Concerning last week’s article – I never meant to imply that "If I really wanted to cheat, I would use all these

hacks I know exist for MODO." It is unfortunate that people read it that way. Or unfortunate that I wrote it so poorly that

people inferred that meaning.

Having played online games for the last five years, I am aware that every one I used to play has ways to cheat. I assumed the same

thing was possible on Magic Online.

Based on past gaming experiences online I merely thought to myself "What would be a way someone could try to cheat at Online

Magic? What would a hack program do?" And came up with the list that has annoyed so many people.

To clarify – It was a hypothetical list. It came from my brain. I didn’t do any research. I purely guessed at what the list might

look like if someone were to try to cheat at Magic Online. It was made up.

Let’s move on to things I have found amusing.

Josh – “Not sure if I should block…”

Paul – “You can survive this turn one of two ways. Block. Or oral. You choose.”

“Jae, you should write a comic book plot and submit it to Marvel. You’ve got to try it at least once. Just to say

you tried.”

“Maybe.”

“They have a ton of characters that aren’t being used. That could be revived and made good.”

“Or maybe I should just write something about Wolverine. They can’t seem to have enough titles with him in

it.”

“That would sell.”

“Or maybe make up a new titled called “Super Marketing Duo” and every issue just has Wolverine and Spiderman

beating up crap. They each have 4 titles and Avengers in common, why not another one? Wait! Maybe I could just make up a new

character called Spider Wolf. All the powers of both of them combined into one guy.”

“Yeah, every issue he could take on the Celestials.”

“That’s sure to sell!”

Laughter.

Pause.

“I can’t wait until William Shatner directs another Star Trek movie.”

I glare at Joshie.

“BWAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!! Wait a minute, what’s God need a spaceship for? Mr. Sulu, lock phasers on God!”

More laughter.

Good times. Good times.

Kamigawa Block continues to dominate our testing. I’m finding the block fantastic and very enjoyable. Good thing I have 4

Jittes or I would hate it. Really, don’t even

bother to show up if you don’t have ‘em. Seriously. It’s just not fun without Jittes. For Jitte Block

Constructed, if you show up without Jittes you might as well show up without land as well.

Open those wallets!

There were no real life tournaments near me this week. Nor were there any JBK tournaments on MODO that I could make this

weekend due to scheduling conflicts with the In-laws. Stupid reality. *shakes fist* But I had to play something competitive so I

entered every Standard Premier tournament I could find and Joshie Green did surprisingly well. A top eight, a top four and a top

two for Joshie Green. In the tournaments that I scrubbed out in, I was pleased to see other players playing Joshie Green made it to

the top.

Tooth is still insane.

I played one guy that wasn’t even running Sensei’s Divining Top and still played Tooth fourth and fifth turn, and wonder of wonders, I never got to

play a Might of Oaks all week. The one time

I drew it in time to end the game; I didn’t have 4 lands on the board. And then Tooth went off and all my land went away.

Some bad.

Not only is Tooth still the dominating force in Standard right now, it makes top 8 in online Extended almost as often. I watch

and enter those tournaments as well and as near as I can tell, Tooth adds nothing to its build in Extended. At least that’s

what I’ve observed. It just plays the same deck as what’s legal in Standard and still wins.

Do you have a MODO account yet?

Because you should.

“I’m not paying for Virtual Cards.”

Fine, but you don’t have to. But for $9.99 you can enter a digital world that shows you deck innovations and tech you

might not see until you show up at the tournament. Even if you never buy a single card, the $9.99 investment is worth it. You can

watch the Magic Invitational. You can see how JBC decks are evolving week to week by watching reruns of the top 8 from the night

before. Or even watch the rounds of a Tournament to get deck ideas even if they don’t make top eight. Or follow the progress

of a friend that does have an account that’s playing.

You never have to spend a dime on cards and Magic: Online can still be a valuable resource and great investment and enjoyable.

For as little as twenty dollars you can put together a pretty good Standard deck and play it endlessly in the practice room.

For as little as twenty five dollars you might enhance your sealed deck skills a thousand fold. (If you suck really bad, like me,

going from a skill of negative 47 to positive something is actually a thousand fold. I did the math. )

I’ve always hated sealed deck. I’m a constructed player. But I’m finding new love for it online thanks to

League play.

See, you have to spend $9.99 to get a Magic: Online account. But you then get $9.99 in cards in the online store and you put

that towards your league deck. Usually you need a Tournament pack, two boosters, and two tickets to play in a league. Costs right

around twenty bucks. Then you enter a 256-person league and it goes on for four weeks. Only your first five matches a week count,

but you can spend the entire rest of the week playing, learning your deck, swapping in and out colors and if you want, playing

hundreds of games of sealed deck until you know how you should have made your deck for those first five games. (Longest run on

sentence ever.) Now your knowledge has increased substantially and your matches will hopefully go better the next week when the

first five count again.

