Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Eject Is 1.5

I've been tinkering with the last two slots in Eject for weeks now. Deputy of Acquittals and Familiar's Ruse both had starting slots for awhile and I'd started to think that it didn't matter.

Because I'd played Eject against a deck Matt was piloting with Jace the Mind Sculptor and Liliana of the Veil to a dead heat, 2-2. If you can hold your own against two of the best plainswalkers ever printed, you're doing OK I think.

I'd been playing against Black/Blue decks Noah's got and getting some wins. Once again, burn is my worst matchup. I'd have have a sideboard for red decks if I went to a tournament.


I then threw Eject against a run of decks Fuz piloted and came out on top.

I still didn't know what to do about those last two cards...but did it matter? This deck is a decent one, with a nice selection of answers, solid tempo and decent draws. I didn't miss Zealous Guardians at all.

I've added Port Town to Eject in order to improve my mana and haven't noticed any problems. I'm not sure that things are better but they certainly aren't worse.

Then it finally hit me: Meddling Mage. That's what I should have here: a card that can effectively help with almost any matchup and boost my own tempo, while getting the benefits from Thistledown Liege.

This is a card that interacts well with everything I'm doing and can be a 4/4 to boot!

However, at this point I think I'm done with Eject. It's a solid deck that I've improved in notable ways. I'll call that a win.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

15 More Cards (SOI)

Survey here.

I had fun with this last time, let's do it again! Rankings: Poor, Marginal, Fair, Good, Excellent.

Harness the Storm; I love this card. It's waiting to get busted in half, possibly with a big mana GR version? I mean, sure, the obvious UR deck is there but c'mon, let's be more creative than that. I rated it Excellent.

Sleep Paralysis: 4 mana blue removal spell is ok. It's not great but DAMN I am getting TIRED of the color of the spell being the dominant color in the art. Blue border? BLUE EVERYWHERE IN THE PAINTING. Which is too bad, because it's solid art. Rated Fair. It's almost constructed playable which means I'll probably give it a go at some point.

Tireless Tracker: what is up with that art? Why is someone in "superhero landing pose" with two swords? Buuuut a 3/2 for 3 with landfall and the ability to grow and draw a card for 2 mana? That's Good stuff, kids.

Inner Struggle: Again, that art is weird. It's set at a strange angle, so I cannot see what's going on-despite there being a mirror in the image and red tint is everywhere. Ugh. Let it go, WotC. Contrast is a good thing. The name and flavor text are solid and it's a red removal spell for big creatures at instant speed. It can't be good but it's Fair.

Arlinn Kord/Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon: I'm not giving a good rating to such a lazy naming scheme. "This is who I am"; well bully for that. As much as I dislike double-faced cards though, Arlinn is a powerhouse. Excellent stuff.

Silverstrike: my initial impression of the art was WOW. And then I went; wait, where'd the sword come from? There isn't anyone else in the frame...did the sword just teleport into that werewolf's chest? I like the art but it lacks context. As for the rest: This card is Poor. 4 mana for a limited removal spell with marginal upside? No.

Ghoulsteed: While I really like the name and the flavor text, it's a vanilla 4/4 for 5 mana with a return cost that is way, way too high. Recurring creatures are better than non-returning creatures though, so it squeaks into Marginal.

Liliana's Indignation: Once again; the art is at an angle I don't understand and the expression on Liliana's face seems to be one of a sneer, not indignation. The flavor text is great at helping move the story along-Jace isn't getting help here-but after that? Fair card: milling yourself is generally a suboptimal strategy but it does have a place in the right deck and the life loss is a solid bonus.

Moonlight Hunt: The name isn't great but in combination with the artwork you get the switcheroo that's being pulled. But I gave this a Poor rating because it's just so limited in what it does: You need a Wolf or Werewolf for this card to even function.

Veteran Cathar: A 2/2 for two in a relevant tribe with a great ability that is noteworthy in the late game? Yeah, that's Good. Shame about that boring name.

Not Forgotten: I dig this card a lot. The utility of the first ability is OK but when combined with the flying spirit token, you have a winner. Good rating.

Woodland Stream: The image that the flavor text provides is a great piece of worldbuilding. Well done. After that: it's a Good card; cheap manafixing is always welcome.

Archangel Avacyn/Avacyn, the Purifier: while the name is pretty meh, and my complaint about the artwork having a tint of whatever the border is totally applies, and it's a DFC, this is still an Excellent card all around. It's like they deliberately amped up the power of DFC cards so I had to admit they were good even if I don't like the mechanic.

Tormenting Voice: ooo, the art is a nice nod to the haunted house stories and the flavor text is great. I dinged the name just a little but I feel it's unfair to ask me to take that title and forget about play value or artwork. The name, as Shakespeare has said, is the thing. It helps tie all those other things together. All in all though, I like these red card draw spells.Rated Good.

Asylum Visitor: I rated it Fair. I dig the art-the weird angle works, given what's going on in the picture, the flavor text was boring and the ability is just too conditional. Couple that with a glass jaw and you have a rare that isn't that interesting, even with the Madness cost.

