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Oct 21 2008 4:56am
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Explorations #3 - Shards of Alara Deck Sketches
(Jund, Bant)

Steve Gargolinski

Everyone Loves New Cards

Whenever a set spoils, writers attack the new cards from all different angles.  Some go through the list and assign out a rating (3 stars, 4.5 out of 10, A-, whatever), some categorize the cards as "flagship", "staple", "role player", or "unplayable".  I'm going to take a different approach and build a few quick decks to explore some of the new ideas in the set.

These decks will revolve around cards that seem interesting to me from a casually competitive point of view.  Most of the examples will be based around new Shards of Alara cards, but I will also include a few tweaks/updates to decks based on established cards.  Obviously not all of these decks will be top tier, but they should each give us a different glimpse into what Shards is capable of.

Today I'm going to take a look at the Jund and Bant shards.

Supper's Ready!

Caldera Hellion
Mycoloth
Skullmulcher

Devour is a pretty awesome name for a mechanic, isn't it?

"Devour N" means "As this object comes into play, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. This permanent comes into play with N +1/+1 counters on it for each creature sacrificed this way."

Wizards isn't leaving anything at all up to your imagination; these monsters are actually eating each other and using their dead buddies to grow in power.  Talk about a flavorful mechanic!  Devour is at home in the Jund shard (base red with black and green) - a dragon-ruled land locked into a battle for territory.  Here's a quick rundown of the Devour options in Alara:

Mycoloth
This is a weird throwback to Verdant Force.  If we're able to untap with it then our opponent is most likely in big trouble.  I wonder how many tokens people will generate on an average turn?  Six?  Eight?  Ten?  Whenever we're talking about generating six, eight, or ten of something in Magic it's usually really bad news for our opponent.

Skullmulcher
This seems weird as a pure green card; I'm a little surprised that there's no black component.  The draw ability offsets the general card advantage loss from devoured creatures, but still leaves you with some potentially significant resource loss.

This guy would be way cooler if his name was Skullmuncher.

Predator Dragon
Strong finisher.  Comes out of nowhere, eats up your team, and yells, "Hey dude, got a Terror?"

Tar Fiend
Costs six, which means that it won't hit the table until pretty late in the game.  By this time our opponent has most likely emptied his hand anyways. Awesome art!

Thorn-Thrash Viashino
Boooooooorrrriinnnnggggg...

Thunder-Thrash Elder
I wish this guy had haste, then he would be exciting.  He's a little lame when your opponent has a full turn to figure out how to deal with him.  Right now the only good idea I can think of is to generate a bunch of tokens, cast Thunder-Thrash Elder with +3/+3 for each token sacrificed, and then use Rite of Consumption to send his power right to your opponent's face.  That's one way to get rid of that turn your opponent has to figure out how to deal with him.

Predator Dragon

Caldera Hellion
This is - by far - the most exciting of the devour cards so far.  When it works out well, the card says:  "Wrath your opponent's team.  Put a huge badass into play."  That just seems like a whole lot of fun.  My starting point for this deck sketch is definitely Caldera Hellion.

The main problem with devour is that you're essentially putting all of your eggs in one basket:  sacrificing all (or a bunch) of your creatures to power up one.  I remember playing old mono black lists, and getting a blazing start with something like this:

Me: 
Swamp, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Juzam Djinn, Unholy Strength.
Opponent: 
Plains, Swords to Plowshares.
Me:  Just great...

Devour is a mechanic that encourages you to play into situations like this.  Man does it suck to sacrifice four creatures to make a huge Mycoloth just to see it fall prey to Terror before it's able to create an army of tokens.  Wouldn't it be much more exciting if you could power up your devour creature without sacrificing your army?

