I. Wither Jay Schneider?
Man, I really wanted to write something this week. So I scoped out SCG and other sites for a few articles I would find particularly appalling, figuring that since making fun of others, rather than individual creative thought, is my cup of tea writing wise, that would get my ranting started. Maybe a nice Jay Schneider deck. They always seem good for three thousand words or so, and seem to always be published right around the time I get motivated. Nope, no JS work out there.
Well, Ravnica is out, and certainly no one knows how to draft the guilds, right? I’ll wait for Eisel to talk about the Dimir milling deck or the fast Boros deck and weigh in on that. Sigh. While I think that Nick’s orders are a tad off, it looks like he is certainly squarely in the park on Dimir. And Pelcak, other than having too many drops over four-mana (and no one playing enough Sell-swords, according to BDM) generally has Boros down pretty well too. Maybe someone has advanced an easily thrashable theory on card advantage. . . nope, GT is still working for Upper Deck, Mark Young fighting the Beautiful Struggle in his own little world, prefacing all his decks with bash deflecting disclaimers.
Half the articles now are some T1 – sorry, “Vintage,” oriented things, with questions that simply make my head hurt, or are phrased in a way that I (not being a Vintage player) would have more of an idea what they were asking if the article was written in sandskrit. “Has UbaStaxMeanDeathHizzyHizzy been overlooked in a Magilla-Worldgorger-Epsilon-Z dominated field?” “What role should Zig$*X have as a field leveler against the increasing number of New Yang-tze Wjorkslaps in the board?” The Vintage – f*** it – Type One players seem to have added an extra layer of insulation to the mystery of their format through the development of an almost impenetrable vernacular. And hangin’ around Flores all the time, I am pretty adept at cracking Magic lingo. Not so with Type One. It’s baffling to me. I think I may just open a separate account and stir up the Type One article forums by trying to answer these questions blindly. At least the ensuing flames would give me something to write about.
Where the hell did my subject matter go?
No Subject Matter = Bad Times
Well, I have a few fragments hanging around, so, this article being written primarily for a Good Cause (see below), maybe if I string ’em together we’ll have an article. An actual article, rather than, say, some random words and naked pictures of Quentin thrown together. Oh, you couldn’t read Ruud’s article since it was premium (which you should have)? Here is the gist of it:
We Dutchies were all on the same flight and late for the plane. I dropped my passport but got it back. We made it with little time to spare, flew to England and crashed in a tiny unkempt room with a shared bath. We got liquored up and one or more people may or may not have thrown up on my contact lenses. Here is Naked Quentin. See you in Part II.
Good Times for Ruud, no so much for us.
II. Really, Shelob is Just Misunderstood or Conspiracy of the Elf Lovers
Spiders. I love the spiders. They almost always have giant asses and, most importantly, can deal with those pesky flyers. You know ’em. Sure, you don’t play ’em in Constructed – who would do that? Okay, I have played spiders in Constructed. To a Top 4. Losing to AndyStok’s perfect draw with his filthy Blue Skies deck (literally killing me exactly with no cards staring into a board which would be unbreakable after that turn). Sigh. But I digress. Love the Spiders. Spiders seem like a staple to me. Every set needs spiders. No, not spider “like” animals. Actual Spiders. We used to be awash in spiders – and they are always better than people seem to think. Beginning with the old standby, the Giant Spider, there seemed to be at least one in every set. Now, some of them had no right calling themselves spiders. Take Root Spider for instance. This is certainly some sort of Weevil. How can a spider not block a flyer? That is one of the fundamental rules of Magic. Honest. Here, look, from my old core set rulebook, some of Magic’s unshakable tenets, including, interestingly enough, some guidelines on spiders:
3.1.1 . . . limited format decks must be made up of at least 40 cards. . .
4.0.1.1.2 Destroying the source of an effect on the stack does not stop that effect from occurring . . .
5.2.2 All spiders can block flyers. . .
5.2.3 All spiders have some green in them.
5.2.3.1 Unless they are nifty artifact mecha-spiders.
5.2.4 All spiders have toughness greater than their power. Their power is at least 1.
5.2.5 All spiders should cost five or less. And if its five, they should be ridiculous. Four, really, seems like it should be market price for a solid spider, and three for a pretty good one. But definitely not more than five.
