I’ll be going over my trip to “Grand Prix: Roanoke” last weekend, but first, a few relevant words from the soapbox…
“What a great time to be playing tournament Magic!” — Mike Flores
Sure… if you already own at least 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
I was reading Mike’s column from last week where that quote above came from, and it just sickened me that each of his featured decks ran Jaces.
Patrick Dickmann’s Mythic Conscription
Standard – 1st Place – 2010 Nationals Qualifier in Germany
Jace, the Mind Sculptor count: 3
Tasaki Ryo’s Mythic Conscription (really, U/W Control w/Conscription)
Standard – Top 8 – Grand Prix: Sendai
Jace, the Mind Sculptor count: 3
Brian Kibler Next Level Bant
Standard – 1st Place – Grand Prix: Sendai
Jace, the Mind Sculptor count: 3
Ali Aintrazi Turboland
Standard – 5th Place — StarCityGames.com Open — Philadelphia
Jace, the Mind Sculptor count: 3
Ali Aintrazi justifiably got a lot of buzz for a brand new Standard archetype… that of course relies on Jace to make it competitive. Louis Scott-Vargas nearly took his spin on it all the way to victory in the Seattle StarCityGames.com Open this past weekend, ultimately settling for a still awesome second place victory.
Another interesting new deck from Philly too was Mark Hornung G/R/u “Eldrazi Green” deck. It is chock full of great creatures, two Eldrazi Monuments… and 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor to make it competitive. If you look at the Top 16 decks from Philly, 9 of them ran 3-4 Jaces. The other decks were multiple Jund builds and one each Red Deck Wins and Naya. At GP: Sendai, 6 of the Top 8 decks featured Jace. In Seattle, half the Top 16 decks rode Jace to victory, including the new-ish Brilliant Ultimatum, which of course relies on Jace to pull it together. Seriously, you can break down the top decks into Jund, Jund, Jace Deck A, Jace Deck B, Jace Deck C, Jace Deck D, and so forth. Yes, occasionally Naya or Red Deck or Vampires squeaks in from outside the Jund/Jace hammerlock to nab a Top 8 berth, but it is incredibly rare.
Jace has seriously warped the format; you either play Jace or play threats that Jace can’t really bounce for profit (haste, comes-into-play effects, Planeswalkers). Or, ideally, you stuff both into your deck. Even frickin’ Baneslayer Angel isn’t even all that good anymore unless you’re playing Jace yourself to trump your opponent’s Jace. Jace also takes what would otherwise be sometimes inconsistent and draw-dependent strategies and makes them smooth as butter. It’s also nearly impossible to get land-screwed or flooded with Jace on the board. Playing with Jace feels like playing an entirely higher level of Magic, with your hand nearly always stocked with gas. It makes me think we really need to have Brainstorm effects in other colors or none at all. How nice would it be to have Sylvan Library back as a non-Blue option?
I hate to go back to griping about broken Mythics again, but I can’t help it; each time I hear someone else rapturously drone on and on about what a great format Standard is right now, the first thing that pops to mind is “yeah, and I bet you already have your 3-4 Jace, the Mind Sculptors.” Got Jace? Then the Standard world is, indeed, your oyster. This reminds me of Standard a year or so back, where there were constantly new and awesome innovative decks cropping up after each new release… and nearly each new innovation started with 4 Cryptic Commands. Only it’s even worse because we’re now talking about a card that’s rapidly approaching $100 a pop, one that’s easier than Cryptic Command to work into more decks with just two colored mana in its cost. Seriously, Wizards… are you really happy that the format has come to this?
I’m not whining sour-grapes style because I don’t have Jaces myself—I’d be complaining about Jace even if I’d been prescient enough to nab four on pre-order. The only difference is that I’d be slightly less annoyed because I’d be able to play decks with Blue in them.* Being able to play the card that’s screwing up Standard doesn’t change the fact that the card is screwing up Standard, and putting up some serious roadblocks for players who want to compete. I want Magic to be as fun and enjoyable to as many people as possible as it is fun and enjoyable to me, and a card like Jace is making it difficult.
