Johnny on the Spot: Anatomy of a Brew

Did you ever talk to someone about brewing a deck? It usually starts with the entire deck being constructed and then going over the deck's strategies and card choices. It's unusual to actually get the details of the original thought process for deck creation out of a brewer. With that, I want to go over a brew (actually more of a tweak) and the thought process from start to finish.

My first thought is I want to stop Birthing Pod decks. I think they are the top of the metagame right now and my recent brews have failed miserably against them. In order to keep brewing and stay competitive I have to find a way to beat Pod decks. How?

Imagine you were going to an odd tournament. From round 1 all the way to the finals the only decks you would face would either be Kiki-Pod or Melira-Pod. How would you construct a deck that would thrive in that metagame? What cards would you use?

All those are good hate cards. But there's a problem. None of them are great. I've had games where I got one of those hate cards out against them and they still won anyway. Both Pod decks have versatile main deck and sideboard destruction for these cards as well as a good beatdown plan. However, there is another card that I've played against them and shut them down.

Pod decks usually try it get their creatures on the battlefield as soon as possible with disregard to sweepers, especially in game one. Anger of the Gods will kill 90% of their creatures with no chance for persist, recursion, or death triggers. If I had to stop a Pod deck, this is a great card to start with.

Now, I need to find a shell to put it in. RWU control seems like a natural fit, but I don't like that deck. It doesn't have fast enough win conditions and I often see the deck going to time in rounds because of it. In a big tournament like a PTQ or GP, those draws will feel like losses when it's time to cut to top 8.

There's also a version of Jund that runs Anger of the Gods along side of Courser of Kruphix. I'm not a big fan of that build either. Playing with Anger of the Gods cramps your ability to be able to play with Kitchen Finks, which I think is better than Courser. Also, it's a fair deck in an unfair metagame and I don't think Anger of the Gods is enough to help.

I want to port Anger into a deck that can already crush the metagame except for Pod. I think the best candidate for that is 8 Rack. This deck crushes any combo based deck except Pod. It also has solid match-ups across the board against other fair decks.

 

I have a soft spot for non-creature win conditions.

This is where the brew magic happens. Do you have the courage to splash red into a monoblack deck for one card that has a double colored casting cost? Won't this almost certainly make the deck worse? Yes and yes. If you want to brew, you have to make suboptimal choices that people will criticize. What's the worst that could happen? Losing. That's it. If you want to brew you have to be willing to lose.

My initial brew looks like this, which I've renamed Hate Rack:

4 The Rack
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Ensnaring Bridges
4 Dark Confidant
4 Thoughtsieze
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Wrench Mind
3 Raven's Crime
4 Anger of the Gods

Is four Anger of the Gods right? Probably not. My gut tells me it will be three. But, whenever I'm brewing, I want to see the impact card a lot. I want to know if it works. I want to know what it feels like to draw two of them.

Remember, the only point of this deck is to beat the two Pod builds (while keeping in mind it will eventually have to face the entire metagame). The only match-ups you should test are against Pod decks. If it fails at either, the deck needs to be scrapped. Don't worry about the percentage points you're shaving against RWU control or Splinter Twin because you added a dead card against them. That's not the point of this exercise. The point is to determine whether or not a discard shell with four Anger of the Gods can shut down Pod decks.

Now to move onto the manabase. A double red casting cost card in an otherwise
monoblack deck is tricky. Graven Cairns are the easiest way to hit double red while still having double black for Wrench Mind and Liliana. Other than that, the standard R/B duals of Blackcleave Cliffs, Blood Crypts, and fetches will round out the red portion.

Manabase:
4 Graven Cairns
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Blood Crypts
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 March Flats
4 Swamps
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

 

 This land make the manabase (and deck) possible.

 
Will the fetching and shocking be too much life loss along side of Dark Confidant and Thoughtseize? I don't know. But, I know that I won't let it stop me. Average Magic players assume that and stop brewing. Real brewers want to experiment and actually see the results in action.

Another potential casualty is the cutting of Mutavaults and Small Pox in order to make the mana work. Mutavault represents a tough clock against a handless opponent and an early Small Pox can ravage an opponent that dropped an early creature. Again, most players would stop at those cuts but neither of those seems really effective against Pod decks. Unless Small pox is cast on turn two, a Finks or Voice will get sacrificed with no real loss of tempo on the Pod player's part. They also have too many creatures for Mutavault to attack through.

And....that's it. That's the anatomy of a brew (or a tweak). You don't need to go big. In fact, you should do quite the opposite. Start small. Brew at a specific target deck that you want to hit. Don't worry about the rest of the metagame. Don't worry about a sideboard (yet). Don't worry about losing. Modern is too big and complex of a format to try and do everything against everyone all at once. Thinking about all that is why most people either shy away from brewing or fail at brewing.

See what you can learn from a micro-metagame. Does Anger really stop a Pod deck? If it doesn't, it might help you build your sideboard in another deck. Trying and failing and learning are all part of brewing and you'll never know what tidbit will come in handy in a future brew.

As for Hate Rack, I'm planning on testing it with my fellow Cauldron brewers. I will almost certainly run it at an FNM to see if it has potential for the PTQ season and GP Boston. Expect a follow-up article with either success or lessons learned from failing.

Troll Tuesday: Blue White-Blinkers, Round 3

Hey guys, Bonkarooni here with another edition of Troll Tuesday.  I wanted to take the time to share my thoughts on the progression of my deck, Blue-White Blinkers, and where I want to go with it next.  I had another chance to test this recently, and while it seemed to play slightly better, I think that there is still some work to do.

Here's the list of Blue-White Blinkers, Round 2.


The new list

4 Serum Visions
4 Path of Exile
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Remand
2 Mana Leak
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Akroma, Angel of Fury
4 Restoration Angel
1 Cryptic Command
4 Cloudshift
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Glacial Fortress
4 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Island
3 Plains
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 2 Stony Silence
SB: 2 Ghostly Prison
SB: 2 Spellskite
SB: 3 Vendillion Clique
SB: 4 Negate

Couple of things I realized after playing this deck a bit more.
1: Wall of Omens isn't really helpful.
2: Too many three drops, not enough two drops.
3: Snapcaster Mage

Duh.

So, when I first made this deck, Snapcaster Mage didn't actually have enough targets in my graveyard to make him useful.  With the edition of Cloudshift, this little two drop became much better.  He is not very good on turn two, but he will be much better later in the game.

Sorry little lady, you don't make the cut.

After playing this deck a bit more, I felt like my hand was just getting too clogged with three drops.  While Blade Splicer still may be a decent addition to the deck, it felt like the least resilient creature I had. 

Oh look, this is also a blue card that is pretty good.

This card is an obvious bomb in most blue decks, and while I didn't feel like it made the cut, at this point i'm willing to try it as a one-of in the deck.  I'll see how it does when I draw it, and then take it from there.

I went from 1-3 to 2-2 with this deck when I made my first round of changes.  Can we make it to 3-1 with the next round of changes? How many more hundreds of dollars will I have to spend to have this deck work? Tune in for round 4 to find out!

