The Combat Phase

If you remember, the combat phase happens after the first main phase of the turn, giving the player whose turn it is a chance to cast creatures, enchantments, artifacts, sorceries, and planeswalkers before they attack.  Combat is broken into the following steps:

1. Beginning of Combat – At the beginning of the combat phase, both players get the opportunity to cast instants and play abilities.
2. Declare Attackers – The player whose turn it is chooses which of their creatures (if any) will attack and what player or planeswalker they will attack.  Only creatures that the attacking player has controlled since the beginning of the turn and are untapped may attack.  Once attacks are decided, the attacking creatures tap as the cost for attacking.  Once all costs are paid, each player gets another opportunity to cast instants and play abilities.
3. Declare Blockers – Any player that is being attacked or controls a planeswalker that is being attacked may choose to block the attacking creatures with their own creatures.  A creature can only block if it’s untapped, and a creature can only block a single attacker.  Any number of blockers can be assigned to a single creature, so if Player A attacks with two creatures and Player B has three creatures, Player B can block one of the attacking creatures with two of their creatures and the other with one, or all three on one attacking creature letting the other go through unblocked, or they can block with some or none of his creatures instead.  Once the defending player has decided their blocks, any attacking creature blocked by two or more creatures has those blockers ordered.  The order determines how the attacking creature will deal damage.  After all of that, there is another opportunity for players to cast instants and play abilities.
4. Damage – Unblocked attacking creatures deal damage equal to their power to the player or planeswalker they are attacking.  Creatures that are blocked by one creature deal damage equal to their power to the blocking creature and the blocking creature deals damage equal to its power to them.  Creatures that are blocked by multiple creatures deal damage to the first blocker up to their power but no less than what would be enough to kill the first blocker.  Any damage left over can be assigned to the next blocker in the same manner, and so on.  Let’s look at a couple examples:
   • An attacking Enormous Baloth is blocked by two Siege Mastodons. The Baloth’s controller can assign five damage to the first Mastodon and put the other two on the second Mastodon, put six damage on the first and one on the second, or put all seven damage on one. They cannot put four on one and three on the other.
   • Same situation, but this time, before damage, you play a Lightning Bolt on the first Mastodon. Now, since it already has three damage, you only need to assign two more damage to it to kill it, so you can assign the other five to the second Mastodon.
   • Same as the first situation, but this time, your opponent plays Giant Growth on the first Mastodon. It now has eight toughness, so you have to assign all seven damage to it. Once blockers are ordered in the declare blockers step, you can’t change that order if something like Giant Growth happens to make the combat bad for you.
5. End of Combat – At the end of combat, players get another opportunity to cast instants and play abilities.  Once everyone passes, the game moves to the next main phase.

Let’s define a couple terms within the game, because you’ll see them a lot on cards.

Attacking – A creature is attacking if it’s declared as an attacker.  It stays attacking until all players have passed at the end of combat or it leaves the battlefield.
Blocking – A creature is blocking if it’s declared as a blocker.  It stays blocking until all players have passed at the end of combat or it leaves the battlefield.
Unblocked – An attacking creature is unblocked if no creature was assigned to block it during the declare blockers step.
Blocked – An attacking creature is blocked if one or more creatures are assigned to block it during the declare blockers step.  If all creatures blocking it leave the battlefield, the attacking creature is still blocked.

“That doesn’t make sense, James.  If nothing’s blocking a creature, shouldn’t it be unblocked?“  Think of declaring blockers as intercepting the oncoming attack.  Even if the blockers leave, that’s given you the time to move to a new location and avoid the attack.

Combat would be pretty boring and lacking in strategy if it was just big creatures with no abilities running into each other.  Fortunately, there are a lot of abilities that affect combat and make the game far more interesting.

First Strike and Double Strike

Creatures with first strike and double strike split the damage step of combat into two steps.  The first damage step is just for creatures with first strike and double strike – everything else has to sit there and wait (or get killed by the guys with first strike and double strike).  Then, in the second damage step, any creatures that are still around that haven’t dealt damage (so you can’t get cutesy and give a creature first strike after the first strike creatures have dealt damage to ‘turn it off’) AND creatures with double strike deal damage.  That means creatures with double strike deal damage twice in combat and can quickly decimate an army of blockers… or an opponent.  First strike and double strike are most often found in red and white.  Black also gets a little first strike, usually on dark knights.

Flying

Creatures with flying can’t be blocked except by other creatures with flying and creatures with reach.  This makes a creature with flying hard to block and a lot more valuable as an attacker.  This, along with similar abilities, is sometimes called an evasive ability, since it can evade most blockers and deal damage directly to players or planeswalkers.  Similar abilities are landwalk and trample.  Flying is most often found in blue and white, with black getting some as well.  Red gets a few splashy fliers as well (usually dragons), with green rarely getting this ability.

