You Lika The Juice? - Searching for the Dulce De Leche

“Dulce de leche in Spanish is a milk-based sauce. Found as both a syrup and a caramel candy, it is prepared by slowly heating sweetened milk to create a product that is similar in taste to caramel. It is also the basis for the elaboration of many sweets and desserts which form part of the classics of the Argentine gastronomy.” — Wikipedia

Right now my utility room looks like Fortress Girl Scout Cookies. If there was nuclear Armageddon tomorrow, I could crouch down among the boxes to shield myself from radiation, and then have enough calories in colorful boxes to last me months.

If I rationed myself…

…Which of course is impossible when it comes to Girl Scout Cookies.

I swear Little Brownie Bakers LLC in Louisville, KY must lace these things with marijuana (the state’s #1 cash crop). Serving size 5 cookies?! Thankfully nearly all these boxes are for other people, and soon we’ll have them distributed and be left with our few little boxes to munch on and enjoy without overdosing on sugar too much.

It occurred to me there are some parallels you can draw between Girl Scout Cookies and the Standard Metagame. For the most part it seems the top deck and cookie archetypes never change. Like Faerie decks, you always have Samoas, which people can’t quit because they’re so damn good. The Lemon Cremes are like 5 Color Control – always there with the same great taste, but sporting a new look to let you fool yourself into thinking it’s something new. Tagalongs are like Boat Brew decks – peanut butter and chocolate (Kithkin plus red/Reveillark shenanigans), two great tastes that go great together. Cedric Phillips‘ Red/White Aggro deck is like the Do-Si-Dos – tastes almost like the Tagalongs (Boat Brew) but crunchier. Black/White tokens are the Trefoils of the metagame – kind of satisfying but ultimately a bit boring. Black/Green Elves are Thin Mints, a classic, always there, a little uninspiring but they get the job done.

The new type in the mix is called Dulce De Leche, “Latin-inspired” caramel cookies. I’ve been trying to find a corresponding deck type, something fresh and inspiring. I’m not sure whether Standard is just locked in place due to a handful of overpowering cards from Lorwyn stifling everything else, or whether the new Pro Tour format of splitting between Limited and Constructed just cut too much into preparation time for major innovation, but the Standard metagame coming out of Kyoto was a gigantic snorefest.

The big innovation was a new 1/6 life-gaining wall for Five-Color Control? Zzzz…

Other than that, it was a sea of Cryptic Commands, Bitterblossoms, Cloudgoat Rangers, and Reflecting Pools. If insomnia is your problem, may I recommend you scroll through the 89 decks from Pro Tour-Kyoto that earned 15 points or more across the eight rounds of Standard. I guarantee you’ll be yawning in no time, though Shuhei Nakamura Swans deck might have you crack open your other eye until you realize it’s just another Cryptic Command deck underneath the weird trench coat.

You could argue Robinson’s Ziggurat deck is a new archetype (or instead argue it’s an updated Doran deck), and I certainly had some fun running a precursor to it at the Star City $5K. I’ve done a little work on the deck since Kyoto and I may very well run it at tonight’s Friday Night Magic at Richmond Comix.

I find it very interesting how strong the siren call of Reveillark is when working on the Ziggurat deck, which leads me to wonder if the Ziggurat deck is just a “bad” Reveillark deck that doesn’t (yet) play Reveillarks. Robinson’s deck has got Doran, Birds, Hierarchs and Scullers, all creatures that play nice with Reveillark. My version runs Sowers, and Archmages in the sideboard, and lately I’ve been considering Mulldrifters and so yes– Reveillark. The deck has early game explosive potential, but then it’s very easy to run out of steam; Reveillark ripped off the top goes a long way towards getting you back into the game.

Here’s what I’ve been kicking around:

Ziggy Hierarch and the Faeries from Mars

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 03-22-2009

Standard

Creatures (32)

Lands (23)

Spells (5)

3 Thoughtseize
2 Path to Exile

Sideboard

I’m hoping that between the Scullers, Thoughtseize, and Cliques there’s enough disruption here to allow the rest of the deck to smash face and/or reload with Reveillark. Yeah, how cool is it you can throw Cliques in here with zero strain on the mana?

The sideboard is still a work in progress as I write this, but I like the Archers a lot, and Robinson did well with them, scrubbing the skies of Bitterblossom and Procession tokens (along with most Faeries). The Gleeful Sabotage seem to be a necessary evil to combat the mad-tokens-plus-double-glorious-anthem draw that seems to be oh too familiar up at my local FNM.

