Patriot Games

Thursday 30 August 2012

Bloodbraid Elf's Last Great Hoorah!

Mike Flores is one of the all  time great Magic writers.  His pro point does not reflect his incredible understanding and insight into Magic deck building and theory.  On August 9th 2012 he wrote a cracking article on the bogey men of standard through the ages which can be found here.

One of the decks he mentioned was the best deck during the Alara/Zendikar era, that deck was Jund.  Jund is one of the 5 shards of Alara and only had the 3 mana colours of Black/Green and Red available.  If standard is currently dominated by Blue/White Delver Jund was the deck of dominance during it's time.  Currently Jund is probably the best deck in extended and even a strong contender in Modern.  The 2012 Magic player championships are taking place as I write this and Jund/Bloodbraid Elf are making their presence felt during the championship - you can check it out here.

With the release of Return to Ravnica we will have a rotation in what sets are legal in Standard and Extended and will bid a not so fond farewell to many of the staple cards in Jund.

This card is so good in Jund its scary!

Back in June of this year my son Robert called me to discuss the tournament he was playing in the next day.  It was extended and he didn't know what to play.  My answer was very simple - play Jund.  When we looked at it we realised that Jund had got a number of new toys in the Innistrad block that really enhanced the deck so he brewed up a new take on Jund and it worked really well.

I called Rob up yesterday to discuss the deck list that I was planning to play next Friday at FNM Relax.  To be fair he really liked the deck (if not the mana base) but said "Hell if I was playing extended I would have to play Bloodbraid Elf, its so good."
Then we realised this was it, the next extended FNM after this one is in October - no more Bloodbraid Elf.


Jund tool of death number 2 - Blightning!

This left me in a quandary.  Jund is not a casual deck, it is really good and has great consistency which is something casual decks quite often lack.  Having said that apart from a brief period of playing Jund-Pod leading up to rotation last year I have not really played a lot of Jund and this is my last chance outside of Modern/Legacy.

And not a governor of California in sight.
So I decided to go with the whole Jund idea but tone it down a little - this was made easy by the fact that I don't own all of the cards that you would normally put into Jund.  With that in mind here is my list:

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Raging Ravine
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Copperline Gorge
1 Woodland Cemetery
1 Dragonskull Summit
3 Swamps
2 Forest
2 Mountains

25 Land

2 Lotus Cobra
2 Plated Geopede
1 Fauna Shamen
1 Glissa the Traitor
1 Daybreak Ranger
1 Chandra's Pheonix
4 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Vengevine
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Grave Titan

18 Creatures

3 Terminate
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Blightning
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sarkhan the Mad
3 Bituminous Blast

Jund's biggest weakness is its mana base, but with the lands from scars and Innistrad we are in a much better place than we have been in the past.  The deck is just full of really good cards you are happy to play, which is often the case with a really good deck.  Ditching Vengevine to Liliana then casting a Bloodbraid Elf and cascading into a 2 or 3 drop guy (all of which are good) and getting to bring back Vengevine to swing for 7 with haste is just living the dream.  If the 3 drop in question is Chandra's Pheonix then its swing for 9...

Making people pack graveyard hate way before Snapcaster/undying had been heard of...

We still need a sideboard for this which tends to be very utilitarian against stuff Jund struggles against;

Sideboard

3 Combust
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Terminate
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Nature's Claim
1 Liliana of the Vale
2 Garruk Wildspeaker

Combust gives us a way to take out blue/white creatures without worrying about mana leak of spell pierce.  Ancient Grudge deals with artifacts while Nature's Claim deals with both for G at Instant speed.  An extra terminate and Liliana gives us a bit more removal/discard if we need it and Garruk Wildspeaker gives us overrun if we need it to punch through against weenie decks.  ratchet bomb comes in as always against tokens and backs up Maelstrom Pulse.

Yet again I get to actually play one of the cards I got from a Grand Prix.

I am going to end this blog there seeing as you have heard quite a lot from me this week.  I will be back on Monday with a new blog looking at all the spoilers we get this weekend from PAX Prime - very excited about this as the great "Will they reprint the shock lands?" debate may finally be over.  Don't forget that tomorrow night at FNM Relax we have the debut of 2 headed giant, see you there...

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Is this any good?