Trample

Creatures with trample deal damage differently than normal creatures.  If a creature with trample is blocked, it treats the player or planeswalker it’s attacking as the last blocker in order.  So if a creature with five power and trample is blocked by a creature with two toughness, that creature can assign two damage to the blocker and trample the last three damage over to the player or planeswalker it’s attacking.  Green creatures have trample as their most common form of evasion, as it allows their big creatures to get damage through small blockers.  Black and red creatures sometimes have trample as well.

Landwalk

Creatures with landwalk can’t be blocked if the defending player controls a land of the specified type.  So if the defender controls an Island, they can’t block a creature with islandwalk.  This is usually a basic landtype (forestwalk, swampwalk, mountainwalk or islandwalk), but any land type can appear.  Dryad Sophisticate has non-basic landwalk, for example, and can’t be blocked if the defending player controls non-basic lands.  You’ll note I skipped over plainswalk, and that’s because there are rarely any creatures with plainswalk – the flavor of the ability is that these creatures excel in blending into the land type they have landwalk for (dryads in the forest, tunneling creatures in mountains) and it’s hard to blend into the open plains.  Most often, creatures with landwalk are found in the color those lands produce (forestwalkers in green, islandwalkers in blue, etc), but green can also get landwalkers of other types.

Reach

Creatures with reach don’t get any bonus when they’re attacking, but are very effective blockers since they can block creatures with flying.  Most often templated as spiders or archers, these creatures, while stuck on the ground for attack, can envelop or shoot down flying creatures.  Green has the most creatures with reach, which makes sense, since it has the least fliers.  White also has the occasional creature with reach.

Deathtouch

Damage dealt by a creature with deathtouch, combat or otherwise, destroys that creature.  Because of this, when a creature with deathtouch is blocked by multiple creatures, it only needs to deal one damage to each to do enough to kill it, so a 2/2 with deathtouch like Acidic Slime can kill the first two creatures blocking it, no matter their toughness.  Deathtouch is almost exclusively found in green and black, representing natural toxins and deadly poisons wielded by creatures of these colors.

VIGILANCE

Creatures with vigilance don’t have to tap as a cost of attacking.  They still have to be untapped to attack, but they stay untapped and as such, they can block as well as attack.  That makes deciding whether or not to attack with a creature with vigilance a lot easier, as you’ll still have him available to block on your opponent’s turn unless it’s killed in combat, and then it’ll probably have taken a creature with it.  Vigilance is most often found on white creatures, as white is the best at defense through creatures and combat skill.  Blue and green also have some vigilance.

Haste

Creatures with haste get to ignore the rule that a creature has to be under a player’s control since the beginning of the turn to attack.  They also get to play abilities with the tap symbol in the cost on the turn they come into play.  This gives creatures with haste an element of surprise, as normally your opponent has a turn to react to the creatures you play before you can attack with them.  Red gets the most creatures with haste, playing into their impulsive, straight ahead nature.  Green and black also get get haste creatures infrequently as well.

Lifelink

Damage dealt by a creature with lifelink causes its controller to gain that much life.  While not having a direct impact on combat, a creature with lifelink can make it harder for its owner to be killed by not only keeping an attacker from getting to the player, but gaining life with the damage it deals.  White and black have lifelink most often, white as a color of healing and protection, and black as a form of vampirism.

Defender

Creatures with defender often have better base stats than a comparable creature without defender, but that comes at a cost – creatures with defender can’t attack.  As the name implies, they can only block.  Often, defenders will have other abilities that make the cost of not being able to attack with them one a deckbuilder is willing to pay.  You’ll see defenders in all colors, with the most being in the defensive colors, white and blue, and the least in the aggressive colors of black and red.

If it feels like there’s a lot going on, there is, especially with the more complicated abilities like trample, deathtouch, and first and double strike.  It’s that variety of combat that draws players to the game of Magic, however, as it’s a unique puzzle every game of how to best utilize your creatures against your opponent’s.

10.  Runeclaw Bear

• Set: Magic 2010

{Ed: Not invited to the Brown Bear party}

It’s really hard to be printed in every single core set and then suddenly, for almost no reason,  be yanked for something called a “Runeclaw Bear.”  I’ve seen a lot of power creep since the early Alpha days, but being functionally reprinted, as a new bear, in a core set that promised “50% new cards!” was almost too much for this bear to handle.  When he showed up on twitter to rub salt in my wounds I just about lost it.  As M11 nears and the two of us look to be facing extinction, we seem to have become brothers in arms in the fight to keep bears in Magic: The Gathering.

