Act of Reason – Counter Burn Revisited and some Brews
Last time I left you I had my UR Delver of Secrets deck out there for all of you to take a peek at. Well, as it turns out, I didn’t play Friday Night Magic for two weeks and had a lot of time to think about the deck and read other builds due to its booming popularity after my article dropped (pure coincidence I’m sure). Anyway, I did not settle on the build where I left it, I in fact changed it up quite a bit.
Read more
Show me Whatcha got Wizards
This week’s Act of Reason is going to be fairly short; being that I haven’t written in months. I figure it’d be in your best interest for me to write something well…interesting! This week I’d like to touch briefly on the Magic: The Gathering event decks slated for release on February 25th. I’d like to try a little experiment at my local shop on the 25th and see if these event decks really have what it takes to compete with a (relatively) normal metagame.
Dropping Sealed (Ratchet) Bombs
It’s been a while since I wrote an Act of Reason article, but I’ve been waiting on the Scars of Mirrodin spoilers before I write about my opinions on the new cards. Wizards of the Coast has been doing a fantastic job with keeping things under wraps, and today with only 4 days left until the Pre-Release. The pace at which cards have been spoiled has been just enough to keep you interested, but not so many that we are able to scheme and plan way ahead of the curve. Without any more blathering, let’s go!
To net deck or not to net deck? That is the question
So a while ago, I went on to defend net decking (sort of). So this week, I’m here to say if you’re going to net deck, for the love of god, know how to play the deck you choose for your FNM or weekend tourney. With that said, in this week’s Act of Reason, I’m going to discuss how to play a net deck and what you can learn from your mistakes.
Time Stretching
We all know what it is like to balance life and Magic. We know the sacrifices we make to spend hours upon hours of testing, deck building, failing, tweaking, more testing and then finally playing on Friday nights. During last week’s Magic Show, on Starcitygames.com, Patrick Chapin discussed that these days most of the true innovators of Magic are gone and that most people are net decking. In this week’s Act of Reason, I’m going to discuss my theory on this phenomenon and why Patrick is wrong about his reason why people are net decking. Read more
Ya Miss Me? (Eye Eye Eye!)
While you cool kids were playing in your M11 Pre-Release this weekend, I was sitting at home blind and in pain. Why you ask? I decided it would be a great idea to get laser eye surgery—of the PRK variety to be exact. So in this week’s Act of Reason, I’m going to talk about my experience with this surgery and the recovery involved so far.
On my first day of orientation at the company I now work for, I found out that we get a 15% discount on laser eye surgery. As a glasses wearer, I decided that this was a great opportunity for me to ditch them permanently—well not permanently, but for a while. Let me back up a little bit first. I have had glasses since the 8th grade. I have tried contact lenses and all I got out of that was red eyes and anguish; I looked like a stoner once I finally got my contacts in and I didn’t have the mellow feeling associated with being stoned. Needless to say, I went back to glasses quickly. I just can’t get anything near my eyes. I have a tremendous blink reflex if anything gets in my eye or close to it; I tend to freak out. Taking the initiative for this surgery was a HUGE step forward for me. I got up the courage to visit a local Lasik place and get my “free consultation.” After some eye torture there, I was told that I only qualified for the PRK surgery. Apparently my corneas are too thin for traditional Lasik surgery. I said great; let’s schedule an appointment for the actual “treatment” as they call it. They checked to see if I qualified for a loan first before they scheduled a treatment time and date. This should have really clued me in as to how they really operate over there. I qualified for a loan big enough to cover the whole cost of the surgery, so we all know how that goes. “How soon can you come in?” I had to schedule things about a month out due to prior commitments, which put me at July 9th. Sure, I was bummed I’d be missing FNM and the Pre-Release, but the prospect of having 20/20 vision for a long time was just too overwhelming.
So, on the surgery day, I was nervous—they were going to BURN my eyes with a laser! I got in, signed off on all the forms I needed and was on my way to the next waiting room. I was given a Valium in pill form to calm me down. The drugs did nothing. I had no feeling of calm or relaxation; I was still nervous and keyed up. I sat waiting for a half hour while others went in under the laser before me and came out with a cool pair of sunglasses and a new lease on vision. When it was my turn, it took some courage to stand up and walk into the FREEZING room.
