Adrenaline, Drafting MtG, and You

The scenario: You've joined an M10 Draft Queue on MtGO and after filling up quickly it's fired. You're in the hang time between the draft starting and the first pack being opened. Suddenly it appears, you see a crap rare and an Air Elemental, and you quickly grab the Elemental, and it's onto the next pack. Wait, what else was in that pack again?

You don't know. You looked, but you didn't really see the cards.

What just happened?

Let's break it down.

Between the queue firing and the first pack opening your brain engages in a classic adrenaline-flood experience. This is an automatic response that cannot be controlled (and, incidentally, is one of the defining features of why drafting is so fun and addictive - an article for another time). As your blood pressure, blood flow and heart rate increase, your pupils dilate, and most importantly blood shifts away from the frontal lobes of your brain to your motor cortex.

This has several effects on your thought process.

(1) You can't think straight. For about the first 30 seconds or so your ability to make value judgements is gone. You will act on a combination of instinct and learnt behaviour from prior experiences.

(2) Your ability to long-term plan is impaired. The flight-or-fight instinct is nature's short term solution, you either survive or you don't. It doesn't care what's going to happen in an hour’s time.

(3) The effects of emotion on your decision-making process are increased. As it has been put, you have a need to do something, anything, immediately. Unfortunately, because of (1) and (2), your snap decision may not always be the right thing to do.

Here are some hypothetical examples of each.

(1) Your first pick was an easy choice, Captain of the Watch (letting a Blinding Mage go), and your second pick a Rhox Pikemaster (letting a Pacifism go). The third pick appears, and there's an Air Elemental, a Doom Blade, and a single white card, Stormfront Pegasus. Having had a lot of success with Air Elemental in the past you grab it, and end up with a rather clunky deck with a lot of double-coloured casting cost cards, while the person to your left drafts a fast white-weenie rush deck and the person to your left crafts a nice counter-blue skies deck.

(2) The pack opens and immediately see a crap rare, a Sierra Angel and an Air Elemental. Your experience is that Sierra Angel is the stronger flyer so you immediately pick it. However, you have ignored that the pack also has a Blinding Mage, a Pacifism, and no other blue cards. You missed the chance to send a clear signal to your neighbour, who will still likely go white, and also missed the chance to own all the blue in Pack 2. You end up drafting a White/Red deck with only one solid white card, the Sierra Angel.

(3) You open Pack Three and see a Great Sable Stag and a Tendrils of Corruption. You've drafted black so far, but that Stag is staring you in the face. You don't own any yet, and you really want a playset, and, hey, it's counter-drafting anyway, right? So you pick it. The Tendrils does not wheel, you don't end up playing the Stag, and you lose in the first game when the Tendrils could have got you there.

None of these decisions are entirely conscious, and not always the worst decision you could make, but they are judgement impaired decisions due to the adrenaline in your system and blood flowing out of your frontal lobes.

So what to do about it?

* Firstly, you can try to prevent it. Doing some sort of activity, such as light exercise, can get the initial adrenaline rush over with before the draft starts, thereby freeing your mind for when it’s needed.

* Secondly, the effect is pretty short. Depending on your “high”, the initial thought dampening will last around thirty seconds, with the total effect gone in around five minutes. You can speed this up by moving your arms and legs to get your blood flowing again.

* Thirdly, slow down, give yourself time. Do not make a first-pick within the first 30 seconds of the draft. Let your brain get over the initial flow of adrenaline and the flight-or-fight instinct wear off. Then you’ll be able to get back into rational decision-making mode.

* Lastly, talk out loud to yourself. I know that sounds weird, but it will re-engage your brain. Force yourself to reason out loud about why you are going to pick a particular card, including its advantages, disadvantages and what card in the pack is likely to wheel back to you. This forces your brain to logically step through why a card is good enough to choose, and if it sounds wrong when spoken out loud, take it as a warning sign that the pick may be wrong.

In summary, be aware of the tricks your body will pull on you, slow down, give your brain a chance to start thinking again, and then draft away.

Labels: mtgo, theory

So I thought I'd writeup a small walk-through of the single best combo in the current Magic the Gathering Standard format.

Combo Pieces:

Mirror of Fate
Immortal Coil
Colfenor's Plans
Platinum Angel

Support Pieces:

Anything that kills things (Doom Blade, Infest, Tendrils of Corruption]
Draw Spells [eg. Sign in Blood]
Discard Spells [eg. Mind Shatter, cyclers]

Win Condition:

That's your choice. The combo itself doesn't win you the game, just makes sure you have the cards to win the game. I recommend going for something fancy like Dread Warlock.

