Anyone who has been participating in the Twitter/Google Wave enabled Standard discussions leading up to States this year is probably familiar with Thomas Dodd aka Amistod. Below is his tournament report from states. Enjoy!

Hey guys, it is Thomas, coming to you from just outside Atlanta. We had a great 2009’s turnout down here and I would like to share the deck I played. But first, a short PSA on Blightning.

Read the rest of this entry »

One last match with BeckerDotDec

Standard Nonsense: Part Seven

Mike and switched decks again…this time to the deck formerly known as Mono Cascade. Apparently Jon Becker was peeved (imagine that) that the deck was not actually “mono-anything” — color, cascade, what-have-you. Mike has taken to calling the deck BeckerDotDec in honor of our curmudgeonly friend. This was definitley my favorite deck that we played on the evening although it felt pretty cumbersome at times with all the do nothing turns and come-into-play tapped lands. Still it was a lot of fun to play and really highlighted for me just how powerful Blightning is against the Planeswalkers strategies we kept seeing on MTGO that evening.

Standard Nonsense: Part Six

Here is the list:

BeckerDotDec
4 Bituminous Blast
4 Blightning
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Deny Reality
4 Enlisted Wurm
4 Esper Charm
4 Baneslayer Angel
2 Arcane Sanctum
1 Arid Mesa
4 Crumbling Necropolis
4 Exotic Orchard
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Jungle Shrine
1 Mountain
2 Plains
4 Rupture Spire
4 Savage Lands
2 Seaside Citadel
1 Swamp
Sideboard:
3 Ajani Vengeant
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Rhox War Monk
4 Lightning Bolt

We switched away from MIke’s decks for a moment to try out the green-white Conqueror’s Pledge deck that Evan Erwin had been twittering about that day. His list seems to have evolved further but this was where it was when he shuffled up for a couple of games with Behemoth Pledge.

Standard Nonsense: Part Five

Here is the decklist we were using:

Behemoth Pledge

8 Forest
8 Plains
1 Behemoth Sledge
3 Dauntless Escort
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Path to Exile
3 Valeron Outlander
3 Ajani Goldmane
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Captain of the Watch
3 Honor of the Pure
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Steward of Valeron
2 Brave the Elements
4 Conqueror’s Pledge
4 Graypelt Refuge
2 Journey to Nowhere
Sideboard:
1 Behemoth Sledge
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Celestial Purge
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Pithing Needle
2 Luminarch Ascension

Another match played with Nissa’s Last One Chosen

Standard Nonsense: Part Four

Mike and I switched decks and started playing with a “slightly awkward” Nissa Revane creation of Mike’s. Nissa Revane definitley seemed like it could be a real Constructed card at the right moment in time…just not sure that moment is now.

Standard Nonsense: Part Three

Here is the list in all its awkward glory:

Nissa’s Last One Chosen

4 Baneslayer Angel
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Ajani Vengeant
2 Kazandu Refuge
2 Graypelt Refuge
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Turntimber Ranger
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Jungle Shrine
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Nissa Revane
1 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Forest
2 Forest
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Nissa’s Chosen
Sideboard:
3 Path to Exile
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Acidic Slime
4 Great Sable Stag

Another match with the same Junk Mana Ramp list…

Standard Nonsense: Part Two

Mike and I played with a handful of Standard decks on MTGO the other day and talked our way through the new Standard format. Decks ranged from Mike’s brews to a Grixis Control deck to Evan Erwin’s GW Behemoth Pledge. Each installment is one match on MTGO with a particular deck.

Standard Nonsense: Part One

Here is the decklist we were using for this match:

Junk Mana Ramp

4 Grim Discovery
4 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
2 Sorin Markov
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Putrid Leech
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Baneslayer Angel
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Path to Exile
1 Graypelt Refuge
4 Forest
4 Marsh Flats
4 Plains
4 Swamp
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard:
4 Doom Blade
4 Mind Shatter
2 Sorin Markov
4 Celestial Purge
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

When Mike and sat down to podcast about spoiled Zendikar cards the other night we spent a disproportionate amount of time talking about Lotus Cobra — a card that we both felt is sure to be one of the most coveted rares in the set — which would not get revealed until midnight the next day in Mike’s column. While we recorded our Zendikasts, which would go up shortly after Mike’s preview on the mothership, we teased the card on Twitter and Facebook where I said that the card was the first card to leap this far off of a spoiler list at me since I got an advance peek at Mind’s Desire.

