Earlier this week, my friend and local Legacy specialist sat down with the newest iteration of the MTGO Cube. In a change of pace, he tackles the online cube on “hard mode”, opting to try his hand with a three-color aggro deck. Enjoy!
Tag: magic
Bottom Eight: Worst Modern Cards By Price
By: CML
You ever do a Facebook search for an old schoolmate, find that they’re successful above and beyond their brains, and wonder, ‘Gee, I wonder how the hell he snagged her and the six-figure job?’ This often happens to Magic players — since ours is a hobby where there’s about as much opportunity for economic advancement as polo or luge — and it happens within the game itself, too. Who hasn’t thought to himself, when Googling bad cards, ‘Why is this terrible card worth more than my entire bank account?’ Usually the answer is EDH, a format based on the hypocrisy of pretending to not care much about ‘power,’ but today I’ll explore yet another underpowered format for durdly brewers: Modern. I’ll identify eight different price strata and roast the worst cards you can find at that price. Starting at the bottom:
$0-$1: Delver of Secrets
‘Remember that time I played a Delver t1 and I was going to win, except there’s no Wasteland or Daze to protect it and pressure their resources, and everyone’s playing a fair deck, so my counterspells sucked, and when I tried to flip it, I couldn’t for five turns in a row, because there’s no card selection, so I had a 1/1 for 1 that matched up poorly against his Lightning Bolts and Tarmogoyfs, so I lost with this deck, as I always do, but I continued to play it anyway because it’s a blue deck and BLUE DECKS CAN’T POSSIBLY BE BAD???’
(Honorable mention: Skullcrack, Tempest of Light / Back to Nature, Treasure Mage)
$1-$3: Serum Visions
In Magic writing, there are lies, damned lies, and Zac Hill on Serum Visions:
The only card that isn’t obviously absurd is Serum Visions, but I’ll go ahead and remind you that if you simply reverse the order of the abilities on the card, it’s good enough to get banned. Over the last three or so years, it has become more and more increasingly evident that Ponder / Preordain / Serum Visions / Sleight of Hand and their ilk are all just really, really powerful and only get better the more we play with them.
It’s not ‘obviously’ absurd — it’s just absurd to true connoisseurs of the game! Ah, MtG — if hipsters didn’t have Blue cantrips, what else could they feel superior about? In other news, it’s possibly correct to take p1p1 Fortify over Primeval Bounty, and Michael Olowokandi over Michael Jordan. (You say that’s wrong? You just don’t get it, man — mythic bombs are so mainstream these days.) Hey, Mr. Draper: you’ve quit the job, stop trying to sell me Mystic Snake Oil!
Moving away from corporate communiqués and back to reality, one’s experience with casting this ostensible Serum Visions ‘card’ is more like:
Needless to say, Serum Visions is so expensive because it’s bad. Ponder and Preordain are banned, and Serum Visions has crossed the picket line into playability; it commands the self-loathing, mercenary price-tag of a scab. But anyone who watched the start of the NFL last year knows what a dire price that really is …
(Honorable mention: Sleight of Hand, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle)
$3-$5: Foil Past in Flames
Storm (not dead from the bannings, merely mutilated to the point of living in a leprosarium) is the kind of strategy that’s always powerful, and always way worse than it should be, because every meta ever is biased towards fair Blue decks, even when they’re bad (see: all the above cards), because that’s the way it had always been in Magic and, let’s face it, with all the old players owning all the Legacy cards, the only way to make a living from this game involving kissing up to WotC employees, and with WotC being way more preoccupied with the game not fizzling out like a fad than growing it beyond a nearly-saturated subculture, inertia and stagnation motivate MtG players way more than anyone would like to admit. Also: woe unto he who blingeth out his Storm deck.
