The Weekly Guild Build: Make The Right Choice

If you build it, they will come.

Kevin Costner once heard that in a sappy movie about baseball, but you can hear the same thing in Magic — except this time, it’s referring to good mana choices. If you build it, they will come.

This statement, unlike the ghostly voice that whispered in Costner’s ear, is modal. It has a sucky version of entwine, where you can choose one choice. You can build a good mana base and the victories will come… Or you can build a bad mana base and the losses will come tromping in like the skeletons in Army of Darkness.

Below, I will show you a deck that was built improperly because I guessed wrong. Then we’ll take a look at the undefeated decks from Dortmund, where they guessed right. We’ll start with my deck at a Sunday PTQ.

Sealed Deck

Ferrett Steinmetz

Test deck on 02-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (41)

Lands (3)

Let’s go down this list by color, shall we?

White
White’s a tricky little color, with three nasty combat tricks — Devouring Light, Withstand, and Bathe in Light. I have come to love Bathe in Light in particular for its flexibility — it gets rid of troublesome enchantments, it allows for Alpha strikes, and it saves your creatures from spot removal. Unfortunately, in this crazy new world of seventy colors per deck, its Alpha strike potential is limited — you’re playing three colors, and so is your opponent, so it’s unlikely you’ll be able to smash through with everything — but still, it’s pretty darned neat.

Aside from that, we have some teeny, teeny creatures. I still see competent players running the Lionheart Maverick, and I am still not sold on this dude. I mean, he’s a 1/1, for God’s sake, even if he does have Vigilance. Okay, he absorbs some early Gruul beatings, but he’s not going to survive a love-tap unless you pump a lot of mana into him. I show this Maverick no love. And we have Votary of the Conclave and Caregiver, in case we feel like nibbling our opponent to death with 1/1 ducks.

Then again, we have Veteran Armorer, and the handy-dandy Ghost Warden, who despite my fond recollections of Kabuto Moth does not fly. I discovered this after declaring him as an attacker in an early casual game with a friend, who looked at me as if my head was screwed off and then blocked with a generic 2/2.

I did not win that game.

I’d like to blame the Warden for not tapping me on the shoulder and going, “Um, boss, I’m earthbound” — but I can’t. He’s an excellent card with a distinguished record of service. Aside from that, we have Auratouched Mage to fetch us some nice enchantments — there aren’t any in White, but I suspect there will be others in colors we can use — and Nightguard Patrol.

The White is pretty shallow. Let’s see what we get from Green!

Green
The Green is packed with good cards, but it’s shallower than Paris Hilton.

(And beefier, of course, but that goes without saying. Every time I see Paris Hilton’s skeletal figure smiling with that smooth Barbie glow that you can only get from face-ripping plastic surgery, I see an Ethiopian refugee painted white. I often wonder if the media has taken her on as a kind of case project:

(“Hey, we have this sort of ugly, face-mashed chick; she’s stupid, but she’ll do anything we ask her to. Can we make her famous without any actual talent?”

(“She has one talent, all right. Giggety giggety. But we can’t show that on network television.”

(“Oh, I bet we can…. If we play it just right.”

(Personally, whenever I saw the infamous Paris Hilton video, I was hoping for Bob Saget to show up and start doing a funny narration to this American Home Video. And yet I digress. Let’s get back to Magic, and far away from ugly stick figures.)

Anyway, I love the Wayfinder, I love the Greater Mossdog, and I’d never opened a Moldervine Cloak so I was all atwitter…. But after that, we have the most excellent Gristleback, and a bit of enchantment removal, and a Gather Courage.

Can you build a deck on the back of three creatures? Um, probably not. So unless Selesnya shows up to kick us in the teeth, we’ll have to pass.

That said, here’s my advice on Gristleback; don’t get greedy. Oh, you want him to be a Bloodthirsty dude, but as someone else has mentioned, “Bloodthirst encourages you to make very stupid plays.” Don’t hold him back for seventy turns until you can get that extra token, and don’t send your boys needlessly into the breach to get an extra point of life; it’s okay to play him out now, no waiting. I promise. He’s perfectly acceptable as a 2/2 with a nice ability.

Red
“Red has a lot of depth, but no power.” Hmm. After bashing Paris Hilton with a comparison, what celebrity could we lambaste with this tender little statement? Surely it applies to half of Hollywood.

(And depending on how PG-rated you wanna get about Paris, you could say that she, um, has a lot of depth… But you know what I mean. And if you don’t, I wouldn’t ask your mother about it.)

I’ll let you guys hash it out in the forums.

