Progenitus.dec WIP

So after the last few FNM's and watching the current state of the standard meta I believe that a combo control deck is the direction that I want to be heading in. Enter Polymorph and Progenitus, yes the combo everyone's been talking about yet very few have (from what I have seen) have tried to build a deck around it. Last week I got completley wrecked by a 5-Color version of this deck, but 5 colors main deck just seems a little slow (for this type of deck) in the current standard format. This is going to be a Work in Progress (WIP) deck that I'm going to build and update right here in this very blog. The first build that I have of this list is Esper colors with a splash of green and red for Fog and board sweeping effects like Volcanic Fallout. Yes I know it seems contradictory to my prior statement but just follow along with me here, splashing is much easier to accomplish than trying to evenly distribute the mana over all five colors. So far the list is pretty basic and it looks like this:

Lands: 24
***************
3 Glacial Fortress
3 Arcane Sanctum
3 Drowned Catacomb
3 Seaside Citadel
3 Dragonskull Summit
3 Sunpetal Grove
3 Swamp
3 Plains

Creatures: 2
**************
2 Progenitus

Other Spells: 34
****************
4 Polymorph
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Hallowed Burial
3 Negate
4 Essence Scatter
4 Offering to Asha
2 Fog
4Spectral Procession
2 Identity Crisis
3 Goblin Assault

The strategy of this deck is to win by controlling the board with your counters and board wipers until you can hit one of your own creatures with Polymorph to cheat a Progenitus into play and start smashing face.

Okay now that the simple strategy explanation is out of the way, my initial thoughts on this list are this:
1) I may need more token producers but only testing will show that.
2) I may or may not have too many counters again I leave that up to testing for now.
3) Lack of card draw may also pose a problem
Now I know there are a few cards that may make some heads turn so lets look at them shall we?

Offering to Asha is no Cryptic Command but gaining 4 life while (usually) countering a spell is a great way to pose a literal counter threat without breaking the bank, and I like that for this deck. I like that A LOT.

Another decision that could raise a few eyebrows is the inclusion of Identity Crisis in the main deck. This little gem has made its way into plenty of the recent 5-Color Control lists sideboards and it absolutely wrecks any deck's tempo in the games that it resolves.
I figured that if it's such great sideboard tech why not give a go in the main of a primarily control deck? If it totally tanks then it's back to the sideboard for it.

I will soon be posting how this deck tested as well as a sideboard and any tweaks. So until next time Happy Building,
Ryan

The new Black: Speedball Review/T2 Jund Rock

After taking Speedball to FNM for two weeks in a row, I've realized that it generally beats the hell out of almost every deck in the format... except the two top decks; GW Overrun and WW. It's just two decks, not that much of a problem, right? Wrong. Those two decks make up at least 40% of the current meta, which means that even though Speedball does well against everything else, it still loses to a huge chunk of people at local tournaments. What's a planeswalker to do!?

Go black.

According to several sources, one of the few decks that stands a chance against these big white horse-c*cks is Jund Rock, a RBG aggro variant rather similar to my own, i.e. things with haste, things with cascade, etc. The difference is that when you splash black into the mix, you have access to several wonderfully powerful cards such as Putrid Leech, Terminate, Jund Charm, and Bituminous Blast, which can turn the tide of a game easily. Here's my tentative list.

Creatures- 20
----------
4 Putrid Leech
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Hell's Thunder
4 Bloodbraid Elf

Instants/Sorceries- 18
----------
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Terminate
4 Colossal Might
3 Bituminous Blast
3 Sign in Blood

Lands- 22
----------
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Rootbound Crag
5 Swamp
5 Forest
4 Mountain

Most of the heavy hitters are still here, such as Boggart Ram-Gang, Bloodbraid Elf, and Hellspark Elemental, with a new addition to the lineup; Putrid Leech. He's just a 2/2 for GB on the surface, but pay two life and it becomes a hefty 4/4, letting it deal with pretty much any card played before turn 4 or sometimes even 5. The noncreature spells, however, see the most changes. Terminates and Bituminous Blast give the deck much needed removal and even added cascade, and Sign in blood gives you card draw and can even kill an opponent in a pinch. Sideboarding mass removal (preferably in the form of Jund Charm) lets you throw sweepers out to keep WW in check. Overall the deck sacrifices a bit of speed (though not much) to give the player a more controlled game and alot more survivability. Of course it still retains the capacity for unpredictable, explosive, game ending turns. Wheres the fun without something like that?

On a good hand, you can realistically pull off a turn 4 or 5 kill, just like Speedball, however the advantage comes in disrupting their win-con and being able to kick ass and take names late in the game. Actually, less taking names, we don't care about names. And much more ass-kickery. Here here!

That Number One Spot - 7/31/2009 - Bring a Stranded Girl Home

EDIT: The problem has been solved. We have a full donation for the cost of the ticket

Sorry everyone, but I'd gotten tied up helping out a friend in need and so I do not have a normal Number One Spot column for you this week.