$5-$10: Watery Grave
The other day my playgroup was trying to figure out which was worse: Plateau in Legacy, or Watery Grave in Modern? Though Plateau’s price has, so to speak, leveled off at a fairly high mesa, and has plenty of room to grow — you can Chain stuff to it, Chain Lightning off of it, etc. — Watery Grave just reminds me of “what happened to my weed when I was home from college for the summer and my parents started walking up to my bathroom.” Sadly, the card is too expensive to be used as toilet paper …
(Honorable mention: Scapeshift, Shadow of Doubt, Restoration Angel)
$10-$15: Aven Mindcensor
I like to play W/b Martyr in Modern, and its bad matchups these days are mainly decks that do degenerate stuff like searching their library for a whatever-card combo (MPod, KPod, RG Tron, Titan Scapeshift), so I proudly packed three Aven Mindcensors in my sideboard and thought that nothing bad could happen again. In theory, I ate a fetchland, forced a blind Pod activation, fizzled a Kiki-Pod combo, had them fail to find off Eye of Ugin activation after activation, and Ajani Vengeant-ed their lands when they tried to go for the kill. In practice, they killed my 2/1 and I lost a bunch of matches. (Quick aside: how the f does the stupid Scapeshift deck ALWAYS HAVE SCAPESHIFT???)
$15-$20: Sphinx’s Revelation
A ‘Standard-only’ mythic in playable guise, Sphinx’s mimics the MtG mindset by perpetuating itself at its best — what are you hoping to hit off a Revelation, but another Revelation? Then you can kill all their guys and gain a bunch of life and render whatever they’re doing irrelevant — interaction, sure, in the sense of Big Brother ‘interacting’ with Winston Smith through the telescreen. Good thing it’s 2013 and not 1984! Modern games tend to start on turn one and playing enough Revelations to chain them consistently is asking to get killed by the small child with Burn, so you can go off and complain to your friends about the misfortune when in fact you were just playing a worse deck than the guy with the Shard Volleys.
$20-$30: Glimpse the Unthinkable
The other day, I was playing my Martyr deck and lost to U/B Burn. ‘Lost to Burn with a lifegain deck, CML?’ you might ask. ‘How did that happen?’ Because they went after my library, and not my life! It was basically like the Scopes Monkey trial, I guess — and with a similar outcome: the secularist was Martyred. The deck might very well be good, but I just put this card on here as a jibe at EDH players and casuals because I’m pretentious like that.
$30+: Chord of Calling
Paying $35 for this card would be like paying $120 million over six years for a mediocre quarterback, when the only reason anyone else has ever heard of your city is from watching The Wire. Good thing nobody in sports is dumb enough to do that! And if you thought $35 for Chord was a ripoff, check out its mana cost …
Thanks for reading!
CML
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Live Big, Live Heroic
By: FlowerSunRain
If you are like me, you like casting Giant Growth. Unfortunately in most cubes, there are a lot of reasons not to cast Giant Growth. Value creatures say, “Why not just play more dudes with etb abilities?” Efficient removal says, “Who needs to be tricky when you can just kill their guy?” Instant speed removal says, “Get 2-for-1’d, n00blord.” Slotting in Giant Growth can be a depressing proposition.
Well, good news. Theros has introduced a mechanic that rewards you for casting Giant Growth (and many other spells) on your creatures: Heroic. Heroic creatures love to be targeted by friendly effects and pay dividends when you do. But, is this good enough? Should you include the heroic creatures in your cube? What cards that trigger heroic are worth playing? What design considerations need to be examined to ensure casting Giant Growth can be a rewarding experience? This guide might be able to give some ideas.
The Heroic Creatures
Like any type of card, not every creature with the word heroic on it is created equal. First, let’s examine what we’re working with.