Do you like going to the cinema?  No I’m not asking you on a date I am just enquiring if you tend to go and watch movies on the big screen.  I love movies, and happily punctuate my sentences with snippets of scripts and paraphrased miss-quotes.  Thanks to Serenity things became “shiny” if they were foils or not, if someone has no patience then they will be informed that “You are not a Jedi yet…” and for when things go spectacularly wrong there is always “Rog, grab the cat!”

"How did we get involved in a Magic blog?"

One of the things my friends and I would do is make lists of our favourite movies with various rules in regards to things like sequels.  There would then follow hours of debate as we would disagree with each other’s choices and surprise each other with the movies that made all our lists.

This vaguely pointless pastime has inspired me to compile a list.  Not surprisingly as this is a blog about Magic the Gathering it is a list of cards, but not my top 10 favourite cards of all time, rather a list of 10 of the best cards ever printed. 

"That's how I got the part of Oskar Schindler - I told Steven Spielberg I like making lists"

Naturally I did not include the power 9 as these are obviously at least 8 of the most powerful cards ever - hence they are called the power 9 and not the vaguely Ok 9!  Most Magic players know what they are and none of us can afford them if we don’t have them already!  If you don't know what the power 9 are you an find them here.

Over £1,000 for a playing card is a fair price, right?


So other than the power 9, what is it that makes a good card?  There are generally 2 main factors involved in this which are over powered (OP) and/or under costed (cheap).  Here are the choice I made of the top ten cards in Magic.  Feel free to disagree, I would love to see your list in the comments section at the end of the blog.


Mana Drain - legal in vintage and commander.  This card narrowly nudged out Counter Spell as the best counter ever.  It is a hard counter for UU mana which gives you mana equal to the countered spells cost during your next main phase.  A counter so powerful it even got banned in Legacy,  When it was originally printed the mana could have been a problem due to mana burn but now mana burn is no longer part of the game it is just awesome.



Tarmogoyf – Legal in Modern, Legacy, Vintage and commander.  This card is a milestone in Magic as it is the first card to reference the Planeswalker card type even though at the time they did not exist.  Tarmogoyf is potentially an 8/9 for G1 mana!  Sadly because he is so powerful it retails for £50 - £75 each (ouch).  Probably the most wanted reprint ever by those who don’t already have 4 copies.


Eternal Witness - Legal in Modern, Legacy, Vintage and commander.  This card is just so good.  It does all the stuff that Snapcaster can’t do and then almost does all the things snappy does as well!  Also something with an enter the battlefield (ETB) effect that brings back something from your graveyard seems to have “combo” written all over it.  How about Eternal Witness, Splinter Twin and Time Warp for infinite turns?  Lucky that Red/Blue/Green (RUG) isn’t like a playable deck or anything, oh wait a sec…  Also there is a copy of this in the new Izzet Vs Golgari set due out next week.


Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Legal in Legacy, Vintage and commander.  What can we say about big Jace?  Hated by some, misunderstood by many, managed to join an elite club by getting banned in standard, still banned in Modern and extended.  One of the best adverts for Legacy ever - come play Legacy we play good cards like Jace...  I still feel Jace was very misunderstood and was only truly OP when combined with Gideon, and it was that partnership in Caw Blade that was the true power behind the deck (not to take anything away from Stoneforge Mystic or pre-ordain there).  Jace's biggest problem, other than the company he kept, was his availability.  Mythic rare status in a small set meant that Worldwake was destined to sell out.  Please note, most of the people that really hate him don't own him.  During GP Boston this weekend one of the pro players said there was a rumour going round that Jace TMS was going to be un-banned in Modern.  Jace TMS instantly went up in price and I suspect said pro player sold his and laughed all the way to the bank!


Balance – Legal in vintage (restricted).  I love this card.  Sadly, bar winning the lottery, I will never get to play it again as I will never be able to afford to play vintage (as mentioned earlier).  Even then it is restricted which means that you can only have 1 copy of it in the whole deck.  I really want a copy of the Judge promo of this!  Back in the day I lost to this card in my first ever Magic Tournament to a guy who had no creatures in his deck except for 4 Mishra's Factory and 4 Blinking Spirit.  He tap his lands for mana, sacrifice them all to a Zuran Orb for 2 life each and then play Balance so you had to sacrifice all of your lands and any creatures you actually had in play.  One day I will rebuild the deck and make people never want to play Magic again.  I do have an EDH deck which does similar things, but this card is banned in EDH...