I wrote most of this opening rant before I headed down to Roanoke, but Jace in particular and Planeswalkers in general were on my mind all weekend, especially after the Top 8 decks for Saturday’s PTQ was announced and the number of Jaces alone could buy a decent used car. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start things off properly, tournament-report-style.
Four of us wanted to go down and hit both PTQs, so Josh, Michael, Kevin & I rented two rooms and made the long, dark, lonely drive to Roanoke Friday night. I’d just bought a used car that was newer and more road-worthy than my van, but the AC needed fixing, and of course the fixing required a brand-new AC kit, so nearly $900 later it was done. Ponying up that much money for a non-critical car function was pretty hard, but given that it’s mid-June and only going to get hotter and more humid in Richmond over the next couple months, I consoled myself that I’d enjoy crispy, cool air as I made my way from points A to points B all summer.
I picked up the car late Friday right before we needed to leave town. I turned on the air, and it seemed only mildly cool, but since the early evening was relatively mild and I just rolled on with the windows down. Kevin suggested that, since it was a brand new AC system it might need a little time to “warm up,” so to speak. Turns out that initial mildly cool air was the last time it provided air conditioning all weekend (which also happened to be incredibly hot and humid), and on top of that the check engine light kicked on around 10pm that night and came on and off all weekend. My full-time job is with a company that manufactures consumer products, and I know firsthand that when you mass produce, sometimes brand new products fail, so my guess is that the brand new kit was defective somehow. I also kept my fingers crossed and assumed that the check engine light would be related to the AC; so good so far, I made it around Roanoke all weekend and made the long haul back to Richmond without incident besides being stifling hot and sweaty. Hopefully my mechanic will confirm that this week.
In the week leading up to the PTQs, I’d done some theorizing on the format, trying to figure out how to beat Jace decks without being a dog to Jund. I’d eventually cooked up something like this:
Creatures (31)
- 4 Siege-Gang Commander
- 4 Elvish Visionary
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 3 Thornling
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 4 Leatherback Baloth
- 4 Nest Invader
- 4 Vengevine
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (12)
The idea being have early threats (Hierarch, Leatherback Baloth), haste creatures (Bloodbraid, Vengevine, and Thornling), and creatures with comes-into-play abilities (Siege-Gang Commander), making your threats stronger against Jace’s bounce ability.
I liked the theory behind the deck, but I wanted to get in some playtesting before the PTQs, and we ended up getting into Roanoke way too late for an old man who was pretty beat from working all day and driving all evening. What I ended up deciding on for the first PTQ Saturday morning was based pretty heavily on the G/W/b Knightfall deck Joshua Harris got 37th in the Philly Open. He went 7-3 on the day and faced off against a pretty wide range of decks:
Round 1, Won 2-0 vs. Naya Allies
Round 2, Won 2-0 vs. Jund
Round 3, Won 2-0 vs. Sovereign Mythic
Round 4, Won 2-1 vs. Red Deck Wins
Round 5, Lost 0-2 vs. Sovereign Mythic
Round 6, Lost 0-2 vs. U/W Tap Out
Round 7, Won 2-1 vs. Sovereign Mythic
Round 8, Won 2-1 vs. Cruel Control
Round 9, Lost 0-2 vs. Sovereign Mythic
Round 10, Won 2-1 vs. Sovereign Mythic
(foreshadowing—note the distinctive lack of Next Level Bant here…)
Joshua’s main deck had 2 copies of Grim Discovery, a card that I’ve been trying to use since I first saw it spoiled, but most of the time I want it to be something else whenever I draw it. I cut the card and added two more Elspeth, Knight-Errants because Jay had let me borrow his two copies and Elspeth is simply awesome. I also cut the Tectonic Edge and added a second Sejiri Steppe. Here’s what I registered:
Creatures (23)
- 1 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Baneslayer Angel
- 4 Master of the Wild Hunt
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 2 Stoneforge Mystic
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (17)
Spells (17)
My sideboard was quite different than Joshua’s, though one of the reasons I went with his deck were the two Identity Crisis, and I kind of wished I’d ran three since it is such a back-breaking card. I added one more Doom Blade but probably should have gone ahead with four copies since having 8 instant speed removal spells is pretty handy against Mythic Conscription.