9.  Ashcoat Bear

• Set: Time Spiral

I held a real grudge against Runeclaw Bear for functionally reprinting me, but Ashcoat Bear is where the power creep (within the bear clan) really started.  A Grizzly Bears with flash??  Outrageous!  This dude really knows how to surprise people, and bear lovers everywhere rejoiced that their little bears could now jump onto the battlefield whenever they damn well pleased.  I’ve met Ashcoat Bear a couple times, and after talking to him I understand he paid a steep price for that flash.  Dude won’t be OK in the head for a long time, but gets major props from me for doing what it takes.

8.  Bear Cub

• Set: Portal Second Age

This little dude is a living example that bears are straight BAMF’s right out the womb.  Two power?  Check.  Two toughness?  Check.  This little Bear Cub can throw down with the best of them.  I once heard a story of a Bear Cub fighting off a Abyssal Nightstalker mere seconds after its birth.

7.  Forest Bear

• Set: Portal Three Kingdoms

There’s a lot of bears on this list that can throw down, but Forest Bear is here for one thing:  To party.  I’ve seen this dude drink his weight in liquor, burn down half a city, and punch Kongming right in the face.  Dude is shameless, fearless, and an excellent representation of the bear species.

6.  Spectral Bears

• Set: Homelands

Everyone’s always talking ‘ish on Homelands but here’s the one shining star.  2CC for a 3/3?  Must be Spectral Bears.  He’s saying f*** you in a big way to black decks.  In a way I think all bears aspire to be Spectral Bears once they die… to keep living on and bearing it up.

5.  Golden Bear

• Set: Portal Second Age

OK, Portal Second Age is chock-full of bears.  You couldn’t fit anymore bears into a set without making it the theme.  And Golden Bear?  He’s top of food chain as far as bears are concerned.  He’s the original Vengevine (you know, with out haste and a sweet recursion ability.)  I’ve only met him once, but that dude makes a Wild Nacatl look tame.

4.  Razorclaw Bear

• Set: Portal Second Age

Another straight up bad ass.  You don’t block Razorclaw Bear, you just don’t do it.  It’s like psuedo-evasion on a bear.  Every time you block him, he just gets more pissed.  He’s not rampaging, he’s not bushido-ing, he’s just straight up pissed about being blocked.  I complain a lot about new ‘bears’ coming out in sets but poor Razorclaw got replaced by a tiger in Portal Three Kingdoms.

3.  Werebear

• Set: Odyssey

It's good to be the king

I love Werebear, I’m not afraid to say it.  He likes to play it down as a measly 1/1 but don’t you ever underestimate the Werebear.  Not only does he accelerate, he turns the heat on late game and starts bashing face exactly when you need him to.  Moody though… always moody. Outside of 36bears.dec Werebear has for sure seen the most amount of play from the bear clan.  But if I had crazy, supernatural powers I’d probably get played a lot more too.

2.  Striped Bears

• Set: Weatherlight

Striped Bears was the Spreading Seas of his day.  Cantripping’s a big deal in the world of Magic, and Striped Bears helped green mages every where keep their hand brimming with bears.  It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen this ol’ bugger, but I bet he’s still doing alright.

1. Grizzly Bears

• Set: Every set of all time (except for all the sets I didn’t make it into, and that one core set that decided not to run me)

Did you really expect anything else?  I’m the bear.  I’m the reason it’s called a bear.  Years and years from now, when you hear anyone, for any reason, call anything a bear… you’ll have me to thank.  Better than a bear, worse than a bear, it all comes back to bears.  I may not be printed as often these days, but I’ll always be around.

norbert88: If I were to write an article of the Top X Magpies of All Time (Ophidian/ Shadowmage/etc), what would be your interest level? (scale 1-10)

Grizzly_Bears: If I were to write an article of the Top X Bears of All Time, what would be your interest level? (scale 1-10) (@norbert88)

Really, is this close? I’m at a 2 out of 2 for excitement about the Bears list and only a 1 out of 3 for the Ophidian list. With that in mind…

The 10 Best ‘Bears’ In Magic History

Before we begin, we need to define a ‘bear’. For this list, a bear is a creature that costs 1C (one colorless mana plus one mana of a specific color) and has base power and toughness of 2/2. With those criteria, I narrowed the field down to 13 bears that saw significant tournament play. With two of them being functionally identical, that leaves me with two honorable mentions:

Fallen Askari

A black bear with a pretty potent ability (flanking) in exchange for a negligible weakness (can’t block). Fallen Askari was key in Suicide Black decks as well as the 1997 World Championship deck of Jakub Slemr. Black typically doesn’t get creatures this good at this cost, most 2/2s in black are BB or have just drawbacks.

