Paul Leicht's picture
By: Paul Leicht, Paul Emerson Leicht
Jun 16 2010 2:54am
4
Login to post comments
3738 views


Magic Punditry: An Opinion or Three and some Elementals.

art by Paul Emerson Leicht &Copy; 2008
By Paul Emerson Leicht (June, 15th 2010)

Preface:
I have been called many things, 'Pundit' being one of the more flattering names. The less flattering ones I am sure you can imagine without my help. I have a habit of saying what I think. This is for my own benefit but also I hope for those who are interested in my thoughts. Sometimes I will say things that are just plain wrong to those who know better. This is the natural way of opining. Someone will always be wrong and mostly no one is ever completely correct. And you know the old saying about asses and opinions. This article was prompted by some things that have been percolating in my brain over the last week or so. If you are less inclined towards this sort of thing there are some perhaps fun Elemental decks at the bottom for you to peruse.

community cup team picture after victory.
Congratulations fellows!

The 2010 Community Cup:
First, a hearty congratulations goes out to the Community team for bringing home, once again, the Community Cup Challenge Trophy; no small feat.

Second, WotC, could you have been a little less ready to shunt JxClaytor off to the side (a tiny paragraph with no explanation of what happened to him) once you realized he was having problems getting there? I mean you obviously felt he deserved an invite (or he wouldn't have received one despite however many informal votes were cast.) Why not send him some swag for all the work he does for the community? Or a condolence letter even. Something to let him know you missed his presence. Life and personal matters conspired to keep Josh out of the competition due to massive travel-arrangement failure. It was not like he decided he just really didn't want to go. (What crazy person wouldn't want to go? If you are crazy enough to raise your hand to this you can stay seated.)

From my point of view: A thanks to Josh for keeping puremtgo running on the content end. This is the guy by the way who lends tons of cards from his collection to players on a regular basis (even though occasionally some of them make off with valuables.) Thanks for taking the time Josh, to edit my prose and not keep it waiting in limbo. Oh and maybe next year WotC, please invite Heath Newton. He is the influence behind 90% of casual PRES and one of the reasons people feel so free to draft knowing they have a steady outlet at decent prices for their winnings. Just an opinion, but these guys at pureMTGO.com are supporting a lot of us in small and not so small ways.

Oh and what was up with the mono green deck with 59 lands that someone thrust on Ffreak? I doubt very much anyone would have wanted to pilot that garbage (No offense to those who love piloting monogreen but this wasn't your typical Molimo commander deck. Really a bad call and I understand now more clearly why the CC team was crushed in Commander. I thought they were just rejecting our ideas in the threads because they knew what they were doing. The way Platipus and Zombardi handled it last year with 100s should have been how it was handled this year (Excel sheets to keep the decks in sync and extensive testing.) But all that is water under the bridge now. Thankfully the team crushed in the Limited events, and did fairly well in Standard. In fact the Standard decks seemed very tight by comparison. Yes I know it's all apples and oranges with Commander being more of an avocado when you toss in shared constructed rules.

Thank you WotC for the chance to win packs of Mirrodin Block. I never did get to draft that when it was Standard. I wonder if someone on puremtgo will write up a Mirrodin primer, as Lord Erman did for Momir Basic last year? I would definitely read it if only to see what people think of the sets.

2009 prize for winning the CCC.

Last year's prize.

MTGO 8th Anniversary:
As many of you may be aware we are coming up on the 8th anniversary of Magic The Gathering Online going 'gold' (though I'd contend it has never really been out of beta. This isn't to knock the many wonderful people who have worked hard on getting it to work under constant stress testing. I merely believe that the long awaited version "Mooncow" or whatever we are calling it is overdue by 2.5 years.) And to celebrate... well nothing much for the casual crowd. Gun Slingers? I have heard rumors of such. But they tend to be very hard to find. Also I am certain I will never see one for the fringe formats so that leaves out a good many players. The thing is the gun slingers are WotC employees, but they don't sling on the job so you will have to hope some of them actually like playing the game in their time off. Apparently this is entirely at their discretion.)

