Writing SCG Dailies is hard work. Let no one tell you otherwise. Then again, who ever died of hard work?
John Henry? Who’s he?
Let’s do this sealed pool, then I’ll make some overall conclusions about what we’ve learned from these five pools. (Not that five builds is enough to make me feel like I’ve mastered the format, but it’s an important step in the learning process.)
Pool Five
Boros Swiftblade
Skyknight Legionnaire
Sunhome Enforcer
Centaur Safeguard
Seeds of Strength
Selesnya Sanctuary
Selesnya Signet
Gaze of the Gorgon
Golgari Rotwurm
Dimir Infiltrator
Dimir Signet
Lurking Informant
Perplex
Dogpile
Flame Fusillade
Goblin Fire Fiend
Goblin Spelunker
Incite Hysteria
Ordruun Commando
Sabertooth Alley Cat
2 Sell-Sword Brute
Sparkmage Apprentice
2 Spark of Zeal
War-Torch Goblin
Boros Fury-Shield
Caregiver
Conclave Phalanx
Gate Hound
Hunted Lammasu
Nightguard Patrol
Oathsworn Giant
Screeching Griffin
Veteran Armorer
Votary of the Conclave
Civic Wayfinder
Dryad’s Caress
Gather Courage
Golgari Brownscale
Golgari Grave-Troll
Greater Mossdog
2 Moldervine Cloak
Primordial Sage
Root-Kin Ally
Scatter the Seeds
2 Siege Wurm
Brainspoil
Clinging Darkness
Dimir House Guard
Dimir Machinations
Hunted Horror
Mausoleum Turnkey
Necromantic Thirst
Netherborn Phalanx
Sadistic Augermage
Shred Memory
Stinkweed Imp
Belltower Sphinx
Drake Familiar
Lore Broker
2 Peel from Reality
Surveilling Sprite
Terraformer
Tidewater Minion
Vedalken Dismisser
Wizened Snitches
Zephyr Spirit
Glass Golem
Peregrine Mask
Voyager Staff
Go ahead and make your deck. I can wait.
When I went through this pool, I couldn’t get over the Green. Not one, but two Moldervine Cloaks. That’s infreakingcredible. Aside from Selesnya Guildmage, there isn’t an uncommon I want to open more than Moldervine Cloak.
Boros has rocking men. So what if there are only three? Boros Swiftblade, Skyknight Legionnaire, and Sunhome Enforcer are efficient attackers. Boros Swiftblade plus Moldervine Cloak is an unholy terror on turn 3. Skyknight Legionnaire refuses to wait around, and I commend him for his can-damage attitude. Sunhome Enforcer has what the Japanese call “naisuu bodee”, eats lightning, craps thunder, and gives you life to boot. He’s just a step behind Skyknight Legionnaire in quality, since the ground tends to get gummed up quickly in the format, but he’s a great staple in winning the tempo wars.
The Conclave doesn’t give many gold options. Seeds of Strength is as good as Symbiosis was in Saga limited. Centaur Safeguard usually sits at home as a blocker. Don’t underestimate his life gain, though. We have a Signet and bounceland to iron out any irregularities in our mana curve.
Golgari Rotwurm has to be the best 5/4 common creature printed in forever. He can’t be Shattered like Tangle Golem. He finishes off opponents after you’ve gotten your early licks in. Gaze of the Gorgon looks like a wonderful card in a field of bad players, but when you’re facing good players it seems like it turns into an overpriced Death Ward.
Dimir Infiltrator looks great if you have creature pump spells. Like Moldervine Cloak. I can’t get them off my brain. Dimir Signet is handy, and I’ll even play it if we’re only splashing Black. Lurking Informant still is too expensive for me to consider using, though I never liked Darksteel Pendant either. Perplex can Transmute, but is only worth casting in the midgame. I suppose Transmute is like soulshift. No creature with soulshift was ever truly unplayable, since it could block and get back some sort of creature back from your graveyard.
Most of the artifacts are disappointing. Glass Golem doesn’t do this pool any favors. Five mana trades with two Saprolings. Peregrine Mask is a fine sideboard card against Dimir with its innumerable flyers, but most of the time I’d give it a miss. Voyager Staff, by contrast, is a handy card. It can get a creature back from Faith’s Fetters limbo. It can counter any removal spell. It can remove a key blocker at opportune times. It can keep your opponent’s Galvanic Arc from resolving. It can outright kill a creature token. (It has an interesting group of interactions with the Hunted creatures.) And since the Staff is an on board trick, it forces your opponent to play poorly. Let’s see Gaze of the Gorgon do that.
For once, Blue doesn’t look horrid. Belltower Sphinx can block almost any flying attacker in the format. Its mill ability looks far more viable in draft than most sealed pools, however. We do have Lurking Informant, Dimir Machinations, and Lore Broker if we’re planning to go down that road. Peel from Reality is a nice tempo card. Surveilling Sprite is a fine cantrip, and Terraformer is a Grey Ogre with a fair ability attached. (It’s a nice trick you can pull out to ruin your opponent’s Sewerdreg.) Tidewater Minion can eventually attack, and in the meantime he can let your tapping guys do double duty, or trade with a Bramble Elemental.
I finally figured out how to use Drake Familiar. You don’t need to sacrifice it if you return the other guy’s enchantment to his hand. Of course, that’s a drawback most of the time as well. The best use for Drake Familiar is as an extra piece of paper to take notes on. Those elderly Wizened Snitches do little unless you’re playing Booby Trap or want to save mana with your Deceiver themed deck. Vedalken Dismisser saw play in GP Nottingham’s Top Eight, so I don’t think it’s perfectly fair to dismiss it out of hand. Zephyr Spirit, on the other hand, is utterly awful.
Black offers several good creatures. The standouts are Stinkweed Imp, Dimir House Guard, and Mausoleum Turnkey. These three will always go into a deck with a serious commitment to black. Netherborn Phalanx is quite good against most decks in the current format, usually getting four damage out of the deal and possibly quite a bit more. It’s a nice finisher. Paying one more mana for a Lava Axe gets a 2/4 body attached. Sadistic Augermage is cost efficient blocking. Hunted Horror looks great if you can throw a Flight of Fancy on it, and if I had two Flights of Fancy, I’d certainly consider playing this guy maindeck. Since we don’t have that evasion, fuhgedaboudit.
I’ve already waxed ecstatic on the merits of Brainspoil in previous installments. However, most of you out there in forumland like Clinging Darkness. It’s true, it forces your opponent to sacrifice his Shambling Shell right away. It kills Nightguard Patrol. The spell can turn a Siege Wurm into an impotent blocker. Maybe I was wrong to give it short shrift. Maybe I am overselling the value of enchantment removal.
Dimir Machinations should be reserved only for mill decks, but even there it’s outclassed by Compulsive Research. Compulsive Research can dig deeper in your deck for the card you need. Most of the Dimir mill mechanisms don’t cost three mana. (Though Machinations will go get you Drift of Phantasms.) Shred Memory will get rid of those pesky Dredge spells, but isn’t worth it most of the time. (It can fetch you a Guildmage, however.)
I’ve discussed most of the Red cards before, so I’ll just address the highlights. Incite Hysteria is a fine spell that can win games. Flame Fusillade is an excellent spell akin to Rolling Thunder, though you’ll only want to play it in the late game. In previous threads, some touted Flame Fusillade as being the best rare in the set. I don’t think so – it’s worse than Glare of Subdual, and I’ll also rank it as lower than Hex. That’s really all I have to say here. Most bad players wouldn’t want to play this collection of mediocrity.
Good things come in White creatures. We have two creatures that can make all your men impossible to kill, Oathsworn Giant and Veteran Armorer. Nightguard Patrol is a great attacker, defender, and helps bring your Convoke costs down. Screeching Griffin and Hunted Lammasu are quality fliers. We have some good Red cards to splash, so we may get optimal use out of the Griffin. Boros Fury-Shield wrecks combats on a daily basis and can be used much in the same way as Backlash did in Invasion sealed, except it can be tacked on after damage has been assigned. Backlash required you to play it earlier. None of these thoughts should surprise veterans.
Conclave Phalanx is a card I’ve seen many of the locals overlook. It usually gets played for four mana and gives you four points of life. Later in the game, it can buy you an extra turn. It’s helpful when your opponent has unblockable men like Dimir House Guard, Dimir Infiltrator, or other evasive tricks to give yourself a little more time. He’s no Staunch Defenders, but he’s worth considering. On the other hand, Votary of the Conclave, Gatehound, and Caregiver are inefficient. I have nagging doubts about Caregiver, but he just doesn’t seem powerful enough to play in most decks. If Caregiver didn’t require White mana to activate, then I’d have a different story to tell.