A good friend of mine attended Comic-Con International in San Diego this year, and is currently stranded out there with no money for a flight back home. She's staying with some family, but needs to come back home to Virginia for her college classes starting up next month. Originally she had planned on hitchhiking cross country to make it back, but I can't let her do that.

Instead I'm trying to raise funds to furnish her with a plane ticket to bring her home safely.

If you can find the spare money please consider donating it to the cause of bringing a stranded girl home. The link below allows you to make a donation of any size to my paypal account, from there the money will be used to purchase a plane ticket. Plain and simple, no strings attatched.



In return for not having a writeup about one-drops this week, you can expect a double column next Friday.

Peace.

Jund Elves, a RRS variant

So as the name suggests this is a variation on Garrett's RRS build. If you haven't seen that list yet scroll down the page and check it out . Seriously, I'll wait
.............

*whistles*

*twiddles thumbs*

*day dreams*

blahblahblahblah....Oh you're back. So I assume that you get that the idea is to get a bunch (yes that is the technical term) of mana (primarily from Archie) and win by huge Banefire or some other such burn spell. Yes. Well. This deck does that only with the added bonus of seriously nasty aggro punch. Before I get into too much detail you should probably see the list

Jund Elves
************

Creatures: 18
----------------
3 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Imperious Perfect
4 Elvish Archdruid

Other Spells: 19
-----------------
4 Hunting Triad
3 Overrun
2 Banefire
3 Elvish Promenade
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Profane Command

Lands: 23
---------------
13 Forest
5 Mountain
5 Swamp

There you have it. This may not look like much at first glance but it is stanky fast. Like turn 3 Overrun fast (yes you are reading that correctly turn freakin' 3 =:o). This deck runs faster than a shock jock at an FCC convention. Two Elf Lords and a f--kton of Elf tokens is nasty on it's own. Couple that with the fact that one of the lords taps for G mana equal to the amount of elves you control and you end up with an incomprehensible response form you opponent that sounds something like this (although my spelling of this may be slightly askew) NHFDKJASTG;LKQDSRHN;QDLAN GVojgvbajdfdsgfn.DAKJFLADJNV.

I'll break down the card choices so as to better explain the deck.

Elvish Archdruid and Imperious Perfect are the two Elf lords that really make this deck nasty. Perfect really fits its name by making Elf tokens which turns into mana which is made by our good friend Archie. Archie really is the synergy builder in this deck picture this play if you will....T1 Forest, Llanowar Elves "Go". T2 Forest, Archie "Go". T3 Forest, Hunting Triad ==>3 Elf tokens, tap Archie ==> 5 G mana in pool, Heritage Druid 4 G mana in pool, Elvish Promenade ==> 6 Elf Tokens. T4 Overrun for the win. Now that's the long way, yes I said long way, lets look at the turn 3 Overrun draw....T1 Forest, Nettle Sentinel "Go". T2 Forest, Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, tap 3 Elves using the Heritage Druid's ability, Archie, untap the Senitnels, swing for 3 "Go". T3 Forest, Archie, Untap Sentinel, tap unsick Archie 5 G mana, Overrun, swing for 17.

Now both of those plays rely on the first 3 turns being a forest, so what happens when you don't open with a forest but with a hand like 2 Swamp, 2 Mountain, Lightning Bolt, Profane Command, Archie. Do you keep it? I say yes and here's why. you have 2 forms of spot removal and life kill with the command and bolt. Plus if you get screwed to the point that you have to discard you have a way to cheat archie into play via the command and one more land. Not too bad of a crap draw. Now that's not to say that every hand is keepable. A hand like: Mountian, Swamp, Llanowar Elves x2, Nettle Sentinel, Banefire, Archie, should probably be sent back and try again at six.

In testing I've gotten the T3 Overrun off twice in the six games this has seen play, so roughly 1/3 of time.

This deck is rather competitive and I think that if you were looking for a deck to run at FNM this week this would not be a bad choice.

As always Happy Building,
Ryan

That Number One Spot - 7/24/2009

Hello, and welcome to the first piece in a weekly series I'm calling “The Number One Spot” each week, I'll discuss a different card that runs with a converted mana cost of one. Why am I doing this? What's so special about little one drops? Why not talk about the cards that are currently massive bombs in standard. Well, at the end of the day you may win with those massive bombs, but it all comes down to the cards you play in your first few turns (primarily turn one) that let you drop those massive win cards. The one spot is the meat and potatoes of a deck list. If you don't run anything in it and your deck, much like a human body, isn't getting the protein and carbs it needs and is most likely lagging behind because of it. So as much as I love giving praise to those massive win cards, I have to show some love to the guys that let it happen. Here we go!

