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By: Flippers_Giraffe, Simon Smith
Dec 22 2010 3:32am
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Welcome to my last article before the Christmas break. There are quite a few things going on over the Christmas period including a free Momir event on Christmas day (depending on your time zone). I'm not sure how many people will be taking part in this, I thought about it as I enjoyed the last one and also made a lot of tickets from the avatars I won which was an added bonus. Of course with the new Momir pack now in the store Wizards will still be making a load of money from the free event but for those of you that have the avatar and intend on joining the event I wish you good luck. This time round the prizes are looking really nice as below.

Place Prizes
1st 1 Premium Deck Series: Fire & Lightning, 9 Zendikar booster packs, 9 Worldwake booster packs, 9 Rise of the Eldrazi booster packs, 9 Magic 2011 booster packs, and 9 Scars of Mirrodin booster packs
2nd 1 Premium Deck Series: Fire & Lightning, 7 Zendikar booster packs, 7 Worldwake booster packs, 7 Rise of the Eldrazi booster packs, 7 Magic 2011 booster packs, and 8 Scars of Mirrodin booster packs
3rd – 4th 1 Premium Deck Series: Fire & Lightning, 4 Zendikar booster packs, 4 Worldwake booster packs, 4 Rise of the Eldrazi booster packs, 4 Magic 2011 booster packs, and 5 Scars of Mirrodin booster packs
5th – 8th 1 Premium Deck Series: Fire & Lightning, 2 Zendikar booster packs, 2 Worldwake booster packs, 2 Rise of the Eldrazi booster packs, 2 Magic 2011 booster packs, and 4 Scars of Mirrodin booster packs
9th – 16th 1 Zendikar booster packs, 1 Worldwake booster packs, 1 Rise of the Eldrazi booster packs, 1 Magic 1011 booster packs, and 2 Scars of Mirrodin booster packs
17th – 32nd 1 Magic 2011 booster pack and 2 Scars of Mirrodin booster packs
The release calendar for the first period of 2011 has also been released and looks like this, as always if you play cards from all formats then you will need to plan your budget wisely as the set releases are very close together.

Product Description Release Date
Masters Edition 4 01/10/2011
Mirrodin Besieged 02/21/2011
Mirrodin Besieged Event Decks 03/14/2011
Urza's Destiny 04/11/2011
"Action" 05/30/2011
"Action" Event Decks 06/20/2011
Tribal news I will be standing down as host after the joint BYOS event on the 2nd of January. I will be handing over the event to none other than BlippyTheSlug. If you are wondering why I'm giving up the event there are a number of reasons, firstly as I'm no longer writing about the format I don't have enough time to run the event/make new Tribal decks and write my weekly article for Pure. I'm also finding it awkward being available every Saturday as well as I have other things that I want to do both in game and outside of the game. I enjoyed it while it lasted and hope I brought something to the format. The joint Heirloom event at the end of January will still be taking place so don't worry about that one.

On the Coalition League front season four will start on the 10th of January and will be old school based you will only be able to use the following boosters Masters Edition 1, Masters Edition 2, Masters Edition 3, Masters Edition 4, Mirage, Visions and Weatherlight. More details will be posted on the group page soon and I will be doing generated boosters again this time round on request.

This week I have two decks for you both of which are based around planeswalkers from Scars of Mirrodin Elspeth Tirel and Venser, the Sojourner.
 

First we have a block deck which is based around Venser, the Sojourner. I didn't start the deck with Venser in mind he was a late addition. The base of the deck was to be based around the most powerful colour I think in SoM block which is black.

Black as access to some very nice removal cards like Grasp of Darkness and Skinrender, these two cards alone are worth it for us to run black in our deck. I also added in an artifact removal source as well Ratchet Bomb. A lot of the Scars cards are very cheap at the moment as they aren't very popular in the current Standard meta game although that may change when the next set is released Mirrodin Besieged. Now is the best time to pick up any cards that you want especially the mythics before they start rising in price on speculation of the spoilers for the next set. I fully expect Koth to go back up again and more than likely the other planeswalkers. 

Grasp of Darkness Skinrender Ratchet Bomb

The next thing I wanted to include while I was in black is poison creatures. I really like the lord Hand of the Praetors which boosts your infect creatures and also adds a poison counter to your opponent when you cast a creature with poison. With this in mind I added Ichor Rats they go well together, when the rats come into play all players receive a poison counter in combination with the lord that's going to be quite powerful. The final poison creature in the deck is Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon which needs no introductions.

Hand of the Praetors Ichor Rats Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

Now looking back to Ichor Rats and Skinrender wouldn't it be nice if we could keep using their comes into play ability's. I know this has been tried many times but I'm finding that this version of the deck is working very well in the tournament practice room. So our bounce cards for the deck is where we see our second and third colours are main secondary colour is white for Glimmerpoint Stag and then we add blue for a single card Venser, the Sojourner, is it worth the splash just for a lonely planeswalker the answer is oh yes, yes indeed. He really makes the deck come into its full potential.