Anyway, Red has a lot of cards, but most of them are meh. I always shriek like a little girl upon opening up a Viashino Fangtail because I love Prodigal Sorcerors… But then again, x/1s aren’t terribly common in this format. As Craig said in the forums the other day, “If Lurking Informant and Selesnya Evangel were 1/1s, Clinging Darkness would be great.” As it is, yes, unlike the Darkness the Fangtail is a reusable source of damage — which is nothing to sniff at in Sealed — but it’s usually not going to put anything significant in the bin by itself. That means you’re pinging a player, which doesn’t affect the board all that much, or you’re hoping that someone gets stupid in combat.

Then again, we do have the Galvanic Arc, which I am souring on as time goes by. Sure, three damage seems like a great deal — but it has to make it onto the creature first, and then it has to be able to kill the creature it’s targeting. I mean, I’m not going to not play an Arc…. But on the other hand, I keep facing down Tolsimir Wolfbloods and Bramble Elementals and Skeletal Vampires and other titans where three damage doesn’t do it, and when I do target a small critter it always seems like a pump spell shows up just in time.

I like the Arc. I’ll always play it if I’m in Red. But I’m not going to go into Red just for an Arc.

Then we have Sparkmage Apprentice, which is a fine little pinger (but see my mini-tirade on the Fangtail), and Tin Street Hooligan, and then we start getting into chaff. I’ve been killed by Dogpile enough times to know that it’s not a bad card in a token-making deck, but I see nothing in Green that’s token-riffic.

Three cards, and we’re down into “Goblin Fire Fiend” and “Frenzied Goblin” territory. Oh, I suppose Scorched Rusalka isn’t bad, but it doesn’t affect the board so I’m just going to ignore it.

Black
Again, this is not a deep color, but I can always count on Black for some removal. Not a whole lot, though, since aside from Last Gasp and Clinging Darkness, there’s nada.

Still, in the “So bad it’s good” category, we have Daggerclaw Imp, which is most excellent against Green and Red. Like Centaur Safeguard, players never want to waste a removal spell on something so trivial when they know they’ll need it for some heavy hitter down the line, so this card usually gets in at least three (and sometimes six or nine) damage before they finally are forced to dispatch it. It’s not going to win a game by itself, but players are loathe to kill it with direct damage.

That said, White, Blue, or Black will block it with a flier. Even so, you usually wind up trading a Daggerclaw for a better card, so I tend to love it.

The Orzhov Euthanist, on the other hand… Well, he’s a figure of some controversy. I know some players swear by him, but in my experience you can’t wait long enough to get double-duty out of his “Kill a damaged creature” ability. See, the problem with the Euthanist is that 90% of the time, you have to attack with a creature that is usually not big enough to survive the actual combat. (Because you know, if it could attack and kill the other creature outright, you’d have no need for the Euthanist, n’est ce pas?) Then your opponent has to see you offering a clearly substandard trade and go, “Wow. I bet he has no tricks. I’ll block with my big guy!” And then (and only then) does the Euthanist work his “Comes into play” magic.

Now, that’s a pretty rare set of circumstances. It happens in the late game a fair amount — but again, you usually don’t want to hold onto a three-mana creature until, say, turn 8. And on turn 4, they know something’s up.

As such, most of the time the Euthanist is a generic dude with a nasty effect should you run him into something that doesn’t die. That’s decent. But don’t go out of your way to get both sides of the haunt, k?

As for Restless Bones, zaphodava had this to say last week in the forums:

“Restless Bones is not filler in Sealed. Sealed deck is dominated by black cards in this environment. Turn 1 ‘Swamp, go’ is the most common play you will see. That makes ol’ Bonesey pretty good; he’s a regenerating blocker to give you time, and a way to power through some unblockable action in the late game. If you are playing swamps in sealed, this should probably make your maindeck unless you already have a lot of ways to break stall and get through for the win.”

Fair enough. I still don’t like him, but that’s a reasonable defense.

Blue
We have a lot of nice Blue here. I always salivate at the prospect of getting Drake Familiar + Galvanic Arc, and we have a lot of nice tricksy stuff in terms of Flight of Fancy, Vedalken Dismisser, Repeal, and Infiltrator’s Magemark, and and the flying beef of Cerulean Sphinx. Plus, cracking the Quicken gave me back my entry fee, even as it confused me because I thought it would do my taxes.

That said, what we don’t have are creatures. This is a support color, and I’m not sure there’s enough power in the tricks to really pull this one out.

Alas, it’s gonna come down to the Gold cards.

