play the game, see the world

Yesterday was a “play the game, see the world” qualifier in our local store. Format was Legacy. And as mentioned earlier this year I am an old-school Morphling-player. So I took the chance to play MUC (mono blue control).

Let’s take a look at my MUC:

// Lands
23 Island
1 Academy Ruins

// Creatures
2 Morphling
3 Vendilion Clique

// Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
3 Vedalken Shackles
4 Back to Basics
4 Counterspell
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Powder Keg
4 Ancestral Vision

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Propaganda
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 Sower of Temptation

So what was I thinking with this deck. No 400€ manabase. No Tarmogoyf. And no Counter/Top. One could think that I won’t get far with this. But I had a plan…

// Lands
23 Island
1 Academy Ruins

No fetchlands and only one target for Wasteland. This means most of the land destruction cards are dead in the opponents hand. Virtual card advantage. The sole Academy Ruins is for Powder Keg recursion. Or Shackles if needed.

// Creatures
2 Morphling
3 Vendilion Clique

The Clique was a last minute addition and turned out to be a MVC for me. At one point I even considered Plumeveil as a surprise kill for Nimble Mongoose. But the Clique is better suited for this job.

// Spells – Draw
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Ancestral Vision

Fact or Fiction is an auto-include but ancestral Visions is not. I was not sure if I wanted 3 cards at some point in the future or dig for a land or a solution now. For now I stick with the delayed card advantage, but this is under constant review.

// Spells – Stack Control
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
4 Counterspell

Obvious at first sight, but the tournament showed me, that I should reconsider the number of Counterspell. The 4 Spell Snare were good, but perhaps 3 Counterspell are enough.

// Spells – Board Control
3 Vedalken Shackles
4 Back to Basics
4 Powder Keg

Shackles give me the creatures I can win with. It’s real fun to kill the opponent with his own Tarmogoyf. Back to Basics locks down the 400€ manabase. And Powder Keg takes care of most other things.

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Propaganda
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 Sower of Temptation

4 anti-swarm. 3 anti-loam/dredge. 4 anti-red. And 4 additional Tarmogoyfs. Nothing against Affinity or Burn but you can’t hate everything. The plan is to hope to not play against them in the first two rounds. They should not appear at the top-tables. I know, not much. But a plan is a plan. So let’s see what I can remember of 7 rounds swiss.

Match 1: Deadguy Ale (B/W aggro)
I started on the draw in game 1 and kept a hand without Force of Will. And he opened with Dark Ritual -> Hymn to Tourach -> Duress followed with Nantuko Shade beat-down. But then I somehow managed to recover with the help of Back to Basics and won the damage race with Morphling. Go Superman! This is why I love MUC. Almost dead but still winning.
Game 2 was a gift. He kept a hand with one land. What can I say. I would mull down to 4 before I keep a one-land-hand. But well, a Clique was delivering 20 points of damage.

1-0-0

Match 2: White Weenie
Game 1 started with an Æther Vial and 3 turns later I was dead. But fortunately I am prepared for this.
Game 2 started again with a turn 1 Vial and I had to let it resolve. But he was stuck on two and later three lands and two Propaganda are just great. I killed him with his own Serra Avenger stolen by Sower of Temptation.
Now guess how game 3 started. But this time I could have countered the Vial but I was holding Powder Keg and Sower of Temptation. So I let it resolve and played the Keg. Followed by Sower of Temptation giving me again a Serra Avenger.

2-0-0

Match 3: Deadguy Ale
Again this bad match-up. Game 1 started with land destruction denying me the Islands needed for Shackles. It was a pretty long and demanding game, so I don’t remember everything. But at one point he resolved a Tombstalker that I couldn’t Shackle because the earlier land destruction. A chump-blocking Clique put a Vindicate away but he drew another. Killing another Island. Lucky me he let the Shackles live. The next chump-blocking Clique removed a Thoughtseize and again he drew a second one. But the Cliques gave me enough time to get the Islands to steal the Stalker with me on 5 live. He StoP-ed it giving me 5 additional live. The next thing I Shackled was a Dark Confidant. But I had to give it back to him because a revealed Back to Basics brought me to 4 live. But then came Morphling for the kill. And he tried to StoP it. But this is just not happening. Good that I managed to win this, because it took almost 30 minutes.
Game two I was facing a Tombstalker with me on three Islands. But I took the gamble and let it resolve expecting to se the needed Islands. But Sower of temptation was faster but he StoP-ed it. But it gave me enough time for the needed Islands and a second Shackles. I killed him with the Stalker and an Hypnotic Specter. Looks like I rarely need own creatures.

3-0-0

Match 4: Threshold/Swans
I lost game 1 to Tarmogoyf I think. I couldn’t get around his Counter/Top.
Game 2 I denied him Counterbalance but he used it as bait for Swans of Bryn Argoll. Now that was a surprise. I wasn’t expecting some combo-finish. And he won the counter-war over the Chain of Plasma, so I could do nothing against the killing Lightning Storm.

3-1-0

Match 5: Canadian Threshold
Game 1 followed the plan. I killed him with two Shackled Tarmogoyfs.
Game 2 I couldn’t get rid of a Trygon Predator. Sower of Temptation was burned away. Shackles got the Krosan Grip.
Game 3 I kept a bad hand and lost to two 1/1 Nimble Mongoose. I tried Sower of Temptation as blocker as well as a Clique. But in the end I died waiting for Powder Keg.

3-2-0

Match 6: ANT
I never played against ANT so I didn’t had something that I would call a plan aside from countering Ad Nauseam and playing the beat-down.
Game 1 followed the plan with Vendilion Clique beating down. Then she played an Orim’s Chant. I let it resolve because I could only counter it and not the following business spell. Lucky me, she needed my Counterspell for her storm-count. So i survived the Ill-Gotten Gains on 2 life with a counterspell-laden hand. Vendilion Clique with late support of Morphling finished the job.
Game 2 also followed the “plan”. Clique for beat-down and Counterspells for Ad Nauseam. Looks like my so-called plan was good after all.

4-2-0

Match 7: Counter/Top
It was late and I really don’t remember much of this match. At some point he managed to counter Morphling with Counterbalance showing Force of Will. I think this was Game 1.
I won game 2, I think with his Tarmogoyf. But I’m not exactly sure.
And I almost won game 3. This was strange. He played Gaddock Teeg. I choose to not Keg him but to steel him with Shackles. The turn before time was called I resolved a Sower to speed up the clock. And it would have been enough. But he killed Sower in his last additional turn.

4-2-1

I finished 6th. Much better than expected.Anyway. I made a load of mistakes denying myself a better finish.

So we learned something from this tournament:

• I almost always boarded Sower of Temptation in, so perhaps it deserves maindeck slots.
• Sower of Temptation is easily burned, so Kira, Great Glass-Spinner might be good. Actually I planned a long time to go with a Kira/Sower build.
• Counterbalance can counter Morphling. But we all know that luck is a factor in this game.
• I’m still not sure about Ancestral Visions. It feels like cheating once it finally resolves, but sometimes that is too late. I boarded them out sometimes, but I lost those games.
• Trygon Predator and Krosan Grip are a real pain. It was so frustrating in fact, that I consider to play them myself.
• Back to Basics was not as necessary as I thought it would be. I only played them against Deadguy Ale, but it helped me to win the very first game of the day.
• Sometimes you just loose to a surprise combo. This is were a DIA (Deck Intelligence Agency) would be great.

I realy enjoyed this tournament. 7 rounds are great, but we forgot to bring food with us. Perhaps my concentration in the last round suffered a bit of low blood sugar.

Until next time…

Getting Older

I wasn’t playing control for a while since the latest shift in the Standard-Metagame made it impossible to continue with it. Alara Reborn was real bad news for 5cc. I tried to play Cruel Control anyway in a local PTQ for Austin and lost bad. To everything. As expected. But I didn’t drop after loss #3 because I payed to play 7 matches and I honestly don’t care about my DCI-rating.
Congratulation to my wife. She almost made top 8 (4-3-0) with her DarkBant deck at the same PTQ. She was the only female of 72 participants. It was funny to watch her opponents facial expression shift after they realized that playing against a girl does not equal a bye.

Anyway, back to control. Yesterday was a tournament in our local store. Format was Legacy with a restriction to two rares. I will call it Two-Rare-Legacy or 2RL for short. And everybody kept telling, that with this restriction, only burn or affinity is viable. I considered this statements as a challenge to build an old school mono blue control (MUC) deck. Luckily I didn’t sell my Force of Will playset after stopping to play five years ago. And Force of Will is uncommon.

And the backbone of MUC, Fact or Fiction, is also uncommon.