5.2.6 All spiders will make the cut in your sealed deck, assuming you are playing green.
5.2.7 All spiders have the creature type – spider.
6.3.2.2 Banding is honestly not difficult to explain at all.
In some sets, like beautiful 8th Edition, we were swimming in spiders. Canopy Spider, Giant Spider and perhaps the Holy Grail of Spiders, the Spitting Spider. Two commons, one uncommon. I would say my average 888 deck had between three and five spiders. I played seven once, but one of them was the uber-busty and rare Silklash Spider. Ah. So safe from nasty flyerses hiding behind pretty spiderses. In other sets, there were but single spiders, but they were pretty solid. In Invasion, for example, Pincer Spider was a 2/3 for G2, or a 3/4 for G5, and, later in the block we added the Ancient Spider to pick up some of the arachnaslack.
But lately, some spider hater has obviously been at the set design reins. The rules were first broken in Mirrodin, which had, tragically, NO F***ING SPIDERS. Come on, I know it’s a metal world, but you couldn’t make a metal spider? How do you expect to keep all those flying cats under control without a few spiders? This insult to spiders was further compounded in Darksteel, where sacred rule 5.2.5 was callously tossed aside for the Tangle “Spider”, which cost an improbable six mana, supposedly justified by the fact that it could be cast as an instant. On turn 6. Once the pesky catses have already hacked you half to death. Thanks. Oh, sorry. You could give the “spider” forestwalk blah blah blah. Whatever. Can I trade the forestwalk back for a -G reduction in cost? No? How about -1? It’s not even worth 1? Frown. I guess that’s in keeping with the “spider” not being worth GG4 either. Finally, in Fifth Dawn, someone latched onto the metal spider idea, and the abomination Arachnoid was born. Sure, it’s a metal spider, which one might think would fit neatly into the corollary to Rule 5.2.3 (5.2.3.1), but what, exactly, could you consider “nifty” about the Arachnoid? It has no abilities whatsoever. Even its picture is pretty lame. Nifty Mecha Spider indeed.
But really, this was only where the spider hater had planted his foul arachnid hating seeds. They came to into full, black hearted, bloom in Kamigawa Block. Venerable Kumo (Kumo = spider or cloud) is the “spider” representative here. Let’s see, a 2/3, that should cost about, what, G2 like Pincer Spider? No? Oh, yeah, soulshift, so G3? No? What, does it have range or banding or something? How much DOES it cost? G4. G4? Bleah. That seems pricey to me. Well, at least it’s a spider right? What? Not a spider? A Spirit? So a spirit – spider then? Just a spirit.
Frown.
Naturally, having fully tapped out five thousand years of Japanese folklore with Venerable Kumo, it would be unreasonable to have hoped for another “spider” in Betrayers or Saviors.
Sensing the public outcry at the de-spiderization of our Magic sets, R&D quickly decided that spiders should once again find representation in Ravnica. Unfortunately, the task of creating the assuaging spider apparently fell to the spider hater – or at least one of his minions. Which of these should be a spider:
GG6, 7/6. May block flyers
or
GW3, 2/5. May block flyers. May block another creature.
I agree with you. But it’s not a spider. It’s a filthy elf.
Instead, we get the Goliath “Spider.” Look at this disgrace. He costs 8, three more than the most expensive spider of all time – even two more than the Tangle “Spider,” whose designation as a spider at all is in serious doubt in my book, thanks to violations of rules 5.2.5 and 5.2.6. His power is larger than his toughness, which has, again, never happened (though Destiny’s Plated Spider flirted with the power toughness issue, he respectfully kept his cost to an equitable five mana, thus ensuring his long time designation as a “house”), and with respect to rule 5.2.7, this guy will be sitting on the bench far more often than not, as far as I can predict. Oh, and he is a rare that doesn’t do anything. Honestly, rare spiders are supposed to kick ass. Silklash dominated the skies and had a whopping seven toughness. Ancient Spider had a five toughness and first strike for a paltry four mana. Goliath “Spider” is a big, doofy idiot.
Would it have killed them to make the Saggitars into spiders? They would have been some of the best spiders ever. Instead, they are stupid elves. Why? Elves needed more flavor? There need to be more elves? All G/W things should be elves? No.