---***---

First let's look at the cards:

Mirror of Fate [5]

Tap, Sacrifice Mirror of Fate: Choose up to seven face-up exiled cards you own. Exile all the cards from your library, then put the chosen cards on top of your library.

Immortal Coil [2BB]

Tap, Exile two cards from your graveyard: Draw a card.
If damage would be dealt to you, prevent that damage. Exile a card from your graveyard for each 1 damage prevented this way.
When there are no cards in your graveyard, you lose the game.

Colfenor's Plans [2BB]

When Colfenor's Plans enters the battlefield, exile the top seven cards of your library face down.
You may look at and play cards exiled with Colfenor's Plans.
Skip your draw step.
You can't cast more than one spell each turn.

Platinum Angel [7]

You can't lose the game and your opponents can't win the game.

---***---

With that in mind, here's the combo.


Phase 1a: Filling your graveyard.

This can be done in a variety of ways. Probably the best way is to be killing your opponent's things in order to keep yourself alive. Or, you could dump your hand into the graveyard with Mind Shatter, or cycling it away. Or Rotting Rats. The main thing is to make sure you get at least one Mirror of Fate, plus your win condition, into the graveyard.

Phase 1b: Protecting Your Life

It's very important at this point to start protecting your life. This is why you cast Platinum Angel as soon as possible, in between the killing and the discarding and suchlike. Platinum Angel will protect you from losing to the Immortal Coil and the lack of library after Mirror of Fate.

Phase 2a: Crafting the Perfect Hand

With Immotal Coil and Platinum Angel in play, you can now essentially start filling up your Exiled zone without fear of dying. The important thing is to get your win condition (whatever it may be) plus a Mirror of Fate into the exiled zone so you can really start comboing out. You can either do this using the Mirror of Fate's drawing engine, or using Sign in Blood to draw two cards and Exile two others from your Graveyard.

Phase 2b: Setting off the combo

With Coil out, your life protected by Immortal Coil, and the Immortal Coil lose condition protected by Platinum Angel, it's now time to trigger the Mirror of Fate. You can essentially sacrifice the Mirror, and then put your win conditions from Exile onto your library. Note, that you can even use the Immortal Coil in response to saccing the Mirror of Fate in order to re-Exile the Mirror of Fate from the graveyard, allowing it to be one of your seven cards you then return to your library.

Phase 3: Pulling everything into your hand

With the seven cards in your library and everything else Exiled, you then cast Colfenor's Plans, drawing the exact seven cards you want. Either you can go off the next turn, or you can cast the Mirror of Fate again and get the next seven cards you want. Note you will want some sort of enchantment killer to kill the Colfenor's Plans, sending it to the graveyard, then you can Exile it with Immortal Coil and return it with the Mirror of Fate.

---***---

And there you go. For a mere 20 mana across four cards you have created the worlds best card drawing engine ever. Full stop. No questions allowed.

Also, if you ever pull this off, I will have your babies.

Played against a Naya Planeswalker deck that is totally degenerate. The main deck looks approximately like this:

4 Rampant Growth
4 Trace of Abundance

4 Firespout [or Volcanic Fallout depending on your metagame]

4 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Ajani Vengeant
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

2 Chandra Nalaar
3 Baneslayer Angel
3 Hallowed Burial

3 Enlisted Wurm
2 Realm Razer

3 Rugged Prairie
4 Jungle Shrine
4 Vivid Grove
3 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Reflecting Pool
3 Wooded Bastion
1 Plains
2 Forest
1 Mountain

It basically works on the Flores tap-out theory that nothing your opponent can play is better than you tapping out for your best card - and that's pretty much right. It simply runs the single best cards available in any colour [Ajani, Garruk, Baneslayer, Enlisted Wurm], backed with some game-ending bombs that clear the way for your Planeswalkers [Firespout, Hallowed Burial, Realm Razer].

It is disgustingly good. Try playing it before its manabase rotates out of standard.

I've been playing and refining the UW Artifact Control deck I posted a little while ago. Here's the current build. It feels a little bit merfolk, and there's a lot of commonality between the two. But unlike the fishmen, the esper creatures will be around post block rotation.