Ironclaw Orcs

Ironclaw Orcs was one of the critical beatdown creatures to the original Sligh decks. Like Fallen Askari, this bear comes with a drawback – he can only block creatures with 1 or less power. Of course, if this guy’s blocking, you’re doing it wrong. Like in black, 2/2s for 1R are hard to find, and creatures have become so much better since the days of Sligh that a guy like Goblin Raider deservedly gets no press.

10. Stingscourger

• Deck: Legacy Goblins
• Role: Wreck Reanimator

Here’s one of the more creative designs from Planar Chaos. In Stingscourger, you get to bounce an opponent’s creature and get a bear at the cost of that bear becoming really expensive the following turn. It doesn’t matter when you bounce Iona, Shield of Emeria, Blazing Archon, or the big-u Terastodon. Sometimes he even chump blocks an elephant!

9. Riftsweeper

• Deck: Time Spiral Block Tarmogoyf
• Role: Devour Ancestral Vision, Delayed spells and the occasional Shade of Trokair

Riftsweeper’s a card that did its job well. Need an Ancestral Vision to not resolve? Feed it to Riftsweeper. Need a Mystical Teachings to go away? Delay it, then feed it to Riftsweeper. Bash for two points a turn? Send in the Riftsweeper. While the Tarmogoyf decks were much better known for their namesake, Riftsweeper provided a ton of utility in a bear-sized package.

8. Wolf-Skull Shaman

• Deck: Lorwyn Block Doran, Lorwyn Block Shaman
• Role: Making more bears wolves

Wolf-Skull Shaman. Man, did I like this card. Here’s a bear that makes more troops at the small cost of giving your opponent information. So what if he knows you’re about to draw Crib Swap? That just makes your army even more formidable. Wolf-Skull Shaman was the key pin to Shaman decks, both those that looked to abuse Rage Forger and Leaf-Crowned Elder, and those looking to stand with Doran, the Siege Tower. Fun fact – Doran, the Siege Tower completely wrecks Siege of Towers.

7. Bramblewood Paragon

• Deck: Standard Aggro Elves and Warriors
• Role: She is here to *clap* pump you up.

The problem aggressive decks often have is punching through a strong defense. Sometimes your enemy just throws a wall or two in the way, or even worse a pesky little guy like Burrenton Forge-Tender. Bramblewood Paragon pulled double duty for aggressive Warrior-based decks by making subsequent creatures bigger and giving them trample as long as she’s around. It’s hard to pass up that combo.

6. Kavu Predator

• Deck: Time Sprial Block Predator
• Role: Trampling over opponents for great Justice

Kavu Predator was the namesake card for the Predator deck, which used Grove of the Burnwillows and Justice to turn a 2/2 trampler into a monster that would be impossible to deal with. In a format where Tendrils of Corruption was the favored removal spell, using it against the Predator deck was a big danger – if the Predator got too big, you wouldn’t be able to Tendrils it at all, and killing one of the other creatures in the deck, like Tarmogoyf, just made the Predator bigger. As long as there was no Damnation, opposing decks were caught between a rock and a very angry bear.

5. Ronom Unicorn/Kami of Ancient Law

• Deck: Numerous
• Role: Interrupter of combos, destroyer of enchantments

These two guys do the same thing and they do it well. As bears, they bring the beatdown early, then once your opponent has a pesky enchantment (like Heartbeat of Spring, Solitary Confinement or Form of the Dragon), your Unicorn or Spirit selflessly gives its life for the greater good. You can’t ask for much more from your half a Seal of Cleansing.

4. Kavu Titan

• Deck: Invasion Block R/G Stompy
• Role: Early beats or late monster. Your call!

This one… you might not get excited about a 2/2 for 2 or a 5/5 trampler for 5 now, but back in the day, having the option of either one on the same card was straight gas. Have a hand with a glut of three and four drops? Kavu Titan starts the curve. More clumped around the low end? Titan gets to top out your curve. You get eight cards worth of curve slots for only four cards in your deck, a major bargain.

3. Ethersworn Canonist

• Deck: Extended Affinity, Standard Reveillark Control
• Role: Making opponent’s lives miserable, one spell/turn at a time

Arcane Labratory on wheels. For one less. In the Affinity gameplan, it’s a one-sided Arcane Lab as long as you’re not playing the mirror. In Standard, the man counters Cascade, turning Bloodbraid Elf into Vulshok Berserker and Enlisted Wurm into a vanilla 5/5. Pretty crafty for a bear, huh?

2. Nest Invader

• Deck: Standard Jund, Naya, Spread ‘Em, R/G Monument, etc.
• Role: Acceleration and versatility

I was raving about Nest Invader all weekend at the Cascade Games 2.5K and the last PTQ of the season in Seattle. And for good reason, because Nest Invader does so much. Primarily in decks as ways 5-8 to get a four drop into play on turn 3 (alongside Lotus Cobra), Nest Invader provides extra blockers late, extra fodder for Eldrazi Monuments, and an effective cost of one mana later in the game to give yourself flexibility in casting other spells. Last time we got a one mana 2/2, it was legendary. Or couldn’t attack or block alone, but I choose to ignore Jackal Familiar. This guy’s all upside.