The answer should be clear. Spider hater loooooooves little elves and wants them to be good. And wants spiders to die. All of them.
Let’s look at Elves and Spiders, and see who is getting the shaft, Wizards wise.
Number of Elves in game: 120+ distinct varieties
Number of Spiders : 17 flavors
Elves’ favorite foods:
Lemmas Bread
Wine
Mead
Assorted Berries
Spiders’ favorite foods:
Pesky Flyers
Elves (particularly Treetop Rangers and Elvish Riders)
Abilities given to elves, traditionally:
Making mana (directly, or through land fetching or untapping), assorted colors;
Occasionally destroying the odd artifact, enchantment or flyer.
Stealing Spiders’ thunder.
Abilities given to spiders, traditionally:
Blocking Flyers (directly, or occasionally, at range)
Additional abilities actually given to elves, thus far (not an exhaustive list):
Animating Forests (Ambush Commander)
Giving ludicrous giant growth effects (AC, Timberwatch Elf, Tribal Forcemage)
Magically creating bears. As an instant. (Caller of the Claw)
Granting Forestwalk (Elvish Pathcutter, Elvish Champion)
Going Large (Elite, Stonewood Invoker)
Fetching or otherwise facilitating the summoning of enormous men, other than through acceleration (Elvish Piper, Fierce Empath, Krosan Drover)
Reshuffling critters into your library from the grave (Elvish Soultiller)
Lure (Taunting Elf, Elvish Bard)
Wellwisher
Magically creating elementals (Voice of the Woods)
Magically creating insects/saprolings (Wirewood Hivemaster, Selesnya Evangel)
Crusade Plus; Magically creating wolves (well, OK, wolf) (Tolsmir Wolfsblood)
Drawing Cards (Wirewood Savage, Multani’s Acolyte)
Untapping creatures/protecting elves and lands from destruction (Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote)
Magically creating Squirrels (Squirrel Wrangler, Deranged Hermit)
First Strike (Elvish Archers, who mysteriously don’t actually have any ranged effect or the ability to engage flyers)
Quasi Flying (Treetop Rangers, Elven Riders)
Giving Trample (Elvish Herder, Tribal Forcemage)
Actual Flying (Gaea’s Skyfolk)
Creating self contained armies (Selesnya Guildmage)
Protection from artifacts (assorted Tel Jilads)
Protection from Black, Blue (Llanowar Knight, Yavimaya Barbarian)
Additional abilities actually given to spiders, thus far:
First Strike (Ancient spider)
Exiling an attacker without flying (Trap door spider)
**Conditional Forestwalk (Tangle “Spider”)
Types of Elves:
Elf
Elf Wizard
Elf Warrior
Elf Druid
Elf Warrior Druid
Elf Mutant
Elf Shaman
Elf Berserker
Elf Lord
Elf Rogue
Elf Warrior
Elf Merfolk
Elf Avatar
Elf Zombie (actually a Zombie Elf)
Elf Knight
Elf Scout
Elf Soldier
Elf Archer
Elf Barbarian (actually Barbarian Elf)
Types of Spiders:
Um, Spider
Spells and lands related to elvish culture or habits:
Elfhame Palace
Wirewood Lodge
Elvish Guidance
Elfhame Sanctuary
Elvish Fury
Elven Cache
Elven Fortress
Elven Lyre
Elven Rite
Elven Pallisade
Spells and lands related to arachnoid culture or habits:
Web (Only the sticky one though. Many other (unrelated) webs exist – Mana Web, Magnetic Web, etc)
Spider Climb
Spidersilk Armor
Elvish Legends:
Tolsimir Wolfsblood
Glissa Sunseeker
Savra, Queen of Golgari
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Spider Legends:
Yeah.
So, tell me that we don’t have some sort of Dominarian 14th amendment issues going on. Poor spiders. C’mon R & D, lets get off the cutesy elf kick and get back to basics with some good spiders. Turian, you claim to be a big spider fan, start making some noise man! Feel free to cut out the above set of Rules for Spiders and tape it to the computer of everyone in R & D. I’m even willing to place my seven year campaign to put Tormod’s Crypts back into the set on hold for the sake of spider welfare. Please, let’s cut back on the elves and get back to good ol’ spiders. Because really, who doesn’t love spiders?