The most interesting idea I can think up is to try to abuse the persist mechanic alongside devour to offset the painful cost.  Here's a quick deck idea:

Supper's Ready
Steve Gargolinski - Future Standard Legal
Creatures
4 Safehold Elite
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Heartmender
4 Caldera Hellion
2 Skullmulcher
2 Mycoloth
2 Sprouting Thyrax
22 cards

Other Spells
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Sarkhan Vol
3 Goblin Assault
3 Bitterblossom
2 Manamorphose
2 Rite of Consumption
14 cards
Lands
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Fire-Lit Thicket
2 Graven Cairns
4 Forest
3 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Savage Lands
2 Twilight Mire
24 cards
 
Heartmender

This deck is mostly red and green, splashing a bit of black.  The idea is to use a bunch of creatures that don't feel so bad about being devoured.  The first subtheme revolves around twelve persist creatures (Kitchen Finks, Safehold Elite, and Heartmender).  If we end up devouring these creatures then they head right back into play.  If there's a Heartmender around then we can power them back up and use another creature to chomp them all over again.

Sprouting Thrinax doesn't have persist, but it doesn't really mind too much when it's eaten.  It says so itself, just check out the flavor text.  The three tokens generated can be devoured again by your next creature. 
Bitterblossom and Goblin Assault also contribute a whole bunch of additional tokens.  Some will get through for damage, and some will become Mycoloth, Hellion, or Skullmulcher food.

Caldera Hellion is the most interesting devour creature in this list, mainly because of his interaction with persist creatures - which requires a bit of rules knowledge.  Say you have three persist creatures in play and then you cast the Hellion, sacrificing all three to turn your new creature into a 6/6.  Both the "3 damage to every creature" and "persist:  return these creatures to play" are triggered abilities that you control.  As long as you put the persist ability on the BOTTOM of the stack, then your creatures will return to play and avoid the three damage.  Not only do you pump up the Hellion, get your sacrified creatures back, and do three damage to your opponent's side of the board - but your sacrified creatures also dodge the three damage.
 

Kitchen Finks
Heartmender
Caldera Hellion
C-C-C-C-Combo!

Speaking of Crater Hellion, both Sarkhan Vol and Garruk Wildspeaker also dodge his damage and stay in play to help you rebuild.  They both also play well with the token creation theme - Sarkhan Vol gives them haste and +1/+1, Garruk sends in Overrun for the grand finale.  Either Planeswalker alongside a Mycoloth that lives for more than a turn is a serious beating.

Supper's Ready also runs a few copies of Rites of Consumpion, both as a way to offset potential Bitterblossom lifeloss and as a way to add some reach to the deck.  If sending guys into the red zone isn't working then we can always try pumping up one giant devour creature and sacrificing him with Rites of Consumpion.  This play can get us out of some tight spots.

This deck seems like an absolute blast to play, and I'm definitely going to take a shot at developing it further at some point!

Double Dragon

One of the other cards in the Jund shard that stands out to me is the Broodmate Dragon.

Broodmate Dragon

It's like 2/3rds of a (Mogg War Marshall).  Supersized!

Times sure have changed. Back in Legends we used to pay six mana across two colors for a pair of 3/4s!  Without flying!  And if one of them died, the other died!

Stangg
Things sure have changed since 1994.

Just how good of a card is Broodmate Dragon?  Whenever I'm thinking about a question like this, I try to draw comparisons between the card in question and similar cards from the past.  As a finisher, Broodmate Dragon compares very well to big monster finishers of years past.  Eight power for six mana is better than Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Skeletal Vampire, Keiga, the Tide Star, Simic Sky Swallower, Archon of Justice, Bogardan Hellkite, and pretty much every other big finisher I can think of.

What do all of these creatures have in common?  Big mana, big power, evasion, and a special ability that makes removing them an adventure.  Akroma has protection from everything, Skeletal Vampire has bats and regenerates, and Simic Sky Swallower can't be targeted at all.  Good luck killing any of those guys - Wrath of God will do the job, but not much else will.  Keiga, the Archon, and Bogardan Hellkite are somewhat easier to kill, but each one does something special in addition to just heading through the red zone - even if they die, they've still left their mark on the game.  Keiga grabs your opponent's biggest guy, Bogardan Hellkite has already spread five damage amongst the troops, and Archon of Justice blows up any permanent.