****WARNING****
For those of you considering this surgery and don’t want to be traumatized by the actual procedure, I caution you to skip down to where I tell you it is safe to continue reading again
So here are the gory details of the procedure: They first put you in a hair net and give you a pair of blue balls—that’s right, I was given two stress balls to squeeze during this whole procedure. This to me was a baaaad sign. If people tend to freak out and need stress balls, I knew I was in for a treat. The first thing that they do is numb your eyes out with some crazy eye drops. They wait a bit for them to numb up, then they cover one of your eyes and wedge in an eye speculum for the other. In all honesty, that was the part I was most worried about and it was really nothing but a slight uncomfortable feeling. The worst part came next. Ya know the dentist tools that they use to buff your teeth when you get a cleaning? Ya know, the rubber thing that spins?? They use some sort of version of that on your eyeball. This is done to scrape away the epithelial cells so that the laser actually does what it needs to do. After they buff your eye, they brush off what they buffed off and prepare your eye for the actual laser. The laser is the easiest part! They line it up over your eye, tell you to look at the red light and 17 seconds of snapping and a whiff of burned eyeball and your eye is done! The worst part follows because your brain already knows what your other eye went through. So the left eye was much more traumatic for me to the point where the doctor asked if I was given a Valium. Anyway, they slap some “bandage” contact lenses on your eyes and send you on your way. I was given a plethora of eye drops and a pat on the ass as to say “thanks for the three grand…schmuck.”
The 48 hours after PRK are absolute hell. I had two other surgeries last year and I’d take either of them over PRK. With them, at least, I was able to distract myself with crazy ideas for magic decks and movies, and TV and well…ANYTHING YOU CAN USE YOUR EYES ON! These 48 hours are pain in the dark with nothing to distract you from the pain. When I say nothing can distract you from the pain, I mean the pain of each heartbeat pulsing to your burned corneas–each heartbeat making the migraines caused by this surgery worse. The Loritab I was given did nothing for me. It made my skin numb and gave me cotton mouth. I also tried Tylenol PM to sleep the first night, and that just made me feel drunk and sick to my stomach. I did NOT sleep for over 36 hours. I STRONGLY recommend purchasing some audio books. I had nothing of the sort and resorted to listening to the TV in my world of blind pain.
****OK KIDS, SAFE NOW****
On Sunday, I was able to open my eyes without the assistance of my fingers and take some quick peeks at where I was walking. This helped tremendously as I had walked into a door frame and several walls during my blind period. All I can say about this particular surgery is that you really need to stick to the eye drop plan that they give you. I have followed this by the book, and as a result, I was able to open my eyes fully after 4 days.
I feel like I got so far behind with Magic articles and such that I’m scared to try and innovate something new for this week’s FNM. We all know M11 is legal as of this Friday and I don’t have any of my new decks planned yet—oh wait, I’m not playing this week anyway. This (hopefully) is my last FNM hiatus for the summer. I’ve got a DCI ranking to improve upon and some player reward points to rack up! I do have some deck ideas floating around in my head—Emeria knows I’ve had the time being blind for four days! So until next week, think about that PRK surgery—I didn’t! The jury is still out on whether it was worth it…
Spoiled Again!
Wait, didn’t I just write about spoilers last week? Well…in this week’s Act of Reason I’m going to cover a few more of the cards spoiled and talk about their viability in Standard. This week won’t be quite as organized as last week, so be prepared for me to jump around colors, rarities and all sorts of other wonderfulness.
The first thing I want to touch on is the likelihood of all the original Planeswalkers being back in the set. One can assume that this is the case but I’m going to go on record and say it makes logical sense to put all of the original walkers into a core set. With this being said, is this going to really change things up? I’m going to go out on a limb and say maybe (lame answer, I know). Right now, these walkers aren’t seeing a ton of action due to the emergence of three of the most powerful walkers created to date; Elspeth, Gideon, and Jace 2.0. Come October, we say bye to Elspeth (my current favorite) and look forward to a new batch in Scars of Mirrodin…or do we? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that we can’t guarantee new walkers in Scars, however, I think that it would be a bad idea not to print any. With that being said, there could be some nice synergy with the core walkers and any from Scars.
