Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Real Deal! This is one of my potpourri articles, just less fragrant. Let’s start by taking a look at what might be the best Legacy deck at the upcoming Grand Prix in Columbus.
Hulk Flash!
Until recently, the wording on the card Flash (from Mirage and 6th Edition) was as follows (reference courtesy of CrystalKeep.com)
“Choose a creature card in your hand. You may pay its mana cost reduced by up to 2. If you do, put that card into play. If you don’t, put that card into your graveyard.” [Oracle 2003/02/01]
This wording meant that if you didn’t pay for the creature, it never came into play — it simply went from hand to graveyard. This was errata due to power level concerns due to the interaction of Flash and Academy Rector.
Recently, Wizards of the Coast has been removing errata due to power level concerns from older cards, and restoring them to their original functionality. The current (as of right now) wording on Flash is as follows:
“You may put a creature card from your hand into play. If you do, sacrifice it unless you pay its mana cost reduced by up to 2.”
As originally intended, the creature that is brought into play by Flash hits play before being sacrificed. This has opened up a can of worms in Legacy, in the shape of Hulk Flash (name not mine!) I don’t know who originally developed this deck (anyone who has some input into the origins, please chime in on the forums), but I do know that I saw the deck in action at a Grand Prix Trial this past weekend at the Star City Game Center, and the deck was pretty insane.
Here’s a rough decklist. This isn’t tuned, but it’s pretty close to the most popular build I’ve found online.
The Engine:
4 Flash
4 Protean Hulk
4 Phyrexian Marauder
4 Shifting Wall
4 Disciple of the Vault
The Search:
4 Worldly Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Brainstorm
The Acceleration:
4 Lotus Petal
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
The Prevention:
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Chain of Vapor
The Land:
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Island
Here’s how the deck works. You cast Flash, putting Protean Hulk into play. Protean Hulk is sacrificed, and you get 4 Disciple of the Vault, 4 Phyrexian Marauder, and 4 Shifting Wall. The Marauders and Walls die immediately, and your opponent loses 32 life, good game.
As a goldfish, this deck wins, on average, turn 1.5. That’s right — the average unmolested kill for this deck is less than two turns. About 10%-20% of the time (depending who you ask), this deck can win on turn 0.5. If you’re on the draw, you put Gemstone Caverns into play, and go off with Elvish/Simian Spirit Guide during your opponent’s upkeep. Game over.
The only card which reliably stops this deck is Leyline of the Void — Engineered Plague does not stop it (if you name Clerics, all the creatures still come into play simultaneously and trigger), Stifle / Trickbind / Red Elemental Blast / Pyroblast are potentially too slow, and the deck is very resilient to discard effects.
In short, if you are planning to play in Grand Prix: Columbus, either play this deck, or be extremely prepared to face it multiple times during the tournament. The deck is an open secret, but it’s one that should be discussed and prepared for / against / with over the next few weeks.
As a postscript, the deck gets truly insane once Future Sight rotates in, as you can add Pact of Negation, Summoner’s Pact, and Street Wraith in the place of Daze, Brainstorm, and Worldly Tutor, speeding the deck up by .25 to .5 turns.
Grand Prix: Columbus
Speaking of Grand Prix: Columbus, StarCityGames.com will be set up as a vendor at the event. If you’re looking to sell us cards, we will be out and buying in full force at the event! The Grand Prix takes place on May 19th and 20th, and we will be set up the afternoon before (May 18th) to begin buying and selling cards. We also will be bringing out a huge inventory of foreign singles — and if you’ve ever been to one of our Power 9 or Dual for Duel events, you know that we have a huge selection of Foreign cards that are not ordinarily available on our website!
Grand Prix: Columbus is being run by our friends at Professional Events Services, headed by one Mike Guptil. You can find a ton of really good information about the tournament on their website here. PES is one of the absolute best Magic organizers in the world, and Grand Prix: Columbus is going to be a first-class event, from the main tournament itself, to the judging staff, to the side events. When you come to the Grand Prix, be sure to wear as much Yankees gear as you can — Mike will just love you for it!
The Star City Game Center Network
We’ve recently developed a custom-made clock for our in-store Game Center. If you’ve ever been to the store, you’ll know that we have eight large LCD screens positioned all around the store. As of this past Friday, the new clock is ready, and wow! Did it blow my socks off my feet! Programmed by Eric Lewandowski (the man responsible for Net Draft), the clock features a huge video player, three simultaneous clock displays, and the ability to scroll pairings and standings for each round. That’s right — no more fiddling around with paper and tape! If you come to the Game Center for Friday Night Magic, your pairings will be displayed all around the store, at once, on the video screens. No more pushing through lines, huge crowds, and small type — just the latest in technology for pairings displays!
One of the features currently being developed for the clock is the ability to cue up several videos at the same time. Over this past weekend, you might have watched matches from Pro Tour: Yokohama between rounds. In the future, we’ll be interspersing Wizards video coverage, flash movies (with permission from the original authors, of course), movie trailers, and other cool tidbits in-store.
