Friday, August 17, 2012

Set Review: FTV Realms

Today we awaken to find the entire contents of From the Vault: Realms spoiled. Or, perhaps we stayed up late to see it spoiled last night, before going to bed.  ;)

Either way, we've got a lot to talk about, and I'm excited to get into it, so let's cut the chatter and see some cards! Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you:

From the Vault: Realms

Ugly packaging. It's what's inside that counts, though, right?

 Kicking things off in a big way, we have a reprint of a fairly obscure classic. Ancient Tomb was a tournament-caliber card back in it's day, and is probably just flat-out too powerful to print by today's standards. It's inclusion here is very appreciated. While it's not a card everyone is going to want to play, there will be enough interest around this one, so that if you find yourself not terribly interested, it should be quite valuable as trade fodder. Either way it's likely to be worth some coin, and it's hard to complain about getting valuable stuff.
This is another fine inclusion. Even if this card doesn't particularly appeal to you, or you just don't have a deck that needs it, it's quite popular in some EDH groups, so the interest in this card will likely make it valueable as trade fodder, if you are looking to offload it for something you can use.

Personally, I am in the camp that doesn't need this - we discourage countermagic in my EDH group (though it does show up in small doses), so I'm not too worried about protecting my spells. That said, I can't complain about the inclusion because I know this is gonna be easy to trade off.
 Meh. This is a card aimed very squarely at Spike players. It was a powerful tournament card when it was in Standard, and later provided Dredge decks with yet another broken-as-hell tool to use. It's a key card in Magic's history and a significant roleplayer in the past. I just don't think it is relevant enough anymore to be particularly valuable as trade fodder, and it's certainly not a card 99.9% of EDH players will want anything to do with. This is a card aimed very squarely at Spike players.

Here we have the unwanted step child of the set. Every FTV set has that one card that is virtually a blank slot. This is it. Desert does have its fans, I will admit. But this is utterly useless in EDH, and it's going to be worthless as trade fodder. Good luck getting value out of this.















And, here's the card that most of use will never have a reason to play with, yet we'll be happy to have it anyway, because it's cool, unique and SEXY AS HELL. Whether this ends up being a $1.00 card or a $20.00 card, I'll never have occasion to complain - if it sits uselessly in my binder forever, at least it'll be sexy while doing so!

Fine. I'd so much rather have had Reflecting Pool or City of Brass in this slot. But this is still an acceptable inclusion. I don't think I'll have much use for it, but it might be okay as trade fodder. The new art is pretty damn great, though. Really good job on that aspect. Zedruu players, at least, will love this!















Ugh. I guess some people will enjoy this. It's a rare, old card that's fairly hard to come by, and it's pretty unique. I can see why the put this in, but I really would rather have had almost any other land in the history of Magic than this. I can only hope that this has some value as trade fodder, but I'd be surprised...
Now we're doing a bit better. This is a highly playable card, and it has DROP DEAD AMAZING new art. Defintely a worthy inclusion.
Words cannot express. If you're and EDH die hard, you cannot have too many High Markets in your arsenal.  This is a five-star, outta-the-park homerun. Easily one of the most universally exciting cards in the box, especially for the EDH crowd.
Remember what I just said about High Market? Well, take that and multiply it by 100. This is just absolutely jaw-dropping. This card only existed in foil as a Judge Promo, which is currently going for around $100. Wow. Just... wow. This is the card that's gonna seriously move some units.
Cool. Can't get too excited about this, but it IS a card I have in my Big Highlander, and it's currently not foiled, so... I can't complain either. It's a cool inclusion, because this is, for now, the only tri-color land for a "Wedge", giving it a unique property that nicely justifies it being in the box.
Another stinker along the lines of Desert, but that's okay because FTV sets always have a few turds. Honesly, though, this CAN be playable in the right situation. I've seen it do good things in casual Multiplayer. Kind of disappointing that it has new art, though, simply because the new art is just as boring and bland as the original art. Oh well.
Yet another jaw-dropping inclusion. This card pretty much defines the term "EDH Staple" along with High Market and Maze of Ith. It is extremely expensive to acquire in foil, so this is sheer value. Another five-star homerun!
Holy freaking crap. Yet another card that is nearly universally played in EDH. And, like Urborg and High Market, has seen it's foils skyrocket in price to absurd heights since the format blew up. Phenomenal.
WASTELA... oh. Nevermind. This isn't horrible - it does see a fair amount of play in EDH and 60-card casual, but it is also fairly narrow in its usefulness, meaning you'll either love this, or have zero use for it. A bit disappointing in and of itself, but with all the ridiculously amazing things in the box, I can't feel too bad about this being here.
















So, there you have it, folks. FTV: Realms in all it's splendor. And let me just state for the record, in no uncertain terms:

THIS IS THE BEST FTV SET TO DATE.

Mark my words, this is going to be worth a fourtune, and many of the cards in here will likely be pure platinum a year or so from now. Okay, not Desert or Shivan Gorge. But yeah, grab one of these if you can. Even better, grab TWO and put one away for a long time. Gold, man. Solid f***ing gold.

Enjoy.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

The Building Blocks: Deck Design, Part 2 - Execution

If the first step in deck building is to have an idea, the next step (or, several steps) is to execute on that idea.

In Part One of this article, I discussed inspiration – that is, the idea that leads to one wanting to build a deck. Regardless of the form it takes, or where it comes from, the idea behind the deck is your starting point. You have a foundation, a first small step, but that’s merely the beginning. For this part of the article, I’m going to walk us through my deck building process. This is not a how-to guide or “EDH Deckbuilding for Dummies”. It’s an introspective glimpse into my mental processes, that MAY yield something valuable and helpful to you, or it might just be a glorified vanity post where I come off looking like I’m trying to sound brilliant and awesome. Either outcome, we at least get to find that out together!