I now want to talk about the cycle of Titans in this set. These guys are cool and each of them is dripping with flavor—even you Frost Titan! I talked about Sun Titan last week and referred you to Flores’ article. This week I want to talk about the potential for Primeval Titan. To be honest, the first time I saw this card, I read it as “basic lands and put them into play tapped.” After looking at the original price of the card, I took my time reading it and realized that this guy fetches two LANDS for you. Now I’ve been seeing a lot of people harping on the fact that this guy dies to removal and all you did was fetch to lands and spent six mana on a Harrow that grabs non-basics. Wait, really people, it dies to removal? Is that the best you can come up with? This guy is not a waste. What would you pay to fetch two non-basics and put them into play tapped? Eldrazi Temple? Eye of Ugin? Two man-lands? Two Tectonic Edges? Let’s also not forget we get a 6/6 trampler! This guy can get out of control fast if they don’t have the removal for him. But I think this guy is going to see some standard play in Turboland and possibly Valakut Ramp. I think it is a bit of a Squeeze on Valakut Ramp to have those forests out there but also, like a lot of people are saying, this guy allows these deck builders to thin out their decks a bit and get rid of the clunky Khalni Heart Expeditions. Look for this guy in a deck near you! Grave Titan just looks fun. I don’t know if he’ll see the Standard scene or not. A lot of Jund players don’t want to spend 6 mana any more in their decks as they’ve gotten even more aggressive. It’s hard to go wrong with a 6/6 creature that poops two 2/2’s right out of the gate and two more each time it attacks. Did I mention he has deathtouch? Inferno Titan and Frost Titan, to me, are a bit underwhelming for Standard. Inferno, because most red decks that would utilize his ability aren’t running high casting cost creatures and Frost, because his ability is just soft control. His “semi-shroud” ability isn’t really worth mentioning either. Honestly, unless you cheat him out on turn 2, your opponent isn’t going to have much trouble paying 2BR for a Terminate.
So I’m still waiting on a Merfolk lord out of blue. Is it the one pictured on the booster packs? Who knows? I almost want to see Merfolk Sovereign back because he/she has nice synergy with Scroll Thief. Take two damage and I draw a card. I’d like to see some others as it looks like the Elf tribe could possibly make a comeback with the rumor of Imperious Perfect also being in this core set. And where is the goblin lord? Will we see Goblin Chieftain back as well? With Ember Hauler hanging around will goblins be viable again? There are just so many questions still left to be answered…
One thing I do know is assuming that we will see all five of the core walkers back, that leaves us with 2 mythic rare cards left to be spoiled. I’d wager as well that they’ll be in black and red unless they didn’t balance out the mythic placement. There are still a couple of question marks as far as the booster pack pictures are concerned. What’s that Lich looking thing? Could this be a mythic creature for black? As this week rolls on, we’re bound to see more of the rare cards spoiled on wizards’ website. I don’t know about you all (how many of you are there anyway?) but I was not blown away by Angelic Arbiter this morning. I think it might find its way into some sideboards at best…and that’s some risky tech if you ask me. At that late a stage in the game, does it really matter if you’re locking your opponent? Ugh, I realize that all cards aren’t created to be amazing, or to see Standard play, but this card had me shaking my head. EDH and Limited bomb, absolutely. Other than that it’s shiny and cool, but that’s about as far as I see it going—oh and it’s a foil in the intro packs. I see myself pulling a foil of this on top of the intro pack one based on my track record of doing this.
So that’s all I’ve got for you this week. Enjoy the next week and a half of spoilers. I hope they keep things fun and interesting like they have so far. Wizards has done a fantastic job keeping things under a better lock and key for this set than ROE. I’m sure there will be one or two more surprises on the horizon with this one. Finally, I have no idea what to play at FNM this week. Suggestions??
Spoiled!
