Emperor Draft (with Battlebond)

Three weeks ago, I got together in a group of six and we did an Emperor Draft with Battlebond packs (3 packs per person).  (Background on Emperor; background on drafting Emperor.)  It was extremely fun, mostly because we deviated a bit from the usual plan for Emperor Draft. 

Normally you sit in the same spots you're going to play, except that the two emperors swap places so they're sitting between the two opposing generals.  Then everyone drafts cards, just as though it's a six-person draft pod.  (Although this is a limited team format, teammates cannot share pools during deck-building.)

I was really excited to try this format out with the Battlebond set.  The importance of teammates in the cards promised to be really cool.  I mentioned this excitement to my friend Phil who lives across the country, and he agreed.  Then he suggested a Battlebond-relevant change that made a world of difference: sit with your team.

Part of the fun of Emperor Draft is that you have to balance your picks against taking things your opponents want.  Each lieutenant is sitting next to their opposing lieutenant and the opposing emperor, so if they're passing to the emperor, they may have to take something to prevent the emperor from getting it.  Part of the problem, however, is that it would be really nice to know what your team is doing so you can plan around that a bit.  This is especially relevant in Battlebond because if you see one partner card in a pack, you don't know who has taken the other one.  (Even though Battlebond is designed around taking two cards per pick, for Emperor Draft, you only got one pick each time.) That could be pretty frustrating.

So, for drafting we wanted teams to both sit with each other so they could collude and be alternating with their opponents so you can't just stack three picks each round.  Phil suggested that we just include a semi-confusing passing sequence on top of the team seating.

We did it.  It was great.  It was so fun to talk to the team about every pick, and working together, we could deduce exactly what others were taking.  One of the players, Don, suggested a cool method of placing packs in between the players using rules cards that we flipped between draft rounds.  I put together some arrows that you can put down on the table to help organize things.  I highly recommend using zone drafting to prevent confusion; there should only be one pack of cards on the table between two players at any time.

Here's the printable PDF.  The first page has the arrows with spots for the cards; the second has a diagram to show how people should be sitting.

Happy Magicking!

Bant Cascade Goes 3-1

A quick recap before I forget things!

The deck is very similar to the previous post, except that I substituted out an Explore for a Time Stretch.  I think that was a fine choice.  Explore just doesn't always get the job done.

Main Deck:
14 Creatures:
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Coiling Oracle
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Enlisted Wurm

18 Non-Creature Spells:
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Beacon of Tomorrows
4 Unexpected Results
3 Glittering Wish
1 Time Stretch
1 Explore
1 Rude Awakening

28 Land:
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
6 Island
14 Forest

Sideboard:
2 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
1 Stormcaller's Boon
1 Enlisted Wurm
2 Urban Evolution
2 Time Stretch  (I sided these in against the Tron matchups.)
4 Search for Tomorrows
... some other things  (I should really get a third Rashmi)


Round 1, I faced up against Tron and lost, 1-2.  The best play happened when he Emrakul'ed, then made me cast Beacon of Tomorrows targeting him.  Ugh.  I am glad I managed to pull off a game win, but I immediately wished I had been playing Shuffleupagus.  Thankfully the other rounds went better.

Round 2, I played against a Darksteel-themed Tron.  It had a bunch of indestructible things, combined with Worldslayers and some other janky combos.  It was actually pretty cool, and I very nearly lost the first game by getting pushed into a Door to Nothingness.  Thankfully I didn't let my oppponent untap after playing it.

In Round 3 I faced UG Energy.  I won the first game handily, but the second game was very close.  He played Aetherworks Marvel, and was able to activate it two or three times due to Woodweaver's Puzzleknots and Bristling Hydra, with which he started to play huge bombs.  On his last activation, he played out Kozilek, the Great Distortion.  Thankfully, I got the super lucky plays and succeeded to take around 10 turns in a row.  In one turn I cast Beacon of Tomorrows, with Rashmi in play and Unexpected Results on top of my library (with Courser of Kruphix to see the top).  Unexpected Results hits another Beacon. Shuffle again, get a land.  Play the land with Courser and then have 8 untapped land left to cast a third Beacon.

Time got called and my opponent wanted me to play it out.  I stacked up enough free turns that I was going to use all five of them.  Unfortunately, my opponent had around 35 life and lots of big fat blockers.  I wasn't just stalling, I was actively trying to put all the pieces together.  After a few more turns, I had lands galore, Glittering Wished for Stormcaller's Boon, and had drawn Rude Awakening.  On extra turn 2, I had enough to swing for the win.