Next week though, we'll go back to the drawing board with a new deck!

The Vascular Awareness: Better Than All pt. 1, The Big 5

So this week's column is somewhat inspired by my last couple of columns, both the Modern interaction column and the set review.  Today we will be looking at the best cards in the format and giving them a review.  This should serve as a great guide to figuring out how to both fill spots in your brews as well as simply understanding the big players.  Decks like Affinity and Boggles will not be having much in this column because the decks are just so darn insular, they don't lend themselves to having their cards used in other spots.  This will be a test run for an article of this style, so it will go over what, in my mind, are the key cards for each color, ones that you need to have in mind every time you brew in that color.  If this article style proves popular it will be revisited.

The number one spot by a large margin, Lightning Bolt is the defining card of the modern format.  One aside: the argument "dies to removal" gets thrown around a lot by amateur card evaluators in order to dismiss cards that they clearly don't understand well enough.  Not that this is far from the same as the "dies to Lightning Bolt" argument.  When someone dismisses a card as dying to Bolt they are usually referring to the mana cost in relation to that of Lightning Bolt.  if the card has no comes into play effect costs 3 mana and has 3 toughness I wish it the very best of luck making waves in modern because it will surely need it.  The reason Lightning Bolt is so big is because it offers an insane mana advantage that is typically unmatched in this format.  As for where it fits?  If you are running red you better have a darn good reason this isn't making the final cut and even then you probably should put it in your sideboard.

Filling a similar role as the bolt, path is another premium removal spell in the format often taking out prey much larger than itself which is the goal of removal in this format.  Unlike bolt, this is less of an automatic inclusion.  Not every aggro deck will run this, many do, but some aggro decks want to place a larger focus on damage output something that path won;t always help with.  More importantly this card actually doesn't shine too brightly in midrange decks.  These decks are designed to go card for card with the other player and gain their advantage by simply playing out the better card each time.  If the other side can run out two things in a turn, or even worse a curve topper larger than the midrange deck it'll be lights out.  Most other decks will end up wanting such a card, at the very least it will make the sideboard of most decks so be prepared to face it and know that this is you best tool in white for getting rid of dudes.

One of the best, if not THE best creature in the format.  Tarmogoyf has served as a brick wall for more controlling strategies such as Eternal Command, it is a beatdown card for Zoo, a solid Jack of all trades in midrange builds, and even a backup plan for combo decks such as the recently popular "Tarmo-Twin".  This card simply grows to be so large that it must be respected immediately.  Midrange loves it for both blocking and as a finisher.  Some control decks like to for defensive capabilities as well as being able to turn the corner of a slow opponent.  Aggro loves it for the obvious reasons.  The amazing thing about this card is it even found a home in combo decks such as Pod and Twin since it acts as a "Spellskite" style card attracting removal away from the real perpetrators.  I would have said this card is limited to decks that deal in combat but after combo decks started picking this up you need to think about this guy every time you brew in green.

  

"BOLT SNAP BOLT" goes the standard war cry of a modern player.  This card has a bit more of a narrow application than some of the others on the list, but with such power it still creeps its way into quite a few decks.  It allows some TYwin builds to grind better, it gives UWR one of the best late games in the format, it gives Delver decks the ability to not lose attrition wars, it does it all.  I even tested him out in a Time Warp deck to great results, any time you are in blue make sure this guy is at least on your mind.  Just note, that unlike the other cards his role is a bit more limited, for instance he isn't making the cut in many combo decks even if they feature blue. 

While having fallen out of favor recently due to midrange taking a massive hit in the last banned list update this card is still amazing.  Affinity has picked this up for the sideboard, Pod has run it for a long time in the board and even maindecks it occasionally.  Every midrange deck will run this card even though they are still in a state of rallying at the moment.  This card is amazing for combo as it takes the disruption out, it is great for control as it removes the most difficult to deal with card, and it is amazing for midrange as it keeps the opponent off balance just long enough.  Even aggro will run it out of the board to rip wraths and combo pieces out.  This card is so good that after midrange took a beating people INVENTED spots for it, the Monoblack Rack deck that I wrote about a few weeks back on this site came to be a larger player because this card is so darn powerful.  Much like Lightning Bolt if you are in black you don't need much of a reason to find a spot somewhere in your 75 for this, in fact the issue right now is more so finding a reason to play black.

That's going to do us for this week's edition of The Vascular Awareness. I want to know: did I  choose the wrong representatives for each color?  Did I miss a sweet application for a card?  Did the article waste your time and you want you 15 minutes back?  Let me know in the comments below!

Also I have a Twitter now! Feel free to follow me @poggydude for incredibly clever things being said every so often.  

A First Try with Athreos

Hey everyone, Marshall here again.


Today will I'll sharing my first take on a deck built around Athreos, God of Passage

This deck is a tricky one to really make work, but I think this list is quite fun to play:

x4 Athreos, God of Passage

x4 Birds of Paradise

x4 Elves of Deep Shadow

x4 Doomed Traveler

x4 Cartel Aristocrat

x4 Blood Artist

x4 Voice of Resurgence

x4 Tidehollow Sculler

x4 Geralf's Messenger

x2 Varolz, the Scar-Striped

22 Land

x4 Marsh Flats

x4 Verdant Catacombs

x4 Overgrown Tomb

x1 Swamp

x1 Twilight Mire

x1 Fetid Heath

x3 Godless Shrine

x4 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:

x2 Kataki, War's Wage

x2 Stony Silence,

x4 Kitchen Finks (for when Geralf's Messenger is bad)

x3 Abrupt Decay

x4 Thoughtseize

I would like to preface the rest of this article by saying that this is NOT a deck I would bring to a competitive tournament. If you are looking for a grindy midrange deck to bring to a PTQ or Grand Prix, play a Birthing Pod deck. If you are looking for a fun deck to play with your friends or at an FNM, this might be for you. (For more competitive lists, please check out the bottom of this article. I've got a couple updates to decklists I've discussed in my column previously). 

Let's start with the strengths and the synergy's of the deck. This brew is wonderful at clogging up the ground and giving creature decks headaches. It also does a pretty good job of making control decks sad. Plan A is to go turn one mana accelerant, turn two Geralf's Messenger or Athreos, turn three drop as many other creatures as you can. Once your board presence is of a reasonable size, Blood Artist + Cartel Aristocrat will do a great job of draining your opponent for a bunch of life.

Athreos brings it to a whole new level. This new god card gives you a grindy angle instead of needing lots of creatures in play in order to grind out your opponent's life total. Cartel Aristocrat + Doomed Traveler + Athreos means you either get lots of 1/1 fliers, or you get to deal three damage, plus upgrade your 1/1 into a flying creature while protecting your Cartel Aristocrat from a removal spell, or letting it go unblocked for a turn. If you have a Geralf's Messenger in play and your opponent has no way to exile it, they either have to kill it twice and take ten damage in the process to get rid of it (two enter the battlefield triggers, and two Athreos triggers) or let you re-cast it every time you sacrifice it to Cartel or Varolz, the Scar-Striped.