Sadly, every sort of classic MUC-removal like Powder Keg or Nevinyrral’s Disk is rare. So is Morphling aka Superman and I really wanted to play him. So my only real creature solution is Propaganda and four Plumeveil.

So I came up with this:

// Lands
4 Quicksand
21 Island

// Creatures
4 Plumeveil
2 Morphling
4 Mulldrifter

// Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Propaganda
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Counterspell
4 Ponder
3 Mana Leak
2 Tidings

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Chill
SB: 1 Annul
SB: 4 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 Energy Flux
SB: 2 Dream Tides

This looks like a crappy pile of 11 incarnations of Counterspell, some walls to stop small creatures and a massive amount of card draw to find a Morphling or die due to self-milling. Ironically this is pretty close to the truth. Here some card discussion:

// Lands
4 Quicksand
21 Island

25 land are there because all business spells are expensive and keeping mana open to counter or pretend to be able to counter is even more so. The Quicksand are a last minute adition mainly to solve Mistmeadow Skulk. I have no other out for it and I have no intention to loose just because one creature hits the battlefield.

// Creatures
4 Plumeveil
2 Morphling
4 Mulldrifter

Plumeveil functions as a Condemn for everything with toughness <=4 except, of course, the small little **** Mistmeadow Skulk.  Mulldrifter is draw-engine and alternate kill. Morphling is just the coolest thing ever. Flies, untaps, can protect itself and is a four turn clock.

// Spells – Draw
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Ponder
2 Tidings

Fact or Fiction used to be the best draw spell. Long time banned in all formats and still restricted in Vintage. “End of turn – Fact or Fiction” is the best thing a control player has to say. Ponder is there to make the early game more reliable. Sometimes land #3 or #4 is just not showing up. Tidings should provide enough steam mid- to lategame to ensure the win.

// Spells – Stack Control
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Mana Leak

Self speaking. The hard part is to guess exactly what to counter. You can’t deny everything. I’m not sure about Mana Leak. I think the situations were I needed a hard counter equal those were Leak was enough.

// Spells – Board Control
4 Propaganda

This it were the fun ends. At least for the opponent. And the effect is cummulative.

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Chill
SB: 1 Annul
SB: 4 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 Energy Flux
SB: 2 Dream Tides

The sideboard reflects the above mentioned statements that burn and affinity will be big. I didn’t played against either so I can’t tell. The sideboard should be effective against those. The only two sideboard cards that I realy realy needed are Dream Tides. They were a real lucky last second addition. I ordered them after I realised that I will loose to elfs. And I have no intention to loose to the guys with their strange ears. I didn’t the cards to arrive in time but they did -> happy happy joy (as in Ren & Stimpy).

Match 1: Sliver
I lost game 1 to poison counters. How cool is that? This was the first time evere I came in touch with poison counters.
Game two followed the plan. Some cute little slivers nibbling on my life total. And then Morphling for the kill. Game 3 was almost the same, but after time was called Morphling could only attack once.

0-0-1

Match 2: Esper Artifacts
A cute girl playing with cute Artifacts. Game 1 was pretty fast Morphling beatdown. For game 2 I brought in all 4 Energy Flux. I happened to draw three of them. Hopefully she will bring a sideboard next time. White has so many wonderfull solutions for enchantments.

1-0-1

Match 3: Elf combo
The guy was playing some two card elf combos. He managed to sneak a lifegain elf into play. And since I don’t have an out for this, I conceded game 1 a few rounds before decking. The time limit does not like the control player. Games 2 and 3 followed the plan. Dream Tides provides a major problem for little green men. And supermen can fly, hence the name. The only tricky moment was to play aroung an expected Naturalize. I played Propaganda as bait. He played Naturalize. I thanked and played the Tides. He wanted to play it out and Morphling plus two Mulldrifters came for the kill.

2-0-1

Match 3: BW-something
Another cute girl. And she provided the most exciting match. She had disruption in form of Tidehollow Sculler but repeatedly tried to play Path to Exile and friends on Morphling. This is just not happening. Game 2 was scary because she played the **** Mistmeadow Skulk. But as mentioned above I had secret tech against that nasty little Kithkin. I was at ten life but then a Fact or Fiction revealed three Quicksand. Then she somehow managed to get a black and white creature into play and played two auras that made it big enough to stop Morphling. Damn it, why didn’t I play a bounce spell? But Morphling had her at 5 life and an attack with three assistant Mulldrifters sealed the deal.

3-0-1

I finished 2nd. 1st was another control deck that was splashing red. And 3rd was my wife with white weenies.