1. Wild Mongrel

• Deck: Standard U/G Madness, R/G Madness
• Role: Archetype enabler, unkillable hound

How much would you pay for the following creature?

Your choices are G or “Target creature becomes black (so you can’t Dark Banishing it!) and gets +1/+1 until end of turn”. Oh, and if you pay the second cost, the spell gets flash. Nice mechanic, Wizards, Basking Rootwalla sure is balanced. Add in Roar of the Wurm, Fiery Temper, Circular Logic, Arrogant Wurm and you get the idea. Wild Mongrel made all of these spells cheaper to play, and most of them instant speed. Wild Mongrel was all set to rule the world until people realized how good Psychatog was. Instead, he was merely great.

Now, M11 will have two more really good bears that will challenge for spots on this list, Fauna Shaman and War Priest of Thune. Where they will end up, time will tell. But I can already see Vengevine being discarded with that cute “oh darn” face that Survival of the Fittest players always have.

• Lorwyn
• Morningtide
• Shadowmoor
• Eventide
• Shards of Alara
• Conflux
• Alara Reborn
• Zendikar
• Worldwake
• Rise of the Eldrazi
• Scars of Mirrodin
• Set 2 of the Scars block
• M10
• M11

Obviously Faeries will be a major power in this format, with Scapeshift, Scapeshift Zoo, and Traditional Zoo close behind.  Reveillark control decks (not combo style, sorry, Body Double!) will be big, and people will get to dust off their playsets of Figure of Destiny and Reflecting Pools.  Vivid manabases will be the norm for the next season and any deck that can efficiently attack that manabase (Spread ‘Em with Fulminator Mage?) or battle back with extreme consistency in its mana (Kithkin, Faeries and dedicated burn decks) will have to be good enough to overcome the sheer card quality of the 5CC Control and Cascade decks.

There are definitely upsides and downsides to the new Extended format.  I wish there was something in-between, like the rumored OverExtended format (Mercadian Masques and up) or something more like classic Extended, which rotated sets out every two years and gave some cards (dual lands, anyone?) special dispensation.  I just feel that the new Extended is far too close to Standard, and the room for innovation isn’t really there – much like Standard used to be the best block decks against one another until Wizards did a better job of making block themes interact, the new Extended may turn into the best Standard decks from the past three years battling against one another.  We’ll see how it goes, but I really hope the next announcement from WotC is a new format (and not one that involves four booster packs and 30 card decks).

May 15, 2010

US National Qualifiers are this Saturday, and for some, the new ‘one qualifier per state’ setup is making their weekend much easier, while for others, it’s ruining it. A couple weeks ago, I asked for your feedback in how the changes to the National Qualifier program from Regionals were going to affect you. For the stat geeks out there, 36% of the people who responded are traveling out of state to a NQ while 86% of respondents will be attending an NQ.

Should I stay (in Maryland) or should I go?

The most interesting feedback was from the Eastern shore, where players in Maryland have a choice between staying home and going to the NQ in Rockville which has two slots, or going to Philadelphia with eight slots. For Nick W. of Gaithersburg, MD, he’s choosing to stay local, but not because of distance. “I expect the Philly NQ to have around 225 people and the Maryland one to have 70. It isn’t worth that far of a drive for an effective two extra slots.” Drew M. of Baltimore, MD is choosing to go to Philly instead. “I want to go to Philadelphia because it has 8 slots while Rockville only has 2. I understand why WotC is doing this, but i find it annoying that two locations which have very similar event turnouts will be offering such a difference in qualifications.”

The other interesting travel situation is with Northern California. Players there who had Regionals in San Jose last year now have a long drive to Los Angeles in front of them to play in this year’s National Qualifiers. While several responses were from people who would not be attending because of the distance, the incentives being offered by Sun Mesa Events did entice Brian M. from San Francisco to make the trip. “Well, I’ve always tried to make it to Regionals in the past. The long distance required this year was a setback, but that setback was balanced out by the incentives that they’re offering to players willing to make the trek.” Hopefully Wizards doesn’t put the burden on TOs like Sun Mesa Events and Cascade Games to provide benefits to disenfranchised players next year.