 

Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Simic Sky Swallower
Skeletal Vampire
Finishers of years past.

Broodmate Dragon not only brings the power, but is also tough to remove - probably falling closer to Skeletal Vampire in ability than any of the others that I mentioned.  Broodmate Dragon has four toughness (enough to dodge most of the damage-based removal around - Incinerate, Lash Out, Firespout), is black (no Shriekmaw or Terror worries), and is two creatures in one.  If your opponent manages to get rid of one of your 4/4 Dragons with Unmake or Titan's Revenge - then they've still got another 4/4 to worry about.

Whenever we run into a creature that has a strong "comes into play" ability, the very first thing we need to think about is different ways to trigger this ability.  Ever since Lorwyn came out, people have been Evoking and Momentary Blinking Mulldrifters, Shriekmaws, and to a lesser extent Mournwhelk to great success.  It got even better after flashbacking the Momentary Blink - talk about some card advantage.

Momentary Blink isn't around anymore, but there are other ways to get more value out of Broodmate Dragon.

Turn to Mist
This is just Momentary Blink Jr.  Requires a 4 color deck:  Jund with either blue or white.

Torrent of Souls
Now we're talking.  This is a match made in heaven:  Adds haste, powers up your other creatures at the same time.  Unfortunately it doesn't give the token haste since it won't come into play until after resolution.

Makeshift Mannequin
Tried and true instant speed reanimation.  Even if they exploit the drawback of Makeshift Mannequin, you still end up with a 4/4 dragon!

I really love Torrent of Souls and Makeshift Mannequin bringing this monster dragon back from the dead.  My first idea here is to run a mana ramp with this Dragon as a major player towards the top of the curve and a reanimation sub-theme.  Here's a red/green big mana deck from the just-rotating-Standard to use as a starting point: 

Red Green Snow Big Mana
Luis Scott Vargas - Old Standard Legal
Creatures
2 Civic Wayfinder
4 Cloudthresher
3 Siege-gang Commander
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Wall Of Roots
16 cards

Other Spells
4 Skred
4 Sulfurous Blast
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Harmonize
4 Into The North
2 Primal Command
20 cards
Lands
10 Snow-covered Forest
4 Snow-covered Mountain
2 Desert
4 Treetop Village
3 Highland Weald
1 Mouth Of Ronom
24 cards
Siege-gang Commander

Here's my shot at updating this list from Gruul to Jund: 

Double Dragons
Steve Gargolinski - Future Standard Legal
Creatures
3 Chameleon Colossus
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Broodmate Dragon
1 Cloudthresher
12 cards

Other Spells
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Sarkhan Vol
3 Jund Charm
2 Torrent of Souls
3 Makeshift Mannequin
4 Fertile Ground
4 Firespout
4 Rampant Growth
24 cards
Lands
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Vivid Grove
4 Savage Lands
3 Twilight Mire
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
5 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
24 cards
 
Broodmate Dragon

This deck plays mostly green, splashing black (for Torrent of Souls, Makeshift Mannequin, and Broodmate Dragon) and red (for Firespout, and Broodmate Dragon).  The basic 'big mana' strategy applies to this deck.  Play out Fertile Ground or Rampant Growth and Garruk Wildspeaker to accelerate into your big threats:  Broodmate Dragon, Chameleon Colossus, and Cloudthresher.

Kitchen Finks and Garruk Beast tokens are in the deck to hold down the ground early while you accelerate your mana.  Jund Charm and Firespout can clear out the aggro threats while leaving just about all of your creatures in play.  Now that I think about it, Caldera Hellion might be a good choice for this deck in one of those two slots.

The difference between this deck and the G/R big mana deck posted above is the reanimation sub-theme.  Makeshift Mannequin turns all of your dead/counterspelled creatures into dudes that cost four and have flash.  Torrent of Souls is capable of instantly finishing the game out of seemingly nowhere, especially alongside Garruk and Sarkhan Vol.  Talk about some explosive power!