So we learned something from this tournament:

• With two control and one white weenie on top, it is fair to say that neither affinity nor burn was dominant
• I need to play a second color for removal. Without Powder Keg or Disk it is hard to win with Propaganda and Superman alone. Next time everybody is prepared for this.

I think next time will be real Legacy. Until then…

Wrath of Wydwen

Yesterday was FNM and guess what I played. No, not Cruel Control. I call it Kind Control because I axed Cruel Ultimatum from my deck as well as Volcanic Fallout (I didn’t expect faeries) and the Dragon. In fact, the only red mana symbol was on Banefire. So without the cruel cards, it’s fair to call it kind. What’s not fair is that I couldn’t participate at the Alara Reborn prerelease today. But that’s a different story. Let us discuss the card I was building my deck around for yesterday.

Why do I want to play this anti-faerie card while axing the real faerie hate Volcanic Fallout. The answer is, I don’t see Cloudthresher as hate against faeries. I think Cloudthresher is a great creature for a control deck. It has flash and every control player want to play his stuff when it’s necessary and not when it’s the own main phase. It can block fliers. And it has an impressing 7/7 body. That means Wall of Reverence dies. The downside is that Cloudthresher is vulnerable to Terror. And I really had situation where I couldn’t cast it because of the two damage.

//Lands (26)
2 Island
2 Exotic Orchard
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Vivid Creek
3 Vivid Grove
2 Vivid Marsh
2 Vivid Meadow
2 Flooded Grove
2 Sunken Ruins
3 Mystic Gate

The GGGG in the mana cost was the reason for me to cut the red stuff to smooth out the mana base. I wanted to Wrath of God with its WW so RR had to go. In my experience you can’t consitently support GGGG, WW and RR. This is also why the Ultimatum is out.

// Creatures (9)
4 Mulldrifter
3 Wydwen, the Biting Gale
2 Cloudthresher

After my foreword about the Cloudthresher, there is no surprise here. Mulldrifter ensures my 4th landdrop and Wydwen just rocks.

//Spells (25)
4 Cryptic Command
4 Broken Ambitions
2 Negate
4 Esper Charm
2 Pithing Needle
4 Path to Exile
3 Wrath of God
2 Banefire

I wanted the Wraths, because I expected fast and big creature like in the Ziggurat.dec my wife is playing. The purpose of the Negates is to catch Swerves and the like. And the Needles are meant to shut down Manlands and Planeswalker.

// Sideboard (15)
1 Negate
1 Wrath of God
1 Pithing Needle
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Wall of Reverence
3 Plumeveil
3 Celestial Purge

Mostly an anti-creature sideboard. The Vendilion Cliques and Celestial Purge are additional control-hate.

Match 1: Ziggurat.dec
I knew this will happen. I had to fight my wife. And her deck is meant to smoke control. So I expected an exciting match. Game 1 started with two(!) Tidehollow Scullers on her side. Damn it. She took my spot removal away before I even got the mana to play it. And then came Gaddock Teeg. I was almost about to concede. She was beating me down to two life. I had a Cloudthresher and couldn’t play it. But the final Esper Charm and my last draw brought me Path to Exile, Land and Wrath of God. This is what I call just-in-time management. I proceeded to win game 1.
Game 2 started with Treetop Village beat-down. At 6 life I resolved Wall of Reverence. Two rounds later, at 8 life, Rafiq of the Many hit the table. As a consequence, the Village was trampling down my wall. I was again at 2 life and drew a Cloudthresher. But this time I had a plan to cast it. I resolved a second Wall of Reverence. End of turn I increased life to 3. During her turn Cloudthresher hit the board and Treetop Village was sent into Exile. Again a just-in-time win. To be honest, I should have lost both games. But I don’t complain to have a little luck with topdecks.

1-0-0

Match 2: Grixis something
The same guy as last week. I don’t remember details of this match, but I was countering some stuff and Wydwen was getting him down. In game 2 he was keeping a hand with one land. I resolved Wall of Reverence and Cloudthresher and won with about 50 life.