There has been some backlash to the level of hyperbole around the card but everyone seems to agree that the card itself is awesome. Not everyone agrees with Mike’s position that Lotus Cobra is not only comparable to but exceeds other all-star 2-drops such as Meddling Mage or Dark Confidant. Understandable. At this point and time we have no frame of reference for how good this card could be when it has as many miles on it as those previously mentioned all-stars. Having done a small amount of testing with the card in the past few days I can confidently say that playing with this card feels unlike any other card I have played with before. Yes it dies to Doom Blade… and Lightning Bolt…and Path to Exile…and Volcanic Fallout but what happens if it lives.

Here is the updated version of Ob Obv — a deck that attempts to win with Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and Warp World — that I have been playing with that includes Lotus Cobra.

Ob Obv.2
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Rampaging Baloth
4 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
3 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Trace of Abundance
4 Warp World
4  Green-Black fetch land
4  Scalding Tarn
2  Misty Rainforest
7  Forest
7  Mountain
1  Swamp

The deck remains quite raw but is still capable of powering out Warp Worlds with the number of permanents approaching the mid-teens. The combination of ob Nixilis and Warp World is definitely powerful and with Lotus Cobra you just get there that much faster. Whenever you play a fetch land you end up with three mana in your pool — basically a free Dark Ritual for up to three colors of your choice. When you fetch a Trace of Abundance is essentially a free permanent that enchants the land you search up. Even lands that come into play tapped like the ones that you search up with the Heart Expedition are productive members of your mana pool when the Lotus Cobra is hanging around.

Mike and I were talking about the card again today and I posited a scenario where you are playing green black and lead off with a Duress for that pesky Lightning Bolt and, with the coast clear, follow up with Lotus Cobra. Your opponent fails to top deck a removal spell — or, you know, isn’t playing a deck with a lot of spot removal and is planning on Day of Judgement — and you untap to play a fetch land, fetch, Harrow that land away and tap six mana for Mind Shatter for 4. Seems good, right?

“I am not impressed with that,” said Mike, who has been talking about third turn Violent Ultimatums. “Isn’t Identity Crisis still in Standard for another year? That would be impressive.”

Third. Turn. Identity. Crisis.

That doesn’t even seem that far fetched to me. Then again the third turn Ultimatum did not seem that far fetched in the first place. I know I am regularly making Siege-Gang Commanders on turn three with little more than a Lotus Cobra and a fetch land to power it out. By the time Cobra rotates out of Standard I don’t know where it will rank among 2-drops all time but I am pretty confident it is a card that will have had an impact on the format even if that just means everyone plays 4 Lightning Bolt and 4 Doom Blade for the next 2 years.

When I was writing my preview of Baloth Woodcrashers I was aware of Oracle of Mul Daya via unofficial spoiler pages but since I try to only talk about cards that are on the official Zendikar Visual Spoiler on the mothership I could only reference it obliquely. Sure enough the Oracle was added to the rapidly expanding official page that next morning so I will talk about it now in what I hope is first of a series of looks at the cards from the impending release. So what does the future hold for the Oracle?

I love this card; absolutely love it. I am not sure if it will prove to be tournament viable or not (insert obligatory comment about it dying to Lightning Bolt and Doom Blade here) but it is the closest green will ever come to having a high velocity enchantment like Future Sight to tear through your library. If you happen to be in Columbus, Ohio for the Saturday Prerelease I will be looking for a copy of this card to put right into my EDH deck – along with a much harder to find Misty Rainforest. But I can easily see this card being played in decks that are 39 cards smaller as well.

If landfall has any Constructed impact – and I think it will – then this card will provide fuel for that linear. I discussed in the Woodcrashers preview that a card like Knight of the Reliquary allows you up to four landfall activations in one turn if you play a fetch land, activate it, and fetch another fetch land with your Knight. So does the Oracle, provided there is some permutation of two fetch lands between your hand and the top two cards of your deck.

(By the way, in case anyone is still sleeping on Knight of the Reliquary, let me remind you that it did win an Extended Grand Prix toward the end of last season.) Read the rest of this entry »