Breaking Block: Where Should I Wedge This Stick? Part 1

When you approach a deckbuilding exercise, for instance Pro Tour San Juan at the end of May, you are going to spend a lot of time poring through spoilers and brainstorming new creations. Sure, there’s a wealth of 2-set information to use as a jump off point, but the influx of cards from Rise of the Eldrazi and metagame influences from players who aren’t weaned on MTGO queues means that you and your team will have to figure out a lot for yourselves. It’s an exciting time, but also an overwhelming one.

You may prefer to play a certain kind of deck all the time, in which case your job is a lot easier. Just find the best tools available to that strategy. Probably though, your goal is a comprehensive (or as close as you can get) understanding of the new metagame and a reasonable prediction of what the best deck is going to be. To that end, you can, of course, bash your head against a brick wall. Eyeball cards that seem good and groups of cards that seem synergistic and throw best-estimate lists together. Throw them against each other and you’ll see what sticks out. Accentuate the strong parts, refine the numbers, sand off the soft masses. Decide these are the decks people will be playing. Then set about trying to beat those decks.

A Session with UR Polyplosive

If you look at my Polymorph posts from yesterday (Part 1 and Part 2), you’ll notice two things. First, and most importantly in a world where I didn’t screw up egregiously, I thought the UR build would be the worst of the 3. Second, and most importantly in this world, I forgot to put Polymorphs in the deck.

So first, an updated list:

Polly Wanna Morph Part 2

The red version is obviously going to be a little more aggressive. Featuring treats like Dragon Fodder (which would be sweet if we were ‘morphing into dragons), Goblin Assault, and Zektar Shrine Expedition, it…doesn’t quite seem close to playable. I do like that there’s a second monster combo to insert into the deck, namely Explosive Revelation into Emrakul, as set up by Jace. Ok, let’s see what we can do with that.

Polly Wanna Morph

One of the two best ways to cheat an Eldrazi into play is Summoning Trap. But I already built a deck around that, so now I’m gonna look at the other one…Polymorph, of course. Polymorph decks are pretty much always around, with the latest batch including finishers like Progenitus and Iona, Shield of Emeria, each of which is sufficiently hard to kill. Progenitus kills in two hits while being largely unblockable and only dies to wrath effects. Iona needs 4 turns to do the job, but she turns off all of the removal (usually decks lean on one color for it) and supplementary game plans as well. Emrakul seems to be an upgrade to both. He matches Progenitus’ speed at ending the game and is only slightly worse at the resource denial aspect than Iona is. Due to annihilator 6, when you ‘morph into Emrakul your opponent has a turn to operate and recover and that’s usually it.

The Deep End of the Pool – The Reality of an Eldrazi Endgame

Tonight I spent some time testing the UW control list from the previous post and learned the following:

The slowest, longest long-game axis of the Standard format will not be defined by manlands crashing through on empty boards after control has been established, but by this 6-8 card package: 4 Eldrazi Temple, 1 Eye of Ugin, 1 Ulamog/Kozilek/Emrakul. It’s possible that an extra Eye become necessary as the format adopts the package. It’s possible that you want 2 of the Eldrazi overlords. It’s also probable that the 15-drop becomes the finisher of choice as Path to Exile returns to vogue as the best answer for this Eye powered onslaught.

Hardcasting Eldrazi

I attended GP Houston this weekend, and even though I only posted a 4-2-1 with Scapeshift Zoo, the juices are flowing again. The next round of relevant tournaments are Standard qualifiers for Pro Tour Amsterdam, so that’s what I’m going to be looking at for the near future.

Coming to the format with fresh eyes (I know Jund is good, but I don’t hate it yet), the first thing that strikes me is how awesome the mana ramp is right now. Saturday, Bdm asked me what officially-spoiled card excited me most. At the time, I said Joraga Treespeaker, but that’s only because I hadn’t seen Kozilek’s Predator yet. I’m pretty comfortable comparing this guy to Garruk Wildspeaker; it offers similar flexibility and slightly better defense, while providing a Veggies effect much more consistently and just a little less explosively. I know he doesn’t come equipped with Overrun, but if that’s the party you’re going to, his three warm bodies are more than welcome. Steve Sadin, in his column at dailymtg.com, predicted heavy block play for this card but was hesitant to vouch for it in standard. Personally, I have no doubts.