The M14 Rules Announcement – Mostly Awesome (With A Chance Of Blowout); Also, Your Humble Author Is Probably a Giant Douche

Sorry for the gap in coverage on Monday, folks.  One of the side-effects of editing for LegitMTG.com is that I’ve managed to start developing a fundamental understanding of how WordPress works, and that is helping tremendously when it comes to designing GDC 2.0. 

Sometimes, it also means that I forget what day it is and end up coming home just in time to put in some time discussing the design with interested parties, before realizing that I should be writing some content way too late at night to do anything about it.  Sorry about that. 

This is, however, not the reason I am a douche.  More on that in a bit.

First up: The sky is falling, Wizards of the Coast jumped the shark, I’m selling/burning/eating my collection, and so on…

THE M14 RULES ANNOUNCEMENT

While I was sitting back last night, trying to figure out some way to attack into Keenan with an Acidic Slime and ninjutsu in a Sakashima’s Student as a copy of Visara the Dreadful without both copies immediately dying as a state-based effect, Matt Tabak was busy taking care of my problem (and simultaneously becoming one of the most hated names in Magic at the same time) with this announcement.

The Tl;dr version is this: With the M14 rules update, duplicate legendary permanents controlled by different people no-longer “legend-rule” each-other to death as a state-based effect.  The corollary is that duplicate legendary permanents controlled by the same player force that player to choose one copy to retain, and he or she must sacrifice the others. 

This means several things-

-The 800-pound gorilla in the EDH room is that Clone effects no-longer destroy generals.  Hexproof generals are quite a bit better now.  Sigarda, Host of Herons is way better now, as she now only dies to board sweepers. 

-You should be playing with 100% more Evil Twin.

-You aren’t Strip-Mining an opposing Miren, the Moaning Well with your own copy anymore.

-If you play Dark Depths and then activate Thespian’s Stage to make it a copy, it will become a Dark Depths with zero counters on it.  If you correctly choose the original one to sacrifice to the “legend rule 3.0” effect, you will then be the proud mother or father of a giant bouncing baby Marit Lage.

-That awful thing I did last night by kicking a Rite of Replication targeting my opponent’s Reaper King would leave us both with a copy in play.  Well, other than the fact that it would then immediately still be scarecrow-Vindicated, anyway.  (Yes, this is partially the reason I am a douche.  Read on…)

Thoughts-

This is ruining the lives of other formats, but I happen to find it pretty cool for EDH.  Sure, we’re losing a line of play that gives us access to some unorthodox removal options, but I think the gains more-than make up for it.  As I said above with the Dark Depths thing and the Sakashima’s Student thing, there are some really interesting new interactions that are now possible. 

And I don’t have to pretend that I honestly meant to play that Miren on purpose to blow Mr P’s copy up…

Now, it does serve to make some things harder to deal with.  Legends that have hexproof gain from this announcement, as does Avacyn, Angel of Hope.  Contrary to popular belief, this actually makes blue better rather than worse, because mass-bounce effects will now be at a premium.

Dunno…I rarely make the Clone-as-removal play, so I really don’t seem to mind this at all.  It seems fun and interesting more than anything else. 

Oh yeah…the same kind of rule now also applies to planeswalkers.  This will likely be even more of a corner-case issue, but that one time, I saw someone play a Jace to kill off another Jace.  I guess there’s that.

Also, something else happened regarding something called a “sideboard.”  <shrug>

I’d love to hear some thoughts on this one…any takers?

THOSE THINGS THAT HAPPENED

Okay…last night I apparently decided to go completely off the reservation.  I played two games; one featuring my Prime Speaker deck, and one with Melek.  I won both.  The first one took three hours to indulge Keenan and I playing a control-on-control slugfest, and the second involved me making plays that broke nearly every single one of my EDH moral values. 

(Yes…this is the part where I explain why I’m a douche.  Thanks for sticking around!)

The Zegana Game-

I was seated with Keenan and his Wrexial, the Risen Deep deck, and two newer players.  (I really suck with names, guys, but I know you’re reading this.  It was a pleasure to meet and play games with you both, and deepest apologies for what went down.  Please feel free to introduce yourselves in the comments.)

Keenan’s Wrexial deck is a strong-but-fair control deck, and we’ve had some seriously great matches as a result.  Coupled with the fact that a Reaper King was unveiled next to me, I figured it was a good time to break out Prime Speaker and have a game.

By the time things ended, I had eleven cards left in my deck, and the better part of fifty in the exile zone.  I was able to stick an early Damping Matrix to buy some time to set up, but Keenan wasn’t letting me keep Leyline of Anticipation and Seedborn Muse both in play.  We traded down on some counter wars, the board was Cyclonic Rift-ed and Oblivion Stone-d a few times, and while life totals slowly dwindled, everyone stayed in the game. 