I also got feedback from locations both in the Southwest and on the East Coast. Karl G. from Tuscon, AZ told me he’d be traveling to Albuquerque to play in a NQ because of the level of competition, since both Albuquerque and Phoenix were two-slot NQs. “Size of the event in Albuquerque and level of competition are the two big factors. I assume less then 70 people will play in NM for 2 slots whereas here in Arizona we will have around 100 with more than 10 with Pro Tour experience.” Brian L. from Brooklyn, NY will be playing after missing last year’s Regionals in New Jersey. “I don’t have a car (or even a license, so I can’t rent a car), and none of my friends who play in competitive events have a car. To go to a PTQ in New Jersey, I had to take a subway, a train, and a taxi each way, which cost roughly $50 in travel expenses, and took 2, 2 1/2 hours, also each way. I like playing in PTQs, but this made the experience pretty lousy. The closest Regionals last year was in New Jersey, and I just said ‘screw it.’”

In the end, whatever your reason to go to whichever NQ you plan on going, prepare to meet an even more diverse field than your usual PTQ, have fun, and play your best. I’d like to thank The Starkington Post, MTGCast, and everyone who responded to my previous article.

May 15, 2010

Welcome to National Qualifiers week!  This Saturday, around the United States, players will attempt to qualify for the US National Championships in every state.  Here’s a quick factsheet on what to expect at your local NQ.
Format: Standard Constructed
Structure: Swiss pairings with a cut to Top 8.  In NQs with two or four slots, single elimination playoffs will be played until the desired number of players are left.
REL (Rules Enforcement Level): Competitive.  No takesy-backsies, be prepared with sleeves, pen and paper, counters, etc.

You should also prepare to play against a few different archetypes that are sure to be popular, either based on tournament success or because of ease of access to the cards.  Here’s the gauntlet of decks I’m looking at preparing for.

U/W/R Planeswalkers

This deck came storming out of the gate at the StarCityGames 5K in Atlanta.

U/W/R Planeswalkers - Lewis Laskin - 1st Place, SCG Open Atlanta

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Creatures (4) 4 Wall Of Omens Enchantments (7) 3 Oblivion Ring 4 Spreading Seas Instants (4) 4 Path to Exile Sorceries (7) 2 Day Of Judgment 3 Divination 2 Martial Coup Planeswalkers (12) 3 Ajani Vengeant 3 Elspeth, Knight-errant 3 Gideon Jura 3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor Lands (26) 4 Island 1 Mountain 5 Plains 3 Arid Mesa 4 Celestial Colonnade 4 Glacial Fortress 3 Scalding Tarn 2 Tectonic Edge Sideboard (15) 1 Kor Firewalker 2 Meddling Mage 3 Wall Of Denial 1 Celestial Purge 3 Flashfreeze 4 Negate 1 Day Of Judgment

The plan is pretty simple – get control of the board through either color denial with Spreading Seas or creature negation with Wall of Omens, Path to Exile, and Oblivion Ring.  Play planeswalkers.  Use planeswalkers to win the game.  The deck leverages the sheer versatility of the most powerful cards in Standard to win from a lot of different positions.  I don’t like the single red source in the deck, as Spreading Seas is a popular card in the current environment and getting your lone red source cut off makes games where you need an active Ajani pretty awkward.  I also really like Kor Sanctifiers in the sideboard to deal with opposing Pithing Needles, Oblivion Rings, and random other troublesome artifacts and enchantments.

Jund

The 800-pound gorilla on the format that has been losing its grip since the Eldrazi arose.

Jund - Jacob Dobbs - 2nd Place, PTQ Amsterdam, San Diego, CA

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Creatures (15) 4 Bloodbraid Elf 4 Putrid Leech 3 Siege-gang Commander 4 Sprouting Thrinax Instants (10) 2 Bituminous Blast 1 Burst Lightning 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Terminate Sorceries (9) 4 Blightning 3 Maelstrom Pulse 2 Rampant Growth Lands (26) 3 Forest 3 Mountain 3 Swamp 2 Dragonskull Summit 1 Lavaclaw Reaches 4 Raging Ravine 2 Rootbound Crag 4 Savage Lands 4 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard (15) 4 Dragons Claw 4 Goblin Ruinblaster 4 Doom Blade 3 Jund Charm

The decks in the format evolve to beat Jund, and Jund evolves to beat them back.  The deck has taken one of the blue envelopes this PTQ season, and it did it in an interesting way.  How do you beat an 0/4 Wall on turn two?  How about a 5/5 first striker each turn for the foreseeable future?  Plated Geopede combined with fetchlands, both of the Zendikar variety in Verdant Catacombs and the Rise of the Eldrazi variety in Evolving Wilds!  Why Evolving Wilds?  To fetch up the lone Island in the sideboard post board so that he could cast Sedraxis Specter!  It’s hard to post one example deck or just have one Jund deck in the gauntlet, but it’s going to be extremely hard to beat all the variants.  Use the usual suspects like the deck above as your basis for testing.

