Well, that was interesting…
My first deck was Mono Green, as I’m sure you can guess. But, as I have told others, I am not wedded to Mono Green if I can’t make it work. I wanted to start out cheap at first and get a feel for things and then spend the big bucks once I knew what I was doing. There were some very interesting cards I wanted to try out and some of them were rares that sold for three cents. I figured I would make up a deck, see if I can make Mono Green work and if I can’t, then I’ll move on to multi-colored. Despite being the champion of Green, I don’t want to just qualify for the Pro Tour; I want to do well at one, even win it. If that means embracing other colors again, I will.
I say this because there are already people telling me to give up on Mono Green and not limit myself. And I understand what they are saying, but at the same time, I want to remind them I have qualified with Red/White, Mono Green, and Mono Black. I played Mono White at Pro Tour: Los Angeles and Mono Red at Pro Tour NJ. I made top 25 at Pro Tour NY 1 with Mono Black.
Wait, why am I defending this? Everyone told me to put Necro in my Black deck. I didn’t, and Mark Wraith and I both qualified with it. They told me to quit Mono Green, and I qualified with that too. How about a little faith, people?
I am willing to play other colors, but Mono Green will always be my first choice.
That said, I was excited to try out some cards. Terastodon intrigued me, and so did Acidic Slime. I always love destroying permanents with a body attached to them. In the games that I had seen in the practice room, people were casting some expensive spells and the games were getting into the later turns.
Over the next few days I played some games in the tournament practice room with twenty-two Forests, four Quicksand, Birds, Elves, Rampant Growth, Acidic Slime, Leatherback Baloth, Feral Hydras, Terastodon, Wolfbriar Elemental, Ant Queen, and Overrun. Don’t worry, it was only sixty cards. It had twenty-six land because I was playing so much fat. And hey, don’t laugh at my card choices. I’m starting from ground zero here, and I’m not paying twenty tickets each for obviously superior rares before I find out what works and what doesn’t. I have zero cards from the last three years, and the cards I have in my collection that are Standard legal are pitifully small. I think so far I’ve spent twelve tickets on cards and made a deck out of it.
And you know what? It smashed people. Not always, but enough times to give me some hope that I was onto something.
So much fun. God, I love the environment right now.
…
Surely with Elves, Bird of Paradise and Rampant Growth I would be able to power out a 9/9 that destroyed three of my opponent’s noncreature permanents and gave me three elephants for doing so. See, the card says “… its controller puts a 3/3 elephant creature onto the battlefield.” I thought “that’s me, I’m the controller.” D’oh! I was more than a little surprised when I destroyed the last of my opponent’s land and I didn’t get any elephants. This was after I had already attacked, so he swung for nine plus his own creatures on the next turn and killed me.
I immediately took the Terastodons out of the deck and flagged them as tradable. And then I started to mull it over some more as the hours passed, since all I think about is Magic these days. (Well, that and the other thing all men think about 90% of the time. Football! No wait, I never think about football, I must mean that other thing.) In the game I was talking about earlier, I had used Acidic Slime to destroy my land-light opponent’s land. When Terastodon came into play, I finished off the rest of it. If I had understood the effect that was going to happen, I could have managed my play better. Do I care that my opponent has three 3/3 creatures when I have a 9/9, land and a deck full of fat? Can he recover from having no land and I’m drawing Ant Queens and Wolfbriar Elementals and have nine mana on the board? I don’t think so.
See, Acidic Slime and Terastodon appeal to me because I don’t like playing Mono Green and not having answers to things that might be insurmountable. In the old days, those things would be Cursed Scroll or Worship or Platinum Angel. Today it was a Cunning Sparkmage with a Basilisk Collar who killed everything I put on the board with a simple tap until I drew an Acidic Slime and killed it. If I don’t have an answer? I have to concede soon after they hit the board.
The other thought about Terastodon was “What if I destroy my own permanents?” Won’t I have some tokens on the board that I could essentially transform into 3/3 elephants? At that point in the game won’t it be better to have 3/3 elephants than Llanowar Elves and Birds? What if I cast the Terastodon and got a 9/9 and three 3/3s? Wouldn’t that be amazing? What if there was one problem I needed to solve on the other side of the board, and I gave them a 3/3 and gave the other two to myself? Isn’t that good?