Knowing that I needed to make a move, I played Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre.  It was met with a Detention Sphere and a Pithing Needle naming the Oblivion Stone I had just put on top of my library with Academy Ruins from Reaper King. 

Waiting for my moment, I activated my Scroll Rack a few times to sculpt a hand, and had Spelljack ready for an opposing It That Betrays.  After exhausting Keenan’s counterspells and doing the math, I popped the Oblivion Stone on the end of his turn, getting back Ulamog.  I activated Alchemist’s Refuge, played It That Betrays, copied it with a Sakashima’s Student, and copied it again with Phyrexian Metamorph.  Untapping, I was able to kill the entire table in that attack phase for the win.

Pretty epic game, and even though it was a bit of a control grind, I feel like everyone was in it al the way.  Style points go to Reaper king, for resolving Taurean Mauler about seven times throughout the game.

The Melek Game-

Here’s where the moral train leaves the rails.  I decided to play the Melek deck, giving Keenan my Skullbriar list to try (he asked for something that beats for a bunch and plays Skyshroud Claim.)  The other guys played Reaper King again, and Questing Phelddagrif.  The Questing player explained that he needed something with Bant colors for a general, and never really played the general anyway, so we let him continue with the non-legendary choice.  At this point, I was fearing some sort of solid control/goodstuff list, but decided to see what Melek could do.

Ah…and Luke.  Luke also joined with Maga, Traitor to Mortals.  This is critically important.

-The first offense:

Luke suspended a Curse of the Cabal.  Now, I don’t particularly like effects that do that much damage to an opponent’s board state.  You all know my feelings on Armageddon effects at this point, and the same rules apply; Curse is just a really effective way to just effectively shut a player out of the game.  

Clearly, the right call is then for me to expend several tutor effects to enable the following play:

-Luke puts Curse on the stack.

-I Hinder it, retaining priority.

-In response, Reverberate Curse, targeting Luke and retaining priority.

-In response to that, Twincast Curse, targeting Luke.

Yeah.  School is in session.  Luke goes to three swamps and a Crypt Ghast.  Kind of awesome in theory, but I guess I just effectively responded to a strategy that I dislike by doing it myself.  Twice.

In one turn.

There’s a moral lesson in here somewhere.

-Interlude – Awesomeness all around as the second offense is averted:

Fast-forward ahead a bit.  Questing Pheld is putting together some pretty scary things; Scroll Rack and Sol Ring and (possibly, although I’m pretty tired and not remembering straight at this point) something like Mimic Vat, amongst other things.  I start sculpting my hand again through Mystic Retrieval on Mystical Tutor.

At this point, he plays Memory Jar.  I don’t like where this is going.  It resolves, and there is some discussion as to how to stop a Memory Jar. 

Stifle and Trickbind are suggested.  I helpfully suggest just killing off the player in response to the activation.

On Keenan’s turn he plays a Woodfall Primus.  In response, reaper king strangely activated Alchemist’s Refuge to play Mana Reflection.  This is a very odd line of play, but I am enthralled as much as I am confused.  Keenan is as well, but holds the course and targets Jar.  Questing blows the jar.

“I have so many responses to that.”, I announce.

I decide to go for it.  I’m going to see if I can kill him off in response.  The play angel is something like this:

-High Tide, copied with Fork, followed by Turnabout, allowing me to target Questing with a 19-point Blue Sun’s Zenith.  This is followed by Cerebral Vortex, which is then copied with Increasing Vengeance and a few other Fork effects.

Questing has the counter for one copy.  He thinks, then Spelljacks Increasing Vengeance.  Instead of taking 80 damage, he goes to ten and has a free Fork effect.  That was a seriously epic swing play to take me down a peg or two.

However…

-The third offense:

A few turns later, Questing goes for some huge effect that may have been an Avenger of Zendikar, followed by Time Warp.

I Wild Ricochet, redirecting it to me and copying it. 

In response, he casts my free Increasing Vengeance, targeting his Time Warp. 

I let it resolve, and it goes to my yard.  I then flash it back, getting two copies of Wild Ricochet, targeting his two Time Warps and copying them all over again.

This stack resolves, and I proceed to take a handful of turns, killing Questing and Keenan off with a kicked Rite of Replication targeting that Woodfall Primus and leaving Luke and Reaper alive.

-The fourth offense:

Things start to get blurry here.  It’s now after midnight, and we’re in archenemy mode, with Luke and Reaper trying to take me out.  Reaper eventually finds his general, and when he goes to cast a scarecrow, I Reins Of Power in response.  Luke targets me with Maga for a handful and passes.

I untap and find my freshly-purchased Timetwister.  This finds me Rite of Replication.

I kick this targeting Reaper King.  When the dust settles, Luke is down a Maga and a swamp, and Reaper has zero permanents in play.

If this were a league game, I’d be at about negative twelve points by now.  Also, I am probably going to hell.