There you have it; I look forward to doing this again come Eldritch Moon.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Data Stymie

A lot more games, this time with Noah while he played a R/W burn deck-one of my worst matchups.

And it remains so. I played better: knowing what matchup I was in allowed me to make better choices when Impulse dug into my deck, whether or not Steel of the Godhead or Oblivion Ring were better cards, that sort of thing. Still, I was losing that matchup and some others were not quite coming together.

On a walk, a rather odd thought occurred to me: Do I need a one drop in this deck?

Would it be better to have a third Reflector Mage and Lyev Skynight, adding in two Deputy of Acquittals as ways to protect my creatures or reuse the abilities of the Mage or Skynight?

The math is in my favor; the deck speeds up by at least a turn, assuming a Liege is out: 4/4's win the game by turn 5, 3/3s by turn 7 (I'm fudging the math because a) the Zealots all have Flash, so they can be played without summoning sickness, in a way and b) Skyknight is a 5/3 with a Liege out so the math changes again). In a tempo deck like Eject, the denial of that extra turn is going to be a Very Big Deal.

So I'm going to give this change a shot. If I can increase my damage dealing with Skyknight or Reflector and stall the tempo of my opponent's decks better then it's worth exploring.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Sealed & Swap: How'd the Swap turn out?

Well...
Maybe you'll notice that this picture is remarkably free of Swamps, Mountains, and black or red cards.

This is because I forgot to bring the deck I built. I remembered all the other cards, and forgot everything I wanted to get it to work. Sometimes, necessity is the mother of invention.

So, I took the white and green and faked it for the rest of the night. It was a pretty aggressive deck, which means that if I didn't have my opponent on the ropes by turn four, I wasn't going to win. The cards I had just wouldn't allow me to grind it out.

Surprisingly, it worked pretty well. I won most of my matchups-granted, I was often helped by opponents having to mulligan in order to get workable mana, and then that mana not quite working out. However, a win is a win and, when the deck did fire on all cylinders I was attacking for six on turn 4, eight on turn 5.

Hey, it worked for a night.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Sealed & Swap: The Swap

I got Seth's deck in the swap and there are two cards that make the direction of this deck loud and clear:

Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet.

Seth took his deck in the B/W direction but I'm not confident of that choice.

Here's the Black:
Wasteland Strangler
Sky Scourer
Alms of the Vein
Bone Splinters
Zulaport Cutthroat
Altar's Reap
Culling Drone
Ever After
Dead Weight
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
 Vampire Noble
Krumar Bond-Kin
Creeping Dread
Mire's Malice
Vessle of Malignity

Now the White:
 Gideon's Reproach
Felidar Cub (2)
Emissary of the Sleepless
Thraben Inspector
War Behemoth
Alabasater Kirin
Mighty Leap
Affa Protector
Kor Castigator
Wall of Resurgence
Roil's Retribution
Devilthorn Fox
Hope Against Hope
Firehoof Cavalry

Where it gets interesting (for me) is at the Red:
Reduce to Ashes
Vessel of Volitility
Spiteful Motives
Goblin War Paint
Makindi Sliderunner
Bloodmad Vampire
Voldaren Duelist
Eldrazi Aggressor
Boulder Salvo
Boiling Earth
Bloodfire Mentor
Goblinslide
Outnumber
Ondu Champion
Retreat to Valakut

So I'm going to give the B/R deck a shot with just enough white to cast Sorin.

Sky Scourer
Krumar Bond-Kin
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Zulaport Cutthroat
Vessel of Malignity
Ever After
Bone Splinters
Mire's Malice
Vampire Noble
Wasteland Strangler
Dead Weight
Culling Drone

Hedron Blade
Deathless Behemoth
Flayer Drone
Sorin, Grim Nemesis

Bloodmad Vampire
Outnumber
Retreat to Valakut
Goblinslide
Reduce to Ashes
Ondu Champion
Makindi Sliderunner
Eldrazi Aggressor
Boulder Salvo
Boiling Earth

Holdout Settlement
Scoured Barrens
7 Swamp
6 Mountain

The plan: get some early beats out, use Goblinslide to help create greater numbers than I should have, discard to stall my opponent's plans, Retreat to Valakut for damage and Kalitas and Sorin to finish everything off. We'll see how it goes!

Thursday, May 12, 2016

No, Outpost Siege, You Fool

My evaluation of Collected Company for sealed formats was wrong.

Let's just get that out there up front. I was wrong. After a match one loss where I was able to cast CC in three games and missed every time, I figured I'd give Outpost Siege a shot.

And man, did that card shine. Opponents had no answer for it and the card advantage it provided allowed me to grind through games in matches two and three that I would've fallen short in, otherwise.

Of course, in match two, game two, this happened:

What I have is 10 lands in play. The two cards in the lower left? That is my hand, set down so I could take the picture. One of those cards is a land, too.

So out of the 17 lands in my deck, 11 of them got drawn and that was why I lost. Matt suggested after our match that I was running one too many lands and while that doesn't seem possible, it was likely correct. I adjusted the deck again between my second and third match, minus one Forest, adding Atarka Efreet instead.

