Electronic Future Sight is just around the corner! Sing Hosannahs!
As I mentioned last week, it’s a quiet time for the Online Magic community. I’ll admit, I’ve been entering eight-man Constructed queues and running through the odd TTP draft. I’m not alone, of course – hell, there’s at least seven other guys who’s had the same idea every time I play. Yet each time I select that shiny rare, or drop that Stomping Ground / Kird Ape, there’s a chunk of me that knows I’m behind the times.
It’s the same for me in Cardboard Magic too. As the current English National Champion (*ding!*) I don’t need to offer myself up on the altar of Regionals. I hate Two-Headed Giant for high-level and PTQ play, and I long for some proper competition. Roll on the Block PTQ season…
I love Magic… but it’s the stale times like this that I need some thing fresh.
Last week, I asked for some suggestions for a casual format to plunder. Something fun, something different… something to recharge the old CCG Batteries. The forumites out there threw some fine suggestions at my head (Gawd bless ya!), and tonight I logged on, and played.
My format of choice?
Vanguard Standard.
After all, we’ve all got five Avatars in our MTGO account collection… mise well use ’em, amirite?
…
First up, here’s some of the Vanguard information from MagictheGathering.com.
Vanguard for Magic Online is a new play format that grants abilities to the Magic Online avatars for use in gameplay. In a Vanguard game, each avatar will affect a player’s hand size and starting life total, in addition to having its own in-game ability.
Vanguard is a Constructed format that will be available in both casual and sanctioned play. It requires a minimum 61-card deck that includes exactly one Vanguard card. (All avatars are now displayed in your collection as Vanguard cards.) You can use the deck editor to build a Vanguard deck just like any other deck, just make sure you include exactly one Vanguard card in addition to the rest of your deck. Just like with other cards, you can only play with Vanguard cards if you own them.
When you start a Vanguard game, each person’s Vanguard card is pulled out and put in a special zone (the "Vanguard Zone") and their avatar is changed to match it. This zone functions similarly to the Removed From Game zone. Both players’ Vanguard zones will be visible on the screen when the game starts, but they can be minimized, the size can be adjusted, and they can be moved around. Activated abilities of Vanguard cards can be played by clicking on the Vanguard card.
Seems simple enough, right? Each Vanguard card has a special ability, and you can use that ability as dictated by the card rules. Some abilities are stronger than others, and thus there are costs related to their strength (such as a reduction in opening hand size and / or life total).
The five Avatars available upon account creation are:
Erhnam Djinn
Goblin Warchief
Grinning Demon
Prodigal Sorcerer
Serra Angel
After scanning their respective abilities, I settled on…
Erhnam Djinn
Whenever you play a creature spell, put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token into play.
That screams Green/White to me. As Green, White, and Saprolings made up a huge portion of my English National Championship win (*ding!*), how could I resist?
After a little humming and hawing, and even less thought (it’s a casual format, so I wanna be casual), I came up with the following:
G/W Guy Glare
Erhnam Djinn Avatar
4 Temple Garden
4 Brushland
3 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Pendelhaven
3 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
5 Forest
3 Plains
4 Watchwolf
4 Wall of Roots
4 Selesnya Guildmage
3 Yavimaya Dryad
4 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Nullmage Shepherd
1 Silklash Spider
1 Pendelhaven Elder
1 Magus of the Disk
1 Spectral Force
1 Blinding Angel
3 Gaea’s Anthem
3 Glare of Subdual
2 Chord of Calling
Guys, beats, and Chord of Calling toolbox creatures. Looks fun, plays quite well, but could use some more removal options. Ah well, you’ve gotta go with the cards you own. I really wanted to run an Autochthon Wurm…
I played three games with this deck, and won two of them. The strength of the deck isn’t important… it’s the fun I had that mattered. Two of my opponents played the Akroma avatar, and it was fun seeing the random factor coming into play. Of course, I beat them both, as the frailties of random factors are never more evident here.
The one match I lost was to a guy running with the Nekrataal Avatar. This reduces the cost of creature spells by one Black mana. Turn 1 Dark Confidant, turn 2 double Nether Shadow, turn 3 Bad Moon… no coming back from that. But it was fun to watch nevertheless.
I took a little break to interview one of my opponents.
Who are you, and what’s your online name?
Stephen Murray a.k.a. Jecht Murray
Do you have any Magic accomplishments on MTGO? What about for Cardboard play?
I don’t really play sanctioned stuff online too much, as I can’t really be bothered putting time aside for PEs. Queues perhaps, but not on this account. In real life am the current (and final) Scottish National Champion (hi-five over the border) and been to a couple of Pro Tours and Worlds. I made Day 2 in Yokohama, then bombed.
How much Vanguard have you played?
I used to play it a lot when it was introduced. Largely making a bunch of vanilla / close to it men who are not good enough for real play, and giving them random abilities. Later joined the Momir Vig excitement until it became boring after a few games. I haven’t really kept up with new ones, mainly because they don’t seem very exciting. Stuffy Doll? Really?
What, do you think, is the draw to the format?
There’s a lot you can do with cards that you can’t normally play. A lot of potential is unlocked when you don’t have to pay mana and cards for effects that normally you can’t get. You get to do a lot of fun things with hoards of men, and the "random" Avatars like Akroma ensure that each game is slightly different, and provide hilarity when you sit there going "C’mon (Plated) Slagwurm, gimme flying and haste!"
Are there any points of "Vanguard etiquette" that n00bs like me should consider before issuing a challenge? (Such as frowned-upon strategies or cards.)
I guess if you’re playing in the casual room then standard stuff mostly applies. Don’t play something you know is blatantly too good, or something that people don’t like to play against anyway. People probably won’t appreciate their Arcbound deck being massacred by the latest tournament winner. Mind you, due to the Vanguards themselves, decks tend to be a bit more powerful, so there’s a bit of leeway.
What Avatars are the strongest, in your opinion? And what is your favorite?
The strongest are probably the Prodigal Sorcerer, Rumbling Slum, Hierarch one, Teysa, maybe Momir. Tim makes the combo decks a lot more consistent, Slum just makes beatdown decks a lot better, Hierarch actually lets you do unique things powerfully enough to compete and not just be cute, and Vig is a good discard outlet and random finisher. Oh yeah, that Oni of Wild Places one, that can just smash people.
Personally, my favorite is Akroma, which I think is usually just outclassed by something else in most situations, for whatever purpose you want to use it for. There’s something about making hasty Fangren Firstborns and Paladin En-Lord of Atlantis that just seems really fun to me.
What annoys you about Vanguard?
Not enough people play it these days. Apart from that, the Serra Angel one is quite irritating when it just makes for really long games. Oh look, here’s two Divining Tops, ready to play for another half an hour?
Can you recall any cool Vanguard plays or stories?
I’ve seen a whole lot of cool combos out there outside the obvious lot, but I can’t really remember many of them. Most of mine are things like "I randomly made three pro red guys with Vigilance" or "Got haste in time."
Probably my favorite one was against some guy playing the Serra Angel Avatar, and he had a bunch of Soldiers in play from an Isochron Sceptered Raise the Alarm, and a lot of life. I’d been horribly mana flooded, got some hits in, but was running a bit low. I only had a bunch of mana and In The Web Of War in play, and a Savage Beating (love that name) in hand. I drew One Dozen Eyes, Entwined it, and realised that since all of them got trample, I could swing in and Savagely Beat (also Entwined) for exactly his life total. I wish I still had that screenshot.
Is there a defined Vanguard metagame? Are there tournaments?
I guess there is, but less than with the regular formats since it is more random and less testing goes into it. There are PEs every so often, and it can be fun to check those out to see what’s happening. I seem to remember playing in a player-run all-commons Vanguard tournament once, where I took my mighty Trained Armodons in with Akroma. Sadly, I ended up falling asleep, so I missed the last round and Top 8.
That was quite a while ago now…
Are there any must-own cards for Vanguard play? In fact, are there any must-own Avatars for Vanguard play?
Momir Vig has it’s own format. The upcoming Jhoira will probably be pretty popular too. You must own the basic five, it’s not a choice. If you want to play it competitively, pick up the ones you see in tournaments if you can.
Do you have any funky Vanguard decklists to share?