This Green is the stuff that dreams are made of. Two Moldervine Cloaks. Reusable effects that make your creatures hard to stop are the gold standard of creature enchantments. We have two Siege Wurms, who put a beating on any sap unlucky enough to allow them to hit the table. Civic Wayfinder and Greater Mossdog are excellent midgame creatures. Scatter the Seeds works well in conjunction with white’s toughness enhancers and Flame Fusillade. Golgari Brownscale’s double Green requirement irks me, but he helps out a lot against Boros rushes.
The other Green men deserve a closer look. Primordial Sage is just as much a bomb as the Moldervine Cloaks. He is a quality creature in his own right and gives you card draws for doing what sealed decks love to do. Golgari Grave-Troll can be big, but you often end up playing him as a small man with two counters on him, block once or pay extra mana to instantly kill him, then bring him back after Dredging to get a 5/5. That’s a lot of work for a 5/5 with regeneration. (He also takes a bit more work to properly recycle when you have Veteran Armorer or Oathsworn Giant on the table.) Root-Kin Warrior is expensive and doesn’t have trample, so making him really big doesn’t do all that much for you. He is a nice blocker, but who wants to block with six mana creatures?
Gather Courage is an auto-include in any sealed deck with Green. Dryad’s Caress isn’t completely unreasonable, if you’re looking for a defensive combat trick. However, since it won’t let you smash through when you attack, I don’t think it’s going to be the right tool today.
This was by far the easiest of the pools to build.
1cc: Gather Courage, Voyager Staff
2cc: Veteran Armorer, Seeds of Strength, Selesnya Signet
3cc: Centaur Safeguard, Civic Wayfinder, Nightguard Patrol, Skyknight Legionnaire, 2 Moldervine Cloak, Boros Fury-Shield
4cc: Greater Mossdog, Screeching Griffin, Sunhome Enforcer, Hunted Lammasu, Flame Fusillade
5cc: Scatter the Seeds
6cc: Oathsworn Giant, Primordial Sage
7cc: 2 Siege Wurm
6 Plains
7 Forest
3 Mountain
Selesnya Sanctuary
1cc: SS
2cc: CSS
3cc: CCCCSSS
4cc: CCCCS
5cc: C
6cc: CC
7cc: CC
Finally, I feel justified in not adding Swamps to a deck. I thought I was in a rut. I’m done with GWB.
Despite having Civic Wayfinder and Selesnya Signet, I couldn’t sleep at night without having seventeen lands. There aren’t quite enough early creatures to exploit Convoke in the manner I want to.
For a while, I was able to resist the Gaze of the Gorgon. Voyager Staff does many of the same functions for less and can get a blocker out of the way. Conclave Phalanx got cut, though, and Gaze got put back in. I don’t call Gaze or Voyager Staff real removal. They’re just combat tricks. But I will settle for top quality combat tricks that give me the reins of every combat I choose to commit to. If I can’t assassinate my enemy’s generals in his sleep, I’ll settle for overwhelming odds on the field.
Since I know that Red is not going to be a primary color, but rather a splash, I know I won’t be playing any Red spells on turn 2, or likely even 3. That’s why I’m not running Boros Swiftblade. I don’t like splash spells that should be played early. A good rule of thumb I’ve developed is to look at any splash spell and add invisible mana costs until it hits four. Since most splashes only have four sources of the splashed color’s mana, you only have a one in ten chance of drawing that mana by turn four. At that point, is Swiftblade worth playing? If it patches a hole in your deck and won’t be poor in the late game, sure. That’s why I don’t want Boros Swiftblade. He’s an absolute firecracker in the early game, but quickly becomes a bust later on. I’m sure some of you at home will call me a nervous Nelly or Norin the Wary, but I won’t take this bait. Think I’m foolish? Bring it to the forum.
Cards that I could easily consider putting in this deck at the expense of Scatter the Seeds and Sunhome Enforcer are Golgari Brownscale and Conclave Phalanx. Against aggro Boros decks, you’ll definitely want the life gain and early defense these two provide. I’d probably cut a Siege Wurm and possibly Scatter the Seeds to bring these two defensive creatures.