Snapcaster Mage - Legal in Standard, Extended, Modern, Legacy, Vintage and commander.  One of the greatest cards ever and is currently legal in all formats.  Wizards have admitted that they didn't realise how good he was in conjunction with things like mana leak outside of Innistrad block.  To give you an idea of how good he is just look at the instant and sorcery cards in this list - snapcaster gives you all of them again for U1 and a 2/1 man as well.  If you have a sacrifice outlet for him he gives you back Balance and  it still kills all of your opponent's creatures...


Lightning Bolt - Legal in Extended, Modern, Legacy, Vintage and commander.  3 damage for R, this is the measure by which burn spells are compared.  Made any creature with a toughness less than 4 bad when it was last in standard (M10/M11).  Shoots both creatures and players so has all the things you are looking for.  Even more proof that 3 for 1 is not a balanced equation in MTG.

Umezawa’s Jitte Legal in Legacy, Vintage and commander.  Way back in the original Mirrodin block they brought in a new for of Magic cards - equipment.  Skull clamp was an uncommon in Darksteel and allowed you to draw lots of cards for getting your guys killed this turned out to be horribly broken and got it banned in everything bar vintage and EDH.  Wizards quickly realised the mistake they had made with skull clamp and banned it.  However they still went on to make Umezawa's Jitte and not ban that.  Counters on Jitte turn it into some form of Swiss army knife doing what ever you need the most at that moment, need your guy to be bigger, no problem.  Want to kill their guys with -1/-1 effects, sure coming right up.  Racing your opponent and a bit lagging on life - here have some life.  Jitte + Creature = win...

Sensei’s Divining Top Legal in Legacy, Vintage and commander.  A great card, always remember the 3 best words in Magic are "Draw a Card".  Well this little beauty allows you to have a good look through the top of your deck to see if the card you want is there first.  In combination with sac lands and other shuffle deck/draw effects gets really broken.  Banned in modern for the fact it can make games go on for ever...


Sol Ring – Legal in commander and vintage (restricted).  When WotC produced their Commander decks last year one of their commander deck building rules was: "Sol Ring goes in every Commander deck."  This would seem to be the case and rightly so as this has to be the most OP and under costed card of all time.  The numbers are all wrong - pay 1 mana for an artifact that gives you 2 mana, no...  A turn 1 Sol Ring is living the dream even now.


I hope you have enjoyed this list and that it encourages you to make your own, or at least to look at some of the amazing cards that make up Magic the Gathering.  I'll be back with my extended deck list for FNM Relax on Thursday, hope to see you there...

Monday 27 August 2012

A Design for Life...

I used to play a card game called Raw Deal based on the World Wrestling Entertainment professional wrestling shows and wrestlers.  Raw Deal was produced by a company called Comic Images.  Comic Images were a trading card and collectibles company which was very small in comparison to Hasbro or Wizards of the Coast.  Raw Deal was the brain child of two men, Michael Foley (not to be confused with Mick Foley the wrestler) and Baron Vangor Toth. Of the two Baron was the "face" of raw deal.  I frequently disagreed with decisions Baron would make and the cards he would design and I wasn't shy about expressing my opinions, to the point that I received a "telling off" from the then UK commissioner of Raw Deal Neil Gow.

Baron had a weekly column on the Raw Deal website (which is still there although his column is not) and I had several of my e-mails on there answered by Baron.  Raw Deal production was stopped in December 2007, due to declining sales.  Very sadly Baron Vangor Toth died on 29 February 2008 of cancer aged 34.  I believe the eulogy written by Neil Gow in his blog at the time summed up the feelings of the Raw Deal community and can be found here.

Baron Vangor Toth 11/08/1973 - 29/02/2008 R.I.P.
A great CCG designer who is sorely missed.

The access we had to Baron was phenomenal but this was perpetuated by the size and passion of the Raw Deal community.  Magic is not afforded that luxury due to an economy of scales.  However, Mark Rosewater (Magic head designer and "face" of Magic the Gathering) does try very hard to connect with the millions of Magic players out there via Twitter, Tumblr and google+.  The other way that Mark Rosewater reaches us all is via his weekly column on MTG Daily.  

Since I started writing this blog at the beginning of July as "added value" to FNM Relax I have had a little insight into the world of people like Baron and Mark.  It isn't as easy as it looks, doubly so in my case as this is not what I do for a job and have to write this during my "spare" time.  I had a totally different blog written for today until at 7.45 this morning when I looked at MTG Daily and found the two lead articles which took me down a very different path.  