On the other hand, if you happen to be a drafter your MOPR points from drafts will be doubled during the anniversary celebrations. This should net you an extra promo card or foil promo card if you draft often. For those of you who enjoy constructed Premier events, they have been priced down to 5 tix each for the anniversary. If you have a semi competitive deck in a format that will fire you should think about scraping together those tix and hopping in. I just noticed upon rereading the wizards.com post that they changed (or I misread it the first time) the MOPR upgrade to include all tourneys not just drafts. Oh and speaking of drafting: If you have extra Mirage and Tempest block draft sets lying around now is the time to use them. (Well by the time this goes up the queues may be gone again, but hey they did come back briefly.)

Exciting swag if you participate in premier events...

Exciting swag if you participate in premier events...

I don't know what I expected from Wizards of the Coast this year but these 'events' seem rather unexciting to me. Perfunctory is the word that comes to mind. If you are someone who spends a ton of money on the game OK they might love you a little. For the rest of us red-headed stepchildren who can't afford to throw cash at them on a monthly basis not so much. Whine Whine Whine....didn't we get enough with the CCC? Well see now that is part of my gripe. Sure it is fun to watch people playing odd formats (better than watching golf anyway) but to me it was boring and I was trying to be supportive and watch as many games as possible. Did anyone else notice the complete lack of fun being broadcast this year?

Last year (in October) Hamtastic was there as were Tweaker, Bubba, DangerLinto, SpikeMBoy and others, and really they seemed to be having a ball. This year? Not so much. Where was the spirit? Was it because the players were a little tighter and more focused and less fun as people? I did watch all the (mildly horrendous) videos of the CCC team being toured around Seattle but it felt dry and uninteresting. Why'd I watch? I was waiting for that moment. You know the one...where someone whispers "multiball" and then a riot of fun breaks out. Didn't happen. That was evidently a one-time event. Oh well, I guess there is no remedy for this disconnection I've felt from the CCC team/event.

The state of casual/Tribal Wars Classic and the Apocalypse:
Every week brave warriors gather to draw blood on a field of honor. I am not going to talk about them. I am going to talk about the zany world of Niche Magic. Tribal Wars casual to be precise. I know this issue is so dead for some people that they have not only buried the horse but also gone on to buy and bet on other horses long since it started. But this is a problem we still face in the Apocalypse PRE. What is the PRE? Is it casual? Is it a tourney? No one seems to have a definitive answer. Like the casual debate in general it sparks heated words and hurt feelings and anger generated from losing when a sideboard would have changed everything. No sideboarding in Tribal Wars means every week you have to basically guess what you are likely to face and put cards in your deck that will hopefully not be dead against too many of your opponents.

Lightning BoltBall LightningHell's Thunder

This is NOT an easy thing to do. If it were I would 3-0 every event. Well assuming no play errors which I make in plenitude. There is a thread in this article that shows how divisive this argument can be. 'Red Decks Win' seems to be the name of the last month's worth of events (excluding Spirits week I think.) I have run anti-red decks and been smashed by Zombies and Black Goblins. I have run fliers and been smashed by combo. I have run Anti-black and been smashed by Stompy Elves or Combo Elves. I have narrowly lost to Merfolk and been victorious against the same even vs Vial Fish. I have been armageddoned to death and have done the same though mine tended to be more janky with 3 colors instead of the monowhite soldiers I lost to one week just on the strength of Ravages of War. I have won against superior decks and won with Sphinges when I thought I would lose. I have won with Cats vs Slivers and vs Eldrazi. Wizards have both killed me and been my saviors.

WastelandForce of WillDisenchant

There are countless cards that are key to victory in each archetype. To beat Dredge you need Wasteland turn 1 vs the Bazaar or a sacrifice creature to ruin the Bridge from Below so that Dredge can't go off. To beat Grindstone + Leyline of the Void bring Force of Will and perhaps disenchants. Against goblins you need life gain, sweepers (hello pyroclasm!) and general cheap removal. Pro red creatures help as well. Vs elves a good number of sweepers should do the trick. Vs Burn decks you need (Kor Firewalkers) and life gain. Vs Fish you need to kill the Vials and work around the counterspells. If you can stay alive long enough you can win by pulling a bomb when they are out of dazes (or until you have enough mana to pay the 1.) Vs Zombies/Imps/Graveyard recursion you need Bojuka Bog and other graveyard hate. Counters can be useful here in conjunction with said graveyard hate to stop the ever so nasty Living Death/Patriarch's Bidding. Vs Green Beats/Soldiers bring Moat. Moat shut down Goblins/Elves too though Elves usually have at least one Nullmage Shepherd. Vs Angels/Sphinges/Vampires bring Wrath of God and plenty of them.

Hoser cards can be wonderful if your opponent doesn't have the answer. Nothing says "Ouch!" like Suleiman's Legacy and Artificial Evolution naming your enemy's tribe. Facing Human Levelers? Run some Cursed Totems perhaps. There are tons of answers but you have to include them in order to compete. Knowing what players are likely to bring is the only way to do this. Some players never bring the same deck twice (AJ I am looking at you.) Some people seem inately tuned into the current meta (Melissa Fey for example ran Raking Canopies when she faced all fliers one week. Insanely good guess there.) Exile is important because it kills recursion and stops silliness that otherwise makes winning impossible. Emrakul can't be plowed of course but Oblivion Ring hits him just fine. Of course surviving to play a ring on him is an impressive feat in itself since his timewalk trigger almost guarantees a 15 point hit and with it a 6 point annihilation. Best to just kill the cloudposts instead.

Cursed TotemSuleiman's LegacyArtificial EvolutionRaking Canopy

The point here is there is no pat answer. There is no one deck that wins all the time. If Red Deck Burns is winning every week it means that people aren't hating against it enough. This will shift deck construction away from other hate perhaps allowing different archetypes a chance when Red Decks suddenly go 0-2 drop or 1-1 drop. It isn't useless to vent about it. I totally get it after being beaten by a burn deck with Bobs in it a few weeks ago. I felt like I never stood a chance in the match up even though I knew I had the cards in my deck to win vs the deck. It seems looking back, I just didn't get the nuts and my opponent drew 10 of his burn spells in each game. But here is the thing. He was running BOB Dark Confidant which is double edged unless you ameliorate it somehow and (Sensei's Diving Top) which does just that. So of course he had what he needed. It was really a very clever build. Dangerous but skill intensive. The deck I was running vs that? My Zombies Theft and Punishment deck. Perhaps just an unlucky pairing that.

So venting isn't useless here but perhaps not so productive either. Cathartic as venting is at some point you have to move on. Once you've gotten over being furious at the total unfairness of it all it is time to change things. Or accept that you are powerless to do so. I think there are a lot of misconceptions being tossed around and no one is very clear on what is ok and what is not. My advice is do not listen to anyone telling you it is a casual event. It isn't. It is cutthroat and unfun. This is magic at times. It can be fun but that is merely coincidental. If someone is doing something goofy expect them to lose. If you don't like it don't play. I haven't played in a while now and I may never play the PRE again. Frankly I'd rather just avoid the unpleasantness in the middle of my Saturday but I still play casually and have some great games. If I do attend the PRE again I will likely bring something slightly unfair. (As unfair as I can make it any way.)

Summer Limited Fun: (The Coalition League by Flippers_Giraffe.)
Looking for a fun way to spend your summer time? Got some old packs lying around gathering dust? Want to have fun and maybe win some cool prizes? Play in the Coalition League. Flippers has been working overtime to make this an interesting event for July. I recommend it to anyone who meets the above criteria. Talk about casual fun without the worry of facing super-broken $1000 decks. Sure someone might crack a Baneslayer, etc, but it won't necessarily be the killer it would be in constructed.

Elemental Decks:
As always I leave you with some decks I have been tinkering with. This week my emphasis has been on Elementals. I wrote about Elementals as they worked in Extended last summer and have since then showed you various decks in Tribal Wars Classic format with Elementals but lately I have been enjoying them again and want to share these decks with you.