As for some specific card choices that might be a little unusual:

I think this shell is the best fit for this card that I've ever come across. Tidehollow Sculler counts as two devotion towards Athreos, and when Athreos is in play, your opponent has to pay three life to kill the Tidehollow Sculler in order to get their card back, or you get to take another card when you re-cast it. Pro-tip: When Tidehollow Sculler's ability goes on the stack, and you have a sacrifice outlet, you can sac the Sculler so that when it's ability resolves the card you take out of their hand is permanently exiled. The reason this works is that when it's ability resolves, the Sculler has already left the battlefield, so there's no way to trigger his second ability.

This card also feels quite at home in this shell. For a while now I've had my eye on this card, but in all my other creature based graveyard decks, he hasn't quite made the cut. Part of the reason for this is because the creatures I used in other shells were cards like Gravecrawler and Bloodghast. Those are creatures that I don't want to exile, I just want to put them back on the table after they've hit the graveyard. Athreos really likes this guy though. Most of the time your opponent will want to pay 3 life to prevent you from recurring things like Voice of Resurgence, which makes sense. Varolz allows you to get additional value from your opponent electing to take damage instead of giving you a card, acts as a sacrifice outlet to get the engine going with Blood Artist or Athreos, increases your clock by pumping himself or your other creatures and is a resilient threat. 

This one is not an odd choice. This card is the main reason we're playing green. In this deck, I'd rather draw Voice of Resurgence than a Tarmogoyf. This thing gives control players headaches, and turns into quite the beater after you've sacrificed the 2/2. If your opponent doesn't take 3 damage from Athreos when you sacrifice this, they had better have a lot of spot removal spells in hand, or they will take a lot of damage very quickly.

If you enjoy value creatures and super grindy games, this deck is for you. Take it for a spin and let me know what you think!

To wrap up my article for today, I've got a couple updated decklists. I have a couple of tweaks for my Turbo Tezz list:

x4 Dimir Signet (instead of Azorius Signet)
x4 Orzhov Signet

x4 Pentad Prisim

x4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

x4 Dispatch

x3 Thopter Foundry

x4 Solemn Simulacrum

x4 Wurmcoil Engine

x3 Spellskite

x3 Vedalken Shackles

x2 Watery Grave

x2 Hallowed Fountain

x11 Island

x4 Misty Rainforest

x4 Scalding Tarn

SB: 3 Defense Grid

SB: 4 Ethersworn Canonist

SB: 2 Engineered Explosives

SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage

SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus

SB: 1 Pithing Needle

SB: 1 Black Sun's Zenith

The only changes so far have been to replace the Azorius Signets with Dimir Signets, because we're a little more black intensive than white, and we need to make sure we can always cast Tezzeret on turn three. The other change was to add Defense Grid in the sideboard. This deck is pretty helpless against counter magic, so having a card like that is very useful.

And an update to my Counter Cat list:

x4 Wild Nacatl

x4 Goblin Guide

x4 Loam Lion

x2 Kird Ape

x4 Tarmogoyf

x4 Remand

x2 Snapcaster Mage

x4 Lightning Bolt

x2 Mana Leak

x1 Pillar of Flame

x3 Ghor-Clan Rampager

x4 Tribal Flames

x4 Arid Mesa

x4 Verdant Catacombs

x3 Scalding Tarn

x2 Marsh Flats

x1 Hallowed Fountain

x1 Sacred Foundry

x1 Stomping Ground

x1 Steam Vents

x1 Temple Garden

x1 Breeding Pool

x1 Godless Shrine

x1 Blood Crypt

x1 Island

SB: x4 Lightning Helix

SB: x4 Spell Pierce

SB: x4 Destructive Revelry (this card has been doing a ton of work)

SB: x3 Pillar of Flame

The only change here is to move the two maindeck copies of Spell Pierce to the sideboard in favor of Mana Leak. I realized that Spell Pierce is not where I want to be against the Birthing Pod decks, which is pretty much enemy number 1 in the format. At least as far as this deck is concerned, and Mana Leak has been doing a much better job. Gotta stop that Kitchen Finks!

Thanks for reading!

Johnny on the Spot: Convergence to Pod

A blank canvas is an artist's worst nightmare. Same goes for an author and a blank page. Not so for Magic brewers. They have a much worse enemy than a blank decklist. A brewer's worst enemy is creating a new deck that is just a worse version of a decklist that already exists. I call this phenomenon convergence.

Let me give you an example using a Splinter Twin deck. A pretty standard list will be U/R with the combo pieces and cards like Snapcaster and Vendilion Clique to gain value and beat down. One of the most interesting brews I've seen with the Splinter Twin shell is Turbo Twin by Cam Atkins from GP Richmond.

2 Spellskite 2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 4 Birds of Paradise 3 Noble Hierarch 4 Deceiver Exarch 3 Pestermite 3 Pact of Negation 2 Swan Song 3 Commune with the Gods 2 Remand 4 Serum Visions 1 Gitaxian Probe 4 Splinter Twin 1 Desolate Lighthouse 2 Scalding Tarn 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Stomping Ground 3 Breeding Pool 4 Steam Vents 2 Fire-Lit Thicket 1 Forest 2 Island 2 Mountain SB: 2 Counterflux SB: 2 Echoing Truth SB: 2 Lightning Bolt SB: 1 Beast Within SB: 2 Ancient Grudges< SB: 2 Firespout SB: 2 Kitchen Finks SB: 2 Scavenging Oozes

 

 Wait! What does this card do again?

As a brewer, I love this build. It's part ramp into the combo one turn faster and part "WTF?!?" with three maindeck Commune with the Gods. Commune works great to dig five cards deep to find any piece of the combo. But there is a problem with this deck that I didn't notice at first. Mason "poggydude" had to point it out to me. Isn't Kiki-Pod just a better deck?

Kiki-Pod by Brian Liu (1st Place at Richmond)
4 Birds of Paradise 1 Deceiver Exarch 1 Eternal Witness 1 Glen Elendra Archmage 2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 2 Kitchen Finks 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 1 Murderous Redcap 3 Noble Hierarch 1 Qasali Pridemage 4 Restoration Angel 2 Scavenging Ooze 1 Spellskite 2 Voice of Resurgence 3 Wall of Roots 1 Zealous Conscripts 4 Birthing Pod 3 Chord of Calling 3 Arid Mesa 1 reeding Pool 2 Fire-Lit Thicket 1 Forest 2 Gavony Township 4 Grove of the Burnwillows 1 Hallowed Fountain 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Plains 1 Sacred Foundry 1 Steam Vents 1 Stomping Ground 1 Temple Garden SB: 1 Ancient Grudge SB: 1 Avalanche Riders SB: 2 Combust SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1 Fiery Justice SB: 1 Kataki, War's Wage SB: 2 Negate SB: 3 Path to Exile SB: 1 Shatterstorm SB: 1 Thragtusk SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
This is what I mean by convergence. Kiki-Pod has everything that Turbo Twin has and more. It ramps with a bunch of one and two drops, it can find its combo pieces, and has a much more viable beatdown plan. Simply put, Birthing Pod is a better card and strategy than Commune with the Gods. Splinter Twin can combo off faster, but it is more susceptible to sideboard hate with no secondary win condition. What started out as a cool brew will ultimately converge in a Kiki-Pod list.