White
Fabled Hero: Let’s start with a bang. Fabled Hero is an amazing creature and has amazing synergy with everything you want to do. His heroic ability is not unlike that of most white creatures: he gets a +1/+1 counter, but double strike makes this extra enticing. Beyond this, many of the cards you will use to trigger heroic will be more valuable on your Fabled Hero. This card has little subtlety in his role: he kills your opponent very quickly. Connecting with a Giant Growth on him will take a cool 12 life from your opponent. Putting an Armadillo Cloak on him and swinging even once can make racing absolutely impossible. I don’t know why I’m even typing this, it’s all pretty obvious. This guy is decent without heroic, with heroic and in a cube designed around Giant Growth, he’s a centerpiece.
Favored Hoplite: This is a solid one drop, if you trigger him. He builds value, dodges burn and puts down pressure. Unfortunately, a lot of the cards that trigger heroic are reactive in nature. Until you make him heroic, Favored Hoplite isn’t doing much of anything. If the heroic trigger you drew is Rancor or Unstable Mutation, you really don’t care, just cast it and start swinging. If the heroic trigger you drew is Shelter or Vines of Vastwood, your opponent probably isn’t going to block or target the Favored Hoplite to allow you to cast these favorably. This certainly isn’t the best one drop ever printed, but decent one drops are scarce enough and it is useful and in theme, so it’s a win.
Phalanx Leader: This guy is a heroic anthem. The bad news is that he starts well below the curve and that even triggering his heroic doesn’t get him onto the curve. You absolutely need to trigger him with people on the board. Unfortunately, he dies to every removal spell ever printed outside of Sunlance, Reprisal and Seize the Soul which aren’t even in the removal suites of most cubes. You would need to run an obscenely low curve with lots of token makers and little removal to make this guy pay dividends with frequency.
Setessan Battle Priest: I love Seacoast Drake with a passion few will ever understand. That said, this card doublestuffs aggro without remorse. The decks that want this card probably don’t want heroic enablers. This is pretty much a lose-lose. I wouldn’t go near this.
Wingsteed Rider: It’s a got evasion and gets on curve with one activation. Not interesting, but can certainly play a budget filler role if you want to go deep on heroic.
Blue
Artisan of Forms: An adjustable clone for two mana is pretty great. Getting value out of this card will take a little work, but the playmaking potential here is high. The problem is the card is basically useless until you trigger the heroic, but being able to invest your turn two to preemptively trump an opponent’s fatty is mean. It can’t copy ETB abilities, though. This is a reasonable addition.
Triton Fortune Hunter: If you can stomach playing a Gray Ogre, you can ensure that you don’t get doubled up on your enchantments and pumps. With enough tempo disruption, this could be a winning proposition, but have to cast your spells on a Gray Ogre. This is an option if you want to go deep.
Wavecrash Triton: Another mediocre choice. There are plenty of cards that do a similar effect and more aggressive bodies that don’t require a heroic trigger. I wouldn’t go near this, even if it is hilarious with Hidden Strings.
Black
Agent of the Fates: This is an absolute beating of a card. The base body is certainly not amazing, but it gets work done. The heroic trigger, however, is stellar. Diabolic Edict is already a good card, now you can have other cards do double duty as diabolic edicts while putting pressure on the opponent’s life total. This is a hands down amazing card that is worth playing if you pay any attention to heroic triggers.
Tormented Hero: This is a generic beatdown tool. His heroic grants you a little reach and a little life that black decks love converting into advantages. People stuffing aggro creatures will run this without heroic, even if he is below the curve. You should definitely run it because your heroic minded cube might get more value out of this, though he is a nonbo with Grave Servitude and Funeral Charm which are two of black’s most reliable heroic triggers.
Red
Akroan Crusader: We love one drops. Like Favored Hoplite, this card is well below the curve if you don’t trigger heroic. One trigger makes him equal to a Dragon Fodder, but there will be many times you don’t want to use a card on his awful base stats just to get another card with awful base stats. There is certainly some silliness that can arise of this guy, but most of it is far-fetched. This card is good by virtue of its spot on the mana curve, but certainly expendable.
