You Lika the Juice? - Regionals Sightseeing, Part I

All television is educational.

This past Sunday, my kids got me up super-early in order to give me their Father’s Day gifts. Anna Marie, who’s 6½, had made me two different cards; Aaron, who’ll be 5 the end of July, had a Happy Father’s Day song he’d memorized from school on Friday, and proudly sung it to me flawlessly.

Yeah, I kinda choked up a bit.

They also presented me with a gift bag stuffed with goodies that Mom and them had selected from the grocery store: a tin of smoked oysters, a can of sinfully good cashews, a jar or marinated mushroom salad (yum!), etc. The gift bag was dark blue and covered front and back with all the NFL team logos. When I had taken out all the goodies to look at them, it quickly became apparent that the gift bag was not part of the gift, it was merely the device used to transport said goodies to Dad. Aaron quickly claimed the bag as his. I figured he was going to either use it to put stuff in, or cut out the NFL logos to play with or perhaps paste into a workbook or something.

An hour or so later, I overheard Aaron talking to his sister. “I am a football player!” he insisted. “Nuh-uh,” Anna Marie replied in that time-honored tone designed to annoy. “I am, see, it says so in my dossier.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Did you say ‘dossier’?” I asked him.

“Yeah, my dossier, right here.” And he pulls out the NFL logo gift bag, collapsed flat… doing a very credible impression of a file folder.

Not even five years old, and he’s using the word dossier! It takes me a moment to realize where he picked it up. If the kids watch television during the daytime, it’s tuned to “educational television” – the station is Noggin, and it’s loaded with Dora the Explorer, Blue’s Clues, etc. In the evening though, we’re a Nicktoons family, and enjoy watching Spongebob Squarepants, Fairly Oddparents, Martin Mystery… and a fairly new show called The X’s. The X’s are a family of spies – Mom, Dad, Big Sis and Little Brother, all are highly trained spies. It’s quite amusing, and of course they talk about dossiers on occasion. Aaron’s picked it up and knows what it is, and how to use it properly.

Educational. I now feel a little less guilty about them watching Nicktoons…

Speaking of education, I was perusing the Regionals Top 8 decklists over on MagictheGathering.com, looking for interesting decks that did considerably better than myself. And it struck me just how cool it is that this game of ours has these huge tournaments all over the world. Even just looking at the places within my own country the U.S., there are regions that many of us have never been to before that nevertheless have a bunch of people just as crazy about Magic as I am. I could take a plane to Lincoln, Nebraska, grab a deck and stroll out to a local game shop and likely find a game or two of Magic if I desired.

Now, in the wake of Regionals we will be/have already been bombarded by “the best” builds of all the well-known archetypes, and over on the Premium side you’ll see The New Face of Standard’s Tier 1 decks galore. What I’d like to do also here on the free side is shine the spotlight on some decks that traveled off the beaten path, anything from an interesting variant on to a totally new creation, that performed well enough to make Top 8 and earn a spot on MagictheGathering.com, if not an invite to Nationals.

Instead of just raiding deck technology from regions around the country, I also thought it might be fun to educate myself with a little tidbit of trivia from each place that I was unaware of before researching it, and perhaps it was something you weren’t aware of either. See, you’re not just “killing time” reading about Magic, you’re getting a little education too – adding to your dossier, if you will.

Rockin’ Albuquerque, New Mexico
Did you know? Albuquerque is known as Bee’eldííldahsinil in Navajo, and is home to the Petroglyph National Monument (Muraganda Petroglyphs, perhaps?). You can also get your kicks on Route 66 here.

Albuquerque’s Top 8 featured the usual suspects – Gruul, Dragonstorm, Solar Flare, combo Dredge, and Angelfire – but it was Miguel Gutierrez’s Rock deck that jumped out at me. The spine of the deck is built around the new Standard superstar Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, with Phyrexian Arena and a couple Dimir House Guards in the mix to potentially fire off a Grandeur activation or two. There’s Darkheart Sliver to chump early and gain life, and Putrefy, Tendrils of Corruption and Damnation for creature control. Extirpates main deck with Mystical Teachings to fetch them if need be. Mystic Melting is an interesting silver bullet choice; I imagine I’m not the only one who needed to click the link to remind myself about the existence of the “slow-trip” Naturalize. Note also the Spell Bursts in the sideboard, which take advantage of the mana acceleration potential of the deck.