My luck continued into Round 4 against storemaster Marc's Dredge.  In game 1, I managed to play three Captured Sunlights on turns 3, 4, and 5, stalling enough for me to start playing chained Beacons.  In game 2, he caught me pretty quick.  In game 3, we both had a slow start, but his was slower, and I pulled off enough life gain to get it moving.  I also got really lucky and twice hit Enlisted Wurm off of Rashmi's trigger from Beacon of Tomorrows.

This is the first time I've taken the deck to a winning record!  Definitely worth it, but I do feel really dirty when I start to play solitaire for a while.  I think it's time to get that Dimir Shuffleupagus to work.  It should be great against Dredge and I've got Bribery against Tron.

Local Modern Tourneys with Rakdos Shuffleupagus and Bant Cascade

In recent months, I've made it to a few Modern tournaments.  First I took this Bant Cascade deck:

14 Creatures:
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Coiling Oracle
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Enlisted Wurm

18 Non-Creature Spells:
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Beacon of Tomorrows
4 Unexpected Results
3 Glittering Wish
2 Explore
1 Rude Awakening

28 Land:
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
6 Island
14 Forest

Sideboard:
2 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
1 Stormcaller's Boon
1 Enlisted Wurm
2 Urban Evolution
and some other unimportant cards...

This deck is so much fun to play with.  If the opponent doesn't handle Rashmi, then you start to feel some double cascade effects happening.  Courses of Kruphix sets up your library so you can predict some great cascade plays. 

I bet there are better cards than the Explores.  Perhaps some Merfolk Looters.  Perhaps a copy or two of Future Sight belongs in there.

I saw a lot of dredge that night, and I split those matches.  (I don't remember my overall record, but I do think I went to time nearly every round except the first where I lost 1-2 to infect.)

I thought that Anger of the Gods would be real good in that meta, so the next week I brought a Rakdos build of Shuffleupagus.  Here's that deck:

4 Creatures:
4 Maralen of the Mornsong

30 Other Spells:
4 Psychogenic Probe
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Rakdos Signet
4 Anger of the Gods
4 Terminate
4 Bitter Ordeal
3 Eradicate
3 Surgical Extraction

26 Land:
4 Smoldering Marsh  (I'm not sure why these were in here.  They probably shouldn't have been.  Never tripped me up, luckily.)
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Ghost Quarter
11 Swamp
3 Mountain

The best match with this deck was definitely the first, against a cool guy whose name was Ben, if I recall correctly.  He was playing a mountain of a Mono-Black Control deck with Megrim + tricks and, awesomely, Teferi's Puzzle Box.  That card does not pair well with Maralen, as we quickly learned.  Our hands immediately disappeared on our turn, and we just had to play with the single card Maralen granted us.  Ben was clearly someone enjoying the game and our match was a blast.

I won that match, lost to a white weenie deck that I couldn't keep up with, and drew against Azorius Control.  I don't recall what happened to me in the final round, which means I probably lost.

To Redraft or Not To Redraft?

Drafting is awesome.  Standing around afterwards for 15 to 30 minutes in a group looking at a bunch of cards and hoping no one chooses the one you want is not.

I'm using the term "Redraft" because the more common "Backdraft" means something else to me.  (I can write about that at another time.  I just looked and it's not on my list of wacky formats!)  Redrafting means that after the tournament, everyone returns the rares, mythics, foils, and time-shifted cards they drafted to a table.  Then the player who won chooses one of the cards.  The runner up chooses next, and so on through the group.  After everyone's picked, the winner chooses again, and so on.  Usually there are about 3.5 rounds, due to the foils.

Redrafting affects the draft process significantly: instead of choosing the excellent rare card you opened that is either terrible in limited or doesn't go with the pool you've drafted so far, you get to take a card better for your deck.  Unfortunately, there are also disadvantages. 

My draft group needs to make a decision about whether to continue redrafting or not.  Please read these Pros and Cons and then either leave a comment here or email me to vote.  I'm proposing an extra $1 cost to the draft and then giving that much in future credit to the winner of the draft.