So is this my Dulce De Leche? Maybe…

Wait, some of you may be asking, what about your Esper Elixir deck? While I had a good time with it and there are some potent synergies, I think there were some pretty big flaws in the deck that had me worried about it’s overall competitiveness. The creatures are tiny, and the combo is relatively slow to get set up. For now, it’s being set aside pending new technology from Alara Reborn.

I was kind of grooving on Gael Bailly-Maitre’s Doran Elves deck, another rare eye-catching decklist amongst the ditto decks from Kyoto.

Doran the Explorer

Gael Bailly-Maitre

47th Place at Pro Tour on 03-01-2009

Standard

Creatures (31)

Lands (22)

Spells (7)

Sideboard

There’s lots of good stuff going on here, a little Hierarch/Doran action, plus some good Elf stomping with Vanquisher, and a little reload capacity with Ranger of Eos to either double or triple-down on Exalted, go get the Archer, or chain a Harbinger into Doran. I’m uncertain about the 4 maindeck Gaddock Teegs; just lately he seems so ineffective even surrounded by lots of other creatures that demand creature-kill attention. I can’t help but think you’d just want to go Elf-stylin’ with Profane Command instead. Teeg is a nuisance; Profane is a game winner.

Boarding Wall of Reverence in a Doran deck seems just silly good times, and might make the deck worth playing right there.

So is this my Dulce De Leche? Hmmm…

Some of you may remember me coming around on Dramatic Entrance lately, with all the amazing G/x creatures in Shards and especially Conflux. While I was mostly focusing on the ambush potential of Meglonoth, there are many other approaches too. One way is this little gem from about a month ago, utilizing a nifty enchantment I’d forgotten all about:

Ajnar25’s Mono-Green
Magic Online Premier Event

16 Forest
4 Mosswort Bridge
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Deity of Scars
4 Deus of Calamity
4 Devoted Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Oversoul of Dusk
4 Primalcrux
3 Woodfall Primus
3 Dramatic Entrance
4 Impromptu Raid
4 Overgrowth

Sideboard
3 Cloudthresher
2 Deity of Scars
1 Dramatic Entrance
4 Eyes of the Wisent
4 Naturalize
1 Woodfall Primus

Impromptu Raid – how cool is that? Of course in this deck you’re just firing blind, so Ajnar25 stuffs it to the gills with humongous monsters with trample (or pseudo-evasion in the Oversoul of Dusk’s protection), and lots of mana accelerants to activate the Raid multiple times. Of course, hitting a Primus with the Raid is gravy, you get it’s comes into play ability, hasty trampling, and then when you sacrifice it, the persist creatures comes back for good (and nuking another non-creature permanent).

One of my readers sent in a deck very similar to this one but using Telling Time – what a perfect addition to the deck! Local rogue deck maestro Michael Rooks also whipped out an Impromptu Raid deck some months back that featured at least 1-2 copies of Hag Hedge-Mage, whose “two or more forests” ability lets you put a card in your graveyard on top of your deck, ripe for Impromptu Raiding.

My buddy Jay Delazier also strongly advocated Maelstrom Archangel in a Dramatic Entrance deck, since it’s basically got a Dramatic Entrance attached to it if it attacks and is not blocked. With all these crazy ideas swirling around, here’s another deck I’ve been kicking around:

Impromptu Entrance

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 03-22-2009

Standard

Creatures (26)

Lands (23)

Spells (11)

I really like the Noble Hierarchs in here, pumping up your Raiding Monster even more. I worry about little bit about the relatively lower-fat density with just 15 targets; even with Telling Time, it might not be enough to reliably hit with the Raid.

I figure I’d run the full-boat of Cloudthreshers here to help keep the skies clear for Maelstrom Archangel to hit and fire off her ability.

So is this my Dulce De Leche? Probably not for tonight, since I’m still short of Archangels and Progenitus, but once I get those I may very well give this a try!

“Enjoy” the Silence

I found it interesting last week, after writing my mini-rant against the M10 preview card Silence that Tom LaPille brought up the card in his weekly column over at Wizards. In “The Yang of Timmy,” Tom talked about other types of Timmy players including one he called “griefer” Timmy. This guy gets great enjoyment from Magic by making other players miserable, and I kind of hope that Tom had his tongue firmly in cheek describing how they try and accommodate that type of player (the kind of player we would all be happier if they never came back to our game table). I’d like to think that Wizards wouldn’t be so desperate to reach every possible customer that they’d make cards specifically designed to appeal to players that like to make other players miserable.