No Spiders = Bad Times.
III. Just ‘Cause They Tell You It’s Complex . . . A Banding Follow Up:
Everyone bitches that banding is gone because it was too hard to explain. I would rather think that it is gone because it was ridiculously powerful rather than complex. We have had some reasonably intricate mechanics in the last few blocks (e.g., Ninjutsu, Dredge). Let me explain banding to you in say, under 150 words:
On attack:
- A banding group (a group attacking together) can be made up of any number of banders + up to one non bander
- If any member of the banding group is blocked, the whole group is considered blocked
- If a blocker is able to block any member of the banding group, it can block the entire group
- Protection has no impact on banding together
- When the blocker(s) deal damage to the banding group, the attacking player distributes that damage among members of the banding group
On defense:
- There is no banding on defense
- Instead, you simply check to see if any member of a group of animals blocking an attacker has banding. If so, they the damage dealt by the attacking animal is distributed among the defenders in the group with the bander by the defending, rather than the attacking player.
That’s it.
OK, there is one odd scenario involving a Black Knight and a Mesa Pegasus versus a White Knight that seemed to throw people, but (i) it didn’t really come up all that often, and (ii) the answer is static, so once it was explained to you, like any other odd situation, you knew the answer. I mean, everyone eventually grasped that though, at first blush, it seems unfair to the poor Black Knight, Wrath doesn’t check whether you are protected from white before sending you to your great reward like Plow does. Yet, White Knight doesn’t die to Pestilence. At first, they both seem like global killing effects, and are non-targeted, and we like things to be even. White Knight can’t be Terrored, Black Knight can’t be Plowed. Equal, fair. Black Knight can’t be blocked by White animals and White Knight can’t be blocked by Black animals. Equal, fair. Black’s (revised edition) sweeper can’t kill White Knight, and White’s (revised) sweeper… can kill Black Knight. Well, clearly we all learned about the whole damage vs. destroy thing, and now, everyone knows this stuff. Banding is really the same. The situation is this:
Black Knight and his buddy Mesa Pegasus (all right, ill-dispositioned Mesa Pegasus), decide to launch an attack against enemy planeswalker. Enemy planeswalker is served by a White Knight. Black Knight and Mesa Pegasus figure “hey, we’re good, White Knight can’t block either of us – one of us is protection from him, and the other of us flies over him, so let’s bash.” White Knight sees them coming and, obviously, wants to battle with them. He consults his Magic rulebook. What is his answer?
Well, you are right, White Knight is out of luck, and you do 3. Same as if you hadn’t banded at all. Since White Knight can’t block Black Knight (protection issues) or Mesa Pegasus (Altitude Issues) individually, he can’t block the band.
How about if you have a Benalish Hero and a Black Knight? Can the White Knight block your band?
[White Knight flips through rulebook]
White Knight stands carefully in front of Benalish Hero (since while he can’t block Black Knight (protection issues), there is nothing stopping him from blocking the Benalish Hero. Black Knight will, courteously, stop to help his friend, the Hero, and I am sure will suck up the two damage, but hey, he is evil, you never know.
Your band is now blocked.
See – easy peasy lemon squeezy.
People Thinking You Are Stupid = Bad Times
IV. Actual Magical Content.
OK, I am fortunate enough to have been chosen for the beta testing of Ravnica. Which is great, in that between WoW and Poker, I can’t even seem to get a four man, let alone a 6-8 man draft together in Philly. Really. BDM calls me to tell me how his three drafts went that night at least three times a week, and I can’t get one on two weeks notice. Berkowitz is on hiatus in Aruba, for a month (big frown), Linskey literally enters his house from work or the gym (which he goes to on the way home from work) gets some microwave food, sits at WoW and plays until he passes out. Won’t even return calls. Kelleher wants to play, but is in town like, two weeknights every other week, and is likely to be getting laid those night, which understandably typically displaces drafting under almost all but the rarest circumstances. The Penn guys were all home for the summer, and now that hey are back, they play at these odd hours, for odd lengths of time.