I tuned it some more and finally decided the Terastodons could be replaced with Mold Shamblers. I had enough fat, and the games were being won more by the token generators and Overrun than anything else. My sideboard was a mess of things. It had some lifegain, some flier defense, Naturalize for even more artifact or enchantment heavy decks, and I bought some Great Sable Stags . Great Sable Stags turned out to be so good I put them in the main. They have rotated in and out ever since. Ant Queen continues to baffle me. How can a 5/5 for five with an awesome special ability suck so bad? She was always killed immediately, and once even stolen by a Green/Blue mage who then used her against me. See why I need those Mold Hippos? Too bad they suck. I didn’t grasp from first reading the card that I would be paying six for a 3/3 if I wanted his ability. I thought he was 3/3 and with kicker could destroy TWO permanents. See, the main problem is that I’m bad at this game. But I don’t really have another solution right now. He’s a good enough blocker for Jund and if I have to pay six to get back my Ant Queen I’ll do it. But she wasn’t working out as well as I had hoped so I looked through more tradebots and found Mycoloth. While it seems stupid to kill my own creatures, this thing can be insane. Insanely good, and insanely bad. I once killed three creatures, got a 10/10 Mycoloth and the next upkeep it spit out six saprolings. SIX! Of course, there are also the times she does that and immediately gets killed before doing anything. So you have to play her smart. Wolfbriar Elemental is becoming one of my favorite cards. That guy has proven his worth every game. If I could play eight of them, I’d have a deck.
Friday night The Beautiful Wendy has a Grrrrls’ night out party. We both work from home, and when she instant messaged me from the other end of the apartment with “Want to get Carcas-owned?” I quit work on advertising, editing, writing and blogging, and we opened up a bottle of wine and played a game of Carcasonne, a fantastic board game I bought her for Christmas. We’ve played over a hundred games with it and bought all the expansions. I built this huge city with my builder attached, and she finished it for me because it had so many products in it. I get the points for the city but she received three wine barrels, two cloth, and two wheat. A half an hour later we finish the game and she beats me by ninety-seven points, thirty of that coming from products.
“Another game?”
“No, I’m starting to get burnt out on this game and I don’t want that. How about some Quandary on the terrace?”
“How about some Magic on the terrace?”
“Won’t the neighbors see? Not that I care; I’m a nudist. But you might…”
She smiles and smacks me. “You know I’m talking about the game.”
“Magic would be great.”
I taught Wendy Magic months, ago but we haven’t played much. I find it wonderful she’s offering to play and I know it’s because she’s seeing me so excited about playing again. She needs a refresher on the rules, and it always amazes me how logical it all seems once you understand, but at the outset, it’s really a hard game to learn. Wendy is the smartest person I have ever met. I’ve met some smart people. My dad has a Masters degree in Chemistry and Biology. Wendy passed the bar (lawyer test) for the two hardest states in the country on the same day. (See, if you pass the bar in Georgia, that doesn’t mean you can be a lawyer in NY. The NY bar is harder. If I understand it right, if you pass the bar for the two hardest states in the union, you can practice law anywhere.) That said, even Wendy has to take some time to wrap her head around the rules of Magic.
“I have to pay one Green to attack with my Tarpan, right?
“But I attacked you, how come my creatures don’t do damage to your creatures first? If I swing a bat at your head you don’t get to attack me back. You’re on the floor.”
Then try explaining how an Orcish Cannoneer can block then tap for 2 more damage.
“More wine, sweetheart?”
“Please.”
“How come you have scary sounding things like Minotaurs and Giants and I have Boars and Treefolk?”
“So, if you Lightning Bolt my creature first, I can save it with a Giant Growth, but if I Giant Growth my creature, you can Lightning Bolt it and it dies? That makes no f***ing sense.”
I have no idea how I’m going to explain “Destroying the source of an effect doesn’t cancel that effect.”
I’ve built up some simple decks of Black, Red, Green, and White for teaching purposes. Her favorite color is Green so far, and she hates White for not being aggressive enough. Admittedly, I did make the White deck a slow, defensive deck with the Castle enchantment, Flying Walls, Yotian Soldiers, and Serra Angels. “Hey look, you can’t get by my defenses but I can attack over your head and still have massive defenses you can’t get by.” I think Michele and Marilyn came up with it in the dark ages.