This week I would like to kick the series off by talking about a personal favorite. A little bugger printed at common in Eventide that has led me to the winning of numerous games, Nip Gwyllion. She may not look like much, but in the kind environment of a B/W life gain deck she can really put a hurting on someone. I've had games where I drop her turn one, turn two she gets an Edge of the Divinity (becoming a 4/4), and all of a sudden there's an eight point swing between life totals. You set this hag loose, maybe another one or two of her, and you have a very effective lifelinking force to be reckoned with.

And what bomb of a win card does she feed? The one and only Divinity of Pride! If you've dropped our little friend turn one, and even if you haven't given her an Edge or another lifelinking friend, then when it comes time to drop that Divinity of Pride you have a nice lifelinking 8/8 flier. How's that for a meat and potatoes one drop?

Even better, she doesn't have to run in just the B/W decks. Nip makes a great addition to the mono White life gain movement. Soul wardens help round out that deck, but now you can play some aggro in swinging with a Gwyllion that's carrying Holy Strength. She isn't quite as effective, but it gives you an attacker that can handle a Volcanic Fallout. The same goes for any deck involving Black and aggro, an Unholy Strength puts your nip up to the 3/2 mark where she can do some serious damage.

So keep this not-so-lovely lady in mind while she's still chilling in Standard, I promise you won't regret it.

A Piece of Flavor: Two Decks meet in every sense of the word.

While playing the game we sometimes wonder what it would look like if our actions were to play out exactly how our turns go. This is an example, a translation of the meeting between two of my decks. It's not as easy as it looks, as some play does not always transfer so well into reality. Or fantasy...whatever.

-----------------------------------------

He was confused, alone, and most of all scared. Seconds ago he was about to have the etherium ripped from his body. A punishment for the serious crime of hording Etherium for himself. On Esper, where etherium was invaluable, to horde any for yourself was punishable by death. But somehow he had escaped. The young man had felt the pull, had felt ethrium start to tear, and then something happened. Something in his head seemed to spark. There was a flash of light, and suddenly he was in strange world filled with the mana of what could've been countless Espers. But there was more, two more strands of mana he could not recognize or understand. Nothing in the Codex's could hope to explain this. He stumbled through this Blindness, thinking maybe this was death. He had died and this was his fate, but at that moment he felt something near him. It seemed to resemble Esper, but it had more to it. Whatever it was the man attached himself to it. He was afraid of his new fate, and wanted to just go back home. But he was unprepared for what he was about to see.

As he drew closer to the new world he could tell it truly was different, but in the swirling manahe cared not. Touching this world he was suddenly deposited into it. He fell a few feet before crunching onto soft ground. His etherium was strong, but he could feel it groan from the impact. Picking himself up he saw that he had fallen onto some kind of plantlike material. On Esper they only had these growing in small concentrated patches, but here it was all over. Standing up he realized he was on a hill, and these...plains, stretched out for as far as he could see. But there was no order, no control here. The plants seemed to grow as they pleased, a small dirt road wove it's way in and around the valleys and peaks of the numerous hills. Looking up he was shocked to see clouds. It wasn't really the clouds though, it was the disorder. They floated where they wanted; they had natural shapes, absolutely no touch of a crafting hand. Truly this was different from his home. Esper seemed so far away to him now.

"Haha! So the old woman was right! Glad to see you made it in one piece. Wouldn't want my catch to get away right?" A voice cried out from the bottom of the hill and the young man looked down. Below was a man that seemed about his age, he had short, cropped, blond hair. He wore leather armor on his chest and thighs, but actual greaves and gauntlets. He didn't seem to have any Etherium enhancements though, perhaps that was why he only wore metal on his flesh. The man also wore a large white cloak, but it did nothing to hide the two swords he wore at his waste. "Hey man, wake up! You there?!"

"Who are you? Where am I? And what do you want with me?" The traveler called back.

"Me? I'm no one, just a mercenary hired by some lunatics to do a job."

"Where am I?" he asked again.

"Not very charming I see," the mercenary mumbled, "This is Ahstar. A different plane from your own considering your highly confused look."

"Plane? I know not of which you speak. Who hired you? Was it the Seekers? I assure you I will not go down easily!"

The Esperite held up his hands, drawing on the mana of Esper. He felt the carefully crafted oceans, the sculpted islands, the detailed and maintained swamps and plains. Their energy slowly came back to him, even on this distant world.

"Oh no. No no no no no! I was hoping we could do this without a fight man. And I'm not from the Speakers, or whatever."

But the newly awakened walker was no longer listening. Drawing from his mana he felt the manaof his old home in come to him. It was a place where he could tap into all forms of mana. His sanctum.

The mercenary through off his cloak, watching the other draw mana, and began to do so himself. This world, ruled by white mana in every way, was his home. And he had bonded with much of it in his travels. He drew directly from the ground and prepared a summon. Unsure what the volatile Esperite might do, he would call on his armies, and hopefully be able to subdue the mage. As his hands glowed a portal seemed to open and from it a man walked out. His stature showed that he was skilled, he was a loner but he was elite. He looked to his summoner, nodded his head and looked at the opposing mage.

