Esper Control Post Avacyn Restored

Now that Avacyn Restored has hit the shelves, all of us standard players have a lot of new cards to take advantage of and brainstorm about when thinking about decks. There have also been a few decks that have significantly improved, like Human and Wolf Run. Today we are going to be taking a look at Esper Control; which has had some significant cards printed since the last article that I had written about it.


The Esper Control build that I used for pre-AVR standard served me very well each week and also had a 9-0-1 finish at the end of the first day of GP Salt Lake; proving to be very fit for the competition in the Tier 1 Meta. Although some match-ups would have required thought on proper courses of action and resolution, anyone with experience and knowledge of operating a control deck could easily have gone 4-0 or 5-0 at their local FNM with this build.


With that said, let's break down how the new build will look and function:


-Planeswalker- (9)
3x Gideon Jura
2x Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2x Jace, Memory Adept
2x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

-Creature- (1)

1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite


-Instant- (3)

3x Tragic Slip

-Socrery- (22)

4x Ponder

3x Entreat the Angels

3x Terminus

4x Day of Judgement

2x Temporal Mastery

4x Lingering Souls

2x Timely Reinforcements

-Land- (25)
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Isolated Chapel 
3x Glacial Fortress
2x Drowned Catacomb
2x Evolving Wilds
5x Plains
3x Swamp
2x Island

Now with the whole list in sight, let's break down each individual card and see why they're here:

-Gideon lets you successfully stall the game against aggro builds. He also provides great removal in situations where your opponent's board presence is very low. Combined with a Temporal Mastery, Gideon also becomes a home run hitter in being able to turn himself into a 6/6 creature and shave off some significant life per turn. 

-Tamiyo is probably the best card to play after a wrath-like effect. Chances are that your opponent will have very little board presence after a Day of Judgment and having the ability to tap down remaining threats is always key. Her -2 also rewards you after you swing with your army of tokens by drawing some cards. 


-Jace ends up being the best tool of destruction; as far as planeswalkers go. His peak in performance is being able to mill for 10 cards each turn with his 0 ability. In the face of adverse situations, he also becomes an extra draw engine per turn when you really need that board wipe. 


 -Sorin, although being the most lackluster of planeswalkers in this deck, is still a force to be reckoned with. His +1 ability lets you create 1/1 lifelink tokens and also build up to his ultimate ability; which is the main reason why we want him in here. With the meta leaning towards mainly aggro, Sorin's -6 ability becomes very relevant because it not only destroys creatures and planeswalkers, but it lets you take control of them as well.    

-Elesh Norn used to be a sideboard option but very quickly found its place in the mainboard. Like it was brought up before, the fixation on aggro in the meta has also made this a necessary addition because not a lot of aggro decks can deal with all of their creatures having -2/-2. Norn also synergizes well with the deck because we have a decent bit of cards that can produce token creatures.  


-Tragic Slip was chosen over other removal cards because it was an easy way to deal with both early game aggro decks as well as Inkmoth Nexus in Wolf Run builds. 


-Ponder became the best possible draw engine for the deck when miracle cards were added into the equation. When you look at the capabilities of Think Twice, you don't get very much out of it because you don't know what you will draw into like you do with Ponder. Being able to arrange your next 2 turns is very efficient for the deck especially when you can strategically plan out when you want to draw into an extra turn with Temporal Mastery, a board wipe with Terminus, or some 4/4 fliers with Entreat the Angels. 


-Entreat the Angels is one of the best win conditions that this deck has. Being able to draw into this card and spend all of your mana late-game will reward you with an army of 4/4's that can put a serious hurt on your opponent. 


-Terminus is easily the best board-wiping card in this deck. You don't have to worry about creatures with Undying or Regenerate like you would have to when it comes to using Day of Judgement. The miracle cost for 1 white mana also leaves you with the rest of your mana at disposal for casting other cards. 


-Day of Judgement, although not as efficient as Terminus, is still very good in the meta at getting rid of annoyances. There was no real reason to cut the amount of DoJ's in the deck from the pre-AVR build because it still gets the job done in clearing the field and buying you some time against aggro decks. 


-Temporal Mastery synergizes well with all of the planeswalkers in the deck. Whether it is an extra turn to swing in with a 6/6 Gideon, mill for 10 with Jace, tap down more creatures with Tamiyo, or create more 1/1 tokens with Sorin, the impact is always significant. In the worst-case-scenario, you will just draw an extra card and play an extra land. 