Since I'm leaning against redrafting currently, I'll antagonize myself by putting the cons first:

Redrafting Cons:

• Discourages Wacky Drafting.  Instead of opening cooler old packs, you'd rather open the cheapest packs you can get a hold of and draft those, hoping someone else opens something juicy.
• The pros leave with all the dual lands.  When drafting lots of Rav/Guildpact/Diss years ago, someone in our group noticed that one of the regular drafters left with a dual land each time.   Without fail.  On the other hand, the less-skilled players never took home very valuable cards.  (Some may not see this as a disadvantage.)
• Players want to replace packs they open with $$$ inside.  In order to encourage people to open Battle For Zendikar in the future, I've pre-emptively told players they can replace any pack they open that contains an "Expedition Dual".  Instead of redrafting the dual land, they can stuff that opened pack into their collection and buy and open another pack.  This rule should, of course, apply to any player that opens a pack with anything they don't want to risk to the redraft process.  That means my players need to remember to bring a bunch of extra cash if they are getting packs from me.  
• This sucks extra for players who can't afford to spring for a replacement pack.
• It also means the prize pool won't have many cards worth over $6: players who open cards worth more than that should probably replace those packs.
• Everyone has to stay to the end.  Need to leave early?  Sorry, you can't, because you won't be able to redraft.  This sucks for a lot of people who just don't want to stay 3-4 hours for the full tournament.  Even worse if someone has to leave unexpectedly.
• Redrafting takes time.  The games are over.  Everyone wants to be doing something else, but instead everyone is looming over a table with the cards laid out.  All too often the current person is taking a long time because they have no idea which card they should be picking.  Trying to determine the most valuable card takes a lot of time.  Trying to do it while a bunch of people are waiting for you is even harder.  
• Missing cards sucks.  Sometimes the redraft is held up because there are rares or foils missing.  Everyone gathers around and looks through each others' card pools, but to no avail.  Sometimes cards have been handed around a bunch or maybe there's even a dishonest player amongst the group.  (Twice in the past month our redrafts have been held up at the FLGS because cards are missing.)  This can easily extend the wait 15-30 minutes and leaves a bad taste when things are unresolved.  This almost never happens among close groups, but can really suck in situations where not everyone knows everyone else super well.

Redrafting Pros:

• Free prize support.  Want to draft and have a prize?  Redrafting adds no additional cost and let's many people walk away with at least one card they might want.  (Pros get a good card, and novices usually find something they might be interested in playing.)
• Draft the best limited cards.  There's no reason to make a drafting choice based on the $ value of a card.  Always choose the best card for your deck, because you can redraft anything worth money.
• Novices don't regret passing money.  It's okay to pass valuable rares in a pack you open, because they'll go in the redraft anyways.
• Rares see more play.  Rare cards make their way around the table until they find a player's deck to fit in, instead of being gobbled up by someone who just wants it for the money.
• Pros attend.  Redrafts are usually casual events, but the local gurus will come attend them for the chance to walk away with a great card opened by any of the other people there.  This encourages all the players to play well and seems like it would improve everyone's skill.  In order to get the same result without redrafting, some other prize support is needed, which increases the cost to everyone.

Take all this in to account, then let me know how you feel, either in the comments or by emailing me.  Did I forget a point on either side?  Let me know and I'll add it to the list!  (Again, either in the comments or via email.)

Simic Shuffleupagus

Last night I played a UG Shuffleupagus build.  I really have a hard time deciding which colors in WUBG to run.  (Even Red has some cards similar to Cranial Extraction: Slaughter Games and Thought Hemorrhage.)  I was in the process of building WUB, but then I decided that I would probably be wanting more creatures, so I switched over to UG at the last moment.

Here's the list I ran:

Main deck:
4 Psychogenic Probe
4 Psychic Surgery  (These were actually pretty useful!)
4 Cosi's Trickster
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Serum Visions
4 Loaming Shaman
4 Riftsweeper  (I only whiffed on these, like, once!)
4 Lantern of Insight
2 Bribery
2 Blessed Reincarnation
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Breeding Pool
10 Forest
4 Island

Sideboard:
4 Deglamer
4 Unravel the Aether
3 Memory's Journey
2 Remand
2 Bribery


It didn't go so hot.  0-3-1, with only two total game wins.  Yikes.  Here's how it played out.

Round 1, I lost to Cody's Splinter Twin.  In the first game I mulled to five to get a land, then had no gas and lost quickly.  For the second game, I sided in all of my Deglamers and Unravel the Aethers, which was fun.  (Keranos doesn't look so indestructible when he gets shuffled back in.)  Although I didn't fall to a splinter twin combo, I couldn't keep up with the little beats and lost.

In the second round, I played against Evan's WUR deck.  (I don't know what it's called.  Sphinx's Revelation and other good stuff, I guess.)  This was a real battle!  Two control decks: time was called during game 1.  I had two Psychic Surgery out early on, and did get close to winning.  At one point, he was down to 2 life.  Later he had only three cards in his library at another, but he bounced back with Elixir of Immortality.  (Thankfully, it's a shuffle effect!)  He was finally able to transform a Delver of Secrets and win that way on the third turn after time, but he did have 16 cards in exile.  This was a really intense game and my favorite of the night.