I decide I should make the decks better for teaching. I also make her a cheat sheet you might find helpful in teaching.
Untap
– Spells that can be played — none
Upkeep
– Pay upkeep costs
– Spells that can be played — instants
Draw
– Spells that can be played — instants
Main Phase 1
– Spells that can be played — Instants, Sorceries, Cast Creatures, Artifacts and Enchantments
Combat
– Declare attackers
a- Both players may respond with creature abilities and Instants
– Declare blockers
a- Both players may respond with creature abilities and Instants
Combat damage resolves
Main Phase 2
– Spells that can be played — Instants, Sorceries, Cast Creatures, Artifacts and Enchantments
Announce End of Turn/Discard phase (Discard down to 7 cards if you have more than 7)
– Other player may respond with creature abilities or instants — If this happens, current player may respond with same
Admittedly, you can make this a lot more complex, but what you need is a simple sheet for teaching, not an intricate flowchart.
Two hours later, a dance party broke out, like it usually does after three glasses of wine.
And now a brief interlude to an Alan Webter message I received on Facebook this week. Because what would this column be without a quote from the guy who had so many notable quotes he made me famous?
“So I showed my wife your ‘Info’ page on Facebook, and as she looked at your favorite music, she immediately said ‘Does his fiancé know he’s gay?'”
We went into her office and danced to music we like, and then she remembered she had to show me the video of the girls farting butterflies. She saw it at the gym while running on the treadmill. Yeah, farting butterflies. I didn’t believe it either. The song is actually really nice, but the video is bizarre, to say the least.
We dance until she’s out of time, then she takes off and I settle in for a night of Magic. It’s time to play with the big dogs.
I enter the eight-man queue.
Enough test runs. Let’s see if this thing can fly.
In the next couple of hours, I learn that I cannot play with the big dogs. They don’t want to play with me, but rather, attack me like a wild pack of hyenas. It is quite an education. See, this is why tournaments are so important and why I spend so many tickets on them, even with a deck not fully tuned. I was winning a majority of my matches in the casual tournament practice room, but now I’m playing against decks that I recognize from Worlds and Grand Prix tournaments. These are clearly the best decks in the format, and they smash my little creation to pieces like a stone through stained glass.
You know what deck I do best against? Jund. You know what deck I do worst against? Everything else.
I enter the eight man queue and the first match goes great. My opponent joins the game and immediately concedes the match. I’m off to a good start.
Round 2 is against Jund. For some reason, I cannot access a replay of the first two games. He takes the first with an early double Blightning that leaves me with nothing. I take the second with a couple of Stags, Baloths, and a timely Overrun. In the third I get an okay draw with two Sable Stags, a Mycoloth (which I realize now should be sided out against Jund), and a Sylvan Bounty but no speed. On the second turn I cycle away the Sylvan Bounty, and on the third I cast the first Stag. He plays a Leech, I play my other Stable Stag. Man, I love these guys. Do you know how much Black there is in Jund? A lot. I attack with a Stag, he Thought Hemorrhages me and names Leatherback Baloth. I play my Mold Shambler while holding an Overrun, Mycoloth, and a Sylvan Bounty. He still has a lone Leech on the board and I attack with one of my Stags. I am so going to win this game.
He plays a Bloodbraid Elf and cascades into a Maelstrom Pulse for my Mold Hippo. I play a Forest and we stare at each other. He untaps and Blightnings me. I cast the other Bounty I’ve drawn and go up to 25, losing the Mycoloth and the Overrun. He comes in with the Raging Ravine and the Bloodbraid, and I don’t feel like losing my Stags so I let them pass. Ah, an Ant Queen, awesome. 5/5’s are pretty good, I hear. I cast her and make a token immediately. I attack with the two Stags and he’s down to eight. I’m at eighteen. He Pulses the Queen and attacks with the Putrid Leech. I play a Baloth and attack with the Stag. He answers with a Sprouting Thrinax. I draw a Wolfbriar Elemental and get a 4/4 and three 2/2 wolf tokens. Some good. Have I mentioned I’m going to win this game?
He rips Maelstrom Pulse, and the wolf tokens get skinned and sold for their pelts.