The Etherium clad man now drew from even more mana and summoned a small glass fiend. It was minuscule, no bigger than a hummingbird; shards of glass fell from it as it moved around. And it did move. It buzzed back and forth around his head, waiting for his attack. But he may not get the chance.

The merc had decided that the best idea was to take down his prey as fast as possible. The little summon did nothing to phase him and he had to act quickly. With a motion to his new ally, he sent him careening up the hill. The traveler barely had time to react, moving to the side as the soldier swung his sword down. It was just barely to slow a dodge and the Planeswalker felt the blade sink into his arm. It stung but it would heal. Looking up the Vanguard had returned to the side of his master.

He would have to pay this mercenary back for that. Once again, the Esper'walker summoned another creature. This one was one of the Seekers, a bounty hunter he had subdued and gained control of. As the Vedalken walked through the rift he looked around confused, and then took his place by the man's side. With him though came small shards of Etherium which attached themselves to the Fiend. It was then that the Walker ordered the attack. Buzzing high into the sky, the Fiend, now the size of a large bird dived at the mercenary. He had little time to throw up his guard and the creature collided into him. As it flew back to it's owner the merc attempted to draw more of his mana.

It was to no avail though and not wanting to lose a defender he waited for the Walker's next move. The Esperite smirked; this merc wasn't as tough as he had come off to be. And it was about to get a whole lot worse for him. Remember an old mentor of his he drew on that memory and attempted to recreate it. Another rift opened, and from it came one of the highest members of Esper Society. An Etherium Master. It was they that deigned who got Etherium and when. But they were seldom seen. As he came into this world he drew on the energy of the other etherium laced creatures around him and in turn they drew from him. As the fiend grew once again the Merc looked up and sighed. It seemed fate was unkind to him today, his mana had dried out, and he and his comrade were outnumbered.

As the merc watched the glass creature rise into the air he pulled mana from every source he knew. He didn't care that some may be dry, he pulled with all his might. As the mana gathered within him, he slowed his breathing, and looked straight at the man he was supposed to capture, "Well, this wasn't the plan. Don't think I've given up on you or anything. I'll be back buddy, you can count on that." And with a flash the man was gone.

The Esperite blinked, stunned at what had just happened. Was that it? Had he just won? Just like that? His allies looked around, just as stunned as him. They had been called here...for what? But the 'Walker really had no care for them. Right now he needed to figure out what was going on. Once he did that, once he had control back, he could move on. With a sweep of his hand he dispersed the magic tying the other Esperites to the plane. They looked ready to go back to their homes, but in an instant they shattered into a fine powder.

Ignoring their shocked cries, the Esperited started down the hill. "Lazarus Bezil Farice, this is your new start on life," he chuckled to himself, "Time to make it your own way."

*Post M10* G/W Overrun

Today we're going to talk about a deck that's been absolutely destroying the competitive magic scene lately, and then I'm going to talk about it's post M10 changes and things that you should think about when playing it and playing against it. First let's look at the pre-M10 list

Creatures

-------------------

4 Cloudgoat Ranger
3 Dauntless Escort
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Steward of Valeron
4 Wilt-Leaf Liege

Other Spells

-------------------

3 Path to Exile
3 Overrun
4 Spectral Procession
3 Ajani Goldmane

Land

-------------------

4 Brushland
4 Forest
4 Plains
4 Treetop Village
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Wooded Bastion

Sideboard

-------------------

3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
3 Cloudthresher
3 Guttural Response
3 Wrath of God
3 Pithing Needle

This deck took 2nd place at a PTQ for Austin in Minneapolis played by Corey Baumeister. I chose this version of the list because it's probably the best candidate for survival in our shiny new M10 standard. The basis of this deck is to drop a ton of creatures and then drop the namesake Overrun and crash for the win.

The new list is actually really close to this one with a few major changes. First the new list (my list to be specific)

Creatures

-------------------

4 Knight of Meadowgrain
3 Elite Vanguard
2 Master of the Wild Hunt
2 Captain of the Watch

Other Spells

-------------------

4 Fog
4 Spectral Procession
4 Rampant Growth
4 Harm's Way
3 Honor of the Pure
3 Ajani Goldmane
3 Overrun

Land

-------------------

10 Forest
10 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove

Sideboard

-------------------

4 Steward of Valeron
4 Path to Exile
3 Guttural Response
2 Mark of Asylum
2 Great Sable Stag

So the obvious changes are the number of creatures and the inclusion of Fog, Harm's Way, and Knight of Meadowgrain with the exclusion of Dauntless Escort, Noble, CGR, and the movement of Path and Steward to the board. With the lack of Wrath, Dauntless is a little less useful. Rampant Growth is filling in for Noble and Captain is just better than CGR. The strategy is still the same, however instead of having a large amount of creatures I use the awesome Captain of the Watch and the equally awesome Master of the Wild Hunt to produce a ton of tokens. This deck also utilizes the "wet dream draw" of Vanguard, Honor, Spectral, Ajani, Overrun. While this deck lacks in the area of hasty speed it makes up for in consistency, there really is no bad draw. Honestly, the worst topdeck in this strategy is Fog and in this aggro heavy standard Fog is a fantastic card.