One of these is strictly better than the other.

Defining convergence is a little tough. It basically breaks down into a question, "Can I achieve the same goal but in a better, more consistent way without losing the original theme of the deck?" The theme could be aggro, combo, control, or anything really. It's kind of like comparing Lava Spike to Lightning Bolt, but on the scale of an entire deck rather than individual cards. Can another deck perform the same task, only better?

 

Convergence is like this...but on a bigger scale.

In fact, I think Birthing Pod is the biggest offender in terms of convergence, especially Melira Pod. After Jund's dethroning due to Deathrite Shaman getting banned, everyone speculated that the "Ajundi" (or Jund with white) would fracture into three different decks: traditional Jund (meaning no white), Junk (green, white, black), and Naya (red, white, green). Well, that really didn't happen. So why not?

Part of the problem is that Kitchen Finks and Voice of Resurgence are excellent value cards that can fight back against removal. Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf are also good, but they die to one-for-one removal. If you decide to go the Finks and Voice route of value, you will converge to a Melira Pod list. I claim there is no way around it. Once you decide to build a deck using those two creatures along with black you're doomed to build Melira Pod. If you replace black with red, then you converge to Kiki-pod.

Good for value and good for attrition, which is where the slippery slope starts.

How did this happen? I don't know. Jund was an attrition style deck, meaning it wanted to trade cards one-for-one and win based on mana efficiency and card quality. The post-Deathrite Jund, Junk, and Naya decks just don't seem to have the mana efficiency or card quality now that the infamous 1/2 is banned. Most of those decks at least want to explore the use of Finks and Voices to gain card advantage, but it's hard not to go down the slippery slope from there.

Part of the problem is that the Pod decks have everything that everyone wants from a modern deck. Every deck wants an "oops I just win" combo that hits consistently on turn 4 or 5. Pod has that. Every deck also wants a back up beatdown plan so discard or removal or sideboard hate don't leave the deck with only half of the combo. Pod has that. Every deck wants the ability to repeatably tutor a one-of out of their deck so they can fight their way out of a tight jam. Pod has that.

So, how do you break convergence (at least with Birthing Pod)? Well, the unpopular answer is to just ban Birthing Pod. For the record, I think that is the correct answer. Once the PTQ season and GP Boston are finished, there will be much more data for the ban (or maybe against the ban). Although you can make the case for a power level ban, I want it banned because a lot of decks converge to it. If Pod is banned, then I think the metagame would really diversify into all of those Jund, Junk, and Naya builds that are part attrition and part value. I find that a lot of my brews are pretty good against the field but miserable against Pod decks. In short, I think the two Pod decks are holding back about 8 to 10 decks in the metagame. For brewing and metagame diversity, I would like to see Birthing Pod banned.

Of course, I could be wrong. You can disagree with me. But I would like to see evidence, too. Brew something up that won't converge to a Pod list. It would be a silly request to ask for a brew that's better than a Pod list, but after it's brewed look at it and ask some questions. Does it combo more consistently and faster than Pod? Can it combo at all? Does it have a back-up plan or alternate win condition? Is it better against hate than Pod? Why should I not just play Pod instead? Most decks can only answer one or two of those.

These are tough questions to answer. Most brews will fail. If you disagree, my only advice is to keep trying and keep brewing. Good luck!

Troll Tuesday: Blue-White Blinkers, Round 2.

Hey guys, Mike here again with another edition of Troll Tuesday. For the first time, i'm actually going to sit down and show you what I can do with one of my decks to make it a little more competitive. To see the first edition of this deck, click here.

The new list: 4 Serum Visions 4 Path of Exile 3 Wall of Omens 4 Remand 3 Geist of Saint Traft 4 Akroma, Angel of Fury 3 Blade Splicer 4 Restoration Angel 4 Cloudshift 3 Kitchen Finks 2 Celestial Colonnade 4 Hallowed Fountain 2 Glacial Fortress 4 Marsh Flats 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Island 3 Plains SB: 2 Rest in Peace SB: 2 Stony Silence SB: 2 Ghostly Prison SB: 2 Spellskite SB: 3 Vendillion Clique SB: 4 Negate
To give you a little bit of background information, I took the first version of this deck to our local FNM.  I ended up going 1-3 with it, although all of my losing rounds ended up being 1-2.  While I think the deck was slightly better then 1-3, I did learn a few things.

1: When I get Akroma to flip, I usually win the game.
2: Venser is good vs Melira Pod, but pretty awful vs almost everything else.
3: 4 Geists/Blade Splicers might be a bit of overkill.
4: Meddling Mage, while funny, dies too easily and just isn't very strong.



Okay, so there are only a few changes here, so i'll start with the biggest.

This may be a bit less trolly then Venser was, but it allows me to play my Morph on turn 4, and know that it is relatively safe.  Watching my Akroma die to a Lightning Bolt before she ever had a chance to flip was a little heartbreaking to say the least.

This card probably should of made the first cut of the deck, but at the time I was convinced that Blade Splicers were the way to go.  I think having this bad boy as part of my line up makes the deck better vs a good many things, and a 3/2 for 3 is still pretty aggressive.

This is another way to protect my morph.  It also hates spell based combo decks a good bit, so it was an easy inclusion.

Sorry for the short article today, but there isn't too much to report on here.  I will say that, despite going 1-3, the first edition of this deck was a blast to play.  If you want to have fun at your local FNM and get a lot of weird looks, I totally suggest putting it together.  I'm going to build this version and take it to the next event I can, and will come back with even more tweaks and changes after!  See ya!

The Vascular Awareness: Spoilers Part 2 Electric Boogaloo

Well, we are back for another week of spoiler roundups and to start things off I'll be breaking the bad news that overall this set won't be making a major shake up for modern.  Hopefully this article will give you the tools to make some waves but I don't see a huge meta shift coming from this set.  With that said, let us begin.

 

So last week I dismissed the gods on account of modern being really unfriendly to devotion.  With that said Athreos can stand to be an exception due to having a reasonable impact without being a creature and also by costing 3 mana since the jump from 3 to 4 mana in this format is massive.  This card will work best in a sacrifice based aggro deck since you want creatures hitting the yard and you need to make the choice miserable for your opponent.  Note that if you want the guys to come back for sure you are looking for Enduring Renewal not this guy.  Also to note is that you don't want men like Bloodghast coming back to your hand and Gravecrawler isn't much better in hand than in your graveyard.  The best candidates are cards like Geralf's Messenger, and Doomed Traveler, with backup from guys like Blood Artist and Cartel Aristocrat.  Sacrifice outlets with Athreos can cause nightmare scenarios for the opponent and allow you to force bad times on them when they attempt to exile something of yours t dodge the trigger.  Please keep this tips in mind when brewing with this new spicy number and if you have any success with Athreos let me know!