New head honcho of the Golgari Swarm.


Firstly there is the deck lists for Izzet Vs Golgari:


Izzet Deck
Duel Decks: Izzet vs Golgari

1  Forgotten Cave
10  Island
2  Izzet Boilerworks
1  Lonely Sandbar
9  Mountain
1  Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind
24 lands

1  Djinn Illuminatus
1  Galvanoth
1  Gelectrode
1  Goblin Electromancer
1  Izzet Chronarch
1  Izzet Guildmage
2  Kiln Fiend
1  Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
1  Ogre Savant
2  Shrewd Hatchling
1  Steamcore Weird
2  Wee Dragonauts
15 creatures

1  Brainstorm
1  Call to Heel
1  Dissipate
1  Fire // Ice
1  Force Spike
1  Invoke the Firemind
1  Isochron Scepter
1  Izzet Charm
1  Izzet Signet
1  Magma Spray
1  Overwhelming Intellect
1  Prophetic Bolt
2  Pyromatics
1  Quicksilver Dagger
1  Reminisce
1  Sphinx-Bone Wand
1  Street Spasm
1  Thunderheads
1  Train of Thought
1  Vacuumelt
21 other spells

Golgari Deck

1  Barren Moor
1  Dakmor Salvage
8  Forest
2  Golgari Rot Farm
1  Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
10  Swamp
1  Tranquil Thicket
24 lands

1  Boneyard Wurm
1  Brain Weevil
1  Doomgape
1  Dreg Mangler
2  Elves of Deep Shadow
1  Eternal Witness
1  Gleancrawler
1  Golgari Grave-Troll
2  Golgari Rotwurm
1  Golgari Thug
1  Greater Mossdog
1  Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1  Korozda Guildmage
1  Plagued Rusalka
1  Putrid Leech
1  Ravenous Rats
1  Reassembling Skeleton
1  Sadistic Hypnotist
1  Shambling Shell
1  Stingerfling Spider
1  Stinkweed Imp
23 creatures

1  Feast or Famine
1  Ghoul's Feast
1  Golgari Germination
1  Golgari Signet
1  Grim Flowering
1  Life // Death
1  Life from the Loam
1  Nightmare Void
2  Putrefy
1  Twilight's Call
1  Vigor Mortis
1  Yoke of the Damned
13 other spells

Wow, just wow.  Normally the Vs decks have 1 or 2 good cards in them but these are just amazing - Gelectrode, Wee Dragonauts, Brain Storm, Fire//Ice, Force Spike, Isochron Scepter, Eternal Witness, Golgari Grave Troll, Putrid Leech, Life//Death, Life from the loam, putrefy! That is not all - you get Jarad and Niv-Mizzet as well!!!!  Amazing value at an RRP of $19.99 - probably around £15.99 in the UK.

Hold the phone, stop the press, wait a damn minute - there's more!  6 of the cards in this set are from Return to Ravnica, one of them being Jarad but here are the other 5:





Overload looks like it could be strong with Street Spasm being a kind of reverse Bonfire of the damned at instant speed.  Scavenge has this whole Dredge feel to it while still actually playing MTG - 4 colour zombies anyone?  Charms are back, last seen in Alara block these babies are awesome, effectively giving you 12 cards in your deck for the price of 4.  Goblin Electromancer, I keep looking at this card and going "Really? This is a common, really?"!  He is a 2/2 guy that is a wizard (I hear there may be some good wizards in standard at the moment) and he makes your instants and sorcery's cost 1 mana less to cast.  So he makes flashback costs less too.  Delver of secrets and Snapcaster just got a new friend...

Secondly as touched on earlier we have Mark Rosewater's State of Design article.  I thought this was pretty good and had the whole "yeah we dropped the ball with Avacyn Restored limited", although my son Robert didn't agree.  Unfortunately due to his continued use of the vernacular has meant that I am unable to repeat it here and I will let you decide if you think this is pure self appreciation or a considered opinion of the last 12 months of Magic the Gathering.

And finally, speaking of my son Robert, I had a conversation with him last week about the deck lists for this Friday's FNM Relax at Patriot Games which went something like this:

Rob: "Read your blog - your deck is sub optimal but you know that..."

Me: "Yeah"

Rob: "Mark's Elf deck is pretty strong but it is a bit boring, although I like the idea with Gavony town ship but you wont get to pull it off."



