Before I get into the meat of the column, I wanted to take a moment for two quick hits.
First, congrats to my man Adrian Sullivan for rocking his PTQ with his Gaea’s Blessing goodness. I was around when he first turned the Magic strategy junkies on their ear with his wacky Baron Harkonnen deck, so I know he must be particularly thrilled to get back on the Pro Tour with a modern incarnation. As a rogue deckbuilder who’s actually good at it too, Adrian is my Magic hero.
Second, did you know that StarCityGames.com owner Pete Hoefling qualified for Pro Tour: San Diego and flew out there to play last weekend? There are two reasons why you probably didn’t know – number one, Pete isn’t the kind of guy to shout to the heavens about his qualification, though as the owner of this fine site he certainly could have tossed up a tournament report or something if he wanted to puff out his chest and strut. But Pete doesn’t roll like that; he leaves that sort of stuff to his bevy of egomaniacal columnists. He and Chris Woltereck quietly qualified and told their friends about it, and that was that.
The number two reason you don’t know is because no one on Wizard’s Pro Tour print coverage team bothered to mention it. Despite StarCityGames.com being a gigantic force in the Magic Community for nearly the entire time the game has been in existence. Despite coverage reporter Josh Bennett getting his Magic writing start on Pete’s site, despite coverage reporter and Magic archivist Brian David-Marshall writing for this here site between 2003 and 2006. Despite Pro Tour Field Journalist Craig Jones being a current columnist for Pete (though I cut Craig a wee bit of slack, since covering other players isn’t really his purview). Only Rich Hagon mentioned Pete briefly in his 50 teams roundup during one of his podcasts, and if you coughed you would have missed it.
Now, Pete’s a low-key guy and wouldn’t have necessarily wanted coverage, but when someone as huge in the Magic Community as Pete gets to play in the Pro Tour, it should be a news item; Pete’s a businessman, but he’s a player too, and the vast StarCityGames.com family would certainly love to read about how he was doing. How did his first draft go? What strategy did his come up with ahead of time, and how did it pan out? He should have been in an early feature match, or a quick blog entry with an accompanying photo; just a few sentences! Pete likely doesn’t care, but it pisses me off, and is yet another sign of how insular, elite, and Pro-centric Wizards-folk can be. He’s not a staple on the Pro Tour, so he gets ignored in the coverage despite being a giant in the Magic Community.
Major slops to the entire San Diego coverage team.
(Now, let me be clear that this opinion is my own and does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of Pete, nor our editors Craig or The Ferrett, but I do feel it was something that needed to be said; what do you think? Let us know in the forums.)
Okay, enough of the rant. Let’s move on to something fun – Mojo!
Before Regionals, I was fooling around on MTGO, and Rivien Swanson dropped me a message asking if I would be interested in playing Two-Headed Giant Momir/Jhoira Basic. Since my release league wasn’t over, I did not have the Future Sight participation avatar Jhoira, but I did have Momir Vig. For those who aren’t familiar with Magic Online’s Vanguard format, there are various avatars you can choose to represent you, and each avatar has certain abilities that come into play if you play a Vanguard game. Momir Vig has a really nifty ability, and you don’t even need to have anything but a bunch of basic lands and the Momir Vig avatar to play a game of Magic. It has become so popular that Wizards even runs MTGO Premier events utilizing the format. StarCityGames.com has had some great articles on Momir Basic, and you should check them out if you haven’t seen them already (the Momir Basic Primer by Jeff Till, and Mark Young had two excellent articles on the format).
When I saw the Jhoira avatar’s Vanguard ability, it was obviously templated on Momir… only instead of making random creatures you got to choose from three random sorceries or instants. I had figured “Jhoira Basic” would naturally spring up, but teaming up with Momir for 2HG goodness? That sounded like too much fun!
I asked Rivien if he could give us a quick overview on the format:
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Rivien: “Momir/Jhoira 2HG consists of four players, with two teams, each composing of one Momir Basic player and one Jhoira Basic player, with the Momirs and Jhoiras seated across from one another. The premise ends up being something like Chaos Magic, a format known for introducing random effects into the play of an otherwise normal game. Consider this: The Momirs play as they always have, for the most part, making critter after critter and swinging when the opportunity arises. The Momirs act as both the bodyguards and the basis of bringing the team closer to winning – it can be difficult for Jhoira players to get viable win conditions from their spells. Crush of Wurms is one of the more fearsome ones, as is Storm Herd, especially if it’s gotten early in the game.
“The Jhoiras serve as the rule-makers, really. Their spells define, more or less, the shape of the battlefield. They have the draw, the discard, the removal, the land destruction, and so forth. Play doesn’t start for the Jhoiras until turn 3, and in my experience, the Momirs are better off holding out until 3 as well – although perhaps trying zero for a Dryad Arbor to get to three mana quickly is worth a shot. The reason for this is, that with all the spells flying around, most one and two drops will not last long – very few are worth the card investment. Contrariwise, since discard is much more prevalent in this format than in Momir Basic, a bit of caution must be used with holding cards in hand. I think this greatly increases the strategies the Momirs must use.