Selesnya
Okay, we’ve got enough strength here to pull Green and White together. Tolsmir Wolfblood is strong on its own, but an Auratouched Mage + Pollenbright Wings strikes me as an excellent combo. Seeds of Strength will also help save the day.

Boros
You’re kidding, right?

Orzhov
Dammit. I wanted Blind Hunters, and I got Mourning Thrulls. They’re pretty nice, don’t get me wrong, but they’re only 1/1s.

Incidentally, if you’re anything like me, Castigate and Conjurer’s Ban look pretty much the same. Castigate is the good one. Don’t be fooled.

Gruul
I for one would now like a ban on the “There is no X. There is only… Gruul” Ghostbusters jokes I’ve seen going around. It’s not that it wasn’t funny back then, it just won’t be funny from now on. Okay?

That said, I loves me some Rootbreaker Wurm — and considering this deck is mighty thin on big creatures, I’m thinking we may need him. Scab-Clan Mauler, on the other hand? Meh.

Golgari
A conversation from a recent game:

“At the end of your turn, I’ll Char your Bramble Elemental.”

“I’ll cast Gaze of the Gorgon.”

“…can you do that?”

Yes, you can. Not the optimal usage of a Gaze, I grant you, but don’t forget it is an automatic regeneration.

Izzet
Wee Dragonauts is mighty fun to say, repeatedly, in an Irish lilt — “Aw, wouldja look at th’Wee Dragonauts, there!” — but it’s not a card that yanks me into Izzet.

The Guildmage is nice, but it’s the weakest Guildmage for Limited; how many two-mana Instants and Sorceries do I have here? Not enough.

Dimir
Ooo. The Guildmage is nice, as always. But is my Blue and Black enough?

The Choices I Face
Since no color stands out clearly, there are several ways to go. I only wish I’d read my last week’s article before I started this deck build, since I went with The Suboptimal.

Basically, I could go with a Black/Blue build of some sort, splashing for a third color and abandoning the rampant power of Selesnya… But if I do that, then I’m very light on creatures. Outside of the Cerulean Sphinx, and I have nothing that’s over a 3/3, and even the splash creatures won’t cut it. If I’m going to lose every creature combat, I better have some crazy tricks to pull out…

And I don’t think that U/B has it in this case. I mean, Repeal is nice, and Train of Thoughts is crazy good, but I don’t have enough removal to work. If I go U/B/r, I get the Arc and the Guildmage for the possibility of infinite Last Gasps, but that’s about it. U/B/g gets me the Cloak, which definitely helps, but splashing for a Gather Courage doesn’t strike me as being Teh Nutzz0r.

U/B/w? Possibly. It gives me some decent critters and excellent combat tricks, but then I’m going for less of a splash and more of White as a main color. Possibly workable.

Now, if I go Selesnya, the question remains what colors to splash. Though it’s tempting, I don’t think I can make a G/W/u build work; the mana would be awful (I have zero fixers aside from the Wayfinder), even if the real power cards would be mostly castable. Though my dreams of getting both a Pollenbright Wings and an Infiltrator’s Magemark would be sweet should they come true, of course. It’s the strongest idea thus far, but even then I can’t nail a creature outside of combat. That always worries me.

G/W/r is okay, getting me a Galvanic Arc to fetch with the Auratouched, and giving me access to a Streetbreaker Wurm, which is desperately needed in a pool full of small creatures. But there isn’t enough depth here to go for a full-on Red splash, and there’s not enough G/W to fill it out.

G/W/b, on the other hand, does not get me a Blind Hunter but it does fetch me some much-needed removal, and a few fliers to help get some damage in. Plus, the two Mourning Thrulls help to smooth a rocky mana base.

Now what did I do? Well, sadly, I did not leap forward in time to read my own article, wherein I concluded that “mana stability” was more important than “power.” Thus, I went four-color, with a basic land splash.

Bathe in Light
Pollenbright Wings
Auratouched Mage
Civic Wayfinder
Centaur Safeguard
Gather Courage
Daggerclaw Imp
Greater Mossdog
Ostiary Thrull
Devouring Light
Veteran Armorer
Galvanic Arc
Tolsimir Wolfblood
Selesnya Sanctuary
Last Gasp
Golgari Signet
Gristleback
Streetbreaker Wurm
Nightguard Patrol
2 Mourning Thrull
Moldervine Cloak
Ghost Warden
Orzhov Euthanist
Seeds of Strength
Gaze of the Gorgon

The mana base is lost to time, but it had two Mountains.