It’s That Time Again…
Spoiler season for the latest core set is here and in this week’s Act of Reason I’d like to talk about the cards we’ve seen spoiled so far and which ones I like for sealed. First and foremost, I don’t claim to be a sealed pro or anything special. Much like all of my articles, I can only write based upon my observations and experience. I’m going to break down each group by color. So with that, let’s begin!
White:
Obviously Baneslayer Angel is a great card to see back; especially to those of us who already own a playset. I really don’t have much else to say about this card other than it’s still amazing, but while playing in sealed, keep a close eye on it. I mean this from both sides of the card. Be hesitant to cast it early as your main threat as there is quite a bit of removal in this core set. For the other side of the coin, if you know someone pulled it—and you will, hold your removal for it. This card will lock up the game if left unchecked.
With most sealed events there are two creature types that Thrive: fliers and fatties. I want to talk about a couple other fliers that I really like. I love seeing Goldenglow Moth back in action. This card is going to be a major nuisance in sealed. Plop a Holy Strength on it, and bam, you’ve got a viable blocker, attacker, and life gainer all in one! I also really like Cloud Crusader; flying and first strike, bonus!
Another card I’d like to touch on is Sun Titan. All I have to say is that I can’t wait to see this card broken in the format. For more information read Flores’ article here. I completely agree with him. Finally to wrap up white, I want to highlight Condemn, Pacifism, and Safe Passage. We all know Condemn is going to replace Path to Exile. Being an uncommon, keep your eye on this one because if you’re splashing white, you need this in there. Pacifism will save your butt from a big creature early and likely swing the tide to your advantage, but if that doesn’t do it, a timely Safe Passage might. Honorable mention goes to Elite Vanguard in this group. A 2/1 on turn 1 can get dangerous fast, especially if it’s followed with another on turn 2.
Edit: After writing this article, more cards were spoiled—I want to take a look at Knight Exemplar. Because Knight of the Reliquary wasn’t good enough, let’s permanently make it indestructible with Knight Exemplar. This card is replacing Dauntless Escort in Mythic Conscription decks. As far as sealed is concerned, I’m not afraid of it. There’s not much of a chance you’ll see too many tribal knight decks in a sealed tourney. I’m sure I’ll be eating my words in a few weeks…
Blue:
Tons of people have talked about Aether Adept and how it is the replacement for Man o’ War. I’m not going to say much more other than I like the addition to blue and the possibilities as early soft control. Back on topic for sealed, I love Air Servant! He taps fliers while you attack with him! This guy is like Dawnglare Invoker plus. He lets you bombard your opponent with your airborne army, while you keep theirs at bay. I also like Augury Owl and all of the Scry spells. They bring fun back to blue, not only for sealed, but for constructed. Jace’s Ingenuity is also a nice card for sealed and standard. Need drawing power, check, need it at instant speed, you got it! Finally for blue, one you want to really keep an eye out for is Mind Control. If you’re running blue and you leave this card on the side you’ll really want to kick yourself. “Nice Baneslayer.” *Yoink* “Mine now!” Honorable mention for blue has to go to Diminish. I love this card paired with Cunning Sparkmage, but for sealed, pair it with Prodigal Pyromancer and we’re good.
Edit: Mana Leak!!!!! Nuff said about that. Time Reversal, wow…this card makes me happy. I’m not sure how to abuse it quite yet; give me some time to think about it. But seriously, they made a functional reprint of Time Twister! This card could be sick in sealed as well!
Black:
It’s where the removal is at, but I want to touch on the powerful Nightwing Shade for sealed. Pumpable is good in sealed, but a flier to boot; yes please! We then have your Reassembling Skeleton – your multipurpose, non-trample, blocker. Reassemble him at your opponent’s end step and untap on yours. Finally, we know that Doom Blade is back but I want to talk about Necrotic Plague a bit. This card is an enigma to me. 2BB to destroy an opponent’s creature and then one of yours. Then it’s rinse and repeat while there are still critters on the board. I just want to say I love the flavor this card is covered with, but as far as sealed is concerned, it’s only conditional removal. I have no creatures and my opponent has one, bam – bye, bye birdie. Honorable mention goes out to Stabbing Pain and Unholy Strength.
