Esper Best Friends

Hi everyone!

Updates have been a bit sparse lately because I've been having to rebuild my computer (multiple times, grr!) I think we're back up and running now, but for some reason the draft recorder isn't working in MTGO for me, so my attempts to report back on the New Phyrexia draft environment have been scuppered so far.

What we do have are the standard bannings to shake up the format, and give us something to discuss in the short time before Magic 2012 hits the scene.

The proposed meta game until then appears to have a lot of Valakut and Splinter Twin as the "best" decks, and Vampires and Mono Red as the aggro options looking to counter them. Very similar to the pre-Paris set up then, with the addition of Splinter Twin. I was happy enough running my own UW Control deck against these decks before, rocking mono-Azorius super friends even though the fashionable control players were on Dimir.

With the "Jace Test" no more, people are going to be cramming all sorts of previously unseen monsters into their decks. Which cards will be making way for them? Well, it is reasonable to assume it will be the Vampire Hexmages, Hex Parasites, Phyrexian Revokers and other such cards designed to handle Jace. Plus the Manic Vandals, Divine Offerings and Heroes of Oxid Ridge that were entirely aimed at the deceased Cawblade deck.

It seems like time to get the band back together and see if we can't party like it's a bit earlier in 2011!

Plans

The more things change, they say, the more our old answers to existing problems remain ass-kickingly good [citation needed]. While Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia have given us more tools to work with, the old stand-bys are still where I want to be; at least against the pre-existing archetypes.

Valakut seems poised to take the position as the most dominant deck, so I'm happy to load up on main deck hate for it. Spreading Seas is once again positioned to hinder the main decks in the format, and against the Molten Pinnacle we resume the previous strategy of trying to work out if we should cut them off from early green, or reduce the mountain count.

Tectonic Edge is still great, and the long game goal of recurring it with Sun Titan is supplemented by the new Surgical Extraction. Although narrow in scope, Extraction is king against focused decks that are set up around a single card. Edging an early Valakut and removing the rest from their deck immediately make Primeval Titans less scary, and turns them into a ramp deck with few threats to actually find.

The prevailing opinion seems to be that Lotus Cobra, Joraga Treespeaker and Overgrown Battlement should be the preferred acceleration methods. This makes our Contagion Clasps and Dismembers live, and will hopefully delay their mid game by a turn or two until we can compete on an even field.

Vampires is similarly weak to Spreading Seas. Tectonic Edge too if they insist on splashing red as before although this is less certain with the printing of Dismember, especially with Lightning Bolt being less than exciting versus a field full of Spellskites. The one-two punch of Contagion Clasp into Tumble Magnet has served me well enough before, and this is another game where the maligned Surgical Extraction comes into its own by single-handedly dealing with the threat of all future Bloodghasts.

Elspeth Tirel is great for producing a swarm of tokens to protect your finishers from edicts, as well as gaining some precious life points to protect us from Kalastria Highborn fuelled fireballs. Gideon Jura is as unbeatable against them as ever, especially since the numbers of Vampire Hexmage are likely to be lower.

The Red Deck (can we call it RDW yet?) looks like the biggest threat, especially with Koth of the Hammer proving a difficult chap to handle. Oblivion Ring is sorely missed, but at least if they are relying on small creatures to get the job done we can stem that avenue of attack. Sadly, with our energies focused elsewhere this match up looks bad in game one, short of keeping them off multiple spells per turn with Spreading Seas and Spellskiting enough burn to survive.

Splinter Twin looks like a tough cookie until you realise that their nut draw doesn't happen all that often, particularly so without Jace to brainstorm them into the missing combo piece. The key is staying aware of the threat and not playing into their hands. The pair of main deck Spellskites should buy a decent bit of time. Spreading Seas and Tectonic Edge (against the triple colour versions of the deck) represent a chance to keep them off double red for a time. Dismember is there to give us another chance to disrupt them going off, and Tumble Magnet at least delays the inevitable for one turn.