Each week you get to add another Booster to your stock of cards for League play. Sometimes the Booster won’t help you at

all. Sometimes it will help you a ton. Either way, your card pool changes so you can learn new things in your games after the first

five. And each game you play after the fifth is your tiebreakers. So those people who have 20 games a week above the initial five

will place much higher than people with similar points who have only played 5 games. Or ten games. Or even fifteen. The more games

you play, the higher you place. And with 256 players in a league, that can mean a lot over the month.

While I’ve never been a sealed player, I enter a league a month (so I’m always in one league) to hone my skills,

learn the cards, discover combos I never would have in Standard, and get ready for the next qualifying season. Something I really

can’t do effectively without a store nearby.

Maybe some more on MODO later, but for now, let’s have some more things I found amusing.

I continue to be enamored of Hondens, even though I can’t get them to work the way I want them too. Which means, I

can’t win with them often enough to dare to take them to a qualifier. But that doesn’t stop me from trying a thousand

deck lists and posting about it to my private board. And it drives Oberion nuts.

“Wakefield! Give up on the Hondens! God!”

“NO!”

And we’ll work on a deck list for a few days, tweak it a bit, and then decide we need to add Green and tweak it a bit

more, and I’ll tweak Obe a bit more with a post that says “You know what else this deck needs? HONDENS!”

“NO!”

Well, as everyone knows, we had a bunch of PTQ’s this weekend and low and behold –

And I point this out to Obe and he says,

“Ugh. You know that doesn’t make it right, don’t you?”

Rodney – Of course it does!

Oberion – No. For instance, some girls have ZERO girl on girl tendencies.

That doesn’t make it right.

See what I mean now?

Yes, what I’m saying is that playing Hondens is outright discouraging girl on girl action. And who wants that on their

conscience? – Frank (Oberion)

In other news, Joshie got into draft this week. I didn’t hold much hope for him. I mean, I know that there are people

online who do nothing but draft. (This is how you amass twenty thousand cards too. I envy these guys) and Josh has probably drafted

less than 50 times in his life, and the last time was months ago. But hey, who am I to tell him no if he wants to waste his packs.

Four 8-man tournaments later he has placed second twice and first twice. Beating about four 1850+ drafter’s in the

process. One of them was losing the second game and tried to bribe him with packs because he didn’t want his rating to drop

50 points. (For all the haters out there, no, Josh didn’t take the bribe. And won.)

Holy random.

Joshie’s collection continues to grow.

I tell him he should write a draft article and submit it to Star City. Friends on my board ask him the secret to his success

and to give them some tips. Stay tuned, I’ve got some valuable info from Joshie the metagame genius for you. Are you ready?

Better take a seat.

“I don’t know, I just take good stuff.”

There you have it folks. Go forth and dish up some ownage!

Okay, let’s move on to what my play test group has been testing.

We were focusing on a Spirit Craft deck that is a pretty standard build. We liked the fact that it was one of the few decks in

the format that can get a nice early kill, and do a staggering amount of damage in one turn. It’s not uncommon to have your

opponent think he’s safe and then swing for 15 in one turn. I’m sure there’s a billion deck lists around, one

even made top eight a couple weekends ago. It had the usual Kodama of the South Tree, Soilshaper, Hana Kami, Child of Thorns, Gnarled Mass, Long Forgotten Gohei, Kodama’s Might and Unchecked Growth.

We haven’t abandoned the deck; we just haven’t worked on it in weeks. It seems to be ready to go and not in need of

further testing. It also seems a lot like Joshie Green in the fact that sometimes it just wins. And sometimes you look at your hand

and go “WTF am I playing this janky crap for?” It’s a pure aggression deck. It has a lot of pluses and a lot of

minuses and if you’re running on no sleep is a great deck to play in a PTQ.

We have a Black deck that is similar to Hand, but not. It’s a hybrid rat thing that loves discard and being unblockable

Hand of the Nezumi

4 Nezumi Cutthroat
4 Ogre Marauder
4 Hand of Cruelty
4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
2 Ink-eyes
2 Kokusho, The Evening Star
2 Patron of the Nezumi
4 Kiku’s Shadow
4 Sickening Shoal
3 Rend Flesh
4 Umezawa’s Jitte

1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
1 Tomb of Urami
21 Swamp

Sideboard
4 Rend Spirit
4 Distress
3 Eradicate
4 Honden of Night’s

Reach

Although we “invented” this deck, it looks almost identical to many other people’s Black deck. When I say we

“invented” it, I don’t mean we were first, and everyone owes us accolades, I mean we came up with it on our own,

like it, and play it. And then as weeks have gone by, we’ve seen people make top 8 with the same deck as ours. Hey,

it’s Block, there’s only so many cards to use.