T1: Plains, Elite Vanguard
T2: Sunpetal Grove, Honor of the Pure, crash into the red zone with Vanguard for 3
T3: Sunpetal Grove, Spectral Procession, crash for another 3
T4: Forest, Ajani Goldmane, pull a counter off Ajani, crash for 13
T5: land (it doesn't matter which), Overrun, pull a counter, crash for 29 with trample, give your opponent a box of tissues and a business card for a local therapist and report your win.

Happy Building,
Ryan

Alternative Win Conditions

Today we're going to discuss deck building, namely the requirements of fail-safe measures and alternative win conditions, for those times when you may just be getting screwed out of your main strategy.

Let's start by looking back for a second at last week's RRS deck list.

After some rigorous testing and modification I have finalized the list as follows

Creatures
-------------------
4 Devoted Druid
3 Druid of the Anima
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Feral Hydra
2 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Protean Hydra

Other Spells
-------------------
1 Coat of Arms
4 Banefire
4 Fireball
4 Fog
2 Overrun
1 Trace of Abundance

Land
-------------------
13 Forest
6 Mountain

Now you may be wondering, "Garrett, why would you drop sources of mana from a ramp deck?" and the answer is simple, two Forests and a Trace of Abundance add up to three mana which I can find elsewhere. In their place I have added a secondary win condition. The elves can now either be used to power an UBER-Banefire or on their own I have a huge elven beat-stick. A decent demonstration of this secondary condition follows. This is a situation I faced versus a Nemesis of Reason deck.

Life Totals: 20-20

My field: Druid of the Anima, 2x Elvish Archdruid, Elvish Visionary, Coat of Arms, Mountain, Forest with Trace of Abundance, 2x Forest

My Hand: Fireball, Fireball, Elvish Visionary

Opponent's Field: 3x Island, 2x Swamp, Memory Erosion

Opponent's Hand: 1 card

By this point I had been milled down to my last 8 cards, so I decided it would be best to stop waiting to ramp into 20 damage. My opponent sees me tap my elves and asks me why I'm not doing anything with the mana, and I proceed to explain that I'm not tapping them for mana, I'm swinging for lots. To this he responds with, "Ouch." And not thinking about the Fireball in my hand that could easily finish him off, I pass turn. That one card in his hand...Mind Funeral, I had exactly 4 land left in my deck, two of which were the last two cards. I lose because I misplayed.

It happens, but what I learned even with the loss is how much those little Elves can smack a person for on their own. It was with this thinking that I also replaced two of my Feral Hydras with their new Protean brethren. This gives me a new use for my Fireballs. I can now split one between my opponent and my own hydra, injuring my enemy and increasing the power of my own creature to lay down a hurting on the next turn.

I guess my point is that you should always have a back-up plan built into your deck, a panic button you can hit if your main win condition goes to shit. Don't have a Mountain or red source to drop a big Banefire? Swing for the fences with your Elven beat-stick instead. Your opponent Fireballing your Nemesis of Reason every time you play it? Drop a Traumatize/Haunting Echoes, he'll just draw land for the rest of the game. Just make sure you have some sort of alternate way of hurting your opponent, and make sure it can hurt just as bad as your main strategy (don't want them to think they're getting off easy).

As always, have fun out there, and don't make them cry too much,

Garrett

The Great Netdeck Debate

The word "netdeck" inspires a lot of different reactions for Magic players. Many players, while agreeing on the fact that they win, argue about whether or not it's okay to play a netdeck. For those of you who don't know what a netdeck is, a netdeck is a pro tour caliber deck that players will find on the internet (from sites like deckcheck.net or WotC's own Top Decks and Decks of the week articles) and then build and play with.

The argument focuses largely on the skill of the player of the netdeck, the fact that they did not build there deck, and the fact that the "homebrew"(a deck that on built without the help of the internet) player is being stomped into the ground by it. Now I put homebrew in quotes because, due to advancements in technology there truly is no homebrew deck in standard. Your deck may be slightly different than the deck that can be found on the 'net but one could easily argue that your deck can still be found online, making it a netdeck.

So the argument is really less "homebrew" vs. "netdeck", and more "tweaked deck" vs. "carbon copy"(a traditional netdeck). I will argue that a player who carbon copy's there deck is not as good a a player who will take a strategy and tweak it to make a deck their own, even though the carbon copy will more-than-likely win the match. I say this because the only skills that a carbon copy deck player truly need are to know how to play the deck, know what's in the deck, and to know how to shuffle and keep a poker face. There really is no creativity or room for improvement for the player who runs a carbon copy, where as someone who tweaks a deck (or builds what they think is a original deck) has room to learn their metagame and expand upon the strategy of their deck.