This deck sent me to a 2-3 drop, mostly because of my own play skills. Twice, in two separate matches, I blocked with a Veteran Armorer on turn 4 because I thought I could force an uneven trade, and I lost both times. Remember what I said about playing to see what happened? Well, I played, and I saw, and that’s what spurred that article. I eventually lost in the fifth round to a guy who had Glare of Subdual, plus Dimir House Guard to fetch it, and I could not find my Sundering Vitae.

What would I have done in retrospect? I should have stuck with a straight G/W/b build; in an attempt to cram in the two Red cards, I dropped the Clinging Darkness — I should have left that in, maybe putting in a Gather Courage to supplement the Seeds, or perhaps a Restless Bones.

(I had to pick some instant to drop, since I was so crammed with solid combat tricks that I could put them all in and have no creatures… But I’d never played with Seeds and underestimated how hard it was to leave the right mana open in a deck with an uneven mana base.)

Alternatively, I could have gone G/W/u, and seen what happened. Honestly, I have no idea how that build would have worked out. Perhaps better. I don’t think that abandoning the power of Selesnya would be a good idea, either.

Let’s Go To The Videotape, Alex
Last week, I looked over the undefeated decks from Grand Prix: Richmond, and tried to pick out a common theme. This weekend had Dortmund — and lo and behold, the theme continues!

Undefeated, Day One

Øyvind Andersen

Grand Prix on 02-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (13)

Lands (16)

Spells (11)

Colors: Three
All-Star Commons: Double Blind Hunter, Stinkweed Imp, Dimir House Guard, Brainspoil, Disembowel, Douse In Gloom, Vedalken Dismisser
All-Star Uncommons: Dimir Guildmage, Keening Banshee, Smogsteed Rider
Rares: Skeletal Vampire, Szadek, Lord of Secrets
Bouncelands: Two
Signets: Three
Removal Count: Three, including the Banshee.

I have often complained about the lack of auto-build decks in the format — time was that you cracked open an Invasion pack and plucked a Dragon, and the universe said “Build me in these colors.”

Folks, this is as close to an auto-build as you will see in the format.

Obviously, I haven’t seen the other cards that Oyvind was looking at when he made this deck…. But come on! Skeletal Vampire’s such a powerhouse that you almost have to play him — and even if you aren’t quite sold on the power of Skeletal Vampire by itself, you have Brainspoil and Disembowel to back him up. So you know you’re going black.

Then you look at the Blue and see the ever-popular Mark of Eviction/Vedalken Dismisser lock, a Guildmage, a Smogsteed Rider, an in-color bounceland, an in-color Signet, and Szadek. You scatter them on the table and the cardboard outlines of the cards overlap on the white plastic, forming words: PLAY BLUE/BLACK, YOU IDIOT.

But what’s my third color? you ask.

The cards reshuffle, showing the Mark of Eviction laying on top of two Blind Hunters. A judge walks by; shocked by the low hum of nuclear power emanating from your cards, he accidentally blurts out, “Wow! You’re going Blue/Black/White, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” you say confidently, and the deck leaps off of the table and begins to assemble itself.

The synergy in this deck is ridiculous, with power across the board. Again, I’m not demeaning Oyvind’s play skills — in a field of a thousand people, certainly someone else had to crack a set as ludicrous as this — but I don’t need to look at his Green or Red to see that this is about as obvious as they come these days. You don’t even need to consider a third color.

Three notes, however:

If you haven’t played against Skeletal Vampire, count yourself lucky. It’s an incredibly potent card, and I’ve heard several players refer to it as “unkillable.” Realistically, it’s difficult to kill with anything but a Last Gasp (or something that destroys all 1/1 tokens, like a Rolling Spoil or a Rain of Embers), since by the time you have the mana to cast it you can protect it. I doubt that anyone reading this thinks it isn’t a good card… But if you’ve been thinking it’s only good, think again.
Also, when you play Skeletal Vampire, it is obligatory that you cackle and say, “One, two bats! Ah ah ah!” If you don’t get that reference, you never watched Sesame Street and are a heartless Communist.
In an article a few weeks ago, I stated that there was probably a deck where Voyager Staff would be good, but I hadn’t yet found a deck where the Staff didn’t get cut as Card Forty-One. However, in a deck with double-Hunter, a Vedalken Dismisser, a Keening Banshee, a Skeletal Vampire, and a Smogsteed Rider to protect once you send it into the breach, this would have been the deck where the Staff would have (correctly) made the cut.