-The final offense:

Luke finds Sorin, and I go to ten.  I decide to go for it, and tutor up Epic Experiment.

On my turn, I tap out because I’m a terrible player and resolve it for 21.  It is not particularly exciting, but it does have a few lines of play. 

First, I play Knowledge Exploitation and Fork it, targeting Luke.  I find Sorin’s Vengeance to go back to 20 (taking Reaper to 10 in the process), and just because I’m that guy, I get Curse of the Cabal targeting Luke again.  A Flame Wave goes towards reaper, at which point he decides (completely reasonably) that he has had enough, and packs it in.  Sudden Impact takes Luke down a few points, but he’s still at about 48.  I Wheel of Fortune and pass the turn

He untaps, targets me with Sorin and Maga-s me back down to five. 

I untap, and take one of those turns:

-Guttersnipe.  Luke points Dismember at it; I Prophetic Bolt in response (Luke, take two from Guttersnipe, plus four more), finding Hinder (two more, put that Dismember under your library), and playing Talrand, Sky Summoner.  Rattle off a few more spells (take another ten, make five guys), and Shattered Perception draws me into Temporal Mastery.

-Untap, swing for fourteen.  Play some more spells, taking him to four with Guttersnipe.  Play Blast of Genius (‘Snipe trigger on the stack), counter it with Counterflux for the win.

So, to recap:

In the space of one game, I took about five turns in a row, forced one player to sacrifice half his permanents three different times with his own spell, forced another player to sacrifice all his permanents, and took a crazy, half-asleep and mistake-riddled epic turn that still managed to get the job done, but probably took way too long in the process.

For a deck that was built to not have any serious combo shenanigans and be reasonable in power level and fun to play and play against, I think this thing might possibly need a slight retooling.  Just saying.

I feel so dirty…

-àCass

Upgrades In The Works

Hey folks-

I'm neck-deep in formatting the new website, so regular content is postponed for tonight. Sorry for the disruption, everyone.

In the meantime, I have one simple question I need a little help with. I'm going to build a new deck design based around one of my old generals, so I need help choosing which one I'm going to use.

Please hit up the comments and tell me-

Kresh, or Thraximundar?

--->Cass

The Things Mr. P Thinks

Perhaps you wanted a snapshot of what it's like inside Mr. P's brain.  Welcome to Hell!  It's nice in here! Here are thirteen things that Mr. P thinks.

-If "Izzet"  is Blue-Red, then shouldn't we call White-Black-Green "Izznt"?

-Here's an easy solution to the Reserved List issue; since the Reserved List was established to protect the financial value of old cards, simply revise it based on this criteria: any card currently on the Reserved List that has a secondary market value of less than (some arbitrary value, possibly 5 or 10 dollars) is immediately removed from the Reserved List.  Problem solved! Your old valuable cards are still protected, and your old novelty crap is eligible to be reprinted! You're welcome, world!

-Why is Uncle Istvan not Legendary?

-By the same token, why are the rare named lands from Zendikar (Magosi, Emeria, Valakut, etc) and the guild halls from the original Ravnica Block (Sunhome, Prahv, Rix-Maddi, etc) also not Legendary?  They are clearly specifics, unique places.  Flavor non-continuity, what?

-My new obsession is Dropfting.  In Dropfting, you show up at the draft, draft, and then drop.  All the fun of drafting, none of the terrible games!

-Staples!

Here's a definitive list all of the cards that should absolutely be run in every EDH deck, based on color:

White: Plains

Blue: Island

Black: Swamp

Red: Mountain

Green: Forest

That was easy!

-I refuse to believe that "Tunnel Ignus" was named by accident.  Um, right on?

-Some people like to hate on Wizards of the Coast for, well, everything.  Nice life.  However, the one thing that Wizards has done that is absolutely untouchable is the creation of Gatherer.  Good lord is Gatherer the most useful tool ever for finding obscure, silly cards for Mr. P's terrible novelty decks!  Also, if I hear you hating on Gatherer, I'll bite you (and you'll like it.)

-I'm 100% on board with the "color identity" rules that prohibit things like Debtors Knell from being played in decks that aren't both black and white.  However, there's one thing that drives me crazy about this rule: the fact that you can ONLY play the Bringers in five-color decks.  I mean, they're not even that good, but the fact that they are identified as five color creatures when they are so specifically their respective colors makes me very sad.  Oh well.

-How come all visions of the future are dystopian?  Why doesn't anyone ever make a movie, or TV series, or whatever where things in the future are better?

-Do you watch Fringe?  It's pretty awesome, except for this: the characters are constantly shuttling without effort between Massive Dynamic and the research lab. Massive Dynamic is in New York City.  The research lab is in Cambridge.

Have you ever driven from Boston to New York City?  I'm guessing the people who make Fringe never have.