Oh and if you want to test my "there is no homebrew in standard" statement go search around sites that post netdecks. My personal site of choice is deckcheck.net.

Happy Building,
Ryan

Type 2- Speedball

Or maybe more than 2 a week? Now that's crazy!

Hey kids, like playing decks that make the game last painfully long or have tiny control oriented win conditions? Yeah, me neither. This being said, and me being the constant aggro player that I am, I designed Speedball, a red and green type 2 deck that utilizes the cascade mechanic as well as redundant loads of creatures with haste. Even with the impending death of control (post wrath) and the flourishing of other aggro decks, you'll almost always find yourself one step ahead of your opponent. Yeah, it's that fast. Here's the list.

Creatures
----------
4 Rip-Clan Crasher
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Hell's Thunder
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Blitz Hellion

Instants/Sorceries
----------
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Colossal Might
4 Violent Outburst

Lands
----------
4 Rootbound Crag
8 Forest
12 Mountain

This deck is FAST. Explosively FAST. FASTer than Sonic the Hedghog on a mixture of crystal meth and 5 Hour Energy Shots. The general idea is to drop creatures as quickly as possible and tear into your opponents life total. Cascade gives you HUGE amounts of card advantage and allows you to take the field long before your opponent even has his or her mana base set up. Bloodbraid Elf, a 3/2 haster herself, can cascade into Hell's Thunder, Violent Outburst, or even Boggart Ram-Gang, all powerful and efficient cards. Violent outburst gives you a more specific gamble, letting you get either Colossal Might, Hellspark Elemental, Lightning Bolt (which can either be used as removal or burn) or Rip-Clan Crasher. The best part is... EVERYTHING HAS HASTE! This means whatever creature you drop is a threat NOW, and unless your opponent has something to deal with it this second, it'll do its job. The only creature that cannot be cascaded into (not including other Bloodbraid Elves) is the Blitz Hellion, a massive 7/7 trample haster that disappears back into your library at the end of the turn. This gives you that extra push to win late in the game where most other aggro decks fall short.

Turn 1: Mountain, Lightning Bolt for 3
Turn 2: Rootbound Crag, Rip-Clan Crasher, attack for 2
Turn 3: Forest, Boggart Ram-Gang, attack for 5
Turn 4: Mountain, Bloodbraid Elf, Cascade into Violent Outburst, Cascade into Colossal Might, swing for 14.
Turn 5 (IF the person you're playing is alive): Forest, Blitz Hellion, swing for 15.

Now thats the best case scenario for turn 4, but remember you can cascade into Hellspark Elemental, Hell's Thunder, Boggart Ram-Gang, or any other multitude of extremely useful cards.

Oh, and be polite to your adversary... after you finish kicking them in the teeth.

Type 2 - Burst of Dragons

Or maybe more than one a week eh?

This deck comes from a need than has no been solved by a few cards in M10. Seems it's been doing that a lot lately. If you've ever played with Sarkhan you know it's always fun when Sarkhan throws up his hands, screams like a banshee at the top of his lungs, and 5 ferocious, violent, angry, sleep-deprived dragons come careening out of the sky. However, you would also know that your planeswalking advesaries hate it when this happens so they'll throw all their forces and resources at your poor little ally. And then, even if the summoning goes off without a hitch, those little dragons have to sit there for a turn, flying around all sick and what not. It's sad, and it gives your opponents the chance to pull something out of their bag of tricks.

But not anymore. Sarkhan no longer has to bid goodbye and let the dragons do nothing. As he goes, watch as a shock of lightning turbocharges the dragons, sending a flying air force straight at the enemy.

Enough of my ranting, here's the deck.

|| Creatures ||

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Ceradon Yearling
4 Ripclan Crasher
4 Bloodbraid Elf

|| Other Spells ||
4 Sarkhan Vol
4 Burst of Speed
4 Nature's Spiral
4 Fog
2 Angelsong
2 Trace of Abundance
2 Trumpet Blast

|| Lands ||
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Sunpetal Grove
2 Jungle Shrine
6 Forests
5 Mountains
5 Plains

The idea is simple. Ramp fast. Sarkhan pops out some dragons. Burst of Speed hastes them, and 20 damage swings in the air. Early blockers you say? What about them hitting Sarkhan? Our little Yearling is a good friend for that. Swing away and all the while he stays to protect our friend. What if they burn Sarkhan? Nature's Spiral pops him back into your hand. Perfect.

Another nifty combo? Pop off Sarkhan's ultimate. Nature's Spiral brings him back, pop into play again, and +1 for 25 in the air.

Turn 1: Forest, Birds of Paradise

Turn 2: Mountain, Birds of Paradise, Ceradon Yearling. 2.

Turn 3: Rootbound Crag, Sarkhan Vol, +1 = 5. 3.

Turn 4: Forest, Bloodbraid Elf --->> Ripclan Crasher, SV +1 = 6. 10.

