In the comments to my previous post More On Greedy Grixis, enzoreal asked me to try to improve upon Will Price of Progress’s deck focusing on Ajani Vengeant, Bitterblossom, Cryptic Command, and Mulldrifter (cards I identified as being some of the strongest in Will’s deck).

This post is an attempt to modify Will’s deck to fulfill this request.

These were my goals…

1. Preserving [some of] the unique elements of Will’s Greedy Grixis deck
2. Staying competitive in the metagame, specifically against the Fae, Reflecting Pool Control, the Red Deck, and Kithkin
3. Minimizing weak draws in early Stage Two
4. Preserving game in Stage Three in the face of decks with Cruel Ultimatum
5. Increasing the deck’s ability to control the board (Will’s version has minimal board control capabilities)
6. Of course focusing on the unique combination of both Ajani Vengeant and Bitterblossom in a single deck

One of the issues I had with Will’s deck is that it obviously boasts some very powerful cards – especially Reveillark – but that a lot of the elements in the deck are at odds with one another. For instance it is a “Mannequin” deck with no Shriekmaw (I know Will mentioned this in Kithkin Testing, but I don’t know his most recent list, if there has been a change).

I have heard from various sources that Fulminator Mage should to be great in this format because of the mana bases but it was actually pretty mediocre. Even at its best, this card is pretty middling unless you are on the play, plus it presses your mana base, requiring (b/r)(br) untapped on the third turn, which is difficult.

I really like the 2/2 synergies in this deck with Reveillark, but they create some strange incentives… In particular there is the RR mana cost on Siege-Gang Commander… Like I said in my previous post you have to play twelve Red mana sources (which of course can be accomplished simply by increasing the number of Vivid lands)… But I have a different RR I’d rather play end game in this strategy.

4 Mind Stone

4 Bitterblossom

4 Cryptic Command
4 Mulldrifter

2 Agony Warp
4 Ajani Vengeant
2 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Esper Charm
2 Nucklavee

4 Pyroclasm

1 Austere Command

4 Arcane Sanctum
3 Cascade Bluffs
3 Crumbling Necropolis
3 Mystic Gate
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Sunken Ruins
4 Vivid Creek

Sideboard:
2 Mind Shatter
1 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Gutteral Response
4 Condemn
2 Wispmare
2 Wrath of God

We know from the Brian Kowal Boat-Brew that Mind Stone into Ajani Vengeant is some kind of two-three sequence. Playing Mind Stone gives us something to do on turn two in the games where we don’t draw a Bitterblossom. In addition, this gives the deck a faster potential Stage Three in the mirror with those Mind Shatters (though obviously Mind Stone is worthless [directly] in conjunction with the main deck’s Stage Three sorcery).

I know that Cruel Ultimatum is old hat for similar decks in this format but I decided that it is the Stage Three this deck wants for a non-intuitive reason: With Bitterblossom as the main threat, life total actually matters! The five life increase is nothing to sneeze at.

You will notice I switched the reanimation from Fulminator Mages into Reveillarks to Pyroclasms into Nucklavees. This is pretty important… The deck is set up to take heavy advantage of Nucklavee; it seems like the change in the metagame towards Elves (possibly) will demand more quick defense than Will’s deck had previously. Pyroclasm is fast, and it has relatively low downside versus Firespout in this environment.

I know the Austere Command looks strange but… Okay, it will probably become a Wrath of God. Fine.

Condemn is a no-brainer for this deck; my friend Antonino De Rosa says you have to play four copies of this card between main and side in Reflecting Pool Control, and there are four in this board; the reason for Agony Warp in the main over Condemn is simply to increase the synergies with Nucklavee. Agony Warp is generally superior to Condemn unless you are actually facing a Demigod of Revenge or Hell’s Thunder. Though Condemn might take over Agony Warp’s spot in the main in order to free up sideboard space.

Wherein MichaelJ plays a few rounds with Greedy Grixis by Will Price of Progress. Also a discussion on mana bases and a holiday greeting!

I played Will Price of Progress’s Greedy Grixis deck as described in Price of Progress: Kithkin Testing.

I was intending to play eight matches per the process I decided on for Eight Matches with Blightning Beatdown, which would have in fact given me the opportunity to call it something cool like “The Top 8 Magic Matches with Greedy Grixis” or some such…

But I got bored after three matches (and I will explain why soon).

On balance I went 3-0 with Will Price of Progress’s deck before being overwhelmed by the desire to make a Shamans linear deck.

The first match I played was versus Shamans.