Anyway, I found this bit regarding Nate “Bennie’s new hero” Heiss rather interesting:

Sometimes people who work on Magic fight to kill cards that enable griefing. Extremely annoying cards sometimes don’t survive, but other times those people’s efforts are thwarted because we want to make griefer Timmies happy too. One instance of this from Magic 2010 is Silence, another one of the cards that Aaron Forsythe previewed in his announcement. Former Building on a Budget author and R&D member Nate Heiss argued that the card was a very bad thing to print because it was both miserable and powerful in Tournament Constructed, and he built tons decks that included it. He would then play them against various people to try to prove his point.

Nate’s decks tended to include a bunch of little creatures, some removal spells, and Silences. He would curve out with some creatures and then Silence his opponent during upkeep when he thought his opponent might cast a spell. He would then try to convince his opponents that they were annoyed, but mostly they would just draw their card, play a land, and then wait a turn to play their spells. Sometimes, his opponents even had the audacity to respond to his Silences with instant removal spells, in which case the Silence didn’t hurt them very much at all. Other times, both Nate and his opponent would create a creature stall, and when he drew a Silence in that situation he was effectively down a card.

In the end, Nate’s efforts did not stop the card, and ironically convinced the Magic 2010 development team that the card was a great idea to print. He showed us that Silence wasn’t going to be too powerful when used merely to grief people and that Silence would make people who enjoyed griefing very excited. Nate never really came around to this view, but the card made it out the door intact.

While I’m glad somebody in R&D caught a clue that a spell like Silence might not be the best card to have in M10, I think it’s a shame that the rest of them concluded the card was just fine after Nate tested against a bunch of veteran Magic players trying to prove his point. Of course veteran Magic players aren’t going to be annoyed by a card like Silence; nearly all of them remember Orim’s Chant, and most likely played against cards considerably more annoying (Stasis, I call you!). To someone who’s played the game for a while, Silence is a nuisance card.

Did anyone build a deck like I posted in the forums, and play it against a new player to see what his or her reaction would be?

>Opponent plays plains, go.
>During new player’s upkeep, Silence. NP plays his forest and passes the turn.
>Opponent plays island, go.
>NP plays another forest and is glad to finally casts his Llanowar Elf. It gets hit with Remove Soul.
>Opponent plays plains, go.
>NP draws another Forest, plays it, and casts Troll Ascetic. It gets hit with Lapse of Reason, put on top of library.
>Opponent plays island, Jace. Draws a card, go.
>During NP’s upkeep, Silence. NP draws Troll Ascetic but can’t play it OR ANYTHING!!

Sure, a veteran Magic player is going to roll his eyes, think god, what an idiot and soldier on, very likely breaking through eventually and beat the crap out of Silence-boy once he draws a couple lands in a row. A veteran Magic player is also going to realize that Silence can be a decent weapon against idiot counter-spell-happy players.

But what about the guy who just started playing a few weeks back, has been working on adding cards to his M10 Intro Pack, and suddenly he’s playing against a guy that won’t let him play the game. Think back to when you were a brand new player, what was it about Magic that really hooked you? It was casting cool spells, summoning fantastic monsters, and playing the game. Counterspells and mass removal are harsh enough for new players to accept, and adding Silence to the mix just seems like a bad idea when the overarching goal of your corporate strategy is player acquisition.

Unless… unless… He showed us … that Silence would make people who enjoyed griefing very excited.

Unless… Wizards really does make cards specifically to appeal to players who like to make other players miserable. Do they figure that the players who get hooked on Magic by a card like Silence will outnumber the new players they lose due to having one too many Silences cast on them?

Nate, my man – I appreciate your efforts. You need to find some more people like you to populate R&D to offset all the griefer sympathizers.

EDH this Weekend!

Before I go, just wanted to give local EDH fans a heads-up that Richmond Comix will be hosting another Elder Dragon Highlander game this Sunday at noon, so shuffle up your big deck and come on down! I’ve got a pretty damn good deck built for this event that I think will be a lot of fun, and I look forward to sharing it and the game details with you next week.

Have a great weekend!

Bennie

starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com