Glimmerpoint Stag Venser, the Sojourner

Now let's have a look at the rest of the main deck cards we have our early beater Perilous Myr which also even though he's very small makes for a good blocker due to his going to the grave ability of handing out two damage. Next up is Razor Hippogriff which is used to bring back our artifacts from the graveyard, this card can also be bounced for extra uses. We have a late game hitter in the form of Wurmcoil Engine, this card is present in most SoM decks that I've seen around usually as the finishing card of choice. I'm also running three copies of Revoke Existence main deck to take care of opposing artifacts like Sword of Body and Mind, Wurmcoil Engine and more importantly Myr Battlesphere, which I seem to face a lot.

Perilous Myr Razor Hippogriff Revoke Existence

The sideboard for the deck has lots of different things going on. We have Sunblast Angel for fighting Myr decks, Dispense Justice for white weenie decks. Revoke Existence is another card if we are up against Myr or decks running Precursor Golem. We also have Memoricide which I sometimes use against control decks to remove their Wurmcoil Engines. The last set of cards are experimental and are not set in stone at this moment in time. Steel Hellkite, Molten-Tail Masticore, Livewire Lash and Contagion Clasp for the mirror match which I haven't played yet.

Sunblast Angel Dispense Justice Memoricide   

Creatures Lands
4 Glimmerpoint Stag 8 Plains
4 Hand of the Praetors 4 Seachrome Coast
4 Ichor Rats 11 Swamp
4 Perilous Myr 23 cards
2 Razor Hippogriff  
3 Skinrender Sideboard
2 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon 2 Sunblast Angel
2 Wurmcoil Engine 2 Dispense Justice
25 cards 1 Revoke Existence
  2 Memoricide
Other Spells 2 Steel Hellkite
4 Grasp of Darkness 1 Molten-Tail Masticore
2 Ratchet Bomb 2 Livewire Lash
3 Revoke Existence 3 Contagion Clasp
3 Venser, the Sojourner 15 cards
12 cards  
Ichor Rats

If you are wondering how the deck plays, well it's been doing very well most of the games I seem to be up against control or Myr decks which isn't much of a problem for this deck. I've not played another poison deck yet and haven't seen a red deck at all in the TP room. I know they are out there from looking at the results of the daily events. As I was tidying up the article I noticed Westane has just written an article about the very subject which you can read here.

It seems like the tournament practice room is no longer a good place to play against the top decks as they are saved for the events which means that either I'm playing at the wrong time of day or the top players practice with other clan members. It's a bit frustrating but I know where the answer lies and that is by jumping in. It's an old issue if your deck wins lots in the TP room the next step is to analyse the results of the recent events online for your format which can be found here. I do not recommend playing in the two mans as they are very hit and miss. Once you have done your analysis to work out what you haven't faced and how to defeat it the next step I would recommend is a daily event which would on average take four hours to play and costs six tickets to enter, I haven't myself ventured that far yet. I tried two man queues when Zendikar was the new block and pulled away even and haven't gone back since.    

Here's a few screen shots

Defending the golem attack, I then take the win in my next turn with Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. Death by poison! 

 

It's moments like this when the Perilous Myr is truly perilous, in my turn I play Skinrender making the Hoard-Smelter Dragon 2/2. The Perilous Myr goes all the way for the win. There was only one card that could stop him Revoke Existence.

The second deck for you this week is based in the Extended format. I really wanted to make a competitive deck and see how well it could do. I've not played extended in a long time but now that Tarmogoyf is out I felt it was a good time to give the format a whirl.

I had a vision of what I wanted to try out which involved Bitterblossom as a token generator and Elspeth Tirel to gain back the lost life. Now I have my starting point it was time to fill out the rest of the deck from there. The colours will remain black and white as I don't really like trying to splash into a third colour without good dual land support and I'm not 100% happy with the choices of dual's on offer in the extended environment.

 Elspeth Tirel

The deck could have turned into a  version of Soul Sisters but I wanted something a bit different. I decided to play another planeswalker to help out with increasing our life points Ajani Goldmane who goes hand in hand with his Pridemate to give us another reason for gaining lots of life. As we are on the gain life theme I decided to add some heavy hitters instead of the usual small life gainers that Soul Sisters has. I went for Baneslayer Angel and Wurmcoil Engine with an additional alternative win condition using Felidar Sovereign.

The other two creatures in the deck are Stoneforge Mystic to search for either Sword of Body and Mind or Basilisk Collar. The second creature is an unusual choice Guul Draz Vampire I could have easily swapped it out for either Soul Warden or Soul's Attendant but I kept coming back to the young vampiric lady. When she's equipped with Basilisk Collar she really is an amazing threat. Do you block here early on and lose a creature, if you don't and you go below ten life she will gain intimidate and then it's going to be really hard trying to take her out and I don't mean to dinner. 

Stoneforge Mystic Sword of Body and Mind Basilisk Collar Guul Draz Vampire

Let's have a look at the other main cards in the deck. For removal we have Day of Judgment, Path to Exile and Doom Blade which should take care of most issues. We also have a single copy of Gideon Jura as well who acts as semi removal and a creature threat as well.

