EDH Talk!! Quick 3 deck discussion

Best format by far.  I love standard, but EDH is more fun.

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

So due to my homework schedule this week and a few other obligations that I had, I wasn't able to go to my local Wednesday night Standard tournament yesterday.  I won't be able to go next Wednesday either, so hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll have another tournament report for you guys.  In the meantime, I think I'll be talking a lot about EDH.  Earlier in the week I was able to meet up with my friends and play some games, which went really well for me on the night (I was 2-1 in the 3 games).  With how many individual cards that were played and the length of time we spent playing (around 4 hours) I can't actually remember any game summaries, but I want to look at the decks and spotlight the core strategies of these unique decks.

The games of the night were between my Riku of Two Reflections Ramp deck (piloted by my friend), a Dovescape combo deck (piloted by my other friend), and an Omnath, Locus of Mana deck (piloted by me, built by my Dovescape friend).  The Dovescape deck is an Esper deck so I decided to skip playing Oloro for now as I wanted a bit more variety in the games.

Dovescape Wins

This is literally a combo deck about assembling Dovescape and Guile and making infinite 1/1 bird tokens.  What happens is you have both Dovescape and Guile on the field at the same time and then you play a non-creature spell.  Dovescape counters it, fulfilling Guile's requirement, meaning the spell is exiled and you can try to play it again.  When you do, it's once again countered and this process can be repeated an infinite number of times.  There are cards in the deck to tutor for Dovescape and Guile, cards to get them back from the grave, and cards to protect them.  The general is Ertai, the Corrupted, but he's not that important.  If he's on the field and can protect your combo, that's great.  If not, not a big deal.  This deck is actually really cool and doesn't resemble a control deck at all.  My friend even likes to say that it's specifically a slow combo deck, not a control deck.  There are a few control cards (mainly counters) but no Wrath abilities because such cards do not search out or protect Dovescape or Guile.  It's pretty neat.

Riku of Two Reflections


This was the first EDH deck that I made on my own without the help of the pre-made decks.  Yes, Riku is a pre-made general but I actually didn't buy his deck; I bought Ghave, Guru of Spores.  I edited that deck and built around him (making that my first actual EDH deck) but I quickly decided that I wanted to play big fatty creatures, ramp spells, and gain a lot of value from them... all things that Riku does well.  I ordered a Riku soon after and built a deck around him.  It's changed quite a bit since my initial build of the deck but the core hasn't changed at all: Ramp a lot, copy your spells, get extra value, play big creatures (sometimes copied), and overwhelm the opponents.  The deck focuses on ETB abilities on creatures (usually big Green ones) with Avenger of Zendikar being the main win condition.  There are a lot of ways to search out creatures from the deck, get them back from the grave, and get a lot of land into play.  Either this strategy is going to allow you to power out gigantic Plant tokens through Avenger's landfall ability or it's just going to give you enough mana to play and copy any of the other spells in the deck.  I'm extremely proud of this deck because it's evolved along with me during my time playing EDH and I feel like it's really coming along well.

Omnath, Locus of Mana


Like I said before, this deck was built by my friend who was playing Dovescape Wins.  This is an extremely powerful Mono Green ramp deck that aims to make Omnath as large as possible, suit him up with protection enchantments or equipments, and voltron people to death.  For those unfamiliar with EDH, if a person takes 21 points of damage from one specific general, that player dies (meaning you only need to deal 21 damage to someone instead of the usual 40).  So with Omnath getting +1/+1 for every G in your mana pool (and the fact that he allows it to stay there indefinitely) it's really easy to see how he can be the deck's main win condition.  While I was playing it I was able to really see the deck's power, getting out Doubling Cube, Seedborn Muse, Vernal Bloom, and Mana Reflection.... ya, let that sink in for a minute.  I was generating obscene amounts of mana quicker than anyone thought possible, making Omnath have over 100 power with ease.  This deck is sweet when it gets rolling.

I had a lot of fun playing EDH and I plan on playing more soon.  I'll be giving a full decklist for my Oloro deck within the next week or so.  I just made a bunch of changes to it and I want to test them out before I put up the list.  I'll be updating more about our EDH games as well and I could even do a full deck profile on Riku if anyone's interested :D

See you guys later.

Esper Tournament Report #2

Simply amazing.

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

So after a few Wednesdays of being really busy, I was finally able to go to my local Standard tournament yesterday.  I had initially decided to run my exact same build of Esper that I had been posting about, but when I got to the store my friend decided that he wanted to trade in some stuff from his binder for store credit, so I figured that I would do the same.  A lot of the stuff was from last format and I really don't need my excess shock lands right now, so I traded in nearly my entire binder (which wasn't very big, honestly) and got $109 in store credit!  With that I bought an Elspeth, Sun's Champion, 3 Temple of Silences, 4 Temple of Deceits, 2 Hero's Downfall, and 2 Glare of Heresys.  For not spending any money of my own, I think I made out pretty well :D

I wish I could tell you guys exactly the changes that I made, but I'm at school right now (meaning I don't have my deck with me) and I really can't remember, so I'll make an update soon as a follow-up post.  I made a few changes after the tournament anyway based on what happened during the night, so when I post my next build it'll be what I'm running currently.  So without further talk, here's how my tournament went.

Round 1: Esper Control v. Golgari Aggro

My opponent told me that he was letting his friend (who was playing next to me, conveniently) borrow his
Selesnya Aggro deck so he made up Golgari Aggro for the tournament.  It doesn't go as over the top on mana curve like Selesnya does (who can compete with Loxodon Smiter and Fleecemane Lion anyway?) but it runs a lot of spot removal to clear the way for its creatures.

Game 1: He mulligans down to five and I open with a Supreme Verdict.  Pretty anti-climatic start to this tournament.

Game 2: He keeps and starts out very aggressive with a Dryad Militant.  I play the game of "dig for the Verdict" but I was never able to get one.  He ended up over extending his board and told me, "If you have it, you win," but I wasn't able to draw a Wrath.  He killed me the next turn.

Game 3: This was a good back and fourth game where I played Verdict on turn 4 but he was able to mount a solid comeback.  I had to start relying on my spot removal (which I was running extra of this week) but we were both low on threats late in the game.  I have an Aetherling on the field.  He has a Polukranos, World Eater (tapped) and a Kalonian Hydra (untapped) with 4 +1/+1 counters on it.  I have 6 life and he has 12.  On my turn I draw another Aetherling.
I figure that my only plan is to attack with Aetherling, get him down to 8, play my Aetherling with the intention of blocking his Hydra, and play Away on his turn (assuming that he will sac Polukranos).  When I attack he decided to block my Aetherling with Kalonian Hydra, causing it to be just a chump block (as Aetherling is a 4/5).  I'm not sure if he forgot what Aetherling's toughness is or what, but I was really surprised by this block.  I played my Aetherling and he ended up conceding on his turn.

1-0

Round 2: Esper Control v. Big Naya

This is the same opponent that I played in round 1 of my last tournament report.  I wasn't sure if he was still going to be playing Junk, but obviously he had switched.  We actually started talking about the NFL while shuffling up, which was pretty cool and fairly unexpected.

Game 1: I just drew land after land and he played plenty of good and efficient Naya creatures.  He demolished me.

