck, I always wanted it to be something it’s not, and that something was always changing, depending on what matchup I was in and what cards I had drawn. I wasn’t losing with the deck, but winning never felt comfortable, and my opponents always had plenty of outs available for them to draw and do me in.
I think what I really want from a deck like this is what I talked about when discussing Critical Mass two months ago – something a little slower and a lot more consistent that uses burn to either clear the way for creatures or to finish opponents off. My last version of Mass had eleven counterspells in it, and while it didn’t have ninjas for card drawing, it did have a Top engine that made it feel like I was drawing cards, even if I was merely seeing them instead. We don’t know just yet what Dissension will bring, but I wouldn’t count this color combination out, especially since Dis is the third set of a block, and those sets tend to deliver more bombs than most.
Ninja Stompy is an expensive deck to build and my testing has shown me that in its current form with the extant card pool, it isn’t likely to get any better than tier 2. If you already have all the cards, or you just think the deck is so cool that you have to play it (a perfectly understandable perspective), feel free. It can be really fun when it draws well, but can also be pretty miserable when it doesn’t.
My Take On Team Standard
For those of you who were too busy following Martin Dingler unlikely run to the Cardiff title to read my coverage, I figured I’d provide a recap of what you might have missed in Wisconsin last weekend.
For starters, three of the teams in the Top 4 played Heartbeat of Spring decks in their lineup. The memo wasn’t widely circulated, but Bracht’s Hawaii finish was no fluke – Heartbeat is definitely one of the best decks in the environment. I suggest you might not believe me because I actually had to convince StarWarsKid to play the deck in Madison, something I hardly thought would be necessary. You know a deck is still flying under the radar when one of its greatest advocates still doesn’t know it’s any good.
I also had the following conversation on AIM about it earlier this week:
D00der: Heartbeat is really that good?
Me: Yep. It’s ridiculous in the hands of a strong player.
D00der: What do we do if we can’t play it well enough to win with it?
Me: I’d suggest practice. Or find a new teammate.
If you don’t have a team member who can play this deck well, you’ve already handicapped yourselves for the PTQ season.
That said, it’s not perfect. The Black/White decks can be a tough matchup, as can any deck that decides to sell out in preparation. Pithing Needle impedes both Sensei’s Divining Top and Drift of Phantasms. Losing one feels like running with leg weights on, but losing both is downright annoying and can lead to either death or being forced to watch Aeon Flux on repeat for a 24-hour period, neither of which is particularly healthy. If forced, I’d probably choose death, but that’s a close one.
Hoaen’s sideboard is brilliant, and Richie, in spite of getting me sick, deserves full credit for the innovations. Bottled Cloister takes B/W decks and curbs their heads. Cranial Extraction me? Sure, you can take the ones in my deck, but thankfully I already have one or two in my hand, a hand that you can’t reach because it’s buried under the Cloister. Good beats. This will remain an excellent strategy, at least until they start bringing in Terashi’s Grasp and curbing you right back. Rending Vines is crap, but Shadow of Doubt is a mauling in the mirror. Your opponent decides it’s time to go off and transmutes a Drift of Phantasms? Shadow of Doubt ya, brahski. And I get to draw a card. Oof. Dosan the Falling Leaf is another tutorable card that’s good against control decks, and works well as a one-of.
McDaniel also had some solid cards in his sideboard. Chris ran the man plan, but called Carven Caryatid an MVP against aggressive decks, especially when backed up by a Drift of Phantasms that you actually cast. Ask Zoo and Gruul players how many cards they have to waste to get through a 2/5 and a 0/5 wall. Instead of Shadow of Doubt, McDaniel used Gigadrowse to defeat both control matchups and the mirror alike. Just tap your opponent out of Blue mana at the end of their turn and feel free to go off unimpeded. Heartbeat is fo’ real fo’ sure, my brethren.