Luminarch Ascension is a much more potent card against slow control decks than the Duress Joshua ran, and I hoped that might turn around the U/W matchup. Mark of Asylum is a personal favorite of mine, quite helpful in keeping your early creatures in play either to use or to block aggressive decks sporting red removal, and it also combos awesomely with Master of the Wild Hunt.
127 people mustered out for Day 1 of Grand Prix: Roanoke, which would mean 7 rounds of Swiss.
Round 1 versus David, Next Level Bant
The first game was a rout. I had to mulligan, and kept a playable six, but he jumps out the game fast with an early Jace, the Mind Sculptor and soon Vengevine/Elspeth combine to remove large chunks of my life total. Second game I get a turn 4 Identity Crisis thanks to Lotus Cobra, which removed two Jaces, a Vengevine, a Sea Gate Oracle and a Gideon from the game. Yeah, that was pretty ridiculous, especially since I had a Pulse and Path in my hand to deal with his top decks. I won that one! The last game we lock horns for a bit, I Pulse his early Jace but he gets another one and eventually takes over the game at 6 life and puts me away. Not the way I wanted to start things off, but I could possibly win out, right?
0-1
Round 2 versus Chris, Grixis Planeswalkers
I start out with some decent acceleration but he kills all the threats I get on the board, as Grixis is so good at doing. Then the Planeswalkers start hitting: Jace, Chandra, and soon big Daddy Nicol Bolas arrives in time to recruit my freshly cast Baneslayer Angel. Yeah, that was pretty ugly. Second game I surprise him with a turn 2 Luminarch Ascension, and he’s got nothing to stop it from going active. As soon as I make an Angel token he scoops at 20 life. The last game I mulligan, keep a slightly sketchy hand with two land, no mana acceleration, but the lovely Ascension again. Only this time Chris nails me with a turn 1 Inquisition of Kozilek. Suddenly my hand looks pretty atrocious, and my draws don’t help any; I don’t see a third land for way too long, and by the time I get moving he’s got Chandra on the board (which I Pulse) and then drops Jace, which I can’t answer and its soon over.
0-2
I check the drop box and fume a bit over Planeswalkers in general and Jace in particular. Then I get in a side ROE draft, hoping for maybe half the ridiculous luck I had opening Mythics in my last paper ROE draft. No such luck, but I do first pick Student of Warfare and cobble together what I believe to be a pretty strong leveler deck, with lots of levelers, Time of Heroes, and a couple Venerated Teachers. I’ve also got some White removal and Blue bounce. I like my chances, despite no broken rares or Mythics. My first round opponent is Jason, and we both mulligan; I keep with three lands, a three-drop Leveler, a three-drop Invoker, and my bounce spell. Not ideal, but we’ll see what happens. Jason stalls on two mana and hasn’t done anything; sensing maybe a removal spell, I play the Invoker first and it survives. I then play my leveler and he counters it with Deprive. Eventually he taps down my Invoker with Narcolepsy. I draw nothing but lands, eventually getting 8 lands in play, and when I tap down his dudes during his upkeep, he plays the Blue Aura to steal my Invoker. When he finishes me off, I’ve got 12 of my 17 lands in play, having drawn 5 non-land cards. The second game I again have to mulligan, and it goes a little bit better; by the time he wins I’ve played 10 lands, and drawn a whopping 9 non-land cards, including just one leveler which he countered with Deprive.