Korlash Control

Miguel Gutierrez

4th Place at Regionals on 06-10-2007

Standard

Creatures (14)

Lands (24)

Spells (23)

Sideboard

Ascendant Atlanta, Georgia
Did you know? One of the first settlements in the area was Fort Peachtree, named after an important Indian meeting place known as Peachtree Standing. It is thought that this was not actually named after a Peach tree, but rather an evergreen tree that leaked sap, or “pitch.” Somehow “pitch tree” got mistaken as “peach tree.” I have a hunch this was a happy accident that led to the state being known for its “Georgia Peaches” rather than its “Georgia Pine Cones.”

So I can’t help but wonder if Atlantans get irritated by non-locals referring to their fair city as Hotlanta? Nathan McCallister busted out Hot Orzhov technology, sticking with just two colors and nominating Crovax, Ascendant Hero to lead the charge. Though it will take some time to get him on the board, even with one of his three Signets, once he hits play he neutralizes Project X’s life gain combo element, he kills off all of Dredge combo’s enablers, and even makes Giant Solifuge look silly. Brain Pry is an interesting choice over the far more popular Castigate, but in a field filled with well-known archetypes I imagine it probably worked out well for him. With Extirpates rampant out there (and Nathan running three of them in the maindeck himself), I think it’s a wise move in this configuration to split Wrath of God and Damnation two and two so you don’t run the risk of having all your global removal stripped from your deck and possibly your hand.

Fader

Nathan McCallister

7th Place at Regionals on 06-10-2007

Standard

Creatures (6)

Lands (25)

Spells (30)

Sideboard

Glittering Charlotte, North Carolina
Did you know? Charlotte was the scene of the country’s very first “gold rush” back in the early 1800s. The city’s nicknames include “The Queen City” and “The Hornet’s Nest.” Which do you reckon gets used more often on official state stationary?

Evan Erwin Glittering Wish Control has certainly found a successful spot in the metagame, and I have to say any deck that runs Teneb, the Harvester is A-OK in my book! I spent a lot of time merging my Teneb deck with Project X and ending up with a 3-2-1 record at Regionals, perhaps I should have just put my trust in Mr. Erwin like Jordan Parsons did. Two Wraths and three Damnations gives a ton of mass removal, and Putrefy strikes me as being exceptionally good spot removal once again, in light of how many Signets that see play now (in fact, due to my newfound hatred of all things Solar, I’d probably run Harmonic Slivers too). I have to say it does my heart good to see the awesome Simic Sky Swallower in the board ready to be Wished for; the mighty beast once ruled the metagame skies until a Wrathful b*tch came screaming out of time to once again become the go-to fattie finisher.

Glittering Wish Control

Jordan Parsons

7th Place at Regionals on 06-10-2007

Standard

Creatures (14)

Lands (23)

Spells (23)

Sideboard

Okay, I couldn’t leave Charlotte without shining the spotlight on Matt Nash’s 8th place deck. Ib Halfheart and Goblin Kings and Blood Moons, oh my! Matt’s Goblinstorm deck could even utilize his later-drawn mana spells on Haze of Rage to boost up the creatures he already has in play. I know many of us veteran players looked at a card with both Storm and Buyback and went hmmmm… Well, here’s a deck with it in action!

Gargadon Goblins

Matt Nash

8th Place at Regionals on 06-10-2007

Standard

Creatures (17)

Lands (21)

20 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Kher Keep

Spells (22)

Sideboard

Stormin’ Chicago, Illinois
Did you know? The name “Chicago” is the French rendering of an Indian word that means “wild leak,” a phrase related to… well, what a skunk does. The world’s first controlled nuclear reaction was conducted at the University of Chicago in December 1942.

Maybe it’s the area’s gangster heritage, but 5th place Tony Sears took a baseball bat to the normally stock and streamlined Dragonstorm decklist and added some spicy extras. First you’ve got a couple Empty the Warrens as storm plan B. Then you’ve got a couple Martyr of Ashes maindeck to combat both Dredge and Gruul. Then you’ve got a couple Sulfur Elementals to toss out there if your opponent is wielding a fistful of counterspells and is just waiting to try and stop you from going off, certainly an interesting veering off from the Gigadrowse plan. Lastly there’s the singleton Remand and Mana Leak, presumably to randomly give the illusion of more countermagic, and a singleton Infernal Tutor which does a nice job of doubling Seething Songs or Rites of Flame (not to mention being a decent top deck after getting nailed by a Persecute). I can’t ever see myself playing Dragonstorm, but if I did I’d probably play something a lot like this one.