-You know how in the storyline the Eldrazis exist in the "space between worlds"?  You know where else they exist in the space between? Mr. P's binders!  Seriously, which binder should I put these stupid things in? (Of course, considering my feelings on them, "the fireplace" is a good answer to that question.)

-Being that Mr. P is totally one-dimensional, Mr. P is obsessed with foils.  There is, however, one exception: for some reason, I hate playing with prerelease promo cards.  Something about that date stamped in the lower right corner of the art totally ruins it for me.  (Oh, and also the fact that many of the alternate art Prerelease cards have some of the worst artwork of all time.)

That was fun.

What do you think?

XO,

->Mr P

-------------------------------------------

Mr. P makes tacos.  The world rejoices.  Mr. P takes tacos away.  The world is crushed.  Mr. P's tacos crush the world! (Tell your friends.)

Omnath – Taking A Pile And (Hopefully) Making It A Better Pile

Unstructured time is a very dangerous thing for me. 

My wife is currently away on a business trip, meaning I’m home watching my son.  Clearly, there are tons of house-related things to be done, and of course I’m not doing them.  Instead, I’m starting a project.

Disclaimer: My time isn’t *exactly* unstructured – I was kind of lying up there.  What I meant to say was that I have a small bit of time after my son goes to sleep (and before I pass out from exhaustion on the couch in front of some bad television), and while I have a million things I need to do, I’m filling that time by doing a little bit of everything while I have the chance.  (Again, “chance” means “no wife and thus no chores”) 

There’s some alteration painting happening.  I’m doing a little bit of writing and editing.  I’m working on the website redesign.  I’m composing about six emails at once and finishing none of them.

And I’m brewing a new deck.

IDLE HANDS

Okay…I was lying there too.  I took the opportunity to go through and retune nearly all of my decks.  Most of them have gotten a little rough around the edges, and with the way our metagame is shaping up lately, I wanted to make sure that the underperformers were tweaked back into fighting shape.  This meant leaving Akroma and Sigarda completely alone (being that enchantress and angels tribal are both fairly established), adding a few tweaks to Melek and Prime Speaker (well, adding foil versions of cards already in Prime Speaker, and trying to shoe-horn in Invoke the Firemind into Melek with no real success), and trying to figure out where Gaze of Granite would fit into Skullbriar (with results similar to Melek.)  Oh, and Borborygmos gained some more ramp and lost Scapeshift, since I wanted to have Valakut be a thing in there (but not a game-ending combo thing.) 

Memnarch got some new tech on the back of what happened in games last week; Spellskite and Prototype Portal are in, and I realized that the only true way to make the deck fully an artifact-themed deck (as opposed to nearly an artifact deck except for the basic lands) was to add Mycosynth Lattice, which then made me realize that Clock of Omens would go from “nice-ish” to “good lord!” status. 

In the process of all of this, I may have taken out all the win conditions to make room.  Not totally sure.

Angus Mac got a wonderful new set of tweaks, to include Fauna Shaman and Scavenging Ooze, a copy of Vedalken Orrery (my new favorite card ever),and a little top-end utility in the form of Progenitor Mimic.  We’ll see how that goes.

Finally, Karador came apart and was reassembled completely from the ground up.  I had realized that the deck seems to scare people on principle, and then fall pretty flat in the late game.  After distilling it to its core elements, it became apparent why; the deck was essentially comprised of a small handful of utility creatures (think Necrotic Sliver and Eternal Witness), some mana ramp (For some reason, Mirari’s Wake is always in play on turn five, which isn’t helping my cause), and every big, splashy six-to-eight-drop creature that fit the colors. 

I won’t go into details, but the mana curve just slimmed waaaay down, and the deck is a lot more interactive.  Details to follow.

Reaching the end of the ninth deck, I realized I was in a problematic position.

TROUBLES

All of this work necessitated going through boxes and boxes of cards several times over.  In the process, I realized that I had two distinct piles of really good-but-unused cards in green and black.  Not content to leave them safe in a box, I decided that I needed to build a deck for each color.  Not wanting to over-think it, I decided to leave it to chance to decide what would happen next, and started pouring through card boxes.  The first mono-green and mono-black legends I came across would be my new decks.

Turns out that I need to revise this method a bit; the two generals to pop up were my old foil copy of Kuon, Ogre Ascendant, and Omnath, Locus of Mana.  These are both re-treads for me.

Not to be deterred (and certainly not wanting to spend more time figuring out another way to choose), I decided what I would do – I would pour through my cards, pull out the stuff I thought would make a good deck, put it together as is, and then beg and plead with the GDC readers to help me actually tune the deck into something, you know, decent.  What you see is what I have, so if there are things missing, it's probably because I don't own any extra copies.

Without further ado, I present The Omnath Project.