So. What I’m gonna do first here, is to pick a deck and really explore, step-by-step, the process I used in building the deck. I’m going to use my Savra deck in this exercise, because it’s my newest deck, and having built it semi-recently, I actually remember a bit of the process. My memory is pretty terrible, so picking something still fresh is critical.

Step One is, of course, inspiration. The tale is fairly simple and straightforward. The initial inspiration behind the deck was just that I really wanted to put both Soul of the Harvest and Harvester of Souls in the same deck. Simple as that. I love all three things these two cards represent: I like casting guys, killing guys and drawing cards. Fantastic! So, I started with those two cards in mind. That put me square in the Green/Black combination, and I initially wanted to go with Skullbriar as the general. But after working on the list for about a week or so, the deck wasn’t coming together at all. It felt like the “Skullbriar” elements of the list weren’t meshing with the “Soul/Harvester” elements of the list – making the General relevant, while also making those two guys relevant was pulling the deck in too many directions and overcrowding what it wanted to do.

This is a common deckbuilding problem, and it’s almost always the result of going off half-cocked, getting too eager about the inspiration part and not really thinking it through all the way. Once I realized I had this problem, I went BACK to Step 1 and  started again with my two guys that formed the inspiration, then I actually took my time and thought it through. What is it about Soul of the Harvest and Harvester of Souls that I like? Well, in a nutshell, they draw me cards! Everyone should know by now I have a fetish for card drawing in Magic – I literally cannot build an EDH deck without trying to pack some kind of draw engine into it. So I want these two guys to draw me cards. To make them work I need to be both casting creatures (for the Soul) and killing creatures (for the Harvester). So I’m in Green/Black and I want to both play creatures for profit, and kill them for profit. If only there was a General that cared about both of those things… oh, wait. Duh. Savra. Savra wants me to have creatures in play for her to do her thing, which is killing everyone’s creatures that aren’t mine! Savra is thematically and mechanically a perfect fit for the two lead stars of my idea. The engines that will make Savra effective and useful will ALSO be the same engines that make the Soul Bros. effective and useful.

This kind of synergy is what makes deck building enjoyable to me. Finding pieces that interlock together and play off each other – but not necessarily infinite combos and such – is a true joy of mine. Once I realize Savra was infinitely better then Skullbriar for this particular deck, things really took off.

By now, you’ve realized that this deck’s inspiration was, at first, a scenario where I just wanted to play two specific cards, and that was my starting point. But, that was a sort of incomplete form of inspiration – after all, taking off just from those two cards, my attempts at building the deck around them were hitting all sorts of dead ends and problems. It wasn’t until after I realized the cross-synergy between the Soul Bros. and Savra that the inspiration process was truly complete, and the deck began to grow organically from there.

Harvester of Souls and Soul of the Harvest are cool cards, and I’m still very happy with them, but from a deckbuilding standpoint they just don’t quite do enough to suggest a direction for the deck. Obviously, I want to cast some creatures, and kill others. That’s too generic and broad, though, to give the deck an identity. That’s why it wasn’t coming together with Skullbriar. Not enough of a cohesive and clear direction led to me just throwing random shit together. BAD IDEA!

Once I added Savra to the equation, though, cards began to suggest themselves right and left. Savra leads to  Grave Pact and Butcher of Malakir, as redundant effects. Utilizing Savra herself means I want plenty of dudes to sacrifice, so I started looking for ways to make tokens, and ways to sacrifice them for additional value. This led to more ideas, and those ideas led to still more ideas. This is what I mean by “growing a deck orgainically”.

You start by asking “What does this deck actually DO?” Once you know that, you then can look for cards that:

A)     Directly do what it is you want the deck to do.
B)      Somehow support doing what it is you want to do.
C)      Benefit or add value to what you’re doing.
D)     Make whatever it is your doing into an actual win condition.
E)      Generic utlity cards that might happen to also synergize with the deck.
F)      Generic utility cards that just make the deck work or fill holes in the deck.

I usually do the above in exactly that order. I’ll give an example or two of each type of card, from the Savra deck.

A)     Grave Pact is probably the single most obvious and important card in a Savra-centric build. Obvious inclusion.
B)      Any token-producers, removal spells, or sac outlets fit this criteria
C)      The Soul Bros themselves are the most fitting examples of adding value. What I’m doing is: Making guys, killing guys. Adding these two guys turn both of those actions into card drawing value. Also, Grim Feast fits, as it gains me life for killing guys.
D)     Massacre Wurm, Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble all turn “killing guys” into “killing players”.
E)      Sakura-Tribe Elder is the perfect example. He’s already a good ramp spell, but in this case he’s vastly superior to spell-based ramp like Cultivate, because he’s a creature with a self-sac ability, all highly relevant and highly synergistic with the main goals of the deck!
F)      Any generic “Good Stuff” inclusion fits here. I kept these to a minimum but I don’t think it’s worth compromising the playability of the deck to completely avoid using “good stuff” or staples.

In most decks, I’m happy to just play Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach and Wood Elves as my default ramp package and call it a day, but I love it when I can find a compelling reason to play Harrow instead of Reach, or Yavimaya Elder instead of Wood Elves. In this deck, Worm Harvest is a key role-player in that it’s one of the very few ways to make creature tokens that are both Green and Black (super important, if you don’t want to die to Savra’s ability!). Having Worm Harvest in the deck means I want ways to get lands into the graveyard.

So, I start by adding fetches like Verdant Grove, Cycling lands like Barren Moor, and of course ramp spells like Scapeshift and Harrow. I also used Realms Uncharted and Life From the Loam at first, but I found I was getting killed while I was durdling around with my Lands. LOL. Anyway, I had to build in support for Worm Harvest, which was itself support for Savra.