-Lingering Souls is still one of the best ways to evade damage early in games against quick tempo aggro decks. Each copy of Lingering Souls is able to produce 4 1/1 tokens with the regular casting and flashback casting of the card giving us a possible production of 16 tokens during the course of a game.


-Timely Reinforcements, against aggro and burn, is one of the best ways to make it to the late game stage. Gaining back life and also producing chump blockers is the easiest way to slow down decks like R/G aggro and Human variants. 






In whole, the deck is very competitive and is a force to be reckoned with. Although it requires a level of knowledge in operating a control deck, it is still very straight forward and presents answers to almost all adverse situations. Hopefully you try out the build and see for yourself why   I play Esper control each standard season. 




Thank you for reading and as always, have a wonderful, fun-filled, Magic the Gathering day!

Esper Control- Go Big or Go Home

Whether you are a seasoned player looking for a deck to finish on top with each week or someone that is just trying to improve their game by acquiring as much knowledge about deck structure and functionality, I have the perfect deck for you. I myself am a seasoned magic player who's metagame consists of about 99% of the decks being within Tier 1 competitiveness and about 80% of players who frequently attend larger sanctioned events such as Grand Prix's, SCG Open Events, and even a few professional players that take part in the Pro Tours.  As you could imagine, each week is a true battle to see who will top that given FNM event and hold the bragging rights until the next given week.  Now you may be asking yourself, "why Esper? What is truly so good about this 3 color combination over any other deck color scheme we see already?" The big thing about running, Blue/White/Black is the outlet of resources that you have from each of the colors and the fact that you can, in a sense, get the best of all 3 of these colors in one deck. This season we have seen white and it's capabilities of token production with cards like Lingering Souls and Timely Reinforcements, that can provide a outlet of weenie creatures to hold off attacks early game, as well as give you some life in the case of Timely Reinforcements. Blue has remained iconic in it's control theme with cards like Mana Leak but has also gained cards like Snapcaster Mage for reoccurring powerful spells as well as Think Twice and Forbidden Alchemy to advance your battle plan a few turns ahead of your opponent by drawing cards/digging for the right ones. Black has also remained iconic in its removal theme this season with cards like Tragic Slip, which is proving to be an amazing spot removal element, and also Curse of Death's Hold, a card that can easily dwarf the potential of decks like U/W delver and Esper Spirits by disabling the use of 1/1 creatures as well as dwindling the power of other creatures that opponent can actually play and have them remain on the field; although, with this deck, those creatures won't remain on the field for long. Without further ado, here is the deck list:

-Planeswalkers- [6]

3x Gideon Jura

1x Elspeth Tirel

2x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

-Creatures- [2]

2x Snapcaster Mage

-Artifacts- [2]

2x Batterskull

-Instants- [12]

4x Mana Leak

3x Think Twice

2x Forbidden Alchemy 

3x Tragic Slip

-Sorcery's- [10]

4x Day of Judgement

4x Lingering Souls

2x Timely Reinforcements

-Enchantments- [3]

1x Curse of Death's Hold

2x Oblivion Ring

-Lands- [25]

4x Seachrome Coast

4x Isolated Chapel

2x Drowned Catacomb

2x Glacial Fortress

4x Plains

3x Swamp

3x Island

3x Evolving Wilds

Now let's dissect the deck and see why I picked each card and logic behind it. 

-Gideon Jura-

Besides being one of my favorite planeswalkers in the standard format, He's also a powerhouse for a 5-drop. His +2 lets him absorb blows from your opponents creatures and his -2 lets you get rid of a tapped creature, which is pretty good when it comes to having to deal with pesky aggro decks. His 0 ability also lets you turn him into a creature that cannot take damage, which comes in handy for provoking your opponent to block with a creature he/she has out or suffer the 6 damage. Its very useful to have his 0 ability when it comes to board wiping effects that we have in the deck like Day of Judgement and Elspeth's -5 ability. Nothing rubs salt in the wound than dealing 6 damage after getting rid of all of your opponents precious creatures.

