The Zvi, Will “Price of Progress” and Matt Wang discuss M10

Zvi Cast about M10 - Part 1

Rumors that Duels of the Planeswalkers, the XBLA Magic: the Gathering game, was going to be released early blipped momentarily on the Twitter radar yesterday, but were quickly dismissed. When was the last time a game was finished ahead of time?

Wizards released this press release today, announcing that Duels of the Planeswalkers will be released on June 17th, with organized play events planned for as early as June 20th.

Early buyers/downloaders will be rewarded with a code that can be redeemed for a foil, promo Garruk Wildspeaker.

Gameplay footage has been around for a while, and the game looks fantastic. As a pseudo Xbox 360 owner (roomate owns one, ding!) I am excited to try the game out when it releases.

Who else is planning on getting MODO: Xbox edition? Have you been anticipating this release? Let us know what you think about Duels of the Planeswalkers in the comments.

~WillPoP

Pro Tour Honolulu is right around the corner, and this time the format is Alara block constructed. Cascade, the signature mechanic from Alara Reborn, has had a huge impact on Standard since its release. Will Cascade be showing up in the top 8 this weekend? If the results from the Season 2 Magic Online 2009 Championship Series are an indicator of what is good in block right now, then the real question is whether or a not there will be a deck in the top 8 that does not feature at least one set of Cascade spells.

Magic Online 2009 Championship Series: Season 2 <– Click here for deck lists!

32 Bloodbraid Elf
22 Bultiminous Blast
9 Enlisted Wurm
2 Captured Sunlight

The top 8 decks averaged a little over 8 Cascade spells each! 7 of the decks also featured some number of Blightning to Cascade into. See also: Sprouting Thrinax, Madrush Cyclops, Maelstrom Pulse, Terminate and Putrid Leech as likely spells to come flying into play at no cost this weekend.

~WillPoP

The second game of the Grand Prix Kobe 2009 Finals between Tomoharu Saito and Yuuya Watanabe has been posted by judge/coverage reporter Naoaki Umesaki. When last we left our finalists the former Rookie of the Year Watanabe was up one game to zero.

Level 3 Judge and Japanese coverage reporter Naoaki Umesaki has a video camera set up at Grand Prix Kobe 2009. He has put together a video for Game One from the finals match between 2007’s Player of the Year Tomoharu Saito and 2007’s Rookie of the Year Yuuya Watanabe. Subsequent games should be going up on YouTube as the week progresses.

Saito was playing the latest iteration of Zoo, tuned for the tournament with maindeck Ethersworn Canonist and Knight of the Reliquary (and some Treetop Villages for it to fetch) while Watanabe was playing with Storm.

Of all the cards to show up on the Alara Reborn Visual Spoiler so far, this is the easilly the most exciting creature of the bunch. What is not to love about a 3/3 flier for three mana that can grow as big as needed? The only downside I can see to this critter is  its legendary status when everyone is going to want to be playing with this card. Jenara is going to be exciting for players looking for the Noble Hierarch into 3-drop into Rafiq parlay and is a suitable finisher for 5-color players.

I am very excited about this card in the 5-color decks. I have been playing around with one list that was more or less creatureless with a handful of counterspells and Martial Coup as the only way to win. With Alara Reborn I can see this deck making room for anywhere up to a full set of four — although you rarely see four-ofs in a deck that have the legendary tag.

I think it has to draw inevitable comparisons to the Serra Angels in Brian Weissman’s The Deck from the primoridal days of competitive Magic and it is not far off. It is not too hard to imagine scenarios where this is getting played once a player has five or six mana — to protect it with either Hindering Light or Cancel — and using mana to pump it only when there is a clear window to do so.

There is a flexibility to Jenara that is unmatched by the game’s first contol deck finisher — as any 90’s era player who has stared at a useless Serra Angel in hand while getting smashed by Savannah Lions and White Knights can attest. Mono-white Exalted has been taking the top spot in MTGO Block PEs for the past few weeks. Jenara seems like a fine weapon to come down early and scale with the exalted threat from your opponent.

Basically, this card is vying with Broodmate Dragon for the creature slot in these decks so it will become a question of mana cost versus card advantage. While the Dragon is the clear winner on the table the ability to drop this guy early and slow down opponents playing more agressive strategies will certainly merit some attention.