I untap and attack with Sable Stag, Wolfbriar, Leatherback Baloth, and an Insect token. He is at 4.
He activates the Raging Ravine, blocks the Stag. Sprouting Thrinax and a Leech block the Baloth, Putrid Leech blocks the Wolfbriar. The insect stings him for one, he pumps a leech to 4, and then all I’m left with is the insect token… That didn’t work out at all like I planned. He has three saprolings and a Leech he can’t pump. Oh yeah, and the Raging Ravine, so he comes in with it and two of the saprolings. He’s at one, and I’m about to go from 16 to 9.
I triumphantly rip a Forest!
He double Blightnings me and attacks for the win.
How did that go so wrong?
Huh.
Oh well, it was a fun game, and my cheap ass deck took Jund to three games. If I had played smarter, I’d be in the finals of an eight man now. Let’s try that again, and I enter another eight man.
G/W/U Exalted, and he gets a nice start, but so do I. However, my lone Wolfbriar can’t block his multiply exalted Rhox War Monk, so I make a Mycoloth with two devour counters from the Wolfbriar and a Bird of Paradise. I get a land for my troubles, as he uses a Path to Exile on it. He plays a Finest Hour, the War Monk comes in for six on his turn, then seven. Game. Wow! I never saw a deck like that in the Tournament Practice room! Very cool.
Game 2, things are at parity until I cast an Ant Queen, and he casts Mind Control and takes it. First time I’ve seen that card too. Then he comes in with exalted Rafiq of the Many for 4/4 double strike. Yow! Getting quite the education here. I play something not great, and he untaps, comes in with my exalted 6/6 Ant Queen, and casts a Baneslayer Angel — Holy God! Look at that card! Someone pumped a Serra Angel full of steroids, human growth hormone, and a little crack for good measure.
Let’s save some tickets here and enter a two-man tournament. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to continue to throw my crappy deck at tournament-tested decks. I make some changes from what I’ve learned, but it doesn’t do me any good to go back to the practice room, as I already know what the decks are like there. Let’s continue with my education. Spare the rod, spoil the child.
Vampires — I’ve played against this. Tough deck to beat if they get the fliers, but I have a great draw with some acceleration, a Baloth, Ant Queen, and Wolfbriar Elemental. He kills the Baloth with a Tendrils and then I get out the Ant Queen, and she actually lives long enough for me to start pumping out some insects. Mind Sludge robs me of Howl of the Night Pack, Acidic Slime, and a Wolfbriar Elemental, which I think is awesome because I always loved Mind Twist and that’s the closest I’ve ever seen to a reprint.
My Ant Queen how has three insect minions, and I draw a Wolfbriar and make two wolves. Man, I sure hope Vampires doesn’t run some kind of mass removal that I haven’t seen yet, otherwise I’m going to win this game. He plays a Gatekeeper of Malakir then drops a Plains for Path to Exile, and my Ant Queen turns into a Forest. I attack with everything, putting him down to 3, but I lose some insect tokens and an elf in the process. I had an army a minute ago, and now my side is starting to look a little sparse. But I’m still at 18 and he’s at 3, I don’t need much to win. I draw an Elf he draws a Vampire Nighthawk. Those guys are very cool. Have I mentioned I love the Vampire decks? I rip another Forest, he plays another Nighthawk. Even an Overrun won’t win me the game now. I pull a Rampant Growth. He comes in with the Nighthawks.
I am replaying the game as I write this, so I’m not making this up — I draw another Rampant Growth and go get my twelfth Forest. He plays a Bloodwitch and that’s all she wrote.
In the second game I play a Baloth and discover they have reprinted Smother. I get an Ant Queen out, but he just Exiles it then plays Bloodwitch, Bloodwitch, then Path to Exiles my Deadly Recluse and swings.
I make some more changes to the deck, and enter another two-man match/tournament. I’m starting to see that I —
1. Need another color.
2. Need to buy some more expensive cards.
3. Really need to draw Overrun more, which I haven’t seen once tonight.
My next opponent is with U/B/W artifacts.
I have an awesome draw with a lot of early speed and an Overrun. On turn 4 I play Howl of the Night Pack and get four 2/2 wolf tokens and I am holding two Overrun. He does not have any sort of Wrath and I untap and win on turn 5.
