What #Paythepros Means for Magic

I am going to try to keep my opinion on this short and sweet because at this point, everybody and their mother has weighed in on it. As many of you probably know, at the recent Pro Tour Shadows Over Innistrad, Wizards dropped a bombshell on the professional community (check it out here). They were cutting the appearance fees for all Platinum Pros by over 90% next year. Their justification for this was that they were funneling that money into the prize pool for the World Championship creating a $500,000 prize pool for next year’s tournament.

I personally think it is a great idea to raise the stakes in professional magic. One of the issues with magic is that the premier level events just pale in comparison to any e-sports event. League of Legends and even Hearthstone sell out venue as people watch professionals battle it out for prize pools north of $1,000,000. Magic has nothing that comes close to this, our “premier events” have a prize pool that is barely tenth of what most e-sports offer.

However, cutting the professional appearance fee was not the way to go about this. Players have been grinding out pro-points for the past year to get the coveted title of Platinum. Wizards has essentially ripped the rug out from under them. Pros dedicated the time under the assumption that X would be the reward. However, Wizards all of sudden went back on this.

Wizards was pretty quick to respond to the criticism about these awful changes, returning the appearance fee to normal next year and reevaluating the changes in the meantime. However, I think this announcement did something a lot more than make some pros upset. Wizards of the Coast lost the trust of the million of players that they have. This attempted announcement essentially said that Wizards does not have to keep their promises to players and more importantly will do so without getting our opinions.

Returning the appearance fees was the first step in a long uphill battle to regain our trust. A word of caution to you Wizards, we care about our game deeply, please don’t try to pull a quick on us again, or you will lose us.

MTGO Feature Spotlight: Pro Tour Gauntlet

I think one of the most interesting and fun features that Magic Online has added in the past year of so (yes this includes leagues) is the Pro Tour Gauntlet. For those of you who do not know, after each Pro Tour there is an 8 person event that once filled gives you one of the following 16 decks:

1. 1st Steve Rubin: Green-White Tokens
2. 2nd Andrea Mengucci: Bant Company
3. Top 4 Seth Manfield: Esper Control
4. Top 4 Shota Yasooka: Esper Dragons
5. Top 8 Luis Scott-Vargas: Black-Green Aristocrats
6. Top 8 Jon Finkel: Seasons Past Control
7. Top 8 Brad Nelson: Goggles Ramp
8. Top 8 Luis Salvatto: Red-White Eldrazi Goggles
9. 8-2 Patrick Cox: Mono-White Humans
10. 8-2 Rob Pisano: Jeskai Control
11. 8-2 Marcos Paulo de Jesus Freitas: Green-Red Ramp
12. 8-2 Grzegorz Kowalski: Sultai Midrange
13. 8-2 Michael Majors: White Blue Humans 

First of all I would like to say how great Standard is right now, 8 different decks made up the top 8 of the Pro Tour, when is the last time we could truly say that for a standard Pro Tour? I definitely don't remember one. Anyway, the Pro Tour gauntlet is a 3-round swiss event where you are assigned a random top deck to play with for the entry cost of 6 tickets or 60 play points. I think the value on this event is not the best but still definitely worth the experience. The prize payout is basically 30 play points for each win and a QP if you manage to the 3-0 the event. Right before the event starts you have about 2 minutes to check out the deck list and make any chances that you see fit. So what do you all think of this feature? Are you excited to get your hands on the new decks or will you stick to SoI limited? I know I am excited to play a bunch of these this week!

Standard is Dead, Long Live Standard.

Post pro-tour is one of my favorite times of the year. The format has just been broken wide open and it is time to test out all of the new decks that were displayed on the highest level. Today I am going to be sharing a couple of my favorite lists from Pro Tour Shadows Over Innistrad

R/G Goggle Ramp

Prior to the pro-tour I was playing a lot of the traditional R/G ramp deck and I honestly love this new spice to the archetype. One of the biggest issues with playing the old ramp deck came against some of the aggressive decks such as Mono White Humans. This deck sures up some of those issues via the sweet Pyromancer’s Goggles package. Then late game using the goggles to copy a huge Fall of the Titans is such a satisfying feeling. I think ramp will be a contender long into this standard format.

B/G Aristocrats.

Okay, now we are talking. The second list has me more excited about a standard deck than I have been in a long time. This deck reminiscent of the Rally deck of old standard. There are three main kills in this deck that I have found in testing. Zulaport Cutthroat is the primary kill in this deck that just happens to be supported by two of the other finishers in the deck, Westvale Abbey and Nantuko Husk. This deck has an incredible amount of synergy and is likely one of the hardest decks to play in the format right now. I will be attending Grand Prix Toronto and playing this deck. I hope to avoid Kalitas all weekend, that card shuts down this deck pretty well.