-Elspeth Tirel-

Her -2 lets you produce some ground blockers, which is pretty useful against aggro decks and can cushion the blow of creatures your opponent may have out on the field. Because we are using a decent amount of cards in the deck that produce token creatures, such as Elspeth herself, Sorin, Timely Reinforcements, and Lingering Souls, her +2 ability to gain life equal to the number of creatures you control becomes very useful for both building her loyalty up and building your life up. Her -5 is also a Day of Judgement wipe but lets your token creatures survive. The nice thing about her wrath effect is that it gets rid of other permanents as well, not just creatures, so your opponent's Intangible Virtues, Honor of the Pure's, Oblivion Rings, Shrine of Burning Rage's, and even Planeswalkers all go away!

-Sorin, Lord of Innistrad-

His +1 lets you produce some lifelink 1/1 creatures that can help block some of your opponents bulkier guys. While it isn't much, gaining some life is better than gaining none and it may in some cases round out the damage that might be dealt early game. In this deck, the -2 ability is not as relevant to the game plan because your creatures are meant to block damage rather than swing in, but if the game is unfolding with you having a decent number of creatures that can deal damage in a given turn, by all means, start stacking the +1/+0 emblems. His -6 ability is what we are really aiming for. Being able to destroy creatures AND Planeswalkers is an incredible asset to the deck, but then gaining control of them as well makes things very profitable for you in the game.

-Snapcaster Mage-

The real debate with Mr. Snaps was the quantity of him to use in the deck. While running 4 of him makes it a lot more consistent, you realistically don't need him that often for flashing back spells; so that is why he is sitting at a very reasonable 2-of. He is mainly used to flash back cards like Mana Leak to counter spells as well as Timely Reinforcements and Day of Judgement to change the flow of the game for your opponent. 

-Batterskull-

Originally, this started off as Wurmcoil Engine, but after playing against enough decks in the meta that liked creating copies of him as well as using removal spells that I didn't have the appropriate cards to counter at the given moment, I decided to swap them out for the ever-so-backbreaking Batterskull. The thing that I like the most about this card is that it can be bounced back if 3 mana is left open. Of course, this requires some strategic thinking and decision making but once it hits the table and you have the mana to bounce it and keep it from hitting the exile pile or graveyard, you're pretty much golden. It can also be attached to one of your flying 1/1 creatures, that can be produced with Lingering Souls, for it's 5 mana equip cost, making it a pretty sizable amount of life to be gained back each turn with lifelink and also a fair amount of damage to deal in one turn if unblocked. 

-Mana Leak-

This card has become iconic as a 4-of in almost any control deck that runs a blue outlet. Sure there are some decks that choose not to run it because of the way that the deck operates as a whole, but for this deck, being able to counter your opponents spells is very resourceful.

-Think Twice-

Think Twice becomes handy both in the very early portion of the game as well as late game in being able to hit a land drop each turn and also get the appropriate spells to deal with anything your opponent is dishing out. The flashblack makes this instant even better because you get to use the card twice and get the upper-hand on your opponent.

-Forbidden Alchemy- 

While this card is very powerful in being able to dig through the top 4 cards of your deck and search for that 1 card that could help you, I didn't want to run too many of them because I don't benefit from important cards being in the grave if I have to choose between keeping Gideon or Sorin from the top 4 revealed. The card also has a flashback that can be used in the late game to search for last minute bombs to make your victory much more swift. 

-Tragic Slip-

When it comes to removal cards, a lot of people turn to Doom Blade or Go For the Throat but in this deck, with the amount of creatures that you have to throw at your opponents attacks, Tragic Slip becomes a much more cheap alternative. Tragic Slip can also be used in some situations to prevent cards like Champion of the Parish in the very early game from sticking around and becoming any bigger.

-Day of Judgement-

This card is pretty plain and simple, it just wrecks all plans that your opponent may have for his/her creatures swinging in. Sure there may be undying creatures seeing play in the format now but that's why we run 4 of these bad boys as well as the many other resolutions in the deck that we have against creatures of all different sorts. 

-Lingering Souls-

At first I didn't think much of this card because it was a sorcery speed card unlike its predecessor, Midnight Haunting, but after playing with it in both limited events and constructed after Dark Ascension hit, not only I but the magic community as a whole saw just how incredible this card is. In a sense, you can create 16 flying creatures during the course of a game. Those creatures can then be distributed in whatever fashion you want to use them, whether they are chump blockers or tools to your ultimate alpha strike that can't be blocked by your opponent. Its also pretty convenient that this card has a flashback cost, but even more so that that flashback cost is actually 1 mana less than the original CMC. 

