Out with the Old

Hey, so it's a new Standard year. Goodbye Innistrad, hello Theros. Woo! Actually I'm not that excited about it. But hopefully, the metagame shifts away from the "shades of aggro/midrange" format that it was last year.

Anyway, before I dump all the boring "tournament log" crap, I thought I'd reflect a little on last year's Standard. So I thought I'd compile a list of highlights from Innistrad/Return to Ravnica Standard.

Naming ... ?

1. Cavern of Souls
I'm going to miss this card for one reason only: naming stupid creature types when I don't need it for colored mana or uncounterable creatures. Some of my favorite creature types I've named: Badger, Eye, Sand, Homunculus, Lhurgoyf, Advisor. Okay, that last one was legit for Obzedat, but still... Advisor. I think I named Camarid and Atog at some point too. At least I hope I named Camarid at some point. I mean come on. Lobster people. I wanted to name God, but the judge wouldn't let me. :(

On the other hand, I'm not going to miss how it basically pushed Control out of the metagame. Granted, it wasn't just this card, but that was a big part of it.

This is why we can't have nice things.

2. Snapcaster Mage
This is probably the real reason Control wasn't a big part of the metagame. R&D realized they messed up with this card, and it warped the development of the next year and a half's worth of sets just to keep Standard from becoming a mono-Snapcaster format. This card is why we didn't get a Lightning Helix reprint, or a decent two-mana counterspell. What's the saying, "This is why we can't have nice things"?

On the other hand, I love playing with the card. It was a great utility in my old Esper Control deck (from Scars/Innistrad Standard), flashing back Mana Leak and Tragic Slip with aplomb. It was great when pumped up by Elesh Norn too. Anyway, yeah, so even though there weren't nearly as many great spells to flash back, it was still a great enabler for the few Control decks that were viable. At least there's still Modern. And maybe Legacy someday, too.

BarfYourHand.dec

3. Champion of the Parish
Okay, I just singled this one out, but really it was the kind of deck that it enabled. Namely, the Naya Humans/Blitz deck. Champion into doubple Burning-Tree Emissary and Lightning Mauler, attack for a million on turn two. Ugh. Why couldn't there have been a Pyroclasm or Slagstorm in the format? R&D claims that there's a significant subset of players who hate it when they can't play Magic because of things like counterspells and land destruction. What about dying on turn 3-4 because you can't beat their nut draw? I guess that's okay?

Anyway, Champion is gone, as are some of the better aggressive early drops. Aggro is definitely still a thing so far, but it's more like turn 4-5 than turn 3-4. So that's enough time to dig for an answer.

<3

4. Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
This is one of my all time favorite overall cards. Almost everything is perfect about this card. Utility, artwork, flavor, power, fun. I'm just sad that, due to the aforementioned rise of Aggro, this card got pushed out of the format. I'm also sad that her character didn't seem to "test" that well in Wizards' market research, making it less likely that we'll see her again. :(

Laughing out loud.

5. Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded.
One of my main regrets about the waning days of Standard was not playing a Tibalt deck. I had to settle for jamming him as a two-of in the sideboard of my Blood Baron deck. I'll have to settle for playing him in a janky Casual and/or Commander deck.

Honorable mentions: Thragtusk, Rhox Faithmender, Restoration Angel, Sorin, Spider Spawning/Splinterfright, Unburial Rites.

So, Theros!

When they started previewing the set, I was pretty excited. I loved the artwork, the flavor seemed spot-on, and I was intrigued by the hero tropes. But now that I've seen the whole thing and played with it some, I gotta say, I'm not terribly impressed. It's a good, well-done set, but it doesn't really excite me. The Greek thing seems so obvious, that it doesn't really feel uniquely Magic. Oh yeah, gods. Guys with Trojan helmets. Hermes sandals. There's even a Trojan Horse. Granted, I love the Trojan Horse card, but it's perhaps a bit too obvious. I hope they do more with this block to make it more uniquely Theros rather than "carbon copy of Greek mythology." I'm much more interested in some of the stories and characters and the whole Nyx thing than playing "spot the trope."

Well, I guess it's time for tournament reports? So, for the first time in a long time, I didn't play a midnight prerelease. I got done judging at FNM and I was like, I'm tired. I'm gonna go home and play in the morning one. So I did. And I'm glad I did. Less driving, more sleeping. I was a bit tired by the end of the day Saturday, though, since I head-judged the evening prerelease. So that was about 12 hours at the store. Long day. But very rewarding.

Playing the first one was a lot of fun, I will admit. I chose the Path of Wisdom, and opened a ton of good-looking blue stuff. I wanted to pair it with red for some powerful-looking stuff, including Purphoros, but I took a look at the resulting mana curve, and it was awful. So I went with white, which seemed less powerful, but had a better, more consistent mana curve. I ended up doing more stuff with Heroic and Bestow, which was a lot of fun. I had the rare doubple-striking Heroic guy, which was pretty much always game-over when I landed him and stuck a Nymph on him. I noticed it played out a lot like that. Building up and doing battle with giant jacked-up Voltron-esque heroes. Even the most random 1/1 flier can become a dangerous threat with enough Nymphs on it. So I had fun, but my win-loss record didn't reflect that. I went 1-3. But every match went to three games, and they were all lots of back-and-forth fun.

Judge duty at the later prerelease was fun, too. I had a judgling to help me out, which was nice. I could run to the bathroom, and he handled random questions very well. A lot of it was very routine, but a couple of interesting things came up. One guy had a question about casting a Flash creature with Bestow (short answer: yes, that works). And another guy had a question about how trample interacts with a "can block additional creatures" ability. The latter was actually more complex than we originally thought, and I actually had to look up the rule for Trample to verify that my intuition was correct. But other than that, it was pretty straight forward. Just very full and very busy. But good busy. I took a moment at one point and just looked around the room, and I saw two guys finishing up a match. They were both all smiles, and they shook hands. And I got a little warm fuzzy. I love watching players at my events smiling and having fun. Good stuff. :)

So, Standard! I'm not really sure what to make of it so far, except that it seems to be pretty typical so far. There's Aggro, there's Control, and there's Midrange. It seems to be skewed towards Control right now, because Supreme Verdict and Sphinx's Revelation are really good. I wanted to play Control, but after judging at FNM last week, and seeing a quarter of the room playing it, I decided to try something different. I thought about making a mono-blue Master of Waves deck, but the deck I sketched out folded hard to mono-red. So I just tweaked my Blood Baron deck, swapping out the manabase, removal suite, and a few threats. Out with old, in with the ... old. :/

Anyway, this is what I ran, give or take a few cards:

4 Blood Crypt
4 Godless Shrine
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Temple of Silence
3 Temple of Triumph
1 Rakdos Guildgate
3 Mountain
3 Plains

1 Chained to the Rocks
3 Magma Jet
3 Lightning Strike
3 Mizzium Mortars
2 Dreadbore
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Hero's Downfall
4 Warleader's Helix

1 Rakdos Keyrune
1 Orzhov Keyrune
1 Whip of Erebos

4 Boros Reckoner
1 Sin Collector
2 Desecration Demon
4 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Sideboard:
2 Wear // Tear
2 Pithing Needle
2 Underworld Connections
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Sin Collector
2 Thoughtseize
2 Assemble the Legion

Here's how it went:

Okay, this is making me feel kind of uncomfortable.

Round 1: vs. U/W/r "Nightmare". I want to build a deck kinda like this. It seemed to be built around Ashiok and Nightveil Specter. You know, stealing my stuff. And it had some control elements, too (i.e., counterspells). But mostly Ashiok'ing and Specter'ing me. So here's my Pro Play of the Night: He's got a Specter out, and I play a Temple of Triumph and see a Blood Baron. I think, Yes, that card's awesome! Then I pass turn, and he goes to attack, and my heart sinks. Two turns later, I'm scooping to my own Blood Baron. :( Anyway, I won one of the three games mostly due to him getting horribly mana screwed, but it was lots of fun. Ashiok came down turn three one game and immediately flipped over two Blood Barons. That was uncomfortable, and that was kinda cool. :) Loss, 1-2. Record: 0-1.

Game over.

Round 2: vs. Esper Control. I love playing against this guy. He always seems like he's in a good mood, and he seems to share my affinity for slightly-odd decks. In the past, I've seen him play Junk Pod (when everyone else was running some other permutation), and a weird Sun-Titan-fueled Enchantment deck. Well this time he was playing a pretty typical Esper Control deck, but he was rocking Trading Posts and Prophetic Prisms, so props for that. But ultimately it was just a solid control game that did me in. It was a typical game of me playing threats, him removing them, and eventually using Sphinx's Revelation to pull ahead. Game two, I was able to disrupt him somewhat, but I couldn't keep any pressure on him, and he eventually pulled away. I don't know what to do about this matchup. It seems miserable. Loss, 0-2. Record: 0-2.

Round 3: Bye. Someone dropped, and I got the bye. So I flopped down disappointed and went to talk to my L2 judge buddy. But he didn't seem very social, so I ended up just dropping, feeling bored and not wanting to wait another half an hour to play.

Well, that wasn't very exciting. But I learned a few things:

* Whip is cute with its interaction with Obzedat, but highly unnecessary. My round 2 opponent suggested Hammer of Purphoros, and I agree with him. It gives my doodz haste, which is awesome with a Blood Baron out, and it gives me something to do with extra lands.
* I remembered another card I wanted to put in the deck: Read the Bones. Losing two life might be painful, but it's better than not having cards. Maybe I'd side them out against Aggro.
* Orzhov Keyrune should be another Rakdos Keyrun. Better body, better threat.
* I really miss some of the better 3- and 4-drops, like Vampire Nighthawk, Sorin, and Olivia. Replacing 7 good threats with 3 so-so threats seems suboptimal. I thought about maybe running Fiendslayer Paladin as another three-drop.
* I didn't feel like I needed Lifebane Zombie at all, but if more G/W starts popping up, I'll pick up a couple-three.
* Chained to the Rocks was pretty sweet. I only used it once, but I nabbed a Thassa with it. I might consider adding another one.
* I can probably cut down on the number of burn spells. I'm torn between Magma Jet and Thunder Strike. I love (love) the scry on Magma Jet, but sometimes that extra point is nice (it took down a Nightveil Specter, for example). I think for now, two damage is probably fine, so maybe I'll cut the Strikes.
* Not unexpectedly, the scry-lands weren't terrible. Most of the time, I didn't really need the mana the turn I played them, and the scry was perfect for smoothing out my draws. I think 2-3 of each is about the right number. I think playing with the shocklands in Standard, and knowing when to play them tapped or untapped, has mentally prepared me for planning out my land drops accordingly.
* Along those lines, the mana base wasn't quite as fragile as I was expecting. Oddly enough, playing with basic lands felt good. Comforting, liberating. When I needed to play a land and tap it that turn, I was able to do so. It'll be nice to turn that Rakdos Guildgate and maybe a basic Plains into a Temples of [red/black flavor word].

So yeah, I still like the deck. I have a few things I can work on. But I'm already looking at the next thing I wanna try out: U/W Waves. Stay tuned ... ?

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for reading. :)