His deck had Red for the Elementals Harbinger and Rage Forger, but was firmly Shamans with Chameleon Colossus, Doran, &c. I found this to be supremely exciting.

The games were quite close because he had too many lands coming into play tapped, and so I got them 2-0. Plus my cards were Blue whereas his were !Blue.

The coolest play of this session was realizing I had the kill in a sort of non-intuitive way. I got in, used Ajani Vengeant, then Cryptic Commanded my own Ajani, and re-played the Planeswalker for a sick little Lightning Helix to deal the final three. Would I have won anyway? Probably. But very Jon Finkel nonetheless.

Hmmm…

The second match I played was against the Fae with White. He opened up on Arcane Sanctum and played a second turn Awesome Blossom and I was for a moment struck that I might be in some kind of a “preposterous mana base mashup” mirror.

However he ended up the Fae; I am sure you have seen these First Among Equals decks with Esper Charm for Biterblossom in the mirror, and to replace long lost playset of Ancestral Visions.

It was win-loss-win, with him shipping to Paris in the third.

I was pretty surprised with this win, but I think it was a mite confusing for him. Should he be attacking Ajani? Is it possible this deck is actually good?

I am not sure if Sower of Temptation is any good against the First Among Equals or not.

The last match on this session was against the Guile deck — more or less — from last year.

This was as lopsided a match as they come, with the Guile deck ill equipped to deal with Bitterblossom (and I drew multiples), plus <strike>my</strike> Will Price of Progress’s deck was quite spectacular in sideboarded games thanks to Gutteral Response (counters Cryptic Command and another twenty cards for one mana).

Typically I sided out Fulminator Mages and Siege-Gang Commanders and / or Makeshift Mannequin, that is, the cards that don’t do anything ever for cards that are quite good. I brought all the Thoughtseizes and all the Gutteral Responses in against Fae and Guile, and the incremental Sower, Reveillark, and Ajani against Elemental Shamans.

I actually got “the Fulminator Mage draw” against Fae and it was decidedly lukewarm. I mean basically this is Stone Rain… Only if you draw it against basic lands, viz. Guile you feel especially worthless (which als happened… but the Guile matchup is quite lopsided due to Awesome Blossom).

The best cards in this deck were: Ajani Vengeant, Bitterblossom, and of course Mulldrifter and Cryptic Command. The worthless cards were Makeshift Mannequin and Fulminator Mage (which is why I sided most or all of them out even when they were supposed to be good).

The mana base is quite horrendous. I kept having to take damage. Personally, I abhor pain land duals in this format, especially when playing suicidal cards such as Awesome Blossom. For instance the Shamans deck actually tried to race me in Game Two; it was only my topdecking Ajani Vengeant (and then setting up that awesome Cryptic Command two-step) that savedd me from the stupid Caves of Koilos, &c.

Presuming you play Will Price of Progress’s spells precisely, your mana costs look something like this:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

RRRRRRRRRRRRR

WWWWWWWWW

You can get away with 12 sources of Red mana (Will’s mana base actually only has 10) but need more than 14 sources of Blue mana. It is imperative to have at least 14 lands that come into play untapped, meaning for a deck with only 25 lands, you can only play 11 that come into play tapped.

Note that you can theoretically bias the Red mana like so:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBB

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

WWWWWWWWW

… which is much better than biasing Black mana due to the double cost on Siege-Gang Commander.

That doesn’t really get us anywhere, though. We still need more than eight sources of Black mana and probably White mana.

This is what Will Price of Progress’s mana base can produce:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

RRRRRRRRRR

WWWWWWW

This isn’t too bad in terms of distribution, but for the fact that there are too many pain lands and that Rugged Prairie is actually horrendous in this strategy.

I propose:

3 Arcane Sanctum

4 Cascade Bluffs

4 Crumbling Necropolis

2 Mystic Gate

4 Reflecting Pool

4 Sunken Ruins

4 Vivid Creek

You theoretically have 15 sources that can play Bitterblossom on the second turn and all 25 of your lands produce Blue mana. Also, no pain at all.

It’s a question of testing at this point, though I wonder what Paul Jordan would say (hint hint).

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

LOVE
MIKE

Have a great holiday weekend everyone whether it is eating yourself into a turkey coma with friends and family, drafting from dusk til dawn (so jealous), or playing in Grand Prix Taipei.

I was trying to craft the perfect holiday sentiment of thanks but I feel this greeting from the outside of an Okayama arcade is far more eloquent than I ever could hope to be.

Have a frame frame Holiday!

