The Walker Madness

Standard nowadays is boring; I even consider it more boring than when faeries were around. 

Jace TMS turned to be the new Tarmogoyf, if someone’s plays blue they have to play Jace TMS, but there aren´t that many answers to planeswalkers as there are to creatures, since Shards of Alara rotated with M10 we went from Oblivion Ring, Pithing Needle, Maelstrom Pulse and Vampire Hexmage as answers to Walkers to only Vampire Hexmage, they gave us a creature with a pithing needle effect on Scars of Mirrodin but creatures are so easy to get rid of that I can’t even consider it an answer to walkers.

WB in a brand new field

It’s been a long time since I posted or have done something on the blog.

Between the improvements I wanted to add to the blog but never finished and a report from nationals that I never started, it got put on hold.

Anyway, the improvements will somehow find a way to get in but the report from nationals would be pretty much useless now.

Well, it was like I took a vacation from my blog.

Since my last post two editions were released, M11 and Scars of Mirrodin, and there was a rotation when Scars got released, which brought big changes to the metagame and a bunch of new decks. While this is a big step down for netdeckers it’s a new playground for people who like to explore the tools they have been given.

M11 Sketch

So here's the thing:

2 weeks now, I got a ptq. It's with M11. So no netdecking I think.

I expect the majority of the control decks to include things like condemn and mana leak, which, are good to stop Jund.

So, I am thinking in taking something like this:

// Lands

3 [SHM] Swamp (2)

3 [ON] Plains (1)

2 [MR] Island (4)

4 [ZEN] Marsh Flats

2 [M10] Glacial Fortress

3 [ALA] Arcane Sanctum

3 [WWK] Celestial Colonnade

3 [WWK] Creeping Tar Pit

2 [M10] Drowned Catacomb

// Creatures

4 [M11] Baneslayer Angel

4 [WWK] Abyssal Persecutor

4 [ROE] Wall of Omens

// Spells

3 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant

3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 [ROE] Gideon Jura

3 [M11] Day of Judgment

4 [MPR] Mana Leak

4 [MPR] Condemn

4 [ALA] Esper Charm

// Sideboard

SB: 3 [FNM] Oblivion Ring

SB: 4 [M11] Duress

SB: 2 [ARB] Identity Crisis

SB: 2 [CFX] Path to Exile

SB: 4 [ZEN] Spreading Seas

It's mainly the Conley Woods deck, but I dropped the spreading seas to the side, since they are there exclusively against jund. Besides, if I want to be mana leaking, I can't spend turns spreading the seas. Against jund, spreading seas is effectively a mana leak, since holds their next play.

The side is a bit random yet. So help needed.

Some tips for Nationals.

When you know that you are going to nationals, the first thing that most people ask themselves is which deck to pick.

Abyssal Jund

So, as I have seen yesterday's SCG 5k, one deck has caught my eye, Wescoe's Jund. I really like abyssal on the deck, since it provides great approach against Bant, Turboland and decks with Sphinx of Jwar Isle.

But I didn't like his side, so I will try as I write this post to merge my decklist with his, so I can get the best of the two worlds.

Leeching the format

So here I am, a little less than 2 weeks from the nationals. And the day will finally come, the day I will play Jund.
After struggling so much against it, the afterhours of a ptq fail with mythic were spent amusing myself on the dark side playing leeches and cascading into some blightnings.

Leveling up

So I am about 3 weeks to nationals.
The training sessions have begun, both draft as well constructed.
As for constructed I am currently playing the chapin bant, but the list is quite tight and I am not figuring much slots to improve the deck. As for one matchup that really bothers me, which is mirror.

Deck Discussion: Why Brilliant is not that brilliant.

So this time I will look at a list and write about what I like or dislike on the list.

And this time it will be Brilliant Esper.

Here’s the list I tried:

Adressing Mythic Rarity

For quite some time there are a lot of people nagging about the price of some mythics.

And I’m one of them.

Paying 50 to 80 dollars for a card is almost prohibitive for me, and when the decks I would like to play have 4-10 cards of this type this is even worse. To top it all this can not be addressed by any other way than buying them or been lucky on a draft.

But drafting for this kind of cards is not worth it, because if you aren’t able to hit them you will most likely lose money.

Sculpting Standard

I have to say, I am thrilled about tomorrow's GP. I think it will shape my natz standard. Sure there will be other 2 GP's, but those will just tweak the main decks, I really don't believe some new crazy high tech will be coming for those.
So yeah, it's all about this weekend.
Maybe this post will be absolutely useless since the decks I wanted to talk about maybe completely changed tomorrow, but still, I am gonna give it a try.
So to include the decks in a context, I have to specify the latter. So I am talking about a standard which the most played decks are: