Here we go again…
On Wednesday, I mentioned that I’d be back today to discuss techy things today like decks and… well, decks. I’ve been wishing for a column where someone attending the Pro Tour gives you their perspective on the decks and what they learned about them for years now, and I finally realized that I’m pretty much the best person for the job. [My Extended article should probably be considered the first in this series.] Therefore what you will get today is straightforward discussion about all the hot tech to come out of the World Championships. Besides which, apparently there was far too much fun in my last article, so I will endeavor to include zero fun in this article in order to make up for it. I am nothing if not a slave to our fans. Remember kids – in life, he who complains loudest wins.
So as I mentioned in the coverage, I’d been working on a Standard article for some time but never quite managed to get enough time or energy together in one place to finish it. Now that Worlds has happened, I never will, but I can at least give you the highlights so that weeks worth of moderately productive thought don’t go to waste. In case you haven’t seen it in the last six weeks, this is what the season summary from Champs looks like.
I’m going to go Oscar Tan on you for a sec, but I’ll be quick about it so you won’t hate me in the morning. Okay, remember what I said about Gifts Ungiven at the very start of the season? Now look at the top number on the season summary page. Also, remember how I wrote this piece here, and then later apologized because early results (and Virginia itself) seemed to indicate I may have missed something? I take it back. I was right all along (well, except about the Jitte thing). On both counts. All the anecdotal and resultsadotal evidence from other States countermands the early results and shows that my metagame predictions and my prediction about the deck to beat were spot on. Apparently, I’m just that good*.
Of course, now that I’ve said that I’m going to have to debase myself for the rest of the article in order to fight the perception that I’m a raging egomaniac. The problem is, I’ve been right a lot lately (especially at Worlds), and I want to discuss that tournament today. I guess I’ll just to bite the bullet and take my abuse. If I’m lucky, I could even get my own thread where people say things like, “If Ted Knutson sh##s in the woods, and no barns are around to wipe his ass, is it still premium?” You know you’ve made it when…
The Standard Spiel
For starters, ever since States I’ve had the sneaking suspicion that there’s a lot more to Standard than meets the eye. It should only get better with Guildpact goodness on the way, but the way I figure there are at least 5-8 interesting and good decks out there available to play, and about twice that many that only register “solid” on the playability scale. Let your freak flag fly, kiddies – you might just end up with the next GhaziGlare decklist, a shockingly cool and effective decklist that makes Temple Garden almost as valuable as its multi-colored brethren. (I bet every time Chris Romeo actually opens a dual land, it ends up as a Temple Garden. I say these things only because I know he does not read my articles unlike say… the rest of you.)
Creatures (23)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Wood Elves
- 2 Yosei, the Morning Star
- 3 Kodama of the North Tree
- 2 Arashi, the Sky Asunder
- 4 Loxodon Hierarch
- 4 Selesnya Guildmage
Lands (23)
Spells (14)
This deck is like, totally sweet. I try to pay attention to these things, but the Japanese are all ninjas, so I was just as surprised as the rest of y’all when they flipped out and killed everyone with elephants and plants this weekend. The weapons of the ninja are many and unexpected…
One deck I was not surprised by was Critical Mass Update. In fact, in Beijing I suggested to both Ruels that it would be the deck I’d run at Worlds. Antoine took the French version of the deck and played it out to a 6-0 record on Day 1 before crashing back to Earth during the rest of the weekend. I had the deck because Josh Ravitz and I were discussing it about a month before Worlds as a likely contender for something to play in Standard. Josh mentioned that Putrefy was a nice splash and I eventually figured out that Vinelasher Kudzu was so bad in the Blue Control matchup that he needed to disappear again, so I traded him back for the old standby, Mr. Northside. The French came to this same conclusion and even added some Llanowar Elves to help power him out, though I had to cringe in horror when Antoine started discussing Sakura-Tribe Scout. Egads, man. Here’s what the French Pro Tour winner ended up with:
Creatures (19)
- 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
- 3 Llanowar Elves
- 3 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
- 4 Wood Elves
- 3 Kodama of the North Tree
- 2 Keiga, the Tide Star
Lands (23)
Spells (18)
The last deck I want to mention caught absolutely everybody by surprise and makes no sense whatsoever when you stop to examine the decklist, but it’s hard to argue with results. Take a look at Werner Cloete’s deck and tell me exactly what it is supposed to do with all the Urzatron mana.