“For Jhoiras, if you get a spell which tampers with resources, it’s usually better to aim it at the opposing Momir – since the Momirs are more likely to produce viable win conditions with their decks, using discard or land destruction effects on them generally works better than on an opposing Jhoira, especially as the Momirs are much less likely to get draw abilities or land acceleration to recover from being smacked around.
“Jhoiras will typically want to stick to sorceries in most cases – once they get to six land, they can try for one sorcery on their turn and leave mana open on the opposing Jhoira’s turn in case they get an effect you’d like to take a chance at countering. In general, though, many instants end up being fairly narrow – either they need a target that might not be in play, or need to be employed during a very specific time. Few things are as irritating as trying to counter a spell which produces a creature token only to get removal that would have killed the creature if it were in play, and vice versa.
“If two players of varying skill levels team up, I strongly suggest the better player take the Jhoira position, as not only do Jhoira players typically have more decisions to make (their avatar can be used more than once per turn, and during other players’ turns), but also tend to have bigger potential impact on the game, like Sway of the Stars or Wrath of God.
“That said, if you’re playing Jhoira, I advise against playing more than six lands unless you get a whole mess of card drawing. The reason for this is that if you stay at six, and lands you don’t play let you play another spell for each of your turns. That’s not to say you need to avoid going over six lands in play, just that any past six should probably come from spells like Rampant Growth. Again, if you get several draw spells, this may be mitigated, and again remember that discard is very possible, so you don’t want to hold too many cards in hand.”
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Thanks, Rivien! One thing I’d like to mention is setting up the game; if I’m not mistaken, you have to set it up as Freeform Two-Headed Giant, and make sure you’re clear in the game description (and the chat shout-out) what sort of game you’re looking for. Despite that I had several people hop in the game not knowing what we were talking about, so be kind when you inform these fellows that they need to find another game. Unlike Momir Basic, Freeform means anyone can join the game with whatever deck they want; some of them mistook the format as meaning a deck running both Momir and Jhoira.
I thought I’d run through a game just so you get an idea on how they flow.
Game 1: I’m playing Jhoira, my Momir is sylvos. Our opponents are Arcee_Hotrod playing Jhoira and FabroPol with Momir.
FabroPol strikes first at two mana, randomly getting a Swarm of Rats. He also does the second play at three mana… and gets a Stronghold Rats! What are the odds for hitting a three mana rat? Swarm of Rats hits for 2. His partner Arcee_Hotrod activates Jhoira next, getting a choice of Planar Despair, Gaze of Justice, and Yamabushi Storm. Yep, that’s what’s called a whiff.
My turn 3 I activate Jhoira and get a choice of Benediction of Moons, Earthquake, and Ideas Unbound. X spells are pretty much blanks with Jhoira’s ability. Ideas Unbound would be decent once I’m in top deck mode… so I end up gaining a little life with the Benediction. My partner lays a land and passes the turn, more interested in ramping up since the odds of getting a shadow creature or something that can kill the Stronghold Rats was practically nil.
Turn 4 FabroPol swings with his rats, so me and sylvos have to discard in addition to taking four. He then makes a 4 mana creature… and it’s Subterranean Shambler – its coming into play effect kills his own rats!! Typically, when you’re Momir you make your man before attacking in case the creature that you get has haste, but if he’d done that he wouldn’t have connected and cost us two cards. Now Arcee_Hotrod activates Jhoira and gets the choice of All Sun’s Dawn, Ancestral Vision, and Wit’s End. Being able to refill his Momir partner’s hand is strong, but the other option – stripping one of us of all cards – is likely the stronger play. My partner sylvos loses his hand to Wit’s End. Ouch!
My turn, I activate Jhoira and get a choice of Mind Burst, Seize the Day, and Fury of the Horde. Mind Burst is the only real choice, and I hit the opposing Momir with it. My partner sylvos just plays the land he draws and passes the turn.
Turn 5 FabroPol pays the echo on his Shambler and attacks. Arcee_Hotrod’s Jhoira gives him the choice of Grapeshot, Stir the Grave, and Airborne Aid. Grapeshot pings us for one. My turn Jhoira gives me Acorn Harvest, Canopy Surge, and Roar of the Wurm. ROAR!!! It’s particularly nice to get a big critter on the Jhoira side because there are usually not any creatures out to block it. Sylvos decides to pitch the card he draws to activate Momir and gets an Aven Redeemer.
