Ajani's Meditation Chamber

This is the third deck in my Planeswalker deck series where I attempt to utilize each of the M11 Planeswalkers and their "signature spells". For this one, I'm breaking the rules just a little bit.

It's clear that Ajani's Mantra and Ajani's Pridemate interact synergystically with Ajani Goldmane himself. However, they don't interact all that well with very many other cards. Another problem is that Ajani Goldmane is at his best in White Weenie style decks, or token decks. The problem here is that while Ajani's Pridemate is fine for such a deck, his Mantra isn't a card that white weenie decks really want to run. It just dillutes the power of the deck, and only contributes in a measurable way if you also happen to draw the Pridemate.

Thus I was having trouble conceptualizing what kind of deck would want both Ajani's Mantra and Ajani's Pridemate. Then I remembered an old favorite of mine, a card that was just dying for a card like Ajani's Mantra to be printed...

Searing Meditation

I'd already put this card to good use before, but Ajani's Mantra is a far better companion to Searing Meditation than most of what I'd been using before. Obviously Firemane Angel was a sure thing, and I found a kindred spirit in Recumbent Bliss. So with these ideas in mind, I was off... this is what I came up with:

4 Ajani's Pridemate
3 Wall of Reverence
2 Shard Phoenix
2 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Balefire Liege
4 Firemane Angel

4 Ajani's Mantra
4 Lightning Helix
4 Recumbent Bliss
4 Searing Meditation
3 Ajani Vengeant
2 Basilisk Collar

7 Plains
7 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundary
3 Boros Garrison
2 Rugged Prairie
2 Battlefield Forge
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion

Okay, so I mentioned breaking the rules a bit here, and you'll notice that I'm using Ajani Vengeant rather than Ajani Goldmane. Well, I feel that is an acceptable compromise. The problem is that this is the only deck I could really see Ajani's Mantra being good in, but it doesn't really run enough creatures to make Ajani Goldmane worth running. Besides, most of my Ajani Goldmanes are tied up in my mono-W Knight deck... fortunately Ajani Vengeant works just as well with his two signature spells, AND fits this style of deck much better than his original incarnation.

The 2 copies each of Shard Phoenix, Balefire Liege and Brightflame are all iffy at this point, but I like each of those cards, so I'll give 'em a chance. Anyway, there are obviously a whole slew of incremental lifegain effects here to power up your Meditations and Pridemates. You should have a 8/8 Pridemate swinging before long. Lighning Helix and Searing Meditaion will clear the way of little chump blockers and Recumbent Bliss takes care of anything your burn can't handle. Wall of Reverence and Shard Phoenix take on defensive duties, and help protect Ajani Vengeant.

Brigtflame and Firemane Angel are late game cards, and this is a deck that won't often win fast. It CAN, but it has to get just the right draw. Generally you're just going to want to play defensively and try to neutralize any significant threats while your Pridemates beef up. Once you feel you are stable, start swinging with Pridemates and Firemanes until your opponent is charred. Feel free to start sending Searing Meditation blasts at their dome too, once they run out of little guys to kill.

The tricky thing about this deck is that it ties up a LOT of mana, once you get Searing Meditation online. Often you will have to choose between activating the Meditation one, two or three times on your upkeep, or holding back some of that mana to play something from your hand. A good rule of thumb is to just activate Meditation unless you REALLY need to cast something. If you can survive without casting anything, then try to win with Searing Meditation advantage. That way, if your opponent manages to kill the Meditation later, you will have more stuff in hand to keep pressing the advantage anyway. Also, don't cast multiple Searing Meditations, unless your opponent is playing Red or Black (or both) because they can't kill Enchantments, but may make you discard them. Againts White or Green, though NEVER drop more than one at a time.

Well, that's about it, but I'll try to update this post if I make any changes to the decklist.

UPDATE: I  borrowed a nifty little standard combo for this deck in the form of Cunning Sparkmage + Basilisk Collar. This has the advantage of letting me ping an opponent's creature to one-shot it (thanks to the Collar's Deathtouch ability) and gain 1 point of life as I do it, hopefully triggering a Searing Meditation in the process. It's not uber-powerful, but highly synergistic and fits into the deck very well. It's untested as of this post, but I already like it better than the unwieldy Brighflame and Shard Phoenix (both were just holdovers from an older version of this deck).