3 Island
1 Watery Grave
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
2 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Forbidden Orchard
4 Shivan Reef
4 Urza’s Tower
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
4 Keiga, the Tide Star
4 Pyroclasm
4 Mana Leak
2 Tidings
3 Dimir Signet
3 Hinder
2 Blaze
2 Confiscate
4 Compulsive Research
4 Telling Time
Sideboard
3 Cranial Extraction
3 Pithing Needle
1 Hinder
1 Orochi Hatchery
1 Confiscate
1 Tidings
1 Dimir Signet
4 Ribbons of Night
Seriously, you can cast two Blazes and, uh… huh. Yeah. That seems to be about it. So the deck is goofy as hell, but if you actually shuffle it up and battle, you should come to the conclusion that, for whatever reason, it is also quite good. I’m still in the throes of jetlag and haven’t been able to playtest it as much as I’d like to, but everyone I have talked to giggles like a schoolgirl when discussing how it feels to play the deck. Could it use some tuning? Maybe… but maybe that would break whatever ephemeral synergy the deck has. Tweaking without understanding first usually goes badly.
All I can say is that Meloku cures all ills and you all should try this out at Friday Night Magic. Oh, and South Africans are crazy, yo. Like foxen.
The Extended Remix
I’ve been doing this whole “Magic on the internet” thing for a while now. I was reading back when Rizzo was at the height of his powers and deeply involved in writing and editing pretty much ever since he left. During that time period I’ve seen him catch the imaginations of thousands of readers with his writing, but I’m pretty sure I never saw him do it with a deck (not even one running Crypt KEEPER).
Until now.
The story goes like this: Paul Sottosanti (yet another person with connections to Der Riz from way back) decided to goldfish Rizzo’s Ichorid deck on Magic Online for a bit and see just what John had created. It turns out that Paul discovered what Rizzo knew all along – the deck was really good. It mulligans well, is capable of getting explosive draws, and is a real problem to play against if you aren’t prepared for it. Now the task was to get some pros to believe him and play the deck for themselves. What better way to do that then by smashing people’s Worlds Tested Extended decks with Rizzo’s “janky” creation? Paul brought a proxied version of the deck to Worlds and that’s exactly what happened. By the end of the weekend, Rizzo’s deck was officially the new new thing and more than a couple of players were excited to have something new to play at Grand Prix: Charlotte** in a couple of weeks, or they were… until BDM leaked the story. Who knows what will happen now?
I found this particularly interesting because when I looked at Rizzo’s deck from his article and tournament report, I thought he had a real chance of qualifying with it. Sure, the old man is rusty (in fact, “rusty” is his other middle name [Friggin’ being the first. – Knut, clarifying]), but the deck seemed very cool and it left me hoping for a happy ending at the end of 107 pages of foreplay. Sadly, such was not to be (Jonny Blueballs), but as John explained here, you can still bring him holiday cheer. Not sure what to play at your local PTQ? Run the sticky, my man.
This is the updated build of Rizzo’s recurring monster:
Ich Bedoel
4 Polluted Delta
4 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Watery Grave
2 Swamp
4 Ichorid
4 Psychatog
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Filth
1 Wonder
4 Mesmeric Fiend
2 Putrid Imp
1 Dimir Infiltrator
4 Zombie Infestation
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Deep Analysis
1 Life from the Loam
1 Ray of Revelation
4 Chrome Mox
Sideboard
4 Smother
3 Oxidize
1 Naturalize
1 Pithing Needle
1 Coffin Purge
2 Darkblast
3 Duress
Slide decks ended up a very solid choice for the Extended portion of the event. Josh Ravitz and Craig Krempels were one win out of the Top 8 and these teammates ran old-timey Rift-Slide with both the Eternal Witness and the Life from the Loam engines, a lot of power and solid kill conditions, provided you aren’t facing Balancing ‘Tings. There was, however, a different version of the deck running around though that I found interesting. The other version I want to spotlight almost didn’t get into the coverage, but Bernardo Da Costa Cabral managed to 5-0-1 with it, so we all got a decklist and I got to be lazy and not type it up before I left Yokohama. Winners all around, I say.
