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By: one million words, Pete Jahn
Aug 02 2009 9:05am
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The New Standard, M10 and the New Old Set Sealeds

This weekend brings us a new Standard, M10 Prereleases and the new way of getting into an Invasion sealed event.   Let's address these last, first.

The New Invasion Sealed Event

In the past, Wizards has held events that get more classic set packs into the system.  These have always been sealed deck events, with Wizards providing the packs.  Entering the tournament cost nothing, directly, but you did have to win a qualifier.  I never bothered trying to qualify.   I rarely have time to play big events,and the higher fees to enter qualifiers, plus the poor odds of winning, meant I have never busted Invasion packs online. 

This time is different.  This time I do not have to qualify.  Instead, I can simply pay the entry fee - 30 TIX! - and I'm in. For someone like me, that makes the tournament far more appealing.  I think.   The question is whether the payout is worth it.  30 Tix is a lot.  Let's see what you get. 

The tournament uses a "modern" sealed pool:  2 Invasion Boosters, 2 Planeshift boosters, 2 Apocalypse boosters.  In other words, 2 Invasion rares, 2 Planeshift rares, 2 Apocalypse rares.  6 of each set's uncommon.  20 of each set's commons.  No basic lands - at least, none to keep.  That is a shame, since I like the old bordered John Avon lands.  The commons are not worth much, unless you get lucky and open something like Armadillo Cloak.  The odds of getting an Armadillo cloak are 20 in 110, or 1 in 5.5.  Most Invasion commons are worth $0.02 retail, so figure on getting less than $1.00 worth of Invasion commons.  The uncommons are also generally cheap, and even the rares are only worth a buck or so, on average, and maybe $5.00 for something really in demand, like the dragons.  Planeshift is, aside from Orim's Chant and maybe Terminate and Flametongue Kavu, even worse.  Apocalypse is little better.  The commons are worth, on average, the same, but have no big draws.  The same is true of the uncommons.  The rares are better, since the lands alone add more cards worth more than 1 TIX, and there's always Vindicate.  Overall, though, what you bust in the packs is unlikely to total $30.

The prize payout is decent, if not inspired.  The event is six rounds.  A record of 3-3 gets a draft set.  4-2 get 3 draft sets, 5-1 gets five, and the winner gets lots of foils.  Since a sealed draft set retails for around $25.00, you should pay for the event provided you go at least 3-3.   

We will see.  So far, I am planning on playing in the event.

The M10 Prereleases

My early plans had involved playing in some Standard events, starting Wednesday afternoon.  Work and other conflicts messed up that plan, so by the time I could start playing, it will be a lot closer to the beginning of the prerelease events.   I was looking forward to some Standard without M10 or Tenth Edition, but I will probably miss that.  

Actually, I was really hoping to get in more matches with the Cascade deck I have been playing.  I love that deck.  I want to play more, but - well, rotations happen.  Here's that deck. 

 

This was the paper build.  I had played it that way because I did not own more Pulses.  The Lord of Extinction is simply a fun, if strictly worse, replacement. 

I modified the list for this week's paper tournament.  This week, the deck did something that it has never done before in a tournament - it lost.  True, it was lost game two because I double mulliganned then missed my third land drop until turn 10, and in game three I hit my first 11 land drops, but still. 

To modify the deck for M10 Standard, the first changes were to remove the Wrath of Gods and Treetop Villages, since they rotated out.  I replaced three of the  Villages with tri-lands, and three of the four Wraths with Hallowed Burial.  The fourth Wrath became (Nicol Bolas, Planswalker) and the fourth Village became Baneslayer Angel.   Nicol Bolas was just for fun (although it did win me a game or two), and because I didn't have a second Baneslayer Angel (and I was not about to pay $25 for one until I have finished busting draft packs.)

I also experimented with a Rhox War Monk in place of a Kitchen Finks.  With more Firespout being played, I am liking the Monk more and more,and I am upping my count.  I might even play three.   I am also considering adding Qasali Pridemages to the board, so that I can cascade into a Disenchant, in addition to the Pulses. 

If I can play early in the pre-M10 period, I would/will  play the Cascade deck.  It has little trouble beating up on Kithkin and so forth, since the lifegain means you can survive into Hallowed Burial easily enough.  Against 5color control and 5color Blood, you go after their lands, with Commands and the LD suite in the board.  Against other decks - well, you have more fatties and cast tons of spells.  The problem will be that I won't have Baneslayer Angels until next week at the earliest.  I need a replacement, and I think that the best option might be Ajani Vengeant.  He helps with the weenie beats, kills Great Stable Stag and the opponent, and he is solid against 5color control. 

With the caveat that I am always adding cards at the last moment, here is what I would play this Friday or Saturday, if I can make it into a Standard event. 

The New & Improved I Love a Cascade!
For the M10 Standard with little M10 around period
Creatures 
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Enlisted Wurm
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Enigma Sphinx 
2 Rhox War Monk
14 cards

Other Spells 
2 Ajani Vengeant
4 Captured Sunlight 
3 Incendiary Command
Hallowed Burial 
3 Primal Command
2 Bituminous Blast 
3 Maelstrom Pulse 
20 cards
 
Lands
3 Vivid Grove
2 Vivid Crag
3 Vivid Meadow
2 Wooded Bastion
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Forest
1 Plains
Jungle Shrine 
2 Fire-lit Thicket 
Crumbling Sanctuary
Seaside Citadel 
2 Graven Cairns
4 Reflecting Pool
26 cards

Ajani Vengeant

 

Once the prerelease start rolling, I expect players will get their hands on a couple Great Sable Stags and maybe a Baneslayer Angel or two.  At that point, I expect a lot of people to start rocking 5color decks, to fit those one and two ofs.   Once they do, I might shift into another deck I have been testing - a fairies build with a red splash.   It is running Firespout, and that is very good against a large number of decks (although it is suboptimal against flying Spirit tokens, in my experience - I really wish I could more reliably generate green mana.)  Here's that list.

 

Once M10 cards area available, I might add a copy of Doom Blade or two, but this seems to work as is. 

Looking around the net for results of various National Championships, I see a few other decks that could appear early on, since they have few M10 cards.  Here's the most "unexpected" deck in the pack.

 

The other breakout deck at US Nationals was Conley Woods' Mannequine deck.   Like The Spanish Inquisition, the only cards from M10 are the four Great Sable Stags in the sideboard.  Other than that, it is playable pre M10. 

Jund Mannequin
Conley Woods design - finished 4th and 6th at US Nationals
Creatures
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Putrid Leech
2 Cloudthresher
4 Mulldrifter
4 Shriekmaw
3 Caldera Hellion
4 Kitchen Finks
25 cards

Other Spells
3 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Makeshift Mannequin
11 cards
 
Lands
2 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Swamp
3 Twilight Mire
3 Vivid Crag
4 Vivid Grove
2 Vivid Marsh
3 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Reflecting Pool
24 cards

Makeshift Mannequin

 

Of course, the most important deck coming out of Nationals will be 5color Control.  It was everywhere, and it does not need a lot of M10 cards.  (It does want Essence Scatter, the new Remove Soul, but that's a common.)   I expect to see it everywhere.  My Cascade deck beats it by overwhelming it with Cascade-driven card advantage, and by attacking its mana base.  Fae beats it, at least until the control decks get their hands on Great Sable Stags.   So, in the interim...

The M10 Prereleases

The other question I will have this weekend is whether to play in the prerelease or not.  The prizes for the prerelease are worse than the release events, but the prices, plus the prizes, plus the prerelease card, is probably better than just busting packs.  Assuming that I go just 2-2, I win 1 pack.  That means that I will have spent 30 TIX for 7 packs.  If I wait until Monday and buy the packs then, I will spend 28 TIX for the packs, and won't get the prerelease foil (although I might be able to buy M10 draft and/or sealed setups that include cards.)

I suspect that I will be unable to resist.  I'll probably be in a flight Friday night, or early Saturday morning. 

PRJ

6 Comments

$25 for ipa, really? by Anonymous (not verified) at Sun, 08/02/2009 - 10:11
Anonymous's picture

I can easily find stores selling IPA at that price, but I can't find anyone *buying* IPA at that price. With the amount given out from the open event, I can see IPA dropping down to $12 for a draft set.

The only thing driving the price is the scarcity, as you've mentioned above, the cards are largely worthless. Armadillo Cloak was a recent promo and Terminate is in Alara Reborn.

draft by TheUsualSuspect at Sun, 08/02/2009 - 23:25
TheUsualSuspect's picture
5

I went 4-2 in the ipa. From me and my clanies discussions were expecting the draft sets to go for between 14-18 next week when ipa nix tix drafts start. BTW nice article those final 2 lists were like the top 2 that missed the cut for my article. (mainly due to getting tired of writing and not wanting to put every list that got 1x t8's) but those 2 were very good.

Pete you wrote: "The other by Lord Erman at Mon, 08/03/2009 - 02:08
Lord Erman's picture

Pete you wrote:

"The other breakout deck at US Nationals was Conley Woods' Mannequine deck. Like The Spanish Inquisition, the only cards from M10 are the four Great Sable Stags in the sideboard. Other than that, it is playable pre M10."

I cannot see any Great Sable Stags in neither of those decks. Something's wrong?

LE

Great Stable Stag by Boin at Mon, 08/03/2009 - 02:30
Boin's picture

Both decks did in fact play four Great Stable Stag sideboard. They havn't shown up for whatever reason. Thats why it says the decks sideboards are 11 cards.

They are supposed to be there by one million words at Tue, 08/04/2009 - 12:25
one million words's picture

The deck box content generator program thingee lets you enter card names and numbers, then sorts them into creatures and lands - and inserts the hyperlinks for all known cards. Cards that don't hyperlink - mainly names with apostrophes, misspellings and cards from very new sets - don't hyperlink. For cards in the main deck, they show up as spells. Those in the sideboard don't appear at all. I could have tried to insert them, but adding cards to the decklists requires a lot of work to get the formats and links right, and I was lazy,

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dungdung's picture

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