Game 2: I was able to Wrath and use spot removal on all of his early creatures, so I began feeling pretty good about my chances.  We were getting later in the game, he was low on resources, and I had plenty of lands.  He then played a Xenagos which made a hasty Satyr and hit me for 2.  I figured that it was alright when I drew  Jace, Architect of Thought next turn, played it, used his +1, and ended.  I didn't expect him to then play a Purphoros, God of the Forge.  He played a Satyr, dealt 2 to Jace, hit Jace for 2 more (1 for each token), and ended.  This wasn't looking good.  I drew a Doom Blade which really didn't help me that much.  Next turn he made another token, shocked Jace, played a Goblin Wardriver, killed Jace with Purphoros, played a Boros Wreckoner, shocking me, and attacked.  There really wasn't anything that I could do.  He just overwhelmed me with a Planeswalker and an Indestructable Creature that I couldn't deal with.  I didn't expect this deck coming into the night at all, but it was really cool to see.

1-1.

Round 3: Esper Control v. Jund Aggro

I had never seen this guy before and it turned out that it was only his second tournament at this store too.  He was a really nice guy and we had some genuine laughs when we got talking about our experiences at other tournaments.  His version of Jund Aggro focused on abusing Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch and creatures with +1/+1 counters.

Game 1: I Wrathed him twice and played a Blood Baron after that.  Needless to say, I won.

Game 2: He ended up having a very fast start, filling up the board with around five or six creatures, a Domri, and a Chandra.  I never drew a way to remove his planeswalkers but I was able to stabilize with one of my own; Elspeth, Sun's Champion.  Her +1 was amazing.  Even though she never got to ultimate (despite me using her +1 ability close to 8 times) because of Chandra pinging her every turn, the fact that I created so many blockers allowed me to find time to draw a Sphinx's Revelation and thus, find an Aetherling and win.  Without Elspeth stalling for time, I would've certainly lost that game.

2-1

Round 4: Esper Control v. BRW Control

I never expected to see this deck at all and even if I did, I wouldn't have expected to see all of the cards that
he was playing.  It was a removal heavy deck full of Doom Blades, Hero's Downfalls, Dreadbores, and Mizzium Mortars that played Blood Barons, Obzedats, Stormbreath Dragons, Desecration Demons, and, as you'll see, an extremely powerful 1 copy of Aurelia, the Warleader.

Game 1: We were trading removal back and fourth for a while until he was able to resolve a Whip of Erebos.  Other than Detention Sphere I didn't have any main decked answers against that and, naturally, I never drew a D Sphere.  He was able to generate so much advantage from that Whip that I eventually lost despite having a very powerful hand throughout most of the game.  I'm able to kill his creatures once but it's impossible for me to have enough removal to kill them all twice.

Game 2: I Thoughtseized him early and saw that he kept a top heavy, land light hand.  I had a decent hand and figured that as long as I was able to disrupt his plays and play around the Rakdos's Return that he had (I had to take a Slaughter Games with Thoughtseize) that I would be fine.  He drew plenty lands in his next few draw steps, including 2 scry lands, and ended up playing an Aurelia on his sixth turn with a Desecration Demon already on the battlefield.  I would've been able to answer the Desecration Demon in the following turns and had thought that there was no way that he was going to kill me out of nowhere.  Oh, how wrong I was.  He slammed that Aurelia, hit me for 9, untapped his creatures, and did it again, killing me.  Wow.  I did not see that coming.  I liked his list a lot looking back at it, but I definitely didn't think I would be playing against that during my time at the tournament.

2-2

Another average 2-2 finish.  My deck performed well overall but what I realized was the power of non-creature threats against me.  Other than 2 Hero's Downfalls and 2 Detention Spheres I had absolutely no way to deal with Planeswalkers and against Gods and their weapons I only had the D Spheres to help.  I never really worried about creatures during the night; between Supreme Verdict and my plethora of removal spells, I never felt like I was in danger of getting overrun (that only happened once).  What I need was more defense against these non-creature permanents, which is why after the tournament ended I went and picked up 2 more D Spheres.  They seem like the only thing that can really help me in this situation so I'm going to try main decking the full 4 and see how that goes.  Even if I don't like 4, I can always do a 3-1 split between the main and side.

I'll be posting up my updated deck list soon after I finalize all of my changes.  If you guys have any comments about my matches or want to discuss your own experience at tournaments, please leave a comment!  I always enjoy hearing what you guys have to say :)

See you guys later.

EDH Time!! Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

I wanted to change up the topic of this post from my typical Standard format talk and look at a format that I have arguably more fun playing; EDH.  Now, for those of you who don't know about EDH/Commander, here are some helpful links about the format:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=magic/rules/edh

http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php

Both of these links will be way more helpful for a new player than I could be, so I urge you guys to check them out if you're unsure of how this format works.  It's a little daunting in the beginning (I know that I sure was afraid to start playing it) but once you get the hang of it and try a few games out, I'm know that you'll love it.  Honestly, I've found very few people that have tried EDH and didn't have a good time playing it.

You get to build a deck around whatever you want and because of how the format is structured, you basically have enough time to do anything!  If you enjoy a deck type, there are countless EDH generals and deck strategies that will work.  Give it a try :)  Plus, if you guys are brand new and want some help in making a deck, Wizards has released a Commander set in the past and will be releasing Commander 2013 on November 1st.  These are all pre-made EDH decks that give out some really powerful cards and make new ones specifically for EDH.  Even if you don't decide to keep playing the general(s) that come with the deck, at least you have a collection of good cards and an idea as to what you want to do next.  Here are the links for those:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/732

http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/commander13/productinfo

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/commander-2013-spoiler.html

Alright, so now that my little EDH intro is over, let's get into the topic of this post: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic is a fantastic general.

I know you're probably thinking to yourself, "Well, duh.  Of course he's fantastic.  He was made specifically to get new players into EDH.  He has to be good."  Yes, you're right.  Wizards does want these generals to be powerful and yes, it's pretty easy to see why Oloro is good, but that's not going to stop me from explaining exactly why :P

Seems pretty good.

The most important part of him is that you get a benefit from him being in the Command zone.  Typically, if
your general is in the Command zone, they're not doing anything.  They're just sitting there waiting to be played... but not Oloro.  During every one of your upkeeps, regardless if he's in the Command zone or not, you gain 2 life.  If he's on the field you can get the additional bonus of drawing a card and draining your opponents, but that's not where his power is.  Gaining 2 life during every upkeep is super powerful.  During my games last night with him as my general, I usually got up to around 56-60 life before everyone started really doing something where I felt threatened.  Yes, if your opponent has a fast start and attacks you, you won't have this luxury, but typically that's not going to be the case.  Generally, you're going to have a much higher life total than your opponents will.

That's really the main benefit of Oloro.  You're not going to be using him as your primary win condition, but he's a tremendous support general that helps you out every turn.  This won't be the general for you if you're the type of player that wants a combat oriented or combo aiding general; Oloro really isn't good at those things.  But if you want a general that is always helping you and fits perfectly into the gameplan of an Esper Control EDH deck, he's your guy.

Just like Felidar Sovereign.

There's also a semi-rattlesnake attribute about Oloro.  Sometimes, despite the fact that you're gaining a lot of free life, there will be another player that is building up their board so much that everyone has to stop them, meaning that you'll be left alone.  Now, this isn't always the case because people may just target you because of how powerful your general is, but from what I've found so far, you're not the prime target.  Control decks like to just sit back, build up their mana, and wait for the right time to either clear the board or to play a fatty and try to win.  If this is your gameplan, why not get some free life every turn for your troubles?

