Gifts Ungiven

This weekend is Grand Prix Rimini 2008, the last major event of the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block Constructed season. I've already mentioned what I'd be playing if I were there. However, in a part of today's coverage, Dave Sutcliffe -- sometimes to be heard on Rich Hagon's podcasts -- addresses the question, "Why should I care about the decks being played in the last major event of Block season?"

The beginning and end of his few paragraphs covers the central point:

One of the most striking things about this Block Constructed season has been how closely it has mirrored the goings on in the Standard format. Of course there will always be some crossover between the two formats but it has rarely (if ever) been more marked.

...and..

Now, if you’re sitting at home reading the coverage and wondering why you would care what decks are being played in the last big tournament of a Block Constructed season I put it to you that what you’re actually looking at are the decklists that will define the Standard metagame in just a few weeks when we wave goodbye to the largest card pool there has ever been in Standard, and usher in the smallest.

Interesting thought. This is definitely something that we see in regional events (such as, you know, Regionals) that happen near set transitions -- they lean heavily on the old block and frequently don't heavily explore the new one. As such, Dave's assertion seems reasonable. That said, I'm looking forward to grabbing new cards and concepts from Shards of Alara and comprehensively integrating them into a fun and competitive deck to play at States in November.

I like the Sakura-Tribe Elder.

It's a great utility card. It hangs out, it blocks, it keeps counters off of Jitte (when that's relevant), and it accelerates you into four mana on turn three, and it does that in one of my favorite ways -- it sticks a land into play.

My preference for acceleration is "put more lands into play." The "put more lands into play" (PMLIP?) option is my favorite because it's more or less nondestroyable. Naturally, your opponent could be packing land destruction, but if they were going to do that, it was going to happen and inconvenience you anyway. In contrast, acceleration that lives in the body of a creature, artifact, or enchantment can be removed, and often by cards that decks are simply packing as utility items. Especially creatures. As BDM tells us, "I've just been conditioned to burn the Bird."

Coldsnap - Time Spiral - Lorwyn - Shadowmoor - 10th Standard gave us a host of options, including Search for Tomorrow, Into the North, and Wall of Roots which gets a bit of a pass as a creature because a whole lot of cheap removal can't easily deal five. With Cold Snap and Time Spiral rotating out, we're also losing those two sorceries (along, it should be noted, with a couple of low-cost acceleration artifacts). Obviously, Alara may bring us acceleration -- I do hope it does -- but in the meantime, what's left in 10th and Lorwyn-Shadowmoor?

More in the extended.

Both as a way to process the newest set, and by way of coming up with ideas for the upcoming States (and possibly local tournaments, as it looks like I now have a venue that holds regular Standard tournies), I've decided to build one deck for each of the Shards. I'm not trying to push too hard -- or to avoid -- cards from Shards of Alara. Rather, I'm going to try and build the decks and just see how many of the new cards I end up using. With that in mind, here's the first one:

Chocolate Frosted Jund Bombs

Click through to the extended for decklist and commentary.

Continuing with my plan of making a deck from each Shard, I now move on to cover Naya, with...

Razer Tender

Click through to the extended for decklist and commentary.

As the third in my series of decks featuring specific Shards (here are deck one and deck two), I'm taking a look at Grixis.

At first, I didn't have any really exciting ideas, as red-black-blue is not a color wedge I normally use. Once I hit on the idea of centering my effort on Cruel Ultimatum, the idea of using a Hideaway land followed immediately after. And with that, we had...

Cruel Hollow

Click through to the extended for decklist and commentary.

This is the fourth in my Lorwyn-Shards Standard exercise of making a deck from each Shard. So far, we've touched on Grixis, Naya, and Jund, and now it's time for Esper with...

Elly Lily

Click through to the extended for decklist and commentary.

Gatherer, the official Magic database, has just been updated. The updates bring the "Standard" and "Extended" menu options in line with the cards and sets that are legal in each format (and, indeed, the Top is not in the Extended search). There is now also a Shards of Alara Block option. They've also rearranged Gatherer -- before, it was all the block options in one place, with the individual sets below. Now, the sets in each block are grouped with their block option.