Double Dragon seems like a blast to play, just like Supper's Ready.  I can't wait to try out both of these decks once Shards hits.  Jund rocks!

We Are All One

Alara's Bant Shard (base white with green and blue) is known for its honor, organization, and disciplined combat regimen.  The Exalted mechanic is an attempt to capture the shard's honor-in-combat morality.  Here's a quick summary of the ability:

502.83a Exalted is a triggered ability. "Exalted" means "Whenever a creature you control attacks alone, that creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn."

Exalted enourages attacking with only a single creature each turn, which is a far cry from the way that typical white, aggressive, attack-with-everyone-every-turn decks have worked in the past.  You may be more used to these guys:

Savannah Lions
White Knight
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Staples of white beatdown.

The latest example of white weenie beatdown is Kithkin, which is currently a powerhouse deck in Standard.  Here's Hironobu Sugaya's list that won Grand Prix Manila:

This deck is as far from Exalted as you can really get; Kithkin ideally taps out to attack with their entire army of creatures on each turn of the game.  Running a strong Lord theme (4x Wizened Cenn, 2x Thistledown Liege), Kithkin often wins by using Mirrorweave to create an entire team of Lords.  That's starting to feel a little bit like exalted, but it still seems weird to attack with just a single creature each turn.  I wonder if exalted will make it worth our while?

Here's a quick rundown of the available exalted cards:

Akrasan Squire
Simple one-drop with Exalted.  If we're playing an aggressive exalted deck then a playset of this guy probably goes right in.

Angelic Benediction
This is an ability that an exalted deck really wants, but it costs four mana and doesn't really attack or block.

Battlegrace Angel
Battlegrace Angel is a slightly stronger Exalted Angel while attacking alone.  Fairly priced right between the Exalted Angel's morph and casting cost.  This is one of the stronger exalted cards, and might be reason enough to run this theme.

Exalted Angel
Battlegrace Angel
Battlegrace Angel would have been right at home in Time Spiral.

Court Archers
Off-color, hangs back on defense while pumping up your lone attacker.

Dawnray Archers
If our goal is to ping creatures by one point at a time, there are many better options than this.

Guardians of Akrasa
Costs only white mana, which probably makes it better than Court Archers depending on our matchup.

Outrider of Jhess
Four mana for a 2/2 with exalted is not for constructed play...

Rafiq of the Many
... especially when you can get something like this for the same four mana.  It's very colored mana, but Rafiq is 3/3, also has exalted, and includes an amazing additional ability.

Rhox Charger
Much, much better than Outrider of Jhess.  +1/+1 and trample for the same amount of mana?

Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
One of the main problems with exalted is that we're putting a decent number of our eggs in one basket - our lonely attacker is very vulnerable to spot removal.  Shroud helps this problem, but unfortunately it's attached to a 1/1 for two that costs additional mana to activate Shroud.

Sigiled Paladin
Strong two-drop with amazing art.  Runs parallel to many great two-drops in white's history.

Waveskimmer Aven
Many creatures with exalted are not exactly aggressively costed for what you get.  This probably wouldn't even be worth it at 5, nevermind 2GWU.

If you were to explore this linear with a straight-up Bant Exalted decklist, it might look something like this:

We Are All One
Steve Gargolinski - Future Alara Block Legal
Creatures
4 Akrasan Squire
4 Sigiled Paladin
4 Rhox War Monk
4 Battlegrace Angel
3 Stoic Angel
3 Rafiq of the Many
4 Deft Duelist
26 cards

Other Spells
4 Bant Charm
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Sigil Blessing
10 cards

Lands
4 Seaside Citadel
12 Plains
3Forest
3 Island
24 cards

Rafiq of the Many

The mana is pretty tough and definitely needs to be worked on, but I'm pretty sure that this list is pretty close to the Alara Block exalted deck that Wizards imagined people building out of the gate.  Stoic Angel doesn't have exalted, but it is definitely a friend of the exalted 'tribe'.  The basic idea of this Angel is to force your opponent to play by Bant rules.  This isn't exactly (Proving Grounds) (it doesn't stop a big alpha strike), but it's close.  Deft Duelist is a solid exalted champion; his shroud ability renders your opponent's spot removal useless - and first strike makes it almost impossible for your opponent to work out a profitable block. 