I'll be posting my deck sometime in the future.  Right now it's still in it's initial version and is really rough around the edges.  A lot of cards need to be tested and removed, so once the Commander 2013 decks come out and I see some new cards, I can get my deck much closer to a final version.  If you're really looking for what the core of the deck is, it's pretty simple:

1. Destroy all creatures through Wrath-like effects.
2. Swords to Plowshare and Path to Exile kill anything that can survive a Wrath.
3. Draw cards.

That's really it.  The deck's all about surviving and getting to the end game.  What else would you expect from me? ;)

See you guys later.

Esper Discussion - Extra Speed?

Necessary?

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

I wanted to talk about some of the changes that I'm thinking of making to Esper today.  The one thing that I noticed during the tournament that I played in last week was that the deck was at the mercy of topdecks a lot of the time.  Often, if I needed to find a Supreme Verdict it was up to the top of my deck to just produce one.  Sure, I could Sphinx's Rev for one, but that didn't happen often or I could use Jace's -2 to search, but again, that didn't seem to happening all of the time.  I felt like I was a little bit weak against creatures, which is the opposite of what the theory behind this deck is.  With plenty of sweapers and some spot removal, I shouldn't feel that terrible against aggro, but if you don't draw the necessary cards, it doesn't matter what you've got in your deck.

So that's what got me thinking about extra draw.  If I have some more draw power in this deck, I would have a better chance of finding the cards that I'm looking for.  Honestly, what I've really learned from this format so far is how amazing Think Twice is.  I took it for granted last format to have 4 draw spells in my deck that I could cycle early and then cycle again at any point that it was convenient for me to do so.  That's what my current Esper deck is begging for: Think Twice.  Of course, that's no longer an option for Standard, so what other options are there that I could use?

Draw Options:

1. Divination
2. Quicken
3. Read the Bones

 Maybe there are others, but I can't think of them right now.  Regardless, these three should provide a stable place to start looking at draw cards.

Divination: Not flashy, but simple and effective. 2U - Draw 2.  It gets the job done.

Quicken: Only draws one card (so, effectively, it just cycles itself) for U but it does have the added benefit of letting me cast a sorcery at instant speed.  The real advantage to this would be being able to play Supreme Verdict on my opponent's turn, allowing me to untap into a clear board, letting me use my mana better or hold up counter magic to their next play.

Read the Bones: Black divination with a couple tweaks.  2B - Scry 2, draw 2, and then lose 2 life.  A little bit worse against hyper aggro decks than Divination is due to the life loss, but the Scry 2 seems to make up for it.  In my opinion, this is strictly better than Divination because of the scry.  Yes, sometimes 2 life matters against Mono Red but I'm willing to take that chance to play a better card.

Looking at these, it seems obvious that I should be playing Read the Bones.  I really do like Quicken, so maybe I could fit it in as a 1 of to test it out.  It can't be that bad, even if I'm just cycling it.  Regardless of Quicken, I want to fit in 3 Read the Bones.  So I'm looking for at least 3 (and maybe 4) cards to take out of the deck for them... possibilities include:

1. Omenspeaker
2. Obzedat
3. Syncopate

I have to test Omenspeaker a little bit more before I decide how many to take out.  It was an alright card last week, helping me sometimes and being a bit underwhelming others.  Now take that with a grain of salt because I never played against aggro, so she may prove her worth later, but for now I'm considering dropping at least one of her.  Looking at it like this, the first way I think I'll try changing the deck around is:

-2 Omenspeaker
-1 Obzedat
-1 Syncopate

+3 Read the Bones
+1 Quicken

I'll test the Quicken out over 1 Syncopate and see how much I miss the counterspell.  Obzedat wasn't bad and maybe he should be in the sideboard, but his mana requirements were a little but clunky and both Blood Baron and Aetherling were better.  For now, this is what I'll go with.

Last Note: I do plan on making a list up for a budget GR Ramp deck soon.  My friend wants to make the deck but doesn't want to spend too much money, so I'll be posting that list here.  That should go up in a couple days, so if you're interested in that keep yourself updated :)

See you guys later.

My Return plus a Tournament Report!!

This card is definitely overpowered, but I love playing with it just the same.

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

First of all, I've got to apologize for not posting for such a long time.  Not that it's a great excuse, because I was still doing research, but I didn't really play very much Magic during September, so I really never got around to posting here at all.  I just want to reassure you guys that I'm going to be back to playing, mostly Standard and EDH, regularly again and, thus, posting here.  The updates are coming back :)

Alright, so with that out of the way, let's get down to what's been going on in my mtg life recently.  A new card store (well, semi-new.  Probably about 6 months old but I just found out about it) opened up much closer to my house than the store that I used to play at.  The drive is much easier and takes about 2/3 of the time, so my friends and I decided that it would be best to start playing at tournaments there.  As it turns out, the owners (and even most of the players) were really nice yesterday when we went to their regular Wednesday night Standard tournament, so we will definitely be going back.

As you guys remember, I love playing control decks.  I played Esper last season and it seemed like the best place for me to start for this new Standard environment.  I have been building an Esper deck ever since Theros spoilers began appearing online, so (even though I may sound like a hipster), I have been building it since before it finished well at the SCG Open in Worcester.  Just saying :P

Here's the deck that I played:

Creatures: 9

4 Omenspeaker
2 Aetherling
2 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council

Planeswalkers: 2

2 Jace, Architect of Thought

Other Spells: 23

4 Supreme Verdict
3 Dissolve
3 Syncopate
3 Far // Away
3 Thoughtseize
2 Detention Sphere
2 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Azorius Charm

Lands: 26

4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Godless Shrine
2 Watery Grave
4 Azorius Guildgate
2 Dimir Guildgate
2 Orzhov Guildgate
4 Island
4 Plains
2 Swamp

Sideboard: 15

2 Jace,  Memory Adept
2 Doom Blade
1 Devour Flesh
1 Underworld Connections
2 Dispel
2 Pithing Needle
1 Thoughtseize
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Negate

Notes about the deck: Yes, I definitely need to replace the Dimir and Orzhov Guildgates with Temples of Deceit and Silence, respectively.  I just didn't feel like buying them before the tournament and I don't really have that great of a trade binder, so I didn't have them.  At some point, I know that I'll get them, though.  The same is true for Elspeth, Sun's Champion.  She's amazing and I played against her a lot, but I don't feel like paying $35 for a single copy.  I will, however, be picking up Hero's Downfalls soon, as I really need an instant speed answer to Planeswalkers, as Detention Sphere and counter spells don't always cut it.

Round 1: Esper v. Junk

This guy was really nice and I appreciated playing someone that made me feel comfortable right off the bat.  Event though I know that I'm a decent player, I get nervous at events (even locals) so any mental relief that I can get is appreciated.

Game 1: He got me down to 2 life before I was able to Verdict away his creatures and start setting up lethal with Aetherling.  Unfortunately, he had 2 removal spells for him when I cast him (as I only had 1 U mana up to blink him with) so I ended up losing shortly after that.  It may have been the better play to hold on and try to have some extra mana up when I cast Aetherling, but he had 1 card in hand with no creatures on the field so I wanted to pressure him quickly.

Game 2: Very similar to game 1 except this time I was winning with Blood Baron and Obzedat when he had his removal heavy hand to get me.  I feel like it was possible for me to win these games if he didn't have a plethora of removal, but that's why his deck is good against control.  He punishes me for tapping out (or nearly tapping out) for my creatures and has enough removal spells to play around counter magic.

0-1

Round 2: Esper v. Esper

If there's one part of playing control that I absolutely despise, it's playing other control decks.  The games are
obnoxiously long, no one is really able to gain any advantage over the other (because so many of the spells are non-interactive without many creatures), and it's awful when both players are just sitting behind multiple counter spells.  Ugh.

Destroys the mirror.

Game 1: We play the typical draw - go route for quite some time until he's eventually able to have the board state where I have a Blood Baron on board and he has Elspeth, Jace, and Ashiok.  I lose.

Game 2: On my 6th turn I played a Jace, Memory Adept.  He had a Syncopate, but I had a Dispel.  I won a few turns after that when I Dissolved his Hero's Downfall.

Game 3: Same as game 2 except I had to dig for my Memory Adept.  I actually mulliganed down to 6 in this one so I was kind of surprised when I was able to eventually find my Jace, resolve him, and had enough counters to stop him from dying.

1-1

Round 3: Esper v. UW Control

Remember what I said about control v. control matches?

Game 1: I found that I had a lot more to do against him than he did against me because of the B in my deck.  Being able to Away his animated Mutavaults was pretty good (getting rid of a threat and a land at the same time) and Thoughtseize powered me to victory.  I was setting up a play and I Thoughtseized him, taking his Aetherling and leaving him with 2 basic lands, a Detention Sphere, and an Essence Scatter.  The next turn, now with enough mana up to be safe, I played another Thoughtseize, took his Essence Scatter, resolved my Aetherling, and eventually won.

Game 2: I rode Blood Baron to victory in this game.  He really wasn't able to touch it (since it can't be targeted with Detention Sphere or Azorius Charm) and I had Dissolve for his Celestial Flare.  Maybe his deck was light on counters because we never got into counter wars over important cards in this match.

2-1

Round 4: Esper v. UW Control

Again?  Really?

Game 1: He stumbles on land, I resolve an Aetherling on turn 6, and he scoops.

Game 2: Unlike the first game, this was a big, long, grindy affair that ended with him having 13 cards in his deck to my 0.  Sometimes there's nothing you can do about a Memory Adept and counter spells.

Game 3: Same as game 2.  The game went back and fourth with both of us being low on cards in library, but eventually he was able to out advantage me and he won.  It was too bad... I had been doing so well in the mirror (not just the Esper mirror, but the control mirror as a whole) that I had hoped to go 3-0 in it, but it was not to be.

2-2

I want to play with this card so bad...

At this point it was close to 11 pm and I had class at 8 am the next morning (meaning I was going to be getting up at 6) so with my friends all 0-4 or 1-3, we decided to skip the 5th round and go home.  Overall, it was a really fun night.  My deck performed well; all of the matches were close and generally, I felt like my card choices were solid.  I'll be making a few changes to the deck which I'll be posting about soon, so stay tuned for that.

Also, one last note.  If you guys are going to a local tournament and don't know what to try, don't be afraid to play whatever deck you enjoy most!  I played Esper (which is considered one of the best decks so far) but only because it's my favorite deck type of all time.
I saw plenty of aggro strategies being played and nearly all of them had a decent amount of variation between them!  Don't be afraid, especially in the beginning of a format, to play the deck that you enjoy.  You never know what kind of power that your pet deck may have :)

See you guys later.

Mono Red Update

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

I got in a decent amount of testing today on mtgo after I got out of work.  Here's the main point that I found:

This deck cannot beat Thragtusk or Scavenging Ooze.

"Well, duh, that's obvious," you may say, and you would be right.  Clearly a 5/3 that gains 5 life when it enters the battlefield and leaves behind a blocker when it gets Searing Speared is pretty good against a mono red deck.  To go along with it, a 2/2 that grows quickly and gains life while doing it is a pretty good compliment.  The issue isn't that these cards are good against the deck (all decks have cards good against them) but the problem is that these cards are played in *so* many of the competitive decks that you may run up against.  Let me list some:

1. Jund
2. Junk
3. GW Tokens or Lifegain
4. RG Midrange
5. BG Control

"Swag is bringing life to the party and making sure a
homie isn't alone when leaving." - Swagtusk

That's only what I could think of immediately off the top of my head.  I'm sure that there are more decks that use these two cards together.  My point of all of this is that it's really hard to win consistently.  That doesn't take away from the raw power the mono red deck, however.  It's still an explosive deck that can dump all of the cards in its hand in an effort to destroy the opponent by turn 5.  The problem is that the natural foil to aggro decks is lifegain and this Standard format has plenty of that.

I do run Skullcracks in the board and they come in for a lot of matchups, but you don't always draw them.  When you have a Skullcrack in hand and your opponent plays a Thragrusk, it's a pretty good feeling for you.  You just got an 8 point life swing in your favor (the -3 of Skullcrack and the fact that your opponent lost out on gaining 5) and that is usually enough to finish the game off if you've put out any decent amount of pressure on the board.  Despite this, there's not much that can be done.

That's the real crux of the problem at hand.  There really isn't a great answer to these two cards (plus Huntmaster as an honorable mention).  There's not many ways to increase your own speed any more (this deck is already focused on hyper-aggression) and without disruption, there's no way to stop what's happening around you.  Sure, you can Searing Spear a Scavenging Ooze, but that's if they play it without having extra mana to remove creatures, which a smart player won't do.

Now, like I said before, don't let this skew your opinion about this deck.  It's still really good and especially powerful for the price tag (approximately $21).  If you're looking for a cheap deck to get started with (like I was) this is still a great decision.  For such a small price, it has extraordinary power that can steal games out of nowhere.  I'm going to keep testing this deck and see what I come up with.  If you guys can think of anything to help, please comment :)

See you guys later.

Red Deck Wins on MTGO is Destroying :D

This card is amazing!!

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

First off, sorry for not posting recently.  I went away for a mini vacation last week (meaning that I didn't play any mtg) and then I've been working non-stop this week (because it's the last week before my fall semester starts) so overall, I haven't had much time for magic.  Luckily for me, and for my avid readers, tonight I was able to find some time to spend playing on mtgo :)  I've been doing some drafts recently, but I really wanted to play Standard, but I didn't have a deck and didn't want to invest a huge amount of money into a deck, so I began looking for alternatives.  My White Weenie deck was certainly an option, but I felt like going for a more aggressive route... a more... red one.

That's what got me, the most control-loving player in the world, looking up mono red decks.  I knew that the deck was going to be cheap and fairly simple to run (although there's definitely some skill in learning when it's the right time to attack and when you should stay back and block) so I began my search.  After a little bit of looking, I stumbled upon Patrick Sullivan's mono red deck from a StarCity Event last month.  Check out the deck tech here:  Patrick Sullivan's Mono Red Deck.

I decided to make a few changes to make it cost even less.  I cut the Mutavaults not because they're bad, but because they're expensive.  When you get Wrathed, it's nice to have a creature waiting to attack again, but it's far beyond what I wanted to pay.  I also added in some extra burn, as you'll see.  The final major change was replacing Hellrider with Ogre Battledriver.  Hellrider is probably better, but the Battledriver is still powerful and much cheaper.  Here's my list, clocking in at 20.7 mtgo tickets.