I've noted below just how many cards will rotate with the block rotation - and it's really not that many. Unfortunately, it's just about all of the counterspell suite, and I'm not sure what to replace it with yet.

Here's the deck:

UW Artifact Control

[Artifact Creatures - 20]

4 Court Homunculus
4 Esper Stormblade
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Ethersworn Shieldmage
4 Master of Etherium

[Instants - 13]

2 Path to Exile
4 Harm's Way
3 Sage's Dousing [Rotates in Oct]
4 Cryptic Command [Rotates in Oct]

[Artifacts - 4]

4 Fieldmist Borderpost

[Planeswalkers - 3]

1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Jace Beleren

[Lands - 20]

4 Glacial Fortress
4 Mystic Gate [Rotates in Oct]
3 Gargoyle Castle
5 Plains
4 Island

Sideboard

4 Silence
4 Vedalken Outlander
4 Sleep
2 Pithing Needle
1 Open the Vaults

Some features of the main deck:

* Ethersworn Canonist: Just a beating against anything playing Cascade, and so perfect in the current metagame. It also makes your counterspells that much better, as countering just one spell shuts your opponent down for the turn. If you bring in the Silences, your opponent has virtually no comeback, as countering the Silence still means they can't play spells that turn (excepting, of course, instants on the Silence-stack).

* Ethersworn Shieldmage: A fantastic card that protects against red sweepers and can act as a surprise blocker. He also does wonderful things with your opponents clock maths. I've won several games flashing him in at the end of my opponent's turn, playing a Master of Etherium and taking the game with that extra three points of damage.

* Harm's Way: Please, please do not underestimate this card. For one mana my Gargoyle Castles can now tangle with a Baneslayer Angel, or surprise-kill a Garruk with its own token, or enable a three-for-one when holding back blockers. Wonderful against Volcanic Fallout, it turns your guys from getting swept to four-damage against your opponent.

* Sage's Dousing: You may not realise it, but the Esper Stormblade, Ethersworn Shieldmage and Master of Etherium are all Wizards.

* Gargoyle Castle: Fanastic against decks that use dedicated sweepers, it avoids Firespout and Volcanic Fallout while in play, and can be held back to avoid a Hallowed burial. It's also an artifact so it gets protected by Ethersworn Shieldmage and buffed by the Master of Etherium. Until I played against a Planeswalker-Naya deck I didn't give the Castle enough credit. Now I do. Incidently, that game my opponent was forced to play two firespouts to kill the Gargoyle. On the second I flashed in a Shieldmage and immediately won the concession.

* Planeswalker Tag-Team: The three planeswalkers work so well together. Ajani is almost exclusively used for his second ability. Tezzeret will sometimes seek and sometimes untap. Jace is the draw engine to make sure you hit your counterspell suite.

Some features of the sideboard:

* Silence: To be boarded in against any kind of mana-ramp deck. If they can't get their mana-engine going then you can't lose.

* Sleep: Boarded in against any big-beast deck. Between 4 x Cryptic Command and 4 x Sleep they will never, ever get an attack step.

* Pithing Needle: Great against a lot of decks, especially those packing Planeswalkers or Putrid Leech.

* Open the Vaults: If you're really, really nervous about a board sweeper, this can really push you ahead once you've been hit and seem behind.

In playing the most common death has been due to a single card - Firespout. If you know your opponent is running Firespout, it's very, very important to play around it. With enough permission and protection, sometimes a lone Court Homonculus just goes all the way.

If you have any feedback, hit me up on @twitter.

Thanks to raredraft.com, here's my second-last draft, in which I did not get greedy and rare-draft like a whore.



I build a very reasonable Green/Black deck:

3 x Drudge Skeletons
2 x Acidic Slime
1 x Garruk Wilkspeaker
1 x Giant Spider
1 x Deadly Recluse
1 x Bramble Creeper
2 x Emerald Oryx
1 x Elvish Visionary
2 x Gorgon Flail
1 x Enormous Baloth
1 x Vampire Aristocrat
2 x Weakness
1 x Doom Blade
1 x Zombie Goliath
1 x Howl of the Night Pack
1 x Windstorm
1 x Rod of Ruin

1 x Terramorphic Expanse
9 x Forest
7 x Swamp

Match 1: My opponent times out.

Match 2: I go an easy 2-0. Turns out Drudge Skeletons + Gorgon Flail is hard to fight through.