Arena Athlete: There are cards that do similar things without heroic. This is really bad.
Labyrinth Champion: Absolutely terrible base stats. Don’t go near.
Green
Anthousa, Setessan Hero: This is a tough one. She clearly has huge impact if you trigger her, but in terms of raw power, she doesn’t hold up in a post-Kalonian Hydra world unless you have an anthem on the table. I personally think Kalonian Hydra is one of the worst cards ever printed and that Anthousa is a much better example of what I want out of a raw power five drop (see also Archangel of Thune vs. Baneslayer Angel). Anthousa is a game ending powerhouse that can easily find a home if you don’t like the Hydra or need two cards with that sort of function for some reason.
Centaur Battlemaster: Unfortunately this has terrible base stats and an uninteresting heroic ability. You’d have to go extremely deep to play this.
Staunch-Hearted Warrior: You can repeat the above comments here.
Multicolor
Anax and Cymede: Unlike many of the other cards we’ve seen, Anax and Cymede start with good combat stats. Their heroic trigger pumps up your whole team and adds an ability that is potentially relevant even without a single other creature on the board. While it lacks Fabled Hero’s potential to solowin you the game, Anex and Cymede gives you a tool for applying lots of pressure and reach over chump blockers. This pair is exactly what you want in a heroic creature.
Battlewise Hoplite: Let’s face the sad truth: a 2/2 for 2 colored mana is below the curve. After one activation, Battlewise Hoplite is on curve and has scryed one card, which may or may not have helped you and can do it again later. This card is absolutely nothing special and is only good for going deep on the theme.
Heroic Enablers
Now that we have a few heroes, we need cards to trigger them. There are obviously a lot of cards in Magic’s history that can do this, so this is not comprehensive.
White Notable Cards
Emerge Unscathed: This triggers heroic twice, which is a significant advantage. At one mana, this card counters removal, gets creatures unblocked and messes up combats. Like its unappreciated sibling Shelter (and to some extent Cho-Manno’s Blessing), most people don’t cube this, but it consistently makes an impact.
Angelic Destiny: It’s not rancor, but rancor is just nuts. Making the creature more survivable helps make up for the casting cost difference. This card is very underrated.
Shelter, Harm’s Way, Embolden, Hopeful Eidolon, Gift of Immortality, Guided Strike, Griffin Guide, Hyena Umbra, Empyrial Armor
Blue Notable Cards
Hidden Strings: Due to the way Cipher works, this card can trigger heroic every single time cipher is triggered. The tap ability also helps get your creature in the first time.
Curiosity, Spectral Flight, Unstable Mutation, Piracy Charm, Distortion Strike, Fate Foretold, False Demise
Black Notable cards
Funeral Charm, Grim Servitude, Undying Evil, Profane Command, Nighthowler, Boon of Erebos
Red Notable Cards
Reckless Charge, Brute Force, Dragon Mantle, Seething Anger, Blood Lust, Madcap Skills, Mark of Fury, Arcane Teachings
Green Cards
Prey Upon, Giant Growth, Keen Sense, Vines of Vastwood, Rancor, Boar Umbra, Spider Umbra, Snake Umbra, Sylvan Might, Elvish Fury, Prey’s Vengeance, Boon Satyr, Increasing Savagery, Stonewood Invocation, Might of Oaks, Resize
Multicolor/Hybrid
Simic Charm, Boros Charm, Pit Fight, Double Cleave, Gift of Orzhova, Armadillo Cloak, Squee’s Embrace, Shielding Plax, Armed // Dangerous
Any Color
Other Considerations
Obviously there aren’t very many strong heroic cards. Only seven would I qualify as good and only a few more are playable if you want to go deep. However, we must remember that our goal is not to push heroic as a cube concept. Rather, we are using heroic to help push cards like Giant Growth and the gameplay including such cards entails. Doing so requires not just trying to slot in some enablers and calling it a day, but also ensuring your environment supports this type of gameplay. Here are some areas to focus on.