Super Best Friends

This is all very well, but how exactly are we planning to close out the game?

In a shock to nobody who has read this blog before, I think planeswalkers are the answer. Lots of planeswalkers.

Elspeth and Gideon Jura have been discussed above. Their abilities complement each other and buy time for a Day of Judgment, they also turning into win conditions when the game is locked down.

Venser is a planeswalker that has long been a favourite of mine, but was always overshadowed by Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Now he represents one of the best sources of recurring card advantage, with an ultimate that can regain control of most board states given enough cheap spells.

The other source of recurring card advantage is Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Many people seem to forget that in a deck set up to support it his +1 ability is a free Impulse each turn. The ability to create 5/5 guys is fine when we decide we want to actually win the game too, I suppose. Pairing up Venser's -1 ability will help (although you may need to look up what it does, since I don't think anyone has ever activated it outside of limited before!)

The final member of the group is Karn Liberated who, true to his storyline role as a pacifist, appears as a giant angry robot that blows up anything in his path.

The Artifact Engine

I've already mentioned the return to the Contagion Clasp and Tumble Magnet plan. What I also want to try out with this deck is the Wellspring engine from Scars block constructed. These combine with both Venser and Tezzeret to draw plenty of extra cards, and a copy of Phyrexia's Core gives us the chance to cash them in for life and yet more cards.

There is also the interaction with Tezzeret's -1 ability to effectively turn them into 5/5 Solemn Simulacrums.

Speaking of which, is there a better card for this deck that could have been included in M12?

(Well, yes, reprinting the Mind Sculptor would have been better, but you get the point!)

Steve Deck Wins
4 Tectonic Edge	1 Surgical Extraction	1 Surgical Extraction
3 Marsh Flats	3 Mycosynth Wellspring	2 Memoricide
3 Swamp	3 Ichor Wellspring	4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Phyrexia's Core	3 Contagion Clasp	2 Spellskite
4 Plains	3 Tumble Magnet	2 Day of Judgment
4 Island	4 Spreading Seas	1 Dismember
4 Glacial Fortress	3 Dismember	1 Elspeth Tirel
3 Celestial Collonade	2 Day of Judgment	2 Wurmcoil Engine
26 Lands	2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas	15 Sideboard Cards
	2 Venser, the Sojourner
2 Spellskite	1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Sun Titan	2 Gideon Jura
1 Consecrated Sphinx	1 Karn Liberated
4 Creatures	30 Other Spells

Sideboarding

The second Surgical Extraction is there for the Valakut, Bloodghast and Vengevine decks where we would definitely like to draw one. Memoricide gives us some more permanent answers for the combo decks (Valakut and Splinter Twin).

The Leylines can serve multiple roles, blocking Valakut and Mono Red for aiming burn at us and also turning off targeted discard. There is also the always awkward to explain interaction with a kicked Gatekeeper of Malakir. (Yes, you can kick it. No, you can't target me with the ability. As I said; awkward.)

Spellskite is necessary to shore up the Splinter Twin games and is also good against red. It blocks their little guys, and absorbs some direct damage whether they intended it to or not.

The third and fourth Days are for the aggro matches where our less reactive cards are a liability. Dismember too, which is also fine against Twin.

Elspeth Tirel provides mens and life, and also comes down a turn earlier than Wurmcoil Engine. Both of these cards hope to save us versus the little monsters and burn spells.

Goodbye

So there we are! A full two weeks before the format changes yet again, but this is what I will be playing until then.

Good luck if you give it a go and let me know what you think of the deck in the comments!

Steve

Deck Building in a Virgin Format

The Format

We recently ran the first local Scars Block constructed tournament, since the full block was finally available to play. With Pro Tour Nagoya (the first big event to use this format) yet to happen, there hasn't been much online coverage of the format, leaving a wide open field of potential decks to build.

As it turned out, the end of semester exams and an apparent fear of playing an unexplored format kept a lot of the students and newer players away, but those of us who did turn up had a great time bashing untested brews into each other.

This is the story of one such brew.