Match 3: I lose 2-1 in a very tight third game, getting my opponent down to 4. I lose to Trumpet Blast with three blockers holding the line... three useless blockers. Ah well.

One of the biggest surprises announced about Zendikar is the existence of the new full-art lands (I won't say "textless, because they're not).

For a long time, the Unhinged and Unglued lands have been long sought after and highly valued, going from US$1.50-US$3.00 depending on the quality and quantity.

So what do we expect the price of the new lands - and they will have a higher price than your usual basics - to be?

My guess: US50c

Here's how I come to that conclusion.

A booster is usually US$3.00, so a full draft set is US$9.00.

If you were to go nuts in a draft and 'rare draft' for basic lands, you would receive 24 lands, plus a lot of other jank. If you were careful, you could probably draft three rares plus all 24 lands. Good luck in round 1, btw.

So US$9/24 basic lands = US37c. Round up for a profit and you get US50c.

You could then, in theory, sell all the lands for US$12, making a US$3 profit, and keeping the rares!

Yesterday, Salivanth (who posts at Magic: The Blogging) offered to take the Protection Artifacts deck I posted out for a spin. While I was having a blast in the casual room, Salivanth took it to the Tournament Practice room. Here's how he went.

---*---

Salivanth Protection Artifacts Testing Report

Yesterday, I saw Wrongwaygoback’s post on Twitter about the Protection Artifacts deck featured here and I offered to test the deck out to see how it stood up to the top decks in the Standard format. Wrongwaygoback said sure, and also gave me permission to change the decklist a bit if I liked. Here’s the list I ended up using:

Lands (22)

4 Glacial Fortress
6 Island
4 Mystic Gate
6 Plains
2 Reflecting Pool

Creatures (24)

4 Court Homunculus
4 Esper Stormblade
4 Ethersworn Shieldmage
3 Glassdust Hulk
4 Master of Etherium
2 Vedalken Outlander
3 Ethersworn Canonist

Spells (14)

1 Ajani Goldmane
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
3 Harm’s Way
4 Sage’s Dousing
2 Tezzeret the Seeker

Sideboard (15)

1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Harm’s Way
3 Hindering Light
4 Path to Exile
4 Runed Halo
2 Vedalken Outlander


Explanations: I added 3 lands to the land count to ensure I could ramp up to 4-5 mana consistently, for Ajani or Tezzeret. I also added some Vedalken Outlanders maindeck, as I find them quite useful with a deck like this. Without Ethersworn Canonists, you’re basically dead to Elf Combo game 1.

Other than that, the deck’s fairly solid. The sideboard is meant to give a better matchup against Jund, B/R Burn, Merfolk (actually incredibly similar to this deck) and midrange / token decks.

First Impressions

My first impression of this deck is that the deck is very similar to Merfolk: a W/U aggro control deck that protects it’s creatures. It’s disadvantages are less lords / tribal synergy, but it has an advantage with Ajani and Tezzeret, both of which can be extremely devastating in this deck. I would dearly love to increase the numbers of them, but can’t cut any more creatures, and I didn’t want to change the deck too much.

My theory is to get out a couple of early creatures, then hold back my Shieldmages / counterspells. Like any aggro-control deck, I want to play quick creatures out, then protect them as they fly to victory. That’s my basic theory on the deck, and the style I intend to follow as I play it.

Match 1 vs. Hardtrack’s Five-Color Control

I play Turn 1 Court Homunculus, Turn 2 Esper Stormblade and swing (18). He passes, and I swing again. He uses Plumeveil, I use Sage’s Dousing. (14) He passes again, I swing again. He uses Plumeveil, and I flash in Ethersworn Shieldmage. (12) I pass. I swing: Agony Warp kills Esper Stormblade and -3/-0’s the Shieldmage. He blocks the Homunculus, and I flash in another Shieldmage. He passes, I play Master of Etherium. He counters and taps my guys with Cryptic Command, then plays Hallowed Burial.

I pass, as does he. I play Glassdust Hulk. He plays Cruel Ultimatum. I pass, and he plays Broodmate Dragon. I concede.

Sideboard: +1 Harm’s Way, +3 Hundering Light, -3 Ethersworn Canonist, -1 Vedalken Outlander

Game 2 I mulligan to 6 and get stuck on 1 land with no blue. He plays Plumeveil, I play another Plains. I get Island , with him having about 5 lands in play by this point. I play Esper Stormblade. He passes. I play Vedalken Outlander, he Cryptic Commands. I swing, he blocks with Plumeveil and I use Harm’s Way to kill both.