Funky? Not so much. Maybe I do have funky decks, but largely only because all my decks are made out of the random cards I have lying around. I managed to find the decklist from that PDC (I think that is the correct acronym) event I fell asleep at, and it’s quite funny what you can build when you just want to have a quick blast at 2am.
All Common Bad Beats
Akroma Avatar
12 Forest
1 Tranquil Thicket
8 Mountain
1 Forgotten Cave
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Gnarled Mass
4 Trained Armodon
4 Lightning Elemental
4 Order of the Sacred Bell
2 Frost Ogre
4 Streetbreaker Wurm
1 Yamabushi’s Flame
2 Barbed Lightning
4 Flame Burst
4 Volcanic Hammer
Back then I didn’t even have Firebolts or Wild Mongrels, so I knew this deck was probably terrible compared to what a good all common decklist looks like. The plan was to laugh hysterically at making these crap men somewhat okay with timely abilities. I do remember the turn 3 Flying hasty Facebreaker Wurm, as he should be known by.
Finally, do you have any advice for people looking to start playing Vanguard?
You don’t have to plunge into all the tricky stuff at once. Just add Avatars to regular decks at first, at you can pick up cool interactions left and right, that you probably wouldn’t think of right away. Things like Momir Vig plus Doubling Season, Hierarch plus Zubera (oh God, make it stop!) and so on. Also: have fun!
…
Armed with Stephen’s advice, I tried another deck. This time, my Avatar of choice was Grinning Demon.
Grinning Demon
Whenever a nontoken creature you control goes to a graveyard from play, target opponent discards a card.
Here’s what I cam up with for the Gee Dee:
Mono-Black Discard Beats
Grinning Demon Avatar
4 Festering Goblin
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Dark Confidant
4 Nantuko Husk
4 Plague Sliver
4 Sengir Nosferatu
4 Last Gasp
3 Cry of Contrition
2 Stupor
4 Smallpox
Yeah yeah… it’s a pile. Be thankful you didn’t see the first version. Dark Confidant and Liege of the Pit is not a combo.
I lost three straight with this. Again, I played the Akroma avatar – which appears to be a format favorite. The first game, however, saw me take on the Lyzolda Avatar, an avatar that actively rewards you for having no cards in hand. That didn’t go well at all.
The final game I played with this atrocity saw me take on the Elvish Champion Avatar, which starts the game with a Llanowar Elf in play. I lost the game heavily, but it was a blast nonetheless. I mean… Warp frickin’ World!
The player was TheWynner, and here’s the deck:
Elvish Champion Avatar
7 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Plains
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Carven Caryatid
4 Wall of Roots
4 Wood Elves
4 Anarchist
3 Galvanic Arc
4 Warp World
4 Bogardan Hellkite
1 Angel of Despair
4 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Gauntlet of Power
Finally, I threw a deck together for the Prodigal Sorcerer Avatar:
Prodigal Sorcerer
At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. You may put that card into your graveyard.
Putting cards into the graveyard… sounds like a Dredge strategy to me.
Sorcerer Dredge
Prodigal Sorcerer Avatar
6 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Llanowar Wastes
3 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
2 Quicksand
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Greenseeker
4 Fa’adiyah Seer
2 Darkblast
3 Life from the Loam
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Nightmare Void
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Delirium Skeins
4 Dread Return
3 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
I took this almost card for card from Benjamin Peebles-Mundy article on Dredge. I won three games straight, and they were pretty easy. The avatar worked very well here, but the whole thing seemed a little mercenary for the casual room. Definitely one I may try in future for a Vanguard PE, but not one I could suggest for fun games with a clear conscience.
Overall, my little sojourn into Vanguard Standard was a lot of fun. I genuinely laughed at some plays and strategies, and the sheer number of avatars available means that there’s room for a lot of innovation. I did have to wait quite a while for my games, sadly… but when they fired, there were generally two or three spectators each time. Will I play Vanguard again? Definitely. I’m on the hunt for fun and competitive avatars, and I’ll definitely run the Dredge deck in the next Vanguard Standard PE.
Next week, I’ll be yakkin’ about the Future Sight Release Events. Who knows, maybe I’ll win a cool new avatar…?
Until then, remember – you can’t stop the signal.
Craig Stevenson
Scouseboy on MTGO
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