In the second game I start off with two Forests, a Bird, an Elf and three Leatherback Baloths. That seems good to me. He plays a Day of Judgment eliminating a Bird, an Elf and a Baloth. I play a Baloth, untap, draw a Rampant Growth, putting me at five lands. I’m holding a Wolfbriar, a Baloth, and a Howl of the Night Pack. He plays an Oblivion Ring, I play another Baloth. I draw an Overrun so I play a Wolfbriar and create some wolf tokens. He casts Day of Judgment. Then he plays Open the Vaults, and it is the first time I have seen this card/this deck. I will see it a lot more in the next few days.
This marks one of the more important observations of this week. Most of the decks I play against are playing zero (or very few) non-creature permanents that I need to destroy. The ones they are playing are not the equivalent of Umezawa’s Jitte or Worship or something that must be destroyed or you lose. Then there are the decks playing things like this, where no matter how many you destroy, there will be more, or they will come back. Hence, Acidic Slime and Mold Hippo really aren’t needed. Those cards should be replaced by anything else. Not that they aren’t good cards in certain environments, but current Standard is not that environment.
Despite the fact that I have Howl of the Night Pack, enough mana to cast it, and Overrun in my hand, he has so many creatures and Courier Capsules on the board, I know he’ll be able to go get whatever he wants and stifle that plan. Also, those are my only two cards to his current grip of seven. I put up a good fight, honest, but I know I’m going down and I do.
Rubber match.
I start with no speed, but 2 Baloths, a Wolfbriar, and some land. I keep.
Him — Doom Blade your Baloth
Me – Play a Stag
Him – Play a land
Me – Play another Baloth
Him – Play a Sphinx of Lost Truths
Me — Attack
Him — Play another Sphinx
Me- Play a Wolfbriar, multikicker two, attack
Him- Attack with both Sphinx, Day of Judgment
Me- Play a Deadly Recluse, Llanowar Elf, holding Howl of the Nightpack
Him — Open the Vaults putting eleventy billion artifact creatures and some Courier’s Capsules into play
Me — “Good Game.”
The evening continues like this, with me making changes to the deck and revising and playing some more in the two-ticket two-person tournament matches. I won a few, lost a hell of a lot more, but learned what the true competitive environment is like. Wendy gets home at two a.m. and sadly, had nothing exciting to tell me. I told her if they started talking about sex to discretely turn on her iPhone’s recorder. Do you know how graphic women get when they discuss this subject? A hell of a lot more than men. Sadly, the evening was nice but very tame, which is odd for this group. Wendy has actually called me at seven a.m. and said “I’m okay and on my way home” after a night out with these women. Everything lasts longer and stays open later in Spain. To illustrate — Restaurants open their doors and start serving dinner at nine in the evening. If you are eating at nine in Madrid, it is clear you are a gringo and will be alone in the restaurant. If you’re looking for dinner at six, go to a bar and order off the bar menu, because nothing else is open. Nine in the evening is like four in the afternoon in the States.
It is Saturday morning, and I would like to give props to the Magic Online programmers. I finally love the new interface, and I can even go back and look at the games I played last night, a feature I desperately need.
Things I have learned —
1. There are some decks with so many artifacts that even ten ways to get rid of them in the deck aren’t enough. And if they are an artifact creature, Mold Shamblers (a.k.a. Mold Hippo) can’t target it.
2. A lot of decks are so light on land a couple Acidic Slimes will win me the game. But then, I’m already winning, aren’t I?
3. Dealing with fliers still sucks for Green. Even after sideboarding.
4. I can’t wait for the Lifegain in ROE because what Green has for lifegain right now is totally ass.
5. Black can still kill everything I have on the board even if I kicker a Wolfbriar Elemental 3 times.
6. Black still doesn’t care about fatties.
7. I loves me a deck that can repopulate the board a turn after a Day of Judgment .
8. Overrun rules.
9. Great Sable Stags are incredible.
10. Jace doesn’t like to return Acidic Slimes, Mold Hippos, or Wolfbriars to my hand. But I still hate him.
Cards that blow me away on my reintroduction to this great game —
Leatherback Baloth — Holy God, is this a misprint? I almost have to play Mono Green just for this guy! Sure, he eats up elimination the second he hits the board, but that’s a good thing. One less spell they have to deal with my token generators, and card advantage versus the multiple Mono Red decks I have run into.