General: Omnath, Locus of Mana

Creatures:

Silent Arbiter

Ant Queen

Oracle of Mul Daya

Deadwood Treefolk

Terastodon

Seedborn Muse

Hornet Queen

Avenger of Zendikar

Craterhoof Behemoth

Rampaging Baloths

Krosan Tusker

Yeva, Nature’s Herald

Solemn Simulacrum

Spearbreaker Behemoth

Acidic Slime

Wolfbriar Elemental

Wickerbough Elder

Sakura-Tribe Elder

Magus of the Library

Regal Force

Roughshod Mentor

Fierce Empath

Planeswalkers:

Garruk Wildspeaker

Instants:

Worldly Tutor

Momentous Fall

Crop Rotation

Beast within

Squall Line

Sorceries:

Ranger’s path

Natural Order

Cultivate

Genesis Wave

Praetor’s Counsel

Beacon of Creation

Collective Unconscious

Boundless Realms

Desert Twister

Skyshroud Claim

Hurricane

Regrowth

Harmonize

Explosive Vegetation

Artifacts:

Loxodon Warhammer

Doubling Cube

Oblivion Stone

Eldrazi Monument

Caged Sun

Seer’s Sundial

Goblin Cannon

Nim Deathmantle

Staff of Domination

Darksteel Plate

Lightning Greaves

Skullclamp

Enchantments:

Vernal Bloom

Gaea’s Touch

Concordant Crossroads

Aluren

Beastmaster Ascension

Mana Reflection

Gaea’s Embrace

Rancor

Lands:

Hall of the Bandit Lord

Rogue’s Passage

Tectonic Edge

Miren, the Moaning Well

Winding Canyons

Gaea’s Cradle

Temple of the False God

Mystifying Maze

Thespian’s Stage

Yavimaya Hollow

27 x Forest

What Am I Shooting For?

I want to try to split the focus here.  The deck is lighter on answers so that it can try to be a ‘problem’ instead of a ‘solution’ build.  The focus is on Omnath and his ability (making it equal parts ‘Voltron’ and ‘mana-ramping’), with a decent secondary dedicated to tokens (since I don’t have a tokens deck, but I do have a ton of token-related cards.  Put another way, I had a Gaea’s Cradle and a Craterhoof Behemoth staring me in the face and I had to put them to use.)

What Do I Want To Avoid?

This is pretty easy – I don’t want to run Rofellos since Staff of Domination is in the deck.  I also don’t want to focus on any other themes, so alternate-alternate win conditions like Helix Pinnacle are out. 

What Are My Concerns?

I’m afraid that I’m light on mana development and card draw.  I’m thinking that I also have some janky stuff in there (possibly things like Gaea’s Embrace and Magus of the Library), while I’m missing some better options.  It kind of feels like the token generation suite is a little lacking too.

How Strong Is This Supposed To Be?

I’m shooting for “As competitive as it can be without resorting to combos.”  (For the record, the Kuon build will be aiming at a slightly more casual tier to balance it out.)

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

 

This s going to play out in similar fashion to Mr P’s Mono-Blue Aggro Project.  I’ve got this built as is, and I’m going to give it a test run to see how it works.  

In the meantime, I want to hear from you.  Do you have suggestions that will improve this thing?  Am I missing some obvious (or not-so-obvious) inclusions?  Is my card balance off?  Let me know in the forums what you’ve got.

For the next installment, I’ll take your suggestions and critiques, pair it with what I learned playing it, and give it a makeover to get it into better shape.  I’ll run that through the gauntlet and report back from there.

So that’s it for now, folks.  Please – if it’s not clear already, I’m a hack when it comes to making token lists.  Help a brother out.

You guys are the best.

-àCass

Melek, Izzet Paragon – The Sweet Spot

Izzet has been a constant struggle for me in the past when it comes to EDH.  I’m not the biggest fan of red in the format when it comes to the usual suspects – goblins dragons, direct damage, land destruction – but the fringe stuff that falls nicely in line with blue always draws me in.  (Think Fork or Wild Ricochet.)  This area of misdirection and tinkering with spells feels like the most interesting design space for me, which is likely why quite a bit of my three-color deck design tends to feature these two colors.

The big issue in the past was trying to figure out how to run a dedicated two-color Izzet deck that would work in our unique little “casually competitive” environment.  The balance between way over-powered and hated out to sheer crap has traditionally been two extremes with nothing in the middle:

-Jhoira: It’s the Obliterate/Eldrazi deck.  Kill that guy.

-Niv-Mizzet 1.0: He’s gotta be running Curiosity.  Kill that guy.

-Tibor and Lumia: Hey…quit laughing!

-Nin, the Pain Artist: Stiff breeze, meet awkward draw engine.

For someone like me who usually wants to build a deck that will feature the general in a meaningful way, these do not offer strong options. 