Obviously this image didn't actually appear in the middle of  the conversation...

Me: "Ok"

Rob: "You know what would be much better - G/R Elves with an Urabrask and an Inferno Titan in it. You use all your elf mana to like Genesis Wave for 15 - hit Urabrask so that all your guys have haste and swing for the kill straight away..."

Me: Actually that sounds pretty good, I'll look at making a list for it..."

So I did, sent the list to Mark Smith and he decided to go for it.  So here is the deck list he will be playing as my partner in 2HG this Friday:

4 Copperline Gorge
4 Root bound Crag
2 Kessig Wolf Run
7 Forest
6 Mountains

4 Llanowar Elf
2 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Arch Druid
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Elvish Visionaries
4 Viridian Emissary
1 Yeva Natures Herald
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Inferno Titan
1 Thrun the Last Troll
1 Craterhoof Behemoth

3 Green Sun’s Zenith
1 Rampant Growth
2 Caravan Vigil
2 Genesis Wave
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
3 Brimstone Volley



This is not the blog that should have gone up today.  As an extra "treat" (yeah not so sure about that) I will be publishing that one tomorrow.  Hope to see you there...

Thursday 23 August 2012

Head's Up!

 I’m quite excited.  When I was discussing FNM Relax with Jim Freeman and Justin Parker (sorry Paul but you weren’t in the office) our number one goal was to bring the fun back into Friday Night Magic.  One of the things I was convinced about was that in order to do that we needed some variety with regards to our formats and to cover things that we just didn’t cover.  One of those formats was two headed giant (2HG).   With the first FNM Relax 2HG tournament on Friday 31st August 2012 we will have gone through our complete FNM Relax 8 week cycle for the first time.  2HG plays the same as any game of magic with regards to the actual mechanic, you play lands and tap them for mana, and then that mana is used to play your other cards, which are either permanents which remain in play or one off effects in the form of sorceries and instants.

Used as an illustration of land and as a shamless plug for From the Vault: Realms,
due out next week!


In Raw Deal we used to have a tag team format which was inherently busted, quite often with one player only there to set the other up so that they could win very quickly.  This gives me a mild distrust of team formats, but having played 2HG at Nationals last year with Stephen Kay I knew that a lot of fun can be had, and it is not in the same form of brokenness as Raw Deal tag format.

However, there are subtle differences and rules for 2HG which require closer inspection.  The 2 members of each team act as one to a point.  They have a shared life total of 30, they share phases during the course of their turn and may openly converse about cards in play, in hands and strategic decisions they are making as long as they don’t write it down.  It takes 15 poison damage to kill them, rather than 10, and if one loses due to something other than life loss they both lose.  There is no side boarding as 2HG duels are best of 1 rather than best of 3.  Lands and cards in play belong to the person who played them and each individual pays for the cost of his own cards with his own mana.

With time for the M13 starter decks running out in FNM Relax – my last chance to play one is 14th September 2012, before Return to Ravnica gives me some new starters to play with.  My initial plan was to play Yeva in 2 headed giant and then Talrand on the 14th September.  Then I looked at the deck list and thought Yeva was a far weaker deck overall and as I have a partner in the form of Mark Smith for the 2HG  and I didn’t want to let him down. 

No love for Yeva this week.


I have taken Talrand and fudged it into Mono – Purple Wizards.  Here is the original list from the starter for depths of power:

Creatures: 18

2 Archaeomancer
2 Augur of Bolas
1 Fog Bank
1 Harbour Serpent
3 Kraken Hatchling
2 Mindclaw Shaman
2 Scroll Thief
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
3 Wind Drake

Spells: 18

2 Divination
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Essence Scatter
1 Hydrosurge
1 Negate
1 Rewind
1 Ring of Evos Isle
3 Searing Spear
1 Sleep
1 Smelt
1 Switcheroo
2 Talrand’s Invocation
1 Turn to Slag
1 Unsummon

Lands: 24

1 Evolving Wilds
15 Island
8 Mountain

As always I wanted to put in a “proper” mana base so ended up with the following:


4 Sulphur Falls
1 Desolate Lighthouse
3 Cavern of Souls
8 Island
6 Mountain
22 Land
This has saved me a few times!

Normally when I do this I look for cards which I wouldn’t want to play and replace them with better cards that I do want to play.  However, I know the cards I want to put in and as there is not side-boarding in 2 headed giant I decided to let myself have an extra 5 cards to change so I will put in 15 cards instead of ten.  Those 15 will be:

1 Augur of Bolas
3 Grand Architect
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
2 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Negate
2 Pillar of Flames

Not actually a wizard but you feel he should be.