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor
4 Windswept Heath
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Swamp
3 Forest
3 Plains
4 Eternal Witness
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Dragon
1 Loxodon Hierarch
4 Wrath of God
4 Renewed Faith
4 Living Wish
4 Astral Slide
3 Putrefy
3 Life from the Loam
2 Decree of Justice
Sideboard
4 Cranial Extraction
3 Duress
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Withered Wretch
1 Kataki, War’s Wage
2 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Aven Cloudchaser
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Genesis
Is this any better than the Rift/Slide deck Flores talks about in his article today? Probably not, but it is an equally viable way to exploit the same idea and I like this one more because the hand disruption feels important in some matches. Duress plus Extraction out of the board is a lot of nitpicking for some decks to withstand and the Wish toolbox gives you matchup options in game 1 that you just can’t find elsewhere. Bernardo is an excellent player and I suspect his results will be difficult to replicate without extensive experience with the deck, but the list seems really good. This is especially true if you are the type of person who really likes the CAL decklists (like me), but lack the hours of time needed to become good with the deck (also like me), and are looking for something a little more familiar. Watching all these decks abuse the cycling and Life from the Loam engine has made me a firm believer that you either have to run that engine or you have to find a way to beat it (Suppression Field) in order to find success in this format.
Still looking for more cool stuff from every deckbuilder’s favorite format? Here’s your link, or feel free to create your own. Extended remains just as exciting as it was before the rotation, which might just be the most surprising discovery of the year.
A Little Limited
Draft day was pretty interesting, since it was the first time we’ve really gotten to see Ravnica draft play when everyone has a clue (no, Nottingham did not count). Here’s a brief list of what I learned:
- Fists of Ironwood is better than Scatter if you want to draft Selesnya. Selesnya is probably the most powerful guild you can draft and it’s also the easiest audible if the cards aren’t coming. (Thanks to BDM for the Fists info – I didn’t believe him at first. I was wrong.)
- Mark of Eviction really is that good. It’s not Ken Krouner good, but it’s pretty close. I know that none of you are going to agree with me, so feel free to keep shipping them to me sixth, seventh, and eighth pick.
- Boros is clearly the worst guild to draft and becomes almost unwinnable if you have another guy drafting it anywhere near you. I’ve also come to the conclusion that the Big Boros deck is probably the better archetype if you can get it, but it involves lucking into uncommon/rares.
- Eisel touched on it in his article yesterday, but Four-Color Green may be the most powerful archetype you aren’t drafting. Hoaen is a master with that particular deck – expect to see something from him about it in the next week or so.
- Mike Patnik somehow went 13-2 on the weekend when drafting Blue/Red. Now there’s a man that loves a Mark properly, going so far as to draft Dizzy Spells to tutor them up.
The Kitchen Sink (Nothing Fun in Here, Honest)
Every once in a while, fetid cesspool that it is, MiseTings hits a home run. I’m not going to link to it because they say some very naughty words over there, but let’s just say that the Mike Flores Fact Thread (all thirty-eight pages of it) was knocked out of the park and into McCovey Cove like Bonds was at bat and still on the juice.
I’d just like to point out that Katherine-Mary “Katie” Morgan is now “World Champion” Katherine-Mary Morgan. Still a churchgoer… Also, congrats to Eagle-Eye Cherry, Thomas Cash and Stewart Nicholson on their Top 8s, and Ken Summers is still a master.
Ben and Jerry’s “Dave Matthews Magic Brownie” ice cream is my favorite new flavor, though if we somehow got “Black Sesame Pocky” flavored ice cream here in the states, I’d probably wind up in the Guinness Book of World Records for fastest recorded weight gain in history.
So I briefly mentioned staff karaoke on Sunday in the last article, but I would just like to say that seeing Scott Johns do “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails was perhaps the oddest song choice of the weekend (to be fair, he still rocked it). I’d also like to note that Renee Roub is the nicest person to ever throw up on my shoes, and if I ever need a partner in a karaoke battle, I’m calling in Aaron Forsythe. I should be so lucky as to say, “I’m with hip-hop.”
No, I have not bought an XBox 360 and I won’t be doing so until they make me. It’s cool, but show me the killer title (or three).
Beats fly fast and furious at Pro Tour, but Kenji Tsumura probably had the two best this weekend. For the first one, he walked up to Jeroen Remie and patted on Heroin’s belly, pausing for a moment in reflective thought before saying, “Might be twins.” He then turned to Neil Reeves, sniffed a couple of times and said, “No deodorant,” before waving his hand in front of his nose and then walking away, leaving two of my favorite boom booms stunned at the savagery.
Just wait until he learns the language…
Full marks to Craig Jones for his recent work. Not only is he an outstanding Constructed player, his coverage has hit a new level in the last six months and has become a joy to read. He even gets away with stuff that I’m not sure I’d try.
This sleeping in four-hour shifts thing has got to stop…
Does anyone know if crunch berries have any long-term side effects besides making you fat?
I’m pretty sure this is the most clever thing I’ve seen in the last month, but my whole life is populated by clever people, so I could be wrong. It’s still f’in brilliant.
Quoteable Quotes
[pugg_fugg] Hey, Sigler. How do you want to give me my $50?
[JSigler] did i make some awful bet with you?
[JSigler] probably sports related?
[pugg_fugg] Yep.
[JSigler] sigh
[JSigler] i’ll review my finances and have someone from my corporate offices fax you a restitution form.
[pugg_fugg] The only word I saw in that sentence was “welch.”
[JSigler] My statement of, “Yeah PG” was in response to Hark asking about
the rating on the new Spy Kids movie.
[JSigler] He wanted to make sure he could get his girlfriend in.
[pugg_fugg] Both you and I know that Hark’s girlfriend would only get into
G rated films.
Knutson: player cards 😀
Bleiweiss: Buy a Kai!
Bleiweiss: I fully expect someone like Kibler to place an order for all 100 copies of his own card we have up for sale
Sawyer: yall sell your souls to the eye on the back of the dollar bill
Knutson: clearly
Sawyer: and that’s fine, it exemplifies your ethical boundaries
Knutson: I’ve been whoring out my mother ever since I started working here
BDM: my wife is turning on the TV in the bedroom to watch the Yankees
cry
Hoefling: better?
Hoefling: even alphabetized it 😉
Knutson: you da man
Hoefling: that’s how I roll
Wortho: i didnt even know you guys ran humor
Knutson: we do it all
Knutson: not unlike your mom
Wortho: omg well played
Knutson: concur
Knutson: opinions?
SethBurn: elephanting
SethBurn: to beat them we need to be just as gay as they are
SethBurn: which means persecute/eradicate
Knutson: I was thinking of something more mauve
[TimsWrite] you attack an island nation (who are the first part of the world
to see the article) on a site proliferated with Brits
[TimsWrite] obv we try to retaliate
[TimsWrite] unfortunately we are a bit crap at battling these days
[flameWRK] oh knut
[flameWRK] snow-wrestling in the streets of Helsinki
[flameWRK] you’ve been listening to Härkönen and Walamies too much
[RuneH] i hear there are polar bears walking the streets of helsinki
[RuneH] even more ferocious than the ones in Oslo
[flameWRK] no, the deadly penguins killed them all years ago
[Carlsson] i just had twilight drover, rotwurm and evangel in play at the same time
[Carlsson] my pants are all wet and sticky now =/
NWeil: we decided psychatog would be a little less broken if it was just a vanilla 5/6 for 3
Bogglor: YOU CLOGGED THE TOILET?
Bogglor: thats the best part of the whole article
Knutson: obv
Knutson: saved it for last
Bogglor: jeeeeesus
Knutson: it was my 4 day dump
Bogglor: yeah i knew it had to be one that you’d packed away for a few days
Bogglor: you store feces like a camel
[platy] i’d rather buy an african
[StrWrsKid] that’s illegal now platy
Aten: this is a VERY IMPORTANT TOURNAMENT ted
Aten: no more phoning it in
Aten: tied w/ kenji and masashi
Aten: not letting them break away
Drunken Kenji Tsumura: Pierre Canali dance is SEXual harassment!
One more reminder – tomorrow is Mark Herberholz Price is Right appearance. Set the Tivos, yo.
Teddy Card Game
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Bambi says, “I wanna leave it again.”
* Yeah, I surprise myself some days.
** And you people bitched about us making him premium. Honestly… *rolls eyes*