Final thoughts on the format:
Above all, in each of this week’s builds, I reach for consistency every time. Invasion block taught us to make sure that come hell, high water, or Congressional subpoena, our deck needs to run silky smooth every time. This lesson has not left me; I avoid running double colored mana splashes. There aren’t as many universal mana fixers as in Invasion. We have a much more constrained sort of mana fixing, which usually doubles as mana acceleration. So be afraid of double Blue or double Red colored cards. You’re not usually going to be able to play them. Viashino Fangtail is a dangerous card to splash. Tidewater Minion looks awesome in combination with Wojek Embermage or Moroii, but do you really want to have him stranded in your hand?
Of course, Boros and Dimir are fine if you open the cards for them, but I really doubt you’re going to be able to make them the primary color of your deck most of the time. Lying on the periphery of the Ravnica color wheel, they will more often than not be on the sidelines. If I was Craig Jones, I’d do more work checking the Day 2 color archetypes at GP: Nottingham. That would have been a good benchmark sample to look at, but just as with the issue of how many licks a Tootsie Roll Pop is consumed in, we’ll never know.
I’d be very surprised to see a deck without Golgori or Selesnya. The sheer number of cards that can be played in these colors outstrips the peripheral colors.
There are a lot of quality common combat tricks in the format, though White has the best of them. Boros Fury-Shield, Bathe in Light, and Devouring Light trump Gather Courage, Darkpact, and Gaze of the Gorgon. Don’t assume you’ll have the strategic advantage when you commit forces. This format punishes tapping out, as the other player will know you’re forced to play honestly. (Then again, tapping out when you have no apparent resources does allow you to exploit Devouring Light, the format’s Spanish Inquisition.)
With the plethora of mana acceleration, it’s frequently feasible to throw down five-drops on turn 4 and six-drops on turn 5 or 6 without ruining the rest of your deck. My hat goes off to Wizards for making this possible with cards that can’t be easily abused, unlike the Mirrodin artifact lines.
This format isn’t quite as footloose and fancy free as Invasion Block was, but I’m certain that things will get even more wild and wooly with Guildpact. If I had to make a wager as to what the next set’s mechanics are, I’d guess that Carrion Howler would be a preview of the Orzhov Syndicate. Trading life for various other benefits seems just like B/W.
I don’t think that this experiment has turned over every stone, or looked in every nook and cranny. There’s still more gold to be hauled out of this mine. I’m excited, though.
It’s been a heck of a week writing. Thanks for reading.
Eli Kaplan
[email protected]
gaijineli on efnet
“I just want to tell you both, good luck. We’re all counting on you.” – Dr. Rumack, Airplane!
Bonus Section: Gaijin Trivia Contest (some questions stolen from Daniel Warriner)
How do you stack up? Test your knowledge of all things Japanese with these questions!
1: Name the performer.
I got the style but not the grace / I got the clothes but not the face /
I got the bread but not the butter / I got the wind, but not the shutter /
But I’m big in Japan / I’m big in Japan / Heh I’m Big in Japan
A: Lou Reed
B: David Bowie
C: Tom Waits
D: Iggy Pop
2: If you believe in Japanese superstitions, you don’t cut your fingernails at night because
A: you’ll have some really weird freaky dreams
B: a snake will come and bite you at night
C: the nail clippings will turn into fierce biting white ants
D: you won’t be with your parents when they die
3: Which of the following are not vertically stacked in Japan?
A: driving ranges
B: coffin hotel rooms
C: car parking spaces
D: kunoichi
4: Which of the following is not a wildly popular Japanese pop group?
A: Mr. Children
B: DRF
C: GLAY
D: Morning Musume (the Morning Girls)
5: Originally airing on FOX on May 16th, 1999, “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo” portrayed the Simpsons visiting Japan. Which of the following happens to one or more of them during their visit?
A: They all have seizures while watching “Battling Seizure Robots”
B: They go to “America Town” to eat
C: Bart and Homer see Woody Allen filming a commercial featuring boxing
D: They become Contestants on the “Super Challenge Family Wish Show”
correct answers: 1 – C 2 – D 3 – D 4 – B 5 – A, B, C, and D
Rate your score:
0 correct answers – Ha ha! Ignorant stupid gaijin!
1 correct answers – Ha ha! Stupid gaijin!
2 correct answers – Ha ha! Stupid gaijin!
3 correct answers – Ha ha! Stupid gaijin!
4 correct answers – Ha ha! Stupid gaijin!
5 correct answers – Ha ha! Crazy obsessive loser gaijin! Too much free time!