White Knight

Knight Exemplar is one of the most exciting new cards in M11, particularly among non-Mythic Rares. Plus the art is just gorgeous. Way to go Jason Chan. I was a huge fan of his art long before he ever painted his first Magic card, so I was obviously very happy to see him doing art for my favorite game. Knight Exemplar is one of his best, in my opinion, and as a bonus, it's one of the playmats for M11 - available here. I'll be ordering one very soon.

In addition to the awesome playmat, I've built a deck around the wonderful new Knight. It's a pretty straightforward list, without much in the way of innovation or tech, but it's a very solid and fun take on the White Weenie archetype. And at least it's not another run-of-the-mill Soldier deck. Here's the list:

4 White Knight
4 Knight of the Meadowgrain
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Knight of the White Orchid
2 White Shield Crusader
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Kinsbale Cavalier

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Brave the Elements
4 Honor the Pure
3 Ajani Goldmane

3 Emeria the Sky Ruin
17 Plains

Yeah, so like I said, the deck isn't the paragon of creativity or anything, but heck, when is the last time YOU built a deck with 4x Kinsbale Cavalier? The 2 White Shield Crusaders could easily be something else, but I like flying, so they do the job. Knight of the White Orchid is the surprise MVP here, but then again he often is an MVP so maybe it's not such a surprise. Either way, he's really quite good and I wouldn't recommend trying to build the deck without him - or if you do, at least up the land count by 2 or 3.

Not much else to say, it plays like a white weenie deck, obv, but it has several blowout plays in Brave the Elements, Kinsbale Cavalier, or Ajani Goldmane. Well-timed use of any of these three cards can be pretty much auto-win.

If you want to take it in a different direction, like opening up the colors, I'd say the very first place to look is green for Knight of the Reliquary. I also like blue for Court Hussar. Adding both allows for Rafiq of the Many. I know Bant decks with Mr. of the Many aren't really any more unusual than White Weenie decks, but an all-Knight Tribal Bant deck would be a bit off the beaten path. And there are few things in Magic scarier than an Indestructible Rafiq!

Enjoy.

Before you Duress... Caress

Well, Friday some stuff went down that prevented me from getting up to Castle for FMN, so no tourney report this week... instead I'm continuing the Planeswalker deck series I started with the last post - the Garruk deck. Basically the idea is to take 4x each of the new M11 "signature spells" for each Planeswalker, add a few copies of the Planeswalker in question, and use that as a core to build a deck around.

My first one worked out pretty well. I got to play it this weekend, and it utterly stomped my poor friends into the ground! But not before one of my opponents commented that "you're playing a green deck that draws like a blue deck!" I'd say that's as ringing an endorsement of the decks success as I could give.

Spurred by the success of that deck, I decided to really pursue the idea of building a deck around all of the Planeswalkers and their signature spells. My next entry in this series is Liliana Vess. Decklist follows:

4 Rotting Rats
4 Liliana's Specter


2 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Liliana's Caress
3 Megrim
2 Liliana Vess
3 Duress
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Burning Inquiry
2 Terminate
2 Sign in Blood
4 Blightning

3 Dragonskull Summit
4 Akoum Refuge
3 Crumbling Necropolis
6 Mountain
6 Swamp

So I had been tossing some ideas around in my head for this deck already, when divine inspiration struck in the form of this decklist posted on the WotC site. I really liked what I saw here, as I already kinda knew Blightning was nuts with Liliana's Caress and Megrim. But the really amazing thing here is Blazing Inquiry. Of course I didn't want to just copy this deck card-for-card, and it didn't contain Liliana's Specter, so that was the first addition. The thing about Liliana's Specter is that it's great in multiplayer as it says "each opponent" rather than "target opponent". I then remembered one other similar creature recently printed: Rotting Rats. It hits me too, but that's usually no big deal. Unearth is particularly nice here, as with only 8 creatures getting a second use out of the Rats makes it seem like I'm running 12 creatures.

So I was already skewing things into a more multiplayer approach, and Blazing Inquiry already works fine there. Bloodcheif Ascension can be nutso in a multiplayer game, and it's very easy to get to 3 counters with this deck. So two of those made it in as well. I kept the Lightning Bolts for now, even though they are typically kinda bad in multiplayer formats. Here, though, they help get Bloodchief online, can trigger it later by killing a dude, or can finish off an opponent if I don't have quite enough discard to go all the way. Finally I squeezed in two Liliana Vess (it's HER deck after all!), and Viola! the deck is complete.