I PTQ’ed in Phili last weekend.  Sitting across from fellow NY PTQ regular Christian Calcano at deck construction, I offered the trade.

I always offer the trade.  Some random deck comes to you, you still don’t know what’s in it… what better way to avoid the temptation of blaming luck than to swap out the deck that fate dealt you?

Chris smiled, as he almost always does, and flipped a coin.  Heads we trade.  Came up tails.  I flip open my tournament pack and on the inside flap is written: “Enjoy ^^”

Here’s what I built.  And no, I’m not making this up:

1 Predator Dragon
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Vein Drinker
1 Violent Ultimatum
1 Infest
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Bone Splinters
1 Resounding Thunder
1 Blightning
1 Resounding Roar
1 Dragon Fodder
1 Blister Beetle
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Hissing Iguanar
1 Naya Battlemage
1 Jund Battlemage
1 Viscera Dragger
1 Scavenger Drake
1 Carrion Thrash
1 Skeletal Kathari
1 Obelisk of Jund
1 Obelisk of Naya
1 Naya Panorama
2 Jund Panorama
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Plains
3 Forest
4 Mountain
5 Swamp

Significant unplayed cards: Naturalize, Corpse Connoisseur (not much to get..), Obelisk of Esper, Puppet Conjurer, Relic of Progenitus, Cylian Elf

The only real choice here is: do you splash white?  I figured with a deck this insane, I’d rapidly end up at the top tables, playing against a lot of bomb-riddled decks, and the O-ring and Naya Battlemage’s ability would be put to good use.  Against less dangerous decks, I sided out Plains & Arcane Sanctum for Forest, Swamp, and some combo of Relic, Cylian Elf, and Naturalize.

It all went according to plan for a while… I lost 1 game over the first 4 rounds, benefiting from an unneeded deck-reg game loss in round 2 (count your cards, people!) and only really getting tested by a 13-year-old kid named Case in round 4 who was having sooo much fun.  He had a very smooth Jund deck with less power than mine, and he played really well.  He also asked me a million questions, in complete earnest, about my day, my Magic background, and whatever else came into his head.  Case already knows what Magic is really about.

Anyway, as I’ve implied, the wheels came off in round 5.  I lost 2 games to Corpse Connoisseur in a deck with double Scourge Devil and good removal.  His removal bought him time, and he dealt 15+ in a single turn in both games.  In game 2, I mulliganed once and ended the game with Relic of Progenitus on top of my library.  I think I made a subtle mistake on an attack earlier in the game that might have bought some time.

Round 6 I lost to Sarkhan Vol, which smashed me with my own Skeletal Kathari before saccing it to itself, then stole half of my Broodmate, smashed me with it… and sacced it to a freshly-summoned Skeletal Kathari.  I had the option of casting Oblivion Ring instead of Broodmate, but at 13 or so life, it seemed like the Broodmate could handle the planeswalker with O-ring backing it up.  No such luck.

So, with that monstrosity of a sealed deck, with 4 on-shard Bombs, ample removal, nothing but solid creatures and spells, good sideboard tools, and excellent mana… I was out of the tournament.

I played the last 2 rounds to finish in 13th out of 210.

What do you think of this deck?  How many Shards sealed decks do you think you’d have to open before you found one you’d take over this?

At the end of the day, I was actually in a pretty good mood.  I watched some of the top 8, talked to Jake Van Lunen (who had the same record with a worse deck), and wasn’t nearly as frustrated as I thought I would be.  Frankly, I think I should have won that tournament… I guess I’ll just have to win the next one, instead.

The top 8 draft must have been frustrating– it looked like the packs were just terrible, and everyone was running cyclers and multiple 23rd-cards.  Local Phili Magic hero Conrad Kolos lost in the first round in an inglorious game, missing a color after a mulligan and drawing nothing but 1/1’s to put his Quietus Spike on when his opponent had a Blood Cultist and Conrad’s graveyard held a Magma Spray.  Jake and I had driven down with a fellow named Bob, and he got his first PTQ Top 8 on this day, beating Gerrard Fabiano in the round of 8 with his unearth-tastic pile before falling to Max Tietze of the lucky Blood Cultist.  He kept 4x Mountain, Swamp, Onyx Goblet in game 2.  We didn’t stay for the finals.

So, what’s the take-away?

1. If you are Chris Calcano– Next time I offer the tradesies… forget about the coin, just trade!
2. If you have the most amazing sealed deck ever, but you still miss top 8, don’t feel too bad.  It just means there’s more to a limited PTQ than opening a great pool.  Or that you are at least as bad as I am.
3. Sometimes consistent, synergistic, uncommon 5-drops beat bomb-tastic 6-drops.
4. If a planeswalker hits the table, don’t get cute.  Just kill it.