I play Esper Stormblade, He Essence Scatters. I play Master of Etherium. He plays Esper Charm and draws Broken Ambitions. He plays Cruel Ultimatum. I lay a fourth land and pass. He plays Broodmate Dragon. Next turn he hits me to 7, I draw and concede.

0-1

Match 2 vs. Hardtrack’s R/W Control

He offers another match, I say sure, if he’s willing to switch decks. He does. Turn 1 I cycle Glassdust and pass, then play a Turn 2 Ethersworn Canonist. He passes. I swing (18) and play Master of Etherium. He passes. I attack, and he uses Volcanic Fallout.

I play Master of Etherium, he plays Ajani Vengeant and shoots the Master. I pass. He swings with Mutavault. I use the topdecked Ethersworn Shieldmage to block. Next turn I kill Ajani. He Paths my Shieldmage and plays a second copy of Ajani. I use Sage’s Dousing. I play Ethersworn Canonist and pass. He plays Obelisk of Alara. He plays Goblin Assault next turn and passes. I play Esper Stormblade and pass. He uses Volcanic Fallout at end of turn.

I use Harm’s Way to save the Canonist. I play Tezzeret and search for Court Homunculus. He uses Obelisk to kill Tezzeret, and then Earthquakes for 2 and passes. I pass. He plays Elspeth and makes the goblin a 4/4 flier and swings me to 7, and I concede.

Game 2 I play an Esper Stormblade Turn 2 and swing turn 3. (18) He plays Goblin Assault, I play Sage’s Dousing. I swing (16). He passes. I play Glassdust Hulk and swing. He goes to 13. End of turn he Volcanic Fallouts and Lightning Bolts to kill both my guys. (18, 11)

I play Master of Etherium and Court Homunculus. He Lightning Bolts the Master. I use Harm’s Way and save it thanks to Borderposts. I swing for 3. He Paths Master of Etherium and blocks the 1/1 with Mutavault. I use Harm’s Way. I swing for 1 over the next two turns to hit him to 9, then I go for it. I play a Shieldmage and end of turn, then untap, play Master of Etherium and use Tezzeret to search for Master of Etherium and swing for 8. He goes to 1, then plays Hallowed Burial. Next turn he plays Obelisk of Alara and kills Tezzeret. He plays Ajani, and increases his life to 9. I concede to his board dominance.

0-2

Match 3 vs .Simian’s Time Sieve

Turn 1 we both play Fieldmist Borderposts. I play Esper Stormblade Turn 2, he plays another Borderpost. I swing and pass. (17) He plays Jace, I use Sage’s Dousing. I swing (14) and pass. He passes. At end of turn I play an Ethersworn Shieldmage, assuming correctly that he’s playing Time Sieve, and cycle Glassdust Hulk. I play Ajani and pump up my guys, swinging for 7. He plays Time Warp, and passes his next turn. During my upkeep he uses Pollen Lullaby, then Pollen Lullaby again next upkeep. I gain some life, and pass. He sacrifices Time Sieve, plays Time Warp, and tries to go off, finding Open The Vaults literally with the last card he could draw before defeat. He eventually kills me.

Game 2 was amazing. I played Turn 1 Court Homunculus, Turn 2 Esper Stormblade (18), Turn 3 Master of Etherium (12), Turn 4 Borderpost and Master of Etherium (0). He didn’t have a chance.

Game 3 we both play Fieldmists turn 1. He plays Howling Mine Turn 2, I play Vedalken Outlander. Turn 3 he plays Kaleidostone. I play Ethersworn Canonist and another Borderpost and swing. Turn 4 I play another Borderpost and make a 5/5 Master of Etherium, and swing. (12) Turn 5 he plays Time Warp. Turn 5B he plays Time Sieve and Time Warp. Turn 5C he plays Jace and Time Warp, Turn 5D he plays Elsewhere Flask and Tezzeret, +1’s it, and sacs 5 artifacts to Time Sieve, before playing a fourth artifact. Turn 5E he makes 4 5/5’s, Paths my only blocker, and swings for the win.

0-3 (So close!)