PPTQ Top 8 *2nd place*

Earlier this week I made a post about the swiss rounds of a 39 person PPTQ that I played in over the weekend. After a great start and then an almost complete collapse I managed to enter the top 8 in the 8th seed.

At the top tables there was another version of the Blue/White Humans deck that had beaten me in the Swiss and that was what I played against in the first round of the top 8. I was worried that this match up was not going to go well for me because my opponent was playing a little bigger version of the deck I lost to, featuring cards like Dragon Lord Ojutai. Fortunately, I almost felt more favored against this version of the deck. Because they were designed to got a little bigger than the traditional humans deck, they actually made their match up against me worse. A couple of timely Kozilek's Return closed out Game 1 for me. I sideboarded into some Clip Wings while lowering my curve a little bit. This proved to be a winning formula against this deck and I managed to get there in the second game.

During the Semifinals I was paired agains the Black White Eldrazi player that I lost to in the Swiss rounds. This match up felt horrible in the Swiss rounds so I was not very optimistic going into it. Honestly, I am not sure how I won either of these games. I had some incredibly fortunate draws with Chandra, Drawing into more Chandras that closed out game 1. In game 2 I felt that my opponent had an early  concession. I started to Worldbreaker away there lands and they scooped shortly after that but I didn't even feel close to coming back into that game, oh well a win is a win I suppose.

In the finals I was paired agains the Mono Red Eldrazi player that I had beat in Round 3. Unfortunately, I let this get to my head. Going into it my opponent was under the impression that he had no shot and I think I let that get to me. After winning a quick game 1 I kept a really risky hand in game 2 that I was incredibly punished for. Then in Game 3 I kind of just got rolled over vey quickly by an army of Obligators, Thought-Knot Seers and Reality Smashers. In total the entire match was only about 20 minutes long. I came so close to being able to get one step close to playing on the pro tour.

Despite falling just short I think I learned some valuable lessons, I think the big one for me is not to let the feeling like you can't loose a match up get to your head, it will bite your in the butt. It was also just great to be able to get reps in with the deck. I think that ramp will continue to be a solid choice but I could see a world where the humans decks start to take over and push ramp out.

PPTQ Debrief (Pt 1/2)

I recently decided to make the trip home for the weekend. This was in part that fact that their was a standard PPTQ and it seemed like the perfect excuse to head home for the weekend. I had really been enjoying playing ramp in my testing I sleeved up the following 75.

I think ramp is an incredibly solid choice right now and I think this was a good 75 for Day 1 of Standard Tournament.

Round 1 I was lucky enough to get paired with one of my close childhood magic friends... figures. He was playing Black White Control and this game was pretty anti-climactic, Games 1 and 3 my friend kept some questionable hands and got punished in both games. Game 2 I kept kind of a slow hand and he resolved a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar which ended the game quickly.

Round 2 my lucky streak continue, I got paired with my best friend. We both knew each others exact 75's (considering I was running late and he registered my deck for me). I ended up winning this one very easily. My friend was on Black Red Dragons and was quickly overwhelmed by multiple worldbringers. I think the highlight of this tournament was my final game in this match where I resolved a Void Winnower, after the game my friend showed me his hand of triple Chandra and double Dragon Lord Kolaghan.

Round 3 my incredible luck continued, I was paired against mono red eldrazi, a match up that I have found to be close to unloosable for me. I quickly won this match 2-0. At this point I was pretty excited with the deck, I needed to win 1 of my next 3 to be a lock for top 8. But why would I ever just win a match and make it easy for myself?

Round 4 I was paired against a judge I recognized from some GPs. He was on Blue/White humans and we had three very close games where I unfortunately did not get there.

Round 5 my luck continued. I was paired against a player that was playing Black White Eldrazi. Both games I was quickly picked apart via discard spells and a lethal combination of Eldrazi Displacer and Thought-Knot Seer.

Round 6 I was a little titled, this was my final win and in opportunity. Fortunately I was paired with another mono red Eldrazi deck, a match up I was very happy to see. Fortunately it went to plan for once  and I won very easily in two quick games. The combination of Kozilek's return and world breakers often overwhelms the Eldrazi decks.

I was tied wit ha few other players but fortunately I had some really amazing tie breakers so was able to sneak into the Top 8 of this event in the 8th seed. Check out part 2 where I talk about the Top 8 of this event!

