Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of The Magic Show. This week we’re taking a look at the upcoming Tenth Edition, my thoughts on the Invitational, my deck choice for the StarCityGames PTQ this weekend, and we cover a very special debacle that occurred at Indianapolis Regionals.
Triple Xth
This week the Tenth Edition rumor mills officially exploded as some guys in Mexico cracked half a box and told us the contents. Now this isn’t confirmed of course, but it looks damn real. Real enough that I’m more than ready to geek out over Razormane Masticore, yes, that Razormane Masticore, coming back in Xth. Oh, and did they not just spoil Squee last week? Mondo combo much?
May I also take the time to mourn the loss of my Ravnica Dual Lands from the Standard environment. You just don’t know how I love these lands. How they epitomize the cool I felt when I held my first dual land, a Plateau, at a mere 14 years old and thought it was the coolest thing ever. And that feeling lasted for about a month and then 4th Edition was released, completely lacking the dual lands I loved so much.
And now one of the best—if not the best—aspects of Ravnica is going away. Shame on you Wizards. I’m sure you want to push mono-colored with Lorwyn’s tribal themes, but this sort of elegance and excitement is special and should not be discarded. I’m sure we’ll get them back in 11th, but it will be a lonely two years before we see them skirting across a Regionals playmat again.
On a more positive note, it appears we have entered The Age of Cantrips. Matter of fact, I actually hope they debut the keyword Cantrip in this set, which would say “When you play this card, draw a card” for the rules text. But I doubt it. Nevertheless, Shatter isn’t going to be reprinted for the first time since the game began, replaced with the Ravnica-birthed Smash. The same goes for Twiddle being replaced by Tempest’s Twitch, Sacred Nectar replaced by Reviving Dose, and so on.
I think this represents a very important move in the environment of the game Xth is being released in. Quite simply, the power level of our favorite game has gone up and up over the past fifteen years, and those old staples just are doing it anymore. You can see further examples in cards like Shimmering Wings, which replaces the now-defunct Flight.
The core set has come a long way, and it’s nice to see some great cards returning, and some really fun, logical choices for the swap-outs. As for the notables, Control Magic returns as Persuasion, Discombobulate replaces Rewind, Cancel replaces Mana Leak, and Aura of Silence gives us a great Disenchant variant. A few cycles return like the Muses, the Invokers from Onslaught, which will surely be part of a combo deck’s alternate win condition, and it appears we will be getting most or all of the Beacon cycle back. I don’t know about you, but Beacon of Creation is Some Awesome in my book.
Speaking of Green, may I also mention the coolness of getting both Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise back in the Core Set. One of the most defining characteristics of Green, period, is that they live and die on their flavor of fast mana. This personifies those traits, and both are just classic representations of our most bitched about color.
Mobilization returns to fight it out with Sacred Mesa on Who Can Be The More Annoying Enchantment, while also hinting that Lorwyn may actually give Soldiers a chance to not completely suck.
While a bunch of Xth Edition was spoiled, rest assured there should be more surprises to come. I for one didn’t imagine a Masticore making its way back into the Core Set, and the once Portal-only Denizen of the Deep looks downright monstrous. Eight mana for an 11/11 with virtually no drawback? Sign me up.
Invitationalistic
So I open my big mouth about the Invitational a few weeks ago only to find out the voting is up and running! Yes, our own Raphael Levy won this year’s Road Warrior title, no doubt fueled by his incredible back-to-back Grand Prix wins along with his Hall of Fame induction. Wow, now that’s a year!
Resident Genius is being voted on next, with Billy Moreno going head to head with Herberholz in a game of Who Can Be Barned More. I think Herberholz has a good shot at winning because Flores, while not playing games with Jon Finkel—did he mention he plays actual cardboard Magic with The Jon Finkel? You know, Shadowmage Infiltrator? Because he totally does and you totally don’t—is 100% behind Herberholz in this race. I’m sure whichever player with the most barnacles attached to his hull will come out on top. Fingers crossed for either of em.
Now I don’t know who or how Invitational nominees are chosen, nor do I know if the Invitational is “Pros Only.” Do know that if it is Pros Only, I fulfill that requirement. I’ll have you know I have one (yes, that’s uno to our Mexican viewers) pro point to my name. Seriously. So if someone complains that the Magic Show isn’t fit to play in such an event, you can give em some of that.
At this point we’ll just wait and see. I do, of course, hope the show turns up on one of those votable lists—perhaps Fan Favorite or Story Teller?—as it’s the only way we regular folk would have a shot at making our own Magic card. Would I hold a contest to see what viewers would like the card submitted to be? Would I get full video coverage of the Invitational? Would Mark Rosewater be there for an in-depth and geeky interview?
Only time will tell. But if that option ever becomes available, you’ll be sure to hear about it.
Playing With Blocks
This weekend I get to sling some more cardboard in hopes of earning an invite to some far off place where thousands of dollars are at stake. Yes, I’ll be in Roanoke, Virginia this weekend playing in the first Block PTQ of the season. And what am I taking? A spicy little number that looks like this:
Creatures (16)
Lands (24)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
Now I’ll happily admit I didn’t throw this together. I found this list at Magic League, associated with the user “sys_down”. As I mentioned previously in the Glittering Wish article, I’m not big on building my own decks. Rather, I try to recognize powerful decks and tweak them accordingly.
Throwing caution to the wind and selling my beloved Ravnica duals, I purchased the needed cards for this list online and played a few rounds with it. I’m confident that it has the ability to do very well this weekend. A few things to note:
First, Augur of Skulls turn two into Stupor turn three is an absolute beating. There is just no other way to describe it. Netting four cards, one of them random, on turn three is a setback virtually no control deck can defeat. Secondly, Korlash is… well, we all know how damn good Korlash is.
Thanks to the plethora of removal, you should have a good matchup against everything but Dralnu in Game 1. Game 2 you’ll be bringing in Withered Wretches and Extirpates for Mystical Teachings, while Shimian Specter gives them fits because Dralnu can’t deal with fliers—the same reason you do NOT sideboard Mirri out—and anything with a Gargadon in it scoops to Slaughter Pact.
My buddy Scott Rogers, who just qualified for Nationals a few weeks ago, told me that Slaughter Pact is the best card in Future Sight. I’m beginning to believe him.
I’d like to fit a third Urborg in here, because it’s so important to Strip Mine your Dralnu opponent before they get off a Tendrils of Corruption for oodles of life, but I don’t want to mess up my own manabase.
Twisted Abomination serves double-duty here, keeping you in the mana war in the early turns, while giving you a 5/3 regenerator on the late game to beat people to deal with. Don’t underestimate raw-dogging him out on Turn 6 and watching your opponent scrounge for an answer. It’s also excellent against Red Deck Wins, as Regeneration is not something they want to see, and its three toughness allows it to actually kill a Blood Knight.
While I may make a tweak before tomorrow’s PTQ, I doubt it. I’m a real big fan of this list and after playing it I’m certain it has a shot.
Now it’s time for…
This Week In Magic
I start off this week by highlighting an article by Joshua Claytor over at Brainbur – uh, I mean, “Magic dot TCGPlayer dot Com”. Anyway, he tells of the following travesty, condensed for time:
There once was a Regionals in Indianapolis. And, unfortunately, this Regionals was running the latest version of DCI Reporter. If you weren’t aware, DCI Reporter is Swahili for Crashes All The Damn Time. And so just before round seven, the software went boom. No database backups, no spare machines. So instead of re-entering six rounds of results and trying to figure out the City Championships byes that caused them to use the new, unstable version of DCI Reporter in the first place, the judges were forced to do pairings by hand.
You heard that correctly: Pairings by hand. Better yet, players were lined up and asked if they had played one another yet. If they had, they would find another opponent. And you thought your Regionals was bad?
The worst, however, fell on the shoulders of one Victor Puente, who got what could only be described as “the shaft” when he looked at the Top 8 standings to find he missed them by .003%. Let me repeat: Point zero zero three percent. Now that’s a margin of error for you. Such a small margin, in fact, that it was an error. The staff correctly reported him as a Top 8 finisher in the final standings, but there at the event itself he was forced to go home in 9th place with no chance at a Nationals invite.
But all is not lost. After outrage poured forth from our scrappy community, Alan Hochman, the president of Pasttimes Events, offered a huge sign of goodwill on behalf of this debacle. Any player who suffered through Indianapolis Regionals 2007 will get free admission to another Pasttimes Event this year. So pick your PTQ, Prerelease, or Grand Prix Trial and enjoy.
They also gave special consideration to Victor, who will be flown to Baltimore for Nationals with free admission to one of the many qualifying tournaments in hopes he can grind in as necessary.
It’s often that you find events being completely botched, as much as I hate to say it. But it’s not often you find a company so ready and willing to make amends with their frustrated playerbase.
And I know this is awful, but I wish I had been there in Indianapolis with my camera. The ability to film the players being asked if they had played each other would’ve been just classic.
But hey, now we have a happy ending, and many apologies from those responsible. That’s about as good as it gets these days.
One last thing before we say goodbye… a hot tip from Ben Bleiweiss. You’ll have to watch the video for that one.
So until next week when I bring you all the coverage from the Roanoke PTQ, this is Evan Erwin, tapping the cards so you don’t have to.
Evan “misterorange” Erwin
dubya dubya dubya dot misterorange dot com
eerwin +at+ gmail +dot+ com