Creatures: 28

4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Firefist Striker
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Mogg Flunkies
4 Ogre Battledriver

Other Spells: 10

4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
2 Brimstone Volley

Lands: 22

22 Mountain

Sideboard: 15

4 Burning Earth
4 Volcanic Strength
4 Skullcrack
3 Mark of Mutiny

As you can see, this is just straight up Mono Red.  The point is to play a lot of creatures and bash face, adding in burn to finish off the game or clear up the path for your creatures.  There's really not too much to explain past that.  I went 4-1 in the casual room (with my 1 loss being due to a gigantic misplay) so instead of taking about those (because they were against random decks) I'll go over my first venture into the 2-man queues.

Mono Red vs. Bant Control

Game 1: I won the roll and was on the play.  I played a t1 Foundry Street Denizen and he shocked himself to play a Temple Garden and an Avacyn's Pilgrim.  On t2 I played Burning-Tree into Burning-Tree into Firefist Striker.  I swung with my 4-1 and he blocked.  I liked that trade.  He was at 18, lost his mana accelerator, and I had 6 power on board.  He played a Voice of Resurgence.  I then attacked with my whole team, making his Voice unable to block.  I then played a Mogg Flunkies and passed.  He untapped and played a Loxodon Smiter.  On my turn I Pillar of Flamed his Voice, swung in, and ended.  He drew his card and then conceded the game.

Game 2: I opened with a slower hand on the draw, but I was holding a Burning Earth (which I had sided in) and 4 lands.  I kept.  Throughout the game I played some creatures and he would play his own Loxodon Smiters and Restoration Angels, but I was just waiting for him to tap out so I could safely resolve Burning Earth.  He finally did, and that card absolutely won me the game.  The next turn he cast a Thragtusk but he ended up losing 5 life to do it, so Burning Earth completely erased the life gain.  He was at 7 and he knew that he couldn't really tap his mana effectively at this point.  He decided to risk playing a Supreme Verdict to wipe the board, dropping down to 3 life to do so.  I untapped, played Searing Spear, and won my booster pack.

*Note: I want to take a second to give a big shoutout to my friend tton for telling me how great Burning Earth was back when it was spoiled.  I thought it was going to be ok, maybe a 5/10, but I felt like it was too slow for an aggro deck to play.  I guess that shows how little I know about playing aggro.  He told me that this card was going to be a 10/10, slam dunk great card for aggro decks and from my testing so far, he's absolutely right!

What I'm taking away from this is that this super budget Mono Red deck is capable to competing with the other full power decks of the format.  Obviously I need to do more testing, but for now I'm feeling incredible about this deck.  For roughly $21, it seems like you can buy a competitive deck on mtgo and get in there with the big guns.  I'll keep posting updates as I play more with the deck.  Give it a try!  I'd love to hear what you think of it!

See you guys later.

Deck Brewings and MTGO Talk

Possible Humans update?  Or is Necromancer the way to go?  Or both?

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

Sorry for not posting last week... lots of work recently and not a whole lot of Magic.  Despite that, I've still managed to do plenty of mental brewing about what changes to make to my White Weenie deck and I've also began venturing into Magic: The Gathering Online (or MTGO).

For the White Weenie deck, I've thought about three different options to change it.  My original thought, as eluded to in my last article, was a BW Humans deck with Xathrid Necromancer.  I don't like the original lists of this type of deck that ran a lot of tokens with Gather the Townsfolk as a primary card.  I understand the purpose of pumping out plenty of humans and adding in sac outlets to turn them into zombies, but if you didn't have the Necromancer out the deck functioned as a really poor tokens strategy, which is a really inconsistent way to win, in my opinion.  Instead, I thought about taking Xathrid Necromancer and splashing some B cards around him (like maybe Doom Blade or Profit // Loss) to just add more resiliency to the already fast aggro deck that I was running.

The next version of this deck that I was thinking of was the Craig Wescoe Boros build that he ran at worlds.  I was actually toying around with this concept in my head before I saw his list but I really started to consider the power of the deck when I saw what he was running.  He wrote an article about the deck here and explains it far better than I can.  You guys should definitely check out his article.

The final idea is just simply combining the two and creating a WBR version.  I don't actually like this concept as much because the lands are much more expensive and it starts to take away from the original concept of the deck.  I wanted a consistent and simple deck that had a lot of redundancy with the creatures and I feel like this version stretches the core of the deck a little too thin.  I haven't tested it much so maybe I'm wrong, but for now I would rather stick with either BW or WR.

Switching gears, I wanted to talk about my journey into MTGO.  I really dislike the idea of paying so much money to play on the computer (especially when I don't plan on giving up paper magic) but I'm trying to find ways around this.  Currently I do Phantom Drafts and New Player Phantom Drafts.  A Phantom Draft is where you pay 4 event tickets to enter (approximately 4 dollars) and you do a regular draft or sealed event. You can win packs at the end depending on your record, just like in any regular event.  The kicker is that in this type of draft you don't get to keep the cards that you pull in your packs, which is the main draw to playing drafts in the first place.  The reason that I'm playing these Phantom Drafts is that they're $10 less than a regular draft so if I bomb out of one or two drafts, it's not that bad.  I'm currently around 4-8 in matches (because I'm bad at drafts... I'm trying to learn) but I did manage to 2-0 my last New Player Draft (there are only 2 rounds) so I'm feeling pretty happy about that.  I really enjoy drafting and I'm looking to get better at it, hopefully so that I can begin winning real amounts of packs in the non-Phantom draft versions :P

Well, that's all I've got for today.  I'm going to do some playtesting tonight with my friends so I'll give an update about my Humans deck soon.  If you guys want to test out these decks, make sure that you tell me about your thoughts on them!  I would love to get your input :D

See you guys later.

Tournament Report - TCGPlayer VIP Qualifier - 8/3/13

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

Here's the post that all of my White Weenie talk has come to... the actual tournament report!  It definitely wasn't a big tournament (only around 50 people entered) but it was still a lot of fun for me.  Only one other time have I played in a tournament as large as this (my FNMs average between 15-25 people) so I was very excited to get things under way.  I went with two of my friends; one who was playing UWR Control and the other was playing his homebrew of Biovisionary for fun.  So without further ado, here are the matches!

Match 1: White Weenie vs. GB Starter Deck

Ya, it was kind of disappointing to start off the day playing someone who was using a starter deck... he was obviously a new player and he didn't quite understand all of the concepts of the game, but he was a nice guy and I'm glad to see that he's eager to get into the game.  I won both games quickly. 1-0

Match 2: White Weenie vs. 4 Color Midrange (Jedi Jund)

My opponent was a really nice guy.  He was funny, talkative, and most importantly, he didn't seem to take the game too seriously.  He wanted to win but he didn't want to be a jerk and he wanted to have a good time.  These are the kinds of opponents that make it worth playing in events.  If I always had to play against dick opponents, I would never travel to events.

Game 1: I win the die roll and play first.  I opened very well with t1 Champion of the Parish, t2 Thalia, and t3 Silverblade Paladin.  Thalia pushed him back on his Farseeks and I won quickly.

Game 2: He had the early removal for my creatures and was able to control the board with multiple Huntmasters after that.  I wasn't able to put up much pressure after that.

Game 3: I had an opening as powerful as game 1.  He was ramping with Farseek but he wasn't killing any of my creatures.  I had lethal on the board, looking to win on my 4th turn.  He miracles a Bonfire of the Damned and everything changes.  It sucked to lose my board in that kind of way, but that's what happens sometimes.  There's nothing that I could've done differently.  1-1.