Redundancy in Value Slots: If you have so many high value creatures that everyone has access to as many as they can feasibly jam into their decks, auras and combat tricks look a lot less attractive. Reducing the redundancy in these slots makes combat tricks look more attractive. Furthermore, reducing the number of high value three to five drops and replacing them with low cost auras and instants has the extremely desirable side effect of dropping down your mana curve. This redundancy is problematic in its own right already and fuel for the fire that is “midrange beats aggro”. Basically, make sure there aren’t enough mid-cost, all upside value cards to go around so that people actually have to fight for them, then fill out their decks with more situational picks. Another nice upside of this approach is that aggro decks will actually have a fighting chance against control decks without having to rely on cards that remove the opponent’s ability to play the game.
In summary, aggressively lower your curve by taking out redundant value cards!
Your Removal: Apparently Searing Spear is a good, playable, cubeworthy piece of removal. And yet, people still run Lightning Bolt. Efficient instant speed removal makes a lot of these cards losing propositions, particularly when the removal lacks restrictions. While undesirable, getting in one hit with a Gift of Orzhovaed Markov Blademaster might cause an acceptable life swing that can help recover from the card loss. When it gets bolted mid-flight it is totally backbreaking in terms of tempo and card advantage, plus it requires basically zero risk on the part of the reacting player. Replacing some of this extremely good removal with more narrow, more costly or slower options will really help. Cards like Diabolic Edict (can be played around), Tragic Slip (potentially narrow) and Hero’s Downfall (high cost) are all extremely good removal cards that still let auras and combat tricks play the game while keeping problematic creatures in check.
Avoiding the Poison Principle in Design: One thing we don’t want to end up is only one deck type wanting these cards. As such, we need overlapping value. While pure control decks won’t want most of this stuff, basically everyone else can get value from it. A couple of card types benefit a little more and create synergies for competition.
Double Strikers love a lot of these cards. Look to Silverblade Paladin, Mirran Crusader, Fencing Ace, Markov Blademaster, Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Armed // Dangerous, Hound of Griselbrand, Savageborn Hydra, Viashino Slaughtermaster, Wrecking Ogre and Kruin Outlaw. Red and White have basically all the support here.
Hexproof loves these cards too. Although some hate it, hexproof without a doubt is a huge boon to auras and combat tricks. Look to Slippery Bogle, Troll Ascetic, Thrun, the Last Troll, Geist of Saint Traft, Invisible Stalker, Witchstalker, Silhana Ledgewalker, Swiftfoot Boots, Lazav, Dimir Mastermind, Sigarda, Host of Herons and Lumberknot. Green and Blue have basically all the support here.
Black? Black probably has the best heroic card (at least tied with Fabled Hero), but it has very few enablers or other cards that work well with auras and combat tricks. It also has many of the better cards for blowing out these situations, putting them in role of the spoiler.
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Top 8 Worst Draft Formats of All Time
In Honor of Magic 2014: The Eight Worst Draft Formats of All Time
by: CML
—
Who’s for the Game?
Here’s a sobering idea: With the rise of New World Order, the Modern Magic card, for the most part, is designed with either Limited or Constructed in mind.
This neat dichotomy fails to explain away cards like Savageborn Hydra, Hoard-Smelter Dragon, or Pack Rat, which exist solely to ruin games of Limited and depress the cracker of prize packs. It also doesn’t account for smash hits like Hindervines, Restore the Peace, or Showstopper, which depress the cracker of drafting packs.
“M14’s weakness as a draft environment is at least partially due to a raging Staff infection.”
So things aren’t quite that bad. They’re worse! Sets like Modern Masters come out, and the draft aficionado wonders why the other sets aren’t as good as Modern Masters, and Modern Masters isn’t as good as it could be.
“In the event of Constructed, I’m a hostage.”