-Timely Reinforcements-

Often times you will see this being played in the sideboard of decks because of the help it gives you against decks like Red Deck Wins and Zombies. The reason why this card bridged the gap between sideboard and mainboard in this case was just the advantage that it gives you in game 1 in a round. The 6 life that you gain with this card is very useful to keep making your opponent's attacks, burn spells, and effects that cause you to lose life, not as detrimental to you in the game. As we talked about earlier, you also gain some tokens if you have fewer creatures than your opponent and they can be used to either just block and absorb damage, set up a morbid trigger for your tragic slip, or just swing in and shave off some life off of your opponent each turn.

-Curse of Death's Hold-

Yet again, this is a card that we see being played in sideboards of control decks but some actually choose to run it mainboard. Because the creation of 1/1 flying spirits is so popular in the Meta, this card becomes useful in game 1 of most matchups. It also puts a stop to decks like delver because in most cases (unless for some reason they have oblivion ring) if the Curse resolves and enchants the delver player, the only real possible cards that they could play is geist of saint traft, and even then he becomes a 1/1 that can be blocked by your 1/1 soldiers and the 4/4 flying angel now becomes a 3/3 that can be blocked by your 1/1 flying spirits. Curse also helps against Esper Spirits if the lord is not dropped on the field and coppied beforehand, but even at that point a tragic slip can rid the field if there are not 2 Drogskol Captain's on the field. 

-Oblivion Ring-

Being able to remove non-land permanents is handy because other than countering things like Planeswalkers, there isn't a huge variety in removal when they hit the table and resolve. Our removal package in the deck is pretty well stacked for creatures out there so ultimately the Oblivion Rings are used to stop big threats like Wurmcoil Engine or Planeswalkers because you don't want Wurmcoil to die, you want him to be exiled so his ability doesn't trigger, and you plain and simple don't want your opponent gaining any benefit from having and Walkers out on the board.

So with all of that said, I think we have just about covered all of the mainboard logic to the deck. When it comes to the sideboard, I will not simply give you a list of 15 cards and tell you to only abide by these cards because every person's Metagame consists of different decks and the proper cards must be put in against those certain matchups. However, I will give you my sideboard and the general scheme for why they're there so that you know how I plan for decks in Game 2, and sometimes Game 3 if I end up losing the first match.

-Sideboard-

2x Ratchet Bomb

-Generally, this card will be sided in for decks like Esper Tokens, B/W Tokens, and any other decks that rely heavily on 0 CMC creature production (mainly tokens). 

2x Surgical Extraction

-Often sided in against control decks to remove threats such as Mana Leak from their grave once they resolve one so that I do not encounter it again for the remainder of the game. Also works very well against undying creatures as you can remove them from the grave before their ability resolves. Sometimes sided against other aggro match ups like humans to get rid of annoyances like Geist of Saint Traft and Hero of Bladehold. 

2x Negate

-Sided in heavily against control and Superfriend Builds to deal with spells and planeswalkers. Also sided in against some, but not all, RDW decks to restrict the use of Koth and burn spells with a lot of kick behind them. 

2x Celestial Purge

-Mainly used against Zombie variants to deal with creatures like Phyrexian Obliterator and Geralf's Messanger if a Surgical Extraction is not at my disposal. Also sometimes sided against certain RDW decks for it's creatures and Koth.

2x Divine Offering

-Very good against decks that like to utilize the use of Wurmcoil Engine, Batterskull, Sword of War and Peace, and Sword of Feast and Famine. Mostly sided in against U/W delver for Runechanter's Pike and Sword of War and Peace, as well as other aggro decks that like to use artifact equipment as well. 

1x Timely Reinforcements

-Sided in against anything with a quick paced aggro and board presence. Also helps against RDW for regaining life lost from burn spells. Sometimes sided in against Zombies to rebound from Geralf's Messenger being cast and copied. 

1x Curse of Death's Hold

-Token Decks, Esper Spirits, Delver and everything stated in the Mainboard description.

1x Karn Liberated

-Often times used for the control matchups. On his own he is a removal engine but he can also restart a game if need be.

2x Phantasmal Image

-Used to get rid of legendary creatures such as Thalia, Thrun, and Geist of Saint Traft. Very rarely sided in but in the worst case scenario becomes very useful for the negative effects implemented by Thalia.  

I hope that you guys enjoyed this article and that it helps you with any deck ideas or tweaks in decks that you may already use. I will be bringing you more articles on decks and functionality of cards in the future but until then, be sure to check out my YouTube channel for your daily MTG fix!

http://youtube.com/AjemanCinnajob

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful, fun-filled, Magic the Gathering day!

-Nick

Black/White Tokens post DKA

       Alright so it seems like now that Dark Ascension is out people are turning to many different decks and strategies that before weren't quite viable. Finally we are seeing the turn around for tribal based decks in the vampire, werewolf, zombie, and surprisingly enough, spirit themes with the addition of the Uncommon Captains in the set.

       However, something that everyone seems to be drawn into is the idea of another token based deck in standard. Ohhhh yes we're talking about White/Black Tokens. When we saw Sorin spoiled for the first time there were two reactions: "Why is he W/B?! He should be R/B!" and "Wow, I'm going to build a token deck!" Well lets break down Sorin and talk about why he is so good for aggro decks. First off, his abilities: +1 gives you a 1/1 Lifelink Vamp Token, token generator each turn? Sure why not; -2 to give you an Emblem that gives your creatures +1+0, stack-able emblems that give you an un-removable advantage for the rest of the game? Beat stick right there; -6 That kills 3 creatures/planeswalkers AND you gain control of those cards that were destroyed?! Although realistically we are more concerned with his -2 and +1 abilities, if you are able to get that -6 off, you should have the game in the bag for the most part.

      Now with all of this talk about Sorin, lets throw him in as a staple in a deck and build around him. What most versions that I think will be played are going to be version very similar in structure to the township token oriented decks, but for you guys unfamiliar with that deck and the cards that are based around it, lets list some possible options for a token based deck.

- Intangible Virtue:
 This is pretty much a must for the deck. Giving your creatures +1/+1 and vigilance is going to be something that will make this deck incredibly lethal and at the same time provide blockers in tough situations. This card is a clear step up from running Honor of the Pure as the rest of the deck wont necessarily always be restricted to white cards, and you will see that in the other card choices.

- Honor of the Pure:
 Although we just bashed on Honor of the Pure up above, if you are running a predominantly white deck (which my build is).
-Gather The Townsfolk:
 Now this is going to be a pretty convenient 2 drop for the deck. Being able to get 2 creatures on the ground turn two is pretty nice even if they are there to block. Next turn you could possibly drop a virtue and Bam, you the ability to swing for 4 and still have 2, 2/2's that can block the following turn.

-Midnight Haunting:
 We saw this card in many different decks prior to the release of DKA and this card is just brutally awesome. 3 drop, Instant speed, and creates 2, 1/1 fliers for you.

-Lingering Souls:
 Now this is both better and worse than Haunting in its ways. First, it's worse in the sense that it's restricted to sorcery speed and ultimately has to be cast during your turn. However, the fact that the card has a flashback cost that is lower than the actual casting cost AND the fact that it has a flashback cost at all is what makes this card playable, especially in this deck.

-Shrine of Loyal Legions:
 Oh don't think that I forgot about this gem from New Phyrexia. The majority of the cards that we will be using in this deck are going to be white; thus, giving us the synergy with the shrine and the ability to tally up the counters on it fairly quickly. Personally, I played township tokens before it had any representation at bigger sanctioned events and I know how absolutely abusive this card is whenever you are able to use it with a Virtue on the board.

-Hero of Bladehold:
 Yet again, another card that is just a huge impact on the current standard metagame. 4 drop, gives your creatures a battlecry buff, and pops out 2 tokens per turn if its not dealt with.

-Mikaeus the Lunarch:
 This card is a little bit more variable to what each person's play style is and how comfortable they are with running a "steel overseer" of a card in a token deck. This is definitely something to consider in the deck because we are working around more token production than we previously saw with the G/W builds.


-Sword of War and Peace/Feast and Famine:
 We won't necessarily see a need to run the feast and famine because there won't be a whole lot that we need to do in terms of untapping and making your opponent discard cards. It is a nice sideboard tech when it comes to match ups especially if you play against net decks like Conley Woods's Grand Prix G/B Wolf Run. The better pick in this situation is going to be War and Peace because of the other aggro match ups you might get. Delver is annoying, but being a Tier 1 player, i find it a lot harder to face up against the U/W humans match up just because of the sheer board presence that you have to deal with (and that's exactly what motivated me to run a rogue Jund build for aggro control).