Modern Banned And Restricted Updates

The long and anticipated banned and restricted updates are finally here and they bring a lot of welcomed change into the modern format. First and foremost let's get the elephant out of the room. They banned Eye of Ugin, one of the the card that has made the Eldrazi deck such a dominant force in the recent months. There has been some controversy over which of the lands had to go in the Eldrazi deck and I think they made the right choice. It was between Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple and a lot of people feel like banning Eye of Ugin is the wrong choice because of how much it also effects Tron. However, I think that banning the Eye was fine, when they first said they were going to ban something from the Eldrazi Deck, they said they didn't want to completely destroy it. Now I am not sure how real it will be with only 4 of the very powerful "sol lands" but I know that if we only left them with Eye of Ugin it would kill the deck. One of the most powerful things about this deck is that it can turn 2 Though-Knot Seer. But with just Eye of Ugin you need a lot more in order to get this combo out because Eye of Ugin fails to produce the colorless mana needed.

Now on to the even more excited part of this announcements, the unbannings. Both Ancestral Visions and Sword of Meek are unbanned. Visions is a card that people have been begging to have unbanned to try and once again make a blue control deck viable again. With Splinter Twin leaving the format in a previous B&R announcement it killed one of the only blue control deck because without the combo they had a lot of trouble in the late game. Visions once again gives blue decks the reach they have been lacking, drawing three cards late in the game is often enough to pull ahead for a lot of decks. I think the place we are going to see visions fit into is a Blue/White control shell that finishes using a planes walker like Elspeth, Sun's Champion.

The next unbanning I think it not going to have a huge impact on modern, but nonetheless a positive impact. The unbanning of Sword of the Meek seems long overdue as the card has been banned since the inception of the format. Originally, the combo was Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry, each turn you would activate Thopter Foundry to sacrifice Sword of the Meek and get a 1/1 Thopter token and 1 life. But because Sword of the meek was in the graveyard when a 1/1 creature entered the battlefield, you could return it to play attached to that creature. This let you activate Thopter Foundry as many times are you could pay the activation cost of 1. This was one of the best decks in Extended but I do not think it will have the same success in modern for a number of reasons. There are a lot more ways to to kill artifacts the did not exist during Extended, Kolaghan's Command, Abrupt Decay, Scavenging Ooze are all main deck ways that disrupt the combo in the format. I would wager that this deck will see some fringe play but not really make the huge splash people are expecting. I think Wizards really did a great job with this set of bannings and unbannings

This is all for this week, what decks will you be testing out with the new unbannings? Do you think Wizards got these B&R changes right?

5 Standard Cards from Shadows over Innistrad

Today I will be talking a little bit about about some of the cards that I think will have a big impact on the first couple o weeks of this standard format. I have done some minor testing with friends and could be totally off on a lot of these predictions but only time will tell, but for now here we go.

1. Tireless Tracker

I really like this card and I would wager that a lot of lower curve green decks will be playing this card. It is always going to be good. Early it is a solid body that is just going to grow as the game goes on. Then late game it turns all of your useless lands into a brand new card. I would not be surprised to see Collected Company Decks start playing this card to start with.

2. Town Gossipmonger

















I think that if humans becomes a strong aggressive deck in the format ( and I think it will be) then this card is going to be very strong. This card may be a little slow to get going but when you do I think that it will demand a removal spell or you will quickly run over your opponent.

3. Archangel Avacyn

This one seems like a no brainer to me. Avacyn is incredible, she is a well costed, evasive threat that all subsequently saves your entire side of the board. I think Avacyn is definitely going to be the real deal and I would not be surprised to see her get even more expensive.

4. Traverse the Ulvenwald

 I think this card is great, early game it will sure up your draws and then late game it will get your bombs. Most decks should be able to fuel Delirium pretty easily so I don't think it is a stretch to have this online by turn 5 or 6.

5. Mindwrack Demon

This is the only card on this list that I am not quite sure on. I think this card will probably be nuts but there is the strong chance that this card just misses and the triggers end up killing you. If somebody can figure out a list for a G/B delirium deck where Gather the Pack can fill up the graveyard then this card will quickly close out games.

Color me Excited

After playing magic for so long I almost feel I have become the jaded old man during spoiler season of a new set. I just don't find myself getting very excited for new cards but I can say that Arlinn Kord is a notable exception to this rule. I am SO excited for this card. It just does stone cold everything.

Lets break this card down one ability at a time.