It goes without saying that you will be running some deck featuring both Black and White cards, probably in a semi-aggressive combination. After watching them play the entire weekend, I still wasn’t really able to determine which of the decks in the Top 4 was the “best.” They all do things similarly, and vary only by 8-12 cards, many of which are functional substitutes for each other. At the PTQ level, I’d probably lean toward Ghost Dad just because it handles aggro so very well, but both (Kyle) Goodman’s and efro’s decks were very tight. Just remember, in the mirror the man with the Hands and the Jittes tends to win, so you’d better have a way of dealing with pro-Black/pro-White creatures carrying a pointy stick.
On the other hand, one deck that you do not want to play is Zoo. Yes, I know that two Zoo decks made the Top 4, but Pelcak hated his deck the entire tournament, ending up somewhere around .500 for the weekend. Decks out there are ready for aggressive decks, and while I can still see wanting to run something like Zoo on the principle that PTQ players might have a harder time dealing with the aggression, I think Heezy Street remains a better choice. Look at it this way: would you rather start out with an average of six cards, or seven? If your answer was seven, play the two-color deck.
If you aren’t interested in running Heezy with your Heartbeat and Orzhov decks, there are still options available to you. Maher ended up with bounce Wildfire in his seat, and while Bob didn’t do that well on the weekend, he was also rather rusty, so the jury is still out on whether the deck is good or merely average.
Flores’s team also had a very clever setup that I’ll let him explain in his own article. They played Heartbeat, Wildfire, and Beach House in their seats and had great success at the PTQ while Ravitz, De Rosa, and Lieberman at least money’d in Madison. Their update on the Beach House deck might actually be too hard to play well, so I’ll leave it to the folks who actually ran the deck to fill you in on their results.
You could also play Izzetron in your third seat, but both it and Heartbeat want a couple of the same cards (particularly Remand) so decisions have to be made. One other option that interferes only slightly with the suggested setup is Niv-Mizzet Control:
Creatures (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (32)
- 4 Hinder
- 4 Tidings
- 4 Rewind
- 3 Mana Leak
- 3 Boomerang
- 2 Confiscate
- 4 Remand
- 4 Electrolyze
- 4 Repeal
Sideboard
Designed by Pierre and Mr. Wafo-Tapa (one of the great Pro Tour names, as is Wessimo al-Bacha), it posted solid results in Hawaii. Unfortunately, it too wants the full boat of Remands and no one is quite certain if these decks can get along without them. I’m not actually playing in any of the PTQs this season, so the hardest questions will be left up to you and your teammates to figure out.
As it exists currently, Team Constructed is an interesting format with a variety of archetype setups viable for each team. Yes, most lineups will be similar, and your results are at least partly based on the luck of the matchups, but all Constructed is like that. The Pro Tour will be unified Block Constructed, which may not be quite as interesting as what we have now, so enjoy it while the party lasts.
One more thing before I wrap this up: Don’t forget that Team Standard is at least partially about finding decks your guys are comfortable with. This is especially true if they don’t have time to test, so disregard my advice above as necessary with regard to which decks you are going to play in the coming weeks.
Next Time: Either Fun with Ghost Husk or Vol. 2 of Thinking It Through
The Kitchen Sink
Billy Moreno is definitely the best Magic player on the professional hobo tour, but the jury is still out on whether or not he’s the best hobo on the Professional Magic Tour. Early reports say Rich Hoaen is nearly as good at hoboing, and probably twice as good at Magic. However, others have raised questions like this: If Richie is really a hobo, how does he stay so rotund?
My wife has recently become fascinated with underwater hockey. I commented, “how f***ing strange” to which she responded, “Come on… look at what you do for a living.” Good beats.
For those skeptical that underwater hockey actually exists, I provide the following link.
If you took Air Supply’s Greatest Hits album and remixed it with one of the major hip-hop producers, it would probably be in the Top 10 in sales for 2006.
Wilder Valderrama (Fez from That 70’s Show, and perhaps the most notorious playa/womanizer in Hollywood these days) recently talked about his love life on The Howard Stern show, and described Jennifer Love Hewitt (and the girls) as an 8 out of 10 in the sack, thus furthering her mystique and making women everywhere want her to die in a grease fire.