Vault of the Archangel:
 This is definitely that your token deck is going to need just because whenever you have 5 mana out there, you basically have the option to standstill the whole game. If you have a Intangible Virtue out there then suddenly you have the ability to control how you want the game to go, at least to an extent. Your opponent will be forced to choose whether to block or let the damage through, and if they do let it through, then there's always a possibility that you don't activate the vault, and you can save it for chump blocking during you opponents turn.

-Sorin, Lord of Innistrad:
 I don't really need to reiterate much, he's just simply awesome haha.

-Elspeth Tirel:
 Another great token generator. She can either gain you back life with her +2 equal to the number of creatures out on your side of the field, make 3 1/1 soldiers with her -2, or you can wipe the board of all non-token, non-land permanents (very nice for getting rid of annoying stuff like walkers, enchantments or big threat creatures. Also gets rid of Death's Hold if your opponent sides it in).

-Increasing Devotion:
 Possibly a better and more budget friendly option for an Elspeth substitute. 5 cost and you get 5, 1/1 humans? That's pretty nice considering you should have at least one token buff already out on the field by turn 5. It also has a 9 cost flash back which, realistically we won't have the chance to use because we will be too busy winning at a earlier pace, but if you manage to get 9 lands down and are playing up against some really aggressive board controller then it is a very good possibility that it'll be something to save you.



So with that little bit of knowledge that you have of some cards that work around the deck and what my mind set was in the creation of this deck, lets take a look at the deck that I have put together:

4x Doomed Traveler (not necessarily a must but something i like running for DOJ-Like opposition)
4x Gather the Townsfolk
4x Lingering Souls
4x Midnight Haunting
4x Honor of the Pure
4x Intangible Virtue
1x Mikaeus, the Lunarch (Only one to be able to benefit from it but running too many of him would be bad)
3x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad (4 would just be flashy, 3 is perfect so that you are not flooded by Sorins)
1x Elspeth Tirel
2x Increasing Devotion
2x Sword of War and Peace
3x Oblivion Ring (gotta have at least a bit of removal)

4x Vault of the Archangel
4x Isolated Chapel
5x Swamp
11x Plains


And there you have it, my take on B/W Tokens. Hope this helps inspire any ideas you guys that are reading this might have with running your own brew. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that you HAVE to run the deck exactly like i have it built; Have fun with it and throw in your own twists and adjustments, but the deck that i do have built is what I personally play with and have been seeing good and consistent results with.

Have fun bashing faces in guys and until next time, have a wonderful, fun-filled, magic the gathering day guys!

Deck Builder's Workshop: Green, post Dark Ascension

So just like anyone else im looking forward to another new set and more stuff to play around with. There are however a few things that i really considered when looking at some of the cards, and thought: "hmmmm, maybe it'll push 'this and this' deck to finally be a tier 1 possibility." Now, what ideas to i have so far? Well right off the bat, green is looking good. We still have our Dungrove Elders, Primeval Titans (for now), Green Sun's, Thruns, and Garruk Primal Hunters, but now were also getting some nice, new, and aggro-ish elements that we can consider. First and foremost, Strangleroot Geist. Now maybe i just see the good in every card, but this one is just screaming aggro to me because of how....well, playable it is. 2 green  for a 2/1 with haste AND undying, now, it may not be as good as doomed traveler in giving you something thats flying, but being able to get a 3/2 out of it the next time around seems pretty good to me. Now lets talk about Predator Ooze. Besides it being another one of Ryan Yee's pieces, this card is CRAZY good. 3 Green  for a 1/1 creature thats indestructable. Okay so what makes it special?  The fact that whenever it attacks you put a +1/+1 counter on it, AND whenever a creature dies that was dealt damage by it, it also gets another +1/+1 counter. Now thats an aweful amount of punch in a 3 drop especially because your opponent is going to either have to use a dismember, or a O-ring to try and get rid of it. Last, but not least, we have the Vorapede. Now this is a card that i really liked once i saw it just for the pure rigidness that it has. Its a 5 cost: 3 green, 2 generic, 5/4 creature with Vigilance, Trample and Undying....WOW. Now this is one of those cards thats going to force day of judgment to not even be played, just because you're going to have to flash it back or get another one just to get rid of creatures like Vorapede. Not only does it not tap when it swings, deals trample damage, but when you kill it, it comes back bigger? Has anyone picked up on what im hinting at yet? Birthing Pod, oh yes i said it. We finally have the tools at our desposal to actually make this deck more viable, so let me throw together a really rough shell of how this will look:


1 drops:
None, theres going to still be alot of burn, sweeper, and spot control, so i wouldnt even consider running birds.