Click here for Gatherer

Click here for Standard on Gatherer

Click here for Extended on Gatherer

Fun facts from these two searches:

There are 1,486 cards currently legal in Standard
There are 5,036 cards currently legal in Extended

How do you design a deck? Build a core, then look at matchups and try to shore them up with cards from the sideboard?

Last year, Zaiem Beg addressed the topic of sideboarding, discussing the approach of designing a deck for each matchup, then bringing these decks together in a combined core and sideboard. In effect, the goal here is to pick out your likely matchups, then design a number of ideal versions of your deck, each suited to a given matchup. In the current environment, one might want to design to beat Faeries, Five-color Control, Kithkin, Red Deck Wins, and Reveillark.

That's what I did here:

Click here to see the full spreadsheet in a separate window

Go to the extended entry to see where I went from there.

Today I went to the Superstars November Standard Championship, vying along with 42 or so other players for the $1K prize pool. I brought my white-black disruptive control deck that I've named "Ahura", for which you can find a deck list here. I had a good time and did reasonably well, ending up at 4-2 but missing the top eight on tie breaks and coming in at 11th.

Overall, I think the Ahura build is quite solid, and it fairly cleanly beat the matchups I'd given some thought to ahead of time -- Faeries and Lark, while suffering against Merfolk and Tokens.

The take-home message today is that an active Battlegrace Angel is ridiculous.

The full tournament report is in the extended entry.

One of the things I did on coming back into Magic after my long hiatus (my collection has a mild hiccup between Ice Age and Time Spiral) was go back through the coverage archives, first video and then text, and read about the recent history of the game. I've talked before about my favorite events in the archives, and among them is the top eight of Worlds 2005. I enjoy it because it includes a number of highly interactive matches, and that's the kind of Magic I like to play -- thus my proclivity for playing mid-range, grind-out-a-win-style decks.

Seedborn Muse appeared as a one-of in the sideboard of Mori's Ghazi-Glare deck in that top eight, and that really caught my attention. Offering the possibility of tapping out on your turn and then Glaring the opposition down on their turn -- or of untapping under a Hokori -- the Seedborn is an enticingly powerful engine card. Also, it turns out you can accidentally win a free game off of Frank Karsten if everyone misses the interaction between Yosei and Muse. Oops.

The upshot of all this is that I've been wanting to use the Muse in a deck where it's actually a good idea, yet have been disappointed at how often it just isn't a good choice. However, I think the build I'm going to highlight below represents an instance of proper Muse use in a deck that has a chance to compete with the little blue people and all those technicolor mana bases.

Click through to the extended for a deck list and explanation.

On Saturday, I played in a Standard tournament at Superstars, using an updated version of Ahura. The update was solely to the sideboard, swapping out one Muse and the Infests for three Hallowed Burial and a Pithing Needle.

In round one, I played against a black-green Elves build and took game one on the back of the ever-helpful Battlegrace Angel, ending the game on 34 life. In addition to that mountain of life gain, I'd been retracing Raven's Crimes repeatedly to decimate my opponents hand, which certainly motivated his sideboarding for game two.

In game two, my first-turn play was Thoughtseize. I saw this:

Gilt-leaf Palace
Llanowar Wastes
Bramblewood Paragon
Wilt-Leaf Liege
Wilt-Leaf Liege
Wilt-Leaf Liege

Hm.

My second-turn play was Tidehollow Sculler (or, as I said, "I have a workaround"). I saw this:

Llanowar Wastes
Wilt-Leaf Liege
Wilt-Leaf Liege
Wilt-Leaf Liege
Wilt-Leaf Liege

Hm, again.

I followed that second-turn Sculler with a third-turn Sculler and a fourth-turn Sculler, eventually ending up with three Scullers, each with an associated RFGed Liege.

I found that entire game pleasingly ridiculous.

That sounds like a Batman graphic novel title.

As i've been considering Standard decks, it occurred to me to return to the retrace mechanic, which saw a ton of play in the recent Extended season, and which I used to decent effect in a previous Standard deck. Although Standard lacks the card advantage juggernaut that is Life from the Loam, there's still an opportunity to use (if not abuse) the retrace mechanic in the appropriate deck.

Click through to the extended entry for the Crime Harvest deck list and some commentary.