2-0-0

Match 3: Swans control
I lost game 1 to Mutavault. This is something that can happen when you rely on Wrath of God to solve creatures. I was holding two Wraths and cast three Mulldrifter as chump blockers, but I was not seeing Path to Exile or the Needles.
I won Game 2 with two swings of Cloudthresher and a little Banefire.
Game 3 was the game I enjoyed the most at this FNM. I had a pretty good start and was able to counter some Swans of Bryn Argoll and Seismic Assault. I needled a Vexing Shusher. And then I made a mistake. My opponent was playing Jace Beleren. I let it resolve because I was holding two additional needles. He countered the first. And I was forcing the second through two Guttural Responses, tapping out in the process. This enabled him to resolve swans and assault in his turn. To much card advantage. I had him at eight life, and was holding a Banefire. But I (correctly) guessed that he has a Swerve. And I couldn’t play around it. I tried everything possible including tricks with Esper Charm and Path to Exile to make him play the Swerve, but in the end I died to his Banefire.

2-1-0

But still good enough for second place.

So again, we learned something from this FNM.

• I need my Fallouts back. They would have easily solved the Sculler/Teeg problem in my first game and the Mutavault. I could also benefit from opposing Swans.
• I still think that Cloudthresher is worth playing.
• Twincast is a card to consider. It effectivly counters Cruel Ultimatum, solves counterspells and Swerve and perhaps Banefire.
• Sometimes you can’t afford to fight Jace at all costs. The card advantage is a problem. But the Swans/Assault engine is just bigger.
• I was right with my guess about swerve last week.

Too bad that the next Standard FNM is end of May. Five weeks. Next Saturday is Alara Reborn release and then its only four weeks.

Until then…

Wydwen makes a Banefire

Yesterday was FNM Standard. And I played (surprise, surprise) Cruel Control.

// Lands
2 Cascade Bluffs
2 Island
1 Exotic Orchard
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Mystic Gate
3 Sunken Ruins
2 Vivid Meadow
3 Vivid Marsh
4 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Crag
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Crumbling Necropolis

A word to Sanctum/Necropolis. I needed some color-fixing and my wife was playing with my other Vivid-lands. The rest of the manabase is without surprises.

// Creatures
4 Mulldrifter
2 Wydwen, the Biting Gale

I expected much control mirrors so I was playing two Wydwen in the main deck. I like Wydwen by the way. This is a real control creature. It reminds me of an old friend from Ice Age, Blinking Spirit.

The good thing about Wydwen is her speed. Makes her even more controlish. And she can fly and survives a Fallout without additional action. The downside beside beeing legendary is of course the cost to get her out of trouble. But having this ability for free made the Spirit to annoying.

// Spells
4 Esper Charm
4 Cryptic Command
2 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Broken Ambitions
4 Volcanic Fallout
2 Banefire
4 Path to Exile
2 Wrath of God
2 Martial Coup

I wanted to try Martial Coup, because I’ve had good experience with it in my first FNM and I expected a plethora of solutions for the Dragon. And yes I was always aware that 1/1 soldiers are going to die to Volcanic Fallout. But since it is only a kill condition and is nuking all other creatures anyway, the little soldiers will at least not die to my own Fallout.
And why was I playing Path to Exile and Wrath of God over the walls? First, I don’t like permanents other than lands and sometimes the finisher. And second, the same thought that axed the dragon from my list. Everybody should have solutions for the walls. Plus, as mentioned above, I expected many mirror matches. And I feared boring matches where both control players are sitting behind their walls increasing life total until one is unable to draw.
So, my plan for the control mirror was to get the opponent into Banefire range with Wydwen, Fallout or Cruel Ultimatum and Banefire him for the kill.

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Wydwen, the Biting Gale
SB: 2 Wrath of God
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Negate
SB: 3 Celestial Purge
SB: 3 Vendilion Clique

Obviously an anti-control sideboard. Which leads us to the question, why don’t include the anti-control cards into the main deck and saving the creature removal for the sideboard?  At least I’m sideboarding 12 cards in the mirror. But until the opponent is not bringing in his anti-control stuff, my own anti-control stuff can’t shine. For example Needle against Scepter of Fugue. And I need a way to get rid of walls until they are replaced by e.g. said Scepter.

So how successfull was this deck in combination with its pilot yesterday? It started with

Match 1: Cruel Control
After having the better start, I screwed up game one by trying to resolve a cruel ultimatum.  I knew better. Before tapping the mana, I was sure it will be a mistake. And I was not listening to myself. And I lost.
I also screwed up game two before it actualy started by forgetting to bring in the Pithing Needles. And of couse the first thing that hit the table was a Scepter of Fugue. But to my own surprise the game was far from beeing over. I resolved a Vendilion Clique and almost got my opponent into Banefire range. Then I wanted to speed up things and resolved a second Clique. For everybody not aware of this really stupid mistake, Vendilion Clique is legendary. To restore parts of my honor, I heard this is a pretty common mistake. But anyway, this was the end of this match, because I had to throw to many lands to the Scepter to make a big enough fire. And I had a feeling that I will get a second chance to (im)prove my skills to play a mirror.