Originally I had a couple of Bloodhusk Ritualists and Hypnotic Specters, but they're both quite a bit worse in a 4-way game than in a duel. Also, the two terminates seemed necessary. I generally don't care too much about killing creatues, as it's best to just point everything at the opponents' life totals, but a Baneslayer Angel or something like it might ruin my day.

The deck is fairly straight forward to play. Ideally you want a Caress or Megrim in your opening 7 and naturally you want to save your discard until after you drop a Megrim or two. Don't be afraid to Duress early though, if your opponent is playing White or Green, as they may have enchantment removal. But definitely hold onto your Blightnings and Inquirys until you drop a Caress or Megrim. Then just try to kill your opponent before they kill you... it's actually quite a bit easier than it looks.

Garruk Stompy

Here's a neat little casual Standard deck I built around the new Planeswalker "signature spells" in M11. So far I've just done Garruk Wildspeaker, and I'd like to do all 5 of the plainswalkers. Maybe, maybe not... for now here's Garruk:

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Garruk's Companion
3 Leatherback Baloth
2 Obstinate Baloth
4 Garruk's Packleader
3 Rampaging Baloths
4 Pelakka Wurm

3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Bestial Ascension
3 Momentous Fall
2 Eldrazi Temple

21 Forest

It's a pretty basic idea, but a classic one. You play mana sources in the form of Forest and Mana elves, and then drop some very efficient fat Green creatures. With 4 Garruk's Packleader and 3 Momentous Fall, this deck often draws like a blue deck. Virtually everything you cast will trigger the Packleaders and Garruk's token ability will also do the trick.

It's a fun deck, and capable of some utter blowouts. It's lightning fast, and with an early Packleader, it never runs out of steam. However, it isn't going to take FNM by storm, as it will die to any decent control deck. The object wasn't to be competative here, I just wanted to play a deck with Garruk and 4 each of his new signature spells. I already was working on a Mono-Green Stompy deck with Joraga Treespeaker and Pelakka Wurm, so the two ideas meshed nearly perfectly.

There are some great choices outside of Standard, if you feel like expanding the pool. Ravenous Baloth is the first and most obvious place I'd look, and Fangren Firstborn is also worth a look. Lightning Greaves would be a nice addition if you can find room for a couple. Also, as a high-risk/high-reward option, I've tested out Magus of the Vineyard as a replacement for Llanowar Elves. It does give your opponent extra mana - hence the high risk - but I was consistently able to drop Pelakka Wurms on Turn 3. It's hard to trump that even with two extra green.

It's a fun deck, and lets you make ridiculously huge plays very early on. If your casual group isn't to Control-heavy, it should do alright for you.

FNM Report 07/16/10

So my first outing with the new deck, and my first FNM in a very long time, went pretty well. I didn't get to stay, though, as it was a long tournament and we had to get to Inception (amazing film, BTW). But I did go 3-1 in the swiss rounds, losing to W/B control.

Before the tournament I was able to acquire some of the missing cards for my deck. I purchased a Noble Hierarch and a Misty Rainforest at Castle. I also snagged a Basilisk Collar for the Sideboard. I also traded for a 3rd Sovereigns so that replaced the 3rd Rafiq. Most importantly of all, though, were the two Baneslayer Angels I picked up.

My first round opponent, John, was sporting a G/W deck he admitted that he'd pretty quickly cobbled together just to use some new M11 cards. It was basically a quick weenie deck with Ajani's Mantra thrown in. Presumably he had some Ajani's Pridemates as well, but they didn't make an appearance in our very fast games. Game 1 was the longer of the two, thanks to my opponent casting 2 or 3 Path to Exile, but once I stuck a Sovereigns of Lost Alara, it was over in no time. Game 2 could have been worse, as he played 3 Mantras in a row, and started gaining quite a bit of life. Fortunately I didn't see any Paths, and a Bird of Paradise with two Conscriptions put it away handily.

Round 2, I played Dakota, who was running W/B control. I lost this match, but it was a good fight. Game 1, he couldn't draw Day of Judgments, but Jace advantage still eventually won him the game. I was drawing way too much land and mana guys, not enough real threats. Still, as badly as I drew, it was close. Game 2 was worse for me, as I got a 3rd turn Baneslayer, hit with it once, then lost it to Day of Judgment. Then, every threat I dropped was eventually neutered by removal, countermagic, or Jace, Mindsculptor.