Another tid-bit: this is one of the few decks I’ve ever seen where I’d just flat-out rather have Barter in Blood instead of Damnation. Of course, I’d run both if I had the space, but I was forced to chose between them, and Barter is just too synergistic to pass up. It can be a total blow-out against most non-token decks. It’s pretty terrible against another token deck, but whatever. 9 times out of 10, provided I’m the only token deck at the table, Barter in Blood + Savra = Plague Wind for four mana. In a vacuum, Damnation is flat out better, but this is a prime example of why you should give even the boring utility spells of your deck a second look: If nothing jumps out as being synergistic or “techy”, then it’s perfectly fine to just run the most generically powerful version of whatever it is you need.

Another example: If I’m playing Geth, Lord of the Vault as my general, I’m probably going to want Life’s Finale over almost any other board sweeper. I might run others, too, but if I somehow only had room for ONE sweeper, it’d be Life’s Finale, due to its techy synergy with my general. In a generic Thraximundar good-stuff build, however, I’m probably just going straight for Damnation as “tech” is less important than overall power level.

I usually start by following these organic threads of logic – I have this card, which suggests I use this card as support, which in turn suggests that card, followed by these two cards, etc. – until I have the core of the deck complete. Sometimes just this stage alone will result in you having way too many cards, but not always. Anyway, once I have the core synergies of the deck outlined, I look for ways to make the deck WIN GAMES.

So far, with the Savra deck, I’ve got ways to make guys, kill guys and draw cards, but only the “making guys” part really pushes us to an end game. In light of this, I added the Massacre Wurm/Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble package to make the “killing guys” also viable as a win-condition. I could have also added something like Psychosis Crawler to turn “drawing cards” into a win-con but that seemed too unreliable and janky to actually work out.

As a much less techy – but still fairly relevant – win-con I added the *yawn* Prime Time/Avenger team-up. Boring, but they actually make too much sense in this deck not to run. In the mean time, overrunning with a token swarm or a massive Vulturous Zombie, or basically anything with a Sword of Feast and Famine all make fairly acceptable fall-back plans.

In the end, I’d say about 80 to 85 percent of the non-land cards in my Savra deck are, in some way, synergistic with the core ideas the deck is built upon – that is making guys, killing guys, and drawing cards. At one point I had Griselbrand + Sword of War and Peace in the deck too, and that was not only everything the deck wanted to do on an epic scale, but also a stone-cold win condition in and of itself. Then Griselbrand got the banhammer (deservedly so!), and the deck lost some of that power, but I was able to make up for it in other areas.
Anyway, the exact percentages don’t matter, and should be different from deck to deck.

My Rafiq deck really pushes the synergy and theme as hard as it can, to the point where there is damn near nothing in the deck that is strictly just a “good stuff” inclusion. Almost every single card plays directly into the deck’s main game plan which is to Double-Strike and Exalted someone to death as fast as savagely as possible. Even the Primeval Titan is there more because he’s just the best 6-power Trampler there is, and is even better as a 7/7 Double Strike trampler! Almost every creature either has some form of Evasion, a Combat Damage ability, or an ability that in some way makes Rafiq kill faster and more efficiently.

Some decks have a theme or identity that only needs so much support before it is “good enough to get there” and you have a LOT of room to fill out the deck with other stuff. My Wrexial build clearly has a main stragtegy of “stealing things” yet the deck is probably 3/4 “control” and only 1/4 “stealing things” because that’s really all you need for that strategy to be effective, and generic board control is just what you want to do the rest of the time. Going too heavy on your Plan A when that’s not the right call for the particular deck is a disaster.

If you really, really push your theme front and center, and you find the deck underperforming, usually the best place to start tuning it up is to slowly back off the theme elements just a bit and add more objectively powerful stuff. You don’t want to kill the theme, just find the elements where the theme is weakest – the cards that are starting to be liabilities instead of assets, and cut those. Try to find powerful “staples” that are still at least loosely connected to your theme or strategy, or have some synergy with the deck’s game plan. If there aren’t any, don’t be afraid to grab something more generic, if the power level and/or the weakness it patches up justify its inclusion.

So, to reiterate and sum up: Once you have the little nugget of inspiration, ask “What do I want my deck to do?” or, and even better question: “What does my deck want to do?” Often that little nugget of inspiration will answer the second question much more clearly than you could answer the first question. Because ultimately, that nugget IS what you want the deck to do, which is why the idea grabbed you and made you want to build the deck in the first place.



Occasionally, I will take an entirely different approach to building a deck. Despite the stigma it has within the community, I am an unapologetic fan of the “Good Stuff” archetype. I usually like my good stuff to be at least minutely synergistic and lead to a clear, concise line of play, but I also like running a pile of broken, busted cards like Prime Time and Constipated Sphinx and shit like that.

My favorite build within this archetype is Grixis Good Stuff control. Thraximundar is easily in the Top 5 of my all-time favorite Generals for EDH. And he’s so damn good, in fact, that you really only need to make a handful of minor concessions to Thrax and his abilities, leaving a VAST amount of deck space available for whatever the hell you feel like putting in it! I’ve seen some truly shitty-looking and random-as-hell Thrax builds just curbstomp an entire table. I’ve seen a Thrax deck that was actually a group hug/chaos deck meant specifically for Multiplayer still kick ass in a 1v1 game.

So, how do I build a Thraximundar deck? I start with Thraxi, of course, and add in maybe, oh, 5 or 6 cards that are specifically chosen because of him and the deck’s “strategy”. Fleshbag Marauder and Barter in Blood are obvious , when our general cares about opponents sac-ing dudes. Then, I build the boring, utility part of the deck. This mostly consists of mana rocks, as we are playing a 7 mana general without access to green, so jam-packing as much mana fixing and acceleration we can find is of paramount importance. Then I just start picking out handfuls of the best and most powerful basic utilty spells - Card drawing, removal and tutors. Mulldrifter, Terminate, Demonic Tutor. Etc., etc.