The Strategy

I've been on a control kick ever since the release of Scars of Mirrodin, packed as it was full of subtle cards and interactions. Whichever deck I ended up playing, I knew that I would want Tumble Magnet to play a role. The trickiest decision was working out which control strategy to play in a format with a lack of cheap counter-magic or card drawing, and no Mind Sculpting to be done.

The block is full of very strong cards for each of the other facets of control: removal (particularly board sweeping effects), planeswalkers and finishers. Blue is rather lacking in removal options, but required for access to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas or Venser, the Sojourner. Black is particularly strong at dealing with creatures, while white looks necessary if you want to deal with both artifacts and enchantments. Red is an option for both Koth of the Hammer and the plentiful burn spells. Green lacks access to any planeswalkers, and the interesting creatures are awkwardly split between infect and normal damage; not an exciting prospect.

The Mana

Next it was time to consider the biggest constraint in this block; the manabase. With only a cycle of dual lands and Sphere of the Suns to fix multiple colours of mana outside of green, it was clear that running more than one or two colours would be incredibly risky. I was also not enthralled at the thought of having Sphere of the Suns as my turn two play, when Tempered Steel decks could have three or four creatures in play at that point already. What to do then, when I wanted to run white and black with no fixing available?

The answer I came up with was to add a third colour, naturally.

Okay, this isn't strictly true, but I did add the nominally blue Tezzeret's Gambit and Gitaxian Probe to provide me with card drawing, and therefore a higher chance to hit the double white and black sources I would need. Having made the decision to run these cards, Seachrome Coast and Darkslick Shores provided a (nearly) free way to splash the blue and make sure that I would sometimes have the option not to pay two life.

The Deck

Steve Deck Wins
2 Inkmoth Nexus	2 Gitaxian Probe	2 Spellskite
4 Seachrome Coast	3 Dismember	4 Mirran Crusader
4 Darkslick Shores	3 Revoke Existence	1 Dismember
7 Plains	3 Contagion Clasp	2 Divine Offering
7 Swamp	4 Pristine Talisman	1 Black Sun's Zenith
24 Land	3 Tumble Magnet	3 Hex Parasite
	4 Tezzeret's Gambit	2 Shrine of Loyal Legions
2 Sunblast Angel	2 Batterskull	15 Sideboard Cards
2 Creatures	3 Elspeth Tirel
	1 Venser, the Sojourner
	1 Life's Finale
	1 Contagion Engine
	1 Karn Liberated
	2 Black Sun's Zenith
	1 White Sun's Zenith
	33 Other Spells

Some quick hits on the card choices.

• By sticking with only two actual creatures I hoped to nullify most opposing removal spells. Even if they did have one, the Angel would normally have already taken out one or more of their creatures to leave me well up on cards.


• The split on cheap removal was to hedge against most of the threats I could face. I was aware that I had no cheap ways to deal with a Consecrated Sphinx, but Go for the Throat seemed too much of a liability to draw against Tempered Steel decks.


• The Black Sun's Zeniths provide a cheap sweeper against the rush decks, then come back to supplement Life's Finale in the late game. Finale itself also functions as a way to neuter opposing control decks that are aiming to capitalise on one big threat, and can potentially leave them with no win conditions in their deck.


• I decided to run with a single copy of Venser off my eight blue sources. I considered Tezzeret instead, but with only thirteen artifacts in the deck I didn't think that I would be taking advantage of his abilities.


• The final card added to the deck was Pristine Talisman, which Andy Sims only reminded me existed ten minutes before the event. While Sphere of the Suns offers only limited mana fixing and a chance to waste your third turn, Pristine Talisman accelerates straight into a turn four Batterskull or Elspeth. The life gained from the Talisman is also important against non-infect decks, even against control it will help to counteract some Phyrexian life payments, especially if you can get multiples into play.


• In the sideboard, the Spellskites were a cheap blocker for fast aggro, and a way to keep burn spells from targetting me. Mirran Crusader was a bullet for infect decks. After that I had a package of further removal spells to tweak my configuration against aggro, and the Hex Parasites and Shrine of Loyal Legions for control mirrors.