Match 3: White Weenie vs. The Rock (GB Control)

Game 1: I took a risk this game and got burned because of it.  It was my 4th turn (I was on the draw) and I had my opponent down near 10.  He had missed his previous land drop so he was still on 3 lands.  If I commited my last creature in hand to the board (a Boros Elite) I would be able to swing for lethal the next turn.  I knew that he could have Mutilate but I had to take the risk.  I emptied my hand and said go.  My opponent ripped his 4th swamp off the top of his deck, slammed Mutilate on the table, and my chances of winning went from 99% to 0%.  It only took a couple more turns for me to lose after that.

Game 2: He had a lot of early removal and was able to play out multiple Geralf's Messengers and Desecration Demons.  I tried to fight him off but there was nothing that I could do.  This was definitely a disappointing match.  1-2.

Match 4: White Weenie vs. Mono G Elf Ramp

This is the deck that wants to play Garruk, Caller of Beasts as soon as possible and start slamming creatures on the table.  I knew that he would be packing plenty of small creatures in the hopes of getting me with a Craterhoof Behemoth, so I kept that in mind during the match.

Game 1: Both of us mulligan to 6 but my hand was a lot better than his.  I was able to get out some decent pressure and all he was able to do was play mana elves.  That's definitely not a bad thing, but he never drew into threats to cast.  Yes, that was certainly aided by the fact that I swung for lethal on t4, but still, he had 6 available mana on his 3rd turn so if he had a Garruk at that point, things may have been different.

Game 2: Same type of thing as game 1 except for the fact that he was trying to ramp into Craterhoof Behemoth off of a hand full of mana elves.  He tried to get the game state to a point where he could get Behemoth into play with plenty of attackers for lethal, but I was one turn too fast for him.  I was applying constant pressure and I was able to Fiend Hunter away his Elvish Archdruid the turn he played it, which would've enabled him to play Craterhoof and win the next turn.  2-2.

I really wanted to keep playing in this tournament, but both of my friends had already dropped and wanted me to enter a side event draft with them, so after a bit of convincing I dropped out too.  I was a little disappointed that I didn't keep playing but I ended on a good win and I'll be taking this deck to FNM again soon, so I didn't feel too bad.  Overall, I had a really fun day :)  I don't often get to travel so it was really fun for me to get out and play magic at a higher level event than my local tournament.

After playing White Weenie at this event, there are definitely some cards that stood out for me, both positively and negatively.  Banisher Priest was extremely powerful for me during every match.  She provided a good attacker, removed big threats, or just cleared the way for my other attackers to get in.  I never expected Knight of Glory to be an all-star, but he really never impacted a game at all.  I would basically avoid casting him in favor of nearly any other 2 drop that I could play.  I'm looking for replacements for him.  I also want to make the deck more resilient to hate.  I know that this is an all-out aggro deck, but I feel like the deck could be a little bit more stable in the face of, say, Mutilate or Bonfire (both of which destroyed me during my matches).  I'll be brewing and testing a bit more before my next update of this deck, but until then, here's a little teaser for you...

See you guys later.

White Weenie Sideboard

He looks like a natural Bantchantments destroyer, right?

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

I've finally got my sideboard figured out for this weekend's tournament.  We'll go over every card in it and talk about what kind of match ups I will bring it in for, but first, here it is:

Total Cards: 15

3 Dryad Militant
2 Rest in Peace
2 Fiend Hunter
4 War Priest of Thune
2 Frontline Medic
2 Nearheath Pilgrim

Dryad Militant: Hurts the UW/UWR flash decks and the U based control decks of the format.  Not being able to flash back anything really hurts their card advantage program, and it completely blanks Snapcaster.

Rest in Peace: Also hurts the flash decks but is primarily there as a win condition against Junk Reanimator.

Fiend Hunter: Great against other aggro decks because it removes a threat and then can block well.  Also has some utility against Jund because it can remove their good creatures (but I do admit that that's kind of weak).

War Priest of Thune: I actually love this guy.  He's a 2/2 for 2 that fits on theme and destroys enchantments (which is extremely important with the popularity of Bantchantments).  What's not to love?

Frontline Medic: This comes in against other aggro decks.  Being able to alpha strike with all of my creatures gaining indestructability is extremely good.  The opponent either takes a ton of damage of loses all of their creatures, while you still have yours for next turn.

Nearheath Pilgrim: This is probably my least favorite card in here, but he's still not bad.  You can use him against other aggro decks to gain some extra life.

My two concerns with the sideboard are:

#1: I feel weak against Jund.

#2: I'm not sold on Nearheath Pilgrim.  He may be better as an Oblivion Ring.

I'll keep testing the board and get back to you guys as to what I like better.  I'm also going to be posting about my final playtesting sessions before Saturday.  You guys will also be getting a full tournament report about Saturday as well, so look forward to that!  Until then, any suggestions that you guys have are welcome.  Please comment if you have any :)

See you guys later.

Fair Decks in Modern?

Is this the only consistent way?

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Modern recently.  As many of you know, I've been playing a UW Tempo list lately (which I have posted about a couple of times) and generally it's not a bad deck, but I can't help shake off the feeling that I should just be playing combo instead.  I proxied up a Storm deck and began testing it and while it doesn't win every time, I feel like it is just a significantly more powerful deck (which frightens me, honestly).  I've also been considering working with Elf Combo (as most recently inspired by Travis Woo's deck (here).  It has a lot of ways to go infinite with both creatures and mana, thus allowing for general beatdown or Craterhoof shenanigans.

So my general question for you guys is: are combo decks the best way to win in Modern, especially on a budget?

I know that a lot of the best decks in Modern aren't combo driven (Jund, Junk, Tron, Zoo, Affinity, etc) but all of these decks are fairly expensive (Fetchlands, Tarmogoyfs, Karns, and Mox Opals, just to name a few), which pushes me away from them.  I know that it's only a one time investment in the cards, because of Modern being an eternal format, but I still hate spending all that money.  So, keeping that in mind, I'm beginning to feel like the best thing that I can do for myself as a budget player is to break down and just play combo.  Not that combo's necessarily a bad thing, but it usually doesn't play very interactive games of magic (which is the idea behind tempo and many other "fair" decks).

Just as a note: when I say fair, I'm not saying that the decks don't have unfair cards.  Take Jund for example.  It's a much more "fair" deck than Storm because it plays interactive magic, but no one would ever say that Liliana of the Veil, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and Thoughtseize are fair cards.  It's the play style of the deck that determines whether it's fair or not.  In short, interactive is fair, solitaire is not fair.

I hope to hear your opinions on Modern as a whole and the budget side of the format as well.  I really am enjoying Modern the more I play it, but this is becoming something that I feel is true, and I hope that I can be told otherwise.  I'm most certainly not a combo player at heart, and while I do enjoy the strategies of Storm or Elves somewhat, I would almost always prefer to play out a real game of magic.

See you guys later.

White Weenie Update: Fiendslayer Paladin

Return of the Jedi

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

I'm still working on the White Weenie deck for that upcoming TCGPlayer tournament, but one change that I want to try out is adding in Fiendslayer Paladin.  I was able to get three of them yesterday so I figure that they could be a pretty good addition to the deck.  Of course (being the nit-picky guy that I am) I wish that it was a 3/3 so that it could survive battles with Beast tokens, but that's just me being overly anal.  It's still a 2/2 First Strike and Lifelink hate-bear that survives most of the removal in Standard right now.  Seems pretty good when you look at it like that :P

The changes that I'm making to fit him in are:
-2 Judge's Familiar -1 Knight of Glory
+3 Fiendslayer Paladin

Judge's Familiar is decent in some matches but bad in others (specifically aggro mirrors).  It's always really nice to delay your opponent's Farseek ramp but if that's best job that I can find for Judge's Familiar, I would rather try out our Jedi friend.  Knight of Glory wasn't trimmed down because he's actually bad, but you don't lose much putting him to 3, so it seemed like a fine choice to make some more room.