Match 4 vs. Xtdes’ B/G Elves

Turn 2 I play a Canonist, and he plays Llanowar Elves. I play Master of Etherium and swing (17) and he Maelstrom Pulses the Canonist. He swings. (19) I play a Fieldmist Borderpost and Esper Stormblade, and swing (14) He plays Profane Command for 3, killing Stormblade and making me lose 3 life (16).

Turn 5 I play Tezzeret and search up a Court Homunculus. I swing (11). He plays Chameleon Colossus. I attack, he blocks, and I use Harm’s Way to kill Chameleon Colossus and save my Homunculus, then search up another Court Homonculus with Tezzeret. He plays Great Sable Stag. I attack with the 3/3 Homunculus’ and he blocks one. I use Ethersworn Shieldmage, and he concedes.

Game 2 he Thoughtseizes Master of Etherium and swings with Mutavault Turn 3. (18) I play a Borderpost. He swings (16) and I play an Esper Stormblade. He Nameless Inversions, and swings (14). I pass. He plays 2 Kitchen Finks’, I counter the second one with Sage’s Dousing. He goes to 19. He swings, and I use Ethersworn Shieldmage to block. He goes to 21. He tries a Nameless Inversion, I use Hindering Light. He swings with two Mutavaults, I block one with the Shieldmage and go to 10. He plays a couple more guys, swings me to 2, and I concede.

Game 3 I play a land and pass. He plays Llanowar Elves. I play another land and pass. He swings me to 17 with Elves and Mutavault. I play another land and pass. He swings, and I flash in Ethersworn Shieldmage to block. I play Esper Stormblade and pass. He swings, I go to 15. He plays Putrid Leech. Turn 5 I play Master of Etherium and swing, knocking him to 14. He plays Nameless Inversion and hits me to 7. I swing him to 10. He passes. I play 2 Master of Etherium, and swing him to 5 with the Stormblade. He plays Kitchen Finks and passes. I play Tezzeret and swing him to 2. He draws and concedes.

1-3

The deck is solid, but it could use some improvements. If I were to redesign the deck, I would probably include Honor of the Pure, more Ajani and Tezzeret, and cut the Sage’s Dousing to make it more of an aggressive deck with a combat trick or two. Ethersworn Shieldmage is quite strong, and as seen in Game 2 of the third match, the deck is capable of quite a start. It should do well in the casual room or FNM, but I wouldn’t bring it to a top tournament.

Thanks for reading!

-Salivanth.

---*---

Firstly, thanks Salivanth for taking the deck out for a spin, and then making the effort to writing up how it went.
There's a bit for me to think about here, but I like the philosophical question of what to do with a deck that's too good for the casual room, but not good enough for the tournament room? Improve it until it works, or abandon it and move onto the next one?

For now, I'm going it explore tweaking it. There's some movement I'd like to try with Silence, Meddling Mage and Open the Vaults.

So thanks, Salivanth, and good luck with your next series of posts at Magic: The Blogging.

Having thought about some synergies in Standard at the moment, I built a deck that takes advantage of the damage denial that UW brings at the moment.

While I'm not sure that it's competition viable, it sure is a blast to play in the casual room.

Take a look at this puppy:

[Artifact Creatures - 20]

4 Court Homunculus
4 Esper Stormblade
4 Ethersworn Shieldmage
4 Master of Etherium
4 Glassdust Hulk

[Instants - 12]

4 Path to Exile
4 Harm's Way
4 Sage's Dousing

[Artifacts - 6]

1 Dolmen Gate
1 Pithing Needle
4 Fieldmist Borderpost

[Planeswalkers - 3]

1 Ajani Goldmane
2 Tezzeret the Seeker

[Lands - 23]

4 Glacial Fortress
2 Reflecting Pool
2 Mystic Gate
6 Plains
5 Island

Sideboard

4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Vedalken Outlander
4 Runed Halo
1 Mark of Aslyum
2 Hindering Light


It's a lean, mean damage denial machine. 4 x Harm's Way + 4 x Ethersworn Shieldmage = 8 x the fun. These make those horrible sweepers inconsequential.
Sage's Dousing is an interesting little card that will almost always replace itself.
Glassdusk Hulk is probably the weakest link. However, it's a great stalemate breaker, and if nothing else smooths your mana and acts like a fat blocker.
Tezzeret is fantastic, either finding a DOlmen Gate or Pithin Needle to shut down your opponent, or a Master of Etherium to pump everyone - and still sticking around to kick goals the next turn.
It has a great sideboard to transform into for Cascade decks, with 4 x Canonist and 4 x Outlander. If your opponent is packing fallouts or firespouts, side in the Mark. If it's Maelstrom Pulse, side in the Hindering Light for a cheap Cryptic Command.