Turn 5: SV -6 = 0, Nature's Spiral, Sarkhan Vol, +1 = 5. 25 in the air, 10 on the ground.

Better hope you saved that Fog. All four of them. For the next few turns. And more.

"Oh shit Dragons! Wow, at least they can't attack--"

"HASTE!!!!!!!!!"

Type 2 - RRS

Every week or so we'll be discussing a deck we have compiled for Standard play (primarily at FNM).

This weeks deck uses some new tricks from Magic 2010. I call it RRS, short for ramprampSURPRISE.

Creatures
-------------------
4 Devoted Druid
3 Druid of the Anima
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Feral Hydra
2 Imperious Perfect
4 Llanowar Elves

Other Spells
-------------------
4 Banefire
4 Fireball
4 Fog
2 Trace of Abundance

Land
-------------------
15 Forest
6 Mountain

The idea behind RRS is to build up your mana base so quickly that the Banefire you cast on turn 5 or turn 6: A) Cannot be countered and B) knocks them from 20 to 10 or less in one fell swoop.

To do this we employ the aid of our new friend, Elvish Archdruid. Archie's a nice guy, comes out onto the Battlefield and inspires all of your Elves to be just a little more powerful, moving them just a little closer to being out of range of Volcanic Fallout. He's even kind enough to provide you with copious amounts of mana, so long as you stay loyal to his tribe. So you mix our buddy Archie with all of his posse and you get a really big explosion. And when I say big, I mean 17 damage turn 5 on a decent draw.

Turn:

1- Forest, Llanowar Elves
2- Forest, Elvish Archdruid
3- Forest, Devoted Druid, Druid of the Anima
4- Mountain, Elvish Archdruid
5- Banefire for 17
6- Kick opponent in groin region and tell them to go home, Fireball for 16

First Glance-Drafting Magic 2010

The new core set is upon us! With release only a week away that means that this weeks FNM consisted of a pre-release draft.

This event was my first actual draft tournament...ever. I made my first mistake of the night at the very beginning. Pack 1 consisted of various cards, but the first pick came down to being Lurking Predators or Mold Adder. Not thinking about how it would play in Limited, but rather considering it's playability in Constructed I chose the Lurking Predators. From there I went on to grab some big creatures (two each of Enormous Baloth and Craw Wurm). Then to ramp up quickly to play my initial pick I grabbed three Llanowar Elves. After that it was all about defending myself, two copies of fog, followed by a series of blue spells (Negate, Essence Scatter, Cancel, Unsummon, etc).

Lesson learned: never draft enemy colors in the new core set.

This combination ran me straight to a 1-4 record, finishing 29 out of 30. It seemed like most of the better decks were running the new soldiers. In particular, I saw quite a few Veteran Armorsmiths and Veteran Swordsmiths combined with Elite Vanguards. Add in Holy Strength and Lifelink and you get really big creatures really fast.

Another card that I enjoyed seeing as it proceeded to beat me to a bloody pulp was a little 3 CMC (1BB) 2/2 appropriately named Dread Wizard. And believe me, I dreaded every second of that creature being on the battlefield. Y'see the good wizard cannot be blocked by anything except a black creature. So bring him out, and one of his friends, slap on a Gorgon Flail and an Unholy Strength and you find yourself staring down the barrel of a very big gun.

All of those cards were great to see working, but I must say that I was most impressed by a little number in blue called Sleep. Hello Naya Charm that leaves your opponent's creatures tapped for an extra turn, leaving you the perfect opening to smack them in the face with a 7/7 beast-twice. At uncommon it's almost too good to be true, and I dare say that Sleep is currently my favorite card in all of the new core set.

I cannot wait to get a hold of some more Magic 2010 boosters and really dig into playing with all the new toys which R/D was kind enough to give us. Seeing how it's going to change my game in Standard is exciting, let's hope for the best! Deck list of fail to follow.

50 Cards

Creatures
--------------
2x Enormous Baloth
2x Craw Wurm1x Elvish Visionary
1x Runeclaw Bear
3x Llanowar Elves
1x Mist Leopard
1x Horned Turtle
2x Zephyr Sprite
1x Wall of Frost

Other Spells
--------------
1x Lurking Predators
2x Fog
1x Naturalize
1x Bountiful Harvest
3x Rampant Growth
2x Divination
2x Tome Scour
1x Essence Scatter
2x Negate
1x Jump
1x Cancel
1x Ponder
1x Unsummon
1x Sleep
1x Whispersilk Cloak

Land
--------------
8x Forest
7x Island

Playing the Game, from beginner to competer.

So I've gone through a few drafts of this. Not sure what exactly I wanted to write. At first it was about deckbuilding. Now I've chosen to write about how I repicked up the game, and actually got better.

