Having just watched Evan Erwin amazing Magic show explaining “Super Friends” and what beats it, I have hope for things I’m working on. My decks used to beat Red, but nowadays they don’t have the tools. Hopefully Rise of the Eldrazi will change all of that. I beat Vampires plenty already, and those are the two decks that beat Super Friends. My decks are usually mid-range, but with Overrun they can be quite speedy with a good draw. According to Evan, and I believe him, the way to beat the best seven hundred dollar deck in the format is to be fast. I think I can do that.
Seven hundred dollars? Is that really the direction you want this game to go, WOTC? Just asking…
I think it was in this show Evan mentioned the value of Tarmagoyf, a creature I had four of online. I set them to tradable and picked some tickets from my favorite bot. OMFG!
I’m rich.
Now a hundred and fifty tickets richer, I can buy some Rise of the Eldrazi. It’s not that I don’t have the money, it’s just better to take my 14,000 card collection (most of which is land and commons) and turn cards I’m not using into cards I can use. It just feels better. Smarter.
Friday night, I dream fitfully and almost get out of bed at six-thirty to start spending tickets, playing, and writing. I force myself to sleep for another two hours, and wake up to find Wendy reading on her iPhone. I roll over and hug her. She smiles at me. We talk for a couple minutes and then I tell her I’m getting up, which is unusual for a Saturday because normally we lie in bed and read for a couple hours and sip coffee. Ah, the joys of a childless couple.
“It’s true, isn’t it,” she asks me.
“What’s that?”
“I really am going to become a Magic widow.”
I come back a couple hours later, and she has a huge cup of coffee next to the bed, and is still reading.
“How are you feeling?”
“Good. What are you doing?”
“I got my hands on some Rise of the Eldrazi and I’m building decks and writing about it.”
“You really are unstoppable, Jamie Wakefield.”
She has been amazed how much I am writing these days. She came into my office (i.e. the living room) and said “Man, you were worried about getting into Magic again, and me walking in here and seeing you playing games and thinking you weren’t working. But every time I come in here, you’re banging on that keyboard like it was a drum.” Between trying to keep my blog updated, emails, responding on the forums, editing the next book, and writing these articles, she’s right. I’m amazed I don’t have carpal tunnel.
I checked out the classified and traded with a guy for a few cards I wanted, then found a bot selling boosters and bought nine of them. Plan — Booster draft and get a bunch of Green cards. Flaw in said plan — there are no Rise of the Eldrazi booster drafts online yet. I decide to just open them and hope for the best. Here’s what I made to test cards. I admit, this is sort of thrown together without much of a plan, but I can’t make a deck without seeing the card actually played.
4 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
19 Forest
1 Beastbreaker of Bala Ged
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Mul Daya Channelers
4 Aura Gnarlid
1 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Nest Invader
1 Boar Umbra
3 Spider Umbra
1 Snake Umbra
4 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Hand of Emrakul
1 Kazandu Tuskcaller
2 Pelakka Wurm
4 Arbor Elf
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Eldrazi Temple
2 Birds of Paradise
Sideboard
1 Sylvan Bounty
1 Gravity Well
2 Gravity Well
1 Naturalize
3 Living Destiny
4 Great Sable Stag
3 Naturalize
First game was against a Blue White player who countered the Boar Umbra I tried to play on Joraga Treespeaker. A couple of elves hit the board off a leveled up Joraga on turn 2, so I had a lot of mana on turn 3. Oblivion Ring was used on my Master of the Wild Hunt, but thanks to a Nest Invader and an Eldrazi Temple, I soon played a Hand of Emrakul and he conceded.
Very nice for the first game with a deck I’d thrown together.
Second game is Elves, Birds, and Joraga, and he concedes when I play a Master of the Wild Hunt. Weird. He had Black. Was he running no elimination?
M y next opponent draws three land, plays three equipment, but no creatures, and I get Birds, Elves, and Wild Hunt again. It’s over fast. I long to play against a tournament quality deck that will crush me and show me the error of this deck.
I get my wish. Auras don’t help much against Exile.
My opponent plays a Steppe Lynx and then a bunch of fetch lands to make him 4/5 every turn, and I need my mana so I don’t block. He also has a couple of 3/1 hasted tramplers with unearth that help kill me on turn 4 [Hellspark Elemental, of course — Craig]
I’m starting to see an evolving strategy I can go with, one that refers to the Mike Flores article “Who’s The Beatdown?” With Green having nothing really color-specific for sideboard, such as cards like Choke or Tsunami, I’m thinking that a transformational sideboard would be the best bet. With Green’s enhanced ability to generate mana, a sideboard with some of the larger Eldrazi would actually be playable against decks that don’t kill off everything that enters the battlefield. Against fast Red decks or Jund, you side out some of the elves and go for a more mid-range strategy with Leatherback Baloths, Grazing Gladeharts and Pelakka Worm. Against Super Friends, you would side in Overrun and Coat of Arms for the quick surprise finish. Now, if there was only a way to have a 32-card sideboard…
Wendy comes out to tell me her plan is to shower, go to the plant store, and then walk down to Retiro Park, a couple of miles away. I tell her that sounds like a fine plan for the rest of the day. I play one more game of Magic, against another Green deck using Wolfbriars, Archdruids, and Elves. We stalemate until he draws an Eldrazi Monument and flies over for the win. So… that’s how you use it.