This card is probably just a trap.  If you need to beat down with your storm hate card play Canonist, if you need to have it stay through all removal play Rule of Law.  I doubt the glacial clock this puts on them is worth the risk that they decided to start running Flame slash over Lightning Bolt.  Any deck that is tutor based for specifically creatures may actually look towards him since he is sturdier but otherwise I'd rather run the other two options.

 

I don't hate this card for a token deck finisher.  With anthems this can get out of hand quickly.  I'm not sure I like the "win more" aspect of this card as most cards are pretty good when winning, but as a spell that can give extra oomph in matchups where it is just a pure race, like combo, it may be serviceable.

One of the most important things during spoiler season is recognizing the new toys you are given.  This effect has literally never existed before and is certainly abuseable, but perhaps not at a modern level.  First thing to look at is definitely Profane Command and there are certainly other fun things to do with it waiting in the weeds.  I'm nowhere near smart enough to tell you whether this card will make its way into modern but I can tell you that you may regret not keeping your eye on it.

I nearly wrote off Chandra Pyromaster due to misevalution her card advantage ability and while I don't think this is as good I could very well be wrong and do not plan to write of these card advantage engines in red any longer.  Red doesn't have strong card advantage in nearly any form so cards like this can often find spots in red decks whereas if they were in another color they'd be immediately dismissed.

 

Of the two temples in this set I envision this one having the most luck as it is in a color pair that takes better advantage of card selection.  Green has a lot of one drops that often push temples out but perhaps in a deck with stange needs this could slip in.

I really wish I had more to write about, honest I do but this set is simply slim pickings.  Note that this set looks amazing for limited and the flavor is another huge hit, THERE'S A CARD CALLED HUBRIS!  But for modern this set is pretty lacking.  

Turbo Tezz

Hey everyone, Marshall here again.

Today I have my take on a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas deck.

4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas 4 Dispatch 4 Pentad Prism 4 Azorius Signet 4 Orzhov Signet 4 Thopter Foundry 4 Solemn Simulacrum 4 Wurmcoil Engine 2 Spellskite 3 Vedalken Shackles 2 Watery Grave 2 Hallowed Fountain 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Misty Rainforest 11 Island SB: 1 Spellskite SB: 4 Ethersworn Canonist SB: 2 Engineered Explosives SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus SB: 2 Pithing Needle SB: 1 Black Sun's Zenith SB: 1 Batterskull
This deck is not finished, but it's a good starting point. There a few things I like about what it's capable of, so let's start there. First of all, this deck takes advantage of Tezzeret without needing him to win. This is one of the things that I look for in build-around-me cards and strategies. Synergy is fun and powerful, but it feels really bad to have a deck that doesn't do anything when it doesn't draw it's namesake card. Let's take a look at the various game plans when a Tezzeret isn't drawn.

Plan A: Turn 2 mana producer, turn 3 Solemn (or another mana producer) turn 4 Wurmcoil Engine. Plan B: Turn 2 mana rock, turn 3 Solemn/mana rock turn 4 play and activate Vedalken Shackles.

Why yes, I would love your Tarmogoyf, thanks!


Now picture these plans backed up with a Tezzeret on the table. This guy can come down as early as turn 3, and immediately turn that mana rock you used to play him into a 5/5. Permanently. As long as they can't kill him that turn, he's got a way to protect himself, and you can start generating a serious clock, or lots of card advantage. If they try to add more creatures to the table to pressure Tezzeret, you can follow up with a Shackles and make them very sad.


One of my concerns when I first came up with this deck was drawing too many mana sources. Between lands and mana producing artifacts, there are 35 permanents that make mana. Tezzeret certainly helps by turning signets into 5/5 creatures, but I wanted another way to make sure I didn't lose by drawing too many. This is where Thopter Foundry comes in.

This is the "mana sink" the deck wanted. It acts as a pseudo Bitterblossom against the aggro decks (by blocking with unnecessary signets to protect your life total and Tezzeret) and it acts like Lingering Souls against the control decks. Not to mention the fact that you can get some nice value by sacrificing Solemn Simulacrum to this. This card is also nice to have against the control decks, because if you wait till you have seven mana to play Wurmcoil Engine, you can sacrifice Wurmcoil Engine in response to their Path to Exile.

This card is here because it's the perfect compliment to our plan A, which is to protect a Tezzeret and let it win the game on it's own. Spellskite doesn't die to Lightning Bolt, can block Wild Nacatl indefinitely, and can protect Tezzeret from burn spells. The fact that it's an artifact and stops Splinter Twin and the Hexproof/Aura decks in their tracks is just icing on the cake.




Let's take a look at the popular matchups.

Vs. Zoo

We are strongly favored. Ramping into Wurmcoil Engine or Vedalken Shackles backed up by removal is generally lights out for them. Having a planeswalker that makes 5/5's doesn't hurt either. If you have the option of playing and activating Shackles or playing a Wurmcoil Engine, definitely use Shackles first. Losing to Path to Exile isn't fun.

Vs. Affinity

This matchup feels similar, although Shackles gets worse because of Arcbound Ravager. Just make sure to save a dispatch for Ravager if you can. The other tough part is that making 5/5 blockers against affinity doesn't do much since most of their creatures fly.


Vs. WUR Control

I believe this matchup is solid. This is essentially a control mirror, but the Tezzeret deck has a lot more threats and the WUR deck has more counter magic. The trick is to bait their counterspells so that you can resolve a Tezzeret. Once you use his +1 a few times, you should be in good shape. Also, keep in mind that if you use Vedalken Shackles on a Celestial Colonnade, you get to keep it for the rest of the game despite it turning back into a land at the end of turn.


Vs Melira Pod

This is a matchup where Dispatch, Vedalken Shackles and Black Sun's Zenith (from the sideboard) are very important. As long as you can keep them from comboing, Wurmcoil Engine should do a fine job of cleaning up the game.


Vs. Splinter Twin

The same cards are important here. Playing conservatively is very important, so don't try to pressure their life total until you are sure you can keep them from killing you, or you have no other option. However, I think this matchup is better than the Pod matchup because you have Spellskite to help out here in addition to Dispatch and Vedalken Shackles. Keep in mind that Remand is a very good card against Turbo Tezz, so this matchup is not unlosable.


Vs. Storm

Game one is really rough. Game two and three you have lots of copies of Ethersworn Canonist to bring in against them along with graveyard hate to help against Pyromancer's Ascension and Past in Flames.



This deck probably won't be crushing the Pro Tour anytime soon, but I think with some work it could be a strong, fun and interesting deck to bring to local tournaments.


Enjoy!

Archetype of Imagination - BorbyLoam

Our Vintage players will hate me,
but this card is like two Ancestral
Recalls stapled together. In green.