2drops:
The only real viable ones i see right off the bat are: Viridian Emissary and Strangleroot Geist

3drops:
Predator Ooze. Dungrove doesnt really fit into pod as great because its more of a mono green based card.

4drops:
Solemn Simulacrum of course, and Thrun are good options

5drops:
Vorapede and Acidic Slime, most likely:  2x Vorapede, 1x Acidic Slime

6drops:
Primeval Titan. If we splash red, Inferno titan, anything else and it starts getting less lethal really. Sun titan would be the only closely viable card, and yet it still doesnt do a whole lot of justice unless you want to run 4 day of judgments and have the ability to fetch your predator oozes and such, which is an idea.

7drops:
if we're running straight green we dont really have any viable 7 drops, buutt if we run white, we could possibly use elesh norn


so, ive actually played with a rogue GW wolf pod deck that i made a while back so let me throw a rough list out there for what post Ascension pod would look like in my eyes:

--25 Creature Spells:

4x Viridian Corrupter
3x Strangleroot Geist
4x Predator Ooze
3x Solemn Simulacrum
2x Thrun, the Last troll
2x Vorapede
1x Acidic Slime
3x Primeval Titan
2x Sun Titan
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

-- 10 Non-Creature Spells:

4x Birthing Pod
2x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Day of Judgement

-- 25 Lands

2x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Inkmoth Nexus
4x Sunpetal Grove
4x Razorverge Thicket
8x Forest
3x Plains
2x Mountain



Now this is a really rough throw together at a glance and no testing but it does have alot of synergy. Now if pod just isnt your cup of tea, lets take a look at a mono green list:


--25 Creature Spells:

4x Strangleroot Geist
4x Dungrove Elder
4x Predator Ooze
4x Solemn Simulacrum
2x Thrun, the Last Troll
3x Vorapede
4x Primeval Titan

--10 Non-Creature Spells:

4x Rampant Growth
3x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Beast Within

-- 2 Planeswalkers:

2x Garruk, Primal Hunter

-- 23 Lands

2x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Mountain
19x Forest




Now im not saying that this is going to be exactly the deck thats the best form of GW pod or Mono Green, but this should be used more as a shell for your own deck if you decide to build it. Ill be testing these decks once i have the DKA cards in hand from all the boxes im going to open haha. So untill next time guys, Good luck with your deck building! Be sure to watch out for the actual finished deck lists in video form on the channel!