Give me a burl and let me know what you think. A decklist can be downloaded here: Standard - Protection Artifacts.

I've been thinking about MtG synergies in an post-M10 pre-rotation world. Here's a few ideas I'd like to play around with (and see others play around with).

Duress + Memory Plunder

M10 gave us the perfect, low cost, enabler for Memory Plunder with Duress. Duress is, recognisably, one of the best discard spells ever printed. In terms of Memory Plunder, what's great about Duress is that it hits exactly what you need, without the life-damage drawback of Thoughtseize. It should also be noted that Duress can hit Planeswalkers that are in the hand as well, although Memory Plunder can't. Although there are quite a few great targets for Memory Plunder at the moment (for instance, Bituminous Blast, Maelstrom Pulse, and Cryptic Command), I'm sure there's someone out there who's going to live the dream of first-turn Duress hitting Cruel Ultimatum, followed shortly by a forth-turn Cruel Ultimatum at instant speed. That's gotta be a brutal kind of punishment against 5CC in the early game.

Master Transmuter + Ethersworn Shieldmage

Ok, she's slow to get on the field. Acknowledged. But once she does, surely in Standard right now she's one of the best combo enablers. I like Shieldmage because you can easily play him unto himself to protect your Transmuter, plus his CIP ability is really brutal against aggro decks. Of course, there's a lot of other great artifacts to flash in, most notably Darksteel Colossus, Inkwell Leviathan, Sphinx of the Steel Wind (who makes Baneslayer Angel look like a fluffy bunny)...

Silence + Meddling Mage + Ethersworn Canonist + Pithing Needle + Mark of Asylum

Control is dead! Long live control! I think we've entered an era where control is no longer counter-magic control, but a more pro-active control. You've got cascade? I've got Ethersworn Canonist. You've got Ajani? I've got Pithing Needle. You've got Volcanic Fallout? I've got Mark of Asylum. I think control is a totally viable strategy, especially with defenders such as Wall of Denial, Wall of Frost and Wall of Reverence, and several two mana counterspells floating around in a creature-heavy metagame. Plus there's still a little card called Cryptic Command that's available.

Tezzeret the Seeker + Fabricate

Whether it's recognised or not, blue/white artifact control has the single-best tutoring in standard at the moment. Whether you choose to go with Ranger of Eos to grab a couple of Court Homonculus, or use Tezzeret and Fabricate on the same turn to grab Master Transmuter and Darksteel Colossus, or Faerie Mechanist to dig for the artifact you need. Any game you survive the round with Tezzeret in play and a Fabricate in hand, you've got to be able to win the game.

Sen Triplets + Time Sieve + Open the Vaults

Okay, everyone loves their quick Time Sieve + Open the Vaults + Tezzeret Ultimate combo. But I'm a cruel, cruel person. You know what I want to do with multiple turns? Play my opponent's cards! Dropping a Sen Triplets before going off with the combo is a great move. After all, your opponent can't counter anything you do on your turn. And if you have multiple, endless, turns? You get to play their hand, build your board, and crush them with your sandled feet. Or something.

Putrid Leech? Zombie. Anathemancer? Zombie. Everyone's using Zombies main deck, so why are zombies, as a tribe, so disrespected at the moment? Everyone knows that if you want to have fun, you run with zombies.

So here's a decklist that, if, like me, you love zombies, you'll find fun enough to play at your local FNM. At the very least, your opponent won't be expecting it.

[Creature]

4 Putrid Leech
4 Anathemancer
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Death Baron
4 Sillmoon Cavalier

[Planeswalker]

2 Liliana Vess

[Instant]

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Bituminous Blast

[Sorcery]

4 Blightning

[Land]

4 Reflecting Pool
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Savage Lands
4 Twilight Mire
4 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Forest

[Sideboard]

2 Banefire
1 Rise From The Grave
4 Great Sable Stag
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Thought Hemorrhage

You can down the deck here on mymtgo.com.

I do love me some multiplayer EDH, and the closest thing to it online is the Commander format. The R/B deck I've been playing has shifted somewhat. I've played this deck numerous times on MtGO and have only lost once.