Red:
Now here’s a color that has me a little hesitant to play sealed. I’m seeing a ton of burn and burn related spells here and not a lot of good creatures to protect my Planeswalker butt. I want to touch on how good Act of Treason is in sealed. You take your opponent’s biggest creature away from them, swing out and win. More times than not it works, just watch out for the occasional Safe Passage and Fog. Now Fling on the other hand paired with Act of Treason is just a downright dirty play for all of five mana. Highlights in the burn category, for me, include Lightning Bolt, Lava Axe, and Prodigal Pyromancer. My sleeper for red enchantments is Volcanic Strength. I feel like it does so much against red that it’s a must run. Honorable mention for this group, for me, goes to Arc Runner and Ember Hauler. Arc Runner on a clean board is nasty for three mana. A hasty 5/1, that doesn’t go away, means you need an answer fast. Ember Hauler, I feel ,can be great given the right deck in sealed and it could be the card that wins you the game with that last point of damage.
Edit: Hording Dragon. I really, really, want this card to be good. It’s dripping with flavor but I just don’t see it fitting into constructed play (yet). Combustion however…wow! Let’s really take care of that big bad Baneslayer with M11.
Green:
I like a lot of cards in green right now for sealed, so I’m not going to touch on them all. I do want to talk a little bit about some of green’s fatties. I scoffed at Yavimaya Wurm until I read the card again and realized that it had Trample. It’s a much more functional version of Craw Wurm, yippee! Granted an unchecked Craw Wurm is still damaging but this guy runs through blockers if they can’t kill it. Garruk’s Companion; a 3/2 trampler is also a nasty card at two green mana. Look to face multiples of this in your events. While this card isn’t exactly a fattie, I place it there simply because of its destructive capability. If you really want to talk about a fattie, look no further than Greater Basilisk. This guy can also Wreak Havoc if left unchecked. My sleeper for green, so far, is probably Wall of Vines. This card is going to protect you in the early game while you ramp up using Cultivate to drop bigger creatures. Finally, honorable mention, and also “watch out for,” goes to Plummet. Being that you can only run four of this in constructed; I want to run as many of this as possible in sealed.
Edit: Well we got the Jund hoser spoiled that Aaron Forsythe talked about – Obstinate Baloth. This card is going to find a home in so many decks; limited and constructed. I love the symmetry of it. A 4/4 for 4 mana that gains you 4 life when it enters the battlefield and can’t be discarded. Overwhelming Stampede will see play as well, even with some potential to replace Overrun in some decks. I like its potential for a REALLY BIG swing.
Edit2: I’d also like to talk about a couple of the artifacts that have been spoiled. My teammates would not let me post this article without talking about Juggernaut. I HATE this card. Of course by hate, I mean love. This card is going to hose U/W control unless they have an answer to it. I see it making its way into some sideboards just to walk past Wall of Omens and Wall of Denial. I also like Gargoyle Sentry in sealed a lot. This guy could potentially give people fits. Big ups to MTGSalvation for posting all the spoilers, without which I wouldn’t be able to talk about all of this today.
On a final note, I got my first 1st place in a FNM last week. I made top 4 for the 2nd week in a row and they were nice enough to give me the victory. And for the “awwww” factor, I gave my prize packs to a new kid, from what I could guess was under 15, who showed a lot of guts coming to a FNM filled with 25+ year olds. I hope he comes back! I’m taking a hiatus this week from FNM in favor of a graduation party. Until next week!
Meta-Schmeta!
First, I’d like to say that I have come up with an official name for my weekly blog articles. Drumroll please! *Ehem* Drumroll?? No? Whatever, I am calling my weekly article “Act of Reason.” Catchy huh? Anyway, in this week’s Act of Reason, I’m going to talk about choosing the right deck for your store’s meta.
There is only so much you can do by checking the top decks from tournaments on starcitygames.com each week for choosing which deck you want to play. What was good for that tournament’s meta might not be good for your store’s meta. You really need to sit back, look at your store, see who’s winning, and with what. You also need to look at your own matches and see what you faced. The week before last I faced 3 Jund decks, as the meta was flooded with it. There were zero control decks at our store. That made my decision for FNM pretty simple – play U/W control. Boy did I pick right! I went 3-1 and finished in the Top 4 on the night. The only deck that gave me trouble was a Runeflare Combo deck. Against U/W, Runeflare pretty much dominates. In fact, that Runeflare Combo deck was even more appropriate for our store’s meta than my selection of U/W Control! This completely goes to show you why choosing the right deck is so important.