I didn't catch my opponents name in Round 3, so sorry whoever you are. They were playing Mono Red, a homebrew version sporting some cheap burn and some goblins. Didn't see much of the deck, though. Lost game two due to mana screw. I kept a one-lander with two cobras and two heirarchs, and even with the one land, I was in good shape until he played Earthquake for 1. Oh well. Games 1 and 3, though, I put away quickly enough.

Round 4, I found myself up against Open the Vaults, piloted by a young man named Kyle; a deck I wasn't expecting to see. Fortunately game 1 was all about him digging, digging, and digging, but never finding an Open the Vaults. Game 2 I sided in 3 Qasali Pridemages, and 3 Negates. I ended up drawing all 3 Pridemages, and they worked well enough that I never needed the Negates. At one point, my opponent dropped a Font of Mythos after playing a Howling Mine previously. I let the Mine stick, then when he dropped the Font, I waited until my turn so that I got 3 extra cards, then blew both the Mine and Font with Pridemages. Thanks for the cards, man!

At this point, I stood a very high probability that I would get into the top 8, but the hour was late and we didn't have long to get to the theater, so I gave Kyle the win anyway, as I needed to drop. It'd be pretty poor form to ruin someone's chances to make it into top 8, only to then abandon the slot myself.

And for what it's worth, I made the right call - Inception was totally worth dropping for.

Anyway, the deck did okay, but I am worried about the W/B control match-up. However, during the tournament I was able to trade for 2 more Celestial Colonnades, so that might help. And I am adding Dauntless Escorts to the Sideboard for Day of Judgments.

I'll try again next week, after I do a bit more fine tuning.

I HAVE RETURNED!

I supposed I should explain that cryptic title, eh? Well, about a year ago - actually almost exactly a year ago, give or take a week or two - I lost a whole bunch of my Magic shit. Two or three EDH decks, a 250-card Highlander deck, and about 10 or so 60-card decks. All in all it was a devastating loss and I nearly quit Magic over it. I never could quite give up the game, though, and all this last year I've been playing casually, mostly EDH and some 60-card multiplayer.

I have attended very few tournaments or events since then, basically just a few limited events like Prereleases and whatnot. But tomorrow night I finally make my return to Type 2, or Standard as they call it now. I am optimistic, but a bit nervous.

Here is the decklist I will be running tomorrow night:

4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Heirarch
3 Lotus Cobra
4 Sea Gate Oracle
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Rafiq of the Many
3 Emeria Angel
2 Sovereigns of Lost Alara

2 Elspeth, Knight Errant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Finest Hour
2 Eldrazi Conscription

6 Forest
3 Plains
3 Island
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Sejiri Steppe
1 Celestial Colonnade
2 Glacial Fortress
3 Sunpetal Grove

Basically, I knew I wanted to play Bant for several reasons. First, I just prefer aggro to control, especially when I an unfamiliar with all the ins and outs of the metagame. Second, I really frickin' love Bant and have loved it since the day Shards of Alara dropped. Rafiq, and Finest Hour are my two favorite cards from the whole block. Thirdly, Bant is tearing it up right now, going toe-to-toe with Jund and the control decks.

I don't like to Net-deck, as I consider myself to be a pretty good deck builder. However, going into this format unprepared, it seemed like it would be fair of me to at least study the top decks right now for some pointers. Again, I knew I wanted to play Aggro, and the best choices were between Bant and Jund. Jund is good, but I don't really like it. Maelstrom Pulse and Blightning are the only two cards in the deck that really excite me, whereas almost everything in  Bant is awesome and fun. Also, there are such a wide array of styles of Bant deck out there now that I felt I could probably come up with a fairly broad mix that encapsulates the best parts of all of them. At least then it wouldn't be a straight card-for-card netdeck. I could add my own flair to it, as it were.

So I spent a few weeks reading up on various Bant archetypes, and came up with the above list. Mostly it is a hybrid of the Mythic and Conscription styles, but whereas most players choose between the Rafiq/Finest Hour package and the Sovereigns/Conscription duo, I wanted to run both packages. The Conscription aspect is definitely more consistently powerful, but Finest Hour is just a ridiculously powerful card, if it sticks, and Rafiq is too much fun to pass up. Basically the Rafiq/Finest Hour setup is just a REALLY good Plan B if the Conscription route doesn't pan out.

