This week is going to be something of a jumble, as multiple timelines converge in my life, so here be fair warning. The wife and I have decided to move (just to a new house in the same town), there’s a PTQ coming up, there are Conflux cards being previewed all over the Internetz… it’s kinduva crazy time, and there’s a lot I want to talk about before my PTQ, so I’m smooshing it all into one article.
GP: LA and Desire
Congrats to StarCityGames.com own Luis Scott-Vargas on winning Grand Prix: Los Angeles. Draft series, Pro Tour winner, and now winner of back-to-back American GPs? Is there anything this cat CAN’T do?
So now the question becomes, is Desire the new hotness? There was already hate in the format in Stifle, Ethersworn Canonist, and Gaddock Teeg. Asher Heckt (the other Top-8 player of Desire) got locked down in the Top 8 under Trinisphere. Every deck can potentially already be carrying good sideboard cards against it.
Only 8 Desire decks made Day 2, but two of those were Asher Heckt (undefeated after Day 1) and LSV, with only one loss. Those were the two that made it to the Top 8. Is it a threat deck now? Or do we attribute it to playskill?
Yes, I’m personally invested in this question, as I’ve already said that I’m planning on playing Desire in Denver come next Saturday. So I’m going to be paying close attention to the forums and discussions that happen over the next week. I think people won’t be playing it en masse yet… it does take a little time to become comfortable with the mulligans and the play decision trees. But I bet more hate starts showing up.
LSV’s decklist, for the record:
Lands (18)
Spells (42)
- 2 Tendrils of Agony
- 2 Sleight of Hand
- 4 Peer Through Depths
- 4 Desperate Ritual
- 4 Mind's Desire
- 4 Seething Song
- 4 Remand
- 2 Electrolyze
- 4 Rite of Flame
- 4 Lotus Bloom
- 4 Ponder
- 4 Manamorphose
Sideboard
Rare Cost Summary:
Cascade Bluffs ($4.00 x 2 = $8.00)
Flooded Strand ($20.00 x 3 = $60.00)
Polluted Delta ($25.00 x 3 = $75.00)
Steam Vents ($8.00 x 3 = $24.00)
Lotus Bloom ($6.00 x 4 = $24.00)
Mind’s Desire ($2.00 x 4 = $8.00)
Ad Nauseam ($3.00 x 2 = $6.00)
Pact of Negation ($6.00 x 3 = $18.00)
On my end – I now have a new build to test out. I started with the Swath Storm that I posted a few weeks ago and quickly determined that the Chrome Moxes weren’t overly helpful, as apparently LSV and Asher did as well. A lot of times, they just ended up being blank drops to boost storm count, and at that point, I’d rather they DID something. Even Tormod’s Crypt would be a better zero-mana drop in that instance; it actually has applications against decks like Death Cloud and Martyr-Proclamation.
I switched ‘em for a number of things… Sleight of Hand first, then I tried Blood Moon (thinking it might give me an edge against Zoo and other non-basic-heavy decks, like it does for Swans), then Damping Matrix (I was afraid of Martyr-Proclamation, and it also does fun things to Affinity). In short: Sleight of Hand was fine but I didn’t think it gave me any edge, so I switched it; Blood Moon does help against Zoo and other decks much the same way that it does in Swans, but you don’t ever need that help (Swans needs it because it’s much slower); and Damping Matrix is more funny than helpful.
I like the return to the Tendrils kill. I haven’t had much trouble killing with Grapeshot in a vacuum, but it often involves a Remand. With Tendrils, you need a much lower Storm count to kill, and so you can use your Remands to actually protect your spells as you lead up to the Storm. It also provides a nice life buffer if you fizzle.
As you can see from the Rare Cost Summary, this deck is cheap as chips to build … so long as you have (or remove) the fetchlands. While I believe that you do want at least a couple of blue-based ones (to get basic Island), you can get by with any mix of the Blue or Red ones, as they all fetch the critical Steam Vents. (If playing with Blood Moon maindeck has taught me anything, it’s that you have numerous ways around it with Manamorphose and Lotus Bloom.) If you have no fetchlands, then it might be possible to run something like the old Dragonstorm manabase, upping the number of storage lands (and probably lowering the number of total lands back to 16).
Nicol Bolas, and Planeswalkers in EDH
By now you’ve most likely seen that the Mothership has started their official previews with a bang. Doug Beyer’s feature article on Monday showed off the missing Planeswalker from Shards, and he’s the granddaddy of ‘em all: Nicol Bolas.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
4UBBR
Planeswalker — Bolas (M)
+3: Destroy target noncreature permanent.
-2: Gain control of target creature.