The lady at the plant store is a wonderful, kind, tiny, grey haired old lady, as tall as a Hobbit. Wendy discusses plants with her for forty-five minutes. At the twenty-five minute mark, I go for a beer and tell her I’ll return shortly. Twenty minutes later we’re carrying plants a mile home, both of our arms full. It’s now three in the afternoon, and neither of us has eaten a thing. Our plan is to walk a long way to a restaurant and then go to the Retiro, but the weather is cold, windy, and threatening rain. We decide on a restaurant close to home, since we are starving and we love the place. We order, and I am leaning on the table when Wendy says “Oh my God, look at your arm!” This is a nice thing because I have, in the past, been in shape, then forty pounds overweight, then in shape again, and now I’m working out three times a week. It’s nice when your future wife looks at your arm and thinks it huge. She actually gets out her iPhone and takes a picture of it to show me. Huh. Looks small to me. Dinner progresses, and she wants to know what I wrote about today… playing Magic in Spain and selling cards. It is a lively dinner as always.
We finish our meal, and now we are stuffed. We head back up to the apartment, and she asks if I want to get Carcassoned or “Unleash the Walter,” which (get your mind out of the gutter) means “Watch Fringe.” I want to attack her, but she rebuffs me until later, and we agree on Carcassone. I guess more Magic testing will wait until tomorrow.
After two games of Carcassone, Wendy wants to play Magic. She then wants me to look at Qualifiers, because she used to live in NY and wants to take me down for another weekend of shows, and to hit a PTQ at the same time.
Wow! The WOTC interface is awful for figuring out when there are qualifiers in NY! Someone help me out here. I’ll be in VT from June to September, and I can’t find ANY qualifiers in NY. How can that be?
I have recently pulled out my lone box of cards that I brought to Madrid and found remnants of Secret Force, and I eventually put it back together and sleeved it. I wanted to show Wendy what a real tournament deck looked like. Not to crush her, but just to show her my favorite/best deck and educate her on the difference between a thrown-together learning deck and a tuned and tested work of art.
She sees the difference immediately, and crushes me two straight with ease. This is really not my day. The deck finally starts to perform, and I win the next three with ease. We quit for the night and watch some TV.
What I have learned so far about Rise of the Eldrazi Green —
The Umbra’s blow. And because of that, Aura Gnarlid is just like every other enchantment-based creature. He looks good on paper, but the deck fails to become Tier 2, much less Tier 1.
Joraga Treespeaker is pretty good, but it takes a long-ass time to get her up to level 5. At level 2 she’s worth it to play in a deck.
Pelakka Wurm is a maybe, because most of the time, when facing the deck against which you need it most, you’re dead before you can cast it.
Mul Daya Channelers are amazing. In a deck filled with land and creatures, these things are stunningly good. A 5/5 for three mana is amazing, and a 2/2 that taps for two mana is decent as well.
Beastbreaker is just bad. Horrible.
Thoughts on cards not in Rise of the Eldrazi:
Begin Rant —
Mold Hippos are just insulting. Really, WOTC? I have to spend six mana for a 3/3 that destroys a non-creature permanent?
I look at the decks I’m building, and I can’t help but compare them to Secret Force. The decks I’m building in Mono Green now are just fast mana and rush decks. Overrun is the best card I have.
Dear WOTC R&D — I will always love you for Timbermare, but what is your consistent problem in finding an identity for Green? Where are my Sex Monkeys, my Viridian Shamans, my Elvish Lyrists, my Creeping Molds, my Gaea’s Cradles? Where are my “best creatures in the game?” They are certainly not in Green. For the “creature color,” I’m not seeing any Green creatures in the Polymorph decks. I’m seeing White Angels that don’t allow me to cast Green spells. Once again, I implore you to make Green have an identity. What I see right now is mana, +x/+x ,and crappy spiders with reach. Seriously? Where is the utility? Where are any cards I can put in my deck that do anything but rush my opponent or defend against fliers?
I could play a deck with Mold Hippos and Acidic Slime, but then my utility creatures are five and six mana, while other colors are playing creatures that win them the game for that much mana!
End Rant.
Master of the Wild Hunt is absolutely amazing. Worth every penny I spent on them.
Green decks without Leatherback Baloth just lose.
If I draw Overrun — you lose.
The wolf deck I showed you last week is still doing well in testing. I have to explore this further. I’ve replaced the spells that get me land with creatures that get me land.
MTGO crashes a lot.
While the transformational sideboard idea had merit, it never worked out the way I wanted. I gave up on it. So, I guess, it didn’t have merit…
Khalni Hydra is pretty close to what I wanted it to be. It’s not the most awesome card ever printed, but it’s pretty good. That said, Pelakka Wurm isn’t as good as I thought it would be, but hey, more fatties = good.
Elvish Archdruid is just as good as I thought he would be. Better, even.
I think I need to put more work into my Elf deck that has 4 Overruns and 4 Coat of Arms. Yes, I do love little kid decks.
The tournament practice room is just about worthless. My current deck wins 90% of the time there, and about 60% of the time in the real two-person tournaments. This is what I’m playing now.
Creatures (34)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Elvish Archdruid
- 4 Master of the Wild Hunt
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 4 Leatherback Baloth
- 3 Joraga Treespeaker
- 4 Khalni Hydra
- 3 Mul Daya Channelers
- 4 Pelakka Wurm
Lands (23)
- 23 Forest
Until next time!