Abolish the Draft
Take heart, though! It used to be that nobody drafted anything, ever. The lack of Limited in Magic’s early history severely worsened its development. Think of it this way: what are ninety percent of commons doing in every set, except as draft fodder?
“I could design worse when I was seven.”
So drafting was born. Mirage-Visions-Weatherlight was the first block you could actually draft, but Invasion-Planeshift-Apocalypse was the first block where Limited was directing the design — the first Cube, if you will. Some claim Limited begins with MVW, others with IPA — in the interests of not running out of terrible draft environments, I’m going to start with MVW and work my way down the list.
8. Old core sets
I imagine these drafts were as often dodged as those for Vietnam, but maybe (as in Israel or South Korea) there was no way of avoiding them. These sets were absolutely massive — up to 449 cards in Fifth Edition, which we looked down upon, as spoiled children — and filled with unplayable cards; your chances of cracking a Birds of Paradise in one of those fin-de-siècle boxes was about as bad as that of getting a Liliana in a box of Innistrad.
Redeeming aspect: With all those white-bordered lands running around, you could just grab a stack and ghetto out your Constructed deck of choice. If you drafted Alpha, there was some chance of getting value.
Cube lesson: Cut cards like Vizzerdrix.
7. Lorwyn block
Drafting tribal is about as uninteresting as you’d expect. You were screwed if you didn’t get a tribe, not all the tribes were good, and the curve was often surprisingly high.
Redeeming aspect: A surfeit of activated abilities repelled new players, leading to the worst commercial downswing in Magic history.
Cube lesson: Tribal(ism) is the cancer of Africa.
6. Magic 2012
Basically Magic 2014 without much removal. Once, I won a draft with only three card types. Aggro is supported here, though, which is more than I can say for the Modo Cube.
Redeeming aspect: During summer 2011, I was forced to find something else to do with my Friday nights.
Cube lesson: Go easy on the enchantments.
5. Scars of Mirrodin block
“I’ll choose to draw.”
“Yep, sounds good, I’m about ready to do something else with my evening.”
“No, I’ll be on the draw.”
Redeeming aspect: The storyline makes it more likely that Wizards will print Komeback to Kamigawa before Scars of Mirrodin Redux: The Second (Psychic) Surgery. Also: Glistening Oil, fracking, etc.
Cube lesson: Heed the Poison Principle; support aggressive decks; cut Swords.
4. Magic 2014
While games of M12 were like ripping off a band-aid, games of M14 are the slow and exquisite torture of being digested by a self-satisfied Blue mage or Sarlacc. You’d think they’d’ve learned from their design mistakes …
Redeeming aspect: … even if they didn’t, you can learn!
Cube lesson: Vary and limit your removal; support aggressive decks.
3. Masques block
Back in the 20th century (my younger readers will find this hard to believe) card shops were even worse than they are now. Their interiors were dirty, their locations remote, their life-spans the stuff of Rousseau or Sierra Leone, their proprietors hucksters of a Jerry-Lundegaard variety. I was 11 years old when Masques came out, and not even I would buy much of it. Underpowered? Check. Tribal? Check. Bad color balance? Check.
Redeeming aspect: Misdirection has cool art?
Cube lesson: Do everything differently.
2. Urza’s block
Before there was Blue in M14, there was Black in Urza’s-block draft.
Here are some Black commons: Pestilence, Befoul, Expunge, Duress
Here are some other commons: Monk Realist, Launch, Headlong Rush, Gaea’s Bounty
Redeeming aspect: Though billed as the “Enchantments Cycle,” Urza’s block was actually centered around the slightly less dumb card type of Artifact.
Cube lesson: Balance your colors; don’t lard your format with a terrible third set.
1. Avacyn Restored
More than enough ink has been spilled on AVR’s Limited suckage — I’ve never seen a format yield so easily to a simple mathematical analysis — but I’ll just say that if I wanted to play a format with awful color-balance and a high curve, yet such a steep power curve and lack of removal that the games ended within the frame of a few spells cast by each player, I’d play the Modo Cube.