Mary-Louise Parker has solidified her place in my pantheon of hot, older women. I was in love with her when she went toe to toe with Josh on the West Wing, and she’s somehow even hotter as the widow-turned-pot-dealer on Weeds. I told Flores I thought she was absolutely smoking in the show and he said, “I wouldn’t really think of her as ‘hot’ in that role.” And yet she still is, which is my whole point. Assuming I ever get around to updating my freebie list, she’s a mortal lock, as is Kristin Bell.
Someone recently revealed that adult actress Linda Thoren is Jens Thoren’s cousin, again raising the question of whether we’re all cousins to porn stars somewhere along the line.
Quoteable Quotes
[Jonsson] you are a strange man though tomi
[Walamies] really? I always thought myself quite commonplace
[Walamies] or maybe it’s just my english modesty
[Jonsson] oh yes
[Jonsson] since alot of ppl go to school for a million years
[Jonsson] and then just say “f*** it” and start making jokes
michael says: what do you think of this team name
michael says: MJ Rofl
Card Game says: it fails on so many levels
michael says: ?
Card Game says: not unlike you
michael says: Mike Josh Ravitz Osyp Flores Lebedowicz
Card Game says: yeah, it’s still TERRIBLE
michael says: come on!
michael says: MJ Rofl in the hizzle
[marcob] to give you another good and funny story
[marcob] today i bought some shoes and a winter clothes at a store for big and tall people
[marcob] when i came home and unpacked the stuff i bought
[marcob] i found a small package of chocolate in the bags .)
[marcob] they like to keep their customers happy, i guess
[ffeJ2] if it was Resident ffeJ
[ffeJ2] Vasilis Fatouras would be going to the invitational
[ffeJ2] that’s about how close i am
[Riptide] yeah prob. 🙁
[ffeJ2] they need a vote for Longest Running Joke on the Pro Tour
[ffeJ2] they need a Vasilis Fatouras Look-Alike vote
[jeroenr] but like ffej, seriously, it doesn’t even look like you play anymore
[ffeJ2] lol
[jeroenr] you’re not at like half the pt’s and you never write anymore
[jeroenr] the only reason i know you play is once every two months you pop in here asking for phone magic
[jeroenr] is he your other?
[ffeJ2] he is my sun my moon my stars
[ffeJ2] soulmate
[jeroenr] that’s not what i meant, like, can you not win when he does and vice versa
[jeroenr] never saw him around when you won events
[jeroenr] he wasn’t even q’d then
[ffeJ2] well he’s only ever cashed at one tourney
[ffeJ2] lifetime
[ffeJ2] including prereleases and 5-man round robins at friend’s houses
[jeroenr] they play for money at his friends house?
[ffeJ2] everyone puts in 1 euro
[jeroenr] cant believe he lost that final
[ffeJ2] lol
[ffeJ2] he drew 4 lands in a row while getting beat down by a Rootwalla
[ffeJ2] his opponent was at one
[jeroenr] yeah
[jeroenr] it was embarrassing
[ffeJ2] after he dies, he flips over the next draw, a fireball
[ffeJ2] his opponent, 1 life
[ffeJ2] “top card”
Me to Mike Flores: I’ve just realized that reading your collected tournament reports must be an incredibly sad experience, on par with seeing Brokeback Mountain or watching Schindler’s List
OMC: yeah, it’s different, working in an office
Bleiweiss: Hopefully there’s not a very strict dress code.
OMC: heh
OMC: there was an embarrassing run-in with the president on casual Friday
OMC: but I’ll leave that to your imagination
Bleiweiss: You were dressed in sumo-suit made of miscut baseball cards, and Toby in a sumo-suit of Versus singles, and you caught the president in the middle of a throw-down at a four way intersection on the charge?
OMC: …
OMC: I’m not going to say no.
[ROSHOLM] yeah Simon Carlsson has been called “up and coming” more times than chasey lain