Niv-Mizzet 2.0 was a good step in the right direction.  The “fixed” Niv should have provided a nice middle-ground for a red/blue deck to thrive without being combo-riffic, and it did do that to a certain degree.  I went in on Imshan’s storm list, which was detailed both here and on Commandercast, and it was good for the most part.  The two big problems I’ve had with it are that people still view Niv 2.0 as a huge threat and kill it as soon as possible, and also that it only really matters to the deck insofar as it is a draw engine.  It just seems to be there in spite of the deck, instead of as a part of it.

Enter Melek.

At first glance, Melek should be a general that I don’t like.  He’s on the expensive side, and suggests a pretty narrow focus at face value.  Looking deeper, though, it works for me.  He captures the exact essence of what I enjoy about red and blue, and has the ability to either play a supporting role to any deck that has instants and sorceries in it, or he can be the center of a dedicated build. 

Now, I originally simply removed Niv 2.0 from the storm deck and placed him at the helm.  This is fine, and really is probably the strongest use for him; if the deck wants to ramp into enough mana for a decent-sized Epic Experiment, getting free copies of Seething Song (or Epic Experiment for that matter!) is a great way to ensure things go off.  In fact, the deck wants to copy a big Epic Experiment, and Melek serves to take a big chunk of the extra work involved out of that picture.

In goldfishing the deck, it’s that good.  This thing has the capability of being built with enough fast mana, redundant tutors, and counter protection to be a very strong contender anywhere.

What I realized personally, however, was that I didn’t play Niv 2.0 much in practice, because it felt like a combo deck.  (Which is good, because it is a combo deck, but just not an infinite one.)  I didn’t want to end up taking one big turn on the table at some point to take the whole game down every time I shuffled the deck up, and I didn’t want to immediately represent a large threat and draw large hate every time either.

The current revision of Melek got a maiden voyage last night at Worlds Apart.  In the interest of full disclosure, it did win, and in a fairly one-sided fashion.  To be fair, I know some of the other decks at the table were stalled out and would have had a drastically different game if they weren’t in bad-draw hell.  Still, I was able to table Melek and realize his potential fairly quickly.

Seething Song makes ten mana with Melek on the board.  Mystic Retrieval is twice as valuable right off the bat.  Even something like a kicked Mizzium Mortars turns into a fairly inexpensive (and cheap!) Plague Wind.  And ask Mr P about the joy of facing down a doubled-up Gather Specimens.  (Actually, maybe you shouldn’t.)

It’s pretty incredible how good the most insignificant card becomes when it doubles its effect.

What I did to the deck was to pull some of the combo-slanted cards in order to load up on stronger options for a longer game.  I included more spell-based win-conditions, such as Runeflare Trap and Cerebral Vortex, to add to the existing threats (such as Guttersnipe and Talrand, Sky Summoner.)

Fast mana was changed up in favor of consistent mana, which meant pulling Moxes for Arcane Melee.  Mind’s Desire and Mana Severance came out in order to add more draw and extra removal.  This gives the deck extra staying power, while still retaining the ability to get out to a solid start and keep adding value.

Epic Experiment stayed in the deck, as it simply is too cool to pass up.  Without Mana Severance and the abundance of acceleration in the deck before, it doesn’t have quite the kick it used to, but it can still do some pretty ridiculous things from time to time.  Some of the enablers for that strategy stayed as well, such as Firemind’s Foresight; the ability to get a package like Seething Song, Muddle the Mixture (to transmute for Experiment), and Brainstorm to put Seething and Experiment on the top of the library in order to take full advantage of Melek is too synergistic to not have on tap. 

Overall, the deck is pretty smooth, and has enough of an instant-speed presence that I don’t feel like I’m not having a say in things.  I can be as aggressive as I need to, with the knowledge that I can sit back and wait for things to develop without a fear that the game is completely out of my hands.

It’s in a giant pile on my desk undergoing a tune already, so here’s the rough current list (a few cards heavy, as I’m not totally sure what was in last night and what I pulled out to add today):

General: Melek, Izzet Paragon

Creatures:

Goblin Electromancer

Hypersonic Dragon

Guttersnipe

Talrand, Sky Summoner

Galvanoth

Enchantments:

Leyline of Anticipation

Arcane Melee

Dream Halls

Artifacts:

Darksteel Ingot

Gilded Lotus

Coalition Relic

Thran Dynamo

Sol Ring

Chromatic Lantern

Mirari

Sphinx-Bone Wand

Sorceries:

Shattering Spree

Devastation Tide

Knowledge Exploitation

Mizzium Mortars

Time Spiral

Bonfire of the Damned

Mana Geyser

Epic Experiment

Rite of Replication

Personal Tutor

Mystic Retrieval

Blatant Thievery

Shattered Perception

Wheel of Fortune

Temporal Mastery

Blast of Genius

Deep Analysis

Windfall

Concentrate

Flame Wave

Reforge The Soul

Merchant Scroll

Spelltwine

Instants:

Grab the Reins

Reverberate

Opportunity

Prophetic Bolt

Runeflare Trap

Capsize

Counterflux

Reins of Power

Cyclonic Rift

Long-Term Plans

Muddle the Mixture

Twincast

Fork

Fact or Fiction

Increasing Vengeance

Sudden Impact

Firemind’s Foresight

Spelljack

Evacuation

Brainstorm

Wild Ricochet

Mystical Tutor

Reiterate

Hinder

Cerebral Vortex

High Tide

Seething Song

Turnabout

Blue Sun’s Zenith

Lands:

Volcanic Island

Steam Vents

Command Tower

Sulfur Falls

Shivan Reef

Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Halimar Depths

Scalding Tarn

Izzet Guildgate

Reliquary Tower

Tolaria West

Izzet Boilerworks

Desolate Lighthouse

Cascade Bluffs

Evolving Wilds

Terramorphic Expanse

10 x Mountain

10 x Island

It’s really a value proposition deck.  Find some way to make things cheaper or find some extra mana, gain advantage through the general, and eventually set up shop under a won-condition and ride it all the way with ample protection.  It can make some big mana if it needs to through High Tide and Mana Geyser, but it really wants to gain advantage and get to a place where it can cast Sudden Impact and Fork with Melek in play.  I specifically left out any sort of recurrable Time Walk effects, and only added in Bonfire of the Damned and Blue Sun’s Zenith on top of Epic Experiment as far as X-spells go.  This deck isn’t designed for ruthless kills; it’s trying to be a serious role-player instead.

For the record, Sphinx-Bone Wand is absolutely amazing in this deck.  I think I’ve averaged dealing about sixty damage per game with it over the last few games I’ve played.

Looking forward, I need to take things back to a place that takes better advantage of Melek.  I need to add top-of library manipulation to the deck past Brainstorm; Sensei’s Divining Top, Scroll Rack, and the like will probably make this a better deck.  We’ll see if that’s where I want to go with it.

Anyway, I just wanted to get this out to you all.  Melek is the real deal.  Coming up in the near future, I’ll take a look at what I would do (or re-do) in order to make this more competitive.

Am I missing anything in specific that would have a good home here?  I’d love to hear some suggestions as to what I could add.

See you all next week-

-àCass

Monday-Lite At GDC - The Dragon's Maze Contest Winner, Site Updates, And So On...

Hey folks,

Tonight is going to be a light update due to some real-world requirements getting in the way. I'll make it up to you all as the week goes on, so stay tuned.

The site update is finally (for reals) gaining some traction, so here's to hoping that things fall into place soon. The goal is to have the rollout done well before GenCon, because the GDC crew attending will be rocking the new logo on tee-shirts all weekend, and It'd be great if you could actually see it ahead of time so you can make the association and not just wonder who the nut-jobs in matching tees are.

Branding is a wonderful thing if you're not terrible at it, folks.

In addition, things are getting bigger around here in short order. We've had a super-secret new partner in the wings for some time, and we've been waiting for the right moment to let that cat out of the bag, so that's coming very soon. It's someone that many of you will know already, and someone who will be helping me with the editing as well as content. I'm really excited to have this person onboard, and things are going to really shape up around here as a result. Did I mention to stay tuned yet?

It bears to mention that a part of this expansion will call for more warm bodies. I want to add some more faces to the GDC roster this year, with the ultimate goal of expanding content into more than two days a week and hopefully branching out into different EDH topics with some fresh viewpoints. We'll be talking about this more in the near future, but if you've got a body of work and you're looking to join a strong team and have an eye for what's going on in the community, start polishing your résumé. Being able to complain articulately helps too.

Before we go, Mr P and I discussed the entries you guys sent for the Dragon's Maze "Guess The Guild Champion" contest we did last month, and we decided on a winner. Without further ado:


Joshua Kooyman

Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
3UB
Legendary Creature - Vampire Warrior
Flying

Whenever Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles a card at random from his or her hand, then exiles the top X cards from his or her library where X is equal to the converted mana cost of the exiled card.

3/4


Joshua nailed the casting cost and keyword ability, and came very close on the power/toughness. In addition, the feature ability was very close as far as the overall mill theme goes, which is really what pushed this over the edge. Solid shot, Joshua! Let us know where we can send the foil Mirko to, and whether or not we should let Mr P alter it with his mad silver Sharpie skills before we ship it.

Have a good one, everybody.

--->Cass

What’s The Problem?

I mean it quite literally - What’s the problem with EDH?

Okay…the cart is before the horse here.  Let me frame this in a bit.

I was able to make it down to Worlds Apart last night for EDH Wednesday for the first time in nearly a month.  I was pretty excited; it had been a while since I had played EDH, and both Dragon’s Maze and the Banned List update had occurred since the last time I was able to play.  I was pretty geared up for a good night of cards.