Eddie back again for the last installment of Archetype of Imagination's series on Assault Loam. It's definitely been a fun ride, and in all, very interesting to see the different decks play out. Each one felt incredibly different, with the first 4-Color Loam list playing very much like a traditional midrange deck with the ultimate goal being to combo off with Seismic Assault and Life from the Loam, the epitome of a grindy win, to the PyroPox deck playing much more like a tempo deck with Smallpox and Young Pyromancer getting you early advantage that you can ride to the end quickly, to this final list which in all honesty, simply felt like a subpar 4-C Gifts list, and if I were to ever try to pilot this list at an event, the entire time I'd simply be wishing I was on Gifts instead. The list I played this past week was the following...

2 Borborygmos Enraged 3 Liliana of the Veil 4 Life from the Loam 3 Seismic Assault 3 Flame Jab 3 Raven's Crime 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Darkblast 2 Unburial Rites 4 Lingering Souls 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 1 Eternal Witness 3 Abrupt Decay 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Marsh Flats 2 Arid Mesa 1 Blood Crypt 1 Stomping Ground 1 Overgrown Tomb 1 Godless Shrine 1 Temple Garden 1 Sacred Foundry 1 Raging Ravine 1 Lavaclaw Reaches 1 Tectonic Edge 1 Fire-Lit Thicket 2 Graven Cairns 3 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Forest 1 Swamp 1 Mountain SB: 1 Abrupt Decay SB: 2 Obstinate Baloth SB: 2 Ancient Grudge SB: 2 Combust SB: 1 Dismember SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria SB: 1 Ray of Revelation SB: 1 Darkblast SB: 2 Batterskull SB: 2 Thoughtseize
Most of the time while I was playing I was just hoping to cast Life from the Loam very, very quickly and ride that to a reanimation target for the win, or dredge into just the right set of lands for the Seismic Assault lock, or enough copies of Lingering Souls that I could actually stall out to do one of the former. The list ultimately feels like just a bad Gifts Ungiven list as without the nice tutoring of Gifts, you're just hoping to mill into your win conditions slowly. I can understand why the list I started with ran more copies of both reanimation spells and Borborygmos, but I didn't want to be too weak to graveyard removal, so I opted against those plans to the extreme extent that it was attempting; maybe that was wrong.

I only got to play two matches of merit, since random matches on Cockatrice have a pretty high variance for quality of opposing decks. One match was against some Elves running Mass Hysteria which just seemed strictly awful, another against what would have been a good Bant Midrange deck, but then it cast Cloudshift, which... I guess is acceptable in some circumstances. Until you have no creatures to flicker because I cast Seismic Assault. Neither of those matches are really deserving of any coverage, but I guess it is a bit of a testament to how varied Modern fields can be, especially if you're running only at FNM.

The matches I do feel were actually worth talking about were Merfolk and UW Midrange/Control. The two seemed to represent the non-black decks in the format quite well. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to play against Affinity and Twin, though I feel as though neither match up should really be too terribly difficult for me. Against Affinity, we have enough sideboard hate and Batterskull that I don't really feel scared at all about it. Against Twin, in any version, enough discard will usually close out games quite quickly.

First, against Merfolk, I fared quite poorly, mainly because of the sheer number of lord effects. In game one, I started very poorly when he cast Spreading Seas on turn two and stuck me off of red mana for a few turns. I barely cast Seismic Assault, but it wasn't enough to stave off the bleeding. When you're facing an army of 5/5's you're not going to do well when you can only throw 6 damage each turn. Game two I decided to side out the Darkblasts and Lilianas because Merfolk's creatures are simply too numerous and large to deal with effectively with either card. I brought in the last Abrupt Decay and the copies of Combust and Iona just to try to get the free win with the reanimation. Unfortunately, I didn't get there and even though I stabilized quite well, I couldn't deal with a resolved copy of Master of the Waves and simply died two turns later.

I always felt like she was
one of the best cards in the
deck. Never unhappy to see
her, and she did so much work.

Next, against  UW Midrange/Control, which I assume was nearly identical to the Shaheen Soorani list since it had Jace Beleren in it, I fared quite the opposite. The first game ended at the beginning: I had two copies of Liliana and got the Dredge engine online quickly. As he was unable to get rid of Liliana or to counter her, I rode her to an easy victory. Game two I boarded out most of my removal in favor of Combust, Thoughtseizes, and Iona. Iona seemed pretty well suited to close out games against control, and that she did spectacularly. Eventually with Iona on blue and Seismic Assault, I ended the game in two turns. Control definitely seems like it's a matchup in your favor as you have reanimation spells and a significant amount of redundancy in your threats.

In summary, I often felt like Iona and Elesh Norn were the better targets, though I only ever cast Elesh Norn against some silly, durdly tier-4 decks. Borborygmos never actually landed into play, and I don't feel bad about that. I'd almost always just rather have Seismic Assault since it's so much cheaper. I can't exactly justify going up on the numbers for Unburial Rites or Borborygmos, but to make Borborygmos actually matter, you'd absolutely need to play four of him. And I'm not comfortable committing to that. Ultimately, I feel like the deck simply plays like a poor version of 4-C Gifts, and I'd always rather play that deck. It's just simply more fun and less grindy, in all the right ways. Plus, why not play blue when you have the opportunity.

Tune in next week when we start our look into some of the most diverse decks in the format: Kiki-Twin! We'll be looking at some of the lesser known lists for some interesting inspiration; I'd rather not sit down and try to write a primer on Tempo Twin or Tarmo Twin; I don't exactly feel too qualified to do so, but if there's demand I could try to get that together. I hope you take the time to comment on and share this post with your play group. We here at The Cauldron would absolutely appreciate it!

Blumanji

Eddie here again, though today isn't going to be a write up about BorbyLoam just yet. Archetype of Imagination needs another day to wrap up the series on Assault Loam and I've been unimaginably busy. Who would have thought being a chemical engineering junior with a bunch of physics courses on your plate (quantum mechanics is fun!) would make for a very tight schedule.

All of that aside, I hope to return tomorrow with a post about BorbyLoam, but for now we'll be looking at my latest favorite. I must give a good amount of credit to Adrian Sullivan for this kooky list. His article on it can be found here. Let me say, I do think it's a fine deck, but of course, I'm not one willing to just let a good list sit. I have to tweak things, and especially this deck. I tested nearly the same list as Sullivan's and definitely felt sometimes like it was flooding a lot, and was absolutely missing some real oomph if you didn't just combo out. It was also the group's decision that some things Sullivan was attempting were just too cute to actually put to good use; Melira as a singleton isn't that exciting, as you'd often rather just have an additional Finks.

It turns out Sullivan's list is, in a bit of a way, trying to do too much, too loosely. As such, with the suggestions and help of the group here at Modern Brews, I've come up with this updated list.

The core bits of ridiculousness.

3 Lotus Cobra 2 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 3 Kitchen Finks 4 Fauna Shaman 1 Obstinate Baloth 1 Mulldrifter 2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner 2 Spellskite 2 Vendilion Clique 2 Glen Elendra Archmage 1 Phantasmal Image 1 Venser, Shaper Savant 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Courser of Kruphix 1 Mystic Snake 3 Vengevine 1 Scavenging Ooze 3 Forest 2 Island 3 Hinterland Harbor 4 Breeding Pool 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Flooded Grove 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Dryad Arbor 2 Chord of Calling SB: 1 Mystic Snake SB: 2 Wickerbough Elder SB: 3 Viridian Shaman SB: 1 Acidic Slime SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze SB: 1 Cold-Eyed Selkie SB: 1 Vengevine SB: 1 Obstinate Baloth SB: 1 Kitchen Finks SB: 1 Sower of Temptation SB: 1 Eternal Witness
Lotus Cobra is an amazing card, but at times it definitely felt like you could have just too many of them, and as a result you'd be stuck with an army of 2/1's and too much mana to do anything with and nothing in hand. That's honestly where the deck struggles most: when you've gone Hellbent, your Vengevine's aren't as great if they're sitting in your yard. You can simply lose steam and then not be able to quickly recover. I've done my best to ameliorate that issue with the inclusion of the one main deck 5-drop, the lone Mulldrifter, and I can't say I've ever been sad to see it, and I've tutored it up quite a few times.

Next, we've gone ahead and switched up the main deck hate a bit. Mainly, we've ofted to get rid of the Viridian Shaman from the main deck, as it really doesn't fulfill too much of a role and opted for a third Kitchen Finks in its stead. Kitchen Finks helps the Affinity matchup by simply being an anti-aggro card, and at the same time, it helps your other aggro matchups more than Viridian Shaman. We've also opted to cut the Merlia, Sylvok Outcast in favor of a Mystic Snake. Now, Adrian argues that he's tested Mystic Snake and been disappointed with it, I'm in love with this card. It may just be my pet card to an extent, but being able to tutor up a counterspell with a 2/2 body seems good.

Moving on to the next interesting change, we've cut a Spellskite and the Tarmogoyf for a bit more value. Tarmogoyf never seemed that exciting of a card to draw to me, and as a result it's been cut entirely. Kitchen finks blocks just as well and gains you life and Vengevine is a better attacker. There's no need to split the difference with Tarmogoyf as a 1-of. Instead of these two, we have 2 copies of Chord of Calling, the only two non-creature spells in the 75. Having these available as Fauna Shamans 5 and 6 works quite surprisingly well. You can even Chord into a counterspell and just crush your opponent.

We've tweaked the mana base a little, but the changes ought to be quite apparent. There's no reason whatsoever to run Reflecting Pool, and Hinterland Harbor is about the most exciting thing in this deck since sliced bread. Gotta run a bunch of them!

The sideboard is a considerable amount different as we've stuck entirely to creatures in here, so we can actually tutor up our hate effects. An additional Mystic Snake helps in the combo match ups;
Wickerbough Elder, Viridian Shaman, and Acidic Slime ruin Affinity's day; Obstinate Baloth numero dos comes in anytime you're facing Liliana of the Veil or an aggro deck; Kitchen Finks number four seals
up so many aggro match ups, it's actually funny; Sower of Temptation turns their big dudes into your big dudes; Cold-Eyed Selkie runs roughshod over control or at the very least demands a removal spell quickly; Eternal Witness is there for all the value; Thrun beats black; and Scavenging Ooze beats graveyards. Effectively, we've covered the whole of the metagame as best as we can in simply blue and green.

There are arguments to try out a Bant list, especially with JOU coming out with some of the grossest hatebears I've ever even imagined, but part of me likes the streamlined version that gets to just eat people alive with Vengevines occaionally.

To anyone who wants to test this out, good luck! Make sure to leave any reports about the deck or questions for me in the comments!

Johnny on the Spot: The Walking Dead Tournament Report

In my last article, I went over my brew called the Walking Dead. Here's the deck as a refresher:

The Walking Dead

4 Gravecrawlers 4 Faithless Looting 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Dark Blast 1 Grim Lavamancer 4 Dark Confidant 4 Bloodghast 4 Stromgald Crusader 3 Nameless Inversions 4 Lilianna of the Veil 3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Marsh Flats 4 Blood Crypts 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Dragonskull Summit 6 Swamp SB: 1 Knight of Infamy SB: 2 Torpor Orb SB: 2 Engineered Explosives SB: 2 Damping Matrix SB: 2 Shattering Spree SB: 2 Rakdos Charm SB: 4 Thoughtseize
This tournament report will cover the three tournaments that I played in: an FNM, a Grand Prix Trial for Richmond, and GP Richmond. I won't cover every match, just the more important ones that show off the deck's synergies and weaknesses.

The FNM:

This was the debut for my new version of The Walking Dead without the green and with Haakon. The first match I want to go over was against RWU control. This is a generally favorable matchup for my list. While RWU control has loads of creature removal, most of my creatures recur back into play over and over.

The diversity of creatures shows why it can overcome removal. The bread and butter of removal for RWU is Bolt, Lightning Helix, and Path to Exile. Do you see the problem? Unless the removal is used perfectly, my creatures will be hard to remove and kill.

Good removal spells that typical work against any creature. Except vs The Walking Dead

Gravecrawler and Bloodghast need to be pathed or else they'll come back. Bolts and helixes won't work. Dark Confidants need to be Helixed. If they get pathed or bolted that's one less path for Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, or Haakon and one less bolt against Stromgald Crusader.

Speaking of him, Stromgald Crusader is really tough for RWU control to handle. He was originally a sideboard card against Rest in Peace. With no maindeck way to kill a Rest in Peace (and only 2 Engineered Explosives in the sideboard) I originally thought the deck might be unplayable due to graveyard hate. But, Mike Bonkarooni saved the day. He suggested that rather than try to have an anti-anti-graveyard strategy (like blowing up the Rest in Peace), why not attack the white decks on a level they aren't prepared for (protection from white)? He tested so well that I slotted him as a 4 of in the maindeck.

 

 The best tech attacks the opponent in a way he wasn't aware of.

My match against RWU went pretty favorably for me. In game 1, my creatures overwhelmed him because his removal was ineffective as I described above. For game 2, I sided out 2 Dark Blasts and 2 Nameless Inversions because RWU has almost no creatures and put in 4 Thoughtseizes. In that game, he was able to stabilize with an Anger of the Gods and Sphinx's Revelation and grind out the victory. Game 3 left us both stuck on two lands for a couple of turns after we each mulliganed to 6. This highly favors me since I don't need many lands. I Thoughtseized his Anger of the Gods early and was able to resolve a Faithless Looting to find my third land drop and over run him with creatures.

The other match from the FNM that I'll mention was in the finals against a Bogle hexproof deck. I knew he was on Bogles before the match and he had no idea what I was on. Ahhh...the fruits of brewing. I knew that pre-sideboard my only chance was to get a Liliana out and make him sacrifice his hexproof guy. So, I mulliganed and mulliganed all the way down to 3. No Liliana. Oh well. I made sure he wasn't land or creature screwed and then scooped. On the plus side, he still had no idea what I was on.