How about this opening?

Turn 1:  Plains, Akrasan Squire.
Turn 2:  Plains, Sigiled Paladin, attack for 3 (2/2 Sigiled Paladin + 2x exalted)
Turn 3:  Forest, Akrasin Squire, Sigil Blessing, attack for 8 (2/2 Sigiled Paladin + 3x exalted + Sigil Blessing)
Turn 4:  Island, Rafiq of the Many, attack for 12 (2/2 Silgiled Paladin + 4x exalted + double strike).
Turn 5:  Land, Battlegrace Angel, attack for 16 points of lifelink (3/3 Rafiq of the Many + 5x exalted + double strike + lifelink).

That's twenty-three damage in four turns with no resistance, and thirty-nine in five.  That's a whole bunch of power to be sending into the red zone, and it's always exciting to have a deck that can win on turn four. 

Another card to consider is Knight of the White Orchid.  This guy equalizes (a bit) the die roll and helps guard against manascrew.  Knight of the White Orchid can take Rhox War Monk's place in the list above, which also makes the deck's mana a bit easier:

We Are All One v2
Steve Gargolinski - Future Alara Block Legal
Creatures
4 Akrasan Squire
4 Sigiled Paladin
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Battlegrace Angel
3 Stoic Angel
3 Rafiq of the Many
4 Deft Duelist
26 cards

Other Spells
4 Bant Charm
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Sigil Blessing
10 cards

Lands
4 Seaside Citadel
14 Plains
2Forest
2 Island
24 cards

Knight of the White Orchid

Here's a cool opening with Knight of the White Orchid:

Turn 1:  Seaside Citadel
Turn 2:  Plains, Knight of the White Orchid (grab Plains)
Turn 3:  Forest, Rafiq of the Many, attack for 6 (2/2 + 1x exalted + double strike).
Turn 4:  Plains, Battlegrace Angel, attack for 10 lifelinked (3/3 Rafiq of the Many + 2x exalted + double strike + lifelink).

This opening isn't quite as explosive as the one described above, but it sure isn't anything to laugh at.  Remember that this deck is still capable of the goldfish described above, but has a fallback position with Knight of the White Orchid if you're running light on land.
 

Silver Knight
Knight of Meadowgrain
Knight of the White Orchid
Ready to take his place among Magic's strongest white two-drops?

Things with exalted take a turn for the worse when one (or more) of your creatures goes down to removal.  Using an exalted leader with shroud can offset the targeted spot removal problem, but if your Akrasan Squires and Sigiled Paladins get wiped out then your late drops are significantly less powerful.  One aspect of Shards of Alara that makes this deck interesting (in a future block environment) is the lack of board sweeping.

Caldera Hellion
Jund Charm
Scourglass
That's pretty much it for board sweeping in Shards of Alara!

 No Smiling, This Is Serious

Things change once we run this deck in Standard.  Damnation is rotating out of Standard, but Wrath of God, Firespout, Pyroclasm, and Incendiary Command are all still around.  It's probably not a great idea to go in so heavy with exalted with all of those sweepers in the environment.  Stoic Angel and Battlegrace Angel are super powerful even outside of the exalted linear.

The current environment is warped quite a bit with a Stoic Angel on the table.  Take a look at the Kithkin list above - how well is it able to operate while trying to attack into a Stoic Angel?  Is it really scary to face a single Knight of Meadowgrain in the red zone?  It's still not a walk in the park, but it's certainly a lot better than:  Wizened Cenn, Goldmeadow Harrier, three Spectral Procession Tokens, and a Knight of Meadowgrain.