It looks like my next PTQ will be the Neutral Ground one the same weekend as Worlds.  Maybe I can open some Scourge Devils.

One of the public events at GP Okayama this past weekend was a Super Grand Prix Trial for GP Kobe — the 2009 GP schedule can be found here — which offered the winner three byes, entry, and transportation to the event. (I would imagine the organizers were happy none of the Austalian or Europeans in attendance won the Trial.) The format was Extended and provides one of our first peeks at the post-Berlin metagame. It was a pretty small event considering the prize — most of the public event thunder on Sunday was stolen by what was essentially a five-slot qualifier for Kyoto — that only had 17 players. Nonetheless it was something I was eager to look at as I am sure you are too.

It sounds like these lists will show up on the Mothership sometime in the next week or so. Both Mike and I are off this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday so they won’t be appearing there. In the meanwhile I figured I would post them here. Before you continued reading below the fold…  How many Elves decks were in the Top 8? Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know if this is going to get linked anytime soon on the English side of the Okayama coverage but I thought people might be interested in the winning decklist — and the Top 8 decklists — from the Legacy Open on Sunday for an uncut sheet of Mishra’s Workshop and a bunch of other cards printed in Antiquities. There were 48 players, which meant 6 rounds and a Top 8 playoff. In the end it was Yuu Saitou, a Level 2 Japanese judge who won the prize with his AdStorm deck

AdStorm
Yuu Saitou — Winner
GP Okayama Legacy Open

1  Badlands
3  Bloodstained Mire
4  Gemstone Mine
3  Polluted Delta
1  Underground Sea
1  Volcanic Island

2  Ad Nauseam
4  Brainstorm
4  Burning Wish
2  Cabal Ritual
3  Chrome Mox
4  Dark Ritual
4  Duress
2  Infernal Tutor
4  Lion’s Eye Diamond
4  Lotus Petal
2  Mox Diamond
4  Mystical Tutor
2  Orim’s Chant
2  Pact of Negation
4  Rite of Flame

Sideboard:

1  Cabal Therapy
1  Diminishing Returns
1  Empty the Warrens
1  Hull Breach
2  Hurkyl’s Recall
1  Ill-Gotten Gains
1  Infernal Tutor
1  Orim’s Chant
1  Pact of Negation
1  Pyroclasm
3  Shattering Spree
1  Tendrils of Agony

I’m glad that the Greedy Grixis list I posted got such a positive response. As promised, I have done some more testing since then. Aside from the random games on Modo and MWS (which I have been crushing) I decided to play a set against Kithkin with my friend Zeilend.

Before I get into the details of the matchup, I am going to go over a few changes to the list. Here is the list I initially tested this morning:

Greedy Grixis V2
Ajani Vengeant x3
Esper Charm x4
Bitterblossom x4
Cryptic Command x4
Sower of Temptation x3
Mulldrifter x4
Makeshift Mannequin x4
Reveillark x2
Siege-Gang Commander x3
Fulminator Mage x4
Shivan Reef x1
Underground River x1
Sulfurous Springs x1
Caves of Koilos x1
Rugged Prairie x1
Cascade Bluffs x3
Mystic Gate x1
Reflecting Pool x4
Sunken Ruins x4
Crumbling Necropolis x4
Arcane Sanctum x4

The big changes from the last list are -2 Shriekmaw, -3 Grixis Charm, +4 Esper Charm, +1 Reveillark. The Lark was added in because he has been good whenever I draw him, and a couple people commented that they thought more would be better. Grixis Charm and Shriekmaw were removed because I had been taking beatings on having these “bad” cards in my deck all week from both Gerard (Fabiano) and Jacob (Van Lunen). Jake was high on Esper Charm in general, and I decided to give it a try.

Since Zeilend is in Japan, and we both have Macs, we arranged to play over WebWizard, the Mac version of MWS (follow link to download, there are not many people on and it would be great to get more people playing).

I am not going to go into game-by-game breakdown, but the pre-board games were not pretty. I kept getting blown out by timely Unmakes and Rustic Clachan Reinforcements. At first I was pretty confused because I had played against Kithkin and WW variants a lot on MWS before and I have maybe only lost once or twice total to the deck. The difference was that she knew my list and was not playing around any kind of mass removal. When playing against random opponents I think they are often confusing this deck for some kind of 5c control and fear a Wrath or Firespout, so they hold back additional creatures and don’t apply enough pressure, allowing me to take control of the game with a Sower or Siege-Gang. Esper Charm was dead in this matchup, I was always under a lot of pressure and could never spend my mana to play it. I was very short on removal main deck since I no longer had Shriekmaw or Grixis Charm to help me keep her board from getting too built up.

