Good, Bad and Ugly

All right…

I believe this is officially the first blog I’ve started that I don’t have a topic already picked out, so if it gets a little rambly, you’ll know why.

I was going to start playing Magic Online tonight and tell everyone about that experience, but I decided that I didn’t really want to spend the money and take the time. Perhaps next month, after I’ve paid a credit card bill. Financial concerns are very important when you’re paying an average of $20 to be in a tournament in addition to needing the cards to play in the tournament.

Speaking of which, I think I figured out what changes I’m making to my deck after the Alter Reality tournament. I guess we’ll see how it works out, but I’ve decided that Spiketail Hatchlings are weaker than some other possibilities, so they’re out. And though I’d really, really like to use Stifle because I think it’s a lot better than people give it credit for, they’re gone too.

They put up the new Banned and Restricted lists for this quarter as well. Nothing in Vintage and I’m surprised. I guess it really hasn’t been dealt with yet, but I fully expect Grim Tutor to end up there at some point. Maybe it is too mana-intensive and the drawback is enough, but I can see it being really good and probably not in Tendrils combo. I’m thinking it should go in a Mana Drain deck that’s already geared towards making and using a lot of mana.

Personally, my bet for the next restricted card in Vintage is Crucible of Worlds. There are so many decks where it’s just a house once it gets out there. And really, the only really good answer to one is one of your own. I mean, I even put one into UB Fish since it’s so good, and that’s just with Strip Mine and Wasteland. It recurs Smokestacks targets, it’s insane with Fastbond, it keeps your lands safe from Wasteland and Smokestacks, and it makes man-lands (and Bazaar of Baghdad, Library of Alexandria, and Mishra’s Workshop) nigh unkillable. In most every case its something that you either deal with, have one of your own, or lose to.

I think my favorite restricted cards are the one that are too good to use as 4-ofs but practically useless as a singleton. This is why Dream Halls is restricted, and I think that’s one of my favorite restricted cards. I would love to play a mono-blue Dream Halls storm deck with four of the Halls. I theorized a version that had one copy of Dream Halls:

Dream Halls.dec

1x Dream Halls
1x Time Spiral
1x Time Twister
1x Time Walk
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Windfall
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
4x Tolarian Winds
4x Meditation
4x Opportunity
4x Accumulated Knowledge
4x Diminishing Returns
4x Brain Freeze
4x Lonely Sandbar
17x Islands

I didn’t have it built with power or anything like that, but it was workable with some other less conventional choices (Whirlpool Rider? Wormfang Drake?). Once you did, especially with the version presented above, you could win at instant speed. Just discard your sorceries to play Opportunity and Meditation and you’re all in. Who cares about skipping your next turn when you’ve already won?

My friends and I called it Russian Roulette, except if you got the bullet (Dream Halls in play) you won. Of course, this is why Dream Halls is restrix0red. Picture that deck with a half-chance to go absolutely degenerate on turn three off a Mana Drain. Being able to accelerate into casting a whole bunch of draw spells for free before casting one or two lethal Brain Freeze is broken in half and stomped on until its in very, very small pieces.

Ah, if only Dream Halls were an artifact. Or if it allowed you to cast artifacts for free? I would definitely throw it into a combo deck to be Tinkered out. Can you imagine it in collusion with Yawgmoth’s Will or Yawgmoth’s Bargain? Whew! I’m getting excited just thinking about it.

You can’t do this sort of thing with a Regrowth, which is also a lovely card, but falls victim to being green and only being good in combination with other restricted cards and only those that aren’t Yawgmoth’s Will.

I’ve been thinking about Burning-Tree Shaman too . It was definitely the card that beat me in the first round of the Mox tournament, and it definitely deserved to since it’s a great creature at a great price with a great ability. The problem in a lot of cases is that it doesn’t die to damage very easily. Most Vintage creature control does one damage to deal with Goblin Welder. Even Fire/Ice only does two at a time. Lightning Bolt, which doesn’t see play because there are more flexible, less powerful answers, only does three so even that’s out. That means going up against a Shaman almost always means some amount of card disadvantage. You have to have something black or white to kill it—Diabolic Edict or Swords to Plowshares most likely.

Shaman has game against so many decks. Who doesn’t use fetch lands? That’s a damage per use. Control decks have to counter or remove him ASAP because he’s a sufficiently fast clock. Lots of combo decks rely on activated abilities, which means they take that damage on top of the 3/4 creature coming at them every turn. And except for Workshop aggro, the Shaman is bigger than most of the creatures used in Vintage.

Think about Fish trying to stop Shaman with a Mishra’s Factory. First, it takes at least two Factory to make one a 4/4 blocker. So figure that. Okay, that’s one activation to make a creature, and two activations to pump that creature to lethal size. Even if you stop it, you still take as much damage as you would by not blocking it. Plus, if you’re playing a Zoo style deck, there’s a good chance you’ll lose your Factory to a Lightning Helix even before it blocks, which is a six-point life swing and a lost land. You could insure yourself against that by activating two Mishra’s Factories, but that’s four damage just to kill the Shaman and you’re just throwing two man-lands out there to get killed by instant red damage.

I guess this is why people win by Tinkering for Darksteel Colossus. That thing can block Burning-Tree Shaman all freaking day, and it’s not like indestructibility is activated. Plus, who cares about an effective six turn clock, when you’ve put them on one of two turns.

You think they called it Burning-Tree Shaman because it’s like God? You know, the Burning Bush from Exodus. I mean the Bible book, not the set of cards.