Arlinn's first +1 ability seemed really unexciting to me the first time that I read it but after thinking about it for a little bit longer I think it is probably just incredible. The most obvious home for Arlinn in my mind is Modern Jund and having the ability to just start +1'ing creatures as you draw them seems incredible. A kind of interesting play is animating a Raging Ravine and then plussing which lets you leave mana open for a removal spell.

Arlinn's 0 ability is really where she starts to get exciting for me. She makes a 2/2 wolf which albeit by itself is nothing to call home about, but when you start being able to protect Arlinn with the wolf you gain access to the other side of Arlinn which is also very powerful.

Welcome to the Buisness side of Arlinn, Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon. Her first +1 ability on her moon side seems to be the most unexciting in my opinion. However, when the most unexciting part of a planeswalker is when it gives your team a mini-overrun effect, I think we are doing just fine. This ability will be great for breaking through a board stall when needed but I think it will go largely under-activated.

I think what has me most excited about this planeswalker is her -1 on the moon side. Lightning Bolt is a a powerful magic card and having a repeatable lightning rod albeit every other turn is still a very powerful affect, especially when during the off turns you are making a 2/2 wolf.

Finally, her ultimate. I would wager that Arlinn is not the type of planeswalker that will get anywhere close to six loyalty in a game but if you do the payoff is there. All creatures have haste and can deal their power to a creature of player is game over for most decks in standard or modern.

I am incredibly excited to play this card in Modern and Standard, where do you all see Arlinn fitting into a constructed format. What cards are you looking forward to in Shadows over Innistrad.

Grand Prix Survival Guide

The Grand Prix schedule has announced a date close to you, how exciting! So what do you need to know about your first Grand Prix experience. Grand Prix's are a week full of magic that goes much beyond the main event, you can have a great time without even playing in the Grand Prix itself. 

The first important bit of information is accommodations. As soon as you make plans to go to a GP you are going to want to book a hotel. Typically there is a hotel block rented out either on site or close by that will cut you a generous break on the normal price of a room. These can go quickly so I always recommend you book sooner rather than later.

Another important thing is to preregister for your event if you plan to play in the main event. If you are planning on going to a GP that you think will sell out, you should preregister as soon as you make your plans to go. There have been multiple times where I see people upset that they made travel accommodations and couldn't play in a Grand Prix because they did not preregister, don't be that person. 

With that being said, don't feel like you need to play in the main event if you don't want to. GPs are essentially conventions for magic. There is something there for everybody, there are artist booths, side events, casual games, and trading. Don't let the format dissuade you from coming out to a Grand Prix. 

Here are a few helpful tips for your first Grand Prix Experience:

1. Limit the cards you bring- GP's are going to have a LOT of people at them. Unfortunately the world we live in, there will be some less than honest people who may not have your best interest at heart. It is easy to get distracted and for your binder with all of your sweet foils to up and walk away. Don't bring what is not absolutely necessary and if you do have to bring your binder, keep an eye on it.

2. Don't be afraid to ask a judge for help- Not sure where you side event starts? Ask a judge. Not sure where the bathroom is? Ask a judge. Where can I get some good food around here? Ask a judge. Judges are at Grand Prix to make sure you are having the best experience possible, use them as resource!

3. Shop Around- Often times at GPs there are going to be lots of vendors buying and selling cards and it can be easy to get caught up in the first booth you see. However, dealers have to compete so often times I will do at least a loop or two before I sit down with a dealer to sell cards. On the subject of selling cards do not be afraid to say no. You should never feel pressured into selling your cards, dealers will not take it to heart if you decline selling them your prized cards and if they do, they probably don't deserve your buisness.

4. Go with Friends- GP's are some of my best memories. Being able to take the weekend and travel to a new city with a few of my closest friends is the best experience. Even if your entire car loses all weekend these memories are great and you will quickly forget about the loses.

GP DC Recap (Sweet Sweet Victory)

I am still on vacation but wanted to update everybody on how the GP went for us! Grand Prix DC was potentially the most fun that I have ever had playing Magic at the competitive level. I teamed with a local player from Vermont and one of his friends from Iowa and together we made a deep run into the second day of the event.

Day 1

Day 1 when we opened our pools we were pretty excited. We had two very powerful decks and one aggressively mediocre pile (thanks for jumping on that grenade trevor). The deck that my team had given me  has me super excited. It was a green black deck featuring bombs such as Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Zendikar Resurgence, and Gladeheart Calvary, needless to say my deck was pretty good. The highlight of Day 1 for me was easily playing with Zendikar Resurgence, this was a card that I was adamantly against, I thought it was unplayable garbage. Boy was a I wrong. This card was incredible, combined with ridiculous cards like Baloth Null and small cheap creatures it felt like I was playing storm.