What I like about the deck is the unpredictability. You never really know what you're going to get. You can usually defend yourself until you drop Kaervek, but the deck is capable of just going aggro as well. Kaervek is usually less scary to your opponents than your enchantments - that's where the real firepower is. Dropping Kaervek is a threat, but he's generally not a table-turns-on-you threat, and can be used quite politically to help other players. Then all you need to do is mop up.

Here's the current list:

1 Kaervek the Merciless

[20 Basic Land]

10 Mountain
10 Swamp

[17 Non-Basic Land] - Largely mana fixing.

1 Arena
1 Auntie's Hovel
1 Barren Moor
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Leechridden Swamp
1 Jund Panorama
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Rupture Spire
1 Savage Lands
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Tresserhorn Sinks

[10 Enchantments] - Largely damage

1 Everlasting Torment
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Grave Pact
1 Honden of Night's Reach
1 Nettlevine Blight
1 Pain Magnification
1 Polluted Bonds
1 Vicious Shadows
1 Wound Reflection
1 Words of Waste

[10 Artifacts] - Fixing, card drawing, and a little damage

1 Armillary Sphere
1 Farsight Mask
1 Geth's Grimoire
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Misers' Cage
1 Skullcage
1 Paupers' Cage
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Wanderer's Twig
1 Wayfarer's Bauble

[10 Sorceries] - Tutoring and recurrence

1 Absorb Vis
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Earthquake
1 Recover
1 Rise from the Grave
1 Sign in Blood
1 Sizzle
1 Syphon Soul
1 Wheel of Fate

[7 Instants] - Largely removal

1 Breath of Malfegor
1 Fiery Fall
1 Fiery Gambit
1 Flame Javelin
1 Makeshift Mannequin
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Reiterate

[25 Creatures]

1 Anathemancer
1 Ashling the Pilgrim
1 Boldwyr Heavyweights
1 Crypt Rats
1 Deathbringer Thoctar
1 Deepfire Elemental
1 Dusk Urchins
1 Flameblast Dragon
1 Flamekin Harbinger
1 Greater Gargadon
1 Golgari Thug
1 Hell's Thunder
1 Igneous Pouncer
1 Infectious Horror
1 Lightning Reaver
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Screeching Buzzard
1 Shambling Remains
1 Singe-Mind Ogre
1 Shocker
1 Soul Snuffers
1 Stigma Lasher
1 Urborg Syphon-Mage

The best things I've learned about Magic in July '09:

Verdict on the financial analysis of M10 (See here, here and here)? Just crack that pack! M10 will be one of the best payout sets for those who choose to crack their packs open. Myself? On that advice I bought 12 packs (at half price!!) and opened both Jace and Chandra, a Pithing Needle, a Ball Lightning, an Elvish Archdruid and a foil Glacial Fortress. I've also been trying to get to Draft events, because the prize pool tends to be The Nuts. My only two M10 drafts have scored two dual lands from the prize pool. You can't argue with that.

American's love their 5CC, their Great Sable Stags, their Volcanic Fallout, and their Reflecting Pools. Every other country? not so much. What's caused this phenomonomonomon? Access to the card pool? Philosophy of power? Influence over the metagame by particular players?

Going to a tourny? There's a lot of needless mistakes out there, and you don't have to make them. I'm a big believer in the sleep + sustainance factor. But I'm getting old, so, hey, I need to keep my blood-sugar levels just right if I'm going to avoid having the mental tar beaten out of me by a bunch of savvy young players.

Grand Prix Melbourne is coming up on the horizon, and there are Trial Events to win. The format will be Shards Block Sealed, so it's time to start boning up again on how to win in that format. I've played a lot of Shards draft, but little Sealed. Maybe it's time to join the 8-man sealed queues on MtGO.

Platinum Angel is clearly the best card ever printed, regardless how fatal it is to it's owner. Incidently, I played against someone who'd drafted Platinum Angel in an M10 draft recently. Seeing that land on the table is just brutal. Knowing your opponent is on zero life but still not dead is pretty demoralising. But you tend to get over it when you top-deck a Doom Blade.

So this month my limited rating improved both IRL and on MtGO. However, I seem to be stuck going 2-1 at every draft event I play, regardless of the type of draft, the set, playing analogue or digital, etc. I'm wondering is it a skill level issue, a practice issue, or a psychological barrier I just need to get over. Hopefully I'll be able to push through it in practice on MtGO over the next few months.