Finally, I get to the fun part: I go through Gatherer and my own rare binders and pull out basically every generically powerful spell in the right colors that I can get my hands on. I avoid specific types of cards: No counterspells, no Ruination, no unfun shit like that. I don’t want to be a funwrecker. But I grab stuff like: Consecrated Sphinx, Geth, Lord of the Vault, Blasphemous Act, and Nicol Bolas Planeswalker. Jace the Mind Sculptor. Inferno Titan. Time Spiral. Prophetic Bolt. Decree of Pain. Treachery and Bribery. Wheel of Fortune. Mimic Vat. Duplicant.

There’s no theme. There’s no rhyme or reason. Just pure, undiluted power. Stupid, broken power. By now I have like 200 cards sitting on a pile. I go through them one by one and at first I only cut the cards that seem directly anti-synergistic in some way. It’s hard to imagine what, exactly, might be anti-synergistic in a deck that is virtually free of synergy, but believe me, there’s always a few cards in the pile that make me think “Oh wait running that would hose this.” I also look for any potential infinite combos, and make sure something gets cut so that no “Oops, I win!” moments happen to crop up. Mikeaus the Unhallowed is one of those red flags – he enables a lot of infinite combos, so whenever I include him, I am careful to keep an eye out for accidental shenanigans.

Then I basically just start cutting for power. The weakest get cut, while the strongest stay. Eventually I get close to a playable stack, then the last step is to just massage the mana curve a bit, make sure the deck isn’t TOO loaded up with expensive haymakers and bombs. I make sure I have plenty of draw and removal for the early game, but also plenty of random powerful bombs to drop later. Everything that seems too situational, narrow, or just plain weak gets the axe. Anything that seems really powerful but is perhaps just a hair too expensive? Cut.

That’s the deck, in a nutshell. It’s not for everyone, and nobody is really going to be impressed. It’s not original. But it is a hell of a lot of fun to build, and to play! What’s the deck’s theme? Thraxi-Bombs. What’s my main strategy? Thraxi, backed up by bombs. What are my win-cons? Thraxi; shitloads of bombs. I can practically hear you rolling your eyes now, so I’ll stop there.

The point is: just as there is no “one way” to get inspiration for a deck idea, different ideas lend themselves to different methods of execution. The whole “organic” process I laid out with my Savra deck is currently my default go-to process with almost all my decks these days, but that’s mostly because I used to be much more prone to “good stuff” decks and got bored with all my decks being piles of good cards. I’ve been picking more “build around me” generals, or more defined themes or strategies for my decks, which has led to more deck building sessions like the one for Savra, where I start by identifying a core guiding principal and extrapolating from that core what should go in the deck.

It has led to some remarkably eye-opening experiences. I have built some decks that are really quite good through this process, but I’ve also built some absolute turds as well. Either way, it leads to a more fulfilling experience because I’m not just grasping at randomly good spells and trying to cobble some semblance of strategy out of them. I’ve learned the value of theme and fun in the format, but I’ve also reaffirmed the value of generically powerful cards as well. I still love a Good Stuff deck, but I like theme and synergy a lot more, too.


Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Building Blocks: Deck Design, Part 1 - Inspiration

It’s been a while since I did anything but post spoilers or a decklist. I enjoy doing these theory and philosophy articles. Really, I do! It’s just that, when it comes to Magic, I’m mostly a technology guy. Discussing why *this card* is a perfect fit in *that deck* is usually more interesting to me than discussing why *broad type of card* is good in *entire format* . Usually.

But, oddly, the posts I’ve written for this blog that I am most proud of, and consider to be my best contributions to the format, are the small handful of posts that are more theory or philosophy than technology. So, there have been several topics – and I can’t understate this enough: SEVERAL, as in probably 25 or more topics – that I’ve almost written about. Almost, I say, because I am lazy in some cases. In other cases, I actually DID write the article, but never posted it because I felt that by the end of it, I hadn’t really said anything worth saying or original enough to make it worth your time to read. Or I just lost my train of thought and derailed it so badly I just couldn’t save the post. Or, I was busy dealing with the fact that I’ve moved twice in the space of a year, have no damned money and am living in two spare rooms of my in-laws’ house.

With my cramped living conditions, deck building is a bit of a logistical nightmare for me, and with my abysmal financial situation, acquiring the cards I want can be tricky as well. So for these two reasons, I haven’t been as prolific in the Deck Tech department. Also, I happen to be enjoying the decks I do have together so I’ve been less motivated to tear them down and rebuild new ones. Don’t fix what ain’t broke, right?

Nonetheless, I did manage to build Savra and Maelstrom Wanderer since the last move, so despite the adversity, when I feel inspired I don’t let it keep me from my passion. I will build decks no matter what; they’re just going to be fewer and farther apart for the time being.

So in the absence of any new deck brews to talk about, I wanted to share with you all some insights into my deck building process. This might be helpful, or it might be merely interesting, or it might be a total waste of your time. Hopefully you’ll get something out of it.

Anyway, deck design.

What is the foundation of a Magic deck? Is it the mana base? The utility effects that help make the deck “work”? The General you chose to lead the deck? The game-winning combo?

Nope. None of these is the real foundation of a Magic deck. The real foundation is the idea you had that got you to build the deck in the first place. Every deck begins as an idea first, nothing more.