Looking for a scapegoat for the rage that I’m feeling, I shuffle out the Student of Warfare that led me down the leveler path and rip it to pieces. It feels good. I’ve never ripped up a rare Magic card before, but I felt like I needed to do something drastic to break what was turning out to be some pretty horrific bad breaks.
As I sit off to the side I mull over Standard, which feels like its pretty much being taken over by Planeswalkers in general and Jace in particular. In addition to the raw power a Planeswalker offers in his abilities, there’s also the massive tempo boost you get from forcing your opponent to deviate from his plan of sending creatures at your life totals to reduce you to zero as quickly as possible. Instead, you’ve got to send them at the ‘walker, and if your opponent has creatures in play as well things get pretty ugly, especially if you’ve got to really extend yourself to push the damage through. While a creature deck can afford that deviation to handle a deck packing 3 or 4 Planeswalker cards, when you’ve got to deal with 2-3 times that number it becomes a real problem. What you need are one-for-one card answers for Planeswalkers, and plenty of them.
I pull out Maelstrom Pulse and Vampire Hexmage, four of each. This will be the anti-Planeswalker core. Each is cheaper to cost than the Planewalkers we’re concerned about, and get rid of it no matter how many loyalty counters it has. What else?
Looking for heavy-hitters, I grab Vengevines and Abyssal Persecutors (grumbling a bit about their Mythic-ness), along with Putrid Leech. I initially have white in the deck for Paths to Exile, Knights of the Reliquary, and possibly World Queller, but worry a bit about mana since I’d want some heavy black. Do I really need the White? Black does have Doom Blade and Smother available.
Michael Rooks sits down, intrigued with the core idea, and helps brainstorm. Kenny Mayer stops by and likes what we’ve got cooking, but he’s still in the hunt for the blue envelope and can’t stay long.
Soon, all of us rooming together are out of contention, and Josh proposes we go back to the hotel for some testing. He wants to play Mythic Conscription on Sunday and has not played the deck at all, so I take my brew back after a quick stop at Sheets for food and adult beverages. Once he’s got Conscription together, I run my new concoction against him, since it’s a Tier 1 deck I can certainly expect to face and his version runs 7 Planeswalkers. Initial results are promising, though I end up evolving the deck quite a bit and end up with this:
Creatures (25)
- 3 Royal Assassin
- 4 Elvish Visionary
- 4 Putrid Leech
- 2 Scute Mob
- 4 Vampire Hexmage
- 4 Cadaver Imp
- 4 Vengevine
Lands (17)
Spells (18)
Sideboard
While I was initially trying a couple Grim Discoveries to recur Hexmages, the lack of saclands in the two-color version had me try something else pretty quickly – Cadaver Imps! They were surprisingly good as Vengevine engines, though I needed to make sure I had enough cheap creatures that would be likely to die early that I could play the same turn as the Imp. Scute Mobs were nice as beefy threats you could cast in the same turn as another creature to return the Vengevine. Royal Assassin was a late addition to increase removal capacity with a creature. The Collar made it in to help make the small dudes a bit more useful later on.
The deck ended up being pretty good at what I wanted it to do – keep Planeswalkers off the board. It also had a pretty strong game against Mythic Conscription, though it was by no means dominating. It was pretty late by the time I’d finalized the maindeck and everyone else was ready for bed. Concerned about Jund and Red decks, I tapped into our early experiences with Eldrazi Warp World decks, which would hold them back with hordes of chump blockers they could never punch through, and threw in Pawns and Predators on instinct. Deathmark and a fourth Assassin seemed like no-brainers, and I tapped two Bogs to help with Vengevines and any random graveyard strategies I ran across. Finally Acidic Slime was catch-all utility that also played nice with Vengevine and Cadaver Imps.