-9: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker deals 7 damage to target player. That player discards seven cards, then sacrifices seven permanents.
5 Loyalty
And it got me thinking about Planeswalkers and EDH. I currently have a Nicol Bolas EDH deck. Mostly a fun deck that plays a ton of Dragons, something Nicol Bolas would probably not be happy about being associated with. Doesn’t it seem a little weird, flavor-wise, to put Nicol Bolas the Planeswalker into a deck with Nicol Bolas the Elder Dragon?
Some discussion has been held about allowing Planeswalkers to act as Generals, and I think Nicol Bolas’s new form will spark the conversation again. It’s possible that Nicol Bolas may be too powerful to be a General; continuous free Vindicates, yoinking people’s Generals, and that ultimate ability effectively takes someone out, even in a multiplayer game where people start at 30 life.
That doesn’t mean I’d like to try it.
And it’s not like Planeswalkers aren’t Legendary, so to speak. They operate under a closely similar rule.
The next question: Will Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker end up being an expensive card? I don’t know. I’d like to believe he won’t be, and I have two reasons for that:
One, he’s grossly expensive mana-wise and probably doesn’t make a splash in competitive Magic. Look at cards like Cruel Ultimatum. Despite being featured as a one-of or two-of in probably the strongest deck in Standard right now, it still only goes for $3. That’s because it’s only a one-of or two-of, so the demand is lower. If Nicol Bolas does end up seeing competitive play, it will probably be only as a singleton, which helps keep his demand (and his price) low.
Counterpoint to one: He is the marketing focal point for the set, and is a beloved figure throughout Magic history. He has a long backstory dating back to Legends (obv) and people have been waiting to see him in some sort of “ultimate” form for quite a while. He’s arguably the first “perfect” backfit into the Planeswalker model. So a lot of casual players may be itching to get their hands on one. It’s kept Akroma and Sliver Queen high in price.
Two, despite what Shards of Alara would have you believe, just being a Planeswalker doesn’t mean you come with a high price tag. The non-Garruk Lorwyn Planeswalkers are all $4-8. Some of that is due to demand (for Liliana Vess, for example) and some to market glut (thanks, Jace versus Chandra!) Nicol Bolas is going to be Mythic, sure, but in a smaller set, which means more copies (ultimately) will hit the market.
Counterpoint to two: Mythic Planeswalkers a la Shards of Alara have a price tag over $20; it’s only the market glut of Prerelease Ajani Vengeants that’s keeping that price so low. All four see tournament play in some capacity.
My advice? If you’re heading to a Prerelease next weekend, and think you might want one for whatever reason, trade for it now if you can find a reasonable deal.
Conflux: Uncommonly Good
Have you been checking the Official Visual Spoiler as regularly as I have? Some of the uncommon from this set look to be quite powerful, although I shouldn’t be surprised, knowing the power level of the uncommons in Shards of Alara. (I mean, seriously, Woolly Thoctar? Rhox War Monk? Tidehollow Sculler? Charms?) There look to be a fair amount of good ones coming in Conflux, too. Guys like this one:
Esperzoa
2U
Artifact Creature — Jellyfish (U)
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, return an artifact you control to its owner’s hand.
The more metal it digests, the more its jelly will fetch on the alchemists’ market.
4/3
I’ve written a number of times about the old mono-Green deck called Stupid Green, although probably not in this column since its inception. While Esperzoa might not have a plethora of comes-into-play abilities to reuse (I mean, seriously, it’s down to Elsewhere Flask and Tidehollow Sculler maybe?), it still is a ridiculously efficient beatdown machine with a very tiny drawback. Artifacts don’t suffer from summoning sickness, so being forced to replay your Relic of Progenitus doesn’t stunt its usefulness.
4 Esperzoa
4 Juggernaut
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Lurebound Scarecrow
4 Sanctum Gargoyle
4 Tower Gargoyle
2 Wicker Warcrawler
2 Grim Poppet
4 Elsewhere Flask
4 Executioner’s Capsule
4 Courier’s Capsule
4 Arcane Sanctum
4 Esper Panorama
1 Swamp
1 Plains
10 Island
Rare Cost Summary:
Grim Poppet ($1.00 x 2 = $2.00)
If only Academy Ruins was still Standard-legal. Alas. But I think an artifact-style Blue Skies deck might be a lot of fun. You could arguably add some disruption in the form of Thorn of Amethyst ($2), or more removal in the form of Moonglove Extract.
Get Out There and Play
Okay, you’ve got two weeks until the Prerelease. Make your plans now! Next week I’m playing in a PTQ and so I’ll have that in next week’s column, but I’m already excited about Conflux!
Until next week…
Dave
dave dot massive at gmail and facebook