I consider myself to be an artistic type – I actually have a background in art, including schooling and a short-lived career in Graphic Design. I appreciate and adore creativity in all facets of life. I’m not trying to sound pretentious, though I probably do. I’m just laying this out so you’ll get a better feel where I’m coming from. Deck design, for me, is all about inspiration. I don’t arbitrarily decide to make a deck in a certain color-scheme or with a certain General (usually), and force the issue. I wait for an idea to capture my imagination and excite me, then I run with it. Inspiration comes from many different angles, though. Sometimes it’s a card, or combination of cards, sometimes it’s a mechanic or a broad type of synergy, sometimes it’s a wonky theme. Whatever it is, it has to pop into my head and take root enough for me to want to build the deck.

Sometimes, inspiration doesn’t always pan out. It leads to a crappy deck with a bad idea at the core of it. Other times it works great. The point is, I never set out to build a deck without getting that moment of inspiration first. I love building decks, but I never build just to do it – much like artists might love to paint, but without a good idea they won’t paint something just for the hell of it.

To help me better illustrate the various ways in which inspiration might strike me, I’m going to run down a list of some of my decks, past and present, and analyze what exactly inspired me to make that deck. We’ll start with two of my classic decks:

Rafiq of the Many – This deck was partly inspired by both the Exalted mechanic overall, and Rafiq himself. Yeah, everyone who’s plugged into the online EDH community knows Rafiq is an obvious and over-used general, but when I first latched on to him, he was far from overused, because it was before Shards was even released! The moment he was spoiled, I was in love. I tried desperately to trade for a copy of him at the prerelease, the release and for weeks after the set came out. I finally had to just buy a copy becaue no one wanted to trade theirs, and I couldn’t open one to save my life. The deck started with me getting Rafiq, jamming in EVERY SINGLE Exalted card in print, and then filling the rest out with random good stuff and utility. It developed and evolved a lot from there, but Rafiq is and always has been the centerpiece of the deck, with the Exalted mechanic being a prominent, unifying theme throughout the deck. By and large, though, this deck is a solid example of a Legendary creature being the main inspiration. Before I knew a single one of the 99 cards, I knew Rafiq was my general – the deck just grew organically from there.

Vorosh, the Hunter – This example is an exact opposite of the one above. This deck began with my desire to utilize a specific trio of cards: Genesis, Mulldrifter and Shriekmaw.  More broadly, I wanted to build a value engine using Genesis to recur and reuse utility creatures with built-in self-sacrifice abilities. Genesis + the Evoke mechanic simply resonated with me and excited me as a deckbuilder, and there were lots of little puzzles to solve in getting the deck up and running. Getting Genesis in the ‘yard, for instance, was more tricky than simply “Run Survival, pitch him to Survival”, as I didn’t OWN a Survival of the Fittest at that time. So I had to find ways to get find my engine of value, ways to get them assembled the way I needed them to be, and ways to make all that “value” actually translate into "winning games". Vorosh was simply played for his colors, because he was literally the only option in GUB at the time, and really the entire deck just grew from the idea of getting Genesis online with some ETBF utility guys. This deck is a great example of a group of specific cards, and an overall synergy inspiring and driving the deck’s design.

Vish Kal, the Blood Arbiter – This deck is a pretty unique and weird example, even for me. It started out as a Ghost Council deck, but that deck just wasn’t really coming together. It was winning games here and there, and capable of some pretty powerful plays, but it was just a mess of not-that-great interactions and different strategies and synergies. I decided to swap out Ghost Council for Vish Kal on a whim, mostly because Vish was both A) New and different, and B) a Vampire. Beyond that I still didn’t have any idea how to give the deck an identity or a theme or any sort of overlying principle to help guide card selection. Inspiration struck while I was sorting and analyzing the Ghost Council version of the build and I noticed two interesting things:

1)      There were a number of cards that were White/Black mirrors of each other – for example: Wrath of God and Damnation, being the most literal instance, where Damnation is literally a Wrath of God shifted to black. There were other cool pairs, where a White card and Black card would be very similar, yet almost direct opposites.
2)      There just happened to be, by pure coincidence, exactly as many White creatures in my deck as there were Black creatures. Wow, I thought, cool coincidence. Then, curious, I counted all the White and Black non-creature spells. Once again there were exactly the same number of White spells as Black spells! Holy cow. I had unknowingly and unintentionally built the deck to be perfectly evenly split between White and Black. Kinda like the Yin/Yang, no? Add to that the previously mentioned mirror/duality of White and Black, and suddenly I had a “Thing” to help give the deck an identity.

First off, I resolved to strictly and rigidly maintain the perfect balance between White and Black cards in the deck. That could not, under any circumstance, be changed. Secondly, I tried to find more “pairs” between Black and White. They could either be mirror-images (like Damnation & Wrath of God) or they could be opposites (like Karmic Guide and Puppeteer Clique [one reanimates MY guys, one reanimates YOUR guys]). Thirdly, from exploring those two ideas in depth, I hit on a third way to explore the duality of White and Black: Lifelink vs. Deathtouch. After all, boiled down to its essence, the whole White/Black saga is less about Good vs. Evil and more about Life vs. Death. So creatures with Lifelink and Creatures with Deathtouch became a recurring theme, along with other forms of life gain for me, and life-drain for my opponents.
Vish Kal having Lifelink and the ability to kill creatures was just icing on the cake. He really had almost nothing to do with my inspiration for the deck’s overall themes, yet he managed to be a perfect fit anyway. The real inspiration was simply the idea to take White and Black, the two most polar opposite colors Magic, yet somehow the two most similar colors in some respects, and build a deck to exploit and explore that duality - showcasing both the differences and the similarities between the two colors nicely.

While the Vish Kal example is a pretty unique and niche corner case of inspiration, the first two examples are much more common. MOST decks I put together stem from one of those two types of inspiration: I either want to play a given general, or a certain card or group of cards.

Yet there are two more examples that are a pretty common source of inspiration, at least lately. One of those is the “theme” deck.