Archaeomancer seems like a poor mans Snapcaster to me so he is out.  I also want to get rid of the 2 scroll thief.  Unfortunately with putting so many creatures in I am going to have to lose a lot more of the cards already in there so I will be getting rid of the  3 Kraken Hatchlings.  I will also only be running 22 land instead of 24 as the deck can function quite happily at this level and still make a turn 3 Wurmcoil Engine.  

The sixth Titan, on turn 3 simply "winning".


I still need to remove another 6 cards; Switcheroo can go as the obvious target for this is Kraken Hatchling.  Hydrosurge is just a bad card, and 1 copy of essence scatter is just not worth it.  I’m really struggling at this point as I don’t want to get rid of the cards that are left, unfortunately the 2 divination's will have to go as will the smelt , which leaves me with this;

Creatures: 22
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Augur of Bolas
1 Fog Bank
1 Harbour Serpent
3 Grand Architect
2 Mindclaw Shaman
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Stormtide Leviathan
2 Talrand, Sky Summoner
3 Wind Drake

Spells: 16
1 Elixir of Immortality
3 Negate
1 Rewind
1 Ring of Evos Isle
3 Searing Spear
1 Sleep
2 Talrand’s Invocation
1 Turn to Slag
1 Unsummon
2 Pillar of Flames

Lands: 22
4 Sulphur Falls
1 Desolate Lighthouse
3 Cavern of Souls
8 Island
6 Mountain
 
I had already discussed this with Mark and we had decided that if he went Green White that would be a good counterbalance to this deck, it also suits Mark’s play style. 

Some form of Elf tribal going on mayhaps?

We then had a 4 hour discussion over Facebook, bouncing ideas and deck lists back and forth to come up with a solid 60 cards for Mark to play.  I have realised while writing this that I made a massive mistake and have had to now rectify that in this list (we left the Green Sun’s Zenith out, sorry Mark).

4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Sunpetal Grove
2 Gavony Township
10 Forest
2 Plains

22 Land
 
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Arbour Elf
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Viridian Emissary
4 Elvish Arch druid
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Primordial Hydra
1 Mikaeus, The Lunarch
2 Sun Titan

25 Creatures
 
4 Oblivion Ring
3 Rampant Growth
2 Caravan Vigil
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
3 Green Sun’s Zenith

13 Spells
How did we forget you?

Thank you Mark for being happy to put this up – the blog should really be the tale of 2 decks rather than 1.  I’m not going to tell you what Mark’s deck does, you will have to work that out for yourselves. 

This Friday is Modern Pauper at FNM Relax, look forward to seeing you there…

Monday 20 August 2012

You meta, you meta, you bet.

So the inaugural Magic World Cup is over and Chinese Taipei are the champions - Well done guys and congratulations on a great weekend of Magic.  It occurred to me that the method of selection for the team members in each country actually favours a smaller player base - the less people you have to contend for the slots the more likely you are to have your best players in the team.  Having said that, Luis Scott Vagas (LSV for short) is one of the greatest players in the world and he managed to win into the US team.


LSV - warning this guy is really good!

Do you remember Points of View?  This is a strange question as a revamped version of the show apparently aired in 2012, but when I say do you remember Points of View?  I refer to the series of yesteryear rather than any recently revisited versions.  Barry Took was the man behind the letters when I started watching the series and it was a staple which people watched back then along with "That's Life".  For those of you who have no idea what the hell "Points of View" is or was let me enlighten you.  Points of View was a TV programme that people wrote letters too (no e-mail, twitter or Facebook back then) which were read out while the presenter commented on the content of the letters.  The show was parodied by the likes of Monty Python and Not the Nine O'clock News because if was felt to be too biased towards the BBC.

What in the blue hell does this have to do with Magic the Gathering or the winners of the Magic World Cup?  The World Magic Cup is a big competition - with 71 countries competing for the title, with an initial 284 players on day one you need to be pretty good at Magic to make it into the top 32 nations let alone win the competition.  Points of View had thousands of letters sent to it expressing peoples feeling with regard to television programmes and what was good/bad about them.  The members of team Chinese Taipei will have looked at thousands of cards and deck ideas before deciding on the decks they eventually played.  Points of View dealt in opinions and these are important in Magic, but we have something else to guide us which is more accurate although still opinion led, and that thing is something called the meta game.