It's not unusual for a format to be warped by a card that symmetrically (and greatly) restricts some resource.  Think of cards like these:

Armageddon, Winter Orb, Wrath of God, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Null Rod, Humility, Rule of Law, Meekstone

I'm sure you've seen plenty of decks that win with cards like these.  The trick is to tilt the symmetry in your favor.  Creatureless decks couldn't care less about Wrath of God.  Rule of Law is a storm deck's worst nightmare.  Whichever deck has the board advantage is usually in favor of Armageddon resolving.

We can apply these same principles to Stoic Angel.  How about a control deck like this?

The Serious Angel
Steve Gargolinski - Future Standard Legal
Creatures
3 Plumeveil
4 Stoic Angel
2 Battlegrace Angel
2 Chameleon Colossus
11 cards

Other Spells
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Cryptic Command
4 Bant Charm
4 Mind Stone
3 Wrath of God
3 Condemn
1 Oona's Grace
1 Elspeth Knight-Errant
24 cards
Lands
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Mystic Gate
4 Vivid Creek
2 Wooded Bastion
4 Seaside Citadel
2 Flooded Grove
2 Plains
2 Island
1 Forest
25 cards
 
Stoic Angel

This deck doesn't have the explosive draws of the other lists, but instead a much more impressive long game.  This deck leverages exalted as a finisher instead of as the way to fuel an aggro rush.  Control the board with Cryptic Command, Wrath of God, Condemn, Bant Charm, and Oblivion Ring alongside the powerful and game-changing Stoic Angel.  There are some choices in here that I'm not too sure of, and the manabase might need some work, but it seems like a decent skeleton for Stoic Angel Control.

There's probably also some fun brainstorming we could do to get a list of "creatures that are fun to sneak through with exalted".  How about Cold-Eyed Selkie?

Turn 1:  Plains, Akrasan Squire.
Turn 2:  Plains, Sigiled Paladin, attack for 3 (1/1 Akransan Squire + 2x exalted).
Turn 3:  Island, Cold-Eyed Selkie, attack for 4 (2/2 Sigiled Paladin + 2x exalted).
Turn 4:  Forest, Rafiq of the Many, attack for 8 (1/1 Cold-Eyed Selkie + 3x exalted + double strike), draw 8 cards.

That's pretty sweet when it works out perfectly.  Speaking of fragile creatures that are awesome if everything works out with some exalted buddies, how about
Cephalid Constable?  Swing for eight, bounce eight permanents.  Exciting?  I'm sure if you dig through Extended then you'll find plenty of other creatures that you want to escort through the red zone exalted-style.

Hopefully this has given you a few different ways to think about the exalted side of Alara's Bant shard.

Quick Twin Milling Update

A few weeks ago I wrote about a Sanity Grinding deck - you can read about it here.

Twin Milling v2
Steve Gargolinski - Standard Legal
 
Creatures
2 Godhead of Awe
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
4 Plumeveil
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
8 cards

Other Spells
4 Boomerang
4 Cryptic Command
2 Evacuation
3 Overbeing of Myth
4 Ponder
4 Sanity Grinding
4 Twincast
4 Wistful Selkie
18 cards
Lands
19 Island
4 Shelldock Isle
23 cards
 
Godhead of Awe

Last week I received a few emails making sure that I was aware of the new Shards of Alara card Memory Erosion:

 

Memory Erosion


I was hoping that there would be some new options from Shards for Twin Milling, but this is the only card that seems to have any sort of potential at all.  I guess that's to be expected, since one of the first things we look for in a card for this deck is lots of blue mana symbols in the cost - and Shards is all about the multi-color mana costs.

Unfortunately, I just don't think that it's very good.  On the positive side, it advances our strategy whenever our opponent plays magic at all.  Cast a spell, lose some cards.  It doesn't require any additional investment moving forward, and should be good for around two cards average per turn depending on the deck matchup.  This is a different style than the list I ended up with, which focused more on a combo kill than a grind-them-out strategy.