Monday Night Magic: 1/23/12

Alright, so i just got done with my Monday Night Magic, so lets talk about how it went. I ended up in the number 2 spot at the end of it all right under delver, being the only round loss that i had. I was running my Jund Control build that started off with me just trying out Conely Woods's  Green/Black Wolf Run, and slowly turned into my own rogue deck build to match and have better control over what the Tier 1 meta has in store for everyone nowadays, more infamously, just UW Humans. The first round, unfortunatly was against delver, which i actually went 1-2 against. I managed to shut out the first game with no problem, but in the second and third i suffered because i didnt mulligan when i should have and kept hands that had very little lands, causing me to be screwed in the long run. Looking back, i should have mulliganed butttt, i always have a confidence in drawing into what i need that gets me into trouble some times haha. So with the first round said and done, i went into the second round up against what was to my surprise a mono blue unblockable/mill/poison deck. Wierd huh? It actually wasnt a bad rogue deck at all, sure it wasnt exactly the best deck to be paired in the meta, but it was somewhat annoying. Nothing that running 3 slags and 3 black sun's couldnt take care of, but thats besides the point haha. So needless to say, i went 2-0 during that game, which then took me into the 3rd round. Oooooh and how i hated the pairing haha. Red Deck Wins, just about the most "coin flip" matchup out of any deck in the meta. So we start off the first game and since my opponent won the dice roll, he went first: mountian into a good ol' captin kirk (stromkirk noble). I responded with a swamp and passed. Then i he dropped another mountain, swung in for 1, and dropped a bloodthirst stormblood berserker, ugh talk about annoying cards. Next turn i dropped another land, and passed, thinking id be in the clear seeing as i had a doomblade and a geth's verdict in hand. So he declared his attackers and i doom blade-ed his berserker, and then i thought i was in the clear. Well his post combat was another berserker. Total facepalm moment. So i ended up getting another swamp drop, and then passed the turn. Then he threw down another mountain, swung in, and i responded with a geth's verdict, but still had take even more damage from the stromkirk and berserker. Then he dropped yet ANOTHER stromkirk AND berserker, so i just scooped after picking up my next draw. At this point i was really unconfident about the match at all, but with the sideboarding in of a tree of redemption and a batterskull, i thought it was still worth a fighting shot. And boy was i right, during the match i ended up searching for my tree early on with a green sun's (i was very confident that there was no blasphemous acts or anything on that grade of removal) and then following it up into a wurmcoil and primeval titan, giving me the second game pretty easily. The third game took a good bit longer.  He started off pretty well with some annoying swingers, but i was able to in just about every instance get them off of the field with a verdict here or a slag there, and even the occasional black sun. Later game he did have some slagstorms as well in response to a grave titan i dropped but after a few standstill rounds (and a tree sitting on the board) i was able to get a batterskull on the field and then follow it up with a primeval titan that i threw the batterskull on to (i initially got double arc trail-ed out of the germ token), and it was basically over. So that brought my record to 2-1 for the night (5-3 counting all games played) and let me take 2nd place oddly enough because there was only 1 person with a 3-0 record and that was UW delver and the only deck that i lost to which put me ahead of everyone else haha. So all in all it was a pretty eventful night and i had some good playing in,but the real question is what the pre-release has in store for us! well thats a story for another day haha

New Ideas for the channel

I've expiramented with a couple of different things for the channel and there have been a couple of ideas that really caught on quick and became fan favorites. For instance, the daily pack series. It was funny because i had alot of people come to me and refer to me as the "daily pack" youtuber, meanwhile my channel started off as being just trading based and then slowly flourished in other directions. I have to say thought, the idea for the packs was really just me going out on whim with trying to get more people watching regularly. I had the impression that if i had content that was everchanging each day on the channel, people could take 5 miniutes out of their day and just watch the video and enjoy a little daily segment, and thankfully, it caught on pretty well. The other thing that some people over others seemed to enjoy were the review videos. Ive done alot of different review videos and showcasings of products over my time of being on youtube. Now of course i cant always go out and get a box every week and open it (probably could do one every other week if i choose to get a pack slip instead of actual packs at FNM and other events) but there are alot of smaller things that people enjoy seeing, and i just wanted to get some insight on what exactly it is that you guys would like to see. So with that said, what are some things that you guys enjoy seeing me open/review on the channel?

Dark Ascension Pre-Release

Soooo, this is my first blog, Hmmmmmm, what to say, what to say. Well how about what im looking forward to as of now in terms of Magic the Gathering related news and events that are coming up. My Dark Ascension pre-release is this saturday at New Dimension Comics in Pittsburgh. Im pretty excitied for both doing the events and the atmosphere there as well. A couple of months ago i went to the Innistrad pre-release, being the first pre-release event that i had ever gone to, and it turned out to be one of the best times, playing magic, in a really long time. Another awesome thing on top of the fact that we'll be getting a chance to play with unreleased cards is the fact that the artist, Ryan Yee (Endless Ranks of the Dead, Phantasmal Bear, Molten Psyche, and many more), is going to be making another guest apperance at the event. I got the chance to talk to him briefly at the last pre-release about his artwork and the ideas he had behind them as well as get some things signed. Needless to say, when i heard that he would be coming back again, i had to confirm it for myself haha. So i ended up talking to Ryan on facebook for a bit to see if he really was coming and also to ask him if he would sign my collection of Endless Ranks of the Dead that i started collecting after seeing the canvas artwork that he brought with him to the pre-release. So all in all i have to say, with both the competitive event to look forward to and another chance to talk to Ryan again, its going to be a pretty eventful day! Ill do some coverage of the day on camera, talking about what cards i pulled for sealed ontop of the cards that my friends pulled as well, a game rundown after each round is complete, and maybe even a guest interview with Ryan Yee himself! Ill keep you guys updated with more MTG news and events and feel free to post any thoughts or comments you may have!