So you might be asking, “Ok Bob, how do I know what to play?” The answer is not quite so simple and it requires a lot of research on your part. You should indeed research which decks are winning tournaments near and far, but more importantly you need to study their meta. Is Jund cleaning up? Likely the field is running aggro without control. Is Super Friends at the top? You’re likely facing a control dominated meta. At our shop, we see a heavy dose of Naya, Jund, and Vampires. In this aggro heavy field U/W Control was a perfect fit. Being that I was likely to face a lot of removal, I added the element of shroud in my deck to combat the large amount of removal. There were many games where I had dropped a Wall of Denial and my opponent could only shake their head in disgust. I didn’t just randomly decide that Wall of Denial would be “fun” for my deck, no, I needed something that was going to Fend Off an early assault by my opponents without getting Terminated while I dropped Elspeth, Jace and Gideon on the board. This wasn’t exactly where knowing what to play stops however, the other half of this is your sideboard.
I can say from my own experience, I am notoriously bad at both creating a sideboard and actually sideboarding during games. It is very important to once again, not only study the big tournament sideboards, but to study your own store’s meta. This week I got it right for once…erm well, mostly. I was really wishing I had a Mindbreak Trap in my sideboard against that Runeflare Combo deck. But other than that, I can’t say enough about running Hindering Light in U/W Control. Let’s look at all of the cards that this card stops at my store’s meta. It stops Doom Blade, Terminate, Blightning, Maelstrom Pulse, Lightning Bolt, Flame Slash, Runeflare Trap, Consuming Vapors, Path to Exile, and it also cantrips! Let’s bear in mind however that Hindering Light will counter Bituminous Blast but it won’t counter the cascade, so pick and choose carefully on this one. I also threw Deprive into my sideboard as kind of a catch all counter if I faced the mirror; I used it once to counter a Jace Beleren. The rest of my sideboard consisted of extra planeswalkers, one more Martial Coup and an Iona. I only sided in Iona against the Vampire deck I faced. The game dragged out to the point where I had the mana to hard cast her but I never drew her. Overall, I give my sideboard, for last week, a grade of B. There was room for improvement, but it shined mostly where it needed to. This week, if I bring the same deck, the sideboard will be slightly changed. Another quick sideboard tidbit for you is to know what cards you’re siding out and in with your sideboard for which match ups. I was able to side out all of my walls against the Runeflare Trap deck and side in some counter magic. Against Vampires, I was able to drop a land and some Spreading Seas. It’s important to know what you’re siding in and out and against what matchups because, in my experience, siding in something is only half the battle; knowing what to take out is key. The other issue I see a lot with myself is siding in cards that I don’t truly need in a match up. Why do I need to side in X card if I handled the deck fine game 1 and don’t Foresee anything crazy coming in from their board for game 2?
In the end, like I had already talked about, I went 3-1 and finished in the top 4 with my only loss from the Runeflare Combo deck. I was successful, mainly because this week, I picked the right deck to pilot for the store’s meta. So this weekend, when I sleeve up a deck, I need to think about two things 1) What decks are going to make an appearance and 2) what decks are going to be tweaked to beat mine? After all of this thought I’m likely going to give this deck a whirl again. It still feels like one of the best decks to run at the store and I think if I can get things right on the sideboard, I’ll be in even better shape this week.
So what did we learn this week? Meta is very important and you need to have keen observation skills at your store. You likely only play 4 or 5 people at your FNM each week, so you really need to pay attention to what is being played and by who so you can be prepared for the following week. Try to keep in mind what worked for you, what didn’t, what can I do to make things play out to my advantage, what sideboard should I bring, etc? These are all questions that are pertinent each week, but more importantly, they’re only good if you answer them based on your meta.
Oh yeah, I cracked a Gideon Jura out of my prize packs…