I also borrowed the Sea Gate Oracles from Next-Level Bant. I was originally planning to run Sphinx of Lost Truths as well, but in a fit of inspiration I chose to run Emeria Angel instead, for her amazing synergy with Knight of the Reliquary. And I have a feeling she will help combat opposing Mind Sculptors.

Now, a few odd things about the deck you might have noticed... I am short one Lotus Cobra and one Noble Heirarch. Fortunately, 2 extra BoP's make up for this deficit quite well, but ultimately, the deck would be just a tiny bit better with the traditional set up of 4 Heirarch, 4 Cobra and 2 BoP, but it seems to work fine as is.

Also I am missing one Misty Rainforest, which is a bit more of an issue than I thought, but is still not a deal breaker. More critically, I am short three (!) Celsetial Colonnade. Ouch. This won't matter much... until I play W/U Control. Then I'm probably in trouble. Hopefully I'll be able to buy/borrow/trade for a couple more before the tournament. If not I'll have to hope for an aggro heavy metagame.

One other change I'd really like to make is to swap out 1 Rafiq for 1 more Sovereigns. That seems like a very good swap, but alas I only own two Sovereigns. Another thing I'll be on the look out to acquire tomorrow.

My sideboard is a different story altogether.

3 Path to Exile
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Great Sable Stag
1 Basilisk Collar
3 Negate
3 Qasali Pridemage

All I could squeeze in for the RDW matchup is a single Basilisk Collar. Yikes! I probably need 3 or 4 Rhox War Monks too, but I have no clue what among the above list I don't need. After tomorrow's tournament, I should be able to come up with a much better sideboard list.

The sideboard, far more than the main deck, should be heavily informed by the local metagame, but since I haven't played in a year, I opted mostly for the most versatile answer cards I could find. I don't think there's even a blue/black archetype right now, so the Great Sable Stags are iffy, but I'll find out the hard way tomorrow.

I'll try to jot down some notes about match-ups and any cool plays, and write up a report of the tourney sometime this weekend. Not Friday night, though... going to see Inception!! Woot!

Thraximundar the EDH Destoryer

Alright, this is going to be a quick decklist dump, as I'm currently deconstruction all my decks so that I can build some new decks. I won't be doing much discussing of this deck, but I'll just post the list here for posterity, and so I can rebuild it later if I want.

General: Thraximundar

Blue Creatures:
Merfolk Looter
Sakashima the Imposter
Mulldrifter
Body Double
Vesuvan Doppleganger

Black Creatures:
Bone Shredder
Dimir House Guard
Nekrataal
Puppeteer Clique
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
Nirkana Revenant

Red Creatures:
Flametongue Kavu
Anger
Spitebellows
Ryusei, the Falling Star
Conquering Manticore
Crater Hellion
Bogardan Hellkite

Multicolor Creatures:
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Anathemancer
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Kaervek the Merciless
Garza Zol, Plague Queen
Thraximundar

Artifact Creatures:
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant

Blue Spells:
Jace Beleren
Deep Analysis
Foresee
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Rite of Replication
Time Warp
Bribery
Treachery
Time Spiral

Black Spells:
Vampiric Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Barter in Blood
Damnation
Beacon of Unrest
Living Death
Liliana Vess
Sorin Markov
Profane Command

Red Spells:
Wheel of Fortune
Chandra Nalaar
Terminate
Bituminous Blast
Void
Prophetic Bolt
Slave of Bolas
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

Artifacts:
Skullclamp
Sword of Light and Shadow
Lightning Greaves
Sol Ring
Izzet Signet
Rakdos Signet
Dimir Signet
Obelisk of Grixis
Darksteel Ingot

Lands:
Island (x2)
Swamp (x2)
Mountain (x2)
Watery Grave
Blood Crypt
Steam Vents
Underground River
Sulfurous Springs
Shivan Reef
Dragonskull Summit
Drowned Catacomb
Scalding Tarn
Creeping Tar Pit
Graven Cairns
Cascade Bluffs
Jwar Isle Refuge
Akoum Refuge
Dimir Aqueduct
Rakdos Carnarium
Izzet Boilerworks
Crumbling Necropolis
Crosis's Catacombs
Tolaria West
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Barren Moor
Forgotten Cave
City of Brass
Terramorphic Expanse
Volrath's Stronghold
Phyrexian Tower
Vesuva
Miren, the Moaning Well
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Temple of the False God


Well, that's it for now. I'll try to amend this post later on with some actual discussion of the deck, but I'm in a hurry, so for now I will let the deck speak for itself. Enjoy!