Dimir Elementals
Bruised and Battered for Tribal Wars Classic
Creatures
3 Kulrath Knight
1 Aethersnipe
1 Mournwhelk
1 Nevermaker
1 Roil Elemental
4 Mulldrifter
3 Shriekmaw
3 Soul Snuffers
3 Corrosive Mentor
20 cards

Other Spells
4 Dread Return
2 Wind Zendikon
4 Incremental Blight
2 Ancestral Vision
4 Soul Manipulation
16 cards
Lands
1 Mishra's Factory
3 Halimar Depths
4 Bojuka Bog
3 Dimir Aqueduct
5 Swamp
5 Island
3 Watery Grave
24 cards
 
Mulldrifter

 

has two elements I really like in combination: Draw synergy and Removal. I explored this using Mulldrifter (perhaps my all time favorite Elemental) with Kulrath Knight. Toss in some Shriekmaw, Soul Snuffer, Incremental Blight and other fun cards and this deck can handle a wide variety of comers. In addition, if you run out of dudes 4 Dread Return and 4 Soul Manipulation are there to help pick up the slack. Some of the 1-2 ofs are experiments. Wind Zendikon is so cheap and in an emergency it can help you recur Bojuka Bog or Halimar Depths by chump blocking something big and replaying the land on your turn.

 

No this isn't 'vengevines.dec' ala: Brian Kibler Bant. If I had Vengevines I'd have sold them. But if you have them feel free to trade out the Briarhorns for them. The deck also doesn't sport many of the other cooler things about Bant (no Jace or Gideon, for example.) But it does play with style. Wrath of God sweeps the board every so often which has nice synergy with Reveillark (my 2nd favorite Elemental ever). I'll be honest and declare that Flippers' (much better) Elemental Changelings deck influenced my choices for cards in this deck. Fertilid unscrews poor or slow land draws, and Aethersnipe bounces inconvenient permanents. The 1-ofs are (as usual) experiments. I still haven't narrowed down yet which non-Elemental cards are best with this particular build.

 

The time is nearing to the annual 4th of July celebrations so why not run a list full of patriotic elementals? Flickerwisp is tactically very influential. It can be used to renew your own permanents,remove blockers, negate an attack with a carefully timed Momentary Blink, or blink a Reveillark (or other 'enters/leaves the battlefield' creature). Shinewend won out over anti-artifact Elementals as enchantments tend to be slightly more worrisome. I chose to run less wraths in this deck in order to run Path to Exile x2. This isn't necessarily better than Swords to Plowshares but I felt like doing something different. Perhaps the most significant idea here is the inclusion of both Emeria, the Sky Ruin and Valakut the Molten Pinnacle. Both of these usually are exclusive of each other. I felt with Expedition Maps and 5 duals this would be fine and so it seems to be. The deck plays a bit more control than aggro so the long game approach with Emeria is justified while Valakut brings extra non red removal for the middle game. Both are surprisingly easy to activate, though I'd really want some fetches and 3 more plateaus to bring them up consistency.

Much thanks to Godot for his comments and grammatical corrections.

Until next time,
Magickally Yours,
Paul Emerson Leicht aka Winter.Wolf on MODO. (Proud Member of clan pureMTGO2).
email: gandoDOTthebardATgmailDOTcom

11 Comments

Ouch missed a typo with by Paul Leicht at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 03:29
Paul Leicht's picture

Ouch missed a typo with Sensei's Divining Top and parentheses around Dark Confidant. :/

Thanks for the mention of the by Flippers_Giraffe at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 03:55
Flippers_Giraffe's picture

Thanks for the mention of the Coalition League, I’m hoping the word will spread about this.

Also in regards to the gunslingers the other day I was on at the same time as one for the first time and they were going to do Tribal Classic which would have been yesterday, sadly I have never had the chance of joining a game against one.

I’ve also heard that the next promo is Maze of Ith before the release of ME4 which is going to put an instant high price on that card.