“Theme” is a pretty broad word in Magic, and can encompass a lot of different things. Here’s a good example of a theme-inspired deck:

Wrexial, the Risen Deep – Can you guess what the theme is here? Yep. Using my opponents’ own spells against them. This is more of a mechanical theme, but themes can be more flavorful, too. I’m personally more apt to make a mechanically-themed deck, as flavor-themes usually lead to janky, weak-ass decks, which I really don’t enjoy. I’ve seen some real works of art, though, along these lines. There’s a totally unplayable but still absolutely awesome Call of Cthulhu deck floating around out there for example. But my intent with the Wrexial deck was, obviously, to just play stuff that stole/copied/used my opponents’ cards to win instead of my own. The #1 win condition in the deck is… well, whatever YOUR #1 win condition was supposed to be!

However, this Wrexial deck is also an example of another source of inspiration for me: Other people’s decks.

Now, I don’t necessarily mean “Net Decking” in the sense that it’s most often used. In EDH it’s widely considered a taboo to straight-up copy someone else’s list card-for-card. Something about how diversity is what keeps the format fresh and exciting, blah blah blah. Anyway, regardless of social conventions, I personally find it boring to copy someone else’s list down the 99th card. I like to express my individuality and creativity! That said, just because someone else has a Wrexial deck doesn’t mean I can’t have one too, right? So what if I use an existing Wrexial list as a starting point? By the end of my process, I’m sure my list will not be identical to any other Wrexial list out there. Sure a LOT of the cards will be the same – who doesn’t run Urborg in a Wrexial deck? – but enough cards should be different to adequately distinguish my list from anyone else’s.

In the case of the Wrexial deck, I was initially inspired to make the deck by Andy of Commandercast fame, who had a project to build a playable Wrexial deck on a budget of $30.00. His project was, for him, a success and he was very happy with the deck’s performance, despite the very stringent budgetary restriction. I simply wondered to myself how much better the deck could be without clinging to that restriction and was allowed to run more powerful cards that Andy couldn’t play due to the budget.

The “theme” of stealing and playing all of my opponents’ things was in no way my own idea. It is pretty much the guiding idea behind every Wrexial deck, including Andy’s. But that doesn’t make it any less of an inspiration. It’s the idea that guided my building process, and I spent a good deal of time on Gatherer doing research to try and find cards that fit the theme that might have been missed or overlooked by Wrexial players who came before me. I wanted to distill the theme of playing out of my opponents’ decks and graveyards into as potent a tool as I could possibly make it.

So, I was inspired first by Andy’s deck, then once I began to build my own version, I was inspired by the overall theme of the deck. My first build was very, very similar to Andy’s list, just with some money cards like Consecrated Sphinx and Jace the Mind Sculptor. But I soon began tuning and refining the deck a lot, and while it still basically plays the exact same way Andy’s list does, and pretty much every other Wrexial deck, the exact card choices are different enough to suit my sense of individuality.

To sum up, here’s a quick list of the four most common ideas that form a starting point for my deckbuilding process:

1.       A specific General that I want to build around. Some Legends just scream “Build a deck for me!”
2.       A specific card or small batch of cards I want to  build around (Past in Flames is a card I'm desperate to build around, but haven't managed to succeed with... yet.)
3.       An overall theme, be it a mechanical one (“Tokens!”, “Exalted!”, “Steal your shits!”, etc.) or a flavorful one (“Military and War”, “Life and Death”, “Spies!”)
4.       Other people’s decks – sometimes someone else just beats you to a cool idea, simple as that.


“Inspiration” really means nothing more than taking that first step toward building a new deck. It’s the foundation, nothing more. After getting that inspiration, there is much more to do, but for me at least, nothing can be built without that foundation in place. This article has focused exclusively on that step: laying the first brick. In Part Two, I’ll explore the methods I use to turn that bare foundation into a brick shithouse of a deck (hopefully!).

Enjoy!

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Deck Doctor: Teysa, Orzhov Scion

I’m working on a newly revised and updated Thraximundar list, but I have been too broke to acquire the new M13 cards I want for it – and considering it was the handful of Grixis goodies in M13 that inspired the deck in the first place, I want to wait until I have what I need to build the deck as I envisioned it, rather than cobble it together from substitutes and stand-ins. Other than this pending deck idea, my stable of EDH decks has been unusually stable. They are all meeting my performance expectations and are fun to play – so, I haven’t really been moved to build anything new, take anything apart, or make serious changes to them.

So, in the meantime, I’ve been scratching my deck-building itch by tweaking other people’s lists. I like doing these “Deck Doctor” articles because I like helping other players step up their game, as it makes games more fun for me if all the players involved have a fair shot at winning – or, failing that, at least getting to make a couple of big, epic plays before going out in a blaze of glory!

Anyway, to that end, I’m going to take a critical eye to a friend’s Teysa deck, and see if I can help her whip it into shape. It’s been stumbling a lot in the early game, from what I’ve seen of it in action, but if she can survive until the late game, the deck has proven capable of throwing some haymakers.

