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Thirst for Knowledge: Into the Frying PanBy Chris Jobin on July 2nd, 2009 · Filed in Thirst for Knowledge, Standard (Type 2), Limited · 27 CommentsI had this past weekend off, so I decided to head over to my old apartment in Grand Rapids to support my roommate in his efforts to qualify for the MTGO Champs event, which could have potentially sent him to Worlds. He ended up, well, not getting there, but that's neither here nor there. Needless to say, there was a fair amount of Magic played that weekend, though nothing could top what we got ourselves into Sunday afternoon: Mirage Block Sealed.
The only solid card I had outside these colors was Catacomb Dragon (a bomb), but I didn't have nearly enough passable black cards to make it worthwhile at all. Once I had all of my playables together and my colors decided upon, I looked things over and realized that I had no removal. At all. So, naturally, I went directly back to my pool to see what I actually had to work with and had somehow missed: there was nothing. I literally had only a single Spitting Earth as my removal (which wasn't all that playable since my red wasn't nearly good enough), and it came as quite a shock to me. You see, I'm used to modern Magic where the sets have plenty of efficient removal, and it appeared that Mirage Block was pretty devoid of it. Granted, this block has Incinerate, Dark Banishing, and Thunderbolt, but I found that generally creatures were hard to deal with. I had to rely on combat tricks like Armor of Thorns to win creature wars, something that proved to be irritating. If my opponent played a creature I could not deal with, it was pretty much curtains for me. That was, as one might say, awkward. In one round, game two (I had won the first game quite handily), my opponent's first turn was as follows: Swamp, Dark Ritual, Hidden Horror. I glanced at my hand (a pretty good one, though I obviously could not beat a play like that), and wanted to punch myself in the face. I then proceeded to topdeck the Wall of Roots that would prevent that Hidden Horror from attacking for the rest of the game. That's right, folks: my opponent honestly could not deal with my 0/5. Mirage sucks. I actually thought my deck was going to put me into top 8 (I had a sick combo going with Infantry Veteran and Quirion Ranger), but I was put in my place only a round later. I got steamrolled in game one, won a close game two, and started off game three really fast. I dropped his life total to 12 in only four turns, but on turn five (he had made no plays up until that point) he played a Savage Twister and showed me who was boss. That card has got to be the best card in the format, right? I mean, Kaervek's Torch is pretty sick, but Savage Twister? Really? In a format with next to zero removal it seems like Wrath-of-freakin-God is probably the best card ever. Flanking is disgusting. Despite the format being so intensely focused on the combat phase, I had a good time playing with such old (and mostly terrible) cards. Piloting a deck with Crash of Rhinos brought back some very old memories for me (I honestly used to think that Animate Dead on Crash of Rhinos was the greatest play in the game), which I was more than happy to think back on. Still, why talk about Mirage Block Sealed in a Constructed column? Well, to be completely honest, this is another one of those "in between" weeks where I can't really talk about much of the going-ons in Standard (I say Standard because the other Constructed formats aren't that important right now) since the format will totally shift in two weeks (MTGSalvation article policy is to only discuss officially spoiled cards), and so I thought I'd share my experience with a different format (although, well, it's quite old). The awkward part about all this is that Mirage will no longer be available on Magic Online (again) by the time this article goes live, but at least you have some insight into the format for when they finally bring it back. Of course, this section may have piqued your interest enough to give Tempest Block Limited a try this week, and if so then I guess my work is done! Broooooooken. I mean, the further back you delve into Magic's history, the more frequently you see broken cards. It was a time when the designers and developers didn't know enough about their game yet to know what was too good and what wasn't, and cards like Necropotence were printed. Mirage was right around the time when they started to modernize the game and get it truly on track, but even then they still made mistakes and printed too many busted cards (see Flash and Lion's Eye Diamond). I think the fear of making too many more cards like those might have caused the power level of the cards to become reduced on average, and I also think that the disappearance of that same fear is why we're seeing cards like Lightning Bolt back in the core set. Wizards knows their game very well at this point, and I think that they're going to continue to print better and better creatures as the years go on. I say creatures here because it feels like creature is the one card type that has seen the most significant power boost since Alpha. Just take Isamaru, Hound of Konda: it's a 2/2 for one white with basically no drawback, and yet Savannah Lions was considered one of the game's best creatures since it was originally printed. When you start to take into account Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant, it becomes even clearer. M10 has quite a few more in store for us to prove my point:
Spoiler:
A card like this would simply not see print in Mirage. While some of the powerful cards during that era were pretty obvious (like Vampiric Tutor), while some became prominent much, much later (such as Phyrexian Dreadnought, Natural Order, or Flash). A card like this one, however, makes it very easy to see how good it is. A 3/3 for four mana is already fairly acceptable, but this guy also happens to pump out 2/2s each turn. The fact that it still has an additional ability on top of it is actually absurd. Mythic rare or not, this is power creep. Creatures are getting better, no doubt about it. Noncreature spells are superb these days as well (Maelstrom Pulse, Path to Exile, etc), but they just don't stack up to the creatures. Even Cryptic Command and Bitterblossom, easily the best noncreature spells since Damnation (and Lightning Helix before it), have met their match with Bloodbraid Elf. Of course, the best noncreature spell since those two is Bituminous Blast, and I think its value in Standard is about to really spike. With creatures (and, more generally, the combat phase) being so pushed with M10, I think it's easy to see that a card like Bituminous Blast is going to be seeing even more play. *** If you wanted to play Bituminous Blast in Standard, it used to be a simple matter of picking up a Jund or Five Color Blood deck and battling it out. While I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, I believe it's worthy of note that Bituminous Blast has the ability to make even a mediocre deck good, and there are I number of decks in the format that I feel should take advantage of that. The one I want to talk about, however, is RB Aggro:
Take a look over the list once more, and tell me why it doesn't play Bituminous Blast. I know the common answer is "well, it wants to maintain its speed." Now, while I think that's a viable answer, I feel like it isn't good enough. Red-based aggro has always struggled with white decks, and this archetype in particular is pretty cold to any form of one. This archetype has almost no late game, and even more so it totally lacks any form of a card advantage engine. The solution? Bituminous Blast. However, we can't just add the card to the deck blindly. The first thing we need to do is see what our options are when cascading. Hitting a Figure of Destiny is awkward, certainly, but its such a strong card that I think we're generally okay with making a concession there. Mogg Fanatic is pretty rancid off of a Bituminous Blast, so let's just throw that card out completely. Boggart Ram-Gang is fine, and so is Incinerate. Volcanic Fallout is pretty amazing off of a cascade, and so is Anathemancer. Hellspark Elemental appears bad at first, but when you stop and think about it, it isn't so terrible. If you play Bituminous Blast pre-combat to clear a blocker, he can swing. If you play it during your opponent's combat phase, he blocks. If you play it inside their end step, he sticks around until your next turn. No matter when you really want to play the Bituminous Blast, Hellspark Elemental is pretty acceptable. Of course, not all these cards are going to be legal in two weeks, so lets think about what we'd want in the deck after M10 hits:
*Rumored name for the RB dual from M10. Now, I've moved Anathemancer to the sideboard for a number of reasons. Firstly, the three-drop slot is pretty clogged as it is. Secondly, it just isn't as good right now as it used to be. The decks that it shines against are less plentiful than they used to be, and the introduction of the new dual lands like Drowned Catacomb herald a return to basic-heavy decks (not to mention how bad the card is against Kithkin, possibly one of this deck's very worst match-ups). That being said, his absence from the maindeck allows us to make a pretty uniform list, which gives us the room to play Murderous Redcap, exactly the kind of card that I'd want to cascade into. I cant imagine a scenario where that wouldn't just be a tremendous blow-out, and that's exactly the type of synergy we're looking for here. Take advantage of this card, people. *** Now, next week will be just as difficult for me, but I should have more to work with as far as the official spoiler goes, so that will help a good deal. I hope you enjoyed reading about my foray into an ancient Limited format as well as my new take on a Standard favorite, and I look forward to your comments in the forums! Thanks for reading! This article brought to you by: Artist: Michael Jackson Album: Thriller Until next time, Chris "Shinjutsei" Jobin By Chris Jobin on July 2nd, 2009 · Filed in Thirst for Knowledge, Standard (Type 2), Limited · 27 Comments |
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