As a general update on the deck, it's seeming pretty consistent so far.  There are some pretty nutty openings that you can have where unless your opponent wraths on t4, you're going to win (and if you did have the nut draw, they'll be either dead by t4 or nearly dead anyway).  So overall I'm liking this deck quite a bit.  I'll do more playtesting with it and update you guys again.

See you guys later.

Control in Standard?? Is this possible??

I always seems to write about U or W, huh?

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

As many of you know by reading my posts so far, I'm an avid lover of control decks.  I know that my last article talked about an aggro deck, but my mind has wandered back to the land of few creatures, card advantage spells, and 45 minute long matches.  Ever since M14 came out I began thinking of Trading Post and how it could best be used in a control deck for the current Standard environment.  It saw play a year ago when it was initially printed because the Scars of Mirrodin block was still legal (mainly because of how powerful the artifacts were) and ever since then nobody seems to play it... until now (well, mainly just me, but that's a start).  There's one card in M14 that really got me thinking about Trading Post, and that would be Angelic Accord.

As many of you know, control decks try to grind the game down until their opponent runs out of resources and they have a dominant card advantage.  From here, it's easy for a control player to win the game by resolving one threat and riding it to victory.  In the current Standard environment, the deck that I've played the most is Esper control and the main problem that I have with it is how long it takes to win.  Now don't get me wrong, I understand that I'm playing a control deck, but damn, Esper runs so few win conditions it's unreal how long it takes to win a game.  Sure, if you can resolve a Jace and mill them for 10 every turn you'll win fairly shortly but with how long it takes to cast him (because you have to wait until he's safe) and the fact that you only run a couple of him, the games take absolutely forever.

Now with that aside over, let's bring this back to Angelic Accord and Trading Post.  In comparison to how long it takes Esper to win, these two cards together allow for you to put out a 4/4 Flying Angel token every single turn.  Your opponent has spot removal to kill your creature?  Make another one.  You're forced to wrath because your opponent put out a strong rebound creature?  Make some more angels.  People aren't running artifact removal at the moment and yes, some decks do have enchantment removal because of the prevalence of Bant Enchantments, overall your Angelic Accord is safe.  Is this combo kind of slow?  Ya.  Is it really slow?  Ya.  But what does control have going for it that many other decks don't?  It loves slow games.  You don't want to play an Angelic Accord on t4 or t5, so only running 2 copies seems fine, thus helping to reduce clunky draws.  Trading Post is much more versatile, which allows us to run more copies because seeing a Trading Post on t4 is actually pretty good.

I'm going to make this an Esper deck instead of strictly UW mainly because of Doom Blade.  It's the best removal spell that we've had in Standard since, well..., Doom Blade last year.  Seems kind of odd, but it's true.  So here's the list.

Creatures: 5

2 AEthering
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council

Instants / Sorceries: 22

3 Terminus
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Doom Blade
4 Far // Away
2 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Dissipate
3 Azorius Charm

Artifacts: 6

3 Trading Post
2 Elixir of Immortality
1 Haunted Plate Mail

Enchantments: 2

2 Angelic Accord

Lands: 25

4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Godless Shrine
2 Watery Grave
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Isolated Chapel
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Encroaching Wastes

I feel like now that Doom Blade's back this deck is going to have a much better plan against aggro.  You can Doom Blade their creature on t2, Away their creature on t3, and then even wrath them with Supreme Verdict on t4 if it's still necessary.  Snapcaster helps to add longevity and AEthering wins easily in just a couple turns.

I've already explained the rest of the deck, but one quick card I want to hit is Haunted Plate Mail.  This is definitely a boarderline bad card, but it may just be in a deck slow enough to work.  You can wrath at any time and still crack in for 4 damage on the same turn, or even equip it to one of your angels and hit for 8.  It may not actually be that great, but I want to give it a shot.

Also, for anyone that's new to control, don't be afraid to use your life total as a resource.  Going down to 10 or below life isn't that bad if you're going to be able to stabilize soon after.  Be selective as to when you're going to use your removal spells.  It's always good to hurt your opponent in the early game, but sometimes it's best to wait it out and see what comes next.  This can only be learned through practice (and undoubtedly making the wrong decisions) but eventually you'll get better at it.  I hope you guys give this deck a try and comment with any questions or playtest results!

See you guys later.

Budget Deck Time! Standard White Weenie (Post M14)

Well, not with him exactly, but the same idea :P

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

So recently I've decided to turn my eyes back towards Standard after a little diversion into the Modern format.  There's a large TCGPlayer tournament that's coming to a game store only an hour away from my house, so it seems like a pretty good opportunity to start playing Standard again.  I'll probably take this deck to an FNM or two before the actual tournament, but the point is that, at least for a few weeks, I'm focusing on Magic's most popular format once again.

As I've said in my previous blog posts, I'm a control player at heart.  I love being able to grind out a win, slowly depleting my opponent's resources as I assemble enough card advantage to drown in... but that's not what I want to play right now.  I've played multiple different control decks in Standard since Return to Ravnica came out; 4-Color Self Mill control, Esper control, and USA control.  To be quite honest, I'm sick of not getting any time off in between my rounds... it's such a grind to play control every week.  I'm ready for a change.  I want to play an aggro deck, but I don't like R based decks that much.  I don't know why exactly, it's just personal preference, I suppose.  Based on this, I've decided to build a White Weenie deck.  Before I talk about how the deck functions, here's the list.

Creatures: 31

4 Champion of the Parish
4 Boros Elite
2 Judge's Familiar
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Imposing Soverign
4 Knight of Glory
4 Precinct Captain
3 Silverblade Paladin
2 Banisher Priest

Other Spells: 7

4 Brave the Elements
3 Path of Bravery

Lands: 22

Plains

The goal of this deck is simple: play your creatures and turn them sideways.  You play a lot of cheap creatures that can overwhelm the opponent quickly.  Even if your opponent has spot removal or board sweepers, you have a lot of other creatures that you can draw to get you out of the situation.  Not to say that you're looking forward to having your creatures killed, but it's good to know that if they do die, you have plenty of ways to come back.

There's really not much else to say about the creatures.  Champion gets huge because you play so many humans and he is clearly your best threat.  The rest of the creatures either slow down your opponent (Thalia, Judge's Familiar, and Banisher Priest) or just power out a lot of damage.  Banisher Priest can actually help in this aspect as well because she'll allow you to clear away a blocker if you need to push through more damage.

The card that made me want to play this deck was the reprint of Brave the Elements.  This card is an absolute powerhouse.  It protects your creatures from spot removal, allows them to block profitably if necessary, or allows you to alpha strike when needed.  Without it, the deck still functions well, but this card helps push this deck over the top.

One note is that if you either have Cavern of Souls or you can pick them up, make sure to get them for this deck.  Virtually all of your creatures are humans and making them uncounterable against control decks is very important.  I would love to play them, but I just want to invest the money in them right now.

I'll make sure to update you guys as I begin testing this deck out.  It's a simple concept, but it's a powerful aggro deck that can certainly take the field by storm.  If you're looking for something different to play or are looking to save some money, give this deck a try.

See you guys later.

UW Tempo Modern Update - Esper Tempo?

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

So as I mentioned in yesterday's post, today I was able to get in some testing with my new UW Tempo deck.  Admittedly, I only got in three games (all of which were against WB Lifegain) but I still feel like the deck was decent.  I lost the match 2-1, but in game three I felt like I had the game in control for about the first three turns... then everything went sour.  I started well with a t1 Delver (I was on the play), blind flip it revealing a Deprive (which I used to counter his t2 play).  He didn't have a t1 play so after my 3rd turn I had dealt 6 damage and was facing against a board of Plains and Isolated Chapel.  Things seemed good for me, but my friend was able to start slamming Soul Sister after Soul Sister, eventually finding an Ajani's Pridemate which became an 11/11.  After such a good start, I just lost control of the board.

Due to this complete overrun that I suffered, I'm now debating whether I should have more spot removal in the deck.  I believe that I'm going to have 2 Supreme Verdicts in the board (maybe main if I have to) but if I want more removal, I would have to go into a third color.  The best options are either red or black.  Red gives me Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, and Izzet Charm.  Removal, burn damage, or card draw in a pinch.  Black gives me Dismember, Doom Blade, and Inquisition of Kozilek (I'm not going to pay for Thoughtseize).  I'm kind of born between these two ideas.  I really like the concept of a burn tempo deck (which is what I did well with in my first FNM) but there's something to be said about being able to flat out kill something with Doom Blade.

The last part of the equation is that I really would like to keep the deck just two colors.  I know that it's not necessary or common in Modern to do this, but I really prefer to keep the mana consistent.  I also feel like it allows you to focus more on the core strategy of the deck instead of spreading the resources thin by adding in an extra color.  Do you guys know about any good U or W cards that I could fit in to help fix this problem?  I've thought about Condemn, but that doesn't get rid of the important value creatures that my opponent refuses to attack with.  If you guys have any suggestions for me I would love to hear them!  I'll keep testing this deck more (against multiple decks next time) and I'll make sure to post an update after that.

See you guys later.

Modern Deck Tech - UW Tempo

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

So here's my first "real" post for you guys!  As the title says, I'm going to be going over the UW Tempo deck that I brewed up for Modern tonight.  I have yet to test it (I'll be doing that tomorrow) but I figured I would go over the concepts now so that there's something to compare it to after some actual playtesting.  

Something that is going to be helpful for you guys to know early on in this blog's life is that I'm a blue mage at heart.  I absolutely love control decks; my favorite card is still Venser, the Sojourner and my favorite color combination is UW by far.  Based on this, the majority of my decks are either straight control, u-based tempo, or combo (I love Splinter Twin and Storm decks for whatever reason).  Now that we've got that out of the way, here's the deck.

Creatures: 19                                                   

4 Delver of Secrets                                          

4 Squadron Hawk                                              

3 Wall of Omens                   

3 Kitchen Finks                     

3 Restoration Angel               

2 Snapcaster Mage               

Other Spells: 19

4 Path to Exile                        

4 Mana Leak                              

4 Serum Visions

3 Gitaxian Probe

2 Deprive

1 Sword of War and Peace

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Lands: 22

4 Hallowed Fountain

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Seachrome Coast

3 Celestial Colonade

5 Island

1 Plains

1 Moorland Haunt

One quick note about the creature line-up.  I should be running both Vendilion Clique and Geist of Saint Traft, but I don't have the money for them.  Both are fantastic creatures that would easily make this deck better.  They're both just way too expensive for me to get at the moment, especially in multiples.  If you have the resources to get them, definitely add them to the deck.

Now, back to the overview.  The plan with this deck is to play cheap threats and then back them up with counter magic and removal. If you're able to equip a Sword to your creature you're doing even better. The advantage provided by the swords are immense, not only because of their powerful effects once you deal damage to your opponent, but also because of the protection from specific colors that they provide.  It makes blocking a disaster for your opponent and also can make their spot removal useless against your creature.

Delver is the best early creature that you can play; having a 3/2 flyer on turn 2 is very powerful in any format (as shown by his success in Legacy as well).  The best part of your creature package is that you don't mind too much if your opponent uses a removal spell on any of them.  With how cheap your creatures are, I would gladly see my opponent burn their Lightning Bolt or a Path to Exile on my 1 mana creature.  I will easily be able to recover and just play another cheap creature or two.

Restoration Angel is a fantastic card to top out your low mana curve. She has a 3/4 body, which is big enough to dodge being killed by both Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix, two of the more popular removal spells in Modern.  Obviously, a 3/4 flying flash creature is good on it's own, but being able to reset a Kitchen Finks that already has a -1/-1 counter on it or getting to draw an extra card off of Wall of Omens is especially sweet.  It's even decent to flash in Restoration Angel to blink your flipped Delver to save it from removal.  Sure, the Delver will flip back over to it's 1/1 side, but assuming that you're able to transform it again (which isn't that hard) you now have 6 total power of flying creatures on the field, and your opponent is down a removal spell.

The spells are fairly straight forward.  There are three main purposes for your instants and sorceries: draw cards, counter your opponent's spells, or remove your opponent's creatures.  Serum Visions both draws a card and sets up the top of your library to hopefully flip Delver.  Gitaxian Probe also draws you a card but, more importantly, it gives you invaluable information about what your opponent is playing and what they have in their hand.  Being able to use this information to your benefit is one of the most important things that you can do when playing a tempo deck.  There are going to be decisions that you have to make about whether it's worth countering something or if your opponent is trying to bluff you.  By knowing what cards your opponent holds, you can much more easily make the decisions as to how important every resource is.  Remember, you're looking to stick one or two creatures and ride them to victory by trading resources constantly with your opponent.  Don't waste your counter spells or removal spells if you know that you don't have to.

Mana Leak and Path to Exile are common cards to see in Modern, so they need little explanation.  They're both just extremely good at doing what they were designed to do.  The card that does need some discussion, however, is Deprive.  It's not a card that you often see people playing because of the tempo that's lost by returning a land to your hand.  I want to try it out because, most importantly, it's a 2 mana hard counter spell.  That's extremely powerful.  The fact that I return a land doesn't kill me because the majority of the deck is low mana cost, so the tempo hit doesn't seem like it will be that bad.  Maybe after some testing I will find out that I don't like Deprive as much as I think I'm going to, but at the moment it seems like a card that will fit very well into the deck.

The lands are basic.  Plenty of dual lands and even a few man lands to give some extra reach in the late game.  I don't run any fetchlands for multiple reasons.  The first is that I simply don't have any at the moment, but in a two color deck like this I don't feel like they're completely necessary anyway.  I'm able to fit in plenty of dual lands and, like I mentioned, the Celestial Colonades so for now I feel like the mana base is just fine.  I want to try out the one Moorland Haunt to give extra attackers once my regular creatures die.  It may not be needed, but it seems like it's worth trying out.

Well, that's the deck, I hope you guys like it.  I don't currently have a sideboard built, but if I end up liking this deck and want to take it to a tournament, I'll make one and put up a post about it.  Like I said earlier in this post, I'll be testing this deck soon so I'll make sure to talk about those matches and see what updates I will be making.  Until then, make sure to play some Magic and, if you're interested in tempo decks, give this deck a try!  I would love to hear what you think of it :)

See you guys later.