So, let’s take a look at what we’re working with first:

Teysa, Orzhov Scion

Plated Pegasus
Twilight Drover
Mentor of the Meek
Seraph of Dawn
False Prophet
Belfry Spirit
Geist-Honored Monk
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Viscera Seer
Black Cat
Kalastria Highborn
Gatekeeper of Malakir
Hypnotic Specter
Needle Specter
Liliana's Specter
Vampire Nighthawk
Mirri the Cursed
Massacre Wurm
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Butcher of Malakir
Griselbrand
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter

Elspeth Tirel
Liliana Vess
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Disenchant
Raise the Alarm
Sacred Mesa
Lingering Souls
Resurrection
Join the Ranks
Austere Command
Planar Cleansing
Storm Herd
Bloodchief Ascension
Liliana's Caress
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Intent
Go for the Throat
Hymn to Tourach
Words of Waste
Megrim
Underworld Dreams
Syphon Mind
Damnation
Grave Pact
Painful Quandary
Profane Command
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves
Vessel of Endless Rest
Tormod's Crypt
Claws of Gix
Mimic Vat
Otherworld Atlas
Font of Mythos
Geth's Grimoire

Barren Moor
Terramorphic Expanse
Caves of Koilos
Orzhov Basilica
Seraph Sanctuary
Secluded Steppe
Drifting Meadow
Forbidding Watchtower
Volrath's Stronghold
High Market
Phyrexian Tower
Strip Mine
Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Bojuka Bog
Godless Shrine
12x Swamp
13x Plains

So… there’s a lot to do here. I’m going to start by making a quick pass, just swapping in value upgrades – that is to say, cards that fill the same roll as what they’re replacing, but are just pound-for-pound better options. I’ll start with an easy one, so you get the gist.

Out: Gatekeeper of Malakir
In: Fleshbag Marauder

Gatekeeper is okay in 1v1 games, but absolute SHIT in 4-way multiplayer games. Not to mention, 2B to cast is far, far easier on a budget two-color mana base than BBB. Even with all the duals in the world, hitting BBB consistently when you need it is a tall order. But the real value is that Fleshbag just flat out has WAY more power for the same CMC. This is a strict value upgrade – both cards do the same thing, but one of them does it about 100 times better.

Out: Kalastria Highborn
In: Blood Artist

Replacing one vampire with another, the Highborn has a few issues. There aren’t enough Vampires in the deck to make her worthwile, she requires you to leave Black mana open at all times to be useful, and she only triggers on YOUR stuff dying. Blood Artist solves ALL of these problems. Nevermind that he’s a 0/1 – when’s the last time you saw a Highborn attack in EDH?

Out: Disenchant
In: Mortify

Yeah, our General should provide plenty of creature removal, but sometimes she won’t. Disenchant is just too… “meh” in EDH. Mortify at least gives you some more versatility. I’d also accept Return to Dust or Terashi’s Grasp for options that are just flat out better than Disenchant.

Out: Go For the Throat
In: Shriekmaw

In a vacuum, these two are very close to being identical. Shriekmaw has the benefit of being a creature, while Go For the Throat has a much less restrictive targeting condition. Of the two, Throat is probably marginally better. In a vacuum. However, in light of our General, Black creatures that sac themselves leave behind a 1/1 White Spirit token, which can later be used to kill something else. So, I’d rather have Shriekmaw here for the interaction with Teysa.

Out: Resurrection
In: Rise From the Grave

If we’re going to play a one-shot Zombify effect, we want to go with versatility and synergy over the most basic effect. Rise From the Grave is better for two reasons: One, we can steal from ANY graveyard, not just our own, and Two, it makes the creature Black, ensuring that when it dies, it’ll leave a 1/1 spirit behind, as long as Teysa is in play. Those two factors make that one extra mana seem well worth it, no?
(I would also accept Beacon of Unrest, Puppeteer Clique or Geth Lord of the Vault in this slot!)

Out: Painful Quandary
In: Exquisite Blood

This one is a bit less obvious – the two cards don’t really do the same thing, at all. They’re both 5 CMC Black Enchantments with “griefer” stamped across them – however, without combo-ing off with Blood, it’s far, FAR less likely to get you hated out of the game, whereas Quandary pretty much always makes you Public Enemy #1 the second you play it. (Plus the life gain will be important later… trust me).

Out: Raise the Alarm, Join the Ranks
In: Cloudgoat Ranger, Requiem Angel

Removing two very mediocre token producers in favor of two much-better token makers. They’re more expensive, but totally worth it. These sorts of “army in a can” cards are infinitely more valuable with Teysa than a one-shot Raise the Alarm. Cloadgoat gets you all three tokens to Exile something right away, instead of getting you 2/3 there and stopping, plus he leaves behind an okay-sized body after the fact. Better, if you don’t need to kill something right away, the Ranger swings as a 5/3 Flyer – not too shabby. Requiem Angel is just an engine of value, and will usually get killed on sight – but when she does stick, she’ll help propel Teysa into a rapid-fire Exile machine gun!

Okay, those are the straight one-for-one swaps. Now we’re going to need to dig in and do some real structural renovation. The first thing I want to do is address the mana issues I’ve seen this deck suffer through lately. 40 lands and almost no ramp whatsoever should be fine, mathematically, over a large number of games… but I’ve seen this deck either choke on mana flood, or lag behind the rest of the table in every game I’ve played against it. I’m going to start by cutting two lands, dropping the count to 38 – this will help keep mana flooding to a minimum. At the same time, I’m going to bolster artifact mana, and mana-fetching effects to smooth out draws and keep mana screw at bay.

Out: Plated Pegasus, Seraph of the Dawn, Otherwold Atlas, Font of Mythos, Seraph Sanctuary, 1x Plains
In: Solemn Simulacrum, Liliana’s Shade, Kor Cartographer, Sol Ring, Orzhov Signet, Armillary Sphere

Ideallly, Land Tax would come in, but it’s out of budget for the time being. Armillary Sphere is actually a really good substitute. Ensures multiple land drops now, while thinning the deck to draw stuff that matters later.

Next, I want to continue to upgrade our token-making capabilities to better utilize our General. We need a steady supply of tokens that we can sac to Teysa without costing us huge amounts of card advantage.