Baneslayer Angel — Crack much? Holy cow! This and the other staggering amount of Lifelink on creatures make me want to play G/W.
Smother – I can’t believe they reprinted this to kill my wonderful Baloths, but oh well. I get Baloths, they get Smother. Seems about fair.
Sideboard cards — Green doesn’t have any good ones, while Black and Blue have some pretty great ones.
Anyway, let me almost end this on a deck that actually seems to work because I actually spent money on it. Long time readers know I am enamored of token generators. I had a hard time putting down the crack pipe known as Mycoloth, but I had to do it. I can’t believe I have to give up a possible 10/10 that generates six saprolings each upkeep, but I did. I still stare at it longingly in my collection, but it doesn’t belong in today’s environment. Maybe someday.
I quickly found that if I drew an Overrun, I usually won. I upped the number from three to four. I bought some Arbor Elves to replace my Birds of Paradise and then I bought some Joraga Warcaller (I LOVE multikicker!) and wondered what other elves I could add. I soon found the answer to be — pretty much nothing, at least in this deck. I guess twelve elves will have to be enough. I played another dozen games and continued to notice that Overrun was incredible with my token generators and early speed. Eldrazi Monument was pointed out to me by both Marin Baraba and Adrian Sullivan, and it looked fantastic until I noticed the “Sacrifice a creature every upkeep” and that made me skeptical. It’s still being considered, but I haven’t committed the twenty-two tickets for three of them yet.
It may seem odd, but that suggestion actually pointed me towards Coat of Arms. There’s not much artifact destruction going around, and with 12 elves, a horde of Insects and Wolf tokens, it might sub in for another Overrun. I had also picked up some Rampaging Baloths, so I might have a bunch of beasts on the board as well.
The results for the first half dozen games were fantastic. If I didn’t draw an Overrun I drew a Coat of Arms and won that turn. Then I played three Vampire decks in a row and thought — okay, that card is stupid.
I was also less than thrilled with Rampaging Baloths and Joraga Warcaller. You need to spend a lot of mana on Joraga to make him worth it, and that was rare. Ant Queen and Wolfbriar were just better to be spending mana on when there’s only eight other elves in the deck. And Rampaging Baloth seemed good in concept, but even with four Rampant Growth in the deck, the competitive decks are fast. At six mana then waiting for another land drop I wasn’t getting the beast tokens I was hoping for.
So, more changes. The Baloths had to go, but I needed something else to generate tokens. The Coat of Arms had to go, but I needed another Overrun effect. And as much as this deck thrives on mana, another way to generate even more mana would be nice. No matter how much I had — this deck always wanted more for bigger multikicker on the Wolfbriar or more insects from the Queen. Oh wait, there is one card that does all of that. I spent the twenty three tickets to pick up three of them and added them to the deck.
So far, the results have been just what I have been looking for.
After all of that, this is what I have come up with so far.
Creatures (25)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 1 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Ant Queen
- 4 Great Sable Stag
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 4 Leatherback Baloth
- 4 Wolfbriar Elemental
Planeswalkers (3)
Two final things –
Congratulations to David Williams for winning his World Series of Poker Bracelet and becoming over a million and a half richer. I played next to him once in Pro Tour: Los Angeles.
We both had outbursts.
From my PT: LA Report —
By about the fourth round, I’m so sick of Blue/White that I just can’t believe it. I don’t remember what round I played Mike (very nice guy) Pustilnik, but he played an Island first turn and I shouted out loud —
“What the F***!”
David Williams looked over at me and laughed — “Play a few Blue decks today?”
Five minutes later he made the entire back row of losing tables jump by smashing his fist on his deck so hard it made a BOOM like thunder, shouting “LAND, GODDAMNIT!” Then he smiled and shrugged and said “Sorry.”
Oh, and hey, all you guys who said nice things about my book, do me a favor and post those comments on Amazon.com please. It would mean a lot to me. Books live or die on their reviews, and if you could take a few minutes and just copy and paste your wonderful responses from last week it would make me very happy.
Jamie C. Wakefield