Snapcaster is a powerful card "in the meta"...

When I first started to play Magic the thing I didn't get at all was the meta game that they kept going on about.  Most games allow for some form of metagaming.  Playing Monopoly against your family in the knowledge that your brother is the best player and he always buys Mayfair and Park Lane so you make a concerted effort to obtain these properties and ruin his strategy - that is metagaming, taking knowledge from outside the game environment and using it to inform how you will play and quite often the cards you put in your deck to begin with.  The Magic World Cup had 3 constructed formats in the competition; standard, Modern and block constructed.  The full winning team deck lists can be found here.


Messenger is a powerful part of the Zombie meta...

I don't want to go through each of these decks in detail but I want to look at the meta game around them and what you would do to stop these cards.  Lets take our friend Geralf's Messenger above.  He is really good in an aggressive deck.  He comes in and deals 2 damage.  Next turn he swings and either does a further 3 damage or he kills a creature and comes back in from undying and still deals 2 damage to the opponent.  Pillar of flame is seeing play because of this card and other undying creatures like strangelroot geist.  Pillar of flame is a meta game card - if you are expecting to face down zombies and G/R Aggro you will be packing these.  If you are unsure if those decks will be around you would put this in your sideboard.  Yu Min Yang had 2 of these in his sideboard for the mirror match.

When death is too good for them- also they have a nasty habit of coming back!

At the moment with the inclusion of Rancor in standard/modern there is a new wave of infect decks around.  There is a very good meta card against infect in the form of Melira, Sylvok Outcast.  Melira prevents you and your creatures form getting poison/-1-1 counters and puts you back at 20 life instead of 10.  The trick is to stop Melira from dying to removal or a copy effect as she is Legendary.

Ha ha no poison for you.

The modern and block decks from the team have multiple ways of dealing with their opponents.  Including the ever popular Geist of St Traft.  The problem with Geist is that you can't target him to kill him.  Popular cards for his destruction include Phantasmal Image to copy him and subsequently Legend rule him or removal that doesn't specifically target like Day of Judgement, Slag Storm and Black Sun's Zenith.

Indiscriminate slaughter can be the way to go.

Tung-Yi Cheng's deck had 4 colours to it and this gave him tremendous flexibility as well as giving him access to pretty much all the good cards in the format.  Restoration Angel and Huntmaster gives you a combo which flips your Huntmaster when it gets exiled and then gives you 2 life and another wolf token as it comes back in.

Saving creatures butts and getting extra value out of cards since 2012...

Understanding the local meta takes a bit of work.  You need to know what people are playing and if there are any answers to their decks you really need to have access to.  The side board of your deck is the place where meta cards can be seen the most.  Bad match-ups for your deck can be totally changed after you side board in the meta cards which beat your opponent's deck.

Making counter spells that little bit worse.

So next time you play against someone don't just think about the game in hand, think about what their deck does and how it does it.  Then think of cards you could have in your deck or sideboard that could ruin their day and look to build your decks in future with those ideas as part of your strategy.  The meta game is very fluid and quite often depends upon your point of view for how you see it developing.

Before I say farewell until Thursday I have a bit more information to share with you in regards to the Sheffield PTQ in November 2012.  Firstly I would like to show you the city suite where the PTQ is taking place:


As you can see there is plenty of room - and in case you missed it the room has its own dedicated bar.  As PTQ locations go I think you will agree that this looks pretty sweet.  The format for the PTQ is sealed with your deck being made from 6 boosters of Return to Ravnica and as many lands as you wish to add.  The cost for this will be £30 (a very fair price when considering that you get £21 of boosters for that included, and that's without considering the additional boosters in prize support).  There will also be side events, the full schedule of which will be available over the coming weeks, but to start you off I can tell you that we will be having some Return to Ravnica drafts at a mere £10 each - this will include our usual prize support structure of 1 booster per participant put in for prizes.

So the room looks pretty good right?  Well there is a whole hotel here and just to wet your appetite here is the "Pre event area" where you can chill if you finish your match real quick


This kind of reminds me of GP Manchester, but it is more like the rooms we didn't get to use instead of the one we were in!

That's all from me for today.  I'll be back on Thursday with a look at my 2 headed giant deck and more meanderings about the world of Magic the Gathering.  See you there...