As I tried to drift off to sleep, I worried about playing this deck on Sunday. I really liked a lot of what I had going on, but I felt like it was probably a good distance from optimal, and it just didn’t feel like it had enough powerful things happening. Standard right now is dominated by high-powered cards, and I worried I’d be the crazy guy with the tricky swordplay that would just get shot down by Indiana Jones’s pistol.
When I woke up I decided I wanted to play Josh’s Warp World deck, which he had sleeved up. It was certainly not lacking in powerful plays, though my big problem was that I’d not played his Naya version before. We made some tweaks to the maindeck and sideboard, and this is what I played:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Siege-Gang Commander
- 3 Elvish Visionary
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 4 Avenger of Zendikar
- 1 Terastodon
- 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
- 3 Ondu Giant
- 4 Overgrown Battlement
- 4 Wall of Omens
Lands (12)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
I ended up going a very unimpressive 1-2-1, and I’ll spare you the blow by blow since this is getting pretty long. I did however have a few fun moments to relay to you.
My first round opponent Andrew was playing Vampires. I managed to destroy him in the second game by accelerating to an early Terastodon, which killed two of his four lands and one of my lands. The next turn I crashed in, he killed my 9/9 with his Nighthawk, and my Elephant and Bloodbraid with his Elephants. I then played another Terastodon to kill one of his two lands, and this time traded in two more lands for two Elephants. This time my 9/9 got there. Of course, games 1 and 3 he got an early Vampire Nocturnus and flew over top of my ground-pounding silliness and killed me as I prayed for Eldrazi Monument to save me.
I lamented to Josh that he’d neglected to tell me how to sideboard against Vampires, and he laughed saying I had played one of only two people out of the 112 players that were playing Vampires. Two? Yep, Josh said his opponent was a girl playing Vampires, only his Mythic Conscription deck had given him better results than I. I cursed him for putting her into the loser’s bracket, telling him with my luck I’d end up playing Vampires again, despite the long odds… what, 1.8% or so chance?
Round 2, a pleasant young woman named Mary sits across from me. She sets down a purple deckbox sporting a sticker of Edward from the Twilight movies. That’s a pretty big tip-off, eh?
Game 1 she beats me down with fliers, getting me down to 4 life before I cast an emergency Warp World. I’m pretty worried about it because she had just cast Malakir Bloodwitch, so it’s entirely possible she kills me when Warp resolves. I’ve got nine permanents to her eight… and when things settle she’s got two Vampire Nighthawks and a Vampire Nocturnus in play and one fetchland. I’ve got ground pounders of course, and one Siege-Gang Commander, with enough Red mana to fling two Goblins. My only play is killing one Nighthawk and hope Nocturnus doesn’t reveal a black card on her turn. She draws, and there’s a sacland on top. She sacs off her sacland and shuffles, I cut… into a Black card. She then reveals the sacland she has in hand. Yeah, it was pretty hopeless. I board out the Warps and bring in Monuments and Summoning Traps, and things play out similar to game 2 from last round, with Terastodon wreaking havoc on her mana, and I pull out a victory. Last game we run out of time, but I’ve got the pieces of a fast victory, including Avenger of Zendikar and Eldrazi Monument. I have to play my acceleration just perfectly, but screw it up because I thought I had 3 of the extra turns instead of 2. Josh, who’s watching over my shoulder, says I actually could have made it if I’d done something different in one of my very early turns. Ah well, we end up with a draw.
Game 1 with my fourth round opponent Mike was epic… for him! We both mulligan, but I stop at six; he has to mull down to three and keeps. No way I can lose this, right? I feel kind of bad because the only action my deck gives me is accelerating into a turn five Terastodon while he has nothing but a leveled Enclave Cryptologist and three lands in play. One of the lands is a sacland, so I nuke his other two lands and give him two elephants, while I get a 3/3 and a 9/9 elephant.