Out: Black Cat, Hypnotic Specter, Needle Specter
In: Bloodline Keeper, Emeria Angel, Grave Titan

As you can see, I’m phasing out most of the discard, especially the Specters. Some of that will remain – Liliana’s Specter is actually quite good here – but stuff like Hypnotic Specter might as well say “1BB: Do Nothing”  99% of the time, in EDH. They’re terribly outclassed in the format.
Meanwhile, the three includes are all more of those “army in a can” value engines. They can all power out a limitless supply of token fodder for Teysa under the right conditions. Yes, all of them carry huge “shoot on sight” targets on their heads, but that’s why we need ALL of them: eventually your opponents will run out of removal and one will stick.

As mentioned above, most of the discard is going to wind up getting cut. There are a few gems here, though, and I want to supplement those with a couple of better, more Multiplayer-friendly options.

Out: Hymn to Tourach, Megrim
In: Unnerve, Scythe Specter

Unnerve does more with a single spell slot than most of the rest of the discard effects originally in the deck. It’s going to be a 6-for-1 nearly every time you cast this in a 4-way game. CARD ADVANTAGE WINS GAMES, as the old adage goes.

 Speaking of card advantage, drawing cards is pretty darn important. We’ve got Skullclamp, Mentor of the Meek, and Griselbrand to help with that job. All three are good, solid options, but Griselbrand is banned now, so we need to replace him.

Out: Griselbrand, Underworld Dreams
In: Bloodgift Demon, Phyrexian Arena

Phyrexian Arena has long been THE gold standard for card draw in Black, and Bloodgift Demon is arguably even better. Both are absolutely essential to this deck’s draw package. Meanwhile Griselbees takes his seat on the bench, while Underworld Dreams gets the axe because, let’s face it, you’re never really going to win with Dreams in a deck that doesn’t have access to Wheel of Fortune/Windfall effects. It’s better to draw more cards yourself than to give opponents cards and punish them slightly for it. This is just the wrong deck and wrong colors to push an Underworld Dreams strategy.

Now, there are two minor themes that are present here, that are missing one of the three pieces of that theme…

We have Grave Pact and Butcher of Malakir, but we’re missing the White version of Grave Pact: Martyr’s Bond. If you’re running two Grave Pacts, there’s literally no reason you wouldn’t run three, so Bond comes in.Similarly, we have Blood Artist and Massacre Wurm, both of which kill your opponents as you kill their dudes, but Falkenrath Noble completes the “trilogy” of creatures with that effect. So…

Out: Geth’s Grimoire, Mirri the Cursed
In: Martyr’s Bond, Falkenrath Noble

The Grimoire no longer holds any appeal, as we’ve streamlined the discard and included some much more reliable sources of card draw. I love Mirri the Cursed, but compared to Falkenrath Noble, well.. the Noble is vastly more likely to win you a game, or at least keep you alive long enough to win. Sticking Blood Artist and the Noble at the same time will make it virtually suicidal for your opponents to Wrath the board.

Finally, I have one last change to make:

Out: Liliana’s Caress
In: Dimir House Guard

Dimir House Guard can tutor up quite a few important, key cards such as Grave Pact of Falkenrath Noble, or it can be used as a free sac outlet, which can be pretty useful in a Teysa deck.

Compiling all of these changes into a revised decklist, we wind up with the following 100 cards:

Twilight Drover
Mentor of the Meek
Kor Cartographer
False Prophet
Emeria Angel
Belfry Spirit
Cloudgoat Ranger
Geist-Honored Monk
Requiem Angel
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Viscera Seer
Blood Artist
Fleshbag Marauder
Liliana's Specter
Vampire Nighthawk
Falkenrath Noble
Dimir House Guard
Bloodline Keeper
Liliana's Shade
Shriekmaw
Bloodgift Demon
Scythe Specter
Grave Titan
Massacre Wurm
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Butcher of Malakir
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
Solemn Simulacrum

Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Sacred Mesa
Lingering Souls
Elspeth Tirel
Martyr's Bond
Austere Command
Planar Cleansing
Storm Herd
Bloodchief Ascension
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Intent
Words of Waste
Phyrexian Arena
Unnerve
Syphon Mind
Damnation
Grave Pact
Rise From the Grave
Exquisite Blood
Liliana Vess
Profane Command
Mortify
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Sol Ring
Orzhov Signet
Armillary Sphere
Vessel of Endless Rest
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves
Tormod's Crypt
Claws of Gix
Mimic Vat

Barren Moor
Terramorphic Expanse
Caves of Koilos
Orzhov Basilica
Secluded Steppe
Drifting Meadow
Forbidding Watchtower
Volrath's Stronghold
High Market
Phyrexian Tower
Strip Mine
Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Bojuka Bog
Godless Shrine
12x Swamp
12x Plains

I think my work here is pretty much done. I am very happy with the changes made, though there are a few things I’d really like to try and squeeze in, depending on this deck owner’s card pool:

Bloodghast – Sure, the Skullclamp+Bloodghast combo is a little well-worn by now, but A) this deck really needs all the draw it can get, and B) it’s actually synergistic and on-theme with our General, making the ClampGhast tech less about “Good stuff” and actually a tech-y inclusion.

Angel of Despair – Um, not really doing anything with the theme, but this is simply one of the best Orzhov cards ever printed.

Vindicate – THE best Orzhov card ever printed, but this is almost certainly out of our budget. L

Decree of Pain – One of the best Wrath variants ever, and great for a deck starved for card-draw

Harvester of Souls – With the deck’s focus on tokens and Exiling things, this guy might not trigger often enough, but it might, too.

Captain of the Watch – Not really enough Soldier stuff to really make this compelling, but it IS 9 power for 6 mana, and supplies more than enough guys for Teysa to do her thing once.

Kjeldoran Outpost – The one non-basic I’d add first. Land-based token making is good, and this is pretty cheap too.


And, that wraps up this Deck Doctor look at Teysa, Ozhov Scion. Enjoy!