I got crushed pre-board, so I reverted to the old build (Shriekmaw and Grixis back in) then we played a few games with sideboard. I brought in a third Shriekmaw and 3 Infest for the Fulminator Mages. They seemed like the best thing to take out, even though they have a lot of value against Mutavaults and Hideaway lands. I did not lose any games after sideboard. The highlight was Sowering her singleton Mirror Entity (Zeilend was using the list the got second from NY states), then using it to pump up my army of goblin tokens. Shriekmaw + Mannequin is a huge beating for Kithkin, and combined with Infest I was often making it to turn 5 or 6 with 15 or more life.

The big thing I learned is that it is always correct to play Bitterblossom on turn 2. This sounds obvious, but there was one game in the pre-board set that we played where I am pretty sure I would have won if I had played the Bitterblossom instead of playing my second Arcane Sanctum. I was worried that if I didn’t play my second CIP Tapped land then I would not be able to curve out into my Ajani. Of course, by not playing the Bitterblossom, I had no creatures on the board when I played my Ajani on turn 4 and it ended up just being an expensive Lightning Helix. I could have just played the Bitterblossom turn 2, played Arcane Sanctum turn 3 (foregoing the Fulminator Mage play, which did pretty much nothing against her two first-strikers) and still have been able to hit Ajani turn 4, but with two faerie tokens to protect.

In general I still think that Kithkin is a good Matchup for Greedy Grixis. Are there any other sideboard cards I should be considering? I don’t think I need to commit more than 4 cards to aggro in general. The Philly 5k is two weeks away now and I am getting excited. Is anyone else going to the 5k? Has anyone else gotten a chance to try out Greedy Grixis? Let me know with comments!

Tell Your Friends!
-WillPoP

Post Berlin and Readers Comments Part 4

BDM, MichaelJ, and Wilson Price of Progress discuss the 9th through 16th place decks from Pro Tour Berlin. While the Top 8 was dominated by Elves the next 8 decks were dominated by diversity with cards as diverse as Fecundity and Azami, Lady of Scrolls populating the lists.

With Worlds on the horizon and a PTQ season not far behind will any of these decks dethrone Elves as the king of the Extended hill?

BDM, Michaelj, and Wilson PoP answer the Top8Magic comments section with a discussion of everything from smattering of basketball talk (ranging from LeBron and company in Cleveland to why BDM thinks the Knicks will make the playoffs), the impact of Rewind on the creation on Cryptic Command, the new season of Top Chef, why Tom hates Chinatown, and Elves, Elves, Elves!

Post Berlin and Readers Comments Part 3

BDM, MichaelJ, and Wilson Price of Progress discuss the 9th through
16th place decks from Pro Tour Berlin. While the Top 8 was dominated
by Elves the next 8 decks were dominated by diversity with cards as
diverse as Fecundity and Azami, Lady of Scrolls populating the lists.
With Worlds on the horizon and a PTQ season not far behind will any of
these decks dethrone Elves as the king of the Extended hill?

BDM, Michaelj, and Wilson PoP answer the Top8Magic comments section
with a discussion of everything from smattering of basketball talk
(ranging from LeBron and company in Cleveland to why BDM thinks the
Knicks will make the playoffs), the impact of Rewind on the creation
on Cryptic Command, the new season of Top Chef, why Tom hates
Chinatown, and Elves, Elves, Elves!

Post Berlin and Readers Comments Part 2

BDM, MichaelJ, and Wilson Price of Progress discuss the 9th through
16th place decks from Pro Tour Berlin. While the Top 8 was dominated
by Elves the next 8 decks were dominated by diversity with cards as
diverse as Fecundity and Azami, Lady of Scrolls populating the lists.
With Worlds on the horizon and a PTQ season not far behind will any of
these decks dethrone Elves as the king of the Extended hill?

BDM, Michaelj, and Wilson PoP answer the Top8Magic comments section
with a discussion of everything from smattering of basketball talk
(ranging from LeBron and company in Cleveland to why BDM thinks the
Knicks will make the playoffs), the impact of Rewind on the creation
on Cryptic Command, the new season of Top Chef, why Tom hates
Chinatown, and Elves, Elves, Elves!