I played against Katie's Cats Zoo-type deck in round 3.  I fared way better against this than I expected I would!  I held off her creatures in game 1 and got a Psychogenic Probe out for shuffling damage.  She went for the 5-life land (fetch for an untapped shock land with 2 shuffle damage) at one point, and I squeaked through a win off of Riftsweepers and Cosi's Tricksters.  She sided in Ancient Grudges for game 2 and beat me pretty soundly.  Game 3 went to time, with no one winning.  Hooray, I pulled off a draw round! :-P

In round 4, I played against Mike's BG deck full of big dudes.  I took game 1 by Psychic Surgerying away all his lands, but lost games 2 and 3 to big Phyrexian Obliterators and Wurmcoil Engines.

Lessons Learned:

I thought this would do better than it did.  It was certainly fun resolving Blessed Reincarnation, and Psychic Surgery really carried itself!  Two shuffles and slowing down an attacker is great!  In the end, I do think that White would be more fun than Green, and I might rather go for Black than Blue.  Yeah, maybe go Orzhov next time.  I really do want to find the best Shuffleupagus build! :) 

Updated Zombie Horde Deck List

Last winter, a talented Magic friend of mine sat down with me to beef up my Zombie Horde deck.  I've been asked for the list, so I figured I'd just provide all the details right here.

Rules:

* Survivors have 40 life total.  I don't care how many people are actually playing.

* The zombie deck gets 25 cards/player.  My list goes to 100 cards; for more players, I am considering adding more zombie tokens.

* The players get some free turns based on the challenge level they pick.  (Players don't draw their first turn.)

Challenge level:
Novice: Players get 4 turns before the first zombie turn
Normal: 3 turns
Challenge: 2 turns
Professional: 1 turn
Legendary: Zombies go first.

Everything else follows the rules originally laid out.

Without any further ado, here's the list:

59 Zombie tokens
8 Zombie Giant tokens
1 Gloomdrifter
1 Unbreathing Horde
1 Forgotten Wastes
2 Delirium Skeins
1 Army of the Damned
1 Twilight's Call
2 Bad Moon
1 Plague Wind
2 Nested Ghoul
1 Death Baron
1 Grave Titan
1 Vulturous Zombie
1 Noxious Ghoul
1 Undead Warchief
1 Living Death
1 Endless Ranks of the Dead
1 Zombie Apocalypse
1 Call to the Grave
2 Vengeful Dead
1 Grave Pact
4 Cackling Fiend
2 Soulless One
2 Syphon Flesh
1 Infectious Horror
(100 cards)

Modern UB Shuffleupagus

Shuffleupagus is my favorite deck.  I saw MaGo's preview for Psychogenic Probe back in the fall of 2003, and immediately went about trying to build a deck that would kill people via probe damage. 

I took a UBR to a standard PTQ (Mirrodin-Kamigawa time) after a lot of work, hoping I would do well.  I felt especially good against Tooth and Nail, due to my Cranial Extractions and Bribery.  I faced Tooth in my first match, but stalled out after extracting the Tooth and Nails.  I remember getting beaten up by a hard-cast Solarion.  Ugh.  I had a bunch of fun in the lower brackets from there on out, but I couldn't keep up with the middling aggro creature decks to get back into a good position.  I did have some exciting moments.  Since I was often going through my opponents' decks, I did well with Mindblaze.  One time, I had it on the stack, certain death for my opponent.  They responded with Twincast, but whiffed on the guess.  Whew!

Mirrodin cycled out of standard, then later out of Extended.  Thankfully, Modern arrived, happily going all the way back to Mirrodin.  Psychogenic Probe is relevant again!  And just barely.  There are so many good colors to use the probe with in Modern, but I decided to go with UB.  Here's the decklist:

Main deck:
4 Psychogenic Probe (obviously)
4 Cosi's Trickster (yes!)
0 Psychic Surgery (Why does this have to cost 1U instead of just U?  Booo.)
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Serum Visions
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Bribery
4 Remand
4 Bitter Ordeal
4 Cranial Extraction (I probably even know what's in your hand...)
4 Ghost Quarter (Combos really nicely with Bitter Ordeal)
4 Watery Grave
3 Swamp
14 Island

Sideboard:
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Blessed Reincarnation
3 Mimeofacture
1 Bribery
1 Counterbore
1 Acquire
2 Thada Adel
(I probably need some Learn from the Past in here...)

Modern is tomorrow!  We'll see how the new Shuffleupagus does!  I'm expecting there to be lots of Tron, so maybe I can Bribery up an Emrakul.