In the Bant decks Jenara will be vying with Rhox War Monk, which comes with a crucial fourth point of toughness and the ability to double up on the lifelink with Battlegrace Angel to put the damage race out of reach very quickly. Flight and pumpability vs. Lifelink with the drawback of legendary status weighing it down on the first side. My guess is that in Hierarch based block decks Jenara will serve as 3-drop’s five through eight (or maybe only six or seven) to ensure that Noble Hierarch has something to power out on turn two.

Nemesis of Reason — or should I write it, “NEMESIS OF REASON!!!!!!!!!!!!” like the forum denizens do when talking about this card? — is the kind of card Tony Tsai used to pay his mortgage with. Tony was a long time eBay seller of Magic cards and he could often be seen at various PTQs, Prereleases, and Regionals trading away Polluted Deltas, Cranial Extractions, and the like for as many Nut Collectors and Traumatizes as he could get his greedly little shark fins on. Nemesis of Reason is a card that tournament players sneer at but will clearly the centerpiece of many a kitchen table top masterpiece.

Constructed or no?

When you look at previous cards that had similar effects; Scaplexis, Traumatize, Glimpse the Unthinkable, and Sanity Grinding, to name a few, you do not find many Constructed all-stars. Hell you can’t even find a utility infielder in that bunch but I can’t help but wonder if this card might have a role it could play in a sixty card deck. It is an obvious powerhouse that is justifably a first pick in Limited, where it will usually end the game in two swings and is capable of holding the ground admirably against the fattiest five-power dudes Naya can throw at you. Seven toughness for five mana is nothing to sneeze at. But what about Constructed?

The first place to look is Block Constructed — a format relevant for players heading to Honolulu and MTGO players hoping to mise a seat at the 2009 MTGO Championships. I can see this card causing all sorts of problems for players who have a dozen lands that come into play tapped but they still get a turn to deal with it but if you have one…there may be three more where that came from. Over the course of a long game you may only need to untap once with this in play to defeat the 5Color player.

One of the problems with this guy in Block could be that there are number of strategies that are built around getting guys into your graveyard. The Esper decks are much more comfortable with their graveyard as a resource than their deck or hand and Nemesis of Reason may just be doing them a favor. Similarly the Blightning colored decks are pretty happy to take three, mill ten cards and unleash a barrage of Extractor Demons, Dredgescape Zombies, and Shambling Remains on the next turn. If he could mill either player when attacking — he is worded to only affect the defending player — he would be a much more likely candidate for this format. If he does see play it would most likely be as a sideboard card against 5Color but I don’t lean strongly in that direction.

In Standard he seems even less likely despite having more tools to make him effective; Makeshift Mannequin, Heat Shimmer, various doppelgangers, and shapeshifting changelings. I just have a hard time imagining a format that can be as quick as this — think about staring at him in your opening hand against Black-White Tokens — finding a place for this card. But when you look at the winning deck from Kyoto, played by the amazing Gabriel Nassif, you see a deck that hopes to nullify aggro strategies with Plumveil and Wall of Reverence. Imagine for a moment a deck playing against the Nassif deck that, instead of trying to deal twenty damage, transformed to a post board version with four copies of Nemesis of Reason which is not going to die to their defensive creatures, and aimed to mill twenty instead.

Hmmmm…maybe I am talking myself into this. I can imagine this guy getting imprinted on a Soul Foundry on the old formica tabletop but I could also see a shot at him making a case for himself in sideboards in Block and possibly even Standard. Whatever you do, don’t let these go to cheaply at the Prerelease even if it never makes the Top 8 decks page on the mothership.

Earlier today I posted the link the Alara Reborn Visual Spoiler  — featuring a whopping 16 cards that have been revealed in various places so far — on Twitter and asked which card people thought would see play in Constructed. I expempted the already proven Terminate from the discusssion but left the floor open. Thought Hemorrhage was the early leader among the replies but as the day wore on there was more and more support for the exciting Jund Hackblade.

Who hacks the Hackblade?

I have to admit, I spent a lot of time thinking about this guy today. I remember a discussion with Billy Moreno about building aggro decks after watching Billy overload some rather unimpressive beaters into the one-drop slot of an otherwise impressive looking red deck. Billy suggested that you needed a certain critical mass of one-drops — he played a whopping total of 14 in his PT Hawaii deck — to ensure that the deck made its scripted plays. He normally advocates at least 10 in an aggro deck. That would certainly seem to be true of any deck that was going to feature the Hackblade. The way this card will really shine is when played on turn two after leading off with Tattermunge Maniac or Figure of Destiny.

With the Maniac he is clearly amazing. Imagine leading off with the pup, sending it in alongside a 3/2 ‘Blade, and then following up with the Ram Gang on turn three against a deck which made its third land drop tapped. That is 13 points of beats by turn three. I am pretty sure you can find some assortment of similarlly colored cards to get those final 7 points pushed across even if they find a way to deal with your team.

Figure of Destiny is a little more clumsy to deal with since you usually want to use your mana to pump the Figure on turn two but you would certainly be happy deal with those kind of problems if you had to. The real problem comes if you decide that you need two more one-drops to make the deck click — or if you hate to play with Maniacs or don’t want to have to pick up a set of Figures. Are there any more playable multi-colored one-drops in Standard? Assuming that there are no multi-colored one drops in Alara Reborn since it is reportedly a gold set we can actually pull together a list of not ready for prime time one-drops auditioning for a shot at the big time alongside the hasty Jund beater:

Duergar Assailant — This quasi-Fanatic is almost certainly going to be the guy. He is not nearly as good as the Mogg Fanatic but he does make combat annoying and assuming we were going to warp our deck for the Hackmaster this is likely the performer that would get the part. We did call everyone else to tryout so lets see what they have to offer. Damned alphabetical ordered auditiions.

Elvish Hexhunter — Not exciting but certainly not unprecedented to see similar cards get some Constructed action. Granted it was usually when Illusions of Grandeur was in the environment. Maybe but probably not getting a callback.

Manforge Cinder – I guess it could help fix your mana…next!

Nip Gwillion – And then we will make it a 4/4 with Edge of Divinity and…next!

Odious Trow — I could have sworn you had Wither…next!

Oona’s Gatewarden — …next!

Rhys the Redeemed – Interesting. Not dead in the mid and late game and uses your mana. Green and white is not the direction we were leaning here but we will get back to you.

Skuzzback Scrapper — Wither is okay. Colors look fine. Still would feel pretty emabarassed playing this guy when my opponent was bracing for a first turn Figure. Put him on the call back list — just not near the top.

Seedcradle Witch — Oooh! I had completely forgotten about this one. I like it. Makes and even better use of your mid-game mana than Rhys and does not need to fully recovered from summoning sickness. Again…colors don’t seem right but and interesting possibility.

Slippery Boggle – Am I am completely off my rocker for liking this one? It is actually immune to Mogg Fanatic when trying to set up your Hackblade turn. Nimble Mongoose has been good for me even without Threshhold and I can target this guy with an aura or equipment. I could see myself playing this guy but probably not in this deck.

Stream Hopper – Probably a much better choice from the same cycle than the previously mentioned Boggle. Semi-Flying Man can get across the red zone while other one-drops just crane their necks and stay home.

The Hackblade is almost certainly be a staple card in Standard beatdown decks. There are plenty of viable one-drops that allow it to single handedly attack for six by the end of turn three and it is also perfectly fine to play it on two and then attack for six on turn three with either a second copy or a Ram-Gang. All in all, a pretty nice beater at common meaning it should become a fixture in Pauper.

This was posted on March 31st over on the MTGO page so I am pretty sure it is not an April Fool’s joke. Michael Gills announced that, just like the game we all love, the Player of the Year race is being replicated on MTGO. Over the course of the 2009 Magic Online Championship Series, the player who racks up the most QP points will earn the title of MTGO Player of the Year. The MTGO PoY will earn a seat at the 2009 MTGO Championship and be qualified for all Season Championships in the 2010 iteration of the Series.

Sorry I have not posted for awhile. I have dissapeared a little bit into the frenzy that is Twitter and if you want to follow me there I can be followed at http://twitter.com/Top8Games. What I have been tweeting about mostly are some decks that have popped up recently at the Star City 5K Open, PTQ Top 8s, and even here in our ersatz forums/comments sections. The first was a new version of the green-white token deck that originally appeared at the 5K immediately preceding PT Kyoto. There was another 5K this past weekend in Indianapolis and a new version of the deck made it as far as the Final Four.

Green-White Overrun
Joshua Scott Honigmann — 4th Place
StarCityGames.com $5,000 Standard Open

4 Birds Of Paradise
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Path To Exile
2 Ajani Goldmane
2 Elspeth, Knight-errant
3 Martial Coup
2 Overrun
4 Spectral Procession
5 Forest
1 Plains
4 Brushland
1 Reflecting Pool
4 Treetop Village
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Wooded Bastion

Sideboard:
4 Burrenton Forge-tender
3 Cloudthresher
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Ranger Of Eos
1 Wilt-leaf Liege
3 Naturalize

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