Unfortunately, for the team as a whole the day did not start very well. We had the privilege of unintentionally drawing in our first round, we strongly considered dropping after that. Fortunately we did not drop. We continued to battle until we picked up the dreaded 3rd loss that would knock us out of Day 2 contention. Fortunately, that third loss did not come. We picked up our first actual loss in round three and then our second in round 6. It was crunch time, I was not going to fall short in another GP day 1. Round 8 was a personal highlight for me. When I looked up the pairings and I saw my opponent, Jim Davis, the recent SCG invitational winner. He was potentially the biggest name pro that I have ever played in my magic career and fortunately I beat him. We ended the first day with a record of 6-2-1, hardly anything to be super excited about, but I FINALLY got my Day 2.

Day 2

Day 2 was a little scary to start. One team mate really enjoyed DC unfortunately the night before he "enjoyed" DC a little too much. Fortunately he made it there in time and we started our second deck construction. Our pool was a little less exciting today but still seemed solid. I ended up with a very strong Blue/Black Eldrazi deck with bombs like Reality Smasher and Bearer of Truth. Again we had a pretty bad deck in our pool that once again Trevor took one for the team and played it. Realistically we had to put together a 4-1 performance in order to cash for $250 each. Flash forward four rounds and our team was sitting at 10-3-1. We had a win and cash. We played against a group of very nice guys from New York State and unfortunately did not get there. I lost my match and felt pretty bad about it and it all came down to my third teammate's match. Unfortunately it was with our worst deck and he was paired against what seemed to be their best deck.

Despite loosing our win and cash, I could not be happier with our performance in the GP. I am excited for GP Louisville which is the next team event that my team is planning on reuniting to battle in.

My GP Washington DC Prep

I am very excited for GP Washington DC. More so than I have been for a Grand Prix in quite some time. This will be my very first Team Grand Prix which I was a little nervous for but I could not be more confident in my team.

This is one of the GPs that I have put by far the most preparation into in a while. I have been constantly grinding sealed ques on MTGO and feel like I have a pretty solid grasp of the format. One of my teammates and I have practiced with a couple of team sealed and have a pretty good understanding of where we both want to be in our pools. I am glad that I was able to find teammates that I think I can not only win matches of Magic with but also have a lot of fun in the process.

Another one of the best parts of traveling for tournaments is getting to see new cities. I have not been to DC since I was in about 9th grade and I am in my Senior year of college now. I leave in just a few short hours for my flight to Washington DC and I am excited. I can feel it, this is our tournament (famous last words). I will have a more in depth report when I come back in about ten days as I am taking a vacation after the GP to go to Seattle. Until then.

Three Strategies to Beat the Eldrazi

Number 1- Stop being friends with anybody playing the deck. If you surround yourself with players who only play nice fair decks it will be like the Eldrazi deck is already banned. If some local spike shows up at your shop make sure to give him a dirty look so her gets the message loud and clear.

Number 2- Quit playing Modern, the format is ruined, the sky is falling, magic will never recover. It makes sense to get out now while there is still time. I hear competitive Yugioh is an incredible format right now so you mind as well jump on that train before they print some unbeatable abomination there,

Number 3- Join them, you mind as well play the most powerful deck while you can. Everybody can moan about how overpowered the deck is but that is okay. You will not be able to hear the salt over the sound their realities being completely smashed,

Sportsmanship in Magic

For today’s article I will be briefly talking about sportsmanship when playing Magic the Gathering. It seems to be a hotly contested issue whether or not you offer the handshake when winning a game of magic or if you are a total jerk for doing so.

I lean on the side of offering the handshake win or lose. I love the competitive spirit of magic and winning is a pretty big deal to me. That being said if I lose a game I still want to shake my opponent's hand because winning a game a Magic can be hard and it is a big deal, who am I to take that feeling away from my opponent?

There are definitely exceptions to this though. If an opponent is visibly upset over the match then I will not offer the handshake and instead may say something like “thank you for the games.” The other thing I am big on is saying “good game” after the match . Again I avoid this in situations such as the upset opponent or if my opponent is mana screwed and didn’t really have the opportunity to play a real game of magic.