The Tournament

The games I played were all fun and interactive. As you'd expect from a format with such a small card pool, it felt closer to powered up limited than Standard.

In round one I faced WB Tempered Steel, using the Phyrexian mana guys like Porcelain Legionnaire and Vault Skirge to cheat on mana costs and power out a fast assault. In game one I was able to control the early rush with my removal and keep my life total high by eventually drawing all four Talismans. I then ambushed his remaining forces with a massive storm of cats, care of White Sun's Zenith. I sideboarded in my removal for Venser, Karn, and the Probes, but stalled for lands early game two and was receiving a serious beating. Judicious use of Tumble Magnet and Dismember clawed me back into it at just two life. I finally landed a Pristine Talisman to set up a Batterskull, and worked my way back up to twenty life before an Elspeth overwhelmed him.

The second round was against a mono-black Infect deck. His Necropedes and removal were pretty ineffective, with only a Throne of Geth threatening to pose a problem after a few early poison counters. I found Venser and protected him long enough to untap with him at eight loyalty, then use Tezzeret's Gambit to proliferate him to nine and draw two more cards to use after ultimating him. Removing all his permanents from the board prompted the concession. The Mirran Crusaders, Dismember, Divine Offerings and Black Sun's Zenith came in for Gitaxian Probes, two Elspeths, Venser, Karn, Contagion Engine and a Pristine Talisman. My opening hand had two Mirran Crusaders and two white producing lands, so it was a snap keep. He spent a Contagion Clasp (which I was a little surprised he had left in the deck) and a turn of proliferating to deal with the first Crusader before I exiled the Clasp. A Necropede and Throne of Geth traded with the second, but he was out of answers when I was able to Gambit up the third.

For the final round I played against Andy Mather with UB Tezzeret. He was able to get ahead with a Tezzeret and enough removal to stop my creatures from killing it in game one, using it to draw an extra card every turn rather than waste time making 5/5s. Eventually the card advantage proved too great, and when I had a last ditch Batterskull to try and get back into the game, his Karn Liberated turned up to take control. I sideboarded in Divine Offering, Hex Parasites and the Shrines, taking out Clasps, Magnets and the Contagion Engine. I had a double Hex Parasite hand, so I figured I should run one out early to try and get some pressure going, then followed it up with Shrine of Loyal Legions. Andy had the removal spell for the Parasite on the board, then surprised me with a Despise to take the second one from my hand. I wasn't expecting Despise as it is actually terrible against me with very few cards that it hits. I had dismissed it for my deck because against the creature decks you'd far rather just kill whatever they play, and I preferred Gitaxian Probe as a way to look at their hand and get a card ahead.

In this case it was deceptively good, as this cleared the way for a Tezzeret to appear and start drawing him even more cards. We traded cards for a while, keeping roughly even on the board while I was building up counters on the Shrine. I made a mistake with the Shrine at seven counters, by tapping down to play a Batterskull. Andy was able to resolve his Karn again to exile the Shrine and use Tumble Magnet to contain the Skull and the game ended shortly after. If I'd just waited and always left three mana up it was very difficult to lose that game, but instead I punted it away. We played a third game out where I was able to protect a Shrine, disrupt his Tezzeret's and Magnets with Hex parasite and then win with eight Myr tokens, so it's not like that plan is awful anyway.

The End

I'm happy with the main deck as it is right now, it seems pretty well balanced and should crush most of the creature decks in the format. As for the sideboard, I wasn't that impressed by the Spellskites, and would probably cut them to make room for an extra Shrine of Loyal Legions and Hex Parasite. Planeswalkers are a real problem to deal with in this format, and it might be worth having access to a couple of Stoic Rebuttals to fight against them late game.

It'll be interesting to see how the metagame shapes up with the Pro Tour on the way. I might revisit this deck then to see how far off the mark I was.

Steve