The strategy difference may not be a total deal breaker; the real problem is that on turn three Twin Milling really want to keep its mana open for
Plumeveil ambush, and on turn four the deck wants to keep its mana open for Cryptic Command.  By turn five we're already thinking about Sanity Grinding + Twincast for close to the win.  Twin Milling isn't going to cast this card very often before turn five, and the longer you wait to play Memory Erosion the worse it gets.

If this card cost UU then things would be different.  Twin Milling is very light on the two drops, and playing this card on turn two is FAR better than playing it on turn five.

Bummer that there isn't really any new tech for that cool deck.

That's All For Now

Personally I am super excited about the Supper's Ready deck discussed above, and I can't wait to put it together and playtest.  Double Dragon seems like a blast also.  The lists above are obviously not optimal, but I think that the ideas are powerful, fun, and ready to be developed.

The Bant ideas are fairly linear, and seem powerful enough - but don't really appeal to me as much as the Jund decks I checked out.  Oh well, maybe there's something exciting in there that I missed?  Moving forward I'll definitely keep my eyes open.

Join me next week when I take a look at the Esper and Grixis shards.  Thanks for reading!


Steve Gargolinski
spgmtgo@gmail.com

 

8 Comments

Goldfishing by spg at Wed, 10/22/2008 - 04:36
spg's picture

Yeah, all of the goldfished openings are obviously under pretty ideal circumstances - in the real worlds things will not usually go so smoothly.  Even slowed down by a turn though, those openings are still pretty brutal.

by Anonymous(Unregistered) 24.28.88.221 (not verified) at Wed, 10/22/2008 - 05:57
Anonymous(Unregistered) 24.28.88.221's picture

I think the Memory Erosion is good against slow decks, and it's good on turn 3 in any game where you didn't draw your Plumeveil but did draw an Erosion (Plumeveil's only a 4-of, you're not going to draw it EVERY game!)

Redundancy by spg at Wed, 10/22/2008 - 12:04
spg's picture

The River Selkies are in there as redundancy for the Plumeveils - the deck would definitely run 8 Plumeveils if it could. Substituting Memory Erosion isn't redundancy, it's a different strategy.

Exalted Opening... by MechtaK at Tue, 10/21/2008 - 09:04
MechtaK's picture

In a draft deck, I had 3 Akrasan Squires, 2 Sigiled Paladins, and the Battlegrace Angel.  I had the exalted enchantment too, can't recall the name, doesn't matter for this conversation.  So I had an opening in my very first game where I got 2 of the Squires and 2 of the Paladins down with the Angel following it all.  Game was over quick.  Unfortunately, that ended up being the only game I won the whole match, as I never saw another exalted card the whole match.

Milling by Andy(Unregistered) 138.236.128.91 (not verified) at Tue, 10/21/2008 - 16:32
Andy(Unregistered) 138.236.128.91's picture

Take out two Selkies and put in Erosions, or more. I'd rather play them than the cantrip.

 This is especially true if they might run Guttural Response, etc..

Re: Memory Erosion over Selkie... by spg at Tue, 10/21/2008 - 17:24
spg's picture

I think that the Selkie/Memory Erosion call depends a lot on your metagame.  If you're up against a lot of aggro, then the 2/2 cantrip helps out a ton to slow down the early aggro rush.

by Anonymous(Unregistered) 72.47.82.80 (not verified) at Tue, 10/21/2008 - 18:54
Anonymous(Unregistered) 72.47.82.80's picture

How often are you going to be getting to fetch a Plains on a turn 2 Knight? Unless a Mox is involved, I'd say not very.

by Reaper9889 at Wed, 10/22/2008 - 02:10
Reaper9889's picture

I would say that the simplest way to end up with a plains t2 from a knight would be if they played a Rampant Grow variant (ecspecially likely in a EDH game).