Undefeated, Day One

Roy Thysen

Grand Prix on 02-19-2006

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (17)

Lands (16)

Spells (7)

Colors: Four (kinda)
All-Star Commons: Conclave Equenaut, Stinkweed Imp, Greater Mossdog, Siege Wurm, Golgari Rotwurm, Ghost Warden, Pillory of the Sleepless, Disembowel
All-Star Uncommons: Savage Twister, Watchwolf, Pollenbright Wings
Rares: Woodwraith Corrupter.
Bouncelands: Two
Signets: One
Removal Count: Three, assuming you can restrict yourself to thinking of Savage Twister as a mere “one” removal spell.

This deck is chock-full of decent cards that are just a little too heavy on specific mana (and too light on power) for me to recommend wholeheartedly — cards like Ghor-Clan Savage, Carven Caryatid, and Selesnya Sagittars, none of which are quite elbow-droppy enough to be worth pulling me into Green by themselves, but are certainly worth utilizing if you’re already playing heavy Green.

In this case, this is a fairly straight Green/White/Black deck that splashes Red off of two sources for precisely one card — which is normally bad form, since it leaves you with a dead card in your hand, but it’s not so bad when it’s a late-game card that can completely turn the game around.

Like, say, Savage Twister.

(Okay, you can also use Red in Gruul Scrapper, too, but I doubt that came up a whole lot.)

The rest of the cards are solid offensive creatures, backed by a scant bit of spot removal — but that doesn’t matter. Your goal is to maneuver your opponent into overextending into a Twister, or to bait him into leaving himself open for a fatal Overwhelm, and so winding up in a situation where your opponent has a slight advantage is actually not a bad thing. Still, this is a deck that stinks of filler cards — Golgari Brownscale, while nice, isn’t a card that I’d be longing for.

Still, the lesson applies; it’s almost certain that Thysen could have gone into another color for his power, since there’s olny one rare to be found here, and there are a few marginal cards that he added. It’s almost certain that he restricted himself to three effective colors, and avoided the urge to go, “Well, if I add in another two Red sources, I can throw in the good Red cards and toss out the chaff…”

Incidentally, I like Overwhelm very much, but I always worry about its cost. I almost always play it if I’m going Green, but the seventy zillion mana is hard to do sometimes — and if I’m making all my guys huge, I don’t want them sitting on the sidelines after a convoke. I want to swing, dangit.

Also, I haven’t played with Dryad Sophisticate enough to say firmly whether she’s a power uncommon or not. She’s got a great ability, sure, but in the end she’s still a 2/1, so I’m on the fence as to whether she’s an auto-include as of yet. More playtesting, as they say, is needed.

But once again, we learn the big lesson in this new environment: Splashing basic lands is for punks. Thus far we have viewed six x-0 decks, and not a one of them has thrown in a single Plains to be fetched out with a Civic Wayfinder or a Farseek. They’ve all gotten their extra color off half of an on-color Signet or bounceland.

“But Ferrett,” you say. “Those are powerful decks! You can’t compare the decisions the average deck faces with these kind of mega-smashers!”

And that’s true… Kind of. But let us consider, for a moment, what would have happened if the x-0 decks had all been four-color decks, with two splashed Basic Lands. Then we’d know that going four-color off of a couple of lands wasn’t a bad strategy, and you could get away with it on a regular basis.

But as it is, none of the decks we’ve seen thus far have managed to do it… And thus, we can assume that the decks that do drop in a spare Plains for that White card (as some of them must have) didn’t do as well.

Now, that’s not to say that you won’t get a deck where you’re forced to throw in an off-color Basic Land or two and pray. Occasionally, we all open the kind of crap deck where you have limited tools to work with, and not everyone is going to crack the right kind of Signets and bouncelands to make this happen.

But what you should know is that if you can avoid it, do avoid it. Take that as you will.

Also note that once again, Izzet has not reared its ugly head. Orzhov cards are in both decks, and Gruul made an appearance or two last week… But Izzet isn’t at the undefeated tables. I don’t know whether that’s a function of luck or strategy, so I can’t say for sure that you should avoid Izzet if you can… But if I had the choice between going with a Gruul-based strategy or an Izzet-based strategy, I’d use this info as a tiebreaker.

The Weekly Plug Bug:
Hey, I have a Web comic. Today’s comic, interestingly enough, has been dedicated to John F. Rizzo. What a guy. Thanks, John Cochrane!

Incidentally, I have a cold this week and am desperately struggling to make sense. My brain is pretty much shutting down, so if you note any mistakes, it’s the virus, okay?

Signing off,
The Ferrett
TheFerrett@StarCityGames.com
The Here Edits This Here Site Here Guy

Creatures (41)

Lands (3)

Spells (31)

Creatures (13)

Lands (16)

Spells (11)

Creatures (17)

Lands (16)

Spells (7)