Redeeming aspect: To be fair, the individual cards are by and large wonderful, but that makes AVR all the more disappointing — so it headlines the list!
Cube lesson: Design with people over the age of four in mind. (Ahem, Modo Cube.)
Thanks for reading!
CML
Legacy Tournament Report
By: CML
There are many reasons Seattle is a great place to live — great food; the opportunity to hear WotC employees cry like overachieving schoolchildren when you beat them at unsanctioned events; a gender ratio that’s slightly better than a Yukon mining town; beautiful bodies (of water, views of which you can enjoy from your car while stuck in traffic) — but Mirkwood is my favorite time of year. For three months, I hole up at Card Kingdom like some library-bound bore and practice Legacy. I used to do this at another LGS, existing on Doritos, sleeping on sell-through Chronicles commons, defecating out the window, and sweating into the dehumidifier, but when Card Kingdom opened, I became classy. Now I eat grilled cheese at Café Mox, which offers every kind of pleasure except hard alcohol, televised sports, a discotheque, and another gender. Now I sleep on beds of digitized love-letters from OKCupid. Now I defecate on myself when I play Legacy. Now I sweat my friends when they’re in the top 8. Just kidding! After I lost round two, I drove back home. I hope the rest of my car found rides.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We have an active Eternal scene here. The Legacy players look down upon the Modern players, and the Modern players look down upon themselves. Every Monday a group of grizzled regulars gathers in the windowless dungeon of Card Kingdom to play the format where winning a GP won’t buy you a deck. It’s a cesspit of mediocrity, but I mean this as a high compliment. Legacy is hard, and if you’re mediocre at it, you’ll have a huge edge on the field. “Winning the battle of mistakes” is a phrase that comes to mind.
That Monday I sleeved up a little something different than usual. Merfolk is often a good choice at Card Kingdom, since the field is full of people who think they’re smarter than everyone else and therefore can’t “spot the fish.” The UWR Delver list was giving me fits, though, so rather than be negative about it I decided to praise the gods for making tempo players too stupid to not include fringe playables like Swords to Plowshares, Stoneforge Mystic, and Grim Lavamancer, while relying on Green graveyard-based creatures that do nothing against cards nobody plays like Rest in Peace, instead. My sunny disposition wasn’t going to turn my fish into a playable deck, though, so I ordered something a little different. “Batman” is a new addition to our Legacy group who just graduated high school and somehow has all the Legacy staples ever. He’s sassy, he’s 18, and he’s rich. In other words, he’s perfect — except it’s a he. “Fish With Shroud” sounded like a good way to stop getting Plowed, so I sleeved up this:
MEATHOOKS
| Lands (20) 3 Wasteland 3 Mutavault 3 Tundra 3 Tropical Island 8 Blue fetches / Windswept Heaths Creatures (20) 4 Muscle Sliver 4 Sinew Sliver 4 Predatory Sliver 4 Crystalline Sliver 4 Galerider Sliver Spells (20) 2 Force of Will 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 4 Stifle 2 Swords to Plowshares 4 AEther Vial | Sideboard (15) 1 Force of Will 1 Cursed Totem 2 Spell Pierce 2 Harmonic Sliver 1 Life from the Loam 2 Rest in Peace 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Meddling Mage 2 Gaddock Teeg |
The tournament started auspiciously, with a win against a balding loudmouth who uses Magic like Joyce used literature — as an escape from his failed medical studies. Between that and his choice of the stone-unplayable Miracles, this round was basically a bye. Meanwhile, a pudgy Asian man with a pretentious wrist brace was rubbing his nose like a Rick James whose dealer had run out of Claritin, and a suburbanite with a goatee was trying to convince himself Progenitus was good against a field of Terminus and Liliana. I lost a round to whatever, beat a Tezzerator deck, then lost another round to whatever. On Tuesday we tested at my house with Batman and a sleazy cable salesman, and though I won one game against Punishing Jund with a lone Galerider Sliver on the board, the deck sucked. It turns out basic Islands and abusing Standstill are a nice upside to certain Vial aggro strategies. Who knew? I tried UWR myself, but cantripping turned out to be too hard, because I am an imbecile.