No Drafts = Bad Times
In any event, while I am not a huge fan of MODO in general, because I think it makes me sloppy, what with the auto stacking and such, without it, I would be totally out of the loop. So, I takes what I can gets. I have played in a few premier events, and this is one of the deeper cardpools I think I have seen in Ravnica. I was wondering if anyone wanted to give building it a try. I think there are at least two totally different but legitimately competitive decks, and several splash options with respect thereto. I did Top 8 with this, but given the strength of the pool, that isn’t all that surprising despite my general atrociousness.
By the way, I am still not satisfied with the way people are listing cardpools in Ravnica. First, people did colored cards and then multicolored cards, which is terrible, since you can’t tell squat about what you are playing without seeing the multicolor/hybrid cards. Then, they started putting the multis in the front, which still doesn’t help me much, because although you have a pretty decent idea where your power is, you have to keep flipping back and forth between colors and non colored to see what works together. So, I propose this method, which I think lets you see color combinations and consider whether to play a bridge (r-w-g or g-b-u) or a splash without being overwhelming (you can go R-RW-W-WG-G-GB-B-BU or vice versa, at your option):
Red:
Barbarian Riftcutter
Dogpile
Goblin Fire Fiend
Greater Forgeling
Hunted Dragon
Incite Hysteria
Instill Furor
Sabertooth Alley Cat
Seismic Spike
Sell Sword Brute
Surge of Zeal
Torpid Morloch
Viashino Fangtail
War Torch Goblin
Wojek Embermage
WR:
Boros Fury Shield
Boros Garrison
Raznia’s Purification
White:
Benevolent Ancestor
Caregiver
Conclave Equenaut
Conclave’s Blessing
Faith’s Fetters
Gate Hound
Wojek Siren
White/Green:
Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi
Seed Spark
Selesnya Guildmage (“One Man Gang”)
Selesnya Saggitars
Selesnya Sanctuary
Transluminant
Green:
Dowsing Shaman
Elves of Deep Shadow
Fists of Ironwood
Gather Courage
Goliath “Spider”
Scatter the Seeds
Sundering Vitae
Trophy Hunter
Vinelasher Kudzu
Green/Black:
Dark Heart of the Woods
Golgari Rotwurm
Golgari Signet
Golgari Signet
Mortipede
Shambling Shell
Woodwraith Strangler
Black:
Brainspoil
Dimir House Guard
Dimir Machinations
Disembowel
Keening Banshee
Mausoleum Turnkey
Necromantic Thirst
Thoughtpicker Witch
Blue/Black:
Consult the Necrosages
Dimir Infiltrator
Lurking Informant
Perplex
Roofstalker Wight
Blue:
Compulsive Research
Dizzy Spell
Flight of Fancy
Flow of Ideas
Grozoth
Induce Paranoia
Mark of Eviction
Snapping Drake
Tattered Drake
Terraformer
Vedalken Dismisser
Vedalken Entrancer
Zephyr Spirit
Artifacts:
Cyclopean Snare
Nullstone Gargoyle
Now, this way, I can look at all of the color bridges and color specific fixers all in a row. I have included colored cards with a significant off color activation in the multicolor piles – I know that say, that 4/1 minotaur dude is Red, and you certainly can play him without White, but he is really much more of a likely to see play in a deck with some plains. Transluminant will always make your Green deck, irrespective of whether you have White or not but, in order to help make the do-I-play-White decision easier, I stuck him in the G/W pile. Also, Signets and dual lands go in the appropriate multicolored pile instead of at the end – this way, you can, again, get the full picture of the bridges you have available.
So, looking at the above, what’s your build? I’ll give you some time.
While you are building, here are a few cards I think are currently rated incorrectly:
Thoughtpicker Witch is better than you think. Sell-Sword Brute (in the speedy version Boros deck) is better than you think. Tidewater Minion is much better than you think. Brainspoil, while great, is not as great as you think. Scatter the Seeds is a little better than you think, unless you think its ridiculous, and then it’s a little worse than you think. Boros Fury Shield is much better than you think. No, better than that. Yeah, about that good. Aten’s favorite combat trick is Gaze of the Gorgon, mine is Boros Fury Shield. Dimir House Guard is also better than you think. Even if you think it is really good. It gets better and better every time I play it or play against it. Transmuting is also a lot better than people seem to think; I have to force myself to consider it – its kinda counterintuitive to me – but often you can snag that removal spell or key animal at exactly the right time. OK, enough of my prattlings. Whatcha got? B/G/W? U/R/b? Something else?