Turn 6 FabroPol drops a land to get to that sweet spot – six mana, the land of Dragons and large game-enders! He activates Momir and gets… Arcbound Fiend. Hmm, less than impressive, but Momir is a fickle bastard. His partner also drops a sixth land so now he gets two activations of Jhoira. First up, a choice of Commune with Nature, Choking Sands, and Corrupt. Surprisingly, he doesn’t nuke my partner’s land with Sands and instead uses Corrupt to kill his Redeemer. Second activation of Jhoira gives him Darkness, Aleatory, and Feedback Bolt to choose from. Yep, Whiffville.
Now it’s my turn. I swing with the 6/6 Wurm token and drop my sixth land. First activation of Jhoira gives me a choice of Chain of Smog, Infernal Contract, and Sickening Dreams (how evil!). Hmm, we’re currently at something like 24 life… is half our life worth four cards? I could just spend a card to knock back FabroPol… but I type “no guts, no glory!” and play the Contract. Sylvos yells at me for being insane. With a full grip I go ahead and activate Jhoira again, and have a choice of Dragonstorm, Turbulent Dreams, and Glittering Wish. I ponder the Dreams, since I could pitch two more cards to get rid of FabroPol’s two creatures, but we’d basically have paid half our life and a couple cards just to kill two creatures. The Wish on the other hand… hmm, I start to scan through my collection for gold cards that might be good to get, and end up getting a foil Kaervek (you right click on it and a little “Wish for this” window pops up). I can play him next turn, and he could really punish the opposing Jhoira. With more time I probably could have come up with something better but I didn’t want to leave everyone hanging. Now if we can just survive long enough to let Kaervek and the extra cards I’ve drawn do their thing. My partner sylvos plays a land to go up to five mana.
Turn 7 FabroPol attacks, taking us to single digits. He makes another dude, a six mana Frenetic Raptor. Arcee_Hotrod passes his turn, I suppose instead choosing two shots at countering the Kaervek. My turn, I go ahead and drop a seventh land and cast Kaervek. AH responds with Jhoira, getting a choice of Dawn Charm, Sirocco, and Giant Growth. Whiff! He responds again and gets Funeral Charm, Strength of Cedars, and Predator’s Strike; Kaervek is going to resolve! He hits me with the Charm to force the discard. Sylvos tosses the card he draws to make a five mana man, making a Skyrider Trainee.
Turn 8 FabroPol attacks with all of his guys. Sylvos accidentally clicks through the declare blockers step, something we’ve all done online in multiplayer (d’oh!). Unfortunately we needed the block to survive, so we take lethal damage and never get to see if Kaervek and my full grip could punch us through.
The next game I play goes much longer and is much more involved, but I figure I’ll raise a few points from it. First, my Momir partner in that game activated his avatar for zero the first turn and got a Dryad Arbor, which is quite nice mana acceleration. I’m not sure what the odds are of getting that, but it strikes me as being a gamble – Ornithopter is not worth a card. Of course, on turn 2 he activated Momir for three mana and got a Vesper Ghoul -which gave him five mana on turn 3! That sort of acceleration is quite amazing, though his subsequent activations weren’t game-breaking.
One of my Jhoira activations flipped up a Death Wish, and while the Crush of Wurms also available in that activation pretty much made my decision for me (yeah, that’s three 6/6s on the side of the board with no creatures), getting another Wish had me think that anyone playing Jhoira should probably think about Wish targets ahead of time. I’m sure there are fans of the format out there that may have already thought about this, so feel free to give us your feedback in the forums, but here’s what I think. Typically, you’re going to only get up to six mana/two Jhoira activations per turn, so if one is a Wish, then you will probably want to choose a Wish target that can be cast for just three mana so you won’t have to wait a turn to use it (and with discard effects cropping up regularly, sitting on the card you Wished for could be dangerous).
Morphs fit the bill quite nicely, and one creature in particular seems like a good default choice for Wishes that can get creatures – Vesuvan Shapeshifter. That way, you can flip him over and copy whatever gigantic creature happens to be lurking on the Momir side of the board, but likely without any blockers for it. Willbender could be scary for the opposing Jhoira player. Fathom Seer might be nice too if you’ve got two islands on the board and need to refuel your hand. Thelonite Hermit and Hystrodon would be nice too if you’ve got double Forests out. With double Islands out Mischievous Quanar could get a workout. Hmm…
Three mana artifacts seem like a good choice too, since you might not necessarily have the optimal mana available from your first Jhoira activation. Crucible of Worlds is obviously rather ridiculous if you want to keep developing your mana. Crystal Shard could serious stunt opposing the opposing Momir player, but you probably should just get Proteus Staff to kill a Momir creature each turn.
There’s a lot of strategy room to explore in this format if you’ve got the time or inclination. Or you can just throw a bunch of lands together with the avatar and go to it. Even if your collection is nearly nil, pick up one or both of these avatars and you can have a wild and wooly good time.
Until next week,
Bennie