I just finished building my first Shards-Conflux Sealed Deck pool and I am really confounded as to the viability of a number of the commons. Ruptured Spire is the one giving me the most fits — as it seems to be doing for many of the players here.

It basically eats a whole turn to come online since you have to play it tapped and pay 1 when you do. I have no problem playing Rampant Growth on turn two and even though this does not ramp you mana the Spire seems like a reasonable play both early and late. It’s those pesky turns three through five that are the bitch.

It looks like my deck is going to be solidly Naya with only the slightest hint of blue to accomodate Bant Charm and I am worried about the Spire disrupting my curve but I think I will have to see it in action before I pass judgement.

I also have Ancient Ziggurat to fix mana and it also seems like a it can create some clumsy situations. You can’t use that mana to cycle, activate a Panaroma, or anything else that is not a creature. I am very curious what other players experiences were with these two cards.

Another card that I have been wrestling with is the aptly named Lapse of Certainty. Basically an off-color, slightly more expensive Memory Lapse — and old favorite in Limited and Constructed. In the end I decided not to play them since my deck was quite mana hungry. Had I been Bant I would have definitely given them a try.

I am in Los Angeles this weekend as a guest of Glenn Goddard and the fine folks at Sun Mesa Events to gunsling at their LA Conflux Prerelase — one of forty Regional Prereleases that mark the reintroduction of the “big” Prerelease.

Not only do I get to play a ton of Magic with the new cards but I get to escape the grey dreary cold that has settled over New York for the past several weeks. Plus I get my hands on a Conflux playmat — something that is only available at Regional events and even then not at all of them.

Vectis Agents us not going to have a big impact as far as cards go but the art blows up real good to make a striking playmat.

Those of you who are BDM fands (and aren’t we all BDM fans?) may remember an article he wrote from almost a year ago recapping the events of GP Philly. I traveled to this event with Zeilend and Tom, two of our summer interns. Personal highlights of this GP include: Traveling via Chinatown bus (and Tom almost refusing to board), staying in a hostel (and Tom sleeping with his shoes on because Wang told him to), and the Reading Market next to convention center (which has an insane food selection).

Tom and I did not make day 2, but Zeilend did playing a URG aggro-control deck that had the Kiki-Jiki combo win. This deck was an excellent pick for that tournament but has been pretty much ignored since. Now that extended season is in full swing I asked Zeilend to update her list since some of the cards have rotated out. Here is what she came up with:

Kiki Mite Get There
4 Spell Snare
3 Stifle
3 Repeal
4 Mana Leak
2 Umezawa’s Jitte

4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Kird Ape
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Pestermite
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1 Breeding Pool
3 Steam Vents
3 Stomping Ground
4 Flooded Strand
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Mountain
6 Island

This deck plays the aggro-control game pretty well against decks like faeries, creating some good threats like Kird Ape and Ninja of the Deep Hours and then protecting them with Spell Snares, Mana Leaks, and Repeals. Pestermite is never dead without Kiki-Jiki since he can come down during your opponent’s turn to fog or ice a land, then pick up a Jitte and swing back. If there is one thing this deck does well, it’s dodge Threads of Disloyalty and Engineered Explosives. Ninja will swing in on turn 2, but his 4cc makes him pretty much immune to both those cards.

For those who don’t know the combo, all you need to do is get both Kiki-Jiki and Pestermite in play on your turn. Tap Kiki to copy Pestermite. When the copy comes into play, you get the tap/untap trigger, which you will use to untap Kiki. Make another copy of Pestermite. Repeat this process an infinitely and swing with your army of hasted 2/1 fliers. Good Game.

Often the combo is not needed to win, but it is great in the long game and gives the deck a way to capitalize if your opponent taps out on a turn to play something big or decides to pay for Mana Leak.

This deck has a lot of main deck goodness against Elves. Jitte, Stifle, and Mogg Fanatic are all good in this matchup, and the permission helps as well. An additional sideboard card to consider is Cerbral Vortex from Ravnica Block. If your opponent attempts a lethal Grapeshot or Brainfreeze, chances are they have drawn enough cards to dome them for lethal. After sideboard you can overload the elves player so that they will have to draw multiple Thoughtseize to clear out your hate.

Other sideboard cards to consider are Ancient Grudge, Echoing Truth, Threads of Disloyalty, Leyline of the Void, and more Jitte.

I don’t know if this deck is good enough to win a PTQ, but it looks like it has a lot going for it and I highly recommend trying it out. Please post suggested changes/testing results/stories in the comments if you happen to try the deck out.

~WillPoP

I am going to be headed to Los Angeles this weekend to gunsling at the Conflux Prerelease — one of a handful of large events going on around the country this weekend. If you are a Top8Magic listener in the LA area and are planning on attending the LA event please stop by and say “hello”. I will almost certainly be doing live updates to the site from the tournament so if you want to get a first look at how the Conflux cards fare in action be sure to check in this weekend.

You can find all the event details here. You can find all the Prerelease locations here.

I am very interested to see how the new Sealed deck format plays out. As you may or may not know Wizards is doing away with Tournament Packs and all Sealed Deck events will be run from a selection of five booster packs — although it is three Shards and three Conflux for this weekend, I believe. While the Tournament Pack based format was dominated by bombs this booster based version may turn out to be much more dependent on redundant commons. There was only the slimmest of chances that you could open a pool contain multiple Sanctum Gargoyles if this event was being run with a Tournament Pack — basically you would need an aberrant print run or a foil — but it is conceivable that players could end up with two or three under the booster based version. My dream pool would contain a couple of Sanctum Gargoyles, a capsule or two, and this bad boy:

My Hero!

Fans,

I apologize for the podcasts not working. To be honest, we are trying our best to get them working with this new interface and it is not as easy as just uploading them and then posting a link.

Please be patient as we try to fix them.

Best

Matt

Post Grand Prix LA - Part 5

Post Grand Prix LA - Part 4

Post Grand Prix LA - Part 3

Post Grand Prix LA - Part 2

Post Grand Prix LA - Part 1