To tell you about picking the game back up, it stands to reason I should talk about dropping the game. As a young teenager I was easily persuaded. A friend of mine, one that had a big impact on my life was a Magic player. Not anything like I am now, but a casual one. He had a mean Sliver deck back in Type 1, but as far as I know he wasn't into the whole FNM scene. From there I slowly got into it. This was back during when...well I guess Mirridon was in standard, and Kamigawa was just being released. Now I was just a punk 14 year old so I didn't know what Standard was, the real nuances of deck building, or anything about magic other than basic rules.

So, I got by on prebuilt decks, playing my friends here and there. I loved the flavor, the worlds were great, the ideas fantastic. Eventually though, I kind of just lost interest. So, it all got packed away in this big ass backpack, oh wait. You know what? I think I got a girlfriend. Around that age...it was my first so I dropped Magic and picked up her. Well...that was awhile ago. Now though. Let's see, it was around winter break of my first year of college. My friend was over, one you might come to know as The Man in Black if anyone will read these damn things, and we were drinking. Underage! Yes I know! Omg!

Anyway, drinking, Magic right. On a whim we wanted to play Magic and I thought, hey, I have those old cards in storage. So we scoped it out and no dice. Nothing but no reception and a wooden sword. So we did the next best thing. Went to the closest place that sold them we could find, grabbed a couple of these new fangled Shards of Alara Intro Packs, but together some nice little decks. And duked it out. For future reference, it sucked. Some intro packs, even if you add a few cards just end up losing. Hardcore. They aren't meant for any real play. Needless to say Intro Bant beat Intro Jund 2 out of 3 times. Then again, we were both just getting back into it, hadn't really had a feel for it yet. And we were boozing.

From there, Black went back to WV and got Garrett and another friend to play some. Garrett picked up some new cards, broke out his others, and mostly kicked their asses. Eventually we all reconvined back at Shepherd and started playing. We got more cards, learned the rules and figured each other out. Rather quickly our group of players expanded. Our friends picked it up, and we had a right old circle of players. We never tried anything competitive, just playing each other, getting pissed and moving on.

Our first experience, well, at least I know mine, in tourney play was at the Sealed Constructed Conflux Prerelease. And I did rather well. my two partners in crime, Garrett and Ben, not so much.

After that there wasn't a whole lot of play outside of our circle. Near the end of the year though we branched out again. This time, Black, Chris and I made our way over to FNM. I brought my rather fun Esper deck and did halfway bad. I won agaisnt other....thrown together decks, but lost to the real players. The ones that actually went there with good decks to win.

So I revised my strategy. Garrett had started doing it and it was time for the rest of us. With cards in hand I built decks around strategies. Not just cards I liked, but cards that actually worked together. The second deck that I brought, Devour, did horrible. Compeletely horrible. And from there I just stopped. It made me sad. u_u

Except Alara Reborn, went to that Prerelease, and again, did rather well with the Sealed Constructed.

As we went home I stopped playing, kinda had to. No one was here to play with. But then Black pointed out a deck online. One that had made Top 8. And it is was Esper. I have a thing for Esper. >> She's like my jelly on the side. Anyway, I made the deck, and brought it to FNM. It was an odd experience, playing with a deck that was meant to win. And win it did. I only had trouble with a few decks. And it made me rather happy.

So then I realized that for competitive play, one must follow certain rules in deckbuilding. And now I have a few decks in the works. One of which you've seen.

Well, this was my first blog with ECM that wasn't a decklist. It was sloppy, it was...not...neat. But it tells my history of how I got to this point in playing. I still intend to right that piece on effective deck building but right now fuck off.

Magic 2010 - The Ever Feared Rules Change

"As humans we have this uncanny ability to adapt to situations and surroundings. Rules change isn't that bad. Also, we have thumbs."

I tweeted that a few weeks back after seeing all of the complaints about the rules changes that are coming along with the new MtG core set. The game of Magic may as well be a living being, with it's thousands of cards to choose from, and as such it is assumed that such a being will evolve. Every game evolves: hockey had a rules change after the NHL strike, golf, rugby, basketball-all of these sports have a new rulebook printed annually or biannually to account for evolving games.

I know the changes seem fairly drastic, but I think for the game to continue to thrive and grow they are necessary. So your Mogg Fanatic isn't quite as useful in combat as it once was? Find a new trick. In my opinion the rules change is going to affect strategic thinking, a lot of old tricks aren't quite as tricky as they once were. People are going to have to think of new moves, break the old routine. That's not such a bad thing really, it helps keep the game fresh.

The change also simplifies things like Deathtouch and Lifelink, making it easier for new players to learn the game. New players also aid in keeping things fresh, new faces on the scene, new opponents across the table from you at FNM or the next PTQ, or new friends in you casual group. Magic can be a very social thing, and I think the social experience plus simple rules is what will keep drawing in new players.

To those who keep saying you're done with the game because of the rules change see the first statement of this entry. In addition, if you really are done, great! That's one less player in between me and a shot at Worlds! Except for the whole thing of you being replaced by the new faces I spoke of. Most of which will probably beat me down when we sit at that table.