We Pondered our options and Brainstormed easy deck ideas, but it wasn’t until Batman said “mono-Red” that the choice seemed Preordained:
MONO-RED COMBO ('Shooting the Moon')
I brought the deck to Card Kingdom FNM, the best place to not play FNM and feel superior for playing Legacy and drinking seven-dollar craft pear ciders. My friend Aaron was there. I squashed his Shardless like a BUG, with Sneak Attack playing the part of Impromptu RAID. The next two days I pilloried Punishing Jund and tied with Miracles (again, unplayable, but if people didn’t play unplayable decks there would be no Legacy).
The morning of Mirkwood I woke up early — 10:40 — and drove my van-load of three up to Arlington. Arlington is a small town halfway to Canada; at least when I usually drive in that direction, there is the promise of frat parties or, past that, a new, barbarian country that feels like America in the nineties. The tournament site (“Mirkwood,” presumably after the title tournament — not sure where they came up with that one) was nice: with its ramshackle podium, heirloom instruments, delicious food, in-cel nerds, etc. it felt like the Seattle of my adolescence. I must give unironic props to Joe Bono and some other people for running a great event.
In round 1 I was paired against a random playing Death and Taxes. I’d seen him somewhere before, but I didn’t remember where — my best guess is Round 8 of April’s Legacy Open. His eyes were bloodshot from fatigue, and they turned even redder as I ruined Karakas with more annihilator triggers than Chavez. Death and Taxes: a socialist paradise indeed! Then some other stuff happened. Maybe I’ll splash Black for Dread of Night next time.
In round 2 I played Tim “OMGClayAkhen” Aten. After I showed in Sneak Attack and squished his Demon with a couple of Worldspine Wurms, he morosely remarked it was “the second game in a row [he]’d had turn-two Show and Tell and lost.” In game two I kept an opener of some spells and some lands that were Ancient Tombs. I spun the dreidel over and over again, but no Ararat would spring forth from my library. Meanwhile, Tim was discarding. There is nothing quite like going to four life off your dreidels and not finding the promised land, just another Tomb. It was in that moment that I understood the ordeal of Anne Frank. In game three I had the death wish, so I just lost to countermagic and Jace. Who the hell boards in Jace against mono-red? He can’t even survive after bouncing a Goblin Guide.
On the drive home, there was traffic near Everett, which pissed me off because nobody should live there. I then went to the soccer game, watched the Sounders win, and got called unmentionables by a joyless cow — it was nearly a perfect tournament; the only thing missing was a Portland Timbers career-starting injury. (Ha! Just a little Portland-unemployment joke for you.) It must have been weird to be a Portland fan at the Clink, it’s not like poetry slams attract crowds of 65,000. After that, I got kinda drunk with Aaron and his girlfriend and lamented my perpetual misfortune. Someone texted me that three of the Card-Kingdom suburbanites had made Top 4 (including the insufferable former med student), so I drank some more and forgot about it, until I was assured they hadn’t won, so I remembered it and typed it here. I would play Shooting the Moon again in a heartbeat, but Batman has already promised to build me Waterfalls. Cascade is a nice mountain range, and cataracts are clouding my Ancestral Vision. I predict it’ll be a good choice after Theros, too, since the last big set had only a marginal impact on Legacy. You might even be able to splash White for a pointless Enlightened Tutor package. If you do, play four Plateaus — they’re not gonna get any cheaper, though they might just rise for a bit, then level off.
Keep it dusty,
CML