U/W Control

Sometimes called Tap Out because, well, it taps out for big X spells like Mind Spring, Martial Coup and Everflowing Chalice.

U/W Control - Phil Napoli - 1st Place, PTQ Amsterdam, New York, NY

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Artifacts (3) 3 Everflowing Chalice Creatures (9) 4 Baneslayer Angel 2 Sphinx Of Jwar Isle 3 Wall Of Omens Enchantments (7) 3 Oblivion Ring 4 Spreading Seas Instants (6) 2 Deprive 2 Negate 2 Path To Exile Planeswalkers (4) 1 Elspeth, Knight-errant 3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor Sorceries (6) 2 Day Of Judgment 1 Martial Coup 3 Mind Spring Lands (25) 7 Island 6 Plains 4 Celestial Colonnade 4 Glacial Fortress 1 Sejiri Refuge 3 Tectonic Edge Sideboard (15) 2 Kor Sanctifiers 3 Celestial Purge 3 Flashfreeze 2 Negate 1 Path To Exile 1 Ulamog, The Infinite Gyre 1 Jace Beleren 2 Day Of Judgment

Similar to U/W/R Planeswalkers, this deck uses more large creatures to finish the game as opposed to Gideon Jura powered up by Elspeth.  The old Walletslayer teams up with Sphinx of Jwar Isle and Martial Coup tokens to take down the opponent.  Permission in the form of Deprive and Negate keeps the game under control.  Mind Spring refills your hand.

Mythic Conscription

What happens when you attack with one creature while Sovereigns of Lost Alara is in play?  It gets +10/+10, trample, and annihilator 2!

Mythic Conscription - Jeph Foster - 1st Place, PTQ Amsterdam, Richmond, VA

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Creatures (28) 4 Baneslayer Angel 4 Birds Of Paradise 4 Dauntless Escort 4 Knight Of The Reliquary 4 Lotus Cobra 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Sovereigns Of Lost Alara Planeswalkers (5) 1 Elspeth, Knight-errant 1 Gideon Jura 3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor Enchantments (2) 2 Eldrazi Conscription Lands (25) 4 Forest 2 Island 2 Plains 1 Arid Mesa 3 Celestial Colonnade 1 Glacial Fortress 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Sejiri Steppe 2 Stirring Wildwood 2 Sunpetal Grove 2 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard (15) 4 Kor Firewalker 2 Qasali Pridemage 2 Rhox War Monk 2 Vapor Snare 1 Deprive 4 Negate

The plan is to get Sovereigns out and then attack with a creature, tutoring up Eldrazi Conscription and getting in for X+11.  Barring that, accelerate out Baneslayers, planeswalkers, and other awesome creatures and be the beatdown.

Red Deck Wins

Kill it.  If it can’t be killed, burn it.  RDW has a simple philosophy – it just wants to watch the world burn.

Red Deck Wins - Daniel Bragg - 6th Place, PTQ Amsterdam, Denver, CO

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Creatures (18) 2 Ball Lightning 4 Goblin Bushwhacker 4 Goblin Guide 4 Kargan Dragonlord 4 Plated Geopede Instants (14) 4 Burst Lightning 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Searing Blaze 2 Staggershock Sorceries (4) 4 Devastating Summons Lands (24) 12 Mountain 4 Arid Mesa 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Teetering Peaks Sideboard (15) 4 Goblin Ruinblaster 2 Shatter 4 Unstable Footing 3 Earthquake 2 Mark Of Mutiny

The plan is simple.  Lay down fast, aggressive creatures.  Burn out anything in the way.  Finish them off with Devastating Summons and Goblin Bushwhacker.  RDW has always been the budget player’s deck of choice – it’s deadly consistent and has the power to win even in a field of dedicated control decks.  The only issue is that Jund is also relatively cheap to build, and it has a lot better track record.  It’s up to you whether or not you want to have RDW in your gauntlet, but I can guarantee you at least a few people will be sleeving up little red creatures and burn.  Be prepared.

Polymorph

They’re like Transformers.  They’re more than meets the eye.

Polymorph - Vincent Thibeault - 1st Place, PTQ Amsterdam, Montral, QC

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Enchantments (6) 3 Awakening Zone 3 Spreading Seas Instants (8) 3 Deprive 3 Into The Roil 2 Vines Of Vastwood Creatures (2) 1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn 1 Iona, Shield Of Emeria Planeswalkers (6) 2 Garruk Wildspeaker 4 Jace, The Mind Sculptor Sorceries (14) 4 Explore 4 Polymorph 4 Ponder 2 See Beyond Lands (24) 4 Forest 5 Island 4 Halimar Depths 4 Khalni Garden 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Tectonic Edge 1 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard (15) 2 Ice Cage 2 Mind Control 1 Flashfreeze 2 Fog 1 Negate 2 Spell Pierce 1 Unsummon 1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn 1 Iona, Shield Of Emeria 2 Telemin Performance

The goal for the Polymorph deck is to get a creature into play with either Awakening Zone, Khalni Garden, or Garruk Wildspeaker, then use the namesake sorcery to turn that creature into either Emrakul or Iona.  Deprive and Vines of Vastwood protect your monsters from opposing spells until they can end the game.