I think one of the worst things somebody can do is if a player says “good game” and their opponent who lost responded with “no it wasn’t.” This is just incredibly bad form, as I said earlier winning a game of Magic is HUGE, it feels great and who are you to diminish that feeling. I think that it is appropriate to say good game or offer the handshake in most situations but there are always exceptions and it is mostly about your opponent's reactions.

Top 5 OGW/BFZ Limited Bombs

1. Planeswalkers- This list would be pretty unexciting if I did lump all of the planeswalkers into one section. Clearly some are better than others (sorry Kiora) but all are incredibly playable and I am happy to open any of them in my 6 packs. They all provide incredible effects and are very difficult to beat when cast on curve.
2. Dragonmaster Outcast- This card was had one of the highest win percentages on Magic Online limited during BFZ limited and little has changed. This card is still nuts and if unanswered quickly takes over a game.
3. Eldrazi Displacer- This quickly became one of my favorite bombs in sealed. This card has so many powerful interactions in its’ own color with cards such as Relief Captain, Expedition Raptor, and Angel of Renewal but is also incredibly powerful when paired with other colors such as green with Saddleback Lagac. Displacer also does a really good job of hanging back and playing defense.
4. Fall of the Titans- Has fireball ever been bad in limited? I didn’t think so. This card is solid for breaking through gummed up board states when you are just casting it for its’ normal mana cost. If you are able to surge it this card is just busted, often times you can just kill your opponents good blocks or go directly for their life.
5. Linvala, The Preserver- Linvala is quite powerful in her new iteration. I find flying to be really important in this format and often time you are getting eight power in the air for six mana which is a great rate. The random gain five is also really nice.

The State of MTGO

Let’s face it Magic Online gets a lot of hate and justifiably so at times, I am going to use today’s article to talk about my just a couple of my thoughts on the current state of the program. Just to be fully transparent I used Magic Online, or MTGO quite a bit mainly for limited testing but occasionally for standard and modern testing.

Leagues-

I love the new sealed leagues that Wizards has introduced. The fact that it can be difficult to set aside up to four hours to play in sealed daily gave me very few opportunities to practice the format. However, with these leagues it is easy to join a league and play without having to wait between rounds and being able to come back to it later. However, I do have a beef with the prize structure  for constructed leagues. It feels pretty bad to play for about three hours and go 3-2 and only get your money back. It seems there is very little incentive to play a deck you are testing/unsure of and have to win four matches to be in the green.

Glitches-

If you were to talk to the average Magic player about MTGO you would no doubt here how it is completely unplayable and bug ridden. However, the sky is not falling. Yes, MTGO does have its fair share of issues but I have not been affected by one in weeks. One issue that is frustrating to me however is the amount of game breaking issues that come up. For example, I was playing affinity on MTGO for a little bit when I borrowed it for a friend and I tried to redirect the other mode of Kolaghan’s Command to my Spellskite also. I paid the two life and then my effect did nothing. Something completely within the rules that comes up frequently in Modern doesn’t work. I lost the match because of this and when I tried to file for reimbursement it was ignored. There has to be consistency between paper and online.

Cards that will be Great Post-Rotation

Rotation is upon us. We have about a month until Shadows Over Innistrad is going to be released and standard totally changes. Here are five cards that I think will be very strong post-rotation. Please note that this is without the full spoiler for SOI so something can be printed that makes one of these worse.

1. Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy- Is anybody surprised? Jace remained one of the best cards in standard since he was printed. He does get a little worse with fetchlands leaving the format so it will be slightly harder to flip him. However, with madness being in Shadows Jaces’ front side gets even stronger.
2. Collected Company- I think out of the gates that Bant Company is going to be quite good, it loses very little keeping the incredibly power core of the deck together. Collected Company is very good with the creatures already in the format and will only get better with new powerful creatures being printed.
3. Dragonlord Ojutai- One of the decks I have been brewing for post rotation is a Jeskai Dragons list and Ojutai is one of the huge incentives to do so. It can be very hard to deal with a resolved Ojutai especially if you back it up with some Silumgar’s Scorn
4. Chandra, Flamecaller- Chandra is great, she is puts a lot of pressure on your opponent and can close the game out very quickly. However, something I think it pretty powerful is her 0 ability with the addition of madness. Drawing an extra card and getting to cast a madness spell or two seems great.
5. Hangarback Walker- Despite losing its’ good friend hardened scales I actually think Hangarback will be continue to be good after rotation. Mana becomes much worse as we lose fetchlands so having no mana requirements in a slow grindy deck seems great.

Sideboarding with Living End

Welcome back to part two of my Living End series, today I will be talking about some of my sideboard choices. My current sideboard looks like this.