What we like about the deck is the massive amounts of elimination. And when it comes down to racing WW, it’s nice to have

Fear Rats and Ogres to complement the Hands. And if they’re playing control, your rats and ogres just don’t care that

they have Sakura-Tribe Elders and WOW,

POW! does Okiba-Gang love that.

I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself “Rend Spirit? Rend Flesh?”

Yeah. Rend Spirit and Rend Flesh. They are A.Mazing against certain decks. Like say, Demon’s and Ogres who are Spirits

and Flesh.

Hondens? Patron?

Do you have any idea how much control hates losing a card every upkeep? Control in this block isn’t about gain control

in one turn and never lose it. Its about gain control, then every turn keep solidifying that control with recursive Hana Kami, or

mana advantage, or setting up the big “Play a Yosei, next turn play another one, you lose two untap phases! AHAHAHAH!”

How about no. You can play one if you draw off the top and the other one goes in the grave because your hand is empty every turn.

I think I should change my nickname to The Pikachu Master. Because not only do all my deck lists look like something a little

kid would build, but because I love the Patron’s. Being able to play a Creature as an instant, when your

opponent’s trying to kill it, and having that mana count towards a huge fatty is just too cool in my mind. (This is similar

to growing your pet in Pikachu. I think.) And as luck would have it, Patron of the Nezumi stops that annoying Hana Kami infinite

Fog crap. How annoying is that? Yeah. Very annoying. “No, I don’t want to sit here impotent while you jerk it.”

Jerk jerk. Jerk jerk. “Use my sled.” Fap Fap. “Top. Look at three cards.” Fap fap. Fap fap.

*Flips table over in frustration*

Three Red decks to show you. Red I think is the most unexplored color in the format. It has a ton of ways to win besides

“Burn you to death” but I don’t think many people want to explore that side of Red. As I mentioned before, Alan

has a Red fatty control deck that I fell in love with and made up my own and posted it to my group. Some people there really

enjoyed it. Josh hated it until he played, then he fell in love with it too.

The very very cool thing about red is, it can play with Jitte, and it has the best ways to get rid of Jitte. Both Yuki Onna and Hearth Kami are excellent additions to any Red

deck even if your opponent isn’t running Jitte. Unlike Wear Away or Rending Vines, they still serve. And we all

know how much I like that. Yeah. A lot.

We have two different versions of Alan’s Deck we’ve been working on, with a third at the end that came to me in a

dream.

4 Frostling
4 Hearth Kami
3 Ghost Lit Raider
3 Pain Kami
3 Yuki Oni
3 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
3 Jiwari the Earth Aflame
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Glacial Ray
4 Yamabushi’s Flame
25 Mountain

Sideboard
4 Lava Spike
4 Flames of the Blood Hand
3 Myojin of Infinite Rage
4 Yamabushi’s Storm

The pluses and minuses of this deck are almost too many to list. You need a lot of mana because a lot of your stuff is mana

intensive, or medium to high casting cost. And unlike any deck splashing Green, which means adding more mana. This means sometimes

you just draw a ton of mana. Or sometimes you draw two and your expensive spells sit in your hand and you wish you were playing

Sakura-Tribe Elder and Kodama’s

Reach. (We tried lowering the mana count and adding those cards, but they just slowed it down and reduced the number of threats

and made us color screwed instead of mana screwed.)

The Pain Kami and the Ghost-Lit Raider are mana intensive. Kumano loves mana. The more you draw, the more he

loves it. Yuki Onna really doesn’t mind mana since it’s nice to play another spirit and return her to your hand so she

can destroy another artifact. And if you are getting pounded by WW (as WW is wont to do) then you really want to be able to wipe

the board using Jiwari’s Channel ability. Let

me tell you, when your opponent has five 2/2 guys on the board and you’re holding Jiwari, you desperately want five land on

the board by turn five.

For those of you who don’t see it yet, take a close look at all the creatures. Every single one of them can be used to

attack or kill an artifact or kill multiple guys by themselves. This supplements Red’s lack of good removal /slash/ burn in

the format making a nice Red control deck that serves even against those odd decks that run no creatures or no artifacts. You have

all the utility and all the beats rolled into one.

“Alan your deck reminds me of playing Secret Force. Everything pulls double duty and is never useless.”