While I won my third match, I'm not sure if the Efreet/Forest swap made any difference. I didn't seem to be low on mana but my sample size isn't big enough.

Still, 2-1 isn't awful and I'm looking forward to the next round of building.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Sealed & Swap

Here's the premise: take six packs of Magic, make a sealed deck, play them for one night. Then, we swap the entire sealed pool with another player and build a new deck to play next week. We can compare builds later and see what happened. It seems like a pretty cool notion and a way to get some extra mileage out of your sealed packs.

From Magic: Origins, Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, Dragons of Tarkir, Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch packs I am trying to decide between red or black as my second color.

Green is in:
Epic Confrontation
Conclave Naturalists
Saddleback Lagac
Snapping Gnarlid
Ainok Guide
Sultai Flayer
Collected Company
Yeva's Forcemage
Frontier Mastodon
Rhox Maulers
Orchard Spirit
Abzan Kin-Guard

Creatures, Collected Company, that all seems pretty good...

Black looks like this if I add it:
Douse in Gloom
Complete Disregard
Weight of the Underworld
Flatten
Reave Soul
Revenant
Oblivion Strike
Coat with Venom
Sibsig Muckdraggers
Mire's Malace
Alesha's Vanguard

Essentially: all the removal. Red, on the other hand, gives me this:
Outpost Siege
Akroan Sergeant
Hordeling Outburst
Arrow Storm
Atarka Efreet
Boulder Salvo
Sparkmage's Gambit
Mina and Denn, Wildborn
Savage Ventmaw
Vaultbreaker
Tunneling Geopede
Kolaghan Aspirant

So not as much removal but some solid cards and an improved mana curve.

After some hemming and hawing I'm going for the risky RGB deck;

Kolaghan Aspirant
Vaultbreaker
Akroan Sergeant
Savage Ventmaw
Mina and Denn, Wildborn
Epic Confrontation
Conclave Naturalists
Snapping Gnarlid
Ainok Guide
Sultai Flayer
Collected Company
Frontier Mastodon
Rhox Maulers
Orchard Spirit
Abzan Kin-Guard
Douse in Gloom
Complete Disregard
Weight of the Underworld
Flatten
Reave Soul
Oblivion Strike
Coat with Venom

As good as Outpost Siege is, I fear using my turn four casting it. That's an important turn in sealed and having something that really turns the deck on is important. Just as relevant: if I draw that card on turn seven and I'm in trouble, it doesn't help me. Collected Company, on the other hand, has the opportunity to bring out another creature on my opponent's turn. That's a stronger play.


Thursday, May 5, 2016

Star Realms-Colony Wars

I spent a weekend playing Colony Wars with my friend Zac and at this point I think I've got a sense of how it plays out. So let me tell you about it.

If you've been playing the original Star Realms, then you've probably discovered by now: the Machine faction (red) is incredibly strong. Even in comparison to all the card draw effects of the other factions, the consistency the Machine faction can provide is incredibly strong.

So I'm pleased to say that they've started balancing it far better in Colony Wars, with cards only allowing players to scrap (exile) cards only in their hand or only their discard pile but not allowing the option to choose either.

That helps hamstring the faction just a little, creating some tension: am I going to get rid of an unused resource in order to gain consistency later, or am I going to hold on to gain more this turn? It's an interesting question and the game is better for it.

It's still really possible to go very, very big early on and blow your opponent out. Scrapping a card for cash can provide the kind of lead in turns 2 or 3 that can find an opponent sucking wind for the rest of the game.

That said, once you get the hang of things, games can become tense affairs that pass by very briskly. Losing doesn't sting so bad, as you just shuffle up for the next game and take another swing. In this sense, the better qualities of the original Star Realms set is perfectly preserved.

If you haven't tried the game and are interested, I say give it a go. If you've already got the original, I think Colony Wars provides balance and enough diversity from the original set to invest in.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Hidden Pop Outs

A few more games with stonethorn on Saturday I can't say I learned much about Eject.

This is both good and bad. The good: I felt like I was always in a position to win games and I won one matchup pretty clearly. The bad: I got blown out by Austere Command.

Now, there are two important facts to note here: first, I didn't know stonethorn's deck was running Austere Command so I didn't play around it. He told me after the game that he kept his opening had specifically because Command was in it: otherwise it sucked.

Second: Cards like Austere Command are doing exactly what they're supposed to do: prevent aggressive decks from overrunning a format. Losing to a card that's meant to stop my deck is not something I can really feel terrible about. I even had an Oblivion Ring in hand to stop his next threat...but not the one after that.

The difficulty here is that I need a lot more games with this deck to start to see the cracks. The synergies are so high that it's difficult for me to find weaknesses in this deck that I really need to shore up. For example, one might argue that Veldaken Outlander doesn't fit but protection from red is a strong ability against a whole lot of pure aggressive decks, which is one of the weaknesses of Eject. Why remove a card that forces red decks to pause and is perfectly solid otherwise?

So this deck needs a lot more testing. I'll do what I can to get that in but the challenge of scheduling adults make it difficult. Still, I have hope that eventually stronger revelations about this deck will come so I'll keep at it.