0-1-0

Match 2: Cruel Control
I conceded game one after facing Obelisk of Alara, a dragon and its mate and a countered last chance Martial Coup. Save time where you can to avoid the time limit. Game two and three followed the plan. Wydwen and friends were beating the opponent into Banefire range. And making the fire big enough makes it uncounterable. But you always have to fear Swerve. Interestingly this was a pretty fast match even though one would expect a three games control mirror to take days.

1-1-0

Match 3: Grixis something
Exactly what I needed after two control mirrors. Time to relax. This Grixis deck was built and piloted by a newbie. So I went 2-0. The biggest threat ever hitting the table on his side was Onyx Goblet. But he was a nice guy and I think he enjoyed playing without thinking to much about winning. I like this attitude. At least from my point of view magic should always be more about fun than about winning at all costs.

2-1-0

Match 4: Elves with Bitterblossom
I lost and I lost without having fun playing because I had to mulligan down to 5 in both games, followed by manascrew in the first and manaflood in the second. But even with the right amount of mana I have the feeling that this is one of the harder matchups for 5cc. Hopefully I get a second chance to play against this kind of deck in the near future.

2-2-0

At least not a negative record…

So we learned something from this FNM.

• You should always listen to yourself. If the inner voice says “don’t” than you better don’t.
• Stick to your sideboarding plan. Just as Logen Ninefingers says. (If you don’t know Logen, I recommend “the first law” trilogy by Joe Abercrombie.)
• Even tiny faeries can be legendary.
• I finished every game with Banefire so there is a chance that I will face Swerve or the like next time. Or others will also get to the Banefire plan and I should bring Swerve myself. And Swerve is a versatile card, because beside the obvious target changing thing it can change the target of a counterspell on the stack to itself.
• Manascrew sucks as much as manaflood.
• Perhaps I should go back to the Dragon.

Next friday is the next Standard FNM so I don’t have to wait to long to (hopefully) get in control again.

Until then…

Getting caught up in the maelstrom

Earlier today I read the latest article by Mike Flores on wizards.com and got pretty excited about the Alara Reborn preview card. I was just thinking that I should perhaps start to fear Planeswalker when Pithing Needle is rotating out this summer. And then I saw Maelstrom Pulse.

A real good reason for me to add a little more green to my control deck. Currently, the only green mana symbol in my deck is on Broodmate Dragon. So I need to check if my green mana supply is sufficient because I really want to play this new Vindicate. Perhaps adding a Vivid land  or some Flooded Grove is in order.

OK, enough jabbering about mana supply. Why do I think Maelstrom Pulse is good? It’s the very first line in the text box. Destroy target nonland permanent. Everything after this is negligible because Volcanic Fallout is better in removing tokens. Maelstrom Pulse should be the solution for everything annoying coming your way. But there’s the sad thing about its sorcery slowness. And the inferiority to Path to Exile when it comes to solve creatures. I like Path to Exile by the way because it can handle Manlands and Kitchen Finks and leaves no targets for Reveillark.

Anyway, I think I will try Maelstrom Pulse in my Path to Exile spot maindeck, but I fear it will turn out to be “Destroy target Planeswalker” and replace Pithing Needle in the sideboard. One way or another, I can’t wait to play Maelstrom Pulse to see if the extended target range can compensate the slowness.

Until then…

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog. I’m Link Ramirez (that is of course a pseudonym). My passion is to play Magic: The Gathering. More precise, my passion is to play control. I was always attracted by just playing a land and pass the turn. Unfortunately I was not playing Magic since Onslaught. Over the last Christmas holidays (2008) I remembered how much fun Magic is. So I took a look at the current Standard environment and smiled. It was a great feeling to see a competitive five color control (5cc) deck. I decided to build a so called cruel control deck and took it to the next Friday Night Magic (FNM). I finished 3rd and, more important, had much fun playing the deck. I really love this Standard. A metagame that is slow enough to play Cruel Ultimatum is fun. Look at it.

I mean a card that cost UUBBBRR should be unplayable. But it is not and I will play it again next Friday.

Until then…