2 Ricochet Trap

2 Shriekmaw

3 Faerie Macabre

3 Ingot Chewer

2 Jund Charm

2 Gnaw to the Bone

1 Brindle Boar

Ricochet Trap- Blue deck are not Particularly good right now but these are hear especially to help sure up your U/W Eldrazi matchup, the current boogieman of the format. You are much happier to get your cascade spells countered than you are your Living End.

Shriekmaw- I was originally on more Dismember but recently have fallen in love with Shriekmaw, that card is so good in this deck, it kills any early threats and then when you resolve a Living End it will keep what your opponent gets back in check. I sideboard these in against the Eldrazi and the fair decks of the format like Jund/Abzan. They are also fine against Zoo.

Faerie Macabre- These are great against Company, the mirror, storm, and any deck that actually cares about the graveyard.

Ingot Chewer- These are great against Affinity, arguably the next best deck in the format after the Eldrazi menace. Something to note in that matchup is that Ravager is a beating for us, you always want to target those when you can.

Jund Charm- This card does stone cold everything, it is back breaking in the mirror match, is fantastic against Affinity, Infect, Elves, and any other deck that tryings to get away with winning with tiny one and two drop creatures. I have also won a game using this card as a combat trick.

Gnaw to the Bone and Brindle Boar- These two keep burn in check. Burn can be an incredibly tough match up without these. Even with these it is difficult to sneak one through a Atarka’s Command or Brindle Board.

Falling Short

Playing Magic competitively is one of the most exciting and rewarding things I do in my life. Magic has brought me to places I would have never seen such Stockholm, Sweden and it has introduced me to some of my best friends in life. However, this past year I questioned whether or not I should slow down with my magic endeavors, I kept falling short and I got discouraged. This year I felt like I had been playing some of the highest level Magic that I possibly ever had. I was travelling to events with friends and having a great time. However my results frustrated me, I kept falling short.

I played in a pretty large amount of PPTQs in the past year and I was doing fairly well in them, for a while my conversion rate in them was insane. I was more often than not making the top 8 cutoff. However, I had a streak of about 5 or 6 that I made the Top 8 and then very promptly lost in the first round of the elimination bracket in not close fashion.

I had the opportunity to get out to a few grand prix this year and my results there were mediocre to put in lightly. At Grand Prix Providence I was eliminated in round 8 of 9, GP Montreal I had a really awful pool (not to put all the game there) and had an early exit, and GP Quebec City I lost BOTH of my win and ins for Day 2 to finish 6-3.

However, the final GP of the year for me is what really motivated me to get back out there and try more than ever. A few of my friends and I traveled down to GP Pittsburgh in November, the format was modern which I feel is the format I am most comfortable playing. We had put a ton of time testing the format and going into I felt super confident. As I sat down and shuffled up to play my first opponent he accidentally drops his deck showing an Urza’s Tower. Ugh, my worst match up to start the day. Long story short I lost that one and the rest of the tournament was pretty mediocre. Ultimately I was eliminated in round 6 by Shaheen Soorani. My entire car had all fallen short and as we were sitting down for dinner at a killer Thai place whose name escapes me we were deciding whether or not we would head out early. Eventually was decided that we came all this way we mind as well play in the Super Sunday Series the next day.

The Super Sunday Series was split into two events at this GP, one half was modern and one half was limited. I was still feeling pretty confident about my modern deck so I played in that. I started 3-0 before picking up my first loss. At this point I figured my top 8 dream were dead because each half of the event only cut to top 4 and with 226 people I figured X-1 was going to cut it close and I still had 5 rounds to win. However, I did just that, I won out beating some fairly large names along the way to finish in 2nd place. I went on to lose in the Quarters finals of the top 8 but that wasn’t important. I got the finish I needed to feel good about continuing my travel this year. I have about 5 or 6 GPs I will be attending in the next 6 months and I feel ready, I know that 2016 will be my year and I am ready to shake off the slump of 2015.

Speculators are Bad for the Game

If you have ever interacted with the Magic community on any social media platforms I have no doubt you have seen at least one #mtgfinance person. These people keep a close watch of what is doing well and what cards are a low price so that they can buy in low and then sell high. I think that this method has begun to create a barrier into the game.

Now I can’t say that I have never bought an extra playset of a card that I thought was going to be good with intent to sell it later. Buying and selling is one of the best ways to keep Magic an affordable hobby as possible. However, certain speculators are turning this into a full-time job which is not necessarily a bad thing until it starts creating problems for the rest of the community.