“Really? I just built it the way I build all my decks. All my guys always pull double duty.”

I hadn’t realized that.

What, the crazy sideboard? Looks okay to me… Oh, the Myojin? Sure.

Opponent – "Play Heartbeat of

Spring."
Me – "Thanks! Play Myojin of Infinite Rage. Destroy all the lands."
Opponent – "Ow! My anus!"

Yamabushi’s Storm is for Snakes, Hondens, and Meloku tokens.

The burn is for those decks that just want to make you sit there and take it while they use their sled to thaw land and top

three times a phase. You know the kind. Light em up!

So, yesterday I’m looking over this deck list and I’m like, “Hey, we have almost all Spirits! And we have an

Arcane Spell too! This deck just screams for Long Forgotten Gohei!

So with a little tweaking, I came up with this and played it last night to pretty good results. Not spectacular results, but

pretty good.

4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Long-Forgotten Gohei
4 Glacial Ray
2 Ire of Kaminari
4 Spiraling Embers
4 Frostling
4 Hearth Kami
4 Pain Kami
2 Yuki-Onna
3 Ghost-Lit Raider
2 Jiwari, the Earth Aflame
23 Mountain

Sideboard
4 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Lava Spike
3 Myojin of Infinite Rage
4 Yamabushi’s Storm

Losing Kumano pretty much blows. We love that guy.

But there are times when I would have a 3/3 Frostling on the board. Or a 5/5 Jiwari. Or a 4/3 Hearth Kami and I didn’t

miss him so much any more.

Going with this version seems smarter. The reasons being that you have more things to splice damage onto now in both the main

and the side. And while losing Yamabushi’s Flame sucked, the ability to Spiraling Embers a control player for 7 makes up for

it. And the fact that Gohei reduces the cost of all the expensive Arcane Spells (making splicing easier) and provides you with

Night of Soul’s Betrayal protection really seemed to make the deck click a little more than the previous version.

Last but not least is a culmination deck. This deck is the combined version of about 3 different decks that I could never get

to work. It came to me in a vision one night and it did really well in testing, but admittedly, still needs more testing.

I just can’t tell you how much I have tried to get Ishi-Ishi and Zo-Zu to work in this block. I mean, who doesn’t

love those guys? Who doesn’t love getting both of those on the board and having your opponent cast Kodama’s Reach and

effectively Lightning Blast himself in

order to do it?

But the problem is those guys have no depth. If you draw either one of them in the late game, you’re like “Damnit!

Foiled again! Where were you a hundred turns ago?”

And you can try and make a nice Goblin deck, but really, mine has never worked enough to make me happy. And Land Destruction is

a tier three deck until Elder and Reach rotate out. So I was left with a couple dozen deck lists that never worked well enough to

concentrate on.

And then I found Tenza, Godo’s

Maul. (Which I’m sure is meant to be spelled “Mjolnir, Thor’s Hammer” Hey, when is our Norse Mythos set

being released anyway?)

Really only useable in a Red deck. With a lot of Red Legends. And I don’t know any other decks that use it. But damnit,

I’m going to use it!

“Godo’s Goblin Army”
3 Tenza, Godo’s Maul
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Yamabushi’s Flame
4 Glacial Ray
4 Frostling
4 Hearth Kami
2Yuki Oni
3 Ishi-Ishi, Akki Crackshot
3 Zo-Zu the Punisher
3 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
2 Patron of the Akki
23 Mountain

Sideboard
4 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Lava Spike
3 Myojin of Infinite Rage
4 Yamabushi’s Storm

Do you know how scary a 5/5 trampling Zo-Zu the Punisher is? Let me tell you, he is scary. Do you know what’s even

scarier? A 10/8 trampling Patron of the Akki. Or a 7/7 trampling Kumano! Wow, does your opponent hate that.

The deck has what has become my usual base of Flame, Ray, Hearth Kami and Yuki Onna, and then your useless Ishi-Ishi and Zo-Zu

become useful any time you draw them because of Tenza. Who doesn’t love making any Red legend +3 +3 and Trample? Trample is

huge in this block with so many tokens and Elder’s to block for you. And even if not attached to a Legend, it still

gives any Red creature +1 +1 and Trample.

And you can still get the amazing control player’s nightmare of second turn Ishi-Ishi, third turn Zo-Zu, but you no

longer feel stupid playing with those cards. They either pick up a magical legendary weapon or become huge, or they get sacced to

the Patron. Either one is just fine.

This Saturday is a Pro Tour Qualifier. Still haven’t decided on a deck. Tune in next week to see how I took the wrong

deck and scrubbed out!