The sideboard is packed with lots of interesting things. We have Leyline of Sanctity against burn decks, Linvala, Keeper of Silence as she is the answer to so many creature threats like Fauna Shaman and Spikeshot Elder. Next we have Memoricide to fight control and ramp decks, I'll take your Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Primeval Titan's thank you very much. The lone copy of Steel Hellkite is for the Myr decks although I haven't seen any artifact based decks yet but I know they are out there. Stillmoon Cavalier is an excellent card against vampires and soul sister decks. Then we come onto Sunblast Angel which is for aggro decks and lastly Vampire Hexmage for the planeswalker decks.       

Creatures Land
4 Ajani's Pridemate 2 Fetid Heath
3 Baneslayer Angel 11 Plains
1 Felidar Sovereign 4 Swamp
3 Guul Draz Vampire 2 Tectonic Edge
2 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Wurmcoil Engine 23 cards
15 cards Sideboard
Other Spells 3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Basilisk Collar 2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
4 Bitterblossom 2 Memoricide
3 Day of Judgment 1 Steel Hellkite
2 Doom Blade 2 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Path to Exile 2 Sunblast Angel
1 Sword of Body and Mind 3 Vampire Hexmage
15 cards 15 cards
Planeswalkers  
3 Ajani Goldmane  
3 Elspeth Tirel  
1 Gideon Jura  
7 cards  
Elspeth Tirel

Again I played this deck in the tournament practice room a lot and it came back with good results again like the SoM deck so I must be doing something right whether its top tier I'll leave you to decide.

Here's some action shots of the deck doing its thing . 

 

 Keeping the forces of Jund at bay while the Baneslayer Angel takes the win.

This game built up until we both had huge armies and life totals the two Pridemate's my opponent have are 17/17 and 10/10 but my Stillmoon Cavaliers keep them in check long enough for me to safely take the victory as below.

Elspeth Tirel cleared the table at this point in the game and my lone Baneslayer Angel freed from her imprisonment delt the last 65 points of damage with a little help from Elspeth's tokens, I never needed to play the Sunblast Angel.

See you on the other side, have a great Christmas Flippers_Giraffe

 

13 Comments

Sorry to hear that by Xaoslegend at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 05:29
Xaoslegend's picture
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Sorry to hear that Flippers,

I can identify with feeling overwhelmed with a PRE. I'm probably going to have to find a way to cut down on some of the time I spend on the Heirloom events myself. It's great that you have the replacement already set up to keep continuity. I'm sure the break from the grind of it will be liberating to a great extent.

The only constant in life is change, and that's not always a bad thing.

X-

I am not surprised by your by Paul Leicht at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 14:15
Paul Leicht's picture
5

I am not surprised by your decision to pass on the PRE torch for TWA but I am a little disappointed. I mentioned this in our conversations already though, so I won't harp on it here. Time is always a problem with creative, productive people so I can only hope this means good things for the rest of your life. As always you can find me to play with in the casual rooms whenever you like. Have a good holiday. :)

great article....As for by gimlicolby at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 15:52
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great article....As for tournament practice room. i dont go there...id rather practice in 2 mans or DE's...I get a real feel for the deck that way. Monored is like 50% of the field ina DE nowadays

People still play RDW in by brandonQDSH at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 15:56
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People still play RDW in Extended? I was kind of disheartened when they played Extended for the MTGO Championship at Worlds and the Red decks finished like 0-4 and 1-3. Is it doing well?

I meant SOM block. by gimlicolby at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 18:03
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I meant SOM block.

if you skin render your own by psymunn at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 17:28
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if you skin render your own perilous myr, don't you just win?

Yes that's a very good point by Flippers_Giraffe at Thu, 12/23/2010 - 14:16
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Yes that's a very good point that I missed, looks like a bit more practice is needed.

Looks like a winner to me. by brandonQDSH at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 17:53
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Looks like a winner to me.

I suppose there is the very, very, very off chance that he is packing Whitesun's Passage, but this isn't Limited.

unless i'm mistaken, in the by Baldr7 at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 18:55
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unless i'm mistaken, in the golem screenshot, he could have won by attacking with grand architect as well, then turning all his golems blue to hit you for a lethal 17

Yeah there's no way to by brandonQDSH at Wed, 12/22/2010 - 19:50
brandonQDSH's picture

Yeah there's no way to prevent the 17 damage. I guess this guy was netdecking, and didn't put in enough rounds in the practice room =/

SOM manabase by RoninX at Fri, 12/24/2010 - 14:24
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I'm not sure how you are making that manabase work. I've been trying to make BW poison work and 23 lands is too few, and I find myself needing BB first and then WW immediately and it just isn't coming with any regularity.

I find that you do need BB by Flippers_Giraffe at Fri, 12/24/2010 - 15:32
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I find that you do need BB first as well but I don’t rely on the white cards until later in the game this is helped by having Perilous Myr as an early staller.

I’ve not really had mana issues with the deck apart from the odd time when I’ve been without a blue source for Venser but I could fix that by adding 2 Darkslick Shores if I needed too.

Those look like fun decks to by Felorin at Mon, 12/27/2010 - 01:26
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Those look like fun decks to play! I love token decks, probably going to make some new ones for Standard soon.