On his turn he loots, plays a land and then a Renegade Doppelganger. I then crash in with my Elephants and he blocks the 9/9. On his turn he loots, drops an Extractor Demon in the graveyard, plays a third land, and unearths the Demon, copies it with the Doppelganger, and smacks me through the air for 10. I can’t punch through with enough damage to kill him so I pray he doesn’t hit another Extractor Demon. The Demon removes itself from the game, milling a couple more cards. Mike draws, loots… and drops another Extractor Demon into the graveyard.
Yep. I just lost that one. As horrific it was to be on the losing end of that, I have to admire a game when you can come back from such a terrible, terrible starting deficit. It was very impressive. He whups me the next game with a fast and steady stream of Vengevines and Bloodghasts from his graveyard.
Mike was playing the “Vengevine Crabs” deck that made Top 8 the day before, and I’ve got the decklist below for those who are interested.
Now, let’s take a quick gander at what decks had a shot at the Roanoke blue envelopes. For the weekend, combined Top 8s from Saturday and Sunday:
2 Sovereign Mythic
4 U/W Tap Out
6 Next Level Bant
Super Friends
Jund (with Jace — shall we call it “Next Level Jund”?)
Jund (classic, no Jace)
U/B Vengevine Crabs
Only two total decks did not run Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and even one of the two Jund decks squeezed in Jace! Actually, Brad Sheppard’s four-color Jund deck has a lot of neat, non-standard Jund stuff going on and I imagine he’ll get some much-deserved attention for the deck, check it out if you haven’t seen it yet:
Creatures (24)
- 4 Sedraxis Specter
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 3 Borderland Ranger
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 4 Sea Gate Oracle
- 1 Tuktuk the Explorer
- 4 Vengevine
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (20)
Spells (10)
Sideboard
Of course, this deck rather proves my point, that Jace is so powerful it’s worth stretching your deck to include it. Yep, Jace’s assimilation of Standard is nearly complete; next stop– Naya splashing Blue for Jace!
Here’s the funky Crabs deck:
Creatures (35)
- 4 Merfolk Looter
- 2 Fatestitcher
- 4 Extractor Demon
- 4 Sedraxis Alchemist
- 4 Bloodghast
- 4 Hedron Crab
- 2 Sphinx of Lost Truths
- 4 Enclave Cryptologist
- 3 Renegade Doppelganger
- 4 Vengevine
Lands (16)
Spells (9)
Sideboard
I’m soon on the way back to Richmond with Kevin and the check engine light keeping me company. Thankfully, despite being hot and sweaty, the engine gets us home just fine.
It’s crystal clear to me that Standard right now is not healthy, it’s not a great time to be playing Magic. If you really want to be competitive, you’ve got to beg, borrow or steal at least three copies of one particular $80 card, in addition to all the other cards you need. That’s just nuts. Five different varieties of Jace decks does not a healthy environment make.
Before I wrap up, I did want to extend a special thanks to Eric Brown and Brian Emmerson, whose Jace generosity enabled two of us to play decks with Blue in them over the weekend.
If you’re in the area, I plan on going up to Richmond Comix Friday night and playing Archenemy EDH. My goals include mass destruction, world domination, and toying with anyone foolish enough to stand in my way. Care to try and stop me? MUA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAA!
Take care…
Bennie
starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com
P.S. If you’ve read the most recent issue of Beckett Magic magazine (which hit stands right after Rise of the Eldrazi released), please email me with your thoughts on the issue, I’m looking for positive and negative feedback to make the magazine even better!
New to EDH? Be sure to check out my EDH Primer, part 1, part 2, and part 3.
My current EDH decks:
Jacques Le Vert (lots of legends, good stuff)
Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund (DRAGONS, RAHRRR!!)
Halfdane (Clone ‘n’ Kaldra)
Reki, the History of Kamigawa (more legends than you can shake a stick at)
* Though I’d likely feel guilty each time I smashed a non-Jund player who wasn’t playing Jace… especially if he was trying to play Blue without it.