Dragonstorm

Tony Sears

5th Place at Regionals on 06-10-2007

Standard

Creatures (11)

Lands (20)

Spells (29)

Sideboard

Unadventuresome Columbus, Ohio
Did you know? Four fast food chains have their home base in Columbus, including Charley’s Grilled Subs, Steak Escape, Wendy’s, and White Castle (dude!). The Columbus Doo Dah Parade is held annually on the Fourth of July, and the most popular and longest-running participant group is the "Marching Fidels," a group of men and women dressed like Fidel Castro. I wonder if any Fidels will be wearing hospital gowns this year?

Perhaps Columbus was too huge for anything but the most finely tuned Tier 1 decks to perform well over the long haul, but I didn’t see any wacky or out of the box decks in the Top 8 of Columbus. The only deck that seemed remotely interesting in the “gee whiz” kinda way was Chris Hodges’ Solar Flare deck, with two maindeck copies each of Shadowmage Infiltrator and Tombstalker. See, Ben Bleiweiss – Tombstalker isn’t making waves in a dredge deck; he’s feeding off graveyards that are loaded at a moderate pace! Solar Flare ain’t no Dredge, but it does fill up its own graveyard relatively fast compared to other normal decks. Four copies of Azorius Heralds seemed like unusual additions to the sideboard for some lifegainin’ unblockable fun. I’m curious how they performed, and what he brought them in against.

Solar Flare

Chris Hodges

3rd Place at Regionals on 06-10-2007

Standard

Creatures (14)

Lands (23)

Spells (23)

Sideboard

‘Derms in Dallas, Texas
Did you know? The Dallas/Ft. Worth airport is larger than New York City’s Manhattan Island. They really do everything big in Texas!

Douglas Effler also went the Orzhov route and added Crovax to the mix down in Dallas, but he had plenty of early game action. Taking a nod from Richard Feldman Suicide Squad, he does have enough differences to distinguish his deck quite a bit, starting with more hand destruction with Cry of Contrition and the awesome Augur of Skulls. Calciderm is an absolute beating that is great to drop after your opponent has tapped down to cast Wrath of God (and between Crovax and the Ghost Council, the deck has some decent resistance to Wrath or Damnation).

Suicide Squad

Douglas Effler

5th Place at Regionals on 06-10-2007

Standard

Creatures (23)

Lands (23)

Spells (14)

Sideboard

Before I leave Dallas, I did notice that Matt Fichtel’s 6th Place Dredge combo featured two copies of Saffi Eriksdotter in the main deck, which seems like pretty vicious technology aimed straight at the heart of Project X’s Crypt Champion. I saw Saffi crop up in a couple Dredge sideboards, but this was the only maindeck inclusion I ran across.

Denver, Colorado
Did you know? Denver’s nickname “The Mile High City” comes from the fact that it is actually exactly one mile above sea level. In 2005, Denver became the first major city in the U.S. to make the private use of less than an ounce of marijuana legal for adults 21 and older. Of course, it’s still illegal at the state and federal level, so…

I have to admit, one reason for this exercise was to see whether anyone else came to the conclusion that Paladin en-Vec + Worship would be a strong combination to run in this metagame, and while I haven’t found that combination in any maindecks yet, I did find it split between maindeck and sideboard in (yet another) Orzhov deck by Tim Blakely. Tim’s got good metagame tools here – Paladins to fight Gruul, Castigate and Mana Tithe to fight combo and control, Withered Wretch to manhandle Dredge and Project X. I have to admit a little bit of excitement too regarding the Zoetic Cavern, a card I really like but have yet to find room for in my decks. With Slaughter Pacts, Mortifies, Temporal Isolation, and Faith’s Fetters, there’s plenty of spot removal, with Dark Confidant to provide a steady stream of cards. This deck strikes me as a solid weapon to attack the current metagame.

Suicide Squad

Tim Blakely

7th Place at Regionals on 06-10-2007

Standard

Creatures (21)

Lands (22)

Spells (17)

Sideboard

Okay, this all turned out to be quite a large project, so I’m breaking it in half; look for Part 2 next week, spotlighting more out of the box decks and regional trivia!

Until then,

Bennie