Strangely, I felt pretty let-down by the end of the night.  ‘Unfulfilled’ is possibly a better word.  We played three games, and none of them quite went the way that I was hoping.  Here’s the breakdown:

-Game one was a rare six-player free-for-all.  I played my Angus Mackenzie deck, and managed to score some points by dealing combat damage with Angus to all five opponents.  This felt pretty good, but the game tailed off from there; I spent the early game leveraging a Survival of the Fittest to find some interesting utility options, and by the time we hit late game, I ran out of gas. 

I couldn’t really find any draw, and my tutor had been destroyed.  I was in a position with Aluren, Equilibrium, Angus and Aether adept to keep bouncing the board, but that wasn’t getting me closer to being able to go on the offense.  Worse yet, the only person I could really affect was Mr P, and the one of the permanents I kept bouncing was a Kaervek that was slowly bleeding me to death.  The turn I finally got a Draining Whelk to stick on Massacre Wurm, he replayed it with Torrent of Souls.  I bounced the Whelk, replayed it to counter Torrent, and was dead to a third reanimation effect.  We all ended up pretty spent, and Sigarda Voltron took the game.

-Game two saw me play Karador, versus an Aurelia aggro deck, Andrew’s Ashling deck, and Mr P on a Mirko Vosk mill deck.  I made the mistake of coming out of the gates a little too hard in a way that seemed more threatening that Aurelia; I found an early Mirari’s Wake, which got me into Karador and a recurring Necrotic Sliver plus Alms Beast. 

Unfortunately, I was on the back foot playing control, and while I certainly looked threatening, I had no offensive plan.  I quickly ended up at really low life, drawing a large amount of hate while trying to deal with Aurelia; Pyreheart Wolf and some other odds and ends (eventually an Odric) meant that Aurelia was swinging in for 25-ish damage all told a turn, and it was impossible to block.  I tried to leverage some extort life-gain and found Kokusho to try to head off the blood loss, but 34 unblockable damage a turn adds up quickly. 

The game ended shortly thereafter.

-Game three was a three-player match, with Mr P playing B/W spirits and Andrew playing mono-white Odric.  I joined in with mono-white angels.  Again, I got off to a strong start, tabling Blinding Angel and Battlegrace Angel and gaining some early life.  Herald of War joined, and a Windbrisk Heights offered up Blazing Archon.

From there, the wheels fell off.  I had Sensei’s Divining Top, which only effectively meant that I was able to see three irrelevant cards a turn instead of just one.  Meanwhile, Andrew had turbo-charged his draws with Endless Horizons and added Cathars’ Crusade; every turn ended with a host of creatures with dice set to seven and eight on them. 

I Rout-ed.  I Wrath-ed.  I Terminus-ed.  Mr P Rout-ed. 

Andrew didn’t miss a beat and won with ease anyway.

.   .   .

Back to the question – What’s the problem?

When I ask this question, what I’m looking at is a personal take.  What do you find to be your biggest problem with the format?  It really could be anything at all, but I’m interested in seeing what’s below the skin and at the core. 

My breakdown above is designed to help illustrate what I view as my biggest obstacle with EDH; I have a really hard time fitting into the scheme that makes up our metagame.  In the past, I’ve built decks much in the same way that I’ve always built decks for other formats – I make sure that I can answer the problems that I’ll be facing, and then fill in from there.  I play much in the same way; I often take on the role of policing the game before trying to exert energy in my own plan to win.  I think I have developed an over-urgent sense that things won’t get done if I don’t do them, so I run with that more often than not.

What that means is that I’m set up to be a bit of a punching bag and a diversion.  The metagame that I play in is made up of players who largely build what I refer to as “the problem decks.”  These are the decks that try to force their plans on the table.  I bring “the solution deck” more often than not, and exert my energy and resources into trying to stop the aggressive players from winning. 

Meanwhile, there are the players that are very good at staying out of the spotlight and capitalizing on this interaction, in the process building a board position that usually takes over and wins once the dust settles.  Mr P is very good at this.  He has a patience that I simply do not when it comes to other threats, and sees plays much further off in the distance than I do. 

So I’m the low man on the totem pole.  I simply can’t be the aggressive deck; last night is a great example.  It’s not in my nature, and I draw a ton of attention when I (likely over-) do it. 

This is a great source of personal frustration.  It makes me feel like I need to overhaul every single deck I have to be “better”, and that’s not a direction I really want to go.

This is likely also why I tend to have tons of things to complain about.  Just a theory.

So what does it for you?  Is it a specific player that you don’t like playing with?  The power level of your metagame?  (Too strong?  Too weak?)  Are there certain cards that drive you nuts, or are rampant to the point of over-saturation?  Or is it something more intangible, such as what I described above?

Tell us a story.

-àCass