Here is what I played, though it is certainly possible U/R/b might have been better, or maybe blue would make for a better splash than white, but I wanted to get all the enchantments in there for the Dowsing Shaman and the Filthy Elves and One Man Gang seemed powerful enough to make me want to go White:
1cc: Elves of Deep Shadow, Gather Courage, Disembowel
2cc: Roofstalker Wight, Selesnya Guildmage, Transluminant, Vinelasher Kudzu, Fists of Ironwood, 2 Golgari Signet
3cc: Benevolent Ancestor, Shambling Shell, Trophy Hunter
4cc: Dimir House Guard, Keening Banshee, Mausoleum Turnkey, Mortipede, Faith’s Fetters
5cc: Dowsing Shaman, Golgari Rotwurm, Selesnya Saggitars, Scatter the Seeds, Brainspoil
6cc: Conclave Equenaut
8cc: Guardian of Vitu Ghazi
Lands: 6 Forest, 4 Plains, 5 Swamp, Selesnya Sanctuary
Obviously, it’s 41. Cut a land or the Ancestor or something if you like. I wanted them all in there. If you read my articles even occasionally, you know that I have heard all about the 41 thing and am recalcitrant about it, so let’s just save our collective breath and move on to the more relevant issues, m’kay? Thanks.
I brought in the Thoughtpicker Witch basically every match, so it probably should have been in the main. I also used the Seed Spark and the Wojek Siren once or twice, and brought in the Caregiver once, just to try out the turbo convoking, which worked surprisingly well, letting me cast a turn 3 Scatter and a turn 4 Vitu Ghazi. This build seemed to give me a good curve, excellent acceleration and fixing, decent removal, potential explosiveness with convoke and a longer game with enchantment recursion (for Fists to make saprolings) + Rotwurm or some such.
I think you could have also played something a R/U/B thing, but that deck seems to be very short on 1-2 drops, and the Signets are basically off color acceleration rather than fixing, if you played them at all. I considered adding the Flight of Fancy to the main deck and playing an Island, (which would also let the Wight actually stalk roofs) but without Blue duals, Signets or actual Green land fixers like the Civic guy or Farseek, it seemed like an unnecessary complication. Plus, then you want to play all your good Blue cards, and you end up with far too much stuff. Maybe a G/W/U deck would have been better, but I liked the Black removal and the Rotwurm/Shell a lot.
In any case, I’ll be interested to see what y’all can come up with here.
V. The Rub
Well, here is the rub for the article. I know you didn’t have to pay for this, since it ain’t premium, but I’m going to solicit you just the same. I have recently been tabbed in the Muscular Dystrophy Lock Up Fundraising thingy, where the MDA comes, arrests me from my office and locks me up for an hour for which I need to raise “bail” to get out of charity jail. I agreed to participate in that I thought it was a good cause and hey, I can spend an hour to raise a little cash for Jerry’s Kids, right? Well, the bail goal they gave me – after I agreed to participate, of course – seems a tad high. They are looking for me to raise a minimum of $2,700, which I seriously doubt will ever happen. However, I will be soliciting most of my friends, family and colleagues for some small donations, and you, friends and/or colleagues, are no exception. If (and only if) you can spare anything at all, I would urge you to click and donate something to the MDA. Even if it’s a buck. I have asked Pete to donate the value of my compensation for this article to MDA rather than paying me, and I am hopeful that he and my other magic colleagues will manage to dig in and come up with something that might help raise that “bail”. If you can’t do it, no worries. If you can, please do – and, of course, it’s tax deductible.
VI. I May Take Requests
Finally, I’m off to LA this week to do (video) coverage of the Pro Tour – be sure to check in and let me know what you think or if there are specific things you want me to try to cover deckwise, teamwise or trendwise. I will try to do some deck clinics, showing you how the combo decks work and generally do pro level interviews and bits on interesting decks or developments, but please let me know if there are things you like or don’t. Also, Teddy Card Game and BDM will be doing much of the written coverage, and Flores will be playing for once *snicker*, plus trying to be on the other side of the commentary booth on Sunday, so there’s a lot of SCG community connection there. If you can’t be there, be sure to follow along – at least this weekend, LA is where the good times have gone. Oh, and also here, of course.