One personal project is to get station identification messages from several Pro Players at Grand Prix: Columbus. If you’d like to shoot a promo spot for use in-store, please stop by our booth at the Grand Prix and we’ll be happy to take up 30 seconds of your time to get you on camera.
My wishlist so far:
“I’m Mike Flores, and you’re watching the Star City Game Center Network. *Pause* Mise!”
“I’m Jeroen Remie, and I don’t approve of this, or any other message, at the Star City Game Center.”
“I’m former world Champion Kai Budde.” “And I’m former Virginia State Champion Wesley Moss” “(Together) And you’re watching the Star City Game Center Network!”
This is for reals, as Chris Woltereck would say.
Change rule 419.9a!
From Crystalkeep.com:
Rule 419.9a – If two or more replacement or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the affected object’s controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or the affected player chooses one to apply. Then the other effect applies if it is still appropriate. If one or more of the applicable replacement effects is a self-replacement effect (see Rule 419.6d), that effect is applied before any other replacement effects. If two or more players have to make these choices at the same time, choices are made in APNAP order (see Rule 103.4). [CompRules 2005/08/01]
Example: Two permanents are in play. One is an enchantment that reads “If a card would be put into a graveyard, instead remove it from the game,” and the other is a creature that reads “If [this creature] would be put into a graveyard from play, instead shuffle it into its owner’s library.” The controller of the creature that would be destroyed decides which replacement to apply first; the other does nothing. [CompRules 2005/08/01]
Yeah, that’s lots of boring text. Let me just distill down the relevant part:
If two or more replacement effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects a player, the affected object’s controller the affected player chooses one to apply. Then the other effect applies if it is still appropriate.
Why does this matter? Let me give you an example.
Let’s say that Bob and Dale are playing a game of Magic. Bob has Pyromancer’s Swath and Furnace of Rath in play. Bob casts Lightning Bolt targeting Dale. How much damage does Dale take?
Pyromancer’s Swath: If an instant or sorcery source you control would deal damage to a creature or player, it deals that much damage plus 2 to that creature or player instead.
Furnace of Rath: If a source would deal damage to a creature or player, it deals double that damage to that creature or player instead.
According to rule 419.9a, it is Dale who decides in which order to apply the modifiers for the Lightning Bolt, since he is the affected player. It doesn’t matter that Bob controls the Lightning Bolt, the Furnace of Rath, and the Pyromancer’s Swath — all that matters is that Dale is being hit by the Bolt. Because of this rule, Dale will probably choose to have the damage double first (3 to 6) and then add two damage (6 to 8).
How many people know this rule? Four out of five level 2+ judges got this question wrong on Tuesday, in-house. I was one of them, and I lost a lunch bet because of it. This rule is pretty counter-intuitive. Even though this situation is pretty much a corner case, I’d ask Wizards to see if this rule can be changed to make it work the way that 99% of players already play it — if you control multiple permanents that have replacement effects, you choose the order, not the “player affected.”
Pete Hoefling‘s Newest Project
If you look in the upper-right corner of this page, you’ll see a new Orange sidebar called “SCG News.” Pete Hoefling (the owner of StarCityGames.com) personally updates this sidebar every weekday. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you’ve missed the following announcements:
Artists Zoltan Boros and Gabor Szikszai (Whitemane Lion, Academy Ruins, Glare of Subdual, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV and more) will be flying in from Hungary to attend the StarCityGames.com Lorwyn Prereleases in Richmond on September 29th and Roanoke on September 30th.
Level 2 judges Nicolas Sabin and Jared Sylva, filthy Red Sox fans both, have joined the StarCityGames.com team!
We will be giving away free Magic game bags to every FNM Participant at our Future Sight release tournament this Friday night!
And most anticipated of all, Pete announced the return of the long-awaited StarCityGames.com Power 9 Series this past Wednesday, now with a greatly increased payout down to 16th place!
This Weekend in Richmond
Two-Headed Giant PTQ for San Diego, Grand Prix: Columbus Trial (the format is Legacy, and you can win three byes!), and a Standard format Magic Scholarship Series event. This is in addition to side events all day long, included Standard and Legacy for-a-box events, and Time Spiral / Planar Chaos / Future Sight booster drafts.
We will also have tons of Future Sight for sales (singles and sealed product), and me and Chris Woltereck will be buying and trading cards all day long! We accept all major credit cards at the retail booth (sorry, the event entry fees are handled by a different department, so you’ll need to bring cash to play in the events!), so come on in and stop by the booth this Saturday.
Help Matt Vienneau
In this recent LiveJournal post, former MagictheGathering.com columnist Matt Vienneau asked for advice regarding his sister, Nicole. She has gone missing in Syria. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please share them by replying to Matt’s post. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.
See you all at the Future Sight Release / Friday Night Magic tournament this Friday, our PTQ / MSS / GP Trial this Saturday, or at Grand Prix: Columbus in two weeks!