In regards to the CC cup I felt it didn’t have the same hype as last year as well, I didn’t see much going round to spark any interest.

hmm Tribal Apocalypse really does have a problem with what power level is allowed and what’s frowned against which is the reason I’ve stopped playing it for now as well. You can’t play combo or expensive cards or even red decks with burn spells without getting some flak.

I just saw that today about by Paul Leicht at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 04:04
Paul Leicht's picture

I just saw that today about Maze of Ith. Very nice art by the way. I would love to get one, so of course it will be outrageous at 40 tix or so.

I look forward to reading about the exploits of the coalition league members. I would definitely join up if I had the packs.

Hey sorry to hear poeple run by menace13 at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 05:56
menace13's picture

Hey sorry to hear poeple run off with your cards, Josh. Like i lend my friends cards all the time and if someone ran off, i'd have to find them and stab em in the eyeball.

heh by JXClaytor at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 14:20
JXClaytor's picture

It's really not that big of a deal, they are just little pieces of digital cardboard. Most of the time when I think something is missing, it's because I forgot who I let borrow cards :D

ever time I've seen a slinger by JustSin at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 12:30
JustSin's picture

ever time I've seen a slinger theyve been playing std, which i avoid at all costs and the games are full in seconds, its really a pointless thing to add because such a small population of the community will even have the change to try for a win

@tribal: we had gobo burn, ele burn, ele burn, and the spirit week I won with boros "burn"... nothing about week after week of burn spells entices me to want to play, i dont claim to be an acception because I went 3-0 with giant burn too, its just getting boring

I really like your decklists, by Leviathan at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 12:40
Leviathan's picture
4

I really like your decklists, mainly due to the random 1-ofs that I would never think about including. That's the kind of stuff that makes a deck have replay value.

As for the CC Commander issue: based on the coverage, it sounded like the majority of the community team had no background in EDH. Along with the fact that EDH is sort of the pet format of most WotC employees, the community had pretty much resigned themselves to losing that portion. They still did Ok, considering I think they had very low expectations.

I get the idea behind Brad Nelson's Azusa deck. Unfortunately, it didn't look like he got his draw spells, so he was left with tons of mana and nothing to do. He could have definitely used a bunch more cycling lands and Life from the Loam. Ah well.

I'm taking a look at the decks the WotC team played with in my next article. Any decks designed by Aaron Forsythe and those other guys are worth taking a closer look at.

Edit - Oh yeah, I was wondering what happened to Josh. Glad I have an idea of what went on.

Haha yeah my one-ofs do make by Paul Leicht at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 19:01
Paul Leicht's picture

Haha yeah my one-ofs do make the games more interesting. Will I draw that one card in the whole deck that can save me? Anyway thanks.

Yeah I get that they were the underdogs, but commander is not an unknown format to the community. The whole point of the ccc is to challenge our common knowledge. As it is I have to give Gavin huge props for designing ALL the constructed decks on no notice. It takes a perseverant soul to manage such a feat. I still don't understand how we managed to actually pull off a team win when the whole team seemed underenthused and completely uninspired.

Even so giving Nelson a deck like Asuza was really begging to fail. He's no doubt a great player but with a relatively unknown format to play he probably should have gotten something a little simpler and easier to pilot. I still think the Asuza deck is wrong. 59 lands is NEVER correct in commander. It is just begging to be mana flooded which makes it extremely luck dependent. Better to include multiple land search cards that bring what you need when you need it.

Wow, I saw that they only had by Leviathan at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 19:47
Leviathan's picture

Wow, I saw that they only had 2 decks done the night before they played, but had no idea Gavin did it all on his own. That's kind of crazy. The community won games with Uril, Azami and Zo-zu, which was an interesting choice, so at least there was that.

on the basis of lands i have by ShardFenix at Wed, 06/16/2010 - 21:49
ShardFenix's picture

on the basis of lands i have a commander deck that runs 75ish lands.

Aaron Forsythe by Lythand at Fri, 06/18/2010 - 17:45
Lythand's picture

Aaron Forsythe's favorite formate is EDH. So you know he has the other guys playing it.