 

Where are you?!?!

For game 2, I sided in 4 Thoughtseizes and 2 Engineered Explosives and took out 2 Darkblasts, 3 Nameless Inversions, and 1 Haakon. This time the shoe was on the other foot. He had to mulligan to 5 and I Thoughtseized his only creature away. This is one of the reasons I'm not too big on Bogles...it can lose to itself very easily. In game 3 I got a god draw of Liliana, Thoughtseize, Engineered Explosives, 2 Gravecrawler and 2 land. All my removal could interact with his creatures and the Gravecrawlers would put him on a quick clock. This made me 5-0 and the champion of the FNM.

Grand Prix Trial:

This tournament lasted 5 rounds then cut to top 8. I went 4-0-1 in the swiss portion and was feeling great. My deck hadn't lost a match yet! I could have went 3-0-2 and still made top 8 but I wouldn't have been the top seed like I was at 4-0-1. I made this mistake at another GPT a month earlier and lost in the top 4 in game 3 by one turn. Because I was on the draw. Because I intentionally drew to go 3-0-2. From then on, I vowed to not be satisfied with simply making the top 8. Especially in a GPT where there is virtually no 2nd place. 1st place gets the byes and 2nd place gets about the same prize as 29th place.

Interestingly enough, after 9 rounds of the FNM and GPT, I only ever got the Haakon plus nameless inversion combo to go off. I thought it'd be more common than that but it really wasn't.

 

Unfortunately, this wasn't that common of a combo.

In the top 8 round I played against Tron first. ICK! Wasn't that supposed to be a bad list in the post-Deathrite world? Tron has both maindeck sweepers and graveyard with Pyroclasm and Relic of Progenitus. There is a problem with them though. They need to be played in the right order and at the right time, otherwise my creatures will be back in play before Relic can exile them.

Both good vs zombies but they need to be played in the right order.

I drew a very aggressive opening in game 1. Turn 1 (on the play of course) I had a Bloodghast and Faithless Looting which drew another Bloodghast. Discarding two Bloodghasts almost feels like cheating. He was able to Pyroclasm them away later but was incapable of exiling them. I ran him over for the win.

Game 2, he was on the play and drew a natural Tron. Not too much to see there. He killed me mercilessly.

Game 3 was a classic battle of my mana flood to his mana screw. He mulliganed to 5 (similar to Bogles, which is why I don't like either of the decks) and got stuck with 2 Tron pieces. I had 4 power on board and was beating slowly. I Thoughtseized him and he revealed a Karns, 2 Wurmcoils, and a Chromatic Star. Since I was incapable of eliminating a big drop from his hand, I chose the Chromatic Star so he could could cycle and dig for the last Tron piece. It was a gamble, but one that I really had no choice to take. He wound up hard casting casting a Wurmcoil the turn before I could swing in for lethal. Then I topdecked a bolt and added it to the other one in my hand to burn him to death. I got lucky on two accounts, him getting mana screwed and me topdecking burn. But, I made my own luck by being on the play that game. If I was on the draw, I would have lost. I think there's a very important moral to be learn from earning the right to play in the top 8.

One turn too slow.

I won the next round vs RWU Splinter Twin and faced my my friend and fellow car traveller Abel in the finals. It was cool to face him off in the finals but we also knew it would be an awkward car ride home. He was on a modified Ajundi list. He basically switched the Deathrites out for Kitchen Finks and tinkered around with the mana and a one or two other cards. It was still a powerful deck post Deathrite banning and I'm actually surprised to not see more of it.

Unfortunately for Abel, I knew this was a really bad match for him. The whole motivation for The Walking Dead was to beat the old Jund decks that were atop of the old metagame. All of his Inquisitions, Thoughtseizes, and Lilianas are useless against me. Each game was a long grind fest but he really had no chance of outlasting me. I had won two byes and my brew was 12-0-1 in sanctioned events. Time to run it at the GP.

GP Richmond:

Well, this is where the story goes astray. I had earned two byes and then played against a Merfolk deck. Nameless Inversion does wonders against that deck. Removing all creature types just makes it an instant kill spell for any merfolk. I went to 3-0 and was slated to play LSV when something odd happened. For those that didn't attend the GP, the massive player pool was divided into three pools:  Green, white, and pink. An odd glitch caused LSV to be entered into both the green and white pools and was paired up against me and another player. By chance, he showed up to the other match instead and the judges effectively awarded me a bye. Whoo Hoo! Actually, I would have rather played LSV...just for the story. Even though I most likely would have lost.

Who invited this to the party?

Oh good...round 5 of the GP pitted me against Melira Pod. Of all the decks that I brewed post-bannings, The Walking Dead has put up the best fight against it. Game 1 I got combo'd off on pretty quickly and naturally drawn. Unfun.

Game 2 was much better. It was a true grind fest and I was able to get the Haakon plus Nameless Inversion engine running. After I machine gunned all his his guys down I was able to swing in for the win. That was twice in 14 matches I was able to pull it off. In game 3 I saw some tech from Melira Pod that I didn't really see too much of before the Deathrite, but definitely much more since: Thrun. I assume he comes in against control matchups, but my deck really has no way to deal with him except Liliana sacrifice ability. That's only if Thrun is their only creature too. Thrun is some good tech I couldn't handle.

At 4-1, I played against a B/G rock deck. I knew Jund was a good matchup for me and I figured this should be as well. But, a flood and a screw later I'm sitting at 4-2. Such is Magic.

My final match shows where this deck really is weak and needs some work before getting played again. I played the Amulet of Vigor/Titan combo deck. I don't really think I can win game 1 against it. I stated in my previous article that I purposely removed the targeted discard from my deck based on the old metagame. These odd combo decks (like Amulet or Ad Nauseam) were a much more significant portion of the meta than they were before.

For game 2 I sided out the Dark Blasts, Grim Lavamancer, and Nameless Inversions for Thoughtseizes and Rakdos Charms. I was able to get a turn 1 Thoughtseize and turn 3 Liliana in game 2 to lock him out pretty quickly. But in game 3 he was able to combo off on turn 4 even after I Thoughtseized him twice. He had to get super lucky to do it, however when I am a virtual lock to lose game 1 it's going to be tough to expect to win the match consistently. With that, I was 4-3 and out of contention for Day 2.

Overall, I really do like the deck. The metagame isn't well positioned for it now, though. I can no longer afford to have no targeted discard in the maindeck. Melira Pod represents a very tough obstacle. Even though my deck is geared towards value and recursion, that deck can go toe to toe with me with both and still threaten an instant combo win. I am capable of beating it, but not consistently enough to warrant it at another GP or PTQ. Perhaps once the metagame shakes out a little more and shifts I can dust this deck off I try it again.

Speaking of losing to Melira Pod, next week I'll go over brewing with a deck that I've never lost with against Melira Pod. I'll go over ways to attack the Pod decks and my general opinions and observations of it's two archetypes.