Good luck to everyone playing this week in National Qualifiers tournaments!

Affinity – This deck, as we know it, is dead. Affinity may return as a mechanic in Scars of Mirrodin, but I highly doubt we will see artifact lands again (at least in the state we saw them in Mirrodin. Maybe ETB tapped ones.) and the cards will be tested a lot more stringently than the Mirrodin cards were.

No more countering Living End the easy way!

Zoo/Bant Aggro/Doran/Dark Zoo – Most of the other creature aggro decks lose almost nothing from the rotation out. Damping Matrix is the most relevant card going away vs. Thopter Sword. They gain from the loss of Engineered Explosives and Chalice of the Void as answers to their various strategies. It will probably be another strong year for Zoo.

Red Deck Wins – RDW loses a lot of its reach as Shrapnel Blast, Blinkmoth Nexus and in some builds Magma Jet go away. Chalice of the Void and Engineered Explosives going out will help the deck some, but RDW was using Chalice to beat the zero casting cost spell decks as well, so they lose a sideboard tool. Molten Rain is going away as well, weakening a land destruction route for the red decks.

Thopter Sword (Depths) – Goodbye, Chrome Mox and Thirst for Knowledge! The combos that make up these decks aren’t going away, but the pieces that make them consistent enough to dominate Extended for part of the season are. These decks also lose the occasional Echoing Truth, and the U/W Thopter Combo decks also lose Engineered Explosives and Vedalken Shackles. Losing artifact lands hurts as well. I think the future of Dark Depths combo is more in the black/green versions that showed up near the end of the season using Into the North to tutor up Dark Depths and Beseech the Queen and Shred Memory to find Vampire Hexmage. The future of the Thopter combo decks is likely to be the U/W decks or the Bant Thopter decks, either tilting more toward traditional control elements with Thopter/Sword as a backup or a more aggressive route with access to a transformative sideboard. Maybe Gifts Ungiven will be the card that keeps this combo around.

Scapeshift – Nothing major happens to Scapeshift. It just loses the sideboard options a lot of decks are losing (Engineered Explosives, Chalice of the Void and Damping Matrix).

Hypergenesis – Hypergenesis loses a good target in Sundering Titan, but the big Terastodon had made up that slot already in a lot of builds. Chalice of the Void leaving the format is a benefit to this deck.

Living End – Living End gets the same benefits that Hypergenesis gets as Chalice of the Void is gone. It loses nothing to the rotation.

Dredge – Dredge loses Echoing Truth as a sideboard option, making it a little bit harder to get out from under multiple Leyline of the Voids. It may get some blowback as well as the counter to cascade combo decks may become Nix instead of Chalice of the Void.

All-in Red – Losing the ability to turn one Chalice of the Void for zero against cascade combo hurts. Its big bads like Demigod of Revenge and Deus of Calamity stick around, but the storm kills like Empty the Warrens get weaker since there are no more relevant free spells for the deck. Chandra Ablaze will likely get more popular for this deck, but without Chrome Mox, this deck may be too weak to even make a showing as a rogue choice.

Guys! Guys! Remember when I could lock up the game?

Elves – Elves only loses Eternal Witness and gains huge from the loss of Chalice of the Void and Engineered Explosives. This is another deck that will benefit from the rotation.

Faeries – It’s going to be a while until this deck starts losing tools again – other than an Echoing Truth here and there, Faeries will do nothing but benefit from the rotation – no Chalice of the Void to kill Bitterblossom tokens and no Chrome Mox powered starts to blast past Spellstutter Sprite.

The loss of Mirrodin will have a major effect on only a couple of decks (DDT, All-in Red and Affinity). The biggest change will be to sideboards, as cheap, efficient artifact answers to a lot of problems will no longer be available. Overall, the cards that were one popular from Mirrodin block for extended fell by the wayside quickly this season (Tooth and Nail, Mindslaver, Triskelion, Trinket Mage) and what saw a lot of play were the best sideboard cards in the format in Chalice of the Void, Engineered Explosives, and Damping Matrix. We will see what Rise of the Eldrazi, M11 and Scards of Mirrodin bring to the format, but it looks like most of the strong decks at this point stay strong except for DDT, and the wild cards of the format like RDW, AiR and Affinity are going to need to retool, or are just getting decimated altogether. (Sorry, Arcbound Ravager!)