Modern has recently had the problem that every single modern playable card has skyrocketed. Anything that is even remotely playable is being bought out and in some cases tripling in price. This is just not good for the game. Fortunately, I find myself in a situation where I have cards that I can trade into or borrow any cards that I may need for a deck. However, not everybody is in a similar situation and to remain up to date on competitive decks it is almost impossible to do without donating a kidney to pay for it.

Now I am all for making a couple of bucks to help the costs of incredibly expensive hobby. But please let’s be reasonable. Not everything needs to be bought out and our game just gets better the more people that are playing.

Living End Deck Tech

Modern is in shambles right now, the Eldrazi are running amuck and it looks like they will stay on top until April when the bannings happen. Until WOTC fix my favorite format then I am going to be playing Living End. I think Living End is incredibly well positioned right now, Eldrazi commits a lot to the board and resolving a single Living End can be back breaking. Here is the current list I am playing:

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

2 Copperline Gorges

4 Verdant catacombs

3 Bloodstained Mire

2 Wooded Foothills

2 Overgrown Tomb

1 Stomping Ground

1 Blood Crypt

2 Swamp

1 Forest

1 Mountain

Creatures:

4 Architects of Will

4 Deadshot Minotaur

4 Monstrous Carabid

4 Fulminator Mage

4 Street Wraith

3 Simian Spirit Guide

1 Jungle Weaver

1 Faerie Macabre

1 Twisted Abomination

Spells

4 Violent Outburst

4 Demonic Dread

4 Beast Within

3 Living End

How the Deck Works:

Living End is a combo deck that works by using the incredibly powerful cascade mechanic to cast a living end as early as Turn 2 and potentially at instant speed. Because Living End is the only card in your deck that has a lower CMC than the spells (Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread) that have cascade you will always hit one. In the meantime you play a lot of really awful Alara-block draft chaff such as Architects of Will, Deadshot Minotaur, and Monstrous Carabid because they have Cycling, an ability that lets you get lots of big dumb creatures into the graveyard while drawing into more awful unplayable draft chaff.

Card Choices:

Living End- This cards is pretty important for this deck.

Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread- As appealing as suspending a Living End may seem, these are just much more efficient.

Twisted Abomination- I personally like to run one of these in my main deck because Living End plays so few lands that I find myself keeping a higher amount of two and even one land hands. Playing this card in Modern may seem like an abomination but it helps you hit your lands a lot more reliably.

Beast Within- The unfortunate part about playing Living End is that you are weak to a lot of “gotcha” cards that are being playing in modern. The big two are Chalice of the Void on 0 which counters your living end and Rest in Peace which totally shuts down your game plan. Beast Within is a good way to deal with both of these, also relevant it provides a creature that you can Demonic Dread.

Shriekmaw- This is a card that I like to play one in the main deck. Despite not being able to cycle it provides a good way to kill those pesky Though-Knot Seers and Reality Smashers that are running around right now. The nice part is it will take care of them again when your Living End resolves.

Faerie Macabre- Sometimes your opponent is going to get some creatures in their graveyard before you take over the game with a Living End, this lets your Living End be much better for you. Something to note that because you play Deadshot Minotaur that most of the time this creature is just going to get killed by your own triggers.

Simian Spirit Guide- Modern is a very fast format right now so having access to these to sneak through a Living End a turn earlier is super important.

Sealed Deck Build

For today’s article I will be going through a deck construction for a 8-person sealed event on Magic Online. This will be one of the last pools that I do before heading off to GP Washington DC this weekend.

The first step I do when I open a sealed pool is check out what my rares/mythics are and this pool was pretty unexciting in that respect. I am a big fan of Barrage Tyrant in decks that play a couple of big colorless creatures, Conduit of Ruin is solid, Sigter of Sands is also a fine rare. I also opened up a couple of creature lands which are not a huge incentive to go into those color pairs but they do make splashing much more appealing.

Then I move to color sorting and I go through each pile to figure out what cards I consider playable in each color and then look at where my pool is at from there. After sorting this is what I ended up with as playables.

What first jumped out to me in this pool was the three Blinding Drones that are in my blue. I love this card in sealed but unfortunately ended up moving out of blue due to a lack of great way to really finish the game. I then moved towards a R/g deck which seemed really solid. When I laid it out it seemed to be a little short on removal so I then tried to splash white off of my Needle Spires for Sheer Drop and Immolating Glare and it seemed great. This is what my final deck looked like and I ended up going 3-0 in the event.

How would you have built this pool? I would love to hear your opinions in the comments.